Rekha in Yatra

Shoot and screen

Draupadi first or Devi Chaudhurani? Bipasha Basu or Katrina Kaif? That’s the million-rupee question in the Rituparno Ghosh camp. If it’s the Bankim Chandra saga this year, then Calcutta will play host to Katrina (Devi), Nana Patekar (Bhavani Pathak) and Anupam Kher (zamindar), with our own Jisshu Sengupta as Brajeshwar.

After wrapping up the Calcutta leg of Aami Yasmin O Amar Madhubala with Prosenjit and Sameera Reddy, Buddhadeb Dasgupta will hit pristine locales in Orissa later this year. So will Anjan Das, who is slated to travel to Bolpur for Jara Brishtite Bhijechhilo, based on Joy Goswami’s verse novel starring Indrani Halder and Joy Sengupta. But the most exotic trip is Sandip Ray’s, who will fly to Hong Kong with Feluda, Topshe and Jatayu to can the climax of Tintorettor Jisshu.

Actor Arjun Chakraborty is slated to get behind the camera for his debut directorial venture, Neel Ghurni.

Swapan Saha and Shree Venkatesh Films will take to sequel street with the second instalment of Mithun Chakraborty as MLA Fatakeshto.

The release roster, too, is quite action-packed. Coming up in January is Goutam Ghose’s Yatra, starring Rekha as courtesan Lajwanti and Nana Patekar as a writer.

Debutant Suman Ghosh’s Padakkhep where Nandita Das plays daughter to Soumitra Chatterjee releases later in January.

A double bonanza awaits Rituparno fans — Khela starring Manisha Koirala, Prosenjit and Raima Sen, and the Hindi-Bengali double version Sunglass with Naseeruddin Shah, Jaya Bachchan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Madhavan and Tota Roy Chowdhury.

Arts and letters

CIMA Gallery begins the year with an exhibition of veteran artist Jatin Das’s paintings in February followed by a show of young artists from Baroda in April. British Council will launch the International Young Publishers Award on February 4. The month after, rapper and poet Benjamin Zephaniah will stage a comeback in Calcutta.

Jatin Das with Paritosh Sen

On stage

Talking of stage, the year ahead holds a lot of promise for Calcutta theatre. Apart from the National School of Drama festival there will be a couple of home-grown theatre fests to watch out for in May and August. Lokkrishti will hold a theatre festival at BD Mancha and Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre in January, which will also see Sasha Waltz and guests presenting dance theatre noBody at Rabindra Sadan and Nandikar’s Cardenio at Academy of Fine Arts. Shakespeare’s lost play has been adapted by Sukanta Chaudhuri as Jaha Chai.

Max Mueller Bhavan will present an adaptation of the German play Fireface by contemporary dramatist Marius Von Mayenburg. The production will be steered by Suman Mukhopadhyay’s Trityo Sutra and premiere in March. The play has been adapted by Bratya Basu as Agunkheko.

Usha Ganguli’s third instalment of Saadat Hasan Manto, called Manto Aur Manto, will also take the stage by January-end. A workshop production, Thelagari, will also be staged by Rangakarmee in February.

Sundaram will celebrate its golden jubilee with a seven-day festival starting August 15, says director Manoj Mitra. Swapnasandhani will be travelling to Delhi with Moy Danav, an adaptation of Ibsen’s Master Builder by Tarapada Ray.

The restored Minerva theatre on Beadon Street is slated to reopen later this year.

Amjad Ali Khan

Tune in

There’s no shutting out the sound of music.

The four-day Dover Lane Music Conference begins on January 22 with the who’s who of classical music. Pandit Jasraj, Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan lead the line-up.

Don’t forget the Congo Square Jazz Fest at the Dalhousie Institute from January 19 to 22. While it’s still unclear if Herbie Hancock will be here, the list of performers is an impressive read, with the Erik Truffaz Quartet from France being the top draw.

On the cards is a mini-album by newly-formed exclusive Latin jazz band, Los Amigos, comprising industry veterans Monojit Dutta, Mainak (Bumpy) Nag Chowdhury, Sanjay Gupta and Paddy. Veterans Krosswindz will release an English album. Cassini’s Division promises alternative rock lovers of Calcutta a 12-song album by March.

Among Bangla bands, Chandrabindoo is planning to release its 10th album in 2007. The band will be in Detroit for the Biswa Banga Sammelan. And the Chandrabindoo show on February 14 is on track too. Fossils is waiting for the censor board to clear its video album Apodartho; also on the cards is Fossils 3.

Bhoomi is going places — Kuwait on January 4 and then Qatar in May. The band is also approaching another milestone — its 1,000th show. A new album is eyeing a Poila Baisakh release.

Astronomy

Four astronomical events are lined up for the coming year, beginning with the total lunar eclipse in March. This will be followed by a partial solar eclipse in the same month, a total lunar eclipse in August and a partial soar eclipse in September.

An orientation programme on astronomy for teachers is on the cards at Birla Planetarium in September-October.

Tech tools

For the average home Internet user, the New Year will begin on a high with a nearly eight-fold boost to the broadband connection speed. Netizens in the city will finally be on a par with their counterparts in the West in terms of broadband bandwidth.

From January 1, the basic broadband speed offered by BSNL will go up from 256 Kbps to 2 Mbps, and at no extra cost. The free data download limits for the home plans have also been increased. There is a rider, though. The speed will be increased “wherever it is technically feasible”.

Also on the anvil is the introduction of Triple Play, which combines voice, video and data transmission through telephone wires, by BSNL.

MTNL has already launched the technology in Delhi and Mumbai. If the rates there are an indication, the satellite television access through the telephone lines (plus movies on demand and other interactive content) is going to be priced competitively here. This will introduce another contender in the fight for eyeballs between CAS and DTH.

Sadly, the wireless Internet connectivity scene in the city remains dismal with only a handful of Wi-Fi hotspots. In contrast, the entire Bangalore city, with which Calcutta is competing for information technology investment, has gone WiMax (the next step after Wi-Fi in which wireless Internet access is available over large areas).

The big gadget launch of the year is going to be Sony Playstation 3, now making waves abroad. The debut was set for January but has been pushed back to April. The gaming console will be expensive and might require an even more expensive hi-definition television set, but in terms of features it is the best in the business.

Also expected, according to store owners, is Microsoft’s “iPod-killer” portable media player Zune. The device is priced in the iPod range abroad and offers additional features like a built-in FM tuner and sharing of content through Wi-Fi.

Microsoft’s new operating system, Vista, is also likely to make it to the city stores sooner rather than later this year.