March marked an important pivot in my life. I am learning to march to a different tune. It was an even more enriching month for the art I consumed.

• It was just an accident by Jafar Panahi. Feeling: Suffocation

Picture this: You go running on your daily running route in the wee hours of weekdays. One fine day, you get mugged. You are not carrying many valuables. You thank your stars. The mugger takes them from you one by one. No big deal. After the adrenaline rush, you regain your senses. You slowly walk back home. The shame hits. The loss of dignity and safety feels real. The fear of having to step out to run on the same route again feels too real. Your brain wiring subtly changes for good.

The main characters of ‘It was just an accident’ inhabit their lives with similar but changed brain wiring. It is one of the best movies I have watched in recent times. That it comes from an Iranian filmmaker is not unbelievable at all. What feels more ironic in 2026 is that such a rich land is under attack by forces outside of its own oppressive regime. Only people who have known and seen oppression up close can feel and tell the story so well. And still it’ll make you feel torn by the choices its characters make or don’t make. They show humanity, which is missing in most places these days. And maybe that’s the purpose of art, to show a mirror to our humanity.

• Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier. Feeling: sentimental

What’s better? To leave or to be left behind? I reframed the question deliberately. Moving on is a notion I don’t reconcile with. What do you move on from? The version of you that once was? Or the one that wants to be this nonchalant, cool person with nary a care in the world. As I was watching Sentimental Value, my mind kept wandering to such different places. As a living being, we are such a product of where we live, grow up, our biological families, previous generations, our position in the socio-political landscape of the place, the economics of the times, the institutions we attach to (schools, colleges, sports clubs, other interests), the friendships we develop, the people we fall in love with, the people we let ourselves love, the paths we choose, and the one’s we leave unexplored…

Unknowingly, one scene in the movie, where the grandfather is bonding with his grandson, tugged at my heart, and the waterworks started. There is so much tenderness in us. Yet there is so much violence we inflict upon each other. Violence of leaving, of not staying. There is so much more to behold in this movie. The house, its art, the lighting, and the way the characters interact like a real family.

• Einstein by Gabriel Emanuel and Naseeruddin Shah. Feeling: Awe

A pertinent piece of art for the times we are living in. I have no background on Einstein except for his work on the theory of relativity and his persecution by Nazi Germany. To watch Naseeruddin Shah bring a fragile, old scientist in his later years alive and learn about his life in turn is an experience I am going to remember for a long time. For someone who helped develop the atomic bomb, to have pacifist notions about its use is a bit debatable. I am keen to read more and understand more. But the way the play’s writing and Naseeruddin Shah’s acting bring the conflict alive is something to behold. I’ll repeat myself. Maybe that’s the purpose of art on some days, to hold a mirror to our humanity. To tell us where to look. What not to overlook. What to pay attention to.

• The happy lens by Photographers at Pune. Feeling: Moved

Plays, movies, and books are incomplete art forms. The art is being built, the action is unfolding as we experience it. Whereas photographs or a piece of music are complete in their entirety. Last month, I got to experience such a record of ‘what happiness meant to different people‘ via a collection of photographs. It was a thoughtfully curated exhibition of 44 portrait pictures taken around the world. From acceptance, joy, love, and play to honesty, different images had a different idea of what happiness could mean to anyone. To be able to find stillness and immerse myself in the perspectives and stories of the people in these portraits was a moving experience. Grounding even.

February January