self love

Interview – Raj Mariwala
A photograph of MHI director Raj Mariwala; she is playing with a grey-brown dog, squatting in grass.

Self-care is influenced by the environment we inhabit, the way we relate to others, the way we negotiate with other living beings or structures. Self-care is also interlinked with other types of care – whether that is in community resources, psychosocial support, engagement with medical and health care institutions, and of course in collective agency and solidarity.

By Shikha Aleya
January 3, 2023
Interview – Raj Mariwala
Loving My Dysfunctional Body: Lessons In Self Love After A Decade Of Self-Loathing
An illustration of four people on a beige background. Each person has multicoloured bouquet of flowers instead of hair, and flowers wrapped around different parts of their bodies. Each person is performing different acts of self-love - the one on the far left is applying is shaving flowers from their forearm, the one next to them is hugging themselves with their eyes closed, the next one is looking into a round hand mirror and the one on the far right has one leg on a chair and is shaving flowers from their leg. A branch of thorns and flowers threads through the background.

My body presented to me the first paradox in my feminism that I would encounter. How could I claim to be a feminist if I was not proud of the body I was born in? My advocacy as a sixth grader seemed to fail when it came to my own self.

By Feminism in India
March 15, 2022
Loving My Dysfunctional Body: Lessons In Self Love After A Decade Of Self-Loathing
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!
Editorial – Sexuality and SISA Spaces
Close-up of a sunflower field and the sun rising over hills in the background.

We envision SISA spaces as non-judgmental, inclusive, rights-based and affirming spaces wherein people’s sexuality, their identities, wellbeing, choices, desires and pleasure are respected.

By TARSHI
January 3, 2022
Editorial – Sexuality and SISA Spaces
Camouflage
An illustration of a blue flower. The tips of its petals are dark blue and lighten as they meet at the yellow-brown centre. A long spindly green stem supports the flower and has three dark and light green round leaves and a dark green bud.. Behind it, on a grey-blue background is a cityscape dotted with buildings and palm trees with muted colour and grey overtones.

I cannot let anyone see the stretch marks, the cellulite, the saggy breasts. I cannot reveal my hideous body. I feel anxiety well up inside me even as I visualise this eventuality. I read about ten ways for a fat person to have meaningful sex. I learn that throwing a cloth over the bedside lamp will help hide my flaws.

By Sharada Vinod
August 2, 2021
Camouflage
Editorial: Sexuality and Self-care
A photograph of a rocky landscape with a tabby cat sitting atop a grey rock, lined with green-brown grass, licking itself.

Continuing with our theme of self-care being about sustaining ourselves, our work, our movements, keeping the fires lit, and relating with love to ourselves, in our mid-month issue we bring you more articles looking at self-care from different perspectives – individual, queer, activist, collective, organisational, not necessarily separated, or in this order, of course.

By TARSHI
July 19, 2021
Editorial: Sexuality and Self-care
The Politics of Self Care and Feminism
On a pink background, an illustration of a person of colour with black curly hair. On each side are plants, hanging and potted including leaves, cacti, and flowers. The person's arms are wrapped around their torso.

In a time when reason is more valued than emotion, unravelling and understanding the politics of self-care becomes all the more fundamental for us, and the movements we seek to develop and build. When our bodies, our emotions and our needs become weapons to be used against us, acts of defiance become rooted in thinking about your self and how we practice it. I find I am faced with more questions than answers, but I also know that asking the questions is the first step to finding the answers

By Curated Content
July 19, 2021
The Politics of Self Care and Feminism
Interview – Raj Mariwala
A photograph of MHI director Raj Mariwala; she is playing with a grey-brown dog, squatting in grass.

Self-care is influenced by the environment we inhabit, the way we relate to others, the way we negotiate with other living beings or structures. Self-care is also interlinked with other types of care – whether that is in community resources, psychosocial support, engagement with medical and health care institutions, and of course in collective agency and solidarity.

By Shikha Aleya
July 5, 2021
Interview – Raj Mariwala
Caring and care-giving
A photograph of a book-shelf, brown-black, with differently coloured books.

Just as capitalism has learned how to co-opt feminism into its model, it has done the same to ‘wellness’, so much so it has become an industry of its own. Mental wellbeing, no matter how necessary and important it is, remains a luxury with more than half of our country either unaware of available mental health resources or not in a position to even afford therapy.

By Deepa Ranganathan
July 5, 2021
Caring and care-giving
A ‘Peoples Self-Care’ In-the-Making: Perspectives on the Multiple Possibilities of Existence and Care
A green-bue gradient photograph of a field of grass and white flowers.

But self-care is not a clean and happy procedure, it is not definitively achievable when systematically explored. To understand the scope of self-care we need to see the ‘dark side’ of the landscape, and destroy the versions of self-care that denounce our plurality. In this fight, the only outcome can be a recognition of experiences beyond the wellness narrative structured around the neoliberal agenda. This article is an attempt at foregrounding some aspects of self-care that decentralise the prevalent commodification of it.

By Rukmini Banerjee
July 5, 2021
A ‘Peoples Self-Care’ In-the-Making: Perspectives on the Multiple Possibilities of Existence and Care
MY VAGINA IS DUKHA?
A graphic illustration with a black, inky tree with branches outlined by a silhouette of a face.

Ageing vaginas in ageing female bodies are joked about. But a vagina shouldn’t have the task of pleasing anybody but itself first. To begin with, we’ll have to love and respect our vaginas in order to pleasure them. Love them just as they are. If they feel a little dry, don’t despair. Use a lubricant or a little coconut oil. If my labia are unshapely, they’re still my labia and respond very nicely to gentleness and tenderness. If I don’t love and respect my ageing body, in need of gentle, loving, patient care, then who will, for God’s sake?

By Nighat Gandhi
July 5, 2021
MY VAGINA IS DUKHA?
Dear Diary: The radically feminist creative journalling practice that nobody talks about
A photograph of a person's arm and hand. The background of a couch with a blue duvet is blurred, and the focus is on the person's hands, with brown nail-paint, and a blue pen in their hands. They are writing in a spiral bound notebook. Beside them is a black cup.

My journal has many entries that are speculative and fantastic. Writing about the mundane leads me to question the way the world operates and from there I frog-leap into a world of ideas where I imagine a radically different way of being. In my journal, I imagine a politics of care, community, and compassion. I become grand, valuable, and unstoppable, even in a world where I am sometimes made to feel small.

By Sheena D'Lima
July 5, 2021
Dear Diary: The radically feminist creative journalling practice that nobody talks about
On Confinements & Coexistence: Perspectives on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Women
A photograph of a room with one window. The photo showcases the room as semicircular and has a black floor with a window reflected, and brown-white brick walls with a sunlit window.

Pandemics have a profound psychological impact. They are known to disrupt one’s sense of safety, security, certainty, control, concordance, and…

By Ansha Patel
July 5, 2021
On Confinements & Coexistence: Perspectives on the Impact of Covid-19 on the Mental Health of Women
Brushstrokes: Women At Leisure: Photo Essay On Pastime As A Feminist Issue
A set of two photographs, on the left a coloured photograph of a woman hanging from a tree with orange flowers, on the right a black and white photograph of a woman looking at her left eye in a hand-held mirror and applying make-up.

Inspired to collect photographs of women spending time by themselves and for themselves after a conversation with her mother’s friend, Surabhi Yadav began the project, Women at Leisure.

By Feminism in India
July 5, 2021
Brushstrokes: Women At Leisure: Photo Essay On Pastime As A Feminist Issue
Video: How to be a Friend to Yourself
An illustration of a woman looking in the mirror, with adornments. She is wearing a pink hat with a feather, and blue long hair.

This thought-provoking, luminously illustrated The School of Life video reminds us of self-compassion being essential to building our own selves up, and being a safe space where we can extend the same love and imagination to our vulnerabilities, insecurities, fears, and doubts as we do to our friends.

By Curated Content
July 5, 2021
Video: How to be a Friend to Yourself
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