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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In the heart of Kinnaur in Himachal where tourists on their way to the desolate yet beautiful valley of Lahaul and Spiti, often stop by for a breather or some stretch-the-legs treks; there lives an old man. With a finely lined face, a green Kinnauri topi on his head and a Zen like peace surrounding his persona, 69year-old […]
Only last night, I finished reading Lights Out, a brutally honest book by my former journalist colleague L Subramani who has written about gradually going blind at 18 from a degenerative retinal disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa; and this morning I have this sudden desperate desire to speak to him. I manage to get his number from a common […]
Rachna Bisht Rawat, is out with her first book The Brave which has 21 riveting stories about how India’s highest military honour, Paramveer Chakra was won. Here she recounts what it was like to meet those who were left behind to mourn and to remember the unforgettables March 2014 Delhi-Bhatinda Intercity Express, Chair Car I am on my way […]
Editorial note: Rachna Bisht Rawat is out with her first book The Brave. Read 21 riveting stories about how India’s highest military honour, Paramveer Chakra was won. Rachna takes us to the heart of war, chronicling the tales of India’s bravest soldiers. Talking to parents, siblings, children and comrades-in-arms to paint the most vivid character-portraits of these […]
Despite the rotten eggs we’ve been chucking at them year after year, television channels continued to bombard our bedrooms with unbearable nonsense in 2013 as well. The serials were absolute rubbish which is why we didn’t watch them at all. The reality shows were fake and scripted so we’re not wasting time reviewing those either. […]
Hard as it is to believe now, Tarun Tejpal was my hero. Not just from his early Tehelka days when he took on the establishment fearlessly and showed us what journalism was all about but from 19 years back when he was the features editor of Financial Express and I was a rookie reporter into […]
At the Singapore Zoo Splash Pool, Philip – a wet and slippery 300 kg sea lion with twinkling black eyes, – lurks dangerously close. He slowly turns his huge head so that his whiskers graze my ear and bends to peck my cheek. A picture is clicked and the moment preserved for posterity. I can die in […]
To the music of the waves lapping the moonlit sands and Bruce Springsteen trying to keep time with them (from a stereo system), a lean and curly-haired, bare footed waiter is zigzagging his way towards our candlelit beachside table. One can tell he is a little tipsy. And not just from the way his Bermudas […]
Starting a travelogue on Ladakh or La Dags – the land of many passes – is not easy. Where do you begin? With the fat brown marmot with teeth like Eddie Murphy that you startle basking in the sunshine in the middle of a mud track? With the herd of handsome golden wild asses – kiangs […]
Tulfes is the most beautiful village I have ever seen. There are flowers everywhere, fat cats clean their whiskers on wood benches; apricot trees (yes trees) clamber up house walls; goats graze in fenced enclosures, horses neigh under trees, a beautiful church with paintings on stone walls stands sleepily at the corner and there is […]
We hire a nine seater from Hertz at the airport the next day for the staggering figure of Rs 90,000 a week. It was much cheaper when we had checked from India but we didn’t book then and now it’s too late for regrets. The guys flash their newly acquired International driving licenses (Rs 500 […]
Jet lagged and tired after 11 hours of flight, we land in Vienna. It is raining. We press our noses against the window of the taxi that is taking us to our hotel, zipping across the wet roads with some classical music playing softly in the background. It has cost us 70 Euros (nearly Rs […]