Lounge 19 September

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

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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Vol. 3 No. 37

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

Adopted by an American Caucasian family 25 years ago, Goa­born Nisha Grayson is coming back ‘home’ in search of her birth mother and herself >Page 10

SKIN DEEP

BUSINESS LOUNGE WITH MARKS AND SPENCER’S MARK ASHMAN >Page 8

ROUGH LUXE The world of interiors has a new manifesto, say the editors of WSJ. magazine >Page 6

THE AUSTERITY CODE

We asked some people to name Indians who really know how to live the simple life >Page 9

Nisha Grayson, 26, will reach India on 30 September, returning to the country for the first time since she left it as a six­month­old baby.

HIGH WINDOWS

MUKUL KESAVAN

THE GOOD LIFE

SHOBA NARAYAN

MODI IS BAD NEWS CIVILITY MAKES FOR BJP AND INDIA A CHAMPION

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ir Sanghvi recently described the political turmoil in the BJP as a colonels’ coup, with the party’s middle echelon ejecting its senior officers. A change of guard does seem to be in the offing: The RSS has intervened to speed up the superannuation of the Jan Sangh gerontocrats, L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, and to manage the transition to a younger generation of bigots. The party’s rout in the recent elections has weakened its ability to resist Nagpur’s... >Page 4

STALL ORDER

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olecular biologist Joshua Lederberg who won the Nobel Prize at age 33 said civility was about controlling rage. Serena Williams would agree. Lederberg was talking about biological warfare when he made his comment, but it could just as well have applied to a championship match. I know the pleasures of an aptly delivered swear word. Been there; done there. A truck cuts you off. You roll down the window and let fly a choice few. >Page 4

NANDINI RAMNATH

THE SHRINKING WOMAN IN OUR FILMS

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shutosh Gowariker’s What’s Your Raashee? isn’t the first adaptation of the Gujarati novel Kimball Ravenswood.

However, the 25 September release can claim credit for going where no Hindi movie has gone before. By casting Priyanka Chopra in 12 roles, Gowariker will find out how much screen time audiences are willing to grant to a single actress.

The movie’s hero (Harman Baweja) chooses his bride from among 12 women, representing the 12 zodiac signs. >Page 17

WEDDINGS AND EROTICA An extract from a book featuring South Asian sex writing, about a young man’s sexual tensions at a Bengali wedding >Page 14

HOME PAGE L3

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

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

FIRST CUT

PRIYA RAMANI

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

WHY ‘DISTRICT 9’ IS THE NEW ‘SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE’

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (MANAGING EDITOR)

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

True life: The film was shot in Chiawelo, a squatter camp in Soweto, Jo’burg.

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ave you seen District 9? You should. It’s the new face of moviemaking. Part real, part imagination, part brilliant, part exploitative—and fully global. Its South African director lives in Canada and found himself a big Hollywood producer, New Zealander Peter Jackson. The film was shot with relatively unknown actors in a real slum in a cut-throat (by Hollywood standards) budget of $30 million.

In short, District 9 is this year’s Slumdog Millionaire.

The world of District 9 is no rosy Hollywood-style apocalyptic future starring Will Smith and his biceps. District 9’s Judgement Day isn’t set in New York or Chicago. District 9’s aliens haven’t graduated from the Spielberg school of sexy special effects. Surprise, surprise, the film WORLD VIEW doesn’t even star Christian Bale, the ultimate postmodern hero (c’mon, which other actor has played Bruce Wayne and John Connor?).

For those of you who haven’t seen it, 20 years ago a spaceship arrived over Johannesburg. The aliens within, some one million of them, are malnourished and humans extract them and confine them to District 9, a highcrime, fenced off slum in the city. No surprise that the aliens (who are derogatorily labelled prawns i.e. clueless, brainless husband’s-favouritefood-lookalikes with no rights or privileges) don’t blend in. Fast forward to the present and the citizens want these “dangerous” creatures evicted and moved further away from their world to District 10. All the aliens want is to go back home.

The movie, stunningly shot (it’s a stripped-down world the likes of which you’ve never seen before on the big screen) and edited, documents all the twists and turns of the eviction.

The director uses several not so subliminal signals about South Africa and segregation to make his point. It helps that this is one of those rare history

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BY PARIZAAD KHAN

This and more at blogs.livemint.com/livelounge ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPH BY ADRIENNE GARCIA

subjects mainstream audiences (and the Oscar jury) are familiar with.

The film was shot in Chiawelo, a squatter camp in Soweto. Yes the same Soweto that was born around 100 years ago when living in the city became out of bounds for black workers who powered the mines and other industries. It was ground zero of apartheid, that modern history shocker that still shapes the lives of today’s South Africans.

Many of the cardboard and metal shacks the aliens are shown living in are the actual houses of Chiawelo’s residents. Electricity finally came to Soweto about 10 years ago but it is yet to reach Chiawelo. Of course, Third Worlders such as you and me have seen this type of housing in our backyard.

Like Slumdog Millionaire, District 9’s failing is its complete lack of complexity and nuance. Johannesburg, according to the writer of this film, is mainly inhabited and run by Afrikaners. In fact, the city is a cauldron of African, Indian, European and Chinese people.

Some Nigerians, angry about being depicted as mobsters and cannibals in the film, have already launched their own “District 9 Hates Nigerians” Facebook group, even as others concede that while District 9 does have some racial stereotypes, it encourages us to challenge them.

As 2010 approaches, the next-decade film-maker knows that the quickest route to fame and Oscar glory is via grimy Mumbai or crime-ridden Johannesburg (and in fact, the Oscar buzz began one week after the film’s release). The new film-maker will only expand his canvas in the years to come. And every time a global movie is made on the other side of the world, the cultural debate will be rekindled.

PREVIEW | TOTE, MUMBAI

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n the middle of one of Mumbai’s most beautiful open spaces, an old shell has been given a new interior. The heritage Tote building—the structure where the bets were placed—at the Royal Western India Turf Club at Mahalaxmi has a new owner.

For a year and a half, Rahul Akerkar, one of the country’s bestknown chefs, has been preparing a 25,000 sq. ft property on a scale he has not attempted before.

Tote, as the new restaurant, bar and set of banquet rooms is called, is the new member of the deGustibus Hospitality family (headed by Rahul and wife Malini), which includes Indigo, Indigo Deli, Indigo Café and The Moveable Feast, a catering venture.

Established a decade ago, Indigo was Mumbai’s first standalone fine-dining restaurant, tempting diners in that segment to move away from five-star hotels. Tote, with a similar pricing strategy, takes that concept forward. Tote joins Gallops and the Olive Bar and Kitchen as the third restaurant on the race course property.

A few days before the launch, the colonial facade of the Tote building gives way to what looks like a bleached, enchanted forest.

In the banqueting and indoor restaurant areas, white metal pillars branch out like trees as they reach the ceiling, creating the effect of walking down a forest path. Strategically placed skylights in abstract shapes, mimicking sunlight breaking through dense foliage, heighten that feeling. By contrast, the 40ft long bar upstairs is all dark chocolate wood. The faceted wood panels on the walls give the impression of looking through a kaleidoscope, or at paper that was folded to make an origami figure and then opened out. The original cubbyhole-like windows, through which bets were placed, have been retained.

Burning bright: The wood­fired oven will be one of the highlights at Tote.

The restaurant is split into three areas—lounge seating on a veranda enclosed by glass panels; an indoor dining room sandwiched in between, and an alfresco space with the foliage of lush rain trees latticing the sky.

This open-air section will house pits for a grill, tandoor and woodfired ovens and tables sheltered by umbrellas. Chris Lee and Kapil Gupta of Serie Architects wanted to extend the feeling of being under the dense foliage of the rain trees into the building, which led to the tree-mimicking pillars.

Unlike Gallops’ Indian and continental fare, and Olive’s Mediterranean menu, Tote’s focus will be the grill. “Everybody likes smoke, fire and charcoal, so you can’t go wrong with that. And Bombay doesn’t have a hard-core grill,” says Rahul. Samplers from the grill menu: Grilled Baby Rawas, Grilled Mustard Chicken with Jus and Baby Red Snapper with Saffron and Tomato Jus. Though there will be parallels between the food at Tote and Indigo, the wood-grill steaks at Tote will be a change from the gas-grilled steaks at Indigo and the Deli. “And here you can order a steak, and create your own plate by adding on different sides,” Rahul explains. There are at least

10 options for side orders to choose from, such as Caramelized Mushroom and Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes.

Meats such as emu and rabbit, grilled portobello mushrooms, and pork chops and ribs imported from Germany are also a highlight. There are options for all-day dining, such as pizzas, burgers and light sandwiches.

The bar offers mini-meals in the form of small tapas-like plates from different cuisines, such as Indian, Occidental and Oriental, as well as kebabs.

There’s a menu of sorts for the music as well. Malini wanted to create a specific sound, a concept similar to Paris’ Hotel Costes, or Café del Mar in Ibiza. That task was outsourced to deejays Nikhil Chinappa and Pearl, whose repertoire for Tote includes Afro-Latino percussive beats, Ibiza’s Balearic dance beats, the deep electronica of bars in Paris and Berlin and jazz-tinged House sounds similar to bars in London and New York.

Tote opens on 25 September.

A meal for two without alcohol will cost Rs1,500-2,000; with alcohol, Rs2,700 upwards. Call 022-61577777 for reservations.

Parizaad Khan

Write to lounge@livemint.com www.livemint.com Priya Ramani blogs at blogs.livemint.com/firstcut

Shaded spot: White metal ‘trees’ and abstract­shaped skylights give the effect of walking down a forest path.

L4 COLUMNS

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

MUKUL KESAVAN HIGH WINDOWS

Modi is bad news for both, the BJP and India

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PTI

ir Sanghvi recently described the political turmoil in the BJP as a colonels’ coup, with the party’s middle echelon ejecting its senior officers. A change of guard does seem to be in the offing: The RSS has

intervened to speed up the superannuation of the Jan Sangh gerontocrats, L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, and to manage the transition to a younger generation of bigots. The party’s rout in the recent elections has weakened its ability to resist Nagpur’s meddling or to preserve the fig leaf of functional autonomy, and defeat has made it easier to purge the old men who failed to deliver Hindutva’s holy grail, the state.

The fascinating thing about this process is the speed with which the party’s anglophone intellectuals have abandoned their erstwhile friends and patrons. Sudheendra Kulkarni has jumped ship, Swapan Dasgupta has turned on Advani, his erstwhile hero, out of a principled concern for the greater good of the party and Arun Shourie, who thinks on the grand scale, presciently urged the RSS to nuke the party’s ruling establishment and set its house in order.

Shourie is an interesting figure: an ideologue whose persona fuses intemperate polemic with mincing rectitude. He’s unique: There isn’t a person I can think of in contemporary politics who has been a crusading editor, a civil rights activist, a votary of the “hard” state, a forceful minister, a majoritarian demagogue and an inexhaustible compiler of albums of

quotations glazed with rage and published as books.

If the BJP was brighter and Shourie less angular, he would be that party’s Manmohan Singh, its Mr Integrity: the foreign-returned, World Bank alum determined to globalize India, the arch modernizer with the middle class credibility to make majoritarianism India’s common sense. The fact that he doesn’t have an electoral base isn’t important: Manmohan Singh has shown us what a Rajya Sabha MP can do. With Vajpayee retired and Advani in the doghouse, the BJP sometimes seems like a party of provincials and operators: Shourie at the helm would have given it the semblance of a fierce, metropolitan respectability.

But this is unlikely to happen not least because Shourie carries so much published baggage. His book-length attempt to exhume Ambedkar the better to shred his reputation would be a liability in a political world where Ambedkar counts for more than Gandhi or Nehru. So the role he seems to see himself playing is that of the conscience keeper of the Hindu right and, should it capture the state, the guardian of the republic’s morals.

If India were a Hindu state, Shourie would make a first-rate Torquemada.

His crusading, inquisitorial style, his conviction that the nation’s defining

for public service and reform—lies in his Arya Samaji background. It would explain both the reflexive distrust of Islam and Christianity and the simultaneous imitation of everything that is disliked in those religions.”

But before Shourie can play Torquemada, the BJP needs someone who can successfully play Ferdinand and there is a consensus building that Narendra Modi will lead the party into the next general election. The other plausible candidate is Sushma Swaraj. She has the résumé: She’s been elected to the Lok Sabha three times and Trump card: Will Modi alienate the undecided voter? she’s been a central minister more than once majority is being undone by and she is currently the deputy leader mischievous minorities and their of the BJP in the Lok Sabha. Her other secular appeasers, his ability to say the claim to the top job is that she is a unsayable on national television—that woman, a capable, articulate the pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat left professional woman who also manages him unmoved, for example—would be to embody the archetypal Hindu invaluable assets for a BJP government housewife. It’s a rare talent and if the trying to redefine the moral sense of BJP was looking for someone who the republic. could replicate Vajpayee’s In a brilliant profile of Shourie in broad-based, non-feral appeal, she Tehelka, Shoma Chaudhury shows us would be the logical candidate. how Shourie is constituted by the But it isn’t: The party isn’t looking for Arya Samaj, just as Torquemada was a lady; it’s in the market for a a creature of Catholic revivalism. lohpurush, a “strong” leader with a “The real key to Shourie’s complex provincial base, and Swaraj doesn’t fit character then—his high sense of that bill. If the BJP was a less chauvinist personal integrity, his austere dislike party, it would project Swaraj as Modi’s for high living, his capacity for deputy, Isabella to his Ferdinand. unexamined bigotry, his driving sense The only chief minister in the prime of simple Good and Evil, and his zeal ministerial reckoning is Modi and the

BJP’s recent by-election gains in Gujarat have strengthened his claim to the top job. In a recent television discussion, Sanghvi argued that it would be to the Congress’ advantage if Modi was to be projected as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. Sanghvi’s reasoning was that Modi would be a polarizing leader, enthusing the BJP’s base but alienating the undecided voter. In the recent general election, for example, his campaigning in hundreds of constituencies outside Gujarat did very little to improve the fortunes of BJP candidates.

There is a logic to this but if you think of the enthusiasm for Modi expressed by men like Ratan Tata, Sunil Mittal and the Ambani brothers, scarcely your average Sangh cadre members, it’s hard to feel reassured. If Modi leads the BJP into the next general election, one of the country’s two largest parties will ask the electorate to vote into the prime ministership a man alleged to have presided over violent pogroms and ethnic cleansing. Even if the BJP were to lose, it is likely that a substantial percentage of India’s electorate will vote for the party Modi represents; and thereby a line will have been crossed. If it were to win, we will have sanctioned an Inquisition.

Mukul Kesavan, a professor of social history at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, is the author of The Ugliness of the Indian Male and Other Propositions.

Write to Mukul at highwindows@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Mukul’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/mukul­kesavan

SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE

Civility makes a champ, on and off the court

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ANDREW SCHWARTZ/REUTERS

olecular biologist Joshua Lederberg who won the Nobel Prize at age 33 said civility was about controlling rage. Serena Williams would agree.

Lederberg was talking about

biological warfare when he made his comment, but it could just as well have applied to a championship match.

I know the pleasures of an aptly delivered swear word. Been there; done there. A truck cuts you off. You roll down the window and let fly a choice few. Flip the finger. Drive away. Nothing lost; nothing gained. Not a civilized encounter but lets off steam.

Civility, like many things in life, has to do with timing and circumstance. A laughingly delivered “F… you” that you say to very close friends when you are drunk is quite different from the same words delivered by an angry Williams to a lineswoman. One is harmless; the other is bullying.

Most of us lose civility when we are enraged. Hell hath no fury, as the bard said. Or in Williams’ case, when you feel wronged by a wrong call. As it turned out, Williams was right to feel wronged because her foot fault is being debated. But her uncivilized response, as one commentator said, is not how champions behave. And like it or not, we hold our celebrities, champions and public officials to higher standards. We expect them to be better than us because in certain areas, they are. Serena Williams is,

after Billie Jean King, arguably the best woman tennis player in history.

The flip side of civility has to do with selling and it is when your civility gets tested. Recently, a friend of mine went from being teacher to entrepreneur. She moved from the buy side to the sell side, as bankers would have it; from being in a position of power to one without accoutrements. She needed to drum up meetings with people she barely knew, mostly to ask for money.

Depending on trade, we call it fund-raising, venture capital, or simply sales. NGOs do it, as do politicians, business people and even teachers. No matter who you are, there comes a time when you have to ask people for something—meetings, money, time, expertise, votes, a date, sex. Nobody wants to do it; nobody likes doing it, but it needs to be done: selling. We buy and sell, each of us. We get phone calls selling products. We get emails from friends and acquaintances asking for things—a recommendation, introduction, contribution. Many times, we say “No”. My contention is that in this increasingly rancorous world, there is a merit to saying “No” with civility.

Williams could have contended her foot fault with civility and won on many

between the truly civilized and the wannabes. Civility for the really civilized is non-negotiable; not dependent on day, time, person, or a match point.

Civility takes discipline; and iron control over your emotions. No-drama Obama has demonstrated that; as has Queen Elizabeth, who some would regard as the epitome of civility. For us plebeians, civility mostly involves a smile, an extra word (“Thanks”) or an extra line (“I look forward to the meeting”). To address each emailed response with a “Dear so-and-so” is unnecessary but civilized. It gains you nothing but it most certainly will make a difference to the stranger who has taken the trouble to write to you.

That said, civility gives no tangible benefit when Frazzled: Williams needs anger management. you are in a position of power. Think about it. The counts. Instead, she let rage take over. software launch is coming up. The The scary part is how much civility office is stressed and on deadline. You has to do with time and day. This, I are angry because performance is guess, is what kismet is about. You lagging. You need to rev up your catch people on the wrong day, in the underlings. What do you do? Be nice wrong moment, and their response is and civil or ridicule (Steve Jobs), rant different. We all know this. On days (Steve Ballmer) and coerce your when I get a lot of emails, my employees into submission? I don’t responses tend to be shorter. On days know. I haven’t been there. But I do when I am stressed, my responses are know that while Mayawati and terser. This, I guess, is the difference Manmohan Singh are both leaders,

their styles are very different. One might resort to incivility to get results while the other might get results despite being civil.

Civility, I would argue, is what makes champions, both in the game of life and in tennis. I like Serena and John McEnroe for their colour on court but they aren’t in the same league as a Federer or Graf. When the stakes are high is when anger needs to be managed. There are many techniques including the “take deep breaths and count to ten”, which in my opinion is a bunch of bull. When you are beyond furious, there is only one thing that works. At least for me. You have to shut yourself inside a room and start pounding things. Having a drum set helps. I think every office needs one, preferably in a soundproof room that employees can periodically duck into and bang their boss’ head off.

Why be civil? Because it shows courtesy, charm, class. Manners are a mark of aristocracy. Obama’s emotional discipline gives him a civility—and strength—that is hard to match in world politics. You and I could be civil for a very simple reason: It will brighten up the next person’s day. Now, where is that drum set?

Shoba Narayan thinks that drum sets can reduce the cost of national healthcare. And improve productivity at offices. 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, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Insider PHOTOGRAPH

COURTESY

FRANÇOIS HALARD/WSJ.

Frayed at the edges: (left) Photographer François Halard’s guest bedroom; and the lobby of the Rough Luxe hotel in London with a photo of artists Gilbert and George by Jonathan Root and obtuse Kelly Ryan chairs that sit in halls with cracked plaster.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY RABIH HAGE/WSJ.

TREND TRACKER

Rough luxe The world of interiors has a new manifesto, say the editors of WSJ. magazine

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s movements go, it may be too early for this one to have a name, much less a manifesto. But if every new era is at least to some extent a reaction to what came before, then the one now taking shape shows signs of being anti-minimalism and anti-perfection—a repudiation of the old notions of luxury and the mindless accumulation of more stuff. Rough luxe is, at first glance, a study in contradictions, an attempt to reconcile the antique or the just plain old with the contemporary, the accumulated with the newly acquired, the decrepit with the pristine. It’s artful dissonance. For those who have come to think of luxury as smooth, shiny, polished, refined and expensive, rough luxe will undoubtedly come off as unfinished, unplanned and somewhat chaotic. But that’s judging by the standards of a Gilded Age that’s officially over, and though the economy will rebound, it is doubtful that the culture of bling will be back anytime soon.

Already, in its place, something else has taken hold. You see it in the fascination with found objects and conditions, the race to use unexpected materials in unpredictable ways, and the hunger for vintage. Last spring, at Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the design industry’s leading fair, the rough luxe notion was celebrated in pieces such as Piet Hein Eek’s chairs and cabinets made from a patchwork of salvaged—and then highly polished—wood. At Design Miami/Basel this year, all four recipients of the Designer of

the Future awards, Nacho Carbonell, Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny, Peter Marigold and the duo RawEdges, used irregularities to draw attention to the maker’s hand.

Bill Sofield, best known in the 1990s for his sleek overhaul of the Gucci boutiques—a seamless universe of plush carpeting, chrome and lacquer, with nothing out of place—has lately found himself playing spokesman for rough luxe due to a sudden surge of interest in two interior design projects that could act as case studies for the style, mixing immaculate finishes and raw surfaces, judicious intervention and existing conditions. In one room, in a wealthy artist’s house, a quilt-covered daybed is nestled in a corner where a wall, covered in pristine ivy-patterned wallpaper, meets another, its paint job splotched and faded.

The wallpaper was Sofield’s contribution; the adjacent wall “looked like a painting, so we just left it”, he says.

François Halard, a photographer specializing in interiors, whose own homes in the US and France qualify as prime examples of rough luxe, says that he finds homes that are immaculate, in which the selection of the furniture and paintings is perfect and the placement is just so, “a little bit dry”. Murray Moss, cofounder of Manhattan store Moss—itself a showcase of highpriced, cutting-edge design items in an interior stripped to its original materials and structure—believes that Americans no longer feel so obliged to decorate by the book. “I think we’re confi-

dent enough now to mix different styles and periods,” he says. Both Moss and Halard use the word “autobiographical” to describe the kind of home they admire—“a reflection of the soul,” Halard says, “not what the owner can afford.”

Elements of rough luxe aesthetics have been brewing for years in one form or another. A catalogue of examples could run to several volumes: the apartment where Cy Twombly and his wife live in Rome, first photographed for Vogue in 1966; Maxwell’s Plum, the New York restaurant outfitted with the trappings of defunct saloons; 1970s exposed brick; the colonization of SoHo and TriBeCa, with manufacturing spaces mildly renovated for residential use; white wallpaper introduced by Gijs Bakker in the early 1990s, with holes in the panels to allow what’s underneath to show through. Since they began designing in the 1970s, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto have both played with overwrought artifice and stark simplicity. Today, Consuelo Castiglioni, for Marni, and Dries Van Noten—two fashion designers who work in a style that comes across as both deliberately haphazard and coolly measured—are front and centre after years in which their work tended to be eclipsed by carefully orchestrated outfits and the handbag of the season. Referencing the past has always been “a necessary component to understanding the present,” Castiglioni says.

In the US, rough luxe would seem to be the latest instalment in a long tradition, with each generation breaking with the style of its parents and asserting its own identity. A new wave of young people in their 20s is championing rough luxe as a rejection of the minimalism that

dominated the world they grew up in—a style that began as industrial and makeshift and gradually progressed to extravagant and precious, with multiple coats of polish on a cement floor and living rooms indistinguishable from hotel lobbies. Rough luxe sounds the death knell for that perfectionism. “I think there are two camps in fashion,” says fashion designer Thakoon Panichgul. “One is people who love the idea of looking theatrical and perfect—I think that’s dated.

More and more, designers from my generation or younger look for the imperfection.”

The American preference for the brand new, the impulse to raze history and start all over, is understandable when you consider the circumstances, with large swathes of the population living in suburban houses built in the style of their owners’ fantasies. In which case, Moss says, preserving someone else’s French provincial makes no more

sense than imposing your own preference for early colonial.

If rough luxe has a mantra, it’s “authenticity”. Gil Shapiro, founder of Urban Archaeology, built a business on random acts of historical preservation, rescuing mantels, chandeliers and architectural ornaments from Park Avenue dumpsters. He can be a zealot about it: He once made casino mogul Steve Wynn sign a statement promising that he wouldn’t polish the pair of municipal lamp posts Shapiro sold him for a hotel in Atlantic City. Crystal ball–gazers who forecast changes in our patterns of consumption have been predicting for some time that authenticity would be the next big thing. Caroline Till, the design trends editor at London’s The Future Laboratory, says the brand strategy firm was tracking a trend that by spring was spreading into the broader marketplace. Their April trend report, called Inspire: Rough

Luxe, stated that it “celebrates a heavy rawness erring on the artisanal”. Till doesn’t believe the timing is coincidental: “Because of the downturn, consumers are taking a bit longer to think about a purchase,” she says.

Old things are used in their capacity to disrupt the smugness of the new, while new things pierce the weighty messages of the old. It’s cheeky to expect travellers accustomed to heated towel racks and pillow menus to spend the night in a room that looks as if its renovation was halted before it was done, but that is what Rabih Hage, the architect who designed London’s Rough Luxe Hotel, did when he left much of the building, an undistinguished Georgian townhouse, as he found it.

“The different layers and types of wallpaper were the witness of every family and every era that has come through, from 1827 until today,” he says.

When Halard outfitted his loft, he collected 18th century tiles and shipped an old tub from Europe to ensure that not everything would match or look as if it had been minted that week. “So I actually spent a lot of money to make it look imperfect,” he says, laughing. “Which for me was the ultimate luxury.”

Rough luxe may not have been occasioned by the current economic recession—the movement was on a roll before November—but it does seem to resonate with it. “I think especially now, when we don’t have a sense that we control our fates entirely, maybe there’s something a little bit easier about the idea that every single surface of your environment isn’t polished,” Sofield says.

“There’s a friendliness to it, maybe an egolessness—just letting certain things be.”

Sources: Rough Luxe Hotel, London, Roughluxe.co.uk; Studiosofield.com; Mossonline.com; Urbanarchaeology.com To see photos of Rough Luxe interiors and furniture, and to read the rest of the fall issue of WSJ., go to wsjmagazine.com Write to wsj@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

L7

Style t Ranna Gill: Printed dress with beaded neckline, at Ogaan, Colaba, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall and Khan Market, New Delhi, Rs12,000.

q Savio Jon: Necklace with hardware, at Muse, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai, Rs6,655.

RETAIL THERAPY

Heavy necking

p Cue: Brown and beige tie­dye print, beaded neckline top, at Ensemble, Lions Gate, Mumbai, Rs7,550.

Go full frontal as collars, bibs, chokers and beads grow bigger and better than ever B Y R ACHANA N AKRA rachana.n@livemint.com

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q Bungalow 8: Vintage metal necklace, at Colaba, Mumbai, Rs24,000.

p A Small Shop by Anshu Arora Sen: ‘Penguin on the beach’ cloth and wire necklace, at A Small Shop, Raintree, Bangalore; and Bombay Electric, Colaba, Mumbai, Rs6,800.

u St Erasmus: ‘Begum’ crochet, pearl and stone necklace, at Muse, Kala Ghoda, Mum­ bai; or visit St­ erasmus.com, Rs14,300.

STRING IT TOGETHER The pros’ tips on making big and bold work for you u Large collars, chokers, long strings of beads, anything that makes a statement is in. “Let it be big but make sure it’s not bigger than your face,” says designer Savio Jon. There are no rules to being bold. Just keep the garment simple and you can wear statement necklaces with dresses or even T­shirts and ‘ganjis’. u This is the season for art jewellery, says designer Anshu Arora Sen of A Small Shop. “Wear necklaces made with fabric, ribbon, metal, acrylic, etc., that look like they could be part of the gar­ ment,” she says.

q Valliyan by Nitya Arora: ‘Green Forest’ collar with beads, at Ensemble, Kemps Corner and Zoya, Bandra West, Mumbai, Rs9,800.

t Moschino: Black dress with pearl neckline, at UB City, Bangalore; and The Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, Mumbai, Rs85,000.

q Tara by Sangeeta Khanna: Metal neck­ lace with multicol­ oured stones, at Zoya, Bandra West, Mumbai, Rs2,000.

u Maithili Ahluwalia, proprietor of Bungalow 8, says bold necklaces are about standing out even in a room full of trendy, chic people. “In times of cash crunch, costume jewellery provides an affordable statement. You can reinvent your look by wearing different pieces with the same outfit.” Ahluwalia suggests layering necklaces. “Wear one bold piece and layer it with simpler pieces that complement it.” u For Shilpa Chavan of accessories brand Little Shilpa, it’s colour that works. Bling is out. “Necklaces are more design­oriented now, with bold, graphic shapes.”

PRODUCT

PHOTOGRAPHS BY

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

L8

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Business Lounge MARK ASHMAN

On your mark This CEO is on a mission to transform Marks and Spencer from being just another foreign store to a significant retailer in India

Bag it: Ashman wants to shift M&S out of the premium positioning it has in India to the mid­range category.

B Y V EENA V ENUGOPAL veena.v@livemint.com

···························· ey look, suits!” exclaims Mark Ashman. We are walking out of the Trident, Gurgaon, and the lobby is crowded with men in grey and black suits.

“Are they Marks and Spencer (M&S)?” I ask him.

“Let me try and get close and if I hear a British accent, I am going to say chances are nine out of 10 that the suit is M&S,” he says as he sidles up to the group to try and overhear some conversations. “I think three of them are,” he points excitedly as he catches up with me.

Ashman, CEO of Marks and Spencer Reliance India (M&S), clearly shares not just a first name, but also an excessive interest in suits with his employer.

With a joint venture recently inked with Reliance Retail, Ashman is hoping that soon he will not have to keep an ear open for a British accent to spot an M&S suit.

Rewind 2 hours. It is 9am and I am meeting Ashman for breakfast. He is carrying a rather large M&S shopping bag, and over the next couple of hours extricates a considerable number of items of clothing from it to demonstrate M&S’ plans for India.

Despite his icy-cool British demeanour, Ashman is buzzing as he points out design changes and price graphs and I only half suspect it is because of the five cups of cappuccinos he drinks during our meeting.

He begins by explaining why M&S in India switched from a franchisee model to a joint venture. “If you look at the India context and the scale of opportunity here, then to leave that in the hands of a franchisee is underselling an opportunity. It isn’t until

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you start investing your own money, putting some of your own people on the ground, that you can really start serving the market. The biggest change we have made is from a product perspective, to make what the Indian market needs,” he says.

Though M&S has been in India since 2001, it has had an air of overpriced dowdiness about it. Ashman has spent the last year trying to fix just that, ridding customers of their perceptions of the brand while cashing in on its high recall among Indians. “The Indian consumer certainly knew the M&S brand. But it was based more on their travels abroad.

What I did not realize at the time of taking over the India operations was that their experience of shopping in M&S India was quite negative,” he says.

So Ashman’s first task was to end the relationship with Planet Retail, the M&S franchisee in India since 2001. Then, he scoured for a suitable joint venture partner and in April 2008, signed up with Reliance Retail. Since then, he has gone about sizing the Indian consumer and changing M&S’ supply, design and retail strategies so that they could become a “significant retailer in India and not just another foreign store”.

“I am wearing an M&S shirt today and I bought this in the UK. Notice anything different?” he asks. I shrug; it looks like a regular white shirt to me. “This doesn’t have a pocket!” He is shocked at my inability to spot that. “Now in the UK, less than 20% of the shirts have pockets, because there you wear a jacket and you can put your wallet, mobile phone and spectacles in the pockets of your jacket. But here, not many people wear jackets most of the year. So in India we only sell shirts with pockets,” he explains.

These are small nuances but they are crucial to M&S’ ability to endear itself to the Indian consumer. So Ashman moves on to Exhibit B, and pulls out a pack of socks from his bag. The socks, sold in packs of seven for Rs995, will now be sold in single pairs. An only-in-India deal for M&S, he explains. Next is a pair of trousers with pockets designed so that coins don’t roll out when you sit.

Ashman is an excited salesman as he displays things, and by the time he reaches the low-waist, skinny jeans that are tailor-made for the Indian woman, I concede that I am impressed. “This is why you should switch from Benetton (what I was wearing for the meeting and the antecedents of which he had enquired about in the first minute). You should visit our store, we have great products and now they are at great prices.”

The pricing issue is what keeps Ashman up at nights nowadays. He wants to shift M&S out of the premium positioning that it has in India and move it to the mid-range, good-value category.

The best way to do this, he says, is to source from India, while keeping the company’s quality standards in view. “In the summer season just gone, about 40% of our products were sourced in India and Bangladesh; it was less than 20% a year ago. Within five years we’ll source 70% of our apparel from India,” he says.

Ashman started his career with M&S, UK. He describes himself as an intuitive retailer. “It’s been too many years of not doing anything else. I can walk to a store, watch a customer and understand whether we are on track,” he says.

He has learnt a lot about India and the way we shop in the two years that he has spent here. Prior to that, barring a holiday in India 14 years ago, he had had absolutely no exposure to the country or its retail landscape. “The offer (to move to India) came out of the blue. I was really lucky that I asked my wife, Alexandra, how she felt about it and she immediately said yes. My children, Benjamin, who is 13, and Isabella, who is 9, have absolutely loved India. My son has even learnt to speak good Hindi,” he says.

Ashman and his wife were concerned about how their children would react to the poverty in India. But they have adapted well, he says. They make sure they stock bananas in the car so they can give them out to beggars on the streets. “It’s strange because when you are sitting in the UK, and if the children are not eating their food and you say there are a lot of people starving in the world, they look at you like you’re crazy.

Now I don’t have to say that, they see it. What I hope is that it is a life experience that stays with them. I am sure they will be back here in the future,” he says.

Though he finds working in India frustrating at times, it is clear that the country has effortlessly gotten under his skin. He is amazed at the people here, from the staff at his home to the employees in his office. “They are all so eager to learn, so positive, so genuine,” he says.

I point to the slightly faded red thread on his wrist and ask him why he’s wearing that. “It’s a rakhi,” he says as he twists his wrists and disentangles it from his cuff. Who tied it? “My cook,” he says fondly. And in those two words, perhaps, lies the real story of how Ashman came East to change the way we dress—and how India grabbed him and made him one of her own.

IN PARENTHESIS

JAYACHANDRAN/MINT

When we met, Ashman and I replayed the classic comic scene where I stuck my hand out and he folded his to greet me with a ‘namaste’. Purely for retribution, I quizzed him on how much of India he knows and what his favourites are. He can count from 1 to 10 in Hindi, he says, and did a fairly convincing rendition of a proper Indian greeting, “Namaste, aap kaise hain (how are you)?”

Last Bollywood movie: Dostana Favourite restaurant: Haldiram’s Favourite snack: Raj kachori Favourite food: Chhole bhature Favourite shops: The Good Earth, Hidesign, Fabindia Favourite holiday spots: Shimla, Kerala, Rajasthan

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

L9

Trend Sheet SPOTLIGHT

The austerity code INDIA TODAY

We asked some people to name Indians who really know how to live the simple life

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he drought-like situation in many parts of the country, coupled with the effects of the economic slowdown, has prompted the ruling party to launch an austerity drive. While the results may have been a bit on the comical—if not outright farcical—side, “simple living and high thinking” has always been held up as a worthy ideal in Indian thought. Here are the names we got when we asked some well-known personalities about who they think embodies the austere way of living today.

Suneet Varma Designer

Martand Singh, chairman, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), qualifies as a no-frills person for me. The whole idea behind austerity is not to make a big deal about it. Plus, I believe no one can decide to “become” austere suddenly. It is not a decision but a way of living, an awakening. Martand belongs to the royal family of Kapurthala and travels the world over, yet whenever I have met him, he is simply dressed in a kurta-pyjama. I met him in Paris once and even there he was dressed in a kurta with a shawl and chappals. I have known him for 23 years now and every time I have had a meal at his place, the meal was simple and served in peetal (copper) vessels. There is no over-the-top element in anything he does. What I admire and consider a true mark of his austerity is the kind of work he has been involved with. He works for the betterment of the girl child, better education for children, for weavers and the revival of dying textile traditions in India.

RA Mashelkar

Scientist and former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) The criterion I would use to define austerity is when people have wealth and still choose to live an austere life. The person that jumps out at me is Narayana Murthy, the chief mentor of the IT firm, Infosys Technologies. I have known him and his wife Sudha for many years. I have travelled with him, and everything in his persona—his attire, his behaviour—is extremely austere.

He never flaunts his wealth. At home and at work, he feels no sense of shame in doing all his work himself. That to me is austerity exemplified.

Anil Sadgopal

Educationist and former member, Central Advisory Board of Education For me, it has to be Jyotibhai Desai, the eminent Gandhian educationist who lives in a village called Vedchhi in Surat.

He works with great dynamism and vigour for the causes he espouses, whether it is education or issues of displacement such as

HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA). All this despite the fact that he has no regular source of income and manages from savings from his younger days.

At 84, he continues to be tireless with his activism and writings in the newspapers and periodicals and is perhaps the moral force behind several movements, especially the NBA. He leads a life of simplicity that is guided by great values and vision, which is what I think is austerity. Most importantly, he has a critical appreciation of Gandhi. He is not a blind follower but an informed Gandhian in principles and practice.

Gurcharan Das

Writer and author of the just out ‘The Difficulty of Being Good’ Manmohan Singh, our Prime Minister, is an austere man. I went over to his house soon after he relinquished office as the finance minister in 1996. As it happened, nobody was at home—his wife was away, visiting friends, and the domestic help was out on a chore. So Dr Singh prepared tea for me himself. I was moved by his quiet simplicity. I told my wife about this and she said, “Are you surprised? He is the only dignitary we know in Delhi who answers his own telephone.”

But more than austerity, what I want from our leaders is effective governance which comes from determination, will power and persistence. Austerity in a leader, be it Gandhi or Dr Singh, is certainly nice, but it is not enough. It can be seen as good PR. If Dr Singh were to tackle police reform and administrative reform with the same determination today that he showed when he opened up the Indian economy, he would impress me much more.

William Dalrymple Writer

Having lived in several countries, I have never seen anywhere a more potentially explosive mix of general want and excessive ostentation by, and deference to, VIPs, as I have in Delhi. In London you might expect the traffic to be held up for the Queen or the Prime Minister, but that’s it—in Delhi, traffic will be held up for the

minister of fertilizer distribution.

Senior civil servants too have the right to put the red beacon on their car, even if they are just heading out for dinner. All this makes for a greater contrast and a culture of irritation between the haves and have-nots as compared to anywhere else I have lived. To me, Dr Yunus Jaffery, the professor of Persian, who used to have rooms in the old Ghaziuddin Madrasa or what was the old Zakir Husain College building outside Ajmeri Gate in Old Delhi, exemplifies living with style and dignity in a very basic economic environment. Just the trouble, for instance, that he would take to make this Persianate chai and serve you the best cup of tea in Old Delhi.

I am struck by his elegance without having position, money, or any of the other trappings that the politicians here demand for themselves. Charisma and dignity lead to deference in others—you should not have to demand it as so many politicians seem to do these days.

Toppers: (clockwise from above) Narayana Murthy, Martand Singh and Manmohan Singh made it to our list of India’s most austere. anything else. If I have a car it is because it takes me from point A to B, and a driver only because I can’t drive. I don’t hanker for a Mercedes. I want money so that I can afford healthcare when I need it. My friends and people around me also have a very functional lifestyle. There’s more poverty in this country and even in a city like Mumbai how many Mercedes or BMWs will you find?

Himanshu Bhagat, Pallavi Singh, Krish Raghav, Seema Chowdhry and Rachana Nakra contributed to this story. Write to lounge@ livemint.com

Shyam Benegal Film director

Austerity has become a national debate, but according to me in a country like India, most people, including our politicians, have an austere lifestyle. I have an austere lifestyle or what I would prefer to call a life of moderation. The movies I make are more important to me than

PANKAJ NANGIA/BLOOMBERG

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ADRIENNE GARCIA

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

Friends in need: (from left, back row) Victor Lara, Nisha, Reena Ray, (from left, front row) Hitesh Khalashi and Sharmila Ray will travel to India and make a documentary about Nisha’s search for her birth mother.

The four friends have given up their jobs, moved out of their homes and pooled resources to make this trip possible.

Q&A | FREDERICK NORONHA

INSIDER’S VIEW Three decades ago, what would it have been like to have to put your child up for adoption in Goa? The adoption process, it’s terrible—then and now. In the village, everyone knows everyone else and it’s quite a big scandal. In a small village, you are seen as part of the community. It’s very segregated between the sexes.

You’d have to be very bold or very brave to defy social norms like that. But these things do happen. Human nature is human nature. It’s quite tough, and mostly on the woman. Because the woman would be stuck with the child and the man could slink off.

Do you know anything about the Society for Child Development, the

American pastime: Playing in the city softball league.

SKIN DEEP

The long­time Goan resident and journalist, on why adopted children such as Nisha Grayson find it tough to locate their birth parents in Goa

orphanage from which Nisha Grayson was adopted?

I believe it was the one started by Bonnie Chowgule, an American Mormon who married into a wealthy Goan family. She did it because she likely was trying to find some way to help these kids; I don’t think there is big money in adoptions. But Chowgule moved back to Utah and that orphanage was closed down.

In past cases, when children who had been adopted from that orphanage have returned from abroad to track down their birth parents, Chowgule had been quite cagey about releasing information about the birth parents.

You’ve tried to assist some adopted children in their search for parents. What

obstacles did you come across?

It is very difficult. Most of these children tend to be babies born to unmarried people. This could be a part of the past that they want to forget. In one instance, I considered putting an advertisement in the local paper (on behalf of an adopted child), asking for the birth mother to contact me.

But I realized I couldn’t do it.

It was a bit scary because you never know the repercussions. Goa being a small place, everyone knows everyone else. What would a middle-age male be doing advertising for females in a public space? It would be worse for the women than it would be for me.

TRUE STORY

Adopted by an American family 25 years ago, Goa­born Nisha Grayson is coming back ‘home’ in search of her birth mother and herself

A new home: Nisha’s first week at Stephanie and Randy Grayson’s house in Los Angeles.

B Y M ELISSA A . B ELL melissa.b@livemint.com

····································· hen Nisha Grayson was in second grade, her school class in California, US, put up a performance. “Don’t come!” Nisha told her mom on the day of the event. Stephanie Grayson went anyway. When she walked into the classroom and a child shouted “Whose mommy are you?” Nisha just hunched up, blushed and kept silent.

“She didn’t want anyone to know I was her mom,” Stephanie says.

“I’m tired of explaining to everyone why you’re white and I’m black,” the seven-yearold told her mom after the performance.

Nisha, now a petite 26-year-old with a quick smile, was adopted from Goa by an all-white family at the age of six months and raised in “the white part of America”, as her father Randy puts it. The couple never taught Nisha anything about her birth country or culture, though they did retain her name and abided by one request the birth mother had made: never to cut Nisha’s hair. She didn’t cut it until she went to college. Stephanie says she figured “everyone would love each other” and that would be enough for Nisha to adjust to her adopted life in the US. It wasn’t, though. After spending a few weeks with Nisha and her friends in southern California, it’s evident that she’s surrounded by love, and always has been. She herself is a caring, kind woman, working with the mentally disabled at United Cerebral Palsy in San Diego. But there is a sorrow about her, an insecurity and vulnerability that lurks just beneath her dark chocolate brown skin.

When she started searching for her own

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identity, as all young adults do, she struggled more than most. In her adoptive family she saw no answers, no history, not even a common physical appearance. Was she Indian or American? What tied her family together?

What did it mean that she looked so different from her mother and sister and father?

The questions left Nisha full of doubts about who she is and where she fits into the world around her. And, in her search to find herself, she pushed away the family that has so much to do with who she is.

Last year, she decided to look for some answers. At the end of this month, with four friends in tow, she will travel to India for the first time since she left it and search for her birth mother. It is a long shot. The Society for Child Development orphanage in the town of Caranzalem, Goa, no longer exists.

She knows no one there who can help her.

All she has is her mother’s name, Amruta, and a desperate hope—a hope of finding her birth family; a hope of finding the sense of belonging she’s never felt; and maybe even a hope of coming home again, back to her foster family in the US, and feeling like she belongs to them after all.

Nurture versus culture Each year, according to the US department of state website, around 400 children from India are adopted into families in the US. Eighty per cent of them wind up with families of Indian origin. The rest are placed in interracial adoptions. But before Hollywood actor Angelina Jolie and pop star Madonna populated their homes with children from around the world, vowing to raise them steeped in the cultures of their birth countries, the reigning belief among those who adopted was to simply love the child and forget where he or she came from. “It used

Fast forward: (above) Nisha with Stephanie, her adoptive mother; (left) Nisha works with mentally disabled people at United Cerebral Palsy in San Diego.

Family ties: Nisha with her siblings Robert (from her father’s second mar­ riage) and Randa.

to be, regardless of their original culture or their skin colour, this child is truly yours,” says Kate Emery, the senior India programme coordinator for adoption agency MAPS Worldwide. But now, Nisha’s generation, adopted in the 1980s and 1990s, feels this was a mistake. “They need to know their culture,” says Emery.

It’s a thought that never occurred to Nisha’s parents. “I didn’t know any Indian people,” her father says. “And I guess I probably wouldn’t have known how to approach them even if I did. Would I say, ‘You know, my daughter’s Indian. Would you mind if she hangs out with you?’”

Though she didn’t realize it as a child, it bothered Nisha when she grew up and realized she had never been exposed to her own culture. She resented her parents for never trying to teach her about where she came from. The resentment bore down on her and when it was time to pick a college four years ago, she moved miles

away from her family in Sacramento to San Diego. When she finally told her parents how she felt two years ago, they were shocked, unaware of how much pain the adoption had caused her.

Her parents never thought her looking different mattered. To them she was simply a part of the family they had waited years to get. For, a few years after Stephanie gave birth to her first daughter, Randa, she found out she wouldn’t be able to have any more children. Three years of adoption procedures later, they received a photograph of a month-old baby born in an orphanage in Goa. “It became real to us at that point that there was a little girl halfway across the world that was going to be ours,” Randy says. Nisha arrived six months later in Los Angeles, a small, healthy baby who lit up when she saw her new sister Randa.

They had a happy childhood, Randa says, but Nisha was always aware she was different. Though the family didn’t think it was a

strange combination, everyone else seemed to be surprised. Teachers would be confused when the white couple came in for parent-teacher night. Children would tease her on the soccer field. Strangers would ask why she looked nothing like her family.

“Nisha wanted a bond with someone that was like her,” Randa says. “Me and mom look identical. How hard was that for Nisha to see every day?”

Her other family When Nisha was 11, her family moved to a new neighbourhood in Sacramento. On her first day at gym, another student, Reena Ray, spotted her from across the room. “I remember seeing this girl,” Ray says, “and she was the darkest, littlest thing in the room, but she was wearing this T-shirt with strawberries on it and matching socks. And then out of her mouth comes the biggest valley girl voice ever.”

Nisha, who still has that distinct Califor-

nian accent, says she was instantly attracted to Ray—another small, dark-skinned girl.

And, unlike the other Indians Nisha had met, who grew up in large Indian families and obviously belonged to a culture different from Nisha’s, Ray was as American as she was. “I really am so American,” says Ray, whose mother is Filipino and father Bengali.

“Being half and half, I didn’t really want to pick one (culture) and not the other.”

Ray’s elder sister, Sharmila, became close to Nisha as well. The girls formed a multicultural group of friends. And suddenly, Nisha’s family—her mother, father and sister—felt left out and different. Randa says Nisha created her own family. She kept waiting for Nisha to come back to their family, but Nisha never did.

Nisha loves her family, but admits she feels closer to her friends. She feels she can never be really open about her feelings to her family and that sometimes it’s more simple not to say anything to them at all.

For Nisha, it is just easier to talk about herself to people who understand what it is like to have a white person question her American citizenship, or to people who can make a joke when she feels dumb that an Indian family walks up to her and speaks in Hindi and she can’t answer.

My darling Nisha baby But Nisha still feels alone; missing a mother she could only imagine all her life, from bits she picked up from her parents’ stories. One particular thing Nisha clings to, a reason she

thinks her birth mother would want to be found, is a letter that arrived at the Grayson home on Nisha’s first birthday. “My darling Nisha baby, I will always love you,” it began.

“From time to time over the years, I would find the card around the house, and I would know Nisha had been looking at it,” says Stephanie, who speaks with the wrenching love of a mother who can no longer protect her child from pain. She also speaks with the pain of knowing that no matter how good the intention, she caused some of that hurt.

She tells me that Nisha’s birth mother lived at the orphanage before the birth and stayed with Nisha for some time after she was born.

When I ask Nisha about this story over coffee a few days later, she starts crying. “I never knew that!” she says. “Just the thought that she stayed, that she did really care for me, that it was hard for her, means a lot. I know she wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t have to, which is why I don’t hate her for it.

But to think that she stayed…”

Beyond the letter, Nisha has little else to help her track down her mother. Emery, the adoption specialist, says that records were scant in India till recently. Also, Emery says, it could be dangerous for Amruta if Nisha’s birth was a secret. “It’s really a tough situation,” Emery says. “It obviously would be hugely helpful for Nisha to be in touch with her birth mom, but it could really put the birth mom at risk, because most likely it was a birth that was hidden.”

On top of the possibility of not finding her mother, she may not find any greater sense of identity in India than she has in the US. She’s excited to go—to see “360 degrees of Indian people all around me”, as she puts it, but she’s American through and through.

She knows little about Indian culture; can’t speak a word of Hindi. It could make her feel all the more identity-less.

“If I’m not going to fit in anywhere, that’s fine,” she says, not altogether convincingly.

Still, she says, even if she fails to find her mom and never finds a sense of identity and belonging in India, the fact that she undertook the search might bring her closure.

Probably, she says, she’ll move back to Sacramento to be closer to her adoptive family; maybe she can bring her adoptive mother and sister to India if she finds her birth mother. “I just want to hug her and hold her and look at her. I just want to see who I came from. And to thank her.”

She has got her mother’s name tattooed across her hip. “I want it to be a homage,” she says. And, perhaps, in a way, it’s a recognition that even if she never does find her birth mother, she can still answer the question of who she is herself.

For details on Nisha Grayson’s trip to India, log on to Myindia09.com

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Travel SHAMIK BAG

AIZAWL

The Lord’s own country DINODIA

You will find hospitality as well as wariness in the hill state of Mizoram

B Y S HAMIK B AG ···························· etween sex and religion, i t ’s a di f fi c ul t c ho ic e , muses Malawma. Both sell well, he adds.

As the owner-artist of a tattoo shop a few steps ahead of the busy Treasury Square, the administrative hub of the Mizoram capital, he should know. At his shop, a dugout accessed through wobbly wooden steps, I first encounter the pact of the two: Jesus and the generic “sexy girls”, merging uncomplainingly with recognizable rock stars in one long piece of tattoo art on Malawma’s left hand.

After the mandatory exclamations, Malawma walks me down the road, past the blind streetsinger peddling local pop confections, to a shop where epitaph writers use the Roman script to sum up the life of a Mizo departed.

Epitaph writing, evidently, is just one of the shop’s specialities: The basement studio bears manifest signs of life, particularly buxom Caucasian women in various levels of undress, etched on the same granite slabs used for eulogizing the Mizo dead. There’s a portrait of Jesus tucked in between, and scenes from the Bible as well. The tattoo artist grins abashedly. “I think they, too, need to make some extra,” Malawma explains. Money here, as anywhere else, settles the issue.

My earlier visit to Mizoram had coincided with a statewide general strike against “outsiders”. I, too, was an outsider, but I was shielded by my Inner Line Permit.

The shutdown defined “outsiders” as those who did not possess that vital piece of paper: the Gauhati high court had just restricted the Mizoram government from arresting or deporting them.

This is one issue that sees no conflict. Everyone agrees that Mizoram, born merely 22 years ago after two decades of violent struggle, still needs to be protected from outsiders. “Stay in your room. You never know what might happen,” Mina, employed with the state information and public relations department, had warned me.

I was only too happy to heed her words. My aching limbs were crying for a day off after a 25-hour bus ride from Guwahati, the worsening road conditions after Silchar offset by the magnificence of nature in the hill tracts of Mizoram. There were miles and miles of rolling hills, deep gorges cutting through opaque green forests and vast valleys, and the air was much cooler after the sinister heat of the Assam plains.

In tandem, the vibe in the bus changed as the Mizo passengers sat down to an impromptu picnic, sharing food and laughter all the way up. The landscape, language, dress, custom and food all underline the message: Wel-

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SHAMIK BAG

Rear window: (from top) Inside the epitaph studio; from afar, Aizawl looks like any other hill station; and rain clouds over Mamit.

GRAPHIC

come to Mizoram.

From a distance, Aizawl looks like any sprawling hill station.

Till you notice the proliferation of spires and church towers, standing out like sentinels among the concrete spread—a sort of Christian response, if you want, to the saffron and trident iconography of Varanasi. With more than 80% of the population practising Christianity, the collective influence of the Church is enormous, so much so that the state’s official website notes that “their (the Mizos’) entire social life and thought process have been transformed and guided by the Christian Church Organization and their sense of values has undergone drastic change”.

BY

AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

The truth of it all plays out on local television. On seven consecutive evenings at prime time, a local channel dedicates itself to relaying live the Revival Crus ad e a t V ana p a Ha ll. Lo cal youth, dressed in flowing white robes or in suit and tie, accompanied by the throbbing sounds of guitar, bass, synth and drums, sing and sway for the Lord in a carefully synchronized effort.

The hall is packed with young people, eyes tightly shut, humming and moving with the spreading-love music.

Given time, Aizawl draws you in. On the way, though, one can be forgiven for feeling like a rank stranger, even unwanted. Women, who largely run local enterprises,

might answer a long question with a single, indifferent nod of the head. Just about every printed word uses English letters—but in the Mizo language. The local language is also widely used for communication: in daily newspapers, glossy lifestyle magazines, original music and street talk. At an NGO office, I meet a young writer who translates the Hindi scripts of popular television soaps into Mizo, working through the first telecast to catch the next day’s newspapers ahead of the rerun. “Though acceptability for Hindi has increased, Mizos aren’t Hindi-literate enough to understand the serials directly,” Mina explains.

On the streets, youngsters wear clothes and hair that might draw admiring stares in south Mumbai.

There are bundles of South Korean film and music DVDs for sale on the pavements: Korean life and style is the latest rage among Mizo youngsters, along with local professional boxing.

In the vibrant Barabazar area, business institutions with names such as Israel Store, Israel Electricals, Moses Snack Bar and Zion Front encircle a roundabout called Israel Point. Near the

Gandhi statue crossing, I enter one such shop overlooking a misty valley. Other than a peeling poster of Alicia Silverstone, Jerusalem Photo Store has little to do with photos or photography. So I settle for a glass of sugar cane juice.

The lady finds it difficult to explain if the store’s nomenclature is linked to a group of Mizos who, some years ago, claimed to be descendants of one of the Lost Tribes of Israel. The group pleaded to be settled in Israel, without much success. Later, she refuses to accept payment for the juice, mustering up all her English to shout, “Guest…guest…no pay… go… go…”

“But where does one go in the evenings?” wonders Atea, the charismatic singer-songwriter of local rock band Boomarang which has, through many highprofile concerts across Indian cities, tasted “the other life”.

Choice, and the lack of it, is a recurring motif in his songs, says Atea, shaking his Rastafarian dreadlocks.

With the government, backed by the Church and the all-powerful Young Mizo Associa-

tion—all Mizos are obliged to be members—subscribing to prohibition, Aizawl evenings are all about video game parlours, a couple of coffee shops and private get-togethers.

As we hang around the town square around midnight, Aizawl, unlike many North-East towns, seems remarkably at peace with itself. There isn’t a policeman in sight, no sound of marching army boots, no macho brawls, no frisking, no questions.

Then they come, preceded by the soft rustle of silk gowns and the strains of soft, choral singing—the audience returning home from the Crusade. As they pass, I hear what sounds strikingly similar to Bruce Springsteen’s I’m on Fire, redone in Mizo in praise of the Lord.

From my hotel window, a startling view grabs me. A heavy rain cloud is gliding down the nearby hill, spreading itself like a veil across the valley, gently blunting out Aizawl’s vast expanse of electric lights, lulling the town to sleep.

Directly below the window, a man makes his way through the wet, empty street, knees softened by either the easily available cheap country liquor, or the easily available overpriced whisky. And he’s singing on his way home too.

Write to lounge@livemint.com CHILD­FRIENDLY RATING

There are no special attractions for children; it’s as friendly (or not) as any other part of India.

TRAVEL L13

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

HOLIDAY POSTMORTEM | SAMIR PATIL

PHOTOGRAPHS

COURTESY

SAMIR PATIL

Czechs and balances

Soaking up the culture in Prague, gorging on risotto in Milan and exploring the Renaissance connection in Florence For nine days in June, ACK Media CEO Samir Patil, 38, and his wife Mukti Khaire, a Harvard Business School professor, enjoyed the best of Europe Why this strange combination of destinations: Prague, Milan and Florence?

The itinerary was a bit of a mishmash because of logistics. It began as a trip to Prague and Florence and we threw in Milan because my wife had a conference there. I had not been to Prague and was intrigued by its history (Franz Kafka and all that) and art. Moreover, it has a lot of cutting-edge animators, graphic artists and toymakers that were of interest to me from a work perspective. Prague has been “discovered” in the last decade and has become somewhat crowded; however, it still has some non-touristy areas. The major draw in Florence, of course, was its

science and art. I’d been there before but had missed some of the museums, so I scheduled to spend time there over weekdays, which would be less crowded.

Prague has this whole “old Europe” vibe…

But it’s not just about that. I mentioned the toymakers, who make these artful wooden toys.

It’s not an old tradition, but a new one. The city’s also famous for its Black Light Theatre, which has its origins in the 1960s’ Theatre of the Absurd.

We caught a play called Aspects of Alice, based on Alice in Wonderland, after scanning the list of 200 plays that were on in that one week.

What fascinated me about Prague is the way it pushes the envelope in communication: It’s forever discovering new ways to engage with people, combining art and technology to communicate with audiences.

Walking around, you get the sense of a city that is buzzing with cultural activities: Almost every corner in the Old Town has ads for orchestras playing in opera houses and churches. We heard a crowd-pleasing “Best of” selection of Mozart,

Schubert, etc. There are many small and big art galleries showcasing the thriving local art scene.

But the history must have been hard to ignore.

Well, we stayed at a small hotel in a 14th century building right behind the Old Town Square, dotted by the Jan Hus Memorial, the Tyn Church (properly known as The Church of Our Lady before Tyn) and the fanciful astronomical clock, which has people waiting for it to strike the hour. The square is close to the statue-lined Charles Bridge, which connects the Old Town with Prague Castle.

Architecturally, the Jewish Quarter is well maintained and tells a tragic tale. As the Nazis systematically destroyed various Jewish communities across Europe, many found refuge in Prague. Eventually, they were killed too, but many of their archives and treasures have survived here.

Four nights in Prague and then on to Milan…

For me, the highlights of Milan were largely about food. The city reminded me of New York, where I lived for years: a fast-paced, work-oriented place filled with fashionable people who eat out all the time. Unlike

History lessons: (clockwise from above) Patil at the Tyn Church in Prague; Khaire in Prague, with the palace in the background; and the Uffizi district in Florence. other Italian cities, this one doesn’t have much of must-see architecture. And because I was there over the week, I felt like a complete fish out of water: Everyone had somewhere to go except me! The food, though, is fantastic. Two experiences still stand out for me: One was the Milanese risotto (they make it with saffron) at the Nabucco and the other was at Obika Mozzarella Bar, which serves large balls of mozzarella in mind-boggling (for an Indian) variations and many interesting accompaniments. I’d had the idea they were an exclusive outlet and was a bit disappointed that they were now a chain, with multiple locations.

I believe you did a day trip to Florence from Milan.

That’s right. I had been to Florence some eight or 10 years ago, but wanted to revisit some of my favourite spots at a more leisurely pace. I spent time at the Uffizi Gallery, which houses

FOOT NOTES

INDRANIL BHOUMIK/MINT

The homecoming Enjoy Durga Puja with tours that will take you through celebrations in old aristocratic homes

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urga Puja—24-28 September—has a mood-enhancing ring to it, not only for Bengalis in Kolkata and elsewhere, but also for the West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation (WBTDC), which has discovered a money-spinner in pandal tours over the five festive days.

Beginning this year, the new, improved tours will depart from the Netaji Indoor Stadium (instead of the WBTDC’s Dalhousie office)—that is, all tours except the Salt Lake and East Kolkata tours (covering Lake Town, Sribhumi and Dum Dum), which will leave from, and return to, the Salt Lake stadium.

There are a variety of city daytours on offer, segregated according to special interests, localities

and puja-specific occasions. On the Udhbodhoni trips on Panchami (23 September) and Sashthi (24 September), experience the bustle, which is part of the preparations to the unveiling of the goddess and her subsequent worship. The Puratani tour covers very old community pujas of north Kolkata, such as Kumartuli (also the hub of the idol makers), College Square and Telengabagan. Then there are the localized tours: Dakshinee takes you to the celebrated community pujas in Ekdalia, Badamtala, Mudiali, Bosepukur; Purba will pack in the magnificent pandals of Salt Lake—over the years, they have replicated Hogwarts Castle, the Titanic and Madurai temples— and eastern Kolkata.

I recommend the Sanatani tours, covering traditional pujas in aristocratic households over morning and afternoon sessions.

I undertook the morning tour last year and learnt so much about the city’s heritage. Our guide, drawn from a pool of government of India-approved

some of the greatest works of European art in a completely unassuming setting (as opposed to the grandiose New York Met Museum or the Louvre). Then there is Michelangelo’s David, a short walk away in the Accademia Gallery.

More than medieval art (which is impressive), it is the connection of Florence to the European renaissance that makes it unique. Florence has such a strong connect with the history of ideas, with the concepts of freedom, equality, enlightenment—and the best thing is that the city hasn’t really changed over hundreds of years.

It was home to Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Nicollò Machiavelli, Amerigo Vespucci, and one can still see their works in the very city that inspired their creativity. My favourite is the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, which has Galileo’s original telescope (and, bizarrely enough, the

guides, was well informed.

The aristocratic Kayastha families of Deb, Dey, Mitter, Dutta of north Kolkata localities such as College Street, Beadon Street and Shovabazar, married into each other, thereby succeeding in controlling much of the trade and commerce under the British Raj. The only exception was the Brahmin zamindari of the Sabarno Ray Chaudhury clan at Barisha on the southern tip of Kolkata: This puja, which started around 400 years ago, is older than even the city by nearly a century.

WBTDC also offers a trip to Kolkata’s outskirts, to countryhouse pujas such as in Gupti-

para, near Burdwan. Around 62 coaches, ranging from 40-seater non-AC buses to air-conditioned Volvos, are used for the tours. River trips on the Hooghly are also available from 25-27 September, for Rs500 and Rs800 for morning and night sessions, respectively. City tours (25-27 September) cost between Rs400 and Rs800, inclusive of traditional snacks and lunches. Outskirts tours cost Rs1,500 for non-AC vehicles and Rs2,000 for AC coaches.

For details, log on to www.westbengaltourism.gov.in Manjira Majumdar

As told to Sumana Mukherjee.

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GETTING THERE Fly to Prague on British Airways from Bangalore and Delhi (upwards of Rs42,000), Chennai (Rs34,000) and Mumbai (Rs36,000), with a stopover at London. Fares for round­trip economy class

Dussehra on the double D

The goddess trail: The Daw family puja is among the oldest in the city.

finger of his right hand).

Other than Milan, how was the food experience?

Food is important for my wife and me. We try and find small local restaurants known for authentic food: When in Europe, we often rely on Rick Steves’ guidebook recommendations if we don’t know a local. The most memorable meal this trip (besides all the good food in Milan) was in Klub Architektu in Prague: They serve what they call “original food”, innovative Czech and international cuisine, deep inside a medieval cellar.

And the worst food experience, also in Prague, was Chinese—what a disaster!

id you know what Rolls Royce executives meant by “doing a Mysore”? Or the connection between Mysore and the Battle of Waterloo? Sure, the answers are a google away, but how about getting all the trivia as you stroll around the splendid Mysore Palace?

Five months after launching Royal Mysore Walks, Vinay Parameswarappa is gearing up to escort trivia and history enthusiasts on a 2km stroll through the evenings leading up to Dussehra (till 28 September), when the palace is lit up with 97,000 electric bulbs and and grand celebrations get under way.

“During the walk, I will tell the story of how Dussehra came to be the naadu habba, or the festival of the state. It began during the days of the Vijayanagar dynasty and has been carried on by the royal Wodeyar family of Mysore. Some changes have taken place, but the splendour remains,” says Parameswarappa, 26, who quit his IT job to pursue his passion for history through Royal Mysore Walks.

The Dussehra night walks will begin after sunset, and will concentrate on the how, when and where of the celebrations. Also in the pipeline is a tonga tour along the route of the city’s famed Dussehra procession. On regular weekends, Parameswarappa conducts his morning walks around Mysore’s heritage sites and introduces tourists DINODIA to the city’s famed silk saris, Mysore pak and masala dosa. Walking tours are priced at Rs395 per person.

For details, visit www. royalmysorewalks. com Resplendent: The Mysore Palace during Dussehra.

Pavitra Jayaraman

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Books EXCERPT

Weddings and erotica In this extract from a book featuring South Asian sex writing, a young man experiences sexual tensions at a Bengali wedding B Y S AMIT B ASU ···························· don’t know if this is a common phenomenon, but I’m always slightly horny at weddings. Maybe this is some kind of primal thing; the whole business is, after all, about sex, about anxious parents hooking their kids up for sex, about meeting exciting new strangers to sleep with, or at least eating like a tapeworm as a substitute for sex. At Punjabi weddings they dance and drink to release some of that sexual energy, and to show potential hookups how tireless they are while performing simple rhythmic movements; why do you think the bhangra looks the way it does? At Bengali weddings, though, everyone sits and eats and talks and ogles other people doing the same thing until everyone is either horny to the point of combustion or asleep.

And this wedding I’m attending is one that inspires horniness on a mammoth scale. A Big Fat Bong Wedding where two nice, loaded and future-society-pillar types are getting their Official Penetration Permit; all of Calcutta is here. And now, sitting at this table with old friends watching women I last met ten years ago walking around, magically metamorphosed into sexual beings, all curves and silken swaying strides and knowing smiles, the awkwardness of their college years but a distant memory, I’m beginning to feel it; people are beginning to break up into body parts, I’m beginning to regress. What can I say? It’s a wedding. You’re supposed to be horny. That’s why you’re wearing a kurta.

Around the table sits what would have been my American Pie gang, if we’d been about ten years younger and, well, American. Aniruddha, former quiz champion, now consultant or

I

Electric Feather: Tranquebar, 203 pages, Rs395.

investment banker or something for one of those companies that are just some guys’ last names.

Quiet, docile, very sweet, often thwarted in his sexual endeavours by the phrase ‘But I thought you were gay!’ He’s acquiring the beginnings of an American twang, and claims to have not been laid in two years. He’s bickering, as always, with Debo, one of Calcutta’s leading perverts, famous for having invented thirteen different kinds of masturbation involving traditional Bengali food. And Sandhya. Sandhya my...well, friend, I suppose, though the whole world assumes we’ve been fucking for years. We work together now, we’d been in college together, we do everything together except the one thing everyone assumes we do.

Because what we have is far too important, too close, too complicated to fuck up.

At the next table, looking over at us archly and flashing her now how-have-the-mighty-fallen cleavage from time to time, sits Mrs Fernandez, our chemistry teacher from school, single-handedly responsible for the sexual awakening of our entire generation with her once-award-winning midriff, endless miles of smooth, shiny brown skin that glistened and undulated in invitation as she walked around our grotty classroom explaining the mysteries of equation balancing.

Lovely woman, lovely cliché, goddess at whose altar lake-sized offerings of teenage semen had been sacrificed, had passed through Calcutta’s ancient drains and joined other goddesses of mud and muck at the bottom of the Hooghly. She’d brought us together, Debo, Ani and me, sighing in unison all those years ago as fate and Calcutta summers soaked the edges of her sleeveless blouses. As soon as we’d discovered that our respective passions waxed and waned at different times in a chemistry period (me: Dry Mrs Fernandez, Ani: Slightly Moist Mrs Fernandez, Debo: Squelchy Mrs Fernandez), we’d become friends for life. And here

Love stories: The anthology has stories about sex and sexual­ ity by 13 writers. she is now, still sexy but a little sad, a little desperate—another awakening. Not that Debo cares; he’s going over and spiking her drinks from time to time. He gets up and does it again, leering unabashedly down her sari as he leans over her. She so knows what’s going on, but she doesn’t react. Or maybe she likes it. We’d thought he was so brave when he did the same thing in class. Time.

I look at Sandhya as she tells Ani some really disgusting joke.

Some things don’t change. It’s really irrelevant that we’re at a wedding: with Sandhya and me, you can switch the background and it won’t matter, it never has.

College fests, friends’ birthdays, nights out, office parties, conferences. . . I see her, things get a lit-

tle blurry and edgy at the same time, that muddy concoction of love, affection, guilty desire, amusement. It’s been years, I should really be over this by now, but you know it doesn’t work that way. When we’d met we’d been attracted to each other instantly, but we’d been with other people, and we’d been young and virtuous and slightly pompous with the whole ‘But Men and Women Can Be Friends’ thing. Her boyfriend of seven years had moved on recently, telling her she was too wild for him, that he was thinking marriage and she just wasn’t right, that he’d seen someone else and known instantly she was the kind of person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. ... ... The Friend Zone. My neme-

sis, my constant companion.

How do you tell your best friend that every time you’re on the verge of orgasm with someone you don’t know very well, clenched and shaking and wideeyed and slightly insane, your lover of the moment suddenly turns into her? Sandhya knows, has always known, the effect she has on me. Or maybe this is just wishful thinking—she’s always been very comfortable, too comfortable, around me.

since they are often written like cinematic scripts or storyboards.

The relaxed, conversational style of his storytelling lends itself easily to translation and adaptation, and Subhadra Sengupta on the whole does a fairly good job of it.

The problem, though, is with Topshe. In the stories, he is the first-person narrator and the organizer of narrative: As a result, we get to hear his voice and thoughts throughout.

Due to the textual limitations of the comic book medium, there is much less space for his voice in it. Sengupta tried to address this lack by giving him a new voice and something of a life: thus the pin-up in the bedroom and a speech peppered with “wows” and “cools” (and somewhat jarringly, “who the hell” when Jatayu’s green Ambassador parps its way down Rajani Sen Road).

Overall, though, both comics are adequate introductions to a readership not familiar with Bengali, and could whet the

appetite for reading the fulldress translation. At the same time, one wishes that the series had not been conceived solely for a juvenile readership. The richness of the Feluda stories, especially with reference to locale and setting, calls for a fullfledged graphic novel which takes delight in history, antiquity and art, as well as the shifting perspectives of a modern city. An artist of such a novel would be well advised to view Ray’s city films, to see how his ways of seeing might be applied to the medium of the comic.

Finally, a note of correction and a suggestion: First, Professor Shonku was not an absentminded scientist, as the thumbnail sketch on Ray at the beginning of the book would have us believe. Second, how about the Shonku stories in comic book form?

Excerpted from The Wedding Night Or, Bachelor’s Boudoir 9, from the anthology Electric Feather: The Tranquebar Book of Erotic Stories, edited by Ruchir Joshi.

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SATYAJIT RAY’S FELUDA MYSTERIES | TAPAS GUHA & SUBHADRA SENGUPTA

The spy makeover The Feluda comic books are too Gen Next to have a universal appeal B Y A BHIJIT G UPTA ···························· he afterlife of Satyajit Ray’s Feluda stories continues apace: After film, television, translation and radio, we have the comic book version of Kolkata’s most celebrated private eye. This is as it should be, for Ray started life as a graphic designer and illustrator, and continued to practise both arts in a variety of media. One is, in fact, surprised not to see the comic book among the staggering oeuvre of Ray’s achievements—one feels the graphic

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novel would have come to India much earlier had Ray turned his hand to the form.

Ray’s influence is certainly visible in both Beware in the Graveyard and A Bagful of Mystery, the two comic books under review, notably in the portrayal of Lalmohan Ganguli aka Jatayu, Feluda’s sidekick and purveyor of best-selling thrillers. Ray’s drawings of Jatayu have become iconic, more so because of their resemblance to the legendary Santosh Datta, the actor who played Jatayu in the two Feluda films directed by Ray senior (later cinematic Jatayus have been depressingly bad). Happily, Tapas Guha’s drawing of Jatayu is also faithful to that ideal.

The same, however, cannot be said about Feluda and Topshe.

To begin with, not once do we see Feluda in his trademark

kurta with trousers. Likewise, Topshe, who tends to copy Feluda in matters sartorial, is seen wearing rather preppy cargo pants and sweatshirts.

Some purists might be shocked at the poster of Angelina Jolie tacked on to his bedroom wall. What is more troubling is the anachronism perpetrated, for a few pages later, the three are shown going to Blue Fox restaurant with a live band playing, something which last happened in the 1970s. The use of a photo in lieu of an illustration also indicates a larger problem with the art in general: All too often, Guha seems to have taken the easy way out by photographing a city landmark and then photoshopping it all too visibly. Within the same frame, therefore, we have realistic bookshelves or monuments but line drawings of the characters themselves. The other noticeable feature is the all-tooevident influence of Tintin comics, particularly in A Bagful of Mystery, where frames from

Satyajit Ray’s Feluda Mysteries: Puffin, Rs99 each. both Tintin in Tibet and Tintin and the Picaros make guest appearances. Such “quotations” are not uncommon in visual media but some sort of acknowledgment—either direct or indirect—is usually part of the protocol.

Coming to the script, it is hard to go wrong with Ray’s stories,

Abhijit Gupta teaches English at Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

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BOOKS L15

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TORTURE AND THE WAR ON TERROR | TZVETAN TODOROV

POSTSCRIPT

Military non­intervention

LAKSHMI CHAUDHRY

FAWNING OVER TED

MOHANNED FAISAL/REUTERS

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A philosopher argues that being tough on terror does not mean sanctioning torture

B Y C HANDRAHAS C HOUDHURY ···························· ne of the major early decisions of the Obama presidency in America—a decision intended to establish a sharp break with the Bush regime’s way of working—was the resolution to shut down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010.

This site has been one of the key locations, along with the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, that has led to the debilitation of America’s moral standing in the world, and has created a general derision at the purported aims of the “war on terror”.

As the world’s first democracy and, even today, the first among democracies, America has a certain responsibility, no matter how awesome its power, towards democratic norms. But as the philosopher and historian of ideas, Tzvetan Todorov, argues in his new book, Torture and the War on Terror, not only is the Bushian phrase “war on terror” a vague, dubious and scaremongering idea, it has succeeded, in contravention of generally accepted norms in the civilized world, in sanctioning unspeakable human rights violations upon detainees in the interest of “security”.

Todorov is worried about how the Bush government introduced euphemisms such as “illegal enemy combatant” and “enhanced interrogation techniques” to work its way around prevailing strictures against the use of torture to extract information from suspects. He is also worried about the support extended to such practices by other governments in the free world. But he is distressed, most of all, by the change in the moral climate that has made ordinary citizens of democracies, like you

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Clarion call: American soldiers during a ceremony marking the withdrawal of US troops from a base in Iraq. and me, believe that torture is a worthwhile way of ensuring that our safety is protected.

A common hypothetical situation dreamt up by apologists for torture (and there are many “hawks” among democratic thinkers who subscribe to such views) is the “ticking bomb scenario”. A terrorist has been arrested; it is known he has planted a bomb somewhere.

There is only one hour to find out where. The lives of thousands of citizens are at stake. In such a sit-

Torture and the War on Terror: Seagull, 70 pages, Rs395.

uation, would you not use the harshest methods to get the necessary information out of the detainee? If you say “no”, you are assumed to be an unpatriotic and illogical namby-pamby.

But, argues Todorov, the situation involving most detainees on a charge of terrorism is far more prosaic than this cooked-up situation of high drama, and usually our own knowledge of what they may have plotted amounts to no more than a strong suspicion.

Further, nothing proves that the information obtained under torture is actually true. As the thirddegree methods used by policemen in India often prove, prisoners under duress will confess to pretty much anything you accuse them of. Intelligence obtained by subjecting a man or woman to intense stress or degradation is often not, to use the catchphrase, “actionable intelligence”. Too often, torture is about nothing but the exercise of absolute power of one human being over another.

Lastly, even if torture allows, in a small number of cases, the resolution of a short-term crisis, in the long run it does incalculable damage to the moral standing of nations, inflames hostility among adversaries,

and makes the population of neutral countries unsympathetic to the cause. As the Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat has written, “Torture aims for a single goal—obtaining information—but it achieves a slew of others.”

Citizens of democracies, notes Todorov, often criticize sharply the human rights violations of totalitarian regimes. But we should look closer home too, to see if we are not, by degrees, being turned into the very brutes that we so abhor. Even if we are not actually at fault ourselves, barbarous acts are being committed by governments we have elected, that claim to be acting in our interest. But there are no good reasons for torture, either on the count of utility or of morality.

Todorov’s short, trenchant book is a reminder that we cannot be tough on terror without also, paradoxically, being tough on torture.

Chandrahas Choudhury is the author of Arzee the Dwarf.

Write to lounge@livemint.com IN SIX WORDS A timely reminder of American totalitarianism

THE LOST SYMBOL | DAN BROWN

Symbolic insignificance A sense of déjà vu accompanies the new Robert Langdon adventure B Y S AMANTH S UBRAMANIAN samanth.s@livemint.com

···························· any of the people who have said, since the publication of The Da Vinci Code, that Dan Brown missed his true calling have said so wistfully, as if he might still give up writing and turn to entomology or marathons. Brown’s deepest understanding is of human nature, not of prose. While he is desperately unable to impart any sort of human nature to his characters, he knows us well enough to string us along like children, promising fantastic mysteries and gifts if we stay with him just a little longer, just turn one more page, just hear him out a few more seconds.

What Brown should have been, clearly, is a politician.

The remarkable thing about The Lost Symbol, upon which

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he has worked for six years, is how little its plot matters, and how unoriginal it is. The Lost Symbol sputters into Brownian motion when grisly human remains, positioned just so, give Robert Langdon his first clue. A third of the way through the book, Langdon deploys his most singular and enviable skill, unearthing a female accomplice who is both attractive and luminously intelligent. With Katherine Solomon, Langdon scurries about a capital city (Washington, DC), battles the machinations of a madman (a tattooed kook who calls himself Mal’akh), and runs up against a tight-lipped brotherhood (the Freemasons). If you recognize none of this, you are probably that one guy who hasn’t read The Da Vinci Code—so you may be excused for not knowing that everything points to one of mankind’s most ancient secrets, one so powerful that it can rock the very foundations of civilization. We will wait for you on the other side of that particular anticli-

max.

Using those two pet words—“ancient” and “secret”—as crutches, Brown hobbles his way through this bloated book, not so concerned with reaching any sort of conclusion as with simply paving his pages with codes and trivia. You can’t take a step without painfully stubbing your toe on some protruding factoid—that the necktie was created because Roman orators needed to keep their vocal cords warm, or that the Hindu chant Aum derives from the name of the Egyptian god Amon, or that mankind’s toilet-holes have always been round because the circle is the perfect shape, signifying the eternal cycle of life and death. I only made one of those up.

These factoids are as addictive as hits of cocaine, and Brown is a generous enabler.

But the orgy is wearying, especially when our heroes exchange hefty Wikipedia chunks in lieu of conversation, and when our curiosity is stoked by banalities that made my teeth ache. (‘“Actually, Kather-

e like our heroes strong, handsome, fearless, and preferably dead. Swaddled in the golden vestments of nostalgia and sentiment, they can remain enshrined in their perfect immortality.

No wonder the Americans love the Kennedys.

The Kennedy boys knew how to look good, live large and die young, in full cinematic glory. In this, they obliged not only their nation but also their Hollywood-obsessed father who, as Time magazine writer David Von Drehle observes, “with his bottomless checkbook and flair for p.r., cast his clan in flawless Carrara marble, more beautiful than human flesh.”

Joe Jr, the first, best loved son of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, died a war hero. Jack upped the ante by becoming president, and getting himself killed in office and full public view (to be later buried by his beautiful wife in a blood-splattered Chanel suit, no less). His political heir Robert became part of the Camelot legend when he, too, was assassinated five years later, leaving poor Teddy to bear the real Kennedy curse: the burden of living a long life, riddled with human failings and errors, redeemed by modest, workman-like achievement.

In his memoir True Compass, posthumously released this month, Kennedy writes, “As I think back to my three brothers, and about what they had accomplished before I was even out of my childhood, it sometimes has occurred to me that my entire life has been a constant state of catching up.” By the end of his life, Teddy had not only caught up with his brothers, but surpassed them with a legislative record that championed civil rights, universal healthcare, workplace safety, public accountability, AIDS funding and poverty programmes. True Compass is testimony to the kind of heroism that relies not on elan or daring but the less glamorous virtues of endurance, adaptability and grit-your-teeth determination. In the book, Kennedy consoles his 10-year-old grandson as he struggles to master sailing, saying “we might not be the best,” but “we can work harder than anyone”.

Like his brothers, STEPHAN SAVOIA/AP Kennedy too was given a hero’s farewell as a nation came together to mourn the death of the “last great liberal”. The eulogies marked a new-found maturity among Americans who have far too often valued image over substance, usually at their own expense.

The public resurrection from Kennedy screw-up to American hero has spawned the inevitable rash of biographies with suitably fawning titles, such Icon: He was the ‘last great liberal’. as Ted Kennedy: An American Icon and Ted Kennedy: The Dream that Never Died. The same company, Simon and Schuster, which published Joe McGinniss’ The Last Brother: The Rise and Fall of Ted Kennedy in 1993, also released Peter Canellos’ Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy earlier this year.

Joyce Carol Oates, who penned a fictional account of the infamous Chappaquiddick accident, is one of the few liberals to question Kennedy’s canonization. “Yet if one weighs the life of a single young woman against the accomplishments of the man President Obama has called the greatest Democratic senator in history, what is one to think?” she asks in a Guardian column.

In his memoir, Kennedy acknowledges the enormity of his mistakes that took the life of his brother’s young aide, though he denies being drunk and claims to have repeatedly tried to free her from the submerged car. But the dying senator’s response to Oates’ question lies elsewhere, when he writes of the long journey to redemption, “I have fallen short in my life, but my faith has always brought me home.” It may not be good enough for Mary Jo Kopechne’s parents, but it will have to suffice for the rest of us.

Write to Lakshmi at postscript@livemint.com

FREE VERSE | VIVEK NARAYANAN

A House From the 1930s

The Lost Symbol: Random House, 509 pages, Rs699. ine, it’s not gibberish.” His eyes brightened again with the thrill of discovery. “It’s … Latin.”’)

And our reward, for ploughing through 500-odd pages, is a disappointment of almost unimaginable proportions: The foundations of civilization stay unrocked, characters indulge in one last abstract pontification, and life, minus a tattooed kook, goes on. Or rather, not quite; the perceptive reader, turning the final page, will realize, her eyes brightening with the thrill of discovery, that something has indeed changed. Dan Brown has sold another book.

Surely it has changed.

See the garden, once so variously cultivated, razed but for two old and bending trees encircled now by protective cement; or the child’s den cut from some vast illogical passageway; or minutely, the art deco trimmings along the terrace shadowed by deep years of dirt; how the trace of a cable missing into a hole may stand in for great tangled tracts of concealed wire; how inside, your picture might sharpen or fade, in the bathroom, say, where all thought is still cancelled between the ancient mirror and a brand-new blade.

Vivek Narayanan is a consulting editor for Almost Island and the author of a book of poems, Universal Beach.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009

Culture ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

ART

An IPL of the art world Contemporary Indian artists will be show­ cased alongside their international counter­ parts in Mumbai’s sprawling new art space B Y S ANJUKTA S HARMA sanjukta.s@livemint.com

···························· ptly, the inaugural show of Gallery BMB, the new, cavernous art space in the heart of Mumbai’s art district, is called The Dark Science of Five Continents. It presents six contemporary artists from across the world whose works are bold, spirited experiments that engage with the world outside human emotions and psyche—with ironies and conundrums related to world politics, geography, culture and the environment that are bound to appeal to all.

The British artist duo of Jake and Dinos Chapman has raised the hackles of art historians since the early 1990s. Their fibreglass mannequins of disfigured, tortured human bodies, depicting a brand of urban angst and doomsday, have evoked extreme reactions. Qingsong Wang, again a polemical artist, has critiqued almost every aspect of modern Chinese society through works that combine photography, sculpture and computer-generated images. The Brazilian artist,

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Tunga, is known for his surrealist installations, often complemented by provocative live performances, that straddle realms, both political and psychological.

Riyas Komu, the only Indian artist in the show, derives his idiom from an uneasy alliance of Communist beliefs, Islam, and the existential tugs of being a migrant in the big city (for this show, Komu has created Ballad of the Distracted vs Cult of the Dead and Memory Loss, a mixed-media installation that forebodes a war fought for natural resources). The American artist, Jon Kessler, has examined the interactions and tensions between the East and the West; his works—known as kinetic sculptures because the mechanics used to make them move are left exposed to the viewer—took the East-West dialectic to much edgier levels after 9/11.

Gallery BMB opens with an eclectic, but meticulously curated show. The London-based curator, Shaheen Merali, wanted to assemble a global dialogue of sorts about pressing global issues—a first in the city.

The four people

East meets West: (clockwise from above) Bose Krishnamachari (left) and Riyas Komu; untitled works by the Chapman brothers and Jon Kessler.

who have helped establish the gallery—Avantika Birla, Devaunshi Mehta, Dia Mehta and artistcurator Bose Krishnamachari—agreed on a common agenda for BMB before the construction began. “It would be a truly interactive space...where artists, collectors, connoisseurs and students could meet for research, browsing and buying,” says Krishnamachari.

More specifically, he envisioned it as a platform where talent from all over the world could be showcased together. “It is something like the IPL of the art world,” he says.

The two young Indian

Augury: Ballad of the Distracted vs Cult of the Dead and Memory Loss, by Riyas Komu.

names on his list of forthcoming shows are Delhi-based Prasad Raghavan and Mumbai-based Charmi Gadashah.

Located on the ground floor of the antiquated Queens Mansion (also home to the well-known Chemould Prescott gallery), BMB is spread out over 4,000 sq. ft. It is meant strictly for contemporary art and will also house a bookstore that stocks titles on the visual arts and a café. While the Jehangir Art Gallery, similar in concept, attracts the art cognoscenti as well as the hoi polloi, BMB promises to have more of a SoHo character—with stark white interiors, young, contemporary art and a minimalist architecture and design philosophy.

The decision to showcase international contemporary art

alongwith Indian art is not without risks. The 15% customs duty on foreign artworks meant for sale and uncertain commercial prospects are obvious hindrances. Indian collectors have not been entirely responsive to foreign art, although some international artists have made it to Indian galleries in Delhi and Mumbai in the last couple of years.

Mumbai’s Galerie Mirchandani+Steinruecke has hosted solos by German artists Kiki Smith and Matthias Mansen. And giant floating dolls by Canadian installation artist Max Streicher were brought in by Abhay Maskara at his gallery, the Warehouse at 3rd Pasta, Colaba, Mumbai. Priced between Rs50,000 and Rs8 lakh, Streicher’s floating figures and black and white photo-

graphs were available for less than what works by many debutant Indian artists fetched in the early part of 2008, before the economic downturn began. Silenus, the bobbing giant, was in fact bought by Krishnamachari. The works in The Dark Science of Five Continents are priced between Rs5 lakh and Rs45 lakh.

Maskara, whose highceilinged, factory-like space is now undergoing renovation, feels that with growing awareness and interest, collectors are embracing contemporary art from other countries. “The buying is happening, but in small measure, and comes as a result of both intuition and knowledge,” he says. “This is a slow process but one that is inevitable as buyers will seek out the most interesting (work).”

Krishnamachari is not apprehensive. He calls BMB a “dream space” where buying and selling are not as important as educating the unacquainted eye.

The second show will showcase 15 international artists, he says.

Expect some more dark, continental secrets to come to light.

The Dark Science of Five Continents will be on from 21 September to 5 November at Gallery BMB, Queens Mansion, Prescott Road, Mumbai.

TV REVIEW | VIR SANGHVI’S ASIAN DIARY

Proud to be Asian Television can’t get enough of the born­again good life presenter B Y P RIYA R AMANI priya.r@livemint.com

···························· f, like me, you’ve enjoyed the recent rebirth of India’s most articulate foodie as a luxury loving television show host with a sharp dose of common sense, you’re probably looking forward to Discovery Travel & Living’s new show Vir Sanghvi’s Asian Diary. After all, even diehard fans of Sanghvi can take only so many reruns of the channel’s 2007 show A Matter of Taste with Vir Sanghvi.

Of course, now that Sanghvi’s been rediscovered by satellite television, viewers no longer have to depend on Travel & Living for their weekly fix. These days Sanghvi interviews business leaders on

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CNBC-TV18’s Tycoons with Vir Sanghvi. He also drinks robust amounts of champagne and red wine on opulent dinner cruises and still remembers his lines on NDTV Good Life’s Custom Made for Vir Sanghvi.

Then again, a show on Travel & Living is something else. It’s a world inhabited by Nigella Lawson, not Highway on My Plate hicks Rocky and Mayur (can someone please file a PIL to ban the use of the word yummy on food shows).

Sanghvi’s biggest strength as television host is his depth of knowledge about the good life, the ease with which he tells a rollicking story and the language he uses to tell that tale (it’s so refreshing to hear an ayurvedic therapy described as an “assertive massage”) and, again, his common sense approach. When he tells you that you might as well custom-make a leather suitcase for Rs10,000 than waste your money on a designer bag, you’re sold on the idea.

It doesn’t matter what the show is about; if Sanghvi is your host, you know he’ll deliver on all the above criteria. On the new show which, alas, is only a five-part series (I hope we’re not going to be watching repeats for the next couple of years), Sanghvi travels through half a dozen Asian countries and picks themes: spa holidays, Asian beer and two parts on the region’s stunning old world hotels. The episode about the origins of biryani is set entirely in India and doesn’t really seem to fit into this series.

In each episode (I saw three of the five), Sanghvi flits between three or so countries, linking them with an articulate narrative you rarely encounter on Indian television. So in Colonial Hangover, the episode about Asian beer for instance, he moves from the launch of the Kingfisher calendar to Asia’s oldest brewery in Solan, Himachal Pradesh (where he peers into 150-year-old vats) to the Singapore beer festival (where the wine-lover presenter ends up

Storyteller: Presenter Vir Sanghvi savours the high life on a yacht off the coast of Thailand. judging the festival). He visits a brewery, meets a couple of beercrazy experts and finishes up at a beer garden in Bangkok, a city where the golden liquid is used to quench the fire from the food rather than your thirst.

Whether he’s chatting with the man who’s been general manager at Singapore’s Raffles hotel since 1967 and who is just about to relinquish that position, or going on a nature walk around Bangalore’s Taj West End with a naturalist after a

champagne breakfast, Sanghvi’s at ease in the region’s luxury hotels. He is not just welcomed but welcomed back at all the Indian hotels he visits.

You know he’s having fun as he gets a Chinese reflexology foot massage in a room overlooking the Hong Kong skyline, even though he complains it’s not easy to relax with the camera on him.

One couple even allows him to watch as they get massaged a deux and then sip what looks like pomegranate juice in champagne

flutes in a tub at a luxury city spa.

The show is also a sartorial revolution for Sanghvi, who usually always wears black on camera. In the three episodes I saw, I didn’t spot a single black outfit.

He’s dressed in cool white trousers, a whole new range of blue, brown, purple and white linen shirts, and even a pale churidarkurta. Yummy.

Vir Sanghvi’s Asian Diary premieres on the Travel & Living channel on Sunday at 10pm.

CULTURE L17

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

Q&A | ASHUTOSH GOWARIKER

STALL ORDER

Romance of the stars ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

The director on his new film and why he has never made a short film

B Y S ANJUKTA S HARMA sanjukta.s@livemint.com

···························· n his forthcoming film What’s Your Raashee?, Ashutosh Gowariker, the director of Lagaan, Swades and Jodhaa Akbar, is in somewhat alien territory. The film is about Yogesh Patel (Harman Baweja), a young man in frantic search of a bride. Within 10 days, he has to choose from 12 girls (all played

by Priyanka Chopra), each one of whom has a different raashee (zodiac sign). Can the director with very serious views about his art and the industry pull off a romantic comedy? He told Lounge about the making of the film, being an actor’s director and why his films are never less than 3 hours long. Edited excerpts:

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‘What’s Your Raashee?’ is adapted from the Gujarati novel ‘Kimball Ravenswood’. Why did you want to adapt it?

My take-off point was that I wanted to do a film in a different genre. And then when I was looking from my memory bank, I couldn’t remove Kimball Ravenswood. Naushil Mehta had adapted it to theatre and Ketan Mehta made the TV series, Mr Yogi, in 1989. I got hooked to the idea of a man changing in the course of meeting 12 different girls. I am generally moved by characters that undergo drastic change in the course of a film—be it Bhuvan (Lagaan) or Mohan Bhargav (Swades) or Jalaluddin (Jodhaa Akbar).

Didn’t you want to cast 12 different actors?

I thought about it, but I didn’t want the audience to feel that there is only one heroine in the film. The girl who Yogesh marries would have had to

Insider: Gowariker made three films before his big break, Lagaan. become “the fairest of them all”.

Indians are obsessed with astrology. How important is astrology in the film?

I’ve just about broadly focused on three or four characteristics of each raashee. For example, the Leo girl is known to have a rich mane; she likes to colour her hair in a particular way.

The Cancer girl is very emotional. I am amazed by the science of astrology.

So what’s your ‘raashee’?

I am a very typical kumbh (Aquarius).

You are known to be an “actor’s director”. Do you deliberately focus more on performance than technique?

Any director ought to. A great set or beautiful costumes can’t take a

story ahead. I’ve been an actor myself, so it helps me understand what’s going on in an actor’s mind—what are the catalysts and triggers he is looking for. An actor has to bring himself to the roles he plays and it’s my job to ensure he does. When you say “the angry young man”, Vijay and Amitabh Bachchan are inseparable, isn’t it?

This film is different from your usual big-scale work.

When I started off, I thought production-wise it would be easier because we were just coming out of dealing with 100 elephants and 75 horses (in Jodhaa Akbar). Little did I realize that this film is really big too—65 locations, 12 girls with 12 different backgrounds from

Bhuleshwar, Dahisar, Ghatkopar and other Mumbai suburbs.

But the toughest part is to make the audience smile throughout. You have to carry off the impression that the story is real, yet it’s far removed from their reality—that’s what the best romantic comedies do. Give me 100 elephants any day. If I get a few smiles, I’ll be happy.

Naushil Mehta and I wrote the screenplay. The novel is very large in its expanse, so we made changes. I’m accused of making long movies, I didn’t want to make the longest movie in the world.

How long is this?

That’s your guess (laughs).

Two-and-a-half hours?

More than that. When I choose a story I decide its length, not when I’m editing it.

Your first film, ‘Pehla Nasha’ (1993), was an adaptation of Brian De Palma’s ‘Body Double’. Who are your influences?

My inspirations are varied. All the Indian masters: Bimal Roy, Satyajit Ray, V. Shantaram. They were the finest in the crafts of storytelling. Then there is Kurosawa and David Lean. When I decided to direct Pehla Nasha, I and my friend Deepak Tijori were in a “Let’s make a movie” mould. Body Double was a film we were very influenced by at that time. It was a remake of Hitchcock’s Vertigo and De Palma was this new voice with a new language. But it did not work, and that taught me a lot.

Your next is a historical film about the Chittagong Uprising of the 1920s.

Yes, it is about Surjya Sen, who is known as Masterda, and how he led a rebellion. Abhishek Bachchan is playing Surjya Sen. I have purchased the rights to Do and Die, a book by journalist Manini Chatterjee.

Have you ever thought of making a film in Marathi, your mother tongue?

I have always wanted to. Hindi has spoilt me with regard to budgets. The economics of the Marathi industry will not suit me.

What’s Your Rashee? releases in theatres on 25 September.

MOVIE REVIEW | UP

The house that soared An enthralling film about realizing childhood dreams and staying young B Y M ANOHLA D ARGIS ···························· n its opening stretch, the new Pixar movie Up flies high, borne aloft by a sense of creative flight and a flawlessly realized love story. Its on-screen and unlikely escape artist is Carl Fredricksen, a widower and former balloon salesman.

Voiced with appreciable impatience by Ed Asner, Carl isn’t your typical American animated hero. He’s 78, for starters, and the years have taken their toll on his lugubrious body and spirit, both of which seem solidly tethered to the ground.

Eventually a bouquet of balloons sends Carl and his house soaring into the sky, where they go up, up and away and off to an adventure in South America with a portly child, some talking dogs and an unexpected villain.

Though the initial images of flight are wonderfully rendered—the house shudders and creaks and

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splinters and groans as it’s ripped from its foundation by the balloons—the movie remains bound by convention, despite even its modest three-dimensional depth.

This has become the Pixar way.

Passages of glorious imagination are invariably matched by stock characters and banal story choices, as each new movie becomes another manifestation of the movie industry divide between art and the bottom line.

In Up, that divide is evident between the early scenes, which tell Carl’s story with extraordinary tenderness and brilliant narrative economy, and the later scenes of him as a geriatric action hero. The movie opens with the young Carl enthusing over black and white newsreel images of his hero, a world-famous aviator and explorer, Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). Shortly thereafter, Carl meets Ellie, a plucky, would-be adventurer who, a few edits later, becomes his beloved wife, an adult relationship that the director Pete Docter brilliantly compresses into some four wordless minutes during which the couple dream together, face crushing disappointment and grow happily old side by side. Like the opener of Wall-E and the

critic’s Proustian reminiscence of childhood in Ratatouille, this is filmmaking at its purest.

In the story, schoolboy Russell (Jordan Nagai) hitches a ride with Carl, forcing the old man to assume increasingly grandfatherly duties. But before that happens, there are glories to And away: Fredricksen is an unlikely hero. savour, notably the scenes of Carl—having decided There’s something to be said to head off on the kind of adven- about the revelation that heroes ture Ellie and he always post- might not be what you imagined, poned—taking to the air. When particularly in a children’s movie, the multihued balloons burst and particularly one released by through the top of his wooden Disney (Muntz seems partly house, it’s as if a thousand glori- inspired by Charles Lindbergh at ously unfettered thoughts have his most heroic and otherwise). bloomed above his similarly But much like Russell, the little squared head. boy with father problems, and In time Carl and Russell, an irri- much like Dug, the dog with mastant whose Botero proportions ter issues, the story starts to feel recall those of the human dirigi- ingratiating enough to warrant a bles in Wall-E, float to South kick. OK, OK, not a kick, just some America where they, the house gently expressed regret. and the movie come down to earth. Carl comes face-to-face with ©2009/The New York Times his childhood hero, Muntz, an Up released in theatres on Friday. eccentric with dashing looks who lives with a legion of talking dogs. Write to lounge@livemint.com

NANDINI RAMNATH

THE SHRINKING WOMAN

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shutosh Gowariker’s What’s Your Raashee? isn’t the first adaptation of the Gujarati novel Kimball Ravenswood.

However, the 25 September release can claim credit for going where no Hindi movie has gone before. By casting Priyanka Chopra in 12 roles, Gowariker will find out how much screen time audiences are willing to grant to a single actress.

The movie’s hero (Harman Baweja) chooses his bride from among 12 women, representing the 12 zodiac signs. The 1980s television series, Mr Yogi, which was also based on Madhu Rye’s novel, had 12 different actresses, and the major attraction of watching Mr Yogi week after week was finding out which woman Mohan Gokhale’s hero would be meeting next.

Gowariker believes that things have changed in the last two decades to allow a single heroine to hog almost every frame of a movie. Probably without meaning to, Gowariker’s romantic comedy has become 2009’s first (and probably last) woman-centric movie.

Testosterone continues to be the key ingredient in the Bollywood formula. Film-makers and scriptwriters constantly fuss over male stars and sweat to present their skills in new and different ways. Actresses, on the other hand, have to fight to be noticed and then battle some more to remain relevant beyond two releases. Actors in their 40s make sheep-eyes at actresses patently younger than them. Actresses have to beat the laws of ageing and shrink in size as they grow older. Yet, Hindi film heroines may be better off in the hands of mainstream directors. Old-school film-makers like to please every member of the family unit, which is the single most important section of the movie-going audience. Few film-makers will want to alienate the “do” in “hum do hamaare do”.

Women may be incidental to some of the biggest hits in recent times (Partner, Heyy Babyy, Namastey London, Singh is Kinng), but it is difficult to imagine a mainstream movie without a heroine (Chak De! India is a rare exception). The vanilla upgrades of the spoilt daddy’s girl from the 1960s and 1970s are keeping their pretty selves occupied. Some work in high-profile jobs (Vidya Balan in Lage Raho Munna Bhai, Priyanka Chopra in Krrish). Some walk on the dark side

Gender bender: Rani Mukherji in Dil Bole Hadippa!

(Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom 2, Rani Mukherji in Kabhi Alvidaa Na Kehna). Others save the nation even if it means sacrificing their loved ones (Kajol in Fanaa).

Some actresses are decorative even when the movie is supposed to revolve around their characters. Dostana is about John Abraham and Abhishek Bachchan. Rab ne Bana di Jodi is about Shah Rukh Khan and Shah Rukh Khan. Yet, it’s hard to imagine either movie without its female leads. This is not always the case with Hindi-indie cinema, which is often more enervating than exhilarating. The Hindie gang is so busy stuffing movies with references to world cinema classics that it forgets to write memorable roles for women. Too many Hindiewallahs are trying to imitate the ideas of their idols without providing local contexts. If you are a fan of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie or John Woo, you’re likely to import wholesale the all-male subcultures that these film-makers explore. Lost in transportation is the complexity that a director like Scorsese brings to his adventures in alphaville. Rather than insights into traditional masculinity versus modern femininity, you get hissy fits about harridans.

Hindies like to be seen as edgy and cool, so their heroes will be marginally dysfunctional and their women will be pseudo-intelligent. Apart from exceptions such as Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, Manorama Six Feet Under and Dev D, Hindie women are demanding and dim. Think of the female characters in Bheja Fry, Mithya, Khosla ka Ghosla, Dasvidaniya, Missed Call, No Smoking, Via Darjeeling or 99. These so-called independent-minded films have women who’re either inconsequential or are part of the problem.

Kamal Hassan’s Dasavatharam, in which he performs 10 roles, indicates the perils of histrionic hubris. What’s Your Raashee? will prove the extent to which viewers like to watch 12 avatars of Indian womanhood. Rani Mukherji has the best of both worlds in her latest release Dil Bole Hadippa! She plays a woman who dresses up as a man. Her reward: a place in the masculine world of cricket and Shahid Kapur.

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

Write to Nandini at stallorder@livemint.com

L18 FLAVOURS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2009 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

MUMBAI MULTIPLEX | PARIZAAD KHAN

TRAVELLING TIFFIN

Mumbai’s little symphony PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

Mini me: The students on stage at the Tata Theatre, with Dalal playing the piano in the background.

With the right training, all children can dream of being the next Vanessa­ Mae at a concert theatre

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umbai’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) was invaded on a Saturday morning by a group quite alien to the spacious arts complex. No less than 187 children, aged 4-8, were backstage at the arc-shaped Tata Theatre, segregated into smaller groups. Each cradled a baby violin which, depending on the child’s size, was one-fourth, half or three-fourths the size of a regular violin. From some of the diminutive instruments came the unmistakable strains of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

This was the first dress rehearsal for the children of Suzuki NCPA, a programme started by the NCPA to train children using the principles of the Suzuki music education method. Created by Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki after World War II, the core idea of the method is that all children possess ability. Just as they learn to speak their own language easily, they can acquire other skills if the same natural learning process is applied in teaching them.

At the theatre, three months of practice is finally resulting in a stage appearance for the children. As they wait to be called to the stage by Zane Dalal, the programme’s administrator and conductor in residence, Symphony Orchestra of India, or SOI, some zealous ones start warming up. Clashing bars of Twinkle, Twinkle can be heard from different corners of the room and the nervous energy peaks as the performance time nears. Some girls—either they possess very Zen-like personalities or are completely oblivious to what’s going on—deal with pre-show jitters by calmly sipping water. Another pair of girls use their violin bows to indulge in a few minutes of dandiya dance steps.

The Suzuki programme was started in 2008 by the NCPA, in

association with Avabai Petit High School in Bandra. Forty-five children took part in the first performance held during the last concert season in February. The programme has since been expanded and the Byramjee Jeejeebhoy School at Marine Lines is now on board as well.

Once a week, teachers from NCPA conduct classes at the two schools. Since students from other schools are also welcome to participate in the programme, weekly classes are conducted for them at the NCPA. The Suzuki NCPA programme is the brainchild of Kazakh violinist Marat Bisengaliev, SOI’s music director. Formed in 2006 as a collaboration between the NCPA and Bisengaliev, the SOI is India’s first professional orchestra, comprising Indian and international musicians; many of the musicians serve as teachers.

The SOI performs a biannual series of concerts in February and September; over the past few years they have become red-letter dates in Mumbai’s cultural calendar.

Bisengaliev hopes to expand the Suzuki programme to 1,000 children by next season and also include children from the slum and economically backward areas of the city. “This gives children the opportunity to get involved with classical music,” says Bisengaliev, explaining that you don’t have to be a musical prodigy to be part of the programme. The NCPA has imported the mini violins and passed them on to the children at a subsidized cost, between Rs3,000 and Rs4,000.

Besides the children’s teachers Yuka Honda and Assel Atageldieva, some musicians from SOI have volunteered on rehearsal day. NCPA’s ushers and other support staff are also involved, out of pleasure more than duty. But the situation is still chaotic. Controlling close to 200 children, even budding violin maestros, can be a task.

As a few groups are led on to the stage, a six-year-old runs up

to a helper with a tormented look. “Miss, I’m four number!” she shrieks, pointing at one of the groups on stage, shocked they have left without her.

Proud parents watch them, some already transforming into stage moms. Some cherubic young girl’s mother has decided her daughter’s going to be a music diva, and dressed her in what can only be described as stage clothes—a glittery gold dress with a short, asymmetrical gold satin skirt. The little Beyoncé squirms as her mother photographs her with a camera phone.

Finally everyone’s on stage (one without a violin, because she didn’t feel like playing) and Dalal takes his place behind the concert grand. As he strikes up the piano, they take a bow, and soon violin bows are moving in all directions, with pudgy hands pressing down on the strings.

Some caress the strings with the bow, while some use it like a knife cutting through a loaf of bread. Variations of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Song of the Wind and Lightly Row will all be performed on the final day.

Six-year-old Serena Augustine’s mother Evelyn says her daughter doesn’t need to be encouraged to pick up the violin at home any more; she reaches for it herself.

Augustine says that since the classes happen during school hours and on the premises, the parents are all for it.

Richa Agarwal, mother of

seven-year-old Ananya, says the most important benefit of playing an instrument and being on stage is the boost in confidence.

“Music should be made part of the classroom. An instrument can become your best friend, you don’t need anything else, whether you’re happy or sad,” she says.

In the audience are a few BlackBerry-toting fathers, who seem to be more involved than the moms. Vishal Sharma, a partner in a private equity firm, has come to watch his daughter Seher. “I never imagined I would see my seven-year-old perform at the NCPA in front of 500 people,” he says. At first, he says, Seher was excited about getting a violin and new clothes for the performance, but now she’s getting involved with the music.

The object of the discussion soon arrives, her violin case strapped on to her back, rock-star-style. “I thought playing the violin would be easy, but it has become difficult,” she informs her father.

One of the few boys in the group, Shauwan Irani says he loves to keep moving his fingers over the strings. The eight-year-old loves Bollywood film music, but he does admit that he practises his violin at home and keeps it clean.

Besides musical knowledge, says Dalal, the Suzuki method contributes to improving a child’s posture, hand-eye coordination and confidence.

“That’s far more important than the violin,” he says. “Seeing introverted and reclusive girls become confident and boisterous, that’s my reward,” he says. “(Among the children) there’s this growing sense of ‘watch me’. You can’t put a price on that,” he says.

The second performance by the Suzuki children will be held today, as part of the SOI’s 7th Celebrity Concert Season.

Learning curve: Bisengaliev hopes to teach children from slum areas also.

parizaad.k@livemint.com

MARRYAM H RESHII

AN IFTAAR TO REMEMBER

I

’m in the enviable position of having been invited by friends to go and join them in Kozhikode and Mumbai for the last few days of the month of Ramzan. Fasting from dawn to dusk is one part of it; however, the holy book gives no strictures on how one can disport oneself for the other half of the day. As a result, many cultures have developed a riotous night-long feast, which reaches a crescendo during the last 10 days.

The actual breaking of the fast always happens with a handful of dates. The reason cited is the example of the Prophet, but food technologists tell us that dates contain fructose in a highly digestible form and provide a burst of energy to the body after a fast that typically lasts some 14 hours. After that, there’s the immediate requirement of slaking one’s thirst, and that is where local cultures kick in. Abida, my friend from Kozhikode, tells me about a drink that contains roasted semolina, water, milk, sugar, black cardamom and shallots fried in ghee.

Milk and water sweetened with sugar and thickened with tukmalanga, those little black seeds that swell up white when soaked in warm water, is a recurrent theme across the country. It’s after the evening prayer that the feasting begins.

Marketplaces in the Muslim quarters of all towns and cities return to life after sunset. The first one to do brisk business is the army of samosa fryers. Any fried morsel has become, ipso facto, the leitmotif of this month. There’s a scientific reason behind it: Fried foods make us feel thirsty, so we drink lots more water than we usually would, vital when you’ve not drunk water for more than half the day.

Abida describes to me the lamb or beef samosas that she’ll serve me in Kozhikode. Made of an ultra-thin disc of dough that has been semi-cooked on the tawa (a flat pan) before being shaped and fried, it is extra crisp, so that you’ll feel extra thirsty. Mumbai’s Muhammad Ali Road has several versions of crunchies, catering to every pocket. The top of the ladder eats beef or lamb samosas and the lowest rung makes do with dal vadas.

Everybody I’ve ever come across who fasts during Ramzan works up an appetite for red meat, and Abida and her husband Rashid have promised to hold a party during my visit. Each fasting family in Kozhikode holds an iftaar (the meal that breaks the fast) party once during the month, the most significant ones being in the last few days, for HINDUSTAN TIMES some reason that I haven’t been able to figure out.

Kozhikode’s bhandaris (professional cooks) are associated with a network of families and cook for their own lifelong customers.

On the menu are snacks such as banana fritters stuffed with—hold your breath—sweetened scrambled eggs and a whole chicken stuffed with eggs. Mutton ishtew, raan, fish curry (meen mullagatadda) and ghee rice bring up the rear. Quite unique among the various Break fast: A Mumbai street during Ramzan. communities of India, it promises to be high on the exotica scale.

Abida’s Beef Samosas Makes around 30 samosas Ingredients 250g maida (refined flour) + rice flour, for dusting (makes the samosa crispier) 250g beef or lamb botis (bite-sized pieces) K tsp turmeric 1 onion 5 green chillies 1 tsp chopped garlic 1 tsp chopped ginger 2 tbsp coriander leaves, finely chopped 1 level tsp coriander seeds, powdered Salt to taste Oil Method Make a soft dough of the maida and rice flour. Divide the dough into 30 balls. Roll them out into discs as thin as you can manage.

Heat a tawa and place the discs, one at a time, on it for a few seconds so that the heat firms them up a bit. Take off the heat, cut into semicircles, and leave them aside.

Boil the meat with turmeric and salt, using as little water as you can, till the meat is cooked and the water has evaporated. Sauté the onion, ginger, garlic and chillies in minimal oil. Add the coriander powder and then cook the meat till all trace of moisture disappears. The filling has to be as dry as possible for the samosas to be a success. Either chop the meat with a cleaver or put it through a food processor at this stage. In Kozhikode, it is chopped into tiny pieces, but not minced. Check seasoning.

Fold about 1 tbsp of meat into the semicircles. Form into triangular samosa cones, close the end of the cone by wetting the overlapping edges and pinching firmly. Deep fry till the samosas are crisp.

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