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Nishtha Gautam

Nishtha Gautam

Articles by Nishtha Gautam

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)

Published on Mar 07, 2026 09:48 pm 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)

Published on Mar 01, 2026 05:19 pm 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)

Published on Feb 22, 2026 08:40 pm 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)

Published on Feb 14, 2026 10:47 pm 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 08, 2026 07:04 pm IST

Why celebrate the grindcore culture?

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

Published on Jan 31, 2026 11:06 pm 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 08:29 am 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)

Published on Jan 18, 2026 12:28 pm IST

When the going gets tough, the tough go superstitious

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

Published on Jan 10, 2026 10:20 pm 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)

Published on Jan 05, 2026 08:26 am 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)

Published on Dec 28, 2025 01:32 pm IST

The anxieties of the soft-parenting club

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

Published on Dec 20, 2025 08:56 pm 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 03:34 pm 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)

Published on Dec 07, 2025 07:34 pm 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 06:21 pm 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 12:37 pm IST

India’s war films: Of nationalism and the stories we tell

Memorials, parades, and patriotic cinema have become rituals of belonging. (ANI)

Published on Nov 15, 2025 09:58 pm IST

The true meaning of politeness, and its limits

The national director of the Miss Universe contest being held in Thailand insulted Miss Mexico, who stood her ground, and in solidarity with her, all other contestants staged a walkout. Ironically, the national director shouted the word “polite”

Updated on Nov 10, 2025 10:30 am IST

Truth to power, told through cinema

That a filmmaker can share her vision, at odds with the State, without fear of reproach or retribution is a privilege that many have squandered unthinkingly (REUTERS)

Published on Nov 02, 2025 06:21 pm IST

Stairway to enhancing social privilege, prestige

The degree now is a signifier of distinction to be displayed. (HT Archive)

Published on Oct 25, 2025 10:29 pm IST

Instagram and the paradox of illusory truth

On social media visual feeds, what is repressed gets revealed in the very act of repression (REUTERS)

Updated on Oct 19, 2025 12:49 pm IST

Being Indian, and being seen as one

Culture, like translation, is never pure. (Getty Images)

Published on Oct 11, 2025 09:29 pm IST

The death of politeness: An obituary for civil behaviour

The death of empathy and politeness is not an incidental cultural decline but a philosophical problem. In our refusal to be considerate towards others, we deny them dignity and even humanit

Updated on Oct 06, 2025 08:11 am IST

Are we the most health-conscious unhealthy generation?

Gen Z uses wellness apps, tracks sleep, exercises more sometimes, is more open about mental health, and seeks therapeutic help (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Published on Sept 28, 2025 01:01 pm IST

Our roads as mirrors of our lack of civic sense

Indians revel in the shared cultural belief that public space is someone else’s responsibility. The road is not “ours”. It’s the government’s. It’s karma ’s. (HT Photo)

Published on Sept 20, 2025 07:54 pm IST

Is charity the opium of the privileged?

The Ronald McDonald House in Pennsylvania is a testimonial to a kind of giving that works towards building dignity and not robbing the receiver of it. (Nishtha Gautam)

Published on Sept 14, 2025 01:17 pm IST

Giorgio Armani’s secret code of Fashion

By removing the classical scaffolding of masculine power dressing, Giorgio Armani offered liberation, not only to bodies but to identities, through his easy yet uncompromising silhouettes. (via REUTERS)

Published on Sept 07, 2025 04:42 pm IST

How the wedding market perpetuates dowry culture

Research shows that an average Indian family’s expenditure on a wedding is about three times its annual income. (HT Archive)

Updated on Aug 30, 2025 09:41 pm IST

Cancel me at your own risk

Most of us have been touched by cancel culture either as the ‘canceler’ or ‘cancelee’. (Representative photo/ Getty)

Published on Aug 24, 2025 07:11 pm IST

A crisis of artifice: Makeup, body image, and choice

Unless the terms of the aesthetic compact are renegotiated, the mirror will remain less an invitation to self-recognition than a summons to perpetual self-erasure

Published on Aug 18, 2025 11:28 am IST

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