PICTURE SPEAK

A Presence in my Dream deals with child abuse in urban India

Though many of the Indian films are by first-time directors, they cover much unfamiliar ground. From the dingy dance-bars of Mumbai in Fight to Dance and Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi to the playgrounds of all-girls schools in first-time director Ganga Mukhi’s Kanyashala and Smita Bharti and Naina Kapur’s Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Who am I After All?, these films are as much about their subject as they are about the social forces that mould the narrative of their lives. Each finds new ways to tell stories on recurrent themes, from the intensely personalised account of child abuse in Priya Krishnaswamy’s A Presence in my Dream to German Thomas Wartmann’s Between the Lines: India’s Third Gender, which follows photographer Anita Khemka’s explorations of the eunuch subculture of Mumbai. While debutantes Surabhi Saral, Manakk Matiyani and Ananda Kapur explore society’s hypocritical attitudes towards women in Blood on my Hands, Paromita Vohra’s Morality TV and Loving Jihad is a hard look at the media that perpetuates them.

Of the 16 Indian films scheduled to be screened, as many as 13 are PSBT productions. Mehrotra explains the anomaly:, “We did not receive a very enthusiastic response to our call for entries, and amongst those who did send in their films, most weren’t good enough.”

And proving that a film screening at such a festival is no one-shot deal, Mehrotra is keen on taking most of the films to television through the cooperation of Prasar Bharati.

-By Gaurav Rajkhowa

PICTURE SPEAK

Jayashri (left) and Krishna

-By S. Sahaya Ranjit

Mehta explores Indian symbols

-By Aditi Pai

PICTURE SPEAK

Patekar plays a novelist

At one point in Yatra, a novelist (Nana Patekar) gives a fiery speech against materialism and the devaluation of aesthetics in a consumer culture. Later a guest remarks, “Kya taliayan baji”. To which Patekar replies, “Yehi toh afsos hai ki taliyan bajti hain”. The puzzled man says, “Main samjha nahin”. To which the novelist asks, “Main kya samjha?” Exactly.

Yatra is a deliberately opaque, intermittently engaging statement on just about everything. Ghose sets up an interesting premise: a novelist embarks on a literal and metaphorical journey, revisiting an earlier work and his muse, the courtesan Lajwanti, who is now Miss Liza dancing to cheap remixes. But from the corruption of art, Ghose moves to call centres, cell phone sex and even commenting on vulture-like television journalists who will ask a bleeding man how he is feeling. Rekha’s attempts to recreate the magic of Umrao Jaan with her celebrated tawaif adaas and Khyaam’s music seem jaded.

Yatra is tired and plodding, like a journey without a destination.

-By Anupama Chopra

The sculpture show features new and thought-provoking works by over 25 artists, including Tapas Sarkar, Pankaj Panwar (head of the sculpture department at Kala Bhavan), Sunil Kumar Das, Niranjan Pradhan and Bimal Kundu, among others. On till May 15.

-By Swagata Sen

Shades of Grey

A Mehta photograph

DELHI Madan Mehta will showcase his first solo exhibition at Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise de Delhi. Mehta heads Delhi’s landmark photo firm Mahatta & Co. He studied photography at the Guildford School of Arts & Crafts in England in 1950 and was the first to establish colour printing in India.

He went on to expand his oeuvre to include architectural, industrial and commercial photography. On from May 23-26.

Devi Foundation Rs 350

Apart from being a classical vocalist, Pandit Channulal Mishra has immense talent to sing bhajans, thumris, dadras and kathas. In this twin album he has sung Krishna bhajans in the Kirana, Patiala and Benaras gharana styles. Each bhajan is based on a raga and starts with an alaap. Each bhajan is steeped in rhythm and melody. Sample Darshan bin naina tarse. Other numbers include Sunderkhand, Shiv Vivah and Kabir. Soulful notes.

EMI Rs 195

Think of bhajans and the first name that comes to mind is that of Anup Jalota. For this stalwart of the Indian devotional genre, music is worship. It is to be revered and venerated in the tradition handed down by his father and guru, Purshottamdas Jalota, who started teaching him vocal music when he was barely seven. In this album, Jalota has sung 10 bhajans including a very unique and unusual qawwali in homage to Shirdi Sai Baba. Composed by Mukesh Tiwari, each one has a different style. Jalota’s voice has an element of bhakti which endears him to the devout. His classical style of singing and rendering of the bhajans makes him stand apart from other singers.

-By S. Sahaya Ranjit

Index