Manik Sharma, Author at Arré

The Predictably Short Flight of Lady Bird

Greta Gerwig consistently understates the industry she inhabits, and remains herself, howsoever flawed or naïve. There must be a word that defines this lightness of being. Might we call her Lady Bird?

Manik Sharma May 7, 2016

Sports

What Do English Football and Indian Cricket Fans Have in Common? Unchecked Rowdiness

English football and its fandom echoes the ethos of Indian cricket. We’re like two step-brothers separated by format, whether it is in taking pride in bashing modest teams or treating matches with neighbour countries as a patriotism test.

Manik Sharma May 6, 2016

Pop Culture

What Mirzapur Gets Right About India’s Long Relationship With Violence

Amazon Prime’s Mirzapur is a frothy mix of hate, aggression, and masochism. The many lynchings of Mirzapur, its acute objectification of women, and violence seems uncomfortably close. It feels oddly like present-day India, rotten yet pure.

Manik Sharma May 5, 2016

People

As We Applaud Priya Ramani, Let’s Not Forget Her Feisty Lawyer Rebecca John

After a two-year fight, a Delhi court today acquitted journalist Priya Ramani in the defamation case filed by former Union minister MJ Akbar, whom she accused of sexual harassment. The win belongs as much to Ramani as to her incredible lawyer Rebecca John and the hundreds of women she has, by virtue, represented the dignity of.

Manik Sharma May 5, 2016

Pop Culture

True Detective Season 3 Review: A Great Return to Form For Not-Your-Average Whodunit

True Detective’s third season roars back to form with Mahershala Ali. A world intoxicatingly on the other side of reality, inconsistent and whimsical, True Detective can, at times, forget what genre it is. Because it’s always busy making up its own.

Manik Sharma May 4, 2016

Pop Culture

Narcos: Mexico Season 2 Refuses to Romanticise the Drug Business

How do corrupt, greedy men who work inured to the law or accountability of any sort, work together? It is a question Narcos: Mexico repeatedly poses, showing us the haywire ways of the drug world that has led to Mexico’s present- day cartel wars.

Manik Sharma May 4, 2016

Pop Culture

When Sonu Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Over the years, Sonu Nigam, the outspoken celebrity, has effectively overtaken Sonu Nigam, the ethereal singer. Today's "I wish I was from Pakistan" statement is proof that things aren't getting much better.

Manik Sharma May 4, 2016

Modern Family

The Parents Are Not Alright: I Can’t Stop Worrying About My Ageing Folks in This Pandemic

Living in another city, stuck in a pandemic, I worry about my parents a lot. When I reached home, I was appalled by their laxity: Nothing that came from the market was sanitised, masks were has-been entities, and there was a single 50ml sanitiser bottle under one roof. How do we tell our parents to be more cautious?

Manik Sharma May 3, 2016

Bollywood

Laxmii Review: A Film That Has Managed to Offend Men, Women, Transpeople, Writers & Directors

Bollywood’s latest fad is to course correct its own history of ignorance. Laxmii is the latest casualty of this impetus to display big-ticket morality. The tedious nature of Laxmii’s politics is draining. Some of the film’s moral lecturing is done with the half-heartedness of a Covid mask hanging below the chin. The writing is bizarre, especially when it concerns itself with pseudo-religious ideas.

Manik Sharma May 3, 2016

POV

F*CK YOU 2021. There we said it!

2020 was bad for its own reasons, but 2021 really punched the living hell out of us. Death to this terrible of all years is an understatement. It should instead be sentenced to be things far worse and meaner.

Manik Sharma May 2, 2016