By Vidya Pradhan There was a time when movies from Yash Raj Films(YRF) were the most anticipated events of the summer. Tight scripts, sharp dialogues and crisp visuals were wrapped in a tasty confection decorated with chaste but gorgeous white-clad heroines and Swiss locales. YRF has been responsible for mainstream classics like Deewar and Trishul but lately, the prestigious banner seems to have gone into a prolonged slump. I can almost pinpoint the beginning of the decline. The year was 1995, and young Aditya Chopra has just helmed one of the biggest Bollywood hits of all time, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Thrilled by the success of DDLJ, the elder Chopra passed the baton, content to direct the occasional movie under what was now, for all practical purposes, his son’s production house.

By Vidya Pradhan When my 12 year old first heard Sheena Melwani sing, his response was, “I never knew an Indian American could sing that well!” Sheena’s clear, dulcet voice, once reserved for friends and family, is now broadcast worldwide thanks to YouTube. Sheena Melwani has been a singer “for as long as I can remember.” After singing in competitive choir while in school, Sheena joined a jazz band in high school and later went on to do her graduate studies in music. “I was singing all the time,” she says, “at choirs, weddings, functions. It never occurred to me to look for a professional gig.” When her husband’s job took them to Tokyo, Sheena fretted because of the inactivity and decided to get a keyboard so she could resume singing and songwriting. She got herself a Macbook and a special microphone and decided to record some of her songs so she could send them to friends and family back home.

By Vidya Pradhan I watch these movies so you don't have to. Note to Bollywoood - SCRIPT IS KING! SCRIPT IS KING! SCRIPT IS KING! Ajay Devgan, who makes his directorial debut with this movie, obviously did not get that note. He also takes credit for the ...

By Vidya Pradhan  “I was in India recently, traveling from Chennai to Mumbai by train when a little girl came up to me begging for food,” says the rapper named Ajaxxx. “She told me her story, how she had been singing on the trains to earn something. It really shook me and inspired me to write a song about not taking what we have in this country for granted.” Ajaxxx, or Ajay Dani, is an Indian American of Sindhi origin. He is also a seasoned rapper, well known in Orlando, Florida, with several CDs to his name.

By Vidya Pradhan You might not think the two go together, but the earthy, energetic, loud and lusty sounds of the Raghu Dixit Project make for a perfect harmony between folk and rock, between contemporary and traditional, between the overproduced sounds emanating from a recording studio and the simple but powerful tunes of a street musician. The lungi-wearing, junk jewellery-sporting singer wows listeners with a pan-Indian sound that is difficult to classify and easy to listen to. What is clear is the gusto and the enthusiasm of the musicians collaborating with Raghu on his debut album as they use acoustic instruments to give a vibrant feel to the foot-tapping numbers.

 By Vidya Pradhan Sometimes you have a dream that is so big, so absurd, that pursuing it is like tilting at windmills. But if you happen to be that rare person who will stop at nothing, sometimes that sheer force of will can turn that dream into reality. Aman Boparai, a project manager in the software industry, nursed his dream to make a full-length Hindi film for years. He tried his hand at short films and eventually wangled his way into assisting a Bollywood film company when they were in town. His experience convinced him that he was ready to tackle the rigors of his own production.

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.

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.

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.

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 ...