history
Interview – Shylashri Shankar
So why do we have to have fixed notions of gender roles and food?
By Shikha Aleya
July 5, 2023
An ode to kimam wali raat: The erotic adventures of paan in Indian history
Paan is not only the bearer of stories but a medium through which these stories were told. And each ingredient that goes into the making of a paan has its own narrative.
By Annika Amber
Editorial – Spaces and Sexuality
A space can make us feel constricted or liberated, and sometimes even both at the same and at varying times. The combination of spaces that we may be occupying in the moment, as well as those we have in the past, predisposes us to act, feel and experience our sexuality in different ways.
By TARSHI
April 18, 2022
How We Reimagine and Redefine Freedoms
Every part of life, the world too, is storied. Stories are the thread that hold histories and truths together. Stories are at the core of myth-making. Everything that we know is part of multiple crisscrossing relational storylines that we raise and those that we have no power in raising.
By Curated Content
March 15, 2022
Interview – Kiran Bhat
Kiran Bhat is an author and polyglot who speaks 12 languages, and has written in English, Kannada, Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin. His recently published book, We Of the Forsaken World, has been described as “the tales of not just sixteen strangers, but many different lives, who live on this planet, at every second, everywhere”.
By Shikha Aleya
March 2, 2020
Interview: ‘Desire is Never Straightforward. In Fact, there is Nothing Straight about Desire at All’
Desire is never straightforward, and it cannot be straitjacketed – in fact, there is nothing straight about desire at all. Any issue dealing with desire, therefore, is wasted if viewed through a monochromatic lens.
By Curated Content
Issue in Focus – Desire and Sexuality
Any desire, not necessarily or narrowly sexual, but perhaps related to sexuality, such as independence, equality, gender role-bending, controlling your own finances, eating the food you’d like to eat as opposed to the food your spouse desires, wearing the clothes you’d like to wear, birth control, choosing to have or not to have children … any of these desires would have only that importance that the individual concerned is able to apportion to it.
By Shikha Aleya
August 1, 2018
What History And Fiction Teach Us About Women And Power
This article was originally published in the NPR. January 8, 2018; TANIA LOMBROZO Two recent books, one a manifesto by British…
By Curated Content
July 16, 2018
Feminism Through the Ages in India: An Empowering Journey
By Sanchari Pal about a year ago A hard hitting film that underlines a woman’s freedom to her body and sexuality, the recently…
By Curated Content
November 15, 2017
नृत्य और इच्छा की अभिव्यक्ति – देवदासियों से आधुनिक कथावाचकों तक का सफ़र
किसी शास्त्रीय नृत्य को देखने वाले एक आम दर्शक के रूप में मुझे लगा कि यह सब किस तरह से मुझसे और मेरे जीवन से सम्बद्ध है। इन नृत्य प्रदर्शनों में दिखाए जाने वाले कथानक अक्सर वे कहानियाँ होती है जिन्हें मैंने बचपन से सुना है फिर भी मुझे इसमें कोई विशेष रूचि नहीं लगती। लेकिन सुश्री रत्नम के दृष्टिकोण के आधार पर, पुराने कथानकों को आधुनिक रूप देने के उनके प्रयासों और किसी पुरानी परंपरा के लुप्त हो जाने पर दुःख प्रकट करने के स्थान पर नृत्य को एक नया रूप देने का के प्रयास को देखते हुए भरतनाट्यम और अन्य शास्त्रीय नृत्य अब और अधिक प्रसांगिक हो जाते हैं जिनसे आप आसानी से जुड जाते हैं।
By Shweta Krishnan
Brushstrokes: Portraits of South Africa’s Lesbian Community
In the portrait series ‘Faces and Phases’, South African photographer Zanele Muholi has created a visual record of black lesbian history that spans more than a decade. In the striking photos set against different textures and backgrounds, Muholi showcases the diversity and fluidity of black lesbian identity in South Africa.
By Curated Content
November 1, 2017
Brushstrokes: When Ganja fell in love with Mahua
The Ganja-Mahua Chronicles is an art project that draws attention to the role that marriage plays in upholding India’s caste…
By Curated Content
October 3, 2017
Why Did Men Stop Wearing High Heels?
It was the beginning of what has been called the Great Male Renunciation, which would see men abandon the wearing of jewellery, bright colours and ostentatious fabrics in favour of a dark, more sober, and homogeneous look. Men’s clothing no longer operated so clearly as a signifier of social class, but while these boundaries were being blurred, the differences between the sexes became more pronounced.
By Curated Content
August 16, 2016
From Horses to Headgear, Everything the ‘Mohenjo Daro’ Trailer Has Got Wrong
Bollywood’s period dramas have a history of misrepresenting the past. From Mughal-e-Azam (1960), where the story of Salim’s rebellion is wrongly attributed to love, to Bajirao Mastani (2015) portraying Balaji Bajirao as a Marathi superman, Bollywood cannot seem to get the history right in historical fiction. The trailer and posters of Ashutosh Gowariker’s Mohenjo Daro indicate that this tradition will be perpetuated.
By Curated Content
Of Socks and Sexuality
I grew up with a book cupboard where Paul Gallico’s Love of Seven Dolls rubbed shoulders with Germain Greer’s The…
By Shikha Aleya
November 1, 2015