Article
Girish Karnad – Interview by Interview by AHMED RIZVI and NANDAN NILEKANI
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 […]
Article
Choas At The Kendra – DOORDARSHAN STRIKE
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 […]
Article
Crime – Murder – A Bloody Affair
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 […]
Interview
Ghasiram Kotwal – An Inconclusive Muddle
SUDDENLY, eight years after it had first been performed, Ghasiram Kotwal was in the news again. Bombay’s theatre world watched, stunned, as a dispute that everyone thought had been settled forever, grabbed the headlines last fortnight. Contributing to a sense of deja vu was the fact that the opposing sides in the dispute were old […]
Article
Event Of The Fortnight – The Karnad Wedding
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. View PDF […]
Article
The Making Of A Programme
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, […]
Article
The Rise Of The Ghazal Singers
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. View PDF
Article
The New Generation: 1960-1980: Saeed Mirza
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 […]