- India
- International
Pooja Pillai is a Special Correspondent working with The Indian Express.
June 15, 2024 11:46 IST
The story of the Vadodara woman whose right to live where she wants to is sought to be rescinded because of her faith and her faith alone feels like a fork in the road for Gujarat. State authorities must not give in to such demands, for that is the path to an Apartheid state
Sat, Jun 15, 2024June 01, 2024 22:49 IST
Turns out, the exit polls on June 1 were the trailer for a film that never released
Tue, Jun 04, 2024May 24, 2024 16:23 IST
Indian Express' Paromita Chakrabarti and Pooja Pillai debate Bhansali's cinema and his feminism. Through their pieces, they offer not this-versus-that, but the best of both sides.
Fri, May 24, 2024May 24, 2024 07:10 IST
Bhansali’s ‘feminised’ films, where women’s egos, desires and traumas are prioritised, stand in sharp contrast to the male star-driven vehicles that still form the overwhelming majority of films coming out of Bollywood
Sun, May 26, 2024May 19, 2024 22:16 IST
For expanding our palates, a tip of the toque to Raghunandan Kamath, founder of Natural, and others like him who wondered, ‘Why not add THIS to ice cream?’
Mon, May 20, 2024April 27, 2024 15:16 IST
Written in crisp journalistic prose, it draws from the author's love for the city
Sat, Apr 27, 2024April 10, 2024 19:16 IST
There is cinema from the state that depicts its best stories:The many, everyday moments of love and beauty, yes, but also the cracks — formed by religion, caste and gender — that run through it
Thu, Apr 11, 2024March 14, 2024 19:04 IST
Don’t get too comfortable, the film 'The Zone of Interest', warns us, because this isn’t about what could happen or shouldn’t happen, but about what is, in fact, happening right now
Thu, Mar 14, 2024March 03, 2024 15:42 IST
It does not allow its protagonist's ambition to become a weapon in the hands of a society that cannot understand her. That it pulls this off by giving her the role which, in real life, is often played by men, is the richly ironic takeaway
Mon, Mar 04, 2024January 07, 2024 18:23 IST
Violence cannot be an end in itself. There is a before and after which must be reckoned with and its aestheticisation is a refusal to acknowledge the humanity of those who are brutalised for the cheap thrills of audience applause
Mon, Jan 08, 2024December 28, 2023 19:25 IST
The journey of curry — the word, the concept and indeed the food — shows the inadequacy of the word 'authenticity.' That does not mean it is without its uses. When one talks about 'authentic food' from a marginalised culture, one is also talking about who gets to make it, talk about it and benefit from it
Fri, Dec 29, 2023December 22, 2023 17:51 IST
From the wrestlers in Delhi to the Kerala film industry — committees, publicity and support have not helped. The men who allegedly abused their power remain unaffected
Fri, Dec 22, 2023December 07, 2023 11:34 IST
In focusing exclusively on the performance of violence without adequately explaining how any man can reach such levels of psychopathy as to slaughter hundreds and feel no remorse, he outs himself as being ill-equipped to tell this story. In the hands of filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher and, closer home, Ram Gopal Varma and Anurag Kashyap, violence is a tool, used to tell stories of greed, grief and fear — in Animal, it is the whole story.
Fri, Dec 08, 2023November 25, 2023 14:00 IST
The film is brave because a mainstream superstar plays an openly queer character and it has the courage — without caricatures or villains — to explore the oppressions of matrimony
Tue, Nov 28, 2023November 18, 2023 15:57 IST
The cloistered life of academia, of ‘ivory towers’ and the ‘life of the mind’, is not one that is often associated with passion. Byatt’s Booker Prize-winning novel exposes the falsity of that dichotomy
Sat, Nov 18, 2023November 07, 2023 18:56 IST
The novel won the Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year Award for Fiction this year and it is also on the shortlist of JCB Prize for Literature. It is easy to see why. It creates a world that is hard to resist, populated with characters whose insecurities and flaws, joys and triumphs, the reader can easily identify with
Tue, Nov 07, 2023October 07, 2023 11:32 IST
More than the shimmer of her gown, it was the utter self-confidence with which Aishwarya Rai Bachchan blew kisses, laughed and even danced a little jig that shone through, telegraphing how little she’s come to care for what people think of her, her body, her clothes and her face
Mon, Oct 09, 2023September 24, 2023 21:51 IST
In Firefly Memories, each poem is lit from within, powered by recollections from the vast canvas of the past — Ray’s own and that of all humanity — bringing with them little spots of illumination, much like fireflies on a dark night
Sun, Sep 24, 2023September 05, 2023 12:21 IST
Tejashwi Yadav talks about working towards a ‘progressive’ and ‘positive’ politics. To be able to sit together, laugh, talk and, indeed, eat together — whether salad, khichdi or mutton — is a promising start
Tue, Sep 05, 2023July 29, 2023 15:33 IST
Every issue O’Connor flagged was, some years later, acknowledged as a real problem: Mental health issues are no longer shameful secrets, with several celebrities openly talking about their struggles. The treatment of women in the entertainment business is now a widely-recognised problem
Sun, Jul 30, 2023June 20, 2023 11:58 IST
No amount of devotional fervour can cover a poorly-written and executed film. The audience, not political patrons, are the ultimate arbiters of your fortune.
Tue, Jun 20, 2023June 13, 2023 18:11 IST
After all, the scene in which Tara screams about the greatness of Hindustan, also shows him willingly saying “Pakistan zindabad” and embracing Islam, if it means that he can be with his wife. Viewers back then seem to have accepted this as part of the sacrifice that a lover must make, their regard for him not diminishing in the least
Tue, Jun 13, 2023May 29, 2023 19:46 IST
His words did not glorify the vision and vanity projects of one regime. They are not the cringing and fawning of a man desperate for salvation and protection
Mon, May 29, 2023May 06, 2023 19:26 IST
The fictionalised account of a former queen seems more in touch with contemporary sentiments than a coronation that reportedly cost about 20.5 million pounds at a time when ordinary Britons are lining up at food banks and foregoing heating in a bid to save money
Sat, May 06, 2023March 14, 2023 03:14 IST
In 2022, Writing with Fire by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, which followed the story of Khabar Lahariya, a media organisation run entirely by Dalit women, became the first Indian documentary to be nominated in the Oscars.
Tue, Mar 14, 2023