United Colours of India

India’s complexity as a multi-cultural entity is probably much more than even a continent like Europe. A person from Tamil Nadu is so differ...

Putdownable: Bestsellers I Never Managed to Finish

Some witty soul (must be Mark Twain) had once commented that a classic is ‘a book no one reads but everyone praises’. I believed this quite ...

Real Life is Boring!

Wave Cinema has a baseline – Real life is boring. And they customize the copy of their ads to fit this line to the big release of the week. ...

Flight Delayed. Inconvenience Regretted.

Spending several hours at assorted airports – reading statutory national security guidelines and browsing through out-of-date magazines – is...

What is Life? Zindagi Kya Hain?

What do Bollywood have to say about life? Here is a quick list of songs which define ' zindagi ' as opposed to describing it. If I ...

Is Bheja Fry as good as Andaz Apna Apna?

Just by asking this question, I am bestowing the first mentioned film an honour which is quite vertiginious in my books. As my long-sufferin...

Mr & Mrs Ire

I did not get married because I said yes. I got married because I did not say no. The first step in the process of a marriage was initiated ...

Cine-Maa: A Mothers' Day Tribute

If one character distinguishes Hindi cinema from the rest of the world, then it is the Mother. No other country in the world has so many dif...

Calcutta 700029

I was born in North Calcutta and the years I spent there are the ones before the formation of coherent memory. But I would still be able to ...

India will Survive...

I just loved the last line of Ramachandra Guha's book on India's history since Independence. (Italics mine) "So long as the Con...

The Long and Short of It

Pioneered by Daag: The Fire , the trend of having subtitles for Hindi films continues unabated. The latest - and probably the longest - is ...

Pathey-Ghatey: Roadside Humour from Calcutta

Seen/heard around Calcutta, during a recent visit: * Large number of billboards for Nola Restaurant (which is a new chain serving "food...

60 Years of a State

When all of India is getting excited about the Golden Jubilee of our existence as a nation, West Bengal - in a naturally parochial manner - ...