Curated by Rajiv Mehrotra

 

Ghosts of Machu Picchu: Inside the Incan City in the Clouds 

(56 min; 2014; dvd; English)

Director: Alan Ritsko

 

Perched atop a mountain crest, mysteriously abandoned more than four centuries ago, Machu Picchu is the most famous archeological ruin in the Western Hemisphere and an iconic symbol of the power and engineering prowess of the Inca. In the years since Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911, there have been countless theories about this "Lost City of the Incas," yet it remains an enigma. Why did the Incas build it on such an inaccessible site? Who lived among its stone buildings, farmed its emerald green terraces, and drank from its sophisticated aqueduct system? The film follows a new generation of archeologists as they probe areas of Machu Picchu that haven't been touched since the time of the Incas and unearth burials of the people who built the sacred site

 

CANCELLED


A discussion series on well-known literary figures of Latin America

 

Conceptualised and coordinated by Prof. Vibha Maurya, Dept. of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Delhi

 

Speakers: Prof. Anil Bhatti, Emeritus Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Prof. Shaswati Mazumdar, Professor of German Studies, University of Delhi; Prof. Vijaya Venkataraman, Associated Professor of Hispanic Studies, University of Delhi; among others

 

Screening of a film followed by a recital

 

Jamal-e-Begum Akhtar (20 min; dvd; year?)

Directed by Rita Ganguly

 

Shayari by Janab Wasim Barelvi

Vocal Recital by Rageshri Das 

 

Beyond Barbed Wires: A Distant Dawn (35 min; dvd; English)

Directed by Rafeeq Ellias who will introduce the film

 

A Knock at Midnight  - More than 50 years ago the lives of thousands of Chinese living in India changed when they were taken from their homes in the Darjeeling and Assam areas to an internment camp in Deoli, Rajasthan. The film explores in gripping vignettes how some ex-internees have lived with the experience

 

The Deoliwallahs – The Last Generation of Survivors of the Chinese Internment Camp in Deoli

Panelists: Michael Cheng was six years old when he was interned. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with his family; Joy Ma is a writer and attended Delhi University. Born in Deoli, she is working on a book about her family’s journey in India; Yin Marsh was 13 when she went to Deoli. She is the author of Doing Time with Nehru; and Steven Wan who was a teenager when he was interned with his family. He lives in Toronto, Canada

 

Chair: Dilip D’Souza, Mumbai-based writer and journalist

 

Speaker: Dr. Tapati Guha-Thakurta, Director and Professor in History, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, who will speak on her new book published by Primus Books

 

Discussant: Ms Gayatri Sinha, art critic and curator

 

Chair: Shri Jawhar Sircar, CEO, Prasar Bharati

 

In his lifetime, Rabindranath Tagore penned some rare ‘nonsense’ rhymes numbering about 300, in seven slim books. These verses have seldom been known outside Bengal and never rendered through performing arts: even in Bengal. 

 

Shri Utpal K Banerjee has rendered them into rhymed English verses, which have now been published by the Sahitya Akademi in four volumes under the generic title: Rainbow Rhymes of Tagore. A selection out of these English verses will be visualised – in innovative classical forms by the following well-known choreographer-dancers

 

Purva Dhanasree in Vilasini Natyam; Kavita Dwivedi in Odissi; Pratibha Prahlad in Bharatanatyam; and Saswati Sen  in Kathak 

 

An exhibition of photographs on the archaeological sites of Mayan culture in Guatemala. Stunning and impressive views of the country and of the Mayan people

 

Photographs from the Ministry of Culture, Guatemala

 

Speakers: Romila Thapar ; K. Satchidanandan  and  Shyam B. Menon 

Chair: Githa Hariharan

The discussion will be accompanied by a presentation of the new sites of the Indian Writers’ Forum,www.indianculturalforum.in and www.guftugu.in, the e-journal of arts and literature, Guftugu.

 

 

 

 

A discussion