A Star Studded Launch For Hariharan & Bickram Ghosh’s Ishq – Songs Of Love!

Composer Bickram Ghosh and singer Hariharan have teamed up to bring to audiences myriad shades of Ishq, the much needed emotion post pandemic. With music by Maestro Bickram Ghosh and set to vocals by Legendary playback singer Hariharan, Ishq – Song Of Love features music video directed by Arindam Sil and lyrics by Sugata Guha. It features Abhisek Mallick on the Sitar and, interestingly, features Bickram Ghosh himself for live percussion and Tabla.

Known for critically acclaimed hits like Chants Of India with Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, The Music Room with Sonu Nigam, Pulsating Drums with Zakir Hussain and Taufiq Qureshi, and several other iconic tracks with Pandit Ravi Shankar, Bickram Ghosh – arguably one of the greatest Tabla exponents of all times and the composer of Ishq, talks about the album. “The idea of love changes over generations of time. We keep hearing people say, ‘woh puraane zamaane ke gaane hai’ (those are songs of the old times). I’ve really wanted to make an album of love songs with different nuances of love,” avers the Tabla maestro.  “These have been difficult times! Unexpectedly, we’ve achieved something musically. During the pandemic, we’ve completed an entire album as well as the videos,” he adds!

Speaking about the same, veteran playback singer Hariharan shares that he has been super excited to see the album get ready for release as, he adds, creating an album is a lot of hard work taking hours, days and months of an artist’s time! “Here, we have six songs with six stories! The kind that tells its own story. The nuances behind each song are as different as the stories behind them. All in all, the outcome of love is different.”

Interestingly, the song ‘Baaton Baaton Mein’ already crossed millions of views on YouTube. It is available on other platforms including Apple Music and Spotify as well!

The industry DOYENS including Anupam Kher, Shankar Mahadevan, Sanjeev Kapoor, Roop Kumar Rathod, Kavita Seth, Lesle Lewis, Kaavya Jones, Sandip Soparrkar, Sharbani Mukherjee, Salim Merchant, Akshay Hariharan, Karan Hariharan, Shilpa Rao, Pratibha Singh Baghel, Purbayan Chatterjee, Gurneet Jolly, Anusha Srinivasan Iyer, Yogesh Lakhani among others made their presence felt for the EP launch at Tap, Juhu. Besides celebs of the likes of renowned chef, chocolatier and cake sculptor Harneet Jolly’s live sculpture cake added more energy to the musical evening.

Yogesh Lakhani of Bright Outdoor avers, “Hariharan and Bickram Ghosh are phenomenal musicians and it is a pleasure for Bright to be associated with ‘Ishq – Songs Of Love’.”

Need we say more!

Neena Gupta-Vikas Khanna come together to make history at Varanasi Ghat

 

Actor Neena Gupta was excited that finally the lighting classes at the National School of Drama helped her look all radiant with no makeup and just a kajal and lipstick. The actor who is part of the virtual edition of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival (KGAF) this year on Insider.in with her film The Last Colour, along with her director, celeb chef Vikas Khanna, expressed her happiness to be part of the festival that is on with all its resplendence despite the pandemic. Neena Gupta was as excited about the festival as she was for her film.

"I love the feel of getting back to normalcy,” she expressed her wish to be at the festival physically next year.

Expressing her connection with art, Neena Gupta spoke of her favourite piece of art, Lalita Lajmi's painting, that is, the piece of art in her house that she purchased as it touched her heart, Neena expressed how she loves it. Vikas Khanna spoke of how he has a museum of old vessels in Manipal with over 10000 vessels.

The duo spoke of how they met at a flight, and Vikas Khanna talked about how his grandfather spoke of Neena Gupta as he watched Mirza Ghalib because of her and felt that she had an amazing ‘noor’ (aura). 

Noor, incidentally is the character of Neena Gupta's name. Vikas Khanna confides that she had an amazing light on her face though she wore no makeup in the film."

Vikas Khanna confided that he took Anupam Kher's advice on how to approach her. Anupam Kher told him “Go approach. She is an emotional actor. She will tell you what she thinks without mincing words.” An early morning narration to Neena Gupta who after a night shoot gave him time, and then gave the nod.

"If I love a script and love my role, I say yes immediately. Some films are very close to me. It has made me sad. As some stop midway, others don't get the release they deserve. Like Woh Chokri, where I won a National Award for Best Supporting Actress but it did not get its due. But I never look down upon any one as we carve our own destiny with our work!"

Vikas expressed how he decided to take the risk and take up a story of a little untouchable child who asks a widow on Varanasi ghat to play Holi with her!

"Nothing teaches you the way you work on the sets. And Neena ji's experience as director helped me."

Vikas Khanna who has made over nine documentaries on food and religion before, expressed that his discipline as a chef helped him let Neena Gupta to rest and look radiant despite using no makeup on the sets.

Neena Gupta spoke of the time she made baigan bharta and Irish Coffee at Prithvi Theatre to make ends meet. And hence the cooking connection between the duo.

An interesting experience indeed.

Can water kill Coronavirus?

It can de-grease a kitchen. It can clean windows. It kills athlete’s foot. And now, this elixir is brought to India to replace the toxic chemicals used to kill COVID. Electrolysed Oxidising Water, the patented technology brought to India by the country’s pioneering water technology platform, Amazing Ambrosia Pvt. Ltd. under the name Amazing Hygieia and HygieiaDent, is hailed as ‘El Liquido Milagroso,’ or the miraculous liquid, a substance that scientists aver is powerful enough to kill any lethal virus without harming people or the environment.

Used as a sanitizer for decades in Japan and Russia, Electrolysed Oxidising Water is safe, inexpensive, cuts costs and cuts employee injuries from chemicals. It is prepared by employees on-site and is ten times more effective at killing bacteria than bleach and is available in a convenient powder form in a 3.2 gram sachet that gives up to 10 litres of disinfectant.

Says veteran water technologist Dr. BK Sharma, “Amazing Hygieia is green, saves money and is the right thing to do. In Japan, people spray it on sushi to kill bacteria and replace chlorine with EO water in swimming pools. Doctors treat bedsores with EO water. In Russia, EO water is used to kill microbes in oil wells, while Europeans use it to treat burn victims and have developed treatments for chronic wounds with EO water. It is only a matter of time before our patented technology becomes mainstream in India.”

Entrepreneurs Sidharth Sharma and Rahul C. Mehta add: “When we founded Amazing Ambrosia guided by doyens Dr. BK Sharma and Mahendra N Patel, we wanted to identify India’s water and sanitation problems and solve them by adapting world-class technologies and innovating and manufacturing them locally. We brought in Amazing Hygieia and HygieiaDent for that purpose. The unforeseen pandemic struck then and the need for a new, innovative way to sanitize frequently touched surfaces and aerial disinfection of high footfall places with lowest toxicity and least bio burden became priority.”

Opines Mahendra N Patel: “The timing of the launch of our product was such that it was nothing short of miracle water. Globally, this technology has effectively demonstrated excellent cleaning ability in public places such as malls, metro stations, gyms, restaurants, movie theatres, airports and above that also in dairy, poultry and produce industries, making it ideal for general use in retail food establishments. Replacing conventional cleaners in mop buckets, sprayers, foggers and toxic cleaning chemicals with this electrolyzed oxidising water is a simple solution. In addition, Amazing Hygieia has no odour, nor does it produce foam, making it ideal for use in food production.”

Amazing Hygieia/ HygieiaDent is the only stable EO water available in pH of 5.5 to 6.5 with zero chlorine gasification. Electrolyzed oxidising water is approved and certified by the Ministry of Health, Japan as a food contact product as well as the only product safe for aerial disinfection permitted by INMAS DRDO, USA FDA, US CDC and US EPA. Both Amazing Hygieia and HygieiaDent are winners of the Economic Times Industry Leader Awards for Pathbreaking Technology resulting in Exemplary Contribution To Society.

Railway Raju On December 18

 

Railway Raju, a love story amidst an action film based on the wrestling gangs of Banaras and directed by international award winning filmmaker Dinkar Rao, is slated for release on December 18, 2020 in theatres in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and New Delhi braving the Covid onslaught.

It creates a beautiful beginning for films to return to theatres like the good old days before Covid struck. “For me, it’s a pleasant surprise that the film is releasing and it’s a UP based film. It’s a film which has interesting elements. When I showed it at the Cannes film market many buyers from South East Asia and North America liked the concept of wrestling gangs in north India.” says director Dinkar Rao whose short film Asthi starring Antara Rao was premiered at Cannes, which he plans to complete it as a feature film with a known Bollywood actress.

Railway Raju has Sunny Shaw & Telugu actress Lavanya Rao in the lead roles and a host of good theatre actors from Uttar Pradesh, New Delhi, Mumbai, USA and Germany.

The film has managed an all India release after having been released in Mumbai earlier through Vkaao, an arm of PVR and Book My Show. “I am very grateful to our project designer and marketing and distribution consultant S Ramachandran for being the guiding force during the making, censor and release of the film” says Dinkar Rao.

CINTAA STATEMENT

 

The Indian Film Industry  which has been in existence for more than a century is a land of opportunity to  thousands of people who have chosen to embark on this career path to take care of their livelihood and accomplish their missions in life.

The Media & the Entertainment Industry has always been a significant  contributor to the economy, and also the served the Nation's interests as its cultural ambassadors.

In times of national crisis and natural calamities, the Media Fraternity has solidly supported the endeavours of the Government, to help by their resources and public influence. 

Actors in particular are the face of the Industry who have enthralled the audiences everwhere with their talent; many are academically accomplished and have chosen this career to satisfy their creative passion. Many have trained themselves and dedicated their lives in pursuit of creative excellence.

Recently, Film Industry in general and actors in particular have been in the Eye of a Storm of invasive media scrutiny, not all of it justified, and in some sections of the Press, motivated for reasons other than fair news reporting. 

However, one feature that has emerged out of this has been the unfortunate reality of the spread of use of banned drugs, in society at large and Film Industry in particular. 

We, Cine & TV Artists association (CINTAA) take this issue very seriously. We simply say NO TO DRUGS.

As an association, we very strongly rebuke anyone involved in consumption of drugs , no matter the name and fame such an individual  enjoys in our fraternity and society. We acknowledge the power and influence many of our Industry have over the gullible minds of the young and we believe that their actions, whether in privacy of their own homes or otherwise, have a great bearing on society at large; they are Role Models for the youth and thus have more than reasonable responsibility  for exemplary conduct..

While we do advocate a strict punishment to those who are proved guilty, our endeavor is always to make the whole system free of drugs and its adverse repercussions and to have a clean working arena for existing and aspiring actors. We would support any individual or institution who furthers this cause. 

In conclusion:  SAY NO TO DRUGS AND YES TO LIFE.

 

Executive Committee

CINTAA