Tiku Weds Sheru: A ‘Senior’ artiste weds a ‘Junior artiste’ By all accounts, Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a senior artiste. He ranks on the high rung and is 49 years old. That he started as a junior artiste is now stuff that legends are made of. Avneet Kaur is said to be 21, though I find that hard to believe (17-18 is more like it), did a couple of film roles and a couple of cameos. By comparison, in terms of age and experience, she is a ‘junior’ artiste. In th...

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...

Daas Dev, Review: Devspeare Talking about the response generated by Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi at the International Film Festival of India, Goa, director Sudhir Mishra had told me that all praise was welcome, but he felt a great sense of fulfillment when internationally acclaimed directors had appreciated his efforts. Hazaaron Khwahishen Aisi was liked by a lot of critics as well as a significant number of cineastes. For Sudhir’s sake, I hope that those he holds in esteem see merit in Daa...

Main Aur Charles, Review: Misanthropic biopic In the biography, The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj, by Richard Neville and Julie Clark, the serial killer’s mother summed him up. “He has the face of an angel, but somewhere, I think the devil crept into his soul,” she said. Main Aur Charles is the heavily edited, partly fictionalised but deeply rooted biopic about one of the most enigmatic criminal masterminds in 20th century history, wanted in India, Thailand, France, Gre...