Hindustantimes Brunch 13th November 2011

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, NOVEMBER 13, 2011 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

Information overload.

Overwork. Media saturation.

Too many things to do. Not enough time. The casualty: your ability to concentrate.

A short attention span is the 'lifestyle flu' of our times

1 3 . 1 1 . 1 1

I N

➠

that again

ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Short Attention Span Syndrome. Or the ‘lifestyle flu’ of our times. We give you a lowdown on the condition in short, bite-sized morsels for the easily distracted reader. Oh, gotta rush now, we have other pages to look at in the magazine!

HIGH NOTES

We’re Logged On

Sand Tunes To Bluesy Charm

facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch

The Thar and Sahara desert are more similar than you ever thought.

Especially when it comes to their music

Samaresh Bhabak HT Brunch is a wonderful collection of daily needs.It covers all the daily activities,from eating to entertainment

Chhavi Arya The fantasy of foldable screens is really fantastic. It would be a boon when we actually lay our hands on these futuristic devices.

Pritika Joy I hope u guys come up with an article on “Ways to control anger”.As we can see most people getting angry for minor reasons.... which in turn lead to many lifestyle diseases.

Dessert Island

I have to concede that most of our chefs don’t bother too much with desserts PLAY

10 Tech Upgrades That Will Change Your Life

If you’re on the fence about any one of these, then you’re missing out LISTEN

In A League Of Its Own

Give Wilco a spin if you’re in the mood for some individualistic sound LIVE

What’s The Good Word?

Let’s not trivialise sexual harassment by coyly calling it ‘eve-teasing’ PERSONAL AGENDA

Part One – Thomas Coryate The Fakir of Ajmer

In the 17th century, a penniless English traveller began a love affair with Ajmer. He stayed on for months and became one with the country Next Week: The story of Augustin Hunarmand, the Jeweller of Agra WELLNESS

Check Please!

The ‘sweet’ disease diabetes is preventable – just monitor yourself

BRUNCH ON THE WEB

All New

Questions!

Palash Sen

The singer comes clean about his jeans obsession, his darkest fantasy and why Salman Khan is overrated!

hindustantimes.com/brunch Vidya’s Four Sizzling Avatars!

twitter.com/HTBrunch

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES!

If our cover girl oozes seductive charm on the latest cover of Brunch Quarterly then inside’s even hotter. Log in to see Vidya channel Bollywood’s sexiest, most iconic vamps – Bindu, Helen and Nadira! Get a glimpse of our sensational cover shoot.

Plus, never-seen-before behind the scenes coverage! Don’t miss!

@twitprep Seema Goswami has a tone almost mocking the poor guys who make it big in ‘From Rags to Riches’. Easy gal.! @SaurabhSatyush @minimathur @MariaGorettiz super hilarious!!! and you both luking really cute in ur dresses!! @karishmau Having worked with Broacha, I know that anything he is involved with will be fun. And a whole lot of crazy :D @BHAGWANDAS52 Thank you HT Brunch for featuring Photographer/Filmmaker Aradhana Seth made interesting and enjoyable reading

Add some sizzle to your phone: Get Vidya RIGHT NOW! Simply scan the QR code alongside with your smartphone to instantly get a copy of the Brunch Quarterly cover. If you don’t have a scanning app installed, we recommend ‘Barcode Scanner’ available both in the iTunes App Store for iPhone users and the Android Market for Android users.

And an all-access pass to your favourite stories from this and previous Brunch issues. Log on!

Write to brunchletters@hindustantimes.com For marketing and ad-related queries, contact Suresh Tripathi 09818899646

4

EAT

Special 5 Part Series: Tales of The First Firangis

Calling All Tweeple

@awesm4 There’s no Khan-Test.... loved reading specially last lines of the article!!

I S S U E

INDULGE

What was

Anami Saggar Its my habit to read brunch I wish I could read it daily. The cover story had a nice topic and I liked it the vampire article was fab I liked the pictures and matter in it the travel part had a great knowledge about prague I wish I could get a chance to visit it. though I had a nice journey through Brunch. In all I loved the magzine.

T H I S

FEED BACK Men, manly men

THIS REFERS to your cover story What’s Wrong With Indian Men (November 6). It was interesting to read the male and female point of view on Indian men. Cyrus Broacha in pursuit of promoting his new book has de-constructed the myth of Indian men. If Indian men are highly egoistic and chauvinistic, Indian women are highly ambitious and selfish. There is something wrong with our basic values. Boys are treated differently when compared to girls right from their birth and carry the burden of misplaced superiority. Women are treated with a bias even by their own families and parents. Indian men need to break free from the whims and fancies of ‘super man’ and start treating their wives and daughters with the same respect they give to their fathers and sons. Indian men also need to understand that women are called ‘better halves’ and the ‘fair’ sex because they have compassion, perseverance, tolerance, love and care in abundance. It’s time for Indian men to grow, literally.

— ASHOK GOSWAMI, Mumbai MARRIAGES ARE made in heaven – that’s true. As bachelors, men enjoy their life to the fullest but once they get married their movements become restricted. Infatuation is common with both men and women. But men play safe while women flirt heavily and even pay a heavy price for it. Light flirting is all fine but one should not cross the limit.

— CK SUBRAMANIAM, Mumbai

Folding future

IN RELATION to Rajiv Makhni’s tech column (Techilicious, November 6), most people avoid buying gadgets in large screen sizes due to portability concerns. If the gadgets start incorporating Makhni’s innovative idea with flexible screens that can be folded, then production of large screen gadgets will certainly increase and people will start buying more of them.

— RICHA CHHABRA, via email

OOPS!

In the cover story last week, the publishers of Cyrus Broacha’s book ‘The Average Indian Male’ were incorrectly identified as Harper Collins. The book is published by Random House.

EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Kushalrani Gulab (Deputy Editor); DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor Design), Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna Swati Chakrabarti, Rakesh Kumar, Ashish Singh, Tewari, Pranav Dixit, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf Saket Misra, Suhas Kale, Shailendra Mirgal

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Cover design: Malay Karmakar

High Notes

PHOTOS: ANKUR MALHOTRA

SAND TUNES to bluesy

charm

The winds of the Sahara will blow towards the Thar as musicians from both deserts promise to raise a sandstorm at an upcoming festival

by Yashica Dutt

B

“

EING BORN in the desert has its set of obvious challenges. The heat will dare the epidermis to tear off any instant.

And while cool nights and zero humidity are offered as a solace, nothing can make up for the hot sun the way desert music, imbued with the unique flavour of loose sand, can. And if two such distinct music traditions, from the two different yet equally beautiful deserts of the Thar and Sahara, come together, then the result has to be magical. And that’s the sorcery that the Desert Festival, to be held in Delhi on November 26-27, promises. Organised by the Amarrass Society for Performing Arts, the peo-

,,

Desert music is the music of a vast expanse, of open spaces. The music is meant to diffuse out far and wide and to float on the open air and across the sand dunes 6

VIEUX FARKA TOURÉ Malian musician

HOOCHIE COOCHIE MAN Vieux Farka Touré (above) plays a jazzinspired style of Malian blues with rock influences; Toure (second from right) in concert

HENDRIX OF THE SAHARA

ple behind the spellbinding Manganiyar Seduction concert held in the Capital last year (and presented by HT Brunch), this festival brings back the Manganiyars – but this time with musicians from Mali. Indian audiences will get to see the electrifying singer-guitarist Vieux Farka Touré (son of legendary performer Ali Farka Touré) and Mamadou Diabate, a 71st generation kora player from Mali, one of the finest exponents of this versatile and melodious Malian instrument.

Son of the legendary, Grammy-winning guitar player Ali Farka Touré, Vieux Farka Touré easily slipped into his late father’s shoes even as he created a sound that was distinctly his own. A celebrated guitarist from Africa, this Malian performer also earned accolades for his performance at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa last year. He is now coming to India on his maiden tour and will be headlining the Amarrass Desert Festival in Delhi.

MANGANIYAR MAGIC

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION

Last year’s Manganiyar Seduction was directed by contemporary Indian theatre director Roysten Abel, and featured over 40 Rajasthani folk musicians. But this year is going to be different. “That was a Sufi musical. This year, the focus will be on individual performances and fusion of traditional music from Mali and India,” says Ankur Malhotra, one of the founders of Amarrass.

And one of the most delicious possibilities is that the two sets of musicians will jam with each other to create live fusion on stage. Adding the cherry to the cake is the fact that they won’t even meet before the performance!

Vieux Farka Touré, often dubbed as the Jimi Hendrix of the Sahara (he gave a successful performance at the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa last year), is especially

Traditionally, a community of Muslim court musicians from Rajasthan, their powerful renditions of Sufi and Hindustani classical music have been heard everywhere, from Persia to Punjab, for centuries.

delighted by that. “This is how I like it! I love music that is totally spontaneous – totally improvised. There is a unique magic in that. It will be music that can only be created in one place at one time, never to be recreated. That is genius!” he told us in an email interview.

Loosely categorised into the heavily flourishing genre of World Music, which is characterised by its raw, untamed sound, Vieux plays a style of

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

“ ,, “ ,, “ ,, Last time many kids with their mobile phone cameras came to talk after the show. It felt good LAKHA KHAN Sarangi player

about it,” said Vieux in an interview to the Indian edition of Rolling Stone magazine. Though, with us, he was candid enough to admit that he wasn’t too familiar with the Manganiyar folk tradition. “I have heard music from India – many different kinds – but I have not been educated about what kind of music is from where in India. I know India and its cultures are very vast. I am really looking forward to discovering more about them.”

GRAB THE SAND HERE

What: The Amarrass Desert Music Festival When: 26-27 November 2011, 5 pm Where: Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi How: Donor invites available at all Fabindia outlets in Delhi and NCR. Contact: www.amarrass.com. Or call 011-46661200 Vieux Farka Touré will also be performing at Blue Frog, Mumbai, on November 29.

MANGEY KHAN Dholak player

The African musician(Vieux) is also khandani like us, so we are looking forward to playing with him

SAME BUT DIFFERENT

jazz-inspired Malian blues with influences of rock. It is an improvisation of the sound which was perfected by his Grammy-award winning father, the late Ali Farka Touré.

Born in a family of soldiers in a small town, Niafunké, Vieux’s father – surprisingly – never wanted him to follow in his footsteps. But for the young Touré, that was not to be. “Music has always been in my heart. I do not know who I am without my music. So there was no denying my destiny for me. With my father’s approval or without it, music would always be my path. I am glad though that he recognised this and gave me his blessings before he passed away. It gives me assurance and a pure heart in pursuing my destiny,” he wrote.

The recent release of his third album The Secret has Vieux collaborating with the rock group Dave Matthews Band for a track titled All the Same with a distinct sitar sound.

“I used a sitar-guitar on the track. I really like the sound of that instrument.

While in India, I would like to learn more

The sense of similarity between Indian and Malian cultures is hard to miss, especially when Ashutosh Sharma, one of the co-founders of Amarrass, points it out to us. “Feudal structures in the Sahara and the Thar had a role to play in nurturing the musical tradition. Mali’s most celebrated king, Mansa Musa, never travelled anywhere without his musicians. In Rajasthan, Rajput princes and patrons couldn’t do without the Manganiyars or the Langas for their ceremonies and celebrations.”

After the Manganiyar Seduction last year, the Amarrass team spent time doing live recordings all over Rajasthan. Recording artists such as the national award-winning Sindhi sarangi maestro, Lakha Khan, Nihal Khan – a blind and powerfully talented singer – and the late Rukma Bai, one of the few female Manganiyar singers, they are now ready with two new albums: Mitha Bol (sweet verse) and Banko Ghodo (brave horse). It was during these recordings that they came up with the idea of bringing musicians from the Thar and Sahara together.

“Desert music from Africa and India have a lot in common. They are both born out of rich and vibrant traditions that are experiencing a modern revival through the talent of dedicated musicians,” says Ravneet Kler, one of the founders of Amarrass. “So we thought, why not hear them together? After months of planning, many phone calls and exchanges of emails, we are ready with the festival,” he adds.

“

,,

It’s God’s grace that I sing well. When I was young, I used to hear all these instruments around me and learnt to play the harmonium very easily

8

This is my first show in Delhi. We are artists after all and it is nice if someone promotes us

NIHAL KHAN Visually impaired Manganiyar singer

RAIS KHAN Morchang player

ALL FOR HOME

Still thriving as a society of musicians, though other jobs like hired driving, are being explored, the Manganiyars have a deep sense of community and want nothing more than their music to benefit everyone. Dara Khan, son of the legendary Lakha Khan, tells us over a dim line from Jodhpur district in Rajashtan that things have started turning around in the past few years.

“People are coming back to music. Even other communities notice this and respect us more. It’s a positive sign for everyone,” he says.

And Vieux Farka Touré thinks the same about his home town. “I always carry Niafunké in my heart when I am travelling and playing music. I want for my success to also be the success of Niafunké, and when I have resources, I am keen to share them with the people of Niafunké. If the Manganiyars share this sentiment for their people, then we will connect very easily,” he said.

Explaining the unique sounds of the desert he wrote. “Desert music is music of a vast expanse, of open spaces. The music is meant to diffuse out far and wide and to float on the open air and across the sand dunes. So it must be very open and cyclical to be in tune with the pulse of the desert.”

And lastly when we couldn’t resist but ask his expectations from the concert in Delhi, he jibed.

“I expect to take the Indian audience to the moon! Ha ha.(sic) Seriously, I do not know what to expect, and that is what makes it so fun. That is what makes live music so special and irreplaceable. One never knows!”

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

yashica.dutt@hindustantimes.com

Variety Angry that no one reacted to your new profile pic? Don’t get trapped into basing your self-worth on online approval

by Amrah Ashraf

‘Like’ me please!

G

UNJAN ARORA, a Delhi-based primary school teacher, is surrounded by close friends with grave looks on their faces.

She looks uneasy and defensive. It looks like an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting, but is actually an intervention popularised by famous sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Gunjan is guilty of being addicted to uploading pictures on Facebook and Picasa. The situation is so grave that she wakes up in the middle of the night to upload new pictures and check comments on her older ones. Every new dress, dinner, or even a visit to a doctor, is documented on her Facebook page in pictures. After updating her status, she pings her friends to like it.

Each picture, colour corrected and photoshopped, needs at least five comments for her to feel content or she feels restless. How did things get so bad?

She doesn’t know. Her friends have decided to intervene and make her realise that she is basing her self-worth on the comments and likes of her friends, and in that process compromising on her self-esteem. Sadly, Gunjan uploaded pictures of the intervention too!

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

This problem is not limited to Gunjan alone. There are many youngsters out there battling with ‘Facebook validation syndrome.’ They spend a large portion of their day uploading pictures on various sites and regularly updating their status messages.

The fact that they compare their lives with that of others based on who went out partying more and the number of new friends others have, make it obvious that the need for validation is constant.

Lack of real friends and conversations induces a sense of alienation and more and more people are falling prey to this problem. Interestingly, you are considered ‘cool’ and your life ‘happening’ if you upload more pictures and if your life looks like it’s going places virtually.

“I feel that since most youngsters are living in virtual reality, they don’t have too many friends in real life. Obviously they feel a vacuum inside and base their lives on the acceptance of their virtual friends. You always want to be a part of a group; you want to belong somewhere and therefore you wear a mask online to look and sound like your peers so that they accept you,” says U Vindhya, professor, psychology department, TISS, Mumbai.

In fact, if you Google ‘Why people post pictures on Facebook’, you get 1,010,000,000 results. So, we’re not the only ones thinking about this, are we!

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

THEY DO IT TOO! Recently, DEMI MOORE posted her nude picture on Twitter. Are we supposed to love your new skinny frame Ms Moore?

LENNY KRAVITZ (right) tweeted a picture of his nude rear. Salvaging his career, maybe!

COURTNEY LOVE is quite infamous for posting scandalous pictures on Twitter and seeking comments from her followers.

How can we forget LINDSAY LOHAN’S (right) numerous nude attempts to grab attention on social networking sites.

Desperation, we say!

agenda but what happens if the response if negative? It is almost catastrophic. “We were out for dinner when a friend of mine realised that some of her friends had written nasty things about her new display picture. Not only did she refuse to eat anything, she picked a fight with them online and ruined dinner for all of us,” says Robin Raju, a Mumbai-based PR professional.

IT’S NOT JUST A WOMAN THING

A recent study from the University of Buffalo in the US stated that women who post a lot of pictures on Facebook base their self-worth on appearance and crave approval. It went on to receive a lot of flak for being insensitive towards women, but one couldn’t help but accept that most social activity on the Net does have a lot to do with self-worth. Adding to this study, many psychologists feel that it is definitely not just a woman thing. Men are equally active and concerned about how they come across on the Internet.

“It is utter rubbish to assume that only women are concerned about their social identity on the Internet. I feel men are equally concerned about it.

It is preposterous to assume that women are vain and men are not. Whether it is about self-worth or not, that is debatable, but men and women are equally active on social networking sites and love to change their profile pictures to look better in the eyes of the others,” says Farzana, a Mumbai-based psychologist.

Earlier, a dinner with friends or a movie with a loved one was all about spending quality time with each other. People chatted about their lives and of course pictures were taken for memories, but today the situation is almost bizarre. Even when one is out with a loved one having a cozy dinner, one is always wondering whether they should tweet a pictures of that perfect lobster or BBM friends about the party tomorrow.

“Once a friend of mine tweeted about his plans of

proposing to his girlfriend at dinner that night and completely forgot that she was following him.

Obviously she got to know and was really angry with him for publicising their private moment but we couldn’t stop laughing about it. Show off!” says Shaleen Singh, a BPO employee.

People tinker away on their cellphones either uploading pictures on Facebook, commenting or waiting restlessly for comments. It is easy to spot the restless eye constantly looking at the cellphone to see if people have responded to his ‘awesome’ twitpic. “It is very disturbing to see people like that.

The constant need for approval and validation from friends and peers is alarming. I see so many girls and boys with a cellphone in their hands, glancing repeatedly at it,” adds U Vindhya.

Getting a response may be quite high on their

10

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

DIGITAL OVERSHARE

THE WAY OUT

Psychologists feel that people need to start living their lives outside the “realms of social networking.” No one’s asking you to stop posting pictures or relinquishing your online identity, but one needs to draw a line somewhere. Twitter on they say but don’t let the bird dictate terms to you. Don’t lose your identity in the ping-post, update-upload shenanigans of social networking sites.

amrah.ashraf@hindustantimes.com

?

COVER STORY

What was that again

Call it what you want. ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Short Attention Span Syndrome. Or the ‘lifestyle flu’ of our times. Here’s a lowdown on the condition in short, bite-sized morsels for the easily distracted reader. Oh, gotta rush now, we have other pages to look at in the magazine

FAMILIAR?

Do these words and phrases resonate with you? ◗ RESTLESS, IMPATIENT ◗ CHANNEL SURFING ◗ ANXIETY ◗ DIFFICULTY GETTING THINGS DONE ON TIME ◗ UNFINISHED TASKS ◗ INFORMATION OVERLOAD ◗ MEDIA SATURATION ◗ COFFEE ADDICTION ◗ EASILY BORED ◗ EASILY DISTRACTED ◗ DISORGANISED ◗ CHRONICALLY LATE ◗ STRESSED ◗ FRUSTRATION

If even half of them did, you may be the victim of short attention span syndrome / attention deficit syndrome, often called the yuppie flu / lifestyle flu of our times

BY THE WAY… DON’T CONFUSE THIS WITH THE REAL McCOY

Don’t confuse the ‘short attention span syndrome’ with ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder which is a problem that affects children of school-going age.

Experts agree that the signs (inattentiveness, over-activity, impulsiveness) seem the same but in adults it usually isn’t a disorder of a clinical nature.

“Rather, it could be termed as a lifestyle crisis. With so much and more to do in a limited span of time and the number of tasks increasing fast, it is becoming nearly impossible for people to hold their attention on a single thing for more than a few minutes,” says Dr Kersi Chavda, consultant psychologist, Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai.

The cure? Not medicines. Just learn to be calm and try and go slow.

WHY?HOW?

Consultant psychologist at Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, Dr Kersi Chavda says that ‘attention deficit syndrome’ has more than just the obvious causes. “Overload of everything – technology, stress, work etc – is just one of the reasons,” he says. Check these out:

TOO MUCH INTRUSION IN ONE’S PRIVATE SPACE From the Internet to TV to films to social networking in the real and virtual worlds to workload – there isn’t enough time for everything. Everything has to be compressed into tiny capsules, because anything longer than a tiny capsule is beyond our short (and steadily shortening further) attention spans.

A RESTLESS TEMPERAMENT An anxious, nervous temperament can be a big cause of attention problems. With more than one thing to do, many people are constantly anxious about finishing the work on time and getting on to other tasks, resulting in them not being able to focus on anything.

GENERAL TIREDNESS AND FATIGUE Because we have so many things to do, we tend to overlook our stress levels and continue exerting ourselves. That fatigue often manifests itself as an inability to concentrate.

NO SLEEP OR TOO MUCH OF IT Either way, your attention span could go for a toss. While it may feel good to say that you can do with just a few hours of sleep, what it actually means is that your temperament is borderline hyperactive, which is not really a good thing. Hard as it seems, you must have a calm mindset to go about your work properly, say experts. Similarly, too much sleep is unhealthy, making you lethargic. Ideally: a six to eight hour sleep ritual is what you should stick to.

NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES Lack of a nutritious diet, say experts, is a primary reason for lack of concentration. While small meals every two hours is a great concept, experts say that these can’t substitute the three meals-aday ritual. Psychologist Dr Seema Hingorrany says a proper breakfast with cereals, fruits etc., is a must, as is a proper lunch and dinner. “You must have green vegetables, fruits and dairy products such as milk, curd, paneer etc. Have coconut water, but you can’t make it a meal,” she adds.

LACK OF SUPPORT STRUCTURES According to Dr Seema Hingorrany, this could be due to disintegration of joint families or just our growing individualistic mindsets. “We are left with no or minimum support structures and need to do everything on our own. From buying groceries to catering to kids and our spouse to giving 100 per cent in office, the responsibility is solely on the individual,” says Hingorrany.

TOO HOOKED TO TAKE A BREAK Most of us don’t know when to switch off. It is necessary to take that 30 minutes and walk in the fresh air. “Shut off your phone, Facebook, Twitter, all your connections with the world and find a few minutes to be with yourself. You will be able to come back with much better focus,” says Hingorrany.

WHEN YOU CAN'T CONCENTRATE AT WORK

SOUNDS

➤ HR consultant Mayuri Mistry says that at training sessions, many executives complain of work stress caused by endless distractions. They are invited for meetings by bosses, tea and smoke breaks by colleagues and bosses, plus all manner of people drop by for a chat. This

results in work spilling over to beyond office hours.

➤ HER ADVICE: Learn to say no politely, and let colleagues know that you mean it.

Problem area number two is when multiple tasks are assigned, and office workers

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

SO WHAT’S WRONG WITH MULTI-TASKING? It’s important for us to realise that we have been multi-tasking for a while now. After all, working women juggle multiple responsibilities of childcare, home care and work tasks. So it’s not multi-tasking that is the problem – it’s the fact that we multi-task frequently in a state of panic, rushing around doing things in a haphazard manner. If our mind is calm, we can actually multi-task in an efficient manner.

SOLUTION: Tried and tested yoga and meditation go a long way in calming the mind. If you can’t manage this, spend some time with yourself, while commuting by bus or train, for instance.

Don’t read or listen to music, just stare into space. Initially, you will find thoughts crowding your mind – but eventually, you will find your mind calming down.

That’s what sociologist and corporate trainer Dr Anonna Guha, Nrityanjali Education and Management Services, advises

are not able to prioritise tasks, causing them a great deal of stress.

➤ HER ADVICE: It’s simple.

Make a to-do list in terms of priorities and stick to it. Finish one task and move to the next one.

QUICK READS Quick and easy reads cater to the mass market audience.

Also for people on the go and for frequent travellers Packaging content in an attractive format is important.

Real life example: Here’s Kapish Mehra, MD, Rupa Books’ take on shortened reading habits: “There is no denying the fact that the attention span of readers has gone down and publishing houses need to offer better and more attractive

options to keep them hooked.

Several authors like Chetan Bhagat, Ravi Subramanium, among others, are writing these quick read options. Even short stories written in a crisp manner are appealing.”

ZZZ

Z…

THREE HOUR FILMS? If we are so rushed, we have to see shorter films, don’t we?

Today even films are seldom over two hours and almost never three hours.

Real life example: Says director Raj Kumar Gupta who made the 100-minute Aamir and then 120-minute No One Killed Jessica (both did very well), “When the total time that one allots for entertainment is perhaps three to four hours on a single day of the week, then people want to pack in everything – movie watching, dinner, shopping etc – in those fews hours. No one has the time to waste three hours on a film.”

Even in a short film, if there is a boring song or sequence, half the audience will be on their cellphones, checking mail or sending SMSes. “You have to catch their attention and keep it with you for as long as possible. And that is becoming increasingly difficult. Why else do you think the trend of ‘no interval films?’” laughs Vikas Behl, director of Chillar Party.

THE MCDONALDISATION OF NEWS Rajdeep Sardesai, editor-inchief, CNN IBN, feels news has become ‘McDonald-ised.’

“A lot of viewers now want news served to them as fast food. And that’s why the concept of bullet news where you package top 20 or 50 stories in five minutes. The target audience wants the news shorter, crisper and perfectly capsuled,” he says. Sardesai feels the essential reason for this is the lack of time, and the disinclination of viewers to watch the same thing over an extended period of time.

“Talking of TV, the viewer today is absolutely spoilt for choice. He demands a quick rapid fire sort of news bulletin which, while it satiates his need for news, does not intrude on his time.”

➠

Q. How many people with AD/HD does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. ....Wanna go get some icecream?

My husband says I never listen to him.

At least I think that’s what he said.

I stopped to think, and forgot to start again.

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.

J

LIFE IN THE SUPER FAST LANE EXPRESS LUNCHES Quick, non fussy, easy to order.

Everything is already laid out, No need to spend time looking at the menu.

On workdays, people look for quick eating options. Relaxed lunches work well only on special occasions or Sundays.

Real life example: Says Saurabh Khanjio, CEO, Kylin Premier, The Teppanyaki Grill, “When we opened at the Ambience Mall in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, our lunch time earnings were very poor. After some serious thinking, we decided to start with our Busy Bee express lunches that offer a set lunch menu. This was an instant hit and now more than 60 per cent of our lunch earnings are through the Busy Bee option.”

COFFEE ON THE GO The coffee lounge model is also changing.

Takeaway coffee is becoming popular.

Real life example: Although coffee lounges started with the concept of offering everyone a place to sit and enjoy their cup of coffee, that’s not the case any longer. Says K Ramakrishna, president, marketing, Café Coffee Day, “Today, in coffee lounges near office complexes and transportation hubs (metro stations, airports), the demand for coffee on the go is as high as 30 per cent of the total sales. We have recently introduced new lunch options that include pizzas, pastas and even salads. However, the fastest moving items during lunch time are sandwiches.”

KES

Q. How would they diagnose ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) in a chicken?

A. It never gets all the way across the road because of all the distractions.

HERE’S WHAT I TRIED! LIFE COACH PRIYA KUMAR’S EXPERIENCE

Even though technology has definitely made our lives easier, at the same time it is enormously distracting. The constant beep of the BlackBerry ensures that whatever I may be doing, I have to stop and look at the message. The only time I could actually concentrate on doing something constructive (like writing my book) was at night. So, I decided to reschedule my routine a bit, and put my phone away for a certain period of time. Unfortunately, the whole of last week was spent in returning missed calls. Not only that, I realised that due to all these distractions, I ended up committing several errors in my work.

GET THAT JOB DONE!

So this is what she advises: Get into the discipline of Start-Change-Stop. Start is the process of starting the work.

Change means the process of doing that job while Stop means finishing the job.

When you start something, make sure you finish it. Don’t leave it in the middle.

Either do or delegate: If you have committed to do something, make sure you finish it or else delegate it to someone else.

USE POST-ITS IN OFFICE

If you need to check things with colleagues when they are in the middle of something, instead of just walking up to them and distracting them, use Post-its to tell them that you need to talk to them and they should get back to you.

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

The attention span of the average Internet user is now on the order of nine seconds per page 13

COVER STORY

THE OTHER SIDE

OUR TECH GURU RAJIV MAKHNI STRIKES A DISSENTING NOTE:

Everyone talks about the information overload. But no one notices the segregated area of our brain that is now free as we don’t have just our own memory to rely on. For example, before the advent of mobile phones, you were expected to remember 27 numbers on an average because the only other way was to carry them around in a diary. This information had no purpose. Now you can recall three numbers on average. Any topic that interests you, be it the shades of lipstick by Bobbi Brown or the latest breakthrough in rocket science, you know so much more about that subject than you did in the past. And that information does get stored up.

That’s because information has been allowed to move freely via mail, video chat, blogs and telephone. You become a slave to information overload only if you want to. Most of us in fact, end up pulling the plug and those who get consumed by the vastness are the ones who suffer from ADD. Though there is a downside to this information excess: one can’t recall information immediately under pressure. Like this contestant I met for a quiz show who browsed Wikipedia for over three hours a day. But when he was pitted against a guy who was simply interested in tech, the score was 117:9, 9 being the score of the Wikipedia surfer. Because he couldn’t recall any of it under pressure.

Now if you tell me that you get distracted every now and then and are compelled to check your Facebook every 10 minutes, then why do you think it wasn’t the same earlier? If it was 20 years ago, then you’d be distracted by the radio. It is human nature, we all get distracted, apart from the ones who work with a tunnel vision and sit until they finish their work, even if the earth shook. That is so boring.

IT CAN ALSO BE A GOOD THING

REALLY?

Lots of great achievers have had ADD. Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein and Churchill were all ADD adults.That’s because such people also have the ability to get intensely and obsessively focused on something they are interested in.

According to urbandictionary.com, there are actually such conditions as: YOUTUBE ATTENTION SPAN Whereas normally 10 minutes is a short amount of time, YouTube turns it into a cinematic experience.

Jill: Watch this video!

Jack: Okay.

Jack: Wtf? 10 minutes? That’s way over my YouTube Attention Span.

AFRIENDSION ATTENTION SPAN Afriendsion span is your attention span when it comes to friends.

V

ICES

PRASHANT, 28, Freelance Producer I easily space out. I can’t focus on one thing for more than 20 minutes.

I start day dreaming and forget about what I was doing. Even when I’m out with friends, I am easily distracted and forget what we were talking about. Not such a good thing when you’re out on dates.

ZAINAB KHAN, 17, Student I hate studying, especially maths and I have a tutor at home. Every time he comes and starts teaching, I start feeling thirsty and get up to drink water at least 10 times in that hour he teaches me. And the funny part is that I take a good minute or two to swallow a sip.

VIVEK PREMACHANDRAN, 26, Graphic Illustrator I think I started painting because I had major ADD as a kid. I was repulsed by books and every time someone made me study, I would start doodling. One doodle after another, I became a graphic illustrator.

So, it’s not such a bad thing.

PARVATI OMNAKUTTAM, 26, Freelancer I know I have major ADD and have to manage myself consciously, probably a little more than others. Be it periodic obsessions with a spotless home, bouts of depression, forgetfulness or impulses it’s an endless list. But then I suppose, thanks to ADD, I have eclectic interests, and the resultant unconventional lifestyle. One is never doing one thing for too long.

ASHMIT PATEL, Actor I don’t know if you can call it ADD but if my wardrobe is not in order then I can’t get my mind off it. I am constantly distracted if everything is not in order. I mean even right now while talking to you, I am settling my wardrobe. I have to arrange my clothes myself.

RUSSELL PETERS, Comedian He is known to have crazy Attention Deficit Disorder. He plays around with his phone, checks messages and wi-fi connections even while giving interviews. Concentrating on a particular thing is extremely difficult for him.

SONU SOOD, Actor My friends feel that I am easily distracted when I am with them. They feel I am always thinking about something or the other all the time.

Even when I am on the phone with someone, I am always multitasking which I don’t think is a bad thing.

For example, “I wouldn’t get too friendly with Anne, she has a very short afriendsion span” People with short afriendsion spans can be the cause of fights among friends, one minute they are the best of friends, the next minute they get a new one.

TEXTTENTION ATTENTION SPAN This is the attention span you have for a texting conversation.

For example: “Sorry I didn’t reply, I’ve got such a short texttention span.”

Plato accused writing of destroying memory (he said his students became too dependant on writing)!

REPORTING BY VEENU SINGH, TAVISHI PAITANDY RASTOGI, YASHICA DUTT, AMRAH ASHRAF AND MIGNONNE DSOUZA

14

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

indulge eat

| play | listen | live

Dessert Island

While I do not share the Western aversion to Indian sweets, I have to concede that most of our chefs don’t bother too much with desserts. The problem, I guess, is that we are too scared to even try

I

Shahi Tukda with an Apricot Sheera

[Golden slices of fried bread in a warm heavy custard cream, flavoured with a layer of apricot compote and topped with marscarpone cream]

Serves 4

TOPPING IT UP

Poppy Agha, a talented chef from Karachi, made excellent shahi tukda

Ingredients 1.5 litres milk 1 stick cinnamon 2 pcs green cardamom (elaichi) 2.5 cups sugar

Few strands of saffron 12 slices white bread 300 ml cooking oil

BLENDING IN STYLE Poppy’s shahi tukda plays with ingredients, uses mascarpone cheese, apricots and a little cream

New method Boil 1.5 litres milk, add 1 stick cinnamon and 2 pcs elaichi (green).

■ Add 4 tbsp heaped sugar.

■ Cook the milk for approximately 6 minutes.

■ Layer saffron in a serving dish and pour 2 ladles (approx 4 tbsp) of the milk mixture on top.

■ Cut squares of white bread, and heat oil to deep fry in a pan.

■ Add a star anise to the oil to flavour it.

■ Once the star anise is ■

For plating: On a plate, layer a little apricot on the base.

■ Place a slice of soaked bread on top.

■

16

2.5 tbsp mascarpone cream 2 tbsp heavy double cream 50 gm apricots (small and dry with seeds)

PHOTOS: THINKSTOCK

bubbling, remove from the oil.

■ Fry the bread squares till golden, and drain excess oil on a napkin.

■ Place bread in the milk mixture with saffron and let it soak for 5 minutes.

■ In a large bowl, whisk 2.5 tbsp of mascarpone cream.

Add 2 tbsp of heavy double cream and 1 ladle of milk mixture.

■ Whisk thoroughly, and place in the fridge to chill for 10 mins.

■ Boil sugar in 1 cup. Quarter apricots and infuse with sheera.

Spoon a little mascarpone mixture between layers of 3 slices. Drizzle some apricot sheera on top.

■

HINDUSTAN TIMES

NDIANS FIND this mildly insulting but the truth is that Westerners always scoff at our desserts. They regard our sweets and puddings with the amused contempt that we in India reserve for Chinese desserts. When the Chinese suggest that we eat red bean pancakes, we laugh derisively. So it is with Europeans and our gulab jamuns, rasmalais, or jalebis.

The principal objection to Indian sweets, as far as I can tell, is that they are too sweet. While the West has a long and globally respected tradition of patisserie and dessert making, India is treated as a nation with a first-rate cuisine that is sorely lacking in the dessert department.

Naturally, I do not share the West’s dismissiveness about our puddings. I concede that we do not have the range and variety of European desserts. Baking is not integral to the Indian dessert tradition whereas in the West most patissiers also double as bakers.

While India accepted many of the ingredients that came out of the New World (potatoes, chillies, etc.), the wonders of chocolate passed us by. And so, while every Western dessert menu is at least onethird chocolate, Indian chefs give the cocoa bean a miss. (Why should this be so? Chocolate is as alien to Europe as it is to India.

How come they grabbed and we did not? No idea.)

Europeans will tell you that their tradition is so different from ours that there is no possible meeting ground. This is not entirely correct. I can think of at least three desserts that India shares with the West. The first is kulfi, which is a close relative of ice-cream.

The second is our kheer/payasam tradition which mirrors the rice puddings of the West.

And then, there is bread pudding.

In the West, bread pudding changes as you go from country to country. American bread pudding can be stodgy (or even, in Nora Ephron’s phrase, ‘caramelised mush’) and is not overly exciting.

The British bread and butter pudding is a nursery dish that remained something of a joke till the 1980s when it was reinvented by the Swiss chef Anton Mosimann. (The British also have variations on MISSING THE POINT The wonders of chocolate passed us by. While every Western dessert menu is at least one-third chocolate, Indian chefs give cocoa bean a miss

PHOTO: THINKSTOCK

rude food

Vir Sanghvi

NOT TO STANDARD Westerners always scoff at our desserts.

They regard our sweets and puddings with the amused contempt that we in India reserve for Chinese desserts PHOTO: IMAGES BAZAAR

indulge Cooking method

Soak brioche in milk and cinnamon and toss it in frying pan with caramelised sugar.

■ Caramelise some brown sugar again over the top of the brioche.

■

(Bread and Butter Pudding) MAKING IT DIFFERENT

Chef Nick Van Riemsdijk makes a killer version of the bread pudding

Ingredients

20 ml milk with cinnamon 1 scoop vanilla ice cream 1 mint leaf 5 gm caramelised sugar 10 gm brown sugar

20 gm fruit compote (a mix of apricots and prunes) 10 ml vanilla sauce with cinnamon

Ingredients for the brioche:

10 gm flour 1 egg 5 ml milk

5 gm sugar 3 gm yeast 5 gm butter

bread pudding: Summer Pudding, Cabinet KEBABS Pudding etc.)

In France, they have pain perdu, which literally means ‘lost bread’, and can be – in the right hands – the most delicious of all bread puddings. (It is a cousin of the sweet French toast that is often served at breakfast time.)

The Indian bread pudding tradition is not, I will readily concede, some ancient Vedic ritual. But then, neither is our biryani tradition. Our bread puddings reached us from Western Asia and came to our shores along with traders, invaders and refuge-seekers.

The closest we get to a Western-style bread pudding is the Parsi version which is cooked in an oven and either has its roots in the Persian origins of the Parsi community or in the tendency of some Parsis to adopt British ways in the Raj era. It is not a dish that has spread widely in India. It is difficult to find outside of Parsi homes and a few clubs but even a mediocre Parsi bread pudding is usually better than a good British bread and butter pudding. (Perhaps one day Anton BIRYANI Mosimann will be hired by some rich Parsi – say the Tatas – to re-invent the Parsi bread pudding just as he transformed the British nursery staple.)

My personal favourite of all Indian bread puddings is the shahi tukda. It is not necessarily a sophisticated dish. All you have to do is to reduce some sweetened milk and pour it over pieces of fried bread. Put the pudding in a fridge for a few hours so that the flavour of the milk mingles with that of the bread and the texture is perfect and your pudding is ready.

I would guess that like most kebabs and biryanis, the shahi tukda is an Indian take on some Middle-Eastern dish. But if you ask a gifted Indian chef to make a shahi tukda, you are liable to end up with a classic that will put all of the world’s bread puddings to shame.

My favourite shahi tukda has always been the Dum Pukht version. This is a slightly fancy dish, not ideally suited to the home cook because the key to its success is the bread. In the hands of Dum Pukht’s chefs, the bread is enriched so much that it becomes a sort of cake. The milk that is poured over it also bears little relation to the ordinary reduced milk we use at home and is almost like the rabdi that halwais use.

Because of its richness, the Dum Pukht shahi tukda could be a soggy, greasy mess. In fact, it is a dish that is almost perfect in the engineering of its construction with the right cake-like texture and a wonderful moist sweetness. My guess is that its secret lies in the

Brioche

Place compote on the centre of plate, then brioche on sides.

■ Pour vanilla sauce on the side.

■ Garnish with caramel stick, fresh mint leaf and serve with scoop of homemade vanilla bean ice cream.

■

Mix all the ingredients together (except for the butter) and make a dough.

■ Melt butter and add slowly to the dough, shape it and keep

aside for proofing (15 mins).

■ Shape the brioche and bake it for 20 min at 200 degree Fahrenheit.

■ Take out and rest it until it gets cool.

Fruit compote

water.

■

Mix all ingredients and cook it on a slow fire with sugar and

■

Accompaniment

Vanilla bean ice cream.

quantities and proportions. The chefs have figured out the perfect balance between the bread and the milk.

Till about a month ago, I would have said that the Dum Pukht shahi tukda was the world’s most amazing bread pudding. But now I think that I have found one that is even better. Poppy Agha, a brilliant and talented chef from Karachi, created the single-best shahi tukda I have ever eaten as part of a TV competition called Foodistan, that I am currently judging. (More about Foodistan when it starts on NDTV Good Times.)

Poppy’s shahi tukda plays around with ingredients and uses mascarpone cheese, apricots and a little cream. But it is so astonishingly light that the dessert course alone was strong enough to help the Pakistani team nearly defeat the Indian on that night. (Why do I say nearly? Well, you will have to watch the show to find out.) I asked Poppy for the recipe and she was kind enough to part with it for Brunch readers.

My hope is that Indian chefs will learn from our cousins across the border. While I do not share the Western aversion to Indian sweets, I have to concede that most of our chefs don’t bother too much with desserts.

When was the last time that any Indian chef invented a great dessert that went on to become a staple on menus all over India?

Can you think of any Indian chef who has reinvented classic desserts in the way in which Western chefs are always doing?

I called Poppy the sub-continent’s Anton Mosimann on the show because of what she had done to the shahi tukda. But I am sure there are many Indian chefs who, if given a chance, could re-invent all our indigenous bread puddings to similar effect.

The problem, I guess, is that we are too scared to even try.

In case you want to take the initiative yourself, here are the recipes for my favourite bread puddings. The Parsi bread pudding recipe is from the Time and Talents club cookbook and no doubt hundreds of Parsis will claim that the version at their homes is better! The pain perdu recipe comes from Set’z where chef Nick Van Riemsdijk makes a killer version of the dessert. I would like to give you the Dum Pukht shahi tukda recipe but ITC tends to make a fetish out of the secrecy of its recipes. So that’s not going to be possible.

Not to worry. Try Poppy’s recipe instead. And you will realise why the shahi tukda can be the king of all bread puddings. And this is one battle Pakistan has won.

LIKE MOST KEBABS

PHOTOS: IMAGES BAZAAR

AND BIRYANIS, THE SHAHI TUKDA IS AN INDIAN TAKE ON SOME MIDDLE-EASTERN DISH

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

17

PHOTO: REUTERS

Pain Perdue with Orchard Fruit Compote

GAME CHANGER The British bread and butter pudding is a nursery dish that remained something of a joke till the 1980s when it was reinvented by the Swiss chef Anton Mosimann

Bread Pudding de Luxe Serves 12

1 loaf of bread 2 tbsp ghee 6 cups milk 450 gm sugar (stir into the milk) 1/2 tsp saffron 225 gm mava 1/2 tsp nutmeg (powder) 4 cardamoms (powder) 30 gm almonds, sliced 30 gm pistachio, sliced 30 gm charoli 30 gm raisins 450 gm clotted cream

Cooking method

Cut the bread into cubes, fry in ghee and drain on brown paper.

■ Scald milk after adding one cup sugar, add fried bread cubes and saffron and cook for 15 minutes.

■ Mix the remaining sugar with mava, nutmeg, cardamoms and a few sliced nuts and raisins.

■ Add this to the bread mixture and bake in a slow oven for 45 minutes.

■ Remove pan from oven and put the mixture into an ovenproof dish, spread with cream and decorate with remaining nuts and raisins.

Serve hot.

■

indulge play eat |

techilicious

Rajiv Makhni

| listen | live

10 Tech Upgrades That Will Change Your Life

If you’re on the fence about any of these, well, you’re just missing out on the future

L

OSE TEN kg in 10 days; 10 ways to know if your partner is cheating on you; 10 things that prove you’re addicted to porn.

Wonderful headers for columns – they’re eye-catching and warrant immediate attention. 10 best, Top 10, 10 myths... it’s called the rule of 10 and is my inspiration for today’s column.

Most of these cost nothing, while a few can severely dent your bank balance. To all those who will fry me for conjuring up this virtual shopping cart, this isn’t about what you can or cannot afford; this isn’t about budgets and their destruction. This is a dream list, a list to aspire to, a checklist to save up for – a list that will literally change your life.

# 1 DIGITAL WIRELESS HEADPHONES

Chuck them! Most of you must be having big, clunky infrared ones that need line of sight to work, lose sound when you turn your head and sound ghastly. Others may be having RF cans that give you more range but also spit, hiss and crackle at you from all angles. This is all old hat. Digital Wireless headphones can give you audiophile sound, rival top of the line wired headphones, do virtual surround sound, use your digital audio output, work 300 feet away and never hiss. Sennheiser RS 180 and RS 220 (pictured right) and Sony MDR-DS6500 are some of the best in the field. Watch a movie late at night without disturbing your spouse (they’re not called marriage-savers for nothing) or stroll in the garden while listening to your entire music collection. Your ears will thank you for it.

# 2 MOBILE WIRELESS SYNC

If you own a fairly recent Apple mobile product and haven’t upgraded to iOS 5 then you’re a bit of a dufus. Just one thing (there are 200 but some of them are just plain silly) warrants that upgrade right now: wireless sync. There’s something deeply satisfying in plugging in your iPhone or iPad at night and finding a movie, a book and new music appear magically on your device when you wake up in the morning. Yes, iOS finally breaks from its iTunes USB umbilical cord and does it with a vengeance. Your device and your computer on the same WiFi network will perfectly sync whatever new items have been added to either of them. Wireless sync can be achieved on almost any other mobile OS with some add-ons like SugarSync (automated to the point that as soon as you take a picture on your phone, it’s already on your computer), Live Mesh and Livedrive. Give it a shot – you’ll never believe how you ever lived with the ugliness of cables, setting up devices and manual syncing.

18

# 3 A BIG A*S TV

I’m not talking 32, 42, 47 or even 55 inches. I’m talking about 60+ inches of pure visual madness. Yes, they are here, huge beasts, a mad array of pixels and your greatest dream. India was never taken to be a big TV screen market and thus, even when companies had big screen TVs abroad, they wouldn’t bring them here. I’m glad they didn’t. Very large screen TVs suffer from brightness and colour issues as well as uneven backlighting. Current technology has finally made sure that all that is now an old wives’ tale. The latest crop are stunning, vivid, crystal clear and picture perfect. You can even put these in your bedroom as the pixel density is dense enough to give a stunning image at a 10 foot distance. LG’s new 65-inch LED Cinema Display and Samsungs 64-inch plasma lead from the front. Despite what you’ve been told, size matters! Big is good and HUGE is always better :)

# 4 HD ON DTH

If you’ve been on the fence on this one, you’re missing out on one of the greatest pleasures in life. The upgrade is cheap and the result is jaw-dropping. Moving from standard definition broadcast to high definition, to use an old cliché, is like acquiring a brand new set of eyes.

Watching cricket in its full HD glory, a movie in 1080i resolution, a wildlife documentary where you can see each hair bristle on a red nosed baboon sends a shiver down your spine. If you’ve got an HDTV, you owe yourself HD DTH.

# 5 GO 3G

Ignore the naysayers and forgive the pessimists. Yes, coverage can sometimes be spotty and yes it’s expensive This is all just a smokescreen – you’re just being lazy and depriving yourself of a true game changer. 3G on your mobile is the greatest high-octane boost you can give to almost everything you do.

From your apps to opening web pages to sending a large image on email to streaming a song to watching YouTube on the move – 3G changes everything! A video call really does work, TV on demand becomes a reality, using your phone as a 3G hotspot can save you megabucks and save your skin mega-times. I’m surprised to see power users who upgrade their phones every six months proclaim that they don’t really ‘need’ 3G. That’s like saying you don’t really need a billion bucks! You can never have too much money and you can never have a data connection fast enough. Get your mind and your mobile out from the rutty, broken roads of 2G and hit the super speedy F1 tracks of 3G. That’s five of ten. Next week I’ll complete the overhaul of your life.

In the meanwhile why don’t you contemplate the top 10 reasons why somebody would call their article ‘Top 10 Tech Upgrades’ and only give five. Reason one: the editor of Brunch only gives me one measly page.

Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com/RajivMakhni

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

indulge

eat | play |

listen

| live

download central

Sanjoy Narayan YOU NEVER KNOW The best thing about Wilco is their unpredictable nature: some tracks have hooks that click with you instantly; others take time to grow on you

In A League Of Its Own

Be sure to give Wilco a spin if you’re in the mood for some individualistic sound

R

alternative indie-ish (they were not always on an ARELY HAVE I known someone to be independent label although they may sound like as passionate about music as was my they are), Wilco has an ironic name. After all, Wilco friend Amitava. Incorrigible Deadhead is the military usage of the phrase ‘Will comply’ and passionate lover of guitar jams, he’d used normally in response to an order. Wilco comdrop by in office occasionally to check what I was plies with no order. Formed after the break-up of listening to and pass me his pen drive for a top-up. an alternative country band, Uncle Tupelo, after I enjoyed feeding him new music; mainly because Jeff Tweedy (Wilco’s frontman) and Jay Farrar fell he would not only listen to the stuff I proffered but out, Wilco started in the same vein as Uncle Tupelo, promptly provide feedback on the music as well as making country-ish alt music. But with time and a regularly on this column. Amitava “Goldie” Guha succession of albums, their music became more passed away recently and I shall miss him sorely. experimental, drawing on rock, blues and psycheNot very long ago, when bluesman Buddy Guy perdelia. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, released in 2002, found formed at the Siri Fort Audi in Delhi, I was in the audience. As had been Goldie. He was enthralled them fame and over the years, the band has amassed by the music. So much so, that when the blues showat least five Grammys. man stepped off the stage and walked around the The Whole Love (released this September) is hall with his guitar searing, Goldie got out of his Wilco’s eighth album and their first released on seat and went down on his knees in front of Guy, their own label, dBpm. As with each of their albums, completely in thrall.

Jeff Tweedy and his band keep reaching for highI’ll miss Goldie’s regular text messages on Sunday er levels and The Whole Love is perhaps a notch mornings, making a point or two about DC or just higher than 2009’s Wilco (The Album), which itself commenting on some new stuff that I may have was a very good album. On The Whole Love, the band experiments with a range of styles – cocky shared with him. Unlike many of my generation, who IN THE SPOTLIGHT appear to be stuck in the music of the Seventies and rock, introspective, moody songs and even infecOn The Whole Love (top), Wilco familiar stuff from our college days, Goldie was always tious pop tunes. And comes across as a band that comes across as a band that is hungry to try out new and uncharted stuff. When I has matured and is confident of doing its own thing mature. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot sent him funky New Orleans tracks by Kermit Ruffins the way it believes is the best. Being on its own label (above) found them fame probably helps. and an album by the San Francisco-based The Mother If you haven’t heard Wilco yet, most critics will Hips who play psychedelic folk rock, he sent me a text message barely two months back in typical ‘Beng-lish’: “Kermit point you towards Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or A Ghost is Born (2004) Ruffins is brilliant swingy music. As are Mother Hips. Shokal theke to sample them. I like both those albums but the ones I’d recommend are The Whole Love, of course, and 1996’s Being There – a shunchi. Thanks millions.”

But if you really wanted to make Goldie’s day, you had to discuss two-disc album with 19 songs that the band released a couple of The Grateful Dead. Such a mad Deadhead he was that he could years after it was formed. The best thing about Wilco is their unprekeep listening to endless collections of bootlegs by that one band dictable nature. Some of their music has hooks that click with you and keep talking about their music. Still, for me, he was one of the instantly; but some take time to grow on you. Exactly the way I like few people I know with whom I could share new bands and new it. I wish I could get Goldie’s take on them sounds and enjoy the experience.

To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned in this column, go to Last week, when I finally got to hear Wilco’s new album, The http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/download-central, follow argus48 on Twitter or visit our website: www.hindustantimes.com/brunch Whole Love, I dearly missed Goldie. He’d have loved it. For an

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

19

indulge

spectator

Seema Goswami

eat | play | listen |

live

What’s The Good Word?

Let’s not trivialise sexual harassment by coyly calling it ‘eve-teasing’

O

F ALL the words that seek to hide a grim reality behind innocuous euphemisms – honour killings, collateral damage, dowry deaths – the most ludicrous has to be ‘eve-teasing’. And of late we have been getting an overdose of this word in our media because of the horrific murders of two Mumbai boys, Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandez.

These two young men were out with friends one evening when some ‘eve-teasers’ started misbehaving with the girls in the group. Keenan and Reuben objected to their behaviour and got into an altercation.

The miscreants left, only to return with a gang of rowdies. A fight ensured, in the course of which the goons stabbed both Keenan and Reuben (I wonder, does that make them ‘knife-wielders’ rather than murderers?). Keenan died on the spot. Reuben passed away a week later in hospital. And we were told that the boys had paid the ultimate price for standing up against the menace of ‘eve-teasing’.

Funny old word, isn’t it? Eve-teasing. It evokes pictures of bashful young girls being playfully ‘teased’ by mischievous young men who are just looking for a lark and some laughs. It brings to mind bucolic images of a beautiful Garden of Eden in which nubile young girls (the Eves in eve-teasing) are gently joshed with by well-meaning, witty men. Yes, it sounds nice and soft, all romantic and wonderful, doesn’t it?

The reality, of course, is quite different. What ‘eve-teasing’ means in real terms is the incessant, unremitting sexual harassment of women by men who take a perverted pleasure in tormenting them. There’s the boy whistling loudly at a girl as she walks down the street. There’s the man passing lewd comments on the physical attributes of the woman who works with him in office. There’s the boy who brushes up against a bunch of teenagers in the mall. There’s the man who pinches the bum of the woman nearest to him in a crowded bus. And much, much worse.

Yes, sexual harassment can take many forms. But not one of them qualifies to be coyly termed ‘eve-teasing’, with its connotations of playful joshing and the sense of how ‘boys will be boys, yaar’. And yet, we are constantly being bombarded with the subliminal message that these ‘eve-teasers’, those naughty boys, are just out for some innocent fun and a few laughs. And honestly, we shouldn’t take it so seriously.

ALL THE MEN WHO GROW UP

WATCHING HEROES INDULGE IN ‘CHHED-CHHAD’ BELIEVE THIS HARASSMENT IS ACCEPTABLE 20

I’M A BELIEVER Reuben (left, in above pic) and Keenan died because they took a stand against sexual harassment. The issue has now become a campaign (left)

At one level, this laid-back attitude to the sexual harassment of women is a byproduct of our patriarchal culture in which men are allowed to get away with murder (sometimes quite literally). Their bad behaviour is excused or explained away on one pretext or the other; their various misdemeanours treated with indulgence.

And never more so than when their victims are female.

But if you ask me, our popular culture is just as culpable. In India, of course, that translates into the movies. And our cinema hasn’t exactly helped by elevating ‘eve-teasing’ to an art form. Remember those Sixties movies that made Shammi Kapoor a star? In which he chased his heroines relentlessly through the first hour after which they obligingly fell in love with him? The same formula has been repeated in every decade after with everyone from Rajesh Khanna to Govinda, from Salman and Shah Rukh to Imran Khan following this peculiarly Hindi-movie style of courtship that is more harassment than romance.

There is a word for a man who follows you around, insists that you give in to his advances, won’t take no for an answer, and continues to believe that you are in love with him despite all evidence to the contrary. In the real world he is called a stalker. In Hindi movies, he is the hero. And somehow, the heroine always obediently falls in love with him in the course of the second song sequence.

As a consequence, all the men who grow up watching their heroes indulge in what is coyly described as ‘chhed-chhad’, come to believe that this sort of harassment is completely acceptable behaviour. It’s all about breaking down her defences. It’s all about brow-beating her into submission. And then there’s that old chestnut: she may say no, but she actually means yes. You just have to keep at it until she says ‘yes’ as well.

In other words, these men begin to see stalking as courtship. But real life is not the movies. And real-life women have this irritating way of not falling in love with their harassers unlike Hindi film heroines.

Unfortunately, the men can’t seem to tell the difference between reality and the movies and continue to act as if harassment is actually a legitimate form of interaction with the opposite sex. And as a society, we are implicit in trivialising this sexual harassment when we refer to it as ‘eve-teasing’.

I think the tragic deaths of Keenan and Reuben should serve as a wake-up call in this regard. These two fine young men didn’t die because they were objecting to ‘eve-teasing’. They died because they took a stand against the sexual harassment of women. And the fact that nobody stood up for them as they were being stabbed to death shows us just how de-sensitised we have become as a society.

The Santos and Fernandez families will never get their men back.

But let’s not besmirch their memory by our constant references to ‘eve-teasing’. They didn’t die because they didn’t have a sense of humour. They died because they had a sense of honour. Let’s at least respect that. seema_ht@rediffmail.com. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Wellness

CASE NOTES

Check please!

The ‘sweet disease’ is preventable if you monitor yourself

by Mignonne Dsouza

IT’S UNUSUAL for a 13-year-old to keep visiting doctors, but for Mumbaikar Aadil Sharma, this was normal until a few years ago. Aadil suffered from skin infections, which defied attempts at diagnosis. Doctors concluded that the obese boy’s poor hygiene was causing the infections. A timely diagnosis saved Aadil when a doctor detected that he was pre-diabetic (though previous tests had shown his sugar levels as normal), after spotting blackish discolourations around his neck. After metabolic surgery, all complaints disappeared, and now Aadil leads a normal life.

PART III

PRE-DIABETES

WHAT HAPPENED There are two forms of diabetes – type 1 and 2. Type 1 patients suffer from a lack of secretion of insulin and are diagnosed early. Type 2 patients develop it after one to eight years of being pre-diabetic. In this time, a sufferer whose body has a previously good secreting power for insulin finds it hindered by insulinresistant factors, including fat cells and intestinal hormones. To keep sugar levels normal, the body has to secrete disproportionate amounts of insulin to the body’s sugar levels in the body.

WARNING SIGNS

Some of the signs that could indicate that you are prediabetic include: ■ A craving for sweets ■ Inability to control hunger ■ Cravings for high-calorie food ■ Frequent thirst ■ Frequent urination ■ Black pigmentation at the neck, armpits, breast folds (beneath the breasts) and around the thighs.

Type 2 diabetes is closely linked to obesity, which is why dealing with obesity is important to control pre-diabetes. This isn’t easy, as Indians are genetically predisposed to diabetes. Our genes are meant better to fight starvation than over nutrition, and this pre-disposition gets a high trigger when combined with obesity.

THE SOLUTIONS

Testing for diabetes at least once a year is a good idea, because if pre-diabetes is

CRAVE NOT, WANT NOT Don’t get addicted to sweets, carbs and fatty foods

diagnosed, then a person can tackle it and avoid the risk of contracting fullblown diabetes. Diabetes is preventable but it is important to understand that it is a serious disease. It is a disease not of sugar, but of the entire vascular system of the body.

LIFESTYLE CHOICES

To prevent one from becoming pre-diabetic, remember the following: Pursue some regular

NEXT WEEK: SERIOUS HAIRFALL

MIND BODY SOUL

A five part series

physical activity on a daily basis. This will increase the insulin sensitivity of the muscles and body.

Do not challenge your system by overburdening it with calories. Do not consume a lot of carbohydrates, sweets, fats, etc – as these are all addictive foods.

Take care of your nutritional needs in an intelligent fashion, rather than going in for fad diets.

If you are pre-diabetic – which in almost 88 per cent of cases is associated with excess obesity – go to a obesity clinic in a hospital.

It is important to realise treatments can control diabetes, but not prevent organ damage. If a sufferer undergoes metabolic and bariatric surgery, then organ damage can be prevented.

(Inputs by Dr Jayshree Todkar, bariatric and metabolic consultant, LH Hiranandani Hospital, Mumbai)

SHIKHA SHARMA

THE RIGHT STUFF D

IABETES IS a very common lifestyle disease. The effective way to manage the condition is correct nutrition along with walking and any form of exercise.

NUTRITION

Foods low in glycemic index are very good for managing high blood sugar.

HIGH FIBRE FOODS: When we refine grains, they lose their fibre, minerals and vitamins and become harmful for diabetics. Such refined foods can suddenly raise blood sugar. Therefore, eating foods that are not refined is WHOLE MEAL the number one need for diabetWhen we refine grains, they ics. Examples of such foods are lose their fibre dalia, brown rice poha, unpolished rice, dals with chilka, oats with natural fibre.

BARLEY: Consumed along with kala channa, it is an excellent food for controlling blood sugar.

FOODS NATURALLY LOW IN GLYCEMIC INDEX: These include all dals, all pulses and legumes. However, the dals should be consumed with chilka or whole and not refined to a powder form. Sprouts are a wonderful way to control blood sugar.

FRUITS: Fruits that can be safely eaten by diabetics are papaya, guava, berries, cherries, pomegranate, pear, masumbi and pineapple. However, they should be eaten whole and not taken in the form of juice.

HERBS AND SPICES FOR DIABETICS CINNAMON: is an excellent spice for diabetics; it can be taken as an extract by boiling a small powdered portion in water and drinking this on an empty stomach.

KARELA: This is good for diabetics as a vegetable when AMLA: It controls cooked, and blood sugar and also can be rejuvenates the taken raw as juice. Howevtissues. er, it should be mixed with aloe vera MCT juice.

GINGER: Another excellent digestive and an anti-diabetic.

POWDERS OF NEEM, JAMUN SEEDS AND KARELA POWDER: Such herbs are astringent in nature and help the body to regulate blood sugar.

Finally, eating small but frequent meals helps to regulate blood sugar effectively. Along with good nutrition, regular walking or exercise is also very essential as it helps the insulin to balance and also aids in improving insulin sensitivity. ask@drshikha.com PHOTOS: THINKSTOCK

G

G

A SPECIAL FIVE PART SERIES: Part One – Thomas Coryate

THE FAKIR OF AJMER In the 17th century, a penniless English traveller began a love affair with Ajmer. He stayed on for months, rode an elephant, wore desi garb – and became one with the country text and photos by Jonathan Gil Harris

T

HERE I was: pickpocketed and penniless in a strange city – Ajmer – not knowing how I would afford my next meal. I had never felt more like a firangi.

Since my first visit to India over 10 years ago, I have grown increasingly fascinated by the word firangi. To translate it simply as “foreigner” doesn’t do it justice. The Hindi videshi is a world away, quite literally, from firangi, a Mughal-era Persian makeover of “Frank” (or Frenchman).

My former Hindi teacher, who favours a chaste Sanskritised language purged of all alien interlopers, grimaces whenever she hears the word. She considers firangi an impure term, a linguistic foreign body that has illegitimately become Indian. But that impurity is precisely what I love about firangi. And it is also why I consider myself a firangi, not a videshi. I am a foreigner, but I also am not: my time in India has transformed me, changing how I speak, how I think, what I wear, what I eat, the music I listen to. Slowly but surely, like the word firangi itself, main Hindustani ban raha hoon.

The word has a special relevance in the India of the 17th century. During this time, Europeans came to India in unprecedented numbers.

Portuguese Goa, founded in 1510, was joined in the 1600s by French, Dutch, and Danish trading colonies; the English East India Company was set up in 1600, and by the end of the century the Company had built the colonial forts that were to become the presidency cities of Madras and Calcutta. But Europeans didn’t always come to India in this period as

Oddcombe, England

Constantinople, Istanbul, Turkey

Lahore, Pakistan

Nagaur NH-8

Agra India

Ajmer Pali

RAJASTHAN

Rajasamand MAP: SANJAY KAPOOR

22

Jaipur

Bhilwara

Tonk

INTO THE LABYRINTH The entrance to the Dargah Sharif, the Chishti’s tomb, is at the centre of a maze of narrow gallis congested with pilgrims and shops

would-be colonists or invaders. I discovered as much when I first read the Tuzuk-i-Jahangri, the Mughal emperor Jahangir’s memoirs. To my astonishment, he refers on several occasions to lower-class firangis – European soldiers, servants, craftsmen – in his pay. These men had to all intents and purposes become Indian: they had learned Indian tongues, adopted Indian customs, even taken Indian names. Unlike Jahangir, though, they tended not to write memoirs. At best they

sent occasional letters to friends and family back in Europe – if they could write at all. But their life stories, like the word firangi itself, challenge the rigid division between Indian and non-Indian.

These are stories of European poverty, labour, and servitude in India. But they are equally stories of Europeans falling in love with a home far away from home.

I resolved to write the stories of these 17th-century firangis who became Indian. And

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

even if I couldn’t retrieve the stories in full from the historical archive, I might begin to flesh them out with the best research instrument at my disposal: my own bodily senses. I decided to visit five Indian cities in which these firangis lived – Ajmer, Agra, Goa, Golconda, and Madras – to see what they saw, to hear what they heard, to taste what they ate. In short, I wanted to understand not only how these “First Firangis” came to be in India but also how they and their bodies became Indian. This is the first of the five stories. ******************************************

M

y body/thought experiment didn’t start promisingly. I was journeying to Ajmer in Rajasthan, following the trail of Thomas Coryate.

“Odd Tom,” as he was known in England, was something of a self-conscious eccentric. Born in around 1579 and raised in the small Somerset village of Oddcombe – Coryate claimed that he embodied the “Odd” of his village’s name – he was a compulsive walker whose life story belies the negative connotations of the term “pedestrian.”

In 1607, he walked through France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany and Holland in one pair of shoes.

(His published travelogue, Coryate’s Crudities, made him something of a celebrity in England.)

As if that wasn’t enough, in 1612, Coryate decided to walk east to Asia. After resting his feet in Constantinople and then Jerusalem, he joined a walking caravan that travelled across Persia, via the Silk Route, to Lahore. From there he ambled to Agra, before footing it in the June of 1615 to Ajmer, where Jahangir and his court had temporarily relocated in order to subdue a rebel Rajput rana. Coryate reached Ajmer in a sorry state: he had been pickpocketed and was more or less completely penniless.

My journey to Ajmer couldn’t have been more different. Coryate, poor and hungry, was no doubt baked by the midsummer June sun as he trudged from Agra through the Rajasthan desert and mountains. I, by contrast, hurtled to my destination in an air-conditioned car on National Highway 2, a gleaming state-of-the art six-laner.

Indeed, the road is the best highway I have seen in India. It boasts on-ramps and off-ramps, a pris-

LIKE A KING The pavilions in Daulat Bagh, a garden that Jahangir built, still offer splendid views of Ana Sagar, a 12th century man-made lake

tine tar-sealed surface, and emergency phones for drivers whose vehicles have broken down.

Shocked at finding themselves on such a wellmaintained road, Highway 2’s drivers actually stay obediently in their lanes and even use their indicators when they shift between them. So there was little about my route, or my experience of travelling on it, that could connect me to Coryate’s arduous walk nearly 400 years ago.

Then, all of a sudden, I saw it in the distance: a flash of pink in the highway’s median strip. As we drew nearer, the flash resolved into a Mughal-era tower. This was a kos minar, one of the tall milestones that the Mughal emperor Akbar installed on his highway linking the imperial capital of Agra to Ajmer. As their Persian name suggests, the milestones were erected at a distance of one kos (approximately two miles) from each other. Akbar had built the highway because he was a devotee of the Ajmer Sufi saint Khwaja Moin-Ud-Din Chishti, who had successfully prophesied a son for the then-childless emperor.

After Chishti’s death, Akbar was a frequent visitor to his dargah. And when Coryate walked from Agra to Ajmer, he too would have followed the trail of Akbar’s pink kos minars. For a brief instant, then, I felt Coryate’s and my paths converge. It wasn’t to be the last time.

The Ajmer of 2011 is, in certain respects, not very different from the Ajmer of 1615. It is a small city; surrounded by the Aravalli Mountains; its environs are greener and cooler than the parched desert plains of Rajasthan. Jahangir claimed that Ajmer’s “cold season is very equable, and the hot season is milder than in Agra.” The main landmark is the Ana Sagar, a man-made lake built by THE ELEPHANT MAN His published travelogue, Coryate’s Crudities (left), made Thomas Coryate a celebrity in England. The title page of one of his letters shows him atop a pachyderm (right)

one of the Chauhan rajahs in the 12th century.

Jahangir took in the cool lake breeze from the Daulat Bagh, a garden he built on the Ana Sagar’s shore; the baradari or pavilions added to the garden by Shah Jahan still offer splendid views.

Ajmer itself, however, is not a particularly beautiful city, and in this too it has not changed much since Coryate’s time. Now as then, the Dargah Sharif, Chishti’s tomb, is at the centre of a maze of narrow gallis congested with pilgrims, shops, and horse-led tongas. Sir Thomas Roe, the East India Company ambassador who set up residence in Ajmer in late 1615 (and in whose mud house Coryate briefly lived), called Ajmer “the dullest, basest place that ever I saw.” But to the impoverished, foot-weary Coryate, Ajmer was a welcome haven. He stayed for 14 months.

During Coryate’s time in Ajmer, he was repeatedly dependent on the kindness of others. In a letter sent to England, he wrote that he would never forget Jahangir’s act of generosity in feeding 5,000 poor people “kitcherie” from an “immense brass pot” at the Dargah Sharif. It is quite possible that Coryate himself was one of the poor that Jahangir fed; khichri was doubtless one of his staple fares during his time in Ajmer. Jahangir’s immense brass pot, or degh, was replaced by another cauldron in the 19th century. But every year – during the Urs mela – a rich devotee still sponsors the preparation of khichri for 5,000 poor pilgrims. The approach to the dargah is also much as it would have been in Coryate’s time: to reach the entrance, one has to run a gauntlet of fakirs, or religious beggars. Upon passing through the modern security gates at the dargah’s entrance, the interior is still as it was described by a visiting English merchant, William Finch, in around 1610: “you pass through three fair courts... paved all with black and white marble,” before arriving at the sepulchre, whose “door is large and inlaid with mother-of-pearl.”

Following in Coryate’s footsteps, the imaginary taste of khichri in my mouth as I passed the huge degh just past the dargah’s entrance, I was spellbound by the sound of the qawwals. Coryate may

CORYATE WAS A

COMPULSIVE WALKER. HE WALKED ALL THE WAY FROM ENGLAND TO AJMER, ARRIVING THERE MORE OR LESS PENNILESS HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

23

IN THOSE DAYS Horse-drawn tongas (left) still ferry people around in Ajmer. Jahangir’s degh, an immense brass pot (above), was used to make khichri for feeding 5,000 poor people

DUST AND GLORY Emperor Akbar built kos minars, tall milestones, on the highway linking Agra to Ajmer (above). Jahangir used to sit at his jharokha or public window in the Akbari Fort (top)

well have heard songs like these. I was less spellbound by the young boy who demanded that I give him R500 to enter the shrine. And the spell was shattered altogether when, at the shrine door, I found myself in a jostling throng as dense as a rock-concert moshpit. Heeding the sign that admonishes pilgrims to jeb katron se bachna, I put my hands deep in my pockets to guard my wallet.

A few minutes later, I was shoved by two urchins right behind me; toppling over in the crowd, I withdrew my hands to regain my balance. My hands must have been out of my pockets for no longer than 30 seconds. When I put them back, my wallet was gone – and so were the urchins.

I now faced a conundrum. I could no longer pay

for my lunch or for the admission fees to the other buildings I had intended to visit. Trying to console me, the Dabangg-like policeman who processed my FIR shook his head and exclaimed: “Good dargah. Bad peoples.” Yet if I had started my journey in an air-conditioned car feeling disconnected from Coryate, I now felt perversely bonded to him.

I was penniless as he had been. And I would have to rely on the kindness of strangers, as he had.

During his 14 months in Ajmer, and despite his poverty, Coryate savoured an experience habitually enjoyed by modern-day tourists to Rajasthan.

“I have rid upon an elephant,” he declared triumphantly in a letter to an English friend, and he hoped that he would “have my picture expressed in my next book sitting upon an elephant.” The title-page to one of his published letters responds to Coryate’s desire: there he sits, in English dress, on a pachyderm, with the caption “The English Traveller.” But in fact there was little that was recognisably English about Coryate or his body in Ajmer. Throughout his stay, he wore Indian clothes; he also picked up the local Ajmeri vernacular, apparently becoming so fluent in it that he was able to out-argue a washerwoman in her own language.

While in Ajmer, Coryate also made a point of formally studying Persian, Turkish and Arabic.

His linguistic aptitude gave him access to Jahangir of a kind that was denied to other European travellers. At Ajmer’s Akbari Fort in 1616, dressed in the garb of an Indian beggar, Coryate delivered a lengthy oration to Jahangir in formal Farsi, the language of the Mughal court.

Coryate transcribed the oration in one of his letters. It is a remarkable document. His Farsi is somewhat garbled, but in his opening lines he speaks in a stylised mode of address suited to his royal audience: “Hazaret Aallum pennah salamet, fooker Daruces ve tehaungeshta hastam kemia emadam az wellagets door, ganne az mulk Inglizan.” Coryate translates these lines into English as follows: “Lord protector of the world, all hail! I am a poor traveller and world-seer, who am come here from a far country called England.”

But his translation finesses how, in Farsi, Coryate had begun to characterise himself as Indian. His

term for himself is a “fooker Daruces,” or fakir dervish, a wandering Sufi ascetic who begged for alms. This suggests how he had been living in Ajmer as a religious beggar much like those I saw in the lane leading to the Dargah Sharif.

Sitting at his jharokha or public window in the Akbari Fort, Jahangir was sufficiently impressed

by Coryate’s oration that he threw him a hundred silver coins – a not insubstantial sum at the time.

Coryate’s luck seemed to have changed. And so did mine at the exact same location. The Akbari Fort had been converted by the British in the 19th century into a barracks called the Magazine; after Independence, it was turned into a museum.

I had hoped to photograph the jharokha from which Jahangir heard Coryate’s oration, but I was disappointed to find it partially covered with a banner advertising an upcoming exhibition.

Sitting within the fort were a group of men, whom I told about my plight. One of them, Deepak Sharma, turned out to be a professional photographer who had taken pictures of the uncovered jharokha, and he promised to email them to me (he was as good as his word). Deepak and his friends also offered me food – the most delicious kela I have ever eaten. The alms I received at the Akbari Fort may not have amounted to a hundred silver coins, but to me they were worth a crore of rupees. I was one lucky fakir.

Coryate’s luck, however, did not hold. After 14 months in Ajmer, and buoyed by his gift from Jahangir, he followed the Mughal court when it returned to Agra in September 1616. There he fell terribly sick. Undaunted, he proceeded to do what came naturally: he carried on walking, this time to Surat in Gujarat. A day after arriving, he died. The firangi fakir of Ajmer had walked his last.

Next week: The story of Augustin Hunarmand, the Jeweller of Agra.

Jonathan Gil Harris is Professor of English at George Washington University in Washington, DC. The author of five books on William Shakespeare’s plays and culture, he is currently spending a year in India researching a new book about European travellers to India in the time of Shakespeare

I WAS SHOVED BY TWO URCHINS RIGHT BEHIND ME. MY HANDS MUST HAVE BEEN OUT OF MY POCKETS FOR 30 SECONDS. WHEN I PUT THEM BACK, MY WALLET WAS GONE

24

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

PERSONAL AGENDA

PERSONAL AGENDA

PALASH SEN

Sun sign

Virgo-Libra cusp.

Born on the day of the equinox

Birthday

School/college

St Columba’s, Delhi and University College of Medical Sciences, Delhi

Home town

September 23

New Delhi

First break

Occupation

Getting through medical school and first album Dhoom

What you are doing currently Just released our new album, Item offering nine different ‘items’

Low point of your life Death of

my father in 1992

High point of your life

Doctor, songwriter, actor, singer, composer, wannabe phantom

Birth of my kids, Kinshuk and Kyna

PHOTO: MOHIT KHANNA

Which character from Sholay do you most resemble and why?

Gabbar Singh, since I’m the leader of a band of lovable scoundrels. Aak Thooo!

I would turn gay for...

Palash Sen!

If you were given a chance to remake Kites, the movie, what would you do.

I would not take the chance, even if I was offered El Dorado for it.

The last line of your autobiography would read…

Alvida, shukriya, See you later.

One song that describes your current state of mind?

The title song from my new album.

Called Item, it is a silly, happy, fun song

that describes my current euphoric state.

What would we find in your fridge right now?

If you were an ice-cream, what flavour would you be?

If a spaceship landed in your backyard, what would you do?

Your most irrational fear…

My freedom.

Leftover skeletons.

How would you explain Twitter to your grandmother?

I would say it means – To Write Irrelevant Twisted Text Ensuring Rubbish.

You wouldn’t be caught dead wearing…

Euphoria would do a concert for the aliens and try scoring a record deal on their planet. (Our music is alien anyway).

The most clichéd answer you’ve ever given in an interview.

If I’m dead, then what difference does it make what I’m wearing?

The stupidest thing you’ve ever heard?

I’m a doc who rocks!

The one place where you would never get yourself tattooed?

In terms of movie, it has to be any Salman Khan film.

And in books, it’s Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things.

The dialogues in any of the current Hindi films.

My soul!

HOW MANY PAIRS OF BLUE JEANS DO YOU HAVE?

73! CAN’T DO WITHOUT BLUE

26

What is the last thing you bought under R10?

The most overrated movie/book?

YOUR DARKEST FANTASY?

MY DARKEST FANTASY IS CALLED TYRA BANKS

HINDUSTAN TIMES WEEKLY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 13, 2011

Nutty.

Waking up one day and finding out that I’m not Phantom anymore.

The one lie you got away with?

I will call you back!

Where did you spend your last summer?

In a studio in New York where we were busy mixing for our new album.

What’s the biggest surprise you’ve ever given your date?

She married a doctor who turned out to be a rocker.

– Interviewed by Veenu Singh

IF YOU COULD PEEP INTO ANYONE’S HOUSE, WHOSE HOUSE WOULD IT BE?

I WOULD LOVE TO PEEP INTO SONIA GANDHI’S HOUSE FOR SURE