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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The blue waters of Brienz Lake are shimmering in the sun. Expressionless eyelashless cows are munching on some picture perfect green grass. Tulips are blooming prettily outside Swiss chalets. It could be a scene right out of a Yash Chopra film but there is no Shahrukh Khan traipsing across the yellow wildflower covered hillside, eyes […]
The darkness that we had all been waiting for, fell suddenly. With it came an uneasy calm. The pink and orange hues of the setting sun were no longer reflecting off the fast flowing waters of the Ganga, or Maa Ganga as they call her up in the hills. With its daytime sparkle gone; the […]
In the twilight dappled ruins of a crumbling fort, swallows roost; And life goes on Under my toes, the stones burn. It is as if the fire still rages in the underground vaults of Chittorgarh where the beautiful queen Padmini flung herself into the flames 700 years back, along with 1200 other women and […]
Along the western border of Punjab where India ends and Pakistan begins (or the other way, depending upon which side you’re looking from), there lies a stretch of no man’s land, marked off by rusty barbed wire fencing. It hides the scar where a country was once cut into two. Overlooked by the bunkers of […]
It’s that time of the year once again when we catch up with television celebs who brought into our bedrooms the most unbearable rubbish. Guys and gals, you nearly killed us when we went banging our heads against our television screens. For that you get some new year resolution suggestions that might make us like […]
December 1995, 1300 hours, Somewhere in the Western Sector It’s embarrassing as hell. Captain Manoj Rawat (my newly married husband) and I (his newly wedded wife) are standing (actually, wobbling) on a moving camel cart with big yellow marigold garlands dangling around our necks. The regiment adjutant – a short, slim man – and […]
Twenty minutes have passed since baggage collection at Swarnabhoomi Airport. So far, no sign of the Bangkok Taxi man who had promised online to take us across Bangkok over the next three days. Mom’s worry lines are deepening. Mamaji (Col Rawat) has acquired the lips-tightly-stretched “they’re all cheats” look. Saransh,10, is sulking since his […]
They say that if you make the mistake of venturing into the Himalayas even once you are doomed. Because they keep calling you back. Neither pictures, nor words can capture the magnificence of those mesmerising bugyals and towering peaks whose beauty brought tears to my eyes. Hope some of you will read this travelogue and feel […]
Dusk had fallen when short and stocky Lt Col Rajnish Behl, Sena Medal, entered the old stone building with sweeping arches and green ivy climbing up fading brick walls. It used to be a school in British times but was now serving the Army’s need for a Base Hospital. Stepping briskly, he walked down the […]
Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined that driving across a frozen mountain pass at 13,714 feet, one cold, grey afternoon, I would come face to face with a young soldier. Who would teach me a lesson for life. That a soldier doesn’t die when a bullet whips into his head, piercing his woolen […]
Difficult to say sperm (or sparm – as the good Doctor Chadda (Annu Kapoor in an err.. seminal performance) pronounces it), without the mind travelling to where it comes from. All right, I picked up that line somewhere. Yet, here is an entire movie from Bollywood that revolves around the word without making you go queasy […]
Every morning, Nanaji would pull a chair under the old mango tree and with the sun warming his knees; he would wait for a steaming cup of black tea and the Dainik Jagaran to be delivered to him. Scooby, the big black part Doberman (with some mongrel genes that gave him a long bushy tail) would drool silently, waiting […]