Scouring the Sky for Saucers

Cult FOLLOWING
8
THEATRE
THEATRE
FESTIVAL
PALESTINE IN FOCUS:
Maraa along with drama
therapist Mahnoor Yar Khan will organise
Present Continuous: with Palestine, a
week-long event of film screenings,
photo exhibition and poetry
performances. Maraa, Jul 3, 7pm
CLASSIC REPERTOIRE:
The theatre adaptation of
Samskara, the UR Anantamurthy classic
will be staged by Rangayana as part of
the five-day Rangavihara Natakotsava
being organised by NGO, Bhagavatharu.
Ravindra Kalakshetra, Jul 4, 7pm
THE TIMES OF INDIA, BENGALURU
SATURDAY, JULY 2, 2016
ART
DEAR FRIDA: Theatre group
Mi Amor celebrates artist
Frida Kahlo's birthday by staging the
play, My Diego, My Art, a no-holdsbarred take on Kahlo’s love for artist
Diego Rivera and her complete honesty
in art. The Hummingteee, Jul 6, 8.30pm
CARTOONS
ROYAL SHOW: NGMA in
collaboration with The Raja
Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation will be
holding ‘Raja Ravi Varma: Royal
Lithography and Legacy’, a historic show
of 131 lithographs of the royal artist.
NGMA, Palace Road, Jul 8, 7.30pm
POLITICALLY CORRECT:
The Indian Institute of
Cartoonists will hold an exhibition of
selected works of Sir David Low,
considered to be one of the greatest
political cartoonists of all time. IIC,
Midford House, Jul 9, 11am
SKY FOR SAUCERS
They are the
local Mulders
who believe
that the truth
is out there.
As the world
celebrates
UFO day
today, city
ufologists
recount their
encounters
with alien
stories and
incredible
sightings in
Karnataka
I
t was a Wednesday night and
dentist Rahul Kumar was
fast asleep when he was
woken up by a loud sound.
It felt like the sky was about
to open up on that night in
2008 as peals of booming thunder
claps resonated through Whitefield, one after the other. “I still
remember the time. The first was
at 12.30, then at 12.45 and again at
12.55am,” recalls Dr Kumar.
However, there were no accompanying showers. Unlike the
other denizens of Whitefield and
nearby areas, 28-year-old Kumar
didn’t think it was an explosion.
Air Force denied night-time sorties while BBMP and others said
there was no underground drilling. Once earthquakes were also
ruled out, the good doctor
concluded that it could only have
been a sonic boom caused by an
object travelling faster than
sound. In this case, an unidentified flying object (UFO) must have
entered Bengaluru’s atmosphere
to cause the midnight boom
and bang.
In the world of Dr
Kumar and other
amateur Ufologists, a small
breed in Bengaluru, any unusual
sound or sight is
A multi-cultural
short film on love
Manuja.Veerappa
@timesgroup.com
W
hat do you do
when you are
making a film
on love in a city
like Bengaluru?
First, you start the story in Kannada and then, switch to Tamil.
For, this place has become the
city of migrants and couples
who have made it their home
latch onto one another for security and companionship.
Actor Sulile Kumar’s maiden attempt at film-making, a
short film about a working couple from Bengaluru, traverses
languages and themes to tell a
pithy tale about eternal love.
‘Broken Tide’ joins the league
of experimental indie movies
that is hitting Kannada industry. It premiered last weekend
to positive reviews.
The 28-minute-short has just
two characters played by Kumar
and Samyukta Hornad. Shot in
Madikeri, the film spends
around 10 minutes on the conversations between the couple,
before turning into an emotional
roller-coaster ride in a car.
“I wrote the script in Kannada but switched to Tamil
later. When I started thinking
about migrant couples in the
city, I realized that most of them
are here without family support
and seek comfort and companionship in each other,” says
Kumar, who made his acting
debut with the state awardwinning ‘Marikondavaru’.
Once the new perspective was
achieved, the theme also flourished. In the day and age of instant love and social media break
ups, Kumar’s movie takes people
through the journey of love with
a traditionalist approach. Love
here is eternal though the nature
of it changes over time.
“On most occasions, we
don’t really look at the various
facets of love. It is never just
black and white. In this film I
wanted to look beyond the mundane because every love story
has a honeymoon period,” says
Kumar about the film which
also has a smattering of English
and Kannada.
Once the honeymoon period
is over, things change. “For
everyone the definition of love
is similar but the experiences
are different,” says Kumar.
The film, which was shot in
four days, has an unusual title.
“Like a tide, true love remains
unbroken. It is just fresh layers
of emotions that camouflage it.
Dee p down, love remains
unaltered. This is my belief
which I have conveyed through
the movie,” says Kumar, who is
set to take Broken Tide to
various film festivals.
LOST IN TRANSLATION:
A still from Broken Tide
worthy of investigation for they
believe that there is life out there.
And Karnataka, they say, is rife
with ET (extra-terrestrial) activity, which is often mistaken as the
handiwork of high-tech defence
departments or the many divine
manifestations of our country.
Prem Koshy, a veteran Ufologist from the city, points to the
‘sighting’ at a village in
Periyapatna near Mysuru that
had TV channels in a tizzy. A
blinding flash of cigar-shaped
light is supposed to have lit up
Solakote village in 2015, leading
to fainting women and terrified
men. Aliens near Mangaluru and
flying saucers in Hassan too have
been reported, in the recent past.
Koshy, who got into Ufology
after listening to accounts of the
famous crashed alien spacecraft
at the highly secretive US airbase
Area 51 while in that country, says
not everything comes from outer
space. “There have been instances like a frisbee coming over trees
being mistaken for a flying saucer
in photographs,” says Koshy. Solakote, he says, could be the genuine
article. For one, a report prepared
according to an American
UFO group guidelines
checks all the boxes.
Also, a similar column of light was
spotted in Mexico
soon after, complete with video.
“To me there is
something to be
further investigated,” he says.
Though not many
Indian scientists
pursue studies in this
area, a few
are into unlocking the
m y s t e r y.
“Our universe
The second edition
of Speaking of
Theatre, a two-day
confluence begins
in the city today
I
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
f books can be discussed,
why can’t theatre? And so it
is that Speaking of Theatre
in its second edition will put
the focus on critical facets
of theatre. There will be panel
discussions,workshops, talks and
special, devised performances as
part of this two-day theatre confluence. Of course, noted names
like Abhishek Majumdar, Anita
Santhanam, KV Ramani, Sharanya Ramprakash and Vivek
Madan among others add heft to
the event, which according to coorganiser Vikram Sridhar “is a
celebration of theatre and the
koothadi (performer) in us.”
Being held at performance
space Atta Galatta, Sridhar,
whose theatre group Tahatto is
event partner, says that the idea
to hold an event like this came out
of the thought that “while there
are enough theatre performances
happening in the city, there really are no platforms where people could talk about theatre and
the confluence hopes to fill that
void.” Sridhar has spent the last
3-4 months putting the event
together.
In curating the event, he says
that attention has been paid to
tackle diverse topics that are highly relevant ‘not just to artistes but
also to audiences because one
can’t exist without the other’.
The panel discussion on Saturday being moderated by Nimi
has billions of galaxies and each
galaxy has billions of stars. Even
tiny-scale searches are revealing
earth-size planets by the thousands. It is a near impossibility
that there is no other intelligent
species in our universe,” says
Pushkar Vaidya, chief scientist
and founder of Indian Astrobiology Research Centre (IARC).
IARC, a Mumbai-based research
organisation, is one of the few
institutions that study alien life.
Vaidya, who was in the city
What are you reading right
now?
The Mammoth Book of Perfect
Crimes and Impossible Mysteries.
My wife caught me with it the
other day and said worriedly, ‘That
better be for research.’ It is. I’m
due to be writing a mystery later
this year, so I figured these stories
will serve up some inspiration. And
fun too. Lots of fun.
adventure into the unknown,”
says Vaidya.
If there is something that is
taking the sheen off these ‘sightings’, it is irresponsible reporting, insists Vaidya. “If someone
cannot identify an airplane flying
overhead, then he or she must use
her head first before reporting it
as UFO. It is this frivolous reporting that has made a mockery of
the whole thing,” he says.
Apart from a majority of scientific community being in “com-
connect them to alien myths. “I
haven’t witnessed anything but
ancient alien theory about the
pyramid of Giza and other structures connects a lot to Indian
mythology,” says Nirala, who
tried to create a group of fellow
enthusiasts. Today, on World UFO
day, Dr Kumar and a group will
visit a Chikkaballapur temple to
unearth its ‘loka’ or alien connections, the old Whitefield spot and
a trekker’s route where people
have seen the ‘ship’.
OBJECTS THAT FLY AND THE MYSTERIOUS STAR KIC 8462852
INTRIGUING SIGHTING: In November 1996, a
group of Pawan Hans aeronautical engineers
reported seeing a UFO – a reddish green
object would appear in the early morning
sky and then mysteriously let off a smaller
object. This was near Lokhandwala complex in
Kandivali East. The sighting, which lasted for
over 10 minutes, was reported to the local
planetarium, which couldn’t carry out
investigations owing to bad weather.
z SKEPTICAL QUESTION: The audience,
whether in India or abroad, have always
been skeptical. The most common
question is whether UFOs are
actually of extra-terrestrial origin.
To which, I say that there is no
reason why they cannot be!
z WHY THE US? Well, it is a fact
that most sightings are reported
from the US and I guess we must
leave it there. The thing is, if UFOs
recently to give a talk about alien
life, says he got into Ufology after
being inspired by sci-fi author
Arthur C Clarke. His current area
of research is panspermia which
postulates that life is distributed
throughout the universe by meteoroids, asteroids and comets. “It
is obvious that there is something
out there, it is just that one cannot
explain it through traditional
means. Science above all, is an
are showing up more in US skies then it is obviously the
choice of aliens for reasons they know best.
z HOT IN ASTROBIOLOGY: Presently, NASA Kepler
Space Mission is finding earth-size planets by
the dozens each month. Some of these planets
appear to support life. For instance, star KIC
8462852 has ‘objects’ orbiting it causing it to
dim by roughly 20%. This amount of dimming
is unheard of. In comparison, if Jupiter, the
biggest planet in our solar system, was orbiting
KIC 8462852 then it would block its light only
by about 1%. There is something very
peculiar going on around KIC
8462852 – and it is possible that
these objects are actually
evidence of alien cosmic
engineering – done to optimize
extraction of solar energy from
the star.
Pushkar G Vaidya | SCIENTIST, HEAD,
INDIAN ASTROBIOLOGY RESEARCH CENTRE
plete denial” about the phenomenon, there are other issues in
India, says Koshy. “Here, anything that seems paranormal is
attributed to gods or evil spirits.
In Solakote, the villagers with no
idea about aliens thought the
light and vibration was gods’ way
of punishing them,” he says.
HR professional Avinash K
Nirala is somebody who prefers
to read into Indian myths and
Meanwhile, online forums and
groups are buzzing about speculations over US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s remarks
about releasing Area 51 documents about UFOs. She even corrected the term in an interview
to ‘unexplained aerial phenomenon’. “How long can this hooky
business go on?” asks Koshy.
Looks like there are enough
and more stories out there.
Here, the spotlight
is on theatre
workshop by Ashok Kumar for
actors
11.30am | What does art owe
its audience? (panel discussion
moderated by Nimi Ravindran)
3.30pm | From Scratch:
Collaborative performance by
Kumudha Bharathram and
Kafeel Jafri
Name one book you picked up
at the airport that blew your
mind?
I fly less than
twice a year – and
that too
domestically – so
the opportunity of
picking up a book
at an airport
bookstore hardly
ever presents itself. I did discover
NASEERUDDIN SHAH’S And
Then One Day while browsing at
an airport, and I bought it
immediately after I got home. The
book didn’t blow my mind, but it
did surpass expectations.
Which book, author or series
do you reach out for when you
want a comfort read?
I’d read an AGATHA CHRISTIE
novel (preferably one with Miss
Marple in it). Other comfort reads
are the Blandings Castle series by
WODEHOUSE, and anything by
ISAAC ASIMOV. I’ve been known
to reach for a STEPHEN KING
novel on lazy afternoons too. And
there’s always a Tinkle Digest on
hand when nothing else works.
Who are your favourite
contemporary writers, and
your favourite writers of all
time?
Favourite writers of all time are
AGATHA CHRISTIE, PG
WODEHOUSE, ISAAC ASIMOV
and STEPHEN KING. Among
contemporary writers, I’ve been
reading and watching a lot of
ALAIN DE BOTTON (non fiction)
and LAWRENCE BLOCK (fiction)
lately.
Name one book that is a
favourite – but most people
would be surprised to know
you’d read it...
There is a collection of short
romance novellas called Bad Boys
in Black Tie – written by LORI
FOSTER, ERIN MCCARTHY and
MORGAN LEIGH – that I
remember reading when I was 17
and being quite smitten. I still not
only remember
the stories but
also certain
passages. Men
aren’t meant to
admit to reading
and liking
romance, but
there you go.
Which book do you remember
most vividly from your
childhood?
Perhaps no other book has had as
much an influence on me as a
child as The Trojan War. We had
an abridged version for our
English supplementary reading in
class 6, and I must have read it at
least 15 times during the school
year. That love for mythology
persists to this day.
Name one book that is on your
most must-read lists but you
haven’t cracked a page?
LOCAL SCRIPT: From cinematic villages to Van Gogh impersonators, Stray
Factory's Anthology is an interesting mix of stories
Ravindran, for instance, delves in
to the question of ‘what art owes
its audience’. On Sunday, noted
playwright Abhishek Majumdar
talks about ‘the process of playwriting and the roles playwrights
have played in theatre systems
across classical and devised forms’.
In addition to the workshops
and talks which are free, Sridhar
is also excited about the specially
curated performances that are a
part of the schedule.
“We have curated performanc-
es that are being done for the first
time here, and this might also be
the only time they will be performed. Called From Scratch, we
have Bharatanatyam dancer Kumudha Bharat Ram collaborating
with dastango Kafeel Jafri – it’s
a rare experiment and we gave
the artistes a whole month to
work on it,” says Sridhar.
The other performances include Lady Anandi by Anuja Ghosalkar, and Anthology: a compilation of five award-winning plays
by Stray Factory from Chennai.
“On Sunday, we also have ten actors from the city who will come
together to dramatise 10 news articles into performance pieces,"
says Sridhar. He hopes that the
confluence will give audiences an
immersive experience, one where
they not only get to watch performances but also take part in it
through workshops. “I hope
Speaking of Theatre evolves into
a go-to event for everything related
to theatre,” he signs off.
CURTAINS UP
DAY 1: SATURDAY, JULY 2
10am | Introductory djembe
‘Men aren’t
meant to admit
to reading
romance’
Sharath Komarraju
writes fiction and nonfiction. His best
known work is the
Hastinapur series
SCOURING THE
Mahalakshmi.P &
Sandhya Soman | TNN
SHELF ESTEEM
4.30pm | Open House –
Theatre professionals will talk
about how they got into
theatre. This will be followed
by a Q&A
6pm | Documenting theatre:
Talk and screening by
documentary filmmaker RV
Ramani
7.30pm | Documentary theatre
performance, Lady Anandi
DAY 2: SUNDAY, JULY 3
10am | Physical approach to
building character, a workshop
by Anita Santhanam
11am | Theatre beyond
performance (panel discussion
moderated by Vivek Madan)
3pm | Breaking News: 10
actors break down 10 news
articles into stories and
performance pieces
4.30pm | The Thing About
Writing, talk by Abhishek
Majumdar
6pm | In Conversation: Deepika
Arwind talks to writer and cofounder of The Ladies Finger,
Nisha Susan on feminism,
writing and other fun things
7.30pm | Anthology: 5 awardwinning short plays by Stray
Factory, Chennai
Oh, there are so many. Moby Dick
is one. I once picked up Finnegan’s
Wake and couldn’t make sense of
it. (My loss entirely.) But the book
I keep trying to crack is A Tale of
Two Cities. The famous opening
paragraph draws me in, but boy
does it slow down after that. I live
in hope, though. One day...
If the PM
promises to
read the book,
might I recommend
Wodehouse’s
Bachelors
Anonymous? It will
give him a few laughs