Women

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Shruti Chakraborty
While menstruation has long been considered a taboo topic in India, ancient Hindu traditions recognise women as a representation of Mother Earth. In certain parts of the country, menses is equated with the ritual of regeneration and fertility, and is thus celebrated. We look at two such festivals—…
in Article
J. Devika
Brahmin-Christian Krupabai Satthianadhan is recognised as a pioneer woman author of Indian writing in English, celebrated for her style as well as the content of her novels which opens up the world of women’s struggles and inner lives in nineteenth-century India. We train the spotlight on the…
in Article
Urmila Pawar and Meenakshi Moon
Originally published in Marathi in 1989, We Also Made History: Women in the Ambedkarite Movement, a contemporary classic, details for the first time, the history of women’s participation in the Dalit movement led by Dr B.R. Ambedkar. The first part outlines the involvement of women in various Dalit…
in Article
Rupsa Nag
in Image Gallery
Rupsa Nag
Rajinder Kumari Nayyar (76), a senior artist in Chamba, worked as a trainer at the first Chamba embroidery centre in the 1960s, set up by the efforts of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay and run by the national award-winning Chamba embroidery artist, Maheshi Devi. In 2018, Nayyar was felicitated by the…
in Interview
Rupsa Nag
Rumal is ‘an impressively designed and embroidered fabric used as a gift wrap.’[1] Chamba rumal, as Chamba kasidakari/ kadhai (embroidery) is popularly called, is a part of the larger Pahari craft tradition of Himachal Pradesh practised mostly by women since time unknown. Chamba lies at a…
in Overview
Rupsa Nag
Chamba rumal, as Chamba embroidery is popularly called, is brought to life by an arduous process where miniature painting meets weaving, opening up a world of stories carried through generations and traditions that speak of nature, faith and life, thus forming not just an embroidered masterpiece…
in Module
Bhavana Pankaj
Mandodari is much more than just Ravana’s wife from Ramayana. Who was she? What are her origins? We explore the rich lattice of story-work that gives us a fascinating Mandodari, if not a definitive one. (Photo courtesy: Wikimedia Commons)   Mandodari (one of the slender waist). The name…
in Article
Vishes Kothari
Following are samples and translations of different songs sung to various folk and ancestor deities across Rajasthan. These songs were collected over the years in the Thali-Shekhawati region of Rajasthan from a cross-section of communities. Performed by women, they form part of occasions such as…
in Video
Vishes Kothari
  Ann Grodzins Gold has spent many years living and researching in Ghatiyali, a town in Tonk district, Rajasthan. Her fieldwork and writings concern diverse topics— pilgrimage, women’s rituals and expressive traditions, environmental history, and most recently landscape and identity in a small…
in Interview