Indian identity Penguin Books India and Oxford Bookstore Calcutta present the launch of The Indians: Portrait of a People by Sudhir Kakar and Katharina Kakar. In this bold, illuminating study, the authors investigate the complex nature of Indianness: what makes an Indian identifiable to the rest of the world and, more importantly, to his or her fellow Indians? As the authors point out, despite ethnic differences, there is an underlying unity in India’s great diversity that needs to be recognised. Looking at what constitutes a common Indian identity, they examine in detail the predominance of family, community and caste in our everyday lives, and how it affects our attitude to marriage, our prejudices and concepts of right and wrong. Drawing upon three decades of original research and sources from the Mahabharata and Kamasutra to Bollywood movies and popular folklore, the authors have produced a rich and revealing portrait of the Indian people. After the launch, Buddhadeb Guha and Prof Sanjukta Dasgupta will be in conversation with Sudhir Kakar. Event: Launch of Sudhir Kakar and Katharina Kakar’s The Indians— Portrait of a People When: Today at 6.30 pm Where: Oxford Bookstore, 17 Park Street

art

Till April 21 at Genesis Art Gallery, 8B Middleton Street; 2 pm - 7 pm: Summer Splendour — art works by Babul Basak, Bhagat Singh, Dharmendera Rathore, Gautam Mukherjee, Harish Kumar, Jiban Biswas, Jyotirmoy Ash, Krishnendu Porel, J. Nandakumar, Nikhil Biswas, Nitya Kundu, Partha Pratim Deb, Rajesh Deb, Ranjan Mukherjee, J.P. Singh, Subhendu Porel, Sutapa Khan and Vijender Sharma. Till April 21 at Gallery Kanishka’s, 2/1 Hindusthan Road; 11 am - 8 pm: Contextual Vocabulary — an exhibition of paintings by Arghyapriya Mazumdar, Anant Nikam, Babu Xavier, Dhiraj Choudhury, Habibur Rahman, Ramprasad De, Sankar Mondal, Somenath Maity, Somnath Adhikary and Sk. Shahjahan. Till April 21 at Metropolitan Art Salon, Suite 20, 3rd floor, 7 Jawaharlal Nehru Road; 3 pm - 8 pm: Paintings by Munmun Das, Sujata Bhattacharjee, Swapna Ghosh, Babir Das and Atanu Ganguly. Till April 21 at Chemould Art Gallery, 12F Park Street; 2 pm - 7 pm, Saturday (10 am - 3 pm): Paintings and sketches by Arun Banik. Till April 24 at Academy of Fine Arts, West Gallery; 3 pm - 8 pm: Paintings by Narayan Sahoo. Till April 24 at Academy of Fine Arts, New South-B; 3 pm - 8 pm: The Blue Boy — an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Snehangshu Shekhar Das. Till April 26 at Chitrakoot Art Gallery; 3 pm - 8 pm: A group show by members of Spectrum Artists’ Circle. Participating artists: Samir Saha, Biswajit Mondal, Sukumar Das, Tarun Banerjee, Rabin Dutta, Murari Mohan Basu and Anjan Sengupta. Till April 27 at Gallery Sanskriti, 5C Alipore Park Road: Readings Fragments From Time, an exhibition of paintings by Sudip Roy. Till April 28 at Artspace India, 7 Deodar Street (off Dover Road); 12 noon - 8 pm: Artspace India’s Annual Art Show 2007, titled Baishakhi. Till April 28 at Samokal Art Gallery, Gol Park; 4 pm - 8 pm: Lunette presents an exhibition of paintings by contemporary artists of Bengal. Till May 1 at Angan Art Gallery, 11 Fern Place; 4 pm - 8 pm: An exhibition of paintings by Ajoy Bandopadhyay, Dipak Mukherjee, Dilip Banerjee, Kamalaksha Ganguly, Kiran Kumar Sen, Pramathes Chandra, Ratan Acharya, Subrata Gangopadhyay, Somnath Roy, Swati Roy, Siddhartha Sengupta and Shibani Sengupta. Till May 12 (weekdays) at Masters Collection Art Gallery, G-7 Malayalay Apts, 3 Woodburn Park; 11 am - 7 pm: Summer Colours, recent works by Anil Gaikwad, Anirban Seth, Anup Giri, Avijit Mitra, B.R. Panesar, Barun Roy, Gautam Khamaru, Keshav Roy, Manik Kandar, Pushpen Roy, Sachin Jaitarey, Sachindranath Jha, Samir Deasi, Samir Sarkar, Sibsadey Chowdhary, Subhamita Dinda, Subrata Das, Sukanta Das and Swapan Palley.

drama

April 20 & 21 at Sasha, 27 Mirza Ghalib Street; 5 pm & 7 pm: The Creative Arts presents Upon A Yarn II, a site-specific theatre performance. Direction: Ramanjit Kaur. April 21 at Academy of Fine Arts; 3.30 pm: Ganakrishti presents Tashkar Brittanto. Direction: Amitava Dutta. April 21 at Academy of Fine Arts; 6.30 pm: Nabamayukh Nattya Sangstha presents Waarish. Direction: Rishi Mukhopadhyay. April 22 at Academy of Fine Arts; 3 pm: Salt Lake Theatre will stage Pratyagaman, based on Frederich Durenmurt’s The Visit. Direction: Pannalal Maitra. April 22 at Academy of Fine Arts; 6.30 pm: Sundaram presents Ranger Haat . Direction: Manoj Mitra. April 22 at Max Mueller Bhavan; 6.30 pm: Agun Mukho, a joint production of Max Mueller Bhavan and Tritiyo Sutra. Drama: Bratya Basu. Direction: Suman Mukhopadhyay. April 22 at Sarala Memorial Hall; 6.30 pm: Total Theatre’s latest production, Vyas. Direction: Shantanu Bandyopadhyay.

performing arts

April 20 at G.D. Birla Sabhagar; 5 pm: Art Karat presents Shringara Vaibhavam, a Bharata Natyam performance by Geeta Chandran.

aUDIO-VISUAL PRESENTATION

April 20 at Calcutta School of Music; 7 pm: An audio-visual feature presented by Ajoy Ray on ‘Art Pepper’, the great jazz alto sax player.

talk

April 20 at Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Shivananda Hall; 6 pm: Amal Kumar Mukhopadhyay will speak in Bengali on Samakalin Bharate Samaj, Parivar O Byekti. April 20 at Ramakrishna Vedanta Math, 19B Raja Rajkrishna Street; 7 pm: Dr Sasanka Bhusan Bandyopadhyay will speak on Chandogya Upanishad.

FILM SHOW

April 20 - 22 at Nandan II: Tara Muzik presents 7up-Tara Weekend Telefilm Festival. Today: Inauguration at 2 pm. At 3 pm: Dronacharya (Dir: Saibal Mitra; Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Rudranil Ghosh, Aparajita Ghosh Das). At 5 pm: Pori (Dir: Robin Das; Cast: Piyush Ganguli, Bidipta Chakraborty, Paran Bandyopadhyay). At 7 pm: QSQT Police-er Duty (Dir: Parambrata Chattopadhyay; Cast: Rajatabha Dutta, Bidipta Chakraborty, Kanchan Mallik). Till April 24 at Max Mueller Bhavan auditorium; 5 pm & 7 pm: A select retrospective of Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) on the occasion of his 25th death anniversary. Today: I Only Want You to Love Me , 1976, col. at 5 pm and i Don’t Just Want You to Love Me, 1992, col. at 7 pm.

EXHIBITION

April 20 - 22 at Urban Courtyard, Swabhumi; 4 pm onwards: Assam Company Limited presents The Tea Festival, a rare exhibition of international brews and speciality teas from across the world. Connoisseurs of the field will be present at a live demonstration of a tea-tasting session. Till April 30 at Aastha, 19A Lake Road, Lake Market: A collection of Lakhnawi chikan (hand embroidered) ready suits, sarees, dress material, tops, kurtis in cotton, voil, kota, georgette, etc.

WORKSHOP

April 20 - 22 at Bharatiyam. IB 201 Salt Lake; 11 am - 5 pm: Workshop on creative dance and movement therapy organised by Hitaa in collaboration with EZCC.All those who wish events to be included in this column should write not less than a week ahead to: Time out, The Telegraph, 6, Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta-700 001; Fax: 2234-8244

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All those who wish events to be included in this column should write not less than a week ahead to:

Time out, The Telegraph, 6, Prafulla Sarkar Street, Calcutta-700 001;
Fax: 2234-8244