Ashish Avikunthak

Last updated

Ashish Avikunthak (born 1972) is an Indian avant-garde filmmaker, film theorist, archaeologist and cultural anthropologist. [1] [2] His works have been screened at art galleries and private screenings, including Tate Modern, Centre George Pompidou, Pacific Film Archive; [3] along with Rotterdam, Locarno, London film festivals, among others. [4] [5] He is a professor of film media at Harrington School of Communication, University of Rhode Island. [6] [7] [8]

Contents

He is considered to be an iconoclastic film artist [9] who works outside Indian mainstream cinema. [10] His films explore Indian philosophy and existentialism and are categorized by their use of unorthodox cinematography and editing. Avikunthak films are rooted in Indian religion, epistemology, ritual and form. [11] [12] Mythical, metaphysical, metaphorical and mundane elements are found in his work. [13] [14] ArtReview describes his works as: “Avikunthak's works insist on an Indian epistemology while utilising a rigorously formal visual language that is clearly aware of Western avant-garde practices such as those of Andrei Tarkovsky and Samuel Beckett. These are self-consciously difficult works that are filmed in a self-consciously beautiful way.” [15] In his essay "Cinema of Prayoga", Amrit Gangar names Avikunthak's films as an example of his eponymous strain of filmmaking. [16] [17] [18]

Early life

Ashish Avikunthak was born in Jabalpur in 1972 [19] and was raised in Kolkata. [20] He did his B.A. in social work from Bombay University in 1994, during this time worked with Narmada Bachao Andolan. [21] [22] He later studied archaeology in Deccan College, Pune. He did his PhD from Stanford University in cultural anthropology [4] and then taught at Yale. [20] [23]

Short Films

Avikunthak began his filmmaking career with short films made between 1995 and 2010. He created a body of work that explored ideas of ceremonial rituals, banality and the inter-relationships between selves and the concepts of ‘community’ and ‘politicality’ by challenging conventional forms of representations. [24] [25] His first film “Et Cetera” was a tetralogy consisting of four one-shot films made on 16mm, between 1995-97 - Renunciation, Soliloquy, Circumcision and, The Walk. [26] Each of these films explores the dialectic between screen/film time and real time to examine actions as ritual. His next 16mm film, “Kalighat Fetish” won the best documentary award at the Tampere Film Festival in 2001, which dealt with rituals of animal sacrifice and cross-dressing in the context of Kalighat Kali Temple in Kolkata. [27]

In 2002, Avikunthak adapted Samuel Becket’s enigmatic dramaticule “Come and Go” into a 16mm short film in Hindi called “Antaral” (End Note). [28] [29] In an analysis of the film in relationship to the play Arka Chattaopadhya writes: “Ashish Avikunthak’s adaptation introduces a fascinating element of play into the Beckettian structure of this displacement and illumines significant nuances about its potential continuation…Avikunthak’s deconstructive play unmakes Beckett’s structure on the one hand, then on the other, the precision of the Beckettian structure responds to this element of play by implicating Avikunthak’s structure in the braiding principle central to its own operation.” [30]

His 2010 film, “Vakratunda Swaha” premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam [31] was featured at the Taipei Biennial 2012 [32] and was long listed for The Skoda Prize in 2011. [33] Maurizio Calbi of University of Salerno, Italy writing about Avikunthak’s practice of this period notes that in his films, “(a) ritual quasi-mythical quality of everyday life emerge(s); of letting the ‘ordinary’ continually re-mark itself in its singularity as ‘extra-ordinary.’” [34]

Feature Films

Avikunthak's first feature film “Nirakar Chhaya” (Shadows Formless) had its world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2007. [35] It is a Bengali language film that was adapted from Sethumadhavan's award winning Malayalam language novel “Pandavapuram”, translocated to Kolkata from Kerala. [36] [37] His 2010 Hindi language film, “Katho Upanishad" was an adaptation that transformed 6th century BCE Sanskrit language philosophical treatise Katha Upanishad into a triptych of three one-shots, with the longest being a 58-minute single-shot. [38] [39]

In 2013, Avikunthak made India's first one-shot feature film – “Rati Chakravyuh.” The entire film was made in a single-shot measuring 102 minutes. [40] Made in Kolkata it is Bengali language film, in which six newlywed couples on their wedding night sit in a circle with a priestess in an ancient temple and have a protracted exchange before they commit mass suicide. [41] The film had its world premiere at the 2014 Shanghai Biennale. [42]

In 2015, Avikunthak released “Kalkimanthakatha” that was shot on location in the Allahabad Kumbh Mela in 2013. In this feature film, Samuel Beckett’s celebrated play “Waiting for Godot” is transplanted from its European context to Bengali language and the Hindu pilgrimage site of the Kumbh Mela. [43] This film was stopped from a private screening in a Kolkata art gallery by the Central Board of Film Certification in 2017. [44] [45] In a review published in Artforum, art critic Murtaza Vali, writes that: “through this film, Avikunthak orchestrates a somewhat unexpected encounter between opposing perspectives or bodies of knowledge—sacred/secular, modernity/tradition, philosophy/politics—the friction between them forcing each to open up to the wisdom of the other. And by using an uncompromisingly difficult avant-garde form and structure to explore Hindu thought and ritual practice, the film troubles ongoing attempts by fundamentalists to assert definitive orthodox interpretations onto a religion defined by its rich multiplicities.” [46]

In 2017, Avikunthak's film “Kali of Emergency” which he made a year before had its world première in Forum Expanded in Berlin International Film Festival. [47] [48] In the screening of this film at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2023, it noted that: "Kali of Emergency juxtaposes two kinds of Hindu iconography, mingling the elaborately costumed, stylised gods of popular representations with the austere forms found in pre-modern paintings and temple sculptures...Filled with incandescent images, Kali of Emergency is of a piece with Avikunthak’s singular, personal body of work. [49]

"Glossary of Non-Human Love" was shown at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2021. [50] [51] It is a film that “is set in a parallel universe where artificial intelligence has usurped humanity’s reign over the planet…Glossary of Non-Human Love can also be viewed as an ecocritical commentary on technological evolution. Due to the fragmented glossary structure and its exploration of AI, it almost feels like code is being parsed while the film itself becomes a dynamic entity.” [52]

In 2024, “Vidvastha” (Devastated) had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, [53] [54] which is a film “that is not afraid to directly confront the increasingly authoritarian national trajectory while also paving the way for future generations of Indian filmmakers to think in terms of cinematic linguistics that do not conform to the derivative form that plagues contemporary Indian movies.” [55] In a review of the film in ArtReview "Devastated" is described as a: “commentarial film that examines the double life of a middle-aged Hindu policeman… through its complex and probing discourses, grittily examines the nature of violence in its diverse forms.” [56]

Filmography

[4]
YearOriginal titleInternational titleLanguage(s)Notes
1997Et ceteraEt ceteraEnglish
1999Kalighaat FetishKalighaat FetishHindi
2000Performing DeathPerforming DeathNo spoken language
2001Rummaging for PastsRummaging for Pasts: Excavating Sicily, Digging BombayEnglishfilm essay; partly based on Monte Polizzo excavations in Sicily [57]
2002Brihannala ki KhelkaliDancing OthelloEnglish
2005AntaralEnd NoteBengali
2007Nirakar ChhayaShadows FormlessEnglishdebut feature; based on Malayalam novella Pandavapuram by Sethu [58]
2010Vakratunda SwahaVakratunda SwahaHindi
2011Katho UpanishadKatho UpanishadHindibased on the dialogue between Yama and Nachiketa, from the Katha Upanishad [58] [59]
2014Rati ChakravyuhRati ChakravyuhBengali
2015KalkimanthankathaThe Churning of KaliBengaliinspired by Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett [60]
2017Aapothkalin TrikalikaThe Kali of EmergencyBengali
2018Vrindavani VairagyaDispassionate LoveBengali
2021Na Manush Premer KothamalaGlossary of Non-Human LoveBengali
2024VidhvasthaDevastatedBengali

Academic career

In 2021, he wrote a book, Bureaucratic Archaeology: State, Science and Past in Postcolonial India, published by Cambridge University Press, dealing with the intersection of politics and archaeology in India. [61] [62] Uzma Z. Rizvi in the review of this book in Antiquity writes: "Avikunthak successfully argues that Archaeological Survey of India's bureaucracy, and the religious politics that inform the structures of those offices, run so deep in archaeological practice in India that it cannot but impact the very nature of the archaeological evidence that it produces and presents as scientific fact. [63]

Controversy

In July 2017, a social-media outrage erupted when Avikunthak was debarred from entering the upmarket Quest Mall in Kolkata because he was wearing a dhoti. [64] He was eventually allowed after he spoke in English. [65] [66] In a Facebook post that went viral he wrote: “"This is unambiguously a new low for this city. Private clubs have always created hierarchies and distinctions because of clothing. Now public spaces are also threatened and a culture of segregation based on class is being practiced unhindered. I write this with a sense of deep disgust." [67] [68]

Personal life

He married twice; his second marriage is to Debleena Sen Chadha, an actress in Bengali-language films. He has a daughter. [69]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Film Festival Rotterdam</span> Annual film festival held in the Netherlands

International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) is an annual film festival held at the end of January in various locations in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focused on independent and experimental films. The inaugural festival took place in June 1972, led by founder Huub Bals. IFFR also hosts CineMart and BoostNL, for film producers to seek funding.

The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) is a worldwide organization of 29 member countries. It was created as the result of a conference on Asian cinema organized by Cinemaya, the Asian Film Quarterly, in New Delhi in 1990 at the instance and with the support of UNESCO, Paris.

Binger Filmlab, formerly the Maurits Binger Film Institute, is an Amsterdam-based international feature-film and documentary development centre where screenwriters, directors, producers and script editors from around the world can be coached and supported by mentors and advisors.

Kumar Shahani was an Indian film director and screenwriter, best known for his parallel cinema films Maya Darpan (1972), Tarang (1984), Khayal Gatha (1989) and Kasba (1990). His films won the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Film in 1972, 1990 and 1991. Due to his dedication to formalism, and with the reputation of his first feature—Maya Darpan being considered among Indian cinema's first formalist films—critics and film enthusiasts often associated him with filmmakers such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Andrei Tarkovsky and Jacques Rivette. He was also known as a teacher at his alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India, and as a theorist of cinema. His book of 51 essays Kumar Shahani: The Shock of Desire and Other Essays, was edited by Ashish Rajadhyaksha and published by Tulika Books in 2015.

Mubi is a global streaming platform, production company and film distributor. MUBI produces and theatrically distributes films by emerging and established filmmakers, which are exclusively available on its platform. The catalog consists of world cinema films, such as arthouse films, documentary films, independent films. Additionally, it publishes Notebook, a film criticism and news publication, and provides weekly cinema tickets to selected new-release films through MUBI GO.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amrit Gangar</span>

Amrit Gangar is an Indian film scholar, historian, critic, curator and writer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.

Amit Dutta is an Indian experimental filmmaker and writer. He is considered to be one of the most significant contemporary practitioners of experimental cinema, known for his distinctive style of filmmaking rooted in field-research and personal symbolism resulting in images that are visually rich and acoustically stimulating. His works mostly deal with subjects of art history, ethno-anthropology, and cultural inheritance through cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vipin Vijay</span> Indian film director and screenwriter (born 1977)

Vipin Vijay is an Indian film director and screenwriter. He received his post-graduate degree in filmmaking from the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute SRFTI, Calcutta. He received the Charles Wallace Arts Award for research at the British Film Institute, London, 2003. Vipin is the recipient of "The Sanskriti Award" (2007) for social & cultural achievement. His works are made under independent codes and defy any categorisation eluding all traditional genre definitions and merge experimental film, documentary, essay, fiction all into one.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spandan Banerjee</span> Indian independent filmmaker

Spandan Banerjee is an Indian independent filmmaker. He is the Founder of Overdose Films Pvt. Ltd. He was born in Kolkata, and finished his undergraduate studies from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, India.

<i>Sexy Durga</i> 2017 Indian horror film

Sexy Durga is a 2017 Indian Malayalam-language indie horror film directed by Sanal Kumar Sasidharan. The film is about the religious divide in the society of Kerala and its effect on marriage between two people from two different religious backgrounds.

Niv Art Movies is a film production company in New Delhi state, India established in the year 2008. Shaji Mathew, a Delhi based Malayali is the proprietor of the firm. It has produced 6 Malayalam films 5 out of the 6 films produced by the company are directed by Sanal Kumar Sasidharan

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kazhcha-Niv Independent Film Festival</span> Film festival in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

The Kazhcha-Niv Independent Film Festival (KNIFF) is a film festival for independent cinema in India held annually in Thiruvananthapuram. The festival debuted in 2017, and is hosted by Kazhcha Chalachithra Vedi, a local film society, in collaboration with Niv Art Centre, an Art and Cultural society in New Delhi. The festival is held in December parallel to the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK).

<i>Widow of Silence</i> 2018 Indian film

Widow of Silence is an Indian drama film directed, written and produced by Praveen Morchhale who has been hailed by critics as an important filmmaker of the Indian new wave. The film stars Ajay Chourey, Shilpi Marwaha, Bilal Ahmad, and Noorjahan. It was released on 9 December 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Praveen Morchhale</span>

Praveen Morchhale is the winner of India's 65th National Film Awards 2017 as well as ICFT-UNESCO GANDHI Medal 2018 winner film director, producer and screenwriter, who works in Indian cinema. Morchhale is hailed by critics as an important filmmaker of the Indian new wave.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rajee Samarasinghe</span> Director and filmmaker

Rajee Samarasinghe is a Sri Lankan filmmaker and visual artist. His work explores a wide array of topics including the Sri Lankan Civil War, his family, and the deconstruction of documentary and narrative film.

<i>Pebbles</i> (film) 2021 film

Pebbles is a 2021 Indian Tamil-language drama film directed by debutant P. S. Vinothraj. The film was produced by Vignesh Shivan and Nayanthara under the Rowdy Pictures banner. Featuring music composed by Yuvan Shankar Raja, the film had cinematography handled by Jeya Parthipan and Vignesh Kumulai and was edited by Ganesh Siva.

Jorge Thielen Armand is a film director, screenwriter and producer. He studied communications at Concordia University in Montreal, and later, with Rodrigo Michelangeli, founded the Canadian-Venezuelan film production company La Faena Films. He has directed two feature films, La Soledad and La Fortaleza, and the short film Flor de la Mar. All three films have received positive reviews from critics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beny Wagner</span> Artist, filmmaker, author

Beny Wagner is an artist, filmmaker and author. He is known for his films Constant and A Demonstration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leonardo Pirondi</span> Brazilian Filmmaker

Leonardo Pirondi is a Brazilian film director from São Paulo. Pirondi's work explores the intersection between fiction and non-fiction filmmaking using non-conventional structures of documentary, experimental, and narrative modes. In his films he explores contemporary sociopolitical issues and collective anxieties as a lens to look into history, imagination, myth, and technology.

Bigyna Dahal is a sound designer and location sound recordist from Sikkim, India who has worked on several Indian films. His films have been screened and won awards at several international film festivals including Busan International Film Festival, Pingyao International Film Festival in China,MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. He has also won best sound design awards at many festivals including Filmfare Award for Best Sound – Marathi and Filmfare OTT Awards.

References

  1. ↑ "Bengali film makes it to Berlin festival - Times of India". The Times of India. 22 January 2017.
  2. ↑ "URI associate professor's experimental film to be screened at Berlin Film Festival in February". today.uri.edu.
  3. ↑ Wire, A. B. (2014-10-21). "Ashish Avikunthak's innovative film 'Rati Chakravyuh' to be screened at the Aicon Gallery in New York". The American Bazaar. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  4. 1 2 3 "Ashish Avikunthak". Chatterjee & Lal .
  5. ↑ "Ashish Chadha" . Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  6. ↑ "Ashish Avikunthak by Arun A.K. - BOMB".
  7. ↑ "Ashish Chadha" . Retrieved 2024-06-12.
  8. ↑ "'Devastated' world premiere at Rotterdam film festival". The Times of India. 2023-12-22. ISSN   0971-8257 . Retrieved 2024-06-12.
  9. ↑ "Vidvastha (Devastated) Review: The Bizarre and the Bhagavad Gita - ArtReview".
  10. ↑ "Far Out Meets: Ashish Avikunthak on making cinema from the margins - Far Out". 18 November 2021.
  11. ↑ "Eyes Wide Open". 29 July 2015.
  12. ↑ Bhatnagar, Tanushi (2021-08-17). "Art-House Filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak On How Philosophy Influences His Work". Rolling Stone India. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  13. ↑ "I'm disillusioned with modernity, says filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak". 31 May 2015.
  14. ↑ "To Kill A Thinking Bird: A Brief Retrospective On Ashish Avikunthak's Films | Grazia India". www.grazia.co.in. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  15. ↑ name, Site. "Ashish Avikunthak by Niru Ratnam / ArtReview". artreview.com.
  16. ↑ Srinivasan, Srikanth (2012-06-02). "Cinema of Prayoga". The Hindu .
  17. ↑ "Cinema of Prayoga". experimenta.in. 2015.
  18. ↑ Laali (2015). "CINEMA OF PRAYOGA: INDIAN AVANT-GARDE CINEMA". MUBI .
  19. ↑ "AN IDIOM UNTO ITSELF: AN ASHISH AVIKUNTHAK RETROSPECTIVE". MUBI . 2021.
  20. 1 2 Sawyer, Frances (2009-01-16). "Profile – A Split Existence". Yale Daily News. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  21. ↑ "Far Out Meets: Ashish Avikunthak on cinema from the margins". faroutmagazine.co.uk. 2021-11-18. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  22. ↑ "CinemaSpeak: Ashish Avikunthak on cinema as art". Media India Group. Retrieved 2024-06-11.
  23. ↑ Gupta, Gargi (2017-12-05). "I'm disillusioned with modernity, says filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak". DNAIndia.
  24. ↑ "Ashish Avikunthak: East By Northwest". Débordements. 31 March 2013.
  25. ↑ "Their experiments with truth". The Big Indian Picture. 1 June 2013.
  26. ↑ "Outside the boundaries". The Hindu. 2015-04-16. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  27. ↑ "International Competition Winners". Tampere Film Festival. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  28. ↑ Chakraborty, Thirthankar (2021-07-27), "Translating Silence: Ashish Avikunthak's Cinematographic Version of Come and Go", Beckett’s Voices / Voicing Beckett, Brill, pp. 221–234, doi:10.1163/9789004468382_017, ISBN   978-90-04-46838-2 , retrieved 2024-06-28
  29. ↑ Artdaily. "Two Solo Exhibitions by Ashish Avikunthak and Sakti Burman". artdaily.cc. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  30. ↑ Chattopadhyay, Arka (2017-02-23). "Exhausting the inexhaustible: reading the structure of Samuel Beckett's Come and Go through Ashish Avikunthak's Endnote". Textual Practice. 31 (2): 399–415. doi:10.1080/0950236X.2016.1187667. ISSN   0950-236X.
  31. ↑ "Vakratunda Swaha". IFFR EN. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  32. ↑ "Home". TFAM-2023TaipeiBiennial. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  33. ↑ "Skoda Prize 2011 announces Top Twenty". CarWale. 2011-09-22. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  34. ↑ Calbi, Maurizio (2011). "Postcolonial Entanglements: Performing Shakespeare and Kathakali in Ashish Avikunthak's Dancing Othello". Anglistica. 15 (2): 27–32.
  35. ↑ "NIRAKAR CHHAYA". archive.pardo.ch.
  36. ↑ "Charmed by transcendental magic". The New Indian Express. 21 May 2013.
  37. ↑ "Reinventing the mythical world". The New Indian Express. 22 May 2013.
  38. ↑ "The secret of death". Mid Day, Mumbai. 9 July 2012.
  39. ↑ "Should 'high art' evolve with the times to stay in the race?". Sunday Guardian, Mumbai. 12 July 2012.
  40. ↑ Sorabjee, Deepika (2014-07-06). "Circling Time". ArtSlant. Retrieved 2015-10-07.
  41. ↑ "Temporal Universe". Indian Express. 3 July 2014.
  42. ↑ "Ashish Avikunthak". Shanghai Biennale 2014. Shanghai Biennale. 2014-12-12. Retrieved 2019-08-20.
  43. ↑ "Eyes Wide Open". Indian Express. 29 July 2015.
  44. ↑ "Uncertified film screening at Kolkata gallery miffs CBFC". Times of India. 17 March 2017.
  45. ↑ "Censor board stops screening of independent film Kalkimanthakatha". Anandabazar Patrika. 18 March 2017.
  46. ↑ Vali, Murtaza (2015-11-01). "Ashish Avikunthak". Artforum. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  47. ↑ "Goddess in the details: 'Aapothkalin Trikalika'". Mint. 24 June 2017.
  48. ↑ "Aapothkalin Trikalika | The Kali of Emergency". www.berlinale.de. Retrieved 2024-08-02.
  49. ↑ "Kali of Emergency". IFFR EN. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  50. ↑ "India at IFFR 2021: 'Glossary of Non-human Love' and 'Everything is Cinema'". Mintlounge. 2021-06-23. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  51. ↑ "Glossary of Non-Human Love". IFFR EN. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  52. ↑ "'Glossary of Non-Human Love': Ashish Avikunthak and sci-fi". faroutmagazine.co.uk. 2022-12-08. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  53. ↑ "Devastated". IFFR EN. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  54. ↑ "'Devastated' world premiere at Rotterdam film festival". The Times of India. 2023-12-22. ISSN   0971-8257 . Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  55. ↑ "'Devastated': Ashish Avikunthak and Indian political cinema". faroutmagazine.co.uk. 2024-04-03. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  56. ↑ "Vidvastha (Devastated) Review: The Bizarre and the Bhagavad Gita". artreview.com. Retrieved 2024-06-28.
  57. ↑ Bose, Swapnil Dhruv (2023-10-17). "'Rummaging for Pasts': an Ashish Avikunthak exhibition at Chatterjee and Lal". Far Out Magazine .
  58. 1 2 A.K., Arun (2021). "An Idiom Unto Itself: An Ashish Avikunthak Retrospective". Screen Slate .
  59. ↑ "Treasures of the Yale Film Archive: Katho Upanishad" (PDF). Yale Film Archive . 2018.
  60. ↑ "Kalkimanthankatha". University of Kent . 2016-05-04.
  61. ↑ Avikunthak, Ashish (2021-09-30). Bureaucratic Archaeology: State, Science, and Past in Postcolonial India (1 ed.). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781009067119. ISBN   978-1-009-06711-9. S2CID   243742619.
  62. ↑ Ray, Rajat (2022-11-19). "Bureaucratic Archaeology is a scholarly investigation of the history and hierarchical structure of the ASI". Indian Express .
  63. ↑ Rizvi, Uzma Z. (2022-10-06). "Archaeology, ethnography and epistemic critiques of the nation". Antiquity. 96 (390): 1634–1637. doi:10.15184/aqy.2022.131. ISSN   0003-598X.
  64. ↑ "Denied entry to Kolkata mall in dhoti: Filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak - India News, The Indian Express". indianexpress.com. 16 July 2017.
  65. ↑ "Social apartheid: I was barred from entering a Kolkata mall because I was wearing a dhoti". 17 July 2017.
  66. ↑ "Denied entry to Kolkata mall in dhoti: Filmmaker Ashish Avikunthak on 'public space'". 4 August 2017.
  67. ↑ "Was Denied Entry Into Kolkata Mall For Wearing Dhoti, Alleges Filmmaker". 16 July 2017.
  68. ↑ "All doors should open for those in traditional Indian wear". 24 July 2017.
  69. ↑ Saini, Bhavya (2022-03-02). "I Fell In Love With Ashish Despite The 17-Year Age Gap, Says Debleena Sen Chadha". SheThePeople .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.