Khalid Mohamed started as a teenaged reviewer for the film society magazine Close-Up. He then covered crime, politics and the arts for Mumbai's Times of India from the mid-1970s on. His reviews were feared for nearly two decades for their forthrightness. Appointed Media Editor of the paper, he was next Editor of Filmfare for nearly a decade. Simultaneously, he retained his portfolio as the daily's film critic. During his 27 years with The Times of India, he reviewed television for Economic Times, besides contributing articles to the Illustrated Weekly of India and Femina. His writing has also featured in India Today, The Indian Express, Stardust, Society, international film weekly Variety and in London's Sunday Observer. Subsequently, he was associated with television film programmes Movie Mahal on Britain's Channel 4 and Portraits of Directors for Doordarshan. He was film critic for Mid-day, Senior Editor of DNA, the newspaper, and National Culture Editor and film critic for Hindustan Times. Currently, he is Consulting Editor to the Deccan Chronicle media group. He wrote To B or Not to B, a book on Amitabh Bachchan, five years ago, and translated eminent painter MF Husain's autobiography from Hindustani to English. He has written the original stories and screenplays for three Shyam Benegal films: Mammo, Sardari Begum and Zubeidaa. He wrote the original stories and screenplays and also directed the films Fiza, Tehzeeb and Silsiilay. He debuted recently as a playwright and director of the stage play Kennedy Bridge.
Traversing the era of the British Raj, the Partition and India’s Independence to the here and now of the Internet millennium, the story of six sisters of a patriarchal Muslim family, is investigated by a journalist. Before coming of age, the sisters had run away in the deep cover of the night from a Haryana village to define their lives and destinies. Began an undeclared game of may-the-best-sister win. Earn money, express inchoate talents in the arts, hook the richest husband, raise the next generation right – these were just a scattering of their to-do list. Through confidences and vignettes, updates and interviews, the Mumbai journalist travels between Delhi, Ajmer, Mount Abu and London, to recreate the narrative of a confederacy of women who dared to break the rules way before they were written. The story – blending fact and fiction – could have been chronicled only by one journalist, the grandson of one of the sisters.
