Entertainment

Guenon/Rogers: Multi-award-winning music director AR Rahman recently marked a family milestone—graduation of his daughter Raheema from Switzerland's Glion Institute of Higher Education. The composer who won his first Oscar a year ago is generally a family privacy defender but put up a graduation photo on Instagram. Raheema is standing with her graduation attire at the terminal end of her Hospitality, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation academic tracks.

Addressing her as his "little princess," Rahman was happy to share her academic success with the social media post, for which he had good wishes from the general public and well-wishers. The episode provided an insight into the composer who is highly well known for his internationally recognized contribution in films like Roja, Rockstar, and Slumdog Millionaire. 

Educational Background and Qualifications

Raheema Rahman has been educated with a combination of innovation and entrepreneurship. Her LinkedIn profile indicates she has a Master of Science in Hospitality, Entrepreneurship, and Innovation from the Glion Institute of Higher Education (Sep 2024 – Jan 2026) in Switzerland. She also holds a diploma in Patisserie from the International Centre for Culinary Arts in Dubai (Feb – May 2024).

Her academic life also includes a five-week Music Performance Intensive at Berklee College of Music in 2018, which reflects her interest in performing arts from the initial level. She pursued school-level education as an individual candidate under the Cambridge International Examinations system and had studied earlier at Lady Andal and Sir Mutha Schools in Chennai.

Early Career Experiences

Raheema's career experience reflects her interest in a variety of creative pursuits. Her LinkedIn page is a demonstration of the fact that she was an independent event planner, organizing a wedding event for a few days in 2022. She also interned in 2022 at Nayla Al Khaja Films in Dubai and was involved in directing and production. She got her initial known experience in 2019 as an intern social media marketer at Qyuki Digital Media.AR Rahman's daughter graduates from Switzerland college: Her education, qualification, career

Family Life and Recent Trends

Raheema is the third of three children of AR Rahman and Saira Banu. The family has been in the spotlight very rarely, the last being in 2022 when her sister Khatija Rahman married audio engineer Riyasdeen Shaik Mohamed in an undercover wedding.

Rahman and Saira Banu announced their divorce in 2024 after marriage for years after being haunted with emotional distress. The remark was made by a family member, as per different media sources. Saira, however, clarified to ANI this year that the two are not divorced legally and requested that individuals cease referring to her as Rahman's ex-wife. She had stated the remark while wishing him well while he recovered after battling chest pain and angioplasty.

Open your phone, put on your earphones, and you’re seconds away from entering someone’s mind. That’s what a podcast is,unfiltered, unhurried, and surprisingly intimate. Unlike video content that fights for your attention or text that demands your eyes, podcasts meet you where you are. Cooking, walking, commuting, zoning out at 2 AM,there’s always a place for them.

What started as a niche corner of the internet has become one of the most democratic forms of media today. With a mic, a voice, and an idea, anyone can start a podcast,and many have. As a result, the space isn’t just growing, it’s fragmenting. Which is good news for listeners: there’s now a podcast for every mood, ideology, and attention span.

Some people listen to unwind, some to learn, some to eavesdrop on conversations they’ll never be invited to. And that’s the charm. Podcasts don’t try to impress you with heavy editing or polished scripts (well, most don’t). They linger. They digress. They feel like thoughts unfolding in real time, because they often are.

In India, the scene is growing fast,and weird in the best way. Genre boundaries are loose. One episode might be political commentary, the next a rant about dating apps. The hosts don’t always sound “professional,” but that’s not the point. The point is that it feels real.

Take Untriggered with Amin Jaz, a show that never pretends to be anything it’s not. Or Prakhar ke Pravachan, which feels like your elder brother got philosophical and won’t shut up, but somehow, you’re still listening. Chaar Yaar delivers that exact group-chat energy, except in audio form. And The Having Said That show  balances cynicism with curiosity.  

Here are a few others worth checking out:

1. Dostcast – Long-form, raw, and unpredictable. Feels like stumbling into a conversation you didn’t know you needed.
2. Rumours by Bound – Deep dives into viral stories and internet mysteries—fact-checked, thoughtful, and gossip-friendly

     3.The Internet Said So – Stand-up comics discuss random internet stuff, shower thoughts, and childhood trauma (in a funny way).

     4.Chaar Yaar Podcast – Four friends, four mics, endless laughter and banter. Like a hostel conversation that got recorded.

     5.Having Said That – Chill conversations with comedians and creators that casually veer into surprisingly deep stuff

6. All About Now – Politics, pop culture, and layered context. Think of it as the opposite of hot takes.

There’s a reason podcasts keep growing while other forms of media feel stuck. They don’t need to sell you something every second. They’re allowed to be quiet, slow, or even a little boring,because sometimes, that’s exactly what we need. Another reason podcasts hit differently? Anyone can make one. You don’t need a million-dollar setup. Heck, half the podcasters you follow probably started with a Phone and a dream. (And maybe a chai and some good ‘ol friends)

That’s the beauty. Podcasts democratize voice. They allow people with perspectives,not necessarily clout to share stories. The girl rants about capitalism. The guy decoding Freud( with swear words). The chaotic duo fighting over pineapple pizza. It’s all there. Raw. Funny. Unfiltered.If you're tired of corporate-speak, marketing filters, and AI-generated “inspiration” posts, podcasts are your rebellion.

Podcasts for Every Personality (You Pretend to Have)

Not into interviews? Cool. Prefer absurd comedy? Done. Want soft Hindi poetry? Covered.Want to hear friends talk? Done.

There’s a podcast for literally every mood, niche, and personality

Podcasts offer presence, not performance.

There's space for rambling. For context. For nuance. When was the last time you got that on a reels?

So if you haven’t already fallen down the rabbit hole, maybe it’s time. Not every episode will change your life. But a good podcast will make you feel less alone inside your own head. And that’s no small thing.

By Aditi Sawarkar 

In recent years, online spaces have blurred the lines between humour and harm. Jokes about women’s safety, harassment, or assault aren’t new but their steady spread across meme pages, comment sections, and even influencer content points to something deeper. A cultural reflex. A discomfort masked as humour.

At first glance, it might seem harmless, a flippant comment, a sarcastic reel, a “dark joke” shared in the replies of a woman’s post about feeling unsafe. It’s “just humour,” they say. “Don’t be so sensitive.” But if you stop scrolling for a second, something deeply unsettling emerges.

Why is it so common, even normal to see men make jokes when women talk about their own safety?

You don’t have to dig deep. A tweet about catcalling gets quote-tweeted with, “Should’ve taken pepper spray lessons instead of makeup classes lol.” A video on stalking is met with, “Maybe stop thinking everyone’s obsessed with you.” A comment about fear while walking home alone becomes an opportunity for a guy to post a clown emoji or crack a joke about “attention-seeking feminism.”What’s scary is how little it takes for real fear to become a joke.

 These aren’t faceless trolls. These are boys you went to school with. The guy in your building who waves at your parents. The friend of a friend who sends reels and says “u up?” at 2 a.m. These are regular men, smart, “chill,” usually the ones described as “harmless.”

But the minute a woman opens up about her discomfort, their instinct is not empathy. It’s sarcasm. They’ll mock her tone. Question her experience. Minimise her fear. Not because they’re heartless but because it’s easier to dismiss a problem than to accept that you might be part of it. And if you call them out? The defence is instant: "It was just a joke."

But here's the thing, when jokes only go one way, they're not jokes. They're power plays. They're a way of reminding women, “You’re not supposed to take up this space. You’re not allowed to be loud about your pain.”

Being a woman online means being hyper-aware of tone. It means writing and rewriting captions to avoid being called out. It means double-thinking your stories, knowing there’s always someone waiting to laugh at you.

It means waking up to a message from a guy saying, “You’re making a big deal out of nothing.” It means having to defend why a “casual grope” in a crowd is not supposed to be casual. It means constantly being told, “Don’t think too much.”

Whenever a woman shares her story, you’ll hear it - “Not all men.” Of course, not all men. That was never the point. The more urgent, more heartbreaking truth is that all women, at some point, have felt the need to be afraid of all men. Not because they want to, but because they’ve had to. Because they’ve been followed, touched, stared at, harassed, sometimes by strangers, sometimes by people they trusted. 

The point is that enough men joke about these stories to make women scared to tell them. Enough men turn pain into jokes. Enough men are silent when their friends joke about rape or stalking in a group chat. Enough men mock women, then post "Justice for her" when a tragedy goes viral. The point is that if you’re a man reading this and your first instinct is to get defensive instead of curious, maybe you're not listening at all.

The truth is, most women don’t expect every man to be an activist. But they do hope (deeply) that the men around them will, at the very least, believe them;

That they’ll stop laughing.

That they’ll start noticing.

That they’ll speak up when it matters 

even if it's just in a comment section.

Humour is not harmless when it punches down. Mocking women’s fear doesn’t make you edgy. It makes you part of the problem.

And if that makes you uncomfortable? Good. Sit with it. That’s how change begins.

By Aditi Sawarkar

 Horror isn’t what it used to be. And no, that’s not just nostalgia talking. If you've been watching horror films for years or even just comparing horror films then vs now you've probably felt that the vibe has shifted. They unsettled you slowly. They relied on silence, dread, and atmosphere. The Exorcist, Psycho, The Shining,these weren’t just horror films, they were experiences. They crawled into your mind and stayed there, lingering long after the credits rolled.

Fast forward to now, and much of that has changed. The evolution of horror cinema hasn’t just been about better cameras or CGI ghosts but it’s also been about changing priorities. In trying to appeal to broader audiences, many horror films have lost what made them special in the first place.It’s not that horror doesn’t exist anymore. It’s just been diluted.

The Golden Age vs. Today

The decline of horror movies isn’t really about quantity (there are more horror films than ever); It’s about quality, intent, and originality. Today, horror is often treated like a genre that needs to be softened. Add some comedy, a romantic subplot, a jump scare every 15 minutes, and maybe a “relatable” character who never makes logical choices. It’s designed to be watchable by everyone, including people who don’t even like horror. In that process, it stops being scary.

A big part of the problem is that too many horror films feel the same. When you compare the old horror films vs now, you notice a formula setting in. Ghosts in white sarees (in India), haunted dolls, “inspired” plots that are just remakes in disguise and there’s nothing new to see, only recycled ideas. And when something truly bold comes along-like Tumbbad it often gets lost because it doesn’t fit the commercial formula or doesn’t get enough backing from mainstream platforms.

There’s also the issue of genre blending. “Horror comedy” is popular now, and while it has its place, it’s often used as a safety net. Horror, by nature, requires a certain discomfort. When that discomfort is constantly interrupted by punchlines, the mood breaks, and the scare is lost.

The history of horror movies shows us that good horror reflects the fears of its time.  The '70s and '80s gave us slasher flicks ( a subgenre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, )that explored social panic and individual vulnerability. Even supernatural horror used to be grounded in something that could be religion, culture, trauma, isolation. But when that emotional depth is replaced by predictable tropes and empty jump scares, the genre becomes shallow.

And let’s not ignore how the business side affects the creative side. Many filmmakers now design horror to pass the test of mass consumption. Global markets, streaming algorithms, and safe returns on investment. There’s less room for psychological horror or slow-burn storytelling when everything needs to hook the viewer in under five minutes.

This isn’t to say all horror today is bad. There are brilliant exceptions. Some indie films and international creators are still pushing boundaries. But they often go unnoticed because big-budget horror dominates the conversation, and audiences are conditioned to expect certain beats.

Ultimately, horror isn't supposed to be loud, fast, or funny. It needs to be honest. It needs to be specific in what it’s trying to say and how it says it. The genre isn’t dying, but  it is definitely struggling with identity.

Maybe the next great wave of horror won’t come from bigger effects or higher budgets ,but from remembering what made it work in the first place

By Aditi Sawarkar

During the early 2000s in India, many of us remember the serials Ramayan and Siya Ke Ram – ancient stories were adapted for the television sets in the homes of everyday folk. These shows were cultural landmarks in their time. It was announced that Nitesh Tiwari would be revisiting the Ramayana, this time with a production scale that India has yet to witness.

His casting choices further claim this project is already turning heads, the first part set to feature some of the biggest names in Indian cinema. Ranbir Kapoor as Lord Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita, and Yash as Ravana. Other prominent actors in supporting roles include Sunny Deol as Hanuman, Ravi Dubey as Lakshman, and Lara Dutta as Kaikeyi. 21st century audiences would be delighted at the casting of Arun Govil, who played Ram in the iconic 1980s television series. He will now play Dashrath, blending nostalgia with star power.

A.R. Rahman and Hans Zimmer are now onboard to score the film, which adds global appeal, and is a collaboration most didn't expect. Ramayana is being produced with next-gen VFX, IMAX cinematography and AI multi-language dubbing on a staggering combined budget of ₹4,000 crore (close to $500 million). This officially makes it the most expensive Indian film to date.

The story will unfold in two parts with the first scheduled for Diwali 2026 and the second for Diwali 2027. The festive timing for this release is intentional to capitalize on a period of heightened national sentiment and cultural bonding.

However, this ambition goes beyond India alone. As per reports, the film's producers are negotiating with a prominent Hollywood studio for international distribution, wanting to take this uniquely Indian tale to the world. With Ramayana, Indian cinema is attempting something unusual: turning a religious epic into a cultural export like The Lord of the Rings and Dune.

Needless to say, a production of this magnitude carries enormous expectations—and risk. The budget alone exceeds that of Baahubali, RRR, or Adipurush. Even the highest box office earners in India could not hope to make ₹4,000 crores just through domestic viewership. This means that the film will need to be viewed favorably outside of India, as well as in marketing and receive positive criticism.

The most recent teaser trailer put out by Sony Music India has gained more than 16 million views within two weeks. This shows that there is significant interest. But hype and interest on the internet does not always lead to actual purchases. It remains to be seen if the final cut can meet expectations or if it will fall victim to the controversy that surrounded previous adaptations.

This film goes beyond just being a cinematic venture; it is a cultural declaration as well. Ram is treated as not just a character, but a divine figure by many Indians. His tale showcases elements of faith and moral philosophy. Regardless of whether or not one accepts his divinity, Rama’s journey is seen as a pathway to self-discipline, love, loyalty, and duty.

The stakes are also raised by that emotional bond. Every artistic choice, including those related to script, costumes, and casting, will inevitably be closely examined. Nonetheless, recognition of the enormity of the endeavor is growing. Indian cinema appears prepared to give mythology the depth, richness, and grandeur it so richly deserves after decades of reserving it for devotional dramas.

It's simple to have doubts about a movie that costs ₹4,000 crore. However, Ramayana may be the only Indian tale that merits that degree of emotional, cultural, and cinematic investment.

Ultimately, there is just one question left: is it possible for this movie to deliver more quality than controversy?

By Jishnu Mukherjee

A government school in Kerala has made national news for transforming the classroom experience, quite literally. Breaking away from the conventional idea of "backbenchers," Ramavilasom Vocational Higher Secondary School (RVHSS) of Valakom, Kollam, has designed a creative seating system in which all students are placed at the front row, PTI says.

Chairs are then placed on all sides of the class, giving every child an equal view and access to the instructor. The idea was borrowed from a scene in the new Malayalam film Sthanarthi Sreekuttan, where a Class 7 student proposes the setup after being ridiculed for sitting at the back.

"It was out of his experience of being demeaned from a backbench that he formulated such a concept. I never expected it to reach such heights. It is not a concept evolved by us, but we did have such a seating arrangement in the past in classrooms under the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP), and we had lost it somewhere in between," opined Vinesh Viswanathan, director of the film.

"I have got a message that a school in Punjab has also adopted it after the principal saw the movie on the OTT platform. He even showed the movie to the students. I am happy that it gained national exposure," he added.

The model was first promoted by Kerala Minister K. B. Ganesh Kumar, whose family runs RMVHSS. A year before its release, the Minister had caught a glimpse of the movie and initiated discussions with the faculty of the school and introduced the new model in one of the lower primary classes. The result was so encouraging that the system has been introduced in all the school's lower primary sections.

Sunil P. Sekhar, the headmaster, told IANS that it aids them in giving equal attention to every child and remove the impression that backbenchers are neglected or diverted.

"I can take care of every one of the students in class and provide better care to every one of them. The students are also content as they get to see the faces of all the students in the class and keep a close watch on the teacher," said experienced teacher Meera, who has close to 30 years of experience.

The concept is now catching up at least eight more schools in Kerala and is also being monitored by teachers elsewhere in India. While social media critics continue to question its feasibility in classrooms that have too many students, Viswanathan holds that such a scenario goes against school rules and the authorities are taking note.

In a surprising turn of events, even Anand Mahindra welcomed the idea on Twitter, calling it a good move, although he did admit to having a fondness for the "backbencher" label.

While RVHSS is basking in the glory of former pupil G. P. Nandana's remarkable feat of securing rank 2 in Kerala and 47 at the national level in the Civil Services Exam, it is also earning brownie points for the innovative and bold move in education.