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.
The event of the fortnight was the catch of the the year, Girish Karnad, tying the knot with his lady love of 10 years’ standing, Saraswathy Ganpathy.
That the evening saw the big names amongst playwrights, film-makers, socialites, ad men, and models emerge from, their respective niches, speaks volumes for the bridegroom’s versatility.
Mo s t viewers of the Box are totally in the dark as to what goes into a programme. A peek behind the scenes reveals an astonishing sight—mismanagement, innovation, confusion and even flashes of genius. We chose ‘Parikrama’ as our prototype programme because of its popularity. (60 per cent of the audience watches ‘Parikrama’ regularly,
according to Doordarshan’s research unit survey).
Ghazal singers have become the new cultural celebrities in India.
They sing to packed houses, their programmes are very popular on television, and their records sell better than many Hindi film records. Why have they suddenly become so popular? ROHINI SOMAN investigates.
If you were to ask Saeed Mirza an awkward question, he would probably fling an even more tricky one at you.
A very difficult man to corner, Mirza is the most vociferous spokesman on the Parallel Cinema movement in India, Compact, with a straight no-nonsense beard.
Saeed Mirza, in his mid-thirties, is still an angry young man.
