Chandigarh, Friday, October 8, 1999
Chandigarh, Friday, October 8, 1999 |
Rare fiesta of Punjabi plays By J.P. Garg A FESTIVAL of 18 Punjabi plays and that too in a sleepy town like Faridkot! This rare spectacle was recently presented under the auspices of the Baba Sheikh Farid Aagman Purb Society, Faridkot, chaired by the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Gurdinder Singh Grewal. Destiny
inside the kitchen
Film
in the eye of a storm Dak: Lata award |
  |
Rare fiesta of Punjabi plays A FESTIVAL of 18 Punjabi plays and that too in a sleepy town like Faridkot! This rare spectacle was recently presented under the auspices of the Baba Sheikh Farid Aagman Purb Society, Faridkot, chaired by the Deputy Commissioner, Mr Gurdinder Singh Grewal. Mr Sudarshan Maini, a theatre artiste of the town, was the brain behind the fiesta devoted exclusively to Punjabi theatre. This producer-director is widely known in theatre circles as the architect of the first-ever open-air theatre constructed in the backyard of his own house, equipped with all essential paraphernalia and having a seating capacity for about 500 spectators. This annual national Punjabi drama festival this year comprised 15 plays in the competition category staged on four evenings. In addition to this, three plays representing the best in contemporary Punjabi theatre were presented on the fifth evening. Besides the plays of Ajmer Aulakh, Atamjit and Kewal Dhaliwal, who are household names in Punjabi drama today, the bonanza offered plays by upcoming playwrights, including Hansa Singh, Pali Bhupinder, Saheb Singh, Om Prakash Gaso, K.J. Singh and Raj Dheer. As drama mirrors society, the plays reflected themes ranging from the problems of subsistence of rural Punjabi community to the message of universal brotherhood of mankind. Ajmer Aulakh’s “Lohe da Putt” and O. P. Gaso’s “Mitti da Mull”, directed by Moti Ram Bakhtoo and Surjeet Sandhu, respectively, focussed on caste and class division in rural Punjab and the atrocities committed by rich landlords on Dalits. Aulakh’s “Jhana de Pani”, directed by Sohajdeep Kaur, brought out how women (even one’s own wife) are bought and sold for economic considerations. Evils of widespread addiction to alcoholism, leading to rape, murder and suicide, formed the core of Raj Dheer’s play “Ik Ghutt Daroo Di”, directed by Ramesh Sachdeva. Who are the real law breakers, the ordinary citizens-turned-extremists or the police? The question was skilfully answered in Aulakh’s another oft-staged play “Bhatth Kherian Da Rehna”, directed by Baroo Singh Saggu, when an innocent young policeman is forced to shoot down in a fake encounter two extremists who were once his own role-models. Human emotions are all alike; territories and geographical boundaries are only superficial; soldiers kill one another as a matter of duty rather than conviction; and basic aspiration of the whole of mankind is to live in peace. This basic idea was conveyed in a convincing manner in Pali Bhupinder’s “Mitti da Bawa”, two separate productions of which were staged under the direction of Jaswinder Singh and R.C. Dhand. Recent happenings have brought to the fore the travails of Partition with all its humanistic, social, communal and political upheavals. Alamjit’s “Rishtian Da Ki Rakhiye Na”, Hansa Singh’s “Punjo” and Saheb Singh’s “Pinjar” (based on Amrita Pritam’s story) directed by Surinder Narula, Naina Uppal and Manoj Chitrakar, respectively, struck the human chord from these angles. “Punjo” imparted the latest perspective to this burning issue by going further and glorifying the Kargil heroes and the sacrifices made by their families. Hansa Singh and Inderjit Rupowali employed modern techniques to present Ravi Deep’s “Rangnagri” and Surinder Sharma’s “Tera Nahin, Mera Nahin, Hamara Hai”. These socio-political satires threw light on the general disgusting scenario of poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, crime, rampant corruption, political gimmickry, never-ending disparities and the struggle between the haves and have-nots. Kewal Dhaliwal’s “Papa Main Hindostan Laina”, directed by Sukhvinder Pintu, highlighted the negative role of bureaucracy in blocking the process of national reconstruction rather than accelerating it. K.J. Singh’s “Kehi Kudrat Hai Aih”, directed by Kirti Kirpal, deserves a special mention for the superb acting of its children-performers. They stole the show and won a tremendous applause from a jam-packed audience. The grand finale to this unique spectrum was provided by three leading theatre personalities of Punjab. Gursharan Singh, Ajmer Aulakh and Gurcharan Singh presented their plays “Khambhan Wali Kuri”, “Aese Khalsa Sajeyo” and “Waris” on the concluding evening. The organisers of the festival had indeed, made a laudable effort to enhance and promote Punjabi theatre. However, it would be more desirable to include plays from other regions, than just a few places in Punjab, to make it a truely national festival. Moreover, discussions on the plays staged, seminars and workshops on various aspects of theatre should be held during the festival days in order to serve the cause better. The most pertinent and basic question that needs to be debated is: What constitutes Punjabi theatre? Should any play, even one translated or adapted from any other language, but devoid of any Punjabi ethos, be called a Punjabi play? Or, should not a play incorporate in its script and production some aspect of Punjabi life, culture and milieu to be qualified as a Punjabi play? Bodies like the North
Zone Cultural Centre and the Punjab Sangeet Natak Academy
should come forward to contribute their might to the
enrichment of Punjabi theatre. |
Destiny inside the kitchen It is after a period of two years that Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry will be seen on the city stage with her latest Punjabi play, titled “Kitchen Katha,” that opens on Friday at Nek Chand’s Rock Garden in Chandigharh. This intriguing play, which has been set in a kitchen, tries to bridge the boundaries between love and appetite and evoke thoughts and feelings of sensuality, pain, happiness and rejection through the medium of food. Thus, the stage is set for hot “jalebis” and “pakodas”, papayas and aubergines and “flying” chappatis. For all critics of Chowdhry, who have always criticised her for staging the Punjabi translations of European playwrights, “Kitchen Katha”, will come as a pleasant surprise, since it is an “original script” penned by Surjit Pattar, though it is loosely based on Laura Esquivel’s “Like Water for Hot Chocolate” and Isabel Allende’s “Aphrodite”. “Kitchen Katha” will incidentally be Nihalani’s latest production, now that his film ‘Takshak’ has been completed. The script of the play for the film is being planned along with Deepa Mehta of the “Fire” and now “1947- Earth” fame. The music of the film plans to rope in both B. V. Karanth, who has also provided music for this play, along with A R Rehman. In fact, even the cast of the film will remain the same, which will have Neelam’s troupe, The Company, playing the main leads, besides certain add-on and buffers. The play is about Chand Kaur who is condemned to find her destiny inside the kitchen, and revolves around a culinary romance where food and images of food are used as metaphors for life and love. In fact, a series of recipes, linked with the narrative, create a love story, taking the audiences through Chand Kaur’s sensual odyssey. On the making of the play Chowdhry said, “My favourite haunt has always been the vegetable market, since the array of colours, textures, shapes and the feel of different vegetables has always fascinated my tactile and olfactory sensibilities. For me, the sense of touch while kneading dough, the magic of transformation of grain into atta into dough into a hot chappati, seems to nurture the spirit and renew the sense of life”. In the same breath she
bemoaned, “The city has provided me no support at
all to stage my plays, and the fact that these shows will
be performed in front of the city audiences is only
because of my rigorous personal efforts”. |
THERE couldn’t be many who have never heard of Puri, that great centre of pilgrimage in Orissa, or of its presiding deity, Jagannath, “Lord of the World”, who rules over the hearts and life of millions in that region. But it is more than likely that few, at least in our part of the country, know much about the ‘life’ and the periodic ‘demise’ of the Lord. The Oriyas know it all, of course, and noisy, impassioned multitudes of them celebrate each event as it unfolds. But even for them, there is nothing quite like the navakalevar, “the taking on of a new body” by the Lord — by the sacred Triad in fact — every 12 years. The elaborate details of this complex, esoteric ceremony — the announcement of the impending decay of the Lord’s body, the preparations for renewing it, the setting up of search parties for locating the appropriate tree for fashioning the new images from, the jubilation at finding it, the sacralizing rituals and the escorting of it back to Puri, the embedding of the essence of the old image, the brahmapadartha, inside it, and so on — are all a part of nearly everyone’s awareness there. Everyone becomes part of it: the upper echelons of management, the priests attached to the temple, the large body of sewaks each of whom has performed a specific service for as long as memory goes back, the vast numbers of devotees who wait eagerly for every detail that emanates from the inside of the shrine. There is excitement in the air. I had occasion to be led into the very heart of all this activity from an altogether different angle, however, when I was in Ahmedabad recently. I was talking to a colleague, B.C. Mohanty, the highly respected scholar from Bhubaneswar, together with whom I serve on the Board responsible for managing the great Calico Museum of Textiles. Mr Mohanty is a textiles person, once known as the ‘tussur king’ of Orissa and author of a distinguished body of work on subjects like natural dyes, ikat fabrics, special weaves, bagru prints, etc. When, in the course of our conversation, the subject of navakalevara at Puri came up, he turned rather naturally to textiles, and the role they play in the ceremonies centering upon the event. One knows that textiles form a substantive part of the sacred “wooden” images, for layer upon exquisite layer of them are wrapped around the inner core of wood. I also knew from my earlier reading that, before the enterprise of locating the appropriate tree — the dare — is embarked upon, each of the designated priests and sewaks receives from the temple management a piece of textile: a silken sari for the three chiefs among the Daitas, a two-metre piece each for the other Daitas, a full length of turban-silk for the temple Mahapatra as the images emerge from the sanctum. But what I did not know about — till Mr Mohanty told me — was the prodigious quantities of silk and cotton textiles that are needed by the temple for other purposes. For distribution among the vast number of sewaks and their wives, for one. When the deities “pass away”, Mr Mohanty told me, and the old images are put away under the earth, a shraddha ceremony is performed, much like in ordinary, devout Hindu households. And then the Brahmins have to be given customary offerings, among which are, rather naturally, saris for the women and dhotis for men. For years together, Mr Mohanty reminisced, the task of producing these vast silk lengths was given to one master weaver, attached to the temple, who it seemed, was not going about his work too honestly. Tired of the high prices being charged and the poor quality being supplied, the temple manager once approached Mr Mohanty, in the days that he was Director of Textiles, asking him to help with procuring the needed quantity of good, honest silk. The cloth had to be specially woven, as per ritual specifications, and time was a constraint. But Mr Mohanty took the challenge up: with the required quantities of yarn that he was able to manage, he approached the weavers. Only to find that the master weaver/contractor, suddenly fearful of his monopoly being broken, had spread the word around that if any weaver took the job up for anyone other than him, his entire family would be cursed by the Lord, and destroyed. It was a tough call, but Mr Mohanty ultimately triumphed. Personally, he remembers, he travelled from village to village, gathering the weavers in groups, and simply saying to them: “Do you really believe that this is how Jagannath would ever repay anyone who works towards serving him?” Sense prevailed, and all the required quantity of silk was produced. In time, and at a much lower cost than before. But, speaking of those who work for profit, like this contractor, is anything sacred at all? Profane and vulgar That nothing is sacred,
when it comes to profits, came to me in a curious way the
other day. While changing channels on my TV set, I
chanced upon a snippet of a video-jockey, with his
obligatory, equally callow, female companion, sitting
dressed up as a Hindu deity and his consort, golden
crowns and all. The usual mindless natter was going on.
Suddenly, in the midst of it, the young man uttered in
grave tones, but as if to himself, “Narayan!
Narayan!”, in the approved fashion of the sage
Narada in so many of our films. And then, after the
briefest of pauses, shouted aloud, as to a servant:
“Arre Narayan! Kahan mar gaya tu?”, or
something to this effect. Is this funny? No, it
isn’t. It is crass and vulgar. Also the fact that a
TV channel is able to get away with idiocies like this,
is crass and vulgar. |
Film in the eye of a storm AFTER Shekhar Kapur’s “Elizabeth”, Indian viewers will, in all probability, be deprived of the joy to watch yet another film of international repute by an Indian. If the former failed to pass through the scissors of the Censor Board, “Maranasimhasanam” (throne of death) by Murali Nair is in search of a distributor in India. The 60-minute film, which won the Camera D’or Award for the best debut director at the Cannes Film Festival, is in want of a promoter in the country as in the case of most productions of the parallel cinema. Interestingly, instead of receiving accolades, the internationally recognised movie has only drawn flak from a section of Marxist leaders and workers in his home state. The film which has a working class theme shot against the political background of the time, and a political satire making a dig at the post-liberalisation era, has kicked up a row in Kerala with Marxist leaders openly coming out against the movie. Talking to UNI, Murali said he did not want to be drawn into any controversy as he firmly believed that he made the film without any prejudice. Nor did he try to infuse it with any political colour. “For me, a film is my response to what happens around me. Of course, politics is part of the every day life and it can form a part of the theme,” he said. “Anyone who sees the movie will have his evaluation in the same way as I have,” he said, trying to distance himself from the controversy. On getting a distributor, he said the low-budget movie which cost just Rs 12 lakh got him Rs 23 lakh through the award. Hence, he was not looking for any profit, but a capable network which would take the film to the Indian viewers. The film is already into several international festivals, bringing him accolades. However, Indians may have to wait uncertainly as the London-based film-maker is in no mood to take the movie from show to show and has decided to look for a distributor. Murali is the second Indian and first Malayalee to get an award at the Cannes. Ten years ago, Meera Nair first bagged the prestigious award for her “Salaam Bombay”. He also called for necessary legislation by the government to promote art films as talented film-makers in the parallel stream sank their fortunes with one movie. Against the backdrop of changing tastes among viewers and flooding of cable channels, even the commercials suffered at the box-office. Hence, there should be laws to ensure that each cable channel viewed one art film on the small screen, he said. In the West, there were separate theatres for such movies, but in India one could not get a distributor or theatre for an art film. Hence, after one film either the talented men had to compromise with their concept of film or vanish from the scene, he complained. Or there should be a system for pre-sale so that the experimenting directors could draw their costs, if not any profit. The young film-maker has, however, spurned many offers from the commercial producers. “Maranasimhasanam”, interestingly, has won a distributor for France and Murali hoped that he would get it released in other countries too. He, however, said he would not send the film for the selection of the state or national awards. “If I don’t get an award here, that too will make a controversy,” he said. Even if Murali does not send his film for any award, the film has already created a row in Kerala with some Marxist leaders alleging that the film was made to encash on the “Third World status” of the country. The film was screened for the first time in the country the other day as part of a festival organised by a city-based society. The film is about a poverty-striken family working for its landlord. The protagonist, Krishnan, steals a few coconuts and is jailed. The police foist a false case of murder on him and he is sentenced to capital punishment. In the meantime, a World Bank-funded new electronic chair, ensuring a smooth execution, is to be introduced in the country. The Marxist leaders, who refused to help the wife of Krishnan, launch an indefinite strike demanding that the chair be introduced for the execution of Krishnan. Finally, with the solemnity of any inaugural function, a Union Minister launches the chair, and Krishnan becomes an instant hero in death. The movie ends with a shot, showing the bust of Krishnan. As an experiment, Murali has cast no professional actors in the film. While the role of Krishnan was enacted by Viswas Njarackal, a farm labourer, the female lead, Chirutha, is a traditional bamboo worker. Besides, all other cast were real-life characters of Njarackal, a small hamlet near Kochi, where the complete movie was shot. For Murali, the film is
his response to the social surrounding after a long
reflection. He is in the process of another reflection,
and has plans to come out with his next venture some time
next year. — UNI |
Dak This is with reference to the write-up titled “Lata award for Asha Bhosle’’ published in the Arts Tribune dated October 1, 1999. The king of cadence, late Talat Mahmood, was also conferred the coveted Lata Mangeshkar Award for excellence in music by the Maharashtra Government in the year 1995. Unfortunately, his name did not figure in the write-up among the names of those who were the recipients of this award. The omission is regrettable. The music maestro O.P. Nayyar was also conferred the award by the Maharashtra Government, but he declined the offer stating that such awards were generally instituted after dead people and secondly he had never used Lata’s vocals during his tenure as a music director. Lata Mangeshkar was born on September 28, 1929, and as such she celebrated her 71st birthday and not 70th as mentioned in the write-up. — M.L. Dhawan |
 |
 |
