Mathures Paul

Dundee is known for jam, journalism and jute. For a better understanding of the jute industry, which has almost disappeared from Dundee, Hopscotch Films crew was in India. John Archer shares his thoughts on the subject with Mathures Paul The old jute mills that once dotted Calcutta are fast disappearing, only to be replaced by concrete jungles. The importance of the raw material, needless to say, will be understood not before it’s too late. Glasgow-based production company Hopscotch Films set out to make a documentary on a subject that binds Dundee to Calcutta. John Archer was in Calcutta with his large team to film Brian Cox’s Jute Journey, a subject close to the heart of actor Brian Cox. John Archer of Hopscotch Films speaks to The Statesman. What prompted Hopscotch Films to take on a documentary on jute trade? In Scotland, Dundee is renowned as being the city of the three Js ~ jam, jute and journalism. This is such an old cliche that we will not be mentioning it in our documentary! ...

"There is something about Kolkata and India that gets into your blood!” J Chloe Braun has been writing articles and short stories most of her life. Having spent 12 years working with underprivileged women and children, her journals and memories gave birth to Hurdy Gurdy, a fictional account of one brave woman’s escape from spousal abuse. Raised in the small Armenian community, one of her aunts by marriage was an Anglo Indian. “Along with my parents she had a tremendous influence on me — encouraging me to read by buying me books, to be always willing to read my work, to study music and to think! Kolkata was a great place to grow up in – with its rich culture and hospitable people. Most of my teachers were Anglo Indians – my English teacher was tremendous. She not only taught us to speak proper English but to love the language as well.” The seeds for Hurdy Gurdy was sowed at a writing competition. “The topic (of the competition) was ‘Unusual customs or practices’, or something like ...

Mathures Paul meets cartoonist Mangesh Tendulkar Proud of his creations, Mangesh Tendulkar walks around Tilak Hall in Maharastra Nivas explaining to visitors the power of cartoons. An opposite of his renowned playwright brother Vijay Tendulkar, 70-year-old Mangesh is in town to host his first exhibition. You have read much about Anant Pai and RK Laxman. Their contribution to Indian comics and cartoons is immense. But that of Tendulkar is equally important. He is a master in the art of single frames. He doesn’t enjoy the advantage of white space that exists between panels in a comic book. Much can happen between frames — Superman might die, Hagar give up drinking and Charlie Brown win a baseball match. Tendulkar has to tell his story with a single picture and that too without a bubble. “Words make the frame weak. To tell a story without words is difficult,” says the cartoonist. The last time he was in Kolkata was in 1976-77. “Kolkata has allowed me to enjoy great music, poetry, film and...

By Mathures Paul Silence is golden. With every footstep along the less-treaded green grass of South Park Street Cemetery one discovers on headstones names that inspired mortal souls to pen works of labour. In full bloom, branches still hang low over the tombs of the forgotten. Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes May weep, but never see, A night of memories and of sighs I consecrate to thee. Buried in the cemetery, Rose Aylmer’s death inspired poet Walter Savage Landor to write this verse. As a 17-year-old carefree girl, Rose strolled alongside Landor on the mountains of Wales. She arrived in the city in May 1798 to join her aunt, Lady Russell (after whose husband Russell Street was named). But as luck would have it, she died of cholera a year after her arrival. Heartsick, Landor penned his elegy to Rose Aylmer that was engraved on her tomb in 1910. Even in death she remains a mystery for some. A few locals attribute her death to choking on pineapple and a few to an overdose of the fru...

Casually dressed, soft-spoken and a patient listener, Pascal Bruckner is an acclaimed French novelist. Born with an instinct for the fresh, Bruckner belongs to the Generation of 1968, a revolutionary era in the history of France. In town to promote The Divine Child (Rupa France), a novel published sometime back, he is a man who doesn’t divorce politics, culture and sexuality. “There are numerous ways to exhibit the spirit of resistance. In France, everybody wants to resist, some against the government and others against culture. In Divine Child the question that I place before readers is what if a child were permitted to choose, before birth, whether or not to enter the world,” says Bruckner. In the book, Madeleine Barthelemey is pregnant with twins. Doctors advice her to undertake their education in utero. Soon Celine is born. But she has to forgo her eruditeness upon entering the world. Being a spectator of her fate, Louis refuses birth and embarks on a rebellion. In chapters like “t...

Renowned stand-up comic Russell Peters visits Kolkata, where his mother and brother were born. He speaks to Mathures Paul about his early career, the elections in America and future projects In North America a growing number of stand-up comics of Indian origin are becoming famous, a popular name among them is Russell Peters, who started performing in Toronto in 1989. These days he lives in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, where the environment is ‘just right’ for stand-up comics. After a long break Peters returned to India, which he doesn’t, like many celebrities of Indian origin, loosely calls his ‘hometown’. His show in Kolkata perhaps was just another show for him but his stay here surely was special to him. His father was born in Mumbai and mother in Kolkata. His elder brother, Clayton, was also born in Kolkata, making his stay a memorable one. In fact, when The Statesman caught up with him, he had a few minutes to spare before rushing off to meet his uncles. “I have never seen stand-up ...

Innovating on the spot. That sums up what Helga’s Fun Band is all about. Formed in November 2004, this is a band to watch out for. The group’s four happy-go-luck chaps — Siddharth Coutto (also drummer of Zero), Meghashyam (ex-guitarist of Acquired Funk Syndrome and Zero guitarist), Gino Banks (son of Louiz Banks) and Johan Pais (ex-Vicious Circle) — are always game to come up with a song on the spur of the moment. It’s a mini “supergroup” with seasoned musicians. The “jam” band was formed by Coutto to fulfil his desires to become a singer and mainly because he was bored playing the drums all the time. “We are just a bunch of guys out to have fun. If there’s a gig and you want four fun-loving musicians, think of us,” says Coutto before a performance at Someplace Else. HFC started off as Helga’s Funk Castle but soon dropped the “k” from “funk”. “We were considered a funk band even though we performed all kinds of numbers. To spice up things, we became known as Helga’s Fun Castle. It’s a ...

When she rolled her fingers over the piano keys, every note danced in praise of Neda Navaee’s beauty. The weekend crowd at the Calcutta School of Music enjoyed an evening of classical pieces played on the piano by the Toranto-based pianist Navaee. Born in 1973 in Isfahan, Iran, her parents soon moved to Washington, where she received her first piano lessons at the age of five. “With father being a musician, I was unknowingly inclined towards the subject since childhood. We had a normal piano, which I loved playing. When I turned 15, I took up playing the piano more seriously,” said Navaee, who had earlier performed in Mumbai and Pune. “Before I reached India, I was aware of the fact that people don’t get the opportunity to listen to Western classical music on piano as often as Westerners. After the initial bout of anxiety, I was relieved to hear crowds applaud.” The programme, sponsored by the Canadian High Commission and ITC Ltd, featured compositions by Beethoven, Prokofiev and Mende...

Cookery to Keith Floyd is the result of religion, geography and war. Mathures Paul marinades his career When satellite television arrived in India, two personalities inspired men to enter kitchens — Keith Floyd and Martin Yan. While some men lost a finger or two trying to outdo Yan, others went a bit tipsy watching Floyd sip wine and rustle up delicacies in natural surroundings. After all these years, Floyd, with his bow tie and smooth talk, remains a favourite among television viewers. Floyd’s definition of cooking is best described in A Feast of Floyd: “Cooking is an art and patience a virtue... Careful shopping, fresh ingredients and an unhurried approach are nearly all you need. There is one more thing — love. Love for food and love for those you invite to your table. With a combination of these things you can be an artist — not perhaps in the representational style of a Dutch master, but rather more like Gauguin, the naïve, or Van Gogh, the impressionist. Plates or pictures of sun...

Flamenco has evolved over centuries of political and ethnic influences, writes Mathures Paul Grace personified, Laura Gonzalez swirled across the Calcutta School of Music auditorium floor to the amazement of those participating in a flamenco workshop. The very word flamenco conjures up images of intense passion and makes you say “Ole!”. Guitarist Fran Molina, Luis Garcia, percussionist Daniel Parra and dancer Laura Gonzalez gave pointers to the receptive audience gathered at Calcutta School of Music. But they were not averse to learning more about Indian dance forms and the degree to which the two can blend. “Whenever we get the opportunity, we listen to Indian music. It has rhythm. I know an American drummer who learnt the tabla when he visited India. But we have never spared a thought to the proposition of mixing Indian rhythms with flamenco,” says Daniel. Before arriving in Kolkata, the four mesmerised crowds in Delhi, where a sitar was also incorporated into the performance. Like o...

Sukhwinder Singh always finds Kolkata to be a tough venue for concerts as listeners here appreciate good lyrics and melody over crass ‘hit’ numbers. Over to Mathures Paul Performing in Kolkata has always been a challenge for most singers as music lovers here look beyond the glitz and glamour, at elements that distinguish mediocre from the talented, melody from a clutter of notations, feels Sukhwinder Singh, who arrives in Kolkata on 2 November to perform at Rabindra Sarovar Stadium, after successful concerts in Bangalore, Ambala, Ajmer, Rourkela and Thane. An extremely selective singer, quite like most composers/musicians he works with, Singh is currently in the news for Fashion Ka Jalwa, the hit track from Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion. Speaking to The Statesman, he shares thoughts beyond films. His Kolkata performance would feature mostly his hit numbers, and the list is quite long ~ from films such as Dil Se to Tashan to Fashion, played with a twist in terms of orchestration. He share...

Anthony LoGerfo has achieved at a young age what most drummers dream of during their lifetime. After working with Gwen Stefani, he is busy recording for Eliana Burki’s next album. Mathures Paul met him backstage Drummers can make concerts a roaring success or be responsible for poor reviews. At a very young age Anthony LoGerfo has set high standards, those demanded by rock stars; he has every element that goes into the making of another Ginger Baker, Brian Blade, Matt Brann or Matt Helders. Anyway, he’s almost there, courtesy Gwen Stefani on whose two albums ~ Love. Angel. Music. Baby. and The Sweet Escape ~ he has drummed like a man possessed by a passion. Not just Stefani, he is also the drummer for renowned Alpine horn player Eliana Burki and Elan Attias of The Wailers. Being part of a group, one tends to get lost while touring and the vocalist steals the limelight. LoGerfo thrilled critics, promising that better music is on the way. His association with Gwen Stefani was purely acci...

DJ Sanj doesn’t fail to pump up the volume on his latest album, Bollywood Punk, writes Mathures Paul The British R&B act Rouge, comprising, Laura Ismail (Egypt), Legha Joseph (Iran) and Amrita Hunjan (India), in the last few years has made rapid progress towards the top of European music charts, giving us the hit Don’t Be Shy, and is now working on their second album with Timbaland. Though the J-Nas mix of the track is enjoying considerable success, few know that he is also known as DJ Sanj, one of the more popular names among Indian artistes living abroad. As DJ Sanj, he likes to stick to funky Bollywood numbers and J-Nas is the more glamorous side. The DJ/producer, a trendsetter in the ‘desi’ music scene, is not always satisfied spinning remixes of popular Hindi film numbers, making him look for something more. Always on the move, especially across North America, Sanj is currently based in Mumbai providing thumping R&B and club beats for Indian discotheques, besides promoting...

Diwali shopping is incomplete without a visit to environs surrounding Cotton Street. You don’t need to stroll down a maze of lanes because people are always there to push you wherever, writes Mathures Paul In Chitpur each lane has its own unique blend of personality. The spectrum comprises the flamboyant to the demure, the ideal to the repellent. And the people somehow manage to fit together, selling wares over chit chat. The photographer stood helpless, outnumbered, before the different varieties of ladoo, aloo dum, samosa, kachodi… thinking which to click, which to eat. As Diwali closes in, the bustle reaches a feverish pitch on the lanes hemming in Cotton Street. The festival of lights is more than bursting a few firecrackers. Here shopping means a little more than buying a sari or two. Chitpur needs to be divided into bits and pieces to get a rough idea about what goes on inside these narrow lanes. If historic buildings is your interest, there are a plenty for your eyes. Instead, U...

Photographs: Indranil Paul A lot can be learnt from a 78-year-old scientist who just refuses to fade like the stars, writes Mathures Paul Stars fade but Professor Amalendu Bandyopadhyay’s interest in them remains undiminished. With a small suitcase filled with a telescope and slides, he has travelled to every corner of India to give lessons in astronomy, to dispel misconceptions and put astrology in its right place. A senior scientist at the MP Birla Institute of Fundamental Research, MP Birla Planetarium, Kolkata, he has been instrumental in introducing the postgraduate diploma course in Astronomy and Planetarium Sciences and can, in a few simple words, explain the complex movements of planets and stars (as readers of this newspaper will have have realised from his regular and exclusive contributions to these columns). The 78-year-old Bandyopadhyay has visited remote corners of the country to explain astronomical concepts to children — an activity that has won him accolades from the s...

Music is all about life, of the paths we travel every day. Before a splash, Lou Majaw speaks to Mathures Paul about the music scene in North-east India It was beauty of the rains that inspired The Great Society to compose April Showers. The melody lingers on long after a meeting with Lou Majaw, one of Bob Dylan's most ardent fans. “April Showers transcends time and can be played throughout monsoon. The Great Society composed it on my birthday. The song is an ode to monsoon," says Majaw, whose visits to Kolkata has dwindled over the years. An Ace of Spades concert (featuring Lou, Arjun Sen and Nondan Bagchi) at Someplace Else at The Park brought him to Kolkata, the city where he first heard Dylan, the city where he began his career. Born into a poor family, Majaw and Shillong are synonymous. Every aspiring musician in Shillong knows him, has spoken to him sometime or the other on a street like Upland Road. The beauty of Shillong, the ageless Jacob's Ladder or the Laban hill...

The Other Side Of Dawn inspired a new generation of Indian singers. After having won a million hearts with original songs, Gary Lawyer is set to release a compilation. Is this a new chapter in the singer’s career, asks Mathures Paul The past is untouchable, out of reach. Yet every time he puts on that old jacket, wiggles into a pair blue jeans and hums those lines, somehow you lose sense of time to relive the best years of your life. Here's one singer who could have lived in America to make pots of money. He decided against it. On the hindsight, a wise decision, for without Lawyer a chapter in Western music in India would have been missing. A home loving man, Lawyer is not the kind of person who shows off the rock star hidden inside. He is content to be himself. Posters were up in Kolkata that Gary Lawyer was flying down to play at Park Hotel's Someplace Else, the home of quality English music. After dialling a few numbers, an appointment is made and we meet at the hotel's ...

Photograph: Rajib De Rude shock greets former RAF man in city, writes Mathures Paul Decades of indifferent and incompetent rule have robbed Kolkata of its past grandeur, leaving most hanging on to memories and a rude shock greets those returning after more than half a century. With an eye on a scrapbook of memories, and a box of Navy Flake Smoking Tobacco, Mr AW Holden tried to understand what went wrong since 1946 and whether any of his familiar places remain. The former RAF man spent his salad days in India, facing numerous problems, but the period between 1942 and 1946 remains his glory years. The 88-year-old is travelling across India ~ Calcutta, Shillong, Delhi ~ to find old acquaintances and pay homage to a few of his friends buried at Bhowanipore Cemetery. In his scrapbook ~ a well maintained diary ~ are photographs of RAF aircraft landing on Red Road, Kolkata’s thoroughfare, and friends celebrating here and there. A menu card from Firpo’s, dating back to 8 December 1942, made M...

Photographs courtesy: Ray Flight Did Kal Kahn come up with this phrase, asks Mathures Paul English people sleeping in the sun to get a tan, Pouring oil upon their faces like a frying pan, Funny thing about it is they all go rosy red, Next day when the peeling starts they're crying in their beds... A person by the name Kal Kahn murdered the English language, thought the British, when he sang Oh to be in England and Ladies of Calcutta. That 45 rpm brings back loads of memories, especially of those unforgettable music sessions that preceded Sunday brunches, followed by Musical Bandbox on All India Radio. Every week there would be one request for either of these Kal Kahn numbers. Whether he gave birth to the phrase "ladies of Calcutta" remains a mystery but he surely made it famous. Making the album an endearing one is its sleeve, completely white. Water logging over the years has robbed many vinyls of their sleeves. Thus it became somewhat of a quest to find out who this Kal...

Keeping Americans in the know about which wine goes best with veal or other expensive preparations is Kolkata-born Rajat Parr. The master sommelier and wine director of world-famous Mina Group bends elbows with Mathures Paul There was a time when good wine flowed primarily in the confines of elite Kolkata clubs. Yes, that’s true. Though we hear of wine appreciation sessions being held in the city from time to time, moving back a decade or two, this was but a figment of the imagination, a passage from a book, pictures displayed on a few television channels... Wine connoisseurs were few and far between and those in the know belonged to, till now, long forgotten clubs. Rajat Parr never expected to be a master sommelier, let alone rub shoulders with Larry Stone at Rubicon. He was too busy building a career. But he struck with a dream at the back of his head. Today, the Kolkata-born Parr is wine director of Mina Group and its signature restaurant, Michael Mina. Michael Bauer, restaurant cri...