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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“Who is pretty? Mommy or me?” I ask. She looks at her mommy then she looks at me…and then in a split second she decides, “ME!” That’s my first introduction to the little girl who cares more about her teddy’s fur than her Barbie’s hair. She is quick to pick her friends. She has but one criteria. Undivided […]
** And this is how seemingly impossible stories are born. An American book about children in India, on a tour across the country results in a chance meeting between two disparate worlds in a small village and what emerged from it is..this. ** “I met little Deepa one evening at the village along with other […]
Editor’s Note: This is a writing assignment given (along with the above picture ) to a eight-year old by a parent. He was asked to do a research report on dog sledding and add personal narrative as part of creative writing practice. We post the story, the young child came up with.. My heart […]
And this is why I believe that certain meetings, connections are fated. There was really no reason for me to meet Mary Morgan. And yet, it was preordained that I meet her at a time when am becoming a bit disillusioned with the idea of investing in hope, resilience, love, friendship. I did not know […]
*** They are everywhere. These new zombie-like creatures, BlackBerrys in hand, earphones in their ears, eyes on the screen and head in the clouds. We have now reached a stage where chalkboards and pens are being replaced with touchscreens and styluses; where iPads are replacing notebooks. Popularity is no longer about how many people know […]
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, […]
Someone wise once rightly said that, too much of anything is bad! And that applies to rains as well. The rainy season is very important because it helps replenish water resources that provide us with water for drinking and other purposes. However, heavy rains and accompanying thunderstorms or lightnings can have a negative effect […]
The rainy season is here! Like the poet Samuel Taylor says “Water water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!” Have you ever wondered why there are constant concerns about availability of water in the future, despite receiving good rainfall? As we all know, part of the rain-water gets collected in ponds, lakes and rivers, […]
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, […]
Bright yellow mangoes with their fragrance and juicy sweetness occupied most of little Pranay’s thoughts these days. Now, this was not an out of ordinary occurrence given that Pranay and his family were major mango fanatics. Year after year along with the summer heat a certain mango mania descended upon the Sharma household. *** Mummy […]
I am the child of the seventies. Childhood entertainment consisted of movies and Sunday trips to children’s park. Our eating out was made up of the occasional softie in Civil Lines after the matinee or a rolled newspaper cone of murmura and matar at the park, where our favourite plaything was the concrete elephant you […]
When our daughter first started going to play school, I was beyond excited. My girl was a big girl. I positively loved checking her diary each day to see what they had been up to. When we heard she had to dress like a flower for some role play thing, I went a little mad. […]