by Manu Sharma.

Dearest Dev Saab,

My first memory of you is actually a memory of my father, who'd passed away when I was 6. I remember hot summer nights without electricity in Faridabad ,when we would all sit on the terrace listening to CHHAYA GEET. Remember that famous program on All India Radio playing classic Hindi songs and I think your 'Khoya khoya chand' from KALA BAZAAR was the host's favorite. He would play it so often. It was certainly my father's favorite because he would hum along as I listened intently. Sometimes he would talk about you, your films or just stories about your life. I don't remember much of what he said or who you were, then. But I always remembered the song and especially now.

Yes, we are a very filmy family. We just love all things about films and are heavy watchers. The views on films, actors, music, dances, direction may differ, but perhaps the only thing we agree on in our family, is our love for you. I think it may have something to do with the fact

Read More »from Dearest Dev Saab

Once heralded as a party with a difference, the Bharatiya Janata Party continues to disappoint as it continues its journey to become just another ordinary force in Indian politics.

Being a good opposition is the basic tenet and the founding stone of a successful democracy, but the BJP today is neither a good opposition nor does it have a grasp on national politics.

BJP like the Left Front has shown signs of sticking to their age old agendas which the voters have rejected, a fact that is evident from their poor show in recent assembly polls; where the BJP has not won more than 10 seats in the five states that went to poll this year and the Left lost power in West Bengal and Kerala.

To top it up the BJP had dubious distinction of opposing issues for the sake of destabilising the government.

Doing a flip-flop comes easy to the BJP. How can one forget the Wikileaks expose? The party's opposition to the India-US nuclear deal and its criticism of the US in public were to score 'easy

Read More »from FDI in retail: BJP’s latest flip-flop act

My mum used to frequently wonder what I did when I was sitting on my chair, before and after dinner time, gawking at my laptop. And after I got married, she told me one day that she thought that I must have been catching up with a lot of things because I had given her the impression that I was reading a lot of the time.  Although that is to a degree correct, I had also spent a reasonable quantity of my time listening to random music and watching literally every movie trailer I could get my eyes on.

A couple of months ago found me watching an American reality talent show, The Voice, and the song one of the singers' performed caught my attention. A simple Yahoo! search revealed the reputed woman behind the curtain that went by the name Adele.

 

At the start I didn't want to not know more about the artist as in my head she was the one-hit-wonder with "Chasing Pavements", if only a tad more distinctive, replica of the overall development in popular music.  The calculation runs like this;

Read More »from Rolling in the Deep

So how far would you go to get that perfect look? Temptation to go under the knife is immense, especially if the surgeon is easily available at an unrealistically low rate. Oneal Ron Morris, 30, was one such "doctor".  Born a man but lives as a woman, she got patients (usually women and transgenders like herself) who wanted to enhance their looks by going under the knife. Little did they know what was actually injected into their bodies was a toxic mix of cement, aerosol for flat tires and super glue! From pictures of Morris' own backside, it's clear that she's injected herself with the toxic mix as well. And it isn't exactly aesthetic to look at. So wasn't that reason enough to rethink a surgery under her?

If you are thinking of surgery to get more shapely lips or buttocks or whatever, you might want to check the credentials of the doctor first. That is only if you don't want to end up looking ten times worse and later to have to go to a real surgeon to correct the mess. Like Rajee Read More »from Fake doctor injected cement to enhance looks

November 26, 2008 was just another day at work. Till about a little past 10pm. We'd just wrapped up the channel's flagship show for the day and everyone was relaxing a bit before preparing for the next bulletin. That's when news trickled in of a shooting in Colaba. Initially, no one paid much attention to it since we thought it was a gang war between Mumbai's underworld lords.

Soon enough reports emerged in the newsroom that it was, in fact, a terror attack. Yet again Mumbai targeted. We weren't prepared, and yet we were. We were prepared not only because we're in a profession where we're supposed to be ready for any event, but also because as Mumbaikars, we'd seen enough. We hope for the best but there's always a fear in the back of our mind of the city's vulnerability. After all we'd seen more terror strikes than any other city.

The news desk, producers and visual editors- all got to work immediately. The slow end to the day gave way to extreme urgency. The rush to get reporters to

Read More »from 26/11: Memories of a bloody Wednesday

Watching Woody Allen's latest film 'Midnight in Paris,' about an aspiring writer who magically finds himself transported to another time, I felt that warm sense of comfort that accompanies the realisation that I'm not completely neurotic. Or if I am, then I'm certainly not the only one.

The protagonist, played by Owen Wilson, is earnest, naïve, idealistic.  It felt, in fact, a lot like he was playing Woody Allen himself; that sweetly endearing boy, wavering on self-confidence, stammering uncontrollably in the presence of a pretty girl, but witty and insightful nonetheless. Makes you miss seeing Woody onscreen - no one plays Woody better than Woody. But Owen Wilson's fresh innocence earns itself a spot in your heart.

He is engaged to Rachel McAdams, who in contrast to her usual roles, is delightful in her portrayal of the shrewish and materialistic fiancée. From the very first scene, it is easy to hate everything about her.  She constantly criticizes his writing in public, talks down to

Read More »from Midnight in Paris

Kulkul Rahman

Dr Bhupen Hazarika is no more, but his music will live on forever and so will the memories.

Bhupenda, as we all knew him, was a regular visitor to my grandparents' house in Ketekibari, Tezpur. Since his career started there, he did harbor a soft corner for the place and its people. My parents, Late Dr Rabindra Kumar Goswami and Dr Lakshmi Kumari Goswami, were very close friends since the early Sixties.

In 1966, Calcutta, during the shooting of his film Loti Ghoti / Photo courtesy and copyright Kulkul RahmanI first met him in 1966 when I woke up in the middle of the night and heard music and laughter wafting in from our drawing room. I walked in groggily and saw this thin man with a receding hairline singing and playing the harmonium. He stopped and looked up and said, "Oh, who have we here?" He then pulled me by my waist and made me sit near him and sang "Brahmaputrar Dutti par Dolongey log logaley."

There were two other people in the room besides my parents: One was Nirod Choudhury, the writer, and the other was Jayanta Hazarika or Rana Mama, Bhupenda's younger brother. From

Read More »from Moisa Mama – a personal remembrance of Bhupen Hazarika

What made Dr Bhupen Hazarika special in the post-independence set of folksy greats? Seeing the overwhelming numbers that poured in to see Asom's Jajabor (traveler) one last time at Guwahati, the state government had to postpone the cremation. Who were these people and what does Bhupenda mean to them? Here are some voices from Guwahati, of those who made his many songs their own — without experts, reviews or, often, even the written word.

 

This is Assam's own heart unplugged.

"Bhupenda had a song for every occasion"

- Gayatri, teacher at Asian Institute of Mass Communication

Einstein had said of Mahatma Gandhi that "generations to come will scarce believe that such a one as he ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth." My feelings for Bhupenda are the same. Never had I imagined that he was so deeply embedded in my psyche until he passed away.

I learned to be proud of Assam, right from the days I understood music hearing the

Read More »from Ordinary voices on the extraordinary Bhupenda