I remember the results from 2014 like it was yesterday. I had managed to get the Congress party its lowest tally in history at 44 seats. Passing marks were 35, but there’s no pleasing some people. Now after the 2019 exit polls, everyone is saying that I’m going to fail again and Modi ji is going to top the class, says RaGa.

Purists may dismiss Sooryavansham as one of Amitabh Bachchan’s mediocre offerings, but two decades later, this sappy family drama has found itself a diverse and an ever-growing fandom: Some watch it for cheap thrills, some out of habit. The movie’s perpetual telecast has inspired legions of jokes and memes.

Those who grew up in the ’70s and ’80s, learnt about national integrity and unity through a seven-minute animated film that aired on Doordarshan called Ek Anek Aur Ekta. The woman behind this little film with a big heart, Vijaya Mulay, passed away on Sunday, at age 98.

Maybe George RR Martin has a personal dislike for Jon Snow, which the writers of Game of Thrones inherited. It’s the only explanation I can think of to justify how many times the plot has swerved Jon, who can never retire his sulking expression for too long.

Game of Thrones has painted perhaps the glummest picture of love ever conceived in popular culture. Love does not last or make us better persons. Instead, it corrupts, handicaps, and burdens as much as any other responsibility in the world.

Emotional investment and familiarity with someone’s life isn’t a prerequisite for friendship any longer. The word of the year is instead, “mutuals” – people who share mutual friends and common interests.

If exit polls are to be believed, the BJP is likely to improve its tally in Mamata Banerjee’s West Bengal. Some suggest a neck-and-neck fight between Trinamool and the BJP. But for those hoping for a change in the state, the two parties have more in common than they would like to admit.

I was 12 when my father first touched me inappropriately. It took me reading about Lolita, more than a decade later, inciting and luring her stepfather into intimacy to realise that my first experience of any form of sexual pleasure came from my own father.

You can never really judge a book by its cover – or in Keanu Reeves’ case, an action star by his string of blockbusters. Movie stars normally have a reputation for being demanding and narcissistic. Clearly, nobody gave Reeves that memo.

It’s hard to beat the nostalgia that the mountain air brings with it. Maybe it’s the majesty of rolling peaks and valleys. Or maybe we have Ruskin Bond to thank for the romanticisation of these hilly havens with their winding roads, sky-high deodar trees, and rhododendron shrubs