ThinkHer

As writers who tries to look into history, we quickly realise that history is rarely a clean ledger of facts. Ancient worlds reach us through overlapping strata of storytelling—scripture, oral traditions, commentary, and later retellings—where myth and history entwine so tightly that disentangling them seems almost futile. As non-historians, we generally lean on secondary sources: essays, translations, interpretations—texts that carry the imaginations, assumptions, and blind spots of their authors. Verification is often impossible; what survives is less a mirror of the past than a mosaic of belief, speculation, and silence. Gargi Vachaknavi is exactly such a figure: part-philosopher, part-myth, wholly inspiring. Illustration of Gargi Vachaknavi made using ChatGPT Roughly dated to between   800 and 500 BCE , Gargi is said to have been born into the lineage of sage Vachaknu and named after the earlier sage Garga. She is often honored with the title   Brahmavadini   (one who...

Natural history, at its heart, is an act of attentive recording. To identify a plant, you must first look—closely—at its leaves, its flowers, the way it branches and bends. You note the shape of a seed pod, the scent of a crushed stem, the soil beneath it. Identification today might involve a field guide, a herbarium sheet, or an app that matches images to species, but the essence remains the same: careful observation, naming, and preservation. These acts of noticing have long been the quiet foundations of science. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this quiet work opened a back door for women into a world that otherwise excluded them. Barred from universities and scientific societies, they contributed by collecting plants, shells, insects, and fossils, often for family members or for emerging museums (check Mary Anning 's work for example). These collections whether kept at home or sent to herbaria or a museum, were crucial to expanding scientific knowledge even though th...

“Who is a good photographer?” we may wonder. The reality is that a good image, a good photograph, is like a beautiful poem. The elements are all set around us. We may have seen them every day, but we take them for granted. When an artist puts them into an image, a poem, a photograph, it brings us an “awe” as we ask why we hadn’t seen it in this perspective, in this grandeur. For a photographer, the camera is the tool. But how much the tool is, is not what matters; it's how you use it. As with words, it's our emotions, patience, perspective, skill, observation, passion, and enthusiasm that come alive. In just a click, a moment in history is seized into a fraction of a second. Never again will you be able to create the same moment. No matter how much you try, it will never be the same. The best photographers find joy and amazement in the finest details in what they see and capture. Their fascination for the details comes alive in the photographs they click too. As a humble beg...

Who can truly be called a feminist when we look back at history? The question is not a simple one, because applying a modern term to pre-modern figures risks flattening the complexity of their world. And yet, to leave the question unasked is to overlook the ways in which women have carved out power, voice, and agency within systems that often sought to silence them. Few figures raise this question more vividly than Saint Hildegard von Bingen (also known as the  Sibyl of the Rhine) , the twelfth-century abbess whose astonishing life and work continue to resonate across the centuries. Hildegard von Bingen from  Hulton Archive Born into German nobility in 1098, Hildegard entered a cloister at fifteen, and from within its walls she built an extraordinary legacy. She became a theologian and visionary whose writings on purgatory shaped Church doctrine, a composer of strikingly original music, and a playwright. She preached publicly—rare for a woman of her time—denouncing corruption ...

 Shit. I must say it feels weird to talk about it—but I’d rather talk about shit than talk shit, right? The truth is, sanitation has long been one of India’s most pressing challenges. More than an eyesore, it has always been a matter of health, dignity, and survival. Open defecation exposed millions to deadly diseases, polluted water sources, and stripped women and children of basic safety. Namita Banka is one of those people who chose to act instead of looking away. Namita Banka, Founder of Banka Bio ⓒThinkHer To appreciate Namita’s contribution, we need a quick look at India’s long and uneven history of toilets. It began with highly sophisticated sanitation in the Indus Valley Civilisation (c. 2500 BCE), where people had private toilets and covered drainage systems. Over time, this advanced engineering declined, and open defecation became widespread. In the colonial period, the British introduced a Western public health model, bringing basic sanitation laws and communal toilets i...