Bollywood
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Ikkis: Thoughts on another Propaganda Movie
Maneesh Taneja reviews Sriram Raghavan’s Ikkis, on Arun Khetarpal and Basantar. He admires Raghavan’s craft but judges the film a failed propaganda piece, with a weak Aman ki Asha story…
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Dhurandhar The Revenge – The Wrath of Bharat
Bombay Badshah gives a spoiler-free, enthusiastic review of Dhurandhar The Revenge, calling it looser than the first film but a better-choreographed action movie with strong music. He notes it shifts…
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Dhurandhar The Revenge trailer
Insane. Great music again. Honsla Eendhan Badla.
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Pakistan, India – culture, music, movies
RecoveringNewsJunkie offers a palate cleanser from comment-thread hostility, noting the shared culture of India and Pakistan. He points to cricketer Usman Tariq’s inspiration from an Indian film, and to Pakistanis’…
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Bollywood, Brahmins, Parsis & WASPs:
X.T.M argues that elites are reproduced by property, institutions and networks rather than blood, so intermarriage is usually a merger, not a threat, citing English aristocrats and American heiresses, Parsis,…
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Musings on & Answers to “The Partition of Elites: India, Pakistan, and the Unfinished Trauma of 1947” (Part 3)
Arkacandra Jayasimha, in part three of a response to X.T.M’s Partition essay, argues India’s post-independence settlement was half-hearted on integration, letting Muslim power centres persist while dividing Hindus, and draws…
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Dhurandhar Review
Omar Ali gives Dhurandhar four stars out of five, reading it as an Inglorious Basterds-style revenge fantasy rather than history, praising Akshaye Khanna’s performance and the music, and noting that…
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Dhurandhar showcases Bollywood’s New Obsession: The Sexy Pakistani Villain
X.T.M calls Dhurandhar the best mass-market Bollywood film since Animal and argues it reflects Bollywood’s new formula of fetishising Pakistan as the sexy villain, familiar enough to feel intimate and…
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The Hindification of Muslim Culture
X.T.M argues that India is seeing a slow Hindification of Muslim cultural inheritances, from khayal and Bollywood to cuisine, as Muslim political power recedes. He calls it succession rather than…
