There's much more than talent to Rajkummar Rao.
'People ask, "Are you envious of Raj?" I mean, are you envious of your brother or sister or your mum and dad?' 'No. You feel a sense of pride when you see the other person excel.' 'Both of us are from the industry, so seeing the other person excel is what inspires me and instills faith and hope in me.'
'It's very tough for someone, who doesn't have a filmi background, to get work in Bollywood. It's not a smooth ride unless you are really lucky. But I think one has to be prepared for that. I must have given 30 auditions for films alone.' Rajkummar Rao survived the struggle to give us some brilliant films.
'As long as you are moving, it's all right.' 'You are going to fall, you are going to have to pick yourself up and sometimes, it will hurt.' 'Sometimes, you would just want to lie there and look at the fan.'
The movies that impressed, puzzled and stunned Sukanya Verma at MAMI this year.
'I wasn't interested in shackling my freedom to a Bollywood actor.' A fascinating excerpt from Lisa Ray's memoir Close To The Bone.
'What we have is 'masala redeemed' as opposed to just 'masala resurrected',' argues Sreehari Nair.
How many of the 354 films Aseem Chhabra watched in 2017 have you seen?
In a world in which men still dominate the institutional landscape, gender-neutrality is as much their responsibility as women's.
'The Maoists want the tribals to boycott the election while the police think the election is a farce and do not want to risk going deeper in the conflict zone.' 'Newton (played with sincerity and deep felt passion by Rajkummar Rao) wants to make sure that the locals cast their vote, a right given to them by the Constitution.'
Sreehari Nair presents his Top 20 movies of the decade.
'For me, success is saying 'no' when you want to say no.'
How many of the 319 films Aseem Chhabra watched in 2018 have you seen?
'Kaala's sin is not that it is presented as a mouthpiece for its director Pa Ranjith's political viewpoints, but that it makes a travesty of them.' 'Ranjith turns Marx into merchandise, all the while functioning as a hired hand for Brand Rajinikanth,' points out Sreehari Nair.
'Why does it exist in the film industry?' 'It is because we are culturally nepotistic.' 'The son always grows up to carry on the work of the father; that's where we come from.' 'So if you have to tackle nepotism in the film industry, you have to tackle it in our culture.'
Since 2004 the Congress has hung onto power in a situation in which it was on track to be out of power. In each case, it effectively gamed the system through Constitutional coups, argues columnist Rajeev Srinivasan.
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