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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Insides of my skull Echoing sounds Of drumming water On tin window shields Banging the brain Into numb submission Fading slowly out of Thought, into morass. Looking out of glass Like fish in pointless swim My aquarium filled With moist air. Trapped must feel like this Free must feel like this Sightless must be […]
I fear that I might sound ridiculous; I am still throwing caution to the wind and have chosen to relate a profound moment I shared with the Universe. All my life, I was agnostic. Cynical. Bitter. I didn’t believe in looking for signs. I must admit that the cynicism stemmed from my inability to read […]
I turned 30 on Friday, and bought myself quite a few amazing books. But I want to tell you about this heartwarming book for now. 300 Things I Hope by Iain S. Thomas In the adorable book, the author hopes for 300 beautiful, moving, simple things for us. Just that. He simply hopes. Each page carries […]
I see this Laughing Buddha every weekend when I go cycling. Do you see the crow, perched on the board he is holding? Do you see how small it looks? This Laughing Buddha is gigantic. He is at VGP Golden Beach, Chennai’s first theme park. That part, where the Laughing Buddha was installed, of the […]
Symbols matter. Symbols sum up ideals that are bigger than phraseology and represent the best of humanity. And no one knows how an intangible idea brimming with something vast and indefinable, gets distilled into a symbol and comes to belong to all of us. When artist Shepard Fairey created the iconic Barack Obama poster emblazoned with the word “Hope” in 2008-2009, […]
All I see is red. Urgent and arresting red. The blinking lights on the road red. Her hair in the wind red. Molten rage and dry wine red. Wrinkled sheets and horror-filled dreams red. Bonfire embers and crossed out ledgers Demanding a pound of flesh. A rose in a book to remember, A shirt […]
There are times when we look at the world and feel despair. Events over the months of 2016 and part way across the threshold of 2017, have given us justifiable cause for such malaise. Trump will be president within days. The Syrians are either forgotten or vilified, Britain is leaving the EU, the weather has […]
I don’t know what it is about a new year that makes us all so optimistic. It is just another year, like the many others that have gone by, leaving behind dreams, aspirations and resolutions that never really took off. And yet every year is vividly different from the one before and the one after […]
I had a dream where someone gave me a kiss. So sweet and gentle. Purely unconditional. Unartful. He simply looked at me, and kindly offered me this moment of intimacy to convey a message. Like a fairy tale prince, he woke me from my state of lethargy to make me understand that there’s still hope. […]
But you can always look up At your corner of sky Through glass Between grills Framed by concrete And touch infinity This kept me alive In back rooms And corner offices A single stream of sunshine A streak of rain trailing down a pane The smallest whisper Of eternity You can even see stars Gathered […]
Calvin breathes gently. Despite the pain and exhaustion, despite the air of resignation that hangs around him, he seems peaceful. The morning sun is brutal, but Calvin continues to lie in the blinding brightness that escapes the curtains. Calvin. Our sunshine. Father, Mother, and I have locked our gazes on the boy. If our thoughts […]
I am my own savior. My spirit ran ahead to beam the light of hope as my weary body and mind struggled to catch up. It was this light that kept me alive as the piercing darkness around me spilled into my soul. The tunnel was akin to a birth canal, destroying every lie, facade and […]