Console sisters

India's female gamers are rewriting the age-old narrative that views women as objects of desire or damsels in need of saving.

- PRITIKA RAO

IN THE ’90S, being a gamer girl was either a flex (“Ooh, you’re hanging with the boys”) or a faux pas (“Ew, why are you hanging with the boys?”). Any interest I expressed in playing Need for Speed or Mortal Kombat was regarded with suspicion. Did I really want to play or was I secretly harbouring a crush? At 14, my curiosity about gaming wasn’t serious enough to earn me a Nintendo or a PlayStation, and if I somehow managed to get my hands on a console, finding narratives and characters that were representative of me as a female player was nearly impossible. I did not identify with a heavy-chested Lara Croft nor did I want my only choices on Mortal Kombat to be a barely clad Kitana or Sonya Blade up against the high-tier Sub-Zero. The only games that were welcoming to women involved cooking, like in Diner Dash, or playing dress-up, like in Barbie Fashion Designer.

During the pandemic, after a long break from my joystick, I beta-tested a game for a friend. The plot was simple: collect coins as you rush through a busy bazaar dodging lamp posts, vehicles and police barricades. After months of bed rotting, my screen opened a portal to the outside world that I felt thankful for. Cycling past the colourful clothes in shop windows and a cart piled high with packets of Bombay Puri while swerving away from vehicles, I was hit by a wave of nostalgia I didn’t expect to find in a simulation. Although the outdoors were closed off to me, in the open terrain of the virtual realm, I was free to go where I pleased.