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,…
Category: Essays
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…
Oh! Calcutta
Old-world charms and multi-cultural delights are discovered in ‘dirty Calcutta’ By Sohini Chattopadhyay | 1 December 2015 The grey, gorgeous sulk of the Kolkata monsoon is best spent in bed, listening to the intense, melodic rain. Another way, equally endorsed, is dreaming with a book and a pot of tea, preferably, with the phone switched off.Home for the rains this time…
It Happened One Night
Thirteen people have been sentenced to 20 years for the gangrape of a tribal woman in West Bengal’s Birbhum district earlier this year. The trial was so swift that the judge didn’t wait for forensic test results. Many Rashomon versions of the case exist, but the long shadow of one political party is common to all of them
The Bengali Woman’s Running Diary
I began running, in grief and confusion, five years ago. My grandmother passed away suddenly one morning, a couple of days after my cautious and measured father allowed himself to answer without a sigh that she seemed much better. A little more than a week before, she had been sent home from the critical care unit, and I had interpreted…
Sari and I
The sari in the urban office space is a message: see, I can handle this extravagant, ancient garment without zippers and stitches and convenient buttons. I can wrap it round and tuck it in strategic places without looking absurd. I can walk around, climb up stairs, carrying yards and yards of excess fabric on my person, without tripping. I can…
Another Ethnic Cleasing in The Neighbourhood
THE PERSECUTION OF THE ROHINGYA IN MYANMAR On a boggy, fermented scrap of land by the dregs of the diseased Yamuna, a group of men stand in a circle and play. The ball looks like it is made of bamboo, a lamp-shade like thing with shapely cracks. They are playing a version of Sepak Takraw, a sport popular back home in…