November-December 2014 CD

diary Price Re.1/- INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE volume XXVIII. No. 6 November – December 2014 'All That Jazz...and More’ EXHIBITION: Jazz in India Inauguration by Soli J. Sorabjee November 26—30 MUSIC APPRECIATION PROMOTION: A Short History of How Jazz Became an Indian Music Presentation by: Naresh Fernandes Collaboration: Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology, American Institute of Indian Studies November 26 Jazz!! The very sound of the word evokes visual images of self-taught African-American instrumentalists, some formally trained, and odd individuals of immigrant and dilettante classes playing a wide range of startling and vibrant music in the smoky bars of burgeoning ports, river cities, labour camps and industrial centres of early 20th century America. Tracingthe history of jazz in India from the time the first American jazz bands visited the country was a remarkable audio and video exhibition curated by writer and curator Naresh Fernandes from his own personal collections and the archives of renowned jazz enthusiast, Niranjan Jhaveri. Naresh's extensive presentation recounted how jazz became the world's first pop music assisted by the invention of the phonograph and the spread of radio. Spreading quickly to distant corners of the world, jazz music caused both excitement and alarm. By the mid- musicians also worked to find a way to create a fusion of 1920s, bands in Indian cantonment settlements, railway Hindustani classical music and Western jazz. From the colonies, hill stations and residency towns were belting late 1970s, the greatest jazz musicians found a warm out ‘hot music’ as jazz was called in India in those days. welcome in India at the bi-annual jazz festivals held in Indian musicians took to jazz with a passion, as did their Mumbai, Delhi, Goa and Bengaluru, in a series of audiences. From the mid-1940s, the music of the ghettoes presentations that continued till 2003. These 'jazz yatras' of New Orleans was to be heard in the subcontinent, and also helped facilitate many Indo-Western jazz jazz became an important ingredient in Hindi film music, collaborations between traditional Indian classical and putting the swing into evergreen favourites such as Sunday ke Western jazz musicians. Sunday (Shehnai, 1947), Mera Naam Chin Chin Choo and Today India is home to a host of third-generation jazz Ina Mina Diga (Asha, 1957), and Howrah Bridge (1958). musicians who help to ensure that jazz continues to have a vigorous life in the subcontinent, another example of Using carefully preserved coloured and sepia-toned India's ability to grab influences from around the world photographs and archival recordings, Naresh Fernandes and transform them into a music uniquely its own. It demonstrated how, within a decade, jazz became an really is a case of ‘it don't mean a thing, if it ain't got important ingredient in Hindi film music. In addition to that swing!’ the functional fusion of the Hindi film studios, Indian DEEPAK CASTELINO 1 film diary The film on water harvesting in Barmer in Rajasthan, Films on the Environment When Every Drop Counts looked at the ways in which local FILM FESTIVAL: Quotes from the Earth – An Environment communities have come together to fund and make Film Festival equitable forms of water preservation for the dry and hot summer months in the Thar desert. The film showcases Collaboration: Toxics Link the ways in which traditional modes of rain water December 5–6 harvesting such as the underground public and private tankas (tanks) are slowly making a comeback after This festival invoked the Earth through the theme of the modern methods of water generation have failed. Here, environment and its protection. The 24 films screened the film documents one of the successful projects of the showcased a wide variety of issues related to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment environment, ecology and the politics of conservation. Guarantee scheme wherein BPL families worked on The festival was inaugurated by the classical danseuse tankas for the village and got funding to make their own Guru Shovana Narayan. In the inaugural address, she private tankas as well. The result: fresh and clean drinking spoke of the ways in which the earth is being poisoned by water in the harshest months of the year. humans akin to the ways in which Kalki, the mythological The lyrical and beautifully filmed Song of Niyamgiri snake poisoned the river and was subdued by Lord Krishna. documented a folk song of the Niyamgiri tribe through The film screenings on the first day were linked through a animation. The brush strokes followed the voice and panel discussion on the ‘The role of media in shaping vocal strains of the song sung by one of Niyamgiri’s contemporary environmental discourse’. The discussion famous folk singers about the birth of the earth and the centred on how the media was caught in its role within a Niyamgiris and the destruction of their habitat by market economy in its efforts to generate environmental outsiders. The song and film echoed the fears of bauxite issues and create effective awareness around it. In its mining that threatens to destroy the habitat and local urban-centric and political approach, the media was community of the Niyamgiris. willing to showcase only those stories on the environment Wildlife preservation policy was the focus of the film that fit in with its readership and its larger agenda. ForgottenTigers. It tracked the ways in which ProjectTiger However, against such a bleak image of the media’s role in fails to protect tigers as per its mandate. The film environmental awareness and action were also stories of documents the lived negotiations amongst people living the media’s activism in pushing through emotive, action- in and around natural habitats and the ways in which they oriented reportage regarding issues of wildlife try to understand and respect wildlife, sometimes at huge conservation, toxic waste, river conservation and lead personal cost. The bureaucratic and political machinery poisoning. It was also highlighted in the discussion that it however is not similarly tuned into the ways in which the was often the local media rather than mainstream news forests and tigers need protection and understanding. that were more conscientious and holistic in their coverage of environmental issues and conservation. ANINDITA MAJUMDAR 2 diary exhibition and films Ruth and her husband was one of Ruth, her daughter Ruth’s World Renana and grandchild. There were images too of the EXHIBITION: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Memorabilia Jhabvala family: Ruth with Shashi Kapoor, Ruth in easy December 8–18 camaraderie with Merchant and Ivory at Ivory’s home in Readings and Discussion: Ruth – Destined to Write Clavarack, upstate New York. December 15 The discussion, ‘Ruth: Destined to Write’, brought out the psyche of Ruth and her uneasy relationship with Much feted author and screenplay writer Ruth Prawer India. The evening began with a brief introduction to Jhabvala (1927-2013) used to shut herself away from the Ruth‘s life and work by her daughter Renana Jhabvala, world a few hours everyday to do what she loved. Her followed by a film where Ruth, Merchant and Ivory output was tremendous—13 novels, eight collections of engaged in playful banter about the making of Heat and short stories and 23 screenplays. India-centric books like Dust. Then came the highlight of the evening—an The Householder and Heat and Dust are as legendary insightful overview of Ruth and her early work by as her original screenplays and adaptations of literary academic and novelist Aruna Chakravarti. Well-known classics for film producer Ismail Merchant and director personalities Averee Chaurey and Minoti Chatterjee read James Ivory. excerpts from Ruth’s A Backward Place, Heat and Dust Tocelebrate the life and work of Ruth, a retrospective was and An Experience of India. The readings were reflective organised that encompassed an exhibition, discussion and of Ruth’s repugnance for fake godmen and the misplaced film screenings. At the core of the exhibition were obsession of Indian men for white women. Yet some memorabilia—collections of photographs (1951-2012), where there lurked her affirmation of India. films scripts, her old typewriter, notebooks, film posters Rounding up the evening was a short discussion of Ruth’s and sketches drawn by her architect husband Cyrus later works by academic Ramesh Shah. Jhabvala. The photographs offered vignettes of her momentous life. Juxtaposed with a striking photograph of KAVITA CHARANJI hard to keep Shakespeare alive long after the Raj.The film In Three Continents was inspired by the experiences of the Kendal family and IIC FILM CLUB RETROSPECTIVE: Ruth Jhabvala – Her was shot by Satyajit Ray’s cameraman Subrata Mitra. A Three Continents – 50 Years with Merchant Ivory Room with a View is a faithful rendering of E. M. Forster’s December 8—22 celebrated novel. The story of the awakening of young Lucy Honeychurch, thanks to the liberating effect of the The Merchant Ivory retrospective conceptualised and Tuscan countryside and the Latin temperament is curated by Renana Jhabvala and Meera Dewan has been a translated with perfect judgment and Forster’s dry sense real treat for film connoisseurs and literary aficionados. of humour. Ruth Jhabvala’s screenplays based on famous novels are In Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, Mr. Bridge, an autocratic Kansas memorable. The adaptations remain true to the original City lawyer, refuses to move with the times. Stunningly and are made even more vivid with superb visuals and photographed interiors and exteriors recreate the 1930s brilliant performances. In her Neil Gunn Lecture entitled to perfection. In Remains of the Day, Stevens is the ‘Disinheritance’, Jhabvala observes: ‘… I stand before you inarticulate butler, a man so fanatically devoted to selfless as a writer without any ground or being out of which to service that he continues with his duties while his father write: really blown about from country to country, lies dying and refuses to question the Nazi sympathies of culture to culture.

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