Marudhar Express, Review: Chain reaction You might need to look-up the meaning of Marudhar, even if you are a native Hindi speaker. It refers to the Marwar area of Rajasthan, and the Express is a train that runs between Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh, and Jodhpur (Rajasthan), touching Lucknow and Kanpur, the two biggest cities in UP, with Allahabad (now renamed PrayaagRaaj) being the third. Now, lest you begin to think that this film is a travelogue or that events take place on the said train, le...

Gone Kesh, Review: The bald is the beautiful An English-Hindi composite pun constitutes the title, playing upon ‘gone case’, which term is used to describe someone who is so far ‘gone’ into something undesirable that there is no chance of redemption in that ‘case.’ While gone is retained as gone, case becomes kesh, the Hindi word for hair. And for once, the title has great relevance to the subject, although the film is not half as funny as the punning would...

Mirza Juuliet, Review by Siraj Syed: ‘Sex peer’ or Shakespeare Six timeless tales of doomed love continue to enjoy tremendous popularity in India, even in the 21st century: Laila-Majnu, Shirin-Farhad, Sohni-Mahiwal, Heer-Ranjha, Mirza-Sahibaa and Romeo and Juliet. Of these, five are Indian or from the sub-continent and only Shakespeare’s R&J makes it from the foreign category. India had its own Shakespeare, named Agha Hashr Kashmiri, who in the period 1920s-50s, transla...