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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I was 11 when I went for a 24 day trek on the Garhwal Himalayas with a group–The Explorers and Adventurers. It was nothing even close to a school trip; these were professional trekkers some of whom had scaled the Mt.Everest and conducted low difficulty treks for all age groups. We’d trek for 8-12 […]
Since I belong to the mountains, I speak for them but this might just hold true for other places in the world too. The memories you come back with depend upon the season you go in. For me, the mist is the most overpowering impression of Sikkim in pre-monsoon June. It seeps through the […]
Take a small detour from the famous Spice Route of old into a relatively undiscovered part of rural Rajasthan and one of the world’s only open-air art galleries. Painted houses fade like painted ladies of old. Their stately presence, battered shutters and pigeon filled lofts disguise an ancient beauty now fading into red tinged sunsets. […]
Long time before I found my way to the big city of Delhi and discovered a slice of cake called Black Forest at Nathu’s Pastry Shop in Bengali Market, I knew another Kalu Danda (that’s black forest in my native Garhwali). It was the name of my shady pine forested hometown that the British came and […]
It is easier to write about snow in Wales when your back is being warmed up fat slabs of sunshine and you only have to turn slightly to look at a tall oak preening in its new foliage. It has forgotten its own starvation right through the long winter when it knew stoicism was its […]
In a world filled with alternatives, one more seductive than the next, Grassroutes offers urban India a taste of rural living. Half a century after the green revolution hit India, our agricultural practices are still subject to the whims of the weather; our farmlands have been split and re-split into acres too meager to afford […]
There’s always a place which beckons you again and again, with a certain charm which refuses to wear off even as the place ages with you. Some places never really leave an impression on you, while some stamp you for life. Guess, each one of us has a happy place that comforts us when we […]
Deep in the heart of rural Tuscany, lies the quaint, medieval town of Siena. Often overlooked because of its imposing neighbour, Florence. Siena is a quintessentially, a Tuscan walled town. The heart of the city is the Piazza del Campo, the main square, where the Sienese used to hold their markets and sporting events in […]
What is it about certain cities that makes you want to come back before you have even left? Some cities barely register as you pass through, clutching your Lonely Planet. Some assault you senses, some make you want to leave as soon as you can and then there are some that leave you slightly breathless, wondering […]
Unboxed Writers began reaching out to readers in March 2011 and in April we are nearly 140 stories and many thousands of clicks old. Yes, we are being read and shared but there are days, to be honest, when we wonder. No, not about we why are writing. We do not question the joy of reaching out every single day to every single person who […]
” Do not once think that you are here as a result of chance or coincidence,” the folks at Our Native Village, an ecologically sensitive and restorative resort, will have you believe. So if you have been longing to fill a big void where there once was a simpler way of life and if you are […]
“The first time I came here, a black man leapt out of the shadows and screamed at me -‘What to you want? Boy? Girl? Heroin?’ ” Gunnar nods towards the corner of memory as if his arrival were yesterday. “I was absolutely terrified! I thought he was asking if I was a boy or girl! […]