Last week, a woman commuting on the Delhi Metro plugged a hair straightener into a charging point and began using it. Someone took a video. Many people on the Internet were upset.

A long time ago, when I had first moved to India and had barely begun to crack Chennai’s sociocultural codes enough to survive in it, a friend I was in an auto with – a fun, older woman with liberal values – frowned when I took out a hairbrush and started fixing my hair. She hinted that it was often said that only sex workers comb their hair in public. I hadn’t felt chastised, so I just absorbed more new information about the city’s tacit rules, perhaps to employ later. I had naively felt that she was just making a remark by association, not a pointed suggestion to stop what I was doing. Eventually, I recalled the incident as one that hinted at her true prudery, but I believe now that I was wrong about that too.

Now, much later, I’ve found myself frowning when foreign friends visit and do actually fairly normal things which could have other repercussions for me as someone locally based. The one who lounged on my couch in short-shorts and asked a delivery duo to carry something right into my bedroom. The one who couldn’t understand why I was distraught when she told me she’d almost accepted a ride from a police vehicle. The ones who needed a hotel and I had to explain that I wouldn’t go into the lobby with them because the management would think – oh, you know exactly what I thought they’d think.

In each such situation, I bristled because I wished I didn’t have to think in this way, and because the memory and the knowledge of less oppressive places was both quietly affirming and searingly envy-inducing.

Once, standing in a part of my home that’s visible from the street with two male foreign friends, I remarked that the people around me would notice how I keep having different men over. It was rue and worry, actually, that made me even consider this. “They’ll think this woman has a lot of protection,” said one of them. He wasn’t trying to make me feel better. It was just how he understood the world. I wish I could have that kind of conviction, that kind of nonchalance. I am – like everyone who lives on her own terms within a system designed against her – hardly ever afraid of what people will say; I am afraid only of what people will do.

Which is why, now and then, when someone – especially someone marginalized or vulnerable – does something and without it being a statement or a production it just subtly unsettles the order of the world, I feel a glimmer of hope. May many women take up more space. May we do whatever we want to. May we keep upsetting people just by being ourselves. May we have the agency to convolute the ordained trajectories of the lives we were supposed to have in pursuit of the minor triumphs within those lives that make them something closer to truly self-coxswained.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in June 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

The author Elizabeth Gilbert announced her latest novel, The Snow Forest, last week – and has since rescinded the book itself, stating that she is responding to the backlash of Ukrainian would-be (or wouldn’t-be) readers. In her second announcement, about withholding the book indefinitely from the publication schedule, she described it as being about a group of Russian people who resist the Soviet government and the industrialization of nature in the mid-20^th century.

The feedback she has responded to is from people who are angry or hurt that she would “choose to release a book into the world, any book, no matter what the subject is, that is set in Russia”. This is in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine. The book has hundreds of 1-star ratings on Goodreads; presumably, people let their ire be known through other online platforms as well. Gilbert says she has heard, read and respects their messages (she may have gone against the No.1 rule of authors who have to be online and also want to stay sane: never look at Goodreads).

Gilbert has a significant amount of power over her own publishing choices, as the author of the extremely successful Eat, Pray, Love, and is a person very much in the public eye. There is no chance that her publishers chose to cancel the release, as the link between controversy and commercial gain hardly needs elucidation. The decision was probably unilaterally Gilbert’s.

            I first heard of the novel being withdrawn when another famous author Tweeted in response to the announcement: “This is a mistake. It doesn’t help Ukraine or Ukrainians. It doesn’t end the war. And it doesn’t punish Russia. It isn’t solidarity. It’s censorship.” The second author has since deleted their Tweet, which is a little funny. I wonder if they were censored too.

            I agree with those who feel that Gilbert has made a foolish decision – and I would go as far as to say that it plays into troublingly unnuanced ways of seeing the world. The government of the Russian Federation, presently led by Vladimir Putin, is not the people of Russia, who are presently governed by the latter. Historical fiction about Russian people can only serve as validation of the current Russian government if readers are incapable of separating the two. Even fiction about contemporary Russian people does not necessarily vindicate its government. A closer reading of the politics of the work in question, any work, is needed before such a critique. Such close reading seems beyond the ken of those who purport to read – all the more so when a book hasn’t even been released.

As a writer, I want to believe that readers are not so disappointing. As a person who reads things, and uses social media a lot, I’m compelled to admit that too often, internationally speaking, the most vocal among current readers can be incredibly vapid. The truth is that this kind of censorship happens a lot, not just to artists of Gilbert’s stature, but more sweepingly too. Almost always, to give in to such pressure is to corrode the integrity of one’s own work, and diminish literature’s multivalent possibilities.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in June 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

There are a few layers of weirdness to a case that was presented at the Allahabad High Court, which involved a charge of rape following a false promise of marriage between a man and a woman. As part of the bail plea of the accused, the man, it is alleged that the woman’s horoscope showed that she is a manglik – that the planet Mars exerts a malefic effect on the parts of her chart relating to marriage, thus resulting in the end of the engagement. The court in turn brought in the Head of the Department of Astrology at the University of Lucknow to consult. The Supreme Court of India has presently imposed a stay order on the case.

            Here’s one layer, and this might be an unpopular opinion: if the premise of the case is that consent to sex was extended because the plaintiff believed that the accused and she would eventually be getting married, that is a highly subjective application of the concept of consent. While on a personal level it may make complete sense to the plaintiff, such situations also muddy the waters when it comes to public understanding of sex and violation – topics which India fails time and again to thoughtfully address. It is problematic because India legally does not acknowledge the existence of rape within marriage, but marriage as an institution is also held as the most significant if not the only benchmark by which sex is absolutely permissible.

To reiterate: from a highly subjective perspective, it may be entirely possible that the plaintiff suffered repercussions from her decision to have sex within a relationship that was believed to be premarital that are tantamount to emotional and mental repercussions that come from sexual assault. She may be justified in her charge. However, this also means that taboos around sex itself, and the sex-negativity that is often behind the idea that marriage is the only valid means to sex, continue to need to be challenged on a larger societal level.

            Here’s another layer, and this will probably be a more popular opinion, since even the Supreme Court has taken notice of it: that the accused thinks that rejecting the plaintiff because she has an unfavourable horoscope is reasonable grounds is appalling. If he was such a deep believer in astrology, he would have ascertained early into the relationship, and certainly before the marriage proposal, that she was not an acceptable match. He either isn’t really into the planets and the stars, or else he knowingly pursued the relationship and persuaded her into sex on the pretext of imminent marriage – which essentially proves she is right.

            Still, how I wish that that’s all this needed to be: a bad breakup, a liar-liar-pants-on-fire situation, a good-riddance-and-glad-I-didn’t-get-hitched episode – and not one more way in which sex is weaponized. This is not to vilify the plaintiff. The blame is squarely on a culture that holds sex hostage within marriage, permits rape within it, but demonizes those who have sex outside of it. It’s not her fault. But in a rare instance, given how private this matter is, it’s kind of all of our business too.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in June 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

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Some years ago, a man I was sweet on – but not so sweet on that I responded to his lukewarm, and invariably circumstance-based, overtures – said to me, as if it was a fact and not a judgement: “You’re just picky.” He was in a new relationship then, and we were attempting to erase the fact of our prior unfulfilled crushes on each other and to proceed along friendship terms. He was unkind about how he did this, and those words were the least of it. He was wrong, in any case. I may be a lot of things – brooding, possessive, challenging, secretive – but picky isn’t one of them. I’ve been picked on, I’ve been preyed on, but I’ve never been chosen. Therefore, I’ve not always had the luxury of choice.

            I have always been drawn romantically to emotionally unavailable people, and on the flipside of this coin is that I have also been – perhaps not always, but with an increasing awareness of it with each year that I get older – unavailable.

            I’ve been unavailable because I’ve been in enmeshed in a lattice of either heartbreak or limerence (they are siblings, but they are different – the first is pure, the other is complicated because despite how painful it is, it is also a way of unconsciously barbing the heart’s door). I’ve been unavailable because I gave my power over to known abusers, kept my lips tight, kept my head down, tried to be someone I not only wasn’t but who would also never, no matter how thorough the self-wreckage, be enough. I’ve been unavailable because I’ve been entangled in ways that weren’t right for me, but had and held me inveigled just the same.

            But finally, for the first time, I’ve become unavailable because I am more than enough.

            I recognized this when I saw that something I would ordinarily have understood as rejection was more layered. It wasn’t that someone did not like me – I have looked into that face, and I know. It was only that he could not see me, wasn’t willing or able to learn me, was averse to curiosity, intimacy and reciprocity, and this would mean acres of disappointment and frustration ahead of me. Intermingled with small doses of pleasure and giddiness – but not enough to justify the costs. I recognized that by choosing to not extend another chance, to a person who may have the desire but not the capacity to take it, I was choosing myself. Perhaps he said No. But I – I said Yes.

            I said Yes, I would rather walk away than to keep pace with a stride that confuses me, that inhibits me, that in one way or another keeps me from me.

            It has taken me a long time to come to this place. This evening, I am writing this rather than waiting for this man (this one; most recent in a long line, but not the last), and my time and my life-force belong to me. I am not the lovelorn in Kuruntokai 234, the day squandered, wistful in the gloaming. Once again, but in a way I didn’t know before, I am free.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in June 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

Nayana Motamma, also known as Nayana Jhawar, is the youngest woman MLA serving in the new state assembly of Karnataka, which recently welcomed the Congress party back into power. The 43-year old is a former corporate lawyer, is Dalit, is the daughter of a senior woman politician, and is from the Mudigere constituency. She is very clear about demarcations between her personal life and public service, and unapologetically so.

When her detractors began circulating images from her personal life – images stolen from her social media accounts – the MLA responded in a calm and firm manner, reportedly saying to the press: “This is something I’ve always been clear about. My personal life is my personal life, and I keep it out (of my political work). I show people that this is how I live… There’s nothing for me to hide.”

The images were circulated the day before the elections, with an obvious intent of derailing Congress’ campaign at that crucial time. The messaging her detractors promoted was that the sarees that Ms. Motamma wore during the campaign were essentially a decoy, and that her preferred choice of attire is only Western wear suitable for activities such as jogging, partying and swimming. The messaging is archaic, stuck in the mentality that sarees are equated with ideal, acceptable Indian womanhood – and that someone who wears clothing that shows a little more skin is not right for a position of authority. The implication is that she is not who she appears to be – except, as she herself affirmed, all she has done is be herself on public platforms, while enjoying a wide selection of wardrobe choices. It is the being herself part that ignited the ire of her political rivals. Her stated politics also affirm a freer and better society, and are a departure from the illiberalism and bigotry of the party that has been voted out in Karnataka.

I know rather little about Nayana Motamma, and all politicians must be regarded with a pinch of salt. But her strong attitudes about remaining who is she, not hiding that she is a human being with a life of her own, and embracing different sides of herself as a modern person, all speak of a political ethos that has more in common with well-oiled democracies in other parts of the world. She does not seem like the kind of politician who demands obeisance, and that alone is a big step away from many Indian politicians, both past and present.

In one of the photos that has been shared of the MLA, she is wearing a strappy top, and is looking over her shoulder. She looks like any woman on a night out – ordinary, yet in and of itself is an act of defiance. This is a breath of fresh air. Astute politicians across the world often cultivate relatability strategically, and in this case it seems to come naturally. She is the same person, multidimensional: starched sarees and bindis on the campaign trail, crop tops in clubs. Not someone to look up to as much as someone who is already leading by simple example: a very feminist and necessary example indeed.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in May 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

Last week, reports emerged that NEET aspirants at exam centres in Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu had been subjected to inappropriate frisking, sudden requirements to change their attire or to wear it inside out, and even to being asked to remove their bras. The same had been reported in Kerala last year. NEET, which has been controversial since its introduction, is a government requirement for those who wish to study medicine at the undergraduate level. It is a highly competitive and challenging exam. As all students, educators and parents of students are aware – any upset on the day of any such assessment can negatively impact the aspirant’s performance, and potentially their future. Naturally, the kind of upset caused by being asked to remove innerwear, in particular, affects women students most.

According to a 2011 study in The Lancet, a leading international medical journal, only 17% of practising allopathic doctors in this country were women; in rural areas, this stood at just 6%. While this data is over a decade old, in the context of how women’s overall workforce participation in India fell to just 19% by 2021 matters. Moreover, even though women graduate from medical college in greater numbers than men (as more recent data such as from annual All India Survey of Higher Education reports reveal), and there is gender balance in entry to medical studies, the vast majority of women clearly don’t go on to practise or remain in the field. This is a problem not just for them as individuals, who almost certainly have been robbed of agency or conditioned into making a “choice”, but is even more of a problem for the population at large.

            This is not by any means to say that just because a doctor is a woman, she is going to be sympathetic or progressive. We know far too well that this isn’t the case, because the internalised misogyny of women in patriarchal cultures, along with systemic expectations and protocol, are writ large across not only medical but many other fields in this country. This is only to say: if there were more women who practise as medical doctors, it would mean that there are more women who resisted and were able to surmount pressures from their personal circumstances, which would be indicative of other sociocultural shifts.

            The NEET exam is only one of many barriers towards gender inclusivity in medicine, specifically with regards to allopathic doctors (that the nursing profession has always been women-dominated is not denied, and should also be seen in the context of what kinds of careers have been considered acceptable for women, and why). The exam is not even the first barrier – an Indian aspirant to get to the stage where she has been educated enough to, and is then allowed to, pursue tertiary studies, she has already met with other obstacles.

            That a NEET aspirant would be subjected to humiliations regarding her body and her apparel before or during such an important exam is only one obstacle, yes, but it’s among those that can absolutely be prevented – summarily and officially, far more easily than the extrication of deeper societal malaises.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in May 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

So, I don’t stalk people I’m interested in romantically on social media. Anymore. Or not more than once or twice right at the start of things. I know this goes against every stereotype of our ever-online age, is a waste of sixth sense superpowers (sometimes known as “female intuition”), and deprives me of details I may find useful, but here’s why.

            Nobody is who they seem to be on their social media profiles, not even me. Information that’s found on those curated-but-casual, circumstantial-but-chosen profiles falls broadly into two categories: information that a person wants others to see or doesn’t mind others seeing, and information that is gleaned through clues, which may be unknowingly dropped. These are highly selective or incomplete forms of information. Inadvertently, when we scrollstalk, we thread these scraps together and form an impression about a person and their desires, values and life trajectory. We project both what we want to see, and what we’re afraid of. We jump to conclusions. We do this for people who like, people we used to love, and people they know. Longing asks for its own soothing, has strange ways of seeping out.

            I would make a cute pun about ex-ray vision, but here’s the truth: limerent people like me have relatively few actual exes, and an utter carnage of crushes instead. I’d prefer not to count how many people I cared for whose impending marriages I learned of through social media, in my sordid supersleuth past.

            Despite the rarity of a reciprocated crush (at least, to the best of my awareness), I also know this by now: I’m a bit put off should I learn that someone has checked up on me online. My online posts are for public consumption, even when I’m messy. They are at best a smidgen of my life; and sometimes, they’re a deliberate smudge, because I value my privacy and am not beyond throwing a red herring or two into the mix. If someone in my offline orbit chooses to observe me without trying to engage with me, then that someone never will. Another part of being old enough to know that social media is an optical illusion is knowing that I want to be with someone who makes the effort to be with me, and wants to. Loose lips may sink ships, but tongue-tied baes don’t even leave the bay to begin with.

            Mostly, however, I don’t look at the social media profiles of my crushes because of this: I would like to get to know them for real. I would like for us to linger. I would like for us to talk, and to listen. I would like to ask questions without secretly knowing the answers, to more slowly but more surely learn about each other. I would like to see the true picture, in context: who can they be to me, in my life, and how equal or otherwise is our wanting? I would like to know a lot, you see. Which is why I feel good about not knowing, because when I fool myself into thinking I know, I may also fool myself into thinking they care.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in May 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

The upcoming release of the first live-action film based on the Barbie doll franchise (dozens of animated films have been made over the last two decades or so) seems to have gotten Mattel, the American company that owns it, firmly engaged in an inclusivity and diversity PR campaign. Interestingly, the premise of the movie is reportedly that the main Barbie protagonist gets exiled from Barbie Land for being a smidge less than perfect, as defined by the standards of that realm. The trailer only hints at this plot; it is bright and light, full of in-jokes that adults like myself who grew up with the dolls and may have outgrown them but can catch the references will enjoy.

Launched in 1959, Barbie dolls of earlier decades were often criticized by feminists for upholding dangerous bodily standards. Aside from a hyperfeminized bust and waist, the overall anatomical extremity of the dolls was often noted (including that a person who shared these measurements would not be able to balance on their feet). Then there was the whiteness issue: blonde, blue-eyed dolls represented a single beauty standard that dominated the world until rather recently. Mattel took ages to get around to it, but they eventually introduced dolls of colour, in the form of multicultural Barbies and her sidekicks from that universe. Then, there was also the role model question: Mattel responded pretty well with a range of career Barbies (there has been a Barbie President, but there is yet to be a woman in that position in the United States). Still, a baseline of unrealistic and problematic depictions of the doll have been linked to eating disorders and other forms of body dysmorphia.

When it comes to humanoid toys, representation matters. Which is why, even if it has also taken the company an unjustifiable amount of time to do it, their new line of disabled dolls – named Fashionistas Barbie – is a welcome move. It was announced in August 2022, just under a year ahead of the film’s release. The line will feature dolls who use hearing aids, prosthetic legs and wheelchairs, and even a Ken doll with vitiligo. A Barbie with Downs’ Syndrome has just debuted on the market, to positive feedback.

Toys aren’t just toys, just as stories aren’t just stories. This is also why cinema and literature made for children that portrays characters who look like them, have familiar names and come from relatable backgrounds is so important. Children need forms of entertainment that mirror, inspire, teach and bring delight. Sometimes one toy, one book or one film can do all those things – not to every audience, but that is the point. There are many audiences, and this is why accessible, mainstream diversity matters.

On a completely different note, there’s also now a Scary Barbie – not a plaything at all, but a supermassive black hole that has just been detected by astronomers. It is the most luminous space phenomena of its kind ever recorded, and has been observed shredding a star with a ferocity of nearly unimaginable power. It was given a random designation – ZTF20abrbeie – which gave rise to its deceptively cute, but rather well-timed, name.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in May 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

At a Starbucks somewhere in the world recently, an employee decided it would be funny or clever to temporarily rename some of the menu items on a chalkboard, under the heading “Which Taylor Swift ex are you?” The choice of theme must have been influenced by press reports that the singer had broken up with Joe Alwyn, her partner of six years. The selection of beverages included some of Swift’s known and alleged celebrity lovers: Harry Styles, Tom Hiddleston, John Mayer, Calvin Harris, Joe Jonas, Taylor Lautner, Jake Gyllenhaal, and of course, Alwyn – with two question marks behind his name, referring to the speculation.

            The drinks may have been delicious, but the gimmick was arguably somewhere on the spectrum of bad taste – not exactly hateful or hurtful but not nice, either. Swift has dated a lot – so what? There’s also a case to be made about how, if this gag featured reversed genders, there would likely be outcry about how the women were objectified as consumables. Regardless of gender, few would want to be on a public bad-memories / bed-notches list like that, reduced to nothing but ex status.

Starbucks has formally apologized for the stunt. Anyway, in the larger scheme of things, this is all just coffee froth.

            In the neither large-nor-small scheme of things is what was behind both the concept of the gimmick and the offense taken to it, which has something to do with desirous women.

I’ve never been a Swiftie, but that has more to do with being out of touch with current pop music and less to do with what she makes. I’ve certainly enjoyed what I’ve encountered of her work – like the sardonic “Blank Space”, with its frank lyrics about having “a long list of ex-lovers” and no saccharine about what it’s like to be involved with her – and was really impressed when I learned through a documentary just how talented she is. She is also a woman with staying power in a merciless industry, which requires a set of skills quite apart from artistry alone.

She also happens to be someone whose romantic streak is widely-known and widely-discussed. Many women have been dismissed because of, or even buried by, gossip about their personal lives. Swift manages to distil it into her work unapologetically. She’s had her heart broken; she breaks hearts; she longs for a fairytale love; she just wants passionate and myriad experiences. She is like most of us, whether we admit it or not. It’s all in her work, and it doesn’t take a deep dive to see it. And because it’s in her work, it gives expression to other people’s secrets, choices and longings too. This is why she has a fandom.

Those lovers (real and imagined – by her and by others) of hers have already been given avatars as subjects of songs. Nameless, sparkling with rumour and provocative, as muses they are far more interesting than randomly assigned beverages. Besides which – when we listen to lyrics we identify with, in Swift’s songs or anyone’s, we are always the heroine-villainess, the narrator – and not a lapsed love turned muse, as redundant as melted ice-cubes.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in April 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

One of the most well-regarded people in the world, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, came under fire this month for a brief clip in which he was seen kissing a child on the mouth and then asking the child to suck his tongue. The incident took place at a public gathering in Dharamsala in February. A longer video revealed that the child’s mother was on stage as well, and that the child had requested the Tibetan political and spiritual leader for a hug before the rest unfolded. To many, the larger context rectified the shock of the original clip that went viral.

            The Dalai Lama’s office has formally apologised for the incident, as is correct. The leader’s famously playful nature was highlighted, and his personal regret was expressed.

            However, other defenders of the actions and words caught on camera in February initially faltered by either referencing only the Tibetan greeting of touching foreheads but not the gestures that had caused consternation, or else by claiming that critique would destabilize the movement for Tibetan liberation. Then, less obfuscating and somewhat illuminating responses came to light. A social media post attributed to journalist Tenzin Pema talks about the phrase “nge che le jip”, which translates to “suck my tongue”, and the practice of “po” or lip-kissing – aspects of Tibetan elder-child bonds that do not have sexual connotations.

            But even if these customs were widely-known, which they were not, their grafting onto other mores is highly problematic. They pertain to the bodily autonomy of children. Intentionality is trumped by action in such scenarios. The extremely well-travelled Dalai Lama should have known this.

            It is healthy for cultures to evolve harmful aspects out of themselves. I’m not saying these practices are harmful, although they look that way to my foreign sensibility. That’s for people, especially young people, within the culture to decide. Individually or collectively.

            It’s true that people of an advanced age sometimes display bad manners because of the deterioration of the mind and the body. The faux pas can even be forgiven on this basis, but a prerequisite of this basis is acknowledgement of the leader’s essential fallibility as a human being. His history of important work shouldn’t be a blanket exoneration. He regrets the incident, but others keep defending it.

For some, this incident completely tarnishes the leader, and they have a right to that opinion. Personally, I’m not in favour of entirely cancelling the Dalai Lama over this. While I found the initial clip despicable I do understand that what happened was a bit different than portrayed.

However, to let the event slide can give rise to impunity for other quarters. When someone with the kind of influence that the Dalai Lama has is categorically excused in this manner, others will continue to be too. Age, affectionate disposition, cultural nuances, body of work and so on will continue to be used to conceal, rationalize or even allow abuse at large. These justifications have always been used against survivors. When it comes to children, we have to be especially careful about what we consider widely acceptable, for it can be used extremely damagingly – in secret.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in April 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

In the images and videos that went viral – at least in the ones that I saw – nobody around Rhythm Chanana was looking at her. She appears in those visual records to be in a ladies’ compartment, taking the Delhi Metro. Just another commuter, among others.

            Even though her fellow commuters seemed to be maintaining etiquette, minding their own business (at least in those captured moments), this particular commuter caught public attention because of her attire: a bralette and a miniskirt. Reports are mixed, with Chanana also saying that fake interviews with her are being published, but some sources say that she had been taking the Metro in similar outfits for months.

            In other words, if that was the case: she wore what she wanted, and went about her work and her life.

            Then someone decided to post about it. The identity of the “Metro Girl” was discovered quickly, and Rhythm Chanana became famous overnight.

            Let’s say that Chanana did set the whole thing up in order to go viral. She is studying acting, and presumably wants a break into cinema, and online attention could help with that. Even if she did – so what? A society that reacts to an ordinary person putting on whatever clothes they want to deserves to be conned into a harmless trick.

            Her fashion sense is completely harmless – to anyone else, that is. A large part of me responds to Chanana’s style with the awe that one experiences while watching a tightrope walker. I cannot deny that she chose to do something that I myself would regard as dangerous. That in my own perhaps-provocative apparel choices, I am often as keenly aware of how good I feel as I am of the risk of undesired attention or even aggression.

Dour netizens reprimanding the 19-year old that she will regret what she is wearing should take a good look into their mirrors and their closets – metaphorical ones especially. As for Chanana, I wish for her to look back with only joy at how free she dared to be.

The truth is that most people can’t imagine her sartorial choices on themselves, which is why they’re shocked to see them on another. For some, their thought process may get stuck at the level of conditioning: notions of decency, for example. But for many, it is the violence of the gaze that will follow that actually informs their apprehension or their astonishment. That has nothing to do with decorum or propriety. That has to do purely with the consequences of expressing oneself in cultures where self-expression threatens the dominant paradigm.

            There are consequences, usually. Which is why I don’t care right now whether Rhythm Chanana was seeking publicity. To have a woman get away with wearing clothes that she would usually be punished for, and indeed be rewarded (with a surge of Internet followers and visibility for a career in the public eye), is refreshing. Is it a sign of positive change? Probably not on a large scale – but here and there, in scatterings of small influence, I have no doubt that seeing someone be bravely authentic is making a difference. It always does.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in April 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

In France, the politician Marlene Schiappa has appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine – clothed, but in a suggestive pose and a revealing outfit. The cover photograph accompanies a lengthy interview, which is said to be about her stances on various civil issues including reproductive and queer rights.

Schiappa has worked in sectors including gender equality and citizenship, with left-leaning but sometimes mixed political values (for instance: she fast-tracked French citizenship for foreign health workers during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic; but she also called for foreigners who had committed sexual crimes to be deported rather than be tried by strict, existing laws that apply at large). She is known to champion women’s rights and sex positivity, and has also authored numerous books.

            Her decision to pose for the famously sleazy magazine (or “mook”, as the publication calls itself – indicating a cross between a magazine and a book) has drawn widespread criticism. Senior leadership, including French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and others whose stated politics are not conservative, have denounced the move.

            Media reports keep calling Schiappa the “first female French politician” to appear on the cover of Playboy. This made me think that others, more specifically a man, must have done so before her. If one (or perhaps more) did, he got away without any long-term impact, since his name isn’t circulating now. But if that isn’t the case, then inherent sexism is at play in the language of the reports. Why not just “first politician”?

            Still, Schiappa’s decision is definitely a little gimmicky, because to quote her in her defence of the same: “In France, women are free. Whether it annoys the hypocrites and the retrogrades or not”. Which then begs the question about why she did it. In a place where feminist impact has been widely experienced at most levels of society, a woman with as much power and influence as she has hardly needs the platform of a publication with a contentious and specifically misogynistic history to bolster her message.

Yet, reading about her gimmick while living across the world and scrambling for a dupatta every time the doorbell rings, it also feels like one of those necessary pokes at the patriarchy. Here in India, a woman in politics (or a woman anywhere) would not be forgiven for just being authentically herself, let alone for indulging in exercises in risqué publicity. People of all genders, with their deeply internalised patriarchal sentiments, don’t allow for that.

            In the meanwhile, men in high office can consume pornography on their cellphones during State Assemblies and get away pretty much unpunished. For instance: a Tripura BJP MLA was recently seen doing exactly that, similar to the five BJP MLAs in Karnataka and Gujarat who were caught doing the same thing in 2012. While three out of the five were made to resign back then, two of them were reinstated by their party, with one even becoming a Deputy Chief Minister in 2019.

            So I sigh a little: imagining a country where feminists are in power, disagree with each other, and we all still get to do whatever we please. Instead of, well… this.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in April 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.

The global average percentage of women in a nation’s commercial pilot force stands at just 5% – and India currently has triple this statistic. 15% of the 10,000 commercial pilots currently working in India, across carriers, are women. This is the world’s highest percentage, as per data released by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). India has also held this record for a while; even last year, at 12.4%, there were more women pilots here than anywhere else in the world, with Ireland and South Africa some points behind at 9.9% and 9.8% respectively. The strong presence of women in commercial piloting here is certainly to be lauded.

            These statistics have been achieved despite no formal push for inclusivity in the sector. As the DGCA also noted, there are no specific training programmes for women or other marginalized people, including caste-marginalized people. That this has been noted suggests that these criteria may become the focus of new programmes, especially those developed to fulfil India’s increasing demand for pilots (5000 new pilots are expected to be required to enter the workforce over the next five years).

That said, some airlines do presently offer benefits for women employees, ranging from taking pregnancies into account without job loss but with minimized responsibilities to childcare related flexibilities. These measures are likely to be what help with the retention of women employees, pilots or otherwise, in the aviation sector.

It’s important to remember that at large, the Indian workforce has been bleeding out its women at an alarming rate: the most recently published statistics showed that women’s participation fell from 30% in 1990 to 19% in 2021. If there are cues to be taken from aviation, they should be heeded. Simply applauding the sector, chalking up another global-stage win and dismissing valid circumspection is pretty much just a form of gaslighting about the reality of women’s work and women’s lives in India.

            15% is the highest share in the world, but it is very far from 50%, which would indicate real equality of opportunity at every stage: from familial support to training to recruitment to active duty. Feminist gains are not made overnight, and pointing this out isn’t to dampen the importance of the existing statistic.

            This is also a good moment to reiterate the difference between women who have careers in the cockpit and those who walk the aisles: the mistreatment of in-flight staff by entitled passengers often makes the news too.

I haven’t flown in years, and was always rather infrequently on the inside of an aircraft anyway, but despite my circumspection, I know how important this is. I distinctly recall walking along a jet bridge in 2016, when I noticed one of the pilots in the cockpit of the plane I was to board. I slowed my pace and watched her until she made eye contact across that distance, and then I smiled and nodded. She acknowledged my gesture. I had been in Mumbai for reasons relating to gender equality, and it all felt significant. To me, that pilot was still a novelty. I hope she knew why I stood there and smiled at her so much.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in March 2023. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.