Tagged Under: Vartanama

  • This photograph shows a scene from NGO Civilian Welfare Foundation’s annual walk in Kolkata to celebrate the cause of the Paralympics. A walker is seen standing with a poster that says “Born to Be Free” and has the sketch of a para-athlete in a running pose drawn in the centre. Birds can be seen flying in the background of the poster, as also a kite soaring in the sky. The text and the graphics are rendered in eye-catching red and black. A few other walkers can be seen next to the walker holding the poster. This year’s walk in South Kolkata on August 28, 2017 attracted nearly 300 participants, including a number of para-athletes who won medals for India in the Paralympics held last year in Rio de Janeiro. Photo credit: Pawan Dhall
    Vartanama Aug '17

    Freer, hardier, sexier

    By Pawan Dhall

    Freer, hardier, sexier! How about that as a motto for achieving a better life for everyone? A motivation where the contest is with our limitations in becoming a more just...

  • This main photograph shows an evening view of Dundee city in Scotland from the Law, a hill formed by an extinct volcano that is also the highest point of Dundee. The word ‘law’ itself in Scots means ‘hill’. In the foreground, several clumps of a white flowering plant can be seen on the slope down from the viewpoint, which is on top of the hill. Further below is dense foliage of trees in darkness. Further below are the city lights of streets and buildings right up to the Tay riverside. Across the blue expanse of the Tay River is the Tay Road Bridge that connects Dundee to Fife on the far side. The bridge is lit up almost like a white band across the river. More hills can be seen across the river and then a partially clouded grey skyline. Photo credit: Pawan Dhall
    Travel Travel, Vartanama Jul '17

    Planes, trains, automobiles, access and history

    By Pawan Dhall

    Four taxi and two private car trips, five bus trips, as many train rides (above and below ground) and six flights – in all I undertook 22 point-to-point journeys on...

  • Quote: The posts, some of them pretty insightful and perhaps even cathartic for the writers, have attracted considerable likes, laughs and comments. All good in the spirit of freedom of speech, and some of these posts may even compel a few of the Adarsh Gay Bhakts and Sanskari Homos to introspect on their double standards and biased outlooks. But as they say, too much of a good thing need not be good.
    Vartanama Jun '17

    One foot in the door

    By Pawan Dhall

    Adarsh Gay Bhakt, Sanskari Homo, Adarsh NRI Homo . . . a quick search on Facebook will take you to some of these posts that have been doing the rounds...

  • This graphic is a sketch made with a variety of coloured pens on off-white paper. Within a frame made of curvaceous lines, a genderqueer person with long crinkly hair seems to peep out from the left hand side of the frame. They have big eyes wide open, a large diamond shaped ‘bindi’ on the forehead, and a necklace on a bare chest. The figure has been drawn in blue and red coloured pens. To the right of the frame is a mish-mash of outlined patterns like flowers, leaves and other geometric figures. These are done mostly in red and pink, with snatches of green, violet and other colours. The genderqueer person’s face with its sense of magnetism dominates the sketch. The graphic has been placed on a black background to enhance its intricate details. The graphic is dated November 3, 2016. Graphic credit: Anupam Hazra
    Vartanama May '17

    State stupor in trans inclusion

    By Pawan Dhall, Anupam Hazra

    Sumana Pramanik is a young trans woman who lives in the Nadia district of West Bengal. Keen on a legal gender identity change, she approached a First Class Magistrate for...

  • Graphic shows a screen grab of a home video made by the author’s father, late Prakash Chandra Dhall, with digital liquefy effect. The screen grab has images of the author as a toddler in his mother’s arms (along with a few children from the neighbourhood) in the verandah of the author’s childhood home. But these have been modified such that the entire graphic appears to consist of wavelets of water with multi-coloured reflections. Graphic credit: Pawan Dhall
    Vartanama Apr '17

    Recurring dreams, random thoughts

    By Pawan Dhall

    Recurrent and vivid dreams of water have fascinated me since years, perhaps even childhood. I see water in my dreams as blue, black, transparent; still, moving, flowing; peaceful, playful, terrorizing,...

  • Quote: Irom Chanu Sharmila may have stepped away from the politics of polls, but her politics of resistance will live on. Like subterranean water – not visible, nonetheless there – a deep aquifer of silent energy, quietly influencing life above ground.
    Vartanama Mar '17

    Incremental change

    By Pawan Dhall

    Civil rights champion, political activist and poet Irom Chanu Sharmila may have lost in the recent Manipur Legislative Assembly elections. But all is not lost. Perhaps her defeat was expected,...

  • Photograph shows a poster on the back of an auto-rickshaw parked on a street in Hyderabad. The poster says: “Increase your sex limit, solve internal problems – else take your money back; trusted by million peoples”. The text is accompanied by a silhouette of a man and woman hugging each other and looking into each other’s eyes. The couple is standing on a sea beach, with the waves rushing on to the shore and the sun setting in the background, giving the sky a golden glow. A phone number is provided for people to call the service provider, but the name of the service provider is not legible. Photo credit: Pawan Dhall
    Vartanama Feb '17

    Time for adult sex education?

    By Pawan Dhall

    So the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India has launched an adolescent health resource kit that includes information on sexual and reproductive health, mental health, violence, substance...

  • Travel Travel, Vartanama Jan '17

    Art in museums, films, ropes and charpoys

    By Pawan Dhall

    I think I’m passing through a happy hours phase. No, not for guzzling beer or cheap Internet services; rather this is about being invigorated by the arts in all their...

  • Vartanama Dec '16

    ‘Yahan se shahar ko dekho’

    By Pawan Dhall

    Christmas is in the air, and the New Year is nigh. Given as we are to stock taking this time of the year (as if there’s not a New Year...

  • Vartanama Nov '16

    Keep the fire burning

    By Pawan Dhall

    In childhood I remember using an assortment of toys to construct entire cities complete with houses, offices, markets, hospitals and roads busy with humans, animals and cars. Some of these...

  • Vartanama Oct '16

    Beyond human bondage

    By Pawan Dhall

    Spring cleaning in any season can lead to some invaluable finds tucked away in forgotten corners. The handout below – well, excerpts from a handout – is the result of...

  • Vartanama Sep '16

    Love is in the . . . memories

    By Pawan Dhall

    Come autumn and they say love is in the air. Or is it in memories and thoughts triggered by scenes in another time, another place?

  • The photograph is of a full moon shining brightly, seen through the branches of a nearly bare tree in the night sky. It occupies the centre of the frame with the broad and thinner branches of the tree forming a mesh across the sky. But none cross the image of the moon, which lies intact within an irregular pentagon formed by the branches. The thinner branches growing off the main ones have scanty leaves on them. Even though the sides of the picture have a black tinge, the light of the moon illuminates the centre of the photograph creating a serene environment. Photo credit: Vahista Dastoor
    Vartanama Aug '16

    Welcome to the new Varta website!

    By Pawan Dhall, Vahista Dastoor

    Hasn’t the subject of gender and sexuality been done to death? Isn’t it all over the media in ever more tantalizing formats?

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