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Saturday, July 4, 2009

Vol. 3 No. 26

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

BUSINESS LOUNGE WITH AMWAY’S WILLIAM S PINCKNEY >Page 8

Relax! We’ve got everything you need to cross the distance from uniform­wearing schoolchild to trendy college fresher >Page 10

AKI NARULA’S GUIDE TO MISMATCHED DRESSING Canary yellow with aubergine or acid green with red—the designer shows us how to replicate Kareena Kapoor’s look in ‘Kambakkht Ishq’ >Page 7

Confused as to whether you’re suited for the Emo or the Preppy look?

REPLY TO ALL

THE GOOD LIFE

AAKAR PATEL

WHY INDIANS DON’T GIVE BACK

W

hy don’t we worship Brahma?

We know he’s part of the Hindu trinity as the creator, but we worship Vishnu, manager of the cosmos, and Shiva, its eventual destroyer. The answer lies not in religion, but in culture. But in what way does our religion shape our culture? Max Weber explained the success of ca pi t alism in the US, Germa ny an d Britain as coming... >Page 4

OUR DAILY BREAD

SHOBA NARAYAN

WATCH ME SWOON OVER TIMEPIECES

T

here are two ways of looking at watches. To some, they are utilitarian devices that tell time and are, on margin, stylish. To others, watches are objects of adoration, a passion, part of a collection. I used to belong to the first category but am veering towards the latter. Watches are easy for me. We each have an eye for certain things and don’t “get” others. I, for instance, have trouble with shoes. I want Roger Vivier’s verve, Jimmy Choo’s sexiness,... >Page 4

SAMAR HALARNKAR

IN SEARCH OF THE ITALIAN CONQUEST

T

he Mughal emperors ruled India by the sword—Persian was our chief administrative language till the 1800s—and then became us.

The Brits ruled India with cannon and cunning, inadvertently gave us our modern identity—and English—and let us be. With the end of the empire, India’s messy, dynastic democracy took over, full of absurdities, spectacle, family—and food. And so Sonia Gandhi stepped in. Who else but an Italian could adapt to modern India? We are, of course, substantially worse off than... >Page 18

CHASING THE SUN In the darkness of a total solar eclipse, Patna could be a celestial tourist destination >Page 13

DON’T MISS

HOME PAGE L3

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

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

FIRST CUT

PRIYA RAMANI

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (MANAGING EDITOR)

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

RAKHI SAWANT AND THE KING OF MIDDLE INDIA

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f the first set of ratings are any indication, new television show Rakhi Ka Swayamvar is a resounding hit. It’s had the best debut of any new show post the cricket frenzy of the Indian Premier League—yes, even better than Salman Khan’s 10 Ka Dum 2, according to aMap, an overnight audience ratings measurement agency.

Indian television viewers, it would seem, have nothing better to do than watch the country’s most outspoken item girl fake coyness in front of a bunch of bitchy, mostly north Indian (I couldn’t resist adding that) men.

I’m not sure whether that makes me want to laugh or cry.

Forget smart programming—we are clearly a country that loves trashy television (and those of you who think this is a smart programme have been sucked deeper than you WATCH realize into the sludge of timepass entertainment).

On the other hand, a show about a grown woman picking a groom is so much healthier than one that tracks the life and times of a child bride. And certainly easier to watch than the crazy bunch of Indians who will do anything on television, from eating tubelights to swallowing laxatives and controlling the call of nature.

After all, Sawant’s suitors are part of Real India too. You see them every day—these policemen, stuntmen, small-time actors, tutors, advocates, event managers, engineers and babyfaced students. Men who have been hand-picked from the vast expanse that makes up Middle India, that striving, struggling swarm that will grab any chance to better their lives. For many, Rakhi Sawant’s prime-time quest is it.

For those struggling to make it in

showbiz, it’s an opportunity to strut their stuff on national television. But what’s in it for the others? A chance to be known as the man Rakhi Sawant nearly married? A chance to say I had dinner with Rakhi Sawant, gazed into her eyes, held her hand and told her I loved her? Or a chance at 2 minutes of fame; one that might prompt an invitation to be part of the next big reality show. I know that if Sawant rejects the eminently presentable Luv Khanna, an engineer and model from Delhi who can carry off a satin pink shirt and who believes all religions are equal, he’s bound to get hundreds of letters from girls who are glad she did. And maybe

TRP made in heaven: Sawant as coy bride.

some of the men actually are infatuated with Sawant (one contestant skipped his sister’s wedding to participate in this show and another worked on his body just for her).

If they are infatuated, they must be scratching their heads wondering why they can’t recognize their lady love. The outspoken item girl everyone knows has been replaced by a simpering, fluttering, bride-to-be who wears minimum make-up, dresses mostly in Indian outfits and keeps exclaiming that her heart has never beat so fast. It’s almost as if Rakhi Sawant is playing the part of the Yash Raj Films (YRF) heroine she never was in a film with cheesy dialogues (Ek aurat jaag gayi hai, a woman has awakened) and a background score comprised of old YRF hits from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.

And Sawant is working the sympathy vote big time telling everyone who’s listening that she’s never had love before, and that she’s looking for true love, and that she’s a normal, simple girl. “You won’t play with my love?” she pleads with Manmohan Tiwari (my favourite contestant—for a one-nightstand, not marriage) who lives by the river Ganga in Rishikesh.

And then, just when you think Indian men can never be redeemed, it’s time for a break (because advertisers love this show too). Cut to condom advertisement followed by one about the day after pill because “it’s so much better to stop a pregnancy than to have an abortion”.

Clearly, Middle India is sexually active.

Write to us at lounge@livemint.com THE TRUTH ABOUT MUMBAI I differ with Aakar Patel’s views in ‘The spirit of Mumbai has its roots in Surat’, 20 June.

Much has been said about the spirit of Mumbai—that it bounces back in a jiffy from floods and terrorist attacks.

But that “spirit” is largely a media gimmick and a good distraction tool. A politician, when questioned about the failure of the government, conveniently changes the topic to applaud the spirit of Mumbai. The truth is, this spirit emerges out of sheer necessity. Mumbai being a competitive business hub, the show must go on.

RASHIKA VAZIRANI

FRINGE FACTOR As one who was instrumental in starting the first known gay study group in Mumbai back in 1979, I feel really thrilled to see Shoba Narayan plead so persuasively to repeal section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in ‘How to increase the gay factor in your life’, 27 June.

I thank her for trying to make life a little bit more bearable for those of us who still have to tread a fine balance between being open and being discreet in disclosing our sexuality at our workplace and our neighbourhood.

DAVID D’COSTA

THE SALIM­SAM ISSUE

Write to lounge@livemint.com

The ‘Lounge’ cover story, ‘From Salim to Sam’, 27 June, was great, though the writer forgot to mention the film ‘Pakeezah’. When this film was aired on Amritsar television, cities in Pakistan wore a deserted look as people were glued to their television screens. Mint has always dealt with sensitive subjects well, and ‘From Salim to Sam’ is an example of that. Priya Ramani’s editorial, ‘Hindus, Muslims and Hindi films’ in the same issue also had some interesting views on Muslim stereotyping.

www.livemint.com

NEERU SAXENA NEW DELHI

Priya Ramani blogs at blogs.livemint.com/firstcut

LOUNGE REVIEW | VALHALLA, MUMBAI

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inbox

n Nordic mythology, were the tapas. Don’t “Valhalla” is a hall miss the Albondiwhere warriors or “the gas—beef mince dumpchosen dead” go after lings with spices and their deaths. Some conmelted manchego sider it the paradise of cheese. The meatballs food and wine. were moist and disWorlds, centuries solved in the mouth. and ethers apart from The Jamon Serrano the glorious dead warri—mountain cured ors are the lawyers, Spanish ham—and bankers and brokers of Cajun prawns were also Nariman Point, Mumdelicious, with generbai, for whom Valhalla ous quantities. is a new business lounge for meetings, The not­so­good conferences or lunch While the space itself is with colleagues. The large, there isn’t enough business lounge, as a distance between tables concept, is yet to catch for meetings to progress up. So far, the Chamin complete privacy. bers at the Taj Mahal One wouldn’t book a Palace and Tower and conference room for a Belvedere at the Oberoi meeting of four or five. were the two places Some design elements favoured by top execuseem out of place—an tives in south Mumbai. oversized carved A fortnight ago, Valwooden throne with h a l l a o p e n e d w h e r e Small helpings: The complimentary petits fours. velvet upholstery in the Starters and More, a resmiddle of the lounge, in taurant and bar in Churchgate, noodles and nori. They have keeping with the Valhalla theme. once stood. The spacious lounge, soups, sandwiches and paella; the In the evening, sitting at the bar with a bar lining one side, has the petits fours (small pieces of cake) is probably more comfortable informal air of a pub, but with are complimentary with tea and than being in the seating area. large alcove tables and cushioned coffee. The two conference rooms, The large tables and comfy chairs wooden chairs. Come evening, it built away from the lounge for pri- may be perfect for a business is a hot new lounge and tapas bar. vacy, are equipped with the best meeting, but when you want to We visited during the day and office technology. chill with friends with drinks, it’s after sundown.

On a Friday evening, we caught constricting. The chairs are bulky a performance by percussionist and manoeuvring them to listen The good stuff Jonqui, who plays at the hottest to conversation at the other end The business lounge has Wi-Fi nightclubs in Mumbai. He plays can be difficult. connections for laptops, services percussion instruments such as such as courier, fax and television the drums, tabla and dhol and Talk plastic screens on demand, and a food jams along with the DJ’s mixes. The soups and salads are priced menu that suits the health con- That night, the music was ener- between Rs125 and Rs355; sandscious executive. getic, the lights were on soft glow, wiches between Rs300 and Rs425; The Spanish-influenced food, and the wood-and-jewelled decor and main courses range between with some Indian elements, is looked plush.

Rs395 and Rs995. light on the stomach and perfect We tried the Watermelon Cocktails are Rs450, a beer is for a luncheon meeting. Yet, there Caipiroska, which was great, between Rs200 and Rs300. Tapas are some gourmet dishes suitable starting out strong and mellowing range from Rs300 to Rs625. for impressing the difficult client. as the ice melted, but it could For reservations, call Our picks: the warm asparagus have done with more water- 9619195233. salad with sun-blushed tomatoes melon. The sangria, a fruity tastand chevre; and the lemon grass- ing mix, was even better. But the Parizaad Khan and Sanjukta flavoured rawas with steamed real after-dark star of Valhalla Sharma

ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT; PHOTOIMAGING: DEVAJIT BORA/MINT

L4 COLUMNS SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

AAKAR PATEL REPLY TO ALL

Why Indians don’t give back to society

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hy don’t we worship Brahma?

We know he’s part of the Hindu trinity as the creator, but we worship Vishnu, manager of the cosmos, and Shiva, its eventual destroyer. The

answer lies not in religion, but in culture. But in what way does our religion shape our culture?

Max Weber explained the success of capitalism in the US, Germany and Britain as coming from their populations’ Protestant faith. This ethic, or culture, was missing from the Catholic populations of South America, Italy and Spain. Protestants, Weber said, extended Christianity’s message of doing good deeds, to doing work well. Industry and enterprise had an ultimate motive: public good. That explains the philanthropists of the US, from John D. Rockefeller to Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates.

What explains the behaviour of Indians? What explains the anarchy of our cities? To find out, we must ask how our behaviour is different.

Some characteristics unite Indians.

The most visible is our opportunism.

One good way to judge a society is to see it in motion. On the road, we observe the opportunism in the behaviour of the Indian driver. Where traffic halts on one side of the road in India, motorists will encroach the oncoming side because there is space available there. If that leads to both sides being blocked, that is fine, as long as we maintain our advantage over people behind us or next to us. This is because the other man cannot be trusted to stay in his place.

The Indian’s instinct is to jump the traffic light if he is convinced that the signal is not policed. If he gets flagged down by the police, his instinct is to bolt.

In an accident, his instinct is to flee.

Fatal motoring cases in India are a grim record of how the driver ran over people and drove away.

We show the pattern of what is called a Hobbesian society: one in which there is low trust between people. This instinct of me-versus-the-world leads to irrational behaviour, demonstrated when Indians board flights. We form a mob at the entrance, and as the flight is announced, scramble for the plane even though all tickets are numbered. Airlines modify their boarding announcements for Indians taking international flights.

Our opportunism necessarily means that we do not understand collective good. Indians will litter if they are not policed. Someone else will always pick up the rubbish we throw. Thailand’s toilets are used by as many people as India’s toilets are, but they are likely to be not just clean but spotless. This is because that’s how the users leave them, not the cleaners.

The Indian’s reluctance to embrace collective good hurts his state. A study of income-tax compliance between 1965 and 1993 in India (Elsevier Science/Das-Gupta, Lahiri and Mookherjee) concluded that “declining assessment intensity had a significant negative effect” on compliance, while “traditional enforcement tools (searches, penalties and prosecution activity) had only a limited effect” on Indians. The authors puzzled over the fact that “India’s income tax performance (was)

DINODIA

The Indian in the US is peerless at the Spelling Bee because the formula of committing things to memory, which in India passes for knowledge, comes naturally to him. But this talent for adapting and memorizing is not the same as a talent for creation.

The question is: Why are we opportunists?

In his great work Crowds and Power, Elias Canetti observed that the rewards religions promised their faithful were all far off, in the afterlife. This is because a short goal would demand demonstration from god and create sceptics instead of believers. There is an exception to this in Hinduism.

Hinduism is not about the other world. There is no afterlife in Hinduism and rebirth is always on earth. The goal is to be released entirely Neglected deity: The Brahma temple at Pushkar. and our death rites and beliefs—funeral in below the average of countries with Kashi—seek freedom from rebirth. similar GDP per capita”.

Christianity and Islam are about how to We do not think stealing from the enter heaven; Hinduism is about how not state is a bad thing, and our ambiguity to return to earth, because it’s a rotten extends to corruption, which also we do place. Naipaul opens his finest novel with not view in absolute terms. Political the words “The world is what it is”, and parties in India understand this and Wittgenstein ( “The world is all that is the corruption is not an issue in Indian case”) opens his Tractatus similarly. politics. Politicians who are Hinduism recognizes that the world is demonstrably corrupt, recorded on irredeemable: It is what it is. Perhaps this camera taking a bribe or saying is where the Hindu gets his world appalling things, or convicted by a court, view—which is zero-sum—from. We can hold legitimate hope of a might say that he takes the pessimistic comeback—unthinkable in the West. view of society and of his fellow man.

The opportunist is necessarily good at But why? adapting, and that explains the success The Hindu devotee’s relationship with of Indians abroad. We can follow god is transactional: I give you this, you someone else’s rules well, even if we give me that. God must be petitioned can’t enforce them at home ourselves. and placated to swing the universe’s

blessings towards you. God gives you something not through the miracle, and this is what makes Hinduism different, but by swinging that something away from someone else. This is the primary lesson of the Vedic fire sacrifice. There is no benefit to one without loss to another. Religion is about bending god’s influence towards you through pleas, and appeasement, through offerings.

Society has no role in your advancement and there is no reason to give back to it (in any way, including leaving the toilets clean behind you) because it hasn’t given you anything in the first place. That is why Indian industrialists are not philanthropists.

Rockefeller always gave a tenth of his earnings to the Church, and then donated hundreds of millions, fighting hookworm and educating black women.

Bill Gates gave $25 billion (around Rs1.2 trillion), and his cause is fighting malaria, which does not even affect Americans.

Warren Buffett gave away $30 billion, almost his entire fortune. Andrew Carnegie built 2,500 libraries. Dhirubhai Ambani International School has annual fees starting at Rs47,500 (with a Rs24,000 admission fee) and Mukesh Ambani’s daughter was made head girl.

An interesting thing to know is this: Has our culture shaped our faith or has our faith shaped our culture? I cannot say. To return to the question we started with: Why is Brahma not worshipped?

The answer is obvious: He has nothing to offer us. What he could do for us, create the universe, he already has. There is no gain in petitioning him now.

Aakar Patel is a director of Hill Road Media. Write to Aakar at replytoall@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Aakar’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/aakar­patel

SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE

Watch me swoon over timepieces

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here are two ways of looking at watches. To some, they are utilitarian devices that tell time and are, on margin, stylish. To others, watches are objects of adoration, a passion, part of a collection. I used to belong to the

first category but am veering towards the latter.

Watches are easy for me. We each have an eye for certain things and don’t “get” others. I, for instance, have trouble with shoes. I want Roger Vivier’s verve, Jimmy Choo’s sexiness, Christian Louboutin’s red heel, and the avant-garde look of Yves St Laurent’s cage shoes. Ergo, put me in a shoe store and I cannot choose. Ditto with handbags. With perfume, it is even worse.

Inevitably, the perfume that appeals to my nose will do nothing for me. Worse, when I come into the room, people will start sniffing and say, “Isn’t something burning?” Or something like that.

Watches, on the other hand, I get. As with most things in luxury, it is mostly a matter of knowing what you like. I can walk into a watch store and tick off the items with the confidence of a gay man.

Love it, hate that, oh-that’s-horrible, who-wears-that, detest that, ooh-luuuve-that. You get my drift.

Mostly, I am drawn to men’s watches.

Wearing a Bigger Bang black Hublot with a flirty chiffon sari is, in my mind, sexy. The brands I like are

Jaeger-LeCoultre, Breguet, Breitling, Blancpain, IWC and Patek Philippe. I dislike some brands for well thought out, but what some would consider arbitrary, reasons. Franck Muller, for instance, is a cult brand that makes the kind of mechanical watches I love. But I don’t like their square dial and the feminine design of their hour markings. Rolex and Omega are overexposed. Cartier, Chaumet, Van Cleef are too bejewelled.

Some brands try to do too much.

Audemars Piguet’s Jules Audemars, for instance, is a lovely instrument with its exposed dial and high-frequency escapement. But then, they go and spoil it with two small, enamelled dials inside.

Why? If I am paying Rs1.5 crore for a watch, I’d like some consistency in the thought process. Are you into jewellery or horology? Don’t try to do both; to be all things to all people.

Enamelling is the latest trend in watches. Most Swiss houses have captured advances in horology. Decoration is the next frontier, so enamellers such as Anita Porchet and Vanessa Lecci get paid a bomb to do the kind of work that our thewa and minakari jewellers perfected

centuries ago. Though I dislike them, Cartier’s enamelled watches, decorated with Japanese designs and fish swimming across the dial, are all the rage.

Another trend that caters to Russian oligarchs is putting totally unneccessary things like diamonds in watches.

Girard-Perregaux and Ulysse Nardin used to be brands I enjoyed. Now they have coloured their watches blue and inserted sapphire gemstones, moonscapes and other métiers d’art into them. Some people, I guess, must like this kind of decoration, but not me. I think watches should sport two colours, three at most, and they should be silver, gold and black.

Straps are another selection criterion.

Connoisseurs prefer straps and most high-end watches only offer straps.

Sometimes, if they want to be cute, they’ll offer two straps—leather and rubber for when you want to go deep-sea diving. I actually like metal straps. And complications.

Patek Philippe and Breguet are the two brands in which “complications”, as the industry calls them, are part of the brand DNA. While complications are horological advances and genuinely difficult to achieve, I think some of these brands go overboard. If my memory serves right, Breguet started it with 20 complications and then Patek Philippe topped it with 25.

Now Jaeger-LeCoultre and Franck Muller are in the game with 25 or 26 complications. And what do these complications do? Everything except feed you dinner. Thermometer, perpetual calendar, chronography, minute repetition—you name it, they have it.

Mean machines: (left) A piece by Vacheron Constantin; and Reverso Gyrotourbillon.

I am not so steeped in horology to appreciate these complications. To me a watch should be three things: clunky, non-decorative and most important, transparent. By that, I mean that the more the watch reveals its mechanism, the more I love it. Watch connoisseurs call this tourbillon but I call it see-through watches, which is really what they are.

Jaeger-LeCoultre (which happens to be my favourite watch brand) has a number of tourbillon watches. Their Reverso Gyrotourbillon debuted last year to great fanfare but I dislike it. It is too small. The dial is square and therefore unusual, but ladylike square. I much prefer their 2006 gyrotourbillon with a master minute repeater and multiple tones. If all of that sounds Swiss to you, take heart. The main thing about the 2006 gyrotourbillon is that it is a watch within a watch. On your wrist, you’ll see the standard dial. And then you’ll see a

miniature skeleton case that pivots within the outer case. Gruebel Forsey has a quadruple tourbillon with four miniature skeletons doing this, but that seems like overkill.

The watch I would buy now? Or rather, the watch I would buy if I could square the fact that I could subsidize a small country with that money is an IWC Skeleton Portuguese minute repeater. My second choice would be a Vacheron Constantin openworked minute repeater from their Cabinotiers line. Both are completely transparent skeleton watches. I guarantee that you won’t be able to take your eyes off them.

Shoba checks time through her iPhone.

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, JULY 4, 2009

L5

Parenting LEARNING CURVE

GOURI DANGE

The basics of hospitality How to deal with OTT birthday parties; and how to make your child a good house guest

Less is more: Make your child’s party fun, not just expensive.

My friend’s daughter had a birthday recently. They are a middle-class family, much like ours, but I was astounded at the lavishness of the party, the return gifts, etc. On the way back, my daughter, who’s five, about the same age as the birthday girl, was quiet. Before going to bed, she turned to me and said, heartbreakingly, that she didn’t want to celebrate her birthday because we wouldn’t be able to give such ‘big’ return gifts. How does one hard sell home-made cakes and simple fun over three-tier cakes and Barbie takeaways to a child?

Ah, those over-the-top birthday parties. They’ve spiralled out of all control, haven’t they? Would you believe it, in the US, there is now Birthdays Without Pressure, an informal citizen-action group that’s trying to raise awareness and reverse the trend it calls “out-of-control birthday parties”.

I’m sure it’s not easy to get a five-year-old to see it that way, and her fascination with the big party and fancy take-home gifts is very understandable. However, it’s important that you don’t get caught up in trying to “hard sell” her anything. That smacks of insecurity and apologetic behaviour on your part. Which further reinforces your daughter’s feeling of “not having enough”.

It’s best to just say that all parties don’t have to be like that one, and that you can have fun in your own way. She is very awed and taken up by what she has experienced, but by the time her birthday comes, you can start to plan her party with enthusiasm, and gently refuse to be drawn into comparisons with the other party.

For the long term, if you feel strongly about this (as quite a few sensible parents do), find like-minded parents who will think up interesting things to do on birthdays, instead of the big ostentatious party. This could include day trips, picnics or kiddie cook-outs, calling storytellers, renting fun films, etc.

And don’t feel apologetic about the cake not being three-tiered.

Children pick up vibes from you on such issues very sharply—and if they feel that you are at ease with, and enjoying throwing, this party, that’s what will remain in their minds ultimately—and not what you “didn’t provide”. By the time your child is 8 or so, you could, like a lot of parents do, give them an either or option: a birthday party or a big gift.

Usually children do choose the big gift, and the family can go out for a meal or make something special at home.

Without issuing homilies and guilt-inducing lectures, it is also important to subtly put some perspective on the table for our children. You need to find ways to let them see how much they have on their birthday, compared with more than half the children of the world or the kids around them. It may even be a good idea to include some kind act on her birthday. Soon, you will be able to switch your child on to what she does have on her birthday, rather than what she doesn’t.

Most importantly, do not get drawn into the trap of feeling you are not able to give your child a fairy-tale party—it’s more a matter of having different priorities, and not wanting to do it that way, isn’t it?

Some parents battle this whole thing by trying to paint the big-party parents as “bad” and “senseless”. Do avoid this—it only teaches your child to deflect her genuine feelings into sour-grapes kind of disdain, as well as a mean and nasty coping mechanism. Sneering at the rich is as bad as sneering at the poor.

My husband and I, and our two children, aged 8 and 10, will be staying with friends for 10 days.

This is the first time the children are going to be house guests, and I do want to tell them a few things about how to be a good guest. I don’t want to cramp their style and make them all tense, but what do you think are the few essential dos and don’ts for children their age when they’re guests in someone’s home?

You’re right to want to set down a few ground rules. It is a tricky time—how you as a family live in another person’s household for 10 days will definitely affect whether everyone concerned has a good time, and everyone comes away happy.

These dos and don’ts are for your kids as well as for you! u Try to go with the flow, with the general house style of your hosts. For instance, respect when they eat and what they eat; if 8pm dinner is too early for you, remember you’re on holiday, and have to do it only for a few days. If your host family is big on Indian food, and you or your kids are simply dying for a

Chinese meal, you can eat that on one of your days out. u Follow your host’s lead in matters of tidiness too. If he or she keeps an extremely tidy and neat house, do see that your kids don’t leave half-drunk water glasses or damp towels around. u Do not expect your children to be entertained throughout your stay. While your host will have arranged some outings for you,

they have to attend to their own chores too, so do try and find ways to get around the place yourself and don’t expect your host to play chauffeur and tour guide at all times. u If there are other children, encourage them to play together, but don’t force it all the time. Allow kids to veer off in their own direction and read, and not interact with each other all the time. If there are fights,

which make things quite awkward, intervene gently. u Tell your children to treat your host’s appliances, computers, even light switches, as well as the host-kids’ toys, with some tentativeness—don’t just start using them, plugging things in, flipping lights on and off. Every home has its own peculiar problems, and you don’t want to cause inconvenience by inadvertently tripping the fridge.

u If your children have any specific allergies or strong dislikes, carry your own paraphernalia. u See that your kids behave politely with any elders in the host family, and with the daily help too.

Gouri Dange is the author of The ABCs of Parenting.

Send your queries to Gouri at learningcurve@livemint.com

L6

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SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

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p Cushion covers: at Zara, Commercial Street, opposite Westside, Bangalore, Rs200­1,000.

p Candle holder: at Address Home, Raghuvanshi Mills, Lower Parel, Mumbai; and Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, Rs2,400.

q Ceramic vases: at Apartment 9, Khan Market and N­Block Market, Greater Kailash­I, New Delhi; and Mereweather Road, Mumbai, Rs6,300 each.

t Cabinet: at Address Home, Raghuvanshi Mills, Lower Parel, Mumbai; and Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi, Rs35,000.

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

RAJKUMAR/MINT

p Ego black vase: at Rosenthal Boutique, Ambience mall, Gurgaon, Rs13,200.

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SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

L7

Style TREND TRACKER

Aki Narula’s guide to mismatched dressing Canary yellow with aubergine or acid green with red—the designer shows us how to replicate Kareena Kapoor’s look in ‘Kambakkht Ishq’ B Y S EEMA C HOWDHRY seema.c@livemint.com

···························· hat are you wearing right now,” asks Aki Narula over the phone when I ask him about Kareena Kapoor’s many-colours-in-one-ensemble look in Kambakkht Ishq.

Beige just-under-the-knee shorts with a brown frock-shirt, no jewellery, a black bag and gold slip-ons, I reply.

“Next time, ditch that brown shirt. Go for an orange tee and if that is too much for you, drape an orange scarf around your neck or maybe on the handle of your bag. Wear a single piece of jewellery, such as a bright green bracelet, that will stand out. Avoid gold slip-ons.

Go with heels in a colour like orange or green,” he rattles off, giving me a Kambakkht Ishq makeover.

This mismatched look, according to Narula, is part of the colour-blocking technique which is used to introduce different colour palettes in one ensemble. “It’s like what the Dutch artist, Piet Mondrian, used to do with his paintings in the late 1930s and mid-1940s,” he explains.

Narula says he decided to go with this look because the film is set entirely in Los Angeles. “We were not going to shoot a song or two there. The characters were supposed to be living there and that’s why Kareena’s look had to be chic, smart and very LA-mod, without the over-the-top bling factor.”

That Kapoor had to wear dresses was a given because she

W

Colour decoded: Aki Narula will style Kareena Kapoor next in Rensil D’Silva’s film, tentatively titled Qurbaan; Piet Mondrian’s paintings, such as Boogie Woogie (left), influenced the trend of colour blocking.

AFP

plays a surgeon who moonlights as a “leg” supermodel to pay off her student loan.

Narula chose to shop in Milan because he wanted to dig out clothes from vintage shops and quirky designer stores rather than just pick dresses from known designer labels. “Canary yellow,

acid green, fuchsia, vintage English prints, gingham checks, floral prints were all supposed to be the hot trends for Spring/Summer 2009. I was not going to get dresses in these colours and patterns in May 2008 at any of the designer stores when I started work on Kambakkht Ishq, which is why shopping at small unknown stores in Milan made sense.”

Narula picked out 50 dresses and then went about collecting

shoes and bags to complete the look for each dress. “We did not alter the shape of dresses to fit Kareena. The idea was to use all kinds of silhouettes—from trapeze and balloon to draped. I did not want too much jewellery, so we have concentrated only on bracelets and avoided necklaces and chunky earrings.”

Kambakkht Ishq released in theatres on Friday.

HOW TO GET KAREENA’S LOOK u You can create this look by mismatching colours, patterns, textures, fabrics, silhouettes but don’t do everything at once. If you are wearing a solid­coloured dress, make sure your handbag has a gingham pattern. uTo be a mismatch dresser, you have to be unpredictable. Get out of the mindset of clubbing “safe” colours such as blue with white, black with gold or silver and then wearing matching accessories in the same colour. Wear canary yellow with aubergine or acid green with red. Also, this look can be worn for both casual and formal occasions. uThree colours in one ensemble at one go should be the target.

Make sure the really bold colour is no more than a splash in your ensemble. Don’t make it the dominant colour. Wear red or parrot green heels with blue

denims, carry a fuchsia plastic bag with a white ‘ganji’, or a red clutch (not a big hobo bag) with a bright yellow dress.

gave her a red clutch to complete the look. A huge red bag would have killed the outfit. uA common mistake that people make while putting together the mismatched look is overdosing on colourful jewellery.

Let one piece be the highlight. In ‘Kambakkht Ishq’, the only jewellery Kareena wears are cuffs. We picked chunky bangles, oxidized silver cuffs, tribal wooden bracelets.

uIf you want to mix patterns, go for the English vintage wallpaper look with gingham checks. Combine stripes with polka dots or floral prints with checks or asymmetrical geometrical designs.

These patterns are hot right now. uAvoid bling.

Remember mixing either gold or silver with black is not part of the mismatched look.

Think colour, a sudden burst of it in your ensemble. So a canary yellow or a neon green bag or shoes or belt with a black dress works, but gold hoops or sandals are boring. uIf you are keen to experiment with silhouettes, opt for a balloon skirt with a spandex T­shirt or a ‘ganji’­like top. Make

Miss match: For Kapoor’s look, Narula used bright colours and a mix of silhouettes.

Colour clash: Mismatch shoes with bracelets of contrasting shades.

sure both are in different patterns as well. For Kareena’s look, we mixed lots of chiffon, spandex and stretch­satin to create a variance in silhouettes.

One of the outfits used was a bright yellow, baby­doll dress with a pink spandex neckline. We

uThink out of the box and try to wear an accessory differently. In Milan, I got three corsages, usually worn on the wrist, which I used as anklets for Kareena. uMen, too, can try this look.

With black jeans and shirt, go for an acid yellow or green belt instead of a boring brown or black. Wear dirty green Converse shoes instead of sports shoes in white or black.

As told to Seema Chowdhry

L8

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

Business Lounge WILLIAM S PINCKNEY

Pitch perfect Selling Amway in India required this veteran to do a complete rethink of his strategies B Y M ELISSA A . B ELL melissa.b@livemint.com

···························· s I flip through my notes to prepare for the interview at the Oberoi’s Club Bar, in walks a tall American with a luxurious Yosemite Sam moustache. Trailing him is a group of young Indian suit-clad men and women. They sit down at the next table, laughing and chatting. I look back at the entrance and continue waiting for William S. Pinckney, managing director and CEO of Amway India.

But then I turn back. And the group, as one, turns to me.

“Are you?” I ask.

Why, of course they are.

Suddenly I’m in the boisterous group and before I can fire away my questions, Pinckney has managed to get me talking about my life. Somehow we’ve landed on the subject of love lives. All within 5 minutes. Among total strangers. At an interview I’m supposed to be conducting.

But there’s just something about Pinckney. The man gets you talking, comfortable and laughing, as any good salesman should. If he had some of his Amway products with him, I would no doubt have walked out with a bagful of cleansers and vitamin supplements.

When we finally do get down to talking about Pinckney, it’s clear that his easy-going, personable skills have come in handy over the years, working for a company almost entirely based on the great sales pitch.

Amway, accused at various times of being a cult, a pyramid scheme and a get-rich-quick scheme, is essentially all about sales. An Amway business owner—any person with Rs995 for the registration fee—can choose from the 110 products in the Amway catalogue and sell these to friends, family, neighbours.

It’s a booming business.

Amway India officially opened in 1998, after three years of preparation. Eleven years later, Pinckney runs a company with 500 employees and 450,000 “business owners”. He says their annual revenue reached Rs1,128 crore in 2008.

Pinckney shrugs off the nasty accusations. “Listen, the US supreme court decided we were not a pyramid scheme in 1979. There are illegal pyramid and ponzi schemes. They are incredibly easy to shut down.

A pyramid is where the primary source of income is the sheer recruitment of people into the business.”

Pinckney says Amway institutes strong safety nets for consumers and business owners —money refunds, education classes and no recruitment schemes: “The only way you can make money is by selling the products.”

And sell they do. The top business owners can make about Rs2.5 crore a year, Pinckney says, adding, however, that “most of

A

Hard sell: Soon after his move to India, Pinckney realized that Indian shoppers are very different from American shoppers.

JAYACHANDRAN/MINT

the really successful people don’t make a lot of money… I’m much more proud of the thousands and thousands who earn the extra Rs10,000-15,000 a month”.

Pinckney spends a lot of time with the business owners, travelling to see them, talking to them about Amway’s set-up and learning how to improve the business: “I’m on the road eight to 10 days a month. You need to go where your business is.”

When Pinckney moved to India, he already had 17 years of experience with Amway. Though originally from Washington, Pinckney settled in Australia when he met his wife there as “she thought it was a good idea if I stayed there”. From Sydney, he helped set up Amway businesses in the Philippines, Brazil, Argentina and Taiwan, but hoped to be permanently posted abroad.

When India came up, “nobody really wanted it”. They feared a nuclear war breaking out between Pakistan and India.

But for Pinckney and his wife, it was good timing. His son and daughter were away in school and Pinckney and his wife “were looking for adventure. You look back on decisions you’ve made and say ‘wow’”.

There was another motivation for the move: “We thought if we go to India, we’ll both lose weight,” Pinckney chuckles.

“This part of the plan was a huge disaster: This is the worst place in the world to try and lose weight! I could just eat Indian food 24/7.”

The losing weight challenge wasn’t the only obstacle Pinckney has come across in his 10 years here. “I realized it was not to try to change India for me, but me changing for India,” Pinck-

Rather than drop prices, Amway India launched a series of smaller sizes for less money

ney says. The first obstacle came in the form of import restrictions on Amway products. Everything had to be manufactured within India. It took about three years to set up the manufacturing side of the company. Then, when the company launched, another quick realization set in: Indians shop differently from people elsewhere in the world.

“Our belief was that in India, as in other countries, we would set up a home delivery model.

That’s how Amway works in most parts of the world. Eighty per cent is home delivery, 20% is pick-up products.” But in India, Amway realized that buyers weren’t comfortable paying up first and then waiting three days for a delivery: “Trust in who you buy from is a big deal.”

Therefore they had to rework their product distribution set-up completely. “Australia had one warehouse for distribution.

India has 127.”

But that same trust in the seller helped develop networks quickly, discovered Pinckney.

“In Asia, you see close-knit families; you don’t see it that much in the US,” Pinckney explains.

“Here, if you say Amway’s okay, I say it’s okay. In the US, if you say Amway’s okay, I say prove it.”

Amway also had to adapt its products to meet Indian standards. Elsewhere, products came in one size. But people here were used to trying out products, and wanted sample-size sachets. Rather than drop the prices to lure people, Amway launched a series of smaller sizes for less money. Finally, it developed localized products, marketing cosmetics specifically geared to the country’s preferences, such as coconut oil and hair cream.

The challenges, though, have been part of the excitement for Pinckney. “The other markets are boring compared to India!” he laughs. “It’s frustrating, but on the other hand it’s invigorating.”

He’d like to see India develop into a launch pad for Amway in the subcontinent, and see Amway starting in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. “We still think we have the best years ahead… If our business in 10 years isn’t ten times bigger, I will be shocked.”

When he retires, he and his wife hope to buy an apartment in Delhi and spend at least three months a year in India. “I hate to imagine saying goodbye to India,” he says. “It’s been a flash.”

CURRICULUM VITAE

WILLIAM S PINCKNEY BORN

3 November 1948

EDUCATION

MBA from Macquarie University, Sydney

CURRENT DESIGNATION

Managing director and CEO, Amway India Enterprises

WORK PROFILE

Previously headed Amway operations in Australia and helped set up operations in several countries. He moved to set up the Indian arm in 1995

WORDS OF WISDOM

For business advice, Pinckney turns to Warren Buffett’s autobiography ‘The Snowball’. “It’s real homespun wisdom,” Pinckney says

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

L9

Health SPOTLIGHT

What your body is telling you

Alarm bells: Everything from nail beds to hair texture can be a guide to hidden health problems.

Brittle nails, spider veins and other such oddities could signal serious trouble—or not

B Y M ELINDA B ECK ···························· he body speaks volumes about what ails it—from obvious warnings such as a fever that accompanies an infection to subtle clues like losing hair on the toes, which can be an early sign of vascular disease.

Some signs that seem alarming may actually be harmless: Brightred stools are more likely to come from eating beets than from intestinal bleeding. But some that seem minor can warn of a serious disorder. Small yellow bumps on the eyelid, for instance, may be fatty deposits that signal high cholesterol, which in turn raises the risk of heart disease.

Other signs seem to make no logical biological sense: Eyebrows that no longer extend over the corners of the eyes can indicate an underactive thyroid, and a diagonal crease in the earlobe seems to herald a heightened risk of heart attack.

The problem is that many of us don’t recognize the warnings. Medical writer Joan Liebmann-Smith was losing weight rapidly. Her hair was falling out. Her heart was racing, and she couldn’t sleep. She chalked up her symptoms to the stress of having a new baby, while a psychiatrist she consulted for insomnia told her to just “count sheep”.

Over lunch one day, a relative looked at her bulging eyes and the big lump in her throat and said, “Joan—you have a goitre!”

A blood test confirmed that she had an advanced case of Grave’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that causes the thyroid gland to swell and produce too much of the powerful hormone.

“I had all the classic signs, and I ignored them,” says LiebmannSmith, a medical writer, who resolved to write a guide on the warning signs of serious illnesses for laypersons. Body Signs—written with Jacqueline Nardi Egan, a breast-cancer survivor—came out in 2007 and has since been published in 26 countries.

“We don’t want people to panic and jump to conclusions,” Liebmann-Smith says. “But it’s important to pay attention to your body. Knowledge is power.”

Before you race off to the doctor for every lump or discoloration, remember that anomalies you’ve had for years are more likely to be a harmless part of your genetic make-up. Signs and symptoms that are unusual for you, or painful or debilitating, are more likely to be significant.

Many doctors and nurses alike say that patients should be vigilant for anything new or unusual about their own bodies. “The more engaged patients can be, the better,” says Ted Epperly, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, who has a practice in Boise, Idaho.

T

Preventive medicine Diabetes alone costs the US an estimated $174 billion (around Rs8.5 trillion) annually; people with diabetes have more than twice the average medical bills than those without. Signs of diabetes show up all over the body, from bleeding gums to tingling feet to darkened skin patches on the neck and underarms.

Some of the most worrisome body signs are already well known, thanks to extensive education campaigns. Most women know to check their breasts regularly for lumps, dimples, swelling and discharge that can signify cancer, and to have regular mammograms. “Not all breast lumps are bad, but they all need to get checked out,” says Jen Brull, a family physician in Plainville, Kansas. Men can develop breast cancer too, with many of the same symptoms.

THE SIGNS YOU CAN’T IGNORE The human body gives off hundreds of messages about its general condition. Here are a few clues:

Teeth and hypertension

Skin cancers Skin cancers have also gotten significant publicity. When evaluating a spot, remember “ABCDE,” says Margaret Parsons, a dermatologist in Sacramento, California: It may be malignant if it has A, for an asymmetrical shape; B for a jagged or irregular border; C for a suspicious colour; D for a diameter larger than a pencil eraser; and E for being elevated and uneven. Basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas tend to be red to pink and crusty, and bleed easily. “If you see anything like that, you should be checked,” Parsons says.

Excess belly fat is becoming notorious as a sign of a heightened risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart disease, gall-bladder disease and numerous cancers. Waist-to-hip ratios are especially telling: If a man’s waist is larger than his hips, or a women’s waist is more than fourfifths her hip circumference, that’s a sign that dangerous visceral fat is surrounding an abdominal organ.

A high body-mass index is a red flag in general for clinicians.

But sudden, unexplained weight loss can be even more worrisome. “If somebody loses

place that vascular disease can show up is where the blood vessels are the smallest and the farthest away from the heart.” Circulatory problems can manifest themselves as numbness and tingling in the feet; so can peripheral neuropathy, or damage to the nerves that often begins at the extremities. Both are signs of uncontrolled diabetes.

weight without trying, that could be a sign of depression or a gastrointestinal illness. Even diabetes can cause you to lose weight,” says Brull.

What brittle nails mean Many other signs of possible illness are less well-publicized. Thyroid disease can manifest itself in dry, brittle hair, brittle nails, and weight gain or loss. “If I see a patient with a horizontal line

through the middle of the fingernails, I’ll ask what happened three months ago—were they horribly ill or did someone die? They think I’m brilliant,” says Parsons. The markings, called Beau’s Lines, sometimes appear when the body is particularly stressed. “Your body is busy, so your nails take a little break and then start growing again,” Parsons says.

Nails tell other tales as well.

White nail beds—the skin under-

neath the nail—can signify anaemia. Nails that are white near the cuticle and red or brown near the tip can be a sign of kidney disease. Irregularly shaped brown or blue spots in the nail bed can be melanomas. Many of the same signs occur in toenails. But the feet are critical for other reasons.

“Feet tell you a huge amount about the health of the circulation,” says Denman, the Duke nursing instructor. “The first

The mouth provides another window into overall health. That’s what inspired New York University’s College of Dentistry to team up with its College of Nursing to check patients at the university’s free dental clinic for other healthrelated issues. Around 60% of the patients referred from the dental clinic met the criteria for hypertension, and 30% had diabetes or pre-diabetes. “The tooth pain brings them in. Diabetes and hypertension are often silent diseases,” says Edwidge Thomas, the nursing school’s director of clinical practice affairs. In rarer cases, gums can bleed and become inflamed from leukaemia. Bulimia can leave telltale acid marks on the backs of teeth—and missing teeth can be a sign of poor nutrition or long-term drug use.

Some body signs are more statistical correlations than causal relationships. Short leg length has been linked to a higher risk for diabetes, atherosclerosis and heart disease, which could be due to poor nutrition in early childhood.

Of course, being vigilant about your body signs can show you just how imperfect you are. “You wouldn’t believe what else I came down with writing the book,” Liebmann-Smith says. “I developed an eye tic. I had a ganglion cyst and giant floaters.

And my co-author complained that I was belching a lot. It turned out I was lactose intolerant. I also had GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease), so I was hoarse all the time. Who would have thought that something to do with your stomach would cause hoarseness?”

Write to wsj@livemint.com

L10 COVER

COVER L11

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

Campus checklist How to build your own unique wardrobe—and look—for college

BY NISHA DAMANI ·································································· ou don’t have to spend loads of money at one time to get your dream wardrobe. Collect pieces over time. Treat some as ‘investments’, such as jeans and shoes. Buy those first. The rest can be collected once you’ve saved up your allowance.

Y

CLOTHES

The perfect pair of jeans could be skinny, boot cut, boyfriend or flared. They all work as long as they fit well.

First, buy blue jeans, and when you can buy more, experiment with different colours and shades. Ideally, a pair of black jeans should follow your blue ones. u Get a denim skirt in a length you are comfortable with. Short or above the knee, distressed or flat colours, all work. u Pair leggings with oversized tops or a short dress or skirt. Branch into bright neon-coloured leggings to brighten your closet. u Shorts have made a comeback in the last couple of years. Several stores (see Web pointer below) stock different fits and lengths. Pick from short shorts, tight-fitted, knee-length shorts, or loose balloon shorts. u Racer-back tops or tank tops are a girl’s best friend. If a tank fits you well, get different colours in that fit. When in doubt, wear a tank top with a pair of jeans, skirt or shorts. Accessorize with earrings and a long necklace. u Your closet should have some plain tees as they allow you to mix and match them with several accessories. Graphics and prints are another way to add some fun to ordinary T-shirts. u White and black are essential colours. Sometimes, nothing looks more stylish than a pair of jeans with a well-fitted white T-shirt. Also, get yourself a pair of skinny black pants for those nights out with your friends. u Look for ruffles in clothes and bags. They add a bit of flirty femininity to your wardrobe. u A waistcoat makes a simple tank top or a plain shirt go a long way. It is stylish, and yet not as formal as a jacket. u Shirt dresses, summer dresses, tube dresses, shift dresses are all in fashion right now and are a great addition to your formal-wear closet. u Street shopping is the best way to experiment with different looks. And make “sale” your favourite four-letter word—it will make your pocket money go a long way. It is the best time to buy your “key pieces”. u Use your mom’s tailor—like that pink shirt and wish you had it in black?

Get some fabric and have it made. This is one of the joys of living in India! u Your role models don’t just have to be celebs, look around you to find stylish people—your mother, sister or aunt. Go through fashion magazines and websites, such as Teenvogue.com, to stay current. u

From getting out of a school uniform and styling your campus look to updating your wardrobe, our guide will ensure you get all the right attention on your first day as a fresher

SHOES SHOCK ROCKER:

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

A

fter spending more than a decade in a school uniform, developing an individual style for college can be daunting. “More than girls, young boys are afraid to incorporate colour—acid green, fuchsia, red—or tinker with silhouettes or include outfits with funky patterns in their wardrobe,” says Bharat Mishra of Skin Style, a design label sold at Cafe Style, Noida, that targets people under 25.

“For freshers, colour is a great way to make a style statement,” he adds.

A graduate of the Amity School of Fashion Technology, Noida, Mishra and his co-designer Mohit Malik, a third-year student at Amity, urge young men and women to add more unisex outfits to their wardrobes, and discard loose-fitting jeans and trousers. For men, the duo suggests a hair makeover every two-three months.

“And please, just because you have spikes, it doesn’t mean you have a cool hairdo,” says Malik.

Puneet Gupta, a graduate of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (Nift), New Delhi, says the mohawk hairdo is an interesting option for men; printed shirts with three-fourth trousers, Osho slippers and a chunky wristwatch work well;

and backpacks should be ditched in favour of messenger bags.

“Don’t even think about having a ‘match much’ situation this season.

Not more than two pieces in any ensemble should belong to the same colour family,” says Seepi Gupta, a freelance stylist who just graduated from Nift, Mumbai. She says tiered skirts, handkerchief dresses and baggy pants are out; carrot-fit trousers, high-waisted denims, fluorescent shades and fabrics with glazed colours are big; and custom-made trousers in fabrics with check prints are wardrobe must-haves for freshers.

“And please work on your bag. A boring handbag is a killer.”

Nift, New Delhi graduate Taniya O’ Connor is an assistant stylist for the style show I Am Too Sexy for My Shoes, which airs on NDTV Good Times, and runs a design outlet at Okhla. Seepi advises women against wearing heels to college and suggests that they have at least one jumpsuit in their wardrobes this season. She feels that men and women should stock up on separates and pick up style tips from the 1980s retro look. “One element in your daily ensemble should stand out, whether in terms of colour, the cut of the garment or as a quirky accessory,” she says.

Anokhi: Bangalore, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune; Charles & Keith: Mumbai and New Delhi; Clothes Rack: Mumbai and Pune; Colaba Causeway: Mumbai; Cottons: Mumbai, New Delhi, Gurgaon and Jaipur; Premsons Bazaar: Breach Candy, Mumbai; Promod: Mumbai and New Delhi; Linking Road: Mumbai; Mango: Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi; Sarojini Nagar Market: New Delhi.

Photographer: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint; Model: Paloma Monnappa/Elite Model Management; Make­up and hair: Ritika Karna; Styling: Parizaad Khan/Mint and Nisha Damani

When it comes to shoes, keep in mind the weather.

You don’t want to be walking in the mucky rain in a pair of flip-flops. Rain boots (or Wellington boots, aka Wellies) instantly make a statement and they keep your feet clean. To add some drama, get them in colours other than black. They are not easily available in India yet, so keep them on your shopping list for when you or friends and relatives travel. u Ballet flats and sneakers (Converse, Keds, Vans) are comfortable without being drab. These are great for college, when you spend a lot of time walking. Other styles to try are thong slippers and gladiators. u Get one pair of heels to begin with. See if you are comfortable in them.

You could start out with wedges as they are sturdier than stilettos. u Metallic colours such as gold, silver and pewter are a great replacement for black. u

Olive cotton singlet, Linking Road, Rs90; black Lycra bustier, Mango, Rs990; black skinny trousers, Clothes Rack, Rs990; leather and steel bracelets, Colaba Causeway, Rs50­100 each; black studded belt, Mango, Rs1,750; black leather shoes and feather earrings, both the model’s own.

DESI GIRL: Beige cotton dhoti pants, Anokhi, Rs680; yellow jewelled satin top, Clothes Rack, Rs365; green Kohlapuri ‘chappals’, Colaba Causeway, Rs250, oxidized silver and bead earrings, Cottons, Rs850; ethnic thread bangles, Colaba Causeway, Rs40 each; two­way cloth ‘jhola’, Sarojini Nagar Market, Rs100; leather belt, stylist’s own.

The Indie look

This look is complete only when you club colours and ethnic prints in the same ensemble, according to Seepi.

The idea is to be able to fuse Western influences with Indian prints and silhouettes, adds O’Connor. So go for Lycra churidaars instead of cotton ones, club ganjis or tube tops with long, flowing colourful skirts with ikat prints and don’t forget to add chunni-scarves or dupattas to your ensemble.

Kurtas paired with dhoti pants work for Seepi while O’Connor is all for zouave pants (harem pants with a low crotch) or half-Jodhpurs (trousers billowing from the waist down to the knees, with the drainpipe fit minus the buttons).

Accessories must make a bold impression in this look. “Ditch plastic bracelets in favour of glass bangles and oxidized jewellery, or large neckpieces made from earthen beads,” says Mishra. Heels are a complete no-no for this look. Stick with sequinned flip-flops or ethnic footwear. Jhola bags always work: Opt for patchwork or mirrorwork bags, especially ones which can be slung over one shoulder.

The Emo look

“It is a depressing look with lots of black, skull motifs and close-fitted trousers,” explains Mishra. For women, eyes are over-emphasized with kohl, then highlighted with red or turquoise eyeshadow. “Hair is the most important aspect of this look,” says Malik. “If you have short hair, go with long bangs and cut straight across the forehead. Keep the hairstyle spiky at the edges. For those with long hair, keep a side flick (over one eye) and add blonde or red extensions,” says Mishra. Seepi suggests an undefined parting as an option. While black is the dominant colour in the look, colour isn’t fully absent. “Introduce a fluorescent shade—wear neon bangles or slip-ons or carry a blood-red bag with a black sheath dress,” says Seepi.

Layering helps when you want to introduce colour. “Wear a blood-red spaghetti over a black fitted tee or 9-inch violet shorts over black tights,” says Malik. Layer a fuchsia ganji with a tight black or charcoal grey T-shirt with skinny black jeans, advises O’Connor. Accessorize with dark Converse shoes and oxidized silver jewellery with skull motifs, says Mishra. If you want coloured jewellery, pick blood red, dirty green or mauve, says O’Connor.

PREPPY PRINCESS: Pink cotton argyle­print tee, Clothes Rack, Rs315; chequered cotton skirt, Promod, Rs1,950; ballet flats, Charles & Keith, Rs2,799; pearl earrings, Colaba Causeway, Rs100; pearl necklace, Premsons Bazaar, Rs250; pink chequered hairband, Premsons Bazaar, Rs75.

The Preppy look

Ditch the baggy jeans and T-shirt look, says Mishra. Go for shorts (9-inch hot pants if women can carry them off or mid-thigh shorts) or skirts. Malik and Mishra recommend checks or plaid prints in colours such as mustard, green and dirty yellow. This is the most conservative of the three looks, but even here “introduce a sense of quirkiness with bright rich colours, and pepper it with accessories that are fun,” says Seepi.

A fitted tee in colours such as canary yellow, acid green and fuchsia works well. But if you don’t like wearing bright tees, O’Connor suggests you wear a vest in a bright shade, layered with a neutral or white shirt or an argyle-print shirt.

“We see this print a lot on sweaters but it looks great on shirts or vests too,” he says.

While accessorizing this look, opt for one or two pieces of jewellery at the most. Don’t overload yourself. “Bracelets are hot this season, as are belts that contrast with the colours in your ensemble,” says Malik. Men can wear thin ties in saturated colours, along with three-fourth trousers.

Sunglasses are a must for this look (Ray-Ban Wayfarers work best). Downplay hair and make-up, says Seepi.

ACCESSORIES

Accessories can transform a simple outfit into a fabulous one. Avoid too much bling. Decide on one main accessory and let the others be understated. Lots of bangles? Great. But don’t add a chunky necklace and huge earrings to that.

If you’re wearing big sunglasses, don’t wear big earrings. Accessories are about accentuating your clothes, not overpowering them. u Keep earrings basic during the day, like hoops and studs, but play with them at night, wearing long chandelier-type earrings. u Studded belts add a punk edge to your look. If that’s not your style, stick to cloth or simple leather belts. Again, try an unexpected colour such as neon yellow or hot pink. u Want to try Blair’s look from Gossip Girl? Go ahead, give the hairband a shot. u Big sunglasses are very in right now, so are retro ones like Ray-Ban’s Wayfarer series. Don’t limit yourself to brown or black, get a colourful pair. u If you wear spectacles, get the funkiest pair you can carry off. u Don’t neglect your notebook. Get a cool notebook with a graphic design on it. u

MAKE­UP

The mantra for make-up is, less is more. If you play up one feature, such as your eyes, then go light on the others. u For the day, a little bit of eyeliner and lip gloss looks great. Leave the blush and eyeshadow for the night. u Night is the time to experiment with blue eyeshadow and peach blush. Experiment with these before a big night out, so that you aren’t too shocked by your transformation. u Black, bright neon colours are all the rage for nails, but keep your nails short. Long nails and funky colours are overkill. u Take care of yourself—give your feet a DIY pedicure. Smell nice—keep a small deodorant spray in your bag; it is handy in the summer and monsoon months. u

www.livemint.com See a list of stores for college shopping at www.livemint.com/collegeshopping.htm

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SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

Travel KONKAN RAILWAY

Off the road, but on track KARAN DESAI/IRFCA

APURVA BAHADUR/IRFCA

During the windswept monsoons in the Western Ghats, the footboard of a train chugging to Goa is the only place to be B Y S HAMANTH R AO ···························· veryone else on the 6.55am Mandovi Express from Mumbai had somewhere to go. Some families were headed home to one of the towns along the 570km journey to Goa. Others were off to a holiday on the beaches, parents trying not to look as excited as their teenaged children.

For every group of blasé commuters setting up card games, there was an equal number of long-distance travellers, lured by the promise of breathtaking vistas that the Konkan Railway opens up. Like the family from Kolkata, asking anxiously if the route was as scenic as they had heard—“that’s why we didn’t take a flight”.

I was the only one who was along just for the ride. I spent some of the 3 hours it takes to

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cover the 140km to Roha (Maharashtra), where the Konkan Railway officially begins, trying to solve the Mandovi Express’ existential crisis. Not an overnight train for easy travel, not a hop-into-next-towner, not a long-distance carrier, not even a day-trip aid that allows you half a day in the destination city. It’s slower than most buses, and still so popular that the last time I tried booking a fortnight before a trip, I was wait listed No. 393.

The demand for tickets on the 760km stretch from Roha to Mangalore in Karnataka is understandable. Imagine a train journey through thick forests, immense valleys, between, around and through hills, and over and along rivers. Every stunning vista is succeeded by one more stupendous, every bend in the tracks offers new surprises.

AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

Initially, though, reality seemed to belie expectations. At Roha, only a decrepit warehouse signalled the start of this spectacular stretch. Another 40km later, past Veer—where the station is an evocative tree-lined avenue—there were still only hillocks to be seen. The big moment was yet to come.

I saw National Highway 17 snake off to twist and turn around a hill. Abruptly, everything turned dark. The train had plunged into a tunnel. A murmur coursed through the compartment—this was the first of the 91 tunnels on the route.

We emerged into sunlight and Karanjadi, its picturesqueness overwritten in memory as the location of a horrific train crash in 2004, when the Matsyagandha Express rammed into the debris from a landslide. But the profusion of green in the valley made that nightmare seem distant.

The changes came in minutes, even seconds. One moment, the train clattered through a narrow gorge, the rock faces on either side close enough to touch; the next, we were chugging through space, the ground beneath the tracks giving way to a slim, almost ethereal, viaduct, an overflowing river beneath snaking its way through uneven terrain, now covered with the blessed green brought on by the rains.

Then the roar deepened and the train hurtled into the side of the hill, which magically opened up into a tunnel. The light turned from rain-soaked grey to fluorescent orange-punctured black—and back again to daylight a few seconds later. Now the water was an equal—ponds, streams, submerged fields, all locking eyes flirtatiously with the rail tracks.

The Konkan Railway has had a far rougher ride than any of its trains do. Although now a poster-child of project completion in

Scenic ride: (above) The Mandovi Express; the train journeys across several viaducts.

India—and E. “Delhi Metro” Sreedharan’s first major project accomplishment—it faced significant opposition on environmental issues between 1991 and 1993; protesters even demanded a different route.

Eventually, it started operations two years late, in 1998, and at $920 million (around Rs4,416 crore now), cost $646 million more than the budgeted $274 million.

All that seemed just so much water under one of the 200 bridges en route as the Mandovi Express squeaked to a halt at Anjani, some 100km from Roha.

And finally, the sheer vastness of the Sahyadris hit me. Soon, as if in a build up for the afternoon, there was an unscheduled halt at Ukshi station, right at the

mouth of a tunnel.

Hours spent on footboards do make one hungry, and I was called back to my seat by the lunch being served. I had a choice of dosa, biryani, dal-subzi-roti or Chinese. Also, unexpectedly, sliced watermelon and gulab jamun.

Meal over, we chugged into Ratnagiri, a station no different from others on the line, despite the fact that it serves a relatively large town. One reason that the stations are sleepy is that Konkan Railway tracks never pass very close to towns.

Soon, the afternoon light began to mellow, bathing the series of small stations in a grey-gold glow.

Haunting in their loveliness, perhaps because they looked so

lonely, the only human presence they offered was the uniformed station master, all alone, holding an unfluttering green flag, almost as a mark of defiance.

Each station came with its own nature-contributed landscape attached. The ones at Nivsar and Vilawade—situated between two tunnels—overlook enormous drops and vast valleys. Rajapur Road is a narrow strip between two rock faces: If it weren’t for the white boards, you wouldn’t know it was a station. Flowers lined the tracks, making them look like they were on fire, with bougainvillea the reigning queen.

And, always, the water. There were the small, placid, serene streams that came and went. The rivers—some swift, bright and tumbling, such as the Kundalika, some dusky and still like the Savitri—flowing along the tracks for miles together. And alongside, stubbornly dry brown trees and grey rocks amid lush green plants.

The skies darkened as the train headed towards the languid Zuari river, the 1km-long bridge over it bringing the journey to a gentle end. I didn’t expect a finale, and I didn’t get one either as the Mandovi Express rolled quietly into Madgaon station. How could one journey have offered so many different kinds of riches?

Write to lounge@livemint.com CHILD­FRIENDLY RATING

If you enjoy train rides, the Konkan Railway is a great way to inculcate the love in your child. Bring along plenty of games, though, in case the magic should fail.

TRAVEL L13

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FOOTNOTES | SUMANA MUKHERJEE

Chasing the sun

3 THINGS TO DO IN | CHICAGO ASHIR BADAMI,

WEB EDITOR, CHICAGO Sure, we’re the ‘Windy City’, and yes we do have bone­chilling winters, but the city of Big Shoulders also does an about­face in summer, turning into a hotbed of activity and festivals. Here are some must­do things in Chi­town. u

Get on yer bike

Chicago is one of the best cities to bike around in. No visit to the city would be complete without a ride along the scenic Lake Michigan bike path. Rent your wheels at the historic Navy Pier and head north right alongside the lake. You’ll be able to take in the skyline, see locals at play, hang out at the beach—all the while seeing multiple neighbourhoods in this iconic city.

Reconsidering Patna as a tourist spot in the darkness of a total solar eclipse

KRISTOPHER ANDERSON

Out of the world: (above) The glowing ring of a total eclipse; the 93­year­old Patna high court building.

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atna is one of those places we would never consider as an independent holiday destination. The loss is ours, for the city is one of the oldest continuously inhabited locations on the planet and, if you care to look beyond the webs woven by unplanned growth and lackadaisical administration, you’ll spot architecture dating back to the Mauryan times standing cheek by jowl with gigantic British storehouses.

None of this sound enticing enough? Well, what about a celestial event so rare you’d have to live another century for a recurrence? The total solar eclipse of 22 July will be the longest one for the next 123 years, and will be visible only from a narrow corridor on the earth’s surface, according to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa),

with “the path of the Moon’s umbral shadow (beginning) in India and (crossing) through Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and China”. In India, Patna (as also Surat, Indore, Bhopal and a few other cities) will witness a total eclipse and though the duration will be shorter than the maximum eclipse time (6 minute, 39 seconds over the Pacific Ocean), it still makes for the experience of a lifetime.

For the special benefit of eclipse-chasers, Cox and Kings is offering a three-day/two-night package (21-23 July) to Patna that includes accommodation in a three-star hotel, airport/railway station transfers and all meals. The special attractions, though, are heavenly: viewing the eclipse in the early hours of 22 July from the terrace of the Patna

Planetarium, discussing the whys and wherefores with eclipse-enthusiasts and astronomers, and witnessing related experiments.

To come back to marvels on earth, go on a sightseeing tour of Patna, beginning with the 18th century Golghar, built to stockpile grain, and including Kumhrar, the site of the ancient city of Pataliputra; the Takht Harmandir Sahib, the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh; and the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park.

The package costs Rs8,145 per person on a twin-sharing basis (with a four-star upgrade, the rate goes up to Rs12,355). For student groups, a teacher will be accommodated free of cost for every 15 paying students.

If that sounds like too much time spent chasing what is essentially a 3-minute (give or take a few seconds) phenomenon over India, Cox and Kings has a rather special 3-hour treat lined up. For the first time in India, it is organizing an eclipse flight—a JetLite 737-700—that will take off from Delhi at 4.30am and hover over Gaya for as long as the moon overshadows the sun.

Expect perfect technical planning, customized games, activities and announcements.

Those in the sun-side seats (21 window seats to the right of the aircraft) will have a ringside view of the eclipse, while those in the earth-side seats (21 window seats to the left of the plane) will be able to photograph the lunar shadow.

Sun-side seats cost Rs79,000; earth-side seats cost Rs67,000.

To book, call Cox and Kings on 1800-22-1235/1800-20-9040/ 09867565599 or email solareclipse@coxandkings.com

Post­wedding wows I

f the summer wedding season is upon us, can special honeymoon offers be far behind? We pick the best deals: u &Beyond (formerly CCAfrica) combines adventure by day with romance by night in its safari packages in Africa and India.

Besides game drives and wildlife-sightings, expect private dinners under starlit skies, intimate bush picnics, chilled champagne and bubble baths.

For details and prices, contact &Beyond on 0027-11-8094300 or visit www.andbeyond.com u The Roses Romance Honeymoon package from The Excelsior, Hong Kong, includes one night’s accommodation in a room with a full view of the Victoria harbour, complimentary breakfast, canapés and evening cocktail at the Executive Lounge, a welcome bottle of champagne, chocolates and a bouquet of roses, a 90-minute Excelsior Wellness Centre signature Rose Indulgence treatment for two, a special his-and-her spa gift, 15% discount at all of The Excelsior’s restaurants and bars, including room service, and a special price

of HK$899 (around Rs5,600) to upgrade to a deluxe suite and a HK$6,000 supplement to upgrade to the Presidential Suite, including HK$1,000 dining credit at the top-floor restaurant, Talk of The Town. The package requires a minimum two nights stay and is available from 1 June until 31 December.

Price: HK$2,990 for two.

Reservations can be made through the hotel’s reservation hotline on 00852-28376840, or by sending an email to exhkg-reservations@mohg.com u In Prague, often billed as one of the most romantic cities of the world, the Mandarin Oriental is offering a package for couples till 27 December, which includes round-trip airport transfers in a Mercedes S-class limousine, a bottle of chilled champagne on arrival, luxury accommodation in a room or suite, daily English breakfast for two, the choice of a holistic half-day ritual for two in a couples’ suite in the hotel’s award-winning spa or a private romantic boat trip complete with luxury picnic basket, one candle-lit, three-course dinner with flowers and the signature

Horizons: The Chicago skyline looms over Lake Michigan. u

Scale tall buildings

Sure the Mid­West is flat, but that only makes it easier to see miles and miles into the distance. If you’re in Chicago for a short spell, head straight to the Signature Lounge atop the Hancock Centre on the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue). Entry is free, the drinks are decent and if you’re lucky you can get a seat by the window from where you can see the entire Chicago land area. It’s a romantic spot to take in the sunset, and a mind­blowing venue if you’re into photography. u

Rock out

TAMMY LO

Rock on: The music concert at Grant Park.

Chicago is home to two critically acclaimed music festivals that promise jaw­dropping line­ups and amazing venues. If you’re into mainstream music, you can’t ask for more than Lollapalooza, which takes place the first weekend in August, every year. Held in the middle of Grant Park, Lollapalooza puts music lovers at the centre of the city’s skyline, and right beside breezy Lake Michigan. You’re guaranteed to bob your head in approval, whether you love the music or the park.

Tara Kilachand GET OFF YOUR ASS

Making a splash: The Nehru Boat Race in Alappuzha.

The boat people T

Marital bliss: Honeymooning at the Mandarin Oriental in Prague.

“Perfect Kiss Guide” to Prague’s most romantic spots.

The package requires a minimum two-night stay.

Rates start at €658 (around Rs45,000) per room per night based on double occupancy, including service charge and excluding VAT. The package can be booked via www.mandarinoriental.com or by calling 0420-233-088888. u If big cities are not your style, fly to Mauritius, where the Le Meridien resort, in the sheltered bay of Pointe-aux-Piments on the north-west coast of the island, has a four-night/five-day

VFM package. It includes special return airfare on Air Mauritius with approximate taxes, four nights stay in a deluxe sea-view room, three days of sightseeing, four breakfasts and dinners, return airport transfers and hotel taxes. Complimentary add-ons include spa services, a bottle of wine, free water sport activities and cocktails (only on Tuesdays). Price: Rs45,500 per person. Contact Mayank Narang, STIC Travel Group, at mayank.narang@sticgroup.com or call him at 0124-4595300, extension 355.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

he Nehru Boat Race (NBR), also known as the Snake Boat Race, or simply Vallam Kali (boat race in Malayalam), is one of those spectacularly Indian festivals, right up there with Holi in Mathura-Vrindavan or Dussehra in Mysore. On the second Saturday of August every year, hundreds of oarsmen, representing various villages of the Kuttanad region, power their way through the Punnamada lake, near Alappuzha, for the Nehru Trophy. Supporters line the 1,400m stretch, cheering on their respective teams.

The NBR, like most of the other big boat races that take place in Kerala in August and September, is a feast for the senses—the sight of the rippling muscles on the lithe oarsmen, the songs rising above the din and the narrow boats slicing through the placid backwaters—but if it’s visual splendour that you are looking to capture, sign up for Get Off Your Ass’ On The Move Photography Workshop.

It runs from 6-9 August to coincide with the most celebrated of Kerala’s races. Participants will be housed at the BambooStix Island Resort, located in the middle of the gigantic Lake Vembanad and surrounded by monsoon-drenched paddy fields. Get Off Your Ass (www.getoffurass.com) has special access to the Kumarakom boat—even the novice can be guaranteed amazing shots with regular digital cameras, but Germany-born photographer and trainer Helmut Conz will be at hand to show you how to raise your photography skills several notches higher.

If that sounds like a good way to spend four days in August, email Santosh at santosh@getoffurass.com or call him at 09845442224 or 080-26722750. The four-day package costs Rs14,500 per person, inclusive of all food, camping facilities and workshop fees. It does not include travel fare to and from Kochi.

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SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

Books IMMIGRANT FICTION

Secrets of a hybrid kitchen THE KOBAL COLLECTION

Monica Ali’s second novel, another ode to multicultural UK, has the right ingredients, but for stilted characters and a slow pace

B Y M OIRA H ODGSON ···························· onica Ali’s best-selling first novel, Brick Lane, was about an immigrant family from Bangladesh living in east London. With In the Kitchen, Ali again focuses on multicultural Britain, this time setting her story in a hotel restaurant.

The classic work on the subject is, of course, George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, with its account of the author’s gruelling experience as a dishwasher in the George V hotel in the 1930s. Much of the action in Ali’s novel takes place in the kitchen of a London hotel that was once as grand as the George V. The Imperial in Piccadilly, we’re told, was built in 1878 by a “flinty-eyed and wealthily-whiskered” industrialist, and in its prime was visited by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Noël Coward and the Aga Khan.

Now, after half a century of decline, the hotel has been taken over by an international corporation that’s trying to get it back into shape. The people who work in the Imperial’s kitchen are members of a struggling underclass: immigrants and refugees from all over the world, including India, Africa, Somalia, Eastern Europe, Russia and the Philippines. With its faded splendour and multinational staff, the hotel is a metaphor

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In the Kitchen: Scribner, 436 pages, $26.99 (around Rs1,300).

In translation: Ali’s first novel, Brick Lane, about an immigrant Bangladeshi woman, was adapted to film by director Sarah Gavron. for the confusion and social disintegration of contemporary Britain, of the new versus the old order.

The Imperial’s chef, 42-yearold Gabriel Lightfoot, is one of the few British-born people in the kitchen. He’s secretly planning to leave and open his own restaurant with two oddball partners, a New Labour member of parliament and a businessman who wears paisley shirts. Gabriel also has vague hopes of marrying his long-time girlfriend, Charlie, a nightclub singer. But when the body of Yuri, a Ukrainian porter, is discovered in the hotel cellar one morning, the chef’s life begins to unravel.

For reasons that are never made clear (or believable), Gabriel becomes sexually involved with another porter from Eastern Europe, Lena, a recalcitrant, waiflike creature who seems to know something about Yuri’s death. He puts her up in his apartment, where she reveals that she was forced into prostitution by human

traffickers and is hiding from her pimp. At the same time, Gabriel learns that his father, a retired mill worker living in Lancashire, is dying of cancer.

All this makes for a dramatic story. Ali has done her research on restaurant kitchens, and she meticulously describes the cooking equipment (the Steam ’n’ Hold, the “bratt pan”), how the chef selects his cheeses, how he plans the menus and delegates.

But the kitchen crew is a collection of stereotypes. There’s Nikolai, the stolid Russian commis, or apprentice chef, with carroty hair, “his face as bloodless as a veal chop”, whose speech is “like the gallows oration of a deposed king”; and Benny, the gentle Liberian with “a deep belly laugh”, who witnessed atrocities during Charles Taylor’s despotic reign back home.

The pastry chef is a Frenchman of the Inspector Clouseau variety, given to such utterances as “I am ’ow you say, tip top.”

I HATE PEOPLE! | JONATHAN LITTMAN & MARC HERSHON

In general, the characters of In the Kitchen sound like authorial mouthpieces, given to stilted, expository dialogue. A typical example is Gabriel’s long, pedantic explanation of the chemistry of custard to his Jamaican executive sous chef, Oona, his “right-hand woman”, who has a gold tooth and “cheeks as fat as ripe black figs”. She has told him that Suleiman, the short, bow-legged Indian who “looks like a loss adjuster, wearing a disguise”, can’t make a custard without lumps.

“It’s the protein in the eggs that thickens the custard,” Gabriel says. “At about forty degrees, the proteins start to expand, they are what’s called ‘denatured’. As the temperature rises, they begin to link up, network with each other...You need to get above seventy degrees. . . . It’s chemistry, Oona, nothing else.” Presumably, after spending a lifetime in her job, Oona would know this, but the reader might not, so Gabriel must deliver a lecture.

B Y D OUG C OLLIGAN The Wall Street Journal

···························· ll you loyal foot soldiers of business who have endured the forced camaraderie of teambuilding exercises at corporate retreats, whose office shelves bulge with loose-leaf binders from long-forgotten management training seminars, who have committed to memory the latest makeover of the company’s inscrutable mission statement, rejoice. Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon offer a way to cope in their breezily cynical survival guide, I Hate People!.

Littman, a contributing editor at Playboy, and Hershon, a branding

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expert, propose to educate the office-bound in how to “kick loose from the overbearing and underhanded jerks at work and get what you want out of your job”. Along the way, they address two realities seldom talked about by career-advice gurus: On any given day, some of your so-called colleagues are consciously or unconsciously trying to sabotage your career; and being good at what you do is only part of getting ahead.

The only person at work who has your best interests at heart, after all, is sitting in your chair.

Most of your colleagues are indifferent to your fate. As for those who are outright menaces, Littman and Hershon have helpfully corralled them into a “Ten Least Wanted” list. These include the naysaying Stop Sign (“Ridden by fear. Driven by detail. Behind fear lies his own uncertainty”); the alltoo-happy Smiley Face (citing

I Hate People!

261 pages, $19.99 (around Rs970). criminal psychology techniques, the authors advise: “If the eyebrows and eyelids don’t move, watch out: it’s a phony smile!”); and some whose designations are self-explanatory: Liar Liar, Sheepie and Know-It-None.

These and other toxic co-workers are the hated ones of the book’s title: the obnoxious, sycophantic, incompetent, bullying, and all-around dreadful fellow workers who can transform a cubicle into a squared circle of hell.

Moira Hodgson is the author of It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time.

Write to wsj@livemint.com

HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

The ‘me’ in ‘team’ A workplace guide that celebrates the solo worker

The descriptions of the depressed Lancashire mill town where Gabriel’s father lives are among the novel’s most compelling passages. In one scene, a group of young Asian men, some in skullcaps, some in hooded sweatshirts, are engaged in wearily kicking a portable television to pieces. They appear to take little pleasure in the task, “as if, were it up to them, it would be the last thing they would choose to do”.

Ali brings a lively intelligence to her work, and her account of Gabriel’s mental breakdown, set against shifting scenes of London, is vivid and well done. In the Kitchen is ambitious, but with its one-dimensional characterizations and laggardly pace—it’s too long at 436 pages—this novel is, ultimately, hard to digest.

Rule No. 1: Keep your own priorities in mind at the workplace.

What to do? One key to survival, Littman and Hershon say, is to become what they call a “Soloist” and to practise “Solocrafting”.

The “six soloist principles” include: “Separation of the pack is not rejection of the pack”; and “Achievement won’t always make me popular”. As you might suspect by now, the authors of I Hate People! do not hate bullet points.

Littman and Hershon, in other words, are champions of the entrepreneurial spirit even in day-

to-day office life. For inspiration, they cite the example of Tony Fadell. Having tried without success to launch his own digital music player about a decade ago, Fadell shopped the idea around until he was roped into Apple Corp. by Steve Jobs early in 2001.

Jobs challenged him to come up with a product in time for Christmas sales. Fadell had a staff of 30, but he was the driving force behind the effort. In October of that year, the iPod was launched.

At times I Hate People! succumbs to clichés of the self-help book. The authors’ fondness for capital letters, as in the Stop Sign and the Smiley Face, quickly wears thin, as does their cutename reflex—are we talking about office types or Batman villains?

Even so, the book seems to speak the truth: In a survey of 90,000 workers, two-thirds said they believe that their bosses cannot, or will not, be honest with them.

According to one psychologist cited in the book, we may be confronted on the job by as many as 200 lies each day.

Refreshingly, the authors don’t pretend to have all the answers. If the workplace career-killer happens to be your boss, they admit, sometimes the best you can do is hope that he or she self-destructs.

I Hate People! is a bracing antidote to the management bromide that “there is no ‘i’ in ‘team’”. True enough, Hershon and Littman would say—but if you move things around a bit, there is a “me”.

Write to wsj@livemint.com

BOOKS L15

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

ON THEATRE; ON CINEMA | UTPAL DUTT

POSTSCRIPT

Inside the actor’s mind HINDUSTAN TIMES ARCHIVE

Two collections that bring the legendary actor’s booming voice back to life

B Y C HANDRAHAS C HOUDHURY ······························ believe any discussion on films in semi-colonial or newly independent countries must start from the illiteracy, poverty and cultural starvation of the masses,” wrote the great stalwart of Indian theatre and film, Utpal Dutt, in an essay in 1979. “It seems blasphemous to engage in comfortable talk about the aesthetics of cinema in a country where the majority starves.”

What can we say about this clearly Marxist aesthetic? Is it true? Was it more relevant 30 years ago than it is now?

Shouldn’t art be seen as a realm, a force, independent of social and economic realities? Are artworks themselves a product of class and power interests, or can they be seen as something more detached and capacious, above petty propaganda? The great merit of the two argumentative new collections of Dutt’s essays, On Theatre and On Cinema, is that he writes not just from the viewpoint of someone with definite politics but also as a practitioner in these arts, trawling the artistic seas of his time in search of productions that catch his eye.

What is the place of local Indian theatre traditions such as jatra, yakshagana and tamasha in modern Indian plays? Do Indian films make cunning use of religious rhetoric to camouflage the iniquities of Indian social life and keep the masses quiet? Are Indian actors on stage and screen guilty of overacting? These are some of the still relevant questions explored in these essays, at once critical and empathetic, written by Dutt in the 1960s and 1970s.

I suspect that outside of West Bengal, most Indians remember Dutt today as the goggle-eyed, hectoring patriarch of Hindi comedies such as Gol Maal (1979), in which he memorably asserted a continuum between Indian tradition, manhood and virility, and moustaches. But Dutt’s work for commercial Hindi and Bengali cinema was only a small part of his oeuvre, and to him probably the least important. As a teenager in the 1940s, he came across the

SEX WRITING CAN BE SUBLIME IN POETRY

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Classic: In Gol Maal, a comedy directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Dutt (right) played a memorable role. travelling theatre of the Kendals and received rigorous training in Shakespearean drama. In his thirties, he wrote a string of plays critical of past and present power structures (he was jailed by the Congress government in West Bengal in 1965 for the subversive message of his play Kallol). Dutt’s range was vast. He acted in and directed jatra plays, and reviewed new plays and films for journals; one month he might be seen in a Satyajit Ray film, the next in a speedily made farce.

Like many intellectuals of his time, Dutt looked—perhaps with glasses that were too rose-coloured—to Russia and not to the West as the crucible where the future of humanity was being shaped. Following Marx and Lenin, he deplored “the all-perva-

sive alienation of men in any society based on private property”, and harangues bourgeois society for commodifying “all that mankind once considered sacred” and for peddling crude superstitions instead of standing up for independence of thought.

He often has a point. In a speech given in 1991, he excoriates the TV Ramayan that brought life to a standstill on Sunday mornings in the 1980s for its crude glitz and covert ideological agenda—“monkeys and bears speaking Sanskritized Hindi, holy men flying over painted clouds”—and connects this to the jingoism and chauvinism that led to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. The serial, he thunders, was nothing but “a fairy tale written by an alco-

holic”. If this makes Dutt seem like too much of a scold, then elsewhere on these pages we find him reviewing one of his own performances under a pseudonym and cheekily declaring: “Mr Dutt as Othello was rather a pitiable sight, with his voice gone, his breathing laboured and his bulk enormous.”

There are excellent appreciations here of the films of Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Charlie Chaplin, written in rich language, with great attention to individual scenes and points of detail. Like most practising artists, Dutt never lost his capacity for wonder, for pure pleasure in an artistic idea truthfully realized or a detail vividly brought to life.

His politics can be too rigid and censorious, but his aesthetic sense never allowed itself to be shackled, and nowhere on these pages can he be found supporting the banalities of socialist realism. He knew very well, as someone who became a character each time he went on stage or faced a camera, that “all artistic activity consists in camouflage”. Anybody interested in the arts can read these books for both profit and pleasure.

Chandrahas Choudhury is the author of Arzee the Dwarf.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

On Theatre: Seagull Books, 202 pages, Rs425.

On Cinema: Seagull Books, 162 pages, Rs350.

SAVIORS AND SURVIVORS | MAHMOOD MAMDANI

Out of Africa The acclaimed genocide scholar asks hard questions about the Darfur crisis B Y J ONATHAN S IDHU jonathan.s@livemint.com

···························· enocide is a loaded word. In international law, few words have the implications it has.

When violence is called genocide, the world cannot be inactive, it must act; indeed the United Nations’ stance on genocide implores it to do so. It is a horror outside the spectrum of the thinkable; a crime against humanity that destroys a people.

Since 2004, “genocide” and Darfur, a region in northern Africa’s Sudan, have been inextricably linked. Former US secretary of state Colin Powell called vio-

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Saviors and Survivors: Pantheon, 416 pages, $26.95 (around Rs1,300).

LAKSHMI CHAUDHRY

lence in the region genocide, and countries and companies have divested from any dealings with Sudan. Darfur has also been the buzz on college campuses and policy circles.

Yet, despite compelling reportage, little comprehensive, scholarly and probing work has appeared on the causes and foundations of the violence in Darfur.

Celebrated genocide scholar Mahmood Mamdani has penetrated through the chatter in his new book, Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. Mamdani, a political scientist at Columbia University, US, has been recognized for his previous groundbreaking study of the Rwandan genocide, When Victims Become Killers (2002).

Mamdani takes a highly contentious line in this new volume, arguing that what has occurred in Darfur is not genocide but an ideological perversion of events by the West. Mamdani estimates that from 2003-2004, between 70,000

IN SIX WORDS A treat for serious movie addicts

et’s write about sex, baby...all the good things and the bad things that may be. If only it was that easy to write about the ultimate deed. The best writers have faltered at the altar of Eros. Nominees for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Award include Norman Mailer, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, Gabriel García Márquez and our home-grown Tarun Tejpal.

The best of the worst, however, is John Updike, who received a lifetime achievement award last year for making the shortlist four years in a row.

How odd then that the new owner of Britain’s The Erotic Review lays the blame squarely on us gals. Kate Copstick claims women are simply not up to the job of writing good sex “because they have an agenda, they complicate sex, they make layers, it’s conditional. And they lie as well”. Ouch! Yes, it’s ironic that Copstick is a woman, and more so that she is a woman who has made a career writing, what else, instruction manuals about sex.

Her claim is not just fact-free but also wrong-headed in its assumption about what makes for good sex writing. Under her aegis, Copstick promises, the Review will be entirely about “Sex. Not love, not relationships. It’s for people who have a genuine, visceral appreciation of sex qua sex”. Yet what gives sex its power is all that complicating stuff she can’t abide: the multiple, overlapping, conflicting “layers” of feelings, thoughts and sensations that make up the experience of sex.

It is why handing out Bad Sex awards in fiction is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. Prose is a slave to description. Its natural impulse is to narrate, detail, document an experience, and therein lies the literary rub. Sex, when described, veers far too easily to either the pornographic or the absurd.

Those in greatest peril are writers such as Updike, whose talent for crisp, plain, unflinching prose is far more likely to make him look FOTO POOL/CLASOS.COM foolish when he ventures into the bedroom. As in this nominated passage from The Widows of Eastwick: “She said nothing then, her lovely mouth otherwise engaged, until he came, all over her face. She had gagged, and The bad sex award: Márquez was a nominee. moved him outside her lips, rubbing his spurting glans across her cheeks and chin.” Now that’s both pornographic and absurd.

When looking for good sex in literature, it’s safest to stick with the poets, perhaps because poems are existential, not empirical; they capture the experience, not the deed. Like sex itself, poetry is about sensation: Poems evoke a feeling, a sensation, a mood. Unlike poets, authors are weighed down by the requirements of narrative, mainly the burden of creating context, character, milieu.

After the strenuous work of setting the scene, so to speak, comes the business of describing the act itself, which inevitably involves a string of unfortunate, giggle-inducing metaphors. In Shire Hell, the 2008 winner of the Bad Sex award, poor Rachel Johnson is reduced to describing her hero’s “light fingers” to “a moth caught inside a lampshade”, and his tongue to “a cat lapping up a dish of cream so as not to miss a single drop”.

Poems can instead be wholly, delightfully metaphorical, as is E.E. Cummings’ she being Brand: “i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her/ up,slipped the/ clutch(and then somehow got into reverse she/ kicked what/ the hell)next/ minute i was back in neutral tried and/ again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing ...”

Conflate driving with sex in fiction, all you get is tacky. Do it well in a poem, and reach for the sublime.

Write to Lakshmi at postscript@livemint.com

STUART PRICE/AFP

War cry: A Sudanese refugee. and 400,000 individuals were killed there. Yet, these figures often pale in comparison to other worldwide catastrophes and conflicts. Mamdani finds that not only are the figures for deaths in Iraq far higher than in Darfur, but Iraq has a much higher proportion of violent deaths. Therefore, he asks: “So why do we call the killing in Darfur genocide but not that in Iraq? Is it because, despite the wide disparity in the number of

excess deaths, whether violencerelated or violent, victims and perpetrators belong to different races in Darfur but not in Iraq?”

This is where the ingenuity of Mamdani’s book lies: He unravels the racial motivation of the violence, and the common Western framing of it as “perpetrated by ‘light-skinned Arabs’ on ‘black Africans’” Such a reading, he suggests, is facile and dangerous.

It has long been documented that certain human catastrophes outside of geopolitical or economic interest command little outside attention, while those with strategic interest are carefully tracked. But Mamdani finds that Sudan is anomalous in this regard: “Darfur has become the core concern of a domestic social and political movement in the United States, one whose scale recalls the anti-war movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.”

The greater success of Mamdani’s work, though, is how he tracks the history of race in Sudan.

He argues that colonial powers partially constructed racial identity to govern the region; and subsequently, these identities were absorbed by the state of Sudan after it gained independence. The problem, though, is how to distill these lessons, which Mamdani hasn’t necessarily explored. If these legacies are so entrenched, how can we overcome them?

Finally, Mamdani’s reading of international involvement and humanitarianism seems facile; he argues that such an order draws on Western colonialism, and almost writes off the project entirely. While certainly not ideal, international involvement in, say, the former Yugoslavia cannot be considered inappropriate.

Ultimately, though, within the bourgeoning cottage industry of genocide scholars, few voices resonate as insightfully as Mamdani’s, who has written a deeply compelling account of the Darfur crisis, the campaign and its context.

L16

www.livemint.com

SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009

Culture Q&A | MICHAEL BAY

She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Michael Bay, director of ‘Transformers’, talks about Megan Fox and robot fatigue

B Y L AUREN A .E . S CHUKER ···························· is latest film could make Hollywood history for Michael Bay, the movie director behind the big budget epics Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. The $200 million (around Rs960 crore) action-adventure movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, is poised to possibly have the biggest opening in Hollywood history—rivalling the record-shattering totals for last summer’s The Dark Knight.

But the 44-year-old director, who has a predilection for massive budgets and pyrotechnic explosions, has already set his sights on a radically new goal—making an art film. Edited excerpts:

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This film features even more talking robots—based on the Hasbro toy line—than the first Transformers. Why add more robots rather than humans?

That’s what fans wanted. The first film was really about us setting up the situation, and this movie is about us discovering what we could do better with that situation, how to make the most out of these special effects and these characters.

Did Hasbro force you to conform to the aesthetics of the robots to match the style of its toy line? Did you have to make any compromises on characters for the sake of promoting Hasbro’s stable of pre-existing Transformers characters?

Not at all. I told (Hasbro) that I was going to do my own thing, and they really let me go off on the designs. They gave me carte

blanche—it was pretty phenomenal. But I still listened to people who were in that world when they asked things like, ‘Can we make Optimus’ ears a little longer so he appears more in character?’ That’s easy to do. And a lot of the artists and people that we hired were fans of Transformers growing up, so having so many fans working on my crew really kept me on point. There are things that I invented—the creaky geriatric robot that is always grumpy, for example, or the little wheelie guy, he’s not in the Hasbro lore. But kids love that stuff—this little guy as a pet on a chain. They gravitate towards it.

Did you add testicles to the robots, too?

No, those are construction balls.

Uh-huh. So, now that you’ve finished the sequel of Transformers, are you ready to direct the third instalment of the franchise?

I just want to take some time off. It’s been almost three years that I’ve devoted myself entirely to this world of robots. At some point, enough is enough—and I literally carried this movie on my back. I only finished it in the last week. It was a tough movie for me to finish—especially with the writers strike, the possible Screen Actors Guild strike. At one point, we were the only union movie in America shooting—Hollywood was so messed up from those two events.

So you don’t want to do another sequel?

I don’t know who (would) want to take on my shoes with this franchise. We might just take a year down.

Terror’s children A Pakistani director taps into her country’s story B Y A LEXANDRA V IETS The Wall Street Journal

···························· n Children of the Taliban, documentary film-maker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy interviews two 15-year-old boys, Abdurrahman and Wasifullah, who are living in Kachegori Camp, a refugee settlement in Pakistan.

The boys, best friends since childhood, fled their hometown in northern Pakistan in October, when it became a target of both a Pakistani army bombing campaign and a US missile attack intended for Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. In the film, Abdurrahman, who blames the Taliban for the October raid, says he wants to be a Pakistan army soldier when he grows up. Wasiful-

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lah, whose cousin was killed by a US missile, wants to join the Taliban. Later, Obaid-Chinoy asks the two boys separately: Are they willing to fight each other on the battlefield?

“Definitely, I will kill him,” says Abdurrahman.

“Yes,” says Wasifullah, “I will retaliate fiercely.”

The scene epitomizes what 30-year-old Obaid-Chinoy, a Karachi native, calls the Pakistan story. “We are a country on the verge of civil war, where to kill the enemy is to kill one of your own.”

Obaid-Chinoy, a graduate of the elite Smith College in Massachusetts, US, has been documenting the role that violence has played in South Asia and West Asia in the past half-century.

Each of Obaid-Chinoy’s 14 films has been screened worldwide on outlets such as CNN, Discovery and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera satellite television network. Yet none has ever aired in her own country.

Transformative: (from left) LaBeouf and Bay on the sets; and Optimus Prime.

What’s next for you, then?

I’ve been talking to some big actors right now about something that is totally different. A small dark comedy, a true story, with actors just acting, no effects. I’m done with effects movies for now. When you do a movie like Transformers, it can feel like you’re doing three movies at once—which is tiring.

It’s interesting that you want to focus on acting. Megan Fox, one of the leads in Transformers, has criticized your films for being special-effects-driven and not offering so many acting opportunities. Do you agree?

Well, that’s Megan Fox for you.

She says some very ridiculous things because she’s 23 years old and she still has a lot of growing to do. You roll your

Even so, many of her fellow citizens in Pakistan have come to know her films by watching snippets on websites that post portions of them. Her latest, Children of the Taliban, has stirred controversy among Pakistanis all over the world and sparked a debate about the country’s future.

In the film, which is also known as Pakistan’s Taliban Generation, Obaid-Chinoy travels with locals into the Taliban-controlled Swat valley and to the Afghanistan border in February 2009. She interviews Pakistani soldiers, Taliban fighters and Pakistani children to examine how the Taliban recruits its child soldiers. The film focuses on teenagers whose lives have been defined by the threat of terror—from the Taliban, and Pakistan and US armies.

The eldest child in a family of five girls and one boy, Obaid-Chinoy was taught to speak her mind. Her father, who owns a Karachi textile mill and works with three of his daughters in what is a male-dominated industry, always told people he had six sons, Obaid-Chinoy says.

“Just that simple pronouncement made us stronger mentally,

eyes when you see statements like that and think, “Okay Megan, you can do whatever you want. I got it.” But I 100% disagree with her. Nick Cage wasn’t a big actor when I cast him, nor was Ben Affleck before I put him in Armageddon. Shia LaBeouf wasn’t a big movie star before he did Transformers— and then he exploded. Not to mention Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, from Bad Boys.

Nobody in the world knew about Megan Fox until I found her and put her in Transformers.

I like to think that I’ve had some luck in building actors’ careers with my films.

With all the recent emphasis on 3D and technology in movies, do you think we’ll see some directors emerge out of the special effects houses?

People have come before from

the special effects houses and have not done well. People can come from anywhere—but it’s really about telling stories.

Either you’re born to do this or you’re not.

Speaking of effects, what about 3D? Are you a fan? Will we watch the third Transformers movie in three dimensions?

I prefer the flat screen. I’m not jumping to do 3D at all—it’s a pain in the neck to shoot it and I actually like the flat image.

I’ve heard that some people can’t even see 3D and, moreover, that a major side effect of watching it is feeling exhausted. Can you imagine how you’d feel watching one of my movies in 3D? You really shot all those scenes at the real pyramids?

One of the things that I pride myself on is that in situations

where people say, “You can’t do that,” somehow I am always able to pull it off. I did it with Pearl Harbor and I did it with Armageddon, with the space shuttle, and luckily (secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities) Dr Zahi Hawass, who runs the pyramids, was a fan of the first Transformers—so he let us film there, even though we’re the first film to do so in 30 years.

Those pyramids get pretty beat up in the film. Did they crumble during the filming?

The destruction is all effects. We were very, very careful. We didn’t break anything!

SHARMEEN OBAID FILMS

ASAD FARUQI

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is scheduled to release in theatres on 10 July.

Write to wsj@livemint.com

SHARMEEN OBAID FILMS

Conflict zone: Obaid­Chinoy (above, in a shawl) has been documenting violence in South and West Asia. because we grew up believing that we were equal to men.”

For Pakistanis living abroad, the movie has sparked a debate about the survival of their country. A comment posted on the Net from Michigan says: “Why aren’t more international Muslims aggressively speaking out against these fanatics?” Another from Canada: “All the kids in the video being recruited have similar char-

acteristics: extreme poverty. To win this war, a long-term strategy is needed to eliminate (poverty).”

Obaid-Chinoy was a senior at Smith College on the morning of 9/11. She was walking through campus when she received a voicemail from a friend in New York. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh God please don’t let it be us—Muslims.’” The attacks in the US were pivotal for Obaid-Chinoy. She felt

that Muslim women in Afghanistan and Pakistan now had “the opportunity to tell our story”.

These days, Obaid-Chinoy is working on a book. She wants want to write about “how different” her mother’s Pakistan was from hers, she says. “I want to chronicle the effect of 30 years of war on an entire generation.”

Write to wsj@livemint.com

CULTURE L17 SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

COURTESY

ART

SEAGULL

CENTRE

In full form KG Subramanyan’s new works stand out for their quality and quantity

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

···························· he sense of anticipation at getting K.G. Subramanyan at the other end of the line from Santiniketan was shortlived. “This sort of thing irritates me,” said the doyen of Indian art—who turned 85 in February —when requested to “say something” about his latest set of artworks on display. As he explained, he had made them for people to see and would rather hear what they thought of his works.

The occasion for the call was his ongoing show in Kolkata, The Magic of Making: Recent Artworks by K.G. Subramanyan, which has been hosted jointly by three galleries—Aakriti, Akar Prakar and Seagull.

It was, he said, “a follow-up of sorts” to the successful show organized in February by his longtime publisher, Naveen Kishore of Seagull Books, in Santiniketan to mark the 85th birthday of the painter, sculptor, muralist, art historian, teacher and writer.

Subramanyan has had a long and close association with Santiniketan. After his release from prison in the mid-1940s—he had been arrested in 1942 for taking part in the Quit India movement—his parents sent him there, giving him the opportunity to study under masters such as Nandalal Bose, Binode Behari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij. He went back to his alma mater in 1980 as professor and taught there till 1989, when he was appointed professor emeritus. As an artist, Subramanyan is acknowledged for having successfully blended Indian folk art traditions with modernism as well as for exploring and experimenting with indigenous crafts such as weaving and toymaking—bridging, in the process, the gap between “the artist and the artisan”.

The bridging of diverse styles and skills is much in evidence in The Magic of Making, which features works on paper, reverse painting on acrylic sheet, canvases and terracotta reliefs, all

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SAMANTH S

THE AIRWAVES ARE ALIVE

made over this year and the last. Subramanyan has returned to terracotta after three decades and it happened purely by chance—someone gave the artist a truckload of clay (mati), so he decided to use it. “I use all kinds of mediums,” says Subramanyan.

“Since there was clay here, I made terracotta works.”

They consist of tiles, 10x10 inch each, with a relief of human faces, hands, feet and torso—some clothed in Indian garb such as dhoti and salwar-kurta—etched in a style that looks like a blend of modernism imported from Europe and traditional local art.

A face in profile reminds you of Picasso; another looks like a Bhil mask and a newspaper caricature rolled into one. Nine tiles arranged together into a square, a collage of dismembered body parts, comprise one work.

The works on paper, drawings done in gouache, are playful and “light”, seemingly spontaneous, brightly-coloured renditions of men, women, plants and animals drawn in a few strokes, the diverse influences blended imperceptibly and then transcended to create an original style. Some of the works have traditional mythological imagery though overtly religious themes are absent.

Kishore recalls how once, when asked how long it took him to make a painting, Subramanyan had snapped his fingers in response, saying that’s how long it should take. As if the painting—a result of many years of assimilation of the environment around the artist—“appeared” fully formed in his mind, and then merely had to be transferred on to canvas.

The exuberance displayed in his works is clearly linked to his prolific output—in all, there are about 140 works on display in the three galleries. Asked if financial considerations dictated his output, Subramanyan replied he wasn’t involved with the monetary side of things. And broke into Hindi for emphasis—“Dal roti ka paisa hai (I have enough to eat)”. To him, the show is only about displaying his artworks and seeing what people think of them.

The Magic of Making is showing at the Aakriti Art Gallery, Akar Prakar and The Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre in Kolkata till 18 July.

RAAGTIME

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GALLERY AAKRITI ART

AAKRITI

ART GA LLERY

Bridging styles: (from top) An untitled terracotta work; Birth of a Black Boy, gouache on paper; and an untitled work of gouache on paper.

or the last few years, the truest friend of the avid Carnatic music listener has been Shruti, the 24-hour WorldSpace satellite radio channel devoted exclusively to the genre. For the price of an inexpensive, dinky little receiver and a surprisingly low annual subscription, Shruti offers Carnatic music on tap. The recordings are of sparkling quality, there are no advertisements, and while the radio jockeys display roughly as much animation as they would if afflicted with sleeping sickness, they are nonetheless knowledgeable. Shruti has thus earned itself some loyal fans. I know of families, such as my own, which have subscribed to WorldSpace for years and have not once turned the dial past Shruti to any of its 30-odd other channels. I know also one friend who keeps his set on 24 hours a day; when asked about this, he said: “Oh, if I happen to get up for a few minutes at night, for a glass of water or a trip to the bathroom, I like to listen to Shruti as I do that. There might be a good Timeless: Radio still matters in music. piece on.”

Shruti’s wisest move has been to invest in its music—to gather, like a giddy harvester, as vast a swathe of recordings as possible (but it hasn’t been indiscriminate in this process. There are musicians on Shruti who will appeal to some tastes and not to others, but largely, the calibre of performers is consistently good). It was on Shruti, for instance, that I first heard the early 20th century singer Tiger Varadachariar, in a recording that crackled and popped like corn but was otherwise marvellously intact. It isn’t easy to find a Tiger recording, and that is essentially the key to Shruti’s success.

However large your collection of Carnatic CDs and mp3s, there is still a further ocean of music out there to listen to, and Shruti keeps a window open 24/7 on much of that.

In this role as access provider, though, Shruti has merely modelled itself after the original king of Carnatic content: All India Radio (AIR). Forty years ago, the number of high-quality recordings in circulation could not have been even a twentieth of what we have today, so listeners depended even more on AIR than we do on Shruti. Aspiring musicians looked to AIR for professional succour: They learnt songs and ragas off the broadcasts, and later, they vied to become graded artists, assured not only of a certain number of recorded programmes per year, but also of the prestige associated with the grade. For its part, AIR’s music library grew year after year by accretion, as generations of musicians passed through its studios; aficionados sometimes discuss the rumoured size of the AIR Carnatic collection with envy and lust, the way bibliophiles must talk of Umberto Eco’s personal library or oil barons of Saudi Arabia.

In 2007, AIR launched Ragam, a dedicated Carnatic channel on its direct-to-home platform. I haven’t heard Ragam yet, but if AIR is using its archives intelligently, it must be terrific. I wish, however, that the government would hurry up and clear WorldSpace’s plans to stream its content on its website. It is clearly the next logical step, and if AIR were to do something similar, we listeners would be far, far better off for it.

Write to Samanth Subramanian at raagtime@livemint.com

TV REVIEW | TRUE BLOOD

Sookie the vampire lover Coexisting with and dating the Other in ‘True Blood’

B Y N ISHA D AMANI ···························· guy walks into a bar and says, “Can I have a bottle of O negative, please?” Nope, no punchline here. In a small southern town called Bon Temps (in Louisiana), a vampire walks into a bar, and asks for blood. Okay, maybe there is a bit of a punchline.

HBO’s latest show, True Blood, is created by Alan Ball, whose previous credits include the hit television show Six Feet Under and American Beauty. The series is based on the Sookie Stackhouse books by best-selling author Charlaine Harris. Anna Paquin (The Piano, X-Men) plays Sookie, a telepathic bar waitress who is magnetically drawn to the new stranger in town—a 173-year-old vampire, Bill Compton. Sookie can’t hear Bill’s thoughts, which is why she likes being with him, and

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Bill is intrigued by the petite vampire-loving waitress. Their epic romance takes the lead.

The story so far… The Japanese (but of course) have invented synthetic blood called Tru Blood, which allowed vampires “to get out of the coffin” two years ago, and exist in society without preying on humans. Even though Tru Blood is widely available (and packaged like pints of beer. Cool!) and vampires roam the streets freely, most humans are wary of them. The Church is against their inclusion in society and vehemently opposes the VRA (Vampire Rights Amendment), as seen on televised debates.

The Church vs Vampires is a metaphor of sorts. It’s the Church versus anything different. The VRA could very well be the Gay Rights Amendment. The show’s underlying premise is our

Kiss and tell: The love story of Sookie and Bill has its funny moments. fear of the unknown. If people don’t fit into the moral code of the majority, they are not to be trusted and can’t live freely.

Pasty and pale-faced Stephen Moyer is perfect as Bill. Paquin (blonde, skinnier with a southern accent) is less convincing as the only choice for Sookie, but she’ll do. The “love” scenes between

Sookie and Bill are long, languorous and a bit forced. They could have done with a snip or two on the editing table. Or they could been included in a more staggered fashion as the plot progressed.

Sookie’s brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) is loads of fun, with his endearing dumb-jock expressions and screw-ups. Sookie’s best

friend Tara’s (Rutina Wesley) wicked sense of humour and nononsense attitude is a respite from all the darkness in the show.

The show has its funny moments. When Tara walks into her house, there is a tabloid on the table that reads—Angelina Adopts A Vampire Baby. We are introduced to True Blood lingo such as mainstreaming—vampires trying to live in mainstream society; fang bangers, people who like to have sex with vampires (all the rage in Bon Temps), and V, vampire blood, a drug for humans which heightens their senses and sexual desire.

This slow, seductive and mesmerizing drama is not about good versus evil. It’s about blurred morality. Vampires are sexy, dark creatures and True Blood is about sex, drugs, and things that lurk in the shadows. Give it some time and get a taste, it’s worth it.

True Blood premieres Sunday on HBO after the 9pm movie.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

L18 FLAVOURS SATURDAY, JULY 4, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

WHAT’S COOKING | CORY WALLIA

A man’s place is in the kitchen The real talent of this make­up artist is in mutton, not mascara

B Y P ARIZAAD K HAN parizaad.k@livemint.com

···························· hen make-up artist Cory Wallia, who shares his home with four rescued cats, said he would cook for Lounge, we didn’t anticipate a 4-hour session, with the fruits of the labour being deferred till the next day. But this was one of those times when the wait enhanced the pay-off.

Wallia, who started out in make-up in 1989, is one of the industry’s top artists. He’s been associated with Hindustan Unilever Ltd for over a decade and has worked with most top models and actors.

But apart from his well-documented skills with make-up, he has another talent. Wallia cooks “all the time”, for himself and friends, even after an exhausting 10-hour workday. “For me, it’s relaxation. Cooking rearranges my psyche.” His love for food has prompted him to do strange things: going unauthorized into the kitchens of his favourite restaurants and sometimes taking up foreign assignments at a quarter of his usual fee because they offer him an opportunity to explore the culinary culture of exotic locations he wouldn’t ordinarily go to.

Today Wallia is staying close to home. He’s making aamti, a Maharashtrian-style sour dal. A

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container-full will be kept aside for actor Raveena Tandon, who Wallia is shooting with the day after. “She loves this dal; it’s a given that I take some for her when we meet,” he says.

Also on the menu for us is a simple tinda (Indian round gourd) recipe, mixed green leafy veggies, and mutton chops in roasted masala, prepared the way his grandmother—a Saraswat Brahmin married into Maratha royalty—used to make it. Wallia’s father was a Sardar while his mother’s family has Maharashtrian and some Gujarati blood, but Wallia says he believes he’s Parsi. To prove that point, he’s got a surprise for later.

The tinda has been peeled, quartered and steamed in a covered sieve over a vessel of boiling water.

Wallia puts a heavy-bottomed pan on the stove and starts roasting spices for the mutton. A heady cinnamon and star anise smell fills the kitchen while Wallia, a self-confessed fan of anthropology and etymology, explains the origins of ingredient and dish names.

His frequent dinner parties must be entertaining—he’s theatrical (lots of arm waving, gesticulating and dramatically raised eyebrows), and is acquainted with every second person in Mumbai.

Wallia learnt how to cook on his grandmother’s knee. His aaji, as he called her, was extremely innovative and it showed in her cooking. “She introduced dimsums to Bombay before anyone knew what they were,” he says. Aaji’s “dimsums” were savoury versions of modaks, the popular Maharashtrian sweet. She made tiny modaks filled with teesriya (clam), oysters and fish roe; some were steamed, some fried and pricked with a toothpick. They were a hit at dinner parties.

He’s added garlic, ginger, chillies and onions to the mix that’s

being roasted, and soon everyone in the kitchen has stinging, watery eyes—except Wallia, who bends over the pan to inhale the aroma.

“It’s good for the sinuses,” he says.

From the sound of it, Wallia was a culinarily precocious child. His childhood years were spent in a building in Colaba, surrounded by neighbours of all communities. He learnt to make Sindhi curry and sai bhaji (a mishmash of spinach and other vegetables) when he was eight, from the Sindhi family on the second floor. He learnt about Gujju food at the home of Ashok Desai, a constitutional expert and former attorney general of India, from Desai’s wife Suvarnaben and the maharaj. And he learnt to eat beef in the homes of his Muslim and Parsi friends—the fact that they had Jain neighbours made no difference in those days. “It was a cosmopolitan building that epitomized Bombay culture. That’s when I decided my religion would be food.”

For someone who works in the ever-evolving fashion industry, Wallia can be quite a traditionalist. He doesn’t own a mixer or grinder and prefers grinding his masalas by hand on the grinding stone. Out comes a mortar and pestle, of the kind used by Ayurvedic doctors, when it is time to crush the spices for the tinda.

“Compounder,” he laughs at himself, bashing the saunf, black pepper and mustard seeds in the clinical white mortar and pestle. He fries some garlic and adds the spices, and the tinda goes into the pan after the spices are cooked.

It’s a very simple dish, finished with lime juice, but the taste of the tinda remains pristine, just enhanced by the aromatics. “I learnt from the Italians to let the natural taste of the vegetable come out. I reserve my masalas for the meats.” The mutton is currently in its last stages of cooking

Balanced diet: (left) Wallia juggles three dishes; and the mortar and pestle he uses for crushing small quantities of spices.

in a covered pan (“never put it in a pressure cooker”).

And then a big surprise: “You must come back tomorrow to eat it. These dishes taste better the next day,” Wallia says.

So on Day 2, we start out with a fortifying breakfast of spicy kidney on toast (“Worcestershire sauce is the secret ingredient”).

By lunchtime, Wallia and I are digging into hot phulkas made by his cook, that are like “puffy little hankies”. The tinda, tangy dal and mixed veggies are delicious, but the chops, thickly coated in a brown masala, are outstanding.

The surprise Parsi element is a jar of Wallia-made prawn Tarapori patia, a hot, sweet and sour p i ckle . W hich ta st ed like it couldn’t have been made by anyone but a Parsi.

Serves 8

2 large onions, sliced long and fine (keep aside)* 14 garlic cloves, peeled 1½ inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped roughly 2 inch piece of cinnamon 2 star anise 2 pieces mace (javitri) 5 green cardamoms (elaichi), peeled 2 large black cardamoms, peeled and used with seeds 10 cloves 2 tbsp poppy seeds 1 fresh coconut, grated 1½ tbsp turmeric (haldi) powder 1½ tbsp cumin (jeera) seeds 2 tbsp coriander (dhania) 14 spicy red Goan chillies 5 green chillies 1 tbsp aniseed (saunf) 4 cups fresh coconut milk (tetrapacks will do)* 4 tej patta, keep the leaves intact* * indicates ingredients which are not to be roasted

Ingredients 1½ kg mutton (cubed, with some marrow bones) * 4 large onions, finely chopped

Method Roast all the ingredients on a heavy tava or a non-stick pan, in this order: First the dry spices

Mutton Sagoti

(cloves, aniseed, cardamoms, cinnamon, mace, star anise, poppy seeds, dhania, jeera and red chillies), all together, on a very low flame till the poppy seeds go reddish and the spice aroma is redolent. Remove and cool in a thali.

In the same pan, in two tablespoons of oil, roast the onions, garlic, ginger, haldi powder and coconut till fragrant. Grind the cooled dry spices to a fine powder and mix into the onion and coconut mixture, adding the green chillies. Grind to a fine paste.

In a large, non-stick dekchi (pot), fry finely sliced onions and tej patta till the onions are golden brown. Add the masala mix and fry till the oil separates from the ingredients. Add mutton and fry till it is coated and juices form at the bottom of the dekchi. Cover, lower flame and cook till mutton is tender. Add coconut milk, salt to taste and simmer for 15 minutes. Serve with either rice, neer dosa, pao or appams.

SAMAR HALARNKAR

OUR DAILY BREAD

SAMAR HALARNKAR

THE ITALIAN CONQUEST

T

he Mughal emperors ruled India by the sword—Persian was our chief administrative language till the 1800s—and then became us. The Brits ruled India with cannon and cunning, inadvertently gave us our modern identity—and English—and let us be.

With the end of the empire, India’s messy, dynastic democracy took over, full of absurdities, spectacle, family—and food.

And so Sonia Gandhi stepped in.

Who else but an Italian could adapt to modern India? We are, of course, substantially worse off than them economically, but like us, Italians are garrulous, disorganized and make a virtue of chaos.

Little wonder that Indians who marry Italians report great compatibility. The supermodel Madhu Sapre, for instance, the Maharashtrian mulgi (girl) who made a smooth transition to domesticity somewhere near Milan.

My wife’s cousin is married to an Italian and the similarities are astonishing. Like us, they are accepting of guests and tend to shrug if things don’t turn out as they are supposed to. Like us,

they love their food and have a long, proud culinary tradition.

Little wonder that pasta has become so beloved in urban India. My main problem with Indian-restaurant pasta (with some honourable exceptions) is that (a) it’s way too oily and (b) we love to overcook it (al dente?

What’s that?)

Here’s the easy solution: Get a pasta packet and make the sauce at home. There’s nothing quite like it.

Every kirana (grocery) store seems to stock pasta and a growing number of store owners can guide you through—at least—spaghetti, penne and farfalle (though there are as many types of pasta as there are alphabets).

Now, I’m sure many of you do this, but let me share my limited experience.

I stick to two types of sauces: pesto and arrabiata, both suitably Indianized. I overcome my culinary limitations by simply adding some booze to the sauces: vodka to arrabiata; white wine to pesto.

I’m keeping the recipes vegetarian, so I am not again accused of ignoring my brethren who, I am sure, live as fulfilling a

life as I do and dream the same dreams (I’m not so sure about the dreams, though—do vegetarians have long, involved dreams of marinating and then roasting a pork chop?).

Vodka arrabiata masala Ingredients 12 big, juicy tomatoes 10-11 large garlic cloves, peeled 1 tbsp olive oil ½ cup vodka 1 tsp of red chilli flakes ½ glass red-wine vinegar or red wine Basil leaves Parmesan cheese Method Chop the tomatoes into quarters or smaller pieces. Arrange the tomatoes and garlic in a baking dish and roast them in an oven till you get the wonderful, nutty smell of roasting garlic. Crush the garlic. Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan (don’t smoke the oil), throw in the garlic. When the garlic starts to brown, throw in the tomatoes. Reduce the flame and keep stirring till the tomatoes start to collapse. Keep stirring—this time with some vodka (I used about half a cup at least, though I am not sure since I was drinking it too). Stir in red chilli flakes (you don’t have to; I do, sometimes).

For good measure, pour in some red-wine vinegar, or red wine.

Half a goblet. Roughly tear and add a big handful of basil leaves.

Make the pasta (see The pasta).

Toss the pasta with the sauce.

Grate some fresh Parmesan

The infusion: Pour in the vodka when the tomatoes begin to collapse, and stir the purée on a low flame before adding chilli flakes. cheese over the pasta (if you don’t, that’s fine too).

Pesto power plus The key to pesto is fresh basil. I mean really fresh, green leaves (and no, you cannot substitute it with tulsi, even though tulsi is called sweet basil). Basil wilts easily, and if the leaves are blackening around the edges, it’s not in the best shape it could be.

Basil also blackens quickly when washed and kept out of the fridge, so only wash it just before you make the pesto.

Ingredients 2 handfuls of basil leaves (either plucked or with stalks; I do either, depending on how keen I am to pluck) ½ a handful of pine nuts (chilgoza) or/and a few walnuts or almonds

3-4 big flakes of garlic (roast them first if you want a nutty flavour) 1-2 chillies Salt to taste 2 tbsp olive oil (extra virgin is best) A dash of white wine (I was drinking Gewurztraminer when I made this particular pesto) Grated Parmesan cheese or Pecorino cheese (I prefer to grate the cheese directly over the pasta).

Method Bung the whole lot in a mixie and whir it. Add extra basil or olive oil or wine to get a smooth, chutney consistency.

Or if you prefer it coarse, cut back on the oil.

Pour the pesto over the pasta and toss well. Grate some fresh Parmesan, and grind some fresh pepper, if you wish.

If you want to change this to a non-vegetarian version, let me suggest the following additions to the pasta: grilled fish, grilled chicken, roast pork or shredded lamb.

I also use pesto as a marinade for grilled fish or chicken. This week, I also marinated a small pomfret with pesto after sticking a kaffir lime leaf into its belly. It was delicious.

The pasta If using spaghetti, you can snap it in two, though I don’t. Place the pasta in a big pot of boiling, salted water, then stir until al dente, meaning slightly underdone, which is how I like it (most Indians don’t). It takes about 20 minutes. Drain the water, run the pasta under cool water for about 15 seconds, then drizzle and toss with a teaspoon of olive oil.

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

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