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 few days ago, I chanced upon this new bakery in the Western Mumbai suburbs: Bindaas Binge. I have never heard anybody bemoaning the fact that the suburbs do not sell cheesecakes. But Mona and Vikas, the couple that started this swank new place, most unexpectedly nestled on Film City road, Goregaon East, seriously, […]
Most people, including yours truly, enjoy horror movies or books. Even though, like comedy, horror is a hard genre to work with and has the highest possibility of finding absolutely no takers in the audience. Then again, there are some formulae that work time and time again, if you get my meaning. I am […]
He enters my room, looks at my gloomy face and being the best friend that he is, says, “Sugar, wanna go for a walk?” I nod. We walk and walk, without uttering a single word. Reaching Marine Drive, we both sit down at our usual place. Everything still unsaid. Sitting next to him, gazing at the […]
Not everything is perfect. Nor should it be. There are flaws and cracks and smudges in every work of art but if there is heart in it..people flow with a story, a song, a character. In the last few weeks, following stories about displacement and corrupt governance has alienated me from films and television […]
God has a way of keeping his favorite children close. Every time I begin to settle for something, he has a way of shaking me. God: This is not what I planned for you; your destiny is greater than just settling into the mundane, then just making do with what is available. I am on my way to […]
It’s weird that people push you to your limits and expect you to break all the walls and be there for them. Without any expectation. For LOVE, you do just that. Be there for them, get back with them every time they demand, give more and more of love, hoping to have some of it […]
“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, […]
Yet another week in Michigan and I find myself staring at an even more dismal sight than what I beheld the last time I was here. The weather app on my phone shows a tiny grey cloud showering drops of water over the city and sure enough, the view outside is a real life, zoomed-in […]
Guilt today is a global media event. So when Lance Armstrong finally answered the big question about his integrity in the widely televised interview with a, “I’m not the most believable guy in the world right now,” Oprah Winfrey almost brought back her under-performing OWN network from the brink. Lance could have given a newspaper […]
If you are a cynic who feels that Mahatma Gandhi has gone out of fashion, or that his bespectacled, simpleton imagery fails to inspire any more, maybe it’s time to look at contemporary art. At the India Art Fair 2013, one could find the Mahatma reinterpreted by several artists – in minimal portraiture to kitschy […]
She reminds me of Umrao because she really was. The young Umrao in Muzaffar Ali’s 1981 classic film, I mean. Years later I met her as an artist in her own right, not just as the daughter of MS Sathyu and writer Shama Zaidi. ** Recently, I met her again at the Sathyu home […]
From its very first edition in 2008, India Art Fair has only grown from strength to strength. As the mega-art event, now in its 5th edition, there will be once again a deluge of Indian and international art at the exhibition venue of NSIC grounds. With as many as 106 exhibitors from 24 countries part […]