Prime South: Tidings From The Southern States

It’s a unique one-stop mall to provide you fun of all kinds. Following its foray into animation and special effects for desi and Hollywood films, the Pentasoft group has now established a huge entertainment complex on the outskirts of Chennai. Spread over an awesome 1,00,000 sq ft, the 35 crore Mayajaal is built like a dome and houses six mini-theatres, an eight-lane bowling alley, a video games and virtual reality parlour, an atrium for concerts or entertainment programmes and much more. The 8,000 sq ft atrium has a capacity to seat 300 persons. Its giant 12 ft x 9 ft screen will further push up the excitement levels with mind-blowing visuals and sound. The mini-theatres with state-of-the-art projection systems and a seating capacity of 150 will screen the latest English and regional movies. For surfers and coffee addicts, there’s a trendy net cafe, which offers more than just the filtered brew. The Food Court serves almost anything you fancy—from dosas and burgers to ice-creams. Mayajaal’s cheery decor, with painted murals and vivid splashes of colour and e-joy graffiti, only add to the fun feel. V. Chandrasekharan, Pentamedia chairman and ceo, says Mayajaal’s trump card is its location. Boasts he: "It will soon become the Miami of India." If fun isn’tenough, it also adds a dose of shopping. Its exclusive store promises hours of greatshopping. What more can you ask for? 

Performances in India are always special events for Jonathan Hollander, founder and artistic director of New York’s Battery Dance Company. His troupe has toured India four times in the past, but the shows this time are special because "Layapriya," composed to South Indian rhythms, is being performed for the first time in India. The choreography uses Indian motifs like Nataraja’s leg stretch (Dancing Shiva), hand gestures and stances from Indian dance. Even the instruments included the mridangam, the ganjira and konnakol (voice percussion). Any wonder then that the JN Tata auditorium in Bangalore was houseful by the who’s who of the city.

For the congregation at St Anthony’s Church at Uttarahalli, near Bangalore, this Easter’s Vigil Mass was momentous. As the mass drew to an end, Fr John Anthony handed out cards apt to fit into the palm. The first of their kind in India, these cards sketch the family tree of each parishioner and offer a surfeit of data—from the blood group to the marriage anniversary of each member.The "Genealogical Card" also doubles up as a personal identification card, membership and loyalty card and e-cash card to make online donations or other services to the church. Says Fr Anthony: "I thought we should go hi-tech and have all the details on a smart card. If someone abroad wants to marry a member of our parish, all the information can be sent by e-mail." Talk offaith going hi-tech, this onetakes the cake.

When Kyo Kudozan, Japan’s national-level Sumo wrestler, stepped onto the Kalaripayattu "anganam" at the Indian School of Martial Arts of Thiruvananthapuram, he thought it prudent to embrace Kalari expert Balachandran Master as his guru rather than fight him. Under the attentive gaze of fellow wrestler Shioda Yasokichi, who preferred to sit out the encounter, Kudozan buckled under the deft arm and leg locks applied by the older but quicker Kalari maestro. At the end of the day, the Sumo stars had picked up a few tricks. But ask Yasokichi about this art, and he has only this to say: "It looks dangerous." Yeah.

What better than God’s Own Country to soothe fatigued geeks. Balmy bays, curving waterways and tranquil plantations that sway to nature’s symphony: such an idyllic precinct would evidently fit the prescription (or do we say description) of an anodyne for weary workaholics. And this is how Kerala is selling itself to India’s Silicon hothouse, Bangalore. The city was chosen ahead of the others by Kerala Tourism Department for a road show on holiday destinations. The target audience were honchos from at least twenty infotech majors. "Our presentation to these companies is to offer a holiday package as incentives to employees," says Dr Venu, the Kerala Tourism director. And the idea did catch the fancy of some IT bigwigs. Already the queries have started pouring in. And going by the signs, it surely seems to be a good beginning.

Chennai, one of the last bastions of the classical, was recently host to an evening of unabashed neoteric dance, or what choreographer Jayachandran Palazhy prefers to call movement art where you leave behind your pre-formed notions of what you think a dance form ought to contain. And with prejudices safely out of the way, City Maps turned out to be an evening of intense energy and high-decibel movement from a five-member troupe from UK, the imlata Dance Company. Organised as part of the German Festival in India and presented by Max Mueller Bhavan, City Maps brought together Palazhy’s choreography, Allan Parker’s digital design and Peter Anderson’s cinematography.

Inspired by Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, the performance used forits backdrop video projections of laser beams, distorted traffic lights, TV static, or thebrooding, ever-changing cityscapes. The music (composed by Shrikant Shriram) was mostly astaccato rhythm like an automatic firing endlessly or a typewriter gone haywire,interspersed with the soulful strains of the sitar or flute or the Indian dha-dha-dhabeat. The visual and sound—relentless, over-loud and over-bright—recreated notso much an urban area as one of those surreal, futuristic landscapes from those morbidcomputer games where even the walls are out to kill you. The dancers impressed by theirsheer force and intensity. Especially in the second piece, with its graphic depiction of acouple caught in the intense passions of hate and lust. Though the movement, even where itdid not outwardly tell a tale, held your attention, the long periods of dance with nomusic were disturbing—they made the audience restive.

The laws of Vaastu Shilpa are forcing an increasingly large number of people to take a second look at how and where they live. Believers are known to have broken walls and restructured their homes to shoo away evil influences. A less cumbersome option is now making its presence felt in Thiruvananthapuram. It’s called Feng-Shui, the Chinese version of Vaastu. "While Vaastu will ask you to demolish a door or a wall, Feng-Shui advises you to use strategically-placed mirrors to reflect the evil away," says Viswanathan, a landscape architect who has built his home combining both Vaastu and Feng Shui. The Chinese system, being the more adaptable, is fast gaining popularity. Feng-Shui demands no structural changes and derives its harmony by uniting contrasts—night and day, black and white and so on—and combining smooth and rough textures. The result is joy and serenity to the householder.

It is finally the survival instinct that binds all of humanity—and it is also theskein that holds together Munna, the drug-pusher, Das, a failed Marxist, his daughterPrabha ensconced in Delhi suburbia and Nat King Cole, the septuagenarian AC mechanicfighting to keep his 19-year-old job, in Avijit Dutt’s one act play, I am not SheikhChilli. Played out in four scenes on a park bench somewhere in Delhi’s sprawlinggardens, the conversational capers between Nat and Das for the most part frame the play.

They have all hailed it as a dream come true. K.J. Yesudas, K.S. Chitra and S.P. Balasubramaniam have been invited to perform at the world’s most coveted venue—the Royal Albert Hall in London where the trio will belt out some of the all-time hits from Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi films. Accompanying them on stage will be stars like Carnatic vocalist M.S. Subbalakshmi, Asha Bhosle and Jagjit Singh.

Media Moghul Ramoji Rao is all set to try his hand in making Hollywood-type movies onthe Bollywood turf. His forthcoming film, Quicksand, is set against the backdrop of the US army at the sprawling Arizona military base. Grapevine has it that the film has all the ingredients of a Hollywood thriller. Except that it is being shot entirely at the Ramoji Film City in the outskirts of Hyderabad. Rao is producing the film under hisbanner—Usha Kiron Movies. But can a film of Hollywood quality be made in Hyderabad?The international class facilities spread over 250 acres may well pave the way. In fact,just about any kind of set can be created here, a reason why Hollywood directors andproducers are getting increasingly drawn towards it. Take, for instance, Sam Fristenberg,Quicksand director. "I am more than satisfied with the facilities available here. The infrastructure available is as good as that in Hollywood," he says. Fristenbergshould know better with films like Operation Delta Force and American Ninja under his belt.

The litterateur in Marpadi Veerappa Moily seems insuppressible, a fact reinforced by the former chief minister’s latest book, Sri Ramayana Mahanveshanam. This is the first volume of an epic poem that he has been working on in recent years. At the release of this work, his daughter Hamsa Moily presented a Bharatanatyam version of the book. In the past, from his days as a schoolboy, Moily has been a prolific writer, with four novels, eight plays and six collections of poems, and scores of features to his credit. "Writing helps to instill sensitiveness in a successful politician," is how he describes his enviable alliance with literature. Are other politicians listening?