Amit Ganger
"Master Phoolmani is an interesting journey that the modern Gujarati theatre has set upon. Obviously it has a long nostalgic flavour but it shuns revivalism. While through its songs and music, it pulls back the older generation into the time gone by, it pushes the younger generation forward by attempting to mix old and new theatrical traditions, e.g., painted backdrops that the well known artist Bhupen Khakhar imbues with his modern sensibility."
Total Masala Slummer
"Master Phoolmani reminds me of my deepinvolvement with the dance-theatre project Total Masala Slammer produced byBerlin's Hebbel Theatre and directed by Michael Laub. While picking up fromGoethe's novel Die Leiden des jungen Werther (The Sorrows of Young Werther),Total Masala Slammer mixes fiction and fact, kitsch and kathak. Dance is usedto increase the tension between stage dramatics and stage expression. Laub'sworks are also pregnant with the sensibility of the cinema."
Gulam mohmmed Sheikh
"Living in India means living simultaneously in several times and cultures. One often walks in to 'medieval' situations and runs into 'primitive' people. The past exists as a living entity along with the present, each illuminating and sustaining the other. As time sand cultures converge the citadels of purism explode. Tradition and modern, private and public, the inside and the outside are being continually splintered and reunited."
Bhupen Khakhar
"I am at a loss to know what exactly my feelings are towards these people. I come from the same class. So I feel some kind of immediate identification. So it goes on at many levels. I attack it and I love it."
