In 1979, Basu Chatterjee made Baaton Baaton Mein and unobtrusively brought to us the dating and courtship rituals of a community that was till then either caricatured or just overlooked in Hindi cinema. Nancy Perreira and Tony Braganza…
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Matriarchal manipulation in a patriarchal world is depicted unsparingly in Usha Priyamwada’s Pachpan Khambe Laal Deewarein (Now playing on Prasar Bharti). The mother resentful of her lecturer daughter’s comfortable life in her college residence because the younger daughters…
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“Start with hope..always start with hope. We went from being a shitty team to become one of the biggest dynasties in the sport and all it needed was one match to light this fire,” says Michael Jordan at…
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In 1947, my grandparents brought three children and the remains of an uprooted life from Pakistan to India in a train. One of those children was my mother. I grew up hearing a lot of stories about the…
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Three documentaries streaming right now show the ultimate culmination of the Bois Locker Room culture. And what happens when one gender is taught to mistrust its instincts of self-preservation and the other does not even learn something as…
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In Sudip Sharma’s Paatal Lok (Now streaming on Amazon. Co written by Sharma, Sagar Haveli, Hardik Mehta and Gunjit Chopra. Directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy), India’s disowned inhabit the headlines we turn away from. A young…
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I chanced upon The Wife, Colette and Big Eyes in a serendipitous sequence and all films are about the complicated reasons women allow their life and work to be appropriated by men. And also because societal constructs do not easily grant them their autonomy as creative, complex beings. The Wife is directed by Bjõrn L. […]
She plants lavender bushes on arid earth and keeps the soil moist, welcoming and fertile for thirsty seedlings. She is like the trees sheltering. And like the gardener nurturing. She knows the words the silences. Her hands build heal becalm soothe revive and remain invisible because she likes fading into serene margins. To never claim […]
“Is there anything else you want?” “A smartphone,” she said. After a prolonged silence. The silence in the room continued to thicken among her in-laws, her brothers, her mother and the lawyers. “Apple,” she continued without looking up, “I would ask for extra money but you know, with this situation, my face, it would be […]
Every year when I see the saree, it seems to disintegrate a little bit more – much like a memory of a marriage. Thread by thread, zari flower by zari flower. Ma was always reticent about the story behind her wedding saree . And each year, I take it out once to remind myself what it […]
A 1981 film Itni Si Baat (starring Sanjeev Kumar and Maushami Chatterjee) tried to flip the idea of a conventional marriage like a drippy omelette that crash lands on the chef’s face. So we had the husband burning the food and fumbling through daily domestic chores with a song, “Raja o Raja, tera baj gaya baaja, ” playing […]
The ad I’m taking on today is actually one that’s being hailed as progressive and gender inclusive by many on social media. That’s right; I’m talking about BIBA’s new “Change is Beautiful” ad. However, I’m disappointed to report that it’s not as ground breaking and stereotype changing as the makers would have you believe. Here’s […]
“The girl looks alright, is a classical dancer preparing for her first stage performance, works as a teacher, earns a decent salary. When she met us she said she would continue performing on stage if the extended family permits else would give up dancing. She also said that after marriage she would continue to […]
Musicians Roopkumar Rathod and Sunali Rathod celebrated 25 years of togetherness last December and his voice softens as he says, “It is music that brought us together…the music that we eat and breathe. And the music that we live for and will die for together. But a relationship needs nurturing, compromises, space and unconditional support. […]
Overly critical of ourselves, we are often busy either keeping up with the latest fads or working hard at refuting them. Every woman I know is fighting her own battle to break some kind of societal convention. I usually find myself at war with the concept of “what is good and right?” versus “what society […]
It was the beginning of a new academic year. The entire school was back after a break. It was my first year at work after marriage. Many of them at school knew about this as I had invited them for the function before we broke for the holidays. As I entered the school office I […]
I am 26 years old. In the conservative Muslim community that is so close knit that you can smell what’s cooking in your neighbors house,whispers of, “What is wrong with her, how come she isn’t married yet?” are hard to miss. In the words of an overly concerned aunty whose face I haven’t seen in […]
To my dear henpecked husband, No I don’t intend to insult you, unlike our society ever ready with many tags that aim to degrade you, to question your testosterone levels and to reinforce its archaic, misogynistic beliefs on you so as to snuff out the slightest glimmer of hope for change. To me the word […]