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Top articles
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A good Indian wife
For those who need the summary of the story, please check Goodreads. The Good Indian wife is a novel of many qualities, in spite of a few flaws, perhaps because it’s Anne Cherian’s first. First a simple but effective story, based on a simple theme: can...
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Nutan speaks about Bimal Roy
Bollywood actress Nutan talks about Bimal Roy... "We have very few directors like Bimal Roy to begin with but what made him special that he was not a jack of all trades, he was master of all trades. He was a very good cameraman, very good photographer,...
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Nutan blog changes
Hey, this wasn't expected!! Hi, well, as you can see, Overblog has forced me to modify the outlook of the blog! As a result, all the Nutan photo albums which I had placed on the left banner were removed to some obscure, out of the way location. So I've...
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India 2015
Hi all, this blog will revert to a travelog for a few days, as I'm off to Pilani, Rajasthan with my school, for a ten-day stay there and thereabouts. After the failure (seems a strong word, but well, that's what it really was...) of our attempt last year...
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Journée bien remplie...
Ouf! la journée n'est pas encore finie; il y a encore tout à l'heure le repas avec animation devant la guesthouse comme le premier soir, mais déjà la journée a été bien fatigante! Matinée occupée par la série de speeches par des industriels invités pour...
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Silsila, the spiciness of exposure
So much has already been said about this Yash Chopra 1981 movie… And here I am adding to the pileup! Well, I hope it won’t be too long and too boring to read. In fact what I want to say can be quickly summed up: I’m perplexed at actors accepting to stage...
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Nutan picture treasure-trove
Below you'll find a number of the folders in which I have collected pictures of Nutan over the years. Most of them have been found on the net, but if some readers consider their posting an offense to their rights, please contact me so I can remove them....
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Nutan the poet
Nutan, who loved bhajans and classical music, has written some poetry, of which I have collected a little over the years. Given her talent and the quality of what I present here, there must be much more, so I went to Lalitha Tamhane's book on Nutan Asen...
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Apur Sansar, tenderness
Last addition to a programme begun 10 years ago with Pather Panchali, here are a few words about the trilogy's n°3 about which I'm sure that nothing has been left unsaid (check story here). It's a vision of tenderness; centered around the character of...
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Lady Nutan
Hello ! As Nutan’s birthday was coming up, I wanted to resume some hold on the blog (sorry readers for my lack of habit, another blog has kept me busy, plus my PhD research) and went through my hoard of Nutan stuff, so I’ll put up some of it as an illustration...
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A new Nutan treasure-trove
Well, perhaps not so new if you knew it, naturally. But here I found some 400 pictures of the actress, a number of which do not come out in the English-based search engines, probably because the language used on the website is Cyrillic Russian (АКТРИСЫ...
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This blog...
Hi everyone, I've been a Bollywood fan for some time now, so I thought I would like to share my pleasure with you guys out there who also enjoy Bollywood films and songs. I don't know exactly what I'll do, but one idea will probably be to exchange around...
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Kanhaiya, an oddly religious romance
You’ll have to expect from me, more and more, reviews of boring / outlandish movies where Nutan or perhaps Waheeda Rehman have starred, and which I will have seen out of sheer silly infatuation (mind you, I cannot bring myself to review films that would...
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A film auditioning in 1951
Thanks to Ashok I have been fortunate to discover the treasure trove of these Old Indian photos , where much more than what will be discussed here is to be found: it’s a real Ali Baba’s Cave. But going through some of its riches, I stopped at these pics...
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Bimal Roy's Devdas: a burning tragedy
Contrary to what many people think, love isn’t a simple passion. First many things, such as the family, the social situation, the history of the two lovers, etc. combine to create the particular context of the relationship, but also in itself love challenges...
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Deewar: Cain and Abel revisited?
I would like to start this review by quoting what IMdB user nmainkar has said here. It’s so well said that I can’t parallel it: Deewaar is, in one word, taut. From start to end, the movie is unrelentingly tense, tight, somber and serious but the seriousness...
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Is Bollywood universal?
I recently heard a journalist ask the question « Is Bollywood nothing more than a cinema made for India, or is there something universal about it?” – and I thought this question deserved a little post. Every one knows for a fact that the Indian cinema...
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Nishaant, the brutality of male (and female) desire
“Vishvam (Naseeruddin Shah) is one of four brothers who rule their feudal village in pre-independence India with an iron grip. They execute various criminal schemes to increase their own wealth at the expense of the villagers, with the village priest...
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Yaadon ki baaraat: classics can also be bland
Oh my God, why are you saying all that! Yaadon ki baaraat (Nadir Hussain, 1973) is a classic tale of revenge, where the good but separated boys who have been witnesses of their parents’ murder will reunite and pursue revenge on the murderers. It’s a not...
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2eme partie du voyage
Bonjour a tous, Apres quelques difficultes de connection pour vous tenir au courant de nos vacances, voici quelques nouvelles fraiches! Notre tour du Rajasthan est fini, mais nous l'avons ecourte legerement, non pas en duree, mais en longueur: nous ne...
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Dosti: a Christian parable?
This classic 1964 by Satyen Bose is one of superlatives, "one of the best pictures ever made", a "golden movie", a "perfection from the past" (see IMDb user comments )! It’s certainly worth the praise, in spite of the chock-a-block melodrama. But very...
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Thanks Memsaab - a tribute from your fan
You probably all know - but I don't care: Memsaab's latest instalment is a hard day's scanning work of 75 pages of text and awesome portraits from a 1952 book by Baburao and Sushila Rani Patel’s called “Stars of the Indian Screen.”And it's FABULOUS. For...
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I love Rani Mukherjee's smile!
For a long time now I have been wanting to actually speak about Rani Mukherjee: suspicious, no? I had been doing these comments about all these books and films, which have nothing to do with her, and at the back, there had always been that lingering need...
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Akshaye Khanna: why is intelligence so sexy?
As soon as one pronounces the name “Akshaye Khanna”, a picture springs up, and one sees that curvy mouth, that dimpled chin, those square jaws and above all, the dark cunning eyes that half-smile, half gauge, as if to make sure the track is clear. Hmm,...
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Back to India!
Hello to all, I'm once again using this blog to serve as a travelog - with some students of my engineering school (INSA Rouen), we are soon to fly to India on a study trip whose programme has been prepared by them (check here - don't know if you can access...