Nov 25
By Priti Mandal
On Being a Naga: Essays is a collection of essays on Nagas and their way of life by Temsula Ao, an Ao-Naga woman writer. The essays contemplate on “the dichotomies in Naga life and lore” (Introduction xiii), which leads to rethink and re-evaluate the Naga worldview and values.
By Debaditya Bhattacharya
Have South Asian women writers today, in keeping with the historico-political agency granted by a resistant postcolonial aesthetic, been able to live past the stereotypes manufactured by patriarchal literary canons in the West? Or, does the pathological bi-partitioning of the nineteenth-century literary woman as the ‘monster’ or the ‘whore’ fracture itself into a potential infinity of social others at the moment she encounters the contested modernity of the postcolony?
By Rubina Thapa
Mobile Legends is a shift from old games featuring only dominant male characters making it gender neutral game. If analyzed critically, faults can be extracted, but it is truly a form of 'new-game' representing 'new-women'. What is new must not be withheld and must be shared.
By Usha Raman and Sai Amulya Komarraju
The guilt that is so familiar to women of my generation is fed by old and new expectations. I am the keeper of tradition in the home, I am the mover of the daily machine that is family life. I am the sole feeder of my ambitions, such as they are, and I must face their consequences, consequences that the world throws back in my face as being of my own making.
By Sanchayita Chakraborty and Priyanka Chatterjee A feminist writer, historian, and an activist of women’s movement, Sarmistha Dutta Gupta pleasantly agrees to share with us her experience, her journey towards gendered understandings of history and culture in this ‘alap’, a candid conversation for the current Café Dissensus issue, “New Women: Then and Now”.
Contents: Muslim Women on Hijab/Veil (Issue 16)
By Varsha Basheer
There are Muslims who believe the headscarf is mandatory, as well as those who think it is not. Some find the diktat in the Quran asking Muslim women and men to dress in a particular way and to be modest is one of the most important parts of following Islam; and some take it as not literally an act of covering but being modest in attitude would suffice. However, it is unambiguously clear that non-Muslims find the act of covering hard to comprehend. The thought of a woman covering herself up to please an unseen god forsaking worldly recognition is a conundrum.
By Nazreen Fazal
My move, incidentally, took me from a Muslim-minority to Muslim-majority country and suddenly it was different. I found myself surrounded by women wearing the hijab, working as taxi drivers, receptionists, professors, bankers, doctors, vendors....I realized that here hijab was just another clothing and was not as enmeshed in politics as in other parts of the world.
By Safiya N.Y.
My first tryst with the outside world was school. And the curious reactions began from there. It seemed to me that an above average student believing in Muslim ideals cannot be accepted. Since they are intelligent and educated, they should conform to the ideals of the general ‘modern’ world. Only the uneducated, the backward and the uncouth maintain their religious beliefs, no matter how good-mannered and principled they are.
By Noorunnida M.
I still remember the day when I first wore the pardah to college. The conductor of the bus, who until that day used to flirtatiously ask for the ticket, mocked, “Where to thaatha (elderly Muslim lady)?” Until then, I was a ‘normal’ student of my college, but that day I became a girl infected with the epidemic of religious consciousness. Some were anxious that I wore pardah succumbing to compulsion imposed by my family.
By Minu Fathima
As a free thinking Muslim woman living at the crossroads of these multiple contexts, my initial skepticism over the veil was replaced by a decision to veil when I felt a desire to do so. To veil or not to veil is therefore a choice I exercise, but instead of viewing veiling and non-veiling as a pair opposites, I consider them as two different possibilities, each having its own meanings, contexts and above all, legitimacies. Neither do I see my veiled self as a walking prisoner begging the sympathy of a patronizing world, nor am I apologetic of my unveiled self as an unwrapped candy inviting male gaze.
By Anila Basha
The western feminist notions of liberty and freedom prevent and, sometimes, openly accuse women wearing hijab as submissive. To some, hijab is a sign of blind adherence to patriarchy and never an act of self respect. This, in fact, is a false accusation because in truth the decision to follow an Islamic dress code is a choice that one makes through deep understanding of the Quran and Islamic culture.
