Parul Bhandari
Biographic Data
| ID | 3587326 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Parul Bhandari |
| GIVEN NAMES | Parul |
| FAMILY NAME | Bhandari |
| SIGNATURE | BHANDARI P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities |
| ORCID | 0009-0005-8603-8062 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Modern theatrics of love: Desires and consumption in the Indian middle class
This article analyses class construction amongst the urban Indian middle class, through a novel prism of romantic love, specifically performances of romantic love which in turn highlight anxieties of being middle class. The article explains how a performance of romantic love before marriage is used as a basis by the middle class to claim being global and modern. This is argued by putting forth what the article calls the modern theatrics of love, …
Being a Good Rich Housewife: Religion, Family, and the Indian Business Elites
This chapter explains how the ‘new’ business elites of India create and reify their elite identity, by unpacking what constituents being a ‘good rich housewife’. Here, the focus is exclusively on religious performances and piety as espoused by elites. Undertaking a critical analysis of the role of religion in the lives of elites, the chapter makes four main arguments. First, it explains that grand religious performances of elites are a way for el…
Gender, Marriage and the Elites in India
Scholarship on Indian marriages is vast and interesting, with insights into structural practices and transformations, everyday realities, and maintenance of boundaries and hierarchies of groups. To understand these aspects, studies have focussed on specific caste groups, religious and regional communities, bourgeoning urban areas and emerging class structures. These are rich and compelling studies that shed light on the continued practices and sl…
Dissent with Love: Ambiguity, Affect and Transformation in South Asia
Lived reality of elite neighbourhoods: Geographies of inequality in Delhi
This paper is an ethnographic account of elite neighbourhoods in Delhi. It unpacks the lived realities of these neighbourhoods by studying how elite-ness is both constituted and contested within gated residential areas and other public spaces of Delhi. It argues that elites extend the unequal world they inhabit outside their gated residences by identifying certain public spaces for their leisure activities, especially shopping malls, leaving the …
Sylvia Vatuk. Marriage and its Discontents: Women, Islam, and the Law in India
Sylvia Vatuk has been making rigorous contributions to South Asian scholarship for decades now. Her works have been immensely helpful for anthropologists and sociologists, especially those who are interested in the fields of gender, marriage, and kinship. While her initial research focused on North Indian Hindu communities, over the past two decades she has also shifted her attention to Muslim communities of South India. Marriage and its Disconte…
Pre-marital relationships and violence: Experiences of working middle class women in Delhi
Scholarship on violence against women in South Asia has not adequately brought attention to the phase of romance and intimacy, before marriage, which as this paper demonstrates, is also an important site of violence. This paper locates violence in pre-marital relationships in a larger narrative of modernity in contemporary urban India, especially as experienced by educated, professional middle class women. Focusing on romantic pre-marital relatio…
The making and meaning of relationships in Sri Lanka: An ethnography on University students in Colombo
The making and meaning of relationships in Sri Lanka: an ethnography on University students in Colombo." Contemporary South Asia, 27(4), pp. 571–572
Exploring Indian Modernities: Ideas and Practices
Introduction. Family Realities in South Asia: Adaptations and Resilience
The family as an institution garners much attention in the contemporary South Asian world, raising questions about its continued resilience and forms of change and adaptation. With forces of modernization, advancement of youth cultures, greater participation of women in the work force, and migration, the centrality of the family in the everyday lives and experiences of individuals is queried and piques interest. The four papers in this special is…
Pre-marital Relationships and the Family in Modern India
This paper is an inquiry into a form of intimate relationship that is garnering much public attention in contemporary India, namely, the pre-marital relationship. In order to query the rhetoric of individual agency and “freedom” that often gets associated with pre-marital relationships, this paper explores the family’s involvement in pre-marital relationships of young adults aged 24–31. The paper argues that though pre-marital relationships often…
Towards Sociology of Indian Elites: Marriage Alliances, Vulnerabilities and Resistance in Bollywood
This brief essay explains the nuances and complexities of Indian elites’ subjectivities, which need to be understood beyond the simplistic frameworks of access to capital. This is done through the analysis of two recent Bollywood movies— Dil Dhadakne Do and Shaandaar—that depict the myriad struggles, vulnerabilities and strategies of the elites in forming marriage alliances
Pre-marital relationships and violence: Experiences of working middle class women in Delhi
Scholarship on violence against women in South Asia has not adequately brought attention to the phase of romance and intimacy, before marriage, which as this paper demonstrates, is also an important site of violence. This paper locates violence in pre-marital relationships in a larger narrative of modernity in contemporary urban India, especially as experienced by educated, professional middle class women. Focusing on romantic pre-marital relatio…
Pre-marital Relationships and the Family in Modern India
This paper is an inquiry into a form of intimate relationship that is garnering much public attention in contemporary India, namely, the pre-marital relationship. In order to query the rhetoric of individual agency and “freedom” that often gets associated with pre-marital relationships, this paper explores the family’s involvement in pre-marital relationships of young adults aged 24–31. The paper argues that though pre-marital relationships often…
Lived reality of elite neighbourhoods: Geographies of inequality in Delhi
This paper is an ethnographic account of elite neighbourhoods in Delhi. It unpacks the lived realities of these neighbourhoods by studying how elite-ness is both constituted and contested within gated residential areas and other public spaces of Delhi. It argues that elites extend the unequal world they inhabit outside their gated residences by identifying certain public spaces for their leisure activities, especially shopping malls, leaving the …
Exploring Indian Modernities: Ideas and Practices
Towards Sociology of Indian Elites: Marriage Alliances, Vulnerabilities and Resistance in Bollywood
This brief essay explains the nuances and complexities of Indian elites’ subjectivities, which need to be understood beyond the simplistic frameworks of access to capital. This is done through the analysis of two recent Bollywood movies— Dil Dhadakne Do and Shaandaar—that depict the myriad struggles, vulnerabilities and strategies of the elites in forming marriage alliances
Introduction. Family Realities in South Asia: Adaptations and Resilience
The family as an institution garners much attention in the contemporary South Asian world, raising questions about its continued resilience and forms of change and adaptation. With forces of modernization, advancement of youth cultures, greater participation of women in the work force, and migration, the centrality of the family in the everyday lives and experiences of individuals is queried and piques interest. The four papers in this special is…
Pre-marital Relationships and the Family in Modern India
This paper is an inquiry into a form of intimate relationship that is garnering much public attention in contemporary India, namely, the pre-marital relationship. In order to query the rhetoric of individual agency and “freedom” that often gets associated with pre-marital relationships, this paper explores the family’s involvement in pre-marital relationships of young adults aged 24–31. The paper argues that though pre-marital relationships often…
Exploring Indian Modernities: Ideas and Practices
Pre-marital relationships and violence: Experiences of working middle class women in Delhi
Scholarship on violence against women in South Asia has not adequately brought attention to the phase of romance and intimacy, before marriage, which as this paper demonstrates, is also an important site of violence. This paper locates violence in pre-marital relationships in a larger narrative of modernity in contemporary urban India, especially as experienced by educated, professional middle class women. Focusing on romantic pre-marital relatio…
The making and meaning of relationships in Sri Lanka: An ethnography on University students in Colombo
The making and meaning of relationships in Sri Lanka: an ethnography on University students in Colombo." Contemporary South Asia, 27(4), pp. 571–572
Sylvia Vatuk. Marriage and its Discontents: Women, Islam, and the Law in India
Sylvia Vatuk has been making rigorous contributions to South Asian scholarship for decades now. Her works have been immensely helpful for anthropologists and sociologists, especially those who are interested in the fields of gender, marriage, and kinship. While her initial research focused on North Indian Hindu communities, over the past two decades she has also shifted her attention to Muslim communities of South India. Marriage and its Disconte…
Lived reality of elite neighbourhoods: Geographies of inequality in Delhi
This paper is an ethnographic account of elite neighbourhoods in Delhi. It unpacks the lived realities of these neighbourhoods by studying how elite-ness is both constituted and contested within gated residential areas and other public spaces of Delhi. It argues that elites extend the unequal world they inhabit outside their gated residences by identifying certain public spaces for their leisure activities, especially shopping malls, leaving the …
Dissent with Love: Ambiguity, Affect and Transformation in South Asia
Modern theatrics of love: Desires and consumption in the Indian middle class
This article analyses class construction amongst the urban Indian middle class, through a novel prism of romantic love, specifically performances of romantic love which in turn highlight anxieties of being middle class. The article explains how a performance of romantic love before marriage is used as a basis by the middle class to claim being global and modern. This is argued by putting forth what the article calls the modern theatrics of love, …
Being a Good Rich Housewife: Religion, Family, and the Indian Business Elites
This chapter explains how the ‘new’ business elites of India create and reify their elite identity, by unpacking what constituents being a ‘good rich housewife’. Here, the focus is exclusively on religious performances and piety as espoused by elites. Undertaking a critical analysis of the role of religion in the lives of elites, the chapter makes four main arguments. First, it explains that grand religious performances of elites are a way for el…
Gender, Marriage and the Elites in India
Scholarship on Indian marriages is vast and interesting, with insights into structural practices and transformations, everyday realities, and maintenance of boundaries and hierarchies of groups. To understand these aspects, studies have focussed on specific caste groups, religious and regional communities, bourgeoning urban areas and emerging class structures. These are rich and compelling studies that shed light on the continued practices and sl…
Political science (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Gender Studies (6 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (4 works) · South Asian Cinema and Culture (4 works) · Anthropology (3 works) · Asian Studies and History (3 works) · Ethnography (3 works) · Geography (3 works)