A humming word

The Sky is Pink is the story of Niren and Aditi, rather Panda and Moose, told through their daughter, Aisha Chaudhury’s point of view. The couple’s relationship is feisty yet cute. Two independent individuals, with different backgrounds, deal with love and anguish in different ways. The film is humorous and breathes life on a hot summer day. But why the title? In a frantic phone call from London to her son in Delhi, Moose asserts, “Your sky should be the color you choose it to be. If you want it to be pink, so be it.” And, we this kind of independence in their tabiyat throughout. Based on true events (the life of the teenager Aisha Chaudhury who succumbed to Pulmonary Fibrosis and an Immune Deficiency syndrome), the movie is about struggle and more importantly, her family that lived through it. Aisha Chaudhury wasn’t the only one suffering from pain, her father, Panda; her brother, Giraffe; and her mother, Moose, were too. Aisha has such cute names for her family mem...

There are some days when we want to turn to the familiar and ensconce in that familiar song whose lyrics run on our tongue like butter. One such familiar space is Ruskin Bond (atleast for me!). I don’t want to read about plagues or diseases—nor do I want to escape what’s happening around. But what if you could turn into something familiar such as chewing the edge of your grandmother’s saree or just resting your head on that old cot. It just calms you down from this overload of information of Corona! (Yes, Karthik Aryan, we get it! No more outings and eating comfort food or icecream, outside!) If you could bring the outside, inside, then pick this book—The Road to the Bazaar by Ruskin Bond. There are a few familiar stories such as The Tunnel. Ranji’s Bat, The Great Train Journey, The Long Day but re-reading them makes it an enjoyable read. Bond paints a picture of Dehra with oil paints that it sits eternally in the heart and in the head. Mukesh Starts a Zoo was one of my favour...

As summer looms over our head and the prickly heat powder steps out of the cupboards, the yearning for mangoes (best part of summer) begins too. But did you know that Gandhiji planted a mango tree in Abids at Sarojini Devi Naidu's house Golden Threshold on March 9, 1934? (It was a sapling sourced from Yerwada jail!). Hyderabad Trails, on the occasion of Women's Day, hosted a quick walk around the Golden Threshold. We walked in the rooms where Gandhiji and Naidu garu, once walked and looked around the various rooms. Niharika and Assistant Professor Dr. Janardhan Rao filled us on the various details; however, I wish the photographs in the rooms were clear and names of the people in the photographs were mentioned. What surprised me was the turn out! The enthusiastic crowd on a Sunday morning, sharply dressed, to listen to a piece of Sarojini Naidu's story and to listen to poetry (read by a young boy). And, more poetry was read in the Indira Devi Hall, which was opposite...

As February passes like a soft breeze and we enter the simmering heat of March, it makes me wonder about love and Coronavirus. “ Choone se nahi pheltha hai ,” comes read a jocular post. Another reminded us how we, Indians, must not be scared of this virus: we can remove a tennis ball from a gutter, tap it and play with it. We can wash our hands off it yet it will be around much like love that we put on our guard around it and behave like it's coronavirus. Worse is love between people of the same sex. The most recent example for this is the film: Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan,  starring Ayushman Khurana and Jatinder Kumar directed by Aanand L. Rai. Albeit it’s a commercial hit, the film has made gay love a forced agenda. It portrayed how parents react in the most obscene and impractical way: they resort to avoiding the people involved to false attempts in suicide to questioning their own parenting to violent methods. Finally, they emotionally breakdown. The premise of...

Feminism, as per dictionary.com, is equal opportunities to both men and women. But often, this definition is reduced to male bashing and disempowerment of their rights. And, Feminist Rani (published by Penguin in collaboration SheThePeople.TV), make an honest attempt to capture voices of feminists. Feminist Rani by Shaili Chopra and Meghna Pant is a record of conversations with fourteen modern men, women, and a transgender. It doesn’t complicate the concept of feminist. Instead, it gives layers to its meaning with each of these celebrities adding a colour with their life story. For them, feminism is not a choice but a way of life. Kalki Koelchin to Gauri Sawant, the range of dialogue, discussion and dissent is vast and deep. The most popular version of feminism is humanity and defying the mind-numbing rules that serve no purpose but demean women and their desires. While Kalki did not want to be boxed into any role in Bollywood and enjoyed the variety of roles she perform...

After an enriching day of talks on Art and Protest and a day of learning at the conference in Bangalore, I washed my eyes with an art exhibition at the State Art Gallery by Bharath Yadav, who belongs to the cowherd community, displayed an array of exhibits and paintings focusing on buffaloes, pollution, meat shop. What intrigued me was the art installation by this gentleman which was a bullock cart of rusted pipes and a synchronous arrangement of milk cans with a small wooden box with a slit. How often do we think of buffaloes with a pollution mask? Never, right? And with people with masks around, it was amusing so see so. The artist effectively proves his point on how environmental damage is leading us to the claustrophobic polluted air that we've manufactured for ourselves.  The past few weeks, I was inundated with good art that have been linked to protest and focus on the margins. And a play titled Mosambi Narangi, a play abou t  two failed junior artist...

The Hyderabad Literature  Festival culminated the city's culture and heritage and mixed it with the brewing issues (like ecology) and gifted us a festival of art, dance, literature... With its guest nation as Australia and focus language as Malayalam, the HLF chose Vidyaranya High School at Saifabad as their venue. After missing the first two days, I relished the third day, like the Kesari chai in the Kulhad. Since there were several nukkads, I chose my corner of poetry and attended sessions by the renowned Kala Ramesh and a discussion on Ecopoetics by Urvashi Bahuguna and Anand Vishwanadha, two versatile poets who focused on nature.  Apart from the sessions, what I really liked was the display of art by differently abled people too. The foot artist stole my attention and I gaped as he painted with his toes. I took a picture with him, although I was embarrassed to do so. And, bought a beautiful painting by him.  While the chaos of the art and books stormed th...