Baiscope Entertainments -Workshop on Indian Animation Industry

Having attended Baiscope Entertainment's previous workshop with Anurag Kashyap we were quite gung ho about the animation workshop that they had invited us to.

The speakers were scheduled to be Geetanjali Rao winner of 3 awards at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival and Siddharth Jain Head of the Animation Division at Adlabs Films Ltd

Geetanjali spoke about her experience with Animation since the last 10+ years. How animation was intially shot on 35mm cameras & each frame had to be drawn painstakingly. She also went into a lot of technical details which were very interesting, especially to the aspiring animators in the audience. Readers would recognise her work from the Hutch MMS animated ads



She has produced, directed & animated the film Printed Rainbow which won 3 awards at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival Kodak Discovery for best short film, OFAJ Very Young Critics Award and Petite Rail d'Or Award for best short film.

The animated short film is about an old woman who lives alone with her cat who is transported into new worlds when she looks at the covers of the matchboxes that she has painstakingly collected.

Siddharth Jain spoke about the Business Aspect of Animated Films. With Hanuman making a sizeable ROI, a lot of people are now interested in the Animation genre, but unfortunately not all of them can produce a good quality film. Plus for big producers, there are no previous trend lines to observe before taking a decision on whether to invest capital in an Animated Movie.

Adlabs is currently in the process of making an animated movie with Rajnikant as the main character. Hopefully this will be a success & this will give fillip to the fledgling animation film industry in India

World Cup Finals at Fame Adlabs

Citibank invited some of its account holders to view the Finals on the big screen at Fame Andheri.

Coupons for a free beer, pepsi & popcorn were also included in the offer. Since a couple of friends had also been invited, we thought it would be a good idea to watch the match together at the theatre. Added bonus, no snack supply/post party cleaning up operations for me.

But never again will we watch a match in a theatre. The acoustics kept failing. Picture quality was quite pathetic. (something about transmitting an analog signal onto a digital screen or some techy stuff like that) At half time the snack stands had serpentine queues since 4 screens were screening the match.

At one time (early matches) the offer was supposedly unlimited beer. But after a few drunken brawls between opposing fans, management of the theatre demoted it to a single beer.

Not an experience we would voluntarily repeat.

PEN@Prithvi: Deciphering the City

In May last year, PEN tried to re-invent itself. They moved to new premises (from ground floor to second floor), inducted new executive committee members : Literary organiser and activist Aspi Mistry, writer Sampurna Chattarji, architect Savio Lobo and journalist Ronita Torcota.

At that time, PEN secretary Ranjit Hoskote said that, "the PEN committee went through a lot of introspection and has now inducted four new members in the executive committee. This, the PEN feels will save the literary body from going through a phase of inertia that it underwent in the last nine months."

Unfortunately this did not work out as planned. PEN went through another phase of inertia. They then felt that maybe South Mumbai was too far away for most of their target audience & so 3 months back they started PEN @ Prithvi. The first meeting in May garnered a large audience, but at todays meeting there were just 23 of us. Including Ranjit, Sampurna and the 3 panelists.

The Invitation from Sampurna said :
DECIPHERING THE CITY
A panel discussion with Naresh Fernandes, writer and editor, Altaf Tyrewala, novelist, and Nishtha Jain, filmmaker, talking about ways of understanding the city/urbanscape through their own methodologies of making.
Date: Saturday, 8 July 2006
Time: 6.30 pm onwards
Place: Prithvi House, 1st floor (opposite Prithvi Theatre, Janki Kutir, Juhu, Bombay)

Most Mumbaiyyas would recognise Naresh's name as the editor of Time Out, Mumbai but not as many would know that, he is also the co-editor with Jerry Pinto of Bombay Meri Jaan, an anthology of writing about India's largest city. In 1996, he was among the authors of Murder of the Mills, a citizens' report on industrial sickness in Mumbai's textile industry, and in 1993 he was among the contributors to When Bombay Burned, a collection of reportage and commentary on the Mumbai riots.

Naresh started the discussion with a few incidents from his youth, linked them to his experience as a Wall Street Journalist in New York. He dwelled on how other than the Rajabai Tower & The Gateway of India there was no other monument that could be identified with Bombay (he did admit that VT was too large to fit on the cover page)
The setting was informal (shoes off & seating on chaadars) so his chatty informal style went perfectly well with it. He was interesting & amusing to listen to.

Altaf Tyrewala is the author of No God in Sight (Penguin, 2005). Time Out, Mumbai readers would also recognise him from his column 'Tyred & Tested'

Altaf read out a short piece on his relationship and feelings towards Bombay, which will be printed in a future issue of Time Out, Mumbai Essentially it was about how the city keeps calling him back and how he feels moored to Bombay. He also read out one of the short stories from his new book. Seems like that too will be in monologues like the previous one.

I have a soft corner for Altaf, since the time I met him at a Juhu Book Club Meeting and he remembered my name from a piece of fiction I had written for the Caferati Flash Fiction Contest and he had judged. Read about that episode here.

If reading his book was a pleasure, listening to him read from it, was an experience that actually transported us into the mind of his protagonist.

Nishta Jain's 2005 film, City of Photos explores neighborhood photo studios, unearthing the imaginary buried under gritty physical realities. Currently she is shooting a film about the city of Mumbai as seen, experienced and imagined by migrants to the city, including herself. Her other films are Call it Slut (2006) and Shadows Out of Time (2002).

From this point the quality degenerated. Nishta kept rambling, mostly off topic, highly prejudiced against muslims. (for eg : describing her City of Photos where one of the backgrounds at the studios for pictures was the crashing of the twin towers she said "I thought only the muslims wanted to take their pictures in front of that background, rejoicing and all that, but even others were taking their pictures with it") All this while when Altaf was seated right next to her. Its not wrong to have an opinion, but you also need to be sensitive to the feelings of people around you. Wonder how someone so prejudiced and closed to new ideas & concepts can be a documentary film maker. She went on & on & on in a monologue highly punctuated with "You know's" (minimum of twice in each & every sentence)

This started a verbal free-for-all by some attendees between whenever she stopped to catch her breath and her actually catching it. A lot of pseudo intellectual crap was bandied about by those who wanted their voice heard. (eg: 1 woman - "Suketu came home and read to us one of the stories from his book, of the birds fling in the taxi in Worli"- no one gave her any "bhav" so at this point she added- "from Maximum City you know") A few members did come up with a few good points, but they were overshadowed by those with verbal diarhoea. Naresh & Altaf wisely distanced themselves mentally from these attempts at verbal one-up(wo)manship.

Ranjit wisely called an end to the chaos (albeit an hour too late). Sampurna announced the relaunch of "PENumbra" the magazine. Most of us rushed away to salvage the rest of our Saturday evening.

I did enjoy the first 2 speakers, after that it was a waste of time. Nothing about the city was deciphered. There were some large cribs against other cities. some talk about villages being feudalistic & cities being capitalistic. In villages you survive but in cities like Mumbai you live & other such high sounding notions & inane conversation topics. None of which would benefit anyone in the crowd nor would be remembered by any.

Most memorable incident of the evening ? Altaf completed his reading, looked around at the audience for reactions & once Nishta started to ramble, he gave a quick questioning look at his wife (I didn't catch her name), she gave him an approving look & a nod & only then did he smile a relaxed smile. Authors are human too. . .

PEN - Indian chapter of International association of Poets, Playwrights, editors, Essayists & Novelists. They hold regular readings and workshops. You can be an Associate member or a full member. No qualifications to be an Associate Member. One has to have 2 published works for full membership.

Dastangoi - The Lost Art of Story Telling

Mahmood Farooqui (right) and Danish Husain performed the dastangoi at the NCPA last Friday.

I initially read about "Dastangoi" in Time Out Mumbai, my source of knowledge for events in Mumbai. Then Dan Hussain posted an invite on the Caferati message board.

Exchanged a couple of mails with Dan in which he told me I didn't need to understand the language to enjoy the performance. I was a bit sceptical, but thought why not attend ? The performance at NCPA was free, so could leave at the interval if I could not make sense of it. Plus inlaws were in town & they love theatre and understand a fair amount of Urdu.

So the 6 of us bundled ourselves into the car at 4:15 to reach NCPA by 6:30.

The next 2 hours were completely spellbinding. As most people who know me would tell you, my knowledge of Hindi is recently acquired & I can barely manage the colloquial stuff, so I was wondering if I would be able to understand any of the proceedings. Inspite of Dan's assurances, my doubts persisted till Mahmood began to weave his tapestries.

Dastangoi is very difficult to describe. It needs to be experienced. But let me try to give you an idea of what to expect. Its a cross between a theatre performance & a poetry reading. The words are wonderfully descriptive and conjure visions in your head. The perfomers are seated but use expressions, gestures, tone of voice & myriad other techniques to transport you into a realm of fantasy consisting partly of "tilisms" (alternate worlds), aiyyaars, sorcerers & magicians.

"Dastangos were those who told ‘dastans’ (stories). Recounting tales of Amir Hamza, the Prophet Mohammed’s uncle, they told narratives of his battles with infidels, sorcerers and other pretenders to divinity.” says Farooqui.

"In the dastani worldview, good and bad are evenly matched, infinitely. When an evil sorcerer dies, a new one rises to replace him. When someone on the righteous side is killed, another one is quickly found to replace him. Hamza is the lead character, he is the Lord of the age."

"Dastangoyee is about four things: Razm — warfare, Bazm — assembly of singing, dancing and seducing, Tilism — magical effect or artefact created by the sorcerer, and Aiyyari — chicanery, trickery, disguise. The aiyyars, the tricksters, are employed by both sides."

If you would like to read more about the subject, do read
Mahmood's interview with Mumbai Mirror
Mahmood's interview with Mumbai Mirror
Mahmood's interview with Tehelka

If you would like to watch a performance, you are in luck. If you already caught the NCPA perfomance, then consider this the next couple of episodes.

Dastangoi: A Presentation of the Lost Form of Storytelling
(A Part of Katha Collage II)




The Sea of Eloquence – An Evening of Dastan-e-Amir Hamza
July 1 & 2, 2006 at 9:00 pm, Prithvi Theatre, Juhu, Mumbai

Tickets available at Prithvi on the day of performance itself.

The oral narration of Dastan-e-Amir Hamza was a popular past time in most parts of Central, Western and South Asia and North Africa since medieval times. Originally composed in Persian, the Dastan-e-Amir Hamza describes the battles of Amir Hamza, the Prophet Muhammad's Uncle, against infidels, sorcerers and other pretenders to divinity.

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the Dastan-e-Amir Hamza was singularly successful in entertaining a whole range of people, from the commoners at chauks and nukkads to the elites in their palaces; it was performed at the steps of the Jama Masjid where Dastangos gathered. While their neglect as literature is inexcusable, they have been wholly obliterated from the canon of performing arts. As anecdotes of Mir Baqar Ali, the last known Dastango of Delhi, testify, their performances required an exceptional command over rhetoric, delivery, mimicry, ventriloquism and spontaneous composition.

The present performance of Dastangoi builds upon some recent shows that were enthusiastically received in the Capital. The performance consisted of portions of the best-known daftar, or chapter, of the 46 volume Dastan-e-Amir Hamza, the Tilism Hoshruba, the 'Enchantment that Steals away the Senses', which is itself in seven volumes.

The performances have come about as a result of a collaboration between S.R. Faruqi, the foremost living authority on these Dastans and the only person to possess a full set of all the 46 volumes, and the performers. Faced with neglect and systematic devaluation we now have very scanty evidence for the way in which these Dastans were compiled and performed. Even basic things such as movements, gesticulation, stage setting are wholly unknown. The current performance is therefore merely an exploration of an Art form which, astonishingly in a culture where poetry was regarded as the supreme art, was considered by some to be of a higher order than poetry itself. Dastangos were supposed to be a repository not just of language, common speech as well as literary, but also of social mores, craftsmanship, and all other forms of knowledge.

The Dastangos of old performed in an oral culture where memory, sound and directness were much prized. As modern actors we neither have skills to memorize whole daftars, nor the inventiveness to do spontaneous and extempore improvisations which are the hallmark of oral performances.

Mahmood Farooqui
New Delhi


Mahmood Farooqui is a self-trained actor and performer whose most recent foray into acting consisted of a role in Mahesh Dattani's English film, Mango Soufflé. Initiated into theatre as a schoolboy, and as stage manager, by Mohan Maharishi, former director of the National School of Drama, he directed several plays at school and college, and prepared for the final entrance workshop of the NSD, before founding his own amateur theatre group called Dastak Theatre. After completing his M Phil in Indian History from Cambridge University, Mahmood went to Mumbai and performed in IPTA's Aakhri Shama and the Company Theatre's Hindustani presentation of Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead. Earlier this year, he was given a Fellowship by Sarai, CSDS to work on the Dastan-e-Amir Hamza.



Danish Husain has done theatre with the best names in the country - Habib Tanvir, M.S. Sathyu, Barry John, Rajinder Nath, Sabina Mehta Jaitley, Aziz Quraishi, et al in a wide variety of roles. His latest assignments include a play called Raja by Rabindra Nath Tagore and a movie, Losing Gemma, by Granada Productions for a British TV Channel called ITV. He also performed at Bonn Theatre Festival in May 2006 as part of Habib Tanvir's Agra Bazaar troupe. Besides being an accomplished actor Danish is a poet and a writer, whose work has been published across a cross-section of media, including Tehelka and other journals. He is a member of few collaborative blogs and a writer's group called Wriyaz supported by the British Council. Danish holds a Master's degree in economics from the Delhi School of Economics and an MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi.


Get to know the performers at
Mahmood Farooqui's Blog
Dan's poems & his Discontents
Dan's Proseonama

Eternal Gandhi Exhibition

At a time when Gandhiji's ideas seem to have become relegated to tomes of history textbooks, the Eternal Gandhi multimedia exhibition helps to bring his ideas back into focus in a medium that makes it easy for todays kids to relate to & understand.

The exhibits explore Gandhiji's philosophies, the books that moulded him, his ashram stays and other thoughts through computer generated designs and interactive installations. It is an attempt to explore and convey how Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi became the "Mahatma".


Conceptualised and directed by Ranjit Makkuni and his team at Sacred World Research Laboratory, the exhibition first displayed in Delhi, moved to Bombay a couple of months ago. For awhile it was exhibited at the Cowasji Jehangir Hall

But since the last month it has been displayed at the CSMVS. You still can catch it until the end of this month.

The Birla Trust has helped undertake part of the fiscal responsibility.

What you can expect to see :

Raghupati Xylophone : The notes are pre-arranged to play Gandhiji's favourite bhajan. You don't need to be a musician to play it.



Laser India Harp - allows the visitor to trigger music by touching the laser beams.

Pillar of Castelessness - Embodies "United we stand & Divided we fall" by lighting up when all around the pillar hold hands and turning dark when they let go.


Stambha - 11 rotating discs. Each triggers a visual clip of Gandhiji's principles of Satyagraha.

A wooden replica of Sabarmati Ashram

Each Pillar when touched starts an audio visual presentation of Ashram Life.

A Mural of Raja Harischandra's Story


A fibre optic Jail Cell to mimic the one Gandhi was imprisoned at, which has his Jail journal beamed across the cell floor.

The Charaka is everywhere.
As a motif, as a theme, as a background, as an exhibit....

And an extremely life-like wax figure of Gandhiji which could have you thinking its a real person sitting there. (The webbed toes gave it away)

....among other exhibits.

The exhibition is best summed up by a kid I overheard at the exhibition "Mommy, mommy ! This is so much fun !!!"

To be relevant and speak to today's generation of kids, you need to involve them in the discovery process by stimulating not just their minds but by appealing to their visual and auditory senses too. Since the experience also combines a tactile dimension, it succeeds on all counts. The exhibition is equally appealing to adults too, it shows that we CAN make Indian Museums a better leisure experience.

Anurag Kashyap's workshop & "GULAL"

Late Saturday evening, saw an event listing on Ryze

Satya, Shool , Nayak, Yuva.... and Black Friday
You have loved the movies, Now meet the man...
BAISCOPE ENTERTAINMENT
presents
a workshop * by writer - director ANURAG KASHYAP
on
Sunday, March 19, 2006, at 3pm
at 5th floor, Fun Republic, Andheri (W)
Entry fee: Rs 100/- per person (for non members)
Rs 20/- per person (for members)

Well, because of problems with the Censor board & then the Supreme court, I haven't had the chance to watch Black Friday, but I do own a copy of its audio casette, since music was done by "Indian Ocean" another favorite of mine. But, I digress.

As I was saying before, I am a huge fan of Anurag Kashyap's acting. Yes, he acts in theatre. Mainly with Makarand Deshpande's troupe "Ankh"

With the cast of Sir Sir Sarla III

So although I had never heard about BAIScope before, my interest was piqued and off I trooped to Fun Republic on Sunday evening.

After a harrowing expedition all over the complex, up & down escalators, elevators and stairs, gathering more lost souls along the way, we all finally found our way to the special screening theatre on the 7th floor with a rear gate entry.

The session started a little late, but most didnt mind since the setting was informal & kinda cosy. The special screening theatre has its own mini concession stand which will serve you at your seat inside, once you place an order. The theatre seats about 100 or so, I think.

baiscope then proceded to introduce themselves as an NGO for the film fraternity. Their initial endeavour is to provide a platform for interaction and information for budding actors, directors, script writers, anyone who is trying to get a foot in the door in films and media. the core group consists of some energetic young members from every range in the media spectrum. From CNBC to ad agencies and onwards. This was their first public event, so maybe I will have more info on them in future.

Anurag was then given centre stage. He introduced himself saying that he had made 2.8 films. "Paanch" which was scuttled by the Censors. "Black Friday" which was halted by the Supreme Court and "Gulal" which is currently under production.

He started out by showing us the raw version of "Gulal" his new film. I have never watched a Raw Version before and it gave me huge appreciation of the reason that there are seperate Oscars for Sound editing, Film editing & Sound Mixing.
In a raw version the colors are bad, the sound track goes all over the place. When characters talk loudly or shout, it results in screeching effects and so on.

Inspite of all this, the story line was interesting and quite gripping as it progressed. Having learnt from previous experience, he has now set his film in the future. With the breakdown of the government & democracy, the maharaja's in Rajasthan are trying to wrest control back to form the princely state of Rajputana. The movie is a simple love story set against this backdrop.

We just watched a section of the film, but it was enough to whet our appetites for its release. There is some brilliant music with excellent lyrics including some incredible poetry woven into the story line.

The floor was now open to questions which flew thick, fast & furiously. What emerged was that the man himself was a sensitive soul with strong views and the courage & conviction in his beliefs which helped keep him going through all adversities. Some of the most interesting things he said over the evening were :
"The struggle is not to make it to a producer or to find a star or to tell a story, the struggle is in your head."
"You have to be willing to risk everything"
"Only when you have lost everything, then can something good come out"
"MF Hussain can express his art anyway he likes because he uses his time, his supplies, his creativity, his money. A director is responsible to the people who lend him the money to make his film and he needs to keep their sensibilities and viewpoints in mind too"

One of the few interesting individuals I have had the pleasure of interacting with recently. He clearly knows what he wants & is not afraid to do what is necessary to get there. I do hope that "Gulal" is released properly in India so that the country gets a chance to see what a great Director he is and listen to the wonderful stories that he has to tell.

Now, I've to go find me a copy of "Black Friday" or maybe attend an International Film Festival where it is being screened.

Support for Anurag on the blogosphere:
http://easyreview.blogspot.com/2005/10/black-friday-haunting.html
http://crossstyx.blogspot.com/2005/06/black-friday-director-anurag-kashyap.html
http://middlestage.blogspot.com/2005/04/waiting-for-black-friday.html

Opening of Fluid Spice

Attended the opening of Fluid Spice.
2nd Floor
Mohid Heights
Next to Andheri RTO
Opp Mandke Hospital
Lokhandwala Complex Road
Andheri (W)

It was combined with some kind of party for Sony's Friday night BIG 4 line up. I think they r Kandly Floss, Fear Factor & something else. Waiters were all wearing Fear Factor T-shirts & the entire Sony set of actors were there. Including the cast of Jassi & meri life hain The cast of CID looked as sullen and expressionless as they do in their promos that I've seen on AXN. Don't know how they actually "act" but guessing, its fairly similar. Gimme CSI anyday regular, Miami or New York. Even the History Channel has a good line up of detection based real cases which are excellent. I'm an NYPD blue, Special Victims Unit fan, so its better I don't watch the watered down hindi versions.

Gossip quotient : well I couldn't recognise too many of the actors or actresses (from anything other than the attitude they give off to lesser mortals.) except Archana Puran Singh & Parmeeth Sethi and Apoorva Agnihotri & Shilpa Saklani (the previous jodi was a favourite on "Nach Baliye" Jassi was there and spent the night dancing with Nandu. Has she broken up with that Band of Boys guy ?

The most spicy bit of speculation came from......
Jassi (Mona whatever) was standing hardly 15 metres from the entry door (the inital room with the bar is a long corridor with the bar running down its length. The disc & DJ area is a larger room that comnnects to the bar) Armaan Sir entered with wife (who has finally got rid of those armpit-to-fingertips red bangles she used to wear earlier, which looked obnoxious with most western outfits that she prefers) and there was a huge, really huge, hi hello commotion for them when they entered. Jassi who was backing the door, did not even bother to turn around. Although most people in the little group she was talking to started frantically waving their hi's & signalling them to come over to be mwah mwahed. She walked away for a bit. Then once the inital commotion was over she came back gave a perfunctory hug to armaan for the ever waiting cameras , snubbed the wife & walked off.

Inferences:

• Either Jassi is threatened by Armaan. Larger fan base/better acting/successful marriage/better looking/better career.... (fill in your own reason here, I'm sure u read enough gossip columns)
• Theres something brewing between the 2 & they don't want it known in public.
• The 2 are mortal enemies in the fight for eyeballs.

Food was good. Good variety of snacks for non vegetarians. I think there were only 2 varieties of veg stuff. Open bar as mandatory. (Someone told me at a recent VH1 party, they had to pay for drinks) Good open, well lit layout for dinner in an adjoining room. Reasonably tasty food. Although the tiramisu was more like one from a punjabi kitchen than an Italian one.

Can't comment on pricing. But guess Fluid Spice will do quite well. Given its proximity to the Balaji, SAB & other TV Factories and tons of bored actors/actresses looking for a place to unwind after work. PArty went on till the wee hours inspite of a friendly visit from the neighbourhood mamus at midnight.

The Zoom Holi Party

Got an Invitation from Zoom to party with Abhishek. Wonder which Abhisehk they were talking about since the Bacchan dude had mentioned to papers earlier in the week that he would not be in Mumbai during Holi.

Anyway, we decided to go. Since a party was any day better than me putting fight to make puranpolis, gujiyas & puri's at home.

We quickly took out our clothes kept aside earlier in the year especially to be rendered useless on "Holi"

Entry to "Sun n Sand" was a bit chaotic. The invite had asked everyone to "Come at 10 and wear your Whitest Whites" Most people only took the second half seriously. While others wore the whites that no Tide or Ariel or Surf could get up to advertised whiteness.

There were lots of tubs of colored powder around and fortunately they were of the natural variety. There was a central area where water was being sprayed, kinda like a rain dance.

Lots of TV stars around, no film stars at all unless you could count Rahul Roy who walked in around 3OClock with Paromita Katkar....

Of course a lot of stars were unrecognisable in wet clothes {grin} and colours all over them. The Zoom site has photos up if you are interested. Just realised the geeky kid with glasses was actually Amit Sana.

Pooja Bedi was on the dance floor non stop in a clingy sari & virtually non existent blouse. Guess Zoom had given her a decent deal to be wet and wild from start to finish.

There was Thandai (not laced with Bhang) and an open bar for those who needed bolstering of spirits. A chaat counter which was serving vodka gol guppas, and whisky infused bhel & other such intoxicating sounding items. Decent kebabs & salads and tawa stuff. The main course wasnt too great but the desserts were great. Guess will have to go back to Sun n Sand to eat at their regular restaurants.

Couple of firang models were hired to ensure that people (read Men) stayed at the watery end of the floor. Who were then seen pichkaring thandai into open mouths.

Decent time. No worries of untoward behaviour. Came home took a bath. colors came off in 2 scrubs. Then had the most dreamless sleep ever. Wonder if I'll be able to get any work done tomorrow either.

Read the Official Version

Recipes for Holi Specialities

The Dream of an Inhabitant of Mogul @ Prince of Wales Museum

A special exhibition produced by the Cultural Section of the Embassy of France in India. Hosted at CSMVS, (Prince of Wales Museum) Mumbai in Collaboration with Alliance Francaise de Bombay.

From 7th March 2006 to 2nd April 2006

This exhibiton is organised around the collection of miniature paintings by Imam Baksh Lahori, illustrating the Fables of Jean de la Fontaine (Property of the musee Jean de la Fontaine, Chateau-Thierry, France.)

The fables of Jean de la Fontaine, first published in 1668 are probably among the most famous works in French Literature. They are still studied today in the schools of France. The sources of the fables are numerous, the Greek Aesop, the Latin Phedre, the Italian Fabulists, as well as the Panchatantra & the Tutinama have inspired Jean de la Fontaine. But the beauty of his poetry has remained unequalled since.

The exhibition is a visual treat, resplendent and glorious, dating back to the times of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The stories have been translated into English & Hindi at the exhibition. If you would like to read each of the stories, this exhibition will take around an hour to peruse. It would be an hour, very well spent indeed.

Entry to the exhibition is included in the CSMVS museum entry

Heritage Bus Rides

The MTDC (Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation) runs 2 heritage bus rides each on Saturday & Sunday at 7PM & 8:15PM.

They advertise it as "Sit on an open-roofed double decker bus & enjoy South Mumbai's Heritage District"

The Upper deck costs 90/- per person & the lower costs 40/- per person.

Realistically what can you expect ?
Currently on a power saving trip, most of the monuments are no longer lit up at night, thus defying the very purpose of this ride.
Catch the bus at India Gate, go past The Taj, Elphinstone College, David Sasson Library, Watson Hotel, Oval Maidan, down to Nariman Point, then up Marine Drive, turn in at Churchgate, take a detour to VT, cruise past the Horniman Circle & the Asiatic & you are back to where you started in an hour (traffic permitting)

Its a good ride to quickly see all the major monuments of South Mumbai. Don't expect to be able to take pictures, because the bus only halts at Red Lights & in traffic jams. Don't go expecting to get a quick dose of history from your guide to enthuse you into more heritage. The guide has some decent material but the apathy shows through quite clearly in the toneless voice.

Do go, if u have come to Bombay on a short trip & have a few hours free in the evening & want a quick trip around. If you prefer to learn about the buildings attend one of the many heritage walks referred to on other parts of this blog of mine.

You can buy tickets any time during the day at the MTDC booth at the Gateway. Go early because seat numbers are marked on the ticket.

A small tip : The best seats are towards the left half of the bus and mid way through, not up front. You get unrestricted views from these. On the top deck of course.

For details 2202 6713

The Open Couple - Reviewed

The invitation to view "The Open Couple" was quite tantalising being a Dario Fo play and all.

It read
"A Comedy about a couple where the husband wants an "open relationship" wherein he is free to see other women and claims to accept the fact, if his wife also does the same. However it slowly becomes clear that the arrangement works only from the husbands point of view as long as he has other relationships but when his wife does likewise he breaks down and wants to go back to the conventional couple situation"

Having Recently watched Unprecedented Distasters like "Plane Crazy Bout Love", we had sworn off the Comedy genre in India. We have even walked out of a couple of
"comedies" earlier because they were so pitifully presented. Either their timing was off completely or it was just a disaster on stage.

Hence we have been sticking to serious theatre for the last few years by recognised groups. Since we live close to Prithvi, it has been quite easy.

But "Open Couple" restored our faith in Comedy in Indian Theatre. We did enjoy the show.

The play evolves through flashbacks & at points the 2 lead characters converse directly at the audience. (Not interactive, but directed towards the audience)

Nazneen Madan had some Lengthy Dialogues. At times they were completely effortless, although she did struggle at times to make them sound natural. Jagdish had limited
dialogues, but his facial expressions were always bang on. Too often actors do not react to what is going on, around them on stage. His appearance from the bathroom wrapped in a multicolored towel & his wife's shower cap on his head & hair dryer in hand in a bid to commit suicide had the entire audience in splits.

I wouldn't say it was an excellent production, but it was a very good try & much, much, much better than a lot of trash coming out in the name of "Comedy."

Why do corporates give those trashy wannabe's sponsorship while avoiding Quality Theatre? {Will rant on this later. Its another pet peeve of mine.}

To sum up I think a quote from the "Hero" Jagdish is appropriate "It is actually the magic by the writers Dario Fo & Franca Rame who are amazxing with their language and flow of script.....We have had amazing response each time we have performed and standing there on stage I have learnt to filter the sounds from the audience where the loudest laughter comes from women ! :) This was also the observation of all groups who have performed worldwide over these last 25 years ....amazing na ?"

Juhu Book Club Meets Altaf Tyrewala, Author of "No God in Sight"

I had exchanged a few mails with Sonya about the Juhu Book club. I was eager to meet other book lovers & thought that this was a good opportunity.

She told me, they were reading Altaf Tyrewala's, "No God in Sight"

Time Out Readers would be familiar with his name. He has previously written about his uncle's bookstore & the Chetan Bhagath phenomenon.

Since this was my first Meeting with the club, I wasn't sure what to expect. Intellectual high-brows, Society chatterati, bored housewives, young preppy kids... But the chance of meeting the author was not one to be easily ignored.

And I am so glad that I went. The group is quite informal and all share a love of books. Quite a few are writers too, struggling to get their writings in print or established journalists. It was a good group & I knew that this was one Book Club, I would love to be a member of. Provided they didnt make me read "Roots" or "Papillon". These are 2 books I've started reading over 20 times & given up each time, sometimes even as far as 300 pages down the line.

It was good to be able to interact with Altaf himself. He immediately endeared himself to me when he recognised my name as one of the finalists of the Caferati Flash Fiction Contest He furthered it when he said that as one of the judges, he had fought hard for my story A mild mannered gentleman he was actually apologising when anyone said that there was something they couldn't agree with him on.

A lot of the members, felt the book was depressing especially since it mirrored harsh realities that take place in front of us, just that we do our best to turn our eyes away. "No God in Sight" drags your sight right back.

Altaf said that the journey to publishing wasn't as hard as it sometimes is because "The abortionists" voice had been printed in the newspaper early on & interest was evinced by the necessary powers that be. He also said that very often he reached dead ends with the tale and had to go back and start all over again.

Very often when we read a book, we don't realise how much the author has to struggle to get his words out right & to get printed & picked up off the bookshelves.

We ended by deciding that the next months book would be Philip Pullman. The first or the entire Darkman Trilogy.



Check Out
Review in The Hindu
Review By Sonya
Chandrahas Chowdhury's Interview with Altaf Tyrewala

My take : It was a very different style of writing & that itself was an instant draw. The plot seems to underline helplessness in everyone's life when there truly seems to be No God in Sight. Its not a dark view of life, but a realistic one.

Caferati + British Council Flash Fiction Contest

Caferati conducted 2 contests, Flash Fiction and SMS Poetry as part of the Kala Ghoda Festival.

The Theme for Flash fiction was "Black Horse" and an entire story had to be told in 300 words.
For The SMS poetry contest the theme was "Love" & it had to fit into one sms (160 characters)

Read the shortlisted SMS Poetry Entries

The winners were

1st, Rohinton Daruwala

2nd, devashish makhija

3rd, Rinku Dutta

You can read their poems on the shortlist page, http://www.caferati.com/contests/SMSlist.htm against these codenumbers: 53, 18 and 32 respectively.

Read the shortlisted Flash Fiction

The winners were

1st, Misha Singh

2nd, Annie Zaidi

3rd, Pawan Sony, Shiladitya Chakraborty and Anita Vasudeva

You can read their stories on the shortlist page, http://www.caferati.com/contests/FFlist.htm against these code numbers: 57, 71, 30, 89 and 77 respectively

The judges scoring can be seen at http://www.caferati.com/contests/SMSscores.htm (SMS) and http://www.caferati.com/contests/FFscores.htm (FF)

(I was one of the finalists for the flash fiction but scored quite miserably on the second round of judging...)

The One Tree Music Festival

The One Tree Music Festival
Promoted & Produced by Oranjuice Entertainment & Fountain Head

Feb 11th
The Earth Wind & Fire Experience featuring Al McKay
&
Kool & The Gang

Had an absolutely brilliant time.

Courtesy a friend, we got passes for the Johnny Walker Lounge.

The entire expereince was very different form all the other concerts that I have attended. The previous ones being Rock & all.

There was hardly crowd of around 750 people. So there was no pushing, shoving & jostling. Entry was peaceful. Everyone was strolling around casually. Since no matter where you stood you could easily see the stage or the screen.

Being at the lounge was an added bonus. Free Johnny Walker cocktails or "On the Rocks" plus some bite sized munchies. But the biggest bonus was the cordoned off viewing gallery on either side of the Controls. Although it was a way off from the stage, it was slightly elevated & the platform on the left was, Hold Your Breath... Absolutely empty. Saw Sanjay Dutt on the Right Hand Side, so entire junta & press was in a feeding frenzy on the other side. But we had our own quiet private concert.

Preferred this lounge to the DNa organised ones which are to the left of the stage. But guess it isn't practical to have a lounge in the middle of your 7000/- & 5000/- rupee ticket holders.

Brilliant experience. Wish I could have watched the Blues Brothers tomorrow, but you'll soon find out why I couldn't.....