Culture

Two young schoolboys with backpacks stand at a bookstall, flipping through illustrated books, while other children and adults browse shelves filled with books in the background.
From Panchayat-era moralism to donor-driven publishing, and today a rising crop of local initiatives, the shifts in Nepal’s children’s literature reflect the difficult history of the country itself
Himal Interviews: Wendy Doniger on myth and many Hinduisms
A conversation with the renowned Indologist on how myths endure across cultures and traditions, why they resist fixed meanings, and what is at stake in attempts to control them
Year in review: Ten great Southasian culture stories of 2025
By
The Editors
A selection of Himal’s most-read articles on Southasian culture this year
The woman in the bathroom
By
Romita Saluja
Ramrati was rescued after two years locked in a bathroom by her husband in Haryana. How did she end up there – and why did she go back to him?
Beyond revealing the entrenched power of male stars in Kerala’s film industry, the assault case exposed a long-standing culture of sexism and sexual harassment in Kerala society.
The sexual assault case that shook Malayalam cinema, in which the actor Dileep was the suspected mastermind but was acquitted, shows how Kerala’s systems continue to shield the powerful and well-conne ...
Posters for ‘Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’ in Mumbai in 2014.
Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge’s charms lent a deceptive lustre to its ultra-conservatism, which helped pave the way for the brazen misogyny and Hindu nationalism in Hindi cinema three decades later
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