The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Making portraits his forte Anjana Datta WHILE some are pastel drawings, others are vividly hand-painted portraits of famous men, sceneries in water colours and oils and also computer designed greeting cards for all occasions. The first thing that strikes you when you look at the works of Rahul Bakshi is that the artist seems to have an obsession with colours. Using warm and bright colours, he lends an ethereal touch to his works. Sitting in his office-cum-studio amidst his latest collection of greeting cards, Rahul, a budding artist of City Beautiful, speaks of his art, ambition, future plans and his inspiration. “I always feel very close to nature. That’s why my paintings are mostly inspired by Mother Nature,” he says. “It is the atmosphere of peace and serenity surrounding nature that gives me an opportunity to evolve myself as an artist,” he adds. All his paintings are spontaneous moments of inspiration captured on the canvas. They express his interaction with environment. His mother, Balwant Bakshi, echoes his views. She explains how her son spends hours watching the sunrise and the sunset and simply enjoys listening to the chirping of the birds. And Rahul recreates his work accordingly, she adds. For Rahul, painting is a medium to express his emotions and feelings. Being a sensitive person, he chooses to paint something that touches him the most. In each of his works, he has displayed his emotions poignantly. His work reflects the inner harmony and sensitivity of his mind. He works with absolute in dependence and paints with total abandon. Using bright and lively colours, he brushes on till the forms start appearing. This is the way Rahul paints. “Sometimes I don’t even know what I am going to paint,” he quips. “My paintings begin to evolve the moment I touch the brush to the canvas,” he remarks. Although he enjoys capturing nature on the canvas, portraits are his forte. There are several portraits and sketches of Guru Nanak Dev, Mother Teresa, Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi. But there is one portrait Rahul is very sentimental about. It is that of his late father, H.S. Bakshi, whom he never saw. Rahul was only six months’ old when he died. His mother brought him up single-han dedly. All of Rahul’s works are marked with a realistic tinge. Each work is striking in terms of technique, imagery and content. The strokes are in soft and subtle tones with vibrant colours. The expression is simple, plain and honest. His paintings give an evidence of the creative spark in him. Rahul does not want his art to become stereotyped. Taking a departure from the solo maiden exhibition of his paintings held last year, computer savvy Rahul has this time brought out computer-designed greeting cards for all occasions. According to his mother, he spends most of his time surfing the computer and creating his own designs, something extraordinary in a person who is a slow learner. Rahul is a creative artist. Even as a child he used to dabble with paints and crayons. His mother, Balwant Bakshi, a former Principal of Government College, Amritsar, recognised his talent. She encouraged him to pursue his interest in painting. Rahul joined the Government College of Arts, Chandigarh, at the behest of his mother who always wanted to draw him into the mainstream. After a degree in fine arts, he started free-lancing as an illustrator and has been spending most of his time in painting. Rahul is an artist in the making. But he is not overly ambitious. Although he praises the works of Arpana Caur, Prem Singh and Satish Gujral all that he wants in life is to be known as a good artist. That’s all.
	Suspense, eroticism, humour The art in Hitchcock films Diane E. Foulds Through the bathroom door of a bleak motel room, a woman’s nude figure is visible in the shower. It is the Bates Motel, a murder scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller “Psycho” and one of the most terrifying sequences in film history: a mosaic of screams, blood and shadows condensed from seven days of filming into a 45-second clip. The artistry is typically Hitchcock, who is now recognised as one of the giants of 20th century films. But it has taken the perspective of 21st century historians to fully understand the extent of his genius. In Montreal, that perspective is laid out in a 14-room homage that explores the director’s tricks of the trade while demonstrating that his work is one par with the greatest masters of 20th century painting, sculpture and photography. Called “Hitchcock and Art: Fatal Coincidences”, the exhibit runs until April 16 at Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts. Displayed throughout is the work of Man Ray, Rene Magritte, Auguste Rodin, Alfred Stieglitz, Max Ernst, Edvard Munch, Cindy Sherman, Dennis Hopper and others who responded similarly, although in different media, to the same cultural stimuli. A few times, they joined forces. For the 1945 film “Spellbound”, Hitchcock engaged Salvador Dali to paint surrealistic backdrops for a dream sequence. Museum Director Guy Cogeval writes in the exhibit’s catalogue that the universe Hitchcock created was just as visual as those of Miro, Picasso and Matisse. Drawing parallels with such diverse forms of artistic expression is risky, he admits. “In fact,” he writes, “we often wondered whether we were not attempting the impossible.” The idea was hatched 10 years ago when he was working at the Louvre with Dominique Paini, a film buff who is now director of the Paris-based Cinematheque francaise and who ended up curating the exhibit with him. Paini describes Hitchcock as “one of the greatest inventors of images in the 20th century”, and the only filmmaker whose work reflects the impact of each of its major art trends: classicism, symbolism, mannerism and modernism. Hitchcock’s life also spanned the development of modern film. He started in the 1920s with silent movies, then moved to talkies, then colour and finally to special effects. Before he died in 1980 at the age of 81, he had made 53 films, plus a hit television series, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”. “Art is emotion,” he told an interviewer once. “Making it have an effect on the audience is the true point of film.” The exhibit seems set up with that in mind. It lures the viewer into a labyrinth of emotionally charged pictures and film segments, made even more compelling by the haunting scores of Bernard Herrman, Hitchcock’s favourite composer. On a recent Saturday, scores of visitors stood mesmerised by panels describing the psychology behind Hitchcock’s dramas and their representation in painting, sculpture and film. The late French film director Francois Truffaut, who extolled Hitchcock before suspense was considered a worthy artistic genre, said one that the most memorable thing about his films was not the plot or characters, but the most minor of details. In a darkened room of the exhibit, 21 of these seemingly innocuous props are displayed to illustrate Truffaut’s words. Each is powerfully symbolic. There is the luminous glass of (poisoned?) milk on a silver tray that Cary Grant carried up a winding stairway to a distraught Joan Fountaine in “Suspicion” and a child’s eyeglasses shattered by attacking crows in “The Birds”. A group of paintings juxtaposed against Hitchcock love scenes contemplates the motion that romantic love and death are but two sides of the same coin. In addition to the display, there is a lecture series and film festival, including a documentary in which Hitchcock encapsulates his success in three words: suspense, eroticism and humour. He might also have added mischief. A wall of television screens shows the portly Sir Hitchcock in many of the cameo appearances he made in his films: walking two poodles in one, standing in a crowd or sharing a bus seat with a frazzled Cary Grant. A large screen playing segments of his home movies has him modelling pyjamas, imitating a baby and eating bananas with a friend. Hitchcock runs the film backwards, and they are spitting the bananas back into their skins and peeling them shut. He was called the “master of suspence and the “merchant of menace”, and his spectacular financial success inspired the wry soubriquet, “evil is the root of all money”. DPA
	Mohan Lal sets Delhi stage ablaze MALAYALAM super star Mohan Lal set the Delhi stage ablaze with a memorable debut on the World Theatre Day portraying the mighty epic hero Karna in the Sanskrit play, ‘‘Karnabharanam’’. The three-time National Best Actor Award-winner performed the tragic hero in ‘‘The Mahabharata’’ to perfection in the play by Kavalam Narayana Panicker, but said, ‘‘We must improve the performance’’. The play by Thiruvananthapuram-based Sopanam theatre group was part of the third National Theatre Festival being organised by the National School of Drama in New Delhi. Immediately after the play, Mohan Lal told his co-actors that they must ‘‘improve’’ in the next performance scheduled for later that night on popular demand. ‘‘He was excited, but said we must put in more efforts,’’ said K. Sivakumar, who played the Brahmin who takes away Karna’s great gift of undefeatable existence, his armour and ear-rings. ‘‘Usually actors go to cinema from the theatre, but the reverse is happening here,’’ said nsd director Ramgopal Bajaj. Panicker agreed. ‘‘He (Mohan Lal) should come to the theatre more often.’’ The performance was watched by a packed audience, comprising mostly Keralites living in the national Capital. UNI
	AUDIOSCAN Uthup at her peppiest ASC SHAI RA RI (Universal): It has always been my contention that Usha Uthup gives off her best in non-film songs. It is not that she lacks anything while doing a film song, but the unavoidable restrictions that this brand of music puts on her free flow tends to curtail her style. Of late she has not been doing very many film songs. Unfortunately, she has not been doing many other songs either. Her stage performances have been going on full steam ahead, in which she mostly renders her old hits. Many of these have been with the new kid on the block, Jawahar Wattal, who has done a star turn for many newcomers. Usha does not need any "re-discovery", but the two have vibed extremely well and the result is this album. Her voice is ideally suited for the Wattal brand of music: racy, peppy and full-throated. To cap it all, she already has the experience of rendering quite a few Punjabi numbers. Most of the songs are new. Only Unchi atariya …., is a remix. Lyrics are by Shyam Anuragi. The title song is indeed one of the liveliest. Hai re mera dil … is in two versions. The music and the voice gel exceptionally well in Jhoom tadak dhoom …. If this album is any indication, Usha and Wattal will be teaming up several times in the near future. *** Private albums do make it big now and then, but the safest bets are the film cassettes. Even when there are no new big banner releases on the anvil, music companies do not sit idle. They repackage recent hits in various permutations and combinations. Among the frontrunners is Tips Industries Ltd. It has brought out not just one but two albums for the Valentine season. The first, titled "Jaana … My Beloved," has 11 romantic film songs like Neend udh rahi hai, chain kho raha hai … by Alka Yagnik and Kumar Sanu from the film "Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi" and O mere dholna… by Anuradha Paudwal and Udit Narayan from "Aashiq". The only film to have the privilege of having two songs is "Mission Kashmir" with Socho ke jheelon ka shahar ho … by Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan and Chupke se sunn, is pal ki dhun … also by these very singers. And the only non-film song that has been included is Kiski tamanna hai … from Daler Mehndi’s cassette Ek Dana. On the other hand, the second cassette, "Aaja Mahiya," incorporates only the opening lines from love songs and thus manages to push in as many as 45 hits. There are some songs which are there in both cassettes. But that hardly matters, as long as you get to hear original songs and not remix versions.

SIGHT & SOUND
Filibustering on television
Amita Malik

WHEN we were being groomed as producers, our media gurus used to tell us that the best radio and TV interviews should sound like relaxed conversations between friends. Some foreign networks give one lunch or dinner or at least sandwiches and coffee lying within reach while a programme goes on. If Ruby Bhatia prefers carrot juice or whatever, at least she offers it politely to guests on the programme. And everyone relaxes.

But recently, especially during panel discussions and chat shows or programmes where more than two persons are talking, politicians are increasingly taking to shouting, screaming and talking simultaneously while the other party is trying to make a legitimate point. They hope to win by plain filibustering, which always defeats itself. The other day, Karan Thapar on one of his chat shows had to admonish like school kids two politicians who were screaming aggressively at the same time by saying sternly. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!"

Some politicians act more like goons in a streetfight than responsible MPs. Every week-end, Rajdeep Sardesai has to try and exercise the same kind of control because the warring politicians take the title of the programme, "The Big Fight", a little too literally and by shouting themselves into incoherence ensure that the viewer cannot hear a word. They gain nothing but the viewers’ contempt that grown-up and presumably educated people can behave like street urchins. The most ironic comment came from a colleague who said: "It is getting just like Parliament".

Prannoy Roy, by being soft-spoken and polite himself usually manages to shame the shouters into allowing a word into the other person. But the more amateurish anchors on Zee just look on, smiling helplessly, although more experienced Arup Ghosh has occasionally managed to control the rising tide of vituperation.

I would like to remind the TV shouting brigade that they gain nothing by this kind of crude behaviour beyond offending the viewer, inviting contempt for their bad manners and possibly losing votes in the next election. TV is a very intimate medium where people watch in the privacy of their homes and like to do so in comfort. By introducing unruly behaviour and making long village style bhashans at their loudest, they invite the derision of viewers who say things like: "The fellow is a real dehati, hasn’t he been told that there is such a thing as a microphone to magnify his voice?". Even Laloo Prasad Yadav, who is the finest character-actor on TV, does not shout like Mulayam Singh Yadav, but Uma Bharati and Sushma Swaraj have been known to reduce more sophisticated debaters like Brinda Karat and Krishna Bose to resigned helplessness. Relaxed people like Vinod Mehta and Vir Sanghvi mostly smile sardonically as the angry old netas froth at the mouth in guly fashion. In the end, it is civilised behaviour and sound arguments that win on television and not crude histrionics. Did one not hear some time ago that one political party was arranging some long lessons in media behaviour for its members? Time the project was revived because it would make viewing a little more pleasant for the listener and viewer.

That the stars do not always shine brightest was apparent in the programme "We The People" last Sunday. Dr L M Singhvi spoke like the Establishment and too often of we the people choosing the best films (which they do at the box office anyway) Ms. Chandra seemed a little confused and of the regulars, only Sonal Mansingh spoke with passion and conviction. It was left to the unnamed people in the audience, mostly women like the silver-haired lady who made good points briefly and offered practical suggestions to liven up things. But somehow, somewhere so busy was everyone scoring points on short-term side-issues that everyone forgot to mention the original purpose of the state awards, which surely justify their existence and deserve juries with impeccable backgrounds to go with them.