A Handful of Stories

Reportage on health, science and politics. And some meditations on film

Tag: Manthan

50 years and counting: The magnificent reign of Naseeruddin Shah

It is half a century since Shyam Benegal’s Nishant in 1975 where Shah made his debut proper. (He had a walk-on part in the 1967 film Aman, that featured philosopher Bertrand Russell in a cameo.) In the years since, Shah has acted in an astounding 274 films listed on IMDb, with at least one film releasing every calendar year across this half century. A fan’s list of her favourite Naseer films using Bharata’s rasa theory

The Seedling That Birthed a Tree of New Storytelling

50 years of Ankur. 50 years of Shyam Benegal, the anchor of the New Wave movement in Hindi cinema In that last light of day before it is all gone and the crickets have begun calling, a man hurries through paddy fields swollen with the rain that has fallen all day to a hovel that stands across his sturdy home,…