Retrospective: Recent Episodes
Amaal Akhtar (and friends)
In the middle of a pandemic, with life turned upside down, I thought why not find a way to bridge the sudden, enforced and alienating distance among us with some much-needed closeness. So I called-up a few friends and we talked at length about our shared comfort food for the soul -- what else but Hindi cinema! The films we grew up with, the ones we grew out of, the ones we keep going back to, the ones we really, truly, genuinely love, and also the ones that make us go 'what were we thinking?' After all, Bollywood isn't just one year, one decade, or one style of film. In each episode, a friend and I have a meandering and candid chat about one Hindi movie that has stayed with us and that we can rewatch anytime. Get cosy and listen in for cinema, conversation, a little (good-natured) conflict, catharsis, and dher saari coffee/chai.
It is the new year and we are back with a new and long overdue episode! This one's about a movie that is one part action thriller, one part vaudevillian comedy, one part adorable bromance, one part half-assed romance, one part just a free-falling object in the dreamscape of Abbas-Mustan, all adding up to three hours of goofy shenanigans that still crack you up twenty years later. Find your spot and get dropped right in the middle of a conversation between two lifelong committed fans trying to express what makes Baadshah a one-of-its-kind underrated 90s classic!
Didn't think I was going to get into the 2010s so soon? Well, neither did I, but here we are. 2013 isn't particularly special in terms of Bollywood and in all frankness, I didn't think this film was all that great either. But I know a girl who finds great comfort in rewatching this film and hearing its songs, so I decided to talk to her about Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani --- that Manali travel, destination wedding, Ranbir-Deepika postcard of a movie. So what's the verdict? Is it really deep, unbearably vapid, or somewhere in between? Get your headphones, 'cause this episode has opinions, banter, disagreement, exasperation, characteristic tangents and sidebars, and lots of I-cannot-evens.
It's time for the 2000s! What was this decade? Why was this decade? A curious time, with a bewildering range of films, all of which still somehow managed to share a common peak 2000s aesthetic. I mean, when else would you find stone-washed jeans, blonde streaks and the word metrosexual being thrown around? In this episode, a friend and I take a little break from the overwhelming over-the-top-ness of the 00s to indulgently appreciate Hum Tum, a great example of something Hindi films genuinely tried to do at the time, but with varying levels of skill and success --- a) make a desi romantic comedy, and 2) do this without relying on Shahrukh Khan. What makes Hum Tum so special and rewatchable? Listen in and find out!
The 1980s in mainstream Bollywood were a famously tacky time. The films industry churns out so much nonsense in the best of eras, but the 80s were a special kind of disaster in terms of popular Hindi cinema. We now love some of the stuff ironically, sure, but does that mean cringe is all there was to the notorious decade? Not at all. In this first episode, I have a chat with a friend and fellow lover of 'offbeat' Hindi cinema, about many random tangential things, all centred around one special 1980s film, by a filmmaker we both adore. So if your chai is ready, come, pull up a chair.