Reviews

Nov 06 2019

Annihilation of Caste by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: An Intro to India’s Biggest Bigotry

If you don’t understand caste, you don’t understand India.

It took me a long time to read this book, which is actually an undelivered speech (more on that later). It took me even longer to write this review. Frankly, I didn’t think it would be this long. I started typing it in the Goodreads app, and then it became so long that I had to move it to my laptop. And here we are!

Annihilation of Caste by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar should be a must-read for every Indian and anyone who wants to learn about India.… » click to continue reading “Annihilation of Caste by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar: An Intro to India’s Biggest Bigotry”

Jul 20 2015

Inside Out Review: An Emotional Movie About Emotions

Pixar is back to form with its new animated feature Inside Out. After a series of dull films this decade, they’ve finally turned the ship around. This is the same studio which gave us a string of incredible films (pun intended!) like Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up. And before that, there was Toy Story 1 & 2, Monsters, Inc., and Finding Nemo. As great as all those films are, I think Pixar has set the bar even higher with Inside Out.… » click to continue reading “Inside Out Review: An Emotional Movie About Emotions”

May 14 2015

Piku Review: A Delightfully Fresh Movie from Bolywood

When’s the last time you watched an Indian movie that explores father-daughter relationship in detail? I don’t. There must be quite a handful of such movies out there (or not), but I’ve neither seen them nor heard about them.

Piku is a story about an old ageing father (Amitabh Bachchan as Bhashkor Banerjee) and his daughter (Deepika Padukone as Piku Banerjee), and how they come to terms with their mutually-dependent-yet-troubled lives.

The father is a 70-year-old, retired, highly cynical (a critical Bengali man in his own terms), and constipated (more on this later) man.… » click to continue reading “Piku Review: A Delightfully Fresh Movie from Bolywood”

Jan 27 2015

Baby Movie Review: Indian Black Ops Film with Great Action and a Muddy Plot

Baby’s opening scene starts off with a spiraling shot of Istanbul, Turkey. We’re then presented a gory picture of a man tied to a chair, in what is presumed to be an abandoned building. He’s being beaten to a pulp by goons for reasons yet unknown to us. This gory scene sets the stage for testosterone-fueled patriotic action that’ll follow.

Baby is the name of a special black ops team formed by the Indian government right after the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which is referred to as ‘26/11.’… » click to continue reading “Baby Movie Review: Indian Black Ops Film with Great Action and a Muddy Plot”

Nov 12 2014

Interstellar Review: Do Not Go Gentle Into This Magnificent Film

I’ve tried to avoid as many spoilers as possible in the following Interstellar review.

Humankind has always defined itself through overcoming the impossible — the first species to learn how to utilize fire, invent wheel, build vessels that can take us over vast areas of water, devise impressive pieces of technology such as steam and combustion engines (and machines that run on them), conceive computers and wireless technology, tackle diseases and other health conditions, initiate space exploration, and much more. These are the moments which are our proudest achievements.… » click to continue reading “Interstellar Review: Do Not Go Gentle Into This Magnificent Film”