The lives of those who collect our trash, serve our meals and drive our vehicles are in focus again. The Hindi film has returned to working class concerns with Super 30, Gully Boy and Bharat
Author: sohinichattopadhyay
The Surprising Generosity of the Online Crowd
Milaap, Ketto and ImpactGuru collectively raised Rs 272 crore for medical emergencies in 2018. This is 11% of the ₹2,400 crore inaugural budget for Ayushman Bharat, the Central scheme rolled out by the government that promises ₹5 lakh free health insurance for the poorest 40% of the population.
Are Independence and Partition Male Experiences?
In Hindi film, the woman is rarely the protagonist of a Partition or Independence narratives. But Bengali film always centers the experience of women in such narratives. An introspection The 2018 Bengali film Ek Je Chhilo Raja, while largely mediocre, has an interesting question towards its tail. The film centres on a real-life legal battle for property in India, known…
Why Don’t These Girls Work?
In the recent batch of Bollywood films set in bright, ‘mithai’-loving small towns, the heroines are assertive and sexually confident but rarely have careers or career aspirations
Sum of Her Parts
Women constitute 74% kidney donors. For liver surgeries, the data I received was much more limited because these transplants happen almost entirely in private hospitals, which do not come under RTI. Here, women are 60.5% of the donors
The Privilege of the 0.1%
If cinema is a lens to understand society, then both
Placebo and Munnabhai MBBS tell you two things–why doctors evoke such dislike, and why they themselves appear dehumanized and alienated, out of love with the work they have spent so
many years in training for.
The Class of Kaira, Shyra and Shanaya in Bollywood
Kaira, Shyra, Akira, Kia, Tia, Sia. Shanaya. These are Bollywood’s cool new names, broadly classified into the “ya” or “ra” nomenclature. The Poojas, Nishas, Anjalis and Nehas of the 1990s are déclassé. These new names carry an unmistakable aspiration to be global.They are unrooted to place, community or any kind of identity except class. They are almost never longer than three syllables and easy to pronounce. They float on coolness and lightness. An ex-colleague memorably christened them “First-World Yoga Names—FWYN”.
How the Public Tragedy of the Kolkata Flyover Collapse Was Buried
More than one year since the Kolkata flyover collapse that killed 26, the criminal trial has not begun. The police are not speaking on the record. And the government is silent
The New Viranagana and the Memories of Nadia
A figure leaps headlong onto the screen, fully armoured, face hooded by a helmet. Spears are sent clattering, sentries hurtle across the room, Bajirao and his lieutenant watch in surprise. We don’t know whether this is a man or a woman, friend or foe. Could this be Mastani? The anticipation was nicely set up by the trailer for Bajirao Mastani,…
The Tribal Hero in Bollywood
SS RAAJAMOULI’S BAAHUBALI: THE BEGINNING opened in theatres on 10 July last year, in a season overcast with the muscular release of Yash Raj Films’Bajrangi Bhaijaan, starring Salman Khan. Baahubali, featuring the Telugu stars Prabhas and Rana Daggubati in lead roles, came with one of the biggest budgets of any Indian film (Rs 175 crore), the promise of spectacular vistas…