| |
METRO
FEATURE
Contributors'
Clique
 |
| MARG
SHOT: (from left) Geeta Kapur, Jyotindra Jain, Pratapditya Pal, Sunil
Kothari, Amita Malik, Sandeep Bagchi and Kavita Singh |
It
was a line-up of cultural blue-bookers. Of course, it would have
been nice if Mulk Raj Anand, the 95- and-still-going-strong founder-editor
of Marg, could have also dropped in when the journal got out its millennium
edition at the India International Centre in Delhi last week. But current
editor US-based art historian Pratapaditya Pal (going-strong with 50 books
on Indian classical art) was there, as were many of the acclaimed contributors
to the issue including craft specialist Jyotindra Jain, modern art pundit
Geeta Kapur and media critic Amita Malik. In his introduction Pal acknowledged
Anand's visionary contribution in setting up Marg in 1946 after returning
from an academic stay in England. Later Kavita Singh, an art historian
who's also written a homage to Anand in that issue, read out a message
from the writer in which he described Marg as a "modest organ of
the arts".
And how
it has grown. The current book, Reflections on 2000: The Arts in India,
has 13 essays, with B. B. Lal's treatise on Indian archaeology, Sunil
Kothari's survey of dance, Rahul Mehrotra on urban design (and the lack
of it) and Shyam Benegal on Indian cinema. All the authors are Indian,
except German Cornelia Mallebrien (who bemoaned the disappearance of tribal
art and identity). One reason: the delicate tribal situation, says Pal
in the book, warranted a perspective "without bias". So what
does one make of the rest?
-Anshul Avijit
Cultural
Family
|
EVE-NING:
Mudgal (above), Esha and Ahana Deol, and Hema Malini
|
In
the end it didn't show that the organisers of the show at the Nehru Centre
in Mumbai last week, Vineeta Sinha and Neeru Sabharwal, were cultural
circuit greenhorns (with a five-month-old trust, Deekshaa). Their success
lay in getting bass-heavy virtuoso Shubha Mudgal and, above all, star
daughters and Odissi dancers Esha and Ahana Deol (with the latter making
her dance debut) with mom Hema Malini to perform.
And the
grand finale was the most special: all the three of the family danced
together as Krishna devotees with Hema's mother in the audience clapping
louder than anyone else. There was also a tinge of familial emotion at
the end with proud mom Hema talking about the delight of "sharing
the stage with her little girls", and imploring the audience to give
"the same love to her daughters" that they gave her.
-Natasha
Israni
more...
Top
|
|
METRO TODAY
