MUSICIAN-COMPOSER Priya Darshini PRIYA DARSHINI is a vocalist with a fresh, imaginative and fascinating sound influenced by Carnatic and South Asian classical music, and deeply syncretic global traditions including Americana, folk, and jazz improvisation. Her debut album Periphery (Chesky Records, 2020) was nominated at the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards for Best New Age Album. Based in Brooklyn, Darshini also serves on the Board of Directors of the International Wildlife Coexistence Network , and is a trustee of the Mumbai-based non-profit Jana Rakshita which aids underprivileged pediatric cancer patients, Adivasi children's education, amongst other initiatives. MUSICIAN-COMPOSER WEBSITE INSTAGRAM TWITTER Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 LOAD MORE

An anthropologist explores Bollywood creatives to trace BJP's carrot-and-stick strategy with Bollywood creatives: both controlling and regulating Bollywood in order to create a consistent and normative film culture that perpetuates Hindutva ideology. THE VERTICAL Saffronizing Bollywood An anthropologist explores Bollywood creatives to trace BJP's carrot-and-stick strategy with Bollywood creatives: both controlling and regulating Bollywood in order to create a consistent and normative film culture that perpetuates Hindutva ideology. Kaashif Hajee In 2022, India’s Hindi film industry was in the throes of a crisis. Bollywood, as the industry is colloquially known, was still bucking from a pandemic which had injured film industries worldwide. Multiple mainstream movies, helmed by some of the industry’s biggest stars, from Aamir Khan to Akshay Kumar to Ranveer Singh, were failing miserably at the box office. Since the tragic suicide of an actor named Sushant Singh Rajput in June 2020, a rabid social media movement in India had been calling for people to #BoycottBollywood for its alleged complicity in Rajput’s death and painted it as a hotbed of elitism, drugs, and moral bankruptcy. This was coordinated “collusive behavior”, one study suggested, to engineer a frenzy of conspiracy theories. Members affiliated with India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), another study found, especially pushed the narrative of Rajput’s death being a “murder”, driving the hashtag #JusticeForSSR to receive over 65 million active interactions in just six months. Amid this political powder keg and socioeconomic crisis, one film gained unprecedented success. A film with no stars, no popular songs, and none of the typical, crowd-pleasing conventions of mainstream commercial Hindi cinema. Released on 11 March 2022, The Kashmir Files claims to depict the 1990 Kashmiri Pandit (Hindu) exodus, but through crucial omissions—of the Indian army’s pervasive presence, unlawful detentions, and rapes of women across religions; well-documented cases of Kashmiri Muslims risking peril to protect Hindu friends ; and the thousands of Kashmiri Muslims who also died and fled Kashmir —creates a dangerously one-sided representation of Muslim violence against Hindus. In one scene, the menacing, kohl-eyed Muslim antagonist Bitta compels a Hindu widow to eat rice soaked in her dead husband’s blood. In yet another, he shreds open a bright saffron kurta off a Hindu woman and publicly brutalises her. The film uses shock value to incite Hindus towards collective anger, humiliation, and anti-Muslim hatred. The Kashmir Files opened to a modest figure of INR 3.55 crores. The following day, however, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally met with its makers and took a picture with them that was widely circulated on social media. “More such movies should be made,” Modi publicly said three days later, praising the film for showing “the truth which has been suppressed for years”. Other BJP leaders also endorsed the film – they organised special screenings and events, while the BJP’s information and technology cell and copious sympathetic media outlets provided incessant buzz and press coverage . The film was also given the coveted tax-free status in several exclusively BJP-ruled states. Though made with a modest budget of only INR 25 crores, with a little bit of “help”, The Kashmir Files eventually collected a whopping INR 247 crores domestically. It was a certified blockbuster. The BJP and Hindutva Founded in 1980, the BJP functions as the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindutva organisation active since 1925. Hindutva—the ideology of Hindu nationalism—conceives India as a Hindu nation, relegating Muslims and other minorities to second-class status. Historically, its ideologues drew inspiration from German Nazism and Italian fascism, while its closest ideological counterpart today is Israeli Zionism . The BJP has independently governed India since it won the national elections in 2014 by interlacing Hindutva with populist rhetoric under the leadership of Modi, a former RSS worker who oversaw an anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 when he was the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. His purported victory, according to political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, ushered in a new era for the nation, characterised by weakened state institutions, a distorted electoral process, and sanctioned violence against minorities, transforming India into an authoritarian Hindu state. The Bollywood industry is ultimately highly decentralised, commercially driven, and blockbuster-oriented. Politics seems peripheral to the eternal quest for the elusive box office hit. Then how has the BJP succeeded so profoundly? The Modi government has particularly weaponised the media to fuel Islamophobia. It has widely spread misinformation, enabling what media scholar Shakuntala Banaji has called the “mainstreaming” of intolerance. In his new book H-Pop (2023), independent journalist Kunal Purohit examines how the wider Hindu Right has harnessed popular culture forms such as music, poetry and books to disseminate and entrench Hindutva in popular and mass imagination. In this vein, Bollywood is a crucial fourth frontier. As India’s most prolific and powerful media industry, it is a key source of soft power and plays a crucial role in defining dominant conceptions of nationhood, belonging, and culture. As anthropologist Tejaswini Ganti writes in Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema (2013) , Bollywood is also “perhaps the least religiously segregated place in India today where Hindus and Muslims work together as well as inter-marry”. Some of its most successful stars, directors, and other key members are Muslim. Many of its biggest hits over the years have celebrated Indian secularism and interreligious harmony, according to film scholar Rachel Dwyer, from Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), to Veer-Zaara (2004), PK (2014), and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) . Today, a slew of at least 10 brazenly Hindutva propaganda films are swamping Indian voters ahead of the upcoming national elections in May 2024. It is the outcome of many years of moulding and steadily saffronizing India’s Hindi film industry, most aggressively since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the subject of my master’s dissertation, for which I conducted three months of fieldwork in Mumbai in the Summer of 2023, and conducted several interviews with prominent writers, directors, producers, actors, and journalists of Bollywood. All names have been anonymized in this essay. The BJP has used a carrot-and-stick strategy to control and regulate Bollywood ’s influence: a combination of bullying, along with promoting films that most brazenly perpetuate their Hindutva ideology. Yet for the most part, members of Bollywood have continued to eschew political binaries between left and right, instead seeing themselves as existing outside of the realms of politics and ideology. “The only God,” a veteran film critic and journalist told me, “is the box office.” The Bollywood industry is ultimately highly decentralised, commercially driven, and blockbuster-oriented. Politics seems peripheral to the eternal quest for the elusive box office hit. Then how has the BJP succeeded so profoundly? Fear and Censorship Alongside its elaborate army of online trolls, the BJP has not hesitated to use its hard power on Bollywood. They have incited mobs, engineered police cases, and orchestrated arbitrary arrests. When the Amazon series Tandav released in January 2021, for example, members of grassroots Hindu nationalist organisations filed police complaints against a Muslim actor Mohammed Zeeshaan Ayyub and the showrunners in four different Indian states, alleging offence to Hindu religious sentiments. The crime? A character named Shiva, played by Ayyub, uses profanity while portraying his namesake Hindu deity in a student play. When Amazon petitioned the Supreme Court to protect the showrunners from arrest while these cases were sub judice , this was denied. In another incident on 3 October 2021, inspectors of the Narcotics Control Bureau arrested Aryan Khan, the superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s then 23-year-old son, in a Mumbai port terminal. Despite lack of evidence, the agents imprisoned him for nearly a month before granting him bail, finally dropping all charges in early 2022. “Had a government agency really imprisoned Aryan Khan without proof, as pure intimidation?” questioned journalist Samanth Subramanian in The New Yorker . “The rest of Bollywood, meanwhile, absorbed the news as the most cautionary tale of all: if they could do this to the king, imagine what they could do to us.” In January 2023, the mammoth success of Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Pathaan , despite widespread calls for its boycott , not only revived Bollywood’s box office slump but was also touted as a victory over the Hindu Right . The social media boycotts, many in the industry concluded, were all bark and no bite. Subsequent consecutive successes of several Hindi films in 2023— Jawan, Animal, Gadar 2— compounded upon a palpable sense of triumph, with proclamations that “ Bollywood is back ”. But beyond boycotts and the habitually extreme ebbs and flows of the box office, the BJP has remained successful in its attempts at stoking fear and a pervading atmosphere of censorship, one that has now become naturalised in the industry. “You don't just deal with these issues when your film or your show is coming out,” one writer-director-producer said to me. “You're dealing with them while you are writing. There is a psychological aspect to it.” Many key Bollywood members I interviewed shared how their creative process now includes several additional considerations, like avoiding depicting green and saffron colours and any religious symbols and erasing any critiques of the police or politicians in the narrative. This was not the case before even 2020. A screenwriter named it the “chilling effect” – a perpetual state of cowering invoked in the face of the BJP’s “bullying tactics.” “You just have to stay in line,” he reflected, “ That builds a self-censorship inside you.” The New Blockbuster While the BJP suppresses, it also amplifies. In the case of The Kashmir Files , the party’s vigorous promotion of the film created a replicable template for a new kind of unabashedly bigoted blockbuster. In 2023, it was recreated by Sudipto Sen-directed The Kerala Story . Early promotions of the film claimed to tell a “spine-chilling, never told before true story” of 32,000 girls from Kerala who’ve been converted to Islam, manipulated into joining ISIS, and “buried in the deserts of Syria and Yemen”. This claim is demonstrably false , with the makers themselves later backtracking and saying they were showing the “true stories of three young girls from different parts of Kerala”. However, in the film, one character passionately declares to a policeman: “More than 30,000 girls are missing, sir. The unofficial number is 50,000. We all believe that, sir”. Simplistic and unsubtle, The Kerala Story cherry-picks and distorts disparate, extremely rare “true stories” and manipulates them to peddle the Hindu nationalist “Love Jihad” conspiracy theory and construct a heightened sense of fear and distrust of Muslims. In one scene, the protagonist Shalini’s (now Fatima) husband rapes her, using Islam as justification, and later slaps her for protesting as she cries. In another, a bearded Muslim man lays out the plan for love jihad: “Start giving them medicine, get close to them, make them estranged from their families, ... [and] if need be, get them pregnant”. By the end of the film, this plan results in the pregnancy, suicide, and gang rape of these Hindu girls. Like The Kashmir Files , then, The Kerala Story also uses shock value to arouse disgust and hatred towards Muslims in a Hindu audience. Similarly, the film was profusely praised by Modi and several other BJP ministers and declared tax-free in multiple states. Produced with a modest budget of INR 30 crores, it collected a whopping INR 242.2 crore in India, making it another bona fide blockbuster. Bollywood and literature scholar Priya Joshi argues in her book Bollywood’s India (2015) that since the 1950’s, blockbusters have “vitally captured dispersed anxieties and aspirations about the nation” and are a “testament to some of the public fantasies that accompanied the national project”. In essence, she writes, “Bollywood’s blockbusters have conducted a dialogue over the idea of “India””. As India’s new contemporary blockbusters, The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story reflect a nation engulfed in Islamophobia and Hindutva rhetoric. “The only trend that seems to work,” a prominent writer-director-producer admitted to me, “is an anti-Muslim trend.” According to culture studies scholars John Hartley and Ien Ang, audiences for films and any large-scale culture industries are “literally unknowable”, forming what Tejaswini Ganti calls “the ultimate site of unpredictability”. To cope with the inherent uncertainty of the business, members of Bollywood use what Ganti terms “production fictions”—“fluid and flexible discourses” made mostly in hindsight to explain commercial outcomes. Production fictions, for Ganti, primarily function to rationalise inherently random, unpredictable, and inexplicable box office events. Commercial outcome, she explains, functions as a “form of imperfect communication between audiences and filmmakers”—a dialectic of sorts. Riding the Saffron Wave The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story’s unprecedented success has created new production fictions that audiences actually want to watch more anti-Muslim, Hindutva stories, that consumer demand has simply swayed in that direction, and that such films are simply more likely to do better at the box office, not least due to possible, legitimizing promotion by the BJP. Many filmmakers, my interviewees claimed, “are riding on this whole saffron wave”, and many more, they expect, will “jump on the bandwagon” in order to achieve elusive box office triumph. It may be tempting to exceptionalize these films and view them as existing out of the scope of mainstream Hindi cinema, but this is misguided. These movies are only more extreme, brazen versions of an increasingly ubiquitous trend. From historical fiction films about Islamic invaders to cop and war films about fighting Islamic terrorism and Pakistan, Hindutva themes are dominating India’s cultural production and national consciousness. This type of cinema exists on a spectrum. There are those high on testosterone and muscular nationalism, like Uri (2019), Bhuj (2021), and recently, Gadar 2 (2023) and Fighter (2024), which involve masculinized army narratives, enforcing national borders, fighting “invaders”, espionage, violence, and the like. Then there are the rarer, more nuanced films on similar topics, like the female-centred Alia Bhatt-starrer Raazi (2018). Where there are explicitly propagandist, anti-Muslim examples of cinema like The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story , there are also more subtly Islamophobic films peddling a quieter poison, like Sooryavanshi (2021), Mission Majnu (2022), and Indian Police Force (2023). Cumulatively, the hard ubiquity of these protecting-the-nation-state-narratives and the pervasive uber–Hindu-patriotism at their core reflects what scholars Edward Anderson and Arkotong Longkumer refer to as the mainstreaming of Hindu nationalism. By making Indian-ness synonymous with Hindu-ness, they normalise Islamophobia in public discourse. The BJP has evidently harnessed the uncertainty endemic to the film industry to push it to perpetuate its Hindutva ideology. They are ultimately succeeding at saffronizing Bollywood, not by turning its largely apolitical members into Hindu nationalists, but by influencing market forces to make Hindutva stories more profitable and marginalising dissenting or “deviant” voices. This new political order is increasingly being internalised, naturalised, and taken for granted by industry members, who appear, from my research, all too willing to compromise on their ideals for commercial success. In January 2019, the year of the last Indian national election, a group of Bollywood A-listers, none of whom were Muslim, were invited to meet Modi. They then posted a selfie of all of them together, which instantly went viral on social media. Later that April, Modi sat down for a sanitised, scripted, and avowedly “apolitical” interview with Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, known for being Hindutva’s poster boy . The same year saw the release of a slew of Hindutva propaganda films, many of which were officially promoted by the BJP , from hagiographic biopics of Hindutva figures like Thackeray and PM Narendra Modi to a film denigrating the opposition Congress party like The Accidental Prime Minister , to a pro-war, ultranationalist action film like Uri . With India heading towards another round of national elections this May, there is a lineup of propaganda films that peddle Hindutva conspiracies, celebrate Hindutva figures, and glorify the BJP while vilifying all its opponents: the Congress, academic institutions, activists, and of course, Muslims. These films share similar conventions: no A-list stars, lower budgets, saffron colour text in their trailers and posters, sensationalist hashtags hinting at conspiracies, and a neo-realist style colour grade. More importantly, they all seek to recreate the template created by The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story , with the BJP and Modi’s promotion, tax-free status, and if they’re lucky, virality and box office glory. The first, Article 370 , exalts the Union Government for removing the eponymous article that conferred special status on Kashmir. Like clockwork, Modi praised the film even before its release. “I have heard that perhaps a film on Article 370 is going to be released this week,” he stated while addressing a rally in Jammu on 20 February 2024. "Good, it will be useful for people to get correct information." The film’s lead actor Yami Gautam shared a video of the speech immediately. “It is an absolute honour to watch PM @narendramodi Ji talk about #Article370Movie ,” she wrote on X . Eventually released on 23 February, the film has made nearly INR 80 cr in India and is declared a super hit . More carnage is to follow. ∎ In 2022, India’s Hindi film industry was in the throes of a crisis. Bollywood, as the industry is colloquially known, was still bucking from a pandemic which had injured film industries worldwide. Multiple mainstream movies, helmed by some of the industry’s biggest stars, from Aamir Khan to Akshay Kumar to Ranveer Singh, were failing miserably at the box office. Since the tragic suicide of an actor named Sushant Singh Rajput in June 2020, a rabid social media movement in India had been calling for people to #BoycottBollywood for its alleged complicity in Rajput’s death and painted it as a hotbed of elitism, drugs, and moral bankruptcy. This was coordinated “collusive behavior”, one study suggested, to engineer a frenzy of conspiracy theories. Members affiliated with India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), another study found, especially pushed the narrative of Rajput’s death being a “murder”, driving the hashtag #JusticeForSSR to receive over 65 million active interactions in just six months. Amid this political powder keg and socioeconomic crisis, one film gained unprecedented success. A film with no stars, no popular songs, and none of the typical, crowd-pleasing conventions of mainstream commercial Hindi cinema. Released on 11 March 2022, The Kashmir Files claims to depict the 1990 Kashmiri Pandit (Hindu) exodus, but through crucial omissions—of the Indian army’s pervasive presence, unlawful detentions, and rapes of women across religions; well-documented cases of Kashmiri Muslims risking peril to protect Hindu friends ; and the thousands of Kashmiri Muslims who also died and fled Kashmir —creates a dangerously one-sided representation of Muslim violence against Hindus. In one scene, the menacing, kohl-eyed Muslim antagonist Bitta compels a Hindu widow to eat rice soaked in her dead husband’s blood. In yet another, he shreds open a bright saffron kurta off a Hindu woman and publicly brutalises her. The film uses shock value to incite Hindus towards collective anger, humiliation, and anti-Muslim hatred. The Kashmir Files opened to a modest figure of INR 3.55 crores. The following day, however, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi personally met with its makers and took a picture with them that was widely circulated on social media. “More such movies should be made,” Modi publicly said three days later, praising the film for showing “the truth which has been suppressed for years”. Other BJP leaders also endorsed the film – they organised special screenings and events, while the BJP’s information and technology cell and copious sympathetic media outlets provided incessant buzz and press coverage . The film was also given the coveted tax-free status in several exclusively BJP-ruled states. Though made with a modest budget of only INR 25 crores, with a little bit of “help”, The Kashmir Files eventually collected a whopping INR 247 crores domestically. It was a certified blockbuster. The BJP and Hindutva Founded in 1980, the BJP functions as the political wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindutva organisation active since 1925. Hindutva—the ideology of Hindu nationalism—conceives India as a Hindu nation, relegating Muslims and other minorities to second-class status. Historically, its ideologues drew inspiration from German Nazism and Italian fascism, while its closest ideological counterpart today is Israeli Zionism . The BJP has independently governed India since it won the national elections in 2014 by interlacing Hindutva with populist rhetoric under the leadership of Modi, a former RSS worker who oversaw an anti-Muslim pogrom in 2002 when he was the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. His purported victory, according to political scientist Christophe Jaffrelot, ushered in a new era for the nation, characterised by weakened state institutions, a distorted electoral process, and sanctioned violence against minorities, transforming India into an authoritarian Hindu state. The Bollywood industry is ultimately highly decentralised, commercially driven, and blockbuster-oriented. Politics seems peripheral to the eternal quest for the elusive box office hit. Then how has the BJP succeeded so profoundly? The Modi government has particularly weaponised the media to fuel Islamophobia. It has widely spread misinformation, enabling what media scholar Shakuntala Banaji has called the “mainstreaming” of intolerance. In his new book H-Pop (2023), independent journalist Kunal Purohit examines how the wider Hindu Right has harnessed popular culture forms such as music, poetry and books to disseminate and entrench Hindutva in popular and mass imagination. In this vein, Bollywood is a crucial fourth frontier. As India’s most prolific and powerful media industry, it is a key source of soft power and plays a crucial role in defining dominant conceptions of nationhood, belonging, and culture. As anthropologist Tejaswini Ganti writes in Bollywood: A Guidebook to Popular Hindi Cinema (2013) , Bollywood is also “perhaps the least religiously segregated place in India today where Hindus and Muslims work together as well as inter-marry”. Some of its most successful stars, directors, and other key members are Muslim. Many of its biggest hits over the years have celebrated Indian secularism and interreligious harmony, according to film scholar Rachel Dwyer, from Mughal-e-Azam (1960) and Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), to Veer-Zaara (2004), PK (2014), and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015) . Today, a slew of at least 10 brazenly Hindutva propaganda films are swamping Indian voters ahead of the upcoming national elections in May 2024. It is the outcome of many years of moulding and steadily saffronizing India’s Hindi film industry, most aggressively since the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the subject of my master’s dissertation, for which I conducted three months of fieldwork in Mumbai in the Summer of 2023, and conducted several interviews with prominent writers, directors, producers, actors, and journalists of Bollywood. All names have been anonymized in this essay. The BJP has used a carrot-and-stick strategy to control and regulate Bollywood ’s influence: a combination of bullying, along with promoting films that most brazenly perpetuate their Hindutva ideology. Yet for the most part, members of Bollywood have continued to eschew political binaries between left and right, instead seeing themselves as existing outside of the realms of politics and ideology. “The only God,” a veteran film critic and journalist told me, “is the box office.” The Bollywood industry is ultimately highly decentralised, commercially driven, and blockbuster-oriented. Politics seems peripheral to the eternal quest for the elusive box office hit. Then how has the BJP succeeded so profoundly? Fear and Censorship Alongside its elaborate army of online trolls, the BJP has not hesitated to use its hard power on Bollywood. They have incited mobs, engineered police cases, and orchestrated arbitrary arrests. When the Amazon series Tandav released in January 2021, for example, members of grassroots Hindu nationalist organisations filed police complaints against a Muslim actor Mohammed Zeeshaan Ayyub and the showrunners in four different Indian states, alleging offence to Hindu religious sentiments. The crime? A character named Shiva, played by Ayyub, uses profanity while portraying his namesake Hindu deity in a student play. When Amazon petitioned the Supreme Court to protect the showrunners from arrest while these cases were sub judice , this was denied. In another incident on 3 October 2021, inspectors of the Narcotics Control Bureau arrested Aryan Khan, the superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s then 23-year-old son, in a Mumbai port terminal. Despite lack of evidence, the agents imprisoned him for nearly a month before granting him bail, finally dropping all charges in early 2022. “Had a government agency really imprisoned Aryan Khan without proof, as pure intimidation?” questioned journalist Samanth Subramanian in The New Yorker . “The rest of Bollywood, meanwhile, absorbed the news as the most cautionary tale of all: if they could do this to the king, imagine what they could do to us.” In January 2023, the mammoth success of Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Pathaan , despite widespread calls for its boycott , not only revived Bollywood’s box office slump but was also touted as a victory over the Hindu Right . The social media boycotts, many in the industry concluded, were all bark and no bite. Subsequent consecutive successes of several Hindi films in 2023— Jawan, Animal, Gadar 2— compounded upon a palpable sense of triumph, with proclamations that “ Bollywood is back ”. But beyond boycotts and the habitually extreme ebbs and flows of the box office, the BJP has remained successful in its attempts at stoking fear and a pervading atmosphere of censorship, one that has now become naturalised in the industry. “You don't just deal with these issues when your film or your show is coming out,” one writer-director-producer said to me. “You're dealing with them while you are writing. There is a psychological aspect to it.” Many key Bollywood members I interviewed shared how their creative process now includes several additional considerations, like avoiding depicting green and saffron colours and any religious symbols and erasing any critiques of the police or politicians in the narrative. This was not the case before even 2020. A screenwriter named it the “chilling effect” – a perpetual state of cowering invoked in the face of the BJP’s “bullying tactics.” “You just have to stay in line,” he reflected, “ That builds a self-censorship inside you.” The New Blockbuster While the BJP suppresses, it also amplifies. In the case of The Kashmir Files , the party’s vigorous promotion of the film created a replicable template for a new kind of unabashedly bigoted blockbuster. In 2023, it was recreated by Sudipto Sen-directed The Kerala Story . Early promotions of the film claimed to tell a “spine-chilling, never told before true story” of 32,000 girls from Kerala who’ve been converted to Islam, manipulated into joining ISIS, and “buried in the deserts of Syria and Yemen”. This claim is demonstrably false , with the makers themselves later backtracking and saying they were showing the “true stories of three young girls from different parts of Kerala”. However, in the film, one character passionately declares to a policeman: “More than 30,000 girls are missing, sir. The unofficial number is 50,000. We all believe that, sir”. Simplistic and unsubtle, The Kerala Story cherry-picks and distorts disparate, extremely rare “true stories” and manipulates them to peddle the Hindu nationalist “Love Jihad” conspiracy theory and construct a heightened sense of fear and distrust of Muslims. In one scene, the protagonist Shalini’s (now Fatima) husband rapes her, using Islam as justification, and later slaps her for protesting as she cries. In another, a bearded Muslim man lays out the plan for love jihad: “Start giving them medicine, get close to them, make them estranged from their families, ... [and] if need be, get them pregnant”. By the end of the film, this plan results in the pregnancy, suicide, and gang rape of these Hindu girls. Like The Kashmir Files , then, The Kerala Story also uses shock value to arouse disgust and hatred towards Muslims in a Hindu audience. Similarly, the film was profusely praised by Modi and several other BJP ministers and declared tax-free in multiple states. Produced with a modest budget of INR 30 crores, it collected a whopping INR 242.2 crore in India, making it another bona fide blockbuster. Bollywood and literature scholar Priya Joshi argues in her book Bollywood’s India (2015) that since the 1950’s, blockbusters have “vitally captured dispersed anxieties and aspirations about the nation” and are a “testament to some of the public fantasies that accompanied the national project”. In essence, she writes, “Bollywood’s blockbusters have conducted a dialogue over the idea of “India””. As India’s new contemporary blockbusters, The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story reflect a nation engulfed in Islamophobia and Hindutva rhetoric. “The only trend that seems to work,” a prominent writer-director-producer admitted to me, “is an anti-Muslim trend.” According to culture studies scholars John Hartley and Ien Ang, audiences for films and any large-scale culture industries are “literally unknowable”, forming what Tejaswini Ganti calls “the ultimate site of unpredictability”. To cope with the inherent uncertainty of the business, members of Bollywood use what Ganti terms “production fictions”—“fluid and flexible discourses” made mostly in hindsight to explain commercial outcomes. Production fictions, for Ganti, primarily function to rationalise inherently random, unpredictable, and inexplicable box office events. Commercial outcome, she explains, functions as a “form of imperfect communication between audiences and filmmakers”—a dialectic of sorts. Riding the Saffron Wave The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story’s unprecedented success has created new production fictions that audiences actually want to watch more anti-Muslim, Hindutva stories, that consumer demand has simply swayed in that direction, and that such films are simply more likely to do better at the box office, not least due to possible, legitimizing promotion by the BJP. Many filmmakers, my interviewees claimed, “are riding on this whole saffron wave”, and many more, they expect, will “jump on the bandwagon” in order to achieve elusive box office triumph. It may be tempting to exceptionalize these films and view them as existing out of the scope of mainstream Hindi cinema, but this is misguided. These movies are only more extreme, brazen versions of an increasingly ubiquitous trend. From historical fiction films about Islamic invaders to cop and war films about fighting Islamic terrorism and Pakistan, Hindutva themes are dominating India’s cultural production and national consciousness. This type of cinema exists on a spectrum. There are those high on testosterone and muscular nationalism, like Uri (2019), Bhuj (2021), and recently, Gadar 2 (2023) and Fighter (2024), which involve masculinized army narratives, enforcing national borders, fighting “invaders”, espionage, violence, and the like. Then there are the rarer, more nuanced films on similar topics, like the female-centred Alia Bhatt-starrer Raazi (2018). Where there are explicitly propagandist, anti-Muslim examples of cinema like The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story , there are also more subtly Islamophobic films peddling a quieter poison, like Sooryavanshi (2021), Mission Majnu (2022), and Indian Police Force (2023). Cumulatively, the hard ubiquity of these protecting-the-nation-state-narratives and the pervasive uber–Hindu-patriotism at their core reflects what scholars Edward Anderson and Arkotong Longkumer refer to as the mainstreaming of Hindu nationalism. By making Indian-ness synonymous with Hindu-ness, they normalise Islamophobia in public discourse. The BJP has evidently harnessed the uncertainty endemic to the film industry to push it to perpetuate its Hindutva ideology. They are ultimately succeeding at saffronizing Bollywood, not by turning its largely apolitical members into Hindu nationalists, but by influencing market forces to make Hindutva stories more profitable and marginalising dissenting or “deviant” voices. This new political order is increasingly being internalised, naturalised, and taken for granted by industry members, who appear, from my research, all too willing to compromise on their ideals for commercial success. In January 2019, the year of the last Indian national election, a group of Bollywood A-listers, none of whom were Muslim, were invited to meet Modi. They then posted a selfie of all of them together, which instantly went viral on social media. Later that April, Modi sat down for a sanitised, scripted, and avowedly “apolitical” interview with Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar, known for being Hindutva’s poster boy . The same year saw the release of a slew of Hindutva propaganda films, many of which were officially promoted by the BJP , from hagiographic biopics of Hindutva figures like Thackeray and PM Narendra Modi to a film denigrating the opposition Congress party like The Accidental Prime Minister , to a pro-war, ultranationalist action film like Uri . With India heading towards another round of national elections this May, there is a lineup of propaganda films that peddle Hindutva conspiracies, celebrate Hindutva figures, and glorify the BJP while vilifying all its opponents: the Congress, academic institutions, activists, and of course, Muslims. These films share similar conventions: no A-list stars, lower budgets, saffron colour text in their trailers and posters, sensationalist hashtags hinting at conspiracies, and a neo-realist style colour grade. More importantly, they all seek to recreate the template created by The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story , with the BJP and Modi’s promotion, tax-free status, and if they’re lucky, virality and box office glory. The first, Article 370 , exalts the Union Government for removing the eponymous article that conferred special status on Kashmir. Like clockwork, Modi praised the film even before its release. “I have heard that perhaps a film on Article 370 is going to be released this week,” he stated while addressing a rally in Jammu on 20 February 2024. "Good, it will be useful for people to get correct information." The film’s lead actor Yami Gautam shared a video of the speech immediately. “It is an absolute honour to watch PM @narendramodi Ji talk about #Article370Movie,” she wrote on X . Eventually released on 23 February, the film has made nearly INR 80 cr in India and is declared a super hit . More carnage is to follow. ∎ SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Watching You Watching Me. Oil on wood. 36″ Tondo. Shyama Golden (2023). SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Research Bombay BJP Bollywood Sushant Singh Rajput The Kashmir Files Films Cinema Hindutva Kashmir Shakuntala Banaji Kunal Purohit Censorship Shah Rukh Khan Rachel Dwyer Aryan Khan Samanth Subramaniam Love Jihad Box Office Commercialization Tejaswini Ganti Fascism Ethnography India Advertising Bhuj The Kerala Story Priya Joshi Article 370 Yami Gautam Ien Ang John Hartley KAASHIF HAJEE is a writer and researcher based in London, with an MA in social anthropology from SOAS, University of London. 15 Apr 2024 Research Bombay 15th Apr 2024 SHYAMA GOLDEN is a Sri Lankan-American artist whose oil and acrylic paintings use figuration to explore the complex and layered ways identiy is experienced, performed, and reinforced. Her work has been featured on covers for the New York Times , LA Times , and Netflix Queue , as well as various book covers such as Shruti Swamy’s Archer , Fatimah Asghar’s If They Come for Us , and Akweke Emezi’s PET and BITTER . Her work has been exhibited at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery and Trotter & Sholer, among others. Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

There's really no shortage of Tamil works to translate, according to N Kalyan Raman, the acclaimed Tamil translator of Perumal Murugan's novel “Poonachi.” On the docket: plays, poems, and works by radical Modernist Tamil literary figures spanning much of the 20th century. INTERACTIVE Chats Ep. 5 · Tamil translation & Perumal Murugan's “Poonachi” N Kalyan Raman There's really no shortage of Tamil works to translate, according to N Kalyan Raman, the acclaimed Tamil translator of Perumal Murugan's novel “Poonachi.” On the docket: plays, poems, and works by radical Modernist Tamil literary figures spanning much of the 20th century. In Episode 5, Aishwarya Kumar had a discussion on Instagram Live on Tamil translation with acclaimed writer and translator N Kalyan Raman, most famously the translator of Perumal Murugan's Poonachi: The Story of a Black Goat , which won the Sahitya Akademi's Translation Award in 2022. Raman discusses the nature of translation, his experience with Murugan's work and the time when he encountered it, as well as seminal Modernist Tamil literary figures, such as Pudhumaipithan, known for his revolutionary and satirical fiction in a radical vein, as well as contemporary poets such as Perundevi. There's no shortage of works to translate, Raman argues convincingly. The Tamil short story, he argues further, is the true peak of Tamil modernist achievement in literature. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on SAAG Chats, an informal series of live events on Instagram. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Chennai Tamil Translation Perumal Murugan SAAG Chats Poonachi Modernism Tamil Modernist Literature Playwriting Sahitya Akademi Progressive Writers Radical Writers The Story of a Goat Pudhumaipithan Satire Perundevi Tamil Diasporas Language Language Politics Trail by Silence Resolve Pyre Inequality Modernist Literature Avant-Garde Traditions The Tamil Radical Tradition Ashokamitran Devibharathi Current Show Politics of Translation Ambivalence Poomani Heat Vaasanthi The Goat Thief Talking Animals Scroll Seasons In The Palm Pastoral Primitivism Avant-Garde Form Eru Veyyil Tamil Nadu One Part Woman The Colours of Evil Si Su Chellappa Short Stories Poetry N KALYAN RAMAN has been translating Tamil fiction and poetry into English for the last two decades, for which he received the Pudumaipithan Award in 2017. Some of the fiction writers he has made accessible to an Anglophone audience include the late Ashokamitran, Devibharathi, Vaasanthi, Perumal Murugan, and Poomani. He has translated numerous Tamil poets, including forty poems by forty Tamil women poets for an anthology curated by Kutti Revathi. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Translation in 2022 for his translation of Perumal Murugan's Poonachi . Live Chennai 7th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

"For most dissenters in Pakistan, whether it's a movement like the PTM, or journalists critical of the state, the first reaction of the state's representatives is to characterize them as traitors, or funded by foreign governments." COMMUNITY Progressivism in Pakistani Higher Education Nida Kirmani "For most dissenters in Pakistan, whether it's a movement like the PTM, or journalists critical of the state, the first reaction of the state's representatives is to characterize them as traitors, or funded by foreign governments." RECOMMENDED: Questioning the ‘Muslim Woman’: Identity and Insecurity in an Urban Indian Locality by Nida Kirmani (Routledge, 2013) ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Karachi Pashtun Tahafuz Movement Postcolonial Feminist Theory Feminist Organizing Progressivism Deniz Kandiyoti Lyari Sociology Mama Qadeer Refusal of Anthropology Anthropology Baloch Missing Persons Slums Dissent State Repression Statelessness Gulalai Ismail Matiullah Jan Lahore LUMS Urbanization Islamophobia NIDA KIRMANI is the Madeleine Haas Russell Visiting Associate Professor of South Asian Studies at Brandeis University. She is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), and coordinator of the Gender and Sexuality Studies Minor. She is a leading feminist public intellectual who has published widely on issues related to gender, Islam, women’s movements, development, and urban studies in India and Pakistan. She completed her Ph.D. in 2007 from the University of Manchester in Sociology. Her book, Questioning ‘the Muslim Woman’: Identity and Insecurity in an Urban Indian Locality , was published in 2013 by Routledge. She is currently working on on urban violence, gender, and insecurity in Lyari in Karachi, Pakistan. Interview Karachi 27th Aug 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

In the Kashmir Valley, the spirit of "Kashmiriyat"—a philosophy of inclusion and coexistence—remains strong. However, the struggle for the region's autonomy, known as Tehreek-e-Azadi, can sometimes overshadow the diverse identities that coexist there, whether religious or sexual. In this complex context, how can one live and assert their identities in a place where even the majority identity struggles to thrive under New Delhi’s control? The Vertical collected stories of everyday resilience, offering a glimpse into the lives of those who continue to navigate existence in a region where the broader independence movement can sometimes obscure the more intimate and plural realities of its minorities. In the Kashmir Valley, the spirit of "Kashmiriyat"—a philosophy of inclusion and coexistence—remains strong. However, the struggle for the region's autonomy, known as Tehreek-e-Azadi, can sometimes overshadow the diverse identities that coexist there, whether religious or sexual. In this complex context, how can one live and assert their identities in a place where even the majority identity struggles to thrive under New Delhi’s control? The Vertical collected stories of everyday resilience, offering a glimpse into the lives of those who continue to navigate existence in a region where the broader independence movement can sometimes obscure the more intimate and plural realities of its minorities. "The Long Bloom (the figure in white)" (2020), graphite on watercolour paper, courtesy of Moses Tan. Artist Kashmir AUTHOR · AUTHOR · AUTHOR 24 Oct 2025 th · FEATURES REPORTAGE · LOCATION Existing in Kashmir T he sun has disappeared behind the Pir Panjal range of the Himalayas, which encircles the Kashmir Valley. Administered under the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, the Valley is a Muslim-majority region, situated on the border with Pakistan. It has remained at the heart of a territorial conflict since 1947. At night, Suthsoo—a rural village near Srinagar, the summer state capital—is alive with men advancing along the main street, chanting slogans and religious hymns while rhythmically beating their chests. It is Eid al-Ghadir, a Shia festival commemorating Prophet Muhammad’s appointment of his son-in-law Ali as his successor in 632 AD, a moment that began the ongoing split between Sunni and Shia Muslims. The men gather in front of the mosque, raising their voices before entering; the women take a staircase to observe the celebrations from the first floor, which is reserved for them. Songs and speeches follow one another under a portrait of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Rohan, a young queer influencer, is one of the performers that evening, singing under the eyes of his family who have come to listen to him. The 29-year-old TikToker regularly visits a "cruising park" in central Srinagar to meet his partners. With its 1.7 million inhabitants, Srinagar is often seen as a more liberal space compared to the rest of the valley, offering sexual minorities a partial escape from cultural and religious pressures. "My village is very conservative," Rohan laments. "That's why I prefer the city centre." In Srinagar, Rohan enjoys the relative anonymity of urban areas. Members of the LGBTQ community interviewed by The Vertical regularly visit mosques and the sacred sites of Kashmir, such as the Hazratbal Shrine, which houses a relic of the Prophet Muhammad. "At the mosque, you pray for yourself," explains Zia*, a bisexual son of a police officer, "no one pays attention to us or judges us." Mahnoor*, 21, who identifies as a transgender woman and works part-time at a beauty salon in Srinagar, adds: "Allah gave me a body that I respect. I won't undergo gender reassignment surgery." Like her, many transgender women in Kashmir choose not to undergo surgery, partly to ensure they can have Muslim funeral rites. "Living in a region under Indian military occupation—where Kashmiri identity is constantly challenged—triggers a defensive reaction that leads sexual minorities to prioritise their Kashmiri and Muslim identities," explains Sadiya, a queer activist from New Delhi and a transgender woman. "Similarly, local politicians often subordinate all other demands to the cause of Azadi , seen as the absolute priority over social and individual issues." In this region, one of the most militarised in the world with nearly half a million Indian soldiers stationed, minority identities can sometimes be overshadowed by the independence movement, often viewed as the primary collective cause. Furthermore, Kashmiri society places great value on marriage and family formation, making the acceptance of relationships outside of marriage, whether heterosexual or homosexual, difficult. Under a chinar tree, a symbol of the region, Rohan shares: "My family is putting a lot of pressure on me to marry soon." Although the colonial-era law criminalising homosexuality was repealed in 2018, the subject remains taboo in the valley, as does transgender identity, despite the Indian Supreme Court’s official recognition of a third gender in 2014. Queer and transgender individuals are often forced to hide their sexual and gender identities from their families to protect their reputations. "In New Delhi, I wear crop tops and get compliments every day. In Srinagar, I don't dare dress as a woman or shave my beard," reveals Mahnoor*. Discrimination against sexual minorities sometimes takes tragic turns. Sadiya explains: “Sexual minorities live in constant fear in the Kashmir Valley. Some parents do not hesitate to resort to violence, even murder, when they discover that their child is queer. For lesbian women, the situation is even more distressing, as they face both homophobia and misogyny.” Faisal*, a 17-year-old gay man, was raped by two police officers in a police station in Srinagar. "Making a complaint would be pointless," he confides. Zia* speaks of the pervasive denial that exists within families: "My family does not want to acknowledge my sexuality. We never talk about it." In 2015, he received threats from masked and armed men who burst into his home. Following this incident, he decided to give up dancing, which he had pursued at a professional level. He now resides in New Delhi, where it is easier to perform his sexuality and find job opportunities, which have become even scarcer since the abrogation of the state's autonomy in 2019. Sadiya, who dreams of one day opening a queer artist residency in Srinagar, laments: "There is still much to be done regarding the rights of sexual minorities in Kashmir, where the queer community is poorly structured. Those who can leave the valley, where they suffocate." Furthermore, the revocation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, combined with the internet shutdowns and mobility restrictions that followed, has further intensified the isolation of sexual minority members, depriving them of essential means of communication and support networks. Additionally, some local activists denounce the Indian state’s "pinkwashing," accusing New Delhi of instrumentalising the rights of sexual minorities to position itself as a defender against a Muslim population perceived as homophobic. The discourse from New Delhi, highlighting the defence of LGBTQ rights in Kashmir to justify the abrogation of Article 370, has generated increasing distrust towards local LGBTQ activists, who are sometimes seen as colluding with the central government. Similarly, New Delhi seeks to exploit religious divides. LIVING AS A SHIITE IN KASHMIR At the Zadibaal Imambara, preparations for the evening majlis are in full swing. In front of the building, shop stalls overflow with various items related to Shia rituals, alongside flags bearing the image of Ibrahim Raisi, the former Iranian president who tragically died in a helicopter crash last May. Inside the Imambara, workers hang red and black banners. Women come to pray. On a patchwork of multicoloured carpets, idle workers sip their noon chai , the traditional Kashmiri tea, which is pink and salty. The papier-mâché ceiling fans, a source of pride for the faithful, help to dispel the heat. Daylight filters through the stained-glass windows made of wood. A devotee tests the microphone: "Ya Ali, ya Hussain." The Zadibal Imambara houses a relic: a hair of the third Imam, Hussain. According to legend, this hair turns red during Ashura, the day of commemoration of Imam Hussain’s martyrdom at the Battle of Karbala in 680. Located in a predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Srinagar, it has suffered no fewer than twelve arson attacks since its construction in the 16th century, reflecting the recurring outbreaks of intercommunal violence. Nevertheless, the imambara has not been set on fire since 1872 and intercommunal relations have improved. Author and art historian Hakim Sameer Hamdani attributes the easing of intercommunal tensions to two events. Firstly, a 1907 memorandum addressed to the Viceroy of India, Lord Minto, signed by leaders of both sects, presenting their traditions as part of a single integrated Muslim community. Secondly, the Ashura processions of 1923, which took place for the first time during the day, defying established routines. The Twelver Shiite minority constitutes about 10% of the population of Kashmir, which has been predominantly Sunni since its Islamisation in the 14th century. They are spread throughout the region, primarily in Srinagar, as well as in the districts of Baramulla and Budgam. This community has long remained marginalised from local political life. Kashmiri academic Dr. Siddiq Wahid, an expert in international relations and governance issues, explains that the limited involvement of Shiites in the armed movement of the 1990s, which was largely dominated by Sunni Islam, may have led to a certain mistrust towards them. Sameera, a seventy-year-old resident of the affluent Rajbagh neighbourhood, offers a nuanced perspective, recalling that many Shiites supported the independence cause by hiding militants and taking up arms. “In the valley, identities intertwine and overlap like Russian dolls,” explains Dr. Siddiq Wahid, highlighting a complexity that goes beyond apparent divides. During the recent Indian general elections, the first since the revocation of Kashmir's autonomy in 2019, one of the strategies employed by the Indian central government was to exploit divisions between Sunnis and Shiites. However, this strategy did not succeed in Kashmir, where the population remains united against New Delhi: the residents of the valley came together against the local parties allied with the BJP. Cleric Agha Rahullah, from the influential Shiite Agha clan of Budgam, even won one of the seats in Srinagar on the National Conference ticket, a historic local party that secured two of the three seats in the Kashmir district. This victory has instilled pride within the Shiite community. Enayat, a Shiite resident of Srinagar, expressed his "great pride in seeing a member of his community represent Kashmir as a whole," noting that his election would not have been possible without the support of Sunni voters. CONNECTING MINORITIES BEYOND ETHNIC OR RELIGIOUS BOUNDARIES Despite the challenges of breaking the taboo around sexual minorities and advancing their rights — issues often overshadowed by the region’s political uncertainty — some NGOs are engaging in grassroots efforts. The People's Social and Cultural Society (PSCS), active since 2008, is dedicated to the sexual health of transgender individuals and men who have sex with men (MSM). It provides HIV testing, distributes condoms, lubricants, and antibiotics free of charge. A true "safe place" in the heart of Srinagar, the PSCS premises offer a refuge where everyone is welcome. "The people who come here feel supported and find a haven here. Many things have changed in the valley. Ignorance about HIV was once widespread, but thanks to nurse training nurses and prevention campaigns, attitudes have evolved," explains Dr. Rafi Razaqi, the director of PSCS. In this building, tucked away at the end of a quiet courtyard, bonds of solidarity transcend divisions, and struggles intersect. A visibly religious man jokes with visitors and social workers at the centre. This is Mustafa*, who works in the NGO’s branch that provides support for drug users. Sadiya, who also works as a tour guide, is organising an upcoming five-day inclusive trip to Srinagar for members of the LGBTQ community from New Delhi. She intends to take the group to PSCS to help them build networks with the local LGBTQ community and to meet a Kashmiri Hijra guru, who will share personal experience from the 1990s insurgency. “This programme aims to raise awareness about the realities faced by sexual minorities in Kashmir while showcasing the rich Islamic heritage of Srinagar, including its Shiite legacy, and fostering connections across ethnic and religious boundaries,” she explains. “The goal is to challenge the Kashmiriphobia and Islamophobia that persist among some queer activists in India,” she adds, referring to the controversy during Mumbai Pride 2020, where certain members of the organising committee distanced themselves from slogans supporting Kashmiri independence. She concludes: “this trip offers a unique opportunity to engage directly with Kashmiris. After all, isn’t it the essence of humanity to seek understanding of what is unfamiliar?”∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. MOSES TAN is an artist and curator from Singapore who is interested in the intersections of queer theory, the decolonial turn, autotheory, and politics. They are currently a candidate at the MFA Fine Arts program at Goldsmiths University of London. Photo Essay Kashmir Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

“I think of works like Shona N. Jackson's Creole Indigeneity, and fleshing out the narrative of brown movement. And, importantly, doing it in a way that decenters the United States, because, with indentureship we're talking about the movement from South Asia largely to the Caribbean.” | Interview · COMMUNITY Interview · Romanticism Romantic Literature and Colonialism “I think of works like Shona N. Jackson's Creole Indigeneity, and fleshing out the narrative of brown movement. And, importantly, doing it in a way that decenters the United States, because, with indentureship we're talking about the movement from South Asia largely to the Caribbean.” Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. I couldn't imagine devoting any more time to Keats and Wordsworth and Shelley and Byron. So I turned to Brown Romantics where I looked at how Romantic ideas, philosophies, politics, and techniques were mobilized ends towards nationalist ends by 19th century writers in India, Australia and British Guyana. RECOMMENDED: Brown Romantics: Poetry and Nationalism in the Global Nineteenth Century (Bucknell University Press, 2017), by Manu Samriti Chander. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Interview Romanticism English Postcolonialism Gayatri Spivak Postcolonial Poetry Romantic Literature & the Colonized World Colonialism Race Post-George Floyd Moment Black Solidarities Indigeneity Creole Indigenous Space Vijay Prashad Ruhel Islam Hufsa Islam Browntology Brown Left Kinship The Undercommons Diaspora Guyana Australia Subaltern Studies Intellectual History Internationalist Perspective Indigeneous Spaces Egbert Martin Henry Derozio Immigration Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 13th Nov 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

In 2020, New Delhi’s National Museum Institute was relocated to NOIDA’s industrial outskirts and renamed the Indian Institute of Heritage. Once ideal for the study of history amidst the city’s rich heritage, this institutional shift reflects a larger trend since the rise of the Modi government in 2014, where historical studies have been politicised, censored, and shaped by majoritarian ideologies. As textbooks are altered and dissent silenced, the institute’s move from heritage-rich Delhi to a modern, industrial zone exemplifies how urban development and academia are increasingly intertwined with political agendas, raising questions about the future of historical study. · FEATURES Essay · Delhi In 2020, New Delhi’s National Museum Institute was relocated to NOIDA’s industrial outskirts and renamed the Indian Institute of Heritage. Once ideal for the study of history amidst the city’s rich heritage, this institutional shift reflects a larger trend since the rise of the Modi government in 2014, where historical studies have been politicised, censored, and shaped by majoritarian ideologies. As textbooks are altered and dissent silenced, the institute’s move from heritage-rich Delhi to a modern, industrial zone exemplifies how urban development and academia are increasingly intertwined with political agendas, raising questions about the future of historical study. Prithi Khalique, Corroded Chromas (2025). 3d rendering and collage, 720 x 1080px. The Changing Landscape of Heritage I’m on the outskirts of NOIDA, a planned city in New Delhi’s National Capital Region, and I’m lost. The uncharacteristically bright April sun is beating down on me, Google maps keeps rerouting, and it looks like I chose the wrong day to wear heels. Around me are wide, solitary roads, farmland, roaming cattle, and jarring glass office buildings that appear out of place in this landscape. After half an hour's worth of directions from the Noida Electronic City metro station , I finally reach the Indian Institute of Heritage. A majestic stone structure, this arts building is a welcome sight in the midst of engineering colleges, multinational corporations’ headquarters, and bank offices. The institute’s relocation is proof that New Delhi’s culture has trickled outwards to NOIDA. Proof that even as new urban spaces are produced, they will eventually house at least one arts campus. The journey all the way from New Delhi, however, has been a slog. Till a few years ago, the campus was more centrally located in Janpath, a neighbourhood in Lutyens’ Delhi, making it much more accessible for city folk. Named after British architect Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944), this geographical area boasts a concentration of India’s political elite: it comprises the 1927 Rashtrapati Bhawan, government offices, dignitaries’ residences, and even India’s National Museum. Outside the museum’s gates lie the National Archives, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, and the old & new Parliament Houses—to name a few. Altogether, these institutions are arguably the most venerated cultural institutions in the country and have greatly influenced the study and practice of Indian history. Until 2021, the Indian Institute of Heritage (IIH) was housed right inside the National Museum . Originally called the National Museum Institute, it was an ideal place for the study of history because of its location in the heart of the historically significant capital; it cultivated rich, lifelong careers in history since its inception in 1989 . An entire ecosystem of archival studies was nurtured because of its accessible address. Theorists could connect with real life historians and conservation students learnt from the museum’s technical staff. Students were by default the first visitors to museum exhibitions: they had to walk through its galleries every day to get to class. This daily interaction with objects of historical import made their educational experience unique and holistic, enhancing the quality of the technical courses taught there. All of this changed in 2021, when the institute was separated from the National Museum and moved to Sector 62, NOIDA. Earlier, the students at the IIH lived in Delhi, an ancient, storied city whose earliest recorded histories date back to the 8th century AD. In comparison, NOIDA is practically infantile. Short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority , the city came into administrative existence on 17 April 1976 in the National Capital Region (NCR) . This took place during Indira Gandhi’s Emergency term—a state of governance that authorised the prime minister to rule by decree. During this twenty-one-month period, all civil liberties were halted, elections were paused, Gandhi’s opponents were imprisoned, and the press was censored. In the midst of this political turmoil and inter-communal tension, NOIDA was established in the mythologically-rich region of Braj in Uttar Pradesh. Built primarily for industrial growth, infrastructural development in NOIDA began in 1976, while citizens in the rest of the country were victim to mass-sterilisation, censorship, judicial control, and deteriorating constitutional rights. Over the next fifty years, the city kept growing. Today, it houses frontrunners in tech, pharma, finance, and, most recently, full-fledged universities. Studying history is often an afterthought to the people developing modern Indian urban landscapes. NOIDA is no exception. Cities are first built on capital and industry, followed by hospitals and residences, schools and banks, and then gradually, they house libraries, archives, and museums. While NOIDA is a new city and home to many polluting industries, it also has a budding arts education ecosystem with colleges like Shiv Nadar University , Galgotias University , and Gautam Buddha University . The brand-new Indian Institute of Heritage is an addition to NOIDA’s growing miscellany of urban institutions, many of which are an afterthought in this primarily industrial land. As I walk through the expansive lands of NOIDA, I am forced to question why the National Museum Institute was moved out here? Does “place” matter for the study of history? National Museum in Janpath (2024). Image courtesy of the author. Relocation & Rebranding Today, the National Museum Institute has officially become the Indian Institute of Heritage. Sudeshna Guha , Faculty at Shiv Nadar University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences, spoke to me about the relocation of the campus, and the role of the politics of space and place in India’s long relationship with its National Museum. She posited that while the initial move, with its merging of the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Museum of India, was about space, the two institutions’ combined clout has now allowed the government to peddle a very specific version of Indian history. “Politics comes in when the ASI and NMI join hands, and decide to teach the kind of Indian history they do. Earlier, the Institute of Archaeology would regularly get professors from Deccan College, Pune, and MSU , Baroda, to teach specialised courses in archaeology which the latter has developed. But now the focus is on heritage studies, and they are establishing through the courses Hindutva histories—the innately Hindu heritage of pre-colonial India.” For decades, the National Museum Institute was connected to New Delhi’s progressive academic ecosystem, its student resistance movements, and the city’s active participation in national social issues. Moving NMI to Delhi’s outskirts happened at the same time as the renaming, as well as the altering of the types of history taught there. Creating a new university outside of New Delhi’s congestion may have been an inevitable symptom of urban development. It's hard to ignore, however, the ways the IIH’s relocation has created hindrances in students' access to educational resources. While students still venture beyond the campus on field trips and guest lecturers are invited to the new campus, the question remains: what happens to the study of the old when it’s forced into a place so sterile, so clinically new? Relocation is not the only change that has taken place since 2021. Rebranding is an extensive process, and the National Museum Institute has been rechristened as the nebulous “Indian Institute of Heritage.” As Dr Guha pointed out: “What they teach are technical courses. But what the heck will a heritage school do? Heritage doesn’t exist out there; it’s something that is created.” Wouldn’t it be better, she asked, if the institution could reflect on the practice of heritage-making? “The National Museum has shut its doors to researchers and the [IIH] students are not taught the importance of both historiography and materiality, which inform the many histories of a particular phenomenon, and of the many histories of a collection and an object. So how can they advance knowledge about the collections of the Museum or enhance collections management protocols? Besides, the curatorial lapses in the Museum are glaring to the visitors. Look at the displays. The object labels show the lack of research catalogues and databases.” Guha’s questions are fundamental; after all, if a technical school does not question historicity, then it will have detrimental effects on maintaining collections, databases, research catalogues, and deciding displays. Contentment and Complacency in the National Museum’s Institutions Seeking answers to the changes that the school has undergone, I met with administrative and faculty members of the National Museum & Indian Institute of Heritage. BR Mani, the Museum’s director general and vice chancellor of the Indian Institute of Heritage, welcomed me to an online and in-person interview. He spoke with me at length about the campus relocation, saying, “Anyone would admire the new campus as it provides better infrastructure and study facilities.” IIH is now giving out diplomas through the Institute of Archaeology and Bhopal’s Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya museum. Apart from this, the university has also co-opted programs with the IGNCA and National Archives, among others, and is planning to connect the academic wings of various institutions to the IIH. Development is what the museum’s admin wants to focus on, and not the imminent possibility of demolition. When asked about the National Museum’s rumoured demolition , BR Mani spoke about the upcoming Yug Yugeen Bharat Museum . “The Yug Yugeen Bharat museum is bound to be the biggest one in Asia yet, ” he said. “With 950 rooms, all of the best artefacts from this building will be shifted there. There is work undertaken to build a North Block and South Block for the National Museum, and this present building might continue to remain if not demolished.” With all of these positive changes, I asked him why the institution needed rebranding. “IIH is one overarching umbrella. Courses should be regulated by one authority. It is possible that in the future, with some act of parliament, it could be a full-fledged university. Professionally, I feel happy in finding better space and infrastructure at NOIDA, which was not there in the National Museum.” Manvi Seth echoed a similar sentiment during my interview with her. Dr Seth has been affiliated with the institute, as both a student and a faculty member, since 1997. She is currently the head of the Department of Museology at the Indian Institute of Heritage. When I asked her why the word “heritage” was chosen to represent the institution, she said “...it is all encompassing. For instance, when you say culture, you mean only natural heritage. Heritage is the only all-encompassing word.” Being “all-encompassing” also gives the IIH power over an “all-encompassing” national history. When I visited the Noida campus, I met with some numismatics & conservation students. One art history student candidly told me, “Noida is disgusting, and there are only some other institutes and office buildings around. It’s completely deserted. There’s no reason to leave the campus because, well, there’s nothing here. Also, the National Museum library is better than the one here, but we have to travel one and a half hours just to borrow a book.” Other students focus on the positives: larger conservation labs, exciting heritage field trips, and the school’s reputed name. Some even go as far as likening the IIH to the IITs and IIMs of India. One student told me, “We talk about how the Indian Institute of Heritage will keep growing, and hopefully become like the IITs and IIMs of India.” The Indian Institutes of Technology and Indian Institutes of Management are galaxies of their own, orbiting modern India’s dreams of national progress and development. Highly coveted by most of India’s population, these competitive technical schools have campuses all over the country, offering students an incomparable asset: respect. Attempting to create a similar ethos for the IIH, however, is jarring. It seems as though students and administration alike are prioritising optics first and education second. Perhaps that is why questioning historicity becomes secondary to being part of a consolidated, proud, national endeavour. The latter is a pressing priority and very often controls the kind of history we study and the narratives we wish to follow. This student’s ambitious hope mirrored Dr BR Mani’s response to my question regarding the institute’s relocation, “There were positives and negatives to the situation as the Institute was not getting expanded and remained in a confined location” they said. “Now, it has its own infrastructure and entity to expand and coordinate with other departments of the Ministry of Culture.” It’s ironic that connection and expansion is reliant on a place surrounded by barren land, bank headquarters, and only one metro station in sight. All other departments of the Ministry of Culture are still in Lutyens Delhi. Controversies around History, Culture, Heritage, and Urban Development Lutyens Delhi, where the National Museum resides, is where the heart of India’s cultural pulse thrives. Studying there is ideal for students of art, history, heritage, and culture—unlike the corporate glass and concrete buildings that are peppered around NOIDA. One alum of the erstwhile NMI, art historian and scholar Gaurav Kumar told me, “The location of the National Museum Institute within the National Museum itself and amidst the vibrant art scene of Janpath was highly impactful during my time as a student. As an art student, it provided easy access to numerous important institutions such as the Triveni Kala Sangam cultural centre , AIFACS Gallery ( All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society ), National Gallery of Modern Art , and more, enriching my learning experience through exposure to diverse artistic expressions.” He went on, “Additionally, being near cultural landmarks, like the 100-year old India Gate, 16th century Purana Qila, and Lodhi Gardens, further enhanced the immersive environment for exploration and study.” Analysing the Indian Institute of Heritage’s displacement and development is an indication of how selective a national history can be. It’s important to recognise that this has occurred against the larger, terrifying backdrop of Hindutva nationalism —a political ideology that prides in Hindu histories while erasing other religious narratives. Union Culture Minister G Kishan Reddy wrote in parliament that “the [IIH] will be a “world-class university” that will focus on the conservation and research in India's rich tangible heritage, while offering research, development and dissemination of knowledge, excellence in the education of its students and activities associated with heritage that contribute to the cultural, scientific, and economic life of India.” But what about our shameful past and present, and all that is not tangible and glorious? According to historian Dipesh Chakrabarty, “heritage means acknowledging both our ‘successes’ and our ‘failures.’” This acknowledgement is lacking in Minister Reddy’s statement. Any acknowledgement of “failures” in our history is being shunned, as the Indian government increases their monopoly over historical records. In 2015, the Murty Classical Library, which features English translations of some of the greatest works of Indian literature, was the victim of Hindutva censorship . American scholar Sheldon Pollock was forcefully ousted from the MCL after he signed two statements condemning government action against Delhi University’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, and senior editorial members were dismissed as well. Elsewhere in the country, Amritsar’s Jallianwalla Bagh was entirely remodelled . In 1919, British General Dwyer mercilessly massacred 1,000 Indians there, and since then, it has stood as a symbol of India’s independence struggle. Recently, however, the government covered up century-old bullet holes and injected the site with cosmetic changes, turning it into a tasteless exhibition of honour. Its walls have been replaced with scriptures and the “martyr’s well” has been enclosed with a glass shield. What was once a chilling experience of walking through those narrow, bullet-ridden corridors, has now been replaced with an amusement park-like journey that tells you a history instead of allowing you to experience it for yourself. Back in New Delhi, it seems like the BJP-run government is rushing to rewrite India’s story with the Central Vista redevelopment project . Launched in 2019, the project is well underway. The government is revamping the Central Vista, India's central administrative area located near Raisina Hill, New Delhi. Their reason is “ to house all facilities needed for efficient functioning of the Government ”. This project involves hollowing out or demolishing the current National Museum and moving its collections to the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s North and South Blocks. The upcoming Yug Yugeen Bharat will be the “largest museum in Asia,” as Prime Minister Modi declared during the G20 event in New Delhi. Astha Rajvanshi wrote for TIME Magazine about the new parliament, “the whole project—which began in the middle of a brutal second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021—has been met with widespread criticism for its cost, environmental damage, and disregard for heritage buildings.” Prem Chandavarkar addressed the effects of these changes for The Wire , “The redevelopment removes public institutions that sustain culture and heritage from the Central Vista, replacing them with government offices and facilities… Many citizens have expressed anguish over how the spatial heart of our democracy is being transformed from a public landscape energised by cultural institutions to become a space dominated by the visual spectacle of governmental bureaucracy.” Even the National Archives was to be demolished until a furore erupted against breaking down Grade-I heritage structures. Now the plan has been modified to break down only the annexe, with no clear reason as to why. Chandavarkar explained concerns regarding having the old parliament’s North and South Blocks co-opt the current National Museum. First, official records state that these plots of land are still termed as “Government Use”, while they need to be deemed as “Public/Semi-Public”—the basic requirement for a citizen’s museum. Second, no feasibility study was conducted to figure out whether the two blocks are workable sites for a national museum. Third, this location’s proximity to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Vice-President’s Residence implies that security audits are needed, especially if it will be open to the public. No such study has surfaced to date. Rashtrapati Bhavan’s North & South Blocks. Source: A Pravin, Wikimedia Commons. The IIH has been displaced to the city's outskirts, away from the country's social and political milieu, amidst a time of unprecedented censorship and a wilful subversion of history and heritage. While the Indian Institute of Heritage’s faculty members assured me that they have never faced pressure from the Ministry of Culture or any member of parliament to teach a particular history, throughout the country, history is being weaponised to bring another term of Hindutva regime to power. How can a historical institution not address this development? Given the current cultural milieu, any museum that does not explicitly reject the ongoing oppression of minorities, is implicitly adding to it. The Trickle Down Effect Inside the National Museum, displays of ancient sculptures are poorly exhibited, insufficiently labelled, and even found in the building’s basement and parking lot areas—unlikely spaces of conservation. While the National Museum suffers, Modi’s Hindutva-led government has promised to create an “ international museum ” at the newly consecrated Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. This will include “new-age technology like kinetic art, holograms, animatronics, and augmented artificial reality to provide a live experience of the Ramayana and the Ram Temple movement,” Sreeparna Chakrabarty told The Hindu . The Ram Mandir Museum project reinforces the right-wing, Hindutva narrative that we all come from one singular religion and history. Built on the desecrated Babri Masjid, the Ram Mandir site has been long contested between Hindus and Muslims . Faded labelling in the National Museum (2024). Image courtesy of the author. Other historical suppressions have been witnessed around the country as well. When an ancient civilisation (dating back to the 6th century BCE) called Keezhadi was discovered in Tamil Nadu, it was covered widely in the press. Ten years on, news of that archaeological site is missing from mainstream media. Sowmiya Ashok believes this to be a consequence of the fact that the Keezhadi discovery disproves the right-wing, nationalist notion that Vedic culture is fundamental to the origins of Indian civilisation. Keezhadi’s excavations point to early signs of language and the possibility of a Dravidian origin story for Indians. Ashok notes that “in popular media, the findings are likely to be reduced to the question of whether the Keeladi people were more like Aryans, the protagonists of Vedic civilisation, or Dravidians, the forebears of Tamil culture.” Last year, news broke that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks have now erased all traces of Mughal history in India. Even though Mughal histories are now obliterated, subaltern and Dalit histories have never even been part of the discourse. Vidhi Doshi explains how Indian Dalits are sidelined from academia, and have resorted to archiving their own community’s history, “[Vijay Surwade’s] collection includes everything from documents and photos to Ambedkar's broken spectacles and dentures, all housed in shoe boxes and concertina files in Surwade's apartment in the western city of Kalyan, about 45 km northeast of Mumbai. It is among a number of informal archives collected by ordinary Dalit people who say their stories otherwise risk being lost, undermining their cultures and the fight against caste-based discrimination.” Grand buildings and palaces are being turned into proud markers of our heritage; light and sound shows will create carnivals out of them. There are other ways, however, in which we honour our living history. A derivative of heritage is inheritance—passed down generation after generation. Preserving History, Defining Heritage I think about the histories I have inherited on my walk back to the metro station from the IIH Noida campus at 2 pm. I cannot wait to curl up in an air-conditioned train back to New Delhi and stroll around Janpath. My patience is rewarded. In Lutyens Delhi, I am surrounded by overwhelming history—stone structures, Mughal architecture, multiple languages, with gardens everywhere. Inside the National Museum, an open verandah and cafe become a picnic spot for families, couples, and even stray dogs. Today is Eid, and people have come in their best attire, sharing meals and spending the day together. We bask in this glorious heritage until the time we will all return to our decidedly less glorious lives once these gates close. If heritage comprises parts of the past that continue to live on to this day, then my heritage is everything that I experience once I am outside these institutions. The miserable heat, the stares from men, the station-side chole bhature , the broken, Brahmin Tamil I speak with my family, and the accented Hindi I employ in North India. All that seems intangible yet integrated into everyday life: food, language, patriarchy, and casteism. It is a messy, flawed heritage, one that stands proof of violence and oppression. It is also the heritage that we do not see inside these institutions. It is not covered at the Indian Institute of Heritage. As I step into the older, less affluent neighbourhoods of Chandni Chowk and Nizamuddin Dargah, I see people in ancient, crumbling buildings, eating and working and praying in structures that are on the verge of collapse. My immediate thought is an urban, privileged one: why can’t these buildings be cosmetically preserved? Of course, the fear of turning into what Jallianwalla Bagh’s remodelling became—a tasteless performance of honour more concerned with vanity than the Indian freedom struggle—is always lurking at the horizon of heritage conservation projects. But these buildings do not carry the traumatic weight that Jalliwanwalla Bagh does; they could be architectural representations of our everyday heritage. Dr Mrinalini Saha reminds me, however, that “one person’s heritage is another person’s livelihood. Delhi is littered with ancient monuments. Preserving them, sprucing them up is one thing, but it also means dislocating the people who live there.” Tangible history is complicated, maybe just existing amidst ruins is a sufficient act of conservation. I meander between New Delhi’s Outer Ring Road and Inner Ring Road in a crackling autorickshaw, passing through parts of the Red Fort that was built by Shah Jahan in 1639. Living heritage. When I met Dr Manvi Seth, she gave me a handful of books and pamphlets published by the Indian Institute of Heritage. A teacher’s handbook to History, Museum Goes to Hospital , Gandhi Hai Sabke Liye ( Gandhi is for Everyone ), Museum Safari for Lucknow’s State Museum etc. The institution’s efforts to spread historical awareness are impressive, yet, I cannot help but see this for the sanitised narrative that it is. Where are the Dalit histories, the tribal histories, the feminist histories? And what about the academic strain that argues that Gandhi is in fact not for everybody? Books and pamphlets published by the Indian Institute of Heritage (2024). Image courtesy of the author. In Old Delhi, I travel past dug-up roads and sewage, a reminder of how caste is ubiquitous even in big cities. Most manual scavengers and construction workers come from disenfranchised castes and communities and make up a major part of India’s migrant workers. Later in the evening, I go through Vasant Vihar in South Delhi which houses the infamous “Coolie Camp” slum, which was hidden behind giant green curtains while India hosted the G20 . Is this failure of our nation-state not part of our heritage? Dr Chakrabarty said it perfectly, “It is when you feel insecure about your past that you produce a one-sided version of it. To present the past as a site of disputation takes a greater sense of security about one’s own collective sense of self. But if you think this representation will threaten the sovereignty of the nation, then representing the past becomes a matter of either/or choices. It’s either Shivaji or Aurangzeb, Ram Mandir or Babri Masjid.”∎ SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Essay Delhi India Heritage Culture History Disappearance Nationalism Hindu Extremism Displacement Education Erasure Infrastructure Isolation Edwin Lutyens State Government Narrative National Archives Museum India National Museum Institutional Forgetfulness Indian Institute of Heritage National Museum Institute Archive Archival Studies NOIDA Ancient History Mughal Dalit Tamil Dravidian Indira Gandhi Uttar Pradesh Interethnic Conflict Internally Displaced Persons Intercommunal tension Industrial Deterioration Censorship Constitution Urban Development Urbanization Development Shiv Nadar University Galgotias University Gautam Buddha University Relocation Rebranding Branding Sudeshna Guha Archaeological Survey of India Archaeology Hindutva Pre-colonial Resistance Movement Visitor Researcher Idolatry 11th century BR Mani Demolition temple demolition Asia South Asia Manvi Seth Department of Museology Numismatics Conservation Preservation Gaurav Kumar Art Historian Art History Janpath AIFACS Gallery India Gate 16th Century Lodhi Gardens Union Culture G Kishan Reddy Parliament Murty Classical Library Sheldon Pollock Jawaharlal Nehru University Amritsar Jallianwalla Bagh General Dwyer 20th Century Massacre Independence Martyr Martyrdom Central Vista Raisina Hall Rashtrapati Bhavan North and South Yug Yugeen Bharat G20 Astha Rajvanshi TIME Magazine COVID-19 Pandemic environmental hazard Prem Chandavarkar The Wire Democracy Bureaucracy Government Use Public Space Outskirts Ram Temple Ram Mandir Museum Sreeparna Chakrabarty The Hindu Babri Masjid 6th Century BCE Keezhadi Tamil Nadu Sowmiya Ashok Right Wing Vedic Aryans Vidhi Doshi Vijay Surwade Kalyan Mumbai Anti-Caste Caste-based inheritance Chandni Chowk Nizamuddin Dargah Mrinalini Saha Outer Ring Road Inner Ring Road Red Fort Shah Jahan 17th Century Disenfranchisement Migrant Laborers Vasant Vihar Coolie Camp Sovereignty Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 13th Feb 2025 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

"Go back to sleep Ms. Chowdhury, the American situation is strange" | · FICTION & POETRY Poetry · Dallas Alien of Extraordinary Ability "Go back to sleep Ms. Chowdhury, the American situation is strange" "Error" by Saniya Kamal, for SAAG. Mixed media, 2020. Editors' note: The following is an excerpt from a longer work-in-progress called “A lien of Extraordinary Ability. ” The artworks at the beginning and end of the poem are a result of a collaboration between the author and the artist. Alien of extraordinary ability is an alien classification by United States Citizenship and ______________ Services. The United States may grant a priority visa to an alien who is able to demonstrate “ extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics” or through some other extraordinary career achievements. The ________________ version of the classification (EB-1A), which grants permanent residency, additionally requires the alien to demonstrate "sustained national or international acclaim”, “achievements recognized by others in the field of expertise,” and "a level of expertise indicating that the individual is one of that small percentage who have risen to the very top of the field of endeavor.” When one knows thee, then alien there is none, then no door is shut. —Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali “Why do you want this visa?” a home. is it here? is it here? is it here? “Why in this country?” everyone likes sweet stuff sometimes. “What are your plans?” To build a spaceship out of the years named Solace. so it is to be born a particular particle to no particular address on no particular day of a less-than particular week. so it is to be star-seer, sin-shelter, flower named nayantara, a rearview. so it is that the name∞ You were given is not the same. nonetheless You are chosen. so it is to sense in an other an otherworldly sweetness. Have we met? You ask. No— for I am talking to myself. Before You, Idea. so it is to walk towards a frame hoping for image vs error . . . for don’t You want to see Your own particles pictured in the museum mirrors? No? Ok. then forget continuum. be disruption ∞ go back to sleep Ms. Chowdhury, the American situation is strange but we have not met yet. this is a museum. i am making a list∞ Personal ornaments Collared disks Scepters & early imagery Neolithic axes of the _______________ culture Blades Dagger-axes arrowheads & knives Serrated disks Ceremonial blades Serrated and ________________ axes Handles Animal heads and masks Dragons Fish Birds Naturalistic animals Insects Surface decoration Dish with coiled bird & dragon interlacery Plaque Shroud∞ ∞this is a list to keep thoughts of you at bay ∞so it is to imagine your death. to hold a conversation with your absence: so good, this gallery, You say— yes, it is quite the door to a thousand years ago! cries the Past. sshhh, begs the Future. let’s watch the wall open . . . see, we’ll have time for the fields! see, we’ll consult the sun re the moon! see, now we’ll “see” other families. our own. is this a museum or a border? where there is a border, does there need to be patrol? “no touching the heart! i mean art!” security cries. okay, i say, okay. and part the regions of my torso that is how i learn the guard is blind to my mockingbird inside. “now walk towards flowering cherry and autumn maples,” Mockingbird commands. “do it. alone” ∞idea-You disappears. I leave the museum or linger. i become or engage in: an etching window shopping allusions to the sea light palette ewer & basin I once was and will never again be: virgin & child the rape of ____________ by _____________ Are you also trying to understand what it is to be: a master “Alien (Reflection)” by Saniya Kamal for SAAG. Mixed media, 2020. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Poetry Dallas Bangladesh Diaspora Immigration Cultural Narratives of Immigration Borders Visa Alien of Extraordinary Ability Alienation Work Authorization Poetic Form Particularity Temporality Ornamentation North American Diaspora Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 13th Oct 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

Largely unrecognized in his lifetime, Indian filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak created a devotional body of work that confronts alienation and Partition, while attending to humanity’s final asylum in the embrace of lifeforms between garden and forest. As his feminist protagonists withdraw, growing increasingly reclusive and almost arboreal amid narratives of class and betrayal, Sumana Roy reflects on Ghatak’s decisive critical creative and technical choices as embodiments of his ethos. BOOKS & ARTS Ritwik's Trees Sumana Roy Largely unrecognized in his lifetime, Indian filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak created a devotional body of work that confronts alienation and Partition, while attending to humanity’s final asylum in the embrace of lifeforms between garden and forest. As his feminist protagonists withdraw, growing increasingly reclusive and almost arboreal amid narratives of class and betrayal, Sumana Roy reflects on Ghatak’s decisive critical creative and technical choices as embodiments of his ethos. I always put it down to coincidence, the easiest way to explain things. Ritwik Ghatak and I were born on the same day, though half a century apart, and plant life would come to frame the way we both experience the world. I am fifty years old now, exactly the age Ritwik died at. Writing this essay with that awareness—strange as it is confusing—takes my thoughts in directions they might not have otherwise. There’s a tree in Sahaj Path , the first tree I ever saw. That can’t be true, of course, because I would have been about three then, in my first year at school. It is in the generic nature of trees to not be remembered, but this is slightly different. It’s not a blob of green that I remember as a tree; it’s black, black as soot, like burnt tree trunks. The tree, though, is not burnt—it is alive; a human sits inside it, as dark as the tree and its foliage, as dark as its shade. Sounds a bit childish, I know, but no other living form had enchanted me like this. I say ‘living’ with caution and affection, for I would discover a living likeness of the soot-black tree soon. On a bus from Siliguri’s Court More to Bagdogra, where my father’s sister lived—a journey we made no more than twice a year, in spite of the short distance, for the lack of availability of transport and time—I would see it. The bus was moving slowly, its speed curtailed by the rush of workers emerging from the Chandmoni Tea Estate. There it was, outside the window to our left—it hadn’t moved since the last time I’d seen it. A tree exactly like Nandalal Bose’s. Ritwik would have seen that tree in Sahaj Path . It is with such a tree that Meghe Dhaka Tara begins, its branches spread wide, without shyness or self-consciousness, as if to expose its leaves to all the light it could get. It is to the right of the screen, Nita walks out of its shadow. I could also rephrase this: the tree releases Nita into the world after protecting it from the glare of the world, perhaps of life. It is tempting to see the tree as analogous to the protective womb, after which the human is left on its own. For the first forty seconds of the film, the camera looks at things that don’t move—the trees. The camera shows no interest in looking for a human, such is its initial indifference to the centrality of the human figure in art. A woman in white emerges out of the shade and shadow of the trees, a black-and-white contrast emphasised in a black-and-white film; so similar to Nandalal’s linocut. The canvas begins to move. A train passes by. A man is singing, aa aa aa aa . His back is to the audience. The camera isn’t interested in his face. It takes in the vegetation by the riverbank. Sharp, tall grass pierces the top half of the frame; it pokes the sky. From looking for punctures in the sky, we are dragged downwards to the earth, to a torn slipper on a human foot. The camera has become plant-like—it is moving like trees do, in the north–south axis; like plants, it has become indifferent to the human face. After the restoration of attention to human affairs, to the crises of poverty, particularly new poverty (surely there must be a term equivalent to nouveau riche for those suddenly rendered poor by catastrophic circumstances), the camera seems to long for a sighting of the plant world again. Only four minutes have passed. It’s enough to give us a sense of the family whose life we will be following; it’s also enough to tell us that human lives will be complemented and annotated by the histories of their changing neighbours, plant life. ‘Nabin Sangha’ enters the frame. Humans, tall and small, chew the foreground, but it’s only as much real estate as the mouth occupies on the face. Behind them is the sky, made jagged by the uneven height of trees. It is not just an assemblage of different species of trees that we see, but a more urgent history of settlement, of planting. Pollinators, mostly two-footed ones like those in the foreground, are responsible for their settlement on this land. Ritwik is giving us a history of dislocation, of people as much as of plants. The name of the neighbourhood club, common in Bengal and other spaces that came to accommodate Bengalis evicted by the forces of history, is telling—the plants are as ‘nabin’, new, as the humans here; they might soon be propagated to other places, near and far. In Ritwik’s films, we see a new kind of horticultural unit, one that emerged so naturally that it hasn’t been recorded in our architectural or ecological history. Neither garden nor forest, it is as domesticated as it is wild. In Rabindranath Tagore, for instance, we find both an admiration for the beauty of the garden and an instinctive rejection of it as a unit foreign to landscapes and geographical formations such as ours. In practice, both he and his son Rathindranath—who would adopt favourite characteristics of Japanese, Italian, French and Mughal gardens into Santiniketan’s Uttarayan, the cluster of four houses that Rabindranath would design and live in—were internationalists, welcoming of travelling flora from other continents. As a concept, though, Rabindranath seemed to be suspicious of the garden, the way the unit had come to be imported from outside the Indian subcontinent, particularly Europe. The controlling impulse necessary to design and execute gardens would have challenged his ethics and aesthetics. They would have been too neat, too premeditated. ‘Bon’ over ‘bagan’ for him, the forest over the garden, though he would have been thinking of the jungle more than the forest, a space then still outside human intentionality. Satyajit Ray, in his foreword to Ritwik’s book Cinema and I , writes about the latter’s lifelong preoccupation with the Partition, how it shaped his films, gave them their subject and energy. What hasn’t been noticed is how the post-Partition Bengali family is seen through the concomitant new ordering of plant life. Land had been divided; how could the creatures of land, humans and plants, live in older units anymore? ‘Unit’, after all, is the root word for ‘unity’, and, with that gone, how were we to find plants except in fragmented and foraged units? This is what Ritwik—like John Clare, who was disoriented by the Enclosure Act of 1809, the privatisation and fencing of shared land—records in these scenes: broken sentences, broken song, broken land, its broken vegetation. Orchards, forests, gardens, fields, they are units of unbrokenness, a way of looking at the world where looking becomes equivalent to owning. The ambition of the zamindar was to own as far as his eyes could see. The philosophical idea of the plantation must owe to this, the idea of unbroken rows of the same plant, as well as the ownership that comes from this manner of control and ordering. The people in Ritwik’s films do not have the luxury of such a ‘vision’; time limits their lives as much as space does. They live from day to day, and, in Meghe Dhaka Tara , from month to month, salary day to salary day. In this, they are like trees, they who live outside capitalism, outside mortgages and pensions and EMIs. In these films is the ‘bagan’, garden. But the architecture of Ritwik’s gardens is arbitrary, its scope and ambition limited by space and poverty. What can the gardens of a homeless people look like? Indifferent to expectations of geometry and species that had given form and beauty to gardens in Japan and Italy, for instance, these borrowed spaces became an archive of their ad hoc living. Grammatical gardens are a record of ambition and purpose, the gardens in Ritwik’s films are a record of foraging and found plants, found and functional art. The trees are not here to add beauty, just as human faces and bodies do not exist to draw attention to the beauty of their anatomical form. They are just there—like the sky is, or like shadows are, because they are. Our eyes meet them like they do relatives of our own species, without formality or introductions. Yes, they are relatives, for they live alongside humans in residential spaces, by the well and by a stream, bringing shade to a tin-roofed house, fruit to a half-starved family, outliving the human who brought them here. My heart bustles in recognition when I see them, for I grew up in such a neighbourhood myself. In Siliguri’s Ashrampara, my neighbours, families whose memories and eating and living habits were formed by the agricultural produce and rivers of Bangladesh before they, like seeds, were flung into spaces unfamiliar to their ancestors, created such gardens. Chilli plants by a streetside water drain, pumpkin and bottle gourd vines climbing on to tin roofs of kachcha toilets, unseasonal marigold flowers from a leftover garland used to worship a goddess, fresh coriander from seeds scattered near the well, where they grew beside ghritakumari, and there, often, a banana plant offering fruit, flower or stem, and always, always, an assembly of kochu leaves, waiting to be devoured. Roses became fences, valued more for their thorns than their flowers, to keep strangers away more than to attract; the tulsi that would, every Saturday, bring together a congregation hungry for the airy sweetness of batasha, thrown up into the air, Hari-r loot, then gathered from the earth and put urgently inside mouths; shandhya malati and nayantara, that flowered better when neglected; and greens, so many kinds of shak that it seemed the Bengali had evolved from the cow. Every morning, flower thieves, with a lanky bamboo pole in their hands, collecting flowers for their gods, never missing an opportunity to break a branch from a tree to plant in their garden—finding and foraging, planting and pollinating. From the ‘sangha’ to ‘sansar’, the club to the room, Ritwik makes this migration through song: ‘ Ghorete bhromor elo gunguniye ’. The bee’s come singing into the room. Where there is bee, there must be flower? What we have instead of the glamour of flowers—and I’m struggling to remember whether the camera ever pays attention to flowers at all—is bamboo. The strips of bamboo and the stripes of the saree that the women wear mirror each other all through his films until he’s established, almost naturally, that the refugees of his world are like bamboo: this is their habitat, they will stick to each other to form clusters, they will be chopped off from time to time, used, repurposed, taken away from their family, but the roots will allow growth again, life and height, length and the seeking of light, until they are dismembered again. The stripes in the women’s sarees run parallel to each other, like the strips of bamboo in the walls of the room do—the ends of both, saree and fence, have to be cut abruptly. Sometimes they continue on to men’s bodies, to the stripes of their lungi. Perhaps no other filmmaker has documented the culture of everyday bamboo design in eastern India with such an artist’s homely attention as Ritwik. These moments of distraction from the thoroughfare of human traffic are almost akin to a tendril looking for support, for something to hold. The varying rhombuses of bamboo fences give the eye this hold, this pause. The ninth minute of Meghe Dhaka Tara is long, the eye spans and embalms the frame, it takes in details of the weave of the bamboo before it moves to something that Ritwik’s camera turns into its relative: hair, hair on the heads of women, Nita’s in a bun, Gita’s left open, the craft and compulsion of human hands on bamboo visible, as it is in the bun; the freedom of the bamboo groves, alive and loose, as in Gita’s open hair. Nita’s name bears the etymological impress of ethics and morality, a human-brokered life; Gita’s name derives from song, it is freer, as much as music is free, or freer than morality. Ritwik’s eyes look for echoes, they find it—echoes of bamboo in the sarees, particularly those that Gita wears, where the shadow-and-light serve-and-volley dims and glows. About a quarter of an hour has passed. Ritwik returns the trees of the first scene to us, we now see more of them, more of their bodies; we see more of the river, too, which pushes the trees out of the frame slightly, gently. What takes up space are the shadows of these large-bodied trees, their girth a visible birth certificate, a mark of fixity, perhaps even of constancy, who can tell, in contrast to the river whose water moves, like the people in the film. The brother—played by Anil Chatterjee, in one of the most unforgettable characters in cinematic history—sings, his accompanists are birds, they cry, though I don’t know why the English language calls their tongue ‘bird cries’. Like a musician uses caesura, Ritwik uses music: for a break between stanzas. In the film’s first scene, Nita emerges from the trees, not exactly like Venus from the sea in Botticelli, but the shared lineage of human and the elements, plant and person, is established right away. A little more than a quarter of an hour later, she walks from the right to the left of the screen. Her brother sits under a tree, rehearsing. Ritwik ensures that we see him as part of the tree trunk, the bodies of humans assimilated by the camera’s angle as once was possible in mythology; Nita, too, is part of this gift of the gaze: she, her brother’s lone audience, melds with the aerial branches of the tree. She, provider, sister, daughter, girlfriend, has to become more than one species. This is why Nita moves out of her Krishnachura- and Radhachura-like body to become bamboo soon after, the transition happening as soon as she gives some money to her brother. It’s Nita’s birthday. A Jagaddhatri Pujo will take place. Ritwik has decided to abandon subtlety. Jagaddhatri, as her name indicates, is a goddess of the earth; according to the Kena Upanishad, she asks the elements, Agni and Varuna and Vayu, to move a blade of grass. Ritwik takes Nita, her father and brother to something like grass. Coconut and betelnut trees, tall, and taller than the hills in the background. They walk on the unlaid road, through marshland and paddy fields, the stalks ankle-deep in water. Other species crop up on the screen: boatman, shaluk, lotus. ‘Poetry of the earth is never dead,’ one of the characters says. Jagaddhatri; the plants. Ritwik doesn’t leave it there—like Bibhutibhushan in Pather Panchali , he emphasises the beauty that can be had by those without money, like Apu’s sister Durga in the novel, like Nita’s singer-brother in this film. ‘Dhanyo khetra’, the blessed land, the land of such agricultural bounty is a phrase central to Ritwik’s vision. For the Bengali audience, there would also be the cultural conditioning of ‘ Dhono dhanye pushpe bhora ’ of D.L. Roy’s song, the celebration, in spite of Partition, of the plentiful plant life that made Jibanananda’s ‘Rupashi Bangla’. Children run out of a small school a few scenes later. As if to frame this freedom, Ghatak allows a branch to graze the frame from the left. To him, the plant world is a metaphor that emphasises, by contrast, the unfreedom of social life. ‘How do you all stay indoors in the evening? I find it difficult to breathe,’ says Gita, to which Sanat, still undecided between the two women, ‘music’ and ‘morality’, offers to take Nita out for a walk. Their house is framed by trees, their father by an umbrella, the heads of both mirroring each other, as it is possible only in a drawing book. Sanat complains about Nita being chained down by responsibilities, to which she offers a stronger metaphor for the loss of freedom: ‘Besh toh, make a glass frame and put me inside it, like a wax doll.’ And, almost immediately, two opposites are offered: marshland and meadow, there is freedom in both, even if there is stickiness. For when Nita stands up to go, leaves stick to her saree. Over and over again, Ritwik turns her into a tree, a giving tree. A job has been found, she requests her brother to drop her off at Sealdah. The landscape changes; it’s thornier, wilder. The tree is different—it is no longer on the right side of the screen but the left; it has more branches than leaves, it is less spread out, some of its branches even amputated. Soon, the camera is on the brother. He’s singing, entering the world of plants, whose bodies are flecked by light and shade; wild grass waits nearby in every frame. Nita, though, was doing the opposite, emerging from the trees. The camera refuses to move; it has become the tree. Nita passes by, he asks her for twenty-five paise, to shave, and the camera begins moving. The brother runs after her, his shadow slightly thinner than the older, time-fed trees. The branches offer shade, they also stand rooted while humans are rendered homeless. The camera, momentarily happy to be a tree, now begins running—it, too, is scared of becoming homeless. Catching up with her, he realises that it is not his sister, only someone in the same generic white saree with a slim border. The unknown woman smiles. Her eyes are downcast, instead of the goddess’ halo, her bust-sized image: the white saree with the border running like a train line whose other track has been eaten by time or water; the echo of that thin horizontal line in the vertical strap of her handbag, a marker of her working woman status, a new self in a new land. Not halo but branches of trees crowd the frame. She is of the trees, even if she has a face, even if she is human. The woman smiles. The brother laughs. He begins singing. Another tree appears. Now it’s to the right of the screen. He is standing under it and singing. The camera moves with him as he walks. His shadow moves. The shadows of the branches remain still. He moves from right to left, a bit like the Urdu script at first, and then like musical notation, the arohan and abarohan, travelling to and fro, to and fro, the return to the ‘sama’, the home. But where is home? Do shadows return to the trees at night? Ritwik changes the composition of the halo that announces a goddess’ status. The branches of trees a little while ago, now it’s smoke from the mother’s cooking that frames her face, so that the halo is diffused, a blur, in spite of the branches of the trees right behind, as distant as cloud. Another woman enters—her hair is open, her saree is striped, the bamboo seems to be emerging out of her body, she goes out for a walk by the lake. It is Gita, with Sanat. Nita is walking back home. Irregular dots of darkness fill the screen—blobs of tree heads, their fraternal twins lying as shadows on the ground, more restful. Nita’s face is dark, light falls on a portion of her hips. Books clutched to her chest, she walks; her sister and boyfriend are sitting by the water, singing. Nita looks, then looks away, and walks past the scene. The camera moves to the sister and her new audience. Her shoulder-length hair has been left open. For a moment, they look like branches of the tree behind her—both move. The camera moves too. Gita is laughing after her flirtatious sermon to Sanat about staring at her with his mouth open. Nandalal’s tree, from Sahaj Path , is behind her. Its many branches make her look like a many-armed Durga; the man is made to look like Mahishasur. She jumps, he follows. We are inside stripes again: bamboo walls, fences, light and darkness. The composition is of an afterlife of the plant world—wooden windows with sticks inside them that keep animals away and divide the sky and the view. The sister in the striped saree enters through the gate; all is bamboo and wood, even the sister. Ritwik takes care to emphasise their form and texture, a continuation of their life, a life made possible by a new host and a new environment, like the refugees of Partition have had to adapt to. Bamboo and smoke, different as they are in behaviour, move in various patterns and orientations, making the walls of the house look like a happy museum of the afterlife of trees themselves. From inside the house, various kinds of plant life emerge, among them, paisleys trapped inside diamond-shaped cages on Gita’s blouse. Things change, Sanat and Gita are married, living in a flat in the city: the bamboo patterns, Nita’s saree, now in a dark colour. Instead of a house scavenged and salvaged from bodies of plants, we see a skylight in iron frames. The soft stripes of bamboo and clotheslines and sarees have given way to the stern lines of glass and steel, staircases and doorframes, ventilators and windows. Nita’s bag is now a pattern of checks. The door curtain, in all likelihood a Manipuri weave not uncommon at that time, has diamond-shaped rhombuses. As soon as the door opens, the camera moves to the solid lines of the threshold. These lines are bureaucratic, they keep apartments sturdy, they want to serve ambitions of permanence; how different they are from bamboo, in whose DNA it is to be ad hoc. Smoke cruises up here, too, but it’s not the smoke of Nita’s mother’s kitchen; not clay oven but ashtray. Ritwik is showing us the props of culture: a Bankura clay elephant stands beside truncated shadows of window bars, tuberoses in a vase on the table, puppets on the wooden cupboard, nature is being diminished here, everywhere. But the camera is restless for the lines in Nita’s home, its stripes: clothes, clotheslines, serrated tin roofs, bamboo nailed together, diagonally falling shadows. These are informal lines and rhombuses that derive from the grace of the natural world. It is the freedom of this informality that allows shadows to enter frames before human figures, shadows picking clothes from ropes and wires, slightly ghost-like, more like trees. Ritwik relies on the light-and-shadow opera to highlight the human drama through the eaters of light, the trees. After the light and night of ‘ Je raate mor duwarguli bhanglo jhore ’, of ‘ shob je hoye gyalo kalo ’, of everything turned dark, the camera moves like a plant, like the eye, searching for light. And then it moves like writing in the Devanagari script: trees and houses, conical tops, roofs, tin, concrete, all of these in a rush, so that it seems like the camera wants to escape from homes and the homeless for now, till it rests and waits, on foliage, on plants, to the ad hoc gardens that connect inside our eyes to indulge the sense of what is now called ‘social forestry’. The father, leaning against a tree for support, speaks to a doctor about Nita. One displacement happens after another—Nita, first rendered homeless by history, now moves out of the house to a bamboo room nearby, her equivalent of a temporary tent, her ‘nirbandhobpuri’, a town without friends; then she has to leave home for Reid Chest Hospital, another instalment of displacement. Ritwik begins making her more tree-like with greater urgency, as if that could protect her. After the audience’s discovery of her tuberculosis, we meet the trees—they take over the screen, Nita’s head now a blob emerging from the lower bottom of the screen. She’s being displaced from the screen too, history repeating itself over and over again. In a darker saree now, she’s the colour of tree trunks and branches, until she merges with the tree trunk in a scene. Ritwik is cutting out something else simultaneously—shade and shadow. By the ninetieth minute, the shade of trees is gone. There’s just bare land, the shadows of the trees far away are like birds whose shadows don’t reach the earth. A train cuts the screen. She, like the trees, doesn’t move. A couple of minutes later, she opens her umbrella standing under a tree, a double umbrella as it were. Every now and then, Ritwik’s camera surveys the land: palms of various kinds, a leafless plumeria, after the news of Gita’s pregnancy. In the foreboding of both birth and death, Ritwik turns to plants. After the camera shows us Nita’s blood-stained handkerchief, we see trees moving wildly in a storm, and her curly hair, as if they were relatives. The vegetation around Reid Chest Hospital is different—a coniferous-looking tree stands to the left of the frame, it offers no shade, only the fur of fog and the skin of the sky. Nita is sitting, her brother comes with news about Gita’s son, their two-storeyed house, until she breaks into one of the most famous dialogues in Bangla cinema: ‘ Dada, aami kintu bachte cheyechhilam ’, Dada, I did want to live … The camera loses balance as it were and surveys the trees. That’s how the film ends—with tree and tree and tree, almost like how it began, except for the woman who has gone missing from life, from the screen. ******* Fifteen seconds into Subarnarekha , no image has been given to us, nothing except the auditory, ‘Vande Mataram’. The first visual: trees, slim, unrevealing of age, a bamboo in the middle, another an arc; the cohabitation of various sizes, even shapes. The Indian flag goes up on the bamboo pole; another bamboo, bent, serves as trellis over a gate. In bamboo as flag pole, Ritwik is hoping for the new Indian nation to have the tensile strength of bamboo, to be flexible, supportive and all-purpose, for all its citizens to make whatever they can of it. For the moment, though, there’s chaos and uncertainty, differences more than unity—a teacher in a new school teaches English and history, another Bengali and Sanskrit, history and historiography available only to those living in English; Dhaka versus Pabna; caste divisions. A child’s mother is lost. The word ‘udbastu’, refugee, floats around. Gandhi’s assassination emerges as newsprint in a newspaper office. Nabajibon Colony, the new settlement for those without homes, is constructed almost entirely of bamboo, as if the new (‘naba’) life (‘jibon’) must have the plant’s resilience. Ritwik draws the opposition between the old and new through metaphor. Both the sarod and the ektara are musical instruments that derive from plant life, but he gives us classical music before a Baul’s song. Hence bamboo—for the people, like the people; the roofs, doors, windows and walls of the houses in Nabajibon Colony, the Baul’s musical instrument. In the first ten minutes of the film named after a river, we see bamboo being split and cut everywhere. Partition, people, plants. A bamboo republic. Ghatshila’s plants enter the census of our imagination: bamboo, banana, papaya, species that grow easily, often on their own, without care, like these people must. When the little girl Sita asks her brother whether Abhiram, the boy who has lost his mother, will come with them to the new place, we are given no answer, only a sign, almost Buddha-like—she plucks a flower and leaves. The mill, where her brother has found work, is beside a sal forest. After reaching Ghatshila, the first thing Sita says is, ‘Dadamoni, come and see how beautiful the garden is …’. The little boy Abhi is still crying. An oleander—poisonous oleander—stands behind him. Rabindranath’s song sprouts: ‘ Aaj dhaner khete roudrochhayay lukochuri khyala re bhai, lukochuri khyala ’. Sunlight and shade are playing hide-and-seek on the paddy fields … What grass was to Jibanananda Das, paddy is to Ritwik. It’s to the paddy fields that his homeless want to return. Paddy and bamboo, related sub-families. We see a barren landscape from time to time, stony, bare-branched trees, but in their forms is still the intimation of being alive—unlike the ruins of the aircraft from World War II, with its exposed steel rods, weeds around it, the camera making it look like a foreigner, a UFO, the runway unfriendly, trees pushed to its corners, like eyelashes in the eyes. Sita and Abhi run through a place with different kinds of plant life: the bare and low, spiky and tender leaves. Some of these are inside the ruins of the airfield’s buildings; no roof or inhabitants, no windows, no doors, only frames, like the leafless trees. Ritwik is intentional. The little girl is called Sita for a reason, the story of her name from the Ramayana is abridged for us in a dialogue—how the Sita of the epic was found in an agricultural field, her link with ploughing cultures, and, though we are not told this yet, how Sita returns to the earth after her test by fire, a premonition of what is to happen to the Sita of this film. ‘Sita is the daughter of the earth …’ We are shown that earth: of rocks, river, bark, stone and trees with tiny heads, and tiny human heads half-hidden among large rocks. Outside their house are lonely species: a few palms, shrubs, skinny young trees, standing without discipline or order. They are at home. Abhi returns from the city, educated and eager to finish writing his novel based in Ghatshila, for which he has found a ‘big publisher’. Both he and Sita are surprised to find each other grown up, their bodies longer, their hearts in longing, they walk through the sal forest. The trees are tall, very tall—the camera, so long habituated to a sparser population of trees, goes a bit mad, it begins moving from left to right, taking in the trees one by one, until it is overwhelmed. This is Ritwik’s interpretation of Wordsworth’s ‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance’—the uncountability of this unit of plant life, its impress, its freedom and rush, its nurturing and caging. The sense of time—and space—in the forest, where one can’t tell when the first tree was planted, that this is a history very different from those that have been written about human lives, allows Abhi to begin talking about his novel. It might have been classified as autofiction today. He begins narrating the story of his life, third person to himself. Walking towards the trees, he raises his arms—they become branches, and he a tree for a moment. The camera then moves to the back of his head, so that he, like the other citizens of the forest, becomes part of this republic of faceless beings, the trees. He asks her a question, to which she says ‘no’. Light and its opposite fall on her face, and the camera integrates her into the blur of trees behind. How long has she felt like this, this ‘love’, Abhi asks Sita, without using the word. ‘A long time,’ she replies. The camera goes berserk in trying to capture this sense of Time—Ritwik does a few 360 degrees, all we see are the trees of this forest, long trunks, and then the river. Abhi and Sita return to bamboo, to home, to the vines that are growing on bamboo trellises, to the houseplants. Occasionally, we spot oleander, a palm or two, overgrown green in the pilot’s clubhouse, or a flower vase on a table when someone says ‘caste is everything’. When Abhi’s mother dies and he recognizes her from memory, Ritwik takes us to the child Abhi and where is he? Swinging from a tree, like only a little boy can. Twenty seconds later, after the graceful undulations of the roots from which the little boy was hanging, and the shade of the banyan, both unquantifiable and amorphous, we see the sternness of electric poles in a railway station. Their relationship is shown through plant metaphors: trees skirt the agricultural fields as they talk, while the tanpura, made from a gourd, is strung; when the wedding is fixed against her wishes, a dry palm leaf scratches the frame; when Abhi leaves and Sita asks whom she should share her sorrow with, the camera shows treetops far away. The wedding day arrives. The alpana of paddy stalks, grain and leaves sit on the floor, leading our eyes to Sita, whose face is painted with stylised designs from the agricultural world. And suddenly she’s gone. A woman says that she was scribbling something. The camera focuses on the alpana, its details, leaf and leaf and stalk and leaf, and the plant alpana grows and glows towards light. Years pass, trees and peace have disappeared from their lives in the cramped city. Listening to her sing, the little son asks, ‘Ma, what do the dhaaner khet, the paddy fields, look like?’ The song will return at the end of the film, but, before that, there are other plants. Haraprasad, having lost everything that he valued, returns to Iswar and tells him that he’s a ‘baajey-pora taal gaachh’, a blasted palm tree. The landscape turns barren gradually. In the end, though, the little boy Binu, orphaned, stands with Iswar, his newly found maternal uncle, under a tree. They have just got off the train, Iswar has been asked to vacate his residential quarters. Homeless once again, the camera turns to a tree. And then to song and soil, to the wave on the paddy fields—the literal and the figurative find a home: ‘ Dhaaner khete dheu …’ The film ends as it had begun—by resting on plants. ******* Water in instalments, river, rain, ripple, inside boat, on plant, on tree. Water and sand, mother and child, river and bank. Trees by the river, like ripples of heads. Three minutes of this survey of life by the river Titas, and our eyes rest on an old tree at last—we meet its relatives, not on land, but their reflections on water. Soon more, not alive but their afterlife: boats, trees now travelling on water, unimaginable during their life on land; bamboo, fence, wall, house, basket, where grain is being winnowed, thatched homes. They come alive again, rounded trees and dancing papaya plants. They return to water, to boat, its wood, but mostly its bamboo, arcs and shelter, fish caught and put in baskets, covered with a flat woven bamboo piece. To land again, where the tree’s roots are, where they provide the shade necessary for dance and home, for celebration under trees. The canopy—tree branches become Ritwik’s sky; two tree branches connect two corners of the screen, like a ceiling connects walls; men fight with them too, with bamboo. Ritwik begins to make us see, again, the optical osmosis between plant and person ... ... an unconscious woman in a man’s arms, horizontal, is like the tree branches in the following scene; the floral patterns on the bride’s forehead, the wedding garlands, the eating and rejection of light, darkness and luminosity, how Ritwik’s camera catches light falling on the flowers in the garden and those on the wedding saree, the shola kadam flower on the topor, the groom’s crown. These are echoed visually by the houses of bamboo and straw, as if they too were topor-like, and the palm tree behind the small temple. At the moment of leaving her parents’, the bride weeps holding a plant—the holy basil in the tulsi mancha—and her butterfly tiara makes her plant-like. There is no getting away from this way of seeing. Ritwik shows us the boatman’s katha, its stylised botanical patterns; he warns the husband about his wife’s beauty gathering attention with a proverb borrowed from—what else?—the plant world: ‘ Lau er opor najar lagau na kintu ’, be careful that the bottle gourd doesn’t catch attention. A close-up of the woman’s middle-parted hair is turned into a relative of the sugarcane leaf’s long midrib; shadows of leaves dance on the bodies of women so that their bodies and limbs become branches. Ram’s aged, scraggly beard is not very different from the straw hanging from the roof. There’s the stamp of the botanical everywhere: flowers on dhaak, diamond patterns of bamboo designs in kitchens, straight lines of jute sticks, bow and arrow; a galaxy of water hyacinth amidst which sit planets of boats, boats of potatoes. Tree shadows lick the water everywhere, old trees snuggle up to their shortened noon shadows, the dheki moves up and down and up and down, avoiding the hand that feeds it grain, crushing grain. Men and women erupt in anger, the violence of the plant idiom: ‘ Tomarey kauwa ja, oi dhaan khete giye kauwao ta ’, telling you something is like telling the paddy field … The little boy’s name is Ananta. Infinite. He runs through the paddy fields blowing a paper horn. Nabajibon, paddy, bamboo, it is to this that Ritwik returns, this is how history is reborn. ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Ephemeral III (2025), watercolour on acid-free paper, courtesy of Sonali Sonam. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Review Kolkata Ritwik Ghatak East India West Bengal Arboreal Cinema SUMANA ROY is the author of How I became a Tree , Missing: A Novel , Out of Syllabus: Poems , My Mother’s Lover and Other Stories , among others. Her newest book is entitled Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries. She is Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Ashoka University. Review Kolkata 12th Mar 2026 SONALI SONAM (b. 1995, Bihar) is a visual artist whose practice draws from the discipline and visual language of miniature painting while engaging with contemporary experiences of space, memory, and perception. She studied Painting at Kala Bhavana, Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, and later completed her Master’s degree at the College of Art, New Delhi. On That Note: Provocations on Empathy 13th AUG Spiritually Chic 1st AUG A Man's World 2nd MAR

Two years ago, short on money and hungry for something new, Rasti Farooq started pillion riding through Lahore. What began as a practical choice became an intimate, disorienting encounter with the city, and with herself. Here’s everything you would note about everything if you went around your city on a bike. FEATURES On Smelling Men’s Hair & Other Lessons in Impropriety Two years ago, short on money and hungry for something new, Rasti Farooq started pillion riding through Lahore. What began as a practical choice became an intimate, disorienting encounter with the city, and with herself. Here’s everything you would note about everything if you went around your city on a bike. Rasti Farooq Since 2024, I’ve smelled more men’s hair than I ever signed up for. It would be untrue to say that I never signed up to smell anyone’s hair, because I certainly have. But only women’s hair and specifically silky hair. I have walked behind and past many a straight-haired girl, and been slapped in the face with that fruity post-shower waft. I wanted it. But I could never have it, because the usual department store shampoos that boast that signature scent are not designed for the likes of me, with my type 3C (very curly) hair. Having said that, I have never been even vaguely curious about men’s hair, mostly because men’s scalp hygiene is poorer than women’s on average. Shampooing just doesn’t seem to figure the same way in their lives. All this unfortunate oversharing to underscore that the smelling of men’s hair was entirely involuntary. I’m just: 1) seated very close to men, 2) seated very close behind them, 3) we are moving through space at about 30-40 kmph because we are on 4) a motorbike 5) which means a trusty bit of wind combined with 6) the fact that riders have to take off their helmets when passing through the smattering of military checkpoints around Lahore, (they also get taken off during the ride because most will only wear them to hoodwink traffic police officers and then proceed to dangle them off the bike handle the rest of the time). The physics of this dynamic means that the wind in their hair whips my pillion-riding face, and that’s how I know that most men’s hair smells sebum-y. But every 18th ride or so, that coveted fruity shampoo smell makes a surprise appearance. In those moments, I would take lung-fulls of that fragrant air because it calmed my nervous system (a need I had at that time, more on this in a bit). One day, I caught myself mid-exhale: how would this rider feel if he got wind (!) of this involuntary intimacy? It felt a bit like an Uno Reverse situation of the impropriety lesson I got from my mother growing up: she would spritz her perfume once on her palm, dab the tip of her forefinger into the droplets in her hand, and then press the tip lightly on a single point on either side of her neck. Your perfume was for you to smell, she would remind me, never unknown men. But here I was, an unknown woman, smelling men’s various bodily scents on the daily. In truth, I’ve spent a great deal of my commute on motorbikes considering impropriety. Pillion riding was new to my life in 2024. I was 31, used to waking up every morning, dressing to my heart's desire and, with tempered confidence, stepping out the door into what was a well-studied yet inscrutable world. But now , new contingencies demanded an updated protocol: I felt that my very conspicuously dressed “up” body may as well be a sharp knife slicing through public space in the early morning hours, cleaving the worlds of everyone it encountered into halves as I covered the 18 kilometers from home to work every day. It sounds overly dramatic now, but at the time, those misgivings felt reasonable. My Virgo temperament was keen to approach this problem systematically. I mapped out variables, cycled through undesirable scenarios, considered several tactical approaches, and eventually devised a near-perfect SOP. When the rider accepts your ride on the app and calls you to confirm your pick-up location, it is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate with your voice that you are female, a fact they may not necessarily pick up on by your profile name alone (not “Rasti” but “Jehan”, as in your friend whose name you borrowed for this app 3 years ago, after a government ban on a film you acted in turned things dicey, personal security wise). For extra measure, you turn up the girly in your voice. Some do a double take, others don't break a sweat. The next potentially tense moment arrives when you walk out of your building and your rider takes in the sight of Jehan: you’re usually in pants/jeans, rings on your fingers, bangles and distracting shoes, your helmet dangling from your hand. You avoid sleeveless tops entirely now because two attempts of riding with bare arms down Lahori streets have resulted in considerable vexation on the faces of fellow riders (and other pillion riding women), not evidenced with, say, a calf (sometimes you think maybe it is true what your friend’s mother once said in her case against the sleeveless: something potently sensual about the curve of the shoulder, entirely absent in a calf and unmatched by the curve of a knee). You’re approaching your rider now, and you make sure to put on your business-as-usual face because it is important to set the rider at ease: this is not a hapless girl attempting this for the first time and no, she most certainly will not fall off the bike and no sir, this is not her papa’s borrowed helmet. You say salam, throw your helmet on your head and your right leg over the seat. At this leg-throwing junction–confirming that you will indeed be riding astride and not modestly sidesaddle like most women do–you’re aware of some mild tensing, which is sometimes just curiosity, sometimes some caution. You let it pass and grab on tight to the U-shaped silver rail behind you that juts out over the rear light. This is a failsafe strategy to avoid contact and avoiding contact is absolutely imperative for everyone’s sake, nevermind that the repetitive gripping may have gifted you your new elbow joint dysfunction. By this point, some riders slide onto the petrol tank to widen the gap between their hips and your crotch. But sometimes they don’t, and that’s okay too because you’re pretty good at squeezing yourself between the rider and the U-rail. All in all, you’re a confident pillion rider except for when that silver rail is missing, which it is on some bikes, in which case you try and clutch on to the sides of the seat in front of you but the grip isn’t as secure and you can’t stop yourself from lurching forwards. The missing U-rail is not even how I ended up accidentally touching my rider for the first time. I was making what I thought was a small, harmless adjustment on the seat, but by the end of it I had poked my rider in his left buttock with my thumb. I held my breath. My first thought: how to not make him think that just because I'm in excessively flared, sort-of see-through pants with a linen button-down that won’t even cover my ass that I get up to this kind of behavior all the time? I said an audible “sorry”, he said nothing, and we carried on down Ferozepur road. The first time I flew onto a rider’s back with all my breasts, I didn't say anything. It felt like nothing would have sufficed for the moment; the line had been crossed so egregiously that the line just had to be treated like a construct. My breasts have bumped into 3 other riders since; nobody says anything and things carry on. The only kind of unremarkable physical contact is when I accidentally headbump my rider and our helmets go pop. *** My helmet is to me what I imagine a Garmin sportswatch is to a sando-wearing gymbro. I fawn over her, I’m always waiting for someone to notice her and ask me about her so I can show her off, and I'm never lax about wearing her which most riders will compliment in a mildly surprised tone as if a prudent female rider defies some expectation. Except for that one rider who seemed to be slightly bothered by it: ‘ Aap nay kyun helmet pehni hui hay?’ (‘why are you wearing a helmet?’), he asked as we rode out from my workplace. I paused. The inflection on you was provocative. He was waiting for my response. I’d had yet another brain-melting day at work, and was thinking about keeping my knees pressed into the sides of the bike for the duration that we would be zigzagging through post-work gridlocks; I wanted quiet, not whatever this question was. I shot back: why do you wear a helmet? And he went: but I asked you. We did maybe one more round of that and then I snapped at him with an unkind lesson on the physics of flying through the air after a car collision and becoming jam on the road. He didn’t respond and we rode in silence. That was one of only two cantankerous rides I’ve had in over 300+. I realised the helmet doesn't factor as a safeguard against death for most bikers; like the seatbelt, it’s an annoying imposition, yet another tool available to the state to squeeze fines out of ordinary citizens. I, on the other hand, am very serious about dodging death by drunk drivers / underage boys / underslept drivers of public transport / rich people in their SUV’s and pick-up trucks who think traffic lights are for pussies. In June 2024, I went looking for a death-defying helmet in Bohri Bazaar, Karachi, after consulting with my friend who rides his heavy bike (a cruiser) around Karachi (bold). It was a small store, shelves top to bottom packed with helmets and other riding gear. After some research, I decided that I wanted a full face (chin protection) flip-helmet (raiseable face shield) with a second, smaller visor inside, tinted to protect against the sun. It also absolutely had to look cool. The ones that were most popular (‘jo sab say ziada running main hain…’) according to the store owner all had snakes and skulls graffited on them in colours that gave ‘energy drink’. Ideally, I would have liked a helmet with something whimsical painted on it, like a rock nestled in a forest that hadn’t moved in three thousand years. But I settled for a matte grey-black with red streaks that curved around from the back, a faint skull at the very top, and some raptor-esque graffiti on the sides. She was a thick girl (useful for my bigger-than-average head size and even bigger hair), with detachable inner padding and a neat little flip switch above my right ear to flick the tinted visor down. I’ve stared many an MP (military police) in the eye as I flipped that switch and rode off away from their smug little checkposts and it has felt cool every time. In spite of my helmet, I’ve spent much of my commute time considering death and its cousin, paralysis, with only a brief respite in between. It was January 2025, and the city was launching a (sadly short-lived) pilot project: a designated “bike lane”. One day, there were laborers painting the left strip of Ferozepur Road green going down several kilometers. They did this for a couple weeks till a spell of light rain washed all the green away (along with allegedly 110 million rupees for the locally produced paint, supposedly a cost-effective substitute for the imported variety, as per a local news channel). A week later, some parts of the stretch got a fresh coat of paint and a barricade went up, cutting off the bike lane from the rest of the road. For a while, vehicles tried to navigate the nightmarish crisscross of entry and exit points to the lane. It was chaotic, but once inside the lane, my heart rate would be noticeably lower. It was on Ferozepur road going down this bike lane that I first noticed them. *** They were riding outside the barricade on the main road, 50 meters ahead. I noticed the pillion rider’s arms first: they were encircling the rider and…it wasn’t a loose grip. Then: her riding astride, black hair in a braid that came down to her shoulder blades, and finally: she was leaning into the hug, her whole body pressed up against the rider and her chin was resting on the rider’s right shoulder. There was something so immediately unfamiliar about this posture–it felt like it was maybe 3 moves shy from kissing in public. Luckily, a flyover was approaching; my rider slid onto the main lane to go up the bridge and suddenly I was riding parallel to the Chin and the Shoulder, and the Shoulder was attached to a head with cropped hair and pointy ends and the head was tilted sideways toward the Chin–eyes still pinned to the road in front–and Chin’s nose would periodically brush against the rider’s cheek. The rider had a loose zipper jacket on, sleeves pulled up to the elbows, 3 thin bands on her (gasp!) right wrist. She was saying something maybe wicked, maybe jovial, because both the heads were low and the mouths pulled up into smiles. Suddenly, she flicked her eyes from the road onto me riding to her right. She couldn’t have known I was also a woman because of my generously concealing helmet, and she didn’t pause to do the usual check I get subjected to by other riders on the road: hands, then breasts. And even if she did know, I had a feeling she would’ve still been annoyed at how keenly I was taking the two of them in. She revved her engine and rode off, her CD70 zigzagging between cars, leaving me feeling exhilarated because my secret hypothesis seemed to have had its first positive testing. It was April of 2025 and by that time, young girls on e-bikes had become–sorry, give me a second, it still feels unreal to say this–common around all parts of Lahore. It happened steadily: one month it was one girl on her e-bike jostling for her place on the road in early morning traffic. The next month there were 6. And somehow, it broke through whatever ceiling had stalled previous “women friendly” transportation initiatives: ”pink” rickshaws, “pink” buses, women-only ride-hailing apps. At first, it was just young girls headed to school or work; a few months later, the middle-aged women who work as house help in the gated community where I live, the ones who would make the morning walk to their respective houses every day, were now riding into the community on e-bikes. Picture it: thick-set women in their printed shalwar kameez riding astride in two’s, taking their own damn selves to work. I was afraid to point it out to anyone lest I jinxed it. Quietly, I placed a bet against, well, patriarchy: the excess of women on e-bikes was going to stir another kraken: the CD70, the reigning bike model in Pakistan for many decades, would betray its male overlords and turn out to, in fact, be quite maneuverable in the hands of women. Like Chin and Shoulder. In that way, 2025, which was otherwise miserly, gifted me a score of utterly new silhouettes to devour everyday: the girl riding down Sherpao into the setting sun with her billowing abaya making her look straight up Batmanesque; the mother taking her son for an evening ride on a pleasant April day, riding at a leisurely pace; two girls lounging on a bench in a small park, their e-bike parked next to them. Something fundamental seems to be shifting in the working and social lives of women in Lahore, and on many days I sit quaking with anticipation about all its possibilities. I imagine this is how our boomer parents felt about the arrival of the internet. *** As giant a stride as that is, I have to remind myself to be patient when it comes to what bike-riding women will be allowed to / will allow themselves to wear as they step out in this new, knife-like way. For anyone who has been disturbed by the sighting of all these newly “out” girls on their e-bikes, it must be reassuring to know that almost all of them are in abayas. And I suppose it has to be that way if we are to be collectively eased into this new age with minimal harm. I was stupidly dismissive of this when I started pillion riding, though not out of any principled defiance. It was May 2024, and we were hurtling toward a heat wave (hitting a record high of 44.5 degrees celsius that June). Not burning my skin off on the 40-minute 9:20 am ride would entail layering over my short-sleeved work clothes. A friend with moderately high survivalist tendencies gave me a windbreaker: a steal from Daraz, grey, light as a feather. Even so, the thought of double layering in Lahore’s May was unbearable. So May through June, I rode on the streets of my city with nothing but my bra under my kind-of-see-through windbreaker, rolling up my day shirt in my bag to wear when I got to the office. I figured my backpack would cover most of my back, along with any evidence of a bra-strap. The front was trickier, but there was always the slouchy shoulders trick, a tried and tested method to diminish the appearance and therefore possibility of breasts. The only problem was that I kept having visions of being thrown off my bike because of a drunk driver, followed by my flimsy wind-breaker ripping and me lying on a public street in my bra. Terrifying. By the time summer of 2025 rolled around, I was prepared: a series of black-as-night sleeveless chemises, waist-length, made of the thinnest cotton by the family tailor, Ramzan sahab, as light as the windbreaker that would go on top. *** Along the way, there have been the usual reminders that God dislikes a self-assured planner. There was that one (and only) time that I walked out of my building with my usual confidence and was told bluntly by the rider that he couldn’t take me (“sorry ma’am, main ladies ko nahi leta”) which, essentially, was him refusing me permission to get on his bike. Maybe his own personal discomfort, maybe a promise made to his wife–either way, fair. Only twice have I been prompted to consider fates worse than death and paralysis. Turns out that a healthy 40 percent of riders consider running out of petrol somewhere out on the road a low-stake problem needing attention only after the fact. One night, I had just finished dinner with a group of friends in DHA Phase 5, an upscale area by all standards. It was past midnight, so not ideal, but I calculated that the route back to my house would skirt through patrolled parts of the city, so not too bad either. About 4 minutes into the ride, the bike began sputtering with low fuel, and my rider veered to the left, parked, got off and started walking across the road to a petrol station 100m down, leaving me in a darkened spot of the street, sitting on a vehicle I had no knowledge of how to use. Peeved, I scampered after him and waited at the well-lit and peopled station while he went back across the road to his bike with a pitcher of fuel. When we got back on the road, I discreetly leaned over to see who and what he was messaging, and noticed that his wallpaper was him with a big grin and a rifle in his hand. When he asked me if I was studying in college, I made him drop me off at an approaching mall. The second time, we were travelling late afternoon on a service lane that runs parallel to the Ring Road highway around the outer part of the city. The bike sputtered, but this time, the closest pump was at least 1.5 kilometers away. These words were barely out of my mouth when my rider, a 50-something man with a bright orange beard, told me to hang tight and rode off and out of sight. I stood at the side of the highway – maroon suede shirt, top three buttons open, heeled boots, grey flared pants, bronze bangles and a helmet on my head – and waited in stunned silence. Every passing person on bike or rickshaw or car gawked at the sight of this strange helmeted creature who seemed to be standing beside a highway without much of a plan. I considered someone snatching my bag, snatching the whole of me, or getting frisky as they drove past. I waited with a mini blade tucked in my knuckle (thank you again, survivalist friend). It was a tense 10 minutes, but then I spotted my rider–big flashy mehndi beard–speeding back to get me. *** My first ever ride was probably the nicest one I’ve had in these two years. I approached it as an experiment to see if pillion riding was going to solve either one of the two pressing problems of my life at the time (more on this too, I promise). It was noon on a Sunday which meant fewer people on the roads. That increased my chances of getting a serious-minded uncle kind of a rider instead of a flamboyant youngster because he would likely be sleeping in on a Sunday. Moreover, it was an intentionally short ride (8 km) into the cantonment area (hello military police everywhere). Sure enough, my rider was a mid-40’s uncle with a greying beard and he rode me uneventfully to my destination. It cost me RS 110. When I got off I felt compelled to tell him he’d made me feel very safe. He seemed slightly surprised at receiving this compliment at 12:17 pm on a Sunday, but accepted it nonetheless. He rode off and I stood there with a growing sense that riding around the city was going to save me from me. At the time, without any prior notice, I had embarked on my first pilgrimage to rage. Before, rage and I had been wary acquaintances; she would hang around my circle a lot but I knew better than to trust her. By 2024, I was beginning my mornings with her and taking her to bed every night. I was convinced she was funnier and cleverer than anyone else, and I let her regale me with tales about how obnoxious and insufferable and disappointing everyone truly was: women, men, children, siblings, mentors, friends, colleagues, neighbours, strangers, everyone . During rare moments of clarity, I wanted more than anything to be freed of her, freed of the pinball machine that was my mind and its most sulphuric thoughts, and it turns out that heat on the roads can do that for you, specifically heat that bounces off asphalt as you wait at a 30-second traffic light on a 39°C morning. Something else that can do that for you is touching treetops as you go down fly-overs, which I do every time I’m taking Jinnah toward Firdous Market or Sherpao toward Jail Road. Little clusters of trees spill over the parapet walls on both routes, and something about having a brief unscheduled encounter with the very top of a tree short-circuits my nervous system. These daily offerings of my rides back home–fleeting, mystifying, unexpected, primordial–peeled the rage off slowly. Like the sight of an uncle crying behind the wheel of his car as he drove down Kasur, a tissue pressed to his eyes; auburn February sunsets that cut me down to size; the masculine urge to shake the head at anything inconvenient: missing a green light, jumpy pedestrians, the petrol finishing, a surprise speedbreaker; leaning in to have shouty conversations over wind and horns with men you were probably only going to meet once in your life about living in this wondrous city and seeing it be asphyxiated by smog, by 100-legged billboards, rental prices, the military, housing societies and megaprojects. My other life-problem was a lot simpler in comparison: pillion riding kept me from going broke for the third time in 2 years. My life had experienced seismic shifts during Covid’s debut year of 2020. Before, I had had unobstructed access to someone else’s Honda City, and I had driven it all over Lahore at all kinds of hours. In 2021, I moved into a house where the cars (multiple) came with multiple conditions. I could drive the older manual Honda Civic Reborn (a glorious model) but not the newer Toyota Aqua even though it was smaller and automatic (so more “female-friendly” as per man-logic) but that too only during daylight hours and for certain stretches of time. By the end of 2023, I was living on my own, chest deep in bills and groceries and with the acute sense that the city I had been living in for 14 years had become unaffordable. I couldn’t even take myself to work on a hailed car everyday, let alone to restaurants or shops that I used to frequent. It took some time, but once I accepted that I was indeed poorer in my 30’s than I’d been in my 20’s—not the favoured trajectory—I found myself calling my first bike that Sunday afternoon. Another 20 or so uneventful rides later, somewhere on Canal Road, the heat like a whip cracking open the synapses in my brain is when suddenly: what if all these women riding behind these men on the Canal aren’t all wives and mothers and daughters and sisters? What if I’m not the only stranger-danger-woman impinging on this equilibrium of public order and decency? And sure enough, when I really looked, I saw that some of the women whizzing past me on the Canal also sat as far as possible on the other end of the seat with their arms folded away from the man transporting them. Then I noticed two women getting off around a commercial area and handing money over to the rider. In the end, rather embarrassingly, I had to admit to myself that of course I was not one in a handful of women in this sprawling city who were compelled by necessity to hail bikes for their commute and of course women did it every single day given how affordable and fast it was. Really the only oddity about me doing it was that I presented as somebody who would have some other means. Which makes for the usual confusion on the faces of the military police stalking the 10 or so checkposts that surround the cantonment area (‘cantt’) where I usually find myself. Their job in some ways is to complicate the entry of 1) non-rich looking people 2) non-Punjabi looking people 3) non-Pakistani looking people into Cantt. In that regard, I am a bit of a headache in that I am not 1) ( phew because critical security priority) but I am 2) and 3). In fact, popular opinion suggests that I can comfortably be confused for Turkish/Lebanese/Iranian/Greek. So as I approach the checkpost, riders ahead and behind taking off their helmets so their faces can be recorded by the Go-Pro’s hanging off the neck of every MP (I keep mine on, only pushing the face shield up), I see consternation tense the face of the MP. He clocks first the clothes, then the legs parted in a straddle, then the (always) painted lips. He can’t help but puff up as he steps toward me–he’s about to strike down the stealthy advance of a foreign woman into a securitized zone of the city. I disarm him a little by asking curtly, jee bhai, kia chahiye? (yes, what do you want?). He falters briefly at the comfortable Urdu and the tone, gathers himself up again, and demands my ID card. This is good because I have it ready in a zipper pocket and I get to pull it out, hand it over and watch his face fall as he realises today is not the day he gets to intercept a foreign conspiracy. What I hate is when they don’t ask for the ID card and instead order me to get my entry “logged”. Getting myself logged in the system means parking 50m ahead beside a cabin and coming face to face with the “Lady Searcher” (as advertised in big lettering on the outside of the cabin, which, if one considers the tradition of military parlance, is surprisingly lyrical, almost poetic: ~ lady searcher ~ ). She’s usually in an abaya, and has been sitting in that cramped cabin over, no doubt, a long shift with no view and no company and no Go-Pro or other fancy tech to deploy either; just an old register with lined columns in which she has to enter data by hand . I sympathise, I do. And I really would rather confront the villain than the stooge, especially since something about being expertly surveilled by a woman is extremely unsettling. The Lady Searcher always looks at me like I’m the whorish offspring of disreputable people. She’ll bark at me to take my helmet off and we’re off to a very bad start. I’ve tried different approaches—doubling down, impudence, shaming, humour—she does not back down. She is very bad for my rage, I’ve realised, so now I try and limit my exposure to her. I go into the cabin and promptly answer all her questions about where I’ve come from and where I was born and where I’m going and why I’m going where I’m going. *** I really thought that unless I pursued some bucket-list calibre things—requiring at the very least money and a new destination—I wouldn’t be unlocking any truly new experience in my 30’s; new like the unique thrill of the absolutely unfamiliar felt explosively at a cellular level. I certainly did not think it was going to happen on a narrow street in a cramped junction nestled under the Sherpao flyover. This street is the preferred alternative route for some riders because it snakes under busier parts of town. It is lined with motels and food joints—burger and shawarma, biryani and pulao, mithai and bakery, kebab and fish. We, two fools on a bike, were attempting to cross the 250m stretch five minutes before iftar. Crowds thronged food stalls on either side, buying snacks to break their fast, men hung about in two’s and three’s, listening for the azaan, hawkers shouted and flailed their arms trying to entrap customers, people scurried back home to break their fast. I instructed my body to brace for some swift dodging of stares and limbs as we approached the throng, forgetting that it was still winter and my body was hidden under layers of clothing including a puffer jacket, and my hair was still cropped and entirely hidden under my helmet. The first man that I passed by on that street must have stood not a foot away from me. He was holding a menu in his hand, and was looking over my head, his eyes fixed on customers across the road. The next was a man who was rushing across the street, his arm outstretched as he yelled something at someone. It began to dawn on me that we had all gone off-script; this wasn’t how crammed public spaces worked. I cast my eyes around hurriedly trying to catch at least one man looking my way, but it was as if I was a blurry detail, a thing to be cropped out. And–the truly new new–while my mind had needed to ascertain all this, my body had arrived at it much earlier. It hadn’t actually braced for anything at all even after I had instructed it to, not a muscle tensed in the knowledge that we were approaching male bodies in various states of frenzy and languor, not even with the awareness that nobody was bothering to create a “respectable” distance between us as we crossed. It was precisely because of this, because my body was a non-event, that our proximity was a perfectly neutral, luminously new sensation. ∎ Since 2024, I’ve smelled more men’s hair than I ever signed up for. It would be untrue to say that I never signed up to smell anyone’s hair, because I certainly have. But only women’s hair and specifically silky hair. I have walked behind and past many a straight-haired girl, and been slapped in the face with that fruity post-shower waft. I wanted it. But I could never have it, because the usual department store shampoos that boast that signature scent are not designed for the likes of me, with my type 3C (very curly) hair. Having said that, I have never been even vaguely curious about men’s hair, mostly because men’s scalp hygiene is poorer than women’s on average. Shampooing just doesn’t seem to figure the same way in their lives. All this unfortunate oversharing to underscore that the smelling of men’s hair was entirely involuntary. I’m just: 1) seated very close to men, 2) seated very close behind them, 3) we are moving through space at about 30-40 kmph because we are on 4) a motorbike 5) which means a trusty bit of wind combined with 6) the fact that riders have to take off their helmets when passing through the smattering of military checkpoints around Lahore, (they also get taken off during the ride because most will only wear them to hoodwink traffic police officers and then proceed to dangle them off the bike handle the rest of the time). The physics of this dynamic means that the wind in their hair whips my pillion-riding face, and that’s how I know that most men’s hair smells sebum-y. But every 18th ride or so, that coveted fruity shampoo smell makes a surprise appearance. In those moments, I would take lung-fulls of that fragrant air because it calmed my nervous system (a need I had at that time, more on this in a bit). One day, I caught myself mid-exhale: how would this rider feel if he got wind (!) of this involuntary intimacy? It felt a bit like an Uno Reverse situation of the impropriety lesson I got from my mother growing up: she would spritz her perfume once on her palm, dab the tip of her forefinger into the droplets in her hand, and then press the tip lightly on a single point on either side of her neck. Your perfume was for you to smell, she would remind me, never unknown men. But here I was, an unknown woman, smelling men’s various bodily scents on the daily. In truth, I’ve spent a great deal of my commute on motorbikes considering impropriety. Pillion riding was new to my life in 2024. I was 31, used to waking up every morning, dressing to my heart's desire and, with tempered confidence, stepping out the door into what was a well-studied yet inscrutable world. But now , new contingencies demanded an updated protocol: I felt that my very conspicuously dressed “up” body may as well be a sharp knife slicing through public space in the early morning hours, cleaving the worlds of everyone it encountered into halves as I covered the 18 kilometers from home to work every day. It sounds overly dramatic now, but at the time, those misgivings felt reasonable. My Virgo temperament was keen to approach this problem systematically. I mapped out variables, cycled through undesirable scenarios, considered several tactical approaches, and eventually devised a near-perfect SOP. When the rider accepts your ride on the app and calls you to confirm your pick-up location, it is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate with your voice that you are female, a fact they may not necessarily pick up on by your profile name alone (not “Rasti” but “Jehan”, as in your friend whose name you borrowed for this app 3 years ago, after a government ban on a film you acted in turned things dicey, personal security wise). For extra measure, you turn up the girly in your voice. Some do a double take, others don't break a sweat. The next potentially tense moment arrives when you walk out of your building and your rider takes in the sight of Jehan: you’re usually in pants/jeans, rings on your fingers, bangles and distracting shoes, your helmet dangling from your hand. You avoid sleeveless tops entirely now because two attempts of riding with bare arms down Lahori streets have resulted in considerable vexation on the faces of fellow riders (and other pillion riding women), not evidenced with, say, a calf (sometimes you think maybe it is true what your friend’s mother once said in her case against the sleeveless: something potently sensual about the curve of the shoulder, entirely absent in a calf and unmatched by the curve of a knee). You’re approaching your rider now, and you make sure to put on your business-as-usual face because it is important to set the rider at ease: this is not a hapless girl attempting this for the first time and no, she most certainly will not fall off the bike and no sir, this is not her papa’s borrowed helmet. You say salam, throw your helmet on your head and your right leg over the seat. At this leg-throwing junction–confirming that you will indeed be riding astride and not modestly sidesaddle like most women do–you’re aware of some mild tensing, which is sometimes just curiosity, sometimes some caution. You let it pass and grab on tight to the U-shaped silver rail behind you that juts out over the rear light. This is a failsafe strategy to avoid contact and avoiding contact is absolutely imperative for everyone’s sake, nevermind that the repetitive gripping may have gifted you your new elbow joint dysfunction. By this point, some riders slide onto the petrol tank to widen the gap between their hips and your crotch. But sometimes they don’t, and that’s okay too because you’re pretty good at squeezing yourself between the rider and the U-rail. All in all, you’re a confident pillion rider except for when that silver rail is missing, which it is on some bikes, in which case you try and clutch on to the sides of the seat in front of you but the grip isn’t as secure and you can’t stop yourself from lurching forwards. The missing U-rail is not even how I ended up accidentally touching my rider for the first time. I was making what I thought was a small, harmless adjustment on the seat, but by the end of it I had poked my rider in his left buttock with my thumb. I held my breath. My first thought: how to not make him think that just because I'm in excessively flared, sort-of see-through pants with a linen button-down that won’t even cover my ass that I get up to this kind of behavior all the time? I said an audible “sorry”, he said nothing, and we carried on down Ferozepur road. The first time I flew onto a rider’s back with all my breasts, I didn't say anything. It felt like nothing would have sufficed for the moment; the line had been crossed so egregiously that the line just had to be treated like a construct. My breasts have bumped into 3 other riders since; nobody says anything and things carry on. The only kind of unremarkable physical contact is when I accidentally headbump my rider and our helmets go pop. *** My helmet is to me what I imagine a Garmin sportswatch is to a sando-wearing gymbro. I fawn over her, I’m always waiting for someone to notice her and ask me about her so I can show her off, and I'm never lax about wearing her which most riders will compliment in a mildly surprised tone as if a prudent female rider defies some expectation. Except for that one rider who seemed to be slightly bothered by it: ‘ Aap nay kyun helmet pehni hui hay?’ (‘why are you wearing a helmet?’), he asked as we rode out from my workplace. I paused. The inflection on you was provocative. He was waiting for my response. I’d had yet another brain-melting day at work, and was thinking about keeping my knees pressed into the sides of the bike for the duration that we would be zigzagging through post-work gridlocks; I wanted quiet, not whatever this question was. I shot back: why do you wear a helmet? And he went: but I asked you. We did maybe one more round of that and then I snapped at him with an unkind lesson on the physics of flying through the air after a car collision and becoming jam on the road. He didn’t respond and we rode in silence. That was one of only two cantankerous rides I’ve had in over 300+. I realised the helmet doesn't factor as a safeguard against death for most bikers; like the seatbelt, it’s an annoying imposition, yet another tool available to the state to squeeze fines out of ordinary citizens. I, on the other hand, am very serious about dodging death by drunk drivers / underage boys / underslept drivers of public transport / rich people in their SUV’s and pick-up trucks who think traffic lights are for pussies. In June 2024, I went looking for a death-defying helmet in Bohri Bazaar, Karachi, after consulting with my friend who rides his heavy bike (a cruiser) around Karachi (bold). It was a small store, shelves top to bottom packed with helmets and other riding gear. After some research, I decided that I wanted a full face (chin protection) flip-helmet (raiseable face shield) with a second, smaller visor inside, tinted to protect against the sun. It also absolutely had to look cool. The ones that were most popular (‘jo sab say ziada running main hain…’) according to the store owner all had snakes and skulls graffited on them in colours that gave ‘energy drink’. Ideally, I would have liked a helmet with something whimsical painted on it, like a rock nestled in a forest that hadn’t moved in three thousand years. But I settled for a matte grey-black with red streaks that curved around from the back, a faint skull at the very top, and some raptor-esque graffiti on the sides. She was a thick girl (useful for my bigger-than-average head size and even bigger hair), with detachable inner padding and a neat little flip switch above my right ear to flick the tinted visor down. I’ve stared many an MP (military police) in the eye as I flipped that switch and rode off away from their smug little checkposts and it has felt cool every time. In spite of my helmet, I’ve spent much of my commute time considering death and its cousin, paralysis, with only a brief respite in between. It was January 2025, and the city was launching a (sadly short-lived) pilot project: a designated “bike lane”. One day, there were laborers painting the left strip of Ferozepur Road green going down several kilometers. They did this for a couple weeks till a spell of light rain washed all the green away (along with allegedly 110 million rupees for the locally produced paint, supposedly a cost-effective substitute for the imported variety, as per a local news channel). A week later, some parts of the stretch got a fresh coat of paint and a barricade went up, cutting off the bike lane from the rest of the road. For a while, vehicles tried to navigate the nightmarish crisscross of entry and exit points to the lane. It was chaotic, but once inside the lane, my heart rate would be noticeably lower. It was on Ferozepur road going down this bike lane that I first noticed them. *** They were riding outside the barricade on the main road, 50 meters ahead. I noticed the pillion rider’s arms first: they were encircling the rider and…it wasn’t a loose grip. Then: her riding astride, black hair in a braid that came down to her shoulder blades, and finally: she was leaning into the hug, her whole body pressed up against the rider and her chin was resting on the rider’s right shoulder. There was something so immediately unfamiliar about this posture–it felt like it was maybe 3 moves shy from kissing in public. Luckily, a flyover was approaching; my rider slid onto the main lane to go up the bridge and suddenly I was riding parallel to the Chin and the Shoulder, and the Shoulder was attached to a head with cropped hair and pointy ends and the head was tilted sideways toward the Chin–eyes still pinned to the road in front–and Chin’s nose would periodically brush against the rider’s cheek. The rider had a loose zipper jacket on, sleeves pulled up to the elbows, 3 thin bands on her (gasp!) right wrist. She was saying something maybe wicked, maybe jovial, because both the heads were low and the mouths pulled up into smiles. Suddenly, she flicked her eyes from the road onto me riding to her right. She couldn’t have known I was also a woman because of my generously concealing helmet, and she didn’t pause to do the usual check I get subjected to by other riders on the road: hands, then breasts. And even if she did know, I had a feeling she would’ve still been annoyed at how keenly I was taking the two of them in. She revved her engine and rode off, her CD70 zigzagging between cars, leaving me feeling exhilarated because my secret hypothesis seemed to have had its first positive testing. It was April of 2025 and by that time, young girls on e-bikes had become–sorry, give me a second, it still feels unreal to say this–common around all parts of Lahore. It happened steadily: one month it was one girl on her e-bike jostling for her place on the road in early morning traffic. The next month there were 6. And somehow, it broke through whatever ceiling had stalled previous “women friendly” transportation initiatives: ”pink” rickshaws, “pink” buses, women-only ride-hailing apps. At first, it was just young girls headed to school or work; a few months later, the middle-aged women who work as house help in the gated community where I live, the ones who would make the morning walk to their respective houses every day, were now riding into the community on e-bikes. Picture it: thick-set women in their printed shalwar kameez riding astride in two’s, taking their own damn selves to work. I was afraid to point it out to anyone lest I jinxed it. Quietly, I placed a bet against, well, patriarchy: the excess of women on e-bikes was going to stir another kraken: the CD70, the reigning bike model in Pakistan for many decades, would betray its male overlords and turn out to, in fact, be quite maneuverable in the hands of women. Like Chin and Shoulder. In that way, 2025, which was otherwise miserly, gifted me a score of utterly new silhouettes to devour everyday: the girl riding down Sherpao into the setting sun with her billowing abaya making her look straight up Batmanesque; the mother taking her son for an evening ride on a pleasant April day, riding at a leisurely pace; two girls lounging on a bench in a small park, their e-bike parked next to them. Something fundamental seems to be shifting in the working and social lives of women in Lahore, and on many days I sit quaking with anticipation about all its possibilities. I imagine this is how our boomer parents felt about the arrival of the internet. *** As giant a stride as that is, I have to remind myself to be patient when it comes to what bike-riding women will be allowed to / will allow themselves to wear as they step out in this new, knife-like way. For anyone who has been disturbed by the sighting of all these newly “out” girls on their e-bikes, it must be reassuring to know that almost all of them are in abayas. And I suppose it has to be that way if we are to be collectively eased into this new age with minimal harm. I was stupidly dismissive of this when I started pillion riding, though not out of any principled defiance. It was May 2024, and we were hurtling toward a heat wave (hitting a record high of 44.5 degrees celsius that June). Not burning my skin off on the 40-minute 9:20 am ride would entail layering over my short-sleeved work clothes. A friend with moderately high survivalist tendencies gave me a windbreaker: a steal from Daraz, grey, light as a feather. Even so, the thought of double layering in Lahore’s May was unbearable. So May through June, I rode on the streets of my city with nothing but my bra under my kind-of-see-through windbreaker, rolling up my day shirt in my bag to wear when I got to the office. I figured my backpack would cover most of my back, along with any evidence of a bra-strap. The front was trickier, but there was always the slouchy shoulders trick, a tried and tested method to diminish the appearance and therefore possibility of breasts. The only problem was that I kept having visions of being thrown off my bike because of a drunk driver, followed by my flimsy wind-breaker ripping and me lying on a public street in my bra. Terrifying. By the time summer of 2025 rolled around, I was prepared: a series of black-as-night sleeveless chemises, waist-length, made of the thinnest cotton by the family tailor, Ramzan sahab, as light as the windbreaker that would go on top. *** Along the way, there have been the usual reminders that God dislikes a self-assured planner. There was that one (and only) time that I walked out of my building with my usual confidence and was told bluntly by the rider that he couldn’t take me (“sorry ma’am, main ladies ko nahi leta”) which, essentially, was him refusing me permission to get on his bike. Maybe his own personal discomfort, maybe a promise made to his wife–either way, fair. Only twice have I been prompted to consider fates worse than death and paralysis. Turns out that a healthy 40 percent of riders consider running out of petrol somewhere out on the road a low-stake problem needing attention only after the fact. One night, I had just finished dinner with a group of friends in DHA Phase 5, an upscale area by all standards. It was past midnight, so not ideal, but I calculated that the route back to my house would skirt through patrolled parts of the city, so not too bad either. About 4 minutes into the ride, the bike began sputtering with low fuel, and my rider veered to the left, parked, got off and started walking across the road to a petrol station 100m down, leaving me in a darkened spot of the street, sitting on a vehicle I had no knowledge of how to use. Peeved, I scampered after him and waited at the well-lit and peopled station while he went back across the road to his bike with a pitcher of fuel. When we got back on the road, I discreetly leaned over to see who and what he was messaging, and noticed that his wallpaper was him with a big grin and a rifle in his hand. When he asked me if I was studying in college, I made him drop me off at an approaching mall. The second time, we were travelling late afternoon on a service lane that runs parallel to the Ring Road highway around the outer part of the city. The bike sputtered, but this time, the closest pump was at least 1.5 kilometers away. These words were barely out of my mouth when my rider, a 50-something man with a bright orange beard, told me to hang tight and rode off and out of sight. I stood at the side of the highway – maroon suede shirt, top three buttons open, heeled boots, grey flared pants, bronze bangles and a helmet on my head – and waited in stunned silence. Every passing person on bike or rickshaw or car gawked at the sight of this strange helmeted creature who seemed to be standing beside a highway without much of a plan. I considered someone snatching my bag, snatching the whole of me, or getting frisky as they drove past. I waited with a mini blade tucked in my knuckle (thank you again, survivalist friend). It was a tense 10 minutes, but then I spotted my rider–big flashy mehndi beard–speeding back to get me. *** My first ever ride was probably the nicest one I’ve had in these two years. I approached it as an experiment to see if pillion riding was going to solve either one of the two pressing problems of my life at the time (more on this too, I promise). It was noon on a Sunday which meant fewer people on the roads. That increased my chances of getting a serious-minded uncle kind of a rider instead of a flamboyant youngster because he would likely be sleeping in on a Sunday. Moreover, it was an intentionally short ride (8 km) into the cantonment area (hello military police everywhere). Sure enough, my rider was a mid-40’s uncle with a greying beard and he rode me uneventfully to my destination. It cost me RS 110. When I got off I felt compelled to tell him he’d made me feel very safe. He seemed slightly surprised at receiving this compliment at 12:17 pm on a Sunday, but accepted it nonetheless. He rode off and I stood there with a growing sense that riding around the city was going to save me from me. At the time, without any prior notice, I had embarked on my first pilgrimage to rage. Before, rage and I had been wary acquaintances; she would hang around my circle a lot but I knew better than to trust her. By 2024, I was beginning my mornings with her and taking her to bed every night. I was convinced she was funnier and cleverer than anyone else, and I let her regale me with tales about how obnoxious and insufferable and disappointing everyone truly was: women, men, children, siblings, mentors, friends, colleagues, neighbours, strangers, everyone . During rare moments of clarity, I wanted more than anything to be freed of her, freed of the pinball machine that was my mind and its most sulphuric thoughts, and it turns out that heat on the roads can do that for you, specifically heat that bounces off asphalt as you wait at a 30-second traffic light on a 39°C morning. Something else that can do that for you is touching treetops as you go down fly-overs, which I do every time I’m taking Jinnah toward Firdous Market or Sherpao toward Jail Road. Little clusters of trees spill over the parapet walls on both routes, and something about having a brief unscheduled encounter with the very top of a tree short-circuits my nervous system. These daily offerings of my rides back home–fleeting, mystifying, unexpected, primordial–peeled the rage off slowly. Like the sight of an uncle crying behind the wheel of his car as he drove down Kasur, a tissue pressed to his eyes; auburn February sunsets that cut me down to size; the masculine urge to shake the head at anything inconvenient: missing a green light, jumpy pedestrians, the petrol finishing, a surprise speedbreaker; leaning in to have shouty conversations over wind and horns with men you were probably only going to meet once in your life about living in this wondrous city and seeing it be asphyxiated by smog, by 100-legged billboards, rental prices, the military, housing societies and megaprojects. My other life-problem was a lot simpler in comparison: pillion riding kept me from going broke for the third time in 2 years. My life had experienced seismic shifts during Covid’s debut year of 2020. Before, I had had unobstructed access to someone else’s Honda City, and I had driven it all over Lahore at all kinds of hours. In 2021, I moved into a house where the cars (multiple) came with multiple conditions. I could drive the older manual Honda Civic Reborn (a glorious model) but not the newer Toyota Aqua even though it was smaller and automatic (so more “female-friendly” as per man-logic) but that too only during daylight hours and for certain stretches of time. By the end of 2023, I was living on my own, chest deep in bills and groceries and with the acute sense that the city I had been living in for 14 years had become unaffordable. I couldn’t even take myself to work on a hailed car everyday, let alone to restaurants or shops that I used to frequent. It took some time, but once I accepted that I was indeed poorer in my 30’s than I’d been in my 20’s—not the favoured trajectory—I found myself calling my first bike that Sunday afternoon. Another 20 or so uneventful rides later, somewhere on Canal Road, the heat like a whip cracking open the synapses in my brain is when suddenly: what if all these women riding behind these men on the Canal aren’t all wives and mothers and daughters and sisters? What if I’m not the only stranger-danger-woman impinging on this equilibrium of public order and decency? And sure enough, when I really looked, I saw that some of the women whizzing past me on the Canal also sat as far as possible on the other end of the seat with their arms folded away from the man transporting them. Then I noticed two women getting off around a commercial area and handing money over to the rider. In the end, rather embarrassingly, I had to admit to myself that of course I was not one in a handful of women in this sprawling city who were compelled by necessity to hail bikes for their commute and of course women did it every single day given how affordable and fast it was. Really the only oddity about me doing it was that I presented as somebody who would have some other means. Which makes for the usual confusion on the faces of the military police stalking the 10 or so checkposts that surround the cantonment area (‘cantt’) where I usually find myself. Their job in some ways is to complicate the entry of 1) non-rich looking people 2) non-Punjabi looking people 3) non-Pakistani looking people into Cantt. In that regard, I am a bit of a headache in that I am not 1) ( phew because critical security priority) but I am 2) and 3). In fact, popular opinion suggests that I can comfortably be confused for Turkish/Lebanese/Iranian/Greek. So as I approach the checkpost, riders ahead and behind taking off their helmets so their faces can be recorded by the Go-Pro’s hanging off the neck of every MP (I keep mine on, only pushing the face shield up), I see consternation tense the face of the MP. He clocks first the clothes, then the legs parted in a straddle, then the (always) painted lips. He can’t help but puff up as he steps toward me–he’s about to strike down the stealthy advance of a foreign woman into a securitized zone of the city. I disarm him a little by asking curtly, jee bhai, kia chahiye? (yes, what do you want?). He falters briefly at the comfortable Urdu and the tone, gathers himself up again, and demands my ID card. This is good because I have it ready in a zipper pocket and I get to pull it out, hand it over and watch his face fall as he realises today is not the day he gets to intercept a foreign conspiracy. What I hate is when they don’t ask for the ID card and instead order me to get my entry “logged”. Getting myself logged in the system means parking 50m ahead beside a cabin and coming face to face with the “Lady Searcher” (as advertised in big lettering on the outside of the cabin, which, if one considers the tradition of military parlance, is surprisingly lyrical, almost poetic: ~ lady searcher ~ ). She’s usually in an abaya, and has been sitting in that cramped cabin over, no doubt, a long shift with no view and no company and no Go-Pro or other fancy tech to deploy either; just an old register with lined columns in which she has to enter data by hand . I sympathise, I do. And I really would rather confront the villain than the stooge, especially since something about being expertly surveilled by a woman is extremely unsettling. The Lady Searcher always looks at me like I’m the whorish offspring of disreputable people. She’ll bark at me to take my helmet off and we’re off to a very bad start. I’ve tried different approaches—doubling down, impudence, shaming, humour—she does not back down. She is very bad for my rage, I’ve realised, so now I try and limit my exposure to her. I go into the cabin and promptly answer all her questions about where I’ve come from and where I was born and where I’m going and why I’m going where I’m going. *** I really thought that unless I pursued some bucket-list calibre things—requiring at the very least money and a new destination—I wouldn’t be unlocking any truly new experience in my 30’s; new like the unique thrill of the absolutely unfamiliar felt explosively at a cellular level. I certainly did not think it was going to happen on a narrow street in a cramped junction nestled under the Sherpao flyover. This street is the preferred alternative route for some riders because it snakes under busier parts of town. It is lined with motels and food joints—burger and shawarma, biryani and pulao, mithai and bakery, kebab and fish. We, two fools on a bike, were attempting to cross the 250m stretch five minutes before iftar. Crowds thronged food stalls on either side, buying snacks to break their fast, men hung about in two’s and three’s, listening for the azaan, hawkers shouted and flailed their arms trying to entrap customers, people scurried back home to break their fast. I instructed my body to brace for some swift dodging of stares and limbs as we approached the throng, forgetting that it was still winter and my body was hidden under layers of clothing including a puffer jacket, and my hair was still cropped and entirely hidden under my helmet. The first man that I passed by on that street must have stood not a foot away from me. He was holding a menu in his hand, and was looking over my head, his eyes fixed on customers across the road. The next was a man who was rushing across the street, his arm outstretched as he yelled something at someone. It began to dawn on me that we had all gone off-script; this wasn’t how crammed public spaces worked. I cast my eyes around hurriedly trying to catch at least one man looking my way, but it was as if I was a blurry detail, a thing to be cropped out. And–the truly new new–while my mind had needed to ascertain all this, my body had arrived at it much earlier. It hadn’t actually braced for anything at all even after I had instructed it to, not a muscle tensed in the knowledge that we were approaching male bodies in various states of frenzy and languor, not even with the awareness that nobody was bothering to create a “respectable” distance between us as we crossed. It was precisely because of this, because my body was a non-event, that our proximity was a perfectly neutral, luminously new sensation. ∎ SUB-HEAD Two years ago, short on money and hungry for something new, Rasti Farooq started pillion riding through Lahore. What began as a practical choice became an intimate, disorienting encounter with the city, and with herself. Here’s everything you would note about everything if you went around your city on a bike. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Ode To History" (2024), gouache on paper, 21 x 28 inches, courtesy of Khadijah Rehman. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Essay Lahore RASTI FAROOQ is a writer, actor and producer from Lahore, who, having worked with Lahore's pioneering animation studio Puffball for 8 years, is now adrift as a freelance creative. You can find her in the film Joyland playing Mumtaz, or in one specific coffee shop around 11 a.m. playing Girl With Book. 25 Mar 2026 Essay Lahore 25th Mar 2026 KHADIJAH REHMAN (b.1992) is a visual artist based in Lahore, Pakistan. She graduated with a BFA in Painting from the National College of Arts (2017) and works in both traditional and digital mediums. Her work has been on display in galleries locally and internationally, and ranges from gouache paintings and embroideries to digital explorations. Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note:

“Cultures of Chittagong Hill Tracts and other indigenous peoples are still marginalized in Bangladesh, in mainstream cultural practices. They're made invisible. And there is a kind of appropriation too. A Chakma dance is danced by Bengali dancers.” COMMUNITY Bengali Nationalism & the Chittagong Hill Tracts “Cultures of Chittagong Hill Tracts and other indigenous peoples are still marginalized in Bangladesh, in mainstream cultural practices. They're made invisible. And there is a kind of appropriation too. A Chakma dance is danced by Bengali dancers.” Kabita Chakma Researcher Kabita Chakma in conversation with Advisory Editor Mahmud Rahman talked about her own experience writing and translating in Bangla and Chakma, as well as the longue durée history of the Chakmas and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, particularly after the formation of CHT as a district in 1860. Colonial cartographies split the Chakma population between countries, districts, and states between Tripura, Assam, Mizoram in India, Burma, Bangladesh, and their global diasporas. How robust, Mahmud Rahman asks, is the readership of Chakma texts? RECOMMENDED: "Muscular nationalism, masculinist militarism: the creation of situational motivators and opportunities for violence against the Indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh" (International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2022) by Glen Hill & Kabita Chakma Researcher Kabita Chakma in conversation with Advisory Editor Mahmud Rahman talked about her own experience writing and translating in Bangla and Chakma, as well as the longue durée history of the Chakmas and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, particularly after the formation of CHT as a district in 1860. Colonial cartographies split the Chakma population between countries, districts, and states between Tripura, Assam, Mizoram in India, Burma, Bangladesh, and their global diasporas. How robust, Mahmud Rahman asks, is the readership of Chakma texts? RECOMMENDED: "Muscular nationalism, masculinist militarism: the creation of situational motivators and opportunities for violence against the Indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh" (International Feminist Journal of Politics, 2022) by Glen Hill & Kabita Chakma SUB-HEAD ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: Clare Patrick (Our) Worlds and (Plant) Wisdoms Kareen Adam · Nazish Chunara A Dhivehi Artists Showcase Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Interview Chittagong Hill Tracts Bangladesh CHT Indigeneity Chakma Chakma History Indigenous Art Practice Indigeneous Spaces Politics of Indigeneity Language Diversity Language Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti United People's Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Kaptai Dam Bengali Nationalism Jumma Communities Jumma Chakma Communities Shaheen Akhtar Militarism Military Crackdown Shomari Chakma International Mother Tongue Day Intellectual History Postcolonialism KABITA CHAKMA is an independent researcher, writer and architect. Writing in the Chakma, Bangla and English languages, Kabita’s research interests include the history, literature, art, architecture, cinema, environmental sustainability, human rights, women’s rights and Indigenous peoples’ rights. Her academic papers have appeared in university journals and edited book chapters. Her investigative articles have appeared in the Daily Star , the New Age , Himal Southasian , the publications of various cultural and educational institutes, including the online platforms Jumjournal, thotkata.com, and alalodulal.org. Her creative works include poems and short stories. Her book of poems, Jawli Na’Udhim Kittei!/ Rukhe Darabo Na Ken! was written in Chakma and Bangla languages and translated into English by Sajed Kamal. She recently translated a short story by Shaheen Akhter, Chander Pahar (Moon Mountain) , for the magazine Out Of Print . In the context of a paucity of fictional works in indigenous CHT languages, she is now working on Chakma language historical fiction. 9 Dec 2020 Interview Chittagong Hill Tracts 9th Dec 2020 Chats Ep. 8 · On Migrations in Global History Neilesh Bose 4th May Nation-State Constraints on Identity & Intimacy Chaitali Sen 17th Dec Photo Kathmandu & Public History in Nepal NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati 25th Nov Romantic Literature and Colonialism Mani Samriti Chander 13th Nov Rethinking the Library with Sister Library Aqui Thami 21st Oct On That Note:

Musician Ali Sethi in conversation with Associate Editor Kamil Ahsan | · COMMUNITY Interview · Music Syncretism & the Contemporary Ghazal Musician Ali Sethi in conversation with Associate Editor Kamil Ahsan Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. The Ghazal originated in Arabia in the 8th century. That's the funny stuff right? That in order to retrieve legitimate cosmopolitanism, we have to go back to a medieval multicultural moment. SUB-HEAD Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Interview Music Ghazal Art History Historicity Syncretism State Repression Faiz Ahmed Faiz Khabar-e-Tahayyar-e-Ishq Siraj Aurangabadi Mah Laqa Bai Sensuality Metaphor Cultural Repression Art Practice Sound Poetic Form Performance Art Grief Raaga Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. 14th Oct 2020 AUTHOR · AUTHOR Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. 1 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 On That Note: