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Baazi (1968)
The first time I began watching this film was on Doordarshan, many years ago. It surprised me, largely because it featured Waheeda Rehman in a very Westernised avatar I had never seen before. It also...
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Ten of my favourite spring songs
The other day, looking at the stats page for this blog, I saw that somebody had arrived at Dustedoff as a result of searching for spring songs. I don’t know which post they ended up at, but it reminded...
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Somewhere in the Night (1946)
What if you woke up one day to find that you couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, and—even worse, perhaps—had no idea who you were? And that when you set out to find out, you opened up a can of worms? That …...
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Lentils and mosques: Moth ki Masjid
Delhi has a vast number of mosques (not unusual, considering the many centuries this city was ruled by Muslims). They’re large and small, obscure and prominent. And some of them have really odd names:...
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Taqdeer (1967)
Taqdeer—a remake of the Konkani film Nirmonn (1966, directed by A Salaam, who also directed Taqdeer)—wouldn’t have been a film I’d have watched had it not been for one particular song that I like a...
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Home Delivery Review: Sushiya
While Chinese food has long been a favourite in Delhi, other cuisines from East Asia have taken somewhat longer to make their presence felt in the city’s food scene. Malaysian, Indonesian and Thai food...
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Aankhen (1968)
I spent part of last week reading fellow blogger Todd Stadtman’s book, Funky Bollywood: The Wild World of 1970s Indian Action Cinema (more on that, along with a link to my review of it, at the end of...
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Restaurant Review: Mamagoto
I have reviewed a particular section of the Mamagoto menu on this blog before—the Mamabuns section— but, dining out at Mamagoto once again last week (with my parents, my sister and brother-in-law and...
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Ten of my favourite percussion instrument songs
Continuing with an on-and-off series of song lists featuring—in the picturisation—various types of musical instruments. This began with my post on women pianists, followed much later by a post on male...
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Ten of my favourite Shashi Kapoor songs
Of the three Kapoor brothers—Raj, Shammi and Shashi—Shashi Kapoor is the one who falls in the middle when it comes to my personal preferences. Raj Kapoor I tend to not like (except in the occasional...
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Restaurant Review: Peninsular Kitchen
Till a couple of years ago, one of our favourite places to go for a good South Indian lunch in Vasant Kunj—somewhat upmarket (not Udupi style), non-vegetarian, yet not prohibitively expensive—used to...
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Kapurush O Mahapurush (1965)
Kapurush O Mahapurush (The Coward and The Holy Man) isn’t one film, even though these two short films—each just over an hour long—were released together, as a sort of ‘combined pack’. Unlike Satyajit...
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Hotel Review: The Glasshouse on the Ganges
Strictly speaking, though, I shouldn’t have named this a ‘hotel review’, since The Glasshouse on the Ganges, like the rest of the properties which are part of the Neemrana Group, prides itself on being...
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Majhli Didi (1967)
Let me begin this review with a quick confession: I don’t cry easily while watching films. I didn’t sob my heart out while watching Majhli Didi either. But I had a lump in my throat during several...
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The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
History fascinates me. Not the dates, not so much the politics (though that can be often very interesting, too), but society, culture. How people lived, and how—if you really think about it—mankind...
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Ten Ganga songs from classic Hindi cinema
My husband and I are avid travelers. Give us a few days’ holiday and some funds, and we’re eager to race off somewhere. This past year, however, has been unbelievably hectic, what with one thing or...
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Ganga ki Lehren (1964)
Who, in case you’re curious, include Dharmendra, Kishore Kumar, Nasir Hussain, Kumkum, Hari Shivdasani, Rehman, Asit Sen, Azra, and Aruna Irani, besides Telugu star Savitri. With, in smaller roles,...
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The Day of the Triffids (1962)
I watch a lot of contemporary science fiction movies. Everything from Interstellar to Oblivion is grist to my mill (not to mention monster movies). The other day, happening to see a list of ‘best alien...
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Book Review: Sidharth Bhatia’s ‘The Patels of Filmindia: Pioneers of Indian...
I have a confession to make: despite my love for cinema, I’ve never been too keen on film magazines. When I was a child, my parents never bought film magazines, and by the time I’d grown into my teens...
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Ten of my favourite jewellery songs
This is one topic I’ve been toying with for a long, long time: Hindi film songs that mention jewellery. Given that romantic songs are so common in old Hindi cinema—and that shringaar ras, which...
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