Women-driven Bollywood Films
My guest post for UltraViolet (Indian Feminists Unplugged), first published here.Written for Women's Day 2014.Coincidentally or otherwise, too many of my Twitter conversations end up in a blog post....
View ArticleBollywood's Damning Women Cliches
A guest-post for @genderlogindia, written on Prem Panicker's request, first published here.Bollywood is usually the go-to guy for bashing. Anything evil in this country is, by and large, attributed to...
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Eid yani Biriyani!
I apologise at the outset for equating the holy festival of sacrifice and pilgrimage with rice and mutton but I am secularly hungry. You should see my glee while devouring roast turkeys and Kalipujo...
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What is Bollybook?
Now that I have signed off all the proofs and sent Bollybookto the printers, this might be a good time to tell you what the book is all about. A couple of years back, I wrote a book called Kitnay Aadmi...
View ArticleA LOT of Film Writing
In an effort to get noticed in a month when India's top novelist released 2 million copies of his latest offering, I ended up writing quite a few pieces on movies which are around the topic of...
View Article#BookADay
Penguin India is running a month-long campaign on Twitter, asking people to name their favourite books in various categories - one for each day.I got lost in the many responses they got from a large...
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2014: A Roundup
Chalo, my yearly roundup is here. FilmsOne of the things I loved about 2014 was the huge number of films that were led by a woman. Be it Mary Kom (which I found okayish) or Mardaani (which worked for...
View ArticleMy Favourite (Blog)Posts of 2014
Before 2015 becomes more than a few days old, let me quickly upload a list of my favourite (blog) posts of 2014. Arunava Sinha wrote on buying and reading books in 1980s Calcutta and Interstellar...
View ArticleKnow Your Censor Board Chief
As a Bollywood fan, the Chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification (aka Censor Board) is the administrative post you are most affected by. After all, he is the guy who is going to decide if...
View Article55 Returns To Bollywood
Seven 55-word stories. On seven well-known and not-so-well-known Bollywood episodes. “Galti ho gayi, Anand-sahab.”“Galti ke bachche, tu jaanta hai mera shirt kitne ka hain? Main tere paise se...”“Nahin...
View ArticleWriting on Writing
A few months back, I compiled a few stories around Hindi film scripts for a very popular magazine. The material got used in bits and pieces for the cover story that they were doing. The cores of the...
View ArticleSo, where's your Calcutta tonight?
In another five years, I would have spent more time away from Calcutta than I spent in it. Like the recurrent migraine of those who are doomed to have it, Calcutta is like a nagging pain. It comes...
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Little Stories of the Little Road
Sixty years back, a film called Pather Panchali released and continues to light up our lives with its lyrical beauty. The making of the film and its path to immortality were not easy. It only happened...
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Shelf Esteem: On Books in The Times of India
Recently, the good people of Times of India Bangalore asked me to answer some fun questions on books for a weekly column of theirs called 'Shelf Esteem' (ha ha, whatay pun). It was a listy kind of...
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#100MoviePact
After five years, I am starting a new year without a book to be written.To gainfully (?) employ my late nights, I am starting the 100 Movie Pact (inspired by my wife’s Saree Pact in 2015) with which I...
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1. Masaan
My #100MoviePact got off to a great start with that one movie I was dying to watch last year but could not, thanks to a change of jobs and cities (complicated further by a college and family reunion)....
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2. Court
Court came highly recommended, having mopped up awards and acclaim from all quarters and even being India’s entry to the Oscars (though past history indicates that is neither a necessary nor sufficient...
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3. Wazir
Many years ago, I happened to come across a poster on the ‘net for a film called 64 Squares. To be directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra, it was supposed to be a film about two adversaries meeting across a...
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4. Kill Bill Vol 1
A woman is beaten to an inch of death at her wedding and every one of the guests, her groom and her unborn child are killed. She goes into a coma for four years but wakes up to start taking revenge on...
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Pather Panchali
For the last several years I have been expecting the release of the restored version of the Apu Trilogy and when it released, I waited patiently for the India release of the DVDs (or maybe, even a...
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