Patang (Kite): Soars with Sensitive Story

BY RAJ S. RANGARAJAN *


A thought-provoking film with serious overtones, Patang is definitely not Bollywood. Seniormost in the film’s credits is Seema Biswas (Bandit Queen, Water) who makes sure that the seriousness of the film is maintained though, admittedly there are hilarious moments within the family story dynamic when kites are soaring in gay abandon on the vibrant streets of Ahmedabad.

An exuberant Priya (Sugandha Garg) in dance

A thought-provoking film with serious overtones, Patang is definitely not Bollywood. Seniormost in the film’s credits is Seema Biswas (Bandit Queen, Water) who makes sure that the seriousness of the film is maintained though, admittedly there are hilarious moments within the family story dynamic when kites are soaring in gay abandon on the vibrant streets of Ahmedabad.

In a story set around the Makar Sankranti festival on January 14 (a.k.a. Uttarayan in some parts of India) the film will reverberate in several parts of the country. Delhi businessman Jayesh (Mukund Shukla) returns to his family home after five years and wants to make good by his family. He wants to set up a condo across town for his mother and sister-in-law Sudha (Seema Biswas) and his nephew, Chakka, a 20-plus man without a job who generally hangs out with young boys in the neighborhood.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Gangs of Wasseypur,Kahani) plays Chakka and keeps the tension going while highlighting earlier family slights and resentments with his mother, Sudha and Jayesh’s mother. The bright light in the movie is Jayesh’s daughter, sparkling Priya (played by Sugandha Garg) who is visiting the city for the first time. Her earlier appearance was in My Name is Khan, and Sugandha’s infectious laugh and expressive face do the talking.

Hamid Shaikh awestruck by kites

The film weaves together the stories of six people transformed by the energy of India's largest kite festival. Made of paper and bamboo, these colorful kites are metaphors for many families in Ahmedabad every year when they show off their kite-flying prowess while letting go off their emotions.

Flying a kite successfully is a virtual journey into a philosophical realm. Apart from the breeze that exhilarates it is a cathartic experience as one looks up at the busy sky triumphantly: the freedom and expertise of controlling a square piece of paper and bamboo amidst competitive forces in the form of other challenger kites with glass-laced strings, the merciless wind and the messy skyline with hovering satellite towers and disks from building roofs. 

Shanker Raman (Harud, Peepli Live) has captured the essence of the passionate kite flyer’s psyche through his camera in the night sky. Kites with candles and lanterns glow each narrating a story or expressing a feeling, a thought or a mere moment in his busy life.  Raman’s earlier efforts were Harud and Peepli Live.

Chakka (Nawazuddin Siddiqui in a band

While Chakka is all swagger and resentful of his uncle, Priya’s seductive fondness for a young shop clerk, played by Aakash Maherya from the neighborhood adds to the suspense when Aakash takes her on a scooter ride and one wonders: Will the father take objection to his daughter hanging out with this young boy? Will Chakka have a serious falling out from his uncle? Will the undelivered bunch of kites affect the future of young Hamid Shaikh who lives on the streets and is an associate of Chakka?

Prashant studied theatrical directing at the Actors Studio Drama School in New York and computer science at Cornell University. A native of Chicago, Prashant's interest in the arts began as a graffiti artist. This film Patang (the Kite) was featured at The Berlin Film Festival and in the world Narrative Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. Patang won the Golden Orchid Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 2011 Hawaii International Film Festival and at the DC APA Film Festival.

Director and writer, Prashant talks fondly of the amount of “intense research he did for the film and how spindles of thread and bundles of kites” form the fabric for this touching 92-minute film.

Prashant says, “Scenes were not rehearsed; they were improvised largely with non-actors and shot hand-held in long takes, without the conventional over-the-shoulder shots. As a result, the edit was a two-year process of distilling and constructing a scripted narrative from 200 hours of documentary-like footage. Just watching the footage took over a month.

“I began by constructing those scenes with major plot points and then proceeded to the transitional scenes. I would make small discoveries, pulling a shot from here, splicing it with a magic moment there, and then returning to the overall structure. Eventually the edit captured the narrative of the original script.”

Indeed, the filmmakers do convey with panache the sense of euphoric excitement that the city is part of in a very real manner. And the film soars.

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[Raj S. Rangarajan is a New York based freelance writer. He covers trend stories on art, reviews books and films for media based in New York; Toronto, Canada; Seoul, Republic of Korea; and India. He can be reached at raj.rangarajan@gmail.com]

South Asian Modern Sales Show Mixed Market

      By Raj Rangarajan and Eileen Kinsella

 NEW YORK—London sales of South Asian modern and contemporary art, at Sotheby’sand Christie’s last week, presented a mixed picture of the market with widely uneven results.

At the Sotheby’s June 8 sale of South Asian modern contemporary art and Indian miniature paintings, just 37, or 42 percent, of the 88 lots offered found buyers. By value, the auction was 23.5 percent sold, one of the lowest such rates seen in any category. The sale realized a total of £546,800 ($844,915).

Sotheby’s specialist Holly Brackenbury said: “The Indian art market is undergoing a period of adjustment after the heights it reached several years ago. It is still developing and, at present, collectors are highly selective.”

She added that “there was strong pre-sale interest in many of the paintings and we anticipate that this will translate into post-sale offers for several key works.”

Still, most of the top lots met or exceeded estimates, including a work by modern masterFrancis Newton Souza, whose painting Goan Landscape, 1964, sold for £68,450 ($105,769), well above the £30,000/40,000 estimate; and A. Balasubramaniam’s fiberglass and acrylic sculpture titled Gravity, 2006, which sold for £43,250 ($66,830) on an estimate of £20,000/30,000.

An untitled oil painting by Sri Lanka-born artist George Keyt sold for £16,250 ($25,110), compared with an estimate of £8,000/12,000.

The remaining top lots, even those by the most prominent painters of this genre, fell within relatively modest presale estimates. Ram Kumar’s 1956 untitled oil sold for £55,250 ($85,372), on an estimate of £50,000/70,000, and Sayed Haider Raza’s oil Ville d’Avray,1962, sold for £34,850 ($53,850).

At Christie’s South Asian modern and contemporary art sale, the house offered 112 lots. Of these, 86, or 77 percent, found buyers. The auction was also 77 percent sold by value.

The top-selling lot was Tyeb Mehta’s Untitled (Mahishasura), 1996, which sold for £1.4 million ($2.1 million) on an estimate of £1.2 million/1.8 million.

Raza also figured in the top lots here, with Clocher du Village, 1958, taking £481,250 on an estimate of £450,000/600,000, while another of his works, an untitled 1980 painting, sold for £121,250 ($188,544) on an estimate of £120,000/180,000. Also by Raza, Untitled(Crucifixion), 1957, sold for £103,250 ($160,554) on an estimate of £40,000/60,000, andVillage au fond rouge, 1958, also cleared its £40,000/60,000 estimate to sell for £85,250 ($132,564).

Hugo Weihe, Christie’s international director of Asian art, said the sale “performed well across the board with works which were fresh to the market and from private collections securing strong prices.” Weihe said the auction “demonstrated the breadth of demand for this category with collectors, institutions and dealers from South East Asia, India, the Middle East to Europe and the United States bidding throughout.”

Among the more contemporary works, Bharti Kher’s Border in Red, 2009, comprised of bindis on aluminum panel, sold for £85,250 ($132,564), compared with an estimate of £50,000/70,000. Two works by Manjit Bawa also figured in the top lots, each selling for £85,250 ($132,564): Untitled (Goat with Aubergines), 1992, which had an estimate of £60,000/80,000; and Untitled (Acrobat), 1988, which had been estimated at £40,000/60,000.

Vibrant Bidding at Christie’s Hong Kong Sales

         —Raj S. Rangarajan 

Vol. 37, No. 37

NEW YORK—Fine art accounted for more than HK$1.4 billion ($181 million) of the overall HK$2.7 billion ($351.7 million) total at Christie’s recent Hong Kong auctions, including six-day and evening sales.

At the evening sale of Asian 20th-century and contemporary art, held on May 26, the total was HK$361.7 million ($46.6 million) and the auction was 91 percent sold by lot, 96 percent sold by value. Sanyu’s Blue Chrysanthemums in a Glass Vase, painted in the 1940s, led the sale with a final price of HK$47.7 million ($6.1 million), surpassing the high estimate of HK$28 million. Also in the top lots, and marking the sale’s third-highest price at HK$38.7 million ($5 million), was Pink Lotus, also painted in the 1940s. Zeng Fanzhi took second place with Fly, 2000, which sold for HK$39.8 million ($5.1 million). Zao Wou-Ki continues to be at the forefront of these sales, with three of the top-ten lots fetching a total of HK$45.7 million ($5.9 million) for his works, each at prices higher than estimated.

The day sale of Asian 20th-century art, on May 27, totaled HK$170.5 million ($22 million), with 85 percent sold by lot, and 96 percent sold by value. The Asian contemporary art figure was HK$97.2 million ($12.5 million), with 72 percent sold by lot, 79 percent sold by value.

Eric Chang, international director of Asian 20th-century and contemporary art, attributed “the robust results of the sale in part to Christie’s integration of southeast Asian contemporary and modern art into the overall Asian category, creating a wider pan-Asian platform.”

In the 20th-century category, Lin Fengmian’s Opera Series: Beauty Defies Tyranny, painted in the 1950s, sold above estimate at HK$11.6 million ($1.5 million). Chu Teh-Chun’s Accent d’orgue, 1995, sold at HK$9.6 million ($1.2 million) and his work figured again in the top ten with Untitled No. 221, 1965, selling at HK$4.8 million ($620,816), or two times the high estimate of HK$2.4 million. Also in this category, Zao Wou-Ki figured in the top ten with two works obtaining a total of HK$10.2 million ($1.3 million).

In the Asian contemporary art sale, the top lot Hearth, 1988, by Shang Yang, sold at five times its high estimate, for HK$6.4 million ($821,744). Zeng Fanzhi, known for his “Mask” series, placed second with his 1997 Mask selling at HK$5 million ($651,728).

The fine Chinese modern paintings sale, held May 29, fetched HK$454.1 million ($58.5 million), and was 91 percent sold by lot and 93 percent sold by value. In the top ten, five paintings by Zhang Daqian brought prices above estimate, with Separation, 1996, selling for HK$34.2 million ($4.4 million). The remaining four works totaled HK$54.7 million ($7 million).

Ben Kong, international specialist head of Christie’s Chinese paintings department, said Chinese paintings sales this season “continued to incite bidding from a diverse group of collectors, further reflecting a pattern of sustained growth in the market for Chinese paintings.”