Siddharth Pandey Whenever the epithet ‘Dev Bhoomi’ is used with reference to the religious landscape of Himachal Pradesh, it is usually a select list of temples that readily comes to mind. The official website of the Himachal Pradesh government, for...
Monica Arora Sreemoyee Singh’s ‘And, Towards Happy Alleys’ is a gem of cinematic brilliance, a symphony on Iranian poets, filmmakers and, most importantly, women. Here are women who go on living with grace and dignity, refusing to be quietened, despite...
Krishnaraj Iyengar There is no India without Sindh, says filmmaker Susheel Gajwani, reminding us how the words ‘India’ and ‘Hindustan’ originate from ‘Indus’ or ‘Sindhu’. His fierce passion has finally found form. After having directed several Hindi and Marathi movies,...
Sarika Sharma Manjit Bawa’s first-ever painting sold for Rs 50. Over the last one year, his artworks have been auctioned for as high as Rs 25 crore, making and breaking records. Bawa, born in the small town of Dhuri in...
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry Nasreen Mohamedi (1937-1990) had an aura of ephemerality around her. She loved the sea, the sand, the wind, the sun, the light, the shadows, the trees, the flora… Her drawings and canvases were not biomorphic; rather, her...
Malvika Kaul Anarkali Shyam, Champi Bai Shyam, Rajesh Shyam, Santosh Maravi and Sanjay Pancheshwar live in the remote village of Patangarh, and in villages spread in the Mandla forests of Madhya Pradesh. Along with several others, they create the ‘Gond...
Sarika Sharma Gauhar Jaan, celebrated as colonial India’s most renowned ‘tawaif’, had a mastery over several styles and languages, including French and English. This versatility and range have always inspired Sharmistha Chatterjee, the Bengali singer who recently wowed her...
Monica Arora It isn’t just another art show. Hosted by New Delhi-based Latitude 28 art gallery, ‘Come With Your Own Light’ is a curation of artist Komal Mistri’s unique experimentation of spending time in delivery rooms and maternity wards...
Shailaja Khanna An unusual, first-of-its-kind jugalbandi involved sarodist Amaan Ali Bangash and vocalist Kaushiki Chakraborty. Despite belonging to totally different musical lineages, they recently performed together in Kolkata. The duo’s apparent personal chemistry translated into an ease on stage,...
Sarika Sharma While growing up in a village near Mehrauli and studying under a tree at school, Ompal Sansanwal didn’t realise when nature became a part of him. That jungle, the birds and animals, and the trees were all to...
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry If you cannot bear these stories, then the society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked? I don’t even try to cover it, because it is not my...
Monica Arora KG Subramanyan was born in rural Kerala in pre-Partition India in 1924. A student of economics, he was an active participant in the Independence movement and that resulted in his expulsion from college and even imprisonment. No...
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning. — Michel Foucault Many years ago, my theatre group was invited to perform ‘Yerma’, by Federico Garcia Lorca,...
Shireen Quadri AS a conscientious artist-draftsman, Gobardhan Ash (1907-1996) was deeply affected by the suffering of people around him. In his works, he would invariably portray poverty, hunger and deprivation. An early Modernist, he responded to the zeitgeist in his...
Shakti S Chandel “When you look at these paintings… you seem to catch the spirit of those great mountains which have towered over the Indian plain and been our sentinels for ages past. They remind us of so much in...
Sarika Sharma “Tonhada kaam, kaam, ahaanda kaam, ridakna?” (Your work is work, and our work is worthless?) “Ladka kadhai kyun nahi kar sakta?” (Why can’t a boy embroider?) Gendered queries such as these form the heart of the exhibition...
Vinayak Chakravorty Sidharth Malhotra makes his business clear in ‘Yodha’ with the punchline: “Main rahoon ya na rahoon, desh hamesha rahega (I may or may not exist, but my nation will exist forever).” The assertion comes when an archetypal...
Amitabha Bhattacharya Shortly after my graduation, deeply immersed in the Film Society Movement, I watched ‘Garm Hava’ (‘Scorching Winds’) and remember vividly the impression it left on me. Satyajit Ray wrote a longish letter to a noted Bengali weekly in...
Shailaja Khanna TWO artistes from Punjab have been honoured with the Sangeet Natak Akademi awards for 2022 and 2023, in the field of North Indian classical music, and unexpectedly so. I write unexpectedly because despite undivided Punjab being the centre...
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry THE image of female impersonators never ceases to fascinate, whether they appear in theatre, films, classical or folk performances. Is the female impersonator a sexual subaltern? Or an artiste expressing himself outside conventional templates? The annals of...
Rajnish Wattas I SAW my first Impressionist painting in original nearly two decades ago. I can never forget the brilliance of its bold colours, in thick slabs of contrasting hues, to capture the ever-changing effects of light with the brush....
Chandigarh, March 15 Eminent city residents have taken up the recommendations made by distinguished art historian Dr BN Goswamy, who passed away on November 17 last year, with Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Banwarilal Purohit for rejuvenation of museum, art,...
Raghav Guleria Dharamsala, March 12 Decorated with several awards such as the Kalidas Sammaan and the Himachal Excellency Award, Dhani Ram, a resident of village Dhugiari in Kangra district, has risen to become one of the most sought-after artists...
Malvika Kaul Gulammohammed Sheikh is 87 and warns that he “rambles a lot”. His art meanders, beautifully traversing eras. The canvases appear to move in different directions, presenting multiple narratives in a single moment. They look like elegant Google...
Shireen Quadri Italian artist Tarshito N Stippoli believes in the fluidity of borders. In his universe, the world is one big family, bound together by the timeless threads of love, creativity, and connection. This ethos underpins his cross-cultural artistic...
Nonika Singh 540 films and still counting, 40 years in Bollywood and still going strong. That is the indefatigable and irrepressible Anupam Kher, Padma Bhushan recipient and two-time National Award-winner, who abhors titles like living legend, thespian and veteran. “These...
Renu Sud Sinha SHE remains a small-town girl at heart and her stories are steeped in sensibilities born out of her roots. A former journalist, translator, author, documentary maker and now a scriptwriter, Anu Singh Choudhry was born in a...
Shailaja Khanna CURATED by renowned art expert Gayatri Sinha, ‘Kali — Reverence and Rebellion’ is a stunning exhibition, expansive in its range. Covering art on the goddess across 300 years from the 18th century to the 20th, it is not...
Monica Arora ‘A small village, around the corner, up in a mountain’, a solo exhibition by prolific artist Subodh Gupta, is the debut show of Nature Morte’s Mumbai gallery, situated in the historic Dhanraj Mahal at Apollo Bandar in the...
Saibal Chatterjee Writer-director Raam Reddy’s second film, ‘The Fable’, starring Manoj Bajpayee, is among 15 titles in the competitive Encounters section of the upcoming 74th Berlin Film Festival (February 15 to 25). ‘Shambhala’ is Nepal’s first film at the fest....