One evening twenty years ago in Puttaparti, a village in Andhra Pradesh, a 60 year old man lay close to death. As his wife and daughter looked on anxiously his breathing became erratic and he went into a coma. An hour later, his body began to turn cold and the relatives clustered around his bedside,…
A really good film should not be concerned so much with its plot, as with its characters and the interplay of those characters. Though the characters, the intelligent filmmaker aims at establishing in the consciousness of the spectators the elements that would lead them to the idea he wants to communicate; he attempts to place…
Round and round the rugged rock, rugged lovers run the race In any formula set-up, there’s nothing better than a few digressions on Young Love. Thus, the director said ‘Let there be romance, and there was a love scene Soft music. A setting sun. Birds chirping, flying home-wards. And a boy and a girl in…
Rajika Kirpalani did not believe in gods of any kind. Yet she must have been beloved of them, for she died young- too young for those who knew her. While speaking on the telephone on the 1st of February, 1974, she was struck down by a massive cerebral haemorrhage. She was just 24. A year…
Pandit Giriraj is one of the few virtuosos of the “gayaki” school of sitar music in India. He recently completed a two-and-a-half month tour of European cities in mid-November. This tour followed close on the heels of another extensive West German tour of his in early 1974. Giriraj’s winter musical itinerary mostly covered West German…
If you’re the sort of person who expects value for every paisa you spend, go see Sholay, 23 reels and three and a half hours later, you’ll stagger out of the auditorium and gulp in the sweet air outside. Your ears will have been assailed by stereophonic sound (If the theatre had facilities for it),…