Nutan the poet
Nutan, who loved bhajans and classical music, has written some poetry, of which I have collected a little over the years. Given her talent and the quality of what I present here, there must be much...
View ArticleAn interview with Mohnish Bahl
Alas, I was not the person who interviewed Nutan's son! But thanks to Seema, my desi Nutan-collaborator, I would like to indicate the recent interview which appeared in Filmfare. You'll find it here ....
View ArticleArranged Marriage
This blog has already reviewed collections of short stories ( here and here ) and rather similarly, this volume contains stories which revolve loosely around the theme of femininity and motherhood of...
View ArticlePunashcha, the poetry of Love and Life
Here's a beautiful and poignant little movie (2014) by Souvik Mitra featuring Soumitra Chatterjeee and Roopa Ganguly (above; I had seen her - much younger, it was 1989 - in Ek din achanak ); but what...
View ArticleManzil (1979): do you mind lying and deceit?
Have you ever wondered why you were born poor and not rich ? (if it’s the other way round, you often don’t wonder) Have you asked yourself why this injustice continues in today’s developed world? And...
View ArticleThe said and the unsaid: Rajnigandha
First the story for those who don’t remember Basu Chatterji’s Rajnigandha (1974): it’s based on Mannu Bhandari ’s book Yahi Sach Hai. Deepa (Vidya Sinha) and Sanjay (Amol Patekar) are a young, aspiring...
View ArticleNutan picture treasure-trove
Below you'll find a number of the folders in which I have collected pictures of Nutan over the years. Most of them have been found on the net, but if some readers consider their posting an offense to...
View ArticleSilsila, the spiciness of exposure
So much has already been said about this Yash Chopra 1981 movie… And here I am adding to the pileup! Well, I hope it won’t be too long and too boring to read. In fact what I want to say can be quickly...
View ArticleSone ki chidiya, pure gold does not fear the smelter
Watching Sone ki chidiya (the golden bird, Shaheed Latif, 1958) has been a bit of an adventure, because even though I knew it was good, it doesn’t exist with subtitles, and some time has passed before...
View ArticleApur Sansar, tenderness
Last addition to a programme begun 10 years ago with Pather Panchali, here are a few words about the trilogy's n°3 about which I'm sure that nothing has been left unsaid (check story here). It's a...
View ArticleMaitreyi Devi & La nuit bengali
My discovery of Maitreyi Devi happened, probably like so many outside of India, through Mircea Eliade’s novel which I read in French, La nuit Bengali, written in 1933 three years after this Romanian...
View ArticleNutan and her animals
For this year's Nutan ki janmadin, I have decided to make you discover how attached she was to her animal friends. She was mostly a dog-lover, it seems, and apparently it was a family thing. 22 dogs at...
View ArticleWoman to woman
Woman to woman is the first book I read by Madhulika Liddle. She’s written more, of which I had been aware, since I read her blog where she had mentioned them, but for some reason I had relented until...
View ArticleShakha proshakha, or how does one remain virtuous?
This 1990 movie was Ray’s last but one, only to be succeeded by Agantuk a year later before his death. Its title means “branches of the tree”: the film deals with a family situation and so the...
View ArticleMandawa
Ok, voilà la partie « plus » du voyage, qui s’est trouvée rajoutée sans préméditation, car cette journée à Mandawa pour Divali n’était pas prévue… Je devais avoir une troisième journée de cours à BK...
View ArticleCours de français
La Conférence ICCS est maintenant terminée, et en ce qui me concerne, je suis satisfait d'avoir pu faire ma petite présentation sur "The importance of language in communication", pour laquelle j'avais...
View ArticleJournée bien remplie...
Ouf! la journée n'est pas encore finie; il y a encore tout à l'heure le repas avec animation devant la guesthouse comme le premier soir, mais déjà la journée a été bien fatigante! Matinée occupée par...
View ArticleICCS 2017
De retour dans la douce Pilani, où le léger voile matinal nous caresse gentiment, et en attente du début des festivités de la Conférence ICCS, voici quelques nouvelles du voyage qui m'a amené ici. Le...
View ArticleNutan speaks about Bimal Roy
Bollywood actress Nutan talks about Bimal Roy... "We have very few directors like Bimal Roy to begin with but what made him special that he was not a jack of all trades, he was master of all trades. He...
View ArticleLion, a pretty picture
Sunny Pawar Before knowing that Garth Davis was a successful commercials director, I stood up from the screening of his first feature movie, Lion (2016) telling myself, “well now, that was nice, but...
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