Browsing: Features

Yes, it’s that time of the year when New Yorkers get wrapped up in intriguing cinema from the Indian sub-continent, wonderful stories of the diaspora and varied lives – thanks to the New York Indian Film Festival  (NYIFF) which has been a gift of the Indo-American Arts Council and Aroon Shivdasani to New York City

Read More

In the 60’s this bitter-sweet story about changing times and a changing India became a screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and was made into ‘Shakespearewallah’ – a winsome little gem of a film by the intrepid team of James Ivory and Ismail Merchant – just their second venture after ‘The Householder’.

Read More

The New York Indian Film Festival, organized by the Indo-American Arts Council (IAAC)  has always prided itself on being about real people, ordinary people, and at the cinematic table there’s room for stories from every kind of independent film maker, in every format and in every regional language.

Read More

Ten ticking minutes which won’t ever come back are a valuable commodity.
You could spend them waiting for the subway train to arrive or watching your chicken biryani cook on the stove.
Or you could spend ten minutes having a most happening conversation with the very happening Kumail Nanjiani! Well, that’s what I was lucky enough to do – and I tried to squeeze an hour’s conversation into those ten minutes – and we really talked fast!

Read More
Art

Art is often about aesthetics and beauty but in Chittaprosad’s work it was about the ugliness of life and the horrors of the Bengal famine. This retrospective of Chittaprosad’s work is a not to be missed event for it illuminates the life of a little known artist whose searing body of work is being seen for the first time in New York.

Read More

Celebrities may wear the armor of success but as Anupam Kher shows they all have human failings and frailties and he shares ways to deal with everything from stress to fear to failure. And that is why readers will catch glimpses of themselves in the pages of his new book, find strength for the days they lose confidence or feel useless. Says Kher, “They need to discover that the best thing about them is them. It is the truth, it is not just a catchy title. I believe in it.”

Read More

you know that there’s another showman named Raj Kapoor – a young Indian-American in Hollywood who’s on the Oscars production team? His company, Raj Kapoor Productions, designed the screen content and performances for the big night.

Read More

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.

Read More