Stay angry, stay furiousTuesday, April 23, 2013,09:21:23 AM
Isit down at my computer, at a loss, raging and afraid. A five-year-old girl has been raped and tortured. She is not the first child in our country to have this happen to her; she’s not even a rarity. ....
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No more following starsMonday, April 08, 2013,09:25:02 AM
The brouhaha over Sanjay Dutt’s sentence, penalty and possible pardon is another indicator of how concerned we are, even obsessed, with popular Hindi film stars. Obsessions can be unhealthy in themselves. Left unexamined, they can flourish into fullfledged dangers. So let me begin....
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Making them payMonday, April 01, 2013,09:39:04 AM
Reporting sexual harassment is likely to get you fired, whether you’re in Tamil Nadu or the San Francisco — or that’s what it looks like. I offer up two recent incidents that took place in different parts of the world. In one, successful and social media-savvy techie Adria Richards encountered sexual jokes at....
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No more damsels in distressMonday, March 18, 2013,09:32:29 AM
In the past few months, self-defence classes seem to have become more popular among women of all ages. There have been news reports about women learning martial arts and combat skills in Hyderabad, in Ranchi, in Vizag. The police are conducting them. Companies are conducting them for....
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Celebrate forgotten feministsMonday, March 11, 2013,08:26:53 AM
As I sit down to write this on March 8, the Internet is agog with Women’s Day messages, news articles, hectic discounts, advertisements urging me to ‘celebrate’ the day by buying electronic appliances. In the midst of this clamour, a few that make some meaning: Nilanjana Roy....
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Decoding nutritionMonday, February 25, 2013,01:11:54 AM
How is it that 46 per cent of children are stunted in Dharavi, one of the more organised slums in a city like Mumbai which also has one of the richest people in the world?” Nobody had answers to the question raised by writer and journalist Kalpana Sharma at a discussion organised by the International ....
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Masculinity and violenceMonday, February 11, 2013,07:50:24 AM
Why do newspapers often run headlines such as ‘woman in Bihar gangraped’? Why not ‘Women in Bihar gang raped by men?’ This was one of the questions at a public meeting on women, violence and media organised by the Network of Women in Media (NWMI) in Mumbai. The question draws attention....
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Facing the beastMonday, January 21, 2013,10:12:18 AM
Since the gang-rape in Delhi, media reportage on sexual violence has increased and yes, this is necessary and long overdue. But more coverage is not always better coverage. An endless parade of news items on rape can have a desensitising effect unless accompanied by contextualisation and analysis....
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Stating the obviousMonday, January 14, 2013,07:31:17 AM
The light hung low, the air was pleasant, the bottles at the bar counter of Mumbai’s Press Club gleamed warmly on that winter evening as we talked about women, rape, fear, sex at an event called Voices Against Violence organised by poets Menka Shivdasani and Anju Makhija. It was....
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Channelise the rage rightMonday, December 24, 2012,07:58:32 AM
Outrage is easy, say cynics. For the thousands of protesters in Delhi — mostly young people but also middle-aged people and even children — it’s been anything but easy. As we all know by now, they’ve faced tear gas, water cannons, and indiscriminate lathis. They’ve been dragged away in....
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Acts of mob violenceMonday, December 17, 2012,07:59:57 AM
One reads about incidents all the time. They’re in the news, on the TV — these incidents, acts of violence that affect other people, people we don’t know, and then suddenly, like a shock, one recognises a name. Swar Thounaojam is a playwright and theatre director, a fellow writer whom I’ve known for a....
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Baby lesson: Less is moreTuesday, November 20, 2012,08:57:13 AM
Losing a baby is terrible trauma under any circumstances. But when the circumstances seem as avoidable as what happened at Nowrosjee Wadia Maternity Hospital in Mumbai last month, it’s particularly horrifying. ....
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Poetry live at literary festMonday, November 05, 2012,09:15:36 AM
Literary festivals usually make news because of controversy. The recent Tata Literature Live! festival in Mumbai is now being talked about because of Girish Karnad’s strongly-worded denouncement of VS Naipaul who was honoured at the festival with a lifetime achievement award. In a news article....
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(Ab)using an issueMonday, October 29, 2012,07:52:06 AM
At a traffic signal, the billboard catches my eye. A woman’s face in black and white with the slogan —“Suffocation is the worst kind of abuse”. The advertisement (or admonition) is to ‘break up with the wrong bra’. The series continues across several other billboards, follows the eye for the....
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Caring about the caregiverMonday, October 15, 2012,07:40:39 AM
Pain. Who among us is not afraid of it? October 13 is marked as World Hospice and Palliative Care Day — something that is unlikely to be sung about in greeting cards. One can’t really think about palliative care without thinking about cancer and it is with some discomfort that I start this piece. I’m....
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Control alt delete?Monday, October 08, 2012,07:55:11 AM
A new survey by a leading computer company has apparently revealed that urban parents want their children to spend more time at home than go out and play. They spoke to parents and kids in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, who said they’d rather have their kids battling away on Xbox ....
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Acts of denialMonday, September 24, 2012,09:00:18 AM
Anurag Basu’s new movie, Barfi, has been getting some buoyant reviews and I can see why — an unusual premise, endearing characters, and delicious cinematography. But through the movie, I felt a niggling irritation. Like a sock worn wrong or icecream stickiness on the fingers. ....
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Heroes of our timesSunday, September 16, 2012,10:42:53 AM
In ancient Greece, the hero was always mortal as opposed to the gods who were immortal. Only after he faced death could he become immortal. He had to achieve the most perfect death and the moment of death was to be recorded in ‘kleos’, meaning ‘glory, fame, that which is heard’. ....
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Rarely do we think about Goa except in terms of sun-sand-sea clichés but reality runs deeper. Mining, one of the state’s major industries, was banned by the Supreme Court in October 2010 after a non-profit organisation filed a petition about pollution levels. ....
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