Each year Sarai-CSDS’s unique fellowship programme gives grants for all kinds of practitioners—artists, performers, writers, filmmakers, working professionals and academics too—to pursue their own (sometimes serious, sometimes quirky) research projects. The results of this research can be applied in any direction and, in recent years, has eventually led to all kinds of things, from comic to public actions to films to books.

 

This year, Sarai’s yearly Independent Fellowship workshop will be a special gala event, in the centre of town, looking back over the five years of the fellowship. It will feature presentations from this year’s Independent Fellows, who will be coming in from various corners of the country, as well as some previous recipients of the Fellowship.

 

Expect an unconventional convention. Expect talks (both academic and non-academic), musical and theatrical performances, books, videos, listening booths, slide shows, arguments, dialogues, merriment and controversy. A special curated multimedia exhibition accompanies the events.

You are welcome to attend presentations, performances and discussions at the Little Theatre Group (LTG) Auditorium, Copernicus Marg, (near Mandi House) throughout the days of the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th of December, 2007.

                         

 

PROGRAMME

 

 Monday 3 December

Venue: Sarai-CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road

 

6.00 – 10.00 pm

Opening Reception and Launch of Working Questions (the Sarai-CSDS Independent Fellowship Book)

 

Opening Remarks

Professor Rajeev Bhargava

Director, CSDS

 

Reflecting on Five Years of the Sarai-CSDS Fellowship Programme

Shuddabrata Sengupta

Vivek Narayanan

Debjani Sengupta

Mahmood Farooqui

 

 

 

 Tuesday 4 December

Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House

 

10.30 – 12.00

History Versus Reminiscence

Chair: Debjani Sengupta

 

Anuja Ghosalkar

Papa Ajoba: My Grandfather, the Film Make-Up Artist

 

Renee C. Lulam and Julius L. Basaiawmoit

Changing Faces of Democratic Spaces in Urban Cosmopolitan Shillong

 

Sugata Nandi

Eventful Adolescence, Memorable Youth: The Politics of Personal Reminiscence in Calcutta, 1947-1967

 

 

12.15 – 1.15

Proving Residence

Chair: Shveta Sarda

 

Ajit K. Dwivedi

Sealing ki Nazar Mein: Sealing Banam Pusta ka Visthapan (Media Study: Comparative Reporting on Land Ceilings and Displacement from Jamuna Pushta)

 

Bipul K. Pandey

The Residence Proof

 

 

1.30 pm – 2.30 pm

Sub-Metropolitan Dreams

Chair: Iram Ghufran

 

Nalin Narain Mathur

B-Grade Engineering College Culture

 

Syed Zaigham Imam

Sapno ke Rail (The Train of Dreams: Narratives from the Allahabad-Jaunpur Passenger Train): A Short Documentary Film

 

 

2.45 – 4.15

Hearing Spaces, Seeing Spaces

Chair: Aarti Sethi

 

Shahnawaz Khan

Entertainment Ghosts in Srinagar: A Tale of Cinema Halls in the City

 

Zubin Pastakia

A Photographic Study of Bombay’s Cinema Halls

 

Sayandeb Mukherjee

Corridors: An Exploration of Sound and Space

 

 

4.30 – 6.30

Special Panel: The Past of Research and the Present of Practice

TP Sabitha, Yousuf Saeed, Mahmood Farooqui and Rahaab Allana

Discussant: Shuddhabrata Sengupta

 

7.00 – 7.30

(In Upstairs Gallery Space)

Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar” by Inder Salim.

Space limited to 25 persons only (first come, first served)

 

 

Wednesday 5 December

Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House

 

10.00 am – 11.30

Distant Communities

Chair: Ravikant

 

Surya Prakash Upadhyay

Guru on the Air: Televised Hinduism in Contemporary India

 

Neelima  Chauhan  

Blogit Hindi Jati ka Linkit Man: Blogon mein Hindi Hypertext ka Adhayayan (The World of Hindi Blogs)

 

Raman Jit Singh Chima

The Regulation of the Internet by the Indian State

 

 

11.45 – 1.15

In the Midst of Conflict I: Looking Back and Looking Ahead

Chair: Ravi Sundaram

 

Arvind Kumar

Caste Violence in Urban Maharashtra: A study of the 1974 Worli Riots in Mumbai and the Dalit Panthers Movement

 

P. Jenny and C. Christy

Chitralekha’s Burning Autorickshaw: Caste, Class and Gender in the Urban Space of Keralam

 

Meena Menon

Recovering Lost Histories: Riot Victims, the Communal Polarisation of  Mumbai and Its Impact on People and Perceptions about Communities

 

 

11.00 – 11.30

(In Upstairs Gallery Space)

Listen, Little Man: Short Film on Ragging by Madhavi Tangella

[See also discussion with Shivam Vij on Friday’s programme below]

 

 

1.30 – 3.00

In the Midst of Conflict II: Reading Between the Column Inches

Chair: Sanjay Sharma

 

Shiju Sam Varughese

The Public Sphere as a Site of Knowledge Production: Science in the Malayalam Press

 

Alok Puranik

Bazaar Reporting in Hindi Newspapers

 

Shubhra Nagalia

The Representation of Communal Conflicts in Hindi Media: A Case Study of the 2005 Mau Riots

 

 

3.15 – 3.45

Other Traditions

Chair: Priya Sen

 

Priya Babu

Traditions of  the Aravani (Transgender) Community in Tamilnadu

 

Mithun Narayan Bose

Tracing Life from the Stroke: Documenting the Rickshaw-Painting of Kolkata Streets

 

Deepak Kadyan

Popular Musical Traditions and Configuration of Jat identity in Haryana, 1900-2000

 

 

5.30 – 6.00

(In Upstairs Gallery Space)

Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar” by Inder Salim.

Space limited to 25 persons only (first come, first served)

 

 

7.00 – 8.15

(Back in Main Auditorium)

Creeper, a Play Written and Directed by Ram Ganesh Kamatham, Recasting the ‘Vikram and Vetal’ Myth in a Contemporary Urban Setting. Featuring Mallika Prasad and Abhishek Majumdar

 

 

Thursday 6 December

Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House

 

10.00 am – 11.30

Medicine and Modernity

Chair: Awadhendra Sharan

 

Gyaltsen Lama

Shamans in Gangtok: A Graphic Novel

 

M.S. Harilal

Adopting Modernisation and Negotiating Modernisation: Placing Modern and Traditional Ayurvedic Sectors in the Context of Transformation

 

Burton Cleetus

Urbanisation, Western Medicine and Modernity: The Rockefeller Foundation in Travancore

 

 

11.00 – 11.30

(In Upstairs Gallery Space)

Listen, Little Man: Short Film on Ragging by Madhavi Tangella

[See also discussion with Shivam Vij on Friday’s programme below]

 

 

11.45 – 12.45

Two Views of the Changing Industrial Landscape

(Short Documentary Films and Discussion)

Chair: Jeebesh Bagchi

 

Ranu Ghosh  

The Story of a Laid-off Worker’s Resistance to Eviction in Kolkata

 

T. Venkat and Meghna Sukumar

Building the Indian Dream: Living and Working Conditions of Migrant Workers in Chennai's IT Corridor

 

 

1.00 – 2.00

Tracking Literatures

Chair: Ravikant

 

Rajiv Ranjan Giri

Saraswati ki Sarvajanik Duniya, 1900-1920 (The Popular World of the Journal Saraswati, 1900-1920)

 

Gopal Ji Pradhan

Hindi mein Uttar-Purv (The North-East in Hindi Literature)

 

 

2.15 – 4.15

Special Panel: Where Does Research Go?

Featuring: Zainab Bawa, Parismita Singh, Madhavi Tangella and Prasad Shetty 

Discussant: Vivek Narayanan 

 

 

4.30 – 5.45

Work in ‘Progress’: Feature-Length Video by 2007 Sarai-CSDS Associate Fellow Debkamal Ganguly

 

6.15 – 6.45

(In Upstairs Gallery Space)

Performance Art: “This Evening Too: From Lal Ded to Abdul Ahad Zargar” by Inder Salim.

Space limited to 25 persons only (first come, first served)

 

7.15 – 8.00

Solo Performance: Pritham K Chakravarty

The Life of an Actor in Chennai’s Sabha Drama

 

 

Friday Dec 7

Venue: LTG Auditorium, Mandi House

 

10.00 – 11.00

Proofreading: Identity and Publishing

Chair: Mahmood Farooqui

 

Vijay Kumar Pandey

Meerut ka Prakasan Udyog (The Publishing Industry in Meerut)

 

Yoginder Sikand and Naseemur Rahman

Islamic Publishing Houses in Delhi

 

 

11.00 – 12.15

(In Upstairs Gallery Space)

Side Effects: Collaborations and Conversations Between Independent Fellows

Listen, Little Man: Short Film on Ragging by Madhavi Tangella

Discussion and commentary by Shivam Vij, Who Studied Ragging for his Sarai-CSDS Fellowship

Introduced and moderated by Iram Ghufran

 

 

11.15 – 12.15

Maps for Lost Cities

Chair: Shuddhabrata Sengupta

 

Surojit Sen

The Displacement of Prostitutes: A Tale of Two Cities in Two Centuries

 

Mohit K. Ray and Soma Ghosh

Heritage Ponds of Kolkata: A Contemporary History

 

 

12.30 – 1.30

Rethinking the Social

Chair: Vivek Narayanan

 

Santana Issar and Aditi Saraf

Rethinking Animal Activism in an Urban Context

 

Arnab Chatterjee

Beyond Private and Public: New Perspectives on the Personal and Personalist in Social Work

 

 

 

1.45 – 3.45 

Special Presentation: The Sarai-CSDS Associate Fellowships

Chair: Monica Narula

 

Nancy Adajania: A New Journal for the Arts: Prototype Issue, 2007

 

Debkamal Ganguly: An Imaginative Text Based on Contemporary Travel Through the “Forests” Described in Bibhuthibhushan’s Memoirs (see complete video by Debkamal Ganguly on previous day)

 

 

4.00 – 5.30

Towards a  Future for Independent Research: Interactive Open Discussion

 

7.00 – 8.30

Punches, Ponytails, Ringtones: Women Boxers in India

A Film by Pankaj Rishi Kumar (82 min.)

Introduced by Shuddhabrata Sengupta