Frontline Coverage on Arts, Culture & Entertainment - Frontline

Gandhi used Tolstoy’s letter to understand the political predicament of his time.

A letter to Tolstoy and Gandhi

How the Russian writer’s critique of colonialism influenced Gandhi’s philosophy and foresaw the pitfalls of pseudo-religion and scientific rationality

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Palestinians bid farewell to relatives at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, following an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp, central Gaza, on October 1, 2024.

‘Genocide’ or ‘crimes against humanity’? How language shapes our view of conflict

From Orwell to modern geopolitics, terminology impacts perception. The Gaza crisis has revived the debate on language’s role in framing war.

Kris Kristofferson (1936-2024): The Rhodes scholar who became Nashville’s rebel poet

Kristofferson’s dual career as a respected songwriter and Hollywood actor cemented his status as a cultural icon who lived life on his own terms.

Suhrid Sankar Chattopadhyay

Kindred spirits across oceans: Gandhi and Du Bois’ transcontinental dialogue

How the two luminaries of civil rights forged an unlikely alliance, reshaping the discourse on race and nonviolence.

Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee

Straddling multiple discourses and standing on the brink of subversion, Hanif Kureshi (1982-2024) embodied the contradictions inherent in the current state of graffiti and street art in India.

Death of a Daku: How Hanif Kureshi radically altered the Indian street

His work, which often played with time and language, challenged the elitism of art galleries and brought creativity to the masses.

Sanchita Khurana

DAG exhibition traces Kali’s evolution from deity to cultural icon

Mumbai art show probes Kali’s multifaceted representations across centuries, illuminating her significance in religion, society, and visual culture.

Ishita Sengupta

If only the haveli walls could talk

In Vernacular Architecture of India, Tejinder S. Randhawa documents India’s architectural heritage, opening the windows into a storied past.

More stories from Arts & Culture

The three sultans who made up the Lodi dynasty figure through much of the book, as do the structures that have immortalised them in what is now known as the Lodi Gardens in New Delhi.

Vivid portrayal of life in Mughal-era Delhi

The writer uses her deep knowledge of Dilli’s multiple pasts to best effect in this second novel in a projected quartet centred on the city.

Ranjana Sengupta

Hindi cinema’s realism, its Tier 2 cinema, where a film titled Stree, or woman, can be made with male protagonists, is frail.

Bollywood’s shallow realism

Hindi cinema’s current embrace of realism isn’t inclusive. It shows the same power structures as before, just dressed up as middle-class stories.

Prathyush Parasuraman

Historian and author Ira Mukhoty with her book The Lion and the Lily. Mukhoty believes that stories of individual characters whom she can flesh out and bring to life appeal to a lay reader.

I often compare Indian history with Game of Thrones: Ira Mukhoty

In her latest book The Lion and the Lily, the historian and author offers a fresh perspective on the Nawabs of Awadh in the 18th century.

Frontline News Desk

A water diviner in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, in 2014. In Kuvempu’s epic novel Bride in the Hills, Aigulu stuns Padre Jivaratnayya with his water-divining skill.

‘Nothing is insignificant!’: Kuvempu’s epic tale of love in a caste-ridden society

Rooted in the regional realities of Karnataka’s Malnad, Bride in the Hills is replete with brilliance, energy, and imaginative power.

Kashmiri women at work on crewel embroidery.

Threads of resistance: How Kashmir’s shawl weavers spun a revolution

Abdul Ahad’s nuanced book explores Kashmir’s artisans’ legacy, offering profound insights on resilience amid enduring turmoil.

Bilal Ahmad Wagay

The keeper of desolation: A Hindi story in translation

The keeper of desolation: A Hindi story in translation

Translated from the Hindi by Sayari Debnath

The actor Kollam Thulasi addresses a dharna by film and television artistes demanding the implementation of the Justice Hema Committee report, in Thiruvananthapuram on September 4. Thulasi was in the news recently for revelations about the exploitation of female actors in the Malayalam film industry.

Hema Committee report can be a catalyst for structural change in Malayalam cinema

The report’s release could facilitate the overhaul of workplace practices and address long-standing issues concerning women in all film industries.

The actor Sruthi Hariharan, with the actor Chetan Ahimsa and FIRE president Kavitha Lankesh, addressing the media in Bengaluru in October 2018. Sruthi’s allegations against the actor Arjun Sarja ground her career to a temporary halt.

The conspiracy of silence in Tamil and Kannada film industries

Hardly innocent of sexual abuse, they now face pressure to reform as the Hema Committee report forces uncomfortable truths into the spotlight.

Fans of the actor Prabhas celebrating his movie release in front a theatre in Khammam in August 2019.

Telugu cinema: A male stranglehold

A 2019 committee studied gender bias and sexual harassment in an industry controlled by patriarchal caste groups, but the report remains unpublished.

The press conference by the Women in Cinema Collective in Kochi on October 13, 2018. It was a watershed movement in the feminist labour history of Kerala, where women forefronted themselves on the basis of their work.

Lights, camera, litigation: Hema Committee report spotlights Malayalam cinema’s gender battleground

The precarity of women and other marginalised communities in Malayalam cinema reflects Kerala’s hierarchical, feudal, and patriarchal society.

Aparna Eswaran,Silpa Satheesh,Arathi P.M.

Editor’s Note: A powerful, defining moment

The Hema Committee Report shows there is hope that the omertà enforced by powerful men in the film industry will be broken.

A protest by Mahila Congress workers against actors Mukesh and Siddique in Thiruvananthapuram on August 30. FIRs have been registered against many Malayalam film personalities after the Justice Hema Committee report revealed instances of sexual harassment of women in the industry.

Pushing feminism’s frontiers in Kerala

From movie sets to courtrooms, educated women are transforming gender norms in Kerala, bringing to light the limits of institutional or state feminism

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