Lal Ded, a poetess, symbolised Kashmiriyat. She bridged the various communities of Kashmir. Her teachings still find ample mention in daily conversation of the people of Kashmir. Lal Ded and her philosophies, after 700 years, are of more significance since the meaning of Kashmiriyat is evolving for the worse. And now Lal Ded and her teachings are being taken beyond the boundaries of Kashmir to people in other parts of India and Pakistan through theatre. "The real essence of Kashmiriyat lies in the poems of Lal Ded , which defines it as a common culture being shared by people from different religions, where religion is secondary and culture readily takes over it," informs Meeta Vasisht, who is in the city to stage the 75-minute-long solo play on Lal Ded at Tagore Theatre.

It was after three years of research that the show was first staged in 2005 and since then has seen only 12 shows across India and Pakistan, “Lal Ded is not for mere entertainment. It can't be staged as supper theatre, where people would come, dine and enjoy a performance." Lal Ded has wider horizons, "It is to trigger a thought process in people as to how can they live happily together while maintaining their identity and at the same time not let religion influence their behavior." Also the reason, she finds all the audience the same, "Nationality or a region has nothing to do with emotions, they are universal and common to all, which is why people effortlessly relate to Lal Ded."

Besides Lal Ded, a few Bollywood flicks kept her busy all this while. She will be seen doing a cameo in Alladin and then Teen Patti, co-starring Amitabh Bachchan. Also, her directorial debut film, that was slated release this year, has been delayed, "Recession affected me too and now everything has to be rescheduled."

The only entertainment medium she is not a part of these days is television, "After almost two decades in the industry, you can't be expecting me doing petty roles. I prefer striking a balance between my passion for acting and the monetary profits, though passion still overrules the other."

Also due to the hectic shooting schedules that TV soaps have, she avoids doing TV. Unlike the earlier times, when she used to regret amateur actors ruling TV, she now feels there's enough work for everyone in the industry.

Given a choice, Meeta would always opt for theatre out of the three mediums. "No other medium can help you revise and review the social issues as theatre does. It literally makes you enjoy the freedom of expression," adds Meeta, who began her career in acting from Tagore Theatre 21 years back with Kaachi Ghan. The world is indeed round!

The play will be staged on October 22.

ashima@tribunemail.com

In the city to stage a play, the versatile Salim Arif, actors Kiran Karamakar and Lubna Salim talk about the stage and more...

"Any genre of art, especially drama, articulates and reflects the gamut of elemental life, its realities and experiences for expression and communication on stage, not to the isolated individuals alone but the entire humanity, " opine the versatile trio of celebrated director Salim Arif, actors Kiran Karamakar and Lubna Salim. An alumnus of the National School of Drama, Salim Arif and acclaimed film production designer Salim has many hits to his credit like Maachis, Hu Tu Tu, Fiza, Guru, Takshak and television serials Mirza Ghalib, Chankya to name a few. Besides directing serials Daaman and Saath Saath, Salim has produced, directed and staged over dozen plays in India and abroad. In the city to stage a play Hamsafar at the ongoing National Theatre Festival, we interacted with director Salim Arif and the actors who also offered their views.

As an acclaimed playwright, director and film production designer what is your assessment of the overall proliferation of theatre in India?

Not as good as it was in the seventies. Regarded as culturally starved state Haryana happened to be the first state to launch Haryana Kala Mandal for promotion of Hindi and Haryanvi folk theatre. But now the Marathi theatre has no parallel as far as the literary content, technical virtuosity and aesthetic potential is concerned. The audience who has cultivated appreciation and love for stage shows are reciprocating in a big way. In Chandigarh the vibrant street theatre seems to have made a mark, I felt so, as a judge for national competitions where DAV-10 student repeatedly won laurels.

An NSD alumnus, are you satisfied with the role of such institutions compared to private ones?

What is the use of teaching and training if not put to practice. Around 125 students pass from NSD, PU Chandigarh and Patiala with no constructive plan for their absorption. Instead many aspirants without spending three years at NSD, venture to get training in Mumbai institutes while simultaneously exploring chances of employment and some even work in TV or films there. In fact due to lack of concrete efforts to propagate it the Hindi theatre has failed to make a place in the socio-cultural environment.

Thousands gather to catch a glimpse of Kangana

Bollywood star Kangana Ranaut is in lucknow to shoot for her upcoming film Tanu Weds Manu much to the delight of the locals who are thronging in thousands to catch a glimpse of the actor.Kangana is shooting with co-stars R Madhavan and Jimi Shergill for the past 15 days in the city and has been a centre of attraction for the eager fans.The enthusiastic crowd reportedly went overboard and there were commplaints of disruption on the sets of the film at the Kaiserbagh locality. However, the police has denied of any untoward incident and said that the cast and crew have been provided with adeqaute security.

"There was shooting going on in Safed Baradari which attracted a lot of crowd. There were some people who wanted to tried to break in but they were well restricted. No complaint has been lodged by the producers of the film regarding any such incident," said inspector K M Singh of Kaiserbagh police station.

Tanu Weds Manu, is a light hearted film, where Kangana is paired opposite Madhavan. The two have been first time brought together by director Aanand L Rai who has earlier directed a thriller, Stranger starring Jimmy Shergil and Kay Kay Menon.

—PTI 

Comedy is undervalued in Bollywood: David Dhawan

At a time when comedies are raking in the moolah for filmmakers, comedy king David Dhawan's lighthearted movie Do Knot Disturb wasn't received well at the box office. He laments that the genre is very much undervalued. “Comedy is very much undervalued in Bollywood. This is because every person today stands up and makes a comedy. People feel it is the easiest to make so everyone is making it. But that's just a perception,” told Dhawan.

Released on October 2, Do Knot Disturb starred Dhawan's favourite actor Govinda along with Lara Dutta, Sushmita Sen and Riteish Deshmukh. Some of the big hits made by Dhawan are Shola Aur Shabnam, Saajan Chale Sasural, Deewana Mastana, Biwi No.1, Jodi No.1, Hero No.1 and No Entry.Dhawan's next will be Hook Ya Crook starring John Abraham, Kay Kay Menon, Shreyas Talpade and Genelia D'Souza.

—IANS

Indian Panorama section to include mainstream Bollywood

The 'Indian Panorama' section of the International Film Festival of India, 2009 will include mainstream Bollywood fare like Anurag Kashyap's Dev D and Vishal Bharadwaj's Kaminey. The festival to be held in Panjim, Goa, from November 23, will showcase six movies from Bengal, three from Karnataka, three from Maharashtra and two each from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, in the Panaroma section.

There will also be five Hindi films, two English and one each in Rajasthani, Konkani and Tulu. In all there will be 26 movies of which five have been nominated by the Film and Television Producers Guild and the Film Federation of India.

—PTI

Do you know Lawrence School, Sanawar has the oldest hobby centre in the country? Or, that it was started to engage the British students occupied after the Sepoy Mutiny broke out in 1857? Or, that the art gallery of the school has one of the largest original M. F. Husain works (18 feet by 4 feet), which he created there while demonstrating the students and now worth crores of rupees? Or, even that Sukhbir Badal won many laurels for the school as a sculptor at many a national competitions. As did N. P. S. Randhawa, director of our government museum?

These are the trivia we picked up as we interacted with 30 students and three accompanying teachers — D. C. Jhangra, Ina Mehta and Avneet Chopra — at the Government Museum and Art Gallery-10.

The occasion is an exhibition of sculptures, paintings and crafts by students from the junior as well as the senior wing, which was inaugurated on Tuesday. The exhibit shows the rich legacy the art department of the school carries, especially when it comes to sculptures. A huge lion in wood by Nirmit Kalra, a wooden panel on Lord Hanuman by Ayush Gupta and beautifully carved girl, once again in wood, by Shruti Bhahadur show here is one place where art means serious business. Completing the mood are few paintings in oil, foil paper and glass. In the craft section, one gets to see a few samples of tie and die work and bags made of macramé.

This is the second exhibition for the school to be held in the city after a long gap of 17 years (the first was held at Alliance Francaise-36). However, for the students, the icing of the cake came in form of an interactive session with their former teacher Charanjit Matharu. The eminent sculptor of tricity, known as the Iron Man of Chandigarh, gave tips on how to make forms out of clay and later enlarge it in other medium like metal or stone without distorting its originality.

On till October 22. 

Nanika Singh’s painting exhibition showcases a wide spectrum of emotions and colours

As her profile says she is a psychologist by profession and artist and sculptor by hobby, one would naturally expect to see intricacies of human mind on her canvas. But instead, the debut solo exhibition of Nanika Singh at the Government Museum and Art Gallery-10 draws the viewer away from the complicacies of human nature and takes you to the world, where things are simple and nice.

There is love, bonding, the five elements of life, women empowerment and music — her range of subjects are as wide as the spectrum of colour she has used. Using bold sure strokes and semi-figurative forms, Nanika touches upon almost everything that life has to offer. And mind it, there is no room for negativity here.

“Positive psychology is the base of my work which is nothing but an optimistic portrayal of life,” says Nanika, who is teaching psychology at the Government College- 42. Hence is the reason for using bright hues with a liberal amount of black here and there. Like one can see in her Old Age in form of a black umbrella or in the background in another frame called Bonding or a black bird in her most outstanding work Third Eye, which says the grey area between the black and white do exists. And black, for Nanika, is not just a colour for mourning, but symbolizes dignity and poise.

This exhibition is the celebration of her three years of cumulative work, something, which she took up to vent out her stress while preparing for the civil services. “Art and psychology together have a therapeutic impact on human mind, and at that time I was preparing for the civil services, I needed it,” she explains.

As an experiment one cannot say how much relief it brought to the creator, but one can say with certainty that the outcome, in form of 30 frames, are surely visual pain killers.

Concludes on October 25.

parbina@tribunemail.com

City boy, Asim Halwarvi, is all set to release his instrumental album, Anthemia

How does it feel to be 15 and have an album to one’s credit? “Out of the world,” comes the expected reaction. And why not — from the drummer boy of the Vivek High orchestra to the keyboard, piano and now an instrumental album called Anthemia — it has been quite a journey for a young boy. But, he’s loving it!

Asim Halwarvi has been learning instrumental music under Jaswan Singh since 2001. To start with it was old Hindi songs, which soon moved to piano with old classical compositions of Beethoven and Mozart. To groom himself further in the field of music, Asim started taking lessons in Hindustani vocal under Harvinder Singh. That is what led him to experiment with fusion music.

The album, which is being launched on Wednesday, has four tracks on Pop and Rock and three compositions, which are based on Raag Bhopali and Raag Viabhabi. “I like playing Rock and Pop music because it is easy, but I love the challenge that our raags provides. Imagine everytime you do an alaap; you have to do it differently. It is challenging and mentally stimulating,” says Asim.

He sounds sure of what is he doing. But not enough to jump into a talent hunt show right away. “Maybe sometime later, but not immediately. I have to learn more, and of course, studies take the priority for now,” is his parting shot. It’s nice to be young, wise and talented. 

Reetu Kapoor, director of Kashmir Apiaries Pvt Ltd., Doraha, Ludhiana (Punjab) won the Apimondia Honey Queen Title in recently held Apimondia International Beekeeping conference in Montpellier, France. Apimondia is an International Federation of Beekeeper’s Association and world body of 61 member countries. This organisation organises international conference in every alternate year and in this year, more than 10,000 delegates, 1500 scientists, 200 exhibitors from more than 100 countries participated.

Apimondia Honey queen competition is based on an essay competition outlining beekeeping activities, marketing/sales presentation, evaluation of professionalism, poise, speaking, skills and skills to interact with people by the competitors. This is followed by individual interviews with a panel of judges in which questions related to candidate’s knowledge of honeybees, beekeeping and honey; their professionalism and how they would handle difficult situation as a representative of beekeeping world are asked. In this competition, Reetu Kapoor won the Honey Queen Title by being adjudged the best amongst all by a panel of three international judges.

This conference was held from September 15 to

September 20.

Sky events bring an all-new dining experience to the city

The first ten minutes you hear people jittering, coming to terms with the fact that they are some 50-feet high from the ground. Next five minutes, they take to normalise and calm down. Then comes the time to make phone calls to friends and family members and tell them, “You wouldn’t believe where I am right now? I am going to dine at such a height with 23 other people.” And then, after spending good 25-minutes, the dinner finally begins.

Stefan Kerkhofs, principal partner, Dinner In The Sky, knows how majority of the people react after sitting on a dinning table at this height. Those who come in the minority say, “We want to go the toilet, so can you please bring us down,” quips Stefan, who along with Kanwaljit Singh Walia, of CCPL hospitality have come up with The Sky Events, that will organise similar adventure events in the city.

“The idea is to take people to a height of 164-feet with the support of a telescopic hydraulic crane and make them enjoy the thrilling experience,” informs Stefan. The safety measures have been well taken care of. “The dining table is being brought in from Germany, where similar equipment for other such events is manufactured. Also there is a six point seat belt and special warning system installed to ensure safety of the people.” Stefan also has to his credit success of Fear Factor that started 15 years back as Now or Neverland, “My organisation used to decide the level of difficulty of every task.”

Kanwaljit Singh Walia, M.D of The Sky Events feels the initiative would boost tourism in the city, “Chandigarh is the first city in India to have such an interesting concept. People from all across the country will visit Chandigarh to experience something as unique as this.”

— Ashima Sehajpal

They curse the statistics, certainly if they read like. There are about 40,000 children living on the streets of Chandigarh leading a miserably life with no money, no fod and no education. Many of these children are alone; many turn to the murky world of drugs and alcohol to cope with their situation. All of them live from day to day concerned with survival, food and shelter.AIESEC, the international student exchange body’s initiative Balakalakaar aims at making a difference and reaching to the right people. An initiative taken up by the local office of AIESEC, in Chandigarh. This event is aligned to the cause of building an enviroenment that helps improve the quality of life that is faced by the underprivileged children in our society.

Says Karan Chhabra, organizing committee, vice president, balakalakaar, “We believe there’s an artist in every child, this is an attempt to improve their quality of life.” He adds, “It’ll be a two week programme with the main event on 15th November. Our main aim is to provide a platform to these kids to show their potential, while at the same time deviating them from routine distractions.” The event was conducted in 2008 as well engaging about 75 kids at an NGO Ashiana and 350 kids at Sikhya School. Way to go!

—TNS

My my, are you blushing too! Last one was about love, this one’s about love too, the unofficial sorts. Hey you, itsy bitsy babes…always wanted us to write about this one, so here we are spilling the secrets, the skeletons in the cupboard, the beans on the floor, you get the point.

Honey, they shrunk the place! The dating places we mean. And look, per square population constraint seems to have caught up with the couples the most. Imagine, a car for getting cozy, cushy, cuddly, cooing…well, whatever.

‘There’s just no dating culture here, there are two people who all they want is to have some nice time together, nothing obscene about it. And there are so many onlookers ready to poke their nose, overhear, stare, why can’t they just let you be,’ says an anguished harried soul.

True, why can’t they just let one be? She adds, ‘All these people need to be packed and shipped off to some European country for getting them learn some basic public etiquettes.’ Some hard talk. Do we hear a defense? But what can the poor souls do when they get to see whatever they do at Rock gardens, Botanical gardens, in the car, across the park, in the…Use your imagination liberally and spare us from giving the details! Shall the twain meet midway? Hope so… —TNS

Students at Kansas State University are looking forward to a deeper understanding of India and experiencing its culture, say two leaders who are working to give students more opportunities to learn about and experience South Asia. 

Barry Michie, director of international program support at K-State and Bradley Shaw, co-principal investigator, have said that the fascination for India has gone through a change in recent times.

"For instance, in the 1960s and '70s, most people's idea of India centered on sacred cows, Ravi Shankar, spirituality and bullock carts. But I think we've gone way beyond that point with students' perceptions of South Asia today as a region of growing economic and political importance to the U.S. and their own lives," said Michie. 

The university has received a two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education to enhance K-State offerings in South Asian studies.

—ANI

A new study, conducted by Wake Forest University researchers, has shown that when parents expect their teenage kids to conform to negative stereotypes, those teens are in fact more likely to do so.

"Parents who believe they are simply being realistic might actually contribute to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Negative expectations on the part of both parents and children predict more negative behaviours later on," said Christy Buchanan, professor of psychology. In her study, Buchanan found that adolescents whose mothers expected them to take more risks and be more rebellious reported higher levels of risk-taking behaviour than their peers one year later. The same was true for adolescents' negative expectations.

"Higher expectations for risk-taking and rebelliousness predict higher levels of problem behaviour, even controlling for many other predictors of such behaviour,"

Buchanan said.More than 250 adolescents and their mothers participated in the study. The adolescents were sixth or seventh graders at the beginning of the study; they were resurveyed a year later.

The researchers said that parents who expect their kids to suddenly become James Dean when they turn 13, even if they have not been rebellious earlier in life, might be making an important mistake. "Sometimes parents expect more negative behaviour from their own adolescents than they should based on the adolescent's history of behaviour," Buchanan said.

"By thinking risk-taking or rebelliousness is normal for teenagers and conveying that to their children, parents might add to other messages from society that make teenagers feel abnormal if they are not willing to take risks or break laws. This can mean, for example, that when parents expect teens to drink before they turn 21 or to engage in other risky behaviours, kids are less likely to resist societal pressures to do so," Buchanan added.

Buchanan said that because negative risk-taking during adolescence can lead to a variety of problems, parents should not be naïve about the possibility of such behaviour.

However, expectations that teenagers can not only resist such pressures but also exhibit positive behaviours might help reduce the incidence of negative risk-taking. The study has been published in the Journal of Research on Adolescence. —ANI

Panjab University’s move to digitalise rare collections of AC Joshi Library draws a mixed response from the youngsters

Men no longer find blonde hair hot, instead they go for the natural look when it comes to finding a partner, an Australian study has found. The Great Australian Sex Census suggests that the men prefer "average" looking partners to those with fakes and brunettes to blonde hair. 

In the poll, 31% of male participants said fake boobs are a turn off, while 34% said they couldn't decide, reports a website About body shape- skinny is apparently out while a more fuller or an average svelte is in.Only a mere 16.9%of voting men chose slim women compared to 30.9% who preferred an average build and 29 % who wished their partner had an athletic look.. —ANI