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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Even before I met artist and sculptor Dimpy Menon, I met her art. On my way to work many years ago, I would pass an art gallery and often see on its feature wall, the doodle of a human figure cradling a lotus. Just a few lines but there was immense warmth in their flow. […]
River as a witness. River as a companion. River as a traveller. River as a habitat. As a purveyor of food. Waste. Faith. Goods. Livelihoods. Memory. Artist, film maker and photographer Bhavani GS has been obsessed with the many faces of Cauvery for years now and decided to travel along with the river “to see what […]
Just another day. I leave office and wait for an auto to ferry me home. A cheque I had deposited on Monday, should have been credited by now, I think to myself. It surely would help. I am listening to music. A ritual to lose my mind that sometimes can’t focus on life or work, into […]
A sword lodged in stone. That is how Francisco Goldman describes a daughter’s love for her missing father in his visceral tribute to his late wife Aura Estrada in his book Say Her Name which is partly a grief diary of a devastated husband and partly a fictionalised account of life after the death of a […]
My first memory of Rajesh Khanna is the song, “Accha Toh Hum Chalte Hain (Aan Milo Sajna, 1970) and of me sighing exaggeratedly like he did in the song. And of listening to his songs from Mere Jeevan Sathi (1972) in an Assamese cantonment and trying to sing, “Mera Naam Hai Shabnam” (Kati Patang 1970) and then […]
It is a bit surreal to hear Kunal Karan Kapoor telling you over the phone, “I have just come home. Let me order some food and I will call you back.” This is an interview that has been in the works for some time and today somehow, after a delay for which he has not stopped apologising profusely, things […]
Mehdi Hassan’s voice was not the voice of populism. His was the voice of riyaz, of uncompromised passion and excellence..the kind you cannot stumble by but have to earn through years of application, commitment and diligence. This voice was not an easy voice to fall in love with, You needed to be all there..ear, mind, […]
Whatever it is that creates.. makes those grand gestures of flamboyant sunsets and a never before..never again sunrise *** star pepper moon ballet perfectly arched astutely timed rainbows *** and small gestures that we almost miss raindrops on lotus leaves like well picked pearls on an open palm reflecting light colour all of life everything […]
Vehmon gumaan se duur duur… Yakeen ki hadd ke paas paas… Dil ko bharam yeh ho gaya… Unko humse pyaar hai.. Rekha and Amitabh Bachchan framed by gregariously nodding yellow tulips. And a universal hope encased in the above lines. And romance as if it was a precious pearl preserved in a velvet lined jewel box. […]
There is no particular reason to remember Hrishikesh Mukherjee today but in the context of nostalgia, of remembering how we were, how simple our cinema was, how moving, how heart-felt, how innocent, his is the first name that one remembers. The best tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee would be to smile in gentle recollection. His cinema was […]
The roots they say must be pulled out for dreams to stop blooming and die but what if the root is a dream? How do you stop a dream from dreaming itself? But yes, dreams are like conversations if you don’t engage.. they die that is.. if you want them to.
A girl was hacked in my neighbourhood two evenings ago. This morning, a girl of about the same age who comes to teach my son, walked in with fear all over her face and asked, “Did you see the newspaper, maam? I walk through the same market every evening after my classes. Yesterday, I saw […]