Lounge 28 August 2009

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

www.livemint.com

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Vol. 3 No. 34

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

BUSINESS LOUNGE WITH TECH MAHINDRA’S VINEET NAYYAR >Page 6

EAST IS EAST Designer Wendell Rodricks on his dream holiday through Eastern Europe with partner Jerome Marrel >Page 17

YOUR FALL FASHION FIX Luxury picks of the colours, shapes and styles of this season Plus: Trend tips from the fashion glossies and a luxe shopping spree >Page 8­15

REPLY TO ALL

THE GOOD LIFE

AAKAR PATEL

THE BRAHMIN­ BANIA HEGEMONY

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n 9 April, the Supreme Court rejected a plea that the 2011 census be caste-based. CII and Ficci oppose job reservations in the private sector, but Manmohan Singh is keen. India’s population of Brahmins and Banias and Jains all together is 6% or less. The Sensex comprises the 30 largest traded companies of India. ACC is run by a Brahmin (Sumit Banerjee), Bhel is run by a Brahmin (Ravi Kumar Krishna Swamy), Bharti Airtel is run by... >Page 4

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as this happened to you? It is late at night and you are doing what you normally do—watching a game on TV, answering an email, reading a book, whatever. Next to you is a snack; some sort of Indian namkeen—masala peanuts, potato chips, or channa chur. You reach into the jar in a rhythm that is part-desire, part-desperation and mostly guilt. You have skipped dinner that night, you see, announcing to... >Page 5

A new book on Delhi recounts how the right spot for the Imperial Capital was chosen >Page 18

A Moschino ruffled silk clutch, Rs48,990.

OUR DAILY BREAD

SHOBA NARAYAN

SPICY PLEASURES AFTER DARK

THE EMPIRE’S NEW SEAT

SAMAR HALARNKAR

1964: LETTERS FROM MY GRANDMOTHER

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ecause of hectic work, man may get irritated. Don’t take it to heart…don’t be too proud of your education and don’t be too boastful of our achievements. Your father-in-law is like a jackfruit, rough outside but soft inside, affectionate and hospitable.

Don’t wander too much every night. Tell them (your in-laws) when you go out. Did you get the wool?” That was my grandmother, in a letter to my mother a year before I was born, worried that her daughter... >Page 22

RETURN OF THE ‘SAMBHAR’ COWBOY How the iconic dosa­eating superhero, Quick Gun Murugun, broke out of his shelved television avatar on to the big screen >Page 20

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

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA

HOME PAGE L3

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

LOUNGE REVIEW | INDIGO CAFÉ COOKING CLASS

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he sound of crackling mustard seeds, the fragrance of garlic frying in olive oil and the taste of brandied oranges can transform a boring morning. More so when you know that at the end of 3 hours you can duplicate parts of the menu at Mumbai’s Indigo Café at home. The café’s recently launched monthly cooking class is run by its chef Joydeep Mukherjee, or JD, as he is called.

(MANAGING EDITOR)

ANIL PADMANABHAN TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY MANAS CHAKRAVARTY HARJEET AHLUWALIA ELIZABETH EAPEN VENKATESHA BABU ©2009 HT Media Ltd All Rights Reserved

The good stuff Articulate and discerning, JD is undoubtedly the star of the show. In the first session, 25 yummy mummies from Andheri (West) with a lot of questions (and two bored-looking men) watched his every move with rapt attention. Everyone got a copy of the recipes that were part of the fivecourse cooking class menu.

There’ll be a new menu every month with dishes that are mostly non-vegetarian, but JD provides alternative vegetarian ingredients—tofu to replace fish, corn and paneer in place of crab meat, and so on.

The class begins at 10am sharp and walk-ins are allowed only if the class isn’t full. The biggest takeaway is learning how to use Indigo’s signature style of combining European recipes with Indian ingredients. On the menu this time were coconut-crusted crab cakes with kokum chutney; salad of baby potato and grilled onion with rosemary raita; tomato, coriander and ginger soup with mascarpone crisps; tamarind garlic rawas (Indian salmon) with peanut mashed potato and braised

TODAY’S BLOG

‘Avatar’: a preview BY SANJUKTA SHARMA

This and more at blogs.livemint.com/ livelounge

spinach; and Dulce de Leche Brioche with brandied oranges and ice cream.

Constant commentary and tastings keep the proceedings interesting (did you know strainers available at expensive Italian kitchenware stores are made in Andheri? Or that fresh fish shouldn’t be marinated for more than 10 minutes in an acidic paste?). Some women were full of questions that chef JD did his best to answer. But if you disturb his cooking session with redundant ones, he’ll politely but firmly ask you to keep them for later.

Almost the entire staff at Indigo is present, serving coffee, plating dishes and handing out tasting portions. For about the price of one main course entrée at Indigo Café, you get to taste five good entrées.

The not­so­good You end up doing more tasting than cooking. As I watched the chef toss the salad and marinate the rawas, I itched to get my hands dirty, but hands-on learning is not part of this class. That's probably the reason a class of 25 wannabe cooks cannot spoil the broth or slow the proceedings. Some women complained that the exotic ingredients used for the dishes were either too expensive or just hard to find.

Talk plastic A 3-hour session costs Rs500 plus taxes. The next class is scheduled to be held in September. For details, call 022-26336262.

Rachana Nakra

inbox

POETIC LICENCE

The 22 August issue of ‘Lounge’ was a refreshing assortment of articles. The cover story, ‘The New A to Z of fitness’, was superb. But I want to congratulate the team for introducing the column ‘Free Verse’. A slot dedicated to poetry is a great idea. Poetry played an important role in all civilizations. Poets were honoured in royal courts; even illiterate people memorized and narrated folk tales and epics in verse. For example, Teejan Bai, an exponent of traditional performing art, enacts tales from the Mahabharat in a mesmerizing way.

‘Lounge’ has opened up a new space in mainstream media for poetry. No gizmos and Internet can substitute good literature.

Write to us at lounge@livemint.com DOCTOR BLUES I agree with what Shoba Narayan has to say about doctors in ‘Oh, for the comfort of a false reassurance’, 22 August. I’ve been lucky to have had sympathetic nurses.

But generally speaking, doctors and nurses are an impatient lot. Nurses should be taught how to be kind; that could boost the morale of patients like you and me.

SHOBHANA

TELE QUEENS I was amazed to read the story, ‘Business news brings sexy back’, 22 August. Just how frivolous can TV reporting get? If it’s always going to be about the messenger and not the message, good luck with coping with competition. What Indian business news needed was a channel that concentrated on events, not unfounded opinion. It has this now in the form of ET Now. If TV18’s response is going to be flashier anchors, they’re going to eventually lose out.

VINOD KUMAR DELHI (The writer of this week’s winning letter wins a gift voucher worth Rs3,500 from Wills Lifestyle, redeemable at any of their outlets countrywide.

Wills Lifestyle offers a complete lifestyle wardrobe incorporating the latest fashion trends. Choose from Wills Classic workwear, Wills Sport relaxed wear, Wills Clublife evening wear and Wills Signature designer wear.)

VIJAY

SCARF WAR I was somewhat appreciative of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and believed in his statement that the burqa is a symbol of subjugation for Muslim women. I also disliked the idea that all men are lecherous and women must cover themselves to protect themselves from assault. However, after reading Mukul Kesavan’s ‘When the headscarf becomes a death sentence’, 8 August, I understand why Muslim immigrants choose to wear the headscarf. I clearly understand that for Europeans, banning the headscarf is not just about women’s rights but also about power over their Muslim immigrant population.

G VENKATARAMAN MUMBAI

WO IT! N

their rule, chances are there would be no Dalit leaders in India. I would like to point out that although malnutrition is a serious problem in India, our death rate is 6.23 per 1,000 people, comparable to Brazil and Australia. Sarcasm and angst notwithstanding, debasing meaningful debate by such hurried writing does much more harm.

VENKI

HOLY SMOKE ANGST­RIDDEN I understand and share Aakar Patel’s angst expressed in ‘The British left six decades too early’, 15 August.

But a closer look at the British Raj will reveal one flaw in their administration: their reluctance to remove caste barriers. In fact, in many ways they indulged the upper castes and reinforced social hierarchy. If we were still under

I refer to the book review ‘A market for holy men’, 22 August. Meera Nanda, the author of the book reviewed, seems to have deliberately made the book controversial to increase sales. If she were to do even a fraction of what Baba Ramdev has done, she would be considered successful.

VIJAY

Priya Ramani’s column First Cut will be back next week.

L4 COLUMNS SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

AAKAR PATEL REPLY TO ALL

When will the Brahmin­Bania hegemony end?

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n 9 April, the Supreme Court rejected a plea that the 2011 census be caste-based.

CII and Ficci oppose job reservations in the private sector, but Manmohan Singh is keen. India’s population of Brahmins

and Banias and Jains all together is 6% or less.

The Sensex comprises the 30 largest traded companies of India.

ACC is run by a Brahmin (Sumit Banerjee), Bhel is run by a Brahmin (Ravi Kumar Krishna Swamy), Bharti Airtel is run by a Bania (Sunil Mittal), Grasim and Hindalco are run by a Bania (Kumar Mangalam Birla).

HDFC is run by a Bania (Deepak Parekh), Hindustan Unilever is run by a Brahmin (Nitin Paranjpe), ICICI Bank is headed by a Brahmin (K.V. Kamath).

Jaiprakash Associates is run by a Brahmin (Yogesh Gaur), L&T is run by a Brahmin (A.M. Naik), NTPC is run by a Brahmin (R.S. Sharma), ONGC is run by a Brahmin (also called R.S. Sharma).

Reliance group firms are run by Banias (Mukesh and Anil Ambani), State Bank of India is run by a Brahmin (O.P. Bhatt), Sterlite Industries is run by a Bania (Anil Agarwal), Sun Pharma is run by a Bania (Dilip Shanghvi) and Tata Steel is run by a Brahmin (B. Muthuraman).

Punjab National Bank is run by a Brahmin (K.C. Chakrabarty), Bank of Baroda is run by a Brahmin (M.D. Mallya) and Canara Bank is run by a Bania (A.C. Mahajan).

Of India’s software companies, Infosys is run by a Brahmin (Kris Gopalakrishnan now and Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani before him). TCS is run by a Brahmin (Subramanian Ramadorai). Wipro is owned by a Khoja (Azim Premji). Khojas are Shia of the Sevener sect, converted from the Luhana trading community (same caste as L.K. Advani and M.A. Jinnah).

India’s two largest airlines are Kingfisher, owned by a Brahmin (Vijay Mallya) and Jet, owned

by a Bania (Naresh Goyal).

Of India’s mobile phone firms, Reliance Communications (Ambani), Airtel (Mittal), Vodafone Essar (Ruia), Idea (Birla), Spice (Modi) are owned by Banias. BSNL is run by a Bania (Kuldeep Goyal) and Tata’s TTML is run by a Brahmin (K.A. Chaukar).

Cricket in India is run by a Bania (Lalit Modi) and before him it was run by another Bania (Jagmohan Dalmiya).

Media in India is almost entirely controlled by Banias and Jains. Of the two largest English newspapers, The Times of India is owned by Jains and the Hindustan Times is owned by Banias (Birla). The third largest English paper, The Hindu, is owned by Brahmins (Kasturi Iyengar family). The Indian Express is owned by Banias (Goenka). Zee TV is owned by a Bania (Subhash Chandra Goel). Of the two largest Hindi newspapers, Dainik Jagran is owned by Banias (Gupta), and Dainik Bhaskar is owned by Banias (Agarwal). The Agarwals also own Gujarati daily Divya Bhaskar. The largest Gujarati newspaper Gujarat Samachar is owned by Jains (Shah).

The largest Marathi paper Lokmat is owned by Jains (Darda). Rajasthan Patrika is owned by Jains (Kothari).

Navbharat Times is owned by Jains and Hindustan owned by Banias (Birla). Amar Ujala is owned by Banias (Maheshwari).

Of India’s steel companies Essar is owned by Banias (Ruia), ArcelorMittal is owned by a Bania (Laxmi Mittal), Ispat is owned by Banias (Mittals), Jindal Steel is owned by Banias, Bhushan Steel is owned by Banias (Singhal), VISA Steel is owned by Banias (Agarwal). State-owned SAIL is run by a Bania (S.K. Roongta) and

Ruling axis: Jawaharlal Nehru, a Brahmin, became Prime Minister with the blessings of Mahatma Gandhi, a Bania.

Lloyd Steel is owned by Banias (Gupta).

Of India’s cement companies, Ambuja is owned by Banias (Neotia and Sekhsaria), Dalmia Cements is owned by Banias, Ultratech and Vikram Cement are owned by Banias (Birla) and JK Cement is owned by Banias (Singhania).

Hindustan Motors is owned by Banias (Birla) and Bajaj Auto is owned by Banias.

Old economy, new economy: All economy in India is owned and run by two castes.

The Brahmin used his monopoly on knowledge and the Bania used his high-trust culture of trade to become dominant. Their skills are world-class.

Given the realities of capital formation, it is difficult for other castes to catch up soon.

The largest caste in India is Shudra.

We think Shudra means untouchable, but it actually means peasant. The peasant castes, such as Patel, constitute more than 50% of India’s population.

Andhra Pradesh is run by a peasant Christian (Y.S.R. Reddy), Bihar is run by a peasant Kurmi (Nitish Kumar) and Gujarat is run by a peasant from the Teli/Ghanchi caste (Narendra Modi).

Haryana is run by a peasant Jat (Bhupinder Hooda), Karnataka is ruled

by a peasant Lingayat (B.S. Yeddyurappa), Kerala is run by a peasant Ezhava (V.S. Achuthanandan) and Madhya Pradesh is run by a peasant OBC (Shivraj Chouhan).

Maharashtra is run by a peasant Maratha (Ashok Chavan), Rajasthan is run by a peasant Mali (Ashok Gehlot), Punjab is run by a peasant Jat (Parkash Badal), Tamil Nadu is run by a peasant Vellalar (M. Karunanidhi) and Uttar Pradesh is run by a Dalit (Mayawati).

Only one large state in India is run by a Brahmin and he, West Bengal’s Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, is a Communist.

India’s Prime Minister is a Sikh (Manmohan Singh) and President is a peasant Maratha (Pratibha Patil).

At independence, India was run by a Brahmin (Jawaharlal Nehru) whose mentor was a Bania (Mahatma Gandhi).

The chief minister of Uttar Pradesh was a Brahmin (Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant), the first chief minister of Gujarat was a Bania (Jivraj Mehta). Madhya Pradesh was run by a Brahmin (Ravi Shankar Shukla), Rajasthan was run by a Brahmin (H.L. Shastri), Kerala was run by a Brahmin (E.M.S. Namboodiripad), Punjab was run by a Brahmin (G.C.

Bhargava) and Assam was ruled by a Brahmin (G.N. Bordoloi).

At independence, the peasant had neither political nor economic strength.

Democracy transferred power from the Brahmin to him.

The Brahmin and the Bania still control the economy, but now the Shudra controls politics.

The Brahmin and Bania oppose reservations in the private sector, which they totally dominate. The Shudra wants his share, but the Brahmin and Bania say their dominance is from merit.

The Brahmin and Bania control the media, but the Shudra controls legislation.

Sooner rather than later, reservations will come.

(Mint is published by HT Media Ltd, which also publishes Hindustan Times.)

Aakar Patel is a director with Hill Road Media.

Write to Aakar at replytoall@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Aakar’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/aakar­patel

COLUMNS L5

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SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE

Spicy, tart pleasures best savoured after dark

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HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

as this happened to you? It is late at night and you are doing what you normally do—watching a game on TV, answering an email, reading a book, whatever. Next to you is a snack; some

sort of Indian namkeen—masala peanuts, potato chips, or channa chur.

You reach into the jar in a rhythm that is part-desire, part-desperation and mostly guilt. You have skipped dinner that night, you see, announcing to everyone that you are on a diet. Now, the household is in bed and you are downing fistfuls of this spicy siren of a snack, every mouthful making a mockery of your diet and your statement. The worst part? This isn’t the first time this has happened.

There is a theory that most of us regress to our roots in different ways.

We may be English-speaking, martini-swigging, secular, cosmopolitan, globally travelled Indians. But in some aspect of our lives, we go back to our childhood.

Bankers in London who have shed every vestige of their Indian past find themselves crooning to babies in their native Sindhi or Marathi. The Goan advertising executive who only savours the finest cigars and wine might take a secret swig of feni. The suave lady whose parents migrated from Lucknow to Lodhi Estate might speak no Urdu, save for swear words.

The westernized Punjabi executive in Colaba who specifically chose a

stunning Brazilian model as wife suddenly finds his sari-clad neighbour sexy.

For many of us, this regression has to do with food cravings, typically at midnight, typically when away from home. Even the CEO who has distanced himself from the caste, class, religion and region that he was born into yearns for curd rice or poshto when alone in a foreign hotel room. As for me, I must have been Marwari in my previous birth. My cravings have little to do with the idli and dosa I grew up with. Me, I desire Bikaneri bhujia, usually after dark.

The craving hits at midnight, after everyone has gone to sleep. Only my dog is witness to my transgressions. I start off insouciantly, elegantly spooning handfuls of bhujia sev into a bowl, ostensibly to calm down hunger pangs. I finish the bowl and find that I cannot stop. Namkeens are my secret pleasure and my dieting pitfall. Thenkozhal from Grand Sweets in Chennai; chaklis from Hubli; kakda from Chaddha Stores in Mumbai; a muri mixture from Kolkata; I have them all in my cabinet.

I am a savoury, not unsavoury character (sorry, couldn’t resist). I can look a gulab jamun in the eye and turn

They are spongy and rich and not too sweet.

Savouries, on the other hand, are my—and I would argue, an Indian— weakness. I can polish off an entire table of them and often have, usually while reading a book. I think one of India’s great inventions is the notion of a savoury snack that is not bland like a pretzel or cheese ball.

Our namkeens are pungent, tart and spicy.

Like dal moth, channa chur, cornflakes mixture and my personal favourite, bhujia sev.

When I was a kid growing up in Chennai, my mother would take us to Parry’s Corner to the Marwari stronghold.

There, amid the narrow bylanes with shops selling yards of electrical Forbidden: But most Indians succumb to the namkeen. coil and hanging lights, you could buy bhujia away without flinching. Gajar ka halwa sev that was made fresh every day. My is an afterthought. The purans that brother and I would mix the bhujia sev stretch all the way up the Konkan coast with thick yogurt and eat it at night after do nothing for me. As for any sweet dinner. It was divine; and rationed out. I that has a coconut filling, I scorn them still crave namkeens at night, usually entirely, having grown up with seven after a satisfying music concert or other coconut trees, ergo, a childhood’s satisfying activities. Other people roll worth of burfis. Only Kolkata’s sweets over after—oh, I don’t know—a will stir some saliva in my mouth. television show and smoke a cigarette. I Forget sandesh. Too dry. I like my roll over and reach for my jar of bhujia. sweets gooey—like tiramisu and A couple of years ago, I stayed at mousse. Kolkata’s rasgullas come close.

Chhatra Sagar, an ethereal tented

camp in Nimaj, Rajasthan. Dashing Harsh Vardhan Singh, who runs the camp with his brothers, mentioned that the secret ingredient in the bhujia is Bikaneri desert sand.

That’s what gives it its unmistakable crunch. A pinch of desert sand along with a generous dash of red chilli powder fried with besan. What could be better?

For us vegetarians, namkeens are a great balancer to the meat-eaters who sing the pleasures of pork chops and mutton biryani. Non-vegetarian delights may be beyond our palate’s reach but namkeens are egalitarian; available to all. I could be wrong but I think Gujarat and Rajasthan are namkeen havens. The south too has savouries but ours— murukkus, ompodi, and chaklis—don’t have that spicy kick. Gujarat, in particular, with its penchant for farsan, would be a namkeen taster’s paradise.

Gujarati farsans are not chilli-hot, but the besan flour gives it a flavour that is exotic to my south Indian tastebuds, given that most south Indian namkeens have a base of rice or urad-dal flour.

I wonder if we Indians crave sweets or savouries. I would wager savouries.

What do you eat or drink at night, after dinner, when you are alone? It may tell you who you are far better than a Myers-Briggs test can.

Shoba Narayan also eats dark chocolates after dark. Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shoba­narayan

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009

Business Lounge VINEET NAYYAR

A veteran on the treadmill The plan to rescue Satyam Computers is the next big test in Nayyar’s 40­year career B Y V EENA V ENUGOPAL veena.v@livemint.com

···························· n Delhi’s Mathura Road, at any time of the day or night, it feels like the bustle will never end. It’s crowded and noisy, yet one small turn from this key artery takes you to a quiet, leafy colony that exudes understated power and old money. I was visiting Vineet Nayyar’s home after eight years and as I pulled in, it looked like nothing had changed.

Flanked by 12ft-high compound walls and filigreed wrought iron gates, Nayyar’s house still sported the low wooden door and the same whitewash. When

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JAYACHANDRAN/MINT

I was last here (as an employee of HCL Technologies, where he was the vice-chairman), I remember being startled by the practically framed and casually hung M.F. Husains and Sanjay Bhattacharyas on the walls. Everything seemed invaluable, yet nothing seemed expensive.

This time around, I meet him in a new wing, up one floor, past a glass door and into an office.

A 40-year career spanning public and private enterprises notwithstanding, Nayyar is now in the news for leading Tech Mahindra’s acquisition of the beleaguered Satyam Computers.

Over coffee, the vice-chairman of Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra began by explaining what his concerns about acquiring Satyam were and what made him go down that rabbit hole.

“We looked at the numbers. We knew their reputation and we did believe that it was a good company with a very good foundation. Its delivery capability was quite awesome and that played out quite well. Like everyone else we also had our questions: Will the company survive?

Will the clients stay with it? And immediately in the wake of 7 January (when Ramalinga Raju wrote the now infamous letter about the tiger of financial embezzlement he was riding), there was a fairly massive attrition of clients. But what was pleasantly surprising was the number of clients who stayed on despite the size and scale of the scandal,” he says.

The new board was formally inducted on 1 June. As soon as the accounts of Satyam are recast, Nayyar will start the process of merging the company with Tech Mahindra.

I have heard him praise Raju for building the company he did, I begin, but he interrupts me. He doesn’t like the word praise, he says—praise is not right. Then he sits back and explains. “What interests me about Raju is that the man had vision. He built this company from six computers to the size it is now. It isn’t easy, and I can say that having been through that myself. What drove him to do what he did is what interests me. A lot of people suspect it was greed. I think it was pride,” he says, before adding the disclaimer that this was only armchair psychology and his assumptions were not based on any facts. “It’s very easy to paint people in black and white and especially when one is your age, one does. But when one is my age, one real-

TRIVIAL PURSUITS | GYMMING

Mr Fix­it: Nayyar says public policy has been the biggest turn­on in his career.

Vineet Nayyar is a fitness fanatic, so to speak. One of the conditions of his employment is that there should be a gym next to his office. He skips lunch and does an hour of cardio and light weights instead. “The weight training is basic, only to keep my ageing muscles going,” he says, “and lunch makes me sleepy.”

It is truly “survival of the fittest” at the companies he runs. A lot of serious meetings are conducted in the gym where cross­trainers and whiteboards reside cheek by jowl. “The guy who is not fit gets out of breath and cannot make his point. And he loses out.

Later, he cannot complain about being coerced into an assignment or make any excuses for not achieving targets that were set in the gym meeting,” he says.

izes that there are all kinds of human beings that make the world. I almost think he’s like a Greek hero who plotted his downfall step by step. Nobody knows what drove him but everybody is curious.”

The age issue is something that comes up often, I realize.

But at 70, it is, perhaps, well justified. Nayyar started his career with the Indian Administrative Service. He speaks fondly and fiercely about his experience in the government. “I still believe that my most fascinating period was with the government. Public policy is perhaps the greatest turn-on. Your capacity to make an impact is tremendous. And whatever bullshit people talk about the government, nobody stops you from doing what you should,” he says.

His most memorable assignment was in Haryana (while with the government), getting borewells dug and a road network built between the villages and the mandis (agricultural markets), “much before you were born”.

After holding a series of positions, including that of director, department of economic affairs, with the Union government, he was deputed on an assignment to the World Bank. “I was posted in (South) Korea, trying to untangle their financial system after a scam worse than our Harshad Mehta’s,” he says. He came back to India to be the founding-chairman of Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL).

“And here I was, heading a company that was laying Asia’s largest gas pipeline and I did not even know w hat a pipelin e looked like before that. We completed that project in 11 months,” he says. When he completed his tenure at GAIL, he joined HCL Technologies as its vice-chairman in 1994. Four years ago, he moved to Tech Mahindra. So I ask him the inevitable age-related question: What keeps him going? Why hasn’t he retired to a mountain home? He laughs and admits he has thought about it often.

“Work is fun. If it’s fun, it’s interesting. And what is life? It’s a cross section of different experiences. And if you are fortunate enough to be exposed to those experiences, it’s nice, isn’t it?” he asks; rhetorically, I presume.

Then, he turns serious and talks about his retirement plans.

His wife, Reva, a former bureaucrat herself, runs their charitable foundation that is involved in funding educational initiatives for underprivileged children.

Right now, he is only signing cheques, but he would like to spend more time working at the foundation. On 17 January, his five-year tenure with Tech Mahindra comes to an end.

“Let’s see what happens,” he says vaguely.

When the history of Indian business is written, the rise, fall and subsequent rescue of Satyam are bound to form an interesting paragraph. Did this play any part at all in his decision to bid for the company? He thinks it through. “No,” he says firmly, “but in hindsight it has.”

It would be easy to imagine that in another year, by when Nayyar expects Satyam to shake off the smell of the scandal and stand on its own, he would calmly walk away from the adrenalin-fuelled life of striking deals and running companies to a life of quiet contentment. But somehow, that seems unlikely.

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009

Cover

YOUR FALL FASHION FIX Luxury picks of the colours, shapes and styles of this season Plus: Trend tips from the fashion glossies and a luxe shopping spree B Y R ACHANA N AKRA

&

CHUNKY NECK PIECES

ˆ

S EEMA C HOWDHRY

rachana.n@livemint.com

Lanvin: Gold, metal and crystals ‘Lanvin Phare’ breastplate, Rs27,990.

······································

THE

shape

OF THINGS

CHAIN STRAP BAG

Diane von Furstenberg: Red and yellow chunky necklace, Rs12,900.

ˆ

‡ Christian Dior: Leather clutch, approx.

Rs33,000.

EXAGGERATED SHOULDERS

‡

ˆ

Tod’s: Girelli Sacca Media leather bag, Rs82,000.

BOOTIES

…

Jimmy Choo: Metallic suede bootie, Rs48,000.

Marc Jacobs: Metallic blue structured jacket, Rs68,990.

‡ Tod’s: ‘Nausica T’ ankle boot, Rs35,000.

L10 COVER

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ˆ Bvlgari: Pink gold necklace with amethyst, citrine quartz and diamonds from the Parentesi Cocktail collection, Rs9,97,500.

ˆ

Etro: Silver cufflinks, Rs18,500.

‡

Diane von Furstenberg: Cork wedge boots, Rs24,990.

‡ Christian Dior: Ring in gun metal with lacquer and Swarovski crystals, Rs25,100.

‡ Canali: Woollen pullover, Rs12,000 each.

…

Paul Smith: Jeans, Rs13,000.

…

Tarun Tahiliani: Sari with jacket, Rs1.35 lakh.

…

Alberta Ferretti: Knit dress, Rs64,440.

COVER L11

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…

Marc Jacobs: ‘Jumbo Waves Wrath’ bag with metal embellishments, approx. Rs1 lakh.

metal HEAVY

‡ Chloé: ‘See by Chloé’ stud­embellished silk dress, Rs26,382.

…

Jean Paul Gaultier: Black leather jacket with metal detailing, Rs69,990.

‡ Halston: Stud­embellished cuff, approx. Rs59,500.

Louis Vuitton: ‘Neo Noe’ metal­embellished bag with chain strap, Rs2.8 lakh.

† …

Jimmy Choo: ‘Cecile­Pony’ animal print clutch with metal studs, Rs1,38,500.

ˆ

Diane von Furstenberg: Pink satin studded clutch, Rs32,990.

ˆ

Oscar de la Renta: Chequered leather boots with metal studs, approx. Rs97,100.

L12 COVER

COVER L13

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

† Etro: Ties, approx.

Rs7,000 each.

Jimmy Choo: ‘Ordette’ bag, approx. Rs1.2 lakh.

†

…

Ashish Soni: Maroon silk jacquard suit with black velvet trimming, Rs38,000.

Christian Dior: Ruched gold silk dress, approx. Rs2.16 lakh.

†

‡ Christian Dior: Leopard­print sunglasses, Rs14,654.

ˆ

…

Etro: Handbag, Rs1,18,000.

…

Moschino: Red and grey T­shirt, Rs24,990.

Lanvin: Ruched silk bustier dress, Rs89,990.

shopping GUIDE } Alberta Ferretti: Kitsch, DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi

ˆ …

Christian Louboutin: ‘Pigalle 100’ pumps, approx. Rs39,200.

ˆ

Salvatore Ferragamo: Mini ‘Vara’ ruched purse, Rs72,000.

Alfred Dunhill: Leather tote, Rs47,999.

} Alfred Dunhill: UB City, Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore; and DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi } Ashish Soni: DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi } Bvlgari: The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Colaba, Mumbai; and The Oberoi hotel, Dr Zakir Hussain Marg, New Delhi

ˆ

† Diane von Furstenberg: Leopard­print wool dress, Rs34,990.

Salvatore Ferragamo: ‘Gancio Raccolto’ leather handbag with gathers, approx. Rs1 lakh.

‡

Paul Smith: Calfskin wallet, Rs11,000.

†

…

Moschino: Lime green ruffled clutch, Rs56,990.

Diane von Furstenberg: Ruffled embellished feather flapper dress, Rs39,990.

} Canali: UB City, Bangalore; JW Marriott, Juhu, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi } Chloé: At www.net­a­porter.com } Christian Dior: DLF Emporio mall, and The Oberoi hotel, Dr Zakir Hussain Marg, New Delhi } Christian Louboutin: At www.net­a­porter.com

} Jean Paul Gaultier: UB City, Bangalore } Jimmy Choo: DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi } Lanvin: UB City, Bangalore } Louis Vuitton: The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Mumbai and DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi } Marc by Marc Jacobs: DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi } Moschino: UB City, Bangalore; and The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Mumbai } Oscar de la Renta: At www.net­a­porter.com } Paul Smith: UB City, Bangalore; and DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi } Salvatore Ferragamo: Grand Hyatt, Santacruz, and The Galleria, Nariman Point, Mumbai, and DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi

} Diane von Furstenberg: Kitsch, DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi

} Tarun Tahiliani: Ensemble and Tarun Tahiliani stores in Mumbai and New Delhi

} Etro: Thanks, Worli, Mumbai

} Tod’s: UB City, Bangalore; The Galleria, Mumbai; DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi

} Halston: At www.net­a­porter.com

L14 COVER

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

gloss ALL THAT

Fashion magazines share their covers, top trends, great bargains and hot tips from their September issues

}ELLE Mohan Neelakantan, fashion director Top trend: The Boyfriend Jacket is the season’s showstopper. It’s very versatile, and is always easy to throw on over everything, from dresses and shorts to jumpsuits.

Season’s style tip: Invest in the classics.

Bargain buy: The jumpsuit. Polyester jumpsuit, from Forever New, Rs1,800.

Last season’s keeper: Anything with shoulder pads; the 1980s continue to be a reigning fashion trend.

On the cover: PHOTOGRAPHS

COURTESY

ELLE, INDIA

Jyothsna Chakravarthy in a quilted jacket and suede trousers with leather and silver bracelets and ring and leather belt, all from Tod’s.

Photographed by Alessandro Zeno.

M ANGO

TOP TREND

BARGAIN BUY

PHOTOGRAPHS

COURTESY

VOGUE INDIA

} VOGUE INDIA Anaita Shroff Adajania, fashion director Top trend: Definitely the return of 1980s fashion. It’s all about power dressing. Opt for strong exaggerated shoulders, pop neon colours, psychedelic prints and sequins, sequins and sequins. Remember, though, that while you can borrow elements from the 1980s, you should reinterpret them in a modern, 2009 way.

TOP TREND

Season’s style tip: Going with the 1980s theme, incorporate some neon elements in your wardrobe. A neon clutch or shoes will take your look from day to night; colour lovers, go all out with a pop­hued jacket, or opt for a pop­hued winter coat.

Bargain buy: Metro Booties, Rs2,690.

BARGAIN BUY

} HARPER’S BAZAAR INDIA

Last season’s keeper: The fantasy shoe—the more ornate and higher, the better.

Sujata Assomull, editor

On the cover:

Top trend:

Gisele Bündchen in a crystal­embellished tweed jacket by Balmain and a crystal­embellished digital print bikini by Tarun Tahiliani.

Photographed by Patrick Demarchelier.

PHOTOGRAPHS

COURTESY

HARPER’S BAZAAR INDIA

It’s all about some truly fabulous fashion for ‘Bazaar’ this fall, and we are saying that it is The Season to Shine. Fashion is in a very celebratory mood—it has become richer with metallics, flounce and flutter. Blingy baubles in a chic baroque style are the order of the day.

It is all about dressing up and enjoying being dressed up.

Season’s style tip: Invest in a high­impact metallic textured garment, perhaps in lamé or brocade. It will ensure that you shine through the season.

TOP TREND BARGAIN BUY

Bargain buy: This chain belt is great for fall winter; wear it on a basic pair of black pants to add some edge, on a LBD to go from classic to biker­chic or with your favourite pair of denims. Versatile and well priced at Rs1,940 at Chamomile, it’s a great buy. Remember that the “waisted” look is back and metallics are a must for this season to shine!

Last season’s keeper: Emporio Armani’s grey pearl and floral necklace.

Grey really makes a comeback this fall, and is a neutral you cannot go wrong with, and pearls always work. It adds punch to any outfit and it is fabulous, fun and fashionable.

MANGO

On the cover: Bipasha Basu in a D&G satin corset and evening trousers. Photographed by Atul Kasbekar.

Inputs coordinated by Parizaad Khan

COVER L15

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

MADHU KAPPARATH/MINT

Style statements: Ansal at Casa Paradox, DLF Emporio mall, in a kimono­kurta top from Janavi, Armani jeans and an Alpana Gujral neck piece.

luxe TRAIL We went store­hopping at Delhi’s DLF Emporio mall with Raseel Gujral Ansal

‡ …

Alpana Gujral: Neck piece with freshwater pearls and garnets, approx. Rs1 lakh.

Ensemble: Sari with blouse from Jewel and Pearl collection, Rs69,990.

B Y S EEMA C HOWDHRY seema.c@livemint.com

···························· aseel Gujral Ansal likes peaches, yellows, reds, fuchsia, oranges. Yet when she spots an Alma MM Orange Sunset bag (Rs1.07 lakh) at the Louis Vuitton store at DLF Emporio mall, New Delhi, where we are on a luxe shopping tour, she says she would never buy it.

“I love the shape of the bag and the shade is great but I don’t like to buy things that overtly flaunt the brand identity.” The bag is embossed with the LV logo all over. “My idea of a luxury bag is not a Birkin or Fendi either. I like accessories to merge in with my outfit, not stand out.” At present her favourite handbag is a three-year-old chocolate hobo bag with tassels from Miu Miu. And no, you cannot see the brand label.

Ansal, an interior designer and partner at Casa Paradox, a luxury furniture and accessories store, describes herself as a “shopper who will not buy outfits and accessories that are mood-ofthe-moment pieces. I prefer things that I will enjoy using for a while, and which work with pieces I already have.”

At work she prefers to wear clothes that are not too revealing and footwear that is comfortable, but for a night out on town she “always wears stilettos which have at least a 5-inch heel”. Ansal says she never wears skirts and dresses and prefers trousers, pyjamas and even lungis. “I like to pick up classic pieces in Western wear as opposed to what is ‘in fashion’ right now. That way I can wear them longer, like this fouryear-old Galliano ankle-length trench coat that I still count among my all-time best buys.”

One of the reasons why Giorgio Armani is a brand she likes is that she finds products at this brand understated. At the Giorgio Armani store, she zeroes in on a calf-leather python imprint bag (Rs1.04 lakh) and cannot resist a pair of calf-leather shoes (Rs37,000) for her husband. “The colour of the bag will work with any outfit and I like its shape.”

As a shopper, Ansal knows her mind and normally never asks for an opinion from shop attendants or takes anyone with her while she shops in Delhi, which

R

according to her is the best city for her shopping needs. “I know where I can get what I want and buy it when I need it. Plus with all designers being friends I can ask them to make a version of an outfit that is less embellished.”

Apart from Delhi, the only other place she likes to shop at is Milan. “The atmosphere at Montenapoleone is great because all the brands are on this one street and you get the latest stuff.”

To compensate for her “fireshades” fetish, she deliberately looks out for outfits in blues and greens. At Ensemble, she spots a multicoloured lehenga and while she finds it beautiful, she says this is “an outfit that would be a one-time statement piece. I may like it but I will not buy it because I can’t wear it again.” She chooses a midnight blue sari from the Ensemble Design Studios’ Jewel and Pearl collection (Rs69,900) and a dull gold ari work sari by Aarti Talwar (Rs74,000). It’s the colour of the outfit that attracts her to these pieces.

However, she slips up on her “no reds, pinks” motto of the day at the Abu and Sandeep store. After almost deciding on a green and white pearl-encrusted flowing kurta, she changes her mind when she spots a fuchsiacoloured empire-waisted kurta and churidaar from the Mesh collection (Rs1 lakh). “I love the neckline on that piece. In fact, I will have to go back and buy it now,” she confides as we walk out of the store.

Though Ansal likes to buy designer saris (her favourite brands include Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, Kotwara, Ravi Bajaj, Suneet Verma), as far as jewellery is concerned she is partial to her sister Alpana Gujral’s pieces and Cartier. “I like Cartier jewellery designs because their designs are art deco.” At her sister’s store she picks an elaborate neck piece made with freshwater pearls and garnets, black onyx, rubies and polki (Rs1 lakh approx.), while at Cartier she chooses the Panthere Pelange necklace with an emerald (Rs32.30 lakh). She also points out the Ballon Bleu de Cartier (Rs7.71 lakh), a watch she already has. “I prefer wearing watches with a large dial because they look better on a small wrist.”

‡

Abu and Sandeep: Kurta and churidaar from Mesh collection, Rs1 lakh.

† Giorgio Armani: Calf­leather, python imprint bag, Rs1.04 lakh.

L16

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009

Travel HORSE RACES AND GELATOS Volterra is an excellent base for investigating the charms of outlying Tuscany. Day trips include: u San

Gimignano, less than an hour away, is a small walled medieval hill town whose 14 towers can be seen from several kilometres away. The town is also famous for its white wine. u Siena, an hour from Volterra,

is home to the bareback horse race known as Palio. Held in July and August every year, it sees people racing horses around the cobbled streets of the town and the stunning square, the Piazza del Campo. Alternatively, just find a chair in the ‘piazza’ to enjoy some nice wine and cheese, or perhaps a slice of pizza.

TUSCANY

Italian platter

u Pisa, a little over an hour

away, has the Leaning Tower, of course, but it is also an utterly pretty town dotted with peaceful streets, medieval palaces and university buildings. u Lucca, 90 minutes away, is a ARUN RAJAPPA

The flavours of fresh produce, local wine and ‘La Dolce Vita’. Inimitably Italy

u Cinque

B Y K ANCHUKI S ARMA ···························· na bottiglia Chianti Classico, per favore,” I say to the impeccably dressed lady at the wine store.

I am in a medieval hill town in Tuscany, Italy, shopping for groceries and wine. Today we have decided to take a break from hilltown hopping to enjoy Volterra, our home for the week. What better way to do this than to cook a meal put together with ingredients bought locally?

At the Piazza de’ Priori or town centre, the enotecas (wine stores) are open for business at 9am. They are well stocked with Chiantis, Brunellos from Montalcino, refreshing whites from San Gimignano, and more.

The woman at the enoteca smiles at my toddler, adding a sing-song “bella bambina” as she hands me the bottle of Chianti. All I can do is smile back at her with a “grazie”. I walk down the narrow, cobbled Via Guarnacci, lined with the dusty workrooms of alabaster artisans. At the cafés, a few locals are enjoying their espressos and cappuccinos. With Volterra still undiscovered, the busloads of tourists one sees in more popular hill towns in Tuscany are mercifully missing. Walking down the hill towards the farmhouse where

Terre, the Italian Riviera, is a conglomeration of five villages noted for their breathtaking natural beauty.

Houses cling to the hillsides along the blue­green Ligurian sea, and the walking trail winds through vineyards and olive groves. No cars are allowed here: La Spezia, where you must leave your vehicle, is 2 hours from Volterra.

U

u Florence, 90 minutes away,

can also be done as a day trip if you aren’t enamoured of art (the Uffizi Gallery itself can account for many days of touring).

Masterpieces of sculpture are everywhere in this city, but don’t give Florence’s gelatos a miss: They are supposed to be the best in Italy.

Idyllic pleasures: (top) A bridge from the Middle Ages in Tuscany; a café on Via Guarnacci.

I am staying, I see people going about their daily business, uninvaded. Children are playing near the ancient city walls, old men are sitting out in the sun.

Past the old Roman amphitheatre and the Museo della Tortura (Museum of Torture), I walk by houses with little gardens, where artichokes are ripening in rows.

Trees are heavy with apple, plum and orange.

A group of frumpily dressed middle-aged women is heading towards a little panetica (bakery),

and I follow them in. I’ve had enough meals in Tuscany not to be confused by the rustic breads.

So I simply ask for the flat breads that will make good bruschetta, saying, “Du panini, per favore”.

My third stop is at alimentari, the grocery. The cheeses, some of them highly odorous, baffle me.

The caciotta or the pecorino? Perhaps the ricotta? Why not the marzolino? Pecorino, made from sheep’s milk right here in Tuscany, seems appropriate. In it goes! This is followed by half a pound of ARUN RAJAPPA

AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

determinedly university town that makes for some lovely strolls along the old walls with students and residents.

The classic: Tuscany’s Chianti­producing region is called Lega del Chianti.

green olives, some pappardelle pasta and arrabbiata sauce.

I should leave, but I’m curious to know what the local ladies are buying. Cinghiali, or wild boar meat, is popular, as are the bistecca alla Fiorentina, beefsteak supposedly eaten very rare. Thin slices of carpaccio, or raw beef, are also flying off the shelves. So are the greens and the funghi, as well as garlic pods and peppers! I pick up some fresh greens for salad, crisp apples, a bunch of spinach to sauté with butter, and eggplant for the second course. By now my grocery bag is straining my arm; I’m ready to get back home and put the meal together.

As I walk down the steep hill along the ridge of the Le Balze, the dramatic ochre cliffside that forms the city boundary, I pass by groves where black olives are ripening.

Before too long, I’d find out the taste of the freshly pressed olive oil.

Just before turning into our gate, I pass an adjoining terraced garden where a farmhand is working on tomato vines. Spotting us, he walks over with some ripe red pomodoros (tomatoes) and, with the by-now-familiar “bella bambina” to my little daughter, adds them to my grocery bag.

Back at the farmhouse, Inger, our Dutch landlady, comes in with some home-made tiramisu. Years ago, Inger and her Italian husband Massimo took up an old farmhouse and converted the granaries and stables into contemporary apartments that they now let out to vacationers. Married for a decade, she has picked up Italian cooking through much trial and

error. With Inger’s help, the meal is a great success. We sit around the wooden table in the veranda, sipping our Chianti and downing the simple bruschetta I had prepared—bread topped with olive paste and drizzled with the very young local olive oil. The crusty bread tastes great dipped into the minestrone soup, simulating the popular Tuscan ribollita, a soup made of white beans, cabbage and leftover bread. The tangy, crisp green apples compliment the pecorino in the insalata, while the primi piatti (main course) of pasta with arrabbiatta sauce provides much-needed spice to our palates.

The secondi of eggplant dipped in flour and fried, topped with pomodoro sauce and Parmesano-Reggiano, is a good vegetarian alternative to the steak.

We move on to the espresso and panforte (a sweet almondflavoured hard bread eaten as dessert). As we gaze at the rolling hills, sipping our espresso, I remember the very apt words I’d seen on a trattoria: To the Client: “Go to a trattoria religiously, like an artist goes to his studio” To the Host: “Treat a client like a good guest, give him good food, and that’s it!”

To that I’d add, “Treat yourself well, as the Italians do. Cheers to La Dolce Vita!”

CHILD­FRIENDLY RATING

An Italian village setting is very welcoming for children.

TRAVEL L17

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

HOLIDAY POSTMORTEM | WENDELL RODRICKS AFP

Milestones: (clockwise from left) The Wenceslas Square in Prague; statues of Hungarian heroes at Budapest’s Heroes Square; Rodricks in front of the Budapest House of Parliament; and the window at St Cyrils, where Nazis killed the Czech fighters.

East is east

AFP

Tracing a movie in Prague; taking in sulphur vapours in Warsaw; opera in Budapest Designer Wendell Rodricks went on a dream holiday through Eastern Europe with his partner Jerome Marrel over the summer.

Edited excerpts:

Was this your first train trip through Europe?

When I was 21, I backpacked my way through Europe. It was a carefully planned trip based on a Europass, involving travelling on night trains to save on hotel rooms, depositing belongings in station lockers and seeing a city by day. Those days have gone forever. The locker rooms are now cafés (thanks to terrorism) and a night train is costlier than a flight.

But this June, my partner Jerome and I decided to do Eastern Europe in style by train. We took the Eurostar from London’s St Pancras station to Brussels and then went on to Cologne. From Cologne we went to Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and Kraków. We went back to Paris via Cologne and then back to London on the Eurostar. We travelled first class all the way. From Brussels to Cologne and from Cologne to Paris we travelled by the French high-speed TGV train called Thalys.

Seems like the journey, not the destination, was the highlight.

It is a joy to travel by train in Europe. Not only is it comfortable and on time but it affords beautiful views. We had to plan to arrive well in advance, as finding a train or compartment in larger stations can be daunting. Also, one needs to check if there’s a dining car: In some cases, despite the trains leaving around suppertime, there were no dining cars and we had to rush out and buy fast food at the station.

All-night trains have a key to lock the compartment, as there are rare cases of robbery and assault. Though European trains are known for being on time, we

missed a connection in Cologne.

So it’s a good idea to book through an agent, so that one can get reimbursed for such mishaps.

What made you want to visit East Europe?

I have seen a lot of Western Europe and it was always a dream to see Prague. So we decided to do the three countries that were part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. I have always had this fascination for Marie Antoinette. Her mother was empress of the Austro-Hungarian empire and I wanted to see her world.

Bizarrely and coincidentally, Hitler attacked these three countries before he went on to West Europe.

You say it was your dream to visit Prague. Why? As a child in 1975, I saw a movie twice that made me resolve to see Prague one day. Operation Daybreak is a riveting cinematic translation of a World War II event that destroyed one village with all its inhabitants and threatened to raze the beautiful city of Prague to rubble. Czech freedom fighters descended by air from England to plot the murder of Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague. After a daring operation that killed Heydrich, I recall very clearly the tragic end where the last of the two anti-Nazi rebels were holed up in a church; they committed suicide rather than die at the mercy of the Nazis. An infuriated Hitler made a lesson of Prague that prompted Churchill to vow not to attack high-ranking officers of the Third Reich if it meant the murder of millions of innocent civilians.

Thirty-five years after seeing Operation Daybreak, I visited the Sts Cyril and Methodius cathedral, where the two Czech men died, saw the bullet blasts in the crypt’s stone window and said a prayer for all those who give up their lives for their land.

Which were the sights you found most interesting?

Prague is like a jewel. Its brilliant buildings, streets and fabulous churches are a walker’s delight. One has to put on a sturdy pair of shoes and be

JEROME MARREL

prepared to walk 8 hours a day.

It’s possible to cover all the sights in two days. We rode on the No. 22 tram, visited the Jewish quarter, the Old Town Square with its dancing figure astronomic clock, and the expansive Wenceslas Square, bordered by beautiful baroque buildings. The interiors of hotels here have featured in many movies—one of them was the grand dining room in Titanic.

Prague has so many old cars and vintage streets that film crews are perpetually at work here. It’s not unusual to see Tom Cruise or Nicole Kidman in swank hotel lobbies or shooting on the streets. Must-sees are Prague Castle, a complex of churches and architectural marvels, and Charles Bridge, with its many statues of saints.

I had heard about the miraculous statue of the Infant Jesus of Prague in the church of Our Lady Victorious, at the base of the castle hill. The statue has 365 garments and they are changed daily. The statue has a loyal following with a reputation for granting all wishes. This pilgrim site had a surprise in the sacristy. When I went to bless the rosaries I had purchased, I met a Goan priest, Father Vincent Fernandes.

Did you visit other cities that had felt the repercussions of World War II? Yes, we visited Warsaw, a lively, bustling city, with an economy to match. Though not one of the great cultural cities of Europe, the Polish capital is well worth a visit.

Indian friends living in Warsaw took us to see the sights. Off the tourist track, we took in the

sulphur vapours at a park in Constantin and the spectacular Warsaw University library. Both were impressive: the former for its simplicity, the latter for its Sovietesque grandeur in glass and brass and fabulous views.

The main Town Square, amazingly, was rebuilt from the rubble of World War II. The Nazis were so angered at the revolt of the Jews in the Jewish ghetto that they left Warsaw a burning mass of roofless buildings razed to the ground. Polish director Roman Polanski’s movie The Pianist portrays this tragedy. But now the square looks untouched— the Poles have lovingly pieced together their capital.

I am still baffled by World War II. When we travelled through these countries I could not imagine the horror of the Holocaust. The serene fields and beautiful cities are impossible to connect with movies such as The Pianist and The Reader. It is surreal that these peaceful, pastoral places were subjected to such brutality. In Warsaw they asked me if I wanted to see the

concentration camps nearby. I declined as I have seen Dachau (a concentration camp) in Germany and it left me sleepless.

What were your experiences in Budapest?

Budapest is a magical city.

Comprising two parts—a hilly Buda and a flat Pest—this metropolis is a bargain. To get a feel of the city, we could either take a ride on the Danube river or do a city tour by bus or ride on Tram No. 4. We did the former two. Like Prague, Budapest is a walking city, of grander proportions. After 10 hours walking and climbing per day, I was deadbeat but deliriously happy.

For the best Spanish artists outside Spain, we had to visit the Museum of Fine Arts on Heroes Square. The square itself is worth a visit, with its gigantic Hungarian heroes cast in metal. We saw Strauss’ opera Salome in this fabulous jewel of an opera house.

We got seats in the gilt balconies where royalty sits; I felt I was back in Mozart’s time.

What was your culinary journey

like? Any run-ins with goulash?

To be brutally frank, I hated the Hungarian goulash. I am neither a meat-eater nor a lover of excess carbs. For gourmet cuisine, we’d been told to go to Gundels, which is in all the guidebooks for its fusion goulash and dumplings and is now owned by the daughter of Estée Lauder (who was Hungarian). We didn’t eat there, as it needed a reservation and we had just three nights. In these countries, vegetarians are in dire straits. Budapest had superb foie gras, which Jerome devoured. I tried the goulash in a teaspoon and the dumplings as well. The food is not happening unless you like meat Pastries are good, but a tad sweet for me.

Can you share some tips for potential travellers?

Plan to visit East Europe before 2011. It’s the year when Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary convert their zlotys, korunas and forints into euros. Till then these countries of the Austro-Hungarian empire are within reach of the Indian tourist.

As told to Parizaad Khan. Share your last holiday with us at lounge@livemint.com

GETTING THERE Use a travel agent to book your passage on Eurostar (www.eurostar.com). Check the website for steal­deals and combination offers. Thalys (www.thalys.com) tickets are available up to three months in advance on the Web: The best fares are available early.

L18

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009

Books NEW DELHI—MAKING

OF A

CAPITAL/ROLI BOOKS

EXCERPT

The empire’s new seat Work in progress: (inset) The laying of the foundation stones for the new capital on 15 December 1911; (left) a view of the North and South Block buildings taken from the Government House (now Rashtrapati Bhawan) and Kingsway (now Rajpath); and Herbert Baker and Edwin Lutyens drew highly detailed charcoals and watercolours of the Government House.

A new book on Delhi recounts how the right spot for the Imperial Capital was chosen

L

New Delhi—Making of a Capital:

By Malvika Singh, Rudrangshu Mukherjee; concept and visual research, Pramod Kapoor; Lustre Press/Roli Books; 239 pages; Rs1,975.

ooking for an appropriate site, the ‘expert committee’ had a gruelling schedule as they traversed the environs around Shahjehanabad and east of the Jumuna. Edwin Lutyens said about those forays, ‘fauna of all description, buck of all sorts, baboons, monkeys, jackals, hare, porcupine, water snakes, great fish, great tortoises which eat babies, snakes, bats, flying fox, vultures, weird birds and many lovely ones, a lizard of sorts, yellow and dry and three feet long. The elephant. Tigers at Jeypore, fresh caught and angry, a black panther, hyena and then a host of tame birds and animals.’ By the 2nd of May 1912, the committee was nearly convinced that the location should be south of Shahjehanabad, near the village of Malcha. Its altitude, water table, its virgin soil had passed muster for the future health of the proposed city in contrast to the area along the banks of the river, where

flooding would be a problem; at the durbar site there was a paucity of land for expansion, and other real problems of drainage, sanitation, surface alignment, and the price of limited land.

By December that year a controversy on the Delhi project had triggered a debate in the House of Commons where grieved architects and town planners used rumour to turn the mill and in the course of the debate in Parliament, the King questioned the appointment of Lutyens and George S.C. Swinton, asking for Henry Vaughan Lanchester to be

sent to India. He demanded more information on the progress and plans and emphasized his desire to involve Indian craftsmen in the exercise and to give the design the appropriate aesthetic. At the same time, Sir Bradford Leslie, an engineer by profession and associated with projects in India, spoke at the Royal Society of Arts where he elaborated on an idea that became a serious point of discussion for a while. He suggested damming the river to create a lake to hold surplus water and then transform the swamplike riverbed of the dry season—a

breeding ground for mosquitoes carrying malaria— into a parkland on the edges of the lake that would have bathing ghats. This too was raised in the Commons.

Eventually, the expert committee rejected the proposal.

Lord Hardinge had surveyed the southern site from the top of the observatory, the Jantar Mantar, and appreciated the large tract of under-populated land that could be acquired more cheaply than that of the northern site. The southern area was relatively unencumbered with ruins of the past, relocation would not

JINNAH | JASWANT SINGH

B Y S . S RINIVASAN srinivasan.s@livemint.com

···························· hen India was partitioned in 1947 at least 500,000 people were killed in communal violence and 15 million people moved across the borders. The popular perception in India holds one man, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, responsible for the division and, in turn, the post-Partition problems, some of which continue to linger even today. In Pakistan, he is hailed as Quaid-i-Azam, or the great leader who created a nation for Muslims otherwise “doomed to live under Hindus”.

There have been innumerable analyses on the role of Jinnah by well-qualified historians, academicians and writers across the world, and their conclusions are varied.

So what makes Jaswant Singh’s controversial book, Jinnah–India, Partition, Independence, different?

Why has he written this book?

Why was his party, the BJP, so terribly annoyed that it expelled him?

The author, a career politician, thought of the book when he accompanied then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on his historic bus journey to Lahore in

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AFP

Jinnah uncorked Jaswant Singh dis­ pels myths about Jinnah, but leaves some questions unanswered

be a huge task there and it had ample space for the expansion of the capital. After much deliberation and considering the various ideas and suggestions, the expert committee and its multi-disciplinary advisers recommended the southern site where the new imperial capital would dominate the landscape.

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Jinnah—India, Partition, Independence: Rupa and Co., 669 pages, Rs695.

1999. They both visited Minar-ePakistan, a 60m-high tower that marks the place where the All India Muslim League adopted a resolution in 1940 for the creation of Pakistan. Singh was struck by the fact that no political figure in India had written a biography of Jinnah. He decided, therefore, to “fill the gap”.

And that perhaps is the novelty of the book. It is not uncommon worldwide for political leaders to write historical accounts of major personalities and events, but it is highly unusual in a country like India, and especially for a rightwing politician, to write on the founder of Pakistan. What is

Fathers of nations: Jinnah and Gandhi were often at odds. more striking is that he started working on the book in 2004 and continued to pursue it in 2005, even after his then party president L.K. Advani had to quit his post for praising Jinnah. The author’s well-wishers cautioned him when he began researching for the book.

The first few chapters set the historical context. Singh proceeds chronologically, starting from Indo-Islamic history to the early days of Jinnah’s political career.

There are references suggesting Jinnah was a staunch nationalist and secularist and the division of India was a remote thought for him. Later, the book brings out

the communal aspects, where Jinnah insists he should be regarded as the sole spokesman of all Muslims. He rejected the Congress’ attempts to portray itself as a secular party representing all sections, including Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, and said they should only represent Hindus.

Singh is clearly soft on Jinnah, and as the narration proceeds, he blames the Congress and its leaders for missing various opportunities for keeping India as one entity.

Quoting the Mountbatten papers, the author revisits Mahatma Gandhi’s proposal to let Jinnah be the prime minister and

form the government of a united India. Elsewhere in 1947, when the Boundary Commission comes visiting, Nehru is portrayed as someone acting in haste.

The book, of 669 pages out of which 144 pages are for appendices, points out that the British wanted the Muslims as allies because they didn’t want both communities (Hindus and Muslims) working together against the Raj. Nehru and Sardar Patel are portrayed as accepting the Partition proposal without Gandhi knowing about it. Singh’s message is simple: Jinnah is not the villain he is made out to be.

The Congress party, its leaders, especially Nehru, were responsible for decisions that went terribly wrong, resulting in the division of India. Many authors have adopted this line of reasoning in the past. But high praise for the founder of Pakistan from a senior BJP functionary could hardly have been palatable.

Despite everything, however, it is hard to digest the author’s contention that a single burst of emotion at Minar-e-Pakistan motivated him to write a book on such a complex subject.

Scholars rarely go by emotion when they choose their subjects, and politicians are hardly known to be guided by their hearts.

BOOKS L19

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

CRIMINAL MIND

ÉTUDES | ASEEM KAUL

ZAC O’YEAH

Gunshot narratives

Enter the locked room

Aseem Kaul’s stories are a set of beautifully realized miniatures, heralding a great new voice AFP

The detective story in its most intellec­ tual form continues to be a sport for crime writers

Spy games: Sherlock Holmes grappled with locked rooms in many of his adventures.

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s a subgenre of an exceedingly artificial fiction genre, namely the “impossible crime”, the perhaps most peculiar form of detective story is the so-called “locked-room mystery”. Why artificial? you might ask. Simply because we know that it is in the nature of crime fiction for some sleuth to come by and solve the problem. Hence the “impossible” must have a possible, if not necessarily plausible, explanation, and it will invariably turn out that the “locked room” wasn’t a hermetically sealed chamber to which nobody but the victim had access.

Yet writing such stories has been a favourite sport among writers who, through the centuries, challenged each other into creating more and more bizarre cases—jogging the minds of generations of mystery lovers.

Historians have pointed out that already Daniel of the Old Testament, especially in apocryphal stories, solves impossible cases almost amounting to locked-room mysteries, and as we know, the New Testament features a locked-room murder in reverse—resurrection inside a blocked cave. The Gospels narrate furthermore how Jesus entered a room that was locked.

But since this is my column, we shall agree that the first proper locked-room mystery was published in April 1841 by Edgar Allan Poe, and it was his seminal story The Murders in the Rue Morgue. This is coincidentally also accepted as the very genesis of crime fiction. Although 18th century Gothic fiction had featured mysteries in locked rooms, Poe is the first writer to let a detective use logic and brainpower to crack a case in

which murders have been committed in a room locked from the inside.

Since then, virtually the who’s who of fictional detectives have grappled with locked rooms.

Sherlock Holmes did so, famously, in The Adventure of the Speckled Band (1892) which, as you probably recall, has a striking Indian connection and does away with the secret panels, concealed roof hatches and trapdoors that provided the standard solutions in earlier Gothic and Victorian mysteries.

The big specialist in the field, however, was John Dickson Carr.

In his 1935 novel The Hollow Man—sometimes voted as the “Best Ever Locked Room”—he provides a textbook essay on the subject, The Locked Room Lecture, featured as a detective’s monologue in a pub and taking up an entire chapter—the 17th if I’m not mistaken. In it we are told all the possible ways an impossible murder can take place, at least in theory.

Interestingly, he makes it a point to mention that a self-respecting author shouldn’t stoop to the low trick of having a secret passage, but I won’t go into the many other methods he does approve of—lest I spoil the ending to a mystery that any book lover might be in the middle of reading.

Real criminals simply killed their victims and didn’t bother to close the door behind them With the gritty noir of hard-boiled American writing in the 1940s, where all locked doors were kicked down by gun-toting tough guys, followed by the reality-based police collective taking over in the 1950s, as in the procedurals of Ed McBain, and the 1960s’ true crime non-fiction of Truman Capote In Cold Blood, “locked rooms” began to seem somewhat obsolete and fabricated. Real criminals simply killed their victims and didn’t bother to close the door behind them.

Still, the husband-wife team Sjöwall-Wahlöö used it as the basis for one of their cop novels, The Locked Room (1973), in which, almost as homage to Chapter 17 of The Hollow Man, the policeman

Martin Beck is made to study a catalogue of locked-room permutations. Needless to say, his case ends up having a realistic, almost mundane, if yet surprising, solution.

Perhaps because the locked room represents the detective story in its most intellectual form, a decade later the experimental Paul Auster, in his very postmodern The Locked Room (1986), uses the classical mystery in a metaphorical sense. And so it lives on, as a kind of Sudoku-puzzle-shaped appendage in the brains of writers. The master of Hindi pulp, Surender Mohan Pathak, has written at least two locked-room stories, and from what I hear it is a popular genre among Japanese authors. As I don’t read the language I can’t confirm it, but considering how Sudoku and such mind-puzzles are a rage in Japan, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Finally, those who are dying to read something right away can have a look at Jasper Fforde’s weird locked-room murder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/ books/2007/dec/24/ extract.originalwriting Zac O’Yeah is a Bangalorebased Swedish writer of crime fiction. Write to him at criminalmind@livemint.com

THE FROCK­COATED COMMUNIST | TRISTRAM HUNT

Communist with frills A new book puts the spotlight on Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s so­called sidekick B Y J ONATHAN S IDHU jonathan.s@livemint.com

···························· he global recession, for some, has called into question the credentials of capitalism as the central organizing principle for labour and markets. Regardless of one’s ideological persuasion, we have all dusted off the classics as modern macroeconomic theory has failed to explain much of the complex phenomena we are witnessing. For some, the socalled “universalizing tendency” of capitalism has reached a roadblock. It makes sense, therefore, that alongside John Maynard Keynes or Adam Smith, many have turned to Karl Marx.

When we think about Marx, we’re inevitably reminded of his so-called sidekick, Friedrich Engels, who has served as the punchline to every undergradu-

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ate’s favourite joke: that Engels endured the trying burden of managing his father’s textile factory to underwrite the most famous indictment of capitalism, The Communist Manifesto.

While such a reading is convenient and humorous, it is facile.

Tristram Hunt’s recent biography, The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, of this much maligned (or at least, mostly forgotten) figure of history does justice to a man who contributed immensely to the work we often attribute strictly to Marx. Engels’ story is important not simply because he was influential, his story is relevant in how it interfaces with the complex ideas he witnessed and grappled with. The success of Hunt’s book is in its context. As we read about Engels wrestling with Hegel or philosophizing in Berlin lecture

The Frock­Coated Communist—The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels: Allen Lane, 443 pages, £25 (around Rs2,000). halls (he shared a university classroom with, among other heavyweights, Soren Kierkegaard), we are reading what is essentially a history of ideas.

Engels was born in the Prussian Rhineland in November 1820 to a prosperous—yet, as Engels saw it, puritanical—mill owner. After serving in the army and shuttling around continental Europe, he spent much of his most formative years in Manchester, England—or,

B Y C HANDRAHAS C HOUDHURY ··························· wo moments involving the clothes of the departed might serve to give a sense of the distinctive mood and method of Aseem Kaul’s first collection of stories, Études. In The Shirt, a story no longer than a few paragraphs, we see a woman who has recently been widowed. Every day she continues to wash one of her late husband’s shirts and then hangs it out to dry, watching—the image is both macabre and touching—“the empty shape of him billow in the back yard”.

And in The Smell of Smoke, a woman is abruptly left by her partner, and decides instantly to give away all his clothes. Explaining her actions, Kaul writes: “There was something very attractive in the idea that if he did come back (not that she allowed herself to think about this, not even for a moment) he would find his wardrobe empty.” Although the parentheses insist that the woman is not considering the possibility of the man’s return, we know, of course, from the very vehemence of her insistence that she is. The sentence is a description of both strength and weakness.

Almost uniquely among Indian short-story writers in English, Kaul is determinedly a writer of short shorts (just as Vikram Seth might be said to be unusual among Indian novelists because he is a writer of long longs). Kaul’s characters are rarely named, their backgrounds rarely sketched in, the places they live in rarely described. But for all the austerity of the writer’s method, his creations seem no less real than those of realist writers. What we see his characters do, primarily, is think. In his best stories, we feel as if mind has insidiously established contact with mind, in the same way as we might in a conversation with someone interesting.

Indeed, many of Kaul’s stories are built upon a model of conversation, either real or imagined. One of them, Where Shall We Go for Dinner?, is written entirely in dialogue, without a single word of narratorial explanation. It shows us a couple quarrelling over where to eat dinner, and then making up. It is hard to work from such a simpli-

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Études: Tranquebar, 264 pages, Rs250. fied palette, so the success of this story is no mean achievement.

In another story, Conversation, a man begins to track the voice of the woman who lives next door, because he can hear her on the telephone through the wall they share. He becomes more and more involved with her life, although they never actually speak. When he realizes she is sad, he takes “to playing soft music at night—works for solo piano” (this is clearly the kind of music Kaul loves best) to soothe her. But, churlishly, the woman complains about the disturbance, and makes him gloomy. One day he finally takes the plunge, and calls her. She picks up the phone. “He doesn’t say anything, just sits there, hearing her voice coming through the receiver on the one hand, through the wall on the other. Like a conversation.”

Kaul’s arresting ending beautifully fulfils the spirit and strangeness of the story.

Kaul’s control over prose rhythm and metaphor is exemplary, and there is not a page here that does not reveal in some way the ferocious intelligence and metaphysical complexity of the writer’s mind.

These winning stories are not only an assertion of a new kind of method, but also a tacit criticism of the tired gestures and banalities of much realist storytelling from the subcontinent. A fresh and strange sensibility has lit up the house of Indian fiction.

Chandrahas Choudhury is the author of Arzee the Dwarf.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

FREE VERSE | ANJUM HASAN as it was called, Cottonopolis.

Manchester serves as a resonant focal point of Engels’ narrative: Here, he worked at Ermen and Engels, a branch of his father’s business. At the age of only 24, he authored the hugely influential and authoritative The Condition of the Working Class in England.

The colour of Hunt’s story is all the things that critics cite out of context. “By his mid-twenties Engels was a well-versed Lothario whose silky good looks and raffish demeanour had earned him a string of lovers,” Hunt writes. He suffered from fits of depression and even glandular fever from overwork. As Hunt notes, Engels’ “Jekyll-and-Hyde double life” tested his endurance. And indeed, Engels was a colourful, yet brilliant character, between his late night drinking stints, bourgeois inclinations and womanizing.

Hunt’s penultimate chapter, First Fiddle, is perhaps the most fascinating, as a 70-year-old Engels paraded in protest on London’s streets with the British proletariat. After living a life of tremendous bourgeois privilege, Engels proves that he was, indeed, a frock-coated Communist.

Distant Gods When the bombs go off and there is blood all over the TV, he’ll be sitting in some human corner of the world, drinking his tea, stunned by the impersonal reach of his act, just as you are by how far this screaming thing has travelled—translated by distance into helplessness at being dumb witness again to the guts-spilled-open suffering of random strangers.

And this is how we realize the world’s grown-up—by knowing that the act of twisting a knife inside the warm heart of your enemy on a summer night is far too local a measure of your loathing, while to kill people you do not know and will never see is to speak a language of the universe that can be relayed on the TV. Anjum Hasan is the author of Lunatic in my Head.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

L20

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009

Culture MOVIES

Return of the ‘sambhar’ cowboy GHOSH AT GUNPOINT The director on filming ‘QGM’, honing his craft and a secret about his hero’s underwear

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fter stints in chartered accountancy, marketing, advertising and leather exporting, Shashanka Ghosh has discovered that film-making is what really makes him happy. We shoot some questions at the maverick director. Edited excerpts:

How the iconic dosa­eating superhero, Quick Gun Murugun, broke out of his shelved television avatar on to the big screen B Y A NINDITA G HOSE anindita.g@livemint.com

···························· ourteen years ago, journalist and television producer Mintty Tejpal had an epiphany. “Quick Gun is the millstone around your neck,” he told his friend Shashanka Ghosh, who had hit the jackpot by creating three outrageously funny promotional spots for the launch of Channel V. The promos were a comic juggernaut. Featuring an over-thetop character called Murugun fashioned on B-grade Tamil film heroes, they were designed to counter similar MTV spots, albeit with an Indian flavour.

The spots’ phenomenal success caught both director Ghosh and his friend, ad man Rajesh Devraj, who had written them, unawares. Encouraged by the feedback, Devraj worked on a full-fledged movie screenplay in 1996. But things didn’t quite work out and he moved on to other projects. Ghosh, keen on keeping Murugun alive, hawked the script around until he was advised by director Ram Gopal Varma against making his feature debut with something as wild as south Indian cowboy capers. He ventured into Bollywood in 2003 with the dark and irreverent Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part II. Now, after his first television appearance 15 years ago, Ghosh brings the cowboy to the silver screen.

Screenwriter Devraj, who has also worked on UTV’s animated film Arjun—the Warrior

F Guntastic world: (right) Telugu superstar Rajendra Prasad plays the gun­wielding, bovine­loving superhero; (top, from left) Gunpowder, Locket Lover, Rice Plate Reddy and Mango Dolly.

HARIKRISHNA KATRAGADDA/MINT

Prince, which is slated to release in 2010, says Murugun was conceived over several rounds of evening drinks with Tamil-speaking friends when both he and Ghosh were copywriters at Hindustan Thompson Associates’ Delhi office. It was still a work-inprogress when he quit his job to travel around the south in the late 1980s. And it was during this backpacking trip, seeing Rajinikanth film posters pasted behind the temple complexes of Mahabalipuram, that Devraj developed the character further.

“Murugun was born out of genuine curiosity for a slice of pop culture that was foreign to me,” says Devraj, who grew up in Rajasthan. “But the character in the film version has changed in some ways since my original vision.”

Telugu actor Rajendra Prasad plays Murugun on the big screen.

A veteran of over 200 Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films, the 57-year-old portrays the swashbuckling hero with alarming comic effectiveness. The story revolves around an epic battle between vegetarianism and nonvegetarianism wherein gunslinging Murugun fights against all odds to prevent his nemesis, Rice Plate Reddy, from opening a nonvegetarian Udupi joint, McDosa.

The film also marks the return of actor Rambha (Mango Dolly), back after a sabbatical and donning a stunning blonde wig that the producers claim cost Rs15 lakh (it was sourced from Los Angeles).

Other characters, such as Gunpowder, Masala News Reporter and Locket Lover, complete the array of Tamil movie clichés.

DVD REVIEW | JERRY PINTO

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he Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women, or SPARROW, pioneered the idea of a camera, a woman, a story. In film after film, the same formula yielded rich results in terms of documentation, even if the quality of the films was often questionable. Lila, a documentary film by Bidisha Roy Das and Priyanjana Dutta, works on much the same principle. There’s a camera, a woman and her story as told by her. The difference is Leela Naidu, the actor, who, as we all know by now, was once nominated as one of the most beautiful women of the world by Vogue.

This is almost as much as anyone knows about the star of films such as The Householder, Anuradha, Ye Rastey Hain Pyar Ke, Electric Moon and Trikaal. When

The film has been produced by Phat Phish Motion Pictures and has over the last year been shown at several international film festivals. Ghosh explains why this is one of the few Indian films with a shorter running time in the domestic version: “International audiences need a little more spoon-feeding for a concept film like this one. Like we had to explain what a dosa was before we could make jokes about it.”

Instead of straight redubs in the four languages that it is

releasing in, the film has been rescripted to accommodate language-specific humour.

The millstone of an idea, which kept Ghosh in its grip for the better part of a decade, has finally fallen off his neck. Or maybe not—Fox Star CEO Vijay Singh mentions a possible sequel: The Good, the Bad and the Idly.

Quick Gun Murugun released in theatres on Friday in English, Hindi and Tamil. A Telugu version is slated to release in September.

AFP

Sense and sensitivity A documentary gives us glimpses of Leela Naidu, the person

Was ‘Quick Gun Murugun (QGM)’ a result of watching too many sketchy Westerns or just loving ‘sambhar’ too much?

Both! I watched too many Westerns while growing up and was inclined to sambhar too.

Do you role-play as Murugun in private?

Oh yeah! His duty-bound virtue is attractive and he scores with the ladies in his grumpiness, I say.

When ‘Waisa Bhi Hota Hai Part II’ released in 2003, you’d mentioned you felt like you were knocking on the doors of Bollywood. With the ‘QGM’ buzz, do you feel like you’re in the room?

No, but I’m far more confident as a director and would like to do a mainstream Bollywood thriller after this. So far I’ve been a storyteller; I’ve always needed to have a good story to execute the craft but I don’t need that any more.

So you’re saying you can now direct even bad scripts?

Yes. Favourite film-makers?

Vijay Anand, Sudhir Mishra, Vishal Bhardwaj, Anurag Kashyap. Internationally— Takeshi Kitano, Kim Ki-duk, Kurosawa, Tarantino, Coppola, Danny Boyle…

Is an Udham Singh film on the cards too?

That did cross my mind.

Let’s see.

What would you say to anyone who might be offended by ‘QGM’?

Quick takes: Shashanka Ghosh.

Saar, please excuse. We are like this only.

Any funny incidents while filming?

The whole process of shooting a Tamil film where the subtext of the scene would be discussed in Telugu or Tamil between the actor and the cameraman, after which they would nod enthusiastically in agreement. I would step in and say: “Me too!

Can a Bengali know what you guys agreed on?”

Tell us a secret about Murugun.

He wears leopard-print underwear and his pants are hot.

she died last month, there was as much misinformation about her in the press as there was misunderstanding about her life. Lila is not going to be of much help in dispelling those myths but then it isn’t meant to be a biopic. It is a series of stories, held together by the effortless storytelling skills of its narrator and the beauty of its black-andwhite camerawork. We have always been saturated with colour; black and white works to remind us we are now in the realms of art.

Any attempt at biography or autobiography is also art. It involves a process of selecting details, a sculpting of those details into a story, and it is coloured by the position from which it is told.

Lila is told from Naidu’s perspective. It is an intimate film,

Inner beauty: Naidu in her prime. only marred by the precious diary format. This is how it goes: Montage of images. A diary opens. A copperplate script—which operates as visual referent to another age and as formalizing device—is used to introduce each segment.

Long ago, Naidu told me about a television crew that had come to her home. They asked her to do her piece to camera and then they wanted some mood shots. They wanted her to go and look at the picture by Bert Stern, the fashion photographer who famously remarked, “She has no bad angles”. They had her dust it and the voice-over talked about how she lived in the past.

Thankfully, there is none of that manipulation here. The camera looks at Naidu as if she were a human being. It catches her coquetry; it catches her misery, not for herself but for humanity.

She is almost without affect when she talks about the horrors of her own past. She admits to the hubris of wanting to change sad men by marrying them. She talks about

her daughter Priya being high on LSD even before she was in her teens. She talks of Dom Moraes’ abandonment but she does not weep. It is only the memory of Hiroshima that brings on the tears.

What does one make of that?

Nothing. Everything. Lives are like that. They are complex, they are multivalent. Someone else’s life will never make perfect sense. It is to the credit of Lila’s directors that they leave the ambiguities unchanged. They let Naidu ask, “Am I boring you?” And in those moments, a great and desolate dignity is shaped.

Lila will be screened on 16 September at 6.30pm at the India International Centre in New Delhi.

Jerry Pinto is a freelance writer and author of Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

CULTURE L21

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

ART

The age of the Gupta

ART OF THE POSSIBLE

Patwardhan curated an exhibition that was organized by the Bodhi Gallery, where he asked all the important artists to contribute. The exhibition was not shown in the big cities but travelled to places like Aurangabad and Nagpur. I wish I could have taken that show to smaller towns of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal. He had the guts to do it. After all, students can love art only if they see it.

But how much can we do? If I open a school, how will I do my practice? If I want to change the system I should join politics, become the culture minister.

What we can do, we do, but my job is to make art.

With all the international acclaim, are you tempted to make art for the international viewer and museums?

I make art for myself. I don’t make it for anyone. Initially, people here would say to me, “So this what you can make—a lota (water pot)!” It was people overseas who first bought my lota and gave me scholarships, otherwise I wouldn’t have been known—either at home or abroad.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

Now that I get to travel, I see the whole planet as my source of inspiration. It’s no longer regional thinking; art is about the human realm and that encompasses the whole world.

he notion that all art is political is often accompanied by immediate examples of music made out of angst or anger: rap, heavy metal, grunge. Perhaps because of its genteel appearance, or because of the impression that to be classical is to be inert, classical music is believed to be far less political. It’s an erroneous belief, of course. One needs only to think of Ludwig van Beethoven, who first dedicated his Third Symphony to Napoleon, hoping he would fulfil the democratic goals of the French Revolution. When he heard that Napoleon had, instead, crowned himself emperor, Beethoven scratched the dedication out of his score with a knife—in such rage that he left a hole in the paper.

Two weeks ago, after some stray reading on Independence Day, I was struck by the influence that the British occupation of India had on Carnatic music—an influence that changed texture and tenor just as India’s own attitude to the occupation did. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Muthuswami Dikshitar—one of Carnatic music’s famed trinity—borrowed a number of the waltzes, jigs, folk songs and marching tunes that he heard British bands play, teased them into the scale of the raga Sankarabharanam, wrote up Sanskrit verses, and produced a set of at least 40 compositions known as the Nottu Swaras. That title is, in a sense, redundant—nottu is a corruption of the word “note”, which is also what swara means—but it captures very nicely how rich in individually sung notes AFP these compositions are.

How much should we make of this act of composition? Does it indicate a fondness for the British and their institutions, or was it only a musician’s reaction to other music? How much does it matter, for instance, that one of the Nottu Swaras was that most British of all compositions, God Save the Queen, merrily repurposed as Santhatham Pahimam?

Or were the Nottu Swaras symbolic of a Democrat: Ludwig van Beethoven. time when British rule was still viewed, on balance, as benign, or even advantageous?

The music historian V. Sriram cites other compositions that were much less ambiguous about their sentiment towards the British; a couple even directly praised or prayed for King George V. But in the early 20th century, as the independence movement began to gather momentum, that sentiment too changed direction. The Tamil poet Subramanya Bharathi wrote, in elegant lyrics set to Carnatic ragas, songs of burning patriotism.

In one translation of Sudandira Daaham (The Thirst for Freedom), Bharathi asked: “When will we slake our thirst for liberty?… When will our Mother’s manacles break open?” In Shanti Nilava Vendum, a favourite of the late D.K. Pattammal, the composer Sethumadhava Rao recalled Mahatma Gandhi’s spirit in his open-throated paean to peace.

If there is a gripe to be made about today’s lack of original compositions—or at least, original compositions making it to a stage—it is probably that a richly reactive art is in danger of losing its political quality. I am, however, not too worried.

The Nottu Swaras, Bharathi’s songs and these other compositions functioned perfectly well from their position on the Carnatic periphery; they were, after all, never at the core of a concert.

Should the occasion arise, I am sure Carnatic music will rediscover its political soul.

East Village will show from 31 August to 24 September at the Project 88 gallery in Mumbai.

Write to Samanth Subramanian at raagtime@livemint.com

B Y H IMANSHU B HAGAT himanshu.b@livemint.com

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Why have you put up this show?

We have nine artists from Bihar—not all live there now but they have studied there. Artists who have studied in Bihar, just like I did, and not in places like (Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University) Baroda or at JJ School (of Art, Mumbai), don’t get the same opportunities. I know what I had to go through, so I want to give them a platform.

Is there much scope for art to flourish in Bihar when people there are grappling with basic survival issues?

There are artists and they are practising in Bihar. Scope or no scope—they have no choice right now. With encouragement, better teachers, a better system, things can change. Just as an actor has to go to Bollywood, an artist gets educated and then goes to Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore or Baroda to establish himself.

How much do your roots mean to you as an artist?

A lot. I can’t look at myself in any other way. Upbringing, roots, identity—all this is involved in my practice and what I do in life.

They have become my treasure.

SAMANTH S

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Subodh Gupta, who’s curated a show on artists from Bihar, recalls his roots

···························· hree arresting large heads of American GIs fashioned out of old Indian utensils—one in Ray-Ban shades, one in a gas mask and the third in a face mask which leaves only the eyes uncovered—greeted visitors at the foyer of the hall hosting the recently concluded India Art Summit in New Delhi. The work was titled Gandhi’s Three Monkeys and its visual impact, along with the irony—both grim and witty—underscored creator Subodh Gupta’s stature as a pre-eminent artist of our times and India’s de facto brand ambassador to the art world.

Gupta, who grew up in Bihar and studied fine arts at Patna Art College, is the curator of a show titled East Village featuring artists from Bihar. Edited excerpts from a conversation he had with Lounge about art education in India, his work and his home state:

RAAGTIME

HARIKRISHNA KATRAGADDA/MINT

Some don’t want to be recognized—they’ll say, “I am from Varanasi, I’m not a Bihari.”

But I am not like that.

Why did you become an artist?

I owe my becoming an artist to my mother; she would take me to watch theatre. I grew up in a small town, Danapur (near Patna), which was a 99% railway town. So there was the railway cinema, there was a club, there were two swimming pools; they would show English films there.

So you got the exposure, but not everyone has that.

What you need is insight—after all, we have had many geniuses from that region. For people who want to do (something) and are willing to do (something), the atmosphere around them, that surrounds them, is enough.

Many upcoming artists in India don’t come from privileged backgrounds and they often don’t seem to get enough guidance. Any advice for them?

Fortunately or unfortunately, most artists have never been from rich families—look at Husain. Sure, we need better education. But who was there to guide me? The road for me was no better. Beyond the hype, beyond what the market loves, at the end of the day only they will survive who are honest. The glamour and fake things can work for a few years but you can’t win the marathon that way. Your work may not look good, but you will have a voice and that is possible only with honesty.

Otherwise, it is just glitter.

One often feels there is talent and skill among many young artists but no vision.

The vision comes from education. Compare Indian art

Creative currents: (above) An untitled work

by Shailendra Kumar; and Subodh Gupta.

schools to Western art schools—here they teach you how to do things but over there the teacher says, “Show me what you can do.”

India badly lacks good schools and teachers. Tell me how many young artists coming from Baroda have made a name in the last five years? (The art college in) Patna lacks a good library and good teachers. After 30 years (since it was founded) it keeps no contemporary art magazines and there are no art history classes. It is upsetting. Look at China—the government there is doing so much for artists, they have an infrastructure—art schools, museums. Why doesn’t a single art school here invite good artists to give a talk and a slide show on their works? I have given talks at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris but never in India.

How important is it for established artists to mentor upcoming artists?

Some years ago, Sudhir

TV REVIEW | CRUSOE

Yo ho ho and a keg of gunpowder Fox’s new adventure drama starts out great, but can it keep up the fast pace?

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

···························· rusoe, Fox History’s adventure drama based on the Daniel Defoe novel Robinson Crusoe, begins not with the shipwrecked hero’s struggle with the elements of nature, or his fight for survival on a marooned island. It starts, instead, with our dashing young hero (played by American actor Philip Winchester) in a heroic pose on a clifftop,

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surveying the seas with a gilded telescope, and rappelling down to a beachside villa that’s half holiday resort and half mad-scientist workshop.

The difference is crucial. In choosing not to dwell too long on the hows of Crusoe’s ingenuity in building himself a home on the island, the series avoids the pitfalls of an archetypal survival drama, and becomes a fun, if cheesy, swashbuckling adventure.

In the 2-hour pilot, Crusoe, the

only survivor of a shipwreck that has left him stranded on the island for six years, and his companion Friday (Zimbabwean actor Tongayi Chirisa), whom Crusoe rescues from a “band of cannibals”, encounter some pirates and escaped convicts who arrive on the island in search of a legendary treasure. Crusoe is co-opted against his wish into this search, and the situation gets worse when a troop of Spanish Guards turn up to reclaim the runaways.

Crusoe yearns to be back with his wife and child, and his backstory is revealed in little chunks throughout the episode. His chance to go back with the newly arrived pirates is also continually thwarted. Both narratives are compelling, and the pilot itself is a fun stand-alone episode full of drama, intrigue, sword fighting and pirate action. It doesn’t, however, set up much of a story arc for the rest of the season, so

Defoe lite: Philip Winchester makes for a dashing Crusoe. it’s difficult to say if Crusoe can sustain the sharp wit and fast pace of its opening hour for the rest of its run.

It’s a light and breezy watch.

There is violence but it feels goofy. A lot of things explode, and the barbarity, mostly the result of unsuspecting pirates walking into some fairly painful traps, is delivered with almost comic timing, like an episode of

Tom and Jerry, complete with a playful orchestral soundtrack.

Defoe’s original novel, written in 1719, portrayed an uncomfortably idealized “master-servant” relationship between Crusoe and Friday. The colonial overtones of the “enlightened” European vis-àvis the “savage” are thankfully absent here, and the series tries to be self-conscious about the problematic nature of its original sub-

ject matter. Friday, in Fox’s version, is Crusoe’s equal, speaks 12 languages, recites Paradise Lost, and talks to himself in the third person. There’s a sense that the series tries too hard to gloss over the issue, and the spectre of racial stereotyping still hangs uncomfortably over it. It’s not a deal breaker, but it feels a little awry.

But otherwise, the opening hour of Crusoe is great fun. The dialogue is sharp and laced with wit, the humour light, if a tad morbid, and the twin narratives of Crusoe’s present and past predicaments are reasonably compelling and well balanced. Fortunately, the series doesn’t take itself too seriously, and if the rest of Crusoe can live up to the pace of the pilot, this will be an easy, fun series to watch.

Crusoe premieres on Fox History and Entertainment at 9pm on Monday.

L22 FLAVOURS SATURDAY, AUGUST 29, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

OUR DAILY BREAD

SAMAR HALARNKAR

1964: letters from my grandmother ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

Decoding a grandmother’s recipes takes some work and brings back memories

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ecause of hectic work, man may get irritated.

Don’t take it to heart…don’t be too proud of your education and don’t be too boastful of our achievements.

Your father-in-law is like a jackfruit, rough outside but soft inside, affectionate and hospitable. Don’t wander too much every night. Tell them (your in-laws) when you go out.

Did you get the wool?”

That was my grandmother, in a letter to my mother a year before I was born, worried that her daughter—a working physiotherapist and thoroughly modern Bombay girl in the 1960s—would need help being a good wife.

My grandmother, as you can tell, flitted from topic to topic.

It was earlier this year on a crisp spring morning that my mother reluctantly agreed to read out a clutch of letters and recipes, all written in Marathi 46 years ago and in danger of falling apart.

I like the little bits of gossip.

My grandmother irritatedly talks of her boastful uncle who obviously liked to compare sons-in-law. Her son-in-law (my father) was an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, and the uncle’s son-in-law was an Indian Accounts and Administrative Service officer (IA&AS).

“You know what your uncle says? ‘If Rajendra Prasad (still the President in common conversation then) comes, your son-in-law will be seated outside and my son-in-law will be seated inside.’ Anyway, let it be…”

My father walked into the room and offered his only comment: “Oh, she used to make such great biryani!”

Here’s the best part. My mother found 30-40 loose-leaf pages, a handwritten cookbook of sorts written for her by aforementioned anxious mother.

I must mention that my mother is a very good cook. It’s just that she is very diffident about her culinary abilities, not

helped by my father who tends to say “good” when something is excellent, or will nit-pick to the extreme: “Well, it’s good but there is just a little of this missing, and maybe a little of that.” Given comments like these, and the belief that her own mother was a fantastic cook, my mother doesn’t really talk about her substantial culinary talents.

The letters from my grandmother reveal the family menus of the time. A few: Thalipeeth (a hand-flattened, spicy Maharashtrian roti), cutlets, brain masala, pudina (mint) eggs, biryani, coconut vadis (cutlets), chiwda (savoury puffed rice).

“My mother sent me these when I got engaged (in 1963),” explained my mother, who was at the time very busy with her private physiotherapy practice. “I went to two-three houses carted around by my brother and did a job at a rehabilitation medicine centre at Haji Ali, Bombay.” At 26, she wasn’t very well acquainted with the kitchen, as most Indian women were.

The letters are hard to understand, full of mysterious symbols, scrawled in Devnagari and written in a trademark staccato style.

“Mummy’s recipes are like that,” said my mother. “They go rapid fire. There are no full stops anywhere. Her eyes used to water, so she kept one eye closed, and with one good eye she wrote this, sometimes with a pencil, sometimes with a pen.”

The recipes in pencil were beginning to fade, and we are still trying to rescue them from oblivion.

“You want the recipes?” my mother asked warily.

“Yes,” I said, firmly.

“It’s tough,” she replied.

I was ready, poised at the keyboard.

“Oh, okay,” she sighed.

Please remember these recipes pan out exactly as my grandmother wrote them. If anything confuses you, make an educated guess.

Step 1: Try and get the ghol fish from your local fish market; it is the equivalent of the freshwater betki.

I’m happy to share the first three that were deciphered:

Rumal Vadi (steamed cabbage cutlet) 1kg cabbage, grated.

Temper oil with hing (asafoetida) and jeera (cumin).

Add cabbage. When it is “slightly cooked” add 2 katoris (about a cup) of besan (chickpea flour), 5 katoris (cups) of water, K tsp haldi (turmeric), 4 tsp mirchi (red chilli) powder, jeera powder (no measurement given; my mother recommends a spoonful), jaggery “to taste”, K tsp garam masala and salt.

Keep stirring till it thickens.

Reduce the fire. Cover it, put live coals on top of the cover and steam it (my mom’s recommendation: Put it in the pressure cooker and give it one whistle). Roast 2K katoris of grated coconut in a frying pan, add khus-khus, or poppy seeds (about a cup, my mother reckons; the recipe doesn’t say).

Roast that with the coconut.

Pound the roasted coconut and khus-khus in a mortar and pestle.

Add K tsp haldi (turmeric) powder, the powder of 5-6 cardamoms, 1 tsp mirchi powder, K tsp garam masala and salt.

Mix it all.

Take a large, square cloth or “man’s kerchief”, wet it and spread it on the kitchen counter. On that put 4 katoris of the steamed mixture (it should be hot). Spread it around (my grandmother used to spread it with a banana leaf; you can do it with the back of a stainless steel cup).

On top of this, spread the dry, pounded masalas and press them in.

Take the two ends of the cloth and make a triangular packet and press it in, so it takes on a triangular shape. Slowly remove the cloth. After the cabbage triangle is cooled, cut it into smaller triangles.

You can eat the cabbage vadis as they are—steamed—or lightly fried.

“Now you see how difficult it is to translate!” my mother said, sighing in relief.

“What was so difficult?” I asked.

She showed me the actual markings in the book. .//. That stands for K. ./. That’s N. 2//. That’s 2K. She was translating these symbols on the fly. All she knew was that they were “universal Marathi symbols”. Knowledge of these symbols was clearly fading even when these recipes were written. My aunt (my mother’s younger sister) doesn’t know what they are.

Gholichi Bhaji (fish vegetable) Ghol is a thick, firm sea fish (English: Blackspotted Croaker!

I’m not kidding; I looked it up), equivalent to the freshwater betki

(I know Bengalis call it bhetki but we don’t), my mom said. She remembers my grandmother making this nearly 50 years ago, but warns all of you that she hasn’t made it herself. So you only have my grandmother’s words to go by. Good luck: My mother reminds you that there are no portions given.

Bring the fish home, wash it and cut it into “thick pieces”.

Apply haldi (turmeric), salt and chilli powder. Keep aside.

Grate half a coconut, add haldi, a “little oil” and salt, 10-12 chopped green chillies (which led us to believe that it’s a kilo of fish my grandmother is talking about, but we weren’t too sure) and a bunch of chopped coriander. Mix everything together. Take 2 potatoes and make thick, round slices. Wash. Apply “a pinch” of haldi and salt to the potatoes.

Heat oil, add garlic (the next ingredient has faded, so my mother says it must be ginger), add the fish and toss it all. Add the coconut mixture and potatoes. Sprinkle half a cup of water. Cover with lid and remove from fire when the potatoes are cooked.

Kombdi (chicken) Wash and clean 1kg chicken.

Apply O tsp haldi, 3 tsp chilli powder, 1 tsp garam masala to the chicken.

Keep ready 1 onion, half a dried coconut. Roast both directly on a flame and grind with some cloves, cinnamon, khus-khus, 7-8 peppercorns and 5-6 cardamoms. In a pan, heat 2 tbsp of ghee, sprinkle hing. Add 3 chopped onions to the ghee, fry till golden-brown. Add the chicken. Add coconut/onion mixture. Stir and mix. Add “some water” and let it cook on low flame. If too spicy, add coconut milk.

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 the managing editor of the Hindustan Times.

Write to Samar at ourdailybread@livemint.com

Q&A | CHARLES MACLEAN

It’s all in the nose Citrus fruit or oily feathers? A whisky pro tells us why smell is important B Y P ARIZAAD K HAN parizaad.k@livemint.com

···························· harles MacLean knows just how to put Scotch into words—he’s spent 30 years writing about and researching his country’s most famous product, and served as founding editor of Whisky magazine.

While in India to launch Talisker’s 25- and 30-year-old single malts, MacLean told Lounge about nosing glasses and whisky in the time of recession.

Edited excerpts:

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Do you remember your first taste of Scotch?

I can remember my first taste of malt whisky—in 1968, when I was 17. At school and university

my best friend was a chap called Charlie Grant, his father was the owner of the Glenlivet distillery, who gave me a taste of Glenlivet. Malt whisky in those days was rare. The rediscovery of malt whisky is a relatively recent phenomenon, even in Scotland; around the 1980s. Right from 1880, all malt whisky went into blended Scotch, and you couldn’t really get single malt. Glenfiddich began to be promoted as a single malt in the 1960s.

How has the recession affected single malts?

The demand for super-premium, very old whiskies was till recently driven

by Russia, China and Taiwan.

Now they’re not buying as eagerly and freely as even last year. But malt whisky is doing extraordinarily well in the recession. I was talking to a friend who is the owner of Glenfarclas. His UK sales are up 71% this year. I was in Germany and the Netherlands talking to

distributors and they couldn’t believe they had had the best Christmas selling top-end stuff.

Is there any whisky-related apparatus you carry around?

No, but if there was, it would be a nosing glass. Most bars will serve whisky in an Old Fashioned glass which is hopeless for appreciating malt.

What you need is a nosing glass, which looks like a white wine glass—it’s got a bowl, and the rim narrows slightly. The appreciation of malt is largely done with the nose. Flavour is a combination of smell and taste. So you want a glass which you can swirl and with a narrow rim to direct the aroma up your nose.

Is there a way beginners can teach themselves to appreciate malts?

Taste lots and lots of whisky. Go to a bar which has got a number of whiskies—malts, blended, and Indian. Nose them in the proper glasses and taste them. First of all, are they the

Do it right: MacLean swirls, smells and tastes malt in a nosing glass. same? No. Then you start to concentrate on the smells and characteristics of each one. In blended Scotch it’s difficult to put words to the smell, while malts are distinctive. Ideally find a bar that has the Speyside style which is sweet and rich, the Islay style which is smoky.

Talisker is a great one to put in the mix, because it’s got this noticeable character which is maritime—seaweedy, lightly smoky, like being on a beach, and some chilli pepper when you swallow. So sample two-three whiskies with friends

and let your imagination go.

“What am I smelling, what does it remind me of?” This association of ideas have all got to do with memory. The part of the brain that collects smells plugs straight into the part of the brain which is the seat of memory. I’ve been at tastings where people have smelled and tasted whisky and tears have come to their eyes. It’ll take

them back to a family event or sweets which they have had as children, of fireworks parties, Christmas time, the inside of their grandfather’s car.

What are some of the strange terms you have heard to describe malts?

I use some pretty strange ones myself. Sometimes on the beach in Scotland you find bodies of guillemots—birds which live out on the ocean.

Their feathers are very oily and there’s a smell of that oil in dead guillemot. So when I say dead guillemot, it’s not decaying flesh but oily feathers.

When I’m running tasting panels, people say, “Hmmm, fruity.” And I say, “Great, is it fresh fruit, dried fruit, tinned fruit, citric fruit or cooked fruit?” “Hmmm, it’s probably slightly citric.” “Ok are we talking limes, lemons, grapefruit perhaps, pineapple?”

There’s not the same tradition or history describing whisky, as there is with wine, so it’s great fun trying to do it.

www.livemint.com Every Monday, catch Cooking With Lounge, a video show with recipes from well­known chefs, at www.livemint.com/cookingwithlounge