Shukla Kumar, wife of Rajendra Kumar and mother of Kumar Gaurav, passes away; prayer meet to be held on January 10

Shukla Kumar, wife of legendary actor Rajendra Kumar and mother of actor Kumar Gaurav, passed away recently. The news has left the Hindi film fraternity and admirers of the Kumar family in mourning. A prayer meet in her remembrance will be held on January 10, as confirmed by close sources. While Shukla Kumar largely stayed away from the public eye, she was a central pillar in one of Bollywood’s most respected film families. Married to Rajendra Kumar, fondly remembered as “Jubilee Kumar” for his unmatched box-office streak, she witnessed the rise and transitions of Hindi cinema from close quarters. Her quiet presence remained constant through the highs of stardom and the inevitable shifts that followed. Her son, Kumar Gaurav, entered the film industry with one of the most sensational debuts Bollywood had seen. His 1981 film Love Story, opposite Vijeta Pandit, turned him into an overnight star and remains one of the most successful debut films in Hindi cinema. The actor was briefly hai...

Young Soul Rebels review – life-giving ode to diversity in silver jubilee London

Part thriller, part drama, part comedy, Isaac Julien’s urban pastoral set in the aftermath of a homophobic murder still feels fresh, buoyant and likable

Isaac Julien’s feature from 1991 is rereleased after more than 30 years and it still feels fresh, buoyant, likable and emotionally open. It is a paean to diversity and intersectionality set in east London during the 1977 Queen’s silver jubilee, with some cheeky jibes about middle-class outlaws and “St Martins” art-school types (St Martins being Julien’s own alma mater). Young Soul Rebels takes the form of an urban pastoral, but is also a kind of romantic comedy, a coming-of-age drama about friendship and a thriller about a brutal homophobic murder – and there’s actually a clever plot twist about the victim’s tape-deck which another type of film might have made much more of, maybe in the manner of Francis Ford Coppola.

A young black man is murdered while cruising in a park and the news has different effects on his friends, Chris (Valentine Nonyela) and Caz (Mo Sesay) who run a pirate radio station called Soul Patrol. Chris is stunned but Caz is all the more determined to throw himself into his music and maybe get them both a job on the local white-owned radio station, Metropolitan, which has a huge patriotic crown in the lobby and a life-sized cutout of the Queen, waving. (I’m surprised no one’s done that for King Charles.) Chris is angry that Caz is not as grief-stricken as he is, and pulls away from him into a relationship with stroppy white punk Billibud (Jason Durr); meanwhile, biracial and bisexual Caz faces bigotry from his black friends and he retreats from Chris into a new relationship with a production assistant at the radio station: this is Tracy, in which role Sophie Okonedo made a terrifically warm debut.

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