Arnab Banerjee

There are certain names in cinema that arrive long before the credits roll. They carry with them not merely recognition but a formidable burden of expectation—a promise of excellence painstakingly accumulated over decades. Rajkumar Hirani belongs comfortably to that rarefied league. His films have consistently blended humour with humanity, wit with wisdom, and entertainment with emotion, creating stories that linger long after the curtains have fallen. From the irrepressibly charming Munna Bhai series to the socially resonant 3 Idiots, the delightfully irreverent PK, and the emotionally layered Sanju, Hirani has fashioned a cinematic identity that is at once distinctive and deeply endearing.

Reality, on rare occasions, possesses an uncanny habit of imitating fiction—not deliberately, but with an irony so exquisite that it borders on poetic justice. One suspects that director Ahmed Khan had little inkling that his latest spectacle, Welcome to the Jungle, would ultimately become the most eloquent metaphor for its own creative bankruptcy. Conceived as a madcap satire on the film industry and the absurd economics of blockbuster filmmaking, the film instead collapses under the crushing weight of the very mediocrity it seeks to lampoon. The result is not a parody of commercial cinema but an inadvertent specimen of everything that has gone catastrophically wrong with it.

Whether fidelity constitutes a decisive factor in a relationship depends largely on the expectations, boundaries, and understandings negotiated by the partners themselves. While traditional marriage has historically placed a premium on sexual and emotional exclusivity, contemporary relationship dynamics reveal a far more nuanced spectrum of beliefs about what ultimately sustains a successful partnership. Cinema, however—particularly Hindi cinema—has often lagged behind these evolving realities. For decades, the screen was populated by self-abnegating heroines, memorably portrayed by actors such as Meena Kumari, Mala Sinha, and Nanda, women who seemed almost eager to embrace suffering as proof of devotion. Their emotional universe was encapsulated in the oft-quoted refrain: “Hai isi mein pyar ki aabroo, woh jafa kare, main wafa karoon”—loosely translated as, “The true honour of love lies in remaining faithful and devoted even when the beloved is cruel or unfaithful.”

Terror and terrorism admit of only one character: brutality. As such, they are beyond justification and ought to remain beyond forgiveness. Yet the stories that emerge from acts of terror are often far more complex and, at times, profoundly heroic—not from the perspective of the perpetrators, but from that of the victims, survivors, and those who rise in defiance of violence. After a string of commercial disappointments, Kangana Ranaut returns to the big screen with Bharat Bhagya Vidhata, a 127-minute dramatization of the extraordinary events that unfolded at Mumbai’s Cama and Albless Hospital during the horrific 26/11 terrorist attacks. Drawing upon real incidents and inspired by the courage of healthcare workers such as nurse Anjali Kulthe, who helped save more than twenty pregnant women, the film seeks to illuminate a chapter of the tragedy that remains insufficiently remembered.

We inhabit an age in which the credibility of almost every belief we hold has become increasingly uncertain. The relentless proliferation of digital media has not merely expanded access to information; it has also enabled the systematic reshaping of opinions, perceptions, and even philosophical convictions to serve competing ideological agendas. Whether the subject concerns scientific evidence, historical memory, matters of faith, or political events, public understanding is increasingly shaped less by rigorous inquiry than by carefully curated narratives. In such an environment, political history—with all its complexity, nuance, and contested interpretations—becomes particularly vulnerable to distortion. Bias is repackaged as truth, and selective representation masquerades as historical interpretation.

Partition, in any form, is never merely a political event; it is an enduring human catastrophe. It leaves behind not only severed geographies but also ruptured hearts, fractured identities, and generations condemned to inherit memories of loss. Time, often celebrated as the great healer, may soften the sharp edges of grief, but it cannot erase the scars carved into the collective consciousness of those who lived through such devastation. Those wounds remain buried beneath the surface, dormant yet alive, capable of reopening with the slightest provocation, unleashing once again the sorrow of a world violently torn apart.

Every actor of consequence harbours a desire to inhabit roles that foreground performance—particularly those that test their flair for comedy, that most elusive of arts requiring instinct, rhythm, and razor-sharp timing. While legends such as Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, alongside actors of formidable gravitas like Dilip Kumar and Irrfan Khan, have traversed the delicate line between the tragic and the comic with enviable ease, many have faltered in a genre that demands spontaneity and wit in equal measure. It is with such expectations that one approaches Maa Behen, a Netflix offering headlined by Madhuri Dixit. Directed by Suresh Triveni—who made a promising debut with the gently humorous Tumhari Sulu before veering into more sombre territory—the film attempts to mine a vein of humour that Hindi cinema seldom exploits with conviction: black comedy.

If Anurag Kashyap had, by some cosmic clerical error, wandered into academia instead of cinema, he might well have become a tenured authority on the anthropology of crime—specifically, the sort that festers in dimly lit alleys and moral grey zones. His fascination with transgression is neither new nor unwelcome; after all, crime, in fiction as in life, offers a perverse kind of narrative seduction. One is drawn not merely to the act itself but to the elaborate theatre of law enforcement—those who prosecute, persecute, or, on less scrupulous days, politely protect the very rot they are sworn to excise. What grows wearisome, however, is Kashyap’s stubborn fidelity to the same old gangland grammar: interchangeable criminals, cut from identical cloth, trading smug one-liners like bored schoolboys passing notes in class. Variety, it seems, has been quietly smothered somewhere between the first act and the last cigarette.