COURTS

Beant case trial from June 1
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, May 10 — The Beant Singh assassination case which was being heard by the retired Sessions Judge, Mr B.S. Bedi will now be tried by the new District and Sessions Judge, Mr H.S. Bhalla.

The Sessions Judge today went to Model Jail Burail where trial in the case is held in a makeshift courtroom. Taking up the case today, the Judge adjourned it to June 1, it may be recalled that trial in the Beant Singh case is being held in the first week of every month.

The case, which dates back to August 31, 1995, when the then CM, Beant Singh, was assassinated, mentions nine persons as accused. Over 100 witnesses have already been examined in this case.

CULTURE

Moving from sin to goodness, the hard way
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, May 10 — Goodness is basic human quality. No matter how harsh the circumstances are, there is always a path which leads to reformation, although on this path one encounters only the sun, not the shade.

This theme was powerfully portrayed in drama by local director Umesh Kant, who could not have treated his characters in a better fashion than the one in his production of Vijay Tendulkar's play Sakharam Binder, staged atTagore Theatre here today. "The play was enacted in 1991 by the National School of Drama troupe in Chandigarh. It has since left an impression on my mind. I had been thinking for long to enact it again," said Umesh, winner of Natya Shiromani Award for 1996. Rehearsals of this play had been going on for the past month and a half.

Umesh, whose last production, Media, is still fresh in the memory of city residents, has again come up to the expectations with his sensitive portrayal of Sakharam Binder, a man frustrated by circumstances and sick of hypocrisy. Sakharam's character (played by Yogesh Arora) grows over you as the plot matures. This man, who is governed by lust, as is clear from the number of women he courts, finally surrenders before a docile, devout Lakshmi (played by Raj Sharma), who stands by him through thick and thin.

The character which is always confused and full of rancour for the world, has been successfully depicted. Sakharam abhorred women from childhood, when his mother used to address him as a chamaar. His hatred for the community manifests itself in the disrespect he holds for the female body, which he uses and then throws.

The tale goes on till the eighth woman Lakshmi enters his life. Lakshmi, a sober girl wedded to religion, begins to inject goodness into Sakharam, who is not yet prepared to accept change. The story now revolves round how Sakharam forces Lakshmi out of his house for fear of transformation.

Another strong character is that of Champa, a raw and rash girl played by Preeti Sukhija. Her language is too bold to be tolerated but she easily reaches across the audience as a very insolent girl who hails from a background where a woman's femininity is decried. Sakharam gets into a relationship with Champa until his own bosom friend Daud deceives him.

While Champa starts courting Daud on the back of Sakharam, Lakshmi stages a comeback into Sakharam's life. The conflict in Sakharam's character is strongly displayed in Sakharam's renderings on the mridang after Champa calls him impotent.

Unable to tolerate deception by his friend, Sakharam kills Champa. Lakshmi's overpowering and all-giving nature comes to the fore as she promises to stand by Sakharam, who realises her worth. The demon in him takes a backseat and the goodness is revealed. The man who has never allowed anyone to touch his mridang surrenders it before Lakshmi.

Umesh has conveyed the message that a man, who is a victim of circumstances, can wean away from sin and surrender to his conscience. The play ends with Lakshmi and Sakharam playing the mridang together.

Colourful mural for Army office

The general view that the offices of the Army officers are dull, needs a through over hauling. Gone are the days when they used to be endless corridors with doors painted in dark brown colour with small half shut windows and an ancient fan whirling above. Lest one forgets, the over-flowing file racks were a sight not to be missed.People still of this view are in for a jolt. One look at the Western Command Headquarters, and their image will crash to smitherens Cool, comfy rooms, officers working on computers, and noticeable absence of file racks is what one comes across. If this was not enough, to beautify the premises further, on the occasion of ‘Brahmsashtra’ (when a convention of the three defence chiefs was held) a mural had been installed.

This mural is at the focal point of the building, near the office of the GOC in-C, Lt-Gen Vijay Oberoi. It is 12 feet by 4 feet in measurement and has been made by Chandigarh lad-Jagpreet Chawla.

Jagpreet though without any formal training has done a good job. He has used wood and stained glass to put his piece together. Through this an effort has been made to bring out the ethos of the Indian Army.

The basic idea was given by Colonel Amitabh Amit. The concept was that the mural should have the ‘Dharam Chakra’ and the insignia of the different corps of the Western Command. The whole thing was then visualised and developed by Jagpreet. Against the background of clouds and mountains the artist made the ‘Dharam Chakra’ in the centre in stained glass with two swords crossing each other. On its left side he placed an Army helicopter on top and a tank below, in between these two lethal objects are the insignia.. of the 11 corps and the Delhi area. On the right side of the ‘Chakra’ are the symbols of 2 corps and 10 corps besides a Bofors gun.

Jagpreet, a graduate and into this kind of work for the past five years, has also made a cannon from wood. In that he has provided space to put planters. What is remarkable is the excellent rugged metal finish. It forces the onlooker to touch and feel whether it is wood or metal. This cannon is kept below the mural and is 7ft long.

Besides these he has also designed a few pieces of pottery and a mirror frame. The frame has also been designed keeping the Army background in mind.

What is incredible is that the entire collection was put together in about 20 days and has drawn appreciation from all the visiting and residing Army officers alike.

— By Priti Verma

Museum to have gallery of phulkaris

GOVERNMENT Museum and Art Gallery is going to get another feather in its cap by establishing a textiles gallery within its premises. Carpenters are busy these days in making huge-sized frames to display phulkaris housed in the museum’s stores. This is being done to create awareness about this traditional craft of Punjab, among the tourists visiting Chandigarh.Decorative arts and crafts are a way of life in our country. Rural women, the anonymous artists, have kept the age-old tradition alive in spite of remaining busy in fulfilling their various liabilities and in performing multifarious duties from dawn to dusk.

Closely related, phulkari and bagh form two main varieties of folk embroidery in Punjab state. Items embellished with phulkari were meant for day to day due, whereas bagh was used for ceremonial rituals on special occasions. Both kinds of embroidery are done on a wrap (big shawl) or a dupatta (drape). However, in such a fashion that spaces are left in between the motifs from where the base cloth is visible. Thus, the fabric itself becomes geometric decoration in the background which complements raised, colourful patterns and designs. On the other hand, bagh embroidery fully covers the cloth, the geometric patterns created with silk threads of various colours converting the cloth into a multihued silken fabric. The pure white bagh was called Sheesha Bagh (the mirror Bagh) on account of its mirror like luster. The other kinds of bagh included Shalimar Bagh, Duniya Bagh Panchranga Bagh and Satranga Bagh.

The rural women of Punjab gave expression to their ideas in this folk craft. Usually, the embroidery was done on homespun Khadi cloth after washing and dying it. The same thickness of warp and weft was kept to ensure uniformity. The motifs of phulkari, literally meaning the craft of creating flowers, were not limited to flowers along. Apart from birds, animals, fruits and geometric patterns, these also included lifestyle of human beings. An old phulkari, carefully preserved in the Chandigarh Museum, depicts a railway train even.

Phulkari plays a significant role in traditional marriage rituals. Just for example, it is held high on the head of the bride during performance of ceremonies like Maiyan and Doli. Recently, people have started putting a phulkari on the roof of the car in which the groom takes the bride to his home.

Chandigarh Museum is going to play a constructive role in preserving this craft by exhibiting old phulkaris, thus creating a perennial appeal for them.

— By Thakur Paramjit

Academical knight of City Beautiful

AMONG scores of artists in the field of visual, literary and performing arts, Dr S.S. Bhatti holds a place of distinction, mainly because he has excelled in painting the sacred and the profane, the sublime and the absurd, and nature and its hapless children since the age of 5. He has done about 2000 sketches, drawings, paintings, prints, graphics, murals, paper-cuts, book-titles, badges and sculptures. His work thus covers a wide range of themes and their variations. The subject matter varies from landscape, religion, and mythology to abstraction, symbolism, metaphysics etc.

Depending on the theme of the painting Dr Bhatti changes the material and tools to express it as aptly and evocatively as possible. Since his artistic goal has been to express emotion rather than evoke it, inventiveness in his technique of painting is as important as the variation of visual metaphor. To make emotion live perennially through his art, he injects the metaphysical and the spiritual substance of his perception into whatever he paints, draws, prints and sculpts.

Dr Bhatti’s explorative excellence in varied fields imparts an overwhelming eloquence and authenticity to his art, which draws the viewer into a vertex of palpable vicarious experience of the act of creation itself. His versatility prevents his art from becoming either “branded” or “dated” as a creative artist. He enjoys a kind of freedom which is unique to his sense of aesthetic appreciation and the resulting act of artistic creation. This all-important freedom comes from the fact that he is not a career artist, that is, he does not live by selling his art. He has, thereby, developed a felicity of expression that is an endowment of only the highly accomplished craftsmen-creators! He has been taking part in art exhibitions since the age of 12. In fact, he won his first highly commended certificate among senior artists in an all-India exhibition organised by the Indian Academy of Fine Arts, Amritsar, when he was barely 14. He has also held several solo shows of his works.

I have picked up two of his paintings to illustrate broadly the contents of this write-up. Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram is a mixed-media painting which uses watercolours, inks, markers, the white of the handmade sheet, scratching, smudging, etc to create non-conventional perspective. The white serpent, which dominates the composition, is a symbol of Shakti. In activity, it is creation. In hibernation, it is destruction. The calligraphed paper, the artist’s palette, and the dancer’s foot, respectively, represent the literary, visual, and performing arts (Sundaram). The angular forms stand for Satyam, while a live experience of the two awakens the inner voice of conscience (Shivam). Together the trio forms life’s abiding paradigm: one organic white, an all-important role, in mankind’s many ways but one goal. Says the artist: “Truth unravels creative unity/Divine-in-Man is woken by Goodness/Beauty enriches by its variety/Together they keep life in harness”.

The second painting “Derring-do” demonstrates Bhatti’s virtuosity as a watercolour painter. Not only is it a forceful depiction of giant waves along with their cool spray and dancing froth, but also captures the mingled feelings of joy and trepidation the bronze-bodied sea-surfer is presently experiencing. The strong diagonal, in the midst of gargantuan curves which engulf the figure, heightens the sense of dramatic action, with all its soul-stirring thrills. “Derring-do” or “Daring-do” is the daring action performed by a dare-devil, who is characteristically a rash, venturesome fellow. According to Dr Bhatti, this is the chief distinction between a westerner and an easterner. The former can perform spine-chilling feats of (physical) dare-devilry. The latter does the other extreme, suffer undemonstratively soul-shattering pangs of (psychological) privation. There is thus little ground that the “Twain shall ever meet”. Just the same, this grim psychosomatic gap between the sensitivity, is glaring enough to provoke him into metaphysical contemplation and artistic creation.

— By Joginder Singh Bedi

Mehdi Hassan to perform in city
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, May 10 — Mehdi Hassan, a ghazal singer of international repute, will perform at the Chandigarh Club on May 12.

For Mehdi Hassan, who will be accompanied by his troupe, this will be his first performance in the city.