Ultra Violet is a place for Indian feminists. It’s a place for sharing stories and views and questions. It’s a place for exploration, opinion and information. It’s a place where we can come together to understand what other feminists around the country–or around the world–are saying. If you want to write for UV, please read this. More about UV here.

We’re Talking About…

October 22, 2009

Single in the City

By Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan

Leafing through pictures mailed by a friend, I find one of me on the beach laughing uninhibitedly with my hair streaming in the wind, and I smile to myself thinking ‘this is so me.’ I am a single woman in her thirties, have never been married and have no ‘special [...]

July 17, 2009

Wishes For A Woman

ACCORDING TO THE calendar Parsis follow, today is my birthday. It is an event only family and very close friends know about, the more popular occasion being my date of birth next weekend. Of the seven people who wished me a Happy Birthday today, four followed it up with blessings for a good sasroo, i.e. [...]

July 16, 2009

Instant Divorces

LATELY, I SEEM TO BE hearing a lot about the break-up of marriages and subsequent divorces. There was the Hiphop Grandmom writing on incompatible alliances and how they’ve led to the breakdown of marriages. Then, today, over at the F Word Blog, I read a piece on how British Tory party members want a provision for a [...]

July 06, 2009

Markers of marriage

RECENTLY, I PARTICIPATED in the launch function of a documentary film Pottu about the hardships and social humiliation faced by widows and deserted women in Tamil Nadu. Produced by the Kalangarai Trust which works among the widows in the southern district of Nagappattinam (particularly in Vedaranyam, Sirkaali and Poompuhaar), the 50-minute documentary attempts to [...]

October 10, 2008

Taking the Monogamy Out of Marriage

UNMANA INITIATED a lively discussion on marriage a few weeks ago, and there is news now that the institution as we legally define it in India may be set to change. Maharashtra is picking up the cause of legalising live-in relationships and providing more rights to extramarital female parties within a marriage. The state cabinet [...]

September 16, 2008

On Marriage

HELLO UV READERS! I’m excited to be writing my first post here. And going by the old feminist slogan, “the personal is political”, my first post is about something that is intensely personal: marriage. My views on marriage have always been ambivalent. Even as a child, I recognized that most marriages I saw around me [...]

November 17, 2007

The Naming of the Shrew

AT THE WEDDING of a friend recently, I stood among close friends, showering the newly-married couple with marigolds and rose petals, a lump forming in my throat as I prayed for the couple’s happiness. In the midst of this sentimental moment, I heard a familiar voice declare with great satisfaction, “At last, she is Mrs. [...]