Films like Department are hard to come by and that is why they are special. How often do directors offer a full report of their being, well or otherwise?

Few Bollywood actresses who take a break to play ghar-ghar get the comeback film they deserve. Kajol did, Madhuri Dixit didn’t.

Fatso! is a sweet little film in a contemporary setting that packs in many messages about body fat, body image, shakal versus seerat, true love and even the asinine ways of Indian bureaucracy. Yet, despite its political impulse, director Rajat Kapoor manages to keep the film light and often funny.

Jannat 2 is a mediocre film which exists only to make money for its producers, just like its 2008 predecessor, Jannat, did. That is why Jannat 2 follows the original’s story arc almost unthinkingly. That it does so without a hint of irony is just one reason for the listlessness that engulfs all occupants of the theatre, on and off screen.

Aaj-kal real aur engaging entertainment ke liye either I sing in the bathroom or switch on a news channel. Ab last week ko hi le lo. News channels, busy playing Kaun Banega President, suddenly got distracted by a news item that can only be summed up thus: Yeh neeli-neeli ankhen, yeh mote-mote gaal...

Vikram Bhatt, the silver-haired Bollywood director, recently made his television debut. Bhatt, as you know, is a purana premi of the horror genre and that’s what he has brought to late-night TV viewing: Haunted Nights, on Sahara One.

Since the day I picked up and started reading Cuckold, some time in 2000, I have had something of a love affair with Kiran Nagarkar. I desperately wanted to meet this man whose cunning brilliance — in storytelling, in conjuring up feral sex scenes, wicked black humour and disturbing insights into human nature — had zapped and delighted me. That was my wish. If granted, I had a plan. My plan was to pirouette in the space from where Cuckold emerged, and Ravan & Eddie, and now Extras.
I finally met Nagarkar in Mumbai recently, and he gave me a no-holds-barred pass. In response to questions about his life, books, obsessions, politics, love and loathing, he narrated charming anecdotes, threw in searing profundities, used Hindi cuss words and packed it all with so much self-deprecation that I sat there defending him to him.

Bumboo, as in that divine instrument of misfortune that seeks already miserable behinds, is a copy of a 1973 French film, L’emmerdeur (A Pain In the A**) which was based on the play

When I and my chuddie-dost log were growing up in MIG flats our parents got allotted by lottery system, there were no 24x7 entertainment channels. But we had the movies. Though there was only one video player amongst several similarly strained families, we all lived on generous credit from the local video store uncle.

If you’ve invited guests over for a special occasion and you plan on making chocolate cake, your signature dish, you may decide to dress it up with some delicate shavings, a sauce, even cocoa or sugar powder. You may even place a fine orange rind on one side, for effect and a bit of zest. What you will not do is shove gulab jamuns and rasgullas into your chocolate cake, stick in the gaps bits of jalebi, push in kulfi sticks, pour a bowl of kheer and then cover it all up with silver varakh. One bite and your guests will know it’s not a chocolate cake; it’s a nervous breakdown.