Reviews & Musings

Floating Worlds is not interested in telling a story in straight lines. In her debut, Alpa Arora follows the rhythms of a mind that wanders, retreats, and returns, often without warning, making the reader inhabit that same uncertainty.  At its center is Ruby Khanna, a former scriptwriter, empty nester, and a woman suspended between selves. Ruby does not simply escape; she lives inside escape. Her movement between fantasy and reality is not always marked, conscious, and within her control. The novel refuses to rush into naming this as damage or disorder. Instead, it lingers in that uneasy space where the mind fractures out of a need to survive what cannot be neatly contained. Ruby’s inner life unfolds through a series of imagined scenarios, desires, and projections that slip quietly into her lived reality. These are the novel’s way of thinking.  At a time when so much fiction leans toward clarity and resolution, Arora stays with what is unclear, unresolved, and at times uncomf...

In early 2023, I made a quiet decision that did not feel significant at the time—I chose to stop reading casually, and to start reading with intent, turning towards artists I had long admired, not just to understand what they created, but to sit closer to the question of how and why they created at all.  They were not confined to a single world. They came from everywhere—writers, yes, but also singers, lyricists, filmmakers, actors—voices that had shaped something within me long before I knew how to articulate it. And what I sought in them was not inspiration in the shallow, fleeting sense, but something far more demanding: a deeper encounter with creativity itself, with the discipline it requires, the solitude it enforces, the identity it constantly unsettles, and the quiet, often invisible love that sustains it despite everything.  The process, I realised very quickly, could not be rushed. It refused to remain “reading” in the conventional sense. It became slower, heavier, a...

This month, I am carrying Difficult Pleasures by Anjum Hasan into our mentoring circle.  Not as an expert, not with answers, but with open hands. It feels like the kind of book you don’t really read alone. You sit with it. You breathe with it. You let it rearrange the furniture of your heart. All through our interactions, I keep thinking about how strange and beautiful it is to guide a room through grief while still learning its language myself. 

Quotes (From the preface)  “All theories of writing are bogus. Every writer develops his own method or lack of method and a story comes into being for some unknown reason anyhow.” – R.K. Narayan   “I liked to be free to read what I please and not be examined at all.” – R.K. Narayan  Both these lines stayed with me long after I finished the book. They feel almost like a permission slip to read freely, to write instinctively, and to not over-intellectualise the act of creation. Coming back to Narayan now, while consciously trying to study writing, felt ironic and grounding at the same time.

I am often asked by readers of Between the Lines : “Have you read all the books you write about?” 

For a long time, cinema was a world I wasn’t allowed to enter. I grew up in a home where movies were banned. No television, no glimpses of silver screens, and no songs echoing from old classics. For nearly a decade, cinema was a forbidden word like a secret behind a closed door.  And yet, like all things that carry truth and longing, it found its way to me. Stories have a way of finding you, slipping through cracks, whispered between pages, caught in melodies. Sometimes through the corners of borrowed books, sometimes through whispered summaries from classmates, sometimes just through the magnetic pull of posters and songs I wasn’t supposed to hear. 

If you’ve ever walked out of a movie theater feeling transformed, humming a melody, or quoting a line that hit you right in the soul, you already know the magic we lived during the Lights, Camera, India !  a.k.a. our recent Online  Film Appreciation Workshop by Karwaan Heritage .  If Satyajit Ray had directed a documentary about the love for Indian cinema and invited a few professors, critics, musicians, and die-hard fans to co-write it, it might look something like this workshop. This wasn’t your average academic affair. This was a full-blown cinematic experience. A masterclass. A masala epic of knowledge, nostalgia, and nonstop  naach-gaana . A cinematic pilgrimage.  A celebration of Indian cinema so immersive, so joyful, that even the most punctual of us stopped caring when sessions ran overtime. (And they always did.)

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. 

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.

In Kaagaz Ke Phool , Guru Dutt masterfully crafts a visually compelling first meeting between the protagonists, played by Waheeda Rehman, and Guru Dutt himself. Set in an expansive yet sparsely filled film studio, the scene’s mise-en-scène subtly reflects themes of isolation, fate, and artistic destiny. The setting plays a crucial role in establishing the mood. The studio is mostly empty, with scattered props, hanging lights, and large curtains, reinforcing the protagonist’s solitude.