The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal

I had reviewed the ‘20th Pandit Durgalal Festival’ for the magazine ‘Nartanam’. Here are some photographs from the event.

 
The event is presented annually by danseuse Uma Dogra to commemorate the memory of Durgalal, her dance guru. Uma is the founder and Managing Director of ‘Sam Ved Society for Performing Arts’.

 
The three day festival began with a performance of light ghazals by Jagjit Singh. There was much demand for some of his popular ghazals but they served no …

Santa Singh

One
Have a look at this lady [photo top: right]. She has acted in renowned and mostly-art-house filmmaker Shyam Benegal’s ‘Well Done Abba’. You would say that she is in the movie because she is pretty, graceful or beautiful. But then you learn that she has had a nose surgery done to rectify the nose that Mr. God gave her. While there may be something or nothing wrong in that (I find her pretty), it means that she does not consider herself as …

Santa Singh

(On Amitabh Bachchan being hounded by a political party
Read: One, Two)

Hello ____ (insert your name here). How are you. Come, we will now embrace. Say (I wink), the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world eh?

(You look blank)…uh of course… Earth laughs in flowers. Heh heh heh…

Which flower?

Um… sorry?

Which flower does the earth laugh in.

Oh it’s a quote by Emerson.

(I shout) No WHICH flower does the earth laugh in.

Ummm… any flower… …

Kartikey Sehgal

If you want to have a clear picture of the events,… then you may watch these videos instead of relying on the contents of the traditional media that holds the ongoing Indian Premiere League as more important than the ongoing riots.

The participating minority community has not endeared itself to the nation by indulging in riots at Karnataka and Bareilly. The media has been relatively silent on the riots till now—apparently to not blow it into a national issue—but the shopkeepers and bylane …

Kartikey Sehgal

Rated Mature.
Swami: A title given to a monk or a spiritual master

It may be an uncomfortable truth but swamis have hair on their body. When they recline on their bed and if the robe around their body is loosely tied, then it will pull up, exposing to anybody interested, hairy thighs. Sometimes they may even scratch those thighs.

Yet when they sit in their robes and talk about spirituality and science, many listeners don’t imagine such basic truths about the …

Ananth Venkatesh

Secularism is a laudable concept that has been constitutionalised in several countries of the world. France and Turkey are two examples of nations that come to mind. They have an intransigently secular constitution that is vehemently opposed to the infiltration of religion into the affairs of the state.

The Turkish military remains a bastion of obdurate secularism that feels threatened by the Islamist personality of the party that is currently guiding the country. However, it would be prudent to mention that the Justice …

Ananth Venkatesh

“Undue reliance on tranquil international diplomacy and forceless intranational diplomacy can backfire badly, thereby humiliating the national ego.”

The monstrosity of terrorists demonstrated by the recent bloodletting in Pune [Photo: top; source] illustrates the deviousness of Islamist fundamentalism. The blameless victims of the blast at a popular store of bakery in Pune are the latest in the enormous list of unfortunate Indians who have been wolfed by Islamist bigots.

India is a nation that has juddered continually due to the remorseless personality …

Kartikey Sehgal

Can this be a tourist spot. May we make it into one. The area is Verova Village that connects to the popular Mudh Island area by ferryboats. When you are in Mumbai you may like to go to the beaches at Mudh. The ferries at Versova Village are an easier way to reach Mudh; they are economical and save you hours of road traffic.

Versova Village holds a capacity for magnificence; if you can go past the filth and pollution. Any lover of …

Kartikey Sehgal

“Happiness will not come from happiness; but only from pain. We know the value of standing in shade only after roaming in the hot day sun.”
–Atharva Veda

Pain is fun. Pain is natural. Pain is the word given to describe a feeling that is not like happiness. Humans crave pain. Often they are not able to understand the true nature of pain and hence they give in to drugs and sadism. To know pain is to understand a simple duality.

You know …

Kartikey Sehgal
Part One
Part Two

Another theatre writer, Vikram Kapadia, whose play is undergoing adaptation for film, thinks that “there is no fixed formula as to what makes a film work”.

Vikram’s play ‘Black With Equal’ is a black comedy in English about the trials and tribulations of a housing society and has been staged more than a hundred times.

Like Aatish, he is comfortable with placing an item song in the film but his concern is avoiding the ‘dumbing down’ ‘of content. He …