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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Just a story in a newspaper. your life and death. A picture of you and the ones you loved more than life itself. but it’s just a picture a snatch from a better time. when you still were you. when you believed you could make it through. when the years had not chipped away at […]
They say there are five stages of grief. Seven maybe. Either way, I think I can say I’ve been through about four. Or am going through them – they’re going back and forth for me to be unable to pinpoint which stage I’m at, right now, at this very moment, yesterday – who knows? […]
Death used to a simple matter some years ago. People died. We gave away their belongings to needy people, framed a photograph and hung it up the wall, sometimes with a garland dangling around it. That was it. Perhaps a shirt or a saree was kept, in remembrance. A watch, probably a ring they wore.Which […]
A knock at the door and they both were shaken to death; a chill ran through their spines. They dreaded any knock at their door. But they knew it would come – a knock at the door – and with it the final word. And today it came….. A shriek, loud, yet restricted and subdued, […]
Hurricane Sandy took away many people with it. The pictures of the damage were heart wrenching. One cold December not too long ago we woke up freezing. A freak ice storm had left our town without power. We had to live in a friend’s place and then a hotel for five days until the […]
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 […]
You went in what they call ‘an unnatural way’. They usually mean a murder, suicide or an accident. They mean you died young. Suddenly, even 40 is young when you are dead. If you’re alive, though, it is the opposite. You went without a goodbye. You went leaving a trail of devastation behind you. You […]
No new words from you… No skies to paint blue, Your pictures will fade, Your memories slowly pale. No wonky smiles to throw At me across the road, No hints about your muse, No teasing to amuse. Your voice on the phone And how it always shone, No promises now to keep, No tears left […]
I feel woolly in the head, often. It’s a light, airy feeling, of a benevolent happy detachment, if pushed to analyse. Those are silent, reflective moments I break free in, to float away from the immediate so I can observe the circus in action, all around. I watch the cast, you and me and those […]
When they fought, he would make up. And eventually, in a few minutes, she would relent, and the world would be perfect again. So when he left home to buy a strip of medicines that she needed, locking her inside the house like he did when she was cooking and not free to come close […]
Have you pondered a sudden unexpected end? Nothing is unchanged. The clothes lie in the same wardrobe, those socks are in the dryer, the book they were reading is still lying with the bookmark on page 259. That shirt on the door smells of their perfume. But no person to turn the page, wear […]
The thing about death is, you cannot call. You cannot call them again. Ever. I think that is what tears you apart, what tears you up.