What defines a Bollywood film? In the song Dhoondo Dhoondo Re Saajna from Ganga Jamuna, Vyjayanthimala’s coy appeal for Dilip Kumar’s help in finding a lost earring epitomised the restrained, socially-permissible sexuality of the times. Yash Chopra’s Waqt introduced the template for multi-generational epic sagas that we’
Devashish Makhija is a man of stories. A writer and filmmaker based in Mumbai, he has worked on films such as Black Friday and Bunty Aur Babli, and his own film Oonga (starring Nandita Das) premiered at the New York Indian Film Festival in 2013. He has written two bestselling
1. Lohhovalsa The village shimmered high up on the hill, as if being licked to sleep by some unseen tongue of fire. The unit was scared. And tired. Sushil didn’t know which of the two he felt more. He stopped his racing mind for a moment, to think. He
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.
The Helter Skelter Anthology of New Writing: Volume Four Helter Skelter Magazine's New Writing section was started in 2012 as a way to promote emerging writers and poets in India; to create a space for original, fresh short fiction and poetry.The first three volumes of New Writing
I fell in love with Seahorse the way I fell in love with Amitav Ghosh’s Shadow Lines and Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and The Professor. Quietly. Deeply. Shadow Lines was my first teacher in non-linearity. I discovered that time can linger, halt, stagnate, freeze, and shatter all together,
The Bacardi NH7 Weekender, often referred to as India's happiest music festival, is bigger than ever this year. Those who waited eagerly for the festival schedule for months before the festival were not disappointed when it was announced---the artist lineups for each city looked very promising, and included
Behind the Panels is a comic book scripting workshop on Sunday, November 9, in Bandra, Mumbai, presented by Helter Skelter Magazine for everyone who wants to learn about the nuts and bolts of the ninth art. The workshop will be conducted by Jai Undurti, author of Hyderabad: A Graphic Novel,
Nikhil Mahajan's debut feature film Pune 52 invites viewers into the world of Amar Apte, a private detective who lives in Pune's Karve Nagar neighbourhood with his nagging wife and mother-in-law. Nikhil Mahajan's Pune 52 Played by Girish Kulkarni, Amar is a frustrated man
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.
‘Do they really eat dog?’ was the most common question I encountered after I returned from a two-week-long trip to Xian and Beijing. It’s almost bizarre how the idea of a cuisine that is such a big part of the restaurant culture in India is fraught with so much
Annie Zaidi’s Gulab is a love story that brings together the seemingly incompatible worlds of the living and the dead, in which a Muslim woman who perishes in a 1990 earthquake finds a way to live out a life abruptly cut short. Annie Zaidi's Gulab Saira takes