Tuesday, July 21, 2009

A day with lots of people...

I had been to Kamla Raheja some days ago and the day was extremely eventful…in the morning, I contacted Ateya and found out that she would be there in KRV that day. As I reached the place, I found Namrata (Kapoor) and Ateya in their auditorium watching Persepolis. Though I did not catch up with the entire movie, I saw some ending portion of it and it was really nice. Ateya and I and also Namrata spoke for some time after the movie when some students came for a review of their work. It was interesting to discuss their work (which was a part of the workshop which Ateya and Namrata were taking). After a long time, I interacted with students. It was refreshing.

We later went up to the staff room (I guess that is what it was) to have lunch. Outside the same, I met Mayuri(Sisodia). I had met him at the Metrologue workshop. She said that she was going off to Bartlett and i gave her Prarthana's contact. She was happy to have it.

At the lunch, I did not have any thing, as I was feeling a bit embarrassed, to be in a place which I don’t think was yet for me…soon, other people started pouring in…Rohan (Shivkumar), Rupali (Gupte), Kaushik (Mukhopadhyay)…all of them…And I was not expecting to see them around…actually I was even more abashed when all of them arrived. We did not speak, but I just remained a passive listener. Later, Hansa (Thapliyal) and Mr. Kamal arrived. For those who don’t know who she is, she is a film maker. I have worked with her in a PUKAR sound editing and video editing workshop. That is primarily how I know her. Otherwise, we have always kept on bumping into each other in seminars, conferences, etc. so she knows me quite well. Also, she stays quite close to my house, but we have never met each other. The thread of this story, I will carry further later…

So Hansa was taking an elective workshop (I guess on film making) at KRVIA with Mr. Kamal , who also seemed to be a film maker. He was an old man, with white hair, twinkling eyes and sweet smile and a curiosity on his face. Soon, Kaushik introduced my thesis subject to him and he was extremely passionate about it. I briefly explained what I intended to do…and he was overjoyed… I must mention here that there are only a few people who understand my thesis idea in a go. Surprisingly, all at KRVIA understand the idea very well. So I was happy. He asked me if the thesis was published anywhere, and I told him about the publication in IA&B. but I also mentioned to him that I would like to personally meet and hand over a copy to him. I overheard him while speaking to Hansa, that he was working on some project for the blind and could gather some clues from my thesis. This was a very different intersection with a film maker and my project and unlike what Ms. Sarita Vijayan (Editor at IA&B) was proposing. She had mentioned to take this idea forward to a film maker and I rejected. I quite liked the present intersection.

Kaushik further mentioned about keeping a mock-presentation of my project at KRVIA. I agreed and also mentioned that I was more excited to see his work. But I like Kaushik because he has always been excited to see my project. Another reason is that he is from one of the finest art institutions in India – Shanti Niketan, and thirdly, he is a Bengali. I have a particular affinity towards Bengalis for the reason that half my native place is in Kolkata, and I generally like their inclination towards art culture and their perpetual ‘awe-‘ accent in any other language. Also, Bengali is a very sweet language (as far as I have heard) and it comes across…

So coming back to the day, I further went and joined Ateya and Namrata in their crit-session upstairs. I was actually hesitating to join them, because I did not want to be a ‘kabab-mein-haddi’ but I just took a seat in their room. I saw students almost dozing off when Namrata and Ateya were addressing, but I am sure they purposely left those students unnoticed. Unfortunately many students donot take interestin theoretical discourses in the present system. This is a problem with the entire country I guess. However, that’s not a problem of the tutors. But how does one flip around the scene? I tried doing it while discussing the next student’s paper. I tweaked two or three small questions into the discussion. Slowly I saw chairs moving, students waking and giggles in the class room. I was happy…but I left for I had to reach for an interview to Max Muller Bhavan. While leaving the place, I met my juniors Aditya (Sawant) and Mayuri (my college) and also saw Sriganesh, whom i didnot want to meet...so i skipped his eyes...

I reached Max Muller Bhavan about 10 minutes late. But that’s ISD and was not minded. At Goethe Institute, Max Muller Bhavan, I met Ms. Jayashree, who was the programme co ordinator over there. She was listening to beautiful music and I entered her room which had a big enough window to capture a patch of green. The corner occupied a small library with sufficient books. On the table on my right was an Apple desktop (was it apple?) but nevertheless, it was a beautiful atmosphere…

We spoke about the institute’s activities and she explained me my possible work profile. Not going deeper into this, I will cut it short and proceed to my meeting with Nihara (Kantak) at IA&B. I collected the latest issue which featured my thesis. I later went up to meet Thomas who has been shifted (actually by choice) to Chemtech from I-Structure. We spoke for some time and since we were in office, we agreed to meet later at the Marine Drive. I left the place to head towards the sea face.

While waiting at the Drive and reading the project brief provided by Ms. Jayashree, I spotted Neha (Parker) and her friend Hitesh. I went ahead and poked her. We went together to Gay Lords. Over there I met Neha’s colleagues and they too were very fascinated after knowing my thesis topic, which Neha had already spoken to them about. Thomas cancelled his meet diplomatically (realizing that I was already occupied). They left and then Dhaval joined in. we had a good discussion on our general ‘larger’ issues of life, when we left Neha in a contemplative mood.

Dhaval, Hitesh and I then left for home…

The only person I missed that day was Sonal (Sunderrajan) – I hope you are reading this sonal…that was the only day in KRVIA I didn’t meet you….

1 comment:

sundarsonal said...

where are you today then?