The benign terror of Hrishi-da: a book excerpt in Lounge

Today’s Mint Lounge has for its cover an excerpt from The World of Hrishikesh Mukherjee – here is the link.

(This bit – about Hrishi-da and his use of actors – is one of the lighter/chattier sections of the book; the chapter in question comes after two or three analytical chapters about such things as gender relations in HM’s work, and was intended to give the reader a bit of a breather. So I’m not sure how representative it is of the book’s overall tone. But that isn’t a big deal.

One thing we left out from this excerpt was an interlude about the 1962 film Asli Naqli, which suggested that certain types of star personalities – such as Dev Anand’s urbane, sanguine one – didn’t mesh too well with the Hrishikesh Mukherjee universe. You’ll find that bit in the book, of course.)

Also included with the piece is this short "anatomy of a scene" video – me talking in a somewhat demented, over-earnest way about a scene from Alaap. 

And below is a view of the double-spread as it appears in the print edition: