Shashank shende biography of martin

If a film opens with a scene of a farmer hanging himself, as people, including his young son, gather below in mute resignation, you know it’s not afraid of causing a furore.

Set in a village in Maharashtra, Bodhi depicts an ideological tussle over land between two minority communities in India – the Buddhists and the Christians. Father Benedict (Shashank Shende) symbolises the all-powerful Church who lures the lower caste farmers into conversion under the pretext of free land and an ‘honorable’ life of service. The David, standing up to the Goliath-like-Church, is Vinya (Ninad Mahajani), an educated lower caste farmer, whose resistance to conversion is a fight to ensure his peoples’ precarious survival.

With a conscientious script and persuasive performances by actors Ninad Mahajani and Shashank Shende, Bodhi has no dearth of compelling scenes. In a staggering instance, Vinya, who had caught the Church’s attention owing to his fine spoken English skills, tells Father Benedict, “English is the milk of the lioness, he who drinks, roars.” An ode to Ambedkar, the film locks horns with the issue of social mobility which has been as an aspiration for generations of the lower caste community. In another, stand-out scene, Father Benedict, the priest of the Church, supposedly a messenger of God, is introduced like a Devil, with thunder and lighting announcing his arrival as he stands in a menacing long shadow. It is through these moments of light and sound play that the film accentuates its narrative stance.

Speaking only through parables, he explains the plight of all Dalit farmers through the myth of Sisyphus. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is cursed to push a boulder up the mountain, which falls immediately as it reaches the top and he has to repeat the cycle till eternity. The film holds the Sisyphus myth as an analogy for the minorities in India, who, like Sisyphus are caught in an endless cycle of oppression, and yet, are expected to accept their fate with su

• Onyx Storm

• Empyrean, Book 3
• By: Rebecca Yarros
• Narrated by: Jasmin Walker, Justis Bolding, Teddy Hamilton, and others
• Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
• Unabridged

• Overall

  4.5 out of 5 stars18,580

• Performance

  4.5 out of 5 stars18,237

• Story

  4.5 out of 5 stars18,237

After nearly eighteen months at Basgiath War College, Violet Sorrengail knows there’s no more time for lessons. No more time for uncertainty. Because the battle has truly begun, and with enemies closing in from outside their walls and within their ranks, it’s impossible to know who to trust. Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

• 4 out of 5 stars

• Wait for the dramatized adaptation

• By L. Sacco on 01-24-25