I am writing this because a recent conversation with my sister showed how easily my relationships can be judged through comparisons that overlook their different foundations. She believes a partner’s right to speak to a… More
Ohh My Dog (2026)
A Good Film That Could Have Been Great
Ohh My Dog tells two parallel stories that mirror each other in beautiful ways.
The first follows a young boy in Assam searching for his beloved dog, Oppu, after he is swept into the brutal illegal dog meat trade that supplies parts of the Northeast, including Nagaland. Guiding him is his schoolteacher, who repeatedly frames their journey through the Mahabharata. The boy is Arjun; the teacher is Krishna, not fighting a war with weapons but with compassion, determination and moral conviction. It is one of the film’s strongest ideas, and Amit Rai deserves credit for weaving mythology into a contemporary social thriller without making it feel forced. (Bollywood Hungama)
Running alongside it is the story of Prince, an underage construction worker in Patna, illegally employed and invisible to society. When Prince is abducted by an organ trafficking racket, it is his dog Oscar who refuses to give up on him and he is helped by another teacher played by Pankaj Tripathi. The symmetry between the two stories is what makes the film work: one boy saves his dog, one dog saves his boy.
What binds both narratives together isn’t merely love between humans and animals. It is institutional failure.
Whether it is the dog meat trade, child labour, organ trafficking or police indifference, every system appears compromised. Corruption isn’t portrayed as a handful of bad apples but as something structural, something ordinary. The frustration the film evokes comes from watching decent people repeatedly collide with institutions that simply don’t care. Only towards the end do we find a flicker of hope through the teacher’s uncle, a police officer who chooses to do the right thing. That small act of integrity becomes powerful precisely because the film spends so much time showing how rare it is.
Where the film falters, however, is in its portrayal of animal cruelty.
Having spent years working for animal welfare, I couldn’t help feeling that the film pulls its punches. The villains are repeatedly shown being wary of Oppu, almost intimidated by him. In reality, a dog caught uncovering an illegal transplant chain would almost certainly be beaten or killed the moment it showed resistance. The horror of what these animals actually endure is softened. I understand why—the film is aimed at families—but I still wish it had trusted audiences with a harsher truth.
I also wanted the film to spend more time inside the mind of the dogs themselves. Their loyalty is obvious, but their fear, confusion and longing remain largely interpreted through human eyes. A little more of the dogs’ perspective would have made the emotional impact even stronger. It tries valiantly (with the budget constraints I am sure it faced) with the Doggo, Oscar.
Some scenes, however, stayed with me long after the credits rolled.
Oppu chasing the ball, completely unaware that those innocent few seconds will separate him from the child he loves, is devastating because it feels so ordinary. That is exactly how people lose dogs every day.
The discovery of the truck packed with terrified animals is another unforgettable sequence. It doesn’t need melodrama. The images speak for themselves.
But the scene that hit me hardest had nothing to do with dogs.
When Pankaj Tripathi’s character tells Prince’s father that his son will probably lose a kidney, the frightened, uneducated father asks only one question:
“Will he die?”
When he’s told no, the father quietly replies,
“Then it’s okay.”
The look on Pankaj Tripathi’s face says everything.
It isn’t judgement. It isn’t anger. It’s the crushing realisation that poverty leaves people negotiating with suffering itself. If your child is alive, even after losing an organ, you count yourself fortunate. Few recent Hindi films have captured that quiet tragedy so effectively.
Performance-wise, Geeta Agrawal Sharma is outstanding. Every moment she appears feels completely lived-in, never performed. As always, Pankaj Tripathi brings warmth, empathy and gravitas with almost effortless ease. My only complaint is that he feels underused. An actor of his calibre could have carried even more of the emotional weight had the screenplay allowed it. (IMDb)
And then there’s Oscar.
Forget the human cast.
Oscar steals the film.
His determination, intelligence and unwavering loyalty become the emotional heartbeat of the Patna story. The makers promoted Oscar and Oppo as the canine stars of the film, and it’s easy to see why. Oscar commands the screen without uttering a single word. (The Times of India)
Technically, the film is also stronger than many family dramas. The cinematography captures both Assam and Bihar with authenticity rather than postcard beauty, while the score quietly supports the emotion without becoming manipulative. The decision to use over 250 dogs across the production gives the film a sense of scale rarely seen in Indian cinema. (IMDb)
In light of the recent Supreme Court debate surrounding stray dogs, Ohh My Dog feels particularly relevant. It doesn’t argue that everyone must love dogs. Its final message is far simpler, and perhaps more important:
If we cannot be kind to animals, the very least we can do is not harm them.
I only wish the film had gone further. It had the ingredients to become one of the most important animal rights films India has ever made. Instead, it settles for being a very good film when it could have been a great one.
Still, I left the theatre holding on to one simple thought.
One boy saves his dog. One dog saves his boy.
If only the real world worked like that more often.
Friendship
Friendship has never been a single story for me. It has been a series of chapters, each leaving behind people who shaped me in ways they probably never realised.
When I think of childhood, I think of four little children racing through the Ganga Vihar compound in Bandra, running along the roads, playing in Guru Nanak Park, convinced that summer holidays would last forever. There was Irshad, Sarvar, Satish and me. We lived in a world where scraped knees healed quickly, laughter came easily, and tomorrow was never something we worried about. I still remember the view of the TV tower in Worli, from Sarvar’s 5th floor balcony. I was in awe of the height and the distance. Childhood is fantastical and so are the friends we make then.
I reconnected with Irshad several years later in my 30’s. When I told him I was gay, he stopped responding.
I think of Virginia too.
She taught me about Christmas long before I understood what festivals truly meant. She filled my childhood with warmth, kindness, joy and the wonders of make-up. Life, as it often does, carried us in different directions when I left Bandra in 1987. We found each other again in 2014 after decades of silence, and it felt as though no time had passed at all.
A few years later, she passed away. Some people leave your life twice—once through distance, and once forever. I still think of her and each time the thought fills my heart.
Then there were my school friends from St Teresa’s—Shameem, Amit, Bipin, and so many familiar faces who remind me that childhood often feels like living inside a Famous Five adventure: carefree, uncomplicated and wonderfully ordinary.
Life, however, has a way of changing its script.
When my parents separated and my mother and I moved to Versova, I entered a world where I was the new boy. I was different. I was effeminate. I was bullied, mocked and often left out. Between the ages of thirteen and sixteen, friendship became something I watched from a distance rather than experienced. Those were lonely years, but they also taught me resilience and turned me into an avid reader and film buff.
College changed everything.
At seventeen, I met Poonam.
For over three decades she was my closest friend. We grew up together. We celebrated victories, survived disappointments, argued, laughed and became part of each other’s families in every way except by blood.
Not every great friendship ends in betrayal. Sometimes it ends because two people, despite loving each other deeply, can no longer walk the same path.
As I stood on the threshold of turning fifty, we chose to part ways. It was painful, but it was peaceful. I miss her even today. I love her still, and I think of her ever so often.
But that friendship taught me one of the greatest lessons of my life: love should never come at the cost of self-respect.
Trust matters. Respect matters. Admiration matters. And no friendship, however precious, should require you to abandon yourself.
My queer journey introduced me to another extraordinary circle of friends. People like Umang, Bhavesh, Deepak, Shagoon and Dinesh helped me navigate life in my twenties. They listened, challenged me, encouraged me and stood beside me through struggles that only another queer person could fully understand.
It was also through this community that I found someone I think of as my mentor—someone who has become more of an elder brother than a friend. One of the greatest gifts he gave me was showing me that disagreement does not have to destroy affection. Two people can hold opposing views, argue passionately and still respect each other deeply. That is a rare quality, and one I treasure.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve come to realise that friendship is wonderfully malleable.
Some friends remain friends.
Some quietly become family.
My friend Christina, for instance, stopped being “just a friend” long ago. She is my sister in every way that matters. Relationships evolve. Labels become less important than love.
Friendship changes because we change.
It asks us to grow, to forgive, to learn, to unlearn and sometimes to let go.
Like every living thing, it has to be nurtured from both sides. It cannot survive on one person’s effort alone. It requires generosity, honesty, vulnerability and the willingness to listen even when listening is uncomfortable.
Without friends, I genuinely believe we become smaller versions of ourselves.
Friends help us evolve. They hold up mirrors when we cannot see ourselves clearly. They celebrate our successes without envy and steady us when life knocks us down. They question our decisions, not because they wish to control us, but because they care enough to make us think.
The final choice is always ours, but good friends make us wiser before we make it.
As I’ve grown older, another truth has become impossible to ignore.
Shared values matter.
Perhaps more than they once did.
In recent years, politics has tested many of my friendships. I have lost people I cared about because we could no longer reconcile our understanding of justice, compassion and humanity. I don’t believe every disagreement should end a friendship. Healthy debate is essential. Different opinions can coexist.
But there comes a point where the disagreement is no longer about policy or politics. It becomes about fundamental values.
There are crossroads in life where you must choose between preserving a friendship and preserving your core values.
Whenever I’ve reached those crossroads, I’ve chosen the latter.
Not because friendship isn’t important.
But because friendship without mutual respect, empathy and integrity eventually becomes something else entirely.
On this Friendship’s Day, I find myself grateful for every person who has walked beside me—whether for a few years or for decades. Every friendship has left its imprint. Every goodbye has taught me something. Every hello has changed me in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
If life has taught me anything, it is this:
Friends are not merely companions for the journey.
They are the people who quietly become part of who we are.
And even when some of them leave, they never truly stop walking with us.
The Odyssey
⚠️ Warning: This review contains major spoilers. If you haven’t watched the film yet, I’d recommend coming back after you have. It’s a journey worth taking with fresh eyes.
There are films you watch.
And then there are films you experience.
Last night I travelled all the way from my home to Thane because the film came highly recommended by someone whose opinion on mythology I respect immensely. I couldn’t find tickets anywhere in my area or rather on this side of the city. Honestly it completely slipped my mind that the movie was releasing today. I remembered Spider-Man was because of all the trailers that kept showing up everywhere. Yet something told me I had to watch this one this weekend.
I’m glad I listened.
For someone who has studied Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, I walked in wondering what Christopher Nolan would discard, what he would compress and what he would reinvent. I walked out surprisingly satisfied. I genuinely cannot think of a single major episode from the epic that I desperately missed. That, in itself, is remarkable.
Matt Damon is magnificent. He never plays Odysseus as an untouchable hero. He gives us a man worn down by war, by pride, by guilt and by the unbearable weight of survival. His Odysseus is at once cunning, vulnerable and quietly broken.
Tom Holland, unfortunately, never quite convinced me. He isn’t bad at all, but he felt miscast. Telemachus should still carry the uncertainty of youth, someone only just becoming a man. Holland, for me, looked and felt a little too mature for the role, making that coming-of-age journey less affecting than it should have been.
Anne Hathaway’s finest moment comes when Telemachus, exhausted by two decades of uncertainty, asks his mother to stop waiting and finally choose one of the suitors. It is an impossible conversation between a son desperate to save his kingdom and a mother whose hope has become an act of defiance. Hathaway plays the scene with astonishing restraint. She is bereft, and every glance carries twenty years of longing, loneliness and unwavering faith. It is one of the finest performances in the film.
John Leguizamo’s Eumaeus was another revelation. His loyalty hurt to watch. Here is a servant who never stopped believing. Twenty years of waiting. Twenty years of tending the estate. Twenty years of caring for the hunting hounds because someone had to believe Odysseus would eventually return. He was the personification of a dog’s loyalty.
One scene has remained with me ever since I left the cinema. Eumaeus is killing puppies that are unlikely to grow into good hunting dogs. It is harsh, but entirely in keeping with the brutal realities of the ancient world. Then Odysseus quietly intervenes and saves one of those doomed pups.
That puppy is Argos.
Which makes their reunion twenty years later almost unbearable. Argos wasn’t simply an old dog recognising his master. He was a life Odysseus himself had once saved. The loyalty had come full circle. I knew exactly what was coming, and it still broke me. Homer wrote one of literature’s greatest scenes, and Nolan honours it beautifully by giving it an even deeper emotional foundation.
The Cyclops sequence is spectacular. Polyphemus feels ancient, terrifying and utterly believable. The scale is immense without becoming cartoonish. Yet what stayed with me even more than the monster was what followed.
Odysseus cannot resist engaging in revenge. His pride—his fatal hubris—demands recognition. That single moment condemns him and every man sailing beside him. The grey area of who truly is a monster is riveting.
By the end of the story he has learnt the hardest lesson of all: sometimes survival belongs not to the greatest hero, but to the man willing to hide his own greatness. Had he not finally buried his ego beneath the disguise of a beggar, he would never have reclaimed Ithaca. The arrogance that doomed him before ultimately gives way to humility, and that is the true victory of his journey.
That is perhaps why The Odyssey remains painfully relevant today.
It is not really about monsters.
It is about war.
About men intoxicated by vengeance.
About the destruction pride leaves behind long after the battlefield has emptied.
One of Nolan’s smartest choices is how he treats the gods.
Zendaya is unmistakably Athena, but she rarely feels like a goddess striding down from Olympus. Instead, she seems to embody Odysseus’ wisdom, conscience and instinct. She appears whenever he is in danger of losing himself, almost as though Athena exists both as a goddess and as the voice that guides him from within. That makes her the only Olympian with a sustained human presence.
The male gods, by contrast, become elemental forces. Poseidon is the sea itself. Divine anger arrives through storms, waves and nature rather than men descending from the heavens. It is an elegant way of preserving the mythology while keeping the story rooted in human experience.
Interestingly, Nolan ensures that the women of the epic retain their full presence.
Penelope.
Athena.
Circe.
Calypso.
The Sirens.
Helen.
Clytemnestra.
The women shape the narrative, while the male gods are largely transformed into the world around them.
Circe, in particular, is magnificent. Of all the women in The Odyssey, Samantha Morton’s Circe left the deepest impression on me. Despite her relatively brief screen time, she completely stole the film. Her performance is visceral, vibrant and seething with barely contained rage, yet alive with an intoxicating zest and verve. She embodies the witch with terrifying authority, commanding every frame she inhabits, while never losing sight of the loneliness and aching pathos beneath the power. It is a breathtaking balancing act that makes Circe feel both mythic and profoundly human. Perhaps the highest compliment came from Christopher Nolan and producer Emma Thomas, who revealed that Morton’s scene earned a spontaneous standing ovation from the cast and crew—“the first such reaction on a Nolan set since Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight. Watching her, it’s easy to understand why.”
Her speech exposing the true nature of men may be my favourite dialogue in the entire film.
“Turn back into your disguise as men.”
What a devastating line.
But it is everything surrounding that scene that stayed with me.
Circe has lived alone for years. Suddenly, a ship full of armed strangers lands on her island. We, the audience, know they are Odysseus’ men. She doesn’t. From her perspective, every ship could bring men who want to conquer, plunder, rape or kill. It reminded me of the conversations we still have today whenever someone says, “Not all men.” Of course “not all men”. But women like Circe have never had the luxury of knowing which men are safe until it is too late. Like all women.
Then she strips away every heroic illusion. Men, she says in essence, all want the same things. They want to eat. They want to be fed. They want someone to keep house for them. They want sex. The transformation into swine is brilliant because it isn’t really about magic at all. It is about exposing appetites we spend our lives pretending are more sophisticated than they really are.
Ironically, that was the very first scene that came back to me when I got home after the film.
I’d made the long journey back from Thane. I walked through my front door absolutely starving. All I wanted was food and the comfort of home. I actually laughed to myself because Circe’s words echoed in my head. Strip away our ambitions, our careers, our philosophies, and perhaps she was right. Sometimes we really are just creatures longing to be fed and to find our way home.
I was less convinced by the Laestrygonians.
Turning them into towering medieval armoured giants certainly creates memorable imagery, but I missed Homer’s original vision of colossal beings hurling boulders upon the Greek fleet. Sometimes the ancient imagination is already cinematic enough.
Likewise, merging Calypso with the Lotus-Eaters is a liberty I understand, even if I didn’t entirely like it. For cinema it streamlines the narrative. For readers of Homer, however, the two represent entirely different temptations. The Lotus-Eaters offer forgetfulness. Calypso offers immortality and eternal comfort. They serve different purposes, and I missed that distinction.
The climax, thankfully, is never rushed.
Too many adaptations hurry once the hero reaches home.
Nolan does the opposite.
The rescue of Telemachus.
The reunion with Argos.
The reclaiming of the palace.
The death of the loathsome Antinous.
Every moment is allowed to breathe. Yes, Homer has Antinous as the very first suitor to die, but changing the order serves the rhythm of the film without diminishing the satisfaction of justice finally arriving.
The film also handles Agamemnon with remarkable presence.
His aura is so commanding that, for a moment, I almost mistook him for Ares—or even Achilles returned from the dead. Yet what fascinated me more was the tragedy surrounding his family. Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter for victory. His presence on the battlefield signifies complete ego. He overshadows everyone there. Anticlimactically, Clytemnestra murders him in his own home in revenge.
Orestes then kills his own mother to avenge his father. Three thousand years later, that story still resonates because it asks who ultimately pays the price for men’s wars. More often than not, it is women.
Which is why one liberty genuinely bothered me: Helen and Clytemnestra are presented as identical. They were not. They were half-sisters.
That distinction matters. Helen’s legendary beauty was singular. It launched a thousand ships and became the spark for the greatest war of the ancient world. Making her visually identical to Clytemnestra may simplify casting, but it diminishes something essential about the mythology. Some liberties are worth taking. This wasn’t one of them.
The music deserves special praise. It is extraordinary. Not conventionally beautiful, but elemental. It feels less like a score and more like something unearthed from the Bronze Age itself. During the Sack of Troy it pounds with the relentless machinery of war. During Circe’s transformation of men into swine it abandons melody for something ritualistic and deeply unsettling. It doesn’t merely accompany the story; it feels like the pulse of myth itself.
One aspect that deserves special mention is Nolan’s decision to shoot The Odyssey entirely on analogue IMAX 70mm film, making it the first feature in history to do so. In an era dominated by pristine digital cinematography, the image possesses a warmth, softness and organic texture that feels almost otherworldly. The grain breathes, the light glows and every frame carries the tactile beauty of something physical rather than manufactured. It lends the film an ancient, timeless quality—as though we are witnessing a myth remembered rather than a story recreated. It is deeply unfortunate that only a handful of IMAX 70mm cinemas worldwide can present the film in its full 1.43:1 glory, because this is not merely a technical achievement; it is an artistic one.
I absolutely revelled in this film. Christopher Nolan has not merely adapted Homer. He has understood him. He understands that The Odyssey is not ultimately about monsters, magic or even gods.
It is about what war does to people.
About the terrible cost of pride.
About vengeance consuming generations.
About the wisdom that only suffering can teach.
Odysseus begins the story desperate to be remembered as the greatest hero alive. He ends it willing to hide his name, bury his pride and walk home as a beggar if that is what it takes to reclaim his family and his kingdom.
That is the journey.
That is why Homer’s epic has survived for nearly three thousand years.
And that is why Nolan’s film feels so profoundly relevant today.
In an age still consumed by wars, wounded egos and men who mistake pride for strength, The Odyssey reminds us that the greatest victories are not won on battlefields.
They are won over ourselves.
Hearts Still Care 
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