In an all Dalit village in Muzzaffarnagar, three girls who do mazdoori after finishing the day's chores, will cast their vote for the first time. Opening their home and heart to Archana Masih/Rediff.com, they say all they want is a high school, a vehicle to take them to the main road and a sewing machine.
'Today's cricketers are amazing, they know everything, but still you find a few cricketers, they have a talent, but their mind is not there.'
'There are people who loved the show and people who have been shocked by it.'
'40 years later, the world is still singing I Am A Disco Dancer.'
'Why do we feel our parents are not human? That our mother is not a woman?'
'I don't trust these days. Like now, everyone likes Mimi and my phone is constantly ringing. But tomorrow if I make a flop, the opposite will happen.'
On his 90th birth anniversary, Sukanya Verma lists 20 of her favourite scenes that reiterate his extraordinary grasp on the language of cinema and connect with the viewer.
'...I am like I need to teach my dog to do potty.'
Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley, convicted in the US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, on Thursday told a court in Mumbai that terror outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba wanted to eliminate Bal Thackeray but the person who was assigned the job to kill the late Shiv Sena chief was arrested.
Onkar Singh, a valuable member of the Rediff.com team over the years, breathed his last on January 13. Syed Firdaus Ashraf, who knew him intimately, remembers the ultimate newsman.
Varsha Bhosle salutes that effervescent icon of Indian cinema, Dev Anand.
Tuesday was the last that Courtroom 51 saw of Shyamvar Rai, accused No 3 and approver in the Sheena Bora murder trial. True to form, Rai's final hours in the witness box were rather acrimonious. His cross-examination at several points turned downright ugly.
'Khaike Paan Banarasiwala doesn't sound like a Hindi song,' Kishore Kumar said. 'I don't think I can sing this song.' We pleaded with him. Finally, he relented on one condition...
Ten days after it came to light that a four-and-a-half-year-old boy inserted his finger and a sharpened pencil in the private parts of his classmate in a Delhi school, the girl's mother says the biggest hurdle in getting justice for her daughter is to battle the disbelief that she faces since the accused is so young.
'They gave Nitish their votes to bring progress. But he forgot this and got involved with his own political interests. That is not done. So he was rejected.' 'Lalu is a symbol of anarchy. He is the symbol of regressive politics.' BJP General Secretary Dharmendra Pradhan discusses Lalu, Nitish, and his strategy to bring Bihar in the BJP's fold, with Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com
'I am just making a creative film. It has nothing to do with propaganda.'
'Who is the right Mekhail? Mekhail I or Mekhail II?'
Rani Mukerji, unusually candid.
'When I met him, I was a behaving like a 16 year old!' 'He is incredible, very casual and chilled out.' 'He told me he would watch Gully Boy and then he said a dialogue from Gully Boy, 'Bahut hard!'.'
Sukanya Verma glances at Virushka's photo album of loveliness.
'You don't need a godfather to protect you from dangers of Bollywood because nobody will.'
'There are 15 songs in Manmarziyaan.' 'For the first time in the history of Anurag Kashyap, there are two dancing numbers.' 'Luckily, people are not taking this as a serious Anurag Kashyap cliched film.'
Mekhail hopped off the bench in a hurry and turning his back to Indrani, stood at the window. Indrani ignored him too. Mekhail is getting married later this year. His mother will, of course, not be in attendance. Nor, of course, would he want her to be there, if she could.
Just 20 years old, Inderlal Kamalsingh Dhurve is a migrant labourer, a part-time farmer, a sole breadwinner and one of four survivors from the group that was mowed down by a goods train near Aurangabad, Maharashtra, 10 days ago, claiming 16 lives.
Day 2: Syed Firdaus Ashraf attempts to deposit Rs 500, 1,000 notes in his bank account.
Trepidation made its home firmly on his face on Thursday, announcing its presence with lines of anxiety and the repeated jumpy widening of his eyes.
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.
'I kept telling Anurag, "I don't care about anything, I don't want any money. Just get the film made".' 'One day I called Anurag and someone else picked up the phone. He said, "Hello, Sir." I responded, "Hello, but who are you and why are you picking up Anurag's phone?" He said, "I am Ranbir Kapoor Sir". And he told me he was doing the film and he was very excited.'
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.
Saisuresh Sivaswamy tells us what we must know from the election news in the print and television media.
'Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge was the highest point of our life,' Lalit Pandit tells Subhash K Jha.
It is not often that Goswami's Nation-Wants-to-Know shows become material evidence in a murder trial no less. Nor was it something CBI Special Judge J C Jagdale was wildly enthused about. It had to be done because as he put it to CBI Special Public Prosecutor Kavita Patil caustically: "Your witnesses gave interviews to channels about a serious crime."
'Small bands of terrorists believe they can destabilise superpowers if they are ready to become martyrs.' 'Since the road to paradise is under the shade of swords, it is a win-win situation for those ready to die for the cause of Allah.'
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.
'There were certain ideals and morals that I had started bending as I was climbing up in the industry.' 'I was unknowingly hurting people close to me, unknowingly treating people the way I wouldn't want to be treated myself.' 'But I am not that person and I didn't start off like that.' 'Then the introspection began.' 'Very rarely does that happen when you do a film.' 'I was feeling unhappy as a person. Now I am much happier.'
'Deepika has got a lot to do with whatever I have achieved in the last six years.' 'She has kept me grounded. Otherwise, who knows what I would have turned into?'
One couldn't help feeling a certain melancholy viewing these now vagrant documents and photographs that would never be rightfully cherished. The pictures spoke to you. They offered slices of extinguished lives. They breathed sadness too, for what could have been and will never be. The sweet promises that Life made and insolently, arrogantly never kept.
'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?'
