Singer Anushka Manchanda on challenging the status quo, and making “amazing art”
Anuka Roy (MUMBAI MIRROR; January 7, 2018)

On Thursday, singer Anushka Manchanda posted a photo-story featuring herself and a male friend. Seems normal, right? The only difference was, in the photo-story, she wore a see-through net top and put cross marks on her nipples. Over the last few years, various social media platforms have been used to start movements. But, in 2014 actor Lina Esco’s documentary Free The Nipple challenged Instagram to cut down its restrictions on images of topless women. The film initiated the hashtag #FreeTheNipple. Soon celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Chelsea Handler, Rihanna and Chrissy Teigen backed the movement. In India, however, there was no discussion about the same or about the various causes, including gender equality, that it espoused.

For Manchanda, it was a conversation with friend and actress Pavleen Gujral made her think about the unfair censorship women were subjected to on various social media platforms. “It’s not that I want to show my nipple to the world that’s why I am posting it. If I wish to be topless, I will go topless and no one can tell me what to do. If a man is allowed to do it, so should I,” says Manchanda animatedly. However, the idea behind posting the photo-story, which also features her friend and director Navzar Eranee, was not to start a campaign or movement, but a conversation. “I know it is provocative and I may get slut-shamed for it. But I welcome these conversations. If I can change even one person’s opinion, then that’s great.”

This is not the first time that the 33-year-old musician has cocked a snook at social conventions and shone a light on contradictions. In 2016, Manchanda featured in Mumbai-based electronica producer and composer-singer Nanok’s music video Lay You Down along with singer-actresses Monica Dogra. The video, directed by Eranee, showed Dogra and Manchanda as lovers and garnered support for the LGBTQ community. “The more we see it, the more normalised it will get,” she says about the video. When her father saw the video, he commented that it was “beautiful”, she says. Hailing from Delhi, Manchanda’s journey in the entertainment industry wasn’t a planned one. She took part in a singing reality show hosted by Channel V for a lark, ended up winning it, and was one of the members of Viva, among India’s first all-girl pop girl bands.

The band split in 2003-04, and Manchanda, who was never formally trained in music, started getting offers to sing for regional films. In 2006, she made her Hindi playback singing debut with Rohit Shetty’s Golmaal, in which she sang the title track.

In 2015, she made her acting debut in Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses, which ran into trouble with the censors for its bold language and content. While Manchanda loved being part of the movie-making process, she is quite clear about her strengths. “I am an amazing performer. When I get on the stage, I can kill it. I don’t think people call me for shows because I’m a great singer, they call me because I perform well.”

Currently, she is producing music and working on advertisement projects with her brother Shikhar Manchanda. “I want to make amazing art. My music is my top priority right now. And, I think I’m going to be a good producer,” she says.

From left: Anushka Manchanda, Sandhya Mridul, Sarah Jane Dias, Pavleen Gujral and Rajshri Deshpande at the mid-day office. Pic/Datta Kumbhar

Five actresses talk about everything that make women happy, gloomy, emotional and furious
MID-DAY (November 12, 2015)

When five woman of substance — Sandhya Mridul, Anushka Manchanda, Pavleen Gujral, Sarah-Jane Dias and Rajshri Deshpande — visited the mid-day office recently for a no-holds barred chat, it turned out to be one amusing conversation. The five actresses, who feature in the upcoming film, Angry Indian Goddesses, touch upon all things feminine and feminist. Excerpts from the conversation:

State of affairs
Sandhya: The film plays out like as a conversation about recent, critical issues plaguing the country — things that make your blood boil and piss you off. Today, people start receiving threats for posting anything on their personal social media accounts. That is ridiculous. There is no freedom of speech. We are supposed to be a democracy.
Anushka: We don’t live in a democracy. We live in hypocrisy. We are hypocrites. Passing comments at women on the streets is common.
Rajshri: I recently visited an NGO where I met a girl who suffered burns after a random person threw acid on her.
Pavleen: If something pops up in front of our eyes that we can’t ignore, it makes us angry.

Male bashing
Anushka: I don’t know why people are assuming that we would bash men in the film; as if we don’t have a life.
Sarah: Feminism, just like spirituality, is easily misconstrued. Somehow, I find that even though we are progressing rapidly, people need to put things into boxes. So, the general perception is that if seven women are in one film, they must be bashing men. It’s like they don’t have a life and can’t talk about other things.
Sandhya: We love men. We know of a lot of supportive men. I think feminist is not a bad word; it’s just about standing up for yourself.

Avinash Lohana (MUMBAI MIRROR; August 26, 2015)

Pan Nalin's Angry Indian Goddesses will be screened in the 'Special Presentations' section of the Toronto International Film Festival which opens on September 10. Subhadra Mahajan, who has co-written the film with Pan Nalin, Dilip Shankar and Arsala Qureishi, describes it as a film about female bonding.

"Hindi cinema has made many films on male bonding like Dil Chahta Hai, Kai Po Che!, Rang De Basanti and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. So as a rebellion of sorts towards Bollywood, we decided to make Angry Indian Goddesses which is primarily about seven women from different walks of life who meet in Goa for Frieda's (played by Sarah-Jane Dias) bachelorette party," says Subhadra.

She has spent two years researching the subject and then a few more months writing for the film which caters to a distinct female audience in the age group of 14 and 40. "We've kept it as real and spontaneous as possible, at times making spot changes in the lines. The actors too were free to improvise with their character and dialogues," asserts Subhadra.

The characters have grown out of diverse religious and social backgrounds. "We wanted equal representation, so we have a Christian, an Anglo-Indian, a Bengali-Muslim, a Hindu and a Punjabi," she smiles. "We've spent a lot of time building them up, right from their birthday to their favourite fragrance, colour, ambitions and even the loss of virginity. We wanted to make each one of them believable," says Subhadra.

Her favourite character is that of Pammy, played by Pavleen Gujral. "She plays a typical Delhi housewife who realises that her marriage may be perfect from the outside but she isn't happy about it from within." Subhadra admits that despite being a woman, it wasn't an easy film to write. "It was a lot of fun but at times nerve wracking too," she says, adding that there are plans of a sequel. "But for now we're just looking at a November release."