bandit queen

Episode Notes

On today's episode Sophia tells the tale of Pearl Hart, the Queen Bandit. An infamous, female stagecoach robber and a wildcat woman of the wild west. This story is paired with Domaine Zafeirakis's 2021 Assyrtiko. Visit us at  www.afinevintagepodcast.com for more information and to purchase merchandise!

Our sources include:

Boessenecker, John. Wildcat: The Untold Story of Pearl Heart, the Wild West's Most Notorious Woman Bandit. 2021.

Writer Sudip Sharma (NH10, Udta Punjab, Paatal Lok, Laal Kaptaan) joins us for a Sonchiriya deep dive.

Sonchiriya is one of my favorite films of last 10 years.  It's also my favorite Sushant Singh Rajput film. I believe his performance, much like the film, remains underrated and under-discovered. This episode is, in part, an attempt to help people discover and appreciate Sonchiriya.

Sudip and I talked about key scenes and moments, conducting script research in Bundelkhand, casting Sushant and Bhumi, working with Sushant, the set pieces, and film influences on Sonchiriya. Sudip also shared how Sonchiriya is his tribute to Shekhar Kapur's Bandit Queen (1994), one of his all-time favorite Hindi films. Join us!

Sonchiriya is currently streaming on Zee5.

Feedback/comments/questions: loveofcinemasf@gmail.com

Credits:
Produced and hosted by: Himanshu Joglekar (@loveofcinemasf8)
Editor: Devika Joglekar
Music: Nakul Abhyankar

Copyrights © Love of Cinema 2022

If you liked the episode and found value, please considering supporting the show. Your support will help me continue making good content for fans of Indian cinema everywhere across the world: https://www.buzzsprout.com/257788/support

Most know who Charles Sobhraj is. 

But even if he has become something of a legend, Sobhraj was—by many accounts—a thief and murderer after petty gains. And not an international crook engaged in high profile art and diamond heists. Nor an international arms dealer whose shenanigans get the collective underwear of nations in a twist.

Or was he?

My guest today—the renowned writer, Farrukh Dhondy—spent considerable time with Charles Sobhraj. Farrukh’s descriptions of those  meetings resulted in his latest book, Hawk and Hyena. The book reveals aspects of Sobhraj’s life— that of an opportunist...a wannabe businessman. One of those guys we have all met—a person of indeterminate skill and dodgy provenance, never peddling the same thing twice.

Importantly, the book raises a startling and surprising question—did Charles Sobhraj hold the key to a potentially unpalatable truth—that maybe Sadaam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction after all?

In a similar question, did the Government of India seek the assistance of Charles Sobhraj in getting the release of the hostages from the hijacked Air India plane in Kandahar in 1999?

Was Charles Sobhraj more than a small-time crook who seduced hippies and liberated them from life and lustrous diamond?

Hawk and Hyena by Farrukh Dhondy raises those questions and answers many.

This book is his latest offering in a fascinating life of journalism, TV shows, films, plays and books and political activism—he was a marxist member of the British Black Panthers. There’s a link to his Wikipedia page below.

Here’s another book I recommend, Fragments Against My Ruin: A Life—Farrukh Dhondy’s memoirs, or autobiography.

This book is a riot. From a humility that can only come from someone inherently funny, Farrukh Dhondy turns important incidents into escapades and wit into wackiness.

My own introduction to his writing was from columns he wrote—and writes—in various papers. He frequently opened with the line, “As an elder of the community I am often asked..." For many reasons, I found that line delightful. 

Some years ago, a friend brought Farrukh to my office in an unplanned visit and neither of us can remember why. We had coffee. I was happy for this social surprise. But I had no idea what to say to him if only because I had too much to say to him and I had been blindsided.

Happily, that’s not the case today.

It is both honour and privilege to have Farrukh Dhondy join me from his home in London as my guest.

Buy Hawk & Hyena: https://amzn.to/3HRGNuR
Buy Fragments Against My Ruin: A Life: https://amzn.to/3HUuk9H

ABOUT FARRUKH DHONDY
Farrukh Dhondy is a British-Indian writer. Born in 1944 in Pune, he studied in Pune, Cambridge and Leicester Universities. He writes fiction, non-fiction, journalism, stage drama, TV and films.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrukh_Dhondy

WHAT'S THAT WORD?! - UNDIES IN A TWIST
Co-host Pranati "Pea" Madhav joins Ramjee Chandran in the segment "What's That Word?", where they discuss the origins of the phrase "Undies in a twist".

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Always outspoken against the patriarchy, in 1974 at age 11 Phoolan Devi is considered a trouble-maker. She is married off and sent several hundred miles away from her home in Ghura Ka Purwa, India. By age 17 she escapes her abusive husband and joins a gang of dacoits. She eventually forms her own gang and carries out Robinhood-type crimes.

In 1981, she survives an attack by rivals who beat, rape, and leave her for dead. She seeks revenge by executing her attackers in what comes to be known as the Behmai Massacre, and she is forced to go on the lam. But now she’s become a heroic outlaw figure of sorts—the underdog, the Bandit Queen— and she is protected by the lower castes. To many poor and brutalized women, Phoolan is a hero.

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