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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I woke up with an unfamiliar feeling that gnawed at me. I slowly recognised it as resentment. Unfamiliar because I, consciously or unconsciously, I have practised not to look back unless the memories are happy ones, or not to look too far ahead for a future that is uncertain, even imaginary. This has helped […]
What should I pray for this New Year? What should I resolve to give up? For me, the answer is the same for both. I pray that I can give up our “chalta hai” attitude. My resolution is, that I will not “adjust pliz” any more. “Tolerance” has become an ugly word. I am ashamed of how much […]
It is true what they say – beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. The scene outside the window rarely changed. Whether it seemed verdant, misty and beautiful or simply bleak depended on her state of mind. Today, it appeared bleak. Maybe it was the old nostalgic songs that brought up memories of the […]
“Oh, can’t eat another bite”, he said. Christmas dinner was good but the main course was disappointing he said. She agreed, there was no gravy! She looked around at heaped plates on every table knowing, just like her, they would either leave some on the plate or force themselves to eat to justify the exorbitant […]
My heroes who I look up to would not be regarded as super human or larger-than-life characters but simple “ordinary” people who possess extraordinary qualities that somehow seem rare these days. In an increasingly cynical country, these unlikely heroes share a commonality that brings back my faith in humanity. In India. Their dignity and self-respect […]
Like many expats I too went through the various phases of resettling back in India: ‘touristy’ excitement, disorientation, annoyance and frustration, gradual adaptation and finally bi-culturality that has now allowed me to find my own sense of belonging in what I still consider my hometown, Bangalore. This is not the Bengaluru I left in 1978. […]
“See, Rani, your uncle has become a face on the wall,” my aunt said with a wan smile as I walked into my uncle’s house and hugged her. This was the first time I was going back to my uncle’s house after he died last year. I’d been dreading this knowing it would be difficult […]
The dreaded day will arrive shortly and I will become 60. How and when did this happen?? “It is only a number,” people say. Well, I used to say it too. But it’s a number with a 6 in it. And I still feel the way I felt when I was 40. Heck, when I […]
“We only hire native speakers.” This was the sixth time I had heard these words. My mouth turned dry, my face burned, and I felt the familiar sense of nausea. My sixth failure! I tried to protest yet again, the words beginning to sound hollow in my ears. I repeated what had come to me […]
Angry and helpless, Lakshmi ran back home as fast as her feet could carry her, away from the screams of the child. Earlier that day her friend and neighbour, Meha, had called her to say she suspected the maid’s daughter had stolen her opal ring. Meha had come out after her bath and found the […]
Christmas Eve. Oxford Circus underground station was starting to get crowded with commuters returning after last-minute Christmas shopping. The people around us were all carrying shopping bags from department stores and toy stores. A couple of women next to me looked exhausted, tottering on their high heels, barely able to stand, loaded as they were […]
Writer Rani Rao Innes pens an insightful three-part story about the need for freedom and the desire for roots, exclusively for the readers of Unboxed Writers. This is the final part. They went early to the station and the train hadn’t arrived. Sipping a hot paper cup of masala chai, Sapna watched the ‘railway children’ running […]