celebration

Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality
A serving of filter coffee in brass tumbler on a wooden table.
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality

Marriage also feels complicated when one approaches it through the lens of feminism. Marriage throws in two people and often their families into a system designed to perpetuate patriarchy, subjugate women, and bind men and women (in heteronormative marriage) into strict roles in the marriage.
By Vani Viswanathan
January 13, 2025
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality
The Taste of Purple
A small pile of black rice or Oriza sativa used to make Kavuni Arisi halwa
The Taste of Purple

Stop everything! I have a condition that you must follow before you read any further, before you consume what I’ve…
By Hanish Srinivasan
July 17, 2023
The Taste of Purple
The Feast
Brown and white ceramic container with mango pinkle in it.
The Feast

For everybody was more interested in the welcome sounds of cooks at work and the aromas wafting from the huge community kitchen, adjoining the hall, than in the puja.
By Sailaja P
July 17, 2023
The Feast
Editorial – Celebrating Sexuality
A colourful background with “100 % sexuality” written in blue with pink shadow around the text.
Editorial – Celebrating Sexuality

100 issues, 8 years! Thank you, dear readers and contributors! As we planned for this issue to put on our…
By TARSHI
March 15, 2022
Editorial – Celebrating Sexuality
The Time Machine – 5 In Plainspeak Articles that Celebrate Sexuality in its Diverse Forms!
Artificial golden stars against a blue background
The Time Machine – 5 In Plainspeak Articles that Celebrate Sexuality in its Diverse Forms!

The In Plainspeak team decided to time travel and re-discover previously published articles that explore the multiple ways in which people find joy and pleasure in their sexualities.
By TARSHI
March 15, 2022
The Time Machine – 5 In Plainspeak Articles that Celebrate Sexuality in its Diverse Forms!
How We Reimagine and Redefine Freedoms
Silhouette of a woman against an abstract, colourful background
How We Reimagine and Redefine Freedoms

Every part of life, the world too, is storied. Stories are the thread that hold histories and truths together. Stories are at the core of myth-making. Everything that we know is part of multiple crisscrossing relational storylines that we raise and those that we have no power in raising.

By Curated Content
March 15, 2022
How We Reimagine and Redefine Freedoms
Interview – This is what you bring to the table!
A photograph of a number of multicoloured rainbows against the background of a blue sky.
Interview – This is what you bring to the table!

In this write up, we’d like to share a sense of what emerges from a compilation of these responses. This is based on the thoughts and feelings that come through for those of us here at In Plainspeak who have had the joy of reading the original responses as they came in to us. (Some of the quotations that follow have been slightly edited for flow and to help connect themes.) We know that most things in the realm of art, information and ideas lend themselves to a wide range of inferences and insights depending on the individuals making the inferences.
By Shikha Aleya
March 1, 2022
Interview – This is what you bring to the table!
‘A Promise to Stand By’: The quiet feminism of Nathicharami
Nathicharami
‘A Promise to Stand By’: The quiet feminism of Nathicharami

Nathicharami takes sexuality and sexual desire away from upper-class, Gucci-clad women and makes its viewers acknowledge its existence in the lives of women (middle-class wives and widows, in the case of this film) who are invisibilised, both in the society they live in and as subjects of popular content.
By Srishti Gupta
March 1, 2022
‘A Promise to Stand By’: The quiet feminism of Nathicharami
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality

Marriage also feels complicated when one approaches it through the lens of feminism. Marriage throws in two people and often their families into a system designed to perpetuate patriarchy, subjugate women, and bind men and women (in heteronormative marriage) into strict roles in the marriage.
By Vani Viswanathan
March 1, 2022
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality
Brushstrokes – Scribbles
A black-and-white line drawing of a woman with wavy hair, multiple necklaces including one with a beetle pendant, earrings in the shape of a dice. There are stars on her face, and the only colour in the artwork is in the woman’s eyelids, which have been conceptualised as rainbows.
Brushstrokes – Scribbles

Scribbles: an Escape From the Mundane is a product of my thoughts and emotions when I was struggling to understand my sexuality and grappling with the idea of identifying with the spectrum of gender and sexuality outside the binary, but not being able to put a label on it.
By Nishita Kamdar
March 1, 2022
Brushstrokes – Scribbles
Brushstrokes – Celebrating Sexuality
Celebrating Sexuality
Brushstrokes – Celebrating Sexuality

Taboos in relation to female desire, sexuality and the body are often addressed in my work. My recent artistic interest focuses on rituals that are primarily centred on agricultural communities in Bengal that involve the veneration of fertility symbols and celebration of feminine sexuality.
By Mitali Das
March 1, 2022
Brushstrokes – Celebrating Sexuality
Video: “Un Sacré Mariage!”
A wedding scene in a church with sunlight streaming in from the windows.
Video: “Un Sacré Mariage!”

What can celebrating sexuality look like? Un Sacré Mariage!, an animated short by Francis Papillon and Gregory Verreault shows us with aplomb, jest and buoyancy that one of the ways to do it could be by moving away from conventions and rituals.
By Curated Content
March 1, 2022
Video: “Un Sacré Mariage!”