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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Recently, when the story of a child abuse scandal in Pakistan was broken, 400 video recordings of more than 280 children being forced to have sex, were discovered. Just another form of porn, that is also distributed and consumed. In 2013, according to reports, the Shakti Mills rapists made the survivor watch clippings of […]
About a week ago, I visited Charminar in Hyderabad. My friends and I had been quite excited about the trip and couldn’t wait to shop for trinkets and try the much talked about biryani and kababs. However,the minute we stepped out of the cab, it started pouring, and the harassment began. It’s not like I […]
How do you sum up a success story that goes beyond individual achievement? How do you sum up Elattuvalapil Sreedharan in a few stock phrases like the Metro Man and the Karmyogi? The fact that he was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2008 and the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur in 2005 and named […]
I was in Bombay in January 1993 after the “riots” when mobs went on a rampage burning their shops and killing them where they could find them. And before the retaliatory bomb blasts by the Memon gang. ** I remember walking around a familiar shopping area in Andheri, seeing once famous shops (owned by Muslim merchants) […]
Serena Williams knows better than anyone else that even being a world-class player cannot insulate a woman from mindless and vicious criticism about her body, her race, her irritating disregard for how female tennis players should look and conduct themselves. Perhaps someone like Sania Mirza can empathise because she too has been judged […]
Last week, it was Shruti Seth and Kavita Krishnan. This week, it is Amartya Sen who is being hounded on Twitter. For saying that the government is interfering too much in the functioning of educational institutions among other things. All it needs is a dissenting view-point to get the Internet mob to spew vitriol. […]
I don’t have a daughter but if I did, would the Selfie with Daughter campaigners look at me benignly and welcome my inclusion in this online movement celebrating the father and daughter bond? Oh, they did not specify that, did they? So mothers can pose too? Yay for equal rights but the issue is […]
Monica : Careful. Careful. CAREFUL! Chandler : I’ll tell you what, for the rest of our lives, I’ll be careful until told otherwise. Having just moved into a hostel, I’ve been trying to reconcile what is supposed to be a new found freedom with a set of rules and moral codes that I have never had to think […]
I overheard a conversation at a parlour here a couple of weeks ago that has been on my mind ever since. A woman was getting her hair cut, and the hairdresser suggested that she highlight her hair blonde-to which the woman replied: ‘Oh no, he wouldn’t let me. He likes my hair dark.’ Then, laughingly, she added, […]
When an institution produces artistes who are going to possibly shape the way we perceive the world, it must have inspirational administrators and teachers. The enormity of the influence an enlightened guide can have on a student can be seen in the way former FTII (Film and Television Institute) students talk about mentors like Kumar […]
“May I be protector for those without one, A guide for all travellers on the way;” ~ Shantideva, in A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. The gorgeous Goan monsoon is washing my windows squeaky clean, and as I’m lying around in bed, I’m suddenly thinking of Sealdah railway station. I was there just […]
Madhuri Dixit recently received a notice from the Haridwar Food and Drug Administration for endorsing the nutritional value of Maggi, after the UP government found dangerously high levels of lead in a batch of noodles. While a debate rages about whether brand ambassadors can be held responsible for the quality of products, there is another side to the […]