Hello hello!

I’m Ranjani, a film critic and an infrequent essayist.

I write reviews, profiles, essays, interviews, yearly round-ups and the like. You may have seen my work on Film Companion, Firstpost, Huffington Post, News9, Scroll, The Hindu Thread and Indian Express. If you’ve read my work at PopMatters or The South Asianist Journal, well, you must be a fan, <3


Latest work

  • Too bad we live ‘here’ ‘today’!

    I’ve been for long, wanting to have a conversation without ‘baggage’. Not literally. I wanted to talk to someone who I knew well enough to want to talk to, but not so well enough to guess what they’d say in response. I got the opportunity one Sunday morning in Singaara Chennai! This post is not…

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  • The innocence that is called ‘mental’ – Nandalala

    Disclaimer: I did not watch the film in a theatre. I did not also watch it in one go. I am constrained by a 13.3” screen and a 24 hour break in this review. So wherever you think I am wrong, we can discuss! 🙂 Nandalala was recommended to me by Arul, an old classmate…

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  • 39 Steps – a laughter riot that tripped!

    The 39 Steps – A comical adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock brought straight from the Broadway by Evam and precisely Bhargav Ramakrishnan. I haven’t watched the play at Broadway or anywhere else and therefore I do not have a scale to measure this against. It’s a great thing I think. So, I am going to rate…

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  • The Sunset Club – A nonagenarian indigestion club!

    The latest offering from the celebrated grand old man of Indian-English literature, ‘The Sunset Club’ is a nonagenarian’s rant about his intolerable indigestion and insatiable desires! As a hardback of over 200 pages, it was a light read and mostly passable. It is a simple story of three old men who meet every evening at…

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  • Ratha Sarithiram – ‘Bloody’ Hell!

    From an ironic beginning to a rather preachy end, nothing about Ratha Sarithiram was something I couldn’t have guessed would happen. The film begins with the usual disclaimer of all “similarities to any person/ incident living or dead” being completely “coincidental”. In the next frame, the director says “this is a true story”. The viewer…

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  • The thing around your neck

    Published earlier on www.ingoodbooks.com at http://www.ingoodbooks.com/125/the-thing-around-your-neck/ A collection of melancholy instances in the lives of Africans, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘The thing around your neck’ is most definitely not a joy-read. Written very succinctly with a short story not longer than 5-6 pages, each story is a tightly packed firecracker of emotions that bursts with a…

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  • The woman that wants to be grazed on!

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlPL6M5Km1Y&w=480&h=390] I’ve not been intrigued and left in awe by any other other piece of literature in a long time. The day the music of Endhiran was released, I woke up early in the morning to download the songs and listen to them (I live in Aberdeen, Scotland. Couldn’t possibly have bought one off the…

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  • Yatha Praja, Thatha Raaja!

    When I woke up this morning and realised that I am so ill that I can’t get out of my bed, I decided to do all the writing that I had postponed for so long only because I could get out of my bed and do other work. The first of a marathon of blog…

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  • Va, Quarter Cutting – Laughs at who we are!

    Just as I was writing another post about the film, I realised I was quite noticing PoMo elements in the film through every sentence I typed. Considering Shiva’s history in cinema, I’d be digging too much into the film if I called it Post Modern, wouldn’t I? On that thought, I’ll write in the next…

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  • Ape America!

    Today, I was at the Bangalore office of a Technology Solutions company. The office is located in central Bangalore in a tall building in a busy area. The company is a fairly popular one, headquartered in New Jersey, USA. So, I think it is reason enough to believe  (without any prejudice) that they tend to…

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  • Sadistically addicted playboy!

    Just as much as I want to write a blog post every single day, I find myself stuck in a conflict of what to write about. I really do think of so many things during the day and I also want to write about it. And then the thought strikes! ‘Who wants to listen to…

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  • Endhiran, the male Robot!

    This is that side of Tamil cinema that bothers me the most! Endhiran and the woman behind his rampage!

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  • Blogging for the joy of it

    After a two yearlong hibernation from blogging, I realised what’s generally weird still remains normal to me. Before I took off to the UK with just my madness for company, I was blogging regularly. I had lots of things to say about a lot of things. I was loud, aggressive and opinionated. Before you imagine I…

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