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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The word icon is used so cheaply today. The fact that it has the word, con in it may have something to do with it. Perception is more important than substance. Image more important than truth. Marketing more important than creating. Fame and shame sometimes are not indistinguishable. And somehow it doesn’t matter. So strong […]
The last few weeks have had a daunting effect on my mind; the events around the world creating many shifts in thought processes and forcing me to question the very basic of human existence — trust. Humans seem to have a very skewed perspective of their actions sometimes. “Aren’t you being inhuman?” is an oft-repeated […]
“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”-Benjamin Franklin ** It is 10 am and near Bangalore’s Austin Town Circle, a crowd is slowly gathering around the Ambedkar statue. Young students from St Joseph’s college, volunteers from NGOs, nuns, workers of assorted political parties, […]
These walls used to be lined with books. Now they hold imprints of a different kind. History was made here that day, and people unmade, in fire, in smoke, in blood and sticky gore. ** In the stillness of the empty room, you can still feel the heat, hear the hopeless cries, the sense of […]
Dear Stranger, I have never met you. I don’t know your name. I have not even seen any pictures of yours. All I know is that you became a part of my consciousness on a cold December day in a foreign land. When I read about the violence perpetuated on you, my stomach turned […]
Even if the rapist had broken through the door and raped someone in the house, the woman victim would have been at fault. At least partially, because “taali ek hath se nahi bajti…” If the rape victim was an infant perhaps the reason would be her parent’s non- belief in god or perhaps her stars […]
The rape and murder of the young 23- year- old in New Delhi on December 16, 2012, has unleashed the suppressed angst of millions of men and women in India and has led to endless debates and discussions across all media, which are not going to finish too soon, but will die down nonetheless, over time.Meanwhile, rapes, […]
Dear Mr Godman ji First things first. You are neither a God. Nor a man. And if you are..the latter..I mean then do you have a daughter, a sister, a woman in your life who you care for, worry for? Do you remember your mother’s face from the time when you were a young boy? […]
Only Bihari migrants rape. Women would not get raped if they wore overcoats, stayed in Bharat instead of aspiring to India, did not wear skirts to school, did not err like Seeta to cross the Lakshmanrekha , if they focussed only on housework, if they did not mix freely with boys, if they were not […]
The December 16 horror leaves me feeling helpless beyond words. ** I am an average woman, piecing together my life, bringing up two kids, running a family, supporting a busy spouse, trying to craft out a career and busy trying to realize all my hopes and aspirations. Suddenly the news of the death of a […]
For more than 60 years they have been invisible. AfterIndia declared her “tryst with destiny,” they disappeared into their homes and got busy with India’s developing story. You would see them in private photos and fenced spaces but barely ever on the democratic canvas. While they labored over raising decent families, the political evolution of […]
He sat there. He sat there like an unruly child who is punished by a strict teacher to face the wall. All this while, Arnab Goswami hectored as only he can. It’s an image that continues to haunt me, a couple of days after a friend mailed me a link along with the triumphant […]