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| CURRENT ISSUE JULY 23, 2007 |
| YOUR WEEK: ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT |
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| ART | ||||||
| Shades of Grey | ||||||
Through Grey Town, the artist evokes aspects of an earlier performance installation in which she played a Hindu woman who attempted to illegally claim a share of her adopted family’s property. Issues of migration and displacement are addressed in the final section, Black Town. Hande’s project began as an investigation into the cultural, social and political attitudes of people who lived in India’s port cities and commercial hubs. The journey started with childhood albums from her ancestral home and memories of her orthodox Brahmin family. The three installations also include interesting snippets of interviews with people of varied ethnic backgrounds and their views of life and society. One shows a migrant Chinese hairdresser talk about styles in the 1960s; in another, members of a country club discuss the Raj leftover culture of luxury and exclusivity. On display at Chemould, Prescott Road till August 4. -By Aditi Pai | ||||||
| ART | ||||||
| New Kids on the Block | ||||||
-By S. Kalidas | ||||||
| THEATRE | ||||||
| Slice of Life | ||||||
-By Akhila Krishnamurty
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| FILM REVIEW | ||||||
| Disconnected | ||||||
Director: Anjan Dutt Starring: Raima Sen, Shyan Munshi, Parambrata Chatterjee, Peeya Rai Chowdhary “We are global citizens,” a character declares in The Bong Connection. “The whole world belongs to Bongs.” So the film, ostensibly the first Bengali crossover movie, traces two journeys—one of a Kolkata boy who declares that “Kolkata is a doomed Titanic” and moves to Texas and the other of a New York Bengali who moves to Kolkata to find his voice as a Baul musician. Both these 20-something boys struggle to make emotional, spiritual and cultural connections in new spaces. It’s not easy. Within days, the Kolkata boy gets mugged, discovers that his boss is homophobic and his roommate is gay. On the other side of the Atlantic, his Big Apple counterpart needs help to even get home from the airport. In shoestring budget movies, where there aren’t any stars or production values to distract, the script has to be crackling (recall the recent Bheja Fry). Here Dutt is hobbled by his own lumbering script and plodding direction. Much of the film is in English and the dialogues sound like left-overs from American TV. A sampler. A character says, “I want us to make a baby together.” The lady replies, “If you want, we could make a baby together.” Dutt’s film has ambition. He wants to comment on everything: prejudice, alienation, the generation gap, the grim underbelly of the Great American Dream and the importance of one’s own culture. The climax is genuinely moving but it is too little, too late. This Bong connection doesn’t connect. -By Anupama Chopra
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| Celestial Disaster | ||||||
| MY FRIEND GANESHA | ||||||
Starring: Ahsaas Channa, Kiran Janjani, Sheetal Shah Can bad acting be injurious for health? In My Friend Ganesha, Upasana Singh, playing the devout maid Gangutai, is a bludgeoning assault on the senses—she shrieks and hams until your pupils hurt. Which is entirely in synch with this deliriously bad movie about a lonely, bullied boy who pleads with Lord Ganesha to be his friend. Ganesha miraculously arrives and then solves all of the family’s problems—the fat bully who tormented the boy suffers divine retribution and even the boy’s mother who had been unceremoniously fired from her job is summoned back because the office cannot function without her. This could have been a fun revenge-of-the-nerd story but director Rajiv S. Ruia makes a mess of it. The animation is tacky, the performances are laughably bad and the script is too juvenile to engage even a child. Indeed, My Friend Ganesha requires some celestial intervention itself. -By Anupama Chopra | ||||||
| MUSIC REVIEW | ||||||
| Unique Melody | ||||||
 JHOOMO REThere is something that carries an instant appeal about Kailash Kher’s music. It is full-throated, raw, earthy and strikes a chord. Jhoomo Re is his second non-filmy album with Naresh and Paresh, one that showcases the gradual progression of lyrics and music for the better and much variety. The opening song Babam bam is a folk number that Shiva bhakts sing at akhadas. “I keep going back to folk music for inspiration because it is the purest form of music,” says Kher.
Saiyyan is a soothing love song with minimal contemporary accompaniment. Kher’s voice is that of a lover longing for his beloved. He has been bold to experiment with Amir Khusrau’s Chhap tilak by composing a different melody around it. “I like to experiment with melodies and create something that I can call my own,” he says. Jhoomo re is a fast-paced song with lots of rhythmic patterns. What comes across starkly is the use of the harmonium which gives a truly local flavour to the songs. Paresh and Naresh have an imaginative mind and know how to blend eastern and western sounds and yet give that Indian feel. Feel the unique voice. -By S. Sahaya Ranjit | ||||||
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| CURRENT ISSUE JULY 23, 2007 | |
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| IN THIS ISSUE | |
| COVER STORY | |
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| The Bangalore Bombers Londonistan Clear And Present Danger Name Of The Terror |
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