For the longest time, Indian women have been okay with being curvy. But I think the modern Indian woman needs to get toned. I don't endorse being thin. Anorexia and bulimia are a reality in India because everybody wants to be thin.
I think anorexia is a metaphor. It is a young woman's statement that she will become what the culture asks of its women, which is that they be thin and nonthreatening. Anorexia signifies that a young woman is so delicate that, like the women of China with their tiny broken feet, she needs a man to shelter and protect her from a world she cannot handle. Anorexic women signal with their bodies "I will take up only a small amount of space. I won't get in the way." They signal "I won't be intimidating or threatening." (Who is afraid of a seventy-pound adult?)
I don't like to use the words 'real women,' honestly. I like to use the word 'woman.' And I say that because there are so many women out there who are naturally thin or are naturally curvy, and I think when we start putting a label on the type of woman, it gets misconstrued and starts to offend people.
I'm sure I went through a stage when I resented being Indian because in every other manner, in terms of cultural reference points and vocabulary and all the rest of it, I was way ahead of everybody else - so the one thing that set me back was being Indian. And I couldn't do anything about it.
I don't like to use the words "real women," honestly. I like to use the word woman. And I say that because there are so many women out there who are naturally thin, or are naturally curvy, and I think when we start putting a label on the type of woman it gets misconstrued and starts to offend people. At the end of the day we just all want to be known as women or models or actresses or whatever.
I want to get rid of the Indian problem. [...] Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian Question and no Indian Department.
I'm different. I don't speak perfect American. I do have a lilt of an Indian accent. I thought, 'Maybe the world's not okay with what I bring, being Indian.'
'Newton' is a very Indian film. I think, after a long time, people will see an Indian film in its true form. As in the story, the character, it is set in the heartland of India, but it's purely like how there was a time when Hrishikesh Mukherjee used to make sweet Indian films.
People use me as a figurehead, and to me that misses the point and is blatantly offensive to thin women - my sister, for one. Curves don't epitomise a woman. Saying, 'Skinny is ugly' should be no more acceptable than saying fat is. I find all this stuff a very controlling and effective way of making women obsess over their weight, instead of exploiting their more important attributes, such as intellect, strength and power. We could be getting angry about unequal pay and unequal opportunities, but we're too busy being told we're not thin enough or curvy enough. We're holding ourselves back.
Be proud that thou art an Indian, and proudly proclaim, "I am an Indian, every Indian is my brother." Say, "The ignorant Indian, the poor and destitute Indian, the Brahmin Indian, the Pariah Indian, is my brother."
After so long being thin, it was terrifying being heavier. But I am a naturally curvy Hispanic girl. I don't deprive myself.
Indira Gandhi had been this very powerful, dominating, ambiguous mother figure. Ambiguous because she was tyrannical, she had imposed...she had suspended Indian democracy for a few years but she also was the woman who had defeated Pakistan in war at a time when most male politicians in India had secretly feared fighting that war, so that here in India even today Indira Gandhi is called by Indian nationalists the only man ever to have governed India.
I think it's so important to be healthy and confident and natural. And not put too much stress on trying to be thin - I don't get the thin, thin thing at all.
I was bullied when I was in middle school in D.C., especially for being an Indian, because there weren't many Indian kids in school. And because of that, I tended to hide my Indian culture, but that changed by the end of high school. Now, I am 100% proud of it.
I have always been a fan of Salvador Dali, but Amrita Sher-Gil, who was an Indian-Hungarian painter, is another favourite. She was painting Indian women, and, growing up here, I'd never seen anyone paint Indian women, so that was really incredible to see a painting of someone who looks like you. I think that has a lot of impact on you.
When I first came to Harvard, I thought to myself, 'What kind of an Indian am I?' because I did not grow up on a reservation. But being an Indian is a combination of things. It's your blood. It's your spirituality. And it's fighting for the Indian people.
The film industry is large enough and has many successful icons that have taken Indian cinema to shores beyond India. I think that Indian cinema itself needs to be applauded beyond one individual.