40 Retakes: Bollywood Classics You May Have Missed

Avijit Ghosh was born in Agartala, capital of the tiny north-eastern state of Tripura and grew up loitering in the small towns of Bihar and Jharkhand: Dumka, Giridih, Arrah and Ranchi. Spending most of his college hours in cinema halls, he graduated in history from St Xavier’s College, Ranchi and filched countless cups of canteen tea from friends on his way to earning MA and M Phil degrees in modern history from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

A journalist and a husband for the past 20 years, he has worked with Press Trust of India, The Pioneer (the best days of his life, some months he even worked for half pay), The Telegraph and is now employed as a senior editor with The Times of India. He has also been a visiting fellow at Center For The Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania.

Addicted to cinema and sports, he writes regularly on these subjects. He is author of the novel, Bandicoots in the Moonlight, which suffered the fate of an honorable art movie: a minor critical success and a major commercial failure. His second book, Cinema Bhojpuri, earned him a National Award for Best Writing on Cinema. Every guest at his home since has been forced to admire and appreciate the merit certificate signed by the President by his fawning family members.