freedom

Editorial – Movement and Sexuality
An abstract photo of blurred blue and white vertical lines that are spanning outwards

This issue of In Plainspeak while inviting us to embrace the joys and pleasure in movement, also questions the ways in which movements are facilitated or obstructed, visibilised or invisibilised, and the spaces that we must envision to find freedom in/to movement.

By TARSHI
May 19, 2022
Editorial – Movement and Sexuality
Interview – Tishani Doshi
Photograph of a woman with long hair in red sari, sitting with a brown dog against a background of bushes with vines and pink azaleas. The woman is resting her chin on one hand and petting the dog with the other.

I’ve essentially thought of movement as a kind of freedom, but one that has the capacity to destabilise you in some way. My most creative moments are when I’m not moving, when I am in fact rooted and still.

By Shikha Aleya
May 3, 2022
Interview – Tishani Doshi
Video – Tishani Doshi: Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods (poetry/dance)
Photograph of Tishani Doshi in the middle of a dance performance. She is wearing a pink pantsuit and has long hair. She has her legs slightly bent in a wide stance, with her palms cupped, facing outward towards the camera lens and positioned near her pubic area. A spotlight is focussed on her.

In the video section, watch Tishani Doshi perform one of her most haunting and popular poems ‘Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods’. Using the movements of/in body, music and language, it is a powerful expression of Tishani’s expansive vision of resistance, freedom and solidarity in the face of violence.

By Curated Content
May 3, 2022
Video – Tishani Doshi: Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods (poetry/dance)
The Construction of Women as Spaces
A photograph of the silhouette of a woman with long hair with the horizon of an ocean in the background and a sky at sunset with purple, pink and yellow gradient

This article explores how women are constructed as a ‘space’ manufactured by men to seek comfort, but void of having any active agency or participation in that space itself. I seek to bring this out in this article by drawing a parallel between the nineteenth century ‘Bharat Mata’ (Mother India) and the depiction of the twenty-first century ‘heroine’ in Bollywood movies.

By Tanvi Chattoraj
April 1, 2022
The Construction of Women as Spaces
Editorial – Celebrating Sexuality
A colourful background with “100 % sexuality” written in blue with pink shadow around the text.

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
Interview – This is what you bring to the table!
A photograph of a number of multicoloured rainbows against the background of a blue sky.

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!
Negotiating Expression
An abstract painting of teal squares with splashes of orange, white, blue and yellow.

I am still coming to terms with my own femininity, as with new learnings I find myself regaining many facets of my personality which were lost while trying to ‘act like a man’ and ‘act tough’.

By Ambica Naithani
March 1, 2022
Negotiating Expression
Between Fear and Freedom
एक चित्रण जिसमें एक लड़की को एक सड़क के बीच में खड़ा दर्शाया गया है। लड़की ने अपने दोनों कंधो पर एक बस्ता पहना हुआ है जिसमें से एक चाँद और एक तारा बाहर निकल रहे हैं।

We are led to question what ‘safety’ really is: Will it be guaranteed by going gently, if at all, into that good night? Is it at all possible to freely and safely explore who we are and the world in which we live?

By Anjali
January 3, 2022
Between Fear and Freedom
Editorial: Fandom and Sexuality
A colourful pattern of distorted concentric circles

Members of a fandom are not just passive consumers but active co-creators who imagine and build new worlds around their objects of adoration. Fandom communities offer fans the freedom of being able to imagine, create and share all sorts of scenarios, including romantic, erotic and sexual ones.

By TARSHI
November 15, 2021
Editorial: Fandom and Sexuality
Interview: Kripa Joshi
On a peach coloured background, a woman of colour jumping. She is wearing purple ballet shoes and a purple one-piece swimsuit with white-grey patterns scattered on it. Her eyes are wide open and her hands are stretched open on both sides. Her hair is brown and open. She is throwing multi-coloured confetti. Beneath her is a blue circle. In a semicircle to her right is the typography, in purple: Throw kindness around like confetti!

There have been several recent examples of actors, movies and events being called out because of their lack of representation, like for the Oscars. With social media it is easier to create and distribute diverse art and also to voice the need for diversity. So it needs engagements and awareness in society. Change will happen once enough people demand that change.

By Shikha Aleya
June 15, 2021
Interview: Kripa Joshi
The Struggle Of Beauty Workers In On-Demand Digital Platform
A screenshot of the Feminism in India illustration for the article. An illustration. On a green background which denotes a building, two women talking. One is wearing a yellow dress and has black hair tied in a bun. She is saying, depicted in a black bubble with white lettering, '10 MINUTES LATE BOOKING CANCEL' and on the other side is a woman in an olive top and a brown backpack. Her hair is in a ponytail and she is looking at the other woman with a white phone in her hand. Underneath, in white typography, 'The Struggle of Beauty Workers In On-Demand Digital Platforms'. On the top-left corner is Feminism in India's logo.

If you live in an urban metropolitan city, you must have seen women dressed up in company uniform, carrying a heavy bag on their shoulders, their attire shouting a brand name with logos all over her. Their bodies become an advertising ground for a company’s marketing. Sometimes, the bag is a portable salon that they carry to their client’s (home), who book the beauty service using a mobile application. These ‘workers’ enroll themselves on the platform company that operates as an intermediary, to get bookings on-demand.

By Feminism in India
May 15, 2021
The Struggle Of Beauty Workers In On-Demand Digital Platform
There I sat down and wept

“Be yourself, Sarah. Awkward smiles, empty silences, weird laughter, and all. It’s just a part of being human. Loving someone physically is never not awkward. Even if it’s a monogamous relationship. It’s only the comfort of familiarity that makes you think otherwise.”

By Anna Lynn
April 19, 2021
There I sat down and wept
The Last Local To Vashi
A photograph of differently coloured cloths hanging from poles in front of a train station in Mumbai, at night

I gave myself the freedom to choose. And I chose to re-examine my assumptions. Maybe it was possible to ask strange men for directions without being afraid of seeming vulnerable. Maybe I could plan my outfit without bothering about the fact that I would be travelling on public transport.

By Tanvi Khemani
October 5, 2020
The Last Local To Vashi
Worlds Within Queer Worlds: Presence, Politics And Diversity

Many among us are called names, are greeted with aggressive taunts and jeers on the very streets we boldly occupy at least once every year,so we go on living docilely until the next Pride, when performative reclamation of spaces becomes possible.

By Sohini Chatterjee
January 2, 2020
Worlds Within Queer Worlds: Presence, Politics And Diversity
बेटे का पत्र, पिता के नाम
By: Amateur Pic, Courtesy: PublicDomainPictures.net

आज वैश्विक और स्थानीय रूप से हम जहाँ भी हैं, मैं दिल से आपको धन्यवाद देना चाहता हूँ कि आपने मुझे हमेशा ही मजबूत और निर्भीक रहना सिखाया है।

By Sahil Sood
March 18, 2019
बेटे का पत्र, पिता के नाम
1 2 3