SHEzaadi Homework: March 1

What’s happening in the world of brown girls? Well, first off, a HUGE congratulations to home girl Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy for bringing home the halal bacon for her amazing documentary, A Girl in the River. You can watch the full feature on YouTube right here. This is her second win, and it just so happens that Zara and I went to see her speak about her work at a screening at the Asia Society here in New York the other week! My Twitter feed was almost as lit as my Whatsapp chat with my mom during her Oscars party with her fabulous aunty squad.

Another home girl, Deepika Padukone, is soon to follow her beautiful and misguided stepsister Pri Pri into Hollywood and star in a movie with Vin Diesel. It’s called XXX: The Return of Xander Cage and will also star a former Miss Colombia, sooo all we’re saying is, if this is another Bajirao Mastani girl fight moment then Dee Dee better win out. Mmkay?

We have now entered Women’s History Month and to kick off this festive season this is what I’m reading right now:

Can’t do better to kick off a discussion about gender equality, feminism, and women’s adventure than this modernized retelling of 1001 Nights by Lebanese writer Hanan Al-Shaykh.

If you haven’t already checked out the Feminist Dinner Party at Brooklyn Museum (see our post about it here), there’s no more perfect a time to than March 9th when the artists will be there to discuss their inspiration for their magnanimous homage to under appreciated women from history.

Rupi Kaur has recently blown up for her poetry collection Milk and Honey. It’s a beautifully concise illustrated anthology of poetry about pain, love, loss, and vulvas. She was first made infamous by the furore over her Instagram posts of menstrual blood.

British journalist and presenter Sunil Khilnani has put together a brilliant, though male-dominated, podcast about the history of India as told through the lives of 50 incredible movers and shakers. I especially loved this story of Lakshmibai, the Rani of Jhansi, a warrior queen who rose to Kali and Durga-like divine fempower status in the 1857 Rebellion. It’s at once heroic, romantic, and mystical, and one of the few episodes that features a woman. Khilnani’s presenting is so entertaining and energetic, and the music editing is so on point, that we recommend listening to the whole damn programme.