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Tag: Nikhat Kazmi

  • Bollywood and media pay tribute to film reviewer Nikhat Kazmi who succumbed to cancer on January 20, the day her last review appeared in print.

    Filmwallahs, scribes mourn film critic Nikhat Kazmi’s death

    By A Correspondent

     

    “After people die, they become stars. Nikhat Kazmi just became four and a half”, a tweet by @NumbYaar as a tribute to Nikhat Kazmi aptly summed up feelings at her untimely death at the age of 53 on January 20, 2011. She was suffering from cancer.

     

    “Was truly shocked to hear about the untimely death of nikhatkazmi…the TOI critic of several years…prayers and thoughts with her family,” tweeted Karan Johar  (@kjohar25).

     

    “Tragic news. Extremely sad to know about the demise of Nikhat Kazmi, one of the most persistent film critics. Am sure wherever you are, it’ll be a 5 star rating, RIP. May God give strength to your loved ones,” tweeted Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar).

     

    Ms Kazmi was the film critic at Times of India where she had been working for almost 25 years. According to media reports, she continued working till the very end. The last films she reviewed were Sadda Adda, Chaalis Chaurasi, Ghost and Blitz  (a Hollywood film). Ms Kazmi was always generous with her ratings, making no distinction between mainstream Bollywood and smaller independent cinema. And her generosity and grace were greatly appreciated by Bollywood.

     

    “Nikhat Kazmi was generous! Having come to terms with mortality she looked for something good in every film she viewed,” tweeted director Mahesh Bhatt  (@MaheshNBhatt).

     

    “Nikhat Kazmi was a great support for alternate cinema. Her reviews of Red Alert and Mee Sindhutai Sapkal, reaffirmed my faith in going global,” tweeted director Ananth Mahadevan (@ananthmahadevan19h).

     

    Many youngsters also gave her credit for always encouraging them in her reviews.

     

    “RIP Nikhat Kazmi. You enjoyed cinema and therefore encouraged us more than criticized us. We will miss you,” tweeted writer and director Milap Zaveri (@zmilap).

     

    “The 1st ever review I read of Refugee, my 1st film, was by NikhatKazmi. She always pointed out the road to improvement to me. RIP ma’am,” tweeted Abhishek Bachchan, (@juniorbachchan), mere hours after her demise.

     

    “Nikhat Kazmi ji the one person who has always encouraged me. Wrote so beautifully and one film critic I respected a lot! May her soul RIP 🙁 ,” tweeted Neil Nitin Mukesh  (@neilnmukesh).

     

    Not only Bollywood, Ms Kazmi’s death shocked many of her colleagues in the media fraternity too.

     

    Khalid Mohammed, film critic and filmmaker, said he wished he had known her better. “She was based in Delhi, while I worked in Mumbai. We would meet mostly at film festivals which required a group to cover the functions. I can’t say I knew her well, but I wished I had. I admire her perseverance, for she would review Indian as well as foreign language films,” he told MxM.

     

    Trade analyst and fellow film critic Taran Adarsh too expressed his condolences via Twitter: “Deeply saddened by the news of Times of India movie critic NikhatKazmi’s demise. RIP.”

     

    Parsa Venkateshwara Rao Jr, a senior journalist with DNA, had met Ms Kazmi once but she left quite an impression on him. Though he did not agree with her, he said liked her because: “Her heart was in the right place. She understood the importance of Hindi cinema and how it mirrored changing political and social winds of change. She was an anguished liberal,” he told MxM.

     

    Apart from being a film critic, Ms Kazmi was also an author who had written three books, Ire in the Soul: Bollywood’s Angry Years, The Dream Merchants of Bollywood and Times Guide to Hollywood Blockbusters. She had also written two plays.

     

    Whether people agreed with her critiques or not, there is no denying that her reviews in TOI will be missed. “RIP Nikhat Kazmi. A beautiful large theatre, with the coziest seat n all your favourite movies await you:) #respect” – Dia Mirza (@deespeak).

     

  • In Freaking News, Ranjona Banerji reviews the fare on primetime news and in the papers

    TV journos, please develop some sense

    By Ranjona Banerji

     

    If you have ever felt that you wanted to get bored to the point of death, as a sort of scientific experiment, you would do worse than to try and make sense of daytime TV news. Having just listened to a 5 minute conversation between an anchor and reporter about the latest on the controversy about the army chief’s age, all I could fathom was that the Supreme Court has dismissed a petition. Meanwhile, the anchor and reporter repeated the same thing about five times, over and over again. Plenty of ‘of courses’ and ‘in facts’, in fact, of course, studded this conversation.

     

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    West Bengal’s hospitals have always had plenty of horror stories in and around them but now that TV has tasted blood there, one can see that there is unlikely to be an escape from the scanner right now. Mamata Banerjee had better watch out.

     

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    Mid-Day was first off the block to tell us about extraordinary behaviour of the captain of the capsized ship, Costa Concordia, as he apparently ran away from his ship – later he said he tripped and fell into a lifeboat. The transcript of the conversation between the Italian Coastguard and the captain was an eye-opener. The captain has been accused of trying some kind of stunt which led to the cruise liner running aground. Indian TV and newspapers have as usual only concentrated on the Indians affected by this accident which makes looking for the complete picture a tedious task. Is there no life – or death – outside our geographical borders?

     

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    Suresh Kalmadi gets bail and as usual, our TV channels behave as if he has been acquitted of corruption charges. There are few simple things for journalists to remember here: you are innocent until proven guilty in India, bail is a permissible legal option and I throw this in for good measure: it is okay to criticise the armed forces.
    This hysterical self-righteousness demonstrated by most of our TV reporters is not just annoying, it is potentially dangerous.

     

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    It might also help if our TV reporters and anchors develop a sense of humour instead of trying to save India’s sensitivities from the BBC programme Top Gear. Surely, we can work on the principle that we are a mature society and can take a few jokes? Or, perhaps Indian news channels should have special telecasts for Indians living abroad who get quite upset quite easily? Then those of us left behind in India can live our lives in peace.

     

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    Meanwhile, we still don’t know if writer Salman Rushdie is coming to the Jaipur Lit Fest or not. So much for investigative journalism or a well-constructed publicity stunt?

     

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    Veteran and respected journalist Harish Khare has quit as media adviser to the Prime Minister, says The Times of India because he is upset at the appointment of TV journalist Pankaj Pachauri as communications adviser. Is this something to watch out for?

     

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    The death of TOI’s film critic Nikhat Kazmi on Friday morning was a sad way to start the day.