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Home / Author / Nishtha Gautam

Nishtha Gautam

Nishtha Gautam

Articles by Nishtha Gautam

If only Afghan women were men, we’d care more

By treating the Taliban as the true sons of the Afghan soil, most countries, including India, have condemned the daughters of the same soil.

Updated on Jun 28, 2026 02:06 IST

The fatal sadness of Marjane Satrapi

The urban elite, displaying the arrogance of minor differences, often implodes over figures like Marjane Satrapi. (AFP)

Updated on Jun 6, 2026 15:32 IST

It’s the summer break, but can we really afford to travel?

The unregulated tourism in India is a Janus-faced monster. Not only do tourists lack civic sense, they are also met with an infrastructure that is either crumbling under its own structural flaws or simply absent (PTI)

Updated on May 31, 2026 08:51 IST

The joy of sadness in children’s stories

The adult experience of a child’s universe is a sobering thing. Children are essentially powerless in an adult world. (HT Archive)

Updated on May 23, 2026 17:43 IST

Red carpets, fashion, and the theory of everything

The bodies of the red carpet celebrities exist in the domain of desire. When the luxury house lends the outfit, the algorithm amplifies the paparazzi image, and the fast-fashion factory produces the approximation within weeks, desire comes full circle in the embrace of capitalism (REUTERS)

Updated on May 17, 2026 09:18 IST

Instant gratification and its portents

With ever-growing socio-professional networks, instant gratification rules most of our interactions. A new person is barely given a chance beyond a blink, and thus the need to be at one’s performative best almost all the time (Shutterstock)

Updated on May 10, 2026 09:46 IST

An unbothered minstrel called Diljit Dosanjh

In an era when most artists and celebrities are yet to define their “it” factor, Dosanjh has stockpiles of it. (Getty Images)

Updated on May 2, 2026 16:05 IST

Death, potholes, and tea: Banality of bereavement

The dead leave paperwork. They leave new sets of clothes at the tailor’s. There is medical equipment lying in the bedroom; it needs to be returned before the next month’s rent is accrued.

Updated on Apr 26, 2026 10:00 IST

Why do older women trash talk younger women?

For many older women, especially those who came of age under stricter gender norms, adherence to certain gender norms was a calculated negotiation within limited options

Updated on Apr 19, 2026 14:21 IST

The Will (Shakespeare) in our world, of our time

Shakespeare, like Hindi cinema, has heavily relied on well-known myths, historical stories and allegories. (AFP)

Updated on Apr 11, 2026 15:25 IST

Which causes are worth backing?

A friend’s disappointment with the silence of many of their peers and idols on the issue of the controversial Transgender Bill, recently turned into legislation, has brought the commitment issue to the fore. How do we choose what to put our moral attention and action behind? (Hindustan Times)

Updated on Apr 5, 2026 18:02 IST

Vietnam to Iran: War & the lessons not learnt

Kubrick’s Pyle never understands the forces that produced him. Similarly, contemporary actors rarely see the full arc of their own actions. (Getty Images)

Updated on Mar 28, 2026 14:47 IST

Will the classical anti-war Greek solution work?

Rather than bearing sons and seeing them getting killed in endless wars, why not put an end to the business of babymaking to begin with? (AFP)

Updated on Mar 22, 2026 11:04 IST

Desire in Vladimir, and a darkness within

Why should women’s desire exist as a means to an end, whatever the latter be? (REUTERS)

Updated on Mar 15, 2026 17:02 IST

Have your Men’s Day, but we’ll have the rest

Masculinity has saturated the cultural and institutional fields. Men are tired. They are barely keeping it together while women continue to knock at the door. (HT Archive)

Updated on Mar 7, 2026 16:18 IST

The Museum of Innocence and the question(s) of love

If we do not name love as love, perhaps we’ll be spared its vagaries and vengeance (AFP)

Updated on Mar 1, 2026 11:49 IST

Let’s talk about punch, the abandoned monkey

Punch clings to a toy because he was abandoned, which, by the way, is par for the course per evolution theories. (REUTERS)

Updated on Feb 22, 2026 15:10 IST

This script of sexuality demands radical edits

The task before us is not to repress sexuality but to disentangle it from domination. (HT Archive)

Updated on Feb 14, 2026 17:17 IST

Frankly, my dear, we all need therapy

Thanks to the challenges of modern living, the world of therapy is not unknown to most of us, our opinions on it notwithstanding (Shutterstock)

Updated on Feb 8, 2026 13:34 IST

Why celebrate the grindcore culture?

Grindcore shifts responsibility away from systems and onto bodies. (HT Archive)

Updated on Jan 31, 2026 17:36 IST

The quiet revolution of lovers in the park

If you want to know about a culture, community, city, country, civilisation, or whatever it is that people choose to group themselves as, look at how lovers in a park are treated. (Hindustan Times)

Updated on Jan 25, 2026 02:59 IST

Jaipur Literature Festival: An ode to the speaker-companion

By not performing togetherness, the observer highlights its constructed nature. Authors need visibility; their companions do not, and this frees the latter (PTI)

Updated on Jan 18, 2026 06:58 IST

When the going gets tough, the tough go superstitious

Émile Durkheim argued that ritual practices reinforce social cohesion. (AFP)

Updated on Jan 10, 2026 16:50 IST

Zohran Mamdani & Rama Duwaji: How the wife rewrites rules of public life

Neither an arm-candy, nor the enfant terrible in the First Ladies club,Duwaji’s providing a different lexicon to define the public wife (Getty Images via AFP)

Updated on Jan 5, 2026 02:56 IST

New Year’s Eve, hope, and some rose petals

Optimism belongs to the realm of the future. This is where the ritual of New Year’s Eve matters. Rituals, research suggests, provide a sense of control and meaning during periods of uncertainty. (REUTERS)

Updated on Dec 28, 2025 08:02 IST

The anxieties of the soft-parenting club

Rousseau’s Émile is invoked as a foundational text for child-centred education. (REUTERS)

Updated on Dec 20, 2025 15:26 IST

The timeless magic of Umrao Jaan

The film uses close-ups and jump cuts to highlight the inner life of Umrao. By applying the techniques popularised by the stalwarts of the French New Wave, Ali intensifies the discontinuities of Umrao’s life

Updated on Dec 14, 2025 10:04 IST

Ambedkar is dead. Long live Ambedkar!

Noida,India-December 06, 2025:People Paying floral tributes to Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar's Statue on the occasion of Mahaparinirvan Diwas at Rashtriya Dalit Prerna Sthal and Green Garden, in Noida, India, on Saturday ,December 06, 2025. (Photo by Sunil Ghosh / Hindustan Times)

Updated on Dec 7, 2025 14:04 IST

From qawwali to jazz: When staying silent is disrespectful

Jazz performers often test phrases in real time, waiting for subtle auditory cues from the audience before ascending into bolder expressions

Updated on Nov 30, 2025 12:51 IST

Yet another man-woman problem with no end in sight

Performative males are on the other end of the spectrum from the incels. But we know the incel. We do not know the performative male as well (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Updated on Nov 24, 2025 07:07 IST

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