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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Those who filmed themselves proudly as they broke cameras, vandalised property and beat up Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the sets of Padmavati know nothing about the culture they claim to be protecting. So let us begin with a slice of history. With the story of a man who was a devout Muslim and a bhakt […]
Sometime last year I went for a late night show with my 18-year-old and forgot one cardinal rule I have always followed while going out after dusk though it is a rare occurrence. Dress down. Wear a big shawl that hides the fact that though 47, I am a woman still. No flashy neck or […]
There are cities where you let yourself be pampered. There are cities where you cannot help but complain about the chaos. And then there are cities where even though you complain, you still revel in its charm. Its character. Kolkata – truly a city of the lords, that now seems at least two decades behind […]
As a wanderer, I have been to places that have made me squeal in happiness, and others that have silenced me in awe. Places that render me motionless. But at times, I have chanced upon places that have made me experience all of that at once. Kumartuli, Kolkata. Where forms are fashioned out of clay. […]
Even if the rapist had broken through the door and raped someone in the house, the woman victim would have been at fault. At least partially, because “taali ek hath se nahi bajti…” If the rape victim was an infant perhaps the reason would be her parent’s non- belief in god or perhaps her stars […]
Whenever photographer Clare Arni steps on Bangalore’s MG Road, young vendors of cliches flock around her, mistaking her for a foreigner. The moment she starts chatting them up in mellifluous Kannada, they realise their mistake. Only an Indian can speak an Indian language with a complete understanding of local particularities and without a trace of […]
In 1995, I met Bangalore-based danseuse Rashme Hedge Gopi on a routine assignment that turned out be not so routine after all. She was a leading exponent of Bharatnatyam and for years had travelled to France, Germany, UK, Africa and USA, the erstwhile USSR , performing and representing India at prestigious international festivals. And then […]
Statistics prove that India’s potential to emerge as an economic and a socially responsible power in the next three decades rests on the Indian youth. That 47 per cent of Indians are under the age of 20 and 10 per cent of the world population is an Indian under 25 is a common assessment of India […]
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. She could not believe she had missed her flight at such a time in her life. Her wedding was in a week. Most of her extended family had already reached Bangalore. […]