Cultural Press

The sunlight inside the spacious atrium at Taj Bengal seemed to have been looking for him. The itinerant light, when it found Ramchandra Guha posing on a chair for a restive photographer, seemed to stand still on him for some time. The sun, obviously partial to leading lights on a clear December morning in Calcutta, set its sight on the award-winning author of India After Gandhi because he was the most sun-worthy man in a city that day, which once had many…

Abhimanyu by Ganesh Pyne. Mahabharata is not just full of both heroic as well as cowardly narratives but also possibilities. Incidences. Psychologies. Archetypes. Totems. Guilt. And of course tragedy. And for an artist, poet, author, the beauty of Mahabharata lies in its complexity, in its secret histories, it’s annals of beginnings and ends, of trials and dénouement, and an incessant preoccupation with death.  Ganesh Pyne — perhaps the last of the earlier generation of greats from this part of the globe who is…

The cover of the novel based on the film Sonar Kella, (The Golden Fortress, 1973) Sandip Ray has always battled the distinction of being the only son of a world-renowned master of cinema. Perhaps it goes to the skewed and myopic understanding of culture in this part of the world that considers the son of a world master blessed with similar distinctions. But Sandip Ray, a Bhadrolok to boot, has handled the pressures of such absurd expectation despite being in…

Sayandeb Chowdhury spends a day with maestro Nikita Koshkin. Calcutta, in more agreeable times, hosted global superstars and their work with abandon and discerning deliverance. From Marlon Brando to Loise Malle, from Marcel Marceau to Pete Seeger, from Pele to Maradona, from Che Guevara to Fidel Castro, this city has been the unlikely host of some the planet’s biggest names in arts, politics and sports. The city’s legendary enthusiasm, more than made up for its lack of cosmopolitan niceties.  But…

One of Samir Chanda’s last projects in Hindi before his untimely death was Delhi 6, 2009. He is just not the most well-known art turned production designer in Bollywood but is on the wishlist of Bollywood’s biggest makers. He is on first-name basis with Shyam Benegal, Mani Rathnam and most in between. There is hardly a filmmaker he has not worked with and not one Indian award that he has not won. He is a Calcutta boy, who passed from…

Debshankar Halder in and as Oedipus Even in the dedicated community that makes up Bengali group theatre, he stands out. The director of his latest play calls him a miniature wonder. He is the only actor in recent memory who has had a festival dedicated to him. He is also perhaps the only actor whose name alone draws audiences to the theatre in a culture whose appeal historically has been the group, the play or the director. Currently, he is…

Story Tellers’ 221B Baker Street, which debuted at the recent Airtel Lifestage Theatre fest is as much an engaging bit of slice-of-life play as it is a constant literary excavation.  The play is set in the house of noted economist Ankan Mitra, who has returned to Calcutta after a prolonged stint abroad to teach at a university. A pedantic, scholar and a proud man to boot, Mitra is as easily admired and admirable as he is easy to be disliked and…

Milan Kundera’s last book was non-fiction. His last novel about the impossibility of the Odyssian return to one’s homeland, written in the wake of the collapse of Communism, was published way back in 2002. When Encounter was announced late last year, for a moment it seemed that the Czech maestro was returning to fiction after eight years. In every way ‘Encounter’ was a very apt name to follow his mono-worded titles (originally in French) Slowness (1997) and Identity (1998). But…

If India ever needed an eye to look at itself visually and viscerally, it would have its task cut out. It just has to borrow RAGHU RAI’S lens, because no other lensman has so vividly captured the country’s inexhaustive diversity and energy. The endearing Raghu Rai started as a photo-journalist with The Statesman in Calcutta in 1965 and has later been associated with Sunday and India Today as the photo editor. In 1977, at the behest of none other than…

LPs for sale at the iconic footpath store near Calcutta’s Wellington crossing, 2010. Photo by author. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who while nurturing a deep distaste for everything Christian and worthy of appreciation in the Western world had reserved a keen ear for music, famously said: “Without music life would be a mistake.” Though it is not known, this author of A Case for Wagner must have heard his music in LPs. Technologically it’s unlikely because LPs came later than Nietzsche’s descent…