Kolkata Witnessed A Shining Saturday Evening With Gulzar

From left -  Shantanu Moitra, Sandip Ray, Gulzar 

Sampooran Singh Kalra - the Brightest Star Personality among the stars that India is proud of well known to his admirers by his pen name Gulzar. He is not only admired as a world famous Shayar (Poet) but he is also recognized for his contributions in various fields like film direction, lyrics writing and acting. Moreover he is a well-versed orator. In one word, he is the perfect combination of creative talents that makes him a legendary persona.

On 26th August, Saturday Nandan, Kolkata's film hub, was blessed with the aura of this great personality. On the evening of Saturday, Gulzar first inaugurated a photography exhibition themed around his entire life time memories. Music director Shantanu Moitra, actor Saswata Chattopadhyay, Rahul Banerjee, Pandit Ajoy Chakraborty, Antara Chowdhury and many other popular personalities’ presence took the Majlis (party) into a different level.The bonus achievement of the day was the launch of two of Gulzar’s books- one is “Pantbhaate", (the Bengali

Gulzar Saheb 

translation of the book has been done by Sanchari Mukherjee). This book depicts the golden experiences and memories with some renowned Bengali personalities like Satyajit Ray, R.D Burman, Kishore Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Uttam Kumar, Mahasweta Devi and so on. The name of second book is “Pluto” and Sk. Sadar Nayeem had translated the book in Bengali. Both books are published by Dey’s Publication. “Gulzarish”, another Bengali book on Gulzar was published in the same event. Poet Shankha Ghosh remarked on the book, “Pluto” by saying “Pluto, isn’t the name quite wondrous but why?” He said, “Pluto in galaxy is no more considered as a planet, Gulzar similarly, being apart from his 

From left - Shankha Ghosh, Gulzar Saheb, Shantanu Moitra,
Saswata Chattopadhyay, Sandip Ray

family writes so many short rhymes under the name of ‘Pluto’.” He also quoted, “Pluto was discovered in the year 1930 and Gulzar was born on 18th August, 1934; so he is four years younger than Pluto”. The second part of the show was “Guftagu with Gulzar”, a gossip session where personalities like Shantanu Moitra, Srijato, Sanchari Mukherjee, Sk. Sadar Nayeem took part and shared their experiences with Gulzar. The Guest of honour Gulzar ji also shared his experiences of life with audience. He made a remark about the current situation of the country saying that the time now is such that it is better to know the religion of others before revealing your own name. After that Sanchari Mukherjee read out some lines from the book “Pantabhaate” to the audience. She said,”I have tried my best to bring out the nostalgia of Pantbhaate from the core of my heart.” The whole thearte was filled with the astonishing recitations of Gulzar Saheb and Srijato. The huge participation by the people of Kolkata at the Nadan Premises to witness the presence of Living Legend Gulzar for once in their lifetime showed the love they had for this incredible legend.

From left - Gulzar Saheb, Sanchari Mukherjee

                        (Reporting by Sanchari Chatterjee,Written by Ayana Chatterjee & Picture by Ashif Iquebal)

WHAT’s THE 3rd????

3rd theater show

1st, 2nd and 3rd this is how the story goes. Talking about theatre, the first concept comes to mind is 1st theatre or folk theatre like Alkap, Kobigaan, Gombhira and 2nd theatre is also known as proscenium theatre adopted concept from British where a certain stage set up is formed and viewers sit in the dark place, from where they can only see the performance by actors. But 3rd theatre is something that is out of the box, it consists of both 1st and 2nd theatre can objectified this theatre as 3rd theatre, but 3rd theatre was there before it had its name. It appeals straightly to the audience.

3rd theater show

It can be performed anywhere, like in open road to stage. The artists neither need to act under the artificial light nor do they need high make ups. They go simple with some suggestive props and dresses for their plays. Concepts play a vital role in their play. Basically they select some progressive topics. Portable, flexible and inexpensive are the main 3 pillars of third theatre said by Badal Sarkar. The first experimental work of Badal Sarkar was Sagina Mahato at ABTA hall was highly praised by theatre lovers.

Badal Sarkar

Badal Sarkar introduced himself not as a Director, but as a theatre-worker. His Team members have equal liberty. Satabdi follows the same path of Badal Sarkar. 3rd theatre shares the stage with viewers; it creates direct relation with the audience. It can be said that Badal Sarkar is the man who gave the voice to 3rd theatre where his research paper was also submitted by this name. Badal got involved with 3rd theatre from the year 1974 fully fledged. The 3rd theatre group demands no money for their performance. They only ask for the travel expense from parties. Performance never stops for any monetary causes. Even their production cost is the minimum. They do not accept any sponsorship and do not have any ticket for their shows. At the end of the performance they place a piece of cloth in front of audiences to make them contribute money according to their will. This art form needs a limited area for their acts. If they do not get enough space to perform they arrange sits for the audience at stage. 3rd theatre travels to infinity.

3rd theater show

             (Written By Ayana Chatterjee and Reporting & Picture By Subhojit Ghosh)

#Badal_Sarkar,#Probir_Guha,#Satabdi,#Director,#Theater,#Third_Theater,#3rd_Theater,#Group_Theater,#Alkap,#Kobigaan,#Gombhira,#ABTA,#ABTA_Hall,#Sagina Mahato,

Roamer - Performer with no Barrier

A mere source of entertainment can be turned into a weapon to generate awareness and Theater is one of those. Whenever the term “theater” is coined, our mind signifies a stage with spotlights, set, props, bunch of performing actors and music, but if there is no certain stage to perform, no certain script to follow, still its a Theater form- Is that really possible?

Lucky Gupta Performance

Here the magic begins with the essence of Kashmir …A personality named

Lucky Gupta makes this theater act possible every time flawlessly. From the year 2001 Lucky Gupta is involved in this kind of theater performance professionally. He goes solo in his acts and that makes his performance extraordinary. The feature of plays to deliver message in story-telling manner,

highly attracted him to dedicate himself into acting. In his performances, he has no need of any props, makeup and he has as such no so called group to perform with. He collects his props from the crowd and involves his audiences into the part of his drama. Theater is for him the best medium to reach people with proper expression. Lucky Gupta finds no definite name of the theater art form of his own.  Neither it follows Intimate theater form nor does it blindly follow 3rd theater form. The reason behind he wished to perform companion-less act. This Kashmiri artist strongly feels that theater does not demand so-called stage set-up, it can be executed even under the bare sky. Technical usage means nothing in his acts. Lucky Gupta thinks even a stranger can teach lessons.

Lucky Gupta Performance

Lucky Gupta Performance

                         (Written by Ayana Chatterjee and Reported & picture by Subhojit Ghosh)

RENOVATION of TRADITION (AKHRA)

 

ALT at Jhargram for understanding Macbeth 

India has the longest and richest tradition in Theater going back to at list 500 years. Natyasastra written by Bharatmuni in between 2000 B.C-4^th Century A.D was the earliest and most elaborate treatise on dramas. The traditional account in Natyasastra gives a divine origin to Indian Theatre attributing it to Panchaveda, a combination of 4 Vedas created by Lord Bramha. Theatre in India started as a narrative form- reciting, singing, dancing and acting was an integral part of this Theatre.  The first phase of Indian Theatre are the Folk and Traditional Theatre. These were mainly singing and recitation-based and did not accompany any complicated gestures of movements and elements of dance.

Live music creation for Theatre performance by ALT

A few examples of this type of Theatre are Rasleela, Ramleela and Nautanki. The second phase of the evolution of Theatre in India is Sanskrit phase which were mainly based on Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranas and semi-historical place; they were based strictly based on the rules led out by ancient dramatic traits. The 200 years of British rule brought the Indian Theatre to the direct contact with Western Theatre giving birth to the modern or proscenium style of Theatre. This took over to Folk form of Theatre which continued to survive. Various Theatre group in India are working towards giving it a new look by blending together the traditional and modern elements of Theatre.

(AKHRA)

“Akhra” has grown up in North 24 Pargana district formed by the group Alternative Living

Probir Guha, The Director &  Script Writer of ALT

Theatre. It is situated in Madhyamgram, Ramakrishna Pally. ‘Alternative Living Theatre’- the name of different way of living life by theatre. The plot has two main sections. 1st section is known as “Gol-Ghor” (round space), where members of ALT rehearse their performances and many Theatre Artists across the globe come to ALT to perform and share their views to the members. Second section is a L- shaped home where they store their props and sometimes enthusiast members live there too. They are looking forward to transform Gol-Ghor into a Daily Show afterward. According to the ideology of ALT, the members consider Theatre as a weapon to express their social-political strata. In 2008, Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee winner and the architecture of the popular theatre group ALT Probir Guha guides his members with extensive care, just like potter gives shapes to the clay,

Rehearsal at Golghar by ALT

 Probir Guha makes his artists in this way. This theatre  not only speaks about acting or expressing talents but it also teaches how to be a human with proper Humanity. To protest against the social and political issues with different aspects is the main motto of ALT. Probir Guha thinks that Body movement or gestures is the main language which has no barriers, everybody may not be able to understand every human languages. ALT is driven by the thought of reaching people with higher quality theatre in less expense. This kind of theatre adopts some of the concepts of 3rd theatre. ’The world is the stage’ is the slogan of ALT as they do not need so called stage setup to perform but they create their stage by their performances.

ALT at Jhargram for understanding Macbeth

Sometimes using folding or movable stage system. They select their topic of plays from real events then they decide plots and arrange the whole story by discussions where every member is free to give their opinions. Nowadays, the locality is getting more populated so the atmosphere of ALT also facing the noise. After finalizing the concepts they explore barren lands or no man's lands and live there in tents for their real life experience for the story. They think fresh air and silence can bring greater objective to them. Just like saints go for meditation to fulfill their wishes, the members follow the same for their performances. After making the concept outline

Rehearsal at Golghar by ALT

they go straight to “Akhra” in Madhyamgram, for rehearsal to fulfill the concept body. Apart from acting section, ALT uses both recorded and live music produced by both musicians and group members. Creativity section partly designs the props like masks used in stage, interior designs, and dresses excluding purchased materials. Just like, crisis makes a man perfect, after conquering over so many hurdles, now Alternative Living Theatre has its own proud voice. It’s only the beginning of ALT to continue their breath-taking experiment in their every performance.

 (Reported and Images by Subhojit Ghosh & Written by Ayana Chatterjee )

Digitally sufficient?

 The 21st century is an era of technological wonders and digitization. India is pushing her limits to embrace the domains of digitization. But as India takes a step towards building a cashless economy and engaging the whole of India through the government's 'Digital India' scheme, Bharat seems to be in a plight to come out of its orthodox nature and embrace the modern viewpoint. 

Bharat usually refers to the rural India in which resides more than half of the country's population. The erratic internet connection, low level of proliferation of smartphones and most importantly the lack of trust in online transactions owe to the problems of dizitalizing of Bharat. Banking and Internet are a new concept to them and the fear of the unknown grasps them specially in case of cashless transaction. A large part of the people are illiterate and daily labours who earn in small amounts and are in a hand to mouth situation. To them having a bank account and going to all the banking fiasco is a waste of their valuable time. They go more for earning than for learning. Cashless economy is the backbone of a developed nation. So how will India develop if Bharat thinks that the use of mobile wallets and ATM cards (plastic money) is a complete waste of time. Even if they have smartphones with 3G facility they are unwilling to use e-wallets out of the fear that their money will vanish. People are happy using Facebook and WhatsApp on their phone and even surfing the internet but they are adamant in not using the online money.

Government is trying its best to educate the rural India through various interactive programs and has made a small progress. But it is needed to ensure the safety of online transactions. Nobody wants to part with their hard earned money to some fraud company. The government needs to ensure that efficient steps would be taken in minimal time in such cases. They need to conduct programs to teach people how to identify between a genuine and a fraud company while transacting online. But the most important thing to do would be to educate the mass as fast as is rationally possible. For it is this illiteracy that is stopping the rural mass from going online.

However, all is not lost as two villages in India viz. Akodara and Narshinghapur have already earned the coveted title of being digital villages. Digitization is more of an evolutionary process than a choice. The demonetization if not anything else has helped create new bank account and has rendered the inactive accounts operative. It has forced people to learn the banking system. The Reliance group is launching 4G enabled cheap feature phones to help the rural mass connect to the internet. Lastly it is very important to say that not only the government but it is also our duty to help digitally ignorant people learn the system.

                                                     

                                                                                                                                                         (Article by Somrita Das)

 #Influence_of_Digital_India, #Narendra_Modi, #Digital_India, #Digital_Village, #India, #Youth_of_India, #Cashless_Transaction, #Plastic_money, #Online_Fraud, #Cyber_crime, #Fear_of_online_transaction, #Rural_people, #Extreme_usage_of_whatsapp_facebook

Unveil your Honesty with Sarahah

So do you have a Sarahah account???

You don’t!!  Oh what have you done!!! You should have an account right away….

Yes friends “Sarahah” the new app that has created a storm in Facebook…… “Sarahah” has topped the list in Apple’s app store for quite some time now and is now made available to all users. Through this app you may write your thoughts about anyone without revealing yourself. Sarahah in Arabic means ‘honesty’ or ‘Candour’.

Psst…  You may even shout obscenities at them and they won’t even know its you…

But of course you know this, don’t you…..

But do you know why Sarahah has become so popular over such a small period of time? The answer is that Sarahah feeds on the narcissistic nature of human being.  

Am I looking good?

What will people say about me? No I think I should change this outfit….

I think he doesn’t like me…..

I am really popular? Or do they just pretend????

Yes, everybody wants to know what others think about them. It is our hearts desire to know who appreciates us and who criticizes us. We all say….. Yes we all say “I don’t care what people say about me”. But in reality we die to know…. We post pictures and check not in hours or minutes but in seconds to see how many likes we have got, what comments we have.

We smile within ourselves if a comment is good and curse the people in our mind when they comment bad…. We compare our likes on the Facebook ….. Yes we go through meaningless competions with people on Facebook.

Oh… She has got so many likes…. Why do I have so few…. I need a picture like that…..

Appreciation satisfies our ego and criticism hurts it. Day after day as the world becomes a smaller place we are becoming self- centered and egoistic. We are slowly forgetting how to appreciate a person’s talent and hard work. Honest criticism has gone out of the window as has the art of helping. We cannot accept criticism, no we absolutely can’t.  We don’t help people out of fear that the person might be benefitted from our help.

Sometimes I think it would have been better if we would all have had the powers of P.K. Then these apps would not have been necessary. But anyway All hail “Sarahah” which has opened the doors for backbiting people who doesn’t have the guts to say it to your face.

(Written by Somrita Das)