“Picasso of India” dies in exile aged 95
MUMBAI (Reuters) – Maqbool Fida Husain, India’s best known painter, died in exile in London on Thursday aged 95, a close friend of the artist told Reuters.
“He died of old age. It happened early this morning,” said Munna Zaveri, a friend of Husain for 40 years, before leaving for London. “He was in hospital for some time and was supposed to come home today or tomorrow but his condition worsened.”
“Picasso of India” M.F. Husain dies in exile aged 95
MUMBAI (Reuters) – Maqbool Fida Husain, India’s best known painter, died in exile in London on Thursday aged 95, a close friend of the artist told Reuters.
“He died of old age. It happened early this morning,” said Munna Zaveri, a friend of Husain for 40 years, before leaving for London. “He was in hospital for some time and was supposed to come home today or tomorrow but his condition worsened.”
An encounter with M.F. Husain
I met Maqbool Fida Husain a little over three years ago in London, ironically the same city where he breathed his last on Thursday.
He was one of the VIP attendees at a film awards function that I was covering, and having never spoken to him before, I wasn’t sure if he would agree to an interview.
Subhash Ghai offers two for the price of one
MUMBAI (Reuters) – How do you get audiences to watch a small-budget Bollywood film with no stars? Simple, make two such films and let audiences watch both for the price of one ticket.
Filmmaker Subhash Ghai has two movies opening in cinemas this Friday, both starring students from his film school Whistling Woods — and he wants both films to have a fair chance at the box-office.
Ready or not, here comes mindless cinema
I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned this before, but there really should be a template created just for the kind of cinema Anees Bazmee’s “Ready” represents, because having to find something to say about a film that seems like the exact replica of ten other films you have seen recently, is a very tough job.
There is always a rich hero, an airhead of a heroine, long-haired, weird looking villains who make sporadic appearances and brandish guns, bumbling aunts and uncles and loads of toilet humour. You can also call it mass cinema, formula films or the oft-used “leave-your-brains-behind-cinema.”
The other side of Bollywood
The relationship between Bollywood and the criminal world has always been a controversial one. The world’s biggest film industry has often struggled to rid itself of allegations that all is not above board when it comes to financing its films.
Ever since the murder of “cassette king” Gulshan Kumar in 1997 and the Pandora’s box it opened up, Bollywood has feared that some of the money that goes into the industry may be tainted.
Kucch Luv Jaisaa: Not a fun ride
A bored, under-appreciated housewife, who decides to break out of her monotony, meets a stranger and spends a day with him — not knowing who he is, or what his motives are and discovers a different side to her personality.
To her credit, director Barnali Ray Shukla does have an interesting premise at the heart of “Kucch Luv Jaisaa” but a good idea doesn’t always translate into a good film and this is the perfect example.
Ekta Kapoor eyes Bollywood reign
MUMBAI (Reuters) – Ekta Kapoor has been busy, spending hours and days promoting her latest film “Ragini MMS”, billed as India’s scariest date movie.
The small-budget film features young actors and a first-time director and producer Kapoor is its most recognisable face, owing to her fame as India’s soap opera queen, with more than a decade of prime-time success behind her.
Four years on, lustre fades from IPL
MUMBAI (Reuters) – For a show it was hard to beat: A DJ blasted Bollywood songs, fans decked out in the colours of the home side danced in the aisles, and the wife of billionaire Mukesh Ambani perched on an electric-blue sofa near the Mumbai Indians’ dugout.
But just as local hero Sachin Tendulkar struggled with his cricket on the field, India’s glamour-packed cricket league is having difficulty sustaining momentum four years after it burst forth with a TV-friendly format, cheerleaders and big salaries.
Four years on, lustre fades from Indian cricket league
MUMBAI (Reuters) – For a show it was hard to beat: A DJ blasted Bollywood songs, fans decked out in the colours of the home side danced in the aisles, and the wife of the billionaire team owner perched on an electric-blue sofa near the Mumbai Indians’ dugout.
But just as local hero Sachin Tendulkar struggled with his cricket on the field, India’s glamour-packed cricket league is having difficulty sustaining momentum four years after it burst forth with a TV-friendly format, cheerleaders and big salaries.
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