KALYANI MENON-SEN

15 March 2012

I have lived in Gurgaon for the last seven years. During this time, I have been trying my best to experience the satisfaction and pride that I am convinced is the proper state of mind for a denizen of this Millenium City. It hasn't been easy – the truth is that there are some bits and pieces that don't quite fit the global template. I'm not sure if these are remnants of some prehistoric culture that existed in these parts before the DLF era, or if they're just the straggly unfinished edges of a work-in-progress that will be taken care of in due course by the people in charge. Or maybe they're the bits that went wrong and are too far gone to be repaired – in which case they will just have to be trimmed off ruthlessly when the picture is framed for a global audience. 

Samar Halarnkar

‘I am against women wearing obscene clothes. With such clothes, they tempt men, and that’s why they (women) get raped.’

It is bad enough that Indian men — not the most appealing of God’s creatures — in positions of power occasionally make public, sexist statements that demean working women and female students. But when a declaration like that comes from a woman like KK Seetamma, head of a committee set up by Bangalore University to fight sexual harassment, you have to wonder about the kind of thoughts coursing through the mind of emerging India.

Dhruv Arora

The honorable Women and Child Welfare Minister of Karnataka, C C Patil, seems to have figured out the cause of women getting sexually harassed. According to the latest statement released by mister minister, the cause of sexual harassment lies in a woman’s choice to dress up in a ‘flimsy and fashionable’ manner.

Shreya Manohar Singh

Feminists are infamous for having been in the business of criticising the ‘beauty myth’ for the better part of a century now. And this is one of the things about my world that of late has been bothering me - the impossible standards of beauty that women are held up to. I think that we are under constant, and increasing, pressure to look good, nay, airbrushed, absolutely every moment.  What we are expected to approximate is unachievable, and meant to be so. Of course this troubles a lot of women, and men too.