WEEKLY MAGAZINE, AUGUST 5, 2012 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times
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VIR SANGHVI
Whose curry is it anyway?
RAJIV MAKHNI
More power to gadgets
SEEMA GOSWAMI
SANJOY NARAYAN
Medals India deserves Show me what you Gotye
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W AT C H O U T F O R
years of
FREEDOM
WE THE PEOPLE OF THE ’50s
05.08.2012
The Constitution, the beloved Indian Airlines and the coveted IITs. Not to forget Mother India and Do Bighaa Zameen. ASHOK VAJPEYI writes about the beginning of India as a democratic republic, the Nehruvian vision and the movies of the yore. Let’s turn back time...
inbox LETTER OF THE WEEK! Au revoir, Dark Knight! I LOVED Vir Sanghvi’s article (Rude Movies, July 29). I loved his conversational tid bits on this masked crusader. I’ve been a comic book fan of Batman and I feel that Christopher Nolan’s trilogy has been the most successful portrayal on screen. Bale’s Batman had his faults and weaknesses and is portrayed more human than any other superhero. I feel sad that this movie is the last of what we’ll see of Nolan’s Batman and hope further reboots live up to my expectations as well. — SNEHA GOHRI, via email Sneha wins a Flipkart voucher worth `2,500. Congrats!
Vulgar show of wealth THE COVER story (The Indian wedding gets fatter, July 29) brings to fore the trend of our weddings going from brash to egregious. While it may have spawned a multibillion dollar industry providing employment to many, the extravaganzas of a select breed have become a trend, as is evident from the sharp spike in average spend on an Indian wedding. — SARASWATA MOHAPATRA, via email
Remarkably stylish and stirring IT WAS a splendid rewind to the age of the bouffant, drainpipe pants, rock ‘n’ roll and twist with your selected snippets (Total Recall). The ’60s define a period we still love to revisit and recollect with much fondness and fascination. So enamoured am I by this decade that I have decided to sport the famous ’60s look next time I am decked up for a party or an event. — VIDISHA ROY, via email
The best letter gets a Flipkart voucher worth R2,500!! The shopping voucher will reach the winner within seven to 10 working days. In case of any delays, please contact chirag.sharma@hindustantimes.com
AUGUST 5, 2012
TWEET YOUR HEART OUT twitter.com/HTBrunch
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We always knew India was a nation of geniuses. Meet the people who ace it all
@wussycat_richie Loved the cover story @HTBrunch...loved the conclusion too...big, fat Indian weddings need to go on a diet! :) @Ajaythetwit Amazing facts crisply woven with a dash of ‘compare-o-meter’...that’s what is a ‘truly techilicious’ 1 page dish by @RajivMakhni! @vishy_S27 Sunday morning starting with a #coffee with @htbrunch beside is an ideal one!! ;-) @BombaySling In #HT Brunch, John Abraham says the highest point of his life was getting an MBA from NMIMS. Yay :D He’s a fellow NMIMS-ite!
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The Brunch Blogs This week, read Tied To The Screen by Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi. A masala mix of relationships and films.
Cover Story
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Personal Agenda
Music director Shantanu Moitra wants to support the folk musicians of India
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14 RUDE FOOD It is hard to deny that the curry originated on Indian shores 16 TECHILICIOUS Save our powerless nation, one Energy Saving Monitor at a time 18 DOWNLOAD CENTRAL Gotye uses pop melodies and catchy tunes in his music 20 SPECTATOR Indians could win the Gold for some ‘Olympic categories’ Cover Design: SWATI CHAKRABARTI EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Rachel Lopez, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna Tewari, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf, Saudamini Jain, Shreya Sethuraman, Manit Moorjani DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor, Design), Monica Gupta, Swati Chakrabarti, Rakesh Kumar, Ashish Singh, Shailendra Mirgal
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T O TA L R E C A L L
hindustantimes.com/brunch
REWIND A decade of firsts 1950 The Constitution comes into force on years 26 January, the same of day India makes its first declaration of independence in 1930
FREEDOM
1954
1951 The Planning Commission is set up with Prime Minister Nehru as the chairman
The Election Commission is set up to administer all electoral processes
The first FiveYear Plan is launched. Dam-building, irrigation are top of the list
India participates in and hosts the first ever Asian Games. Ranks second with 15 gold medals
First Amendment of Constitution allows the state to make special provisions for advancement of backward classes
The first general elections to the Lok Sabha are held. Indian National Congress headed by Jawaharlal Nehru sweeps into power
Former French colonies Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam merge into India
1955
1956
The Non Alignment Movement originates at the Asian-African Conference, in Indonesia. 29 states discuss the role of the Third World in the Cold War
The States Reorganisation Act redraws the boundaries of India’s states and territories along linguistic lines
Part 6 of Total Recall, our special seven-part series: The 1950s
THE NEHRUVIAN GLOW
For many of us, our sense of the world – a heady mixture of reality and dream, sensitivity to others and a belief in the possibility of change – took root in the 1950s
TEMPLES OF TECHNOLOGY The first IIT is established in Kharagpur, West Bengal in 1951. IIT Delhi (below)
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HE FIFTIES were the first decade of a free India. It was also the beginning of India as a democratic republic. It was a recently free India but also a partitioned India – the wounds were the foundations that were laid in the still fresh. And yet it was a decade Fifties. For many of us, our sense of of hope and aspiration. Some of us, the world, a heady mixture of reality who were in their teens, found our and dream, sensitivity to others, feet in the socio-political milieu, belief in the possibility of change enough to feel confident and took root in the Fifties. inspired to forge ahead. I distinctly and gratefully recall The towns, big and small, in the my class teacher in Sagar encouragnorth and central India ing me to write poetry had refugees from the in Hindi and opening my newly created Pakistan. mind to new developThe joke used to be: If ments in literature and you met someone in Hindustani classical Delhi or Sagar (a central music. An ordinary BAIndian town where I degree holder, the same lived and grew up) and teacher, while departing asked him in which on transfer, told me that ASHOK VAJPEYI is an author, direction the sun rose, since I belonged to a former bureaucrat, he was likely to say that family of administrators, a Hindi poet, critic he was new in the town, I must try to get into and art lover he didn’t exactly know! IAS but ‘die as a poet’. Significantly, these No one would have refugees, mostly Sindhis and given a boy of 14 such imprudent Punjabis, established themselves as advice, except in the Fifties! bold entrepreneurs. They did not The decade saw the emergence of add to the already large begging new movements in poetry and fiction brigades in north Indian towns. in many Indian languages and just as he fifties saw the emergence of there was a new India being dreamt IITs and public sector plants and built, these movements were called ‘new temples’ by Nehru, labelled new, such as Nayi Kavita and whose vision and plans were shapNayi Kahani etc. In many literatures, ing the new India. It is quite fashiona new camaraderie developed, someable these days to find fault with the times on grounds of ideology, largely Nehruvian vision and planning. We on new initiatives and experiments. invariably and conveniently forget The decade saw a series of patriotic that a lot of currently admirable films such as Shaheed and Jagriti, but also the new realism as well as economic growth can be traced to
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AUGUST 5, 2012
deep romanticism best exemplified with Raj Kapoor’s Jagte Raho and Dilip Kumar’s Devdas. My boyhood obsession with the music of KL Saigal and Lata Mangeshkar made way for the enduring classical vocalism of Krishna Rao Shankar Pandit and Hirabai Barodekar. The Progressive Artists Group consisting of Husain, Raza and Souza primarily had all of them moving in different directions. Souza making a name in London, Raza in Paris (later to discover the Indian bindu) and Husain painting the great epics Ramayan and Mahabharat in Hyderabad. hile Nehru remained a popular figure, a stringent critic of his policies emerged in Ram Manohar Lohia. Some of the Lok Sabha debates and particularly sharpedged speeches of Lohia are outstanding examples of prose in the service of public causes. One important institutional initiative was the establishment of national academies that encouraged the arts, namely the Sahitya, Lalit Kala and Sangeet Natak Akademi. India began asserting its presence not only in the international arena of diplomacy and foreign relations but also in popular culture. A debate about tradition and modernity became furious in the Fifties and continues to the rounds till today. The radio became a powerful
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medium of communication and indeed contributed much towards the preservation of Indian classical music by employing a large number of musicians as well as providing prominent slots for classical music, particularly after royal patronage waned with the merger of many Indian states into the Union of India. ndian literature had already attained freedom much before we came to be politically free. The first decade of freedom expanded the geography of creative imagination but also made literature more interrogative, deeply self-critical and gradually full-blast anti-establishment. The establishment included not only the State, political power but dominant morality, social norms etc. By the end of the Fifties, a lot of disillusionment had set in. The Nehruvian glow started fading and we started moving towards selfdisappointment. From radiant hope to slightly dark despair, from selfconfidence to self-doubt, the Fifties contained all the essential ingredients of what made the 20th century for us. From such ingredients, our dreams, our creativity, our imagination have been weaving a human map a tragicomic tale of our being.
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Next week, The Forties by Khurshed Alam Khan The views expressed by the author are personal
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T O TA L R E C A L L
Air India and Indian Airlines are the air carriers of the nation. Air India’s hostesses wear tailored European dresses with jaunty hats
THE ’50S – THE CHANGE IS NOW
1958
The Fifties had a newly independent India but also a partitioned India. The wounds were recent and raw. And yet it was a decade of hope and aspiration The triumvirate of Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand lords over Hindi cinema. While Kumar is the unrequited king of tragedy, Kapoor’s the egalitarian comic and Anand, the noir romantic
1951
NUTAN flaunts her curves The First Asian Games are held in Delhi. A total of 489 athletes, representing 11 Asian National Olympic Committees, participate in 57 sporting events
The first Indian Institute of Technology is set up in Kharagpur, West Bengal, with the aim to make India self-reliant in technology. Along with subsequent IITs in Bombay and Madras, it is named an ‘Institute of National Importance’ in Parliament 1951
MILKHA SINGH
is “The Flying Sikh”. Asia’s finest 200m and 400m runner, he Crowns himself the first Commonwealth Games track and field winner of independent India (400 yards) at the 1958 Cardiff Games
1950
in a swimsuit for Dilli ka Thug. She’s the first mainstream actress to do so
1955
The Constitution drafted by a panel headed by BR Ambedkar, comes into force, making India a REPUBLIC. The Constitution declares India to be a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic, assuring citizens of justice, equality and liberty, and endeavours to promote fraternity among them. Rajendra Prasad is sworn in as the first President
Parallel cinema emerges with Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy, followed by Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin, Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa and Mehboob Khan’s Mother India. Mother India is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Aparajito from the Apu trilogy wins the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival
Prime Minister Nehru pours the first bucket of concrete for the BHAKRA DAM, conceived to irrigate five Indian states and prevent floods. He calls it a “New Temple of Resurgent India”
C OV E R STO RY
Jayashree JAYAKAR MOHANKA, 52 years LOCATION: Kolkata DAY JOB: Businesswoman CLAIM TO FAME: Winner, Mahaquizzer 2012; In the top 10 since 2009
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AYASHREE JAYAKAR Mohanka doesn’t believe she’s special. But no one who scores 81 out of a possible 150 in this year’s Mahaquizzer, possibly India’s toughest multidisciplinary quiz, can be ordinary. The questions don’t ask for capital cities, CEOs or celebrity gossip. They cover geography, history, etymology, popular culture, myths, science, sports, brands and more. Many, like this one, simply elude classification: What will you make by using one of the following methods: Building, blending, muddling, rolling or layering (among others)? Don’t know? Here’s the interesting bit – if you’re even moderately clued in to the world around you, you should be able to figure it out – in this case, Cocktails. And Mohanka has been clued-in right from the start, quizzing as a school student, taking on the boys in an allgirl team in Kolkata and relishing the thrill of the “a-ha! moment” when she’d arrived at the correct answer. “Quizzing is more than a memory game,” she says. “The questions are so quirky, you’ll never be able to answer them by mugging. People who quiz are naturally curious people, they read. You need to enjoy learning about new things. You cannot be trained for it.” But you can crack it. Just trust your memory and power of association. “Questions often offer obscure trivia leading to an obvious answer, or have obvious facts and expect an obscure answer in return,” says Hemant Morparia, a radiologist, cartoonist and quiz veteran. If a question seems ridiculous, it’s prob-
THEIR POWERS OF MEMORY WILL BOGGLE YOUR MIND. They’ve calculated more digits than you can count. They can strategise their way out of every puzzle grid and they know the answer to almost every question. Get a peek into the minds of India’s brightest people by Rachel Lopez
Can you answer these Mahaquizzer zingers?
Don’t memorise answers. Read up on what you’re interested in and you’ll be fine
■ “Plastics”, (from The Graduate)
is one of the only two one-word quotes on the AFI’s list of 100 movie quotes. Which is the other? Rosebud (from Citizen Kane)
MOHANKA’S TIP
■ This region’s name means “four
Photo: SAMIR JANA
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ably referencing the thing that’s on everybody’s mind – a movie, a movement or trending topic on Twitter. Have a hunch or a half-remembered detail? Go with it. The best answers are ones you didn’t know you knew. India’s quizzing community is large (we really are know-it-alls) and varied. Long-time participants say that Bangalore and Chennai are the hardest to beat; Mumbai likes big-money biz quizzes; and Delhi likes to fight for every point. Kolkata is where the first formal quiz was held in 1967. “Our style is more relaxed,” says Mohanka. AUGUST 5, 2012
But her gripe is not the kind of crowd, but how fewer women are now participating. “Growing up, there used to be a lot of girl quizzers,” she recalls. “There aren’t that many anymore. I think it’s because the feminist movement was stronger. Now there’s more pressure for girls to do girly things. The idea of a girl being a nerd is just not popular.” Still, Mohanka isn’t giving up. “I think quizzing can be an older person’s game,” she says. “I get better as I age. There’s more time to read. There’s more time for everything.”
circuits of rivers and gorges”. The cuisine of this region is categorised as one of the Eight Culinary Traditions of China. The peppercorn flavour makes it suitable to the Indian palate. Sichuan/Schezwan
■ If you double the letter ‘O’ in
this word you get the dense chewy treat made with sweetened coconut. If you tag the letter ‘I’ to it, you get the name the Yankee soldier gave to his hairstyle after sticking a feather in his hat. Give the exact spelling of the French confection that has two hard outer shells sandwiched together with a soft creamy centre, like a cream biscuit. Macaron
■ While working on a prototype,
he began looking around for inspiration. When he saw his assistant using red nail polish, something clicked and the rest is history. Who is this associated with the world of fashion? Christian Louboutin
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Priyanshi SOMANI, 14 years LOCATION: Surat DAY JOB: Std IX student CLAIM TO FAME: Mental Square Root World Record holder, World Mental Calculation World Cup 2010 winner
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irst, some numbers: In 2010, Priyanshi Somani participated in her first Mental Calculation World Cup, an event that tests exactly what its name suggests. She was 11, it was her first time and she’d only been practising for a month. Other competitors, 37 of them from 16 countries had been at it for far longer – the oldest person there was 61. Somani, however, trumped them all. She not only solved 10 assigned tasks correctly in 6.28 minutes but
been wowing people with his skills of recollection. “I’ve naturally had a LOCATION: Trichy, Tamil Nadu good memory all my life,” he says. DAY JOB: Former chemistry “When nuns would tell us stories teacher, now memory trainer from the Bible, I’d make visuals in CLAIM TO FAME: Indian Memory my head. I still haven’t forgotten Champion 2010, India’s first Grand them.” Master of Memory Making mental pictures helped ecoming a Grand Master of when Louis participated in a memoMemory is no easy task. The ry contest in Chennai, won it and World Memory Sports went on to stand 19th in the World Council, an international Championships in 2002. The brain body that regulates memory sports can hold about seven items in the around the world, has a tough test short term. But Championship confor hopefuls: Recall 1,000 random testants recall the orders of abstract digits in 60 minutes, the order of 10 images, numbers, binary codes, playdecks of cards in one hour and the ing cards, words, dates, events and order of a single deck in two minfaces. “To do well, you have to utes. Few succeed – as of make this stuff seem June 2012, only 122 people important so your “Mental around the world were brain can retain it atrophy, not old awarded the title. longer,” says Louis. age, is the enemy of For Trichy-based “You need conmemory. I wish I John Louis however, crete order for the remembered total recall is a total abstract.” breeze. He became Memory champs everything!” India’s first Grand Master do this by creating in 2003 but has always mental images that sym-
John LOUIS, 42 years
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went a step further. She was expected to extract square roots from 10 six-digit numbers up to eight significant digits in 15 minutes. She did it in 6.15, setting a world record, winning the championship and the Fastest Calculator Trophy as well. Early this year, Somani went up against the new square-root world record holder, Turkish Hakan Gürbaslar. The result? Square roots for another 10 six-digit numbers extracted, this time in 2.43 minutes. A new world record. Somani’s family has strong calculating skills, and her own abilities were evident when she was only six, watching her brother solve sums and trying to do the same. “The best part about doing calculations is the speed,” she explains. “I love anything and everything that has speed. When a math problem is in front of
bolise the random data. “They imagine a palace filled with beautiful things or a journey with landmarks along the way,” Louis says. To make sure it sticks, think unusual – outrageous even. “I include fun elements,” he reveals. “For nations and capitals, imagine a war with poles on one side and saws on the other to remember Pole-Land and WarSaw, and think of a sign that says, ‘There’s no way. So please go slow’ for Nor-way and O-slo.” Memory contests and training programmes have taken Louis very far from Trichy – to Thailand, Singapore, China, Bahrain, Japan, Germany and beyond. Back home however, a good memory is both blessing and curse. “No one forgets anything in my family, though sometimes, before going out, I have to remind my wife where she left her purse. It often becomes hard to forgive when your every mistake is remembered.” AUGUST 5, 2012
you, there are lot of processes that go on in your mind – the eye seeing the problem, the brain analysing it and trying to solve it in the least possible time, and finally putting it on the paper or screen. Challenging the speed of this cycle is what fascinates me. Making a new record is the target, every time.” To make sure Somani meets her targets, the whole family helps out, especially her mother, Anju, who is careful not to pressure her. “Being her mother, all I have to do is forget myself, get completely involved with her in all her activities, take care of her health, schedule, academics, mood swings, preparations etc,” Anju says. “But at the end, her fabulous performance brings immense amount of pride to the family.” At home, however, it’s Somani’s dad who still does the family accounts.
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C OV E R STO RY Girls are a minority in the puzzle world. “I don’t see a girl winning the world championship in the next five years,” says Rao. Prove him wrong, ladies!
Rohan RAO, 21 years LOCATION: Mumbai DAY JOB: Post-graduation Statistics student at IIT Bombay CLAIM TO FAME: Winner of the Indian Sudoku Championship in 2010, 2011 and 2012; Indian Puzzle Championship winner 2010, 2011 and 2012; currently ranks 12 on the World Sudoku circuit and 34 in the World Puzzle stakes
Photo: PRASAD GORI
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ohan Rao has always been CAN YOU CRACK THEM? fascinated by numbers. Easy As ABC (below left): Enter each letter once, in all rows and columns. Letters “Growing up, I’d count outside the grid show which comes first from that direction. Masyu: Pass through everything; even school every white circle, turn at each black. Draw a closed loop that doesn’t cross itself buses on the way home,” he says. So it wasn’t a surprise that in 2006, at the height of India’s Sudoku craze, he found himself winning a local contest. What surprised him, and ended up becoming a wake-up call to puzzle greatness, was when he lost the next year. “I screwed up,” he says simply. “It made me realise that I wanted to do this better.” So Rao kept practising and solved various other puzzles until he got better. He climbed steadily in the rankings for the annual Indian Sudoku and Indian Puzzle since 2000) is a 46at 15 super-tough grid-based logic Championships until he won both in year-old German. It puzzles, from the familiar Kakuro, to 2010, repeating his successes in 2011 doesn’t worry Rao. He was 17 the ones with intimidating names such as and 2012. The wins have opened the first time he made it to the WPC, Slitherlink, Battleship, Hitori, Masyu doors to an even bigger, tougher and his rankings show that he’s and Tapa. There’s also one called battle: The World Puzzle been getting better every year. Easy As ABC. Do not be misled by Championship (WPC) and the Success doesn’t come to those who the name. World Sudoku Championship. curl up with the leisure section of the This year’s edition will be It’s puzzling paradise. Brain paper on Sunday mornings. “It’s is all held in Croatia in October teaser addicts from about practice,” Rao explains. “You and as a 20-something across the world pit Remember need to keep at it through the year to Indian, the odds are their strategy and Danica McKellar, aka be good. Stop practising and your stacked against problem-solving Winnie Cooper on The rankings drop.” You also need Rao. “Japan, the skills in two annuWonder Years? She’s a absolute focus and concentration to USA and east al events organmaths genius too. A beat the clock (and your competiEurope are the ised by the World theorem she tors). “But the best thing is that it’s biggest competiPuzzle Federation co-authored carries convenient. Unlike tennis, you don’t tion,” he says. The (Yes, there is such a need a venue. You can solve puzzles average age there is thing). In addition to her name! any time, any place.” 32, and the most sucSudoku, contestAnd Rao assures that anyone can cessful contestant (seven titles ants take a crack AUGUST 5, 2012
do it. For logic tests, you don’t need to be good at Maths, or even English. “Puzzles have no language. At WPC, you could be sitting next to a guy who’s never spoken a word of English. You’d communicate with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. But he’s cracked a puzzle you couldn’t.” The experience is its own reward. The championships offer no prize money. Even Rao’s foreign trips come at his father’s expense. But for puzzlers, it’s actually forged a sense of brotherhood rather than competition. Of the world’s top 10 puzzle geniuses, six share new strategies on their blogs. Rao himself contributes puzzles of his own making to Akil Oyunlari, a Turkish puzzle magazine, and organises several contests in India. Rao believes he has miles to go before he’s conquered puzzles entirely. “I’ve won six titles but I want to reach 50,” he says. It won’t be easy and that’s why he’s looking forward to it. “I like it when someone beats me. It makes me push myself. Somewhere along the line, another Rohan will want to beat me. That’s when the fun will start!” rachel.lopez@hindustantimes.com
THE SOLUTION
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THE CURRYNAMA
Though found in many countries east of the sub-continent, it is hard to deny that the curry originated on Indian shores
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HO INVENTED CURRY? If you answered, “India, of course,” then you may well be right. Except that people in other countries may disagree with you. After all, curry is an Asian dish found in many countries east of the sub-contiVir Sanghvi nent: Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and Thailand. The Japanese freely admit that their curry was inspired by ours. The Malaysians and the Indonesians are slightly more circumspect, but it is hard to deny that their curries originated on our shores. Only the Thais present a problem. They claim curry as their own and argue that their curries – as globally famous as Indian curries, these days – have nothing to do with ours. They developed independently, they say, and only the English word ‘curry’ suggests a bogus kinship with our cuisine. The Thais point to two key differences between their curries and ours. The first is that they rely on fresh herbs while our curries depend on dry spices. The second is that an essential ingredient of their curries is coconut milk. Indian curries, on the other hand, do not usually use coconut milk but depend on dairy products: Ghee, dahi, etc. I asked Ananda Solomon, the only chef I know who is at much at ease with both Thai and regional Indian food, what he made of the distinction. Ananda conceded the general point about spices versus herbs but argued that the Thais also used spices (ground coriander seeds, etc) and that Indians used fresh leaves like dhaniya, kadi patta. So, the differences were not as clear-cut as the Thais suggested. But it was the use of coconut milk that intrigued me. When the Thais say that Indian curries do not use coconut milk, they refer to north Indian food. And certainly, it would be bizarre to use coconut milk in a rogan josh or a korma. But there’s much more to Indian cuisine than the food of the north. And once you go south of the Vindhyas, the Thai claim seems shaky. Coconut is one of the mainstays of south Indian cuisine. It is used in nearly every form (flesh, oil, etc) all over the south, and in Kerala and parts of Karnataka, coconut milk is an essential ingredient in many curries. In fact, once you compare the food of Kerala to the food of Thailand, the distinction between Thai curries and Indian curries is so slender as to be almost meaningless. The coconut milk curries of Kerala are fragrant, delicate and very different from the curries of north India. So, did the Thais get their curries from south India? It is hard to say but we do know that the coconut appears in ancient Indian literature long before it turns up anywhere else. According to Hindu mythology, it was the creation of the sage Vishwamitra and archaeologists have found fossils all over India (including land-locked Rajasthan) which suggest that there were coconuts in India long before there were human beings. The Thai coconut milk curries may be of more recent origin. They seem to have grown in popularity as recently as the 17th century and one theory (admittedly, not universally accepted) suggests that it was the Portuguese who encouraged the Thais to put coconut milk in their curries. But why would the Portuguese, who use no coconut milk in their own cuisine, want the Thais to start using it? At this stage, the theory falters. Well, perhaps, they were missing the richness
rude food
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SPICE ROUTE
Photo: DINODIA
AUGUST 5, 2012
Indian curries depend on dry spices and do not usually use coconut milk but dairy products such as ghee, dahi, etc
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Photos: THINKSTOCK
CURRY A FLAVOUR
of dairy food, food historians suggest weakly. I have my own explanation. When the Portuguese came to Thailand, they did not take a direct flight from Lisbon to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport. They got to Thailand only as part of their general exploration of the Indian ocean, for which they used India as a base. Most Portuguese ships did not have conquistadors manning the stoves. Instead, they used Indian cooks who they had picked up in Goa and south India. Could this be the route through which the coconut milk curry travelled from south India to Thailand? Nobody knows for sure but it is a plausible enough theory. All cuisines develope and adapt after a while. So, while it is true that both south Indians and Thais use coconut milk, their attitudes to the ingredient are different. In Malayali cuisine, there are broadly three different strengths of coconut milk, depending on thickness. The curry is made in the usual Indian way with the masala being sautéed first and the thinner coconut milk being used as north Indians would use water in their curries. The thickest coconut milk goes in towards the end of the cooking process as a thickening agent. For the Thais, however, the coconut milk is the point of the curry. They begin the process by heating it till the fat begins to separate and floats to the top. Only then, do they add the curry paste. According to Ananda, the secret of a good Thai curry is to let the coconut milk cool down a little before adding the curry paste/masala. As much as I love Malayali food, when I do cook a curry at home, it tends to be the Thai version. It’s not because Thai curries are necessarily better but because they are so easy to make as to be virtually idiot-proof. All you need to do is to follow the instructions on the back of the packet of curry paste. Here, for instance, is what it says, in Thai-English, on the
While it is true that both south Indians and Thais use coconut milk, their attitudes to the ingredient are different
packet of massaman curry paste that I usually use: “Put coconut cream in a heated pan and add paste. Stir fry until oil appears on top. Add meat and continue stir fry until done. Fill the rest of the coconut milk. Boil to cook and simmer till tender. Put potato and cut onion. Add fish sauce, sugar, tamarind and seasoning as prefer. Leave it to boil until finish.” Even in Thai-English, it is easy to follow. There is one obvious drawback in the method, though. Clearly, you are meant to add the coconut milk in two batches, one before the masala goes in and one after. I don’t actually follow any Thai recipes myself even though I use their pastes. When I make a massaman curry, I Indianise the recipe and serve it Gujarati-style with papad and kachumber. My recipe is below. Of course, it is completely inauthentic and they would probably cancel my Thai visa if I tried cooking it in Bangkok. But hey, what the hell! Curry is our dish, anyway...
GUJARATI MASSAMAN CURRY ■ Sauté onions and garlic with one packet massaman curry paste as you would for an Indian curry. When the masala seems to be letting out its aroma, add two small tetrapaks of coconut milk. (I use the Ayam brand, widely available in India but there are many local versions.) ■ Stir and cook over low heat till the curry thickens. Now add half a mug of good quality chicken stock. As the curry simmers, add chunks of boiled potato and a fistful of unsalted peanuts. ■ Taste the curry to see when it is done (i.e. the thickness you want and no kachcha masala taste), adjust the seasoning. You may want to use Thai fish sauce, soya sauce, sugar, lemon or whatever. After you turn off the heat you can add aromatic leaves and cover. You can use kothmir/dhaniya, sweet basil, makroot leaves, etc. I usually don’t have them handy so I don’t bother, but it does improve the flavour. ■ Take a pork chop and cut into small pieces. Mix a paste of garlic, ground galangal (or ginger) and mashed lemongrass (you can use powder but fresh or bottled paste is better) and smear it over the pork pieces. Put aside for half an hour. In a very hot wok, add veg-
Coconut milk (above) and fresh herbs (left) are essential ingredients of Thai curries
etable oil and wait till it is as hot as you can imagine. Throw in the pork and stir fry quickly for about two minutes or so, depending on how well done you want the meat to be. Remove from the pan, drain the oil. Taste. If it seems under-seasoned, drizzle with a little fish sauce or dark soya. ■ Make brown rice as normal. Cut onions, tomatoes and cucumber to make a Gujaratistyle kachumber, seasoned with nimbu. You can add chillies to the kachumber if you like the spice. ■ In individual dinner plates, make a pile of pork on one side and a mound of brown rice on the other. Put the kachumber somewhere in the middle. The curry goes into individual bowls. ■ To eat, you mix the pork, rice and kachumber and add as much of the curry as you need depending on how moist you want each mouthful to be. Roasted papad on the side helps with the texture. (This is a Gujarati dish, after all.) I make this to eat at home but as you can see, the presentation is suitable for dinner parties or fancy entertaining. Drink Coke or beer with it.
AUGUST 5, 2012
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S AVE THE WORLD (A L G W D I ) ND OOK OOD
A single shard of simple technology could save the world and our powerless nation
I
HILE OING T
T WAS QUITE amusing. To be part of a National Grid failure twice, where multiple states and millions of people were blacked out and powerless in more ways than one. Powerless – as in no electricity and powerless – as in we could do nothing about it. I know, there really is nothing amusing about massive traffic jams (no signals working), no mobile phones (most people had not charged phones adequately), crumpled clothing (ironing without bijli is quite a tough task) and no money or ways to commute (ATMs didn’t work nor did the Metro for a while). But think about it, in a country that is on its way to be a superpower, in a nation that is fuelled by the next generation of world-beating entrepreneurs and go-getters, in a state that is supposed to be at the cutting edge of technology and development – we had a power blackout twice that took down literally one fourth of our country including and especially the national capital. Amusing? Very!
AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE
LOOK MA, NO WIRES
A wireless receiver, a wireless transmitter and a sensor that clips to it are all you need to monitor and conserve energy
MORE POWER TO YOU
These devices make you aware, informed and knowledgeable, and give you real-time feedback
Rajiv Makhni
STAY CONNECTED
Get email warnings on usage wherever you are in the world
techilicious
16
changes you can do to bring your electricity bill down by half; give you charts, grids and easy numbers for the last two years of your usage; can be tracked from anywhere in the world on a phone, computer or Tablet and can be set up by anyone, I repeat anyone, in less than 10 minutes – you’d say that I am smoking some very strong drugs, right? But this device exists and there are multiple versions of it. It costs about R3,000 and the pay-off will be savings for years. It makes you aware, informed and knowledgeable and gives you real-time feedback for you to put in a system and a course of action for you to stop wasting electricity. The average saving wherever this device is installed is about 20 per cent or more. Think, if every person in our country used this – our power crisis would be over.
HOW IT WORKS
This is a simple device. It consists of three things: Don’t worry, this isn’t a social commentary on the A wireless receiver unit with a big screen that looks state of the power sector nor a scathing column like a very sophisticated digital clock, a wireless on just how poorly the demand to supply ratio transmitter and a sensor that clips to it. All you have has been planned for now and the future. This is to do is identify the outgoing electricity supply cable still a tech column. There is a point to all of this and I’m (it’s usually the red one coming out your electricijust about getting there. We are a power-deficient county meter and into your house), snap open the sentry and we are going to suffer quite a bit now and a whole sor and put it around the cable. No splicing wires, lot more in the future. You don’t need a crystal ball to no unhooking anything – the sensor just sits loosepredict three things. We will have more of these grid ly around the cable. Take the wire from the sensor failures, power deficiency will continue for the betand insert it into the transmitter. Now press the ter part of this decade and most importantly, enersync button between the transmitter and the wiregy will cost more, much more – in the near future. less receiver (place it anywhere in your house). So, we are destined to suffer! Well, not really. There That’s it. The receiver’s screen will immediately is a solution and once again it’s technology that can CARBON CALLING start showing you how much electricity is being make sure that all of this isn’t in our future. But if Find out how much cardrawn off your mains and into your house. As you the government, the ministries and our merry band bon is generated by your shut off and start devices like geysers, ACs, refrigof politicians can’t help, then can technology really electricity usage erators, TVs – the draw becomes more or less and help? In the words of the Barackster – yes, it can. shows up on your receiver screen. You can programme it to show you consumption in units, money or how much ALERT carbon is being generated due to your electricity usage. Track hisBe warned! What follows is a cautionary tale of very frightening torical data, set alarms and input different tariffs. With additional proportions. It could change you as a person, make you responsiaccessories, you can monitor three-phase connections, check conble, truly affect your personality and attitude, turn you around inside sumption from anywhere in the world and also have the system out and make you a better person. If you aren’t willing to go through email you a warning whenever energy usage goes haywire. such radical changes – then move along – there is nothing for you on this page, any further. If you are still here, then congratulate PLAN OF ACTION yourself. You are about to discover a revolution. A single shard of Amazing, right? Yes, but here’s the kicker. You do not get these simple effortless technology that could save the world and our devices in India! If you want to be a self-aware concerned citizen of powerless nation, one energy saving monitor at a time. the country, you’ve got to import one of these from Europe. Isn’t it incredible that something so revolutionary, at a price that is affordABRACADABRA able, with functionality that could make a huge difference is not If I was to tell you that a wireless idiot-proof device exists that can available here. My new quest is to ask the government to give away monitor every piece of equipment in your house one of these free with every electricity connection across the nation. in real time; tell you how much section If you think that makes sense, do join in by tweeting me with the or room it consumes; what it costs to handle #freeenergymonitorsindia and let’s get this show on the run for an hour/day/week/month/year; road. Else, wait for the next power grid collapse. It’ll take down the what your current consumption is for entire country and it’s just around the corner. the whole house; what is really burnRajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, ing a hole in your pocket; what small CellGuru and Newsnet 3.Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com /RajivMakhni AUGUST 5, 2012
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THE JUKEBOX
B
POP MELODIES, CATCHY TUNES
BelgianAustralian singer Gotye is wildly promiscuous when it comes to the kind of musical genres he dips into
SOMEBODY THAT I USED TO KNOW
Art-pop can sometimes be a bit pretentious, although I think Jethro Tull’s (below, right) Thick As Brick (below) is a super album
STATE OF THE ART
Gotye (above) makes music that you could call art-pop, a genre that draws influence from classical and avant-garde music but also strives for popular appeal
A
S A COMPULSIVE hoarder of music, I have a confession to make. I often acquire albums and songs that I don’t get down to listening to. Not even once. Not even cursorily. Yes, it’s true and it does make me feel a bit silly. I mean I don’t display my music on racks and shelves as some hoarders of books do, ostensibly to impress visitors although they may not have read even a page of most of them. I can’t really do that, unless I offer people my iPods, hard drives and pen drives or a peek into the virtual cloud – places where most of the music I hoard are stored – but the fact is, I do have countless albums and songs that I’ve never heard. I’ve downloaded them with all good intentions of listening to them but never got around to doing so. The downside of this habit is that it places undue pressure on the need to keep adding to storage capacity – more hard drives, more disk space and so on – but there is an upside. Every so often, while scanning the files that I have in various places, I stumble upon undiscovered gems. So it was, last week, when I picked out something that I’d acquired in 2011 but never ever played. The album is called Making Mirrors by a musician who goes by the name of Gotye. Gotye is actually the name adopted by Wally De Backer, a Belgian-Australian musician who plays many instruments and is a singer and songwriter. Gotye makes music that you could call art-pop, a genre that draws influence from classical and avant-garde music but also strives for popular appeal. Think Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush or even Jethro Tull – artistes who’ve pushed the limits of rock and roll and unabashedly embraced from non-rock, non-pop musical genres such as jazz,
AUGUST 5, 2012
Photo: CC/LUDOVIC ETIENNE
download central
Sanjoy Narayan
Photo: REUTERS
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y the time you read this, this year’s two-day Newport Folk Festival would have been over. This year it marks the 100th birth anniversary of Woody Guthrie, the American legend who has influenced countless musicians. But every year, the Newport Folk Fest pushes the limits of the folk music genre (remember, Dylan went infamously electric at a Newport Folk Fest gig). This year, besides great music from bands such as Wilco and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, look out for Charles Bradley, the veteran R&B singer, and tUnE-yArDs. That quirkily cased last band is a project by a talented musician named Merrill Garbus (left). Her music has R&B roots but has been classified by some as Wonky Pop. If you missed listening to streams from Newport this year, there are links in the web version of DC that you could check out.
classical or even opera. I know what you must be thinking. Yes, it is true that art-rock or art-pop can sometimes be a bit pretentious – I don’t care for Peter Gabriel’s music, for instance, although I think Tull’s Thick As Brick is a super album – but that is not the case with Gotye’s music. Making Mirrors is a refreshing blend of art and pop and the reason why it is so is perhaps because of the generous quotient of pop in the blend. Gotye is not ashamed of using large helpings of pop melodies and catchy tunes in his music. He shouldn’t be too – he has a rather good voice and sings engagingly. His lyrics aren’t obscure and esoteric but neither are they low-brow and trite as what is dished out by today’s crop of best-selling pop musicians. On Making Mirrors, De Backer or Gotye sings and samples but he is aided by a group of musicians that range from whale cello players and bass guitarists to pedal steel guitarists and trumpeteers. There are keyboards and saxophones and synths and dubbing (that last thing refers, of course, to remixing of samples in a manner that originates in reggae music). Gotye is wildly promiscuous when it comes to the kind of musical genres he dips into – there is ambient space music on his album, psychedelic rock influences, electronica and even songs that sound as if they’re a modern-day version of good old folksy ballads. It helps, as I said, that he has a great voice. On the dozen songs that make up Making Mirrors, there’s never a moment that made me bored or want to skip a tune. The music on every one of those songs is well wrought and, okay, ‘arty’ too, but never selfindulgent as art-pop can often painfully become. That’s probably because Gotye is not shy about the pop part of art-pop. But pop that even the most snobbish of music aficionados won’t turn their noses up at. On Making Mirrors, Gotye has a song with a title that I found apt as a comment for his music. It’s called Don’t Worry We’ll Be Watching You. I certainly will be watching him. To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned in this column, go to http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/download-central, follow argus48 on Twitter
Photo: CC/SDO216 AT EN.WIKIPEDIA
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Some ‘Olympic categories’ in which Indians could go for gold
BOLLYWOOD MODE
Thanks to dance shows on TV like Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa and Dance India Dance the jhatka-matka school of modern dancing has taken root in our hearts – and our feet – as well
Seema Goswami Photos: THINKSTOCK
BECAUSE WE ARE LIKE THAT ONLY... D
ID YOU know that the oldest person to ever win an Olympics medal was a 73year-old British graphic artist called John Copley? And that he won the silver medal for etching in the 1948 London Olympics? Yes, that’s right. Etching. That was an Olympic category back in the day, along with literature, architecture, music and town planning. (I can just about imagine the Doordarshan commentary as these contests got under way.) I don’t know about you, but this bit of Olympic trivia left me longing for a simpler world in which people weren’t so hung up on sporting talent – at which we are, quite frankly, completely rubbish – but had time to appreciate the finer things of life. Like... er... etching. Now, I’m not sure that any of us would do very well in the town-planning department (just drive around any modern Indian city if you don’t believe me) but there are some areas in which our teams would be an absolute shoo-in for the gold. So, maybe sometime in the distant future, when all those ghastly memories of the Delhi Commonwealth Games have faded and India is hosting the Olympics, we could smuggle in some of these non-sporting categories so that our boys and girls can, at long last, improve on our medals tally. Here are just a few ideas, off the top of my head. Feel free to add to the list, and we’ll petition the Indian Olympic Association in good time.
LANE CHANGERS
I’m quite sure Indians would make a clean sweep in driving recklessly
spectator
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1 WHINING
I’m not dead set on ‘Whining’, you understand. You could call it ‘Outraging’ or even the more boring ‘Complaining’. But no matter how it is titled, I’m pretty sure we would make a clean sweep of this category every four years. After all, this doesn’t require uniforms, special training equipment or large stadiums to practise in. We can all hone our talents in front of the television set, on social media, at office, while shopping. Hell, we could even put in a couple of hours of practice while commuting back and forth from work. And God knows, we’ve been doing just that for years and years. So, let’s not let all that good work go to waste. Let’s at least get a medal or two for our plaints.
MUSICAL 2 CHOREOGRAPHY
Nobody does the choreographed musical number better than Bollywood. And thanks to all those dance shows on TV like Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa and Dance India Dance (or whatever else they’re called this season), the jhatka-matka school of modern dancing has AUGUST 5, 2012
taken root in our hearts – and our feet – as well. Rare is the Indian who can sit still when Hindi music begins to blare. So let’s give those pelvic thrusts an Olympic category of their own. And see India shine and shimmy and go for gold.
3 DRIVING RECKLESSLY
By that I don’t mean driving fast on Formula One tracks (because, yes, we are pretty rubbish at that too) but driving recklessly: Taking turns without using the indicator; fender-bending with panache; braking suddenly, changing lanes with abandon, and never ever taking your finger off the car-horn. I’m just thinking aloud here but maybe all of these could be sub-categories in this competition. And I’m quite sure the Indians would make a clean sweep of all of them.
4 EATING DEEP-FRIED SNACKS
We have a pan-national advantage in this sport, with every region in India having its own deep-fried specialities. If the Bengalis have their luchis and the Punjabis their paranthas, the UP bhaiyas have their kachoris and chaats. The Tamilians and Kannadigas have their medu vadas, the Maharashtrians their chaklis, the Malayalis their banana chips. I could go on but I’d then have to take a break to have a deepfried snack of my own. Maybe I should do that – get in some early practice on the off-chance that I make it to the final squad. It may be my only hope of ever winning a gong.
5 SEXUAL HARASSMENT
You know we’d be brilliant in this category, don’t you? Come on, admit it. All those decades of practice at whistling at the ladies as they walk down the road, groping them when they travel in public transport, harassing them at the workplace, molesting them when they have the temerity to go out at night, raping them when they ‘ask’ for it, all of it would pay off finally. Score! Then, of course, there are the minor categories, like haggling for a good price, making tall promises that we know that we can never keep, and that old Indian chestnut, ‘jugaad’, which we are so inordinately proud of. And let’s not forget ‘late-coming’ as well. The only problem with the last though, is that given our attitude to time-keeping, the competition will probably not start until the next Olympic Games roll around. And then, they’ll be held in some stupidly-sporty nation like Australia or Germany, and it will all be over for us and our Olympic hopes. seema_ht@rediffmail.com. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami
PERSONAL AGENDA
22
twitter.com/HTBrunch
Music Director
Shantanu Moitra if i could... I WOULD CLIMB MOUNT EVEREST
I really enjoy mountaineering
SUN SIGN Aquarius
BIRTHDAY January 22
SCHOOL/COLLEGE
Springdales School, Pusa Road, Deshbandhu College, Delhi
HOMETOWN PLACE OF BIRTH Delhi
Lucknow
FIRST BREAK
Bole Mere Lips... the jingle for the Uncle Chipps Ad
HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE Being accepted as a music director by my father
LOW POINT OF YOUR LIFE
Leaving Delhi
CURRENTLY DOING
Coke Studio Season 2 with MTV, and Sudhir Mishra’s next film
I WOULD WORK AS A CHEF IN A MICHELIN-STAR RESTAURANT
TRAVEL TO THE MOON
Photos: THINKSTOCK
SUPPORT AND REVIVE THE FOLK MUSICIANS OF INDIA
They are in a pathetic state at the moment
If you weren’t a musician you would have been? A mountaineer. What part of economics (that you studied in college) helps you with your music? When I am chased for payments. What inspires you? The very fact that Earth is the only planet that has life, makes me feel incredible. Making music is your profession. Does listening to music become a chore? Listening is a simultaneous process. Music is my passion and not a job for me. What can you live in? Hawaii chappals. Are a lot of women impressed by a man who knows his music? Yes. The kind of music that I have done needs a certain amount of intellectualism. AUGUST 5, 2012
Your 3 am friend? The newest gadget that you’ve My iPod. acquired? What touches your heart? A telescope. I like A great melody. astronomy. Your favourite hangout What kind of movies do A MUSICAL YOU’D in Delhi? you like watching – a hinterland gangster flick HAVE LOVED TO BE Hauz Khas Village. like Gangs of Wasseypur ASSOCIATED WITH The best street food of or the low-budget, Delhi that makes you realistic Vicky Donor? nostalgic? I am quite happy with Shakkar Kandi. a film like Vicky What makes your day? Donor. Having my friends One song that always lifts over with no your spirits? agenda in mind. “Zindagi Kaisi Hai The last thing you Paheli...” from the bought for under `10? film Anand. Five lemons. Your favourite jingle/ad Your favourite travel Kal Bhi Aaj Bhi…the jingle for a destination? VIP luggage commercial. Leh. Just came back from Live music vs recording? there recently. Live music – the atmosphere is — Interviewed by Veenu Singh real and charged up.
The Sound of Music