PICTURE SPEAK

Cane and bamboo bridge made by the Idu Mishmi tribe

DELHI British rule contained the tribal Northeast between two lines: The McMahon and the Inner Line. The first demarcated colonial India's border with Tibet and the other kept the "mainstream" people of the Indian plains from over-running the regions and safeguarding the tribals from "foreign" influences. After Independence, prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru set up the North East Frontier Agency on the advice of anthropologist Verrier Elwin and continued the policy of "protective isolation". How well either of the lines served its purpose can be a subject of debate but the policy ensured that these areas remain, at best, exotic and unknown for the rest of the country.

Since 2002, the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, has been documenting the dynamics of cultural change among the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh under a five-year project. The first small sample of their work has just been put on show by the British Council at Crafts Museum. The exhibition, aptly titled "Tribal Transitions", comprises some absolutely riveting photographs shot by Michael Aram Tarr. More interestingly, these have been juxtaposed with pictures taken during the few recorded encounters that the British Raj had with the hapless tribals between 1862 and 1945.

Other than Sunil Janah and Pablo Bartholomew, few Indian lensmen have done any significant work with tribal cultures. For that reason alone Tarr's muse puts him in a rarefied category. But that is not to apologise for the aesthetic worth of his frames. Tarr has just the eye for the picture that tells more that the proverbial "hundred lines" and lends itself to readings well beyond the anthropological. Whether it is the communal building of the bamboo bridge across a river or the pattern of the textiles, Tarr traces the placid trajectory of tribal transition with a benign and rapturous gaze. The show, on till December 26, will travel to Kolkata, Itanagar and eventually to the British Museum, London.

-By S. Kalidas

PICTURE SPEAK

Puri's vibrant paintings celebrate nature

DELHI "Vasundhara", an exhibition of landscapes by Nigeria-based Rajiv Puri, celebrates the myriad hues and wonders of nature with an energy that takes one by surprise. A chartered accountant by profession, Puri is a self-taught painter. What impresses right away is his eye for both colour and composition. His vibrant canvases are at the same time reminiscent of the abstract expressionists of the 1960s and '70s New York, and of the calm realm of the Delhi artist Paramjit Singh. Curator Alka Pande quotes William Blake's famous lines "To see a world in a grain of sand ..." to describe Puri's capacity for conjuring up a strong image out of something small and prosaic. He plays with a range of styles from realistic to pure abstract. The latter is his more successful work with a play of colour and texture and just a hint of the form within. At the India Habitat Centre's Visual Art Gallery from December 15 to 22.

PICTURE SPEAK

An acrylic and ink by Gupta

DELHI "Eternal Recurrence: Return" celebrates the spirit of regeneration and the essence of renewal, creating a platform for 17 promising artists. It features canvas, bromide prints and video installations, and artists such as George Martin, Gigi Scaria and Manil Gupta, who are at the forefront of experimental and cutting-edge work. It has been curated by Ruchika Soi and Ranjita Chaney. At Shangrila Hotel, December 10-11; at Hotel Intercontinental, Nehru Place, December 13-17.

PICTURE SPEAK

A still from Apaharan

APAHARAN
Director: Prakash Jha
Starring: Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgan, Bipasha Basu

Bihar is India's heart of darkness and Prakash Jha, its most eloquent celluloid poet. For two decades Jha has turned an insightful but unforgiving eye on his homeland. In Apaharan he looks at the state's thriving kidnapping industry, which provides employment to youth and also handsomely rewards the establishment from the home minister downward.

Jha paints a deeply disturbing portrait of a moral wasteland. In the mayhem, he finds moments of delectable black comedy-a goon complains about a policeman demanding a hefty bribe: "Koi insaaf nahin hai, sab lootne mein lage hain." Another calculates the investment cost in a kidnap, including "daily kharcha" for the kidnappers. But the taut script loosens considerably in the second half. Once the hero is mired in murder and money, the plot stalls and then collapses in an unsatisfying climax. Still Apaharan is a compelling attempt at marrying mainstream storytelling with a realistic subject.

-By Anupama Chopra

PICTURE SPEAK

Irani (left) with Oberoi

HOME DELIVERY
Director: Sujoy Ghosh
Starring: Vivek Oberoi, Mahima Chaudhury, Ayesha Takia

When the script is so good that the director decides to rely on wordplay alone, there's trouble. And that's the problem with this film, an otherwise perfect take on life inside Bollywood. There's Cleavage Kumari played by an over-the-top and under-dressed Chaudhury; there's Gyan Guru (Oberoi) with a boyhood fixation on Mithun Chakraborty; there's a neighbour who speaks Hindi better than Dharmendra in the classic comedy Chupke Chupke and a P3P killer who chases socialites. Ghosh, whose debut film Jhankaar Beats was a steaming hot pizza-comfort food at its best-goes out on a limb to add lots of extra toppings. Boman Irani as one of them is wasted. But anyone overdosed on the shoddy bawdy comedies released this year should welcome this. Not for nothing did half of Bollywood, including Karan Johar, decide to walk in and out of the film.

-By Kaveree Bamzai

MR YA MISS
Director: Antara Mali, Sachit Puranik
Starring: Antara Mali

PICTURE SPEAK

Mali in the film

What will Ms Mali take to take a break from Bollywood? Not, one hopes, one more film. This is a train wreck of a movie, with Mali in innumerable bad hair and bad costume days. Ostensibly a feminist take on what it's like when a man becomes a woman, copied with great exactitude and no brains from the Hollywood film, Switch, this is vanity film making at its worst.

Mali screeches through the movie, Divya Dutta blows smoke, Riteish Deshmukh looks suitably befuddled (you would too if you to sleep with a man who is a woman who is Ms Mali) and a soundtrack left over from Ram Gopal Varma's Company plays incessantly in the background. Mali pouts, prances, gets wet, wasted, half-naked and fully whacked. The redeeming feature? It ends soon.

-By Kaveree Bamzai

BLUFFMASTER!, Sa Re Ga Ma
CD: Rs 175

Bluffmaster! is for the young and the restless. There is not a single song in the album that you can hum or a melody that will haunt you. It could be that most of the songs are for thematic or background music. It has a remix of old songs like Sabse bada rupaiya, originally sung by Mehmood and Do or do panch. Hold on, the sensuous song, Tadbeer se bigdi hui taqdeer, by Geeta Dutt is called Destiny mix. Ha! But thankfully they have given credit to the original composers. Abhishek Bachchan does a duet (read chants) with Sunidhi Chauhan. Good lounge music.

EK AJNABEE, T-Series
CD: Rs 125

Ek Ajnabee is an assortment of songs and music composers, including Amar Mohile and Vishal-Shekhar. Kunal Ganjawala's flexible voice is suited for both English and Hindi songs. The theme song, Barf khushi hai, by Kailash Kher is haunting. The song that grows on you is Tere liye. A racy album.

-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