In this episode, Shana talks to Surabhi Yadav, the creator of Women At Leisure, an Instagram account filled with 7 years of pictures and videos of women simply at leisure - having a cup of chai, climbing a tree, playing football. For Surabhi, time is a feminist issue, which lays bare the many oppressions of caste, class and the invisibility of women’s work. 

They also discuss the backstory about how Women at Leisure came to be. After Surabhi’s mother, Basanti, passed away, Surabhi set out to keep her memory alive by asking aunts and her mother’s friends to share her stories. The person they described in story after story was a funny prankster, adjectives that did not come to mind when Surabhi thought of her mother. Who was her mother, when she was not busy managing a large family? This inspired Surabhi to create Women at Leisure as a kind of ongoing conversation with her mother. This conversation led Shana to also share why she created Her Kajal Won’t Smudge. The similarities in Surabhi and Shana’s journeys are a reflection of just how life brings two people together in ways that can be so unexpected and yet so in harmony. 

Follow Women At Leisure @women_at_leisure on Instagram.

CREDITS:

Host and Creative Director: Shana 

This is a Maed in India production

Head of Production: Mae Mariyam Thomas

Project Manager: Shaun Fanthome

Producer: Ruchi Sawardekar

Sound Editor & Mix Engineer: Kartik Kulkarni, Lakshman Parsuram

Visual Design & Social Media: Minal Jadeja, Akshat Agarwal, Shaumik Kanvinde