SRK and the Kolkata Knight Riders

Sunday, April 20, 2008 was a memorable day for me. After all, I caught the Knight Riders in action LIVE at the Eden Gardends! Yes, I did get to see Shah Rukh Khan too, a feat that I had imagined as being near impossible. It was evident that besides the match, the crowd had gathered in large numbers to see the Bollywood star and his entourage. What I cannot understand is the bitterness in media circles on this aspect. When you have someone like SRK coming down to Kolkata and a team like the Knight Riders playing , what are the crowds supposed to do? Ignore the fact??? Cricket has certainly not lost anything with the IPL. In fact, it has gained ground. Cricket and glamour have always gone hand in hand, only this time there is a pressure to perform well. So let us all sit back and enjoy the good times ahead with similar sporting events. Great going, SRK!!!!

Bodyweather performance

On April 11, I saw an interesting site-specific performance based on the eight natya rasas, viz., shringara, hasya, karuna, raudra, vira, bhayanakah, vibhatsya and adbhuta. This 40-minute improvisation showed a glimpse of each of these eight emotional states. It was performed by two actors, Tess de Quincy, dancer, choreographer and performer from Sydney, and Shantanu Bose from Kolkata. The audio and video support was provided by Sam James, also from Sydney.
What was interesting about this Bodyweather technique was its slow and subtle quality founded by butoh dancer Min Tanaka of Japan, weaving Eastern and Western thought processes. The grating sound composed by Michael Toisuta helped create the unsettling atmosphere, as did the black and white video images, keeping the audience on tenterhooks as they followed the two performers in their journey.

Rahman and Rock

April 3, 2008, was a memorable day indeed. After all I got to see the little maestro himself -- AR Rahman!!!! He was in Kolkata to judge the finals of the Bangla rock show, Bandwagon, on ETV Bangla, and I was there at the Technician's Studio while the show was being recorded. He was a thorough professional. Not only did he sit through hours of shooting not leaving his seat once, he also smiled throughout and expressed his enjoyment at the musical talent and energy shown by the three bands making it to the finals, viz., Aliens (the winners), Atmahatya (1st runner up) and Indiana (2nd runner up). In fact, it seems Rahman wasn’t an ardent fan of the rock genre, but he admitted that this show might have converted him after all. He also felt that Bengal has tremendous potential in the field of music and hoped these bands would make music to change the world like The Beatles did with Imagine and Queen did with We are the Champions.