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Time of India
a day ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Harish questions Revanth, Uttam's silence on AP's Godavari project
Hyderabad: Former minister and senior BRS leader T Harish Rao alleged that the Andhra Pradesh govt was conspiring to divert 200 TMC from Godavari waters through the proposed Banakacherla Godavari link project. He accused the Congress govt of remaining silent on the issue despite there being a major threat to the interests of Telangana. He demanded that the Banakacherla project be halted immediately to prevent irreversible damage. Harish Rao, who gave a PPT on the Banakacherla-Godavari scheme at Telangana Bhavan on Saturday, explained how the neighbouring state was swiftly taking up the project. The Centre, under the guise of interlinking rivers, is enabling Andhra Pradesh to divert water even without the completion of Polavaram. "Despite all this, the Telangana govt has shown no urgency, no resistance," Harish said. He said after the injustice faced in Krishna river waters, there is another threat in the form of the Banakacherla project. "While the AP govt is pushing ahead with tenders for this project, Telangana chief minister A Revanth Reddy and irrigation minister Uttam Kumar Reddy have chosen to remain silent," he alleged. He criticised the Congress govt for focusing more on political vendetta than public welfare. "They are busy filing false cases against KTR and BRS leaders. Sadly, the state's interests are being mortgaged for the sake of political power," he said. Harish Rao said Telangana has eight BJP MPs, eight Congress MPs, and two Union ministers, yet no one is raising their voice. "Is their loyalty to Delhi more important than their responsibility towards Telangana?" he asked. Drawing a contrast, he recalled how Chandrababu Naidu once fought Maharashtra over just 2 TMC from the Babli project. "Now, with 200 TMC on the line, shouldn't the Telangana govt be fighting even harder?" He alleged that Revanth Reddy is compromising state interests to protect his friendship with Chandrababu Naidu. "If the state govt is serious, BRS is ready to support a resolution in the Assembly. But if you fail to act, we will launch a people's movement and pursue legal action," the former minister said. On Uttam Kumar Reddy's letter, Harish said, "Today, I gave a presentation on the Banakacherla project. On the same day, Minister Uttam Kumar Reddy released a letter with yesterday's date. I thank him for responding at least after our presentation," said Harish Rao. He said writing letters is not enough. "If the minister is serious, he should ask the chief minister to demand an apex council meeting on Banakacherla. That is what the people of Telangana are expecting. " He said Telangana needs action, not publicity. "Backdated letters won't protect our water. Only a strong stand will." Follow more information on Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad here . Get real-time live updates on rescue operations and check full list of passengers onboard AI 171 .
Indian Express
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Bunty Aur Babli turns 20: Abhishek Bachchan, Rani Mukerji's crime caper is a sharp, spirited portrait of middle-class ambition in post-liberalisation India
It was the early 2000s. Aditya Chopra had seen failure, and not just once; the industry had started to lose faith as well as some within his own family. He was no longer the golden boy, and that silence around him was growing heavier. Hence, he made a decision. Not to retreat, but to move and to try something unexpected. He wanted to make a crime caper, with Abhishek Bachchan in the lead. He handed the reins to a young director, known only for a remake, and gave him a story that set out to change the syntax of commercial storytelling. For Yash Raj Films, this was unfamiliar territory. It had none of the soft-focus charm of their romantic sagas. There was no moral compass pointing north. Not even NRI nostalgia to cushion the fall. At its heart, it was about thieves, beneath the ever-watchful eye of capitalism's glimmering tower, stealing not for malice, but for meaning. Many might think this is about Dhoom, with its bikes, its pace, its swagger. That's another story for another day. This is about something else. Something gentler, but sharper. This is about Bunty Aur Babli. On paper, the film read like a loose riff on Bonnie and Clyde, but the comparison falls apart on contact. The conflict, the characters, even the tonal register, everything diverges. There's a deliberate lightness here, a sense of joy that's not accidental. What distinguishes it, though, is its grounding in a newly liberalized Indian economy. What resonates most is the social and generational context from which Bunty and Babli emerge. They're children of a transitional India, where aspiration outpaces infrastructure, where dreams travel faster than opportunity. Their world is shaped by cable television, their life is defined by endless stories of success featuring people like them, but never quite about them. They come from the moral certainties of the middle class, yet no longer find themselves entirely at home in them. So unlike Bonnie and Clyde, their rebellion isn't just romantic or criminal — it's existential. They're not simply running from the law; they're running towards meaning, place, and identity. Bunty (Abhishek Bachchan) comes from Fursatganj. Babli (Rani Mukerji) runs away from Pankinagar. Towns like these don't figure in the imagination of India A. They are not destinations, just glimpses from a moving train, places you pass through on your way elsewhere. The kind of small towns, which Gulzar described as 'chhote chhote shehron se', towns that appear as two-minute railway halts, or as dhaba stops on long, anonymous highways. It's no accident, then, that the film is filled with trains and roads. They're more than just setting, they're the spirit. Movement becomes metaphor. The story sways towards the form of a road movie, but what it really tracks is the velocity of desire, the shape of a search. Bunty and Babli's journey begins with the pulse of 'Dhadak Dhadak', introduced separately (notice Babli, dancing in an akhada, subverting every expectation of the YRF heroine). By the interval, they're together, dancing to 'Nach Baliye', on a set that feels like Broadway filtered through Mumbai, brought alive by Sharmishta Roy. It's more than a spectacle, it's a declaration. They've arrived. Not by permission, but by defiance. Because for towns like Fursatganj and Pankinagar, the law does not build ladders. It builds maps that forget them. Also Read | Bunty Aur Babli 2 review: Saif Ali Khan-Rani Mukerji kindle the old spark At the interval point, another shift takes place, not just in the story, but in the film's very form. This is when Amitabh Bachchan enters as Commissioner Dashrath Singh, tasked with hunting down Bunty and Babli. And with his arrival, something changes. Until now, the film had moved along the undercurrent of contrast, between different Indias, between aspiration and limitation, but that tension remained largely subtextual. With Bachchan's entry, the polarity becomes tonal. The first half of Bunty aur Babli is grounded. It belongs to the soil. Its language, texture, and rhythm echo the realism of Amol Palekar or Basu Chatterjee movies. But post-interval, the film shapeshifts. It leaps into the zone of a Manmohan Desai caper: louder, faster, glossier. The satire gets broader, the stakes more stylized. What was once rooted starts to float. The chase becomes theatrical, the con jobs more elaborate, the narrative more self-aware. And by the end, the homages are unmistakable. This is Catch Me If You Can, filtered through a Bollywood lens, stitched with spectacle and swagger. The film wears its love for the '70s on its sleeve. Look closely, and a Hath Ki Safai poster slips into the mise-en-scène like a memory. Listen carefully, and you'll hear 'Dil Cheez Kya Hai' floating in the background, as Bachchan's voice reflects on lost love. Ranjeet plays Ranjeet. Prem Chopra appears, but not as himself. And Sholay? It haunts the form. Bunty and Babli don the jackets of Jai and Veeru, not as parody but as inheritance. And in the end, there's a moving train, a face-off between an honest cop (read: Thakur) and two outlaws. But the most pointed homage is the casting of Bachchan himself. Once the face of rebellion, the original angry young man, he now stands on the other side. No longer the drifter, no longer the spark, he is the law, the system, the state. He chases what he once embodied. The film, without ever raising its voice, offers a mirror. A deconstruction. Bachchan as Dashrath Singh isn't just a cop chasing thieves, he's really time chasing itself. He's a myth returning to watch its own unravelling. You can almost sense that director Shaad Ali is working from a place of deep fascination. His enthusiasm doesn't just sit on the surface, it feels visceral, alive in every frame. But at no point does this passion overwhelm the story. Instead, it powers it from within. His gaze is packed with ideas, and what's remarkable is how effortlessly he brings each one to life. There's also a clear and genuine love for the song-and-dance tradition of Bombay cinema. Shaad doesn't treat music as decoration, he uses it to its fullest potential. Each song becomes a narrative moment, revealing themes, emotions, even entire storylines. But the real giant here — the cultural juggernaut, is Kajra Re. It's the song that defined a decade. Shaad Ali never directed a bigger musical moment. Alisha Chinai never sang a more iconic hit. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy never produced a more crowd-moving track. And Aishwarya Rai never danced with such massy charm and controlled fire. Even Gulzar, always philosophical, hit a rare balance here between the everyday and the eternal. Just look at the lines: 'Surmein se likhe tere waade, aankhon ki zubaani aate hain': a love promise written not in ink but in gaze. Or 'Aankhein bhi kamaal karti hain, personal se sawaal karti hain': as if eyes alone could interrogate intimacy. These are the kinds of lines you might find scribbled on the back of a truck, but in Gulzar's hands, they take on something almost existential. Speaking of memorable lines, you simply can't talk about Bunty Aur Babli without bringing up Jaideep Sahni's writing. As always, he returns to the themes he knows best: middle-class morality, amidst the changing fabric of post-liberalised India. And yet, even within this familiar terrain, he manages to craft a story that feels both fresh and utterly relatable. You could easily go on at length about Sahni's sharp writing. But often, just one scene, or even a single moment, a single line, is enough to reveal the depth of his craft. Take the wildly audacious moment when Bunty and Babli con a foreigner by 'selling' the Taj Mahal. Just moments earlier, a corrupt minister is confronted by a furious crowd chanting, 'Tanashahi nahi chalegi!' She snaps back, 'Arey kiski?' And the crowd replies — 'Kisi ki bhi.' That's it. That's Sahni for you. His writing doesn't shout, it slices. With one line, he can expose an entire system. With one exchange, he can turn satire into truth.
Time of India
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Women at the crossroads: Desire and duty in The Chai Queens
The Chai Queens , a play, recently presented at The Creative Arts Academy, intricately weaves a narrative of love, yearning, camaraderie, desire, envy, and the profound, often unspoken sacrifices women make for family, culture, and their own survival. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Like a slowly brewed cup of chai, some affections steep in unspoken moments, poured in secret, and savoured in quiet. Against the vibrant backdrop of an extravagant Indian wedding 's music and rituals, childhood best friends Babli and Tejal reconnect after fifteen years. Babli, now a wife and mother, navigates the ingrained patterns of tradition, constrained by expectations she has never challenged. Tejal, a spirit driven by wanderlust, returns home to discover that some distances stubbornly persist. Yet, amidst the shimmering silks and the soft glow of oil lamps, an unspoken truth begins to surface. A lingering touch. A glance heavy with the weight of years. The phantom of an unnamed love now presses against the present reality. As the three-day and three-night wedding festivities unfold, Babli and Tejal find solace in stolen moments over chai. Their hands brush across shared cups, warmth seeps into chilled fingers, and words dissolve into the rising steam. Past, present, and future collide. Desire clashes with obligation, and longing grapples with loss. In a world that offered them no space, can they forge their own? Or will they, once more, choose to walk away, leaving behind not only each other but also the essential part of themselves that only the other truly understood? Directed by Ramanjit Kaur and featuring Taranjit Kaur and Archana Patel in leading roles, "The Chai Queens" drew from Taranjit Kaur's original storyline and incorporated excerpts from Vikrant Dhote's script "So Far," along with contributions from Taranjit Kaur, Archana Patel, and Ramanjit Kaur. The play's evocative music is designed by Pt. Tanmoy Bose, with Ruhani Singh serving as Production Director.
