"I think it’s time to break stereotypes – like someone with cerebral palsy cannot dance, someone who is hearing impaired cannot dance! It’s all blah! We can dance and we will keep on dancing,” Prathap Ram talks about dance with a sparkle in his eyes.
Prathap, who has cerebral palsy, is among the many who have found their passion at Tandav, the annual inclusive dance festival that takes place in Bengaluru.
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Tandav 2.0 participants and volunteers[/caption]
The idea behind Tandav is as profound as it is simple. Tandav was started by brothers Vishnu and Vishal Soman in 2014, with the aim of celebrating dance with people from all walks of life. Vishnu, who works with Enable India, wanted to challenge the idea that dance is only for certain people in society.
“My brother and I started Tandav when we understood that dance is still a taboo in various communities. All we had was support from people and we managed to organise India's first community-driven dance festival in 2014. Tandav is the only dance festival in the country where people who cannot see, hear or speak learn and perform various dance forms,” says Vishnu. “Whether one is hearing impaired, visually impaired, wheelchair-bound, or autistic, it doesn’t matter on this platform. Why should anything in the world stop us from dancing? Here, at Tandav, all are united by dance and music,” says Mobin Daniel, the coordinator of Tandav.The third edition of Tandav, titled Rudra Tandav, will take place on December 11. The event will see participation by over 600 children and 150 volunteers. Organised by the NGO Smileys, founded by the Soman brothers, Tandav has managed to engage over 25 children’s homes from in and around Bengaluru. Connecting the volunteer community in Bengaluru, Tandav is bringing in many dance enthusiasts who will be helping out at the event. Tandav is a one-day event.
“The first half of the day is spent teaching the participants different dance forms with the help of facilitators. Then, these dances are performed in the latter half. It’s a mutual effort. The children and the volunteers develop a rapport and perform together. It’s an enriching process for everyone,” says Mobin.
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Tandav has been receiving a positive response from its very first edition. A milestone in Tandav’s journey was when its second edition, titled Ananda Tandav, led to the formation of ‘Attam’- an inclusive dance troupe. The troupe has persons with disability who have a flair for dancing and a zest for presenting their talent on stage. There are seven dancers – with disabilities like cerebral palsy, paraplegia, hearing impairment, and blindness – in Attam. Five facilitators help them learn various dance forms and the troupe performs independently now. Attam recently had a performance at the Indian Institute of Management in Bengaluru.
This year, Tandav will introduce a new tool for the hearing impaired – a speaker/headset that will convert the rhythm of the song into vibrations, allowing them to ‘feel’ the music. It is something Shivashankar Ganga is looking forward to the most.
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Tandav participants Srilatha KS (left), Prathap Ram (top right) and Shivashankar Ganga[/caption]
“I have impaired hearing since birth. But that doesn’t make a difference when it comes to dance. I can dance well without sound as well. For this year, I'm practising with the Attam team and I'm also volunteering. I cannot wait for Tandav to begin, especially with the new headphones that will enable me to feel the rhythm,” says Shivashankar.Wheelchair-bound Srilatha KS, who discovered her talent at Tandav, feels that the message Tandav is sending out is of immense importance.
“It is only through initiatives like Tandav that we can make an impact on society. I never thought I was so good at expressing emotions while dancing until I participated in Tandav last year,” she says.There are many more stories like this. Tandav is a place where persons with disabilities have learnt to dance without barriers, without embarrassment and without hesitation. Here, they realise, there’s not a worry in the world that cannot vanish with an elegant swirl or a joyful hop!
Open Sky community members[/caption]
The community believes in making available a safe haven for artists, where they can showcase their art and feel accepted.
Core team of Open Sky: Aishwarya Iyer (left), Deepten Sarkar (middle) and Shruthi Mohan[/caption]
Open Sky Slams take place in different premises like cafes, rooftops, public gardens, orphanages, rescue homes, and government schools. Participants showcase different art forms like music, theatre, poetry, dance, comedy and magic on stage.
Dancers performing at Open Sky Slam[/caption]
The community has been trying to raise funds to manage the logistics.
Amita (right) with Deep Dutta, her mother-in-law (left)[/caption]
Amita was later diagnosed with bilateral hearing loss. This was a terrible blow, something that hampered her educational process too. Sent to a Hindi-medium school, Amita found communicating with others and understanding what the teachers taught an almost impossible challenge to overcome. “I would simply keep quiet. I had just one friend who somehow was able to explain and talk to me in gestures. That’s how I began to learn at school,” Amita gestures. “Every time I understood the text, I felt so great about it. It was the only means of communication for me. Otherwise, I would get bored, look around and not know what everyone else was talking about,” she adds. As she drew closer to Class 10, the school principal expressed her apprehension about Amita’s ability to clear the examination. She feared that her failure would spoil the reputation of the school. “She dropped out of school then,” Kamlesh says.
But that’s all in the past. Today, Amita (44) is a highly successful painter, reputed for the art that she creates using coffee. That’s right, coffee! It was something she discovered accidentally in 2008 when she was doing a diploma in Arts and Craft at Savitri Polytechnic in Gurgaon where she learned various art forms. What mesmerized her most was coffee painting. “She used to take coffee from home to college. I didn’t pay much attention to it. One day, she came home excitedly and asked me to close my eyes. She gestured that she had something to show me. I obliged and when I opened my eyes, I was amazed by what was in front of me. It was a painting of a Greek god on a chariot painted entirely in coffee,” recalls Deep Dutta, her mother-in-law.
Coffee painting was the start of a long journey that took her places and earned her a lot of accolades in Bengaluru, New Delhi and Gurgaon, including receiving the 
This unique art form involves a lot of labour. First Amita glues the paper on to plywood, ensuring there are no creases. Next, she gives each painting a coating of diluted coffee powder, which gives the work a certain vintage feel. After tracing the design, she meticulously outlines it using a 3-D liner of any colour or sometimes even ceramic powder dust. She then lets it dry completely before filling in colour, which include coffee and fabric colours. She initially used only coffee as a medium to paint but it was in 2010, at the insistence of friends and family, that she began coupling coffee with other colours. The result was received with much appreciation.
Further, the work must not be kept under extreme conditions for coffee can start dripping from the painting. The ideal time to work on the paintings is between August and March as the humidity is low. However, it is impossible to paint and dry coffee during the monsoon season. “We begin as early as August to be prepared for the festive season from Durga Puja to Diwali. Numerous fairs and exhibitions are held across the city during the time and people in huge numbers buy her paintings,” says Deep. “A problem we faced earlier was that there was no protective layer to stop the paintings from getting spoilt under extreme conditions. A tip from my husband, who has a furniture business, resolved it. He suggested we use melamine to give it a final finish,” Deep adds. Melamine is a thermosetting plastic resin combined with formaldehyde and hardened by a heating process.
Interestingly, what began as a hobby soon turned into a lucrative business. With the staunch and steady support of her family, Amita began exhibiting and selling her work all over New Delhi and Gurgaon. “Young people came forward and showed a keen interest in her work. Japanese and Koreans were also struck by her art and began calling us whenever they organised events. In addition, we ensured we chose venues where there were Bengalis as they are such art lovers!” Deep says. This year, Amita got an opportunity to display her work at the seven-day Diwali extravaganza organised by the Blind Relief Association, visited by the cream of New Delhi. “Getting a stall there is very tough but fortunately they obliged us. They didn’t even charge us for it,” she adds. Amita also takes orders and can create custom-made designs as well.
Not one to accept defeat, she even completed her education. With strong emotional support from her family, she wrote the Class 10 examination through the National Institute of Open Schooling and completed a three-year course in Interior Design from New Delhi Women’s Polytechnic in 1998. She is now proficient in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Microsoft Excel. Her main means of communication is through signs and gestures. Amita learnt the American Sign Language (ASL) from her husband Charu Dutta, who too has won a National Award.
Amita has never let her disability turn into helplessness. She has proved that grit and determination with creativity can help a person face and overcome the biggest odds. For her, it has been a long and silent journey so far with more than a fair share of twists and turns. And yet, she has risen above it all by hearing her inner voice.
So, how about some coffee with Amita? You can check out her work and contact her through her website 
Rakesh Udiyar with Aamir Khan[/caption]
Rakesh was a happy kid in a well-to-do family of five until an unfortunate twist of fate struck and his father had a paralysis attack. Rakesh and his brother had to work from the tender age of 7-8 years to earn their daily bread. They would sell candies and bobby pins on local trains to help their mother make ends meet. A few years later, he started working as a domestic help in a family. While the work was never-ending, Rakesh sought relief in the fact that his employers agreed to send him to school. He would work before and after school hours and studied late in the night after finishing all the work.
Rakesh Udiyar with Salman Khan[/caption]
Rakesh Udiyar with Aamir Khan[/caption]
One of the land arts in progress[/caption]
This is what will make for the ‘Gram Dhara Chitra Utsav’, India’s first land art festival, scheduled to take place at Paradsinga village in Madhya Pradesh from December 25-31. The festival is also open for everyone to perform, paint, sing, sculpt, click, sow, farm, cook, stay, learn, enjoy and collaborate to make it all the more meaningful.
International artist, Shweta Bhattad[/caption]
A participatory mass performance for everyone present at the festival in a farm in the morning.
International artist Shweta Bhattad will also present one of her best performances titled ‘Faith’.
There will be a presentation by progressive organic farmers on their success stories of farming and value-addition of farming products at Bazar Chowk, Pardsinga in the evening.
Zubaan Music Group[/caption]
The music group ‘Zubaan’ will present a performance of their indie songs. This group holds concerts and collaborates with artists across the mainstream/local music industries to consolidate into one indie music industry. In this concert farmer-artists and artists from Nagpur, Mumbai, Paradsinga and Sewagram will collaborate and present their songs.
It's dark in the middle of the day
The sun is defeated by its shadow
Squeeze the oil from your soul
and light the wick,
Come let's light a lamp again!
~
My Lord,
Never let me climb so high
That I am unable to embrace another stranger,
Deliver me ever from such arrogance!
~
In a deal not so profitable,
All I received were a couple of days
Should I count each moment;
Or just spend it every way?
Which path should I follow?
~
Why shouldn’t I live every moment to the fullest?
Why shouldn’t I admire the beauty in every fragment?
~
The cycle of being and not being
Will continue till eternity,
So will our illusion
That we are, we will be.
~
Everything is at stake, there’s no option to stop now
We can break at this point, but we cannot bend now!
~
What is the age of death? Not even a couple of moments
Life is a progression, it's not a matter of a day or two!
~
Let the adversities strike,
Let there be catastrophes dire
Let there be embers under our soles,
Let it shower flare,
With that fire in our hands,
Smiling, we have to burn
We have to move forward, together!
~
I am able to see myself
From the eyes of others,
I am neither silent, nor am I singing!
~
Dinanath Bhargava[/caption]
Nandlal Bose[/caption]
National emblem of India atop the Vidhan Soudha , Bengaluru[/caption]
The original manuscript of the Indian constitution[/caption]
Mahavir Singh Phogat with his daughters; in real life (left) and in the movie 'Dangal' (right)[/caption]
However, while the core of the movie's story holds true to the real life events of Mahavir Singh Phogat, director Nitesh Tiwari allowed himself a few cinematic liberties. Here are a few facts shown in Dangal that differ from what happened in the real life of the Phogats.
(Note: You are now entering spoiler territory. So if you are planning to watch Dangal in the coming days and do not want us to spoil the movie for you, stop reading this!)
A still from Dangal[/caption]
A still from Dangal[/caption]
A still from Dangal[/caption]
It was in Ishan’s second year of college that he realised he simply was not cut out to be an engineer. “When I joined BITS, I was immediately attracted to the creative arts and signed up for drama club,” he says in an interview to The Better India. It was also at this institution that he realised his affinity and love for animation. Hence he decided that it was time to follow his passion and dropped out of college.
Along with his brother’s help, Ishan then enrolled at the 3D Sense Media School, Singapore, in 2008. Once he completed his diploma, he got a job in Singapore which played a seminal role in his development as an all-rounder when it comes to making animation films. “The kind of projects I was getting from the company required me to do everything from the beginning to the end including story boarding and editing. I learnt a lot about making my own film in that time,” he notes.
While commuting in Singapore, he said he was surrounded by the banality of perfection and the main concept of the film was formed. It is a 14-minute short about a society where perfection has been achieved and there are no distinctions based on colour or race because everyone wears a bag over their head (and are called bag-heads). The film also explores themes such as immigration, and Ishan says that the Syrian crisis helped shape his ideas about the world. He developed the story initially as graphic novel and notes that he will be expanding the short into a full length feature film in the future.
The four years that it took Ishan to make the film were also peppered with tragedies and victories. For one, he got married with his wife taking over as the film’s producer. But it was also during this period when his father fell ill and he quit his job in Singapore and relocated to Pilani to take care of his father. After running out of funds in India, he took up a full time job that had him working six days a week. This meant he had to become even more disciplined. He would wake up at 2am and work until his day job began, and then worked whenever he had free time.
Ultimately the hard work paid off. Schirkoa premiered at the Oscar-qualifying 'LA Shorts' festival in September 2016 where it won the ‘Best Animated Short’ award.
For budding animators in India, Ishan has choice words of advice for their careers. “I know there are a lot of people who go deep into specialising in one thing, and there is also value in it, but I would say that right now the best thing to do is to become a generalist. Someone who is a jack of all trades. That way when you are making your own film, you can do everything. And also in the marketplace, there is a lot of demand for generalists,” he notes.
And for those who are itching to follow their passions? Ishan says the key lies in being proactive instead of waiting for inspiration. “People tend to go and study something or go looking for inspiration, but if you are passionate about something and want to do it, then you should just do it. Often times, you learn so much more in the middle of doing what you love and making mistakes as you go along.”
They have a unique approach. “Children, today, have no clue of what Hindustani classical music is as they hear Bollywood music more than anything,” says Dakshayani. “We are losing this traditional art in the process. The idea was to create an interest in classical music among children. Once children are interested, it is easier for them to understand the music form.”
In order to achieve this, the couple founded the 
Prior to setting up the 
“To make the session more interesting, we also sang a lot of film music in the 
Since their pilot study was accompanied by positive feedback, Mandar and Dakshayani decided to introduce a music appreciation course in 
Their greatest challenge has been to make Indian classical music relevant to the present generation. This involves devising new teaching methods rather than sticking to the traditional guru-shishya teaching style. “It is difficult to work with music teachers as they have a rigid perspective on music,” Dakshayani confesses. “They have been taught to look at and think about music in a certain way by their gurus traditionally. Due to this, they don’t understand how kids want to be taught, and they don’t know how to connect with them.”
The couples’ version of a secondary school music course is completely different. “You want children to ask more questions and not just follow blindly. Unfortunately, teachers in the field are exactly like that. They don’t understand that children may not know a lot of the things they are talking about,” Dakshayani continues. “One of Baithak’s teachers was going to talk about different forms of classical singing – 
“Artists today are playing to the gallery. Classical music has become more commercial and just another commodity in the market. It’s not looked at art for art’s sake,” says Dakshayani.
The couple aims to challenge blind notions about Indian classical music by making it mainstream. Their future plans include arranging for school concerts by local artists every month. After a 45-50 minute performance in the school hall, the children will be permitted to ask questions. The intention is to generate an interest through experience.
“A musician once told us that classical music is for the classes, not masses,” Dakshayani smiles. “What they don’t realize is that the best classical musicians come from the humblest of backgrounds,” she concludes.
You can check Baithak Foundation’s
Photo source: 
A young Rahman with his mother Kareema Begum[/caption]
A young Rahman[/caption]
Young A R Rahman with musician and playback singer Yesudas[/caption]
Rahman (extreme right) and the fellow members of his band, Roots.[/caption]
A R Rahman at his studio[/caption]
The Keyboard ARR used for Roja[/caption]
A R Rahman recording for Bombay Dreams[/caption]
Former president Prathiba Patil presenting the Padma Bhushan A R Rahman at The Presidential House in New Delhi on 31 March, 2010.[/caption]
Official poster of upcoming biopic, Sachin: A Billion Dreams[/caption]
P T Usha[/caption]
Balbir Singh Sr[/caption]
Kapil Dev[/caption]
Karnam Malleshwari[/caption]
Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav[/caption]
Shankar Laxman[/caption]
Devendra Jhajharia[/caption]
Dipa Karmakar[/caption]