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Kitsch
Culture
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| The
Poddar's with their collection |
It's street-seller
kitsch in an equally funky avatar-b/w stills of Nargis metamorphosed into
a silk cushion. Or traditional Indian motifs like hands and feet transplanted
on a crocheted dress. When Abhishek and Radhika Poddar decided to celebrate
the first anniversary of their upmarket store Cinnamon in Bangalore (designer
bric-a-brac strewn voguishly in a sparse granite setting), they held a
'Made in India' show with artefacts inspired by popular Indian art and
culture. "It is a contemporary urban rediscovery of Indian tradition,"
explains Abhishek. "There's a buri nazarwala demon painted behind
every Indian lorry but to have the same motif on your dinner set is a
trifle startling." The fun continues: toothpicks with painted heads;
eccentric stationery modelled on, of all things, Indian petticoats, and
13 clay Ganeshas clad in cricketing gear. Excited? Rush to the nearest
street vendor (they don't have overhead costs).
-Stephen
David
 DESIGN
DRIVE: After running the swank boutique Ogaan for 11 years,
Kavita Bhartiya has joined the fash-frat and become couturier herself.
And most of Delhi's fashion community showed up to cheer her first show,
held at Delhi's Parkroyal hotel. The clothes (left): some lightly embroidered
salwar kameezes, bright silk dresses and micro minis. "I've worked
in this line for five years," says Bhartiya, "Lets see if it
sells." Bhartiya's selling skills are well known.
-Leher
Kala
Bring
Back the Band
This is
revivalism with a reason. Over 500 people listened spellbound when the
Brigade of Guards Regimental Centre military band, dressed in red and
gold pugrees, played old tunes like Chand Aya at Dadar's Five Gardens
in Mumbai. Leading the acoustics was percussionist Subedar Balram Singh
Yadav who had earlier taken centrestage at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Spectator
and violinist Neil David was impressed: "It made me remember the
days when bands used to play at Bandstand and Nariman Point." Once
commonplace, few such bands exist in the bustling city now ... something
that Sandip Das of Hutchison Max, the sponsors, are trying to change because
"it made Mumbai so vibrant". Certainly worth the effort.
-Himanshi
Dhawan
more...
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How
can Non-Performing Assets of companies be cleared? By recovering what
you can, writes INDIA TODAY Associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in
