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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Just recently, I penned a post about how parents could do their bit against the Rape Culture in raising children to be more sensitive and empathetic. The Chetan Bhagat tweet saga on Twitter was a classic example to the contrary. Mr Bhagat tweeted, “The Rupee is asking, is there no punishment for my rapists ?” […]
Standing in the checkout-line at a supermarket, I saw an ad for a weight-loss clinic go up on screen. It started with ”Ladies, do you HATE looking at yourself in the mirror? Do you want to be a page three yummy-mummy?” in bold letters with a blaring commentary to match. This was […]
It is interesting how parents teach kids to hate and despise anything that hurts them rather than reason out that this too is a part of life. While I waited for by delayed flight back home, I saw a child -two or three years old, whose legs got stuck in the chair. The kid was shocked and screeched […]
I should have learnt this lesson earlier in life. But it is one of life’s ironies that most Eureka moments come too late. The next best thing you then want to do is to try and save your children all the pain and hurt and disappointment that go with a lifelong negotiation. It is […]
The rape and murder of the young 23- year- old in New Delhi on December 16, 2012, has unleashed the suppressed angst of millions of men and women in India and has led to endless debates and discussions across all media, which are not going to finish too soon, but will die down nonetheless, over time.Meanwhile, rapes, […]
The December 16 horror leaves me feeling helpless beyond words. ** I am an average woman, piecing together my life, bringing up two kids, running a family, supporting a busy spouse, trying to craft out a career and busy trying to realize all my hopes and aspirations. Suddenly the news of the death of a […]
I have been crying. There have been images on the TV, reports in the newspaper and talk on the streets. I understand the anger against the perpetrators, the concern about the victim and the frustration with the government. But my thoughts have been with the mother of the girl. ** Like me, she would have […]
Editor’s Note: This is a writing assignment given (along with the above picture ) to a eight-year old by a parent. He was asked to do a research report on dog sledding and add personal narrative as part of creative writing practice. We post the story, the young child came up with.. My heart […]
And this is why I believe that certain meetings, connections are fated. There was really no reason for me to meet Mary Morgan. And yet, it was preordained that I meet her at a time when am becoming a bit disillusioned with the idea of investing in hope, resilience, love, friendship. I did not know […]
Whoever said women were permitted only one act in a lifetime? Do 20 extra kilos, scars of an invasive surgery, dental implants and some somnolent muscles mean you are done for in this life? Would it be fair to say that you are now past your peak and prime, having discharged your primary obligations of […]
An ideal society should be class-less and caste-less, that is understandable, but is it right or even possible to build a society that has no family structure at all? What would be desirable – abolishing the family unit or a fundamental change in it? Social structures based on Caste or Class are either a religious […]
Most Indian parents follow a religion of making available to their kids all they missed out on. Some go a step further; wanting to give their kids all that they did not have plus what they think the next generation should have. A sport was on one such wish list for our girls. We […]