K V K MURTHY
July 26, 2012 First Published: July 26, 2012
If one were to conduct a word association experiment today, and the word given was Pakistan, the statistical odds for the corresponding association being ‘terrorism’ would be overwhelming. And that with good reason, is made alarmingly clear by John Schmidt’s excellently researched and formidably well-informed book. Continue reading
Recreating a multidimensional cinematic portrait of an unparalleled Indian actor
By Sarwat Ali
Aamir Khan has proved many of his critics wrong. He has always managed to reinvent himself with something different to offer and is still the most-talked-about filmmaker in the biggest film industry of the world.
The subcontinental cinema had often been criticised for producing films that roll off the same template. There is hardly any difference in all the films made — the same boy-girl romance pitted against the hostile social values and attitudes that uphold the family honour and name above that of individual initiative and innovation. And all wrapped in the tinsel of the song and dance format. Continue reading
Reviewed by Peerzada Salman
Poet and filmmaker Gulzar is an imagist, and a brilliant one at that. Yet the kind of poetry that he writes cannot be, in terms of definition, fully bracketed as the work of imaginer. Continue reading
Published in Daily Times / Jul 21, 2012
Under the title: So You Think You Can Escape?
Reviewed by: Afrah Jamal
‘In this game there are no second chances. You either win or you die.’ Continue reading
dawnbooksandauthors | 1 day ago
Reviewed by Asif Farrukhi
A rose is a rose is a rose, wrote Gertrude Stein and became famous for having done so. If this circular sentence completes its sense with a rose being declared a rose thrice, then the carrot comes only two times in the title of Zia Mohyeddin’s delightful collection of essays, subtitled “Memories and Reflections.” The carrot comes from Chekhov and not Stein. In the essay after which the book is named, Mohyeddin says that “Life today is a carrot,” and then explains this as a reference, if not a tribute, to the Russian master: Continue reading
