Reading on March 29

Toto Funds the Arts
 in association with The British Council Library

is delighted to invite you to an ‘epic’ evening

Nilanjan P. Choudhury will read from his first novel Bali and the Ocean of Milk  (HarperCollins, 2011) and be in conversation with Kaushik Viswanath, who will read from his short fiction The Truth About Ashwatthama and River

Venue: The British Council Library, Prestige Takt,
23 Kasturba Road Cross, Bangalore

Date and time: Thursday 29 March 2012, 6.45 p.m.

 

Nilanjan Choudhury spent several years peddling highly overrated software to gullible corporates, until a mid-life crisis saw him joining an NGO that works in education. He studied at IIM Ahmedabad and IIT Kanpur and often wonders why he went through all that jazz. He lives in Bangalore with his wife, a daughter and a home loan.

Kaushik Viswanath was short-listed for the 2012 TOTO award for Creative Writing. He is a Master of Arts in English Studies because IIT Madras says so. He writes a column called Dr K's Cure for Sanity in the New Indian Express, which, like much of his writing, has been deemed inappropriate for adults. His stories have been published by Karadi Tales, Scholastic, and Tinkle. He is currently working on his first novel.

Praise for Bali and the Ocean of Milk:

“A grand and frothy manthan of myth, magic, palace intrigue, humour and more!” – Mahesh Dattani, playwright

“Mythology with a modern political twist.” – C.K. Meena, author and columnist

“A tongue-in-cheek story that spans time, mythology and politics.” – Abhijit Bhaduri, novelist

TANGO at Rangashankara on March 15, 16, 17

Centre for Film and Drama

presents

TANGO

at Ranga Shankara

March 15 and 16, 730 pm

March 17, 330 & 730 pm

Playwright: Slawomir Mrozek

Director: Anmol Vellani

With Sachin Gurjale, Shiva Pathak, Ajit Bhide, Virginia Rodrigues, Ashish D’Abreo, Deepika Arwind & Prashanth Nair

ONLINE TICKETS: www.indianstage.in/www.bookmyshow.com

TANGO is set in the home of a Bohemian couple which fought for complete freedom in the arts and undermined prevailing aesthetic and social standards and values. In this world of anarchy, where nothing is sacred and everything is possible, Arthur, their son, who has nothing to rebel against, plots to restore old-world manners and conventions but discovers that the outward trappings of respectability will bring back order but not meaning. In such a moral desert, Arthur concludes that the only yardstick can be brute force, but he is too idealistic and sensitive to put this idea into practice. He has to give way to someone who has the required capacity for savage cruelty—a semi-literate street bully.

TANGO is a riotous rumination on the social and cultural conditions that led to the rise of totalitarianism in Europe. A highly entertaining farce, the play delivers its political message allegorically, namely, that the destruction of existing societal values and the disorder of life between the two world wars provided the feeding ground for anti-democratic political forces in Europe. This crisis of culture and civilization created a vacuum that could only be filled by a regime of terror and the mindless exercise of absolute power.

TANGO, however, has a message for constitutional democracies even today, especially those beleaguered by the intolerant and strident politics of the extreme Left or Right. If the capitalistic classes and middle classes, driven by narrow self-interest, convenience, fear or plain apathy, tolerate or actively support the rise of political fundamentalism, they will in all likelihood be forced eventually to dance to the latter’s jarring tune.