InDepth

  A journey into the life and works of Viveka Olofsson [Continued from Part I] Have you a count of all your gigs? Seriously??!! Yes, every gig is well-documented. My daughter says the new generation cannot read my handwriting, it is so bad! I did over 100 gigs in some years, in 1990 for example. One is nervous before every performance; you have the energy going, people start flocking, you start your show and then you forget about everything else and just perform your act. When the act ends, only then you get back to your attentive state. People come and hug you; you feel happy. During the performance act – as a clown – you must make every small act believable. The best part is – it is a new experience every time. You never get into a routine! You should never! How do you keep yourself updated? Reading books, watching theaters, films, other performances? Oh yes, most definitely. I read a lot. I need to connect to what is going on around me. To understand different themes – som...

A journey into the life and works of Viveka Olofsson Friends, do you know what “Chance meeting” is? It can be some sort of a fun activity. We can pretend to be someone or something and then we meet another person by chance. It is for that other person to appreciate, enjoy, laugh, and play along with us. My interview with Viveka, a celebrated clown artist was some sort of a chance meeting for me. This I say because I knew little about the craft, art and process that go behind the making of a successful clown. I was just acting my way to get to understand all of that. All of that indeed – Viveka has been documenting every single gig in her diaries. From 1978 up until now! Why clown? I liked drama – the act of it. I wanted to learn drama as a discipline. The long journey started there. Then through different tracks I ended up being a clown artist. Any role-models? Any early influences? From the beginning I had a defined clown role. It was a well-directed role and I ran a roller-...

The day of shooting starts We started the day at 7, I still remember. It was drizzling and it was dark. Month of August and forecast was light showers all day.  Director friend Saikat had just come with the camera unit led by Ashish-da and they were checking different angles with light and sound. Surajit, the lead actor, playing the role of Abhi came shortly after and he was as much eager as we were. My first experience of a movie shooting! Excitement on one hand, I was more curious to know how everything will play out. I had read the screenplay written by the Director himself. But, it was hard for me to grasp the whole thing. Anyway, I was just the story-writer. I had written the "whats" and it is Saikat who was scripting all the "hows"! I looked at the old building, did I know it from earlier? It looked familiar. A little flash-back Finding this house had not been easy. Atin, Abhi, Hari and Ipsi - these were the 4 characters we had for the film. But that was not a...

Opening lines –  A young man – with a dream in his eyes, and a hope in his heart – makes a journey. From a suburb town, Balasore, in eastern India to Lund, a beautiful university town of southern Sweden. His homeland, his surroundings, his brothers and his mother are all left behind – he misses them. But then, such is life. His dream of becoming a doctor must be fulfilled. Since then, it has been three decades in this country. Dr Rabinarayan Dash, a rheumatologist and an author, wants to keep working for the people.   Spending an afternoon with him reveals the third dimension of his personality – that of a thinker. Deep down in him lies a person who loves to reflect and ask questions, often to himself. The essence of humanity –  It is very deep question. I think what is more important is understanding the similarities of humanity. Instead, we focus much more on the dissimilarities. Feelings like fear, anxiety, expectation and ambitions – all these things are co...

Early morning, breakfast completed and we were ready in no time! Destination? The beautiful coastline of Denmark, a bit of Helsingør, and if time permits, a bit of Copenhagen. The best part of a day-long outing is its planning. A lot of fun in the act of planning even though it is often hard to stick to the plan itself! Nevertheless, one needs to pack in as much fun in a single day as possible. So, planning is important! We needed to get to one end of our destination-spot right on time; there was no margin for error. We had to eat in between stopovers; we needed to take a bit of rest from time to time. We needed to feel happy all along; we did not want to get exhausted at the end of it all. The first stop was Klampenborg, a nice little suburb north of Copenhagen, Denmark. Piercing through the motorway from Sweden to the capital of Denmark is always a great experience. The roadway, the insignificant hillocks on the two sides, the half-open and half-closed Öresund bridge – ev...

These days…. These days I have been spending a lot of time with poetry, thanks to this wonderful book by Dr Rabinarayan Dash. Dr Dash has collected inspiration from his immediate surroundings, has assimilated those into this own thought process and has created imageries with words. Result: Clinical Trials, a book out of the ordinary! These days I am exploring it. These poems…. These poems are examples of conflicts. A physician, a healer and a practitioner – all in one – feels an inner dilemma. He is pained to see his lack of attachment to the humane aspect of doctoring. There is remorse, there is disbelief, there are questions and there are griefs. In one of the poems, the poet mentions “I have cited their sickness for the benefit of my own career/Have I forgotten that each man/Has a multiplicity of layers?” (Clinical Trials, 2016). These poems, in short, are created out of self-reflection done by a physician whereby he proclaims that science alone is hollow when it comes...

The final words....           So, as a music lover, how can we finish the composition named "O P Nayyar"? Well, tough act! Before coming to the conclusion, here are some questions that occur to our minds. He had been such a successful composer, why then did he have to vanish from the scene? Was not there more music left in him? How can it be that he had such a meteoric rise? And how can it be that he got forgotten and went into oblivion so soon?                                I do not think we have answers to these questions apart from a few points that we mentioned earlier. First, he was a musician with profound knowledge of music and singing style. He was a singer himself, and all those small brushes of improvisations, all those gentle movements of tunes, all those variations in tempo, speed and beats were his own -  very much his own.           ...