tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50340309978573582392012-02-14T08:30:07.683+05:30Hindi: chhoti haziri, vulg. hazri, 'little breakfast'; refreshment taken in the early morning, before or after the morning exercise. (Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, 1994 [1886])Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.comBlogger2061100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-58846179095925403332012-02-11T14:28:00.005+05:302012-02-12T14:00:20.319+05:30

This week's review column for Firstpost. Rahul Kapoor is the depressing sort of good boy who wears the ties his dad tells him to. Worse, he works at a job that his dad picked (an architecture firm in Las Vegas) and dates a girl his mom thinks is good for him (the daughter of one of her social acquaintances). For 25 years, he’s been plodding obediently along the track his parents have laid

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-6056572585209450352012-01-30T15:02:00.004+05:302012-01-30T15:40:55.598+05:30

A review of three 'young adult' thrillers, published in yesterday's Asian Age.    Mumbai has long been the favourite Indian locale for fictional crime. Guru Dutt’s Baazi and Raj Khosla’s CID created a shadowy noir vision of Bombay as early as the 1950s. Contemporary realist depictions of Mumbai’s gritty underbelly really took off with Ram Gopal Varma’s Satya (1998). That cinematic fascination

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-87237395493337906002012-01-28T15:38:00.003+05:302012-02-02T10:56:48.115+05:30

The Agneepath of 2012 – producer Karan Johar’s suitably filmi, emotional tribute to his father Yash Johar – risks a million departures in terms of characters, narrative and tenor, while clinging tightly to the emotional core of the 1990 Agneepath produced by Johar Senior: a boy whose life path is defined by the murder of his father. And like the 1990 film which earned a then visibly ageing

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-64904845202968341672012-01-22T00:08:00.002+05:302012-01-31T15:31:22.332+05:30

Clint Eastwood’s biopic of J Edgar Hoover is a remarkably ambitious film. It is ambitious not just because of the long time period it spans — from 1919, when a 24-year-old Hoover was put in charge of a new division under the Department of Justice to investigate the programmes of radical groups, until 1972, when his death ended a controversial 37-year-long career as the director of the FBI —

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-69286545941663422572012-01-20T13:48:00.004+05:302012-01-30T15:47:48.467+05:30

A review of Sunil Shanbag's marvellous play that I wrote for the new Kolkata-based performing arts magazine, Avantika. We’re used to thinking of music as an aid to theatre, something that underscores the mood of a dramatic performance, perhaps even alters it. But Sunil Shanbag’s new production uses theatrical performance as a route into the multiple worlds of Indian music. It is a reversal

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-78525168097463686202012-01-13T19:05:00.003+05:302012-01-30T17:10:07.420+05:30

My second film review column for Firstpost. There’s something about the way Chaalis Chauraasi begins that’s a little bit retro, like watching the title credits of a 1970s Hindi thriller. Exactly what it is that recreates that sense of generalised anticipation – the thumping background music, the Mumbai Police van careening round corners, or just the headlights bouncing off rain-slicked streets

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-61299645539031008892012-01-11T18:29:00.002+05:302012-01-30T15:48:52.222+05:30

A review of Jhabvala's newest collection of stories, published in Open magazine this week.   Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s latest collection of short stories is the work of a completely assured writer operating within her comfort zone. Though, when you have a life path as singular as Jhabvala’s — born in Cologne, raised and educated in Britain after her family fled Nazi Germany in 1939, married to a

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-50957494203674695182012-01-06T23:30:00.000+05:302012-01-31T11:15:03.784+05:30

The first of my Friday film review columns for Firstpost.com: Abbas-Mustan's Players. In an industry in which remakes get made all the time without anyone batting an eyelid about credits, Abbas-Mustan have for some reason gone to town telling us that their latest release Players is based on The Italian Job. This rather unusual circumstance seemed occasion enough for me to return to the

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-74192266808105852632012-01-02T14:32:00.003+05:302012-01-31T11:20:39.703+05:30

A longish review of the photomagazines Pix and Punctum, published in The Caravan, January 2012.  Note: The Caravan website has a few selected images, but for more photos go directly to Pix and Punctum. In a world where we are constantly bombarded with images, the photomagazine makes for an unusual viewing experience. First, from the magazine perspective, there’s the slow, pleasurable

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-85181760893338996122011-12-20T15:08:00.005+05:302012-01-30T17:12:18.194+05:30

My piece in Open magazine, on Amit Dutta's biopic of a Pahari miniaturist, now considered the most important Indian painter of the 18th century. A white-clad figure sits on the ghat of a sparkling river. He unwraps a red cloth bundle, takes out a sheaf of paper, and begins to draw. The brush he wields is remarkably thin, its almost pointy tip leaving the barest shadow of a line, almost

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-10240256256596052522011-12-11T12:16:00.005+05:302011-12-11T12:28:11.060+05:30

My review for today's Sunday Guardian.In an early scene in Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl, a lean, limber young man with floppy hair and a winsome smile appears at a Delhi businessman's doorstep with the businessman's 20-something daughter passed out in his arms. It's the middle of the night, and the parents look worriedly at each other and their sleeping daughter. But when the young man – who's just

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-39095526576173348772011-12-04T19:54:00.008+05:302011-12-05T15:33:04.009+05:30

Much masala, little meatTHE DIRTY PICTUREDirector: Milan LuthriaStarring: Vidya Balan, Naseeruddin Shah, Emraan Hashmi, Tusshar Kapoor***1/2 Flamboyance is everything in the Milan Luthria universe. Carrying on where he left off with One Upon a Time in Mumbai (2010), Luthria takes the often gut-wrenching life of the South's most enduring sex-symbol and makes of it a breezy, masaaledar film that

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-54549608931242894222011-12-02T11:46:00.004+05:302011-12-02T12:14:32.777+05:30

An op-ed I wrote for today's Indian Express. The Help may seem like a sentimental movie about another time and place, but it deeply implicates the Indian viewer. Based on a bestselling 2009 novel by Kathryn Stockett, The Help — released in four Indian cities last Friday — is among the most talked-about American movies of 2011. Odd as it may sound, one wishes it were among the most talked-about

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-16103837545431203472011-11-28T12:27:00.005+05:302011-11-28T12:36:47.462+05:30

A piece I wrote for Open's winter travel issue. In Jaisalmer, tour guides and hotel managers can be as interesting as the place itself “We’re not together,” said the boy pointedly. He was French and his name was Damien. Or perhaps it was Daniel. Or Fabien? He was sitting awkwardly on the ground, alternating between attempting to sit properly cross-legged and having to pull his legs up and hug his

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-55872448969504242532011-11-27T15:05:00.005+05:302011-11-29T12:49:13.934+05:30

Few surprises amid clichesDESI BOYZDirector: Rohit DhawanStarring: Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Deepika Padukone, Chitrangda Singh***From the very first scene where a guy from Southall with "parents from Bhatinda" warns a derisive John Abraham that "you brown people" are going to get laid off first, we know that the desi-ness that is at the core of this film does not include second or

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-81891903932301663302011-11-23T08:29:00.006+05:302011-11-23T08:51:46.786+05:30

The difference between Deepti Naval the actress and Deepti Naval the writer Best known as the demure girl next door from Sai Paranjpye’s Chashme Baddoor, Deepti Naval starred in some of the gentlest, funniest comedies — Gulzar’s Angoor (1982), Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Rang Birangi (1983) and Kissi Se Na Kehna (1983)—as well as some of the hardest-hitting films of the 1980s: Saeed Mirza’s Mohan

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-60104752151263666692011-11-21T17:41:00.004+05:302011-11-23T11:32:32.645+05:30

My Sunday Guardian film column this week:THE END OF INNOCENCEThe Ides of MarchDirector: George ClooneyStarring: Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood***George Clooney's newest directorial venture is an adaptation of Farragut North, a play named by its author Beau Willimon for the train station near Washington DC's K Street, a thoroughfare known for

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-66598018263182973792011-11-21T10:55:00.008+05:302011-11-21T11:51:38.900+05:30

/StoryBigImageUCPAGOMreal_demon_big.jpg">Actors get ready for a Ramlila performance in Old Delhi. (Photo: Shekhar Yadav/India Today Group/Getty Images)The week before Dussehra, I saw several performances of the Ramayana story. I went to Old Delhi, the site of three famed Ramlilas and one Ramayana-themed procession called Sawaari, to the sarkari heart of the capital, where I watched the dance

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-14234674284918256602011-11-20T17:16:00.009+05:302011-11-20T17:32:06.000+05:30

This selection of articles from Quest, a socio-political and literary Indian magazine from the 1950s and 60s, offers perspectives that are still relevant today The Best Of Quest Edited by Laeeq Futehally, Achal Prabhala, Arshia SattarTranquebar Presspp 694, Rs. 695"To organize a new union between our political ideas and our imagination – in all our cultural purview there is no work more necessary

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-42365855622646534972011-11-14T18:22:00.007+05:302011-11-14T18:38:17.778+05:30

My Sunday Guardian column for 13th Nov.Long hard road to artROCKSTARDirector: Imtiaz AliStarring: Ranbir Kapoor, Nargis Fakhri, Shammi Kapoor, Aditi Rao Hydari***The first half of Imtiaz Ali's new film is wonderfully endearing. There's the guitar-playing, dil ka saaf Pitampura boy who wants to be a great musician and can't understand why the cool kids are laughing at him. There's the stunningly

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-890290096124992162011-11-06T18:02:00.006+05:302011-11-06T19:23:43.957+05:30

This week's Sunday Guardian column.Hunter, but leashedTHE RUM DIARYDirector: Bruce RobinsonStarring: Johnny Depp, Giovanni Ribisi, Aaron Eckhart**1/213 years after Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Johnny Depp reprises his performance as Hunter S. Thompson, original gonzo journalist and ceaseless experimenter with intoxicating substances. The timeline is a little wonky: Depp, now 48, plays an

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-60688201321285523022011-10-30T12:18:00.008+05:302011-10-31T08:07:01.405+05:30

Manufacturing joyHARISHCHANDRACHI FACTORYDirector: Paresh MokashiStarring: Nandu Madhav, Vibhawari Deshpande, Atharva Karve***1/2 Dhundiraj Govind Phalke's life would be considered a remarkable one even if he was not credited with having made the first-ever Indian motion picture. The son of a Sanskrit pandit from Trimbakeshwar, Phalke was a young man with an unquenchable thirst for the new. At

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-79084641494734701342011-10-29T15:10:00.007+05:302011-11-20T17:32:44.842+05:30

A review of two books about Hindi cinema - one academic and one not - written for a section on writing about films and film music that I guest-edited for the last issue of Biblio. The Greatest Show on Earth: Writings on BollywoodEdited by Jerry PintoPenguin Books India, 2011 ISBN : 9780143416128 472pp, Rs. 499Beyond the Boundaries of Bollywood: The Many Forms of Hindi Cinema Edited by Rachel

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-35766431952967580662011-10-28T23:33:00.007+05:302011-11-04T08:35:29.246+05:30

Kundan Shah brings home an ugly truth with sensitivityIt is supremely difficult to make a film hold an audience's interest when everyone already knows what happens in the end. Kundan Shah's unreleased film Teen Behenein (2005) succeeds in doing exactly this.Shah's gutwrenching subject is the suicide of three sisters whose family cannot provide adequate dowries for them to get married. There have

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-27395819689336621372011-10-28T12:14:00.006+05:302011-10-30T12:34:43.074+05:30

My Sunday Guardian column for 23rd Oct.Immaculately done, super-enjoyable rideSUPER 8Director: J.J. AbramsStarring: Joel Courtney, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee, Gabriel Basso***1/2 JJ Abrams' sci-fi blockbuster is, as a lot of reviewers have pointed out, a no-holds-barred homage to the early films of Steven Spielberg (who is, somewhat oddly, also the movie's producer). Many of these reviewers –

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-76061863511028375462011-10-16T11:21:00.005+05:302011-10-16T11:40:00.592+05:30

Fails to bloom after promising startJO DOOBA SO PAAR: IT'S LOVE IN BIHARDirector: Praveen KumarStarring: Vinay Pathak, Rajat Kapoor, Anand Tiwary, Pitobash Tripathi, Sadia Siddiqui** Praveen Kumar's debut feature begins with great promise. The scene is set in a school somewhere in Bihar. Uniformed boys – most of them that awkward age marked by a newly-broken voice and a proudly-displayed wispy

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-30601104334432698002011-10-11T12:51:00.006+05:302011-10-11T13:06:39.175+05:30

Kapil Das’ photographs capture the whimsy of this world without exoticising it Among the less prominently displayed photographs in Kapil Das’ first solo exhibition — 154 Neshvilla Road and Other Stories — is a picture of a bathroom. It’s a tightly framed image of an Indian-style squat toilet, above which is perched a rather wonderful contraption: a plastic toilet seat atop four splayed plastic

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-36268505455947938452011-10-09T11:14:00.002+05:302011-10-09T11:25:52.156+05:30

Full of sound & fury, signifying nothingSOUNDTRACKDirector: Neerav GhoshStarring: Rajeev Khandelwal, Soha Ali Khan, Mrinalini Sharma**Debutante director Neerav Ghosh's Soundtrack is a tepid and mostly pointless remake of the Canadian indie It's All Gone Pete Tong (2004). Ghosh seems to have happily adopted not just the plot – the gradual dissolution of a once charismatic DJ – but also the style

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-43879602783688950702011-10-02T12:10:00.009+05:302011-10-28T14:28:45.318+05:30

My Sunday Guardian column this week: A retelling creates something freshSAHEB BIWI AUR GANGSTERDirector: Tigmanshu DhuliaStarring: Jimmy Shergill, Mahie Gill, Randeep Hooda****The original Sahib, Bibi aur Ghulam centred around a dissolute zamindar, his lovelorn wife and the recently-arrived young man who develops a special relationship with her. So does Tigmanshu Dhulia's Saheb, Biwi aur

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-89002362567235315102011-10-01T07:37:00.006+05:302011-10-01T07:49:07.898+05:30

THE BRIEF, WONDROUS LIFE OF HARBARTA new translation finally gives us a closer sense of this madcap modern classic.HarbartNabarun Bhattacharya Tr. Arunava Sinha Tranquebar Press150 pp; Rs 195FIRST PUBLISHED in Bangla in 1994, Harbart brought its author Nabarun Bhattacharya — the only son of writer Mahasweta Devi and playwright Bijon Bhattacharya — a swift and certain radical cachet. The

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-83446257502925805692011-09-30T14:41:00.009+05:302011-10-05T08:52:12.967+05:30

The cover of Siddhartha Deb’s new book bears the image of a young woman posing, as so many tourists do, in front of Bombay’s Gateway of India. She wears a sari with a shiny gold border (and matching blouse) in a shade that in India is often referred to as rani pink; her clearly displayed mangalsutra and bangles imply newly married status. These facts would put her in the ‘traditional Indian’

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-88972667043745042632011-09-25T18:12:00.003+05:302011-09-25T18:35:23.316+05:30

A series of unfortunate, preposterous eventsMAUSAMDirector: Pankaj KapurStarring: Shahid Kapur, Sonam Kapoor, Anupam Kher, Manoj Pahwa *1/2The first forty minutes of Mausam are lovely. There's the cocky-but-loveable Punjabi boy and the shy new girl in the mohalla. And given that film also provides the perfect Punjabi village – sarson ke khet, neighbourly banter, endearingly confused village

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-12119460179941619742011-09-12T10:06:00.008+05:302011-09-12T10:26:53.656+05:30

From my Sunday Guardian column this week. MERE BROTHER KI DULHANDirector: Ali Abbas ZafarStarring: Imran Khan, Katrina Kaif, Ali Zafar ***And so we have another wedding movie from Yash Raj. This one, as you can tell from the name, is about brothers and dulhans. Kush (Imran Khan) has a bade bhaisaab called Luv (Ali Zafar), who has just broken up with his longterm girlfriend, and in burying that

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-45861299290913140252011-09-06T17:33:00.009+05:302012-01-12T21:29:42.362+05:30

Anita Desai returns to a territory and time she is familiar with, one that her quiet prose brings to vivid lifeThe Artist Of DisappearanceAnita DesaiRandom House IndiaPages: 199 Rs. 350Anita Desai's most recent book comprises three novellas – 'The Museum of Final Journeys', 'Translator Translated', and 'The Artist of Disappearance'. All three return, in revealing ways, to worlds Desai has

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-67603316400796846832011-09-04T17:28:00.010+05:302011-10-01T07:56:42.336+05:30

My Sunday Guardian film review column this week: BOLDirector: Shoaib MansoorStarring: Atif Aslam, Iman Ali, Mahira Khan, Humaima Malick, Shafqat Cheema***1/2 At one point in Shoaib Mansoor's Bol, the exhausted father of a missing teenage boy says to the rest of the gathered family: "Kahan kahan nahi dhoonda hai humne... (Where have I not searched for him?)". It's an almost predictable filmi

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-40932688058361949042011-08-28T11:39:00.006+05:302011-08-28T12:13:53.339+05:30

My Sunday Guardian film column today: Pivotal issue lost in weak narrative STAND BY Director: Sanjay Surkar Starring: Adinath Kothare, Siddharth Kher, Avtaar Gill, Dalip Tahil, Manish Chaudhary, Nagesh Bhosle, Reema Worah, Sachin Khedekar, Surendra Pal ** Sanjay Surkar's film has several things going for it – good actors, a sharply-etched plot, and an issue that's been waiting to be made

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-44879821724426031842011-08-25T08:16:00.003+05:302011-08-25T08:30:03.304+05:30

My Sunday Guardian column for 21st Aug: Both overdone and nuanced – just like RGV NOT A LOVE STORY Director: Ram Gopal Varma Starring: Mahie Gill, Deepak Dobriyal, Ajay Gehi With NALS, Ram Gopal Varma has reached the stage where he pays homage to his own films. The character of Anusha Chawla owes less to Maria Susairaj (the woman whose alleged role in a gruesome murder in 2008 is said to be

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-59049447497659118062011-08-19T13:40:00.007+05:302011-08-19T13:57:37.253+05:30

My piece in this week's Open magazine on the spaces Tagore designed, and artist Samit Das' take on them. Amid the many images in artist Samit Das’ Lalit Kala Akademi exhibition on Rabindranath Tagore and ‘the idea of space’, is a small, roughly-drawn but attractive sketch entitled Billiard Room at Jora Sanko by Abanindranath Tagore, well-known Bengal School artist and Rabindranath’s nephew.

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-42645776435688581052011-08-19T13:28:00.003+05:302011-08-19T13:39:52.769+05:30

An edited version of an earlier piece, now published in the August 2011 issue of Forum, brought out by the Daily Star, Bangladesh. The reputation Rabindranath Tagore enjoys as a literary figure in India has never been in any doubt. He towers over the national imagination as the exemplary man of letters, whose astounding versatility as a writer encompassed everything from short stories, novels

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-81701403491449909912011-08-16T22:55:00.005+05:302011-08-16T23:16:28.198+05:30

Critical issue lost under Big B’s aura AARAKSHAN Director: Prakash Jha Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Saif Ali Khan, Manoj Bajpayee, Deepika Padukone, Prateik **1/2 God knows we could do with a film about reservation; a film that explores the far-reaching impact of the policy of caste-based affirmative action in government-run educational institutions. Aarakshan, however, is not that film.

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-24708371989233203772011-08-05T20:45:00.006+05:302011-08-05T21:25:52.963+05:30

Published in Caravan magazine, August 2011. IN PRAKASH JHA'S Raajneeti, a commercial and critical hit from 2010, there’s a pivotal scene in which Nana Patekar — playing Brij Gopal, longtime mentor and strategician to the dynastic political party around whose fortunes the film revolves — arrives in a Dalit neighbourhood. Even as older members of the community greet him with surprise and pleasure

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-89639791687189627182011-07-31T22:20:00.007+05:302011-07-31T22:40:14.078+05:30

Lingering look at idealised childhood BUBBLEGUMDirector: Sanjivan LalStarring: Sohail Lakhani, Apurva Arora, Sachin Khedekar, Tanvi Azmi***On the heels of last year's celebrated Udaan and this year's blink-and-you-missed-it Cycle Kick comes another heartwarming film about two brothers in an Indian small town. Like Udaan, it's set in Jamshedpur, one of those industrial townships whose green spaces

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-22106116217014553102011-07-28T13:04:00.010+05:302011-10-01T07:52:24.449+05:30

The second part of an essay published on Firstpost.In Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s comedy classic Chupke Chupke (1975) language purist Raghavendra Sharma (Om Prakash) is given a taste of his own medicine in the form of deliberately abstruse shuddh Hindi thrown at him by his Hindi-premi Ilahabadi chauffeur Pyare Mohan (Dharmendra). Of course, in reality, no Hindi speaker ever talks of travelling by

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-24620497313821409072011-07-25T14:13:00.005+05:302011-07-25T14:44:47.663+05:30

My Sunday Guardian column this week.Only Devgn’s muscles are larger than lifeSINGHAMDirector: Rohit ShettyStarring: Ajay Devgan, Kaajal Aggarwal, Prakash Raj, Sonali Kulkarn *1/2The film opens with an honest police officer committing suicide because he can't handle being falsely indicted by an anti-corruption squad in cahoots with the villainous Jayakant Shikre – a kidnapper, murderer and

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-65971857757579424562011-07-18T14:39:00.012+05:302011-07-18T15:48:56.892+05:30

My Sunday Guardian film reviews this week:Airbrushed Spain is strangely lifelikeZINDAGI NA MILEGI DOBARADirector: Zoya AkhtarStarring: Hrithik Roshan, Farhan Akhtar, Katrina Kaif, Kalki Koechlin, Abhay Deol***The trailers of this film had me expecting a three-hour-long Spain Tourism advertisement, with some of our very own beautiful people thrown in to tailor it to the Indian market. I can now

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-25041528789204490032011-07-05T16:28:00.016+05:302011-07-05T18:28:30.869+05:30

The NFDC’s box set, comprising five films based on Tagore’s stories and a documentary on his life, is a good introduction to his world. Published in The Caravan, July 2011. The Postmaster, from Teen Kanya (1961), is the story of a city-bred postmaster who teaches a young village girl how to read and write.THE REPUTATION Rabindranath Tagore enjoys as a literary figure in India has never

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-36348427651532442352011-07-04T10:28:00.007+05:302011-07-04T11:59:48.567+05:30

My Sunday Guardian column for 3rd July.Taut, unafraid, witty  — and gets mood right DELHI BELLYDirector: Abhinay deoStarring: Imran Khan, Vir Das, Kunal Roy Kapoor, Poorna Jagannathan ****This is the most unapologetic film to have come out of the Bombay film industry in a long time. It's unapologetic about being about – and before they decided to release an all-Hindi version, also for – that tiny

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-463486146102305532011-07-01T09:00:00.006+05:302011-10-01T07:54:37.916+05:30

First of a two-part piece on Hinglish, published on www.firstpost.comJune 29, 2011In a scene in Rang de Basanti (2006), a young man in contemporary Delhi, faced with a letter which says, “Maine azaadi se shaadi kar li hai”, can only respond in bafflement: “Who talks like this now?”“People in non-metropolitan centres in India do, but they are not the ones projected as templates for modernity,”

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-42284014863683945442011-06-27T00:30:00.011+05:302011-07-07T13:38:37.442+05:30

My Sunday Guardian film reviews this week: Actors made bad jokes sound bearableDOUBLE DHAMAALDirector: Indra KumarStarring: Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Riteish Deshmukh, Jaaved Jafri, Ashish Chowdhury, Mallika Sherawat, Kangana Ranaut, Satish Kaushik **Double Dhamaal is a 'family film' involving four layabouts who spend their time hatching schemes to become arabpatis, a fate they seem to imagine

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-46853576414059116262011-06-24T11:32:00.009+05:302011-06-25T15:19:32.891+05:30

While Alice Albinia, the non-fiction writer, refuses to tell a well-worn tale, Albinia the novelist succumbs easily to reductive depictionsAlice Albina’s first book was non-fiction, a historical travelogue called Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River that took birth in her head, she tells us, when she was “twenty-three years old, sitting in the heat of [her] rooftop flat in Delhi, reading

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-86371448967866951962011-06-21T00:47:00.017+05:302011-06-22T12:14:12.518+05:30

This week's film column for the Sunday Guardian. Most cringeworthy film I’ve seen all year ALWAYS KABHI KABHIDirector: Roshan AbbasStarring: Ali Fazal, Giselle Monteiro, Satyajeet Dubey, Zoa MoraniStar Rating: 1/2This is the kind of movie in which schoolboys are presumed to have bikes a hundred times cooler than their teachers and feel entitled to make fun of them. The kind of movie in which the

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-71824974439334520992011-06-12T17:20:00.008+05:302011-06-12T19:35:28.812+05:30

My film reviews in the Sunday Guardian this week.Stylish, dizzying, but this leaves you cold SHAITANDirector: Bejoy NambiarStarring: Kalki Koechlin, Rajat Barmecha, Gulshan Devaiah, Rajeev Khandelwal, Kirti Kulhari, Raj Kumar Yadav.***With Bejoy Nambiar's dizzyingly shot, hypercool Shaitan, Anurag Kashyap (officially a producer here) gets to return to the dark, dystopic universe he first

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-13854730351127886292011-06-12T08:55:00.009+05:302011-06-12T09:10:38.968+05:30

The National School of Drama Repertory Company is wrapping up its annual Summer Theatre Festival in Delhi this week. If you're in Delhi today, try and catch Ranjit Kapoor's splendid Begam ka Takiya (last two shows at 3.30pm and 7.00pm today, that's 12th June, at Kamani Auditorium, Copernicus Marg). The last play of the festival is Suresh Sharma's highly suggestive production of Asif Ali Haider's

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-4881279194193581732011-06-05T17:48:00.008+05:302011-06-05T18:26:35.431+05:30

My Sunday Guardian film review column this week. Standard Salman fare, if that’s what you want READYDirector: Anees BazmeeStarring: Salman Khan, Asin, Arya Babbar, Paresh Rawal, Mahesh Manjrekar, Akhilendra Mishra, Puneet Issar, Manoj Joshi, Sudesh Lehri, Manoj Pahwa**As a Hindi movie-goer of the 2000s, you might have been lulled into nostalgia for a time when villains had bizarre hairstyles,

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-39620762986164495652011-06-01T16:46:00.007+05:302011-06-01T17:19:36.017+05:30

Just read a story in the Sunday Guardian about handpainted signs, which reminded me of seeking out the juice stall sign painter Charan Singh, in Chandni Chowk sometime in the summer of 2007. So I dug up four short sketches I did as part of that long-ago Time Out Delhi cover story on unusual occupations. Enjoy. Juice-stall sign painterCharan SinghMakes: Rs 60-200 per sign(Photo credit: Abhinandita

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-9934439653369927282011-05-30T14:05:00.011+05:302011-05-30T20:47:36.229+05:30

Tale of a place respectful of tradition, not victim to it Jamil Ahmad’s collection of interlinked tales skilfully weaves together a whole range of chronotopic associations of the road Nearly a century ago, the legendary literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin gifted to all would-be analysers of literature a superbly fertile idea: the chronotope, literally meaning 'time space'. A chronotope indicates

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-73653690002193913492011-05-30T13:12:00.009+05:302011-05-30T13:55:05.593+05:30

My Sunday Guardian column: 29th May, 2011.Ghosh brings 1920s Bengal visually aliveNOUKADUBIDirector: Rituparno GhoshStarring: Prosenjit Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Raima Sen, Riya Sen****Set in the 1920s, Noukadubi opens in the sort of upper-class Bengali home where the son is about to go off to England to study law and the daughter plays the piano – but sings Rabindrasangeet. Watching Hemnalini

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-1808201786241622182011-05-25T23:28:00.005+05:302011-05-25T23:41:28.062+05:30

My Sunday Guardian film review column, 22nd May 2011.Dose of unapologetic Delhi humourPyaar ka PunchnamaDirector: Luv RanjanStarring: Kartikeya Tiwari, Raayo Bhakhirta, Divyendu Sharma, Sonalli Sehgal**1/2 Three young men looking for love, a bachelor pad full of overflowing ashtrays, the streets of Delhi – once upon a time, these were ingredients that led to Chashme Buddoor: a film full of joie

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-75741397429700860492011-05-23T16:47:00.010+05:302011-11-29T11:55:44.826+05:30

Where Hindi teachers are always khadoosAmole Gupte's Stanley ka Dabba, released last week, is a quiet gem of a film about a child who gets picked on because he doesn't bring his own lunchbox to school. He gets picked on, oddly, not by his classmates -who're all rather fond of him and his stories and happy to share their dabbas -but by the Hindi teacher, Babubhai Varma aka Khadoos, who doesn't

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-78315780051282597972011-05-20T19:47:00.005+05:302011-05-20T20:56:19.174+05:30

For nearly 30 years now, photographer Sunil Gupta has been searching for an Indian gay imageTowards the beginning of Sunil Gupta’s recently published book of photographs, Queer, are four black-and-white images entitled ‘Towards an Indian Gay Image, 1980-1983’. The first shows two men lying on a grassy knoll near Delhi’s Jamali-Kamali complex, one’s head half-buried in the other’s chest, their

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-40049250888378582862011-05-17T18:30:00.009+05:302011-05-30T20:48:08.982+05:30

A clever film, despite the ghost who talks Ragini MMSDirector: Pawan KripalaniStarring: Kainaz Motivala and Raj Kumar***The superbly titled Ragini MMS is a clever attempt to cash in on the undeniable fear factor of the "true story". Not only is the film shot entirely on digicam – sometimes shaky and handheld, at other times stable but odd-angled – it also arrives filtered through a useful haze

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-67633185440275699692011-05-09T19:39:00.005+05:302011-05-09T19:55:41.969+05:30

Silly romp, but not without its moments LUV KA THE ENDDirector: BumpyStarring: Shraddha Kapoor, Taaha Shah, Shenaz Treasuryvala, Ali Zafar**1/2Luv Nanda is the coolest boy in junior college. He's hot, he's rich and he can turn on the charm tap whenever he wants. Rhea l-u-r-v-e-s Luv. She goes all weak in the knees when he so much as looks at her. Now the exams are over, it's the night before her

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-80957289972134813942011-05-02T11:54:00.006+05:302011-11-30T18:50:54.004+05:30

BRILLIANT TUTORIALSOn the face of it, Siddharth Chowdhury’s Day Scholar, is a coming of age novel. The book’s own inside cover actually describes it as a “crazed and profane coming of age tale”, whose plot is ostensibly about how Patna boy Hriday Thakur (“who hopes to be a writer some day”) is first “trapped… by a series of misjudgements” and later “saved from a terrible end”. But much like

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-85244486539768553902011-05-01T18:57:00.008+05:302011-11-11T16:53:33.709+05:30

This week's Sunday Guardian film review column: I AMDirector: OnirStarring: Juhi Chawla, Nandita Das, Manisha Koirala, Sanjay Suri, Rahul BoseAmbitious & unusual, filled with taut acting****Onir's I Am is an ambitious and unusual film, both in form and content. It consists of four independent tales, the only link between them being that a minor character in each segment becomes the protagonist in

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-58105136079509190102011-05-01T18:46:00.006+05:302011-05-02T15:07:21.607+05:30

The recent reissue of two detective fiction series reminds you of all that is wonderful about the genreTWO EXTREMELY popular detective fiction series have been reissued recently: the Inspector Ghote mysteries and four Urdu novels in English translation from Ibne Safi’s Jasoosi Duniya series. The mild-mannered Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID was perhaps crime writer HRF Keating’s most loved

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-35545468966728880322011-05-01T18:38:00.004+05:302011-05-02T11:48:42.138+05:30

What does it mean for the future of Hindi cinema if most films are now in fact conceived, thrashed out and largely executed not in Hindi but in English? Will filmmakers only tell the stories of a minuscule section of the population? By TRISHA GUPTAPublished in Caravan magazine: 1 May 2011IT MAY SEEM UNIMAGINABLE to a generation brought up on Abhishek Bachchan’s Bluffmaster! rap and Kareena

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-59471640116261245042011-04-28T12:55:00.007+05:302011-04-29T19:41:02.136+05:30

The first instalment of my weekly column for the Sunday Guardian: reviews of Zokkomon and Dum Maro Dum, 24th Apr Safary shines as the rationalist superheroZOKKOMONDirector: Satyajit BhatkalStarring: Anupam Kher, Darsheel Safary, Manjari Fadnis, Sheeba Chaddha Disney Pictures has made a children's superhero movie that's deeply rationalist at its core – a superhero who doesn't have magical powers,

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-59853547093427839062011-04-01T15:22:00.009+05:302011-04-02T00:01:45.834+05:30

On Simon Chambers' thoughtful and surprisingly entertaining film on Vedanta's mining ambitions in Kalahandi - a review that I did for Himal Southasian magazine.(DVD cover designed by Samia Singh)Cowboys in Indiadirected by Simon ChambersChannel 4, 2010To the viewer expecting a comprehensive treatise on the Vedanta Resources’ proposed mining of bauxite in Kalahandi district of Orissa, Cowboys in

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-81434828545585240542011-03-25T19:51:00.008+05:302011-11-20T17:34:43.718+05:30

THE LIFE’S TOO SHORT LITERARY REVIEW 01Faiza Khan & Aysha Raja, Eds Hachette 124 pp; Rs. 395This Pakistani anthology presents lives concurrently private, steamy and violent, finds TRISHA GUPTA"THE LATEST edition of the prestigious Granta magazine encourages readers to look to Pakistan for more than violence, religious extremism and abject desolation. It chooses to do this with a collection

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-79970025702920837082011-03-18T16:56:00.012+05:302011-03-19T02:10:50.255+05:30

A quiet haven on the Maharashtra coast.The first time I went to Tarkarli, it was June. The auto we hired from Kudal station took us through miles of shrubland, the red earth soaked from the last downpour, gleaming wetly in the sun as it waited for the next one. I spent three days there, on the Konkan coast of Maharashtra: quiet days, mostly waiting for the rain to start again. The downpours were

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-2887348619266278902011-03-12T16:18:00.012+05:302011-04-01T15:22:33.232+05:30

A still from Akvarious Productions' The InterviewIt’s garnered immense goodwill over the years among the theatre fraternity. But what has the Mahindra Theatre Festival actually achieved? TRISHA GUPTA finds outAMONG THE PLAYS showcased at the sixth Mahindra Theatre Festival, just held in Delhi, was a production in English called Dancing on Glass. Written and directed by Ram Ganesh Kamatham,

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-73905160937172197742011-02-21T14:26:00.017+05:302011-10-01T07:53:27.574+05:30

This report was written for Biblio's Jan-Feb 2011 issue. Do register on the Biblio website to read it and many other wonderful pieces in pdf. Geeta Hariharan, JM Coetzee, Adam Zagajewski, Ahdaf Soueif and Mrinal Pande at a session called Imperial English during the Jaipur Literature Festival 2011The Jaipur Literature Festival, whose sixth installment ended on 25th January 2011, is undoubtedly

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-76505990839466807722011-01-26T17:31:00.003+05:302011-01-26T17:39:37.066+05:30

THERE’S A MOMENT in No One Killed Jessica when a girl — someone we’ve never seen — watches the candlelight vigil scene in Rang De Basanti, comes out of the cinema and sends out an SMS calling for a similar vigil for ‘Justice for Jessica’. The scene is spot-on. Without saying a word, it shows you how the news media, cinema and mobile phone technology came together to create a new kind of

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-2762364546218378842011-01-17T16:15:00.003+05:302011-01-17T18:15:58.853+05:30

The big fat Indian shaadi and Bollywood make a charming pair. Bittoo Sharma first meets Shruti Kakkar at a wedding. She’s rude to him, but he’s quite taken with her. He borrows his friend’s video camera to shoot her dancing, turns up in her U-special the next day to present her with a DVD exclusively devoted to her performance. The opening of Band Baaja Baraat makes one think you know exactly

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-69780208583279454552011-01-12T22:39:00.002+05:302011-01-12T22:47:50.547+05:30

Kurosawa's cinema may seem to be about heroic action, but heroes, in the end, are merely human, writes Trisha Gupta. One of my most vivid cinematic memories involves a stocky little Asian man and a suited-booted white man frantically cutting wild grass, while the sun threatens to set behind them. I was six or seven, and understood nothing of the film. But the elemental power of that single scene

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-40998509767125004902011-01-12T19:14:00.009+05:302011-05-30T20:50:10.829+05:30

Delhi rediscovered itself in its tenth decade, says Trisha Gupta. In the winter of 2008, an art festival called 48C was taking place, and the Delhi Public Library in Old Delhi was among the venues. There was reason to be skeptical. In the library basement was an installation by Sheeba Chhachi: piles of brittle books, a map and a slow-moving video of an elephant. A library regular entered, looked

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-84577323275822085722010-12-01T14:40:00.003+05:302010-12-01T14:49:52.418+05:30

Images courtesy of Alkazi Foundation for the ArtsThe Alkazi Foundation’s newest exhibition of vintage photographs is an ambitious one: it takes as its subject a much-photographed city, while limiting itself to images from a time that ensures that very few visitors to the show will recognize that city as one they know. 'Historic Delhi: Early Explorations of the Camera c. 1860-1950', showing at the

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-80176721491886598122010-11-09T19:19:00.003+05:302010-12-08T19:35:04.936+05:30

Are our films fixated on the 70s? Or just on that decade's cinematic style? And why the 70s anyway?This year’s big-ticket Diwali release, Action Replayy, starring Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai, is billed as a “science fiction romantic comedy”. But judging by the posters, on which both stars cavort on a scooter or an ambassador (ooh, retro!), with an abundance of flowers (on vehicle, behind hero

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-70455361230704257722010-11-09T18:58:00.006+05:302012-01-06T15:43:41.224+05:30

THE POWER OF THE PHOTOGRAPH If one gives them a chance, some of the Historic Delhi images can make a familiar city appear utterly fresh ROLAND BARTHES ONCE WROTE that photography started out by photographing the notable, but soon it decreed notable whatever it photographed. Almost all the images in Historic Delhi: Early Explorations of the Camera c. 1860-1950, the Alkazi Foundation’s newest

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-74917598604297499782010-11-01T13:18:00.002+05:302010-11-01T13:45:19.590+05:30

THE AUTO MOTIVETRISHA GUPTA finds light-hearted wisdom in the new indie film Daayen Ya BaayenA LITTLE BOY, his mother, his grandmother and a young aunt are waiting quietly at a bus stop. The old woman silently opens a box and starts to sneak something into her mouth. Suddenly the angelic-looking boy jumps up and starts swatting at her arm, shouting, “Laddoo mat kha, neeche rakh, Papa ke liye hai!

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-5493551863623057402010-10-27T15:10:00.010+05:302010-11-01T13:36:08.993+05:30

THE BURNING TRAIL In Alan Parker’s Mississippi Burning (1988), two FBI agents with diametrically opposed ways of functioning arrive in a small town in the American South to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights activists. In Priyadarshan’s Aakrosh, two members of a CBI team with diametrically opposed ways of functioning arrive in a small town in north India to investigate the

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-10145777815136231932010-10-18T18:51:00.006+05:302011-03-19T15:39:46.062+05:30

Nati Binodini is an ambitious play. It aims at being much more than a biography of the nineteenth-century Bengali prostitute who achieved almost mythical renown as a stage actress. It sets out to tell a story about modern Indian theatre, to expose the intimate yet exploitative relationship that actresses have had with the stage, and to probe the nature of acting itself. As a line in the

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-30350976201902197062010-10-18T17:35:00.003+05:302010-10-18T17:46:47.446+05:30

TAKE ME AWAY, AUNTIEKalpana Sahni will charm you with her cross-cultural anecdotes. Just don’t expect profundity, says TRISHA GUPTAMulti-Stories Kalpana Sahni Routledge India 172 pp; Rs. 595 A COLLECTION OF pieces originally published either in the Op-Ed page of the Daily Times, Lahore, or in Herald magazine from Karachi, Multi-Stories is an odd little book. Its 60 chapters — if they can be so

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-36318839270616288272010-10-18T17:32:00.004+05:302010-10-18T19:25:03.760+05:30

Check Out Sleepy Hollow Nestle-up in the Himalayan mountains in the beautifully serene rooms of the Amber Vermont Estate. Neither bustling Dehra Dun, where we arrive by train from Delhi, nor the winding drive up through Mussoorie town, chock-a-block with hotels, leads us to expect the startling peace of the Amber, Vermont Estate. Barely 10 minutes’ drive up from the Mall, we find ourselves

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-77216330086634929492010-10-18T17:20:00.006+05:302010-10-19T17:36:51.277+05:30

High Table 'Tourist Food' takes on many wonderful avatars in Old Manali. (Click on the link above to see this piece with Sanjoy Ghosh's delicious pictures) What cuisine did they have here? In Manali? Oh, nothing!” Mr Sud waves his right hand dismissively. “They were uncivilised, jaahil people. And anyway it was too cold for anything to grow here. Isn’t that so?” He looks for confirmation at

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-80111377520989664442010-05-28T09:15:00.005+05:302010-05-28T09:48:53.856+05:30

The Temple-goers By Aatish Taseer Picador India, New Delhi, 2010, 297 pp., Rs 495 ISBN 978-0-330-51408-8 ●●●●●It is slightly unsettling to read a book that self-consciously sets itself up as fiction, while also deliberately naming its narrator the same thing as its author, placing Aatish-the-narrator in locales which the author occupies in reality, and then giving him a familial lineage, an

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-63607305788620061292010-05-14T23:40:00.009+05:302010-05-15T00:04:51.849+05:30

Sukhnandi Vyam’s art reminds us that all creative work is in some way or other an engagement with a traditionWHAT YOU FIRST SEE IS ONE MAN gleefully perched atop another’s shoulders, weapon at the ready, while the man below seems to be shepherding two animals. It is only on reading the catalogue that you realise that the gleeful figure is of Bageshwar, the Gond god of fertility, waiting to turn

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-41705296292838281292010-04-08T16:01:00.004+05:302010-04-08T16:08:12.057+05:30

When Truth Turns TriteTRISHA GUPTAFILM >> WELL DONE ABBADIRECTOR >> SHYAM BENGALSTARRING >> BOMAN IRANI, MINISSHA LAMBA, ILA ARUNRATING >> * * SHYAM BENEGAL has spent a great deal of his directorial life representing the Indian village on screen. His latest offering, a rural comedy, marks the distance he’s travelled from the intensely realist critique of patriarchy and caste in Ankur (1974),

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-28715538074001886592010-04-03T11:54:00.003+05:302010-04-03T12:00:00.613+05:30

Children Of The UnderbellyTRISHA GUPTAFILM >> THANKS MAADIRECTOR >> IRFAN KAMALSTARRING >> SHAMS PATEL, BABY ALMAS, MASTER FAYAAZ, SANJAY PANDEY, RANVIR SHOREYRATING >> * * 1/2MOVIES STARRING CHILDREN in central roles can be difficult to pull off. Kids may tug at the audience’s heartstrings, but that directorial advantage — of being able to pull the viewer in with ease — comes with the danger of

Trisha Guptanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5034030997857358239.post-43229055185335247382010-03-08T14:03:00.003+05:302010-03-08T14:14:54.690+05:30

WHAT CAN A CITY MEAN FOR THOSE WHOSE HOMES ARE DEMOLISHED AT WILL? YOUNG WRITERS FROM DELHI’S WORKER COLONIES PRODUCE AN ANTHOLOGY UNLIKE ANYTHING IN HINDI LITERATURE, SAYS TRISHA GUPTA A YOUNG MAN describes the art of skinning a hen. A man buys a refrigerator — and cuts his neighbour’s electricity cable. A 14-year-old makes up his mind to leave school and work as a courier delivery boy. A girl

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‘Before My Designs for Waqt, Women Wore Dumpy Salwars’ Bhanu Athaiya, 83, was born Bhanumati Annasaheb Rajopadhye in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, the third of seven children. After graduating from the JJ School of Art, she found her niche as a costume designer in Hindi cinema, and has never looked back, winning India’s first Oscar in 1982 for her costumes in Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. She spoke

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The middle class loves Dibakar Banerjee’s films. If only they knew that this is unrequited passion, says TRISHA GUPTAThe first thing Richa Puranesh, Dibakar Banerjee’s wife of eleven years, remembers about him is his introductory line: “Hi, I’m Dibakar. I’m going to make films.” They were both in advertising then, and Richa remembers saying, “Right. Television commercials…?” To which Dibakar

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If it is SweetBy Mridula KoshyTranquebar Press, New Delhi, 2009, 283 pp., Rs 295Mridula Koshy’s narrative style is not easy to enter into, because her stories don’t necessarily move forward. Like the characters whose internal lives she chooses to map, they move two steps ahead, then take a quick sidestep into an imagined parallel reality, only to loop back without warning and begin to retrace

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A huge new festival is changing our perception of French culture as inaccessible, says TRISHA GUPTAIT’S A regular Sunday outside Select Citiwalk, one of the malls that form a buffer between the South Delhi neighbourhood of Saket and the older urban villages of Khirkee and Hauz Rani across the road. There’s the usual mix of people: serious shoppers, given away by their purposeful stride;

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GEOFF DYER, 51, has made a career of wry, elegant transitions between places and subjects, says TRISHA GUPTAGEOFF DYER is the sort of man one instantly thinks of not as lean but as lanky. He is all arms and legs, a physical awkwardness that seems entirely in sync with the deadpan expression. Reading from his recent novel, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi (2009), Dyer remained poker-faced as the

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SHAZIA OMAR’s first novel, Like a Diamond in the Sky, was published by Zubaan in August 2008. She spoke to TRISHA GUPTA about drugs, being Bangladeshi and the English literary scene in Dhaka.Your first book is about heroin junkies in Dhaka. Why did you choose the subject?A group of my friends in Bangladesh are recovering addicts. They’re beautiful people, but they have such dark pasts, and they’

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TRISHA GUPTA traces the Dalit thread at the Jaipur Literature festivalIN A festival where discussions often hovered in the most rarefied literary realms, the Dalit literature panels served as a useful and necessary corrective. Going back to the basics of the written word, the opening session pointed out the inherently privileged position of the writer in India. If Kancha Ilaiah (author of the

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Author of four acclaimed Tamil novels — including The Grip of Change (published in English translation in 2006) — dealing with Dalit socio-political concerns, P SIVAKAMI, 52, is also active in politics. She took voluntary retirement from the IAS to join the BSP, but has recently left to launch her own political party. Excerpts from an interview with TRISHA GUPTA.How and when did you start writing

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In an Indian publishing market larger and busier than it was a decade ago, writers are harried, superstars rare, says TRISHA GUPTAIT MAY have been Mira Nair’s 2001 film Monsoon Wedding that enshrined in popular culture the genial (if tipsy) old uncleji who paraded the wincing aspiring writer of the family as “the next Arundhati Roy”. But that figure had already acquired a real presence in the

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SOMEWHERE DURING THE interminable party that forms the core of Saurabh Shukla’s new film, a gangly man with wild hair (real-life theatreperson Makarand Deshpande) is chatting up a giggly housewife. He’s just announced his deep interest in palmistry when her uncouth lout of a husband plonks himself between them and demands that his palm be read. “I can tell you three things,” says the faux-palmist

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