Dialogues 2011, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender film and video festival organised every year by Sappho For Equality and Pratyay Gender Trust in collaboration with Max Mueller Bhavan was held in the city in December. In its fifth year, the three-day festival offered several international and national films that gave a peek into the lives of the community.
It was not just the hardship or discrimination faced by the LGBT community. The films celebrated friendships and courage.
If there were classics like Boys Don't Cry, there were also films like Priscila, I Can't Think Straight and Milk, the last on the life of a gay rights activist.
Indian filmmakers found representation. On the inaugural day, the film festival hosted a party for those from the community and their friends, the third year that it did so. Here too, the mood was upbeat.
"Calcutta has always loved cinema irrespective of the genre. The LGBT film festival is just an extension of it. We thought there was a silence on the subject and it's always been our effort to break the walls," said Anindya Hajra of Pratyay Gender Trust.
Waste to wealth
Floating in waterbodies, it breeds mosquitoes and often deters migratory birds. Plucked out and processed, it can become an ornate lampshade or a hip slingbag.
In a novel waste-to-wealth initiative launched by a citybased NGO, the water hyacinth is being converted into handmade paper, which in turn, is being used to design a clutch of utility items like bags, tabletop stationery, writing pads and folders.
Once hyacinth is picked from the water, the stem is dried and torn in the middle, flattened and pasted on handmade or brown paper. It is then heat-pressed to get the finished paper that goes into the making of daily-use household products like bags, flower vases, photo frames and pen stands.
"Proliferation of water hyacinth is a perennial problem in Bengal's rural areas, and our effort has been to turn this threat into an opportunity, creating a commercially viable venture," says Bikram Mitra of Earth Craft, a support group promoting sustainable creativity and craft, which drives this project.
Funded by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), the project was kicked off two years back in Mogra village of Kolsur block in North 24-Parganas in collaboration with Swanirvar, a local NGO.
Bangal again
Those who thought Bangal bhasha ' the various dialects in which people from former East Bengal speak ' had disappeared from Bengali films with the demise of Bhanu Bandyopadhyay should listen to some of the hottest numbers of today.
It all began with the ditty from Bangladesh, Tunir ma tomar tuni kotha sune na/jar tar loge dating mare amay chine na/ Tunir ma tumi Tunire bujao na/Dine raite missed call mare phone kore na.
It went viral and is still being uploaded by various individuals on YouTube. Its lyric is available in blogs and it broke the language barrier by using the word "dating" in a contemporary Bengali context without any regard for grammar or syntax. It worked wonderfully.
Now the language that snotty Ghotis from this side of the Padma used to laugh at one time has become so popular with Tollywood that even some titles of films are in that language. Take for example Phande Poriya Boga Kande Re featuring the immensely popular number, Coca Cola, that in keeping with the lingo of GenY is neither in Bengali, Hindi or English but in a patois that has a twisted logic of its own.
Last year Soham had serenaded Shrabanti with the words: Aaj amar monta je tai pyakhom tuila naache re with playback by Jeet Gannguli in the film Amanush.
And now once again the same Jeet Gannguli's Kobe ayibe amar pala re/kobe dimu golaye mala re has hit the scene and even babies are rocking to it.
The song was picturised on the denim-clad Dev and Subhashree (with a toned body this time) in hot pants and hair extensions in their latest film Romeo. The film may not be as big a hit as most Dev creations, but this song filmed in "international" locales has caught the public imagination. What could be more liberating than the sight of a para boy dancing with a bevy of pretty girls to a song that even people from across the border can identify with? It is amazing how these recent songs have surmounted class and language barriers in an age that has overturned all the rules of the game.
(Contributed by Poulomi Banerjee, Subhra Saha, Soumitra Das and Saionee Chakraborty)
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