[Sarai Newsletter] JULY 2003

[The Sarai Programme]

CONTENTS – JULY 2003

I    Film @ Sarai – Govinda: Tera Jaadu Chal Gaya
4	Shola Aur Shabnam  
11	Aankhen 
18	Hero No. 1  
25	Hadh Kar di Aapne  

II   New @ Sarai Interface
III  Sarai @ 50th Venice Biennale
IV Workshop Report - Web Site Designing and Hosting, INFLIBNET Centre,       
    Ahmedabad 
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Dear Friends,

This month we continue the fan curations with one of Bollywood's most popular 
heroes – Govinda....

I	FILM @ SARAI: Ek Fan Bolta Hai
	All screenings are on Fridays at 4:30 pm at the Seminar Room, Centre for the 			
	Study of Developing Societies, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi -110054. The films are 		
	listed in the order of screening.

GOVINDA: TERA JAADU CHAL GAYA
Curated by Bhagwati Prasad

“Bollywood has been witness to a bewildering array of stars and superstars. 
Each one of them has his own individual style and panache - one gets you to 
tap your feet when he dances, another makes you weep; you love one for his 
baritone voice and envy the other for his long locks or... his biceps. Every 
actor casts his own spell, has a special charisma. But Govinda is one star 
who can do all of these - he can make you laugh or cry with equal ease, he 
easily moves between action, emotion, comedy and tragedy.

Govinda is adored and idolized by all. After watching a Govinda film the 
public comes out of  the cinema hall with misty eyes and a smiling face.

A happy-go-lucky persona, slightly stocky figure, with high energy levels, and 
a wide range of hairstyles, skin-tight pants with garish blue or yellow 
shirts, or at times simply in shorts and 'sando baniyan'. And, of course, a 
never-to-be-missed 100 watt smile. The guy can give inferiority complex to 
any dancing diva of the celluloid world. No two words about it - Govinda is 
A-1. Yeah! My Govinda  -  the Hero No -1!! ”

	Friday, July 4, 2003
	Shola Aur Shabnam (1992), 176 minutes
	Directed by David Dhawan

'Shola Aur Shabnam' marked the beginning of a highly successful career for 
director David Dhawan and Govinda that was to unleash several hilarious 
flicks in the future. 

Govinda and his four friends are army cadets under general Anupam Kher's 
command. Here he meets Divya Bharti, daughter of a DCP, from the neighbouring 
girl's hostel and the two fall in love. This angers the local don, Gulshan 
Grover, whose brother, Mohnish Behl, is also in love with Bharti. Grover 
cooks up a rape charge against Govinda who is promptly kicked out of the 
army.  

When Kher discovers the truth, Behl is thrown out. Behl retaliates by 
humiliating Govinda's handicapped sister leading to a fight. Govinda is 
locked up and harassed by the police. When he flees, he kidnaps Bharti. 

	Friday, July 11, 2003
	Aankhen(1993), 177 minutes
	Directed by David Dhawan

'Aankhen' uses a classic comic element – mistaken identity – to generate 
comedy. Govinda, Kader Khan and Raj Babbar are all in double roles along with 
Chunky Pandey, Shilpa Shirodkar, Rageshwari and Ritu Shivpuri. 

Kader Khan, lives in the city and has two mischievous sons, Govinda and 
Chunky. Totally fed up with his sons, Khan throws them out of the house but 
they land up at Ritu and Rageshwari's place and fall in love with them. The 
two brothers come across an evil plan by Shakti Kapoor and Raj Babbar who has 
a resemblance to the chief minister (Raj Babbar in a double role) and wants 
to use this likeness to switch places with the chief minister and get all 
their dirty work done. The villain kidnaps Govinda and frames Chunky for his 
murder. 

Meanwhile, another father and son, Govinda and Kader Khan, live in a village. 
Trouble breaks loose when this Govinda travels to the city for a wedding and 
is mistaken as the city boy. The kidnapped Govinda escapes and meets the 
village boy's fiance. 

A laugh riot, Aankhen marked the revival of popular cinema in the 1990s. It 
stormed the box office with a record that challenged the earlier blockbuster, 
Sooraj Barjatya's 'Maine Pyar Kiya' (1989). 

	Friday, July 18, 2003
	Hero No 1(1997), 134 minutes
	Directed by David Dhawan

Karisma Kapoor is an orphan who lives with her uncles and grandfather Paresh 
Rawal. While travelling abroad she meets and falls in love with Govinda.  
Unfortunately Govinda's father, Kader Khan, and Rawal are sworn enemies. 

In trying to be close to his girlfriend Govinda disguises himself as a servant 
and stays with Rawal's family eventually winning over everyone. 

The film was so popular that it led to a number of films titled “No.1”, 
kicking off a  whole new series in Bollywood.

	Friday, July 25, 2003
	Hadh Kar di Aapne (2000), 134 minutes
	Directed by Manoj Agarwal

'Hadh Kar Di Aapne' casts Govinda in multiple roles including that of a 
peevish grandmother, a shaky grandfather and a young woman.  This is also the 
first time that Govinda appears in a “chocolate hero” role. 

Ritu Shivpuri and Nirmal Pandey are married and each is convinced that the 
spouse is cheating on them.  Both Shivpuri and Pandey plan to expose their 
spouse so that they can secure a divorce. The wife pretends that she is going 
to Europe but instead sends her namesake and friend, Rani Mukherjee, who she 
hopes will catch her husband red-handed. The husband decides to send a 
friend, Govinda, on the trip, to spy on his wife. Ironically, Govinda and 
Rani Mukherjee fall in love. 


II	NEW @SARAI INTERFACE:
	'INSIDE/OUTSIDE: Mannequins and Reflections on the City Street' 
	A photo essay by Denis Vidal during his trip to Delhi for the City One 		
	Conference.

These are pictures of mannequins and reflections on store windows. A way of 
looking, not just at the contents of the displays nor the play of 
reflections, but at a seamless integration of inside and outside, of object 
and reflection. Vulnerability is written into the allure of the mannequins. 
This is a visual journey through the streets of Delhi with photographs that 
capture the essence of everyday moments with the city and its people. 


III	SARAI @ 50th VENICE BIENNALE:
	June 15 – November 2, 2003

The 50th Venice Biennale (www.labiennale.org) is titled “Dreams and Conflicts: 
The Dictatorship of the Viewer” and curated by Francesco Bonami. 

The Raqs Media Collective is showing two works, designed and co-produced at 
the Sarai Media Lab. 

i) In the section 'The Structure of Survival', curated by Carlos Basualdo:
	“5 Pieces of Evidence”
	Video + Sound Installation
	by Raqs Media Collective
	Editing: Parvati Sharma | Sound Design: Vipin Bhati | Coding: T. Meyarivan |
	Production: Ashish Mahajan | Renu Iyer | Mrityunjay Chatterjee

"The invisible missing person, and the barely visible apparition that haunts 
the urban night, constitute two uncanny poles in a city's imagination of 
itself. People disappear, and mysterious assailants manifest themselves w=
ith 
an uncanny regularity in spaces scarred by the assault of enumeration and 
planning, and the shadows of spontaneous disaffection, crime and routine 
state violence.

Global cities are networked entities. The network excretes fear as a byproduct 
of the remaking of itself as a gleaming transmetropolitan fortress. People 
disappear or are sucked into the intricate mesh of the network, and the 
mystery assailant emerges from its vortex to forage for more."

ii) In the section 'Utopia Station', curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Molly 
Nesbit, Rikrit Tiravanija

	"Utopia is a hearing aid"
	Poster, paper. 60" x 84"
	by Raqs Media Collective
	Design with Pradip Saha
	(http://www.e-flux.com/projects/utopia/art/094raqsmedia/index.html)

"Retinas need rest, ears need sharpening, a change of register and a register 
of change. Sublimal, submerged sounds demand attention. Lucid dreams awaken 
dormant possibilities. Rarely asked questions surprise. New rhythms play on 
nascent frequencies. All signals transmit and receive. Utopia is a record of 
the conversations that the world has with itself, out of earshot. Utopia is a 
hearing aid. Use it."

For all posters in the exhibition check out 
http://www.e-flux.com/projects/utopia/index.html


IV	WORKSHOP REPORT:
	Workshop on Web Site Designing and Hosting, INFLIBNET Centre, Ahmedabad 
	June 16-20, 2003

Moslem Quraishy from Sarai attended a workshop on Web Site Designing and 
Hosting, organised by INFLIBNET (Information and Library Network) Centre, an 
autonomous Inter-University Centre (IUC) of the University Grants Commission, 
in Ahmedabad. It is a pioneering institution in the field of Library and 
Information Sciences working on database development software, online 
archiving, digital library systems and e-journal access. INFLIBNET also 
facilitates pooling, sharing and  optimisation of Library/Information 
resources.

Presentations included HTML tagging, stylesheets, creation of dynamic 
webpages, photoshop use etc. Each lecture was followed by hands-on sessions 
making it very useful for the 20 participants.    

Discussions centred around accessing e-journals, storage of digital documents 
and  archive classification. Dr. Edward Proctol, Electronic Resources 
Librarian, Southwest Missouri State University, Missouri, and Swati 
Bhattacharya, Librarian, IIM Calcutta, shared their experience. 

------------------------------------

Cheers,
Ranita
The Sarai Programme
Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054
Tel:  (+91) 11 23960040
       (+91) 11 23942199, ext 307
Fax: (+91) 11 23943450
www.sarai.net