|
Finally, children’s films
come of age
Aradhika Sharma
 Directors and storytellers have become progressively conscious of the world as the kids view it. The result has been a slew of wonderful movies, the latest offering being
Hawaa Hawaai. We look at how children’s films are no longer peripheral to mainstream cinema
Children
have, until recently, barring few films, been largely peripheral in
Hindi cinema. Films have either had them in small roles where they
complete a family or treated them as cute appendages. Thankfully, over the
past few years, things have changed, with kids getting increasing
recognition in TV and in cinema. Children, in such films define the
world that they inhabit, rather than an adult (far away from the
realities of the child) trying to describe it for the audience.
Arts
Voice of art
Surekha Kadapa-Bose
Artists, whose abstract works fetch crores in the international art market, do not have many takers in their homeland
The
followers of abstract art believe it to be representational expression
rather than photographic one. A picture, before being an elephant, a
nude, a landscape or anything else is essentially a flat surface
covered with colours assembled in a certain order. Like music with
sounds, bereft of words, which breaks the rules of academic painting,
and focuses on visual effects instead of details.
Broad brush
Environment
Keeping space for good health
Meena Sehgal
It is time to build cities that recognise the need to provide its citizens healthy surroundings and reduce the risk of diseases
Obesity is now being
recognised as a major health problem in both developed and developing
countries. Is it a result of only gorging of high calorie food? Could
our cities with disappearing sidewalks and manicured parks have a role
to play? Is this an emerging public health problem looming large?
Gasping for breath in urban jungles
Air pollution is associated with an increased risk of acute respiratory infections and decreased lung function
Dr Amit Kumar Mandal
Indian cities are growing
rapidly, owing to the expanding economic base. This has led to an
increase in the ownership and use of motor vehicles with a subsequent
rise in the levels of air pollution. Exposure to air pollutants is
known to be harmful to health, in general, and to the lungs, in
particular.
SOCIETY
The ultimate liberator
Nirupama Dutt
Baba Bulleh Shah has remained on the top of the charts of Punjab Sufis. A peep into the growing interest in his life and poetry in the present times
Punjabi poets such as Bulleh
Shah have also challenged orthodoxy and I wonder what would have
happened had Bulleh Shah been alive today? Would mobs attack him also?
This was the question Raza Rumi, Paksitani policy analyst and
columnist, had asked in his column some time ago. And last April Rumi
Raza was shot at by a separatist terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jahangvi in
Lahore but he was saved as he ducked in his car but his 25-year-old
driver did not and died with eleven bullets in his young body.
Soul talk
Women
in relationships ignore other men
Personal
Relationships, journal of
International Association for Relationship Research, has published a
new research that states that women in serious relationships tend not
to pay attention to other attractive men. They tend to focus more on
the negative traits of men they would be otherwise interested in, were
they not seriously involved with another. In the series of three
experiments, the first two asked women to recall traits of
good-looking men who were potential suitors.
TRAVEL
The road to eternity
Tanushree Podder
The Great Ocean Road, along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and
Allansford, is the world's longest war memorial and a beautiful scenic drive.
Globetrotting
Entertainment
Cannes sets the pace
Saibal Chatterjee
The buzz generated at the world’s premier film festival goes a long way in giving a new movie both prestige and longevity
The Palme d'Or may be one of
most coveted prizes in world cinema, but it certainly isn't the only
reward that titles playing in the glitzy and glamour-filled Cannes
Film Festival are after. When a film in Competition or Un Certain
Regard generates buzz on the palm-shaded promenade around which all
the Cannes action occurs, it provides it a headstart, the spin-offs
from which last the entire year and beyond. New discoveries are made,
already formidable reputations are further strengthened and some films
gather enough critical steam on its premiere here to be talked of as
likely Oscar contenders and as festival favourites for the next few
months.
“I believe in giving 200 per cent to each role”
Nonika Singh
Rajkummar Rao has come a long way since his debut in
Love Sex aur Dhokha. The National Award-winning actor of critically acclaimed films like
Kai Po Che and Shahid hopes to wow once again with his latest
film CityLights
|
