In 1979, Basu Chatterjee made Baaton Baaton Mein and unobtrusively brought to us the dating and courtship rituals of a community that was till then either caricatured or just overlooked in Hindi cinema. Nancy Perreira and Tony Braganza…
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Matriarchal manipulation in a patriarchal world is depicted unsparingly in Usha Priyamwada’s Pachpan Khambe Laal Deewarein (Now playing on Prasar Bharti). The mother resentful of her lecturer daughter’s comfortable life in her college residence because the younger daughters…
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“Start with hope..always start with hope. We went from being a shitty team to become one of the biggest dynasties in the sport and all it needed was one match to light this fire,” says Michael Jordan at…
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In 1947, my grandparents brought three children and the remains of an uprooted life from Pakistan to India in a train. One of those children was my mother. I grew up hearing a lot of stories about the…
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Three documentaries streaming right now show the ultimate culmination of the Bois Locker Room culture. And what happens when one gender is taught to mistrust its instincts of self-preservation and the other does not even learn something as…
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In Sudip Sharma’s Paatal Lok (Now streaming on Amazon. Co written by Sharma, Sagar Haveli, Hardik Mehta and Gunjit Chopra. Directed by Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy), India’s disowned inhabit the headlines we turn away from. A young…
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“What this country needs is good, strong military rule!” How often have we heard this or similar sentiments expressed by Indians disgruntled by the deteriorating law and order situation and increasing instances of corruption in high places in the country. I’ve always maintained that the people glibly advocating such simplistic solutions should go and live […]
Kachoris … samosas … burfis … laddoos … traditional Indian delicacies that used to be the staple in every Indian home, even if they went by different names in different parts of the country. Today the exigencies of sedentary lifestyles make it inadvisable to indulge a passion for rich food on a regular basis. Festivals, […]
Though technology may change over time, the typically Indian longing to know cricket scores, does not
I have recently been editing papers about women’s empowerment and the plight of the downtrodden Dalit women in the Indian hinterland, and thinking that most Indian women, even in the so-called ‘upper strata’ in metros don’t have it so hot either! Maybe in terms of sheer physical labor and material hardships they are much better […]
Today someone’s driver delivered a tiffin box to my place. My neighbour, who was away from home at the time, called up and requested me to receive it and keep it in my refrigerator for him. Coming back home, he first came to pick up his precious box before going to his own place. Turned […]
We know the old Hindustaani proverb is the other way round: Ghar ki murgi daal barabar. In other words, when cooked at home, even chicken (murgi) seems as commonplace as lentils (daal)—a euphemism for the fact that what is easily available tends to be undervalued. And this is precisely where we come in, with the homemaker’s […]