What Ed Sheeran’s “Sapphire” gets right about representing India
From Coldplay’s misguided “Hymn for the Weekend” to Ed Sheeran’s collaborative “Sapphire,” Akankshya Abismruta celebrates a new kind of cultural synthesis between the West and the East.
Heroes and “Heroes”: AK VS AK and the blossoming of Meta-Cinema in Bollywood
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
Personal Essay by Prachi Sharma: ‘My father pauses in every retelling of this tale. He wants me to see it. A man in the uniform of an Indian working for the English, in a village courtyard in the late 1920s, his face turning to one side from the force of an open palm. The villagers watching. The Daroga’s hand going to his cheek. A pigeon somewhere on the roof, taking off.’