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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“This only brings pain.” “There are so many obstacles.” “You are too simple to deal with this….forget this!” “They fight like dogs, can’t see each other’s faces, once they are over with this.” Those were Sujay’s esteemed friends’ opinion on ‘this’; the most dreaded yet sought-after human emotion – articulated by the four lettered word: […]
Dead hearts, still, a-pounding; A silence so resounding, Melodies of discord abound, Where skies, high, below the ground From shoal, depths, begin descent, In summers of our discontent, They dodge, deaf, deflections, A mirror of reflections A simple, sound, complexity, A nimbly- knit perplexity, A sin, sacred, sacrosanct Ingratitude so duly thanked, This light, […]
In the first ever Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival auction of Indian cinema memorabilia, held at Imperial Hotel in Delhi last evening, Aamir Khan won the bid of as many as six rare cinematic items, as he set another precedent and became the first collector from the film industry. Over a telecom bid, in tandem […]
The Communication Skills session ended, I walked out and then someone said ” Excuse me Ma’am.” I turned around to find a bunch of ladies. One of them said, “Usha wants to share her story, she has written it down for you.” I had given an assignment in class about sharing a real life experience. Usha […]
The first instance that came into my head when I thought about signs is when we were driving to Orlando or Tampa (I’m not sure where). It was a long drive and somewhere along the way, husband and I started arguing and when it was over I was feeling lousy as ever. I wanted to […]
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 […]
Just before The Dark Knight Rises began, my mind wandered off to evil. And its randomness. And its twisted sense of purpose. The Colorado shooting during the screening of the film that took 12 lives. The depraved pawing and mauling of a young girl in Guwahati. The molestation of another girl in front of a train […]
Chaos looms overhead, flashing lights, blaring horns, smoke, fog and the unnecessary chatter of people rushing past. And we sit, comfortable in a silence that could span for hours but hardly ever does. Understanding nods herald the oncoming of quick social breaks and prolonged periods of hibernation and still we sit, comfortable in a spatter […]
Slowly from behind the camera, the giant of a man and his tall, slim frame emerges. A cigarette dangling close to his lips. You recognise him instantly.. the enigmatic versatile genius, Satyajit Ray. Magical images of Pather Panchali and Apu trilogy shapes up in that cloud of smoke. Or take a new Feluda movie with […]
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 […]
I read Fifty Shades of Grey yesterday. According to wiki (and because I cannot be bothered to think of new ways to say the same things): Fifty Shades of Grey is a 2011 erotic novel by British author E. L. James. Set largely in Seattle, it is the first instalment in a trilogy that traces […]
Something intriguing and fascinating is in the air. The mere memory of a place is regenerating and revitalizing lost and even non-existent connections. A certain band of people, well into their40s and 50s, who once knew each other as children in a never-never land called Pachmarhi, are reaching out across continents, countries through charged cables […]