Gorakhpur doctor Kafeel Khan has been charged under the National Security Act (NSA) by the Uttar Pradesh government. He was accused by the state police of making an inflammatory speech at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) during a protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) on 12 December last year. 

The Yogi Adityanath government was severely criticised after Khan was arrested on 29 January by the UP Special Task Force from Mumbai. After his arrest in Mumbai, Khan was brought to Aligarh, from where he was immediately shifted to the district jail in neighbouring Mathura.

Khan was granted bail four days ago, but has been languishing in Mathura jail, according to The Hindu. His family told The Hindu that jail authorities did not give them any reason for withholding Khan’s release. 

“We got to know today morning that NSA has been slapped on Dr Kafeel and now will not be coming out of jail soon. This is simply unacceptable. He is being being targeted at the behest of the state government,” Khan’s brother Adeel Khan was quoted as saying by News18. 

Khan was earlier arrested after the death of over 70 children at the BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur in August 2017. About two years later, a state government probe cleared Khan of all major charges, prompting him to seek an apology from the Yogi Adityanath government.

(With PTI inputs)

The Kardashian sisters clearly know how to play nice, even when it comes to cheating exes.

In a clip from the upcoming season of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” fans see Khloé Kardashian telling sister Kim Kardashian that she was “beyond generous” for extending a dinner invite to Khloé’s ex-boyfriend and baby daddy, Tristan Thompson.

While on a FaceTime call, Kim tells Khloé that while in New York she got a call on her cell phone from Thompson, the father of Khloé’s daughter True, who noticed that she was at the Mercer Hotel.

“He was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m right next door ... what are you doing?’ I was like, ‘I’m going to go have dinner with my friends.’ So, I was like, ‘Do you want to come?’”

A shocked Khloé, while laughing, asks in response: “You invited him to dinner?”

Kim questions her decision to extend the olive branch to Thompson, who repeatedly cheated on Khloé throughout their relationship. 

Khloé responds: “I think you gotta do what’s best for you. If you want him to have a drink at the end there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s beyond generous of you.”

Kim then says that while she doesn’t “think what Tristan did was obviously right,” he’s still “True’s dad.”

“Mom [Kris Jenner] cheated on dad [Robert Kardashian] and all of their friends forgave mom,” said Kim, before adding: “I think forgiveness is the best way.”

Khloé added that she thought what Kim did was “a nice thing,” but reiterated that “it’s beyond generous of you that you invited him.”  

Thompson, who plays for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, was notably caught cheating with multiple women in videos that surfaced just days before Khloé gave birth to baby True in 2018. A little less than a year later, when the dust had seemingly settled and the pair was getting back on their feet in the relationship, Thompson was reportedly spotted cozying up to Jordyn Woods, Kylie Jenner’s childhood friend, at a private house party in Los Angeles over Valentine’s Day weekend.

The pair separated after that and have since been attempting to co-parent True. They’ve been seen together celebrating their daughter’s first birthday in 2019, and Khloé even publicly called Thompson a “good dad.”

Thompson also wished Khloé a happy 35th birthday last year with an emotional note: “You are the most beautiful human I have ever met inside and out.” He added, “Thank you for being an amazing mommy to our princess True. She is blessed to have someone like you to look up to. I wish you nothing but more success and sending you positive blessing your way. Enjoy your day Koko.”

The new season of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” returns spring 2020 on E!. 

The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the Jammu and Kashmir administration over former chief minister Omar Abdullah’s detention under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, 1978 (PSA) after his sister Sara Abdullah Pilot filed a habeas corpus plea before them. 

ANI reported that the next hearing in the case will be on March 2. 

The two-judge bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra and also including Justice Indira Banerjee heard the plea after Justice M M Shantanagoudar had on Wednesday recused himself from hearing the matter. 

According to Live Law, Congress leader and advocate Kapil Sibal, who appeared on behalf of Pilot, argued that this was not a matter of preventive detention. “This has nothing to do with preventive detention. This is under the PSA. This is the law.”

The court also asked for an affidavit to be filed on whether a similar petition had been filed in the high court. 

Pilot had approached the Supreme Court on February 10 saying her brother’s detention under the PSA was “manifestly illegal”. 

Abdullah was detained on the night between August 4 and 5, the day the Narendra Modi-led government at the centre abrogated Article 370, that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir. 

While he was then put under “preventive detention”, whereby a person can only be held for 6 months, the government slapped PSA on Abdullah and another former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti last week. 

Pilot’s plea came three days after Abdullah was charged under the PSA. 

Under PSA that has two sections — ‘public order’ and ‘threat to security of the state’ — a person can be put in detention without trail for six months for the former, and two years for the latter. 

In her plea, Pilot had said his detention under PSA was  “unconstitutional and a fragrant violation of his fundamental rights”. 

(With PTI inputs)

The benefits of going to therapy cannot be overstated, though it may feel intimidating to dive in and make it part of your routine at first.

While therapists take many different approaches to meeting frequency and length, the norm for individual therapy (i.e., therapy with one client) tends to be weekly 45- or 50-minute sessions. But when did this time become the standard “therapy hour” or “therapeutic hour”?

“There are various theories on the origins of the 50-minute therapy session and some reports that trace back to Freud,” Becky Stuempfig, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Encinitas, California, told HuffPost. “There does not seem to be a consensus on exactly when the ‘therapeutic hour’ was established, but it has remained the industry standard.”

Beyond the history, however, there are many reasons ― practical, psychological and insurance-related ― to stick to this time frame. HuffPost spoke to Stuempfig and other therapists to find out why the 45- or 50-minute session has persisted. 

It Helps With Logistics

There are many logistical factors keeping session lengths around this time frame, rather than a full hour.

For clients, this timing may make it easier to see a therapist during a lunch hour or just before work. For therapists with back-to-back sessions, the 10 or 15-minute break offers the opportunity to write progress notes about the client they just saw, return calls and emails, handle billing, take a bathroom break, get a glass of water or even just breathe. 

“There are therapists who work extensively with clients dealing with very heavy, traumatic experiences, so the break gives them the chance to decompress a little bit,” said Tammer Malaty, a licensed professional counselor at Malaty Therapy in Houston, Texas. 

“Logistically speaking, therapists typically rely on the time between sessions to reset themselves for their next client,” noted Stuempfig, adding that this can involve “taking deep breaths to prepare themselves mentally for their next client so they can feel present and alert.”

Many therapists utilize 45 minutes, rather than 50, to extend the break between sessions, or to schedule back-to-back sessions on the hour and half-hour marks. 

“This is a newer practice,” said Nicole M. Ward, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles. She noted that 45-minute sessions also allow therapists to see more clients in one day.  

It Feels More Contained

There are also psychological reasons why these session times remain the norm. First of all, the length of time feels more contained, so it lessens the risk of over-exposure to painful emotions. 

“It could feel traumatic to a client to sit with their pain for an extended period of time, risking emotional harm and causing the client to not return due to fear of retraumatization,” Stuempfig said. 

“Given the unique personal and emotional natures of therapy, many people would find an hour or more to be overwhelming to their nervous system and moving on with their day after that,” added Denver-based licensed psychotherapist Brittany Bouffard. “It allows the client to visit important processes, feel feelings, derive their insights and get the sense that there will be a reprieve from the intensity so that they can then go back to work or to their family.”

The therapeutic hour also sets psychological boundaries for the therapist and client. Stuempfig noted that 45- or 50-minute sessions allow therapists to offer a fresh perspective and remain objective without getting too immersed in a client’s life. 

“At the core of the therapeutic relationship is confidentiality,” she explained. “The client enters the relationship being guaranteed that their revelations will not leave that space, unless of course there are safety risks. This creates a unique dynamic that is not meant to go on for long periods of time. It would not be sustainable to have this type of conversation for many hours at a time.”

Having a clear endpoint after less than an hour can help create a safe space for the client to feel, process and contain intense emotions, rather than go into it with the sense that there’s no end in sight.

It Encourages Good Use Of Time

Keeping therapy sessions under an hour may also motivate both parties to make the best of the time allotted.

“It can encourage both therapist and client to get to the heart of the problem rather quickly,” Stuempfig noted. “They know that if they engage in typical small talk, it will be a waste of valuable time.”

When the client knows a big issue won’t be fully resolved in one session, they may feel more comfortable presenting it, discussing goals to counter the problem, exploring different aspects of it and learning coping skills to implement in everyday life. 

“When people have longer, they don’t get to the meat of the material very quickly,” Lori Gottlieb, a Los Angeles-based psychotherapist and author of “Maybe You Should Talk To Someone,” told HuffPost. “When people know they have 50 minutes, they feel aware that they need to take advantage of that time. It’s about striking a balance so that work is getting done.”

Longer sessions may also lead to a sense of fatigue or burnout for both the therapist and the client. For children, that timing sweet spot can be shorter with 30-minute sessions, as 45 or 50 is sometimes too long for a kid’s attention span.

It Helps You Process What You Learn

Saniyyah Mayo, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, compared therapy sessions to high school classes. Each class presents a set amount of time that students spend learning about a specific section of the curriculum. Afterward, they can process the information and even explore it in a different setting through homework. 

“A person can have a 4-hour session but they are not going to reflect and digest everything that was discussed during the session,” Mayo explained. “The client may think it was a good session, but too much information would be covered for them to completely digest it and benefit from it. Giving people increments of information and allowing them to process it in sections is good for the best possible outcome for treatment.”

This is why therapists often suggest meeting more frequently, rather than extending sessions, when clients express a desire for more time. 

“I think more work gets done in two separate sessions than in one longer one when you feel like you have all the time in the world,” said Gottlieb, who compared therapy to a big, filling meal. 

“You can’t have this whole huge meal at once and expect it be digested or processed in the same way as if you’d just eaten a little bit and let it digest and then eaten more later,” she explained. ”You need that time in between. You can’t take too much in and have it stick.”

It Allows You To Incorporate Your Findings

The important thing to keep in mind is that therapy is an ongoing conversation, and the real change happens when the clients practice what they learn in their lives outside the therapist’s office. The focus should be on the skills and insights they gain during sessions and how they’ll implement them ― not the length of the sessions. 

“There’s a great deal going on in the span of the therapeutic hour,” Stuempfig said. “It is intended to be limited and therefore, powerful in its impact. This also leaves time between sessions for the client to reflect on their therapeutic insights and hopefully adjust their perspective or relationships. Our brains and bodies need time and space to incorporate lessons learned in therapy.”

Insurance Pushes it

Insurance companies also feed into the 45- or 50-minute session standard, as they base reimbursement on the type and length of therapy. A common billing code is 90834, which denotes 45 minutes of individual psychotherapy but can be used for sessions ranging from 38 to 52 minutes. 

“If the clinician stays with a client for more than 52 minutes, then technically a different code should be used ― a code that defines ‘one unit’ of therapy as 60 minutes,” said Zainab Delawalla, a clinical psychologist in Decatur, Georgia.

“However, there is a lot of pushback from insurance companies about actually paying clinicians for the ‘60-minute’ code. Many companies require preauthorizations and have very strict criteria of when and for whom the 60-minute therapy hour is appropriate. If the insurance provider decides that the criteria were not met, they will not pay the clinician.”

Thus, to avoid not being paid or breaking the law (by billing a code that doesn’t accurately convey the length and nature of the service provided), clinicians tend to stick with the industry standard of 45 or 50 minutes.

Of course, therapists can and do offer different session lengths based on individual client needs and make it work with providers. And even if your therapist doesn’t take your insurance, your provider may offer out-of-network reimbursement options. 

Beyond The 45- Or 50-Minute Session

Although 45- or 50-minute sessions are the industry standard, it’s not a hard rule across every case. For couples or families, therapists offer longer sessions, usually 90 minutes.

“These are spaces where there are multiple perspectives at play and you want everyone to be able to have space,” Ward said, noting that these sessions involve more information and relationship dynamics to address. 

In individual therapy, there’s sometimes a clinical need for longer sessions, whether that’s a more complex issue to work through or even a time of crisis. In these cases, session timing may shift. 

Many therapists also offer longer sessions for intake appointments with new clients to ensure that they have enough time to gather information and ask questions for diagnostic clarification. 

Ultimately, therapists assess clients and determine meeting times on a case-by-case basis.

“The therapeutic hour ... may be common but there are other lengths of time out there. It is important to communicate with the specific therapist if you feel like longer sessions are needed,” Ward said. “I think it’s really important to demystify therapy and what happens in sessions because we can form stories about why things are a certain way. Being able to have information helps to remove some of the stigma from therapy.”

SINGAPORE/SEOUL/LONDON — As lion dancers snaked between conference room tables laden with plastic bottles, pens, notebooks and laptops, some staff from British gas analytics firm Servomex snapped photos of the performance meant to bring good luck and fortune.

But the January sales meeting in a luxury Singapore hotel was far from auspicious.

Someone seated in the room, or in the vicinity of the hotel that is renowned for its central location and a racy nightclub in the basement, was about to take coronavirus global.

Three weeks later, global health authorities are still scrambling to work out who carried the disease into the mundane meeting of a firm selling gas meters, which then spread to five countries from South Korea to Spain, infecting over a dozen people.

Experts say finding this so-called “patient zero” is critical for tracing all those potentially exposed to infection and containing the outbreak, but as time passes, the harder it becomes.

“We do feel uncomfortable obviously when we diagnose a patient with the illness and we can’t work out where it came from...the containment activities are less effective,” said Dale Fisher, chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network coordinated by the World Health Organisation.

Authorities initially hinted at Chinese delegates, which included someone from Wuhan — the Chinese city at the epicentre of the virus that has killed over 1,350 people. But a Servomex spokesperson told Reuters its Chinese delegates had not tested positive.

Fisher and other experts have compared the Singapore meeting to another so-called “super-spreading” incident at a Hong Kong hotel in 2003 where a sick Chinese doctor spread Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome around the world.

The WHO has opened an investigation into the Singapore incident, but said its “way too early” to tell if it is a super-spreading event.

SCARY AND SOBERING

It was more than a week after the meeting — which according to a company e-mail included Servomex’s leadership team and global sales staff — that the first case surfaced in Malaysia.

The incubation period for the disease is up to 14 days and people may be able to infect others before symptoms appear.

The firm said it immediately adopted “extensive measures” to contain the virus and protect employees and the wider community. Those included self-isolation for all 109 attendees, of whom 94 were from overseas and had left Singapore.

But the virus kept spreading.

Two South Korean delegates fell sick after sharing a buffet meal with the Malaysian, who also passed the infection to his sister and mother-in-law. Three of the firm’s Singapore attendees also tested positive.

Then cases started appearing in Europe.

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An infected British delegate had headed from the conference to a French ski resort, where another five people fell ill. Another linked case then emerged in Spain, and when the Briton returned to his home town in the south of England the virus spread further.

“It feels really scary that one minute it’s a story in China... and then the next minute it is literally on our doorstep,” said Natalie Brown, whose children went to the same school as the British carrier. The school said in a letter that two people at the school had been isolated.

“It’s scary and sobering how quickly it seems to have spread,” said Brown.

TIME RUNNING OUT

Back in Singapore, authorities were battling to keep track of new cases of local transmissions, many unlinked to previous cases.

Management at the hotel - the Grand Hyatt Singapore - said they had cleaned extensively and were monitoring staff and guests for infection but did not know “how, where or when” conference attendees were infected. The lion dancers, who posted photos of the event on Facebook, said they were virus free.

“Everyone assumes it was a delegate but it could have been a cleaner, it could have been a waiter,” said Paul Tambyah, an infectious diseases expert at National University Singapore. He added it was “very important” to find “patient zero” to establish other possible “chains of transmission”.

But time may be running out.

Singapore health ministry’s Kenneth Mak said the government will continue to try and identify the initial carrier until the outbreak ends, but as days pass it will get harder.

“We might never be able to tell who that first patient is,” Mak said.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the conference continues to sow trepidation weeks after the event and thousands of miles away.

Reuters visited Servomex’s offices in the suburbs of South Korea’s capital, Seoul. It was closed and dark inside, and a building guard told Reuters employees were working from home.

A notice posted by building management stated a coronavirus patient had entered the complex, while several young women could be overheard in a nearby elevator discussing whether it had been used by the infected person.

“Do you think the patient would have gotten on this elevator or the other one?” one said.

Pavithran’s face is unshaven, his salt-and-pepper hair dishevelled, as he sits awkwardly in front of a policeman. His wife and child, who had gone missing, have shown up at the police station after he filed a complaint. When his wife says she wants to stay with her lover, Pavithran takes it bravely, but insists that he wants his daughter back. But when the woman refuses, admitting that the child is her lover’s, his face crumples. Devastated, he draws the little girl to him and showers her with kisses, like he’s saying a final goodbye. He slowly gets up and tells the cop with a heart-breaking smile, “She’s joking. Please tell her not to say such things even in jest.” Then he fumblingly leaves the room, nodding at no one in particular. 

With that short scene, Suraj Venjaramoodu, who plays Pavithran, walked away with Action Hero Biju (2016). It was a breakthrough performance from an actor who, until then, was mostly known to viewers for his sometimes funny, often annoying roles as a comic sidekick. 

By then, it had been more than a decade since Venjaramoodu first appeared on the fringes of Malayalam cinema. When he won the National Award for best actor in 2013, even regular moviegoers were surprised—few had watched Perariyathavar in a movie theatre. So the cameo in Action Hero Biju, Venjaramoodu’s 210th film, was an eye-opener.

“After the National Award for Perariyathavar, I realised that I was still being offered comedy roles. Since no one saw the film and I didn’t want to get back into a rut, I started asking directors for roles. That’s how Action Hero Biju came to me. Initially it was supposed to be a full-fledged role but was changed into a cameo at the last minute. But that clicked and since then, things started getting better,” Venjaramoodu told HuffPost India.  

The bet paid off as Malayalis realised that the man who shot to fame with his lampooning of the distinctive Thiruvananthapuram slang could handle subtle, poignant roles as well. It was a make-or-break moment, and Venjaramoodu grabbed his chance with both hands. A look at his filmography since then shows how well it has worked—43-year-old Venjaramoodu is one of the few actors in Malayalam cinema to have emerged from a creative rut as a ‘character’ artist, one who now anchors movies on his own.    

From a dialect coach to a comedian 

Venjaramoodu once wanted to join the Army, but a broken arm came in the way of pursuing his dream. After finishing an ITI course, he joined a mimicry troupe at the insistence of his brother. 

Even before cable channels took off, mimicry as an art form used to be popular in Kerala, with people thronging live stage shows often organised as part of church and temple festivals. As channels began telecasting comedy shows, many artists became familiar faces to viewers, which sometimes translated into film offers.

Venjaramoodu’s mimicry, especially his acts featuring the ‘Thironthoram’ slang, became popular through stage shows and a comedy show called Jagapoga on Kairali TV. This was later made into a spoof movie by the same name, starring mimicry artists, which was his movie debut. After the movie bombed, he followed it up with inconsequential roles in a few films. 

When Mammootty wanted to master the Thiruvananthapuram dialect for Anwar Rasheed’s Rajamanikyam (2005), he turned to Venjaramoodu. While the comedian didn’t land a role in the big-budget film, in 2007, he was cast as Mammootty’s sidekick in Mayavi, where he managed to impress by delivering some hilarious dialogues.  

From then, Venjaramoodu became a familiar face in Malayalam movies, cracking one-liners, often laden with innuendo, and acting as the hero’s punching bag. While he did a range of roles—his Dashamoolam Damu in Mammootty’s Chattambinadu (2009) continues to inspire memes—his acting skills didn’t really excite viewers at that point. 

“During a college inauguration, I found myself staring at a banner that said, ‘Welcome, Dashamoolam Damu’. Here I was, dressed nattily in jeans and shirt but expected to mimic the character. That’s when I realised the impact of the character and how they were finding newer definitions to his various expressions. At that time, I was just casually giving all those expressions. This year, we are coming out with a movie with (the character of) Damu as the hero. It’s such a happy liability for me,” says the actor.  

Venjaramoodu’s characters during this time were exaggerated, quirky and loud—in many, he was asked to repeat his Trivandrum slang shtick. 

“At that time, I would do four characters a day and naturally they turned repetitive. Sometimes it would be for a friend’s role and I was only briefed about the scene, the script was often read on the spot. I would be someone’s friend or brother-in-law. They didn’t give me a backgrounder and I never asked them,” the actor recollects. 

“The mimicry skill in him is predominant when he does comedy. So, when he does a drunken scene, it looks like he is imitating another drunken act he has watched on a mimicry stage,” said R. Ayyappan, a Malayala Manorama journalist. 

Venjaramoodu’s roles didn’t vary much because in the mid 2000s, Malayalam cinema was still grappling with the weight of superstardom, which meant the stories were still primarily focused around a few big heroes. While a few small movies clicked with viewers in between, it was only after 2011, with Rajesh Pillai’s Traffic, that a change began to be visible. Slowly, mindless star vehicles made way for fresher stories and ordinary characters, which also coincided with the entry of actors like Fahadh Faasil, Dulquer Salmaan and Nivin Pauly.

The strong division between ‘commercial’ and ‘award’ movies at the time also meant that actors such as Venjaramoodu—strangely, he didn’t really have many competitors in that in-between phase—were not getting the kind of author-backed roles that comedians from an earlier generation, such as Jagathy Sreekumar, Mamukkoya and Kuthiravattam Pappu, got.

‘Perariyathavar’ and after

While Venjaramoodu was getting steady work, it was clear that both his comedy and his roles were stagnating. He was desperately trying to switch to character roles when, out of the blue, came a call from director Dr. Biju. 

“I was fascinated by the fact that the character (in Perariyathavar, as a sweeper) didn’t have many dialogues. Besides, the character was someone I had seen. I was heartened by the fact that Dr. Biju could see a spark in me as an actor ,” says the actor. 

Biju told HuffPost India it was Venjaramoodu’s stage performances that made him choose the actor. “Even in some of his plastic comedy acts, there was an ease in his body language which I thought would suit my character, who was required to behave and not act. He told me he will come to the sets as a blank paper, which really helped. This was also his first experience with sync sound.”

Biju disclosed that Venjaramoodu took home the only shirt he wore in the film as a souvenir and his father wore the shirt for a long time. 

Aswathy Gopalakrishnan, film critic at Silverscreen.in, picks the actor’s role in Lal Jose’s 2013 comedy Pullipulikalum Aattinkuttiyum as the one that first revealed to her that there was a good actor in Venjaramoodu.

“His performance had the layers an everyday comedian isn’t usually expected to bring to the table,” she said of Mamachan, who did odd jobs in a village, doubling as a real estate and marriage broker, and a travel agent.

If the award-winning Perariyathavar (2013) was the first indication that the actor had it in him to push the envelope, the heart-breaking cameo in ActionHeroBiju was the mainstream revelation he needed. The same year, 2016, he followed it up with interesting performances in the sports drama Karinkunnam Sixes, where he played Nelson, a sexist jailer who ridicules Manju Warrier’s talent as a volleyball coach, and Oru Muthassi Gadha, a haphazard rom-com in which he played the harrowed son of a tyrannical mother. 

By then, it was becoming clear that Venjaramoodu was picking his roles with caution, favouring substantial characters over the mindless comedy the audience had expected from him so far. 

It helped that a new crop of young actors and directors had emerged in Malayalam cinema by then. The films they made had room for ‘ordinary’ heroes and heroines.

Sowmya Rajendran, film critic with The News Minute, credits this to “the industry’s willingness to experiment and the audience embracing the trend”.

“Not just Suraj, other unlikely heroes like Soubin (Shahir), Vinayakan, Vinay Forrt and Joju George have also emerged and found success in mainstream cinema,” Rajendran told Huffpost India. 

But it was 2017’s Thondimuthalum Driksakhiyum which is still seen as the milestone in Venjaramoodu’s career. In the film, which the actor once said he got after he expressed a desire to work with Dileesh Pothan, Venjaramoodu’s Prasad elopes with heroine Sreeja and the couple are on their way to start a new life when her thali chain is burgled on a moving bus. 

Prasad is a kind, pragmatic but insecure man who supports his wife but also sometimes struggles to understand her. In a film filled with great performances, Venjaramoodu managed to hold his own against Fahadh Faasil, who played the thief. He even made the initial romantic scenes with a much younger Nimisha Sajayan seem convincing. 

“When I asked Pothan why he chose me, he said because I am an actor! But he admitted it was Action Hero Biju that sealed the deal for him. He moulded me as an actor, would detail me about Prasad at every step and once I got him, he would finetune it. It’s difficult to explain,” said Venjaramoodu, who prefers to give credit to the creative process that social media fans of Pothan lovingly call ‘Pothettan’s brilliance’.

“He had more screen time than Fahadh Faasil in Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, which shows how the current crop of actors in Malayalam cinema industry respects the script as the hero,” said Rajendran. 

Then Venjaramoodu turned around and topped that role with an underrated performance in Varnyathil Ashanka, where he played a seemingly nice guy with shades of grey who, when he finds himself part of a jewellery heist, slyly turns the tables in his favour. The actor said he loved the character, but rues that the film didn’t get the “audience it deserved”.

Ayyappan has a theory for why Venjaramoodu’s ‘serious’ roles have struck a chord with viewers. 

“Jagathy is an instinctive comedian and when he transitioned into serious roles, he couldn’t completely shrug off comedy from his body language. But in Suraj’s case, it’s the reverse. He is an inspired comedian but a theoretical actor who systematically studies his characters. Therefore he can bring more originality to the sombre roles,” said the critic.

How 2019 became the year of Suraj Venjaramoodu

The actor’s consistent attempts to push himself out of his comfort zone were on full display last year. Of his varied roles, the best were Varghese Master in Finals, Eldo in Vikruthi, Bhaskara Poduval in Android Kunjappan Version 5.25 and Kuruvilla in Driving Licence.

Varghese master’s introductory shot tells the viewer a lot about him—a pair of anxious, tired eyes rest on his daughter (Rajisha Vijayan), who is about to join a cycle race. He is in his mid-50s with greying sideburns, stubble and a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. A fallen sports coach, Varghese’s only route to the glory that eluded him in his prime is to make an Olympic winner out of his daughter. Very few actors portray defeat as convincingly as Venjaramoodu (as Pavithran in Action Hero Biju showed us) and he does it subtly here, all the while holding back the overwhelming love he has for his daughter. 

Sreehari Nair, a film critic with Rediff, describes Venjaramoodu as “psychologically taut”.

“Even in his mimicry performances; the best ones have something that’s beyond just ‘behavioural’. His finest turns are therefore not just attempts to refine the “Suraj Venjaramoodu” character—he is interested in people; a liberal who genuinely wishes to embody a range of personality types,” he said.

In Emcy Joseph’s Vikruthi, Eldo, based on a real-life character, is a mute person who loses his job and reputation when a photo of him sleeping on a Metro train is posted on social media. Joseph said that Suraj thoroughly read the script, offered suggestions and got engrossed in the making of the film. For Eldo, they took references from the real-life character, as they wanted to keep it subtle. 

“He is a quick learner and involved so much into the character that throughout the shoot, he remained in the character and would even converse with us in sign language. Since he is a busy actor, he got very little time to prepare. I think he is a natural actor,” said Joseph.

“Initially the character only had a limp. But then I told them if he is mute in real life, why don’t we incorporate it? So that part was added a day before the shoot began. It was a difficult role as I had to show emotions through my body language. In fact, I was doing Android Kunjappan and Vikruthi simultaneously,” said Venjaramoodu.  

But cranky Bhaskaran in Android Kunjappan Version 5:25—which Rajendran calls ‘spot on’—was nothing like the actor had ever done before. A widower in his ’80s, Bhaskaran isn’t pleased with the new robot his son has procured from Russia to look after him. But eventually, it wins him over and the man starts taking care of him like his own son. It was, perhaps, the actor’s most physically complex role. While makeup can aid in the initial bulwark, the rest of it has to come from the actor—the bearing, voice modulation, the internalisation—and it has to be consistent. Suraj blends dry humour into Bhaskaran’s sobriety and nails the complexity of the character, expressing his petulance, loneliness and growing affection for the machine that borders on the insane. 

For the role, Venjaramoodu observed the mannerisms of his father as well as director Ratheesh Balakrishnan Poduval’s father, and spoke to people from Payyannur to pick up the dialect.

“On paper, it just says the character is this old. But the rest of it comes through discussions with the director and writer. I show it in the rehearsals and then take it forward. It was a very difficult role to maintain and it took me two hours daily to get ready. The whole concept of exchanging emotions with a robot was fascinating,” he said. 

DrivingLicence, written by Sachy and directed by Lal Jr. is about a superstar (Prithviraj) and his fan, a motor driving inspector called Kuruvilla, played by Venjaramoodu. When a misunderstanding creeps in between the two, the star-fan dynamic gets blurred and egos take over. Venjaramoodu excels in the emotional scenes, especially when his character gets humiliated in front of people. It’s a performance filled with such empathy that despite the narrative leaning towards the superstar of the story, the viewer is left with the feeling that Kuruvilla deserved a better closure.

When he reflects on the twists and turns in his career, the actor is as unassuming as the characters he now plays.

“Every good and bad film helped me to better myself. I can say this in two ways—either the romanticised version of how I am able to do roles I love or how things just happened. Or can I say that it’s the thought of my children’s school fees which fuels my ambitions as an actor?” 

There comes a point in a queer child’s life when he must rein in his flamboyance and be saddled with the rules of masculinity. At that point, the elapsed relics of a homosexual childhood—unused, crusty bottles of nail polish, make-up, and frocks pilfered from cousins—must be tossed out. I parted with my nail polish bottles at least a few decades ago. 

And then, last week, one of the last personal frontiers of social media was breached when a (straight) man decided to flaunt his painted nails. A large portion of Indian Instagram collectively gasped atthe sight of comedian Varun Grover’s hands, embellished with sea-green and sky-blue nail polish, resting on his snoozing cat. He gathered the reactions he received on his Insta story and pinned it up on his highlights as a reminder of this cultural moment. The reactions were mostly positive, Grover wrote in his Insta, but there were also many homophobic comments. 

“Please tell me that’s not your hand,” beseeched one. “Sir aapne nail polish laga rakhihai (you’ve put nail polish)?” questioned another in disbelief.

Shocking. 

I should know the taboo of polish on a man’s nails because growing up gay in the pre-smartphone and social media era, it was a burden I carried on my back like a donkey labouring with a bundle of wet laundry. As an adolescent, all I wanted was tiny bottles of nail polish in different shades—turmeric yellow, apple red, gothic black. 

Grover is straight and with it came his agency to stand on relatively safer grounds to paint his nails, in the guise of a social experiment. I say this because if a gay man showed his painted nails on his Insta stories, the reaction would be lukewarm at best. It would conform to the unspoken notion that gay men seek attention perpetually, fuelled by rebelliousness or a compulsion to assert identity or both. 

Yet, when I painted my nails as a boy, it was simply a trivial desire to embellish my hands. 

I don’t recollect when I first developed an interest in it but as with other ‘homosexual’ affiliations, it started early in my childhood. I was actively discouraged by my parents, and my mother constantly hid my stash of nail polish for fear that I’d be subjected to brutal bullying at school. But I found at least one member in my family who aided my desire—my grandfather. 

With a flowing crown of cottony hair and a beard to match, he exuded the aura of a north-Malayali Jesus and was a late-entrant member of the Siddha Samajam—a commune of modern-day hippies who believed in free love and an alternative form of living, among other things. It’s little wonder he indulged my tabooed cosmetic desires. Maybe he saw in me a blossoming homosexual boy who’d soon be trampled over in a world that’d constrict his space and slot him into stifling gender normativity. 

On summer vacation visits to my maternal village in north Kerala, I’d plead with my grandfather to take me on our annual nail polish-buying spree. In the sweltering pre-monsoon heat, we’d set out on foot to a store in the town miles away. I’d return home with one or two bottles of cheap nail polish to use over the summer. This was before globalisation: Lakmé was too expensive and Maybelline hadn’t reached India yet so I would get local brands like Apsara and Eyetex. 

I never understood why my desire to paint my nails was in direct conflict with the fashion choices deemed acceptable for me as a prepubescent boy. But I knew I had to ball up my fists in social situations to prevent others from seeing my painted nails. I never coloured my toenails because there was no way to curl them and send them into hiding. Before resuming school, I’d scrub away the polish and deflect questions from classmates on why my nails were flecked with colour. 

As time went on and puberty took root, the burdens of masculinity weighed heavily on me. I gradually stopped wearing polish and became distanced from the pleasure I’d once felt in the act of painting my nails. I was deep in the quest for normalcy, and as part of the plan, I needed to stop attracting attention to myself. Standing out on account of being gay was bad enough—painted nails weren’t needed. 

Besides, colouring my nails had not been an act of rebellion, but one of expression. A cry to assert my homosexual identity, it was definitely not. 

Now, as a reasonably accomplished adult gay man, I feel like I waited too long for this nail-polish-on-a-straight-man moment to take hold, just for it to be normalised. What Grover did as a straight man resonated with me. Perhaps, on a smaller scale, we are finally on the cusp of unshackling the burdens of masculinity, which are inhibiting for both gay and straight men. 

Flamboyance and gender nonconformity are just novelties in the case of straight men. But it’s a lot worse for gay men. Despite the regular appearances of sari-wearing cisgender gay men at queer prides across the country, we still haven’t shaken off thecollective denial and persistent stigma against queer people in general in India. 

What defines masculinity and why is it such a taboo to breach its rigid boundaries? The answer came to me in a rather simplistic analogy in a German show called Der Tatortreiniger (Crime Scene Cleaner) I’ve been watching to improve my language skills. In addition to bolstering my repertoire in German with words for ‘condolences’, ‘grave’, ‘funeral’ and such, the show also provided me with an insight into the gendered rules that bind us. 

Schotty, the protagonist, meets a gay man at a crime scene and wonders aloud why gay men are so… extra?  Why do they imitate women? 

 To which the other man responds: “There are only two drawers into which all of humanity is sorted—one for men and another for women. When someone doesn’t fit into the men’s drawer, which is the same for hetero and gay men, then inevitably they’re thrust into the women’s drawer.” Then comes the defining moment of the scene. “I have nothing against drawers, I would like to have one that I’d like to fit into,” he says.

Perhaps therein lies the obvious answer—gender conformity based on social conditioning is stifling. 

Long before Grover’s Insta-story broke out, I had been pondering over whether colouring my nails would bring me the same silly joy that it once had. Yet, every time that thought occurred, an uncomfortable feeling would rise in me. It’s the same feeling that stops me from exploring the nail polish section in cosmetic stores. I don’t think it’s a fear of bullies. Instead, it’s a resistance to breaking the conditioning I have long been subjected to, and the comforts of conformity that I have always craved as a result. 

Maybe one day I’ll rip that veil apart with my nails painted inslime green. So dear reader, if you happen upon my Insta story on how I resumed colouring my nails, be kind to it.

Even as the Narendra Modi government has aggressively cracked down on those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act, the Bombay High Court said on that they could not be considered “traitors”. 

PTI reported the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court as saying, while hearing a petition, that the petitioner and his companions only want to hold a peaceful agitation to show their protest.

The court granted the petitioners permission to sit on an indefinite protest against the CAA in Maharashtra’s Beed district.

A division bench of Justices T V Nalavade and M G Sewlikar was hearing a petition filed by one Iftekhar Shaikh challenging a January 31, 2020 order passed by a magistrate and a January 21, 2020 order of the police refusing them permission to sit on an indefinite protest at Old Idgah Maidan in Majalgaon in Beed district against the CAA.

“This court wants to express that such persons cannot be called as traitors, anti-nationals only because they want to oppose one law. It will be act of protest and only against the government for the reason of CAA,” the court said in its order.

“We must keep in mind we are a democratic republic country and our Constitution has given us rule of law and not rule of majority. When such act (CAA) is made, some people may be of a particular religion like Muslims may feel that it is against their interest and such act needs to be opposed,” the bench said in its order.

The court also spoke of the agitations that helped the country get freedom from the British rule. 

“India got freedom due to agitations which were non- violent and this path of non-violence is followed by the people of this country till date. We are fortunate that most people of this country still believe in non-violence,” the bench said.

“In the British period, our ancestors fought for freedom and also for human rights, and due to the philosophy behind the agitations, we created our Constitution. It can be said that it is unfortunate but the people are required to agitate against their own government now but only on that ground the agitation cannot be suppressed,” it added.

This comes even as BJP-led governments in states have violently cracked down against anti-CAA protests. 

In Karnataka’s Bidar district, the police have been continuously questioning minor students of the Shaheen School for participating in a play against the CAA. Nikhila Henry, reporting for Huffpost India found that the management of Shaheen school has struggled to comprehend how a school assignment could have spiralled into a crime against the nation. 

In Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath government has sent out notices to protesters to recover “damages to public property”. The Allahabad High Court, for now, now has stayed those notices. 

Uttar Pradesh is the same state where several Muslims were killed by the police during protests and did not allow the families to have proper funerals for those who had died. They also tortured minors in custody. 

Even as the BJP comes to term with its defeat in the Delhi Assembly Elections, winning only 8 seats against Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) 62, union minister Prakash Javadekar has put the blame of the party’s failure on the Congress. 

“The defeat in Delhi elections was because of the sudden disappearance of the Congress. It is a different subject whether the Congress disappeared (on its own), people made it disappear or whether their votes got transferred (to AAP),” Javadekar said at a press conference in Pune on Friday. 

He said the Congress, which had got 26% votes in Lok Sabha elections, could win only 4% votes in Delhi elections.

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The BJP had seemed confident of forming a government in the capital, but that failed to happen. Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari had rejected exit poll predictions of an AAP win. Before polling, he had said his “sixth sense” told him the BJP would form government in Delhi. 

Javadekar’s reasoning is one among many that BJP leaders have cited for their defeat. 

“Because of Congress’s disappearance, there was a direct fight between the BJP and the AAP. We had expected 42% votes for us and 48% for AAP, but our prediction failed by 3% each. We (BJP) got 39% votes, while the AAP received 51% votes,” Javadekar said.

Tiwari told ABP News that the BJP should have chosen a chief ministerial candidate before going into the polls. 

While the BJP led a hate-filled campaign, baying for the blood of anti-CAA protesters — with Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur saying ‘goli maro’, Amit Shah saying ‘send current’ to Shaheen Bagh and Parvesh Sharma saying ‘they will rape your sisters’ — Home Minister Shah admitted that such hate speech should not have been made during the campaign. 

Such remarks may have resulted in the party’s defeat in the elections, he admitted during a programme organised by Times Now.

The BJP leaders had vilified anti-CAA protesters, especially at Shaheen Bagh, while the AAP had contested on the issue of bijli, paani and shiksha. 

AAP was voted back to for the third time in a row, with a resounding victory and a decisive mandate of the people who rejected BJP’s hate campaign.

Protests broke out across Tamil Nadu, with a Shaheen Bagh like protest at Chennai’s Old Washermanpet, after police lathicharged anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protesters on Friday evening. 

Reports say hundreds of men and women sat in protest all night at Old Washermanpet in criticising the police crackdown on protesters. 

The News Minute reported that protesters raised ‘azaadi’ slogans along the bylanes of Thiruvottiyur High Road, condemning police action against protesters earlier in the day and demanding a repeal of the discriminatory CAA. 

Twitter user Gayatri Khandhadai shared a video of women chanting slogans. 

Protests have reportedly spread across Tamil Nadu with people taking to the streets and blocking roads. 

The Hindu reported that Chennai’s arterial roads like Anna Salai and Jawaharlal Nehru Salai in Vadapalani, and parts of the East Coast Road saw huge traffic snarls. The report said that people also gathered in Madurai, Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Salem, Tiruchi, Vaniyambadi, Tirupathur, Krishnagiri, Villupuram

What prompted these protests?

Locals in the Old Washermanpet area of Chennai had planned a protest after Friday prayers against the CAA, NRC and NPR. Reports say that police allegedly used full force to disperse the protests, leading to chaos and scuffle and further protests against police action. 

Protesters are said to have been badly injured during police action. 

“They resorted to lathi-charge three times between 2 pm and 5 pm. Some injured protesters were taken to Stanley Government Hospital and one was shifted to Rajiv Gandhi Government Hospital,” said Kasali, a protester, told TheNew Indian Express.

Reports say that hundreds of police personnel were present in the area that is mostly narrow lanes and by-lanes. When the protesters refused to budge, the police used full force to disperse them. 

The Hindu quoted a protester as saying, “We did not even come to the main road and were protesting on the streets and in front of homes... They spoke to the protesters and asked them to disperse. As we did not heed to their suggestion, the police used force to chase us away.” 

Videos from the incident show a huge mob of police personnel dragging, beating and even kicking a lone protester. 

Huffpost India couldn’t independently verify the video. 

Police reportedly used violence to detain protesters. 

Sahiya, a protester told The News Minute, “When we refused to leave, they pulled us by the hair and dragged us from the road. When we questioned them, they carried us bodily with two people holding our feet up.”

 While there were reports of a septuagenarian dying during police action, a senior police officer refuted the claims speaking to The New Indian Express, “The elderly man had been admitted to Stanley Government Hospital for two weeks. He was discharged on Thursday and suffered a cardiac arrest at his house in Old Washermenpet on Friday night. The protestors are spreading rumours.”

Sporadic protests spread across Chennai and across Tamil Nadu after the incident. 

#ChennaiShaheenBagh trends on Twitter 

Thousands took to social media to condemn police action at Old Washermanpet, using the hashtag #ChennaiShaheenBagh. 

As long as professionals are forced to spend so many waking hours together in one place, the office will not just be a workplace but also a convenient dating pool of people with similar occupations and shared interests.

One in three American adults is or has been in a workplace romance, according to a 2019 poll by the Society for Human Resources Management.

Dating a co-worker ― even the right way ― can be high-risk, high-reward. Karen, a professional whose office romance at a software company blossomed into marriage nearly 28 years ago, called the relationship the “best decision” she ever made but also a choice that others should approach with caution. Initially, Karen kept her relationship with a co-worker from another department quiet “to the point where co-workers were trying to set us up with other people because they had no idea.” Karen wanted to know the relationship was more than a fling before letting her colleagues know. “For the longest time we didn’t tell anybody. Nobody at work knew until we had a strong feeling it would be more than a casual thing,” she said. “I’m trying to imagine if we had been out in the open and it had fizzled. I think it would have been really awkward.”

Still, not all office romances are quiet or successful. Both participants and bystanders have some basic tenets to consider for minimizing the drama these relationships can cause to everyone in the workplace. 

Thoroughly read your HR policies on dating a colleague. 

Before you engage in any type of office romance, figure out your company’s applicable policies and whether you have to disclose. Office romances are sometimes entirely against company policy, and more often so if you are dating up or down the organizational chart. A 2013 survey of 384 HR professionals from the Society for Human Resources Management found that 99% of workplaces banned romances between a supervisor and a direct report and almost half banned relationships between employees of a “significant rank difference.”

It’s not hard to see why, considering the rate of workplace sexual harassment. But even clearly consensual relationships can be out of bounds when there is a power imbalance. Take the recent example of McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook, who was ousted for having a consensual relationship with an employee. McDonald’s code of conduct states that “employees who have a direct or indirect reporting relationship to each other are prohibited from dating or having a sexual relationship.”

You should also know your reputation may be unfairly harmed, regardless of company policies. Women have more to lose from an office romance: Research has found that colleagues are more likely to assume an entry-level woman employee is using a workplace romance with a superior to get ahead in her career than a male peer who does the same. 

If you can’t compartmentalize work and home, you shouldn’t undertake an office romance.

When a romantic relationship goes public in the office, it also has public consequences for co-workers.

Public displays of affection at work can be disruptive mood-killers to everyone who witnesses them, for example. One 2011 study in the Journal of Managerial Psychology found that when co-workers observed their peers and married co-workers flirt, these co-workers reported less job satisfaction and stronger intentions of quitting. 

Co-workers can also feel uncomfortable when office romances suggest preferential treatment, said Lisa Orbé-Austin, a licensed psychologist who focuses on helping professionals manage their careers. “If you keep things as they were before, and it really feels like a business relationship at work, I don’t think people tend to feel very different,” she said. “It’s when there is the other thing going on like private lunches, time away from the office, ... glances at a meeting ― all of this stuff cannot exist, because that does make people feel uncomfortable, it makes people feel like, ‘What is going on here?’”

Keeping romance out of work is key to making this relationship work for others. When professionals in advertising, public relations, and marketing were asked to weigh in on what made a workplace romance healthy for a 2017 study on these type of relationships, many answered that a healthy workplace romance was one which “if you didn’t already know they were dating, you would have no idea.” 

Being careful to treat her partner like any other colleague was what Aimee Pierce did. She’s a client service professional who met and still works with her husband at the same marketing company. “If we didn’t inform new team members, I don’t think they would know,” Pierce said about her marriage. She and her husband share a boss who knows about their relationship, and she advises others who want to engage in an office romance to be transparent and to “personally review your actions for anything that could, even very slightly, look or be twisted to look like preferential treatment.”

For herself, “If my answer is even a ‘maybe’ when I ask myself this question, I bring it to our mutual boss or other neutral party and document it,” Pierce said. 

Plan for your breakup. 

Embarking on an office romance means preparing for the possibility of its end before it begins. 

Orbé-Austin said that before professionals engage in an office romance, they should consider how they usually react after breakups. “You have to prepare for all scenarios when you work with somebody that you can maintain integrity to the work and to yourself in this process,” she said. “If you have a history of when you break up with someone, [of] never wanting to see them again, you probably shouldn’t date someone at work.” 

Angela, who worked in customer service for a subscription business at the time of her office romance, said her experience made her not recommend it to anyone else. Angela “didn’t want a reputation at work,” so she and her co-worker kept their romance quiet, but the relationship soured after she learned he was already dating someone else long-distance. Even though the romantic relationship ended, the professional one had to continue, and that was hard.

“I couldn’t stand being there sitting with the man who lied and used me,” Angela said. “I kept my mouth shut around my other co-workers about it, but found I would make snarky comments about him sometimes. I ended up leaving the job due to the travel time, but it was a huge relief.” 

When relationships end, employees can face a tough decision: Keep their job or be forced to work with someone they dated and now hate. Six percent of workers in a CareerBuilder survey said they left a job after a romantic relationship with a colleague went bad. 

Don’t talk about your romance at work. 

When you date colleagues, your personal business can become everyone’s business. As HuffPost reader Mary wrote to us, “I once told a newly-divorced guy friend who wanted to date a co-worker, ‘If you dump her, every girl in the office will know how big (or little) your penis is and how long you last!’”

Discussing romantic prospects at work can be an invitation for your colleagues to analyze your personal life. Talking about office romance at the office “opens the door to boundary violations,” Orbé-Austin said. “Keep the boundaries up from the very beginning. Even if you have feelings for this person, don’t be sharing them with co-workers.” 

Office romance stories are not neutral topics for watercooler conversations, either. Orbé-Austin said that when you share a story about your office romance, you are also inviting your co-worker to think, “OK, how is this going to impact me?”  

As these carefully negotiated conversations highlight, workplace romances take time and effort to work for everyone to feel like they are getting fair treatment. Of course, if you want to avoid going through these mental hoops, you can always choose to avoid dating co-workers altogether. Or as one HuffPost reader advised us, “Don’t get your honey where you make your money.” 

An Indian Muslim woman shows her indelible ink-marked finger after casting her vote outside a polling station on Feb. 8 in Delhi, India.

The Ba Yi aerobatics team from China’s Army Air Force perform an aerial display with J-10 fighter jets during the media preview for the Singapore Airshow on Feb. 9.

Robyn Peoples (left) and Sharni Edwards kiss as they pose for photographs after becoming the first same-sex couple to get married in Northern Ireland. The ceremony was held in Carrickfergus, north of Belfast, on Feb. 11.

Nacho Libre wrestlers perform during the Lucha Vavoom ‘Valentines Day’ show at the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles on Feb. 12.

A man stands on the edge of a seawall during Storm Ciara in Harlingen, The Netherlands, on Feb.  9. The storm was marked by unusually high winds across Europe, causing many countries to cancel national and international sporting events.

Writer-director Bong Joon Ho had his hands full after the 92nd Annual Academy Awards show in Los Angeles on Feb. 9. His film “Parasite” won the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film.

German Firat Arslan recoils from a punch thrown by South African Kevin Lerena during their IBO World Championship Cruiserweight title fight in Goeppingen, Germany, on Feb. 8. Lerena, the reigning champion in the division, won in 6 rounds.

Two migrants are pictured on board the Spanish NGO Maydayterraneo’s Aita Mari rescue boat on Feb. 10, a day after their rescue off the Libyan coast. 

Kai Lenny of Hawaii rides a wave during a surfing competition at Praia do Norte in Nazaré, Portugal, on Feb. 11.

Buddhist monks take their places before prayers during Makha Bucha celebrations at Wat Dhammakaya temple in Bangkok on Feb. 8.

South Korea’s You Young performs during the gala exhibition at the International Skating Union’s Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Seoul, South Korea, on Feb. 9.

A model presents a creation from the Marc Jacobs Fall/Winter 2020 collection during New York Fashion Week on Feb. 12.

By the time you read this, Vir Das, arguably one of the most successful Indian comics, would perhaps be in Cambridge, touring his next comedy special, simply called ‘Loved.’ From Cambridge, he moves to Vancouver, Aspen, San Francisco and Arlington, Texas with fresh material that’d probably arrive on our streaming screens next year. 

Das, 40, started off at a time when the conventional idea of stand-up comedy was still watching Raju Shrivastav and Sunil Grover on television. The cool new vocation came of age only a few years ago and Das is credited as one of the early pioneers of comedy as we now understand it. 

A few weeks ago, Netflix dropped ‘For India,’ Das’s third comedy special with the streaming giant. “Think about something interesting because there’s only 6 or 7 comics in the world who have 3 Netflix specials,” a Netflix executive told the Dehradun-born comedian over the phone. 

“That was a pretty daunting statement for me. I googled them and thought if I was in the room with any of the other 5 or 6 people, I’d fanboy my ass off,” Das said, over a cup of coffee at a Bandra restaurant.

Over the next one hour, the comedian spoke about balancing social commentary with jokes, why dissenting at this point matters and, Mastizaade, of course.

What’s the reaction that you’ve received so far on your Netflix special?

This went out to a lot of people who are not my audience. They’re watching a lot of things on Netflix and until this special, I wasn’t one of the things they’d watch. I don’t get very good reviews very often and I’m sure you’re aware of that (Laughs). So receiving so many good reviews on this one is strange. I’ve done this twice before. The touring, the shooting, shit can consume your mind. It can give you serious anxiety. 

Anxiety before you’ve put it out or while you’re still travelling with it?

It takes 9 months to do these specials. It takes 3 months of writing, 4-5 months of touring and so on. This one I directed as well. Once it’s out, it’s out. On a Netflix show, the promotion really starts on the day it comes out. It’s not like a film where you create an early buzz. In the last 3 years, I’ve found a love-hate relationship with social media. Like, this whole thing isn’t making me feel better about myself even though it’s largely been complimentary.

Why do you think that is?

I feel like it’s a hit of dopamine that you get used to. That’s really what social media is, it’s dopamine right? Somebody likes your shit and *ting* your brain fires up some dopamine. And then you start to get a little bit low when you’re not catching that dopamine anymore. This is dangerous.

When a Netflix special comes out, you do it and you refresh and it’s just hundreds of tweets praising and trashing you so I don’t go through them anymore. I have nice people in the office who take select tweets and quote them and say thank you.

Last special I was like “Thank you so much!” and in this one I was like ”🙂 Namaste.” You can’t be wrong with a smiley face namaste.

Does Netflix share numbers or data with you?

No, they don’t.

How do you get perspective on what’s worked, what’s not?

I think you get a phone call and you get another special at some point (Laughs).

In terms of what you’ve done previously, this is more risky and more political which coincides with how shitty the conditions are getting in the country. At a time where news channels have totally failed us, newspapers also seem pro establishment, comedy has emerged as a raging voice of dissent.

Don’t put that on us because then you take away my freedom to be silly.  When you’re feeling something strongly, it’s easier for you to access it and let it out onto the page. 

Whether it’s good or not is for you guys to decide. For this one, I was just feeling really strongly about what was going on. I can start to write any joke but if Narendra Modi is floating around somewhere inside, which he is, he finds his way on the page. 

I had tried to stay away from Modi but then I saw a John Mulaney bit talking about Trump. To most comedians in the world and India as well, the Trump joke or the Modi joke is the easiest one because you know you’re going to get a laugh on the basis of political beliefs. Not on the basis of the joke itself. So we do it, like, 5 times in the show when we need a big laugh. 

I saw John Mulaney do a bit about Trump and comedians in the US don’t usually do Trump jokes on Netflix specials. It’s past its expiry date and sometimes it’s not even funny. But his bit was about comparing Trump to a horse in a hospital. I was watching it and thought that fuck that’s fantastic because it makes such a strong political point but irrespective of my political beliefs, I could be laughing at that shit. 

If you took Trump out, that was a great comedy bit. Then I was like can I try and do something like this? Can I bring a left winger and a right winger into the premise of a joke and then make my point? 

Explain to me the anatomy of a joke. Does it come to you in the middle of nowhere?

So I told Netflix I would do this show in April. They had offered it to me in January. I asked them to give me a few months to figure out what the show would be about. I went in very arrogantly thinking I’d sketch out this universal idea about India but two weeks into the writing process I was like I’m fucked because there is no universal idea about India. Then you kinda go, okay, maybe that’s it, maybe that’s the show. That there is no one of us, there’s 1.3 billion ideas of us. But then, the big question you have as an artist and somebody who has a healthy dose of imposter syndrome in their daily basis is how do I pack in all of this? So, then I took over the Cuckoo and I said give me the club for a month and in the month I did 49 secret shows. It was for my personal database. It cost 200 bucks and no cell phones were allowed. I did 2 shows a day and I’d write material that I had written before and I’d write about Amar Akbar Anthony or the chudail because then I wanted to talk about these two things. I do 40 minutes of material and then I just talk to people for an hour. I’d ask them like, what’s your movie? What’s your tragedy?

And what did you find out?

So then I figured out that millennials don’t have a Dil Chahta Hai. I couldn’t find one, I really tried. I asked if it’s Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani or Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. All of them were like Dil Chahta Hai. 

So you tapped into the broader subject and then worked your way into the specifics.

It’s different when you’re talking about a joke and a special. I started recognising the difference. A live set is a live set. Your job in a live set is to kill hard and fuck off. Stand-up special is a piece of cinema and you have to start thinking about that. There are dynamics to it. The current one is dense. There’s a laugh every 8 or 9 seconds. It’s dense because it’s 4 items per category. Let’s say one thing didn’t work, I can’t just cut it out of the show because I can’t break the format. I couldn’t cut out Taj Mahal or Nirbhaya from the show because I committed that there will be 4 things so then I had to write so many jokes about the Taj Mahal so that I’d get at least 5 jokes right in the final cut.

So wait, the original show was much, much longer?

Yes, I did a 2 hour show. It’s just bam bam bam… Then you’re just trying to fit a lot of jokes in a very short amount of time per category. You then get into the economy of words which I’ve never tapped into before as a comedian. So how can I tell these jokes in the least possible words that can make people laugh? The answer lies in rewriting. That’s what Seinfeld and others do so well. I just realised that I’d never done it so far. This will sound flaky but when you get. ajoke right, it starts to feel like music, at least in my head. 

I’ve a silly question. How do you all memorise all that stuff? Or is there a secret teleprompter?

Listen, you’re an idiot if you are shooting your stand-up special without having done at least 80 or 90 live performances. You need to work this shit before you shoot it. You need to see if it works or it doesn’t. For this one, we did 49 shows. We did Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Kolkata. We did London, New York and then we shot it.

How much of it gets improvised?

Maybe not what you’re saying but how you’re saying it definitely changes according to the energy of the room.

Tell me about the conversation you had with your wife when you decided to go into topics considered ‘risky’

I think Shivani (his wife) sees it pretty early. She’s been at the venue so she kinda knows what I am up to We’ve had two conversations about this. I’ve definitely had a conversation with her where I said, “If anything happens, head to our parents’ house and take Watson with you.”

When I do a joke, I’m scared of repercussions. I’m scared for my wife and my pet. I’m not an alpha comic. But I’m more scared that the joke is not funny than any of those things. That’s much more terrifying. I’m not going to pretend to be some ballsy mofo, like I’ll say what I want to and not worry about it. I will say what I want to and I will worry about it. But when we were talking about it, I was very clear that this show is a tribute and a celebration. No matter what I did I had to maintain that line. I think of this show like, if you have a kid, which I don’t but I have nephews, you know how they draw their mom and dad with crayons and they come home and be like this is for you? Now usually, it’s terrible. It’s always terrible. But the parents put it up on the fridge because the intention behind that is how they see them. That’s kinda what the show is for me. I’m sure it’s terrible to a lot of people but the intention is this, and I’m trying to put our culture out there. So put me on your fridge. Hopefully if I keep that, it’ll be okay.

What do you think is the contribution of art at this moment in time?

Art will dictate how this moment is remembered. Nobody is going to remember who the Chief Minister of Delhi in 20 years, they’ll remember kagaz nahi dikhayenge (we won’t show our documents). I do a joke where I say Vivek Oberoi’s Narendra Modi will last longer than Narendra Modi (Laughs).

It’s our job to buckle down and create art that outlives. India is bigger than this India. We have to create art that outlives this India. I’m clear about the fact that it has to be through art. You have to use your medium, whatever it is.

And what do you do when the propaganda, which has the backing of State apparatus, is significantly more robust?

One could argue that it’s stronger. So we gotta keep on plugging. How long will they fool people? If you watch a magician do a trick a thousand times, no matter how good he is, you’re going to get the trick at some point. I feel like that’s what this government does, it’s very good at misdirection. It’s a magician. Hey, let’s say something outrageous on Twitter today so you all focus on that and then let’s pass this law. Let’s disguise this piece of economic data etc etc. I feel like we’re starting to see how the trick is done.

I am as much a part of the tukde tukde gang as Swara or Kamra or Kashyap. I remember when IT cell trolls first descended. We were all like what the hell is going on? And now it’s a joke. I think we are also starting to be conscious of how much privilege we have. This government has very little repercussions for you and me and very large ones for other people who don’t have the privilege we do. At least I’m starting to feel that. I’m like, oh you got trolled on Twitter today? Boo. Fucking deal with it and write a fucking joke you know.

How do you tailor your writing? Does it change with a new demographic?

No, strangely enough. You have to be authentic and bring in your personal narrative. I feel like the second generation of Indian Americans is fairly well represented. They’ve got Hasan, Aziz, Russell Peters, all these characters. So when I go there I have to bring in an authentic story, like can I take you to India? And they enjoy that from a guy like me. Because you and me, if we would be watching Bill Burr, and if he’s talking about Tennessee and you’re going there with him aren’t you?

But don’t you need a lot of lived experiences which you can mine for, sorry for using the word, but content?

Instead of circling around the same sort of vibe? Hell yeah! I call it scening. Where I get lost in a scene, like the comedy scene or the acting scene. The minute I feel like that’s all I’m talking about with people I just feel like I need to get out and do other shit man.

Like what?

I’ll give you an example. I did an ABC show called Whisky Cavalier. We shot in Prague for 5 months. This is like a spy show with tailor-made suits and weapons etc. So a lot of focus on fitness right. I was kinda living in Prague for that long in minus 20 degrees temperature and at some point I kind of sat back. I love actors and I love being one of them, but can I spend all day talking about protein shakes and intermittent fasting? In a basement of a youth hostel called the ‘Check In’ on a Tuesday, I discover a stand-up comedy gig and I just went in. Ugly insecure people like me? I had found my brethren! We took that Tuesday evening and we turned it into 4 nights a week. I would literally be a CIA guy during the day and then for 20 druggie hippies from all over the world, I’d do stand up every night so I could get out of the acting world.

I would personally want to know about your experience with Mastizaade, an underrated gem.

There’s a life experience that paid off eventually, did’t it?

How do you feel about that today? It’s not a self aware meta movie, it’s genuinely a bad film

But it’s one of the things I talked about and I went after myself in one of my specials. I kind of put it to bed then. But all these people (who acted in the film) are friends and all of them saw the special and we got together and they thought it was funny as hell. We just have that with each other for the rest of our lives. We promised one another: let’s never do that again. We were all persona non-grata after that film for a while.

Why did you do it?

It was a mixture of, “I like these people”, “I want to reach out to this audience” and “this is a lot of money.” The script did not figure any of these decisions (Laughs).

You live, you learn.

I’m still not at a point where I have enough clout or experience or creativity to really dictate the content that I’m a part of. You got to do some for them and some for you. I’m not all for me. So now I’ve figured out that acting wise, if you were going to come and see me do a romcom and it was just me trying to play a fuckboy or a chocolate boy, there’s better looking people who are also better actors, better built and better trained, basically better at everything than me to do that. I kinda figured out that stop playing that game because you’re never going to win. So now I am trying to mix it up a little bit.

About the special, the ending was kind of over the top?

I didn’t have an ending for the show. So my Nani and the biscuit tale of the show is from my childhood in Patna. And you are right, I felt like that ending would be too filmy, it’s a bit Bollywood, I was very torn up if I wanted to end it that way. The compromise I made with myself is I’m going to cut it just when the biscuit drops (Laughs). Now usually when you get a standing ovation you try to capture it from every direction. You milk that shit as long as you can before you get to the end credits. Here we didn’t do that.

Your next show is about love.

It’s doing well internationally because it’s very relatable. We’ve done 19 countries and we’ve got 20 more to go this year. I went to Athens this year. There are no Indians there at all. We had got 500 people in Athens and I would say about 460 of them had seen the Netflix special. We did Trondheim in Norway which was 42 people. I happened to be in Oslo, there was a big show there. They said come and do Trondheim and I agreed. It happened to be the best show of the tour.

Are a lot of these Indians?

No, they’re just locals who don’t even know comedians. They see a comedy evening happening and they check it out. But you’ll learn more from those shows. You get your ass kicked. There’s nothing better than getting your ass kicked by a crowd. You remove the Indian safety net. In “For India’ there’s still a cushion of patriotism and there’s sentimentality. It’s a cushion that you can’t ignore and you can’t construct it either, it’s just going to be there. The minute I say India, you feel a certain way and I can’t control what you feel. The minute I say Parle-G or Nirbhaya, you feel a certain way. I can’t construct or reverse engineer that experience. Now if I take you into unknown territory, you’re probably not going to have a preset emotion about what I’m talking about. That safety net will be gone.

I felt the advantage you had here was also what’s increasingly becoming popular as a trope: weaponizing nostalgia which unfailingly works.

I think so too but on the nostalgia point, let’s say 6 years from now, this government is gone and we’re all happy again. We’re chill, life’s good, gay marriage is legalised, maybe we’ve legalised cannabis as well, maybe women feel safer etc. Will my show still be watchable? As an artist you get one shot to put your culture out and that’s a big opportunity. So I thought let me put my culture out there for a long period of time on platforms before the robots kick in or whatever. I didn’t want it to be negative.

You mean like subverting patriotism by taking the power away from those you claim to be wielding it?

Yes. I’m saying that Amar Akbar Anthony outlives Narendra Modi. Parle-G is more Indian than Amit Shah. So why are they not in my show? At some level they get to set the narrative of what India is. Why shouldn’t we set the narrative for my India? You’re not worth being in my 60 minutes of Netflix special. I’ve only got 60 minutes and I don’t want you to be what I spoke about throughout.

Hmm, the director Todd Phillips said it’s become impossible to make films like ‘The Hangover’ series because someone or some community will be offended, what do you think about that?

The punch up is very relative as well. It’s something that we throw around saying punch up but then my up is different from yours right. This might come across as irresponsible but if you’re offended, so? I’m offended by potholes on the road and the fact that my parents can’t breathe in Delhi, you look at me and say, so? There’s very little being done about those things as well. Now I didn’t come into this with the intention to offend. I just made a joke and offence is taken, it’s never given. You took it and hopefully there’s 10 other jokes that you’re not offended by or you’ll move on to another comedian but at some level I’d argue, so what if you’re offended? It’s your own moral compass.

It’s also about who gets to tell those jokes, who has ownership of certain stories specific to the experiences.

I think so. It’s on you to read enough and evolve enough and form your own moral compass. Mine isn’t nearly as sophisticated as it needs to be. Hopefully it gets better every year. There are parts of Chapel’s comedy that are very problematic. I’m not on board with everything he says but I recognize that that’s okay, for me to not be on board. The purpose of comedy is so that we can disagree with each other and laugh about different things under the same roof.

As long as you also critique it.

Absolutely.

Like I’d rip apart a Kabir Singh and caution people against watching it but I would still defend its right to be released

Exactly my point. Trust your audience. The audience will smack you if you cross a line. There’s nothing that anybody can say about me that parallels a silence from an audience or an inverse reaction from an audience. That’s the biggest teacher that you have. And Ankur, I’m always a step away from being tone deaf and trust me, every comedian is. I always advocate that at some level don’t put a medal on us, don’t put ‘speak truth to power’ on us because forget me, think about a comic who’s two years old into the scene, that girl or boy has the right to be tone deaf. You have to give us freedom to fumble upon these things. Otherwise you’ll be written off year one or two in the current ecosystem. We’re just fucking around man, we’re throwing poop at a wall. Some of it will stick and some of it won’t. 

Indian society has a paradoxical relationship with sex. On the one hand, you have the enchanting legacy of erotic art and the Kamasutra. On the other, you have Cherry* (23). A bisexual woman, the journalist is almost paranoiacally afraid that her parents will find out she’s on Tinder. “My parents are conservative Christians. They would flip if they found out I was dating, let alone having casual sex,” she says. After five years of looking for relationships on dating apps, she began using them only for hook-ups a year ago. For a week, her bio read, ‘Looking for someone to go to protests with and maybe fuck after’.

“I put that in my bio as a joke,” she says. “But then I quickly changed it, because I don’t know who’s out there to screenshot it and send it to my parents.” Her Tinder bio now reads ‘Not here to be your friend’. The hint is so broad, it’s almost funny.

India is Tinder’s largest market in Asia, and multiple surveys have shown that  Indians are broadening their sexual horizons, indicating that their sex lives are getting more exploratory in nature. 

Yet, Cherry, like many sexually liberated women on dating apps, is reluctant to engage confidently with the very hook-up culture these apps are supposed to enable. 

‘Don’t want to be hounded by randos’

“Just the fact that I’m on a dating app is enough for my DMs to be flooded with dick pics and derogatory messages,” says Anamika*, 21, a Kolkata-based fashion-communications student. “If I have to put [an interest in hook-ups] in my Tinder bio, I have to phrase it in a way that doesn’t make me look easy. Otherwise guys get cocky. They believe that just because you’re interested in casual sex, you’re going to be interested in them so they don’t put in the effort.” So she doesn’t mention it in her Tinder bio. On Bumble, she selects the ‘Don’t know yet’ option for the section asking users what they want on their dates.

“Tinder used to be good, but over the years, the quality of people you meet has dropped,” says Cherry. She acknowledges that there is some classism inherent in that statement and declines to elaborate much further, but adds that people on Bumble tend to be “a lot more progressive, and a little subtler. Usually, they’ve studied abroad, travelled a bit, had a little more exposure”. 

Nonetheless, most popular matchmaking apps are designed based on the context that cis-het white people tend to occupy, which is removed from Indian settings and their idiosyncrasies. It’s hard to draw boundaries when men feel free to stalk and approach women on their other social media handles even after they’ve been rejected on a dating app. It’s not just uncomfortable, it’s also dangerous. India, with its “Draupadi-like” gender ratio, is notoriously unsafe for women, and dating apps have not figured out how to keep women safe on them. According to a 2016 US-based survey, as many as 57% of women respondents said they felt sexually harassed on dating apps. And while there is not much data available on the subject, women in India have reported that they were sexually assaulted or had their consent violated on Tinder dates. Many keep their experiences a secret because they know that they will be blamed for ‘putting themselves in that position’.

Poor bedside manner

Tinder saysIndia is its “chattiest” market in the world, with people using the in-app messaging feature more than any other country. Almost all the women HuffPost India spoke to said they preferred to talk to their matches for a few days before setting up dates, or even opening up about what they were looking for.

“I’ve never started off conversations with this, but if it came up, I said I didn’t see any problem with casual sex or having friends with benefits or a fuck buddy,” says Tanvi*, a Dubai-based communications professional. “How men react to that conversation says a lot about their character. The last time I had that conversation, two days after we moved to WhatsApp—and mind, at this point we’ve not gone past small talk—he sent me unsolicited shirtless pictures. Out of nowhere. In the middle of a workday!”

Archana*, 25, a Mumbai-based copywriter, had a similar experience a few years ago. She was in an open relationship at the time, and frank about what she was looking for on her bio. A few minutes into her date with a match, he immediately asked her how many men she’d slept with, and proceeded to give her his ‘count’. “Men feel like they don’t need to show a modicum of respect when a woman is upfront about looking only for hook-ups,” she says. 

From accounts like these, it becomes clear that misogyny, sexism and a deep discomfort with female sexuality are at the core of cis-het Indian men’s behaviour both online and offline.

Disinhibition by design

Paul Anthony, a design researcher based in Bengaluru, posits that apart from the skewed gender ratio of their user base (only 26% of users in India are women), the design of apps themselves could play a big role. “The user interface and behaviours within matchmaking apps are designed for gamified participation, rather than care, in their framework,” he says over email. “Coupled together, these might be reasons for creepy and/or ambivalent behaviour to originate, perpetuate and normalise.”

As is true for much of the online world, dating or matchmaking apps (Anthony prefers to call them the latter) have become grey, private-public spaces that young people of all genders and sexual orientations are using to curate themselves to be in ways they cannot in offline life. “Online spaces also encourage men (and women) to operate with disinhibition and civil inattention,” he says. This is why men find it permissible to be ‘creepy’ or violate consent when granted relative anonymity, and women feel they have more agency on dating apps than they do in physical spaces.

Yet, it is hard for most women to extricate themselves from the conditioning and constrictions of their lived realities.

The shame game

Women have to withstand a tremendous amount of disrespect in India, whether it is on the streets or in the sheets, on a daily basis. That alone is enough to deter them from enjoying being in public, leave alone celebrating their sexuality. 

“When men are open about looking only for casual sex, I feel relieved but also a bit wary,” says Archana, who spent a few minutes looking for space out of her mother’s earshot to tell me this on the phone. “And even though I know better, it still feels wrong to be on the app, and I also feel worried.”  

Neha Bhat, atrauma-informed art therapist, artist and counsellor who runs the Instagram account indiansextherapist, breaks down why women like Archana might be feeling this way. “Indian women, in general, are conditioned to be indirect about their personal needs. Speaking for others, speaking as a family, putting the role of a wife, a daughter or a sister first are more comfortable social behaviour norms,” she says.

Her typical clients are middle-class, highly educated women in their mid to late 30s who live alone in Indian metropolises. While the topic of sex and sexuality generally seen as taboo, Bhat feels every person of every gender stands to benefit from some sort of personal exploration of what their sexuality means to them.

“A large aspect of a healthy sexuality is being able to connect to one’s sense of agency, which includes not only knowing what good touch feels like, but experimenting with different types of sexual pleasure, and being comfortable advocating for them. Indian women’s fears around being open about their sexual preferences is not a personal failing but a systemic one. We punish women for stepping out of the roles we have designated for them. As a society, we don’t have many support systems for women to put themselves and their sense of pleasure first,” she says.

At this confluence of multitudinous anxieties, ‘casual’ sex is often bereft of the breezy nonchalance that the term implies, even though it is just a swipe  away.   

*Names changed to protect privacy

NEW DELHI—Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal took oath as the chief minister of Delhi for a third time at the Ramlila Maidan on Sunday noon.

“This is a win for every citizen of Delhi,” he said. “I am the Chief Minister of people who voted for Aam Aadmi Party, Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party and other parties as well. Election is over. I am the Chief Minister of all 2 crore people of Delhi.”

Referring to the Bharatiya Janata Party politicians calling him as “terrorist”, Kejriwal said, “We have pardoned the opposition parties for the name calling they indulged in against us. We want to work with all parties for the development of Delhi.” 

Notably, he also stated that wants the “blessing” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for the development of Delhi. He mentioned that Modi was invited for the swearing in and made it clear that he wants to take a clean break from the past where his relations with the centre were marked by severe acrimony. 

The third time Delhi Chief Minister said the election result had inaugurated a “new politics of work” in which carrying out development activities like building schools, hospitals, among other things, would win elections and popular support from voters.  

What differentiated this oath taking ceremony from the last one in 2015 was the presence of a bunch of “ordinary” citizens of the national capital on one side of the stage in a special sitting area who Kejriwal referred to as the “makers of Delhi”. These people included a woman metro driver, a teacher and similar people who contribute in their small but significant way to Delhi. 

 He also noted criticism that “Kejriwal is making everything free” and said it would be a shame if he sought fees from school kids and patients in government hospitals. 

Besides Kejriwal, other AAP leaders including Manish Sisodia, Gopal Rai, Satyendar Jain, Kailash Gahlot, Imran Hussain and Rajendra Pal Gautam also took oath. It appears that their portfolios will remain unchanged as Kejriwal seeks to maintain continuity of his government’s agenda.  

The AAP won 62 seats in the recently concluded assembly election and the BJP eight. 

NEW DELHI—A 49 second CCTV video clip released by the Jamia Millia Islamia Co-ordination Committee late on Saturday on social media appears to show that the Delhi Police officials entered the library of the Jamia Millia Islamia university library, assaulted students without any provocation and took them in custody.

The video is dated 15 December when the Jamia locality witnessed violence during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, with protestors accusing the police of excesses and violent crackdown even on those protesting peacefully. While the Police pointed towards protestors, accusing them of indulging in violence, the latest video appears to bolster the claim made by protestors about the Delhi police’s unprovoked violence against them. HuffPost India has been unable to verify the authenticity of the video.

In an interview with HuffPost India within hours of the violence, Aam Aadmi Party MLA Amanatullah Khan, who led the effort to get students from the Jamia Millia Islamia university out of police custody on December 15 and 16, said, “The way in which the police entered the university premises, attacked boys and girls studying there, is wrong. It cannot be tolerated. There should be a judicial inquiry into this, And whoever is faulty should be revealed.”   

Shockingly, Khan also said that students told him that officials of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) against  “The CRPF soldiers also behaved roughly with them. Apart from beating them up, they also told the students, “Modi is doing right. Why are you protesting?” They beat up those students relatively more, who had a beard. They also beat up a Maulana,” he claimed. 

Regarding the latest video, a representative of the co-ordination committee told HuffPost India that a detailed statement regarding this video will be released on Sunday. This report will be updated once the statement is issued.

The Delhi Police, on its part, said it will “investigate it”. It remains unclear if it meant investigation of its own officers’ conduct or the authenticity of the video or both. 

You’re reading How To Get Off, our series celebrating bodies, pleasure and fantasy.

I’ve always had a limitless imagination. In school I wrote poetry, short stories, comics, essays, and more. I was a performer too and, by all accounts, fairly confident in my penchant for the odd and alternative. In short, I was a bona fide ‘weirdo’ – but a shy one at that. 

I’m naturally soft-spoken, and it’s hindered me a great deal in life: whether it’s as simple as a flushed face over having to repeat myself multiple times, or, even worse, the assumption I’m being outright ignored, not realising that the person whose attention I was trying to get simply couldn’t hear me. Oftentimes I prefer to just keep to myself rather than make an awkward at best and humiliating at worst attempt to be heard.

By the age of eighteen, I’d naturally begun to develop a healthy interest in sex. And then, on the evening of my eighteenth birthday, my interest in the world of fetish and BDSM was piqued when I visited my first goth club. This – coupled with my activity in a midnight shadow cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – was my gateway into the kink lifestyle. 

But where to begin? How could I express my curiosities and my desires in a healthy and dignified way?  I knew I wanted to explore deeper into the world of sex and fetish and discovering my own sexuality but I didn’t know how to go about it. I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted. That first night at the club I had to make a friend come with me to help speak to a dom with whom I was interested in playing – I was simply too scared to speak up for myself.

As I began to get curious about pornography and erotica, I found that not everything out there suited my unique tastes. Like many others, I was frustrated by the lack of content that catered to my particular desires, fetishes, and interests. I had begun to learn what turned me on and realised I needed to learn how to experience and practice it properly. The loneliness of silence was both deafening and defeating, and so I fell back on a talent that I was confident in: writing. And I found putting what I wanted into words came easily to me. In writing I found not only solace, but I finally began to find my voice.

I started with pieces ranging from shorts to novellas, even picking up some meagre ghostwriting work along the way. Honing my craft as a writer gave me a new insight into my own mind. “Write what you know,” as the saying goes. And so I did. I wrote what I knew, what I liked, and what I was curious about. I’d blush as I wrote scenes that depicted hardcore BDSM and dominant/submissive dynamics – things I’d always wanted to explore first-hand but had only seen in adult video clips. I’d clam up over female-on-female pairings, sweating as I put myself in the shoes of the characters I created, wondering what it would really feel like to step into such a situation. I knew that, ultimately, I was writing more for myself than I was for anyone else. It’s just lucky that what I wrote happened to resonate with a wider audience.  

More than that, writing erotica gave me the confidence and self-awareness to share my thoughts and feelings with others. Indeed, I credit my writing for playing a large part in my gaining an understanding of my evolving sexual identity as a queer femme as well as a BDSM lifestyler. Every time I would finish a story and go back over it to edit, I’d find myself titillated by the worlds and scenarios that I’d created. More than just my curiosity had been piqued, and I felt inspired to reach out to partners and put my fantasies into action – finding along the way that I’d truly made an amazing self-discovery. It was incredibly liberating to finally be my true sexual self. Though it took some stumbling, awkwardness, and initial discomfort at expressing myself, my putting my fantasies into words was what led to them becoming a reality. 

In my youth, I was an award-winning poet. If there was one thing I was confident about, it was my writing skills; however, I still cringe – to this day, even – at the thought of getting up in front of strangers and reading my words. That’s why I try to do it every chance I get. In the words of my hero, the immortal Carrie Fisher, “stay afraid but do it anyway”. I started submitting my work to websites and publishers and, to my delight, I became a published erotica author, and have even had my stories put in print and made into audiobooks. It’s a welcome surprise to see where my skills as a writer have taken me professionally, but no more than where they have taken me personally. Writing has helped my relationships with sexual and romantic partners to blossom and grow. Being able to share myself through the medium of writing has assisted with having conversations from which I’d ordinarily shy away. It has opened both my mind and my heart. 

I still get tongue-tied and flustered, but writing has never failed to help me say what I want or need to say – in fact, I regularly write erotic stories for one of my partners at their request. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that not only am I doing something that excites them but, in turn, I’m also helping myself express ideas I might otherwise be nervous to initiate on my own. 

I’ve had years of sexual experience at this point in my life, I have gained a healthy sense of confidence as well as a better understanding of who I am as a sexual individual. It’s an emboldening feeling to have found my voice. Writing has helped to break me out of my sexual shell and it has given me the strength and courage to be out and proud in all aspects of myself and my life. Without my writing, I’d be silenced entirely. Everyone’s communication styles and love languages are different and I’m so glad to have found mine. 

I will always speak quietly, but I can most certainly write out loud. 

Deb Kavis is a writer, poet and journalist from Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter at @DebKavis.

Have a compelling personal story you want to tell? Find out what we’re looking for here, and pitch us on ukpersonal@huffpost.com 

How To Get Off is our answer to Valentine’s Day, celebrating bodies, pleasure and fantasy – whatever your relationship status. We’ll be exploring what really gets us off in 2020, looking at sexual awakenings, toys and erotica, and real-life experience.

In the age of Instagram, “self-care” has become synonymous with indulgences like massages, facials, fancy products, boutique workout classes and lavish vacations.

That all sounds great if you have tons of disposable income. But for most of us, spending serious cash on self-care just isn’t realistic. 

“The whole concept of self-care has really strayed from the original intent, and become a meme unto itself,” said Kathleen Dahlen deVos, a psychotherapist. “When I talk with my clients about self-care, rarely am I encouraging practices and habits that cost money. In fact, spending excessive money or funds we don’t have In the name of ‘self-care’ can actually be distressing, destructive and work against our mental and emotional wellbeing.”

We asked experts in the wellness space to share some of the best ways to practice self-care that are basically free. Here’s what they told us:  

1. Spend some time outside.

Take a walk around the block, sit in the grass, hike a local trail or just let the sun shine on your face for a few minutes. 

“No matter where you live, you likely have access to an outside space,” said Tiffany Lester, a doctor. “If it’s not in your neighbourhood, think of a close space you can get to within 10 to 30 minutes. Getting outside and away from our devices calms our nervous system from the negative effects of everyday stressors.”

2. Clean and organise your living space. 

When your apartment or office is a mess, it can take a toll on your mental state, making you feel more stressed, anxious and overwhelmed. 

“For some, a messy or disorganised space can activate their nervous systems and impact mental health wellness,” said therapist Jesse Kahn, director of The Gender & Sexuality Therapy Center. “If that’s you, taking time to clean up your space can be an act of self-care and self-love, and may feel healing rather than like a chore you don’t want to do.” 

3. Reduce the amount of time you spend on social media.

Mindlessly scrolling through your social media feeds for hours on end is not only a time suck, but is also linked to lower self-esteem, sleep issues and an increased “fear of missing out,” or FOMO. 

“Social media and the internet is a great resource to connect, cultivate support and community, but it can also be a place of overconsumption, distraction, and numbing out to what we truly may need in our lives,” said McKel Hill Kooienga, a registered dietitian in Nashville, Tennessee, and founder of the site Nutrition Stripped.

The iPhone’s “Screen Time” feature, Android’s “Digital Wellbeing” tools or apps like Moment can monitor your social media usage and help you cut back. Other tricks that may be useful include disabling certain push notifications, switching to grayscale mode or hiding your most enticing apps in a folder that’s not on your home screen.  

4. Do some journalling. 

All you need is a pen and some paper to get started. Journaling can be a therapeutic practice that helps you understand thought patterns, work through difficult emotions, reflect on certain events or cultivate more gratitude in your everyday life. 

“Sometimes I find it just as helpful as therapy — and I’m very pro-therapy; I’m studying to be a therapist,” said Lauren Donelson, a writer and yoga teacher based in Seattle. “Journaling helps us externalise what’s going on inside our heads, and it helps us to look at our thoughts more objectively.”

5. Get better sleep. 

Making an effort to get the recommended seven to nine hours of quality shuteye can make a huge difference when it comes to your overall wellbeing. Getting a good night’s sleep on a consistent basis offers benefits such as better immune function, improved mood and better performance at work. (If you need some tips on how to make it happen, we’ve got you covered.) 

“Maybe the self-care practice here is getting a certain number of hours a night, not exceeding a certain number of hours, getting to sleep by a certain time so you’re able to wake up by a certain time or creating a ritual to help you calm your body, relax and go to sleep,” Kahn said. 

6. Meditate. 

Practicing meditation is one of the best ways to restore and reconnect with our mind and body, said Tamara Levitt, a meditation instructor and head of mindfulness at Calm.

“As (writer) Anne Lamott said: ‘Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes,‘” Lamott said. “There is immense value in giving ourselves time and space to shift from ‘doing’ mode to ‘being’ mode. Meditation allows us to reconnect with the needs of our mind and body.”

If you prefer guided meditations, you can check out the free version of apps like Headspace or Calm, or find videos on YouTube. And, of course, meditating in silence is another great option that doesn’t cost a dime. 

7. Check in with yourself. 

At least once a day, if not more, take some time to check in with yourself. Pause to assess how hungry or full you are, any emotions you may be feeling or scan your body for areas of tightness. 

“Simply asking yourself the question, ‘How am I doing right now?’ is a gentle reminder to take care of yourself,” Hill Kooienga said. 

8. Move your body. 

It might be dancing in your bedroom to a fire playlist, doing squats in your living room or participating in a community yoga class (which is generally less costly than a boutique fitness class). 

“However, if that still doesn’t fit in your budget, there are many free online yoga videos on YouTube,” Kahn said. “One of my favourites is Yoga With Adriene.”

9. Connect with loved ones offline.

Texting and email are convenient forms of communication, but they don’t satisfy our deep need for connection in the way more personal interactions do. 

“Call a friend, take a walk with a colleague or cook dinner with a family member,“ Dahlen deVos said. “Connecting with others we care for helps to shift us out of our heads, regulates our nervous systems and elevates our moods.” 

10. Invest time in a hobby. 

The demands of work, family and other obligations take up most of our time and energy, leaving barely any room in our schedules for activities we truly enjoy. But carving out some time for our hobbies — even when we have a lot on our plate — matters. 

“Most of us are too busy to make time for activities that are joy-filled and feel nurturing,” Levitt said. “Find a time each week to shut off your electronics, and engage in a hobby that rejuvenates your spirit; play music, write in a journal, take a cooking class. While electronics deplete us, our favourite activities nourish us.”

11. Take some deep breaths.

During high-stress periods, we may go hours or even a whole day without taking a full, grounding breath if we’re not intentional about it. 

“I like to take a few deep breaths in the morning and also throughout the day because it helps me to recenter and connect more with the present moment,” said Jessica Jones, a registered dietitian and co-founder of Food Heaven. “One strategy that I use to remind myself to do this is to take three deep breaths every time I go to the bathroom and wash my hands. It’s easy, free and makes a huge difference in my daily stress levels.” 

12. Volunteer your time with an organisation you care about. 

Choose your cause, whatever it may be, and then figure out a way you can pitch in. 

“Engaging in altruistic acts and seeing our actions make a direct and positive impact in the lives of others is a surefire way to shift your mood and feel part of something bigger than yourself,” Dahlen deVos said. “This can help put our problems in context, or at least give us a break from stressors without numbing out.”

13. Eat more vegetables. 

Aim to put more of your grocery budget toward veggies and less towards ultra-processed snack foods. Then, to up your intake, cut up some vegetables at the beginning of the week and store them in your fridge — that way you can easily grab them when you need a snack or throw in a handful or two to spruce up your meals. 

“Most of us are not consuming near enough whole foods let alone vegetables, which keep us nice and full because of prolonged satiety from the fibre,” Hill Kooienga said. “Vegetables nourish our physical bodies on a cellular level with fibre, minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants, and they can taste really delicious too.”

14. Cuddle with someone you love. 

Snuggle up next to your partner, your child or even your BFF.

“Cuddling releases oxytocin, a feel good hormone, that also helps with reducing stress,” said Lynsie Seely, a marriage and family therapist in San Francisco. 

Pets make great cuddle buddies, too. Plus, spending time with our furry friends has been shown to alleviate anxiety, depression and feelings of loneliness.

“If you don’t have access to a pet, go visit adoptable animals at the local shelter, sign up to walk dogs for a service such as WAG or sip tea at a cat cafe,” Dahlen deVos said. 

15. Say “no” more often.

We often think of self-care as doing something extra for ourselves on top of our normal day-to-day activities. But self-care can also be about what you choose not to do, Seely said.

One way to give a healthy “no”? Start setting boundaries with the people in your life. 

“So many of us are people pleasers and spend a lot of time doing things out of feelings of guilt and obligation, causing us to feel energetically drained and lacking the ability to focus on ourselves and what we truly want,” said Sara Groton, a nutrition and eating psychology coach in San Francisco. “Any time I find myself thinking ’I should do that or I have to do that,′ I take a moment to question and challenge that thought.”

16. Practice self-compassion.

All the face masks, manicures and massages in the world can’t undo the damage of that harsh inner voice criticising, judging and berating yourself all day long. 

If you don’t know where to begin with self-compassion, Allison Hart ― a mental health professional in San Francisco ― recommended putting your hand over your heart and saying to yourself: “I am struggling right now. I’m in pain, I’m angry or feeling out of the flow. May I be gentle and flexible with myself. May I be kind to myself and may I take a break from problem-solving just for a moment.”

You’re reading How To Get Off, our series celebrating bodies, pleasure and fantasy. 

Women are always on, but is this stopping us from getting turned on? If we’re not actually doing something we’re thinking about doing it (washing up or filing our tax return or any of those 3,000 things on our to-do list that aren’t sex).

No wonder our minds often wander when we’re actually doing it. But worrying about gas bills that need paying is never going to be conducive to a good time. That’s because mindset is instrumental when it comes to the female orgasm – not only do sex therapists and sexologists believe this, but studies back it up.

One such study, from 2015, found women who regularly reached orgasm tended to focus more on the sensations of sex and how their body felt – basically, sex mindfulness – compared to women who found it harder to orgasm. A separate study found a link between a lack of “erotic thoughts” during sex and less frequent orgasm.

Negative thoughts during sex are also – perhaps unsurprisingly – a barrier. Among women, the most intrusive concerns cited tend to centre around appearance and, to a lesser degree, performance (no, it’s not just men).

Even the words we use to describe orgasm can play a part in making women less likely to come. “I prefer to think of orgasm as an ‘experience’ rather than something to ‘achieve’,” says sexologist Gigi Engle, author of All The F*cking Mistakes: A Guide To Sex, Love And Life. “The reason for this is pressure – women face enough pressure in every other area of life, so taking it off of sex is a pivotal component in having fulfilling sexual experiences.”

Some women might feel ashamed that they don’t orgasm as much as they’d like – some struggle to do it full stop (this is known as female orgasmic disorder) – but it’s actually a fairly common experience.

A survey of more than 32,000 women conducted by Massachusetts General Hospital found one in five had difficulties experiencing orgasm.

Removing the pressure to have an orgasm is key to freeing them up to happen, says Engle. “Why? Because having an orgasm is as much a mental process as it is a physical process,” she says. “When you put pressure on orgasm, you start to think you won’t have one or you have to have one – and then you don’t have one. Being in a calm, present mindset is key to allowing your brain and body to sync up for an orgasm.”

Switching on your body

Isiah McKimmie, sexologist and author of Epic Orgasms, says getting clued up on practical tips is key to reaching orgasm more easily and often. “Along with our cultural messages about sex, we also receive very little real education about sexual pleasure or get taught skills to enjoy ourselves more,” she says. 

So, the basics. There are two key ingredients to the magnificent cake that is orgasm – adequate clitoral stimulation (the physical) and being in a sexy, relaxed mindset (the mental).

“The clitoris is a huge part of orgasm,” says Engle. “Women are never taught about their clitoris nor are they taught to prioritise their pleasure. We’re taught to somehow have orgasms through intercourse and do whatever we can to make our partner orgasm.”

Some women can experience orgasm without clitoral stimulation. But a study published in The Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy found only 18% of women said vaginal penetration alone would do the trick. That same study found most women liked to be touched directly on the clitoris and cited up and down, with medium pressure, as their favourite way to be touched.

Spending 15-20 minutes on foreplay, especially if this includes deep kissing and oral sex, can help your orgasm along nicely, McKimmie suggests.

But in addition to the physical mechanisms at play, mindset plays an equally important part. Sex and relationship therapist Miranda Christophers says women need to feel emotionally in a place that will allow arousal, in order to get off. You need to be able to fully relax – so if you’re feeling tired or anxious, that might make things quite difficult. The idea is all about letting go.

“While not all women need to feel both to achieve orgasm, most females need to feel psychologically and physically excited and stimulated,” she says.

Turning on your mind

Once you’re clued up on the clitoral logistics, is there a way to get into a better mindset for orgasm? In the words of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally: Yes, yes, yes! Communication is key, says Engle. “Your partner is not a mind reader. They are not responsible for your orgasm. You are responsible for your orgasm.”

Brits can be pretty reserved when it comes to talking about sex. A survey by eharmony found only a quarter of people in the UK are happy to talk about what goes on in the bedroom, with the over-55s least at ease. But plucking up the courage could actually change your sex life – and with two thirds of Brits saying they’re unhappy with theirs, it’s clear there’s some serious talking to be done.

Engle advises speaking to your sexual partner about what works for you, what you need – even telling them you’d like to bring your vibrator into the mix if that’s what you want. “If you lie back and think of England – as the old saying goes – you’re not going to feel pleasure, let alone have an orgasm,” she adds.

It can also help you get in the zone if you engage in relaxing, centring practices in everyday life, she says – whether that’s yoga, meditation or mindfulness.

Best of all, masturbate, says Engle. “Get yourself a high-quality sex toy – I love the We-Vibe Tango and the Womanizer – and get to know your body,” she suggests. “Find vibration patterns and rhythms that get you there. Experiment with external and internal stimulation. Try running a vibrator over your labia.and mons, and your nipples and inner thighs. When you take control of your pleasure and your orgasm, you give yourself the power to ask for what you want and to make your orgasm the centre of your experience.”

It’s time to get off

Next time you have sex, try to focus on the feeling, what turns you on – and nothing else. “Avoid focusing on performance or distractions and instead notice the pleasurable sensations within your body and allow the flow of sexually exciting thoughts or visual stimulation,” says Christophers, who advises clients to ‘fall into’ the feeling of pleasure once it starts. “If it begins by the feelings aroused by kissing, to allow themselves to immerse themselves into the feeling,” she says.

Not every sexual encounter needs a climax. “We don’t always need sex to end in an orgasm. It’s a perfectly valid choice not to, sometimes we can struggle to have an orgasm in a particular encounter,” says McKimmie. That’s okay.”

But harness your power. “The brain can really be considered our biggest sexual organ,” she says. “Our thoughts can help turn us on – or off.”

In fact, our mind is so powerful when it comes to orgasm, that some women can actually reach orgasm through thinking alone, she says. And if that’s not something to aim for someday, we don’t know what is.

How To Get Off is our answer to Valentine’s Day, celebrating bodies, pleasure and fantasy – whatever your relationship status. We’ll be exploring what really gets us off in 2020, looking at sexual awakenings, toys and erotica, and real-life experience.

You’re reading How To Get Off, our series celebrating bodies, pleasure and fantasy.

“I’ll f*** you so good, I promise, I will, I will… thank you,” says an obsequious staffer, eager to please his manager (“ma’am”) as he attends to everything she needs ahead of a work conference. Soon, things get smuttier, and this man begins to describe how his “sexy boss” is pleasuring him. Then, accompanied by audio effects of heavy breathing, licking, groaning and skin-slapping, the narrator describes, not without some imitated obstacles, a sex scene.

I can’t actually see what’s going on, but it sounds like I’m the one being called “ma’am” and I don’t not like it.

Audio erotica is a booming industry, if not in money terms, then in tech’s race to grab the female millennial market this visual-free format is primed for.

‘Yes Ma’am’, the sweetly euphemistic title of this particular story, is hosted on Quinn, launched last year by Caroline Spiegel, the sister of Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel. Her company has raised close to a million dollars and is in pursuit of more, much like sexual wellness app Ferly, which also launched in 2019 and has raised a similar amount. Dipsea is the market leader, after setting up in 2017, and raising $5.5m as of 2019.

While each of these sites produces and hosts different types of audio erotica, others are diversifying their offering. Do You, a relative newcomer, aims for further intimacy with the listener by texting sex scenes over to them. But who is listening and what do they get from it? And how, in turn, does this impact what sort of zero-nudity, highly-explicit, middling-budget smut is being created?

“I discovered audio porn last year and I listen to it about once a month,” says Rachel, 22, from Surrey, who says she enjoys a male voice narrating a BDSM scenario. She prefers audio erotica, in part, because it’s more accessible to stream on a slow connection, telling HuffPost UK: “I live with my parents at the moment and the internet is rubbish, so visual porn isn’t an option for me.”

Accessibility, to a really different degree, is also an issue for John, 31, from the Midlands. He is blind, so, of course, “pictures don’t help me in the slightest.” What John likes about audio erotica, he tells HuffPost UK is that it is “one-on-one, with the reader painting the pictures with her words and her inflection.”

Dr Karen Gurney, a clinical psychologist and psychosexologist, sees audio erotica as a real gift to her and her clients. This is partly because it is accessible to people like John, and partly because it encourages the use of imagination. “Audio erotica triggers arousal and desire, and research shows it does this almost as well as visual porn, and more effectively than reading erotica or using fantasy,” she says. And this is backed up by the research into what turns women on that inspired platforms like Dipsea in the first place. 

Quinn, which is profile-based, allows direct communication between creators and users. “I’m passionate about assisting women to explore and embrace their sensual and erotic nature in a respectful and loving manner,” reads the blurb for Harry, a British male voice on the site, who regularly checks in with listeners on what scenario he should record next. “You come in, throw her up against the wall and show her just how much you missed her,” responds a fan.

Subjects are tagged according to voice, participants, atmosphere and acts, catering to a spectrum of sexual orientations that may or may not match your IRL leanings. What’s more, in an era where we’re oversaturated with screentime, accessing erotica through headphones helps support users’ imaginations rather than override them – and crucially leaves your hands free.

Audio suits a range of people, Dr Gurney says, as “it provides a strength of story which doesn’t take so much concentration, so appeals to people who haven’t found a visual porn that works for them, or those who want to develop their fantasies, making a note of what turns them on.”  

The reason why audiovisual porn can’t do this so well, she says, is because “most mainstream porn can be quite misogynistic”. 

Rough sex is the norm in mainstream porn, with male pornographers creating stories that rarely take into consideration women’s pleasure – or pain. As Rachel explains: “There are certain kinks that turn me on but it’s more comfortable for me to imagine them than to watch another woman being beaten up.

“I don’t think any shame should be attached to visual porn,” she adds, “but I feel it a lot less when I’m listening to audio. It just feels a bit healthier.”

Anna, 27, from London feels similarly. She listens to women’s voices narrating heterosexual sexual scenarios on Dipsea about twice a week, and remembers that when she used to try visual porn, “I couldn’t understand it as being pleasurable, because I enjoy something more loving and passionate.”

As a survivor of sexual violence, she adds: “Seeing someone in pain isn’t conducive to me enjoying myself.”

It sits uncomfortably with me when John admits that he enjoys “nonconsent” and “violence” in his audio erotica because I’m not keen on either being fetishised, but I also appreciate that audio porn depicting these themes is far further from their actuality than visual porn. 

There’s an important discussion to be had about how violence in porn impacts real-life sexual behaviours. Regardless of how you feel about this debate, at time where more people are considering where their other pleasures in life – food, clothes, travel – come from, ethical porn is something many users are looking out for.

The obstacle to pursuing ethical porn, explains Dr Gurney, is often price. “The problem of porn is you have to pay for it to get good quality.” Audio erotica, however, is relatively cheap to make. GirlOnTheNet, who started off writing erotic stories, is now an independent audio erotica producer, using Patreon so her users pay for the audio that will often be tailored to their desired (Harry of Quinn – latest story title, ‘Let’s Make A Baby’ – is also fundraising there).

“Initially, it was an accessibility thing,” explains GirlsOnTheNet of her work – in her case, for blind people. “The eroticism gets lost when these stories are read aloud in a robot voice.” But after narrating some of her blog posts, “it took off”, she says. “It seems there are lots of people who would prefer to get their erotica whispered in their ear than read it,” she says. Now, she tailors her content to audio, something which John values over the stuff he used to get from old-school sex phone lines. As he puts it: “Recorded content gives performers the time to edit and include sound effects, which greatly enhance the experience.”

That kind of audio mix will be familiar to anyone with a podcast habit – and, indeed, there are several podcasts, such as Kiss me Quick, presented and narrated by California-based Rose Carraway, that serve up audio erotica, too. 

These days, anyone with a webcam, some genitals and a hand can make porn. But, says GirlOnTheNet, “there are ethics, casting and cost issues with visual erotica that you don’t get with audio.” As an example of good audio, she cites the UK-based Molly Moore, who blogs at Molly’s Daily Kiss and also uploads real-life sex stories to her website.

In a society where those who create sexual content – be it the winners of literature’s Bad Sex Awards or sex workers – are routinely mocked and stigmatised for their efforts, Yes Ma’am’s creator, Anonyfun35 (with his supposed PhD in “Ache Linguistics”) has the freedom to make all of those slurpy, sucky noises and still show his face in public.

The accessibility, imagination and ethical boundaries of audio erotica all mark it out as a valuable prospect for those seeking an alternative to mainstream porn on the route to titillation. And for all these aspects, it carries a certain sophistication. The Hoxton, an upmarket hotel chain with branches across the world, wouldn’t dream of installing the pay-per-view porn channels that lesser hotels are known for.  But the London outpost is teaming up with Dipsea for a limited period to allow guests to dial-in to hear some audio erotica.

While a spokesperson for the hotel explains this is part of a wider programme of “cultural discovery” and “unique experiences” for its guests, Gina Gutierrez, co-founder of Dipsea, tells HuffPost that “audio is special because it’s so powerfully imaginative” – adding that the company wants to make “more beautiful, considered and design-forward choices.” And what could be more beautiful, considered and design-forward than the visuals we create on the canvas of our minds? Yes, sir!

How To Get Off is our answer to Valentine’s Day, celebrating bodies, pleasure and fantasy – whatever your relationship status. We’ll be exploring what really gets us off in 2020, looking at sexual awakenings, toys and erotica, and real-life experience.