In the 1995 Ketan Mehta film Oh Darling! Yeh Hai India, a very young Shahrukh Khan played a character called Hero, a symbol of ambition that floats into Mumbai, on a straw of hope. The film was also about a foolhardy plan to replace the President of India with a clone. Most importantly, the […]
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Category: Cinema/ TV
Why Aadhe Adhure Was No Better Than An Ekta Kapoor Serial
In 1983, BR Ishara (arguably the first director in Indian cinema to shock middle class sensibilities with films like Chetana and Zaroorat that treated supposedly ‘wanton’ women with sympathy) made a film called Log Kya Kahenge. The film starring Shabana Azmi, Navin Nischol, Shatrughan Sinha and Sanjeev Kumar had some startlingly honest dialogues about a woman […]
Ki & Ka: Why A Mangal Sutra Switch Is Not The Answer
A 1981 film Itni Si Baat (starring Sanjeev Kumar and Maushami Chatterjee) tried to flip the idea of a conventional marriage like a drippy omelette that crash lands on the chef’s face. So we had the husband burning the food and fumbling through daily domestic chores with a song, “Raja o Raja, tera baj gaya baaja, ” playing […]
Pratyusha Bannerjee: More Than A Click Bait
The death of Pratyusha Bannerjee underscores the distance between Indian television’s most popular narratives and reality where women do not always have monochromatic inner lives and a monumental forbearance that is almost as fake as the jewels worn by the Simars, the Gopis and the Anandis. ** The irony could not be more cruel. Pratyusha […]
Kapoor & Sons: Bitter, Sweet And Truthful
Watching Shakun Batra’s Kapoor & Sons (Since 1921) is like reading a book you are slowly but surely falling in love with. A book that you read curled up in a window seat on a rainy day, with a cup of tea by your side, hoping that the story will never end because it makes you taste […]
The Convenient Patriotism Of Anupam Kher
Many years ago when Javed Akhtar along with Shabana Azmi was touring the country to present the stage adaptation of Shaukat Azmi’s book Kaifi Aur Main, I had asked him at a press meet if the Ganga Jamni tehzeeb he represented so beautifully would fade away after him along with a few remaining voices […]
A Conversation That Almost Was
“It is not enough to be interesting..you need to be interested,” said Jennifer Aniston once to explain how she deals with fame. She shared how the joy of creating something worthwhile keeps her from being jaded and cynical. Especially when she leaves a film set and runs into the invasive fame machinery that consumes […]
No, Neerja Is Not About Sonam Kapoor
*Now the world knows Neerja Bhanot’s story, all thanks to Sonam Kapoor’s realistic and apt portrayal of Neerja. *It’s Sonam Season In Bollywood. Neerja is turning out to be for Sonam what Queen, Cocktail and Paa were for some of her peers. The question was always going to be, can Sonam Kapoor, carry off that demanding […]
Fitoor: Where Passion Is A Hair Colour
Dancer Amy Yakima and choreographer Travis Wall danced breathtakingly to a song called Wicked Game (performed by James Vincent McMorrow and written by Chris Isaak) in one unforgettable season of So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) and the highlight of the performance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ0QrJaPFcQ) was a gravity defying leap where Amy just flew into Travis’ arms while […]
Of Hum Dono and Love Beyond Deconstruction
Recently, I sat down with a cup of lemon tea and watched The Lunchbox and Piku in one long stretch. To reassure myself that the world was still made up of serendipitous conversations tucked in fleeting moments when strangers connect and make soul contact. Sometimes via little notes that talk of the smell of spent […]
What Sunny Leone Taught Us About Dignity
Watching Bhupendra Chaubey’s contempt for Sunny Leone (He did not even care to pronounce her name correctly) in a brutal interview on CNN IBN reminded me of an episode many years ago when my son was about six or seven and as a working mother, I had taken him to a media event I was […]
David Bowie: ‘Look Up Here, I’m In Heaven’
My first introduction to the unrepeatable David Bowie was Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. A disturbing, cathartic, strangely uplifting film about war that was made in 1983 by Nagisa Oshima. Bowie played Major Jack Celliers, a mind bending war prisoner who is so free, nothing can break him. Not violence. Not torture. Not perverse mind games. […]