ACK! #1

Film Review: John & Jane

When you watch John & Jane for the first time, you wonder whether it is a work of fiction or if the people and their stories are for real. The angst and aspirations of the central characters, their cynicism and hope, their weaknesses and strengths, are all so authentic that

Song Review: Quest

Acclaimed mridangam player Vivek Rajagopalan has been garnering a lot of attention thanks to his unique mix of Carnatic, Hindustani, jazz, folk and electronic music. Fusion has become a bit of a dirty word in the independent scene thanks to a plethora of inane acts that use the fusion shtick

Book Review: The Eighth Guest & Other Muzaffar Jang Mysteries

Madhulika Liddle has walked the streets of Delhi and reworked her way back to 1656, conjuring up a Mughal Dilli where each square inch has been relabelled for our benefit and sketched down to its carpeting and the artefacts that line the walls. This is a Dilli where marriages are

CD Review: I'm with You

Five years after their mammoth double-disc offering Stadium Arcadium, L.A. rock veterans Red Hot Chili Peppers return with I’m with You, their tenth studio album in their twenty-eight-year-long(!) career. Naturally, tenth albums of any band (except Radiohead, of course) are met with a certain dearth of expectation, and

Testimonial Comics #13

The Dawn of Opinion

In a world where the media explodes every morning, afternoon, and evening in your living room, even as up-to-the-minute news and views are delivered to whatever new-age gizmo you’re partisan to, it becomes increasingly evident that we live in times when more and more people are realising the importance

And then There Was One

Imagine: A life that does not have you groaning over toilet seats or empty bottles or over-flowing ash trays. A life that does not require you to be on your best behaviour, worry about bad hair days, or lose sleep over the fact that you are completely and utterly incapable

Progress, No Matter the Cost

Having grown up in Gujarat during the '90s, to me Gujarat always seemed as a backward state in the country. On trips to Mumbai, I would often marvel at the ‘skyscrapers’ (the tallest of which at the time was barely 40 storeys tall!) and wide roads, wondering when the

There Is Beauty in Not Knowing

I happened to go to a college fest a few days ago where I was judging the photography contest. After the show I asked the group of 20 college students if anyone wanted to be a photographer. I saw blank faces with only one hand raised, although I had just

Just for Laughs

India has never been short of comedy. Whether it is the humour of Johnny Lever or Jaspal Bhatti, we’ve all had our share of laughs. On the other hand, India had also probably never seen comedy outside of the reel world for a long time. But now things are

Made in Bollywood

I was four when I first got the taste of Bollywood. My version of 'Yeh Kaali Kaali Aankhen' from the box-office hit Baazigar sounded more like “Li Ka Li Ka Li Aankhen” and I sang it with a hilariously Anu Malik-like panache and confidence. From then, until now,