Lounge for 23 Apr 2011

New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Pune

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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Vol. 5 No. 17

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

Qawwals Chand Nizami (centre) and his nephews, Shadab (right) and Sohrab, at the Nizamuddin dargah.

BUSINESS LOUNGE WITH CALLAWAY’S THOMAS YANG >Page 8

THE NEXT KING OF THE COURT? Serbia’s Novak Djokovic exemplifies how big hitters from this little country with a laid­back approach have gotten so good >Page 9

A RAINY DAY WITH RUSKIN BOND Mussoorie’s living landmark has completed 60 years of writing >Page 14

THE REST IS MUSIC

THE COFFEE POT HAS RUN DRY

The rivalry between Delhi’s two leading ‘qawwal’ dynasties illustrates the tension between the classical and the modern >Page 10 THE GOOD LIFE

OUR DAILY BREAD

SHOBA NARAYAN

I

CULT FICTION

SAMAR HALARNKAR

HOW TO SURVIVE THE DELICIOUS SUMMER HOLIDAYS TALE OF THE BASA don’t know about you, but it is around now—three weeks into the summer holidays that began 1 April here in Bangalore—that I feel like killing myself. Either that, or give those saintly schoolteachers a Nobel Peace Prize. How on earth do they manage a class full of nine-year-olds and manage to stay sane? As I write this, my kitchen has been taken over by five children, all under 10, who are engaged in the sweet if messy process of baking chocolate-chip cookies. The floor is... >Page 4

A round­up of the valuable lessons to be learnt from season 3 of ‘Koffee with Karan’ >Page 17

L

et me tell you the strange tale of Pangasius hypophthalmus—in a paragraph. For centuries, this strange creature kept to itself in the riverine depths of south-western Vietnam. Then, the trade engine of the flattened world of the 21st century dragged it out of the Mekong river delta, plonked it in a fish farm and passed it off as something it is not. Via Kolkata, it finally wound up in my New Delhi kitchen, where, in a bamboo steamer imported from Chinatown in the North American... >Page 5

R. SUKUMAR

DON’T MISS

in today’s edition of

CONSTANTINE’S QUARTER­CENTURY

I

would say the cigarette that’s forever hanging from his lips is cool but I know that it isn’t. There was a time in my teens when I thought cigarettes were cool. A decade and several tens of thousands of cigarettes later I gave up smoking because it bored me. And I immediately put on weight, going from 62kg to 80 in just around a year. Back when I smoked I was lean and mean. Like him. The trench coat is definitely cool. I’ve often considered getting one like it (but good sense has prevailed)... >Page 15

FILM REVIEW

DUM MAARO DUM

HOME PAGE L3

LOUNGE First published in February 2007 to serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream.

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

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LOUNGE EDITOR

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ANIL PADMANABHAN TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY NABEEL MOHIDEEN MANAS CHAKRAVARTY MONIKA HALAN VENKATESHA BABU SHUCHI BANSAL SIDIN VADUKUT JASBIR LADI FOUNDING EDITOR RAJU NARISETTI ©2011 HT Media Ltd All Rights Reserved

THE MOTHERHOOD CONSPIRACY

D

id someone drug my coffee again or is this what they call the joy of motherhood?

You know the bumper sticker: Avoid Hangovers, Stay Drunk. Well, motherhood is the mother of all hangovers. No amount of alcohol can help you stay drunk.

Motherhood also reduces you to a state where you think it’s okay to quote bumper stickers.

Sometimes I wish I had been there, done that earlier. Been a yummy mummy in my 20s. At least I wouldn’t have been surrounded by so many experts, cackling so gleefully. I hear all of you vaguely through the haze.

Don’t massage her anti-clockwise, only clockwise. The bath water isn’t hot enough. Where are her socks? What do you mean she doesn’t like blankets?

Why are you still feeding her so much milk? Why are you not feeding her enough milk? All Indian babies need calcium supplements. She’s DIARY not eating chicken yet? Cut her hair. Don’t cut her hair. Too hot, too cold, too much, too little—at times it can feel like a psychedelic crisis, if you get my drift. We adopted Babyjaan five months ago, but from what I’ve gathered in my new life, the nights are longer/darker when you breastfeed.

Nobody prepares you for motherhood. And no, cover your electrical points, put away your breakables and buy lots of baby wipes doesn’t count as prep. I think it’s the world’s oldest conspiracy. Mothers want more women to join their suffering ranks and so they hold back all the key information until your baby actually arrives. Then they can’t stop with the horror stories. “You have one girl. Now you can imagine how I managed five boys,” my aunt said laughingly. Hmm…my childhood memories of her are mostly situated in her kitchen.

And no I’m not going to break my secret motherhood pledge so you can make a more relaxed transition. Okay

THINKSTOCK

White noise: Sorry for the disturbance. maybe just a few quick hints: Replace your daily ritual of “wake up and inhale early morning cuppa” with “wake up and try not to inhale scary smell of baby poo”; remember that the Force and Area dance in the Pressure equation (P = F/A) of your marriage will change substantially (you don’t even look at me these days, you never listen to what I’m saying); and learn to bake—all good mothers moonlight as professional healthy bakers, apparently.

Also, if you’ve been used to working all your life in professionally run organizations that reinforce and reward your good work quarterly, be warned. Motherhood is mostly a one-way highway with only the occasional surprise headed to embrace the traffic of your love and hard work. Of course, this is India. You can bypass some of these irksome issues if your baby spends the day with your mother instead of you.

Do you really feel a love you’ve never felt before, I asked a friend, who, like

LOUNGE FACE­OFF | THE ROYAL WEDDING ON TV

I

f fairy-tale weddings complete with princes and royal families are your thing, then this week your normal 9pm prime-time TV viewing is likely to be disrupted. BBC Entertainment and TLC are bringing a series of daily hour-long programming leading up to the live telecast of the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton on 29 April.

We got a sneak peek into one episode each from this series of programming from both channels.

Untold Stories of a Royal Bridesmaid, BBC Entertainment, 26 April, 9pm India Hicks was just 13 when she was entrusted with the most important job of her teenage life: folding the 25ft-long train of Lady Diana’s wedding gown. In the course of this 48-minute documentary, Hicks meets David Emanuel, who co-designed Diana’s dress with his ex-wife and who remembers meeting Queen Elizabeth II for the first time on the day of the wedding just as he emerged from under Diana’s petticoats, where he was trying to fix the hooks. Lady Pamela Hicks, India’s mother, who was a bridesmaid at Queen Elizabeth’s wedding, talks about how Queen Elizabeth’s wedding bouquet almost went missing, and how the Queen Mother saved the day when the royal tiara broke. There’s India’s nanny, another bridesmaid, designer Carolina Herrera and a royal correspondent also reminiscing about the D-day. India herself is cautious, and does not really reveal much other than displaying memorabilia such as confetti from the wedding, and a small box with a silkworm that Diana presented to all the bridesmaids. The choice of people for this documentary could have been better—who wants to hear a royal correspondent’s views in a film that was supposedly going to reveal never-told-before secrets from a royal bridesmaid? The scene-stealer is Emanuel and this should really have been called “A Courtier’s Royal Secrets”.

Wedding bells: William and Kate.

Royally Astounding: 30 Defining Days of the Monarchy, TLC, 24 April, 9pm

decades. It starts with Prince Charles announcing his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer; takes a detour to Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson; jumps right back to Diana and motherhood and all the decisions she took for William; sprinkles in a bit of Charles growing up as a lonely boy, his dalliances with Camilla Parker Bowles, and then the season of divorces.

The documentary also touches upon the big fire at the palace in 1992, Diana’s death in 1997, and how the British monarchy was forced to re-evaluate its position thereafter. Finally, it moves on to William and his now-on now-off love life with the soon-to-be Princess of Wales Catherine Middleton.

It’s all the stuff you would have read earlier but here it is neatly packaged together with people such as Diana’s butler, editors from various tabloid and society magazines, a few royal correspondents and a host of biographers stringing the feature along.

Is there any new information in this?

No. Is it worth a watch? That depends on how much of a refresher course you need in the marital history of the British monarchy in the last three decades.

A timeline of the most iconic days of the British royal family in the last three

Seema Chowdhry

Write to us at lounge@livemint.com

me, decided at 40 that she was finally ready for motherhood. I was a twoweek-old mother in a catatonic state then. Yes, she nodded vigorously, eyes all alight.

Five months into motherhood I’m a little more in control. I’m back to bathing every day, I even show up at work (although the caffeine in my office canteen only makes me feel more sleepy), and I once colour coordinated Babyjaan’s outfit with mine (so what if it was accidental). Next step: Focus on grooming my nails, conditioning my hair.

When I crawl on all fours chasing after Babyjaan as she chortles and races off pat pat pat pat from room to room, I can hear my knees plotting their revolt. I complained of low energy levels to my orthopaedic surgeon-good life mentor who prescribed little green pills (you know you’re old when ginseng is an ingredient in your pills). He also directed me to a news story about another of his patients—a 107-year-old woman who just had partial hip replacement surgery and is raring to walk again. God forbid I make it to 107, Babyjaan will be a senior citizen!

But before that I have to cross the terrible twos, the Barbie years, homework and age 9 (it’s the new 13, haven’t you heard?). Through all those years I have to keep her safe from all the predators out there. Plus, they say you’re not a real mother until you’ve organized a birthday party.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m addicted to my new breathless, back-breaking life.

I already have a hard drive full of recorded-on-my-BlackBerry moments.

Like 7 February. The day Babyjaan looked me in the eye—twice—and firmly announced: Ma-ma.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

SONGS OF COURAGE We look forward to Shubha Mudgal’s column, Music Matters, every week and last week’s column on the Bant Singh Project (“Soundtrack to a revolution”, 16 April) was illuminating. To be selfless and courageous is testimony to the human spirit. In listening to the songs, you are reminded of an obligation to pay attention to the voiceless millions. Thanks to Mudgal for showcasing such heroes.

RAGHU New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Pune

www.livemint.com

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Vol. 5 No. 16

LOUNGE

CHARITY IS SILENT

THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

Aakar Patel’s personal opinion on the not­very­good culture of Baniyas (“The peculiar pedigree of the business class”, 16 April) was quite a shock. There are several points I wish to highlight: First, he has talked of the number of Baniyas only in the top 100 and lamented the lack of FORCE representation of the rest of the castes (he GIRLS mostly hinted at Christians and Muslims) on that list. But if he would only recount the number of millionaires across W F D castes/communities, he would appreciate the enterprise and growth potential of people across India and castes.

Second, the Indian culture of charity begins at home. Before a Hindu eats breakfast, the first portion is set aside for birds/crows. Animals are fed.

Beggars are never denied food. Most big businessmen have set up educational/food/shelter charity trusts. It is very much a part of our culture to donate what we can. At the same time, we do not dramatize our donations through stage­managed public relations (PR) exercises, unlike Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Just because Baniyas were not at the Buffett event does not mean they do not give to charities.

SUMATHY NAGENDRA BSF constable B.K. Bhatti gets ready for duty at the Wagah border, near Amritsar.

BUSINESS LOUNGE WITH GUCCI’S PATRIZIO DI MARCO >Page 8

LOST IN THE PAGES

While on vacation or lazing at home, don’t forget the books of the season. We pick the best new titles for under­15s >Page 6

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS Stop asking people to bring you a man­sized bar of Toblerone when they go abroad. Try these unique souvenirs >Page 13

At the Wagah border post, a group of 13 women constables of the Border Security Force are matching their male colleagues step for step >Pages 9­11 PUBLIC EYE

SUNIL KHILNANI

REPLY TO ALL

AAKAR PATEL

A KOLKATA FOR PIP

A playwright’s identity crisis makes way for Dickens’ ‘Great Expectations’ set in Kolkata >Page 16

THE GOOD LIFE

SHOBA NARAYAN

CENSUS AND THE NORTH­SOUTH GAP

THE BUSINESS­ CLASS PEDIGREE

IT’S TIME FOR AN INDIAN NOMA

hen, according to WikiLeaks, US ambassador Timothy Roemer reported back to Washington, DC a remark apparently made to him by Union home minister P. Chidambaram, to the effect that India’s overall growth, led by the states of the south and west, was being slowed by the north, he was hardly transmitting a state secret. Yet, predictably and unthinkingly, political parties, especially northern ones like the Samajwadi Party, responded with pieties... >Page 4

orbes magazine has put out a list of the world’s 1,210 billionaires. Fifty-five of them are Indians. A billion dollars is `4,480 crore. A Baniya is a member of the Vaish caste, originating mainly from Rajasthan and Gujarat. They are under 1% of India’s population. India’s richest man is a Baniya (Lakshmi Mittal, world’s sixth richest with $31.1 billion), India’s second richest man is a Baniya (Mukesh Ambani, $27 billion), India’s third richest... >Page 5

oes Indian cuisine need to break the shackles of tradition to make its mark globally? Or do we stay true to our heritage? Evolution or revolution: that is the question. It was the night of the Food Lovers awards function in Bangalore (Disclosure: I was part of the tasting panel).

As usual, Karavalli at the Taj Gateway walked away with the “best coastal restaurant” award, beating Kanua, a solid contender.

Free-standing favourites... >Page 5

DON’T MISS

in today’s edition of

PHOTO ESSAY

VARANASI, BEYOND THE GHATS

ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: JAVEED SHAH/MINT

SUPER SUMMER FUN FOR TOTS, TWEENS AND TEENS If you want to keep your little ones out of the sun and away from the idiot box, log on to www.livemint.com/ vacationlisting.htm

L4 COLUMNS

LOUNGE

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE

Sour punk, or the summer holiday survival kit

I

THINKSTOCK

don’t know about you, but it is around now—three

weeks into the summer holidays that began 1 April here in Bangalore—that I feel like killing myself.

Either that, or give those saintly schoolteachers a Nobel Peace Prize. How on earth do they manage a

class full of nine-year-olds and manage to stay sane?

As I write this, my kitchen has been taken over by five children, all under 10, who are engaged in the sweet if messy process of baking chocolate-chip cookies. The floor is creamy with butter and the counters are covered with white flour. My Labrador has just vomited quietly in a corner, having eaten a bowl full of chocolate chips left out by accident. And five children are standing in front of the oven, chanting, “20, 19, 18…” and so on, as if it were a rocket landing, not cookies coming out of the oven. I am sitting at the nearby dining table with a splitting headache, shiny with sweat, and cursing under my breath.

I love it, of course. I love having these children over every day, at all hours of the day. I love the way they refuse to leave when I try to turn them away: “You are having lunch, aunty?

Can I wait? I can read a book. What are you eating, aunty? Dal-chawal. Oh, I love dal-chawal.”

What do you say? You flatter yourself using rudimentary child psychology; you tell yourself that the reason children keep coming to your house is because they feel “safe” and accepted here. You bang an extra plate on the table and gesture to the visitor to sit down. Indian culture, isn’t it? Athiti devo bhava (The guest is god), and all the rest of that crap. Well, I have news for those sages who composed that particular hymn. They haven’t encountered the brats in my building.

For those who can tolerate high levels of noise and chaos—and I usually can—having little children around is a great ego trip. I love their

shiny eyes when I remove the fragrant cookies and hold the tray aloft for a moment before succumbing to the chants of, “Aunty, me, me...” I love the way their hopeful eyes look at me, as if I can do no wrong, when I fix a toy, restart a computer, or spin a yarn.

I love their innocence and the way I can manipulate it. The deal that I have struck with every child who enters my house on a regular basis is that they get one point every time they clean up their mess. When it adds up to 30 points, I say magnanimously, I will buy them a sour punk. Do you know how much this silly sour punk costs? `24. I have six children ready to do my bidding for this ridiculous sum of money; for a whole month. Devious, aren’t I? And they hero-worship me. Naturally, I love them, until that moment comes when I hate them. And come it does, with depressing frequency.

“Who used my vetiver soap for the magic potion?” I will roar. “And who poured pink plaster of paris into the toilet bowl?”

“Bhaago! (Run!),” they will scream, and race out of the house.

For purposes of privacy, I am going to refer to all these ruffians by their false names, although you could wonder—and rightly so—about why any child who welcomes a new neighbour by asking, “Do you want to hear Vivek fart?”, would require a pseudonym. Nevertheless, these are children who live in my building, and for the sake of communal harmony, they shall remain unnamed. It helps that my sense of humour veers towards scatological jokes and juvenile slapstick humour. Unless I am at the receiving

Holiday blues: Month­long school vacations can overwhelm even the most laid­back of parents. end—like the time I marched into my daughter’s room, skidded on the slippery floor and landed on my…ahem backside—I match these children burp for burp with pleasure.

What gets me is the constant mediation. Their multipurpose threat for all manner of sins is one that is almost goofy in its un-keepability.

“Aunty, Arjun said he won’t be my friend,” little Swetha will come and complain.

This goes on all the time. My daughter will come in crying and complain, “Diya won’t be my friend.”

Two hours later, they are playing together. Most sensible mothers ignore this. I haven’t yet learnt to, mostly because I think it is cute and oddly pathetic that the only things children have to use as threats is their friendship. I, on the other hand, routinely threaten to withdraw chocolates, ice cream, playtime, television and toys. So I lecture them.

“Swetha, you go and tell Arjun that he was never your friend anyway,” I will say. “True friends are those who never threaten that they won’t be your friends.”

Two weeks back, a group of us had gone to meet the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) commissioner, Siddaiah, to submit a list of grievances about our neighbourhood: Ulsoor Lake was stinking with effluents; the pavements needed repair; the garbage wasn’t collected regularly.

We handed him a typed sheet, which he handed right back and said to type the whole thing in Kannada, before he would even look at it.

Crestfallen, we stood in the crowded corridor of Bangalore’s corporation building, wondering how to plead, threaten or coerce the man to rectify our problems.

“Mr Siddaiah,” I announced loudly.

“I won’t be your friend.”

I didn’t actually say that. But I wished I could. Just like the children.

And guess what? We just heard that Siddaiah has allocated `1 crore towards cleaning up Ulsoor Lake.

Would it be a simple world if you could tell Manmohan Singh, “Prime Minister, if you don’t clean up the corruption in your administration, I won’t be your friend.”

Wouldn’t it be great if the threat actually works?

Shoba Narayan is taking a break from writing the column this summer, so she can figure out how to make her home child-free, at least temporarily.

Send your feedback to thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shoba­narayan

THINKSTOCK

LEARNING CURVE

GOURI DANGE

THE MAN­WOMAN CONTINUUM This is about my 13-year-old son. He is sensitive, emotional and shy. He is good looking and from his childhood he has been teased about being like a girl. When he is feeling shy (like when going up on the stage to collect a prize), he walks swaying his hips like a girl, very different from the way he walks when is not feeling conscious. When he was in class VI or so, I caught him wearing lipstick, trying out my sandals, etc. He was very apologetic about it. Once he confided that he fears that he will become a girl. He cries inconsolably at this thought.

He’s a very mature child. He understands the nuances of our conversations. We are working parents and he spends most of his time with our pet dog and our stay-in maid. I am a bit worried, because if I approach some counsellor, he might think that I believe he has a problem. At the same time, I do want to give a justifiable ear to his issues. What do I do ?

First, you need to (you must be doing this, but you would need to reiterate it in words and attitudes regularly) communicate to your son that he will be loved regardless of anything.

As for his emotional state over this issue, you need to give him the space and time to talk about it, but avoid generalized fretting and bringing it up

all the time. Even if this sounds a bit artificial, you could fix a day and a time every week, or more often, but a previously fixed time, when you can talk about this issue. This will put some kind of restriction on him from “obsessing” and putting himself in a state over it so often.

Most importantly—and perhaps parents of all children at some stage should bring this up with their children when talking about sexuality, sexual leanings, etc.—the time has come for us to provide our children with a more amplified view of these things. This you can do by finding a way to communicate the following: ® Man and woman are two extremes of a continuum and in real life people exist all along that continuum ® A lot of people don’t know that and expect everyone to demonstrate their total manhood or womanhood Once he understands and internalizes it and realizes that you believe it too, much of the impact of the teasing and the deep self-doubt and distress may recede. However, to impart this important learning to your son, it would be better if you could find different opportunities to communicate the same thing. To do this, you would need to find time to spend with him, one on one, at an activity that allows time to talk, perhaps every 10 days or so, or when he is particularly disturbed over this.

You could do this together or

separately, as parents. Find ways to work it in casually, and not have a very heavy sit-down discussion.

At 13, he may or may not yet have attractions towards other boys or girls.

If at a later time he indicates or insinuates a preference, I would let him know that it’s okay, and these things too sometimes change from one to the other.

Since he seems quite overwrought with this issue, and it is not easy for you either to appropriately process and deal with whatever comes up in your discussions with him, perhaps you should consider meeting a counsellor. While initially he may be, as you indicate, a bit alarmed at this, you could put it to him that the perspective of another person would help you all to be happier and calmer.

As for dressing up like a girl—many, many boys have done this at some time in their lives, and you should tell him that. It’s just that very few may admit to having done it.

My 13-year-old daughter is an animal lover. She does not want a pet, she wants to adopt the whole animal world. Both my wife and I work, and my wife particularly does not want any animals in the home.

However, our daughter comes home with puppies and kittens and even birds that need medical attention.

We end up getting the vet or taking the creature to a shelter, or trying to

Pet peeve: ‘Managing’ empathy. find homes for them. Frankly we can’t cope but just don’t know how to stop this without it affecting her impulse to be kind? I must add that she is fearless, almost recklessly so, when handling these animals.

Well there’s one consolation—you don’t have to worry about what career path your child is going to take: Clearly, she is going to work with and for animals in some form! On top of it, you know that you have a child who is brimming with empathy. However, your discomfort is understandable, since you are the ones who have to willy-nilly become animal lovers and rescuers too.

You would need to channellize her

feelings in some way—perhaps by having her volunteer at the local vet and/or at an animal shelter/rescue organization. Explain to her that she’ll be much more effective this way. She also does need to see that her mother has a right not to have to do all this accommodation— understanding a child’s emotional leanings is one thing and being stuck with the end-result of them is another.

Once your daughter starts volunteering, she will be also able to see how people in such fields “manage” their emotions, and don’t have only a sentimental response to the situation. She will see how they’re much more effective by being slightly detached but more responsible. Impulsive emotional responses at all times ends up derailing some people and they become less effective towards the very creatures they want to save. It’s not an easy distinction for an animal lover of her age, but it will seep in.

Second, she does need to accept the fact that her mother is busy and does not have the same intense engagement with the needy animal world as she herself has. Perhaps this is a good time to come up with a discussion about the “rights” of everyone in the household. Of course, you would need to allow the occasional waif and foundling into your home. Provided your daughter has a good enough reason as to why it needs to be there and a plan about where and how soon it will be taken to a shelter or a home found for it.

Gouri Dange is the author of ABCs of Parenting.

Write to Gouri at learningcurve@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011

L5

Eat/Drink

LOUNGE OUR DAILY BREAD

SAMAR HALARNKAR

The strange, delicious tale of the basa PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

SAMAR HALARNKAR

for 1 hour. Place one piece of chilli under and the other over the steak. So too with the galangal and pounded coriander seeds. Lay the steak on a piece of banana leaf, large enough to fold over into a parcel. Wrap the fish in the leaf and secure with a toothpick. Steam.

The fish that’s taking over the world fakes it in Delhi; but under steam, reveals a superb pedigree

Fake basa with sesame and mustard tempering Serves 1-2

L

et me tell you the strange tale of Pangasius hypophthalmus—in a paragraph.

For centuries, this strange creature kept to itself in the riverine depths of south-western Vietnam. Then, the trade engine of the flattened world of the 21st century dragged it out of the Mekong river delta, plonked it in a fish farm and passed it off as something it is not. Via Kolkata, it finally wound up in my New Delhi kitchen, where, in a bamboo steamer imported from Chinatown in the North American city of Seattle, it became my lunch.

If this isn’t globalization, I don’t know what is.

My personal discovery of the Pangasiidae family began a few months ago in a restaurant where for the first time I ate lovely pepper-encrusted basa. For those of you who are as ignorant as I was then, the most well-known member of this family is the basa, a delicate, light fish with flaky, white flesh. In one remarkable decade, the basa has become—globally, and now in India as well—the fish of choice for fillets. Vietnam controls more than 99% of the basa trade, most of it farmed to keep pace with skyrocketing demand.

Now, if you have followed this column, you will know that I come from a family that abhors river fish and shuns fillets. But, alas, in these rushed times, balancing profession with parenting, I succumb frequently to the lure of a phone call to the fishmonger who does home delivery—and since this is Delhi, populated by Punjabis who don’t

Far from the Mekong: (clock­ wise from above, left) Steaming is a good way to cook a light fish like basa; steamed basa flavoured with sesame and mustard, soy and galangal, and chilli and turmeric.

really know their fish, he offers only fillets.

One day, my mysterious fishmonger—he’s only a voice at the end of a phone line—offered me basa. The same, exotic basa that I ate at fancy restaurants?

Well, at `350 per kg, it wasn’t very cheap, but these were fillets and my fish of choice, surmai (kingfish) and pomfret, with bones, often cost as much.

Since then, I confess, I have bought basa often—or at least what I thought was basa.

When I started work on this column, I took, for the first time, a closer look at the label on the sealed plastic packet that holds the basa. I realized I was being fooled, as perhaps were many Indian consumers.

My suspicions began with the brand name on the packet. It said, “IFB Basa”, with the “IFB” font hijacked from the distinctive “IFB” of the washing machine

company. The “IFB” on my fish referred to IFB Agro Industries Ltd of the East Kolkata Township, the importers, who sourced the fish from Long Xuyen town in Vietnam’s An Giang Province.

The label said: Best before November 4, 2012.

The long shelf life isn’t surprising: Basa stays well and when unfrozen feels very fresh indeed. But here was the rub. In grand fashion, the label said the basa’s name was Pangasius hypophthalmus. Well, well. A little research revealed that the fish I had was from the same family as the basa but wasn’t actually basa.

The basa is Pangasius bocourti, an iridescent shark that isn’t a shark at all but a catfish. My fake basa is also a shark catfish, and since I am now not sure if I’ve been eating the right family member, I don’t really mind being fooled.

I turned my attention to cooking the fake basa. I don’t

Q&A | SUSANNE HECHT

Lager theories The beer sommelier on ditching the traditional mug and pairing the drink with food

B Y K RISH R AGHAV krish.r@livemint.com

···························· raft beers are the quirky indie bands of the beer world—brewed on a small scale for distinction in taste and flavour. A number of them, from Belgian Trappist varieties such as Chimay to Bavarian wheat brews, such as Schneider Weisse, have been available in India since mid-2010.

It’s easy to identify a craft beer. Many of them are fermented in open vats, giving them a naturally cloudy appearance and a scent, oddly, of banana and nutmeg.

“The unique smell is a byproduct of that kind of fermentation,” says Susanne Hecht, one of the world’s 50 women beer “sommeliers”, or certified beer professionals, and the sales director, export, of the

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think dunking it in Goan curries or frying it, as I have done before, is a great idea.

Long-lasting yet delicate, basa and its cousins appear to demand more creativity, a lighter touch, as it were.

So, I rummaged through my unused-kitchen-implements shelf and dragged out a magnificent bamboo steamer that I had pressured my in-laws to buy more than five years ago. What could impart a lighter touch to my Vietnamese friend than steaming?

My experiments with the fake basa are detailed below. I am happy to report they were successful. I think the key to cooking shark catfishes is to use the minimum possible spices and not smother them, as we tend to do. I am sure the real, river basa tastes even better, but to me, the fake worked well enough.

Common cooking note: The three recipes involve steaming.

Steaming time depends on the thickness of the fish. A piece of fish weighing 100-150g about a half-inch thick should take no more than 15 minutes. I used a bamboo steamer (sitting atop a steel vessel of boiling water). You can steam in anything with perforations, like a sieve, or a rice cooker. Wrap individual steaks in banana leaves; you can also wrap in foil and bake. I steamed all three fish steaks together. They are very light and will barely serve two people.

Fake basa with soy and galangal Serves 1-2 Ingredients 100-150g fish steak K-inch piece of galangal (Thai ginger), fine juliennes 1 green chilli, slit in two and partially deseeded K tsp coriander seeds, roughly pounded 1 tsp soy sauce Salt (very little, since soy is also salty) Method Marinate the fish in soy and salt

COURTESY G SCHNEIDER

wheat brewery Schneider Weisse.

“It distinguishes these beers from your normal lagers.”

Hecht spoke to Lounge on glassware, craft beer and being discerning with your drink of choice. Edited excerpts from an interview: How does one become a “beer sommelier”? Is there a training process? How long does it take?

It is a two-week training programme done at the “Beer School” of Doemens in Munich.

During the first week candidates learn some theory about brewing in general, about the ingredients and the brewing process. You get to know the traditional German beer styles.

You taste and describe them.

And you also get to know how to recognize “off-tastes”—when beer has gone bad. During the second week you get to know the major international beer styles. You learn the basics about the right glassware, service, how to pour, how to

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Ingredients 100-150g fish steak K clove of garlic, chopped fine N tsp red chilli powder (or less, it should be just enough for flavour and bite) 4-5 curry leaves N tsp sesame seeds N tsp mustard seeds Salt Method Rub chilli powder, salt and garlic on both sides of the steak. In a little oil, splutter the sesame and mustard seeds. When they pop, add the curry leaves, mix briefly, take off heat and pour atop the fish. Wrap in banana leaf. Steam.

Fake basa with coastal spice Serves 1-2 Ingredients 100-150g fish steak N tsp chilli powder V tsp turmeric Squeeze of lime Salt Method Rub the steak with chilli, salt and turmeric powders. Squeeze lime.

Marinate for 1 hour. Wrap in banana leaf. Steam.

This is a column on easy inventive cooking from a male perspective. Samar Halarnkar writes a blog, Our Daily Bread, at Htblogs.com. He is editor-at-large, Hindustan Times.

Write to Samar at ourdailybread@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Samar’s previous columns at www.livemint.com/ourdailybread

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with food.

The rules for beer aren’t as strict or codified like wine, but there are some general guidelines that people should follow.

More hoppy beers (more hops means more bitterness) go well with spicy food, whereas more malty beers (usually sweeter, with higher alcohol content) go well with sweet food, or creamy food like pasta. Beers with higher carbonation go really well with oily Prost! Hecht is a certified beer professional. food, as it cleanses the palate. The broad create a beer menu and pairing idea is not to let the beer beer and food. overpower the food or vice versa.

Then the group brews their You say that the traditional own beer. Of course, like with “beer mug” is not always the everything, experience is the best kind of glass to drink beer best teacher and you are from. What kind of glassware constantly learning on the job. works for craft beers?

Tell us about pairing beer Like with fine wine, the true

experience of a traditional craft beer is in the appearance, aromas, mouth-feel and taste.

And the right glassware is critical in ensuring the optimal beer-drinking experience— visually, in terms of the right amount of foam, experiencing the aromas and in where the beer goes on the palate. The traditional beer mug would be used for beer festivals for the easy drinking beers that may not be as flavourful as craft beers. The glassware for craft beer should be clean and not “frosted”. For more aromatic and hoppy beers, a wide-mouthed glass such as a “snifter” should be used. For wheat beers, a tall glass is used because the beer is very foamy and has a tall head. German wheat beer glasses have a heavy bottom. This is purely cultural as Bavarians like to clunk the beer glasses at the bottom when they say prost (German for “cheers”), unlike the more common clunking at the top of the glass.

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011

Life Wire

LOUNGE

SPOTLIGHT

11 sq km of change

PHOTOGRAPHS

In this remote, election­bound hamlet on the LoC, an engineer­turned­ actor is the face of a young, aspiring Kashmir

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tion the elec Mir won April and is 21 held on e ‘sarpanch’ t now h village. of his

B Y P EERZADA A SHIQ ···························· iesel jeans. Provogue and Tuscan Verve shirts.

Harley-Davidson shoes. iPod, LCD TV, MP3s. Panchayat polls. But for this last but, 27-year-old Parvez Ali Mir could just be your everyday city slicker. Instead, the Mumbaibased software engineerturned-model- turned-actor is an aspiring sarpanch in a remote Kashmir hamlet near the Line of Control (LoC). The political debutant, who returned home to Lachipora to contest the historic panchayat elections under way in the state as an independent candidate, talks of building roads and attracting industry. “The new generation wants change,” says Mir. Mir is one of many young people in the fray in the first panchayat elections in the last decade in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The 16-phase polls, on till mid-June, are being held against the backdrop of last year’s civilian violence that left 112 people dead and scores injured in street protests. Voters will elect 29,719 panchayat leaders across the state. Despite a call for boycott by the separatists, voter enthusiasm has been high—the first two phases of polling saw over 80% turnout.

Mehmood-ur-Rashid Vaid, a political commentator and a columnist with the local daily Greater Kashmir, sees people

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getting more nuanced in their understanding of political realities. “People in Kashmir dissociate the Kashmir issue from polls.

Theoretical construct by separatists about revolution does not go well with the popular mindset and changing realities. People have the desire for access to basic facilities and to kill the monster of corruption patronized by a few,” says Vaid.

Around 125km north of the capital Srinagar, Lachipora, in Kupwara district, too has been politically charged for the past several weeks. Much of the action in this hamlet, spread over 11 sq. km of steep hills, has been around the “local boy” who returned to his roots after almost 10 years in Mumbai’s glamour world.

“Junoon tha ke mash’hoor hona hai fashion industry mein (I was passionate about becoming famous in Mumbai’s fashion industry),” says Mir, son of a police sub-inspector. However, it was a more mundane pursuit—a degree in software engineering from a college in Maharashtra—that drew him to the big city after he completed his schooling at the Modern Public School in Srinagar. After graduation, though, he gave in to his heart’s desire and took up modelling.

“It was not easy to survive in Mumbai,” he adds. Living with his relatives, it took him several years to get his first break. “In the beginning, I earned about `700 a day.” With his chiselled face and good body, his list of assignments grew slowly—anchoring TV commercials for sauna belts, modelling for Imperial Suiting, Hyderabad, and Hallmark Shirts, Mumbai. His break came in 2003 when he auditioned for and landed the role of Amit in Ekta Kapoor’s Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Amit’s mother was a friend of the central character, Tulsi.

Small and big roles in other Balaji Telefilms’ productions followed—as Prem’s friend in Kasautii Zindagii Kay and a negative character, Sameer, in K. Street Pali Hill. In Rajshri Productions’ Woh Rehne Waali Mehlon

Ki, he played a character named Prem. “A nice guy who shifts to a negative shade later in the serial,” recalls Mir. Mir draws parallels between politics and the world he inhabited in Mumbai. “Both are glamorous. The only difference is that there are retakes in TV and no retakes in politics. If you commit a mistake, you have to live with it all your life,” says Mir, adding that he had nursed a desire to join politics since 2003. The desire was stoked after meeting politicians’ sons such as Chirag Paswan, son of Lok Janshakti leader Ram Vilas Paswan and Shailesh Patil, son of former Union home minister Shivraj Patil.

Mir says the panchayat polls appealed to him because “the sarpanch’s is a post where one cannot afford to be corrupt and must strike a chord with people”.

He walks 1.5km from the nearest motorable road to his two-storey concrete house every day. “I could have had a house on the road but I deliberately avoided it.

I want to be like any other person of my constituency,” says Mir. He traded his branded casuals for the Indian politician’s trademark white kurta-pyjama and grey-black waistcoast and

crooned Aye zindagi gale laga le as he went about campaigning across the hillside.

His father, Ali Muhammad Mir, doesn’t share his enthusiasm. Mir Senior, who was posted in Kargil in 1999 during the war, was hit by shrapnel and survived an attack on his vehicle outside the Bemina police colony in the early 1990s, thinks his son’s decision to return is foolhardy. “I love Mumbai. I see my son’s hoarding at places and intend to settle in the city where my son has earned a name,” says the father.

Despite his father’s opposition, Mir, the second of three siblings, intends to change the “landscape” of Lachipora, a constituency with 3,000 voters, predominantly Gujjar peasants and labourers who rear livestock. “My father thinks it’s a gaali (abuse)— politics. I had promised my father I would take him to Mumbai for good. But I have big aims for my area. I’m exposed to the outside world. I will bring a new vibe with me to end corruption, provide road facilities, electricity and better employment opportunities by installing factories of limestone crushers and spring-born mineral water bottles, etc. My dream is to connect my village to the outside world through the Inter-

BY

WASEEM ANDRABI/HINDUSTAN TIMES

Hope floats: (top and above) Mir in his village Lachi­ pora on Thursday, the day of polling; and a still from his modelling portfolio. net. Dairy and poultry can also provide sustenance to many here,” says Mir. Mir is pitted against experience and wisdom. Local maulvi (priest) Muhammad Sharief Khan, 75, is serious competition, but Mir is optimistic. “People want change. They have become very intelligent and won’t go by age. I have come from outside with new-age experience. This gives me an edge,” he says.

Will sarpanch Mir give up his Mumbai life? “I have already formed a committee and the village work will be distributed.

After every three months, I will have a week out to continue with my passion for fashion in Mumbai,” replies Mir, who braved the boycott call by separatists and militants to stand in the polls.

“I believe in realpolitik. I never extend false promises. I will never tell my people that I will make them models. No. I want change for Lachipora spread over 11 sq. km,” says Mir. Write to lounge@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011

L7

Style

LOUNGE MENSWEAR

The Dormeuil is in the details A sixth­generation scion from the elite fabric house wishes for a return to sharp dressing

B Y A NINDITA G HOSE anindita.g@livemint.com

···························· hen we meet, he is wearing a pinstriped navy suit and a contrast collar. A violet pocket square and powder blue tie conspire to work their charm. The sartorial flourishes aren’t an afterthought (later, he will say dismissively that men around the world get dressed in less than 5 minutes these days).

Frédéric Dormeuil is the sixth generation of a family of purveyors of fine fabrics for men’s clothing. It makes for a rare case that his family name has cachet both in London’s Savile Row and the couture houses of Paris.

The House of Dormeuil goes back to 1842, when Frédéric’s ancestor, Jules Dormeuil, started importing English cloth to France.

Today, almost 170 years later, with more than 3,000 varieties of cloth and enough scope for personal variations, Dormeuil, which has fabric and fashion divisions, gets around—and how.

Frédéric isn’t one to stitch and tell though. As the company’s commercial director, he won’t share names of the

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A-listers who’ve patronized the brand. As suppliers, client confidentiality is paramount.

On where Dormeuil is available across the world, he offers this: “My uncle likes to say that where there’s Coca-Cola, there’s a length of Dormeuil fabric on someone.”

The brand’s entry to India has been late by the Cola timeline.

The luxury fabric makers entered the Indian market with a showroom and retail office in New Delhi only in December. But it was a sharply cut move: with the world’s most expensive suit.

As part of the launch, Dormeuil

Stars and stripes: (right) Frédéric Dor­ meuil; and a vintage showcard used in Dormeuil boutiques, circa 1960s.

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

unveiled the fabric used to create the `51 lakh suit. Registered in the Guinness Book of World Records, the suit is made from the group’s trademarked Vanquish II fabric, which is a blend of three kinds of rare wool: pashmina from north India, quivik from Alaska and vicuna from the Andes. At £3,000 (around `2.16 lakh) per metre, a suit length of the fabric would cost around £10,500.

Though Frédéric’s is mostly an executive role in the company, he explains the construction of Dormeuil’s prized fabric with much passion.

The quivik, a massive mammal, isn’t sheared. Farmers in Alaska wait for it to moult naturally or they go about collecting the strands caught on trees and bushes. “The farmers need a year’s worth to have anything substantial,” says Frédéric, “And from what they collect they can only use 10-15%”. The vicuna, a rare

KEDAR BHAT/MINT

THE ‘ABITO’ OF EXCELLENCE Cristiano Corneliani on marrying Italian taste and Indian attitude B Y S UPRIYA N AIR supriya.n@livemint.com

··························· t Mumbai’s brand new Corneliani store at The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel, the prevailing marine theme—crisp cotton sports coats in white and midnight blue, softly structured white silk jackets, striped silk T-shirts—might excuse a man for dreaming of his own yacht sailing the Arabian Sea, across the street. Cristiano Corneliani, his company’s global sales director, who was in town last week to unveil what he calls the “crown jewel” of his stores in India, takes these almost more seriously than he does the array of evening dress and workwear for the Nariman Point crowd.

“Our roots are classic, but we try to follow our customers

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through the day; during vacation, on weekends. So we introduced a luxury casual collection a few years ago that kept our key points—elegance, refinement—in the details.”

The “luxury casual” Corneliani vibe in the off-the-rack selection is one of relaxed, slightly adventurous confidence. The jackets have open cuff buttons, as you would find in a suit; the linings are rich and bespeak a more subdued flamboyance than some of the more assertive Italian brands we love in India. The jackets can cost anything upwards of `80,000. They also have a made-to-measure (MTM) service with a select range of fabrics and accessories. A suit will typically cost 20% more than an off-the-rack item of similar quality, plus a four-week wait while it is fitted and flown back from Italy, where every Corneliani product is made.

I notice and admire the rosered and pistachio green options for linings in their MTM ser-

vice, and silently judge the stuffier businessmen who won’t be choosing them.

“We like to think that Corneliani is for people who are young in the brain,” he offers when I tell him that the regular Indian suit enthusiast would admire the charcoal grey striped suit Corneliani suit that Aamir Khan wore to the Berlin International Film Festival this February, but only at a respectful distance. “You can be very correct, but still play with your suit. You can wear something that is not for you to display, but for you to know.”

“The Corneliani man,” he continues, “is a passionate man. A person who is trying to innovate, to challenge. When I see people like Steve Jobs, or Richard Branson, creating something different, from nothing!” He smiles. “They are people I would like to dress.”

The Corneliani label began 70 years ago in the family’s hometown outside Milan. Its current headquarters are in the

South American relative of the ilama, can be sheared just once every three years.

“When you have an expensive brand you need to give it value.

One has to explain to people what they’re paying for...,” he says. In this case, it’s for dealing with farmers who live at 13,000ft and trail the quivik patiently.

Frédéric, who spoke at Mint’s luxury summit in Mumbai last month, believes India makes for an attractive market because its new lot of entrepreneurs has nowhere to look for stylish suiting or jacketing. To cater to this segment, the company’s dedicated Indian branch, Dormeuil India Pvt. Ltd, will be developing distribution networks with a strong push for India to receive Dormeuil’s Ready-to-Wear collection. The plan is for fabrics to be sold to over 80 retailers, and to open stand-alone shops in the next two years.

Frédéric, who has led the brand’s India expansion, has worked in India before in a completely different capacity: in the construction business with JCB India Ltd in Faridabad. Though the two sectors are poles apart, he learnt valuable lessons from this stint. In India, the biggest challenge is to get deliveries right.

“The turnaround time for a tailor here is two-three weeks as opposed to Europe, where it is sixeight weeks,” he says, “So no matter which is the better fabric, the industry will go with the one that has a more reliable delivery ethic.”

But most important of all, Frédéric believes that the suit is making a comeback. Deeply entrenched in the world of navy and grey as he is, he might not be the most objective observer. But he confesses that it is as much a wish as an observation. “In the 1920s, men used to spend a lot of time getting dandy...seeing if the watch went with the cufflinks; if the cufflinks went with the shirt...”

Frédéric is very visibly that man from the 1920s; a man of particulars. Among other things, he strongly believes that stripes are more fashionable than plains.

He makes a good mascot.

When I turn his visiting card to jot his number, I see his leitmotif of choice: thin brown pinstripes.

Suit sprit: Corneliani says the label embodies a bold but subtle creativity, with refinement in the details. historic town of Mantova, where Corneliani’s father and elder brother rebuilt the business after the devastation of World War II. Italy, he says, is the sort of place overflowing with the sort of slightly offbeat entrepreneurial energy and creativity that is in harmony with the spirit of his brand.

Perhaps that explains why

they buck global luxury trends in some ways too. They opened their first India boutique in Delhi’s South Extension in 2005—four years before they entered China. But in China, they already have 20 stores.

The Taj outlet, along with new stores in Bangalore and Hyderabad, brings their India total up to five. They look for-

ward, he says, to a future presence in Kolkata, Chennai and Pune, among other cities.

“Maybe 10-12 stores in the next three-five years.”

“I have to try to understand everything,” he says. “The expectation is to match an Italian way of dressing with respect to the Indian attitude. We don’t want to impose our style here.”

L8

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011

Business Lounge

LOUNGE

THOMAS YANG

To work well, you need to play B Y R UDRANEIL S ENGUPTA

Callaway’s head of international business on how working for Coke and Starbucks helped him grasp the golf market

rudraneil.s@livemint.com

···························· homas Yang’s passion for American football is sometimes expressed in the strangest ways. Like the time the 58-year-old head of international business at Callaway Golf woke up at 4 in the morning in a lonely apartment in Tokyo to watch the Denver Broncos historic Super Bowl victory in 1997.

“I’m a fanatical Broncos supporter,” Yang says, “and by the time the game fin-

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On course: Yang plays golf, is an avid skier and loves American football.

IN PARENTHESIS At the historic Old Course at St Andrews in Fife, Scotland, the oldest golf course in the world, Yang had the privilege of sharing a game with the general manager of the course.

At the 17th hole, there is a hotel at the right of the hole, and a low­rise building in front. “You have to hit the ball over the low­rise building for the 17th hole, and I like hitting the ball hard, so I launched into the shot,” says Yang.

But he sliced the shot, and the ball sailed over to the hotel’s parking lot.

“Here’s the general manager of the course standing next to me, and I’ve got my hand in my mouth thinking I’ve just smashed someone’s expensive car window,” says Yang. “I could see the GM was embarrassed, but since I hit the ball out of bounds, I had to hit another one from the same spot.” When he hit the second ball, this time even harder, he sliced it again, sending yet another ball sailing into the parking lot.

“So the GM looks at me and says—‘I’m not playing with you again’,” he chuckles.

“I didn’t dare check if I had done any damage, but no sirens went off, so I do think I missed all the cars.”

JAYACHANDRAN/MINT

ished at about 7 in the morning, I went out to the balcony and just screamed in joy at the empty streets. I had to let it out!”

Yang brings a bit of that passion to his workplace as well—playing golf at some of the game’s finest courses around the world, and making sure that he always travels with his personal golf bag. “In the business of sports, if you don’t love the game, you just can’t succeed,” he says.

Callaway Golf, the only publicly held company focused on golf equipment and accessories in the world, completed its first year in India in January, and Yang was in New Delhi to gauge just how well Callaway’s set-up has worked in India.

“The size of the Indian golf market is still small,” says the softspoken Yang, “but in the long term, I don’t know if that’s five years or 10 years, India will be in the top three globally.”

With roughly 500,000 active golfers around the country, India would find it hard to snuggle into the top 50 golf markets in the world, but it’s on the cusp of a major shift. The Indian Golf Union, the governing body for the sport, expects that number to quadruple in the next five years.

Yang, relaxed in a powderblue golf tee, points to the triggers of growth. “The Indian economy grew even through the global recession, and it continues to do well,” Yang says.

“That raises the standard of living, people then start looking for leisures, and golf is one of the first choices.”

Between sips of cappuccino at the café in the lobby of the Shangri-La hotel in New Delhi, Yang says golf’s inclusion in the 2016 Olympics will also act as a major boost for the sport in India.

“Team sport is a bit more difficult because it needs a massive competition infrastructure, which is harder to put into place than for individual sports,” he says. “Emerging markets have a better chance at individual sport, and India already has world-class golfers, so it’s the perfect opportunity.”

In its first year, Callaway Golf India’s focus was firmly on the hardware—golf clubs, balls and kitbags. Callaway offers the Warbird set for tyro golfers who need a complete package but lack the knowledge to pick their own clubs. At the other end of the spectrum is the Razr series of clubs, made with a patented material called forged composite, which was developed in collaboration with Lamborghini.

“It’s lighter and stronger than titanium, which is usually what clubs are made of,” says Yang.

Their latest product for the Indian market is the Diablo Octane series of clubs, which features a mix of forged composite and titanium, and sits midway between the Warbird and the Razr in price. Both the Diablo and Razr clubs are selling better than expected. Bangalore, the National Capital Region (NCR) and Chandigarh have recorded the best sales.

With over 40 stores across the country, Callaway has also started introducing lifestyle products, such as golf shirts, trousers, sunglasses, caps, etc.,

in its stores since January.

“It has been a successful year for us,” Yang says, “from zero a year ago when we started, we now already command a fourth of the market.”

Yang joined Callaway almost five years ago after working with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Procter and Gamble (P&G), Starbucks and Coca-Cola.

At P&G, Yang learnt the importance of performance— marketing traditional fast-moving household products that are heavily dependent on functional efficacy.

“Then I moved to Coke, which is all about emotionally connecting with the consumer,” he says. Starbucks followed, and here the focus was on the “experience”—not so much the product, as the atmosphere and ambience of being inside a Starbucks café. Yang brought all these lessons together at Callaway.

“Golf is about performance because it’s a sport and your equipment must deliver. It’s also about emotion because people are passionate about the sport and, of course, the experience of being on a golf course plays a crucial role.”

Yang, who was born and raised in Tokyo, moved to the US in 1972 to pursue a BS in marketing at the University of Colorado, and has been a global nomad since. He picked up golf soon after graduation, while working at a bank where his colleagues religiously played a few rounds every Saturday.

“Then I stopped playing, probably for 20 years. My family and I moved around the world for work and there was no time or space to fit it in,” he says. “I started getting back to golf when I joined Callaway.”

Yang, who plays with a handicap of 19 and has been to every major course in the world, picks the DLF golf course in Gurgaon and the Karnataka Golf Association (KGA) in Bangalore as two of his favourite courses in India.

“They are beautiful world-class courses,” he says.

But if Yang had to pick one course to play “the last game of golf of my life”, it would be Pebble Beach, California. “The incredible, beautiful setting right on the ocean, the challenges of the course, which is hard, but also forgiving; and also the service—from the caddies to the ground crew...it’s a fantastic set-up,” he says.

American golfer Phil Mickelson is his favourite. “He’s probably as good as Tiger,” Yang says, “but Phil is more human.

He takes more chances, plays shots that I know I’d try but probably shouldn’t!”

Despite travelling around the world for much of the year, Yang describes himself as a “family man” and says his marriage was “a life-changing experience”. He has been married for 29 years to Valerie, a Canadian, and the couple have three children.

“I was present at all three births,” he says.

Every Christmas, the family goes for a skiing holiday to Whistler in British Columbia, Canada, and till a few years ago, Yang and his wife were avid campers. When his family wants a Chinese meal, Yang is the one handling the wok. “My children are always asking for my sticky rice with cabbage and pork,” he says, smiling.

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011

L9

Play

LOUNGE

TENNIS

The next king of the court?

JEFF GROSS/GETTY IMAGES

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic exemplifies how big hitters from this little country with a laid­back approach have gotten so good

B Y T OM P ERROTTA ···························· ike all great tennis players before him, Novak Djokovic, the wiry, elasticlimbed 23-year-old who began 2011 with 24 consecutive victories, is an anomaly. Few sports have the global talent pool of tennis, so an ascent to the game’s peak requires inordinate athleticism, ambition, mental fortitude and luck.

It also helps if you’re from Serbia.

In the last three years, this landlocked country the size of Maine, with a population of 7.3 million, has produced some of the finest tennis players in the world. Two Serbian women, Ana Ivanovic, who won the French Open in 2008, and Jelena Jankovic, have attained the No. 1 ranking.

It’s Djokovic, though, who has put his country atop the tennis world. Once known more for his comical impersonations of fellow players than his winning ways, he has emerged from the long shadows of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, who until this year were the world’s two best players by leaps and bounds.

Djokovic won his second Australian Open title in January and hasn’t lost a match since last November, just before he led a talented Serbian squad to its first-ever victory in the Davis

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Cup, the sport’s premier team competition. He is off to the finest start to a year by a male player since Ivan Lendl won 29 straight matches in 1986, and he’s on the hunt for more. After resting during last week’s Monte Carlo event, Djokovic will begin a much-anticipated clay-court campaign at the Serbia Open, where qualifying rounds begin next weekend. Then comes Madrid and Rome, and starting late next month, he will challenge Nadal, perhaps the best claycourt player ever, for the French Open title and the No. 1 ranking (if he passes Lendl, the remaining year-to-date streak to catch is John McEnroe’s 42 in 1984).

The rise of Djokovic and his fellow Serbs seems improbable.

For many, Serbia’s hard-bitten homeland is seen as a liability.

But for wealthier nations, and for parents bent on grooming their children for athletic success, Serbia’s tennis players offer a lesson: In youth sports—even sports with complicated technique, like tennis—less can often be more.

“Tiger Mom”-style parenting did not create the Serbian tennis boom. The families of the country’s top players sacrificed much for their children, but they did not take on the tricky, and often emotionally devastating, role of parent-coach, as one sometimes sees in junior tennis

in the US and elsewhere. They haven’t been the driving force behind their children’s hours of practice either; indeed, they usually had little to no connection to tennis whatsoever.

“No one in my family knew anything about tennis,” Ivanovic says. She started playing just before her fifth birthday (she had seen Monica Seles on television) and didn’t begin elite training until she was 14. Jankovic did not start to play until she was 9.

Djokovic’s family has roots in skiing and soccer, not tennis.

When one visits Serbia’s tennis clubs, a loose training method emerges, one that stresses competition and fun, and doesn’t advocate long, gruelling practices in early childhood. National pride and camaraderie among players, not the norm in an individual sport like tennis, are apparent too.

Today, Serbia still has a weak tennis infrastructure. There are no more than 450 tennis courts in the country, according to the Serbian Tennis Federation. Last year, the federation had 3,300 registered junior players. The US Tennis Association has 165,000. Tennis is still less popular than basketball and perhaps soccer. “There was no system that brought us up,” Djokovic says. “It was just us and our families, that’s it.”

The Lonely Planet travel guide once dubbed Belgrade the best party city in the world. It’s a reputation Serbs prefer to being known for a multitude of wars.

As the former Yugoslavia broke apart and communist governments were replaced, the conflicts of the 1990s shattered the Balkans. The late Serbian president Slobodan Milosovic

was charged with war crimes by an international tribunal. At that time, today’s tennis stars were children.

The Serbs speak of their legacy with dark humour. As a guide casually announced during a tour of the city last December: “Belgrade leads all cities in the world in the number of times it has been destroyed to the ground.” Their nation continues to struggle. Unemployment was 19.2% as of last October, according to the US state department.

Inflation was 14.1% year-overyear as of March. Average monthly net income: $440 (around `19,580).

“When people look at the whole picture, they say, ‘Milosevic is in power, Serbia is a country that’s completely falling apart, people are not making money’,” says Janko Tipsarevic, a top-40 player and member of the Davis Cup team. “I didn’t feel any of that. At the age of 12, 13, 14, you have really simple needs: to hang out with friends and play tennis. I didn’t care for anything else.”

Tipsarevic took up tennis at age 6 and played other sports.

He didn’t have a home club until he was 11, when his father, Pavel, who still teaches physical education in a school, and a few friends had an idea: Carpet over an empty, indoor swimming pool at the April 11 Sports Center. Two tennis courts, plus two mini courts, were born and Tipsarevic and others, including Ivanovic, now had a place to play regularly.

The swimming-pool courts have become a symbol for Serbian triumph over obstacles: Not only did they play through war and economic chaos, they did it

on crummy courts.

Ivanovic says of the courts of her childhood: “When you have perfect facilities, perfect coaches, perfect preparation, many times it doesn’t happen.

You feel like, ‘Oh, now I have to do it,’ and you forget that you play because you love it.”

Even with the best facilities, technology, instruction and competition, some training environments are too high-pressure, say some analysts. Small cities with populations of 50,000-100,000 produce far more than their share of elite athletes in professional football, golf, baseball, hockey and basketball, according to Jean Côté, director of the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario, who has studied athletic success in the US, Canada and Australia.

Children in these smaller cities usually have more access to outdoor space and more freedom to play many sports without intense supervision, says Côté.

The better athletes among them also might benefit, at least at early ages, from beating lesser opponents, which builds confidence. In densely populated cities, Côté says, space is at a premium and athletic programmes tend towards early-age specialization and intense coaching, which he says can stifle creativity and lead to injuries and burnout.

“Young children don’t have to have the best facilities and the best coaches,” Dr Côté says. “All they need is a place to play and the freedom to do it.”

If Serbia’s lack of a system gave its best players the freedom and desire to develop into top juniors, it also forced them to leave their country in their early

Challenger: Djokovic at the Indian Wells in March, where he beat Rafael Nadal in the final. teens, once they began to contemplate professional careers.

Djokovic played on three hard courts near his parents’ pizzeria in Kopaonik, a ski resort, then moved to Munich to train at the academy of Niki Pilic, a former Croatian pro, after his parents, Srdjan and Dijana, got the courage and finances to send him.

“Srdjan, he put everything in,” says Goran Djokovic, Djokovic’s uncle, of his brother. “He gambled. So many, many things could have happened.”

Goran Djokovic would prefer that future generations have to risk less. The Djokovic family plans to build an academy at Tennis Centre Novak, the posh facility it built to host the Serbia Open, so Serbia’s best youngsters can train at home. During the Davis Cup, the Serbian Tennis Federation said it could break ground on a national tennis centre—with clay and hard courts, a gym, a medical centre and dorms for students—as soon as August.

Even if these centres succeed and spur the creation of others, Serbia’s passage from smalltown wonder to tennis dynasty isn’t guaranteed.

“To have all these players at the same time, that’s luck,” says Slobodan Vojinovic, the director of tennis at the Red Star tennis club. “If we’re clever enough, this generation will help us build a new one. If we’re not, it could be a one-time thing.”

Write to wsj@livemint.com

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LEGACY

THE REST IS

MUSIC

Family matters: (left) The Khusro Nizami Bandhu family represented by Meraj Ahmed Nizami (sitting) and his sons (from left) Jamaluddin, Saqlain, Sibtain and Shahnawaz at the Hazrat Inayat Khan dargah; (far left) the family in Nizamuddin Basti, where they perform every Friday evening; (below, left) the Nizami Bandhu family represented by Chand Nizami (centre) and his nephews, Shadab (right) and Sohrab, in Nizamuddin Basti; and if not busy with tours, the family can be seen performing at the Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah.

The rivalry between Delhi’s two leading ‘qawwal’ dynasties illustrates the tension between the classical and the modern

B Y M AYANK A USTEN S OOFI mayank.s@livemint.com

····························· Dama dam mast qalandar; Sakhi shahbaz qalandar, Ali dam dam de andar; Jhule lal qalandar

Q

awwali, Islam’s sacred Sufi music offered in the shrines of the subcontinent, is facing a moment of unease. It is best reflected in the gentle discord between the two leading qawwal families in Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah, one of Sufism’s most important pilgrim centres. The rivalry illustrates how the 750-year-old tradition that strives to bring divine rapture to listeners is struggling to adapt to a secular world.

At 84, Meraj Ahmed Nizami, the patriarch of Nizami Khusro Bandhu family, is one of the few

classical qawwals left in India. “He renders Persian Sufi verses most fluently in the old tarz, or melodies,” says Farida Ali, director of the dargah of Hazrat Inayat Khan, in the same neighbourhood where Meraj’s family has been singing every Friday for 40 years. “I have witnessed him creating a dynamic spiritual atmosphere of mystical haal (ecstasy),” she says.

At 44, Chand Nizami of the Nizami Bandhu family is a consummate performer. “His powerful voice electrifies the soul,” says Sadia Dehlvi, author of Sufism: The Heart of Islam, who invites Chand to sing at her living room mehfils (gatherings). “He gauges the listeners’ mood and intensifies their emotions by the repetition of the particular verse that is affecting them.”

The two families belong to different musical gharanas but are

related by marriage. The sister of Chand’s father was Meraj’s mother. His own sister was Meraj’s wife. That is the only thing common between these two qawwals, whose larger-than-life reputations define the characters of their clans.

Each treats music differently. If one has focused on keeping the purity of his art, the other has artfully manipulated it. There is no dispute on who among the two is superior. “Among all the qawwals in all the dargahs of Hindustan, Ustad Meraj is the most special,” says Chand, before adding in a deadpan tone, “He is antique.”

The man who is considered a living legend lives with his five sons, one daughter and two grandchildren in a one-room house in Nizamuddin Basti, the historic village in central Delhi that sprang up around the 14th century Sufi shrine. Inside, there is one bed,

which is taken over by Meraj and his books. A corner of the room is stacked with two harmoniums.

The floor is laid with a mattress on which the family sleeps. The wall is decked with a “likeness” of Hazrat Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad. A cardboard box of squawking chicks is kept below the TV stand. The steel almirah is broken. The window looks on to the Barakhamba monument, across Mirza Ghalib Road.

This is the home of a qawwal whose grandfather’s grandfather was the shahi gawayya (royal singer) in the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal. Ustad Tanras Khan, founder of the Delhi Gharana, taught music to Zafar.

His lineage is traced to Mian Samad bin Ibrahim, the leader of the Qawwal Bachche, a group formed by Amir Khusrau that is believed to consist of the world’s first qawwals.

Khusrau, a court poet to seven Delhi Sultanate kings, was closely associated with the evolution of Hindustani classical music. A disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin, he was buried close to the Sufi’s tomb. The tradition is to first pay respects to Khusrau before entering Nizamuddin’s grave chamber.

The two tombs are separated by a marble courtyard, the venue where Mian Samad’s descendants have been singing qawwalis through the centuries, right down to Meraj and his sons.

Every day the qawwalis are offered here. Thursday evening is special because it precedes Friday, the week’s holiest day in the Islamic calendar. Out of the several families that sing in the dargah, only Nizami Khusro Bandhu and Nizami Bandhu live in the dargah’s vicinity.

“Our family has been blessed by being able to sing in Nizamuddin Dargah for hundreds of years,” says Chand in the guest area of his five-room house, the entrance of which lies at the shrine’s courtyard. He is flipping through a leather-bound edition of Hafiz’s verses, which was presented to him by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In late March, Chand’s team flew to Tehran to perform at the Nowruz festival.

After the death of his father in 2003 and, four years later, of his elder brother, Chand became the family head, with his two nephews singing under him.

The last time Meraj and his sons toured abroad was in the summer of 2010 when they were invited to Yangon to sing in the Urs, the death anniversary celebrations, of Bahadur Shah Zafar, whose tomb lies there. Since then Chand has been to Dubai, Sharjah, Kuwait, Muscat, Doha and Tehran. He has sung twice at the ticketed Jahan-eKhusrau festival held annually in Delhi. Meraj hasn’t been invited to perform there once. “Ustad Meraj is a legend and the festival is poor without his presence,” says filmmaker Muzaffar Ali, the festival

organizer. “I have to work out a special and a more intimate way to celebrate his talent and repertoire.”

Chand also has CDs produced by music companies such as T-series. Meraj doesn’t.

While both families are civil to each other, occasionally tensions arise since various clans, or “parties”, have to compete for contracts at private functions—where the money is. There is stiff competition to get contracts. Nothing is taboo; neither soirées, nor devi jagrans, the all-night prayer gatherings in which devotional songs are performed in praise of Sherawali Mata. Both families have performed in the big cities of Europe, North America, West Asia and Pakistan.

In the race for business, it is clear who is ahead. This month, Chand was booked to perform in Tikamgarh, Jaipur and Ranchi.

Meraj’s appointment diary is empty. It might be because he is old and also because he has strong opinions against performing for what he calls “timepass gatherings”. “Qawwalis are offered as prayers,” says Meraj, “and not sung for picnics.”

A classical Sufi singer never takes his kalaams (verses) lightly.

Meraj has a personal repertoire of poetry that has come down to him from his ancestors. He sings Rumi’s Masnavi fluently in its original Persian version, a rare feat among qawwals. Like Pakistani Sufi singer Abida Parveen, his ability to add girah is legendary. Girah is a special aspect of classical Sufi qawwals where verses from various poems are seamlessly woven into one single qawwali. For instance, if Meraj sings a Khusrau poem, which has verses in Persian and Purabiya, he manipulates the composition by bringing in Kabir Das or Bedam Shah Warsi in the Purabiya portion, and Rumi or Jami in the Persian segment.

Comparing himself with Meraj, Chand says, “If I know three verses of a Persian ghazal, Ustad Meraj knows seven verses.” Meraj’s stature is matched only by classical qawwals such as the late Aziz Warsi of Hyderabad and the late Murli Qawwal of Lucknow. It was Meraj who introduced Kabir Das’ dohas, Meera’s bhajans and Bulleh Shah’s kafis in the Sufi shrines.

“Meraj has imbibed an understanding of verses by keeping the company of great Sufis and poets,” says Farida Ali. “He has extensive knowledge of dargahs in India and Pakistan.” Meraj’s standards are not easy to follow, some say, not even by his sons.

“Ustad Meraj keeps away from parties that are full on sharab (wine), shabab (women) and kebab,” says Chand. “But our family is the badshah of these parties.

We know the weakness—or shall I say the strength—of the audience.”

In such gatherings, Chand’s team—armed with electronic keyboard, tambourine and octapad—starts with qawwalis but as

the mood changes and people get drunk, requests start coming to dedicate romantic ghazals for “Malhotra sahib, Sharma sahib and Gupta sahib.” After a pause, Chand says, “If I insist on singing Hafiz, Bedil and Khusrau, how will I feed my children?”

Meraj’s children gently move their father to the side of the stage if the audience demands blockbuster Sufi film songs such as A.R. Rahman’s Khwaja Mere Khwaja. A decade ago the father permitted the sons to start singing at parties as long as he didn’t have to go. He explains the decision with this verse: Bhara hai pet to sansar jagmagata hai; Sataen bhookh toh iman dagmagata hai (If the stomach is full, then the world shines; If the hunger torments, then the faith shakes) Once Meraj deigned to shoot a qawwali sequence for a film, which turned out to be embarrassing. “I didn’t know the story.” It was Deepa Mehta’s Fire, a film about lesbians. In March, Chand says he performed with actor Ranbir Kapoor for the film Rockstar.

“Ranbir came to my home and we served him nihari, biryani, korma and kebab,” he says.

The compulsion of Meraj’s sons to downgrade to less pure Sufi music is indicative of the change in the genre’s subculture.

“People no longer listen to qawwali,” says Peerzada Farid Nizami, a traditional custodian at the Nizamuddin Dargah. “Till a few years ago, the crowd cared more for the verses. Now, they are interested in the way the qawwal is clapping and the musician is beating the tabla. Spirituality has disappeared.”

It was in the 1960s and 1970s that the Sabri Brothers in Pakistan took the qawwali out of dargahs and into the concert halls. “Qawwali was understood only by those who were on the Sufi path,” says Dhruv Bilal, a Delhi-based Sufi singer who trained under Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. “Sabri Brothers were one of the first qawwals to bring out classical qawwalis like Man Kunto Maula, Chhap Tilak and Nami Danam chi manzil bood to a secular audience that had no knowledge of Sufism and whose experience of Sufi music was based only on the sensuous pleasures of the sound.” Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan propelled qawwali further into the mainstream by making it more personal.

The current vogue in qawwali parallels the fascination with New Age Sufism, in which its Islamic connection is ignored. “We sell 15 copies of Coleman Barks’ translations of Rumi’s love poems every month—a good figure,” says Mithilesh Singh of Bahrisons Booksellers, Khan Market, Delhi. “Rumi is the best-selling mystical poet in the West but most of his verses in those anthologies are usually devoid of his Islamic discourse,” says Dehlvi. “Mohammed Jalalud-

din Rumi is presented merely as Rumi, a mystic without the Mohammed and without the Islam.” This way, Sufism becomes accessible to a wider community.

On Thursday evenings, people who may or may not be into Sufism but are curious about Sufi music visit the Nizamuddin Dargah in great numbers and respond enthusiastically when qawwals sing crowd-pleasing compositions such as Allah Hoo and Dama dam mast qalandar.

Chand and nephews also attend the special mehfil. Meraj’s sons too are present though old age usually keeps him away.

About 20 years ago, Meraj had twice the energy. He led the mehfils during the Urs of Hazrat Nizamuddin and Amir Khusrau (Chand would be sitting somewhere behind him). He headed the qawwali gatherings in other dargahs, in and outside Delhi. Always dressed in pyjamas, achkan and topi, the erudite qawwal didn’t just recite the verses, but explained their subtleties. Artistically, he was a snob and a qawwal had to be truly accomplished to earn his respect. Professionally, he never cared for money and was focused on keeping his form’s purity.

Now, Meraj is frail, his eyes are sunken, his voice has dimmed and he has reduced his public appearances. He still commands awe.

“Every time a scholar from the West lands in India to understand qawwali,” says Bilal, “he heads straight to Meraj’s impoverished dwelling.” The structure of Regula Burckhardt Qureshi’s seminal book on qawwali, Sufi Music of India and Pakistan, is entirely presented through the repertoire and performances of Meraj.

What will happen once Meraj leaves the scene? “The loss of Meraj will be epochal,” says Qureshi, now a professor of music at the University of Alberta, Canada. “In both his person and his art he embodies a lifelong commitment to the musical and poetic heritage of qawwali, enriched by his knowledge of the spiritual as well as cultural values of Sufism.”

Long after the fad with qawwali ends, the tradition will continue in the dargahs. Every night at 10, a couple of qawwals—including members from the houses of Nizami Khusro Bandhu and Nizami Bandhu—gather in the courtyard in time for the closing of doors of Nizamuddin’s tomb. They sing a Persian verse by Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya.

Saba ba suein medina rookun Azin duago salam barkha (O morning breeze, when you reach Medina, Convey my salaam to Prophet Muhammad) At that hour the dargah is almost empty, save a few faithful.

The voice of the qawwals, who no longer feel the need to display a theatrically charged performance, is soft, sincere and emotional.

Soon the door is closed. The qawwals leave.

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COVER L11

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

JAVEED SHAH/MINT

LEGACY

THE REST IS

MUSIC

Family matters: (left) The Khusro Nizami Bandhu family represented by Meraj Ahmed Nizami (sitting) and his sons (from left) Jamaluddin, Saqlain, Sibtain and Shahnawaz at the Hazrat Inayat Khan dargah; (far left) the family in Nizamuddin Basti, where they perform every Friday evening; (below, left) the Nizami Bandhu family represented by Chand Nizami (centre) and his nephews, Shadab (right) and Sohrab, in Nizamuddin Basti; and if not busy with tours, the family can be seen performing at the Hazrat Nizamuddin dargah.

The rivalry between Delhi’s two leading ‘qawwal’ dynasties illustrates the tension between the classical and the modern

B Y M AYANK A USTEN S OOFI mayank.s@livemint.com

····························· Dama dam mast qalandar; Sakhi shahbaz qalandar, Ali dam dam de andar; Jhule lal qalandar

Q

awwali, Islam’s sacred Sufi music offered in the shrines of the subcontinent, is facing a moment of unease. It is best reflected in the gentle discord between the two leading qawwal families in Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah, one of Sufism’s most important pilgrim centres. The rivalry illustrates how the 750-year-old tradition that strives to bring divine rapture to listeners is struggling to adapt to a secular world.

At 84, Meraj Ahmed Nizami, the patriarch of Nizami Khusro Bandhu family, is one of the few

classical qawwals left in India. “He renders Persian Sufi verses most fluently in the old tarz, or melodies,” says Farida Ali, director of the dargah of Hazrat Inayat Khan, in the same neighbourhood where Meraj’s family has been singing every Friday for 40 years. “I have witnessed him creating a dynamic spiritual atmosphere of mystical haal (ecstasy),” she says.

At 44, Chand Nizami of the Nizami Bandhu family is a consummate performer. “His powerful voice electrifies the soul,” says Sadia Dehlvi, author of Sufism: The Heart of Islam, who invites Chand to sing at her living room mehfils (gatherings). “He gauges the listeners’ mood and intensifies their emotions by the repetition of the particular verse that is affecting them.”

The two families belong to different musical gharanas but are

related by marriage. The sister of Chand’s father was Meraj’s mother. His own sister was Meraj’s wife. That is the only thing common between these two qawwals, whose larger-than-life reputations define the characters of their clans.

Each treats music differently. If one has focused on keeping the purity of his art, the other has artfully manipulated it. There is no dispute on who among the two is superior. “Among all the qawwals in all the dargahs of Hindustan, Ustad Meraj is the most special,” says Chand, before adding in a deadpan tone, “He is antique.”

The man who is considered a living legend lives with his five sons, one daughter and two grandchildren in a one-room house in Nizamuddin Basti, the historic village in central Delhi that sprang up around the 14th century Sufi shrine. Inside, there is one bed,

which is taken over by Meraj and his books. A corner of the room is stacked with two harmoniums.

The floor is laid with a mattress on which the family sleeps. The wall is decked with a “likeness” of Hazrat Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad. A cardboard box of squawking chicks is kept below the TV stand. The steel almirah is broken. The window looks on to the Barakhamba monument, across Mirza Ghalib Road.

This is the home of a qawwal whose grandfather’s grandfather was the shahi gawayya (royal singer) in the court of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal. Ustad Tanras Khan, founder of the Delhi Gharana, taught music to Zafar.

His lineage is traced to Mian Samad bin Ibrahim, the leader of the Qawwal Bachche, a group formed by Amir Khusrau that is believed to consist of the world’s first qawwals.

Khusrau, a court poet to seven Delhi Sultanate kings, was closely associated with the evolution of Hindustani classical music. A disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin, he was buried close to the Sufi’s tomb. The tradition is to first pay respects to Khusrau before entering Nizamuddin’s grave chamber.

The two tombs are separated by a marble courtyard, the venue where Mian Samad’s descendants have been singing qawwalis through the centuries, right down to Meraj and his sons.

Every day the qawwalis are offered here. Thursday evening is special because it precedes Friday, the week’s holiest day in the Islamic calendar. Out of the several families that sing in the dargah, only Nizami Khusro Bandhu and Nizami Bandhu live in the dargah’s vicinity.

“Our family has been blessed by being able to sing in Nizamuddin Dargah for hundreds of years,” says Chand in the guest area of his five-room house, the entrance of which lies at the shrine’s courtyard. He is flipping through a leather-bound edition of Hafiz’s verses, which was presented to him by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In late March, Chand’s team flew to Tehran to perform at the Nowruz festival.

After the death of his father in 2003 and, four years later, of his elder brother, Chand became the family head, with his two nephews singing under him.

The last time Meraj and his sons toured abroad was in the summer of 2010 when they were invited to Yangon to sing in the Urs, the death anniversary celebrations, of Bahadur Shah Zafar, whose tomb lies there. Since then Chand has been to Dubai, Sharjah, Kuwait, Muscat, Doha and Tehran. He has sung twice at the ticketed Jahan-eKhusrau festival held annually in Delhi. Meraj hasn’t been invited to perform there once. “Ustad Meraj is a legend and the festival is poor without his presence,” says filmmaker Muzaffar Ali, the festival

organizer. “I have to work out a special and a more intimate way to celebrate his talent and repertoire.”

Chand also has CDs produced by music companies such as T-series. Meraj doesn’t.

While both families are civil to each other, occasionally tensions arise since various clans, or “parties”, have to compete for contracts at private functions—where the money is. There is stiff competition to get contracts. Nothing is taboo; neither soirées, nor devi jagrans, the all-night prayer gatherings in which devotional songs are performed in praise of Sherawali Mata. Both families have performed in the big cities of Europe, North America, West Asia and Pakistan.

In the race for business, it is clear who is ahead. This month, Chand was booked to perform in Tikamgarh, Jaipur and Ranchi.

Meraj’s appointment diary is empty. It might be because he is old and also because he has strong opinions against performing for what he calls “timepass gatherings”. “Qawwalis are offered as prayers,” says Meraj, “and not sung for picnics.”

A classical Sufi singer never takes his kalaams (verses) lightly.

Meraj has a personal repertoire of poetry that has come down to him from his ancestors. He sings Rumi’s Masnavi fluently in its original Persian version, a rare feat among qawwals. Like Pakistani Sufi singer Abida Parveen, his ability to add girah is legendary. Girah is a special aspect of classical Sufi qawwals where verses from various poems are seamlessly woven into one single qawwali. For instance, if Meraj sings a Khusrau poem, which has verses in Persian and Purabiya, he manipulates the composition by bringing in Kabir Das or Bedam Shah Warsi in the Purabiya portion, and Rumi or Jami in the Persian segment.

Comparing himself with Meraj, Chand says, “If I know three verses of a Persian ghazal, Ustad Meraj knows seven verses.” Meraj’s stature is matched only by classical qawwals such as the late Aziz Warsi of Hyderabad and the late Murli Qawwal of Lucknow. It was Meraj who introduced Kabir Das’ dohas, Meera’s bhajans and Bulleh Shah’s kafis in the Sufi shrines.

“Meraj has imbibed an understanding of verses by keeping the company of great Sufis and poets,” says Farida Ali. “He has extensive knowledge of dargahs in India and Pakistan.” Meraj’s standards are not easy to follow, some say, not even by his sons.

“Ustad Meraj keeps away from parties that are full on sharab (wine), shabab (women) and kebab,” says Chand. “But our family is the badshah of these parties.

We know the weakness—or shall I say the strength—of the audience.”

In such gatherings, Chand’s team—armed with electronic keyboard, tambourine and octapad—starts with qawwalis but as

the mood changes and people get drunk, requests start coming to dedicate romantic ghazals for “Malhotra sahib, Sharma sahib and Gupta sahib.” After a pause, Chand says, “If I insist on singing Hafiz, Bedil and Khusrau, how will I feed my children?”

Meraj’s children gently move their father to the side of the stage if the audience demands blockbuster Sufi film songs such as A.R. Rahman’s Khwaja Mere Khwaja. A decade ago the father permitted the sons to start singing at parties as long as he didn’t have to go. He explains the decision with this verse: Bhara hai pet to sansar jagmagata hai; Sataen bhookh toh iman dagmagata hai (If the stomach is full, then the world shines; If the hunger torments, then the faith shakes) Once Meraj deigned to shoot a qawwali sequence for a film, which turned out to be embarrassing. “I didn’t know the story.” It was Deepa Mehta’s Fire, a film about lesbians. In March, Chand says he performed with actor Ranbir Kapoor for the film Rockstar.

“Ranbir came to my home and we served him nihari, biryani, korma and kebab,” he says.

The compulsion of Meraj’s sons to downgrade to less pure Sufi music is indicative of the change in the genre’s subculture.

“People no longer listen to qawwali,” says Peerzada Farid Nizami, a traditional custodian at the Nizamuddin Dargah. “Till a few years ago, the crowd cared more for the verses. Now, they are interested in the way the qawwal is clapping and the musician is beating the tabla. Spirituality has disappeared.”

It was in the 1960s and 1970s that the Sabri Brothers in Pakistan took the qawwali out of dargahs and into the concert halls. “Qawwali was understood only by those who were on the Sufi path,” says Dhruv Bilal, a Delhi-based Sufi singer who trained under Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. “Sabri Brothers were one of the first qawwals to bring out classical qawwalis like Man Kunto Maula, Chhap Tilak and Nami Danam chi manzil bood to a secular audience that had no knowledge of Sufism and whose experience of Sufi music was based only on the sensuous pleasures of the sound.” Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan propelled qawwali further into the mainstream by making it more personal.

The current vogue in qawwali parallels the fascination with New Age Sufism, in which its Islamic connection is ignored. “We sell 15 copies of Coleman Barks’ translations of Rumi’s love poems every month—a good figure,” says Mithilesh Singh of Bahrisons Booksellers, Khan Market, Delhi. “Rumi is the best-selling mystical poet in the West but most of his verses in those anthologies are usually devoid of his Islamic discourse,” says Dehlvi. “Mohammed Jalalud-

din Rumi is presented merely as Rumi, a mystic without the Mohammed and without the Islam.” This way, Sufism becomes accessible to a wider community.

On Thursday evenings, people who may or may not be into Sufism but are curious about Sufi music visit the Nizamuddin Dargah in great numbers and respond enthusiastically when qawwals sing crowd-pleasing compositions such as Allah Hoo and Dama dam mast qalandar.

Chand and nephews also attend the special mehfil. Meraj’s sons too are present though old age usually keeps him away.

About 20 years ago, Meraj had twice the energy. He led the mehfils during the Urs of Hazrat Nizamuddin and Amir Khusrau (Chand would be sitting somewhere behind him). He headed the qawwali gatherings in other dargahs, in and outside Delhi. Always dressed in pyjamas, achkan and topi, the erudite qawwal didn’t just recite the verses, but explained their subtleties. Artistically, he was a snob and a qawwal had to be truly accomplished to earn his respect. Professionally, he never cared for money and was focused on keeping his form’s purity.

Now, Meraj is frail, his eyes are sunken, his voice has dimmed and he has reduced his public appearances. He still commands awe.

“Every time a scholar from the West lands in India to understand qawwali,” says Bilal, “he heads straight to Meraj’s impoverished dwelling.” The structure of Regula Burckhardt Qureshi’s seminal book on qawwali, Sufi Music of India and Pakistan, is entirely presented through the repertoire and performances of Meraj.

What will happen once Meraj leaves the scene? “The loss of Meraj will be epochal,” says Qureshi, now a professor of music at the University of Alberta, Canada. “In both his person and his art he embodies a lifelong commitment to the musical and poetic heritage of qawwali, enriched by his knowledge of the spiritual as well as cultural values of Sufism.”

Long after the fad with qawwali ends, the tradition will continue in the dargahs. Every night at 10, a couple of qawwals—including members from the houses of Nizami Khusro Bandhu and Nizami Bandhu—gather in the courtyard in time for the closing of doors of Nizamuddin’s tomb. They sing a Persian verse by Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya.

Saba ba suein medina rookun Azin duago salam barkha (O morning breeze, when you reach Medina, Convey my salaam to Prophet Muhammad) At that hour the dargah is almost empty, save a few faithful.

The voice of the qawwals, who no longer feel the need to display a theatrically charged performance, is soft, sincere and emotional.

Soon the door is closed. The qawwals leave.

L12

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011

Travel

LOUNGE

AUSTRALIA

Driving Down Under Along the B100, the tourist is wonderstruck by forests, pastures, the Twelve Apostles and a stunning blue lake

PHOTOGRAPHS

B Y R ISHAD S AAM M EHTA ···························· hen I arrived in Melbourne it was preening under blue skies and a toasty summer. If you were to be paid a dollar for every pair of jeans or jersey you saw, you’d not make much money. But if you were to pay out the same amount for every pair of micro-shorts or bikini top, you’d be beggared.

Melbourne’s vibrant buzz worked better than a shot of strong coffee to cure jet lag brought about by a five-and-ahalf-hour time difference.

My old friend Yazad, now a chef in Melbourne, picked me up at the airport, and insisted that it was barbecue weather. We dropped off my bags, walked to the Prahran market, and bought cuts of loin steaks, tenderloin and special butcher sausages flavoured with sage and chilli. The resulting barbecue was delicious—it had to be since it was prepared by a chef who is passionate about his food and reputation. But since it was summer, daylight outlasted dinner, and we headed out to Blue Stone, a Belgian beer café on St Kilda Road. If I had been able to shut out the twangy Aussie accent that was bouncing about boisterously, I could have very well felt like I was in Belgium, for Leffe, Brugse Zot, Hoegaarden and St Feuillien—all the Belgian beers I love and cherish—were there on tap.

The next morning, rested and refreshed with my body clock synchronized to Victoria’s time zone, I set off on the B100—which ranks as one of the world’s best drives.

Also known as the Great Ocean Road (GOR), the B100 deserves this adulation. Running along the Southern Ocean, this tantalizing strip of tar takes the wonderstruck driver along huge cliffs, raging surf, tranquil bays, beautiful beaches and lush forests. It has delightful straights with stunning ocean views and also sections that curve more than Kylie Minogue.

Though the GOR starts at Geelong which is 75km south-west of Melbourne down the Princes Highway, the sea first comes in sight at Torquay, which is blessed with fantastic beaches, and a surf culture blossomed here. Shops sell everything from surf lessons to skin suits and boards.

From Torquay to Apollo Bay, the sea is a constant companion

BY

RISHAD SAAM MEHTA

The great outdoors: (clockwise from above) Victoria’s Great Ocean Road; the foreshore of Glenelg beach; a pelican; and the Twelve Apostles as seen from Port Campbell.

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to the road. The GOR is a rapid ribbon of black, well demarcated with white lines and bordered by the tempting blue sea and sandy beaches. It also has the lush green Otway mountain range that runs along the opposite side.

It’s a complete driver’s delight, accentuated by the uncluttered horizon that stretches out beyond the windscreen.

Apollo Bay is a seaside hamlet, and a popular spot to stay overnight for people driving the GOR. I stayed at Chris’s Beacon Point Villas. Each villa has commanding views of the village and the sea beyond. Chris himself is from Greece and the restaurant that is attached to the villas serves an eclectic mix of Aussie and Greek Mediterranean food. It’s so popular that unless you have a booking, you’ll have to drive away hungry—a state made even worse because you’ll have sniffed the wonderful aromas.

From Apollo Bay, the B100 goes inland through the Otway National Park for 78km, and then returns to the sea at Princetown.

After forests and pastures my eyes were treated to the GOR’s most famous tourist attraction—the Twelve Apostles.

Standing like artful sculptures, the Twelve Apostles are actually the remains of an extended cliff line that the sea and the salt-laden winds have pounded into solitary stacks of rock. When the erosion started, it carved caves into the cliff. Over centuries, these too were nibbled away and only The Twelve Apostles remained. But time is ticking for them too. Three have already collapsed and all but disappeared and a recently col-

TRIP PLANNER/AUSTRALIA

Visitors to Australia need an Australian visa. Visa applications are processed by VFS in India, and you can apply at VFS centres. For details, log on to www.vfs-au-in.com At present, the advance return trip fares to Melbourne are: Delhi Mumbai Bangalore Chennai Jet Airways (Code share) R56,480 R50,930 Malaysia R40,760 R43,240 R48,440 R51,380 Singapore Airlines/ Thai (Star Alliance) R57,840 R54,750 R59,600 R56,540

Stay

Do

In Melbourne, stay at the Art Series The Cullen Hotel (www. artserieshotels.com.au/cullen) for AU $289 (around R14,000). In Apollo Bay, stay at Chris’s Beacon Point (chriss.com.au) for AU $240. In Adelaide, stay at Crowne Plaza (www.crowneplaza.com) for AU $169 (all prices are for double occupancy per night).

AUSTRALIA Adelaide

Melbourne Canberra

 Learn to surf at the Torquay Surfing Academy (www.torquaysurf.com.au; a 2-hour surfing session costs AU $150 per person, or AU $200 for two, including Indian Ocean surfboard and wetsuit hire).  Definitely do a flight over the Twelve Apostles. 12 Apostles Helicopters (www.12apostleshelicopters.com.au; a 25km trip lasting about 10 minutes costs AU $95 per person). There have to be at least three people, but they will club you with a group if you are alone.  Otway Fly Treetop Adventures—this is on the way from Apollo Bay to Port Campbell.

Definitely visit and do the Zipline Tour, it is fantastic fun. Also do the Treetop walk (www.otwayfly.com). A Treetop walk costs AU $22 for an adult and AU $9.50 for a child (6-16 years). Charges for the Zipline Tour, AU $115 (adults), and AU $82.50 (children).

GRAPHIC

BY

AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

lapsed one lies in a woeful pile of rubble. But eight stand tall and ready for tourist cameras.

There are at least three outfits that offer aerial sightseeing by helicopter—one near Torquay also offers Tiger Moth flights—over the Apostles. It was a clear day, and there was no possible excuse for not taking the flight. Blue skies, white clouds, cobalt water with creamy surf, and honey-coloured cliffs covered with green turf created a pretty picture.

The village closest to the Twelve Apostles is Port Campbell,

and most visitors usually stop here and head back to Melbourne. But I had to go to Adelaide, another 715km west. It was on this drive that, for the first time in my five visits to Australia, the vastness of this continent hit me. Through the trip, roads stretched right to the horizon, and I spent 90 minutes at a time without passing another car. It is impossible to consider a country crowded when you pass more kangaroos and pelicans than cars.

I crossed over from Victoria to South Australia, took a break at Mount Gambier with its astoundingly blue lake, had lunch at the small seaside village of Robe, and drove through the Coorong National Park to arrive 12 hours later into bustling Adelaide, the terminus of my 1,100km drive from Melbourne.

The vibrancy of busy Adelaide felt good after the emptiness of the highway. The next morning, one of my first acts as a tourist was to visit the Adelaide Oval. Hallowed ground, for it had hosted cricket’s most tempestuous moment when Australian Bert Oldfield was hit in the head by a delivery from England’s Harold Larwood during the infamous 1932-33 Bodyline series. Fittingly, the Adelaide Oval hosts the Bradman Collection, an exhibition dedicated to the late Sir Don Bradman. It was to contain him that England captain Douglas Jardine employed those unsportsmanlike tactics.

Back in Adelaide’s Central Business District (CBD), the North Terrace was the place to feel the

pulse of the city. Corporate types rushed across pedestrian crossings and tourists sauntered along its generous sidewalks taking in museums, memorials, art galleries, statues and plaques. It was a nice place for lunch too with many cafés and restaurants.

As much as its Oval and CBD, Adelaide is known for its beach suburbs and a prime example is Glenelg. It is “the” place to hang out on a sunny afternoon or evening. Lounge on the beach with a book or nurse a stubby (pint bottle) of Cooper’s Pale Ale (South Australia’s most loved beer) and people-watch, surf the waves or sip coffee on a sidewalk café—Glenelg can be enjoyed in many ways. I finished the day with dinner on a sidewalk café on Rundle Street. There was happy laughter, the tinkle of cutlery against crockery and a party crowd all over the street thanks to its many bars and eateries.

I had planned to call it an early night after three days on the move, but I changed my mind. I spent the rest of the night on Rundle Street, surrounded by weekend partygoers. Surrounded by warmth and friends, it was a better close to my Australian road trip than anything else could have been.

Write to lounge@livemint.com CHILD­FRIENDLY RATING

The sea, surfing and the Twelve Apostles form a complete outdoor learning experience.

SENIOR­FRIENDLY RATING

Seniors will be comfortable, but there are stairs to be climbed and the viewpoints at some places are slippery.

LGBT­FRIENDLY RATING

Australia is a very gay­friendly country. Most major cities have pride events.

TRAVEL L13

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

FOOT NOTES

A soul­searcher’s chronicles Documentary film­maker Anu Malhotra’s travels pave the way for social initiatives for tribes in the North­East

B Y A NINDITA G HOSE anindita.g@livemint.com

···························· n one of her trips to Arunachal Pradesh, documentary film-maker Anu Malhotra came across a man from the Apa Tani tribe carrying a cane flask so ingenuously woven that it could be used to carry liquids. After she had a sip of the rice beer it held, she launched into an hour-long plea to buy the flask off him. He refused. Nobody in his village knew how to make them any more.

This was one of the many instances that led the way for Malhotra’s Soul Survivors project, which documents the customs and quotidian rhythms of tribal life. The project is an appreciation of alternative wisdoms; of ways of life that stand in contrast to the urban mainstream.

Her multimedia exhibition will showcase around 70 largeformat photographs which were

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shot while she filmed The Apa Tani of Arunachal Pradesh and The Konyak of Nagaland in 2000-01, and during her personal travels across Tibet in 2002. Excerpts from her films and installations of handicrafts, such as shawls and baskets, will

accompany the photographs.

The photographs are a corollary to and embedded within Malhotra’s wide-ranging documentary work—which stem out of a curiosity rooted in her days as one of India’s first travel show hosts for Zee TV’s Namaste India

in the early 1990s.

Malhotra tries to show the local cultures in as much detail as she can, and succeeds. Her pictures do exoticize their subjects, but this is balanced by an arresting joie de vivre. “I’ll leave the bickering and criticism to the foreign correspondents,” she says.

Given that the Apa Tani have rarely been documented because of their inaccessibility, Malhotra was surprised by how nonchalant they were about the presence of her four-member crew. What drew her to the particular tribe from among the 26 in Arunachal Pradesh was the story of the legendary beauty of the Apa Tani women. Legend has it that they were so beautiful that the tribe would fall prey to neighbouring tribals, so nose plugs (called yappin-hoollo) were devised to make them appear unattractive to other tribes. Village councils banned nose plugs in the 1970s; now, only the older women in the village

Instincts: Konyak boys in Longwa village, Nagaland, during the Aoling festival; and (top) Malhotra (right) with an Apa Tani woman at Reru village in Arunachal Pradesh.

still wear them. The other sociological aspect—not so visibly represented in her photographs—is the institution called the “Buning”, which is a network of friends spread across villages, who are there to help you with anything from a mithun (a bovine species) for a feast to rebuilding your huts.

“That is how this wonderfully networked society puts someone back on their feet after an accident or a fire,” says Malhotra.

The other big leg of her exhibition is on the Konyaks of Nagaland. Malhotra took to the tribe that is known to be one of the fiercest because it has been less documented than the dominant Ao Nagas.

The Konyaks were headhunters (this too was banned 50 years ago). Academics theorize that the practice stemmed from the belief that the head contained “soul matter” which could be harnessed through its capture. But the primary lesson for her was the high status accorded to village elders. Malhotra’s images show Aoling, the Konyak spring festival when men deck up in the traditional headhunter’s gear.

All profits from the exhibition will go to two non-profit development organizations that work for the Apa Tani and the Konyak tribes. Apart from the photographs, priced between `30,000 and `1 lakh, Malhotra has merchandise such as T-shirts, scarves, saris and stationery inspired by motifs from the two tribes on sale. The idea is to brand a sustainable initiative that will work in a twofold manner: help popularize indigenous culture and channel the proceeds back to the community.

Soul Survivors will run from 23-25 April at The Stainless, Mathura Road, New Delhi.

GAURAV SCHIMAR

Hold all for a night

t Tod’s: Leather open yacht bag, at The Galleria, Trident, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `59,000.

On a yacht or at a spa, weekend trips get fun and stylish with these overnight bags q Gucci: Carry­on duffel with wheels and zip closure, top handles and ID tag, at The Galleria, Trident, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vas­ ant Kunj, New Delhi, `60,000.

Vale of a time: A view of Turtuk in Ladakh.

Run to the hills T u Tom Ford: Duffel with brown leather trimmings, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `2.50 lakh. q Ermenegildo Zegna: A black leather duffel bag for men, and a mini pouch, at The Taj Mahal Pal­ ace and Tower, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `1.21 lakh and `36,900.

q Louis Vuitton: Voyage monogram waterproof messenger bag, at The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `1.63 lakh.

p Bottega Veneta: Leather duffel bag, at The Galleria, Trident, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, approx. `5 lakh.

he trekking and mountaineering season is upon us. Famous trails and secluded routes open up for the year, with the promise of spectacular vistas and unimaginable calm.

But first, it might help to go through a bit of “Mountaineering 101”. The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling runs a popular annual series of basic and advanced mountaineering courses for adults and children. The schedule is available at http://www.himalayanmountaineering institute.com, and the three-week courses cost `4,000 for adults and `2,000 for children.

Once you’re up to spec, it’s time to hit the trails.

Ladakh Eco Trips is offering a number of interesting packages. There’s a five-day trip to the Turtuk region near Leh for `35,000 for two persons (including boarding, lodging, transportation and guide but excluding airfare to Leh).

If you’re up for something longer, there’s a 10-day trek through the remote Rumbak Valley, known as the “snow leopard” capital of Ladakh. The trip will take you through a number of locations in the Hemis National Park, including Rumbak, Tarbung Valley, Tarbungphu, Ganda La Base Camp, Yurutse and Kharlung Valley. The trip costs `69,000 for two people, and includes shared accommodation for all 10 days. For details on both trips, email info@ ladakhecotrips.com, or call Nurbu at 09871511133.

Krish Raghav

Rachana Nakra and Komal Sharma

Write to lounge@livemint.com

L14

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011

Books

LOUNGE PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

JAVEED SHAH/MINT

PROFILE

A rainy day with Ruskin Bond At home: Bond lives in a cottage in Landour, Mussoorie, where his sparse writing room (below) faces Doon Valley.

We visited Mussoorie’s living landmark, who has completed 60 years of writing B Y M AYANK A USTEN S OOFI mayank.s@livemint.com

···························· he world is, according to a saying, only the size of each man’s head. Deodar trees, misty hills, night trains, haunted spirits, leaping langurs, mountain air, unhappy women and lonely children make the world of Ruskin Bond. And for 60 years, millions of readers have shared this world.

“I’m a little more successful than I thought I would be,” he says, on reaching the six-decade milestone as a writer. Bond, 77, was first published in August 1951 when The Illustrated Weekly of India carried his short story My Calling.

Watching the rain from the window of his writing room in Landour, in the upper reaches of Mussoorie, the Himalayan town in Uttarakhand, Bond looks content. “The things that I wanted in life were not out of reach.”

The unassuming author, born to Anglo-Indian parents in Kasauli, has all he wished for: a home in the hills, a loving family which looks after him, thousands of books, pen and paper and an income from the royalties he receives from the sale of his books. Bond has published more than 80 titles, many of which are still in print. “I belong to the middle class, no, the upperworking class gentry,” he says.

Mussoorie has been his home since 1964, and Bond is the town’s greatest monument.

From hotel managers and shopkeepers to cab drivers, vegetable sellers and coolies, everyone knows the way to Ivy Cottage, Bond’s home, which is as much of a tourist attraction as the hill station’s ropeway ride. Many locals also know his landline phone number (Bond doesn’t keep a cellphone). Tourists knock daily at his home. In

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summer, they come in such large numbers that Bond has to go underground. In all seasons, every Saturday evening (from 4-6), Bond is sighted at the Cambridge Bookstore on Mussoorie’s Mall Road, where weekend revellers from Delhi and Uttar Pradesh flock to him for photos and book signing. Some of these encounters might anger a lesser mind, but Bond handles them with his characteristic gentle humour.

“I’ve been congratulated as the author of Kipling’s The Jungle Book and occasionally mistaken for Enid Blyton,” says Bond. “I’ve also been believed to be Jim Corbett. Can’t believe that I shot so many tigers!” Once a proud parent brought his little boy to Bond’s house and requested him to autograph their copy of “his great book”, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Bond signed as Mark Twain.

Bond’s cottage, built circa 1860s, is like his writing: elemental and homely. The walls are made of rocks from the hills. The ceilings are of wood. The small drawing room is filled with books and awards. A single lamp casts a dim glow on the shelves, which are stacked with detective books such as Tales of Suspense, Dread and Delight, Victorian Ghost Stories and Great Cases of Scotland Yard. Emily Bronte and P.G. Wodehouse sit next to a red hardbound edition of David Copperfield, Bond’s favourite novel. Ahmedabad-based author Esther David’s The Book of Esther, which he is currently reading, is on the chair. “It is unpretentious and has got a nice feeling of family history done in the form of a novel.”

One wall has a framed portrait of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, American singers and movie stars of the 1950s. On the mantelpiece are black and white

photos of Bond’s parents. They had separated when he was 8.

Bond’s father lies buried in a Kolkata cemetery and his mother was cremated in Delhi.

The survivor of a lonely childhood, experiences of which are reflected in his novels and short stories, Bond now heads a joint family of nine—children and grandchildren of his former help Prem Singh, who came with his wife to work for him in 1969.

Bond never married.

In contrast to the chaos of the dining room with its noisy children, small eating table and a giant bukhari heater, Bond’s writing room—where he also sleeps—has the sparseness of a monastic cell. It has nine flower pots, two windows, three paintings, one bed, one chair, one cassette player, one unused typewriter and a wooden almirah. The plaque of the Sahitya Akademi Award has come off its wooden stand and is now used as a paperweight.

“My room is like a railway

compartment,” says Bond, whose early stories were set in trains. “When there is a storm, the room is like a ship in a stormy sea.” Pointing to the door, he says, “This is my computer.” On it are pasted paper scraps of publishers’ phone numbers and cuttings of book reviews. A steel trunk below the bed has some of Bond’s most treasured possessions: old issues of the Indian State Railways magazine, The Madras Mail newspaper, and the first edition of The Room on the Roof, his first novel.

The light spray of the day’s unexpected rain wets us as Bond opens a window. Waving at the forested slopes, he says: “All these are oak trees, and the winding road down there is going towards Badrinath.” Closing the windows, he says, “I spend a lot of time gazing at this view: the sky above, the hills before me and the garbage dump below. In the night, I can see the twinkling lights of the Doon Valley.”

Bond wakes up daily at 5.

From his bed, he watches the dawn breaking through the hills and the sky turning to a light blue. When the first rays of the sun fall on his bed, he goes to sleep again for another hour. His breakfast consists of toast with butter, cheese, marmalade, or parathas with pickles. “As you can see, I don’t diet,” says Bond, who has a weakness for fish curry and mutton koftas. “I eat all the things I like. That is the secret of my happiness.”

By 10am, when his grandchildren are at school, his sons at work and his daughters-in-law are making lunch, Bond gets down to writing, in longhand.

After filling a few pages with a story or an essay, he writes to publishers and answers fan letters. After the meal, he reads a book till he is drowsy. The children return from school just as he is finished with his siesta. By 4pm, sightseers can spot Bond taking a stroll down the road.

Walking alone, his black

umbrella swaying in the rainy breeze, Bond’s visage looks as bleak as his childhood years, which he described in his memoirs, Scenes from a Writer’s Life.

“I have fallen in love off and on over the years,” he says. “My last intense romantic affair took place in the 1960s with a very sweet-natured woman. It would take a book to describe her.”

Like most people close to Bond, the woman was not fond of reading. “She now lives somewhere in the wilds of Delhi,” he says.

The autograph queue for Bond at this year’s Jaipur Literature Festival was longer than the queues for J.M. Coetzee, Vikram Seth and Candace Bushnell put together. Yet he has rarely used his influence to shape opinions about the issues of the times. We don’t know what he thinks about, say, Maoist violence or religious extremism. “I’m an Indian by birth and lifestyle but others look upon me as an outsider,” says the man whose last visit abroad was to London in the 1950s. “So I don’t want to impose my views on others.”

In an introduction to one of his books, Bond, saddened by riots in the 1990s in curfewstruck Mussoorie, wrote, “Confined to the house, we must finally spend more time with our families, our children; try to reassure them that the world is not such a bad place after all.” In Bond’s books, at least, it is not.

Although his style has changed from merely romantic to being romantic with a cynical edge, his subjects are still apolitical.

Will Bond ever retire? “Writers don’t get provident funds or pensions,” he says, “so we can’t afford to retire.”

Does Mussoorie’s living landmark consider himself a great author? Looking at the misty flatlands of Doon, he says: “I recently went to a school where a teacher asked a little girl what she thinks of Mr Bond. The girl thought a lot, looked up and down at me and said, ‘Sir, you are not a bad writer.’”

BOOKS L15

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SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

PEOPLE WITHOUT HISTORY | JEREMY SEABROOK & IMRAN AHMED SIDDIQUI

Liable to inundation

R. SUKUMAR INDRANIL BHOUMIK/MINT

Kolkata’s Muslim ghettos reveal untold stories, but not representa­ tive ones

B Y S HAMIK B AG ···························· n the opening chapter of Jeremy Seabrook’s People without History: India’s Muslim Ghettos (co-authored with Imran Ahmed Siddiqui), the author writes: “The area of Topsia in Kolkata was, until recently, portrayed on city maps as a blank space, marked only by the words ‘liable to inundation’. Slums, trackless and impermanent, have no geography.”

Topsia, a largely slum region on the edge of wetlands in east Kolkata, is an area that has fallen outside the map of municipal development. Worse, on the radar of the city’s general consciousness, the name registers no more than a feeble beep.

Along with Beniapukur, Tiljala and Tangra, the other three main areas focused upon in the book, Topsia also happens to be among the city’s most densely populated Muslim neighbourhoods.

The stubborn, uninterrupted poverty of these places and their residents’ Muslim faith is the basis of Seabrook’s study into the lives of the Others. “There is a widespread view that little common ground exists between Muslims and the rest of humanity,” the author notes. “This has become axiomatic for many…who contrast our ‘progress’ with their ‘backwardness’.”

With the avowed intention of correcting this unhappy state of affairs, the British journalist and commentator stitches together a collage of urban lives caught in a whirlpool of crime, drugs, larceny, corruption, coercion, underdevelopment, ignorance, neglect, vote-bank politics and intrigues of land sharks.

Yet the grand canvas that the title of the book suggests, and the blurb reiterates, is missing between the covers. Even while doing an admirable job of documenting the lives there (the most desperate creatures on earth, the author contends), People without History rarely moves beyond the precincts of its four Kolkata Muslim slum areas. In fact, it

CULT FICTION

CONSTANTINE’S QUARTER­CENTURY

I

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Moot point: Is faith the only differential in the lives of Muslim slum dwellers in Kolkata’s Beniapukur area? doesn’t even venture into the other Muslim-dominated neighbourhoods with similar or worse living conditions, Rajabazar being a notable example. People without History can only be a study of India’s Muslim Ghettos through gross generalization.

Most unsettling is the premise of the book that pits wider society against the largely Urdu-speaking Muslim slum population in Kolkata, and by the strength of notion, in all of India. Even as most interviewees in People without History testify, it becomes obvious that their circumstances are often not uniquely different from those living in, say, Kolkata’s and the country’s Hindumajority slums: the other Others.

The vortex of death, addiction, decay and exploitative politics is common to every urban Indian slum. Is faith the only differential in the lives of the Muslim slum dweller in Beniapukur and the Hindu day labourer in Dum Dum

People without History— India’s Muslim Ghettos: Navayana, 257 pages, `295.

and Behala?

Much of the blame for the predicament of deprived Kolkata Muslims, Seabrook contends, should go to the Communist government that has ruled West Bengal for over three decades. Many will remember the strong indictment of Bengal’s Left Front government in the 2006 Sachar Committee Report on the social, economic and educational status of Indian Muslims, which held the state as a laggard when it came to employment and empowerment.

Strangely, Seabrook spares but a few lines for the report.

Surely a government that takes pride in its egalitarian and secular credentials deserved keener cross-examination. While the Muslim vote bank has been an important contributor to the 34-year rule of the Communists in West Bengal, even their staunchest enemies would not accuse Bengal’s Communists of pursuing a communal agenda.

It is a historical backdrop that the book woefully overlooks, along with the fact that Kolkata silently drafted in millions of East Pakistani refugees. It found millions more from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar at its door. But over the last few decades, the city has seen no organized state-sponsored communal rioting; neither has it forced migrants or minorities out.

Correspondingly, the state has been unyielding to right-wing Hindu parties.

And when the slum-dwelling Muslim computer graphics teacher Rizwanur Rahman fell in love with Priyanka Todi (the Hindu daughter of a city-based industrialist), married her, refused to buckle under every conceivable

pressure, and was finally found dead on the railway tracks in 2007, the entire city erupted in collective anger until the government relented, heads rolled, and a CBI investigation was ordered.

Seabrook highlights the appalling lives of the poor and their tremendous urge to survive the odds in painstaking detail, but misses the forest for the trees. In the plight of the Muslims of Topsia, Beniapukur, Tiljala and Tangra resonates the plight of the city; one which has seen the flight of capital and opportunities to more profitable and less-politicized shores, leaving behind barely enough for all its citizens. Since then it has been a narrative of shared struggle and common shame across communities in the city.

Take, for instance, the story of Qutubuddin Ansari, which hasn’t found a place in the book. Ansari was referred to as the “face of the 2002 Gujarat riots” after the photograph of the Muslim’s tailor’s horror-struck face pleading for life was splashed in the media. Ansari would find a home in Kolkata after the state government pledged support to rebuild his life and business. In less than a year, Ansari would go back to Gujarat and his tailoring business. The promise of peace brought him to Kolkata; the lack of prospects saw him return.

It could have been the story of a city.

brother Kiwi must deal with an underworld of his own; life on the mainland at the World of Darkness theme park.

Once Kiwi leaves Swamplandia! the book is divided in two—the chapters that follow Kiwi are alternated with Ava’s point of view. Kiwi’s journey parallels Ava’s own, yet the contrast between the two worlds is always clear. Where Ava must dive into the water with the alligators to prove herself, Kiwi must rescue a swimmer from a pool where the water is dyed red.

Russell emphasizes the contrast with her prose; the utilitarian language of Kiwi’s sections of the book could not be more different from the startling, lush account of Ava’s journey through the swamp.

“Stands of pond-apple trees were adorned with long nets of golden moss and shadowed a kind of briary sapling I didn’t recognize. Air plants hung like hairy stars. We poled through

forests. Twinkling lakes. Estuaries, where freshwater and salt water mixed and you could sometimes spot small dolphins. A rotten-egg smell rose off the pools of water that collected beneath the mangroves’ stilted roots.”

The division of the book into “Ava” and “Kiwi” sections has its drawbacks. The contrast between the sterile World of Darkness and the Everglades may make sense, but compared with the over-the-top loveliness of Ava’s sections, the ones focusing on Kiwi fall rather flat.

The middle child, Osceola, never gets a voice and is never a fully realized part of the story.

In the central sections of the book, where Ossie’s relationship with the ghost develops, the pace slackens considerably.

A long chapter giving the ghost a background story feels rather orphaned in the middle of the text, though it is a fine piece of writing in its own right.

Russell makes the question

Write to lounge@livemint.com IN SIX WORDS Kolkata’s communal fabric, warped without texture

would say the cigarette that’s forever hanging from his lips is cool but I know that it isn’t. There was a time in my teens when I thought cigarettes were cool. A decade and several tens of thousands of cigarettes later I gave up smoking because it bored me. And I immediately put on weight, going from 62kg to 80 in just around a year. Back when I smoked I was lean and mean.

Like him.

The trench coat is definitely cool. I’ve often considered getting one like it (but good sense has prevailed). And his punk rock background (his band was called Mucous Membrane) gives him street-cred.

All this, and the fact that this week marks (by some estimates and an event happening in London over the weekend) 25 years since he first appeared in print (and the fact that I like him) influenced my decision to do yet another column on Constantine, or Hellblazer as one of Vertigo’s longest-running series is called. Readers whose only acquaintance with Constantine is the movie of the same name starring Keanu Reaves will probably wonder what the deal is—I must admit, the movie was a pale reflection of the books, although it had its moments—and (for their benefit), it is simply this: It is a rare non-superhero comic character that lasts a decade. One that lasts 25 years is pretty much unknown.

Just to clarify, I am not referring to characters in the funnies that last forever.

So, what explains the popularity of a working-class warlock (a minor one at that), one who actually ages in his books and, according to rough calculations, is around 58 now?

One reason for the longevity of Constantine has to be the writers who worked on the series over the years: Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Brian Azzarello, Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Mike Carey and Peter Milligan (the current writer; and I have left out several names). The second has to go with the characterization of Constantine: He is scruffy, unkempt, and easy-going; Soldiering on: Keanu Reeves. he doesn’t seem to worry about consequences, which explains why people around him keep dying. With his acerbic wit and surprising resilience he is to comic books what Philip Marlowe is to noir detective fiction (and something tells me that had the comic book come out earlier, Bogart would have made a dashed good Constantine).

The third has to do with the ability of Hellblazer’s writers to come up with interesting stories (a recent one concerned a visit to India) even as they keep alive the thread started by the previous writer on the project. There’s a good chance I will be re-reading, in order, all the Hellblazer books even as you, Dear Constant Reader, are reading this fine magazine.

PS: I do know there is some confusion about the 25 years and I am very sure that the character first made an appearance in 1984, although the first storyline may have appeared a few years later (probably in 1986). Still, apart from adding to the mystique surrounding the character, the 25-year celebration gives me enough reason to revisit Constantine in a column that is horribly beyond deadline.

R. Sukumar is editor, Mint.

Write to him at cultfiction@livemint.com

SWAMPLANDIA! | KAREN RUSSELL

Crocodile rockin’ Spectacular, some­ times strained, theme­park fantasy from a young author B Y A ISHWARYA S UBRAMANIAN ···························· aren Russell’s 2006 collection of short stories, St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, was as notable for its odd, often fantastic, take on growing up as it was for its memorable title. Last year, Russell, now 29, appeared on The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” list of promising young writers who the magazine believed would be significant in the years to come. Swamplandia!, her first novel, recently achieved a place on this year’s Orange Prize longlist.

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Swamplandia! is an extension of Ava Wrestles the Alligator, one of the stories in St Lucy’s Home. As in many of her short stories, Russell adopts the voice of the adolescent. The narrator of most of Swamplandia! is a teenaged girl, Ava Bigtree. Ava is the daughter of Hilola Bigtree, the famous alligator wrestler.

When Hilola dies of cancer, Big Chief, Ava’s father, finds it difficult to keep up the family’s alligator-theme park, Swamplandia!, located in the Everglades of Florida.

Matters are worsened by the advent of a big, hell-themed amusement park not far away.

Ava and her sister Ossie are left alone on the resort. Ossie falls in love with a ghost and first she, then Ava, must embark upon a journey to the Underworld. Meanwhile, their

Swamplandia!

Chatto and Windus, 316 pages, £12.99 (around `940). of whether this is fantasy or magical realism (or simply the characters’ own imagination) irrelevant. The writing shifts easily between the mythic and the real. Ava is in many ways still a child, and her age allows for this constant moving between registers. On at least

one occasion this shift leads to a devastating revelation. The fantasy elements of the story are intangible and unsettling, but fit perfectly.

For all its strangeness, Swamplandia! is also the account of a family’s coming of age after a huge loss. As a family drama it is funny, moving and honest. “‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she told me that night. But until we are old ladies—a cypress age, a Sawtooth age—I will continue to link arms with her, in public, in private, in a panic of love.”

Russell never quite manages to keep up the brilliance that displays itself in long stretches of this first novel. But these heights, when they are reached, are extraordinary.

While Swamplandia! is far from being a perfect book, it is the sort of book that makes you glad that the author is still at the beginning of her career.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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Monumental ambitions JAVEED SHAH/MINT

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Playful: (clockwise from left) Kapoor inside the cavernous gallery; the Grand Palais; and an exhibit from his show in Delhi a few months ago.

ERIC POUHIER/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Anish Kapoor will fill the Grand Palais in Paris with an inflatable artefact

B Y J AVIER E SPINOZA ···························· nish Kapoor is staring at a miniature model of a massive inflatable object.

The British artist is often interested in big scale and his latest creation, Leviathan, is testimony to that artistic passion: a colossal monochrome artefact (38m long and 70m wide), which will fill the vast cavernous nave of the Grand Palais in the heart of Paris at his Monumenta art solo show next month.

Since 2007, the French cultural authorities have invited contemporary art heavyweights to produce a unique piece of work for the 13,500 sq. m historic site.

“The space is so big that to have a job like that is ridiculous, but maybe that madness is what makes it exciting,” laughs Kapoor, as he shows off his new conception during a tour of his south London studio on a recent sunny morning.

This isn’t the first time an artist has dealt with the huge space of the Grand Palais, whose construction began in 1897 and which has ever since become a permanent fixture of the Champs-Elysées in Paris.

In Monumenta’s first edition, German-born Anselm Kiefer presented Falling Stars, a series of aluminum bunkers that crowded the 35m-high space. In 2008, American artist Richard Serra’s Promenade crowded the space with five gigantic steel slabs displayed along the central axis of the floor. Serra’s display was followed by French artist Christian Boltanski with an installation of a 50-ton mountain of old clothes.

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But rather than using the space to display works like his predecessors, Kapoor’s own solution to what he describes as the “problem” of filling the huge gap is this inflatable object made of PVC material in a very dark red, a monochromatic theme that has become one of his trademarks. He’s using the space “as a place in which the object has a very specific relationship with the architecture”.

Leviathan, which has been funded by the French cultural authorities and the artist himself, hasn’t yet been released to the wider public. But the model Kapoor shows us provides a very primitive approximation of what audiences will experience.

Though visitors will be immersed in colour as soon as they enter the foyer of the building, the model shows three separate spheres located in the three main cavities of the building’s nave. Members of the public won’t be able to enter the voids but they will be able to exit the building and then experience the piece of art from a different angle as they re-enter.

He says the visitors’ experience will be moulded by the piece of

art itself. “This work is extremely manipulative. It forces you as a viewer to do a certain thing and to come out and it forces you to do another certain thing. It’s pushing you in a particular direction.”

The sheer scale of his art has bumped into hurdles along the way, Kapoor says. A first obstacle was light. “The light of this steel and glass building is almost brighter inside than outside. The light can be a killer,” the artist says as he kneels to look inside the model. Thanks to the light that will filter through the nontranslucent material, however,

‘This is one of the wonders of scale. Scale is... one of the truly abstract quan­ tities. One has to live it and experience it.’

museum-goers will experience some change through the day and at night when the artefact will be lit from the outside.

There were some practicalities when it came to the inflatable material, including the noise generated by the ventilators used to prop up the exhibit. The artist says he was very concerned about the fans and the disruption has been kept to a minimum. Then, of course, Kapoor had to deal with the sheer scale of the project, explains Monumenta 2011’s curator Jean de Loisy.

He says he first visited the space with the artist two years ago and wondered whether Kapoor would be able to cope with a “sumptuous, difficult” environment. “There is a mysterious interest in facing the three spheres,” he says of the illusion it will create for visitors.

Kapoor agrees, adding that he wants to give visitors the impression that “the thing contained (inside) is bigger than the thing that contains it”.

“This is one of the wonders of scale. Scale is perhaps one of the truly abstract quantities.

One has to live it and experience it,” Kapoor says. “No model will

ever be enough to experience it.

It does something to you, to your body, to your sense of poetics, which is the point of making a sculpture.”

Leviathan addresses the artist’s recurrent theme of inaccessibility.

“Leviathan is a work that seeks to complicate architecture. It makes darkness of light and confronts the viewers’ expectations of form and non-form. These are all recurrent themes within my work over the last 20 years,” he says.

“This work is too inaccessible in the sense that these three overtures give on to these spaces which are remote. The centre of that is almost 20m high. It’s all about the sense of the form opening, away from you. You can’t quite play with it,” he says.

His recent work could perhaps be compared with Cloud Gate, a public sculpture designed by Kapoor that is now the centrepiece of the AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park in Chicago, US. Works such as this one have gained him praise. Born in Mumbai in 1954, Kapoor has been a London resident since the 1970s.

His work has gained prominence internationally thanks to numerous awards, including the Turner Prize which he won in 1991 at the age of 37. Most recently, he’s also been working on another bigscale project: a 116m-high sculpture which will become one of the landmarks of the Olympic Games in London next year.

His privileged standing in the art world has allowed him to speak up for fellow artists. Earlier this month, more than 200 organizations lost their yearly funding as a result of UK government cuts to the budget. He regards the move as “ideologically driven”.

“We can see the same thing happening in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy. It’s Europewide and it is a tragedy because the cost is very small,” he says.

More recently, he has spoken out against the arrest of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained in Beijing earlier this month as he was about to board a plane.

“Art has always played an important role in giving us a sense that freedom of expression and thought are important to society,” he says. “The shortsightedness of the Chinese government on this issue is to be deplored. Ai Weiwei’s bold counting of the victims of corruption and neglect is a small assertion of our need to remember. Every life is vital and important; all he is doing is to record its presence.”

Beyond politics, the subject of space is one that continues to preoccupy him. “Bigness is one of the tools of sculpture. Why not use it?” he says on the breadth of his latest projects.

Yet, he concedes, there can be challenges in creating spectacular pieces. “The spectacle is often empty of a deeper meaning. One hopes that one can do something which gives you that sense of awe or wonder. The test is always in being there and looking at it for real.”

Leviathan will be on display from 11 May-23 June at the Grand Palais in Paris. For details, log on to www.monumenta.com Write to wsj@livemint.com

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The coffee pot has run dry A round­up of the valuable lessons to be learnt from season 3 of ‘Koffee with Karan’

B Y N AYANTARA K ILACHAND ···························· Question: How big is Bollywood?

Answer: Just about enough to sustain three seasons of Koffee with Karan.

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s talk show host, Oprah wannabe, Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) fanboy and all-round bestie to the stars, Karan Johar demonstrated with the third and supposedly last season of his popular talk show that Bollywood is made up of precisely 20 people, give or take a few socially mobile B-listers.

Which is why over the weekend, to coincide with his last “award show” episode, KJo let slip to a newspaper that he’d like “the audience to let me move on”. In other words, KJo had finally run out of people to interview. With Simi Garewal set to replace that time slot with India’s Most Desirable, we confess that we will miss KJo and his unabashed attempts to ferret out a controversy even when there was none to be had.

Who’ll inject innuendo into bad puns? Make semi-fake passes at sexually ambiguous male stars? Overuse the words “sexy”, “beautiful” and “glamorous” and make Samsung wish they’d created a thesaurus app for that nifty tablet of theirs?

While we work on our Facebook campaign to bring KJo back, here’s a recap of some of the more valuable lessons we learned this season.

(for being a bad boyfriend, though to her or Deepika Padukone it wasn’t quite clear), Kangna Ranaut (needs English lessons), Shobhaa De (probably had plastic surgery), Sanjay Leela Bhansali (needs colour in his life), she inadvertently set a pattern in motion. If you’re a) making it in Bollywood and b) you have an infinitely more famous family member to get your back then c) hurl away. Thus Kareena Kapoor lashed out at Priyanka Chopra for being dramatic and fake, insinuated that Preity

Zinta and Rani Mukerji were both “gawky and fat” and that she didn’t really consider Sonam or Deepika competition. Sajid Khan, brother to Farah, managed to not only accuse Ashutosh Gowarikar of ripping off both Die Hard and Body Double but also hint that movie critic Khalid Mohammed was too poor to pay his bills, and that Aishwarya Rai Bachchan had had plastic surgery. Only Tusshar Kapoor, who called John Abraham “expressionless” and said Preity came to mind when he heard the words “cosmetic surgery”, seemed in no position to call upon sister Ekta, who seemed all too willing to biff her own brother in the face.

Two leading actors can never be friends T h e r e ’ s always some-

When slagging off colleagues, it helps to have reinforcement The season didn’t really get going until three episodes in. Sonam Kapoor set the decorum bar so low that everyone who followed seemed to take Sonam’s freewheeling bashing as carte blanche to air a little dirty laundry themselves. After slagging off Ranbir Kapoor

Hot seat: KJo has run out of people to interview; and (top) Deepika Padukone (left) and Sonam Kapoor in the most entertaining episode of season 3.

B Y S UPRIYA N AIR supriya.n@livemint.com

···························· ou can’t help it, I suppose,” says Amrita Lahiri reflectively.

“Associating Indian classical dance with women just comes naturally. The idea of the ‘beautiful dancer’ is such a feminized stereotype. You call to mind Sonal Mansingh’s eyes, the seduction of Yamini Krishnamurthy—all the usual associations.”

Lahiri, head of the dance programming at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in

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Mumbai, will try to get dance audiences to look past the allconsuming enchantment of the female form in the coming week.

Mudra Dance Week, the annual festival of classical dance at the NCPA starting Tuesday, will be centred this year around the nayaka bhav, the male attitude. It will celebrate male characters in Indian dance forms, but also draw attention to the way masculinity has informed the entire complex of dance, from the great classical poets who found it easiest to write in the voice of the female supplicant longing for union with the (male) divinity, to the gurus, choreographers and dancers who have shaped dance traditions for years.

As Lahiri says, everyone remembers the late Kelucharan Mohapatra as a guru who could perform an Ashtapadi (an eightline classical hymn) of the Gita

There’s no such thing as too many besties Three seasons in, it’s fairly obvious that KJo’s guests are either a) his friends or b) actors with nothing better to do (see Sajid, Riteish Deshmukh and Boman Irani). Which is why for all his wheeler-dealing, KJo has never been able to get Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar and Aamir Khan on his show. Left with just his buds, KJo segmented everyone into childhood friends (the Akhtars), good friends (Hrithik, John), idols (Amitabh Bachchan, Madhuri Dixit), or in the case of SRK, bestie for life.

How adept he was at needling them was directly proportional to how scared he was of pissing them off. Thus Amitabh, SRK and Ajay Devgn all got KJo the reverential fanboy, while Sajid, Rani and Priyanka got KJo the indignant protector of Bollywood morality. KJo even managed to act affronted by Sajid’s 2009 spat with Ashutosh, asking him without any sense of irony “if he thought it was okay to be mean and nasty”. Only twice, in the case of Imtiaz Ali and John, did KJo get so flustered by their beauty that he failed to rise to his mud-raking best, giving John an out on clarifying his relationship status with Bipasha Basu, and inexplicably giving Imtiaz the hamper even though he ranked Johar third in a list of six top directors.

Nayantara Kilachand is the founder of www.mumbaiboss.com Write to lounge@livemint.com

Testosterone ‘mudra’ NCPA Mumbai’s Mudra Dance Week will highlight mas­ culinity in Indian classical dance

thing fishy about two known frenemies pretending to be buds on Koffee with Karan, which sadly didn’t prevent a lot of people from trying. Maybe they’re vying for a role in KJo’s next movie? How else to explain the chummy bonhomie and lovey-dovey advances that even had KJo mildly nauseated at times? First Sonam and Deepika tried to bond over the beastliness of Ranbir (though during last Sunday’s finale KJo scoffed at the notion that the two were friends); then Vidya Balan sucked on Rani’s thumb to show the two had buried the hatchet; with even SRK jumping on the good-friend bandwagon praising Hrithik Roshan as “the biggest star the world will ever see” (the unspoken subtext being, after SRK himself, of course).

Govindam with such delicacy that he was said to play Radha better than most women.

The danseuse has captured public attention in the last 50 years to an extent that has often caused observers to wonder about what will happen to the space carved out by the great male dancers—to say nothing of the great male characters, including the classical Shiva, Ram and Arjun.

“Who can compete with females who look like apsaras on stage?” dance historian Ashish Khokar asks rhetorically. “Economically, dance is still not a viable profession for men.” The shift, Khokar says, became visible in the 1970s when male dancers, usually from traditional families, were sidelined by urban women who came from liberal families. Today, the most sought-after solo performers continue to be women.

“Among the handful of names,

COURTESY NATIONAL CENTRE

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STALL ORDER

NANDINI RAMNATH

GENRE THERAPY

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halo Dilli is the latest Hindi release to adapt an established Hollywood genre—the road movie in this case—to an Indian context. The film is about an urbane woman who has to undertake a journey with a small-town hick. She drags on Virginia Slims, he chomps Gopal zarda. You get the picture. Without having seen Chalo Dilli, we can safely predict that the mismatched couple will spend 50% of the film bickering, 30% overcoming a common hurdle, and 20% dealing with the beating of their hearts.

The road movie is a quintessentially American genre that came up in the 1960s as a response to the popularity of automobiles and the growing disenchantment with suburban living. By that logic, the Indian road movie should have kickstarted when the Golden Quadrilateral project took shape in the 2000s. The newly built highways resulted in several road trips by city slickers, but they haven’t inspired too many films. The redoubtable Ram Gopal Varma, who used to have the knack of picking up on Hollywood genres faster than the rest, did make a road movie or two (Daud, Go), but he threw in far too many extraneous elements (gangsters, comedy, romance) for the genre to stick. Dev Benegal tried last year to put his own stamp on the journey film (and on the English language) with Road, Movie, but it was a non-starter. Zoya Akhtar’s upcoming Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara will revisit the genre that has taken several turns since the days of Easy Rider.

Quite a few Hollywood genres simply don’t work in India, but that doesn’t stop Bollywood from trying. We love watching heist films, especially when they star George Clooney. But most Hindi directors equate Hot wheels: A poster of Chalo Dilli. suaveness with the ability to wear a suit. Then there is the larger issue of credibility. A heist movie is about a bunch of clever folks breaking into an impregnable fortress (a government vault, a well-guarded casino). Why go through all that trouble in India, where a few well-placed bribes can get you what you want?

Horror films have a better chance, given our rich literary heritage of ghosts and shape-shifting creatures. The Ramsay Brothers single-handedly kept the horror film alive through the 1970s and the 1980s, but their films are unfortunately remembered mostly for tacky production values. Once again, Varma showed with Bhoot that a horror movie didn’t have to be set in a cobweb-infested mansion to succeed. Bhoot is a chilling suburban tale that plays on the fears of anybody who lives in Mumbai’s faceless high-rises. The romcom has had greater success, especially among young audiences who’ve been fattened on a diet of Hollywood films and satellite television.

The husbands-in-peril movie has also found resonance in India.

Beleaguered married men who can’t wait to cheat in such films as No Entry and Masti have tapped reservoirs of audience sympathy.

The gangster genre found renewed relevance in the 1990s, when clashes between Mumbai’s underworld and the police force made news. But the most interesting genre that’s developing in Mumbai is the globalization film. Although most film-makers seem too dazzled

by India Shining to react to massive economic changes with nuance, a handful of film-makers such as Dibakar Banerjee, Anusha Rizvi and Habib Faisal are questioning its hollowness. Another genre that can work perfectly in India is the conspiracy thriller, in which a lone man or woman takes on the might of an array of crooked politicians and business interests. In an age of Commonwealth Games scams and the spectrum scandal, Indians will believe anything about their rulers. Most notably, until a few years ago, most Hindi films were mashed beyond recognition in the masala film grinder. But now the masala film has become a genre, beloved only to specialized practitioners such as Rajkumar Hirani and Farah Khan.

Chalo Dilli releases in theatres on 29 April.

Nandini Ramnath is the film critic of Time Out Mumbai (www.timeoutmumbai.net).

Write to Nandini at stallorder@livemint.com

PERFORMING ARTS

Moving: Margi Vijayakumar.

Birju Maharaj and Raja Reddy come most readily to mind,” Khokar says. “Who else is there?”

While male dancers occupying

female space has a long history in Indian dance traditions, performances such as those of Kathakali artiste Margi Vijayakumar will highlight this aspect. On 27 April, Vijayakumar will perform the Poothana-moksham—a drama that reconsiders the demon Poothana’s end as one where the infant Krishna grants her moksha (salvation) by sucking the poison from her breast.

A group of male Bharatanatyam dancers from Kerala’s Kalakshetra will also recall the legacy of the institution’s great male exponents, in a performance called Shiva Panchakam, dedicated to the deity who’s also called nrityanarta or the eternal artiste.

Shobha Deepak Singh, director of the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra in New Delhi, agrees that “99%” of dance institutions today still focus on women dancers. But in her own dance school, the ratio of male to female students is almost equal.

“I believe that we are seeing more male dancers than we used

to,” she affirms. “The infusion of martial art into dance that we’ve seen recently—the fashion for bringing, say, almost entirely male-oriented forms like Kalaripayattu into dance—has made more men enthusiastic about taking up dance as a career.”

And the male solo dancer, Lahiri and Singh both predict, might find increasing space on stage again. A greater number of male students foretells a future where more male artistes might viably compete for roles with their female counterparts.

Singh points out that a renewed popular culture of male dance in film and particularly on television, with dance competitions and reality shows, might lead to an increased understanding of, and acceptance for, male performers.

“They do tend to be less inhibited,” she says.

Mudra Dance Week will be held at the NCPA, Mumbai, from 26-29 April. For the tickets and schedule, log on to Ncpamumbai.com

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BANGALORE BHATH | RAHUL JAYARAM

The builder gets a house PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

Founder’s den: (clockwise from left) Visitors at the museum’s main hall; at the centre is a fibreglass statue of Kempe Gowda I; and a tower of the Gavi Gangadhareshwara temple.

Kempe Gowda I (1513-70) was from Yelahanka, now a suburb that forms the northern fringe of Bangalore. He was a chieftain of the Yelahanka clan, descendants of the Hoysala dynasty that ruled the region between the 1100s and 1400s. His ancestors had built forts, temples and tanks in the surrounding areas. “What we see is that even before Kempe Gowda I came to build Bangalore, he was already the legatee of a sense of enterprise from his forebears,” says Suryaprakash. “We were clear that the story of the origins of Bangalore is not just about Kempe Gowda I. His ancestors are equally important.”

It was at the insistence of the authorities of the Vijayanagara Empire (especially Krishnadevaraya, who he was known to be close to) that Kempe Gowda I was instructed to build a new city.

“The aim to build a new city was trade,” explains Devi Kona Reddy, a museum functionary. “It was to establish a new trade route from Madras in the east and to bypass Mysore—whose kings were rivals of the Vijayanagara Empire.”

Kempe Gowda I built the Bangalore Fort, the Nandi Temple and cultivated a few water bodies.

These are depicted in the museum with images and text embossed on special canvases.

Singh says the museum’s ground floor will soon have an interactive section that will educate visitors through multimedia and graphic form. What the museum-goers see right now is a big fraction of what is still being implemented. “A few months later you will find a lot more additions and some minor changes to what we have,” says Singh. Bangalore’s rebuilding has just begun.

A new museum showcases the life of Kempe Gowda I, the founder of Bangalore

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n 7 April, Bangalore got a museum dedicated to its founder, Kempe Gowda I, who established the city as we know it today. Situated inside Mayo Hall, a British-era heritage building complex on MG Road, the Kempe Gowda Memorial Museum was created in less than two months—two of the halls taken from the city corporation were cleared, painted and refurbished with wooden panels.

Material specific to Kempe Gowda and his clan was put together by the design team, and folklorist and historian H.K. Rajegowda wrote the text that accompanies the pictures of temples, ruins, lakes, waterfronts and bunds. Although the museum is not complete yet, it is open to visitors.

Chiranjeev Singh, a Kannada scholar and former bureaucrat, is one of the people behind the idea of the museum. “We want to give viewers a sense of Gowda’s life,” he says, “and to chronicle the life and history of Bangalore from its origins to the present day.”

Most of the material was sourced from the Karnataka State

Archives. “We made good copies of those. We also sought out photographers and researchers for whatever materials and documents and pictures they may have had relating to the man and his period,” adds Singh.

The museum displays images and texts in black and white. At the centre of the main hall is a yellow-brown fibreglass statue of Kempe Gowda.

“The way we structured the museum was flexible so that we had space for newer matter to come in,” says K.N. Suryaprakash, chief managing director of DesignCore, the Bangalore-based firm that designed the museum.

Suryaprakash compares the configuration of the museum with the Bangalore Fort that Kempe Gowda built. “We placed Kempe Gowda’s statue at the centre and made the four corners of the hall resemble the four towers at the corners of the Bangalore Fort.

Below the statue, surrounding the whole spectrum of the area where it stands will be an enlargement of the oldest known map of Bangalore (made by a British surveyor in the 1890s) covered in glass.”

MUMBAI MULTIPLEX | ANINDITA GHOSE

Frou frou in the city COURTESY FRENCH TUESDAYS

An ultra­exclusive, roving international club comes to the city this Tuesday

A

ccessories designer Rina Shah will be checking in to meet the right kind of people.

She’s attended a couple of French Tuesdays in New York and is hoping that with its first event in Mumbai the international club will rescue her from the plebeian drudgery of the city.

“I’m looking forward to a welledited social scene,” says Shah, who owns her own label, Rinaldi, an accessories brand.

This Tuesday, the “classy social networking phenomenon” which took off in New York in 2003 will open its doors to a select bunch.

The guest list for the premiere comprises those recommended

by French Tuesdays’ global members and Mumbai folk whom Gilles Amsallem, cofounder and chief operating officer (COO), met personally over the last month in Mumbai.

The Francophile rendezvous

club took off because Amsallem and his fellow French expat Pierre Battu wanted “to infuse the American social scene with Parisian sophistication”. Its success quickly led to chapters in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Tokyo, and ironically, Paris. The idea, says Amsallem—a B-schooler who ventured into event management—is to offer contemporary men and women entrée to a network of successful individuals and a world of couture nightlife.

French Tuesdays has more than 23,000 members in the US itself. Its Hong Kong chapter took off earlier this month, and now with Mumbai, and plans for Bangkok, Singapore and Shanghai next, an expansion to Asia seems to be the top focus.

Amsallem insists that it’s not about making everything French but about sharing the best of France: the good food, the good wine, the savoir faire if you’d like. So you don’t have to know how to make cassoulet, you don’t even have to speak French to attend (some “Bon soir” would help though).

French connection: A scene from the ‘white’ party at Beverly Hills.

This is Amsallem’s first trip to India, and deeply immersed as he has been in scouting venues and meeting sponsors, he’s impressed. “Mumbai is like any other global city. And I feel sorry that stereotypes had me think otherwise,” he says.

Localizing each event is key.

Themes can vary from “return to paradise”, where winged angels will usher you in at the door, to

the annual “white” party that is held in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.

Some form of entertainment—be it a string quartet or a belly dancer—is usually incorporated into the evening. Amsallem intends to attend the first few gigs in India till the brand establishes itself. A niggling concern when we spoke a week ago was if Bollywood music should be playing on the dance floor. “So many Indian

The Kempe Gowda Memorial Museum is open from Monday to Saturday, 9am-5pm. rahul.j@livemint.com

friends have strongly advised me against, and so many have endorsed it…I’m still learning the codes,” he says.

In an age of one-too-many virtual networking avenues, what French Tuesdays has in its favour is that it is neither professional networking nor a dating platform, but perched perilously in between. There is no entry fee.

Your ticket is the invitation. And while you pay for the drinks you consume, hors d’oeuvres, the entertainment and the party favours are on the house. Every event has two parts: an early cocktail reception from 9-11pm, which gives way to a dance floor.

The party ends at 1.30am: The world of successful individuals needs to get to work on Wednesday morning.

“There is no riff-raff,” says Amsallem, explaining that diversity within the group is important. A typical event will have around 10 nationalities and 30 professions represented (total count varies from 200-1,000, depending on the venue). “It’s not about how much money you have, or how many drinks you buy. Flashing cash notes is no way to enter our events,” says Amsallem, defensively. Understandably, he frequently encounters allegations of snobbery.

The Internet is rife with such personal accounts. A blogger, www.bigreddiary.com, writes of being turned away because her

male friend was wearing sandals (custom-made Hermès sandals, but still). “We do not allow sandals into our parties,” the doorman at the Los Angeles event had supposedly told her even after she argued that the invite had only said “no sneakers and T-shirts”. IDs were matched with “the list” and supplicants were eyeballed to make sure that dress codes were enforced.

However, it is this factor that draws many to the event. Shah says she is glad that members can only bring a limited number of guests to the event. “It prevents the party from getting diluted,” she says. “Anyway, Mumbai clubs are full of yuppies.”

For others who’ve committed to attending the premiere, such as Emmanuelle de Decker, head of programming, Blue Frog, the idea of a VIP circuit is mildly embarrassing. Decker, a former deputy director of cultural events at Alliance Francaise, Kolkata, is a French national who has been in India for seven years. She’d never heard of French Tuesdays till Amsallem approached her for a possible collaboration. She will attend because she is curious.

The first event in Mumbai will be held at Zinc (previously Zenzi) in Lower Parel. But if you were going, your hand-engraved invitation would have told you that already. anindita.g@livemint.com