Aakriti Mandhwani @AakritiMandhwa1 Twitter profile

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Aakriti Mandhwani

2 months

Excited, nervous, relieved, joyous to share that my first book Everyday Reading: Middlebrow Magazines and Book Publishing in Post-Independence India comes out this summer!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

Heres a gorgeous evocative image of a woman not reading but writing. The cover of Shama, a massively successful Urdu periodical with circulation figures far surpassing any others. Also one of those archival regrets - a magazine I wish I could have worked on!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

A short note on the excellent cover: I asked all my friends about images of women reading from the 1950 and 60s. Devyani Gupta proposed this image as a possibility (a million thanks Devyani!). Contd.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

Here’s another exciting image of a woman reading. The woman’s gaze is averted, with a thin smile as she gazes, almost shyly or perhaps knowingly (or longingly?) into the distance. Reading here acquires sensual proportions.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

Image source, therefore, was unearthed in true mag historian fashion: its from the September 21, 1962 issue of Filmfare magazine.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

Once I saw the glorious image of Meena Kumari reclined and reading languidly (most probably a book of poetry in Urdu), there was no going back. A hunt for provenance began.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

After many months spent in asking film and magazine historians, fans, private collectors and sellers, and joining multiple Meena Kumari Fan Clubs, I finally found the source through a private seller at such a club!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

A creative colourful ad for Rajkamal Pocket Books. Notice the first offerings of the series: Renu's Maila Anchal rubs shoulders with a cookbook alongside an offering titled Vivaah aur Prem (a translation of Mary Stopes' Married Love). Source Nayi Kahaniya May 1960 issue.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

24 days

Monsoon clouds with relaxing women is my favourite kind of Mughal (or any) art.

Ambrin Hayat

@ambrin_hayat

24 days

#Mughals on the #Terrace #Women #Princess #singers #duenna #attendants The #Sun setting in the #horizon and #monsoon #Clouds in the #sky @ClevelandArt

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

A gorgeous caption image of a woman stretched across the bed, pillow tucked under her neck, reading languidly. Chand Magazine, April 1946 issue. Also pay attn to the main topic of conversation highlighted just below in a section titled "Apni Baat".

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

28 days

Read the fantastic The Last Courtesan by Manish Gaekwad today. Gaekwad records his mother recalling the reading lives of some tawaifs she knew-they read Ved Prakash,Gulshan Nanda,Surendra Mohan Pathak among others, fascinating her and how she “learnt to read all of them later”.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

This lovely cover image of a veiled bejewelled woman writing is courtesy @NaTurkNaHindu . The book, Dulhan ki Diary: Suhag ki Aath Raatein, is meant to be a manual for newlyweds. Sumaira and I plan to, ahem, read it a bit more closely to investigate. #Summerurdureading

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

Podcast Episode Alert: I speak about my upcoming book Everyday Reading: Middlebrow Magazines and Book Publishing in Post-Independence India on this very nice podcast on the @NewBooksSAsia @NewBooksLitStud networks:

Aakriti Mandhwani, "Everyday Reading: Middlebrow Magazines and Book Publishing in Post-Independence...

Listen to this episode from New Books in South Asian Studies on Spotify. Everyday Reading: Middlebrow Magazines and Book Publishing in Post-Independence India (U Massachusetts Press, 2024) is a...

open.spotify.com

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@iqtibaas88 Thank you for sharing! This is the image I was looking at just this morning itself. It’s interesting that such images of women reading are ubiquitous in Urdu periodicals but quite scant in the Hindi periodicals (around the 1950s I mean).

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

27 days

Just finished reading (aka risen from a feverish dream) @tweetingayesha s fantastic novel The Centre in a single sitting. Her writing has moved me and disquieted me in the best possible way. The novel is utterly unexpected. Highly recommend.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

Source: Before Nayi Kahaniyan re-enters our imagination as the bastion of the Nayi Kahani/New Story movement in 1960, a periodical with the same name existed in this form in the pre-independence period. This is from the November 1946 issue.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

Tremendously excited for @aampannaa ’s excellent book - can’t wait to read! Many congratulations Kanupriya!

Kanupriya Dhingra

@aampannaa

2 months

✨️ Early announcement! ✨️ Parts of my research on the Daryaganj Sunday Book Bazaar will be published in an exciting new academic format in August 2024. Read the abstract here: @CambridgeUP @CUPElementsPBC

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

My masters thesis student Smriti Verma, currently a DPhil scholar at Oxford, has won this lovely poetry prize! Listen to her reciting her excellent poem.

Oxford Poetry Library

@OxPoetryLibrary

2 months

We had an incredible evening of poetry at our TASTE Awards Celebration last night! The winners are: 1st Prize: Smriti Verma, "My favourite thing to write about" 2nd Prize: @EstelleHPrice "A last meal with my father" 3rd Prize: John Gallas, "ábhar blas"

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

Two faces of science learning in 1920s Madhuri. While one image shows a learned old man pouring over books, the second portrays a young woman operating a (telegraph?) machine surrounded by a ship, flowers and an aeroplane. War here has a feminised scientific face.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

20 days

Particularly irks me when fellow academics, colleagues and even teachers have used this word to just casually group a bunch of literatures together.

P. Sainath

@PSainath_org

21 days

1/5. Never mind the entries thrown up on google search, please stop calling Indian languages ‘vernacular.’ There’s a colonial context to the use of the word in the British Raj – from the older Latin origin: tongues of the home-born slave. #britishraj #language #psainath

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

30 days

Nice thread demystifying academic proposal writing. We need to talk about this more and not gatekeep essential knowledge. I wouldn’t have secured my UMass press contract without tips and tricks from @Aditya_Balasub (who has a fantastic book from Princeton UP).

Dan Semenza

@dsemenzcrim

1 month

Now that I’m set to write a book w/ @PrincetonUPress , I’d like to share a🧵on writing an academic book proposal and getting a contract. Most of us get NO training on this in grad school and the path forward is murky and complex. Here’s what I wish I would have known: (1/)

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

9 days

Bit too existential for my liking early for this early in the morning. I only wanted to download a new Devanagari font didn’t I.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

When your friend does incredible things. So proud of @chitranshoe and team at @newslaundry !

Chitranshu Tewari

@chitranshoe

1 month

📣 Stoked to share that our Newslaundry app has won the Best Innovative Digital Product at the prestigious @NewspaperWorld Digital Media Awards Worldwide! Yes, worldwide, beating not only desi but also foreign counterparts.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

फ़ालसे की जन्म ��ूमि रंग लायी।

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

11 days

“Penelope, once tart as the lemony dresses she wore, loses all spice once marriage to Colin, England’s answer to Alamzeb, becomes a prospect. In a vintage Bhabhi move, she even declares she will use her column, Lady Whisteldown for good. Why? What did we do to deserve this?”

Paromita Vohra

@parodevi

13 days

What's going on with wedding clothes: from Radhika Merchant to Bridgerton and the line from Mann ke Manjeere to the Nooran Sisters new music video in today's #ParonormalActivity

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

This section of photographs of women achievers often recur in the Hindi magazine Kamla, again in the late colonial period. I esp like photograph 2 which of course tells us who the woman was married to but, more interestingly, that she’s been to Europe four times.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

A few weeks ago, somewhere in Dadri, my Ola car and the tempo truck on the left grazed each other. As they stood resolving the issue of who hit whom, a kulfi seller set up shop next to the scene. Both parties partook in some kulfi eating and conflict resolution. Life is a film.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

The May issue of Critical Collective is dedicated to Libraries and Archives in North India. I’ve contributed a small piece on the Madhav Sapre Sangrahalaya that you can read here:

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@devinamehra I talk about Hindi, Urdu and English but through a predominantly Hindi archive.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@SuanshuKhurana This is super interesting, thanks for this. I’ll try chase this link!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

An early 1950s advertisement promising that, in ten days one can learn, among other things, “diet for health” and “Hindu ideals of Health and Eugenics”.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

At our lovely convocation ceremony at uni, with happy colleagues and students. This time I even remembered to get some photos with students I’ve taught and whose research work I’ve supervised!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

The blue stamp on the first page of the landmark Hindi periodical Pratīk prominently states that this copy of the periodical is a gift from the great writer editor Dharmvir Bharti's wife Pushpa Bharti, in “the memory of Dr. Dharmvir Bharti” (1/5)

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@ron_of_kochi July 2024. 😊

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@anant_54 Hopefully more news on that soon!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@Aditya_Balasub Thank you so much for sharing @Aditya_Balasub and for being such an engaged early reader of my book!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

A nice example of an Urdu Ramayana, c late 19th c.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

Many thanks to @lawoqalam for this wonderful image of Geeta Dutt recording in studio. While Burman is in the frame, the joy of reading (in this case, singing) belongs to Geeta Dutt alone.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@nilanjanaroy Thank you Nilanjana! The book comes out in July - I very much look forward to hearing what you think of it. (Also, big fan of your work!)

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

What a nice essay on women reading on the screen. For my upcoming book on reading in 1950s India, it was so incredibly hard to find many images of women reading!

সোহিনী 🌻 | ஸோஹினி | Sohini

@sohinichat

2 months

It's Tagore's birth anniversary--pachishe Baisakh. My essay on women who read on screen, and how many of them are based on Tagore novels positioning women on the threshold between the home and the world: Charulata. Bimala. Binodini #rabindrajayanti

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

6 months

I just had to google “how to tweet” to.. write my first tweet. This is going well. Let’s hope this sticks.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@fried_ben Thank you so much! It comes out July - I very much look forward to hearing what you think!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

6 months

My dear friend @Aditya_Balasub talking about his *excellent* book Toward a Free Economy: Swatantra and Opposition Politics in Democratic India at @ShivNadarUniv .

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@AnilaYousufB This is from a photo taken from a film set (most likely Pakeezah) for the film magazine Filmfare. Sept 21, 1962 issue.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

The semester’s invigorating English dept seminar series at SNU ended with a lovely talk by Prof Tapan Basu on his new book Hindi Dalit Literature in the United Provinces Swami Acchutanand and Chandrika Prasad Jigyasu, 1900-1930.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

By Akhil Katyal.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

brisk poetic exchanges between Dushyant Kumar and Dharmvir Bharti.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@RashVarma Thank you so much Rashmi - it means a lot coming from you esp since the book has benefited enormously from the viva and your comments!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

My voting centre was calm, organised, with drinking water, and the lines moved fast. Delhi, go vote! This message is Imli approved.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@EleanorNewbigin Thank you so much Eleanor! You’ve played a huge role in shaping the work - I’ll definitely write to you as soon as it’s out!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@RadhaKapuria @Aakriti Lolol ya I must fix my Twitter name also because my full name is too long for Twitter. please send suggestions.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@ali_taiyaba Thank you so much my biggest champion! ❤️

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@DrTarana That’s so nice! Did they have their own copies each? Did they leave the magazines around the drawing room/shared spaces? Would love to hear about their modes of reading!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@BooksetcCo More news on that soon!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@shii_vani Thanks so much Shivani! Hope you've been well!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

Having a terrifically good time reading The Hachette Book of Indian Detective Fiction edited by Tarun K Saint. So far a parrot has featured prominently, a care nurse has solved an attempted murder, a detective’s wife is his Watson on vacation in Tokyo. Fully recommend.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@AU_Qasmi Thank you! The book comes out in July - I very much look forward to hearing what you think of it.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@anubmaurya Thank you for sharing! Ab jab aayegi, tab padhke bhi bataaiyega! 😻

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

28 days

@manishgaekwad @RadhaKapuria Yes, absolutely @RadhaKapuria ! The narrative voice switchover, the chronologically ordered yet clipped remembering and forgetting,always offering enough honesty,always with the suggestion of some things left unsaid.And the play of built in/swiftly moving translations.A delight.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@SamiAhmadKhan Thanks so much Sami - my bachelor’s student cited you generously in her thesis on Indian SF!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@iamrana Thank you so much Rana - I’ve just had the best luck and privilege for it to represent my book!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@aampannaa Brilliant! They don’t date their books in the 1960s. Please let me know if you find something from then!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@GreenBowlerHat Thank you! In chapter 2, I do talk about the self help boom in Hindi in the early 20th c and what happens to it in the mid century with Hind Pocket Books!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

Murder in Mahim is a painful example of a very good police procedural novel turned into a terribly bad TV show. It’s a pity, esp since the book is so evocatively written, esp since good Indian crime telly writing and direction already exists.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

6 months

Here's a joyous set caption image from the 1930s. The column was titled “Mahila Manoranjan” / “Women’s Entertainment” that ran regularly in the popular Hindi magazine Madhuri.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@DriftyAfter50 July 2024.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@Asankar Thank you! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on it when the book comes out!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@NiyatiSharma17 Thanks Niyati! It was Devyani your colleague at Jindal who first pointed me to this image! Hope you’ve been well. :)

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@SayedAdeelIjaz4 Thank you so much!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

5 months

smoggy snu.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@sharmavaibhav__ शुक्रिया!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@anandpkrishnan Thanks so much Anand! The rich intellectual life, conversations and seminars at SNU have deeply enriched the writing of this book!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@HermitPen Thank you for this!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@sebanti18 Thanks so much Sebanti!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@shaymas1994 Hi Shayma - thank you! Hope you’ve been well! ☺️

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@BPriyanka_KCL Oh my goodness this is a beautiful cover!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@drcbjee @sohinichat Thank you for sharing! I read this just a few days ago and said the same to @sohinichat !

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@professor_sud Do you happen to have any of those mags with you?

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@chandrica_barua Hi Chandrica so nice to see you here - Hope you’ve been well! Thank you so much for sharing - I look forward to hearing what you think of the book!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@SabynJaveri Hi! Rekhta has a lot of Shama, not a bad place to start!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@MVijay88 Thank you for sharing - please do read when it’s out and let me know what you think!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@NaTurkNaHindu I’m glad! Also please share any and all representations of women reading you’ve come across!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@professor_sud Oh what a lovely memory. I myself remember my nani’s big stash of magazines and detective novels.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

1 month

Not sure if she’s very amused.

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@MaryamShKhan Thank you so much!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

27 days

@tweetingayesha Hope you’ve been well Ayesha! Dm’ed you. 😊

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

28 days

@manishgaekwad @RadhaKapuria Thanks so much @manishgaekwad for your excellent memoir of your mother! The cover is Meena Kumari reading on the sets of Pakeezah, first appearing in Filmfare magazine. 😊

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@Maazme Hi Maaz - thank you! It looks at Hindi, Urdu and English but mostly through Hindi sources. I’ll def share the contents page soon. Hope you’ve been well!

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

@praymurray @roshghosh Thank you so so much for sharing Padmini! ❤️

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Aakriti Mandhwani

@AakritiMandhwa1

2 months

What a lovely review of Heeramandi by @RadhaKapuria .

Radha

@RadhaKapuria

2 months

Thanks to Neelam Raaj for the opportunity to write this. In today’s Sunday TOI. Voices : Heeramandi’s stereotyped courtesan world is a missed opportunity

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