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| Teejan Bai performs a piece from the Mahabharata at The Heritage School on November 1. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha |
Virasat 2006, the annual cultural festival organised by Spicmacay (Society for the Promotion of Society and Culture Among Youth), is being held from October 30 to December 15. Like every year, the festival has a cultural treat in store for young enthusiasts.
One of the numerous events of Virasat took place on October 31 at our school. The students of classes XI and XII had the honour of enjoying a magnificent performance by Padmabhushan Teejan Bai. The students, teachers and Spicmacay volunteers gave a hearty welcome to the renowned artiste and her group.
Teejan Bai is famous for her enacting of the Pandavana, an episode from the epic Mahabharata, in a grand style, weaving in music, dialogues and general conversation.
At our school, she lighted the ceremonial lamp before beginning her performance. On stage, she appeared in the familiar colourful sari, heavy silver bangles and trinkets, and neatly oiled and braided hair. A stringed instrument decorated with peacock feathers completed the look.
She decided to enact the scene ‘Draupadi Swayamvara’ from the Mahabharata. She narrated the hardships Pandavas faced to reach Draupadi’s swayamvara. Her passion for the art form showed in her presentation and soon the audience, too, was mesmerised by her powerful voice, expressions and body movements.
Occasionally, the other musicians joined in in a chorus, which made it even more interesting. The use of Chattisgarhi colloquial language gave the recital a rustic feel.
Although the story of Draupadi swayamvara is familiar to most of us, her inimitable style of delivery made the audience relish the experience as much as she did while performing it.
Sudeshna Dasgupta,
Class IX, Mahadevi Birla Girls’ Higher Secondary School & Spicmacay member
lVirasat was inaugurated at Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, Salt Lake, on October 30. Besides performances by Teejan Bai, the practitioner of the Pandavani folk art, the festival will include performances by Manipuri danseuse Preeti Patel, Malabika Mitra and troupes of Yakshagana in schools and institutes across the city.
Sambalpuri dance, animal-masked dance, puppet theatre, scroll painting workshop, sessions with the Bihar School of Yoga and many other programmes are also on the cards. Jadavpur University professor Ananda Lal will deliver a talk at Apeejay School on November 18. The festival rounds off with the screening of Satyajit Ray’s Ghare Baire.
Speed kid
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Calcutta boy Karan Goenka is off to Portugal to represent India at the World Finals of the Junior Rotax Karting Championship.
Before leaving for Bangalore on November 2, the Goenka family organised an evening of celebration for the speed kid’s achievements.
Present were Rajat Kumar Majumdar, president, Federation Motor Sport Club of India, Karan’s uncle and rallyist Vijay Goenka and Mukta Nain and principal of Birla High school, where Karan studied before shifting to Sarala Birla High School in Bangalore. Footballer Bhaichung Bhutia dropped by to boost Karan’s spirits and wish him luck. “India is still not developed when it comes to sports, so all young sportspersons need the encouragement of their family and friends,” said Bhaichung.
Karting has been Karan’s passion ever since he sat at the wheel of a go-kart at Clown Town four years ago. The current national Junior Rotax Karting Champion is itching to hit the international tracks. “I am not setting my sights too far as the tracks will be new and there will be other national champions too, but I will give it my best shot,” he smiled.
Majumdar revealed that talks are on for a karting championship in Calcutta. “Talks are on about a karting championship on Red Road. A decision will be taken by January next year,” he said.
Chandreyee Chatterjee
WHATSUP
Science session
Kolkata District Children Science Congress at Ananda Ashram Balika Vidyapeeth on NSC Bose Road on November 4, 1 pm onwards. 175 students will attend.
Fitness & fun
TTIS Health Fair at Swabhumi on November 9, 10 am onwards. Events for students and teachers. Direct entry for winners to The Great TTIS Challenge 2006.
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Foxed by the dog
 | Only Connect Abhijit Gupta |
This week’s offering could also be christened: The Curious Incident of the Lazy Dog. One remembers Sherlock Holmes drawing Watson’s attention to the curious incident of the dog at night, in The Silver Blaze. When Watson remarked that the dog did nothing, Holmes said that was the curious incident. In a similar vein I ask, why does the dog do nothing when “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”?
No marks for guessing what I am talking about: probably the most typed or keyed-in sentence of all time, used as an exercise as it contains all the letters in the alphabet, or in other words, is a pangram. Originally developed by the Western Union to test Telex/TWX data in the dim and distant past, it has proved to be remarkably durable even in the age of machine-readable texts. Nowadays it is often used as a sample text for different fonts but is still perfectly serviceable as a keying-in exercise. Just try doing it once without looking at the keyboard: the wuicxh brownh fow junmps over the laxy doig…I am obviously not very good at this.
But that is not the point of this column. The point is the lazy dog who does nothing, absolutely nothing, even when attacked by the fox. For, in the Portuguese language, the brown fox is not merely content with jumping over the lazy dog but attacks it: a rápida raposa marrom ataca o cão preguiçoso — the quick brown fox attacks the lazy dog. The average Romanian typist, on the other hand, is a more peace-loving individual and is content with the jumping fox: agera vulpe maronie sare peste câinele cel lenes.
But no one, not one language in the world, has stood up for the dog. Believing in letting sleeping dogs lie, they have conspired to perpetrate a shameful stereotype, one from which even the fabulist Aesop would have recoiled. The brave, energetic and faithful dog has been portrayed as lazy, dim-witted and completely oblivious to the dangers of a fierce fox in its vicinity. This flies in the face of all available evidence. The time has come to give the dog its due. This can easily be done by a simple role reversal, i.e. by making the dog the jumper and the fox the jumpee: the quick brown dog jumps over the lazy fox. Simple.
For those who would rather not tamper with a three-century old sentence, there are other, lesser-known pangrams to choose from. Unfortunately, most of them are laboured and contrived, such as “Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz” preferred by Windows XP. “Pack my bags with five dozen liquor jugs” is marginally better, as is “Heavy boxes perform quick waltzes and jigs”. For even more implausible pangrams, look at www.rinkworks.com/words/pangrams. Happy typing.
