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METROSCAPE
Tap The Talent
When filmmaker
Satyajit Ray heard that The Action Players (TAP) were going to stage his
short story Patol Babu Film Star in 1998, he was keen to catch a show.
Ray took ill and never got a chance to see them. His curiosity, however,
was understandable. First-timers to a TAP show always wonder how the country's
only group of hearing-impaired actors can act as well (sometimes better!)
than a "hearing" cast. This week, when they put up The Rain
King's Wife, an adaptation of six folk tales, the buzz was about other
things: whether TAP can live up to its amazing repertoire.
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Their first show in 1974 was simple mime. But
over the years (the actors keep changing, though they're all from Kolkata's
Oral School for Deaf Children), TAP has incorporated sign language, narration
and even music and dance into its plays, despite most of the actors being
deaf. A few years ago, dancer Astad Deboo worked with them on the Vikram
Seth adaptation Dancing Dolphins, and was impressed. "This time,
there are new challenges," says theatreperson and director Zarin
Chaudhuri. There's Indian classical music for the first time and some
Odissi. There's a wordy, complicated text. But for TAP, actions will always
speak louder
than words.
-Labonita Ghosh
Clash Of Colleges
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| FESTIVAL FUN: The organising committee of
hosts St. Xavier's; brushing up at the wall painting contest |
Rarely has a lowly
amphibian been celebrated with such pagan fervour. St. Xavier's College's
annual extravaganza Malhar '01 in Mumbai with Puddles the frog as its
symbol generated enough enthusiasm to dispel the monsoongloom. Judging
by programme titles, Waltzing Matunga (fusion choreography), Dhobi Talao
Dhamaka (Mr & Ms Malhar) and M(ah)ime Blues (miming) the students'
version of "In the City" proved far more dramatic and colourful
than the real thing. Though perceiving it for a purely "college affair"
might be folly. With corporate sponsorships from Tata Nova, Pepsi and
Britannia and celebrity judges, including Yukta Mookhey and Kitu Gidwani,
these students seem to know what sells.
 The
hosts still managed to keep the final trophy though there were 60 colleges,
including an international contingent, in the fray. Jai Hind College came
a competitive second. The highlight was the Battle of the Bands where
Moulin Rouge's saucy Lady Marmalade lip-synced by HR College had to make
do with second place while the ever-the-rebel Queen performed by Narsee
Monjee College crooners emerged the winners.
-Himanshi Dhawan
Whisky Business
No Talking!
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| NO TALKING: Cowell at the tasting lecture |
An assortment of
whisky buffs did more than just sniff and tongue the barley beverage at
a workshop at Mumbai's Indigo restaurant. They also finally got a chance
to clear the air about some nagging questions, like whether two 50-year-old
whiskies are alike and if there's something as pure malt whiskey. Serena
Cowell, a malt consultant with Highland Distillers based in India for
the last two years, was there to answer: an emphatic no for both.
Other whisky factoids also emerged. The makers
of the most popular single malt in Scotland, the Macallan Single Malt,
have to actually pay farmers to grow the special low-yielding Golden Promise
barley. And until the 1830s, malt was the only available whisky; blended
varieties came later when a disease caused a shortage of spirits imported
from France. Pity that the wealth of information, though imparted in a
stern, schoolteacher-ish manner, wasn't matched with the option of drinking
more than one of the eight whiskies offered. And there was a three-course
dinner later-not of local whisky accompaniments butter chicken and dal
makhni-but Italian food. That, surprisingly, goes just as well.
-Natasha Israni
FAMOUS FLIER: A rolling
stone, they say, gathers no moss. But ever heard of a flying Moss? You
could say Brazilian Gerard Moss has a thing for accumulating frequent
flyer miles-80 countries in 12 years and over one lakh miles. But he prefers
to fly the plane himself. A decade ago, this 48-year-old became the first
South American to fly around the world in a light aircraft, covering over
1.20 lakh kilometres in three years. He puttered down in Mumbai recently
in a powered glider outlining his new expedition-to become the first to
fly around the world in a single-engine motor glider. That's roughly the
equivalent of crossing the seven seas in a dinghy. He departed from Rio
two months ago and flew over North America, Siberia, down east Asia and
now India. The goal is to reach Brazil in 100 days and 300 flying hours.
-Sandeep Unnithan
 SCRAP
FOR THE CAMERA: Freelance photographer and adwoman Nirmala Savadekar,
40, admits to being haunted by abandoned things and forsaken objects.
Her second solo exhibition, "Forlorn Abstracts", at the NCPA
in Mumbai revels in such stark images: two old fishing boats propped against
a fence and framed against the sky; corrugated roof edges and unruly wires.
Her picture mine? Metal scraps and worn barrels at a Central excise junkyard
in Pune and wooden planks and metal sheets found in a woodcutter's house
near Nashik.
-Natasha Israni
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