Dhurandhar’s  continuing box-office smash reveals how Bollywood’s patriotism has evolved from chest-thumping emotion to cool-headed statecraft. Bollywood has always moved in cycles. At one point, it obsessed over star-crossed lovers, in another phase, it was family melodramas or vigilante revenge. Yet one theme returns with almost metronomic regularity: the nation at war with itself or with others. Patriotism, in Hindi cinema, is not merely a genre but a barometer of national

As the INSV Kaundinya retraces an ancient sea route, Shoumojit Banerjee explores India’s rich maritime past and its disruption by European colonialism Two days before the New Year, as the winter sun settled over Porbandar’s harbour, a ship put to sea in a manner that would have been eminently recognisable along India’s western coast more than a millennium ago. There was no engine to mark its departure, no steel hull vibrating against the pier as the vessel slipped into the Ar