Petals!

What happens when a newly wed couple's life is thrown out of gear after a spouse dies within five months of marriage? You would expect a tearjerker tragedy, right? But this film switches to another track - a realistic, slightly humourous one. Sanya Malhotra, starring in Pagglait, breaks the 'widow' stereotype in Indian cinema.                                                  [Sanya Malhotra on Twitter] Before I dive into why Pagglait made so much sense to me, let me share with you a few things about the big 'W' - yes, the word 'widowhood' which makes it seem as though a woman has stopped being who she is and has been turned into 'She-who-must-not-be-named' - a pathetic and grim reality of how Indians from all communities and religions tend to treat widows. Widowers - ah- that's a different story. They can date freely and go on courtships and no one is going to ba...

Childhood days are the happiest days, aren't they? While growing up, I was such a lazy kid that I didn't help out in any chores a home. My mom would wake up early in the morning, bathe, do the pooja, make breakfast and lunch and then of course, my task was to eat as if nothing else matters.  [READ: Learn to behave]                                                      [Image by Qimono, Pixabay]  Of course, she would ask me to help her out and learn some basics but do you think I listened? Not seriously, I simply didn't. I used to tell her not to worry so much. I always felt there would be a magical lamp that would manifest and take care of everything when it was my turn to take care of a home. Her wise words "Start early, or else later you will find it difficult to manage simple chores in your home" always fell on my deaf and dumb ears. Those...

One of India’s most celebrated writers, Anita Desai visited Delhi on 1st December 2007. Taking part in the brief talk on her novels, Anita Desai made a rare appearance amidst enthusiastic fans and readers thanks to the well organized function that was put together by Random House. As most of us already know, her name was nominated thrice for Booker Price but it happened that her daughter Kiran Desai won it for the book Inheritance of Loss in the year 2006. But coming back to Anita Desai, it has been a long, interesting journey for her because she recalled how it felt to be a writer in early post colonial India. When her American publishers asked her how it felt to be a writer in India, she recalls telling them, “It is like writing in a cave.” The reason, she explained, was that she kept on writing and writing but didn’t get feedback on her writings for several years. It pained her that while her novels were studied in Universities abroad, it hadn’t been the same in her own country, Ind...