By Vidya Pradhan If you had any doubts about the survival of the film noir genre in Bollywood, this is the movie to put them all to rest. Mithya, meaning ‘fiction’, is another of director Rajat Kapoor’s eccentric, low-budget experiments and for the right viewer, this tragic comedy (or comic tragedy)is a worthwhile watch.

Q.  I am stuck with high property taxes on my house bought at the peak of the real estate market. Now that my house is worth less, is there any way I can get a relief on my taxes?

(Also read "A returning Indian entrepreneur reflects", an excellent article on moving back to India and The Big Move back, which talks about the practical aspects of moving back) By Isheeta Sanghi Delhi is one of the most fascinating places in the world,weather wise. It’s deathly hot in the summer, and its winters are frighteningly cold. On one such winter morning in Delhi, on my way to college in an auto I experienced something I had never experienced before. I was at a stop sign, and a young girl with dirty brown hair, and big curious brown eyes walked up to me. It was not that I hadn’t seen girls like her before, or that it was the first time someone had come up to me in an auto and asked me for money, but this time it was different. It’s almost as though the numbness of my fingers reached my heart, and I was able to feel just how numb it had become. For years now, I have been coming to India for vacation and staying with extended relatives. They all seem to have one common mantra from Delhi to Bangalore “don’t look at their faces.” 'Their', in this case, referring to the beggars on the street. I never questioned this because I wanted to avoid the awkward situation of staring at a complete stranger, and them staring back. But this morning was different; I looked into this young girl’s eyes, and looked past her smile. I saw her parents on the sidewalk, or at least what they call a sidewalk in Delhi, and saw them covered in torn blankets, and rotting clothes. I saw their health and spirit deteriorating, and me not being able to do anything about it. When I saw this, it was like all of a sudden my problems had no place in the world. I didn’t have the right to complain about the cold because I am fortunate enough to run the heater the whole night, and afford blankets that make me sweat so much that I have to pull it off at times. What seem like little, or insignificant things are actually the most important in life. And if one wants to discover that, India is the place to come to. The disparity between the rich and the poor is just horrific, and it’s probably the only place on earth where the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor can live on the same street, side by side.

By Vidya Pradhan First there was the single. Those of us over a certain age (ahem!) can remember stacks of shiny black vinyl discs with songs by Donny Osmond and Cliff Richards scratching away at 45 RPM on our parents’ LP players. As technology improved and made it possible to fit more than one song per side, the album was born. Ever since, customers have been bound to this format, even as the delivery mechanism moved from an LP to a CD. Released from the constraint of quality, record labels have been bundling mediocre pieces with hit songs, to the utter frustration of the buyers. No longer; thanks to the internet, the music industry has done a 360. Today the single, in the form of the mp3, has made a comeback as distributors like ITunes and Amazon Music make single songs available to the listening public. This method of marketing music and the role of the internet in disseminating it have opened the doors for struggling musicians as they reach a wider audience without the support of established record labels. One such Indian-American musician, Ananda Sen, has taken the movement to its logical conclusion. On his website, he offers one free song per week for download, committing to a 52-week cycle of songs.

By Rohini Mohan  Jodha Bai, Queen of Hindustan and wife of the greatest of Mughal emperors, Akbar,  may not have ever existed, claim  some historians. Others claim that she was his daughter in law and not his wife. Ashutosh Gowarikar’s latest blockbuster Jodha-Akbar starts off with this disclaimer – but goes on to convince us that we have indeed been remiss to  ignore this great love story which may well have shaped Mughal history.

 By Aarti Johri It was over a year ago. A friend and I were involved in a project with some young children that used a tie- dye kit. Our preteen girls were also participating. “Here”, my friend said, “your daughter can also tie-dye something for herself; this would look great in that blue”. I looked at what she was tossing me, a Hanes sleeveless T-shirt. I realized my otherwise brilliant friend had some idiosyncrasies, this probably being an example of them. I politely smiled and scrambled out of the situation, puzzled nonetheless why she would give my daughter an undershirt, obviously purchased for her son.

Director Nagesh Kukunoor’s oeuvre has been relatively small but I would love to see someone come out with a “Best of..” DVD set. In it would be Iqbal, arguably the most uplifting of his movies and Dor, a quiet but polished look at two women brought together by sad circumstances. I would also include Teen Deewarein, a thriller with twists galore, Bollywood Calling, a sly look at the movie industry,  and of course Hyderabad Blues, his debut film, which invigorated many viewers sick of mainstream pap dished out by Bollywood. Not all of Kukunoor’s movies are consistently engaging. Rockford was pretty dull, even for those familiar with the boarding school environment, and Hyderabad Blues 2 stretched the arranged marriage joke a bit too far. Bombay to Bangkok, though being way better than some of the other movies in the theaters right now, falls in this category.

Navin Gulia severely injured his neck and spine while clearing an obstacle in a competition at the Indian Military Academy, where he was in the final term as a gentleman cadet.He was 22 years old then. Refusing to let his disability define him, he decided to conquer the world in a wheelchair. He created a modification kit to allow him to drive a car and has notched up over 200,000 kms driving up the Himalayas in Uttaranchal, Himachal and Ladakh. He has driven up to the Khardung La (pass) in Ladakh, then the highest motorable pass in the world. He has also practised flying powered hang-gliders. Here he writes about his experiences driving from Delhi to the Indo-Pak Border. Growing up, deserts have caught my fancy a number of times. From movies like ‘Omar Mukhtar – lion of the desert’ to the Hindi classic ‘Lamhe’ and books and stories on deserts. I had no real experience of the desert except what I had read. Going to Jaisalmer, the essence of deserts in India and the beginning of Thar, had been my fantasy for a long time. When I got a call from the Ability Foundation to go on an assignment to Jodhpur, I grabbed it. Jaisalmer was 300 kms away and the India Pakistan border another 140kms.

By Vidya Pradhan  After being sneered at, looked down upon, and generally treated as the shameless tramp of the global movie making industry, Bollywood is being given more than a modicum of respect these days. Even the venerable Economist gave it a block, pointing to the increasing ...

By Rohini Mohan  Simplicity is the one word that amply describes this timeless classic. Ashok Kumar, Pearl Padamsee, Rakesh Roshan, Bindiya Goswami, Deven Varma, Preeti Ganguli and David all deliver understated and natural performances in a very Desi remake of ‘Yours, Mine and Ours’.