When it came to his cross examination by Sanjeev Khanna's lawyer Niranjan Mundargi, Imtiaz Shaikh appeared to be afflicted by that peculiar gap-in-one's-memory or Choosy Memory Syndrome with his recall of other dates in his life, except those directly related with the murder, shaky or non-existent.
If Kishore Kumar were alive today, he would have turned 90 on August 4.
Dinesh Raheja salutes the legend's versatility in her heyday.
Throughout, Mekhail spoke calmly, with hardly an inflection making even the barest attempt to hijack his tone. His tone was so empty it made his narrative all the more touching. And ugly and grey, as the monsoon sky beyond the window.
Sameer Buddha was just the kind of witness Indrani's lawyer Sudeep Pasbola dislikes. Someone, who had temporarily dumped his memory before entering the court. He answered most questions, one after another, one after another, one after another, with a monotonous, deadpan: 'I don't remember.' 'I don't remember.' 'I don't remember.'
'They will talk about secularism, but communalism -- they just won't say there exists such a beast.' 'It's harmful for society to brush it under the carpet.' 'If we talk about secularism, we must talk about communalism.'
Aseem Chhabra tell us how he watched 302 films in 365 days on airplanes, on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Google, Hulu, DVDs and even on YouTube.
Mumbai visarjans take place with military precision. Thousands and thousands of Ganpatis are immersed across 11 days with hardly an incident. And minimum traffic disruption given the scale of the festival. Meet the the folks who ensure visarjans happen smoothly and efficiently.
'Acting is the toughest job in the world.'
'Will anything change for you after the election?' And the man said 'Kuch nahin badlega.' And he had a smile on his face. He knew nothing was going to change.
More than two weeks after a wall collapsed in suburban Mumbai, killing 30 people and injuring more than 100, Rediff.com's Prasanna D Zore and Hitesh Harisinghani visit the area to know how the survivors devastated by the deluge are coping with their lives.
'Disney is presenting Black Panther as Manoj Muntashir's film.' 'Such a big studio, a billion dollar film is being released as Manoj Muntashir's film.' 'It is in the same space of Baahubali, which I wrote.' 'The film has got a kingdom, kings, treachery... things which are very much up my alley.'
How many of these have aged well?
After the wedding, Sheena and Mekhail did not meet again. Four or five months later she met her death. Mekhail referred to their last meeting without overt emotion, clear-eyed.
The ripping off the lid, that Mekhail did, on the chain of episodes that lead up to his sister's murder, while condemning Indrani for her actions, for the first time, paradoxically, allowed a more human -- if flawed and complicated -- picture to emerge of Indrani, allegedly The Woman Who Killed Her Own Daughter and shocked a nation.
As Peter sits outside the court with his sister, Indrani walks in with a request. It has been three months since Peter has started speaking to Indrani again, after a long silence of two years.
A pregnant woman is murdered in cold blood in the heart of suburban Mumbai. By her father who didn't want her to marry the man she did.
In Arvind Kejriwal's home turf, Kaushambi, the honeymoon with India's most famous aam aadmi is near its end.
Vidhu Vinod Chopra takes stock of his Bollywood career and explains why he thought of foraying into Hollywood.
It is becoming more and more apparent that Shyamvar Rai is like an onion. And a pretty pungent one at that. As layer after layer of his life gets peeled off, in full view of the court, new layers of his character are exposed.
Lawyer: 'Did YOU not ever feel scared?' Shyamvar Rai: 'I am a driver, I said okay. Madam said it is your job...'
Mekhail delivered the most deliberate heart-tugging line of the day: "If a son asks his mother for money is wrong, then tell me." At the back Indrani gave one of her most beaming smiles that was meant to convey the exact opposite. This was no mother happy that her son had said he turned to her when he needed money because she was his mother.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
Indrani is clearly in charge in her little corner. She is speaking rapidly to a not-very-tall, pot-bellied, balding man, whom she repeatedly, decisively, asks, "Have you understood?" The tone is that of a boss talking to an employee. The words "cheque" and "two lakhs" float by.
'My father became a very popular villain and in some films, was paid more than the hero. He was a very simple person. All he needed was six pairs of white shirts and trousers for the whole year, one or two packets of Dunhill cigarettes a day and books.' Shehzaad Khan on his famous father Ajit.
'The starting point of the Udta Punjab casting was that we didn't think stars would do a film like this, so we'd take non-stars. As the names kept rolling in and we had Kareena Kapoor and Shahid and Alia Bhatt, I was like yaar yeh ho kya raha hai?'
'The blood that runs in the veins of our family can never be anti-national.' 'They called Kanhaiya a traitor for questioning the Indian Army. Do they know that our cousin was killed by militants in Manipur while serving with the CRPF?' Archana Masih/Rediff.com travelled to the land of Lal Salam, Lal Sitara and comrades to find out what moulded India's most talked about student leader, Kanhaiya Kunar.
