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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It is official. The award for the most unlikable male character of 2016 will be shared by Ranbir Kapoor’s Ayan in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil and Ranveer Singh’s Dharam in Befikre. These are clueless boys with the emotional and intellectual depth of a nine-year-old with the tumultuous hormones of a teenager and are paired with […]
Lisa Haydon was the latest some time back to join the bandwagon of Bollywood actresses who say, “I’m not a feminist.” Vidya Balan has said it too, so has Madhuri Dixit and many others. So why are Bollywood actresses so scared of the F-word? I do accept the fact that people could have different […]
Over a decade ago, at Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, I spoke with a youthful conviction on why Hindi cinema must never be dismissed as just another drug to keep the masses oblivious to the real issues of governance, poverty, disenfranchisement, corruption and more. When gently asked by the moderator, why Hindi cinema could not be […]
And suddenly Jhansi Ki Rani has become a cinematic trigger. First Subhadra Kumari Chauhan’s poem, “Khoob ladi mardani woh to Jhansi wali Rani thi” about the warrior queen was referenced by Rani Mukherjee’s Mardani (spot the connection?). In Omung Kumar’s Mary Kom, a wizened coach (Sunil Thapa) tells Priyanka Chopra’s Mary that her strength has […]
Writer’s note: I have been writing on the negative mind-set against Aishwarya Rai for years. Years ago, when she was targetted for choosing a man younger than her, a story I wrote for a newspaper invited negative backlash. Some of my pieces on her have appeared on this website where I have tried to […]
Society in India is coming of age. It has begun to openly acknowledge the word ‘gay,’ before kids and in movies etc. Unfortunately our minds are not open enough to accommodate and treat the gay community with the same respect that we accord to heterosexuals. There is a subtle stigma attached to this word which […]
This post is dedicated to my mother; who like any other teenager was smitten by Rajesh Khanna in the 70s so much so that she wore sarees especially like one of his heroines; Sharmila Tagore (though she totally denies it!). Since his demise, she has been watching news and programs only about him; infact she […]
“Aajkal kisi ko wo toktaa nahin, chaahe kuchh bhi kijiye roktaa nahin ho rahi hai loot maar phat rahe hain bam aasmaan pe hai Khudaa aur zameen pe ham aajkal wo is taraf dekhtaa hai kam” (God no longer chides anyone No matter what we do..He just watches on.. all the mayhem..all the bomb blasts.. […]
Some believe 80’s to be the worst period in the history of Indian cinema. I beg to differ – but only a wee bit. My early film viewing experience is mostly spread across late 80s- early 90s so I could safely say I’ve had the best (or worst) of both the decades. The 80s had indeed reached the […]
On August 4, 1929, a voice was born. A voice of abandon, mischief, romance, barely contained madness, of rich, malted cadences. The voice that went by the name of Kishore Kumar. But then Abhas Kumar Ganguly or Kishore Kumar was more than just a gifted voice. He was an actor who could let himself loose […]
It has been a matter of enduring mystery to all those who need the melody of Hindi film songs to relax and be less uptight as to why the lyricists short change the ballads of love and reserve their best for the pining that follows betrayal and infidelity. Think of most songs used for […]
“Baat Itni Si Hai Ki Vibhajit Hokar Main Kissi Na Kissi Ansh Mein Aap Mein Se Har Ek Vyakti Hoon,” (It is just this-even after being divided or split, in some part or another, I am everyman among you). I remembered these words from Amrish Puri’s autobiography, The Act Of Life while watching a favourite […]