movement

Bend the ball like Beckham, but where?
Selective focus shot of outdoor playground swings.

Such open spaces to play sports are mainly occupied by men, while women are mostly excluded on account of various gender norms. This also applies to many underprivileged girls coming from the margins of caste and class who lack access to safe and inclusive open public spaces to play, such as public parks or maidans.

By Anchal Kumari and Vinayak
April 21, 2023
Bend the ball like Beckham, but where?
Lost and Found
A close-up of a person walking on a path in a park. They are on the right side of the photo and only their legs are visible.

From today’s vantage point I see that I missed an opportunity to use PT and sports in school as a way to get to know and move my body. This in turn held me back from viewing myself as a sexual being.

By Kajol Hinduja
April 6, 2023
Lost and Found
More than Striking a Pose
i-am_nah--S4OsO0c6Ts-unsplash

“Something about this pose brought about a sense of owning my body, my persona, my expression, my sensuality, my whole being. The drop of the hip made the bottom vertebrae curve, and appear out of alignment from the rest of my spine. A deviance, defiance of the normal straight stance. A resistance, a revolt of sorts.”

By Robin
March 17, 2023
More than Striking a Pose
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
Issue in Focus
An abstract image of waves.

Expanding contexts give the word ‘movement’ different meanings and value. Physical, conceptual, technological, relationship, emotional, mental, power, knowledge, ability, access, may be amongst the contexts immediately identified.

By Shikha Aleya
May 3, 2022
Issue in Focus
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
Masculinity, queer representation, and the motifs of movement in ‘Dedh Ishqiya’
A shot from the film featuring the two female leads, one is preparing a paan with the other’s face resting on her shoulder. Both the women are smiling.

The film has all the makings and trimmings of a commercial thriller – a dynamic story, song and dance, an action-packed climax – and at the same time, it is a cinephile’s film.

By Srishti Gupta
May 3, 2022
Masculinity, queer representation, and the motifs of movement in ‘Dedh Ishqiya’
Two Poems: ‘Stepwells’ & ‘In the Dimly Lit Room’
Held between a thumb and the index finger is the delineation of a golden-yellow leaf with sunlight shining on it.

Just like on a misty morning,
we both
sit
without a shred of adornment
on these ancient stepwells
and the call of the hummingbirds
offer us sensations,
imagination,
and our innocence

By Prithvijeet Sinha
May 3, 2022
Two Poems: ‘Stepwells’ & ‘In the Dimly Lit Room’
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)
Following Aladdin’s Genie
A photograph of a white bedsheet with blots of maroon-burgundy lipstick stains smudged across it.

The lip colour then enters into a rather queer state of existence as it refuses to stand by the label it is expected to conform to. It moves and escapes categorisation. In its queerness, it renders itself as a paradox. At the heart of paradoxes is the understanding that something is what it is also not. Similarly, the colour of this lipstick is nude, but it is also not. It is possible that it is because of this slippery nature of the paradox that my sexuality as my identity too remains slippery, in motion and fluid.

By Muskan Nagpal
June 15, 2021
Following Aladdin’s Genie
Churails: The Revolution Within Us All
A poster of the mini-series Churails. Two women can be seen sitting in a line. The first woman has a gun in her hands and the woman above her has a flask and hockey stick.

Their inimitable personalities showcase their varied conceptions of insaaf (justice), enriching and intensifying the plot and, at the same time, reaffirming their solidarity and strengthening their unity.

By Nupur Paliwal and Saloni Mishra
December 1, 2020
Churails: The Revolution Within Us All