THE STORYTELLER

  By Avik Basak     When I was a kid, I used to wonder why the elders in my family were so obsessed with Indian football when the quality was not nearly as good as European teams. I also used to hear about India’s glorious triumph at the Asian Games which seemed like a far cry to repeat considering the situation of the team at the moment. Well, if you can relate to this, then Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s Maidaan is the perfect film to take you on a ride back in time to what was known as the golden era of Indian football.   The problem we always see in Indian sports dramas, especially biopics, such as Dangal or Chak De! India is that those are filled with an overdose of patriotism. Don’t get me wrong, I am not discounting these popular films as bad or even mediocre as I myself enjoy them a lot. However, we rarely see more focus on the journey, the technical aspects of the sport or the strategy that helps the team or the person reach the final goal rather than wha...

By Avik Basak I have always heard from the elders in my life how in the year 1992, ticket demands for Amitabh Bachchan’s then supposedly the last film Khuda Gawah skyrocketed due to the die-hard fans’ dire wish to bid their favourite superstar a grand farewell. Although perhaps not on the same level, more so due to COVID-19 forcing theatre owners to shut shop and wait, but Sushant Singh Rajput’s final film, Dil Bechara enjoyed a similar hype. The only difference, perhaps the most crucial one emotionally, is that Mr Bachchan made a comeback in 1997 with Mrityudata but we will not see this talented young actor, who announced himself in Bollywood through a rocking performance in Kai Po Che! , gracing the silver screen ever again with a fresh outing. Stakes for the film were high especially since the actor’s sad demise hit the entire nation with a thunderstorm with people from every nook and corner of the country demanding justice for him and calling for a war against nepotism. ...