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METROSCAPE
BEYOND THE BLADDER
Manish Arora, the designer
and graffiti junkie who emblazoned T-shirts with the warning "It's
forbidden to piss here" in Hindi to dispel such intentions, is now
into more non-urinary subjects like stemmed roses, sequinned Shiva heads,
applique bovines and conjugal numbers like 69.
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TRUE COLOURS: Arora
and his Fish Fry ensemble |
At a non-ramp non-model show
called Fish Fry in Delhi's Ogaan, Arora displayed whatever he would have
showed at the India Fashion Week had he been there-basically retaining
his love for pop art motifs and noisy Roy Liechtenstein-like exclamations
such as UGHH! The lizard peeping from the shirt's shoulder is a nice and
eeky try ... a link with past form. Now something on defecation?
Diamond Drama
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BOOKS BASH: Scene Stealer's Celebration
as Faber and Faber turns 75
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You don't have to
be English to enjoy sex. You don't have to speak English to enjoy sex
... I've known one or two Belgian people for example who love sex and
they don't speak a word of English." That's just a sampler from the
maitresse d'hotel to three incongruous couples, whose candlelight dinner
in an expensive restaurant is also the time for blowing trumpets or throwing
barbs about past infidelities. Then there is an obsequious steward waiting
to "interject" with his false memories about his grandfather's
association with T.S. Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Albert Einstein.
At Delhi's British Council Scene Stealers' impressive performance (reading?)
of Harold Pinter's wildly funny Celebration as part of the year-long celebration
of Faber and Faber's diamond jubilee celebrations, absurd theatre was
at it best.
Thankfully, unlike Pinter's cast, at the post-play
soiree the wine did not loosen tongues for worst-kept secrets to crawl
from under the dinner tables. The seven-day book exhibition of Faber's
full range was also kept open till late evening for the eclectic crowd
from both the theatre and the lettered world. "The feedback we got
was satisfying," says P.M. Sukumar of Faber. We don't doubt it.
—Mridula Chettri Singh
 SPREADING
OUT: Sounds like a cliche but it's a real celebration
of Indian plurality. "Similarities and Dissimilarities" at the
Tao Art Gallery in Mumbai is divided into a series of zonal shows-east,
west, north, south, centre. It will go on till December, with each zone
enjoying three weeks in the limelight. Catching the eye at the ongoing
western zone section are Chintan Upadhyay's body parts; the closeup of
a man's augmenting tummy (left) that Upadhyay says is symbolic of his
own skin disease, psoriasis. Says west zone curator Jyotee: "The
Indian art scene was earlier restrained; now it's opening up." A
belated but welcome advancement.
—Natasha Israni
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METRO TODAY
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