Comic Book History If a film buff wants to see a properly researched and authentic film on the Rani of Jhansi, then Sohrab Modi’s Jhansi Ki Rani (1953) is the one…

The Making Of A Leader There is a scene in Abhijit Phanse’s Thackeray, in which the leader is a pall-bearer of one of his followers killed in a violent agitation. This…

Emil And The Detectives is a classic story for children, written by German writer Erich Kastner in 1929, and illustrated by Water Trier. The Nazis burnt most of Kastner’s books, for…

The Lady Vanishes British novelist Belinda Bauer’s Snap was longlisted for the Man Booker Award last year, one of the rare suspense books to be included in that hallowed roll. The opening chapter of the…

Hard-Boiled Detective Sara Gran’s tough-yet-vulnerable protagonist, Claire DeWitt, belongs to the best tradition of those never-say-die, hard-boiled detectives of classic noir crime fiction. A female version of Dashiell Hammett or…

Exam Scam The problem with India’s education system is far deeper that what Why Cheat India can even attempt to get at. The extent of the rot is conveyed through a list of statistics at…

Manic Mumbai For a first-time director –Pia Sukanya– to even attempt a film like Bombairiya is as admirable as it is foolhardy, because a plot in which multiple characters run riot for…

A Woman Scorned Delhi-based theatre producer, director and writer, Atul Satya Koushik has been bringing his productions to Mumbai regularly. His plays, belonging to diverse genres from mythologicals to comedies…

Soyare Sakal is the fifty-seventh production by Bhadrakali Productions, the group established by the late Macchindra Kambli, over three decades ago, with a Malwani play Chakrapani. After his death in 2007, his…

   Earlier this year, Glenn Close, won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in The Wife, based on Meg Wolitzer’s 2003 book, about the unequal marriage between a writer and…