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It's a wonderful surprise to see our indigenous Hindi film industry, so often referred to as Bollywood, coming out with relevant, topical and well researched cinema. Cinema that touches the heart and forces you to question your innermost biases, orientations and prejudices. The film "Mulk" by #AnubhavSinha, challenges the stereotyping of the Muslim community by seemingly level-headed and sensible Indians. How many times have we conjured up a particular image of a Muslim? The bearded, skull capped look of the man, and the burkha-clad image of the woman, with a brood of children trailing behind, is the most typical image that we have in mind. We assume all Muslims are hot-headed, bigoted, semi-literate, violent people, who will kill or maim at the drop of a hat. This in our great country #India, which has seen a remarkable amalgamation of cultures and religions over centuries of its existence. We all have heard of Akbar, Sher Shah, Tughlaq, and Tipu Sultan, yet when we...

A few days back we all watched shocked while a man held a girl hostage in her own house in Jaipur. Further, he knifed the girl, left her bleeding, and had the audacity to live stream her condition and his act!! All this while the police were dumbly watching from below the building. He kept showing the sign of seven,  indicating the time when he would end his drama. Finally, after threatening the girl all day with a knife and a gun, he gave himself up in the evening, saying the girl had agreed to marriage. After the whole disgusting episode, the girl revealed that she was forced to say yes to marrying the lout for fear of her life. And the reaction of the police takes the cake! They indulgently termed it a lovers' tiff , only terming the method used as wrong! Lover's tiff? What kind of love is this? Threats, abuses, bullying, intimidating,  are all these signs of love? And this cold, calculated savage act is being seen indulgently by the enforcers of law? What have we a...

Have you noticed a child studying in a reputed English medium school in an Indian city? Have you seen the slouched shoulders, the unenthusiastic gait, and the resigned expression on the face? School children who mechanically go through the motions of assembly, classwork, lab work, project work, extracurricular activities without any enthusiasm or genuine interest? Why is this so? Do you also feel our children are going to school to become automated creatures without life, without heart? I have felt this for a long time, especially when I compare my English medium educated child with municipal school students. Children from the lower strata of society, who go to government sponsored vernacular schools, are much better off than our elite school students, I feel. They can play, shout, roam around as per their own sweet will. They have the time to play and run, unlike our children who rush from one tuition to another all day. Municipal school children get a sit-in mid-day meal every...

In the days of Ray, Ghatak, Sen, and Tapan Sinha, Bengali cinema was the forerunner of the Indian film industry. Later came Goutam Ghosh, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Rituparno Ghosh and Aparna Sen. Their films made a mark on the history of Indian cinema, and were justifiably favourites at the National Awards. Then there were films by Kaushik Ganguly, Suman Ghosh, Anjan Dutt, Sandip Ray, and Srijit Mukherjee, again very relevant and topical, universal in nature. Shiboprosad Mukherjee and Nandita Roy, the darlings of middle-road cinema, made some gems like Icchhe, Ramdhanu and Bela Seshe, that catered to middle-class sensibilities while addressing universal themes. Now, I believe, Bengali film makers have run out of ideas. Let's not even talk of commercial Bengali flicks that are blatant rip-offs of South movies. I am talking of middle-of-the road Bangla cinema. Recent offerings like Chhaya o Chhobi, Drishtikone, Haami, Uma, Ghare & Baire, Abaar Ashbo Phire, Cockpit, Amazon Obhi...

The world over these days, beauty contests for women are pretending to be contests for judging the overall personality of the contestant, not just external appearance and vital statistics. If that is the case, then why do they have the rather blatantly-titillating swimsuit round, may I ask? If a lady is not being judged for her vital statistics, then why is she made to strut around in a teeny-weenie bikini, and pose with a pout for the judges and cameras?  Why does it matter whether she stuns the audience in a strapless figure-hugging evening gown, balancing herself on inch-long stilettos, or not?  If her final answer is what determines whether she ultimately wins the title or not, then why the rigmarole of parading her in various kinds of provocative clothing? I failed to understand the double standards of these contests, and also of winners (think our local Aishwarya Rai or Priyanka Chopra) who seem be deep thinkers on world issues, judging by their answers. Why d...

There are films on patriotism, and there is a film like #Raazi. Shot in the thriller format, this is an edge-of-the-seat entertainer with a heart. And what raises it's level many notches higher than the ordinary patriotism-spouting Hindi film, is the deft and sensitive direction and acting. The most important takeaway from the film is the view that most people are essentially good; their motivations may come from wrong purposes or bad politics. #Raazi depicts the life of an Indian girl - Sehmat, who is married to a Pakistani army major, with the specific purpose of spying on them and supplying vital information for the Indian government during the 1971 pre-war stage. But nowhere does the film accuse or point fingers at any one. Characters from both sides of the border are shown as credible human beings, no matter what their nationality is. In fact, the ending makes us veer more towards the devastated major, who had come to genuinely love and respect Sehmat. The fact that Sehma...

Much has been written about how the Indian education system is hopelessly out of times and needs to be changed drastically. Its another matter that whenever some radical change is introduced, parents and schools are the first ones to protest. Like the time when CBSE made Higher Secondary  Board exams optional, parents of teenage children were up in arms. Why such a move? What about standardized exam system? Why continuous assessment of students, etc.etc. Currently, the CBSE proposal to make sports compulsory in classes 9-12 is similarly being hotly debated, and given a thumbs down by most Indian parents.  So what do Indian parents really want? To stuff their children with as much academic knowledge as possible, in the hope of making them mathematical or scientific wizards, or brilliant historians, economists or geologists? Or to make them successful politicians by teaching everything that is there to be learnt in political science? Coming to political science, the way ...