‘
I was slipping into a dream when I felt that soft hand on my shoulder. Then the other hand touched me. I shivered with fright and apprehension. The hands moved across my chest and arms, there was nothing disembodied about them. I lay perfectly still… That soft, warm, plump hand brushed against my cheek. I put out my own hand to touch her face.’ A brand new story.
‘Food acts as the metaphor for and the instrument of tyranny throughout this exceptionally well-made film. The dirty tables, the clogged sinks, pipes dripping filthy water and the mindless unwanted sex show up the nightmare that marriages often become even in affluent Indian families, with searing intensity.’ Of a film challenging stereotypes.
It is clear that the staff believe they are serving the nation in their own way by preserving this collection with passion and purpose. “I had only one brief — do not give in to any sort of pressure. Conserve, conserve, conserve. And so we have,” said the museum director. A visit to the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad.
‘…There was no healthy commercial or experimental theatre happening in Ahmedabad to take forward this energy. Most of those who continued moved to Bombay. Additionally, there was very little safe space to create political and anti-establishment theatre. This is the vacuum that Scrapyard attempts to fill.’ The story of new theatre.
‘…Ray was, of course, famously fluent in both Bengali and English. This fusion inevitably means that many aspects of Ray films are unfamiliar, offputting and sometimes incomprehensible to audiences outside India. How many international viewers will follow Ray’s pivotal pun on NASA as nesa, Bengali for ‘addiction’, in his philosophical final film, ‘Agantuk’? The relevance of Satyajit Ray.
‘The book offers an interesting structuralist perspective into feminism in India via the cultural space, specifically the cultural space of Santiniketan, which had a far-reaching impact on Bengali, and broadly speaking, Indian society, in the early to mid-20th century.’ A review of ‘Transcending the Glass Case: The Women Artists of Early 20th Century Bengal and the Gendered Indigenous Modernism’ by Dr Aparna Roy Baliga
‘…Hindu wedding rituals contain ideas from Harappan and Vedic times, to practices that came with the Greeks, Sakas, Kushan, Huns, Turks, Afghans, Persians, Arabs, even Europeans. Over time, the concept of marriage changed as did the rituals.’ Of wedding as ceremony.
Satyajit’s notebooks were reservoirs of his immense, inimitable creativity. With a thousand minute details jotted down, ranging from costume design to background score, these notebooks were his veritable workstation. Ten pages from his notebooks, placed in context of the films they speak of.
‘Not one to be daunted by slow learners, Revati did her best to teach her new student with her characteristic dedication, but with each passing lesson it became amply clear that Nirmala was one of those rare beings who could throw any teacher anywhere in the word a Teach-me-if-you-can challenge.’ Of two left feet.
‘Poems arrive in the second section almost all on a sudden, like the scene changes in a train window every second as it moves through the hills. Abanindranath calls them ‘Godyochhando’ – he draws two slim conifers; embracing them are a blur of clouds. There’s something about this drawing that makes me feel cold as I show it to my nephew in the early summer heat of Siliguri.’ The mountains, as witnessed by Abanindranath.
‘The idea of “gesamtkunstwerk”, or “synthesis of the arts”, borrowed by Gropius from composer Richard Wagner, envisioning a school that united every discipline, architecture and sculpture and painting would ideally sound enticing to young Satyajit, already seeped in myriad Western influences.’
‘For Indian cinema, Ray has served as the iconic example of cosmopolitan modernity, a film-maker owing little or nothing to his predecessors in the Indian film industry and almost everything to Western art directors… drawing upon them to transform the language of Indian cinema.’ The dichotomy in Ray, the filmmaker.
This Website comprises copyrighted materials. You may not copy, distribute, reuse, publish or use the content, images, audio and video or any part of them in any way whatsoever.
©2025 Copyright: Vision3 Global Pvt. Ltd.
