HOT LIST

Edited by ESHA MAHAJAN

Illustration by Siddhant Jumde

FEMININE GAZE Women see things differently—through exclusive essays and poems, eight renowned authors show us how BazaarHOT LIST

IN HER WORDS In an exclusive collaboration with Penguin Random House, we ask eight authors across ages to write what’s on their mind. The result? Eye-opening pieces on beauty, gender, feminism, freedom, and even social media.

On KR Meera: Blouse `8,000, and sari `19,800, Raw Mango. , `7,090, and rings, `9,890, Swarovski. Shoes, `10,999, Dune. On Gurmehar Kaur: Dress, `41,200, Bodice. Shoes, price upon request, Christian Louboutin. Earrings, `2,450, Amrapali. On Manisha Koirala: Jacket, `31,000, and pants, `17,500, Ikai. Ring, `9,890, Swarovski. Shoes, price upon request, Christian Louboutin. On Shaili Chopra: Top, `16,500, Rohit Gandhi + Rahul Khanna. Skirt, `8,590, Massimo Dutti. Shoes, price upon request, Jimmy Choo. Earrings, Chopra’s own. On Meghna Pant: Overlay, tunic, and pants, `16,950, AM:PM. Shoes, `9,999, Dune. Earrings, price upon request, Amrapali. Photographs by Irina Usova. Art director: Wungramvao Shimray.

Fashion editor: Moumita Sarkar. . MILANO KIKO MAKEUP: BAR. BLOW LUXURY THE NOIR, HAIR: HOUSE, DELHI. NEW ROSEATE THE COURTESY LOCATION:

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riting this article, I am mindful that it so my creative expression has a wider boundary. It’s also should be authentic, as the issue of ageing a boon for my spiritual growth, because I can now see and the changes that occur through the how my ego would rise, with all the adulation or years is huge for women worldwide. attention. Here, at this stage, I get to calm my ego. Is it a EspeciallyW in a more glamorous kind of profession, where difficult process? Indeed, it is. I am witnessing the you are under a constant male gaze. The pressure to look impermanence of things. But then, ageing is to accept young and beautiful is so high sometimes, it overshadows time as it is rather than wishing it otherwise. the talent women may possess. The beauty industry I still have the fire in my belly to perform and be banks on women, the cosmetic industry depends on appreciated by my fans. Most likely, I will be doing films women, and outrageously expensive anti-ageing till my last breath, but films are no longer the centre of products sell really well. And even 20-year-olds are my life. I am. I learned the hard way to prioritise making surgical or cosmetic changes to meet these myself. I have many passions—looking after unrealistic standards of beauty. my home, going on nature treks, writing When I began my journey two decades ago, I was books, travelling, learning about health and at the centre of attention. Roles were written wellness, and motivating people. for me—I would play the protagonist or Someone recently commented on social be cast second only to the hero as media, saying I look old. Hell yeah, I’m 48. his love interest. Now, the So? The comment was to shame me. And a roles I’m offered are at the question arose in my mind: Why do people periphery. I gained two act as if age is a curse? Is it not a natural things being at this process? Who has not been touched by age, periphery: First, I have the or rather been deprived of the privilege of opportunity to play ageing? Maturity, depth, and wisdom are characters I haven’t before, the result of experiencing life—ageing— but women, unfortunately, are conditioned to think of it as a nightmare. Maybe an argument is the ticking biological clock, as if life stops if you’re no longer able to bear children. But have we not seen women enjoy life at 60 or 70 or 80? I believe in ageing gracefully, doing things with passion, speaking your truth without hurting others, accepting life as it comes, and standing tall in your own light. I am counting my blessings as I move from project to project. Every step I take is towards discovering what I love. I have, for instance, found that writing has taken my heart now. Everything that holds my fancy, challenges THE WONDER YEARS me to do better, I take on. Because life is to be enjoyed at any age. Grab your life closer At 48, Manisha Koirala is enjoying a return to cinema, writing books, to your heart and live from there rather and living her best life. Here, she writes on the beauty of ageing. than fear. Who knew that in my late-40s I’d be living my best years? Seriously I am... ä ILLUSTRATION BY SIDDHANT JUMDE

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DEBUTANTE: THE THREE INEQUITIES The strange gender dynamics of high society life in big desi cities. By Nadia Akbar

THE INEQUITY OF CHOICE By midnight, the well-wrought masks of day will fade, along with the A PARTY IN LAHORE, DELHI, lipsticks, the Burberry perfumes, the Versace smiles. The breath KARACHI, , the front door is grows caustic, sour with the taste of whiskey and wine, the tongue bitter open. Someone nudges you roughly through with drunken vitriol. and you are assaulted with the sound of You will look around you, at the jabbering industrialists, the motley laughter, smoke, gossip, and ennui. Through crew of clowns and freaks, personalities as disfigured as their bodies and the entrance into the wide-open living facial features—the man who lies about his work, the man who room a diaphanous curtain of smoke, the indiscriminately hits on all that slithers, the man who throws his weight burning tobacco, hashish, the petal fragrance around like a hammer, the drunk, the belligerent, the fatty who slaps his of perfume, a rabid cluster of macho wife on the dance floor, the blowhard, the narcissist, the idiot, the fool. carnivores with investment bravado, plastic It is better to sit with the women, listen to their talk of children and brown tilting on their designer heels domestic help, recent politics and Oprah books read, understanding that ready to pounce. The room is heavy with what is left out of conversation is the conversation. Married not by danger, lies, and secrets. How does the desi choice but by a series of social constraints, economic exchanges, debutante survive? the pressure of expectant parents weighing wealth and family over kindness and compassion.Young and naïve, it’s a lifetime commitment without exit. It will be a daily struggle for freedom, the compromises for little victories—a little THE INEQUITY OF TRUTH more house money, something for the Any man present, you hug and kiss, he compliments you on your shoes and launches into children, vacation, jewels. business, making sure he hits every money mark. “We could have sold it for 10 million, but These usual suspects will I’m going to go to New York next week to try the market. It’s going to sell for three times cheat on you, take trips that much.” He is the third man tonight who has supplied you with a monetary figure. with their friends, travel You wonder if there’s a rumour going around that you’re a hedge fund manager. freely, spend, hunting and TRUE CONNECTIONS Men will lie to you, openly and unabashedly, with a convincing smile and a twinkle of fishing, start a business, fail fantasy in their eyes, even though they are aware that you can count, that you speak to their a business, move to One thing particularly stands Gurmehar Kaur in defence of her making that happen. Whether wives. They will drop names, exaggerate every trip, every business deal, invent, concoct, another country. out in Indian culture: you look at the #MeToo fabricate, prevaricate—you must nod and look wildly impressed. Try the same and the Your choices are generation’s addiction to social media The concept of respect and movement, which shook the instant knowledge leaves your lips calculators will pop out. Testosterone-fueled wheels will limited, confined in a high regard for our elders, just world and created spin, and they will rip you apart with phony numbers, forgotten dates, and muddled facts. tight box of societal by the nature of them being older than us. Apparently, conversations on sexual assault, or the discussion around gun Investigate their lies and you will suffer the tsunami of the abashed: Belittling, gaslighting, expectations, choose well, if you’ve lived a few decades more, you automatically deserve reform in the , started by student protests. disrespect, a public shaming designed to undress you to the core. don’t choose, all beware. w a younger person’s undivided attention and regard of your We are a generation that ticks. The fact that we are aware opinions. And this has always made me uncomfortable. of the injustices happening around the world makes us tick. Because what this teaches children is that they shouldn’t And a huge reason we are aware is because we are on social THE INEQUITY OF JUSTICE question someone who is older or more powerful or who media and we are connected. We may be criticised for living has an upper hand. on social media, but what most people overlook is the fact When the night grows late, you will leave the party for the warmth of the kitchen. The maid, a young Now, this patronising discourse has moved beyond the that we are building connections in cyberspace across woman looking middle-aged, will give you a weary smile and a glass of water that tastes like egg whites and borders of India. Around the world, Millennial and Gen Z manmade borders, and beyond the binaries of race, religion, detergent. You know her only by privilege—the way she smells, her bare feet, the lack of initiative, the slow have been accused of being lazy, unaware, apathetic, and region. This connection makes us empathise. While the learning. You wonder what it would be like if you were a poor servant girl working 18 hours a day, a husband heavily focused on their social media image. And again, the current politics of the world is thriving on the concept of with tuberculosis, children raised in a distant motherless village. And you realise you’re not just here. rebel in me refuses to accept this stereotyping of what ‘other’, somewhere in cyberspace we’re finding common You’re perspiring in a threadbare salwar-kameez picking cotton. You’re in a shanty kitchen preparing your I believe is one of the most dynamic generation of young ground, through sport, music, art, or Harry Potter fandom. husband’s tiffin. You’re at the rear of a jam-packed classroom being ignored by the teacher. You’re being gang- people. In the last few years we have seen so many young This is how we counter the hate the powerful are peddling raped on a bus, a train, in the back of a call centre office because your sales will always be better. voices surface—and social media has played a big role in to the world. This is how we resist. ä A waiter hands you another crystal flute of champagne.ä

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EQUAL TERMS How to raise your children to be feminists? Focus on dismantling that they read a variety of books, hear podcasts that celebrate both everyday signs of patriarchal heroic women and men. The other day we listened to Sheryl stereotypes. By Shaili Chopra Crow and Janis Joplin because my son thought playing the guitar was a guy thing. My daughter is a little sumo star whom we have nicknamed Geeta Phogat. She isn’t old enough to know India’s most famous female wrestlers but her brother has watched them Every morning at the bus stop, I get a on TV, and knows they can pack a punch. lesson in the kind of mom I should not There is a lot about what we don’t do that matters in how we be. “My daughter only sits with girls,” raise children. I don’t insist my daughter has pigtails or wears pink. says one mother, as my four-year-old I don’t insist she share her toys with her brother if she doesn’t want boy makes his way into the bus trying to to. And it’s the same for my son, who has a kitchen set and whisks find a seat to share. My thought bubble his own egg after cricket practise. I remind my children that boys is spiking at its edges, hot with anger, don’t have to be strong always just like girls don’t have to be pretty. trying to figure how to even react. If my The beauty of motherhood is that we fail at these things we call son sits with her, she ‘silly’ and wait for some grand transformation of would start crying. the child’s mind to turn them into equalists and I worry for my son, feminists. The signals lie in the small things. for raising feminist There is a lot about This was the night Serena Williams lost to boys can be hard with Naomi in the US Open. My son asked me such mothers in the what we don’t do that about Williams’s photo where she was giving it vicinity. Then I think matters in how we raise back to the umpire, looking visibly upset. I paused to myself that I have a and sat him down to explain what had happened. chance to fix this children. I don’t insist And how umpires can be wrong. How when ridiculous behaviour women scream, often they have full reason to. This by not raising my my daughter has was an important conversation for us. And year-old daughter to pigtails or wears pink. thankfully it came before someone told him girls be like this. shouldn’t shout. I can’t wait to have this chat with You have to be my daughter before she heads to the world. bold and fearless to start conversations I was raised in a free-minded household, where there was not an on feminism and gender equality. This is inkling of being less ambitious because of our gender. I got exposed especially true because of the intensely to it when I came to work on my own. I have fought and patriarchal society we have been raised questioned a society where breastfeeding in public is considered in. How many of us have been told, deplorable, that asking a man to be in the kitchen is wrong, late repeatedly, to not raise our voices, to sit nights are for boys and girls should be governed by stay-in rules, daintily and be coy, to not raise our eyes a woman instructing loudly is graceless but a man shouting in an or talk back? Girls like Barbies, boys like office is ‘in control’ and so on. Being a mom has urged me to think bats. Girls with short hair are boyish, of unleashing conversations on rights, sexism, feminism, behaviour, boys with dolls are girlish. Patriarchy discrimination, class, cultural contexts, society. ä comes packaged in everyday things. It’s my resolve to break these down for my children’s generation and raise both my boy and girl, feminists. It also means standing up against a system (school, society, peer group, aunts and uncles) that just don’t get the difference. I don’t sit and lecture my children about feminism with a chalk and blackboard. But I am mighty conscious

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WHY I WRITE KR Meera finds equality and liberty in words—but that wouldn’t have happened if not for three powerful women she encountered

I WOULDN’T BE WRITING but for three women who are no more. request: “Will you please correct it for The first one was over 90 when I met her. She was suffering from dementia. me?” I opened it, wondering what she In her frail voice, she would ask the same question over and again to anyone would have written, as the picture who went near her: “Upto which class did you study?” She would add that I had about her from childhood was she wanted to complete her MA, but that her great uncle didn’t allow it. I was of a woman who was a good cook, around 13 at that time, and it was more than I could understand. How could a subservient wife, an affectionate a woman devoid of all memories worry so much about not being able to mother, nothing more. The memory study? Especially when we were being taught by every story, article, film, of the moment I opened the book song, and person around that however educated a woman was, her fulfilment haunts me forever. The pages had happened only in her family, that her ultimate obsession could not be turned brittle. The blue ink had turned anything but her children ? purple. On those pages she had I believed that this woman was an exception. Till I met the second one written beautiful poems and sharp after a decade. I had just started journalism, and was on an assignment to short stories in Malayalam. I was interview a nonagenarian social activist. She was there, the interviewee’s wife, humbled. I took the book home and in her late-70s or early-80s, graceful, cheerful, and dutiful. She was fascinated printed her work, even got some of it by my profession and was showering attention on me. Even after the published. But then, she started calling interview, she insisted I stay back for me every night to remind me: “Please lunch. And even after lunch, she didn’t take good care of the book. Don’t lose let me go, asking question after question “Family is not the ultimate it.” Here was another woman, in her about my job and people in the news. 70s, worried about a notebook in When she started talking about writers, happiness of a woman. It is which she had written something I casually asked her whether she used to a lie. A woman’s ultimate more than half a century ago. write. What followed was spectacular. Suddenly I got the answer to Her grace transformed into an happiness is something she questions that tormented me when unbelievable fury: “What did you ask? would not share with even I met the first woman. Family is not That I did write? What do you know, her most loved ones.” the ultimate happiness of a woman, as child? I was blessed by the great poet we have been taught. It is a lie. Vallathol Narayana Menon himself, A woman’s ultimate happiness is when I recited a poem in a function in something she would not share with even her most loved ones. Something his presence. It was there that this man so private, something so personal. Something very much her own. In my saw me for the first time and decided to old age, would I be worried about the poems and stories I had once written, marry me. And afterwards what or hadn’t written? I had stopped writing fiction in my early-20s. It was happened? He went up the ladder step journalism that had caught my fancy. In the wee hours of that day, though, by step and I was just dumped in the I restarted creative writing. And the moment I think about quitting, there kitchen as a nobody.” I was stupefied. they are, those three old women coercing me to pursue happiness. Some years later came the third So why do I write? For my future, because in my old age the greatest woman, who was also the daughter of treasure for me would be my own works. For the present, because that is the the first one. It was in her home that only way I can reinvent myself. For myself, only myself, to repair myself, to I had met her mother. I visited her in empower myself, to transform myself into a better human being. I write to our village, where she was living with transgress the boundaries of gender, class, and caste. I write to enjoy the her youngest son and family after the ultimate power. I do enjoy power, not the soft power of the mother or the death of her husband. She served us wife, but the ultimate power to create and destroy, the power of the Almighty lunch, and then, while we were taking Herself. Even after seven decades of Independence, unfortunately it remains rest, she gave me a notebook with a the only way to claim my share of liberty and equality. ä

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BE YOURSELF RAISE YOUR It’s okay to rebel, says Tanaz Bhathena, in a VOICE letter to the star of her novel A Girl Like That Forced to live in exile for her views on religion and patriarchy, Dear Zarin, Taslima Nasrin writes on what freedom means to her When I was 15, a girl was abruptly withdrawn from the school I went to in , . Because I was born a woman, they will hate Rumours swirled about her. A secret boyfriend. A pregnancy. Teachers lectured us about what defined me, blame my mother, deny me good food. Disregard good and bad girls. Bad ones, they said, looked at boys and, in doing so, looked for trouble. my hunger. Or anything I may deserve. No, I will no The incident stuck in my head for years to come and, in a way, formed the cornerstone for a story longer stand for it. Give me books and paper and pens. Show me the often told about ‘girls like that’—girls like you. We are similar in several ways, you and I, yet we alphabets so I can learn the cognates. Teach me words are different as well. Unlike you, I was raised in a happy home by doting parents who indulged my so I can write sentences. I will not stand brainwashing. craze for books and made me aware of the possibility of gender equality at an early age. Or people telling me what I cannot wear. Cannot say. Or how much to smile. Or how much to cry. Don’t tell I did run across the occasional stumbling block. At age eight, I remember being followed by a group of older me where to go. Or when to come back home. Don’t tell boys for wearing shorts in —after which I was gently told to wear pants instead. When I turned 13, me who I can talk to. Or who I can love. Don’t tell me who I got into a heated argument with my parents about the unfairness of barring menstruating Parsi women from to marry. Or whose house I can visit. Don’t ask me to change my name. Or how many children I must birth. Don’t tell entering fire temples in India or attending religious ceremonies until they were ‘clean’ again. My father, me what the gender of my baby must be. Or which a Zoroastrian priest and a feminist, regretfully said he could do nothing about it. religion, politics, or philosophy I must believe in. I kept quiet at the time, but rebelled in other ways. I shunned long hair, dresses, and heels— If you must speak, speak about the numerous faiths, beliefs, philosophies, or politics that anything considered ‘feminine’ or ‘girly’. When I turned 16, we immigrated from Saudi Arabia to populate the world; or speak about science . My long-suppressed anger found an outlet where it always did—in writing—and the stories and humanity. Let me make my own I wrote grew bolder, grittier. I also transitioned from wearing boy-cuts and baggy jeans to shoulder- choices. Let me find the things I love. Let me live my own life as I wish. Don’t movement, length hair and dresses. (Still no heels, though.) make me live like how you, your family or and not being banished When your voice came to me, I was 21 and had no idea if I could write a worthwhile story. I knew your society see fit. from my home. The freedom of not being Freedom to me is the freedom to breathe. you were 16 and that you’d run away from troubles at home, but such stories are commonplace and blacklisted. I want these freedoms for thousands like me. So do not suffocate me. Freedom to me is the right to health Their freedoms to write, read, learn, and think as they please. I wanted readers to sit up and take notice of you: A hardened and witty half-Parsi girl with an and education. The freedom to be self-reliant, and the Freedom to me is the right to travel. And settle wherever extraordinary voice. So I began with a scene of you already dead, your spirit providing scathing freedom to make sense of things. Freedom to me is the right I wish. Freedom to me is the choice. To not discriminate to speak. Freedom to me is the right to express, to read, to commentary about your aunt wailing like a professional mourner on a Jeddah highway. I wasn’t ready among white, black, brown, or yellow. The freedom to write, and the freedom to eat, wear, and drink as I please. eradicate caste. And all manner of superstitions. The freedom for the journey you took me on—for the scandal, the intrigue, the smiles, or the tears. Freedom to me is the freedom to go where I please. to not be religious. To not tolerate injustice and discrimination. Growing up, I was told to avoid girls like you. Girls who wore makeup and flirted with boys. And the freedom to come back, or not. Freedom to me is the Freedom to me is not tolerating physical or psychological freedom to live on my own terms. The freedom to do as Girls with reputations. Girls who had done nothing wrong except, unapologetically, be themselves. violence wrought upon anyone. I please. The freedom to love myself. The freedom to respect Freedom is a woman screaming out for equal rights, Telling your story not only gave me courage to speak in ways I’d never spoken before, but also to my own choices. The freedom to live with dignity and Freedom is a woman striking at the roots of misogyny, embrace my true self, flaws and all. And for that I will be forever grateful. honour. As well as the freedom to die however I like. Freedom is a demand for fundamental human rights. I want the freedom to write easy verse. I do not believe Freedom to me is eradication of differences. Between the something is not poetry, just because it makes sense. In fact, rich and the poor. The freedom to dream of equity in society. Love, poetry is what makes sense to me. I want the freedom to And to stand by people whether through joy or sorrow. Tanaz write prose that everyone understands and still I want the Freedom to me is everyone coming together. To rid the freedom to be a writer. I want the freedom to be different world of discrimination. And to foster peace and happiness without the fear of banning and censorship. The freedom for among all. If this be Utopia, so be it. ä my readers to read my thoughts that are contrary. The ILLUSTRATION BY SIDDHANT JUMDE freedom of my books being published. I want the freedom of Translated from the Bengali by Maharghya Chakraborty

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FRIVOLOUS By Meghna Pant Traversed the seven oceans Vanquished my innate curiosity But the ingenious man dictates Frivolous you shall be! Pants of intellect, wrapped around my waist Dive into a pool of knowledge A marvellous sight to see But never take the sea But darn dainty skirts so they deem As the vast expanse has no boundaries Frivolous you shall be! And so frivolous I must be! Our eyes the first time encounter The triangle has but four sides As daring makes me look, I look away Nay; compliant I agree Chastity is what I want perceived But male ego whips my cowardly pride And so frivolous I must be! Frivolous you shall be! Sky-lark dances the tambourine Gallop the winds of change Oh! All the male eyes on me Trot under the meadows of light But my eyes only his untalented beseech As the reins he makes them saunter Frivolous you shall be! And so frivolous I must be! Success dons his mantel As future lays silver platted for him But as his flirty back turns upon me ILLUSTRATION BY SIDDHANT JUMDE Frivolous you shall be! n

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