Gandhi, Guha and the Moolah

Contemporary history’s best-known ‘fakir’ has landed his latest biographer the fattest kitty in the annals of Indian publishing. Penguin India has offered an advance of Rs 1 crore to bag historian Ram Guha’s two-volume project on Mahatma Gandhi in a quiet but stunning recession-era deal that has wowed the competition and pitched Indian book industry [...]

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Ulysses and Us

In August 1924, the long-suffering Stanislaus Joyce sent a letter of complaint to his brother, James, in which he mentioned his difficulties with Ulysses. “The greater part of it I like,” he wrote, before adding with characteristic bluntness: “I have no humour with episodes which are deliberately farcical… and as episodes grow longer and longer [...]

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Weekend Movies

The Return is a moving drama about two brothers whose father returns back after twelve long years. The brothers Ivan and Andrey, aged around twelve and fifteen respectively, live with their mother and grandmother. While Andrey, has an amiable, going with the wind attitude, younger Ivan is much more stubborn and deeply emotional. As they [...]

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Cannes 2009, Awards

Palme d’Or : THE WHITE RIBBON directed by Michael HANEKE
Grand Prix : A PROPHET directed by Jacques AUDIARD
Award for Best Director : Brillante MENDOZA for KINATAY
Award for Best Screenplay : LOU Ye for Spring Fever
Award for Best Actress : Charlotte GAINSBOURG in ANTICHRIST directed by Lars VON TRIER
Award for Best Actor :Christoph WALTZ in [...]

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Memory

We tend to be sad at loss of things.
What about memory?
Don’t we forget also?
How about memory’s pain,
it’s sadness,
it’s strive to remember,
it’s act of burial.
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Is melancholy an act of memory weeping?
Weeping and keeping things to itself.
What is melancholy? a sense of sadness without any reason,
just like the cold wind caressing us on a dry summer night,
with [...]

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The courtyard

It was that time of the day when a little rain and few clouds make the sun give everything around a dusty look. Sitting at one end was Grandma enjoying the weather and watching the mundane everyday affair. Children were playing in the courtyard, with Mala shouting, asking them to go and play outside.
“Shanu! Go [...]

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The Last Life in the Universe

Kenji is a librarian, living in clean house stacked with books. He has been attempting suicide for some time but something or the other always saves him or rather something always happens just before he is about to commit. Then one day as he’s about to attempt another suicide, he witnesses an accident of a [...]

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Godard’s Socialisme

The first trailer of Godard’s Latest movie, and probably the last, is out. There are no official subtitles yet, though here’s some translation.

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Existentialism is a Humanism | Sartre

One of the plights that existentialism as a philosophy has endured over time is multiple interpretations as well as multiple meanings. One of the main reason is that though the term was coined in 20th century, it was then pinned on the works of some previous philosophers who wrote about some questions and problems that [...]

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Sharmila Tagore on Cannes Jury

Well, there’s the surprise, Sharmila Tagore had been added to be the nine and final member of the Jury that will be deciding winner of the Palme d’Or this year. I do have childhood memories of seeing her in Indian movies, but haven’t seen any of her movie in the recent past. I guess I’ll [...]

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The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I read the book some two years back, liked every bit of it but somehow it felt hurried then, or maybe I read it so. And because of this I had been a bit apprehensive about watching this movie since then, but guess I was proved wrong. The movie’s quite stunning. The actors perform so [...]

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1Q84

Yeah, the title looks interesting and one can only imagine how interesting a book by the same title is going to be, as it is the latest offering by Haruki Murakami. Yup, the master’s done with his new book and it is due for release in Japan this May. It will take some time for [...]

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On Reason

I don’t know why people have a inherent distrust of Reason. Or a tendency to take it in conflict with emotions, feelings and experiences. Reason is what? A mental exercise or tool, or a certain way of dealing with anything that registers in our brain be it emotions, feelings, thoughts or anything else. And what [...]

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