Goutam Ghose and Anandi at Ramoji Rao Film City; (above) the sets of Lajwanti?s house in Mehendigali. Pictures by Aranya Sen

Nostalgia and the Nizam?s city are forever entwined. In case of film-maker Goutam Ghose, the memories have been stronger than many others. Twenty-five years after he made his debut feature film Mabhoomi on the Telengana uprising in Telugu, Ghose has returned to Hyderabad to shoot his fourth Hindi feature film, Yatra. And adding to the nostalgia notes is the fact that the tale this time revolves around a tawaif.

The journey of a novelist (Nana Patekar) and a film-maker (Nakul Vaid) unravelling the story of Lajwanti (the tawaif played by Rekha), a character from the pages of fiction, stretches from the 1930s to the 1960s. Produced by Bipin Vohra, the film also stars Deepti Naval as Nana?s wife and Bharati Devi as his mother, Ghose?s daughter Anandi and Romit Raj as Nana-Deepti?s children and Telugu actor Jeeva as Rekha?s husband.

?The idea was inspired by the experiences I had while shooting Mabhoomi 25 years ago in Mehendigali, the baijipara. There was a girl called Reshma who had sung a lot of songs to me,? says Ghose, who had extensively travelled Andhra Pradesh to research for Mabhoomi.

?Yatra is about a writer?s journey with some characters that come alive. But the characters of his old novel, like Lajwanti, don?t leave him... The film is a blend of the real and the unreal, of fact and fiction. The film-maker asks if Lajwanti is fact or fiction? So, there?s a dichotomy. Sometimes you feel it?s all a film-maker?s vision.?

At Ramoji Rao Film City ? where Ghose has been camping for more than a fortnight ? art director Samir Chanda has recreated a portion of Mehendigali. A dilapidated house in the bylane is Lajwanti?s address. With her dwindling fortunes, Lajwanti?s clientele has changed and the kothibari has turned into a ramshackle dance bar. To tick with the times, Lajwanti becomes Miss Lisa, who will be seen dancing to the remix track Kabhie Aar Kabhie Paar, choreographed by Saroj Khan.

?But Rekha has also performed a difficult kathak piece composed by Birju Maharaj. She was a bit nervous initially but Saswati Sen taught her well. I have used some bandish and I have been helped by Vijay Kichlu to retain authenticity. Plus, there?s a ghazal by Khayyam and a geet,? adds Ghose, who chose Rekha because of ?her age, the fact that she can be transformed with a little make-up and the aura of mystery about her?.

Ghose feels Nana perfectly suits the role of a middle-aged schoolteacher-turned-writer. ?The novelist hails from the Andhra-Maharashtra border and Nana?s look seemed very authentic,? adds Ghose, who is handling both the camera and the directorial work. But then, he is used to the dual role. ?I did it for Dekha and Abar Aranye before. It?s convenient for me to gauge the acting by putting the actors in the frame,? says he.

For the directorial work though, he has got an assistant in daughter Anandi, who was coaxed by Nana and Deepti to play their daughter. ?I had done a small role in a telefilm once but I don?t know how I have done in this film,? says Anandi.

Reshmi Sengupta

Of visual music

Paintings by Prabhakar Kolte

Words fail to convey the collective impact of viewing 30 rather small works of Prabhakar Kolte on canvas, paper and mount board now on display at Galerie 88.

The metaphor that comes closest to describing them in words is visual music. For every stroke, smudge and dribble and droplet of paint is like a note in a musical composition with the artist skillfully improvising on them, thereby creating a new work with every new arrangement of the notes.

Kolte paints like a jazz musician who extemporises on a familiar tune with riffs and trills and goes on a different tangent altogether every time he holds a performance.

These, like most works of Kolte, are deeply contemplative and they seem to indicate subtle mood shifts akin to the changing colours of a kaleidoscope. As in his larger paintings, he uses a limited range of colours but he can create many striking variations on these.

His palette basically comprises red, black, blue, green, buff, grey and white. He uses them in large bold blocks adjacent to each other like windows, in strips of contrasting shades, in diagonal strokes and calligraphic squiggles in his horizontal and vertical compositions. The overall effect is of great tranquillity. Even when he juxtaposes cobalt blue with yellow, the effect is muted.

Paint dripping, apparently on its own, has become Kolte’s signature. But there is more to it than meets the eye. Not unless the viewer has held each work under scrutiny will she/he discover Kolte’s design. Every single area of paint has its counterpoint that enhances the subtle play of colours.

In some of the works, Kolte has added to the paint shreds of paper on which remains the shred of a logo. On another is superimposed the circular lid of perhaps a pot of paint or some other found object like a price tag over which he applies paint. These are the only references to the real world which he systematically obliterates.

In one work, crinkled paper is pasted on the canvas with black pigment embedded in the cracks. With such interventions, the intensity of the shades is heightened.

Kolte has come a long way since the days when his canvases were compared with works of Paul Klee and he acknowledged his debt to the master. Those were the days when he was “busy searching for myself”.

His recent works prove yet again that it is in the realm of colour and form that the genius of this artist has gained maturity.

Soumitra Das