Aug 16 2026 to Aug 16 2026 3 p.m.

Where

Museum of Art & Photography (MAP)

Kasturba Road, Bengaluru 560001

Event Description

How have the ideals of the wrestler’s body changed in contemporary India? Once distinct, the worlds of traditional wrestling and modern fitness culture are increasingly intersecting. Gyms now incorporate training methods rooted in the akhara, while wrestlers present themselves through the visual language of bodybuilding and social media, cultivating physiques that are leaner, more muscular, and shaped by new forms of visibility.

In this conversation, anthropologist Michiel Baas and filmmaker Paromita Vohra explore the changing aesthetics of the body, tracing how ideas of strength, masculinity, discipline, and aspiration are being reimagined across wrestling, fitness culture, and digital media. Drawing on Baas’s research, the discussion considers what these shifting bodily practices reveal about contemporary India and the evolving relationship between tradition, performance, and identity.

This event is in conjunction with programming for Grip, Hold, Pin. 

Michiel Baas
Michiel Baas is an anthropologist and author whose work explores the intersections of history, culture, identity, and global change. He is the author of Muscular India: Masculinity, Mobility and the New Middle Class, an acclaimed study of bodybuilding, masculinity, and social transformation in contemporary India. His research has also examined migration, artificial intelligence, and the ways people navigate rapidly changing worlds. His forthcoming book with Allen Lane traces the global history of Dutch colonialism through a journey across four continents, revealing how the Dutch empire helped shape the interconnected world we live in today. He teaches at the University of Amsterdam and regularly speaks and writes for audiences interested in history, society, and culture.

Paromita Vohra
Paromita Vohra is a filmmaker and writer whose work focuses on gender, feminism, urban life, love, desire, and popular culture and spans many forms including documentary, fiction, print, video, and sound installation. Her work as director includes the path-breaking documentaries Unlimited Girls and Q2P as well as Partners in Crime, Morality TV and the Loving Jehad, Where’s Sandra, Cosmopolis: Two Tales of a City, and A Woman’s Place; the television series Connected Hum Tum; and several music videos. In 2015 she founded the path-breaking Agents of Ishq, a platform about sex, love, and desire for Indians.

She has written the fiction feature Khamosh Pani (Silent Waters), the play Ishqiya Dharavi Ishtyle, the comic Priya’s Mirror, and several documentaries. Her fiction and non-fiction have been widely published, and her weekly column Paronormal Activity is in its 15th year.