Fragmented Frames was an effort to record a shift in attitude about what was happening on the
screen and also to what was happening behind the scenes. In the seventies and right up to the
eighties, film journalism was described as yellow journalism because film magazines reported
on the private lives of the dream merchants.
Then sometime in the nineties, I still don’t know why but it became mandatory for
newspapers to devote a full color page to films. I think it started as a break from serious
stories and slowly, the reader got addicted.
Come 2000 and entertainment had consumed the common man. From stray features over the
weekend, film stories graduated to headlines on the front page and gradually spread across the pages.
As the budgets of movies got bigger and the box-office collections captured the imagination of public, writing on cinema was suddenly looked upon with admiration.
Now the film writer was introduced as serious critic, a trade analyst and even a historian. It was the effect of the splendor of cinema.
In India and abroad, more and more students now opted for Hindi cinema as a subject for their
thesis. Fragmented Frames is a collection of my essays on varied aspects of cinema from mythology, theatre, television, superstition, children, marriage, mental health, literature, sex and more.
There are intimate chronicles of love and heartbreaks and also accounts of tragedies like fire
on the sets of Black and bomb blast at Plaza Theatre. The book celebrates film festivals and
holds a mirror to government bodies when they falter, at times subjective, at times reflecting on
larger issues, Fragmented Frames is an effort to record changing times.
Published by #PustakMahal the cover design was under the supervision of #RohitGupta and the book released at the hands of #Gulzar in tge year 2007.
Another book another week…