Where feminist theory comes out to play, where the ism itself is gloriously complicated in the actual living of lives; radical, messy, round shapes in square holes. We look at collectives, communities, protests, articulations of self and everyday, paying attention to seasons and emotions, finding the feminist cosmos in raindrops.
This interview reimagines the contours of the city. Mukul Sharma offers us an alternate history of Chandigarh through Nek Chand’s contribution to it, and positions Dalit eco-narratives as a lens to widen the scope of environmental justice.
This is an excerpt from the chapter ‘Anthropocene: “Modern” Chandigarh, Nek Chand, Rock Garden and Dalitbahujan Anthropocenes’ in Mukul Sharma’s Dalit Ecologies: Caste and Environment Justice (2024).
In drama school, we used to spend a lot of time standing around. Now, as soon as I say that, I imagine a chorus of actors yelling at me, saying, “C’mon — we weren’t just ‘standing around’!” Of course not. I meant, we were arriving into neutral bodies — shedding, lengthening, becoming… the ready actor. I think. It’s hard to fully say.
Humans in the Loop is a Krukhi-Hindi film directed by Aranya Sahay, inspired by Karishma’s essay for the publication FiftyTwo, made in collaboration with the Museum of Imagined Futures (MOIF). It focuses on the intersection of technology and society. Developed as part of the Storiculture Impact Fellowship that supports socially relevant storytelling in media, MOIF is a platform for creators, researchers, and activists who use storytelling to question the systems shaping our world.
As far back as I can remember, my two override switches have been between my (seemingly) conflicting desires: to be taken seriously and have a good time. One of my earliest memories is my father telling me bemusedly, “You can’t always be having fun!”
we share excerpts from Nusrat F. Jafri’s The Land We Call Home. In this haunting and intimate memoir, Jafri interrogates the colonial and casteist invention of hereditary criminality—through the prism of her own family’s history.
Co-founder and editor of Faridabad Mazdoor Samachar newspaper, Sher Singh worked for about four decades to make this newspaper the voice of labourers.
“How to ask a woman whether she has been called a daayan?” This was the first question that came to the minds of 46 women who were assigned the task of surveying those who have been victims of witch-hunting in Bihar. In the state of Bihar, as in Assam, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha, witch-hunting is an open secret.
We send people to jail so we don’t have to think about them. What happens in jail, we’d rather not know. Or if we do, it’s through beefy heroes who beat the ‘criminal’ to pulp, preferably in slow motion.
Among the many gifts that the classroom throws in my face, one that I am equally envious and enamored by is the beehive of female friendships all around me.
