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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Freedom is a word full of peril. Because it engages with something that exists beyond the possible, the real, the confined, the limited. Freedom in its purest sense is not a destructive word. It is not about leaving a footprint on someone’s toil but creating your own. A footprint on a path that is only […]
The good thing about cheaper DVDs flooding the market is that one no longer has to think twice before picking up a film. My recent acquisitions include Raj Kapoor’s Prem Rog, Raj Sippy’s kidnapping caper Inkaar, Gulzar’s Khushboo and a few others just for a song. None of the above films are masterpieces from any […]
Note: This is a press release and the byline is only to indicate who has posted this piece.. The Golden Dragon, Germany’s most successful new play, is the second in the six-play Jagriti (A theatre space in Bangalore) Season that started in December and runs through to June 2012. The prolific German playwright, Roland Schimmelpfennig and […]
“Applause begets applause in the theatre, as laughter begets laughter and tears beget tears.” Clayton Hamilton, Theory of the Theatre Imagine a stage pulsing with the sum of all human emotions, youthful energy, scripts sourced from various institutions across the country and an event where creativity and self-expression are celebrated. the event is Histrionica – […]
So the Talwars are back in the dock for their daughter’s murder. Last year, I read in a magazine what they had to go through during the erratic investigation of their daughter’s murder. The account of their misery was written by someone who knew the couple and can vouch for the fact that the good doctor has “gentle hands. What […]
Watching Lasse Hallstrom’s Chocolat always revives me. And turns life into a piece of deeply dark, melt-on-the-soul chocolate. And its not just the luscious imagery of chocolate being pounded, melted, tempered, crafted and moulded into temptation that sates the senses. It just feels so right, this film because like a cup of chilli spiked hot chocolate, it […]
In the early 90s, during the last gasps of terrorism in Punjab, terrorists in a desperate bid to penetrate the social fabric passed a diktat that women will only dress in salwar kameez and saffron dupattas. The argument was that jeans and other visible symbols of modernity were against tradition and culture. The fear of […]
So in a snazzy Internet centre where am sitting and filing this, a young shop assistant asked his senior, “So what happened to that Anna Hazare thing?” The senior shook his head confusedly and gestured that he had things to do. That more or less sums up what has happened if not to the anti-corruption […]
2011 made us bid goodbye unwillingly and sorrowfully to… (Tribute: http://unboxedwriters.com/2011/12/satyadev-dubey-the-resilient-cactus/) Satyadev Dubey who wrote film dialogues like he was unaware of all the cliches and conventions that do not let cinematic characters breathe. And produced and directed theatre with a fierce passion that sought and demanded nothing but absolute attention and commitment from those […]
It is fitting that an overview of this year’s most memorable films should begin with a conversation about The Dirty Picture. This film is a triumph because of three people. Director Milan Luthria. Dialogue writer Rajat Arora and Vidya Balan. Earlier this year, a strident PR campaign pegged Rani Mukherjee’s foul mouthed scribe in No One […]
“Iss daur se sabhi ko guzarna padta hai..himmat mat haar bete..shunya nahin zindagi saamne hai tumhare.. insani rakt ek hamesha behne wali Ganga hai..pusht dar pusht woh behti hai..tum jiyoge tabhi hamari jade jiyengi.. marusthal mein apni ma ke cactus ban jao..yaadon se apne ko seecho, maut ka dar kise nahin lagta par iss dar […]
Lessons I learnt this year… Life will throw both the good and the bad at you. Wear your oldest pyjamas and stay in bed when you are hurt. Go for a stroll or a run, when you can. Remember, you always can. When it is dark within and out, pull back the curtains and let […]