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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A heroine unconscious of her gender. Someone who stops a Home Minister’s car because, “I will plead no longer.. I ask for my father’s rights.” Someone who sits down her family and promises after relentless injustice has deprived them all of not just their land but their dignity in the courts and police […]
I do not like habituated TV watching that leaves no aftertaste and so am watching it far less than usual and also because this is exam time and I would like to discipline myself before I discipline my son. We end up watching food shows though as he hopes to cook professionally some day […]
Doesn’t a joke fall flat when you tell it and laugh at it before anyone else does, then with everyone and after everyone has stopped? But yes, Seth MacFarlene has an infectious smile. Very.. infact. He can dance. He can sing. Can he host the Oscars? Well, ho and hum. Give us a minute. Also […]
There is a lot of walking in Neeraj Pandey’s Special 26. Everyone walks. While conducting conversations. On their way to and from heists. Sometimes in slow motion to the music of an era that instantly brings back the memories of the 80s. Right from the opening credits and yes, the background track, this film pays […]
“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?” ― George Orwell, 1984 ** Do we understand this simple fact about terrorism and the state-sponsored terror that counters […]
Most people, including yours truly, enjoy horror movies or books. Even though, like comedy, horror is a hard genre to work with and has the highest possibility of finding absolutely no takers in the audience. Then again, there are some formulae that work time and time again, if you get my meaning. I am […]
Not everything is perfect. Nor should it be. There are flaws and cracks and smudges in every work of art but if there is heart in it..people flow with a story, a song, a character. In the last few weeks, following stories about displacement and corrupt governance has alienated me from films and television […]
Guilt today is a global media event. So when Lance Armstrong finally answered the big question about his integrity in the widely televised interview with a, “I’m not the most believable guy in the world right now,” Oprah Winfrey almost brought back her under-performing OWN network from the brink. Lance could have given a newspaper […]
What is the meaning of a republic? Is it a selectively amnesiac entity where bull dozers run over and flatten the lives and dignity and pets and homes and belongings of the poor while builders advertise gated communities protected from the “noise and the pollution” of the big metros for the benefit of those they […]
There are so many versions of him. The Salman Rushdie present at Bangalore’s Taj West End tonight however was someone tangible. Someone who with great ease settled in an uncomfortable chair on the podium, not aware or maybe aware of the discreet logistics and forbidding security measures that had finally made his presence possible in […]
The first time I read Rebecca I fell in love with the book. The haunting, sometimes thrilling, often heart wrenching novel by Daphne Du Maurier made me an instant fan of the author and I have ever since recommended the book to many people. However the other day I saw a cinematic adaptation of the […]
It’s that time of the year once again when we catch up with television celebs who brought into our bedrooms the most unbearable rubbish. Guys and gals, you nearly killed us when we went banging our heads against our television screens. For that you get some new year resolution suggestions that might make us like […]