G R Iranna's show at Kashi Art Gallery, Fort Kochi

Edgar Pinto's Kashi Art Gallery opened its new show, works by G R.Iranna this evening.Had a nice time. Both the samosas and the works get high marks. Quaint Kashi's roughly 'inverted L' shaped space had an all new look with Iranna's paintings and installations, a dozen in all. Iranna: Hm..what nationality? Kannadiga and cute, with all 22 years of his life in Delhi. Capital exposure must have helped in getting all those kudos listed in his simple but elegant brochure. The names of most prominent galleries find place in the list. There is one huge horizontal work, young monks in ochre robes,huddled together, with sparks of enlightenment or wonderment here and there, as I see it. The monks keep occupying space in another work, but are at different levels in a maze of wooden construction. The monks continue to make their presence, sitting, again huddled together and in another, a lone monk lies on a drawing of a bench! The trees again, with roots exposed, are in the same ochre colour, another extension of spirituality. Trees that appear from the top and bottom confuse the viewer, maybe yet another extension of the confusion in a human mind, or a monks?! It's disturbing and when you keep looking at these, you feel as if you are getting into the skin of those characters. The installations are what you can talk about. The mediyadi of monks down south hang one above the other, linked by long electrical wires, plenty of them, again red, ochre if you wish. Another pair lies closer to each other, but nails bind them, a symbolic reminder of the spartan life of a monk and also the hurt that gos along with it. The bhiksha vessdel of the monk, strung together to make a long centepede-like vessel has on one side the root system of a bush-like tree and on the other side a fresh green plant. Hope it stays that way throughout the show. The icing is the pendulum plant, a charcoal painted dead plant that hangs (thereby hangs a tale?) upside down by the white wall and when switched on, swings like a pendumum, the charcoal making a design on the wall. This sure gets credit in the ideas department. Tanya Abraham curated this very different show. I really enjoyed it. Lots of friends, aquaintances, artists and people you knew but really didm't know were there. Happy evening..By the way, I loved writing this.... Prema Manmadhan

G R Iranna's show at Kashi Art Gallery, Fort Kochi

Edgar Pinto's Kashi Art Gallery opened its new show, works by G R.Iranna this evening.Had a nice time. Both the samosas and the works get high marks. Quaint Kashi's roughly 'inverted L' shaped space had an all new look with Iranna's paintings and installations, a dozen in all. Iranna: Hm..what nationality? Kannadiga and cute, with all 22 years of his life in Delhi. Capital exposure must have helped in getting all those kudos listed in his simple but elegant brochure. The names of most prominent galleries find place in the list. There is one huge horizontal work, young monks in ochre robes,huddled together, with sparks of enlightenment or wonderment here and there, as I see it. The monks keep occupying space in another work, but are at different levels in a maze of wooden construction. The monks continue to make their presence, sitting, again huddled together and in another, a lone monk lies on a drawing of a bench! The trees again, with roots exposed, are in the same ochre colour, another extension of spirituality. Trees that appear from the top and bottom confuse the viewer, maybe yet another extension of the confusion in a human mind, or a monks?! It's disturbing and when you keep looking at these, you feel as if you are getting into the skin of those characters. The installations are what you can talk about. The mediyadi of monks down south hang one above the other, linked by long electrical wires, plenty of them, again red, ochre if you wish. Another pair lies closer to each other, but nails bind them, a symbolic reminder of the spartan life of a monk and also the hurt that gos along with it. The bhiksha vessdel of the monk, strung together to make a long centepede-like vessel has on one side the root system of a bush-like tree and on the other side a fresh green plant. Hope it stays that way throughout the show. The icing is the pendulum plant, a charcoal painted dead plant that hangs (thereby hangs a tale?) upside down by the white wall and when switched on, swings like a pendumum, the charcoal making a design on the wall. This sure gets credit in the ideas department. Tanya Abraham curated this very different show. I really enjoyed it. Lots of friends, aquaintances, artists and people you knew but really didm't know were there. Happy evening..By the way, I loved writing this.... Prema Manmadhan

Leprosy sanatorium, Nooranad

“Unnunni?” I call out. “P C Unnunni,” the handsome 102 year old corrects me, sitting up in bed. Handsome, because a centenarian cannot possibly be this good looking or optimistic even in the best of circumstances. And this is the Kerala Government Leprosy Sanatorium at Nooranad, Alappuzha District, Kerala, where Unnunni, the oldest inmate, was brought by his father, when he was a strapping young man. He has been here ever since. He cannot walk as well as he did a year ago, but his memory is enviably sharp. He rattles off, with a toothless smile, a long list of the superintendants of the sanatorium, most of whom he remembers with affection. Unnunni came here not long after the sanatorium was set up in 1934 when it was Travancore, before the State of Kerala came into being. Today, thanks to the National Leprosy Eradication programme, there are no leprosy patients as such in the sanatorium, but the 236 inmates have nowhere to go, so they live here, often healthy, sometimes with other ailments and mainly with the damage done by leprosy before their nomenclature changed to ‘cured leprosy patients’. Unnunni is the best representative of this tribe of children of a lesser God. He loves to lie in bed, amidst his wardmates. By his bedside is a Boost bottle. He was the ‘injector’ (sic) at the sanatorium for decades. “He was taught to give injections to the patients at a time when it was difficult to get employees. Now there are many patient-employees,” says Dr J Shirley, Superintendant of the sanatorium. “The disease must have been in its early stages, for he has no physical handicap,” says Ismail Kunju, convenor of the Patients Welfare Committee, (Number A350, he elaborates) who came here as an eight year old, when he was sent out of class for being afflicted with leprosy. His fingers are clawed and he has a leg amputated, but he walks fast, with his Jaipur foot, a certain fire raging in his 60-year old frame, almost strident, in his quest for a better life for the cured leprosy patients. “There was a time when we were 1,500 and the place was brimming with life. They used to say it was Kochu Keralam’ (Small Kerala),” reminisces Ismail, with a sense of déjà vu that seemed eerie. Ismail, along with Gowri Antharjanam, 74, in the female ward, have been conferred the tag of actors too. In Aswamedham, (a 1967 Malayalam movie on the social problems of leprosy patients), Ismail and Gowri played bit roles, as the movie was shot in the sanatorium. This gated community also had its high moments when Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi visited it, the inmates say with pride. Of the 96 women in the sanatorium, Panchali Amma is the oldest. “92, yes, 92,” reiterates the fair aristocratic lady, as she ate rice gruel and pappad. In her spotlessly clean white blouse and dhoti, Panchali Amma seemed almost out of place. Her husband brought her here ‘years and years ago’ and he too stayed on, ‘unable to get out of the sanatorium for fear of the stigma’, till he died, she says. “With the wonder multi-drug therapy that began showing results in the late eighties, there was no need to admit patients in the sanatorium. New cases became out patients and within six months, they can be cured, if they take their medicines regularly,” Dr Shirley says. Even so, cases that test positive are few and far between, usually relapses. The 138-acre facility has 236 inmates only. So, most of the 45 male wards and 15 female wards are shut down today. The Patients Cooperative Society, which farmed on the campus, is less active now, for there are fewer able-bodied inmates. There are small patches of tapioca and banana plants, but much of the sanatorium area lies wild. But the place bustles with khadi clad men when elections are announced with promises galore, says Ismail with a snigger. After all, 236 votes can make a difference to a politician’s future. But every year, the number of inmates comes down. Reason: Deaths. The downward trend threatens to snowball into a zero soon. The focus has shifted fully to rehabilitation from cure and that needs no hospitalisation or isolation. No one harbours the leprosy bacilli per se in the sanatorium, yet living with the damage done by the disease is heart breaking, with sores that refuse to heal and stumps for limbs. Hope is dawning, though, in the latest developments in clinical trials at the Department of Virology, Kings Institute of Preventive Medicine, Chennai. Called amnion therapy, amnion tissue, from placenta, rich in stem cells, was preserved and bound on old wounds of leprosy patients. The results have been encouraging. But it will be too late for Unnunni, Ismail, Panchali Amma, Gowri Antharjanam and friends to reboot and get on with life. This was written nearly a year ago. I wonder if Unnunni is alive, and Panchali amma..... Prema Manmadhan

K J Yesudas caricature show

It was a nice gathering, all who just wanted to be part of the shared happiness. It's always like that at The Orthic Creative Centre that Kaladharan lovingly keeps afloat. There were two Yesudases, one, the singing sensation and the other, the cartoonist veteran. There was more for the lucky crowd. Toms, whose Boban and Molly are like siblings to two or three generations. The coffee table book that was brought out with caricatures of Yesudas, the singer was launched after the short and sweet speeches. This was the occasion for which the packed hall waited. The Cartoonists Academy and Kaladharan must be thanked for bringing them together and for making it all so homely, with chai and smiles. Yesudasan (cartoonist)came out with his humour armoury (he calls himself, the Yesudas who does not sing!)and spoke of the time the rumour was floated that both Yesudases had died. He spiced it with the expressions he saw etc. He chose to call Yesudas, the singer Dasettan though he was much older, he said, but the reason was not clear. Yesudas, on the other hand, spoke of the time he drew a cartoon, once,in anger, of head load workers carrying the body of a man who had four sons. They refused to let the sons carry the body, for the head load workers thought it was their job! Of course he sang four lines of the religious harmony song. And when he left, he told me and Pradeep again about the cartoon he had drawn, of the headload workers..etc..It was the first time I met him. Pradeep just introduced me but I of course felt that I had known him all along! Thanks, Kaladharan, for making this possible. One can't even say his is a no-profit-no-loss job of love, because I think it's mostly a loss venture, but then, Kaladharan doesn't care. Not for him the luxuries and big fat cars that 'artists' who are better businessmen manage to corner. Kaladharan has done more for art in Kerala than any one else in the modern era,I believe. Of the caricatures displayed, those that are in the book, they have myriad expressions, moods and some have deiva ganam looks while others have asura ganam visages! Manmadhan and me enjoyed the outing.

Hari Anand bridal designs , Kingfisher Fashion show on September 6

What was to begin at 7 pm got almost started at 8.15 pm, after herding in the 'invitees' into the packed hall at Casino Hotel, Willingdon Island. Storm, the organisers thought they were doing a favour to the invitees, while the invitees thought they were doing a favour to them. And through the potted plants, we saw the bridalwear. Hari Anand's designs were superb, the work done on the saris and gowns were understated and elegant. The clotheshorses were but clotheshorses. What I have against Hari though is this. All the clothes shown were either white or pale colours, suited for Christian weddings only. The few ones with borders were good, but not the kind of bridalwear that is doing the rounds in either north or south India. Perhaps he exports his stuff, ah..that's why. We had fun looking at the invitees who wore more unwearable-type clothes than the designs shown, which were all very wearable, if affordable! The havoc that mobiles with cameras can do is to be seen to be believed. The silent screams, "I wss there, I was there" that the phones recorded was irksome to others who had come to see his clothes. The showstopper, Ranjini Haridas, was a dampener. Jaded and with plastic smile, she is certainly over the hill. In fact it was strange that she was goading the audience to clap for her, as she walked round. Verdict: Clothes very good, overall show below average.

22 Female Kottayam review

Ashiq Aboo does surprise you. At every turn of the story, there is a surprise lurking in the corner, so much so that you can't even write a proper review for fear of spoiling it all for people who want to see the movie, but have not yet gone.
That's not to say that it has no flaws, but like a pucca Malayali, I will not say, 'tharakkedilla'. I loved it, not because every scene is credible but because it was excellent, sane entertainment.
An award is waiting somewhere for Rima Kallinkal. Fahad Fazil is a proven actor now, but he has to move from the urban yuppie type character to something else if he doesn't want to be typecast. In Fahad, you have an actor who isn't afraid of image, so he will do that and more. The way in which he made his comeback should be a clear indication that HE is the man who will be the real actor in the future, who isn't afraid of anything, ready to do a job as it deems fit.
For Pratap Pothen, it's a dream come back role. His character has been etched out wonderfully. So well has he played it out that merely his presence is chilling. There are a few other actors who have done very very well. I don't even want to mention the characters, because then the surprises will not be there.
Kottayam folks may not be pleased if they take it to heart, but it's movie, after all. I have a quarrel with the script in that I believe Kottayamites know their 'bha' from their 'pha'. This lapse is found in people somewhere further to the south. Also in some situations, perhaps only once, humour does fall flat as it is totally out of place.
Altogether, 22 Female Kottayam is as fresh as a daisy, full of surprises, entertaining and has really good acting. Go see it! If you are a woman, NOT to be missed at all!
Prema Manmadhan