Interview
‘Why would you want to loiter?’ is an excellent question to ask feminist researcher, parent, educator and activist Dr. Shilpa…
Devdutt Pattanaik writes on relevance of mythology in modern times, especially in areas of management, governance and leadership. Trained in medicine, he worked for 15 years in the healthcare and pharma industries before he focussed on his passion full time. He is author of 30 books and 600 columns, with bestsellers such as My Gita, Jaya, Sita, Business Sutra and the 7 Secret Series.
In November 2015, during the Delhi Queer Pride March, three individuals held up signs that read, ‘Dalit, Queer, Proud’, establishing…
Manjula Pradeep is a lawyer and former Executive Director of the Navsarjan Trust, a grassroots organisation working to empower Dalits…
Both fiction and non-fiction are capable of great complexity if the making is in the hands of someone capable and complex. I have always held that good films – fiction, non-fiction or hybrid– emerge not from a familiarity with the subject, though that’s essential – but an understanding of the language of cinema.
He is the founder of a number of support organisations that focus on sexuality and disability issues at the grassroots. Over multiple conversations conducted in Hindi and English, Kiran and Shikha Aleya discussed issues of sexuality, access and disability based on some of Kiran’s life experiences.
Shikha Aleya: What are some of the biggest barriers you have faced in your efforts to create dialogue and visibilise…
In this issue of In Plainspeak, we interview Pawan Dhall, Founding Trustee of Varta Trust, queer activist, writer and social researcher. He is also the editor of the Varta webzine, promoting and sustaining dialogue on gender and sexuality, across diverse groups of people. As Pawan says, “We are all strung together on a spectrum of gender and sexuality, and we don’t have to be fixed at a single point on the spectrum throughout our lives.”
Anja speaks with Shikha Aleya about the spread of digital surveillance into almost every aspect of our lives, its implications and what we need to do about it.
We interviewed the honorary president of the Bharatiya Bar Girls Union (BBGU), Varsha Kale, on the occasion of dance bars reopening in Maharashtra after being banned for 11 years by the state government.
I wanted to explore how sexuality and boundaries come together or work tangentially in a psychoanalytic clinic through the lens of the therapist, and understand how and why it may or may not be different from patient to patient.
Delhi-based queer feminist activists Rituparna Borah and Jaya Sharma recorded a conversation they had about their views around marriage. While both women maintain their stances of critique towards the institution of marriage, what they agree upon and investigate as their chat progresses is that marriage has a pull that even its staunchest opponents will have to acknowledge and attempt to understand.
“Sexuality and self-care are related at many levels, right from the level of knowing what you want and what you don’t, how you feel about yourself, how you are able to communicate your desires and how you are able to enjoy your experiences.”
Alankrita Shrivastava made her directorial debut with the film ‘Turning 30!!!’ (2011) and has been committed to telling stories about women from a woman’s perspective. Her second and most recent film ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha’ (2016) has received international recognition and is slated to release in India in early 2017.
Vikalp aims to join people, form groups at the ground level. When people talk to one another, they will also learn from one another. It is then that advocacy and campaigning can make a real difference – when people from the local communities take up their own cause.