In the late 2000s, Karan Madhok left home to travel alone around India, living off a backpack, sleeping in trains, searching for more of his country, and finding more parts of himself. In a photo-essay, he recalls why this ‘bharat darshan’ was the best experience of his life.

The diversity of Hindi-language web series over the calendar year was truly remarkable, featuring shows that thrilled, entertained, and pushed forward Indian storytelling more than ever before. From Paatal Lok to Aarya, and Scam 1992 to Panchaayat and beyond, Jamie Alter picks ten of the very best.

From the fierce Baldev Singh in Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, the inimical patriarchs in Mohabbatein and Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, and gentler fathers in Thappad and Gunjan Saxena, Harshita Murkarka takes a look at the evolution of fatherhood in the post economic-liberalised Bollywood.

Season 2 of Prime Video’s hit show Mirzapur continued its debauchery of gore, lust, back-stabbings, and politics from the UP/Bihar belt. But at its core, the series is an exploration of fathers and sons, of expectations and fallouts, of family lost and family found. By Karan Madhok

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.