Sometimes strolling in a park, Or walking by the sea At times lazing on a terrace, Or ambling in an open space, Be a nobody, a stranger. Don’t mingle. Collect yourself within. Listen to the sound of the waves, The squeals of children playing, Or the din of the traffic moving. See the sky, […]
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Month: May 2015
Mad Max On a New Road
George Miller’s explosively powerful new film, Mad Max: Fury Road is creating a worldwide debate about its utter disregard for the masculine grandstanding its previous outings were known for. But then George Miller is the kind of a director who really does not play by the rules. He can go from the sweaty and steely […]
My Life With Rose And Peter
A few years in the Goan villages have earned a morning ‘hi’ from many households I pass on the way to work. I’ve developed a deep respect for the local lifestyle, with a few years with Rose and Peter, at their Addams Family-esq estate in North Goa. Rose is an enigma, smooth faced and soft […]
Voices From a Forgotten Wasteland
The East Parej open coalmine in Ramgarh district, Jharkhand has left the landscape scarred and ravaged after nearly a decade of mining activities. The communities displaced by the mines and those on the borders of it, live out their days in a cloud of soot. Community Correspondent Basanti Soren’s village, Lopongtandi is a kilometre away from these mines. As […]
Final Untouchability
A frantic series of emails and phone calls impolitely disturbed what had till then been an uneventful May morning at the Video Volunteers office. At a human rights and media organisation like ours there are many days that shake the very foundations of one’s belief systems; this had turned into one of those days. A Community Correspondent was covering […]
Aruna Shanbaug: A Tribute
She was no Nirbhaya…. Not born in the age of fast news; No voices, no candles, no protests, Grieved for her! She hadn’t gone out with a friend; No jeans; no mobiles; No reason for fingers to be pointed! Being a woman, her only fault! Half the world missed her story… A story…. Of […]
Aruna Shanbaug: Death Without Closure
Aruna Shanbaug died this week. Officially. She now merits tributes and a formal farewell though cognitive and full-bodied life, as she knew it, ended in 1973. How can anyone make sense of how the light in her was snuffed out with a dog chain during a rape so ghastly that it rendered her comatose for […]
India Sends Children Back to Work
At a meeting in Delhi recently, the Union Cabinet approved provisions to the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2012. A key revision states that children below 14 cannot be employed anywhere, except in non-hazardous family enterprises or the entertainment industry. But if you state this differently, it becomes clear that the amendment allows […]
Sayani Gupta: The Creative Explorer
Sayani Gupta is the young, brave, literate face of Hindi cinema. Someone who is keenly interested in the craft of acting. The actor who starred most prominently in Tasher Desh in 2012 and recently in Margarita, With a Straw, will also appear in an important role in Anurag Basu’s forthcoming Jagga Jasoos. She spoke […]
Shonali Bose: From Darkness To Radiance
Margarita, With a Straw continues its triumphant journey across the world, taking director Shonali Bose to assorted festival podiums and vindicating her belief in her brave, little film, again and again. In an interview, Bose recounts the loss, the pain and the cathartic emotions that led to the making of the film. The tragedy […]
Bombay Velvet: Inspired Madness
The closest we came to hearing jazz in a Hindi film in the ‘70s, was when Amitabh Bachchan’s dock-worker turned underworld apprentice Vijay, smoked away his foreboding in a bar; and Parveen Babi in a red gown slithered close to him with ‘I am falling in love with stranger’ playing in the background. The film […]
No, A Woman Is Not Like a River
I am not ashamed to admit that Aitraaz is one of my Bollywood guilty pleasures. I watch the film every time it’s on television-Not only do I find it highly amusing but I also find it interesting because it touches upon the fact that males can also face sexual violence. Anyway, as I watched it today […]