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METROSCAPE
Part Of Art
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| STUCK TO THEIR WORK: Artist Takagi (above);
poet Denoon |
After the exhibition
of paintings by Amarajeewa (Sri Lanka), Dilara Begum Jolly and Dhali-al-Mamoon
(Bangladesh) had been opened and cocktails were being sipped, some, more
curious than the rest, made their way to where a Japanese stood before
a tv screen in a house with a yellow sheet on the floor. The man, Tetsu
Takagi, would motion to visitors to step onto the sticky sheet where,
for a moment, they became part of his installation.
Last Saturday evening life quietly met art at
Sanskriti Kendra on the outskirts of Delhi. Sixty-odd people, mostly embassy
staff and some conscientious art buffs, had turned up to see six foreign
artists in residence at the Kendra display some of the works they did
during their three-month stay here. Sri Lankan film maker Anoma Rajakaruna's
The Cow opened proceedings. In its interminable pauses, the rustle of
clothes as people walked in-and out-was often the loudest sound.
Then came poetry. Australian poet Tim Denoon's
poems-simple and elegant-set in Australia and India (like the unnamed
novel he is writing) were heard by too few. A mike and amplifier would
have helped. Just as something to keep the mosquitoes away. That buzz,
Tim, 'twas the wrong kind.
-Samrat Choudhury
Fresh Notes
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STRINGING SUCCESS: Purbayan Chatterjee
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Just when music buffs were becoming blase about
the Shriram Shankarlal Music Festival, its director, Shobha Deepak Singh,
decided to reinvent. The venue was shifted from the open air lawns to
the Kamani Auditorium and, equally significantly, sarod maestro Biswajit
Roy Chowdhury was appointed festival curator. Together their vision was
to invite, among others, the best of young talent in the classical arena
along with stalwarts Pandit Yashwantrao Joshi and Pandit Balasaheb Poochwale,
both of whom perform with amazing verve and energy despite being octogenarians.
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SINGING GLORY: Meeta Pandit
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The high points, however, were the riveting performances
by sitarist Purbayan Chatterjee and vocalist Meeta Pandit. Chatterjee's
choice and impeccable rendering of complex ragas (Miyan-ki-Malhar and
Basant) and his virtuoso handling of the sitar put him leagues ahead of
the many star kids dominating the concert circuits today. Pandit, with
her mellifluous Kedara and Kafi Tappa, again proved a worthy scion of
the Krishnarao Shankar branch of the Gwalior gharana. With young talents
such as these two, Hindustani classical music's future rests assured.
-S. Kalidas
Cyber Swami
A trudge followed by a gallop. And then, a final
zoom. That about sums up the evolution-and extent of reach-of Prabuddha
Bharat, the magazine started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896: First, 150
km on foot. Then another 200 km on horseback. Finally, thousands of miles
by post. Now readers will have easier access: Kolkata's Advaita Ashram,
which publishes PB, India's longest-running English magazine, plans to
put it online. "We want the ideas and philosophy of Swami Vivekananda
to reach as many people as possible," says editor Sunirmalananda
Maharaj.
The order has already taken some steps in that
direction. Two of Advaita's tech-savvy monks, Arvind Maharaj and Anand
Maharaj, helped compile a CD-ROM of Vivekananda's teachings by cramming
nine volumes of his teachings, two biographies, six volumes of research
by scholar Marie Louise Burke, newspaper clippings, lectures and 300 photographs
on the disc (a paper equivalent would run into over 7,000 pages). "Vedanta
philosophy can be very heavy," says Anand Maharaj. "The idea
is to elucidate it." Philosophy, now a mouseclick away.
-Labonita Ghosh
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