Manik Sharma, Author at Arré

Atal Bihari Vajpayee: The Last of the Moderates

We’ll remember Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the leader with a great capacity for reflection. Unlike so many men in positions of power today, Vajpayee admitted to mistakes, fallibility, and even the odd misplaced idea at times. Forget being a moderate – in the times that we occupy, he now feels like a pacifist.

Manik Sharma June 27, 2016

Bollywood

20 Years of Gunda: Can We Finally Agree the Film is a Work of Art?

At its heart, Kanti Shah’s Gunda, remains a joyous journey of one man's idea of cinema and his devotion to it. Considering the appetite for excess that we now display in our popular culture, isn't it time Gunda is appreciated for its ingenuity?

Manik Sharma June 27, 2016

Pop Culture

The unheralded brilliance of Kay Kay Menon

Kay Kay Menon has been around for a long time and yet his work, especially his potential, has remained underused, and worse, unheralded. Let’s hope that changes soon.

Manik Sharma June 25, 2016

Pop Culture

Don’t Breathe 2 review: Breathable compared to the first, but equally grim and fascinating

Don’t Breathe 2 doesn’t have the urgency or the novelty of the first film, but it has enough dreary twists, hideous characters and another solid, if ugly, performance by Stephen Lang (the blind guy).

Manik Sharma June 25, 2016

Sports

Why Our Fathers and Mothers Cheer for Brazil at the World Cup

For second-generation Indians, football has existed like a good book, only in translation, with Brazil writing the most musical of sentences and poetic of thought all along. For them, Brazil’s preposterously stylised brand of football is the only version of the game worth watching.

Manik Sharma June 23, 2016

Pop Culture

A Good Time To Be Robert Pattinson

Pattinson’s live-wire turn as Connie in Good Time – his best showing by some measure – is the most tragic character played on film last year. But does it compare with the two leading contenders for the Best Actor Award at the Oscars?

Manik Sharma June 23, 2016

POV

Idukki, Indonesia, and the Ongoing Apocalypse

We’ve been taught by science fiction, that the apocalypse is going to be a cinematic spectacle. But it is unlikely to be an event in the pipeline of history. If the Europe heatwave, Indonesia earthquake, and torrential rain in Kerala’s Idukki are any indication, the apocalypse is simply progression.

Manik Sharma June 17, 2016

POV

PhD in “National Priority”: Why Does Every Indian Government Have a Beef with Academics?

Meena T Pillai’s resignation is only the latest fallout in a series of persistent attacks on India’s academic institutions. A great number of teachers, scholars, and students whose work and livelihood depend on the state’s funds have had their freedoms cut short by an idealistic pursuit of both intelligence and agenda.

Manik Sharma June 16, 2016

Sports

This World Cup Taught Us to Appreciate the Slower Ball More

The slower ball, once a gimmicky duplicate of spin, has now emerged as a newly conceived weapon of choice. Delightfully unnatural and unpredictable, the slow ball has bamboozled more batsmen in this World Cup than perhaps all the others combined.

Manik Sharma June 16, 2016

Pop Culture

Rashmi Rocket, despite its predictability, asks the right questions

Rashmi Rocket, despite its predictability is shouldered by excellent performances and a crucial question that applies not just to the world of sport but more so, outside it – the question, what constitutes a woman?

Manik Sharma June 15, 2016