Jaipur and Kolkata with Sharmila Tagore, the Akhtars and others - photos, updates

As mentioned earlier, I have been putting up lit-fest reports on Facebook rather than on the blog (those are public posts, I think you can s...

Little grown-ups, and other misfits

[ Did this for my Forbes Life books column – around the time I was part of the jury for the children’s fiction prize at the Goodbooks Awards...

In Memoriam: The Ziegfeld Theater, 1969-2016

Last week the Siren was in Midtown, meeting a friend for drinks, and she passed the Ziegfeld Theater, Manhattan’s most glorious movie venue....

Children's book awards: Dead as a Dodo and other winners

The Hindu Young World-Goodbooks Awards for children’s books were announced yesterday at the Lit for Life festival in Chennai. Manjula Padman...

Ghosts and projections, in Wazir and other films

[ My latest Mint Lounge film column ] If you haven’t watched Bejoy Nambiar’s Wazir yet and intend to, you may want to skip this column for ...

Truly, Madly, Deeply; Alan Rickman; and Loss

The Siren starts by admitting that she rented Truly, Madly, Deeply some twenty-odd years ago only because she had a raging crush on the lat...

The Private Life of Mrs Sharma, a house-lizard on vacation

[ Did a version of this review - about one of the most well-observed novels I have read in recent months - for Mint Lounge ] Reading Ratika ...

Lit-fests: an evening in Kolkata (and Jaipur)

After a relatively placid three or four months, I have been back to spending a great deal of time on hospital duty, and generally being on ...

The naayak as gaayak - on stars who sang for themselves

[ From my Mint Lounge column ] Reading movie magazines as a child, it seemed to me that whenever a Hindi-film actor was asked about his or h...