Man enough?: on writer-researcher Deepa Narayan’s podcast, ‘What’s a Man’

With her latest podcast, ‘What’s a Man’, Deepa Narayan explores the various facets of being male today

There are different lenses through which one can view masculinity in India, but one of the more straightforward ones is Bollywood, that reliable barometer of public sentiment. In the ’50s and the ’60s, the typical hero was a stoic figure, coping with his (and, metaphorically, the country’s) lack of resources, never showing a sign of weakness or visible vulnerability. Stoic silence soon gave way to red-hot rage: the era of Amitabh Bachchan and the ‘angry young man’ gave the average Joe a certain license to explode. And now, finally, we have heroes who aren’t afraid to cry: Vicky Kaushal’s famous weeping scene in Masaan and Ranbir Kapoor’s many teary moments across the last decade, are a few examples.