Continuing a five-decade-long singing career, Usha Uthup speaks about staying relevant with changing times, meme culture, radical self-love, and covering Miley Cyrus. By Deepansh Duggal

In religion, politics, and mainstream pop culture, there is inexplicable hypocrisy and stinging prejudice surrounding the subject of menstruation in India. It begs for more proactive activism around the same. By Nivedita Dey

“Jai Mata Di, let’s rock.” Himesh Reshammiya’s career has come full circle: from topping the charts, to flops and cringe compilations, and back to dominating global rankings. By Himanshi Aggarwal

Bollywood has had a long history of finding “inspiration”—or barefaced plagiarism. Nivedita Dey recounts the many films, songs, and creators who imitated from the West (and more) and muses on the value of artistic originality.

From the fantastical to socio-psychological, comedic to gory, Nivedita Dey traces the diverse trends and the masters who shaped the genre since its appearance in the late-1940s.

In an uneven year for Bollywood, Nivedita Dey picks seven of the finest releases—films that combatted themes of patriarchy, politics, disability, religious fanaticism, and more.

From Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Lagaa, Badhai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, and more, a fresh lease of life seems to have been granted to a responsible on-screen LGBTQIA+ representation in the glitzy-verse of commercial Bollywood over the past decade. By Nivedita Dey

Released 15 years ago, Zoya Akhtar’s Luck By Chance (2009) was a stinging critique of the shabbiness and the showmanship of the Hindi film industry, where one of the industry’s own looked within and held out a mirror for all to see. By Sneha Bengani

A poignant, nuanced comedy drama, Badhaai Do (2022) tests the complexities of a lavender marriage in a small Indian city. By Ankur Choudhary

‘The ground is shifting… It is symptomatic of a tension, a threat.’ Writer, academician, and filmmaker Anubha Yadav spoke about the process behind her book Scripting Bollywood: Candid Conversations with Women Who Write Hindi Cinema, feminism in the Hindi film industry, and much more. By Shibani Phukan

Vikramaditya Motwane’s AK vs AK asks more questions about reel and real than any other film in recent memory. How much of real life inspires cinema? How far can cinema piggyback on what’s happening in the outside world? By Urmi Bhattacheryya

Rohena Gera’s Sir (2018) is a romance that challenges the societal taboos of class in India, and deftly explores the story of two individuals who the barriers between them. With delicately-crafted moments, the film strips off our biases to ask “Is love enough?” By Harshita Murarka