'...changed my image, changed everything.' 'Now I make calls with great confidence.' 'Day before yesterday, I sent a message to a director that I heard you are making a film, is there any role for me?' 'I have confidence now. Earlier, I could never do.'
'This is the year of the three Bs -- Budapest, Boyhood and Birdman -- and if you love the movies, one or all three of those will feature in your top bracket in English language cinema this year.' Raja Sen takes stock of the recently concluded Golden Globes.
If Indian storytelling can deliver, it can make the entertainment industry an engine of economic growth and a substantial contributor to GDP, says Vanita Kohli-Khandekar.
Sumedha Raikar-Mhatre examines the Marathi film industry, which annually produces around 190 dissimilar films that requires an investment of Rs 400 crores.
Besides the five Indian films that are playing at the Toronto International Film Festival this year -- a rather large collection at an international film festival, says Aseem Chhabra -- there are more films with an Indian connect.
Collins Learning publisher Elaine Higgleton's advice to students in India is to read, read and read.
'If I get posted to a place, if people engage with me just as an Indian diplomat, I have X amount of leverage.' 'But when they look at me as the high commissioner of India and the author of Slumdog Millionaire, many more people are willing to meet me, more quickly than they would as a pure diplomat.'
If Team Rajini expected Kaala to carry the superstar's political message off-screen, it may have proved counter-productive. If the not-so-infrequent presence of Muslim residents of Dharavi, including that of Kaala's ex-love Zarina, in many scenes is expected to convey a political message, it is a no-brainer, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
It is always wonderful to discover a gem of film at an international film festival. It is even more exciting when that film is from India.
A towering figure in the world of letters, Udupi Rajagopalacharya Ananthamurthy, who died in Bangalore on Friday, was modern in his sensibilities and intellectual underpinnings in his literary works questioned many deeply-held beliefs.
'I don't know how they dared to send Krrish for a National Award. It was a horrible film! Films like Dabangg and Bang Bang are trash films. Goliyon Ki Rasleela: Ram Leela was so bad; only the music was good. Straight talk from Garm Hava director M S Sathyu.
'We are caring and sweet to each other.' 'We do have our tiffs, arguments on everything; neither of us agrees to be wrong.'
'We have created an enemy we can't even see and that enemy is entertaining us while tightening the noose around our necks.' 'As the radiation increases, it will affect everything -- from your little bumble bee to plants to every living cell.' 'By the time the effects are understood, it might be too late.'
'I'm very opinionated. I do not stay quiet. If somebody said there are snake charmers in India, I will educate them saying that they are there but we use it for entertainment. People tell me India is known for its rapes. I get asked that in every interview. It's so difficult to defend it.' Priyanka Chopra gets candid.
'Today is our independence day. Udta Punjab is not just a film anymore. It is a movement and one that has ended in the victory of democracy.'
'But India, increasingly, is not that far behind, which is a story I never expected to tell.'
It is only gradually dawning on us that some of the information we have trustingly shared with commercial service providers can be used against us when we apply for a job or when we apply to admission to a college, says Ajit Balakrishnan.
Pavan Malhotra, one of our finest actors, shows us another side of Bollywood.
'Outsiders are the ones who have to make the biggest journey to realise themselves, to come back to some sense of normality.' Director Jacques Audiard and actor Jesuthasan Antonythasan discuss the human landscape behind the award-winning film, Dheepan, with Aseem Chhabra/Rediff.com
The government must undo the damage inflicted by the flawed policies of globalisation, and India should be converted into a country where entrepreneurs can thrive and the entire population can participate in the economy, says Arvind Kumar.
How do you stand out in a crowd? Read this!
You must watch The Sky is Pink just for Priyanka Chopra, applauds Sukanya Verma.
'There is nothing bigger than Bigg Boss. I was lucky and blessed that I stayed inside the Bigg Boss house for three months. The love that I got from people was so humbling that I started crying. That's the first thing that I did when I came out.'
'I belonged to the working class, not the middle class.' 'I was a rag-picker. I used to pick up coal from the railway tracks.' 'I was rejected from the FTII, as I was very unkempt and skinny.' 'I did not look like a hero, villain or comedian.' 'But Girish Karnad and Jairaj said I should be taken based on merit, not looks.'
'Manto is the only writer to grasp what the project of Pakistan would eventually mean,' says Aakar Patel, who has translated a collection of Saadat Hasan Manto's essays in a just-released book Why I Write.
Maya Vishwakarma gave up her job as a scientist in California to make 'No Tension' sanitary pads for tribal women who have never used one before.
'Both Main Aur Charles and Titli are essentially stories of two plot-devices that became protagonists. You cannot relate to Titli or Charles, without submitting to the knowledge that neither of them are well-rounded characters; they are more like artifacts -- Charles, a schlock artifact and Titli, an artifact of spirit toughened by years of live brutality.'
Director Anil Sharma gives us an insight into the Deol men, and other Bollywood Greats.
Users send a message on the app and a virtual assistant responds.
What used to be confined to homes as a winter garment has become a political and cultural symbol, with most leaders and many citizens donning the long cloak at offices and their places of work, observes Athar Parvaiz.
'Rahul Gandhi accuses the Modi government of being in thrall to corporate fat cats at the expense of farmers and other common folk. But the facts do not bear out this argument, as Indian farmers are relatively better off compared to the really wretched of the earth, the unfortunate landless, often itinerant, labourer. And since Rahul's ancestors are the ones who failed them, it is a little disingenuous of him to ignore them in his rhetorical flourishes,' says Rajeev Srinivasan.
The controversy over Sant Rampal and his army of followers taking the law into their hands has once again thrown the spotlight on the clout that India's godmen possess.
Shekhar Gupta's anthology is a valuable addition to our understanding of the seeming muddle that is India... The experience of reading his columns is more like a chat with a friend in the afterglow of an enjoyable drink, but never frivolous, says Shreekant Sambrani.
Fifty years ago, India and Pakistan fought a short but bloody war. The author finds out how Sainik Samachar, the defence ministry's journal, reported it.
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