I'm sorry Baby Falak, I failed you

23

Tweet

I'm always on Twitter, addicted to news. Tonight I lost interest in how many people retweet me. I do not care if you read this post. Hell, I won't even promote it on Twitter. But I need to say this. Because tomorrow, my feelings will be dulled by the pressure that a journalist goes through every day covering news that fills the space that need to be filled. I will tell you why I cried when the first tweet came in that Baby Falak has died. Who is Baby Falak, you ask me. I won't tell you that she is the victim of our system. That is too pompous. Battered and left to die on a hospital bed at one of India's premier medical institutions, she is a two-year-old whose masked photographs I saw on agency picture feed and on news dailies. Most newspapers dropped the pretense....

Kalpana Lajmi-Bhupen Hazarika: A 40-year-old love story

3

Tweet

If you remember Rudaali that won actor Dimple Kapadia her only National Film Award, you will realise why it is important to tell the enduring love story of Kalpana Lajmi, the director of the dark but brilliant film. Set in a village in Rajasthan, Rudaali is a poignant ballad that explores a woman's heart as she takes the decision that will haunt her for the rest of her life. But the dark melancholy of the professional mourners in the film somehow mutates into an uplifting and inspiring story of personal choice and hope of its auteur in real life. How do you describe a woman who left her home at 17, an age when most girls are trying to decide between pink and red nail polish and the relative merits of colleges, to live in with a man 28 years older than her? Unconventional? Misguided? Whatever it....

Incest in Indian films: 'Don't you see how sick this is?'

4

Tweet

"Don't you see how sick this is, don't you see what's wrong with this?" - That Girl In Yellow Boots This is a fairly late post on a film that tackles incest not as a venereal disease but presents it with depressing clarity to an audience that understands its grim implications. I have no illusions that filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, even with his avant-garde cinema, will ever be able to upstage the squeamishly saccharine social blockbusters of the Barjatiyas and Johars. But in his quaintly complacent way, he has dealt with one of society's worst tragedy - the death of innocence in That Girl in Yellow Boots. In the last few years, themes of LGBT, wife swapping, fantasy role play and sado-masochism has silently but firmly crept into the Indian cinemaspace. But directors, even those who dared to push the envelope, have steered clear of the....

Paschim Banga: Alphabet, history and lost chance

23

Tweet

The baptism of West Bengal was extraordinary in its plainness. From a popular standpoint, the growing clamour for a new name for the state had less to do with the old one's historical redundancy than jockeying for an administrative advantage. A drafting committee comprising leaders of both West Bengal government and opposition parties, who under normal circumstances would never have seen eye-to-eye on necessary policy implementation, unanimously picked a name that has no significance for the state both historically and logistically. West Bengal's historians and intellectuals are outraged at the lack of imagination shown by its leaders in picking a name that should have brought out the flavour of one of the country's most varied regions and people. Public opinion was in favour of something intrinsic, such as Bangabhumi, Bangadesh, Banga, Gaur Banga or even Bangla. What is wrong with 'Paschim Banga', apart from....

Open letter to Amitabh from a cynical fan

19

Tweet

Dear Amitabh, Aaj khush toh bahut hoge tum... I truly believe every generation deserves the heroes they get. Born in the bleached out 80s, I missed by a decade the emergence of an exciting new phase in Indian cinema experimenting with Technicolour and expressionist cinematography. As my generation grew up with the Competition Success Reviews, Camlin sets and detachable, bi-colour anti-glare screens on black and white television sets, there was a recurring image of one man who was the Sunday afternoon Robin Hood of the small screen. The multiplex was still a futuristic concept and cinema was a rare family pilgrimage after much vetting by the elders. But be it in the darkness of the theatre, or the repeat screenings on Doordarshan on Sundays, the one-man-show was spectacular in its arrogance. From the whining, wronged protagonist of the 60s who preferred to....

Can a quack cure a nation of corruption?

158

Tweet

It seems the government's days of Chakrasana are over. The Congress-led UPA that rushed several senior ministers to meet Ramdev at the airport only a week back is now tightening the screws on the maverick yoga exponent's businesses from pharma to media firms. There isn't a disease the popular yoga guru has said he cannot cure, including HIV/AIDS. His extraordinary claims, often bordering on the ridiculous, have sparked protests and led health activists and civil rights campaigners to question if he is professionally qualified to dole out medicines on various ailments. But the guru has rarely backed up his claims with data. Take for example his views on homosexuality. Ramdev has claimed that homosexuality is a mental disease, and that mentally stable people do not become homosexuals. When the Delhi High Court decriminalised homosexuality in 2009, Ramdev said the verdict will encourage criminality and sick mentality. He....

June 4: Tiananmen ghosts haunt Ramlila Ground

33

Tweet

History bears testimony to one of the toughest crackdowns by state machinery on a civil resistance on June 4, 1989 in China's now iconic Tiananmen Square. The ghosts of Tiananmen came to haunt the venue of yoga exponent Ramdev's hunger strike on midnight of June 4 as he was forcibly evicted by hundreds of police officers and his band of protestors dispersed in a midnight operation high on drama. While the cause of the two protests are as dissimilar as chalk and cheese, Ramdev agitating to root out endemic corruption and bring back illegally expatriated black money, the high-handed crackdown on a peaceful assembly unites the two incident in history. The Tiananmen clampdown, known as the 'June Four Incident', is symbolic for millions of people around the world for the bloody crackdown on a pro-democracy movement by students gathered in Tiananmen Square....

Please 'like' to protest, retweet for revolution

29

Tweet

This is a spoiler warning for those basking in the warm, fuzzy feeling of being instrumental in starting perhaps new India's first 'social revolution' in the heart of the nation's capital over the past four days. The citizens' crusade against corruption began with 72-year-old Kisan Baburao Hazare's fast unto death for a stronger anti-graft bill which he says will prevent corruption in both the politics and bureaucracy of the world's second most populated nation. Cheat sheet: Does Internet fasting even count? As the summer sun beat down on a ragtag group of dispirited but loyal followers who plunged bravely into a hunger strike on April 5 demanding equal government-civil society participation in drafting of an ombudsmen bill, tentative support grew in the national media for a cause that seemingly touched a raw nerve with every Indian. I was on TV! Did you....

Sunday , April 03, 2011

In the newsroom: The night India won the Cup

4

Tweet

As the last ball of the match soared over thousands of tiny heads blurred into one cohesive mass of colour, the silence in the news room was deafening for all of a fraction of a second before it erupted into a roar of approval. The first memory of the final moments of the India-Sri Lanka match at Mumbai's Wankhede stadium I have is of scores of fists pumping the air and a mass of blue T-shirts steamrolling into one great huddle where chairs were once neatly lined up. The words would come much, much later. The people we entrust to shaping public opinion every day - the writers, the reporters, the copy editors, the designers - the serious men and women of the business of news, were busy climbing on to their desks, face paint melting, waving the Indian flag and generally acting....

Tuesday , March 29, 2011

Top 10: Excuses to skip work for Indo-Pak match

4

Tweet

India will clash with Pakistan on Wednesday in an epic World Cup semifinal that will be telecast live to millions of wildly cheering fans. There is a real chance that some of you might be stuck at work straightening out the balance sheets and writing reports. Like thousands of others looking to get out of a sticky spot, you are trying to think up a good enough reason not to go to work on March 30 so as to enjoy the match in peace. Here's the bad news. Short of being struck by lightening at such a short notice, there is no way your superiors are going to buy the "viral flu" routine. Here are 10 mild to moderately believable excuses to stay out of work to watch the cricket match. We advise No. 1, 2, 3 and 7 only if you value honesty above....