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| ARTS TRIBUNE | Friday, August 3, 2001, Chandigarh, India |
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Dance
competitions that pollute Punjabi culture Western
land with Indian soul World’s most
prolific woman film producer
At last,
the North-East |
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Dance competitions that pollute Punjabi culture AFTER
the big booms in the fashion industry and music world it is the turn
for the dance competitions. Many of the event management companies
which could not make much headway in either holding fashion shows or
promoting budding pop singers are now turning their attention towards
holding dance competitions for the aspiring dancers of the city. One
does not need an occasion to organise such competitions. Nor are there
any criteria for entering such competitions. Just pay the registration
fees and bingo! You are the part of some jazzy show which bears some
fancy names like “Jhankar 2001” or “Masti 2001”. The dance
competitions which have recently mushroomed up in the city are adding
to the cultural pollution, says Mr Ashok Goyal, president of Bharat
Vikash Parishad. “These so-called talent hunts are nothing but an
attempt to mint money at the cost of the enthusiastic teenagers and
their parents,” he adds. Punjabi culture is going from bad to
worse, said Mr M.L. Koser, Director of Pracheen Kala Kendra. “No
where in India can you find such filmi competitions. Such programmes
which are done in the name of Punjabi culture have done nothing but
degraded it”, he added. The private organisations which are
cashing on the budding artistes are purely commercial ventures, says
Pammi Bai, an expert in folk dances and songs. People who are
organising such events themselves do not know the A B C of Punjabi
culture, says Pammi Bai who was left with a bitter taste after he went
as a judge for a few events for Punjabi channels. The programmes in
the leading Punjabi channels on the lines of “Boogie Woogie” are
also sending wrong signals to the audience, he adds. Not only do
such programmes lack in substance, but also are most of the time
bogged with chaos and mismanagement. Citing an example of a recent
dance competition that took place at Lecma Hall, Sector 31, Chandigarh
Mr Ashok Bali, a noted TV personality from the region who went to
judge the event, says the function that started after a considerable
delay proceeded at a snail’s pace due to the faulty equipment adding
to the misery of both the audience and the participants. However, the organisers alone are not to be blamed for such exploitations. Parents are equally guilty for subjecting their children to such conditions in the name of competition. And the increasing number of fashion shows and music albums have added fuel to the desire of the parents to see their daughter or son as a leading artiste. Referring to the event he judged, Mr Bali said the young children of the age group five to seven who fell asleep backstage were nudged by their parents to wake up and perform. An
excited mother Mrs Satnam Kaur, whose teenage daughter has recently
won such a competition, says she compelled her shy daughter to enter
the dance competition to get exposure. “In our time no one organised
such competitions so our talent just died down without even getting
noticed. Thanks to the media these days, if you are good you get
noticed which might help at a later stage if my daughter chooses to
enter the glamour industry,” she adds. |
Western land with Indian soul MAJROOH Sultanpuri once told Leslie Lewis of Indipop group Colonial Cousins’, “Beta, achchhi ladki dikhti hai to usey dekhte rehna chahiye, wahan se inspiration milega.” Lewis or Lezz as he is known, who along with Hariharan has celebrated women in many of their songs, quoted the lyricist, saying “and he was 70! ... I think all those who write about beauty do look at beauty. Beautiful things in life and beautiful women are meant to be appreciated.” What is their idea of a perfect woman? “I think the one with the right ‘aatma’, the right soul, the right chemistry. As long as the soul is right everything is positive,” Lezz and Hariharan, who were in Kolkata to present their new album, “aatma”, their fourth, told PTI. How would they express their love for a woman? “Sing ! Sing ! Ha, ha, ha!” Hariharan laughs. Asked about ‘Lady’, a song in their debut album, Lezz, who has been doing jingles for the past 18 years and still does, says “It’s a celebration of the Indian woman ... Indian women are beautiful anywhere in the world.” Lezz fell in love for the first time when he was in school at St Mary’s, Mt Abu. “I was in school. I did not know if she knew.” Her name ? “I’d rather keep that under wraps for now,” he says. Hariharan, who has 27 ghazal albums to his credit, is more forthright. “It was in college”. Did she know ? “Yeah, yeah, and she still knows.” Speaking about one of their songs, “Never Know the Reason”, Lezz says A beautiful woman walks by and may even never know the reason why she smiles at you. “She might be smiling at you because you look good. Or because you look stupid or whatever. She doesn’t know why you are smiling. So you may never know the reason,” he says. Why Colonial Cousins? Lezz who has done jingles for Thums Up and Mango Frooti, says, “Basically it is colonisation which has brought fusion in this world. The British have made you wear shirts and trousers. You are talking to me in English. You live in Calcutta, which you have renamed Kolkata. It’s back to your roots. We say ‘chal yaar’ and ‘let’s go’. English and Hindi! That fusion is natural. I think what we do is equally natural. “So the feeling is there in our music, which is heavily Western from one side and heavily Indian from the other. I think we sound like India today. Fifty years of Independence. That’s how I think India is today,” he says. How did they become interested in music ? Lezz and Hariharan both come from a musical families. My father, P.L. Raj, is a dance director in Hindi films. He has done “Sholay”, “Sargam” etc. He is also a tabla player and a classical dancer, Lezz says. “So I’ve had music at home. That’s how I guess I picked up music rather than dance,” he says. Hariharan’s father and mother are Carnatic singers. He was trained in Carnatic and Hindustani music by Padmashri winner Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan. How did they team up? Hariharan says, “I used to work for Leslie as a singer.” “He used to sing some of my jingles,” Lezz interrupts to say. “Basically I’ve been doing ads for 18 years. Hari came one day to sing for one track, but the script was not ready. “I was fooling around with some blues, folk, country and jazz tunes on my acoustic guitar. Hari began improvising Indian classical against what I was playing. The fusion was electric. That’s how we just started playing in 1992.” Lezz could have been a drummer. “I love rhythms because I wanted to be a drummer when I was small. But taking a drum to school was very difficult. Guitar became easier. So rhythm has always been my first.” How would they describe their music? “Spiritual ! It’s fun. Lot’s of fun. But its only good vibes,” they say in unision. “We aim our music at sensitive people. You have to be very sensitive to live. We are very fortunate. We are one of the few groups which have a very wide fan base. Straight from 4, 5, 6 to 60.” They have played in Singapore, Malaysia, Dubai, New York and London, but the Cousins do not follow any particular Indian genre in their fusion music. “We are very open. Sometimes it’s classical, sometimes its khayal. What is more important than genre, it has to be Indian in spirit and soul,” Hariharan says. “Abhi filmi gaane bhi hai, bahut sari, which does not have an Indian soul at all,” he regrets. “Some sound very Western. The way of singing is Western,” he regrets. Lezz underscores “We describe our band as Western band with an Indian soul. That’s what we are.” How do they compose their music? Lezz says “We shut ourselves up in a room without a phone ...”. “With no mobile. And then we throw ideas at each other,” Hariharan adds. Lezz continues, “He comes up with some ideas, I come up with some. Then we find something likeable. That’s the basis of it ... That’s all how it sort of comes together as one.” Lezz wanted to play drums and settled for the guitar. While Hariharan plays the mridangam. “He also plays the fool,” adds Lezz. Speaking about the ever popular “Krishna”, Lezz says, the idea for the song came to him when Hariharan was explaining to him the invocation to “Krishna” by students studying Bharatnatyam. “What have we done to the world? The world is such a mess. Can we teach this to our kids? So we think come back Jesus, Ram, Krishna, come back as Allah, come back as anyone to teach the children what is right,” Lezz says about the message of the song. On “Aatma”, Lezz says “I think it has a lot more variety. Today we have a lot of fans who have a lot of expectations. So we started reacting to the fans. About the future, they say, “Definitely some album will happen”. “Aatma” is their fourth album after “Colonial Cousins” (1996), ‘MTV Unplugged (1997), and “The Way We Do It” (1998).
PTI |
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World’s most prolific woman film producer VETERAN
cine personality N. R. Anuradha Devi recently became the first woman producer to come out with the highest number of feature films in the world. Anuradha’s feat of having produced 17 movies in Telugu and Tamil has facilitated her entry into the Limca Book of Records, which certifies her feat as a world record as well, the Hyderabad-based producer disclosed in a statement recently. She noted that about 90 per cent of women producers soon dropped out of the industry, leaving the field for men to dominate. Anuradha’s 17 films so far includes “Adiamaien Kadalan” (starring the late NTR opposite J. Jayalalithaa), besides the super-hit work “Alibaba 40 Dongalu” made in both Tamil and Telugu. Daughter of Venkataramaiah Appa Rao (popularly called Raja of Mirzapuram), who is founder of Chennai-based Chala Studios, she has also produced “Anubandham” featuring Akineni Nageswar Rao, Sujatha and Radhika, “Chakradhari” with Akineni and Vanisree in lead roles and, “Bhakta Khumbara” starring Raj Kumar and Leelavathi. Her debut production was “Kanni Rinda Kannavad” (Tamil), followed by Telugu movie “Illrikam” (starring Akineni and Jamuna), both released in 1959. “Moon Reeleth” (Ravi Chandran-Jayalalithaa), “Chitralekha (NTR-K.R.Vijaya-l.Vijayalaxmi) and “killer Vella Durai” (Sobanababu and Vanisree) are among the earliest movies produced by Anuradha. While Anuradha’s father introduced NTR to films, her mother Krishnaveni was an actress.
UNI |
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SIGHT &
SOUND THIS columnist has long maintained that the North-East is an even more inflammable areas than Kashmir (which suffers from a surfeit of media coverage) and also that it is one of the most neglected area as far as the media goes. Which is why Indians outside that area know very little about either their peoples or their problems. True that some intrepid specialists like Sanjoy Hazarika and Harish Chandola slog on in print, but DD drove Hazarika off his authoritative morning slot and Chandola is seldom seen, although the print media give both their due. As for in-depth programmes, TV and radio are blissfully casual about them, although the private channels have some first rate reporters in the North-East, notably Zee and Star News, which have knowledgeable locals filing steady despatches. So it was like a miracle when I found that Bharat Bhushan of Business Standard TV, had produced two half-hour programmes on the Naga problem which are by far the most comprehensive and documented which I have yet seen on TV, and a very rare one of its kind. Unfortunately, while the North-East cauldron keeps boiling over and has been particularly dangerous of late, some media event with excessive hype takes over and programmes such as these do not get the serious attention they deserve. As Manipur was in flames, there was the Agra summit. And around the time Bharat Bhushan’s programmes were aired, there was Phoolan Devi. But so important do I consider these programmes, that I suggest that they are re-telecast and also form compulsory closed-circuit viewing for the Prime Minister onwards and also those directly concerned, including administrators and the defence services. Because it has lined up every shade of opinion and they have spoken out their mind. Not least of all the bereaved women, brothers, sisters and other innocent sufferers. One Naga woman says her husband was killed by the armed forces, another says hers was assassinated by Naga militants. And the sentence from a grief-torn face still rings in my ears: “We have learnt to live with pain”. Because it is the statements from ordinary villagers in both Manipur and Nagaland as well as intellectuals such as Binodini Debi and Ratam Thiyam that give the all-round picture. Then we have those not so often heard such as the Naga Mothers’ Association, the Vice-President of the Naga Hotto, the Manipur Students’ Association, the Naga Students’ Federation and other varying shades of opinion. The programme traces the evolution of the problem, from Phizo and Akbar Hydari onwards and brings in acknowledged specialists such as Swaraj Kaushal, P.N. Sangma and, most important, Lt-Gen T.S. Shergill. And, of course, several politicians whom we have heard before but in this context they spoke in more thoughtful and sober tones. Sudden little revealing nuggets popped up which should be an eye-opener for all concerned Indians, such as that the North-East has more diverse cultures and spilling over into neighbouring states than any other part of India, and, for instance, that even China has Meities in its Southern provinces, let alone the borders with several other neighbouring countries. And that the much-suspect Baptist Mission has done most to unite different sections of Nagas. But in the end, there was not one voice which spoke against peace. And the programme justified its title, which is “Nagaland, the Quest for Peace”. I repeat, it should be re-telecast and made compulsory viewing for the PM onwards. At the end, for not altogether light relief, I would like to cite a charming instance of how TV acts on different audiences. It seems the Vadodra Rural Police has been having a first-hand look at Discovery Channel’s Programme Medical Detectives and under a scheme started by Superintendent of Police Keshav Kumar, all 18 police stations in the district, at Headquarters and the local crime branch are sent schedules and Keshav Kumar, commenting on its effectiveness, says: “The idea has
really taken off well with the policemen and what has really helped is that the programme is in Hindi”, have no idea how this programme, using the latest advances in forensic medicine will work with the rural
police, but I think those investigating the Phoolan Devi murder could have a close look at it to speed up things. How about it, Police Commissioner? |
