The Nostalgia Hunters: What's making millennials go in search of retro When Pratiksha Prashant, CEO of Kishandas & Co, a 150-year-old jewellery house from Hyderabad, got a call from film director Mani Ratnam to recreate Chola-era jewellery for his epic Ponniyin Selvan 2 (PS-II), she thought it was a good opportunity to replate her legacy brand for a contemporary audience. But she hadn’t expected to see 25- to 30-year-old girls walking into her store, wanting to buy the iconic mathapetis, nose pins and filigreed armbands worn by Aishwarya Rai after the film released this year. “They tossed various pieces of temple jewellery on their white shirts and hands and suggested embellishments that could be trimmed, to create a sassy grunge look. They just made us relevant all over again. Yes, traditional jewellery was always in demand for ceremonial occasions but to see millennials co-opt them is definitely new,” she says. READ MORE ‘Vikramaditya Motwane is the only one who allowed me the space to experiment’: Alokananda Dasgupta Jubilee — Vikramaditya Motwane’s fascinating series that juxtaposes the birth and the Partition of a nation with the rise of the Hindi film industry in Mumbai — opens with the blaring whistle of a steam engine, replicated on a bunch of horns that soon merges into clarinets and soaring strings. READ MORE Moment in the sun My arrival at Sitara Himalaya in Himachal Pradesh, a luxury bespoke hotel, was nothing short of a peerless happenstance that came loaded with revelations and a warm, soulful welcome. As the plane landed on the Himalayan airstrip, the energy that touched me in the form of light, scent, sound, temperature, and the vivid colours of the flowers everywhere had me overjoyed and feeling beyond special and lucky. There was a purity to the moment that made me feel younger than young, fulfilled like I had never been before, and excited about what was mine to see, feel and appreciate. READ MORE What Sanya Malhotra had to do to play a cop in Kathal For actor Sanya Malhotra, a significant part of preparing for a role involves writing copious notes about her character and imagining her back story. Before she essayed the role of inspector Mahima Basor in the recently-released Netflix original Kathal, the actor added another exercise to her pre-shoot ritual. Along with co-writer and director Yashowardhan Mishra, she visited Gwalior and the nearby villages where they were going to shoot the film. READ MORE Why Netflix’s 'Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story' is an ode to female friendships and solidarity Earlier in the year, during the promotion of 80 for Brady, a film on a group of octogenarian female friends who are Tom Brady fans, actor Jane Fonda spoke of why female friendships are fundamentally life altering. “You have to pursue people you want to be friends with. You have to say, ‘I am intentionally wanting to be your friend.’ And it works. People hear that and then they stick around and you develop new friendships,” she said during an appearance on the CBS Sunday Morning show. Her co-star and long-time friend Lily Tomlin agreed. “I don’t really like people that much. I try to avoid them. But those who are intentional, you just can’t get rid of them.” READ MORE 'It’s because of my middle-class roots that I ended up doing what I do': Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee Culture, craft and heritage are at the root of what I do, and all three are fundamentally rooted in storytelling. We are all made up of stories, after all,” says designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, 49, in an email interview, following the recent launch of his new flagship store in Mumbai’s iconic Horniman Circle. READ MORE The wild boar may not be on anyone’s list of favourite animals, but it is remarkable in its own right “Road hog!” , “Boar!”, “Pig!”, “Swine!”, “Sooar ka bachcha!” — these are some of the abuses we hurl at one another when our tempers run short, quite forgetting that pigs are actually very intelligent animals. Sure, wild boars will not be up there on the ‘favourites’ list of any farmer whose potato crop they have demolished overnight but they are remarkable creatures with a certain gorgeously ugly charisma. READ MORE
