LEISURE

Chance to create dream home

Magnificent kitchens, ravishing floors, glamourous bathrooms, breathtaking home furniture and captivating stained glass creations — the Inside Outside Mega Show at Parade Ground — is that and much more. It is the perfect destination for creating a dream home given the stunning choices in colour, price range and texture available to the visitors under one roof.

The event offer maximum choice in floor and wall tiles. Right from the wooden finish to leather finish, vitrified to porcelano tiles, some polished and others glazed, the options are mind-boggling. The prices range from Rs 65 to Rs 150. Presenting impact-resistant, unbreakable, cemented and satiny tiles the participants, including French company Alsafloor, Asian Granito, Hanwha, Crystal Porselano and Chennai-based Duracrete, all promised to transform your space into luxurious paradise.

For the kitchens as well, appliances and accessories come in different shapes and sizes. Kitchen Healthy sinks by Swiss company Franke, decorative electric chimneys by Italy’s Faber and state-of-art kitchen accessories, including dish-washers by Italy’s Kaff, are all there. However, Germany’s Hacker kitchens, the first time in the city, attracted a lot of visitors. Thoughtfully designed kitchen accessories in high gloss, lacquered, glass and laminate finishes attracted a lot of visitors.

Stained glass, too, seemed a big hit as visitors flocked to their stalls in large numbers. Local participants, Gagan’s glass creations as also Designex Interiors — The Art Glass Studio, stole the thunder with their displays of intricate colourful works.

Sanitaryware, too, came in all shades, sizes and to suit all pockets. Spreads, a local store, showcasing decorative furniture, designer consoles and mirrors, relief paintings and pottery and lamps as also a stall of Rajasthani wall-hangings gave the event an aesthetic touch.

Delhi’s Neha Blinds brought blinds in chicks and wood and a motorised multiple control system for blinds and lighting, available from Rs 25,000 onwards. The White House came from Delhi, offering a variety of decoration pieces. Solar water-heating systems, security systems and artificial coloured manure for plants were all available at the event.

Earlier, the event was inaugurated by Ms Jean Rodrigues, wife of the Punjab Governor. The exhibition on interior design, furniture and furnishings and building and construction, organised by Business India Exhibition, has over 100 stalls for the three-day event.

Ms Rodrigues went around all the stalls and took keen interest in the exhibits displayed on the occasion. The mega show provided the latest and the best products in the industries. The organisers have also instituted best display awards and popular choice awards and also the designer of the year award in the show. The city is the 16th city to presentation the show. TNS

For a vocalist rooted in classicism, fusion music seems a far cry. But the Gwalior gharana’s celebrated vocalist Meeta Pandit has managed to unleash fascinating sounds in collaboration with French pianist Allie Delfau.

The partners in rhyme have already spilled their new music on coveted platforms across seven Indian cities and will share their blended melodies with Chandigarh tomorrow. A product of sheer musical chemistry between the keepers of two distinct traditions, “The Gift” by Pandit and Delfau is best described as a symbol of Indo-French friendship. It is as much representative of the artistes’ commitment to cultural bonding as of their will to make music that can dilute borders and genres alike.

In Alliance Francaise today, both the musicians recalled the process that yielded a result as splendid as “The Gift”. The project progressed with help from the French Embassy in India and is now ready to enter the European concert circuit. The most striking aspect of the new music of Pandit and Delfau is its novelty which encompasses the charms of Indian melody and Western harmonies.

Meeta Pandit concurs, “At the heart of the attempt is improvisation. Using melodies and harmonies we created a basic skeleton from where we began building a musical structure that would be sustainable in the Indian as well as the French milieu. For me, it was a daring attempt as it involved breaking away from tradition and then safely returning to it.”

The collaboration, however, allayed Meeta’s fears as the purest of purists welcomed the pleasant departure from convention. The concert is rich with Meeta Pandit’s technical virtuosity, Allie Delfau’s sensitive Jazz rendition and Gian Singh’s fresh percussions. Gian Singh, though dispensable to the project, was roped in for his knack of creating vibrant melodies, the ones that fit the “fusion” format perfectly. He is founder member of Mrigya, a music band.

As for Meeta Pandit, who tested her musical wits by singing on alien music, the project was challenging for Allie Delfau too. But she managed to enjoy the process of creation by sticking to the basics. “As improvisation musicians, both of us concentrated on mixing and matching. We used celebrated pieces like the one by Eric Satie. But in whatever we did, we retained the spirit of the original. The additions were made sensitively.”

In its finality, the concert features Meeta on the vocals rendering songs in Brij Bhasha and Hindi. As Meeta sings a wind song and another one with pure Sanskrit lyrics from the Rig Veda and French lyrics, Allie keeps a brilliant accompaniment. The final expression is thoroughly contemporary as Meeta tells, “It is all about adhering to the times.”

Allie has another reason to celebrate the product, “It will help the French open ears to Indian music. They may not willingly attend pure Indian classical music concerts but they love to partake of the kind of new music we make. In that sense our project has a deeper purpose - that of creating musical interests across borders and that of sustaining them with our artistic vim and vigour.”

“Punjabi folk music represents the cumulative expression of many ages and is not the product of any particular period. It is a living and integral part of our musical culture unlike the so-called Punjabi Pop which was a passing phenomenon and is on the verge of vanishing from the cultural scene...” opined the prominent folk artiste Paramajit Singh Sidhu, popularly known as Pammi Bai.

He presented songs from his latest album “Nachde Punjabi” to the select crowd at the Planet-M who joined him as he sang and danced in his exquisite style. Ms Nasibo from Pakistan and Satwant Kaur are co-singers.

Later talking to the Chandigarh Tribune, Pammi expressed satisfaction over his crusade against nudity and vulgarity. “Remix” trend is another nuisance which kills the soul of the original creation but only aimed at minting money. The budding artistes opt for instant results kicking for glamour and money. Holding postgraduation degrees in arts and law, Pammi had learnt the intricacies of music and folk dances following inspirations from Lal Chand “Yamla” Manohar Deepak , Surinder Kaur, Kuldip Manak , true proponents of Punjabi folklore.

“Since 1986 in the profession, I had recorded only five albums so far, and each song smells the essence of pastoral culture. That is why my very first album ‘Majhe Malve...’ is still as popular as the latest number,” claimed Pammi.

Credited with the honour of being the first Punjabi singer to present his programme in Pakistan, he recalls the ovation showered on him and his troupe of dancers. People in Pakistan are more firmly tied to their traditional roots despite the Western Pop encroaching upon their cultural heritage, feels Pammi.

Having performed all over the world, Pammi has a desire to set up an academy in Punjab with the sole aim to promote, the ethical values of the rich Punjabi culture to youngsters.