InDepth

If writing a poem is a difficult task, reviewing it is even more difficult! Very few people can do poetry while many people can love poetry. Since the appreciators are many, one would think that it is quite easy to note down some appreciatory thoughts and remarks. However, putting these very thoughts in a neat and sequential manner and coming up with an effective review can be as hard as correctly expressing a sudden joy, or ecstasy. In today’s edition, I present to you an unpublished work of an excellent poet of my generation – his name is Dr. Rabinarayan Dash. Dr Dash is a medical practitioner by profession and a poet by passion. The poem that I am sharing with you propagates so much love, and so much fragrance inside me that, despite facing a lot of challenges, I hope to come up with a good salutation in the end. Such is the power of this piece of marvel! I start from where I ought to start. The entire poem is first shared. After that there will come a short appreciation...

Teacher:  "All my alms, all my doles I must bestow, /In me lies a human who has wealth to sow." What do you make of it? Student:  Yes Sir, I get the point. One must spread and distribute what one has in order to get happiness. Happiness lies in sharing. [The student looks rather unconvincing when he says these words.] Teacher:  Hmm, you do not seem to be very convinced my boy. What are you thinking? Student:  Sir, it is all very fine - this sharing and caring thing. But one must look at the world today. Don't we need to be rich? If we are not wealthy, who will care for us? Who will respect us? [The teacher is unaffected, smiles a bit and then replies...] Teacher:  I tell you one thing. This is fact and I am not lying. I am sixty years old and have been seen more than five decades of society. I have seen its ups and downs. I have read newspapers, tried to understand events. From the days of telegraph and telegram, I have come to the days of sma...

Today’s post is a monologue on Indian film music. An early chapter in its history. A famous music composer, creative person and an early exponent of playback singing. His name was Anil Biswas. He was probably the first music composer for Hindi films who popularized the genre called light music. The art of playback singing – with its overall grammar, craft, emotions and techniques – was popularized by him. Singers like Talat Mahmood, Lata Mangeshkar, Mukesh and Mohammad Rafi sang some classic songs under his guidance. He was fondly called “Anilda”.                 Though initially he was a freedom fighter who listened to the call of the Indian nationalist movement, Anil Biswas' shift from his early base of East Bengal to Bombay was somewhat destined. He was inclined towards music from a very early age and he started to show his talent at composing music. Eventually he became a part of the great league of musicians in Kolkata that includ...

Scene 1 - A young man with lots of dreams in his eyes comes to a new city. And a big city it is. He has lived in some other big city before. Therefore, he knows how it works - a city is as good as the people you meet there. It is as homely and welcoming as the friends you make there. When there is shortage of new friends there is shortage of everything. Long weekends are indeed very lengthy and very much unwanted. What can be done? Someone suggests to watch a film. The film's central theme is Kolkata, which is the big city where he lived before. He buys a single ticket, enters the theater and a narration starts. A rich baritone takes him back to his olden days of street food, Durga Puja, banks of Ganges and strikes and unrest - things that symbolize his Kolkata. Parineeta , the Hindi movie is based on a novel by Sarat Chandra Chattopaddhyay, a literary monument from Bengal; the boy had never read the text before. Few scenes into the rushes and he gets to hear an iconic Tagore so...

I have always believed in the fact that a country is not just a landmass, or a boundary, or a piece of geography, rather, it is a constellation of people, a collection of culture, and a slice of history. Likewise, a golden era is not just a spell of time, rather, it is a record of excellent acts created by excellent individuals. If an era is not a golden one, it is due to the fact that mediocrity ruled during that era. This also means that those who arrived and flourished in a golden era had to be excellent! If the period from 1950 over to 1980 be called the golden period of Indian film music, name after name will start to show up here and memories after memories will start to align with us. Among those names comes the name of a composer who was a bit unique. Unique in the sense that he could compose, he could sing his own compositions and he could write soulful poetry to fit his unparalleled compositions.                       ...

Art is a flow of creativity from one mind to another. Sensibility and craft in right proportions create an object of art. A true object of art – if it manages to become so – becomes inspiring. As it becomes popular, it reaches far and wide.  Some genius mind picks up the object, gets inspired and creates another phenomenal object – partially aligned and partially unaligned with the original. Today, in this edition, we shall look at a song created in the early sixties. We shall try to appreciate the beauty of the original composition and then move over to another song created in the late sixties. The second one is inspired by the first. We shall appreciate the qualities of both, and try to understand what inspiration means – especially in the field of creative art. Original composition:                                       Elvis Presley was a household name in many parts of ...

                        The word "Raakh" means ashes. It was way back in the late eighties and the early nineties that an Indian Hindi movie was made by the name "Raakh". A look back at this very unusual and yet very formidable movie forms the topic for today.                                                                                           Aditya Bhattacharya, the director of Raakh is the son of legendary filmmaker Basu Bhattacharya. People familiar with Indian Cinema knows the contribution of Bhattacharya senior. He stewarded projects like Teesri Kasam, Anubhav, Avishkar, Griha Pravesh among others. Aditya cast a newcomer for the role of the protagonist. The actor had just made one film and that...