Desis.Live Weekly Bollywood Show: Recent Episodes
Desis.Live
Here it is! The last episode of this season. Today apart from Antara's dream featuring #AkshayKumar chasing her, we also review #shahrukhkhan's #dunki promoting open borders, #nimratkaur's #sajinishindekaviralvideo on @netflix, #siddhantchaturvedi, #ananyapandey and #gouravadarsh's #khogayehumkahan and the #KooseMunisamyVeerappan on @zee5global.
We wish you a very happy new year and happy holidays!
Download the podcast at https://buff.ly/43Apfx8
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Absolute fire content this week. Joram featuring #ManojBajpayee was riveting, gripping, and a movie that deserves an audience.
MohitRaina's #thefreelancer season 2 was a gripping finish to #Neerajpanday's espionage thriller. Well done. Streams on @hulu and #hotstar
Enjoy our chatter this week.
Love
Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week we speak about Pankaj Tripathi's #kadaksingh where a veteran detective loses his memories and tries to piece them back with the help of other people's narratives on @zee5global. #ZoyaAkhtar's #thearchies on @netflix was fun and class - yet the actors got trolled due to their acting skills. Our take on it.
Toodles till next time.
Love
Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Two big Bollywood stars and two very different movies that released on the same day.
RanbirKapoor's #Animal and #VickyKaushal's #SamBahadur were variedly different not only in tone but format as well.
Which one won our vote? Listen in.
Download all podcast episodes at desis.live/podcasts
Love,
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week- just one movie. But #ShilpaShetty's #Sukhee rocked. Much to the dismay of her husband, a middle-class housewife, known for her rebellious attitude in high school, decides to attend her class reunion. How does the wild child in her bounce back?
We had fun watching it
On Netflix.
Enjoy our take
Love
Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Tiger is back and this time he bites off the Pakistani patriotism train. In the number 3 sequel, #Tiger does international espionage with Zoya and lands in Pakistan to save their democracy. Hurrah to that. Is in theaters.
R Balki's #Ghoomer is a delightful film of resilience and hope. Watch it on #Zee5global.
And Amazon #PrimeVideo's #Pippa is how war movies should be made. Ishaan Khattar shines.
Hope y'all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Just Aarya this week.
Sushmita Sen essays the epic transformation from Mommy to Mobster in the three seasons of this story based onthe Dutch drama series Penoza.
Continuing into this season, she is badass even in a narrative that is now getting a bit stretched.
On Disney Hotstar and Hulu
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Yeah
We even reviewed Karan Johar's goss show #koffeewithkaran, cuz we are such gossips ourselves.
We also speak about #kanganaranaut's self-absorbed #tejas, #vikrantmassey's epic #12thFail and #gulshandeviah's #duranga2 on #zee5global
Enjoy our fun gossip show. And don't forget to share your thoughts.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Oh boy,
What it meant to watch this movie - the pain and the suffering.
Let us tell you about the agony we went through.
In this podcast - only #ganapath could inflict it.
download at desis.live/podcasts
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week is short and sweet and you have Tapsee Pannu produced #DhakDhak in theaters.
Four women from as stark backgrounds as possible ride bikes from Delhi to Leh and change the way they think about their lives.
Adventures are life's pivots. hah.
And then we enjoyed #sultanofdelhi on #hotstar #hulu - the period crime thriller with Tahir Raj Bhasin in another spectacular performance.
Enjoy our banter
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week in Pod, Khufiya was a spy universe that didn't feel spyish- except Tabu. What a beaut.
Country of Blind was a great attempt despite its low budget and limited resources and Mohit Raina comes back with another season of Mumbai Diaries facing a lot of media drama and Mumbai rains.
Catch our banter and more.
Let us know how you like our cast
Love
Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week, we cover two movies and two shows.
Fukrey3 was a damp squib. yes. Even Choocha can fall flat. Argh. What a disappointment.
hotstar's #tumsenahopayega sold old startup models in 2023. Crossing the chasm but a couple of decades late.
VishalBhardwaj's #charliechopra, an Agatha Christie adaptation, was an intriguing watch. We highly recommend this show on #sonyLIV.
netflix's #choona is proof that #JimmyShergill is a class actor. More of him, please. As for #choona - damn so convoluted.
Have fun while we binge
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Three movies, three different genres. From the societal commentary of a son of a hindu priest who was born a Muslim in #TheGreatIndianFamily, to a murder mystery based on a book by Japanese mystery writer Keigo Higashino called #SuspectX or (#jaanejaan); to a mindless blood and gore Rajnikanth style story in #Jailer; this week was interesting to cover.
Hear it all from Team Desis
Love y'all
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Two great series this week. Kaala on Hotstar/ Hulu is a delight to watch, especially with its engaging screenplay, actors, screenplay and surprises. Avinash Tiwary shines.
Another series where he shines is Bambai Meri Jaan on Prime Video, where along with K K Menon he chronicles the life of gangster Dara Kadri through the eyes of his father, an ex-cop, Ismail Kadri
Get our review on all pod platforms.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
When we say Shahrukh Khan, you bow.
That's how much of fangirls we are and not afraid to show.
It was an SRK fest for us with Jawan. So much so that we couldn't stop podcasting about it.
We literally had to rein it in.
Listen on.
Love
Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Woah!
What a week it was. Firstly, we are both traveling, and in between all the time zones, we managed to watch, review, and bring this to you
Friday Night Plan on @netflix was sooooooo coool. I loved the simple movie with no specific agenda, and Babil Khan shines through and through.
Freelancer on @hulu / Hotstar was intense - with only four episodes released so far- we are looking forward to continuing the story of how a girl called Aliya gets kidnapped to be trained by ISIS in Syria by her own husband's brainwashed family.
Hansal Mehta strikes hard with another series that hits it out of the park. With intense storytelling and a lead actor who makes us believe he is real- Scam 2003- The Telgi Story is a series to watch despite the snafus on SonyLiv's Sling channel with episodes.
So - here it is - enjoy our podcast this week.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Ayushmann Khurrana is back with Dream Girl 2 and boy is he the Pooja of our lives.
While the movie carries on with the jokes from its last rendition, Ayushmann is a treat to watch.
What Ananya is doing in the movie is not known as we could not figure out what was more wooden- the table or her expression.
Ouch.
No seriously.
Dream Girl 2 is in theaters.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Have you watched "Guns and Gulaabs" on Netflix yet?
We suggest that you take time to watch this quirky crime drama with eclectic performances from Raj Kummar Rao, Dulquer Salman and Adarsh Gorav.
What an ensemble cast.
Recommended.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
A long pod this week and we got to cover Three movies and two series that hit the waves.
Gadar 2 was not required but it seems people wanted to see SunnyDeol so bad that the movie made over 20crs in the first few days of its release. OMG2 is a beauty. Watch it. Billions is back and so is Axe and we are so excited about that. Alia Bhatt's Hollywood debut on Netflix is called Heart of Stone and has her in all of ten minutes while trying to establish Gal Gadot as the female answer to Tom Cruise.
Made in Heaven 2 is good writing and that's one series we thoroughly enjoyed watching. On Prime.
Grad this pod anywhere in the world you get PODs or at desis.live/podcasts
Love y'all
Antara and Mira
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
We are back with a long list of reviews this week. Starting with Jackie Chan, John Cena's #HiddenStrike on Netflix- anything with Jackie Chan in it - is never a waste.
Rushi Kota brings an Indian flavor to Hallmark as his kurta replaces the quintessential flannel in #MakeMeAMatch. Hotstar's #Dayaa is interesting in its intersection of crime, politics, and media. The story to remember this week however is the docuseries #thehuntforveerappan on #netflix.
Listen to us here.
More next week
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
One movie was released this week.
You heard that right. It seems everyone else moved their releases because the uninitiated King of Hindi Filmmaking KJo wanted to release his magnum opus after 25 long years.
And guess what - he seems to have lost the plot.
By a huge margin.
Listen to us break that down.
You can download our pod everywhere you get your pod.
More next week.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
The famous Barbhiemer weekend and we got all the moves for you.
For once, #Barbie and #Oppenheimer show us why going to the movies is such a treat. The reason we go to movies is to watch magnificent stories being told.
Hotstar Special, The Trial, an adaptation of Alicia Florrick's The Good Wife was not quite where it needed to hit. Streams on Hulu
When it comes to Bawaal, the less we say the better about this Varun Dhawan and Janhvi Kapoor the better. Skip it.
That's it for the week.
We will see you rocking next week again.
Till then.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola y'all
This week we got a review for the movie of the year- the movie you should only watch in theaters and marvel about - and that is Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible. Have to tell you, Mr. Cruise is the reason why we should watch it in theaters.
Another great series this week was Barun Sobti's Kohraa on #Netflix. This actor has come a long way and he proves it unequivocally.
Enjoy our show this week.
More soon
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week was a mixed bag of reviews. Adam Sandler's slapstick movie #TheOutlaws with Pierce Brosnan, Adam Devine, and our own Poorna Jaganathan was - well Sandlered. On Netflix.
Tarla Dalal's biopic highlights her life on Zee5 Global's movie #Tarla and a horror show that asks you the quintessential question " Are you afraid of ghosts " in #Adhura starring Rasika Dugal and Ishwak Singh on Prime Video.
Hope you are having a wild week otherwise.
Download on our website or everywhere you get your POD.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
How was the 4th?
We spend a lot of time watching shows and movies the weekend and wanted to tell you what we felt about them.
Starting with #thenightmanager on @hulu @disneyplushotstar, Anil Kapoor is a force to reckon with.
#LustStories2 on Netflix is a mixed bag. Check Konkana Sen Sharma's lust story ft Tilotama Shome and Amruta Subash.
In #Afwaah on Netflix, Sudhir Mishra brings brilliant storytelling with Bhumi Pednekar and Nawazuddin Sidiqui.And Idris Elba proves he must be the next Bond in Appletv's #hijack.This and more in our pod this week.
Seeya next week
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
We started the week with Social Currency on Netflix where we struggled to keep our sanity, Kafas on SonyLiv was hard to watch yet gripping. Kangana Ranaut's Tiku Weds Sheru on Netflix was weirdly unsatisfying and World's Best on Disney was a joy to watch.
This was our week. How was yours?
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week we loved Chris Hemsworth in an action movie worth all the eyeballs it can get in Extraction 2 on Netflix. Black Mirror, in its Sixth Season mind- twisted its way into our lives with possibilities—streams on Netflix.
Adipurush - the adaptation of the Hindu Mythology story of Lord Rama made waves but with memes. Hear what we thought.
Prime Video's Jee Karda is a story we want to find out why was told. Zee5 Global's Tamilarasan is old wine but not even in a new bottle.
Download our POD anywhere you get your podcast.
Love,
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
We had a lot of fun reviewing for you this week because firstly, it was the holy moly everyones fav spidey on big screen and there was not just one of him. The new Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse movie is a must-see. Our fav desi trainwreck is back in her finale season of Never Have I Ever and we absolutely loved it. Don't miss the saami saami song.
Shahid Kapoor in Bloody Daddy is a remix of Kabir Singh and Sunny but we did love it even though it missed some gloss.
That's it this week from us at Team Desis.
See you next week
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Peeps,
This week was a fun watch. Vicky Kaushal/Sara Ali Khan's Zara Hatke, Zara Bachke was fun to start with - and then it fell into senti mentis.
Argh. Hate it when fun flies.
Hansal Mehta's Scoop, on Netflix, is a must-watch. Highly recommended.
And School of Lies on Hotstar is a psychological thriller we had been waiting for.
Listen to our pod and tell us what you thought.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
If you haven't downloaded our podcast yet, what are you waiting for?
Every week we work hard to watch whatever you might have ended up watching - had it not been for us warning you.
Such social service.
This week, it is movie vs Manoj Bajpayee for Zee5Global's Sirf Ek Banda Kaafi Hai, Yes, this man is enough for a win at the movies.
Gerald Butler, Ali Fazal's Kandahar was CIA Middle East dossier. Fun Fun.
City of Dreams 3 continues with the political saga from Poornima Gaekwad the CM of Maharashtra. and Arnold Schwarzenegger in #fubar reminds us of #truelies but with a tinge of #mrandmrssmith
Enjoy the POD this week
]We will be BACK
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Peeps,
Back with another episode of #redwhiteandbrown from #desislive. This week we talk about Zarna Garg's One in a Billion, a comedy special on Prime Video, Modern Love Chennai - also on Prime, fails to impress like its other versions.
However, Netflix's Kathal was a wonderful surprise. This Sanya Malhotra, Vijay Raaz starrer is a joy to watch.
Navdeep Khurmi's Land of Gold is another winner on HBO Max. The Story of immigrant trauma and societal pressures is a well-told emotion.
Enjoy our POD
DesisLive
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Peeps,
This week was busy with two series that we reviewed.
Starting with Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti's Dahaad, we were enthralled by the storytelling and actors ( Sonakshi Sinha, Vijay Verma) that portrayed these complex characters and issues on screen. This one is a gem on Amazon Prime.
In its second season, Taj: Divided by Blood is a watch. Streaming on Zee5Global, this second season is bloody, gory, and quite a fight fest, but definitely a good watch.
Hear it all here with Desis. Live's Red, White and Brown.
Catch y'all soon.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week, it is a feisty Dimple Kapadia in Hotstar's Saas Bahu aur Flamingo. What a feast to see this cocaine queen.
We also reviewed a disastrous Rom with Priyanka Chopra in its lead; what a massive disappointment Love Always was.
In theaters,
Hear our weekly review here and on every pod platform you can think of.
Later
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week we got a horror thriller called U-Turn, a remake of a Telugu movie by the same name on Zee5 - was it the one we deserved? Listen on.
We also got the sexy decibel minus 70 Mrs. Chopra Jonas in Citadel with an absolute disaster of a start. Streams on Prime Video.
The one for this week was undoubtedly Shekhar Kapur's What's love got to do with it - a desi rom-com we had been waiting for.
Enjoy our chatter for the week, and we will see you next week with more
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Full Paisa Vasool Podcast
We bring that to you as we review Salman Khan's muscle-ripping Kisi Ka Bhai, Kisi Ki Jaan and celebrate the Salmanists in our midst.
After that, we reviewed Fawad Khan's Money Back Guarantee, which did not guarantee our money back forsho'. Netflix's vampire loves dentist saga Toothpari bites more than it can chew, and Sima Aunty has yet another unsuccessful season matching people at Indian Matchmaking on Netflix.
Grab our Podisode.
Lots of Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Another POD day
Hear our review of Radhika Apte's housewife spy movie Mrs Undercover that streams on Zee5Global. Just a notch up from Real Housewives. No Jazz tho'.
We then take a trip around the world with Jeremy Renner in his series Rennervations on Disney + and Hotstar/ Hulu where he and his team of celeb friends convert vehicles into social support projects.
The quirky, Obsession is a series follow up to a sixty shadeseque story of a surgeon's obsession with his son's fiance. On Netflix
Enjoy
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week, we got two movies and two shows for you. Aditya Hot Bod Kapur's Gumraah is all about him (Actually two of him)- he rocked.
Movie? Not so much.
Vanshika loved Jubilee. Watch it on Amazon Prime and relive an era gone by. She is also worried about why Rahul Talks to people. We wonder why he does it too.
Pakistan's Oscar entry Joyland is a joy in cinema about societal suppression. Feel bumps. We did.
Listen to all our reviews here and everywhere in the world you get your POD.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hello Hello
Back with our reviews this week and lot of fun goss at it.
Antara, Vanshika, Manushi and Mira review the not so funny United Kacche on Zee5, Ajay Devgn's Bholaa's was a remake done right but didn't hit a note.
Sara Ali Khan's desperate Gaslight was - well gaslight on hotstar and hulu. Netflix's Murder Mystery 2 effed up the Indian wedding fun.
More with us on desis.live/podcasts.
Have fun!!
More next week.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hellow Hellow
We have an explosive episode this week. And it seems to be a Kunal Kemmu week with one movie and a show releasing the same day!
Both prove what an understated actor he is and how much more he deserves than what he gets.
In Kanjoos Makhichoos he is a kanjoos guy who cuts corners and in Pop Kaun a guy trying to figure who his real father is. Excels at both.
Yami Gautam and Sunny Kaushal's Chor Nikal Ke Bhaga is a heist on a plane and Anubhav Sinha's Bheed deserves all the accolades it must get.
Enjoy our banter this week.
We love y'all
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
yes yes yes, we are late this week but that is because of a slight change in our programming. We now will give you our review not one week late but just in time for the releases.
With that, this week - lets talk about Mrs Chatterjee v Norway that was a hard hitter by Rani Mukherjee in theaters. We will also introduce you to Sagarika Chakraborty later this week - who is the real life Mrs Chatterjee. Hear her story in our interview with her.
Rocket Boys 2 on Sony Liv was one of the most fab series in its second season and The Storied Life of Aj Fikry was very disappointing. Wish we could have stayed at the level Novel.
For now- listen to us.
Love
Antara, Manu and Miraal, Supriya
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Folks,
A bit more of a multi-lingual podcast. Lots of Hindi and equal amounts of fun and frolick.
Antara and Manushi are on a roll this week on our POD while they review #RanbirKapoor's #tujhoothimainmakkaar in theaters, #ranadugabatti's #rananaidu which is a remake of Liev Schrieber's #RayDonovan on #netflix and a real clean comedy in #ratnapathakshah's #Happyfamilyconditionsapply on #Sonyliv.
Enjoy our chatter and tell us how you found these titles.
We love y'all
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Hola
We are back with another episode of our pod that you so love. We banter about a series and two movies this week.
Taj:Divided by Blood starts with the story of Emperor Akbar but settles at Anarkali Lite. Streams on Zee5.
Gulmohar is a stack of spectacular performances. Good watch on Hotstar/ hulu as you enjoy Sharmila Tagore, Manoj Bajpayee spin a weave.
The tamil version of The Great Indian kitchen is compelling even when not as good as the Malayalam one.
Enjoy this dope episode.
See you next week
We love you
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Akshay Kumar is back with another bad movie. Yaas besties, it is a real bad copy of the Prithviraj Sukumaran's OG. Why Selfiee was made ? No clue.
We also reviewed Sonyliv's Potluck and it was a really uncomplicated, simple story. We recommend for light watch binge.
Academy nominated The Elephant whisperer was a watch for sure. A docuseries that documents a family who are dedicated to elephant conservation is a heart tugging story for sure.
Enjoy our POD and download it wherever you get your casts.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hello Hello Besties,
This week we present to you nostalgia in the form of #theromantics - the docuseries on #netflix that made all our growing up years so worth the exhilaration.
adityaroykapur is hot as hell in #thenightmanager's Indian adaptation on #hulu #hotstar. #yamigautam's #lost on #zee5global is deliberate and precise. Don't miss the handsome #rahulkhanna making yet another impressive presence here. #kartikaaryan's #Shehzada was all him yet slapstick.
Enjoy our episode for this week and let us know what you think.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
And we are back and we are loaded with reviews this week. Starting with #shahidkapur's web debut on #primevideo called #Fakes (#farzi) - it's a masterclass in counterfeiting albeit a bit long.
#anupamkher's #shivshastribalboa is hoot. Watch it for the warm and fuzzy. #Vedha on #zee5 is a watch for its performances. #Michelleyeoh's multi nom'ed #everythingeverywhereallatonce is brilliance in more than just performance but also absurdity. #netflix's #yourplaceormine misses the romcom pre-requisite- chemistry. Cuz lack of physics.
We hope you enjoy this pod like we did producing it for y'all.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Besties !
How was Super Bowl Weekend ? Did you see Rihanna slay? Did you know that her entire stage was built to save the grass.
Now all that hangover is over and we are here to tell you what we thought about last week's releases.
Here goes. Firstly #Faraaz was a masterpiece, Don't miss it. #Class on #Netflix was a great watch as well. We also reviewed #Sonyliv's original #JehanabadofLoveandWar and found it engaging. And master storyteller #MNightShyamalan is back with another bender #knockatthecabin
Listen in and tell us what you thought.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Well well well
It's been quite a week- hasn't it? Did you watch Shahrukh Khan's Pathaan. We did and here is what we have to say about it. We also watched Gandhi Godse Ek Yudh and our thoughts about it are here as well.
Tasha reviewed Dear Ishq and didn't find it too dear. smdh. But she was thoroughly impressed with Sony Liv's Jaanbaaz Hindustan Ke.
Here is our entire pod for the week.
Enjoy!
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Besties!
This week we watched #SiddharthHunkMalhotra's new netflick #MissionMajnu and we were kinda' sad for all the tropes that film makers have to rehashing in the name of patriotism.
Desi and Chill ? Nah.
kungfupanda was super fun - Po does go to India. Also on @netflix. @zee5global's #chhatriwali did not land her umbrella at all.
Very similar to Jan Hit Mein Jaari - the Nushratt Baruccha starrer that took the same story in another form; the movie was a damp squib.
Hope you enjoy our banter nevertheless.
Download anywhere you get your POD.
Love
Us
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Peeps
How's it going? Another weekend and here is your loot for the week. We present the review of #Netflix's #TrialbyFire - the series that follows grief-stricken parents who lost their children in the Uphaar cinema fire as they fight for justice.
We then review #Kuttey, that was no bark, no bite .Bolly-Woof! #Varisu is the son-father - brothers story from the 1990s done again and Netflix's #ThaiMassage wants to tell you that people of all age are allowed to have sexual desires.
Happy listening.
We will catch you next week with more reviews and chatter
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hey Besties,
We are having Hi-cap fun watching and reviewing movies and shows for you so dig in this week's stash.
MumbaiMafia was fun for Michael who always enjoys a good true crime watch. Careful eh?
Tasha loved #Matilda- who didn't tho?
#Hitthesecondcase takes off on another adventure after the First Case. Why not make a series outta it so we can watch hot men for longer?
Just a thought.
Bhuvan Bam's #tazakhabar had Michael split on the rags to riches story.
But here it is - all our chatter for the week.
We love you and you know it
Next week then
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Episode Two of this season. How are all of you? Still hungover?
We are!
But we are also having a lot of fun this winter. Our movie reviews have a new partner in crime . Tasha Randhawa joins our team and she a grad student of films at NYU Tisch. So look out for some savage reviews.
Here is the lost for today. The amazing musical #spirited on #appletv, Vir Das' comedy special on #netflix #landing which was fun according to Michael. Zee5's disaster of a movie #RocketGang and #GurinderChadda's #itsawonderfulafterlife which you may only watch for #SendhilRamamurthy's white toothy smile. He is so hot.
Have fun with our reviews this week!
More soon
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
New Season Y'all.
Team Desis is back with another season of our very hot, fun and sizzling with opinion on toast podcast.
We know you will find it fun to download as you make your way to the gym to shed those extras but let us tell you one BIG Truth.
It does not make a difference to us. We love you anyway!
So this first week of the New Year - how about Cirkus? Naah! IT was bad. Hear what we thought abou this #RanveerSingh flick.
Then there was Mr Hot in #TaraVBilal - yes folks the enigmatic #HarshvardhanRane. Gosh, he is so hot that we couldn't get our eyes off him. The movie is a super fun watch. We recommend.
Pitchers S2 ? Hmmm... Okay but only if you have nothing else to do - the story needs to transition into an Office season - says Michael. Hear that #tvf? #zee5?
#KathmanduConnectionS2 takes off where it ended in S1 but didn't get u gushing.
Watch if you must on #Sonyliv.
That's all from us for the week.
Hope your New Year is everything you wish and hope for.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Peeps,
Here it is the 51st episode this year!! And one more to go!
We present #SanjayMishra and #NeenaGupta's #Vadh which despite its compelling murder plot does not leave us any clues we cannot solve.
Then #Kajol's #SalaamVenky - a very emotional very dramatic tale of a mother and son where they are trying to get him a court order of euthanasia because he is living in pain.#TaapseePannu's #Blurr is another remake - her third this year. Argh.
Sonyliv's #Faadu is a modern love story of how people try to change their stories by changing their circumstances.
Enjoy the pod.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Yes, Yes, Yes -Avatar was a treat! But so so so long that we grew roots under the chairs.
VickyKaushal's #GovindaNaamMera was supposed to be funny but but but... listen up.
IndianPredator's true crime continues.
This is it from us for Season 3.
Season 4 coming soon.
Hear our goss and other updates on #desislive next Season
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola, yes we are late. And that's because some of us were on a shutdown from the mother ship. You know- the mandatory one! Our company believes in all fun work life balance.
But here we are - #Freddy with #KartikAaryan making his way as a psychopath dentist. yeeks. #MadhurBhan darkar's #indialockdown being the story of the pandemic, #AyushmannKhurrana's #AnActionEHro being the surprise comedy we absolutely loved and Netflix's #Qala being a slow burn story of a cruel mother and her super star daughter.
Here it is
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Peeps
We are a tab bit late this week but here is a dope POD waiting for you.
KumailNanjiani's #Welcometohippendales is the story of #SomenBanerjee, the founder of #chippendales. Streams on @hulu.
Bhediya was a hoot but #VarunDhawan's glory was snatched by #AbhishekBanerjee's performance. #TheLastFilmShow was a beaut. India's entry to the #Oscars, this is a story of love for cinema - told so beautifully. Watch it on @netflix.
Then #NeerajPandey's crime thriller series #KhakeeTheBiharStory has 18 sb-plots that we had to brain map to get to watch it. It's on @netflix.
Download our POD wherever in the world you get your POD and we will see you next week.
Love
Team Desis
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Hola,
Back from food coma? We just don't want to.
But here is the dope for this week, albeit a day late.
We start with a pulsating #Dhrishyam2 where performances and story gave us a thrilling high. Get it on your list.
Then Suniel Shetty and Vivek Oberoi's #DharaviBank had great actors and weak storyline. Santa Clauses made way for a Desi Santa replacement. Let's see if that becomes a reality though
Welcome to Monday babies.
Try to keep your eyes open.
Download this pod for help. Anywhere in the world you get a POD or at desis.live/podcast.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week we review the Junior Bachchan series in its season 2 - #BreatheIntotheShadows. Quite a disappointment despite the gripping Season 1. Streams on #primevideo
#Mukhbir was a vibe and an extremely good group of actors carried the story well. Streams on #zee5
#Tanaav was brilliantly woven and we absolutely loved it. Streams on #sonyliv.
#MonicaOMyDarling on #Netflix is a crazy noir whodunnit that we absolutely loved. Don't miss it's sick music by #AchintThakkar and #Unnchai was a perfect #Rajshree comeback for the next gen.
Enjoy our reviews and Dont forget to download it everywhere you get your POD.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Four movies. Yaas people, four.
Here they are,
We love crass slapstick humor so we absoeffingly loved Phone Bhoot and every trope, every bad, lowly joke, every burlywood jibe that they belted out.
Double XL worked contrary to what it was supposed to do. Mili took time to get into the survivor saga and couldn't sustain the tension of the story.
Tadka was dry and even though had potential- dried out too quick.
Enjoy our reviews for the week and do let us know what you think too.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
How's the halloween week been? The holiday season has officially started and we are so excited for the entire slate of movies dropping every week now!
This week we reviewed an ultra nationalistic Akshay Kumar avatar in #RamSetu, a very weird afterlife tale in #ThankGod and a heart breaking story of a lonely Khadoos in #GaliGuleiyan on #amazonprimevideo.
And then ofcourse the third season of #IndianPredator with #MurderintheCourtroom which we thought was the best so far.
Enjoy our reviews this week and let us know what you think.
Download our POD on Apple, Google, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartRadio and everywhere else you get your POD or at desis.live/podcast
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Diwaleees,
Are you having fun this Diwali week? For us the entire months of holidays do start with Diwali and we do everything desi. Start off with eating pani puri !! We love it. Do you?
This week we review two shows and a movie. Four More Shots Please streamed another steamy season on prime video - yes it had more sex and skin, cross pollination and photosynthesis. But did it generate oxygen for another season? Sex and the Cityish plots sell.
We won't be surprised.
In Triplings Season 3 on Zee5, the plot was that of understanding that parents are people too beyond their roles as "parents" and they need to have a life as well.
We actually liked the premise and the actors executed it brilliantly.
Then, Ammu - a movie about a woman in an abusive relationship on prime. A slow burn winner.
This is it from us this week folks.
Eat mithai and save some for us.
This pod is available everywhere in the world you get your pod.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Happy Diwali you guys,
As festivities continue, and the parties become bigger and flashier, here is our episode with some inside on these two movies and shows we reviewed this week.
Doctor G was conscientious for all Ayushmann Khurrana fans, Code Name Tiranga was Parineeti all the way but with a lot of loopholes. Mismatched 2 was fun but did Dimple and Rishi get together? Shantaram was as good as Charles Hunnam's accent.
Here it is. Your podcast.
Have fun with it.
Love
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
This week we got you 2 movies with big stars, a stand-up show, and a series. We start with #AmitabhBachchan's #Goodbye -about an old man trying to cope with the loss of his wife while giving us Bhagbaan-ish vibes. Sigh to this Indian movie's theme of depicting young people who falter to show filial piety as sorta villains.
Then Hasan Minhaj shines in #thekingsjester, and we highly recommend you watch it.
KarmYuddh on @hulu is a thriller with too many plots, and #MadhuriDixit is the end game in #MajaMa which is a story of a housewife coming out on @primevideo.
That's it for the week peeps.
We will be back next week with more reviews so miss us till then!!
Team Desis.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Hola Hola
How's it going? This week we reviewed three movies for y'all.
Starting with a supposed romcom called Plan A Plan B on netflix where neither the characters land nor the story and neither the humor.
Then it was the time for Vikram Vedha, electric with Saif and Hrithik lighting up the screen.
Ponniyin Selvan was a spectacle but seriously needs a history lesson to understand. Only if the makers released a precursory history lesson before the movie.
Here is our review for the week and don't miss downloading it where ever in the world you get your pod at the desislive channel.
Desislive podcast delivers the latest movie and show reviews to your devices. Wherever in the world you are, tune in to desislive.
Big week y'all
We reviewed four titles and had a lot to say about it. Download here our review of Amazon Prime's women's drama Hush Hush where Juhi Chawla dies, and all her close friends are sus.
Then a female club bouncer in nightclubs in Delhi has a realization for her life in Madhur Bhandarkar's Babli Bouncer on Hulu (Hotstar).
A psychopath revenges critics who pull down filmmakers' work in Chup: Revenge of the Artist directed by R Balki and our hunk hot list topper Dulquer Salman rocks.
And Madhavan impresses with Dhoka Round D Corner in a thriller for the edge of the seats.
Download our pod here and everywhere else you get your PODS.
We love you, still
Team Desis
Hola Hola Hola
We are in Fall.
And we are excited because the festival season beckons.
This week, we review for you #Jogi that plays on @netflix- story of the 1984 riots, a movie that's hard to watch. We thought it could have done more.
Then the highly non-KJOish school love story so refreshingly presented #middleclasslove from #RatnaSinha.
And finally, the Hindi horror series done right on @hulu ( #hotstar) called #Dahan that we thoroughly enjoyed.
Check out our banter and we will see you next week with more.
Love
Team Desis.
Hola Fam
Hope y'all are well and feeling the temperature change We are having a ball watching all these movies and shows for you - you can check our enthu count.
Michael watched Brahmastra and didn't like it a lot. We mean, how can a Disney movie fumble on VFX?
The series about the Indian serial Killer on Netflix is pretty gory and decrepit.
And then there is the love story on Hulu about two American Indian twennysomethings in California during COVID called 7 Days- absolute fun.
Don't miss our POD, and catch you guys next week!
Love
Team Desis.
Hey Hey Hey
How's it going? We present our pod for the week with the review of a very disappointing #Cuttputtli from #AkshayKumar- a remake of the Tamil movie #**Ratsasan. Listen to our review as it streams on @hulu #hotstar
TheFabulousLivesofBollywoodWives** continue its spiral into shallower waters. It sprays on #Netflix.
Lastly, #LordoftheRingsRingsofFire comes as an epic for the money Bezos drowned- it looks epic enough. Streams on **#PrimeVideo
Enjoy our banter
Team Desis.**
Hola Peeps
How's the long weekend?
Last week was a joke with Liger showing us Kung Fu panda moves from Vijay Deverakonda. We review the movie.
Then two good series with #ShefaliShah's Emmy-winning series#DelhiCrime season 2 raising the bar for storytelling streaming on #Netflix and #PankajTripathi's #CriminalJustice Season 3 on #HotstaronHulu.
Enjoy our pod and chatter - especially have fun with Michael's review of Liger.
We will catch you next week.
Love
Team Desis.
Hola Fam
How's it going?
This week we are bringing to you the review of #anuragkashyap rendition of Spanish thriller #Mirage in its hindi version #Dobaaraa feat. #TaapseePannu.
We loved it.
And then we also loved #GulshanDevaiah #DhrastiDhami starrer #Duranga that is streaming on #Zee5.
Shriya and Michael speak about how Des memes are infiltrating the internet with his desi momma boy vibes. And what if Ben from Never Have I ever had to ever meet Sima Aunty from Mumbai?
What would happen?
More of our chatter. Download here and everywhere you get a pod.
Love
Team Desis.
Big Movies this week. But both crash burned at the box office. Mainly it reminded us of the lyrics from this epic Icona Pop Ft Charlie XCX song "I Love it"
I'm in the Milky Way
You want me down on earth,
but I am up in space
You're so damn hard to please
We gotta kill this switch
You're from the 70's,
but I'm a 90's chick
The makers seem to have forgotten that the audience has grown up way beyond the tropes they are depicting.
So #laalsinghchaddha was lazy as hell, #RakshaBandhan was legit cringy.
Mind the Malhotras on #primevideo was a fun one time watch.
Loved #NeverHaveIEver 3with Devi and her gang of hot guys back on screen. This time with a Sanjay Gupta dolly that we are searching high and low to acquire.
Sima Aunty is also back trying to tell Indian singles how to get married in #IndianMatchmaking 2- yes the answer is shave off 60% of your expectations - don't worry if you are miserable - but just get married for her and your families. Epic drama.
What's more?
Download it all here and where ever you get your POD.
Love
Team Desis.
Hola Peeps,
Here are the titles we dissected for this week.
We started with the quintessential fake-dating rom-com #WeddingSeason on Netflix cuz we like predictable tropes and if they have this Indian Fam in New Jersey in it, you know your cousins have had a story like that or close.
Then an epic story of love with the hot #DulqerSalman & #MrunalThakur with #RashmikaMandana in a special role in #SitaRamam in theaters.
And the hyped #Darlings - which, while featuring amazing actors #ShefaliShah #AliaBhatt and #ShefaliShah, did not make our cut so much
Hear us chat about this and more.
Enjoy.
Love
TEAM DESIS
Hola, we are back
We have been busy with a lot of watching for you folks and we’ve got the perfect list for you to binge during the weekend with our own personal take on how it was.
Good luck jerry turned out to be a remake that has its own charm and does not disappoint.
Ek villain returns will make you confident in how some movies should not have sequels and you will learn a more gore way of how channa meraya is not the only option for unrequited love.
Masaba Masaba season 2 focuses on masaba’s work-life balance and neena Gupta’s future aspirations and how can it be a masaba show without the hot men, inshort a perfect show to unwind
Rangbaaz season 3 ate and left no crumbs when it comes to crime thrillers the only issue was the time frame jumps which was hard to keep up with
See you next week.
TEAM DESIS
Hola.
Another busy week ! This week we have two series and a movie for y'all
Were you super excited for Shamshera and Ranbir makes your heart flutter? No dice that any of that will hold good after you watch the movie we were so excited about. Despite a sincere performance, you start questioning Ranbir's choice of scripts.
Shoorveer on Hulu was a wannabe Top Gun. Fails miserably.
Indian Predator - a docuseries that was chilling to the core yet could have been more.
Hope you enjoy our chatter
Love
Team Desis.
Hola.
Another busy week ! How is the summer treating you.
We have been busy with a lot of watching for you folks and here is the review of the movies this week.
Love Goals on Netflix was pointless. Really didn't get it at all. Hit: The First Case was watchable because of primarily RajKummar Rao - seriously no other reason to revisit a remake of a Tamil OG,
Shabaash Mithu was predictable and didn't do any justice to Mithali's career as a cricketer despite a very honest performance by Taapsee Pannu.
And then finally a shoot en up we loved - The Gray Man ! Playing on NetflixHope you enjoy our chatter
Love
Team Desis.
Hola Peeps
How's the week going on?
Ours has been hectic. We review quite a line-up for you today. Starting with Saas Bahu Achaar Pvt Ltd, a heartwarming story of a woman coming to her own when her husband falls out of love with her. The beauty of the writing was to normalize moving on and neither romanticize marriage as an institution nor demonize the process of falling in love with someone else. We loved it because it debunked a lot of television stereotypes. A must watch.
On Zee5.
Then KhudaHafiz2 was actually quite a surprise with its power packed punch in our faces of the most unexpected finesse in action. Whoa. That hit high. Watch it for a perfectly executed action movie. In Theaters yet.
And then a run of the mill Modern Love Hyderabad on Prime Video with its varied love stories.
That's it from us this week.
More next
Love
Team Desis.
Let's start by wishing y'all a very happy Eid folks !
We review for your R Madhavan's labor of love Rocketry, which is playing in theaters. Not without defects, yet a story worth telling, this movie has its high points nationalistically for Indian story telling.
The Terminal List delivers action like we love it on Prime, Regency romance if you like Bridgerton, you will enjoy #MrMalcolm'sList , the new movie featuring #FreidaPinto
And then the highly ridiculous #RashtraKavachOm, please don't watch it. It was so bad that out eyes hurt even when the gorg body of Aditya Roy Kapur was all flex on us.
Well, more next week
Keep binging
Love
Team Desis.
Hiya
And a happy 4th to all of you folks!!
We spent our weekend watching some flicks for ya but we wanted to have the last week's stash on your POD before the long weekend hits
This week in Desis POD, you got the extremely loud JugJugg Jeeyo which gave us an ear ache in theaters, we also reviewed the espionage thriller Avrodh 2 and liked the flow, Its streaming on sonyLiv so enjoy the series.
We also review Forensic on Zee5 for which we had high, apple pie hopes, but those ate themselves up in the face of a Forensic guy who jumps with joy on seeing corpses.
More later
Have a super weekend
Love
Team Desis.
Here we are this week with another episode desi reviews for y'all.
We start with #Masoom which streams on #Hulu and #Hotstar and tell you how we loved the show about the relationship between a father and a daughter. Then came #ImtiazAli's #sheS2 which we found absolutely great in its content and presentation. Streams on @netflix. And then we speak about another phamazing series which we absolutely went gaga over - #Suzhalthevortex which streams on #Amazonprime.
Hope you enjoy our chatter this week.
Michael was out at the lake for Father's Day so we missed him but we cannot wait to see y'all next week fosho'
Love
Team Desis.
This week we got a bagful of reviews for you which you will have fun listening to.
We start with Ms Marvel and how delighted we are at the mainstream representation that desis are getting now.
Then, #thebrokennews on #Zee5 which was a series about the news industry so pertinent to our times. #SonaliBendre makes her come back with this one.
Then the quirky, #janhitMeinJaari about a woman who sells condoms. In Theaters.
JenniferWinget' #CodeM on #Voot is a thriller you def need to watch - all the elements of a binge!
Enjoy your week
More soon
Team Desis.
Hola Peeps
We are back with another epi of our weekly pod for y'all.
This week we watched 9 Hours on Hulu/ Hotstar filmmaker Krish Jagarlamudi’s adaptation of the Telugu novel Thommidhi Gantalu (nine hours), written by Malladi Venkata Krishnamurthy.
Directed by Niranjan Kaushik and Jacob Verghese, the series has diverse and complicated characters falling on different sides of the moral compass. Three inmates have escaped prison right after their roll call to execute a robbery of three major banks. However, the robbery is not the challenge here. The catch is that they have to be back in their cells by the time of the next roll call, which is just 9 hours. 9 Hours has everything that you want out of a good heist series but kinda gets lost in morality lessons and backstories.
Can Watch.
Next on our list is Bobbywood's own #Aashram in its third Avatar on Voot. Based on the activities of a self-proclaimed godman, Gurmeet Ram Rahim. Baba Nirala (Bobby Deol) is ruthless and relies on corrupt politicians to gain power while preying on innocent women. Baba, being a conman, hides his true intentions from the public like a pro and fools his devotees by wearing a mask of pretence. Bobby Deol takes Nirala to another level. We loved this season as well. Cannot wait for next season.
Last but not the least, the patriotic Major, the biopic of real-life hero Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan (Adivi Sesh), who saved the lives of numerous hostages before being martyred by terrorists in the Taj Mahal Palace Mumbai on November 26, 2008 . The first half of the movie however is romance.
That's it from us this week folks
See ya next week with more.
Team Desis.
This week we had super fun going to an exclusive screening of Top Gun Maverick where we were on the edge of the seats with the excitement watching Tom Freakin' Cruise as Pete Mitchell back as our heartthrob Maverick in all his rule floutin' , heart breakin', glory. Can Tom Cruise age any better? Or less hotter?
We keep sighing.
Now about Anek. We loved it for it's brave script. Anek asks the difficult question of what it means to be Indian, a loaded riddle in a period where Hindutva rhetoric has fostered brutal discrimination all across India. A must watch. In Theaters now and later on Netflix
Toolsidas Jr. deserves all the publicity it can get. Told by Midi, who is the director Mridul himself, it is such a personal, heart-felt story of love and accomplishment that it is almost pure magnificence. Loved this movie. Recommend it. Its on Netflix
That's all for this week!
Download the podcast to listen to us
Love
Team D
This week was crazy watching because we had 2 movies and one whole long series to cover.
KanganaRanaut's #Dhaakad was a disotypain disappointment despite hot hunk Arjun Rampal trampling our hearts. Kangana just couldn't pull off the Lara Croft x Atomic Blonde avatar with a n hour long back story that did not move a flicker in our hearts that would make us justify her trigger happy avatar.
Huge mess.
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 2 as Farhad Samji slapstick - a laugh and a half with absolutely no new thing to add except Kartik Aryan in its list of bad actors. For a cult to a basic badly CGI'd slapstick - journey is interesting. Tabu is a beaut.
Panchayat 2was uncomplicated and such a delight to watch in all its simple , impactful writing of people who are selfish and motivated by what works for them. Loved the series.
Our reviews are up on our site.
Don't forget to follow and engage with us on our social. We like to talk.
Peeps,
This week was a lot of watching. Michael and Miraal went to watch Jayeshbhai Jordaar in the theater and came back with a mixed bag of reactions. A man being a hero of a women empowerment movie. Enuf pussyfooting , we say.
Modern Love Mumbai: Another anthology we thought !! But here's the twist - we kinda liked this one !!
The actors, the directors, the entire over reaching theme is beautifully plotted.
Amazon Prime Video’s anthology Modern Love Mumbai, the first of the three localized Indian versions of the widely acclaimed international series Modern Love features six heartwarming stories about discovering and exploring love in all its varied shades and emotions.
That's it for this week !! Listen to our POD and Enjoy
Catch you next week
Team Desis
Peeps,
Welcome our new team member - Michael.
He is a sophomore at Stanford but a desi at heart. Apart from Biryani, he likes Ranveer Singh and stans Deepika :P
While Shriya has been busy shooting saree vids at weddings in the mid-west; we reviewed the desi-western Thar on Netflix and the slow mo series Home Shanti on Hulu
Hear what we thought about it
Catch y'all soon
Love
Team Desis
This week we had two movies and a series to review. Though we had a fun time watching the quirky series #Neverkissyourbestfriend2 on #zee5 and droooling over #KaranWahi on loop, we cannot say we had fun watching the movies.
Heropanti2 is definitely proof that COVID caused irreparable damage to some folks. And #runway34 was so high on theatrics that the second half became a little difficult to gulp even with the magnificent Ajay Devgn and the towering Mr. Bachchan to devour.
On the whole, we had fun and hope you have fun listening to our mindless banter about the heroes of Heropanti and bad ( real bad) jokes about how we all have a crush on Karan Wahi
love
Shriya Miraal
This week we had real fun reviewing a movie and two shows.
The movie was a remake of a Tamil superhit from the early 2000's so no surprise that a copied adaptation was s damp squib despite the brilliant actors and a decent direction. This was #ShahidKapoor's #Jersey. Too emotionally draining, too long and honestly too predictable for us.
#GuiltyMinds on Prime Video was engaging legal drama that had us binging. We loved it. If you want a good intelligent show that can make you think, question, engage and be curious - this one is a pick.
Then hot hunk Arjun Rampal made our day appearing in London Files on Voot but the happiness was short lived because the director had this man, this adonis , this super talented actor, the director also had Purab Kohli , he had Sapna Pabbi and he wasnt able to handle it, we guess - because what could have been a pacy psych thriller with good sub plots turned out to be a messy drama with too many characters too follow.! We needed the sticky notes on the wall to follow the story dude- you were solving a fictional crime - we were more traumatized.
In any case, we know you will have fun listening to us this week - we definitely enjoyed chatting and we cannot wait to see you next week with a lot more
We love y'all
Shriya Miraal
Hola Peeps,
How's it going?
Its been a crazy watch week for us! What do we tell you about this running joke we have about binge watching- we watch it so you don't have to.
Thank us later.
So KGF Chapter 2, Fans of Yash went crazy the world over. They danced in theaters here in the USA too - but we have a POV. Listen in.
We also reviewed Vijay and Pooja Hegde's Beast. This mall based thriller is quite an action flick. Action galore,
Then we sat through Mai.We really sat through Sakshi Tanwar killing people with her bare hands as she tried figuring out who killed her daughter in this series on **Netflix
Download our POD everywhere you get your fix.
Seeya next week**
Peeps,
This week we started with an interesting take on education or all with Dasvi where Abhishek Bachchan , playing a corrupt politician in prison decides that he can still appear for his Standard 10 exam, just so he can escape hard work first but then gets really into the political education when he reads about the freedom struggle of india and enlists several inmates to help him with math and other subjects.
Longish but interesting story. Streams Netlfix.
Then there was a rant of a movie called Hurdang which we wished we had not watched. it was like a rant of a privileged person against the lower caste reservations. Na, not buying that one.
Waste of a trip to the theater.
The ones we really liked was Kunal Kemmu's Abhay. First, Kemmu is a dish. Second, if there is a crime thriller you want to enjoy, come here - watch this really engaging one on zee5.
We dig it.
Love y'all
Seeya next week
Shiraal
Hola peeps!
How's it going ?
We reviewed four movies for you this week and we cannot help but be excited about some of them!!
We started with #Rishikapoor's swan song #SharmajiNamkeen which we thoroughly enjoyed. It streams on Prime.
We watched the Tamil hit #HeySinamika featuring #DulquerSalman who we fell for hook, line and sinker and now we cannot help but harp DQ all day!! Watch it on Netflix.
We also had a lot of fun watching #Attack and have been on Abharamland since then. Plays in theaters and woah what a kickass action flick
We reviewed a sports biopic #KaunPravinTambe that you'll find on Hotstar and on hulu and we actually liked it quite a lot.
A strange week when we didn't diss any movies. Infact we are telling you to go watch each of them.
Watch and Binge
We will see you next week
Team Desis
Hola Amigos
Over your holi shenanigans?
We most certainly are and all set for a month of spring fun!!
We have a lot of fun lined up this April and the top amongst those is watching painful movies on your behalf !!
Kidding. Chill.
This week, we danced our hearts out for Nattu Nattu at theaters for the biggest movie of the year sofa #RRR - Did you watch it? S went with her mom and here is what she felt
M watched Valimai and fell in love with the action sequences and the general look of the flick on @zee5
And then we gush about how Shonda Rhimes is walking into our saas bahu world slowly and surely with the slow burn romance between Anthony Bridgerton and Kathika Sharma in Season 2 of the series that is streaming on Netflix.
Enjoy our pod here and everywhere else you get your POD fix.
See y'all next week
M and S
Hola Folks
With extended Holi celebs still going on, we bet you are still partying to your hearts content after two years of being home bound.
We had a heavy stack of watching this week and had a lot of fun doing it !
Starting with Eternally Confused and Eager for Love on Netflix, where a man child is trying to figure out how to talk to women with unwanted help from his parents.
Then there was the powerhouse performance packed Jalsa with Vidya Balan and Shefali Shah killing it on screen with performances that kept us hooked. Streams on Prime.
We then review Bachchan Pandey, which was a big Nadaidwala stereotype. Argh... Do we need to say more. Hear it all.
And then the explosive Bloody Brothers, who we fell head over heels in love with. More of this please Zee5.
Hear it on our website or anywhere in the world that you get your POD.
Till next week
We love y'all
M and S
Hola Peeps,
This week was heavy lifting. Our eyes are burning with the amount of watching we did for y'all.
But you know we would anything for love.
But we won't do that.
hehe
So we started with the twenny episodes of 40 minutes each of Mrs and Mr Shameem on Zee5 which would have been a life sentence had it not been for the chemistry between Saba Qamar and Nauman Ijaz.
We actually quite loved it.
Precaution: Don't OD on it in a single shot.
Then we got our heart wrenched with The Kashmir Files, the story of the genocide of the hindu minorities of the Kashmir valley. Listen to M say it the way it was. Playing in the Theaters.
We watched Prabhas and his work of art Radhe Shyam in theaters. Woah to the imagery and the camera work even when the woman's skirt doesn't fly when she is hanging out of a running train but if they can defy the science of palmistry they can defy the laws of physics.,
Who are we to complain as long as every strand of hair is where it belongs.
LOL
Then we watched the lovable quirky indomitable Mei Mei in Turning Red, the best one from Pixar sofa.
We loooooved it and Disney for making our day with the beautiful POC squad what never says no to fun ( and red pandas)
Thats it this week from us folks
Love y'all
Next week then
Mand S ( sounds way better than the other way around)
We had a lot to review this week. We started with the Zee5 series Sutliyan, which is the story of Supriya struggles to manage her responsibilities after her husband dies in the pandemic. She gets help from her kind neighbors—a grocery store owner, Trilok aka Loki (Suneel Sinha) and his daughter Dipanita (Niharika Lyra Dutt). But she holds a grudge with her children as they did were not able to come to attend their father's last rites. As Supriya is striking out on her own with her by launching Sutliyan, a handmade macrame business, she feels the trepidation of doing things on her own after spending her entire life dependent on her husband.
We loved this heartwarming story.
We also watched Amitabh Bachchan's Jhund which is playing in theaters. This powerful, energetic, and solid three-hour film is raw, real and extremely human. We have watched an anthology movie (Geeli Pucchi from Netflix’s anthology Ajeeb Dastaans) from Nagraj Manjule before and the lens of his direction is indeed very palpable.
The story is linear, heart breaking and gives the audience a never before angle into the divide between the privileged and the underprivileged.
This is not just a story of hope, it is the story of humanity. An absolute must watch
On Hulu streams Rudra- the edge of Darkness - the Indian version of the Emmy Award nominated psychological crime thriller television series Luther, which featured Idris Alba as Luther in its original version.
Ajay Devgn plays the brooding Luther – called Rudra in the Indian adaptation and Raashii Khanna plays Aliyah ( Ruth Wilson as Alice Morgan in the OG) the murderer who is a brilliant,child prodigy, who has a complicated relationship with Rudra.
We loved the execution. Check it out for sure
And then finally, it was time for Undekhi Season 2 on SonyLIV.The second season picks up where the first left off, with DSP Ghosh (Dibyendu Bhattacharya) and Teji (Anchal Singh) struggling to save Koyal (Apeksha Porwal) from Rinku’s (Surya Sharma) clutches. Who will win this game of power, greed, and vengeance when everyone has selfish motives?
To know that download this pod and listen to our fun reviews of all these titles.
See y'all next week
Love
Team Desis
We review two super eclectic flicks this week along with a series that got our hearts pumping big time cuz it was Madhuri time and Gawd knows no one can escape the charms of that woman.
Shriya missed watching this in theaters but do your CDC stuff and go watch this one popping corn for sure because the grandiosity of the movie is best devoured watching it on the big screen. The Aliaa effect in full display and we fell for it - hook, line and sinker.
M and S then review The Fame Game,.Ms Dixit, the ultimate heartthrob of billions makes her Netflix debut in this series . Her, Manav Kaul and the slow burn just got us where they wanted us- but hear us out here to know what really let us down in this KJO baby.
And then the gritty bloody in the face movie Love Hostel that streams on Zee5. Woah what a ride watching those 87 minutes were. Caught M&S where they wanted them. They watched with their hearts in their mouths as Bobby Deol chased lovers on the run to honor kill for cash.
Woah - that was our week of watching stuff to give you a low down on what to spend your time on.
We will catch you next week with more fun on the go.
Love,
TheDesis
Hey Peeps,
We reviewed two series and a movie this week and here it is for your pod.
Scott and Miraal were doing without Shriya this week, she was out with a flu.
But the fun was ofcourse Scott making his own mind about what Mithya meant - he needed gyan of a special kind to get through with that psycho thriller that streams on Zee5.
Then Miraal and Scott were a bit triggered by the new movie on Hulu's Hotstar hub - A Thursday which by the way did not have a Trigger warning for depiction of violence against toddlers.
Very upsetting because it strummed up memories of Sandy Hook for a lot of us Americans.
Gun violence is not an alternative whatever your personal issues are.
They also reviewed the Mithun Chakraborty, Shruti Hassan starrer on Amazon Prime called BestSeller where Scott fell asleep waiting for the hook to happen. Quite an interesting story after the hook though. Was fun keeping up with it over its last few episodes, says Miraal,
Thats it from us this week.
Enjoy this pod anywhere you get your fix and we will see you next time and Tilbe sure to let us know what you thought.
Love from us
Tadah then
While on a weekend getaway in Alibaug, Alisha, a yoga instructor who who is building a yoga app, connects intimately with Zain, a real estate tycoon.
There is a complication though, Zain is Alisha's cousin Tia's fiancé. #Gehraiyaan is a rivetting story of human emotions and it plays on #AmazonPrime. Watch it for the performances and the finesse of storytelling.
We all gave it a Thumbs Up.
DeathOnTheNile released in theaters last week and we watched it !!!!
This classic #AgathaCristie whodunnit has probably half of the population of Beverly Hills starring in it so we were just overwhelmed watching them turn up. stand there, spin a dialogue once in a while (everyone needed a chance) and then become sus in a murder plot cuz guess what? If Poirot is around, a murder was bound to happen.
What we came back home with was this ONE SCENE of @gal_gadot 's entry .
Gal Gadot looked like the real Golden Age of Hollywood glamour in the setup, and seeing it in 70mm heightened all that.
Enough Champagne to fill up the Nile?
YUP.
Fts: #ArnieHammer , #EmmaMackay, #AnnetteBening, #RussellBrand, #AliFazal, #DawnFrench, #RoseLeslie, #SophieOkonedo, #JenniferSaunders #kennethbranagh
You know what we say about We watch so you dont have to- right?
Then we reviewed a movie that deserves to be top of the charts everywhere but isnt.
BadhaiDo deserves accolades for the sensitive storytelling . brilliant performances and having the soul to tell it. Featuring #BhumiPednekar and #RajKummarRao as Sumi and Shardul who lead dual and socially-suppressed lives as closeted people. When they settle for a marriage of convenience to please their extremely nosey families, they presume cover for their personal lives. And what happens after that is the story of this movie.
WE LOVED IT - so if you have to - watch this for sure!!!
That's it from us this week- keep tuned in for more next weeek
Love
Team Desis.
This week we review a movie and two shows( two looooong shows).
Starting with Looop Lapeta on #Netflix, the Hindi remake of the German Run Lola Run which is a psychedelic crazy plot of Savi runs across Goa to help her boyfriend Satya. Hear our views.
We reviewed another amazing series from Sony, Rocket Boys , retracing Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai's accomplishments. The series will dwell deeper into their personalities and lives to understand their greatness and relevance in today's time. It will show how the two great physicists turned their dreams into reality and made great scientific discoveries.
We absolutely loved it and recommend it highly for everyone.
And then we reviewed the chaotic Hulu / Hotstar series The Great Indian Murder where
Vicky Rai (Jatin Goswami) — a spoilt industrialist with a Casanova lifestyle — is murdered in his own party. His naturally enraged father (Ashutosh Rana) — who happens to be an influential politician — calls for a CBI enquiry.
That brings in two detectives — Suraj Yadav (Pratik Gandhi) and Sudha Bharadwaj (Richa Chadha) — to solve the murder mystery, with six (invited as well as uninvited) guests as main suspects.
The crime drama is based on the 2016 novel called Six Suspects by the retired Indian Foreign Service officer Vikas Swarup, who also authored the book behind the 2008 Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire.
Download this pod everywhere you get a pod and on our website.
This week we review two standups that weren't.
Why Netflix chose to market them as standups beats us. One was a change your life like I did and American life commentary and the other was a biography of sorts. Both not funny.
Does not mean that they were not good content, they most definitely were -but that they were meant to be funny was lost in translation.
We totally enjoyed arguing our review about DonkeyHead and it was almost impossible to get Scott to agree with Miraal and Shriya decided to take the middle road.
We loved the movie by #AgamDarshi and you should definitely catch it on Netflix too
We love you guys and see you next week
Team Desis.
This week Shriya and Miraal review 2 movies and an anthology
DefinitionPlease is a slice o f life about a former Spelling Bee champion who makes a choice of staying in her hometown to take care of her ill mother so she can stay close to her. Her troubled relationship with her brother needs to be sorted when he visits for their father's death anniversary. Will the siblings reconcile? Story of an Indian American family growing up with the expectations of their immigrant parents and a desire to follow their own dreams.
Hear our review of this @netflix movie.
We absolutely loved it btw
Then we reviewed this new Anthology on #AmazonPrime, Unpaused: Naya Safar
of five stories about how the pandemic has changed our lives and the reality of our world.
While it thematically maintains the storytelling of the first anthology that was released in December 2020, Unpaused: Naya Safar seems more brazen in its assessment of the toll that the global pandemic and series of lockdowns have taken on us. The stories present a thematic sense of perseverance about exploring how we are racing against time and how helpless we are in the face of this human calamity.
It was a riveting watch
We reviewed Subash Ghai's entry to the web scene #36FarmHouse that streams on @zee5 and thought it was a very 1970s plot but set in the middle of the pandemic when labor is making their way back home in a lockdown.
Laden with loopholes, the plot of 36 Farm House is like a reincarnation of a 70’s big cinema film for the benefit of the Netflix generation.
Hear our review here.
Till we see you next week
Download our POD anywhere you get yours.
Love
Team Desis.
Miraal and Shriya break it down this week with reviews of a movie and two series.
We start with #Eterrnals on @disney+ where now they must get their OG band back together. This is because of “global earthquakes” and the reemergence of the baddies Deviants, who are back from the dead with the vengeance of cosmic proportions.
We also review #Human playing on the @hulu/@disneyplushotstar platform of Disney where Dr. Gauri Nath (Shefali Shah), one of India’s top neurosurgeons and owner of a Bhopal hospital called Manthan, and her cardiac surgeon hire Dr. Saira Sabbarwal (Kirti Kulhari) are caught in the web of human trials for a new drug.
We review @netflix psycho-thriller #YehKaaliKaaliAnkhein , romantic simpleton finds himself in the midst of this crossfire in this darkish comical pulpy desi thriller about three issues that matter probably the most within the nation – paisa, taqat aur pyaar
Hear our POD on this site and everywhere else you get your POD.
See y'all next week
Love
Desis
This week it was a mixed bag but all of them had actors of desi origin and that's why we picked them up!!
@SonyLIV’s nine-episode The Whistleblower highlights the Vyapam scam i.e the mass-scale rigging of admission exams and recruitment procedures for medical colleges and sundry government jobs organized and overseen by the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board, or the Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal (Vyapam).
In Don't Look Up on @Netflix Kate Dibiasky (Lawrence) is about to have an apocalyptic comet named after her. Does it get any better than that? She’s a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University who spots the 9km-wide astral body in the Oort cloud, and her associate, Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio), is the astronomer who calculates its trajectory, a 99-point-something-something percent likelihood of it crashing into the Pacific and quickly destroying all life on Earth. Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) is a fed scientist who gets them an audience with President Janie Orlean (Streep) and her failson/chief of staff Jason (Hill).
In a very wholesome superhero story, invoking the Hollywood Superhero into a village in Kerala is a very well-made movie Minaal Murali with the right dose of action, drama, and comedy. **Streams on Netflix
Red Notice looks slick and boasts of attractive A-list actors pulling fantastic stunts in gorgeous CGI locations around the globe. And you should go into watching it for a purpose. Ours was Ryan Reynolds and his funny quips. Like calling the Rock, “Hey Baldilocks” . He is Ryan guys. And he has our hearts. Streams on @Netflix
All of this chatter is yours on download.
Have fun listening and tell us how it was
We are available on all POD platforms all over the world.**
This week we had a riot, we have a disagreement and we have a lot of fun !! Shriya watched and reviewed Pushpa- because of Allu Arjun. Streams on #AmazonPrimeVideo
We absolutely loved Humble Politician Nograj that streams on #Voot.
Nograj of One Big Party, and Krishna Gundu Bala aka Gundu aka KGB of Most Secular Party both desire to become chief minister. Nograj will let KGB win if he changes his name to Balu and buys three legislators. Between Danish and the phenomenal Prakash Belawadi, the characters are a riot
One Big Party and the Family Run Party decide on a post-poll alliance to keep Gundu out of power. Family Run Party’s mommy’s boy Karan Kapoor ( Varun Thakur) and his mother who speaks Italian feature often.
We also reviewed #KaunBanegiShikharwati that is the story of an elderly Maharaja (Naseeruddin Shah) gets his tax evasion tab, he conceives a ludicrous plot with the assistance of his right-hand man (Raghubir Yadav) to reunite his four estranged daughters so they can pay it instead because after all – they are the heirs to the throne.
The plan? To put them through a series of weird competitive routines so their joint hatred of their father reunites them to save the palace. But that’s not what he tells the daughters.
This is the story of what happens when the sisters who loathe each other unite.
Streams on #Zee5
Have fun downloading this week - you are in for some surprises!!!
Love
Desis
Happy New Year folks!
We start the year with Season Three of our podcast series
Listen to the reviews of last week of releases while you're on the go with our podcast.
This week we reviewed Matrix Resurrections streaming on @hbomax, Riz Ahmed's Encounter streaming on Amazon Prime.
We also review #AtrangiRe which is streaming on @hulu and #83thefilm that is in theaters.
Our reviews can be viewed on our YouTube Channel and on our Instagram. Let us know how you liked them.
Have a brilliant year ahead.
This week it was raining series. And we had a tough time watching them for you in time to post - so that being the delay .
Also, Shriya is having a fab time in India and we are missing her.
However, @netflix's Aarya is not to be missed as per Miraal but Scott disagrees.
Aranyak on @netflix was fab and Mirall completely loved it. She found her revenge ideas in @Zee5's #QatilHaseenaonKeNaam and is looking out for all those exes.
Scott and Miraal agreed to the review of the movie in theaters #ChandigarhKareAashiqui
Have a listen
Last week Scott and Miraal reviewed two big star movies that were released in theaters - #Antim ( launching Salman Khan's brother-in-law Aayush Sharma and John Abraham's nationalist jingbang -#SatyamevJayate in its second edition with not one but 3 Johns.
We also watched and reviewed a good story on #hulu called #Cash which is actually some intelligent writing effort and then the kinda horror kinda haunting #Chhorii which was released on #AmazonPrime.
Hear our reviews and especially what Scott thought about the movie #chhorii
We cannot wait to hear your thoughts.
Tesher is a household name today after two international hit songs.. This kid from Regina, Saskatchewan in Canada is influenced by his Indian heritage. Growing up listening to Indian as well as Western hip hop music, Tesher began to fuse Bollywood and hip-hop songs together and create mashups from a young age
The story of Hitesh Sharma becoming Tesher is here to stay.
Hear him speak with us on this pod.
Download at podcast.desis.live
or anywhere you get your POD.
Aafat-E-Ishq’ is a definitive hybrid genre at new-age storytelling making it difficult for us to fit it into a box. The beauty of such an inventive narrative is that it brings a new age story making to the forefront of Indian cinema.
There is nothing run-off- the- mill here so a lot of traditional critics will find it hard to digest yet the adaptation of a Hungarian story to a small-town Indian format is the brilliance of the plot. The writing is superb. The screenplay was a bit cheesy but fit into the small-town India format well. After all, let’s not expect sophisticated language from these characters that are so well-caricatured into the backdrop of Lallo’s quest for love.
We spoke with the Director of the movie about the feat he pulled off - here it is - a very interesting conversation.
This #ZeeOriginal streams in the US on the #zee5usa app and on @ZEE5 worldwide.
Download at podcast.desis.live or anywhere else you get your POD
A former national spelling bee champion struggles to live up to her potential in 'Definition Please,' a fresh American take on Bollywood tropes from writer-director Sujata Day. In writer-director Sujata Day’s debut feature Definition Please, the lead character Monica Chowdry is a college grad who still lives at home with her mother. A former national spelling bee champion, she now finds herself tutoring a new generation of spelling champion hopefuls in her hometown of Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
We talk to @sujataday, the writer, director, producer, and actor of @definitionplease which is a masala blend of comedy, romance, drama, and suspense - all #bollywood style but with Indian American protagonists!
LISTEN TO OUR POD AT podcast.desis.live or anywhere you get your POD.
Rajiv Satyal is a Los Angeles-based comedian/host who performs regularly at all the major LA comedy clubs and has been featured on/in Amazon, NBC, NPR, Nickelodeon, Netflix, GQ, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Variety, and Advertising Age. He has shared a stage with Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chappelle, Tim Allen, Russell Peters, and Sebastian Maniscalco.
Satyal has 12 videos with over 100,000 YouTube views each, including I AM INDIAN (50 million+ views). He’s played on five continents, 100 colleges, and has interviewed everyone from Seth Godin to Kevin Nealon to Preity Zinta.
We spoke to him about his new show “WHAT DO YOU BRING TO THE TABLE?”
Watch this space for our chat but check out the show at www.watchRajiv.com
Download at podcast.desis.live or anywhere you get your pod
Rushi Kota is no stranger to the world of movies and shows in Hollywood. Rushi Kota is in the new Netflix Award-Winning, and the global hit show "Never Have I Ever," created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher. Kota plays the role of Prashant in the series.
Most familiar to fans as Dr. Vik Roy on ABC/Shonda Rhimes hit drama "Grey's Anatomy" and "Grey's Anatomy B-Team"
Kota's mother brought him to America to achieve the American dream. America was where he learned the value of perseverance and hard work. Kota has set out to break ethnic stereotypes in Hollywood and be more than just his skin color. Kota chose a traditional career path in Automotive Engineering at SUNY Farmingdale, where he double majored in IndustrialManagement Technology and Business Administration.
After two years of vigorously pursuing acting in New York, Rushi was accepted into Harvard University's MFA program for acting, following that up with a residency at Stanislavski'sMoscow Art Theater School in Russia.
READ MORE ABOUT RUSHI AT https://desis.live/celebrities/interviews/rushi-kota-right-now-is-very-good-to-be-people-like-us-202108311604 AND DOWNLOAD THIS POD AT podcast.desis.live and anywhere you get your POD
Rianjali started singing when she was just 6. Her father, a well-known Bengali singer made sure she grew up listening to music all her life! She started taking classical Indian music classes and then picked up the guitar when she was 14 or 15 years old. She went to LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, which really changed her life. It was a very tough school where she was surrounded by all kinds of music and had to learn so many styles. It was there where she really picked up some of her American music influence, Her brother was part of a fraternity in college, and he introduced her to one of his friends in his frat who also had a passion for music. His parents were really supportive and had built a makeshift recording studio in his house. A couple of years after she first met her brother’s friend, they ended up writing a song together and put it on SoundCloud. It turned out that the friend's family had known A.R Rahman for over 15 years, but he had never told her out of a matter of privacy. One day, her friend called her out of the blue and asked her if she was free the next day because A.R. Rahman wanted to meet her! A.R. had apparently asked her friend if he had worked on any new music lately, so he showed him their SoundCloud track. A.R. then asked him who the female vocalist was. The rest is history!
Hear our chat with her here
Download it at podcast.desis.live
This week was a fun review session. Apart from an Indian American production, India Sweets and Spices which saw a US release, we also had in queue Bunty Aur Babli 2 , the second coming of the story of cons Bunty and Babli who pull cons on people and help the needy ( of course).
Both movies were in theaters
We also reviewed @netflix's #Dhamaka where @kartikAaryan really made one huge explosion of a story execution.
Did you watch these two?
Let us know
Download this pod at podcast.desis.live and everywhere else you get your Pod.
Seeya next week and hey! Gobble till you Wobble
Happy Thanksgiving week
Shiraalott
Neha Sharma is smart, vivacious, and absolutely effervescent but when she slips into the skin of Lallo, she embodies the insecurities of the character she plays with great finesse.
We caught up with Neha and spoke to her about getting into the character's skin and her understanding of this character who is both naive and incisive. We talk about Lallo's unaffected simplicity; lacking in worldly wisdom which sets the stage for world-building her out of her simplicity.
We talk more about this Indrajit Nattoji classic.
Download this podcast at podcast.desis.live and everywhere that you get your POD.
Aafat-e-Ishq streams on @zee5
We caught up with tennis superstar Mahesh Bhupathi about his new docudrama called BreakPoint that streams on the @zee5 platform about his estranged relationship with his tennis partner Leander Paes.
Many reasons for the professional split between Paes and Bhupathi are still unclear, but the two abruptly ended their relationship in 2006, following their doubles gold win at the Asian Games in Doha that year, where Paes also won mixed doubles gold with Sania Mirza.
The docudrama directed by Ashwini Iyer and Nitish Tewari drills down the real reasons of the estrangement.
Bhupati even went on to call Paes a 'backstabber' a term used in many sports headlines. Clearly, their relationship has deteriorated to the point of no return.
Paes was at ease with the attention, was debonair and outgoing, and had a penchant for the histrionics too. Bhupathi, in stark contrast, has always been a man of few words and inward drawn.
We chat here about the show and if they will ever reconcile.
Watch the interview here
Download at podcast.desis.live and everywhere else you get your POD.
We caught up with Geeta Malik, the Writer and Director of India Sweets and Spices, probably the first movie about Indian Americans to be released in mainstream theaters.
The story is about Alia's family as she comes back home from college for the summer. The Indian Americanisms strike. In between Parle G biscuits, paneer pakoras, and samosas- the Aunties strike.
The movie is a slice of life about finding purpose and being true to your true self. With a stellar cast of Manisha Koilara, Sophia Ali, Adil Hussain, Rish Shah, Deepti Gupta, and Ved Sapru, the movie is well written and executed.
Read our REVIEW HERE **Geeta says the movie is about her growing up, some stories are hers and some are of people around her.....we must say- these are our stories as well...
Catch the movie in theaters all over the US.
Download this chat at podcast.desis.live** and everywhere else you get your pod.
Ajitpal Singh is an anomaly. A writer and a director with an eye for the extraordinary, he is known for Fire in the Mountains (2021), Rammat-Gammat (2018), and Hummingbird (2018).
His newest offering Tabbar on SonyLIV stars Pavan Malhotra and Supriya Pathak besides newcomers Paramvir Cheema and Sahil Mehta and veteran Ranvir Shorey
His ability to remain laser-focused on creating a portrayal of a family in crisis.
Essaying the journey of a retired police constable who pushes the boundaries to save his family from the consequences of an inadvertent homicide, the series has been lauded for its quality of production and incisive direction.
Here is our chat with the Director of Tabbar Ajitpal Singh about his vision and craft.
Download this chat at podcast.desis.live and everywhere else you get your pod.
We review two movies and a series this week. Starting with @amazonprimevideo's Jai Bhim, Shriya absolutely loved it, for its depiction of the class struggle.
We reviewed the fabulous Kay Kay Menon @hulu series Special Ops 1.5 and loved aspects of it cuz hey it's Kay Kay.
We also reviewed 2zee5's Squad.
pretty busy huh?
Well as we say, we watch 'em so you don't have to.
Have a lovely listen and tell us what you think
Much Love
Shriya, Miraal & Scott
PS: shall we call ourselves #Shiraalott?
This week we reviewed one show and two movies. Here is where we tell you to fasten your seat belts cause the flutter of big theatre action movies for the rest of the year begins.
We watched the show One Mic Stand on Prime and absolutely loved it in parts. Hear our review.
Sooryavanshi in theaters with Katrina swaying to Tip Tip was a treattttttttttttt all the way!!
A master class in how to make blockbusters from Rohit Shetty.
And then the significantly mellow arranged marriage scene in Meenakshi Sundereshwar on Netflix.
All in this episode... Enjoy Scott's special comments.....
Love
Scott, Miraal and Shriyaaaaaaaaaaah
This week we had an onslaught of releases. We reviewed Aafat-e-Ishq, an adaptation of the award-winning Hungarian film Liza, the Fox-Fairy. It is an idiosyncratic fantasy dark comedy about a naive 30-year-old, Lallo (Neha Sharma), who wants to find the love of her life before she grows too old to marry. We thoroughly enjoyed the fantasy play. It streams on Zee5usa with an ensemble cast that is totally brilliant in their execution. Don't miss it.
In Dybbuk, a troubled couple from Mumbai movie to Mauritius and while fitting out their colonial home, the lady of the house inadvertently buys a Dybbuk. Things start going spooky soon after leading both Sam and Mahi into a dark mystery that appears rooted in the Jewish history of the island. Starring Emraan Hashmi, Manav Kaul, and Nikita Dutta; it is a spooky Halloween watch. Streams on **Amazon Prime
We also reviewed Call My Agent: Bollywood. A Bollywood celeb management agency called ART has a few agents who would go to any lengths for the stars they represent just like in the French OG of this series. What we get to see is a brilliant take on Bollywood making fun of Bollywood in a manner like never. Starring Rajat Kapoor, Soni Razdan. Ahana Kumra and Ayush Mehra, the series is produced by Applause Entertainment & Banijay Asia and is directed by Shaad Ali streams on Netflix
In Hum Do Hamare Do, an orphan but a budding entrepreneur Dhruv Shikhar (Rajkummar Rao) falls in love with Anya Mehra (Kriti Sanon) and wants to marry her. Except for one hurdle – she wants her to-be groom to have a loving family and a pet dog. So Dhruv decides to create one, in Purushottam Mishra (Paresh Rawal) and Dipti Kashyap (Ratna Pathak Shah).
Streams on HULU
Download it here at podcast.desis.live and everywhere you get your pods.
Happy Diwali y'all.**
This week we reviewed the movie Sardar Udham Singh which is streaming on Prime. Most patriotic movies are not made about freedom fighters as people, but freedom fighters as icons – generalizing them and condensing the complexities of their reasons and characters into neat marketable products for a multiplex audience. Sardar Udham Singh is a masterpiece that presents no such broad strokes.
Watch the impeccable #VickyKausal ace this role. Special mention for #AmolParashar as Bhagat Singh. It's a classic.
Shriya watched Lawyer Vishvanath. Viswanath is a lawyer who has a loving family comprising his wife Kamala and his loving 8-year-old daughter Akshara. He is a man of values and lives with principles. Viswanath spends considerable time with his family to ensure he gives proper love and affection.
On his daughter’s birthday, he takes his family for an evening outing but on the way back a tragedy strikes Viswanath and his family. Watch this remake on Prime.
Finally, we review @sonyliv's #Tabbar.
Ajitpal Singh’s Tabbar is a lesson on celluloid of how to impact your audiences with pure emotion.
Created and written by Harman Wadala, and co-written by Sandeep Jain, Tabbar deploys very credible theatre art to bring his characters to life. The logical, calculative Omkar (Pavan Raj Malhotra) and the emotional mother Sargun (Supriya Pathak Kapur), parents to Teji (Sahil Mehta), and the civil services aspirant Happy (Gagan Arora) are caught in a sudden situation inadvertently where they get embroiled in the killing of the drug peddling brother of a local businessman-politician (Ranvir Shorey) in their home. The tracks of drugs in Punjab, scams are all sub-threads to the main story which is about how the family deals with the aftermath of this murder. This show is a classic.
All this and Bonus - our chat with #MaheshBhupati about his docudrama #BreakPoint which streams on Zee5
And the quintessential Sujata Day about her movie #DefinitonPlease which also won a best actor mention at the #NewYorkSouthAsianFilmFestival.
Listen in at podcast.desis.live and all other places where you get your pod
Shiraal is back this week talking about the shows and movies that were released this week.
They review the horrendous suicide of 11 people of the same family in the House of Secrets: the Burari Killings.
'Little Things' season 4, now streaming on Netflix, brings back the cuteness of the rom-com that has been a little different than the others.
However, we are also glad that it's the final season.
Little Things season 1 premiered on Dice Media’s YouTube Channel in 2016 and had 15 million views within days. Little Things came as a big breath of fresh air. It was acquired by Netflix from season 2.
No governing body has so tenaciously tried to determine who counts as a woman for the purpose of sports as the I.A.A.F. and the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C.). Those two influential organizations have spent a half-century vigorously policing gender boundaries. Their rationale for decades was to catch male athletes masquerading as women, though they never once discovered an impostor. Instead, the athletes snagged in those efforts have been intersex women — scores of them.
We review @Zee5's Rashmi Rocket - the story of an athlete who is given a gender test to clear by a doctor under suspicious circumstances and made to take her clothes off for a CT. She is demeaned, media shamed and ostracized by people in the association to defame and ban her.
We also Review #Sanak which is a hospital hostage drama at its Hollywood best. The only difference is that this is a Bollywood production. There is a stallonish depth to Vidyut’s agility and fitness that makes him heavy lift a very predictable plot and make it his own.
Listen in to us here and on anywhere else that you get your POD.
Shiraal which is now officially their ship name reviewed Freida Pinto's new movie Intrusion where she’s a youth counselor who survived a cancer scare married to Henry who has a lot of skeletons in his closet; as we find out as the story unravels. Hear our review.
Since Scott is merrily beaching in Hawaii, #Shiraal also reviewed the series The Serpent, the underreported story of a serial killer in the 1970s who murdered men and women along what some called 'The Hippie Trail' in Southeast Asia- Charles Sobhraj
We also interviewed a comedian who has the achievement of performing in all 5 continents - Rajiv Satyal. This engineer turned comedian is all heart and we highly recommend his new show WHAT DO YOU BRING TO THE TABLE, where he interviews very famous Indian American notabilities of our community
Check it all out here this week!!!
Don't miss to like comment subscribe
Insta:desislivegram
Twitter/Youtube: desislive
FB: Desis.live
Shriya is batmanning food poisoning this week folks...Do wish her the very best.
Scott and Miraal reviewed BreakPoint and Shiddat in a long form.
When Leander and Mahesh tangi, it is like watching a synchronized dance. Even when the two are not communicating, they are. In fact like the Woodies ( Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge), they performed better while not communicating. In the two aspects of this review, we cover the journalistic quality of this review as the docuseries depend to a great extent on archived footage of rumors, false news, and headlines. We also review the technical aspect of the classic method in which the docuseries are framed. The story is compelling and the narrative is in sync with the momentum of the events.
STREAMS ON @ZEE5 -Listen to our Review here.
Inspired by the sentiments of a diplomat, whose romantic wedding he trespasses, Jaggi has notions about love and the person he will fall in love with. So, when he meets Kartika, he falls deeply, madly, and hopelessly in love with her. Armed with the belief that she is his destiny he illegally travels across Europe to meet her in London, where she is about to get married. He gets captured to be deported by the same diplomat whose ideas of love he had imbibed. Only now, the diplomat’s own marriage is nearing a perilous finish.
TAKE AWAY: MOHIT RAINA IS A BANKABLE STAR.
STREAMS ON @HULU / @DISNEYPLUSHOTSTAR
Have fun on this listen
Catch you next week
LOVE XX
We review Crime Stories: India Detectives, the reality "chase the cop with a camera" series produced by KJo's Dharmatic
India Detectives is a four-episode docuseries that follows different teams of Bangalore police detectives as they solve violent crimes. Three of the episodes feature murders, and one features a kidnapped baby. It is one of the first times that audiences in this part of the world have gotten a glimpse at the inner workings of police work . Good watch. Scott and Shriya liked it. Streams on @netflix
in Kota Factory season 2, Jeetu bhaiya is back. Unrewarded geniuses are not geniuses but clichés,” Maheshwari sir announces in a matter-of-fact tone to a class full of aspirants. In the second season, Vaibhav and his gang are joined by Susu, another roommate to Pandey who has now joined Maheshwari classes, the town’s most coveted coaching institute. Jeetendra Kumar is again worshipped to death and continues to be charming and magnetic. Pandey’s love interest Vartika returns to the scene but their chemistry is not fully fleshed. While Pandey’s struggles with Kota and the race to qualify for IIT, continue with other roadblocks thrown in his way — like bad food and self-doubt — Meena (Ranjan Rai) again steals the show with newer issues. This second season is a broader story about the bureaucracy in the Indian education system itself.
Streams on @netflix
Have fun listening to this review. Download at podcast.desis.live and everywhere else that you get your pods from.
Bonus: Chat with Bollywood Content Producer Faridoon Shahryaar.
And Do you know your slang??
Checked out our refaced videos on our insta and Twitter yet?
Do.
Love,
Shriya, Scott and Miraal
Here is what we got down to reviewing this week.......
Ankahi Kahaniya, the latest produce of the anthology factory from @Netflix is perhaps also the strongest case that they should enter the short film-making business.
We are highly dissatisfied by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and Saket Chaudhary’s films though we want to make sure to applaud Abhishek Chaubey’s brilliance in Madhyantar.
Of the ensemble cast across the four episodes, some of the names that impress include Siddhant Mahajan, Kashish Rai, Bibriti Chatterjee, Poorti Arya, Nishank Verma, and Ankita Chakraborty. Abhishek Banerjee and Kunal Kapoor.
In Pavitra Rishta playing on @zee5, Archana and Manav meet when she accompanies her heartbroken, sloshed friend to a garage where he works to pick her car up. Manav offers to drop both to their destination. The story is the reprise of the original story of Pavitra Rishta but will have several elements altered, and a few characters added. The web series format is well directed and executed.
Hai Tauba, on @altbalaji, is an anthology of four stories about relationships that don’t conform to societal norms. The first episode, Pink, revolves around a group of friends going through a rough patch in their relationships while an annual get-together only worsens their ties beyond repair. The next episode, White, explores the life of a social media influencer Taniya, who’s even ready to get laid in her bid to enhance her popularity.
Silver is centered around two budding filmmakers Shlok and Pooja who find themselves in an awkward situation when their cast doesn’t meet their expectations during the filming of a project. The final episode, Blue, is about the deep friendship that two closeted homosexuals, a caterer Arjan and a marketing person Trilok, forge in a Goan hotel.
Hear this all and more this week with Scott and Miraal and don't forget to LCS at @desislivegram or on Twitter at @desislive
Read and watch these reviews at https://desis.live
Shriya and Miraal rock the reviews this week with their crazy.
They start with the review of @hulu's #Bhootpolice and found #SaifAliKhan funny and slapstick. Miraal continues to advise #ArjunKapoor about his career.
Mumbai Diaries 26/11 on@amazonprimevideo was a racy, medical thriller and both M & S loved it ....M knew the backstory about #KyaMeriSonamGuptaBewafaHai on @zee5 and that was a lit discussion.
Potluck on @sonyliv was fun for M and she also watched #thalaivi in the theaters and spent a bit of time raving about Aarvind Swamy..... and Kangana Ranaut.
Download this pod on platforms the world over
@google @apple @itunes @amazon @pandora @itunes @alexa @stitcher @deezer and the rest....
Manushi and Tanushree review the four serials that they are watching ardently. In #kuchrangpyarkeaisebhi they discuss the various issues that cropped up for Dev and Sonakshi .
In #kbadeachelagtehain , Ram proposes marriage to Priya for family.
Watch both on @sonytv
In this week's episodes of Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata hai as the newly married Sirat strives to live up to Naira's reputation and the family knowingly or unknowingly keeps comparing her with Naira ... @hulu and @disneyplushotstar
In #MEET this week the wedding ceremonies of Meet Ahlawat with Manushi, Meet Hooda's sister start. Meet Hooda and Meet Ahlawat are unaware of that relationship between them. Streams on @zee5usa
This week Shriya and Miraal had a full docket and crazy fun. Scott took an extended break for Labor Day
They played a game about who knows most GenX slangs and who crushes on whom the most....and they also reviewed 2 movies and 2 shows.
Shirya loved #EngineeringGirls2.0 which is not about Engineering but Organic Chemistry. It is streaming on @zee5.
Miraal watched #Chehre in a theater and #Helmet on @zee5 and her review is gonna save you a lot of time..
Having said that the best one for the last was the extremely popular @netflix series - "Money Heist"
Have fun listening to these two girls have all the fun while Scott is away...
LEVEL UP BY DESISLIVE IS FAN REVIEWS OF SHOWS AND SERIALS ON INDIAN TELLY.
We start with a fan review of @Sony TV's flagship show #kuchrangpyarkeaisebhi
Listen to Tanu and Manu review the issue of communication in marriages as Sonakshi and Dev have been battling with that issue.
We also review for you @sonytv 's new season of #BadeAcheLagteHain. The challenge of recreating an iconic story with a new lead pair is the constant comparison that may be carried forward. But then your lead pair is comprised of Nakuul Mehta and Disha Parmar and you can be damn sure that they will recreate their own metamorphosis with Ram and Priya, not to replace the earlier characters but to sow the seeds of new characterizations.
Hear the fans of the show review episodes of the first week.
We also restart back by public demand the review of #yehrishtakyakehlatahai . Things have changed in the show and so have the people and plots. We now have a new wedding for Kartik and that too with Naira's look-alike Sirat.
Hear the Fan review with Tanu and Manu of last week's episodes.
Also the first fan review of MEET on @zeetv. MEET is the remake of the popular Bengali TV show "Bokul Kotha". This is a story of Meet is of a tomboyish girl, who looks after all the responsibilities of a head of the family. This week Manushi, Meet Hooda's sister agrees to marry Meet Ahlawat but only because of the jewelry and other gifts she expects to receive.
Let us know how you like this.... We would love to hear from you
Manu, Tanu, MK
This week we review three series and a movie and it was quite a show.
Not only because we are Sacue but we are smart and aweee to the core.
No cap.
Boomika is streaming on @netflix and Shriya totally liked the horror flick. She thought the movie was stitched together by #AishwaryaRajesh's performance.
#Cartel on @altbalaji was #TanujVirwani and #RitvikDhanjani's show. Miraal found it pretty riveting.
What Scott was animated about was the historical fiction series #TheEmpire on @hotstarusa and we had a lovely discussion about the advent of the Mughals into the Indian subcontinent.
And then Miraal reviewed the brand new series on @sonyliv - Chalo Koi Baat Nahi which is a comical satire a la SNL style about the Indian contemporary culture and attitude which she thought was quite funny.
We also added excerpts of the fan review of #kuchrangpyarkeaisebhi the series on @sonytv which is making waves with its story and performances.
Have a listen.
We are seriously Sacue-- say that with the accent it deserves.
The show has a new writer: Harneet Singh. We hope that does not change the composition of the characters; we are hoping that it does not; as fans of these very complex characters that we have seen evolved since Season one, it will be a pitza. The scene with Ayush suddenly calling Sonakshi “Ma” was out of sync with Ayush’s progression of relationships with both Dev and Ayush. Even Suhana has no usual response.
It looked rushed and overhasty in an attempt to close the Ayush track and start the third woman angle. Almost precipitous.
Dev is at the florist buying roses for his wife and hand writes a note to her apologizing for his insensitivity when his bouquet gets lifted by another customer as the careless florist lets that happen. That other customer reads the letter and assumes that the person writing the letter must have written it for his girlfriend. Intrigued at the fact that someone still writes love notes in this age of emails, she takes a fancy towards Dev.
READ REVIEW OF ALL EPIS DAILY AT https://desis.live/series/kuch-rang-pyar-ke-aise-bhi
Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi Season 3 streams on Sony TV USA at 5:30 pm and then at 8:30 pm (PST) Monday to Friday and anytime on @sonyliv. Ft: Shaheer Sheikh, Erica Fernandes, Supriya Pilgaonkar
Best known for his role of Randhir Singh Shekhawat in the youth TV Series Sadda Haq: My Life, My Choice, and Ahaan Veer Malhotra in Ishk Par Zor Nahi, Param Singh is one in a million actor who not only looks good but also does not mince words when it comes to his views.
Hear our entire conversation with Param as we speak to him about his plans, his socially reclusive demeanor, and what is on his agenda next.
Watch this video for the entire conversation.
IshqParZorNahin #ParmSingh #AhaanVeerMalhotra
Find theyoutube versionof the IV
Find the Print version of this IV
Enjoy
The weekly review of #KuchRangPyarKeAiseBhi3 by fans of the show. This week the panel reviews the story so far from Episode 1 to 30 and how they expect the story to evolve ahead.
Watch Manushi and Tanu review and analyze the story and talk about how they expect the character graphs of Dev and Sonakshi to evolve from here.
krpkab3 #Devaskshi
Watch Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi on @Sonytv at 8:30 pm Mon -Fri
Starring Shaheer Sheikh, Erica Fernandes, and Supriya Pilgaonkar
We have a crazy time this week reviewing two movies and a comedy show.
Can you imagine sitting through a dad-joke competition? That's what we realized that #ComedyPremiumLeague is. Plays on Netflix and is quite a joke.
We absolutely love the @zee5 original movie 200 Halla Bol and feel that we should clearly start conversing about the malice of the caste system in India. This movie was indeed stellar.
We also absolutely were thrilled by the quality of #Bellbottom, the new Akshay Kumar espionage thriller and we review it here for you as well. It is playing in theatres for now but will eventually find its way to Amazon for you.
Let us know what you think.
Love.
Scott, Miraal and Shriya.
What a busy patriotic week !!!
We watched not one but two patriotic flicks. And we did not balk.
Miraal watched both so that left Scott and Shreya with the over-easy parts.
We review a very pleasant Shershaah streaming on @amazonprimevideo which we actually loved. Fall in love with Sid Malhotra again and again and again. That man is joonas. Scott wanted to educate himself about Sikhism and we did it. We did it.
The music is fab tho'
We also review Bhuj which streams on @hotstarusa and we weren't that impressed by the execution of a great story. We were not alone. Seems Devgn had the same expression of interest.
Malik was supelative. Fahadh Faasil has a fan in Shreya.
And Scott was not so impressed with Nayanthara and #Netrikann which released on @hotstarusa as well.
Write to us and tell us which one of these did you catch up on.
But hear our banter first. We are good at those things.
See you next week !! You know we love ya.
Also, hear our daily playlist 9 PM pst @desislive channel on Station head.
Don't miss and tell us what songs you want us to play - we are taking requests...
Signing off.....
Shreya and Miraal have a go at it without Scott this week.
They reviewed 2 series and a movie and the convo was rad
Shreya - our token rep from Washington DC who really is supposed to represent the south o India is in infancy with Tamil as a language. But she did watch “Navarasa” or “nine emotions” in Tamil and experienced one emotion per episode.
Actually, whatever else everyone else says, Shreya holds that she did enjoy and quite liked the anthology. Hear her go at it. Catch it on @netflix
Miraal watched Dial 100 and reviewed this Zee movie for you. She is ready to say wo ai ni to Manoj if she ever sees him so Manoj, if you read this. Run. Cuz Marijane.
Actually to say MK cried watching a series made us so ofoc that we thought she was dt (Delirium tremens). But it seems Dhoop Ki Deewar has that effect on emo peeps.
So if you love that variety, this week do watch this @zee5 show fo sho.
So all in all a very fun week of show and movie watching for us and reviewed here for you. We hope you enjoy our banter as we did having it for you.
And yes, VIVO, that movie on @netflix. Don't miss it for the world. It will make you believe in love all over again.
Catch y'all next week
Love,
Desis
Scott and Miraal reviewed three series and a movie this week.
A lot - right?
But the fun, it was chatty, and don't you listen to them for just those jokes.
Hostel Daze, playing on @amazonprimevideo is based in an exclusive engineering college where students from disparate families fantasizing of a rosy campus life end up with just the boy's attention, the dorm life, and the struggles with academics, womenfolk, sexuality, and the solving other differences with each other.
Mimi is a Ranveer Singh Fangirl and a tourist spot dancer from Rajasthan who agrees to be a surrogate for an American couple. The social, psychological, and emotional implications of her decision only seep in when the couple decides they do not want to keep the baby at the first instance of the fetus detecting a probable down syndrome condition. Based on an acclaimed Marathi film ‘Mala Aai Vhhaychy!’ by Samruoddhi Porey, Mimi is cleverly tailored by Laxman Utekar. Screenwriter Rohan Shankar makes sure that the Hindi version has its own personality and uniqueness while preserving the soul of the original. Playing on @netflix is a treat to watch.
Season 2 of City of Dreams picks up from the volatile climax episode of Season 1. Amey Rao Gaikwad (Atul Kulkarni), the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, is now restricted to his wheelchair after an attack on his life.
His daughter Poornima Rao Gaikwad (Priya Bapat) makes herself the Chief Minister with the support of cop-turned-politician Wasim Khan (Eijaz Khan), and ex-Home Minister Jagdish Gurav (Sachin Pilgaonkar), after removing her druggie brother, Ashish (Siddharth Chandekar).
Season 2 sees the father-daughter go against each other to seize power; playing on @hotstarusa
Directed by Simarpreet Singh, Chutzpah has distinct yet interrelated stories. Kevin Paul (Gautam Mehra) is a content creator, whose defining trait is reminding everyone to ‘like, share, comment. All he wants is getting the attention of fashionable influencer Deepali Shah (Aashima Mahajan). His friend Prateek Chawla (Kshitij Chauhan), boasts about being a seducer who can charm any woman into his bed.
Rishi (Manjot Singh) is a bashful guy who battles to talk to women and turns to porn sites to accomplish his aspirations. His fav camgirl Wild Butterfly (Elnaaz Norouzi), conceals a secret of her own.
Vikas Bhalla (Varun Sharma) is a spoiled Punjabi boy, who strives to adapt to the ‘atmanirbhar (independent)’ life in Boston, as he maintains a long-distance relationship with his university girlfriend Shikha (Tanya Maniktala). Playing on @Sonyliv, watch #chutzpah
Fun it was !!!! Hope you have fun hearing us too... Let us know how you liked it...
A very busy weekend with a lot of releases coming on every possible platform, so you bet we were very busy.
With Hungama2 on @hotstarusa killing all our aspirations, Shilpa Shetty still kept our hopes high on that smoldering look and a bombastic come back to the big screen. And eh don't miss the hottie Meezan. Total studmuffin.
14Phere on @zee5usa review triggered our discussion about the quintessential Indian Caste system. And then of course, given the intensity with which one of the actresses defended the story by creating a higher moral ground for Indian values of approval of elders in life's decisions, we went into a tangent with stereotypes that Indians have about Americans. Quite a riot. You can watch the drama unfold in our review of this movie on our Youtube Channel
https://youtu.be/jT5AZBHF-6s
We also review two series ( Actually 3 but leave the third for next week for the paucity of time).
#FeelsLikeIshq on @netflix delves into the various hues of love and warmth and its impediments. These six stories from directors Ruchir Arun, Tahira Kashyap Khurrana, Anand Tiwari, Danish Aslam, Jaydeep Sarkar, and Sachin Kundalkar touch range from commitment phobia to first meetings and crushes, as the series sets out to explore amorous concepts of love at different stages of life.
#Chutzpah streaming on @sonlyliv delves into how the online world of social media has alienated a lot of people a reality that exists in their proximity. Using the cliched figures of speech, including a social media sensation grappling with body image problems and a John Tucker Must Die type plot to bring down a misogynistic womanizer.
Directed by Simarpreet Singh, Chutzpah has distinct yet interrelated stories. Kevin Paul (Gautam Mehra) is a content creator, whose defining trait is reminding everyone to ‘like, share, comment. All he wants is to get the attention of fashionable influencer Deepali Shah (Aashima Mahajan). His friend Prateek Chawla (Kshitij Chauhan), boasts about being a seducer who can charm any woman into his bed.
Hear all of this and more in our weekly podcast and let us know how you liked it.
Shreya is back from her surgery so you betcha she got a singing warm welcome from Scott and Miraal.
On that note, Never Have I Ever was a riot. No seriously, When is the Season 3 out folks? I cannot wait to see these funny characters in action again. Devi is such a dork. It is absolutely pheno seeing someone like us on screen and even more pheno seeing the tables turned on sexism on screen when the one we are ogling the body of a man rather than that of a man.
Fair View.
The Swot analysis on dating options was perhaps our most fav nerd feat. More of this fare plz @netflix. Thanks @mindykaling for making brown representation so fricking amazingly beaut.
Toofan- sigh. All about that body. That of the Akhtar buoy. No cap.
The story of the Indian raging bull with all the isms that you can throw in including a meandering plot. Watch it for the body tho'. Streams on @primevideo
The find of the year is this absolutely sick series that Asim Abbassi seems to have dreamt up and written on dream parade cuz not only do we love it, we are in love with it.
There has not been a totally perfect series made ever. But if there were - it will have to be #Churails.
Everything about the series is measured and perfectly fits in with the narrative that flows chronicling the lives of four vigilantes who though belonging to different stratums of the society, with varied motivations - would want one thing.
End of patriarchy.
Streams on @zee5usa and you must not miss it if you are a feminist at heart - man or woman. We highly recommend this show.
What do girls expect after marriage ? Equality. But beyond that. Respect. Gone are the days where the families of the Boys are treated deferentially than those of the girls. Today, the circumstances determine that both families garner equal respect and dignity. Just as the partners do. When asked if love superseded respect, the panel was unanimous in their voice. Nothing was more important than respect. They were willing to walk out of a relationship if it falls short on the respect side of things even if they loved the man.
Such are the women of today.
Manushi Shah and Nayantara Dewan speak about this and more.
This is the last episode of this Season for the #SAAKK series. We will be back with Season 2 soon. Till then, keep watching #shauryaauranokhikikahani.
StateofSiege - Temple Attack is the story of the terrorist attack on Akshardham temple in 2002 in Gandhinagar in Gujarat captured through the eyes of worshippers, NSG commandos, politicians, the affected families, and the terrorists themselves.
Four armed men killed 33 people, including a National Security Guard (NSG) commando and two Gujarat police officers, and injured 80 people. Innocent people were held hostage and ended up as collateral damage before NSG could barge in to save lives. Pressure built up as lawmakers were forced to take a tough call — whether to exchange dreaded terrorists in return for the lives of innocent hostages. We review this movie playing on @zee5.
We also review another hostage thriller #CollarBomb starring Jimmy Shergill and Asha Negi streaming on @hotstarusa.
So all in all a week of hostage drama plots. Enjoy the reviews and of course a little excerpt of our conversation with the Shaurya Anokhi Fandom speaking about the issues that a woman must navigate as she steps into her in-laws home as the Indian system of patriarchy makes her a lower person in relationship than the man she is married to. How would you like to see this change ?
Tell us.
The Indian Son in law is akin to God whereas the Indian Daughter in Law is All thanks to vicious prejudices, the term, ‘in laws’ is seen by most women in India as scary. Young women dreaming of a happy life getting married are often worried about their freedom. The fault lies in the mentality at large that is responsible for depicting people in a certain way. Also, for people to think that they are entitled.
Our society isn’t very balanced when it comes to marriage. Right from the outset, it is the man who gets the unfair privilege, and the woman is expected to follow the stereotypes. This is why the parents of the man become entitled whereas the parents of the woman get ignored. A woman is expected to leave everything and not follow her dreams.
The fandom talks about how they see this inequity play out in their lives.
Shreya says that that the Indian marriage whether it is arranged or love, is like "Russian Roulette" but she is going into her arranged relationship not like the mommy she is expected to be but as an equal.
Manushi has the same expectations. She is friends with her Mother in law, who was apprehensive in her Son's choice initially and now supports her. She feels communication is primary in establishing not only her place but also her space in the household that may be her home of the future.
How will these new age daughter in laws redefine the "daughter-in-law" relationship of the Indian patriarchy.
What's more fun on a July 4 weekend than a jump off a fully functional airplane , walk into a pool, eat amazing food, hang out with friends, that cannabis cookie and then watch Haseen Dillruba. Cuz, you know - you need your brains right there......
Hahaha
No- serious. We also watched Skater Girl.
Hear our reviews.
Have fun with our takes and the crazies that come with it....
hehehehehe.
Happy Friyayaay
SMS
In most eastern cultures, filial piety is not a choice, but rather as an unconditional obligation of the child. Respect and obedience are therefore expected of the children by the parents in this codification of patriarchy.
“Respect” – that oft-repeated, irrationally understood mommy of all goddamn family ideals. It surpasses logic and debates and substitutes rational disagreements with excellent old-fashioned subservience.
So many of us grow up trusting that this is how it must be; that only “badtameez bachche” contend, query, and dissent. The good, sanskaari kids?
There is nothing wrong, per se, with parental approval. In fact, I easily believe that our families do want the best for us.
And when we listen to their tattered risk-averse opinion, it often works out simply fine.
The problem, though, arises when things take an irrational and totalitarian route. When we can spot moral cracks in the directives and beliefs and principles passed on to us, and instead of flagging concerns or asking questions, we swallow them in a swig of quiet obedience.
The dictum of blind, absolute respect is almost dictatorial. It is, in fact, turning us into a society that has lost its ability to think on its own.
When Shaurya and Anokhi question the norm, they are labeled as detractors because we are, as brown people born under the shadow of expectation.
The Shaurya and Anokhi Fandom speak about this and more in this week's podcast.
Hear Supriya and Shreya in this episode.
Shaurya Aur Anokhi ki Kahani on @Starplus 7PM India Mon to Sat and anytime on @hotstarusa
Manushi, Shreya, Sumi, and Supriya talk about the antiquated customs surrounding marriages and how no one has ever done an intelligent exploration of the reason why we do the weeks of long wedding festivities rich with food and drink, dance, and Bollywood. Why the bastion that these traditions have governed over years and ages is robust enough to go unimpeded.
And mostly – for whatever it is worth to quote Mr. Bachchan in Mohabatein parampara, pratishtha, anushaasan.
Hear them debate the customs and rituals that definitely need to be rooted out. Which ones do you want to abolish? Do you agree with them?
Let's hear your voice.
This episode was recorded before the telecast of the content of the episode where Anokhi questions the custom of repaying the debt of the parents. And Devi speaks about riwaaj.
Man-Made Riwaaj is just the means people use to control the behavior of their families. The real reason is that people like Devi and Tej fear change.
Are you watching #ShauryaAurAnokhiKiKahani ?
Airs every day except Sundays on @starplus at 7P IST and anytime on Disney+Hotstar or @hotstarusa for us here in NorthAmerica where episodes drop 5:30P PST / 8:30P EST Sunday-Friday
As Anokhi hurts her relationship with Shaurya by lying to him in the whole Indian tradition of sacrifice, he questions her rights to donate him and take decisions on his behalf as if he did not matter to the relationship or his desires does not. He walks out of her life. What she thinks is sacrifice, we think is selfish and self-centered thought. The fandom discusses how the entire idea of sacrifice and mental health impacts the thinking of women in the patriarchy in South Asian societies.
Hear Sumi, Supriya, Manushi go deeper into the issues this brings out.
ShauryaAurAnokhiKiKahani telecasts on @starplus at 7p Monday to Saturday week in India and anytime on Hotstar
Oppression in lesser-privileged families where women are always silenced cannot be wished away by a few privileged speeches. The savior complex becomes more pronounced when Sasha says, “Hum jaise auratein ladte hain taaki ap jaisi auraton ko apni duniya mein ladaai na karni pade.”
Shaadistan on Hotstar is a story of three women who are facing their own demons of empowerment in their own chasms.
Scott and Miraal have a go at it.
Love and Shukla Review is Next and Miraal is the one who has watched this movie so she tells us about this endearing story of Shukla a newly-married rickshaw driver, who struggles to connect with his painfully shy bride Lakshmi (Taneea Rajawat). Their woes are compounded by his friends’ bad advice and his family’s inability to understand the concept of personal space.
We then speak to the fandom of Shaurya Anokhi ki Kahani, Supriya, Sumi, Shreya and Manushi about the concept of Sacrifice so deeply embedded in the core of the Indian way of life. We also speak to Karanvir Sharma and Debattama Sharma about their popular show.
What a fun show- Hope you enjoy listening in.
Xx
In the sacrificial context of the early period of the Vedas, an act (karman) ensured the stability of the deity and the world order governed by that deity but could also fulfill one’s personal desires. In the period of the Brahmanas, the act of sacrifice came to take on an autonomous role in creating and sustaining the cosmos. The deity loses importance and the priest who offers the sacrifice grows in importance; the priest has the ability to release the power of brahman—the sacred word that makes the sacrifice efficacious. Speculation thus arose as to the self of the brahman performing the sacrifice. Who was the real performer who held this power of brahman? Thus, the individual self (atman) of the priest was identified with this universal brahman power.
In a lot of psychology studies over the years, participating couples have found a deeper sense of relationship satisfaction if they would sacrifice for each other. But love should not drain us, it should nurture us.
If it is love that is making Anokhi want the best for Shaurya, should she not be happy for him? Why is she feeling all this pain? Why is she crying for something she herself orchestrated? After all, did she not want the best for him more than the best for her own self? That is because Shaurya and Anokhi can disassociate each other from themselves but can they separate their emotions from each other? Is this a sacrifice then?
In our Vedic culture, sacrifice is extremely glorified. We raise our children by sacrificing for them, we educate them by sacrificing for them. We teach our families the tradition of sacrifice before self. And we tell them that this is the way to achieve glory.
We teach them that it is a sacrifice that is the secret of progressing in virtue. We are told that it is the stepping stone to the highest powers of glorified divinity.
Hear Supriya, Sumi, Manushi, and Shreya from #ShakhiFanTeam of the #ShauryaAurAnokhiKiKahani Fandom speak about Anokhi's behavior with Shaurya and how the culture of sacrifice needs to be replaced by love.
The fandom of Shaurya Aur Anokhi ki Kahani has been making waves by creating a pathway for themselves in taking the issues that the series deals with in terms of social content to the next level.
The fans not only discuss these issues in highly animated panels but also create dialogue, engage in meaningful conversation, and build a plan for their communities to embrace change in thoughts and actions.
We at Desis.LIVE are so grateful to be the catalysts for this movement of advocacy that we have helped these fans create and we hope to help them become bearers of change for the communities that they represent as Influencers.
AgentsofChange
ShauryaAurAnokhiKiKahani
@coolgal270, @2_nomadic, @SUPRIYADEVERKON, @khwaab_tutahua
desislive
Hear our extremely animated review of @altbalaji's new series Broken But Beautiful Season 3
Agastya Rao (Sidharth Shukla) is a talented theatre director, down on luck and cash because of his out-of-whack eccentricities. Rumi Desai (Sonia Rathee) is a rich brat who hides her insecurities and issues under the veneer of a devil-may-care attitude. They hate each other passionately, which is why they fail to realize when that hate turns to need and then love. Rumi wants what she does not have and when Agastya falls out of love, he is sure what he wants.
Miraal made fun of it, Shreya was sympathetic and Scott played along.
And now for the series, we have all been waiting for Family Man Season 2.
Manoj Bajpayeedoes not fail us. He is funnier, he is quirkier, he is badass and he is Sri.
The story is kickass, the cinematography is exemplary, the narrative gripping, the editing perfect, the female terrorist - nothing short of - sorry to say but really inspiring- Samantha Akini makes quite an impact.
The entire season is quite a riot. We all unanimously loved it. Hear our gossip, banter... and the resulting fun... all here...
Then of course our advocates and creators from the fandom of the #ShauryaAurAnokhiKiKahani - speak about the taboo of teacher-student romances and why we need to rethink our beliefs here. Have a listen to this totally amazing discussion.
November Story @hotstarusa is perhaps among Tamannaah’s best performances and she makes the most of the role that she has been offered. The character reverberates a lot with the audience because it tells the story of strong women who can be vulnerable and have their flaws too. Tamannaah oozes poise and maneuvers her star charisma to tell a good story.
Ahaan @netflix is the story of a differently-abled with Down syndrome and talks about his dream: a satisfying job, a decent salary, a car, a wife, two kids. Otherwise stated, he aspires to be perceived as conventional. A feeling that deserted Ozzy, who is older, with OCD, and more cynical a while ago.
Ahaan is a movie about finding yourself in someone else and evolves into a ‘coming-of-age’ drama centered on a middle-aged man. A very delicately delightful treatment of its subjects creates a delightful tapestry of normalcy in the storytelling of differently-abled people.
“Friends: The Reunion” isn’t trying to be revealing, at least not about anything that thorny or unpleasant. It’s here to entertain and to remind fans why they love the show. But some of the jokes...?
Hear Miraal and Scott and their chat about the reunion watch.
Hear Shriya, Scott and Miraal have a go at these shows and the movie that released last week. Have fun listening to them.
“You had the power all along, my dear.” -Glinda the Good Witch, The Wizard of Oz.
Women cannot choose if they are not given the same options to make their choices from. If their choices are not free of biases: burdens of keeping everyone around them happy, the responsibility of keeping the family together, the duty towards nurturing kids before themselves, the penalty they pay for being ambitious, or self-advocating.
Yes, we can give women the freedom of choices, but these choices come to them through a funnel of these societal and cultural conditions. The complacency of women is often not derived from free choice because their decisions to choose lower-paying jobs maybe not because they are not qualified but because they need the flexibility to prioritize their families over their careers. Women shoulder more familial burdens than men because society expects them to do so disproportionately. Women are programmed to sacrifice careers in the face of familial obligations. As a society, we have programmed ourselves to deliberately keep women out of the most influential spheres of society. When Anokhi asked Shaurya that she wanted to have the freedom of choice to take her own decisions in life, she meant that her decisions would never be encumbered by other people’s choices. But what about the stipulations that society has already placed on women in terms of expectations?
Is it enough that only the expectations change only for women? Hear Sumi, Supriya, and Shreya from the Shaurya and Anokhi fandom speak about how the show's content inspired them to advocate the debate about love and career as mutually exclusive choices as presented to young women. Hear this very inspiring panel discussion and tell us what you think.
We would love to hear your thoughts.
Miraal, Shriya, and Scott are back in the room. They start with almost an evisceration of @netflix's Grandson of Sardar in one of its funniest ever takedowns. Don't miss it.
Then of course Scott's fascination with the supernatural thriller genre of @amazon's The Last hour and its shaman fused the idea of the past, present, and future getting tied together in a way that promotes free will and second chances. Solidly sold.
@Netflix's The Disciple was Shriya and Scott's fav. And Miraal was the quiet one because she did not complete her homework. Lol. She had a "paucity of time", as she puts it. We wonder if a certain mister had something to do with that paucity.
Then the Shaurya and Anokhi Fan Club Shriya, Sumi, Supriya and Manushi came over to discuss another social issue relevant to their show this week- Parental Abuse and Blackmail in South Asian Families.
Download at
podcast.desis.live
now on Spotify, Apple, Google, Pandora, Deezer, Amazon,iHeartRadio Overcast, Castro, & Castbox
This week Devi played a very sinister trick to fake a heart attack to trick Shaurya to perform a perfunctory exchange of rings with Shagun by emotionally blackmailing him in withholding fake medication till he did not exchange the rings.
Devi uses Shaurya's abandonment syndrome which she herself has seeded against him as his vulnerability and creates a sense of obligation in him as a son because he places guilt inside of him that because Devi had to take care of Shaurya as his own mother abandoned him, Devi and Tej themselves could not become parents and they dedicated their lives to the upbringing of Shaurya who they consider their own son.
Angry and frustrated at this, Shaurya plans to cut all his ties with Shagun as soon as he feels Devi gets better. Meanwhile, as Anokhi plans to walk out of his life forever to focus on her education and career, he does what he can to hold her back; he marries her at the spur of the moment in the temple to bind her to himself somehow. If all these situations sound familiar to you, we know what you are thinking about and we know you know what we discussed this week at the panel we host when we discuss the week at the Desis. Live show when we review the week with the Fans Club of the Shaurya and Anokhi Ki Kahani.
Manushi, Sumi, Supriya and Shreya were in the house this week again we discussed parental blackmail, the socio-economic aspect of this malaise, the concept of the individuality of children within Indian families, and why elders can also be wrong.
Listen in to this very important topic.
We review Hum Hain Akele Tum Ho Akele, one of the very few LGBTQ stories told in India playing on @Hotstarusa. Scott and Miraal get into a war of words about who is right and who should be imprisoned while reviewing Out of Love Season 1 and 2 both, playing on @hotstarusa too
Miraal is angry with Salman Khan about his mind-numbing, eyes-burning new movie Radhe which she says she had to "our her life at risk" for to watch. She also says her crush on Randeep Hooda is finally over thanks to his role in this movie. Short-lived tho'
The fans of Shaurya Anokhi ki Kahani ( Supriya, Sumi, Shreya, and Manushi) are on a panel discussion this week discussing how their show bought forward another important social topic this week. That of stigmatization of Middle-Class girls to suit the narrative of daily soaps in India. Very interesting
Have a listen.
The daily soaps have typecast the image of a “good Indian girl” — one who always wears Indian clothes, speaks eloquent Hindi, cooks delectable food, carries a no make-up face and is shy to the core. We do not remember viewing a daily soap where the good girl was depicted as an outspoken person whose clothes were irrelevant to her character.
When the world is bent on shattering stereotypes, these shows have done nothing but junk the minds of middle-class Indian society.
Daily soaps romanticize the silence, tears, and beseeching for the help of a good girl as if that was the only good thing to do when trapped by a baddie. The bad Indian girl, wearing a lot of make-up, high heels, and short dress, is someone whose character is not only questionable but also inveterate.
The fans of Shaurya and Anokhi Shreya, Sumi, Supriya, and Manushi get on our show to speak about what happened to the story this week, the dynamic between emotional and physical abuse, the adoptive and natural motherhood angle, and of course the devolution of women in modern India through the daily soap portrayal of a "sanskari ladki."
How does Anokhi change all of that for these girls and the modern Indian Woman?
saakk #shauryaauranokhikikahaani Streams on @Hotstarusa/ @hotstarcanada 5:30p pacific /8:30p eastern onwards Sunday- Friday Every week for North America
Music Opening and Closing Bars Credit: Shalmali Kholgade X Benny Dayal - Cover > Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho
SHOW LESS
In this Special Episode of Desis.Live Podcast, actors Shaheer Sheikh and Erica Fernandes are all set to return to the small screen in one of their most popular roles, namely Dev and Sonakshi in the much-awaited third season of the hit show 'Kuch Rang Pyaar Ke Aise Bhi'.
As the leads shared a cute video to announce 'KRPKAB' season 3. In the BTS video that Shaheer shared, he can be seen walking with Erica while they flash smiles and have some fun together, the fan clubs are busy guessing what the story of the Season 3 would be.
The Shaheer Birdies from SBFC came to our show to tell us about the three possible story tracks that they think the Season 3 may bring and how excited they are to see Erica ,Shaheer and their sizzling chemistry again.
Download this podcast on Google, Apple and Spotify at podcast.desis.live and have all the fun in the world listening to this chat with the Shaheer Birdies Fan Club members.
Excited for Season 3? We absolutely are.
@shaheernsheikh @iam_ejf @sonytvofficial @sonylivindia @sonylivusa @sbfc_shaheerbirdiesfanclub @shaheerbirdieFC , @kuhu_birdie, @beingrassu #krpkab3
In this episode of our weekly podcast enjoy the review of the deeply melancholic Milestone on @netflix which had Miraal mesmerized but Scott rattled.
Then Miraal finds @mxplayer's Hello Mini 3 raunchier than the first installments but hear her reasons.
The blockbuster review of the week is that of Shreya and Scott's take on their fundamental right to be superficial and like the absolutely shallow movie- @netflix's Time to Dance Have a hear. You are sure to be convinced. The film stars Isabella Kaif ( @isakaif) and Sooraj Pancholi (@soorajpancholi)
This week, the fans of @karanvirsharma and @debattama_sah starter #ShauryaAurAnokhiKiKahani- Ankitta ( @the_au_world) and Shreya Mehta ( nomadic_vibe) joined us to discuss three issues:
1 The strange camaraderie between Devi and Astha. Id that to be trusted?
-
Anokhi's behavior post-breakup. In her tussle between heart and mind, is her character graph fine?
-
Domestic Violence.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is https://www.thehotline.org/
The number is 1.800.799.7233(SAFE)
or you can send chat messages from these websites where your identity and information will be confidential.
If you are in India, several helplines are available at http://www.ncw.nic.in/helplines and you can also report to cops at 100
Watch it all here as fans of #ShauryaAurAnokhiKiKahani take their love for the show to the next level. The show airs on @starplus at 7 PM India and streams on @hotstarusa / @hotstarcanada starting 5:30pst/8"30est Sunday to Friday every week for North America.
A very spirited #ShaKhi fandom took their twitter challenge to radio on the DesisDOTLive Radio show and we ended up having riot.
They were such an articulate lot. The beautiful ladies spoke about issues that the show spoke to them about and how the story affected them.
They discussed the aspects of the story telling of the @starplus series that resonated with their growth and evolution as women and issues that they themselves faced that they saw the protagonist #Anokhi face as well.
What was it about #Shaurya the male protagonist that they found interesting and why despite his misogyny did they empathize with him ?
Listen to these ladies Shreya, Madhura, Mahi, Sumi, Rimpi, Vaidehi, Soumi and Noor tell us what these characters evoked in them and why they love actors Karanvir Sharma and Debattama Saha who epitomise the perfect characterization of Shaurya and Anokhi for them with their flawless on and off screen chemistry.
Hear all this in a totally sic Special podcast episode #ShauryaAurAnokhiKiKahani Fan Episode
You can download this on Apple , Google and on Spotify.
saakk #shauryaauranokhikikahaani Streams on @Hotstarusa/ @hotstarcanada 5:30p pacific /8:30p eastern onwards Sunday- Friday every week for North America
It airs 7PM Monday - Saturday on @Starplus in India on their live broadcast if you are in India.
It has been a beautiful week here in California - warm and outdoorsy! It will be fire season soon enough and we are expecting another drought year so we are out enjoying the hiking as much as we can, as long as we are allowed to be maskless.
Our hearts are heavy with the news from India as our friends and family are affected. We are here to help in any way we can and will always be here to do so. Do write to us if we can.
This week, we review Altbalaji's HisStory, SonyLIV's Kathmandu Connection. Karan Johar's Searching for Sheela - the Osho connection documentary on Netflix and of course the weekly review with the fans of the serial Shaurya Aur Anokhi ki Kahani as Ankitta calls us in from Delhi to tell us what the fans are thinking and Scott makes his prediction on what he thinks Shaurya will do man to man. Stakes are high.
Shriya was busy with exams so Scott and Miraal had a fun time chatting.... we missed you Shriya.
Check it all out!!
This week we want you to say a Thank you. Yes, you heard that right. We watched Hello Charlie on Prime Video for you so you do not have to.
So here goes.
You are welcome.
We also will speak about Parth Samthaan's new Gangster series Mein Hero Bol Raha Hoon on @altbalaji which gave us old Bombay Bollywood vibes - totally lit!! We enjoyed this new Parth avatar.
Then we reviewed a series we absolutely LOVED - Vikram Bhatt's murder mystery thriller on @MXplayer called Bisaat. Woah!! OTT dude. Just the whole damn package is straight outta d park in the classic thriller genre and cherry on top are the actors. There is a reason why Mr. Bhatt is the best in this game.
We also had Ankitta from the Fandom of Star Plus series Shaurya Anokhi Ki Kahani over again with their analysis of what happened and how they see the story unfold around their nuanced characters. Fun convo. Check it out!
MUSIC THIS WEEK:
Our fav @ShishiMusic. We picked up this week-this tune that Shishi had mixed in Tulum last year and we had fallen in love with. Especially when played in a club full of people dancing with no regrets. Slid into the podcast is Shishi's Mere Piya Remix From OST Devdas. Follow @shishimusic for more mindblowing music and we know you are back in Tulum Shishi. We Love you. Stay Safe.
Also ft this week is the quarantine track that we absolutely love Benny Dayal X Shalmali Kholgade Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho. Check the Beats Folks. OST HASHTE ZAKHM ( oldie )
Shriya was MIA- Practicing her graduation speech- She is Graduating Carnegie folks.
Zayn is settling into his new bachelorhood but did come over to eat biryani last weekend - left grumpy because he thought it wasn't salty enough. He needs his taste buds checked.
We hope you are getting vaccinated and if not yet, are scheduled to. We cant wait to hear your vaccination side effect story. Send us some love.
Miraal, Scott. Shriya. Zayn
We are back after our break. Scott has had fun. And so has Shreya. Miraal not si much. She has had a terrible time recovering from her first Rona shot. Others not as much. As she says, which shot have you had is the new, which part of town are you from, she is from Moderna and Scott and Shriya from Pfizer, you see. Bruh!
We reviewed this week Koi Jaane Na, which was euphonious to the ears and visually so splendid.
We also reviewed the anthology on Netflix called Ajeeb Daastaans which Miraal actually loved so much that she praised K'Jo, The other two people on the show almost choked.
Last but not the least, Shriya and Scott reminisced their own youth and days of spontaneous flings when they were in the age of infinite alternatives of self-sabotage when they reviewed T&F -the story of profound complications of “commitment-phobia Milleninals that released on Netflix.
We also changed the format of the show a bit this time. We reviewed a serial our viewers were demanding we restarted doing daily reviews for, like before the pandemic, which they liked for its etched, well-written, characters within the Indian Television circles ( yes, not Ekta Kapoor characters, what were you thinking. Duh)
We invited fans over to review with us.
Hey, who better to critique a show than the people who make the show or break it down. We invited Ankitta over - who called in all the way from New Delhi in the middle of her night for us, to break down the plot and the characters of the @starplus show Shaurya Aur Anokhi ki Kahani for us which all of us here at Desis. That chat is here with this epi and it is a super fun one!! If you are fans of the show, don't miss the plot. If you are not, start watching this super fun show, This is the story of this sassy girl and her rude, arrogant professor who are at loggerheads proving points to each other till they realize they have fallen in love. If you are a Brooklyn Nine-Nine fan, you will almost get a Peraltiago vibe. That's what we are definitely getting. Hear the break down here and join the conversation.
We know you will enjoy the show this week. Tell us how we did.
MUSICA:
What we did add for you in this episode is a lot of love in the name of music.
Sajani Ft Ben Parag and Mowgli ( What music. What Tracks. We Love you Shishi.) Please Follow him at @shishimusic and show him the love he deserves
Also, in the podcast is music by our brilliant talented Munda at Harvard Medical School, MA Naman Patel - His single Animal will blow your mind. Please follow him at **@namanxl
A big shoutout to Armaan at NonResident.FM for everything** he does for the artists of desi origin. Big love.
Big Opening for Season 2, Let us Rock'nRoll Desis. Bring out the swag G.
Scott, Shriya, Miraal, and Zayn ( Missing in Action but appears on Friday nights to binge-watch Shaurya ki Kahani)
We took a break this season to recover from a lot of work overload but we are back with a load of more reviews, new stories, crazy tales of scott going scott-free and of course our recommendations .
How are you liking our Cricket series? Let us know.
Mark Zuck nuked our Insta. It was a huge disappointment - our work of an entire year disappeared, Miraal and Scott were integrating our shopify to the insta page when this happened and now we are back to square one with re-starting that effort all over.
We wish we had badly behaved dogs we could send to his backyard to poop.
Hear our podcast this week and if you want to hear the songs too ( hear it on the radio ) hehehe. So this week its about Talvar, the story of a school going girl who was murdered at home while the cops spoil the investigation, Wake up Sid, a coming of age story of Sid, the story of a thriller serial murder mystery Asur- riveting fare over all. Don't miss Scott's journey into the world of cricket.
Our new insta is desislivegram - be sure to show us some LOVE. our bruised ego needs some now.
See you soon
Scott watched the Hotstar series City of Dreams and had some serious comments about how he felt. However, he was distressed by the story of Emmy winning Delhi Crime, the real-life story of a girl who was gang-raped and thrown off a moving bus in India in a brutal accident in New Delhi.
We also review Lahore Confidential the new series on Zee 5,
Scott starts his journey into the world of cricket with our resident Cricket Fanatic Amit Sinha - want to know more about the game of cricket and why billions of people around the world love to play and watch it - hear it all here.
This version is sans the songs. Should you want to hear the version with the songs - you are welcome to hear the show on our Desis.LIVE show on Radio Zindagi every Sunday at 7 PM.
Follow us on YouTube,
This week, Scott went down memory lane to watch Khushwant Singh's epic Train to Pakistan based on his novel Mano Majra about a place on the border of India and Pakistan during the bloody partition of the sub-continent.
We also review Hotstar's popular series starring KK Menon, Special Ops
We also introduce Scott to bubblegum Bollywood with Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone's Yeh Jawani Hai Deewani
Included in this episode is our special Roll out song: Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho: Version by Benny Dayal X Shalmali but if you want the version with songs please do hear our Sunday evening show on Radio Zindagi at 7 PM Pacific,
If you haven't already watched The White Tiger, hear our review of the Priyanka Chopra, RajKummar Rao movie.
We also watched Amit Sadh's Zidd ki Jeet and quite enjoyed the series. Scott finally watched the comedy Vicky Donor and enjoyed it much though he did characteristically comment upon several aspects of the movie.
Scott also fell in love with The Family Man, the series on Amazon Prime, and his romance with the fine actor that Manoj Bajpayee is.
So, have fun listening to Scott and Miraal. And sorry we did not insert the songs here but if you want to listen to the version with the songs, you can on 1170 AM every Sunday Evening at 7.
Happy Listening.
Scott goes down memory lane to watch Ayushmann Khurana's Bareilly Ki Barfi. as we also review Tribhanga, Kajol's new movie on Netflix.Also, an explosive Tandav starring Saif Ali Khan and Dimple Kapadia - the new political series on Amazon which has more than created ripples !!!
Then a segment on how Vivek Tiwary found a mentor in a person he had never met. Vivek Tiwary is the celebrated author and Grammy Nominated producer of Alanis Morisette's Jagged Little Pill
Hear al All here!
Watch segments on Desis.LIVE insta/FB and desisLIVE on Tw.
Hear our dear Scott fall truly, madly, deeply. The reason is Tabu. Watching the scintillating Tabu in Mira Nair's BBC adaptation of A Suitable Boy has been a life-changing experience for Scott and in this week's episode find out how this happened.
Watch our show at IGTV/FBWatch/YT @desis.LIVE and Twitter @desisLIVE
Check out more amazing content www.desis.live
Vivek J. Tiwary is an acclaimed producer of narrative entertainment from Tony Award-winning Broadway shows to groundbreaking immersive experiences, a media financier/investor, a #1 New York Times bestselling author, and a Grammy-nominated producer. He is the founder of Tiwary Entertainment Group.
Vivek’s graphic novel The Fifth Beatle won numerous literary awards including the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award and two Harvey Awards. It’s a Lambda Literary Finalist for Best LGBT Graphic Novel and has been added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives. Vivek secured unprecedented access to Beatles music for its TV adaptation, for which Vivek is a writer + Executive Producer.
Vivek is currently the lead producer of Broadway hit Jagged Little Pill (based on Alanis Morissette’s classic album), nominated for 15 Tony Awards including Best Musical—second only to Hamilton (16) for the most ever—and the best-reviewed show of the season.
Past Broadway productions Vivek has either been a financier or Producer on including such groundbreaking work as Green Day’s American Idiot, A Raisin In The Sun, The Addams Family, A Little Night Music, and both of Mel Brooks’ musicals The Producers and Young Frankenstein. Combined, these productions have won 25 Tony Awards and 59 Tony nominations.
Vivek is also a pioneering producer in the world of site-specific, tech-based, and immersive theatre. He consulted on the creation and development of The Walking Dead Escape and The Walking Dead Experience. He served on the Board of Directors for New York’s seminal GAle GAtes—considered to be the founders of immersive theatre. He also produced experiential shows and installations for boundary-pushing companies such as The Wooster Group, Fischerspooner, and the São Paulo Art Biennial.
Prior to founding TEG and online music education/empowerment company StarPolish, Vivek held a number of major label music-industry positions and has worked with artists covering the entire musical spectrum from Bruce Springsteen to Britney Spears.
Hear our conversation with Vivek, his journey, his struggle, his aspirations, and his very very warm heart.
Code-Switched is a comedy-drama series that follows the interconnected lives of five South Asian-American roommates and friends trying to blaze their own trails in a world of high-expectations, fleeting relationships, and gentrified workplaces.
This is a comedy-drama about a group of South Asian-Americans juggling love, work, and family in Chicago.
Code-Switched showcases a SPECTRUM of South Asian-American characters of color through an exploration of millennial life, identity, and what it means to carry the baton of an immigrant generation while pursuing your own.
The team wanted to challenge the representation of South Asians in media with characters and stories covering the SPECTRUM of South Asian-Americans (Women, men, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, LGBTQIA, etc. they're all here!) and exploring their lives in a three-dimensional way.
Powered by rising South Asian-American comedians, artists, musicians, this series has been a grass-roots of independence and community to fight for the right to tell our own stories.
We spoke to Sonal Agarwal, Saurabh Pandey, Stephen George, Sabeen Sidiqui and Vik Pandya about the series and their lives as actors, stand up comics in Chicago. Karan Sunil's writing and direction are superb and this is a series to be watched for sure.
Watch the series
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MI848mBO1vU&ab_channel=Code-SwitchedtheSeries
We caught up with Priya Darshini who is fresh and famous from her magnificent debut album "Periphery" spoke to us about her life, her work, and her future.
Taking her roots from Indian Classical music, Priya’s knowledge of music from all over the world has resulted in a fresh, imaginative, and fascinating new sound. She displays an exciting combination of range, technique, unconventional compositions, a feminist perspective, and a prodigious voice that truly sets her apart from other vocalists. Priya has collaborated with a wide range of artists from Pearl Jam; GRAMMY® Award winners Roy “Futureman” Wooten; Jeff Coffin, Philip Lassiter, Silk Road Ensemble’s Shane Shanahan; virtuoso ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro, Karsh Kale, and many more.
Based out of Brooklyn, New York Priya has sung for over one-hundred television and radio commercials, as well as recorded for several award-winning and chart-topping Indian movie soundtracks. She is also an actor (The Letters), ultra-marathoner (first and youngest Indian woman to run a 100-mile race in the Himalayas), entrepreneur (The Wind Chasers – organizing extreme ultra marathons in the Himalayas and the south of India), and is deeply involved in human rights and social justice. She is a trustee of the Mumbai-based non-profit organization Jana Rakshita – an NGO working with underserved pediatric cancer patients, and building infrastructure for schools, with a focus on education for girls. Priya Darshini is also an environmentalist and is working with a New York-based sustainable couture fashion startup that aims at slowing down fast fashion inspired by cradle-to-cradle design. Priya Darshini has been featured in several distinguished newspapers and magazines including Vogue India
Have a listen.
Formally trained at the School of Audio Engineering (SAE) in New York, Shishi writes, produces, mixes, and masters hip-hop, dancehall, pop, and electronic music.
Scott and Miraal caught up with Shishi while playing a mix of Bollywood tunes in Tulum, Mexico, and making waves.
Shishi was raised on three different continents, an upbringing that strongly influenced his music's global elements. As an artist, he uses music to dissolve the illusory walls that keep us from connecting with both others and ourselves.
So if you are a singer, rapper, songwriter, producer, or artist who is interested in making the style(s) of music described above, this is the guy to get in touch with. Follow him or write to him.
In this episode, you will also listen to the following tracks from Shishi.
Dominion ft VinDon
Sajani Ft Ben Parag
Conmigo Shishi X Samaa
Aarti -AR Rahman Remix
Burn Out Ft Daramola
https://soundcloud.com/shishimusic/si...
IG: @ shishi music
Spotify: bit.ly/followshishi
This week is an episode of Scott Versus Zayn.
They had an argument. Scott won't have anyone say anything negative about his beloved Mirzapur and Zayn made up his mind that he has no affinity for Mirzapur or Wasseypur - so the boys decided to have a battle of words.
Miraal had to deflect the war with her reviews of the movie Ludo ( Abhishek Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapur, Pankaj Tripathi, Sanya Malhotra, etc) and then of movie Chhalaang ( Rajkummar Rao, Nushrat Barucha) and a bigger chat about gym teachers are how that over-emphasis on sport in the USA versus the underemphasis in India may be a battle of the future.
We also spoke to Shishi, the amazingly talented music producer who was hanging out in Tulum, Mexico playing some tunes.
We have in this episode some of his music as well -
Shanti (feat. Daramola, Kenny Holland & David Meli),
Gol and
Conmigo ( with Samaa)
We also spoke with Tesher last week ( will tell you more about that in our next episode ) and have for you, his latest song -
Jalebi Baby is a part of this Episode.
Follow Shishi at @shishimusic
Follow Tesher at @Teshermusic
Penn Masala, the World’s First South Asian A Cappella Group, creates music that traverses traditional cultural boundaries and captured the experience of growing up with both Eastern and Western cultures. As the first group in the world to bring the sounds of the Indian subcontinent to a cappella, they have consistently been at the forefront of South Asian-Western fusion ever since.
They have performed for President Obama at the White House, at the Indian International Film Academy (IIFA) Awards, and in the Hollywood feature film and soundtrack forPitch Perfect 2 which received an American Music Award for Best Soundtrack in 2015.
Since 1996, they have released 11 full-length studio albums: Awaaz, 11 PM, Soundcheck, Brown Album, Pehchaan, On Detours, Panoramic, Kaavish, Resonance, Yuva, and Musafir – of which the latter eight are available for streaming and purchase on all major music sites. They have also released an EP titled Vol. 1 and a compilation album *Out of Stock.
In our conversation with* Parth, Kushal and Vatsal here are Scott and Miraal from Desis.LIVE
Scott was initiated into Mirzapurdom 12 days before Season 2 was supposed to release. As he started his Mirzapur journey, we realized that with every passing day, he was not only living a UP gangster life in central Ohio but quite close to becoming the local version of Kaleen Bhaiya., whom he now fondly calls " My man Kaleen".
We fear that if at any time Kaleen were to invite him, Scott will gladly move to India to become his wingman.
In this episode, the fanatics' journey to super fandom started. Don't miss it !!!
If you have not watched "Mirzapur" yet, this is a good place to start.
Get the White Guy's perspective.
Mirzapur #WhitfansofMirzapur #Mirzapurdom #Season1 # FanStory
We also review Bollywood Movie Starring "Ginny Weds Sunny" in this episode. You will enjoy it the chat and the banter.
Dolly, Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare is a statement. Not only about the state of women but the struggle of each of them doing whatever it takes to survive in a world that does not care about their existence.
We caught up withKonkona Sen Sharma, the ace actor and one of the most intelligent, bright directors in the trade, Alankrita Shrivastava, and spoke to them about the characters, the journey of women, the storytelling of women who walk on the precipice of moral boundaries set by the society and the impact of this storytelling on the greater acceptance of emancipation of women by the society. Have a listen.
Watch the interviews on our YouTube Channel Desis.LIVE and read the review of the movie on our website at https://desis.live/movies/34-dolly-kitty
Tell us what you think. Do movies have the power to change society?
Follow us on Insta/ FB @desis.live and Tweet to us at desisLIVE.
Thank you for your LOVE.
Scott, Miraal and Zayn
We caught up with the spectacular Nushrat Barucha for a chat just before her Diwali release of Director Hansal Mehta's Chhalaang released.
The story of a small-town Physical Training (Sports) teacher in Haryana called Montu (Raj Kumar Rao), a decadent man with the habit of not performing to finish any task that he has undertaken. His life changes when a more qualified teacher joins the school who not only challenges him at work, shakes his fundamental comfort, but also becomes a source of anguish for him when he starts demonstrating fascination for the girl, Neelam ( Nushratt Barucha) whom Montu is in love with.
Now that we have watched and reviewed the movie, at first look Nushrat does not seem to be the right choice to a lot of people for the role of a Haryanvi teacher. She disproves all criticism who slot her because of the way she looks or speaks to limit the range of characters she could play. She fits in authentically well and disproves all critics who slot her capability into their perception. Hats off to this persevering lady.
Read more of this review with links to the movie at https://desis.live/movies/46-chhalaang
This podcast has music by Shishi, our musician this month. The two tracks that you will listen to are "Gol" and "Mahamudra"
Check out Shishi at https://soundbetter.com/profiles/10758-shishi
Here is an interview we did with Harshita Gaur who portrays the character of Dimpy in Mirzapur Season 1 and 2. She talks about working with such a stellar cast and the exponential change in her character from Season 1 to Season2.
Go ahead ! Listen in
Follow us on TWITTER: DesisLIVE
FACEBOOK & INSTA: Desis.LIVE
In this episode, Miraal, Scott, and Zayn chat about Shahrukh Khan, the enigma of the star, and the legacy.
We also speak about our favorite Gangster series Mirzapur on Amazon Prime and what fun we are having following the characters of the show.
We also speak about Hansal Mehta's upcoming movie called Chhalaang to be released on Nov 13 and the balance between sports and studies in South Asian families.
Apart from that, we also reviewed Shabana Azmi starrer Kaali Khuhi , a horror movie about female infanticide in India.
Have a listen.
According to folklore, Raag Malhar in Hindustani Classical Music is so potent that when sung, it can induce the rains.
Many authored accounts describe this characteristic of Raga Malhar. Tansen, Baiju Bawra, Baba Ramdas, Nayak Charju, Miyan Bakhshu, Tantarang, Tantras Khan, Bilas Khan (grandson of Tansen), Hammer Sen, Surat Sen, and Meera Bai are among the singers who are said to have been skillful in starting rains by singing different adaptations of this Raga.
In another lore, it is said that Mughal emperor Akbar once asked his court musician Tansen to sing Raga Deepak, the raga of light, which affected all the lamps in the palace courtyard to light up. It is said that Tansen's body became so heated that he had to sit in the nearby river to cool himself.
It is said that the river began to simmer with heat, and it became evident that Tansen would soon boil to death. He is then said to have set out on a quest to find somebody who could sing Raga Malhar to remedy him.
In due course, he reached a city called Vadnagar, in Gujarat, where he is said to have found two sisters, Tana and Riri, whom he requested for assistance. They consented to sing for him and when they sang the Raga, it started pouring down in torrents, which helped cool Tansen's body instantaneously.
Ritwik tells us that something similar happened when they were shooting for a song based on this very Raga in Bikaner in the summer, in the dry heat. As they started to shoot, the rains started which flooded the entire set of the movie. So we guess, its not so much of a legend anymore but the force of human emotion that made the universe come together to make the miracle happen. Shreya and Ritvik tell us more about the plot. The musical web series is a plethora of human emotions because of the clash of the two worlds that the protagonists belong to.
Classical Indian music is extraordinarily emotive, and the complexity of the story provides excellent foliage to the journey of the characters as they go through the challenges in their love story.
Shankar Ehsaan & Loy, the famous trio composers, are excited about the music they have composed for the series.
“‘Bandish Bandits’ is special for us in more ways than one. Not only does it mark our digital debut, but the soundtrack also allowed us to experiment with contrasting musical genres ranging from Rajasthani folk and Indian classical to pop and combine them to create something wholly unique,” they said.
“We’ve worked with artists from across the country for ‘Bandish Bandits,’ and we’re confident that the soundtrack has something for everyone. It’s fascinating, and we hope the audience enjoys it as much as we enjoyed making it,” they added.
Shreya and Ritwik speak about the clash of the old and the new. Music can never have languages and barriers. India has deep cultural roots in music - classical, folk, and others. This clash of pop and classical music is enmeshment of the diversity of India. Torn by legacy, the series is a representation of the assortment of music India is a stage for.
How many kids in India are inspired by King Khan? We know that he was the motivation behind Sushant Singh Rajput's aspirations to create his career trajectory in Hindi Movies.
But did you know that it was Shahrukh's role in cult movie Baazigar that upset a 4 year old baby Ritwik, when he dies on celluloid. Ritwik knew he had to be an actor then.
Ritwik is a hobbyist. He writes, plays the guitar, and says he is not a great singer. But we don't know that until we see him perform. Right? Here is an excerpt from our conversation held over Zoom from our homes in Ohio and California to the homes of Ritwik and Shreya in Mumbai. Enjoy!
Bandish Bandits follows Radhe (Ritwik Bhowmik), an aspiring Hindustani classical singer of the fictional Rathod Gharana of Jodhpur, who teams up and falls in love with Tamanna (Shreya Chaudhry), a pop sensation from Mumbai.
Radhe’s entry into the glitzy world of pop incenses his grandfather and teacher Radhemohan Rathod (Naseeruddin Shah). What ensues is Radhe and Tamanna’s fight to stay together as the eponymous pop group they have formed.
Director, Anand Tiwari says in his interview in The Scroll that “In India, the aspirations of the community are connected with the individual,” Tiwari said. “Every family has a say in what business their children take up, what is best-suited or profitable for them. Individualism versus traditionalism is definitely a theme, but I also wanted to explore what truly represents India: our values or being a go-getter. Primarily, I wanted to explore whether art should be practiced for its discipline, or to reach out to people and please them. And at the heart of the show, two different India's clash, and the question is whether they will help each other out.”
We met up with Ritwick and Shreya last week to speak about their career, passions, the plot, and some interesting.
**IF YOU HAVE EVER CHANTED DURING YOUR YOGA CLASSES, EVEN THE CUSTOMARY "OM", YOU HAVE TOUCHED THE ROOTS OF THE INDIAN CLASSICAL FORM OF MUSIC.
A MANTRA IS A SACRED UTTERANCE, A METAPHYSICAL, A WORD, A SYLLABLE OR A GROUP OF WORDS IN SANSKRIT BELIEVED TO HAVE SPIRITUAL POWERS.
VEDIC SANSKRIT MANTRAS WERE COMPOSED MORE THAN 3000 YEARS AGO. AT ITS SIMPLEST, OM IS A MANTRA.
OVERTIME, THE MORE MELODIOUS, AND ELABORATE THESE CHANTS BECAME, THE MORE THEY DEPENDED ON THEIR RENDITION ON THE CLASSICAL INDIAN FRAMEWORK OF MUSIC CALLED THE "RAGAS".
"RAGAS" ARE AN ARRAY OF MELODIC STRUCTURES WITH MUSICAL MOTIFS ATTACHED TO EMOTIONS OF PEOPLE SINGING OR LISTENING TO THEM. SOME RAGAS ALSO HAVE SYMBOLIC ASSOCIATIONS SUCH AS SEASONS, TIME OF THE DAY OR MOOD.
THERE IS NO DIRECT TRANSLATION OF THESE CONCEPTS IN CLASSICAL EUROPEAN MUSIC.
THE INDIAN CLASSICAL MUSICIANS ARE GIVEN THE LEVERAGE TO IMPROVISE WITHIN THE MELODY FRAMEWORK OF EACH RAGA, WHICH THEY ARE ALLOWED TO REINVENT.
TWO CLASSICAL INDIAN TRADITIONS ARE HINDUSTANI CLASSICAL AND CARNATIC AND THE RAGAS ARE A PART OF BOTH OF THESE TRADITIONS.
SIKH TRADITIONS RENDITION OF THEIR HOLY BOOK IS ALSO BASED ON RAGAS. SUFI ISLAMIC TRADITIONS OF QAWWALIS IS ALSO BASED ON RAGAS. INDIAN FILM MUSIC AND GHAZALS ( SUNG POETRY, PROSE) ALSO USE RAGAS AS THE BASIS OF THEIR COMPOSITION.
The Experience
Bandish Bandits, is visually, cinematically & aesthetically- a magnificent auditory delight**. A simple story, yet powerful at so many levels, not only in the narration but the sheer beauty of the composition of each frame.
In the vivacity of the colors of Rajasthan, India - very powerful veteran actors anchor a myriad sub-plot, in a fusion of classical and pop genres of music.
This Conversation:
How many kids in India are inspired by King Khan? We know that he was the motivation behind Sushant Singh Rajput's aspirations to create his career trajectory in Hindi Movies.
But did you know that it was Shahrukh's role in the cult movie Baazigar that upset a 4-year-old baby Ritwik when he dies on celluloid? Ritwik knew he had to be an actor then.
Ritwik is a hobbyist. He writes, plays the guitar, and says he is not a great singer. But we don't know that until we see him perform. Right? Here is an excerpt from our conversation held over Zoom from our homes in Ohio and California to the homes of Ritwik and Shreya in Mumbai. Enjoy!