Thirty years before Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy, another Muslim protagonist like Murad seethed away at class inequality. Personal and political identities blend beautifully in Saeed Mirza’s Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro, making it a richer, more complex telling than Gully Boy.

From Raja Harishchandra to Padmaavat, Bollywood has a history of depicting its queens as either pious and uncomplaining, or rude and proud, waiting for the hero to tame their ego. Now that Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika: Queen of Jhansi is due to release, can we hope to see more than a royal caricature?

On Republic Day, we look back at Rajiv Rai’s cult classic Vishwatma, where Bollywood took deshbhakti to the diaspora. The film, which released 27 years ago, gave us the greatest masala national integration song, “Dil le gayi teri bindiya,” and reminds us of a time when no one was asked to prove their patriotism.

In Bollywood films, sisters are always selfless; they are mostly bechara, often vidhwa. If they are twins, one is bold, the other is timid. Our films have mostly paid lip service to a bond as ubiquitous as sisterhood. Will Vishal Bhardwaj’s Pataakha change that?