Gattu
Hindi (U)Cast: Mohammad Samad, Naresh Sharma, Jayanta Das, Harshit, ZoyaDirector: Rajan Khosa A hundred years of cinema, 1,000 plus films annually, countless stars, select superstars, world class...
View ArticleThe Dark Knight Rises
English (U/A)Cast: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-LevittDirector: Christopher Nolan The dark knight who vanished eight years ago kept everyone...
View ArticleWritten in limestone
One of the highlights of our visit to China was a short sojourn at the picturesque city of Guilin in Guangxi Province. Guilin is famous for its mystifying limestone mountains punctuated by numerous...
View ArticleMonsoon masti
Goa in the monsoon, from a touristy perspective, resembles a post-wedding home suddenly shorn of guests, gusto and gaiety. A hangover creeps up on this now-swollen seafront of surf 'n' sand that had...
View ArticleDrops that make a city
Shefali Tripathi Mehta sails through the many lakes of Bhopal, soaking up some history and pointing out to other sights of natural wonder along the way.My memories of life in the city of lakes evoke a...
View ArticleFeeling blue
In a TV commercial, which was aired regularly some weeks ago, a young woman makes this puzzling pronouncement: "I've turned blue; how about you?" The blue tent out of which she peers reminds me of the...
View ArticleThe Indian paradox
Today in Chennai, I witnessed a dead-end journey. A deafening firecracker was set off by a gathering of men at the head of a funeral procession. Stray dogs flinched and onlookers cowered. Shutters were...
View ArticleShaivite central
Susheela Nair visits Tala in picturesque Chhattisgarh and discovers the extent to which life in this non-decrepit village seems to have been influenced by Lord Shiva.Thinking of Chhattisgarh, beautiful...
View ArticleBook rack
A devil is waitingJack HigginsHarper Collins, 2012, pp 346, 299When the US president is entertained by the British prime minister, a mullah accuses the president of war crimes and offers paradise to...
View ArticleDance dialogue
Re-scribing tradition: Modernisation of south indian dance dramaGuru Bapat RaoIIAS2012, pp 154595Indian traditional performing arts, like most art forms around the world, have been subject to change....
View ArticleMurder jigsaw
The devotion of suspect XKeigo HigashinoHachette2012, pp 374350Kiego Higashino is one of Japan's leading crime-fiction writers, Japan's James Patterson, if you like. The Devotion of Suspect X is the...
View ArticleCapital city
In this book, Glaeser argues that the strength that comes from human collaboration is the truth behind civilisation's success and the primary reason why cities exist, writes Prasenjit ChowdhuryHowever...
View ArticleReliving traditions
Gorgeous colours, daring designs and lavish patterns… fabrics from Rajasthan are truly unbelievable! Each fabric relives a great tradition here. A special form of pattern, which is highly...
View ArticleStanding up on her own
From Edinburgh to Stockholm, Paris to London, San Francisco to Pakistan, Shazia Mirza is every bit the global star. "Humour is universal in itself," states the confident comedian.She maybe a new voice...
View ArticlePortrait of a maverick
FN Souza lives his life painting and loving. His footsteps still reverberate in the corridors of modern Indian art, notes Giridhar Khasnis.Ten years ago, Francis Newton Souza died almost in obscurity;...
View ArticleIn the shadow of another story
Teri Meri Kahaani, which released recently, has not exactly set the box-office on fire. To add to the disappointment, filmgoers immediately found the storyline similar to the 2005 Taiwanese film Three...
View ArticleScreen inspector
He is the policeman Kerala police never had. Popular hero of Malayalam cinema, Suresh Gopi is one actor who has done the uniform proud every time he has donned it, even in his latest film The King and...
View ArticleRomancing the screen
Rajiv Vijayakar looks back on the life of Rajesh Khanna, whose cinematic life rose and fell in equal measure, but nevertheless left a distinct mark in the hearts of all those who remember him as...
View ArticleMusic review
Rock steadyThe California six-piece band fronted by the recognisable duo of vocalist Chester Bennington and rapper Mike Shinoda have survived for years beyond the nu-metal contemporaries. On their last...
View ArticleUp above the world so high
I am terribly afraid of heights and can't look out of a fifth floor window. With my worst nightmare being one of me having to walk near a waterfall, the picture of a small figure on a thin cable...
View Article