From the womb to the world: a study of pregnancy narratives by celebrity moms in India

Abstract

This article examines how celebrity moms in India are self-constructing their public persona through their pregnancy narratives. As a form of personal narrative, pregnancy narratives provide important insights into the unnarrated private world of pregnancy and its nuanced experiences. Although pregnancy and motherhood are glorified in India, it is subjected to a regime of cultural control thereby influencing women’s disclosure of pregnancy behaviour and their narrative freedom. Despite being a life-altering event for women, pregnancy experiences and their narrativisation in India have largely been confined to the domestic spaces. However, some recent developments suggest the modernisation of maternity in India and point towards the emergence of a new cultural phenomenon as celebrity mothers through their pregnancy narratives are questioning the traditional beliefs and scientific practices which restrict women and their narrative freedom during pregnancy and childbirth. They are also documenting their obstetric violence, postpartum changes and the alternative means adopted by them to give birth. Through a narrative analysis of Kareena Kapoor’sPregnancy Bible(2021), Tahira Kashyap’sThe 7 Sins of Being a Mother(2021) and Kalki Koechlin’sThe Elephant in the Womb(2021), this article examines how modern maternity is being constructed in India and how it is entering popular discourse through personal narratives. In the process, it investigates how these celebrity mothers, to make themselves more acceptable, subvert the existing discourse of maternity and modernise it while retaining its necessary traditionalism. Most importantly, the article develops an understanding of the role of these narratives in encouraging the performance of maternity beyond the domestic setup.