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METROSCAPE
Musicpality
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| LANDPARK: Bhimsen Joshi
last performed in Delhi at Nehru Park |
Municipal corporations
in India are not organisations one usually associates with culture. But
in the past two years with 28 classical music concerts, 108 art exhibitions,
four month-long summer theatre workshops, 16 classical dance recitals
and 24 folk and popular performances, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation
(NDMC) has somewhat changed its image of a not-too-efficient keeper of
gutters. If one was to go by the number of events alone, it has bettered
the record of the Sangeet Natak Akademi and the Indira Gandhi Centre for
the Arts put together. And if one were to evaluate its relevance by the
number of enthusiasts it has drawn for its open-air events then, short
of the Republic Day parade, there is no competition.
The man behind this radical change of image
is B.P. Mishra, NDMC's chairman. "My aim is to improve the quality
of life in this city," he says. "If I can do it by spending
around 5 per cent of my total revenues of Rs 831 crore on art and music-around
Rs 45 lakh-I can't understand why my critics are complaining." In
the past couple of years he has not only instituted the early morning
concerts at Nehru Park-last Sunday around 5,000 people gathered at 6:00
a.m. to listen to the Carnatic maestro Balamurali Krishna-but also dance
recitals and an art gallery. Mishra's success has been possible to a great
extent due to the dynamic cultural adviser he found in Surendra Mathur
and in the unstinted cooperation he has received from every department
of the NDMC.
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| PAINTER'S POND: Triennale artist
Gabriela Heidegger at Nehru Park with Mishra on the far right |
CULTURE CIRCUS:
Puppetry at Connaught Place |
So much so that the Indian Council of Cultural
Relations and the various foreign embassies in Delhi are now turning to
him for collaborative ventures. In conjunction with the British Council,
Mishra plans an electronic and laser Diwali and also an art collaboration
with the Swedish embassy. So perhaps Mishra can give Delhi its own multi-arts
festival like, say, the ones in Edinburgh or Adelaide. And if his plans
are not scuttled it may well happen sooner than you think.
—S. Kalidas
Sufi's Choice
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| SING AND SWIRL: Shafqat and Chaturvedi |
Even though Sufi
evenings are becoming increasingly modish in Delhi, it's rare to find
an authentic display of Punjabi sufi music combining both folk and classical
in a vigorous expression. Shafqat Ali Khan, 29, the 11th generation Pakistani
singer of Punjab's Sham Chaurasi gharana, braved the moody amplifiers
at Delhi's Siri Fort Auditorium to give impressive renditions of medieval
poets Bulleh Shah and Khwaja Ghulam Farid. The evening, organised by the
Northern Railway's Woman's Welfare Association, also had Kathak by Manjari
Chaturvedi, an adaptation inspired by the whirling dance of the Mevlana
sufi dervishes. Dizzying stuff.
—Bandeep Singh
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