Let's talk about Bollywood!

This blog has already reviewed collections of short stories ( here and here ) and rather similarly, this volume contains stories which revolve loosely around the theme of femininity and motherhood of desi women abroad. To be more precise, the 11 stories...

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Here's a beautiful and poignant little movie (2014) by Souvik Mitra featuring Soumitra Chatterjeee and Roopa Ganguly (above; I had seen her - much younger, it was 1989 - in Ek din achanak ); but what makes its beauty? Probably its story, its poetic charm,...

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Have you ever wondered why you were born poor and not rich ? (if it’s the other way round, you often don’t wonder) Have you asked yourself why this injustice continues in today’s developed world? And if you are a victim of this injustice, have you never...

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First the story for those who don’t remember Basu Chatterji’s Rajnigandha (1974): it’s based on Mannu Bhandari ’s book Yahi Sach Hai. Deepa (Vidya Sinha) and Sanjay (Amol Patekar) are a young, aspiring couple living in Delhi. He’s a jolly, outspoken civil...

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Below you'll find a number of the folders in which I have collected pictures of Nutan over the years. Most of them have been found on the net, but if some readers consider their posting an offense to their rights, please contact me so I can remove them....

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So much has already been said about this Yash Chopra 1981 movie… And here I am adding to the pileup! Well, I hope it won’t be too long and too boring to read. In fact what I want to say can be quickly summed up: I’m perplexed at actors accepting to stage...

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Watching Sone ki chidiya (the golden bird, Shaheed Latif, 1958) has been a bit of an adventure, because even though I knew it was good, it doesn’t exist with subtitles, and some time has passed before I could get round to understanding everything. And...

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Last addition to a programme begun 10 years ago with Pather Panchali, here are a few words about the trilogy's n°3 about which I'm sure that nothing has been left unsaid (check story here). It's a vision of tenderness; centered around the character of...

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My discovery of Maitreyi Devi happened, probably like so many outside of India, through Mircea Eliade’s novel which I read in French, La nuit Bengali, written in 1933 three years after this Romanian scholar, who later rose to become an influential ethnologist...

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For this year's Nutan ki janmadin, I have decided to make you discover how attached she was to her animal friends. She was mostly a dog-lover, it seems, and apparently it was a family thing. 22 dogs at home, at one point, says Mohnish!! Here are first...

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Woman to woman is the first book I read by Madhulika Liddle. She’s written more, of which I had been aware, since I read her blog where she had mentioned them, but for some reason I had relented until now. It’s a quickly read collection of 12 short stories,...

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This 1990 movie was Ray’s last but one, only to be succeeded by Agantuk a year later before his death. Its title means “branches of the tree”: the film deals with a family situation and so the genealogical reference is clear; but the tree is such a powerful...

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Ok, voilà la partie « plus » du voyage, qui s’est trouvée rajoutée sans préméditation, car cette journée à Mandawa pour Divali n’était pas prévue… Je devais avoir une troisième journée de cours à BK BIET et comme je l’ai dit, je crois, le directeur s’est...

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La Conférence ICCS est maintenant terminée, et en ce qui me concerne, je suis satisfait d'avoir pu faire ma petite présentation sur "The importance of language in communication", pour laquelle j'avais quand même passé du temps, avant de venir en Inde,...

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Ouf! la journée n'est pas encore finie; il y a encore tout à l'heure le repas avec animation devant la guesthouse comme le premier soir, mais déjà la journée a été bien fatigante! Matinée occupée par la série de speeches par des industriels invités pour...

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