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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As we are entering into the 65th year of Independence, a zeal, a fervor can be felt all around; and moreover, as we celebrate the glorious achievements of our six Olympians, who have made the whole nation proud with their feats, here are six cases which put every Indian, worth his salt, hang his head […]
I haven’t watched Homi Adajania’s Cocktail but from what I hear, it achieves something no different from the message sent by goons of the so called Hindu Janajagrana Vedike on Saturday who raided a resort in Padil, and thrashed and slapped girls for partying in “indecent clothes” and consuming, alcohol. Deepika Padukone’s Veronica was not thrashed […]
The country is in the throes of an inexplicable regression. Cover up or get raped is the message that is getting steadily strident and sinister. Stay safe with traditional clothes. Dispense with jeans and shorts if you want to preserve your modesty. Watch what you wear and how! The sneaky, judgemental voices emanate from everywhere. A […]
The nation is outraged over the Guwahati incident. At least we are meant to believe this, if we are to go by the antics of hysterical TV anchors. And so? What is going to follow now? Outrage is a distraction. It lasts as long as the next one comes along. We will soon have something even […]
Here it comes again – another gory incident; a barbaric, heinous, inhuman and despicable act that has put the whole nation to shame. A young girl was molested by 20 men, in the open, in front of the eyes of many more standing there, or passing by. And we say we are living in the […]
And yet again in a case of sexual child abuse, a three-year-old girl is raped, by her FATHER. Not once, not twice but several times. And as if it was not enough that the child was violated by someone who created her, the police had to further add insult to the injury by conducting not […]
The air is still. Almost as if it has decided to see just how quietly it can creep, undetected, through her home. Not a leaf has moved. Not a sigh has escaped her lips. Not a word of this article she has read has stayed back except one: raped. The images swirl in her head. […]
A girl was hacked in my neighbourhood two evenings ago. This morning, a girl of about the same age who comes to teach my son, walked in with fear all over her face and asked, “Did you see the newspaper, maam? I walk through the same market every evening after my classes. Yesterday, I saw […]
It has been over 10 days since Fasih Mahmood practically disappeared from his residence in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, where he worked as an engineer. On May 13, Sunday, Mahmood was taken away by a group of Indian and Arab men, all in civil dress, and their house searched, while his wife, Nikhat Perveen, was held in a […]
Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS), condemn the assault on three women under-trials, Angela Sontakey, 42, Sushma Ramteke, 22, and Jyoti Chorghe,19, in the Mumbai District Women’s Prison in Byculla. On March 31, they witnessed an assault upon some other inmates by the prison staff. When they tried to intervene, they too were attacked by the staff. […]
Something about the Aarushi Talwar case tugs at my heart. I feel transfixed every time the TV splashes Aarushi’s childhood pictures and videos. The normalness of the images is chilling in that they bear no hint, not a shimmer of the terrible fate that awaits this family round the corner. The clips reveal a regular, attractive […]
So how dirty is dirty on Indian television? A censored film is not sanitised enough for family audiences but home grown crime shows are? Especially the ones where in the guise of educating viewers about the dangers lurking in every neighbourhood and dark corner, gang rapes are recreated, victims are shown pleading for mercy as […]