Bombay Badshah – Brown Pundits

SS Rajamouli’s Varanasi – The next phase of the Indian wave?

Bombay Badshah · March 6, 2026 · 6 comments

One of the interesting things about the Asian countries as they got rich was that they followed a pattern.

0.65-0.75 HDI – Building public infrastructure (metros/bullet trains etc), systems.

0.75-0.85 HDI – Companies becoming global players. Japanese companies in the 80s. Korean in the late 90s-early 2000s. Chinese from the mid 2010s onward.

0.85 HDI+ – Pop culture becomes mainstream. Soft power. Anime/video games in the 90s for Japan. Hallyu in the 2000s for Korea. Chinese video games and C-dramas are also picking up pace now internationally (Will be a deluge by the early 2030s).

India is currently in the first phase (alongside Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines etc).

China is in the second (alongside Malaysia, Thailand).

Japan, South Korea in the third (alongside Taiwan, Hong Kong etc).

Judging by current timelines India enters phase 2 around 2030 and phase 3 around 2050.

But it doesn’t have to be exact and some green shoots can happen before.

Rajamouli’s RRR was very well received globally (Japan as well as the west) and audiences loved the over the top earnest action in a time of crossover saturated mainstream Hollywood movies. It even won an Oscar.

His next project is the one of the most expensive Indian films ever and is getting a lot of traction from international media as well as movie tech companies(Dolby, IMAX).

Here is the official IMAX channel launching the trailer.

Interview with Collider.

The movie seems to have a very interesting premise with a Indiana Jones style globe trotting adventure with time travel shenanigans. I assume judging from the trailer the adventure will take them through the Ramayana as well.

Can be a game changer for Indian cinema and what takes India to the next level. India is already the third biggest box office in the world (behind USA+Canada and China) and the only one who will be capable beside these two to make big budget VFX-heavy epics.

A lot of VFX work is already done in India so this will hold India in good stead in the future (DNEG which does VFX for lots of Hollywood movies like Dune etc is an Indian owned company and is handling the Ramayana movie as well which is another movie getting a big international push).

Indian Music Spotlight – Kazinama – Ahista Ahista

Bombay Badshah · February 21, 2026 · 33 comments

I am a big fan of neo-soul/neo-funk, so good to see Indian artists also doing something in that style.

A remix of an old Pakistani* song.

*XTM edit; I do not condone intellectual theft. The original version was sung in Pakistan in the late 80’s.

Please note to all I’m now going to be far less tolerant of tricks & provocations on ALL sides.

It’s in very poor taste to appropriate the hard & beautiful work of a now deceased female artist.

Kohrra Season 2: Review

Bombay Badshah · February 20, 2026 · 2 comments

Kohrra is a police procedural series set in Punjab whose second season is now available now on Netflix which I highly recommend.

Some relatively spoiler free thoughts. I am skipping plot details etc because I don’t want to spoil anything plus there are many reviews already available on the internet.

Indian directors/writers have really mastered this sort of police procedural – usually has two police partners and the story jumps between the case (new case per season) and the personal lives of the protagonists. Add in some social commentary as well in a gritty package. Others of this ilk are Pataal Lok (2 seasons, Amazon Prime) and Dahaad (1 season, Amazon Prime). Those are also highly recommended.
Because this is a new season, it’s a completely new case. Also only one of the officers from the first season returns. Watching the first season is not necessary but ideal to get an idea of the personal life of the returning character.
The plot this time is a lot more twisty with multiple threads leaving you guessing, compared to the first one where I guessed the plot a few episodes in.
Also a lot more technically accomplished. The few action set pieces are really well done. The cinematography is great and the acting is great across the board (the first season had some iffy acting by some actors).
Love the fact that like most Indian OTT shows, it is not monolingual (like movies) and is multilingual and characters speak in the language that they would actually speak. So predominantly Punjabi with a bit of Hindi.

Pakistan – Falling Behind in the Indian Subcontinent

Bombay Badshah · February 17, 2026 · 2 comments

So the UN HDI numbers for 2023 were out last year.

https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index

Global Data Lab is an organization that uses this data (amongst other data) to create “sub-national” HDI.

https://globaldatalab.org/

One thing you can see from the map is that the only border which is so distinct is the India-Pakistan one. If one does not know they will not be able to make the borders of India-Nepal, India-Bangladesh, India-Bhutan or Pakistan-Afghanistan.

Thing is not only does Pakistan have the lowest HDI in the Indian subcontinent (only one in UN’s “low” HDI below 0.55. Everyone else is above 0.6), it will also have the lowest per capita income in 5 years, going below Nepal.

In fact, the World Bank has removed Pakistan from “South Asia” and classifies them as part of MENAP because their growth data is so different from the rising economies of the subcontinent.

https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/region/mena

https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/region/sar

And not only are the other desi countries leaving Pakistan behind, many sub-saharan African countries are as well.

HDI of SSA countries vis a vis Pakistan

GDP pci of SSA countries vis a vis Pakistan

Why is the Pakistani consumer so poor?

Bombay Badshah · January 28, 2026 · 7 comments

So a new edition of the T20 WC is coming up and it is already embroiled in some controversy. Bangladesh refused to play in India and ICC had them replaced with Scotland.

Cue the usual voices from Pakistan – “BCCICC”, “India’s money is ruining cricket” blah blah.

But it led me to ponder something – Pakistan itself has a huge population of 250 million + and it isn’t that “much” poorer than India. India’s GDP pci is $3050 while Pakistan’s is $1710 (around 1.8x) . Similarly India’s GDP is $4.51 trillion while Pak is $410.5 billion (around 11x).

So the other numbers should be in the same ratio right?

Here is where the difference comes

Revenue of cricket boards

BCCI – INR 20686 crore
PCB – INR 458 crore

That is around 45x

T20 leagues media rights

IPL – $6.2 billion for four years
PSL – $24 million for two years

That is around 130x (normalized on a per year basis)

And if you look at other stuff these huge ratios persist

Cars sold annually

India – 4.1 million
Pakistan – 200,000

Forex reserves

India – $710 billion
Pakistan – $21 billion

Stock exchange market caps

BSE – $5 trillion
PSE – $65 billion

Why do you think that is?

My theory is because the Pakistan military is stronger than the 1/10 ratio, it kind of effects everything else which leads to these lop sided ratios.

Give your thoughts in the comments below.

On “The Haraam Bit”: Free Speech, Trolling, and Our Red Lines

Bombay Badshah · November 29, 2025 · 43 comments

This post titled “The ‘haraam’ bit” sparked pushback both on the site and in our internal chat. This note sets out the problem, our editorial responsibility (as X.T.M I have overwritten this post), and what this means for BP.

1. What happened

An anonymous author (Bombay Badshah who has used a number of pseudonyms) posted a list of Pakistani-origin porn performers and highlighted a scene where a British Pakistani actress jokes about “haraam” and foreskin. He framed it as an “interesting observation.” The issue was not that he mentioned porn. It was how he used it.

2. Why the post was unacceptable Continue reading On “The Haraam Bit”: Free Speech, Trolling, and Our Red Lines

Pakistan will recognize Israel?

Bombay Badshah · September 30, 2025 · 13 comments

There was a lot of hullabaloo in Pakistan over the Saudi defense agreement as well as the US warming up to it without considering the consequences.

Some Pakistani Nationalists were of the view that an Islamic Alliance led by Pakistan would liberate Al-Aqsa etc.

But reality is different. It seems all this was to ensure normalization with Israel and support a peacekeeping force in Gaza post war.

Shehbaz’s latest tweet seems to indicate the same.

I welcome President Trump’s 20-point plan to ensure an end to the war in Gaza.

I am also convinced that durable peace between the Palestinian people and Israel would be essential in bringing political stability and economic growth to the region.

It is also my firm belief that President Trump is fully prepared to assist in whatever way necessary to make this extremely important and urgent understanding to become a reality.

I laud President Trump’s leadership and the vital role played by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in bringing an end to this war.

I also strongly believe that the implementation of the two state proposal is essential to ensure lasting peace in the region.

It would be interesting to see what the Pakistani masses think of this.