Like Ranu Mondal, I was a dark baby, born to a mother and two grandmothers with pearly, translucent skin. And I grew up believing I was dirty.

Like Veer and Zaara’s love story, the movie’s music stands the test of time. “Main Yahaan Hoon” became the ballad for an entire generation. Fifteen years on, it makes us pine for eternal love even when we find ourselves in an age where regularly liking someone’s Instagram posts is the zenith of commitment.

Milap Zaveri’s Marjaavaan is yet another pointless outing, based entirely on the idea of finding an excuse for two overgrown man-childs to glare at each other while threatening murder after every five minutes without actually doing anything.

Amazon Prime Video’s One Mic Stand shows us Shashi Tharoor’s likeable, charming side. Look, he’s the guy you can hang out with. But we don’t need Tharoor to be relatable. We needed him to be cutting and crisp, to shame us out of the political coma most of us seem to have slipped into as we wait to hear on our Canadian PR application status.

Before I got on social media, I used to think that there were a few things most, if not all, Indians could agree on. Chief among those was the idea that everybody knew that the man who killed Mahatma Gandhi was a Bad Guy. Once you come online though, you realise that Nathuram Godse is a polarising figure who still commands a vocal following.

There are many today who seem all too willing to hold Panditji guilty for all of life’s ills. But Jawaharlal Nehru is a man who escapes easy definition, and perhaps strove to definitively remain just that — a man; not a saint, nor a saviour, and not in the very least, a self-appointed chowkidar.

The metrics for being a good child are different for Indian boys and girls. There is a soft bigotry of low expectations for boys, and a very high degree of expectations from a girl. By 10 years of age, my sister was equipped to survive a season on LOST – but I was the good boy who didn’t need to do anything more than tuck his legs in.

When I was growing up my parents would constantly nag me to switch off all the lights in house. No, they did not want to be green. They only wanted to save the other kind of “green”. Now when I ask them to conserve power because of environmental reasons, they simply scoff.

I picked Portugal for my bachelorette – it sounded way fancier than the very plebeian Thailand. Invariably, the day would dissipate from being a quest of discovering a new city, to an endless tirade of “The local market is trending online, so we will have better photo-ops!”, to “Why can’t we just laze by the pool – my pedicure hasn’t received enough justice yet!”

There are a few occasions when I examine my faith. A faith kept alive by tenuous connections like my relationship with my grandfather, the last of the Sikhs who came from Pakistan and created lives out of nothing.

In an interview from 1999, which has gone viral today, Bal Thackeray said he would never join hands with Sharad Pawar. Getting the CM’s post then would be a short-term victory for Uddhav, but if the Shiv Sena is perceived as having turned its back on Bal Thackeray’s legacy, the win could be a self-defeating one.

Here’s what it’s like to be thirty-five, from my point of view. No kids, but a flat that we run with admirable orderliness. Instead of doing tequila shots, we do juice detoxes.

It’s odd that the ongoing student protests against fee hikes in JNU are being viewed by most as an excuse for the students to sponge off the privileged taxpayer’s money. Especially in a country where qualifying for a tax slab is in itself a privilege that most would be happy to have.

Benaras Hindu University’s newly appointed Sanskrit professor Firoz Khan should have been celebrated as the living embodiment of India’s diversity and tolerance. But “new” India would rather constantly complain about how Hindu culture is under threat from minorities, only to protest when a member of a minority displays expert knowledge of Hindu culture.

India is saddled with an education system that is a vestige of Britain’s industrial revolution, which churns out efficient workers, not innovative thinkers. If analyses from UNICEF and NASSCOM are to be believed, the bulk of our graduates are unemployable. We’re a country desperately in need of education reforms.

The lines between work and non-work hours have long been blurred, and that’s a bad thing. A three-day weekend in India would be pretty pointless unless the remaining four days are utilised well, and we stop glorifying long work hours.

Throughout her career, Juhi Chawla has consistently played women who are funny and boisterous. The typical “giggly girl” stencil set by Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, was a weapon that Juhi Chawla wielded with perfection. But Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga is final proof that she is no ordinary actor.

I tried to be rational when I found out that my father was having an affair. But I was only drawing more lines for him to toe, for his halo to remain untarnished.

I read somewhere that men thought about sex every seven seconds. How was I so different?

Since most readers are used to consuming their meals in front of the TV while wearing their pajamas, this field guide to the cast of characters you’re likely to meet at Mumbai’s food festival this weekend is what every hungry foodie needs.

All roads now lead to the mystical millennial land of the flat stomach. But citizenship here is wrought with onerous challenges.

Shakun Batra’s Kapoor & Sons, was a brilliantly observed family drama. It also stood out from a sea of Bollywood offerings that stereotyped homosexuality, by having a gay character in the lead whose orientation is almost incidental to the plot.

Amar Kaushik’s Bala, that has a TikTok influencer as its lead protagonist, offers possibly the most accurate representation of a generation whose lives are so dependent on apps that their permanent address is the internet.

Last year, Tabu stood out with her exemplary act in Andhadhun and this year her presence single-handedly redeemed an Ajay Devgn film. Tabu doesn't need a hyped comeback to make us realise that when you are so good at your craft, you never really go away.

With a new Lok Sabha Bill, the practice of triple talaq might finally be on its way out. But the games, it seems, have just begun. The impact triple talaq has had on public discourse, and the number of voices on opposing ends, underscores the different facets of the conversation.

My sweet child, delicious as he looks in his turban, isn’t even half-Sikh. And yet, at a very deep level, a sardar is what he 100 per cent is. Why is that so important to me?

Baazigar introduced us to a new weapon of mass destruction, the power of attorney. And Shah Rukh Khan’s Ajay Sharma taught us that if your contact lens game is on point, you can conquer the world.

In Gujarat, Marwari women lead dual lives. They fast with their mothers-in-law and sip mojitos with their friends.

It’s been a decade since Sania Mirza won her first Grand Slam title, and India is still waiting for another woman to emulate her. But her road to the pinnacle was far from an easy one. Her life might look like a bed of roses, but Mirza sleeps on a thousand thorns.

Growing up, Durga Pujo was all about garnering a shot of freedom, of carefree behaviour, every single year. But adulting compromises the novelty of Pujo. Now, as an adult, reminiscing about the Pujo of my childhood is possibly my favourite Pujo activity.