Diary Price Re.1/- INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE Volume XXVIII
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diary Price Re.1/- INDIA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE volume XXVIII. No. 5 September – October 2014 i-Jahangiri, Tareekh-e-Farishta and Sri Ram Kirat Unravelling Old Delhi Mahabharata by Sri Ram Kayasth Mathur Dehlvi EXHIBITION: Pahari Imli-Window to a Lost World showcase beautiful calligraphy and floral border Photographs, books, frontispieces and objects from the decorations. There are reproductions of pages from collection of the Hazrat Shah Walilullah Public Library, and important publications. The first two days of the exhibition also acquainted the visitors with the practice of from the private collections of Abdul Sattar and Naseem calligraphy through demonstrations by the noted Beg Khan Changezi calligrapher Shri Ammeenur Rahman of Pahari Imli. Photographs by: Neeraj Singh; Saurabh Prasad; and Various panels tellingly explain the historical background photographs of Matia Mahal by Ram Rahman of Naseem Beg Changezi and his family, Abdul Sattar, Sir Demonstration by Ammeenur Rahman, calligrapher from Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the inception of Delhi College. Pahari Imli. Inauguration: Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan A number of maps document the city of Old Delhi of the October 9–15 mid 19th century; one specifically mapping ‘The Hindu and Mohammedan Monuments’ while the others show As the name suggests, this window to a lost world derives the city of Shahajahanabad before the Siege. It is its name from a huge tamarind tree on a hillock in interesting to see the structural spaces that have Shahajahanabad. The exhibition highlights the collection dramatically transformed over the years. of the Hazrat Shah Waliullah Public Library and personal collections of the Changezi family and Abdul Sattar. Situated in the busy Chooriwalan Galli (street of bangle sellers) of Pahari Imli, Hazrat Shah Waliullah Public Library is a treasure trove of over 15,000 literary marvels sourced from gifts, donations and bazaars. Upon entering the gallery, an extremely enthusiastic man greets the viewers and guides them through the exhibition. That man is Sikandar Changezi, the grandson of Naseem Beg Changezi, inheritor of the Changezi collection and the Secretary of the H.S. Waliullah Public Library, who explains that ‘The exhibition is an outcome of a newspaper article addressing a termite attack on the library’s collection. Upon reading the same, Dr. Kavita A. Sharma (Director, India International Centre) approached us, facilitated a restoration deal with the IGNCA and enabled the realisation of the exhibition of its collections for the public.’ Reproductions of paintings highlight life in 19th century With its primary focus on calligraphy, the exhibition Delhi through the depiction of interesting historical showcases rare manuscripts, books, maps, photographs events like the Visit of the King of Kotah to Delhi, Last and objects with Kufic decorations. Calligraphic Mushaira 1845/Dilli ki Aakhri Shamma, festivals like engravings of the Sura of the Quran, Ayat-ul-Kursi, Al Festival of Falez (the festival of fruits), Baisakhi Ka Mela Falaq, Durood-e-Taj (in praise of Allah), are seen on goat and bazaars like Chandni Chowk and Meena Bazaar. skin, real stone china, bark and parchment respectively. Books of the late 19th and early 20th century like Tuzuk- SANIA GALUNDIA 1 iic experience diary Poetry, Painting and Music EXHIBITIONS: ‘Jaisalmer Yellow’ and ‘Emergence’ Inauguration: Satish Mehta October 9–15 An exhibition of paintings by 25 leading artists from SAARC countries curated by Sanjeev Bhargava was on display at the Art Gallery for the Festival of the Arts. This show was a culmination of an artists’ camp, a collaboration between ICCR and SEHER, which was founded by the curatorin1990toadvance events in the arts. The exhibition included artists from eight SAARC countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka who attended the artists’ camp held in Jaisalmer in 2007.This wide-ranging show attempts to celebrate the spirit of friendship between the countries and to bring into a shared space their respective histories, stories and diverse experiences. language, Pushkale’s impeccably beautiful brown The paintings clearly reflected each artists’ individuality painting and Bandeep Singh’s unusual photograph. and also brought into focus their bonds and common Emergence, a multi media installation by Pierre Legrand cultural traits reiterating the fact that creativity flourishes and Anuradha Mazumdar, was on view at the Gandhi- in an atmosphere of harmony and friendship. King Plaza featuring a small portion of the original ‘Light Purely from an aesthetic perspective, as an art Matter’ installation from Auroville, 2000. practitioner, for me the exhibition clearly displayed a Born in Paris, an engineer by profession, Pierre Legrand’s strength in the handling of artistic media as well as the artistic journey began after he came to India in 1968. It chosen content. While a lot of the artists took their led to the invention of a coded script which structured all inspiration from Jaisalmer, like Anup Vega with his his work: painting, sculpture, installations and, minimalistic canvas of the vast desert, artists from sometimes, even music. His work explores space in Afghanistan painted a painful, desolate landscape of a collaboration with architecture, poetry and music and has bombed and destroyed homeland in grey rubble. A clear been featured alongside Mark Tobey, in Dimensions mastery over the human form was evident in paintings by of the Infinite, Paris; and with Richard Serra in Jatin Das and Shamshad Husain. Other works that stood Schwarz, Cologne. out were Akhilesh’s green abstract of an imaginary Legrand’s installation Emergence appeared to be made of cutouts of plastic sheets in white webbed together to focus on porosity, lightness, and space, blurring the boundaries between the human being and the environment. The cutouts contain poetry by Anuradha Mazumdar and the background music has been conceptually composed from the letters of these poems.Thus the installation appears to begin with architecture/space construction but by using light invites the viewer into a pathway which brings into play other media and senses, thus complicating the work and its interpretation. It looked to me that the artist was putting together all these elements to show that there is another, yet unknown but possibly common or universal language of the soul out there, beyond linguistic, material and creative boundaries. How wonderful it would be for all of us to be able to break the preconceived codes and move with the light into a new magical mystical understanding across borders! SABA HASAN 2 diary iic experience Two interesting films were screened based on the works of Films the profound Columbian writer Gabriel Garcia FILM FESTIVAL: People, Places and a War; Focii on Gabriel Marquez. No One Writes to the Colonel filmed by the Garcia Marquez, Suchitra Sen and Robin Williams Mexican Arturo Ripstein does bring out the sadness and October 9–15 ennui in the lives of an old, penurious colonel and his wife marooned in a small town years after a military The IIC Experience screened a variety of films. A three- revolution, but it has none of Marquez’s irony, humour or film tribute to actress Suchitra Sen, who passed away in knowledge of inexplicable impulses present in life. The Kolkata earlier this year, was timely. Her career was at its same can be said of Love and Other Demons made by zenith in Bengali films, though she did appear in seven Hilda Hildalgo. This tale of blind superstition given Hindi films as well. Two Bengali films, Deep Jele Jai and sanction by an all knowing, all powerful Roman Catholic Shaath Pake Bandha revealed her sterling qualities as a Church, in which the exquisite teen-aged daughter of an dramatic actress. In the first film Deep Jele Jai, written by aristocrat bitten by a rabid dog and interned in a fortress- the well-known Bengali writer Ashutosh Mukhopadhyay, like convent, is thrown together with a young, idealist she is a nurse in a mental asylum. There against her priest who nurses her, despite being doomed to die along principles, in order to assist in the psychiatric experiment with his charge, as a sacrifice to the vanity and ignorance of a senior doctor she respects, falls in love with a patient of the clergy. Hildalgo’s handsomely mounted film to assist in his cure. The man recovers to walk away free, cannot grasp the writer’s prescience about human beings thus leaving her emotionally broken and a patient in the unable to grasp intelligence on offer and use it to seek same asylum. In Shaath Pake Bandha, she plays a woman happiness. from a well-to-do family headed by a professor father and There was a selection of films to mark the declaration of an ambitious, batty mother. Her marriage to an World War I in 1914. The four-year war was supposed to unworldly but bright academic, whom she loves, is be one to end all wars: how wrong the observation proved broken because she cannot stand up to her mother. to be! Jean Renoir’s, The Grand Illusion shot in black and Suchitra Sen’s performance in the film is memorable. white in 1937, remains the most perceptive anti-war film Equally noteworthy is her performance in the Hindi film, ever made. The escape of two French soldiers from a Aandhi, purportedly based on the life of Prime Minister German prisoner-of-war camp is a celebration of life over Indira Gandhi, written and directed by Gulzar. war (read death). Passchendaele, 2008, a Canadian film A two-film tribute to the brilliant American serio-comic directed by Paul Cross, is a sumptuously shot film about actor Robin Williams, who committed suicide this year, the futility of war. The gorgeous colours in nature are in was apt. His portrayal of a deeply caring, eccentric teacher ironic contrast with the ghastliness of death in war.