Metro…in Dino
The sequel to Anurag Basu’s 2007 hit, Life…In a Metro is set to hit theatres this week. An urban mosaic of love stories, the film weaves four love stories across Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bangalore into a soulful elegy on intimacy in the new age.
Basu maintains the feel that Life…In a Metro gave its audiences, while updating it with the emotional textures of modern India, such as Gen Z commitment anxieties, millennial career crossroads and the ageism in the dating world – Neena Gupta and Anupam Kher are the industry seniors bringing that story to screen.
Basu’s signature ensemble also includes Sara Ali Khan and Aditya Roy Kapur, Pankaj Tripathi and Konkona Sen Sharma and finally, Ali Faizal and Fatima Sana Sheikh. Pritam’s music, from the hit single “Zamaana Lage” to deeply woven melodies, acts as connective tissue that pieces the film together. Metro… In Dino is a reflection on love’s messiness, resilience and renewed possibilities amid the bustling city’s hum.
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
The Booker Prize-winning author of The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai, has a new novel scheduled for release in September this year. Titled The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, the spellbinding story of two young people whose fates will intersect and diverge across continents and years.
The titular characters, Sonny and Sonia manoeuver through the late 1990s and early 2000s to try and find themselves and each other. They are Indian students in America – she’s at a small Vermont college, and he’s in New York City. Kiran Desai opens the story to include both Sonia and Sunny’s families, offering a vision of middle class people between partition and 9/11, their struggles with corruption and evolving mores.
The novel explores love in its many forms – familial, parental, romantic, fraternal, dysfunctional – as well as racism, poverty, class distinctions, American exceptionalism, Indian history, and more.
Jatt Baija
Agrita Dhawan, better known as Agsy, is an Indian rapper who is making her name in modern Desi hip-hop. Her new single, “Jatt Baija”, released on June 25, intertwines raw Punjabi folk vocals with heavy bass, sharp bars and cinematic visuals. The song’s lyrics aim to empower women.
This is the “rawest version of me yet – unfiltered, unshaken, unapologetically loud,” Agsy said. Her ascent from MTV Hustle finalist to cultural disruptor is chronicled over eight years of genre‑fluid artistry. “Jatt Baija” crashes in like a battle cry – short, fierce, and impossible to ignore.
