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 sharply sculpted face with cheekbones bouncing off light. Hair, rippling like silk across the screen. Sensuality that was wide-eyed innocence in one instant and overwhelmingly dark and compelling in another. Crystal clear diction. It is hard to describe Parveen Babi in conventional terms. She was pure sunshine in Amar Akbar Anthony. A chatty, infinitely entertaining journalist in Kala Patthar. A poised lady in red in Deewar, […]
Just a story in a newspaper. your life and death. A picture of you and the ones you loved more than life itself. but it’s just a picture a snatch from a better time. when you still were you. when you believed you could make it through. when the years had not chipped away at […]
Try and slow down before the end – Try and move backward towards clearer memories, away from the black holes. Before the sky opens up and swallows you whole, Before time sprints forward and damages your soul. Lightening strikes softly, before the whispers get louder, overshadowing the sound of thunder – only in your […]
Someone in the world is excited about having just swiped their credit card online. They are putting in their leave application and checking out the best deals on travel packages. Someone is preparing themselves for an adventure, reading hotel and restaurant reviews. They are excitedly telling their friends about their next journey. Holding a golden […]
Hope on a gray day. A sprightly sunflower. A bunch of ox-eye daisies. A field of marigold. Sarson in full bloom. A vase of chrysanthemums in a room. A sweet round motichoor laddoo, a crisply succulent jalebi. Food for the body and the soul. Lemon tarts and coffee. A brightly beaked myna. An arch of golden trumpets. Lantanas in a […]
The lights of a distant town twinkle . Stars dot the skies like diamonds on a velvet cloak. Crickets chirp a chorus. A gentle breeze flows through the undulating countryside. Night has fallen on my world as of now. Enveloping me in its comforting embrace. I love the night. The silence The solitude The comfort […]
The kitchen, where so many amazing things happen…was and in some subtle ways, still the substance of nightmares. At least for me. ** Potential burns, disasters, insects, and those mind boggling red ants that come to chew on the most unbelievable things. And stuff like split milk, too much food, too less food, too many […]
Rajat Chaudhuri’s Hotel Calcutta has just been published (Niyogi Books, 2013). He lives in Kolkata, and besides his novels, he has also written short stories, essays and book reviews. The few questions I asked Rajat below are really not enough to convey the richness and variety of his writing work but his answers I […]
So you really need to take that break and go travelling so that you can discover or rediscover yourself; so that you can learn things about yourself that you haven’t so far paid too much attention to? Well here’s a revelation. I made many self discoveries, right at home! The road to self discovery is […]
They say there are five stages of grief. Seven maybe. Either way, I think I can say I’ve been through about four. Or am going through them – they’re going back and forth for me to be unable to pinpoint which stage I’m at, right now, at this very moment, yesterday – who knows? […]
Untouchability has its roots in India like its culture,religion,pride and diversity.We are born with it and we die with it.We neither question nor dare to find answers.It has survived like a label,a name,an identity.One may not believe in caste,yet one can’t change the belief of others . The whole notion of Purity and Pollution is […]
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 […]