A treat for theatre buffs Rama Sharma
The sunny afternoon of September 8, 2001, was an occasion to celebrate in Shimla. After a drought, here came a glimmer of hope for theatre buffs and drama lovers in the town — the staging of Arthur Miller’s renowned play, “All My Sons”, by the Dramatics Society of St Bede’s College, in the college auditorium. A scene from the play, “All My Sons,” held at St Bede’s College, Shimla, recently.

India’s Nightingale going strong at 72
Subhash K. Jha
India’s enduring Melody Queen Lata Mangeshkar, who completes 72 phenomenal years today, remains the most sought-after singer for Hindi film soundtracks. The prolific Nightingale has devoted 50 years of her life entirely to song. “At 72, I feel no different from how I felt at 71 or even 50,” Lata says. “As I always say, I’ve been extremely lucky all my life. God has been very kind.”

AUDIOSCAN
Album that dares to break fresh ground
ASC
MANO YA NA MANO (BMV): At a time when most cassette companies are peddling only film music and albums of ghazals, geets, bhajans and Indipop, BMV has tried out a novel idea. It has devoted this album to explaining superstitions and traditional beliefs and good and bad omen, etc.

SIGHT & SOUND

Lull before the storm
Amita Malik
If the visuals of the planes flying into the WTO towers in a terrifying ball of fire and Osama bin Laden’s turbanned visage smiling dolefully at the cameras have receded slightly off our screens, they have been overtaken by George Bush’s frequent press conferences with some world leader in tow (it was the Japanese PM mid-week) EU countries receiving the Egyptian and Russian leaders and, of course, next door, the EU patting General Musharraf and Co.

A treat for theatre buffs
Rama Sharma

The sunny afternoon of September 8, 2001, was an occasion to celebrate in Shimla. After a drought, here came a glimmer of hope for theatre buffs and drama lovers in the town — the staging of Arthur Miller’s renowned play, “All My Sons”, by the Dramatics Society of St Bede’s College, in the college auditorium.

Shimla has had a rich tradition of English-language theatre since the days of the British Raj, when it was the summer capital of the government. Gaiety Theatre was then the hub of all dramatics productions by the Simla Amateur Dramatics Club (better known as the Simla ADC). Unfortunately, over the past half century and particularly over the past two decades, English theatre went into a decline and was more or less eclipsed by the new generations, cultural preferences — tastes which excluded any serious or meaningful plays in the English language, at least.

St Bede’s, the premier women’s college in the state, can also look back with pride at a long history of English-language stage productions. But, even here, nearly a decade had elapsed since the last big play, the Greek tragedy “Antigone”, which was performed open-air in the college. With the year 2000, however, the college resolved to stage at least theatre on the campus. September 2000, therefore, witnessed the performance of Ayn Rand’s, “Night of January Sixteenth”, by the college Dramatics Society.

Encouraged by the success of the play, intrepid members of the society decided to stage American playwright Arthur Miller’s, “All My Sons”, a play set in the post-Depression America of the 1940s.

Miller’s plays have a didactic flavour to them and “All My Sons” is no exception. In the first place, he is sharply critical of the values promoted by the market culture prevalent in the American society of his time and the depersonalisation of man by man by those very values. He also shatters the popular notion of “the American dream”, which projects America as the land of unlimited opportunities, by laying bare the harsh underside of this dream and showing that frustration, degradation and a loss of moorings are equally part of this system.

In “All My Sons”, Miller, the master dramatist, tells the tale of the Killer family and how their lives are shaped and twisted by the environment of post-Depression America. The Dramatics Society of St Bede’s left no stone unturned to bring this story to life when they put it up for discerning Shimlaites. From the set, which incorporated an ivy-wreathed cottage, to the sensitive acting of each member of the cast, it was a polished showing by youngsters in the age-group of 18-21 years. A rapt and appreciative audience watched this complex drama unfold in three acts to its tragic climax.

The play was directed by Ms Madhu Parmar, a lecturer at the college. She now hopes that the process of reviving an interest in English language theatre has been set in motion within St Bede’s.

Shimlaites should now look forward to the next play by Bede’s...next year!

“Nowadays songs choose me instead of me choosing the songs,” Lata says. “I’ll continue to sing for films as long as I’m comfortable doing it. There are filmmakers like Yash (Chopra) who are like family. He wants me to sing in all his films. I can’t say no to him. But the day I feel I can’t live up to his expectations, I’ll have to do so.” IANS

AUDIOSCAN
Album that dares to break fresh ground

ASC
MANO YA NA MANO (BMV): At a time when most cassette companies are peddling only film music and albums of ghazals, geets, bhajans and Indipop, BMV has tried out a novel idea. It has devoted this album to explaining superstitions and traditional beliefs and good and bad omen, etc.

The contents are presented in a prose form by Jyotishacharya Anil Vats and he tries to provide rational explanations for such superstitions as halting in our tracks if a cat runs across, sneezing as a bad omen, skipping shave on Tuesday and what not. Needless to say it is strictly meant for those who actually practise such beliefs and want to justify why they do so.

However, there are also some home remedies for common diseases. These cater to the Indian system of medicine and may find a wider clientele than the purely astrological stuff which is the mainstay of the album.

You may find some of the explanations humbug, but as the title itself says, “Mano ya na mano”. At least the album dares to break fresh ground.

AJNABEE (TIPS): With Anu Malik at the console, it is futile to expect too much of originality or even freshness of approach. The main thing differentiating this offering from the earlier ones is the well-advertised inclusion of a song by Adnan Lift Kara De Sami. He along with Sunidhi Chauhan sings Mehbooba mehbooba … with élan. Anu does not want someone to spoil things through a remix version; so he includes a remix version of the song in the album himself. The job has been done rather competently by DJ Khalif.

Another novelty is that he has used the voices of Akshay Kumar, Bobby Deol, Kareena Kapoor and Bipasha Basu in Kaun main, haan tum ... . The only solo in the album is Jab tumhe aashiqui maloom … by Kumar Sanu and it is a worthwhile song indeed. Among the female singers, the maximum exposure has been given to Sunidhi Chauhan. She has a fresh voice which goes well with today’s actresses.

Lyrics are by Sameer. Then there is enough of dance music as well.

PARE-PARE (TIME MUSIC): Etc Channel Punjabi and Tune Music hold a “star singer contest” where the voices of newcomers are reportedly judged by eminent personalities such as Ravindra Jain, Kavita Krishnamurthy and Nikhil-Vinay. Aman Sandhu has been the winner of one of the recent contests, and as promised, the music company has released his pop album. Well, he has had the privilege of cutting an album, but his voice is not quite as promising as promos make it out to be. But then, the appearance of fresh talent is always a welcome sign.

Lull before the storm
Amita Malik

If the visuals of the planes flying into the WTO towers in a terrifying ball of fire and Osama bin Laden’s turbanned visage smiling dolefully at the cameras have receded slightly off our screens, they have been overtaken by George Bush’s frequent press conferences with some world leader in tow (it was the Japanese PM mid-week) EU countries receiving the Egyptian and Russian leaders and, of course, next door, the EU patting General Musharraf and Co. on the back and doling out more and more goodies. Frankly, negotiations and talkathons are no substitute for the sort of terrifying happenings on September 11, followed by universal outrage on the TV screens which immediately followed. We in India also followed with great anxiety the list of Indians missing as shown on our screens, we grieved for them and our hearts went out to their families. But around the time I am writing this, one has had a surfeit of talks, analyses and speculation about what is to happen next. And the wish for normalcy grows stronger.

For instance, I found soothing as well as comforting to watch on Animal Planet the sight of a mother bird from some species of water bird which lives on a vast lake (it could be on any continent and I did not miss any identifying humans around) The mother was teaching its chicks to balance steadily from one leaf to another of the water lilies which grew on the lake, as they had not yet learnt to fly. Most endearingly, the father of the chicks was keeping a sharp eye on the larger birds which hovered overhead so that they did not make a sudden swoop on the baby chicks below. A tender family scene. Then I crossed over to National Geographic, which is currently screening an absorbing series on Africa. Here again, I was only channel-surfing to get away from Osama and Bush so I cannot identify the African country concerned. But it did not really matter, because the desert and the people could have been in any African or Asian country. The point of the programme was that a group of people, possibly a tribe, was trudging across a vast expanse of desert because they wanted to collect their annual quota of salt, which was not available in their village. You saw a father (he could have been from Rajasthan, with his rugged face and proud turban) holding his small son by the hand as they reached the last kilometre or so of their long journey and dragged their tired footsteps to reach their goal. When they did, they took a long drink of water from a well, washed their dust-laden faces and only then started the bargaining with their trader, who always over-quoted the price and mixed sand in the salt to cheat the poor villagers. He ultimately brought down his price to an acceptable compromise which was expected by both sides. And then the weary trek back to the village.

This was universal, the search for salt, and it reminded me that when I flew up to the arctic with the Canadian Air Force many years ago to spend Christmas with the Eskimos, the Christmas present they appreciated most was bags of salt, which was unavailable in the Arctic. Which just shows why Mahatma Gandhi also considered salt a potent non-violent weapon to fight the British.

With all the hoop-la about September 11, our news channels were put to the test not only about reporting and analysis but how the news was read. Ever since it started NDTV has been the role model and sometimes the envy of other channels about the excellence of its newscasters and anchors. But recently I have seen signs of flagging quality and relatively non-trained anchors and newscasters on Star News whom no one seems to check. Sarah Jacob and Jyotsna Mohan, for instance, not only read at a reckless speed, in a mindless monotone, but swallow their consonants and sometimes words as they go along. At times it is difficult to make out what they are saying. Sujata Padmanabhan has a similar tendency. I have already mentioned some of the weather girls who sacrifice coherence for speed. But if you want the pits in newscasting I invite the big guns of the I and B Ministry and Prasar Bharati to watch the midnight news on the News Channel. One has difficulty in making out whether they are speaking in Hindi or English. Every night I think it cannot get worse, but it does.

On Saturday night last week, the male newscaster pronounced Powell as Poh-well, Emirates as Emmy-Rites and Marines as May-Rines. For dragging down a once-proud professional organisation to such sorry depths not only should the channel be shut down but those who ruined it with appointing their own daughters and arbitrary humiliation and removal of established and respected newscasters and anchors should themselves be sacked. They would be, in the private sector.