By ( 16 May 2015 In the book “Mumbai Fables – A History of an Enchanted City”, in Chapter 3, author Gyan Prakash (professor of History at Princeton University) talks about the seduction of Bombay and how in the backdrop...

Films with father-daughter as the central characters are quite rare in Bollywood. “Daddy” (1989) and “Khamoshi The Musical” (1996) are two of the most memorable ones. Films discussing bowel movements in all its glory are...

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Sunday completed the demolition of a ramp illegally constructed by actor Shah Rukh Khan on a public road outside his bungalow Mannat in Bandra (West). However, this may not...

Shahrukh Khan is going to be playing the role of stalker again similar to Darr. The movie is to be released on August of this year, and Shahrukh Khan talks of this movie as one of the most challenging projects. Maneesh S...

Deepika Padukone was diagnosed with depression and she talks bravely of her journey to fight the disease. She talks about how it was difficult for her to shoot for the climax scene of Happy New Year. She didn’t feel like...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views By Arup Raha, 19 December 2014 To end the year 2014, as in 2013 (Dhoom 3) and in 2012 (Talaash), we had an Aamir Khan movie to look forward to. Man...

When the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Don 2 hit theatres in 2011, the film’s director Farhan Akhtar told a section of the media, “I need a break from action films. As a director, it’s my right to explore different things.” Thr...

So much has been written about this movie. Every critic has passed judgment on Vishal Bharadwaj and his gang. I am no critic. I don’t even write regularly. But after watching the movie, I felt this urge to voice my opini...

There is something universally relatable about watching someone encounter Bollywood music for the very first time — the initial confusion at the melodrama, the involuntary head-bob when the beat kicks in, and the slow, h...

Written by ( If you weren’t living under a rock, the Bollywood aficionados among you have read about Deepika Padukone’s recent outburst on Twitter. She accused TOI of publishing photos of her cleavage and showing utter l...

Real to Reel to Real Life (Part 2 of 2) Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, ( Now that the name of the movie is out of the bag, let me start Part 2 with the results of the guessing game from Part 1. Ma...

Jiah Khan’s six-paged letter /suicidal note to her ( It is yet to be seen if the aborted child was Suraj Pancholi’s who is under arrest since June 10. He will be in police custody till June 13 for further interrogation....

Sylvester Stallone is flattered that John will be "rambo" in the remake because he thinks John is in much better shape than he ever was . The 40 year old sure is fit but to have been praised by Stallone must mean somethi...

Actress Jiah Khan committed suicide at her Juhu residence on Monday night. She hung herself, it has been reported. The 25-year-old actress, who worked with Amitabh Bachchan in Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Nishabd’ was apparently d...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views Volume 13, By Arup Raha, Monday 27-May-2013 My decades of waiting for an opportunity to operate a movie projector ended last year in the sophistica...

Real to Reel to Real Life (Part 1 of 2) Art mirrors life, but when life portends art… To twist things a bit, let me tell you the story about a movie before I tell you the story of *the movie. What follows though, is a tr...

The appearance of Javed Akhtar and Shabana Azmi in the Chicago area for a cultural event drew the kind of attention that visits by prominent figures from Indian arts and letters reliably generate in communities with larg...

Hopefully AAA 2 will have the same cast as the first one – however if the humor is as good as the first one the star cast might not matter. Or maybe it could be a ghazani look for Aamir and dabangg look for Salman -it su...

Rejects the first draft of his film put together by the author, says it is not commercial enough Chetan Bhagat is never at a loss for words. But for once, the voluble author and purveyor of all things controversial, was...

Priyanka Chopra's family has found the perfect match for her in the form of TV actor ( who plays ( in the popular mythological series. ( had been avoiding the question of marriage stating that she is eagerly waiting for...

Bollywood superstar Salman Khan faced the prospect of a decade in prison as a court took up the long-running criminal cases against him — a legal saga that had dragged through the Indian judiciary for years and that high...

Of Punjabi bhangra-pop artist Daler Mehendi, it was famously said that he built an entire entertainment career on the strength of just five nifty dance moves. Much the same can be said of actor Shah Rukh Khan. A man of a...

90-year-old Bollywood superstar Dilip Kumar has been dragged to court following a legal complaint filed by his two brothers over their Pali Hill bungalow in Mumbai. The two brothers, 77-year-old Ehsan Khan and 75-year-ol...

The 'surprise' birthday party of actor Hrithik Roshan, who turned 39 today, was no surprise to him, thanks to the media. A few papers said that Hrithik's wife Suzanne had organised a surprise yacht party for her hubby la...

The entire schedule of romantic comedy "Ghanchakkar" is said to have been planned in accordance to its lead actress Vidya Balan's real life wedding plans. In fact, her work in "Ghanchakkar" is being rush-completed in tim...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views by Arup Raha If there still are people who think Bollywood is all about the loud and pointless variety of cinema that cannot be perceived by their...

Even as the hoopla over the grandest wedding in the town approaches its crescendo, Saif Ali Khan entered into matrimony with five year long girlfriend Kareena Kapoor today in Mumbai. The high profile couple of Bollywood...

Veteran Bollywood singer Asha Bhosle's daughter Varsha, who was suffering from depression, today committed suicide by shooting herself, police said. A singer and columnist, Varsha, 56, shot herself in the temple with a p...

Victims of Salman Khan's reckless driving have not been paid . In 2002 he had run over some people , while driving his land cruiser .This had resulted in killing one person and severely injuring three people. It had take...

Veteran filmmaker Yash Chopra, who has given several golden hits to Indian cinema including 'Waqt', 'Deewar', 'Silsila', 'Dil Toh Pagal Hai' and 'Veer Zaara', will end his directorial innings with the upcoming Shahrukh K...

They have churned out some good cinema over the years. Now Farhan Akhtar and childhood friend and business partner Ritesh Sidhwani have taken their company Excel Entertainment where no other Indian film house has been be...

The Chicago South Asian Film Festival returned for its annual showcase of cinema from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and the South Asian diaspora, bringing to the city some of the most compelling and critically...

Books that are made into films end up fascinating readers and film enthusiasts alike. For the readers, it is a matter of finding out whether the key characters live up to their own visualisation of the roles and the intr...

The announcement that Aamir Khan and Abhishek Bachchan would be spending several months in Chicago for the filming of their upcoming Bollywood production generated the kind of local-interest attention that major film sho...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone would be honoured with the biennial Smita Patil Memorial Award instituted by Priyadarshni Academy for her contribution to the film industry. The award would be presented to her at the 28t...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

When Oprah Winfrey visited India in 2012 and aired an episode of Oprah's Next Chapter featuring Indian families and culture, the response from many Indians was not the warm reception her producers might have expected — i...

Love stories between directors and actresses is as old as Bollywood. Among the newer lot, Anurag Kashyap fell for and subsequently married his DevD actress Kalki Koechlin. Then there's Sajid Khan and...

Wrestler-turned-actor Dara Singh died at his home in Mumbai, his family said on Thursday. He was 84. The former wrestling champion was battling for his life at the Kokilaben Hospital for the last four days and was shifte...

Having just finished a gruelling outdoor shoot in Istanbul for Race 2, Saif Ali Khan is back in Mumbai, promoting his new film Cocktail and planning his wedding with Kareena Kapoor. Even though Cocktail releases this Fri...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

Esha Deol's mehendi ceremony drew Bollywood's social set to Mumbai for an afternoon of color, tradition, and the particular celebrity culture that surrounds star-family weddings in India. The daughter of veteran actors H...

When Nora Ephron died of leukemia in June 2012 at the age of seventy-one, the tributes that poured in from writers, filmmakers, and readers reflected not just the scale of her achievement — When Harry Met Sally, Sleeples...

The reported détente between Gauri Khan and Priyanka Chopra — following years of tabloid-documented tension stemming from the actress's friendship with Shah Rukh Khan during the filming of Don and its sequel — was the ki...

If grapevine is to be believed, actress Kareena Kapoor is set to tie the knot with her beau Saif Ali Khan soon, but she is mum about it as of now. She dodged questions related to her wedding at an event here Wednesday. A...

It is such a pleasure to be here today. My association with Sanjayji (Sanjay Leela Bhansali) goes back to 'Devdas'. I have interacted with Belaji too. It is such an unusual story. When you think of Shirin and Farhad, you...

Bolly Volley A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views Volume 10, By Arup Raha, Sunday 3-Jun-2012 This edition of Bolly Volley has taken a little longer than usual. The joy of being lazy ma...

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's return to the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012 was her first major international appearance since giving birth to her daughter Aaradhya in November 2011, and it generated, as her Cannes appearanc...

Sridevi's return to Hindi cinema after a fifteen-year absence was one of the most anticipated events in Bollywood in years, and English Vinglish — directed by Gauri Shinde and released in 2012 — vindicated every bit of t...

Subhash K Jha : This show was such a well researched show. I never knew government of India had supported female foeticide once upon a time. It is always hard to make a change especially a change like this because the to...

Relationships involving significant differences in public profile come with their own particular pressures, and the partnership between actress Vidya Balan and UTV Motion Pictures head Siddharth Roy Kapur was, from the o...

Reports circulated that Salman Khan was planning to give Kareena Kapoor a BMW as a gift in gratitude for her item song appearance in Dabangg — a gesture that, if accurate, spoke to the informal and highly personal econom...

Rowdy Rathore, the Bollywood action film starring Akshay Kumar, crossed the 100-crore mark at the box office in its opening week, establishing itself as one of the summer's biggest commercial successes and cementing Prab...

Karisma Kapoor's decision to file for divorce from businessman Sanjay Kapur after nearly nine years of marriage was confirmed in 2014, ending a union that had been reported as troubled for several years and marking a sig...

She famously struggled with her weight during the early years of her fame. But now that Kate Winslet has achieved a figure she is content with, the actress can look back on her most well-known film, Titanic, and smile sm...

The confusion that arises from shared names took an unusual and somewhat charming turn for a Faridabad resident who found himself receiving a steady stream of phone calls intended for Bollywood superstar Katrina Kaif — t...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views by Arup Raha Someone recently asked me which movie I am looking forward to, now that the earlier favorites for the year, Paan Singh Tomar and Kahaa...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

A notable shift occurred in Bollywood's public culture when several prominent stars began speaking openly about health challenges that had previously been kept private — not out of a desire for sympathy, but as part of a...

When Aamir Khan announced he would host Satyamev Jayate — a television program addressing serious social issues including female infanticide, child sexual abuse, honor killings, and discrimination against people with dis...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

Bollywood's Dhoom franchise has built itself into one of Hindi cinema's most reliable commercial properties through a consistent formula: slick production, elaborate action sequences, and the casting of a major star as t...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views by Arup Raha In this edition, I have quite a few recommendations from movies to be released in the next one month or so. Before that, however, let...

Imran Khan—the photographer, not the politician—and actress Kareena Kapoor collaborated on a photo exhibition that turned the professional distance of a film shoot into something more artistically personal, as Khan prese...

Arnold Schwarzenegger's visit to India generated the combination of celebrity excitement and political engagement that his unusual biography—action star, bodybuilder, governor, activist—tends to produce in countries wher...

Veteran playback singer Asha Bhosle will be felicitated with lifetime achievement award at an award ceremony. The 78-year-old singer, who recently entered the Guinness World Records for the most number of single studio r...

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Aamir Khan and his wife Kiran Rao announced the birth of their son Azad, who was born via IVF using a surrogate mother. The disclosure was handled with characteristic thoughtfulness by Khan, who acknowledged the process...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

caption id="attachment_4653" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Retro Reel is a column about movies, but not about the latest box-office releases. There will be aspects of review, but the column is intended more as a...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views By Arup Raha As I start writing this new edition of Bolly Volley trying to recall what I liked and disliked about the two major Bollywood films rel...

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan welcomed their first child, a baby girl, bringing one of Bollywood's most celebrated families cause for widespread celebration. The birth was greeted with enormous public inte...

Dinner with Ehsaan Noorani A dream come true for some of us living on the other side of the globe. Ehsaan was in US on vacation and had done skydiving that day. There was a dinner in the evening at our friend's home and...

Mr Picky Aamir Khan, will for the first time now appear on television on a show about India and its stories. It's a show which will showcase real stories, real lives and real emotions. Commenting on this concept,...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views by Arup Raha Ah, Diwali is less than a week away! It always brings back memories of the days when it was okay to burst a loud...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

Actor-filmmaker Farhan Akhtar was bowled over when superstar Shah Rukh Khan gave him a sneak peek into the 3D trailer of his mega-budget project "RA.One". "@iamsrk showed us two songs and the trailer of 'RA.One' in 3D la...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views Volume 4, By Arup Raha, Thursday8-September-2011 I am ready with a new edition of Bolly Volley (late again!). I know many are eager to watch the ma...

Kareena Kapoor has reaffirmed her place as the numero uno female superstar in the business. Her Bodyguard has taken a historic opening all over and while it is a given that Kareena would be enjoying a Rs. 100 crore super...

Bodyguard has crossed Rs 200 crore at the box office, making Salman Khan's third consecutive blockbuster and cementing what Bollywood commentators are now simply calling the Salman Phenomenon — a run of commercial succes...

Bolly Volley A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views Volume 3, By Arup Raha, Sunday 31-July-2011 Yes, I am late with this edition. After all it has been a busy month for...

Pandit Bhagwat Guruji's stubbornness might cost Riteish Deshmukh and Genelia D'Souza their marriage plans. The Hindu priest insists the lovebirds cannot take saat pheras anytime soon. Apparently, the priest got Genelia m...

The question of whether Bollywood actresses can sustain major careers after having children has been the subject of ongoing industry conversation, and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan's pregnancy has made her an unavoidable case s...

John Abraham confirmed what had been rumored for months when he acknowledged publicly that his long relationship with actress Bipasha Basu had come to an end. The confirmation came without drama or acrimony, framed inste...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views Volume 2, By Arup Raha, Friday...

Be really honest! It doesn't matter whether that makes you look good or bad but be sure that you are honest towards the participants of the show. That's what makes an entertaining show," says Catherine 'Cat' Elizabeth De...

This story bearing all the cliched hallmarks of PR led journalism will have you in splits. It has all the ingredients of a big star - Akshay Kumar - who is very much in touch with his roots. Story touches upon all the ke...

A monthly shower of Bollywood previews, reviews and my unsolicited views by Arup Raha If you believe you are a follower of “Bollywood”, do any of these names ring a bell in your mind - Pawan Kriplani, Shashant Shah, S Ma...

Technology and Modern Life Technology has transformed how we communicate, work, and live. Understanding technology's role in society is essential for the modern world. The Speed of Change Technological change accelerates...

1. The most vivacious: Tanuja and Kajol With a sunshine smile, easy charm and some impressive screen roles, Tanuja won many hearts and the daughter followed suit. In fact, she went even higher. The most vivacious mother-...

Ram Gopal Varma's public praise for Raveena Tandon—describing her as stunning and suggesting she remained one of Hindi cinema's most underrated presences—revived discussion of an actress whose career had followed an unus...

Suzanne Roshan — wife of Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan — had by 2011 built a design firm, The Charcoal Project, that was establishing itself as a serious player in Mumbai's luxury interior design market rather than a cel...

Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan appearing together in a Tanishq jewelry advertisement was the kind of casting decision that understood precisely what it was selling: not just gold and diamonds, but the idea of a marri...

Saif Ali Khan's contention that Bollywood has evolved into a genuinely self-sufficient creative ecosystem—no longer dependent on Hollywood for narrative inspiration, technical standards, or cultural validation—reflects a...

Madhuri Dixit's return to public life in 2011 — after several years away from film following her marriage to cardiologist Sriram Nene and life in the United States — took an unexpected form: a commercial association with...

Abhishek Bachchan's preparation for Dhoom 3 — the third installment of Yash Raj Films' action franchise — involved a physical transformation that the actor discussed publicly with a degree of candor that was somewhat unu...

Anil Kapoor is irritated with people making castles in the air about the sequel to his 1987 sci-fi hit " Mr. India" and says rather than talking, we should start the project. "We have all been talking about it and I thin...

Income tax officials are conducting raids at residences of Bollywood actresses Priyanka Chopra and Katrina Kaif, TV channels reported on Monday. The income tax sleuths reached the residences of Katrina and Priyanka at 7:...

All that buzz about Krrish 3 was right, the movie will roll early next year and Priyanka Chopra will be seen opposite Hrithik Roshan once again. Though there were rumours that the actress is not being considered for the...

Bollywood's two most bankable leading ladies of the era went to verbal war in late 2010 over of all things, their accents — a spat that generated enormous tabloid coverage and offered an inadvertent window into the indus...

Bollywood's box office wars rarely produce moments of genuine wit, but Salman Khan delivered one in late 2010 when he quipped, with characteristic bluntness, that "not even a macchhar went to watch Guzaarish" — a comment...

Filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, often accused of making overtly flamboyant and whimsical movies, says his films create the world he lives in and are about crossing the boundaries of mainstream cinema. 'Guzaarish', his l...

The morning routine interview is a durable magazine genre that simultaneously flatters the subject, provides nominally useful lifestyle content, and perpetuates a specific mythology about the relationship between morning...

Bollywood's satirical comedies rarely punch at the full weight of their premise, but Phas Gaye Re Obama — released in late 2010 — was a film that genuinely surprised critics expecting another formulaic romp. The movie, d...

He is the veteran 'Showman' of Bollywood but Subhash Ghai is taking a sabbatical from showbiz and will make his return to direction post the break. Ghai said that he will be on an extended holiday for a year and hopes to...

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Guzaarish, released in November 2010, was the kind of film that generates the peculiar critical position of being praised for its intentions and ambition even by reviewers who found its execution...

Shah Rukh Khan's film Ra.One, released in October 2011, arrived with the weight of expectation that attaches to a production on which the scale of ambition and the scale of marketing expenditure both broke records for Bo...

Katrina Kaif has always been known for her toned physique, but for her role in the upcoming comedy Tees Maar Khan, the actress reportedly pushed herself to reach size zero — the ultra-slim body standard that had already...

The unwritten laws governing wedding guest attire have generated enough social friction over the centuries to fill etiquette manuals, relationship advice columns, and the occasional genuine family rupture. Among the most...

Bollywood's complicated relationship with depictions of male behavior toward women found its way into tabloid coverage in November 2010 when reports circulated of a confrontation at a Mumbai nightclub in which a young wo...