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Press photographers, this one’s for you

Media Foundation of India’s third national press photo contest is currently open, till the end of this month. Apply now.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Ajay Aggarwal from the Hindustan TimesLast year, this photo competition had several breathtaking photographs on display, and some remarkable winning entries. This year, too, press photographers across the country must surely be waiting to showcase their work.

The Media Foundation of India (MFI) and YES Bank recently announced the Third National Press Photo Contest for professional press photographers. The MFI is a not-for-profit trust started by four Mumbai-based media professionals as an independent platform to organise media-related activities that could extend beyond journalistic endeavours to promote a knowledge exchange on wide-ranging contemporary issues. MFI National Press Photo Contest is India’s only national-level contest for professional press photographers and is in its third year.

As per a release from MFI, “Photographs taken between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012 would be eligible for entry in this contest.” The winning entry carries a grand prize of Rs 75,000. “Additionally, three cash prizes of Rs 50,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 will be given to category winners in each of the six categories,” the release says.

The jury for the contest comprises noted photographer Pablo Bartholomew, Daniel Berehulak of Getty Images and Saurabh Das of The Associated Press. Last year, the contest received Mandar Deodhar's winning entry last year submissions of over 6,500 photographs by more than 200 photographers for the six categories (Browse some of the winners and Honourable Mentions below). In the 2012 Contest, Mumbai-based photojournalist Mandar Deodhar of India Today won the Picture of the Year award. (See pic on right)

If you want to participate, pick the category for your entry from these:

General News (GN): pictures of scheduled events or planned events

Spot News (SN): pictures shot on the spot without any advance planning

Daily Life (DL): glimpses of richness and diversity of daily life

Sports (SP): pictures capturing sporting moments

Arts and Culture (AC): pictures of the literary and performing arts; festivals etc

Best Photo Stories (BPS): picture sequence of a minimum of 2 and maximum of 12 images narrating a story pictorially. Photo stories shot in any of the five categories could be entered here.

MFI says there is no entry fee for the contest, and entries can be submitted in CDs or via email. Final date for submission is Sunday, June 30, 2013. Look up http://www.mfi.org.in for details.

Some of last year’s winners and Honourable Mentions:

(Pictures courtesy MFI) 

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Event

National Scrabble Championship comes to Mumbai

Are you a fan of the word game Scrabble? Register for this event and have the time of your life!
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

If you’re a fan of words and love to play Scrabble, you really should check this out – a national scrabble competition!

Fans of word game Scrabble are invited to participate in an engaging battle of words spread over three days this month. The Bayer Group in India, in association with The Mumbai Scrabble Club and Scrabble Association of India, will hosting the Bayer National Scrabble Championship 2013 at Willingdon Catholic Gymkhana on May 24, 25 and 26, 2013. T

The tournament consists of 26 rounds and will follow the Australian draw format for the first 13 rounds, followed by King of the hill format for the remaining 13 rounds. There are two divisions – Premier (SAI rating 1250 and above) and Open (SAI rating below 1250 and unrated players). The words source is Collins Scrabble Words 2012.

The Championship, in short:

– To be held from 9 am to 7 pm, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, ie May 24, 25 and 26, at Willingdon Catholic Gymkhana, near Khar subway, Santacruz west.

– Players with SAI rating between 1000 to 1250 can opt to play in the Premier division. If the number of players is odd in the premier division then the highest rated player in the open division would fill in the last slot of the premier division.

– The winner would qualify to represent India at WSC 2013.

– Participants are requested to bring their own scrabble board, tiles and clock to the venue.

– Participants reaching the venue after 9.30 am would not be allowed to participate in the tournament.

– Register in advance to participate. Register on mumbaiscrabbleclub@hotmail.com or mumbaiscrabble@gmail.com, or call Ramachandran on 9892471327 or Bhushan Pradhan on 022-27721317 to register.

– Registration fees are Rs 1500 for SAI Members and Rs 1700 for Non-SAI Members, and includes lunch, tea  and snacks for all three days of the tournament.

(Picture courtesy scrabblehelp.biz)

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Art Night Thursday is back

Visual Disobedience, a collective that makes art accessible to people, will let you hop along for an art gallery tour.
by Medha Kulkarni

It’s that time of the month again. Art Night Thursday is back, when some of Mumbai’s best art galleries throw open their doors (past closing time) to share,with art enthusiasts, works by some of the best/newest artists from India and abroad.

However, for most people, an art gallery tends to be an intimidating space. With artworks that spill out of the conventional art definitions and the general stream of heady chatter that seems only to be full of fancy words and concepts, most people tend to give art galleries a miss.

If you’re among those who really want to visit these galleries and have an interest in art but shy away due to lack of company, then the Visual Disobedience hop is for you.

Hop to it
Visual Disobedience is a collective formed by young,upcoming artists and other creative people who believe in breaking rules and essentially questioning the way society perceives art. The idea was born out of a simple desire to make art more accessible to the general public. Your guide for the hop will be Ramona D’Mello, who used to organise these gallery hops as part of Artinfo, but has now recently shifted to be a part of the Visual Disobedience.

“It’s all about making art accessible to everyone, irrespective of background, age or profession. We’re loosely-knit; there’s no upper limit on how many people can join us and no need to be absolutely punctual. If you can’t make it right from the start (of the hop), people can join us at different points during the art hop,” says Ramona.

The hop starts at Project 88 at 7.00 pm and winds its way from there through all the participating galleries. It’s free and open to all.

After a quick briefing, Ramona will take you through the different galleries. At every gallery, either the gallerist themselves or the curator give a short note about the works on display or the ongoing show.

“It might seem like an educational walk/talk, but it isn’t,” insists Ramona. “We usually have a lot of fun and make new friends this way.”

The hop happens today at 7.00 pm, and starts at Project 88, BMP Building, Ground Floor, Narayan A Sawant Road, Colaba, near Colaba Fire Brigade. Contact Ramona at 9892536558 or Kevin at 9769930240.

(Pictures courtesy Visual Disobedience) 

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Saints and poets at NCPA

Two must-watch events happen in Mumbai today, both at NCPA, and both based on the lives and works of saint-poets.
by Medha Kulkarni

You know what’s so great about some Wednesdays? That you have the choice to attend one of two excellent events. Today is one such Wednesday.

Two great events will take place today in the NCPA premises. The first is a film that will screen at the Dance Theatre Godrej, NCPA, while the other is a talk and poetry session about the lives of Marathi saints and poets, followed by a play by Anahita Uberoi.

Scribbles On Akka, Dance Theatre Godrej, 4 pm

India has a long tradition of strong, fearless female poets who have used their art to push into the mainstream consciousness, with issues they deemed important. Unfortunately, our education system is such that most of us have never heard of them or had the opportunity to even get acquainted with their work.

In this scenario, it becomes important to support the people who work to get society acquainted with them, while we learn of our own wonderful literary heritage. The film Scribbles On Akka is one such effort – directed by filmmaker Madhushree Datta, the film is based on the life and work of the 12th Century Kannada saint-poet Mahadevi Akka, a strong personality who wrote radical poems using the female body as a metaphor. These works have been composed and given a visual form against the backdrop of a contemporary musical narrative. The film is a celebration of rebellion, the meaning of femininity and a legacy that’s over nine centuries old.

Mahadevi left the domestic arena in search of God and abandoned all the norms that society imposes, including that of clothing. The film tries to articulate the meaning of this denial through the work of artists, writers and people who have kept Mahadevi’s image alive and dynamic, whether through folklore or art.

The film screening is free but admission is limited and on a first-come-first-serve basis. Do reach early as NCPA has a strict punctuality policy.

Poetry reading and play, Theatre – Sunken Garden, 5.30 pm

It is known fact that India is home to a rich literary heritage that is centuries old. Each State in the country boasts of several saint-poets who have created stunning works in their quest for God.

A celebration of this very legacy is planned tomorrow evening at the NCPA, through a talk and poetry reading session centred around the works of Marathi saint-poets. Renowned poet Prabodh Parikh will introduce the work of several Marathi saint-poets with a specific reference to Dilip Chitre’s translations of the works of sant Tukaram.

This reading will be followed by an interesting play directed by Anahita Uberoi, in which a group of Mumbai theatre actors will read the English translations of poetry by Tukaram.

(Picture courtesy tedxgateway.com)

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Waxing poetic over coffee

Poetry Tuesdays moves out of Thane into Santacruz for its fourth event today. If poetry is your thing, be there.
by Medha Kulkarni

Mumbai is an exciting city with lots of wonderful cultural events on offer. Unfortunately most of these happenings are confined to South Mumbai or Bandra, but a casual conversation between two friends over a cup of coffee a little over two years ago sparked the beginning of an event that would slowly change this state of affairs.

Anish Vyavhare and Ashish Amin, poetry and literature enthusiasts, noticed that most poetry-centric events that happen in the city take place only in south Mumbai, and seem to be aimed only at professional writers, poets, copy writers etc. They decided that this needs to be changed and that is how ‘Poetry Tuesdays’ was born.

The first event was held over two years ago in Thane. Not limited to language or word limit, the event is open to everyone and is absolutely free. The aim of Poetry Tuesdays is to provide people with a place to meet like-minded people and to give amateurs a platform to share their work and more importantly, to encourage people to keep alive a dying art.

Till recently, Poetry Tuesday sessions were organised only in Thane, but today, April 9, marks the fourth session at Santa Cruz. The location for the sessions keeps changing (keep track of their FB page for updates) as they meet at different cafés or restaurants. This eliminates the need for a permanent space and keeps the event free.

Ashish says that this also adds an element of spontaneity to their sessions. “Often, other patrons at the café get interested in what we’re doing and join us and surprise with impromptu poetry. Our poetry sessions are always fun and it’s a great way to make friends over a cup of coffee and a shared interest.”

“We want to ensure that every part of Mumbai has a Poetry Tuesday event and hopefully, in the future we can invite talents from across the country to make our events more exciting,” says Ashish, speaking of their future plans.

Ashish’s rules for today’s event

“A Colour Couplet is a two-line poem that involves the use of a colour in it. Not a big thing to do! Take a colour, interpret it or just write a couplet on it.

A couplet is two lines of poem. It may or may not rhyme.

That is it! At the end of all of us reading our couplets, we make it into a single grand poem!

You may write in any language. And as always, the theme is not compulsory. You can write on anything you wish, in any language – English, Marathi, Hindi, Gujarati, Telugu, Kashmiri, Urdu, French, Zulu, Tagalog, whichever!

It is not a competition and there are no judges.”

If you’re interested in participating or simply listening to good poetry, head to Ola Vakola near Vakola Police Station tomorrow by 7:30 pm. Call Ashish on 9920416997 for details or check their FB page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/PoetrySantacruz

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Osian’s Indian miniatures auction on April 13

Historically-significant Indian miniatures, modern art pieces include Mandi School works which had left India in 1960s before being purchased back.
by Osian

Opening its new annual calendar of auctions, Osian’s is bringing together a wide range of historically significant Indian miniatures and modern art in its Forty Masterpieces Auction to be held on Saturday, 13 April 2013, in Mumbai.

The opening preview exhibition of the Auction will be held at 7 pm on Friday, April 5, at the Osian’s Headquarters at G-2B Nariman Bhavan, Nariman Point. The Auction lots will be available for private previews at the same site from April 6 to April 12, 2013.

The auction comprises of 40 lots and is valued at the lower estimate at approximately Rs 5.6 crore (higher estimate Rs 8.4 crore; with average estimated lot price range Rs 14 to 21 lakh). Among the highlights in the section on Indian miniatures, there are some brilliant Mandi School works from the Ramayana and Devi Mahatmya series originally from the Royal Mandi Library Collection, which had left India in the 1960s and was purchased back by Osian’s from various Sotheby’s auctions to bring them back to India in 2005-2006. These works cannot be exported out of India now.

A few highlights among the masterpieces of the Modern Art Section include the works of Modern Masters of the Bombay, Bengal and Baroda School. The Auction includes a very rare and brilliant little work by early academic school modern master, Rao Bahadur MV Dhurandhar; rare and important paintings by Abanindranath, Gaganendranth and Rabindranath Tagore; a magnificent large oil on canvas painting by the master artist of both India and Pakistan, Ustad Allah Buksh; Jagdish Swamninathan’s  famous ‘Bird, Tree, Mountain’ Series purchased from the artist in 1979; the very best early etchings by master printmaker Laxman Goud on which his fame was established; leading British sculptor, Sir Jacob Epstein’s famous bronze Head of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru; Himmat Shah’s uniquely brilliant signature style terracotta heads; an impressively large commissioned portrait by Hemendranath Mazumdar and powerfully evocative paintings by the masters DP Roy Chowdhury, Ramkinkar Baij, Sanat Kumar Chatterjee, and Nikhil Biswas among many others.

Regarding the consolidation and re-strengthening of the Osian’s Group and the Auction House, Neville Tuli, Chairman, Osian’s Group says, “For the first time we have a fixed annual calendar for the Auction House, ranging from auctions for the antiquities, fine and popular arts, to film and sporting memorabilia, to rare books, prints and photographs. The Auction House has been separated from all other activities (eg. the film festival, the conservation laboratory, the museum, and the like) so as to make it a specialised leader once again and to start rebuilding the market for the India’s arts, culture and heritage. The last few years have seen immense pressures and challenges, and they have only made us recognise that the unique business model for the arts needs ever more diligence, buffers and care. A strong art market is pivotal for the growth of knowledge and the spreading of awareness and sensitivity regarding one’s cultural heritage.”

(Pictures courtesy Osian’s) 

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