Saturday 21 April 2018

THAT BLACK AND WHITE MOVIE



The 1970s were years of ferment. Literature and Art were seeking to provoke their audience into re-evaluating their circumstances. And the two sometimes collaborated to raise some questions in black & white.

'27 down' was based on a literary work in Hindi. The protagonist is an an aspiring artist but he yields to parental authority and settles down to life as a regular railway ticket-checker. (the job afforded predictable fringe benefits). The lady he has recently befriended holds new possibilities for him. But then she carries some baggage of her own. That colt grazing freely in the meadows when broken down into a mule, can he dream anew ? Rakhee, M.K. Raina, Sadhu Meher, essayed the central roles in the movie. 'Art cinema'..'Parallel cinema'..this genre had many names. But as a representation of the angst of an age, '27 down' is a classic.



Wednesday 18 April 2018

NEWS AT DAYBREAK






morning papers are folded 
and tossed into the pile of month end's disposables.
That sick and gloomy n' morbid 
I paid to imbibe.
The soil, the pot, last season's scattered seeds... they have some news. 
and what varied hues, shapes, contours, form in nature's imagination. 
I must replace old glasses.