A Slice of Life - Movie Analysis

Watching Basu Chatterjee’s Khatta Meetha feels like stepping into a gentle embrace of nostalgia and hope. It’s a film that captures the beauty of life amidst the everyday chaos, a tender reminder that while life never promised to be easy, it did promise to be worthwhile.

In 1978, it was revolutionary: telling the story of widow remarriage and the vibrant yet often overlooked Parsi community, while weaving in the universal struggles of the middle class like unemployment, limited salaries, dreams that stretch further than their means, and the unstoppable rise of inflation. Yet, in the face of these challenges, the characters remain radiant, waking each day with a smile in their hearts and a song on their lips.

The songs, especially “Thoda Hai Thode Ki,” still resonate deeply with people even today. Nearly five decades later, it’s astonishing how those lyrics continue to uplift and ground countless others, as visible in the flood of heartfelt comments that still grace the song’s videos on YouTube. Personally, Khatta Meetha is my refuge on days when life feels heavy.

Amidst today’s superficiality and pretense, this film is a testament to a time when people were real, honest, caring, and hopeful. It reminds me to trust in the goodness of humanity and to keep doing what’s right. Somehow, everything else will fall into place.

Movie Review: If by Tathagata Ghosh – A Tender Portrait of Love, Loss, and Possibility

If , a 26-minute short film by acclaimed Bengali filmmaker Tathagata Ghosh, is a sensitive, evocative piece of storytelling that lingers long after the credits roll. Set against the everyday rhythm of life in Kolkata, the film delicately unpacks the story of a lesbian couple torn apart by the weight of societal expectations and dares to imagine a different future, one where a mother's love might just change everything. What struck me first was the film’s raw, grounded realism. The characters feel like people we know, middle-class families navigating a complex world with quiet resilience. The world of If is filled with silences, glances, and stills, rather than heavy dialogue. Ghosh masterfully uses these moments to speak volumes, allowing viewers to sit with discomfort, interpret the unspoken, and feel deeply.

Book Review: The Story of Eve: Selected Poems by Zehra Nigah

Few voices in Urdu poetry have carried the weight of history, resistance, and deep personal introspection quite like Zehra Nigah. One of the first women to break into the traditionally male-dominated world of Urdu poetry, Nigah’s work stands as a testament to the power of words to illuminate, question, and challenge. The Story of Eve: Selected Poems, translated by Rakshanda Jalil, brings together some of her most powerful nazms and ghazals, showcasing both her literary elegance and her unflinching gaze at the human condition, particularly through the lens of gender, social injustice, and political turmoil.

The Urban Gaze : Reimagining the Village in Contemporary Indian Cinema

Indian cinema has long been fascinated with the village. From the earthy, socialist realism of Do Bigha Zamin (1953) to the melodramatic lament of Mother India (1957), the village once stood as both heartland and hinterland — a space of moral clarity, rustic struggle, and often unyielding fate. But as the urban middle class began to dominate cinematic production and consumption, the depiction of the village increasingly came to reflect an urban gaze, that is, a perspective shaped by distance, nostalgia, condescension, or even outright fantasy. In recent years, this urban gaze has taken on new shades, evident in the way mainstream and indie filmmakers alike have re-engaged with rural India. While some have tried to explore the village as a site of resistance, authenticity, or even horror, others continue to reproduce sanitized or exaggerated versions of village life that serve urban sensibilities more than rural realities.

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