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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Just a few days before December 16, the second anniversary of the Nirbhaya tragedy, actor, producer and activist Dia Mirza was in town. The Uber rape case was on her mind, as were the sexual crimes against young girls in Bengaluru’s schools. She said, “What kind of man rapes a woman… a little girl? This […]
We see what we want or perhaps need to see in cinema, in music, in the books we read, the people we meet. On days we are open to life, we see even the yellow butterfly flitting past the auto, the way a pink bloom falls on a car bonnet from a neglected tree, how […]
One of the most surprising roles Deven Verma did was that of a domineering husband in Gulzar’s Mere Apne. He makes a brief appearance as Meena Kumari’s memory of a man who she feared as much as she loved. Feared because he was unpredictable and almost cruel. And loved because he could give his life for others. There […]
On November 19, Men’s Day was celebrated across the world and promotional videos by consumer companies tried to remind us of the men we could always count on in our lives.Coincidentally, in the season finale of Satyamev Jayate, various participants debated the meaning of a ‘good man’ and how misunderstood the idea of masculinity was in […]
Sometime in 2008, Talat Aziz was singing at a concert when the audience began to request a Mehdi Hassan ghazal. Hassan was grievously sick back home in Pakistan but on an impulse, Aziz called him from the stage and put the conversation on speaker mode so that the ailing maestro could hear chants of, […]
“Film kitni bhi hatke ho, log dekhenge to baith ke hi,” says Govinda’s fading superstar to an author suffering from writer’s block in Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK’s Happy Ending. The hero adds for good effect,”don’t try to teach people the meaning of life after they have bought a ticket for Rs 300.” So the […]
“James Dean was an acting sonnet. Marlon was a planet unto himself. But he needed to explore his gift and fail with it. I always felt success had an adverse effect on him.” So said Al Pacino. The man who grew up watching Dean’s vehement talent. As a young boy who enjoyed acting, he was […]
In the opening credits of MS Sathyu’s Garm Hava, you hear Kaifi Azmi’s lament, “Taksim hua mulk toh dil ho gaye tukde; Har seene mein toofan, wahan bhi tha yahan bhi Har ghar mein chita jalti thi, lahraate the sholay; har shahar mein shamshan, wahan bhi tha yahan bhi Gita ki koi na sunta, na koi Quran ki sunta; […]
For this reviewer, the biggest tragedy in Kill Dil was the criminal misuse of actor Murad Ali’s talent. The same guy who sparkled in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s 2003 hit Haasil with his UP slang and crackling one liners and then never found another role worthy of him. The same Murad Ali who is film-maker Muzaffar Ali’s son and director […]
Along with the records of M S Subbalakshmi,almost every family had them. Saraswati Devi and her peacock, Mahalakshmi on her lotus, Shiva-unusually moustached – with Parvati, holding their children on laps, Sita and Rama at their coronation, with loyal brothers behind, and an adoring Hanuman at their feet. Growing up in a Tamil household, one was surrounded […]
“The point of theatre is to create a microcosm and connect it with a macrocosm so that a story means something to everyone.” Director, actor and theatre doyen Sunil Shanbag is holding forth in the Ranga Shankara cafe between rehearsals of Stories In a Song, the play that played to a full house on November 7. Over […]
Padma Shri awardee, filmmaker, cinematographer and one of the key figures of independent cinema in India, Govind Nihalani has just walked into Bangalore’s Ranga Shankara cafe and a young volunteer is asking him if she can get him coffee. He asks, ‘What kind?’ She smiles nervously,”Filter?” He looks relieved and nods. Yes, he would very […]