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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If there is anything more criminal, more crushing than injustice; it is a denial of its existence. I look at the dark clouds hovering over her head, sensing the claws that are tearing apart her sense of reality. The world outside is smiling benignly at her anguish, telling her what a sunny day it […]
Sometime in the 90s, a film impacted Indian television almost irrevocably. Sooraj Barjatya’s Hum Aapke Hain Kaun with its success, established a certain formulaic, almost slavish dependence on certain images, ideas and belief systems. Sweeping, glinting staircases in homes that were more Plaster-of-Paris than brick and mortar and characters that were more cliched […]
27 Likes and 10 Comments …not good enough! Logged in again after an hour- 60 Likes and 20 Comments….now it seems impressive! My new yellow shoes seem to have finally made an impression- it was worth the price. What next? I visit my Wall. Sweety has adopted a new pug whose name is Tashi, […]
Dusk had fallen when short and stocky Lt Col Rajnish Behl, Sena Medal, entered the old stone building with sweeping arches and green ivy climbing up fading brick walls. It used to be a school in British times but was now serving the Army’s need for a Base Hospital. Stepping briskly, he walked down the […]
Her eyes gleamed brighter than the pretty gold ring shining on her frail finger. She stared at it in shock and awe, examining her finger from different angles and muttering in utter excitement, “This is for me didi? Really! This gold ring is for me?” I nodded with affection, my mind still recoiling from the […]
There are dozens of places on this planet which stake claim to the coveted appellation ‘Heaven on Earth’. We even have one in the midst of all the so called squalor in India – Kashmir. But this is not a sonnet praising the beauty and serenity of Kashmir; it is a humble offering to […]
“Main keh raha hoon, main keh raha hoon, main keh raha hoon!” Everytime I watch a wannabe film on adult relationships..I remember this Kulbhushan Kharbanda (he is on the phone with his neurotic actress girl friend who wants to know if he has broken the news of their affair to his wife) dialogue from […]
Yes Mubarak Begum is around. And no, she isn’t doing well. I know no one asked but it’s one of those moments in life when a question need not precede the answer. A few years ago, a dusty drive to Behram Baug in Jogeshwari took a colleague and me to the one room tenement […]
Ganapati Bappa came home and spent two days with us at my child’s behest. He was made of Shaalu Maati (potter’s clay). His golden jewellery, ‘mukut’ and ‘dhoti’ were painted with haldi (turmeric). Multani mitti brought out his glowing complexion and choona (chalk) highlighted his garland of flowers. He brought many people home, […]
Love.And the incredible challenges it throws your way. No matter who it uses to get to you, it will always, eventually, bring your focus back to the one most important person in your life. And you, you will still not get it. You will still not get why your insides melt in quietude when […]
An ideal society should be class-less and caste-less, that is understandable, but is it right or even possible to build a society that has no family structure at all? What would be desirable – abolishing the family unit or a fundamental change in it? Social structures based on Caste or Class are either a religious […]
Love. Is it about looking for something or someone ‘whole’ and perfect out there? Or welcoming imperfection in people, situations because they mirror our lacks and maybe it is only the broken pieces of one soul that can fit into the gaps of another? Jane Fonda once wrote, “Life is not about perfection but completion.” […]