Diverse Content

Wikepedia describes her as “Enid Mary Bylton was an English children’s writer whose books have been among the world’s best sellers….. This, in spite of the generous use of the words ‘among the world’s best sellers’ seems to me a mere understatement to the achievement of a woman who practically shaped the imagination of millions […]

I had watched this film in the iconic Plaza theater of Dadar in Mumbai. Yes, the same one which was ravaged by 1991 Bomb blasts, and which was rejuvenated and continues to screen Marathi and Hindi movies at still decent rates. I had watched it with my mother and sister, with considerable excitement. When Balgandharva

“I am Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria. My eyes are everywhere”  With this introduction to the powerful Colombian kingpin, the one who ruled the world’s most complex and far reaching drug trade, the Netflix series Narcos begins.  It is in this scene itself that Pablo Escobar establishes his philosophy, one that underlines his cocaine trafficking and

This Independence Day, I am thinking of Swades. Released in 2004 – the year India was celebrating its 54th Independence day. Directed by a filmmaker who took India to the Oscars. His Lagaan was about the struggle for survival and dignity against our colonizers. Swades can very well be its sequel, of the times when

For a foreigner reading Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’ – it will be a commentary on India. At least the North of India, Calcutta (now Kolkata) included. For an Indian reading the same, it is but a slice of life.  The story is not infused with Indianness merely from the top, such that one can

The Forest of Enchantments does not dwell on how Sita looked – like a lotus or a lily or a Goddess. Her beauty is rather visible in the strength of her character. It is the story which Sita tells after all, and she must be tired of the flowery tags too.  In fact, Chitra Banerji

When I first started watching Riverdale – it was only a teenage romance cum thriller – very entertaining. A rip off of the world famous Archie comic, this Riverdale however is neither light nor funny. Archie and Jughead and Betty and Veronica and the rest of the gang live their comic book lives in the

“I could do with a bit more excess. From now on I’m going to be immoderate–and volatile–I shall enjoy loud music and lurid poetry. I shall be rampant.” In Chocolat by Joanne Harris, Lansquenet, where the story is set, is described as a quaint, sleepy little French village. There is a Church, where the villagers

I read the novel ‘Little Women’ for the first time when I was almost eight years old. It was an old, abridged copy, rather a children’s version of classics that my Dad had brought along with a copy of David Copperfield. This ‘Little Women’ however had beautiful illustrations of the different incidents in the story,

Doesn’t the book bear a rather odd title? For many of us who judge a book by its title, this would be put down for not being serious, intense literature. And yet, this is a book which has a war at the center of its plot.  A little research about what Guernsey is will tell