Month: November 2019

A budget of Rs 300 crore, of which Rs 40 crore has been spent on a helium balloon that may well not be used because of the rains. India’s finest aesthetes, Javed Akhtar, Shyam Benegal and Prasoon Joshi, as aesthetic advisors, helped by creative director Bharat Bala and executed by,A budget of Rs 300 crore, of which Rs 40 crore has been spent on a helium balloon that may well not be used because of the rains. India’s finest aesthetes, Javed Akhtar, Shyam Benegal and Prasoon Joshi, as aesthetic advisors, helped by creative director Bharat Bala and executed by Wizcraft, one of India’s largest event management companies. Thirty meetings of the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by S. Jaipal Reddy since May 2009. Yet the opening and closing ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games seem designed to be a gigantic damp squib.A.R. Rahman (centre) presents the theme song for the Games.Till as late as a September 6 meeting, the minutes show that the GoM was wondering whether to play a modern version of the Vande Mataram or not. The music track of the segment “Tree of Knowledge” is still not done. While the three advisors have an excuse-theirs was to ideate not implement-it is Wizcraft which now has to implement a brief that like Topsy has only grown. From getting multiple approvals for vendors to making last minute changes because the 15-member GoM with Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Organising Committee (OC) chairman Suresh Kalmadi and Union Sports Minister M.S. Gill as members demanded it, half of Wizcraft’s staff is working 20-hour days to coordinate the 7,000 dancers who will congregate at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on October 3 and October 14.Aesthetic AdvisersThe three were appointed by the GoM to create a concept for the two ceremonies, but left the execution to video impresario Bharat Bala.advertisementShyam BenegalPrasoon JoshiJaved AkhtarThe multiple authorities represented in the GoM, the search for an elusive consensus and a changeable brief is at the root of an event that was put together in haste, when compared to the 2008 Beijing Olympics where the concept was ready 13 months in advance. By all accounts, the performers will get less than 10 days to rehearse at the actual venue.Compare this with the Zhang Yimou-directed Beijing opening ceremony where 10,000 dancers rehearsed for four months to give a world-class performance or the London Olympics 2012 , where Oscar-winner Danny Boyle has already been commissioned as artistic director. So far, the dancers have been going through the paces at the Parade Ground in north Delhi and can only practise in the stadium once the stage is erected, slotted to be completed on September 21, just 13 days before the Games. Here too there is a catch.Due to incessant rains in the Capital, the ground compaction (the process of increasing the weight bearing capacity of soil for pre-construction) at the main venue has still not been completed. The proposed stage may not be constructed at all. The stage-less show would mean that all flying scenics will have to be dropped. In the worst case scenario, which is a distinct possibility, bad weather would mean the aerostat, which has already blown up a controversy with the OC awarding the contract for it to a firm called K-events without floating an open request, might have to be removed.This article appeared in the India Today magazine dated August 23, 2010. Subscribe to the print copy or read it on Zinio. A puppet which will be cinched to the rS 40-crore aerostat in the opening ceremony.Even by our own standards, we may fall short. The opening of the 1982 Asiad in Delhi was a two-year-long effort which culminated in a one-and-a-half-hour-long cultural ceremony with lezim dancers from Maharashtra, ghoomar from Rajasthan and a Holi dance from Uttar Pradesh choreographed by Birju Maharaj, all masterminded by three army officials: General Adi M. Sethna, NCC Director General Major General Narinder Singh and General Officer Commanding Delhi area, Major General Onkar Bhandari.There were last minute changes then too, but this time there has been second guessing at every point-which version of Vande Mataram should be played in the closing ceremony, should the music of Vaishnav jan be played on the flute accompanied by the chanting of hymns, should 800 dancers perform only to Kabir’s doha (couplet) or should the shabad of Guru Gobind Singh Koi bole Ram, koi khudai be included?Benegal says kindly that India is a nation where everyone has a “million opinions” and “you just cannot please all, especially with an elusive concept like unity in diversity” but the ceremonies do try. The actual event follows much of the concept that Joshi-Benegal-Akhtar originally outlined. It’s divided into four segments: the Swagatham segment, the yoga segment, the Tree of Knowledge and the Great Indian Journey.The Playing FieldHow India fares in the big league of games’ hostsadvertisementThe opening ceremony in Beijing.Beijing Olympics, China, 2008: The three-and-a-half-hour opening ceremony cost $300 million, showcasing China’s new position of power in the world order.FIFA World Cup, South Africa, 2010: Organised at an estimated budget of $10 million, the opening ceremony went on for two days. Shakira teamed up with a local group, Freshlyground, to give the world Waka waka.Commonwealth Games, India, 2010: The two-hours opening and an hour-and-a-half-long closing ceremony will cost Rs 300 crore, showing India’s best kept secret, unity in diversity. This section is further divided into the Human Train which will showcase aspects of rural India-a series of spectacles visible from a moving train to be projected on the aerostat. The aerostat is the brainchild of Mark Fisher who has done flashly rock concerts with U2 and Pink Floyd. The other two designers are Dan Potra who worked on two segments of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, and Bollywood’s Omung Kumar who has worked on Wizcraft’s Rs 200-crore Kingdom of Dreams project, India’s first live entertainment and leisure destination located in Gurgaon.The opening ceremony has six major choreographers-Shiamak Davar, Brin and Laura, folk dancer Santosh Shetty, Devendra Shelar and theatre director Bansi Kaul-as well as 100 other dance masters. A.R. Rahman, who was paid a fee of more than Rs 5 crore, has given the structure for the entire music track, apart from the theme song, with individual pieces composed by Shankar Mahadevan and Ranjit Barot among others.The closing ceremony will be pegged on internationalism, where the whole world is treated like a family as the Sanskrit phrase Vasudhaiva kutumbakam signifies. It will have nine segments, two of which will be purely cultural. In the first segment, named Agni, indigenous martial arts like gatka and malkhamb will be showcased. The longest segment would be that of music of universal love where folk, sufi, and popular tunes will be played in tandem and would bring the gala event to an end. In all this, one man, Suresh Kalmadi, seems oddly confident.”This will be the best opening ceremony of the best Commonwealth Games ever held. And those who raise questions now will have to eat their words.” That, or his critics, who multiply by the day, will make a meal of him.This article appeared in the India Today magazine dated August 23, 2010. Subscribe to the print copy or read it on Zinio. read more