Cafe Mondegar : An interesting cafe with the murals of Mario Miranda — pub culture caricatures.

      Since my college days, as a fan of Mario Miranda, I have been following his cartoons till today. Introduced through The Illustrated Weekly of India to the Indian audience in 70s, Mario Miranda and R.K.Laxman both became familiar names within a short period. Both the cartoonists were totally different in their perception and approach to their respective works. Mario liked to capture the life of affluent and westernised people and unmask their reality beneath that show off, whereas Laxman liked to capture the feelings, aspirations and predicaments of common Indian man in different situations.  Both were equally good in sensitising the situation and bring out the best — both were equally famous.                                                                   

. I was in Mumbai to attend a function in the month of November 2017, and was staying at YWCA , which is  quite nearby to this Mondegar Cafe, to be precise, a fifteen minutes’ walk. It is at the entrance of Colaba as a landmark. Whenever I visit Mumbai, I never miss to visit this cafe because of its ambience, because of Mario Mirando’s exquisite murals on its walls. One needs to visit this place to see and feel the celebrations of Mario Miranda’s cartoons in each and every corner of this joint, in all possible manners. This cafe has two big murals: one reflects the life in Mumbai, and the other one reflects the atmosphere of the cafe. These murals adorning the walls of the cafe since1990s have given visual treat to the visitors who drop in to chill out, after a hectic day.

 A few minutes after the dusk, when we entered the pub, it was bustling with people, mostly youngsters. Big tall beer bottles were sitting at the centre of each table. The Mirando girls with toothy smile on the containers meant for tissue papers were there to greet everyone. The girl holding a fork in hand on one of the containers, with a big smile invited us to a small cosy table in the corner. From that point, we could see and feel the commotion in the other room too. Interestingly, the other room had a very large mural of a man carrying huge wooden beer containers on his cart pulled by a horse and westernised men standing in three piece suits with funny looks, by Mario Miranda in black and red. We ordered beer and finger chips. To feel the hustle and bustle, to hear the clattering of the glasses, to enjoy the visual beauty of the pub, we were there. The waiter came with a tin of beer, a couple of glasses, and a plate of finger chips. Wherever we stretched our eyes, we saw Mario glaring at us amusingly, I thought. With Mario’s drawing on the plate, the finger chips tasted very delicious. The waiters sported Mario’s cartoons on their white T shirts. I politely asked one of the waiters to take some photographs for me,  he obliged very happily after knowing that it is for a blogger. Enthusiastically, he took some more photographs and obliged me and Miranda together.  We said cheers to Mario and enjoyed our drinks with a relish. If every artist’s works adore the walls of public walls in this way, there will be a great  cultural change.  

Howrah Bridge: The Howrah Bridge has stood the test of time — the Second World War.

On the way to Butan, we visited Kolkata for a couple of days in the month of Feb,2005. When we reached Culcutta, it was almost evening.  Our guest house was quite close to Howrah Bridge, and we could see the bridge through the room’s window in awe. From distance, it looked beautiful and majestic and with lot of commotion around it. For Kolkata, I have a strange fascination for multiple reasons. Since my school and college days, I have developed a taste for many Bengali writers — started with Sharatchhndra Chatterjee and moved to Nirad Chowdary — started with Rabindranath Tagore’s paintings and moved to Shantiniketan’s murals — from Bengali cotton sari to Bengal Dothi — from Rasgoola to fried fish in sesame oil in Bengal Club. After refreshing ourselves with tea and snacks at guest house, we set out to have a better and closer look at the life around. The towering look of the bridge across the Hoogli River was very romantic at the dusk, with sunrays adding golden touch to the one side of the bridge structure. Kolkata is very densely populated! When we neared the bridge, we could sense the feel of that density. Like ants, people were moving on the bridge. With streams of sunrays reflecting on the bluish grey water, the river looked enchanting and graceful dotted with boats and streamers, which were ferrying passengers across the river. Beneath the bridge, life was in full swing, looked like a market place with oily faced people with Bengali accent — the smell of raw and fried fish engulfed us. On small stoves, raw fishes being fried, the smell had spread  everywhere. The smell of the water from the close by river and the smell of frying fish clubbed together had created an unusual aroma therapy for the tourists whether one required it or not. Watching with greedy eyes and watering mouths, dogs and cats too were under aroma therapy near the stoves. When I read about Howrah Bridge celebrating its 75^th year, my nostalgic memories  unrolled. A big salute to the bridge !  This February 3, 2018, the people of Kolkatta were happy to see that the Howrah Bridge was celebrating its 75^th year.  The Howrah Bridge was constructed in 1943 by the British during their rule in India.  The inauguration of the bridge was a simple affair; a tram travelled from KolKata city to Howrah Railway Station to mark its beginning; th British purposely did not go for the grand inauguration as the war had started. The Howrah Bridge has stood the test of time — the Second World War. The bridge would have collapsed and there would have been no trace of it , had it been bombed during the Second World War as the Pearl Harbour of America. But today, with great pleasure, we all look at this majestic infrastructure which has served people for 75 years. With the coming of the British, India got introduced to some new things like roadways, railways, industries, English medicine, and moreover, western culture. 

Loving Vincent : An animated film based on the life of Van Gogh. 65,000 hand-painted frames in the style of Van Gough are used to create this animated film. Nearly 125 artists from different nations have come together to work out this project; and it has taken seven years to complete this beautiful movie, which explores the causes of the suicide of the artist through his letters and paintings.

                           The life of world famous artist Van Gogh has been a great source of inspiration to filmmakers and novelists.  As an artist I have read and reread the book based on his life Lust for Life many times. The more one reads this book, the more one becomes sentimental and emotional and gets attached to the character. His passion, dedication, love for nature, romance with colours and canvass ­— all interest and engross readers immensely with no end. From generations to generations, his life lived frenziedly has inspired many producers and directors to make films with multiple viewpoints. During his life time, he neither earned enough money to support himself and to lead a lavish life style, nor was he recognised for his outstanding brilliant works, which speak volumes till toady. A sudden tragic end to his life, at the age of 36, left his experimentation into the art field half-way and incomplete, it seems.

Loving Vincent, biographical film of the artist, was a nominee for 90^th Academy Awards. Loving Vincent tries to unveil the truth of the artist’s suicide centred on the last available letters written to his brother Theo.  

 The director has a very interesting approach to the film making here. Instead of going for the present-day advantages of the technology, the director has painstakingly opted for hand -painting method for her animated movie making. Before the introduction of technology, a series of hand- painted frames were to be used while making animated movies, and, no doubt, it was indeed a laborious work and time consuming also. With the advancement of the technology, the making of animated films has become pretty easy and the numbers of films also have increased remarkably. But, here for this feature film - 65,000 paintings have been hand painted in the style of Van Gogh — for the very style he was mocked and criticized during his life time — both by his friends and critics. With this huge body of paintings, the film has been made with all the dedication and hard work, which took almost seven years to complete. The 93-minute-long film showcases 65,000 hand-painted frames sequentially, and each second shoot requiring an average of12 canvases.

 For this project, nearly 125 artists from different countries came together and produced a huge body of works based on the life of world famous artist Vincent, especially in oils. This body of works details about his life, friends, his home, his belongings so as to give details of his life. These paintings are painted with oil colours which was the prevalent medium then. We all artists know how Van Gogh used paint his canvasses — he literally used to squeeze the tubes of  oil colours directly onto the canvases — the thick pigmentation applied frenziedly evoked criticism  — because smooth application was the trend then But he never compromised though his friends tried to dissuade him to follow the trend and to be on the bandwagon.

As a result of combining her passion for cinema and painting, the film director Dorota Kobiela has woven this film with 65,000 frames, each one hand painted. One has to appreciate the efforts in bringing out the film based on hand-painted frames as everyone is turning to technology even for small works. Though the film could not get the award, it deserves to be watched for its innovative approach.