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WHY DO we look at art? How do artists satisfy viewers? Do they intuitively know what is beautiful? Peak Shift Effect, a show marking 25 years of Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, tries to answer these questions.
In neuroaesthetics, peak shift effect signifies that an artist can magnify visual stimulus to peak a viewer’s response. An artist picks on the “principle of beauty”, says curator Gayatri Sinha. “Science is recognising now the artist’s natural talent that practitioners have long known. Why do generations of people visit museums to see art objects? Because beauty has a universal quality.” Sinha has tried to adapt the theme to this group show, the first of the three in the Gallery’s roster this year, that hunts for an aesthetic in all aspects of life — domestic, public, death and history. The idea is to see the three floors of the Gallery as an evolving space — the ground floor houses works that play with domesticity, the second floor asks questions of one’s identity in the city, the third has works drawn from history. Yet, what is intriguing in theory fails to transform into practice.
On the ground floor, Hema Upadhyay’s Pedestrian continues with her signature theme of placing her body in her art. The figures running across a carpetsize canvas on the ground are of the artist herself. If you remove them from their patterns, the work fades away. “It questions the elevated status of art. The audience, which at first is a spectator, goes on to become an important part in disintegrating it,” says Upadhyay.
On the walls, there are breathtaking pictures by Sunil Gupta, a photographer known for shooting the LGBT community in the most candid manner. Here, the life of two gay men is documented through hats, formal tuxedoes, close-ups and a classic noir setting. One of the finest shots is Film Noir Angels, where halfnaked men look down in a queenly manner from a balcony. Says artist Atul Bhalla, “The objects in the room are intimate. You have to approach them to interact.” The two frames of his diptych Two Chairs in Johannesburg show the same chair with small differences. Bhalla calls this “an exaggeration of still life”.
Exaggeration takes a different form in Shilpa Gupta’s print-on-mirror work I Look At Things With Eyes Different From Yours, which is meant to be an anchor for the room. However, it fails to impact. Placing a mirror right at the centre of the room seems too literal an exercise to blur the lines between the viewer and the viewed, and does not raise questions of audience participation in art.
The first floor opens up thematically to city spaces. Praneet Soi’s acrylic on canvas Sliding Ground poses questions — are the displayed bodies male or female? Is the concern gender, sex or violence? “I collect my images from media reports. I talk about how the city stamps out the identity of a fallen body,” says Soi. Abir Karmakar’s Porno Painting series looks at a hotel room from different angles. Exquisitely detailed, it is unsettling in its implied voyeurism. Ordinary urban haunts bec ome murky spaces threatening identity and privacy. Karmakar’s skill as a painter is absolute. “It evokes a mix of vertigo and voyeurism,” says Sinha.
The second floor’s centrepiece is Riyas Komu’s intricately detailed wood sculpture Safe to Light. On one end is a handpump and on the other, a world map carving, evoking scientific progress through history. Komu has recreated an ancient Iranian apparatus used to draw oil, while the map gives it a contemporary context of oil wars. Jagannath Panda’s references to Indian history, though, get lost in their minimalism. Why is a Mughal astride a horse kicking a pig? What does a collage of a butterfly, a lamp-post and an Aladdin-esque lamp mean? It is frus tratingly spare, as if the artist forgot to leave in the next clue.
The works range from stunning to baffling, but there is no significant departure from trends in contemporary Indian art. Critic Meera Menezes says that Atul Bhalla’s works are “poetic” and Mithu Sen’s installation Cannibal Lullaby gives “beauty to macabre”, but “I can’t seem to join the dots of the larger curatorial concept”. As a curator, Sinha asks: “How do artists respond to our turbulent tim es?” Most contemporary artists already engage with social realities on canvas. This show, though enjoyable and at times challenging, fails to go beyond.
On till 2 March at the Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
Aradhna Wal is a Sub Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com
The ‘I’ of the beholder
Vanityfair
The Jedi Return
The Stars Unite
In celluloid outer space there existed two camps: Star Wars and Star Trek. Each had its own universe, people and cult. But George Lucas ripped the space-time continuum, announcing that the director of the next Star Wars movie will be JJ Abrams, who directed the 2009 hit Star Trek. Never before has one person inherited the legacy of both franchises. Fans are speculating on how Abrams will bring back the Skywalkers and the Solos. But they’re united on one thing; the force is strong with this one.
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Close Encounters
Is the grapevine always ripe with hyperbole? For instance, when they say of Ram Leela that Sanjay Leela Bhansali has shot sizzling love scenes with Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh of the kind that neither the director nor his lead pair has ever done, it does leave us pleading for sanity. Does ‘never-before’ in these particular scenes mean scaling up of the risqué factor, or does Bhansali simply want our jaws to drop at the money he spent shooting them? A source said it’s akin to the ‘sizzling’ chemistry of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Someone tell him even soggy analogies can turn a playwright in his grave.
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Call of Duty
Game Plan
Call of Duty and Medal of Honour, two popular video games, have been banned by the Pakistani government for depicting the country in a poor light. In one, it is required that you decimate ISI forces by slitting their throats. The other, which shows Pakistan as a hotbed for terrorists, was developed with the help of US Navy SEALs who assassinated Bin Laden. Perhaps it would have helped to let videogames remain means of mass entertainment rather than turning them into instruments of mass propaganda.
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‘There’s no need for the next Farooq-Deepti’
Farooq Shaikh (The retro couple of Bollywood isn’t done just yet)
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The Goddess of all things
AT THE canvas’ centre is the goddess. All life emanates from her. The colours are vibrant yellow, red and green. The detailing is intricate, with smaller female figures dancing, praying and painting in abandon, around her. This is Shakti, a painting from Seema Kohli’s upcoming exhibition Parikrama, to be shown at the India Art Fair, 31 January to 3 February 2013.
Seema Kohli, 52, is a Delhi-based artist famous for her depiction of female strength, sexuality and divinity. Winner of the 2008 Lalit Kala Akademi National Award for Women, Parikrama is in continuation with these recurring themes. It is her interpretation of the Saptmatrikas, the seven divine mothers, the manifestation of feminine energy that created the universe. Kohli uses paintings, sculptures, a video installation and a film — It Was a Summer Afternoon— to talk about the abuse of nature, womanhood and humanity.
“The goddess and the demons embody us,” says Kohli, who spent 10 years training at the Triveni Kala Sangam, “Divinity has to come from within us to fight our demons. We are responsible for disconnecting ourselves from nature and leaving behind our tribal space. We see the violation of the environment and women as a personal right.”
In It Was a Summer Afternoon, the abused young girl wonders, “Does she feel the same? … Am I as divine as her?” She addresses nature, which has been raped like her. The film is less about the act, more about the shame in the aftermath. Kohli confesses that it took years to gather the courage to film it. Her turning point, she says, came in 2002, when she left her home and no longer found herself answerable to the family name or bound to traditional familial roles.
Writer Charty Dugdale, who wrote the concept note for Parikrama, feels that this is Kohli’s most direct engagement with rape culture. Her paintings and sculptures are more “oblique”; they use mythology to talk about social realities. However, her evocation of myths from Vedic, Sikh and other cultures attracts viewers. They are hooked by a familiar symbol and fixated by the new story it tells. Kohli makes mythology her own. For example, she sees Maya as the divine feminine. Maya becomes not just the illusion but also the creator of the illusion that gives birth to the universe. “There is no religious iconography,” says Kishore Singh, a prominent art critic. “Instead there is freedom, creativity, a personal spirituality and a certain heroism in how every woman can be a goddess.”
“Kohli’s art might not be quite fashionable in terms of trends dictated by contemporary art. She isn’t the highest selling artist. But her works move fast through the market, with a 2×2 ft canvas going for Rs 2.5 lakh and a large canvas for Rs 6 lakh. She has ready buyers,” explains critic Rahul Bhattacharya. Popular Prakashan publisher Harsh Bhatkal, a long time collector of Kohli’s works, attributes that to the joy stemming from her art. People relate to it more than they would to highly abstract works, he says.
Kohli’s work is not about anger and hostility. Neither is it an overtly political, aggressive feminism. Her goddess is a serene and joyful embodiment of the role of the nurturer and life giver.
Parikrama will be exhibited at the India Art Fair, 31 January to 3 February 2013, New Delhi
Vanityfair
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Blast from the Past
In Inkaar, Chitrangda Singh might not have had the greatest of films to kick off 2013. However, she did impress at times in the role, even if she was restricted by some terrible writing. Despite her acting skills, it’s not her roles she usually receives attention for, but her uncanny resemblance to yesteryear’s actress Smita Patil, who tragically died in 1986 at the age of 31. Naturally, it was this connection that the media focussed on, asking her if she was open to do a biopic on Patil. “I think it will be a big honour to play Smita,” she said, adding that she considers the comparisons a compliment.
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Face Off
As Barack Obama begins a second term as US president, much attention will be paid on his upcoming fiscal battles with the legislature. In the court of public opinion, however, he has an edge, as the US Congress faces an historic low in popularity. A new poll released shows that the legislature is less popular among Americans than root canals, cockroaches, head lice, Nickelback, colonoscopies and Genghis Khan. It’s not all bad though: it beats telemarketers, the Kardashians, the ebola virus, communism and gonorrhoea.
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Take Two
Gentle readers beware: Shantaram is getting a sequel. Author Gregory David Roberts is back in the country to finish a second 900-page book about his discovery of India, to be released in late 2013. He says he has finished writing almost 650 of those pages. First order of business on his return, however, was the Mumbai marathon, which, he says, he walked rather than ran, due to his recent knee surgery. His bromide for the day: “The spirit (of the marathon) transcends all borders… we are all united in one cause, which is ‘jiyo aur jeene do (live and let live)’.”
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Mani Shankar Aiyar (Gushing about Rahul Gandhi’s Jaipur speech)
A Shriek Tragedy
Director Tom Hooper
Starring Hugh Jackman,
Anne Hathaway, Russell Crowe
Tom Hooper’s film version of the immensely successful musical has earned itself eight Oscar nominations and reduced entire audiences to tears, but Les Misérables does raise a crucial question: deprived of its social commentary and vivid descriptions, is Victor Hugo’s novel just not riveting enough? After all, it is reduced in this film to a series of remarkable coincidences, with little or no explanation of the characters’ back stories. Thénardier, for instance, one of the most compelling characters in the novel, is reduced to a comic figure. Javert, though played competently by Russell Crowe, often looks ridiculous while braying simple sentences in the form of song. Marius suddenly appears at one point and becomes a central character.
As a musical, the film is brilliant at times, fairly good at others. Anne Hathaway’s performance as Fantine is excellent, as is Jackman’s Jean Valjean. The songs, actually sung by the actors themselves to varying degrees of success, sometimes register those raw emotional moments that musicals specialise in, especially Hathaway’s I Dreamed A Dream. But there is too often a sense that there is something missing, that Hugo’s very human characters have been submerged by the scale of the production.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com
Pretty Politics
Director Sudhir Mishra
Starring Arjun Rampal, Chitrangda Singh, Deepti Naval, Vipin Sharma
WITH THE current re-examination of our culture for evidence of innate misogyny and patriarchy, one would expect that a film on gender politics by Sudhir Mishra would show that there is still hope. After all, in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, he proved that it was possible for the industry to make a film about as complex an issue as Naxalism without turning it into a tired cliché. In Inkaar, he turns his sights towards the issue of sexual harassment at the workplace, not in the form of a simple hero-villain narrative, but exploring the ambiguity of what constitutes harassment and the reactions of men to a woman in power.
The film is presented in the form of an internal hearing at an ad agency after the national creative director (Singh) has filed a complaint against the CEO (Rampal). Told through a series of flashbacks, as an impartial arbiter (Naval) tries to piece together the story, it is the sordid tale of an affair between mentor and protégée gone wrong, followed by professional jealousy as the protégée builds her career on her own. Already facing resentment from her colleagues after her rapid rise, she then has to deal with a churlish boss throwing tantrums that can be construed as harassment, though he oddly passes it off as innocent flirting.
Mishra’s failings in the film, however, come in an unlikely area: his characters. Unlike Disclosure and its Indian remake Aitraaz, this isn’t a black-and-white case of a manipulative woman gaming the system, but the shades of grey are not filled in, as they should, by fleshing out the characters. Though he tries to create an atypical relationship between the two protagonists, based on professional jealousy rather than personal differences, he does so merely by having Rampal reiterate every 15 minutes that he made Singh’s career. In fact, almost every substantial piece of dialogue is repeated many times. The others, meanwhile, are simply one-toned, shallow stereotypes: the lecherous foreigner, the patriarchal male manager, the starry-eyed female employee. Naval, for one, is hamstrung by some atrocious lines (“We must get to the bottom of this” is my favourite).
The ending is an utter cop out, undermining the very exercise the film sets out to conduct. Inkaar is a well-shot film with a decent plot and good direction. It’s a pity it could not be more.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com
An Inheritance of Chaos
Photo: AFP
TAKING OVER as the vice-president of the Congress Party is perhaps the easiest hurdle Rahul Gandhi has had to cross. He faces far bigger ones in the next 15 months before the 2014 General Election. If anything, Rahul’s new job is the classic crown of thorns. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition government has bled much political capital since beginning its second term in 2009 due to charges of graft, a slowing economy, rising inflation and sputtering economic reforms. The new de facto Congress leader now unenviably stares at bush fires all around him that need to be smacked down urgently. Appointed last week the torchbearer of India’s oldest political party, Rahul’s make-or-break realpolitik moment has already begun. How he deals with the dystopia will decide whether he sizzles as the sixth scion of one of the world’s most famous political dynasties and returns his party to power, or brings up its epitaph.
Threatening already to sink the Congress in Andhra Pradesh is the quagmire created by the decades-old demand for a separate Telangana state in its north. Both the Centre and the Congress party have used rounds of consultations with the warring sides to kick the can down the road. Not any more. Last month, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde promised a Telangana solution by 28 January. Each side now confidently claims Rahul would weigh in in its favour. But this is a zero sum game and both can’t win. On 22 January, anti-Telangana Congress leaders met the prime minister and warned him yet again to not split the state. The same day, pro-Telangana Congress leaders met Shinde reminding him they expect nothing but statehood on 28 January. With Andhra Pradesh Assembly polls due concurrently with the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. Holding as many as 31 of the state’s 42 Lok Sabha seats, Rahul can hardly expect to lose the state and keep power in New Delhi.
An even hotter potato on the Gandhi scion’s plate is Karnataka where Assembly polls are due in May and could be called earlier. The last his party won a majority here was in 1999. It stood second to the BJP in successive elections of 2004 and 2008, and has been in the Opposition since 2006 when its creaky two-year coalition government with the JD(S) collapsed. After a brief romance between the JD(S) and the BJP, too, imploded, the unprincipled politics paved the way for the BJP to win a near majority in 2008 and form the government. But five years down, the state of the BJP in Karnataka is of sordid ignominy from endless corruption and factionalism. A massive rebellion and three chief ministers later, the BJP would surprise its diehard supporters if it wins in May. But is the Congress set to gain from the BJP’s miseries?
If only. The Congress in Karnataka is riven with factionalism, most recently from the efforts of former chief minister SM Krishna, who Prime Minister Singh abruptly sacked in October as India’s foreign minister. Krishna is miffed as he was not invited to the party’s brainstorming — the Chintan Shivir — at Jaipur on 18-19 January that heralded Rahul’s formal appointment as the second-in-command to his mother, Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Then there is a battery of biggies including three current and one former union minister who are not distinguished by any camaraderie. Leading that pack is Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Veerappa Moily, also a former Karnataka chief minister and no doubt a pretender to the throne. Two other union ministers are in the fray: veteran Lok Sabha MP KH Muniyappa and Mallikarjun Kharge, who led the Congress party in Opposition in the Assembly after the 2008 debacle. Of course, collectively these sexagenarians would face no small challenge from the younger lot in the party in Karnataka, many of whom are Rahul Gandhi’s handpicks.
Similar factionalism wracks the party in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where Assembly elections are due in November. In Madhya Pradesh, where it was booted from power in 2003, the Congress is catatonic and shambled. The BJP government of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan handsomely won reelection in 2008 and has ruled without any major scandals since then. But in the Congress, factionalism is rife. Its various satraps include Chouhan’s predecessor as chief minister, Digvijaya Singh; union ministers Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia who are both stalwarts from the state; former union minister Suresh Pachauri who headed the Congress in Madhya Pradesh during 2008-11; and Rajya Sabha MP Satyavrat Chaturvedi.
In Rajasthan, the party’s government faces anti-incumbency and, of course, factionalism. Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has been in Sonia Gandhi’s inner circle while his arch-rival, Union Road Transport and Highways Minister CP Joshi, has been in Rahul Gandhi’s. A botched response to communal violence during his tenure brought much embarrassment to Gehlot. Joshi has been straining at the leash to get back in the state. Will Rahul be able to fend off Joshi and allow Gehlot to freely choose candidates for the elections? It is much the same story elsewhere, too. A party chief is yet to be appointed in Punjab since it lost last year’s Assembly polls. Ditto for Bihar, Haryana and Gujarat, where the BJP trounced the Congress last month. The limbo is worrisome as these states account for over 100 Lok Sabha seats.
At the party’s national headquarters at 24, Akbar Road in New Delhi, Rahul would certainly aim to bring in a fresh crop of secretaries. This, too, could ruffle feathers in the old guard, as could the changing of some of the general secretaries. Outwardly Mr Cool, Rahul has nonetheless taken a lot of heat for the Congress’ failure in last year’s Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh, a state where he had virtually dug a stakeout. Although he is credited with installing downstream systems in a party that has been run ad hoc and whimsically for decades, Rahul now faces a Hobson’s choice: whether to adapt himself to the old-fashioned knee-jerk fixit way of running the party which he has shunned, or continue building the party ground up, which could take years to bear fruit.
Film Review: Inkaar
By Ananya Borgohain
The capital of the largest democracy in the world is a despicable abyss, which engulfs humanity every day with such a force that it leaves only the shallowest scars behind. December 16, 2012 was one such day when deplorable facets of humanity manifested in the appalling actions of six persons. Ever since, there has been an urgency to attune the society to gender sensitisation, to educate it on several forms of sexual harassment and equip with measures to control disruptions; ever since, we have witnessed substantial destabilisation of the collective conscience of the people as well. Sudhir Mishra’s Inkaar comes a month after the gangrape disaster and presents amusing conundrums concerning sexual harassment at the workplace. Rahul Verma (Arjun Rampal) and Maya Luthra (Chitrangada Singh), the CEO and the National Creative Director respectively of an advertising firm are entangled in an allegation of sexual harassment charged by the latter against the former.
The film ostensibly seeks to locate the answers to significant queries as to what qualifies as sexual harassment and what the counter arguments for the same are. What is different about the movie is that the bone of contention is not a definite act of rape or the attempt to rape but a mundane power structure, of which, sexual politics is an internalised facet. Sexual harassment here manifests in the conversations, in an act of staring, in innuendos and so on and not necessarily in forcibly seducing the woman.
The movie follows a non-linear narrative where both Rahul and Maya furnish their versions through flashbacks in three days. It opens with Rahul’s father (played by Kanwaljeet) presenting the dictum to his child which more or less builds the genesis of the movie, “When someone denies you what is rightfully yours, snatch it from them.” The movie is then entangled in a consistent crisis of hierarchy, the dislocation of power and the blurring of the line of difference between truth and scandal. Rahul grows up to be the ambitious, talented and successful genius who meets his match in Maya. Maya, rightly named, is the temptress who is motivated, efficient and candid. It is commendable how she holds herself in spite of the fact that the script does not support her. Maya is mystical and complicated and her colleagues attribute her aura to her alleged sexual liaisons with the authorities.
Inkaar, then, raises pertinent questions, such as, what is the difference between playful flirting and sexual harassment? Can a promiscuous woman’s allegations of sexual harassment against her former lover be deemed genuine? What if it is the man who is being harassed by the woman? What qualifies as harassment? Above all, it presents one crucial scene in two different ways where both Rahul and Maya present their versions and the audience have to see through what the truth (if any) is, much like how Akira Kurosawa tried to establish in his masterpiece Rashoman that truths are mere versions of people.
Where the movie falters, besides unimpressive promotional campaigns, is its weak plot line. The script has limited substance and towards the end, the grave issue of sexual harassment is reduced to an inconsequential status. Given the fact that the movie was promoted as a depiction of gender violence and unscrupulous sexual manipulation at workplace, the climax does not befit the cause it had upheld. There is a role reversal in the second half where the female gets an upper hand in the firm’s decision making process, but that instantly takes a toll on her personal as well as professional equations. Her chauvinist boyfriend leaves her as an attempt to save his reputation, and her colleagues, mostly and not surprisingly, the men, resort to supporting the alpha male CEO. It defeats the cause of gender sensitising, and sexual harassment in general remains an ambiguous term though the narrative does expose us to amusing debates where tables are constantly turned and interesting twists are introduced. Mishra, in that process tries his best to provide an uncompromising, balanced view. There is neither the stereotyped damsel in distress nor the ruthless power-hungry male figure in this movie. The convoluted human relations as well as their complex emotions are the highlights of the movie, where things are more than what meets the eye.
Watch Inkaar for the intelligent narrative technique employed, the rational, unbiased act of story-telling and the occasional traces of dark humour. Watch it for the tropes used by the director as well for seeing love in an eccentric, difficult form. The second half of the movie too, begins with another ‘dictum’ by Kanwaljeet, “If I don’t retort today, my son would cease to take me seriously.” The movie ends with a similar moral, “If someone proves you wrong, never detach yourself from that person ever.” Interestingly, though it is Rahul’s father making the statements, it is Maya who seems to inculcate them in her actions. Deepti Naval and Vipin Sharma successfully establish their presence and grip over their roles in the movie with their intricate performances. If you read between the lines of the track Khamoshiya, you might get a hint about what is coming your way. Another asset of the movie is its very title — Inkaar — meaning an act of refusal, which is actually the most fundamental trope in the movie.
It is in all genuine sense a unique love story which folds and unfolds itself within hierarchical circumstances which victimises the lover. Inkaar could be a misleading movie based on sexual harassment, but as far as the screenplay, narrative and performances are concerned, they definitely try their collective best to present an appealing product.
PODCAST
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly Truth | By Ajachi Chakrabarti
Pawn Stars of Gariahat
AS ONE game ends, a crowd of people jostles to play next. Twelve-year-old Surdhenshu Mitra makes his way through the crowd, only to find the seat on the cold metal railing has already been taken by an adult. His face falls, but Ashutose Bose Roy, the silver-haired man in the other chair, who happens to be one of the vice-presidents of the Gariahat Chess Club, says to his opponent: “Let the kid play. You and I are old. He’s young; he can still learn a lot.” The boy gleefully takes his place and starts setting up the pieces.
It is a scene out of a sports movie, the inspirational story of an old curmudgeon taking young talent under his wing. In Steven Zaillian’s Searching for Bobby Fischer, chess prodigy Joshua Waitzkin finds Vinnie (Laurence Fishburn), a speed chess hustler in Washington Square Park in New York, whose aggressive gameplay and garrulous ‘street’ wisdom earns the ire of Waitzkin’s regular coach, a more conventional chess-obsessive, but stands the young Waitzkin in good stead in the national championship and, more importantly, in his life away from the table. Unlike Washington Square, the Gariahat Chess Club is less apparently dominated by testosterone and hustle and trash talk but the chess is intense. In a resolutely urban setting, under a giant flyover at one of Kolkata’s busiest intersections (no vernal corner of an elegant park, no marble chess tables here), this community of chess players congregates every evening to play, watch and discuss the game they love.
The watching crowd discusses and dissects every move of an ongoing game, as part of a typically passionate Kolkata adda
Like countless others in this city with a long chess-playing tradition, Debashish Basu — Gora to all who know him at the club — and his friends used to play chess regularly on a table fixed on the pavement in Gariahat, one of Kolkata’s largest shopping districts, before the construction of a flyover, the first of many during Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s modernisation drive at the turn of the century, forced them to abandon their spot. Undeterred, they embraced the very cause of their transplantation and relocated their game to under the flyover once it was completed in 2002. As Roy puts it, “The flyover gave us shelter against rain and a constant source of light. So why not?” Playing at the intersection, they soon attracted attention, and throngs of people often gathered around the players to watch, bark instructions, and maybe even get a game. You had to be brave to play, many of the regulars were accomplished players in their own right, and word soon spread through the tournament circuit. By 2006, the group had acquired a critical mass and Basu did what any Kolkatan would in such a situation: he started a club.
Subir Ghosh, the joint secretary of the club, is one of the newer entrants. He stands next to Mitra, conferring with the boy on moves before manoeuvring the pieces himself. Neither is the watching crowd too deferential to participate. Every move is discussed and dissected, made and unmade as part of a typically passionate Kolkata adda. Mitra doesn’t mind; he says he learns a lot from the adults’ discussions. With professional coaches charging up to Rs 800 a session, an increasing number of parents are bringing their children here to play and learn for free. Mitra’s mother has left him here while she goes about her shopping.
Ghosh played earlier in a room at the nearby Ballygunge railway station, but decided to move because the area was prone to political violence. The room is now a party office. He doesn’t share the general enthusiasm for Kolkata’s chess tradition. “Children in Chennai and Bengaluru are playing chess by the hundreds. It’s part of their syllabus,” he says. “The numbers here are encouraging, but Kolkata still has a long way to go.” He has the fanatic’s passion when he talks about chess, an obsession his family has tried in vain to curb. It’s the same in Roy’s house. “I’m almost 78 now,” he says, “and my family has resigned itself to the fact that I have to play chess every day.” Everybody has a similar story here, which they share with endearing sheepishness.
THE TRAFFIC is at a standstill because of a long red light with the inevitable irritable honking. But the players play on nonetheless; not the serene chess players of Satyajit Ray’s famous film, but completely absorbed in the world of the evening game, arguing over every move, mocking, cheering, or even talking about the day. It’s become a popular hangout, underneath the flyover: couples sip tea, a Gariahat Carrom Club has been established.
One would think it would be annoying to play in such a din. “It is at first,” Roy says, “but it’s great practice for tournaments. If you can concentrate with all the honking, the pressure of a tournament will be nothing.” Ghosh and Mitra have Roy on the mat, having breached his defence and raining down perennial checks. The crowd begins joshing him about losing to a kid, but Mitra makes a dubious move. Roy calmly lights a cigarette and responds with an attack down the centre. Mitra fights — players rarely resign here until the bitter end — but it’s downhill from there. The end comes soon after, and the duo resign. The onlookers reset the position at which the fatal error took place. They play out the position to its logical conclusion: it still would have been a win for Roy, but he would have had to work for it. They sigh and set up the pieces again. It’s time for the rematch.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com
Mastertakes
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Dhiraj Singh on Art
Pushpamala N uses one of India’s oldest art forms — the behrupiya — in the highly democratic medium of photography. Her colourful selfportraits see her dressed up as characters from many eras, stories and myths. She makes a traditional performing art postmodern. An image comes with a wonderful back story, replete with allusions to films, folklore and social realities. It is not just mimicry; it evokes the times it tries to capture. Phantom Lady is not just an imitation of Fearless Nadia’s work, nor is her calendar art a superficial portrayal of Bharat Mata. Her work comes with panache and intelligent storytelling.
Singh is a Delhi-based artist
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Nandini Chandra on Books
Junji Ito’s gripping manga Museum of Terror is about a painfully beautiful girl, Tomie. Inevitably attracted, men brutally murder her, after which she is resurrected. It talks of the commodification of feminine beauty, which is violently separated from daily life. All are affected by this social construct, provoked to either victimhood or victimisation.
‘The violence of constructed feminine beauty affects all the characters’
Chandra is the author of the book The Classic Popular Amar Chitra Kathas (1967 TO 2007)
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Bedabrata Pain on Film
Ritwik Ghatak is one of those rare directors who straddles the world of commercial and art-house cinema. Subarnarekha is a simple tale told in a riveting manner. There are two threads that play off each other through the movie. The protagonist’s search for a home goes unfulfilled, yet this quest comes with unshakable optimism. The visual imagery, the metaphors and the music give the film its sheer beauty, as the viewer oscillates between tremendous hope and despair.
Pain is the director of Chittagong
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Rishi Bradoo on Music
Swedish indie-pop band Miike Snow brings to mind a fun house party, complete with the red plastic beer glasses, swimming pools and disapproving parents. Andrew Wyatt’s voice and lyrics add layers of carelessness, regret, love and the simple joy of existence to their beautifully produced album Happy To You. I strongly recommend checking out the tracks Pretender and Paddling Out. Listen to the entire record as it tells the story of being always young and stupid.
Bradoo is the vocalist of the Mumbai band Blek
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Salman Sheikh on Food
There is a small joint in Mumbai where the entire city flocks to. Called Sardar Pav Bhaji, it specialises in that great Mumbai favourite, pav bhaji. The place stands head-and-shoulders above other eateries because the owner makes his own butter and ghee and serves it in large quantities. That is why the flavour is unique. The vegetables that go into the bhaji are bought fresh, twice every day. You can actually taste the vegetables, instead of the standard orange-red chilli paste that goes for flavour in most pav bhaji places.
Sheikh is the managing proprietor of Bade Miyan, Mumbai
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