Art & Culture

After the Cinema of Disgust

K Hariharan

A close reading of the renegade New Wave of Tamil Cinema

The witch and the spirits she has known

Aastha Atray Banan

Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, who claims to be a witch, has written her third book. Supernatural beings, she maintains, are all around us

A Lost Idyll

Gitanjali Kolanad

In its almost 80 years of existence, Chennai’s Kalakshetra has become more about preservation than innovation. The appointment of a new director may breathe new life into this once-revolutionary institution

Crime or Punishment?

Aastha Atray Banan

Sony TV’s Crime Patrol Dastak has a loyal following. But while some viewers find the show useful, others say it has made them paranoid

The Scars of Your Love

Aanchal Bansal

The woes of those who want to erase from their bodies inky tributes to people they once vowed to love forever

High Culture, High Definition

Bhairavi Jhaveri

The National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai has begun screening recordings of inaccessible international performances of opera and ballet, using technology to give a lift to the city’s cultural calendar

Your Impermanent Collection

Anil Budur Lulla

A Bangalore-based start-up allows art aficionados of modest means to rent works of art rather than buy them

Chicks and Licks

Aastha Atray Banan

Mumbai-based cover band The Other People pull consistently large crowds of all ages at their monthly live gigs

Conflict photographer

Ronny Sen

Alain Buu speaks about his obsession with capturing war, and why even being imprisoned and tortured in Abu Ghraib after being mistaken for a spy could not keep him away from it for long