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Readers Write In #362: Women, a memoir
(by G Waugh) “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there, leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together” -J.D. Salinger I am a male and I am 32 years old. My earliest memories of my association with women date back to the earliest phases of my boyhood- the […]
Helping with COVID
April 24, 2021
Krishikari had a great idea about putting this space to good use to help the situation — for example, if anyone needs a bed, or where to send a donation, etc. If you have anything to share, do get back in the comments section.
Readers Write In #354: On the caste origins of Karna
April 13, 2021
(by Sudharshan Garg) Loved the movie and the review, but a few…mythological and historical quibbles. Karna’s foster parents were not from the ‘oppressed’ classes. If anything Adhi his dad was from the lineage of the mighty king Jayadrata of Anga. Ratha was a suffix this line took, Jaya + Rata > DhratvaRata > Satkarma > […]
Readers Write In #353: Karnan: An Essay on the Radical
April 13, 2021
Hemanth Bharatha Chakravarthy I read Mari Selvaraj’s stunning Karnan as an essay on the radical, as a story of radical movements and radicalism within political struggles. There is a lot else in the movie: visually rich screenwriting with stunning landscapes and aerial shots, previously unsaid ethnography of the “lifestyle” of oppressed communities from their customs […]
Readers Write In #349: A case against the current system of elections
March 26, 2021
(by G Waugh) Assume that you are a social activist. You belong to an area where a chemical factory keeps sending harmful effluents to the local water bodies and other sources of water for public use. In addition, the workers who are employed there have also been exposed to harmful radiation and many of them […]
Readers Write In #343: Greta Thunberg, Farm Laws and the Curious Case of Prahalada Déjà vu
March 4, 2021
(by Macaulay Perapulla) Hindu Mythologies have a strange onion peeling effect. At first, your eyes find it hard to tolerate them. You can apportion some blame on the poor English translations that were made by enthusiastic Indologists during the 18th century who made sure that the stories sounded like cut-and-dried moral science lessons of “good” […]
Readers Write In #338: Understanding Indian agriculture through Indian cinema
February 8, 2021
(by Macaulay Perapulla) Ever since I fell in love with Mahabharata, I began to discover the power of a beautiful, a rather deceptive phrase: “Puranas”. Puranas means Pura Api Navam: That which is ancient AND nascent. And as someone who works on the wicked challenge of digitizing agriculture, I became obsessed with one question: How […]
Readers Write In #337: A diary of suffering
February 6, 2021
(by G Waugh) Never in my life had I ever imagined a time would come where I would be seeking treatment for something as terrible as– a mental illness. Whenever I used to call teasingly some of my friends “loosu”, “mental” it never waswithout a derogatory connotation that makes me wince today and those words […]
Readers Write In #335: Gamestop
January 31, 2021
(by Shiva Prasad) There is significant outrage, the social media is going crazy about what GameStop thing really is? As someone who has relied heavily on investments to make my ends meet for the past two odd years, I’ll admit, even for me there was still a lot of learning I had to go through, […]
Readers Write In #322: Bye Bye Miss American Pie
January 11, 2021
(by Madan Mohan) Don McLean wrote the iconic American Pie as a lament addressed to the events at Altamont, where pandemonium broke out between fans and Hell’s Angels (private bodyguards of sorts) as Rolling Stones performed their set at a music festival and also as a general critique of what he saw as accelerating cultural […]
‘Master’ is coming, but the pandemic isn’t going, so what do we do?
January 5, 2021
https://www.filmcompanion.in/features/tamil-features/tamil-movies-master-eeswaran-theatres-covid-19-master-is-coming-but-the-pandemic-isnt-going-so-what-do-we-do-vijay-simbu-baradwaj-rangan/ Now that 100% occupancy has been ensured in theatres, let’s just be safe and responsible and leave the rest to the movie gods. When the announcement came that Tamil Nadu theatres would be open at 100% capacity to accommodate Master and Eeswaran, my jaw dropped. Really? What kind of message is being sent out? […]
#AskBR – Rewind 2020
December 24, 2020
In which I answer a few questions on an older film… or a new one… or talk about actors and directors… or take on a few YouTube comments… For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult Copyright ©2020 Film Companion.
Readers Write In #315: Mirror Cracked From Side to Side
December 19, 2020
(by Madan Mohan) No, this is not about the famous Agatha Christie novel. This is about the imminent shutdown of Mumbai Mirror, a tabloid-sized daily that used to accompany Times of India. Starting tomorrow, we are told, Mumbai Mirror will be a Sunday weekly affair. Notice I say tabloid-sized. If you aren’t from Mumbai (or […]
Eros theatre memories: Movie-going in another era
December 18, 2020
I received this on Whatsapp. It’s so brilliantly written, so evocative that I wanted to preserve this piece. (Plus, I was a frequenter of Eros theatre myself, and this write-up brought back so many memories — not necessarily of the films mentioned here, but of how movie-going used to be way back then.) Publishing with […]
Readers Write In #314: Kim Ki-duk’s Kerala connection is one of the strangest things Indian cinema has witnessed
December 16, 2020
(by Alex John) Something unprecedented happened at the IFFK in 2013, which was held in the capital city of Kerala. An art movie maker who was largely obscure in his own country got literally stunned by the movie-star welcome the crowd gave him; to an extent that he said it was the most memorable experience […]
Readers Write In #306: Of lacking Office Space… or not!
November 30, 2020
(by An Jo) The name of the movie, ‘Office Space’, itself spells out such a broad spectrum of imagined meanings that it made sense, or makes sense, now, in these days of CV-19 that have dictated WFH [Work? from Home]. And so, there are articles/pieces coming out that decry the necessary evil of WFH. Be […]
Readers Write In #302: Samsaram Adhu Minsaram, and how age changes how this movie is viewed
November 18, 2020
(by Sudharshan Garg) The movie bug bit me hard when I went to the first Laurel and Hardy movie as a 5 year old. Back then the Blue Diamond hotel (RIP) was the Satyam Cinemas of our day, talking about 1985-86. My uncle a lifelong movie aficionado (he was the room mate of Ravi K […]
PVR 2.0: The new normal in theatre-going
November 9, 2020
For more, subscribe to FILM COMPANION SOUTH: http://bit.ly/2xoNult Copyright ©2020 Film Companion.
Readers Write In #293: Middle-class-ness
November 7, 2020
(by G Waugh) Baskar is incensed that all these days he had been dealing with a ruthless money-lender who had taken the guise of well-wisher/ family friend with a view to acquiring his rare, chemical formula, which is worth millions. He kidnaps the little daughter of the money-lender and calls to threaten him. But to […]
Readers Write In #289: Aims, a Memoir
October 24, 2020
(by G Waugh) Born into a middle class family that subsisted on a single income, there was only one purpose for which I was thrust into education- ‘settling’ in life. ‘Settling’ meant only one thing- getting a well-paid job, marrying and having kids. After slogging for over four years in an area where I was […]
May 14, 2021
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