PICTURE SPEAK

A play at the festival

DELHI After his global conquests from Washington to Barcelona, Rajeev Sethi, our roving ethnic scenographer on the international circuit, is back to basics campaigning for the lot of dhokra craftsmen of Chhattisgarh at Delhi's elite India International Centre. Under the banner of Sethi's Asian Heritage Foundation, the tribal craftsmen from the Jhara community of Raigarh used their skills to make a statement about the lopsided development in the region.

The story goes that the tribals discovered the craft by observing the synergy between bees' wax, termite clay, fire and metal. Part of the Apni Kahani Apni Zubani (Our Story, Our Voices) initiative, Nishan, the three-day exhibition displayed the typical bell metal figurines depicting a group of oarsmen, a steam engine and a band of musicians. And in stark contrast, below each panel was an audio-visual display where the artisans aired their grievances. According to V. Balasubramanian, a finance professional by the day and a volunteer with the foundation by night, the response to the three-day exhibition-cum-sale was good. "We managed to sell exhibits worth Rs 25,000. After this, we want to take the exhibition to popular public spaces such as the Delhi Metro," he said.

According to Sethi, while dhokra work from Raigarh brings in a lot of foreign exchange, the lives of the tribals haven't changed for the better. They work in neglect and no credit or facilities are available to them. The "open-letter" they wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a few months ago about their condition in their own creative idiom did not help matters much. "The idea was for the crafts community to write to the chief executive of the country. The alphabets of the letter were derived from the skills of artisans. Now, we will present a formal letter, along with photographic evidence of the problems they face, to the prime minister soon," announces Sethi. Perhaps, plain English will help comprehension.

-By Aasheesh Sharma

PICTURE SPEAK

A painting by Shyamal Mukherjee on show

MUMBAI Ashok Kumar is often referred to as the grandfather of Indian cinema. But not many know that this actor loved to paint with water colours. Kumar, also a practitioner of homeopathy, took to painting in the late 1950s and was largely self-taught. "After looking at his works, M.F. Husain once said that these were not the strokes of an amateur," says daughter Bharati Jaffrey, who, along with other members of the family, set up the Ashok Kumar Foundation in memory of this multifaceted artist. The foundation is organising an exhibition of art works by various artists such as Jagannath Paul, Vivan Sundaram and Shyamal Mukherjee from December 4 to December 10 at the Bajaj Art Gallery, Nariman Point. The highlight of the show will be the four works by Kumar himself. Only one of the four, the oil painting of a female nude in black and white, will be an original. The others are prints.

-By Vanita Singh

PICTURE SPEAK

A play at the festival

BANGALORE It's time for Bangalore to rock to culture once again. It's time for Bangalore Habba, or what has now come to be known as the official festival of Bangalore. Stalwarts in the field of dance, music, theatre, art, poetry and general festivities will mark the Habba from December 2 to December 11. For the first time Bangalore Habba will be travelling to other districts of Karnataka. Yakshagana, story telling sessions, street theatre, fashion shows, a film festival and music sessions-the party has come to town.

-By Nirmala Ravindran

PICTURE SPEAK

The cast of Deewane...

DEEWANE HUYE PAAGAL
Director: Vikram Bhatt
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Shahid Kapur

The best jokes in the low-brow classic There's Something About Mary concern an unfortunately stuck zipper and a bodily fluid mistakenly used as hair gel. These naturally could not make the Bollywood version. Still, Vikram Bhatt and his motley crew of stars wring out a few laughs from the material. Parts of the film have a madcap energy. But unlike the original, the copycat isn't content to merely amuse. So there are several unnecessary flashy songs, a redundant plot line involving a formula for youth and some expensive but tedious action. The real undoing is the leading lady. Rimi Sen eliciting such frantic passion in what seems to be most of Dubai's male population is a stretch. Thankfully, Kumar, Suniel Shetty and the poker-faced Vijay Raaz make up for her vapid presence. There is enough to make it worthwhile time pass.

-By Anupama Chopra

DELHI Easily the most media-shy master among the Indian modernists of the post-Independence generation, Himmat Shah is being presented in an exhibition titled "Evocations" by the Anant Art Gallery till December 27. The show, in the words of its curator Roobina Karode, comprises Shah's terracotta sculptures "that carry the memory of retrieved fragments or the experiences of a nomad, articulated through an economy of means and a heightened sensibility". A founder member of the watershed Group 1890-whose first and only show was inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru with a catalogue written by the Nobel laureate Octavio Paz-Shah studied art in Sir JJ School of Arts, Mumbai, and MS University, Vadodra, and then for a short time with S.W. Hayter and Krishna Reddy in Paris. Over the decades, Shah has worked with many mediums. "Poetic and playful, these mundane objects metamorphose into sculptures that unravel surprises," says Karode.

The Chennai-based Karadi Tales Company, with quite a track record behind it, has released Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography as an audio book, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, which is the perfect way to initiate children into history. An abridged version on a single CD, it is an extraordinary story voiced by director Shekhar Kapur (as Gandhi) and narrated by actor Nandita Das. "Gandhiji is extremely relevant to our times," says Kapur.

The Mahatma Gandhi Foundation has also released two albums, Ishwar Allah Tere Naam, an audio re-creation of Gandhi and his wife Kasturba's prayer meetings. The voice extracts of Gandhi are from a collection of speeches delivered at prayer meetings and recorded by All India Radio. With Vaishnav jana and Lead kindly light, the album is a collector's item. Voices range from Jagjit Singh and Shubha Mudgal to Ajoy Chakravarty and Suresh Wadekar. Ashit Desai has arranged a gripping music.

-By S. Sahaya Ranjit

It is a journey few musicians are fortunate enough to take. Sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan started his training under his guru-father Ustad Hafiz Ali Khan and gave his first performance at the age of six. Shouldering the sixth generation inheritance of the legendary lineage, the Senia Bangash gharana, Khan re-interpreted the sarod. This compilation captures moments of his musical journey from the early 1980s. The first CD has the morning and afternoon ragas. "Bilawal is my favourite. It makes it very easy for me to flow my vocal expressions through the sarod," says Khan. The second one has Ramkali, played at the Dover Lane Music Festival in Kolkata in 1980. The third CD has raga Saraswati and Tilang and which is replete with childhood memories. "My training started with raga Tilang. I am sentimentally attached to this raga," says Khan. The last CD has ragas Abhogi Kanhara, Hansdhwani and Zila Kafi. Truly a portrait of an artist.

-By S. Sahaya Ranjit

Index