Welcome to Ektara, the online video magazine of history, society and culture of India and South Asia. We hope our stories and interviews will entertain and inspire you, and arouse your appetite for more about our rich and diverse pasts. Ektara has completed four years of existence. It comes out once every two months. We need your support to keep it running.
In this new issue, we bring you the following short videos and segments:
1. Noor Zehra Kazim plays Sagar Veena
2. Eid-e Gulabi: Plural history of Holi festival
3. Tasveer Ghar: New visual essays by Christopher Pinney and Sukeshi Kamra
4. Basant: the classic short film with original Hindustani commentary
1. Noor Zehra Kazim plays Sagar Veena
Sagar Veena, a plucked instrument, has been invented by a Lahore lawyer and musicologist Raza Kazim. His daughter, Noor Zehra makes this performance of the instrument at New Delhi in 2008. From the Khayal Darpan Archive.
The following new visual essays appeared on Tasveer Ghar under its 'Manly Matters' series:
Picturing the �Intimate Enemy�: From the Rani of Jhansi to the Indian National Army
By Christopher Pinney
http://tasveergharindia.net/essay/picturing-intimate-enemy.html
Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the Political Cartoon Culture of the Majority Press in 1947
By Sukeshi Kamra
http://tasveergharindia.net/essay/jinnah-cartoon-press
4. Basant: the original Hindustani version of the classic short film
Basant Panchami maybe popular as a 'Hindu' festival, but its actually a festival of spring season associated with harvest. In this short film from 1997, Basant is celebrated by the Sufis and qawwals at the shrine of Nizamuddin Aulia in New Delhi. Featured are musicians/artists like Qawwal Meraj Nizami, Hayat Khan, Mohammad Ahmed Warsi, Ghulam Mustafa Khan, and many others. This is the Hindi version of the film. An English version can be seen here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=O2zlN88unuI