Pandit Jasraj in Concert

Hindustani classical vocalist Pandit Jasraj enthralled the audiences at the Poona Club on Wednesday (22nd Jan ‘09) evening. The maestro accompanied by other musicians, notably vocalist Sanjeev Abhyankar, carried a rough throat through the wintery evening chill to give a stellar performance at a concert that was part of the on-going Times Pune Festival.
- KSN

The Maharashtra Migrant Crisis

Its an Us v. Them.
The Northies don’t like the Marathis and now the Marathis don’t like the Northies. Raju and his boys are using the occassion to gain some political milage. He’s now a Marathi icon and inside every Maharashtrian there is a small, if not large, connection (read smypathy) with Raju and his politics.

A Mouse from Mumbai Responds to a Stunning Photo Essay

I was sent the below link through a forwarded email. The images speak for themselves. I would just like to add that I met some of these photographers recently. As an amateur photo-journalist myself, I can’t begin to imagine the kind of courage these shutterbugs must have mustered to point cameras at madmen carrying Kalashnikovs [...]

A Walk, Not War, Against Terrorism

30th November, 2008; Jangli Maharaj Road and Shambhaji Park:
Over one thousand students and citizens from Pune, mostly dressed in white and armed with candles, marched through the City’s streets this evening in an effort to evoke unity and solidarity amongst the people of our terror-inflicted nation. The congregation came together primarily due to the efforts [...]

“Stand up. Speak Out. Enough is Enough. Let’s take back this country.”

The Mumbai terror attacks have certainly injected much anger, despair and frustation in the minds of many Indians and foreigners. Several people who were previously indifferent to terrorism have suddenly been shaken by the utter brutality of last weeks strikes. Here’s an extract from a young Indian voice in Pune that cries out in the [...]

Pune’s Bhimthadi Jatra

27th November, 2008; Agricultural College Grounds, Ganesh Khind Road:
Folk tunes rang out in the background as the buzz that emanates from any large gathering continued to rise and fall. Artistes performed a street play as people stood around and watched. Children tugged at their parents’ clothes, crying to either be taken to the mery-go-round and [...]

The Ploctones in Concert

The 27th of November had us all watching our television screens mutely, as tales of the horror that was being unleashed in Mumbai flashed past us.  As we all sat dumbly, letting the disbelief and gloom take over us, I decided that an evening of good music, good food and comradeship might do us all [...]

Work-In-Progress: A Nation Unites

Akshara Kumar Chittoor writes on the Mumbai Terror Attacks:
Woke up this morning and thought, ‘Please God, let it be over!’ Got out of bed and headed straight to the television: pictures and reports of what I was dreading continued to spew from it – the encounters at the Taj, the Trident and Nariman House dragged [...]

Aamchi Mumbai

Rahul Singh Talwar writes from our neighbouring metropolis:
There is something very sexy about Bombay. Ahem, my apologies… Mumbai.
There is no place in India which is more cosmopolitan than Mumbai and even the one who shall not be named cannot change it, however hard he tries.
I always knew that Mumbai was a melting point of cultures, [...]

Ramzan in Pune

Visarjan Aftermath

On the banks of the Mula-Mutha:

Every year, as a part of the Ganapathi Festival Celebrations thousands of idols of the Elephant-headed Lord are immersed into the waters of the Mula-Mutha River. While this tradition was established in 1894 by Lokmanya Tilak to initiate “the collective communal celebration of the festival of Lord Ganesha”, in the [...]

Wrappin’ it up free style!!!

High Spirits, Koregaon Park:
Last night, at 10 pm, under a haze of cigarette smoke, a packed High spirits was privy to an act of certain degree of wacky: MC Sid. A freestyle rapper from I don’t really know where took stage . No one really knew what to make of him at first, this guy [...]