Entertainment

Vikrant Massey, the man who gave us hard-hitting films like 12th Fail and The Sabarmati Report, is celebrating his 38th birthday today. The actor’s wife, Sheetal Thakur, made his day extra special by uploading a sweet post on Instagram. 

The album opens to Vikrant Massey sharing a candid moment with his son Vardaan. The little one is seen in his father’s arms as Vikrant kisses him affectionately. 

Next, there is a perfect fam-jam click featuring Vikrant Massey, his wife Sheetal Thakur and their baby boy. Vikrant exudes ethnic charm in a white kurta-pajama set. Sheetal complements her husband in a floral-printed dress.

In the last image, we get a glimpse of the delicious birthday cake. A crossword-like illustration showcases the words, “The best Husband (and) Dad”, written on it with colourful icing. It symbolises Vikrant Massey’s role as a loving partner and doting father. 

Sharing the pictures, Sheetal Thakur wrote, “Happy Birthday, My love. Celebrating the man, husband and father that you are. I would choose you again and again.”

On February 14, Sheetal Thakur took a trip down memory lane. She shared a sweet anecdote from last year’s Valentine’s Day. Sheetal had her court marriage with Vikrant Massey on that particular day.

Remembering the special occasion, Sheetal Thakur dropped a couple of pictures on Instagram. It captured the pair signing the documents.

Her caption read, “Just before tying the knot, we wanted to have a court marriage. And guess what? The marriage officer allotted us Valentine’s Day to seal the deal. Cute.”

Vikrant Massey and Sheetal Thakur got married in 2022. They welcomed Vardaan in 2024. The couple revealed the little munchkin’s face on his 1-year birthday by sharing some photos of him in a joint Instagram post. 

The caption read, “Say HELLO! to our Onederful Vardaan.”

Vikrant Massey and Sheetal Thakur started dating in 2015. They worked together in the series Broken But Beautiful.

Ajay Devgn has given a roaring shoutout to Akshay Kumar’s Kesari: Chapter 2. The actor unveiled the film’s trailer earlier today. The movie, also featuring R Madhavan and Ananya Panday, is based on the events that followed after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre on April 13, 1919. 

The trailer opens to a courtroom scene featuring Akshay Kumar as lawyer Sankaran Nair. He questions whether the perpetrator of the massacre, General Dyer, issued a warning to the crowd before the deadly gunfire.

General Dyer replies with a chilling “No”.

He defends himself, stating that the people at Jallianwala Bagh were “terrorists” equipped with arms. To this, Sankaran Nair asks an unnerving question, “What weapons did you see in the hands of eight-month-old babies? Their kadas? Or their clenched fists?”

The trailer offers a glimpse of brutal scenes from the massacre. Severely wounded individuals lie helpless, and children cry out in fear. With the gates closed, many are forced to jump to their death into wells.

A standout moment comes when a determined Sankaran Nair asserts, “We are suing the crown for genocide.”

Soon after, R Madhavan makes a dramatic entry as the “moody but genius” lawyer, Neville McKinley.

The trailer then sets the film’s premise with Sankaran Nair and Neville McKinley in an epic legal face-off.

Ananya Panday, as a female lawyer, commands attention with her unwavering presence. The video ends with an icy exchange between Sankaran and the General.

Ajay Devgn’s caption read, “Bhagat Singh’s battle was on the streets, this one was in the courtroom—both changed history. Kesari Chapter 2: trailer out now. Wishing my buddy AK all the very best along with the entire team, it’s looking outstanding!”

Karan Johar commented, “Thank you so much.” 

Kesari: Chapter 2, directed by Karan Singh Tyagi, is bankrolled by Dharma Productions, Cape of Good Films, and Leo Media Collective. The film will arrive in the theatres on April 18, 2025.

New Delhi: Filmmaker Karan Johar with Bollywood actors R. Madhavan and Akshay Kumar during a press meet for the upcoming film ‘Kesari Chapter 2’, in New Delhi, Thursday, April 3, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has addressed using the f-word in the teaser for Kesari Chapter 2, a historical courtroom drama set in the aftermath of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

Launching the film’s trailer in New Delhi, Akshay was asked about the scene in the teaser where he retorts to a British judge’s ‘slave’ remark with “f**k you”.

Addressing the unparliamentary nature of his character’s language, Akshay said, “Yes, I have used that word. But what is interesting is that the judge tells my character he is still a slave (to the British empire). Was that not a bigger gaali (curse)? I think there cannot be a bigger profanity than that.”

Akshay also shared how his father, Hari Om Bhatia, was born in Amritsar near the Jallianwala Bagh site.

Kesari Chapter 2 also stars Ananya Panday and R Madhavan. Akshay portrays the role of Sir CS Nair, a celebrated Indian lawyer and nationalist, in the film.

The movie is based on the book “The Case That Shook the Empire” by Nair’s great grandson Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat. It details the 1924 defamation trial in which Michael O’Dwyer, former Lieutenant Governor of Punjab and the architect of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, sued Nair who had criticised British atrocities in Punjab in his book. Akshay said he had no knowledge about the trial before Raghu Palat’s book.

“It’s a very important film. My dad was born just opposite Jallianwala Bagh,” Akshay said. “There is a street called Katra Ahluwalia and he was born there. And my grandfather had also seen all this.

“We made this film out of anger because I listened to the stories of that incident. My dad told me, my grandfather told me,” he said.

Producer Karan Johar said the Jallianwala Bagh massacre was a dark chapter in history.

“It is yet a film that asks the British Empire for an apology through the brave narrative of Sankaran Nair… This film is about the battle fought by Sankaran Nair versus the crown,” he said.

Panday, who plays the role of young lawyer Dilreet Gill in the movie, said the character resonated a lot with her.

“Every film that I do has pieces of me in it… I tried to channel that raw nervous energy of an upcoming lawyer… She is the only female lawyer among so many men. So that power that she got from within while she was fighting that case, I tried to channel a bit of that from my own experience of starting my career when I was 18… So I did try to take a little bit of my life from that,” she said, adding that she had to learn Punjabi for the movie.

The actor said her knowledge about the massacre was also very limited and there were many unbelievable moments during the making.

“I had heard a lot of stories from my grandmother. I had heard a lot of stories about partition because my grandfather was separated from his father in the partition…

“I remember when the narration happened, I was constantly asking, ‘Did this really happen?’ I was shocked that so much happened and we don’t even know one per cent of it. So thanks to the book and thanks to the script, I got to learn a lot. I hope that people watch this movie and they learn as well,” she added.

Madhavan stars as the British lawyer Neville Mckinley and he said the Jallianwala Bagh massacre was a genocide.

“I felt that this was a story that needed to be told. I don’t think about whether it’s positive or negative. I just want to convey the truth, even if it’s harsh… That’s when I’ll know I’ve succeeded in my career,” he added.

Kesari Chapter 2 is written by Karan Singh Tyagi and Amritpal Singh Bindra. It is presented by Dharma Production, Kumar’s Cape of Good Films and Leo Media Collective.

(with PTI inputs)

Salman Khan’s ‘Sikandar’ released in cinemas a day before ‘Eid’. The film has been doing a decent business, yet the numbers are disappointing when compared to Salman’s earlier movies. Infact, even when it’s on its 5th day, the movie is still struggling to reach the 100-crore mark at the box office. While some fans are disappointed, Manoj Desai who is the executive director of Gaeity Galaxy (G7 multiplex) and Maratha Mandir cinemas, has opened up on the public opinion for the movie.
He also added that Salman is his friend and Gaeity Galaxy has been Salman’s second home since ‘Maine Pyar Kiya’, so he doesn’t want to hurt the actor but he also has to say the truth. Desai said in an interview with Vickey Lalwani that people have complained about Rashmika Mandanna’s character getting killed in the film so early. He said, “I have gotten reviews from the public, and trade analyst Komal Nahta also told me that, ‘What was the need to kill the heroine so early on in the film?’ ‘What complex did you have?’ And then, when you take the film forward, if you feel something isn’t right… aap kyu asal mein Salman Khan dikhte nahi ho (Why doesn’t the real Salman Khan come forth in the film?)”
Desai further addressed Salman directly and said, “I know you will feel bad because of my interview because I am your friend, and Gaiety Galaxy is your second home but I am telling what the public is telling me. I can’t lie because this is what public is saying.”
The exhibitor further added that he got a call from Sajid Nadiadwala who is the producer of ‘Sikandar’ and he assured him, ‘Don’t worry, picture nikal jayegi.’ Desai shared the kind of relationship he shares with Salman and his family, further stating, “I have a relationship with Salman since Maine Pyar Kiya, it has been 36 years. Salim Khan sahab would come to watch films in Gaiety Galaxy. They would come there because you can’t hear whistles in PVR, but you can hear them in Gaiety. I am proud of that fact.”

The first thing you hear when you boot up Minecraft is nothing. A soft, patient nothing that waited for you. You linger in the stillness, cursor hovering over “Singleplayer.” As if summoned by memory itself, the synths drift in, just barely there  — melancholic, weightless, familiar. Like an old scent pulling you back to a room you haven’t seen in years, it takes you somewhere instantly. There is a world — your world — somewhere in the depths of that save menu. A childhood frozen in blocks.

It has been more than a decade and a half since Minecraft first landed in the hands of eager players, and in that time, it has gone from indie oddity to the best-selling video game of all time. Yet, its true legacy isn’t in sales figures or sprawling servers but in its ability to capture and preserve a feeling, an ache of remembering a simpler time.

Which is why there was something almost sacrilegious about watching this beloved relic get fed into Hollywood’s industrial woodchipper and spat out as a soulless, focus-grouped aberration. The Minecraft movie — sorry, A Minecraft Movie— feels precisely like that kind of violation, a bastardisation of the infinite, wondrous, DIY spirit of the game it claims to represent. A game that gave us the gift of boundless creativity has been shackled into a formulaic, green-screened, live-action spectacle, complete with an obnoxious Jack Black in a teal t-shirt, human actors lost in a world that was never meant to house them, and hyper-realistic, Cronenberg-ian mobs that no amount of bleach could scrub clean from memory. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is that we knew, from the moment this film was announced, that it would never work. That the very act of adapting Minecraft was a doomed endeavor. And yet, we still hoped.

A world left behind

For an entire generation, Minecraft was a reality that existed within the confines of our screens. A quiet, sprawling, endlessly generating backyard where summer afternoons stretched into moonlit mining expeditions. It was where friendships were built — sometimes literally, in haphazard fortresses of dirt and mismatched wood. It was where you dug your first cave, lost your first house, fought your first Creeper. And it was where you left something behind, even if you didn’t realise it at the time.

You click on an old world and step inside. The air is still. The torchlight flickers just as it did all those years ago. Your tools remain in the chest, your base standing in its eternally unfinished state. You wander through the space, retracing steps you once knew instinctively. Here is the farm you never quite got around to expanding. There, a forgotten dog sits patiently, waiting for an adventure that will never come.

A still from Minecraft captured in-game
| Photo Credit:
r/Minecraft

There’s something affecting about revisiting a Minecraft world you haven’t touched in years. The world persists, unchanged. The person who built it does not. You are not the same kid who once ran through these pixelated landscapes, and that realisation stings in a way that is hard to articulate.

We like to think of play as something we grow out of. But Minecraft proves otherwise. The first instinct, upon returning, is to build. Maybe you stack a few blocks, just to feel the movement again. Maybe you start a new project, fully aware you won’t finish it, as if honouring some unspoken tradition. The game scratches an itch older than itself, one that once belonged to LEGO bricks and cardboard box forts.

But what makes Minecraft’s brand of creativity unique is its duality: it is at once peaceful and profoundly lonely. Unlike traditional sandbox games, Minecraft does not fill its world with bustling NPC’s or scripted events. It left us alone with our thoughts, the sounds of our own footsteps crunching on grass, and the occasional, ghostly chime of a piano. It is the kind of loneliness that feels vast rather than empty. There are no missions. No finish lines. Just the limitless potential of an uncarved world.

The soundtrack to nostalgia

If you were to strip Minecraft’s soundtrack from the game and play it in an empty room, it might not strike you as particularly remarkable. The melodies are sparse, meandering. Some tracks start and stop without warning. But that’s exactly why they endure. Minecraft’s music is about memory.

German composer C418 understood that nostalgia is whispered. His compositions never accompanied grand victories or dramatic cutscenes. They slipped into the background, embedding themselves in the cracks of your experience. You don’t realise how deeply they’ve settled until years later, when a single note can reduce you to a teary mess and send you tumbling back to late-night building sessions and long-forgotten inside jokes.

Every once in a while, hearing “Subwoofer Lullaby”, or “Living Mice”, or “Sweden”, after so many years feels like rereading your own handwriting from the past. The words feel familiar but somehow also impossibly distant. You remember the person who wrote them, but you’re no longer quite the same.

Perhaps this is why Minecraft nostalgia hits harder than most. The game’s music is inseparable from the memories of playing it. It reminds us of who we once were when we played it. Of being ten years old and staying up past bedtime, the glow of the screen illuminating wide-eyed enrapture. Of defeating the Ender Dragon with childhood friends, unaware that one day those friends would drift apart. Of having nothing to do on a summer afternoon except explore a blocky world stretching out as far as our render distances would allow.

The film tramples over all of that. It fundamentally fails to understand what it is desecrating, and doesn’t seem to grasp the emotional weight of the videogame IP it is plundering. It has slapped a plastic Hollywood grin onto something delicate and ephemeral. The cruelty isn’t just in how it looks, how it stinks of cash-grab cynicism — it’s in how it refuses to see Minecraft for what it truly is: a feeling, a longing, a beautiful world that was never meant to be crammed into a studio backlot and sold back to us as something we no longer recognise.

The final log-out

Most players like me never realised when we were logging out for the last time. There was never any cinematic fairytale farewell. Just an unassuming click of the exit button. One day, another game takes its place. Another window opens. Life moves forward.

And yet, the world remains. Somewhere, deep in the code, the last place you stood is still recorded. Minecraft worlds remain exactly as they were left, preserved in a way that the real world never quite allows. They do not decay. They do not move on. You can always return, if only to wander through the ruins of your own imagination, to marvel at what you built before you knew why you were building.

Not every world is meant to be revisited. But it’s nice to know they’re still there.

A Minecraft Movie is running in theatres

Published – April 03, 2025 03:22 pm IST