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 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 […]
If life came with a rule book, I would be the first one to buy it. It would have been so much easier to go buy a book, with clearly formatted rules to live by in your life, face every setback. A book just like the easy cookbook that dishes out simple recipes! ** But then a cookbook doesn’t vouch […]
In the years I lived in India in my parents’ home overlooking the slums, we would see drunken husbands beating up their wives. Girls pulled out of school and sent off to do housework. Polygamous husbands and their impoverished families. I always thought it had something to do with being poor and uneducated. I was […]
I’ve been losing my footing. It’s like someone or something has loosened up the hardened clay around my root system. Like some unseen force of nature is trying to uproot me. Take me out of my comfort zone and catapult me into the unknown. And I most definitely don’t like it. I haven’t […]
Three years ago, you did not know you would be here reading these words. Three years ago, you did not know the name that would make things go round in your life. Three years ago, all the wrong things mattered. Not the life-sustaining, soul-stirring truth of today. Today’s smells of cinnamon and spice, today’s sunsets […]
Was it yesterday that I beamed at the fact that I had turned 18? I remember standing in one of the corridors of Seshadripuram College huddled with my friends, celebrating a milestone that added an extra zing to the already raging estrogen. I was 18. Yes. 18. Always wanted to be since I was a […]
The winds carry you. To places far and not known yet. Where you will breathe the air I have not yet touched. Or have I? Where you will see sights I have not yet seen. Sounds I have not heard yet, and smells I have not breathed in. You will be away and you will […]
“The only thing in life that’s constant is change.” As cliched as that may sound, it’s the only cliche that’s always valid. Think about it. You assume you will always be with your school friends. After all they are the ones who consoled you after your first heartbreak, whose house you could enter anytime of […]
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. […]
Every tender shoot grows green and withers to brown one day Every flower will be sucked through its tendons and become nothing one day Every pebble was part of a strong rock Every raindrop seeping into the earth was once cradled by a cloud flock The tiny feet twisting within a womb grow old to […]
No Matter What Whether you are upset or sad, whether they are yelling or shouting, in hunger or in pain, for a hug, for a cuddle, mums are the best. I didn’t quite get it. Until now. No matter how much I yell and keep my daughter from doing fun things (eating the chappals, toppling […]
Once in every while, you should remember the things you did and liked long, long ago. When you were younger than you are now. I remember how my first nail colour was a shade of lavender with glitter. And then a shade of blue with little sparkly stars inside. 10 years hence, when I see […]