Shakespeare can be fun
By Paul Majendie
ALL the world’s a stage and you can join in with the most famous players. For the accent is on audience participation at the Shakespeare exhibition which is rapidly becoming one of London’s most popular tourist attractions.

A hub of cultural activity
By Kavita Bhargava
WITH the objective of blocking every kind of entertainment to the people of the Kashmir valley, Pakistan-sponsored militants had not only imposed restriction on the screening of films besides ordering the closing of theatres, but had also destroyed some centres of cultural activity, including the prestigious Tagore Hall in Srinagar.

Photography with direct message
By Anjana Datta

Avinash Chander Joshi’s photographs will fascinate you just the way nature fascinates him. Perhaps, the beauty of nature has nowhere been better exemplified than in his photographs and nothing can be prettier than the photographs of nature which he displayed at an exhibition held in Chandigarh recently.

The picturesque photographs of gushing water of springs, snowclad mountains, majestic peaks of the Himalayas and deep deodar forests evoked a mixed response of excitement and admiration from viewers. In fact, his works seemed to belong to another world — the world of nature — far away from the madding crowd of city life. For instance, his photographs of Trikhango Pass, the Baspa river in Chitkul, Nako Lake in Kinnaur, and Chorten Tilling in the Pin valley were a viewer’s delight and Avinash’s pride. Besides, there were breath-taking views of unexplored areas of the Himalayas.

The experienced lensman that he is, Avinash does photography with a direct message. All his photographs, aptly and interestingly titled, were aimed at creating awareness among city dwellers about the serene environment of the Himalayas as well as conservation and exploration of the rich wealth of India. Here is an artist who packs a direct message into his every work.

Born and bred in the Kumaun hills of Uttar Pradesh, Avinash is a lover of nature. He spent his early childhood in the natural surroundings of the Garhwal and Kumaun hills where his father, late K.C. Joshi was posted in the Forest Department of UP. The nature of his father’s job was such that it provided him enough opportunity to study nature from close quarters.

As a child, he used to spend hours in watching the ever-changing views of nature and the vivid colours of the rainbow in the serene, verdant and sylvan surroundings of the Himalayas. Different hues of nature, the chirping sounds of birds and the whistling winds passing through the deodar trees, always fascinated and inspired him to explore more and more of nature.

But it was only in 1984 when he joined the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) as an executive trainee that one of his colleagues, Harmanpreet Singh (now an IPS officer of West Bengal cadre), introduced him to photography. Initially, he took it up as a hobby and found it a good medium of expression of his ideas. Since then it has become his inseparable companion.

For Avinash, photography has almost become an obsession now. In spite of his 15-year affair with the camera, his love for clicking is as strong as ever. Only the subject has changed. From the tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh to the expansion of Industry, he has now taken to Mother Nature. This particular branch of photography is his chief study now. And, he finds a sheer delight in it. For him, nature is the key emotional and spiritual experience of his life — be it a Mud village in Lahaul and Spiti, mulling pasture in the Bhaba valley in Kinnaur or the Kovalam beach in Kerala.

According to him, photographing nature is not all that easy, especially at the highest ranges where the sun plays hide and seek. “Sometimes it takes weeks to capture the right moment in the camera. Most of the time, the sky remains overcast with clouds. It is very seldom that one gets bright sunshine to have a good photograph,” he remarks. “For this, one really requires patience, dedication and, above all, love for nature and the spirit of adventure,” he adds. “Besides, there are often daring and hair-raising close encounters with death, especially at the upper ranges of the Himalayas where a single slip can prove fatal for you.”

Nevertheless, the ambitious and adventurous photographer has eventually ended up in doing the best photographic works of nature which are now a never-ending pleasure watching them, and that too, without any training or technical background in photography. He says he doesn’t really have any philosophy for photography. He has found that many of his best photographs happened spontaneously.

The picturesque works of Avinash have been extensively used in the official house journals of the NTPC, besides several leading newspaper and magazines of India. Some of his works have appeared in prestigious magazines of Indian Airlines and HP Tourism.

A widely travelled person, he has been to the UK, France and Germany and has the best shots of these places. In 1997, he held a solo exhibition of his works in Shimla which won wide reviews from the press. Now after Chandigarh, he plans to take his works to other parts of the country soon. At present he is busy in honing his skills of photography in Shimla where he lives with his wife and two little children.

Shakespeare can be fun
By Paul Majendie

ALL the world’s a stage and you can join in with the most famous players.

For the accent is on audience participation at the Shakespeare exhibition which is rapidly becoming one of London’s most popular tourist attractions.

It is staged beneath the thatch-roofed Globe, an exquisite copy of the playhouse where the Bard’s plays were first performed 400 years ago.

“The feedback has been brilliant. We are getting 1,000 visitors a day,” said Globe spokeswoman Sonia Noy as queues stretched out into the street beside the river Thames.

“People say it is like coming home. The whole idea is to make Shakespeare accessible,” she said, eager to persuade many Britons put off after being force-fed a diet of Shakespeare tragedies at school.

The message from the Globe is — Shakespeare can be fun.

That is certainly the case on the stage where artistic director Mark Rylance has consistently caught the headlines.

Last year he dressed up as a woman to play Cleopatra and this year Vanessa Redgrave has redressed the balance by playing Prospero, the Duke of Milan, in “The Tempest.”

The Shakespeare exhibition, opened in January by Oscar-winning “Shakespeare in Love” star Judi Dench, is the perfect antidote for stage-struck tourists.

The entrance to the exhibition is dominated by the glittering costume worn by the actress Jane Lapotaire as she played Queen Elizabeth I and met the present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, at the Globe’s opening ceremony 12 years ago.

“It is a bold new celebration of Shakespeare — halfway between a museum and a theme park — where multimedia wizardry meets oaken craftsmanship in a marriage of unusual excellence,” said The Sunday Times newspaper.

Elizabethan special effects are brought to life on touch screens. See how Ariel first flew. Check out what Shakespeare’s company used for blood and gore. What created Macbeth’s thunder?

You can try your hand at editing “Hamlet” and print the results on a computer.

It is fascinating to press buttons in the sound booths and hear everyone from Henry Irving and Ellen Terry through to John Gielgud, Richard Burton and Marlon Brando declaiming the most famous passages from the immortal playwright.

The Globe was the brainchild of the late US actor-director Sam Wanamaker. It has proved a roaring success with theatregoers, playing near to capacity every season from May to September.

His words of dogged persistence are remembered in the exhibition: “It is a holy grail, a dream, an ambition I will have spent one quarter of my life trying to fulfil”.

Rylance is thrilled at the way audiences interact, especially the “groundlings” who stand out in the open beneath the stage and sometimes have no hesitation in saying what they think of the production.

A classic case was the launch this year of “The Tempesi”, which was staged in torrential rain.

The biggest laugh of the day came when one of the characters exclaimed “foul weather” and the rain-soaked crowd agreed with a loud cheer.

“When you see any play at the Globe, it is not aimed at your heart, it is not aimed just at your mind. It is a physical presence,” he concluded — Reuters

A hub of cultural activity
By Kavita Bhargava

WITH the objective of blocking every kind of entertainment to the people of the Kashmir valley, Pakistan-sponsored militants had not only imposed restriction on the screening of films besides ordering the closing of theatres, but had also destroyed some centres of cultural activity, including the prestigious Tagore Hall in Srinagar.

The past 10 long years of bloodshed and turmoil in the trouble-torn state of Jammu and Kashmir had thus affected the cultural happenings in the state to a greater extent. But since the installation of the new government in the state and with the efforts of the Secretary, J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, there has been a revival of all such activities in the valley.

One such hub of cultural activity, Tagore Hall which had witnessed two bomb explosions inside it, was recently recommissioned by the Chief Minister, Dr Farooq Abdullah.

Recommissioned after a gap of nearly nine years, Tagore Hall has now become the first auditorium in North India to have the remote faster lighting system with a precision to control the lighting operation from anywhere within or outside the auditorium.

A historic building, Tagore Hall was constructed in 1961 to commemorate the Guru Rabindra Nath Tagore centenary year. During that year, various cultural centres were opened on the name of the great poet all over the country. Some of these are Rabindra Bharti in Agra, Rabindra Bhavan in Delhi, Rabindralaya in Lucknow, Rabindra Sadan in Calcutta, Tagore Theatre in Chandigarh, Ravindra Kala Khetra in Bangalore, Rabindra Manch in Jaipur and Tagore Hall in Srinagar. Interestingly, all of these centres became a hub of cultural activities and acquired importance over the years.

Mr Hasrat Gadda, President, Fankaar Cultural Organisation, who has a long association of 34 years with Tagore Hall recalls that a number of prestigious functions were held in this auditorium which was inaugurated by Bakshi Ghulam Mohammed while late Morarji Desai, the then Finance Minister of India was the chief guest at the occasion. He also remembers having attended various important functions, including an All-India Bengali Writers Conference in Tagore Hall for which West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu had specially flown in from Calcutta. Besides, all important names in the field of art, culture and music, including Begum Akhtar, Talat Mehmood, Mohammed Rafi etc had performed on this stage.

In the Kashmir valley, Tagore Hall was also an important cultural centre till 1990. A galaxy of artistes and performers hailing from this border state, including santoor maestro Pt Shiv Kumar Sharma, theatrist M.K. Raina, film actors Virender Razdan, K.K. Raina, Opender Khushu, Bansi Koul, Vijay Malla, Vijay Suri etc were associated with Tagore Hall in the initial stages of their respective careers.

Besides, the annual Ramleela organised by the Sanatan Dharam Sabha was a regular feature which used to draw a huge crowd. Many a time former Chief Minister late Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah and Dr Farooq Abdullah would witness Ramleela in Tagore Hall.

Tagore Hall was closed after it suffered extensive damages because of the two blasts occurred inside the auditorium. The Hall remained under the occupation of security forces for over nine years. The renovation work was taken up last year only and the Hall was thrown open recently for literary and cultural activities.

Mr Balwant Thakur, Secretary, J&K Academy of Art, Culture and Languages, who had to struggle hard to get the Hall vacated from security forces, informed that it has been equipped with the latest sound and lighting system with a control room where one can watch and control the programmes. He said the renovated Tagore Hall has 16-track digital boosting sound system with all imported accessories. To boost literary activities in the Kashmir Valley, one seminar room has also been added to the sprawling Tagore Hall complex, which has also been equipped with latest electronic gadgets.

Discussing his future plans regarding Tagore Hall, Mr Thakur who himself is a noted theatrist said they were planning to hold national-level events in collaboration with the national academies and the Department of Culture, Government of India, in near the future. Beside, he was also planning to hold local music, theatre, drama and dance festivals in Tagore Hall.