Newspaper art

THE EXHIBITION titled "The Newspaper: A review" and "Yesterday's Newspapers", on at Manasthala, highlights two aspects: one, that the newspaper is chronicler and maker of the past and present, and the other about the creative use which newspapers can be put to. Though on-line information-guzzling and reading puts the contents of the world's newspapers at your disposal at the click of a mouse, can one really ignore the pleasure of reading the morning newspaper?

From medieval town criers, Mughal newswriters (who, we are told, fudged the news to please local functionaries!) and India's first English language newspaper, Bengal Gazette (1780) to today's hi- tech newspapers, is a linked journey redolent with the beauty, cruelty and romance of history as well as the principle of the right to information. Incidentally, as a child growing up in Delhi, I remember newspaper boys selling their wares with the time-honoured cry of "Aaj ki taaza khabar!".

Manasthala's 'Newspaper: A review" captures all this in its presentation of history, done in the newspaper format and hung in fascinating panels. Did you know that Madras Courier and Bombay Herald were started in 1789, that India's first Indian-owned and edited newspaper was Gangadhar Bhattacharjee's Bengal Gazette and that Amrita Bazaar Patrika first saw the light of day in 1868?

In 1861, four newspapers joined hands to present themselves in their new avataar of Times of India. The Madras Mail was India's first eveninger and The Hindu was born on September 20, 1878! Apart from evocative photographs of viceroys and kings, the greats of the Independence struggle and the heady events of the post-Independence era, the exhibition also features a facsimile of the front page of The Hindu dated, May 26, 1881.

"Yesterday's Newspapers" is all about how discarded newspapers can be put to creative use in these ecologically sensitive times. Folded, woven, rolled, plaited, stuck together or spread over other organic forms, the newspapers take various forms - birds, hand bags, shopping bags, sculpted gods, masks and even wall hangings. The rolled and woven paper makes for strong shopping bags and can hold anything up to five kgs. The Ganesha figures are artistic as are the baskets with strong plaited handles. Trays, flower baskets, serving bowls, decorative objects and even a kuttuvillakku have been crafted from old newspapers. Among the exhibits are paper birds, reminiscent of the elegance and poise of iron birds crafted by Bastar tribesmen, as well as elegant 'chiks'.

The exhibition, "Newspaper: A Review" and "Yesterday's Newspapers," is on at Manasthala, 6, Cenotaph Road, Alwarpet, till December 25.

PUSHPA CHARI

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