WEEKLY MAGAZINE, SEPTEMBER 30, 2012 Free with your copy of Hindustan Times
Once upon a time Why Grimm’s fairy tales survive even after 200 years
Drive forward What you should know about the new cars in the market
MALE TODAY He’s waxing, accessorising and even wearing kohl. You’ll be surprised at what the average Indian man is getting up to in the name of grooming
Foot loose When Bhaichung Bhutia met Didier Drogba
indulge
Model and actor Angad Bedi says good grooming is an attitude
VIR SANGHVI
Bangalore on my mind
RAJIV MAKHNI
New smartphone champ?
SEEMA GOSWAMI Tasting a memory
SANJOY NARAYAN What’s in a name?
B R E A K FA S T O F C H A M P I O N S Brunch Opinion
RETRO ELOQUENT by Aasheesh Sharma
D
“Look at all
on’t get me wrong. I have these BAD kids nothing against male cleavsmoking in office” age, fitted trousers and the occasional foot massage. Just leave me out of androgynous clothes, body shaving and eyebrow shapering. Do well-groomed men, such as those featured in our cover story, get more action than the retro-sexuals? Maybe they do. In our time (and this wasn’t really so many decades ago), a good cologne, such as Davidoff’s Cool Water, was the extent to which we indulged in the name of grooming. But I’d think we managed beautifully. Even without the waxing.
Photo: CC/DAVID TRAWIN
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Brunch On The Web
LETTER OF THE WEEK!
Is the change here to stay?
THE BOLLYWOOD Changing (September 23) issue made for an interesting and entertaining read. The panelists were knowledgeable and so were the guests. The article surely has the readers waiting for Brunch Dialogues to air on TV. It also came to light that the dynamics may be changing in Bollywood, but not the ‘traditional’ man-woman division in a relationship; something that was very evident when Kareena said she had seen all of Saif’s movies but he hasn’t seen all of hers. Looking forward to more Brunch to brighten our Sundays! — RAJSHREE SHARMA, via email Rajshree wins a Flipkart voucher worth `2,500. Congrats!
hindustantimes.com/brunch
Brunch Bookshelf
THE FUNNEST BOOKS FOR WORD NERDS
(no, we don’t mean boring grammar guides)
by Rachel Lopez
Ex Libris – Anne Fadiman Fadiman’s ode to the written word comes without cliché and the cloying associations of font, binding and library smells. There’s wit, anecdote and awesome turns of phrase Verbatim, edited by Erin McKean Abandon friends and family for these addictive chapters on slang, certain four-letter words, the history of love letters, et al. The Meaning of Tingo – Adam Jacot de Bonoid Italians have a term for a “rekindled romance”, Indonesians have a separate one for “take off your clothes and dance”, Japanese have a word for “looking worse after a haircut”. Unsual words and unusual meanings here. English will seem woefully inadequate. The Language Instinct, by Stephen Pinker How different languages connect to the brain differently (the key is verbs!) and puts into words what the brain can’t put into words. Hobson-Jobson: The Anglo-Indian Dictionary This is the best way to see just how the east has influenced thought, word and life in the west. Did the ‘pariah’ cause a ‘hullabaloo’ in the ‘gymkhana’ after a ‘shampoo’? We know why. Things You Should Have Heard About
The smell of Winter ■ Akshay Kumar as daddy again ■ The Vigil Idiot on Heroine ■ New Poster for Les Misérables ■ Wai Wai ■
The best letter gets a Flipkart voucher worth R2,500!! The shopping voucher will reach the winner within seven to 10 working days. In case of any delays, please contact chirag.sharma@hindustantimes.com The step-by-step guide to...
GOING GANGNAM
by Shreya Sethuraman; illustration by Prashant Chaudhary
1
Keep your legs slightly apart and bent at the knee, like you’ve mounted a horse
2 3 4
Maintain a rider’s swagger. Lift your right leg. Don’t forget to lift the imaginary horse’s reins
Drop the reins and bring your right foot to the floor. Don’t be brash. Do it with ‘some’ style, please
YESTERDAY ONCE MORE
Time for your left leg now! Lift it and the reins too. You’re riding a horse here, remember?
Retro is the flavour of the moment. Neon heels, cat-eye sunglasses and psychedelia put a bright spin on yesterday. This is just one photo. For the entire shoot, look at BrunchQ NOW ON Aamir Khan, Sunny STANDS, Leone, Sushama R100 Reddy, Sushant Singh, ONLY! Monica Dogra... and we’ve only just begun. There’s much more in BrunchQ, a fuller, jazzier version of Brunch. Grab a copy now! by Saudamini Jain
LOVE IT !
E SHOV IT !
5 6 7
Bring your foot down and the reins too. Don’t forget your swagger. Never forget the swagger
Now lift your right leg again. Keep at the swagger, please! Get jiggy with it
Bring the reins and your foot down (yet again). Oops! We forgot to add the flashy sunglasses
Great book, terrible editor Children on reality shows ■ Extended family on Facebook ■ Deadlines ■ The naughty librarian look ■
■
8 9
Repeat steps six and seven. Get in the groove. This is the Gangnam style, after all!
Hey! You have to sing along too! “Oo... sexy lady... op op op op, Oppan Gangnam style!” Thank us online!
There are viral videos and then there is the Gangnam Style video! It is a K-pop single by Korean musician PSY. The video is a satire on the lavish lifestyles in Seoul’s posh Gangnam district Watch the video at facebook. com/hindustantimesbrunch
Cover Design: ASHUTOSH SAPRU Cover Photo: JASJEET PLAHA
EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma, Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Rachel Lopez, Mignonne Dsouza, Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna Tewari, Yashica Dutt, Amrah Ashraf, Saudamini Jain, Shreya Sethuraman, Manit Moorjani
SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (National Editor, Design), Monica Gupta, Swati Chakrabarti, Rakesh Kumar, Ashish Singh, Suhas Kale
Drop us a line at:
brunchletters@hindustantimes.com or to 18-20 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001
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C OV E R STO RY
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Blow-d ry blow 'e er to m away
COUPLE OF weeks ago, when Siddhartha Mallya held a press conference to announce the Hunt for the Kingfisher Calendar Girl, he showed up in a dapper jacket, Ray-Bans hung casually at his neck, and indigo jeans so tight and tapering, he could have borrowed them from show mentor Lisa Haydon. Actor Prateik – all muscles, dimples and smooth chest – has been taking his V-necked T-shirts lower and lower and a whole nation of ladies is probably waiting to one day see his belly button. Imran Khan steps out in funky socks. And those boys from Student Of The Year, they’re so clean shaven, so wholesomely hairless, that they may well have been manufactured in the Mattel factory. What’s happening to our men? What happened to good old-fashioned stubble, unkempt hair, scowls and the ability to get dressed in under two minutes? And why are so many regular dudes going from cowboy to Ken? Karan Ahuja, 27, a business manager with a luxury brands company, was getting a trim one day when his hairstylist suggested manicures and pedicures. The next thing you know, Ahuja was enjoying the pleasant ministrations that his hands and feet were being subjected to. “In our kind of job, you need to look wellgroomed,” Ahuja says. “This is an unwritten rule regarding the way you ought to look, since we interact with international clients regularly.” More men are waking up to the fact that there’s more to being a man than shaving and smelling good. They’re accessorising, coordinating colours, investing in statement jewellery, differentiating between corporate and cocktail looks – in short, they’re doing everything that was once considered girl behaviour.
Chest waxes, salon appointments, skinny jeans and kohl... are our men turning into women? by Veenu Singh
Comb to look s groomed, tre naturelle
exFoli your Fa ate ceboo profile k
he Tweezers in t r time of Twitte rs to Body groome te to go from hirsu tor smooth opera
Foam to build up the lather and a close shave
Imaging: MONICA GUPTA
TOP 5 SALON SERVICES THAT ARE POPULAR WITH MEN
SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
■ Laser hair removal ■ Pigmentation and tan removal ■ Botox and fillers ■ Hair spa and hair rejuvenation ■ Acne management (Information courtesy: VLCC and KAYA SKIN CLINIC)
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Phots: THINKSTOCK
WHY THE FUSS ABOUT MALE SKINCARE? ■ Compared to a man's skin, a woman's skin is slightly more acidic and ages faster. ■ Researchers have found that differing hormone levels, including the naturally higher levels of androgens in men’s bodies, can cause male skin to be oilier than female skin. ■ Men’s skin has larger pores, acne and other skin imperfections than women’s skin. They are more prone to getting blackheads and whiteheads.
SPENDING: IT’S A GUY THING
“With larger disposable incomes, men are becoming more discerning and indulgent. They are beginning to look at innovative grooming products created specifically for them,” says Nilanjan Mukherjee, who heads marketing for the personal care products business at ITC, which makes facewashes, shower gels and moisturisers for men. He adds that the segment is poised to grow faster than many other personal-care categories. Last year, global management firm KSATechnopak estimated that India’s market for personal grooming products focused at men stood at R2,950 crore (for shaving products, deodorants, skincare, haircare, bath and shower products and perfumes). But the male consumer’s actual spends could be as much as three times higher, since many Indian men rely on (or secrely borrow) unisex or femalespecific personal care products. Grooming isn’t just for the rich or the young, claim marketers. “Almost one fifth of our customers are male,” says Suvodeep Das, marketing head at Kaya Skin Clinic. “These are men who realise they need to look good not just when they are in their 20s and are starting out in a relationship, but also men in their 40s who want to look good in the boardroom.”
■ Men are likely to have more collagen tissues in their skin, due to which they have a thicker and harder epidermis. So men need to exfoliate more often than women. ■ Men experience fewer hormonal fluctuations than women. Therefore, their skin may not be as prone to hyper-pigmentation and the development of dark spots.
(Courtesy Dr Varun Katyal, dermatologist)
RAZOR’S EDGE
The first step to getting there seems to be getting rid of body hair. Not content with a smooth jaw, men have been shaving, waxing and even attempting laser removal for the hair on their arms, chests, legs and backs. Nikhil Sood, a 22-year-old front-office executive at a five-star hotel in Delhi, says de-fuzzing has become de rigueur. “After joining the hospitality sector, I felt conscious about hair on my arms, especially on days when I wanted to dress down. I decided to try waxing. I can’t say that it was a very pleasant experience in the beginning, but the results have been good,” he says. It explains why Philips decided to launch a range of body shavers in August. According to a market study conducted before the launch, 80 per cent of women surveyed said they found excessive male body hair a huge turn-off and preferred smooth and groomed partners. Philips India MD Aarushi Agarwal confirms that the hirsute male population in New Delhi, Chandigarh, Amritsar and Ludhiana now forms their biggest market.
More men are waking up to the fact that there's more to being a man than shaving
COMING CLEAN
And once all that smooth skin is showing, it had better look its best. Informal estimates by popular
In a world where it’s becoming increasingly tough to tell the men from the boys, a stand-up comic wonders how manly the man-purse actually is. By Amogh Ranadive
M
EN AROUND the world have been spotted with a stylish yet strange accessory: it’s been dangling from heavyset shoulders; it’s even slung cross-body across some questionably lean figures. I’m talking about the man-purse, the bag generations of men have done without, but now seems to be everywhere. It’s confusing legions of handbag holding women. It’s puzzling me too. A couple of decades ago, the battle of the sexes could be summed up with: “What men can do, women can too.” Now, it seems, the equation has been overturned. Now, it’s “What women can wear, men can carry off too... though a bit awkwardly and often with disastrous results.”
the DVDs fit). But that’s not stopped men from toting one. Now here’s the million-dollar question (and we’re talking the almost-touching R60 dollar here): Does the man-purse, increasingly (and embarrassingly) known as the ‘murse’, make a guy look effeminate?
Lady’s verdict
“Man purses are like pink tee shirts for men. Some men can really carry them off, and when they do, it looks pretty dashing,” says actress Sonali Bendre. TV actor Kavi Shastri, who played the lead in Rishta.com, finds them most useful in today’s iPad and tablet age. “It’s so much more convenient to read scripts on. And a sling bag holds my tablet, plus other essentials like papers and my wallet. It makes travelling easier too.” Can’t argue that. Or can you? When I asked my pal Rocky Chaddha his opinion about man-purses, he said, “What man-purse, bro? Check out my man biceps, bro.” Rocky then proceeded to OD on his protein shake. Stylist Yesha Dedhia says the trick is to be able to differentiate between types of murses. Types? Wasn’t this complicated enough? “If you want to carry a bag that does not make you feel effeminate, your best bet is the sling bag” Dedhia says. So to recap: Celebs (even the women) love the man-purse. It’s actually pretty useful. So you have no excuse to not get one. Just make sure you’re not wearing it with mintgreen jeggings.
It’s not big enough to hold real stuff but that’s not stopped men from toting one
Wrap it like Beckham
Blame David ‘Goldenballs’ Beckham. Men were weirded out enough when he began waxing his legs and tweezing his eyebrows. But he had to push things further and wear his wife’s sarongs. Suddenly, no one seemed to know what it took to look like a man. Out came the face creams, skinny jeans and looks of disappointment from ‘macho’ men. And just when it seemed that your neighbourhood salon was earning more from male walk-ins than female, someone invented the manpurse. You may have sighted a well-dressed man holding on to something that looked like a bulkier version of his wife’s handbag. It’s not big enough to hold real stuff like a laptop, a crate of beer or adult movie DVDs (ok, maybe Photo: REUTERS
“Of course, fashions come and go but metrosexuality isn’t a fashion – it’s an epoch” – Mark Simpson SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
C OV E R STO RY
salons in Mumbai and Delhi suggest that urban men are spending close to R5,000 a month, a three-fold increase from their grooming budgets only a few years ago. Anurag Tyagi, brand manager for skincare brand Kiehl’s, claims that Indian men aged 28 to 60 have taken well to the cleanse-shavemoisturise ritual the brand propagates. “They just need a little bit of help from an expert in understanding what will work best for their skin,” he says. Arpan Taneja, a model, has had plenty of help it seems. His cleansing regime includes regular facials and the application of sunscreens, moisturisers and facewashes for men. “As a model, I need to be careful about how my skin looks,” says the 23-
year-old. “For that, I need to take extra care of it right from using a moisturiser and sunscreen to a good scrub to exfoliate my skin. It is mandatory for models to have a neat chest, clean arms and legs.”
BEYOND FIGURES
Is the Indian man going where no man has gone before? Is his bedroom turning into a powder room? Why? Aggressive marketing is making men feel inferior to the fairer sex, claims Dr Ranjana Kumari, director at the Centre for Social Research. “There is some beauty present in every individual, but in today’s competitive world, where social relations are undergoing a massive change, too much pressure is being put on men,” she believes. Indian men have had some
It is almost mandatory for models to have a neat chest. Plus, clean arms and legs
history of being able to put up with that pressure, says social analyst Syed Mubin Zehra, author of Sexual and Gender Representations in Mughal India. Back then, she says, men did it to “enhance their masculinity”. Today’s need to look wellgroomed, “is majorly market-driven with emphasis on vanities such as removing hair”. So is it time to mourn the death of machismo? “Not really. They are just turning into better-looking men,” believes Jamal Shaikh, editor of the magazine Men’s Health. “Earlier, being groomed was not an option for men. It was something to be done in the closet using products
bought by women. But now, it’s kosher to be well-groomed as people are more open towards men taking care of themselves and being comfortable about it.”
GROOMING EXCESS?
VLCC, which launched a separate line of products for men in 2010, has witnessed almost double-digit growth since. “Men are coming in not just for pedicures. Like women, they are showing concern about tanning, pigmentation and are even asking
Glossy lips, winged eyeliner and skinny jeans – men are trying it all and aren’t even averse to putting on a skirt. Make way for a new kind of gender bending. By Amrah Ashraf
M
EN WEARING feathered headgear is a bit much, I think,” says Nishant Oswal. But Oswal, 31, an executive producer with a TV channel, thinks nothing of pairing super skinny jeans with the deep V-neck T-shirt he pinched from his girlfriend’s cupboard. “There is a trend of men getting into women’s clothing,” he says. “It’s still new in India but in the West, it’s really popular. There, you wouldn’t be called queer for doing so.” By deliberately rejecting the notion of the macho male, Oswal and other avant-garde dressers in India’s big cities are revising what constitutes male dressing today. “I read a great line somewhere that truly defines what I and many like me are doing: ‘tweaking codes, upending conventions and making hash of ancient norms’, or something to this effect,” he says.
BLURRING BOUNDARIES
The gender bending isn’t exactly pathbreaking – a beefed-up John Abraham
has been peddling whitening creams on TV, David Beckham’s hairbands made everyone add ‘metrosexual’ to their vocabulary, and everyone has that one friend whose pants are a little too tight. So what exactly are the dapper dressers upending? “Metrosexual men are big on personal grooming and appearance. But, they don’t pinch clothes from women's wardrobes,” says fashion designer Gautam Raka. He draws a clear line between spruced-up and androgynous citizen. UDE (right) If Beckham and Abraham personify HE D c OT T drej Peji ments P S metrosexuality, androgyny is best l An assign e d o le epitomised by Andrej Pejic, the Bosn- M s fema bag ian model whose delicate features, flowing locks and lanky body have landed him in ads for designer dressrating women’s clothes and acceses, push-up bras and menswear. sories with men’s clothes to get the Pejic’s unconfirmed sexual orientabest of both worlds. So you can pair tion actually makes him a bad examyour girlfriend’s leggings with army ple – androgyny is not a queer expresboots, a ganji and an unbuttoned shirt sion. And neither is it about passing for a look that’s not quite male, not yourself off as a woman (which is quite female, but quite fashionable. what cross-dressers do). Sartorially, “Times have changed and gender male androgyny is all about collaboneutrality is in.” Robin Raju, a manage-
SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
Photo: ALI MAHDAVI
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ment consultant for social entrepreneurs, sees nothing outrageous about matching a belted kurta with really skinny pants. Namrata, a freelance stylist, agrees: “I see so many couples at parties or on the street who dress alike: skinny jeans, long T-shirt, pinhole sunglasses and a sling bag. Their look is androgynous. The woman
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WHY MEN’S-ONLY SECTIONS ARE A HIT about anti-ageing treatments now,” says Sandeep Ahuja, MD, VLCC Healthcare. Though hair-removal creams are meant for women, a lot of men are also using them, says Yatan Ahluwalia, image consultant and corporate trainer who holds grooming workshops for men. Still, how far should a man go in the name of grooming? Jagpreet Singh Chhabra, a 25-year-old entrepreneur from Chandigarh who waxes his arms and legs, colours his hair and gets a professional cleanse once a week, insists his girlfriend is happy with his groomed look. “All
offer them multipurpose solutions. ■ They prefer products with simple and straight packaging in masculine colours.
this doesn’t make me feel effeminate in any way.” Television actor Karan Wahi, who recently featured in Sony’s Kuch To Log Kahenge, swears by good grooming. “I have no qualms calling myself very metrosexual. There’s nothing wrong with pampering yourself. If you have a good body, there’s no harm in flaunting it,” says the 26-year-old actor who has women fans swooning over his hairless chest every time he takes off his shirt. The key to good grooming, says
are turning into women by being conscientious in taking care of themselves. “I would draw the line before it reaches men buffing their nails to a glowing sheen and plucking their eyebrows till each one is a perfectly drawn arch.” Actor-producer John Abraham, he of the biceps and glowing skin, admits to loving pedicures. “Men today want to look their best even when bare bodied,” he says. He also admits that increased consciousness about personal grooming and hygiene has much to do with celebrities who have taken the lead. As men have followed, the women are sighing in relief. Software consultant Shivani Chopra, 23, believes male grooming to be only a good thing: “It is allowing men to lower their barriers and not be afraid of facing, acknowledging and discussing their emotions, and not thinking that it was meant just for girls and sissies. It’s good that men are ready to walk that extra mile.”
WHAT WOMEN WANT
Former beauty queen, actress and grooming expert Diana Hayden says women don’t have a problem with men taking care of themselves. “But just as men prefer their women to retain their femininity, women love for men to take care of themselves but retain their masculinity,” she says. Hayden doesn’t tor think that men
veenus@hindustantimes.com
smooth opera
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dressers shy away from heels and skirts. “Out of the question!” declares Raju. “That borders on DRESSING IT UP cross-dressing.” The look is big internationally. DesignMumbai artist Julius Macwan, ers like Rick Owens and Alexander however, has no such reservations. He’s been spotted at public gatherWang have sent men down the runway in draped T-shirts and high heels, and ings in floor-length skirts and befashion blog The Sartorialist regularly lieves that our mindset should be features street photos of men in skirts. “free of conditioning”. Kolkata deBut locally, even daring androgynous signer Kallol Datta has made kohlrimmed eyes, a nose ring and beard seem as much part of his look as flowy kurtas, nail polish and bangles. Designers admit that not everyone can work the look. “If you’re beefy then this is not for you,” says fashion designer Charu Parasher. “You have to have a lean frame to pull off androgyny.” Riddhi of designer label Riddhi-Siddhi mapxencaRS also believes that it works best on angular bodies. “It’s a great look, especially if you’re going out with friends for a casual evening,” she says. “A pair of well-fitted pants with draped T-shirt can look - fabulous. Maybe a polka R IFTE ing, kohl H S r PE le dotted jacket on top?” SHA hair, nose till all ma Long l Dutta is s Vibha Keswani, a fashion Kallo designer and stylist doesn’t see why a man shouldn’t be
Photo: BIKRAMJIT BOSE
knows it; the guy knows it. But it’s a very subtle androgyny."
■ They offer men an exclusive space for themselves. ■ Men like to pick up products that are labelled ‘for men’ only. ■ Men prefer products that
actor and model Angad Bedi, lies in striking a balance between the essentials and marketing-driven vanities. “For me, being groomed means paying more attention to things that create the first impression about you rather than spending time on spa sessions and plucking your eyebrows.” But he adds that a non-negotiable part of being well-groomed is hygiene. “Nothing can be worse than a man who looks unkempt and smells bad. They definitely are a big turn-off for anyone, not just women.”
able to choose between multi-pocket baggy shorts one day and skinny shorts the next. She often bends the sartorial rules herself and produces a line of unisex clothing that includes ganjis, shirts and pyjamas. “A good piece of clothing is a good piece of clothing!” she states. “Does it matter who was supposed to wear it in the first place?” Parasher however warns that ultimately the trick is not what’s on the body, but what’s in the mind. “You need to be young and daring to dress androgynous. Mostly young guys in creative fields like advertising and fashion designing can pull it off. I don’t think it will ever be mainstream. But who knows, fashion is highly unpredictable.”
BOY, DO WE LOVE THEIR STYLE…
Sushant Divgikar, model: We love his unabashed androgynous style – feathered headgear, winged eyeliner, deep V-neck T-shirts, bright yellow pants and
mostly his attitude. Julius Macwan, artist: Oh, those beautiful skirts and the way he carries them! Lenny Kravitz, rockstar: Only because he dares to wear heeled boots. Adam Lambert, singer: So flamboyant and so fierce with his skinny leather pants and kohl-rimmed eyes.
PINCH THESE, NOW
Girlfriend stole your favourite tee? Raid her accessories for sweet revenge: Brooches: Use them as belt buckles or jacket badge. Rings: Wear on your fingers or dangling off a chain. Bracelets: Men love bracelets – they just call them wristbands. Pair an ornate silver bracelet with your leather wristbands. Sling bags: It’s better than going around with a fat wallet that gives you a lopsided butt. Socks: Aim for a hint of colour to breathe freshness into your look.
SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
amrah.ashraf@hindustantimes.com
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FINE PRINT
As The Clock Strikes Twelve...
Fairy tales – popularised by the Grimm Brothers – turn 200 this year. Do these stories still linger in your heart? by Shreya Sethuraman
nce upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, lived a pretty little princess. She was the epitome of beauty, with deep blue eyes, blood red lips, and long lustrous golden hair. However, her wicked stepmother had her locked up in a tall tower. Only a kiss from the bravest, most handsome prince could set the princess free. One fine day, Prince Charming from the neighbouring kingdom saw the princess gazing from her window and instantly fell in love with her. The wicked stepmother sent dragons and warlocks to fight the prince and he defeated them all, banishing the stepmother. He went up to the princess, kissed her and swept her off her feet. With no obstacle left to overcome, the prince and princess got married with great pomp and lived happily ever after!
Pratham Books, says, “Fairy tales are one of the best ways to talk about anything to a child. One creates an imaginative and creative world through these stories.” Popular culture has never been able to divorce itself from fairy tales, and there have been a number of movie adaptations too, the most recent being Snow White and the Huntsman, directed by Rupert Sanders, starring Oscar-winner Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart. An episode in Season 4 of the TV show Castle too, had the perpetrator dressing up her victims as characters from fairy tales.
DESI TALES, JUST AS GOOD
T
HIS COULD be any fairytale you read while growing up, along with its rosy ‘happily ever after’ end. These stories about beautiful damsels and ugly witches, handsome princes and evil queens (and more) became popular thanks to the Grimm brothers. The stories turn 200 this year – but are children reading fairy tales at all these days? And as grown-ups, have we fallen out of love with fairy tales? How much do we know about the Grimm brothers anyway? The Brothers Grimm – Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm – were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore. Their work popu-
larised stories such as Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, among others. The brothers sourced tales from many people – friends, neighbours and elderly village folk. Their first collection of tales, Children’s and Household Tales, was published in 1812. “Fairy tales are a part and parcel of growing up,” says filmmaker Rajshree Ojha (director of the Sonam Kapoorstarrer Aisha), “and every girl dreams of finding a Prince Charming,” she adds. No matter how unrealistic that sounds! “You never really outgrow fairy tales, as they’re among the first stories you read,” says author Nilanjana Roy, who recently published her debut novel, The Wildings. Rajesh Khar, assistant editor,
While India has its own tradition of folk tales, such as the Panchatantra, European fairy tales have maintained their attraction. “The original Brothers Grimm tales were rather grim. What we’ve seen are the Disney versions, which are the censored versions,” says writer Omair Ahmad, whose book Jimmy the Terrorist, was shortlisted for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize. He says that such versions do a “disservice to the original tales”. However, Khar believes that tweaking stories to have happy endings is probably a good idea. “Till children are old enough to chart their own course, it’s better to not have negative or gory endings, as that could leave lasting impressions on their minds,” he says. A common theme in most of the fairytales is that the stepmother, stepsister, evil queen – in short, women – are the troublemakers. Why were they portrayed in such a fashion? “It could be a reflection of the society back then,” says Ojha. She also says that these clichés have been passed down generations and continue even in our soap operas. “Such portrayal of women was the cultural norm back when the Grimm brothers were writing,” says Roy.
Photos: THINKSTOCK
SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
TWISTS IN THE TALE? ■ Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: One interpretation is the contrast between impure and pure womanhood. While the evil queen and Snow White might be equally beautiful, what creates a difference is the gap between their levels of purity. The magical mirror feeds on the evil queen’s jealousy and her obsession with Snow White’s youth. ■ Little Red Riding Hood: Various sexual retellings of this tale have her being a lesbian or shooting down the wolf while sending the hunter off to a self-help group. Susan Brownmiller (American feminist, journalist, author, and activist) in her book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, writes, “Little Red Riding Hood is a parable of rape,” with the main character an utterly passive victim. ■ Sleeping Beauty: The evil fairy is jealous of the damsel’s beauty. The pricking of her finger and the blood represents the onset of her period and sexual maturity. The thorns surrounding the castle represent the thorns of a rose, which say that love always includes some suffering. ■ Cinderella: The slippers that Cinderella wore to the ball and which eventually got her the prince are a source of bondage for her. According to ancient German marriage customs, the father of the bride presents the groom with one of his daughter’s shoes. The placing of the shoe on Cinderella’s foot was an act of bondage.
Sources: Wearing Cinderella Slippers, Melissa Howard; Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairytale by Catherine Orenstein; Different Shades of Snow White, Mark Wilson in About.com; Fairytales and Female Sexuality by Sarah Seltzer in RH Reality Check
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As far as ‘step’ relations and the negativity attached to them is concerned, Ahmad says, “Sautela is not positive in our language either. The reality is that people progress faster than stories do.” Roy adds, “Marriage in those times was a mere transaction, without being romantic. Besides, without any wicked character, there wouldn’t be any story!” She also says that perhaps there was the fear of the power of single old women, which is why, dubbing them as witches was an easy way out. Fairy tales are also not politically correct for present times. “Fairy tales have always been white-dominated. Maybe someday we’ll have a coloured Snow White or Cinderella,” says Ojha. Ahmad concurs, “Most of our original comic-strips were all white. Literature 30 years ago was extremely racist, because the times were like that. However, things are changing now.” On the other hand, Roy says that fairytales needn’t be politically correct at all. “Fairy tales are a form of escapism, and also cautionary, in the sense that they’re preparing children for the world outside,” she says. Roy also says that it would be incorrect to call these tales racist just because the characters were “white”.
tale in which Snow White has a stepmother, the evil queen, who wants her to die as she is jealous of Snow White’s beauty and youth. Mumbai-based lawyer Vinita Sithapathy, 26, recalls that her favourite fairy tale was Hansel and Gretel. Sithapathy says that while she may not read fairy tales now, if she had kids, she probably would. “But I’d tell them not to believe these stories, since they stereotype things. I wouldn’t want my kids to grow up with gender stereotypes.” Hansel and Gretel are siblings, abandoned in the woods by their poor father and conniving stepmother. The hungry kids land up in a gingerbread house, which is occupied by a wicked witch. She welcomes them into her house, imprisoning Hansel to fatten him and eventually eat him up, while Gretel is made to slog. However, the siblings turn out to be too smart for the
The Grimm Brothers published their first collection in 1812
witch and push her into an oven, thus saving their lives. They end up living happily ever after. Despite having been around for what seems like forever and despite the dozens of other entertainment options for children these days, bookstores report that fairy tale compilations continue to sell briskly. New Book Land, in Delhi’s Janpath, sells close to 40 such books a month. Mirza Salim Baig, the proprietor of the bookshop, says that fairy tales sell particularly well during the summer break. “The popular ones include Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Thumbelina”, he says. “While the younger kids like the books with larger fonts and lots of pictures, most of the older ones opt for The Complete Illustrated Works of the Brothers Grimm,” he adds. So, do girls and boys both enjoy reading fairy tales? Binay Upadhyay of Bahrisons Kids in Khan Market says it’s girls who generally lap up fairytales. “These are classics and are sometimes even recommended in schools,” he says. Purnendu Kabi, head of sales (north), Pratham Books, however, believes that fairy tales don’t enjoy
IN A WORLD OF MY OWN...
But it does feel good to be lost in the world of fairy tales, dreaming of a ‘knight in shining armour,’ no matter how silly that sounds. Bangalore-based teacher Priya Iyer says, “I preferred watching a series called Faerie Tale Theatre (also known as Shelly Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre, which was a live-action children’s television anthology series retelling popular fairytales) instead of reading. But if I had to choose one story, I’d pick Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs... I thought the dwarfs were cute and the stepmother was a strong character.” Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all, a phrase that’s seeped into our vocabulary, is from this particular
YOU HAVE A FAIRYTALE HANGOVER IF... ■ You wish for a ‘happily ever after’. ■ You think your hair is long and strong enough for Prince Charming to use it as a rope. ■ You dream of being locked up in a tall tower, only to be rescued by Prince Charming. ■ You actually believe in Prince Charming. ■ You leave a trail of food in a park so that you don’t forget the route back. ■ You think kissing a frog will turn it into a handsome prince (it won’t and you’re probably gross to even think it will)!
the same popularity with children these days as they did once upon a time. “Kids are now more curious about the untold,” he says. But he too maintains that fairy tales are more popular with girls, while boys prefer science fiction.
SEX, LOVE AND FAIRYTALES
Can these tales be interpreted in a sexual way? The original versions also had undertones of sex, the more famous version being French author Charles Perrault’s Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), written in 1697. “Yes, they can be interpreted so,” says Ahmad. “The AlifLaila stories (based on The Arabian Nights) were extremely sexual in nature. Even Snow White could be interpreted so, with the aging queen jealous of the sexual purity of the young Snow White,” he adds. Agrees Roy: “In one of the classics – Cinderella – the slipper is a stand-in for female genitals. And in one of the brutal versions of Sleeping Beauty, the prince walks in, sees her asleep, and then rapes her.” This version has the damsel wake up to find herself a mother of two kids! However, Ojha maintains that deep down people do want a fairy tale life. “It’s a form of hope for people, something detached from reality, but still a hope,” she says. Roy too says, “everybody returns to fairy tales sometime.” So hitch your wagon to hope, and maybe, you’ll have a happily ever after! shreya.sethuraman @hindustantimes.com
“Someday you’ll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again” – CS Lewis, British scholar and novelist SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
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VA R I E T Y
Drive Into Tomorrow The Indian car buyer is revving up to welcome a few exciting automobiles – it’s a whole new segment out there
THE REALLY SPORTY SUVS The affordable, smaller-than-your-apartment SUV is no longer in the realm of fantasy
by Deepesh Rathore
T
It ticks the right boxes for build, comfort, fuel efficiency and features. Also, the Renault Duster doesn’t need a gym membership – it is agile and will not embarrass you in a narrow alley
15 models and (finding nothing to differentiate one from another), decides to buy what everyone else is buying: the Swift. As many car manufacturers will argue, a market is what customers would like it to be. Often the choices in the market diversify as it starts maturing and it looks like India is a far more mature market for bread and mobile phones than for cars. But in recent years, manufacturers have often gone back to the drawing board with the intention of offering something unique. Here’s a look at segments that manufacturers have ventured into in recent times.
HE COMMON man’s bread has changed in the last two decades. Back in the 1990s most of us were content having the ubiquitous Britannia slices every morning. We didn’t experiment with anything else because, frankly, there wasn’t anything else. Today even the neighbourhood store has considerable variety. You have wholewheat bread, real brown bread, faux brown bread, multi-grain bread and special sandwich bread lining up the shelves. The same seems to be the case with mobile phones and everything else in our lives. We are inundated with choices. And yet, strangely, the car industry has chosen to stay neanderthal. Twenty years ago, we were offered hatchbacks, sedans and crude contraptions also called SUVs. Arguably, things have evolved since. Sure there are 10 hatches to choose from, when two decades back there were only two, but everyone is still uncomfortably close with product attributes that mimic each other. What’s missing, often, is character. In every segment, manufacturers appear keen to please all. The middle-of-the-path has become the thumb rule. That is the sorry story of the Indian car market. A look at the B-segment petrol hatchbacks reveals that there are 15 models to choose from, with only subtle differences among them. All have five doors; all are front-wheel drive and have engine outputs between 65bhp to 88bhp. All of these have pretty basic, functional interiors and mostly similar features. Carmakers believe that the target customer is a 20-to-35-year-old gogetter, star performer and key decision maker. The problem is that this goatee-sporting dude often looks at
Likely to be launched in the Indian market in the next few months, the Ford EcoSport will take SUV sophistication to a new level. The urban SUV boasts 200mm of ground clearance
ECONOMICAL SUVS
With the kind of roads that we have and the fact that Indians are suckers for Americanisms, it is surprising not many manufacturers have been able to successfully exploit the SUV segment. Till recently, the most popular “Sport” Utility Vehicles in India had questionable sportiness, selling mostly for their sheer size and imposing stance. The body-roll of a fishing trawler and the passenger comfort to match didn’t help matters either. Their price – most practical variants cost more than R10 lakh – also meant that they were not on the wishlist of anyone with the budget for a Honda City. So sparse were the SUV choices that there was hardly anything to choose between the R10 lakh Scorpio and R20+ lakh Fortuner or CR-V. Enter the XUV 500: comfortable, loaded and well-priced. Its comfort is helped by its car-like construction which means passengers are saved the ordeal of having their internal organs resettled. And while the styling is a blend of 18
The small sedan is a tribute to our jugaad way of engineering
SHAPE & SIZE MATTER
COUPE
HATCHBACK
SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
The Mahindra XUV is the rare SUV that is comfortable. Its comfort is helped by its car-like construction which means passengers are saved the ordeal of having their internal organs resettled
MUV
CONVERTIBLE
SEDAN
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facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch themes, it is certainly cutting-edge next to the Scorpio and Safari. The result is a migration of Scorpio and Safari buyers to the XUV family even though there is a massive waiting list. However, at above R12-lakh for most variants, the XUV makes sense only for those who are in the market for premium sedans. The common man is still left high and dry. Things change again with the Renault Duster, launched a few weeks back. A not-so-premium SUV, the Duster ticks the right boxes for build, comfort, fuel efficiency and features. Also, it does not need a gym membership – it is agile and will not embarrass you in a narrow alley. In a few months, the Duster’s party will be gatecrashed by the Ford EcoSport. This one is a beauty and will take SUV sophistication to an altogether different level.
SLEEK PERSONAL CARRIERS
Personal carriers are no longer un-sporty or cold With the Maruti Ertiga’s launch, things have brightened up in the premium hatchback space. At about R7 lakh, it promises fuel efficiency, featurerich interiors and decent pricing
DIET SEDANS
We Indians take pride in our jugaad way of engineering and the small sedan is testimony to the good that can sometimes come out of these experiments. Though the concept of a shorter-than-four-metre sedan was first put into production by Tata Motors with the Indigo CS, Maruti (them again!) made it a big success with the D’Zire compact. At shorter than four metres, these compact sedans escape with lower excise duty, thereby reducing the price of the car significantly. The beauty of the small sedan is that it’s a win-win for everyone. The customer is willing to pay more for the car as he is getting a bigger package. The manufacturer can charge buyers much more than what they would for the donor hatchback while not spending that much extra to make the small sedan. No surprise then that Mahindra is busy erasing a couple of inches off the boot of the Verito, while Honda is working on adding a boot to the Brio. A couple of years down the line, Hyundai will also have something ready to join the party.
The innovative Nissan Evalia can shake Toyota’s hold on the people carrier segment
LUXE WHEELS, ON A DEAL
The middleof-the-path appears to be the thumb rule
An important segment in the market with high volumes, the Innovas, Xylos, Taveras and Grandes are the antithesis of where carmakers like to slot their precious hatchbacks. Personal carriers are impersonal, utilitarian, unsporty and cold. And at nearly R10 lakh, they appeal to only fleet operators and large families. Until recently, that is. With the launch of the Ertiga, things have brightened up a bit in the premium hatchback space. At about R7 lakh, the Ertiga promises fuel efficiency, feature-rich interiors and affordability. Needless to say, potential rivals are on the drawing boards at
AFFORDABLE BRAGMOBILE S The paradox with India is that rich boy toys – smartphones, Swiss watches and videogame consoles –
SEDANS, WHICH ARE SMALLER
Buyers don’t mind spending a little extra on these beauties
At shorter than 4 metre, compact sedans like the Maruti DZire escape with lesser excise duty – slashing the price significantly. The customer is willing to pay more for the car as he is getting a bigger package.
Mahindra is working hard at shaving off the inches of the Verito
SUV
YOURS, PERSONALLY
Nissan, Ford, Hyundai, Honda and Mahindra. And now, with the launch of the Nissan Evalia, customers at the top of the market have a decent alternative to the Innova.
PICKUP
At about R20 lakh, these luxury cars are within reach
If priced right, the BMW X1 proves that an SUV without an iota of testosterone could still set the sales charts on fire
keep getting more affordable, while necessities like rice and vegetables get more expensive every year. Now we can add luxury cars, especially German makes, to the list above. Now, with the upcoming Audi A3, Mercedes CLA and the BMW 1Series, even the actual prices will be enough to get prospective customers salivating. All of the above are the size of a VW Jetta and are likely to enter the party at about R20 lakh. The market is huge – any Jetta/Accord/ Superb driver with a penchant for personality and style and probably constrained garage space would go for them. But these three were not the ones to start the party. That credit goes to the BMW X1 which proved that an SUV without even an iota of testosterone and interior space the size of a large Samsonite could still set the sales charts on fire as long as you can price it right. Entering the market at less than R25 lakh, the X1 is the equivalent of the nearly achievable mezzaninefloor-level dream for all Honda, Toyota, Skoda or Volkswagen drivers.
LIMOUSINE
MINIVAN SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
Call it individualistic or confusing: any which way, the Merc B-Class is still the cheapest three-pointed star in the country
And now the Q3 has come to spoil the X1’s party. Early response seems favourable and BMW will counter the offensive with an updated X1. Mercedes, the player still on the sidelines will only join the party in 2014 with a competitor. But that does not mean that the three-pointed star is not planning to fight back. On the near horizon, inline with the affordability theme, are the B-Class and A-Class. While the A-Class is a proper premium hatchback, the B-Class is a rather strange animal. Described by Mercedes as a Compact Sports Tourer, the B-Class is more of a spiritual sibling to the R-Class Grand Sports Tourer. Mercedes is likely to price it very competitively but with its unique shape, it will take a combination of oversized grapefruits and sheer marketing brilliance for the B-Class to rival the X1 and Q3 numbers. The author, a former auto journalist, now crunches numbers for IHS Automotive, the world’s leading automotive forecasting organisation. The views expressed are his own.
ROADSTER
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BANGALORE DIARY
GROUND REALITY
The West End is one of the world’s most beautiful city hotels, spread over 20 acres in the heart of Bangalore
Vir Sanghvi
I
T SEEMS odd but for many, many years, I went to Bangalore mainly for the food. These days when you talk about Bangalore and food, people imagine that you mean the fancy newish places: Toscano, Caperberry, Olive etc. But my food memories of Bangalore go back to an earlier era – the beginning of the 1980s – when the fancy restaurants did not exist, when the Ashoka was the best hotel in town and when Bangalore was a sleepy city where the shopkeepers all closed their establishments for several hours every afternoon for lunch and a nice siesta to follow. In those days, there was very little happening in food terms in Bombay where I lived. Bangalore, on the other hand, was full of interesting options. It was here – and not, sadly enough, in Hyderabad – that I first encountered fiery-hot, non-vegetarian Andhra food at such restaurants as Amaravathi and RR. I had my first Chicken 65 – a dish unknown north of the Vindhyas in that era – in Bangalore, the city where it was invented. And the South Indian vegetarian food at small restaurants and some larger establishments (Hotel Chalukya, for instance) was a revelation. I wondered if any of the dishes I encountered in Bangalore would ever make it on to the menus of more up-market restaurants or whether they would make it to Bombay at all. Clearly I was not the only one to have had the same idea because in early 1984 when the Taj group opened the Taj Residency (now called Vivanta), Camellia Panjabi put many of the dishes I came to Bangalore for on to the menu of Southern Comfort, the hotel’s coffee shop. It was, as far as I know, the first five-star-hotel restaurant to serve appams; the first to serve Andhra dishes, including a biryani and the first to give Chicken 65 the recognition it deserved. Southern Comfort did some Goan food too, which was fair enough, because the Taj had a strong Goan presence. But as for the rest, it came from cooks stolen from the best local joints, lured to the Taj with fancy five-star salaries. Eventually, the owners of such restaurants as Amaravathi began to warn PK Mohankumar, the Residency’s food and beverage manager, of dire consequences if he stole any more cooks. But by then, it did not matter. The Taj had begun to understand South Indian food itself and its own chefs were mastering Mangalorean dishes and promoting such previously unfashionable fish as Kane. The success of the Residency, which quickly became the best hotel in Bangalore, was slightly dented when, soon after the hotel opened, the Taj took Spencer’s Hotels on long lease. Spencer’s was
rude food
The 125year-old West End is still a glorious Bangalore institution and the city’s coastal restaurant Karavalli too continues to live up to its legend
SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
TASTES LIKE HOME
Karavalli (above) in Taj Gateway is to South India what Bukhara is to the North
an old British company and the owners in the 1980s were (if I remember correctly) a Parsi family who felt that the hotels would be safe with the Tatas. (A few years later RP Goenka bought Spencer’s). Thus, the Taj got three wonderful heritage properties at a stroke: Ooty’s Savoy, Madras’s grand Connemara and Bangalore’s West End. Of the three, the West End was the most significant. It was about a century old, had begun life as Bronson’s Boarding House in the heyday of the Raj and had been – for a while – the grandest hotel in Bangalore. But the years had not been kind to the West End. By the time the Taj got it in 1984 it was a rundown property favoured only by Bombay Gujaratis who came to Bangalore during the racing season. (The hotel is situated opposite the Race Course). But it had the advantage of space. As far as I can recall, it had only around 60 rooms spread over 20 acres in the heart of Bangalore. At the time, Bangalore had not yet boomed so the monetary value of the property was not massive but still, it was hard to think of a hotel in any city that had so much space. The Taj set the West End right. It built more rooms (it now has about 113 rooms, of which 26 are suites), refurbished the existing accommodation and spent lakhs on restoring the gardens to their former glory. From 1985 to around 2002 or so it was the only hotel in Bangalore I stayed in (unless I was there for a conference or something) and given that I came to Bangalore three or four times a year, I guessed I must have stayed there at least 50 to 60 times. But there was no reason to stay anywhere else. The West End was one of the world’s most beautiful city hotels. It comprised around seven free-standing buildings, none of which had more than one storey. The rest of the property was just acres and acres of garden. There were 113 different species of trees, thousands of flowers and the air was full of bird song. Even after Bangalore boomed and property prices shot through the roof, the Taj refused to touch the West End. Not one foot of the hotel was surrendered to shopping malls or to offices and no new blocks of rooms were constructed. But even as the West End went from strength to strength, the Taj had another idea. It took over the old East-West Hotel on Residency Road and transformed it into the Gateway. With Camellia Panjabi as the mastermind and Mohankumar as the
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ON THE MENU – FOREVER
Long before Gajalee became famous and every tourist sought out Trishna, Karavalli served the kori gassis, the Alleppey curries (left) and the masala crabs (above) of South Indian coastal cuisine
opening general manager (the old Southern Comfort team), they turned the hotel into a foodie destination. The hotel’s greatest triumph was Karavalli, a restaurant that is to South India what Bukhara is to the North. Camellia and Mohan sourced recipes from South Indian housewives, Karwar fishermen and Malayali families to create a legendary coastal menu. Long before Gajalee became famous and every tourist sought out Trishna, Karavalli served the kori gassis, the Alleppey curries and the masala crabs of South Indian coastal cuisine. The first chef was Bernadette Pinto and she was assisted by the young Sriram. When the restaurant took a little while to find its feet, critics scoffed that a coastal restaurant could never succeed: “In three months you will be serving butter chicken”. But the Taj kept the faith and slowly but surely Karavalli flourished, creating a restaurant cuisine out of home recipes, one that has been copied endlessly all over India and the world. Bernadette left and Sriram, who must be one of India’s most cerebral and accomplished chefs, took over. Eventually, Sriram left for London where he runs the Michelin-starred Quilon for the Taj and his assistant Naren Thimmaiah took his place. I went back to Bangalore last week to see how things had changed. The city is now too fancy and bar-oriented for the ethnic eating experiences I recall to seem quite as striking. But Karavalli has held up. I had lunch there with Mohankumar and we talked about the old times, when he first came to Bangalore from Bombay in the Eighties and was shocked to find how quiet and slow-paced life in this city was.
The food at Karavalli was even better than I remembered it. Thimmaiah is still there and he is still trying to maintain the flavour of home-cooking that has always been Karavalli’s hallmark. His vegetables are bought from farmers, his masalas are freshly ground, no cooked food is stored for longer than a meal service and new recipes have been sourced from other communities (for instance Brahmin food from Mangalore rather than just the usual Bunt dishes.) Mohan is back in Bombay but as chief operating officer of Gateway Hotels (now a whole chain within the Taj) he has been involved in the refurbishment and renovation of Karavalli. Within the Taj, he is Mr Bangalore, having run the Gateway and the Residency. Most significantly perhaps, he is the man who revived the West End. A decade or so ago, after a disastrous renovation and a collapse of service standards, I gave up on the West End and shifted to the excellent ITC Windsor a few minutes away. By then, Bangalore had changed and the new and massive Leela Palace was commanding higher rates than the smaller and more exclusive West End – a bizarre situation. The Taj sent Mohan to the West End as general manager and he turned the hotel around, restoring standards to where they should be. This year, the West End completes 125 years (though only 28 of them as a Taj hotel) and it is back as Bangalore’s top hotel with the highest room rates. Frankly I’m not surprised. Its situation and setting make it one of Asia’s finest hotels, on par with the Oriental in Bangkok or The Peninsula in Hong Kong. So it is nice to know that as much as Bangalore has changed, some things remain the same. The West End is still a glorious Bangalore institution and Karavalli continues to live up to its legend.
BASIC TASTES
Camellia Panjabi (above) and PK Mohankumar (below) sourced recipes from South Indian housewives, Karwar fishermen and Malayali families to create a legendary coastal menu
SHIFTING BASE
A decade or so ago, after a disastrous renovation and a collapse of service standards, I gave up on the West End and shifted to the excellent ITC Windsor (below)
indulge
RISING FROM THE ASHES
A brand you once loved and had almost written off is planning a return to form. Will it work?
I
T SELLS a million phones a day, it’s still Number One in many countries and more people have owned a phone from this company than any other electronic device, ever. And this former World Number One has had the most turbulent 24 months than any company in the history of technology. Most people wrote it off, many analysts predicted the demise of the whole company by mid-2012 and fantastic new rumours of it being sold to a rival or being split up and sold in small pieces come up every Monday morning. Welcome to the fascinating world of Nokia!
THE HARDER YOU FALL
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop believes that the Lumia 920 is the world’s most innovative smartphone SHADE CARD
Nokia Lumia 920 is available in these colours (below)
Then came the first piece of good news. Nokia Lumia phones sold more than four million units in a single quarter. That was twice the previous quarter and far higher than most analyst estimates. Further good news: its Asha series of feature phones were a runaway hit. And to top it off, the Pureview phone established Nokia back on top as an innovation and technology leader. Could the Nokia resurgence have begun?
THE RESURGENCE?
didn’t get it right now, this Finnish Giant was literally finished!
BIG WORDS
Stephen Elop, the Nokia CEO, held up one of the phones and announced, “The Lumia 920 is the world’s most innovative smartphone”. That is a big claim; but one that is much needed. For Nokia to have a fighting chance, they need to shake things up. No namby pamby word play, no politically correct sweet talk. It’s time for Nokia to hit sledgehammer hard! So what have they got and is it enough? The Lumia 920 is a phone that carries on the legacy of the 900 with a polycarbonate unibody design (solid, if a little heavy), and fits in the hand very well. The 4.5-inch PureMotion HD+ display is quite a revelation. This is a retina-plus-plus screen with a resolution of 1280x768 with 336 pixels crammed into each inch. It can work very well outdoors and in bright light and has a very good touchscreen on it. The device is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor, has 1GB of RAM, 32GB of NFC (near field communication) and 4G LTE (long term evolution). A 2000mAh battery tops out the specs, but the kicker lies in the fact that it has wireless charging, which really is the game changer. Nokia throws in offline maps and directions as well as CityLense, which is fast becoming a favourite. Optics is where this phone really shines. The 8.7 megapixel camera is touted as having PureView technology, a floating lens for image stabilisation, Carl Zeiss optics and is capable of recording videos at 1080p HD. Startling body colour options like yellow and red round off a very wellmade phone. The 820 also has some great specs and is a more economical but slightly lower featured version of the 920.
On paper, the Nokia Lumia 920 is one of the strongest phones in its category
That would depend on the new Lumia phones announced in New York a few days ago. While the announcement was typical of Nokia (no price, no release dates and no country availability), the product line is anything but. On these two phones lie the resurgence of an entire company. Nokia has done this for two years. They’ve taken out quite a few Lumia phones since the first one, they know what worked and what didn’t, they have the technological knowhow, they’ve got the marketing and distribution muscle and they’ve got Windows 8. No excuses, no beta testing, no more mistakes. If they SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
Lumia’s wireless charging could be the differentiator
Rajiv Makhni
For Nokia, the brand new Lumia phones were supposed to be its saviour. The gamble on Windows as the all-new operating system was supposed to pay off and the might of Microsoft and Nokia was supposed to have dominated the feature phone market and obliterate the competition in the smartphone category. That didn’t happen. Not by a long shot. The stock price tanked, thousands of jobs were lost, factories and offices were shut down, losses mounted into the billions, sales constantly missed targets and overall Nokia was completely written off. The death knell had been sounded.
A GLIMMER OF HOPE
TOP STORY
LOOK MA, NO WIRES
techilicious
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A GIGANTIC TASK
So is this enough then? Remember, it’s not just about having a good phone. Nokia needs to do enough to wrestle customers away from iconic runaway bestseller companies like Apple and Samsung, hit hard enough to make people move from entrenched operating systems like iOS and Android and pick up people moving away from BlackBerry. You don’t get people to migrate by doing a ‘slightly’ better phone. You have to give them not one but several compelling reasons to do so. Are the new Lumias strong enough to do that? On paper, the answer is a resounding yes. The Lumia 920 is one of the strongest phones in its category. If the specs and features it exudes on paper translate to real sales, then you could be looking at the all-new champion of smartphones. A phone that literally may make Nokia rise from the ashes. Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru, CellGuru and Newsnet 3. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com /RajivMakhni
Sanjoy Narayan
download central
PRETTY PATTERN
Photo: GETTY IMAGES
BEYOND THE NAME THEORY
British band Alt-J’s debut album, An Awesome Wave, is a very original take on folk-pop
O
Indie bands with strange names can often reveal intriguing mixedgenre music
INDIE FOR INDIAN
Photo: CC/AMANDA HATFIELD
Anand Wilder, guitarist and vocalist of the heavily psychedelic indie band Yeasayer
KAY, I’LL be honest about this. The reasons why I first tried the three bands mentioned in this week’s edition of DC had nothing to do with their music, at least initially. Later, once I had heard their stuff, I got hooked. But that is another matter. The reason I first picked up each of their albums had little to do with their music. It was actually about names. Take Alt-J. That’s the name of one of the three bands that are occupying my playlist. It’s a four-member British band, originally from Leeds, which makes music that takes folk, rock and pop and melds them into a melodic output that’s rather pleasing to the ear. But even before I heard their music, I was intrigued about their name. Alt-J is actually a keyboard command, and if you perform the command – that is, press the alt and J keys together, you get the mathematical symbol (delta). Don’t try it on your PC because it works only for Mac keyboards. But although I may have picked up Alt-J for their curious name, I found their debut album, An Awesome Wave, to be a very original take on folk-pop. Alt-J infuse elements from dubstep, art-rock and folk into their music and produce a sound that, despite having the influence of several genres, sounds unique. Their music is heavy, cerebral stuff, but yet not light and ephemeral as much of the pop you hear on mainstream radio tends to be. On An Awesome Wave, which came out last year, the track to listen to is Tessellate, which is a nice sounding word that means to “form into a mosaic pattern”. The song’s a great combination of electronica and harmonies and its name is apt because most of Alt-J or ’s music is like that – it forms a pretty pattern. Yeasayer isn’t a band that is new. The Brooklyn, New York, band has been around for at least six or seven years. Critics like to call what they play psychedelic pop but that doesn’t do justice to their genre-defying compositions, which draw upon Eastern, MiddleEastern, rock, pop and folk music genres. But my introduction to the band was not on account of their music; nor on account of the name of the band, which, incidentally means ‘a person who always agrees with or is submissive to others’, a rather strange name for
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Photo: CC/SARAH CORDINGLEY
indulge
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COMEBACK DUO
Brian King and David Prowse of Japandroids gathered critical acclaim and are now an indie rock favourite
an indie psych-rock band, if you ask me. No. It was because of the name of the guitarist and vocalist, Anand Wilder. I was intrigued by his first name and then discovered that yes, he is of half-Indian origin. I checked out Odd Blood, Yeasayer’s second fulllength that came out in 2010 with music that was very psychedelic and had Middle-eastern influences. And now, they’ve released Fragrant World, which I’m still listening to. It’s also psychedelic but heavier; it has more synthesisers, is a bit darker and less ‘hooky’ but still enjoyable. And, of course, it has Anand Wilder who plays a mean guitar. One more thing: their live shows are great, complete with psychedelic shows and interesting lighting. There are a bunch of those worth checking out on YouTube. The third band on my current playlist I first picked up because of two things – their name, which is Japandroids, and because it is a duo. I have a soft spot for rock duos, especially if they are power rock duos such as The Black Keys or The White Stripes. Japandroids are more than a power rock band. They are loud and noisy and committed rockers. The duo – Brian King (guitar, vocals) and David Prowse (drums, vocals) – despite their name, are from Canada and have two fulllengths to their name. The first album Post-Nothing was actually released as an after-thought by the two because they had by then given up hope that the band had any future. In fact, the album was the last project before they planned to dissolve the band. Then came resounding critical acclaim, particularly from music commentators such as the website Pitchfork, and Japandroids’ fortunes changed. Their fan base spread outside of Canada and now they’re a band that is on every indie rock connoisseur’s favourites’ list. In summer this year, they launched their second album, Celebration Rock, aptly titled because it came after a break-up that was narrowly averted. This sophomore effort is as noisy and melodic (yes, curiously, Japandroids are able to make two clashing adjectives work together as descriptors for their music) as Post-Nothing but the music is clearly happier. If you like power duos (as I said, The Black Keys, The White Stripes and so on...), you should try Japandroids. To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned in this column, go to http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/download-central, follow argus48 on Twitter
THE JUKEBOX
A
t the risk of making Jukebox a jazz corner, here's another brilliant album that is making me take another dip into that genre, something that began with Keith Jarrett's Sleeper (DC, September 9). Spirit Fiction is Ravi Coltrane's first album on the legendary Blue Note label and on the nearly hour-long album, there are 11 tracks, all of them superb. Coltrane, who plays soprano and tenor saxophones, has a jazz pedigree that few exponents can boast of. He is the son of the iconic jazz saxophonist, the late John Coltrane and his wife, the late pianist Alice Coltrane. Coltrane junior is a post-bop artist, playing with a small combo band whose sound harks back to the mid-1960s. Great stuff, this new album. Worth many listens. Photo: CC/BRYAN THOMPSON
SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
Ravi Coltrane
indulge
THAT MADELEINE MOMENT
Seema Goswami
FLAVOUR THAT LINGERS
I can still taste the shingara (above left) and jalebis that used to be my holiday breakfast as a child
NOSTALGIA!
Americans express a craving for steak or the barbeque sauce of their childhood
would tear off the tree in the back garden, having slipped away to investigate the vegetation as my mother undertook her afternoon siesta. If I close my eyes and think back, I can still taste the shingara (that’s samosa to all you non-Calcuttans) and jalebi that used to be my holiday breakfast as a child. The coconut-jaggery prasad that used to be served on Janmashtami has assumed near mythic status in my mind. And nothing tasted quite as good as the churmur chaat that we used to eat during the break in school, with the chaatwallah slipping it under the school gate like the contraband it was (having been outlawed by the nuns, like everything else that made life worth living). As you can tell, most of my food nostalgia is Calcutta-related: the puchchkas in front of New Market; the jhaal-muri outside Loreto College; the dosas of Jyoti Vihar; the junk Chinese served up in Chung-Wah, the official canteen of all ABP employees back in the day; the biryani of Shiraz; the rolls of Nizam. As they say, you can take the girl out of Calcutta; but you can’t take the taste of Calcutta out of the girl. (And please don’t send me irate letters about how it is now Kolkata; it will always be Cal to me.) But even if you discount my food memories of Calcutta, there is still a vast swathe of things that I feel nostalgic about. The home-made idlis that a former colleague would bring to work (paired with the most divine gunpowder and green chutney); the chilli con carne I once had in a Washington restaurant; the pad Thai served up at a roadside stall in Bangkok. There is certain pattern to food nostalgia. Britons living abroad often long for a taste of Marmite as a reminder of home. Americans express a craving for steak or the barbeque sauce of their childhood. Italians long for sun-dried tomatoes and a good olive oil. And the French turn up their noses at any cheese that doesn’t stink like the ones they grew up on. Ask any random sampling of Indians living abroad what they are most nostalgic about and the phrase ‘dal-chawal’ will drip off most tongues. And I can totally relate because when I come back to India after a vacation abroad, the first thing I want to eat is dal-chawal with a nice spicy pickle and lots of roasted papad and lashings of raw onion. Within India, food nostalgia can be rather region-centric. Rare is the Punjabi who isn’t nostalgic about the kadhi-chawal or rajmachawal or aloo-vadi that his mother or grandmother made. Bengalis tend to wax eloquent about their fish curries or shukto. Gujaratis can bang on about the fluffy dhoklas and the perfect theplas that their Maharajs turned out in their ancestral homes. As for me, I still fantasise about the double-roti omelette, the shingara-jalebi, and the puchchkas of my youth. And I often wonder if they would taste just as great in real life as they do in my dreams. Or whether remembrance has given them a flavour that they never possessed in reality.
spectator
I
We all have food memories that take us effortlessly back to the past
Photos: THINKSTOCK
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DON’T KNOW about you, but I rather relish the prospect of room service breakfast at a posh hotel. There is something so glamorous about being served on a starched, white table-cloth with a red rose standing stiffly in attention on the side, while a gloved waiter pours you a nice cup of coffee. And what could be more decadent than having someone squeeze a glass of fresh orange juice and cook a nice French toast for you (note to self: must get out more!) first thing in the morning? Though I usually go for the more sinful options when it comes to hotel breakfasts – bring on the pancakes, the waffles and the parathas – last Sunday I decided to go for the (relatively) healthy option and ordered akuri. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, this is basically Indian-style scrambled eggs seasoned with lots of onion, ginger, tomato and green chillies, and liberally garnished with coriander. It is usually served with toast but on this occasion, the chef sent it with a Bombay-style pao (the kind that makes up one half of pao bhaji). I stuffed a generous dollop of the eggs between two halves of the pao and popped a generous mouthful in. As the buttery eggs coated my tongue and the ginger and chilli hit the back of my throat, I was instantly transported back in time. With just one bite, I was taken back to my days as a callow, young sub-editor on her first job, who kept herself fortified for the long nights of page-making with a double-roti and omelette sandwich in the ABP canteen in Calcutta. And even though the akuri was perfect – just on the right side of runny, creamy and unctuous, at that moment I would have killed for the sandwich of my misbegotten youth, oily junk food though it might have been. Now, I don’t want to get all Proust – remember his Madeleine? He certainly did – on you on a Sunday morning, but it is strange isn’t it, how some kinds of food suddenly evoke a memory so strong that you find yourself going back in time? Which bring on a craving so strong that you can’t think of anything other than their taste, their smell, and how you can best replicate them? Like most people, my food memories are rooted in my childhood. I still remember the taste of those tiny, pink berries that I SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
seema_ht@rediffmail.com. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami
WELLNESS
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Photos: THINKSTOCK
MIND BODY SOUL
SHIKHA SHARMA
The Sound Of Silence
H
OW MANY times have you heard the phrase “Silence is Golden” and wondered if it holds true anymore? It usually baffles people because talkative people get a lot of attention and applause from their peers. The mantra of soundlessness seems out of date today, because people who don’t talk much are considered aloof and reclusive. But in an age when your mind is always consumed by inner-space chatter and noise all around, silence should be your escape route. ■ Observe silence to de-clutter the mind and bring clarity to your thoughts. A clear mind can channel ideas in the right direction instead of endlessly going around in circles. ■ Observing silence can harness your intuitive powers and make you wiser. We are all blessed with intuitive wisdom but because of endless meaningless noise in our heads, we are unable to access this wonderful gift. This leads to tremendous anxiety, confusion and inability to make good decisions. Through silence, we actually reach deep into our subconscious mind and find happiness, balance and wisdom. ■ One way to mitigate anxiety is by observing silence, especially if it is done after
SHH!
Meditation is the easiest way to be silent, still and at peace
a few rounds of anilom-vilom pranayam. Nagging thoughts typically cause knots in your stomach and a feeling of negativity. These symptoms define classic anxiety pangs that people in big cities often experience. Anxiety can eat into your sense of happiness and security. Control it with meditation and profession help. ■ Silence helps you to become more self confident and instills the inner confidence that is so important in a world that forces you to constantly learn and unlearn things.
CALM POSE
A little quiet time is all you need to find a solution to a problem ■ One of the easiest ways to find a solution to a problem is by detaching yourself from it for some time and being silent. Getting stuck on a problem can be extremely disturbing. If you find yourself in a situation like that, step back from the problem, observe silence for a couple of hours and the solution will pop into your head from nowhere. The answer will seem so obvious that you’ll be left wondering why it didn’t occur to you earlier. I call it a Eureka moment. ■ Every religion in the world propagates the power of silence. The path of silence has been tried and tested over several thousand years. All you need to do is remind yourself of its effectiveness.
and wake up early and do not switch on the TV radio, music system or mobile phone. Do a few rounds of pranayam and slowly become aware of your surroundings without making a mental comment on them. If a thought forms inside you, let it bubble up and pop. Do not pay attention to any stimulus. Within a few minutes, you will connect with the silence within. Let it take over and you’ll experience calm and happiness like never before.
Silence helps you become more self confident and instills a sense of self belief
QUIET, PLEASE
The best time to observe silence is when you’re travelling or are alone. Try
ask@drshikha.com
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India Bana Pardes A Pardesi Watches Bollywood a three-part series
POWER TRIP
PA R T 3
The Musical Ghosts of Dilliwood
Rock Star articulates a powerful fantasy: the Indian as global shape-shifter
The Capital has become a city of increasing vitality in Bollywood’s cinematic imagination by Jonathan Gil Harris
T
HE SUCCESS in recent years of films like Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Band Baaja Baarat, and Vicky Donor has made clear what has been an open secret for some time – that Delhi has become a city of increasing vitality in Bollywood’s cinematic imagination. Much has been made of how the new “Dilliwood” films embrace a distinctive, vibrant Delhi culture, one rich in Punjabi gaalis and colourful Vintage Earth wear. Yet there is another Delhi that has made its presence felt on screen in recent years. It is a Delhi of ghosts, and it speaks powerfully to the theme of India Bana Pardes. This other onscreen Delhi is beset by the spectre of a past that filmmakers don’t fully acknowledge, yet cannot fully repudiate: an undivided Hindustan in which Urdu was the primary language of poetry and music. If Bombay was a city of immigrants, it was (at least before its renaming) a metropolis gazing steadfastly into the future, a City of Dreams waiting to be realised – or dashed. Delhi after Partition was also a city of immigrants. But unlike Bombay, it became a city less of future aspirations than of difficult pasts. Perhaps that’s why
OLD SPICE
people who moved to Delhi after Partition didn’t become Dilliwalas the way migrants to Bombay became Mumbaikers. There has always been an uneasy sense that the residents of Delhi are custodians of a city that is not fully theirs, because so many of its inhabitants left in 1947. The loss of pre-1947 Delhi was for many years largely disavowed in Hindi cinema. Sometimes, though, it would be hinted at in elliptical form. In Tere Ghar Ke Samne (1963), Dev Anand and Nutan’s characters come from warring families; although both are Hindu, the fact that Nutan’s family is modern and Dev Anand’s is traditional speaks of a Delhi divided in time. That the couple woos each other in the Qutub Minar is another subtle reminder of how Delhi’s landscape does not belong to one time, but is everywhere riddled with the ghosts of various Muslim pasts. n recent Hindi cinema, Delhi’s Ihearing. ghosts haunt not our sight, but our Delhi Belly (2011) is a film that
in many respects could be set anywhere in India: there’s little in it that visually evokes the city. Yet one thing in it is unmistakably Delhi – the song SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
In Tere Ghar Ke Samne (right) Dev Anand’s character woos Nutan in the Qutub Minar – a reminder of how Delhi’s landscape does not belong to just one time
I Hate You (Like I Love You). At first hearing, it’s a little like the city depicted in the film: modern, brash, American-Anglophone, somewhat airheaded. The song is performed over the closing credits, and features Aamir Khan in his Disco Fighter avatar, wearing an Elvis jumpsuit, chest wig, and medallion. Yet lurking in the song is an unexpected ghost. It appears first as a Hindi-Urdu chorus – tere pyaar ne kar diya deewana – but then in the middle it transforms into a haunting qawwali song, accompanied by a Sufi ustad ecstatically chanting “saiyan” as the music speeds up like a jubilant, whirling dervish. And as the chorus of “I Hate
You” returns over the top of the continued chant of tere pyaar ne kar diya deewana, we might recognise how the tune has all along been sculpted out of the qawwali form. The song captures Delhi better than any other Hindi movie song of the past year: like the city, the seemingly cosmopolitan I Hate You (Like I Love You) is built on top of, and out of, a Muslim foundation that it can’t completely conceal. What to make of the qawwali’s appearance in I Love You (Like I Hate You)? We might be tempted to treat it as a symptom of India Bana Pardes in the age of globalisation, when the growing dominance of American pop
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music forms in Bollywood means that older Indian idioms such as qawwali have become embarrassingly outmoded styles to be performed so they can be laughed at. But, given the undoubted emotional power of the ustad’s chants of “saiyan” amidst the bubble-gum banalities of the American-accented lyrics, the haunting presence of the qawwali has a more interesting effect. In Delhi Belly, the qawwali works to reveal the multiple musical and cultural layers of India, past and present. nother Dilliwood blockbuster from – Imtiaz Ali’s Rock Star – uses A2011 the qawwali rather differently
from Delhi Belly. And that’s because the film’s relation to Delhi and its pasts is altogether different. For Rock Star offers an exemplary instance of the new wave of India Bana Pardes movies. The film articulates a powerful fantasy that I dissected in my earlier article on Don 2: the Indian as global shapeshifter, accumulating power by moving across international borders. In the case of Rock Star, the shapeshifter is Janardhan Jhakar (Ranbir Kapoor), a sweet-natured Haryanvi singer-songwriter who eventually morphs into the brooding international rock sensation Jordan. We first see him in Italy, getting into a fight with local police before storming on
stage to sing angrily at a largely Western audience. In an extended flashback, the film proceeds to narrate his long journey to stardom. The canteen-owner at his Delhi college tells Janardhan he cannot succeed as a musician unless he experiences heartbreak. He consciously seeks out pain, and finds it in the form of Heer (Nargis Fakhri), a St Stephen’s girl who dashes his dreams by marrying another man and moving to Prague. Janardhan becomes a world-conquering pardesi star not just by changing his name to the Western-friendly Jordan, or by mastering a Western musical idiom. He does it also by swallowing a Western canard, dating back to the British Romantics but still alive and well in rock music, that true art can only be produced by individuals who suffer. What is at stake in Rock Star, therefore, is a highly problematic concept of authenticity. And in the era of India Bana Pardes, it is a concept that the film stretches to breaking point. For Janardhan to become an authentic rock star, he has to abide by a foreign script of misery breeding great art, one that the film presents at first in a deeply ironic light. Yet as Rock Star progresses, Imtiaz Ali attempts to domesticate this pardesi myth of artistic authenticity by reclothing it in local fabrics, suggesting that India provides the would-be desi Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain with all he needs to suffer. Janardhan’s initially comic pursuit of heartbreak becomes tragic when
In Rock Star Janardhan (Ranbir Kapoor) consciously seeks out pain
ECSTASY IN QAWWALI
Ranbir sings with other members of the Nizamuddin humnawa in Rock Star
I Hate You is performed over the closing credits of Delhi Belly, and features Aamir in his Disco Fighter avatar he is kicked out of his Jat household by his father and brother. His true suffering begins as a homeless person in Delhi, during which time he takes refuge in the dargah of Nizamuddin and learns his musical craft under the tutelage of its qawwals. For the sake of religious equality, he also decamps to a mandir and sings bhajans. But it is his time in the dargah that lends the film much of its emotional power, not least because of A R Rahman’s beautiful Sufi song, Kun Fayaa Kun. For a brief instant, the pardesi myth of the suffering artistic individual is replaced by another possibility – that of the communal singer who experiences desire, longing, and ecstasy in shared harmonies. cstasy is the objective and the EKamil’s hallmark of the qawwali. Irshad lyrics for Kun Fayaa Kun
powerfully capture this ecstasy, and in the process they gesture towards a musical tradition that has always sought to move across seemingly insurmountable borders and divisions. When the qawwal sings Jab kahin pe kuch nahin bhi nahin tha, wohi tha, wohi tha, wohi tha, his
words go beyond simple reverence for the Creator. More precisely, they long for oneness (Wohi tha). That oneness is made clear by the song’s picturisation, in which Ranbir Kapoor sings with all the other members of the Nizamuddin humnawa. The sequence provides a reminder that a qawwali performance brings together singers and audiences across boundaries of religion and culture, and in a state of ecstatic joy as much as longing. All this ends up being suppressed, however, by the narrative’s focus on how Janardhan becomes Jordan, the tragic, authentically suffering individual. His immersion in Sufi music may offer a swadesi index of his authenticity as a pardesi artist of great feeling. Yet inasmuch as it provides a soundtrack to his individual pain, the joyous, trans-communal dimension of the qawwali ends up being erased. Once he has become a global star, Jordan is a lone wolf onstage as much as off it: in performance, acting as if his band and his audience aren’t there, he conducts an extended conversation with his own pain. As a result, Rock Star plots not only the trajectory of Janardhan Bana Pardes in the global marketplace of rock music. It also plots the trajectory of Dilliwood Bana Pardes, which works to estrange Delhi from its Muslim cultural traditions and, in particular, from a still-vibrant Sufi musical form that is about so much more than expressing individual loss or providing a stepping stone to global success. Just go to Nizamuddin on a Thursday night, listen to the harmonies of the qawwals, and you can hear how. brunchletters@hindustantimes.com
The series is concluded – The author is Professor of English at George Washington University in Washington DC, USA
Jab kahin pe kuch nahin bhi nahin tha, Wohi tha, Wohi tha, Wohi tha” – Irshad Kamil, lyricist, in Kun Fayaa Kun, Rock Star SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
PERSONAL AGENDA
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Footballer
Bhaichung Bhutia if i could... I’D HOST A TRAVEL SHOW
SUN SIGN Sagittarius
BIRTHDAY
December 15
SCHOOL/ COLLEGE
Tashi Namgyal Academy, Gangtok
HOMETOWN PLACE OF BIRTH Tinkitam, Sikkim
LOW FIRST CURRENTLY POINT OF BREAK DOING YOUR Getting into Helping the Rotary LIFE Sikkim under- campaign against
Playing for Can’t the national remember team any
12 team when polio, teaching football to I was just 10 young players and being a years old part of the United Sikkim club
Photo: ARVIND YADAV
Sikkim
HIGH POINT OF YOUR LIFE
CAPTAIN THE INDIAN FOOTBALL TEAM FOR THE WORLD CUP
Photos: THINKSTOCK
BECOME A GOOD SINGER
What was the experience of playing with Didier Drogba like? It was a great experience and we had a nice, fun game. What did Drogba tell you when you sat with him at halftime? He was about to leave Chelsea and I was asking him about his future plans. Are you a doting dad to your twins? Does football leave enough time for you to be an involved dad? I try my best to spend as much time as I can with all three kids (I have a daughter too), but it gets a bit difficult at times. Have your dancing moves improved after winning Jhalak Dikhla Jaa? I really don’t think so as I haven’t been dancing. Your all-time favourite footballers and why? Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, as both of them are highly talented and I love their style of playing. Who are your friends in the field of cricket? SEPTEMBER 30, 2012
I am in touch with a lot of them possession. and enjoy chatting with Dhoni, Your favourite travel destination? Dravid and Tendulkar. Honestly speaking, it’s Sikkim. The issues closest to your heart are... I have come back to Sikkim Mostly about the north-east. after 20 years. Trying to educate people about One thing about your appearance that it and also polio. you don’t like? If you weren’t a footI could have ball player, what would certainly done YOU HAVE LESS you would have been? with some more THAN A MINUTE TO I really have no PACK, WHAT DO YOU height. idea. I started playWhat can you live in? TAKE WITH YOU? ing football pretty Sportswear. early. Perhaps I’d Cotton track have been a pants and a T-shirt cricketer or a from Nike. basketball player. The last line of your If you were an ice autobiography would cream, what flavour read... would you be? ...still working hard. Vanilla. What makes your day? One song that defines your Now it’s my family. current state of mind? What spoils it? I love all peppy Bollywood Anything that doesn’t fall numbers. according to plan. Your greatest extravagance? Your mantra for success? Cars. I just love SUVs and Enjoy what you do. the Audi Q5 is my latest — Interviewed by Veenu Singh
My wallet.