Varisha Tariq

My entire body is shaking. This is so stupid, is the only thought in my head. Why am I even doing this? Why am I an adventure junkie? What was wrong in sitting on sandy beaches and staring at the sea? Behind me, the instructor is getting impatient. I am going to dive in the air and it sounded absolutely ridiculous. Looking down, for what felt like looking down from the tenth floor, my soul was slowly leaving my body. At least there is water down below, if something were to happen. I said this to...

Ever since I watched Kyle Richards do a split on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" back in 2010 and then credit Pilates for it, I became obsessed with the idea of achieving the same. It looked so cool; I thought that if I could just master that one movement, I could challenge many stereotypes that exist about plus-sized bodies.

Five years ago, I took my first solo trip to Dharamshala. The trip redefined my perspective on what life was supposed to look like. What I found there laid down the foundation of my 20s; pursuit of freedom, love, and opportunities that create social impact and facilitate friendship. Life at 21 had started seeming both incredibly big and jarringly small. On one hand, I was grappling with the real-world understanding of caste, religion, class and gender inequalities and on the other, I was failing to see what impact my insignificant self could have on this. To Dharamshala, I had ventured out simply to answer these questions.

This piece, which my lovely Editor Fiona Livingston commissioned (and I am such a fan of all the work she produces) for Foyer Magazine has written work that has been directly transferred from the travel journal of a 21-year-old as she was forced to confront her big issue; what does the world mean and what is going to be her role in it.

When I was 16, after struggling with body dysmorphia for over half a decade, I remember thinking that I wanted to love my body, instead of constantly hating it and wishing for it to change. That was when the body positivity movement on social media really picked up. One piece of advice I saw repeated everywhere was asking you to look at yourself naked in a full-length mirror, an act that can encourage self-love.

So every time I would come back from a shower, I would just look at myself. My moth

Our second issue presents a special focus on what it feels like to belong, in all its shapes and sizes, through the concept of ‘home is where the heart is’. Varisha's article focuses on Chikankari in Lucknow and London and the connection of home with it

Since childhood, I’ve been obsessed with looking at calendars, particularly because there are so many holidays in India. I remember one year we had more holidays than school days because of the number of festivals we celebrated. Indians honour a multitude of holidays, irrespective of the religion each one belongs to, but if there’s one that we celebrate with everything we’ve got, it’s Diwali

For me, Diwali (also known as the festival of lights) was the time when all my friends were home for the

Bumble, Tinder, OkCupid, Happn, Hinge, TrulyMadly, Woo and Badoo are just a few of the many dating apps in India that have become all the rage in recent times. We all know the gist: Modern life leaves hardly any time for organic connections to grow, and apps are convenient to fight off the ephemeral feeling of loneliness. You have the information required to assess an individual and see whether you can connect with them at your fingertips. If you have been on the apps, you know it’s a split-seco

At an all-girls college, sixty small groups of teenagers are scattered across the hallway. The teachers have all left, likely in search of some semblance of peace for a few hours, as the girls continue to sway to the beats vibrating throughout the auditorium. Presently, the music system is commandeered by a student body representative, and without warning, the thumping strains of Sheila Ki Jawaani are blasting through the hall. Everyone from the age of 15 to 18 is fervently singing along to this

A Muslim South Asian girl as a superhero? In some multiverse, there’s a teenage me squealing with joy at Disney+’s newest Marvel show, Ms Marvel. As an Indian Muslim woman who has grown up watching Marvel movies, I’ve waited a long time for this representation, and in the character of Kamala Khan, it has been worthwhile.

As an Indian Muslim, my first reaction to watching the show was of scepticism; would a Western audience tolerate this much south Asian-ness? Yet at no point has it felt that th

“We don’t want to sell this house to a Mohammadan.” My father was too shocked to respond and a sob escaped my mother. She kept repeating how this was not the India where she’d grown up. I sat there disappointed, but not surprised. My parents had found their dream house after five years of searching but, more than the loss of a house, this served as a painful reminder of a Muslim’s place in today’s India. It broke our hearts to be reminded that there is a huge population in our country that would

Baluta, a book written by famous Dalit Maharashtran poet and writer Daya Pawar, is one of the first Dalit autobiographies in India. Written in Marathi in the year 1978 the book casts light not only on the act of untouchability and atrocities committed on the Mahar community in Maharashtra but also brings out the pride that the Dalit community holds for itself. It reflects, personally, on Pawar’s own failings as a person, the intersectional women in his life and how caste boundaries remain wherev

Yeh Ballet is a Sooni Taraporevala film that is based on her documentary Ballet Boys. Ballet Boys and by extension Yeh Ballet are films based on the lives of Amiruddin Shah and Manish Chauhan. These two young artists made their way out of the struggling life in Mumbai into the ballet world. Amiruddin Shah made into the Oregon Ballet Theatre in United states of America while Manish Chauhan joined Royal Ballet School in London.

The film is extraordinary for its ordinary portrayal of the struggle,

Begum Hamida Habibullah was one of the most popular faces in Lucknow; her work as a politician and a social activist changed the lives of thousands of women in and out of Lucknow.

Begum Hamida Habibullah was born on 20 November 1916, hailing from Hyderabad, she was the daughter of Nawab Bahadur Yar Jung of Hyderabad and Talmain Khatoon. At the age of 22, she was married to Major General Enaith Habibullah, who was the founder of National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla. Her later life as a politici