RIP! German Bakery & Pune blast victims

I have been to German Bakery in Pune in late 1990s, but don't remember it so big or so decked up as in the pictures. I do remember a very nice picture of Osho on its straw-walls. Those who went there regularly are stunned by Saturday's blast which killed nine and injured 60. Here's a look at the popular eatery as captured by the numberous blogs. From the pictures, I can say that the place looked very much like my beloved Irani restaurants, which are essentially secular and free places. Until the smoking ban came up that is...
Picture Courtesy: citipals.com


Picture Courtesy: Outlookindia.com

Picture Courtesy: nitawriter.wordpress.com

Picture Courtesy: thecookscottage.typepad.com

Picture Courtesy: buddhasoliloquies.blogspot.com

Thekkady wild life sanctuary

Some of the first pictures from my Nikon camera shot in Kerala in Feb-Mar 2009

I had never before seen or photographed wild life so close. So, it was wonderful to see it from such a close angle. These pictures are shot at Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in Thekkady. The Sanctuary is spread across 777 km and has an artificial lake formed by the Mullaiperiyar Dam across Periyar River. Tourists are taken for boat rides where you can see birds and animals on both banks of the lake.

The biggest attraction of the sanctuary are wild elephants who come down to drink water and bathe. The ideal time of the elephant sightings is said to be either the first boat at 7 am or the last at 5.30 pm. But we went in the afternoon, and were lucky to spot two different groups of elephants. In the photographs below, one group is emerging from the clearing up in the hills on the left side of the bank. While the second group is down by the water on the right side of the bank when our boat returned.

I have always loved Kingfisher and its exotic colours in photographs. But I had never imagined that I would be excited like a child on actually spotting one. I missed a heartbeat each time I did.

Meryl Streep

Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep in Bridges of the Madison County.
@Warner Bros/Everette

Meryl Streep is one of my favourite actresses of all time.
Kramer vs Kramer was the first film I saw of Meryl, and have always admired the ease with which she portrays the characters. I haven't seen all her films, but her roles in Out of Africa, French Lieutenant's Woman, and Death Becomes Her stand out. I had read the novel Bridges of the Madison County a long time ago, but finally managed to see the film last year. Meryl is awesome in the film. She has been nominated 16 times for the Academy Awards, and that speaks a lot about her acting abilities. Here's a Time magazine gallery that is worth checking out: Meryl Streep’s Golden Career

Mitch Epstein's American Power

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nevada 2007 from American Power
@ Mitch Epstein/www.mitchepstein.net


I recently came across Mitch Epstein’s photographs. The name rang a bell. Epstein was married to film-maker Mira Nair, and had worked on her two films, Salaam Bombay as well as Mississippi Masala as a co-producer, cinematographer and production designer. He is now divorced from Nair, and lives with wife and daughter in New York.

Epstein has several books to his credit. In the context of today’s incident where an explosion in an under construction power plant killed five and injured 12 people in the US, I thought it would be interesting to put up his work on American power plants. He travelled extensively researching the project titled American Power Some India pictures are in Common Practice

Also found Epstein's interview with Bomb Magazine where he talks about his travels while shooting American Power, and a review in New York Times.

Epstein has seven books to his credit, and his pictures are in major museum collections. For more you could check his website

Jan Fest 2010

Jan Fest is a music festival organised by the Indian Music Group, set up by two students of St Xavier's College with active help from Ustad Alla Rakha and his son Ustad Zakir Hussain. Since 1974, Jan Fest has seen some of the leading Hindustani classical stalwarts perform inside the heritage precincts of the college. The festival had a unique format earlier. The three-festival would be organised on Jan 23, 24, and Jan 25 each year. On Jan 25, the concert would start around 9 pm, and would go on all night and end at daybreak with the Republic Day national anthem.

The tradition continued till a few years ago. It stopped after the courts set a night deadline for all public programmes to end while hearing a petition on noise pollution. The court ruling impacted two music festivals - Jan Fest and Independence Rock Festival at next door Rang Bhavan. The rock festival closed down and tried to shift to another venue, but Jan Fest restricted its timings to 10.30 pm.

Because Alla Rakha and Zakir were involved with the festival, a number of top classical musicians would come and perform at the festival. In fact Taufiq Qureshi told me that the festival was initially dedicated to Alla Rakha's guru and Punjab gharana stalwart Ustad Kader Baksh.

The all-night mehfil also made the festival special. I remember listening to pandit Jasraj singing for two memorable hours, and Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma for three and half till the morning came up. The stillness of the night, the winter chill and an enthusiastic audience brought the best out of the musicians. After the all-night mehfil was stopped, the festival was clearly not the same.

The festival, enthusiastically organised entirely by Xaverites, had a good line-up this year. Taufiq Qureshi and Yogesh Shamsi, often called Ustad All Rakha's other prodigy apart from Zakir and sons, opened the festival. Ustad Vilayat Khan's son Ustad Shujaat Khan on sitar, and Benaras gharana khyal exponents Rajan and Sajan Mishra followed. On the second day, Rahul Sharma on santoor and vocalist Ustad Rashid Khan performed. I got the third day performers, Patiala gharana ghazal queen Begum Parveen Sultana, and Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia on the flute. I had never heard Sultana before, and she was simply awesome. I have heard Panditji several times, but he seemed much mellowed. He played softly, but was as melodious as ever. He played Raga Jaijaiwanti, and Raga Kirwani.



Mesmerising Begum Sultana, who insisted that she needs to see her audience before she can sing, in her various moods!

Swaranjali music concert

Flautist Ronu Majumdar and Taufiq Qureshi, on the djembe, played at the annual Swaranjali music festival organised by vocalist Prabhakar Karekar in Dec 2009 at the Nehru Centre in Mumbai. Majumdar, who also learnt music from Pandit Ravi Shankar among others, and Qureshi, son and disciple of tabla maestro Ustad Alla Rakha, have played together in the popular album, A Traveller's Tale before. They played several compositions from the same album. Djembe is an African drum that Qureshi has been experimenting with. "I am trying to bring the tabla rhythms to the djembe. I call the instrument tabl," he said.

Swaranjali music concert

Aarti Ankalikar-Tikekar at annual Swaranjali concert organised by vocalist Prabhakar Karekar at Nehru Centre in Dec 2009. I am still learning the manual mode in my camera, and these are the first pictures shot in manual mode.

RIP Dennis Stock!

@ Dennis Stock/ Magnum Photos


Another legendary photojournalist who shot some iconic images especially of Hollywood passed away last week. Dennis Stock shot into spotlight by winning a Life magazine photo contest, and was brought into Magnum photo collective by Robert Capa.

If you look at this Time magazine gallery Life photographer Dennis Stock please check the picture of Audrey Hepburn, and also quickly click on my previous post on Bob Willoughby and see his picture of Hepburn. I had an uncanny feeling that both these legends shot the actress on the same day, at the same location, and at the same time. Do you feel so?

Also read this obituary on Stock. Magnum photos also have a wonderful multimedia gallery on a broader range of Stock’s work, in his words on Magnum in motion

Haiti Earthquake

I didn't know anything about Haiti and its history till I saw this Time magazine photogallery. Discovered by Christopher Columbus in the 15th century, Haiti was a Spanish Colony, and then a French colony till its independence in 1804. Even after its independence it took 186 years for the country to shed its despotic rulers, and hold a truly free and fair election! The earthquake is the third natural disaster haiti has faced in last six years... It's bloody through out. Check Haiti’s History of Misery

Time's gallery of exclusive pictures from Haiti has such graphic content that I decided not to post it here.


The pictures took me back to Jan 26, 2001 when Bhuj shook with a 7.6 Richter tremblor. I was then working with Indya.com, and travelled there with the Outlook team of Punit Paranjpe and Manu Joseph from Mumbai, and Prashant Panjiar and Ranjit Bhushan from Delhi. I, Punit, and Ranjit stayed back in Ahmedabad, while Prashant and Manu travelled almost 250 odd km to Bhuj. I went to Bhuj two days later. The civil hospital in Bhuj looked exactly like the Presidential palace in Haiti - absolutely flat. Nearby villages like Bhachau, and Anjar were flattened completely. Everything in sight was flat.


It was a great dance of life and death. There was a young boy trapped in Anjar who kept his nerves for nearly 48 hours while rescuers tried to cut the concrete debris around him. He was eventually taken out alive, but lost either one or both his legs. Miracle stories of babies taken out alive after days, and rescued pregnant women delivering normal babies...

Some more poems

Renunciation

First light on the kitchen table
Breakfast for one. Beer and wine.
Feline eyes kiss fallen tart.

Lunch is a conceit of three. My cat,
Your snapshot and me. Secret rum
In mint tea. Invalidation of the sun.

Last light comes to sup. Dinner is a feat
In rectitude. Water and whiskey.
Campaign of shadows. No despair.

A sliver of music around the ankles
In a dream’s corridor.
Endless retreat of inaccessible feet.


© 1994, C. P. Surendran
From: Gemini II


At the Family Court

The lift wouldn’t work.
So they walked up
Four flights
Of stairs and passed
On the fourth landing
Two toilets, one marked,
For Judges Only, and one,
For Others. They used
The first though.
But no one charged
Them with contempt of court.
Later, they sat in the hail
With some 20 others,
People come together
To be separated.
The four fans in the hall
Big as windmills
Breezed past
Their several lives.
Late in the noon
An attendant
Called out their names
And led them into a hall
Where the judge
They met in the toilet said
They were no longer
Man and wife.



© 1999, C. P. Surendran
From: Posthumous Poems


Come, Let Us Build A Night
Come, let us build a night
On the marble edifice of silence
let us swathe ourselves in the sheets of darkness,
and ignite the twin candles of our bodies . . .
When dew arrives on tiptoe,
let it not discern even the whisper of our breaths
In the silken fragrance of mist,
entwined let us lie, like fragrance itself —
Draped in the earthy aroma of our bodies, Let us, like spirits, rustle forever . . .


© 2002, Gulzar

From: Raat Pashmine Ki

© Translation: 2008, Salim Arif



My apologies, Sona
My Apologies, Sona.
Journeying through the terrain of my verse
in these rains, inconvenienced you
Unseasonal are the monsoons here.
The alleyways of my poetry are frequently damp.
Water gathers often in the ditches.
If you trip and fall here,
you run the risk of spraining a foot.
My apologies, however . . .
You were inconvenienced
because the light in my verse is somewhat dim.
The stones at my threshold
are imperceptible, as you pass.
I have often cracked a toenail against them
As for the streetlamp at the crossroads,
it has remained unlit for aeons
You were inconvenienced.
My apologies, my heartfelt apologies.


© 2007, Gulzar

© Translation: Salim Arif


These poems are sourced from Poetry International Web website. You can read a selection of poems from contemporary Indian poets. They have also something wonderful. They have reproduced the original poem in the original language along with the English translation. Those who can read Urdu will perhaps enjoy reading the Gulzar's originals in Urdu. You could also read Mallika Amar Sheikh's Venus or Namdeo Dhasal's Kamathipura in the Marathi original.