self-acceptance

Video: How to be a Friend to Yourself
An illustration of a woman looking in the mirror, with adornments. She is wearing a pink hat with a feather, and blue long hair.
Video: How to be a Friend to Yourself

This thought-provoking, luminously illustrated The School of Life video reminds us of self-compassion being essential to building our own selves up, and being a safe space where we can extend the same love and imagination to our vulnerabilities, insecurities, fears, and doubts as we do to our friends.
By Curated Content
July 5, 2021
Video: How to be a Friend to Yourself
Probing the Screen: Pleasure in the Virtual World
Wall-art of a face till the bridge of the nose. The face is coloured in peach, grey, and shades of blue. The eyes, green, are lined in black and have spots of yellow, brown, and blue colour around them. Under the left eye, there are yellow dots. The hair is streaked with purple and blue.
Probing the Screen: Pleasure in the Virtual World

The virtual world allows me to challenge the hold of patriarchy on my ‘effeminate’ body; in a sense, it allows me to evade the policing of desire that my body shares with another, its flows and slippages, the messy and the unkempt. While virtual sex offers a window to revisit the sensual, it is also not immune to limitations and insecurities.
By Neel
June 15, 2021
Probing the Screen: Pleasure in the Virtual World
Poems by Nhylar
A watercolour image of a woman
Poems by Nhylar

1. A Certain Type of Life  since the age of 16 I idealised a certain type of life involving certain…
By Nhylar
July 1, 2020
Poems by Nhylar
On Confinements & Coexistence: Perspectives on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Women
A photograph of a room with one window. The photo showcases the room as semicircular and has a black floor with a window reflected, and brown-white brick walls with a sunlit window.
On Confinements & Coexistence: Perspectives on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Women

Pandemics have a profound psychological impact. They are known to disrupt one’s sense of safety, security, certainty, control, concordance, and…
By Ansha Patel
July 5, 2021
On Confinements & Coexistence: Perspectives on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Women
MY VAGINA IS DUKHA?
A graphic illustration with a black, inky tree with branches outlined by a silhouette of a face.
MY VAGINA IS DUKHA?

Ageing vaginas in ageing female bodies are joked about. But a vagina shouldn’t have the task of pleasing anybody but itself first. To begin with, we’ll have to love and respect our vaginas in order to pleasure them. Love them just as they are. If they feel a little dry, don’t despair. Use a lubricant or a little coconut oil. If my labia are unshapely, they’re still my labia and respond very nicely to gentleness and tenderness. If I don’t love and respect my ageing body, in need of gentle, loving, patient care, then who will, for God’s sake?
By Nighat Gandhi
July 5, 2021
MY VAGINA IS DUKHA?
Interview: Kripa Joshi
On a peach coloured background, a woman of colour jumping. She is wearing purple ballet shoes and a purple one-piece swimsuit with white-grey patterns scattered on it. Her eyes are wide open and her hands are stretched open on both sides. Her hair is brown and open. She is throwing multi-coloured confetti. Beneath her is a blue circle. In a semicircle to her right is the typography, in purple: Throw kindness around like confetti!
Interview: Kripa Joshi

There have been several recent examples of actors, movies and events being called out because of their lack of representation, like for the Oscars. With social media it is easier to create and distribute diverse art and also to voice the need for diversity. So it needs engagements and awareness in society. Change will happen once enough people demand that change.
By Shikha Aleya
June 15, 2021
Interview: Kripa Joshi
Interview – Raj Mariwala
A photograph of MHI director Raj Mariwala; she is playing with a grey-brown dog, squatting in grass.
Interview – Raj Mariwala

Self-care is influenced by the environment we inhabit, the way we relate to others, the way we negotiate with other living beings or structures. Self-care is also interlinked with other types of care – whether that is in community resources, psychosocial support, engagement with medical and health care institutions, and of course in collective agency and solidarity.
By Shikha Aleya
January 3, 2023
Interview – Raj Mariwala
Interview – Raj Mariwala
A photograph of MHI director Raj Mariwala; she is playing with a grey-brown dog, squatting in grass.
Interview – Raj Mariwala

Self-care is influenced by the environment we inhabit, the way we relate to others, the way we negotiate with other living beings or structures. Self-care is also interlinked with other types of care – whether that is in community resources, psychosocial support, engagement with medical and health care institutions, and of course in collective agency and solidarity.
By Shikha Aleya
July 5, 2021
Interview – Raj Mariwala
HOW I LEARNED THAT I DESERVE TO LOVE MYSELF
A pattern of many illustrated flowers interwoven together
HOW I LEARNED THAT I DESERVE TO LOVE MYSELF

“I feel comfortable with who I am,” he responded. “I’m at ease with myself. I don’t wake up and hate myself. I can’t tell you how amazing that feels.”

“I know how that feels,” I told him.
By Guest Writer
January 4, 2021
HOW I LEARNED THAT I DESERVE TO LOVE MYSELF
Editorial: Sexuality and Self-care
A photograph of a rocky landscape with a tabby cat sitting atop a grey rock, lined with green-brown grass, licking itself.
Editorial: Sexuality and Self-care

Continuing with our theme of self-care being about sustaining ourselves, our work, our movements, keeping the fires lit, and relating with love to ourselves, in our mid-month issue we bring you more articles looking at self-care from different perspectives – individual, queer, activist, collective, organisational, not necessarily separated, or in this order, of course.
By TARSHI
July 19, 2021
Editorial: Sexuality and Self-care
Editorial: Representation and Sexuality
A photograph of two yellow flowers blooming amid grass. Dark green leaves are emerging from behind the flowers' petals.
Editorial: Representation and Sexuality

We are, all of us, trying to hold steady, and to hold space for each other and for ourselves. And so, instead of trying to put together a collection of ‘all new’ articles, this time we are republishing some ‘ever fresh’ ones on the theme of Sexuality and Representation.
By TARSHI
June 15, 2021
Editorial: Representation and Sexuality
Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Baarish: A platonic togetherness
A poster of the film ‘Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Barish’. In the poster, an image of a woman glancing sideways is shown and on the right is an image of a young boy in a wheelchair and a man behind him enjoying rain.
Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Baarish: A platonic togetherness

The movie was criticised for its stereotypical portrayal of Debu as a gay man. But, the beauty is that it also highlights the reversal of gender roles. The smiles, and the laughter sounding throughout the house, create a cheery note in the movie.
By Dr Swarupa N Kshirsagar
November 2, 2020
Do Paise Ki Dhoop, Chaar Aane Ki Baarish: A platonic togetherness
Dear Diary: The radically feminist creative journalling practice that nobody talks about
A photograph of a person's arm and hand. The background of a couch with a blue duvet is blurred, and the focus is on the person's hands, with brown nail-paint, and a blue pen in their hands. They are writing in a spiral bound notebook. Beside them is a black cup.
Dear Diary: The radically feminist creative journalling practice that nobody talks about

My journal has many entries that are speculative and fantastic. Writing about the mundane leads me to question the way the world operates and from there I frog-leap into a world of ideas where I imagine a radically different way of being. In my journal, I imagine a politics of care, community, and compassion. I become grand, valuable, and unstoppable, even in a world where I am sometimes made to feel small.
By Sheena D'Lima
July 5, 2021
Dear Diary: The radically feminist creative journalling practice that nobody talks about
Caring and care-giving
A photograph of a book-shelf, brown-black, with differently coloured books.
Caring and care-giving

Just as capitalism has learned how to co-opt feminism into its model, it has done the same to ‘wellness’, so much so it has become an industry of its own. Mental wellbeing, no matter how necessary and important it is, remains a luxury with more than half of our country either unaware of available mental health resources or not in a position to even afford therapy.
By Deepa Ranganathan
July 5, 2021
Caring and care-giving
Camouflage
An illustration of a blue flower. The tips of its petals are dark blue and lighten as they meet at the yellow-brown centre. A long spindly green stem supports the flower and has three dark and light green round leaves and a dark green bud.. Behind it, on a grey-blue background is a cityscape dotted with buildings and palm trees with muted colour and grey overtones.
Camouflage

I cannot let anyone see the stretch marks, the cellulite, the saggy breasts. I cannot reveal my hideous body. I feel anxiety well up inside me even as I visualise this eventuality. I read about ten ways for a fat person to have meaningful sex. I learn that throwing a cloth over the bedside lamp will help hide my flaws.
By Sharada Vinod
August 2, 2021
Camouflage
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