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May 2018 Vol 2 Issue 5 `150 Saloni Chopra The feisty actor is using social media to ignite debate on sexuality and gender violence THE WOMAN INSIDE AGENTS OF CHANGE FUNNY SIDE UP Maahi’s sex change had Shahla Ettefagh, Sigma Standup comic Neeti an unexpected outcome Ankrava, Christine Akello Palta gives us a peek in her work and life Otieno, Madhavi Kuckreja into her life & home 2 | PERSONAL GROWTH contents Funny Side Up :) 06 Standup comic Neeti Palta takes us home India’s Diwali Ambassador 12 US-based events planner Manisha Beriwala Bad Feminist 20 Cover girl Saloni Chopra gets personal ON THE COVER: Saloni Chopra PHOTOGRAPHY: Amit Agarwal The Power of One 26 Four agents of change from around the world Woman Rising 42 How Shazia found hope after losing her son Why Men Rape 45 What makes men rapists? How do we fix it? Life in 3D 48 Award-winning animator Charuvi Agrawal How We Went Off Script 54 Sana Sood on her entrepreneurial journey Walk on Through to 14 the Other Side Her gender change had an A Little Bit of Thai unexpected outcome for Maahi 56 Four Thai dishes for healthy meals MAY 2018 MAY 2018 4 | EDITor’S NOTE EDITor’S NOTE | 5 and bore the weight of the world on their hips. I thought about their daily sacrifices in raising families and running households. I thought about their missed op- portunities, backbreaking work, uncomplaining resilience. WOMEN WHO DO The women in my family were systematically denied equal rights and freedom – to education, to their bodies, to wo days ago, I went out for a meeting and their personal choices, to their dreams. By the time my turn came back home to find a kitchen in dis- came, our mothers had pushed for a few more freedoms array. My family – technically all adults but for us, but many others still eluded my generation – such mentally all babies, including my husband – as sending a daughter away for higher studies (“What if she hadT got into some sort of Mahabharata. Dishes had lost her virginity? No, no, let’s marry her off instead.”). shattered, a bowl of rice had been splattered, and And yet, the women in my family all lived to ripe old there was a furious silence in all quarters. ages, most outliving their “What happened?” I hollered. Everyone blamed men, and died peacefully at everyone else, no one came forward to clean up. home, surrounded by the After a few minutes of flailing my arms about in people they loved. disbelief and shouting at everyone for their bad be- How did they do it? How haviour and – especially – for their cold refusal in did they wake up, day af- picking up the pieces, I got to work to do it myself ter day, and do their gen- before the dogs stepped on the glass shards. der-based roles, and suffer Raging internally for all the injustices in the their gender-based inequal- world, and for being forced into certain roles ity, without bitterness? because of my gender, I allowed the rhythm of Because they just did. Aekta Kapoor dish-washing and floor-cleaning to calm me into a They woke up, day after day, Founder Editor, eShe state of active meditation (it’s a thing, try it). dusted off the inequality, My mind drifted. I thought about my history – and got to work. My paternal grandmother Krishna was born in my grandparents on both sides had migrated to the The world is full of injus- Lahore, moved to Delhi during Partition, had five new India from Lahore, carrying with them noth- tice – discrimination is re- children and 13 grandchildren, and died at 75 ing but hearts full of fear and hope, armed with just markably democratic across courage. I thought about the women in my family gender, caste, class, race, nationalities. But why I idolize my – grandmothers and aunts who were married as grandmothers and mothers is because – despite hardship – teenagers, who mothered many children, lost a few, they just got on with it, and did their bit for their daughters. Women today have it better because other women before us pushed boundaries bit by bit, and today, we can push Editor: Aekta Kapoor All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction more. This issue of eShe is about agents of change – women : Nyamat Bindra in any manner is prohibited. Printed and published by Marketing and Research Aekta Kapoor on behalf of the owner Coral Content. who are changing the world, one person, one mindset, one ([email protected]) Published at C3/1 GF, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi 110057, Brand Managers: Amrita Nagpal, Pallavi Pratap India. Phone: +91 9818166621. Printed at Modest city, one country at a time. These are #WomenWhoDo. Malik Graphics (P) Ltd, Shop No.C-53, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase 1, New Delhi 110020. To buy, advertise or for any Contributors: Kay Newton, Sana Hoda Sood, other queries, visit eshe.in or send an email to mail@ Shreyaa Shah, Dr Urvashi Tandon coralcontent.com. To subscribe, visit eShe.in [email protected] MAY 2018 MAY 2018 6 | COMEDY COMEDY | 7 Standup comic Neeti Palta takes a break from making Indians laugh and F N SIDE UP gives us a peek into her home, life, history – and refrigerator N :) U Y f you’re lucky, Neeti Palta’s had a painfully older brother,” she rambunctious French bulldog, says. “He was just three years older named Punchline, will insist but he was very painful.” Her father on climbing up your body to inculcated in her the love for books Ilick your face and lips. “She likes and reading (“PG Wodehouse was you,” says Neeti, who finds it diffi- the best”) and her sporty, energetic cult to resist the tiny tornado’s ad- mother endowed Neeti with a love vances herself, cuddling her while for short hair, youthful looks and she jumps up and down animatedly. the inability to sit still. Neeti’s other dog, a beagle named After completing her graduation Socks, appears calm in comparison. in English literature from Delhi “There are my kids,” Neeti intro- University, Neeti went on to do duces them before sitting down in her airy Delhi apartment where she “I worK out so that lives with her husband and father- in-law, a retired Army officer. I CAN Eat out AND Neeti is a magnet unto herself, driNK. MY CooK maKES her answers laced with wisecracks TINDA-GOBI EVERY daY. IT and her straight-backed fauji up- bringing drawing your attention. maKES ME suiCidal” The standup comedian has, over the past seven years, mastered the her Master’s in mass communica- art of reducing people to hysterical tion and journalism from Symbiosis laughter armed with just a mic, all in Pune. Neeti’s mom had a huge over India and Australia, and is now influence in pushing her towards a hailed as one of India’s top com- career in advertising (“What kind edy acts. The 39-year-old’s jokes of mother does that?”) and for the are dipped in her experiences as a next 12 odd years, Neeti worked as woman, as an Indian, and as a tom- a copywriter, spending most of that boy. And they all begin in her life as time in the corridors of advertising an Army officer’s daughter. major J Walter Thompson India. Neeti was born in Agra (“My fam- One of her seniors, Anuja Chau- ily jokes that the largest pagal-khana han, who is now a bestselling au- [mental health hospital] was in Agra thor, referred Neeti to the team of then, so it was befitting my birth”) the international TV show Sesame and brought up all over India. “I Street. “I fell in love in just two MAY 2018 MAY 2018 8 | COMEDY PERFORMING ARTS | 9 Neeti’s acts are peppered with real-life stories, India (“I bleed the tiranga”), Indian men, and self-mockery DANCE LIKE NO ONE’s WATCHING days,” says Neeti of how she became about her non-conformism, even if American dancer, choreographer and model Dana Alexa has moved to the screenwriter for the children’s she is often the recipient of vitriolic India to judge a reality dance show, and can’t get enough of the country show Galli Galli Sim Sim, which comments by trolls online. premiered on Indian televisions Considering her gym routine and ew York-born Dana Alexa broker father and an art-loving in 2006. After almost five fulfilling six-pack abs (“My trainer says, mod- started dancing when she mother, always loved to read and years there, she attended a comedy el banna hai kya?”), Neeti spends a was just two years old, and would walk to school as a young show featuring Brad Sherwood and disproportionate amount of time was a professional dancer child with a book firmly in hand. Colin Mochrie of Whose Line is it thinking about food. “I work out so Nby 21, having trained with the best Dana has choreographed numerous Anyway? fame. She volunteered to that I can eat and drink. My cook instructors in the world in hip hop, viral YouTube videos and has a huge do sound effects in an interactive deliberately makes tinda-gobi (bland jazz, street jazz, tap and ballet. A social-media fan base. She now trav- scene, and caught the attention of vegetables) every day. It makes me well-recognized face on American els the world teaching master classes Raghav Mandava, founder of stand- suicidal. So I have to eat out. And TV after she choreographed and and has briefly moved to Mumbai up comedy club, Cheese Mon- my refrigerator holds more beer performed on Watch What Happens where she judges the reality dance key Mafia.

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