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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The world seems to be aflame. Every new devastation in the news cycle triggers you and traumatises you. In your personal life, you are possibly extremely generous and giving to a fault. To the extent that you often times neglect yourself. Possibly a compulsive giver and always ready to put your needs on hold for others. You attract a lot […]
I woke up with an unfamiliar feeling that gnawed at me. I slowly recognised it as resentment. Unfamiliar because I, consciously or unconsciously, I have practised not to look back unless the memories are happy ones, or not to look too far ahead for a future that is uncertain, even imaginary. This has helped […]
The shorter days and longer nights make me thankful for the warmth of the sun and the long lazy days of summer that never ended. Pumpkins, squash and sweet potatoes in abundance remind me that Mother Earth will provide for us even when the cold winter winds blow. A roof over our heads and family […]
I fear that I might sound ridiculous; I am still throwing caution to the wind and have chosen to relate a profound moment I shared with the Universe. All my life, I was agnostic. Cynical. Bitter. I didn’t believe in looking for signs. I must admit that the cynicism stemmed from my inability to read […]
When we look in the mirror, we often see flaws and sometimes perfection. What we see at times goes beyond the physical aspects to character traits or even how we feel about ourselves. There are those who obsess about the way they look and then there are some so unhappy with themselves that they need to constantly numb their senses to get through […]
Years ago I watched the The Matrix and it seemed like a fantasy with no element of truth in it. But when I watched it when I was older, it seemed not too far fetched from the reality we wake up to every day. The daily grind. Put your nose to the grindstone and chug away. Work […]
The wisdom of the Absolute posing a challenge to the intellect of human is the crux of human predicament. The perennial questions about god, self, soul, afterlife, purpose and meaning of personal and impersonal existence – all point towards the enormous gulf between our limited capacities to understand key abstractions on one hand and the infinite […]
There is a telling anecdote about Kishori Amonkar’s early years as a classical sensation when she was rattling off the number of shows she had been booked for and her mother and guru Mogubai Kurdikar, herself a legendary disciple of Ustad Alladiya Khan’s Jaipur Atrauli gharana, heard her out and asked her if her calendar had […]
Father was always a fast walker; his strides were long, his gait effortless. When Calvin and I managed to match his pace during our morning walks in Boat Club, I panted more than my canine companion. I was a teenager then and Calvin was just two. Father was faster, brisker, and more focussed than most […]
“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” — The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Hurt announces his arrival with a deafening cacophony of cymbals and trumpets and accordions. He slips into a tuxedo and a […]
Life is hard to define. Sometimes a mystery, sometimes a revelation. A unique blend of sorrows and joys, closures and beginnings, tears and laughter, crests and troughs. I believe we waste too much of precious energy over why, what ifs and should haves. I’ve done that all my life and ended up feeling more […]
Ripples in the still water … Some stone I threw in playfully when the calmness created boredom, The refulgent rays of the sun dances … as the waves spiral… But the movement disturbs the arrangement… And I lose the oasis of serenity … Fading are the Patterns I am used to… this dichotomy baffles me… […]