No Strings Attached: Mandolin and Guitar

And evening of bluegrass music with Diptanshu Roy on the mandolin and Sujoy Chakraborty on the guitar. 

'No Strings Attached' is not about individuals, or sky-high egos, or of pompous virtuosity. It is about improvisation and taking the music forward. It is about like-minded people getting together to exchange musical ideas and engage in musical conversation. They have a line-up that is fluid and many friends who share their lives and have been a part of their musical upbringing will no doubt join in the groove at a later date.

Soham Gupta: 3 Essays

Seagull Open House featured three photo essays by Calcutta-based social documentary photographer, Soham Gupta.

Lakoa Wingflow: Photographs and Graphic Art by Devika Arora

From the Artist's Statement:

Go down the rabbit hole and look through the looking glass; then look again!
Vibrant and abstract, this collection aims to be a visual fiesta for anyone who loves inner space and outer contact. From auto rickshaws to spiders on glass; lazy beach dogs to old roman monuments, these photographs try to expand the colour spectrum, one pixel at a time.

One Cup Music

Predominantly Carnatic classical roots, where the main compositions are derived from classical ‘krithis’ and South Indian folk. However the mixed influences come from North Indian percussion rhythms, and western guitar chord progressions. The result is a truly unique blend! The band members were:

Gouriprasad Nanda—Percussions

Srikanth Sugavanam—Violin

Baijayanta Roy—Guitar

'Crimson' and 'Azure': Two short films on sexuality by Rohit Kumar Dasgupta

Rohit Kumar Dasgupta studies English Literature at Jadavpur University, and dabbles in various art forms, from poetry to filmmaking. He has a wide range of interests, but what occupies most of his free expression—academic as well as artistic—is the issue of queerness and sexuality. His two films, ‘Crimson’ and ‘Azure’, are short fictional narratives that deal with the sexual identity and its complexities among contemporary urban youth. While ‘Crimson’ is the story of a young woman unable to come to terms with her beloved’s ambiguous sexual choice, ‘Azure’ narrates the story of two young men chancing upon love. The films rely heavily on music and poetry, as these form their stylistic backbone. Rohit’s films have been screened in various LGBT film festivals in India and Europe. The screening of the two films on this particular evening was followed by a scintillating discussion moderated by queer activist Sumita. It not only touched upon the details of filmmaking, but raised various voices on burning issues—from the decriminalization of homosexuality in India to the definition of queerness itself.

Open Mike: A Evening of Poetry

The second Seagull Open House was dedicated to poetry. It was an Open Mike session. Poets, from amateurs to semi-professionals, called in to register their names, and on the evening of 8 August 2009, the mike was theirs, one at a time. The participants included Kalyan Gupta, Arthur Cardozo, Rohit Kumar Dasgupta, Vaibhav Saria and Payel Banerjee. Inam Hussain Mallick read his poems to the accompaniment of a dexterously strummed guitar to round off the evening.

LAYERS—Photographs by Shaswaty Nair

The Seagull Open House kicked off on 25 July 2009 by featuring Shaswaty Nair, a professionally trained textile designer making her foray into the world of art photography. A careful selection of her photographs were put on display—bold and refreshing in their colours, and sensitive and perceptive in their treatment of human subjects and still life. The audience—who came in scores—was curious and enthusiastic, and quite a few among them went home with freshly purchased editions of Shaswaty’s works!