Browsing: Bollywood

“Even 65 years after our independence, we find that India’s progress towards establishing an equitable society has been slow and disappointing. Discrimination against women thrives and cuts across religion, caste, rich, poor, urban-rural divides. Secure in their solid economic and social foundation, men are men, and we are the other. Today, women realize that unless certain fundamental issues that affect gender equality and justice are addressed, women’s empowerment will remain at the level of rhetoric.” – Sharmila Tagore

Yet millions of Indian-Americans still feel a pain in losing  within the course of two days, two particular individuals – Irrfan and Rishi – whom they had never met but with whom everyone was on a first name basis, and instinctively felt they were family. So it was like losing someone you had known all your life.

Age is just a number! Shelly Chopra Dhar is all about breaking stereotypes. She proves that everyone has one life to live and can do anything with it. Dhar, 62, is the debutante director of ‘Ek Ladki Ko Dekha To Aisa Laga’ and attended film school only when her fourth and youngest child was in middle school.

We all love stories and cinema is the ultimate story-teller which spins magical tales of love and loss, set in unimagined realms. Sometimes cinema is a mirror of society, sometimes a celebration of the imagination and the invincibility of the human spirit.  It is always the magician which draws us into people’s lives

Superstar. Bollywood Royalty. Miss World. Guess model. Fashion Icon. International Recording Star. Highest Paid Actress in the Indian Film Industry. Queen of Endorsements. UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. The Empress of High Heels.

Yes, Priyanka Chopra is all these but she’s also something you would never, ever have guessed in a hundred years.

She’s an FOB – Fresh Off the Boat!

For generations, he was ‘Sanju Baba’, the spoilt, loved darling of the collective Indian nation. The son of iconic Nargis and the wonderful Sunil Dutt, he could do no wrong and if he could or did, nothing would stick to him. Sanjay Dutt of the fabulous dreamy, druggee eyes and the lost little boy smile. Everyone ached for him and his losses, especially for the loss of his beloved mother to pancreatic cancer when he was a susceptible, troubled youth.

We’ve all known and loved her – Meena Kumari, the tragic beauty who brought so many wonderful films to life. Many of us have seen her films in crowded theaters in India while another generation has experienced the power of her work via videos, catching on to her life after it was already over.

Most of us don’t know that she was a poet too, writing in Urdu. Now her words have been lovingly gathered into a book, ‘Meena Kumari, the Poet – A Life beyond Cinema’, and fans, poetry lovers and the merely curious will be able to see what made her tick, what were her innermost thoughts

Can you be a film buff and not see ‘Padmaavat’? Like thousands, I too wound my way to Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s saga starring the luminaries Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor and Ranveer Singh. I donned 3-D glasses and entered into the surreal, far-off world of medieval India which has been brought kicking and shouting into the 2018 conflicted world of Karni Sena and today’s India.

What can $1.99 buy you?
In today’s day and age – not much. Not even a slice of pizza, not even a burger, not even a Metrocard!
But $1.99 can buy you romance, drama, comedy and magic, happiness and laughter, a trip to foreign lands for a full 30 days.
The secret is BigFlix.

Well, this nice middle-class girl from Bombay did follow the road less traveled. It led her all the way to New York City, the school of hard knocks, the elusive hunt for success and happiness. Did she find what she was looking for?