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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Taj Mahal. A beautiful mausoleum that in popular culture, in poetry and in cinema, has come to embody deathless romance. Princess Diana on her much celebrated visit to India posed alone on a bench with the Taj as a backdrop just to rub her loneliness in and to make the absence of her spouse obvious . […]
In the Kamal Haasan starrer Pushpaka Vimana (1987), the story unfolded in the suites, balconies and gardens of a five star hotel. The idea was to pit a few ordinary mundane lives against excessive luxury. The idea of luxury then was limited to carpetted rooms, fluffy beds, marble floors and blinding chandeliers. Over the years however the idea of […]
Stonehenge is a befuddling prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England and is one of the most famous heritage sites in the world with its mysterious ring of standing stones. There is a similar quality to sculptor Henry Spencer Moore’s work. It has a dormant energy, a powerful sweep, an organic quality that is of this world and […]
That architecture is an art is understood by few but for a few creative geniuses architecture reflects who they are and their faith in divinity. It is colour, texture, flow, light, space, energy, emotion, prayer and surrender to a higher power. For Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí (25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926)), architecture was […]
An article on Frank Lloyd Wright on smithsonian.com summed up his work in one perfect sentence, “He was there first.” Wright explored the word ‘organic’ as early as 1908 and unlocked architecture and set it free from conventional notions of what a building was supposed to be. He made us see what a building could […]
Housing for all is a challenge faced by every developing country where the distance between the rich and the poor expands by the day. In cities today we see land being gobbled by real estate sharks, countless buildings and mall sprouting up but living amenities shrinking for the poor. The contrast between the gated communities […]
There are many tales, documented and unsubstantiated about Nariman (Nari) Dossabhai Gandhi or Nari Gandhi as he was known as. He was one of the most remarkable creative voices in architecture and an article published in the eighties speculated that he was the inspiration behind Ayn Rand’s best-selling classic The Fountainhead where a brilliant architect builds the precursors of what […]
Ever wondered why disaster movies show iconic architectural landmarks crumbling to pieces? Why terrorist attacks target buildings that stand for something more than just brick and mortar? Why September 11 was not just about a terrorist attack but a terrorist attack on the beating heart of New York? Why 26/11 was not just about […]
Almost five years later..I can still see it. Feel it. The day..a haze of gold across acres of plantation land in Samathur, a quiet village off Pollachi in Tamil Nadu. And I sat in the back yard of the 6000 square ft Shenbaga Vilaasam, a heritage house where time was in no hurry to […]
“Send me out into another life Lord…because this one is growing faint. I do not think, it goes all the way.” These lines from W.S Merwin’s poem, `Words From a Totem Animal‘ are quoted by Frances Mayes, in her best selling book Under The Tuscan Sun which deliciously, sensuously recounts the restoration of a rambling home in Italy and a […]
The houses we live in, we first inhabit in our imagination. I love writers who use their imagination to paint living breathing homes that stay within us long after the books they reside in are shut and put away. I love the gracious Manderley in Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca which is not […]
The public works department (PWD) of Karnataka recently took on a 153-year-old part of the Hampi ruins with a bulldozer. It appears that all we have space for in our country today are roads, malls and housing projects. The architecture of a country in a way is its identity, its cultural capsule and when we deface, destroy or […]