A window into the world of Indian puppetry with a focus on the work of master puppeteer Gunduraju, Anurupa Roy and Katkatha.
Sisters: Captain’s Log
SISTERS A collaborative project by National Theatre Wales & Junoon This all-female work-in-progress by leading British-Asian and Indian artists holds a mirror up to life as a south Asian woman today, wherever she lives; the echoes and the contradictions, the (in)visibility and the comradeship, all told with playfulness, honesty and humour. Sisters is part of India…
Doing things which are not permissible: Poet Prabodh Parikh on love affairs
He had me at “Grant me the strength to look at you”. It was the most memorable line I’d found from his work while prepping for this interview – more so because it was the one I’d secretly fought against. Surely he was asking for the wrong thing – surely he meant to ask for strength to…
Discovering dance in Bombay’s libraries: Dance critic Sunil Kothari on reading in a bygone era
“Strange as it may sound, the annual report of Standard Oil Company once carried an article on Kathakali, describing the colour schemes representing the qualities of various characters from the Mahabharata and Ramayana according to their Sattvika, Rajasika and Tamasika traits. No other dance forms used such elaborate colours for their makeup, costumes, ornaments and crowns. This was…
Making sense of 1984, 1993 and 2002 with Manto: Documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma on his influences
“Sirajuddin was sitting. Four people walked past him, carrying someone. When he inquired, he learnt that they had found a girl lying unconscious near the railway tracks and had brought her to the camp. He followed them. They handed the girl over to the hospital. Sirajuddin stood leaning against a pole outside the hospital for…
Flights (of fancy) with a magpie: In cinematographer-photographer Hemant Chaturvedi’s realm of miscellany
In the Madh Island home wanderers come and go Talking of Chor Bazaar obsessions, spice thresholds, and what it means to build a home. “I’m a magpie – I collect everything. Friends who visit my home liken it to a museum, but I don’t like the term. What I have is a thoroughly lived-in space,…
“Be as irreverent as you like”: 33 questions with poet Arundhathi Subramaniam
For when artistic equilibrium looks like “a hammock suspended between Corfu and the Maldives”. List three words that you love to taste. Currently, it would be emollient, amaretto, agape. List three words that make you flinch with their violence. Slaughter, eviscerate, bludgeon. A fourth: asphyxiate. Describe a recurring daydream. When I was in school, I…
Regional Tongues and Literary Identities: Harnessing a language on the move with writer Sitanshu Yashaschandra
“The colonial master Macaulay famously said that all Indian literature could be accommodated on a single shelf in a library of European literature. And yet, I write literature in a language as old and rich as the languages of those who set up “vernacular schools” in colonially controlled Gujarat in the 19th century. He did not know….
Dying Art Forms, Static Traditions and Religious Mumbo-Jumbo: Puppeteer Anurupa Roy on our general ignorance
“I recently had the misfortune of meeting a film maker who wanted to make a film about the “dying art of puppetry“. She said it is “common knowledge” that these artists “live in villages and are uneducated”. Gunduraju and Rajappa’s faces flashed before my eyes. These artists can recite between 60,00 – 100,000 verses from the epics…
Redefining Seduction: A Lavani-based photo essay with filmmaker Savitri Medhatul
“Lavani is breaking the norm in every possible way – we have men in the audience being entertained by men in drag, and women in the audience whistling at women artistes!” An uproarious conversation with director, theatre artiste and filmmaker Savitri Medhatul about how the Maharashtrian art form lavani noisily shatters conventional gender roles, the fluidity of power play between the seducer…
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