Neel

Curious explorer of various art forms, master of none. I grew up in a family where everyone read books and frowned upon films, especially Bollywood films. So my formative years were spent reading all sorts of books and watching select films of the Bengali triumvirate of Ray-Ghatak-Sen. Only when I went to university did I discover the wonderful world of Indian parallel cinema: Nihalini, Benegal, Saeed Mirza, Sai Paranjape etc. That developed a life-long fascination for cinema, but this was the pre-streaming world. So the reach was still limited. Then , I had to travel to Europe for work and that opened a whole new world to me. Many an evening I spent at the British National Gallery, staring in amazement at the works of Boticelli, Turner, Constable etc. So off I went to Tate Modern and found that I don't understand modern art, so back I came to National Gallery, V& A and others. At the same time, I discovered world cinema, thanks to BFI. And it has been such a gratifying experience ever since. Music, anyways, is an integral part of my life and my day usually ends with me reading something with classic FM running in the background. In essence, I am curious about various art forms, but unfortunately don't have the ability to dabble in anything seriously. CCT makes me aware about a lot of new voices in various art forms that I haven't been aware of. Every time Vaibhav or Vaani introduces some new guest, it essentially feels that I have been living under a rock my whole life. So CCT helps me stay eternally curious.