Articles by Deepa Mohan

To write a play that deals with a highly technical scientific topic, and to bring that play to life on the stage, are two very difficult tasks indeed.  Bangalore Little Theatre (BLT)  took on this challenge as part of their series, the History of Ideas programme. "Photograph 51" is the sixteenth play in the series. This is an award-winning play by Anna Ziegler, about the race between two leading laboratories in England, in the nineteen-fifties, to crack the nature of the DNA structure. The title of the play comes from the nickname given to an X-ray diffraction image taken by…

We have all heard of carnivorous plants like the Venus Flytrap, that trap and devour insects. But less known is the fact that some plants of the Ceropegia species, actually deceive and entrap insects, for pollination! Here's how the Ceropegia flowers work, and it's quite complicated. Spiders and other insect predators often trap and eat honeybees, and there are some flies that love to eat these honeybees, too. The flies are able to smell the scent of the dying honeybees, and congregate to feed off the bees even as the predators are eating them. Since they are, in this sense,…

It's a tough act to follow, when a play is a re-interpretation of a literary classic, and that, too, one written for the stage. Chitrangada, the musical dance-drama by Rabindranath Tagore, was staged in a new form by Red Polka Productions at Ranga Shankara, on Tuesday, the July 17, 2018. Having long read, watched and appreciated the literary and dramatic works of Tagore, I was eager to see what the new production would be like. The original dance-drama was written by Tagore in 1891, and is the story of Chitrangada, the only child of the king of Manipur. She is treated…

A play where one actor alone comprises the cast faces several challenges. The success of the play devolves, in large part, on the shoulders of that one actor, no matter how good the crew and the production values may be. For this reason, I am always interested in watching "monoacting" as it is called here. I went to watch 'Karl Marx in Kalbadevi' at Ranga Shankara, on 29 June 2018 in this spirit. The underlying premise of the play is that Karl Marx comes back to life, 150 years after his death, to the Mumbai suburb of Kalbadevi; he wants…

On our way back from our nature/birding outing, I suddenly caught sight of a beetle and a snail, on a tiny twig. Seeing these two together isn't very common, so I decided to photograph the scene. I then realized that what was going on was an attack, and a major war! The beetle, like all ground beetles, likes a snail diet, and was attacking this one. This was an amazing drama that we watched for a while. The beetle was attacking the snail, which produced the froth in self-defence. Whenever the beetle approached the snail, it would get caught in…

Having had my voter id "vanish" (from Richmond Town,where I had voted earlier), I had applied afresh...online, and twice gave my photograph and Aadhar details to people who were vetted by our residents' association and were supposed to be genuine information collectors. Finally, this morning, I went to the BBMP office where I was supposed to check on the arrival of the Voter Id card. The office that I had visited before (J P Nagar 2nd Phase) was wide open...and deserted on the first floor, with all the steel cupboards open with several files inside. and locked on the ground…

I found this impressive building in Panduranga Nagar, just off Bannerghatta Road. What struck me about the big claims was that no course of study was being talked about....all that this tell students is that it will help them pass the *entrance* exams to various courses. We have degraded our educational system to the point where passing an entrance examination is a great feat, to be aspired to. If it is accomplished,goes the subtext, the rest of the course is just a breeze. Nowhere is there anything about learning anything these days; it's all about marks, and toppers, and rankings.…

Sometimes, the juxtaposition of two things strikes the eye, as it did when I saw this gentleman, along with a book that a young lady had left open on another table. The caption occurred to me at once. As he got up, the gentleman called the attention of yet another man to the glasses he'd left behind when moving to another table. Such casual helpfulness, somehow, made me feel very happy! So much to see and observe even on a short visit to a Darshini (this one was Coffee Thindi in Jayangar 4th T Block)

The Last White Hunter, Reminiscences of a Colonial Shikari By Donald Anderson, as told to Joshua Mathew 265 pp. Rs.650 Indus Source Books PO Box 6194 Malabar Hill PO Mumbai 400 006 INDIA Email: info@indussource.com www.indussource.com Readers who are interested in the wildlife history of India, and in particular, of the Melagiri and Bannerghatta forests near Bangalore, will be familiar with the name of Kenneth Anderson, a "shikari" (hunter) of the old school. The series of books that he wrote, on his various wildlife encounters, were very popular reading at one time. His son, Donald Anderson, was brought up in…

A play that is an interpretation of another play faces several challenges. What if the audience is not familiar with the original play?  How can the production pick up on very contemporary issues from a play originally written in 1972...46 years ago? The Big Fat Company addressed these issues, and more, successfully, in their production, "Head 2 Head", where the cast and crew "play" with Hayavadana. A scene from the play, in a photo  displayed in the foyer: As I entered the theatre space, I found the first attempt in this direction by the Big Fat Company.  An excellent brochure, printed…