From the Archives

The gate that opens into Aram Nagar in Versova could be mistaken for a portal to travel into the past. Single-storey houses are scattered within this large compound, connected by an unpaved, pebbled road. It is not nostalgia for a bygone era that has made me give up a lazy Sunday to drive from my edge of the city to this edge of the city. It is a play at Tamaasha Studio. Having resisted this performance space for months for being too 'far out', I had finally braved the distance a couple of months ago and had come away with goosebumps that persisted for a week. And the memory of that experience has brought me back. Tamaasha occupies one of the houses in Aram Nagar. Fairy lights brighten the foyer. A kiosk in a corner sells tea, coffee and 'homemade brownies', the homemade reiterated by the Tupperware box they are sold from. A balding, grey-haired man with a cigarette dangling at his mouth mingles among the ticket holders, chatting with the regulars. A few minute...

"Come on," she said. "Don't be shy. You can say it." An incoherent murmur echoed through the dark auditorium. "You can do better than that. Come on, loud and clear," she urged again. We did a little better this time around and she accepted it. She probably realised that she was not going to get us to be much louder and clearer than that. This was about 10 years ago at a show of The Vagina Monologues and the word one of the performers was imploring us to say aloud was - vagina. I had kept mum, not bothering to mutter much less shout out like she had wanted us to. I had not seen the point of the exercise. Did saying the word vagina, make us more open-minded? What did it achieve? I remember in school up until Grade 5-6, we would say Maths period, Science period, English period. But, somewhere around Grade 7 a hesitancy got lodged before the word  period. It was almost like every time the word was mentioned it was a reference to the menstrual cy...

You've been cooped at home with a swollen ankle. Your pupils are permanently dilated from watching the pick of your favourite movie scenes on your phone. You are tempted to dump your diet and pop some corn in the microwave. The withdrawal symptoms are kicking in and it's time to take action. As I scroll through the options I realise that the only viable choice is Rani Mukherjee's Hichki. Indifference is the looming feeling as I sit in the darkened movie hall for the horrifying tobacco ads to roll off and the movie to begin. A newborn baby would have figured out the plot from the promos so it's really only execution to look forward to. A teacher, a class of underachievers and unconventional teaching methods tho transform the clad. An evil teacher and an unsupportive father who will both learn their lesson before the end credits roll on. The only difference with Hichki is that the teacher, Naina Mathur, played charmingly by Rani Mukherjee, suffers from Tourette Syndrome...

One of my favourite perks about being a freelancer are the flexible hours. As Vivienne in Pretty Woman says (in a completely unrelated context!) - I say who, I say when. The flexibility of 'when' allows me to indulge my love for movies at any time of the day. When I step over the threshold and into the dark cinema hall, the real world melts away and for a few hours I inhabit a new world, where anything can happen...and will. *** The first watch of 2018 is 'All The Money in The World'. It initially starred Kevin Spacey but allegations of sexual abuse against him prompted director Ridley Scott to cut him out of the movie and reshoot it with Christopher Plummer. The movie is based on the true life incident of the kidnapping of Jean Paul Getty III, the grandson of American business tycoon Jean Paul Getty. Named the world's richest private citizen in the 1966 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, he was also renowned for his extreme frugal nature. F...

There is a poem by Margaret Atwood - Variations on the word Love. You could call it a love poem for the wont of a more appropriate descriptive genre. In the first verse she laments on the misuse of the word love. How it has been misused and abused such that it seems like the word no longer holds the meaning it was meant to. She writes... This is a word we use to plug holes with. It's the right size for those warm blanks in speech, for those red heart- shaped vacancies on the page that look nothing l ike real hearts... In the second verse, she talks about the feeling, which is too infinite for the four letters to contain and describe. Excerpt: Then there's the two of us. This word is far too short for us,...  ...O again and again in wonder and pain, a breath, a finger grip on a cliffside. You can hold on or let go.  Love, more specifically romantic love, has been the most popular theme ever since stories were first told. What is a love story? Boy meets gi...

"I want to see that movie you blogged about," says mother. She is referring to The Shape of Water. "Sure, I'll see it again. Let's go on Sunday." Sunday arrives... "Shall I book the tickets for this evening?" I ask her. "I am not sure. It has some creature or animal right? I think that will give me the creeps. But you loved the movie so I am confused." "It's a 2-hr movie mom, not a life altering decision. Do you want to see it?" "But, what if I don't like it?" "Aargh! Forget it." I roll my eyes and stomp off. My mother is the one person who can take me through the entire gamut from annoyed grunts to angry rants to heart-to-heart confidences, all in one day. There is much said about father-son relationships possibly because the mother is always trying to bridge it. But when it comes to mothers and daughters, they are left to sort it out themselves. They scream and shout and then hug and make u...

"It is called the idiot box for a reason" dad would say calmly (he has never been the one to yell) when he saw me sprawled on the sofa for hours in front of the TV. "I've not been watching for that long," I would defend myself, before I would switch it off, slide off the sofa with a look at the traitorous butt-shaped dent on the sofa and slink away. From my pre-teens and through my teens all my free time (and some of my study time) was spent with either my nose buried in a book or my unblinking eyes glued to the TV screen. Stuck at home this week with a sprained ankle keeps me away from the cinema and the theatre. I am dependent on the screen at home. Fortunately though I don't need to indulge my idiotic pastime in plain view. The idiot box has shrunk to the size of my palm. And to top that, it does not follow a set program it obeys my commands. First up is Amazon Prime, the poor sibling of Netflix. I am not on the Netflix wagon yet...I am not in denial o...

"Would you transculterize my book?" Alexandra asked me. It was my last day in Seville and Alexandra Whitaker, who had rented out a room to me for the duration of my stay, had suggested we meet for breakfast before I take the bus out. "Transculterize?" "Yes. It is set in America, I want you to rewrite it and set it in Mumbai." It sounded interesting. She gave me a copy of her book, Leaving Sophie Dean, and I promised her a couple of chapters once I was back home. The first task was to think up Indian names for the characters keeping in mind the associations that names carry in our country. The professions of the key characters had to be changed as they did not resonate in the Indian context. The story was set in white picket fenced suburban American. Suburb - a word with a whole different Mumbai context and thus the setting had to be recreated. The dialogue had to be stripped of American wit and redressed with Indian humour. I redo every sentence, ever...

"What movie are you watching?" mother asks as I head out the door. "Nyuhhu," I mumble and rush out ignoring her whats. I WhatsApp her from the car - Nude. I did not want to say it in front of dad. I do a mental palm-face at my embarrassment. It mocks the evolved, modern woman I see myself as. By making the word taboo, I have attached a shame to it which its etymology never intended for it to carry. And that is precisely the problem the movie addresses. Nude is the story of Yamuna. Shaken by her husband's in-her-face infidelity, Yamuna makes the decision to leave him and along with her teenage son lands up in Mumbai at her aunt Chandra's doorstep in a Mumbai slum. Chandra says she works as a sweeper at J J School of Arts. But, Yamuna soon discovers that the job is a facade to her real one, that of a nude model for the art students. Aghast at first, and then ashamed, Yamuna comes around when she realises that the money earned would be far more than any ot...

Is it a plane? Is it a bird? Is it Superman? It could be none of the above. Or, perhaps it is a little bit of all of the above. As long as it stays up in the air and lands, all parts intact...does it matter what it is? We live in a hyphenated world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to capture the whole in one word. It's hit us that we have one lifetime so we best take on all the identities we can. I should know...I swap with alacrity between writer/editor, teacher and physical trainer, borrowing a bit from one to play the other. The traditionalists may shake their heads and mouth "Focus? Focus?" But, that's only necessary if you are aiming for bullseye...and whoever said you had to? I want my darts capturing every bit of that board. **** The week starts off with a play seen on screen. It is Julius Caesar, a West End production performed originally at London's Bridge Theatre and broadcast on screens across the world via National Theatre Live. Unlike ...