The Redemption of Elizabeth Gilbert

LIKE MANY WOMEN, my reaction — or shall we say relationship? — to Elizabeth Gilbert’s juggernaut bestseller Eat Pray Love (first published and 2006 and by 2008 a global sensation) was complicated. On the one hand, the book is mildly embarrassing; Eat Pray Love falls squarely in the chick lit category, a schmaltzy fairytale-like admission [...]

Each Others’ Worst Enemies: Female Rivalry at the Heart of Disempowerment

THE TEXT OF A SPEECH delivered as the chief guest at the International Women’s Day celebrations at the Hyundai plant in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, on March 8 2010. International Women’s Day is many things – a cause for celebration, a reason to pause and re-evaluate, a remembrance, an inspiration, a time to honour loved and [...]

The Weighty Burden of Honourable Names

By Shilpa Phadke & Sameera Khan Clearly Sanjay Dutt hasn’t read his Shakespeare for he doesn’t seem to recollect the Bard’s pronouncement, “What’s in a Name?” But then perhaps for one with his nose in all kinds of things rotten, nothing smells sweet to him at all. We allude to Sanjay Dutt’s recent assertion of [...]

Taking the Monogamy Out of Marriage

UNMANA INITIATED a lively discussion on marriage a few weeks ago, and there is news now that the institution as we legally define it in India may be set to change. Maharashtra is picking up the cause of legalising live-in relationships and providing more rights to extramarital female parties within a marriage. The state cabinet [...]

Women’s Land Rights and Peace at Home

FROM BEING an issue that was considered almost ridiculous just a decade ago, the campaign for land rights for women has gathered momentum in recent times, especially since the 2005 Amendment of the Hindu Succession Act of 1956. The Amendment establishes the rights of daughters and widows of sons to a share in ancestral agricultural [...]

Daring to Divorce

A CLOSE PERSON has been toying with the idea of a divorce for over two years. She has left her husband several times. The most recent attempt seems the most likely to result in divorce—she talked to her husband seriously, met with a lawyer and got all the gory details of how the law stipulates [...]

How to Eat A Wolf

Does all lust start and end like this? Don’t get me wrong. I loved my wolf. I held him tethered like a pussycat. I nursed the rumble in his belly with hands gentle as a burglar’s. He lived on milk and blood and ocean. He had violets for his furs.