Citizen of the worldSUDHANVA DESHPANDEHABIB TANVIR (1923-2009) was, without doubt, Indias pre-eminent theatre personality. Playwright, director, actor, singer, poet, manager, designer, vis
Voice of the streetsSUDHANVA DESHPANDESafdar Hashmi was a multifaceted artist and was constantly soaking up new influences and trying out new technologies.
Superstar DhasalSUDHANVA DESHPANDEDilip Chitre packages Namdeo Dhasal for the globalised reader, properly glossed and sanitised.
Text and dramaBY SUDHANVA DESHPANDEThere is a vibrant theatre culture in India, but strangely there is relatively little critical reflection on it.
The children of 1984SUDHANVA DESHPANDEThe horrors of the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 are revisited in two recent feature films with pertinent questions about identities and memories.
A road half-travelledSUDHANVA DESHPANDESwades, despite some outstanding sequences and good acting, disappoints because of its failure to confront politically the serious issues it touches u
Secular surgeSUDHANVA DESHPANDESome recent movies produced by the Mumbai film industry project secular values, in a welcome change from the formula movies made earlier.
Images of Hindi cinemaSUDHANVA DESHPANDECinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film by Rachel Dwyer and Divia Patel; Oxford University Press, New Delhi; pages 240, Rs.650.
Breeding little fascistsSUDHANVA DESHPANDEWhat `The Men in the Tree, a documentary, reveals about the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.
The unbearable opulence of DevdasSUDHANVA DESHPANDEIn our globalised times, the tragedy of Devdas has been turned into a garish and thoroughly hollow spectacle of pure consumption.
A tale of two Bhagat SinghsSUDHANVA DESHPANDETwo recent films on the legendary revolutionary draw attention - one for its inaccurate rendering of history and another for its largely objective nar
Freebie phobia: The BJP’s concerted attack on redistributive transfers Although the BJP is against ‘freebies’ in principle, in practice it has been forced to use a version of concessions and transfers to counter the o
SlideshowLiving on the edgeThey are river people, whose lives ebb and flow with the waters of the Brahmaputra in a timeless rhythm. But now, hydroelectric projects and homogenis
