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
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
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
Booker Prize 2024: British Writer Samantha Harvey Wins For Space Novel ‘Orbital’
Samantha Harvey poses with the trophy and her book Orbital after winning the Booker Prize award 2024, in London, on November 12, 2024. | Photo Credit: AP British writer Samantha Harvey won the Booker Prize for fiction on November 12 with Orbital, a short, wonder-filled novel set aboard the International
Manoj Mitra (1938-2014), the Doyen of Bengali Stage and Screen, Passes Away
Manoj Mitra was equally at home writing a hundred plays, teaching philosophy at university, performing in folk theatre or acting with his expressive eyes for Satyajit Ray and Tapan Sinha | Photo Credit: By Special Arrangement When Banchharamer Bagaan (The Garden of Banchharam), Tapan Sinha’s dark-comic masterpiece, was released in
Book Review: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ New Book Reminds America of its Complicity in the Ongoing Massacre in Palestine
Outgoing US President Joe Biden with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, on September 20, 2023. | Photo Credit: Susan Walsh/AP As demonstrated by Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2015 and is a must-read for anyone who wants to
Epic Cop-Out: The Flawed Heroism of Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again
The rot at the heart of Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again is not what you think it is. It is not the tired plotting, the exhausted acting, the cameos that stack up like a house of cards that should have toppled tiers ago, the repetitive direction, or even the forceful, joyless retracing of