Recent assurances by Secretary of State George Shultz to the Indian government regarding U.S. supplying spare parts to the Tarapur nuclear plant have generated misdirected reaction in this country.
Stripped of their politicization the facts are these: By virtue of a 1963 Indo-U.S. agreement, the U.S. has
a contractual obligation to supply the Tarapur plant for the stipulated 30-year period.
Ea r l ie r this year, those who followed the activities of Rajiv Gandhi when he came to the city, noticed that while for most of the time he remained in the shadow of his mother, he made one deviation. He agreed to attend a tea-party hosted in his honour by an organisation—hitherto unheard of—called the Economic Forum. The inquisitive, who ventured to find out who was present, speculated on the nature of this forum, which included people as disparate as the ageing politician S.K. Patil, textile magnate Nusli Wadia and film producer B.R. Chopra.
The more uncharitable concluded that the forum was an instant concoction put up so that a bunch of influential
people could meet the potential politician.
The Economic Forum, convened by Y.P. Trivedi which has since been engaged in diverse activity, arranged a discussion with S.S. Mahopatra, and belongs to a class of committees numerous in the city that specialise in
such ‘meetings’.
LIKE every other Shyam Benegal film, Kalyug, slated for release next month, has already received more than its fair share of media attention. The focus, however, seems to have been on the fact that the director has cast commercially established stars such as Rekha, Shashi Kapoor and Raj Babbar in its major roles. The criticism
that greeted Junoon, his last film, is now being repeated.
Benegal, it is being said, has sold out, gone commercial, dumped his art film credentials, and switched to a more paying kind of cinema.
Dr Prabha Atre, 45, vocalist, is a simple, unassuming person, not given to talking about herself. Watching her go about the modest Mahim flat, worrying about the carpenter not coming in, or the snacks being served right, it is difficult to imagine the same woman on stage at a concert—dignified, even a little aloof, and totally in command of her performance.
IT was no different from other music festivals that Bombay is treated to during the peak music season, except that it was organised by Protima Bedi, and her Odissi Dance Centre students. And since Protima is a commercial password when it comes to all things cultural, the festival drew to its charmed circle, big names.
About five years ago, Zakir Hussain, like all other talented tabla players, was known merely as an accompanist. Being the son of a world famous artiste, Ustad Alla Rakha, he had far more exposure than those with less exalted family connections, but he did not draw crowds for himself, as he does today.
This star status, this cult that has been built around Hussain, really started, predictably enough, with news of his experimentation with jazz and classical musicians abroad. “Suddenly, when ‘Shakti’, our musical trio, with L. Shankar, violinist, and John Mclaughlin, and myself, became a success in the States, I found, on my return to India that year, that I was something of a celebrity,” Hussain admits.
ARROKH MEHTA has just completed a full-house run of the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, where in his role as Mitch, he stole the show. His wife, Vijaya has just successfully launched a classical theatre production in Sanskrit, Abhigyan Shakuntal, which is amassing rave reviews from critics.
Right now however both the Mehtas are going through a relative lull in their theatre activities.
After Basu Chatterjee’s ‘Swami’, Girish Karnad is much in demand as a ‘character actor’ in commercial Hindi cinema. But he first made his mark as a playwright (‘Tughlaq’, ‘Hayavadana’) and as one of the pioneers of the new cinema
movement in Karnataka. Karnad maintains =his varied involvement in theatre and cinema— as a writer, an actor and a film-maker.
He has just written his fifth play and is planning to begin work on his next feature film.
Bombay Doordarshan, that bureaucratic monolith, has now been in existence for just over eight years. Almost unremarked upon by the press so far for its gross ineptitude and mismanagement, it suddenly became the focus of attention early this month.
The Doordarshan Programme Staff Union (Dpsu) announced their decision to begin a massive strike to express their
various grievances.
It seemed incredible that a murder could be committed in a building right on the main road of one of the City’s busiest areas—Chowpatty. But on November 12, ex-judge of the Bombay High Court S.M. Shah, 75, and his wife Dr Mira Shah, 61, were found in a pool of blood in their home in the Central building near the Aram restaurant.
