Review: Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine as Light’ Challenges Traditional Film Criticism
Sometime in late November, you can feel Mumbai entering winter. Many can point to the exact day, the exact moment. It could be midnight at home when the skin suddenly prickles in the cool wind. It might be the night-time desire to actually cover yourself with a sheet. It might
“Past in Present: A Journey Through Downtown Srinagar” | A Frontline Perspectives Documentary
WATCH | Past in Present: A Journey Through Downtown Srinagar | A Frontline Perspectives Documentary This documentary offers a comprehensive look at Downtown Srinagar, a place of great significance for anyone curious about South Asian heritage, urban evolution, or the intersections of culture, politics, and art. | Video Credit: Reported,
Decriminalising Cannabis: Is it Time to Weed out Taboos and Embrace the Plant as India’s Cultural Gift to the World?
This year marked the 50th anniversary of the Hindi film Aap Ki Kasam, J. Om Prakash’s directorial debut starring Rajesh Khanna, Mumtaz, and Sanjeev Kumar in an unconventional romantic drama. The film was a major success, aided no doubt by its memorable soundtrack, which featured songs by the iconic composer
Book Review: Manu Gandhi’s Diary is a Quiet Chronicle of the Final Years of the Mahatma
In the months before Partition, Mahatma Gandhi travelled across India trying to prevent communal violence and what would become one of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies. Among those who witnessed his ultimately futile mission up close was his grandniece, Manu Gandhi. Her diary captures an intimate portrait of hope against
No Other Land: How A Banned Israeli-Palestinian Documentary Exposes Fear Behind Film Censorship
A film that is censored is a film that is celebrated—because the state today is such that to be a thorn in its side is to bloom. When No Other Land, the documentary by Palestinian activist Basel Adra and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, was denied permission to be screened at both
Kumar Shahani’s Cinema: How the Avant-garde Filmmaker Crafted Meaning Through Movement, Silence and Form
I am no film critic. I have had the privilege of being Kumar Shahani’s friend for over 20 years and have seen almost all his well-known films. I also had the privilege of talking to him about his films. He was deeply interested in the nuances of language, its sounds
William Radice, Renowned Tagore Translator and Bengali Scholar, Dies at 73
William Radice, the English poet, Tagore translator, and scholar of Bengali language and literature passed away on November 10. He was 73. I was his oldest Bengali friend, but I never worked out what led him to make Bengali the focus of his life’s work. I honestly can claim no
Why Millennials and Gen Z Swear by Sally Rooney
In one of the early chapters of Sally Rooney’s new novel, Intermezzo, the protagonist, Ivan, a 22-year-old chess player, invites Margaret, a 36-year-old programme director at the arts centre hosting an amateur chess tournament-cum-workshop, to the house where he has been put up by the organisers. As Margaret weighs in her
Book Review: ‘Toward Eternity’ sees Celebrated Translator Anton Hur Coming into his Own As a Writer
In physics, singularity is the point where known physical laws break down and predictions become impossible. The Big Bang theory suggests our universe emerged from such a singularity. That is an infinitely dense, hot point which expanded and cooled. At this moment, conventional concepts of time and space lose meaning.
Uma Dasgupta, Iconic Child Actor of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Pather Panchali’, Dies at 83
A young Uma Dasgupta in Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement One important aspect of Satyajit Ray’s great craft was that he would not begin a project until he had the right faces for the characters of his film. He was stuck while preparing for his masterpiece, Pather