As an old Rishi Kapoor and an older Amitabh Bachchan come to a screen near you in 102 Not Out, a tribute to the ever-old man of Hindi cinema, AK Hangal As the resolutely old are set to find a story celebrating a centenarian on Hindi screen this Friday in Umesh Shukla’s 102 Not Out, […]

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The objections to Truschke’s tweets were never about interpretation It is nothing short of poetic justice that the final blow to claims made by Audrey Truschke about Sitaji’s use of the phrase “misogynist pig” in Valmiki’s Ramayana came on Sita Navami, the day the goddess’ appearance is celebrated. On that day (April 24), Swarajya magazine […]

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In literature and on screen, mangoes often inspire lyrical thoughts. However, there isn’t a rich enough repertoire to match the fruit’s popularity As mangoes are on their way to hit the summer fruits market, there is obviously more to the fruit than the clichéd Alphonso features. One may also be sceptical about the sense of […]

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Premier Padmini, that much-desired streetcar, is an endangered species as less than 300 units are still in running condition. is now. The time to write its epitaph has come In 1964, former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri took a loan of Rs 5,000 from Punjab National Bank in 1964 to buy it when it was […]

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India has a history of festivals spreading to different parts of the country either for greater cultural interaction or political mobilisation Mornings in a large part of the Hindi heartland often reverberate with chaupaiis (verses) of poet-saint Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas. In one of the most widely sung and popular verses, Tulsidas runs out of possible simile […]

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The concept of Mile Sur worked when born, failed when reborn. It can’t strike strike a chord with a generation which sees celebrities every day on the small screen Three decades separate two generations in India. One grew up on musical homilies on national integration on Doordarshan. The other trolls or fawns a cross-section of […]

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The Hindi film industry has produced very few songs for this season, compared to the other three seasons. Perhaps love is scorched by the tropical sun While literary scholars can argue what T S Eliot actually meant when he called April the cruellest month, it rings true for India. It’s not always about what April […]

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Great works of literature have not done too well as movies whereas mediocre books do better. Film-makers must find a way adapt the missing word More than a decade ago, in the afterglow of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, VS Naipaul said that novels had outlived their utility and were likely to […]

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