Author: lakshyash29

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Issue 21

Tax-Free Films: A “Larger” Message or the Government’s Message?

A palpable sense of desperation and anguish fills the hall. Then, the Indian flag slowly unfurls. The audience waits with bated breath. They wait for that moment — when the emotion on the screen mirrors the turmoil in their hearts. The music swells as 170,000 Indians are rescued from Kuwait and brought back home. Immersed in that moment with our eyes glossy and wide, leaned forward in our seats, and our hearts filled with joy, it is hard not to acknowledge the power of cinema.

Airlift (2016) is a film that follows Ranjit Katyal’s and Air India’s efforts to lead the evacuation of thousands of Indians from Kuwait (when Iraq invaded the country). It is patriotic, sentimental, and has a powerful message. With this message, the film ceases to be merely entertainment, and instead, it becomes part of a larger cause. The state then responds to this media in a way that clearly signifies its support: through subsidies. However, is it always a “larger” message that prompts this response? Is it on the whim of the government that a film reaps the benefits of being tax-free, or are there political, social, or sentimental undercurrents that influence this decision?

In India, the goal of making a movie tax-free is to lower the cost of the ticket so that more people can watch it. When a state declares a film tax-free, they are willing to let go of their share of the tax, whereas the Centre still receives their share. A tax-free stamp often increases the film’s publicity and reach. On March 19th, Savita Raj Hiremath, one of the producers of the film  Jhund (2022), questioned why her film was not made tax free. Jhund is based on the life of Vijay Barse, the founder of NGO Slum Soccer. The film is about caste and economic disparity, underprivileged children, opportunity, and it clearly points to a social message. Hiremath argued the same when she said that the film had a subject that is “crucial to our country’s growth”. The remarks were in response to the film The Kashmir Files (2022), which was released a week after Jhund and was made tax-free in multiple states. The crux of the matter here is not whether the former is a better film than the latter but whether there is a criterion that determines when one film gets benefits over the other. 

In 2020 (right before the pandemic hit the country), 22 feature films made it to the Uttar Pradesh government’s subsidy list, so that they could benefit from the government’s film policy. The list included six Bhojpuri films and movies such as Anaarkali of Aarah (2017), Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana (2017), Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety (2018), and Behen Hogi Teri (2017). Critics state that Anaarkali of Aarah  is a feminist narrative that has a strong message and focuses on the big picture of sexual assault and consent. The other films on the list, such as Behen Hogi Teri and Shaadi Mein Zaroor Aana, do not have any clear or powerful social message, but they have been shot in locations in Uttar Pradesh. Moreover, Anurag Kashyap’s Saand Ki Aankh (2019), which was declared tax-free the previous year by the UP government, did not make it into the list. Saand Ki Aankh promotes women’s sportsmanship as it is about two women in their sixties – from Uttar Pradesh – who learn the art of shooting and win various accolades. However, despite its social message, it was speculated that the BJP government did not include the film because Kashyap had then spoken against the new citizenship law.

In the past, various other films have received tax-free status in India. Dangal (2016) is a film about two sisters who are trained in wrestling by their father, after which they represent India and win at the Commonwealth Games. It was declared tax free in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Haryana. The Chief Minister of Haryana also announced that because the film promotes “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao”, the government decided to make it tax-free. Other subsidised films, such as Bajirao Mastani (2015), Sarbjit (2016), Uri: The Surgical Strike (2019), and Tanhaji (2020), are nationalistic and patriotic. Mary Kom (2014) and Sachin: A Billion Dreams (2017) are biopics about inspirational sports icons. Mom (2017) and Nil Batey Sannata (2016) are feministic and support women. Padman (2018) and Toilet Ek Prem Katha (2017) support the “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan”, a clean India mission launched by the government in 2014.  Some films have a message, while some are shot in a particular state, and some do not receive benefits due to ongoing political movements. Some are feministic, sports-themed, patriotic, or support government schemes. Yes, most of the subsidised films have a message. However, it also seems completely arbitrary, because there is no fixed criterion. 

With no set ground rules, the government supporting a film to be tax-free seems to be dependent on their choice, and the message they want the majority of the population to pay attention to. Cinema can often be polarising and evocative, and when a film gets the state’s support, their reach becomes much more powerful. In such a diverse country, where forms of art such as film shed light on innumerable points of views, it is important to note which voices are getting highlighted by the government and which are not. There is a fine line between supporting a film and pushing an agenda through the film, and it seems that subsidy is that fine line. The state has the power through subsidies, but so does cinema – through its narrative. Perhaps to balance this power, it is necessary that certain rules be drawn regarding which films get tax-free status. One can argue that it is the nature of the cinema to be enigmatic in its meaning, thus making it harder for one to put it in a box that categorises it as “tax-free”. However, that does not mean that it cannot be done.

Shree Bhattacharyya is a student of English literature and Media Studies at Ashoka University.

Picture Credits: Shree Bhattacharyya

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

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Issue 21

Valleys to Battlefields: A History of Indian Film Industry’s Encounter With Political Violence Before The Kashmir Files


Before going into the question of political violence depicted in Indian cinema, let’s briefly see how Kashmir has figured on the Indian screen. Kashmir was a favorite destination for many filmmakers in the 1960s and 1970s. Many superhits were shot in Kashmir, e.g. Junglee (1961), Kashmir Ki Kali (1964), Jab Jab Phool Khile (1965), Aarzoo (1965), Roti (1974), Kabhi Kabhie (1976), Noorie (1979), and Silsila (1981). 

With the rise of militancy in the valley and exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits in late 1980s, the backdrop changed from romance to militancy and terrorism. Love duets were replaced by patriotic songs and lovers were replaced by the soldiers. Films like Roja (1992), Dil Se (1998), Mission Kashmir (2000), Yahaan (2005), Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012), Haider (2014), Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015), and Raazi (2018) are some noted feature films reflecting this transition in the depiction of Kashmir in Hindi film industry. 

Let me also mention some less noticed and critically acclaimed films based on the plight of Kashmiris. These films include Tahaan (2008), Sikandar (2009), Valley of Saints (2012, Kashmiri), Inshallah, Kashmir (2012), Harud (2012), 19th January (2015, based on the Kashmiri Pandits’ exodus), Hamid (2018), Half Widow (2020), and Shikara (2020, based on Kashmiri Pandits’ exodus). Among these, one needs to go back to 19th January, and Shikara, as they bring out the story of the exodus much before Kashmir Files. Question one should ask is how and why these two films went unnoticed?

The Hindi film industry has consistently found itself lacking in bringing nuanced, complicated stories of political violence on the screen. Sometimes due to censorship constraints, and often times due to lack of will, India’s biggest film industry i.e. Bollywood has kept itself away from portraying controversial subjects. Its legendary fascination with love stories and family melodramas have been widely acknowledged.

Partition of India was the first instance of political violence that independent India faced. Apart from Garm Hava (1974), Tamas (1988), Hey Ram (2000), Pinjar (2003), and two foreign productions namely Earth (1998), and Train to Pakistan (1998), one cannot think of any other film sensitively portraying the gruesome violence that Partition was. Similarly, there is no full length film on free India’s first political assassination, the fratricide of the Mahatma himself. Though one must mention Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (2005, Jahnu Barua), and Road to Sangam (2009, Amit Rai) as two films exploring Gandhi’s murder and death as a psychological and individual journey for its protagonists decades after the actual event.

The Internal Emergency imposed in 1975 has also been overlooked by the Indian film industry. Anand Patwardhan’s two documentaries Waves of Revolution (1975), and Prisoners of Conscience (1978), Amrit Nahata’s Kissa Kursi Ka (1978), along with Sudhir Mishra’s Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2003) are perhaps the only noteworthy mentions. Indu Sarkar (2017), and Baadshaho (2017), with a backdrop of the Emergency, came and went unnoticed, both by the masses and the niche audience.

The non-Hindi and alternative film industries of India have done better in depicting the political violence on the screen. The portrayal has been more realist, less titillating, and the narration more nuanced, contextual, and complex. Ritwik Ghatak’s films on Partition of India and division of Bengal, namely Chinnamul (1950), Meghe Dhaka Tara (1960), Komal Gandhar (1961), and Subarnarekha (1965) are perfect examples of profound rendering of an event that was already so pornographic in its impact, that one need not use it to excite the audience. Ghatak rather took the individual stories, weaved in the experiences of personal losses and gave us a fair but forceful warning against violent tendencies. Mrinal Sen’s Calcutta 71 (1971), Interview (1971), Padatik (1973), Mrigayaa (1976), and Akaler Sandhane (1980) deal with the Naxalbari movement that rocked Bengal in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Akaler Sandhane is one of those handful films that portrays the Bengal famine of 1943. Earlier, Satyajit Ray’s Ashani Sanket (1973) had set a discussion on the great Bengal famine on screen, focusing on nature and vulnerability of the human spirit in the face of such man-made disasters as two of its central lines of thought. Ray’s Calcutta trilogy, consisting of Pratidwandi (1970), Seemabaddha (1971), and Jana Aranya (1976) depict the Bengali youth and its middle class caught in the social unrest caused by the Naxalite movement. John Abraham’s Amma Ariyan (1986, Malayalam) is another important addition to the list of films portraying the Naxalite unrest. 

Today, many of these films won’t be allowed to be released, which may cause arrest and ban of the filmmakers, too. In the Hindi film industry, Govind Nihalani is perhaps the one filmmaker who has constantly dealt with the theme of violence in his films. Ably aided by empathetic stories and scripts written by Vijay Tendulkar, Nihalani brought in diverse narrations of political and social violence in his films, namely Aakrosh (1980), Ardh Satya (1983), Aghaat (1985), Droh Kaal (1994), Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa (1998), and Dev (2004).

The 1984 anti-Sikh riots, the Babri mosque demolition and subsequent riots in 1992-93, and the Gujarat riots of 2002 remain unmapped by the popular cinema. Gulzar’s Maachis (1996) talks more about the issue of militancy than about the riots. Similarly, Gurvinder Singh’s critically acclaimed, and internationally awarded Punjabi film Chauthi Koot (2015) keeps its focus on the Sikh separatist movement in the 1980s, post-Operation Blue Star. 31st October (2015) does explore the anti-Sikh riots as its main plot line. The film had come in conflict with the Censor Board which certified it only after nine major cuts in scenes and dialogues. Shonali Bose’s Amu (2005), based on the anti-Sikh riots, also faced problems with the CBFC, which certified the film under ‘A’ category, after six cuts, amounting to 10 minutes of the feature film. Unhappy, the producers released the film directly on DVDs. It went on to win the national film award for best feature film in English. Grahan (2021, Disney Hotstar) is a noteworthy recent addition to the list, which received much critical acclaim for its sensitive portrayal of the riots, and the trauma associated with it. Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s Naseem (1995), and Anand Patwardhan’s Ram Ke Naam (1992) remain the only distinguished films on the Babri mosque demolition. Though Mani Ratnam’s Bombay (1995) tried to compensate for the mainstream film industry’s silence on the subject, the film has been criticized for its sanitized and diluted handling of the demolition and subsequent riots. The credit to depict the 2002 Gujarat riots also goes to alternative filmmakers like Rakesh Sharma (Final Solution, 2003, a more than 3-hour long documentary), Rahul Dholakia (Parzania, 2007), and Nandita Das (Firaaq, 2008). Parzania has come back to the public memory in the backdrop of the release and reception of the Kashmir Files.India lives and breathes politics. It has been making films since the pre-independence era. An industry that has been consistently releasing 700+ feature films annually, it is only unfortunate that one does not see a political film of the nature of The Battle of Algiers (1966, Gillo Pontecorvo, French), a magnum opus like The Hour of the Furnaces (1968, Octavio Getino, Fernando Solanas, Spanish), or a political thriller like Z (1969, Costa-Gavras, Algerian-French). A nation that has seen centuries of colonial violence, and still is coming to terms with its socio-cultural diversity, it is unusual to note the absence of a constructive debate on violence in its cinema.

Sudha Tiwari is an assistant professor at UPES, Dehradun. With a PhD in film history from JNU, she worked at Ashoka University as a Teaching Fellow during 2020-21.

Picture Credits:  GQ India

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noderivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

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Issue 20

A Conversation on Intimacy With Aastha Khanna

OpenAxis had an insightful and inspiring conversation with Aastha Khanna, the first Intimacy Coordinator of India. In this conversation, she talks about her journey, her recent projects, and the core of Intimacy Direction. Head down to the audio below to listen to the podcast

To find excerpts of the talk and her answers, read below!

Maahira 

So how did you come about this career and how did people around you react to your decision to become an intimacy coordinator? 

Aastha 

I read an article about an intimacy coordinator in the west. That article hit home with me. It seemed like an incredibly pertinent job and something that I felt I would fit right in. But then the first COVID lockdown in 2020 happened. I was already in touch with a few intimacy directors in the west and had applied for a program and as luck would have it I got in.

The conversation was not very intense with my parents when I told them I’m doing it. I was not aware of what future it has in India. For my father, it was just a concern whether this is going to be a financially viable decision for me. I told him, I don’t know what’s gonna come of it, but I knew that it is something that I wanted to learn and I felt like there is use for it in our industry. My parents were supportive, they are big cheerleaders of the work I do. So, that’s been the journey.

Maahira 

I’m sure there were some difficulties in education in India like a lack of institutes or places to learn or people to talk to. So how do you navigate that space? 

Aastha 

There was almost nobody working in intimacy at the time in India and there aren’t any institutes even today that teach intimacy coordination, or any kind of intimacy work. In fact, the first course in India is also going to be launched by us at the Intimacy Lab in April this year. Did I have any difficulty in navigating the atmosphere in India? Not so much because I didn’t attempt it. I researched and I found that almost nobody was doing anything in this space. So for me to reach out to the people in the West and in other countries abroad was the most natural next step. I have studied abroad before, I did my undergrad there, so it wasn’t that difficult for me. I’ve always been somebody who travels a lot.

Lakshya

Will you be kind enough to tell us more about the Intimacy Collective that you started. 

Aastha 

So the collective basically happened to me because I realized that there wasn’t a community of people that were working in intimacy directly. I decided to bring them all together under one roof and that’s why the collective was formed. I got hold of somebody I knew who was working with minors right and someone who really wanted to pursue intimacy coordination. I was introduced to somebody who was working in sexual harassment as a freelancer for big corporate companies and was handling their POSH committees.​​ Then there were acting coaches and people who I have worked with.  I was searching for a community of people within our country who would understand where I was coming from when it came to cultural context and that’s why the collective happened.

Lakshya

How do you think we can teach the upcoming generations in India about the complexities of consent, sexuality, and intimacy so that we are able to create a more tolerant audience? 

Aastha  

I feel like consent is something that needs to be taught at an extremely young age. Just allowing people from a very young age to have agency over themselves is something that is a huge cultural shift for our community and we need to inoculate that within our younger generations. I think school has a big role to play here. The things that make you uncomfortable will stop, but the dynamic of where you are allowed to say no, and if it is acceptable is what we need to work towards. 

When it comes to sexuality, I feel again as a culture we are kind of growing towards a more knowledge-based approach towards the LGBTQIA+ world. I feel it’s very important for us to have more conversations around it and destigmatize the idea of having conversation about sex and sexuality from very young age. I think everyone needs to have a voice which is why I always say breed spaces where everyone has the agency to have a conversation that they feel that they want to have, and I think it’s very important for people who are from slightly older generations to address those questions, or those conversations with pertinent information. 

Maahira 

Do you think there is a difference in the ways intimacy is displayed by male and female actresses and the ways it is received by an audience? And why do you think this difference exists?

Aastha

I think the audience is preconditioned. But to answer about heterosexual intimacy, what usually happens is that when intimacy is portrayed by a female, by intimacy I mean probably nudity, it would be considered aesthetic. When someone from the male gender usually portrays intimacy, socially, it’s considered aggressive. Predominantly using female nudity as a way to show intimacy is, in my opinion, slowly shifting to a more balanced and organic portrayal of intimacy, and rightly so. Intimacy is a part of the human experience, so audiences who watch intimacy and perceive in its most organic natural form will not become uncomfortable or feel like something vulgar is happening on the screen. It actually really depends on what the director really is trying to achieve. 

Maahira 

Several people within and outside the industry have had some criticisms or issues and referred to intimacy in various ways in which it probably isn’t portrayed; like ‘vulgar’ or ‘lewd. Do you think there has been a shift in terms of audiences being more accepting? Has there been some kind of a change or do you think the majority of the audience is still as skeptical as before?  

Aastha

I think first thing is that none of us are wearing superhero capes. None of us are trying to change public opinion overnight over one film over one idea. I think Shakun was able to achieve what Shakunn wanted to achieve with the film. I think people have the right to their own opinions of whatever they see, which is why it’s been put out. It’s a story that we wanted to tell, and a story that we wanted would spark some form of conversation. . Yes, there could still be people that thought that it was overdone, or it was lewd or vulgar. So, for a relationship drama like Gehariyaan to completely avoid intimacy in the storytelling would have been very surfacal as intimacy is a huge part of that story. Whether it’s emotional or physical, it’s an extremely important part of being able to tell a story where any form of infidelity occurs, or any form of a relationship is being portrayed. I think the audiences are evolving. I think they are mature enough to take a story in its entirety and to understand that Intimacy is the part of it, and not just in Gehraiyaan.

Lakshya

What do you think is the core of Intimacy Direction?

I think the most important aspect of intimacy direction is trust building. You’re constantly working within an extremely vulnerable environment, with very vulnerable stories. I think for me the most important thing is that I require for my performers to trust that I am upholding their consent and that I am there for them, and that I am going to be supporting them throughout and also for production to trust that I am not a part of the actors’ entourage. I’m still going to be someone who’s going to support the director in his vision and work towards achieving it as best as we know how. 

I think empathy is also extremely important in this case because one can try and provide all kinds of support. But if you don’t fully understand your performers and the only way to do that is that they trust you. They will tell you their needs and unless you know what they need, you can’t support them. It’s actually not isolated just to intimacy. It stands true for any kind of creative collaboration.

Aastha Khanna, India’s first certified intimacy coordinator has always had a great passion for cinema. She graduated from the University of York in England with a Bachelor of Science Honors in Film and Television Production. She has been an assistant director on over half a dozen feature films in India. She hopes to share the much-needed knowledge and expertise of intimacy coordination across the different Indian film and television platforms.

Interviewers: Lakshya Sharma and Maahira Jain

Podcast Editor: Reya Daya

Picture Credits: The Hindu

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

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Issue 20

In Deep Water: Three Generations React to the Intimacy in Gehraiyaan

Bollywood’s recent sensation ‘Gehraiyaan’ has caused quite a stir. No matter how much I tried to avoid it, I was forced to hear my parents and their friends discuss Deepika Padukone’s steaming hot body, and the movie’s risqué portrayal of a modern love affair. An Indian child’s worst nightmare is probably having to talk to their parents about sex but there was so much to talk about. Stemming from the movie’s themes of intergenerational trauma, I decided to have a conversation with my mother and grandmother about sex, sensuality, and sensationalism. 

My grandmother avoided the conversation for 3 days before I could dive right into the deep waters of ‘Gehraiyaan’. I asked what made them watch the movie and what they liked about it. My grandmother curiously said that the buzz had reached her circle. She was scared to answer my questions because with her house-help always around she had to forward through too many intimate scenes and didn’t grasp the plot. My mother’s reasons were similar, with the addition of social media hype. She liked the modernness and aesthetics of the movie, and more importantly Deepika Padukone’s acting, her real reason for watching it. The trailer piqued my curiosity for how dangerous it felt – a mainstream film about infidelity that isn’t a comedy? I was sold. There was a lot to like about Gehraiyaan, but perhaps my favourite thing was how much it left me to think about. I was expecting a film packed with sex and hadn’t anticipated the real conversations the film attempted to start. From intergenerational trauma to strained family dynamics to feeling stuck in the banality of life, there was something for everyone. 

My grandmother believed that Gehraiyaan’s portrayal of intimacy on screen strongly goes against Indian values. When asked why it’s okay for Hollywood to do the same thing she retorted “but we aren’t sitting in Hollywood”. What she meant was that the masses that don’t understand consent will not appreciate the movie for what it is but rather take the portrayal of sex in the mainstream as an excuse to do as they please. In some ways, she changed my opinion. At times I feel largely disconnected from the majority of the country. While I’m not saying that ‘Indian values’ are universally shared or should censor our media, I do believe we have to be cognizant of how this media will be received across all sectors of society. Yet I hope that normalising sex and intimacy will do more good than harm. The idea of watching two Indian adults embracing at will feels both freeing and unfathomable. Showing a live-in relationship in itself felt revolutionary in a country where arranged marriages take place without the bride and groom ever seeing each other. My mother agreed that the portrayal of intimacy is definitely a step forward but some things will just never fit in. While she is used to watching intimacy in western media, she acknowledged that the majority does not have access to the same information and resources as us when it comes to sex education.

My grandmother said that intimate scenes like these were never shown in the past. My mother instantly disagreed saying that from as early as the 50s and 60s, song and dance have been a stand-in for sexual acts. Whether it is the use of item songs, innuendos such as ‘choli ke peeche kya hain’ or rain and blossoming flowers to sanitise the portrayal of sexual desire, it has always been here. Only now it isn’t happening behind closed doors. My grandmother still felt that these examples were modern and compared them to the classical Indian music of Lata Mangeshkar. To her, Gehraiyaan felt more scandalous than a little bit of dancing in an item song or any sexual acts that were merely implied and not shown. I believe a large reason for disapproval amongst the Indian audience comes from the fact that Gehraiyaan didn’t simply have a palatable item song where the woman exists for the pleasure of men watching her. Here, Deepika’s character Alisha had agency and made decisions for her own pleasure. 

I could barely remember the sex scenes because of how nuanced the subplots were and because the West has desensitised me to portrayals of sex on screen. The internet also allows me to have all the answers I need right at my fingertips and the idea of watching a barely sexual scene just doesn’t feel as salacious. My mother has faced similar desensitisation but her media consumption begins and ends with what she watches on Netflix. The addition of a few odd sex scenes was enough to provide her a mild distraction from the rest of the movie. To my grandmother, it became a barrier in watching the movie entirely. 

The one thing we all could agree on was that sex sells, and hypersexualisation for the purpose of making a profit was not a great motive for portraying intimacy. My grandmother was convinced that just like item songs, all instances of sex in media are to sell more units. However, I didn’t believe that director Shakun Batra’s motives aligned with this complaint. The intimate scenes didn’t serve the singular purpose of shock value and were an integral part of the plot, without which certain storylines would not work. I do think that the trailer intentionally sensationalised the movie to generate public interest and it worked! The movie was a big risk and if that’s what we need to get an Indian audience to tune in then so be it.   

My grandmother thought that openly talking about sex to younger generations is very important. She also said that awareness is required but only of the ‘right things.’ I’m not entirely sure what falls within the boundaries of right and wrong, but I was surprised at her agreement. This is also a good time to mention that in our half an hour-long conversation, my grandmother never once used the word ‘sex’ and only referred to it as ‘those scenes.’ My mother asked her why she never gave her a sex talk and she replied that she was told all that was required and if her children ever had questions she would answer them. To be fair, my mother never had the talk with me either but as I get older it feels comforting knowing I can go to her to have these conversations. 

It’s ironic how Indians love a good romance but will squirm at the portrayal of intimacy. While shying away from sex in media will always feel like a safer option, at many levels, it feels like hindering progress. Luckily, OTT platforms are allowing creative freedom and more diverse narratives, including the portrayal of sex and intimacy, that traditional cinema would not have allowed. Given how influenced we are by Bollywood. I wonder if our country would be more progressive today if our censor board didn’t exist 50 years ago. 

Reya Daya is a third-year student, studying psychology and media studies at Ashoka University. Her other interests include writing, photography and music.

Picture Credits: Amazon Prime Video

We publish all articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives license. This means any news organisation, blog, website, newspaper or newsletter can republish our pieces for free, provided they attribute the original source (OpenAxis).

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Issue 20

Growing Pains: The Dynamics of Workplace Culture in 2022


Over the last two years, global unemployment has dropped to over 200 million. Adapting to the pandemic became extremely strenuous for employees who began to report low work satisfaction. This ultimately resulted in a phenomenon termed  the ‘Great resignation,’where attrition rates shot up globally. A recent Linkedin survey revealed that 82% of the people are choosing to change their job, and retaining employees is tougher than before. 

As organizations began adapting to working from home environments , what a ‘regular workday’ entailed began to evolve, right from employee training, recruitment strategy, to the workplace culture. With the Great resignation spreading across industries in India, particularly the IT sector, CEOs and human resources departments have changed their hiring practices. The question of  how to make the organization employee-centric and appealing is on every company’s mind.  While policies and plans change in an instant, how long will it take for a change in mindset?

The temporary shift to a hybrid and flexible workplace is seemingly here to stay. A Harvard Business School survey report shows around 81% of employees are still skeptical about returning to work full time, opting for a hybrid mode instead. Retaining and applying for jobs is now to a large extent based on the quality of organizational support. Employees are in constant exchanges with their workplaces, and hold certain expectations about the security, compensation and support they will receive. Mental and physical health, as well as reasonable work hours have gained top priority, with the current generation looking to seek true meaning, power, and responsibility from their work in an attempt to make a real difference. 

Globally, organizations have often lent support to their employees via schemes and benefits While monetary and technological support in the form of insurance, equipment,  and setups was standard procedure, employees now also demand health and well-being enablement. Work from home while initially providing employees the comfort of  working from one’s bedroom, eventually caused them to be overworked, by surpassing healthy work hours. Burnout has become increasingly common. A certain disconnect from organizations and colleagues arose among large sections of the working population.

However, the employees weren’t the only ones struggling. Hiring strikes and financial lows made the inflow of new talent scarce,  and a cut in paychecks became inevitable. These dreadful circumstances called for a global change in policies. Refined policies accounted for a shift in focus, by being supportive and adapting to accommodate individual employees’ varying needs. Firms began to steer away from applying a blanket solution approach to situations and became more personal.

The newly adopted policies became increasingly relevant as with the ceasing lockdowns in sight, employment is forecasted to  rise by about 31%, being facilitated by CEOs who are looking to hire tech savvy freshers and employees at every level. Diversity is now embedded in the organizational language and culture. A Levers report showed how diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)  policies are being revamped, by reducing the bias in hiring procedures and implementing fair promotional policies and compensation. Furthermore globally firms have initiated diversity awareness, management and professional growth programs, to account for differences in gender, sexual orietntation, ethnicity and more.

Certain trends have begun to be eminent in workplaces. Maintaining transparency and better recognition of employees has come to the forefront. Candidates today have voiced a preference for places that make them ‘feel good’, appearing to value it over brand name and salary.The last two years of relentless, mundane, and impersonal working days have created a need for a major morale boost, to combat the sky-rocketing attrition rate. A clear chain of communication and honest work environment has also become important to prevent internal hostility and to make the employees feel comfortable. 

Work cultures are now moving towards becoming more liberal with a core focus on giving the employees, and the firm a chance for growth and development. Firms are required to invest in both employee and technology upskilling. Upskilling opportunities help overcome redundancy in a workplace while promoting personal growth among employees. Owing to the pandemic, online platforms have made available a range of courses from Microsoft Word to Data Analytics all at our  fingertips. Training and re-training has become easier. Employees now expect their company to invest time and money into their development. Access to digital tools, software and applications which eases the working process, and creates a boost in productivity and employee satisfaction. 

The recent developments in workplaces prioritize personal and work time equally, and consequently raise questions about the role it plays in a firm’s work output. Is it possible that striving to give employees a certain quality of life impacts an organization’s quality of work? HR manager of Alkem Laboratories, Rajorishi Ganguli in an interview states how the demands of employees have migrated from work life balance to work life integration. This integration allows the employee to work and relax at their convenience without compromising on either. 

While a transformation of work culture has begun, there remains uncertainty on how organizations will navigate and monitor employee output in a hybrid setting. How will a manager ensure that the employee working from home creates an equivalent output compared to the one in office? While allowing the hybrid to take over workplaces has become the need of the hour, certain interpersonal interactions remain irreplaceable. Creating a seamless feedback chain and  employee deliverables system is becoming necessary and employee accountability is being tested everyday. 

The hybrid world comes with its own set of drawbacks, further complicating workers’ means to collaborate and communicate. With 50 percent of the employees attending meetings from home, it becomes hard to build cohesion in a team, and create a space where everyone is heard. With diminishing canteen breaks, and elevator conversations, employees’ interpersonal communication will depend purely on work based interactions, and finding innovative ways to make those fruitful.

With the shifting work culture comes several unanswered questions. While the shift has begun, there remains a need for new systems and professionals as firms tread this unchartered territory, and embracing the hybrid work culture is only the first step.

Maahira Jain is a third-year student at Ashoka University studying Psychology and Media studies. She is a movie buff and is extremely passionate about writing and traveling.

Picture Credits: Getty Images


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Issue 20

It’s Complicated: How the Pandemic Changed My Relationship With the Outside World 


It’s the early days of March, and I can see the first buds of the fiery red Gulmohar tree outside my window begin to bloom. The receding winter leaves behind glorious sunny afternoons with rich blue skies. The third wave of COVID-19 too has rapidly begun to ebb, and there seems to be no better time to step outdoors. Throughout the pandemic, one spoke endlessly about an urgent need to step into the outside world. However, something about slipping out of my flip-flops and printed shorts into heavy sports shoes and pants makes me want to dive deeper under the covers. Stepping outside the door is no longer as simple as putting on acceptable clothing and heading out. It requires hefty preparation and assessment. The preparation of being masked for hours, engaging in conversations while maintaining distance, mapping out the number of people around you — going out as we once knew is no longer the same. Safe to say, my relationship status with the outdoors is, well, complicated. 

I remember after the first wave of the pandemic, various groups of friends and family began carefully venturing out to have small picnics. With reports that increased ventilation can lower the chances of contracting the virus, public parks transformed into the ultimate meet-up spot. Not only public parks but also national parks, hill stations, and destinations with vast open spaces become increasingly popular. However, one had to carefully plan their dates with the outside. Elaborately planned outings with detailed menus, color-coordinated outfits, and picnic blankets were chalked out weeks in advance, as every Sunday afternoon transformed into an opportunity to host extensively curated picnic brunches. 

What was missing from all these events though, was the spontaneity that once made them unique. The thrill of entering a crowded marketplace and discovering a delectable meal at new unexpected restaurants was replaced by arduous research on limited open-air eateries. Bumping into forgotten friends at gatherings was marked by questions of their vaccine status, awkward elbow bumps, and warm smiles hidden behind masks. Even with all these precautions, I could not help but be paranoid about those around me being potential virus carriers. I came to prefer being far from the crowd, alone in my corner, observing the masked faces around me. 

Recent investigations from Emory University have found that the pleasure center of the brain, the nucleus accumbens, reacts more strongly to unexpected events rather than expected pleasures. Human beings love being surprised. However, it seems that the pandemic has changed our ability to be surprised as often as we may like to be, which perhaps hampers how rewarding our fully pre-decided outdoor experiences may be. 

There is something rewarding about being in naturalistic settings, a kind of peace and solace that no amount of Zoom conferencing with your friends and family (or therapist, in my case) can bring. Immersing yourself in nature and spending time in natural environments has been proven to yield uncountable physiological and psychological benefits such as improved cardiovascular function, enhanced energy, and reduced negative emotions. Even though the emerging conversations around mental health were a welcome addition to the discourse around the impact of Covid, for me it was my body that struggled more. After the first month of Youtube workouts and morning Surya Namaskars, I was craving stimulation from being outdoors. The unpleasant blow of stepping into muddy patches, trying to befriend a fidgety squirrel, or simply just watching the clouds change form – being in nature made me feel alive like nothing did. 

Right before the nationwide lockdowns were imposed, my friends and I had grand plans of going on a week-long tour of South India and discovering new tourist attractions. After endless months of moping and anxiously pondering about what travel in the future holds for us, it’s safe to say none of us could have anticipated a travel experience as we underwent. Visits to grand hotels with international crowds were out of the question, and sitting in an airplane with layers of protective equipment did not seem like an attractive option. Our grand touring plans were reduced to a road trip around Rajasthan and short stays in AirBnbs and homestays. 

This is similar to global trends of tourists flocking to Airbnbs and rented homes. Vacation homes which were a short drive from home were the go-to solution for people who were desperate for a break, but erring on the side of caution. Such short getaways with small, intimate groups align with the general idea of people wanting to invest their time in stronger relationships rather than risking their health by meeting distant acquaintances. 

While staying in AirBnbs allows us to have a break from long-drawn isolation, it lacks the interaction one had with other visitors. The joy of observing new people from various parts of the world, smiling at children running around at breakfast, waving at the person at the front desk when returning after a long day- these were all crucial elements to traditional ‘vacations.’ Images of hotels being turned into quarantine centers, and management staff in protective kits, however, were enough to disconcert me from engaging in any kind of socialization. 

As I write this article, one week before my university resumes fully offline operations, I cannot help but reflect on the complexity of this relationship. There is a sense of excitement, but a hint of apprehension weighing me down as well. Am I ready to share my outdoor spaces with scores of other students? Or is having completely uninhibited access to the outside world going to make me want to curl up indoors again? 

Jaidev Pant is a student of Psychology and Media Studies at Ashoka University. He is interested in popular culture and its intersections with politics, gender, and behavior. 

Picture Credits: Mark Cocksedge

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Issue 20

What is Ukraine’s Best Bet?

In a brazen show of utter disregard for a democratic country’s sovereignty, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine will go down as a dark moment in modern history, remembered for times to come. 

Over the last few months and amidst the current escalation, seasoned experts have incessantly been speculating regarding President Putin’s primary motivations behind launching this invasion. There is no clear answer. There is no dearth of historic and contemporary political explanations to contextualize these developments. To be fair, the reality could be congruent with any of these developments, or a combination. While it is surely important to understand the roots of this decision, pragmatically, the major concern right now is Ukraine defending itself against an indisputably mightier Russia. So, what exactly is Ukraine’s best bet? 

Realistically, the Russian defense forces are exponentially stronger and have a significantly larger endowment than Ukraine. Russia has 8,50,000 active personnel in the armed forces, as compared to Ukraine’s 2,00,000. Additionally, the Russian paramilitary size of 2,50,000 is five times that of Ukraine’s. Starkly in contrast to Russia’s military spending of $62 billion in 2020, Ukraine’s stood at a measly $6 billion in the same year. This certainly lends Russia the means to possess an edge through cyberwarfare, missiles, heavy weaponry, fighter planes, warships, and other kinds of ammunition. These factors comprehensively dwarf Ukraine’s ability to put up a resilient fight or so has been perceived. Expert opinions indicated that Putin thought this invasion was going to be relatively smooth, owing to Russia’s unquestionable dominance over its timid neighbors that failed to act decisively in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea. 

However, the reality has unfolded rather harshly for Russia. With many more years of combat experience since 2014 and the continued supply of sophisticated arms and ammunition by the West, Ukraine was significantly more equipped for an unprecedented resistance. Leading by example, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rallied a large number of fervent men of the fighting age to sign up for the frontlines as well. 

Consequently, Russia’s endeavors to attack the country on three fronts; Kyiv in the North, Kharkiv in the northeast, and Kherson in the south, has intensified. Reportedly (and rather unexpectedly), hundreds (some reporting thousands) of Russian soldiers have been killed along with scores of the Ukrainian military and civilian casualties, the numbers of which are very hard to verify given the persisting violence. 

At face value, Russia still has an upper hand in this conflict with its mammoth military dominance. The most the west can do is supply aid and ammunition, which it has been providing relentlessly. Ultimately, the deciding factor boils down to the fight that Ukraine can put up with the resources at its disposal. This is exactly what Ukraine seems to be doing. 

Militarily, Ukraine has scant chances of victory. Thus, the only way forward is to fortify the resistance that would prolong this war, and inflict an endless number of economic repercussions on Russia. This strategy would be effective for a variety of reasons. 

Firstly, the sanctions announced by the west are expected to apply immense pressure on the Russian economy. As a punitive measure, the United Kingdom, United States, and European Union have cut off major Russian banks from financial markets in the west, thereby prohibiting dealings with the central bank, state-owned investment funds, and the finance ministry. These restrictions have sent the ruble crashing for Russia. The country’s vast foreign reserves of $630 billion, accrued from soaring oil and gas prices are also under threat, given that a lot of this money is stored in western currencies like the dollar, euro, and pound. 

Secondly, while the reserves are large enough for one to think that Russia would withstand the effect of sanctions, it is noteworthy that the Russian economy has already been hit by sanctions post-2014. Even though these sanctions did not have as much impact as was intended owing to Russia’s favorable domestic financial systems, they did shrink the economy to an extent. 

Third, Ukraine’s sternness is expected to cost Russia even more money than the previously estimated billions of dollars, which was already a hefty amount to expend on a war in pursuit of an unclear and vaguely defined end goal. Moreover, Russia has spent billions of dollars on wars in the middle east, wars that are far from concluding and constitute recurring expenditures. As a result of its deep involvement, Russia cannot abruptly withdraw from these wars. 

Russia’s military might does not overpower the economic pressures from all quarters. Although this cannot be asserted with surety, a long, resource-depleting war in Ukraine, in addition to the aforementioned factors could compel the country to change its course. Interestingly, these economic costs for Russia will not end if it can capture the whole country, topple the Ukrainian government, and establish a pro-Russia regime (in case this is what Russia wants). This scenario could give way to a long-drawn insurgency fighting that would entail more costs for Russia in the long term.  

While these recent happenings could technically be construed as a war between Russia and the West, the military exchanges will happen only between Russia and Ukraine. Unless Russia decides to attack any of the NATO powers, which would legally oblige the west to engage militarily, Ukraine, with only western help, has to fight a war that has always been way beyond its reach. Strategically, it has to devise ways to increasingly impose costs on Russia as a discouraging factor from wreaking further havoc. 

Saaransh Mishra is a Research Associate with the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and writes on foreign policy matters.

Picture Credits: PA Media

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Issue 20

The Veil of Spirituality


Faith, a word so important to human history and society, it is virtually sacrosanct. People claim their lives are incomplete without faith, and those who seek power over others weaponise and leverage the faith of devout believers for their own personal, political or financial gain. 

The constant tension between believers and rationalists came to the fore once again in recent weeks. Sparked this time, by the controversy at The National Stock Exchange. 

Chitra Ramakrishna, the CEO of NSE, put her trust in a Himalayan ‘sage’  who was supposedly “mentoring and guiding” her through the tedious process of running the country’s largest stock exchange. She exchanged inside information with this ‘sage’ until the news leaked, and another ‘baba’ scam came to the limelight. According to SEBI as reported by India Today, The Queen of Bourses, shared the exchange’s board agenda, financial projections, and business plans. This entire situation can possibly land her in jail as the Delhi High Court refused her anticipatory bail application. 

This is not the first time faith in spiritual leaders has cost people much more than they anticipated. Asaram Bapu, Ram Rahim, Rampal, Narayan Sai, and many more… have manipulated, harassed, and assaulted people in the name of Faith. But why does Faith have such a stronghold on us? Why does it shroud our reason, logic, and rationality? The American Psychological Association believes that Faith, or religion, in particular, is a byproduct of our tendency to find order among chaos, to look for discipline in our lives. Chitra Ramakrishna, like most people in the world, sought to Faith and was allegedly tricked by Anand Subramaniam. A woman who ran the largest stock exchange could not have been naive or senile, yet her Faith got the better of her. Faith, therefore, has this power of blinding rationality, which has been proved, time and time again. Her faith in this so-called sage, led her to make executive level appointment decisions as per his commands. 

The ever-growing cases of people being defrauded in the name of Faith, superstitions being upheld (sometimes at the cost of somebody’s well being), and the rising hostility in the name of Faith, calls for a discussion on rationality. How can we strike a balance between logic and belief, wit and virtue? We need to understand the complexities of Faith, to what extent it is healthy and where it becomes a sin. People need somebody to believe in, somebody to hold accountable, somebody to complain, and somebody to hope from. Faith, in general, and spiritual leaders, in particular, play on these emotional needs. To top it all, the dynamic of pain/pleasure is always at play. Society conditions us to think that following religious duties leads to positive reinforcement while giving up religion makes us sinners. To escape this loop and avoid falling into a pit hole, we need self-awareness.

Self-awareness, in this context, means being alert when common sense stops making sense. The Art of Living says alertness and faith are complementary. We need to bring this complement to the table. Faith may be helpful, but blind faith can be dangerous. There is nothing wrong with seeking help by having faith in people and religious institutions. However, one needs to be cognisant of what they are sharing, and how authentic is the advice they are receiving. Leaning on somebody is not wrong, it makes us human and as humans, we are bound to make mistakes. We need a self-check measure, before following the advice of such leaders. We also need to keep a check on the authenticity of such leaders and sages in the era of cyber-crime. Chitra Ramakrishna was scammed over email, an electronic tool. Most religious and spiritual sites have a web address, email address, and web payment portals. This substantially increases the chances of getting involved and robbed in a quest for spirituality.

But is it spirituality that we all are after? Or is it the perks that the popular notion of spirituality offers? In this hustle world, everybody is after success in all its forms. After all, who does not like a high paycheck, a beautiful home, a healthy relationship, and mental peace. My logic gives me a red flag at this stage itself, I cannot have everything, one or the other thing has to be sacrificed. The spiritual leaders, often, promise all these with the additional bonus of spiritual peace. The realization of these promises, however, is less certain and more unrealistic. Human nature, however, falls for these pretenses and a veil of spirituality is cast over our minds which bars rationality from seeping into consciousness. 

This does not imply that we must give up our entire faith on spiritual leaders and spirituality, but we must be smart enough to not get veiled. We need to use the same logic of rationality i.e., rational decision making that we follow before enrolling in schools, colleges, or universities. The same double-checks we do before going to a hospital or for a regular check-up. Moreover, when somebody advises a particular institute we do not blindly enrol ourselves or our near ones in it. We analyse our own situation and background, the same way we analyse an institute. If we begin applying the same logic in following spirituality, we will follow a safer path. Moreover, if we understand that we have to work for whatever we need, then we will fulfil the dual goals of spiritual peace and safety.

Lakshya Sharma is a first year undergraduate student at Ashoka University. He is an economics and media studies student. Apart from his academic interests, he has keen interest in writing and fashion.

Picture Credits: Daily Pioneer

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Issue 18

Of Dance and Crumbling Havelis…

A morning of little horrors – re-reading my own writing from the 1980’s, writing that in retrospect seems to enable and justify all the lies of Indian dance. 

…unbroken tradition… true art…  divine timelessness… These are some of the clichés ornamenting my writing of that period. They harmonise well with many wilfully misleading narratives. But let us move on from this haze of non-specifics and peer a bit closer through the rose-tinted lens of poetic deception I deluded myself with in those days. 

…The origins of kathak are ahistorical and rustic. The cowherdesses of Brindavan were the first kathak dancers… Back then it seemed fine to study the mythological origins of dance and leave it at that. But the set of forms usually known as Indian classical dance are largely 20th century inventions, and while ancient roots are obvious, direct links to such a past are certainly not. Despite their beauty, originality and vitality, they can be complicated by falsified histories often involving the misrepresentation or blatant erasure of communities of hereditary female singers and dancers, performers who were at the heart of those styles’ historical and aesthetic impulses. 

Along with divine allusions, vague phrases were fed to us about the dance having slowly fallen into disrepute. Since Independence, hereditary singers and dancers were penalised for unorthodox partnerships and child bearing arrangements outside the realm of marriage. It has only been with the past 20 years of new research that from this shadowy ignominy real women have emerged, largely hereditary singers and dancers whose performances were declared illegal in many parts of the country around the time of Independence. Through these legislative initiatives, the women were essentially penalised for their unorthodox partnership and child-bearing arrangements outside of legal marriage. 

…Tradition is a live force accessible to all and yet belonging to no one… How were we so, so naïve? Around Independence, communities of male teacher-accompanists formerly associated with the singing and dancing women were invited to teach by a new breed of would-be performers, women from “good” backgrounds, upper caste and of high social status. Meanwhile, the hereditary women, largely ignored, became almost invisible, their traditional art now available to almost everyone but themselves! 

…whereas in the past villagers would covet the blessings of wandering kathakars, their art akin to divine oration… As strands of the old performance practices were forged into new styles, substantive pedigrees were introduced based on passages culled  from ancient and medieval Sanskrit epics as well as music and dance treatises. In the case of kathak, a concerted effort was made to invest the male teacher-accompanists with the aura of Vedic origins, thus disassociating them simultaneously from feudal court milieus and the culture of tawaifs or courtesans. But in the heady decades following Independence, as these dance styles grew and evolved in front of amazed dancers and spectators alike, who was worried about details, historical accuracy?  

…a shy girl in love, skies heavy with rain, young lovers roaming… hmm, I might have been closer than I thought. Where is the tangible proof of the existence and importance of the singing and dancing women in the dance styles of today like kathak and even bharatanatyam? That proof lies in their music and their dance, ironically preserved by men who played such an active role in their disenfranchisement. Songs like thumris are highly aestheticised erotic poems that were usually sung and expressed through gesture before elite male audiences in courtly or private performances with an undercurrent of real or imagined sexual relationships colouring the bond between performer and viewer. 

When we ask ourselves if the continued existence of a socially sanctioned group of female entertainers maintained by married male patrons would be acceptable today, the answer is no. But the question of the legacy of their artistic repertoire is a more complicated one. The songs, the gestures and the movements were obviously too beautiful to be abandoned all together. So, as dance became a respected practice of middle-class, upper caste women (and sometimes men) in many parts of the country, the songs and their gestures while retained, were subjected to obfuscation and censure, while the movements were regimented and de-sexualised. Here I quote myself again …so often today its meaning and beauty elude us… Yes. Precisely. Obviously. Because recognising the sources of that beauty would be to challenge the moral ground upon which a modern society is often built. 

As dance students we studied the hero-heroine paradigm as an isolated phenomenon of artistic expression, though we were rather baffled, as it was never presented within the context of the professional singing and dancing women. To my mind this glaring denial of history is largely responsible for the state of Indian dance today. Thousands and thousands of young people all over the world learn, yet audiences are diminishing at an alarming rate, perhaps bewildered by or vaguely apprehensive about the ambiguous nature of what they are watching. 

….the students are visibly inspired when Maharaji speaks of dance in spiritual terms… describing the rhythmic cycle (tal) as Mother Earth and the mnemonic syllables (bol) as sacred mantras, his is a genuine spiritual elation… Yes, Indian dance has spiritual and religious connotations. However, the dances we perform today are rarely from the canons of temple ritual, and are more likely to be from the courtly repertoire or pieces choreographed to imaginatively approximate temple dance.

…in the evening the students gather round their mentor… this is the time when that perceptible intimacy between guru and shishya is reconfirmed, a  rapport of unquestioning acceptance which allows a semi-conscious transferral of knowledge from preceptor to learner… Much is made of the concept of guru-shishya parampara in the context of Indian dance today. In its essence a close bond between teacher and pupil is promoted, though the implication can be of blind servitude, and human deviance can twist the best of intentions. 

The reactions to the demise of Birju Maharaj have been mainly of unadulterated and unanimous praise, usually accompanied by snapshots taken with the maestro (the preferred term of reference for him). But a small community of dancers recounts many tales of coercion and abuse at the hands of the very same man. 

 The dance world is small and fragile. Complicity is rampant. Revenge can be swift. How easy it is to dismiss a young girl’s testimony by labelling her a bad dancer who just couldn’t cut the mark?  But no, their brave voices merit listening to. 

…divinely naughty love-pranks, innocent eroticism… As dance students in Delhi’s Mandi House of the 1980’s, we were all privy to private tales and long lists of his (and many others as well) alleged predations, but in those days public renouncement didn’t seem even remotely imaginable. Instead, my female friends would heave sighs of relief that ‘nothing had happened to them’.

Yet even today people are hesitant to speak up. I contend that, again, the falsification of dance history is often the culprit. We are dancing an appropriated dance in blithe yet deliberate ignorance. We choose to see only the transcendental aspect of the dance. This pretext of spirituality can be used by gurus with predator tendencies to sexually exploit their students. So, yes, celebrate the art of a great dancer-teacher. Revel in your personal connections to him. But don’t flinch at publicly acknowledging a dark side of someone with enormous influence in the world of dance. 

 … Maharaji recalls past kathak masters, heavily moustached and bearded, who were worshipped for their near-perfect embodiments of feminine beauty… Students, connoisseurs, audiences- all have granted licence to male dancers of stature who, apart from sometimes suspect hereditary claims and serious suspicions of sexual misconduct, also manage to exploit the whole spectrum of expressions of gender and sexuality in their stage persona. We are told that in the erstwhile courts  a male dancer would sit demurely in front of a king and explore emotive dance in the feminine mode. That may be true. On the other hand,  what about the legions of young boys dressed as girls and the actual courtesans performing these dances up until not so long ago? Such memories are distasteful to most. But an avowedly heterosexual male with advertised hereditary performing origins is able to perform in this mode to enraptured acquiescence on the part of the spectators. But then why do we squirm when a queer person does the same thing or why do we whisper about antecedents when a hereditary female performer dares to go on stage today?

Disenfranchised hereditary dancers or sexually exploited young dancers are not expecting restitution or retribution. They know deep down that this would be too unreasonable a demand from such a deeply skewered system. But they do expect and deserve the recognition of historical wrongs committed, however well-meaning the protagonists may have been, and the recognition of unspeakable acts of sexual predation perpetrated by performers in positions of power. 

Now the difficult question for me is whether we can appreciate and be moved by a dancer’s art while simultaneously acknowledging the sometimes monstrous acts they have committed. I have no answer, but maybe I can fall back once again on my own writings of 35 years ago as I search for one…

Justin McCarthy is a musician, dancer, choreographer and writer. His media are piano, harpsichord and bharatnatyam. Apart from numerous choreographies in the bharatnatyam style, he has collaborated on a number of dance films. Justin has been with Ashoka since the university opened its doors in 2014 and he heads the performing arts department.

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Issue 18

Money, Money, Money- Always Funny in the Twitter World!

Editors : Jaidev Pant, Lakshya Sharma and Maahira Jain.