Brunch 15 12 2013 by Hindustan Times

WEEKLY MAGAZINE, DECEMBER 15, 2013 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times

India enters the wondrous world of interplanetary travel with its first indigenous Mars mission. We bring you face to face with the ISRO scientists behind this incredible journey

also inside

THE RISE AND RISE OF RAJINI

One fan explains the cult of the superstar

BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

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Apples and Oranges

by @HTBrunch

A Dilliwallah and a Mumbaikar walk into a bar... excerpts from the conversation

Brunch Opinion

HOW TO BE A SPACE CADET

n Get all starry-eyed and weak at the knees when given the opportunity to go to Bengaluru and meet scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation. n Text all your friends, while on national roaming, that you’re going to the Deep Space Network facility, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, I feel like I’m in a movie! n Restrain yourself with great difficulty from continuously orbiting the control room at the Mission Operations Centre – you know, that room with all those big displays of amazing things happening in outer space and banks of computers with earnest, focused people hunched overr them, monitoring signals and sending commands and doing all sorts of cool things. n Know from the depths of your soul that ISRO scientists aree the biggest rock stars. If they ran the country, you’d never worry. n Get excited when shown a completely empty ‘clean room’ where spacecraft are assembled. So what if there’s nothing there now. Once, this room contained the Mars Orbiter Mission. n Be very disappointed that you can’t actually set your watch to the time displayed by the atomic clock. n Solemnly inform your scientist guide that your appointment at the Indian Satellite Centre requires a course correction because your hired car driver is late. n Shamelessly ask if you could work at ISRO, even if it just means making tea.

D: Delhi has infrastructure M: Mumbai has civilisation D: Delhi has history M: We do too! Elephanta Caves! Haji Ali D: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA M: These people driving on Delhi roads... it’s suicide, I tell you! D: Your highways are narrower than our footpaths. M: But that’s because you need all that extra space to escape when a car with Haryana plates is chasing you!

Photos: THINKSTOCK, SHUTTERSTOCK

D: A study once said Mumbai is the rudest city M: No, that’s Delhi. D: Arre, hum toh aise hi hai bhaiyya! M: The local goes everywhere, and everybody travels by the local. D: Metro, yo! M: No commuter faints when our trains stop midway.

D: I want to travel from Kashmir to Kanyakumari... M: Ae, let’s go to Goa (or Lonavla or even baju mein Pune). M: Mumbai has all the new fun jobs. Can you work for a digital agency or OML or cutting-edge PR in Delhi? D: We’re busy cracking the IAS for free lifetime perks. D: We have the Yamuna, but your sea isn’t all that cool. M: We’re too busy sailing, jet-skiing and kayaking to be bothered about that. D: Abbe Hindi toh seekh le! M: A true Mumbaikar will always be able to speak/understand at least one language more than a Delhiite. Tumhala Marathi yeta ka?

M: You Delhiites are so star struck. Bollywood stars for us are just other people in the city. D: Yeah, and the best in the business are FROM Delhi! FOR ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT National — Sanchita Tyagi: sanchita.tyagi@hindustantimes.com North — Siddarth Chopra: siddarth.chopra@hindustantimes.com West — Karishma Makhija: karishma.makhija@hindustantimes.com South — Francisco Lobo: francisco.lobo@hindustantimes.com

DECEMBER 15, 2013

by Mignonne Dsouza

Stuff You Said Last Sunday

If you’re a parent and you know it

THE BOOK: Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures, by Amber Dusick THE GIST: Dusick’s blog (complete with stick-figure pictures) on motherhood resulted in this book about the adventures of Crappy Mama, Crappy Papa, Crappy Boy and Crappy Baby. ONE-LINE REVIEW: Writers are frequently asked to ‘show, don’t tell’, and Dusick does a good job with her drawings, making you laugh and shake your head with her funny, wry look at being a mom. READ IT IF: You want a quick read, and evidence that you’re not the only mom battling poop and insomnia. BUT: If you’re not a parent, it’s probably best to stay away from this one THE BEST LINE: A baby can’t use a spoon or tie his shoes but he can delete applications from your phone.

The most amazing story I have read (The Brave New World Of Indie Films). Really, we need more sensible movies. Once again thanx #htbrunch – @guf_khan

[Why thank you, kind Sir!]

So amazing to know that India has more superheroes than just Nagraj (The Backyard Superheroes)! @san_Sankalp

ake coming-up? Zakhmi Aurat rem Director SanDA EN AG AL ON RS (PE to see Parineeti jay Gupta wants cop's role.) ssy bo a do ra op Ch – @CamBhakt

I think Personal njay Agenda with Sa interGupta was quite ered esting. He answ ich is in all honesty, wh . The rare in Bollywood a fun cover story was read as well – Shruti Marathe

Today’s @HTBrunch carries a story on Indian superh eroes. Who all remember the m? Have they become rar ity now? – @jha_ashish

On The Brunch Radar n Bart Baker’s parody of Lorde’s Grammy-

nominated song Royals n Eric Schmidt’s Christmas present (a how-to guide for switching from iPhone to Android) n Truck racing to come to India? n Undoing a sent email on Gmail n If Facebook adds a ‘sympathise’ button

Cover imaging: MONICA GUPTA

EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Rachel Lopez, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf, Saudamini Jain, Shreya Sethuraman

Psst, send us an email, find us on on Facebook or tweet to @HTBrunch

by Saudamini Jain n When feminists overuse the ‘ablaa nari’ argument n All the AAP puns in newspaper headlines (also,

Sheila ki jawani jokes. Seriously, Delhi?)

n The Ranbir-Kareena episode on Koffee with Karan n Sex as exercise (it’s at best, a moderate workout –

and the way most people do it, not even that)

n The idea of spending New Year’s Eve at home

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

SHOVE IT

M: Okay, we don’t have a winter. But we don’t have that brutal summer either. D: Mumbai doesn’t have a winter, or spring, or autumn. Just the constant smell of ﬁsh, sweat and rain.

The Book Club

LOVE IT

D: You all make kissing noises!

M: You call everyone “bhaiyya”

by Kushalrani Gulab

Drop us a line at: brunchletters@hindustantimes. com or to 18-20 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001

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WELLNESS

MIND BODY SOUL SHIKHA SHARMA

FAST TRACK TO FITNESS You’ll get anywhere faster if you run, especially if your destination is allround good health

UNNING IS one of the most natural forms of exercise. Our ancestors did it, hunting, gathering and honing their bodies for survival. Most athletes use it to warm up before their preferred sport. And as exercises go, it’s low maintenance – all you need is a place to run, really. You don’t need specialised training, fancy equipment or machines, a specific time, or a hulking trainer. Your body will instinctively figure out how to do it right. Running is also safe for all ages as all you’re doing is carrying your body weight. and have a better digestive As we run, the body releases system. Most regular runners hormones and endorphins that find they can eat more without make you feel good and enjoy gaining weight because of their the exercise. The happy feeling improved metabolism. continues long after the exerIf you plan to run, incorpocise, which is why most runners rate this into your diet: report that they feel their tenn Protein-rich sprouts like sions released though the day. moong, chana and other beans. A good run works out the n Boiled beans. large thigh muscles, RUNNERS’ WORLD n Peanuts (they offer utilising tremendous Every step you take when natural protein and oil, energy and making you run is actually a step which help skin and to a fitter you your metabolism hair). surge. This encourages n Soya, tofu and soya flour, your body to burn fat faster especially if you get little or no and tone muscles and build meat in your diet. strength. It helps pear-shaped n Green and yellow vegetables bodies get back into more even for those essential vitamins and proportions. Its benefits extend enzymes. far beyond muscles – running n Complex carbohydrates like keeps osteoporosis at bay as it vegetable dalia, oats and brown improves the body’s weight on rice. the bones – retarding calcium n Minimal oil. depletion. n Lots of water to keep you People who run regularly going, as running can be quite destress naturally, report fewer draining. ailments as they build immunity

ask@drshikha.com

PICK THE RIGHT SHOES n Try them on at the end of the

day as your feet swell as the hours wear on. n They shouldn’t be too tight. Laced up (untied), you should be able to slide your foot out.

n Your toes should be able to wiggle comfortably. n Take a quick jog around the store to check if the shoe’s arch matches yours comfortably. Photos: THINKSTOCK, SHUTTERSTOCK

MORE ON THE WEB For more columns by Dr Shikha Sharma and other wellness stories, log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch DECEMBER 15, 2013

PEOPLE

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The Uday Chopra Primer

He is as blue-blooded as one can get in Bollywood without being a Kapoor. He can be reasonably funny. But can looks really kill? And is that what murdered Uday Chopra’s acting career? by Saudamini Jain The background

D.O.B: January 5, 1973 Sun sign: Capricorn (why this is important: this sign is represented by a goat, which can climb steeper cliffs than any other animal) Father: Yash Chopra (Bollywood’s king of romance, directed and/or produced Waqt, Kabhi Kabhie, Silsila, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Dil To Pagal Hai, Veer-Zaara among others) Brother: Aditya Chopra (who followed in papa’s filmmaking footsteps, and is good at it too) Uncle: BR Chopra (Yada yada hi dharmasya. Sunday morning Mahabharat, anyone?) But then, if stardom was genetic, we wouldn’t snigger at Tusshar Kapoor, Luv Sinha or Mimoh Chakraborty. So back to the beginning...

Circa 1995, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge

Assistant directors: Uday Chopra and Karan Johar. Being an AD is a thing – it’s a rite of passage till you get that big break. Johar went on to make Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Uday waited. But in 2000 came the homegrown Yash Raj film Mohabbatein – about love blossoming in and around a strict boarding school. It was a big, shiny launching pad for six young newbies. Apart from Uday, it starred Shilpa Shetty’s baby sister Shamita, the Masoom kid Jugal Hansraj, an unfortunately underrated Jimmy Shergill and two nobody girls for decoration. They ended up playing SRK’s backup dancers and props to the ghost of Aishwarya Rai floating through the sets (seriously, she played dead). The film (and Kaun Banega Crorepati) resurrected Amitabh Bachchan’s career. But most of the moppets faded into non-exist-

DECEMBER 15, 2013

ence. Funnily enough, they all continue to act. You’ll need Wikipedia to know where. But Uday… we saw him over and over again. We were first subjected to Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hai, which was according to director Sanjay Gadhvi “inspired less than 1 per cent by My Best Friend’s Wedding”. We believe him because no way on Earth can you get Uday to do a Julia Roberts. His fellow cast mates Tulip Joshi and Jimmy Shergill settled for Punjabi films. Now Uday decided to invest in special appearances. Big brother made another film with young names: Hrithik Roshan, Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukerji. The audience unfriended them before Uday could say Mujhse Dosti Karoge. Then, an even shorter appearance – all of two seconds in Kal Ho Naa Ho. His only dialogue is, “Day 6”. But (will this boy never learn?) dressed in a shirt splashed with more shades of blue than you had ever seen. Still, Uday kept calm and carried on. We saw him in Charas: A Joint Effort, named so because the only way you’d be able to tolerate it is if you were happily stoned. Then, came Neal ‘n’ Nikki starring Tanisha Mukherjee’s push-up bras (best line ever: “Tum nange kyun the?”). Uday never got over the failure of the film, apparently. And so just four years ago, he did the impossible and gave us Pyaar Impossible! (Geek falls for gorgeous girl, meets her years later, in the meantime someone steals this revolutionary software he was working on… the only thing that sticks in Uday’s script is his nickname, Froggy). All critics unanimously agreed it sucked (they were the only ones who watched the film anyway) and handed out a generous star each. With that Uday’s career in Bollywood ended. Except...

The Dhoom Franchise

Starring: A few hot ladies, Abhishek Bachchan and Uday, the resident tapori. We liked him in the first film; hell, we even laughed. But we were focused on John Abraham. In Dhoom 2, Uday was even more sidelined by Hrithik Roshan. And in 2011, completely out of the blue, this came in: “Dhoom 3 is my swan song. It will be my last film. No, I’m not giving up acting; it’s quite the opposite, acting is giving up on me.” Going by the trailers (the film hadn’t released when we went to press), Dhoom 3 seems to be only about Aamir Khan anyway.

What is he up to then?

Watching Bigg Boss for sure (although he says otherwise) because nothing can compare to the joy of seeing an ex – Tanisha, allegedly – on a ‘reality’ show. Dating Nargis Fakhri, again ‘allegedly’. They do have the cutest fights on Twitter though. Doing stuff online. He’s got this detailed website so corny it could only belong to a struggling ‘actor/ model’. And, on Tumblr, he blogs about the purpose of life and other profound things. Tweeting, a lot. There’s bizarre (‘I spoke to a tree today. It was the best conversation I ever had. The tree said… nothing! Yet it confirmed all my suspicions… I’m crazy!’) and observational (‘Does @TwoHalfMen_CBS know that the half has become a full man now and he’s kinda moved out, so technically it’s just two men now’) and hilarious (‘Can a vampire become a zombie?’).

Moral of the story

If you’re a rich kid, you can always move to LA and produce Hollywood films. Early next year, you’ll see Uday’s first, a film about Grace Kelly, starring Nicole Kidman. saudamini.jain@hindustantimes.com

COVER STORY

Meet the magnificent men and the machines driving India’s indigenous mission to the Red Planet. An exclusive report from ISRO’s inner circle by Kushalrani Gulab; photos by Satish Bate

Do you know or remember what it is to love your job? To be involved in it with such dedication that your workplace becomes the place where you live, that every fibre of your being is focused on one thing and one thing alone – that the job is done and done perfectly? If you don’t know how this feels, here’s a suggestion: Take a trip to Bengaluru. Lurk outside one of the several workplaces staffed by scientists from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). (Do this discreetly. The security personnel are not very keen on unauthorised lurkers.) Then look at the way they walk: Straight backs. Heads high. Filled with purpose. And then go back to your own workplace, inspired. You know, of course, why the people at ISRO are so conspicuously in love with their jobs, possibly more at this time than any other.

Their spacecraft for the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), India’s first attempt at an interplanetary mission, is well on its way to the Red Planet. It left Earth’s sphere of influence (the area of space over which our home planet exerts a gravitational pull) on December 4, making us only the fourth country in the world and the first Asian nation to accomplish such a feat. Not to mention the first country in the world to get it right on the first attempt. And all this in 15 months. MOM is now travelling around the sun on a path and velocity that will, in September 2014, first have it overtake Mars on that planet’s own route around the sun, then slow down and allow itself to be captured by Mars’s gravity as the planet catches up with it. India has made and launched rockets and satellites for so long that we’ve taken them for granted.

Excerpts from an interview with Dr K Radhakrishnan, chairman, ISRO ON ISRO’S WORK CULTURE: We are a learning organisation, so after success, you won’t see great jubilation – we just gather together and discuss our observations on what to do better next time. And after a failure, we discuss what corrections to make and get into action. We learn from failure and success and institute our corrections. Any space mission is complex, and we work like surgeons, totally focused on the job to do. If you think about victory or failure, you will lose your focus. ON TAKING SCIENCE TO THE PEOPLE: We are accountable. We can’t do this as a closed-door affair. The launch and the Trans Mars Injection (the ma-

noeuvre that shifted the Mars Orbiter Mission spacecraft out of the parking orbit around the earth and into the carefully plotted trajectory leading to Mars) touched the hearts of the common man, who watched it as closely as he watches a cricket match. Chandrayaan (the lunar mission) meant a lot to the people, because it was part of a voyage and it captured their imaginations. And now we are getting into interplanetary space, with all the pride associated with it. That’s why we started our Facebook page – ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission. We began it on October 22 and it has nearly 2.9 lakh people on it now. That’s 2.9 lakh people discussing science – that is an achievement.

DECEMBER 15, 2013

But India launching a fully indigenous mission to the moon with Chandrayaan in 2008? Completing that mission not only without a hitch but also with knowledge that has eluded other missions since the Soviets’ first ever successful moon mission in 1959? And now heading out of the reasonably well known turf around our planet with an indigenous mission to Mars? The idea seems like something out of a sci-fi novel. But this is not science fiction. Far from it. This is science at its most glorious, allowing Indian scientists to do what they do best: find solutions to challenges they only dreamed of before. As the fascinating Facebook page of ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission tells us: “Kashmir to Kanyakumari! Imagine throwing a peanut from an express train, speeding out of Jammu Tawi railway station, in

such a way that it should land in the pocket of a captain steering a ferry zipping into the jetty at Kanyakumari. That’s simpler than making MOM orbit Mars!” If you think that’s an exaggeration, you are soooo wrong. Taking a short tiffin break in the canteen at the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) office in Bengaluru, a group of scientists is having a tough time trying to explain just what it takes to pull off an operation like MOM. As BS Chandrashekar, director, ISTRAC, says, “In one sense, it is not very different from ISRO’s other missions.” But because MOM is ISRO’s first ever interplanetary mission, it has challenges these scientists, who’ve been with ISRO for years, have never faced before. It called for new types of tech-

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nology, points out Dr V Kesavaraju, post-launch mission director, MOM, who has a 30-year history with the organisation. “And,” says P Robert, operations director, MOM, who’s been with ISRO since 1990, “Though every mission has its own complexities and challenges that expand our horizons, MOM gives us a sense of satisfaction over lessons we’ve learned, and a sense of excitement, and a big boost of confidence for the next challenge we face.” Consider its elements. You need a rocket (or launch vehicle) that will take the spacecraft out to precisely where it must begin its journey. You need a spacecraft that must – for the 300 days of the journey from Earth to the Mars orbit, plus roughly 180 days to accomplish the mission’s objectives once there – withstand a hostile environment. This includes solar winds, harmful radiation, unimaginable temperatures. The spacecraft must also carry enough propellant to power itself when required to move from one trajectory to another. And it must also be able to correct itself autonomously should anything go wrong, because as it gets further away from Earth, you will no longer be able to control it in real time. Signals to and from the spacecraft will take longer and longer to be transmitted, with a lag (known as time drift) of 12-and-a-half minutes each way when it’s actually in the Mars orbit. On the ground, you need a deep space network (powerful antennas) spread all across the world, to be able to monitor the spacecraft, receive its signals and send it commands. You also need people and machines to process, distribute and store the information that the scientific equipment in the spacecraft sends back. And these are only the physical requirements. You also need to figure out the path that the spacecraft must take from Earth to Mars. This is not just a matter of aiming the spacecraft in the general direction of the Red Planet. Like the Earth, Mars also revolves around the sun, so the challenge is to get one moving object (the spacecraft) away from another moving object (Earth) in such a way as to meet a third moving object (Mars) in the

Some of the brilliant scientists behind the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) 1. Dr M Annadurai, programme director, MOM 2. P Robert, operations director, MOM 3. S Arunan, project director, MOM 4. Dr V Kesavaraju, post-launch mission director, MOM 4

most efficient manner possible, through space that is so immense that there’s a very real chance that your spacecraft can get lost. So velocity is important (velocity is not the same as speed. It’s the speed at which something moves away from its original position in a particular direction), and so is timing. Neither can be off, everything must be completely precise. And then MOM, as a mission, had its own particular challenge to face. The geometry of the sun, Earth and Mars is such that a mission like this can only take place once in 26 months – meaning that when financial approval came in August

“We’re doing this for the first time. It’s a close operation, so there’s very little margin for error”

2012 (two years after feasibility studies and consultations), the team at ISRO, led by its chairman, Dr K Radhakrishnan, had to make a decision. Their first opportunity to head to Mars would be in November 2013, the next in 2016 and the next after that in 2018 – which would it be? “At ISRO, we create our own schedules, no one dictates to us,” says Dr Radhakrishnan who’s been an ISRO stalwart since he joined the organisation with a Bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1971. “We chose 2013.” That gave the team 15 months to conceive, design, create, test and launch this mission – a mission that is a first for everybody. “This is not a simple operation,” says Robert, in what must be the understatement of the year. “We’re doing this for the first time, so there are many things to observe and correct. It’s a very close

DECEMBER 15, 2013

operation so there’s very little margin for error.” “But we are ready for it,” adds BN Ramakrishna, deputy operations director, MOM, who, as a student, had been a huge fan of sci-fi films and always longed to work for ISRO. “Whatever we’ve dreamt, we have achieved.” Why should MOM orbit Mars anyway? As the spacecraft zips across skies at the rate of 370 lakh km a day on its way to the rendezvous with the Red Planet, down here on Earth, India is struggling with enormous, scary problems. So why are we looking out there instead of in here? And what are we looking for anyway? Well, the mission has two objectives. The first is to test and extend our own technological capabilities, because, as Dr Radhakrishnan says, Indian space

COVER STORY

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THIS IS GROUND ZERO

A view of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft Control Centre during the Trans Mars Injection Operations research has never been static. “Since the space programme took off 50 years ago (the first sounding rocket, carrying scientific instruments, flew up from Thumba, the spaceport near Thiruvananthapuram on November 21, 1963), we have advanced and had several turning points, including the lunar mission Chandrayaan, and now MOM,” says Dr Radhakrishnan. “The staging period of any space programme is long, so one needs to have a longterm plan that delivers technology that is contemporary even 20 years later. This provides clarity in the organisation. You always know what you’re doing next.” The second objective of the mission is to extend our science knowledge – knowledge that once won, can be applied to situations in India, and may help us deal with our huge and scary problems. This was the objective of the Indian space programme from the start – the idea was not so much to aim for glory as it was to aim for solutions. “This vision that Dr Vikram Sarabhai (the founder of the Indian space programme) enunciated, has been stood by throughout the organisation and over time,” says Dr Radhakrishnan. “Our programme is application-centric and people-centric.” So what are we looking for, science-wise? At this point, it’s just exploration, pure and simple. “Searching is part of the human condition,” says Dr M Annadurai, the man who was in charge of Chandrayaan-1 and now Chandrayaan-2 (the moon landing mission), and is also programme director of MOM. “Exploration,

search, whether internal or external, that is what makes us human. The whole of science is driven by questions and the mother of all questions is: who are we? And for that answer, we have to see what’s out there. If there once was life on Mars, why is there no life there now? If there is life only on Earth, why are we here?” These are big questions that we never stop asking ourselves, but it’s unlikely we’ll get those answers in 16 months. Meanwhile, the MOM is carrying five payloads (payload being a fancy word for scientific equipment) that address some rather more specific concerns. First, there’s the Lyman Alpha Photometer, meant to help us understand why Mars lost its atmosphere. “It once had a thick atmosphere and water flowed, today it’s a cold desert with a very thin atmosphere,” explains BR Guruprasad, scientist and public relations officer at ISRO. Second, the Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser, meant to study the atmosphere. Third, the Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, meant to study the surface of the planet. Fourth, the Methane Sensor for Mars, meant to show us if the methane on Mars has a geological source or a biological one. “If it’s biological, everyone will jump, because that means there once was life on Mars,” explains Guruprasad. And last but not least, the Mars Colour Camera, capable of taking pictures of the surface of Mars to help us study landforms that are the products of processes that have been at work over years.

DECEMBER 15, 2013

Naturally, none of these payloads can do much till MOM locks into the Mars orbit, but the camera was tested while MOM was orbiting Earth, sending back a picture of India shot from 68,000 km above sea level and sending patriotic feelings down here on Earth. The layman’s patriotism, however, is not quite the same as the scientists’ pride. “All I can say is that I’m living my dream,” says S Arunan, project director of MOM, who credits the novels of PG Wodehouse, the late humour writer, with saving his sanity while he worked on the mission. “I read his books to destress, read them again and again,” he says. “I was slightly sceptical when we were given such a short time to realise the mission, but we conceived, designed, fabricated, tested and launched it, everything according to schedule and planned performance… I find real happiness in this, compared to previous missions. For MOM, we chose to play our genius.” For Dr Annadurai, the achievement of MOM is all about confidence. When he made a presentation in Ahmedabad about the mission 15 months ago, he realised that among the audience was a project director from MAVEN, the US space agency NASA’s Mars mission also scheduled for November, 2013. “He was surprised. His mission was being tested as I spoke, but what I was showing the audience was only the drawing board,” says Dr Annadurai. “He thought I was joking. How could we possibly pull off such a mission with only one tenth of the money NASA was spending, within one fifth of their time frame – and for the first time ever at that! But now both missions are on their way to Mars.” But there’s no sense of rivalry with other space agencies, says Chandrashekar of ISTRAC. “We just want to get our mission right. We have a task to perform – that is in itself exciting,” he says. “You really don’t need a feeling of competition to motivate you. The excitement is more than enough.”

“Science is driven by questions and the mother of all questions is: who are we?”

brunchletters@hindustantimes.com. Follow @HappyQueenRose on Twitter

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WHAT’S IN A NAME? After the moon mission named Chandrayaan, it seems natural to call the Mars Orbiter Mission Mangalyaan. But that’s not how the scientists refer to it. “We call it MOM – that’s M-O-M, not ‘mom’ like ‘mother’,” says BR Guruprasad, scientist and public relations officer at ISRO. But it’s okay to call MOM Mangalyaan if you want to, says Dr M Annadurai, programme director, MOM. “We all have pet names for things. Go ahead and call it Mangalyaan if you like.” WHY MARS, WHY NOT VENUS? Men Are from Mars, Women Are From Venus, that book of relationship advice by John Gray, has a lot to answer for. On ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Mission Facebook page, there’s some amount of good-natured ribbing about MOM’s alleged sexism. But really, why is Mars the top target for exploration, not Venus, which is closer? Well, says Guruprasad, Venus has a surface temperature of 450 degrees C, its atmospheric pressure is 100 times what it is on Earth and its atmosphere consists of carbon dioxide. “So if you went near Venus or landed on it, you’d be incinerated, crushed and asphyxiated,” laughs Guruprasad. “It is hell.” Mars, on the other hand, continues Guruprasad, has a thin atmosphere and is a lot less hot than Antarctica! “Also, it’s been part of human imagination since Galileo’s observations in the 17th century. After so-called ‘canals’ were spotted there, people began to think that intelligent life exists on Mars.” Though that thought changed over the years, in 1971 when Mariner 9 started circling Mars, it showed Olympus, a volcano three times the height of Mount Everest, polar ice caps and features found in deltas – thus indicating that water might have flowed there a long time ago. “So what happened?” asks Guruprasad. “Did life originate there?” WHAT’S AN ORBITER AND HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM OTHER MISSIONS? An orbiter is meant simply to orbit a planet or other astronomical objects like the moon, carrying scientific instruments that explore objectives from a distance. It isn’t meant to land on the planet. For a landing, a different kind of spacecraft is needed. Chandrayaan 1 was an orbiter as is MOM. Chandrayaan 2, on the other hand, is meant to land on the moon. WHAT’S NEXT? Well, ISRO is in the process of developing spacesuits for a manned mission in the future, according to Dr K Radhakrishnan, chairman, ISRO. But so far, there’s no launch vehicle capable of carrying humans. It’s a logical step however. First there are orbiters, then landings, then manned missions.

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Whisky Business

A new generation must learn to appreciate malt whisky for its own strengths – not just because it has more snob value

Vir Sanghvi

rude drink I

CHEERS TO THE YEARS

In the 1970s, sales of whisky began falling in America. So whisky companies introduced new brands and product differentiators. Age was used (by Chivas, mainly) as an easy indicator of quality

USED TO think that the food and wine people I loathed the most were wine snobs. You know the kind I mean: the guys who talk about fine wine as though they drink it every day, toss around the names of famous Grand Crus, and then look pityingly at the rest of us for having to drink cheap plonk. But now I’ve found another lot who I hate even more: whisky bores. And sadly, there are many, many more whisky bores than there are wine snobs because good wine is hard to get hold of in India, while premium whisky is freely available. And whisky bores have been around from time immemorial. When I was growing up during the license-quota-permit raj, it was the old buffers who bragged about how they only drank Scotch and then produced some duty-free brand like Passport to show how sophisticated they were. Then it became the nouveau riche millionaires who bought adulterated Black Label from their smugglers, couldn’t tell the difference, and then boasted about how they only served us the best. In recent years, a new kind of bore has supplanted the old-style whisky bragger. This is the malt whisky bore. Usually, this kind of person is male, over 40(or more likely, 50) plus, well-off, has travelled a little and is inordinately proud of the glasses he has stacked up at home. He is eager to prove to you that he is far superior to the average whisky drinker and laughs out aloud when you mention a really good blended Scotch like, say, Royal Salute. “I only drink malts,” he says, sneeringly. And then he holds forth about some obscure little malt whisky you have never heard of (“bahut hi limited production hain – but I have got a bottle”) and lectures you on how much water to mix

DECEMBER 15, 2013

Photos: THINKSTOCK

with whisky (yawn!). I’m not the world’s greatest whisky drinker so I tend to lose interest in these conversations very quickly. But even I can tell that most of these malt whisky lovers are bull-shitters. Give them whiskies at a blind tasting and most of them will ignore the malt and say that they prefer a whisky that turns out to be Solan No. 1 or Black Knight or something like that. (Do they still make whisky in Solan? These are all names from my childhood.) I don’t know a lot about whisky – plans to visit distilleries in Scotland keep getting put off or cancelled – but I do know the basics. Most distilleries in Scotland turn out malt whiskies. The character of these whiskies varies from distillery to distillery and from region to region. (Which is why you will hear about Speyside or Islay etc.) For many years, a blended whisky was considered Scotland’s crowning achievement. Master blenders picked malts from various distilleries and blended them together to create what they regarded as the perfect blend. That is how most of today’s great whiskies were born. Malt whiskies were available if you knew where to find them but the malt whisky boom is essentially a 20th century phenomenon. That is when liquor companies began to push them. But they were treated as a minority interest. And nobody made the absurd claim that malt whisky was better than blended whisky. Then, in the 1970s, sales of whisky and other brown spirits began falling in America (a key market for Scotch) as younger people moved to white spirits (vodka mainly but also tequila and white rum), which were regarded as trendier and hipper. The whisky industry suffered for a while but then plotted its comeback. This consisted of focusing on new brown-spirit-friendly markets (Asia, for instance and India in particular) where whisky still remained an aspirational

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HALF ‘N’ HALF

Ian Logan, described as the International Brand Ambassador of Chivas Brothers, said that the ideal way to try a malt was 50 per cent whisky and 50 per cent water drink. The whisky companies also introduced new brands and product differentiators. The idea was to allow people to drink whiskies that seemed different from those their fathers loved and to introduce a new snob culture for the whisky drinker. So age was used (by Chivas, mainly) as an easy indicator of quality. (“Is your whisky eight years old?” “Well, mine is 22 years old” etc). And malt whiskies began to be treated like single vineyard wines, the purest essence of whisky. That’s when all this malt whisky snobbery began. And now the craze has spread around the world. I know people who swear by Japanese malt whiskies. So, if you fall into the trap of believing that any malt is better than every blend, you are just being silly. There are good malts and bad malts. And there are well-blended popular whiskies and lots of rubbish aimed mainly at, say, the Chinese market. My friend, the journalist-author Anil Dharker, has been a lover of whisky for as long as I have known him. Many, many years ago, before every lala with a fat paunch began holding forth about how expensive his preferred whisky was, Anil started a malt whisky club. In those days, good whisky was not easy to come by so the club had an arrangement. The meetings would be held once a month and would rotate between the homes of members. Each member would provide the hospitality and the whisky when his turn came. But because there were around two dozen members, this was not asking too much. A member got his turn once every two years and in the interim he could enjoy the whiskies other people served. (Oddly enough, says Anil, it was the relatively less rich members who made the best hosts. The wealthy fund managers tended to shirk their turns.) Now that whisky is big business and every global drinks multinational is trying to push malt whisky in India, Anil’s club is much in demand but the membership seems solidly restricted to what I regard as the old South Bombay elite. I went a couple of weeks ago to a Glenlivet tasting

TASTING WATERS

Glenlivet’s real challenge is to take the cult of malt whisky to a younger generation that doesn’t really understand the concept

that Anil’s club had organised at Bombay’s Trident Hotel. In the old days, the club had the dinosaur-like slogan, ‘no soda, no women’, but these are modern times and so there were ladies present. The attendance though was the solidly professional South Bombay permanent elite (Monica and Charles Correa, Michael Mascarenhas, etc.) Ian Logan, described as the International Brand Ambassador of Chivas Brothers, had flown down to take the club through three versions (“expressions”) of Glenlivet, none of which is in the market yet. The idea as far as I could tell was for aficionados of Glenlivet in 20 markets to try these three versions and then pick their favourite. The version selected by the most people would then be bottled in a special limited edition called Glenlivet Guardians Chapter. (Only 2,000 cases of this whisky will be sold on the market). We sat in a banquet room and tried all three. Ian said that the ideal way to try a malt was 50 per cent whisky and 50 per cent water, which drew howls of outrage from whisky club members who believed (as I did) that the best way to taste whisky is with just a touch of water. But Ian does this for a living, so nobody quarrelled with him for too long. I’m not a great taster of malts, but from what I could tell, Glenlivet Classic, the first of the three whiskies had toffee notes, the second Revival had fruit notes and the third Exotic had spice. The people doing the tasting around me liked Revival but my guess is that Asians will prefer Exotic, with its hints of spice if the tastings are more widespread. The Glenlivet folks seemed excited by the event. After coming across so many malt whisky bores, it must have been a relief to be in a room with people who actually knew something about single-malt whisky. But equally, I suspect Glenlivet’s real challenge is to take the cult of malt whisky to a younger generation that doesn’t really understand the concept. Eventually the bores and the snobs will die out. And a new generation must learn to appreciate malt whisky for its own strengths – not just because it has more snob value than a good blended whisky.

If you fall into the trap of believing that any malt whisky is better than every blend, you are just being silly

Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

DECEMBER 15, 2013

TASTE MAKERS

Most distilleries in Scotland turn out malt whiskies. The character of these whiskies varies from distillery to distillery and from region to region

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Photo: GETTY IMAGES

In Defence Of Men In a free and frank gender debate, men must be allowed to air their views – no matter how offensive we find them

IRST OFF, a confession. I find myself increasingly discomfited by the newly-minted feminist narrative in which a woman is always considered to be right and the man is always seen as being wrong. In which a woman’s word is regarded as being more reliable than a man’s, simply because she is a woman. In which a man is assumed to be guilty until he is proved innocent, turning the principles of natural justice on their head, if a woman were to level a rape or dowry charge against him. And in which men and women are depicted as antagonistic entities, engaged in pitched battles across the gender divide. It really doesn’t have to be like that. Women’s rights are not just a feminist issue. They are a humanist issue. And we do the feminist cause a disservice when we try and shut men out of the discourse, or treat them as enemies of the movement. This is the good fight which all right-thinking

Seema Goswami

spectator IT’S HIS OPINION Naresh Agarwal said that men would no longer hire women as personal assistants for fear of being accused of sexual harassment

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human beings must fight; not just those with an extra X chromosome. Because of our visceral reaction to such events as the Delhi gang rape last December, the gang rape of a photo-journalist in Mumbai, and more recently, the allegations of sexual assault levelled against Tarun Tejpal, we are finally talking about a woman’s right to a safe environment, at home, at the office, and on the streets. But because our rage and anger is so overwhelming, the pitch of the debate has been raised to such shrill levels that we are in danger of drowning out good sense. The first sign of this is our absolute refusal to listen to what men are trying to say, if it doesn’t fit in with our narrative of woman = victim and man = predator. While there is no disputing that women are more at risk when it comes to sexual violence or harassment, we cannot dismiss out of hand the notion that some men may be victims too. Cases of the dowry and rape laws being misused may be rare, but they do exist. And we ignore them at our peril. But what is also worrying is the new fashion of shouting down men who express opinions that we regard as sexist. Take Farooq Abdullah, for instance, who confessed that he was now scared of talking to women for fear of what would happen (“I don’t even want to keep a female secretary. God forbid, there is a complaint against me and I end up in jail”). Or Naresh Agarwal, who said that men would no longer hire women as personal assistants for fear of being accused of sexual harassment. Whatever we may think about the mind-set that generated such sentiments, there is no denying that these sentiments do exist. These two men were just brave/foolish/foolhardy (take your pick) to say in public which many men were feeling (and expressing) in private. But given the viciousness

TOO SCARED TO TALK Farooq Abdullah was shouted down because he confessed that he was now scared of talking to women for fear of what would happen with which they were greeted, I wouldn’t be surprised if men now run scared of even speaking out on gender issues, for fear of being shouted down, sneered at, abused, or dismissed as chauvinistic Neanderthals. And, if you ask me, that is a real shame. If we want to change people’s minds on issues such as women’s empowerment, sexual harassment or even sexual assault, then it is important to engage with them in a meaningful way which facilitates dialogue and a free and frank exchange of ideas. Men may well have views that we regard as sexist but just screaming ‘pigs’ at them will not make them rethink their attitudes. It will just make them disengage from the debate and keep their views to themselves in the future. And those views will never change. It is simply self-defeating to create an environment in which no man can express his true opinions on gender – however sexist we may find them – without being torn to bits by a lynch mob motivated by political correctness. Jumping down the throats of people who say things we don’t like will not result in their views being asphyxiated out of existence. These attitudes will continue to flourish in the dark, all the more potent for being unspoken and hence unchallenged. Also, I can’t help but feel that it is time that we injected some shades of grey into a discourse that has become too black and white to allow for a nuanced approach. The feminist movement will only benefit from acknowledging that all women don’t fit into one easy category of ‘downtrodden victim’ who must be protected at all costs. Women are human beings, and as such they have the same strengths and weaknesses, the same virtues and flaws as men. Some women are truthful; some are not. Some women are weak; some are strong. Some women are victims; some are oppressors. To lump them all into a one-size-fits-all category smacks of intellectual laziness and a complete misunderstanding of how the real world operates. This kind of thinking doesn’t empower women; it belittles them by reducing them to easy stereotypes. True equality exists in having the same standards applied to women as they would to men, without conceding any special privilege or concession simply because they are women. And it also means conceding the point that men have a right to their own views on the gender debate currently raging in the country – never mind how strongly we disagree with him. Feminists cannot become the Thought Police, no matter how grave the provocation.

Feminists cannot become the Thought Police, no matter how grave the provocation

DECEMBER 15, 2013

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Wearing Tech On YOur Sleeve

Wearable tech is indeed exciting, but there are some really ridiculous devices out there

E ARE riding an incredible wave of wearable tech. The world is strapping on fitness devices to their bodies, Google Glass-like devices on their heads and smartwatches on to their hands. The one category that is seeing the most innovation is easily wearable tech. Unfortunately, it’s also seeing the most ridiculous ideas pouring in from every direction. When one company sees success, others want to follow. Currently the biggest streams of money and sales are coming in from technology that isn’t carried, but worn. The quantified self movement, where everything you do with your body and mind must be measured and counted, is the fastest adapted way of living. Fitbit, Nike, Google, Jawbone, Samsung and about a hundred others are already in this arena.

Rajiv Makhni

techilicious

The Intimacy line of clothing becomes increasingly transparent upon sensing when you really ‘like’ someone

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Navigate is a jacket that uses haptic feedback as well as built-in LED lights to guide you to your destination lenged argument, the Sony SmartWig would contain sensors to detect things like blood pressure and even brain waves plus ultrasound transducers and a camera, speakers, GPS and a microphone. It’ll vibrate when you get a phone call and give you bit of a heads up (pun intended!) to a dozen other things happening in and around you. Two things fox me though. Do I really want radiation emitting sensors so close to my brain? And do I want to wear a ratty little wig all day?

SPROUTLING: THE FITNESS TRACKER FOR BABIES

Yes, this is a tracker that you put onto a newborn baby’s ankle. The concept and thought is actually pretty sound as it senses both the baby and his or her environment. It can track a child’s heart rate, skin temperature, tosses and turns, whilst also telling you about the room’s temperature, humidity, and ambient light levels. This can then achieve minor miracles like telling you down to the last minute when a baby will be waking up, when it should be fed, when it’s going to poop, is the baby crying because it’s too warm or cold and what time a small baby should go to sleep to get maximum hours of actual rest. To all brand new parents who haven’t slept for the last two months and are literally rushing to order this – hold on for a second. One, it’s not out yet and two, the amount of wireless sensors this WHY SO MOODY? one uses may just be enough to fry the brains of a The Phyode W/Me is a newborn baby and its delicate little head. There’s mood ring that tells you no point having a well-rested baby with brains your emotional state that have been radiated to nothingness.

About a thousand will follow. The problem? Wearable tech only works when the device can be worn unobtrusively and naturally, and most companies are running out of places on the human body to fit in their device. This lack of real estate is leading to some of the most ridiculous and frankly horribly outlandish devices ever conceived.

FOR YOUR KINKS

LIGHT ME SOME LED

AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF MANY MORE

There are of course many others that I will not be able to fit in here. A tweeting bra that sends off a tweet as soon as it’s open; MICROSOFT SMART BRA Shreddies are this awesome line of underwear that can procA bra you need to plug in every few hours. Just imagining ess foul-smelling gases that you emit due to a ‘state-of-the-art that scenario is wildly amusing, but when you get into what it carbon panel’ embedded at the right area; Intimacy is a line does and how it does that, the story gets even more comedic. of clothing that can sense when you really ‘like’ someone and This push-up apparatus has a gyroscope, accelerometer, elecstart getting increasingly transparent; Melon is an all-new trocardiogram and electro-dermal sensors, which means that mind reading headband that you have to wear all day and it it can monitor your heart and emotions. Thankfully, that can then help you focus better; Navigate is a jacket that uses doesn’t mean it’s going to send shockwaves down your chest haptic feedback as well as LED lights built into a very Michael as soon as it senses you craving ice cream – it just notifies Jackson-styled jacket that can guide you to your destination; your smartphone way ahead that emotional eating is about Phyode W/Me is a new generation mood ring that tells you to occur. Sexist flak notwithstanding, the reason they’ve gone your emotional state by monitoring your autonomic nervous for a bra is because of the proximity it allows to the heart. system (ANS); Scepter is a ring that holds all your electronic Apparently they did try out a similar unpasswords and needs to be waved in front derwear system for men, but it didn’t work of your computer or smartphone to unlock BABY MONITOR very well as the sensors were too far from them... I could go on and on. The Sproutling the heart – sending signals of a different There is no denying the fact that tech Fitness Tracker for kind. that you adorn is by far the most exciting babies can tell you new category in the word of gizmos and down to the last SONY SMARTWIG gadgets. It just needs a slight slowdown, a minute when your So, Google Glass owns the eye area! What ‘sit back and take a deep breath’ approach, baby will wake up other areas of the face can they exploit to reduce some of the awesomely ridicunext? Sony came up with the head. And the lous stuff that is being churned out in the smart guys at Sony decided that the most name of wearable tech. Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, easily acceptable wearable device would be and the anchor of Gadget Guru, Cell Guru and Newsnet 3 a wig! Moving away from that follicly-chal-

DECEMBER 15, 2013

REEL WORLD in Thillu Mullu

With his new film, Kochadaiiyaan, he’s back in the spotlight. One fan tries to explain what makes Rajini the boss, the hero, the hope by Arul Mani

Y FIRST acquaintance with Rajinikanth was entirely second-hand. I encountered him in my short-pants years at school, in the rapture transmitted by classmates poorer in every conceivable way except in their relationship with cinema. My father was particular that I learn to read and write in the classical Dravidian language of Tamizh. I went thus to school with the children of waiters, peons, autorickshaw drivers, factory workers and casual labourers. They filed into every one of the schools I went to with careful faces leading their careful feet. They turned human, eyes shining from remembered dazzle, only when they began to speak of songs they liked, or fights they remembered every move from, or little turns of phrase they had secreted. Or after days of not-feeling-wellmiss were confidentially revealed to be spent at theatres in the Cantonment that played Tamizh films. I can never convey to anybody the impossible pangs of yearning that seized me as I listened to these tales. I can pinpoint the exact moment the world changed – when their conversations seemed to switch from EmJyaaR (M.G. Ramachandran) or Sivaji to Rejjini – sometime in September 1979. Soon there was no escaping

him. The boys could imitate his mannerisms with sundry accessories or moves they must have practiced for endless hours. The girls would produce his inflections, the way he dwelt on some words, hurrying through others. Tamizh cinema was verboten in the ideologically perfect world my father had fashioned for us. But it would filter through in this way, and in songs that fell like missiles out of the sky because some strangers

Boys would imitate his mannerisms, girls would produce his inflections at will

DECEMBER 15, 2013

Illustrations: JAYANTO

had strapped speakers to their small festivities. I didn’t notice it then, but my entire repertoire of boyhood noise was fashioned thus: stray phrases and gestures of operatic brio culled from songs written for Rajinikanth. I have lost track of the number of times I have sat up in adult surprise on sprees of historicallyminded film-watching, because

in 16 Vayathinile

some song brought back an entire week of some misspent summer vacation. Afternoon of baroque automobile noises organised around the phrase ‘Manmathan Vanthaanaa!’ (The God of Love has arrived!, from Ninaithale Inikkum); or of prancing behind my friends Maruti and Justie as they raised sticks in benediction upon a world too busy to notice, intoning, “My Name is Billa”, and the monologue of manly achievement that follows: “Vaazhkai ellam, naanum paakkatha aal illai pokatha oor illa aiyya. Naan nandriyum sollamatten aiyya” (In life, there isn’t a man or a place/ I haven’t seen/I don’t even stop to say thanks). The first few Rajini films I got to watch were through Doordarshan. I went thus from received rapture to recoil. I remember watching a Kannada movie Galate Samsara (Quarrelling Families), an ornery tale of two couples trying to arrive at connubial bliss. Rajinikanth brought to the screen what seemed like a seething volcanic crackle. Some part of it came from the way his torso seemed to fit itself, through a transparent shirt, to the heroine’s body; some from the contempt with which he tore into other males on the cast. It was more than I had the stomach for. My other initial encounters with the actor – the Kannada film Katha Sangama and the Tamizh film Pathinaru Vayathinile – were similarly marked by recoil. I remember feeling something between terror and fascination as I watched these films. This was not, however, the only mode in which I got to know Rajinikanth. I changed schools in

in Billa

in Enthiran

in Kochadaiiyaan

in Sivaji: The Boss early adolescence. My new friends were artistes who could quote large stretches of dialogue from memory. They could tease out detail and meaning into scenes with the same ease that they brought to flubbing maths and science. Television also offered little snippets of song and dance. Some, such as the title number in Thillu Mullu or Ennamma Kannu (Mr Bharath) were five-minute exercises in a jauntiness that nobody ever matched till Prabhudeva and Dhanush eons later. My friends and I were connoisseurs of Rajini’s ‘feeling’ songs, such as Oora Therinjikittan (Padikathavan). Even as the words were jeremiads about failing human relations, there was that quick alternation of grins and grimaces across his face, an appropriate amusement at his own foolishness. Much of this fondness sprang from the signals that the tossing his hair seemed to send out. Picture then my disappointment, years later, when I found that the real Rajinikanth was visibly bald. The woman friend who made this disclosure could only sing his praises for him not retreating behind Karakul cap and dark glasses, for flaunting his non-starry self in real life. But I was inconsolable. It had seemed as real as the Taj Mahal. It would take me a while to notice and appreciate the relish he brought to those early predatory roles, and to notice that the same relish went into his other roles, his mouth drawing trapezium shapes in the air to show, as it were, the

deformations that desire could cause. My discomfort began to be replaced by curiosity only when I watched him in Mani Ratnam’s Thalapathi, bringing to the role the game insouciance of a Chinese gymnast who’s been told he shouldn’t make a perfect 10 today. This was the film where I finally thrilled to the man and what he brought to the roles he took on. At first glance, there cannot be a foolhardier project than that of ‘explaining’ Rajinikanth. This, after all, is a landscape littered with rusting hulks and other reminders that prior attempts have ended in unlovely crash-landings. There is the usual misreading, which slots him as dark Dravidian demigod from a darker subcontinent, rich in the hope that allitera-

Rajini jokes are born of the desire to render absurd what we can’t explain

tion can replace answers to the questions you might ask. Those who have chased after the man or his films to produce biographies have produced no more than a dust-storm of gently falling footnotes. The good Manu Joseph himself has damned all these attempts as folly born out of the idiot faith that analysis from outside must always lead to answers. There is even some management handbook which we must perhaps classify as an attempt at the Rajinikanth joke, an actual humourlessness born of the desire to render absurd that which we cannot explain. Why did Rajini begin to matter so much to the people I once knew? What was the meaning of that relish which people today miscall style? It is perhaps true that Rajini began to occupy the all-important locus, in Tamizh Nadu, of under-caste hero. The brand of fantasy identified with MGR was sometimes a mobilisation towards an achievable political utopia centred around ideas of justice. Rajini’s popularity seems to coincide with a loss of faith in that Tamizh utopia, and a turn towards escapist fantasy. This commonsense understanding does not explain other shifts that began to consolidate around Rajinikanth. The moment of his arrival, at the waning of one generation of superstars, casts him as some sort of emissary for desire, along with several other actors. The early Rajini, in the various forms of raillery and banter that he offers, seems to make the

DECEMBER 15, 2013

best response to that demand, to negotiate for his audiences an easier relationship with desire and pleasure than those that were then allowed. The anthropologist RadcliffeBrown wrote extensively about joking relationships, structures of some small cruelty by which one is permitted to tease and make fun, and the other must take no offence. They allow those with little choice to ask searching questions of that which makes them powerless. The extravagances that make up the later Rajini’s persona are perhaps the means by which his Tamizh audience probes the various arrivals of an English-speaking modernity, and begins to seek restitution for how this arrival dispossesses them. The Rajini jokes, then, are an answering grimace in an exchange marked by mutual bewilderment. Those of us who fail to explain Rajinikanth must, nevertheless, fail better as we smuggle our pleasure or translate our questions across these strictly drawn lines. The writer is a poet, journalist, and translator. He teaches English at St Joseph’s College, Bangalore. brunchletters@hindustantimes.com Follow @al_lude on twitter

Ad Good As It Gets

HEY MAKE you stop and think, bring a tear to your eyes and a smile to your lips – yes, some advertisements can make you do all of this (and push the products too). We remember Sarita ji promoting Surf with “Samajhdari hai!”, the little runaway boy in the Dhara

ad who returns only when Ramu kaka promises jalebis. And of course, the Cadbury TV spot featuring a crazy girlfriend doing an impromptu jig on the cricket field when her boyfriend hits the last ball for a six. But we’ve had a spate of silly ads for quite a while now. We’re

Sensitively-made, touching ads always manage to stand out from the clutter by Shreya Sethuraman

certain that Mr HCL is stalking Mr Banker, because he seems to show up everywhere! We really can’t see those naked babies dancing to dhinka chika any more. Or those annoying kids getting needlessly dirty so that mom can smile indulgently and do the laundry. But recently, there’s been a

new wave of TV ads that have made us sit up and take notice. They have entered drawing room conversations and made us look at relationships in a different light. We look at five such ads and talk to their makers. shreya.sethuraman@hindustantimes.com Follow @iconohclast on Twitter

A Teary Reunion For All

Romantic Remarriage

Client: Google Agency: Ogilvy India National creative director: Abhijit

Client: Tanishq Agency: Lowe Lintas & Partners National creative director: Arun Iyer

Avasthi

WHAT IT’S ABOUT

A timeless tale of friendship. Two friends, Baldev and Yusuf, separated by Partition, miss each other sorely. They stole sweets from a shop in Lahore when they were kids. Baldev’s granddaughter sees her grandfather pining for his friend and goes to Google to locate the said sweet shop, finds Yusuf ’s grandson and tells him the story. She speaks to Yusuf as well. The grandson, overjoyed to see his grandfather smile, uses Google search to find out how to get an Indian visa. The grandchildren eventually make the friends meet. When Yusuf lands at Baldev’s home, wishing him, “Happy birthday, yaaraa,” Baldev can only

say, “Yusuf oye... oye Yusuf !” They start crying. So do you.

WHY IT MAKES THE CUT

It tells a beautiful, moving story of how even something as bitter as Partition could not erase the fond memories that two friends have of their shared childhood. As soon as the ad was released, it touched hearts and became a talking point.

WHAT THE MAKERS SAY

Abhijit Avasthi: “Google is a warm and magical brand. We wanted to show that search can also be magical. People use Google all the time, but many are still unaware of the day-to-day things one can find out with its help. The main idea was to get Google closer to people. Sometimes, things just fall into place, but the response to this ad was unprecedented.”

At Home In The Army Client: Asian Paints Agency: Ogilvy India National creative director: Abhijit Avasthi

WHAT IT’S ABOUT

A newly-wed wife enters her army Major husband’s quarters and jokes about how everything is in its right place and how even the sofa cushions seem to be on march

past. She enters the bedroom and is speechless. Her husband has made it into an exact replica of her room at her maternal home. “Ye toh bilkul mere ghar jaisa hai!” she exclaims. He says, “Taaki tumhe aisa na lage ki tum apna ghar chhodke aayi ho.” Aww!

WHY IT MAKES THE CUT It’s touching. This is an ad where

DECEMBER 15, 2013

WHAT IT’S ABOUT

A young woman is getting ready for her wedding, wearing a peachcoloured sari and a stunning necklace. A little girl accompanies her to the mandap. When the pheras begin, the girl says, “Mumma, mumma, I also want to go roundround.” Realisation dawns. This is a remarriage. The husband picks up the girl in his arms and all three of them take the pheras. The ad ends with the girl asking the man, “Aaj se papa bulaaoon?”

WHY IT MAKES THE CUT

It’s refreshing, it’s something we haven’t seen in Indian ads. Not only does the ad openly feature remarriage (still relatively uncommon), but the leading lady

a man thinks about what his wife wants and what will make her happy. You don’t get to see these little touches in commercials.

WHAT THE MAKERS SAY

Abhijit Avasthi: “We’ve been handling Asian Paints for many years (remember the ads with the delightful Manoj Pahwa as the elder brother?). The “har ghar kuch kehta hai” line is an extension of oneself. You can use your house to express your emotions.”

(Priyanka Bose) is a devastatingly good-looking, dark-skinned woman. This comes as a lovely surprise in a market teeming with fairness cream ads.

WHAT THE MAKERS SAY

Arun Iyer: “Tanishq came to us with their contemporary collection. So we thought everything should be contemporary. And the idea of remarriage was nice. We made it a cosy affair, made the bride wear muted colours. The girl calling her Mumma was not a major twist, it had an impact because it comes at the end. As for choosing a dark-skinned girl, the fact that she was ‘dusky dark’ got picked up later. It wasn’t intentional. That it became a talking point is great for advertising and business as well. Admakers aren’t afraid to take on bold conversations.”

VARIETY

A Few Good Men Client: ICICI Prudential Agency: Lowe Lintas & Partners National creative director: Amer Jaleel WHAT IT’S ABOUT

A nod to the little things men do for their women. The men in the family take care of the little things that women might not otherwise consider: blocking the sun’s rays so your wife doesn’t have to squint in the sun, waiting for her to switch on the light so you know she’s home safely after coming down to give you the wallet you forgot. The jingle “Bande achhein hain” runs in the background.

WHY IT MAKES THE CUT

Men can be forgetful, they can be incorrigible, but that doesn’t mean they’re insensitive. It’s a wellexecuted ad that makes you sit up and notice that not all men deserve to be bashed.

WHAT THE MAKERS SAY

Amer Jaleel: “ICICI wanted an emotional celebration of men. They take a lot of knocking, but there is a population of faithful duty-bound loyal men, the sort who’d go for insurance. We wanted to celebrate the unusual things that you don’t notice about men. So while we do rap men on the knuckles for their wrong doings, here are a few things they do right. It’s not correct to paint all men with the same brush. The ad was meant to uncover the little things about the people we know so dearly. The credit belongs to the audience. We’re only responding to the need and clamour of an evolved audience, who’re looking for these conversations.”

Marriage is Working Client: Bharat Matrimony Agency: Lowe Lintas & Partners National creative director: GV Krishnan WHAT IT’S ABOUT

A young man at the family dining table is asked by his parents why his wife hasn’t come home from office yet. The son recently got a raise, so why should the daughterin-law work? His wife enters and overhears her husband’s response: ‘She works because she likes to work.’ The wife smiles and joins the table, and the husband serves her food. All is well.

WHY IT MAKES THE CUT

It’s a nice change from most matrimonial ads which show how a wife has to please her husband. The ad shows the husband standing up for his wife.

DECEMBER 15, 2013

WHAT THE MAKERS SAY

GV Krishnan: “We had a simple mandate. There are a lot of online matrimonial sites, but they’re the last resort. Our task was to stand for something, to show the ad from the point of view of a relationship, and to get the younger audience to consider this option (of matrimonial sites) early on. Our research led us to an interesting insight. Marriages often fail because the woman feels the husband did not support her passion. Yes, the ad shows the woman mentioning her intent to work after marriage (when she’s enrolling on the site). It is a concern on a matrimonial site. For an average Indian woman, this is the most important thing.”

PERSONAL AGENDA

twitter.com/HTBrunch

Actress/Model

Raima Sen

BIRTHDAY SUN SIGN PLACE OF HOMETOWN SCHOOL/COLLEGE Loreto House School, Rani BIRTH Kolkata

November 7 Scorpio

Birla Girls’ College,Kolkata

Kolkata

Playing Ashalata in The year 2011 Chokher Bali (2003)

Photo: PRABUDDHA RAY

HIGH POINT OF LOW POINT OF CURRENTLY I AM... YOUR LIFE YOUR LIFE Looking forward to the release of The Bas-

tard Child. I’ve just finished a film with Vinay Pathak and am shooting for Being Kolkata, a Bengali movie with my mother and sister

If you weren’t an actress you would What kind of films do you like? have been... Dramas and thrillers. I am yet to find that out. A classic film you’d have loved to be Are you more like your mother or your part of. grandmother? Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam (1962). I am more like my mother, Moon You have three minutes to pack, what Moon Sen. do you take with you? What was shooting The Handbag, jacket and Bastard Child like? credit card. It was fun. There were The best thing about YOUR a lot of light-hearted Bollywood. DREAM moments during the It keeps moving, DESTINATION. changing. shoot; we filmed 21 nights in a row and The best thing about your would get done mother. by 8am. We learnt She is very a lot about the charming and has 1971 Banglaan amazing sense desh genocide of humour. from director Your favourite haunt Yo Mrityunjay in Kolkata. Devvrat. Park Street. What do you think Who is your 3am Wh of the women’s friend? movement today? Mainak Bhaumik, the Bengali Women are more empowered film director and my friend. today. Earlier, they weren’t Your strategy in a crisis. even allowed to step out of the Always go with the flow. house. Now there are powerYour favourite street food. ful women around us. But in Puchka (the local version of many places, women are still pani puri) you get in Kolkata. ill-treated. We should be taught The best thing about your sister, Riya to be stronger physically and is... emotionally. She is very humorous.

Istanbul

Photo: THINKSTOCK

DECEMBER 15, 2013

The biggest risk you have taken. Skydiving in Chicago. One director you want to work with. Mani Ratnam. A piece of advice you wish someone had given you 10 years ago. Don’t rush. There’s no rush. One song that describes your current state of mind? Somebody that I used to know by Gotye. The last thing you bought for under `10. Aloo chaat. A black sari or a black dress, which do you prefer? A black dress. Three skincare products you can’t n’t do without. Toner, scrub and a good moisturiser. What’s on your bedside table? Night cream, water, a picture of God and some containers. The last line of your autobiography would read… I enjoy life... every moment. — Interviewed by Veenu Singh

my movies ONE FILM YOU HAVE SEEN MORE THAN FIVE TIMES.

Masoom (1983)

MOST PAISA VASOOL FILM.

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998)

THE MOST OVERRATED FILM.

The Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) THE FILM THAT WAS A PART OF YOUR GROWING UP YEARS.

Masoom

THE FIRST FIR FILM YOU SAW ON THE BIG SCREEN.

Not the first, but I remember Kuch Kuch Hota Hai vividly. I cried a lot while watching it