Inculturemag

13/02/2021

The dice game is considered a sacred ritual and has an inexplicable significance in Indian history and culture. It is inherent with a paradox – for all its sacredness, gamblers were seen as thieves and looked down upon. At the heart of such contradictions lies the danger that dicing entails –”gambling is found to be divisive.” These tensions are not lost upon those who play it to decide the fate of a most illustrious kingdom, nor upon the court that quietly watches.

https://inculture.co.in/literature/what-the-mahabharatas-dicing-sequence-reveals-about-ourselves/

What begins as a family game, right after the auspicious Rajasuya Yagna ends in the destruction of order and a violation of the living force of the very Earth – hence in omens that spell out doom.

08/02/2021

Everybody loves a good Twitter war! The first episode of This Week inCulture features Kartik, Anant and Atri — getting under the developments of Indian versus Western twitter that ushers in performances by celebrities along the likes of Rihanna and Greta Thunberg. They also discuss 'The White Tiger', a Booker-Prize winning novel by Arvind Adiga — now available as a movie on Netflix India. How does the representation of India through such movies on OTT platforms affect India's global image? Is there sometimes more than what meets the eye?

Check it out across platforms in the link down below!

https://linktr.ee/thisweekinculture

Linktree. Make your link do more.

08/02/2021

05/02/2021

Until I set foot in sunlight, the notion that a sketchy neon lit bar could hold any sort of sentimentality within seemed incredulous. You see, in posh South Bombay; with its manicured gardens, sea front apartments and almost incestuous social circles of the crème de la crème, a rundown looking bar with bustling crowds seemed an anomaly to me. Resting on one of the costliest pieces of real estate in the country, Sunlight hardly matches the proclivities of this part of the city. It seems so out of place that I had to look the address up twice to see if it was really in Town.

https://inculture.co.in/spaces/stepping-into-the-sunlight-a-bar-a-friend-a-family/

Until I set foot in sunlight, the notion that a sketchy neon lit bar could hold any sort of sentimentality within seemed incredulous

23/01/2021

We don't often write about sport, but recent events almost demand it. Today's piece is about history. A lengthy chronology of eight Indian captains, their legacy, and their spirit.

https://inculture.co.in/society/o-captain-my-captain-a-paean-to-the-spirit-of-indias-cricketing-leaders/

Each captain brought something new to the table; and their contributions alongside the evolution of India’s culture have made for a very interesting innings. Rather than an exhaustive exploration of every individual to don the mantle of captaincy, we chose to break it down into eras that each brou...

22/01/2021

Eating together, in Indian culture, is believed to have a way of bringing families together. Once at a reasonably large families-gathering, I saw one of the men feeding a little girl – apparently serving chapatis – with a bite of Jalebi, jokingly say, “Seva karoge toh meva milega” (If you serve, you’ll be awarded). The other men at the dining table broke out in fleeting laughter. Let me paint you a picture of a soirée at a typical Indian household: the women serve the men with water and food, lay plates for them, and even put their husbands’ dishes in the sink. After this, the women serve themselves dinner while the men march off to the living room. Now if you’re one with the cultural blindfold, you could think of this as an endearing tradition of looking after ‘each other’ even as the culture’s deeply-rooted patriarchy glares at you with exasperation.

Neeraj Ghaywan’s slapping short film Juice is an unfeigned rendering of this everyday affliction. The film is more than just a simplistic portrayal of patriarchal ignorance; it leaves you with a powerful feeling of disentanglement – via a cathartic rejoinder.

https://inculture.co.in/filmtheatre/juice-on-indian-dinners-where-families-mistreat-together/

Eating together, in Indian culture, is believed to have a way of bringing families together.

17/01/2021

Shaleen Wadhwana is an independent arts educator and cultural heritage professional. Her curatorial practise explores meta-narratives in global history and artistic responses to contemporary social issues, reflected in her current show FRIN/GE at Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi. She has curated OSMOSIS, a 3 artist show at TARQ Gallery, Mumbai (2019) and co-designed India’s first virtual artist residency Fissure with the Pollinator Interdisciplinary Lab (ongoing).As a Visiting Faculty at MIT Institute of Design, Pune, she teaches Big History and Design Futures and is the Humanities curriculum designer for their Innovation Programme. She has worked with cultural institutions like the British Museum, London, National Museum, Delhi and Chemould Prescott Road Gallery, Mumbai. She is academically trained in Art History (SOAS, London), Cultural Heritage Law (University of Geneva-UNESCO), Liberal Arts (Young India Fellowship, Ashoka University) and History (Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University). Recently, her research has been showcased at the Art and Antiquities Conference, Mumbai and in the India Perspectives Journal of the Ministry of External Affairs, India.

In a recent interview with Shaleen, we discussed what it means to be a curator in today’s landscape, and explored the outer rims of art, society, and identity with a Zoom tour of Shaleen’s latest curatorial venture with Vadehra Art Gallery: FRIN / GE. Within the context of FRIN / GE, they explore what it means to be a curator during the pandemic, how the relationship between the artist and curator is affected by technology and Lockdown, and the many innovative ways that both artists and curators are dreaming up to make their content more accessible to the world. Shaleen further disseminates the need for spaces such as FRIN / GE and what it means to be marginalised or beyond the norm. With this exhibition, any viewer will learn more about the importance of the conversations that art initiates, and the need for spaces where such conversations can happen whilst enhancing their knowledge on the many stakeholders in the world of art.

https://inculture.co.in/art/the-inculture-room-shaleen-wadhwana/

Shaleen Wadhwana is an independent arts educator and cultural heritage professional. Her curatorial practise explores meta-narratives in global history and artistic responses to contemporary social issues, reflected in her current show FRIN/GE at Vadehra Art Gallery

14/01/2021

Andal is considered an incarnation of Bhudevi, the Earth Goddess. I think about how the Devi, the goddess, has always been associated with the Earth. Sometimes, the Goddess is the earth: the Mother that sustains, the music that is made by rivers flowing over rocks, and the scent that is born of rainwater mingling with soil. Sita was found in a furrow; Andal was found in a Tulsi grove. And the rules of men have never been for those born of the Earth.

Often, I imagine myself at the threshold of a house. Or more accurately, the gate of a compound with five houses, in which live five brothers with their families. Their wives rise before the winter sun and step out into the cold morning to milk the buffaloes. The sheds are an indigo shade of freezing, and the yard soon fills with the sounds of milk rhythmically pouring into vessels. Dream-like, yet a real enough memory, these scenes surface in me, as though from another lifetime; one before pandemics and a painful awareness of privilege that is a millstone around your neck, bent from hours of staring into a soulless screen.

https://inculture.co.in/society/of-predawn-prayers-early-winters-and-vivid-nostalgia/

03/01/2021

Think dairy products and you will most probably think Amul. It often doesn’t stop there. Amul’s famous jingle might then play in your mind, accompanied by an image of the blue-haired girl in red polka dots of the logo. As you’re reading this, many of you probably have a standard idea in mind. Think Parle G and you will see in all likelihood picture the golden packaging of the biscuits together with the infant girl’s image with a look of wonder on her face. Think McDonald’s and it is nearly impossible not to picture a flurry of red and yellow, and the well-known Ronald McDonald. How does one account for the persistence of these images and how they are shared by so many?

https://inculture.co.in/society/the-mdh-vision-images-of-indian-culture/

Critically Thinking About Indian Culture - FIlm & Theatre | Music | Society | Spaces

30/12/2020

Perhaps the surviving allure around the Indian photographic archive from the British Raj lies in its unchallenged power to persuade. However, in referring to this archival collection as ‘Indian’, the claim is possibly rendered as paradoxical as it is unidiomatic. The arrival of the camera in 19th century India occurred close to its invention in Europe—and in the hands of foreign elites, photography soon morphed into a popular administrative tool. The camera came to embody an imperialist agenda. The British used it to meticulously catalogue the various representations of history and culture: from landscapes, architecture and memorial sites, to indigenous communities and populations. These images reinforced the colonial stereotypes that posited India as a disparate nation in dire need of intervention from British political and economic regimes.

https://inculture.co.in/art/the-colonial-lens-of-imperialist-photography/

Critically Thinking About Indian Culture - FIlm & Theatre | Music | Society | Spaces

27/12/2020

A song I heard in one of the many hip, neon pink lit bars in Amsterdam that sent me straight back to a bhajan class that I didn’t even remember having been forced into till then. I couldn’t recognise the original bhajan, but I knew what I was hearing had Indian roots. But so did the people around me who had never listened to a bhajan in their lives. But how do we all collectively hear a sound and immediately label and experience it as Indian? Or for that matter, any place.

https://inculture.co.in/music/shruthi-in-the-west-a-chronology-of-indian-sounds-in-the-west/

A song I heard in one of the many hip, neon pink lit bars in Amsterdam that sent me straight back to a bhajan class that I didn’t even remember having been forced into till then. I couldn’t recognise the original bhajan, but I knew what I was hearing had Indian roots. But so did the people aroun...

25/12/2020

Like any other newbies on the scene, we thus far have learned the mechanics and history of a world that deeply permeates our cultural and national identity as explored in the previous Parts. With the art market now an exponentially growing entity in the Indian and International community, there are many unsaid courtesies that come with being a stakeholder. Much like boundaries and rules that exist unsaid in society, the art community has similar courtesies that everyone must follow. These courtesies affect all relationships within the art community – personal and professional – and often set the tone and procedure of how one goes about conducting business. Here I shall also be exploring what it means to be an undiscovered artist in the art world, what it means to be a buyer when you’re in the search of art, and the role galleries play in the art world.

https://inculture.co.in/art/the-space-that-art-and-its-market-occupy-in-indian-society-part-3/

Critically Thinking About Indian Culture - FIlm & Theatre | Music | Society | Spaces

20/12/2020

Orality and narrativity are unique forms of knowledge and encode within themselves a cultural history – the story of a people. Emerging from ever expanding communities, traditions are passed down from generation to generation and form the backbone of Indian society. At the heart of a close-knit community lies the complex machinery of the family unit that grows and takes on a life of its own. It comes forth in tidal waves, creating ripples, exploding into the society and manoeuvring changes – it expands, and the society accommodates, it dictates and the society adopts, it transforms and the society transforms right along. At the intersection of family, culture and community, a way of life is birthed. The family then, almost becomes a synecdoche for the vast, expansive nation that one can never hope to understand, unravel, and experience if one does not consider the parts while considering the whole. The Indian whole is not a sum of its parts but is the parts itself. Owing to the diversity of the similar yet unique family unit found across the country – parts take on more importance than one would usually consider.

So, welcome to the family.

Welcome to the Indian family.

Welcome, to the Indian joint family.

https://inculture.co.in/society/an-ode-to-the-indian-joint-family/

Three welcomes because that’s just how excessive we are. Three welcomes because there are too many members, and they will all greet you with gracious warmth until you feel just the slightest bit overwhelmed

19/12/2020

The Memory Gazette, an initiative by Meghamala and Sarasi, was founded in June with this very idea in mind- the accessible, digital preservation of micro-heritages. The two history enthusiasts met at an internship with Heritage Walks Calcutta, now called Immersive Trails, headed by Tathagata Neogi and Chelsea McGill. The Memory Gazette was the result of a project they worked on together during the internship, exploring heritage outreach through the lens of micro-heritages, a concept they coined to encapsulate the kind of heritage that accumulates in our families, daily lives and memories. As opposed to documented, monumental cultural heritages, micro-heritages centre around personal experiences. The founders of the internship suggested that they take the project forward, and after days and nights of hunching over the laptop figuring out the logistics, it was ready- The Memory Gazette, a digital archives website for safekeeping of micro-heritages and preserved memories. In conversation with the two founders, Sarasi says, “We started it because we feel like it helps people get in touch with their identity like they’re a part of a community that has shared experiences and stories to tell.”

https://inculture.co.in/society/of-rememberance-and-identity-the-memory-gazette/

Critically Thinking About Indian Culture - FIlm & Theatre | Music | Society | Spaces

14/12/2020

With the artistic revolution of 20th Century India, the floodgates of passion and innovation opened and flooded the sub-continent with their enthralling beauty. Despite holding invaluable cultural importance, Indian artwork in the 1900s was considered ‘decorative’ and ‘derivative’ by historians worldwide, partially due to the colonial factors and agenda influencing and downplaying the importance of such artwork in our freedom struggle. In the 1990s, a shift took place. Born in 1995, the commercial market for Indian Art has seen climbs and falls, persevering, catering to its collectors and artists for the last twenty-five years. Since the turn of the millennium, the industry has led to the establishment of norms and unsaid courtesies which lovers of art – artists, collectors, galleries, and auction houses alike – must follow to maintain the decorum and sanctity of their passion.

https://inculture.co.in/society/the-space-that-art-and-its-market-occupy-in-indian-society-part-2/

Critically Thinking About Indian Culture - FIlm & Theatre | Music | Society | Spaces

12/12/2020

Reality TV trends tend to make waves. Sometimes, there are troughs when this form of entertainment is unpopular (like when everyone is experiencing enough of a “real life” as is, and prefer to escape to artificial worlds and narratives). Other times, there are peaks, when production houses see a market that is interested in watching how other people live and exist in the same world as them. Recently, we’ve been experiencing a revival of reality television thanks to Netflix with Karan Johar’s What the Love! and related but adjacent Indian Matchmaking – and these are just within the Indian market. Last month brought with it the premiere of the third Indian reality tv show: The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives; an unapologetically decadent montage of the lives of 4 absurdly affluent Bollywood women.

I won’t hesitate to admit that I binge-watched the whole series in about a day – each episode is 30 minutes, and there are only 8. I knew practically nothing about any of the women featured in this show; I only vaguely knew of their children (or in one case, my mother telling me that I shared a classroom with one of them in primary school). But this bare cognizance, coupled with the frequent Karan Johar cameos, told me all I needed to know: this was going to be a show about four extremely wealthy women living in opulence with no excuses or shame.

https://inculture.co.in/society/the-fabulous-lives-of-bollywood-lies/

Somehow, though, I wasn’t put off by this lack of acknowledgement of their easier-than-normal lives. It was interesting to watch them flaunt the diamonds and jewels on their fingers in their expensive Juhu-Bandra houses without feeling a piercing discontentment about their ignorance.

07/12/2020

In the final segment of Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019), Sonam Kapoor’s Sweety is trapped in a transparent box during the performance of a same-sex play in her locality. While her younger self screams to be let out, the older Sweety is resigned to her fate in the metaphorical closet. She looks on hopelessly, knowing that she cannot leave.

Most films about same-sex relationships that emerge out of India tend to approach their stories with a high focus on homophobia rather than homosexuality. The first explicitly q***r film in India, Fire (1998) depicts two sisters-in-law falling into secret love. This fear of ostracisation has become the blueprint for same-sex representation on screen. Its overuse has almost lent to a fetishisation of trauma.

https://inculture.co.in/filmtheatre/q***r-cinema-needs-a-change-in-representation/

In the final segment of Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga (2019), Sonam Kapoor’s Sweety is trapped in a transparent box during the performance of a same-sex play in her locality. While her younger self screams to be let out, the….

05/12/2020

We grow up in a time where stories of survival, sacrifice, and blood-painted borders are told in quiet living rooms, in opulent halls built up from the remains of golden nightingales. Once a proud empire, the Indian subcontinent was a breadcrumb of its former glory when the British finally departed from our shores in 1947. Yet, their colonisation did not end there. In the advent of their Western Civilisation, our cultural heritage was pillaged and reduced to a commercial world, with our art having decidedly no meaning in the eyes of the Redcoat conquerors.In the wake of the freedom movement, the visual arts in the Indian subcontinent witnessed revolutions of style, identity, and rebellion. With the likes of Rabindranath Tagore and Amrita Sher-Gil at its forefront, Indian Art of the 20th century was seen as ‘derivative’ when embracing our historical heritage and ‘hypocritical’ when making space for Western influences. Historians and critics held this double-edged sword against our artists for decades, refusing to acknowledge the meaning behind great works, reducing our contemporaries to mere decoration, inhibiting the birth of a new world of art.

While the Indian art industry is worth Rs 1460 crores today, the path was far from easy

https://inculture.co.in/society/the-space-that-art-and-its-market-occupy-in-indian-society-part-1/

In the wake of the freedom movement, the visual arts in the Indian subcontinent witnessed revolutions of style, identity, and rebellion…

03/12/2020

We are looking for writers, editors, and social media experts to join our team! Click on the link for information on the positions on offer and the application process.

https://inculture.co.in/call-for-contributors/

Critically Thinking About Indian Culture - FIlm & Theatre | Music | Society | Spaces

30/11/2020

The 1950s. Several years after partition, India is awash with communal tensions. Amidst it all, the country is preparing for its first General Elections. Set in the fictional town of Brahmpur, Mira Nair’s six-episode mini-series for the BBC attempts to unearth all that is Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’. The setting is the nation’s coming of age, the era of a new India. But Nair’s adaptation is an insipid one. For a show about the country’s reclamation, she ironically waters down the “Indian” in it to suit a Western palate. While it is the first BBC series without major white characters, the colonial hangover precedes this relatively small victory.

https://inculture.co.in/filmtheatre/the-unsuitable-tongues-of-mira-nairs-a-suitable-boy/

The voice of the narrator, though seemingly brown is white-washed and coloured over by the sovereignty of the English language.

23/11/2020

The first time I frantically came to rely on a food blog for meals was just days before the lockdown began. After a series of mishaps over the stove, I found myself navigating the contents of multiple google-searched food blogs. One of the featured articles had four different images of chana masala. Yet, the unavoidable title in large lettering claimed to provide the most foolproof recipes for using leftover ‘curry‘. I immediately concluded that the blogger was an ignorant white person, clearly misguided in their attempt to diversify their repertoire of cuisines. However, much to my surprise, he was a 35-year-old Indian chef based out of Mumbai.

Read the full article on our website!

https://inculture.co.in/society/how-cookbooks-have-anglicised-indian-cuisine/

The etymology of the word ‘curry’ can be traced back to a colonial mistake from the 1500s. The Tamil word Kari, which essentially meant gravy, was borrowed by the Portuguese who started labelling every Indian dish with it.

21/11/2020

Check out our new multimedia pieces to experience a story, not just read it!

"Before I moved to The Netherlands, I had seen pictures of the doughy dishes offered in the oliebollenkraam. They looked similar to bonda, a popular deep-fried snack in Madras that has often ostracised me from friend and family groups because of my distaste for it. I instantly knew I wouldn’t enjoy their Dutch counterparts, but I didn’t suffer much exclusion in the international atmosphere of Amsterdam. I was only overtly confronted by it when I visited the less metropolitan city, Haarlem. The unctuous smells emanating from the oliebollenkraam warned me to stay away, but I was convinced by my boyfriend to try his dearest Appelflaps. I didn’t appreciate it as much as I was expected to, but I imagined enjoying the filling a lot more under less doughy, less oily circumstances. Upon mentioning this, he went into a sweet monologue of remembering his mother’s apple pies; the smell that flooded the house when she made it and the warmth and comfort of eating her love. He said, “It was like eating a hug” and that idea, of flavours embodying feelings, thoughts and concepts, stuck with me as we joined her in making dinner that night."

Read Sashna's full piece on our website!

https://inculture.co.in/society/eating-india-for-dinner-in-the-netherlands/

Before I moved to The Netherlands, I had seen pictures of the doughy dishes offered in the oliebollenkraam. They looked similar to bonda, a popular deep-fried snack in Madras that has often ostracised me from friend and family groups because of my distaste for it.

20/11/2020

Be it the eerie silences, the keen sense of mystery that permeates every event, how light and shadow are balanced to create balanced environments, or the simple anticipation of something terrifying, horror movies have captured a dedicated audience. It is capable of gripping those even outside of its action, of making them feel one with its world, of drawing out their fears, and sometimes even their truths. Some of these films provide thrills in the form of jump scares, sudden visual revelations of monstrous creatures from some world below, yet tangible and localised sites of horror. And others create world’s eerily similar to our own, evoking fears that have all-too-real implications and consequences. While one is immediate in the sense that it provides moments of instantaneous fear, the other is immediate in terms of portraying the viewers’ immediate context. The fertility of this genre is beginning to be realised and used in fruitful ways for critiquing institutions and power structures. These films are asking us to think about what is monstrous, demonic, and dangerous. The answer no longer points to a single vengeful spirit or an individual villain: horror is in the everyday.

Check out the first iteration of our new interactive article format on our website!

https://inculture.co.in/filmtheatre/social-issue-horror/

The answer no longer points to a single vengeful spirit or an individual villain: horror is in the everyday

15/11/2020

As I scrolled through my Facebook wall, I saw a news article on Jaggi Vasudev’s latest journey to explore America through the prism of spirituality. The mystic commonly known as Sadhguru was clad in a biker-jacket and standing next to an expensive motorbike -immediately making me scoff for a reason I couldn’t immediately identify. I wondered why my first reaction was to roll my eyes at the guru – there is nothing wrong with someone trying to achieve self-realisation through travelling. While I let the thoughts pass, the algorithms on Facebook calibrated accordingly and kept showing me videos and posts on Sadhguru for the next few days. As I fell deeper into the rabbit hole, I began to find his opinions increasingly disconcerting. But strangely, I couldn’t quite figure out why.

To abate the nagging doubt in my head, I started watching all sorts of videos featuring the much-revered mystic. Interestingly, Isha Foundation had organised a series “Youth and Truth” wherein Sadhguru would interact with students from several esteemed universities and institutes across the world. The guru had his two cents on every single topic – ranging from women’s rights, CAA, religion, and lynching in the name of security.

Read the full piece on our website!
https://inculture.co.in/society/what-makes-sadhguru-so-popular/

Critically Thinking About Indian Culture - FIlm & Theatre | Music | Society | Spaces

14/11/2020

My grandfather had kicked the bucket before I was born. While I use the idiom innocently, he had indeed died by slipping and falling in the bathroom, giving a last spurn to the bucket before he ascended to his armchair in the heavens. Naturally, I never met the old man. But, he has always existed around the house in wedding photographs and Beatles records, and sometimes in my fear of slippery washroom tiles.

My grandmother became my first playmate around the house, and used to take me on walks around the neighbourhood. This exercise often ended in brief visitations to an old public library in our district. Bally Sadharan Granthagar (translated: Bally Public Library) looked as old from the outside as it was inside, cobwebs aplenty. It preceded a small football playground behind it. Having served audience to many football matches in the district’s history, the wrinkles on the building had shown themselves in the form of crusty mud marks from whenever the football hit the walls of the library. There was an air of silence and magnanimity that the building took onto itself as the people descended a narrow slope to get through its small front door with a green grill, where the noise of the city would be detained before it.

Read the full piece on our website!

https://inculture.co.in/spaces/remembering-the-dusty-halls-of-bally-sadharan-granthagar/

Critically Thinking About Indian Culture - FIlm & Theatre | Music | Society | Spaces

13/11/2020

At age 8, whenever I tucked myself into my warm bed sharp at 10 pm, I would always squeeze into the top right corner to leave as much space as I could on the single bed for my amamai to lie next to me. In her saccharine voice, she would narrate tales of kings and queens, gods and demons, battles and triumphs, hate and love. My favourite stories, however- were never the grandiose tales of kings or demons or battles. On special occasions, when my parents joined us at the foot of my bed, amamai would begin with my favourite tales. Here, the protagonist was often a young, ambitious princess with an undying love for horses (just like 8 year old me), would have my name and like all the food I did. These ‘bedtime’ stories always kept me wide-eyed and awake- not only because of the excitement, but the constant stream of questions directed towards me, each response of mine akin to a puzzle piece in the jigsaw-esque story my amamai was weaving.

Read the full article on our website!

https://inculture.co.in/literature/reviving-interactive-narratives-with-katha-the-art-of-storytelling/

At age 8, whenever I tucked myself into my warm bed sharp at 10 pm, I would always squeeze into the top right corner to leave as much space as I could on the single bed for my amamai to lie next to me.