Team L&M Chhau is a semi-classical Indian dance with martial, tribal and folk traditions. It has three styles – the Purulia Chau of Bengal, the Seraikella Chau of Jharkhand, and the Mayurbhanj Chau of Odisha. The dance form originated in Eastern India. The dance ranges from celebrating martial arts, acrobatics and athletics performed in festive […]Read More
Benoy K Behl It is in a shrine of the Talagirishwara Temple in Pannamalai, a remote village in Tamil Nadu that you will come across this hardly-ever-seen painting of Shivakami or Parvati of the 7th century. Such surviving paintings help to establish the continuous tradition of painting in ancient India from the 2nd cent. BCE onwards. […]Read More
Saurabh Tankha If you are watching the re-run of the Mahabharata on DD Bharati these days, you will find the Pandava brothers along with wife, Draupadi, at Viratnagar, spending agyatvaas or the year of hiding after completing 12 years of vanvaas or exile. This was after Indraprastha ruler Yudhishthir had lost the game of chausar […]Read More
Benoy K Behl The Buddhist path of compassion travelled not only across Asia but also on an artery of the Silk Route to Europe. The photograph here shows traditional European Buddhists with a statue of an acharya from Nalanda University at Kalmykia in Russia, the only part of Europe with a Buddhist heritage. In December […]Read More
Benoy K Behl For 10 years, I have discussed health and yoga with senior mainstream doctors in India, USA and Germany. They are clear that inner peace is essential for a healthy immune system. It is essentially the balance within us which protects and heals us. Of course, medicines are also required when things go […]Read More
Benoy K Behl For long, Indian artists have been famous for human depiction of animals. This is for the simple reason that these artists do not see any difference between humans and animals. Enjoy this exquisite drawing from the wall of the Amber Palace, just outside Jaipur, photographed in 2001. The Bhojanshala of the Amber […]Read More
Benoy K Behl Day-before-yesterday I read a report by Profs. Andrew Cunningham and Kate Jones, both of London, which very clearly explained the responsibility of us human beings for the present crisis. They also explained how other viruses could also spread, even after the present disaster was past. Besides dealing with the present situation, I […]Read More
There have been many dances, dramas, television shows and films made on the great Indian epic The Mahabharata. We all have seen the BR Chopra’s Mahabharata and also the one Ekta Kapoor made. But what I saw a few days back was above the two Mahabharatas. I am talking about the theatre production, Mahabharata – […]Read More
I have always believed that dancers are the luckiest persons, not only because they are creative and can make all their imaginations come alive through their dance moves but because whenever they travel they make friends very easily and the relationship that develops is only because of the medium of dance that gets them to […]Read More
Chandigarh-based Pracheen Kala Kendra, the premier organisation dedicated for the promotion, preservation and dissemination of Indian classical art and culture with a pan-India presence, witnessed a soothing sitar recital by prominent sitar player Subrata De and a melodious Dhrupad recital by Mallick Bandhus at Triveni Kala Sangam Auditorium on the first day of the […]Read More