Devils Advocate

Devil's Advocate | Kangana Ranaut, Munawar Faruqui collaborating for Lock Upp is a lesson for parties with different political ideologies

The short but meaningful dialogue between Kangana Ranaut and Munawar Faruqui on Lock Upp happened to offer the one glimpse needed to confirm why ideological opposites should not just talk, but perhaps also collaborate.

Devil's Advocate | Hindi cinema's depiction of the writer is ludicrous — but that's how authors want to see themselves on screen

The portrayal of the writer in both Gehraiyaan and Bestseller are simultaneously hilarious and the fantasy land most authors are dying to get to. Either way, the joke is on them.

Devil's Advocate | Gehraiyaan packs in too many genres designed as narrative deceits, but fails to tap into the depths of any

In Gehraiyaan, there is crime, drama, romance, noir, tragedy, dramedy, working class struggles, first world problems, everything you could want, but also a lot that does not fit.

By teasing a universally accessible path to success, Shark Tank India fails to acknowledge social ills like caste and privilege

Reality TV shows like Shark Tank India eulogise the ‘fairness’ of competition, and its implications as a cultural reform, rather than the historic impediments that have rigged and awarded the game long ago.

For Netflix India to conquer Indian market, they'll have to choose persuasion over attraction, conditioning over content

Indians may not use the thing you offer them for free but it is in our nature to prize that which feels abundant rather than that which feels appealing. Netflix India needs to cater to those needs, like other streaming platforms do with sports and other add-ons.

And Just Like That, Indians outrage over white woman calling lehenga a sari — after years of stereotyping her onscreen

Using white-skinned women as half-naked dolls in some terribly scored item song is perhaps a graver crime then admitting to not knowing what Diwali is.

Novak Djokovic is more a victim of the brand he couldn't become than the flawed human being he obviously is

Tennis Australia and Novak Djokovic have not been each other’s best friends of late, but this public persecution of Tennis’ biggest star is more bureaucratic hubris than the enlightened response it wants to dress up as.

Why do we hate on R Madhavan's misogynistic character in Decoupled, but spare the men in Succession?

Maybe the toxicity or entitlement of Indian men is not as culturally permeable as that of their white counterparts.

Why arm-twisting Better.com CEO Vishal Garg for firing 900 employees on Zoom is misinterpreting modern capitalism

Backlash against Vishal Garg is indicative of how we misinterpret capitalism when employee rebellion is considered an avante garde act of artistic mutiny, whereas tacit survival instincts displayed by the captain of the ship are almost always framed as evil.

Why Vir Das' standup special I Come From Two Indias deserves to be criticised — not for being offensive, but for being obvious

The fact is all countries are ironically divided in some way or the other. To constitute them as merely the sum of these opposites is neither insightful nor revelatory.