i recommend

Editor’s Note

Good ole Bollywood is changing, and one of the biggest reasons is fabulously talented young actors like Shreya Dhanwanthary who are forging their own unique path to stardom. Whether writing and directing the series ‘A Viral Wedding’ or lighting up the screen in ‘Scam 1992’, what we love most about Shreya is that she is always herself. Zero apologies given.

When I’m not dreaming up scenarios where I’m heroically saving the world from doomsday scenarios, I work. More often than not though, I worry about work. Luckily, my line of work will hopefully include scenarios where I’m heroically saving the world from doomsday scenarios. 🤓 Sooo what can I—who am super unqualified to give anyone advice about anything—recommend to people? Well, I genuinely love stories—on screen and on the page. So I’d love to share my choices. And I’ve also added one super special nerd-out category that is very me.

Science Fiction

Sci-fi is one of my favourite genres and the books that blew my mind in this category are:

‘Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy' : by Liu Cixin. So science-fiction is always expansive and this series of books completely extended… expanded the boundaries of whatever I had imagined or even ventured to imagine. It’s a must read! It’s both totally incredible and weirdly plausible.

‘Ready Player One' ; 'Ready Player Two' : by Ernest Cline. When I was reading this book, it actually played out like a film in my head. And then I found out that Steven Spielberg was actually adapting it for the big screen. While I didn’t like the movie as much, these books are fantastic!

‘Ender’s Game' : by Orson Scott Card. This one is a classic. Enough said.

Horror

This is another favourite genre. But this time around, I’m recommending stories told on the silver screen. 

‘The Sixth Sense' : This redefined the very idea of how a narrative in this genre unfolds.

‘The Cabin in the Woods' : This is hella fun and properly spooky. Redefines every cabin-in-the-woods horror movie trope and builds on it. 

‘Insidious' : Director James Wan arrived at a time where the horror film genre had somewhat stagnated, a time when we mostly had remakes of Korean & Japanese horror films (which are also fabulous). But Wan inspired a fabulous resurgence in the genre, by redefining its classic tropes. He brought back the classic demon flick plus the noises and the jump scares—and did it with flair.

Honorary mention: ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar’. Both were directed by Ari Aster. Again, these redefine the definition of horror movies. Also: the idea of setting a horror film completely in broad daylight. BRILLIANT. 

Board Games

I have about 150 games in my collection and my entire family is into gaming. Here’s what I highly recommend for anyone looking to try summin new.

• Monopoly: Classic. ‘Nuff said.
• Gizmos: A great machine building game with decent strategy and amount of randomness. My dad loves this one. Helluva lot of fun. 
• Kemet: A heavier strategy game with beautiful art and ancient Egyptian gods for company. We played this one for 8 hours once. 

Note: This is NOT sponsored content. We use this section to spotlight the recommendations of people we trust and admire.