Browsing All Posts filed under »Books«

Readers Write In #26: 50 Films That Changed Bollywood, 1995-2015

November 1, 2017

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The following is an excerpt from journalist/critic Shubhra Gupta’s book, 50 Films That Changed Bollywood, 1995-2015.  From the back cover: Hindi cinema was trapped in formulaic clichés for decades: lost-and-found themes, sacrificing mothers, brothers on opposite sides of the law, villains lording over their dens, colourful molls, six songs, the use of rape as a […]

Readers Write In #25: A Tropical Sojourn

October 22, 2017

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The following is a note from Anand Raghavan… Hi BR, Poetry is one of the most expressive forms of art. From time immemorial humans have captured all facets of their life across the world in this form. In this book, it is effectively used as a medium to capture the beauty of nature and life […]

Readers Write In #20: Yama’s Lieutenant…

July 8, 2017

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The following is a note from Anuja Chandramouli… People always want to know what prompted me to write books in the currently red – hot, alleged cash cow that is the mythology genre. I have no idea what to say except that it is not something that I thought long and hard about, given my […]

Butterflies, Parathas and the Bhagwat Gita

March 12, 2017

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Regular reader and occasional commenter ‘doctorhari’ has written a book titled “Butterflies, Parathas and the Bhagwat Gita,” which he calls “a fictional work interspersed with the Gita’s wisdom. It traces the journey of two flawed, irreverent men pushed to come to terms with the Gita, and how that ended up transforming their lives.” The book is […]

Readers Write In #9: Aaromale

February 20, 2017

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‘Catcher in the Rye’ had spoiled me. It is always a problem when you meet a great novel. ‘Great’ in the sense, how the novel had hit you. It wouldn’t have hit you, had it not reflected your persona with such uncanny authenticity. Similar to how Vadivel gets surprised when someone reads his mind-voice. ‘Velila […]

Readers Write In #6: An Unsuitable Boy

January 31, 2017

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Ramit Bajaj requested to open a thread on Karan Johar’s autobiography An Unsuitable Boy. Happy commenting. Also, if you have an idea — not covered in a review or column — that you’d like to discuss, do let me know. And, here’s the page from the book that talks about me:

A sense of books

October 15, 2016

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My contribution to a “musings” column in the Weekend Reading section of The Hindu… Sir Francis Bacon had great taste in books. Think of his most famous quote: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” The image isn’t so much of the bibliophile as […]

In her shoes

July 23, 2016

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A breathless, fascinating account of a woman who keeps hurling herself into gruelling tests of endurance. As someone who goes to bed praying the morning papers will publish findings that pizza is good for weight loss, two questions popped up when I read Anywhere but Home: Adventures in Endurance, written by Anu Vaidyanathan, “the first […]

Tamil short stories

May 12, 2016

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So this is a plug, not just for the book you’re going to read about in a bit but also for the Tamil short story. The first grown-up stories I read were in Tamil. Enid Blytons and Hardy Boys adventures and other kinds of English reading came from the library, but I’d get done with […]

A musical bridge across time

March 19, 2016

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If Chitravina N Ravikiran has his way, couplets from the ‘Tirukkural’ may soon be part of the Carnatic repertoire. Last December, while preparing for his session at The Hindu Lit for Life 2016, Gopalkrishna Gandhi selected 34 couplets from the Tirukkural and asked Chitravina N Ravikiran to set them to tune. Gandhi had just translated […]

On the watch

January 9, 2016

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Looking back at my vacation viewing, which included heavily intellectual entertainment like… um, ‘Downton Abbey’. What does a film critic watch while on vacation? I was surprised people even thought this was a question worth asking, but then someone explained why. With “normal” folks (a category I clearly do not belong to), holidays are a […]

Books for the big screen

November 15, 2015

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My contribution to a “musings” column in the Weekend Reading section of The Hindu… I fell in love with Pauline Kael’s writing when I read her six-page response to The Godfather, Part II.  (“Review,” in this case, is too diminished a word.) On the third page, she said, “I began to feel that the film […]

Bullets over Blandings

September 26, 2015

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In which I’m left wondering about the similarities (and differences) between Wodehouse and Woody Allen. You know those ‘Art of Fiction’ interviews in the Paris Review, where they talk at length with a writer? I stumbled upon one with PG Wodehouse recently, conducted when The Master was ninety-one and a half, and still working seven […]

Angry old man

August 29, 2015

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Baradwaj Rangan spends an afternoon with an angry Kiran Nagarkar, who talked about poverty, education, everything except his latest book. The afternoon I met Kiran Nagarkar, he did not want to talk too much about his new book, the latest (last?) instalment of the story that began in Ravan and Eddie and barrelled through The […]

How I read

August 27, 2015

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Or maybe this essay should be titled how I don’t. At least not the way I used to, eyes glued to the page. What a funny thing to say. It’s funnier to think of it literally, as though if I nodded off, I’d wake up with a book for a face. Anyway, that’s how we […]

A daylong duet

August 8, 2015

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Thoughts on a beautiful (and near-wordless) Bengali movie that won a couple of National Awards this year (Best First Film, Best Audiography). In the last week, approximately 1200 people have lost their jobs in West Bengal. In a state of fear, panic and rage, people are taking to the streets to rally and protest. The […]

The Bishop and the Beautiful

February 1, 2015

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When I heard about the demise of Colleen McCullough a few days ago, I felt a twinge. Maybe “twinge” is too strong a word, but right now, I’m unable to think of an alternative. Maybe it’s easier to describe the emotion behind the word I’m groping for. Remember the boy who sat next to you […]

The launch…

December 9, 2014

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This is a Book Club event and entry is by invite only, so do let me know in advance if you need an invite. Look forward to seeing at least some of you there.

Reviews…

November 25, 2014

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REVIEWS IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA A review by Sudhir Srinivasan, in The Hindu, is here. An excerpt: While it may seem like a fairly plain statement to make, you catch yourself going back to it during the infrequent times that you disagree with his points. Whether you agree with the reviews or not, there’s little […]

Names of south Indian noir films…

November 3, 2014

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Sidharth Bhatia is doing some research on crime films, esp from the 1950s and 60s. He need the names of some really well known Noirish films in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam from the time. I have sent him some names in Tamil, but do write in about anything you have in mind (either in […]

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