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| ARTS TRIBUNE | Friday, October 20, 2000, Chandigarh, India |
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Craftsmen in search of clientele In search of
villainous roles The mystery of Black Pagoda Ghazal has a future
in India: Ghulam Ali Dancing doll
Testing patience of viewers
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Craftsmen in search of clientele SEEING carpentry tools like saw, hammer, drill, cold chisel and vices in the hands of Bhagwan Singh Ahlawat at the art and crafts stall at the Children’s Festival held in Gandhi Ground, Ambala Cantonment, one cannot imagine the high quality of craftsmanship he is capable of, and very few people know that he is keeping traditional art and crafts alive. Ahlawat had a liking towards art and crafts since childhood and has carved a large number of wooden handicrafts. He has carved pieces of wood into various shapes, ranging from the portrait of a poor girl to the hawala scam. People have been appreciating his art exhibited at various festivals. Ahlawat spent his childhood in a lower middle-class family at Gochhi village in Rohtak district. His father, Chet Ram, and mother, Sundo Devi, encouraged their son to pursue his interest in art. It was with the efforts and the encouragement from his uncle, Major Jai Narain, that he got admission to Art and Crafts Institute in Shimla. According to Ahlawat, in spite of the fact that craftsmen are keeping the traditional arts and crafts alive, they hardly reap the profits of their hard work. “Most of the artisans are normally settled in rural areas and it becomes difficult for them to market their products, especially the fragile and low-volume products having a limited market,” says Ahlawat, who to make both ends meet started teaching at the Arts Department in a government technical institute. “The Indian crafts are popular all over the world. But how much does that help to improve the status of our artisans and crafts persons?” questions Ahlawat. He is well aware of the fact that there are many skills and art forms that are still known and practised but are fast losing their relevance and popularity amongst the public. Ahlawat, however, agrees that the Government of India is making institutionalised efforts to revive the dying crafts and set up Handicrafts Development Board to boost the handicrafts market all over the country and abroad by organising handicraft exhibitions, craft bazars and expos to provide the artisans selling space and opportunities for necessary exposure. “The question arises, how much it benefits the artisans? To what extent do these festivals help in improving their socio-economic conditions? And, most of all, does it help the survival of different arts and crafts?” questions Ahlawat. According to Ahlawat, a handful of middlemen are involved in the handicraft export business. “There is bureaucratisation of the procedure and the genuine people are not represented. There are hundreds of craftsmen but only few of them have access to the Handicrafts Development Board. Only a few privileged craftsmen find a place in such exhibitions and festivals through middlemen,” he laments. He stresses the need for interaction between craftsmen and prospective customers to eliminate the middlemen, who allegedly sell crafts with a heavy margin. According to Ahlawat, just having a selling space is not enough, there is a need for good buyers too. “Most of the people cannot afford to buy costly handicrafts. Besides, there is limited space to display them in their houses. These art works do not go beyond the drawing rooms of a handful of rich people and the craftsmen engaged in this creative activity are leading a miserable life,” says Ahlawat. While talking to craftsmen at the festival, it was observed that the problems faced by them were not just regarding the sale and the
middlemen, who benefit the most during profitable deals. “The root cause of the problem is that handicrafts are not consumer items, so their demand and utility in the daily lives of people are limited,” says Ahlawat, adding that there is a need for more campaigns on the national level to create greater awareness about the availability and use of art and craft products. According to him, campaigns help in taking handicrafts from the drawing rooms of socialites to broad-based clientele. “In fact, Art and craft can do wonders and the business can expand a great extent. There is no dearth of outlets. Apart from a few emporiums and private trade, there is a huge network of the Khadi Gram Udyog Commission which may help to enhance the business. What is needed is creating the right kind of ambience and awareness among the public which feels that handicrafts, being costly, are out of their reach. The direct contact among craftsmen and buyers may increase the demand fantastically,” says Ahlawat, the only wooden handicraft craftsman in Haryana whose work has been admired by
TVI. |
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In search of
villainous roles FROM a modest beginning in theatre in 1982, Gurmeet Saajan has come a long way. Hailing from the small town of Kotkapura in Punjab, he was only 12 years old when he started taking lessons in classical music under the watchful eyes of Daulat Ram, his school teacher. While he was in college, his acting skills were further honed by Prof Krishan Kant. He joined Nagender Kala Manch in Faridkot to polish himself as an actor. It was here, in the first open-air theatre in Punjab, that his acting prowess was brought to the fore by Sudarshan Maini. Gurmeet believes that performing on the stage is practical training and there is no need to go in for acting classes. He says learning through personal experience is the best way to grow as an actor. He did 10 to 15 plays, mostly in Faridkot. There was no time to exercise his vocal chords and to take up singing as his career. During his days of struggle, he also did three or four serials for Jalandhar Doordarshan. He claims that these did not provide him enough opportunities to perform and to establish himself. He adds that commuting from Kotkapura to Jalandhar every day was also a problem. He did not allow his training in classical music go waste. His first album, O Din Parat Ni Auney,” was released in 1996. Though it received a lukewarm response, it sold many copies in his area. His second effort, “Nachna Vee Manzoor,” was released in 2000. It mostly has light numbers and folk songs. It was with the help of Gurkirtan Chauhan, a theatre director, that he got his first break in Punjabi films. Gurmeet did supporting roles in around 10 films. Among his notable movies are “Bagawat” with Gurdas Maan, “Dharam Jatt Da” with Sukhjinder Shera, “Zaildar” with Gugu Gill, “Dhee Jatt Di” with Upasana Singh and “Pachhtawa” with Shevinder Mahal. The forthcoming movies in which he has important roles are “Aakhiri Saboot”, “Desh Drohi” and “Bisho Jatti”. The serial “Do Akalgarh”, which is currently on air, has Gurmeet in a pivotal role. He also starred in “Tutaan Wala Khu”, which was shown on Lashkara channel. He did a comic role with Jaspal Bhatti in “Professor Moneyplant”, telecast on Tara channel. He also did the telefilm “Ruki Ruki Si Zindagi”. Upcoming projects include “Apne Begane” and “Shut Up”. Also in the pipeline are “Shikanja” and “Musafir”. Having performed a variety of roles, Gurmeet has developed a liking for villainous characters. Standing over six feet, he aspires to earn a name in filmdom through villainy. His favourite actors are Pran and Amrish Puri. He says it is the depth of the character and the importance of the role that matters. Belonging to a family of goldsmiths, there was initial resistance to his taking to acting. But seeing his passion and talent, his family gave in. Now it gives him its full support to pursue his dream to make it big in cinema. He has not given a serious thought to moving on to Bollywood. But then, tomorrow is another story. |
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The mystery of Black Pagoda FOR millions of experts and admirers worldwide, a new study on the magnificent Sun Temple at Konark concluding that the foundation of the 13th century temple is strong comes as a golden chance to see the shrine from inside. According to a study by the Central Building Research Institute (CBRI) in Roorkee, on the stability of the existing structure at Konark, the foundation of the temple is in “excellent shape” and there were “no weaknesses”. The interiors of the shrine to the sun god, famous worldwide as the Black Pagoda, “have remained a mystery since the temple was stuffed with sand and stone in 1901-1902 to impart stability to its crumbling edifice. According to an official source, the CBRI study, conducted through geo-radar testing last year, has encouraged experts to rethink the possibility of de-stuffing the structure. But no decision on the issue has been taken so far. “Everybody wants that the sands be removed but before we undertake this huge task, we have to look into the practical aspects,” says L.S. Rao, Superintending Archaeologist of the Bhubaneswar Circle of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). According to Rao, archaeologists have often toyed with the idea of de-stuffing the structure to have a glimpse of the “mukhshala” or the main temple from inside. But the enormity of the task has stood in the way. It is improbable that anyone living today has any idea of what the “mukhshala” known as “Jagmohan” looked like from inside. They have tried to draw parallels by comparing in with the main shrines of the Jagmohan Temple at Puri or the Mukteshwar Temple at Bhubaneswar — which were built in the Kalinga tradition. While the Puri temple has paintings inside it, the Mukteswar Temple has exquisite sculptures inside. “It is up to the policy-makers, in consultation with experts, scholars and engineers, to decide whether the sand and stone packing should be removed and, if yes, when,” says Rao. In Sun Temple’s case a decision is yet to be taken on the de-stuffing work and the method to be adopted for the purpose, says Rao noting that the ASI had successfully carried out the de-plastering of Jagannath Temple over the past few years exposing some fine sculptures on the outer wall of the shrine that had remained hidden from public view for a long time. The deplastering work in the Puri temple had been done from bottom upwards while taking care to maintain the balance of the huge temple. Three years ago, experts had recommended a time-bound action plan for the conservation of the unique monument. At a two-day meeting, convened by the ASI at Puri recently, the experts who came up with 23 recommendations, also decided to widen and stabilise one of the four existing vents to create a passage to have access to Jagamohan for physically verifying the condition of the sand filled inside and the masonary wall. The meeting was attended by eminent archaeologists, structural engineering experts, conservators, chemical conservation specialists, civil engineers, experts from UNESCO, art historians, artistes and even artisans from among the descendants of the very masons of the locality, who had constructed the edifice between 1238 and 1264 AD. According to Rao, the “mukhasala” had a lower roof resting on four iron beams. The decision to fill up the interior followed, ostensibly, after its collapse. This might have been the result of seepage of water into the edifice causing oxidisation which reduced the binding force, he says. Filling the structure with sand also would not have been an easy task. After the sand rose up to the door level, the only alternative would have been to pour the sand into the temple through funnels from the top, says Rao. Since the sand had settled down well over the years, there appeared to be a gap of about 2 metres on the upper portion of the “mukhasala”, he adds. The Superintending Archaeolo-gist said cement grouting of the “amalaka” (the top portion) to prevent seepage of water into the interiors, was done a few years ago. He attributed the factors responsible for the collapse of the Sun Temple, believed to be the tallest temple of the region at that time, to the inherent weakness of the stones. The stones were susceptible to the nature’s atmospheric action, especially the saline breeze, which has corrosive effect, while thermal action, rainfall, humidity, temperature and biological growth were the other factors, he adds. Known as the Black Pagoda, which is the only monument on the UNESCO’s world heritage list in eastern India, the remains of Sun Temple attracted attention for its exquisite stone carvings of dancing belles, flying horses, elephants and couples in erotic poses. Rao says three distinct styles of temple construction existed in ancient India — Rekha Nagar Prasad (North India), Dravida Vimana (South India) and Vesara (a mixture of the two). The ancient Kalinga style was an off-shoot of all, but it mainly drew inspiration from Rekha Nagar Prasad. Orissa’s three famous temples, existing in a triangle, comprising the 11th century Lingaraj Temple at Bhupaneswar, 12th century Sri Jagannath Temple at Puri and Sun Temple at Konark, were constructed when these styles were in vogue.
— PTI |
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Ghazal has a future in India: Ghulam Ali GHAZAL maestro Ghulam Ali feels ghazal singing has a future in India because there are singers “as good as Jagjit Singh and Hariharan, who have audiences wanting to hear them”. Ghulam Ali, who had recently come to Baroda from Pakistan for a concert, told PTI that “craze for ghazals had declined because few people understood and relished the Urdu language. If more and more people study Urdu, they will enjoy ghazals as well”. “Though ghazal was experiencing a downtrend in popularity, there still existed a target audience “that is appreciable”, he said. Ghulam Ali said Ghalib was his favourite poet. “Those who have sung the works of Ghalib, for them it is difficult to sing poems of others”, he noted. Among Indian musicians, he said Ustad Amir Khan was his favourite and “I have always admired Ustad Bhimsen Joshi. I also like to hear Parveen Sultana and Kishori Amonkar”. On the popularity of ghazal in other countries, he said besides India, music lovers in Nepal also appreciated ghazals.
— PTI |
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Dancing doll FIVE-YEAR-OLD Priyanka Sharma, a student of KG class at Kalyan Nursery Public School, Ambala City, was honoured as the best child artiste of the year 1999 on the eve of the Republic Day this year by the state minister of Haryana, Mr Dhir Pal Singh. Priyanka has been participating in the cultural activities, especially in folk dances, held in her school. “I spotted a powerful spark of my daughter’s inborn talent at a marriage function when she was hardly three years old”, recalls Neelam Sharma, Priyanka’s proud mother. Then there was really no looking back for this lissome little Cindrella of the dancing world. On the education front too, she has maintained a track record and always stood first in pre-nursery and nursery classes. Under her mother’s coaching the little girl picked up dancing steps in different types of Haryanavi, Rajasthani and Punjabi folk dances in the short span of a year. The year 1999 was lucky for Priyanka. In November she was awarded by the Commissioner, Ambala Division, for participating, in a dance competition held on the occasion of a five-day Children’s Fair at the Gandhi Grounds, Ambala Cantonment. In December she represented the Ambala district cultural team at Gita Jayanti Festival held in Kurukshetra and bagged the best dancer award. The audience got so carried away when she performed a Rajasthani dance to the song Kal raat kaiharva khoob hua..., that some of them started dancing. Priyanka’s mother Neelam says a producer of a tele-serial was so impressed by her daughter’s dance performance, that he has promised to take her in one of his forthcoming serials for a child dance sequence. Currently, Priyanka is learning Kathak from a dance teacher apart from the traditional folk dances of Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab. She intends to prove her mettle in Himachali, Manipuri and Bihari folk dances also to achieve her goal she is regular with her daily practice. Priyanka is too little to divulge her definite future plans, but she is confident to make it to television as well as the big screen one day and become a top dancer.
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Sight & Sound THERE are some programmes which have been around for so long that even if not for years, it feels as if they have. And as time goes by, the viewer or listener is naturally inclined to be extra particular about them, although the producers sometimes seem to take the audience for granted. This week, I intend to subject some of them to the surgeon’s knife. It is bad enough that Saans on Star Plus has grown whiskers, although I gather this was the bright idea of Star and Nina Gupta would have liked to end it earlier. So when I saw Monisha take out a revolver from the drawer of her desk, it became so much like a Bombay film that I have more or less written off the serial after giving it a chance from episode to episode. The patience of viewers who look on Nina as different and intelligent is wearing thin. The serial is being killed by kindness, while good serials like Rajdhani are being substituted by cloying soaps which should rightly belong to the afternoon bahenjis and not prime-time. Then one of my favourite programmes Wheels, on the BBC, I have felt for some time that the camerawork has become so gimmicky that one can hardly see the finer points of cars or two-wheelers because when the camera is not doing cart-wheels it is running fast forward upside down, with large doses of under-grad humour to distract one still further. It chips and chops with irritating rapidity and does not allow one to concentrate. This being a programme with serious analysis of vehicles, it should take itself as seriously as does the BBC product at home. Also, I do miss Niret Alva. He has a natural charm and, most important, relaxed manner which immediately establishes a rapport with the viewer. The present male anchors are still trying too hard when they are talking. Because I enjoyed the luxury Mercedes as it picked up speed in seconds. The girls do rather better, but I wish we had more of Nawaz Bathena, who is another natural for TV. I watched Zee’s Women’s Hour for the first time. It clashes with Hard Talk on the BBC and which would you choose? For the first few minutes I wondered why it was called Women’s Hour because it was clearly Men’s Hour. First the women did some ardent male worship over Karva Chauth and then lo and behold, we had Men’s fashions. But the woman viewer did get an agony aunt later in the programme. I quite liked the young male anchor Ramesh who has adapted nicely from doing dreary news bulletins on DD, but the woman anchor was, like most woman anchors on TV, visibly self-conscious, over-dressed and over-frisky. I gather she comes from modelling, which is rather different from anchoring. She needs some post-ramp coaching. True to form, the cable operator, after going on strike during the Olympics, has been treating us to frequent breakdowns. The climax came on Wednesday morning when there was a breakdown from early morning right through the last TV debate between Gore and Bush. I ultimately had to catch up with excerpts from the debate, which seemed much more lively than the earlier ones. In this context, the viewer would like to know what protection the viewer has against cable operators who subject them to frequent breakdowns, choose channels arbitrarily and generally push the subscriber around with impunity. Which leads me to ask the government why they are delaying DTH when the rest of the world has gone in for it? If it is to protect DD from competition, the government does not have a leg to stand on considering they are selling prime time to Packer and generally abdicating all responsibility for making its own programmes when there are several very good producers left in DD, including in the regional kendras. Why has the Central Production Centre, with enviable equipment, been given over to the News Channel which, when it is visible at all, is so sub-standard all round that no one particularly wants to see it. It remains largely an outlet for programme rejects which cannot find outlets on the more professional satellite channels. TAIL-PIECE: Is it Ogden Nash who once wrote “Men never make passes at girls who wear glasses?” Suddenly a number of young women anchors on NDTV have started wearing glasses and looking like school-marms. While the truly lovely girls on Zee News continue to look like elegant Indian women even if their anchoring is not always in the same class. |
