Sunday Exhale: Beat the Heat, Fear vs Phobia, Purple Lips & More

Sit back and enjoy the finest of The Quint’s light reads for the week.

Happy Sunday. (Photo: iStock)

In no mood for heavy-duty reading? Sit back. Relax. Exhale. And enjoy some of The Quint’s breeziest content from our weekly archives.

For Lisa Haydon: 9 Badass Women Who Fly The Feminist Flag High

Women who embrace the f-word openly. (Photo: The Quint) 

In service of young, impressionable minds, here are 9 fantastic female achievers who fly the feminist flag high and proud.

Midway To Boiling! Here’s What Extreme Heat Does To Your Body

(Photo: Nikita Mishra/The Quint)

For all that the human body can achieve, it can’t handle temperature changes. Some degrees hotter and there can be a sudden, unpleasant glitch in your body’s delicate mechanisms which can result in disability, even death.

Over 500 people have already succumbed to the record heatwave melting India. But did you know what happens to your body when you step into oppressive heat for too long?

Fear vs Phobia: The Rationale Of Irrational Fears

Dear fear-mongers, in the age of the internet, phobias are everywhere and often the most misunderstood condition (Photo courtesy: Phobia film still, altered by The Quint)

Actor Radhika Apte’s intense, psychological thriller, Phobia has hit the big screen this weekend. The film deals with agoraphobia – the irrational fear of open spaces. While the trailer made us scream and want to crawl to safety, the fact is that phobia is a misunderstood term.

According to studies, phobias affect nearly 10% of all adults in the world but a lot of people people use the term ‘I am afraid of’ in the same breath as ‘I’m phobic to’ - the two aren’t interchangeable. It is perfectly okay to be fearful of a thing (or four), what is not okay is to loosely use the word ‘phobia’ or confuse it with every irrational fear you have.

Why the Big Fuss Over Kangana Ranaut’s Fees?

Kangana Ranaut finds herself making headlines again (Photo: Yogen Shah)

Did Kangana Ranaut really get Rs 11 cr for a film? Or did she lie about it? Does it matter at all?

Would the same news piece alleging a BIG LIE have been written if the star in question were a male actor who chose to reveal a fee he actually was not being paid?

Starting with Aishwarya, Let’s Have a Tryst with Bold Lipshades

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan wore a purple lip colour at the Cannes Film Festival (Photo: Reuters)

It is said women started to wear lipsticks almost 5000 years ago. 5000 years. Since then, women’s fascination with lip colours has only grown. And why not? It’s amazing how a little bit of colour can really define a woman’s mood. If she’s wearing a shade of burgundy, she is probably feeling like a vixen. If she is wearing a pink, she is in a breezy state of mind. And if she’s wearing red, she is confidently wearing her sensuality on her lips.

Then, what would purple mean?

QRant: Air India Needs More Than ‘Jai Hind’ to Turn Itself Around

Air India’s Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani feels the airlines’ fortunes will change if the pilots say Jai Hind in their announcement before take off. Air India can namaskar or jai hind or even Bharat mata ki jai. We’re FINE with that. The passengers may even cry or have fits of jingoism. But that’s NOT going to turn around the Maharaja’s fortunes.

Raman Raghav: The Serial Killer Who Paralysed Bombay With Fear

Anurag Kashyap’s latest release plays off a psychopathic serial killer versus Mumbai super cop. (Photo Courtesy: Poster for Raman Raghav)

It has been almost 50 years since psychopathic serial killer Raman Raghav crept out of the jungles of suburban Bombay at night and killed to his heart’s content. A thin, scrawny, 40-year-old man single-handedly terrorised the upwardly-mobile city of dreams in the late 60s, by murdering over 40 people in the dead of the night.

Half a century later, Bollywood director Anurag Kashyap’s Raman Raghav 2.0, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the bloodthirsty serial killer, is set to release on 24 June.

Sorry TOI, Women-Only Metro Cars Are Not a ‘Perk’ of Sexism

Women don’t have their own compartment because they want it, they have it because they need it. (Photo Courtesy: Flickr/Chris Brown)

Writer Priyali Prakash blog in Times of India – a response to AIB founder Tanmay Bhat’s criticism of people who say they believe in equality but don’t want to call themselves feminists – got so much about feminism and the everyday experience of being a woman wrong.

5 Reasons Why Arijit Singh’s Letter May Piss-off Salman Khan More

The open letter by Arijit Singh may only end up pissing Salman Khan off even more because the letter looks less of an apology, and more of a whiny plea. Here’s how.

If You Thought Multigrain Bread Was Healthy, Think Again

84 percent of bread and bakery samples collected from all over the city contains residues of potassium bromate, potassium iodate or both. (Photo: iStockPhoto)

If you thought that the neatly-made sandwich with the right amount of lettuce, layered between two pieces of multigrain bread was the perfect (read: healthy) snack, think again.

According to Down To Earth magazine, a new study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has shown that a startling 84 percent of bread and bakery samples collected from all over the city contain residues of chemical food additives like potassium bromate, potassium iodate, or both.

Today, In Wrong Opinion: ‘Sasural Simar Ka’ Actor’s ‘Fly’ Defence

Peak TV, ladies and gentlemen (Photo: The Quint)

Dipika Kakar, the actor who plays Simar-as-makkhi on the show, defends it from critics who call it regressive.

The concept of ‘naagins’, ‘daayans’ or ‘makhi’ does not fall into the regressive space. It is more mystical in nature. The Indian audience has always been privy to the stories of these mystical characters and continue to enjoy them because these transport them to a world of fantasy far beyond their imagination.

Dipika Kakar