Tag: YRF

RUBINA’S RADAR | ANCIENT SCULPTURES AND MODERN HISTORIES OF THE RAILWAY MEN

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DECEMBER 1, 2023

Humanity is but an amalgamation of ancient cultures, of the good and the great, but not without the bad and evil either. Modern histories on the other hand, are stories of yesterdays told today, with enchanting whimsy and hope, a great example being The Railway Men – The Untold Story of Bhopal 1984 on Netflix. Celebrating ancient cultures with Mediterranean sculptures is a new exhibit at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, India called Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome from December 2nd, 2023 to October 1st, 2024.

MUMBAI: A new exhibition, a first of its kind, Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome opens on December 2nd, 2023 at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (known as the Prince of Wales Museum of Western from 1905-1998) in Mumbai, India. The Ancient Sculptures exhibit explores why we must look at, and look int our ancient connected world, with curators from CSMVS, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, The British Museum and The Getty Museum coming together to tell the stories of shared cultures. They have chosen sculptures to be exhibited alongside objects from Indian institutions at the exhibit which commences on December 2nd and goes on till October 2024. The objects on display were chosen by the curators at CSMVS in Mumbai that add to the cultural and historical significance of the stories of India’s rich antiquity, making for compelling storytelling from ancient Greece and Rome. The Indian public will be able to view historical artistic achievements of the ancient Mediterranean with India’s very own cultural treasures for the first time at CSMVS.

Sekhmet: Goddess of Destruction; Mottled granodiorite, Thebes (modern Karnak),
Egypt; c. 1390-1352 BCE ©Trustees of The British Museum, London, United Kingdom.

A panel discussion at CSMVS on opening day, on December 2nd at 5:30pm, has been organised with primary support from Getty, called Why Ancient Sculptures Matter(s) – A conversation on the making of Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome. Joyoti Roy, Project Curator of Ancient Sculptures (Curator Art, CSMVS) and Nilanjana Som, Curator Ancient Sculptures (Curator Art, CSMVS) will be in conversation with Professor Dr Andreas Scholl, Director of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin, Germany) and Dr Thorsten Opper, Curator Greek and Roman Sculpture, The British Museum (London, UK) moderated by Renuka Muthuswami, Curator Ancient Sculptures, CSMVS on the day.

The museum was named the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India to honour HRH the Prince of Wales, as had laid the foundation stone of the museum building on November 11, 1905 in Mumbai. The Prince of Wales went on to become George V, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from May 6th, 1910 until his death in 1936. George Wittet, a Scottish architect, was selected through an open competition to design the museum building in 1909 and the construction of the building was completed in 1914. The magnificent Indo-Saracenic architectural style of the museum building embodies elements from Hindu, Islamic and Western architecture. Interestingly, during World War I in 1914, the building was used as a military hospital and named Lady Hardinge War Hospital, and it was used as a hospital again during the influenza pandemic from 1918-1920. The museum as we know it today, was opened to the public 17 years after its ideation and construction, on January 10, 1922 in Mumbai. Wittet also designed the Gateway of India to commemorate the landing of George V, the first British monarch to visit India, for his coronation as the Emperor of India in December 1911. George V had visited India earlier in 1905 as HRH the Prince of Wales, becoming monarch in 1910.

Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome is on from December 2nd, 2023 to October 1st, 2024 from 10:15 AM to 6:00 PM at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya: 159-161, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Kala Ghoda, Fort, Mumbai, Maharashtra 400001.

MUMBAI: The Railway Men – The Untold Story of Bhopal 1984 released on Netflix on November 18th, 2023. The series is a spine-chilling, heart-wrenching portrayal of a catastrophic massacre of human life – the Bhopal gas tragedy in India in 1984 and the Sikh genocide in the same year. A 45 ton methyl isocyanate gas leak on December 2nd, 1984, from the US-owned chemical firm, Union Carbide Corporation’s pesticide plant set up in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh in 1969 as Union Carbide India Limited, killed thousands of people instead of the agricultural pests and insects it was supposed to. The chemical leak from the plant occurred due to substandard operating and safety procedures and understaffing at the plant. The four-part limited series, a cinematic tale of heroism and humanity in the face of imminent death and despair honouring the unsung heroes of the tragedy, is the first venture from Yash Raj Films’ Entertainment, the streaming content arm of Yash Raj Films. It also marks the beginning of a multi-year creative partnership between Netflix and Yash Raj Films.

R. Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon, Divyendu and Babil Khan in The Railway Men
©Yash Raj Entertainment ©Netflix

The Railway Men is an acting-led series. The series blazes through with phenomenal performances by every single actor in the series, but not without a flawless script, screenplay and dialogue, meticulously produced by YRF Entertainment and ably directed by Shiv Rawail. I loved Kay Kay Menon’s performance as Iftikhar Siddiqui, Bhopal Junction’s station master. Menon is an absolute acting masterclass in the series. You can read his face, expressive of every little human emotion and nuance, bereft of dialogue. And with dialogue, you can’t take your eyes off Menon’s railway station master act during the series. Dibyendu Bhattacharya’s performance as Kamruddin, a Union Carbide manager, is exemplary, as is Raghubir Yadav’s enactment of a train guard on the Gorakhpur-Bhopal Express. Babil Khan is terrific as the fresh and righteous locomotive driver Imaad Riaz as is Divyendu in his part as a multi-layered dacoit, Balwant Yadav. Juhi Chawla Mehta is a refined and succinct bad-ass in her portrayal of Rajeshwari Janglay, a railway bureaucrat. Sunny Hinduja is earnest and able as journalist Jagmohan Kumawat, as is Sunita Rajwar as Vijaya, a cleaning woman at the railway station. The Railway Men is an incredible series to come about from India, about India, and it is a must-watch!

Disclaimer: Any part of the content on the rubinaakhan.com website cannot be reproduced without prior permission and crediting the website and the author. The © ahead of a name is the copyright of the subject in the photograph and not shot by Rubina A Khan.

©Rubina A Khan 2023

RUBINA’S RADAR | NEWS OF THE NEW

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OCTOBER 24, 2023

It’s the last week of October and Diwali is three weeks away, with 2024 on the ascent not far behind. The season is all about celebrating the new with mithais, movies and money – making it and spending it! And when it comes to a new actor debuting in the world of films in India in 2023, Suhana Khan is the first name that comes to mind given she is Shah Rukh Khan’s daughter, the reigning superstar of India. And new films on Diwali are always almost synonymous with Yash Raj Films, this year being no different with Tiger 3 starring the consummate screen pair, Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, with Emraan Hashmi. After the colossal worldwide collections of Pathaan (January 2023) and Jawan (September 2023) of over a ₹1,000 crore and ₹1,100 crore respectively, both starring Shah Rukh Khan, YRF is shooting for even more coin with Tiger 3.

MUMBAI: Even before the release of her first film, Archies, Suhana Khan is a recognised face, beloved and adored by the public, landing her a Maybelline New York campaign in April 2023, headlining the brand in India. That she is loved and famous has a lot to with her father being superstar Shah Rukh Khan, but more so for her personable countenance every time she steps out in public. She expresses herself articulately, and is almost always smiling, polite and affable with fans, selfie-seekers and invasive photographers. She wears her father’s fame and name ever so lightly, just as her Papa, and not the monumental celebrity he is. It’s not like she just woke up one day and decided to act for a living because her father is who he is. She seems to have worked steadily and assuredly towards her dreams, graduating from Ardingly College in the UK, in 2019, winning the Russel Cup for Exceptional Contribution To Drama, but of course, given her artistic leanings. She featured in a 10-minute short film, The Grey Part of Blue, which is about a teenager’s experience of unrequited love, directed by Theodore Gimeno in 2019. After school, she went to the Tisch School Of The Arts in New York to study acting and drama. She came back to Mumbai from Tisch, well prepared and ready to start working as a full-time actor. Her first film, Archies, directed by Zoya Akhtar airs on Netflix on December 7th, wherein she plays the brunette Veronica Logde to ginger-haired Archie Andrews played by Agastya Nanda in the fictional town of Riverdale, set in 1960’s India. She looks the part in the teasers and the songs, pirouetting on skates like a poised ballerina. Needless to add, it is the most anticipated film on everyone’s watch list! “I am 5″3 and brown, and I am extremely happy about it and you should be too,” she once wrote on Instagram in September 2020, in a bid to end colorism and today, everyone is happier for the same. Because, Khan is here to stay and play. A new film, where she will be working with her father, to be directed by Sujoy Ghosh, has also been announced in September. The shooting for this untitled thriller starts only in November 2024 and it will be Khan’s first theatrical release.

©Suhana Khan

MUMBAI: Founder and creative director of Primal Gray, a clothing company based in New Delhi, Yuv Bharatram introduced his fashion label to Mumbai’s fashion forwards with a LAP (label awareness party) on Saturday evening. An alumnus of the Shri Ram School in Delhi, founded by the late Manju Bharat Ram in 1988, and owned by his family, the Shri Rams, Bharatram went on to graduate from the Parson’s School of Design in New York 2017. Having worked as an intern and apprentice with many fashion firms, the last being Hermes in Paris, France, in 2019, Bharatram launched Primal Gray in November 2022. The clothes are fun and easy, crafted from conscious materials and priced accordingly. A year on from the launch, he should perhaps look into retailing the Plexi-Glass Dress he made in 2014, with a flower mask made from recycled spoons, the idea of which stands even more poignant today, making it the right climate for avant-garde Indian fashion almost a decade later. “The Plexi-Glass dress was inspired by how people blindly buy and promote brands, buying the most ostentatious items of clothing just to show off the brand. They would rather showcase their wealth over being well-dressed. The dress is a statement of how other people can see through their insecurities, while they remain blind to the fact that people can see through their veil of superiority – the entrapment of the wearer in their prison of branded clothing,” said Bharatram of the 2014 dress. Primal Gray’s garments non-toxic additions to your wardrobe, but in no way is the label responsible for the toxicity of the wearer! The company also makes candles named after cocktails like Cosmopolitan, Espresso Martini and Negroni, to keep your chakras balanced and aligned, should you need to sage away unwanted energies.

Yuv Bharatram, photographed by Rubina A Khan

MUMBAI: The third film in the Yash Raj Films’ Tiger franchise, and the fifth in their ongoing spy universe series, Tiger 3, written by Aditya Chopra and directed by Maneesh Sharma releases on Diwali this year, on November 12. Starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, the consummate screen pair that made the first two films, Ek Tha Tiger (2012) and Tiger Zinda Hai (2017) blockbuster hits, Tiger 3 has Emraan Hashmi playing the principal antagonist. Chopra intends to expand his super spy universe with multiple screen agents coming together like Tiger (Salman Khan) and Pathaan (Shah Rukh Khan) in Pathaan (2023). Tiger 3 traces the events of the agents in Tiger Zinda Hai, War and Pathaan.

©Yash Raj Film

The first song from the film, Leke Prabhu Ka Naam, aired on the YRF Youtube channel on October 23rd, with Katrina Kaif looking bewitchingly fine in it. Tiger 3 is Kaif’s first release of 2023 as also Hashmi’s, marking the latter’s 20th year in the film industry.

Disclaimer: Any part of the content on the rubinaakhan.com website cannot be reproduced without prior permission and crediting the website and the author.

©Rubina A Khan 2023

RUBINA’S REVIEW: TIGER ZINDA HAI

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It’s been half a decade since Salman “Tiger” Khan’s romantic action thriller Ek Tha Tiger hit theatres on Independence Day in 2012 to a resounding ka-ching at the box office, that Yash Raj Films is all too familiar with. The film ended with India’s most indispensable RAW agent Avinash Rathore aka Tiger vamoosing off to Havana, Cuba to live a life of quiet anonymity (hah!) with his Pakistani ISI agent love, Zoya (Katrina Kaif).

tigerjpg
The sequel’s title says it all – he’s alive and kicking up powder in Austria with his son, Junior, fighting off packs of wolves (without killing them) unarmed with bare hands, skiing down the slopes, without taking off his winter jacket even once in the sequence. It cannot get any more real than that in Bollywood. And when he’s not busy playing dad or a spy in voluntary retirement, he spray-paints his love for wife Zoya on snow-capped mountain slopes to Atif Aslam’s Dil Diya Gallan in big-eyed wonderment. Nothing much has changed for Khan and his indomitable cinematic appeal since Ek Tha Tiger, though the same cannot be said for Kaif, despite her enviable pilates lean body. This Tiger is burning brighter than ever and Khan wings the film with indefatigable ease, never mind a couple of awkward supporting cast members and an askew, inconsistent pace of the film which could have been sharper and faster.

What I loved about Tiger Zinda Hai:

  1. Sheer girl power in the film. Where in Bollywood films does a wife rescue her husband in a war-struck country and drive him around without him switching to the wheel mid-save? The said wife, Katrina, is a bad-ass Bhabhi from her current location in Austria who swivels guns better than rolling pins in Ikrit, Iraq.
  2. Salman Khan skiing on the Innsbruck slopes, fully clothed.
  3. What’s better than a shirtless Salman? A bloodied warrior Salman toting double guns saving 39 Indian and Pakistani nurses!
  4. I loved Iranian born and UAE resident, Sajjad Delafrooz’s consummate performance as the antagonist Abu Usman, but for a verbose sermon he had to give Tiger at the tail end of the film. Restrained and confident acting on his part.
  5. Horses in the action sequences remind you why fast cars and bikes use horse power units of measurement in the first place and with Salman riding one, it’s a cinema freeze frame for life.
  6. Not using divisive political tactics in the film’s narrative, but humanitarian ones.
  7. The White House representative with an uncanny Sarah Huckabee accent, sans any Trumpa Loompa.
  8. The film only has two songs picturized on the lead cast of Khan and Kaif – Dil Diya Gallan in the beginning and the second, Swag Se Swagat at the end.
  9. What Khan’s presence in the Liwa Desert does for Abu Dhabi tourism is incomparable to anything they could have envisaged for themselves. And Khan wasn’t just another mirage!
  10. I had fun watching Tiger Zinda Hai and wanted to clap in all of Katrina’s bad-ass Bhabhi scenes, and most of the cool sequences.

©Rubina A Khan 2017