Lounge for 07 July 2010 by HT Media

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Saturday, August 7, 2010

Vol. 4 No. 31

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

A Sufi dancing outside Data Darbar, which has the shrine of saint Syed Ali bin Osman AlHajvery, in Lahore in February.

THE WORST MOVIE YEAR EVER? >Page 16

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE The next time you want to go PTM, Vir Sanghvi suggests you try Delhi instead of London >Page 6

LOSING FAITH IN PAKISTAN

PATNA’S BRAVE NEW NIGHTS The Bihar capital has morphed from a dangerous town in the 1990s to a city of bustling clubs and restaurants >Page 7

Author Aatish Taseer on how an imported version of nihilistic Islam is robbing the country of its indigenous, syncretic religion >Page 10 LUXURY CULT

THE GOOD LIFE

RADHA CHADHA

SHOBA NARAYAN

CHÂTEAU LAFITE: A THE SARI WORTH CHINESE LOVE STORY ALL YOUR LUST

am at the Watson’s Wine store in Hong Kong trying to buy my quota of four bottles before my husband and I fly back to India. I struggle with the choices, trying to maximize quality within a reasonable price. In walks a Mainland Chinese man with three women in tow and they head straight to the temperature-controlled section where the really expensive wines are displayed. The salesgirl who has been answering my questions for the last 10 minutes abandons me with a polite “excuse me” and rushes over to serve them. >Page 4

want a Kodali Karuppur sari. I can barely pronounce it but I want it. You know that scene in Sex and the City where Carrie Bradshaw looks at a pair of Manolo Blahnik stilettos in a shop window and purrs, “Hello, gorgeous.” Well, that’s how I feel about this sari. I want it, even though I don’t know where to get it—in Bangalore or elsewhere. The first time I saw a Kodali Karuppur sari was on Geetha Rao, a textile expert. I met Geetha at the Bangalore Black Tie, where a group of foodies... >Page 4

THE SULTANS OF SPIN

Film and celebrity PR is in overdrive, desperate to grab eyeballs. The results are not always positive >Page 9

REPLY TO ALL

AAKAR PATEL

DON’T MISS

in today’s edition of

WHAT AILS KASHMIR?

e know what Hurriyat Conference wants: azadi, freedom. But freedom from what? Freedom from Indian rule. Doesn’t an elected Kashmiri, Omar Abdullah, rule from Srinagar? Yes, but Hurriyat rejects elections. Why? Because ballots have no azadi option. But why can’t the azadi demand be made by democratically elected leaders? Because elections are rigged through the Indian Army. Why is the Indian Army out in Srinagar and not in Surat? Because Kashmiris want azadi. >Page 5

PHOTO ESSAY

THROUGH ‘MUMMY’S’ LENS

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

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

FIRST CUT

LOUNGE REVIEW | STAR CJ ALIVE

PRIYA RAMANI

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA

LIFE AFTER YOUR BEST FRIEND’S WEDDING MARIS ZEMGALIETIS

MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (MANAGING EDITOR)

ANIL PADMANABHAN TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY NABEEL MOHIDEEN MANAS CHAKRAVARTY MONIKA HALAN VENKATESHA BABU SHUCHI BANSAL SIDIN VADUKUT (MANAGING EDITOR, LIVEMINT)

n a visit to Mumbai, I SMSed a couple of pals I’ve known for 22 years: “Want to meet tonight? Without spouses.” I can feel you wince, but seriously, it seemed like a perfectly natural SMS to send to old friends. I had only one evening free, the husband wasn’t around and I wanted to hang out with my buddies. I love both their wives but let’s face it—the conversation is different when you meet old friends with and without their spouses. And since I had only one evening to spare, I was reluctant to dilute the opportunity for a long overdue heart-to-heart. Alas, one of the wives read the SMS meant CATHARSIS for her husband (now that’s a whole different column) and my silly wish became an unnecessary controversy. Then, I didn’t have the energy to explain why I wanted to meet her husband alone. But I’ve thought often about it these past Secrets and lies: How many people know yours? two months. When couples meet, everyone’s so much more polite, pleas- there’s the fact that you can’t discuss ant and better dressed. You have to dis- secrets. These may be mostly irrelevant cuss four lives, not two. And pause to secrets, but hell, whether you admit it to provide context. Besides, old friends are your spouse or not, your old friends u s u a l l y l e s s j u d g e m e n t a l t h a n often know more about you just by virtue spouses—partly because they’re not the of the number of years they’ve logged by ones who have to live with you, and your side. Besides, God help you if your partly because nothing you do surprises friend’s spouse decides she’s going to them any more. utilize the meeting to air her frustrations With spouses, you feel compelled to about your friend. The beer is guaranfill the awkward silences—with chaddi- teed to taste different. buddies you can people-watch silently if In my case both the friends were men, that’s what you feel like doing. Then, but it’s not about gender. Friends need

alone time and that’s no reflection on the quality of their marriage. For instance, you may want to chat with your girlfriend about the way her husband treats her mother. Or discuss, in intimate detail, the way your bodies are ageing. Or bitch about your spouse’s family—or your own— knowing that she will understand that you’re not an evil person, but that you just need to vent to feel better. Involving spouses in such discussions invariably complicates things. Besides, while married couples might easily make new friends with other couples, being friends with your best friends’ spouses is only a bonus. So many of my girlfriends married men with whom I will never share a connection. “How’s your daughter?” one such spouse asked me recently over the phone. “What daughter?” I replied. “How’s Sameer?” “Samar,” I said reminding him of my husband’s name. And, sometimes, a spouse can do the unforgivable. It’s been years but I will never forget the time a friend’s tobe-husband told me on the eve of their wedding: I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing by marrying her. How was he expecting me to respond? Write to lounge@livemint.com www.livemint.com Priya Ramani blogs at blog.livemint.com/firstcut

LOUNGE LOVES INDRANIL BHOUMIK/MINT

Shakespeare in love—at work, in a time machine Shakespeare on screen every weekend, but with a quirky edge

n the business of life, you don’t mess with a corporate psycho called Hamlet. Aiming to score, he’s been nipped once more by “girlfriend” Ophelia. So, he savages a mountain of ham and happens to stumble upon the body of his father. That smells fishy, he thinks, but continues masticating before realizing the full horror. But this Hamlet won’t scream “to be or not to be”. There have been attempts to pacify him with just a separate table in the corporate drawing room and an array of felt-tip pens and his favourite colouring books. But hell, he will have his revenge. Clearly, there’s something rotten in the state of Finland. William Shakespeare has just been elbowed into the absurd. And you’re watching Finnish film-maker Aki Kaurismaki’s satire Hamlet Goes Business (1987). This, and many other quirky and esoteric takes on the Bard’s works are part of the line-up of Shakespeare Told and Retold, a festival of films now on at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Bangalore, in association with the Bangalore Film Society. The films will run at NGMA every weekend till mid-September. Some films take on a sombre timbre.

A 1960 Czech film, Romeo, Juliet and Darkness, throws the lovers into a time machine and has them confronting the Holocaust. Jiri Weiss’ movie has the Nazi occupation of Prague as the setting for his story, with a male student hiding a Jewish girl in his flat. For the girl, the boy is the only connection with the outside world. What will happen when the residents of the apartment find out she’s hiding there? Orson Welles’ Othello won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1952—it catapulted Welles into the league of acclaimed Shakespearean thespians such as Lawrence Olivier, Richard Burton and Christopher Plummer. There is also Tom Stoppard’s dig at the Bard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, about two dudes who go berserk. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are minor courtiers in Hamlet, and in Stoppard’s vision, unable to comprehend the goings-on in the play. So, Stoppard wonders, what really is the perception of men at the periphery of history? This film festival has 400-year-old words that will matter to the world 400 years later. Should you give it a miss? As King Lear said in quite a different context, “Never, never, never, never, never!” At NGMA, Bangalore, on Saturdays at 3pm and on Sundays at 11.30am. Till 18 September. Entry is free. Rahul Jayaram

Sampler: Hamlet Goes Business by Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki.

Second act: Princeton Club in a colourful new avatar.

ALTERNATIVE ROCK HIVE One of Kolkata’s popular live music venues is back in the groove after a makeover

ast week, when Princeton Club in south Kolkata reopened its doors to live music, a collective hurray went up in the city’s band circuit. For this popular live music venue had been closed nearly five months for renovation. Among the first to perform at the renovated venue was Cassini’s Division—the alternative rock act that was also among the first big names to perform there when it opened as a live music platform around four years ago. “I found the same positive vibe from young rock music fans. These dedicated young listeners have always been at the core of Princeton,” says Rahul Guha Roy, singer-songwriter of Cassini’s Division. As a live music venue that would be open to nonmembers on Thursdays and Fridays, it was perhaps inevitable that Princeton—or Basement and the now dormant La Dolce Vita—would be compared with the big daddy of ’em all, Someplace Else. If Someplace Else has been the power riff, Princeton has provided the filler guitar lines, allowing a gamut of experimental bands to take the stage on Thursdays, when the per-

formances are aimed at a somewhat evolved listener, and Fridays, when bands such as the Hobos take over for a raucous, free-for-all shindig. Skinny Alley, the Supersonics, Pinknoise and Brahmakhyapa, along with outstation bands, have been on the roster. P.S. Rawat, a senior club official, says they will have a more rigorous screening process. Princeton may have been handicapped by its extreme south location (26, Prince Anwar Shah Road, compared with Someplace Else’s Park Street premises), but it does have its advantages. Visitors have revelled in the spacious indoor and outdoor experience (the live venue is part of 40,000 sq. ft of covered area and about 20,000 sq. ft open area). The in-house sound has improved, and the food and drinks are priced reasonably. Yet, as it gets ready for a new season, the Cassini’s Division frontman offers some advice. “The place can do with some branding. The club’s profile can definitely improve,” says Guha Roy. For now, though, the happy decibels are back. Shamik Bag

orget the fancy products and gadgets that they sell, the immediate attractions on Star CJ Alive’s premium 24x7 shopping channel, launched last week, are the fabulously manicured fingers of the hosts. You look at your own chipped nails in dismay while the camera pans on the long, tapering fingers, coated carefully in delicate shades of nail polish. But forget the distractions, first a dekko at the channel itself. Star CJ Alive, launched by Star CJ Network India Pvt. Ltd, is a joint venture between Star Network India Pvt. Ltd and home shopping company CJ O Shopping Co. Ltd. The pilot phase was launched last year as a 6-hour slot on Star Utsav, another Star property. Following the upbeat response on Utsav, Star CJ Alive was started with the aim of providing shopping delights in the comfort of your home. No, they won’t sell you any spiritual products like the ones sold on other general entertainment channels in the morning hours. So, you won’t find rudraksh malas, Lord Kuber yantras or goddess Lakshmi yantras. Far from it. You will, in fact, find cosmetics, jewellery, gadgets, small and large appliances, apparel and more. That’s similar to what HomeShop18, a home shopping channel from Network18, offers. In fact, it will be interesting to see just how Star CJ Alive fares compared with HomeShop18 in the near future.

The good stuff Star CJ Alive has a good variety of branded products. Also, the range is huge. Given that this is a 24x7 channel, some or the other product is always on offer. The channel, in fact, wants to change the perception that television shopping is all about inferior products. Perhaps that explains why brands such as Adidas, Asmi, Geetanjali, Satya Paul, Samsung (biggies in their respective categories) have a presence on Star CJ Alive. Interestingly, prices of products from these brands are generally below the maximum retail price (MRP). It helps that the anchors explain the products in detail.

The notsogood The last point in “the good stuff” bracket is what backfires here, especially after the anchors describe everything in excruciating detail. It makes you want to gag them. Okay, almost. They’ll talk at length about inane things. Can’t blame them. After all, Star CJ Alive dedicates 30 minutes to each brand—the same viral may be repeated several times in that period. Clearly it has sold these slots to different firms. So, a discourse on Whirlpool washing machine, for instance, will go on for half an hour. Sample this: “The maids never know how to dry clothes properly. Why do they use so much water? Why do they throw dirty water with so much force in the bathrooms?” (sic) You get the drift. There’s more, from the dhobi ruining your favourite sequinned chiffon sari to the sight of piled up clothes to the monsoon and the children, everything is discussed at length.

Talk plastic Like we said, a majority of the products are priced lower than the MRP. Brand Whirlpool’s 6.5kg semi-automatic machine, for instance, is priced at Rs6,999 on the channel, while the MRP is Rs7,300. And though the price difference isn’t much, Star CJ Alive throws in freebies worth Rs4,500. So, along with a handbag, you’ll get a branded Reebok watch free. The channel’s offering on mobile phones and other gadgets is also attractive. A Samsung Corby mobile phone model is up for grabs at Rs6,599, while it retails at around Rs8,500. And yes—you guessed it—freebies are available on this product too. A Samsung microwave is available at Rs8,990, much lower than its MRP of Rs9,990. The products, most of them, come with warranty periods, just as they would in physical-format stores. Abhilasha Ojha ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS: The article “A reappearing number”, 31 July, misspelt Sanjna Kapoor.

LISTEN TO THE LOUNGE PODCAST ...In which we ponder Bihar’s newfound nightlife. Sanjukta Sharma reviews the movie of the week, ‘Aisha’. And we do a fashion wrapup on Sonam Kapoor. www.livemint.com/loungepodcast

L4 COLUMNS SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

RADHA CHADHA LUXURY CULT

Château Lafite: a Chinese love story

ZACHYS/BLOOMBERG

women in tow and they head straight to the temperature-controlled section where the really expensive wines are displayed. The salesgirl who has been answering my questions for the last 10 minutes abandons me with a polite “excuse me” and rushes over to serve them. A loud discussion in Mandarin ensues—the man expounding forth, the women nodding approvingly—and a couple of minutes later he emerges with four bottles of Château Lafite. I queue up behind him at the cash counter. His bill is HK$24,000 (around Rs1.44 lakh). Mine is under HK$1,000. We both have four bottles. I chat with the cashier and she tells me the Mainland Chinese buy just four brands: Château Lafite, Château Latour, Château Mouton Rothschild and Le Pin (Le Pin is arguably the most expensive wine in the world). They also go for Château Petrus, she adds as an afterthought (Petrus prices inhabit the same lofty stratosphere as Le Pin). All these are top tipples from Bordeaux—Lafite, Latour, Mouton Rothschild are renowned first-growths from Pauillac, while Petrus and Le Pin are from Pomerol (Bordeaux wines were classified into five growths a century and a half ago—the system continues to this day—with the first-growths or 1er Cru Classé considered the best, followed by the second-growths, third-growths, etc. Some châteaux, such as Petrus and Le

Pin, didn’t participate in the classification, but produce excellent wines that command prices even higher than the first-growths). With the 2009 Bordeaux En Primeur releases just over in July, and China’s all-time favourite Ch. Lafite releasing at a hefty £1,000 (around Rs72,900) a bottle, it got me wondering about the impact of emerging market consumers on old world fine wines. China’s burgeoning new money has created such a thirst for Lafite and its ilk that the Liv-ex 100—the index that tracks 100 of the most soughtafter fine wines—has remained on a heady upward trajectory, up 40% from a year ago. The Chinese impact is clear and dramatic: From 2000 to 2005, the index barely moved from its base value of 100, and that’s when the Chinese fell in love with fine wines, sending the index soaring to its current value of 304. Will India’s economic boom produce a similar line-up of desi consumers sipping luxury French wines? Will they too have as powerful an impact on the global wine market? It is instructive to study China’s intense love affair with Lafite. The Chinese have latched on to Ch. Lafite not for its amazing quality, but rather for its amazing capacity to demonstrate wealth. Stories of the Chinese mixing superb wine with soft drinks or juices—to make it more palatable—were common a few years

ago. Things have improved since, but an appreciation of the wine for its inherent qualities has little to do with its selection. Robert Parker (the man who stands in for God in the wine world) may go on about “notes of charcoal, incense, black currants, and licorice” or bubble forth about the wine being “expansive, savoury, staggeringly concentrated, and voluptuous” or wonder if the sensational 2009 is a replay of the historic 1959… but the Chinese aren’t really listening. He may give it 98-100 points—the world kowtows to Parker’s ratings—but then he has given an equal score to three other 2009 first-growths (Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion) but the Chinese chase feverishly after just one: Lafite. The price it commands says it all—a 6-pack of the 2009 Lafite released at £6,990, Latour at £5,900, Margaux at £4,990, and Haut Brion at £3,975. China’s love affair has reclassified the first-growths into a distinct pecking order. What Louis Vuitton is to bags, or Mercedes is to cars, Lafite has become to fine wines in China—an easily recognizable symbol that speaks money. Place a bottle of it on the table while entertaining important clients and it gives an instant high to your image. You are drinking money, a significant sum in each sip, and that’s what counts. The curious case of Carruades de Lafite, the second label from the château, demonstrates the stranglehold of the Lafite brand on the Chinese consciousness. Second labels, as the term suggests, are lesser-quality wines made by the same château, often from grapes of younger vines that don’t pass muster for the first label. Second labels are usually priced reasonably. But not Carruades de Lafite—the 2009 En Primeur released at a whopping £1,750 a

Sip worthy: In Mainland China, the best Bordeaux is all about status. case, and less than a month later it has climbed to £2,700. Andy Xie in The Puzzle of Carruades de Lafite argues that the meteoric rise of Carruades de Lafite is a result of “mistaken identity” by the Chinese. They see it as the little brother of Ch. Lafite—known as Little Lafite in Chinese—and with prices of the grand wine heading out of reach, they are buying the second label by the droves, pushing its price to a level that no longer bears any relationship to its quality. The Lafite name looks good on the table, and that’s what the Chinese are throwing money at. So what about India? Will Ch. Lafite hit the jackpot here too? Is there a full-bodied case for other first-growths to flourish? Will Indians concentrate around a handful of status-defining wines (which will they be?) or will other Bordeaux wines have strong enough legs to stand on? Then there is the piquant question of taste—will Indian consumers display better taste than the Chinese? Complex-nosed questions these, but I am betting that the fine wines of Bordeaux, especially the first-growths, will seduce us Indians as they have the Chinese. The Chinese are guzzling

them for status and status alone. Status will be a salient theme for us too—we are not shy in the flash department—but I am hopeful that taste, appreciation and enjoyment will be strong accompanying notes. Cheers! Prices mentioned in this article are from the wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd, and refer to 2009 En Primeur wines released this summer (prices today would be different). En Primeur refers to wines sold while they are still in barrels at the vineyard, likely to stay there for a couple of years before they are bottled. Radha Chadha is one of Asia’s leading marketing and consumer insight experts. She is the author of the best-selling book The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury. Write to Radha at luxurycult@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Radha’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/radhachadha

SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE GIREESH GV/MINT

The sari worth all your lust

about this sari. I want it, even though I don’t know where to get it—in Bangalore or elsewhere. The first time I saw a Kodali Karuppur sari was on Geetha Rao, a textile expert. I met Geetha at the Bangalore Black Tie, where a group of foodies pay to have a structured tasting with paired wines at some of the city’s best restaurants. Geetha’s husband, S.L. Rao, is a renowned economist, but I usually gravitate towards her, mostly because of her lovely saris. There are women like this everywhere in India. You see them at weddings and events, looking impeccable in their crisp elegant weaves: Ilkal, Tussar, Maheshwari, Jamdani, Kanjeevaram, Venkatagiri, Chanderi, Paithani, or Baluchari. Even the names are so poetic; imagine the product. Growing up in Chennai, I used to look up at the mother of my close friend, Deepika Radhakrishna, in this way. Sabita aunty—as we called her—ran a boutique called Amrapali. She dressed with flair—usually in a stunning sari with a big red bindi. Visiting her home was like visiting a fashion show: models coming in and out, rolls of textiles with kalamkari and other prints, and Sabita

aunty’s hand-drawn designs on what appeared to be wax paper. After my friend passed away, Sabita aunty went on to write two cookbooks, including the award-winning Aharam. But she still retains her passion for Indian textiles. If the scents we associate with our mothers are vetiver and sandalwood; if the tastes of our childhood are garam masala and amchur in the north and cumin and asafoetida in the south; then what is the touch of our childhood? What is the fabric we associate with our mothers? I would wager that for most of us who are in our 30s and 40s, it would be the soft folds of a sari. When you think of nuzzling into your mother’s lap, what is the fabric that comes to mind? The garment of my childhood certainly was the sari. All the women I looked up to wore them with style and elegance. There was Prabha Narasimhan, who now runs a Chennai boutique called Amrita. She used to work at Sita Travels and sold me my first airline ticket to America. When she learnt that I was going to cold Boston, she gave me—an unknown, anonymous student—her embroidered Kashmiri overcoat, and explained the finer points of its weave to me. I am sure she has

forgotten the gawky student who bought a ticket from her. I haven’t forgotten the lady who gave me my first overcoat. Dancer Anita Ratnam used to appear at the Music Academy wearing stunning jewellery, and unusual saris. On stage sat M.S. Subbulakshmi in her parrot-green Kanjeevaram, her eyes half-closed as she sang to the divine—in bliss. I am certainly in bliss as I sit in Geetha’s room. It is raining outside and we’ve just had a simple but tasty Madhva lunch of Mysore rasam, sweet potato pachadi (raita), a tamarind-laced dal called Huli Soppu and chapatis glistening with ghee. The taste of the hot rasam lingers as I settle on her bed. She opens her closet. Wow! It is lined with exquisite saris, each on a hanger with a matching blouse. She pulls them out and talks: about the delicacy of kasuti embroidery; about a stunning black Chandrakala sari that is usually given to brides on the Sankranti festival. It is dipped in indigo dye seven times till it looks almost black but isn’t; about how Gujarati bandhani is smaller and more elegant than the Rajasthani bandhani; about the romance in the names of these saris; about the intricacy of the weave of a pure Dhakai Jamdani. She pulls out sari after sari and I am transported to a peaceful place where colour and sensuality is around me and all is well with the world. Finally, we come to the sari that caught my attention. Kodali Karuppur is a place near Trichy in Tamil Nadu. According to an article in the Craft Revival Quarterly, these saris flourished under the patronage of the Maratha rulers, who

Regal weave: A friend admires Geetha Rao’s (left) Kodali Karuppur sari. were so taken by the combination of techniques used that they gifted these textiles as part of their khillat, or dresses of honour. The techniques used are—get this— wax-resist hand painting, block printing and intricate weaving. First the weaver weaves the sari using brocade fabric, sometimes with silk thread mixed with the cotton thread. Then he uses block prints on the sari with the block-printed butas or motifs matching exactly with the brocade butas, to give what Reena Agarwal, the author of the article, calls a “tinsel-patterned” effect. Got that? I think what this means is that you have to painstakingly place the printing block exactly over the buta or motif of the brocade so there is no overlap. Now, on top of all this, you do this whole wax-resist thing. Basically, the craftsman paints a design like a floral motif, covers the rest with wax, dyes the fabric using natural dyes that give a rich red tone to the pallu of the sari, and then removes the wax to reveal the background design. At least, that’s what I think.

You know, at this point, I have to throw up my hands and admit defeat. All these techniques are above me and I don’t fully understand them. If you are a textile buff as I am, please visit the Craftrevival.org website and read about the process of production. Better yet, visit the Calico Museum in Ahmedabad where an antique Karuppur sari hangs in full splendour. There are so many layers to this particular sari that you probably think the final product will be gaudy. It isn’t. Take my word for it. Shoba Narayan is at Bangalore’s Dastkar Nature Bazaar this weekend, searching for Kodali Karuppur saris, Malkha, and other unusual fabrics. The Dastkar Nature Bazaar is on at the Bangalore Palace grounds till 15 August. Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shobanarayan

COLUMNS L5 SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

AAKAR PATEL REPLY TO ALL

What ails Kashmir? The Sunni idea of ‘azadi’

FAYAZ KABLI/REUTERS

e know what Hurriyat Conference wants: azadi, freedom. But freedom from what? Freedom from Indian rule. Doesn’t an elected Kashmiri, Omar Abdullah, rule from Srinagar?

Yes, but Hurriyat rejects elections. Why? Because ballots have no azadi option. But why can’t the azadi demand be made by democratically elected leaders? Because elections are rigged through the Indian Army. Why is the Indian Army out in Srinagar and not in Surat? Because Kashmiris want azadi. Let’s try that again. What do Kashmiris want freedom from? India’s Constitution. What is offensive about India’s Constitution? It is not Islamic. This is the issue, let us be clear. The violence in Srinagar isn’t for democratic self-rule because Kashmiris have that. The discomfort Kashmiris feel is about which laws self-rule must be under, and Hurriyat rejects a secular constitution. Hurriyat deceives the world by using a universal word, azadi, to push a narrow, religious demand. Kashmiris have no confusion about what azadi means: It means Shariah. Friday holidays, amputating thieves’ hands, abolishing interest, prohibiting alcohol (and kite-flying), stoning adulterers, lynching apostates and all the rest of it that comprises the ideal Sunni state. Not one Shia gang terrorizes India; terrorism on the subcontinent is a Sunni monopoly. There is a token Shia among the Hurriyat’s bearded warriors, but it is essentially a Sunni group pursuing Sunni Shariah. Its most important figure is Umar Farooq. He’s called mirwaiz, meaning head of preachers (waiz), but he inherited his title at 17 and actually is no Islamic scholar. He is English-educated, but his base is Srinagar’s sullen neighbourhood of Maisuma, at the front of the stone-pelting. His following is conservative and, since he has little scholarship, he is unable to bend his constituents to his view. Hurriyat’s modernists are led by Sopore’s 80-year-old Ali Geelani of Jamaat-e-Islami. Jamaat was founded in 1941 by a brilliant man from Maharashtra called Maududi, who invented the structure of the modern Islamic state along the lines of a Communist one. Maududi opposed Jinnah’s tribal raid in Kashmir, which led to the Line of Control, saying jihad could only be prosecuted formally by a Muslim state, and not informally by militias. This wisdom was discarded

later, and Hizb al-Mujahideen, starring Syed Salahuddin of cap and beard fame, is a Jamaat unit. Maududi was ecumenical, meaning that he unified the four Sunni groups of thought. He always excluded Shias, as heretics. The Kashmiri separatist movement is actually inseparable from Sunni fundamentalism. Those on the Hurriyat’s fringes who say they are Gandhians, like Yasin Malik, are carried along by the others in the group so long as the immediate task of resisting India is in common. But the Hurriyat and its aims are ultimately poisonous, even for Muslims. The Hurriyat Conference’s idea of freedom unfolds from a religious instinct, not a secular sentiment. This instinct is sectarian, and all the pro-azadi groups are Shia-killers. In promoting their hatred, the groups plead for the support of other Muslims by leaning on the name of the Prophet Muhammad. Hafiz is a title and means memorizer of the Quran. Mohammed Saeed’s Lashkar Tayyaba means army of Tyeb (“the good”), one of the Prophet’s names. This is incorrectly spelled and pronounced by our journalists as “Taiba” or “Toiba”, but Muslims can place the name. Lashkar rejects all law from sources other than the recorded sayings and actions of Muhammad. This is called being Wahhabi, and Wahhabis detest the Shia. Jaish Muhammad (Muhammad’s army) was founded in a Karachi mosque, and it is linked to the Shia-killing Sipah Sahaba (Army of Muhammad’s First Followers) in Pakistan’s Seraiki-speaking southern Punjab. The group follows a narrow, anti-Shia doctrine developed in Deoband. Decades of non-interference by the Pakistani state in the business of Kashmiri separatism has led to a loss of internal sovereignty in Pakistan. The state is no longer able to convince its citizens that it should act against these groups. Though their own Shia are regularly butchered, a poll shows that a quarter of Pakistanis think Lashkar Tayyaba does

KAMAL KISHORE/PTI

LEARNING CURVE

GOURI DANGE

SHUT DOWN THAT COMPUTER I am a grandparent, and I observe that my grandson (very intelligent and nearly three and a half years old) has stopped discovering the world after he has been allowed access to his parents’ laptops. First, we were all amused and impressed at how he could move screens, play games, even open email pages, put on the camera and e-chat with his other grandparents. But now I can clearly see that he is unable to engage with anything else. He is really an addict, which is the word his parents use, but I think I would use that word too for his parents, who have their laptops on all the time. Even in the car

they use their mobile phones for connection. I have tried telling them that unless they put the laptop out of sight, they will not be able to get him unhooked from the screen. I feel even watching cartoons on television is better than this—but funnily, they are so strict about not letting him watch television much! I want someone to tell my daughter and son-in-law that they will have to disconnect their laptops if this child is to take interest in the world around him. What can I do to intervene without interfering? Ah, the new idiot box, the laptop! Much as we may tell ourselves that sitting in front of

the computer screen is a sign of having the smarts, and sitting in front of a TV is for dummies, the distinction is beginning to blur. And the issue that you have raised echoes this for sure. All the more pointedly when it comes to a small child. Adults who are overengaged with their BlackBerrys and laptops and iPods are themselves suffering from attention deficiency, lack of focus, vexed interpersonal relationships, stress, insomnia, physical THINKSTOCK ailments, and other

War cry: (above) Kashmiri protesters in Srinagar on 30 July; and Omar Abdullah. good work. We think Indian Muslims are different from Pakistanis and less susceptible to fanaticism. It is interesting that within Pakistan, the only group openly and violently opposed to Taliban and terrorism are UP and Bihar migrants who form Karachi’s secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party. So what do the separatist groups want? It is wrong to see them as being only terrorist groups. They operate in an intellectual framework, and there is a higher idea that drives the violence. This is a perfect state with an executive who is pious, male and Sunni. Such a state, where all is done according to the book, will get God to shower his blessings on the citizens, who will all be Sunnis. There are three types of Sunnis in Kashmir. Unionists, separatists, and neutrals. Unionists, like Omar Abdullah, are secular and likely to be repelled by separatism because they have seen the damage caused by political Islam in Pakistan. They might not be in love with Indians, but they see the beauty of the Indian Constitution. Neutrals, like Mehbooba Mufti, are pragmatic and will accept the Indian Constitution when in power, though they show defiance when out of it. This is fine, because they respond to a Muslim constituency that is uncertain, but isn’t totally alienated. The longer these two groups participate in democracy in Kashmir, the weaker the separatists become. The current violence is a result of this. Given their boycott of politics, the Hurriyat must rally

such issues. A child of 4 exposed constantly to these things instead of playmates, physical games and toys or interactions with people around him, is bound to lose out on so much. You are right in being concerned. There are many parents around who are, as you describe it, themselves

its base by urging them to violence and most of it happens in Maisuma and Sopore. The violence should also clarify the problem in the minds of neutrals: If Kashmiri rule does not solve the azadi problem, what will? India’s liberals are defensive when debating Kashmir because of our unfulfilled promise on plebiscite. But they shouldn’t be. There is really no option to secular democracy, whether one chooses it through a plebiscite or whether it is imposed. It is a universal idea and there is no second form of government in any culture or religion that works. The Islamic state is utopian and it never arrives. Since it is driven by belief, however, the search becomes quite desperate. India has a constitution; Pakistan has editions. These are the various Pakistani constitutions: 1935 (secular), 1956 (federal), 1962 (dictatorial), 1973 (parliamentary), 1979 (Islamic), 1999 (presidential), 2008 (parliamentary). Why do they keep changing and searching? Muslims keep trying to hammer in Islamic bits into a set of laws that is actually quite complete. This is the Government of India Act of 1935, gifted to us by the British. Kashmiris have it, and perhaps at some point they will learn to appreciate its beauty. Aakar Patel will take a break from his column to write a book. He will return early next year. Send your feedback to replytoall@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Aakar’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/aakarpatel

unable to switch off from the network, and yet expect their kids to play, study, read, make friends, eat and sleep well! I think if you have spotted this happening in your family, you would be doing them a favour by intervening. It may appear like interference, but steel yourself and get involved. I would advise you to do it in one serious talk with the parents, rather than several gentle and subtle hints, which tend to sound like nagging— which is easily ignored! Find the right note—firm, serious, but not judgemental.

Get a life: If you are hooked to the computer 24x7, chances are your child will be too.

Give them your reading of the situation—that laptop access is cutting your child’s all-round development, and manipulating screens is hardly a sign of anything wonderfully intelligent or interesting in a child. Try to come up with some solutions or options—you could suggest that they designate one hour of the day as a no-electronics hour. In this way, you may help them see their own dependence too, and it will free up a little real life time for your grandson. If you can, and they are OK with it, take your grandson out somewhere, or to some activity/art/class, or a nature ramble at least twice a week, where he enjoys himself thoroughly and gets a sense of life outside of the screen. Gouri Dange is the author of The ABCs of Parenting. Send in your queries to Gouri at learningcurve@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010

Eat/Drink PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

VIR SANGHVI REVIEWS | MODERN INDIAN FOOD

Alliance française The next time you want to go PTM, try Delhi instead of flying off to London

FrenchPunjabi fare: (clockwise from above) A millefeuille of masala crab at Varq; Canadian spare ribs with sundried mango and toasted kalonji at Indian Accent; and Monsoon’s version of Australian lamb rack.

hen I am in an irreverent mood, I think of it as the Punjabi-turnedMod (or PTM) school of Indian cooking. It is a sort of fancy food you find at Michelin-starred Indian restaurants in London, where the chefs tend to be Punjabis (Vineet Bhatia, Atul Kochhar, etc.) or the restaurateurs tend to be called Panjabi (but the Panjabi sisters—Camellia and Namita—are actually Sindhis). Now, the PTM craze has hit India. There is Vineet Bhatia’s Indian outpost, the excellent Ziya at The Oberoi in Mumbai. And in Delhi, there is a host of modern Indian restaurants, all of which, by some remarkable coincidence, have Punjabi chefs: Indian Accent (Manish Mehrotra); Varq (Hemant Oberoi); Monsoon (Davinder Kumar); and Kainoosh (Marut Sikka). All of them are trying to do

roughly the same thing: Frenchify Indian food by plating the dishes and fancifying the presentation. You can argue about whether Frenchification is the only way forward, as some chefs think (I don’t agree but I concede that it is a valid route) but the sudden rash of PTM restaurants in Delhi puts an end to the claim that London is the capital of Indian cuisine. If you like this sort of thing, then you should eat it in India. Many of the Indian PTM places are far better than London’s Michelinstarred establishments. The Big Boy on the block is, of course, Varq at The Taj Mahal Hotel, Delhi. It is every foreigner’s idea of Indian food: David Cameron loved it. I took Bruce Palling, the British food and wine writer, to Varq when it opened and he was impressed. Two months ago, I went with a party of South Africans and one

of them said it was among the best meals he had ever eaten. But it is also a restaurant that Indians like. The foreigners eat the more Frenchified dishes: a millefeuille of masala crab (Varqi crab at Rs850); or Masala sea bass (Rs1,250) while Indians stick to such dishes as the Martabaan meat (Rs895), an achari mutton curry served in a pickle jar. For most of the time it has been open Varq’s principal competitor (in terms of food if not revenue) has been Indian Accent at the boutique Manor Hotel in Delhi’s Friends Colony. The Manor is now run by Rohit Khattar (who runs two restaurants in London) who has installed Manish Mehrotra as the chef. Mehrotra’s background is in Oriental food. Till Indian Accent opened, he was the chef at Tamarai, Khattar’s pan-Asian restaurant in London. The Oriental influences

show up in the brilliant food Mehrotra turns out at Indian Accent. There are delicious spare ribs (Rs750), and organic egg fritters (Rs375). When I first went there, he blew away the entire table with galouti kebabs stuffed with foie gras (Rs650) and slowcooked pork belly (Rs825). The Manor is small, sophisticated and run by a young, welcoming team. It is the perfect ambience for Mehrotra’s food. When you talk about Punjabi

hotels, the Meridien on Raisina Road is the one hotel that gets mentioned. Though the property opened in the early 1980s, it has had a rough ride, never quite being regarded as the equal of the city’s deluxe hotels. The Meridien is now looking to change its image and has been refurbished so completely that it is almost unrecognizable from the old days. Part of the refit is the decision to close Pakwan, a classic old-style Punjabi sharab-kebab operation and to open the fancy Monsoon, a nouvelle Indian restaurant that epitomizes the PTM wave. Devinder Kumar, the Meridien’s chef of long standing, is one of the doyens of his profession, a classically trained French chef who has brought many of the techniques of European cooking to Monsoon’s food. Because Kumar has not spent a lot of time checking out London restaurants, his food has an honest and earthy style of its own. A starter of burra kebab with crispy naan (Rs875) works because of the excellence of the kebab itself.

A main course of lamb rack (Rs1,750) succeeds because the lamb is evenly cooked in a continental oven. A duck dish (Rs1,350) has the breast piece smoked to a deep intensity while the leg meat is sliced, stewed and served in a cigar-shaped spring roll. Even the more traditional dishes are exemplary: a butter chicken (Rs995) uses fresh tomatoes rather than puree, is lighter for it, while Kumar’s take on rogan josh (Rs995) is outstanding. The restaurant has service issues. It needs a sommelier who understands the huge wine list given that most of its customers do not. And the enthusiasm of the young staff is no substitute for experience. Chefs will tell you that there is a clear divide between Muslim styles of cooking (the sort of food you get in Dum Pukht, for example) and Hindu tandoori cuisine (put crudely, the Muslims understand meat better than the Hindus). Marut Sikka is an unusual chef because he works with cooks from both Hindu and Muslim traditions. Though Sikka is a visible presence on the food scene because of outdoor catering and his TV show, Kainoosh at the DLF Promenade mall is his first proper Indian restaurant. It offers fancy hotel-style dining with a wordy menu that not only combines dishes from all over India but is also divided into traditional and nouvelle cuisine. I liked the food. The menu is too vast for me to recommend any particular dish but the restaurant is more than willing to design tasting menus for each group of diners. So, is this the future of Indian food in Delhi? I don’t think it is. Most people will stick to traditional dishes both at the top and the middle of the market. But the success of these restaurants proves three things. One: There is a place for upmarket Indian restaurants that can be used for business entertaining. (How many times can you take your guests to Bukhara?) Two: There is a new generation of Indians that is willing to experiment with a new kind of cuisine. And three: Indian chefs have proved that when it comes to Frenchified Indian food, they can do an even better job than their London counterparts. If Punjabis are going to go mod, then what better place to do it than Delhi, the capital of the new Punjab? Write to lounge@livemint.com PHOTOGRAPHS

SAMAR HALARNKAR

OUR DAILY BREAD

SAMAR HALARNKAR

The lazy, rainy day brunch Don’t feel like sweating it out in the kitchen? Slow down to the monsoon’s pace

don’t like the monsoon. Where people think of red earth and pouring rain, I picture dirty motorcycle tyres and muddied clothes. Where people think of hot pakoras and chai, I see sweat pouring down my forehead in a muggy kitchen. As you can tell, I don’t like the monsoon. Did I already say that? You see, my mind goes soft during the great sweep of the rains across the subcontinent. I get irritable, fidgety and prone to long periods of stupor.

So, I just don’t cook that much in the monsoon. I look for short cuts and the paths of least resistance. I took one such much-trodden path last Sunday after escaping Mumbai’s sodden mess—only to land in Delhi’s equally sodden mess. I kept my freezer, laden with meat and fish, firmly shut and closed my mind to its possibilities. I opened my vegetable tray and considered the red and yellow peppers, the eggplant and the spinach. You know I don’t like vegetables, so why was I even looking at them? I was really losing it. That’s when my mind’s eye flashed back to a childhood monsoon favourite, the pudina anda, or eggs with mint. It’s quick, it’s easy and it delivers a delicious, filling and steaming meal that fits

the QIQO (quick-in-quick-out) philosophy that I use with my kitchen during the monsoon. In these days of non-stick pans and drops of oil, it’s hard to duplicate the slightly blackened and crusty bottom layer on the pudina anda that emerged from the Halarnkar kitchen in the 1970s. Still, the healthy version works for me, and the nice thing is that these eggs go with almost any kind of bed you lay down. In the 1990s, my steamed eggs, atop a layer of onions, tomatoes and mushroom, were a party staple. Perhaps it was the cholesterol, perhaps it was the dowdy image that eggs gained, but I don’t think I have dished up eggs for dinner since the turn of the century. As a lazy day, monsoon brunch, nothing could be more apt though than the pudina anda. Since it

Take it easy: Break your eggs on almost any kind of bed; (right) with multigrain bread, they make a meal. seemed too light to serve as a meal, I crumbled in some leftover shammi kebabs. Once I wolfed the lot down with wholewheat toast, the water-addled world suddenly seemed like a much better place.

Steamed eggs with mint and kebabs Serves 2 Ingredients 4 bunches of fresh mint, either chopped or leaves picked off stalks 2 large onions, sliced 2-3 shammi kebabs (or leftover chicken or keema) 3 eggs 2 green chillies, chopped 1 tsp sesame seeds

Method In a non-stick frying pan, gently heat 1 tbsp of olive oil. Drop the sesame seeds in and wait for them to pop. Sauté the onions until soft, add the mint and keep sautéing for a minute or two. Remember a large quantity of mint will quickly shrink. Crumble the leftover kebabs. Add the chopped chillies, some salt and pat down into an even bed. Reduce flame to low. Break eggs over the bed of mint and onion. Grind fresh pepper over and

close pan with lid until eggs are done. You can either keep the yellow slightly runny or let it cook completely. Cut into wedges and serve immediately with toast or chapati. This is a column on easy, inventive cooking from a male perspective. Samar Halarnkar writes a blog, Our Daily Bread, at Htblogs.com. He is editor-at-large, Hindustan Times. Write to Samar at ourdailybread@livemint.com

www.livemint.com For a slideshow on how to make ‘pudina anda’, go to www.livemint.com/steamedegg.htm Read Samar’s previous columns at www.livemint.com/ourdailybread

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010

Society

BRAVE NEW NIGHTS AFTER HOURS

PATNA’S

BIHAR’S CAPITAL HAS UNDERGONE MANY DRASTIC TRANSFORMATIONS—MORPHING FROM A DANGEROUS TOWN IN THE 1990S TO A CITY WITH A RESPECTABLE NIGHTLIFE

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY I NDRANIL

BHOUMIK/MINT

11 PM B Y P ALLAVI S INGH pallavi.s@livemint.com

···························· hat hot June afternoon in 1992 left an indelible imprint on Shanker Dutt’s memory. “June 5, in fact, let me tell you,” he says matter-of-factly. The professor of English was at Patna University’s Darbhanga House, the heritage precinct where postgraduate classes for literature students are held, attending a farewell function for one of his colleagues. “Some of the students wanted to gatecrash. They were prevented from doing so but one of the students broke the glass of one of the doors and fired a shot,” he recalls. The bullet hit Dutt, who was on the dais, in the wrist, “shattering all the bones”. Yet, when they took him to the doctor, he was reluctant to disclose how he had been injured. “A bullet wound meant a

T 7 PM Party zone: (top) Dak Bungalow Road, one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, is lined with new hotels and restaurants; and a group of teenagers celebrate Nishant Kumar’s (in black) 13th birthday at Yo! China in Bandar Bagicha.

medico-legal case. One of my colleagues told the doctor I had tripped but the doctor, of course, figured it out,” he says. It was Dutt’s first experience of fear in the city of his birth. By the 1990s, the historical capital was a hub of notoriety and lawlessness, a classic case of cow-belt indiscipline, perversity and despair. Today things have changed. Dutt, who is also chairman of the Bihar Sangeet Natak Academy (BSNA), is all too happy to dwell on an important and rather “drastic” transition in the life of Patna: an ever-growing number of restaurants, bars, movie halls, and clubs—all bustling with activity until midnight—reflect the city’s new metropolitan aspirations. “When this began is not hard to point out. Of course, with the new government, much changed,” Dutt says, still with a hint of caution.

In the four years since chief minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar took over, 317 criminal cases have been reported, against 1,393 such cases in 2000-04. Speedy trials ensured a total of 38,824 convictions—in mostly theft, murder, extortion and kidnapping cases—between 2006 and 2009. Most of Bihar’s infamous dons are in jail, including Shahabuddin, the former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) politician who once went live on television, daring the state police to arrest him. As evening approaches, police vehicles zip down the streets; dozens of policemen are stationed at corners. At newly renovated police stations (the state’s recent move to improve these battered posts has added to police confidence), officials actively attend to routine complaints. TURN TO PAGE L8 L8® u

L8 SOCIETY

SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

8.30 PM

9.30 PM Electric dreams: (top, left) Kapil’s Eleven restaurant does brisk business on weekday evenings; (above) the Saturday night show at Mona cinema is sold out; (left) Maurya Lok complex is crowded despite the late hour; and the renovated precincts of Chhaju Bagh police station.

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Emboldened by the improvement in law and order, people in Patna have now embarked on a nightlife that assiduously chronicles middle-class ambitions, its appetite for change and hunger for recreational options. Prabhat Kaushal, a garment shop owner, didn’t think it was risky to allow his 13-yearold son Riddiman a night out with friends—unlike earlier, when businessmen were hesitant to venture out late at night for fear of extortion and kidnapping. Kaushal dropped his son at casual dining restaurant Yo! China where bright lights from the woodcrafted ceiling illuminated the faces of 10 teenagers. Outside, the evening is just getting started. Mobile vans and food stalls at the Maurya Lok Complex, Patna’s answer to Connaught Place, are busy rustling up freshly cooked Chinese and south Indian food, as people saunter in. Yet, for Riddiman and his friend Nishant Kumar, Yo! China in Bandar Bagicha was just the right place for Kumar’s birthday bash. His voice brims with excitement as he explains: “Here, it’s air conditioned and we can order till midnight.” It

was the 13-year-old’s first birthday celebration outside his home—but then this year is different, he remarks. “Now, all my friends hang out till late in the restaurants and so my father eventually agreed for me to treat my friends at a hotel,” the class VIII student at the city’s DAV Public School says. The online call registry Just Dial now has more than 150 restaurants on its Patna list, most of them less than five years old. At Mona, one of the city’s oldest cinema halls and now converted into a multiplex, all weekend shows for the 9pm to midnight slots are “house full”, says manager Ajay Kumar Kataruka. “There was a time when we had to cancel latenight shows. Now, we don’t have tickets for people coming in late,” he says. Different service sector players have reached the state, almost a decade after most metros saw the first wave, and consumers have lots of options. Yo! China’s many competitors include local entrepreneurs and national restaurant chains such as Kapil’s Eleven, owned by cricketer Kapil Dev; for leisurely evenings, there’s the Patna Golf Club or the Country Club International. At the Bankipore Club,

11.30 PM Kavindra, a businessman who uses only his first name, has been a member for more than 40 yea rs . He reca ll s, “People would try to get out early and move together in groups to any specified destination so that numbers give them a sense of strength.” Now, of course, the club—like several others—has been revamped and is packed to capacity till midnight. The world where RJD’s Lalu Prasad threatened to cancel the lease of the Patna Golf Club seems very distant. While Patna welcomes the

new, significant attention is being paid to the old, neglected cultural centres. Kalidas Rangalaya, one of Patna’s oldest theatres, rescued from decay, stages plays round the week; BSNA, a state-run organization for the promotion of art and culture, hosts regular cultural programmes at the Bhartiya Nritya Kala Mandir auditorium. This is where weekend cultural events—Shukr Gulzar (Friday Bloom) and Shani Bahaar (Saturday Spring)— have also come up in the last two years. “Art and culture follow only in a secure environment,”

says Kavindra. At the Cine Society, often fabled to be “as ancient as Patna”, its 50-odd members try to revive “the old days” twice a month—harking back to the time when they would screen rare classics. In the 1960s, the club used to import cinema reels from Europe for film screenings. Bereft of an auditorium, society members now convert the patients’ waiting room at the Sen Laboratory diagnostic centre into an auditorium for screening movies—the Laboratory owner is a Cine Society member. “In the 1970s, there were more than 300 members and films would be screened at the very spacious hall of the Indian Medical Academy. There are never too many people now since more entertainment avenues have opened in the city, but we haven’t stopped,” says Dutt, who is a member of the Cine Society. At the historic bridge over the Ganga on the outskirts of the city, the youth have found their new pulse. Mahatma Gandhi Setu, one of the longest river bridges in Asia, weighed down by years of decay and traffic, now gets a fresh set of visitors after dusk—restless, and often in love.

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BIHAR SERIES To read Mint’s fourpart series on a changing Bihar, including videos and slideshows, log on to http://www.livemint.com/ biharseries

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SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010

Trend Sheet PUBLICITY

FACT VS FICTION

The sultans of spin

Sixpacks, linkups, scandals—for a movie’s publicity, nothing is taboo

ometime last year, the country’s biggest film star called a highly placed politician in India because American immigration officials wanted to check his pockets. Most people who have travelled to the US would have taken it in their stride but the man whose last name is Khan, and who was not a terrorist, stopped press in India. Shah Rukh Khan’s detention at New York airport came when he was finishing shooting for his film ‘My Name is Khan’, coincidentally based on racial profiling in the US. The question inevitably cropped up—was this really an unintended stroke of chance?—even as Khan vented that whoever thought it was a publicity stunt should “shut up”. Here are some standard PR formulae:

Film and celebrity PR is in overdrive, desperate to grab eyeballs. The results are not always positive SONU MEHTA/HINDUSTAN TIMES

B Y A RUN J ANARDHAN arun.j@livemint.com

······················· s the spark led to smoke, the film director cancelled the day’s shoot. The film publicist on the set telephoned a reporter to give the news, assuming it would be useful. The reporter called back: “My editor says we will use it only if someone died on the sets.” A reporter calls this film publicist at least four times a day, the first call at 8am, asking the same question: “Kuch hai kya (Do you have any news)?” By the end of the day, he would be willing to take any news—whether it’s a lost cat, a bad haircut or someone burping at the dinner table. A media observer mentioned how, before the release of a particular production house’s films, there would be negative stories about the movies already running in theatres or those set to release, to discredit the competition. None of the people mentioned above wished to be identified, in typical film industry fashion—a lot of news in this business can’t be sourced because of the repercussions it may have on careers. Welcome to the world of film publicity, where the anxious producer sweating over huge investments is willing to bend all rules to get mileage, where large amounts of media real estate—print, television, Internet—needs to be filled and a winner or loser is decided within three days of the film’s release. “Bollywood is mainstream news now,” says Prabhat Choudhary of Spice. “The consumer hungers for it.” With millions of rupees riding on a movie’s success, in a competitive space where two-three films on an average jostle weekly for attention, the stakes are significant. Promotion of non-formulaic films and unconventional actors needs more than the usual formulaic link-ups and breakups—those work too sometimes—which is taking film publicity to new highs or, as some believe, new lows. In the 1997 film Wag the Dog, a news channel fabricates a war to influence an election; in the 2010 Hindi film Tere Bin Laden, an impersonator on a news channel intensifies a war. Film publicists

Spice it up: (clockwise from above) Roshan and Mori in Kites; Kumar meets Laxman; Aamir Khan promotes Ghajini; (below) a still from My Name is Khan. say Bollywood sees a battle every day for the best possible “scoop”.

The ‘need’ of a controversy At the two ends of the spectrum are the producers and reporters—“jammed” in between is the film or celebrity publicist. The way it works is generally twofold: The producer reaches out to the PR or the reporter does. The “news” is created or sometimes just embellished and passed on. Some production houses have teams that come up with strategies to promote a film; some producers just walk into the PR’s office and are likely to say film “thandi hai (it’s boring), we need a controversy now”. What happens next is a discussion of possible ideas—between the producer or the production house’s think tank and the PR team. Calls are made selectively to reporters. The standard PR drives have often involved relationships, or “link-ups” in Bollywood parlance—from cosy ones between the lead actors (not necessarily with their approval) to acrimonious ones between director-actor—release of box-office figures proclaiming the film is a hit and success parties. Controversies, such as lawsuits, protests by communities and political parties are known to help a film. With the stakes high, the importance of marketing and PR has blurred t h e l i n e s between truth and creativity, fact and fiction.

“Film PR has turned every tenet of publicity on its head,” says Parull Gossain, who runs her own PR agency. Stylist Vijayeta Kumar remembers this story about A.R. Rahman’s Oscar clothes being done by a well-known designer when actually, she was designing them. Another insider mentions an article about Sonam Kapoor refusing a Mani Ratnam film, “to appear cool”, though she had not even been approached. The industry is “incestuous”— news comes from technicians, people who work on the sets, such as make-up artists, spotboys and assistants, through word of mouth, “because everyone knows someone”. A lot of it makes it into the press without the source realizing it—insiders say a casual conversation between two people does not

always remain between them. According to film publicist Dale Bhagwagar, “A majority of the stories are planted.” He mentions one last year about actor Chunky Pandey, who claimed he was offered money to attend a funeral. Ten days after the story appeared, Pandey’s film Daddy Cool released, which is about incidents surrounding a funeral. “You can put a spin to anything,” says Atul Kasbekar, chairman and managing director of Bling Entertainment, a celebrity management company. “It’s gone through the stratosphere abroad; they give a spin to even sex tapes. Ten years ago, a person’s career could have ended with that.” Recently, actor Akshay Kumar was on the cover of Bombay Times, grinning into cameras next to R.K. Laxman in hospital. Kumar’s film Khatta Meetha released a few days later on 23 July. His character in the film is “the common man”, inspired by Laxman’s iconic caricature. The photograph set off an avalanche of disgusted retorts on social networking sites. Bombay Times said the next day that the rendezvous was its idea and Laxman was pleased with the meeting, but by then the damage was done. “All publicity is good,” disagrees Afsar Zaidi, chief executive officer, Carving Dreams, a talent agency and entertainment company. “If people are contributing expensive ink on you, any person should be grateful.”

Is all publicity good? Several publicists, image consultants and brand managers say

Kumar’s picture was poor publicity, but this brings up the old adage—is there any such thing as bad publicity? The need to grab the attention of an impatient consumer who is already being bombarded with images of a shine-inducing shampoo or a woman getting married on live television is bending rules to the point of desperation. “We are in an aggressive market that cannot afford to be lethargic. You need an edge in communication,” says Shailendra Singh, joint managing director, Percept Ltd, whose businesses include PR and film production. “Since the last two years, stars are available on social networking sites,” says a film publicist who did not wish to be identified. “Now, there is no excitement; we know when Shah Rukh Khan is dropping his children to school. So excitement has to be created.” The onus often rests on reporters to get something different. One publicist says she keeps track of how some reporters are doing. “If someone is going through a bad phase, I try to give them a story,” she says. Unlike reporters, film publicists have greater access to movie sets and frequent visits put them on friendly terms with studio workers—giving them a hold on what happens at these places. Much of the information is not crosschecked before it goes to press. “There is no way of knowing (what’s fact) because there is no accountability. Almost everywhere, gossip is printed as fact because you cannot sue people with these libel laws,” says Anirban Das Blah, managing director, Kwan Entertainment and Marketing Solutions. “The glamour business runs on instinct, not always on logic,” adds Choudhary. “Every Friday, the rules change.”

Linkups, breakups Before this year’s ‘I Hate Luv Storys’, lead actor Sonam Kapoor was linked with director Punit Malhotra. Coincidentally, the “affair ended” recently. Last year, tabloids plastered the news of Hrithik Roshan getting too close to costar Barbara Mori even as his wife stormed out of their home. Later, it appeared the couple were merely troubled by white ants in their plush Juhu flat. Roshan’s film ‘Kites’ bombed at the box office this year, though the trio have been photographed often together since then. The same with actors Malaika and Arbaaz Khan, who were said to be on the verge of a breakup. This was later denied. It was merely a publicity gimmick to promote a haircare brand they were endorsing. Body image Shah Rukh Khan needs to take blame for the feverishly abused term “sixpack”, which started with his film ‘Om Shanti Om’. The PR pack grabbed the pack, and how. Soon Aamir Khan had the eightpack, which is anatomically not possible, for ‘Ghajini’, which was publicized with videos of him working out. Now, every actor worth his gym membership poses with his packs, which could very well be smart work on Photoshop. Imran Khan was the latest with ‘I Hate Luv Storys’. Not to be left behind, Rekha got on the cover of a magazine showing off the body of a 20yearold on a diet of breadsticks. Scandal sells What breathes life into a slow starter is a controversy. Whether it’s Mallika Sherawat’s 17 kisses in her debut film ‘Khwahish’—it was a dud but she benefited thanks to the few who watched to count. This year’s ‘Na Jaane Kyon’ will have two men kissing but the the filmmakers insist it’s not a gimmick. The poster of ‘Kurbaan’ had Kareena Kapoor’s bare back, which created suitable excitement, more so after she allegedly wanted the scene removed. Saif Ali Khan apologized to some sections of the Sikh community before last year’s ‘Love Aaj Kal’, as did Karan Johar for using the word Bombay in ‘Wake Up Sid’. Shah Rukh Khan dropped “barber” from his movie title ‘Billu’ after facing protests from, well, barbers. Gangster Maya Dolas’ mother protested against the depiction of her son in ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala’ while Haji Mastan’s kin went to court against last week’s release ‘Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai’.

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ESSAY

LOSING FAITH

IN PAKISTAN

Another attack on a shrine underscores the zeal to cleanse Islam of all references to the Indian subcontinent. The border issue cannot alone be the cause of this hatred. After it wipes out traces of its shared culture with India, and as the world begins to see that Pakistan’s problems are not administrative, its people will have to find a new narrative ASIF HASSAN/AFP

ARIF ALI/AFP

B Y A ATISH T ASEER ··························································· t is one of the vanities of a war, like the war on terror, to believe that your enemy’s reasons for fighting are the same as yours. We are bringers of freedom, democracy and Western-style capitalism; they hate freedom, democracy and Western-style capitalism. It is an irresistible symmetry; and if not a way to win a war, it is certainly a way to convince yourself that you’re fighting the good war. But there is another possibility, one that the Americans, and other defenders of post-colonial thinking, are loath to admit: that a place’s problem might truly be its own; that your reasons for fighting are not your enemy’s reasons; and that you might only be a side-show in an internal war with historical implications deeper than your decade-long presence in the country. In the case of Pakistan, the imposition of this easy West versus Islam symmetry has helped conceal what is the great theme of history in that country: the grinding down of its local syncretic culture in favour of a triumphant, global Islam full of new rigidities and intolerances. It is this war, which feels in Pakistan like a second Arab conquest, that earlier last month saw, as its latest target, the Data Sahib shrine in Lahore—among the most important of thousands of such shrines that dot the cities and countryside of Punjab and Sindh. These shrines are a memorial to the hybridity of the land, if not the state, of Pakistan. Until Partition, before the exodus of Pakistan’s Hindu and Sikh populations, they were places (as they still are in India) where Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims worshipped together. Behind each one—formed out of more than six centuries of religious reform, which created humanistic, more tolerant hybrids of India’s religions—would be some tale built around a local saint that celebrated the plurality of the land. To adhere to the spirit of these shrines was to know that deeper than any doctrinal difference was a shared humanity; it was almost to feel part of a common religion; the spread of this shared culture through Punjab, Sindh and Kashmir constituted an immense human achievement. And for as long as the plurality remained, the religion remained, seemingly immune to fanaticism, incapable of being reduced to bigotry and prejudice. But once the land of Pakistan, after Partition, was drained of its diversity (and this constituted no less a shock than if London or New York were suddenly cleansed of their non-white populations), the religion lost its deepest motivation, which was to bring harmony to a diverse and plural population. The amazing thing was that even after Partition, when the land of Pakistan was no longer so plural, it was this religion, full of mysticism, poetry and song, that clung on as the dominant faith of the people of Pakistan. But it is also this religion now, far greater than any Western import or influence, that is the enemy of the new fanaticism. It is, if not the true front of the war on terror, certainly the cause of the rage behind it. It is this war that the Taliban, more than any about freedom, capitalism or democracy, concepts of which they have at best a thin knowledge, are fighting. For, in order to achieve the vacuum in which their nihilistic vision of Islam can be realized—and it can only be realized thus—the full world, the world of culture, of stories, of songs, of dress, of ornate ritual, must be destroyed. It is the busyness of the world—and this is where the West comes in too—a busyness made of the labour of men, of their ambitions, their hopes, their entertainments, their culture, that is the enemy of the bearded men. But there is also something else, and this has been going on in Pakistan since its inception: the wish to cleanse the Islam of that country of its cultural contact with the Indian subcontinent, a contact that is, for many in Pakistan, a contamination. For me, with my Indian upbringing, and Pakistani father, this desire to remove all trace of India was visible everywhere. It was there in the dress of a woman in Karachi, under the hem of whose black Arab abaya an inch of Indian pink was visible; it was there in the state’s desire to impose restrictions on weddings so that they would be stripped of their Indian rituals and become only Islamic; it was there in the hysteria surrounding the kite-flying festival of Basant, where public safety concerns—and this in Pakistan!—were invented so that the Indian spring festival could be put out of business once and for all. The attack on the old religion of Pakistan—and there will be many more—is the last front, and one hopes the most resilient, in the way of meeting the conditions for a complete nihilism. The reaction in Pakistan to this latest attack on Data Sahib has been one of widespread outrage, reaching into sections of society beyond that tiny sphere that foreign journalists like to describe as “civil society”. It has also been notably less muted than the reaction after the attack on the Ahmadi Mosque in May, which produced that same mixture of lies and conspiracy that is the foundation of Pakistani political opinion. But one cannot be too hopeful. Pakistanis have stood by and watched the decay of their society for over six decades now. It seems that once the original outrage dies down, no significant majority will be found to defend the old religion of Pakistan. They will see it go as they have seen so many things go. The reason for this is that original idea on which Pakistan was founded, the idea of the secular state for Indian Muslims, has perished and nothing has taken its place. The men who say “Pakistan was founded for Islam, more Islam is the solution”, have the force of an ugly logic on their side. Their opponents, few as they are, have nothing, no regenerative idea to combat this violent nihilistic one. As the attacks on shrines like Data Sahib multiply, as the Americans discover that nothing will be achieved by throwing money at Pakistan, as India realizes that Pakistan’s hatred of it is not rational, that the border issue with Kashmir cannot alone be the cause of such passion, as the world begins to see that Pakistan’s problems are not administrative, Pakistanis will have to find a new narrative. The sad truth is that they are still a long way from discovering the true lesson behind the experience of the past 60 years: that it is of language, dress, notions of social organization, of shared literatures and customs, of Sufi shrines and their stories, that nations are made, not religion. That has proved to be too thin a glue and 60 years later, it has left millions of people dispossessed and full of hateful lies: a nation of human bombs.

Aatish Taseer is the author of two books, Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands and Temple-Goers. Write to lounge@livemint.com

Under attack: (above) A Friday gathering at the shrine of Sufi saint Data Ganj Bakhsh in Lahore on 2 July, a day after suicide attacks killed several people; (below) supporters of the banned Islamic group JamaatudDawa chanting slogans during an antiIndia rally in Lahore last month; and a Karachi theatre screening Bollywood movies in January 2009.

KM CHAUDARY/AP

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ARIF ALI/AFP

Aatish Taseer is the author of two books, Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey through Islamic Lands and Temple-Goers. Write to lounge@livemint.com

KM CHAUDARY/AP

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Travel THINKSTOCK

SOUTHERN CIRCUIT

Meals ready, Marianne

PHOTOGRAPHS

Through coastal Karnataka and Kerala, a drive becomes the destination

B Y D ILIP D ’S OUZA ···························· he trip took on an extra dose of meaning on our return, when we went, en famille—there’s a reason I use French—to McDonald’s, where I noticed the fantastic amount of trash a single meal generates. Waxed paper, paper cups, plastic lids, straws, containers for fries, torn sauce packets, plastic saucers for sauce, paper tray liners… And on our car journey around the south, we stopped at little places that served that southern delicacy, our original fast food: “meals ready”. Lipsmacking nourishment—rice, appalam, sambar, rasam, vegetables, dahi, buttermilk, pickle, payasam—served on a banana leaf. The only trash generated: the banana leaf. There was one time all four of us ate heartily for the kingly sum of Rs38. And this being coastal Kerala, there was fish on the menu too. Food apart. Leaving Goa, NH17 strikes south into Karnataka, and it’s like wandering through one of Mumbai’s Chitrapur Saraswat colonies. I’m married into that community, so I’ve heard the names for two decades now—Belthangady, Upponi, Gokarna, Honavar, Mudbidri, Bhatkal. By now, I know people sporting most of those monikers. Here, we drive through them, town after town. A community

GRAPHIC

AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

comes to life in this curious way. For a stretch south of Baindur and Bijur—yep, family acquaintances by those names too—the road hugs the coast: rocks and pounding waves on the seaward side, tranquil backwater on, well, the backwater side. A shack balanced on the rocks, selling coconuts, caught our eye only as we shot past at 80 clips. Just past a sign that said “Boating Center”, we made a smooth U-turn and pulled over. Coconut water on the rocks, mesmerized by the waves. What’s so special about coconut water, you’re wondering? Well, it’s the rocks, really. While we stretched and sipped, we gradually realized that where we stood, the black rocks were all points and sharp edges above the water. But below, where the waves flung themselves in seeming futility at the stones, they were worn smooth and curvy. The difference was dramatic. Geology at work, here at our feet. Not so futile after all, the waves pounding. “Let’s come back in a million years,” said my son. “It’ll all be sand.” On that score, we have a deal. Also, since we missed out this time, I plan to take a Boating Center vessel out for a jaunt on the water. Later, we rumbled through Thalassery towards Mahe, which, even if it is smack in the middle of Kerala, is actually part of Puducherry. That’s because it used to be French, and that was the attraction. You see, I’m married into all things French too, it so being that my wife teaches the language. Our route to anywhere tends to include French cities; on this trip, with Paris a tad distant, Mahe filled in. Approaching the bridge over the Mayyazhi river that marks the Mahe border, two guys on a motorbike shot past on our left at considerably more than 80 clips, weaved to our right, straight into the path of an onrushing jeep. Frantic seconds ensued that I can only describe thus: glancing blow, desperate weaving by the motorbike duo, sandals falling and somehow a halt next to a police booth. We stopped, I got out and ran back, picking up the sandals on the way. The teenager on the pillion had injured his foot badly. The driver was OK, except for a long tear in his jeans. The jeep owner had already flagged down a passing rickshaw and was helping load the teenager so they could go to hospital. Oh yes, the cops helped too. As soon as they saw me approaching, they began bundling me into the rickshaw as well. “You go!” shouted one in English, when they

DILIP D’SOUZA

Konkan colour: (from top) Ullal beach; Aghnashini bridge, Karnataka; a procession in Coorg; and the breakfast crowd at a tiny eatery, north of Shimoga.

realized I couldn’t follow the others’ Malayalam. “Mahe hospital! Go quick!” Ordinarily I might have gone, but here the jeep and motorbike drivers together looked like they had things under control; besides, with the three of them in the rickshaw, there was no place for me. But he got a little more insistent when he saw me hesitate. “Must go!” he said, pushing me. “You were in jeep! Take him to hospital!” I explained that we were just passing and no, I definitely wasn’t from the jeep and I had only come to help and I had brought the kid’s sandals … The sandals did the trick. He stopped pushing and smiled. Took the sandals from my hand and thrust them into the rickshaw, which made a roaring, careening U-turn and skidded off towards Mahe.

Minutes later, more sedately and a little stunned, so did we. There’s not a whole lot left that’s French about Mahe, not even the innumerable bars and liquor stores right at the border. I suppose if I had stepped into one I might have stumbled on plentiful stocks of fine Bordeaux wine, but it didn’t seem likely. But we stumbled instead on a tiny park by the river, where we found dozens of dozing men—they were not French either—and a memorial. Finally, something French. It’s an elegant black pillar topped by the head of Marianne, symbol of France and allegory for the famed “liberté, egalité, fraternité” slogan. As far removed from my experience as that revolution is, it’s strange how the memorial put the words in mind, setting my spine a-shiver. Freedom, equality,

brotherhood: 200-plus years since the French revolution, 60-plus years since we Indians became free, those ideas always resonate, always seem fresh. There’s irony in a colonial regime trumpeting them, sure—after all, how free and equal was Mahe under the French? But the words don’t lose their power for that. Shiver done, I examined Marianne more closely. Several French beauties have been models for Marianne, including Catherine Deneuve and, be still my beating heart, Brigitte Bardot. Which of them would I see depicted here? As I peered, my wife’s laconic tones—she knows me well—brought me back to earth. This pillar was erected for the centenary of the French revolution, in 1889. Long before Mesdemoiselles Bardot and Deneuve; in fact, long before France even started depicting Marianne in the likeness of its loveliest women. So much for my beating heart. On the wall outside was a poster of a recent Malayalam film, complete with dashing if paunchy hero and fetching if also paunchy heroine. I consoled myself by peering at it. Felt an inexplicable urge, once more, for a meals ready. Write to lounge@livemint.com CHILDFRIENDLY RATING

I did this trip with my wife and two children, 6 and 11. The best thing about driving with kids is that you can stop anywhere and explore anything that excites their curiosity.

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BJØRN CHRISTIAN TØRRISSEN/WIKIMEDIA

DETOURS

SALIL TRIPATHI

A painful past Three memorials in Phnom Penh, Berlin, Johannesburg show us the meaning of remorse and mercy

s far as schools go, there was nothing remarkable about Tuol Sleng. The building stood unobtrusively along an avenue in Phnom Penh. But it was in its ordinariness, in the way it became part of Cambodia’s urban landscape, by not drawing any attention, that the school gave meaning to Hannah Arendt’s chilling phrase, the banality of evil. Tuol Sleng had, at one time, been the torture chamber of the Khmer Rouge, whose murderous rule lasted from 1975 to 1979 in Cambodia. In July, an officer of the Khmer Rouge known as Duch was sentenced after the tribunal adjudicating war crimes committed in Cambodia found him guilty for his pitiless reign over that building. That sentencing won’t offer salve to

the wounds of any of the thousands of victims who had been in the jail. But its intent was to offer a sense of closure, or completeness, to those who were jailed, beaten, tortured, and killed for crimes they didn’t commit. The rooms inside were filled with ordinary objects—a bed made of iron, on which victims were tied and their arms and legs stretched to inflict maximum pain. The beds were rusted. There were dark blotches on the wall. I didn’t need a guide to tell me it was blood—and not one person’s blood, but of many, mingled together in pain, splattered on the wall, frozen in time. There were other tools—some used to dig, some used to cut, some used to sharpen, a few to drill walls, some to push nails through walls. But none had been used for those intended purposes; each had been used instead to savage human bodies, to cause wounds, to puncture skin, to let blood pour out. To avoid that, people were willing to admit to anything. I read confessions, written in crooked, shaky handwriting, by young men, many of them foreigners, saying they had plotted to overthrow the government. The sheets on which

the confessions were written had faded, as had the ink, but the desperation was apparent—the unsteady hand suggested how the people were willing to confess to whatever the man with the iron chain demanded, if only to stop the beatings. But the pain only ended with their death. I recall stranded Indian sailors admitting to being spies; a backpacker owning up to being an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency; another Thai national saying he was going to blow up an army truck; and an interminably convoluted account about the seizure of an American warship. In the hall before I left the school, now turned into a museum commemorating the Khmer Rouge atrocities, was a large map of Cambodia on the wall, made entirely of skulls. I left speechless, which was the intended effect. Words were not necessary; silence—out of respect for those who died, and out of the sense of horror over those responsible—was the only response. Many years later in Berlin, as I walked through another memorial built to mark another colossal atrocity—the Holocaust, at the Jewish Museum—I experienced something similar:

Haunted memories: Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng facility is a museum to the victims of Khmer Rouge’s brutalities. the silence that cries out for some sound of love or hope. The museum in Berlin had stark lines and tilted walls. There were large pillars that rose and fell. As their height reduced, the ground beneath your feet seemed to rise, making you feel as though you were sinking in a tunnel that was getting narrower, squeezing you. But just as you adjusted to that level, it would change again, altering the topography, confusing you about where the ground lay, where the sky reached, and where you stood, within that space. Disorientation is a complex idea—it is not easy to describe it; but most of us have felt it sometime. What that spatial experiment achieved was what no photograph, no testimony could: It disturbed your sense of certainty, of your moral universe. This was Germany, the land of

FOOT NOTES

There, the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg shines: It forces you, almost by design, to be what you are not, and experience history through the lives of others. The ticket assigns you an identity—you are white. Or non-white. You are suddenly separated from those who came with you. And you discover the world through eyes not your own. Understanding the horrors of the past century is not easy. But reality is different when you look at those horrors not as a film on a giant screen, but through a different pair of eyes, of the person struggling to emerge out of the stamped boot. It explains why people seek justice. And it brings us closer to the meaning of remorse and forgiveness. Write to Salil at detours@livemint.com

Backpacking through Bavaria

Call of the wild

avarian beer everywhere, and 16 days of non-stop fun. Munich’s Oktoberfest is among the biggest (and most famous) public festivals in the world, and tour company The Backpacker Co is offering a 15-day whirlwind tour of Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium around this festive season. There’s artwork to be gawped at (Paris’ art galleries appear on the schedule), beautiful castles to be explored, and lots of beer to be sampled. The itinerary is fairly lenient, with many days of “free exploring”, and the tour encourages wandering off the beaten path. The trip is from 18 September-2 October, and a single pass (which includes access to Oktoberfest tents) is priced at Rs1.25 lakh, inclusive of airfare, visas and insurance. It’s all on a first-come, first-served basis till a group of 10 is found, so early bookings are advised. For more details, log on to www.thebackpackerco.com

Rare lemurs, bat caves and other delights of Madagascar’s natural beauty

adagascar, an island lying to the south-east of Africa, is off the circuit for all but the most intrepid travellers. Taking the destination—home to 5% of the world’s plant and animal species—a bit closer to Indian itineraries is Mandip Singh Soin’s Ibex Expeditions, which hopes to launch fixed departures to Madagascar next year. Lounge caught up with Soin after his recce tour. Edited excerpts: Why Madagascar? The idea is to go to remote areas that are also of cultural interest. I joke with my friends that if people don’t know a country’s capital and its currency, then we are interested. Eighty per cent of the flora and fauna found here is endemic to Madagascar. What were the highlights of the trip? We had a diverse set of experiences, including seeing the bat caves at the Ankarna National Park and visiting Diego Suarez, a small township on the coast, which used to be home to pirates. The Tsingy National Park has many spiky rock towers; one can crawl and climb through them to the peak. It is only 100m high but offers views of miles of spiky rocky limestone formations. At Morondava, there are limestone caves where the locals store the bones and skulls of their ancestors. At Kirindy, the highlight was a night walk in the forest where we saw lots of lemurs. They were not shy at all since they have no natural predators except for crocodiles.

philosophers such as Kant and Schopenhauer, and authors such as Goethe, Mann and Schiller, the home of abstract ideas. But also the land which, driven by an insane, messianic zeal, devoured millions of lives. That space symbolized the lives cut short, and how that destabilized the moral universe, as if you were alone aboard a ship tossing in waves. What happens after such a ghastly experience? A tragedy on such a scale evokes mixed responses. Some seek justice, failing which they want revenge. Some find the adequacy of justice itself insufficient, and want to plunge back into violence. Forgiveness can heal, but before the survivors can forgive, those who committed those evil deeds have to express remorse. Many find it hard; they return to pointing fingers—you did it first.

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY I BEX

EXPEDITIONS

Krish Raghav BERNHARD J SCHEUVENS/WIKIMEDIA

Beer and more: The Oktoberfest grounds lit up at night.

Natural splendour: (clockwise from top, right) A replica of a traditional dhow; baobab trees near Kirindy National Park; and Soin. You also undertook a three-day canoe trip during which you spent time in Sakalava villages. The Sakalavas are one of the main tribes of Madagascar. We ended up in a Sakalava village where we got a chance to interact with the local people. On the second day, four-five villagers brought a caboose—an instrument similar to a guitar—and we played together while the children played soccer. We were the first Indians to have ever been there. At the end of the three days,

instead of taking SUVs we opted to go on a cart drawn by zebus, a cow-like animal. You also sailed along the coast in a dhow. We undertook a three-day journey along the Madagascar coast. The dhows had motors, but also sails, which we used when out in the sea. We snorkelled and saw hundreds of fish species and corals. How much of this experience is available to the tourist? As much as they’d want. We specialize in customizing our tours around a basic template to

Truffle hunting THINKSTOCK

Himanshu Bhagat

ere’s a recipe for a unique autumn holiday—go on a truffle hunt, tour vineyards (and savour bottles of exclusive vintage), explore palazzos full of rare Rennaisance-era artefacts and top it off with a drive in a Ferrari through the Italian countryside. That’s just part of what luxury company The Leading Hotels of the World Ltd is offering with a week-long “Autumn of Wine & Truffles” tour of Tuscany from 17-23 October. The seven-day event will be hosted at the Villa La Massa in Florence, and is open to 12 Leaders Club members. For more information, log on to www.lhw.com/tuscanyjourney and www.lhw.com, or call 000800-6501240 from IDD phones.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

Krish Raghav

include as much off-the-road experience as the traveller can take on. Ibex Expeditions’ Madagascar tours are scheduled between April and October 2011. A fixed trip begins on 4 June. Costs are $2,900-3,200 (Rs1.3-1.5 lakh) per person. Email ibex@ibexexpeditions.com or call 011-26460244/46 for details.

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Books JEREMY EDWARDS

THE CRIMSON THRONE | SUDHIR KAKAR

Strife, sex and succession The court of this Mughal emperor was replete with compelling drama. Sudhir Kakar shows his grasp of it as a historian, not as a novelist

B Y C HANDRAHAS C HOUDHURY ···························· ery few writers comprehend the deep structure of the Indian mind, and the way it reveals itself in both public and private behaviour, as the psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar. Indeed, one of Kakar’s recent books, written in collaboration with his wife Katharina, was a striking wideangle view of the tangled roots and branches of the Indian psyche called, simply, The Indians. Kakar has also for around a decade been a practitioner of historical fiction, each book based on the life of a prominent historical personage: the sage Vatsyayana, author of the Kama Sutra, in The Ascetic of Desire; Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda in Ecstasy; Mahatma Gandhi in Mira and the Mahatma. On its new journey the Kakar Bus of Fiction, as it were, stops at yet another intriguing point in Indian history: the Mughal period. Mughal India has been vividly documented not just by historians and poets, and indeed on occasion the great emperors themselves, but also by the accounts of visitors to the Mughal court. Two of these travellers were the Italian Niccolao Manucci and the Frenchman Francois Bernier. In Kakar’s book their respective memoirs of life in India under Mughal rule are mined to produce a double-sided view of a storied moment in Indian history. It is 1657, and the health of Shah Jahan, the ageing monarch, is poor, and his capital agog with rumour. The two candidates to succeed Shah Jahan are his eldest son Dara Shikoh and his third son Aurangzeb. Indeed, the future of not just the Mughal empire but (one sees from the long view afforded by history) of different ideas of India is at stake, for no two princes could be more dissimilar. Although both princes are Sunni Muslims, Dara is in spirit a Sufi, a lover of sensual pleasures and poetry and religious speculation who has a keen interest in Hinduism, and indeed believes that the Upanishads may be the “hidden books” alluded to by the Quran. His empire would be a

Timeless: (left) Shah Jahan’s ode to his wife Mumtaz Mahal.

world far removed from that promised by Aurangzeb, whose austere nature is influenced by no other source but the Quran. Although Dara is Shah Jahan’s favourite, Aurangzeb is the more adept at the ruthlessness and calculation needed to yield the prize of power. The competing attractions of the two brothers are embodied and reflected by the two narrators of the novel. Manucci, an exuberant scapegrace, born in poverty in Venice, many years an itinerant traveller in India, is delighted at having won himself a position, more from shrewdness and presence of mind than from real knowledge, of a doctor in the Mughal court. Nothing symbolizes his enterprising nature more than an incident where he conducts an exorcism by chanting a powerful mantra, which he later

The Crimson Throne: Penguin, 256 pages, Rs450. reveals was nothing other than “the ‘Hail Mary’ in rapid-fire Italian”. Here is a spirit who would find much to admire in Shikoh. Bernier, meanwhile, is not as enthusiastic a convert to India as Manucci, seeing it always from the detached perspective of someone schooled in another way of life. He thinks Indians are too disorganized, too servile and too emotional, and cannot see Hindus, from his Christian viewpoint, as anything but “idolaters”. While not agreeing with Aurangzeb’s veneration of religion above all other matters, he nevertheless believes that the Mughal empire would be better served by someone conversant

KASHMIR BLUES | URMILA DESHPANDE

with the laws of power and statecraft than by a dreamer. Both narrators take potshots at each other and provide conflicting versions of incidents, illustrating not just a truth about human nature and its prejudices but indeed a truth of the novel form, which through multiple points of view shows us how much of our worldview is not fact but interpretation. The perspective of two outsiders allows Kakar a rich vein of comment on Indian social life, religion, politics, and especially sex, a subject on which he has always had much to say. We are told by Manucci, himself a great lover of the female form, that Shah Jahan has an enormous harem of beautiful women and yet dreads sexual monotony, precisely because he can have any woman he wants. Craving the touch of danger that will make sex interesting, he begins to prey on the wives of his generals. This particular illuminates a universal: that desire is not just a function of the body, but also that of the mind and of the relation between two people. With such a treasure trove of compelling material, it would have been hard for The Crimson Throne not to be interesting. Yet one feels that Kakar’s narration is a capable but not especially memorable one. Kakar reprises the mode of firstperson narration he has found in his sources, but passes up the opportunity to make his narrators not familiar, but strange. We hear only what they want to tell us, not what they would conceal or distort. Our relationship with them remains formal. For this reason, his novel (which provides a bibliography at the end) does not completely shake off the shadow of its sources; it impresses but never su r pr is es the r ea der . Kakar’s knowledge of his subject, more than his daring as a storyteller working in a complex art form, is what carries The Crimson Throne through. Chandrahas Choudhury is the author of Arzee the Dwarf. Write to lounge@livemint.com IN SIX WORDS Impressive knowledge and research, forgettable novel

JUPITERIMAGES

Half cries of the Valley The real blues in Kashmir never quite show up—a cold protagonist doesn’t help B Y F ERZINA B ANAJI ···························· he title of Urmila Deshpande’s novel, Kashmir Blues, is evocative—of the tragedies of dislocation and loss, and the melancholia of a people torn into two. Sadly, the book itself does not quite deliver. Deshpande’s plot offers itself up to criticism far too easily. Her characters are too insipid to inspire any kind of empathy. Naia, an American of Indian origin, is a cold protagonist. She can hardly be described as the central or lead character because although her story is the focal point of the narrative at the start, she starts to fade away halfway through the novel, disappears completely towards the end, and resurfaces only in the epilogue. By that time, you don’t really care enough about her to want

Kashmir Blues: Tranquebar, 355 pages, Rs325. her back on the scene. The scope of Kashmir Blues is intended to be a vast landscape of stolen identities and lands but its execution is rather trite: Naia discovers that she was “stolen” as a baby from a well-to-do Indian family by her American mother who misguidedly assumed that she was saving a child from the fate of being a mutilated beggar. Naia, luckily,

has a friend named Leon, by far the most interesting character here, who urges her to return to India and discover her literal roots. They fly to Mumbai: The taut observation that, “This city had the smell of humanity, naked. You could smell the people in all their living”, is quickly dampened by clichés: a garrulous, unpunctual taxi driver, and a train journey with dismal lavatories are two of them. There are also some highly improbable coincidences—a random drug-dealing denizen who had been known to Naia’s parents, the helpful family friend who happens to know Naia’s birth parents. Her parents, for which the novel journeys to Delhi, are more lively as characters than their daughter but only because tremendous detail is thrown in their direction, very little of which is then synthesized into a coherent, meaningful narrative. Saroj, Naia’s mother, is introduced as a frail woman, bordering on depression, never having quite gotten over the loss of her daughter and unsure now what to make of this grown woman. A brief detour into a hidden affair

Postcard: Deshpande alternates without conviction between a political and a humane story set in Kashmir. with an Irish spy in Spain is introduced although its relevance to the novel is unclear. Saroj goes off on a pilgrimage halfway through the book, communes with a green hallucination, and returns to Delhi cured. Naia’s father, Viren, who welcomes his prodigal daughter more easily, is a RAW (intelligence agency) operative with a taste for fine carpets. If you’ve gotten this far with your credulity intact, then meet Samaad: a posh England-educated Kashmiri carpet dealer who stumbles upon a mine of sapphires near his mountain home. He decides that this mine will buy some peace for his corner of Kashmir—one hopes with

some measure of irony given that he brutally murders the young man who unwittingly aided in the discovery of the ore—and organizes his own militia and smuggling operation. Leon, magnetically drawn to Samaad (who in a bizarrely antiSemitic affectation nicknames him Yehudi)s, follows him to Kashmir whereas Naia initially remains in Delhi and promptly develops an addiction for crack. Moth smoke is used as a device to portray a drug-addled mind that cannot be wholly trusted and the illusory escape offered by intoxicants in a politically tremulous world. Kashmir Blues has no profound vision and Naia merely shakes off her

addiction aided by powerful pills provided by Samaad. After a brief affair with him, described in a manner devoid of any poignancy, she melts from the narrative and the political drama takes over. The climax is only notable for its genuinely anticlimactic nature. Deshpande switches between the voices of her characters with little warning—a technique used by writers such as Orhan Pamuk and Mohsin Hamid to great effect. In Kashmir Blues, the effect is disorienting and misleading since none of them are distinct enough to hold their own. Write to lounge@livemint.com

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SARASWATI PARK | ANJALI JOSEPH

CULT FICTION

A city’s consciousness NATASHA HEMRAJANI/HINDUSTAN TIMES

Sharply etched portraits of Mumbai and its people trapped in a plot of contrived ends

B Y A RUNAVA S INHA ···························· n almost every page of Saraswati Park, Anjali Joseph’s debut novel, named for the block of flats in which the three central characters live, the calmness of the narrative appears to be a build-up to an explosive finale. Detailing with meticulous attention what each of the three does as they go about their daily lives, the storyline is so front-loaded with possibilities that a crisis, even a catastrophe, seems inevitable. This is reinforced all the more by the choice of Mumbai as a setting. The placid prose—not as ultra slo-mo or as up close to the subject as Amit Chaudhuri’s, but definitely a reminder—is almost a set-up for the seemingly mundane lives of Mohan, his wife Lakshmi and his nephew Ashish to intersect with one of the many violent events to have befallen the city. So it is both a relief and a disappointment that nothing of the sort happens—despite the (unintentional?) red herrings in the form of Ashish wandering past Leopold Café and the Gateway of India late one evening. A relief, because that would have been far too obvious a device, neither original nor particularly unexpected any more. But a disappointment, because at least something would have happened in this novel to imbue it with a raison d’etre. In terms of atmospherics and the ability to use words to paint multimedia pictures, Joseph is a joy to read. From the 2BHK in a Mumbai housing society to the pavement in front of the post office where Mohan spends his day writing letters for those who cannot write their own, from the innocuous dosa-vendor—not

Ambient detail: One of the vignettes of Mumbai in Joseph’s novel are the pavement booksellers of Fort. even a bit part but still so easy to imagine the way he’s described— to the affable recipewriter with a big newspaper, everything and everyone comes alive with startling completeness. Detail gets its just due. Unfortunately, only one-and-ahalf other incidents of note beyond the ones mentioned on the book jacket take place. After Mohan’s nephew Ashish moves into the empty nest with him and his wife Lakshmi, two journeys of self-discovery are initiated. In one, Mohan gets back in touch with his ambition—and, perhaps, latent skill—as a writer of fiction. In the other, Lakshmi finally pro-

Saraswati Park: HarperCollins India, 261 pages, Rs399.

tests against a marriage that is not even an empty ritual any more. True to Joseph’s quiet writing, neither is attended by fireworks. In fact, Lakshmi’s revolt is more perceived than described, since it is viewed through the husband’s lens and not the wife’s. And knitting these two strains together, in a sense, is Ashish, whose sexual choice is the unconventional one. There’s no drama, besides romance and heartbreak, over that either—and Ashish’s sexual orientation almost becomes a symbol for the road less travelled that both his uncle and aunt manage to tread on in their own way. Maybe this is indeed how things happen in real life—in small, discrete actions punctuated by daily routine, where nothing of individual significance happens, but small events eventually add up to major change. But if art were to have imitated life here, things would not have slid so smoothly into place as they do in the last few chapters of Saraswati Park. Joseph seems almost compelled to knit the threads into a pleasing pattern that is clearly contrived. Here was an opportunity to leave the reader with a sense of disquiet, to wonder what would happen next. But for that, this novel would have had to be open-ended, would have had to leave the characters with choices but not deci-

sions, would have had to acknowledge that ordinary people are often caught in that place between dissatisfaction and indecision, which they cannot ultimately escape. Here, however, each of the characters finds a convenient way out. Joseph captures the surface of human behaviour beautifully as well as sympathetically. Her eyes and ears are perceptive but not judgemental, her writing unemotional but sensitive. She sees beyond the manic energy and urban mythology of Mumbai to the far more real daily rhythm of existence, which is neither a continuous struggle nor one long uninterrupted hustle. In the process, she brings alive both the city and the people with sharply etched, but not jagged edges. It’s sad, then, that the novel loses the plot—for there never was one to speak of. Arunava Sinha translates Bengali fiction into English. His published translations include Sankar’s Chowringhee and The Middleman; Buddhadeva Bose’s My Kind of Girl; and Moti Nandy’s Striker, Stopper. Write to lounge@livemint.com IN SIX WORDS Hear the daily rhythms of Mumbai

THE PLEASURE SEEKERS | TISHANI DOSHI

Mellow, lasting love An elegant and charming love story, a recalling of the author’s parents’ marriage

TIME FOR A COMIC INVENTORY

B Y S ALIL T RIPATHI ···························· ishani Doshi has many talents. Her collection of poems, Countries of the Body, won the 2006 Forward Poetry Prize for debut collections. Earlier this year, she enthralled viewers in London in the dance ballet, Sharira (the body), choreographed by the late Chandralekha, who had trained her. She writes about cricket. And now she has written an elegant novel, The Pleasure Seekers, which is an affectionate recalling of her parents’ marriage. Doshi’s Welsh mother becomes Siân Jones here, who has escaped her small village for the bright lights of London, where she works at an office. Her Gujarati father, known only as “Babo” in the novel, is at the office, sent by his father for work experience with their business partners, and to study. Love happens, movingly and charmingly, and Siân welcomes Babo to her world. Babo plunges into the new life with relish, eating meat,

R. SUKUMAR

drinking alcohol and breaking virtually every promise he had made to his doting family when he left Madras for London. His parents get wind of the budding romance and Babo gets the predictable cable, saying his mother is seriously ill. He rushes home only to find his passport taken away. But Babo rebels, breaking the heart of a young Gujarati girl they’ve decided he should marry (and who he liked once upon a time). He triumphs over a challenge, and Siân adjusts to her new life in India with remarkable grace—the colours and flavours of India easily vanquishing whatever charms Britain offers, including its “meager and ancient” light. Doshi begins the novel with a dream sequence, which points towards a magic realist treatment of the kind associated with many authors from the subcontinent. But the prose quickly turns gentle and pleasant, flowing calmly like the Adyar, and without the pyrotechnics that characterize the genre.

Her portrayal of Babo’s family is exquisite, in particular the grandmother who lives in Gujarat; the inquisitive curiosity of Indians when they have a foreigner in their midst—such as Siân—is presented with great charm. Doshi has called the novel “a love letter to my parents”, and that it is. But it also shows, meticulously, how love is even and mellow, and not loud and pulsating like in a Hindi or Tamil film. Life is like that; it ebbs and flows: There are heartaches and heartbreaks, but t he re ar e a lso up li ft i ng

The Pleasure Seekers: Penguin India, 320 pages, Rs499.

moments, and we encounter them as we meander through life. It is when the story races forward, to the life of Bean, Siân’s and Babo’s daughter, that we plunge into the rough and tumble of a fast-paced city and modern romance, where sexual attraction and relationships are not necessarily meant to correlate with enduring love. The recreation of the placid Madras of half a century ago is evocative; the more frenetic contemporary world looks psychedelic in comparison. But there is a uniting, common thread, of the empowered woman. It took courage for a young woman to uproot herself and move to India at that time; Doshi lets Siân’s actions speak, revealing how love can conquer anything. As Bean embarks on her own adventures, her heart exploring the world around her, it shows the ephemeral nature of modern relationships. They offer pleasure, they may not endure, but if that’s what the pleasure seeker wants, so be it. In the end, love remains an individual quest; no wonder it is a many-splendoured thing. Salil Tripathi writes a fortnightly column Here, There, Everywhere for Mint. Write to lounge@livemint.com

wo are over, a third is going strong, and a fourth has even given birth to an offshoot. This edition of Cult Fiction will try and catch up with comics previously featured in the column. Most comics have a weekly or fortnightly frequency; the rare one has a monthly frequency; this column has been around from the first edition of Lounge (February 2007), with a year’s break in between; so it is only fair that Cult Fiction occasionally does a status check. One of the comic book series that is over is 100 Bullets. It ended with the 100th issue in April 2009. These 100 issues were collected in 13 trade paperbacks (graphic novels) with each one’s title referring to its sequence. Thus the 13th and last book is called Wilt, a reference to the contents, but also to Wilt Chamberlain, the famous basketball player who wore a jersey with the number 13. Written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Eduardo Risso, the books redefined noir and crackled with wit, tension, violence and unexpected plot twists till Book 11. The last two books were a bit of a disappointment—something that should please the well-informed reader who wrote in after 100 Bullets first featured in this column, and said it was overrated—maybe because all the plot twists meant too many loose ends that needed to be tied up in a hurry. Unfortunately in fiction, the easiest way to tie up a loose end is to kill it. For those who came in late, 100 Bullets is the story of The Trust, a body that secretly controls the US (and maybe the world). Agent Graves, one of The Trust’s former minders, declares war against it; and his way to get even is to give seemingly unrelated characters a gun and 100 bullets to wreak vengeance on people who ruined their lives (with the promise of impunity). Many take up his offer only to find out that they are merely serving Graves’ own objectives. Yes, nice and complex. A second one that ended on 28 July with Issue 50 is Ex Machina. About Mitchell Hundred, a mayor of New York who can talk to machines (he was previously the Great Machine, a superhero who became a real hero when he prevented the second plane from crashing into those towers on that fateful day). Ex Machina is as much a superhero story as a political one—Brian K. Vaughan, one of the creators of Lost, shot to fame with his The Last Man series, which was, in many ways, a unique look at the gender equation. Unfortunately, those Spinoff: A panel from Jack of Fables. who buy comics collected in trade paperbacks (like I do) will have to wait till November for the last volume to come out. The one that is going strong is Hellblazer, the series featuring John Constantine, a magician, occult specialist and general busybody who is a magnet for trouble. Created by Alan Moore, many of the big names in comics have either written about him (Azzarello, Garth Ennis, Mike Carey) or featured him as a character in their books (Neil Gaiman). Recent writers of the franchise, for it can only be called that, include Denise Mina and Andy Diggle who have authored some dark Constantine books, and the current writer of the series is the talented Peter Milligan. In October, Vertigo will release a book under the series called Hellblazer: India, where Constantine, in Mumbai and on the run from the law in England, investigates a series of murders of young women in a Mumbai slum. The comic book series that has given birth to an offshoot is Fables, Bill Willingham’s fantastic tales of Fables (think the Big Bad Wolf, Snow White, Rose Red, Peter the Piper, etc.) forced to live in exile, in modern day New York, after being driven from their homelands by an enemy called The Adversary. They did manage to get the better of him, but just when it seemed that the series was winding down a new enemy appeared, a writer called Kevin Thorn with a magic pen with which he can change both reality and fiction, which means that he can simply write some Fables out of existence. Now, sometime before he introduced the writer, Willingham took one of the characters from Fables, Jack of Fables, and decided to give him a series of his own. It is now becoming evident that the two series will intersect at some point. So readers have two very interesting series to look forward to, both with just the amount of metafiction to keep everyone satisfied. R. Sukumar is editor, Mint. Write to Sukumar at cultfiction@livemint.com

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Culture DANIEL PELAVIN

Why Hollywood keeps trying to sell us lame remakes, pointless sequels, and Shia LaBeouf as the next big star

SECOND ACTS Today’s dud can be tomorrow’s classic. Here are some examples WARNER BROS

Chick flick: Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City 2.

n the new movie Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio burrows deep into the subconscious of a self-absorbed plutocrat to plant a powerful idea that will change the world. If the technology used in Inception were available in real life, DiCaprio might burrow into the subconscious of Hollywood plutocrats and plant these paradigm-altering ideas: Stop making movies such as Grown Ups, Sex and the City 2, Prince of Persia and anything that positions Jennifer Aniston or John C. Reilly at the top of the marquee. Stop trying to pass off Shia LaBeouf—who looks a bit like the young George W. Bush—as the second coming of Tom Cruise. Stop casting Gerard Butler in roles where he is called upon to emote. And if Legion and Edge of Darkness and The Back-up Plan and Hot Tub Time Machine are the best you can do, stop making movies, period. Humanity will thank you for it. In a millennium that has thus far produced precious few motion pictures in the same class as The Godfather, Jurassic Park, Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, My Fair Lady and The Matrix, there is a knee-jerk tendency to throw up one’s hands and moan that the current year is the worst in the history of motion pictures. But 2010 very possibly is the worst year in the history of motion pictures. Where once there was Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, there is now Robin Hood, prince of duds. Where once we could look forward to Breakfast at Tiffany’s and The Last of the Mohicans, we can now look forward to Dinner for Schmucks and The Last Airbender. This time, two years ago, we were treated to the ingenious, subversive Iron Man; this year, we have the insipid, uninspired Iron Man 2. What does it say about the current season that the third installation of Toy Story is better than the first installation of anything else? Or that people are actually looking forward to a sequel to the 1982 flop Tron? Does this mean that a sequel to The Rocketeer will soon be on the way? Quick, DiCaprio: Penetrate somebody’s subconscious. Fast. Hollywood’s historical mission is not merely to provide a steady stream of engaging movies for a society that simply can’t wait for the weekend. It is also to generate a continuous sense of excitement about movies themselves. It’s not just that people like to watch movies; they like to anticipate movies, to talk them up long before their release. Sometimes this is because of the epic scale of the undertaking (Titanic, Avatar, Cleopatra, Gone with the Wind), sometimes because of dark rumblings about serious problems with the film (Ishtar, Vanilla Sky, The Passion of the Christ, Waterworld), and sometimes because of an entirely unforeseen event, such as Madonna’s decision to invade an industry that was getting along just fine without her (Desperately Seeking Susan) or Heath Ledger’s untimely death scant months before the public got to see his amazing turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight. And sometimes, it’s simply because, as in the case of Avatar, Braveheart and Apocalypto, everyone in the film has his face painted blue. Traditionally, the public gets all revved up for films during the winter and spring, imagining how much fun the summer is going to

Classic: Casablanca.

Casablanca (1942) ‘Casablanca’ was one of many World War IIera films with patriotic themes churned out by the studios, and while Humphrey Bogart was a star and Ingrid Bergman on her way, few thought the film was that distinguishable from a host of others. The ‘New York WorldTelegram’ called it “not the best of the recent Bogarts”. And years later, Pauline Kael famously called it “specially appealing schlocky romanticism”.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) With mixed reviews and a very ordinary opening, this wasn’t considered a standout for Frank Capra or Jimmy Stewart, but two things catapulted it to ubiquity. One was Christmas and the appetite of television. The other was Republic Pictures’ lapse in renewing the copyright in 1974, making the film part of the public domain for 19 years.

Harold and Maude (1971)

be once Neo or Darth Vader or the Terminator gets here. Or, barring that, when those great white sharks, pesky gremlins or designer brontosauruses blow through town. No such excitement exists this year. Go into a movie theatre any day of the week and watch as the audience sits listlessly through a series of lame, mechanical trailers for upcoming films that look exactly like the D.O.A. (dead or alive) movies audiences avoided last week. More films about misunderstood mercenaries. More films about rogue cops. More films about the pivotal role of choreography in rescuing the underclass from its own worst instincts. More movies about congenial thugs from South Boston. More films about boys who do not want to grow up, ever, ever, ever. More movies about cats. Admittedly, Hollywood is fighting a war on numerous fronts, and losing all of them. Revenues may be holding up but that is only because ticket prices keep rising; overall ticket sales are down. And because of the enormous cost of marketing a film—even a lowbudget film—Hollywood likes to play it safe. This is why it’s a whole lot easier to get a sequel to Shrek or Tron or Predator produced these days. This is an industry that actually makes sequels to bombs—The Incredible Hulk is a case in point— simply because the subject matter of the film is at least familiar to audiences. And because the public will have seen so many bad films between the original and the sequel, it may forget how bad the original Hulk was. The Four Amigos could soon be on its way. It’s not just a case of cowardice; the industry is legitimately confused. The age of the bankable, surefire matinee idol seems to be over, as the industry has discovered with Cruise and Julia Roberts’ most recent films. Freshly minted stars such as Clive

Owen and Daniel Craig sometimes open big, and sometimes do not open at all. With The Rock unconscionably defecting to the world of kiddie comedies, Hollywood is still casting about for a bona fide action star. This year it has auditioned Jake Gyllenhaal (Prince of Persia), Adrien Brody (Predators) and even the game but superannuated Liam Neeson (The A-Team). None of these are logical heirs to the throne abandoned by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford and Sylvester Stallone. They are certainly not heirs to the throne vacated by Jet Li and Jackie Chan. They may not even be legitimate heirs to the throne vacated by Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Vin Diesel, come home, all is forgiven. Well, maybe not The Pacifier. Or Babylon A.D. On second thought, Vin, stay away. Every year, by tacit agreement with the public, Hollywood is expected to produce at least one surprise hit, one out-of-nowhere dark horse or, in a pinch, one cunningly hyped movie that either exhumes a noted actor from the grave or greases the skids so some solid journeyman can ascend to the ranks of the Oscar winners of yore. The movie doesn’t have to be especially good—Crazy Heart and My Big Fat Greek Wedding certainly weren’t—nor does it

Admittedly, Hollywood is fighting a war on numerous fronts, and losing all of them

have to be a home-grown product—La Vita è Bella, Slumdog Millionaire and Amélie were all imports—nor does it even have to be a financial bonanza—neither The Wrestler nor The Hurt Locker broke any box-office records. But it has to be the sort of sleeper hit that the American people start talking about, or the kind of movie that leads to an unexpected comeback. 2010 doesn’t have one of these movies. The Kids are All Right, arguably the most heartwarming lesbian romantic comedy ever, is trying to fill that slot, but whatever its merits, it’s no Sideways, no March of the Penguins. The only other candidates for this role would seem to be Robert Duvall’s upcoming turn as a crusty old varmint in Get Low and Ben Affleck’s big-screen comeback in The Town. Critics also might start banging the drum for the latest film showcasing the ethereal Tilda Swinton or some heartwarming motion picture about lachrymose camels or motorcycling proto-totalitarians or English spinsters who inexplicably decide to become crack dealers, but so far nothing truly phenomenal such as Slumdog Millionaire seems to be on the horizon. If movies have a somewhat mouldy feel this year, this should come as no surprise. Atom Egoyan’s dud Chloe was a remake of Nathalie, a so-so French melodrama about a woman who hires a call girl to seduce her husband, with unsatisfactory results. Dinner for Schmucks, which promises to be the worst film of the year, is a remake of the brilliant 1998 French comedy Le Dîner de Cons. Judging from the previews, it is a clump of spittle aimed directly at Lafayette’s face. Predators is nothing more than Predator in outer space, with the action taking place on a planet that appears to be Parallel Guatemala. Piranha 3D sounds an awful lot like Piranha,

Repo Men sounds just a wee bit like Repo Man, and Death at a Funeral is a nearly-all-AfricanAmerican remake of an English comedy that itself was only intermittently amusing. That film, by the way, was called Death at a Funeral. DiCaprio, burrow deeper. For similar reasons, one could certainly be forgiven for confusing A Single Man with Solitary Man, and for that matter, A Serious Man. Solitary Man, for the record, is the film where Michael Douglas plays an evil businessman whose family despises him. This is not to be confused with the upcoming Wall Street sequel where Douglas plays an evil businessman whose family despises him, but who gets along like a house on fire with protégé and apprentice numbskull Shia LaBeouf. It says an awful lot about the industry that the most intelligent movies being released today are animated films such as Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3 (the best films of the year have a “3” in their titles; the films with a “2” are horrible). Even the animated duds—standard-issue fare such as Despicable Me and Shrek Forever After—display more overall intelligence and panache than The Back-up Plan or Green Zone. If the technology DiCaprio uses in Inception were available in real life, he could burrow deep into the subconscious of the stars and directors and producers of the film and plant this idea, for which humanity would be eternally grateful: “Please just go away. Please.” Write to wsj@livemint.com

This dark Hal Ashby comedy, with Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon as a teenage boy and elderly woman caught up in a “MayDecember” romance, was unpopular with critics and audiences when it first opened. Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby both found its lifeaffirming themes annoyingly trite. But as the decade wore on, art house theatres in big cities and college towns began showing it and it swiftly achieved counterculture cult status.

Scarface (1983)

DANIEL PELAVIN

This drama, written by Oliver Stone and starring Al Pacino, also featured a thenunknown Michelle Pfeiffer. When first released, it was considered to be yet another overthetop Brian de Palma movie, complete with a chainsaw murder and an operatic, corpseriddled climax. The film, about a Cuban marielito refugeeturnedcoke magnate, brought in a respectable $65.9 million (around Rs307 crore) worldwide but many reviews dismissed it as an overwrought bloodfest.

The Big Lebowski (1998) This comedy was relatively unheralded compared with other films by the Coen brothers, perhaps because it directly followed the popular ‘Fargo’. The ‘San Francisco Chronicle’ found the film “scattered, over amplified and unsatisfying” and ‘New York’ magazine called Jeff Bridges’ character a “sadsack hero”. Lauren Fedor EVERETT COLLECTIONS

Late bloomer: Early reviewers had dismissed Scarface as a bloodfest.

CULTURE L17 SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

POP CULTURE

MUSIC MATTERS

Vampire redux

SHUBHA MUDGAL

MUSICAL ROOTS

hen I first heard about Music Basti, I thought it was a great name for a music class or institution. It is, in fact, the name of a unique two-year-old project that attempts to provide music education, and an exposure to music and the arts to children living in three shelters in the Okhla, Qutub and Kashmere Gate areas of Delhi. In doing so, Music Basti addresses children who have faced homelessness, abject penury, and trying circumstances of a nature that many of us with privileged backgrounds could never hope to comprehend. But by garnering support from musicians and young volunteers, Music Basti is able to bring to the children it works with the opportunity to engage with music and the arts. That in itself is an admirable mission, but what makes it even more commendable is that the programme is run by young people between the ages of 18 and 35 with immense conviction and dedication. Headed by founder Faith Gonsalves, the Music Basti team consists of a handful of volunteers and location managers, one of whom I had the opportunity of meeting recently, albeit briefly. Nikhil Rao, a chemical engineer by profession with a full-time job, spares time to be a location manager at one of the three shelters Music Basti works with. A self-taught guitarist, Rao has been part of a metal band, and has also studied Hindustani and Carnatic classical music, as well as jazz. He shoulders the responsibility of managing workshops and creating programme content for the project and describes some of the challenges he deals with. Each workshop or class deals with groups of children, ranging from 4 to 14 years. Therefore, the younger children, or the less musically inclined, find it hard to keep up with more mature participants or with those who have an aptitude for music. Practice regimens are also difficult to implement in the weekly exposure to music that has currently been possible and, therefore, the project is now aiming to increase the music interactions to twice or thrice in a week. Finding musicians who will understand the aims and objectives of the project, and volunteer to work with the children, is equally challenging, although several young musicians from diverse musical backgrounds and sensibilities have so far provided generous support.

‘Eclipse’ hit more than 700 screens across India last week. But where have all the Indian vampires gone?

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

···························· he third film in The Twilight Saga series, Eclipse, opened at more than 700 screens across India last week, raking in Rs4.5 crore during its opening weekend. PVR pictures, the distribution arm of PVR group, released it in four languages—English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. Book store owners agree that the Stephanie Meyer books on which the film franchise is based have been recording consistent sales. As if on cue, Rupa and Co. is releasing a subaltern spin-off later this year: a novel about an Indian girl who falls in love with an American vampire (similar to Twilight’s Edward Cullen, we should think). It is a young adult novel targeted at 15 to 24-year-olds, mostly girls. Shruti Sharma, an editor with Rupa, says it will sell in small-town India where vampires are still endlessly fascinating. The book will be priced at Rs150-200 to make it more affordable and accessible to its target readers. While the local success of Twilight hints at an urban reimagining of the vampire figure, weeding out blood and gore for a romantic sheen, India has a history with the bloodsucking character and, more broadly, the horror genre. In folklore, we have the churail—ba vicious ghost-like vampire described as an unkempt woman with wild hair and long nails. There’s the masani— another female vampire, a spirit of the burial grounds. Betaal—made famous by the Doordarshan television series Vikram aur Betaal— we know as a somewhat endearing storyteller. But he is half-man, half-bat. And yes, he survives on blood. These characters thrive in Hindi pulp comics. Raj Comics has a dedicated Thrill Horror Suspense series in which it publishes titles such as Ek Katora Khoon (A bowl of blood).

SHIV AHUJA

Bloodsuckers: (clockwise from top, left) A DVD of Veerana, Neola the vampire, and a poster of Eclipse. But the ghouls need to be in cinema to remain etched in public memory. Notable vampires from the Ramsay Brothers’ Hindi films include Jasmin from Veerana— Vengeance of the Vampire (1988) and Neola from Bandh Darwaza (1990), a Dracula-like vampire who slept in a coffin by day, and transformed into a bat at night to hunt humans. It’s been 20 years since the last memorable Hindi film vampire. Film trade analyst Vinod Mirani is incredulous over the phone from Mumbai: “You aren’t really asking me about Indian horror films? They’re dead.” Mirani is of the opinion that the Ramsay Brothers—the first family of Indian horror cinema—buried the genre with the last of their films. Despite the occasional horror film that involved “A”-list stars and directors, the 1980s saw Indian horror and vampire films become synonymous with lowbudget sleaze. The films were safe bets at the box office, grossing impressively at the smaller “B” and “C” centres. But this also meant that the genre never broke out of that narrow mould. Purana Mandir (1984) and

Q&A | ARUNA VASUDEV

New light on Asia The film curator and critic on 20 years of her organization Netpac

ema, and to the pan-Asian organization Netpac, or Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema. Ahead of celebrations to mark 20 years of Netpac, which include a film festival, a conference and allied events, Vasudev talked to Lounge. Edited excerpts:

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

···························· runa Vasudev, who has a doctorate in film studies from France, discovered contemporary Asian cinema in 1984. Four years later, she, along with Latika Padgaonkar and Rashmi Doraiswamy, launched Cinemaya, a quarterly dedicated to Asian films. “I was sick of looking at Kurosawa or Ray with Western eyes,”she says. “So we had a magazine for Asian writers on Asian cinema.” Cinemaya, in turn, led to Cinefan, the festival of Asian cin-

What has Netpac accomplished? In our efforts to promote and show Asian films in Asia, we have reached out to decision makers in India and other countries and packaged Asian films for film festivals across the globe.We instituted theNetpacawardforthe best Asian films at 28 film festivals, including at Busan, Karlovy Vary, Bangkok, Locarno and Rotterdam. We have done all this working voluntarily while holding other jobs. What are your views on the commercial and art divide in Asian cinema?

Bandh Darwaza (1990) essentially bookended the mass appeal of Ramsay Brothers. Kartik Nair, who is researching a thesis on the Ramsays for an MPhil at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, says India’s first taste of the horror genre were old Hollywood films. Nair learnt that the Ramsay Brothers were inspired by the 1930s Hollywood horror movies they saw as young boys in Indian theatres in the 1950s and 1960s. “Their concepts and production values were already at a two-decade disadvantage when they started,” explains Nair. Neverthless, the Ramsay ghost now looms over film-makers who attempt the genre. As Mirani says: “Ram Gopal Varma thought he would reinvent horror, he even called his films ‘classy horror’, but failed miserably.” The smooth import of Hollywood thrillers, sci-fi and horror—by way of theatrical and DVD releases—raised the ante for what viewers expected. With the advent of cable television, it made financial sense for the Ramsay Brothers to move on to television, which they did in 1993 with the Zee Horror Show.

Sony Entertainment Television launched Aahat soon after; it is still running 14 years later. According to Saurabh Tewari, programming head for Imagine TV’s fiction division, the years 2002-06 were the “golden period” for horror on Indian television. Though Imagine TV does not have any horror shows on air right now, Tewari says he is open to “urban” horror pitches because they have immense potential. Other television channels reflect a similar sentiment: In May, Star India launched a 2-hour programme called Sohn that channel authorities describe as a “complete treat for the horror connoisseur”. On the film front, this March, Pritish Nandy Communications partnered with the UK-based High Point Media Group to announce a new film division called I-Horror to focus on horror and paranormal films. The first film to be released under this banner will be The Accident in 2011, with Shiney Ahuja and Soha Ali Khan. With the focus on the horror genre rekindled, the Indian vampire will perhaps emerge from the coffin after all.

Right notes: A volunteer with children at a Music Basti session. Young sarangi exponent Suhail Khan and percussionist Suchet Malhotra are among the Indian musicians who have supported the project, while UK-based music producer Ian Wallman, and Dubber and Jez from the Interactive Cultures Research Unit have initiated an ongoing project with Music Basti. The following link will give viewers a brief outline of the nature of the project: http://dubberandjez.posterous.com. Very soon, Music Basti also hopes to launch an online album of children’s songs recorded with the support of professional musicians. Although it focuses on working with children termed “children-at-risk”, the project, with the many challenges it faces, is a reminder to society that an involvement with the arts and music is known to be enriching and beneficial in the overall development of young minds. Our mainstream government-controlled system of education has failed to implement recommendations made years ago to introduce arts education as a regular and compulsory subject in schools. Music Basti, on the other hand, has taken up the task with a determination and resolve that is commendable, and should be supported generously. Log on to www.musicbasti.org to find out how you can help. Write to Shubha at musicmatters@livemint.com

PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

There isn’t one any more. There used to be a clear divide. There was the new wave in Hong Kong in the 1980s,forinstance.Butnow it is not so distinct. Actors and directors switch between both, art as well as more accessible cinema— in India, there’s Aparna Sen and Shyam Benegal. Aishwarya Rai stars in a Rituparno Ghosh film and Mammootty in an Adoor Gopalakrishnanfilm.What doyoucallAnuragKashyap —art or popular cinema? It is just good cinema. What about the quality of Cinephile’s corner: Aruna Vasudev. Asian films in the last 20 years? Has the audience grown? and Abbas Kiarostami from Iran. It has improved enormously. Be it Anyone in India? intermsofproductionorcinematic No one who has reached that quality. For instance, these days, level. Maybe, to an extent, Mani eventechniciansarefromfilmschRatnam now. oolsandsotheyhavehighproducHas Asia caught up with Hollytion values. There have been outwood or Europe in quality of standingfilm-makerslikeImKwon- cinema? taek in Korea, and Jafar Panahi Yes, but we need more public

support and a larger audience. People come to see films in festivals, but theatre is where we need them. At the moment, the West seems to be obsessed with Bollywood. For younger Indian filmmakers, Bollywood is a hindrance. See how Udaan has run in the theatres only for a few days. So it would be fair to say that Asia has fewer discerning filmgoers than the West? There are no discerning viewers in the West—most people go to the films to “chill”. But yes, to an extent, there are more viewers in the West. But now, younger audiences are more aware. I still recall how, in 2003, we decided to screen a tribute to Wong Kar-wai in Delhi at the Cinefan festival and I thought a few people would show up. But the rush was such that there was almost a stampede. It was an eye-opener. Netpac celebrations will run from 18-22 August in New Delhi. For details, log on to Netpacasia.org

L18 FLAVOURS SATURDAY, AUGUST 7, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

SANJEEV VERMA/HINDUSTAN TIMES

DELHI’S BELLY | HIMANSHU BHAGAT

A pastpresent continuum

RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT

It’s time for the Delhi tome. Old and young authors turn the spotlight on unknown, valiant and humdrum aspects of the Capital

Besieged: Penguin/Viking, 458 pages, Rs699.

Celebrating Delhi: Penguin/Viking, 187 pages, Rs350.

he scales are tilting in favour of Delhi. The Capital’s advantages over Mumbai are being enumerated in drawing rooms and magazine columns—wider roads, fewer slums, migrant-friendly, the Metro, etc. So Mumbaikars and their friends have taken to pointing out how theirs is a real city, the kind an author falls in love with and writes about. They back it up with weighty evidence—Maximum City by Suketu Mehta, Love and Longing in Bombay by Vikram Chandra and Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts in the last few years. Maybe the Mumbaikar does feel more passionately for aamchi Mumbai. By contrast, many who have been in Delhi for decades still feel they are passing by and are there only to earn a livelihood. The real Dilliwala, some would argue, left the city after 1947, taking the city’s soul with him. Among them was Ahmed Ali, who moved to Karachi and wrote a celebrated novel, Twilight in Delhi. Be that as it may, it is a truism that art follows money—and so does literature. There are signs that a generation that grew up in Delhi, or came here to study or work and stayed on, sees the city, with all its contradictions, as its own. It is finding its voice. Vishwajyoti Ghosh recently released Delhi Calm, a graphic work set during the Emergency (1975-77), and Rana Dasgupta is working on his Delhi non-fiction book, a foretaste of which was offered in a brilliant essay in Granta about a year ago. Three new books, either set in Delhi or talking about it, have just rolled off the presses—the novel Day Scholar by Siddharth Chowdhury; a collection of essays titled Celebrating Delhi by various writers; and Besieged: Voices from Delhi 1857, compiled and translated by Mahmood Farooqui. They tell of a city in conversation with itself—digging up stories from its past, or imagining new ones about its present.

RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT

Monumental: (from top) Id prayers at the Jama Masjid; Kinari Bazaar at Chandni Chowk; and South Block, the seat of government power.

Day Scholar is a story told in plain English about the experiences of a boy from Patna during his first year in Delhi University (DU). Like the author in real life, its protagonist Hriday is a Bengali who grew up in Patna, aspires to be a writer, and has joined DU. One hopes the similarities end there, for Hriday has a taste for the seamy side of life. He counts among his friends those who don’t hesitate to smash people’s faces or cut them up with an ustara (barber’s razor). In placid tones, Hriday informs us how the landlord of his Delhi lodgings acquired the house called Shokeen Niwas. The process involved two seductions, followed by two marriages by the landlord—the fallout was two suicides. What stands out here,

and in other parts of the book, are sardonic and explicit descriptions of sex. In such passages, Chowdhury is at his lyrical best. By turns rollicking, ribald and earnest—the earnest parts are the weakest—the novel looks into an old Delhi phenomenon: the steady influx of students from Bihar. Over the years, they have become part of the local landscape. Chowdhury’s hero has a nicer side to him that is caring, obedient and diligent. As he discovers girlfriends, book launches and violence in university elections, he is confronted with a choice—to be Jekyll or Hyde. People have always come to Delhi seeking learning and adventure, though adventurers

far outnumbered seekers of knowledge. The adventure was usually in the form of conquest and plunder. It is said that few places have soaked as much blood as Delhi’s soil. The repeated invasions shaped Delhi’s spiritual, culinary, linguistic and musical evolution, and much else besides. Some of this is traced in Celebrating Delhi, a collection of 11 superlative essays by well-informed and articulate writers. Khushwant Singh, the city’s grand old man, saw the new Capital being built in the 1920s. Here, he describes the planning and building of New Delhi after India’s British rulers decided to shift the country’s capital from Calcutta (now Kolkata). He also pens an affectionate portrait of his father Sir Sobha Singh, who built some of the new city’s enduring symbols such as India Gate, Connaught Place and South Block. Pradip Krishen traces how the new city’s planners settled upon an unlikely selection of trees—jamun, neem, arjun and sausage tree, as well as rare varieties such as khirni, Buddha’s coconut, anjan and usba—to line the new Capital’s boulevards. So rich is Delhi’s Sufi heritage that it informs practically every essay in the collection—Sohail Hashmi shows how Urdu

emerged from Delhi’s linguistic melting pot and was its gift to the subcontinent. In a masterly piece, historian Sunil Kumar tracks the contrasting fortunes of two Sufi shrines in present-day Delhi, situated just a kilometre apart. In the context of a post-9/11 world, William Dalrymple traces the role of religious rhetoric—the call to jihad or a war against heathens—in one of the bloodiest episodes in the city’s past, the uprising of 1857. In his works on that uprising, Dalrymple often partnered Mahmood Farooqui. Now Farooqui has come out with his own book, Besieged, in which he has put together a set of documents—mostly translated from cursive Urdu and Persian—that shed light on life inside the walled city of Delhi when it was under the siege of the British from May to September 1857. Farooqui presents official correspondence between the emperor’s court, the local police, the rebel soldiers stationed here and sundry other sources to show “the valiant attempts of an administration to simultaneously act as a welfare as well as a war state”. The documents range from the epochal—Bahadur Shah’s defence at his trial after he was captured—to the mundane, such as one titled “A barber’s wife elopes with a man from the mohalla along with cash and valuables”. A vivid portrait of Delhi takes life in these pages. The administration’s paramount concern was to keep chaos at bay and marshal resources to fight the hated British. Coloured by our foreknowledge of its fate—this enterprise emerges by turn as valiant, patriotic, cruel, petty, stoic, foolhardy and ultimately doomed. Presiding over all this was the tragic figure of the last Mughal—Bahadur Shah Zafar. It ended in a bloodbath by the victorious British who were thirsting to revenge the massacre of their men, women and children. Large swathes of the walled city and many structures inside the fort were obliterated—another era in Delhi’s 1,000-year-old history ended and a new one was ushered. himanshu.b@livemint.com