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Poonam Saxena

Poonam Saxena is the national weekend editor of the Hindustan Times. She writes on cinema, television, culture and books

Articles by Poonam Saxena

A BA, a cough: How Bollywood clichés can unlock our past

There are clues in tropes from the ’50s and ’60s to diseases once feared, achievements once prized. The world changed, but they remained. Poonam Saxena does a little decoding.

In the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), the boys’ mother (played by Nirupa Roy) leaves her family to spare them suffering, when she gets tuberculosis.

lifestyle

Updated on Sep 03, 2022 05:44 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

When writing wears down the sole: A tale of Premchand’s torn shoes

The great Hindi writer was always short of money. He sometimes couldn’t afford shoes. As his grandson puts it, it seems scarcely credible now, that he should have leaned into the wind as he did.

The picture of Premchand (torn shoes and all) with his wife Shivrani Devi, that was published with Harishankar Parsai’s essay.

lifestyle

Updated on Aug 05, 2022 06:35 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Help! I’m seeing double: The Way We Were by Poonam Saxena

Actors playing two roles, three roles, even as many as nine: An ode to a trope that harks back to the days of old Bollywood.

Gulzar’s Angoor (1982) had not one but two double roles. Seeta Aur Geeta (1972) was a tale of very different twins. Sanjeev Kumar played nine characters in Naya Din Nai Raat (1974).

lifestyle

Updated on Jul 09, 2022 01:54 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

A writer, a mystery, a quiet tragedy: The tortured genius of Bhuwaneshwar

The experimental Hindi short-story writer, poet and playwright was hailed by Premchand, but then slipped into obscurity, vanished and died, impoverished, at just 45. His work deserves to be remembered and revisited, says Poonam Saxena.

Bhuwaneshwar’s best-known play, The Copper Insects, is probably Hindi literature’s first Absurd drama.

lifestyle

Updated on Jun 11, 2022 04:43 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Another side to summer: The Way We Were by Poonam Saxena

It’s hotter now, but the summers have always been scorching in north India. So how did people manage in the days before air-conditioning? With inventiveness, adaptation and great company.

A scene from the TV series A Suitable Boy (2020), set in Lucknow in 1951. Summer nights were spent gathered in open spaces for games of cards or a musical performance.

lifestyle

Updated on May 14, 2022 03:29 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

It enriches us when lives lived in the margins storm the page,says Poonam Saxena

Tales of women are rare, tales of older women even rarer. Meet some of Hindi literature’s most unlikely heroines, in this week’s The Way We Were.

Galaxy of Musicians by Raja Ravi Varma, a rare 19th-century depiction of Indian women across a range of cultures. (Wikimedia Commons)

lifestyle

Updated on Apr 16, 2022 02:38 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Look before you weep: There’s more to Meena Kumari than teary melodrama

To mark the actress’s 50th death anniversary, Poonam Saxena revisits a 1960 film in which she balances versatility, grit, gentleness and joie de vivre.

Meena Kumari is understated, minimalist and moving in the 1960 doctor-nurse romance Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai.

lifestyle

Updated on Mar 19, 2022 03:48 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Stirring the plot: A Wknd interview with author Geetanjali Shree

Her new book, Tomb of Sand, has become the first novel translated from Hindi to make it to the International Booker Prize longlist. Her storytelling involves unusual twists; the translation by Daisy Rockwell is a tour de force. See why Shree writes as she does.

Shree plays with words and form in her novel about an 80-year-old Indian woman who steps back into her pre-Partition past. ‘Why must a book be easy to read? Often language is treated as just the carrier of ideas, of the story. For me, language has its own presence and independent personality,’ she says. (Sanjeev Verma / HT Photo)

lifestyle

Updated on Mar 18, 2022 12:16 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Tales of the trials of a full-time writer: Poonam Saxena on Amritlal Nagar

Nagar dedicated himself to building a great oeuvre as a Hindi writer, but he did so at considerable cost to himself and his family. Sadly, it is still almost impossible to make a living as a writer in India.

Nagar spent seven years working as a film writer in Bombay, yearning all the while to return to his beloved Lucknow. In his memoirs, Tukde-Tukde Dastan, he wrote: ‘I didn’t have the mental satisfaction I should have got through film writing… It’s true that in this country, by writing for sahitya especially Hindi sahitya, you can’t earn enough to run your household…’

lifestyle

Updated on Feb 18, 2022 07:09 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Legend who introduced Indian audience to the era of playback

The ‘Nightingale of India’ gave shape to the culture of playback singing in Hindi cinema, giving film songs an independent existence that led to their absolute dominance

In a career spanning more than seven decades, Lata Mangeshkar received several film awards and honours such as the Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the Bharat Ratna and multiple National Film Awards. (ANI)

india news

Updated on Feb 07, 2022 12:18 AM IST

ByPoonam Saxena, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

In ’60s cinema, a long-ago glimpse of faraway lands

Before Emily went to Paris, Sharmila Tagore had an evening there. A clutch of Hindi films in the 1960s gave viewers who had never gone abroad glamourous views of another world.

Sharmila Tagore in An Evening in Paris. The ’60s films set abroad introduced a very different India to a world where women wore swimsuits and couples embraced in public.

lifestyle

Updated on Jan 22, 2022 05:38 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

An original city of letters: The Way We Were by Poonam Saxena

Long before litfests went viral, lovers of Hindi literature made their way to Allahabad, where words were celebrated all year.

At a pavilion in the fort of Allahabad. Coloured aquatint by Thomas Daniell, 1795. (Wikimedia Commons)

lifestyle

Updated on Dec 25, 2021 01:43 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

We were lucky to have skinned knees and pakdan-pakdai, says Poonam Saxena

Between pollution, the pandemic and the lure of too many screens, children are no longer playing the kinds of unstructured outdoor games where the aim was just to get together and have fun. What a pity.

Games like pithu and stapoo were fun despite (or perhaps because of) all the squabbles, scabs and muddied clothes. Cricket and football are all very well, but they’re not the same thing. (Shutterstock)

lifestyle

Updated on Nov 26, 2021 06:56 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

All-you-can-stream buffets: The food in K-dramas is a cultural coup

Bowls of steaming soup, sizzling barbecued meats, crisp fish cakes — Korean shows are taking their cuisine to the world. Why haven’t we done the same with our dazzling array?

Scenes from Crash Landing on You, a romance series, and Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, about a group of college athletes. Food is an integral part of all South Korean shows, regardless of genre. It’s always beautifully staged too, and shown in delectable close-up.

lifestyle

Updated on Oct 29, 2021 09:13 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

The rather frightening fade of reality TV: The Way We Were by Poonam Saxena

It started out simple, with set-ups designed for drama. Then came the vitriol and online fan clubs lashing out at each other. Today, sadly, even this isn’t the worst of what hits our screens.

Dolly Bindra fainting in Shweta Tiwari’s arms: Bigg Boss’s early years, while startling then, seem positively innocent today.

lifestyle

Updated on Oct 02, 2021 04:07 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Laying on the gilt: What’s next for Sanjay Leela Bhansali?

In an industry with less and less room for opulent productions, he seems determined to stay the path. His upcoming movies and a Netflix show about courtesans hold out the same promise of glitter. Could that very steadfastness stream him onward?

lifestyle

Updated on Sep 17, 2021 07:31 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Smoke, sip, swerve: Poonam Saxena on status symbols in Hindi films

What makes something the most coveted in its class is rarely clear, but for the stars of ’50s and ’60s Hindi cinema, there was no debate: the Chevy Impala, Vat 69 and 555 cigarettes were it.

Tanuja, dressed to match her character’s Chevrolet Impala, in Haathi Mere Saathi (1971).

lifestyle

Updated on Sep 04, 2021 03:19 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

India in flashbacks: The early years of celluloid magic

From the ’40s to the ’60s, Hindi cinema championed hope, change and humanism, in original and entertaining films.

Films such as Do Bigha Zamin (above), Mughal-e-Azam and Mother India reflected the pain of the oppressed, young India’s pride in its past, and its aspirations for the future.

lifestyle

Updated on Aug 13, 2021 05:53 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Remembering Bhikhari Thakur, the bard of Bihar

The Bhojpuri barber turned playwright died 50 years ago. His lyrical, once-hugely-popular plays still resonate.

A statue of Bhikhari Thakur in Chhapra, Bihar. He was a migrant, lived among migrants and wrote of their lives, in plays that told evocative tales of the poor, women, and the oppressed.

lifestyle

Updated on Aug 07, 2021 04:58 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

When the unforgettable Dilip Kumar met Bronte

From his brother, the legendary actor acquired a love of the classics — Dickens, Shakespeare, Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights made a particular impression.

Dilip Kumar and Kamini Kaushal in Arzoo (1950), an adaptation of Wuthering Heights. Kumar died this week, aged 98.

lifestyle

Updated on Jul 10, 2021 02:28 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

A storyteller true to her words: Poonam Saxena on rebel writer Mannu Bhandari

The Hindi author lived an unconventional life, and gave a voice to women of the 1950s and ’60s who were trying to do the same.

Vidya Sinha and Amol Palekar in Rajnigandha (1974). The tale of a young woman trying to choose between two men, unusual for its time, was based on a short story by Bhandari.

lifestyle

Updated on Jun 12, 2021 05:35 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

A century on, the same current flows along the banks: Poonam Saxena

Stark echoes of today ring out in the writings of poet Suryakant Tripathi Nirala, who lost so many loved ones to the influenza pandemic.

On the banks of the Ganga at Varanasi, April 2021. Nirala speaks of sitting on a mound near the river at Dalmau, and watching in despair as corpses floated by. (PTI)

lifestyle

Updated on May 21, 2021 08:12 PM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

A brief history of popular names for children: The Way We Were by Poonam Saxena

Shankar and Ishaan are both names for Shiva. So why was one so preferred in the past and the other so popular now?

Elon Musk’s child is named X Æ A-XII. It’s possible that wouldn’t even be legal under Russia’s new laws for parents. (Twitter / @elonmusk)

lifestyle

Updated on Apr 11, 2021 06:19 AM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Mahadevi Varma: The poet who broke free, and inspired others to

In Women’s History Month, Poonam Saxena looks back on the extraordinary life of a revolutionary feminist and writer.

Guest artist Sonali Zohra painted this Google Doodle honouring Varma in April 2018.

lifestyle

Updated on Mar 14, 2021 06:25 AM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Shining through the Seventies. Then mysteriously: It’s a wrap!

An ode to the lungi-kurta, always in silk, always as resplendent loungewear, which vanished without a trace

Lungi-kurtas are the ’70s trend that time forgot. Zeenat Aman danced in hers in Hare Rama Hare Krishna.

lifestyle

Updated on Feb 28, 2021 07:15 AM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

How trains have kept movies on track: The Way We Were by Poonam Saxena

From falling in love in a coupé to finding closure on a platform, the railways have steered cinema in memorable directions.

In Hindi cinema, the railways have been both the setting and the metaphor. In the 1987 film Ijaazat, a divorced couple spends a night at a railway station, laying their ghosts to rest.

lifestyle

Updated on Feb 14, 2021 06:41 AM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

If Bollywood films could, then sew could we: The Way We Were by Poonam Saxena

On screen and off, the sewing machine transformed lives for decades, and it’s still appearing in the role of agent of change.

In Rohena Gera’s delicately crafted Sir, Tillotama Shome plays a maid who dreams of starting her own tailoring business. Here, her employer has just given her a sewing machine as a gift.

lifestyle

Updated on Jan 31, 2021 06:28 AM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Remembering Gulshan Nanda, forgotten author of affairs to remember

The best-selling novelist was Bollywood’s go-to storyteller in the 1960s. He wrote family dramas shot through with suspense. The films live on, but what a pity so few even know his name.

Rajesh Khanna and Asha Parekh in a still from the runaway 1971 hit Kati Patang. The story, of a young woman pretending to be someone she isn’t, was written by Gulshan Nanda.

lifestyle

Updated on Jan 16, 2021 10:13 AM IST

ByPoonam Saxena

Poonam Saxena writes on the true heart of the Indian home, the aangan

It now lives on largely in books and film, but the courtyard was where we cooked, celebrated, slept under the stars on summer nights.

An aangan in an old home in Mehrauli, New Delhi. A fixture since the time of the Indus Valley Civilisation, the courtyard faded away with the coming of Western-style architecture during colonial rule.(Mayank Austen Soofi)

lifestyle

Updated on Jan 01, 2021 07:04 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByPoonam Saxena

Lifting the veil on life as an Indian woman, unattached

Hindi novelist Usha Priyamvada turns 90 this year, and the quiet lives of unusual women remain at the core of her work.

The cover of Priyamvada’s Pachpan Khambe Laal Deewarein, in which a young lecturer must choose between a life with the man she loves and her obligations to the parents and siblings she supports. The title, incidentally, is a nod to Delhi’s Lady Shriram College.

books

Published on Dec 18, 2020 03:51 PM IST

Hindustan Times | ByPoonam Saxena

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Poonam Saxena

Poonam Saxena is the national weekend editor of the Hindustan Times. She writes on cinema, television, culture and books

There are clues in tropes from the ’50s and ’60s to diseases once feared, achievements once prized. The world changed, but they remained. Poonam Saxena does a little decoding.

The great Hindi writer was always short of money. He sometimes couldn’t afford shoes. As his grandson puts it, it seems scarcely credible now, that he should have leaned into the wind as he did.

Actors playing two roles, three roles, even as many as nine: An ode to a trope that harks back to the days of old Bollywood.

The experimental Hindi short-story writer, poet and playwright was hailed by Premchand, but then slipped into obscurity, vanished and died, impoverished, at just 45. His work deserves to be remembered and revisited, says Poonam Saxena.

It’s hotter now, but the summers have always been scorching in north India. So how did people manage in the days before air-conditioning? With inventiveness, adaptation and great company.

Tales of women are rare, tales of older women even rarer. Meet some of Hindi literature’s most unlikely heroines, in this week’s The Way We Were.

To mark the actress’s 50th death anniversary, Poonam Saxena revisits a 1960 film in which she balances versatility, grit, gentleness and joie de vivre.

Her new book, Tomb of Sand, has become the first novel translated from Hindi to make it to the International Booker Prize longlist. Her storytelling involves unusual twists; the translation by Daisy Rockwell is a tour de force. See why Shree writes as she does.

Nagar dedicated himself to building a great oeuvre as a Hindi writer, but he did so at considerable cost to himself and his family. Sadly, it is still almost impossible to make a living as a writer in India.

The ‘Nightingale of India’ gave shape to the culture of playback singing in Hindi cinema, giving film songs an independent existence that led to their absolute dominance

Before Emily went to Paris, Sharmila Tagore had an evening there. A clutch of Hindi films in the 1960s gave viewers who had never gone abroad glamourous views of another world.

Long before litfests went viral, lovers of Hindi literature made their way to Allahabad, where words were celebrated all year.

Between pollution, the pandemic and the lure of too many screens, children are no longer playing the kinds of unstructured outdoor games where the aim was just to get together and have fun. What a pity.

Bowls of steaming soup, sizzling barbecued meats, crisp fish cakes — Korean shows are taking their cuisine to the world. Why haven’t we done the same with our dazzling array?

It started out simple, with set-ups designed for drama. Then came the vitriol and online fan clubs lashing out at each other. Today, sadly, even this isn’t the worst of what hits our screens.

In an industry with less and less room for opulent productions, he seems determined to stay the path. His upcoming movies and a Netflix show about courtesans hold out the same promise of glitter. Could that very steadfastness stream him onward?

What makes something the most coveted in its class is rarely clear, but for the stars of ’50s and ’60s Hindi cinema, there was no debate: the Chevy Impala, Vat 69 and 555 cigarettes were it.

From the ’40s to the ’60s, Hindi cinema championed hope, change and humanism, in original and entertaining films.

The Bhojpuri barber turned playwright died 50 years ago. His lyrical, once-hugely-popular plays still resonate.

From his brother, the legendary actor acquired a love of the classics — Dickens, Shakespeare, Charlotte and Emily Bronte. Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights made a particular impression.

The Hindi author lived an unconventional life, and gave a voice to women of the 1950s and ’60s who were trying to do the same.

Stark echoes of today ring out in the writings of poet Suryakant Tripathi Nirala, who lost so many loved ones to the influenza pandemic.

Shankar and Ishaan are both names for Shiva. So why was one so preferred in the past and the other so popular now?

In Women’s History Month, Poonam Saxena looks back on the extraordinary life of a revolutionary feminist and writer.

An ode to the lungi-kurta, always in silk, always as resplendent loungewear, which vanished without a trace

From falling in love in a coupé to finding closure on a platform, the railways have steered cinema in memorable directions.

On screen and off, the sewing machine transformed lives for decades, and it’s still appearing in the role of agent of change.

The best-selling novelist was Bollywood’s go-to storyteller in the 1960s. He wrote family dramas shot through with suspense. The films live on, but what a pity so few even know his name.

It now lives on largely in books and film, but the courtyard was where we cooked, celebrated, slept under the stars on summer nights.

Hindi novelist Usha Priyamvada turns 90 this year, and the quiet lives of unusual women remain at the core of her work.

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