Ekta Kapoor Archives

Hey Netflix, Ditch Narcos. The Karnataka Elections Deserve a Show

News reports, think pieces, and analysis aren’t doing the cliffhanger elections in Karnataka any justice. With all the absurd drama that has unfolded this week, our netas deserve their own multi-genre TV show – working title, Kar-Naatak, The Wild Wild State.

#VALUE! July 21, 2016

Pop Culture

Why Bittu, the Live Action Short Film Shortlisted for the Oscars, Deserves All Our Love

Bittu is a touching story of friendship between two school girls in a village. The film which has been shortlisted for the Oscars has no big stars. Instead, director Karishma Dev Dube went to local communities and government schools in the rural areas to pick her cast.

Arré Bench July 15, 2016

Pop Culture

Cannes Film Festival: That Time of the Year When B-Grade Bollywood Celebrities Become Relevant Again

There’s no getting away from the fact that Mallika Sherawat’s and Hina Khan’s connection to world cinema is tenuous at best. Yet they are gracing the Cannes red carpet. As for the rest of the Indian delegation? To paraphrase a modern statesman: We’re definitely not sending our best people.

Kahini Iyer June 24, 2016

Bollywood

From Bollywood’s Boldest Star to Big Mouth: What Do We Do About Kangana Ranaut?

Kangana Ranaut’s latest release Panga stands overshadowed by the theatrics on display during her film promotion on Thursday. Ranaut said that senior lawyer Indiria Jaising should be thrown in jail along with the 2012 Delhi gang rape convicts for suggesting that they be pardoned. For an actor who has carefully pitched herself as the champion of feminism, her comments against Jaising are deeply misogynistic.

Kahini Iyer June 14, 2016

Pop Culture

From Buniyaad to Naagin: My India on TV

Growing up in Oman, my idea of home was shaped by TV series from the ’90s such as Tara and Mujhe Chand Chahiye. What idea would I have grown up with if I were watching Naagin and Kundali Bhagya?

Priyanka Sacheti May 3, 2016

People

Kyunki TV Bhi Kabhi Real Life Tha

Indian joint families and the Ekta Kapoor brand of TV serials are caught in an endless loop of art imitating life imitating art imitating life. The only difference is we don’t look as pretty as the characters on TV, and we can’t change the channel when we’ve had enough.

Apoorva Singhal April 8, 2016

People

Forever the Extra: The Alternate Reality of a Bollywood Struggler

Bollywood strugglers are routinely ridiculed, for their “Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon” aspirations. But when you’re a struggler, what you need most is a thick skin, and a steely determination bordering on delusion.

Ananya N April 2, 2016

Pop Culture

Spunky Maheep Kapoor, Where Were You? Meet the Star of Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives

Visually stunning but supremely vacuous, The Fabulous Lives of Bollywood Wives is a glistening heap of mediocrity, except for the binocular-wielding one-woman crime patrol of Juhu, Maheep Kapoor.

Kahini Iyer March 19, 2016