Ringing in the New Year!!

Usually my New Year's eve days have been pretty staid ones. For example, I spent the turn of this century watching some dumb movie on TV. And for the last 2 years, all I did was just hang out with my cousin.

But for a change I decided that I'd spend this New Year by the Marine Drive at Mumbai. And how I did!!

It was a crowded place when I went there alongwith my friend. Still it was a disciplined crowd of revellers watched over by a crowd of policemen. I had a late dinner at Leopold, where a raucous crowd enjoyed the ambience. Nobody seemed to notice the bullet holes on the walls caused on 26/11. How quickly time flies. After getting mildly irritated noticing that Indians and foreigners were let in through separate entrances, I finished my dinner and left.

The New Year's day was a bit unplanned with me just catching up with some old friends, having a heavy lunch and then a siesta. But evening, I alongwith my friend, went to see Anish Kapoor's installations in the Mehboob Studios at Bandra. And what a treat it was!

I have seen (and contemplated) his Bean (officially called "Cloud Gate") in Chicago. The monstrous reflective bean shaped art installation by the Lakeside drew enormous crowd always. I have lots of photos taken of that and so was eager in visiting the first-time-in-India installations of Anish Kapoor. And I was not disappointed.

So many installations and the main theme was reflection conveyed through different objects conceptualised using bright and shiny stainless steel. Anish Kapoor brought performing arts a new dimension by his installation of a cannon from where red wax was fired at periodic intervals.

The exhibition was held simultaneously in New Delhi (NCPA) and Mumbai.

But understanding the installations (or rather interpreting your way) proved to be more easier than understanding the write-up that came in a booklet meant to help the visitors understand the art. It was highly abstruse text meant to be more high brow and snobbish than bridging the artist and the audience.

Anyway it was a great beginning. Here is to hoping the high note is the harbinger of higher notes to come.

Happy New Year of 2011!!!