He was a formidable musician but seemed utterly human, a Peter Pan who wore his genius with deceptive lightness. Sandip Roy remembers Ustad Zakir Hussain.
'I often wondered while watching the film/trilogy, what if Durga had lived. What if Ray made The Durga Trilogy.' Sandip Roy looks back at Pather Panchali's Durga and the woman who brought her alive, Uma Dasgupta.
Ma Durga might be the city's most celebrated annual visitor, but Kali is the resident Goddess, notes Sandip Roy.
Urvashi Vaid dreamed of a common movement for social justice that could address them all: Racism, gender oppression and homophobia. Sandip Roy salutes the memory of Urvashi Vaid, one of America's most prominent LGBT activists, who passed into the ages this month.
By some strange and bizarre twist of fate, Omar Mateen did exactly what he did not intend to do. He took the lives of gay people and made them extraordinary. He infused their stories with a poignancy they might not have possessed otherwise. He enabled the rest of the world to see themselves in their stories, to weep at the sheer waste of lives cut short, says Sandip Roy.
All that the children at Kolkata's CINI Asha shelter want is a real home, discovers Sandip Roy
'I realise that in some ways the Census is a peephole into a changing India. It's not just about transgenders or the disabled. This time marital status includes separate categories for divorced and separated. Mental illness has been separated from mental retardation. For the first time, the census taker is asking for the date of birth.'
It is the death of a singer. And also the passing of an era, says Sandip Roy
Brought to the United States as the infant son of illegal immigrants, Yves Gomes is fighting to be accepted by the only country he calls home. Sandip Roy reports
Why books about white people discovering themselves in brown places, make Sandip Roy want to gag, shoot and leave.
I refused. Sandy, I pointed out is two syllables, like Sandip. If he could say Sandy, he should be able to say Sandip. Over time I've become Sand-ip (as in Sand-hip) but I've stubbornly resisted any creeping Sandy-fication.
'I love India. It is such a peaceful place.'
Indians, cosseted by stories about their success in America, often think they are the golden immigrants, the good ones, guests who can come for dinner. And stay. Perhaps now the blinders will come off, writes Sandip Roy
Sandip Roy visits a flock of wanna-'bees' at an all-Indian spelling bee in Milpitas, California and is transported back to India.
A growing number of India's seniors are starting to take their future into their own hands, says Sandip Roy.
The White House crashing episode is reminiscent of an India wedding
Sandip Roy on his black and white film Frozen starring Danny Denzongpa.
The 'love that dare not speak its name' has found a voice, and legitimacy. Sandip Roy on the sexual revolution, circa 2008.
Cows holding up traffic are irresistible lens fodder for a director out to find the 'authentic' Indian experience.
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