Alia Bhatt urges fans to support Assam flood relief; says “It happens every year and it still catches us off guard”

Alia Bhatt has joined several members of the entertainment industry in raising awareness about the ongoing flood crisis in Assam. The actress took to Instagram Stories to express concern over the devastation caused by the floods and appealed to her followers to come forward and support those affected. In her note, Alia highlighted the scale of the humanitarian crisis, pointing out the loss of lives, widespread displacement, and the destruction faced by thousands of families. She also stressed the need for both immediate relief and long-term rehabilitation efforts. She wrote, “Right now, floods are affecting so many parts of our country with Assam being among the hardest hit, facing an incredibly challenging time. More than 60 lives have been lost. Lakhs of people have been displaced. Entire families have lost their homes, their land, their livestock... and for some, even the people they love. It happens every year and it still catches us off guard.” The actress further revealed that s...

‘It’s like Game of Thrones!’ The return of India’s ancient superhero fantasy epic

In the 1980s, Peter Brook’s adaptation of The Mahabharata enchanted audiences on stage and screen. As Brook’s son presents a restored print at the Venice film festival, he and his team discuss the work’s extraordinary journey

When Antonin Stahly was nine years old, his mother took him to the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris to see a production of the ancient Indian epic The Mahabharata, which translates loosely as “the great story of mankind”. More than 20 actors from 16 countries performed on a stage steeped in red earth and scarred by a water-filled trench; fire also played a leading role. Directed by Peter Brook, whom the RSC founder Peter Hall called “the greatest innovator of his generation”, and adapted by Luis Buñuel’s former co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière, this spectacular Mahabharata weighed in at nine hours, plus intervals. Even at that length, it represented a massive compression of its source text, which runs to 1.8m words. Brook and Carrière’s version has been likened to summarising the Bible in 40 minutes.

Audiences could devour The Mahabharata in three parts over successive evenings or as an all-day weekend marathon; in some outdoor venues, such as the limestone quarry in Avignon where the production premiered in 1985, it began at dusk and climaxed just as the dawn sun lit up the sky. Stahly saw it in a single noon-to-midnight sitting. “It was like a superhero fantasy,” he says, still sounding awestruck. “It had Bhima, the strongest man on Earth, and Bhishma, who has the power to live for ever. Arjuna was the best warrior. And then there were all the gods. It was amazing for me, because I’m half Indian, but I wasn’t brought up in an Indian context.”

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