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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My mother was a great cook and indulged in cooking as a fetish. Ma was a magician too, adding that special sparkle to anything she touched. She could even snip a handful of wildly growing, wayward Amaranth leaves, tease them with fiery red chillies, team them with un-skinned potatoes, turn them over in an iron […]
Moments of truth. Everybody has one or maybe several. So it is with times of inspiration. Everybody has that reference of sight, smell, sound, touch, feeling or piece of imagination that inspires. For me, one of the strongest times of inspiration is when the sky opens to pour its heart out in a manner unrestrained and unabashed. […]
‘‘It says willing or not. What do I opt for?” asked my mother, then a mere 18- year-old girl. The question was aimed at her brother who had accompanied her to the Employment Exchange. “Not.. means no. Negative. So say yes. Choose Willing,” was his advice to her and perhaps the most valuable one that […]
Duckback raincoat Bata shoes Camel ink Hero pen Nataraj pencils I’ve reached a point Where lists of things Once familiar Comfort me But I don’t believe things are worse The world Was always burning The skies Were always red And the end Was always near Near enough to smell The burning Of time But with […]
The powder puff has more dust sticking to it than the familiar smelling particles of Ponds talcum powder. The fragrance is as familiar to me as the hemmed borders of the electric blue printed frock that I used to wear almost every alternate day. The scorching summers would not allow room for sartorial experiments. Back […]
William Trevor’s The Story of Lucy Gault set the tone from the very beginning; I knew that nothing would go right for Lucy. Her story was melancholic, but it didn’t make me sob. I felt a distant pain, and it lingered for a while, as though my mind played a sad song over and over again […]
Let me begin the review of Friends in Wild Places by Ruskin Bond (Speaking Tiger Books) by quoting a passage near the end. Below my cottage was a forest of oak and maple and Himalayan rhododendron. A narrow path twisted its way down through the trees, over an open ridge where red sorrel grew wild, […]
The Maggi controversy has tainted the glow of memories that were formed as an entire nation gathered to watch Hum Log in the early eighties and to salivate over a new wonder snack that was, ‘‘fast to cook and good to eat.” Hum Log was Manohar Shyam Joshi’s seminal story about a lower-middle-class Indian […]
Sheila craned her neck through the bars of the window. She first looked to her left until she could see the engine 12 wagons away as the train snaked a corner. Then she turned right quickly to catch the guard’s room at the very end 14 bogies down. She just couldn’t wait to get off at the […]
I often come across people who seem to be eternally stuck to the assorted gadgets in their prized possession. It really amuses me, how they apportion their time between laptops, tablets, smart phones and so many other gizmos. I fear that a lame joke that someone cracked may actually be true- that we live in […]
When life gives you a hard time, just chill. It’s true. Papa said so. Like when he gave me a card which read “When life gives you a thunderstorm… Find a puddle to play in”. Inside was a little handmade picture of a little boy jumping in a huge puddle. The catharsis that comes […]
Yesterday, I saw her again, No sign of recognition, Now I know there needn’t be any. Little grey eyes had changed. The first time she followed me, Tugged at my stole and called to me. A smile so innocent, asking for money. Ragged hair and shaggy clothes, Not worth a care, I know, Too busy […]