By Wiseass Fool Are trees leftists? I certainly think so, after reading the book The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. Before anyone comes at me saying that Trees cannot hold political or economic ideologies, let me be the first to admit that they really can’t. These are just my interpretations about the things […]

By Ashwin Kumar I hail from the city of Coimbatore, which for a long time had a reputation for good drivers. And when I say “good,” I do not mean technically skilled, I mean thoughtful. Drivers who showed concern for others, who did not drive mindlessly, who saw driving as part of a shared civic […]

Currently doing Cambridge A Level revision courses for the Association of Cambridge Schools New Zealand (ACSNZ) and today we went through the labour market. Marginal revenue productivity (MRPL) is a theory of wages where workers are paid the value of… Continue reading →

A timely reminder about essay writing for economics as we approach the October external exams. Below is a mindmap on economic systems (market economy) which could be useful as an essay plan. I have also attached a document on writing… Continue reading →

Dinesh and Kalaiyarasan play siblings from a marginalised community. The crux of the film is from real life, an incident involving Naxals. But the screenplay bites off more than it can chew. The rest of this review may contain spoilers. Athiyan Athirai’s Thandakaaranyam is the story of two brothers from a tribal community in the […]

Asif Ali and Aparna Balamurali start investigating a financial wrongdoing, and things get murkier as we discover there are secrets within secrets within secrets. This a film where the twists are not always very organic, but it’s still watchable. The rest of this review may contain spoilers. The tagline for Mirage is “fades as you […]

Vijay Antony plays a mover-and-shaker who can get anything done for you at a cost. But when he gets caught, the film turns into a tired old vigilante story, and the preaching begins to pile up. The rest of the review may contain spoilers. If you need something done, Kittu is the man you want […]

The natural rate of unemployment is part of the Cambridge A Level course and is usually found in a multiple choice question or essay. Below is a useful video from Marginal Revolution University. The natural rate of unemployment is a… Continue reading →

By Aman Basha Not reinvention, but an edgier, Gen Z coded throwback to what made Hindi cinema so fun Amidst the diverse film industries comprising the Indian film fraternity, Bollywood has always been special. Not just in its obviously hegemonic status in pop culture, but also in how exposed, self aware and almost openly fratricidal […]

By Ananya Natarajan (This was my first attempt at writing in Tamil, so any comments/feedback is appreciated!) வெற்றிவேல் கல்யாண மண்டபத்தின் விளிம்புகளை ஒட்டி ஒரு முட்டுச்சந்து ஓடியது. அந்த சந்துக்குள் ஒரு பெரிய இரும்பு கதவு, ஒரு காலி கட்டிடம் மற்றும் இரு அடுக்குமாடி வீடுகள் வரிசையில் நின்றன. ஏழாவது வருடத்தில் திணறும் ‘ஸ்கூட்டியை’ அம்மா அந்த சந்துக்குள் ஓட்டினாள். வண்டி வாங்கிய புதிதில் ஊதா நிறத்தில் ஜொலித்தது. ஆனால் […]

By Ashwin Kumar After having cleared my head about my journey through books, I found myself thinking about the same now with movies This is gonna be a long one as it spans 4 decades and more. I was told that my very first movie was “Bala Nagamma” (1981). Maybe that was the starting point of […]

By Vijaysree V The mottai patti, the shaven-headed widow, was once a fixture of South Indian brahmin households. In that ochre sari, she was expected to embody renunciation, silence, and submission. Considered “inauspicious,” she lived a life stripped of agency, of color. In Michael Madana Kama Rajan (MMKR), a film chock-full of petty criminals, mistaken […]

Here are some revision notes on YED which might be useful for the CIE AS Economics exam in a few weeks time. Quite a few of the class had never come across this graph which is popular in multiple-choice questions.… Continue reading →

The story is built on staples of old-time Hindi cinema, from twins to a widowed mother to revenge for a murdered father. But instead of the traditional series of emotional highs, we get a leisurely paced film filled with a sense of how these events may unfold in the real world. The mix of grit […]

In terms of story, the film is a traditional hero-versus-villain narrative. But the screenplay detours, the suspense about what Mirai is, along with the genuine, child-like sense of joy and invention, makes the film a satisfying watch, especially on the big screen. Manchu Manoj and Teja Sajja give solid performances, and they are surrounded by […]