Rajneesh Gupta presents some interesting numbers from Day 1:
'People were apprehensive when I cast Nawaz. Especially after Sacred Games, people told me you are diminishing Manto.' 'But he is an actor and actors don't diminish.'
'Despite its noble attempts, tight editing, terrific sound design, good performances and a compelling story, Hotel Mumbai tells a big lie.'
The top posts on social media from your favourite Bollywood celebrities.
'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.
'My speculation is that the BCCI believes that it is dangerous for credible insiders to stay outside its area of influence. It wants people like these three cricketers inside the tent rather than outside it,' says Aakar Patel.
'The defence minister should concentrate on acquiring a bigger stick, rather than brag of using terrorists as State policy.'
It is time India started taking part in chats about itself instead of trying to ban them
'My work hasn't reached many people, and I hope that changes.'
'Few practitioners of yoga doing the Surya Namaskar, including lakhs of Americans and Europeans, see it as a form of worshipping the sun. They do it because it is good exercise.' 'In my view Muslim groups need to be more flexible on such things and not present their problem in terms that are confrontational.' 'Having said that, are they over-reacting? The history and the background of the government and its ministers would lead us to believe otherwise,' says Aakar Patel.
'Will Modi succeed with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan? He will not, because cultural change does not come purely from legislation and never overnight. It comes internally and this is something Gandhi understood,' says Aakar Patel.
'Modi deliberately chose such unhinged people because they said what he wanted to, but couldn't,' says Aakar Patel.
'Muslim actors like Dilip Kumar thought they had to give themselves Hindu names to be acceptable. Was their caution justified?' 'My view is that Indians, of all faiths, are tolerant. Secular is a complicated word and I do not know if I can use it in this instance. Tolerance is something that is inherently Subcontinental.'
Aseem Chhabra mourns the passing of the gentle and knowledgeable Mr K D Singh, who owned a quaint bookshop in New Delhi.
Nandita Das on why she wants to make Manto so badly.
'If 25 black men had been executed illegally in the US in one day, the government would have fallen and the population would have rallied to the victims. In India, those of us who did not applaud the police only yawned,' says Aakar Patel.
In four years, Rekhta has become the largest online repository for Urdu poetry and literature in the world, says Veenu Sandhu.
'I salute Dixit and Qureshi for playing roles that are not in line with what mainstream Bollywood expects of its female stars,' says Aseem Chhabra, noting how Dedh Ishqiya makes important points in the most nuanced way.
'On both sides of our cultural divide, it roused strong emotions that had very little to do with the language and its literature.' 'I felt Sanskrit had been removed from the realm of thought, and made an object of politics and piety, of oppression, of reverence and contempt.' 'It was my aim to avoid these things, and go straight to the language which, as an object for the mind, is among the most exquisite ever made.'
