Pensha

Mohan Deora and Rachana Shah have co-authored a book - On Stage With Lata - to describe how the singing legend was the first Indian film artist to conquer foreign shores. They talk about the book and Lata Mangeshkar, the person. For those living several shores away, there are a few things that they miss about home. First, the food and second, the films (regional, Bollywood) and their songs. These two factors transport them on a nostalgia trip, filling them up with joy and sadness. In the ‘70s, ‘80s and even in the ‘90s, it was difficult for the NRIs to connect with their folks in India, so cultural evenings, concerts brought them together. Classical musicians Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan were the prominent names in the international circuit, but no popular icons from mainstream Hindi film industry had performed abroad till then. The first one to perform, and that too on a big scale, was Lata Mangeshkar. This precursor is necessary to tell you how Latadidi conquered the for...

Sukhan, a mehfil of Urdu poetry, ghazals and qawwalis, will be staged in the city today. Om Bhutkar and Jaydeep Vaidya explain the concept Noted Urdu poet and lyricist Gulzar, who was at the Jashn-e-Rekhta festival this week, was quoted as saying, “Urdu is alive the same way it was earlier, with the same old strength. Its energy hasn’t reduced. Maybe its aspect is changing… Urdu is the most alive language and moving ahead with times.” Exuding similar sentiments was theatre actor Om Bhutkar, when we met him for a chat on Sunday. Bhutkar and his friends have come up with a Urdu ghazal, shayri programme, titled Sukhan. “My affair or should I say passion for Urdu language began when I was writing the play Mi..Ghalib. My friends and I are equally fond of classical music, ghazals and nazms (verses) and whenever we meet, we keep discussing Urdu shayris and the works of singers and poets. In fact after Mi..Ghalib I had tossed this idea of doing a programme on Urdu ghazals and my frie...

The Tata Properties exhibition, which opens to the public today in the city, is a must visit to acquaint yourselves with the family’s spirit of entrepreneurship and philanthropy. Visitors at the Tata Properties exhibition which was inaugurated on Saturday at Tata Central Archives If the contribution of the Parsi community, the Tata family in particular, to the country’s economy, architecture and philanthropy is to be measured, then a visit to the Tata Properties exhibition is a must. The exhibition, which was inaugurated by Ishaat Hussain, director, and Farokh N Subedar, Chief Operating Officer, Tata Sons, on October 8, will be open to the public from today (Monday) at Tata Central Archive, off Mangaldas Road, Pune. The exhibition, which showcases over 100 photographs of the properties from 1822 to 1965, is in many ways an eye-opener to the entrepreneurial spirit of Jamsetji Tata and his family, who moved to the then Bombay from Navsari and their commitment to usher in industri...

Dr Medha Tadpatrikar and Shirish Phadtare started Rudra Environmental Solutions (India) to convert plastic waste into poly fuel. The initiative is garnering a lot of praise and attracting volunteers A small packet arrives at Dr Medha Tadpatrikar’s office while we chat about her work of plastic segregation. “It’s from Vizag,” she informs. Tadpatrikar and her business partner, Cost Accountant Shirish Phadtare, started Rudra Environmental Solutions (India) Ltd in Pune in 2014 and has been educating people about plastic segregation at its source. The initiative is quite impressive because it’s completely people driven and free. No wonder then that people from Vishakhapatnam and a few more from Mumbai are couriering their plastic waste to them. THE BEGINNING In 2009, the families of Tadpatrikar and Phadtare were vacationing in Kanha National Park. “During one safari, we were asked not to visit a track because a few deer had died. Later, we learnt that the animals had died after eating...

Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal says that The Vagina Monologues has been written with the purest intention and has succeeded in achieving what it set out to do Vagina. Say the word aloud. Can you? We tried to ask Mahbanoo Mody-Kotwal if she ever examined her private parts all by herself. We couldn’t twist our tongue to say aloud the word ‘Vagina’, hesitated and left the question incomplete. “You are asking me a question, but feeling bad to pronounce it. Most educated people know that vagina isn’t a dirty word, they know where it is situated and know the pleasures it can give, the way the penis can give. Of course, everybody has and should examine it,” says Kotwal, who along with her son Kaizaad, has produced and directed the Indian production of the play, The Vagina Monologues. The play, which will be staged in Pune on Friday, November 11 as a fund raiser by WE Network for the pre-natal care unit of Sassoon Hospital, has originally been written by Eve Ensler in 1996. Ensler interviewed abo...

If you’d like to know what it means to soak in silence, visit Tambdi Surla, a Mahadev temple on the outskirts of Goa We first read about Tambdi Surla in Manohar Malgaonkar’s Inside Goa. He says in the book: “A tour of Goa’s temples should appropriately end with Tambdi Surle or Red Surle. Red Surle is no more than a hamlet with perhaps a hundred inhabitants and it is called red because its earth is red. But the temple which is about half a mile away from the village is black, which means that the stone for its building must have been brought from some distance away. It is by far the oldest temple in Goa, perhaps built in 12th century or even earlier. Up until a couple of years ago, it was all but inaccessible.” So having read this and the description of the Mahadev temple, accompanied by the detailed illustrations of the site, by cartoonist Mario Miranda, we were keen on visiting Tambdi Surla. This summer, as we drove down to Sacordem and then through the Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary...

In a tete-a-tete with romance novelist and fashion stylist Nikita Singh about her new book Every Time It Rains. Bruised and abused Laila carries a lot of baggage. But she is no wilting violet and a real badass when it comes to running her bakery. She’s the present-day heroine of Harlequin romances. And, unlike the typical romance fiction, the hero here is goofy, fun with very life-affirming traits. That’s how Every Time It Rains, pans out. Nikita Singh, who has penned her 10th novel, was impelled to carry forward Laila’s story from her previous novel Like a Love Song. Singh, who was in Pune for the launch of her latest, Every Time... says, “In my previous book, Like a Love Song, Maahi was the central character, and Laila was her friend. We see her from Maahi’s perspective and then a thought popped in my mind — What Laila does when she’s not with Maahi? I had this whole back story of hers, but there wasn’t space in Like a Love Song to justify it, so that’s how the initial idea of th...

Author Ira Trivedi talks about her new book Nikhil and Riya and how the characters find spiritual growth. A boarding school. He with a limp. And, she a runner. They fall in love, until death pulls them apart. This is Ira Trivedi’s latest offering — Nikhil and Riya. Written from Nikhil’s perspective, it talks about love, longing and finally, redemption. In between, you also get a glimpse of life in a posh boarding school — Residency School —and the stories of bullying, one-upmanship and rivalry. Targeted at young adults, Nikhil and Riya is a Harlequin romance brought out by HarperCollins India. Here’s chatting up the author: We believe the book was earlier written from Riya’s perspective. Can you tell us about it and the changes that were incorporated to make Nikhil take charge? The book was ready to be sent to the editors six-seven years ago. But when I read I felt that this wasn’t good enough yet. So I waited for a bit. I was also in the midst of writing India in Love, so I pu...

Kannada play Akshayambara explores the male-female fluidity on and off stage. Director and actor, Sharanya Ramprakash dwells on this It’s the scene of Draupadi vastra-apaharan, Dushyasana pauses in the middle of disrobing Draupadi; the moment passes and then he begins to disrobe her again. At the end of the scene, both the actors (Draupadi and Dushyasana/Duryodhan) sit in their green room, silent, but communicating their vulnerabilities to each other and to the audience. While watching the Kannada play Akshayambara (akshay means unending, while ambara means cloth and together it refers to Krishna coming to the aid of Draupadi in the vastraharan episode), one tries to comprehend — What does it mean to be a man? And should a woman symbolise femininity and nothing else? These are the questions that we grapple with in our everyday lives. Watching them unfold on the stage, we gain a third eye perspective. That’s because the role of Kaurava or Pradhan Purush Vesha was played by a wo...

Neel Chaudhuri’s Still & Still Moving, which will be staged today at the 9th Annual Vinod Doshi Theatre Festival, is about a fractured love story with the Delhi Metro used as a metaphor in the interactions between men commuters. The introduction of Delhi Metro has changed the way people travel in the capital and NCR. That’s also the premise of Neel Chaudhuri’s play, Still & Still Moving. The Tadpole Repertory production tries to track how the dynamics of relations between men have changed with this mode of travel. The metro, says Chaudhuri, in the play is also a metaphor for the ‘distance’ that the two lovers are trying to overcome. We chatted up Chaudhuri prior to the staging of the play. Title tale ‘Still & Still Moving’ is a phrase from the poem by T S Eliot — T S Eliot — East Coker. Says Chaudhuri, “It’s a poem I was reading while I was writing the play and the phrase seemed very apt. It’s a beautifully summarised feeling of moving towards something — in this case...

Corporate lawyer and investigator Sagarika Chakraborty heads a company, which helps in solving espionage and money laundering cases amongst other things. She talks about the risks involved in the job As glamorous as it may sound, Mumbai-based Sagarika Chakraborty’s job involves great risk too. A corporate investigator, Chakraborty has to solve high-end corporate espionage and money trail fraud cases. Here she explains her unconventional career choice... You have done law and then MBA. But chose to be a protection agent. Can you explain your journey? I am a corporate lawyer from National Law University, Jodhpur. I had a three year stint with corporate law, before deciding that intelligence management and security studies was my calling. Unfortunately, the same is not a chosen field of study in India and therefore there is a lack of graduate courses. I then chose the best available option by doing an MBA in Strategy Management from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. What does y...

The notes and references for An Era of Darkness runs into 22 pages. Despite this, Shashi Tharoor’s work shedding light on the British rule in India is neither a heavy tome nor is it meant only for erudite scholars. In his book, the Congress MP makes a case for India’s humiliation under the British rule and insists on at least an apology from the British Prime Minister. Excerpts from an email chat: When you say that British kids need to know of the atrocities perpetrated on the colonies that went into making of their nation, do you think our students too need to study history more neutrally? Indian students are caught in the Left-dictated historical interpretations vis-a-vis the Rightist view. I see no harm in our schoolchildren being aware that history is often contested territory, to be exposed to a variety of points of view and to make up their own minds on it. The most important purpose of education is to teach children to think for themselves about such things. India’s share ...

Design guru Subrata Bhowmick, who was in the city recently, urges everyone to wear our identity — our textiles. Dressed in white churidar kurta with an intricate embroidered shawl draped over his shoulder, design guru Subrata Bhowmick is an epitome of ‘Indianess’. The credit for which he would give to the artisans, the tribes whom he prefers to call as ‘True Bharatvasi’. “Our artisans, and their art, have grown from our soil. Their art is pure. I was in Bhubaneswar and saw a dance show by the tribals on the first day. On second day, we saw a documentary and on third day, we were taken to see Saura paintings. I wanted to meet the painter and ask for his signature. He couldn’t sign though. Nevertheless, his identity and in turn our identity is through his paintings, his art work,” says Bhowmick, who is the jury member of National Institute of Design and also of National Institute of Fashion Technology. Bhowmick, who was the honorary speaker at the recently concluded Pune Design Fes...

n a free-wheeling conversation, renowned Mumbai-based sculptor Arzan Khambatta tells us how understanding art is not a complicated affair. A chat with architect-sculptor Arzan Khambatta is like being a part of a rapid fire round — he is quick with his replies, frank and non-judgmental. On the sidelines of the 11th Pune Design Festival, Khambatta talks about aesthetics, art appreciation and how he loves to work on the initial brief. Here he goes: Deconstructing art- At Pune Design Festival, organised by Association of Designers of India, Pune Chapter, Khambatta spoke on the theme ‘Trans.form’. “Using my work, I have designed the whole talk around the theme. I have thought of something which revolves around the abstract language of aesthetics and can be transformed by a good designer into a physical form,” says Khambatta. But what if the layman isn’t able to understand his public sculptures? Quick to respond, Khambatta says, “I have got a take on this. Many people don’t go to ...

Why is a woman called the original sinner? And, how does she cope with it? Filmmaker Aniruddha Sen talks about all this and more in his The Saints of Sin — Seven Sins, Eight Women, which is worth a watch. At the recently-concluded Pune Design Festival in the city, The Saints of Sin — Seven Sins, Eight Women — shot by Aniruddha Sen, was screened. Our immediate reaction was: ‘No way. Who wants to watch sob stories of women?’ By some chance of fate, we did watch Sen’s The Saints of Sin... and was drawn into the documentary film almost instantly. In the following Q and A session, you will learn about Sen’s (popularly known as Oni) thoughts in shooting the documentary. And more importantly, why should we steer clear of labelling women as ‘shopaholic’ or ‘vain’. Excerpts from the conversation: If a woman filmmaker had shot The Saints of Sin... perhaps she would have felt a sense of catharsis. What did you feel after shooting each segment/ or after the entire documentary? I have faced...

Debutante author Zuni Chopra is full of stories. Here, she talks about her novel, The House That Spoke, and magic and darkness. The House That Spoke —that’s the title of Zuni Chopra’s novel. The 15-year-old author is the daughter of Bollywood film director, Vidhu Vinod Chopra and film critic Anupama Chopra. But the Chopra girl doesn’t need to rest on her parents’ laurels — even if the story is sprinkled liberally with her father and his family’s memories of Kashmir. The book has been published by Penguin Random House. Kashmir memories “We try to go to Kashmir once a year. It’s dad’s home,” says Chopra, adding, “As a kid, I never understood why the place wasn’t packed with tourists. It has such beautiful landscape. To me, therefore, it was like a paradise that only we knew about. Now, as I have grown older, I realised that political conflict is the reason why there aren’t too many people around. That made into the book.” The House That Spoke, which is a magical fantasy, also ca...

We go down memory lane with Pandit Jasraj, learn about him and his music while his daughter Durga explains why it’s necessary to make music more accessible to the layperson In one of his previous interviews, Sangeet Martand Pt Jasraj had said, “If you see an artist approaching a stage, you can easily spot his particular gharana’. When we met him at his Pune residence on Thursday, the import of the sentence made sense. Meeting him and his senior disciple, Pt Sanjeev Abhyankar, you realise that they have no airs about their exalted status. They are warm, welcoming, humble and willing to share all that they have learnt over the years. Elaborating on the statement mentioned earlier, the octogenarian classical vocalist, says, “If you are a keen observer of classical music and the musicians, you will notice there are certain similarities amongst the musicians of the same gharana. Of course on the stage we have our distinct styles. That’s how it should be.” Pt Jasraj will be performing i...