Shyam Benegal: the Affable Auteur “Weave a circle around him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.” -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Kubla Khan’ The most endearing aspect of Shyam Benegal as an...
Geeta Dutt ‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. – John Keats, Ode to a...
Vivien Leigh — the Scorn that Won the World “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul...
Shabana Azmi Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety These lines from Antony and Cleopatra, originally woven by the Bard of Avon to sing a paean to the Egyptian queen, seem apt for Shabana Azmi. There is an unwritten norm that most...
It has been almost half a century since Meena Kumari (1933- 1972) passed away, and yet her evocative silver screen images come back again and again to stir our emotions. In death, as in life, she remains the creator of many stories, exactly resembling Princess...
