Long Reads News - Page 7

In Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma levels the playing field between artist and muse

The relationship between male artist and female muse has been as deeply unequal as it is romanticised. Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire upends that narrative.

With Mithila art, women in Nepal's Janakpur brought about a socio-cultural renaissance

Women in Nepal's Janakpur have found a new lease of life, full of hope, optimism and self-worth, by taking to the region's ancient traditional art of Mithila painting.

Caught in a series of dams and hydro projects, is Nepal's Marsyangdi river slowly drying up?

The Marsyangdi used to offer a three-day rafting trip in a 52-kilometre section from Nygdi to Kahirene. Due to three operating hydro projects, the rafting is now largely a thing of the past.

In Ladakh, vulnerable migrant workers face increasingly uncertain future as coronavirus outbreak unfolds

'I first travelled to Ladakh in 2011 and have since been documenting the migrant workers and their living situation. Over the past decade, they may have acquired more construction tools but overall, their conditions haven’t changed much and their struggles remain the same,' writes Ritayan Mukherjee of his photo project documenting migrant workers in Ladakh.

Dastaan-e-Dilrubai: Mukhtar Begum's music moved a world that desperately needed her magic

As the world reels from the spread of a pandemic and is forced to reckon with the breakdown of its known systems, perhaps those of us who have the means to do so can seek a quiet moment to find Mukhtar Begum's music, and let it change us | From #DastaanEDilrubai, a series by Shreya Ila Anasuya.

Reply All's PJ Vogt on 'The Case of the Missing Hit' — the podcast episode being considered among the medium's best

A '90s pop song that no one seemed to have heard of, and of which no trace could be found on the internet. A caller who'd tried for months to locate the original. And a dogged host who wouldn't give up. Reply All | PJ Vogt | Gimlet Media | #TheCaseOfTheMissingHit

Coronavirus Outbreak: 'No matter what it takes, I will walk the 500 km to Kanpur'; stories from the migrant exodus out of Delhi

While most of the country has stayed indoors, for the millions of undocumented workers in India’s informal economy, the lockdown has meant a long trudge home.

Dastaan-e-Dilrubai: Remembering Jahanara Kajjan, whose incandescence burned briefly, but brightly

Little is known about Jahanara Kajjan, a singer-actress who was active in the 1920s and 1930s, on the stages of the Parsi theatre in Calcutta, and in early cinema, and whose 105th birth anniversary was observed in February 2020. What we do know about her makes one lament the limitations of the Indian film archive, particularly lacking in information about the interiority of the women who were crucial to the making of the film industry — not only in Bombay, but in regional centres such as Calcutta and Madras. Introducing #DastaanEDilrubai, a new series by Shreya Ila Anasuya.

Inside 'Lovely Villa': The homes we build are witnesses to our lives

Lovely Villa, a housing complex in Mumbai built by architect extraordinaire Charles Correa, was more than just a building. It was a microcosm of a secular nation, a notion of ideal living, and a repository of memories past and future for its residents. Rohan Shivkumar and Avijit Mukul Kishore's documentary on it looks at how it represented making order out of chaos, both in the political and personal sense.

For Real Kashmir FC, the challenges and thrills of hosting an I-League contest in Srinagar

“Holding a football match in Kashmir is not like holding it elsewhere in the country. The challenges here are all very different,” says Real Kashmir FC's co-owner Sandeep Chattoo | Read Shubham Pandey's story, offering a ringside view of the club's trials and achievements, amid a crucial home game.

A river runs through it: Tracing the Dahisar's meandering — and dwindling — path

Beyond the walls of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, the Dahisar river flows crystal clear under the boughs of Casuarina and Gulmohar trees. A hundred steps later, vibrant life gives way to concrete inertness, and the river turns septic.

In Maharashtra's villages, Dalit families' decades-long battle to reclaim rightful watan lands

The Bombay Inferior Village Watans Abolition Act, 1958 aimed to protect Dalits' access to land. Over 6.28 lakh acres of 'watan' land was awarded to Mahar and Ramoshi communities across Maharashtra. But the intended beneficiaries have been locked in a long and uphill struggle to lay claim to this land.

Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta: Rise in sea-levels to put densely populated region in peril

Being one of the most vulnerable regions in the world, the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta presents a major challenge for climate change adaptation of nearly 200 million inhabitants. It is often considered as a delta mostly exposed to sea-level rise and exacerbated by land subsidence.

Kaveri delta: How Tamil Nadu's new protected special agricultural zone will impact livelihoods

Kaveri Urimai Meetpu Kuzhu (Kaveri Rights Retrieval Committee) coordinator P. Maniarasan says that he and hundreds of other farmers are sceptical not about the spirit of the bill but about its efficacy to address the emerging threats.

In Kolkata, a group of Hindu priestesses storm a male bastion and confront patriarchy, caste

'Shubhamastu', a Kolkata-based collective of priestesses led by Dr Nandini Bhowmik, Ruma Roy, Semanti Banerjee, and Paulomi Chakraborty, has been presiding over Hindu ceremonies of weddings, memorial services, housewarming rituals, among others, for over a decade now.

At Kolkata's Park Circus Maidan, how a homemaker's call to resist CAA-NRC blossomed into a protest

Almost a month after the Shaheen Bagh sit-in was initiated in Delhi to resist the CAA, NRC, and NPR, Kolkata's Park Circus Maidan witnessed a call for protests on identical lines, led by a 45-year-old homemaker, recovering from a kidney transplant surgery. The women of Park Circus Maidan come from all walks of life, cutting across age groups, class and religion, assembling in the hope of a peaceful tomorrow.

Kalyan Varma's documentation of the Dhangars reveals existential threat facing pastoral tribe

Noted wildlife photographer and filmmaker Kalyan Varma first got a chance to explore the lives of Dhangars back in 2013. Since then, he has been interacting with the community sporadically over the years, and understanding various facets of their everyday existence.

Meet 21-year-old Kalpana Mondal — social media star who’s Kolkata's youngest female bus driver

A video of a young girl driving a bus in the bustling streets of Kolkata went viral almost overnight. Little did Kalpana Mondal — the city’s youngest female bus driver — know that she’d encounter fame at the bend of the road, quite literally, while going about her life and work every day.

A bird festival in Gujarat's Dang forests raises awareness about biodiversity in Western Ghats

Dang forests form the northern end of the Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot. Among the Western Ghats endemic species, sightings of Malabar trogon, Malabar whistling thrush and white-bellied woodpecker were most noteworthy said the organisers.

From Bonn to Vienna: In Search of Ludwig van Beethoven on his 250th birthday

As the world gears up for the 250th birth anniversary of Beethoven, a pilgrimage from Bonn to Vienna in search of the man offers new insight into the composer's life and art.

On board the Vivek Express, India's longest train journey, covering 9 states in 5 days

India’s longest train journey begins at Dibrugarh in Assam, and ends at the country’s southernmost point — Kanyakumari, in Tamil Nadu. Along the way, the Dibrugarh-Kanyakumari Vivek Express covers a distance of 4,286 km; a five-day journey that sees the passengers traverse through nine Indian states.

In Deepa Dhanraj's 1984 film on Hyderabad riots, a record of early signs of communalism in Indian politics

With Kya Hua is Shahar Ko? Deepa Dhanraj not only puts forth a portrait of the city of Hyderabad amid communal violence, but also documents the birth of a politically-infused fundamentalist ideology that over the years would become a dominant narrative in Indian politics.

How Rakesh Sharma ensured his documentary on Gujarat riots reached Indian audiences

Rakesh Sharma explains how his critically lauded film, Final Solution, bore witness to the aftermath of the Gujarat riots and became among the most widely circulated documentaries in India

Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai: Nakul Singh Sawhney examines the anatomy of a riot

More than 60 were killed and around 40,000 were displaced in a riot that took place in western Uttar Pradesh in 2013. Over 90 percent of those affected were Muslims. Whether they were ‘riots’ or a politically-calculated move is the premise of Nakul Singh Sawhney’s documentary Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai.

1984, When the Sun Didn’t Rise: Scars of anti-Sikh violence won't fade, Teenaa Kaur Pasricha finds

1984, When the Sun Didn’t Rise opens in Delhi’s Tilak Nagar which, over the years, has come to be known as 'Widows Colony' — many of the families of those killed in 1984 live in this quaint neighbourhood.

What the Fields Remember: Subasri Krishnan on the human cost of the Nellie massacre

The Nellie massacre is among the bloodiest chapters in the history of India. Yet it remains on the fringes of the nation’s collective memory. Documentary filmmaker Subasri Krishnan’s film What the Fields Remember is an effort to chronicle what is/has been forgotten.

Khambhat violence: Residents recall 2002 riots as communal clashes erupt in Gujarat town

The riots in Khambhat come at a time when Delhi is reeling under communal violence after Hindu and Muslim protesters clashed over the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens.

Under the Open Sky: Mumbra's girls find freedom, reclaim public space through football

For a group of girls in Mumbra, playing football has helped challenge prevalent social attitudes. A documentary titled 'Under the Open Sky' depicts how these girls came to engage with the sport, the challenges they overcame, and what their reclaiming of public space means

Sharda river's changing course is creating perpetual refugees, rendering infrastructure futile

As the Sharda River submerges their land and homes, refugees from then East Pakistan and of Uttar Pradesh are being displaced again and again.

In desert regions of Pakistan's Umerkot, a women-led initiative to grow jujube berries yields a sweet harvest

The journey began in 2015 when 10 women planted 50 fruit berry (jujube) trees grafted with indigenous wild berries. The extension of such orchards could fulfill the nutritional requirements and could reduce malnourishment among pregnant lactating women, children and women in drought affected areas of Umerkot and Tharparkar.