Sunday Long Reads: Nalini Malani’s show at LNG dismantles patriarchal dominance, Shobhaa De on provocative writing and more

Here are the interesting reads of the week

Nalini Malani, portrait, National Gallery, London. Photo Luke Walker

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How artist Nalini Malani’s show at London’s National Gallery dismantles patriarchal dominance and challenges linear viewing

Inside a dark room at London’s historic National Gallery, four walls, over 40 metre in length, are covered with projections. Some may seem familiar, others not. But each has a role to play in the dramatic dialogue of superimposed animations that artist Nalini Malani has created as the National Gallery’s first contemporary fellow. “Entering the exhibition is like entering my brain — a seemingly endless stream of thought-bubbles, ideas and emotions in the form of images pop up and bounce against each other,” says Malani, 77.

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Vikramaditya Motwane: ‘The biggest need right now is to find stories’

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Vikramaditya Motwane’s Jubilee is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Director-screenwriter Vikramaditya Motwane calls himself “the family archivist” and proudly shows the album of black-and-white stills from the 1951-movie Andolan, a film about India’s history and its struggle for Independence that his grandfather Harnam Motwane had produced. While the movie was commercially unsuccessful, nearly seven decades later Motwane named his production company — Andolan Films — after his grandfather’s passion project. After its debut production, a feature film titled AK vs AK (2020), Andolan Films harks back to the golden era of Hindi cinema with a period drama series, Jubilee, which is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

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Shobhaa De: ‘I’d like to do an extremely provocative and wicked book’

“I want people, especially the younger generation. to read me. But I was aware that their attention spans is limited,” Shobhaa De

In your latest book Insatiable: My Hunger for Life (Harper Collins; Rs 699), you write about the impact of pandemic. Do you think our lives have changed forever?

I don’t think it will ever leave us. And, I am not saying this as an alarmist. I don’t mean the physical presence of the virus but definitely the cataclysmic changes that all of us endured because of it. It is not so much about our social life but about emotional landscape that’s changed forever. I haven’t met a single person who is unaffected by it. A city as vibrant as Mumbai became a ghost town. It’s that silence that got to me more than anything else since the mad, chaotic frenzy of people headed somewhere in the city appeals to me.

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‘Artistes are the moral compass of their times’: Rabbi Shergill

Delhi-based Shergill talks about how language brings resonance, the inclusivity of Punjabiyat and why nationalism is a Western import in a multicultural country like India (Source: Teamworks)

When 49-year-old Rabbi Shergill opened the finale of the first Sacred Amritsar Festival organised by Teamworks last month and held at the newly restored Gobindgarh Fort, he began with Jugni, his 2004 song that pitched into the violence in Kashmir and Punjab’s unemployment. Based on 13th century Sufi mystic Baba Farid’s Jugni, Shergill sung his version in Majhi, a dialect spoken in what was once central Punjab in undivided India. After a few popular numbers, he turned to Bilquis, a decade-old piece, that found resonance in 2022 when Bilkis Bano’s rapists were released. In this interview, Delhi-based Shergill talks about how language brings resonance, the inclusivity of Punjabiyat and why nationalism is a Western import in a multicultural country like India.

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The Booker Prize trophy has just been christened after writer Iris Murdoch. Here’s what you need to know about her

Irish-British writer Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Booker Prize trophy, arguably the most coveted literary award in the world, has been christened for the first time in history: Iris. A jury, including Shehan Karunatilaka, who won the Booker 2022 for The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, shortlisted six names from a pool of 800 that included writers, literary characters and ancient goddesses and muses. In contention were Bernie, Beryl, Iris, Minerva, Janina and Calliope.

‘Modelling is important for me’: Myra Rampal

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Myra Rampal made her runway debut with Dior as it unveiled its Fall 2023 collection at the magestic Gateway of India in March this year

Even as Gateway of India was transformed for Paris fashion house Christian Dior’s 2023 Fall collection last week, and the star-studded show made news, an Instagram post created quite a buzz. Actor-model Arjun Rampal announced his daughter 17-year-old Myra’s debut on the runway for Dior.

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Playing peekaboo with the black-rumped flameback

Black-rumped flameback (Source: Ranjit Lal)

There is such a joyous lunacy in the ringing laugh of the black-rumped flameback (nee golden-backed woodpecker) that it can infect you with a reckless state of derring-do and put a silly grin on your face, even at five o’clock in the morning! Imagine, this bird with its beautiful bullion back and bottlebrush scarlet crest has greeted the new day by hammering its head against solid wood, anywhere between 100 and 300 times a minute, and then flies off cackling through the trees – even as you scrabble around to offer it an asprin.

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