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Gopal Lahiri

Gopal Lahiri

Scroll.in16-06-2025
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'Frequently, heaven erupts': A new book of poetry takes readers across 37 Indian cities
An excerpt from 'The Penguin Book of Poems on the Indian City', by Bilal Moin.
Siddharth Dasgupta
,
Arun Kolatkar
,
Nandini Sen Mehra
,
Satya Dash
,
Malovika Pawar
,
Ashwani Kumar
,
Jayant Parmar
,
Riyaz Latif
&
Gopal Lahiri
K Satchidanandan's poems in 'Questions from the Dead' confront the environmental crisis
Plain-speaking and laconic, these poems speak the truth, they are not a source of comfort.
Gopal Lahiri
· Oct 30, 2021 · 05:30 pm
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Salman Khan's fee for Bigg Boss 19 will blow your mind. Here's what we know
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Salman Khan's whopping fees for Bigg Boss 19 revealed. Bigg Boss 19 is gearing up for a dramatic return on August 30, and while the buzz around contestants is building fast, all eyes are on Salman Khan's paycheck — and it's nothing short of jaw-dropping. The Bollywood superstar is reportedly charging a staggering ₹120 to ₹150 crore for hosting this season, making it one of his biggest deals yet for the controversial reality show. According to SCREEN, Salman will be hosting the first three months — or roughly 15 weekends — and is rumoured to be earning Rs 8 to Rs 10 crore per weekend. Since Bigg Boss 19 will be primarily a digital-first show streaming on JioCinema, with episodes airing on Colors TV an hour and a half later, his compensation reflects the OTT-heavy nature of this season. What's more, Bigg Boss 19 is set to be the longest season ever, running for five months. After Salman's 12-week stint, other celebrity hosts like Farah Khan, Karan Johar, and Anil Kapoor are expected to take over for the remaining weeks, keeping the energy high and format the final contestant list is still under wraps, names like Dheeraj Dhoopar, Alisha Panwar, Mr. Faisu, and Dhanashree Verma are among the many rumoured to be joining the house. But until the faces are confirmed, it's Salman Khan's massive fee — and his return to the Bigg Boss stage — that's stealing all the Khan is all set to return to the big screen with his upcoming film Battle of Galwan, a gritty war drama based on the intense 2020 clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan Valley. Directed by Apoorva Lakhia, the film promises a powerful retelling of one of the most talked-about military confrontations in recent history. Speaking about his role, Salman revealed that the character pushed him to his physical limits, describing it as one of the most demanding performances of his career. With high-octane action and emotional depth, Battle of Galwan is shaping up to be a compelling addition to his filmography.

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The pervasive influence of new information and communication technology has transformed culture, literature, the fine arts, and other forms of entertainment into powerful transnational productions. Now, cinema serves as a reflective mirror to our rapidly evolving social landscape, illuminating and informing us about significant societal shifts. Ranveer Singh as Khilji in Padmavat. 'An unprecedented surge in structuring films on themes related to Muslim rulers reveals a sense of naivety on the part of the directors, who seem to believe that retelling the past or the imagined past settles the question of cultural identity.' (Film still) Films with their vivid characterisation, intriguing visuals, and gripping storylines transcend fantasies of desire and reveal what lies beneath the vicissitudes of life. Cinema appears to be the site of every twist in collective life, upending our settled understanding of lived experience. The postmodern era has given rise to transformational cinema, queer cinema, and politically charged films that lend a voice to subcultures, fostering a sense of empathy and inclusivity. 185pp, ₹3145; Routledge The widely admired portrayal of fervent nationalism has given rise to a new notion, 'cine patriotism,' which is essentially a stagnant concept. It resonates with Bollywood, which often constructs identity within a particular national and religious context. Identity is a slippery and multilayered concept, and when it pertains to those people who, in Franz Fanon's vivid phrase, are without any anchor, without horizon, and colourless, it becomes more complex. For Indian cinema, national identity can only be constructed if it is contrasted with a less-than-desirable, if not loathsome, other. It is the other's ghostly presence that goes well with the gullible audience. In cinematographic projection, the other is the Muslim, who is fictionalised and plays the assumed role. The narrative and visuals fix him in violence, hostility, and aggression. His story is constructed through fantasy, myth and falsification, which leaves him experiencing himself as the other. The portrayal is done through two vectors – cultural difference and social rupture. Negotiation of identity among Muslims remains a shifting motif, serving as a potential tool for othering by contemporary Hindi cinema. Right now, this is how our film industry treats the second-largest Muslim population in the world. How does the expropriation of cultural and religious identity hinder the understanding of a community? Indian cinema addresses this by focusing on a simplified and often distorted representation that fails to capture the complexity of identity. An unprecedented surge in structuring films on themes related to Muslim rulers reveals a sense of naivety on the part of the directors, who believe that retelling the past or the imagined past settles the question of cultural identity. Pran and Amitabh Bachchan in Zanjeer. 'The issue of the Muslim gangster is explored in the fourth chapter, which provides a close reading of Zanjeer (1973), Angaar (1992), and numerous other films.' (Film still) The diacritics of cinematic aporia call for an objective delineation and insightful analysis, and it is what Asim Siddiqui's recently published book, Muslim Identity in Hindi Cinema does with academic rigour. The author rightly considers cinema a site of hybridity, diversity, and splitting, where relations, assimilations, and syncretizations are negotiated and renegotiated. Hindi films also did this in the portrayal of Muslim identity over the last eight decades. Now, however, the situation has changed. This book attempts to analyse 'how the inclusive vision presented in films like Mughal-e Azam (1960) has been replaced by a Hindutva vision in many films using history as a backdrop where Muslims appear in the image of the other.' Comprising six terse and incisive chapters, the book provides a panoramic yet invigorating view of the representation of Muslims in new social settings and idioms. Siddiqui discovers, excavates and discusses the changing perception of Muslim identity from the historical films of the 1940s down to the recent movies that perpetuate stereotypical notions of Muslim identity. With critical acuity and social and cultural sensitivity, he unravels the representation of global Muslim identity in a post–9/11 world and emphasises the need for a more nuanced understanding. The first chapter, From History to Circus: Politics of Genre and Muslims' Representation in Hindi Films enumerates historical, political, social and cultural aspects of Muslim identity, and discusses issues relating to Partition, to Muslims into a secular nation, interreligious marriages, ever growing communalism, militancy in Kashmir, and the subjugation of Muslim women. The second chapter goes well beyond the paraphrasing of themes and cursory interpretation of visuals, costumes, lyrics, music, and sound effects. The author sensitively reads the films of Raja Kumar Hirani and Zoya Akhtar, where the predictable markers of identity hardly work. A dispassionate analysis is presented in the third chapter, which examines the portrayal of Hindu-Muslim hostility and violence in films. Author Mohammad Asim Siddiqui (Courtesy the subject) The issue of the Muslim gangster is explored in the fourth chapter, which provides a close reading of Zanjeer (1973), Angaar (1992), and numerous other films. The figure of the gangster has now been replaced with that of a terrorist and has produced the terrorist genre of Hindi films. The author takes pains in chewing over the globalisation of terror and the setting of terrorist films in Afghanistan, Turkey and London. The last chapter provides a panoramic view of the representation of Muslim women characters in Hindi cinema. 'Muslim women also appear in many interreligious romances where the man usually happens to be a Hindu and the girl a Muslim,' Siddiqui correctly points out, adding that the pattern 'guided by the demands of political correctness and market forces, reveals deep-rooted sexual anxiety about protecting and preserving women from defilement.' In sum, the book presents an insightful and multilayered analysis of the representational aspects of Hindi cinema. Shafey Kidwai, a bilingual critic, is the director of Sir Syed Academy, Aligarh Muslim University.

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