INKtalks

INK2011 Day 4: A new journey begins, INK2012 in B’lore

Dec 12th, 2011 Leave a comment
Joi Barua

Joi Barua

There’s a tradition in Bengal, the eastern state of India, where they say “see you again” instead of goodbye. As the second INK Conference, in association with TED, drew to a close, preparations for the third conference were already set in place. INK2012 will be held in Bangalore from December 6 to 9.

The day started with the session ‘Coming home’ where INK Fellow Nida Mahmood talked about being inspired by the mundane and turning anti-fashion fashionable. Innovator and entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham, handled the issue of women’s hygiene sensitively with humour and understanding.

Singer Joi Barua, who was an INK Fellow in 2010, said he had had a fulfilling journey in the past one year since he launched his music album at INK2010. “The time between then and now was magic.” He went on to sing some of his favourite songs and dedicated one to the INK team.

In the next session ‘Looking forward’, techno artiste Alexander Tsiaras took the audience on a journey through the body simplifying complex medical conditions through a new software that will allow people to make sense of their lab report.

Robert Gupta gave a stunning violin performance and touched the hearts of the audience with his talk about playing music for the mentally ill. Shilo Shiv Suleman, INK Fellow from last year, continued her journey with INK, and launched her iPad app interactive book, ‘Khoya’ at the conference. Anupam Misra took the stage again and won the hearts of the young people in the audience with his simple yet refresing take on relevance on Mahatma Gandhi today. “The keys are always around us, but we only see the locks around us,” he said.

Professor and author of ‘The Art of Choosing’, Sheena Iyengar’s talk was a fitting concluding talk at INK2011, where dwelt on how the choices we make impact our life.

The day ended with a short video about INK captured beautifully in shadow art by artiste Amar Kumar Sen and his troupe.

To register for INK2012 click here.

 INK Correspondent

Sheena Iyengar

INK2011 Day 3: Of fears, flight and revelations

Dec 10th, 2011 Leave a comment

Shantanu Moitra with Gokul Das

The third day of the INK Conference, in association with TED, was a power-packed day with new ideas and  revelations. The sessions titled ‘Facing your fears’, ‘Magic flight’, ‘Challenges & Obstacles’ and ‘Revelations’,  included a range of emotions that informed, entertained and inspired.

The day began with INK Fellow Suman Sridhar whose spoken word piece made a point even as it entertained.  World’s youngest headmaster Babar Ali returned again this year to receive some good news that his students would  soon be able to have a proper school building of their own. One of the many INK projects that envision making ideas  real, Babar Ali’s school has been on INK’s wish list for a while. With support from the INK community and the YPO,  Anand Shikha Niketan, the school run by Babar will finally have a permanent roof.

Babar Ali and Lakshmi Pratury

Babar Ali and Lakshmi Pratury

INK Fellow Krushnaa Patil, who became the youngest Indian woman to successfully climb Mount Everest in 2009, faced her fears when she ‘cat walked’ the ridges and had to “work high and sleep low.”

Beginning the next session, Lakshmi Pratury said, “What is standing in between us and that magic flight is the mind.” Composer Shantanu Moitra has dreamt of a day when international flights will have a button for folk music beside Bollywood music. He has already begun his magic flight by setting up a repository of folk music in association with INK. Anyone can upload a piece of folk music to preserve it, so that it can be enjoyed by generations to come. He introduced Gokul Das, a dhak (drum used during festivals in Bengal) player to showcase his music which is an amalgamation of classical and folk.

Vikram Bhaskaran has also created another kind of repository. Samposapedia, is an example of the rich cultural heritage of Indian lingo both past and present. Sample this: Mother Promise, Chuddi Budddy, Chammak Challo, Aadhar and now Kolavari di.

Anousheh Ansari, first woman private space tourist, said because of her once-in-a-lifetime experience she learnt to do new things, made friends of foes and never stopped smiling.

Anousheh Ansari

Anousheh Ansari

 Anupam Mukherji, creator of the hoax cricket blog Fake IPL Player, regaled the audience with his story of the biggest  ever prank that almost threatened to destroy an IPL team.

Composer Italy Talgam showed all those leaders a thing or two of leading teams using the examples of some great  orchestra conductors. Raghava KK’s talked about his iPad app that allows you to look at both sides of the coin.  Shake it and you have the New York Times perspective, shake it further and you have the Al Jazeera take on things.  Revolutionizing journalism, anyone?

Actor and filmmaker Abhay Deol and Dibakar Banerjee showed how the art of filmmaking was a spontaneous  process. Dibakar gave the INK audience a sneak preview of his soon-to-be released film starring Abhya, called,  ‘Shanghai’.

INK Fellow Anusha Yadav is documenting India’s cultural history through her project called, ‘Memory Project’ through  pictures sourced from the public as “India’s available history is prisoner to political power.”

 Michael Pollack, a venture capitalist, shared how his whole life changed post 26/11 when he was caught in the  crossfire following the terrorist attack at the Taj Palace Hotel in Mumbai.

 Bhavik Gandhi, Arpit Mohan, Zohre Elahian, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Alexander Asseily, Ramji Raghavan, John  Mathew, Reena Esmail and John Frame were some of the other speakers.

 Dipti Nair

The Amer Fort in Jaipur lit up for the second INK evening.

The Amer Fort in Jaipur lit up for the second INK evening.

 

INK2011 Day 2: Connecting the Crossroads

Dec 9th, 2011 Leave a comment

Vasundhara Das began the day with an ode to Lord Ganesha, the God of auspicious beginnings.

The second day of INK2011 began with an invocation to Lord Ganesha, sung by actor, singer Vasundhara Das in the session titled: Meeting of Minds. She and Roberto Narain, who had led the entire INK audience on a Drumjam experience the previous evening, talked about the intention of a Drumjam event where the energies of the entire group comes together to level the playing field, and redefining the power equation between the performer and the audience.

Roberto Narain of Drumjam talks about the rhythm within all of us.

 

Rob Cook of Pixar spoke at the 'Meeting of Minds' session about collaborations between large groups of people.

Lakshmi Pratury

The second day of INK2011 began with an invocation to Lord Ganesha, sung by actor, singer Vasundhara Das in the session titled: Meeting of Minds. She and Roberto Narain, who had led the entire INK audience on a Drumjam experience the previous evening, talked about the intention of a Drumjam event where the energies of the entire group comes together to level the playing field, and redefining the power equation between the performer and the audience.

Rob Cook of Pixar talked about what happens when the artist is a group of 400 software engineers and the brush is the computer technology. With winners like Monster Inc, Finding Nimo, The Incredible in the Pixar bag, Rob gave a glimpse of a unique collaboration at work.

Deepak Ravindran, INK Fellow and co-founder of SMS Gyan, was never afraid of asking questions, and he turned this curiosity into a business opportunity. SMS Gyan allows a non-Internet user access to the vast repository of knowledge on the Internet. All they have to do is SMS a query from their mobile phones and Deepak and his team provide them with the answer.

The other speakers in this session included Lisa Staprans, Anupam Misra, NV ‘Tiger’ Tyagarajan.

In the second session ‘Making Connections’, INK Fellow Charles Ma showed that grace was not the preserve of only the fairer sex. An unlikely candidate to be a Bharatnatyam dancer, and an accomplished one at that, Charles presented a beautiful Bharatnatyam piece. One of the early facebook employees, Ruchi Sanghvi invented News Feed. People hated it and used it to criticize her. She persisted and was successful in delivering 10 million personalized newspapers every day.

Human Rights activist Shirin Juwaley left the audience speechless when she shared her story of her unhappy arranged marriage, her trauma and the resultant disfigurement when her husband threw acid on her face as a reaction to her request for a divorce. She has founded a network, Palash Foundation that provides therapy and support for others with similar situations.

The next session ‘Crossroads’ showcased the young classical tabla ensemble Talavya. Anu Aga, INK Fellow Nikhilesh Das, Palestinian-born Rasha Ali, innovator GBS Bindra and perfumer Yann Vasnier.

The day ended with the last session ‘Leap of Faith,’ featuring Rajika Puri, a Bharata Natyam and Odissi dancer who blends her performance with Flamenco. Wolfgang Lehmacher, Abhishek Bhagat and Harpal Singh were the other speakers featured here.

INK Correspondent

 

 

INK2011: Day 1. Call to adventure

Dec 8th, 2011 3 Comments

Julie Taymor

The INK Conference, in association with TED, set sail on its second journey powered by some great storytelling in the colourful and royal city of Jaipur today. With poet Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, INK Curator and Host Lakshmi Praturi steered the inaugural session with a call to adventure. “We believe all you people here are our heroes, and our theme ‘Power of the Journey’ aims to explore the hero’s adventures through Joseph Campbell’s ‘The Hero’s Journey’.” She explained that the four days of the conference will explore the different stages of the journey described by Campbell.

The speakers at the first session, ‘Call to adventure’, threw light upon that one moment in everyone’s life which lifts our spirits to follow our bliss.

Julie Taymor, American film, opera and theatre director, through her amazing visual poetry, talked about how being an artist is akin to being a Shaman of contemporary society; the psychologist who connects with her audience through the pieces of art. Using her experiences in Bali, when she spied upon a war dance that was performed without an audience or the time when she climbed a volcano, Julie talked about being true to our inner calling, and getting down to the level of the cat’s vision and follow the line.

The next speaker Amish Tripathi, shifted the scenery from visual poetry to the magic of prose on paper. Banker-turned-author of the Shiva trilogy, ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ and “The Secret of the Nagas’, Amish said such fulfilling was his journey as a writer that had his books not become bestsellers, and had they remained “in my laptop, and my only reader was my long suffering wife, I would still be writing.”

John Hardy, jewellery designer and educator, showed the courage of conviction when he uprooted his family to an unknown land. He went on to set up the extraordinary Green School in Bali.

Claire Kremen presented the bee’s eye view of the food industry. “If we did not have pollinators like the bee, we would be nutrient deficient,” she said.

Smart City expert Ayesha Khanna talked about future of our cities and the idea of a generative city that is inclusive, equitable and citizen centric.

Aisha Chaudhary

All of 15 years, INK Youth Fellow Aisha Chaudhary, brought a lump in all the throats. A victim of an immune deficiency disorder that predicted a life expectancy of only one year, Aisha talked about her belief in miracles and about living a moment twice – once in the mind and another when it happens for real.

Lyricist Swanand Kirkire and composer Shantanu Moitra dedicated the song “bawara man dekhane chala ek sapna” to Aisha, calling her a rock star.

Geo Strategist Parag Khanna talked about globalization going global, while Turkish artist and author Bedri Baykam took the path of life’s journey for freedom.

As an attendee pointed out, “all the talks were great, but the little girl Aisha shook the ground from beneath our feet.”

Dipti Nair

INK stage

 

 

 

12 » Last