This is the first column of 2024 and I’m writing it from India, where I’m visiting family and friends for a few weeks.
Every winter, when I travel from Vermont to my home country, this Bollywood song invariably plays in…
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Indian cinema trends 2023: A year in review
The end of the year is a great time to map the trends of our cultural landscape to see where we stand, what can be retained and what can be improved. Cinema, like all art, is a reflection of the…
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Sahir Ludhianvi: A Poet For Every Moment
Actor-director Danish Husain portraying Sahir Ludhianvi on stage
My first article of 2024 is a preview of a play to be staged in Mumbai on the life of eminent lyricist and poet, Sahir Ludhianvi. I spoke to the director of…
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Bollywood’s love affair with the mountains
For my November column on Indian cinema, I wrote about Bollywood’s fascination with mountains and the strong connection of Indian films with Switzerland that was forged by filmmaker Yash Chopra. Read the full piece below:
The hero and heroine confess…
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Masala entertainers spicing up Bollywood
My October column for local newspapers Brattleboro Reformer, Bennington Banner and Manchester Journal is on Bollywood ‘masala entertainers’ and the template these films created that continue to be copied and referenced in future films. Read the full piece below.
It…
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Vidhi’s Bollywood recommendations for first-time viewers
This is my third monthly column on Indian cinema for Vermont’s local newspapers Brattleboro Reformer, Bennington Banner and Manchester Journal, and in this month’s column, I would like to share my personal recommendations of Bollywood films for first-time audiences. No…
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The Origin of Music in Bollywood
The Bollywood music industry comprises original soundtrack albums that feature plot-specific songs composed especially for a film. Among the most unusual features of this industry are playback singers that record the songs before filming and actors that lip-sync to these…
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Guru Dutt retrospective
When I first watched Pyaasa (1951), I was spellbound. I needed a few moments to collect myself from this poetic, poignant, sensitive but brutally accurate world that Guru Dutt had created. As much as it seemed like an autobiographical account…
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Introduction to Indian cinema
Starting today, July 27, 2023, I will be writing a monthly column on Indian cinema for the local newspapers in Vermont, Brattleboro Reformer, Bennington Banner and Manchester Journal. It feels great after a decade of writing commissioned articles…
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