ARTS and CULTURE

An exhibition celebrating Climate Diplomacy Week has raised new hope for saving the East Kolkata Wetlands (EKW). While conscientious adults have already doing their bit, this time, young residents of the neighbourhood, along with some school students, are getting ready to take up the role of ambassadors and work towards saving the East Kolkata Wetlands. Crisscrossed by creeks and canals, the EKW are the world’s largest fully functional organic sewage management system and were designated a "wetland of international importance" under the Ramsar Convention on 19 August 2002. In the marshy land east of Calcutta, 248 species of birds and…

One summer day in 2015, Rakesh Kanwar, a young IAS officer who was then deputy commissioner of Kullu, happened to walk past a dilapidated old government building on his way from his office, located next to the historic Dhalpur, also called Dassehra ground. Known for his innovative ideas and public outreach efforts, Kanwar was shocked and dismayed seeing the dirty building and its poorly maintained interiors. But the building was full to capacity. It was Kullu’s public library and was filled with the town’s reading enthusiasts, both young and old. The building and its contents were crying out for attention,…

The sounds of Carnatic music on the radio fill a cramped room painted blue in a small lane of Mylapore. Photos of Hindu deities adorn the walls, and pieces of jackfruit wood and leather are strewn on the floor. Jesudas Anthony and his son Edwin Jesudas are working in this room, sitting amid hammers, nails, a wooden peg for tuning and castor oil for polishing. Outside, temple bells resound in this old residential neighbourhood of central Chennai. The two master craftsmen make the mridangam, a drum used as an accompaniment in Carnatic (south Indian classical) music. “My grandfather’s father started making mridangams…

Pinku Das, a fair, young, bespectacled man, was an usher in Ujjala, a well-known single screen theatre in the southern part of Kolkata. He had stepped into his father’s shoes who was also an usher in the same theatre. Over time, as he became absorbed in the world of films through his work, Pinku Das began to dream of becoming a scriptwriter and he did (with a few Bengali popular hits to his credit today.) It is said that the founder of the iconic New Theatres, Birendranath Sirkar, was once driving by on the main road when he saw a…

In India’s IT capital Bengaluru, sprinkled within its concrete jungle, are shady peepal trees adorned with serpent stones, bells and sacred threads, standing majestically atop gated, raised platforms. Often a pit-stop for tired travellers or an informal gathering place, these culturally-important open-air tree shrines or ‘kattes’ and temples, with their assemblage of native tree species, offer immense scope to enhance the green infrastructure within rapidly growing megacities, suggests a study. Offering a glimpse into the city’s native trees, the study documents 121 such species thriving in 69 sacred sites in Bengaluru, spread across 36 temples and 33 kattes, a sizeable…

Madras week has not only been a celebration of heritage but also of the people who made the city. Over the years, many who called the city home have achieved remarkable feats in various fields to put Madras on the global map. One among  them is the mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan – The Man Who Knew Infinity. A walk through the Ramanujan Museum was organised this Madras Week by Rajith Nair a travel curator who regularly organizes heritage and cultural trips in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry. The walk was a celebration of the life and times of Ramanujan, who…

Is ‘culture’ and its representation through art galleries ‘public’? This question came to my mind when I recently dropped by the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) Bengaluru after a gap of 6-7 months. When I attempted to walk in, a security guard stopped me at the gate, and asked me to buy a ticket. Surprised, I enquired if the gallery had started charging a parking fee, and pointed out that I was on foot. He said, “No, no, it’s entry fee. Everyone entering the compound has to pay.” Though he replied promptly, he seemed a bit annoyed. Perhaps other…

Did you know Crazy Mohan and Kamal Haasan met for the first time in a cemetery at St Mary's Road?  Can you even imagine that the Tamil Nadu capital had freezing temperatures during summer in 1815 due to weather changes that happened after Mount Tambora erupted in distant Indonesia? Only five localities in Chennai have a conducive environment for sparrows.  An establishment in Ebrahim Sahib street prints the cardboard tickets once used for travel and they are shutting down soon.  These are just the some of the facts around which questions were posed to participants in a quiz conducted recently…

There we go again, asking everyone to celebrate Chennai, for Madras Week is just around the corner (August 18-25, 2019). The cynics we are sure, must be already practising their counter chorus beginning with the usual litany – Chennai was not founded in 1639, the weather here is uniformly bad, there is a perennial water crisis, the roads are terrible, the civic body inactive and the traffic chaotic. To all of this we agree in toto but these in our view do not in any way detract from the fact that there are several aspects to Chennai that are sufficient…

After a long hiatus, Second to None (220) brings their flagship event - a second-hand santhe or open flea market to help us reuse and conserve material which we might be throwing away without giving a thought. Second to None is a community for used,  recycled and upcycled goods. In collaboration with Citizen Matters, this event is designed to be Annual 220 Fundraiser and will be held this Saturday 27th July at Rangoli Art Centre, Metro station, MG Road. You can expect upcycled and recycled home decor, bags, accessories, small utilitarian products from upcycled wood, textiles, and a collection of…