Visual Art and Culture

An old album containing several small and big snaps unfolds before me. I turn the pages passionately to catch the glimpses of my siblings, parents, relatives and friends.  With the passage of time, the pages of the album have worn out and become brittle; the photographs too have turned yellowish and look faded. The yellowed photographs frisk me from present to the past, with nostalgic memories flooding. The thin transparent papers alternating after each thick black sheet of paper have crumpled at the edges; some holes too appeared in their fragile bodies. With the threads of space and time, these albums have preserved our memories and lineage gracefully over all these years. These albums stand as testimony for the evolving culture. Long skirt with a small top and a dupatta was the ideal dress for the grown up girls then.   Girls and women in their early thirties or so, sporting two plaits was quite a common sight. Slowly, the two plaits would turn into one...

Mondeger Cafe        Since my college days, as a fan of Mario Miranda, I have been following his cartoons till today. Introduced through The Illustrated Weekly of India to the Indian audience in 70s, Mario Miranda and R.K.Laxman both became familiar names within a short period. Both the cartoonists were totally different in their perception and approach to their respective works. Mario liked to capture the life of affluent and westernised people and unmask their reality beneath that show off, whereas Laxman liked to capture the feelings, aspirations and predicaments of a  common Indian man in different situations.   Both were equally good in sensitising the situation and bring out the best — both were equally famous.                                                               ...

          On the way to Butan, we visited Kolkata for a couple of days, in the month of Feb,2005. When we reached Culcutta, it was almost evening.   Our guest house was quite close to Howrah Bridge, and we could see the bridge through the room’s window in awe. From distance, it looked beautiful and majestic and with lot of commotion around it.  I have a fascination for Kolkata for multiple reasons. Since my school and college days, I have developed a taste for many Bengali writers — started with Sharatchhndra Chatterjee and moved to Nirad Chowdary — started with Rabindranath Tagore’s paintings and moved to Shantiniketan’s murals — from Bengali cotton sari to Bengal Dothi — from Rasgoola to fried fish in sesame oil in Bengal Club. After refreshing ourselves with tea and snacks at guest house, we set out to have a better and closer look at the life around. The towering look of the bridge across the Hoogli River was very romantic at dusk, the su...

                            The life of world famous artist Van Gogh has been a great source of inspiration to filmmakers and novelists.   As an artist, I have read and reread the book based on his life Lust for Life many times. The more one reads this book, the more one becomes sentimental and emotional and gets attached to the character . His passion, dedication, love for nature, romance with colours and canvass ­— all interest and engross readers immensely with no end. From generations to generations, his life lived frenziedly has inspired many producers and directors to make films with multiple viewpoints. During his life time, he neither earned enough money to support himself and to lead a lavish life style, nor was he recognized for his outstanding brilliant works, which speak volumes till toady. A sudden tragic end to his life, at the age of 36, left his experimentation into the art field half-wa...

New Year Resolution : if  today be sweet, why fret about tomorrow ?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         The year 2017 is ending very soon; and 2018...

Ventilator & Dangal: The films that have mesmerized the audience with powerful subject and treatment. During the last summer, I went through a number of new movies like Dear Zindagi, Bahuballi -2, Ai Dil Hai Mushakil and so on. But, of all the movies, I liked these two movies especially very much -Ventilator and Dangal. Both the movies have been well received  by one and  all and appreciated very much because of the simple content and honest approach.  Film: Ventilator Directed By   Rajesh Mapuskar Produced By :  Priyanka Copra Starring:  Ashutosh Gowarikar, Jitendra Joshi, Sulbha arya sukhanya Kulkarni-Mone and so on lang uage: Marathi Year: 2016                                                ...

                                                                 The monsoon has arrived much earlier than expected this year. It was to come two days later , and we were awaiting its arrival with all the eagerness. The previous day was very sunny , bright and warm. The Newspaper said that the monsoon had reached Kerala state in time and proceeds towards karnataka state within couple days. Every species was eagerly waiting for the monsoon as the summer days and nights had become intolerable with increased suffocating heat. The very next morning, on getting up, I found the overcast sky indicating the nearing of the monsoon. The cloudy sky and the windy weather persisted all through day but without any drizzling. The following day, in the morning, it had started raining silently. Chill wind brushed our ch...

                                                    Recently I had been to a joint named seven Beans in the neighboring town. Since a long time the joint has been in news  and I wanted to see it myself personally. The interior looked different, rugged and artistic. The place has been designed in such a way that one can go there and immerse oneself  couple of hours very comfortably in interaction with friends, without any disturbances.  For me , the space seemed to have combined the characters of a club and  a restaurant. It was spacious, artistic, and  full of life with youngsters coming in and going out of the cafe constantly. I think the joint is mainly meant for the youngsters who can come and spend long ...