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…
Read More
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…
Read More
“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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
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…
Read More
You are browsing archives for
Winter mornings in Bhopal have for years exuded a certain charm and thinking about them always makes me want to pack my woollens and head home. Memories of chilly mornings dawning upon the city and a bright sun fighting valiantly to keep earthlings energetic and happy are as fresh in my mind as just-baked bread. […]
I have been watching the skin on the back of my mother’s hands very closely. In consonance with the changing texture and folds of skin, there has grown in my head a sketch of what it means to watch one’s parent get on in years. There was a time when the hand was smooth and unblemished. […]
If this sounds like a personal account then it’s the shortcoming of my narration. If it doesn’t then, a lot of your fond memories with your siblings will resurface and perhaps your love for them, will be rekindled. I don’t know if it has ever occurred to you that, of all the relationships you share, […]
Mothers are born flawed. If they don’t see imperfections in themselves, which is unlikely, someone else will. But these questions and doubts a mother faces today are unique to the times. Our grandmothers were different. They were undivided souls. They did not, most of the time, think of themselves as creatures of personal ambition. My […]
I am the child of the seventies. Childhood entertainment consisted of movies and Sunday trips to children’s park. Our eating out was made up of the occasional softie in Civil Lines after the matinee or a rolled newspaper cone of murmura and matar at the park, where our favourite plaything was the concrete elephant you […]
Summer vacations had finally begun and 15- year- old Mala was glad to be one of the lucky ones in her group of friends who would be escaping the sordid Bhopal heat. Her parents had finally decided to take the long overdue vacation to Bangalore and they were all set to spend a glorious summer […]
I remember the days I used to come home from the playground to find my grand-mom (my mother’s mom) and my dad arguing loudly. She called him a cheat. He would respond in kind. They would glower at each other and walk their separate ways. The fight was always about a game of carrom. Granny […]
He was not a great looker; he never considered it necessary perhaps to cultivate that side of his personality. As things worked out, however it didn’t matter much. He had a brilliant, if rather eccentric mind and she was young. In-fact they both were. There was a chance meeting perhaps at the bus stop, through […]
Dear Daddy, Thank you for nurturing me. For loving me. For your warm hugs. For taking care of my needs so graciously. Thank you for letting me chatter and vent my heart out. Thanks for always giving me a logical reason before offering advice. Thank you for always standing tall. For standing up for me and never letting my independent and free […]
Writer Rani Rao Innes pens an insightful three-part story about the need for freedom and the desire for roots, exclusively for the readers of Unboxed Writers. She could not believe she had missed her flight at such a time in her life. Her wedding was in a week. Most of her extended family had already reached Bangalore. […]
As proud card-carrying members of the Tamil Brahmin community or Tam Brahms (as the endearment goes), Mr and Mrs Iyer looked high and low for a suitable match for their only daughter. Now, you must understand it was no easy task. The apple of their eyes had several drawbacks, chief amongst them being that she: […]