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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A couple of months ago, on a stormy night, I packed my bags, held Boo’s leash, and boarded an auto, after walking out of a life which I thought would get better. To my dismay, the life that I had lived for a decade had just disintegrated. I was torn between taking another big leap of faith, […]
My recent posts after I moved to Chennai from America had one thing in common. Misery. Where was the hope? Where was the inspiration? It was there buried somewhere but you really had to look for it. So much for being the “enlightened” one, who dabbles in yoga, reiki and all the new age mumbo jumbo and then […]
Do art and religion have a connection deep enough to keep our minds calm and rooted? This is a question that has crossed my mind very often lately. The human mind is probably the most complex to decipher despite it being the supposed vessel of logical reasoning. Somehow, this very basic virtue of logical reasoning is […]
I walked into my first yoga class with no background in movement training or sports of any kind. It was no surprise that I couldn’t get a thing right and frankly, I was a bit disappointed! Earlier, my level of physical activity was rather limited to walking when necessary and nothing more. I have always had a petite […]
On my 30th birthday, my husband gifted me Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth – Awakening to Your Life Purpose. This book joined the select list of books that ‘changed my life’. It is not a book you can skim through, with so many complex ideas and concepts that delve deep into the human psyche. […]
Can’t drive, don’t have a job and hanging on to the last shred of sanity. That pretty much describes my situation today. And I’ve been there before – in some other place, at some other time in my life. And it is a scary place to be. What’s even scarier is the belief that you […]
“I was never a dancer, never a gymnast, never naturally peaceful, patient or confident. I generally felt socially awkward, private, introverted, comfortable reading and studying but not talking, sharing. I never ever felt beautiful or elegant, always felt like the small girl in the corner. Then one day after many years of Yoga practice, I […]
Avoid. Delay. Procrastinate. Distract. Quit. Run. This is what I do when things don’t go my way. It’s always easier than confronting the problems. Or so I thought till I learned it the hard way. I ran away to Pondicherry to do my M.S. thinking that my problems would stay behind in Chennai. But […]
Confessional writing can tear you apart, plunge deep into your darkest memories and like EM Forster would say, spread them out in the sunlight so that you as well those reading you can know the meaning of them. But there is confessional writing that seeks to understand and resolve pain and writing that just wants […]
Take me back where dreaming was the only goal Life wasn’t a race… Playing, the only chore Everyone had one face Noise was just the waves ebbing No rules applied to choices Freedom spanned like the sky Peace was a meadow Little was enough for you and me Take me back To the perfect […]
Sometimes strolling in a park, Or walking by the sea At times lazing on a terrace, Or ambling in an open space, Be a nobody, a stranger. Don’t mingle. Collect yourself within. Listen to the sound of the waves, The squeals of children playing, Or the din of the traffic moving. See the sky, […]
Margarita, With a Straw continues its triumphant journey across the world, taking director Shonali Bose to assorted festival podiums and vindicating her belief in her brave, little film, again and again. In an interview, Bose recounts the loss, the pain and the cathartic emotions that led to the making of the film. The tragedy […]