Though Ved Mehta practised a great deal of journalism and wrote about “big” subjects — in books such as Portrait of India — he was eventually a master of the intimate canvas, always using the personal to illuminate the universal.
In a starring role: The moon in romantic films is a cliché we know well in India, given the chaudhvin ka chand motif: the comparison of the heroine’s beauty with the full moon, or as something that eclipses the moon.
From the Ramu kakas of the 1980s to Khempal in Talvar, Bollywood’s representation of the family retainer is a reflection of the changing nature of the class divide in urban India.
