Tension: Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas
Book discussion with Dr. Nikita Kaur Simpson, Soujanyaa Boruah, Shyam Lal, Amita Baviskar and Jeebesh Bagchi.

Tuesday, 5 May 2026
6 PM
At FICA Reading Room, New Delhi

In Tension, published in March 2026 with Duke University Press, Nikita examines the effects of rapid development in the Indian Himalayas on the minds and bodies of the Gaddi people who inhabit them through attention to the multifaceted state of distress they call “tension.” This “tension” takes many forms: Kamzori, or weakness, in the bodies of elderly women; “Future tension” accumulating in the minds of young girls; or Opara, or black magic, afflicting whole families. Through her long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Simpson follows the ways in which Gaddi people tie this distress to broader structural changes, such as land dispossession and caste, class, tribal and gender inequality, which are growing alongside modernity and prosperity. In doing so, she shows how “tension” acts as an everyday diagnostic of the problems of cultural, economic and environmental change as they shape intimate life. At once a lived historical account, a cartography of care relations, and a multi-sensory exploration of the intimate experiences of atmosphere and body, Tension puts forth a novel theory of distress, that inequality is often determined by who is made to feel, hold, and absorb distress.

About the discussants :

Dr. Nikita Kaur Simpson is a Reader in Anthropology and the founding Co-Director of the Centre for Anthropology and Mental Health Research in Action (CAMHRA) at SOAS, University of London. Nikita’s research is focused on the structural and relational dimensions of mental distress, and the ways in which inequality comes to be embodied in the home and the environment.

Soujanyaa Boruah is a new-media artist and interaction designer working at the intersection of technology, art, education and ecology. Based out of the Himalayan foothills, she has been deeply engaged in grassroots innovation and movements, particularly with pastoral communities.

Shyam Lal is a Gaddi shepherd who continues his family’s herding tradition while also venturing into mountaineering. He has worked as a Guest Instructor at the Regional Mountaineering Institute (ABVIMAS) and as a field researcher/ethnographer with anthropologist Dr. Nikita Simpson.

Amita Baviskar is a Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology & Anthropology at Ashoka University. Currently, she is studying the changing social experience of heat, dust, and rain in Delhi.

Jeebesh Bagchi is an artist and curator with the Raqs Media Collective. He lives and works in Delhi. He is a visiting faculty for the BFA programme at O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India.