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PremiumSpaces unlimited: From Shahid Datawala’s show, Shadow Boxing.
(From Shahid Datawala’s show, Shadow Boxing.)
DELHI
Theatre
Chaal
15-16 November
7pm. ML Bhartia Auditorium, Alliance Française de Delhi, 72, Max Mueller Marg, Lodhi Estate (43500200). Tickets, Rs150, available at the venue two days before the show.
Film
A Nos Amours (To Our Loves)
18 November
Fifteen-year-old Suzanne seems unable to progress beyond a rather doleful promiscuity in her relations with boys. Only her father (played by director Maurice Pialat) understands her, but when he leaves home for another woman, family life erupts into a round of appalling, casual violence, until Suzanne escapes into a fast marriage, and finally to America. Pialat’s methods of close, intimate filming may place him close in many ways to British film director Ken Loach, but his interests are rooted in a very cinematic approach to personal inner life, rather than any schematic political theory. The message may be that happiness is as rare as a sunny day, and sorrow is forever, but a counterbalancing warmth is provided by Pialat’s enormous care for his creations. The rapport between father and daughter is especially moving. Pialat once acted in a Claude Chabrol film, and one French critic’s verdict on his performance can stand equally well for this film: “Massive, abrupt, and incredibly gentle." French with subtitles. 1 hour 35 min.
5.30pm and 7.30pm. ML Bhartia Auditorium, Alliance Française de Delhi, 72, Max Mueller Marg, Lodhi Estate (43500200).
Nightlife
Aaron James
From 18 November
Hip hop, trip hop, reggae, reggaeton, funk, punk… it’s like a musical nursery rhyme. Sadly, not one we hear often on Delhi’s dance floors. New Yorker Aaron James, who has been polishing his skills in these forms for over a decade now, might just change that. He’s not popping over for a night or two, you see. He’s here for a whole month with a music residency at Ai, the spot of the moment. Aaron has performed alongside Kid Rock and opened for artists such as Elton John, John Digweed, Groove Armada and Lil’ Kim.
Ai, MGF Metropolitan Mall, second floor, District Centre, Saket (40654567). Call venue for cover charges and timings.
Dance
Martial
19 November
A presentation of ‘raibense’, ‘dhali’ and ‘payeka’, martial dances of Bengal, choreographed by Sutapa Awon of Sarabhuj (based in Midnapore).
7.30pm. Epicentre, Apparel House, Sector 44, Gurgaon (95124-2715000).
Music
Paul Giger
19 November
A solo violin recital by Swiss musician and composer Paul Giger. He will perform his composition ‘Chartres’, which is inspired by the secrets and magic of the famous cathedral of Chartres in France. The seven-part composition will describe the pilgrim’s path through the cathedral: from the crypt through the labyrinth and the crossing into the sanctum sanctorum. The programme is being presented by the Swiss Arts Council in association with The Cathedral Church of the Redemption, Delhi Music Society and Spic Macay.
6.30pm. The Cathedral Church of the Redemption, 1, Church Road, North Avenue (23094229).
Suhas Vyas
20 November
A Hindustani vocal recital by Vyas, who is a renowned artist in his own right, and is the son and disciple of Padma Bhushan Pandit C.R. Vyas.
7pm. Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (43663333).
Art
Shadow Boxing
Until 23 November
A collection of 60 black and white photographs by Shahid Datawala that focus on the blend of various architectural spaces in the city of Mumbai.
Daily 11am-7pm. Gallery Art Motif, F-213C, Lado Sarai (42664343).
MUMBAI
Art
Within the Walls
Ongoing
Abir Karmakar paints his canvases with a technique that would make the old masters of oil painting proud. What might unsettle them (and his viewers) are the self-portraits Karmakar paints of himself—playing male and female roles in intimate settings. This exploration of alternative sexuality, deviance and gender roles is not meant for the easily offended, particularly since Karmakar is a gifted painter who knows how to paint startlingly life-like figures and scenes.
10am-6.30pm, Monday-Friday, 11am-4pm, Saturday. Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, 2, Sunny House, 16/18 Mereweather Road, behind Taj Mahal Hotel, Colaba (22023030).
Around town
Japanese food festival
14 November
In its second year, the organizers of the Indo-Japanese festival want Mumbaikars to get familiar with sake, sushi and plenty of other Japanese food. The Sake Dinner has Sake Master and president of Akashi Sake Brewery Kimio Yonezawa talking about the rice liquor.
7pm-midnight. San:Qi, Four Seasons, 114, E Moses Road, Worli (24818000). Rs3,200 per head.
Theatre
The Laboratory
15 November
Joy Fernandes is on a mission to avenge her mother’s death. Her enemy is a multinational pharmaceutical company that used her mother as a guinea pig for a drug trial without warning her about the probable side effect, heart failure. Shivani Tibrewala’s ‘The Laboratory’ looks at how Fernandes, a young doctor, must contend with a scheming uncle, an abusive father, a mentor who, as it turns out, was the mastermind behind the drug trial, and a pharmaceutical company with too much pull to be taken through the motions of a court trial.
6.30pm. NGMA, Cowasji Jehangir Hall, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Colaba (22881969). Tickets, Rs100.
Music
Rakesh Chaurasia
16 November
The front-ranking flautist performs Hindustani classical morning ragas at Pancham Nishad’s monthly sunrise concert series, ‘Prathaswar’.
6.30am. Ravindra Natya Mandir Open Foyer, Sayani Road, Prabhadevi (24312956).
Film
Grin Without a Cat
19 November
Many filmgoers know Chris Marker as the French filmmaker whose 26-minute film ‘La Jetée’ (’The Pier’) inspired Terry Gilliam’s feature film ‘12 Monkeys’. Famously reclusive, fiercely intellectual and invariably haunting, Marker’s documentaries traverse that strange world between memory and fact and between feature films and documentaries. This fortnight, the Alliance Française is screening the two-part ‘Grin Without a Cat’, a lengthy political essay made in 1977 about the impact and future of revolutionary movements of the 1960s. The documentary is made up entirely of archival footage of rallies and protests, propaganda films, speeches, press conferences and interviews, all overlaid with an often amused voice-over. In ‘Fragile Hands’, at 2.30pm, Marker takes us back to the anti-Vietnam protests in the US and Europe and the May 1968 revolution in France. The failure of the French left to maintain a united front and the distortion of Communist thought by authoritarian regimes in countries such as the former Soviet Union and China are discussed in ‘Severed Hands’, at 5.30pm. Each documentary is close to 90 minutes long.
2.30pm and 5.30pm. Alliance Française, Theosophy Hall, opposite American Centre, New Marine Lines (22036187).
Dance
20 November
One of New Delhi’s leading Odissi dancers and senior students of Kelucharan Mohapatra, Madhavi Mudgal returns to Mumbai with a performance that will enable the audience to see both her terpsichorean and choreographic talents. Organized by Swarit Foundation.
7pm. Nehru Centre Auditorium, Annie Besant Road, near Shiv Sagar Estate, Worli (24964680). Tickets, ₹ 300, ₹ 200 and ₹ 150, available at Rhythm House (22842835) and at the venue.
BANGALORE
Photography
Marc Riboud
14 November-7 December
Marc Riboud is a traveller and chronicler of events that few people can claim to have witnessed. As one of the first European photographers to visit China since the 1949 Cultural Revolution, he covered the transformation of a country emerging out of the oppressive era of Chairman Mao.
That was in 1957. In the 1960s and 1970s, Riboud toured north Vietnam, witnessing war crimes and atrocities, and chronicling the impact of a war from both sides—Vietnam and the US. Through those years, Riboud also travelled extensively across Africa; one of the few photographers to travel through the continent during the transition to independence in countries such as Algeria, Nigeria, the Congo and Ghana. That was in the early 1960s, about a decade after he’d joined the agency Magnum, working under his mentors Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Born in Lyons, France, in 1923, Riboud first picked up a camera—his father’s “Vest Pocket" Kodak—at the age of 14. Over the next 70 years, he travelled and shot around the world, from Fès (Morocco) to Angkor (Cambodia), Acapulco (Mexico) and Varanasi. Quite simply, when Riboud whips up an anecdote, most historians, photographers and even literary figures sit up and take notice. That’s probably why his show at Tasveer will have the many landmark photographs taken by Riboud over the most part of a century, with a few autographed quotes of his.
11am-6pm. Tasveer, Sua House, 26/1, Kasturba Cross Road (22128358).
Around town
Talk on Tibetan activism
14 November
Tibetan activist and poet Tenzin Tsundue shot to fame in January 2002, when he scaled the Oberoi Towers in Mumbai and unfurled the Tibetan national flag while China’s Premier Zhu Rongji was inside. In April 2005, he carried out a one-man protest at the Indian Institute of Science while Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was visiting Bangalore. Meet the man and find out what’s happening with the Tibetan movement.
6pm. Tibetan Youth Hostel Auditorium, 7, SR Gardens, Srinivagulu, Vivek Nagar Post, Koramangala 4th Block. Call Aravinda for details on 9916766931.
Dance
Odissi
14 November
Sanjali Centre for Odissi Dance holds its third annual performance. The pieces being performed are in the traditional format of Odissi, beginning with the ‘mangalacharan’ (invocation piece) and ending with the ‘moksha’, where dancers offer a salutation to Krishna. All the pieces have been choreographed by legendary dancer Kelucharan Mohapatra. The penultimate piece, an ‘abhinaya’ sequence, is choreographed by the school’s founder, Sharmila Mukherjee.
6.30pm. ADA Rangamandira, JC Road (22219388).
Theatre
Girija Ke Sapne
15-16 November
Girija, the protagonist in this musical satire by Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA), Mumbai, is the most schooled girl in her village (after having botched her Class X exams). Life in her little farming hamlet in north Karnataka is in the throes of unprecedented change, initiated by forces and faces far away. Global economics has snaked into the village’s traditional, time-tested agricultural practices and sets new agendas that poor farmers can only aspire to meet with bank loans. But for many, that is a promise that gradually turns into a hangman’s noose. Meanwhile, Girija’s life has been ensnared by another dream engineered in a faraway place that makes its way to her on celluloid. Smitten by actor Shah Rukh Khan, her days are spent in unrelenting cinephilia as she carves out an alternate existence that hangs on the hero’s quixotic and rootless lines. Her deepening delusions fuel a lifestyle that further estrange her from the facts and people closest to her, with ultimately tragic consequences.
7.30pm, Saturday, at Seva Sadan, 14th Cross, West Park Road, Malleswaram (23347830); 3.30pm and 7.30pm, Sunday, at Ranga Shankara, 36/2, 8th Cross, 2nd Phase, JP Nagar (26592777). Tickets, ₹ 100 at both venues.
Art
Furrah Syed
15-20 November
Furrah Syed isn’t interested in words. Not a single one in the dictionary. Her idea of articulation is brush strokes, pigments and mixed media. Needless to say, her articulations are purely abstract. Born in London with family roots in Hyderabad, Syed, a professional in banking, finance and marketing, moved to India in 2006 to study fine art, textile design and art history. That she prefers going without words is apparent in the fact that she insists on naming each and every work ‘Untitled’. That helps “avoid restricting in any way the viewers’ interpretation of her abstract creations", explains Syed’s profile note. In keeping with this approach, her debut solo show in the city is plainly titled ‘The Collection’. What’s more, Syed leaves her signature out of every frame. Instead, she prefers signing off on the reverse side of each canvas. This helps to avoid distractions, adds the note, and also allows viewers to rotate the canvases and view them from any angle they choose.
10.30am-7pm, Monday-Saturday. The Abstract Art Gallery, 8 (behind Srishti), Cunningham Road (41235444).
Ten Years of Right Lines
17-23 November
Right Lines, the art gallery in Indira Nagar, marks its 10th anniversary by looking back at over 95 exhibitions and art events they have hosted. To celebrate, gallery owners Rajyashree Dutt and Indira Bharadwaj have invited artists who have exhibited their works in this space. The show, which will be at Venkatappa Gallery (and then move to Right Lines Gallery in Indira Nagar), will include works by Arpita Basu, Prabir Bepari, Swapan Bhandary, Surajit Chanda, Arindam Chakraborty, Mustak Khan Chowdhury, Pallon Daruwalla, Chandan Das, Dewashish Das, Subrata Das, Sanjib Kumar Das, Mithun Dasgupta, Francis D’souza, Yolanda D’souza, MG Doddamani, Dilip Kumar Ghosh, Tapan Ghosh, Paresh Hazra, Jayant Hubli, Bratin Khan, Chaitali Mallick, Sudhir Meher, Shyamal Mukherjee, Jayanta Naskar, Nikhil Ranjan Pal, Subhas Pal, Asit Poddar, Bikash Poddar, Krishnendu Porel, Dipankar Ray, Sudip Roy, Anindita Saha, Malay Saha, Paula Sengupta, Sanjay Singh, Thota Tharani and SG Vasudev.
10am-6pm, Tuesday-Sunday, Venkatappa Art Gallery, Kasturba Road (2286-4483); Show will then move to Right Lines Art Gallery, 270, First Floor, 1st Main, Defence Colony (25272827).
Music
The Raghu Dixit Project
16 November
After a successful tour of South-East Asia and Russia, Raghupathy Dixit returns to his homeland to perform a set comprising tracks from his latest album ‘Raghu Dixit’.
6.30pm. Entry free. Garuda Swagat Mall, opposite Tilak Nagar police station, Jaya Nagar 4th Block (26648855).
RECOMMENDED
DELHI
Music
16 November
The noted sitar player, who once collaborated with jazz pianist Dave Brubeck way back in 1958, comes to Delhi after many years to perform at the Sa Ma Pa Utsav. The ustad holds the rare distinction and honour of having a style of sitar-playing named after him (‘Jaffer baaj’).
9.30am. Kamani Auditorium, 1 Copernicus Marg, Mandi House (23388084).
MUMBAI
Art
Between Us
From 17 November
Some bored teenagers write morbid poetry to kill time or watch terrible television shows. As a world-weary 15-year-old in Sao Paulo, Nina Pandolfo found solace in a spray can. “We didn’t have so many things to do here and this is one of the reasons we have a lot of graffiti," said Pandolfo in an email interview from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Also, the city “has a lot of walls", she pointed out. Since then, walls around the world have been given makeovers by Pandolfo. Now well past adolescence, Pandolfo has evolved into an artist whose anime-esque street art imagery is versatile enough to go on a wall or on a canvas. This fortnight, an exhibition of her works will open at Warehouse at 3rd Pasta. It will have paintings and a wall that will make the others around it look a bit boring.
11am-7pm, Tuesday-Sunday. Warehouse at 3rd Pasta, 6/7 3rd Pasta Lane, Colaba (22023056).
BANGALORE
Photography
Disappearing professions
15-30 November
Clare Arni isn’t the kind to hang around at shopping malls browsing through display windows. Strange as it may sound in a world of sinfully colourful packaging and riotous marketing campaigns, the idea of a liberalized economy with limitless options in the marketplace is, for Arni, no more than a development of the theme of “monochromatic profit".
Arni, arguably the busiest photographer in Bangalore today, first visited the city as a teenager in 1977-78. After her studies in film and media at Sterling University in Scotland, she returned to the city and has lived here ever since. “I’m a Bangalorean," she says, emphasizing the point more than clarifying a detail. Her next show, which follows a series of exhibitions over the last few months, is titled ‘Disappearing Professions’, and focuses on vanishing trades and the marginalization of craftsmen at the mercy of mechanization and mass-produced cheap goods. For this project, Arni travelled through Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai to document workers in the silk-dyeing trade, poster painters, piano tuners, and even ‘attar’ (perfume) producers whose forefathers once served in the Mughal courts.
10.30am-6pm, Monday-Saturday, Gallery Sumukha, 24/10, BTS Depot Road, Wilson Garden (22292230).
Schedules are subject to change
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CONNECT
Go
A concept introduced in India five years ago by Pune-based NGO Animal Angels, animal-assisted therapy uses trained dogs to heal and rehabilitate patients. The group now has a 35-strong pack of therapy dogs in Pune and Mumbai and is planning a dedicated squad for Bangalore. Minal Kavishwar, who started Animal Angels, regularly conducts assisted reading sessions across cities, and will host a session in Bangalore. “Reading assistant" dogs serve as reading buddies to children aged 3-10.
Visit www.animalangels.org.in or call 9987509102 for details. Amrita Gupta
Adopt
Entering Pet Planet is like walking into a Gerald Durrell novel. Lovebirds roam among Persian cats, and macaws send out strident messages to people on the street. A marmoset peers down as you browse the aisles for bedding, and it’s quite likely you’ll find yourself face to face with a hamster as you’re comparing cages and collars. But if it’s good luck you’re searching for here, your best bet is the arowana, a freshwater fish which, according to Naveedulla Shariff, the owner, is a symbol of wealth and good luck. The arowana comes with a microchip that’s injected into the fish, which serves as a sort of new-age pedigree certificate. Pure breeds cost up to Rs1.5lakh, while uncertified breeds begin at Rs1,200. A cheaper pick, adds Shariff, is the flowerhorn fish, starting at Rs50.
53, Bowring Hospital Road, Bangalore (41239909). Daily. 10am-8pm. Amrita Gupta
Play
Try something new. Get the gist with just a glance using wordle. Jonathan Feinberg’s technology lets you represent your ideas pictorially using word clouds. Enter text and get a visual representation of the words. The ones that appear more often in the text are more prominent in the cloud. Make your own clouds at www.wordle.net.
Buy
Yes, we counted. There are 18 kinds of whole legumes and peas in the packet: ‘moong’, ‘masoor’, ‘urad’, ‘kulit’ (horse gram)... Several stores sell mixed beans, but none include Mount Mary Society Stores’ secret masala mix. When prepared with tomato, onion, garlic, ginger and chilli paste, the hearty stew explodes with unforgettable flavours. A quarter of the kilo packet costs only Rs14.
9am-1pm and 4-9pm, Monday-Saturday. Mount Mary Society Stores, Anthliz Apartments, Shop 1, St John Baptista Road, Bandra (W) (26406042/26406677). Ask store owner Amish Satra about other ways to use the mix. Roshni Bajaj Sanghvi
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