The true-to-life story of a young nun, Sr Rani Maria, who worked to empower tribals in rural Madhya Pradesh, and her subsequent murder for her work among the vulnerable. This film is not about religion — don’t let its posters lead you. This is director Shaison Ouseph’s first film, and what a powerful debut! Sr Rani Maria is played by Vincy Aloshious, a rising star from Malayalam cinema. Sandra Rana, Dean – XIC Mumbai, is the producer of this film that has received 30 awards internationally.

The post The Face of the Faceless (2023) appeared first on The Teenager Today.

He remains the quintessential radio jockey, India’s first and India’s most memorable. When Ameen Sayani came on air, millions listened. Today, at age 90, he’s no longer heard, but for those of my generation and after, his golden voice lives on.  

He started out with All India Radio (AIR), which was conservative and stingy with film songs, although they were most popular. Between AIR (since 1951), AIR’s Commercial Service (since 1970) and various foreign stations (since 1976), says the Limca Book of World Records, Sayani has produced or compered over 54,000 radio programmes and 19,000 advertising jingles. These included a six-part Music for the Millions for BBC World Service. He also compered stage shows, musical evenings, trade presentations and beauty contests. He is best remembered for his Binaca Geetmala, a regular film music programme, mainly over Radio Ceylon (now the Sri Lankan Broadcasting Corporation). Thus Radio Ceylon stole the thunder from AIR. Sponsors Binaca was a toothpaste brand, which later became Cibaca. After an over four-decades run, it was wound up.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Behno Aur Bhaiyo, it’s Ameen Sayani appeared first on The Teenager Today.

In 1932, when he was Staff Cartoonist with The Hindustan Times, Shankar got a summons from Lord Willingdon, the Viceroy. Certain that his cartoons had upset the big man, Shankar, with much trepidation, went to meet him. But Willingdon received him with a broad smile, saying, “I enjoy your cartoons, my boy!” Soon Marie, Lady Willingdon, joined them. “I have one complaint against you,” she told Shankar. “Why do you draw my husband’s nose so long?”

Shankar explained that he always exaggerated some feature while drawing his characters, adding, “Now, even if I drew only that nose, people will know it’s your husband.” The Willingdons laughed out loud.

Ever since he could hold a pencil, Shankar was making others laugh. At primary school in his native Kerala, he once drew his fat headmaster seated, legs on the table and sleeping. The headmaster complained to Shankar’s granduncle. One look at it and the old uncle laughed, “I didn’t know he was so talented!”

K. Shankar Pillai (1902-1989) was once India’s leading cartoonist. With no malice ever, he lampooned important public figures.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Unforgettable Shankar Pillai appeared first on The Teenager Today.

Let me recall my first forays into journalism. I had just finished high school in November 1968 and was idling before college. I wrote a letter to the editor of The Indian Express. Getting a letter published in a newspaper was the closest a teenager, with no publishing experience beyond my school magazine, could get to journalism. My letter was about a Test cricketer then in the news because he was out of form. I defended him. In it, I had plagiarized words from psychology I’d seen in an article somewhere about people in any field going through cycles of “progression, stagnation and retrogression”. Big words that must have impressed the editor. My five-inch letter got published. I was thrilled beyond belief — and hooked.

Two years before that, unbeknownst to me, something momentous happened. The Press Council of India (PCI) was established in November 1966. To observe this, India quietly celebrates National Journalism Day every year on 17 November. India has a free Press. So PCI does not control the Press. It is there to protect Press freedoms; to try and maintain high standards of ethics and independence.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Get Started on National Journalism Day! appeared first on The Teenager Today.

The first thing I do every morning — I’m up at around 5:30 — is make myself some coffee. I use filter coffee powder sold by the Coffee Board’s Indian Coffee House restaurants in Kerala. I don’t like instant coffee, and I make my coffee in a plunger, a French press. I’ve seen others using elaborate and expensive coffee gizmos in their kitchens. I’ve drunk from them too, but I don’t think they taste any better than what pours out of my simple French press.

I sometimes use a bit of milk in my coffee, but no white sugar. Doing so makes me taste the sugar and not the coffee. Then, that’s your choice. Indians usually add sugar, unlike most coffee lovers abroad.

India does not figure in any list of top per capita coffee-consuming nations. Even so, we are the world’s seventh largest coffee producer. Brazil leads the list. With black coffee, I melt in a bit of dark jaggery, which transports me back to my childhood, because that’s the way my granny served evening kattan kaapi (black coffee) in our Kerala village. That’s how I usually have my daily 5 p.m. cup.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post For the love of coffee appeared first on The Teenager Today.

Growing up in a Kerala village, coconuts were a part of everyday living. The many majestic coconut palms surrounding our home helped pay the bills. The coconut cropper came by every 45 days. After keeping aside enough coconuts for our cooking, the rest — several hundred — were sold for a tidy sum. Coconut-cropping day also meant a treat for the children. Several tender coconuts, too, were cropped just so we may drink their sweet water and eat the soft flesh.  

Another regular visitor to our compound was the toddy-tapper. After climbing down his last coconut tree, he’d sometimes let me taste the sweet nascent toddy. A local coconut-oil mill bought most of the village’s coconuts. Toddy shops bought the toddy. Coconut fronds, chopped off the trees, were used for thatched roofs. Nothing got from the palms is ever wasted. Even the coconut’s fibrous husk is used for rope-making. And before battery-powered torch-lights became commonplace, dried coconut leaves were tied together in a long bundle, known as a chute in Malayalam, and lit at one end so people outdoors could find their way in the dark.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Hail, the Wish-Fulfilling Palm appeared first on The Teenager Today.

In my student days, I listened mainly to BBC World Service radio for news and features. I could also listen to, among others, Radio Moscow, Deutsche Welle Germany, even Beijing (then Peking), all in English, on shortwave radio. My favourite music came from Radio Ceylon. Like the BBC, the Voice of America, too, increased my knowledge of the wide world outside. I even learnt to distinguish British and American English accents and usages.

I’m retired now. But as far as radio is concerned, my interest has only grown. Because of good, clean radio, I have unsubscribed to cable TV for the past several years. Most people see radio as something from a bygone era, but the truth is radio today is far better than in my student days. The programming is wonderful. So are technical standards — thanks to digital online streaming, and the ease with which a radio announcer can connect with people living across the world. The sound is crystal clear. And you no longer need a “real radio” any more. It’s done with an app downloaded to my phone, my laptop, iPad, even to a car’s player.

There are several such apps, but very popular is the one I use: TuneIn Radio. It brings you any radio station in the world with its ‘Search’ feature. It’s free and works without a glitch. There’s live radio and podcasts too. If you enjoy podcasts, look for another app on Google Play Store. It’s called Podcast Republic, on which you can save your favourite podcasts and keep track of your listening.

The same BBC World Service of my youth is there, and I still listen to much more than the news. The regular features include Outlook (human-interest stories about ordinary people who did extraordinary things), The Forum (where leading experts discuss history, culture and ideas), World Business Report, World Book Club, More or Less (which analyses statistics from our everyday lives), Inside Science, and Witness History. There must be over a hundred such features on various subjects on BBC Radio alone. As for Radio Ceylon, my favourite music still flows. It’s now called SLBC Radio Sri Lanka.

Television does not offer as many choices as radio does. TV also ties you down — you have to sit and watch. With radio, you can listen while you cook, clean, garden or whatever else. I may stroll from one room to another with a radio station playing on my cellphone. I listen with headphones during my evening walks in the park (Warning: avoid headphones on the road!). In fact, the radio is on all the time when I’m oil painting. (For better audio, you may rig your phone to speakers, Bluetooth or wired.) It’s like being able to read a book while doing another useful thing. Those who have only got their news and features from TV won’t understand how much efficiency, learning and joy radio can bring.

Unless you give it a try. Go ahead — tune in.

The post Why I prefer radio appeared first on The Teenager Today.

How would you like the news you read or listen to? You want the truth. Yet there’s news that’s reported independently and news that is not — it may be true, coloured by propaganda or just plain fake news. A free press may deliver all these.

Even so, when the press in a nation is free, chances are we as readers will get much more truth than anything else. We who think and make choices will gradually move towards reading newspapers or watching TV channels that are free and unbiased and disliking those that are not.

Freedom of the press is essential to a democracy, where the Press is often referred to as The Fourth Estate, meaning a fourth power and deriving from the historic three greatest powers in a realm: the king, the clergy and commoners. In fact, the great man who may have first used this phrase in the year 1787 pointed to the press gallery in the British parliament and said: “… there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post The Press: How can you help keep it free? appeared first on The Teenager Today.