The last day of the KGAF

was the day, when there were too many interesting events happening everywhere, and if I had some magic powers, I would have loved to attend them all. But unfortunately, I had to tick off many events to be able to attend a few of them. I attended only those which I could fit into my limited capacity of endurance. Sigh! There were many films showing at different venues. I was most interested in watching the film that was specially made for KGAF by celebrities like Anu Tandon, Brinda Miller, Soni Razdan, Sangita Jindal, Bandana Tiwari, Ayaz menon and Tony Singh. These were the set of short film with a common theme of the state of affairs in India after sixty years. It was amusing to watch the ‘Never Ending Story’ where people continued to watch the serial “Saas Bhi Kabbi Bahu Thi” even after sixty years. Also, I liked the one in which the world is ruled by Bollywood. There will be Hollywood stars dancing and acting in Indian film and all the Hollywood film plagiarize Bollywood stories. Later I headed towards David Sassoon Library Garden to spend the rest of the evening watching some interesting events that included discussion on ‘Graphic Story Telling’ and ‘Poetry Slam’. The theme at ‘Poetry Slam’ was ‘Name, Place, Animal, Thing’ All the participants were very talented and it must have been very difficult for the judges to score them. Towards the end of the show, I got my (own) two-minutes-fame, when I got to read my children’s story about cloud and wind called ‘Badli and Windy’. I had created this story during work-shop on ‘Writing for Children’ and it had some how reached the finals.

Workshop at Muse Boutique....

Muse Boutique was the venue for the workshop on ‘Getting Published’. Tucked away in the narrow by-lane behind Rhythm House, I reached there after inquiring about its location from several paanwallahs. In the interior, surrounded by books, artifacts and a pleasant ambience, I learnt the secrets of ‘The Ten Commandments of Publishing World, the role of a literary agents and the fine prints of a book contract’. While Anita Roy spoke about publishing in a real world, we had Vikram Chauhan enlightening us on publishing a book in a virtual world. Vikram Chauhan hosts a site called ‘If I Were A Book.com’ where everybody has the right to express themselves by publishing their book. Currently, book publishing is a long and difficult process. So 'If I Were A Book.com' has made book publishing instant, easy and free! It is a site where you can post content of your blog which you feel is book worthy or your manuscript on 'If I Were A Book.com' and watch it instantly take the shape of a book! It is a good medium to get noticed by different publishers and knock off those long walks to different publishers for release of your work. This is the place where the only thing that matters is that you can express yourself by publishing your own book! Late evening at David Sassoon Garden, surrounded by cool breeze of winter winds, I enjoyed an evening of multi-lingual poetry about Mumbai, that were recited by some well-known and published poets.

Richie Rich, Poorly Poor!

On a more serious note, while the kids at KGAF are having a wonderful time, painting, drawing and attending all the workshops on Clay modeling, Calligraphy and other art activities, there are other kids that I see in a local train, on my way towards the venue, which are not so fortunate. I see this child, barely seven year old, making a living out of selling the crumbled roses to the passengers in the train. I ask him, ‘Don’t you want to study? Do you wish to go to school?’ and he growls at me as though I am speaking some gibberish words. At another station, I see this 10 year old, who has been brutally abused (there are deep knife-cuts on his face and neck and his one finger is missing), I see him crying with pain as he walk slowly down the aisle, begging for alms. Are they aware that they, too, could enjoy those activities and that, those art and craft activities are free for all, rich and poor. On the streets of Kala Ghoda, I see group of kids performing those street shows of walking on a tight rope accompanied by the group of musician kids, and yet another pair of street kids, who ask for water from a street-side-stall but they are being chased away. ‘Surf Excel’ sponsors of the children's activities, promise to remove the stain off the clothes, but the children with real stain of poverty and dirty clothes are not inside the ring.

Recitals at NGMA are superb!

Today, 7th February, my friend tells me not to come to KGAF because there is a taxi strike and the fear of riots haunts me once more. The taxis are protesting against the damage that was done to their taxis during the riots and they are demanding a police protection. However, it ended quickly, and I decide to meet my friends at NGMA Auditorium for 5pm performance. We reach there at 5pm, only to be told that the show has been cancelled. But fortunately, there is a next show, ‘Alyque Padamsee, Gary Richardson and The Mad Horses’, to begin at 6pm and we decide to attend that one. This is the best show that I have ever watched in years! It is a bouquet of five recitals, and five different Shakespearean plays performed by talented stage artists like Alyque Padamsee, Shazehn Padamsee, Gaurav Chopra, Aparna Tilak, Madhuri Bathia, Cyndy Khozol and Gary Richardson. The show starts with a ‘Tantric’ music, and we, in the audience, are asked to close our eyes and experience the rhythm of the 'Shloks recitals' at the beat of tabla and sitar. This is followed by interactive play, whereby the audience has to decide the ending of a play. The one and half hours tick by quickly, as we are engrossed in their powerful expressions, from one recital to another, and we are immersed into their make-believe world, smiling with them, and mouthing their lines. Later in the evening, after a brief stop at the Sassoon Library Garden, (my favorite venue to chill out), we head toward Khyber, a cozy restaurant across the street. Over the spoonful of meals, my writer-friends and I, exchange notes on theatre, drama and speech for the younger kids.

Photography workshop was good.......

After being assured that it was safe to go to South Mumbai, I went to KGAF at 4pm, just in time to attend the second session of photography workshop by David D’Souza at BNHS. I had not attended the first session, because it was clashing with my other workshop. But on a recap, I was able to catch up with what I had missed. It was quite an interesting workshop with David’s animated postures that kept us in splits. He spoke about the creativity that was important in the photography and our lack of it, was mainly due to our fear. A creative person reflects the environment. We don’t ‘take’ photographs, we ‘make’ them and we can develop the spontaneity by training our eye-muscle to coordinate with our finger and instinct and produce a good photograph. Initially, during the first session, he had given the assignment to the participants, of going around the city and taking some shots. At this second session, we saw the pictures that some of them had clicked and we discussed the flaws and plus points of each photograph. All the pictures were discussed in great details and it was quite informative. I edited this picture that I had clicked the previous day. and Later, during the evening, I headed towards the David Sassoon Library Garden, where the discussion on ‘Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender writing in India’ was in its last segment. I missed this discussion, but I was able to attend the next two sessions, ‘The War of the Words: Science Fiction and Fantasy’ which was moderated by Devanshu Datta and ‘Getting Published: All sides of the Story’ which the moderated by Sriram, who was sitting for Urvashi. Urvasi Butalia, who was to moderate this discussion, was not able to reach Mumbai because of bad weather, but she took part in this discussion on a phone call (that’s the technology for us) We had Kavita Banot, a literary agent, discussing about her role in the writer’s world and how it will help writers in the publishing world, but Urvasi, in her phone conversation said, that she did not like to deal with literary agents because of their pushy nature. There were more discussions on payments, pricing of the book and the rights of the author. Since the literary program was running late, the last two programs ‘Open Mike’ and ‘Open Screen’ had to be chopped off. Unfortunately! Sigh!