Brunch 10 08 2014 by Hindustan Times

WEEKLY WEEKLY MAGAZINE, MAGAZINE, AUGUST JUNE 22, 10, 2014 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

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Brunch Opinion

Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

by Indra Shekhar Singh

An Allahabadi in Dilli

t was my lucky day, when I was asked to visit all possible government photo archives in the city and scavenge for photographs of Delhi from the 1940s and ’50s. And so I did. Some of the archives were ill-kept, others dull and dingy. And the pictures: each one more fascinating than the other! Unfortunately, there aren’t enough images documenting everyday life of the city – but that is another story. The next phase, of course, was gathering information about these old photos, while our photojournalists were busy re-shooting these images – capturing them as they are today. If you must know the secret behind covering the history of Chandni Chowk, it is heritage conservationist Firoz Bakht Ahmed – he has helped restore seven monuments of Delhi through PILs! I spent days talking to grumpy shopkeepers refusing to talk about the past. And I also met Dilliwallahs who couldn’t stop talking about the city that was and the city that is. This was during Ramzan and I was lucky enough to be invited for an iftar party, too! Having made Delhi my home since I came here from Allahabad six years ago, I discovered the city's signature warmth, thanks to the assignment. And any time you talk to somebody from Connaught Place, you can’t help but hear endless rants about the renovation plans and what is wrong with it. At the NGMA, I had the privilege to talk to Dr Rajeev Lochan about art and philosophy. The rest as they say is history. And the photographs are fantastic. We hope you like this issue – I certainly do!

Photo: VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN

THE COVER PHOTOS

ajpath stretches from Vijay Chowk all the way down to India Gate – a memorial for those who lost their lives in World War I. Just a few metres from India Gate is a sandstone dome with four pillars, the Lutyens’ Canopy built in 1936. In the photograph above, you can see a white marble statue of George V (who had died earlier that year) placed under the canopy. In the 1960s, this statue was removed from under the canopy – it was seen as a symbol of imperial dominance – and moved to Coronation Park in North Delhi. There was some talk of placing a statue of Mahatma Gandhi under the canopy – but it never materialised. The empty space is supposed to symbolise the retreating of the British from India.

GETTING THE SHOT VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN "This shot took the longest time to get (45 mintues to an hour) . In the old picture, there is a bullock cart here but now the road is closed for traffic. We had to wait a long time before some cyclists passed by. Then, it was an easy shot to take."

Watch out for the 20’s Forever series in Brunch over the coming weeks – Your key to tight & bright skin

Cover design: MONICA GUPTA

EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Veenu Singh, Amrah Ashraf, Satarupa Paul, Saudamini Jain, Asad Ali, Atisha Jain

AUGUST 10, 2014

DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor, Design), Monica Gupta, Swati Chakrabarti, Payal Dighe Karkhanis, Ajay Aggarwal

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WELLNESS

MIND BODY SOUL

SHIKHA SHARMA PART- I

THE DEVICES THAT SAVE YOUR LIFE You can thank technology for more than your smartphones. It’s also revolutionised the most important thing: your health

EDICINE IS one of the oldest professions in the world, and even though it’s come a long way, there is still so much to learn. Now, medicine is trying to understand the environment and how it affects our health, and it’s also investigating genetics and ageing. But when it began, medicine was a matter of trial and error, with wise men of the tribes trying to learn which herb and decoction would bring relief to the sick. Over time, doctors got access to tools that helped them better diagnose patients and manage or cure illnesses. Now, these tools not only help doctors serve their patients better, but are also changing the way patients take care of themselves.

be monitored without medical supervision and the patient can prevent catastrophic hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). CPAP MACHINE: This helps patients of severe sleep disorders, who almost choke at night due to lack of oxygen while they’re asleep. PREGNANCY CHECK KIT: Years ago, you needed a battery of tests to know if you were pregnant. Now a small strip with enzymes diagnoses the state in a few minutes. The kit has molecules which attach themselves to certain proteins in the urine pr which are ar only produced on conception. A pregpr nancy detection kit can detect pregnancy as early as one week after conception.

EARLY DEVICES NOW USED AT HOME THERMOMETER: This is a small device, but it’s a great help in learning the real state of a patient’s fever. Once only doctors had them. Now we all have a thermometer at home.

BLOOD GLUCOSE CHECK AT HOME: Many glucometers are available for home use so that blood glucose can

ask@drshikha.com

(To be continued)

MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Dr Shikha Sharma and other wellness stories, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch AUGUST 10, 2014

Photos: THINKSTOCK , SHUTTERSTOCK

BLOOD PRESSURE MEASURING MACHINE: Saves people from medical emergencies by providing vital information at home.

INHALERS: They deliver the right dose of medicine to prevent an asthmatic attack. During an attack, medicines can’t enter the lungs because of narrowed airways. But thanks to technology, an inhaler can deliver the medicine into the airways and prevent attacks. Yes, technology has brought many beneﬁts to patients. Learn more in my column next week.

INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL

CHANDNI CHOWK

handni Chowk, the moonlit market, was designed by Shah Jahan’s daughter Jahan Ara in the 17th century. Originally, it had 1,560 shops* and offices – the street was wide and long, and through the street flowed a canal. Later, the British built some of the landmark buildings of the area. In 1865, they made the Town Hall, originally meant for educational and cultural purposes but used by the Municipality, and the Clock Tower. The canal was

We present the Capital city in photographs that juxtapose the old with the new – to chronicle how Delhi has changed over the last six decades by Saudamini Jain and Indra Shekhar Singh

^According to a 2014 UN report, Delhi is the world’s second most populous city after Tokyo, more than doubling its population since 1990 to 25 million. SOURCES: Perpetual City: A Short Biography of Delhi by Malvika Singh; Delhi 1803-2012: A Brief Biography by Sohail Hashmi, Kafila, 3 May 2012 (originally written as a series of articles for the Hindustan Times)

AUGUST 10, 2014

Photo: VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN

in camps and wherever else they could find space. The camps later developed into colonies such as Nirankari Colony, Tilak Nagar, Ramesh Nagar, Ashok Nagar, Moti Nagar, Rajinder Nagar, Patel Nagar, Lajpat Nagar and Karbala, starting in the early Fifties. Gupta says that the 1950s was also the decade when Chandni Chowk became even more congested. “The pavements were enclosed into shops, and pavement sellers squatted outside, thus limiting the pedestrians’ space. This had happened earlier, but more so from the 1950s,” she says. “South Delhi came up at the time,” says KT Ravindran, former chairman of the Delhi Urban Art Commission. In Delhi, unlike in Mumbai at the time, development was planned horizontally and not vertically. “The masterplan had a suburban bias – the city grew like an extended suburb. It emulated the neighbourhood concept of the 1930s and 1940s Europe,” he says. The transformation of residences into the massive houses they are today also took place in the ’70s and ’80s. At first the houses became two-storey buildings and “after the 1980s, a surge of building activity converted these suburban plots into three-to-four-floorhigh houses,” he adds. The Asian Games of 1982 changed the city – its first flyover (Safdarjung-Defence Colony) came up in 1979-80. Interestingly, this was just after the first Maruti car had been launched. It was as if the city was transformed anticipating the car. It was in the ’70s that talk about creating the national capital region (NCR) began, but, says Ravindran, “it didn’t take off for 14 years and was finally set up in the ’80s.” And like the major sporting event the city hosted before, the Commonwealth Games and the Metro made it in many ways a whole new city, all over again. Delhi is still growing. It is expanding beyond its boundaries into the NCR and further. Today, it is the second most populous city in the world^. In this special issue, we’ve identified some iconic photographs from the ’40s and ’50s and re-shot the same locations from the same angles. So you get a sense of how we’ve changed – because when it comes to Delhi, words are just not enough.

Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

apital Delhi, the city that was destroyed and rebuilt again and again. This is the city of eight cities, a story that began in the eighth century. Delhi’s first city though, say historians, was Prithvi Raj Chauhan’s Rai Pithora in the 12th century. Then there was the Slave Dynasty’s Mehrauli – which includes the Qutub Minar; Khilji’s Siri, which remains as a fragment of a wall alongside Panchsheel, the three Tughlaq cities – Tughlaqabad, Jahanpanah and Ferozabad – and the seventh city, the Mughal Shahjahanabad. And finally, New Delhi. As an ode to Independence Day, we trace Delhi’s journey towards becoming the massive metropolis that it is today. Urdu had slowly replaced Persian, and by the 1830s, it had acquired the status of the language of the courts. The telegraph and photography made their first appearance. After the revolt of 1857, the British moved the capital to Calcutta – but they shifted back to Delhi in 1911, during the celebrations of the Dilli Durbar, held to commemorate the coronation in Britain of King George V and Queen Mary and proclaim them as Emperor and Empress of India. It was only natural then for the British to build a city that would mark their supremacy in the country they had colonised. And so, after many trips to areas around Shahjahanabad, the imperialists chose Raisina Hill. From the blasts of dynamite on Raisina Hill, emerged New Delhi, designed by Edwin Lutyens and his partner, Herbert Baker. In creating the new capital, the old city became congested – it had to accommodate all the people who had come to help build it and those who had been evacuated from what became Connaught Place. The Delhi Improvement Trust of 1937 planned an expansion of Delhi to Kamla Nagar, Karol Bagh and other areas. And then, says historian Narayani Gupta, “Partition changed everything, and villages around were apportioned to refugees, west Delhi became populated and built upon [Punjabi Bagh was the first refugee colony], Shahdara developed on its own and chaotically.”As the refugees poured in, they took shelter

VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN “We were trying to replicate a picture without traffic. But that was impossible because the main street has become very crowded. The original shot was also taken from a distance but now there are high grilles and you can’t possibly take photographs from the same angle. Lot of people even asked us to take their photographs!”

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covered up in 1910. But Chandni Chowk continued to be the magnificent old bazaar of colonial India. It was where, says heritage conservationist Firoz Bakht Ahmed, “you’d find tamarind from Iran, nuts and dried fruits from Kabul, cotton and georgette from Manchester, dates from Baghdad, chandeliers from Belgium... and Parker pens from America.” Its bylanes specialised in particular trades – spices, gold, cloth and so on.

These shops though were dim, dark spaces. You had to know what you wanted, ask the shopkeeper and he would produce his wares. Europeans would complain about this because they weren’t used to this way of shopping – based more on conversation than on display.** The charm of this bazaar was its mix of residents and shoppers. The big change is that since the 1960s***, more and more people have been moving out of Chandni Chowk.

Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN “This was a tricky photograph to click. There were people sitting with luggage on the pavements – there was no space to get the fountain and the museum in one frame. I asked a shop owner to help me find place to shoot. And somehow, I managed despite the traffic!”

Photo: VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN

his is a view of Chandni Chowk’s main street opposite the Town Hall. It is the site of the erstwhile Clock Tower, which was damaged after an earthquake in the early ’50s that killed a few people. It was then demolished. The first, undated, photograph (left) was perhaps shot some time after the Clock Tower was demolished. This was the street with high-end stores and banks – you can see the large dome of the Lloyds Bank and to its right, the ornate three-storey Allahabad Bank building which dates back to the 1930s#. Locals fondly remember the grandeur of these banks. Masroor Ahmed Khan, in his 60s, a resident of Sharif Manzil Haveli, says, “The Lloyds Bank, I think, was built around the same time as the Town Hall. My father had an account here. I remember the cheque books, they had a horse as their insignia.” The building that housed the Lloyds Bank is today occupied by Dena Bank. But there is another Lloyds Bank branch, a few minutes away, in the 19th century Begum Samru’s Haveli. Today, it has the inscription “Lloyd’s Bank Ltd” on its facade. Iqbal Malak, 58, a businessman in Ballimaran, gets nostalgic about the culture at the Allahabad Bank of yore, “The place had a magical charm. The manager wore pyjamas, kurta and topi. His assistant and he would open the vaults with old-fashioned, ornate keys and take out the money. It was like we had gone to meet a relative,” he said. The Allahabad Bank has retained its old-world charm and with it, its clientele. Malik also remembers the trams that used to run on this street. Trams were introduced around 1903. At its greatest expansion, the tramways spread across about 24 kilometres – but were discontinued in 1963. Cycle rickshaws, first introduced in the 1940s, replacing hand-pulled rickshaws, continue to ply in Chandni Chowk’s congested streets. A number of politicians have promised to make Chandni Chowk vehicle-free. But it seems a bit like promising the moon.

By the ’90s, Chandni Chowk had become polluted. But by 1998, leaded petrol was phased out, there were stricter regulations for fumes and many small industries and workshops moved out of Chandni Chowk. Now dilapidated and congested, it is still one of the busiest and largest markets of the city, particularly for gold, silver, cloth, chemicals, cycles and photo equipment. It is also one of the busiest stations on the Delhi Metro.

pposite Gurudwara Sis Ganj, on the road leading to the Old Delhi railway station, is the Bhai Mati Das Chowk, with its distinct landmark, fawwara, or the fountain. It was here that Mati Das, a disciple of Sikh guru Tegh Bahadur, was executed on the orders of Aurangzeb for refusing to accept Islam. The Majestic Cinema (which was showing the Geeta Bali starrer Naina in the 1953 photograph, top) is now a Sikh museum. Balinder Singh, information officer at Sis Ganj, told us, “We converted the cinema into the museum, a dispensary and a dharmashala in the early 1990s.” The fountain was also taken over by the Gurudwara trust, and looks different now. Its foundation structure is the same, but the spout has been replaced. Just a few weeks ago, the first phase of the Chandni Chowk redevelopment plan began. All overhead wires are supposed to be laid underground, along with the return of trams. In the plans released by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, the fountain will be surrounded by a modern tram line.

SOURCES: Old Delhi 10 Easy Walks by Gaynor Barton and Laurraine Malone; *Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India 1639-1739 by Stephen P. Blake; **Narayani Gupta in conversation with India Real Time, The Wall Street Journal India; ***Population of the Walled City in 1961 was 4,20,000, in 2001 it was 2,35,000 (Ministry of Urban Development); #A Walk Around Town Hall & Mirza Ghalib’s Haveli, a published guide by the World Monuments Fund (www.wmf.org)

AUGUST 10, 2014

INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL

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CONNAUGHT PLACE

that time was almost like an “aristocratic drink from the West,” said Sawhney, in a 2011 interview to the Wall Street Journal*. Back then, Plaza mainly screened Hollywood blockbusters. It was the first to screen seven different Warner Bros films over a week in 1964. Hollywood actress Shirley MacLaine especially flew in to Delhi for one of the screenings. In this 1953 photograph, the film playing was OP Dutta’s Malkin starring Nutan and Pran. PVR acquired the property in 2003 and the first movie that was screened at the reopening of the theatre in 2004, was the Ajay Devgn-Abhishek Bachchan film Yuva.

Photo: VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN

VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN “The old photograph had no traffic, so framing and shooting this photograph was fairly simple. Sometimes there would be cars driving by in front of us, but we managed to get a good shot of the building.”

he big four of Connaught Place – The Odeon, The Rivoli, The Regal and The Plaza – were theatres built in the 1930s, almost coinciding with India’s first ‘talkie’ film, Alam Ara in 1931. The Plaza was designed by Robert Tor Russell. It had a two-storey foyer, velvet curtains and a heavy chandelier hanging over the hall. After his film Jhansi ki Rani (1952) bombed at the box office, director and actor Sohrab Modi, who owned Plaza at that time, sold it to businessman Jaspal Sawhney, actor Shammi Kapoor and filmmaker KK Modi. Plaza was the first cinema in the 1960s to boast of a jukebox and serve cold coffee, which at Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

n 1911, the British laid the foundation stone of New Delhi at Coronation Park. The Capital was to shift from Calcutta and they began to search for a stretch of land near Shahjahanabad where grand buildings could be built to serve as the centre of governance. In 1933, the Connaught Place (CP) was built – its Georgian architecture modelled after the Royal Crescent in Bath, England. While the latter is semi-circular and a three-storied residential structure, CP was almost circular and had only two floors – the ground floor for commercial establishments and the first floor for residential purposes. People continue to live there even today. “Initially, the place was not inhabited, and so people were invited to move in, set up shop and pay the rent later,” says Atul Bhargava, president, New Delhi Traders Association. His in-laws stayed in CP till the 1970s and his family owns a store here. Connaught Place, with its grand restaurants, Westernstyle theatres and large stores, was patronised by the British and the Indian elite. Although many other commercial districts have flourished in Delhi since then, CP’s real estate is the fifth highest-priced market in the world according to the 2013 Forbes list. Arun Backliwal, 59, who owns Indian Arts Palace in E Block, remembers that one had to be impeccably dressed when visiting CP. “I met a man from a small town who asked me, ‘Is it true that people come to CP wearing suits and ties?’ I only smiled.” Earlier, CP didn’t have its white veneer. Photographer Pavan Mehta, 55, managing partner of the photo studio Mahatta & Co, showed us a colour photograph from the ’50s when the colour of the buildings was a dull yellow. It was later changed to white in the ’60s.

SOURCE: *New Delhi’s Heritage Cinemas by Preetika Rana and Nikita Garia, The Wall Street Journal India, 29 December 2011

AUGUST 10, 2014

Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Photo: SAUMYA KHANDELWAL

icycles first made their appearance in India in 1890. Back then, the price of an imported bicycle was around `45. During World War I, the price jumped to `500 but subsequently dropped considerably to about `35 for those made in the UK and `15 or so for Japanese models**. Till the 1970s, tongas were also popular and an inexpensive mode of transport. But the bicycle finds few takers today, with Connaught Place’s inner circle crammed with cars, autorickhaws and other four-wheelers. Chemico, the chemist store in H Block, as seen in the old photo, is still there, although it only deals in ayurvedic medicine now. The owner Harry Singh is the third generation in a family of refugee businessmen. “We used to own a dry-cleaning shop in the premises that today houses the popular milkshake joint Keventers. We shifted here after the 1984 riots. The typewriter shop next door has been here since the 1950s,” adds Singh.

SAUMYA KHANDELWAL “The build-up to this shot was very interesting because the location of the old picture had us puzzled for a long time. But then Gurinder Osan [National Photo Editor, Hindustan Times] analysed the light and made an approximation that it was the middle lanes between A or B blocks. His guess was right: after searching for a bit, we found the old Chemico chemist in H block and also located Simla Dairy, as seen in the photo. While shooting the photo, we also realised that the old photograph was taken from the Outer Circle looking inwards and not the other way round.” SOURCE: **Ralson.com (Ralson India is the leading manufacturer of bicycle tyres and tubes)

AUGUST 10, 2014

INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL

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PURANA QILA AND MINTO BRIDGE Photo: GETTY IMAGES

ARUN SHARMA “I had to struggle quite a bit to get this image. The old shot is the top view of the fort. I had to take special permission to shoot this photograph. Today, there are a lot of trees and you cannot see the three cupolas that are visible in the older photograph.”

*The Painted Grey Ware culture is characterised by a style of fine, grey pottery painted with geometric patterns in black and red, dating back to the Iron Age ( 1200 to 600 BCE), according to the Encyclopaedia of Indo-European Culture edited by JP Mallory and Douglas Q Adams

AUGUST 10, 2014

Photo: ARUN SHARMA

he Purana Qila is full of fascinating little tales and anecdotes. It was built by Sher Shah Suri when he wrested Delhi from Humayun in 1540, chasing the second Mughal emperor out of the country. But not many years later, in 1955, Humayun won Delhi back and completed parts of the Purana Qila left unfinished by Sher Shah. It houses Sher Shah Suri’s famous pleasure house, which oddly enough, his successor converted into a library. It was at the stairs of this library that Humayun would slip and meet his death while running to answer the call for Azan. However, this old fort is perhaps older than these stories. Excavations have unearthed Painted Grey Ware* pottery (used around 1,000 BCE), indicating its antiquity. Mythologically, it is said to be the Pandavas’ palace of illusions. In 1913, the Purana Qila was declared a centrally protected monument by the government of India. During the Partition, the Qila turned into a refugee camp, providing shelter to refugees from Pakistan and also those who were leaving India for Pakistan. The camp emerged when nearly 12,000 government employees who opted to move to Pakistan were relocated here by the Pakistan High Commission, until

they could be transported to Pakistan. Within days, as news of people being massacred on trains bound towards the other side of the border spread, it became the largest camp – with more than 50,000 refugees. It remained in use till early 1948. The first photograph, shot in October 1947, was taken by American photographer Margaret Bourke-White. She recorded streets littered with corpses, dead victims with open eyes, and refugees with

vacant eyes. The Qila today is as much of a recreational space as it is a historical one. The Delhi Zoo, which shares a boundary with the Qila, was inaugurated in 1959. The moats of the fort are used for boating, and it houses a boating club. The complex is now also used to host cultural events such as plays and music festivals – it is also the venue of the annual South Asian Bands Festival.

SOURCE: The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia - Refugees, Boundaries, Histories by Vazira Fazila Zamindar

into Bridge (named after Lord Minto, the governor-general from 1807 to 1813), connects Connaught Place to the New Delhi railway station, on the Ajmeri Gate side. Though presumed to have been built in 1933, it’s actually a decade older. Ajay Singh, senior divisional mechanical engineer of the Railways (Delhi), told us, “The railway line on the Minto Bridge was inaugurated in December 1924 – and the bridge must have been built by then. I have seen a drawing (engineering plan) dated June 16, 1923.” Till the 1940s, the only links that New Delhi had with Old Delhi were through the Hardinge (now Tilak) and Minto Bridges. Although much water has flown down the Yamuna, but the road under the bridge continues to be water-logged during the rains even today. Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Photo: VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN

VIRENDRA SINGH GOSAIN “The old photograph was taken from the centre of the road – and so you can see straight ahead to the other side of the bridge. The fast-moving traffic here didn’t allow us to do that.” SOURCE: Bridges, Buildings and Black Beauties by Vinoo N Mathur

AUGUST 10, 2014

INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL

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KASHMERE GATE, NGMA, AIIMS he Mughal Shahjahanabad was surrounded by a high red-brick wall – with 14 gates. Kashmere Gate was the one that the royal processions used to pass through on their trips to Kashmir. The old Mughal structure no longer remains. In 1835, military engineer Robert Smith built the present structure and made it into a double archway. The gate suffered extensive damage from cannonballs and gunpowder during the revolt of 1857. After 1857, the British moved to Civil Lines, and the Kashmere Gate area became the fashionable, hip part of the city – only to make way for New Delhi in 1931. Earlier, as can be seen in the picture, traffic would pass through the arches of the gate. In fact, in 1965, a section of the gate was demolished to allow faster movement of

vehicular traffic. “The road passing through the gate was diverted in the ’70s,” said Vasant Swarnakar, superintendent archaeologist, Delhi circle, Archaeological Survey of India. Just a few years ago, in 2008, the gate was renovated. The area was made greener to provide breathing space from the congestion in the neighbourhood. The monument was also fenced and walled. In the old photograph you can also see the iconic ‘phat phat’ three-wheel taxi that gets its nomenclature from the signature Harley rumble. After World War II, Harley bikes came to India in large numbers and their engines ended up in the colourful motor-rickshaws popularly known as Phat Phat Sewa vehicles (three-wheelers). A Supreme Court ruling against pollution-causing vehicles in 1998 put an end to the ‘phat phat’ story. Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Photo: VIPIN KUMAR

VIPIN KUMAR “The first time I came here was to survey the place. I stood here trying to match the gate to the old photograph and clicked a few pictures. The next evening, I was back, trying to get the light right. But my pictures were clicked from the wrong side of the gate! On my third visit, I realised the right side of the gate was crowded and had a grill around it. I went around the grill to get the same angle but no such luck! On my fourth attempt, armed with a wider lens, I got the shot – although, admittedly, the perspective is a little distorted.”

ust a few years ago, Jaipur House or the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) was called one of the best maintained Lutyens’ buildings in New Delhi,” says Rajeev Lochan, director, NGMA, which is housed in this erstwhile palace of the Maharaja of Jaipur. It was designed by British architect Charles Blomfield. The butterfly-shaped building has two symmetrical ‘wings’ connected to the central court. The façade of this comparatively austere palace is marked by two levels of small, vertical, slit-like windows. A redstone chhajja caps the entire façade. The building has arched openings framed by Rajput columns. Jaipur House was built in 1936, as the residence for the Maharaja of Jaipur. The building was an icon of imperial New Delhi. The erstwhile princes were allotted land to build their residences – the number of gun salutes* each would receive was proportional to the land granted to them. In 1954, it was converted in to the National Gallery of Modern Art, with the objective of promoting modern art in the country and to preserve works of art from 1857 onwards. A few of the first works exhibited here include Haldi Grinders by Amrita Sher-Gill, Gloomy Radhika by MAR Chughtai and Temple Door by Gaganendranath Tagore. Today the gallery houses more than 17,000 works of art from all over the country.

1946 report by a Health Survey and Development Committee, set up by Sir Joseph Bhore, noted, “If it were possible to evaluate the loss, which this country annually suffers through the avoidable waste of valuable human material and the lowering of human efficiency through malnutrition and preventable morbidity, we feel that the result would be so startling that the whole country would be aroused and would not rest until a radical change had been brought about.” It strongly recommended the setting up of a national medical centre. And so, after Independence, in 1952, with a grant from the government of New Zealand, the foundation stone of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) was laid. It became operational in 1956. Today, it has more than 700 doctors and 2,650 beds. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan recently announced that AIIMS will now specialise in traditional medicine like ayurveda and unani as well.

ARUN SHARMA “There are so many trees now and it looks remarkably different. The only trouble was in getting permission to photograph here.”

AUGUST 10, 2014

Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Photo: ARUN SHARMA

ARUN SHARMA “NGMA is such an iconic building that I had no difficulty finding the same spot from where the old photo was shot. I only had to get on to an elevated height, on top of one of the boulders that fence the road, to click this picture. It was a simple shot to take.” *In colonial India, when the ruler of a princely state arrived at the Indian capital (originally at Calcutta, then at Delhi), he was greeted with a number of gun-firings. The number of these consecutive “gun salutes” changed from time to time

Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Photo: ARUN SHARMA

AUGUST 10, 2014

INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL

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SUPREME COURT Photo: PHOTO DIVISION, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Photo: VIPIN KUMAR

he Supreme Court of India came into being on January 28, 1950. Its original seat was the Chamber of Princes (Sansad Bhawan) in the Parliament building where the previous Federal Court of India sat from 1937 to 1950. In 1958, the Supreme Court moved to its present premises. Dr Rajendra Prasad, the first president of India, while inaugurating the new building of the Supreme Court in 1954, said, “I don’t think it will fall to the lot of any of my successors to declare open such a ‘Temple of Justice’”. This building was designed by chief architect Ganesh Bhikaji Deolalikar, the first Indian to head the Central Public Works Department. He designed it with the principle of the system of justice in mind: a pair of scales with two pans in an equilibrium. The two wings on either side represent the scales. They accommodate the offices and the records. The Chief Justice’s Court is the largest of the courts located in the middle of the Central Wing. In 1978, a bronze Mother and Child sculpture by celebrated sculptor Chintamoni Kar was installed at the court. It represents Mother India, sheltering the young Republic of India, who is upholding the law shown as a book.

VIPIN KUMAR “Like many other photographs, the green cover has increased as compared to the older picture. The building is hidden by trees. I faced a few minor problems trying to get the right angle, but I managed.”

CITY OF JOY

MAXIMUM CITY o your eyes, it may still look the same, barring the tall urban towers at the back, but to my eyes, a lot has changed,” says 82-year-old RH Mendonsa. The chairman of the opticals brand Lawrence & Mayo, which has a showroom on DN road, is also a member of the civic panel overseeing the maintenance of heritage structures in South Mumbai. The mile-long road that connects the VT area to Flora Fountain has been in existence for about 150 years and was already a busy thoroughfare in the ’40s.

he sparkling white Victoria memorial was proposed to be built in January 1901 in the memory of the death of Queen Victoria, the British monarch. Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, proposed the construction of the mausoleum in the centre of 64 acres of gardens and lawn along with a museum. The memorial was conceptualised by William Emerson, and constructed in white Makrana marble by Martin & Co. The building was opened to public in December 1921.

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

fter India’s independence, the galleries were renamed and some artifacts rearranged, but no structural alterations were made. “The change from a British perspective to an Indian national perspective is conspicuous,” says Dr. Jayanta Sengupta, secretary and curator, Victorial Memorial Hall. “The Victoria Memorial Campus was the seat of power in British Calcutta. But it has moved to become a cultural space post-independence for the Kolkata of today,” he adds. And whether it’s 2014 or the pre-Independence era, a picture with such a majestic memorial as a backdrop is breathtaking. Photo: GETTY IMAGES

Photo: VIJAYANAND GUPTA Photo: SUBHENDU GHOSH

he junction itself has changed little – the Municipal headquarters in the centre and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus station to the right (from where the India’s first ever train set off for Thane in 1853) still stand. Capitol Cinema now lies unused, but the air of bustle and business has only amplified. And over the horizon, a skyscraper city already looms large. DN Road’s buildings, built between 1885 to 1910, allowed diverse styles, but under strict design control. “It was mandatory for all buildings to be the same elevation, open westwards and have an arcade opening up over the pavement,” says Mendonsa. Today, the arcade, meant for pedestrians, has been taken over by hawkers.

MORE ON THE WEB We have more ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ photographs of Mumbai and Kolkata, but for that, you will have to log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch AUGUST 10, 2014

indulge

The Four-Way Phone War I

Four models, four great options, one decision. So which phone should you buy?

DIDN’T WANT to write this column. Not at all. In fact I had a whole different column in place. But, to ignore what became a tsunami of questions and queries would have been pretty distasteful. What am I talking about? Well, there is a bit of chest thumping and self-praise here, so bear with me as I plough ahead. Of late, each column here has led to some serious debate and interactions on Twitter and Facebook. It always happens, but of late it’s been amplified in both quantity and quality. I’m thrilled at this new level of response, but also find it impossible to handle answering all of them on a such a limited platform. Thus, when the numbers became impossible to manage and I started getting flamed in all directions for ignoring such passionate queries,

happened if John Sculley hadn’t fired Steve Jobs and the two had continued to work together in Apple? From all these phone companies that sell topspec phones at rock-bottom prices, which one would I buy? And my favourite question: how can Xiaomi sell out their entire stock of phones in five seconds? I’m going to tackle the last two questions today as the others each need a column of their own.

Rajiv Makhni

techilicious I decided to handle it right here. Thus, the other column was abandoned, and this one was slapped in.

THE INTERROGATION

Would I trust going to sleep in a driverless car hurtling down the road at 80kmph? Would I let my children go alone to school in a driverless car? What do I think would have

CLASSY LOOKS

Moto G has a classic and very Google Nexus-ish look, but is almost all plastic

XIAOMI Mi 3 v/s MOTO G v/s OBI OCTOPUS S520 v/s ASUS ZENFONE 5

Let us be clear about this. We are entering a whole new dimension in the world of mobile devices. A time where top-hardware, flagship-level phones are sold at prices that are supremely low. A time where almost anything priced over `20,000 suddenly starts to look overpriced. A time where even iPhone 5S and Galaxy S5 users are starting to ask which of the new models should be their next phone. A time where new phones priced at over `50,000 will be looked at with suspicion and the companies questioned for being greedy to still want such profit margins. And the above four are the ones that have thrown the gauntlet down. So which one is the best?

Xiaomi mi 3 v/s moTo G v/s obi ocToPus s520 v/s asus ZenFone 5

GOOD COMPETITION

The Xiaomi Mi3 can be a phone worth considering

PRICE Moto G 16GB is now available for `11,999, Asus Zenfone 5 for `12,999, Xiaomi Mi 3 for `13,999 and Obi S520 is available for `11,990

FORM FACTOR AND LOOKS None of them will win the ‘best-looking phone of the year’ and yet all of them are pretty nice looking. Moto G has a classic and a very Google Nexus-ish look, but is almost all plastic. The Obi is also almost all plastic as well but has some design flair with white accents. The Zenfone 5 has a metallic band etched with a concentric circle pattern, which gives it a premium look. The Xiaomi rounds it off with an aluminum-magnesium chassis with some plastic thrown in

No real winner here as each is fantastically priced for what they include The Zenfone 5 wins here followed by the Mi3 and the Obi

PROCESSOR The Obi leads with a 1.7GHz Octa Core, followed by the Mi 3 with its 2.3GHz Quad Core. Moto G comes in next with a 1.2GHz Quad Core and finally, the Zenfone 5 trails in with a 1.6GHz Dual Core A NEW OPTION

The Obi S520 is also all plastic but has some design flair with white accents MORE ON THE WEB For previous Tech columns, log on to hindustantimes.com/ brunch. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter. com/RajivMakhni The views expressed by the columnist are personal

While the Obi wins, do remember that it has a Mediatek chipset while the others are on Qualcomm Snapdragon and the Zen on Intel

WHO WINS?

The Mi 3 wins this one in a feature war that really matters

OPTICS Again the Xiaomi races ahead with a 13-megapixel rear camera while the Moto G brings up the rear with a 5-megapixel camera. The other two have 8-megapixel optics. Front camera is almost even on all

BATTERY The Xiaomi outguns the competition with a 3050mAh battery, which is quite amazing as it’s also the slimmest phone of the lot at 8.1mm, while the next in line is the Zenfone 5 at 2110mAh, the Moto G at 2070mAh and the Obi at 1800mAh

Xiaomi does well here and actually ends up taking some very good pictures

A critical part of the phone and the Mi3 is miles ahead

Considering the specs, euphoria and demand, it would easily be the Xiaomi Mi3. Do I second that? Well, if you are in the market looking to buy a new phone and Xiaomi strategically stops putting out controlled number of phones to create the sold-out-in-seconds hype, and Flipkart stops doing flash sales and moves to a normal booking system, then the Xiaomi Mi3 should be one of your top considerations.

AUGUST 10, 2014

THE SCREEN All of them have a 5-inch display except for the Moto G (4.5 inch). The Mi 3 is the only one with a full 1920 x1080 resolution screen. All the others have 1280x720

PREMIUM LOOK

The Zenfone 5 has a metallic band etched with a concentric pattern

SIMS Xiaomi is a single sim phone while the other three are all dual sim No winners; just one loser. In the Indian market, somehow selling a non dual-sim phone in the under 15K market is usually a problem. How much this matters to you is a point of personal preference

BUT....

But if you aren’t in a tearing hurry to buy a new phone, then patience will pay off. The next three months will see headline-making phone launches at prices that will make your heart smile. Trust me, I know. And I’d tell you, but my non-disclosure agreements force me to stop right here. Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3

indulge

Grape expectations With a whole new generation of wine drinkers wanting to know more about the drink, here are some answers to some often asked questions

Vir Sanghvi

rude drink

OW THAT the wine boom seems well and truly underway in India, I am inundated with questions about how to tell whether a wine is good, what it means to be a New World wine, whether wine goes with Indian food, and so on. I have answered at least some of these questions before. But clearly there is a whole new generation of wine drinkers that has not seen those columns. So, in response to public demand (how grand that sounds!), here are answers to some of the questions I am asked most often about wine. Can you judge a wine by its grape variety? Only upto a point. Some of the world’s best wines are made from Cabernet Sauvignon for instance. But then, so is a lot of rubbish. A grape variety is like a meat, a fowl or a fish. You can make great dishes from chicken and you

can also make terrible dishes. So, what is the point of mentioning the grape variety or ordering a wine by the name of the grape as in “I’d like a glass of Chardonnay, please?” Well, it serves as a rough guide. All chicken dishes, for instance, no matter how good or bad, will have something in common. So all Chardonnays will share some essential characteristics. But basically, it is pretty silly to demand a wine made from a particular grape without knowing which wine it actually is. The grape alone is no indication of quality. You wouldn’t go into a restaurant, not look at the menu, and say “I’ll have some chicken”. You’d want to know little bit more about the dish. So it is with wine. Why do some wine bottles make no mention of the grape variety? In essence, this is the difference between two philosophies. In the Old World (i.e. Europe, but mainly France), they incline to the view that the most important determinant of the quality of a wine is the region where it is grown. Thus French wines are not usually divided by Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon or whatever. They are labelled according to the region they come from: Bordeaux, Burgundy, Loire etc. The better the wine, the more specific the regional identification. A good Bordeaux may be labelled Médoc; an even better one could be identified by the village or town it came from, say Pauillac. In the New World (Chile, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand but mostly, America), they are content with very broad regional classifications. For them, the grapes are the important thing. What makes more sense: region or grape variety? It all depends. The French are keen on a term called terroir, which means the soil, the micro-climate etc. of the vineyard where the grapes are grown. In Burgundy for instance, they laugh at you for emphasising that their red wines are mostly Pinot Noir, while the whites are Chardonnay. They treat the grapes as no more than a way to express the characteristics of the terroir. This sounds like pretentious twaddle until you taste the wines. With the same grape variety and roughly the same wine-making methods, the wines of Burgundy can vary dramatically every five miles or so. Chablis and Meursault, for instance both use Chardonnay and are only a short drive from each other, and yet, the wines are completely different. On the other hand, American wine makers have proved that even if they use grapes that they have outsourced from other farmers, they can make outstanding wines that often beat French wines at blind tastings. Americans, therefore, sometimes call the French terroirists! So there are no hard and fast rules.

Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK

Is a chateau bottled wine necessarily a good one? No. The term is meaningless. You can build a farmhouse in Gurgaon and make your own wine and call it Chateaux Tollfree. Nobody will object. And the name is no guarantee of quality. The whole chateaux-culture comes from Bordeaux where the best vineyards had châteaux attached to them from which they took their names. In 1855, the wines of one half of Bordeaux were classified according to price and ranked as First Growths, Second Growths etc. The term was not meant to refer to quality (which was subjective) but to price. Today, the First Growths are all outstanding (and hugely expensive) but the rest of the classification is outdated. Some Second Growths are as good as First Growths and some deserve to be ranked much lower on current form. But even crap Bordeaux wine now takes on the names of unknown chateaux in the hope of fooling the gullible. I have heard wines described as having ‘90 points’ or even as ‘100 points’. What does this mean? The point system was popularised by the massively influential wine writer Robert Parker who ranked wines on the subjective impressions of his own palate using the American school marking system, where you get 50 out of 100 for just showing up. Parker’s scores are still the most important factor in determining the prices of some wines and the Wine Spectator magazine comes second, with a similar marking system. These scores reflect Parker’s (with the Wine Spectator following his lead) own preference for concentrated wines in the California mould. Elegance is not a virtue he seems to prize, which is why he has no influence in say, Burgundy. If a wine has got more than 95 from Parker, it is usually very good. But many excellent wines that do not appeal to the great man’s palate get lower scores. So do not take the point system too seriously, unless you love wines that are overpowering fruit bombs. Is Indian wine worth drinking? Yes. Some of it is very good. I drink the Fratelli Sette red wine at home all the time. The sparkling Chenin Blanc made by Moët in Maharashtra and called Chandon is also very drinkable. But there is a lot of poor quality stuff out there as well so tread carefully. Why can’t we make Champagne in India? It depends on what you call Champagne. The French insist that only a sparkling wine made in the Champagne region can be called Champagne. But lots of people (including the French!) make perfectly good sparkling wine in other countries: America, Australia, and even India, using the same method though not necessarily the same grapes. In fact 90 per cent of the world’s sparkling wine comes from outside Champagne.

What is a Super Tuscan and why is it such a big deal? No, a Super Tuscan is not an Italian super hero who delivers pizza. Super Tuscans are Italian wines that use nontraditional (i.e. usually French) grapes to make Frenchstyle wines that are alien to their own tradition. Some Super Tuscans are wonderful but the wheel has turned full circle, with Italians now focussing on traditional grape varieties, and traditional wines. Why is wine so expensive? Well it can’t cost the same as Coke, making wine is a long and complex process. But many Indian hotels overprice their wines. They import them duty free and do not always pass on the savings to guests. When they pour the wine for me to taste, is it okay to send it back if I don’t like it? No. It is not. You are only being asked to check if the wine is spoiled. In the West, the ritual is meaningless because at good restaurants, wine is properly stored and often, the sommelier has tasted it before bringing it to the table to check that it is oaky. In the 1960s, at the New York restaurant Le Pavillion, whenever some vulgarian sent back a perfectly good bottle of wine, the owner Henri Soule, the sommelier and the maitre’d would embarrass him by gathering around his table, trying the wine and declaring that it was perfect: “But if Monsieur is not happy, we will change it...” In India, many many white wines (Burgundy in particular) are sold in poor condition by importers. I’ve had more spoilt bottles here than anywhere else in the world. Worse still, most sommeliers here either can’t or won’t tell the difference between a wine that is spoilt or one in good condition. So, if you really think the wine tastes off – and are not just trying to impress your girlfriend – then send it back. That is your right as a customer.

The whole chateauxculture comes from Bordeaux where the best vineyards had châteaux attached to them from which they took their names

MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Vir Sanghvi, log on to hindustantimes. com/brunch The views expressed by the columnist are personal

indulge Could there be anything more annoying in the world than full-on perfection?

Photos: SHUTTERSTOCK

Picture Perfect

O ON, admit it. Isn’t there something just a tad annoying about perfection? Okay, make that very annoying indeed. You know what I mean, don’t you? All those pictureperfect images of celebrities in the media, without a hair out of place. The slickly designed homes that feature in style magazines, colour-coordinated till the sofa springs squeak. Those food shows that serve up glossy, glammed-up food, on gleaming crockery, to equally gleaming people. Well, whatever you may think about it, I have to confess that I am fed up with being fed these images of perfection day in and day out. If anything, these tableaux of perfection make me long for a world which is a bit messed up, a tiny bit ragged around the edges, or even just plain old ugly. It’s not just the media, of course. It’s also real life. And of course, some people, who are so darned perfect that the

Seema Goswami

spectator PERFECT 10

How does Angelina Jolie, who in addition to looking as glamorous as ever, manage to pull off the Earth Mother routine as well, dragging along all six of her children for the perfect photo opportunity?

only response to their po-faced perfection is to punch them in the face (not that I actually do that, but consider yourselves warned). I have a sneaking suspicion that some of them are just playing the part and are secretly as flawed and imperfect as the rest of us. But true to form, they play the part so perfectly that they have the rest of us convinced – and bloody annoyed. Or is that just me? Well, for what it is worth, here is a ready reckoner of all the things that I, in all my glorious imperfections, find very, very annoying indeed. ■ Those people who decorate their houses in shades of beige, taupe, ivory, cream, or even stark white, and then manage to keep them looking pristine for years. Don’t these people have kids? Or even guests? Don’t they themselves eat dinner, drink red wine, or sneak in a quick ice-cream late at night? And if they do, how come their décor remains spill-free and immaculate? Do they secretly execute renovations in the dead of night so that the rest of us don’t know what they are up to? I think the world deserves to know the truth about this Beige Brigade. ■ Perfect moms who send their kids to school with perfectly ironed uniforms, perfectly brushed hair, and with tiffins that contain only organic, free-range, thingummy jigs, with not a trace of added sug-

ar. You know the ones I mean, don’t you? The kind of mums who treat your kid like a terrorist because he or she is packing a cupcake in his/her goody bag. And who send a long list of instructions of what their child can or cannot eat if you ever invite him or her over for a play date (even as you mutter “never again” to yourself under your breath). ■ Talking of kids, don’t you hate those smug parents whose kids never put a foot wrong? These perfectly reared monsters never have a meltdown in a supermarket aisle, never smear chocolate on other people’s furniture or clothes, and never ever run around terrorising hapless diners in fancy restaurants. Oh no, they listen to Mummy and Daddy all the time, obey all instructions, say ‘thank you’ and ‘please’ without being prompted, and generally do all they can to make other children (and their parents) feel totally and utterly inadequate. ■ The folks who can wear linen or starched cotton the whole day long without ever throwing up a single crease (if you don’t count the ones they had achieved by the efficient press of an iron). How do they do it? Do they never sit down all day long? Or do they carry discreet little travel irons around in their handbags to affect repairs as and when needed? The mind truly boggles! ■ Those people with iron self-control who never cheat on their diets, not even if a three-star Michelin chef is in the kitchen. They stick with cheerless severity to their lettuce salad (hold the dressing), poached fish with steamed vegetables on the side, and a fruit platter for dessert. These are those ‘virtuous’ creatures who are never tempted by a plate of French fries, a gooey chocolate desert, or a juicy hamburger with cheese and bacon, and then look down from the moral high ground of their dietary superiority on the rest of us mere mortals. What’s not to loathe? ■ And last of all, there is a special place in hell reserved for people who manage to get off long-haul flights looking as good (if not better) as when they got on. I can just about forgive the Duchess of Cambridge, aka Kate Middleton, who has a hairdresser, ladyin-waiting and God alone knows who else, travelling with her to ensure that the future Queen of England never steps off a plane looking less than immaculate. But what do you make of the likes of Victoria Beckam and Jemima Khan, who stroll through airports with bouncy hair and immaculate make-up even after a 12hour flight. Or, for that matter, Angelina Jolie, who in addition to looking as glamorous as ever, manages to pull off the Earth Mother routine as well, dragging along all six of her children for the perfect photo opportunity. What is wrong with these women? And why doesn’t static strike them like it does the rest of us? Honestly, there really is no justice in this world!

There are mums who treat your kids like terrorists because they pack cupcakes in their bags

Photo: GETTY IMAGES

AUGUST 10, 2014

MORE ON THE WEB For more SPECTATOR columns by Seema Goswami, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami. Write to her at seema_ ht@rediffmail.com The views expressed by the columnist are personal

PERSONAL AGENDA

twitter.com/HTBrunch

Politician/ actress

Gul Panag

HOMETOWN SCHOOL/COLLEGE BIRTHDAY SUN SIGN PLACE OF BIRTH Chandigarh Capricorn I have changed 14 schools, many Kendriya January 3 Chandigarh

FIRST BREAK HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE Dhoop (2003)

Contesting the elections from my hometown

Vidyalayas; Government College for Girls, Patiala; Panjab University, Chandigarh

LOW POINT OF YOUR LIFE

I never look at anything as a low point

my movies

THE MOST PAISA VASOOL FILM.

A FILM THAT WAS A PART OF YOUR CHILDHOOD.

THE FIRST FILM YOU SAW ON THE BIG SCREEN.

Snatch (2000)

Seeta Aur Geeta (1972)

Godzilla (2014)

Earthquake (1974)

Building AAP’s party structure in Chandigarh, acting, producing and writing

The best part about being an army kid. yourself correctly. The sense of patriotism, We know you are an avid reader. How many the chance to travel, being books do you read in a year? disciplined and the opportunity I have a habit of reading two or three to serve the nation before the books simultaneously. I have one in self. my car, one on my bedside and one You have been a national-level in my hand. debater. What is your secret A book that changed your life. weapon to win arguments? George Orwell’s Animal Farm You have to acknowledge because it explains, very simply, how both sides in an societies really function. argument, but put While growing up, were the your side across AN ADVENTURE boys who liked you afraid of more articulately your father? SPORT YOU than your much to my dismay! HAVEN’T TRIED Yes, opponent. And do An actor who secretly does a YET your research. lot of social work. One thing no one knows Salman Khan, I hear. about beauty pageants. An actor who would make a When done well, great politician. they celebrate a Aamir Khan. woman, give her The most romantic place your a platform to be husband has flown you to. recognised and Leh. contribute to society Your fondest memory while in any way she chooses. hiking in the Himalayas. How did you get into politics? I recently went to Lahaul I’ve always had an active valley in my customised Photo: THINKSTOCK social conscience and have Mahindra Getaway. With been vocal about many issues. Like its roof-top tent, we set up base everybody else, I too wanted an wherever we wanted. atmosphere of clean One change you’d like in India. politics and thought Equal opportunity for all, irrespective that the time to step of gender, caste, or religion. up was right. The most powerful line from your election You are a Twitter star. How speech. can politicians use I’d like to think every line was Twitter better? powerful. Social media is where An issue that angers you. private can turn public. Corruption and patriarchy. It is important to strike the right balance and — Interviewed by work on positioning Apekshita Varshney

. Skydiving

A FILM YOU HAVE SEEN MORE THAN FIVE TIMES.

CURRENTLY I AM...