Culture

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
Two men on a boat floating on a still lake. Photo is in grey scale. This is a photo from Indus Echoes, a film shot in Sindh, Pakistan.
By
Barrah Kunaan
The first Sindhi film released in Pakistan in 28 years reflects the decay of the Indus River and the stagnation of Sindh today
Three Pakistani weddings in times of war
By
Zehra Khan
One Pakistani family’s story of migration and survival across three weddings amid three conflicts: the 1971 Bangladesh war, the Kargil War, and the 2025 conflict following the Pahalgam attack
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