SIGHT & SOUND

AUDIOSCAN by ASC

Docu film on Bihar tribals
A documentary film on tribals living in and around an uranium mine at Jadugoda in Bihar seeks to draw attention of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to the plight of tribals suffering from hazardous wastes generated by the mine.

To the rescue of Basohli paintings
By Kavita Bhargava

A small town situated some 100 km from Jammu, Basohli has brought recognition to the mountainous state of Jammu and Kashmir not only at the national but also international level through its miniature paintings. Popularly known as Basohli paintings, this form of art had flourished under the patronage of Raja Kirpal. But as time passed by, this art of miniature paintings slowly and gradually started fading away for lack of any patronage from the successive rulers. The artists who did not get any encouragement in the later stages, left this art due to frustration and it almost vanished. Despite all this, there are still many artists who have been promoting this art.

Sohan Billowria, 27, is the youngest miniature painting artist in the state. He believes that he has not been reviving this art as it had never died. “I have been working in miniature paintings with the objective to bring back the glory and fame to this art form which was ignored and neglected but had never died”, says Sohan.

Without any support or patronage by the state government and without thinking about the end-product and the result of his creative process, Sohan works for about 15-18 hours a day to create Basohli miniature paintings. His passion and love for this art is quite evident through the fact that he rarely goes out or socialises. Instead he spends his time in painting in his small rented studio-cum-house in a posh locality at Gandhinagar in Jammu. Having left his home for his art, Sohan is leading life without any financial support. Sustaining on his art sometimes becomes too difficult for this artist who ventured into this field only seven years ago. However, the challenges and difficulties not only strengthen his resolve to carry the legacy of a world-famous dying art, but also inspire him to bring back recognition to Basohli miniatures that these once had.

His paintings are simply stunning. With the use of vibrant colours like red, vermilion and green, Sohan has lent such beauty to the paintings which cannot be described in words. The technique to use these colours is certainly his own.

Though Sohan has worked mostly in the traditional themes of Basohli miniature, most of which have been drawn from Raslila, Ramayana and Mahabharata, yet he has tried to develop a distinct style of his own wherein he has tried to deviate from traditional themes. He has worked on Sufism, Mata Vaishno Devi, Jangams (worshippers of Lord Shiva), Baba Jitto etc.

The deft strokes of an expert hand, colours specially made from coloured stones brought in from Tibet and his hard work for days together culminate in the form of a strikingly beautiful Basohli miniature painting in which stress is on the eyes which are usually fish-like. Lord Krishna playing with his friends in his childhood, he in the lap of Yashodara, his Raslia with the gopis in the garden, lovers sitting in the garden — Sohan’s paintings are a feast to the eyes.

Every single stroke and colour has been chosen with great care and applied with great skill. Work is so exquisite and minute that every single hair in the lion’s mane which is being hunted by King Akbar mounted on his elephant, is visible. Likewise, every other minute detail in all his paintings is also quite prominent. Trees with their yellow leaves in a painting entitled “Lovers” is three-dimensional with every single leaf and lines inside it clearly painted.

The artist’s work has got much recognition in the state. A lot of patience is required in painting the details in Basohli miniatures, but the end-product and its appreciation is certainly a bigger award for the artist’s patience.

Life has not been a bed of roses for Sohan despite his affluent family background in Basohli. The path that he is treading on has made him go through many tests and challenges which are essential in the process of emerging as an artist of excellence. Sohan’s father is a retired Captain from the Army and there has been no artistic atmosphere in his family.

A computer graduate who later pursued his bachelor’s degree in fine arts because of his passion for this form of art and also went on to do his MFA, Sohan used to see artists working in the Basohli painting school being run by the J&K Government at Basohli for hours together.

After his graduation in computers, though he could have opted for some other lucrative career, Sohan didn’t choose the same for his love for miniature paintings. Once he went to Udhampur and saw some good artists like S.S Billowria and B.G. Sharma working on miniature paintings. And it was a turning point in his career when he decided to continue this form of art. His short visit to Jaipur where he saw renowned dedicated artists doing miniature paintings was also a decisive factor. The sudden realisation that miniature paintings could be so beautiful surprised him and thereafter began his tryst with Basohli paintings.

Over a short span of just seven years, Sohan has painted about 1200 paintings which include 125 paintings titled “Devi series” commissioned for the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board Katra, 35 paintings for the Raj Bhavan, Jammu, which he made during the tenure of the Governor, General K.V. Rao and 25 paintings for Mr B.R. Singh, Principal Secretary to the J&K Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah.

In the “Devi series”, Sohan has painted all mythical stories related to Mata Vaishno Devi starting from her arrival in the Trikuta Hills, her subsequent fight with Bhairon and her refuge on the hills.

An endeavour to develop his own style has clearly been reflected in miniatures on Sufism. Sufis, saints and sadhus have also been beautifully painted by Sohan clearly depicting their expressions. He has recently been awarded the national fellowship by the Department of Culture, Ministry of HRD, New Delhi, for his sufi paintings.

Jangams or the worshippers of Lord Shiva who seek “Bhiksha” from door to door and are attired in a unique dress have also fascinated Sohan and he has captured them in his miniatures. Presently, he is working on the “Baba Jitto series”. Baba Jitto, a great devotee of Vaishno Devi, had laid down his life against injustice and is considered a revered figure in the Jammu region.

Among his other awards, Sohan got the first prize in the Pahari painting competition in 1995, the AIFACS national scholarship in 1997, national commendation certificate, Amritsar, in 1997, and a gold medal in the Avantika contemporary artist’s group exhibition in Delhi in 1997.

Many of Sohan’s paintings have been displayed in the art galleries of Canada, West Germany, Mexico and Mauritius. Recently a few of his paintings were sent to the USA.

Sight and Sound
by Amita Malik
DD News on disaster course

ONLY the other day on television, former I. and B. Minister Pramod Mahajan made an astonishing statement when quizzed on his premature baby, DD’s now notorious News Channel, he said well, he had fixed a date and his business was only to keep to it..if he did not add: And may the Devil take the hindmost, well, the Devil went right ahead and took it.

Because the most bizarre happenings have dogged this unfortunate channel, right from the start. First, reception. Even now, DD News is only watched occasionally for monopoly events by those who have access to cable as against the terrestrial-bound captive audience, who have no choice. In spite of all the bullying of cable operators, the reception of DD channels varies from threat to threat and that of the News Channel is the most unpredictable. When I want to comment on a programme, I often have to ask for the cassette from the producer to be able to make out what everybody is saying. Even now, so short is the channel of original talent or programmes, that it resorts to the caption “You are watching DD’s News Channel”, interspersed with endless lists of programmes which are like long shopping lists difficult to note.

Completely lacking in new programmes with a distinct identity befitting a so-called public service channel, DD recklessly signed up every available anchor for multiple talk shows (what someone called Other Men’s Flowers) and the result is boring repetition, sometimes as many as three programmes leased out to anchors already operating on other channels. I think the only sphere in which DD has improved is in sports coverage, where Rizvi and Amitabh Revy have brought in some fresh air.

But news, after all, is news and the biggest disaster has been news bulletins. First DD made the fatal mistake of down-grading its prime time bulletins in Hindi and English by reducing them to 10 minutes each, a hasty decision which they are now, after the damage has been done, about to revise. Indeed, DD has spent more time and astronomical sums of money on such props as new sets and signature tunes than in improving the quality of news. DD’s latest innovation is that absurd huge globe, as big as the anchor, which spins in the background. It not only distracting but the biggest media joke in town. I have the highest respect for both Ketan Mehta as director and Deepa Sahi as actress and my writings on the cinema bear witness to that. But set design is a highly specialised job needing years of training and experience and beyond the reach of consultant whizz kids.... The news set, and another is in the offing, is an unmitigated disaster. Similarly, fiddling about with the signature tune is no substitute for quality news anchoring and reporting.

Which is where another of DD’s hair-brained ideas comes in. They think by raising the salaries of a handful of old news anchors to six figures, like some other channels, they will get instant quality. May I remind the Mandarins of Mandi House that the top news anchors on other channels are not only young, highly trained and brimming over with confidence, they are not just studio-bound armchair badshahs. They keep on tearing off to news spots inside and outside the country, they do other anchor-based discussions during the week, they also do in-depth interviews outside studios. They sometimes risk their lives to do so. Will DD’s 1-lakh a month anchors do the same hard variable work or sit yapping in the studios? Will they rush to Islamabad, Kargil and Nagaland?

Most pathetic is the state of news reporters and newscasters. Apparently the filmi duniya is also training the information officers now masquerading as reporters with horrible accents, a singular lack of descriptive power and no known identity. If DD’s newscasters complain that no one now recognises them on the streets because no one watches them, the fate of these unknown reporters will be worse.

That DD has a solid core of neglected staff reporters was proved by the splendid professional coverage of the Book Fair by Geetam Mishra. And there are others like Rudranath Sanyal (Defence) Chandralekha Verma (Politics) and some out-station correspondents. As for the newscasters, some of whom are of high professional quality and have slogged on a pittance for years, having been given notice they have panicked into trying to up-date themselves by changing their clothes.

Women who looked elegant in saris are smothering themselves and their saris in boxy wide-lapelled waistcoats. Others are wearing what look like make trench-coats or ill-cut sherwanis to look “Western”. They are only looking absurd, in fact clownish.

Audioscan by ASC
Roop, Sonalee Rathod go pop

Mohabbat Ho Gayee (Venus): Roopkumar and Sonalee Rathod are the singing couple which has not got as much success as their talent deserved. Ishaara, Khushboo and Mitwaa received only lukewarm response at best. Their self-analysis is that this happened because their music was not fully appreciated by the young crowd. They have now decided to make amends and how! Their latest cassette uses western instrumentation with a vengeance, borrowing even the music of the James Bond signature tune to appease the MTV-generation. The result is that most of the songs end up being a poor copy of the present-day film songs. In fact, the borrowing has been done even from film songs like Tu cheez badi hai mast mast … (which in itself was an imitation, any way) and Koi ladki hai, jab wo hansti hai ….

But if you can accept this commercialisation, you realise that the singing duo has sung rather well. Roopkumar is brilliant in quite a few songs although that cannot be said about Sonalee. Her voice has many limitations which show up even when there is too much of covering up through orchestration. In Tera deedar na ho …, an additional singer is Surshree Rathod.

This is one of those rare cassettes in which the nine songs have been penned by eight different writers. We have Vijay Akela, Hameed Iqbal, Anjum Rehber, K.K. Singh Mayank, Panchhi Jalaunvi, Israr Ansari, Shahid Hamdani and Madan Pal. It is another matter that none of the lyrics can be considered outstanding.

Music is by Roopkumar Rathod and Jay Vijay.

Although Roopkumar has denied it, the album has obviously been released to coincide with Valentine’s Day. All the nine songs are dripping with romance.

CHORNI (T-Series): Of late, many of the Punjabi singers have been performing with an eye on the audiences outside Punjab. For being acceptable all over, not only the music has been changed beyond recognition but the language is also being mauled.

Hansraj Hans is a reputed name in Sufi singing. But he is also falling a prey to crass commercialisation. He entered the Punjabi-pop scene rather late, when the craze was waning. But in his latest cassette, he has used a strange language which is neither Hindi or Punjabi. Take for instance Ghar se tayaar hoke kitthe challe hon …. This could have passed muster even if it was Ghar ton tayaar … but in the present form it is neither fish nor fowl. To be fair, this mix-up is not there in all the songs, but wherever it is, it leaves a bad taste.

The moment he comes back to typical Punjabi singing, Hans is his fluent self. This quality is particularly visible in Goriyan gulab diyan gallan… which impresses both through its lyrics (Babu Singh Maan) and the singing. The other songs have been written by Sham Balkar (two), Dev Kohli (one) and Amardeep Gill (one).

The title song has been set to music by Jaidev Kumar while all others are by Anand Raaj Anand.

THE MILLENNIUM STAR (Venus): Amitabh Bachchan may have stopped giving hits but his name still sells. This re-mix version in which even the name of the singer has not been mentioned has a few lines from 37 of songs from his various films. The surprising thing is that even those songs which have not been picturised on Amitabh have been crammed in.

Docu film on Bihar tribals

A documentary film on tribals living in and around an uranium mine at Jadugoda in Bihar seeks to draw attention of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to the plight of tribals suffering from hazardous wastes generated by the mine.

The film, “Ragi Kana Ko bonga buru” (Buddha weeps in Jadugoda) produced by a science journalist Shriprakash, highlights the alleged damage being caused by the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) to the environment of the tribal-populated area in East Singbhum district of Bihar.

It was shown in the Information Section of Mumbai International Film Festival for documentary, short and animation films, which concluded here recently. — PTI