Tag: Opinion

Bombarded with an endless rain of stupid kitsch every week, we have gradually come to expect very little of the Hindi film industry.That has meant that when Bollywood has churned just decent, watchable fare, we have risen in collective applause, we have stretched ourselves out of our balcony seats to show them how many bagfuls of gratitude we are ready to part with for giving us what is otherwise very basic fare. Madhur Bhandarkar’s cinema is a classic example of…

A dock docked. Photo by Eric Gonzalez/Unsplash Nano has made a joke out of Bengal – a cruel, real, practical joke. The entire world was waiting keenly to see if nano comes out of the greenfield venture in Singur. And we know, well almost, that it won’t. Where it goes from here is secondary. But one thing is for sure. As the factory moves out in small parcels out of Singur, it takes away with it hope; that…

Done deal. Photo by Minh Pham/Unsplash The Tatas have not yet made it clear if they are staying put or going from Singur. After Sunday’s ‘rapprochement’ between the West Bengal government and the Mamata Banerjee-led agitators, it seems that the Tatas will have to let go of a few hundred acres from the Tata Nano factory premises. But the 300-odd acres of land to be doled out to farmers who are against selling their land has turned out…

Switched off. Photo by Yogesh Pedamkar/Unsplash The word ‘power’ has evolved into two disparate but related meanings. The more banal of the two refers to the production and distribution of energy for industrial and domestic use. The other meaning, the favourite object of inquiry of philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, refers to a complex mechanism by which authority is applied to help sustain predominance and strategies of exploitation. But the application of the second…

All lines are drawn. Photo by Adrien Bruneau on Unsplash There has not been a time in Bengal’s history, at least in recent memory, like the past two months. The death of young Rizwanur, the violence in Nandigram, the sudden riots against granting residency to Taslima Nasreen — all have created a vortex of socio-political reactions that seem to have shaken up the arrogance of the ruling CPM and mobilised the crowds. One significant fallout of Bengal’s autumn…

Buddha’s way. Photo by Leonard Laub on Unsplash The future of the Left in India will depend on the success of the ‘Bengal line’. There was a sigh of relief all round when the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) announced, after its central committee meeting in Kolkata, that it would give the UPA more opportunities to find a way out of the current imbroglio over the nuclear deal and not precipitate a political crisis. The general interpretation is…

Different roads. Image Photo Arno Senoner/Unsplash Despite similar backgrounds, Mayawati (R) and Mamata seem to be going different ways. The extent of success that Mayawati’s ‘social engineering project’ is going to have in the daily business of running the largest state in India is currently one of the hottest debates in Indian politics. What is also dominating discussion is how she is going to influence government behaviour at the centre in the coming years. But what is already visible…

So much has already been said about The Namesake being about finding one’s home both within and without, that I saw it as incumbent upon me to go and see the film, more so since it was about my home and my city. The novel had not made my heart melt, but then I read it when I was not ‘outside’ my home. So I thought the film might provoke those emotions that the novel did not, especially after Mira Nair’s insistence…

Bengal is chained to politics. Image by Photo by John Salvino/Unsplash Last week, the world saw visuals of poor villagers, bleeding and being carried away after the police opened fire on villagers in Nandigram in Bengal. They were protesting against the acquisition of farmlands for industries. For anyone, it was revolting that a democratically elected government should shoot down its people because they were engaging in what appeared to be legitimate protest. Not surprisingly, the general reaction was…

Guru is a parable of many things, real and imagined.   After years of shepherding him through the pitiless jungle of Bollywood, and sustaining him through dud after dud, Amitabh Bachchan finally has a chance to bellow openly about his cub Abhishek’s performance in Guru, which can be called Dhirubhai Ambani’s ‘unauthorised’ biopic. It is hard to miss the full-page ads in the dailies, sponsored by the proud father who imperiously salutes his son for having finally matched his greatness. He has the…