Mangalore:MALL Maala-MALL

I had written about the  transformation of Mangalore from an ancient port town to a cosmopolitan city. In the meantime Mangalore has kept the pace with developments and has come up with lot of infrastructure projects.

 

These are the two malls – Bharath Mall and Empire Mall - which are already a big hit among the Mangaloreans. 

       

These are the photographs of those proposed Malls which is going to make a tremendous change in the skyline of Mangalore. The first picture is of Mohthisham City Centre Mall which is coming up in K S Rao Road. The second one is Mischief Mega Mall which is also comiong up in K S Rao Road. MakMall is the third one which is being constructed in Kankanady. The fourth one is a huge Golden harvest Mall coming up in Bejai. One more called as Plama Mall is coming up in Kulshekar.

Mangalore is Maala maal with Malls.

CafeMORGAN comes out of a Magic Lantern

Back in my office, there are bunch of guys who think that the kind of job they are doing is nowhere near to creativity. Going by the rule ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY, these people have decided to do some thing creative. I always liked the company of those who used to bunk the boring classes in the college. So I was an obvious member of this team which also included a fellow movie buff Prekshak, a ‘been there done that stage artist’ Dhiraj, Sudarshan – an engineering student who wants to try his hands at editing, Alston- who is a Jack of many arts and Loyed – a friend as keen as mustard when it comes to having some fun.

It all started when Prekshaka came up with an idea of making a short movie. It seemed like a silver lining in an otherwise boring office environment. I asked him if he has any story in mind. He already had a concept. He narrated it to us which we all thought was good enough to be turned in to a short film.

I asked him to write the script. Since he was ready to produce the film besides directing it, there was no worry about the pre-production part. I was asigned the job of cinematogrpher. Loyed became the production manager. The castline of the film includes Dhiraj and Soumya Kotian in the leading roles with Frank Dantis, Loyed, Sudarshan and Alton in the leading roles. When Sudarshan heard the story by Prekshak he suggested the name for the film. ‘Cafe Morgan’ – the title was OKeyd by all of us.

When the script was ready we thought let’s keep up doing creative things like this and we decided to make a production house. Naming it as Magic Lantern was somewhat spontaneous as I had read somewhere that the prototype film projectors were called as Magic Lantern.

This is the poster of Cafe Morgan. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and wait for the film. I have given the blog address of Cafe Morgan. You can visit it and leave your feedbacks.

Note: you can visit the weblog of the fil at: http://cafemorgan.wordpress.com/

God’s own country and Kanya Kumari

At the begining of this year my friend Loyed said he wanted to take a break from office and wanted to go somewhere. This was the reason behind my sudden Kerala trip. We decided on Kerala and Kanyakumari and my cousin Raj joined us in what turned out be a week long holiday trip  from mangalore to the southern most tip of India – Kanyakumari.

We took a train from Mangalore and traversing all through the God’s own country reached the capital Thiruvananthapuram (formaerly Trivandrum). More than me it was my Aunt and Uncle who were very happy. they were insisting on my visit to their place whenever they used to come to Mangalore. We stayed in my Aunts house. The first three days we roamed only in Thiruvananthapuram. I had visited this city long back – more than 15 years back I suppose. What used to be  a traditional town has transformed into a more or less cosmopolitan city. The beaches of Kerala are very famous. Kovalam and the one near International airport is very picturesque. Kovalam is very crowded with foreigners. It looks as if this beach is a part of Goa.

Ananthapadmanabha Temple is another main attraction in the city. I think this is the biggest Hindu temple I have ever seen. (Or any building of worship of other faiths). What I liked about this temple is they have retained the culture of Kerala even to this day. The statue of Lord Anantha padmanabha is in the posture of sleeping with right hand of the idol supporing the head. The sanctum sanctorum of this temple is provided with three openings to allow the people to see the head, abdomen and legs of the Lord. It was a surprise to know that the priests of this temple are from Tulunadu (areas surrounding Mangalore – yeah that’s my town).

 What I dont like about the temples of Kerala is some of the temples are open only to Hindus. This is basically the disrespect shown by the temples of Kerala towars the fundamental philosophy of Hinduism. Hinduism believes in respecting all the religions and it says that all faiths are different paths towards understanding the life and beyond it. When it comes to descipline, temples of Tamilnadu and Kerala are way behind the temples of Karnataka. I could see the pilgrims shouting and breaking ques in these temples. Even the people serving in the temple were unfriendly; if not rude.  I think the temples of South Canara are more ordered and disciplined than any temples of other states. Temples like Dharmasthala, Udupi, Shringeri and Subramanya are not only places of worship but also the places of inter-religous harmony. I think other temple authorities should learn a lesson or two from these temples.

We visited few places like museum, zoo, shopping centre -big bazaar and a small dam near the house. It was fun roaming in the city, specially when we were speaking to the people there asking for direction in a strange language – a hybrid language we discovered with the misxture of  little Malayalam, relatively better Tamil, Kannada,  Hindi and English.

                    

After three days of roaming we left for Kanyakumari early morning . I could not come to this place when I came last time to Thiruvananthapuram. It was a journey of almost 3 hours in train. Kanyakumari Railway station is the exreme end point of the biggest railway network in the world. We took few snaps of this point and then went to the city to book a room. By the time we finished our lunch it was around 3pm. We left the room to roam in the town. That evening we did nothing but window shopping, discussing on what to buy and what not to? We went to a light house from where we could see whole of Kanyakumari. In the evening we went to a Wax statue museum, supposed to br the first of its kind in India. It was an awesome collection of Wax statues of various famous personalities – right from Amithabh Bachchan, Manmohan Singh, Jaya Lalitha, Saddam Husein to Vivekananda swami, M S Subbu Lakshmi, Jesudoss and M K Gandhi. When we came out of the museum, it was time for Sunset. we rushed to the sun set point and saw the setting of Sun into the great Ocean.

   

We started the next day with a beautiful sight of Sunrise.  The beach where we saw sun rise was over crowded with people from all over the country. That day we went to Kanya Kumari Temple, Gandhi Mandapam, Stella Maris Church and did lot of shopping. Afternoon we went to Vivekananda rock memorial and Thiruvalluvar statue. These places are away from the shore and had to be reached by a ferry. Amidst the tumultous current our ferry took us to the Rock. This is a very beautiful place. This is the place where Swami Vivekananda is believed to enlightened. I have a great respect towards the Swamiji I feel that,  if Indian philosophical heritage has to be in a human form, that would be called Swami Vivekanada. Swami Vivekananda and Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam are two great sages of Modern India and their thought will always inspire the youth of this nation.

I bought few good books from the shop in this rock and then moved to the next rock where a huge statue of Thiruvalluvar is situated. The statue is gigantic and the pedestal of the statue consists of thousands of sayings by Thiruvalluvar. He was an ancient poet of the Tamil Sangam era. His writings are more than 1500 years old and they are considered to be Tamil Vedas. Some of writings can be compared to our own  Sarvajna and Vachana poets and Haridasas.

We bought many things from Kanyakumari. Handicrafts, Decorative items, gifts made from Seashells etc. I realised the necessity of a ‘how to increase your memory session’  for me when I remembered that I had forgotten  to take the books I bought from the rock. I had kept those books in a shop while purchasing some gift items. I would not have been that upset if I had lost any gift item, but books are more than just a material. After roaming, buying and clicking pictures we came back to Trivendrum via Nagercoil and from there we came back to Mangalore.

When we took a train back to Mangalore, our booking was upgraded to two tier AC compartmaent, which added our happiness even more. Overall the trip was a great fun.

Cleansing Rites

 

Last saturday I got an opportunity to watch a critically acclaimed tulu movie ‘Suddha’ (Sudhda means cleansing rites) directed by Ramchandra PN in a special screening in the city. I heard about this movie a year back when it recieved the best Film award in the Indian Competition Section at the Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian Films held in New Delhi in 2006. That competition had also featured the veteran film maker Girish Kasaravalli’s film ‘Naayi Neralu’ – the screen adaptation of a novel by the same name -

Before coming to the film itself, I would like to say few points about Tulu movies. The production of Tulu movies started some 35 years back and the number of Tulu movies produced are very few. There were very good responses to the initial films. Because of the language barrier, film making in this area could not develop in to a full fledged industry. There are many reasons for that. Most of the tulu movies simply copied the formulas of Kannada films. The producers were not confident of getting their money back from Tulu films. Tulu is spoken by the people in and around Mangalore and the people of this region are very much obsessed with the Bollywood films and they seldom go out to watch a kannada film let alone watching a tulu film (if at all they manage to get released). Besides the fact that Tulu is one of my favourite languages, I didnt have any expectations from tulu movies. I always felt that Tulu movies (or any other regional movies for that matter) simply follow a template which is ususally spiced with action, melodrama, song and dance; and end up giving nothing substantial. My perception was proved wrong when I watched this brilliant movie.

 

This movie is shot in a digital 3 CCD camera and has been filmed without any use of artificial lights which makes it a low-budget movie. ‘Sudhda’ is the story of a rural family set in South Canara, which sees  the conflict of relationship and responsibilities in a society which is on the verge of coming out of the feudal system.

‘Gutthuda ill’ (landlord’s house) used to be a very powerful house in the village with acres of land, hundreds of servants and an authority to rule the village in its hands. The landlord has two sons. One works in the fields and the other lives in Bombay. When mother dies, her son who is in Bombay is called to the house. When he arrives with his wife, he slowly witnesses the hollowness of the power that his house used to enjoy once. Most of the land they owned had gone into the hands of the lower caste people who once used to work in the landlord’s field. They were given land by the government policy to end feudal sysytem. Because of this, the financial state of the house has declined drastically making it difficult even to earn their daily bread. The elder son is unhappy with his son who is a college drop-out and there is always a tension between them. The Bombay returned man is eager to finish the cleansing rites and push off to Bombay forever. As the film moves we find that the elder son has an illegitimate relation with a lower caste woman, which is the reason why his son always has heated arguments with that family.

As the day of the holy ritual arrives, these two brothers realise that they dont have enough money for the cleansing rites. The elder son asks for his brother’s help and learns he also doen’t have a single penny. The landlord offers to sell his wife’s golden jewellary. Which hits the egos of two sons who later readily give their golden jewelleries. But suddenly they think that by selling a peice of their land they can get over with all their financial problems and they decide to do so.

In the whole process we see the feudal system dying. The main charecter of landlored is the personification of old customs. He is being regarded as the landlord, eventhough he has lost all his powers on the people. System might have changed, but the people are not accepting the facts. When they realise the changes, it hurts them and leaves them with only one option of leaving the village. The two sons, the grand son and the grand daughter of the landlored are all fed up with the the neverending village life. Bombay seems as a ray of hope for all of them. The climax of the movie is very special and makes it a niche ending leaving the audience think about the whole film for long time.

There are very special techniques used in this movie which are pathbreaking as far as this region’s cinema is concerned. Especially back ground sound. The film uses the chirping of birds, flowing water and folklore-like songs extensively as its outdoor sound and ticking sound of clock for the indoor sound. The ticking sound of clock and a frequent presence of radio songs, successfully create a calm village house environment. The cinematography , by depicting the mud walls, wooden carvings of windows and doors and the lush greenery of the village helps to take this film to a next level. The way the DoP has used natural lights and reflectors is very brilliant. The dark rooms of old house looks very realistic; so does the green  fields. Having worked with a 3 CCD camera myself, I know the limitations of it. With that I must say that the DoP has given a very satisfactory job. Editing of the film should be mentioned here. The beautiful way of overlapping the sound of previous scene with the next scene is adopted through out th film. Some points it may look absurd but overall this technique was very well used.

All the actors have given decent performances. There are some points where you may feel that dialoge delivery is more like a stage performance. But at some points the actors have given a professional artists’ work.

Having won the best film award in an international platform, this movie gives an inspiration to all the independent film makers of our country to make good cinema. This movie once again shows that ‘potrayal of reality’ is what film making is all about and cinematic excellence can only be achieved with these type of movies and definitely not by ‘make believe’ or ‘larger than life’ type of films.

Dharma of Eklavya

It is bit late to write anything on Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s movie Eklavya, but I could not resist myself from expressing my views on it, as this movie has left a great impact on me with its cinematic excellence and I think this is the best movie of the year so far. Vidhu is one of those directors who know the language of celluloid very well and can very ably transform human emotions into picture perfect frames. Cinematography has been at its peak in all of his movies. Whether it is Parinda, 1942 – A love story, Kareeb, Mission Kashmir or his latest offering Eklavya, camera work is near to perfection. This holds true even for the Munnabhai series and Parineeta – the films produced by his production company.

Eklavya is a dramatic thriller telling the story of a royal guard Eklavya (Amitabh Bachchan) whose family has been protecting the royal dynasty of Devigarh for the past nine generations. Guarding the family of Rana Jayavardhan (Boman Irani) is the dharma of Eklavya and it is the matter of utmost importance for him. Prince Harshavardhan (Saif Ali Khan) who was in London returns to the kingdom for the funeral of Queen mother Suhasini Devi (Sharmila Tagore). His sister Nandini (Raima Sen) and his childhood love Rajjo (Vidya Balan) are very happy to see him back. As the funeral rituals come to an end, Rajjo hands over a secret letter written by the late Queen to the prince which reveals a secret of the royal family. As to the letter says, after the prince’s parents got married, the Queen had been to the Ganges for a yagna (the holy ritual) as the king’s impotency has left the family with no heir. The prince who was born later was believed to be the god-gift of the yagna. But the truth was different. Eklavya was the real father of Prince Harshavardhan and it was kept under secrecy as per the yagna dharma. Eklavya and the Queen had taken oath to keep this truth between them till the grave. For Eklavya keeping his promise was dharma. The queen mother follows her heart and tells the truth to the prince in that letter as she thought this is her dharma.

The matter becomes more serious because of the conspiracy created by Rana, his brother Jyothiwardhan (Jackie Shroff) , and Jyothiwardhan’s son Udaywardhan (Jimmy Shergil). These conspiracies were aimed to the murder the royal guard, but eventualy leads to the killings of Jyothiwardhan and Udaywardhan. With all the villains dead the focus of the story shifts towards the main theme of the film –  the relations and the concept of dharma. When Eklavya learns that the murder of Rana was a planned act by the prince, he decides to do his duty by killing the prince – his own son. Now the prince says it was his dharma to murder Rana and Dharma according to him is that thing which is originated from ones mind, soul and heart.

The story mainly revolves around the relationship between Eklavya and the prince. The royal family, which has lost all its powers post independence, is left with only the sobriquets and the palace.  Pannalal Chohaar (Sanjay Dutt) resembles that feudal downtrodden class who have been opressed by the royal family in Rana’s regime and are using democracy to come up in life, as well as to take revenge on the royal family. Inspite of his hatredness towards the Ranas, Chohaar has a great deal of respect for Eklavya. This charecter gives a different dimension to the whole plot and is a very contemporery character unlike Rana who lives in past.

This is actually Vidhu’s take on the mythological episode of Eklavya and he has tried to say that sacrificing Eklavya’s finger was nor right in that story. I wonder how wonderfully this film talks about dharma and at the same time makes a edge-of-the-seat thriller. If you have noticed carefully you can see that Vidhu has taken utmost care in the developing the story. Unlike other hindi movies, the murders dont take place simply here. He has given very strong motivation to the charecters to do so. The painting which shows Rana killing the queen makes the prince murder him. To Rana, it was the fact that his guard is the real father of his son which prompts to kill the Queen. The charecters of Jyothiwardhan and his son resemble the charecters of Shakesperean novels and the whole film has the looks of a Shakesperean tragedy.

It is very difficult task to tell a mythological story in the modern point of view, as the value sysytem keeps on changing with time. Moreover, when we try to give modern treatment to the mythological charecters it should not look cliched. I want to mention the play ‘Yayaathi’ by Girish Karnad here, where a whole new meaning was given to the sacrifice of Puru. Eklavya is that type of work which tries to give justice to those charecters whom the epics have taken for granted.

Coming to the technical things, the Cinematography by Nataraja Subramanian is excellent. this man who showed the magic of his camera in Parineeta has gone few steps further in creating the royal setup for the film. Music by Shantanu Moitra is good and makes it a melodious track. Superb Editing work by Ravirafu is very brisk and does not drag at all. Had it not been the skillful editing, the cinematography and well choreographed action sequences would have been a disaster in this movie.

Vidhu, who was once nominated for the Academy awards for his short film ‘An Encounter with the faces’, has once again given an ahead of the time movie and I should say these are the movies which will set a benchmark for the future international movies from India.

The Metamorphosis, Kafka and Life

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

I have read many articles about this German writer Franz Kafka. It was quite confusing to see how different people interpreted his work in different ways. Some articles say Kafka was a communist, some find an absurd writer in him and others consider him as a great philosopher. The other day I was searching the net for some information on a kannada playwright Samsa. The search took me to some other page which contained the excerpts of the Franz Kafka’s novel The Metamorphosis. Since the protogonist’s name in this novel is Samsa, the search engine brought this page. Now, it became quite intutive for me to read this novel. Few minutes later I got a free downloadable ( and legal) copy of this novel. I usually dont read e-books as I love feeling the book rather than straining my eyes reading virtual pages on screen. But this one was special and it took me only few hours to finish this novella. (There is a link to download this novel at the bottom of this article.)

This is a short novel which keeps you glued till the end. The novel has a very unusual kind of plot. This is a story of a bachelor travel excecutive who gets up from a deep sleep one fine day only to discover that he has been transformed into a vermin (perhaps a roach). Though his thinking capacities are still intact, his new body makes it extremely difficult for him to move around.
Samsa Gregor – whose body is mutated – was a very hard working man and a family person who loved spending spare time with his old parents and listening his teenage sister play violin. His work had made him busiest man who spent most of his time roaming from one place to another. His hardwork makes it possible to pay back the debts his father had taken. Now he was planning to send his sister to some institution to specialise violin. But the metamorphosis took place all of sudden, literally overnight.
Initially his plight leaves his family in a deep sorrow. His parents are shocked to see him crawl in his room. The chief clerk of his office who comes to ask about Samsa’s absence returns after talking to Samsa who is locked himself in his room. They have a kind of heated arguments. Later, It is Samsa’s sister who takes courage to come into his room and give him food. It becomes a routine for her to come and keep food for him.They never talk to each other now. Samsa thinks it may scare her. Whenever she enters the room he runs under the couch thinking that his looks may make her feel embarassed. Gradually, Samsa is treated like an animal. The dark room becomes his world. Most of the time either he sleeping or crawling the walls and ceiling of his room and sometimes listening to the murmering of hes fellow family members.
The family responsibility is slowly shifted to Samsa’s sister now. His father who is retired, now thinks about working again. His mother also takes up new work. The family to earn their bread give a portion of their flat on rent to the tenants, who are very rude. Samsa witnesses all these changes with a grave silence.
This abstract story hides a very deep philosophical truth in it. Kafka narrates everything in the language of metaphors. From the concept of metamorphosis to the the charecters everything has a great resemblance to the philosophy of our life. With our experiences of life the story unveils its new meanings.
What actually is the metamorphosis? The one which we see in Gregor is a physical one. What about the one which takes place in the lives of Samsa’s sister and even his parents? The relatonships play vital role in this novel, especially the relationship the sibblings share. We can see the change in the attitude of Grete ( Samsa’s sister) towards Samsa. The metamorphosis is actually about the transformation of Grete from a childish girl to a woman. Initially it was her who shed tears for Samsa; and it was her who brought food into his room. But finally we see her saying that Samsa is mere an animal and in order to bring peace to their family they should get rid of it ( Samsa). This shows the completion of the metamorphosis in Grete.
As I said earlier this story can be interpreted into many themes. Many themes like Loneliness, the attitudes towards those who are different, Materialistic attitude or Freudian pshychological themes can be derived from this novella. It is our indivisual experience of life which derives different themes.
This novella makes you think about your life; most importantly about the goal of your life. People recognise you and treat you well for the works you do. What will happen if you were to become a monsterous vermin one day? Think think think!!!!

(Here is a free ebook of ‘The Metamorphosis’ – courtesy Project Gutenberg. Click on the image to download the novel. This is the image of the original novel in german.)

Mangalore: A Phoenix City

My home town of Mangalore is making news for all the developments taking place in the heart of the city. Silently but rapidly a new modern city is emerging from the historical town. Beside all the main roads we see new buildings being constructed in place of old tiled shopping complexes. In some places there is no usual noise of traffic, as these roads are getting upgraded. Even the outskirts of Mangalore is not spared. These are targeted for building townships, IT campuses and recreation spots.
As soon as an old building gets demolished, the stories start to cook up among the people, as to what the new building is going to be. Some construction companies are kind enough to show a blue print on a hoarding. But most of the big projects never give the final sketch until the real one is built. If skeletal structure resembles other usual building, people think it will be another appartment or some shopping complex. If it is too weird, then they say it will be a Mall or multiplex.
Besides Bangalore and Mangalore there is hardly any sky scrapering city in Karnataka. Bangalore after the phenomenal IT & BT boom, has almost reached a saturation point. I had heard a lot about Bangalore being air-conditioned city and less polluted mega-city in my school days. But What I witnessed in Bangalore is quite opposite. Bangalore based companies are now planning to come out of the hustle bustle of our capital and move to less crowded cities. Cochin, Mangalore, Mysore, Pune and Coimbatore are the much talked about cities which may soon start a race with Bangalore.
Keeping these possibilities in mind, lot of projects are progressing in the coastal town. Mangalorean buildings were always famous for its architectural excellence. To continue this tradition there are many projects coming up in the city.
I thought I would share some details about some of these projects, Some of them are already built, some on the process of construction and some still on the paper.
Pot hole filled roads are the mark of Mangalore. From Suratkal to Talapady all the roads including National highways are in bad shape. I pity on the drivers and vehicle owners. Slowly the authority has shown its presence by initiating the upgradation of these roads. Highways will soon be converted into four lane roads. The main roads are also getting new looks with concrete work, deviders, street light and hopefully footpaths.
For more than a decade Saibeen complex was the only one shopping mall in the city. It has the credit of being the pioneer of Malls in south india.

        

Recently, Bharath Mall and Empire Mall have started operating in the city. The list of new malls planned in the city is big. This includes Excell Mall, Mischief Mega mall, Mohtisham City Centre Mall, (all three in K.S.Rao Road) Time Square (Kadri) and Pio Mall (Kodailbail/Karangalpady). Besides this, 300 crores project of 625,000 sq feet mall near AB Shetty Circle by Prestige group is also on paper. There will be a grand new mall erected on the barren land opposite to the TMA Pai International convention centre on MG Road very soon. M.G.Road will see another mall The Forum in due course of time.
Nilgiris supermarket, Ameoba, Amazon, Coffee Day, Pizza Corner, Yo-China and Dollar store are in Empire Mall. Bharath Mall has Adlabs Multiplex, Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar, Depot, PlanetM, Pizza hut, Pantaloons, Coffee Day, Adidas, Reebok, Provogue, Planet Fashion in it. “Mohtisham City Centre Mall” will be one of the biggest malls of South India. It has a retail space of half a million square feet. It will house many international brands including Spencers and McDonalds. A 5 screen multiplex called ‘Fun Cinemas’ will be opened in this mall. With these malls night life in Mangalore is also going to be more colourful. People need not stick to only Liquid Lounge, Zero degree, Froth on top or Pegasus any more. There are more to come.

TMA Pai International Convention Hall is one of the biggest in Asia. This state of the art building with other shopping malls will give a whole new look to the MG Road. Other malls mentioned above will make K S Rao Road even more crowded.

There are many big names planning to start their office in mangalore. Infosys which has a beautiful office in Kottara, is building a big campus near Konaje. Wipro and other companies will join this line soon.

Mangalore is definitely growing very fast. But it should not forget its own culture. With the rapid fast developments Mangaloreans sadly have to accept the bitter truth of western culture aswell.

Remembering Tejaswi

 

ಪೂರ್ಣಚಂದ್ರ ತೇಜಸ್ವಿ

Today afternoon when I got up from sleep, the clock was showing two thirty. I usually rise bit late after working whole night in the office. But today I dont know why I got up this early. I started surfing the TV channels for next few minutes. In an hour or so, I happened to see an interview of Poornachandra Tejaswi in E-tv. I threw the remote aside and started watching my favourite writer speak. As most of the people know, Tejaswi never come out and give interview to media. He loves being reserved. So it was a surprise sight. It was a repeat telecast from TV archives. A wonderful interview of Tejaswi by Jayanth Kaykini – who is also my favourite writer.

In the middle of the interview a flash news bar appeared saying that Tejaswi passed away in Mudigere due to heart attack. I could not believe my eyes. The person who was shown discussing his works, life and world on TV is not there with us any more.

I turned to other kannada channels TV9 , Udaya news and Chandana to confirm the news. It was true. The news came as a nightmare to me. Kannada writers, politicians and eminent personalities shared their words in all the TV channels. Tejaswi’s death is certainly a big loss to Kannada literature.

He has always been my favourite writer. I remember my school days, when I read his book about flying saucers. I was so fascinated by his writing that I started an extensive search for the books and details on extra terrestrial life.  Then I read his book ‘Karvalo’, which became my all time favourite. His novel ‘Jugari cross’ is a superb thriller depicting the invisible chains of underworld mafia surrounding the tranquil forest area of wesern ghats. ‘Chidambara Rahasya’ is also loveable for its depiction of normal social life of emergency time.

Tejaswi’s short stories are trend setters. They bacame a bench mark for the future writers in Kannada. ‘Abachurina post office’, ‘ Tabarana kathe’ ‘Kirigoorina gayyaligalu’ and ‘ Kubi maththu iyaala’ are remembered for its cinematic narration. I remember a kannada lecturer of mine, who while explaining the charecter of  Tabara could not resist himself from shedding tears. That is the depth of charecterisation mastered by Tejaswi. Some of his works were adapted for cinema and recieved many awards.

His love for nature is very evident in his works. Whether it is bird-photography or his writings on wild life,  we can see his extensive research and decades of experience. He loved the silence of the jungles. As he said in his interview, jungle becomes alive when we surrender to it by our silence. May be this is the reason he loved silence. Ku.Vem.Pu is also a nature loving poet. In his writings we see jungle as a godly thing which protects the human being. But in his son’s writing the reality was somewhat different.Tejaswi showed these jungles in the need of protection by man. The truth had changed with the passage of time. His writings on wildlife is more than just ‘a wondering look at the jungle’. It goes beyond that, with a scientific temper, it  touches the most fundamental issues and gives a whole new look to the nature. I some times wonder, whether his writings on wildlife and human evolution are really non-fictions. because his writings were very rich in discriptive style and language.

There are some other fields in which tejaswi worked. Painting, Sitar, agriculture, ornithology-cum-photography  and environment studies and activities. As he said, he is a better painter  than a writer. But his writings made him more popular. Achieving a celebrity status in kannada literature is a tough task. Kannada literature has seen many writers and a variety of writing styles. We have many Jnana peeta awardees. Amidst these many writers  creating  a distinguished place is really a difficult job. Tejaswi was successfull in achieving this status in those days of Karanth, Ku.Vem.Pu and Bendre.

I always wanted to meet Tejaswi. I wanted to tell him how beautifully and effectively he has created the imaginary world for the readers. I wanted to thank him for providing us a window to the world of international literature, history, science and wildlife in those days when ‘internet’ was a word never heard.

I know my dream of meeting my favourite writer is shatterd forever.  I can see him only in his writings. His thoughts and ideas are immortal as his writings. I ask all the people who like  kannada literature to pick up and read the treasure Tejaswi has left behind for us.

Before I end this article I wanted to add one more thing. My wall clock stopped working at 2.30pm exactly  at the time of Tejaswi’s death. Perhaps indicating the end of an era.

( This is a vedio tribute to Tejaswi posted by churumuri.com which is very meaningful.)

Talath Mahmood: King of gazals

One of my lecturers used to say that the soul of vintage music can only be felt when you close your eyes while listening to it; as melody doesn’t require any celluloid visuals to prove its worth. You will realise this when you listen to the songs of Talat Mahmood.
His songs can create a new world inside you. As you listen to his songs, the melodious voice takes you into a magical world, where you get to see different people with different emotions. You may see an emotionally wounded lover, a teenage fun loving guy, a depresed drunkard, a painter or a ramantic prince. As you go on listening to Talat’s voice, you start relating to their emotions as I did. This is when you will realise that music does not realy need a vedio to showcase itself; rather it will create virtual imges in the back of our minds when we listen to it.
The voice of Talat Mahmood is very unique for the fact that it gently grows inside you. You will be surrounded by the sheer moods of these songs. I think no other singer can sing light romantic songs, sad songs and gazals the way Talat saab did. His expressive style and emotional naunces are hardly found in any other singer.

‘bechain nazar betaab jigar, ye dil hai kisi ka diwana haye diwana’

This light romantic song says the feelings of a lover boy with utter simplicity and Talat conveys the lyrics in much more simple way yet touching our hearts. There are hundreds of such master peices sung by Talat.

‘mera qaraar le jaa mujhe beqaraar karjaa dam bhar tho pyaar kar jaa’

‘ye hawa ye raat ye chaandni’

‘ankhon me masthi sharaab ki kaali zulfo me aanhe shabaab ki’

and

‘mein dil hu ek armaan bharaa tu aake mujhe pehchaan zaraa’

Songs like these represent the same mood yet retaining its uniqueness. Talat has worked with many eminent music directors. Naushad, S D Burman, Anil Biswas, Madan Mohan, Shankar Jaikishan and O P Nayyar to name few of them.
I find a very strong relation between Talat saab’s songs and the beautiful evenings. His songs are enjoyed better in the evening. Perhaps, this is why he has sung many songs on the theme ’shaam’.

’shaam-e-gham ki kasam’

‘phir wohi shaam wohi gham wohi thanhaayi hai’

When it comes to Urdu lyrics, who else can sing the poetic lines of Ghalib – with that kind of passion – other than Talat Mahmood?

‘dil-e-naadaan tuje hua kya hai?’

I love the duets talat sang with Shamshad begam, Suraiyya, Lata Mangaeshkar, Asha Bhosale and Geeta Dutt. They are too melodious and will haunt you forever.

‘milte hi aankhe dil hua diwaana kisi ka’

‘mohabbath me eise zamaane bhi aaye’

’samaa ke dil me hamaare zara khayaal rahe’

‘chaahe naina churaao chaahe daaman bachaao pyaar hoke rahega’

‘pyaar par bas to nahi hai’

‘itna na mujhse tu pyaar badaa’

I can’t think of any songs by other singers which can match up to the calibre of these romantic songs. Romantic songs come out very beautifully in the velvet voice of Talat.

The one genre of songs which Talat Mahmood was famous for was the sad songs.

‘hai sab se madhur woh geet jinhe hum dard ke sur me gaathe hai’

‘andhe jahaan ke andhe raasthe jaaye tho jaaye kahaan?’

‘aansu samajh ke kyo na mujhe aankh se tune gira diya’

‘ei dil mujhe eisi jagah le chal jahaan koi na ho’

‘ei game dil kya karu Ai vahshate dil kya karu’

‘ei mere dil kahi aur chal gham ki duniya se dil bhar gaya’

‘chal diya karvan lut gaye hum yahaan’

‘dekh li teri khudaayi bas mera dil bhar gaya’

He has sung folk-based songs also. I wonder the way he balances the variety of light romantic, folk and gazals and manages to carry the ‘trade mark of talat’. In urdu songs he emphasises the royal richness of zaban-e-urdu and in folk songs he maintains the utter simplicity of rural life.

‘chali kaun si des gujariyaa tu sajh dhaj ke’

‘jaa jaa re sub na jaa re kahee de sajanwa se’

Talat was born in Lucknow in 1924. He began his music career at the age of 16. Initially he used to sing gazals of Galib, Mir and Jigar for AIR. HMV was the first recording company to recognise his singing talent. HMV did the honours of bringing out his first gazal album. This made him a star and he was soon welcomed in Bombay film industry. His first few songs made him the king of film romantic songs and rest is a history as we know today.

He passed away in 1998. But his songs and his memories will be always cherished by his fans all over the world.

When I am too depressed and want to get rid of my daily tensions I switch on to Talat’s songs. Talat’s voice is more of a meditation to me.

Hayachine Kagura: A Japanese performing art

Few months  back I had a chance to know about this performing art of Japan from Prof. Sumio Murijiri, who is a Fellow of TOKYO foundation and a project scholar of WASEDA University, Theatre Museum, Tokyo. He is also a visiting professor of Mangalore University. His research focuses on the similarities between Hayachine kagura and Yakshagana – an art form of South Canara.

I was working for visual media and my work during that time was to gather information about art and culture of South Canara for television. I approached the professor to know about his research, as my idea was to shoot a feature on Tulu culture with the help of his inputs. During talks the professor told me about Hayachine Kagura. He also showed me the photographs and vedios of this art. Then he handed me an article written by him about the similarities between these two artforms, which I found very interesting.

 

 The article gives an introduction to the centuries old art and tries to spot the similarities between two art-forms which are geographically seperated by thousands of miles.

In Japanese language Hayachina means ’sacred mountain’. As we know most of the Japanese relegions give a great importance to the mountains. For them these mountains are life and God. They worship these mountains and in these mountains we find lot of villages enjoying the age-old traditions of Japan. These villages are isolated from the modern towns which makes them sustain their traditional lifestyle. There are many Kaguras still existing in these mountains, Hayachine kagura being one among them.

Hayachine Kagura was initially a part of royal traditions. Gradually, it seperated itself from the palace and developed itself to become a folk art.

Hayachina Kagura is performed in villages. Just like Yakshagana, there are many troups which roam from one village to another. These troups perform only in the pre-decided villages called as ‘kasumys’. One troup is not supposed to perform in the village allocated to other troup. It rarely happens. When this thing happens two artists from opposite troups have to wear the Lion Mask and battle it out. The one whose mask falls first or the one whose lion’s toungue comes out will be the loser.

The artists keep the box containing the dress and other things in a house called as the ‘Kagura house’. This is either a priest’s house or the house of a daughter of an artist from their own troup.  The villagers have a great deal of respect for this house.

The stage to perform kagura is usually the front yard of a house. The stage set-up is quite simple. The stage is open from three sides and the audience can watch the performance from these sides. The backdrop of the stage carries the symbol of the troup.

There is a special ritual to take the dress from the box. Then a lion dance follows. The initial phase of kagura is of prayers. Then the performance starts which is full of hand movements. Unlike Yakshagana, there are no dialogues to the charecters. The artists have to say everything from their facial expressions and hand movements. Sometimes the charecters are seen wearing the masks and sometimes without the masks.  One more feature of this kagura is all the actors are given same preference. In Yakshagana that is not the case. Senior artist is always considered superior to the young artists and they appear in the later phase of the performance of yakshagana. In Kagura the singer of the backstage play a vital role, which makes him the key person or a director of the of the show.

In yakshagana the basic scriptures are usually are based on ancient mythology and are taken from the writings of ‘Parthisubba’. Hayachina Kagura also follows the same path. The Kagura songs are based on the traditional mountain worshipping scripts of Japan.

Professor Morijiri finds lot of such similarities between these two art forms.