Writing
South Asians Reckon with Non-representation After RRR Turns Error
Through international publications and social media, the Indian community in the US and abroad is discussing measures to avoid a repetition of the non-hiring of Indians at the Oscars ceremony this year. “I cannot believe this happened in 2023,” said Parul Shah, a classically trained Kathak dancer and artistic director based in New York. …
What is Bothering New Yorkers on a Summer Day?
Abdul Es, a fruit vendor, on Broadway off 96th Street, opened his wallet and pulled out a $50 note. “Fake,” he said, and lifted the note against the sunlight to show the absence of vertical lines that are found on a real one. Then he pulled out a real fifty and compared the two. “I will have to pay my boss the amount,” he said. “I don’t understand how someone I trusted could cheat me like this. Me supporting my wife and children.” …
Museum Workers Unionize to Shift Power Imbalance
Rodriguez showed “lean marks” on protruding wall corners where the seams had become discolored from friction with leaning bodies of tired guards. He often thought about elderly guards and said, “How do they stand for long shifts of 12-plus hours? I’m young and fit and still I find it hard. I wish we could sit sometimes during the shift.”
A Tale of Two Insurance Companies
The source of Garza’s pain was an accident in 2007 when she was an 18-year-old freshman in college. On the day she was supposed to try out for the Texas A&M volleyball team, she had gone to Fish Camp, a freshman orientation. During the walk on the bridge, she stepped on what turned out to be a hole and fell 40 feet. She was paralyzed and never walked again. …
Swipe, Snip, Stitch
In 2016, Shooter got her face lifted by a non-surgical procedure called ‘thread lift,’ involving barbed sutures that also stimulate collagen production—expected to last 1-3 years. “Hurt like a MF,” she wrote recently on Instagram. It had taken one week for the excruciating pain to diminish and two weeks for her face to relax from anchor points and lose the deep divets on her cheeks. She would never do that again, she said, “But I’ll definitely get a full facelift under general anesthesia one day, just not yet.” …
The Genius of Mary Wollstonecraft
In 2012, fifteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head when she defied the Taliban as she attempted to attend school and promote girls’ education in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The bullet entered her skull, traveled through the neck and lodged in her shoulder. Shortly after, the Taliban issued a statement that they would attack her again if she survived. In 1792 in England, Mary Wollstonecraft addressed the extremists of her own time and asked: “Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason?” She wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects on the need to educate women the same way as men, and since then, her powerful treatise stands relevant and current during any year in many countries, prompting the questions— …