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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On the eve of the release of Zoya Akhtar’s second film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, I went back to her debut and the clear-sightedness with which she revealed to us, the industry she works and lives in. It was with much relish that she added, little asides to the bonfire of celluloid vanities in Luck By Chance. The self-absorption of star makers. […]
It has been a matter of enduring mystery to all those who need the melody of Hindi film songs to relax and be less uptight as to why the lyricists short change the ballads of love and reserve their best for the pining that follows betrayal and infidelity. Think of most songs used for […]
Many many years ago, I saw a bit of Mani Kaul’s debut film Uski Roti on Doordarshan and what struck me even though I was a child then, was a cinematic vocabulary unlike any I had seen or had been exposed to. This film had pauses and long moments of silence when no one seemed in a […]
There is a moment in Dil Chahta Hai when in a festive sangeet crackling with sudden hostility, Rajat Kapoor rises and stands next to Aamir Khan. His nervousness masked by the way he touches his nose fleetingly. But you know instantly whose side he is on and you remember that moment. Just as you remember the scene in Monsoon Wedding […]
Sheeba Chadha’s gaze is like a flame cutting through fog. Almost as if everything she has felt and lived has been melted in a furnace and poured into her eyes. She is incredibly vital on screen, on stage, on television and yet there is a restfulness about her. And when she kneels on the stage, looking […]
Have you noticed, how for every point, life offers a counterpoint? As if to remind you that for every ‘this,’ there is a ‘that?’ And for every Delhi Belly, there is The Blue Mug? How absolutely wonderful that on a day when my memory had been reduced to a cuss word and the rumble of someone’s upset stomach, life also […]
Just when you thought, the past was dead, it comes alive in the opening scene of Delhi Belly. A plane lands and we see a man striding to the tune of an RD Burman track from Hum Kissi Se Kam Nahin. We remember the way we were once. But then the man walking to the groovy beat turns out to be not […]
Bbuddhah Hoga Tera Baap opens with the iconic AB poster from Deewar silhouetted against the credits and those who grew up in that era, instantly feel the rush of blood going to their head. There was nothing, NOTHING like watching Amitabh Bachchan in 70 mm or Cinemascope, in the 70s and 80s, in flesh and […]
RD Burman is not a tragic story even though his last years were coloured with heart breaks and set backs. Even though his faith in his craft was shaken. Even though, the man who saw the future was relegated to the past by short-lived musical trends. He is not a tragedy because his music is […]
The performing animal left the circus on June 25, 2009 but we continue to anoint his remains, repair the broken halo and embroider a velvet shroud to celebrate him. He, who in his lifetime was first built and then taken apart in a bloody arena for all the world to see. What is it with fame? What is it […]
“Baat Itni Si Hai Ki Vibhajit Hokar Main Kissi Na Kissi Ansh Mein Aap Mein Se Har Ek Vyakti Hoon,” (It is just this-even after being divided or split, in some part or another, I am everyman among you). I remembered these words from Amrish Puri’s autobiography, The Act Of Life while watching a favourite […]
Hindi film music composer Daan Singh passed away of liver complications in Jaipur at the age of 78 on June 18, 2011. He was like a fast-traversing, low intensity meteor that just showed up and sped away very very quickly. You wonder why. During my several visits to Jaipur in the last two years, I did make […]