The Legend of Café Samovar, Mumbai’s Melting Pot of Cozy Camaraderie
Nivedita Dey recalls the glory days of Mumbai’s bygone Cafe Samovar, where for decades, friends, family, strangers, students, lawyers, homemakers, thinkers, creative souls, Bollywood icons, Marxists, liberals, and more diverse groups of humans huddled over cups of cutting chai.
The Inscrutable Oddity of Youth
Megha Ramaswamy’s What Are the Odds? (2019) is a film unlike any other about Indian young adults, harkening the uncertainty of youth on screen to present an experience that is at once innovative, surreal, and profound. By Paromita Patranobish
With brutal carnage presented with celebratory beats, Dhurandhar: The Revenge pushes viewers towards a stony insensitivity, creating a sense of heightened tempo and exhilaration without moral recoil. By Abin Chakraborty