Cinema City at the NGMA

more than two years after the preview show at the berlinale in 2010, cinema city now opened at the ngma on saturday. the response was beyond all that we expected. over 600 people thronging the unusual spaces of the ngma- and everything looked very good. on the ground floor the large table of miscellany with 'cinema city lived' and the 'atlas' along with other paraphernalia; apurva's interactive censorship toy, kausik's bioscope and the beginning of the calendar project. the first floor has pushpamala's second version of the phantom lady along with the first of paro's telephone sound installation; the next floor is made of atuls journey from ghatkopar to cst every day of art school in the form of station signs with villains on them along with paro's phone booth. then it is anant joshi's mad whirling toyscape skyline. on the landings some more calendars and paro's third pco. The dome is gorgeous right now with the enormous pipeline by the design cell looking stunning, shreyas' strange objects from a possible future cinema city and archana's playful back projection bicycle.

please do go see!

the ngma dome

this morning in a meeting for the cinema city exhibition at the ngma apurva and i were taken up to the dome to invent ways to darken the skylights. photo-op.

bhopal / spa at manit

the SPA, Bbopal building is in the old abandoned sports complex at MANIT while their new campus is being built. Maulana Azad university on top a bald mountain top with a wall to hide away the slums in the valley. when i landed thursday night the wind blew a sandstorm on the streets. the next day when we got out of the jury the sky was overcast and thunderclouds, lightning and rain everywhere. we took a walk in the evening light and got soaked.

bhopal

bhopal seems like a dream city from a mughal miniature. water bodies, lakes, jharokhas and stories. this in spite of the fact that in the faded palaces within the older city new mosters are ebing built. even in the newere parts of the city the dream like strangeness persists.
the brand new airport was like a spaceship in the desert glowing white. all around is was piss yellow light and a car park. our hotel was across the lake on the south-  an old nawabi palace - now the jehan numa hotel. luxurious, gorgeous food around foutains in white courtyards. a short distance away was bharat bhavan where yuo could see the sun set.
the city was nestled in between hills and valleys all soft and rounded in the middle of the rugged landscape around. the lakes are gorgeous, especially in the summer evenings. the older city too was easier and more relaxed than the others i have been to. the market lanes seem slower and easier, the palaces and mosques picturesque like fading miniatures. not yet the tourist attraction, the older city mosques still seem like public spaces and not marketable commodities. kids lounge in the shade or play on the stairs. the walk took us through the bazaar to moti masjid and then to have falooda at haji center.
on the way out of the city we realized that the whole city is navigated through numbers- bus stop no 2 / chauraha no 5 / zone 3...
once in a while the eccentricities of an indian city make their appearance- a curfew mandir to keep peace at the corner of a public space / a bird weighed down by a stne- public art by swaminathan protested against by the local muslim community as an insult, a gaylord gym and a musical toilet- and on the road to bhimbetka in the industrial area of mandideep the union carbide factory.

 the new airport

 jehan numa palace hotel

gauhar mahal

 old city streets and palaces

the taj ul masjid

moti masjid

 

jama masjid

 itwara chowk

 hajil lassi and falooda hotel, itwara chowk

 

curfew mata ka mandir

gaylord gym

musical toilet

union carbide factory

swaminathan's bird and stone