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METROSCAPE
Drummers
Day Out
You can call him Trix. Trix Lok, just like the
legendary Frank Zappa does. Actually it doesn't really matter if you don't
have a wacky sobriquet ... Trilok Gurtu's talent remains firmly undisputed.
And his latest album Beats of Love, launched in India recently by Universal
Music, confirms that-the music taking his flirtations with African rhythm
to a satisfying culmination. "There is nothing to beat the Indians
and Africans in their sense of rhythm," he says.
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| BACK WHERE
HE STARTED: Gurtu in Mumbai |
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But Gurtu is a man in a hurry. He complains that
his weeklong stop at Mumbai has not given him enough time to smell the
salty air or taste a sweet Gujarati thali-banalities that he sorely misses
at home in Hamburg. And though the 50-year-old percussionist has toured
with festivals throughout the world, he has not had a major performance
in India since IIT Mumbai's college festival, Mood Indigo, last year where
he had a crowd of 7,000 rocking. "I want to come back ... soon,"
is his end-of-the-visit postscript. Boy bands anyone?
—Himanshi Dhawan
Park Of The Past
 On
a Sunday, if you think the last thing most people would want to do is
wake up at 7 in the morning, you're mistaken. Recently, as part of India
Habitat Centre's heritage walks, conservation architect Ratish Nanda steered
a group of 40-odd wide-eyed people to the era of the Tomars, Lodhis, Mughals
and the British, all in the 200-acre archaeological park in Qila Lal Kot,
Delhi's first city. It wasn't just a morning walk but a guided stroll
around crumbling buildings covered in a thick undergrowth with their strong
but forgotten link to a legendary past.
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TOMB
RESORT: Quli Khan's tomb which Metcalfe converted into a retreat
(above)
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Perhaps the best known among the 70 monuments
that lie scattered in the shadow of the Qutab Minar is the tomb (left)
and mosque of Jamali Kamali. A poet-saint during the reign of Sikander
Lodhi, Jamali's tomb lies alongside that of Kamali, whose identity is
not known. Lesser known but equally marvellous are the Rajaon ki Bauli
(a five-floor step well); the tombs of Akbar's foster brothers Adham Khan
and Quli Khan-this also served as a summer retreat of Sir Charles Metcalfe,
British governor-general of India from 1835-36-and follys built by Metcalfe,
one of which was pulled down thoughtlessly to build the Jain temple complex.
Twenty-six monuments are being conserved by
Delhi Tourism and intach. For Nanda, the heritage walk "is like giving
back to conservation what it has given to me". If only more Delhiites
woke up to living in probably one of the world's most historical cities.
The earlier the better.
—Mridula Chettri Singh
Conflict Camera
 The
woods are lovely, dark and ... deeply divisive. Earthcare Films' 58-minute
feature There's a Fire in your Forest, recently screened at Delhi's Habitat
Centre, takes an innovative vantage point on the Government-tribal conflict
over the Project Tiger reserve land in Madhya Pradesh's Kanha jungle.
The film unfolds through the eyes of a photojournalist on an assignment.
Initially suspicious of the tribals, his attitude changes as he befriends
the endearing 60-year-old Sona Bai, forced to leave her village in 1974
and sell her belongings to help her family survive. The film took over
two years of intensive on-the-field research. Says director Krishnendu
Bose, "I want people to identify with conservation issues. To get
them involved, the film had to be done differently from a typical "environment"
documentary." Candid camera, anyone?
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