Film Impressions

REVIEW: Raanjhanaa

A STAR TURN

Hindi cinema has a special talent for glorifying losers. Those with suicidal tendencies and proclivity towards wallowing always get our vote. Hence the inexplicable fascination with Devdas––(Aashiqui 2 being its most recent manifestation). Kundan (Dhanush, flawed diction, electrifying presence) a classical masochist, falls in love at first sight and immediately starts chasing Zoya (Sonam Kapoor), the object of his affection. They are still in school, but Zoya knows Kundan isn't her type and slaps him hard. He turns up again the next day, and the day after. 15 slaps later, her heart melts. Oh wait, but before that he slits his wrist. In the 10th grade such an act could be dismissed as childishness, but soon you realise it's just his personality and what's worse, it rubs off on others too.

OBITUARY: Rituparno Ghosh

This article first appeared in Tehelka magazine

The monotony of an ordinary weekday morning is shattered by a Tweet. “Shocked and still hoping that it’s not true. Filmmaker and friend Rituparno Ghosh is no more,” writes Onir. My heart sinks. A maverick storyteller nipped in the prime of life, his demise reported on as stolid a vehicle as Twitter! Ghosh would have composed an elegy or employed a Tagore verse, rendered by one of his heroines as she languorously paces the corridors of an old house with checkered tiles, four-poster beds, impressionist paintings and ornate lamps.