Let’s begin by getting the obvious out of the way — Kathal: A Jackfruit Mystery, starring Sanya Malhotra, runs quite parallel to Dahaad, starring Sonakshi Sinha. Both play cops treated inferiorly because of their gender and caste (Basor and Meghwal), while inspecting the retrogressive borderlands of Bundelkhand and Rajasthan, respectively.
Even ...
So, who was the real Atal Bihari Vajpayee? A right man in the wrong party or a hardcore Hindu nationalist right from the start? Did he really admire Jawaharlal Nehru? Did he actually call Indira Gandhi a ‘Durga’ after the 1971 war?
In what is clearly an exhaustive biography of one of India’s most popular politicians, journalist-author Abhishek C...
Tina Turner, who passed away at 83 after a long illness in her home near Zurich (Switzerland), was ‘a girl from a cotton field’ who pulled herself above what was not ‘taught’ to her. Born Anna Mae Bullock in a tempestuous family of Nutbush, a ‘don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it little town’ in Tennessee, she grew up with instability and pain. However, s...
It’s hard to overstate the phenomenon but if there is consensus over which film the Cannes film festival was collectively abuzz about, there is perhaps only one answer: Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Though Scorsese has had a close relationship with the festival — in a career spanning half a century, sixty years almost — it began wit...
Georgi Gospodinov, the first Bulgarian winner of the International Booker Prize for his third novel Time Shelter — translated into English by Angela Rodel — has deep-seated empathy for the past. “For a person who loves the world of yesterday, this book was not easy,” he writes in the Acknowledgement section of the novel. “To a certain extent it was...
Tonight, amid much anticipation, the winner of the 2023 International Booker Prize will be announced at a grand ceremony held at Sky Garden in London. The shortlist features novels from six countries and four continents, including two debut novels and a final work, a swan song, by an established author. The judging panel, led by renowned French-Mor...
Caste represents the historical specificity of Indian society. There has been a fairly celebrated position among both scholars and political elite that caste will gradually lose its dominance and become a marker of less significance or no consequence with the acceleration of the process of modernity. This modernist position predicted that developme...
In the flood of time, the tale of Kalki Krishnamurthy’s magnum opus Ponniyin Selvan flows ceaselessly, beckoning readers to embark on a captivating voyage, an enchanting journey through time and history. Author and translator Nandini Krishnan has undertaken the formidable task of translating the literary masterpiece, a classic of Tamil literature, ...
The meaning of love probably keeps changing every few years on-screen. Though the central idea has remained the same, we are regularly taken on grand tours by reputed filmmakers to witness different kinds of romance.
In Unnale Unnale (2007), Jhansi (Sadha) lets go of her ex-boyfriend, Karthik (Vinay Rai), in the closing segment instead of trying...
“Why do governments get so much say over what is shared on social media? Why are taxpayers unable to easily see where their taxes and donations are spent? Why are our Parliament and state legislatures unable to question governments effectively?” asks Subhashish Bhadra, author of the book Caged Tiger: How Too Much Government is Holding Indians Back ...
Ruskin Bond, who turns 89 today, is still on his way. Far beyond the threshold of 60, a milestone that designates one as a senior citizen, he has embraced a life brimming with contentment and purpose. With a wealth of experiences etched upon his weathered face, and his countenance a roadmap of journeys undertaken and stories lived, Bond stands tal...
I’ve always loved Ben Affleck on screen, who doesn’t? He is charismatically good-looking, clearly bound for stardom, with a distinct likeability as an actor. But if there’s one thing that I like more, then it’s Affleck prowess behind the camera. This is probably a bold statement to make, but Affleck is a better filmmaker than an actor, and his late...
KK Shailaja’s autobiography, My Life as a Comrade: The Story of an Extraordinary Politician and the World That Shaped Her (Juggernaut Books), falls short of what could have been a fascinating life story of a female communist leader in contemporary India.
In 2021, when the CPI(M) leadership in Kerala decided not to repeat any ministers barring th...
Motherhood has been a recurring theme in Indian novels in English, with authors exploring various aspects of the experience such as fertility issues, surrogacy, adoption, and the complexities of mother-daughter relationships. In recent years, Indian literature in English has seen a surge in novels that explore the complexities of motherhood, with m...
Growing up in Assam’s Tezpur, Pixie (who goes by their first name only), a non-binary college student, was “often judged and stereotyped” for their identity. “I was always sidelined. There was a lack of acceptance — be it at school, public spaces or social gatherings,” Pixie recalls. A lack of acceptance automatically translated into a lack of acce...
A surge of bright pastel colours, symmetrical frames, and deadpan faces has started flooding Instagram, welcoming users to the cinematic universe of Wes Anderson. Instagrammers are successfully replicating the distinctive visual style of the American filmmaker, using it as an opportunity to romanticize the mundane.
By employing Anderson’s aesthe...
In a remote corner of India, women are disappearing and no one seems to care. When you think about it, the elevator pitch for the recently-released The Kerala Story and Amazon Prime’s Dahaad seem more alike than not. However, while Sudipto Sen’s film claims to propel a ‘truth’ based on (highly questionable) facts and figures, the Amazon limited ser...
BTS, the globally renowned K-pop group, is set to release their book, Beyond The Story: 10-Year Record of BTS. The much-anticipated book, written by journalist Myeongseok Kang in collaboration with the group members, will be published on July 9 in both South Korea and the United States by Big Hit Music and Flatiron Books, respectively.
The book pr...
Savitri aka Rani Baa (Dimple Kapadia) produces and sells a hot cake drug called Flamingo, which is a variant of cocaine. She runs this drug cartel under the guise of a handicraft and merchandise business called Rani Cooperative, with the help of her daughters-in-law, Kaajal (Angira Dhar) and Bijlee (Isha Talwar), daughter Shanta (Radhika Madan), ad...
Very few travel writers invite you to reflect on the nature of existence as Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer, known to the world as Pico Iyer (66), does. In the hands of the British-born essayist and novelist, the act of travel writing becomes a delicate dance between observation and emotion. With a keen eye for detail and a poet’s soul, Iyer is able t...
In a scene from Sudhir Mishra’s Afwaah, a social media manager tells a young politician “If you want to have a future as a politician, you need to understand the internet.” It’s an unsubtle prophecy mixed into the DNA of a film that doesn’t believe in relaying its messages subversively. Instead, everything is said out loud, with the casualness and ...
Bestselling author David Baldacci keeps you on the edge of your seat with his intricately plotted and action-packed stories. With a career spanning nearly three decades, Baldacci (62) has carved out a niche for himself as a celebrated master of the thriller genre. His ability to balance character development and thrilling twists and turns shines th...
In March, a month after Darshan Solanki, an 18-year-old first year Dalit student of BTech in Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay died on campus, the college released an interim report. The enquiry committee absolved the institute of any blame suggesting that Solanki’s deteriorating academic performance was the re...
In 2014, when the looming possibility of a Narendra Modi-led government in India was becoming increasingly imminent, eminent Kannada writer and Jnanpith Award recipient Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy made a bold and unequivocal declaration. At 82 years old and in failing health, Ananthamurthy stated that he would not live in a country ruled b...
