Why the latest edition of Bonjour India will be an affair to remember
Come November, art and culture enthusiasts, especially those with Francophile sensibilities, will have plenty to look forward to. The Indo-French festival, Bonjour India—in its third and most ambitious avatar—envisages a four-monthlong extravaganza that goes beyond merely the artistic. Technology, education and environment will also be in focus this time around. From Kochi to Kisama, Chandigarh to Chandannagar, Pondicherry to Pune, Bonjour India has close to 70 projects and programmes in its sights and will visit a total of 36 Indian cities.
With the various projects envisaging long-term engagement, running from five to 10 years, cultural counsellor and country director of Institut Française India, who is also general curator of Bonjour India, Dr Bertrand de Hartingh, is emphatic when he says, “Calling an exchange like this a ‘festival’ limits the scope of the projects. This is an exchange of ideas that aims to touch the lives of common people in areas as diverse as technology, medical advances, particularly in the surgical field, education and, of course, the arts.”
While de Hartingh may be loath to label this collaboration a mere “festival”, it is perhaps the most convenient descriptor as it will be a celebration of excellence and innovation in a multiplicity of fields. Rock and jazz music fests to game jams, “It-fashion” to IT, water conservation and management to sailing, women’s football to photography, music to mime and ballet to books, the canvas is huge. Given that the exchange aims to straddle
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October - December 2017 من The Indian Quarterly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة October - December 2017 من The Indian Quarterly.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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The Image-Maker
Sukumar Ray’s most vivid images were saved for his classics of nonsense verse, but his singular eye, writes Nabarupa Bhattacharjee, found its earliest expression in photography
The Nawab's Last Sigh
Rudely awakened by the fact of independent India, an aristocrat in Meerut clung to his past. Now, he tells Sunaina Kumar, all he has left are his memories of a glorious age.
The Guest
Vaiyavan is the nom de plume of MSP Murugesan. Born in 1936, he did sundry jobs before obtaining postgraduate degrees by correspondence and then served as an English and Tamil teacher till his retirement in 1996. His writing career began in 1956. Multifaceted and prolific, he has to his credit a long list of short story collections, novels, plays, literary essays, poems and children’s stories. He has won several awards including Tamil Nadu government awards for best book on culture (1982) and best science book (1992) and the Malcolm Adiseshiah award for active participation in neo-literacy activities (1996). In his short stories and novels, Vaiyavan revels in a zest for life. Humaneness is the hallmark of his work, as the pain and pleasure, trials and tribulations of people in different rungs of society are described in minute detail. —CGR
The Birth of an Anthem
From right-wing slogan to moving patriotic song and now back to Hindu nationalistic war cry. Rimli Sengupta on the evolution of Vande Mataram
The Birth of a Parent
The beginning of a new life can create other strange new lives, reflects Manidipa Mandal
The Unknown Soldier
One man wondered and worried about his disappeared brother all his life.His granddaughter continued the search. Preksha Sharma resurrects a man and his story
The Art Scene
For the new kid on the block, it certainly has pedigree. The Centre for Con-temporary Art, housed within Delhi’s Bikaner House complex, finally opened its portals to welcome art aficionados during this year’s edition of the India Art Fair. Nature Morte was invited to stage the centre’s much-awaited inaugural show, an opportunity the gallery found too irresistible to pass up. The ambitious exhibition it mounted, The Idea of the Acrobat, occupied both floors of the recently renovated building and brought together the works of a dozen well known artists in a multitude of media. The line-up included Bharti Kher, Atul Dodiya, Dayanita Singh, Shilpa Gupta, Ayesha Singh, Khyentse Norbu and LN Tallur to name but a few.
Long, Long Ago
Arundhuti Dasgupta and Utkarsh Patel recount obscure creation myths from around the world, many echoing each other
Family Business
AT THE DINDUKKAL BUS DEPOT, the abortionist pushed her way through the crowd thronging the bus and finally managed to board it. She placed her travel bag beside her on the seat, calling out to her niece to hurry up. The young woman renewed her efforts to break free of the tangle of limbs and claim the seat reserved for her.
A Goan Childhood
Fragments of memory of a time long gone, from a life lived far away. By Selma Carvalho
