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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King of the concrete jungle, almost Juan-like in his persistence but hung heavy Amidst the smog of life. Awaiting a momentary escape to a long gone image of the green, green grass of leisure And the time to peer through fluffy clouds of mountain skies. Embroiled in the heated wars, Raging bigger and more frightful […]
Boxes strike terror in my heart, the ones crammed with books and papers in particular. I will procrastinate sorting them until pushed to the wall. It is not that I am lazy or disorganized; I am just scared of hurting. And so the black containers sit scratchy and sore like corns on the toes, darkly […]
A hospital never sleeps.. it’s a wonder anyone gets well here… there is no rest… constant comings and goings and creaking of beds, bodies turning in pain, discomfort, desperation. The city twinkles away below.. indifferent. ** Mona Ambegaonkar accidentally strayed into the entertainment industry and has been a model, editor, documentary producer and director, […]
America is abuzz with talks about gun rights and regulations and I’m not particularly interested in this debate. But one bit of news got my attention and it was about Gabby Giffords speaking up about the need for gun control. Her whole life was turned upside down by one gun shot by a deranged man. […]
The world has become unbearable to me. The more I try to center myself and tap into inner peace, the more junk it throws at me. I love the trash-to-treasure idea but what do you do with random acts of violence with absolutely no motive or reasoning? It’s hard to erase those images from […]
Was it coincidental that I wrote the introduction to the Chicken Soup for the Indian Woman’s Soul on the eve of Woman’s Day? As I wrote it many years ago, I recalled women who have triumphed in big and small ways and changed lives and perceptions without ever being acknowledged. Women who don’t bail out easily […]
The needle point of pain is fire and ice it’s the knowing and the not knowing the near and the far presence and absence the found and the lost A pain both old and young that knows how to smile at itself and be petulant. It is home in the cozy grooves of the heart. […]
I started jotting down my prayers in a journal sometime in early July this year. I was intrigued by the maid Aibileen in The Help who wrote down all her prayers in a prayer book. Everyone thought her prayers worked. I read about the same thing in Write it Down, Make it Happen. So I […]
Undo each moment till the closure. The memory of his hand in yours. Undo every memory you shaped. Every dream in your mind that you taped. Undo the ‘I will be here forever’ Because there is no everafter. Undo the want to be his. The need to make him yours. Togetherness. And its cause. Undo […]
It was a pleasant morning as I walked out of my parents’ home after a hearty breakfast; all excited to meet one of my favourite people – my dance teacher, who we always fondly addressed as Aunty. Little did I know as I hailed an autorickshaw that today’s meeting would be bitter-sweet and would […]
The sun had begun to set on the horizon. Chanda’s frail arms could no longer carry the weight of Bablu. Cold and tired, she put him down on the cobbled pavement. The old mansion looked deserted. Chanda and her brothers huddled together to keep warm. “Will he come?” she wondered looking at the box in […]
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 […]