DIANE MARIECHILD SAYS...
"A woman is the full circle. 
Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform ."

XVI |March 18, 2021

THE EDITOR'S NOTE

This is the second in the two-part edition celebrating #WD2021, and I want to talk about women who through their experiences, life lessons and changing perspectives in a so-called man’s world, are all for this paradox.

In a life, where someone’s existence is defined only by her roles and responsibilities, I am certain she wished there was a moment when life took a pause, time stood still, rationality abated and snapping out of a routine her consciousness dissolved & reality consummated into unbounded happiness. Wouldn’t that be her moment, her day, her celebration?!

So, I say, if we must celebrate a day for you, then let us celebrate freedom from stereotypes, from expectations, from idolisation, from sacrifices.

Let’s stop congratulating you for being the secret behind a successful man. Instead, let’s start saluting you for being successful!

Let’s stop saying the mother is sacred for all the sacrifices she makes. Instead, let’s try to reduce those sacrifices!

Let’s stop telling you how beautiful you are. Instead, let’s say that it's not important to be beautiful!

Let’s stop praising your roles as mother, wife, daughter, or sister. Instead, let’s celebrate you as an individual, a person, independent of relationships!

Let’s stop justifying your necessity to multi task. Instead, let’s give you a chance not to!

Let’s stop these constructs which are aimed at making you strive for an impossible balance. Instead, let you be inadequate!

Let’s stop making you look at yourself through a convenient male viewpoint. Instead, let you be imperfect, whimsical, irresponsible, boorish, lazy, fierce, opinionated, loud, flabby, ungroomed, adventurous, unpredictable, unprepared, impractical….and a very very happy you!

In the sections that follow we're commemorating social, economic and cultural achievements of women, and the tremendous efforts by them accelerating gender parity.

Here's celebrating you for being just YOU!

Ashish

01 Stories That Matter

A deep dive into a story that's arcane, thoughtful, and sometimes humorous!

Zaha Hadid And The Transformation Of Architecture

In today’s world, we pay heed to the marvels set in sand, stone or metal, and of course the natural wonders of the world. Simultaneously, we look at new-age architecture and wonder as to its intricacies, admire it for a few moments and move on with our lives. 

We seldom talk about the people behind these monumental works who have spent countless hours making sure every rivet and line is shaped to perfection. It is to this cohort of masterminds that Zaha Hadid belonged.  

Zaha Hadid’s work typically needs no introduction. The Guardian once described her as the Queen Of The Curve, given how most of her work uses smooth curves instead of sharp features and geometry. We may not have given it much thought but Zaha’s work is noticeable in the 2012 London Olympics venues, the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup venue and Beijing’s latest international airport. Her main mission was to “reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism….to unveil new fields of building..”

But the architect herself is celebrated only in the architectural and design communities, and nowhere else. Born to an affluent family from Baghdad, Zaha was mystified by architecture at a young point in life. The fact that her family was also interested in the fine arts and other niceties of life also shaped the eventual career she would choose. Even in college at the School Of Architecture, she was described as someone who would never conform to standards or stereotypes. 89 degrees, never 90 degrees, as her teacher described her once.

Her fierce determination to do things her way coupled with backing from some of the world’s finest architects led her to open the Zaha Hadid Architects firm in 1980 in London. Not all was smooth sailing of course; there were several major projects that were taken on but abandoned due to local incompetence or worse. The difference is Zaha never gave up on her dream to take over the architectural world by storm, and we have only gained from it .

02 What You Missed When Grounded

2020 turned out to be a good year for women and gender!

News Of Gender That We Missed In 2020

The UN Women’s Division published a post that was a ray of light for women, femininity and also the LGBTQIA movement. 

While 2020 was shaping up to be a bad year for women owing to the pandemic, there were also several pieces of good news from various parts of the world.

As most of you may have read, female genital mutilation is a gruesome and shocking practice that continues to happen in several parts of the world. The Republic Of Sudan finally decided to do away with the practice, making it illegal and punishable by imprisonment.

New Zealand’s political hero, Jacinda Arden, also passed a bill to ensure the wage gap between men and women is reduced. The Kiwi nation also went a step ahead and appointed their first-ever female indigenous foreign affairs minister Nanaia Mahuta! The New Zealand parliament in fact reserves half of its cabinet solely for women.

And what of the women entrepreneurs? The Fortune 500 List for 2020 had 37 companies run entirely by women. An all-time high, and we certainly hope that the trend only grows stronger from here.

TIME Magazine added to their 2020 roster the first-ever “Kid Of The Year”, 15-year-old Gitanjali Rao! The young scientist has already begun tackling immense issues. Even before TIME took notice, Gitanjali was working on a system that detected lead in water: A crisis that the city of Flint, Michigan was plagued by!

Notably, the one thing that we certainly did not miss was Kamala Harris, proudly standing by Joe Biden as the first ever woman vice president of the United States. A 48 year old position that was entirely male dominated, finally broken.

Women everywhere are breaking boundaries, and all of it went unnoticed amidst the chaos that was 2020. But 2021 is here, and with the resolution that was passed on Women’s Day 2021 to #ChooseToChallenge, we can only hope that more such norms, laws and stereotypes are broken by these badass women!

03 Let's Get Comical

It's YOUR time, ladies! Don't let anyone say otherwise! 

04 The Reel

Movies about the women that have changed the world. 

From director Theodore Melfi comes a story about a unique segment of NASA history that almost no one knew about! 

The space race between the United States and Russia was in full swing, but most of America was still rather old fashioned in that women and people of color were looked down upon to be seen leading normal jobs, let alone a space program. 

Enter Katherine Johnson, a mathematician and scientist. Along with two other black female researchers, she proceeds to prove every single stereotype wrong and becomes responsible for the success of one of the earliest human powered spaceflights in history! 


Lost And Delirious may seem like a desperate attempt to showcase (and normalize) lesbianism. It is a lot more than that! 

Mary (Mischa Barton), known as Mouse, arrives at boarding school after her mother's death and finds herself sharing the room with her senior roommates, who draw the shy new girl into their friendship calling her “Mary B. for Brave” when she shares her story about her lost mother in a round of confessions. We then witness the journey of self discovery, heartbreak and love that a young girl takes! 

The film is a story of innocence and experience, it takes a rather bold stand on adolescent (homosexual) passion in all its glory, yet it is severely heartbreaking at the end, which will leave most of us moist in the eyes!

What seems like another chick flick on the outside is actually a much more nuanced tale of women achieving their dreams! 

Most of this series revolves around 3 women working for a feminist magazine, Scarlet. From juggling personal lives and their dream career to a much more intrinsic journey of self discovery, The Bold Type lives up to its name as it showcases women who are bold, badass and bravely take on challenges that the world considered unfit for them to do. 


Liberally mixed with humorous elements throughout, this series has enjoyed critical success for portraying women's aspirations and fears in a comedic light without being an over-the-top skit where the women are the sole butts of the joke.  

05 The Improbable

Women have had plenty of firsts in human history too!

The Women Who Achieved Great Feats

Throughout history, we’ve heard of the men who have achieved the impossible or discovered the new. 

With all due respect, however, we do not know of the women who have accomplished the same feats or even outdone the men.

Take Junko Tabei. A mountaineer from Japan, Junko was the first-ever woman to scale Mount Everest. Even as a young child, she battled Japanese stereotypes by scaling the peaks of Mount Nasu. Later in life, her teaching profession gave some income to do more climbs. Joining men in several mountaineering events, she was seen as an interloper in what was a male-dominated field. But this teacher and environmentalist not only went on to change the status quo of women mountaineers, but she also did it 7 times. And then some. Junko also became the first woman to scale all 7 major peaks across the world.



We all know of Amelia Earhart. Her Indian counterpart, Sarla Thakral has been equally monumental in Indian aviation history. At the young age of 21 and already part of a family with her own daughter, she applied for a pilot’s license. Surprisingly, she was encouraged by her husband and more so her father-in-law. Clocking in nearly a thousand flight hours back in the day in humble Gypsy Moths was no mean feat for anyone, and Sarla went ahead and did it. And simultaneously got her Class A license! While it may not seem like a big achievement, Sarla’s story is one key reason India today has the highest number of female pilots.



In more recent news, 27-year-old Chadalavada Anandha Bhavani Devi proved that women can certainly achieve the impossible by becoming the first fencer ever from India to qualify for the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo this year. An eight-time national champion, Bhavani Devi was unfazed even by a pandemic, training with her coach over the internet. The payoff, as you can see, is nothing short of phenomenal.
To summarize, there may have been men out there who have achieved the improbable, but we must not forget the women who faced stereotypes, abuse and more to get here too!

06 The Thinking Owl

Men reading this, why don't you try making your own meal for once instead of asking her again?

07 Food for Thought

One of Korea's most celebrated chefs is a woman nun who renounced everything to seek perfection in her food.

In a life filled with complexities and nuances, when you come across a simple story, the cynic us tends to be dismissive. As a culture, we are all in love with pathos, the tragedy, the strife, the struggle is what marks a great life and lore for us. 

But in paradisiacal corners of the world, simple stories do exist and they are beautiful! Wonder why we are talking about stories in the food section? Well, are not stories the true Food for Thought? Soul food if you wish.

Without much further ado, here we bring Jeong Kwan, a simple Buddhist Nun from the Chunjinam Hermitage at the Baekyangsa temple in South Korea. The fifth of seven siblings, Jeong Kwan was born in Yeongju in North Gyeongsang Province. She grew up on a farm surrounded by nature, livestock and a large loving family.

From a young age, Jeong Kwan showed signs of being a renunciate as she would hardly request or demand anything from her parents even when offered a gift of her choice. Perhaps she had all that is needed for a happy life around her already. Her adult life at least mirrors this perspective.  Homeschooled as were most rural children, particularly the girls of Korean villages in the 1960s, Jeong Kwan too mastered the art of hand-pulled noodles at the young age of 7 years. She learnt the rudimentary of flavouring, ingredients, cooking and all things culinary from her mother and the extended but close-knit community she lived in. 

Well, there is a bit of pathos in this story too. It was indeed a turning point as she took some important decisions such as running away from home! The pivotal point is losing her mother at the age of 17 which firmed up her decision of pursuing spirituality.

Entering the Buddhist Monastic order at the Chunjinam Hermitage, Joeng Kwan went through a lot of soul-searching before she decided her path to Nirvana lies in cooking for others, with love, for the ingredients, the act of cooking and the person who eats the food.  Jeong Kwan's recipes use aubergines, tomatoes, plums, oranges, pumpkin, tofu, basil, chilli pepper, and other vegetables, which she grows herself in ‘organic farms’ around the monastery where even the insects and birds are welcome to feast on the produce. She uses bird pecked fruits and vegetables, caterpillar-eaten leaves without falling for the trappings of modern-day need for perfectly surfaced ingredients. In addition to being strictly vegan, Jeong Kwan's recipes omit garlic and onions, which some Buddhists believe increases impulses that are contrary to her chosen way of life, but even then she talks about these ingredients with a lot of respect.  

Recognition came to Jeong Kwan, unsolicited when her friend Éric Ripert, a fellow Buddhist, invited her to New York City to cook for private audiences at Le Bernadin. Suddenly the world woke up to the Zen way of cooking. Her influence is far-reaching today with chefs including Mingoo Kang, of the Seoul restaurant Mingles, and René Redzepi, of Noma in Copenhagen learning not just techniques but an entire philosophy of life and cooking - a simple life is a great life and so is cooking.

08 The Travel Record

A new selection of female artists and composers that have come to define music!

09 Puzzled?

Puzzles to get your neurons firing.

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