Bhabha Fellowship Conclave

November 20 - 22, 2009

Homi Bhabha Auditorium, TIFR, Mumbai

The Homi Bhabha Fellowships were instituted to give opportunities to young men & women of exceptional talent, enabling them to provide, in time, leadership in various fields of human endeavour. This Conclave, organized by the Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council during the Homi Bhabha’s Birth Centenary year, is the first occasion when a large number of HBFC Awardees will come together to share their contributions and experiences.

HOMI BHABHA FELLOWSHIPS COUNCIL

The Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council was established in 1966 by Tata Trusts: the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, the Sir Ratan Tata Trust and the J.R.D. Tata trust, in collaboration with the Ford Foundation. The main objective was to give young men and women of exceptional talent opportunities to develop through study, research, travel and practical training, their capabilities at a relatively early age so as to enable them to provide in time the kind of leadership India requires in various fields.The Council has been named after Homi Bhabha not only to honour his memory but become his genius and vision served to inspire and encourage young people to strive for excellence. The Council was formally inaugurated by Mr. J.R.D. Tata on January 24,1967 on the first death anniversary of Dr. Homi J. Bhabha.

The Council has been fortunate in having the invaluable advice and guidance of a number of eminent personalities including its Founder Members: Mr. J.R.D. Tata, Mr. G. L. Mehta, Prof. D. G. Karve, Dr. J. J. Bhabha and Prof. R. Choksi. Over the years the Council's work was managed by a succession of Honarary Executive Directors : Dr. V. K. Narayan Menon, Dr. M. S. Gore, Prof. B. M. Udgaonkar and Prof. S. M. Chitre with able assistance from Mr. H. D. Pajnigar in administering the programme. A number of distinguished members have served on the Council including Mr. Ratan N. Tata, Dr. Satish Dhawan, Dr. H. N. Sethna, (who continues to be a Member of the Council ), and Dr. Suma Chitnis. Presently the Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council consists of the following Members:

Mr. R. K. Krishna Kumar

Prof. M. G. K. Menon

Dr. M. S. Valiathan

Dr. A. Kakodkar

Prof. B. V. Sreekantan

Mr. Shyam Benegal

Prof. S. M. Chitre (Hon. Executive Director)

        Since the inception, the Council has awarded over a hundred Fellowships to outstanding young individuals who have gone on to become leaders in their areas of specialization. The projects pursued by the Fellows have been not only in diverse academic fields such as Basic and Applied Sciences, Engineering, Computer Science, Social Sciences, Humanities, History, Literature, Economics, Administration and Planning, Law, Environment, Archaeology, Architecture, Anthropology, but also in the areas of Visual and Performing Arts. The Council also instituted in 1977 a programme of Senior Awardees which are given to eminent scholars and established researchers. Over a dozen Senior Awards have been made so far.

The Council has been gratefully relying on the goodwill and generosity of the Tata Trusts and of the Ford foundation which were mainly instrumental, over the past four decades, in sustaining an academically flourishing and financially viable Fellowship programme. Thus the first grant of US $356,000 from the Ford Foundation of the US and a seed contribution of Rs. 6,00,000 from the Tata Trusts enabled the initiation of this scheme.

In recognition of the value and impact of this successfullyoperating programme, after a period of 20 years, the Ford Foundation offered to assist the contribution of this effort by a final tie-off endowment grant of US $250,000 to meet the Foreign Exchange component of the scheme. The Tata Trusts concurrently made a matching grant of Rs. 50,00,000 for meeting the expenses on Fellowship stipends. In response to an appeal to help meet the rising costs for sustaining the Fellowship programme, the Tata Trusts have been very generous in making a grant of Rs. 147,50,000 during the past decade and a further endowment of Rs. 50,00,000 to augment the existing Corpus. These resources enable the Council to award 6 Fellowships, in addition to one Senior Fellowship. It is gratifying to recall that the Homi Bhabha Fellowships programme has had significant accomplishments to its credit. The enclosed list of Homi Bhabha Fellows evidently shows the impact many of them have made in different spheres of scientific, technological, literary, cultural and artistic domains.

Synopsis

SAAPADALELYA AATHAVANI

Till recently the famous playwright and Dnyanpeeth awardee, Girish Karnad wrote most of his plays based on Mythology or Folklore with contemporary relevance. But here, Girish Karnad breaks away from it and writes a realistic social play ‘Wedding Album’ using modern technology such as, video shooting and the concept of Internet marriage. He has used such technology in his earlier play ‘Broken Images’. In the current play, the story does not highlight the technology but rather the relationships and emotional content surrounding the Saraswat Brahmin Nadkarni family from Dharwar town in Karnataka.

Mr. Nadkarni is retired from the medical profession. He and his family are busy arranging the marriage of their 2nd daughter Vidula with Ashwin from America through the Internet. The elder daughter Hema has already arrived from Australia for the marriage and the son Rohit has been busy with all the arrangements which he cannot deal with. And as with many big Indian weddings, there are a many dramatic situations and opportunities for chaos in the family. As a result a lot of misunderstanding and tensions arise with their female cook Radhabai. We come across the full range of human emotions - worries, hates, love, all whipped into a masala of drama and chaos.

To add to this explosive mix, the Sirur family arrives from Hyderabad to arrange the marriage of their daughter with Rohit, with the help of the Hattangdy couple. Rohit is not ready for this. A wonderful middle class family soap opera for the audience ensues as the situations crazily careen one into the next. An emotional saga that is framed without interference by the spartan and functional sets, lights and music. A tension that is built to a fine edge as to whether the marriage will take place or not? What happens next can only be seen on stage to be truly experienced!