CATEGORIES

The Politics of New Castes

With the Prime Minister announcing the poor, women, farmers, and the youths as new caste categories, it would be interesting to see its impact on the upcoming General Elections

The Runaway Groom

Tribal communities in the country have had interesting and unique wedding customs, but most have gone extinct with time

Truly Traditional

As the trend of lavish five-day weddings becomes the norm, many are going back to the roots to revive lapsed traditions

Bridal Bling

Bridal wear has gone extravagant with custom-made couture created by leading Indian designers

Cupid Inc

Most professional matchmakers operate like big businesses today - super-organised, digitally savvy, keen to extend their reach beyond Indian shores

Flash Back

From staged to candid and back-wedding photography has come a full circle

Destination PARADISE

Destination weddings have picked up pace in Kashmir. Though it's an expensive affair, but that has not stopped people from pouring in to the Valley to do wedding recces

Exotic Locales, Offbeat Weddings

Young couples are now exploring the idea of stepping outside the traditional mandaps and scouting for unique destinations in India and abroad

Band, Baaja, Business

Glitzy, opulent weddings popularised by Bollywood inspire real-life marriage ceremonies, making them all look the same, drowning out local customs, cuisines, and contexts

Wed in India

MY middle-class family has watched too many clips of the spectacular weddings of celebrities that even have the power to change social media algorithms. My aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces have now started to hire choreographers to train them to dance on stage in locations other than home so they can have a destination wedding tag. That’s the trend.

The 'Cool Girl' Burden

Neoliberalism and new femininities: The intensification of beauty standards for women in the digital age

Found in Translation and Other Things

How a writer rediscovered the power, movement and reimagination of language while translating her father's biography of pop queen and singing legend Usha Uthup

A Strong 'Sandesh' for the TMC

The upheaval in Sandeshkhali has exposed Trinamool Congress' continued trouble with corruption

Sixty is the New 35

There are product ranges to suit every pocket. No part of the ageing universe is neglected; no woman is meant to remain content with how she looks

Self-love and Food

Beauty standards and emotional eating: much better tastes await us

'Old' Goddesses

Despite gaunt bodies, sagging breasts and stomachs, goddesses present us with powerful images of old women

To Behold a Rainbow

The queer community is facing pressure from the cis-normative society

'A' Political Pageant

Criteria to determine beauty have been challenged by feminists across the world, but some feel it can be liberating

Chasing Perfection

In an ideal society, we will not need the freedom of extreme choice to change the way we look. There will be no pressure on us to look perfect

She's Got the Look

There is enormous pressure on women to look flawless and young. But at what cost?

Beauty's Dark Underbelly

The more women succumb to the pressure of living up to the ever-elusive beauty ideal, the more they get trapped into it

The Curse of Being Beautiful

It can be a threat. It can be almost impossible to find work, no matter how good your portfolio is

"Men Can Age Without Penalty"

In her landmark essay titled 'The Double Standard of Aging' (1972), American writer and critic Susan Sontag analysed how aging affects men and women in deeply different ways. Society is much more permissive about aging in men than in women. Men feel regret about growing older, while women are made to feel panic and disgust. The double standard about aging denounces women with special severity and measures their worth on the basis of age and looks. Excerpts from the essay

Age-old Formula

Many ageing Bollywood actors get to play romantic leads and action heroes, but actresses still grapple with ageism and gender bias

An Experience to Cherish

Growing older gives you perspective and hindsight. You have a long trajectory to look back on and learn life lessons

"Beauty is a Social Construct"

WHITE being considered the ideal of beauty for women, especially in India, is part of a cruel dynamic. White is not a skin colour, whiteness is a social construct. Ancient Greek statues are often assumed to represent idealised white, 'natural' beauty. This is a projection of modern biases. Scientific advances reveal its original appearance: a woman with an olive or light brown complexion and heavily made-up, her hair, possibly Afro-textured.

Unbeautiful

THE ingrained order of my adolescent years lay in religiously cropped short hair and ridiculously tailored dresses copied from fashion magazines.

Difficult Women

\"The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance.\" -Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

Happy To Acquiesce?

Nehru's approach to China was based on his concept of Asian solidarity for which he sacrificed India’s core interests

Languages of a Lesser God?

Writing and publishing in Indian languages are terribly devalued today