2020 has enforced upon us a crash course on the human and economic cost of disasters. The pandemic and the lockdown have exposed the horrors of the worst-case scenario for India’s internally-displaced migrants. We need to be better prepared for the disasters looming ahead. By Shefali Saldanha

There are few things that India loves more than cricket and cinema. And yet, the cultural connection between our favourite pastimes have rarely resulted in quality cricket films. Jamie Alter lists some of the best and worst of Bollywood on the willow.

The unlikely fandom of American rap legend Nas in India; and the surprising connection between Nas, Divine, and the rise of India’s real hip hop culture. - an essay by Karan Madhok.

While the discourse around the ‘item songs’ in Bollywood films usually revolves around the sexually explicit videos, Ankur Choudhary argues that the bigger issue to be tackled is the lyrical content that leans towards the objectification of women.

In a film industry filled with mainstream Indian stereotypes—Hindi speaking, upper-class, ‘mainland’ Indians, that eat Butter Chicken—the pungent-smelling entrance of Axone about a community of Northeasteners in New Delhi feels like a true act of resistance - Review by Shayoni Mehta.

A coming-of-age story about a 10-year-old boy from the streets of Kolkata: Safdar Rahman’s film CHIPPA takes viewers through a memorable night of mystery, imagination, danger, and joy. Review by Nidhi Choksi Dhakan.

Four poems by Gopal Lahiri: ‘this calmness, this silence / the cruel and blasphemous are marking / an uneasy path; we can’t erase.’

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From Bandarpunch and Nanda Devi to the Annapurna and more, Zachary Conrad recommends five must-read books for a better understanding of the mountains we seek to scale—beyond us, and within us.

The lockdown has worsened systematic failures in the Indian police, rooting from implicit biases and leading to more violence. Sadaf Vidha takes stock of the American movement against police brutality to frame against the glaring issues back home in India.

Short story by Karan Madhok: ‘In the chaos of the pre-lunch Sunday crowd at the mall, in their continuing hum, their smells, their colours, their everything… all that Shalu and Abhimanyu now shared was a small absence of sound, an envelope without its contents.’

From Water and Lagaa Chunari Mein Daag to Masaan and Mukti Bhawan, Ankur Choudhary examines films about the holy city of Varanasi to uncover the uneasy intersection of culture, gender politics, modernity, and more.

In a deconstruction of Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), Ishan Mukherjee revisits the history, soundtrack, and the work of an inspired auteur director that truly made this saga a cinematic classic.