The Bechdel test asks whether a film or other work has at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. Some versions also require the women to have names. It is not a measure of quality or of how well women are portrayed overall. Instead, it is a simple way to show how rarely female characters interact with one another on screen. The test first appeared in Alison Bechdel's 1985 comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, where it was presented as a joke in an alternative feminist newspaper. Bechdel credited the idea to her friend Liz Wallace and to Virginia Woolf's writing. It became widely discussed in the 2000s, when many variants appeared.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.