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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It is easy to grit your teeth at the irony of FM radio commercials. One entreats you like Gandhi, to become the change you want to see in the world because when a small change occurs, it could lead to a big one. Like living in a gated community named after an American valley, or […]
Nostalgia has a name. It is Ameen Saayani. For those of us who cut our teeth on Hindi film music via Binaca Geeta Mala (later rechristened as Cibaca Geet Mala) in the 70s, Saayani was the voice that brought it all together. The music of Naushad, Shankar-Jaikishan and SD Burman. The liquid gold of mega […]
Before we get into whether Mohit Suri’s Ek Villain has snatches of the Korean thriller I Saw a Devil, or shades of Jack Reacher, let us first deal with Remo Fernandes. Yes, Remo of O Meri Munni and Humma and countless memories of Goan susegad. So here he is, trying to fill the shoes of […]
On June 27, India will commemorate trend-setting music composer R D Burman’s 75th birth anniversary. Something unprecedented will also happen. For the first time ever, a mainstream television channel will showcase a documentary on prime-time. Pancham Unmixed: Mujhe Chalte Jaana Hai (an unending journey), a national award-winning feature-length documentary on R D Burman will be […]
“Groom her and she will go places. She has the potential to become a biographer someday,” said Dilip Kumar to SS Pillai, the editor of Screen many decades ago. He was of course referring to Udaytara Nayar, the woman to whom destiny would entrust the task of putting together his autobiography in 2004. Over the […]
Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) is walking out of a police station with his black-listed benefactor who has just bailed him out of jail. Ashwini Kumar (Dilip Kumar), a revered police officer and his father warns, “If you go too far on this path..you may not be able to return.” Vijay turns to face him and […]
In Muzaffar Ali’s 1981 master-piece Umrao Jaan, one of the opening scenes featured Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan’s voice as it wove sublime magic with a raagmala, Pratham Dhar Dhyan. And there is a young Umrao in the frame, singing along, wrapped coyly in a white silk dupatta and the poetry, or nafasat (delicacy) of […]
Was it Shakeel Badayuni who wrote, “Sukoon-e-dil ke liye kuch to ehtemaam karoon.. zara nazar jo miley phir unhein salaam karoon, mujhe to hosh nahin aap mashwara dijiye, kahan se chedoon fasana kahan tamaam karoon?” But these words about the urgency to gaze at a beloved face and to greet it, the need to start […]
In The Dirty Picture (2011), she played the hero, the heroine, the vamp and the victim who lives the bitter truth, “Zindagi jab mayus hoti hai..tabhi mehsoos hoti hai.” In Kahaani (2012), she was not just a vengeful mother goddess but also Mahabharata’s Krishna and Arjuna and the mainstream hero with a woman’s body. Someone […]
Like textured tapestries hung in mountain cabins, internationally acclaimed, Japanese American artist Rima Fujita’s works have the warmth of a log fire. They bloom and flow and vibrate like all the colours of nature and imagine what secret gardens of the soul look like. Fairies and transcendent humans and animals co-exist in valleys and meadows […]
Maqbool Fida Husain passed away on June 9, in 2011 and left behind a legacy that is misunderstood by a few but loved and celebrated by many. Many years ago, he was visiting Husain Sankalana in Bangalore and sat chatting with journalists. Bare feet, a long brush in hand, eyes twinkling with laughter. Despite […]
Years ago, in an interaction , Dia Mirza had spoken about how human potential was not always an explosion but a slow release of energy and intention. Even then it was obvious that being a model and the winner of Miss Asia Pacilfic International was incidental for her because she did not seem in any […]