Desire
The Villainised Other: Understanding Portrayals of Female Masculinity in Bollywood
Apart from the masculinity portrayed in commercial films with heterosexual tropes, Bollywood has produced movies portraying distorted female masculinity.
By Soumili Paul and Tiyasha Purohit
The Unbearability Of Desire
Intimacy can never thrive in an environment of rigid certainty. Intimacy requires surrender – not in the sense of submission – but in the willingness to be with another person without detachment or defences.
By Shaifila Ladhani
March 17, 2025
The Silent Theft of Consent: How Patriarchy Undermines Women at Every Step
When a woman, in her own house, is told by her family members, to always seek their consent before doing anything, and to always keep them informed of every activity she engages in, or even to seek a job in her chosen field, her freedom is taken away from her. She is expected to take their consent for anything and everything, but her own consent is taken away from her.
By Aanya Narula
The Side People
We all are members of ‘The Side People’. No, we don’t sit around a table every Saturday to cry.
By Sonakhya Samaddar
October 15, 2025
The Queerness of Fandom in Bollywood
People looking for queer plots in Bollywood are sometimes disappointed, as the focus on marriage in many films seems to suggest that Bollywood is a conservative genre invested in sanctifying reproductive heteronormativity.
By Ulka Anjaria
November 1, 2021
The No 1 Ladies Heartbreak Compartment
This question is for the women. Have you ever sat in the ladies compartment of a Bombay local train and cried quietly, oddly comforted by a crowd of unknown women?
By Curated Content
April 15, 2019
The Metro and Desires
People in the city move from their homes to their workplaces and back to their homes. The production of this everyday rhythm of the city makes people accustomed to the sexual overtones that come with it.
By Manvendra
August 1, 2019
The Metro and Desires
People in the city move from their homes to their workplaces and back to their homes. The production of this everyday rhythm of the city makes people accustomed to the sexual overtones that come with it.
By Manvendra
January 11, 2024
The Masques Of Masculinity
Z is forced to wear the mask of masculinity, a mask made of the various tropes of stereotypical masculine energy…
By Hardik Jain and Shrusti Mulgund
April 17, 2025
The Language of the Eyes – Speaking Through Signs
Because we also understand and acknowledge the power of a single step forward, we decided to deep dive into working with sign languages for people who are deaf or hard of hearing and including them in the safe abortion rights dialogues.
By Nandini Mazumder, Ayesha Bashir and Suchitra Dalvie
June 17, 2025
The Impossibility of Intimacy
Roland Barthes writes in A Lover’s Discourse that we begin to think of ‘love’ as an idea only when our beloved or the object of desire has departed – either when love has failed, or in the absence of the lover – that is absolutely crucial to any theorisation of love.
By Rahul Sen
February 15, 2019
The Hollowness of (Performed) Masculinity
Men perform an identity that they don’t fully understand. The pressure to appear strong while feeling the full range of emotions that they cannot express creates a hollow inside, creates a quiet dissonance, a loneliness that is rarely spoken of but deeply felt.
By Shaifila Ladhani
April 17, 2025
The Heart of Dating: The Debrief
The Debrief is a girlhood ritual as old as dating itself.
By Tanvi Khemani
November 17, 2025
The Good Boy with ‘Unspeakable’ Desires: The Queer Testimonio of ‘Nacher Chhele’
In Nacher Chhele, a 38 year old Avijit stands outside himself, takes a long look at his past, and writes an intense testimonio, which would resonate with many middle class Bengali queer men who grew up in the pre-global, pre-Internet city of Calcutta in the 80s and 90s.
By Kaustav Bakshi