There Will Be Trouble

It is perhaps more relevant now than ever before to prepare the ground for a pedagogical discussion on theater curation. Theater festivals have recently become prominent in India. It is true that India has cherished a ubiquitous tradition of festivals—utsavs and mahotsavs—for hundreds of years. Take, for example, the staging of Kudiyattam at ancient Sanskrit koothambalams, which would last several weeks in a festival atmosphere; the touring circuit of Assam mobile theater, which has created festival-like events since the 1950s; or the Marathi (political) theater, which has an active culture of more than a century of traveling and festival-like events. These are not the kind of festivals I am interested in for the purpose of this article—they have a “traditional” logic built into their purpose—but the kind that have emerged along secular lines in post-independent and urban India. These “new” theater festivals are primarily sponsored by the state, are supported by public funds at the regional and national level, and are therefore open to public participation and scrutiny. These festivals, wherever they are held, commonly include a multilingual and multicultural itinerary of plays. The intent behind the selection is largely driven by the post-colonial project, which is to “put together” an idea of modern India by including plays that have a critical outlook—these could be contemporary scripts, modern adaptations of classical plays, and works that explore contemporary vocabularies of performance (body-based, post-dramatic, experimental, etc.). Currently, India has over a dozen of these new theater festivals of varying scale; each running annually, each claiming to show the best of contemporary theater. In the absence of a touring circuit, these festivals provide artists with the opportunity to travel, to seek new audiences, to mingle with peers and masters, to be written about, and to woo award committees. Festivals are now doing for theater what exhibitions have done for visual art; they are highly visible events that offer immense resources and the promise of further influence. Festivals seem to bestow legitimacy on artistic work of a kind not seen before.

FOOD ENVIRONMENT: CONCEPTUALIZATION AND IMPORTANCE IN PERSPECTIVE OF URBAN INDIA

Food environment of an individual is characterized by the ‘availability of food’ and ‘affordability of food’. The latter determines the type of food available that is nutritious or nonnutritious nature of food while former determines the access to food in terms of purchasing power of people. These two components of food environment collectively play a major role in determining the food and nutritional security of any region. Country like India is characterized by the disparity in incomelevels, demography and development. Likewise, India is characterized by regions with varying degree of ‘food security’ and ‘nutritional security’. The present research article discusses the concept of ‘food environment’ in perspective of urban India. Further, the present research study investigates that how the above-mentioned concepts helpful in identifying the regions with food security and nutritional security or both. The study is based on secondary data collected from various governmental and non-governmental agencies.

Two sides of a coin: women’s experiences and providers’ perceptions of assisted conception in urban India

Background: The uptake of assisted reproductive treatments has increased radically in urban India. We aimed to understand women’s lived experiences of assisted conception, and ART providers’ perception of their patients’ experiences.Methods: This study was cross-sectional and we used a qualitative approach and key informant interviews to understand the experiences of women and the treatment providers. Participants were ten women who had conceived through assisted reproductive treatment and ten ART providers. The data was analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis method.Results: During the treatment process, women felt consumed by their need to conceive. They reported that it was difficult for them to focus on other equally important aspects of their life. Stress, depression and anxiety associated with the uncertainty of their treatment outcome were prevalent. Women were also worried about miscarriage, safety and health of their baby, and forming an attachment with their fetus during the pregnancy. Providers’ concurred that women experience significant mood fluctuations in the form of stress, anxiety and depression which impacts treatment adherence and outcome. Women who have adequate spousal and family support are able to navigate the ART process better than women who lack social support.Conclusions: Findings imply the need for screening and brief psychological interventions at different stages of fertility treatment and during the antenatal and postnatal period to enhance women’s emotional well-being.

Urban studies in India across the millennial turn: Historiesand futures

The millennial turn saw a distinct efflorescence in scholarship on urban India. This essay introduces a Virtual Special Issue on urban studies in India that showcases a selection of articles from the journal’s archives. It traces the disciplinary, thematic and methodological shifts that have marked this millennial turn. On the one hand, the social science of the urban has had a statist bent, reacting to the policy focus on cities as growth engines in the post-liberalisation era. On the other hand, critical urban studies has brought attention to the unregulated, deregulated, unplanned and unintended city produced by dynamic processes of informality acting overtly or covertly against the state’s neoliberal agendas. This introductory essay aims to examine the ways this interplay has unfolded both in the pages of this journal and elsewhere. It locates the Virtual Special Issue selection within a broader review of the state of scholarship in Indian urban studies and marks out areas for productive interventions in the future study of Indian cities.