Dec 12, 2022“Is RRR really fascist?” & other questions we shouldn’t have to answer in 2022By now, Western fascination and approval of RRR have started to generate a significant international reputation for S.S. Rajamouli and his crew, with award nominations pouring in. The ubiquitous wonder and awe the film has elicited from American and European film critics — who see the film as a thrillingly…Rajamouli16 min readRajamouli16 min read
Apr 10, 2022On loving those who call themselves HindusI have been stuck on the question of what filial love and kinship can and should look like when it pertains to those who proudly flaunt a caste-Hindu identity, whose identification I feel distant from more and more each day. …Hindutva And Hinduism8 min readHindutva And Hinduism8 min read
Sep 10, 2019Militarism, Motherhood, and Martyrdom: Caste & Neoliberal Nationalism in Three Filmic MomentsOn Border, Rang de Basanti and UriIndia27 min readIndia27 min read
Oct 27, 2018Caste-ing Desire & Caste Bodies — Pt. 2: Sexual Pedagogies and the Brahmin Erotic GazeI was not planning a second post on the Brahmin Erotic Gaze, but a recent article in LiveMint caught me up with a torrential stream of thoughts, and I simply couldn’t leave it unaddressed. The story in question above interviews “rural women” about their sexual desires and continually suggests that…Caste12 min readCaste12 min read
Aug 6, 2018Caste-ing Desire and Caste Bodies: Sex, Lust, and the Brahmin Erotic Gaze[CW: Description and discussion of sexual assault and casteist slurs throughout the essay.] We meet Satyavati in the epic and in pauranic accounts as an adolescent fisher-girl called Kali, because of her dark complexion, plying her boat across the black Kalinidi (Yamuna) with a lone passenger, the sage Parashara, who…Indian Literature15 min readIndian Literature15 min read
Dec 27, 2017Politics of the Intimate Pt. 3: The Brahmin Mistress and the Bahujan MaidI was nine years old the first time I remember finding the PearlPET jar of turmeric among my clothes in the Godrej almirah. Flummoxed, I took it back to the kitchen only to find the chilli powder in there the next day. I remember my maternal grandma — Ajji —…Brahminism17 min readBrahminism17 min read
Nov 22, 2017Politics of the Intimate Pt. 2: The Brahmin Arranged MarriageThere is a black and white photo taken very early in the days after my parents got married, with them sitting on two chairs outside their house. I once put it up in a Facebook album, as part of a vintage album with a caption going something like “The typical…Brahminism16 min readBrahminism16 min read
Nov 10, 2017Politics of the Intimate Pt. 1: The Brahmin Woman in the Brahmin HouseholdOf late, I have been prompted into thinking of how Brahminism is a kind of totalizing project, the kind that is decentered, deeply implicated in personal and intimate spaces, which despite lacking centralized institutional authority becomes the way through which the caste power is consolidated. …Feminism14 min readFeminism14 min read
Nov 4, 2017Of #LoSHA and The List as a Literature of DesperationAt the heart of The List is chaos, a non-knowledge which cannot be known, a dangerous demand for willful ignorance from its readers. At the heart of it, that is exactly what the list also demands. It demands an instant of pure faith in the word of victims, in the…Feminism6 min readFeminism6 min read
Oct 13, 2017Chamak-dhamak, Hrithik-Kangana and the moral compass of the “bourgeois press”“हमारी फ़िल्म लाइन अजीब है प्रफ़ेसर साब, एक शरीफ़ आदमी को विलेन का रोल करना पड़ता है, और मुझ जैसे को हीरो ।” (“Our film line is so strange, Professor-saab, an honest man has to play the role of a villain, and someone like me, a hero.”) One of the reasons I think Hrishikesh Mukherjee is a genius, is in his understanding of cinematic performance in the context of everyday performance. In Guddi…Hrithik Kangana9 min readHrithik Kangana9 min read
