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Indian Women and the Pressure to look young

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With the buzz for anti-ageing products, have  Indian women   succumbed to the pressure of looking young? Is embracing your age out of fashion? By Sushumna Kannan The reach and influence of the anti-aging research-industry is enormous. It extends to preoccupations with immortality and an end to aging altogether. Promises range from “turn back the clock,” “look upto 10 years younger” to “youthful skin in 5 minutes” or “30 seconds” even. Websites that explain their technology accompanied by “it changed my life” testimonials are now on the rise. We are bombarded with products to use from our teen years itself and the side-effects debate seems to have been overpowered.  A common view is that using anti-aging products is a woman’s preference. For instance, Sarada Balaji, Fulbright scholar and Professor of English at Tirupati says, “ Women use anti-aging stuff since they are themselves inclined to look young. Moreover, they are easily influenced when they see other women ...
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The moral preoccupations of the young adult

In 2017, I was a panelist at a day-long symposium on Comparative Literature in the 21st century at Jain University in Bangalore . I was glad to share space with Ipshita Chanda and E V Ramakrishnan, both scholars I had met in different conferences over the course of the decade I spent as an academic in India. Chanda is now at EFLU, the place where I did my Masters. And EVR is a star in the field of Comparative Literature. These scholars, along with the illustrious and industrious Mythili Rao made for wonderful intellectual company. My own presentation was on Digital Humanities. The question-answer session was quite charged and one of the questions I fielded was on Rupi Kaur. I had not read her at that point of time but had read the plagiarism controversy she had gotten herself into. One of the students asked us about how we viewed Rupi Kaur who writes beautifully but was accused of plagiarism. My answer was 1) that in the west, things are very straightforward and unlike in India, the...
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Happy Wife, Happy Life!

In the spate of buying a new home in the US, and renovating and decorating it,  I have heard one phrase all too often, consistently, without fail, over the course of the last five years. No, its not to do with HGTV, Magnolia Homes and flipping or flopping! Do not take your guess in that direction at all! Wherever we went as a couple and asked questions about a certain a product or plan, we were given detailed descriptions and instructions, which would all finally end in the expert saying: "let your wife choose." "Go for what she likes." "She is the better half." "She knows all." "Happy wife, happy life!" I would giggle or chuckle, my husband would laugh big and we would leave, only to meet another person concluding their enlightening remarks on home construction, decor, kitchen design, bathroom vanities and the like with, well, you know what. I would giggle so as to not wholly embarrass the person who thought he was cracking a joke...
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