Happy 150th Birthday, Anandibai Joshi!

Happy 150th Birthday, Anandibai Joshi! Born on this day in Kalyan near Mumbai, she was the first Indian woman to get a Western medicine degree in 1886.

  

She was born in 1865 in an extremely orthodox Brahmin family in Maharashtra. As a nine year old girl she was married off to a widower who was almost thrice her age. However, he appears to have been a more forward thinking fellow than his peers at this time (and aside from the deeply problematic custom of child bridehood): Gopalrao Joshi was a postal clerk. When his wife at age fourteen expressed she wanted to study medicine he supported her. It seems her drive to do so came after their first child died, ten days after birth, because proper medical resources were not available.

This was a time when women’s education wasn’t thought of or if it was, sneered at. Gopalrao seems to have been an exception to the rule: he married Anandi specifically on the condition that his wife be educated, whether her family had traditional misgivings or not.

She sadly died at the very young age of twenty-one, yet she opened the gates for many young women in India who wanted to move beyond solely dedicating their lives to a domestic status.

  

How to Punk Your Steam: Make it Multicultural

Excellent For Whom the Gear Turns article on Multiculturalism in Steampunk.

The Tinku Diaries: New fiction up on Steampunk India, in collaboration with Clockwork Watch.

FICTION is now LIVE: The Tinku Diaries are up on the Steampunk India website: It was written exclusively for The Clockwork Watch: The Transmedia Experience’s event ‘Clocking Off Late’, imagineered and directed by Yomi Ayeni. The diaries build upon a character from the Clockwork Watch comics, Tinku Ranbir.
It was a great pleasure to collaborate and delve deeper into Tinku’s mind. – Suna Dasi

http://steampunkindia.com/the-tinku-diaries.html

Introducing The SciFiFantasyNetwork.com

Finally the announcement can be made! Today sees the launch of a brand spanking new website: The Scififantasynetwork.com, a EuroCentric fandom site created by Tolkien artist and illustrator Jay Johnstone, in collaboration with YA SciFi writer Francesca Barbini.

I am very pleased to be a contributing writer. Not only on all matters of Multiculturalism and Steampunk, as below

http://www.scififantasynetwork.com/steampunk-meaning-multiculturalism-and-making-merry-2/

but with sundry articles on general Geekdom topics, plus book, film and comic reviews. I will in all categories be focusing on Multicultural aspects and female artists working in the genre as much as possible.

An in-depth interview with the creators of the Priya’s Shakti comic is coming soon.

The Network is also still looking for contributors so climb into your quills and contact them via the e-mail address below if you wish to be part of this new endeavour:

Rites of Spring: Holi in India

Today all of India celebrates Holi. This year is marked by especially moving events as widows are taking to the streets to participate. In India, widows are complete outcasts from society, shunned by their families and made to fend for themselves. Most of them make a pilgrimage to the two main widow communities in Vrinavan and Varanasi. There they live out the rest of their lives among each other. They may only wear white, are completely excluded from participating in life and barely scrape a living. (Deepa Mehta’s searing (fictional) movie ‘Water’ follows the lives and trials of a small widow’s conclave in Varanasi in 1938. Recommended if harrowing viewing.) This Holi, against traditonalist opposition, many of them have come outside to douse each other with colour and celebrate the coming of Spring. This is quite possibly the best smile I’ve ever seen…



Holi celebrations could be compared to pagan Beltain festivities: The celebrations start with a bonfire the previous night. Folk join each other by the fire to revel. The next morning everyone gets up early and a riotous carnival of colours ensues. Everyone plays, chases each other and throws vibrantly hued powder and coloured water. Massive water gun -and balloon fights break out everywhere. Anyone and everyone is fair game, family, stranger, friend or foe, rich or poor, man or woman, children and elders. The entire city is overrun with frolicking people. Some go from place to place with musical intrsuments, there is song and dance all round. It is time for eating, drinking, love and intoxication: Bhang, made from cannabis leaves, is a common ingredient in drinks and sweets. 



(I have made a very conscious choice to show revelling, happy women: there is an aspect of Holi which is less savoury, which is that under cover of the powder men grab a chance to lay their hands on women. However, as this is a woeful component of the society any day and is something that is continually discussed, something about which movements for change are extremely vocal and activist, I have chosen to highlight moments of intimate exuberance.)



When night falls, people sober up and dress up, to go visit friends and family.

This historical image shows Holi celebrations with a group of women laying into some men with coloured powder. It is not uncommon for powder games to ensue where it very blatantly becomes about men vs women, family vs family or whole neighbourhoods against each other! Date unfortunately uncertain, possibly 1700s.



“Holi is celebrated at the approach of vernal equinox, on the Phalguna Purnima (Full Moon). The festival date varies every year, per the Hindu calendar, and typically comes in March, sometimes February in the Gregorian Calendar. The festival signifies the victory of good over evil, the arrival of spring, end of winter, and for many a festive day to meet others, play and laugh, forget and forgive, and repair ruptured relationships.” – Wikipedia



Two women touch foreheads in a quiet moment in the revelries.

For the many background legends on the significance of Holi in different regions of India, visit: http://www.holifestival.org/legends-of-holi.html