Shaikh Ayaz

On Rekha's 64th birthday, we take a look at her biography, Rekha: The Untold Story, written by Yasser Usman, which attempts to bring forth the extraordinary personality though it takes the familiar route that kept gossip and fan magazines of a certain era in circulation – Rekha’s salacious personal life.

The 1970s star and politician who died last year starred in scores of broad-chested male fests. His popular pairing with Amitabh Bachchan gave us such hits as Parvarish, Muqaddar Ka Sikandar and Amar Akbar Anthony. One theory speculates that if he hadn't quit movies in 1982 to follow spirituality, history (and most certainly the career of Big B, a close competitor) would have turned out differently.

Lata Mangeshkar birthday: She’s Hindi cinema’s greatest playback singer and even today, though she playbacks ever so rarely, Lata Mangeshkar’s melodious voice, as Dilip Kumar rightly put it, resides in all of us.

What Pataakha, Vishal Bhardwaj's latest black comedy starring warring on-screen sisters Sanya Malhotra and Radhika Madan, says about the recurring imagery of twins in his films.

Guru Dutt's niece, painter Lalita Lajmi's daughter and Bhupen Hazarika's live-in partner, Kalpana Lajmi was more than the sum of those beings. She was a radical filmmaker and though her oeuvre is short, it's an important one for Hindi cinema.

As Nandita Das’ biopic Manto, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Rasika Dugal releases this week, we look at the literary bad boy’s Bollywood years in the 1940s, his juicy portraits of the matinee idols and how his intimate friendships with Shyam (unknown to today’s film audiences) and Ashok Kumar shaped him.

Happy birthday Akshay Kumar: Here’s exploring Akshay Kumar's consistency and box-office bankability and why, just like Dharmendra in an earlier era, fellow Punjabi Akshay had to wait for years before, at long last, proving that he matters.

Happy birthday Asha Bhosle: As the evergreen singer turns a year “younger,” a look at her legendary musical journey, the famed rivalry with elder sister Lata Mangeshkar, the men in her life (O.P Nayyar and RD Burman) and her love for cooking.

Exploring the changing face of nationalism, from the idealistic days of Raj Kapoor and Manoj Kumar down to the jingoistic fervour of Sunny Deol and Akshay Kumar.

Starring Rishi Kapoor, Taapsee Pannu, Rajat Kapoor, Neena Gupta, Manoj Pahwa and Prateik Babbar, Mulk addresses the meaning of patriotism and religious polarisation among other political and communal issues that have haunted the national headlines in recent years.

Guru Dutt and Sanjeev Kumar birth anniversaries: Guru Dutt and Sanjeev Kumar's turbulent, tragic and unlucky-in-love personas haunted the two stars throughout their life, cruelly and creatively manifesting itself both on screen and off it.

Rahul Dev Burman 79th birth anniversary: RD Burman and Gulzar were more than just friends. Their friendship sparked what would become one of Hindi cinema’s greatest creative partnerships.

As Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak turns 30, we look back at the film’s tentative beginnings and its influential legacy. At a time when action stars and angry young men were a norm, Aamir Khan was a refreshing anomaly.

2000s was a decade that began with Hrithik Roshan’s instant stardom and ended with Aamir Khan’s reinvention into a box-office behemoth. Somewhere in between, a new crop of filmmakers had also emerged – Anurag Kashyap and Vishal Bhardwaj to name a few – infusing new sensibilities and ideas into formulaic Bollywood.

Sridevi’s comic timing was arguably the sharpest among her contemporaries and always gets mentioned in any discussion about the MOM actress. So does her legendary beauty. Though shy in person, she loved to face the camera.

Before Bollywood appropriated Sridevi, the multilingual star who acted in over 300 titles was a major tour de force in all regional cinemas of the South including Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

Madhubala’s powerful and confrontational scenes with Prithviraj Kapoor and romantic and tender moments with Dilip Kumar tie Mughal-e-Azam together.

Pran 98th birth anniversary: One of Indian cinema’s greats, Pran may have personified evil on celluloid (such was his reputation that new-borns weren’t named after him) but off screen, many vouch for his self-respecting ways and generosity.

Here’s exploring the Padman star’s consistency and box-office bankability and why, just like Dharmendra in an earlier era, fellow Punjabi Akshay Kumar had to wait for years before, at long last, proving that he matters.