Category Archives: Arts, Culture & Entertainment

A battle of music, art and mind at Madras Christian College’s cultural fest Deepwoods 2014 in Chennai

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education

Just as the first two days of Deepwoods 2014 at Madras Christian College, powered by The Times of India, the third day was also packed with events. The final day of the fest witnessed contenders pouring in since morning — all prepped to put their best foot forward.

The cultural team had a busy day. While various college teams battled it out on the main stage to win the light music competition, new techniques and concepts were explored and brought to the fore through mime.

On the other hand, the literary and debating team hosted adzap,wordfuzz, sudoku and voice-over competitions. Meanwhile, a few others were seen bringing out their artistic best through face painting and clay modelling.

The last treat of the day came in the form of a professional light music show featuring Shakthisree Gopalan, Santhosh, Nikhil Mathew and Malavika.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Entertainment> Events> Chennai / TNN / February 18th, 2014

Rajesh Dalal passes away

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education

Rajesh Dalal, trustee of the Krishnamurti Foundation India, passed away in Pune on Monday. He was 61.

He is survived by his wife, a brother and two sisters.

A close associate of J. Krishnamurti, Mr. Dalal, who graduated from IIT Kanpur, abandoned a promising career to join the Rajghat Besant School, Varanasi, as a teacher in the mid-1970s. He later worked in the Rishi Valley School.

After Krishnamurti passed away in 1986, he helped develop ‘Vasanta Vihar’ in Chennai as a study centre. He also held the post of Director of the Rajghat Education Centre for some years, and was actively connected with all the other KFI schools and study centres.

He had a passion for JK’s teachings and helped many young people and newcomers delve deep into his philosophy.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / Chennai – February 26th, 2014

IIT-Madras to host science awareness workshop

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Science & Technologies

Chennai :

The Indian Institute of Technology-Madras is hosting a science awareness workshop for higher secondary students on February 24 and 25.

The workshop, organized by IIT-Madras in association with the Federation of Science Clubs of Tamil Nadu (FSCT) and the Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School, will be based on the theme, ‘Science and Engineering – A Journey.’

The workshop will introduce recent developments and applications of science and engineering and is expected to help students shape their careers.

A total of 250 students from government, aided, Anglo Indian, matriculation, CBSE, and international schools, and those run by the Chennai Corporation will be registered on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis.

IIT-Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi will speak to the students on the challenges and career prospects in physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science, engineering design, biotechnology, electrical, chemical, mechanical and aerospace engineering disciplines. Participants will also get an opportunity to visit the laboratories and state-of-the-art research facilities at IIT-Madras.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / b y M. Ramya, TNN / February 17th, 2014

Koothu comes to town

Arts, Culture & Entertainment

Akila Kannadasan visits Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam, a residential school for kattaikkuttu in Kanchipuram, ahead of a performance in the city

“I’ll divorce him,” says the shy S. Thamizharasi. “If my husband doesn’t let me perform koothu, I definitely will.” The slender young woman from the village of Perungattur smiles as she says this. But you know she means it. Thamizharasi is among the first few women to perform kattaikkuttu, a form of street theatre with roots in northern rural Tamil Nadu. She is known to ‘become’ Draupadi once she dons the chalangai and steps in front of the audience for a performance of the Mahabharata. Koothu transforms her; this would not have been possible without Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam.

Founded by P. Rajagopal, a third-generation performer of the theatre form, the Gurukulam is a residential school for kattaikkuttu. There is silence all around as we walk into the campus in Punjarasantankal village in Kanchipuram District one morning — students are in their classrooms. An expansive hall opens out from the entrance — this is the heart of the school, where students train and perform the koothu.

Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam is Rajagopal’s dream. He has realised it with the support of his Dutch wife Hanne M. de Bruin. “I met her on January 10, 1987 at Kalavai in Tiruvannamalai,” remembers Rajagopal. Hanne was a researcher in her twenties who was falling in love with India then. “I told her about my dream — to start a school for kattaikkuttu.” They started it in 2002 with 21 students. “Today, there are 23 girls and 27 boys in all,” he says. The school is run by the Kattaikkuttu Sangam formed by Rajagopal in 1990 to bring together various kattaikkuttu companies to share their knowledge and experiences.

Koothu is seamlessly merged into the Samacheer Kalvi syllabus. Alongside Math, Science and History, mridangam, dance and mukaveenai are taught. There are periods for each of these subjects, whose teachers are sometimes old students. Thamizharasi, for instance, is a pass-out who is now a teacher.

“The performing arts and education are organically linked,” says Hanne, an Indologist, who holds a PhD in kattaikkuttu. Though their syllabus is not unique, their approach to education is. “Koothu helps in the overall development of children. They do better in class; learn how to perform in front of an audience. This gives them confidence,” she feels. While koothu itself can be empowering, when combined with education, a student has the choice of opting to pursue it or any other career he/she prefers.

The school is gradually transforming kattaikkuttu and people’s notions about it. Women, for instance, did not perform kattaikkuttu traditionally. Male actors played the female roles; women had nothing to do with the art form. But Rajagopal has changed that. “Why shouldn’t women perform?” he asks. Girl students are taught what women couldn’t dream of learning in the past.

Changes in costume

Hanne takes care of fund raising. She has also brought about changes in the costumes. “We are trying to use cotton instead of the polyester costumes artistes wear,” she explains. She is experimenting with handloom fabrics and colours that go well with the mirror-studded accessories actors wear.

At the Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam, children participate in every activity. The students of Standard VII are having a free period and Sundara Lakshmi, the director of education, is showing them how to makenei urundais. Another bunch is seated outside the kitchen, chopping vegetables for dinner. A little boy among them suddenly breaks into a virutham (a verse) to the accompaniment of the ‘chop chop’ of the knife — koothu leaves its imprint on everything they do.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Akila Kannadasan / Chennai – February 18th, 2014

Jayalalithaa’s 66th birthday: Free medical camp to be held at Srirangam

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Science & Technologies

Chennai :

A free multi-speciality medical camp will be conducted at Srirangam on Saturday and Sunday to mark the birth anniversary of Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

The camp will be held at Srimad Andavan Arts and Science College, Nelson Road, Srirangam. Over 100 doctors and paramedical staff will take part in the camp.

Doctors from general medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, dermatology, cardiology, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, neurology and nephrology will provide free consultations. Blood tests, special investigations like ECG, Echo Cardiograph, ultrasound and X rays, wherever necessary, will be done free for cost. Medicines for one week will also be provided freely.

Patients will have to bring their medical records. The camp will begin at 8.30am.

The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Scheme consultation services will be available in the camp.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Trichy / by Ekatha Ann John, TNN / February 20th, 2014

Saurashtrians to launch film chamber in Madurai

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy

Madurai :

The nascent Saurashtra film industry in Madurai is all set to get another fillip. Buoyed by the response to Saurashtra movies made in Madurai, film buffs of the community have decided to launch the All India Saurashtra Film Chamber.

The inaugural event has been scheduled for February 23 in Madurai. “Lot of Saurashtra youth are interested in film making. Some of them have made films and many more are preparing to make films. We want to help them, impart knowledge about various aspects of film making, prune their skills and channelize their talents,” said S Rama Eswarlal, founder chairman of All India Saurashtra Film Chamber (AISFC).

Madurai is home to an estimated three lakh Saurashtrians who migrated from Gujarat about three centuries ago. While making Madurai their home, they pursued formal education in Tamil and English but strived to maintain their linguistic roots. That is one reason why movies were made in Saurashtra in Madurai when such attempts are found even in Gujarat.

Aided by advancement in technology they have so far made about 10 films on a shoe-string budget with the content ranging from romance to religion. These films used to be screened at community gatherings but for the first time a movie was screened in a theatre last year.

“We want to take our films to the next level. Saurashtrian films should also be enjoyed by Tamil people. We want our movies to get due recognition from all section of the people,” said Suraj Prakash, director of upcoming film titled ‘Ekos Eno.’

Eswarlal said that the chamber would have a membership of about 500 people.

Though the chamber is registered in Chennai, its functions would be centred in Madurai. The chamber would bring in veterans and regularly conduct seminars, workshops, discussions and film festivals in the city. World cinema and Indian classics would be screened in the film festivals. “Our priority is to enable youth to make commercial movies. Experts from Chennai and other cities would be brought to Madurai to enlighten Saurashtrian youth interested in film-making,” Easwarlal said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / TNN / February 21st, 2014

This family’s collective age sniffs 900 years

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, World Opinion

Bangalore :

The battle for the title of ‘oldest family in the world’ may not be over soon. Just when 13 Manja siblings from Shimoga had staked their claim in the Guinness Book of Records for the spot, another family originally from Thanjavur wants to correct that. While the Shimoga family’s collective age is 880 plus years, the new contenders – a family of 11 siblings – say their ages total a whopping 899 plus years, adding up the months and days too.

On Monday, K V Rajagopal, an 87-year-old retired railway executive currently living in Bangalore, responded to a report in TOI dated February 16 on the Manja family, and claimed that his family beat them in the age battle.

Their family hailed from Thanjavur but later migrated to Nagpur, said Rajagopal, elaborating, “We are a family of 12 siblings of whom 11 are alive. The eldest is 92 years old and youngest, 73. Both live in the US. The collective age of the Manja family adds up to 880 plus and it struck me that we 11 siblings are older by 19 years.”

Rajagopal, the third son of G V Rajagopal and Ranganayaki who are now deceased, says all his siblings were born before Independence. “We have witnessed the freedom struggle as our father was a freedom fighter. All my five aunts studied on scholarships abroad during those days itself,” says Rajagopal.

Theirs is a cosmopolitan family, pipes in his daughter Priyamvada Srinivasan. “Gujaratis, Marathis, Jews, Americans, a German and Punjabi are all in it. I am happy to be a part of this rich old family,” she says.

Currently the family has 43 members. But they have never met at one place together. “We all have flown the nest. We had an ancestral house in Nagpur, where no one lives now. Even our childhood photographs are not with us. As six of my siblings live in the US, one each in the UK and Geneva and other two in Nagpur, we hardly get to meet together at one place, but we are in touch with each other,” says Rajagopal.

“But we are not in any race. I am yet to decide on giving a representation to the Guinness authorities,” he adds. The current holders of the record are London-based Brudennel family with a collective age of 855 years.

NEWEST AND OLDEST?

Rajalakshmi Raghavan (92) lives in the US

V Srinivas (89) lives in Nagpur

K V Rajagopal (87) lives in Bangalore

V Kannan (84) lives in the UK

Kalyani Raghavan (82) lives in Geneva

Dr Maithili Schmidt (80) lives in the US

Sulochana Glazer (79) lives in the US

Rangachari Raghavan (77) lives in Nagpur

Dr Renuka Sethi (76) lives in the US

Badra Raghavan (75) lives in the US

Susheila Bhagat (73) lives in the US

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Bangalore> Namma Metro / by Sunitha Rao, R – TNN / February 18th, 2014

Conclave looks at heritage in a modern city

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Green Initiatives/ Environment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence

Chennai :

Art Chennai’s two-day conclave on the Future of the Past brought together on day two, panels that inspected the future of the city, of the painting, and of art’s curatorial practice – and went on to collectively deliberate over points of function, form and process.

In contemplating the Future of the City, Durganand Balsavar, architect and founder of Artes – Human Settlements Research Collaborative, harked back to its past and foregrounded the priorities that marked its development post-Renaissance, from a largely functional entity that met the habitation needs of its occupants, to an aesthetical one.

Girish Shahane, art director of Art Chennai and moderator of the conference raised the question concerning the conflict that arises between the pragmatic needs of development and the romantic ideals of heritage conservation. Integration, was S Muthiah’s recommendation. Madras’ chronicler cited as example Moore Market, saying it could have been accommodated within the expansion plans of Central Station. More importantly, reminded Balsavar, issues of development and restoration should be perceived as the city itself should – as a composite unit and not piecemeal.

Which is the argument made by some of the participant artists in the session on the future of the painting. Had new media, performance and installations dismounted the canvas from its once hallowed perch? Although Vivan Sundaram has long since moved away from the painting to explore other media, he acknowledged that institutions that fund and house art ought to make room for the whole clan. For artists Prajakta Potnis and Mithu Sen the painting continues to be a part of their practice, whether as the end product or the starting place of an idea.

From the configuration of art to the enterprise of its curator, the day closed with views from these new artistic operatives. Participants Natasha Ginwala, Zasha Colah, Akanksha Rastogi and art critic Zehra Jumabhoy discussed curatorial practice, like art itself, as emerging from conditions of its placement and transcending narrow notions of nationality.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / February 16th, 2014

Food mela combines well with book fair in Tiruchi

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy
Fans of late M.G. Ramachandran were delighted to see a separate stall having the photographs of the Tamil cinema's icon at the book fair in Tiruchi. / Photo: M.Moorthy / The Hindu
Fans of late M.G. Ramachandran were delighted to see a separate stall having the photographs of the Tamil cinema’s icon at the book fair in Tiruchi. / Photo: M.Moorthy / The Hindu

Next book exhibition will be held in September, say the organisers

There was plenty of food for mind and body at the week-long book fair at St. John’s Vestry Anglo-Indian Higher Secondary School organised by the Rotary Club of Tiruchirappalli. The event had the added attraction of a “food mela” this year.

Fifteen publishing houses took part in the book fair and though the number of participants was less this year, sales were reported to be higher, organisers toldThe Hindu.

“Our event’s dates overlapped with those of the Booksellers and Publishers Association of South India (BAPASI) book fair in Perambalur because of which many publishers pulled out at the last minute,” said Mr. Saravanan, chairman of the Rotary Club.

This year, 84 stalls were set up, and six stayed vacant because of the scheduling problems. “We are planning to hold the next book fair in end-September, which is our usual time for the event.”

Besides daily talks by leading Tamil writers and social commentators, visitors could sample food from regular street snacks to ethnic cuisine offerings at the 40 stalls set up in an adjoining enclosure as part of the food fair. A cookery competition on Saturday was the highlight of this event.

“We decided to add the food fair because we wanted families to get the experience of a full outing,” said Mr. Saravanan. “Next time, we are planning to create space for gardening enthusiasts and display rare orchids. But we are not going to get children’s joy-rides – it will become too much of a carnival,” he added.

With the business model of traditional publishing getting slowly upended by electronic media, book fairs seem to be the few places where the old-style paper and ink books can still be found in vast numbers.

At the Tiruchi event, most stalls seemed to have stuck to either school-friendly tutorial material in the form of colouring and activity books or encyclopaedia sets, or gone for works on philosophy and religion. Stalls selling English fiction were few, and as usual, it was the discount counters that drew the most number of browsers.

As usual, cookbooks, and anthologies of Tamil magazine articles drew a steady number of browsers. The more unusual exhibitors included herbal cosmetic vendor, two art galleries, and spoken English course CD sellers. “Although there were fewer stalls this year, the sales were better,” said P.R. Panchanathan, a Rotarian.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Tiruchirapalli / by Nahla Nainar / Tiruchi – February 16th, 2014

Plea to govt on death centenary of Thillaiyadi Valliammai

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Leaders, Records, All, World Opinion

People of Thillaiyadi village in the district have urged the Tamil Nadu government to observe the death centenary of Thillaiyadi Valliammai, a close aide of Mahatma Gandhi  during his satyagraha struggle in South Africa .

When Gandhiji started his satyagraha against racial discrimination in South Africa , Valliammai, a 15-year old daughter of an immigrant worker from Thillaiyadi, joined him in the agitation.

She was imprisoned for three months during which she suffered from viral fever. She died on her 16th birthday – Feb 22, 1914.

The Thillaiyadi village panchayat  has sent a memorandum to the Chief Minister urging the government to observe the death centenary, falling on coming Feb 22, in a fitting manner.

Soon after his return from South Africa, in 1915, Gandhiji visited the ancestral home of Valliammai in Thillaiyadi.

Years later, Gandhiji had once remarked that it was Valliammai’s sacrifice that increased his resolve to fight for India’s independence.

In 1971, the then DMK Government headed by Chief Minister M Karunanidhi built a spectacular memorial for Valliammai at Thillaiyadi where a statue of the girl, manuscripts of Gandhiji and several rare photographs have been kept.

source: http://www.business-standard.com / Business Standard / Home> PTI Stories> News / by Press Trust of India / Nagapattinam (TN) – February 15th, 2014