“Colours of Friendship, 2007”, hosted by Gorky Sadan (April 23-27) to celebrate 60 years of Indo-Russian diplomacy, featured works by Sudipta Jana and Arunangshu Roy. Jana studies the life and times of the potuas, whose livelihood and craft are now threatened. Society of Bengal Potuas shows how the potuas are moving away from their traditional means of livelihood. Except for the foreground, everything else is shrouded in a white fog that stands for the uncertainty and fading reality of this bastion of folk art. In works such as Bagrumba (the Mech spring dance), Gloves Puppet Dance — all acrylic on canvas — Jana uses reductive outlines; but his colours, and the sense of movement in his paintings, create the atmosphere and capture the essential emotion of the moment. Roy’s works are more politically-conscious. His comment on Abu Ghraib, The American Artillery, depicts a huge cannon, reminiscent of Brueghel’s The Tower of Babel and shaped like a penis, with a bombed Baghdad smouldering in the background. In Civilization — Kalighat pot style — a war-mongering humanity has chopped off its own head. Banana Eaters, The Game of Life and others are subtle portraits of socio-economic transition. This universal and contemporary relevance allows Roy’s works to transcend their cultural context. To accommodate Gorky Sadan’s theme, Jana produced Diplomatic Relationship, a sketch of a face turned upwards at a red moon, while dismembered hands desperately clutch at a broken fence. The background is divided between the Russian and Indian tricolours.

Sudeep Paul

Not sinful enough

Padatik and Brainchild’s presentation of Late Lateef, directed by Kunal Padhy, is a rather insipid attempt at staging a sex comedy. It tells the story of two middle-aged friends — Harsh, a dapper executive with a roving eye, and Gajanan, a man of lofty principles who is struggling to cope with what seems like an imminent mid-life crisis. Before leaving on a trip, Harsh asks Gajanan to take care of his plush flat. Gajanan, in a desperate attempt to emulate Harsh’s amorous lifestyle, tries to befriend the women visitors with disastrous consequences. Each encounter leaves Gajanan depressed and guilty, his integrity coming in the way of adulterous pleasure.In the end, Gajanan succeeds in taming his demons with the help of his loving wife, possibly because the director wanted to spare the audience the ‘horror’ of witnessing a man happily choosing an immoral, but exciting, life over a domesticated existence.

U.M.