“Music, for me, is about freedom and expression. It’s a way to cut through challenges, to meditate, to emote. I’ve been fortunate to listen to diverse musical styles from across India and the world,” says singer and music director Shekhar Ravjiani, who is part of the popular Bollywood composer duo Vishal-Shekar and is known for hit songs like Chammak Challo, Ishq Wala Love, Meherbaan, among others.

The composer, who was in Chennai recently, shares his fond memories of the city, his perspective on the divide between the north and south music, his favourite South Indian musicians, and more...

I don’t believe Bollywood music’s golden era is over. Our films and music are still celebrated globally. Look at Chhaava — it has broken all box office records. If a film is honest and well-made, it will always be successful, and the same applies to music. If music is truthful and heartfelt, the audience will always connect with it.

I don’t see music as north vs south or east vs west. Music transcends all boundaries. If you go to dance classes in Mumbai, Tamil songs are hugely popular. People don’t think of them as ‘South songs’ — they just enjoy the music. Similarly, audiences in the south have showered love on my songs like Chammak Challo and Om Shanti Om.

AI can make things more convenient and speed up certain processes, but it can never replace human emotions. AI doesn’t have a heartbeat, it doesn’t feel pain, and it doesn’t fall in love — so how can it write a song? I might use AI for research or administrative tasks, but never for creativity. That’s where human beings excel.

For film music, I start with the director’s vision — understanding the character, their emotions, and the scene where the song fits. Once I have that clarity, I build the melody, rhythm, and ragas accordingly. For independent music, the process is entirely different. Here, I am my own director. I decide the theme, the emotions, and the lyrics. It’s a personal expression — there is no screenplay, no restrictions, just pure creativity. I love learning, experimenting, and collaborating with different musicians.

I have been coming to Chennai since Om Shanti Om (2007) for string recordings and arrangements. Many songs for Chennai Express (2013) and Home Delivery (2005) were produced here, too. One of the highlights of my career was recording at S P Balasubrahmanyam sir’s studio. That moment felt like a milestone in my life — like I had achieved something in life. Chennai’s musicians, people, and food are truly special. On every visit, I look forward to stopping by this popular hotel chain just to have podi idli!

After a five-year hiatus, Nikitin Dheer returned to television to take on the iconic role of Ravan in Srimad Ramayan. The character has had such a lasting impact on him that he recently got his third tattoo as a tribute to the experience.

He shares, “Playing Ravan was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It’s been an enriching journey.”

While his TV appearances have been sporadic, he maintains he doesn’t favour one medium over another.

He says, “I have always believed that no actor is greater than the medium. I don’t dismiss any platform or believe one medium is superior to another. I returned to television because of my desire to play Ravan, and I am grateful the audience accepted my portrayal. I plan to explore OTT and films again, and if a compelling role comes up on television, I will certainly consider it.”

In films, he is best known as the villainous Tangaballi in Chennai Express. Admitting that he has been typecast, the actor, who has been part of films like Shershaah and Sooryavanshi, says, “I began with a negative role and followed it with similar roles. Once you are on a certain path, it’s rare for producers to think outside the box. Few people dare to break the mould and see you in a different light.”

Nikitin also points out that today’s villainous characters lack the depth and menace they once had. “It’s not just me; an entire generation of actors, particularly those playing villains, have seen their roles diminish. Since the era of Amrish Puri ji and the 90s, the presence of strong villains has declined. Nobody writes for villains anymore; all the focus is on heroes. A strong villain enhances the hero, but it’s now rare to see a well-crafted villain with depth,” says the actor, who is set to begin shooting for a web series and a film.

After her well-received performance in Jawan, fans have been eagerly looking forward to Nayanthara’s next Bollywood project. But it might be long before that happens, for we have learned from industry insiders that the actor-producer isn’t reading any Hindi scripts for now since she is not very happy with the treatment her character received in the film.

“She is very upset with Atlee (the film’s director) because her role was chopped in the film. Also, Deepika’s (Padukone) character was elevated and Nayanthara’s part was significantly sidelined,” a source tells us.

“It was almost made to look like an SRK-Deepika film. Nayanthara is a leading actor down South, and wasn’t happy with her character’s treatment in Jawan,” adds the source, saying, “And that could be the reason why we might not see her in a Bollywood project any time soon.”

The source, however, adds that her absence from many of the film’s promotions has nothing to do with it: “She follows a no-promotion policy because of having been misquoted in the past. She also believes that her primary job is to act and not be present at other events related to films.”

Moreover, Jawan’s record-breaking run might not necessarily translate into more Bollywood films for the 38-year-old, shares the source, adding, “Another reason is that she may have crossed the age bracket that Bollywood has created [for female actors].”

We reached out to Nayanthara and Atlee, but were met with no response till the time of going to press.

In 2013, Priyamani shared screen space with Shah Rukh Khan for the dance number, One two three four, in Chennai Express. A decade on, she stars alongside him in a full-fledged role in Jawan. Working with the superstar twice over is understandably a dream come true. Has she noticed any difference in Khan in these 10 years?

“He is a lot fitter now,” Priyamani laughs, before adding, “Not that he wasn’t fit then. In Chennai Express, we were in the same costumes for five to six nights, but here I got to see him in different attires. He looks amazing.” What has remained the same about her co-star is his behaviour. “He is so warm,” she smiles.

This may be just the year when Priyamani will make her presence felt in Bollywood. Besides Atlee’s directorial venture, the National Award-winning actor has a big-ticket Hindi film in Maidaan. Collaborating with Ajay Devgn and director Amit R Sharma was reason enough for her to say yes to the sports drama.

“I couldn’t believe my [luck] when I got the offer for Maidaan. Amit Sharma’s approach to Badhaai Ho’s story was so [heartfelt]. Maidaan too has its cute moments featuring Ajay sir and me. Working with him was a fantastic experience. He expresses so much through his eyes.”

She reveals that their conversations also touched on filmmaker S S Rajamouli as Devgn had signed RRR (2022) at the time. “I worked with Rajamouli sir in the past [on Yamadonga]. So, he asked me how Rajamouli sir is to work with, and how south directors function.”

Even as she awaits her big-screen outings, The Family Man star is currently focused on Sarvam Shakthi Mayam. The ZEE5 drama, also starring Sanjay Suri and Samir Soni, explores spirituality through the tale of a family. Priyamani says she was drawn by how the project maintained a fine balance between a documentary and a fictional series.

“People might think it’s a docu series, but there’s also a beautiful story about a family’s [spiritual awakening]. Initially, my character is someone whose decisions are made by her husband or father. But when she goes through this journey, she realises her self-worth.”

The Chennai Express song, One Two Three Four Get on the Dance Floor, featuring actor Priyamani had become quite the rage in 2013. But we didn’t see her going all out in taking up Hindi projects after that. In fact, The Family Man was her next Hindi outing, six years later.

Ask her about it and she says she was “never away” from Hindi cinema to begin with. “I have grown up watching those films, actors like Aamir (Khan), Shah Rukh (Khan), Salman (Khan)... I was born and brought up in Bengaluru, and watched both English and Hindi films. I just took my time to proudly enter this (Hindi) industry,” says Priyamani, who has done films in multiple south Indian languages.

The problem, she says, lay in the kind of image that was being formed of her after Chennai Express. The National Film Award-winning actor elaborates, “Hindi cinema has a wider, pan-India audience. The NRI audience also watches a lot of it. I am glad I started my journey (in Bollywood) with Raavan in 2010, then Rakta Charitra (2010), followed by Chennai Express. After that, I wanted to take a break as I’d keep getting a lot of offers for doing similar numbers. I didn’t want to be like that. Then came The Family Man, and the rest is history.”

Maidaan is the 37-year-old’s next release, alongside actor Ajay Devgn, which has been pushed till now to ensure a theatrical release. And with people back in cinemas, does she think that the craze for web content will go down? “No, I don’t think so. Web will have its full fan following even after this. This craze for OTT platforms will never die down,” she signs off.

Charu Nivedita didn't enjoy Chennai's big August hit Vivegam, and had no compunctions about saying so. An acclaimed experimental writer, Charu has written about all kinds of cinema, including popular Tamil hits - he uses the word “trash“ with some relish - for ten or fifteen years. More recently, he recorded brief, pithy video reviews of some new releases for the YouTube channel Madras Central.

“Writers don't exist for society,“ Charu says, but if they didn't know his name before, they certainly did over the weekend of Vivegam's release. The film's male lead, Ajith Kumar, is one of Chennai cinema's bona fide superstars. He's critic-proof, but his large following of young men who adore him is not.

He knows it, too. Before Vivegam came out, Ajith issued an unprecedented public statement, through his lawyers, in which he apologized unconditionally for those “misusing his name,“ and condemned the unauthorized use of his name and image on social media. He had prepared for the eventuality that not everyone would stay quiet about the flaws in his film out of love for his handsome face.

It's unclear if this made any difference to the trolls who came out swinging after Charu's YouTube review appeared. Men called to tell him they knew his home address. They wrote saying they knew he had female relatives. “I got death threats,“ Charu says wryly. “But the women of my family received threats straight out of the writings of the Marquis de Sade.“ More or less the same filth besieged another popular YouTube critic, “Blue Shirt“ Maran, who also candidly disliked Vivegam. A parody video recorded in response to Maran's review featured actors threatening “Blue Shirt“ with a machete to his throat, then beating him brutally.

Threats of rape and murder are run of the mill for anyone who offends another's idol on the internet: it's how we punish blasphemers these days. It can be a criminal offence, and offenders may be charged on a variety of counts, including intimidation and obscenity. But while it was not always the case, this kind of abuse is now as much a force in film fandom as they are in politics.

As many have learned in the years since trolling became a feature of Indian public life, the predatorial edge that trolls have over regular people such as you and I and Charu Nivedita is their tirelessness. They are legion. They work in shifts. They can attack for hours and days and weeks. They stalk you. They take - and fake - screenshots. They'll respond to everything you say in public. They are the persistence hunters of digital life, intent on wearing their prey down to destroy them.

The normalization of political cyber bullying has spilled over into Hindi cinema fandom online, where supporters of Hindu right-wing causes have been popularising an imagined conflict between “Muslim“ Bollywood and its “Hindu stars“ for some years now. Like most meaningful developments in Indian cinema, however, the south is the real crucible of change.

Never was this clearer than in early August, when Dhanya Rajendran, journalist and editor-in-chief of The News Minute, fired off a casual, snarky tweet late on a Friday evening about how much she hated Jab Harry Met Sejal. “I watched Vijay's Sura till interval and walked out,“ she wrote. “#WhenHarryMetSejal has made me break that record. Could not sit till interval.“ It wasn't SRK-ians or Anushka-maniacs who found her. Within an hour the tweet had 700 replies, all angry comments from self-proclaimed worshippers of the Tamil star Vijay, considered Ajith's great rival. They were followed by thousands more and included filthy abuse, rape and murder threats. “Here, I understood that people were organising the response to the tweet, so I deleted it,“ Dhanya says. The onslaught only intensified. Over the weekend, the hashtag #PublicityBeepDhanya - the 'beep' standing in for a word that can get you banned for abuse even from notoriously lax Twitter - trended menacingly for hours.

It didn't stop there. “By Monday or Tuesday the next week, when they felt the tide was turning against them, Vijay's women fan clubs“ - online accounts run or appearing to be run by women -“joined in,“ she recalls. Users found stray comments she made about Vijay films in 2011 and 2013 and raked them up, trying to prove that Vijay was a victim of a long-running, sinister agenda.

Over the next few days, it seemed to Dhanya as though every group was trying to isolate her. Someone posted fake screenshots of tweets she had never made about Rajinikanth. Another person, clearly hoping to extend the melée, circulated a collage of isolated tweets from 2012, in which Dhanya had poked fun at M Karunanidhi, leader of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam. “At one point, TV show hosts were saying there was fair game because I had tweeted about the DMK,“ she says. M K Stalin, working president of the party, subsequently issued a statement condemning acts meant to “strangulate the freedom of expression, especially of a woman journalist in Chennai,“ and recommended that the rule of law be applied promptly in “curbing this menace.“ Eventually, Vijay himself issued a subdued statement to his followers, asking them to respect women at all costs.

Both Suprateek Chatterjee and Charu Nivedita noted that any sexual violence that came their way tended to target their female relatives By then, the juggernaut had acquired a momentum of its own. Many speculate that Vijay's prolonged silence and lukewarm response to this incident are directly linked to his political ambitions, about which he has made no formal announcements. There's no doubt that many public figures would enjoy being able to control a loyal following by appearing not to control them at all. We have no reason to claim this is true in Vijay's case. Still, the incident reveals how the real ugliness of political discourse can inflect everything, even the way we enjoy and defend our cherished popular cinema.

“Even Twitter wasn't like this a few years ago,“ says film critic Baradwaj Rangan, who says he usually escapes troll scrutiny, such as it is, because he writes lengthy features in English, which fly under the radar of fans who respond more readily to three-minute videos and punchy social media posts. “None of these people read,“ Charu Nivedita says bluntly. (“They react,“ Baradwaj adds.) “And any way, who is telling them to stop?“ Charu says. “They say Ajith is a good guy, but he hasn't had a word to say after these incidents.“

Both Vijay and Ajith are “mass heroes,“ which makes it easy to dismiss their troll armies as uncouth mobs, trapped by their class status and education, and by their Montague Capulet hatred for each other. These biases are hard to confirm in any meaningful way, though. They also don't explain what incentivizes or encourages people to join in witch-hunts that go well beyond the fundamental satisfaction of belonging to a community, and ostensibly defending a person or a movie they love.

Unreasonable accusations of bad faith have always been an occupational hazard for film reviewers. Once, fans upset with negative reviews might have sent snarky letters and gave editors an earful over their rotary phones. For years now, they have left comments below the fold and quote tweeted the critics they hate. With no real language of taste or discrimination to deploy, they complain not of impaired judgement, but of corruption. On any given Friday afternoon, a critic may be accused of being paid off by Shah Rukh when they aren't thrilled by a Salman film, or of being in the Ranbir camp when they write off Ranveer, and so on. But this routine harassment is distinct from the sort of v2 trolling that shades into st unchecked, criminal abuse.

That's what happens to critics like Anna M M Vetticad, author of The Adventures of An Intrepid to Film Critic. Vetticad is no stranger to the highly literate and and extremely misogynist sections of Malayalam language social media, always ready to attack critics for disparaging their icons. Just two weeks ago, her lukewarm review of a new Mammootty film outraged his male devotees so much that they were reduced to describing the favours they imagined she was trading with his rival Mohanlal in incoherent, unprintable desperation.



But it is Vetticad's Hindi movie reviews that have put her in the crosshairs of a section of self-declared rightwing patriots online, who hate it when she is critical of “Hindu stars“ - Hrithik Roshan, Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn - and “Hindu“ films like the Baahubalis. Responses to her review of Kumar's Toilet - Ek Prem Katha, were so appalling that they prompted the international Committee To Protect Journalists put out a statement condemning the violence.

Vetticad has written that the “dam burst“ for the right wing when both Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan spoke up against rising cultural intolerance in 2015, after which the religious bigotry that had started to seep into movie conversation online rose in spate. Her Malayali Christian background became a special obsession for her trolls, as has her outspoken feminism. “Go watch Shah Rukh Pai Khan ****ing your mother,“ a commenter spat when her Toilet - Ek Prem Katha review came out. “In both Dhanya and Anna's case, gender had a big role to play,“ says Suprateek Chatterjee, writer and former entertainment editor at the Huffington Post. Both Chatterjee and Charu Nivedita noted that any sexual violence that came their way tended to target their female relatives - in return for an unfavourable review of Chennai Express in 2013, Chatterjee received, among other things, a manipulated image of his face on the body of a naked woman porn star, captioned, “We'll do this to your sister.“

“Until then it was funny,“ Chatterjee, who faced sustained ire (“nothing like what happened to Dhanya or Anna“) from Shah Rukh Khan's fans for that Chennai Express review, remembers. “I don't have a sister, but that was the moment that really took me aback.“ He never reported it to the police, believing it would have little effect. Nor has Charu, who says he doesn't “believe in police action.“ Vetticad, too, believes the chances of concrete action against her trolls are slim.

On the other hand, Dhanya registered an FIR with the Chennai Police the week after the trolling began. The cyber-crime team identified and arrested at least one abuser, who is currently out on bail, and who posted an apology video online, cautioning others not to end up like him.

Over the last couple of years, J Melwyn, inspector in charge of the investigation, has observed a gradual increase in crimes such as this one, he says. They are “not difficult,“ to solve in principle. “But we are slowed down by the communication gap with these social media companies“ - the third party in all these incidents, whose lack of enthusiasm for tackling this variety of criminal abuse has made life on social media untenable for many users. “With their headquarters in other parts of the world, it takes a long time to get responses from these with the information we need,“ Melwyn says. “In this case, we have requested further details from Twitter, and will proceed once we have them.“

Dhanya's Twitter mentions have been quiet for a few days, but it's too soon to say that the trolls have gone. She knows this sort of thing could affect her work, and was proven right in the weeks following the Vijay fallout. A tweet about a major news story - the suicide of the Dalit student Anitha - provoked another wave of outrage against her, this time from people claiming to be offended that she had used the word “Dalit,“ widely considered standard, self determined usage. Among those orchestrating the abuse at her this time was film director Venkat Prabhu, and several film publicists. Perhaps most bizarre, even to her, is the question of how she unwittingly became a flash-point in the Ajith-Vijay stand-off at all. Something that happened to her last year plays on her mind, though. In Madurai with her young son, covering state elections, she was stopped by a male stranger who asked her, “You are Dhanya, isn't it? The Ajith fan?“ “The last Ajith film I saw was Kandukondain Kandukondain (released in 2000),“ she says.

Facts have limited currency in public life, though - and not even the absurd romantic warmth of our movies can offer us respite from our pathologies any more.

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