Play in Marathi- Mahapur

 That means Great Flood. It's a story about a guy and a girl who are friends from school, for many years. He thinks it's a love story, until she decides to get married to someone else. That leads to his going to pieces, and living in delusion with several attacks of disoriented behaviour. 

There are references to the 1942 Quit India movement (and its hangover, many years later), the role of various people and parties in it, and also to Sane Guruji and his books. But fundamentally, it's a love story gone wrong, and the guy's current state of mind.

Very well acted, directed. First staged in 1975. Written by Satish Alekar, Mohan Gokhale was the original director and actor. Now, a different set, but very competent.

Main Vapas Aunga- Film Review

I like Naseeruddin Shah. In film and theatre. He does not let you down, in this engaging look at love blooming between a Sikh boy and a Muslim girl in what will be Pakistan, before 1947. 

Partition and what precedes it changes the equation for the young lovers. He promises not to leave her side, and to come back for her, if he is forced to separate.

How things pan out is what the movie is about.  Diljit Dosanjh, and the young couple- Sharvari and Vedang (I think) play their roles to perfection. The direction is good, though I feel about 10 minutes could have been cut to reduce the length of the film.

Overall, worth a watch.

Film Review- Baby Do-Die-Do

 This is a Huma Qureshi film, out and out. She does a good job as a twin sister, who grows up to be a contract killer. Yes, that's not the suspense, but there are enough twists to keep you twisted till the end.

It's tough to make a thrilling suspense film with a female protagonist. The usual temptations like unwanted songs are kept at bay, and the direction is crisp and focused. The 2 hour length is just right.

The actors-all of them-are good. The plot keeps you interested from the first minute.

We used to call Karmarkar Do-die-do as a joke when we were kids. That is used in the title. Great film in its genre.

Meet My Friends

 Out of a million, these are some-

Sheetal Garg

Abha Kulkarni+Tosha Dubey

Pratima Gaikwad

Ananya Nandi De

Swati Jain

Ishita Modi+Anurag

Manjari Mundanad

Harshad Lunavat

Harshad Sachani

Phalguni Bannerjee

Nishka Rathi

Sayantani Saha+Ananya Ghosh

Jogeswari

Natalija Lepkova

Anushka Mishra

Savitha

 Nidhi Kanungo

Divya Singh

Laura Shah

Samudrika Rasanjalee

Yapin Qiao (studied in Hyderabad)

Anusha Soni

Shraddha Nigdikar

Anushka halve

Rimjhim Verma

Leslie Price

Anupriya Pandit

Padmapriya Janakiraman

Anshika Abhishek Chetty

Bharath Shenoy

Prachi Jain and gang.

Pradyumna Mohanty

Abhinav Kamal

Garima Shah

Surbhi Mehta Chadha

Rupam Verma

Gowri and Sreeram

Shrabani, Karan and Sunita

Manoharan, SP Kumar

Pooja NM

Tanya Kar Srivastava

Lubna Nafees

Jayanti Ranjan

Pooja Daniel

Vidya TC+Swapna Gurijala

Akansh Khandelwal

Nikita Ray

Music group- Geeta, Dipti, Mohan, Rajni Verma, Milind, Anjalee, Namratha, Lakshmi, Indira, Rajan, Anoop, Naveen, Omprakash, Virender, Ravindra Marghade, Rina Das, Vijji Ganesh, Arpita, Nagendra, Jyothi, Venkates, Venkatrama Subramaniam, Mamta Bansal, Poonam Bhatia, 

IIMB- Prabhakar, Dash, Ramesh (Smoke), Hassled, Manglik, Venkatakrishnan, Shankara Rajan, Bishop, Sardie, Uday Damodaran

Anant Ram

TK Chatterjee

Arun Bhattacharyya

Veronica Thavonat

Jitendra Sharma, Maheswaran

Dhanapal, Vijayakumar, Gadgil, Yashad Gaur

Amit Kumar Gope

Mir Ali Husain

Smita Dabholkar Singh

Osmania- Venugopal Reddy, Phani, Nagarjuna, Suri, 

HPS- Adithya Padala, Kartik, Vinu, Ram Seshu, Nadir Sadruddin, Jameel, 

Quirks of Indian Pronunciation

 Where is prounouncing Pen stretched to become a pain?

Where in India would someone say Bholuputus (real story) and what does it mean?

Where is Mr. Vishwas and Mr. Biswas one and the same?

Where does one hear the 'd' in Bridge pronounced?

Where might Boss and Bus be pronounced the same way?

Where might people say Mani when then they mean money?

Player instead of pleasure?

Lovely Music Show

 Probably my 10th in the last 8 weeks-on July 15th, 2026. But another good one. Dr. Ajit Sant, Onkar Deshpande and Vilas Shinde did well on the male side, with Charuta Apte and Vidula Rao bringing up the female end. Particularly good were the Kishore Kumar numbers sung by each of them.. Chhoti si ye duniya, and Khwab ho tum ya, plus Haal kaisa hai janab ka, in paricular.

Audience Questions

I am talking academic events. Most of these claim they have time for a Q and A, with Q being audience questions. The problem is that speakers don't finish in the time allotted, so the questions remain un-questioned, so to speak.  

To be fair, not all questions that do get asked are great. Most are boringly predictable, and answered with lack of imagination. Anyway, it satisfies the questioner's thirst for knowledge, and the answerer's chance to be all-knowing.. or appear to be.

If there's a panel discussion, you can be sure that most will end up being a series of talks. The setup for the Powerpoints eats up a lot of time, and yes, the Questions are given 5-7 minutes, depending on how far lunch is. 

The Question is, what is the best way to get good questions. Maybe the speaker can build his own questions and answer them too.