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Top articles
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Jana Aranya: an education to the moral world
Jana Aranya (1976 - The middleman) is about a young man called Somnath (Pradip Mukherjee), who discovers that in order to succeed in the world of business you have to accept to compromise your principles, and find yourself losing an innocence which you...
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Maitreyi Devi & La nuit bengali
My discovery of Maitreyi Devi happened, probably like so many outside of India, through Mircea Eliade’s novel which I read in French, La nuit Bengali, written in 1933 three years after this Romanian scholar, who later rose to become an influential ethnologist...
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Shakha proshakha, or how does one remain virtuous?
This 1990 movie was Ray’s last but one, only to be succeeded by Agantuk a year later before his death. Its title means “branches of the tree”: the film deals with a family situation and so the genealogical reference is clear; but the tree is such a powerful...
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Aranyer din ratri: Ray's models
It’s weird how when one starts wondering about a Satyajit Ray movie, one is faced with lots of people telling everyone it’s a masterpiece – this 1969 movie is even somewhere graced with the ubiquitous title of Ray’s best film ever – and how so little...
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Firaaq, the power of fear
It seems appropriate today to speak about Firaaq, a 2008 movie which is Nandita Das’s debut film venture, based on the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim riots, in which Indian PM Modi had been suspected of biased non-intervention. Today, because the pressure of...
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Parched - Righting women's wrongs
Went to see Parched (2015), by Leena Yadav, of (not good) Shabd fame. So I was a bit wary of what was to come. What came was a rather pleasant surprise, I’m happy to say. Parched is the story of four gujarati women, stuck all four of them in male-dominated...
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Nutan's intelligence
This post is about a not so common cinematographic quality, intelligence. If people in general would agree that actors need a good understanding of their roles in order to act well, perhaps they’d also say they can just rely on what the directors tell...
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Pilani
BK BIET se trouve à Pilani, petite bourgade à 150 kms de Delhi, mais le bourg lui-même vaut le détour, enfin, si on y est, il y a des choses intéressantes. En fait, la ville est une espèce de Cambridge modèle réduit, car le coeur de la ville est composé...
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Astitva, a feminist manifesto
Thanks to Anu Warrier’s Conversations over chai, I have just been the fortunate viewer of Astitva, by Mahesh Manjrekar, a film which was shot in 2000. If you haven’t read her review, please do, it’s a thoughtful, well-balanced commentary of the movie,...
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Lion, a pretty picture
Sunny Pawar Before knowing that Garth Davis was a successful commercials director, I stood up from the screening of his first feature movie, Lion (2016) telling myself, “well now, that was nice, but rather commercial”. Not everything is bad about commercialization:...
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Heer, the revelation
It seems that India collects “eternal love” stories: on top of that of Layla and Majnun, Khosru and Shirin, Sohni and Mahiwal, there is (among many others) that of Heer and Ranjha. This last epic has been the subject of numerous versions, the Wiki page...
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Jaipur - Agra - Delhi
Le dernier post vous a laissé haletant(e)s sur l’autoroute (?) qui nous menait à Jaipur, ignorant la suite… Voici venu le moment de combler votre curiosité ! Ne pas oublier que le « tour » de 3 jours organisé par BK BIET avait attiré 13 personnes, dont...
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I finally went to the movie theatre
During our stay in October I finally went to the movies in India… A little post on this! (those of you who can read my French have had a little preview of the event here ). Almost ever since the beginning of my interest in Bollywood, people had been telling...
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A passage to India
Why did I decide to read EM Forster’s A passage to India? Probably no other reason than it’s about a European’s vision of India and I had enjoyed some other books by the same author, Howard’s End and A room with a view. Then there was a film to watch...
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Tagore's dark abyss
In the morning I cast my net into the sea. I dragged up from the dark abyss things of strange aspect and strange beauty—some shone like a smile, some glistened like tears, and some were flushed like the cheeks of a bride. When with the day's burden I...
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The origin of my admiration for Nutan
The long-awaited 80th anniversary of Nutan's birth has arrived! On top of being able to order Lalitha Tamhane's book in its English version (hopefully, I'll try asap), here's an article which, in agreement with Seema who had wondered if this contribution...
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Nutan and her animals
For this year's Nutan ki janmadin, I have decided to make you discover how attached she was to her animal friends. She was mostly a dog-lover, it seems, and apparently it was a family thing. 22 dogs at home, at one point, says Mohnish!! Here are first...
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Cérémonies d'ouverture
Les festivités ont commencé! Hier, une rencontre entre industriels et université, et aujourd'hui la grande séance d'ouverture de la Conférence ICCS-2015, avec tous les intervenants venus d'inde et de l'étranger, dont un bon contingent de français, car...
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Mandawa
Ok, voilà la partie « plus » du voyage, qui s’est trouvée rajoutée sans préméditation, car cette journée à Mandawa pour Divali n’était pas prévue… Je devais avoir une troisième journée de cours à BK BIET et comme je l’ai dit, je crois, le directeur s’est...
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25 years ago
Nutan left us 25 years ago today. Here's a tribute to the actress who now shines from high above: I have simply selected some unpublished photos of her (well, perhaps not all), and hoped that some of you would enjoy seeing them. First a selection of non-film...
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ICCS 2017
De retour dans la douce Pilani, où le léger voile matinal nous caresse gentiment, et en attente du début des festivités de la Conférence ICCS, voici quelques nouvelles du voyage qui m'a amené ici. Le vol Air India s'est bien déroulé, la nuit à bord aussi...
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My two interventions
I knew before coming to Pilani that I would have to deliver an address in the context of the Conference on Communications Systems, but of course it couldn't be a scientific paper, so I had devised a subject called "the pleasure of communication", which...
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Arrival
Notre arrivée s'est faite en plusieurs fois, selon les horaires des avions que chacun avait pu prendre. Ainsi, quand nous deux les profs sommes arrivés à Delhi, on a vite eu l'info que le premier groupe de 4 étudiants était déjà arrivé (vers 9h) à Pilani,...
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Nutan-bollymusings.com/
Hey, a new blog about my movies!! Hello everyone, I am pleased to announce the official launch of MUSINGS , a new blog by S. Basu which he has announced will deal chiefly with Nutan, since the author is a die-hard fan of the lady, but also perhaps on...
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Cours de français
La Conférence ICCS est maintenant terminée, et en ce qui me concerne, je suis satisfait d'avoir pu faire ma petite présentation sur "The importance of language in communication", pour laquelle j'avais quand même passé du temps, avant de venir en Inde,...