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Year in review: Ten great Southasian culture stories of 2025

A selection of Himal’s most-read articles on Southasian culture this year

By The Editors
Year in review: Ten great Southasian culture stories of 2025
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From a retrospective on the 1975 Hindi blockbuster Sholay to a personal essay on three Pakistani weddings in times of war, we at Himal Southasian take a look back at some of our most-read stories on culture for 2025.

Here’s our selection, in no particular order:

1. The 2025 Women’s World Cup could be India’s biggest cricketing moment in over 50 years

Photo of India women's cricket captain Harmanpreet Kaur batting as a Sri Lanka fielder looks on during ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2025.
India’s Harmanpreet Kaur at bat in the opening match of the 2025 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup. In 1983, a World Cup triumph transformed cricket’s fortunes in India. This tournament is an opportunity to do that again.

So far, a cricket World Cup has remained just out of grasp of the Indian women’s team. Thrice they have reached a World Cup final – in 2005, 2017 and 2020, across both the ODI and the Twenty20 formats of the game – and lost every time. This year, they had a golden chance to put this right.