'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.