The fact that they call it a syndrome – a term usually used for medical reasons – should be enough of a clue about how unhealthy it is, but proponents of the “Lucky Girl Syndrome” social media trend strongly believe, or at least appear to believe, that they’re operating at peak levels. Indeed, the trend is all about belief. It’s frustratingly simple: believe it, feel good about it, become it.

My jaw dropped at irresponsible takes by experts who say it’s like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and that the reticular activating system of the brain will respond to the instructions relayed through affirmations, and I was relieved to find meaningful pushback. Shirin Eshkanani (Instagram: @wholeheartedcoaching) said it well: “We must also acknowledge what a privilege it is to believe. Manifestation is rooted in what we believe is possible for us. It is founded on the belief that we are worthy and deserving of good things. Belief is a privilege. It is a privilege that many folks who have experienced trauma or who come from historically marginalized communities have not experienced.”

            The Lucky Girl Syndrome is better categorized under Toxic Positivity – a very dangerous way of framing events and emotions, which gaslights those who try to engage with the actual so as to effectively change their reality, rather than deny its impact.

            Lately, I often wake up feeling grateful that I don’t have what I don’t have (like children) as much as I feel grateful for what I do have (which I could not have had, if I’d gotten what I had wanted). Fate, distinct from luck, has much to do with this. As does my free will. If I’d tried to dupe myself into believing that I was entitled to what I wanted because of sheer wanting alone, I would’ve been mired in worse disappointment. What was truest for me and what I most hankered for have not always been the same thing. It is only now that I consider myself lucky, after the fact, the way one does after narrowly evading an accident.

            In times of perfect alignment, when the narrative of my life has made eloquent sense, I experience wonder about the Universe’s undercurrents of pattern and play and mystery. I’ve said: “Sometimes I feel like I was walking down a path eating a fruit, and threw a seed, and a decade later I came back and there was a tree.” By the time an original longing was made manifest, I thought my desires were different. I was sweetly surprised by what still held true, by the way I still fit into a life I thought I had lost. A life that that was perhaps always meant to be mine.

But luck had nothing to do with it. I was, in fact, abjectly unlucky. I certainly didn’t orchestrate the trajectory of anything through wish alone, but there was no dearth of effort on my part. It was sheer will that saved me. Struggle and disillusionment characterized the nature of the time between desire and fruition.

So I see the longing of those who want to be Lucky Girls. I wish they knew what I know now.

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

The private lives of people who were born with the public’s gaze on them are an especially tricky subject; the children of celebrities wield tremendous privilege without necessarily having much personal agency. Inbanithi, an 18-year old who is the grandson of Tamil Nadu’s Chief Minister M. K. Stalin and the son of the state’s Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development Udhayanidhi Stalin, recently had photographs of him and a young person identified as his girlfriend leaked online. The pictures are believed to have been taken from social media profiles. Not every publication that has reported comments following the leaking by the Minister and his spouse, filmmaker Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi, has respected the couple’s privacy. Some have republished the images. In them, the teenagers appear to be affectionate but not explicit.

            In their comments in response to the leaking, Inbanithi’s parents have both presented a progressive stance. Kiruthiga Udhayanidhi responded first, with a Tweet in January shortly after the pictures began circulating. It said: “Don’t be afraid to love and express it. It’s one of the ways to understand nature in its full glory.” This week, Udhayanidhi Stalin also addressed the controversy directly in interviews, saying that his son is an adult with the freedom to conduct his personal life as he wishes to. As someone formally tasked with youth welfare, Inbanithi’s father’s comment reflects especially well, even if it is a personal opinion.

Moral policing where romance and sexuality are concerned is a major societal issue, one with deep cultural roots. This is an issue that disproportionately affects young people, who are denied many forms of agency and autonomy in this country – even when they are legal adults. They may have the right to vote at their discretion and to impact the national project, but not to make personal choices.

Inbanithi is fortunate that his family is publicly supportive. The harsh reality for far too many young people involves tragedies including the truncation of education, the loss of access to communication devices, shaming and ostracisation from extended family and even violence or death. Every case of murder for loving across caste, class, religious or other lines begins with the belief that people don’t belong to themselves and can choose whom they would like to share those selves with.

I would like to stress that the decisions of the young people in question in this particular situation – be it to date, to click pictures together, or to upload them online – should not be in the purview of public reproach. It is only the public response of the parents that are worth scrutiny. In this case, they have led by example. Their comments have highlighted not only that an adult’s autonomy is to be respected even by their own elders or kin, but also that love itself is a natural and beautiful experience – and that its expression is not wrong. These concepts themselves are taboo-breaking, and may be revolutionary to some. It remains to be seen how and if, in a more formal political capacity, these concepts are propagated further – for the greater good of society, and not only to protect the privacy of the privileged few.

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

About a year and a half ago, I wrote in this space about a Colombian helpline called Línea Calma that was set up to provide support for men who want to dismantle the toxic masculinity within them that makes them violent toward women. It addresses the needs of those who are self-aware enough to reach out and to choose growth over destructive behaviour. The helpline was established by Henry Murrain, a civil servant in Bogota, who subsequently created Hombres al Cuidado, a school that helps men proactively unlearn negative concepts about childcare, domestic work and interpersonal relationships.

            In that column, I speculated on what a similar helpline in an Indian context could be like. I pointed out that while equality-oriented organisations don’t exist, misogynistic ones that call themselves men’s rights activists do, and provide helplines too.

            I did not name any organizations that do this, yet members of the biggest one found my column anyway and took umbrage to it. I received several messages and replies, all of which I summarily ignored. What was clear to me was that the existence of work like Línea Calma’s threatened them, probably more so than the existence of feminist women. They must have been angry with me for highlight how feminist change spearheaded by other men is happening elsewhere in the world, in another very patriarchal culture. It is the evolving, healing men they’re truly disturbed by, and I wonder if they know this.

What anti-feminists lack in self-awareness they do make up for in self-importance. They-who-will-still-not-be-named recently held a ceremony at a park in Bengaluru during which they worshipped images of Twitter CEO Elon Musk and chanted slogans like “Feminist Destroyer Namaha”, in praise of his work in making the social media platform less civil-natured, by no longer shadow-banning or blocking users like them. Some of their own members sit around laughing as they do this, in videos they themselves shared online.

This is a publicity-craving exercise, one that is deliberately absurd so as to attract attention, which of course it did (and yes, I’m giving it some now too). Many of us will laugh at it. But there are people out there who feel somewhere on the spectrum between vindicated about seeing their private thoughts on public display, and radicalised into modern misogyny. They’re who the spectacle was for. Those who put on the spectacle may not have other forms of self-awareness, but here, they knew what they were doing.

I’m thinking about the laughter in that video, what it gives away. I’m thinking about how the sound of women’s laughter itself is such a trigger to those who believe women should keep their mouths closed. And not so tangentially, I’m thinking about that Margaret Atwood quote: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them”. Misogynists who co-opt women’s legitimate, statistically proven fears may be absurd. But they are also dangerous, no less so in practice or in influence than those who are ostentatious and openly assured in their bigotry. They may’ve made public spectacles of themselves; privately, what they no doubt do is far from funny.

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

I wonder what was going through the heads of the sensitivity readers and editors who deemed that calling a middle-aged woman “attractive” would offend contemporary sensibilities. The line “This balcony belonged to an attractive middle-aged lady called Mrs Silver”, in Roald Dahl’s lovely 1990 children’s book Esio Trot (by which I mean I loved it as a child, and haven’t revisited it), has been changed. In new editions of Dahl’s books, scheduled for release later this year, that line will reportedly now be: “This balcony belonged to a kind middle-aged lady called Mrs Silver”.

            This eyeroll-inducement is among a slew of edits that are meant to iron out potentially offensive descriptions or language, which current readers may be turned off by. But the edits leaked online are by and large bizarre. Shortly after, it was revealed that Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels had similarly been rewritten for reissue, yet seemed to have retained a lot of derogatory content. Which just goes to show that we all have blindspots, even those tasked to catch others’.

            PEN America’s Suzanne Nossel, who expressed alarm in a Twitter thread about how rewriting like this lays ground for censorship with dangerous agendas, offered a straightforward solution: “Better than playing around with these texts is to offer introductory context that prepares people for what they are about to read, and helps them understand the setting in which it was written.”

            A 1987 lecture titled “Straw Into Gold” published in Sandra Cisneros’ 2015 collection A House Of My Own, has a series of footnotes. Here’s one, augmenting these simple lines: “We ate corn tortillas, but we didn’t make them. Someone* was sent to the corner tortillería to buy them.” Decades later, Cisneros added: “*Invariably that someone was a servant, an indigenous woman, usually from the country. My father’s family was middle class. But these were themes I didn’t think about back then.”

            I find Cisneros’ decision to publish that essay along with those footnotes humble and honest. It is not only the consumers of art who change. The makers evolve, too. Honouring our journeys rather than erasing our footprints is brave, and true.

            All kinds of art become dated or age badly, within rather little time. Take the wildly popular TV show Friends – if it were to premiere today, neither its Caucasian-ness nor its casual sexism would pass muster. As a consumer of art, there are some things I enjoyed in the past but can’t stomach anymore. As a creator, there are some things I have written that just a decade or two since may be read as problematic. I would rather not modify my words. I would rather do as Cisneros has done; or even to just let them be, knowing I can’t please everyone and a fine-tooth comb will only leave my artistry bald.

            It is the prerogative of the reader to read Dahl and reject his work or to enjoy it, on any basis (including boredom); just as it is the late author’s prerogative to have his words remain as he intended. If one truly cannot bear the discomfort, there is always new work by new creators to explore.

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

In a judgment passed last week by a Mahila Court in Chennai, a man who killed his wife when she refused sex with him has been handed a lighter sentence because she “provoked” him. The provocation? Refusing sex, and allegedly saying that she only wanted sex with another man, whom she had been having an affair with. The 34-year old accused was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The incident took place four years ago, and the couple had a child, now aged 12.

I went looking for more information about this judgment a few days after I first came across a single press report on it. Strangely, there were no further articles in the mainstream English press. At the same time, coverage about a woman in Delhi who had been burnt to death by her live-in partner was everywhere, as were stories about one man who murdered his partner and stuffed her body into a mattress, and another man who murdered his partner, disposed of her body in a fridge and got married to someone else on the same day. The last is a copycat crime: a similar one took place a few months ago. In all these other cases, the headlines – and there were many – often included the word “live-in”, to indicate the status of the relationship.

            The contrast in coverage is marked. Events which feed into conservative morality are sensationalised, perhaps in order to prove a point. “If only she’d obeyed her parents, if only she didn’t date someone of another religion, if only she hadn’t sought to live on her own terms – don’t be like her, stay alive”. But when it comes to a story about what is essentially an attempt at marital rape, and about a woman exercising her right to not just say No but also to name her desires, it is almost buried.

            So let me unbury it here, and add to the miniscule coverage over a problematic judgement. I don’t wish for increased sensationalism around this case; what I fear is its use as legal precedence in domestic violence and homicide situations in future.

Judge Mohammed Farooq has been quoted as follows: “This court has no hesitation to hold that the accused stabbed the deceased on account of the grave and sudden provocation caused by her by pushing him down and refusing to cooperate for having sexual intercourse and asserting that she will do so only with the other man.”

This is victim-blaming, and greatly diminishes the deceased’s right to not have intercourse against her will. It also paints what must have been physical defence against rape as “pushing him down”. Marital rape has still not been criminalised in India, and entitlement to sex is beneath this case’s other layers, including the adultery that has been highlighted instead. The judgement also plays up her comment on preferring another person, which was insulting, but perhaps honest as well. If anything in this case can be justified as being in the heat of the moment, it’s a harsh statement like that. Yet somehow, it’s the murder – or technically, the culpable homicide – that’s been granted an explanation.

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

Look, nobody likes a bad review. Not even the cool types who post every published review on their social media to make a statement about how cool they are. Bad and even mixed reviews tend to fluster, frustrate or sting the feelings, or the egos, of creatives. That’s perfectly natural. As far as outward responses go, non-acknowledgment is standard protocol (although these days, a slytweet or two slipping out is also common and largely acceptable), even if privately one is sore or sour. In public settings, one may seat or stand oneself strategically at a distance from one’s detractor, be cordial, feign ignorance about their opinions or even be open without necessarily being sparring. One may also, let’s be real, be a little sparring. But nowhere in the tacit manuals of artist-critic etiquette is it permissible to smear dog faeces on the face of someone who doesn’t like one’s work.

            Marco Goenke, the director of Hanover State Opera’s ballet company, did not acknowledge this memo, because he most certainly received it. Everyone does; it’s sort of intrinsic to simple decency. Maybe he plonked himself strategically at a distance and out of earshot at all the basic decorum lessons one experiences in life, in class, in rehearsal, onstage and anywhere off it. On the day that critic Wiebke Hüster’s displeased newspaper review of a production he had staged was published, he accosted her at a different performance of his work. Hüster says in the press that Goenke was furious that she had been allowed into the show, and smeared the faeces into her face mid-confrontation. He had been carrying it in a bag, and it is believed to have been from his pet dachshund, Gustav. The critic is pressing charges.

            Some reviews are indeed vitriolic, and below the belt. Hüster’s may have been in this category (a translation available online of one line says that audiences may “go insane and be killed by boredom while watching” Goenke’s show). But Goenke’s review of her review was, err, pretty batshit.

The review as a form of entertainment is one of those topics that makes moral relativists out of many an artist. Have I found certain brickbats to be delicious reading or listening? Oh yes. Have I felt indignant when they’ve been aimed at work I enjoy, by people I love or respect, or made by me? If I was a too cool to care type, I’d say No. If I was a frosty and furtive type, I’d say I neither deny nor confirm. But I’m limpidly lukewarm, and so the answer is, yet again, oh yes.

            Not everyone’s opinion matters, though. That’s still and always will be the final word on critique as an exercise. In my opinion, of course.

            And some opinions, well, really are just a crock of you know what.

            Still, Goenke’s violence toward Hüster is unjustified, even though the incident is admittedly a tiny bit funny upon first encountering it – not because of the revolting physical act but because of the kind of comic villainy he comes off as being filled with. Theatrical, indeed. He has rightfully been fired by the Hanover State Opera.

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

A man in Singapore has sued a woman, seeking SGD2.3 million, because she did not want to be involved with him romantically. According to court records reported by the press, the two had been friends since 2016, and the friendship began to erode about four years later when she declined his interest in her. He did not respect her explicit requests for space, including less frequent meetings. In 2020, he threatened not only legal action – which he has now pursued – but also “damages to her personal and professional endeavours.”

            This is a case in which an entitled person is misusing the justice system to continue his harassment of another person. An earlier legal claim he made was dismissed on these very grounds, with the court officially stating that it “will not be an accessory to his calculated attempt to compel engagement from the defendant, who, after years of massaging the claimant’s unhappiness, has finally decided to stand up to his threats rather than cower and give in to his demands.”

            But we don’t know if the defendant cowered, ever. More likely, in those “years of massaging the claimant’s unhappiness”, she was merely polite to a fault, or understanding to a fault. Reports say that she generously went as far as to attend counselling sessions with the claimant for a year and a half. She set different kinds of boundaries along the way, and these were not only disregarded but met with further antagonism. It was after various amicable attempts that she chose to take out a restraining order, because of which he retaliated with this massive lawsuit.

            All of this will be familiar to many who have put up with harassment of any kind. Every day, in a hundred and one different ways, we navigate oppressive worldscapes in their trickle-down forms with smiles, good manners, requests, adaptability and guile – and some degree of wariness if not outright fear underneath each of these. Diplomacy, tact, learned caution and being sympathetic aren’t cowering. When we reason, be cordial, or try to avoid aggravation, we are only trying to work within conditioned codes in deeply flawed operating systems.

When a relationship that begins just fine sours, and the desire or the failure to transition into another kind of relationship is the reason, it can create multiple levels of bitterness for every party. This applies to all equations, including professional ones. But respecting that other people have their own set of feelings and expectations and may not want or be able to align to ours is an important, and arguably also natural, part of a healthy equation – even a severed one. All of this is something that anyone with a basic level of emotional intelligence understands and applies.  This is generic, not gendered – although in this particular case in Singapore, gender may have had a role. The kind of entitlement displayed is linked to culturally ingrained values on male prerogatives.

            To be someone’s friend, especially in a busy adult’s life, is a privilege of its own. The claimant has not only lost someone who cared for him, but in seeking to destroy her, has ruined his own future prospects.

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

Effective February 7 2023, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will step down from office. Ardern was the youngest female world leader when she assumed the position in 2017 at 37, and often received appreciation for clear-headed and progressive decisions. She was a breath of fresh air, compared to many polarizing and shadowy heads of state who wielded power during her term. As such, it is saddening to know that there will be one less leader like her in public service at present.

But there’s an argument to be made that she has led by example by stepping down. “I no longer had enough in the tank,” she admitted.

Last year, the phrase “quiet quitting” trended for a while. It referred to when people did what was required of them at their jobs, without going the extra mile. The phrase hinted at the toxic demands of many employers, across sectors, who likened healthy professional boundaries with desertion. Quiet quitting is better described as doing one’s job just fine.

Ardern, of course, actually has quit – and not quietly, since she cannot. In doing so, she stirs more necessary conversations about good workplaces, lousy jobs, and what it costs us to meet our costs of living.

But my interest deflated quite a bit when I watched the resignation speech, which included publicly telling her partner, “Let’s finally get married”. Suddenly, her words seemed less like a wellbeing-centric confession and call to action and more like they came straight out of a 1990s Tamil movie (oh, that’s wishful, a few 2020s Tamil movies too). It felt like the trope of the confident career woman who is “domesticated” into a patriarchal axis had reared its snickering head again. Ardern’s role as parent has been quite public too, as she gave birth while Prime Minister and took her child to formal events including the United Nations General Assembly. Still, in her resignation speech, she called being PM “the greatest role of my life”.

Given that she is clearly not from a culture that is as overtly misogynistic as ours, it begs a series of questions: why couldn’t she get married while in office? What’s the difference now? More pertinently: what does this all tell us about marriage as an institution, and the expectations and compromises that come with it, regardless of where in the world one is or how important or fulfilling one’s life outside marriage is?

I was dismayed: if Ardern led by example by talking about burnout and mental health, she also inadvertently gave more steam to the notion that women are less capable when it comes to working outside the home (presumably, she would have had every convenience and resource at her disposal within the home).

In India, women drop out of the workforce at frightening rates: those who work for an income plummeted from 32% in 2005 to 19% in 2021. Work as a homemaker is unpaid, of course.

In households across the country, and the world, someone will now cite Ardern as an excuse as to why their daughter-in-law, spouse or daughter should not have a career. I hope they don’t have the last word.

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

In 2022, when the filmmaker Leena Manimekalai released a short documentary entitled Kaali, the poster for the film alone attracted a large controversy, resulting in FIRs against her across different states.

The film’s poster shows Manimekalai costumed as the goddess Kali, smoking a cigarette while a blue hand brandishes a queer pride flag. The image contains motifs of modernity, but taps into an ancient impression of the goddess: as one who exists beyond all bounds and boundaries, who is untameable, who is self-possessed and free.

The Supreme Court of India has just given the filmmaker a reprieve that protects her from arrest or any other coercive processes in relation to the FIRs. While this isn’t the same as dismissing the FIRs, it is still a welcome step in reaffirming certain fundamental rights – not just of creative expression and free speech, but also the right to be safe from persecution because of the bogeyman of “hurt sentiments”. The safeguarding of those who assert these rights, ultimately, depends on whether ordinary people recognise and appreciate these rights. But the extension of legal protection goes a long way in keeping the misuse of the machinery of state and state-allied threat and censorship at bay.

When the Kaali poster became an issue, people with a lived understanding or a nuanced witnessing of how religiosity plays out in non-theoretical, dehegemonized practices pointed out that numerous deities of folk origin who have been subsumed over time into Hinduism are propitiated through offerings of tobacco, liquor, animals sacrificed then cooked and other items that are prohibited or taboo according to some ways of life. Kali, who is both indigenous and universal, is certainly worshipped in many ways, including those deemed sacrilegious in some worldviews – be it in forest groves in Tamil Nadu or iconic monuments in Bengal or in the traditions of formerly indentured populations in the Caribbean. She is myriad. A smoking, queer-affirmative Kali is offensive only to those with a very specific and rigid concept of the goddess, one that does not take into account the many other manifestations that She has in other imaginations and cultures.

Let me state here that I have not watched Kaali. So this is not about whether or not I think it’s a good piece of art (a subjective opinion, in any case). I don’t know whether, as someone with more than a fleeting connection to the feminine divine, I will find it a stirring work or a superficial one. I may adore it. Or I may cringe. Even if I were to find it offensive for some reason, that’s my problem. Not Manimekalai’s. The filmmaker’s right to make and release the film without facing threats remains.

These threats arise in the first place because of close-mindedness, which calls itself by numerous names. Then, there is the fact that a mere “hurt sentiment” results in truly disproportionate corollaries, from assassinations to riots and more. Being able to discern between something that bugs us and something that does harm to us, and not reacting to both to the same degree, is a sign of maturity – not just in a person, but in a nation too.

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

There is a coterie of dogs who live on the street in front of the place I’ve been staying at for the last couple of days. They’re aggressive towards other dogs and some vehicles, and observing them on various occasions indicated that their choices are arbitrary. They’re mostly nonchalant towards humans, even those who step right around them to open the gates, but some humans who don’t already know this are likely to feel a little threatened.

I’ve been receiving orders of food here frequently, and I’ve gotten used to having to go downstairs to collect the parcels, because of the presence of the dogs. Almost without exception, the delivery executives call me and say, “There are many dogs.”

            I laughed to my friend the other day about how I had learned a little machismo mind-trick because of what one of the executives had done. He had claimed that six dogs had surrounded him snarlingly (I was watching the animals sleep, from a window). I told him I’d come down and receive the parcel if he was afraid. I wasn’t taunting him or anything; I’m a person full of anxieties and usually appreciate having them be taken seriously when I require help. I was not always unafraid of dogs myself, and loud barks near me still startle me.

But by the time I’d put my mask and slippers on (stay masked, folks – what you do with your feet is up to you, though), he had already come up the stairs. No problem. The fear evaporated as soon as it was named, or so it appeared. Hence, my laughter later.

But all that was before I read about the tragic case of a Swiggy delivery executive in Hyderabad, 23-year old Mohammad Rizwan, who died this week after falling from the third floor while being chased by a pet dog, a German shepherd.

            The co-existence of humans and other creatures is a delicate balance, and highly dependent on the pre-existing ecosystem. What applies in a forest will not apply in a conurbation. It was certainly the responsibility of the pet owner to ensure that the dog was not near the door when the delivery arrived. Her right to have a pet in her own home is not in doubt, but with it comes responsibility towards both the animal and other people. This requires just a routine protocol, a simple step or two to ensure everyone’s safety. It’s similar to how I anticipatorily mask up, have keys and phone within reach, and ensure I’m not braless when the app shows it’s almost time, so that I can head downstairs should the delivery executive call. Those dogs in the street are not even mine, but the decision to summon a person to bring me food, and expect them to navigate through a canine crowd, is.

            This isn’t really about dogs at all. It’s about people, and our co-existence with each other. Even as tech makes our lives more convenient, and privilege as always creates ease, the concept that every service provider is also a human being has yet to really gain ground in the world. Or at least, here.

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

In a bizarre turn of events, not one but two different men on not one but two different Air India flights decided to urinate on women co-passengers. Mid-air. At least one of them in business class. Within ten days of one another – one in November, on a Paris-New Delhi flight, and one in December, on a New York-New Delhi flight. These incidents are acts of physical violence and fall within the broader category of sexual abuse.

            Both men were inebriated, which is no excuse at all. One does not simply violate another person’s space, will, body or rights just because one is drunk. Such violations occur only when the perpetrator already has a powerful, deep-seated sense of entitlement. Liquor has a way of uncloaking true colours. Morals or personalities don’t morph because of alcohol – but inhibitions about openly displaying them are lowered.

            Nobody deserves to have the moment of their greatest humiliation become that which creates their greatest recall value – be it among the public or within their own circles. In these cases, the two women who suffered these indignations are the ones who deserve protection of identity. The perpetrators – not as much. Their names are in the press. The second perpetrator has lost his job as the vice-president of a bank, and been sentenced to two weeks’ judicial custody during an investigation.

The second case has captured more public attention than the first, perhaps because of its strangely imitative nature. One hopes this does not become a series – another point on the ugly list of ways in which Indian men routinely, habitually and arguably even with sociocultural sanction harass, mistreat and disquiet women.

            The response of the crew members aboard that second flight, on the Paris-New Delhi sector, is also reprehensible. Not only did they reportedly try to convince the victim to return to the dirtied seat, but they also accompanied the perpetrator to a mid-air mediation to apologize to her and request that she not press charges. They then let him disembark the plane as usual, without alerting the authorities about the incident.

            Drunken people who display physical aggression can be scary to be around, certainly. To work on an airline is also incredibly stressful in general. But still – here, they essentially sided with the aggressor, rather than isolating the distressed passenger and allowing her to recover from the shock (they refused her an empty seat in first class after the incident), while quietly making the necessary calls to ensure the aggressor would be dealt with ethically later. Aside from being dereliction of duty, this is reminiscent of the many mundane ways in which victims’ experiences are minimized.

            But these incidents do hack at the common notion that economic privilege and basic decency go hand in hand, an idea that perpetuates vast private exploitation, as well as discrimination against those of lower economic stratas on the basis of stereotypes. Clearly, this kind of thing can happen in business class, and become all of our business through the media. But the deeper rot in society from which vile behaviour arises is always our business really, and not only when it happens in sensational ways.

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

When I first came across a photograph of the actor Alia Bhatt dangling upside down from a hammock, her hands in the prayer gesture, her figure lithe and not a hair out of place, I sighed out loud and tut-tutted in my head. Bhatt had delivered a baby via Caesarean section less than two months earlier. The yogic feat she was capable of so soon after this major procedure was definitely not only the result of prior training but just as much the result of long-term capital privilege: the access to paid care and support that enabled recovery and rest that most postpartum mothers do not have access to, as well as the physical strength that comes from genes and the nourishing diet that being raised affluent and continuing to be so allows her. 

So I’m not going to lie: I judged a little. I wondered if Bhatt was promoting body negativity by sharing the image online, even if the caption came with a cautionary line or two (“Listening to your body post delivery is key. Do NOT do anything your gut tells you not to”). I thought about how it might make others with newborns feel in comparison, and whether the aesthetic and fitness levels Bhatt presented were setting more unrealistic standards for post-childbirth life. Many celebrities before her had contributed to the same, after all.

            Then I remembered that Bhatt herself has not only been privately judged, but also publicly criticised, from the moment she announced her pregnancy. To this day, there are rumours that she was pregnant at the time of her wedding to actor Ranbir Kapoor last year (so what?), fuelled not only by the date of Raha’s birth but also by ridiculous extrapolations such as a random photo of her not smiling for one second during the wedding. As a woman in cinema, she has never not been analysed (even right here). So when contextualised, what she was doing with that aerial yoga post was probably about taking her power back. She did it in a public way, certainly – but there’s little she can do otherwise.

            There is pressure that we as the general public feel through the strange and shifting and often extremely strategic mixes of algorithmic trends, manufacturer-driven tactics, publicity-forward virality, and the complicity of celebrities, industries, our peers and ourselves. There is also pressure that people with influence experience, because of constant scrutiny and demand. Regardless of which category we are in, so much that we see, and much that we feel, are distorted by capitalistic aggression as well as by the natural play of human unfulfillment and desire.

Maybe Alia Bhatt did make some or many new parents feel lousy. Maybe she inspired a few. Maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it does – we can’t help it, but neither can she. We’re all inside a system, buffeted by its forces. After all this pondering, I see the photo again and now it seems to suggest other things. Like the Hanging Man card of the tarot that says: be patient, pause. Or maybe something less philosophical, like a friendly nudge that says: hang in there, we’ll be okay.

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

According to the synopsis and dramatis personae shared online, the upcoming Bollywood film Pathaan is a patriotic, maybe even a nationalist, film. That hasn’t stopped it from being attacked by those who consider themselves most patriotic and nationalist: the far-right. This comes after the release of a song from the movie, entitled “Besharam Rang”. According to the lyric subtitles on Youtube, it is a song about female desires – which always make some people uncomfortable. It features Deepika Padukone in a series of bikinis – including an orange, slit-skirted one in just the last few seconds. The colour of the last apparel in the sequence has been read as symbolic of Hinduism. In Pathaan, Padukone stars with, and dances with, Shah Rukh Khan, who plays an Indian RAW agent. In real life, Khan has increasingly been attacked for his religious background.

In the last few years, Padukone has emerged as one of the few Bollywood celebrities with a sense of civic responsibility that she displays openly. In January 2020, she visited the JNU campus, the site of violent attacks by a right-wing mob as well as of an anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest. It was an act of rare courage in the Indian film industry. As in similar nations, the rightwing galvanizes many smaller distractions while a vast, heavily organized agenda is being put into place. When it comes to cinematic releases, this includes focusing ire, boycotts, demands for bans and worse onto films that contain perceived or fabricated insults to Hinduism (another Padukone-starrer, 2018’s Padmavaat, brought her death threats). Most of the industry maintains a studied, probably scared, silence. But in a subtle way as a person under public scrutiny, Padukone challenges that agenda.

She has responded to this new controversy in a tongue-in-cheek way. Shortly after this scandal hit, she appeared at the FIFA World Cup final in Qatar to unveil the trophy. Her Louis Vuitton outfit also begat trolling – this time, from the fashion (not moral) police. Padukone remarked in an Instagram video that the full-sleeved, layered outfit was very comfortable. In an equally comfortable way – as in a comfort-in-one’s-own-skin way – the range of her wardrobe as seen in the press over just a few days is a feminist statement. She is at a career stage where she presumably has significant agency over her appearance. Which is to say, she wears what she likes – and everyone should be able to as well.

But that’s not all. The LV outfit was also largely made of a material in a soft orange shade. Her lipstick in that video clip? Bright orange.

A friend, not unfairly critical about a lotus that I have tattooed on my body, told me she had stopped wearing her most favourite colour, saffron, over the last several years, because its connotations are too upsetting. But the blossom belongs to me in its own way, for my own reasons. By wearing that eye-catching outfit on the FIFA field following uproar over some beachwear in a song, Padukone made a gentle reclamation of a colour.  Quietly, and I suspect deliberately, she presented a reminder about the many shades that make up the palette of humanity.

An edited version appeared in The New Indian Express in December 2022. “The Venus Flytrap” appears in Chennai’s City Express supplement.