Lounge Loves: ‘Wild Cities’, ‘Everwood’ and more

Exploring the Archive

These days I have made it a habit to browse through the Prasar Bharati Archives on YouTube at least once a day. The exercise is part-nostalgia and part-research. The content—be it productions of stories like Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora or performances like Pandit Mani Prasad singing Raag Puriya Kalyan in Naad Lahiri—offers a glimpse into different aspects of politics and culture in post-independent India. My favourite is the Bharat Ek Khoj series directed by Shyam Benegal based on Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India. The two-part Mahabharata episodes stand out for Salim Ghouse’s interpretation of Krishna and Om Puri’s portrayal of Duryodhana. The scenes from the epic are interspersed with Teejan Bai’s rendition of some of the tales in Pandavani, a traditional performing arts form from Chhattisgarh. —Avantika Bhuyan

Endless Winter

It’s been exactly 15 years since G.R.R. Martin published A Dance with Dragons, and us fans have been waiting forever for The Winds of Winter, the penultimate book of the A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) saga. At this stage, most people have given up on the books ever seeing the light of day, but are fascinated by the rich, weird fantasy world that Martin has built. So, fans have moved on from Reddit fan forums to YouTubers like the wonderful David Lightbringer (left), who delve deep into the lore of ASOIAF, and have been quietly tying up the pieces of how the series will end. In fact, I’m wondering if the remaining books will be even as good—plot-wise—as the YouTubers’ interpretation.

— Bibek Bhattacharya

Evergreen Television

Everwood is the cheesy, feel-good template modern dramas still chase. After his wife’s death, high-profile New York City neurosurgeon Dr Andy Brown uproots his life, moving to a small rural town with his kids. Starring Treat Williams, Emily VanCamp, Chris Pratt with Marcia Cross joining later, and cameos from Betty White, Kristen Bell, and a pre-Vampire Diaries Paul Wesley. It’s slow and predictable, but honest. Andy’s teen son rebels, his daughter clings to normalcy, and the town navigates death, illness, and healing in messy, human ways. Yet the light-hearted moments still shine. The lighting and editing alone beat that of most shows today. With four seasons and 89 episodes, it’s easy to sink into and stay awhile.

—Ghazal Chengappa

Wild Cities

Last weekend, wildlife biologist and Lounge columnist Neha Sinha convinced me, the most unlikely artist, to attend an event she and her book’s illustrator Rituparna Sarkar were doing in Bengaluru. Rather than talk solely about her book Wild Capital, she and Rituparna got readers to draw a creature, plant or animal they’d seen recently and create a magnetic bookmark. At the end of 2 hours, there were butterflies, parrots, barbets, bulbuls, semal flowers (by Neha, in photo), even a couple of cheeky crows ready to mark the pages of books. In a world of samey book talks, Neha got readers to do exactly what her book so beautifully urges us to—look with care and curiosity at the world outside our windows and fall in love with the wildlife in our urbanised environment while having fun. —Shalini Umachandran