Article about a painting exhibition on the home page of Russia and India Report magazine

The contract with Russia and India Report is my reward for the years invested in trying to create a career in writing. I can now explore and express freely all the subjects of my choice – arts, culture, travel – with returns, both monetary and intellectually satisfactory. It might seem that my scope of work is limited to articles of common interests for Russia and India; however in a world of unlimited inspirations it is better to have a focus. Besides India and Russia, which essentially means South Asia and Eastern Europe, have a massive enough cultural riches.

It’s been only a couple of months since I begun this assignment and one of my article has already made it to the highlight story on the home page. This means quite a lot in the fleeting world of Internet journalism. It indicates the significance of my work to the magazine and it effectively soothes the pains which random editors have caused in the past by delaying or omitting my articles written with hard work, faith, and enthusiasm. Yes, it does happen to all who attempt and persevere.

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The Article >> Ekaterina Abramova, a Russian artist who deals with motley impressions from Russia and India

In my article for Russia and India Report I’ve tried to capture portraits of award-winning directors from all five countries. It was a task to gather any information of  critical worth about the directors from Brazil, China, and South Africa because they were not directly involved. Nonetheless, the event was a significant beginning for promoting cultural ties and a good opportunity for me to look inside the minds of filmmakers from across the globe.

I walked up to him later and shared my disappointment. He very generously offered an English translation and also shared anecdotes of his meetings with Ray. Though he claimed that his English is not very good, I found him to be extremely eloquent – with his carefully selected words and expressive hands. I immediately knew that he is a man of knowledge and distinction yet very accessible and pleasant. With a little research I learnt more.

Davlat Khudonazarov is not only a filmmaker of the league of Ray he is also a man of unparalleled courage and compassion. He has endured turbulent times, suffered his own works being banned or destroyed and never stopped working for peace and human rights.

His narration of first impressions of Pather Panchali reveals an artist immersed in a flow of creativity, “Life had been transformed into art and art back into life, the life of our spirit, of our very being, which in some way had been altered by this experience. The other had become our own. From and on we belonged to the world which had given to us Ray and which Ray had given to us.”

In my article in the online magazine I’ve put together Khudonazarov’s commentary on Satyajit Ray’s cinema.

Reproducing my note here, do take time out to visit Ritu’s collection on her blog.

All creative journeys begin with an exploration of the self and the surrounding. The artist perceives the given anew, with a childlike fancy and a discoverer’s enquiry. When unbridled by blinds of social conditioning, the neighbourhood becomes a treasure of inspiration. Realizing such a level of awareness can be rewarding as well as overwhelming. Patiently following a method through the magical madness, Ritu has emerged along this path.

Ritu Mehra has evolved a tool to plot her imagination. She gives herself a variable surface akin to a sandy riverbed or a mossy growth and improvises thereon adding elements and responding to nothing but the demands of her canvas. Her subjects take shape with softness of stanzas extracted from a poem, unscathed by the pangs of anxiety that the artist endures through the process. Like an adventurous alchemist she let’s varying ingredients simmer and become a whole represented in unified and often muted colours. Preoccupied in this lab within herself she delineates the brewing interactions of muses and mediums.

Her engineering mind takes off from a fresh frame of reference every time and playfully indulges in all that could apparate on her canvas and take it anywhere. Where this approach will go from here, there doesn’t seem to be a limit.

It can work in two ways – it may put you off or it may make you want to shut the crap up by posing an example of excellence and ‘show them!’ In the later case mediocrity becomes a fuel for originality. However nothing that doesn’t glare can influence the masses. It would be a waste to take on anything if you aren’t doing it solely for yourself.

Because isolation is neither practical nor possible, the only guard from the suffocating mediocrity is a preoccupation with excellence, mostly on a personal level.

CONTINUUM

Search for a key to understand Vikram’s works leads me into the labyrinthine realm of creative activity. I am met with a multitude of realizations that pose as many questions. The scene becomes as intricate as the paintings themselves. The laboriously rendered layers create an impression of infinite depth and flaunt artist’s incisive vision, dexterity, and patience. Each canvas suggests that there is more to it. Its gravity keeps drawing the artist deeper. This relation is saved from becoming a black hole because he always manages to bungee out into the tangible world.

Vikram engages with life as an active participant; as a performing artist, an activist, and above all as any other social animal. He is willing to go beyond the known limits of his self, never denying any possibilities. There is a scope for risk even in his most carefully planned strokes. It occurs as an element of red in many of his works, representing youthful vigour and fearlessness that contains the power to change everything—for better or for worse. It is this inquisitiveness that helps him perceive his environment and render it anew on his canvas. And he does it with such lucidity as if life was so easy to understand and articulate.

Such a creative process happens within the permeable periphery of self and the artist becomes the subject as well as the object. Mindfulness enables the artist. The degree of self-realization determines the quality which makes art and distinguishes it as valuable. It takes perseverance and discipline –the traits that have put Vikram in this continuum of exploration and refinement.

Ferozshah Kotla ground is looking like a green disc from the vantage point of media box. Grass has been levelled wherever needed. A staffer is crisscrossing the field with a spray. Nets have been setup at radially opposite corners. Teams will begin warm-ups in a couple of hours. Entry gates will soon be opened for spectators. I suppose they are queuing up outside the stadium already. First come would be first served but not to the two front rows. Due to security reasons the Delhi police doesn’t allow those rows to be occupied. But nothing mars the spirit of cricket fans. They wouldn’t mind even if there weren’t any seats. Excitement of T20 keeps you jumping out of your seats anyway.

Within no time the stadium would be full beyond capacity. Some people will bring eye-catching banners and some will put their cheer leading skills on display hoping to capture cameramens’ attention and get their moment on the screen.
Back here in the media box journalists will soon be arriving. They will set up their gear and get ready to file reports and analysis. The TV crew has setup its functions already. My team is also ready to ensure smooth functioning of the media center. The stage has been set.

It was a stand-up show. Throughout the match people would stand-up after every 30 seconds and the guy in the front row would show his jockey. It was the pattern every time the ball left the bat or a player came close to the boundary or a cheer girl raised a pompom. IPL is indeed a thrilling package. In such frenzy it is as impossible to remain seated as keeping your eyes open while sneezing. Don’t even try, your eyes will pop out!

The organizers must’ve anticipated the irrelevance of seats because they sold twice as many tickets as the stadium capacity. It felt like being in a local bus where ‘capacity’ is indicative of the number of people that can stand inside the vehicle. And in just the same way as we learn how to adjust in public transport, I learnt the art of watching a match through the rise and fall of butts. By the first strategic time out I figured that I must submit to the wave and jump along with everyone if I wanted to keep an eye on the ball.

And then I was in the groove. It indeed is fun to watch a match from the stands. I think I can just sum it up the dilli way – “feel aagayi!” (meaning: that felt awesome!)

This post was published on my blog HOOKed! at Cricket Aakash

Beginning with the king i.e. content, the pictures are organized into galleries that reflect Nitin’s choice of genres. Inside each portfolio page the photographs were lined up according to the same principles as one would apply while displaying artworks in a real life gallery. The selection and sequence of images is not random. Each picture was handpicked out of Nitin’s massive collection and carefully placed in an appropriate order. These pages also carry the context of each selection through text.

The webpage was meant to be sleek looking and functionally efficient. These days the obvious choice for implementing websites seems to be either Flash or a CMS. Both are very capable and sharp swords. But all that I needed was a needle. So far I’ve only used HTML and JavaScript in this site.

The thing about Flash that makes it so useful for creating interactive websites is ActionScript. This language is like a cousin of JavaScript, both being dialects of ECMA-Script. ActionScript comes into play inside a Flash environment that works independent of the internet browser, while JavaScript allows you to use built-in browser functionality. JavaScript objects fit inside HTML and can be controlled through CSS. The advantage of using this trio is that they are native to browsers and HTML gets plus points in SEO scorecards. I wouldn’t bundle all my data inside a Flash module unless I am creating a rich internet application.

Another important decision was to not use a CMS, simply because it wasn’t needed. A CMS is used when you’ve a lot of content updated almost on a daily basis. Like I said earlier that the selection of photographs is not random, we didn’t want to program it either. You can’t just place any artwork besides another. We needed direct control over presentation of photographs, hence the hard coding.

The site will soon have CMS driven sections. There will be a photoblog that Nitin can use to interact more regularly with visitors.

I believe that to create an effective communication content, presentation, and technology have to be joined together through a common thought process. In this case I needed to create a website that rings with the photographer’s philosophy about his work – Optimum. And being optimum is not a stage but a continuous process, so this online portfolio will evolve along with the photographer.

Well, this doesn’t have to be a tongue twister of a read. It is a simple observation that lower order batsmen are no more afraid of being at the crease. This courage could be because of the T20 culture which has brought out the pinch hitter in the likes of Harbhajan Singh. The cheekiest remark that he has made in the press was before last year’s India-Australia series – “watch out for my batting” is what he had to say to his favorite rivals. He almost pulled it off along with Praveen Kumar in a recent match.

Praveen Kumar doesn’t only swing the ball both ways but he swings himself too, between the ball and bat I mean. He has been an all rounder for Uttar Pradesh. If I was collecting only Indian specimen then choicest of the current lot would be Amit Mishra for redefining the role of a night watchman. On both the occasions that he has been sent for this task he has batted like a true batsman with some classic shots in his armor. I once asked an old veteran bowler how it feels to be assigned the task to bat ahead of specialist batsmen, to which he replied that only the players with some batting capacity would be sent in as a night watchman and thus it becomes a good opportunity for them to score. Of course no one would’ve asked Courtney Walsh to do so. No matter how entertaining it could’ve been.

Nowadays even the eleventh man doesn’t put up a dramatic display of nerves, except for a little fumble by someone like Ashish Nehra. I think I once saw him take a sigh of relief when he took a single to rotate strike. However in the previous India-South Africa ODI he put up a brave show. Sadly he gave away the runs he scored while defending.

These are just a few instances of substantial efforts by tailenders, that too from recent Indian matches. This makes me question how many of these have translated into wins for their teams. I can’t think of any such scenarios. Contribution of tailenders is at best a bonus for the team’s score. Sometimes it could be a saving grace, but it is far from being the case of a tail that can wag the dog.

This post was published on my blog HOOKed! at Cricket Aakash