The arts beat! Feel the heat!

'The art beat! Feel the heat'

That's the title of my essay on covering the arts in the Indian media since June 1976. It's a tongue-in-cheek, informal, straight-from-the-heart piece, peppered with anecdotes and encounters in real time. 

The essay can be found in the book below:

'21st century journalism in India'

Edited by Nalini Rajan
2007
324 pages
Hardcover
Rs. 695

Jawaharlal Nehru: The Jewel of India

'Jawaharlal Nehru: The Jewel of India'

Puffin India (Puffin Lives series).
143 pages.
Paperback.
September 2009. 
Rs. 150.

It was midnight on August 14, 1947. Jawaharlal Nehru, dressed in a pale cream achkan, a white khadi cap on his head, rose to speak to independent India as its first Prime Minister. His emotion-charged voice was carried to millions of Indians over the radio. Though his eyes were shadow-lined, they grew brighter as Jawaharlal began to speak…


      Pandit Nehru’s words that night have remained etched in the nation’s memory ever since. Born to a privileged family in Allahabad, Jawaharlal went on to become a leading figure of the Indian independence movement. During the struggle he spent nearly nine years in prison, watched others in his family jailed time and again, and led numerous protest marches and agitations. Working alongside Mahatma Gandhi, he helped India keep its tryst with destiny and become a free nation.


      Aditi De recounts the story of Jawaharlal Nehru’s extraordinary life in this sparkling biography for young readers. Filled with charming anecdotes, it recounts episodes from Nehru’s childhood, his fascination with books and scientific experiments, his student years in England, and how he was drawn to the growing struggle for Indian independence. Finally, she sketches his role as the first Indian Prime Minister, and how he shaped the newly-formed democratic republic. Packed with little known nuggets of information, and trivia about the times, this book in the Puffin Lives series brings alive the thoughts and actions of one of modern India’s most important personalities.

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A link to a review by Pravina Shivram in Young India Books:

http://youngindiabooks.com/bookrev/jawaharlal-nehru-jewel-india

Rustic Ragas: Inner Melodies of Thota Vaikuntam

'Rustic Ragas: Inner Melodies of Thota Vaikuntam'

Timeless Books.
 AbMaa Publishing, New Delhi.
149 pages.
Full colour.
Hardcover.
2008.
Rs. 1,800. 
ISBN: 9788189497155

Main essay by Aditi De.

Foreword by Krishen Khanna. He is one of India's most reputed artists. He worked as a banker from 1948 to 1961 before deciding it was far better to follow his destiny as an artist than to stay in a secure job. A member of the Progressive Artists Group, Bombay, he has held more than forty one-man exhibitions in India and abroad, and participated in all the important Triennales and Biennales in the world - at Sao Paulo, Venice, New Delhi, Tokyo and elsewhere. His work is represented in several major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. A recipient of the Padma Shri, he divides his time between Delhi and Shimla.

 Afterword by S H Raza. He is an eminent Indian artist who has lived and worked in France since 1950.  He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1981, and is a Fellow of the Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi.  He is also the recipient of the Kalidas Samman from the Madhya Pradesh State Government in 1996.

*     *       *

 This book presents fifteen new dramatic paintings by Hyderabad-based artist Vaikuntam. The artist grew up in a village called Boorugupalli in the Karimnagar district within the Telangana heartland of Andhra Pradesh.

 The people of his village have often been depicted in his work, especially his portrayals of women - they could be his mother, an entertainer, a neighbour, a labourer, a gaze encountered in the teeming bazaar, even a family friend from his childhood.

Vaikuntam's Telangana folk meld the memory of his eyes and his fingers. They embody a unique world, of daily rites of life couched within an imaginative terrain. The monumentality of Vaikuntam's figures in rich primary colours of the earth assume a mythical dimension, enhanced by the solidity of their execution in acrylic. They seem like demigods, not village folk-looming, tantalizing, almost unapproachable.

Vaikuntam voices the collective yearning for a separate Telangana identity, beyond politics, beyond couched cultures. His rich palette and easily recognizable faces and figures have given his work acceptability; paintings that are strikingly modern without any allegiance to anything usually associated with modernity. In these huge canvases, Vaikuntam immortalizes his earthy icons for all time.