Category Archives: Odds and Ends

At work and play in Vidyanagar

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I’ve received a couple of e-mails over the past ten days: am I well? Is everything all right? (These from fellow bloggers whose blogs I frequent). I had to tell them: I was travelling and the net connection was somewhat dodgy. Besides, I was very busy. I often got only about half an hour to check my e-mail and catch up with what was going on at my blog.

To explain: I was at a writer’s conclave. The JSW Group, in partnership with The Hindu, played host to nine writers, including yours truly, for ten days, for a conclave named The Spaces Between Words.

We stayed at JSW’s very own guest house, Hampi House, at Vidyanagar, one of the townships that JSW has built around its steel plant in Karnataka’s Bellary district. Most of our writing was done at the nearby Kaladham, a lovely space just five minutes’ leisurely stroll from Hampi House.

Kaladham.

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Pesh Hai: The Muslim Social—Random Thoughts

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Including some recommendations, and some warnings.

This post was sparked off by a comment, by blog reader and fellow blogger Ava, on my review of the Sunil Dutt-Meena Kumari starrer, Ghazal. Like me, Ava ‘adores’ Muslim socials, and in her comment, suggested that I make a list of ten of my favourite Muslim socials. A great suggestion, I thought. And then thought some more. Were there ten Muslim socials I loved to bits? Were there some which were fabulous when it came to certain aspects, and horrendous on other counts? Were there some, perhaps, that I wouldn’t watch again (except possibly at gunpoint)?

All that thinking, I decided, had to be shared. Also in the hope that it might elicit some responses from those reading this blog post—please do comment, share your thoughts, and feel free to disagree. With the tameez and tehzeeb one would expect in a Muslim social.

Meena Kumari as Naaz in Ghazal

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Book Review: Meghnad Desai’s ‘Pakeezah: An Ode to a Bygone World’

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When I posted my review of Pakeezah last week, I mentioned that I’d be posting something further about Pakeezah. This is it, and the reason why I rewatched Pakeezah in the first place: I wanted to see, once again, the nuances of the film, before I got around to reading Meghnad Desai’s Pakeezah: An Ode to a Bygone World (Harper Collins; 2013; ISBN: 978-93-5029-369-0; 152 pages; Rs 250).

Book cover: Meghnad Desai's Pakeezah: An Ode to a Bygone World Continue reading →

The funny side of blogging

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I’ve been blogging for more than five years now, and over the years, I’ve discovered a lot of things that make me want to continue. One is the enthusiasm and support of readers. Another is the vast amount of knowledge I’ve gained, simply by blogging and watching so much cinema—a lot of which I’d probably never have seen otherwise.

And, there’s the laughter one gets out of logging into my blog’s dashboard and checking out the day’s stats. WordPress has a fairly comprehensive statistics page, with detailed information on stuff like how many views my blog got, which have been the most popular pages and the most popular posts, who comments the most on my blog—and, the icing on the cake—the web searches that bring visitors to Dusted Off. Most of these are fairly innocuous: o p nayyar songs list, madhubalasongs, humraaz, and so on. Fairly predictable search terms to arrive at Dusted Off.

Occasionally, however, there are absolute gems, stuff that makes me laugh. For instance, on November 10, 2013, according to my stats page, someone arrived at Dusted Off using the search term song tum mere paas aa naa shaky video.

Let's shake! Continue reading →

There you are!: The ‘lost and found’ trope in Hindi cinema

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I suppose I should have dedicated this blog post to fellow blogger Anu Warrier, since the uncanny coincidences that dog our two respective lives and blogs seem straight out of a Hindi masala flick. There is also the fact that Anu and I got slightly acquainted with each other online years ago, then lost touch—until ‘meeting’ again on a film blog a couple of years ago, and realising that yes, this was the same person.

But no, this post is dedicated not to Anu, but to Sidharth Bhatia, whose delightful book Amar Akbar Anthony: Masala, Madness and Manmohan Desai, I’ve been reading.  Here, by the way, is my review of Sidharth’s book—if you like Amar Akbar Anthony (and I, despite my love for 50s and 60s cinema, have to admit that I do, wholeheartedly), do get hold of Sidharth’s book. It’s a very satisfying read.

Sidharth Bhatia's book: Amar Akbar Anthony: Masala, Madness, and Manmohan Desai Continue reading →

Random thoughts on lives, deaths, and tributes

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This was not the post I had intended for this week. As a matter of fact, I had not given any thought to what I’d write about, but I had imagined it would be something light-hearted (perhaps a song list I’ve been working on for a while). Something, definitely, cheerful—to help me get over the sadness of one of my favourite actresses having passed away. Something too, to build up the spirit of good cheer for Christmas.

Instead, I began the week by learning that another favourite actress of mine, Joan Fontaine, award-winning lead of Hitchcock’s Suspicion (and the female star of his superb Rebecca), had passed away, at the age of 96, on the 15th of December. Just a day after the death of another legendary star, Peter O’Toole, the Lawrence of Arabia (which I heard about only on the 16th, as it happened).

Joan Fontaine in Rebecca
Peter O'Toole in The Night of the Generals

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