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Dhurandhar Part 2: What Happens Next in Lyari? The Brutal Real-Life Deaths
Karachi’s Lyari was never just a slum. For decades, it functioned as a violent political laboratory where gangsters, politicians, intelligence agencies, and jihadist networks overlapped in ways that would make even the most cynical thriller writer pause. Power in Lyari was rarely decided by elections or courts. It was decided by guns, patronage networks, and…
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The Cultural Trauma of Dhurandhar: Why ‘Arfa Khanum’ Can’t Reconcile with the New Reality
The hysterical backlash against Dhurandhar has nothing to do with “politics” or even “Pakistan-bashing.” It’s a full-blown cultural trauma for a particular generation of commentators—the ones personified by the classic ‘Arfa Khanum’ archetype. She’s not critiquing a movie. She’s mourning. Mourning the sudden, violent death of the comforting moral universe that Bollywood spent decades constructing,…
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Dhurandhar—The 3.5-Hour Epic That is Filling Theaters in the UK: A Non-Spoiler Review
I went into this film armed with the relentless barrage of negative chatter: jingoism, toxic masculinity, excessive violence, propaganda, too long. Every review seemed determined to warn me off. But I watch every Hindi film that screens here in Portsmouth, UK, and this one was different. For the first time in years, the theater was…
Infinite Sea of Opportunities 