I write reviews, profiles, essays, interviews, yearly round-ups and the like. You may have seen my work on Film Companion, Firstpost, Huffington Post, News9, Scroll, The Hindu Thread and Indian Express. If you’ve read my work at PopMatters or The South Asianist Journal, well, you must be a fan, <3
By me. Published in October 2014, Solvanam. A translated article exploring horror as a genre for women/feminist writers. You can read the article in Tamil here.
By me. Published in April 2014, Fountain Ink Magazine Seema Moses’ Bangalore was very different from the chaotic, traffic-stricken city it is today. The matriarch of one of Bangalore’s last Jewish families, she saw the city change over the decades. Read the story at Fountain Ink.
By me. Published in December 2013, Journal of South Asian Studies An academic paper in an international peer-reviewed journal exploring the role of clothing as a signifier of the identity of a marriageable woman in Tamil films. Read the paper here at the South Asianist Journal
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7o2LYATDc&w=560&h=315] If you have the time, do also go through the comments to the Youtube video.
In all my grand 5 years of employment, I’ve heard several appaling things about women in paid jobs from men and women alike. Some of them startlingly prejudicial and some understandably. While I’ve had at least a few tens of arguments about such casually (also assumed to be harmlessly) prejudicial remarks against women, I’ve hardly…
In about the same time as reading the palace of illusions, I also read another collection of feminist short stories. This time it was a pleasantly brilliant one. A friend introduced me to this book titled ‘The Washer of the Dead’ by Venita Coelho (VC). (Look up Venita Coelho if you haven’t heard of her,…
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Palace of illusions came highly recommended as a must-read book (based on the Mahabharata) for feminists. I should have known before I started reading that this isn’t technically retelling (as in rewriting the story as how a woman would want it to be) but narrating an existing story (one we’ve all…
About Rituparno Ghosh’s passing away last week, someone I know joked about how she sent a condolence message to a ‘pansy’ friend she had. She thought it was apt that all ‘pansy’ men feel sorry for Ghosh. I however think we should all just stand around and feel sorry for ourselves, for patriarchy. Before you…
In whatever short life I have led calling myself a feminist (online), I have heard all sorts of advice about the need to be or not be feminist. But what’s more interesting is the sort of things I got to hear about feminists at all. The unreasonable, man-hating, ‘western-feminism-inspired’ non-women lot. The usual ones of…
Abigail Rine, The Atlantic (May 2 2013) Abigail Rine’s feminism is rooted as much in theory and study as in practice. With two advanced degrees in feminist studies and men a book on feminist literary criticism (coming out later this year), she still finds herself wondering if she must call herself a feminist publicly. And…
So, after a good while, I got myself to watch a film at a theatre – importantly, one I made the mind to write about. I’ll start with the nice things I have to say and then to some things that are nagging me. No, don’t jump to the nagging part and leave rude comments.…
Laurie Penny, NewStatesman (16 March 2013) This is the piece about Feminism where Laurie Penny steals my thoughts and writes them down eloquently. It’s no wonder that “feminism” is still stereotyped as an aggressive movement, full of madwomen dedicated to the destruction of the male sex and who will not rest until they can breakfast…
Today, I was audience to yet another *taking down* of a misogynist on Twitter by a group of (I presume) well meaning women who started #MisogynyAlert with the aim of *intervening* when there is an incident of misogyny or abuse on Twitter. The day I heard about #MisogynyAlert I was up in the air. Yeay!…
While we are at feminist jokes, here.
Ellie Mae O’Hagan, The Guardian (Feb 25, 2013) If you have the word feminist written anywhere about you (Twitter bio, blog header, curriculum vitae or just your broad forehead), it’s tough then having people believe that you are in reality not a bra-burning, man-hating, venom spewing, l3sbian. Much of feminism has till now been defined…
William Kremer on BBC World Service (Jan 25, 2013) Recently, The Guardian published this response from Hadley Freeman for the question “Is it unfeminist to wear high heels?” While Hadley’s response and the following barrage of comments is another story, this post is about the absolute that is high heels. Being all of four feet…