Film : Provoked
Starring : Aishwarya Rai, Naveen Andrews, Nandita Das, Miranda Richardson
Director : Jagmohan Mundhra

Provoked, a true life account made into a film has been a much awaited release for Aishwarya, since she is seen in a new de-glam version throughout.
 
“In Prison, she found her freedom” is the tagline of the film, based on the life of Kiranjit Alhuwalia, an Indian lady who burnt her husband alive after ten years of living with his brutal physical abuse.

Film : The Namesake
Starring : Tabu, Irrfan Khan, Lal Penn
Director : Mira Nair

Mira Nair’s film based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Jhumpa Lahiri, is one of the few good movies of the season.

Moving from Kolkata to USA of the 1970’s, the story revolves around the Ganguly couple ( Irrfan and Tabu) who move to the US and have their two kids there, completely integrating with the local society.

Shivani Nath, MS, MFT, EdS, PhD (cand).
Marriage Counsellor

Shivani Nath is an expert in human relationships and specializes in Individual, Couple, and Family Therapy. Her areas of expertise are inclusive of sex therapy, anger management, and trauma/loss/grief/bereavement issues. She is a Professor of Psychology and Family Therapy at Kean University, New Jersey, and has private practices in New York and New Jersey. Shivani has been featured both in print and electronic media and has lectured nationally and internationally. Post your queries on Matrimony here.

The prize for the most notorious footwear fetish goes, of course, to Imelda Marcos, wife of the former President of the Philippines who was overthrown in a popular uprising in 1986. When President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife fled the country, his wife’s collection of over a thousand pairs of shoes, sporting designer labels and bought at the best stores around the world, was talked about and shown on international TV. Imelda Marcos clearly had an obsession with footwear. She probably never repeated a pair, regardless of whether it pinched, or was comfortable!

Guess what could be the worst scenario in life. Could it be not having enough money? Being jobless? Stricken by some serious illness?  Or losing someone near and dear? Of course each and every one of these situations could have a debilitating effect on our lives. But there is something still worse than all of these and that is a person without hope. When we lose hope, even the most fervent prayers, may take a long time to be answered because in our hearts what we are really saying is, “I’m saying this prayer but I don’t think I deserve to have this prayer answered.”