How to Win a Reality Show: Forget Your Talent, Surrender Your Dignity
Posted inPOV

How to Win a Reality Show: Forget Your Talent, Surrender Your Dignity

I was a behind-the-scenes volunteer at Indian Idol auditions a few years ago, and had to prompt awkward aspirants to say cheesy things like “Humari zindagi badal jayegi show jeetne se.” Reality shows can be toxic places, where everything from a person’s disability to lack of talent, is fair game for exploitation.
Madhuri Dixit, the Woman of Middle-Class Dreams, and My Papa’s First Crush
Posted inBollywood

Madhuri Dixit, the Woman of Middle-Class Dreams, and My Papa’s First Crush

I have grown up on stories about my father’s not-so-secret childhood crush on Madhuri Dixit from the time when they were neighbours in Mumbai. As a child with a congenital heart condition, Papa had spent a large part of his childhood as the one-boy audience for her daily kathak practices. She didn’t know it, but Madhuri Dixit was making life a little bit bearable for an angry teenager.