freedom
…what is there to misunderstand
about hands that take without asking,
about silence twisted into consent
by those who have never had to be afraid?
Our bodies become the form and medium through which we present ourselves to the outside world, engage with it, interact with it, perceive it and are perceived by it.
The morning was heavy, laden with the weight of expectation, with the unsettling realisation that something was about to shift.
Just this month, Godrej DEI Lab has launched a video, Pride @Godrej to celebrate Pride as a year-round commitment to…
Aastha Khanna is India’s first intimacy coordinator who is making sure that a film’s vision is realised without flouting anyone’s boundaries, or leading to general awkwardness on set, especially when it comes to intimate scenes.
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.
In my flesh, I must pass
for straight…
But in the digital world,
I can be me.
Fashion is a language that expresses survival, rebellion, freedom, visibility and invisibility, identity, representation and inclusion.
What if we refused to assimilate? What if we collectively decided to dress in a way that made it so society could not render us invisible?
While women’s colleges are certainly a step ahead of other institutions in creating spaces of liberation and encouraging freedom of choice, this rare advantage must expand itself onto the landscape of our entire country.
As clear as I was about my sexuality, I was just as unclear about how I wanted to look and what felt good.
Our bodies become the form and medium through which we present ourselves to the outside world, engage with it, interact with it, perceive it and are perceived by it.
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.
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.
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.