Chaitanya Tamhane's acclaimed film Court is a study in how people present themselves to the world, despite their internal rumbles and ruminations, and there can be no better site for this than the courtroom. The film's pivotal character is Narayan Kamble (played by Vira Sathidar), a
Once upon a time there was a prince who, while in exile, drew an indefinite line around his wife and called it the circle of trust and protection. On one side, were she and her loneliness, biding their time until the reason for her very existence returned. On the other,
The fans of webcomic Crocodile in Water, Tiger on Land know to expect their weekly ration of bite-sized, scalpel-sharp scorn on Monday mornings. Monday mornings, we are assured, are the best time of the week for insults. The comic’s authors are an unnamed duo from Kolkata, who started publishing
One of the earliest bits of film shot in India (in 1899) is of the ghats of Banaras. It is a moving shot from the river that captures the tableau of Brahmins bathing and cleansing themselves, clothes being washed, boats ferrying passengers and even a couple of women, but not
In her latest novel, Meera Syal grapples with an eye-wideningly long list of capital-I Issues; surrogacy, feminism, immigrant identity, ageing, cultural friction, and intergenerational tension are thickly woven into the story. Also featured are eating disorders, domestic abuse, rape, addiction, infidelity, globalisation---I could go on. She opts to juggle her
Aditya Vikram Sengupta's debut film Asha Jaoar Majhe (Labour of Love) is a deceptively simple, ingenuous film about a single day and night in the lives of a married couple. In the film, neither of the two characters are able to sleep properly. Early in the morning, the
The biggest joke in Shovon Chowdhury's Murder with Bengali Characteristics is that the only real thing being murdered is the reader's interest. Murder with Bengali Characteristics by Shovon Chowdhury. Click here to purchase. Speculative fiction has its own loyal fan following, but as in most cases
College was, for me, to paraphrase Dickens, the best of times and the worst of times. And if I were asked to identify the one food item that most defined my time in college, and which encapsulated perfectly the vagaries of my student life experience, I would say it was
The latest in a spate of representations of same-sex couples is Myntra's excellent advert for brightly coloured Anouk ethnic clothing. If the success of an advertisement is measured by how much one wants to wear a kurta and have it blow about in the mostly non-existent breezes of
Illustrations by Dyuti Mittal The Hotel In the evening, he read by the light of dying astronauts. They fell, ablating in the atmosphere, artificial meteors illuminating the sky. The abandoned beachfront hotel which had been Ravi’s home was slowly crumbling. The shoreline had flexed like a snake, the sea
Ever curious about your dying day? The Oracle of Tripe has all the answers. Won-Tolla presents the bewildering tale of a man who asks for it and, unfortunately, gets it.
It was a cold December night at Jodhpur Railway Station. Passengers in monkey caps and shawls hurried towards their compartments with surprising swiftness, and the winter chill appeared to affect the platform’s resident mice as well, who were scurrying about everywhere, popping in and out of gaps under vendor