Retroscope
Retroscope

The Revolutionary

Khalid Mohamed looks back at the film legacy of the Bengal auteur, on the day of Mrinal Sen’s 97th birth anniversary today. There’s a rare film, which arouses you...

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Retroscope

Across the Border: Mammo

Khalid Mohamed recalls how he wrote the real-life story and screenplay of the National Award-winning film, Mammo, now accessible on YouTube and streaming on Amazon Prime Video...

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We were the Cathedral School boys, the Cats

What it meant to be a ‘Cat’ during the swinging 1960s at the premier school of Mumbai, India? Take that, Campionites! Now, I wouldn’t be making news if I we...

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CAMPION TALES OF OLD BOMBAY

Producer, Director and Actor Rajiv Kapoor, shared this precious piece written by his school mate John Mani, with me on Whatsapp last night and I publish it here in The Daily E...

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Retroscope

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Genius replayed on a Mega-Monsoon Day in Mumbai

No reason, no occasion for a replay today except maybe the fact that it’s just another mega-monsoon day. And I’m anxiously searching for music to go with the rhyth...

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Lights Still On: Portrait of a 70-year-old Photo Studio where once Bollywood’s Legendary Stars Shone Bright

 The incalculable number of photographs – running into crores – of vintage Hindi cinema’s charismatic actors and film classics have vanished into thin a...

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Bareilly Kaifiyat that throbs in the Bone, Pulse and Heartbeat of a Doctor: Dr Brijeshwar Singh

On April 24 2016 while being car-driven from Delhi to Bareilly I was already in Bareilly Kaifiyat (State of Mind). Driver Roop Singh was an expert on the wheels and a fabulous...

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Piya Ka Ghar – Days of the Future Past

We called him just Chatterjee. The only pragmatic answer to avoid a comedy of errors was to address him simply by the surname! Chatterjee. Suddenly there were two Basus -Ba...

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Bioscopewala

Call him the Kabuliwala or Bioscopewala, that image of a tainted outsider waiting to commit dastardly crimes against children is common to all cultures. The perpetrator howeve...

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Google @ my First Address in Life and its Fruity Lychee taste: MUZAFFARPUR

I have changed many addresses in life as an itinerant. When I click life@57, it is my first address in life and its smell, taste, sight and sound that surfaces from the cradle...

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RETROSCOPE: THE FLAME THAT STILL BURNS

When Smita Patil Breathed Her Last On The Midnight Of December 13, 1986, The World Of Ci...

December 13 2025

MOVIES: A STARK MIRROR OF EXPLOITATION

In this powerful review, critic Utpal Datta examines The Untold Agony, revealing how Jay...

December 12 2025

ALTERNATIVE ENTERTAINMENT: TALE OF A CRIME THAT CUTS DEEP

A gripping Saudi thriller that uses the framework of a desert murder mystery to expose t...

December 11 2025