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Qutb Shahi Tombs: Heritage Restoration by Ratish Nanda, CEO, Aga Khan Trust for Culture

Heritage restoration is often a topic of heartbreak in Hyderabad. However, if there has been any visible change on that front, it is at the Qutb Shahi tombs, the royal necropolis where the Golconda kings and founders of Hyderabad were laid to rest. The ongoing work in the complex has been a much-needed respite from the usual apathy that Hyderabadis witness with regard to the city’s heritage.

Undertaken by the Telangana department of Archaeology and Museums and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) some years ago, the work at the Qutb Shahi tombs has brought about visible (and much needed) change and stability to the heritage monuments, some of which were in a precarious situation. Using archival imagines and artisans who were specifically brought to Hyderabad for this work, the structures have been revived by expert conservation architects. So how did they undertake this monumental task?

To understand that, and to throw light on the extensive work that has been taken up, we bring to you talk by the very person in charge of it all – Ratish Nanda, the CEO of the AKTC. Nanda, who has been with the AKTC for two decades, is also the man behind the restoration of (Mughal emperor) Babur’s tomb in Afghanistan. The AKTC has also taken up other major restoration works in the country like the Humayun’s tomb and the Sunder nursery in New Delhi.

ENTRY FREE & OPEN TO ALL

Nori Art and Puppetry Centre will be presenting- Puppet Tales of Wisddom.It is A Contemporary Puppet performance.Two Stories The Pious Cat and The Magic Shank will be performed with a variety of puppets,glove, rod, mouth and rod in an experimental bunraku style

From Ameer Khusro to Tagore: A Journey through the Syncretic Tradition of Indian Music

This is a presentation to remind ourselves as we pass through a difficult period of communal tensions and violence, about India’s history of syncretic culture. The people of India have lived in peace and harmony over the ages. Despite differences in religions, they have all contributed to building a very rich and composite culture, and this is beautifully reflected in our literature and music. This programme is a musical journey through India’s traditions of secular poetry & music, in a historical order beginning from the 13 the century to the present day. Most of the music is composed and sung by Dr Subhendu Ghosh and is based on Hindustani ragas or other musical forms including the traditional folk songs. The narrative includes the following poets – Hazrat Ameer Khusro, Kabir, Guru Nanak, Mian Taan Sen, Bulle Shah, Lalan Faqir, Nazeer Akbarabadi, Ram Prasad Bismil, Haribans Ray Bachchan, Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Rabindranath Tagore. This is a small effort to highlight the poetic genius of our Indian poets and pay our tribute to those who dedicated their lives for a Secular India.

The program will have a Poetry recitation by Laltu at the beginning of the event.

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Who’s singing over there?

Synopsis: n 1941 Yugoslavia, smooth young singer Pevac (Dragan Nikolic) joins a group of disparate and colorful characters on a bus destined for the capital, Belgrade. Among them is a grouchy World War I veteran, a Germanophile, a strange huntsman armed with a rifle, an athletic hypochondriac and a pair of gypsy musicians.

Ashadh Ka Ek Din is a Hindi play by Mohan Rakesh that debuted in 1958 and is considered the first Modern Hindi play.The title of the play derives from the second verse of the Sanskrit dramatist Kalidas’s play Meghadūta. It literally means A day in the month of Ashadh. Mohan Rakesh noted in the introduction to a subsequent play, King-swans of the waves, that, whenever he read Kalidas’ Meghdoot, he felt that the poet had distilled out his sense of acute guilt and alienation from his own being into that play, and that this realization is what motivated Mohan Rakesh’s writing of Ashadh ka ek din.The play received a Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for best play in 1959 and has been staged by several prominent directors to critical acclaim. This play explains the facts about time, the cost you have to pay for the oppourtunities given by time and the time doesn’t wait.

Balkan Express

Synopsis: Group of petty criminals is trying to make some money under the disguise of musical band in Nazi-occupied Serbia.

The promise of providing (to the youth especially) two crore jobs by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Centre has now become a thorn in its flesh. And data pertaining to the unemployment rate was never published. While the Centre and BJP functionaries have made various claims of providing jobs, one man’s resignation in protest over the alleged withholding of the real statistics caused a furor earlier in January.

P.C. Mohanan would have been just another name on a long list of government officials, but the then acting chairman of the National Statistical Commission (NCS) took the decision to resign, later the unemployment data was leaked and published by a newspaper. It showed that at 6.1%, unemployment was at its highest in the last 45 years. To understand what exactly the Centre was not wanting to publish, and why Mr. Mohanan decided to resign, come join us for a talk and a Q&A session with the man himself at Lamakaan on Sunday, 7 April, at 730 pm. The former acting chairman of the NSC will explain the wider issues behind his resignation, and the employment data generation process in India and what the report would have meant for public discourse and why official data should be a public good.

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Dhrupad is an ancient music of India with its own vocabulary and deep style of rendering. It is oldest and purest style of music of India. At the same time flamenco is UNESCO PROTECTED art forms from Spain and it has it’s own magnetism. In this event , we are trying to create a musical dialogue between these 2 traditional styles ,without diluting any form, and create a unique rendering with unique dialogue of Dhrupad Vocal, Rare instrument Surbahar and Flamenco Guitar.

Elections: The Saga of Broken Promises – A Dialogue

The elections in April will commence the 17th Loksabha elections in India. At this crucial juncture, every political party opens its box of schemes to lure the voters. If the bait of schemes did not create the sir that they expected, the latest trick up their wily sleeve is to spread propaganda, jumle baazi.

The history of 16th Loksabha elections has taught us that elections in India are just the never-ending saga of broken promises and of course costly affair too with crores of rupees are being pumped into publicity and promotions.

So as the lead participants of this high voltage political act let us all ask some important questions like: What is that we should recall and assess before voting in these elections?

Does our vote matter? Does NOTA bear any weight?

What should we learn from the broken promises? Should we be voting for the MP or PM? And many more such questions…

Do join us for a Dialogue on the biggest and largest exercise of Indian Democracy.