In one frame, the yellow-white spring tulips gaze at the vast, limitless bright blue firmament overhead in Geilo (Norway). In the other, a female blackbuck scampers away from the camera lens in Vetnoi, (Orissa).

At a time when the world is being ravaged by wars, hunger, poverty and greed for money and power, it is easy to forget the principles of ahimsa that the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, so passionately believed in.

It is a big day for me today and I am super excited — almost as excited as I am on my happy birthday! It is my conviction that for any artistic endeavour to succeed and actually come to the point when it is ready to be shared with the world, takes an almost gargantuan amount of emotional, aesthetic, intellectual and logistic energy.

Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, that is given annually to young talents in various categories of performing arts, this year saw theatre awards being given for playwriting,

It is clever, it is creepy. It is the wise culprit without a fingerprint. There is no evidence of its mischief but we all know that “Macavity” — the mystery cat is the one who gave the law a clear slip and squeezed its hidden paw out of the handcuffs.

Kolkata’s scope as a creative muse recently got a new vigour as a handful of young bloods decided to view an old city with a fresh outlook. To say that their endeavour culminated in an interesting kaleidoscope of moods and moments would be quite appropriate.

It has finally happened. The Lado Sarai art road was a bubble waiting to burst and all the bonhomie of joint openings on the same day and good ties amongst the gallerists and art watchers/buyers who would take the rounds of the galleries is a thing of the past.

Of late we have been performing regularly at non-formal performance venues. There are a handful of theatre groups that are trying to counter the overburdening of regular venues in Maximum City. Our shows have been well attended but the capacity is small (about 70 people). However, it is still very difficult to bring people to the venue.

Standing in the age of extreme eletronification, WiFi technology, office-automation and fast mechanism in a globalised space, one finds this constant fight to safeguard interests of the cottage industries as well as the crafts communities in little villages of India a Herculean task.

If anyone were to ask me two things that endear me to Bengal, without doubt it would be the to-die-for detectable mishti or mithai like sandesh, rosogullas, mishti doi (all under one sub-head) and the other without doubt is the contemporary and traditional art from the state.