Mint Lounge for 3 July 2010

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

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Vol. 4 No. 26

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

MAKE CRISP WINE TALK >Page 9

SINGLE, AND READY TO BE A PARENT It’s legally viable, but arduous for singles to adopt children in India.

The story of Nilufer Mistry is testimony to this >Page 6

ON THE BALL

Every four years, a corner of northern Kerala joins the world stage. Savour the flavour >Page 13

>Page 10

POP CULTURE

Delhi’s ‘banta’ lemon soda has a history as effervescent as the drink—with a curious contribution to the freedom struggle >Page 18

LUXURY CULT

THE GOOD LIFE

RADHA CHADHA

ARE YOU IN THE JAM SORORITY?

I

am sitting at the Delhi airport lounge and the group of 50-somethings next to me is discussing strategies to manage their daughters-in-law.

The image that emerges is very different from the hapless toli of overdressed bahuranis that inhabit the soaps on TV, who are constantly being tossed around by antique social norms, tyrannical mothers-in-law, and just plain lousy kismet (fate).

These about-to-board-a-plane bunch of in-laws talk instead of self-willed daughters-in-law who have to be handled with care, who have jobs... >Page 4

SHOBA NARAYAN

REPLY TO ALL

AAKAR PATEL

DON’T MISS

in today’s edition of

THE MANLY ART OF DE­WEAPONIZING NON­APOLOGY OUR VANITY

R

ecently, a number of men I know have mastered a nifty manoeuvre: the art of saying “sorry” without actually saying the words. Typically, the culprit in question does something like this: come up from behind and hug the offended party. Sometimes, he sweet-talks. “You look cute when you are mad,” he’ll say. Naturally, she (or he, if they are a gay couple) will smile, if grudgingly. Women are suckers for the word “cute” when it is applied to any part of their anatomy. >Page 4

W

ho is our atom bomb aimed at? We have only two enemies: China and Pakistan. Our bomb is aimed at them.

India’s nuclear doctrine specifies no first use.

This means we will not use the bomb unless our enemy first uses it on us. This reveals two things: 1) We have no offensive intention; 2) But we are concerned that China and Pakistan might. How valid is that concern? Let us look at what these states want from us. We were defeated by China in a short border war... >Page 5

PHOTO ESSAY

OFF COURT TAKES CENTRE STAGE

HOME PAGE L3

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

SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

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FIRST CUT

PRIYA RAMANI

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (MANAGING EDITOR)

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

FOUNDING EDITOR RAJU NARISETTI ©2010 HT Media Ltd All Rights Reserved

MY NEW GET­RICH­OVERNIGHT IDEA

I

’ve got it. That One Big Idea that will allow me to make the magical leap from successful professional to super successful entrepreneur. The idea hit me as I was saying my sixteenth good morning en route to my swimming pool in a fivestar hotel.

I’m not exaggerating. The list of employees who greet me every morning before I’ve had my breakfast includes the two security guards who scan my car for chemical weapons before I enter the hotel; the man who opens the door of my vehicle in the driveway; the gent who opens the first door that leads to the lobby; the two security people (one male, one female) who wait patiently to scan (male/female) customers’ bags; the hostess ENTREPRENEUR who’s always lurking behind the second door that opens into the lobby; at least two staff members as I cross the lobby to the elevator; the man who stands near the elevator dusting its doors; the two people at the fitness centre reception; the lady on duty in the changing room; the two staff members I encounter from the changing room to the pool; and finally, the pool attendant whose main job, it would seem, is to hand me a towel. And that’s just on my way in.

All of them greet me with an excessively cheerful, sing-song “good morning madam” or they join their hands and bend vigorously for a direct eye contact “Namaste”. I grew up in a hotel and three questions immediately occur to me: Why does this hotel have so many employees?

It’s 2010, why are they bending so low? Most importantly, who’s training them?

Wait list: Are you being served?

That’s my big idea.

There are so many young Indians eager for jobs that will better their lives—and so many lost service opportunities in present-day India. When was the last time your mobile phone/bank representative impressed you? Or the last time your server knew the difference between sushi and sashimi? Or when did you last meet a store attendant who could assess with one glance whether your body was better suited to slim-fit or boot-cut jeans? This country, I firmly believe, needs a service industry bootcamp. A threemonth course that ensures consumers will love you. And who better to

Write to us at lounge@livemint.com

take on this challenge than yours truly, the original cranky consumer?

Of course, the A-list hotel chains in this country run intensive in-house training programmes. One training manager at a leading hotel in Delhi says she trains the staff to handle anything from the three stages of a drunk customer (a little high, happy but can’t stand, passed out) to dealing with the fussy customer (one tip: don’t ignore him but engage only in minimal conversation).

She says that since last year, the hotel chain has also begun to train staff to understand that engaging a guest is not necessarily about responding excessively to him/her.

“So if the guest is having a conversation or reading a book, they should understand that he doesn’t want to be disturbed,” she says.

When she goes out to a restaurant, she notices everything from the server’s breath to the dirt on the cuffs of his uniform. If she spots a hint of stubble she knows that it means he shaved earlier than his shift.

The few quality training outfits notwithstanding, clearly, the demand for good training far outweighs its supply. I think I’m on to something big.

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

LOUNGE LOVES | BAPPI LAHIRI

ATTEMPT REPAIR This refers to Shoba Narayan’s “Men are from Mars, and so are women”, 26 June. It was the perfect Saturday morning read, helping me start the day with some good­humoured laughter. I enjoy reading Narayan’s articles almost like kids enjoy watching ‘Tom and Jerry’. The tips she mentions are good, though most of us don’t follow them. But she got me thinking. Thanks for the article.

VIJAY

BUTCHERED FACTS This refers to Namita Bhandare’s “A Mills and Boon heroine”, 26 June. It seems the book is more about butchering facts and less a biography.

Bhandare has evidently done more research for her article than Moro did for his entire book. Really liked this article, well written!

SUPRIYA MENON

BIKING HIGH Your cover story, “Pedalling nirvana”, 26 June, struck a chord. I’m part of an active cycling group in Noida and we regularly go on trips towards the Yamuna river and other parts of Delhi. I agree with Arun Katiyar that nothing quite matches the joy of an off­road cycling trip on dirt tracks and the half­baked roads that our countryside throws up in plenty. However, I would like to see more dedicated cycle lanes and more respect for cyclists on the road from polluting modes of transport such as cars, buses and the like. I would also like town planners/administrators to provide parking lots for cyclists.

Today, even if I want to take my cycle to a mall, there is no surety that I will be allowed to park my cycle or that it will be there when I return. This surely needs to be addressed if we are to popularize this eco­friendly and healthy mode of transport.

ANUJ

NEWS CHANNELS This refers to Aakar Patel’s “Why our media can’t explain India”, 19 June. It was indeed a pleasure reading the very apt and timely article. I agree with his comment on Indian journalists. He has covered the print media but missed a very important segment—news channels. There are hundreds of them and their reach and coverage is greater. But their quality stinks. I feel selling space or time slots for profit or settling a political agenda will continue till we have ownership issues. How can the media be owned by business houses? They should be independent/trusteeships.

MANOJ JHA

A DAUGHTER’S LOVE

The return of the ‘Disco King’ VIJAYANAND GUPTA/HINDUSTAN TIMES

From Jackson tributes to ‘folk­ rock’ soundtracks —the composer’s quest for fresh sounds continues

I’ve been following Shoba Narayan’s articles regularly; however, this is the first time I am writing. I really enjoyed reading “The comfort of a father’s quiet presence”, 19 June. The piece does a fabulous job of capturing the bond between father and daughter. As a child I used to be very close to my father but somewhere down the line found a great friend in my mother. I guess this was their way of balancing the disciplinary­leniency equation in my life.

NIPUNTA KHASHU

PODCAST MOVEMENT I recently stumbled upon the Lounge podcast and now I’m hooked. I had no idea such podcast editions existed in India at all. It’s a pleasure to know that you are spearheading a podcast revolution. Keep up the good work.

PRATHAP N.

B

appi Lahiri may have brought disco and hip hop to Bollywood, but now he wants to distance himself from it.

“I have introduced all modern music to Bollywood,” the Disco King told Lounge over the phone with his trademark modesty.

“Now I want to bring melody back. Melody is lacking in today’s music. Everyone is doing hip hop and disco, which I pioneered long ago. True Indian music is going away.”

Lahiri is putting the finishing touches to two upcoming film projects—Spaghetti 24x7, with Mithun Chakraborty and his son Mimoh, where he’s worked on a distinct “Indian folk with rock” sound, and It’s Rocking Dard-e-Disco, in which he stars as himself. “I’m trying to give something new to the industry,” he says. These days, Lahiri appears mostly as a guest vocalist in other composers’ songs, or contributes one-off pieces to film soundtracks.

The 57-year-old music director is equally famous for his flamboyant tracksuits (adorned with gold jewellery) as well as tracks such as Jimmy Jimmy aaja aaja and I am a disco dancer (both from the 1982 Mithun

Pioneer: Lahiri was the first to bring electronica­inspired disco sounds and bass patterns to Bollywood.

Chakraborty starrer Disco Dancer). “My 1993 song Lena hai lena hai from the movie Bomb Blast was the first time rap was used in a Bollywood number,” he says. Playback singer Bali Brahmabhatt was tasked with delivering this rap, which features the lines I am gonna get you by hook or crook/Just give me a chance, just give me a look.

“No matter how much people may make fun of him, or accuse him of plagiarism—he truly is the person who bought disco music to Bollywood,” says pop singer Usha Uthup, who sang several of

Lahiri’s songs in the 1980s. “You have to call a spade a spade.

There is no doubt—he was the first to use those kind of sounds, those kind of bass patterns here.”

Lahiri has just released a set of tribute songs to Michael Jackson (the slow, ballad-esque Don’t say goodbye and the more straightforward dance track Michael O Michael). “Michael Jackson will always be the King of Pop—he is so influential to music around the world, and I thought I should do something for his death anniversary out of India,” he says.

But when asked about Jackson’s influence on his own music, Lahiri turns defensive.

“Everyone asks me this. My style is totally different,” he says. “Only one song in my 462 films has taken influence from MJ.” The song, Jeena bhi kya hai jeena from the 1984 film Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki—takes “the basic beat” from the Jackson song Thriller. “The scene was enacted like the Thriller video—with the ghosts and everything,” he says.

Krish Raghav

LISTEN TO THE LOUNGE PODCAST Stand­up comedian Rohan Joshi gets serious about the comedy business. We also discuss monsoon street fashion and review ‘I Hate Luv Storys’ and an anthology of poems, ‘The Greeks’ www.livemint.com/loungepodcast

L4 COLUMNS SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

RADHA CHADHA LUXURY CULT EUGENE HOSHIKO/AP

Are you in the jam sorority?

I

am sitting at the Delhi airport lounge and the group of 50-somethings next to me is discussing strategies to manage their daughters-in-law. The image that emerges is very different from the hapless toli of overdressed bahuranis that inhabit the soaps on TV,

who are constantly being tossed around by antique social norms, tyrannical mothers-in-law, and just plain lousy kismet (fate). These about-to-board-a-plane bunch of in-laws talk instead of self-willed daughters-in-law who have to be handled with care, who have jobs and money of their own, and a mindset that could minimize the in-laws out of their lives as easily as you minimize a window on your computer. You have to negotiate gingerly around these next-gen bahus, and the group concludes that the best strategy for buying peace in the family is to “shut your mouth and open your wallet”.

The reality of Indian bahudom is probably a broad spectrum all the way from the docile dolls on TV to the cutting-edge babes of the jet set, but there is no denying that Indian women as a whole are pushing the boundaries that confine them. The singular act of going to work and making money they can call their own is rearranging the power equation not only within families but also in society at large. There may be no bra-burning moment—although we do have the pink panty one—but there is a quiet revolution unfolding. The fulcrum of this revolution is money—money earned by women, money saved by women, money spent by women.

Whereas the Western feminist movement of the 1960s had women hollering their lungs out, the Indian equivalent of today

is more surreptitious in that it lets money do the talking for them.

It got me thinking about what this “new money, new mindset” woman means for business? How big is the female rupee? How is she likely to spend her money? Is she going to focus on bread and butter items? Or is she going to splurge on jam too? Is there a “jam generation” on the make? And what does all this mean for the luxury brand industry?

As a sisterhood, their clout is enormous—Indian women are an emerging economic superpower with the potential to alter the country’s growth, income and consumption patterns. After decades of stagnation, women’s employment participation has moved up to 36% as per the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), a huge jump of almost 10% over the last decade. There is every reason to believe this trend will continue with facilitating factors such as better education, more job opportunities, and importantly, a greater determination to work, especially among the younger generation of women who consider working the new “normal”.

More women joining the workforce will add a hefty $100 billion-plus (around Rs4.6 trillion) to the Indian economy in the next five years. Longer term, Roopa Purushothaman—of Dreaming with BRICs fame—estimates that this female factor could make all Indians richer by a

good 25% by 2050. And narrow India’s GDP gap with the US by 2050 to 11% from the current projection of 38%.

Working women are bigger spenders and bless them, bigger savers too.

Purushothaman has done an interesting study (XX Factor for the Future Group) that compares spending in households with working women versus those with non-working women. The contrast is stark. Working women spend more on property—home loan EMIs are 72% higher than non-working women households. They spend more on education for their children (33% higher).

They spend more on personal care and beauty (by 23%). They spend more on clothes, accessories, leisure, entertainment…you get the picture. And on top of that, they save more—their annual saving is 25% higher than non-working women households.

The interesting thing is that working women aren’t blowing up more on “bread and butter” stuff—expenses on basics such as groceries, electricity, etc., are on a par with non-working women households—but they are spending significantly more on “jam”. They spend more on travel and holidays. They spend more on eating out and movies.

They spend more on packaged foods.

They tend to own larger refrigerators.

They are more likely to have an air conditioner. And a car.

There is a qualitative difference in attitude too. Working women read English language magazines a lot more (59% versus 31% for non-working women). They are twice as likely to have a credit card (20% versus 10% of non-working women). They are more likely to go on a holiday to a tourist destination as against just visiting relatives. When shopping at larger organized retail formats, non-working women care about lower prices, whereas

Prized: A Louis Vuitton bag may soon be a must­have in India too. working women care about a wider choice of products. Higher end and international brands are more prevalent among working women. While they spend more on beauty products, the additional spending is on more evolved products such as face washes, sunscreens, cleansers, toners.

What are the implications for the luxury brand industry? Connect the dots and you are looking at the emergence of a “jam generation” that has both the means and the mindset for a relatively generous way of life. Extend the dotted line into the future and these ladies are going to form a substantial market for luxury brands. The nature of this market will be very different from the wealthy Indian luxury shoppers of today, who form a small tight-knit segment with a high spending capacity per head. The jam generation market will be characterized instead by very large numbers of women—in the millions eventually—who will spend relatively small amounts on luxury brands. They will buy perfumes from Chanel, make-up from Dior, dark glasses from Fendi, wallets from Gucci, monogram bags from Louis Vuitton, watches from Omega and

Rolex. Do the math, and the jam generation has the potential to grow the luxury market dramatically, as has been witnessed in other emerging countries such as China.

That female financial power can be a whopper is best demonstrated by looking at the developed world.

According to a recent article in Newsweek, in 35% of two-income households in the US, wives make more than their husbands. If the trend continues, the average American woman will make more than the average man by 2024. Indian women may be a long way from that, but they are off to a good start.

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

The manly art of mouthing a non­apology

R

ecently, a number of men I know have mastered a nifty manoeuvre: the art of saying “sorry” without actually saying the words.

Typically, the culprit in question does something like this: come up from behind

and hug the offended party. Sometimes, he sweet-talks.

“You look cute when you are mad,” he’ll say.

Naturally, she (or he, if they are a gay couple) will smile, if grudgingly. Women are suckers for the word “cute” when it is applied to any part of their anatomy.

Hardy much-married ones who fail to crack their lips for this type of blatant flattery will elicit a stronger response.

“Okay, okay. I accept it. I admit I was wrong.Let’s moveon,shall we?” he’ll say.

It seems churlish to refuse, particularly when he is hugging you.

From the back. So her lips curve into a semblance of a smile—not the true one where the orbicularis oculi muscle rises and forms crow’s feet, but the false non-Duchenne smile where the lips merely curve upwards. The smile-grimace that says, “Okay, I’m being gracious. I accept your apology.”

Pursed lips. Apology accepted. They move on. Only later does the wronged woman realize that the word “sorry” has never passed his lips. It wasn’t an apology. It was a non-apology that achieved its end. It is at this moment, when she is stroking his hair as he lies

contentedly in her lap, that the woman in question realizes that she’s been had.

I don’t mean to sound sexist when I say that men are masters of the non-apology apology; of saying sorry without actually using that word.

Beverly Engel, psychotherapist and author of The Power of Apology, says the same thing. Women have a tendency to over-apologize, she says.

Being a woman, it’s in my interest to agree with her. Actually, the apology count varies from relationship to relationship. In some, the men apologize more. In others, the woman apologizes more. In all relationships, each person thinks that they are the ones who do most of the apologizing.

In relationships that have lasted over five years, the whole apology process is messed up anyway. Very rarely do people in a relationship apologize because they want to; because they have realized the error of their ways; or even because they want to soothe away their partner’s hurt. These are peripheral concerns and such apologies do happen, but about as often as Hailey’s comet. In most quarrels, he (or she) apologizes, not because he thinks

he is wrong but because he thinks he is virtuous. Oh, no, he is going to take the high road and apologize anyway, even though the whole thing was her fault.

He’s going to be the better man and show her how it’s done. So he sidles up to her, swallowing a little against the coldness of her countenance, and utters three words with all the conviction of a convict asking for parole: I am sorry. As he says this, he expects a shower of rose petals, the rising throb of church organs, a halo, a smile at least. He expects her to look suitably mortified at how wrong she was, and gaze admiringly at the extent of his sacrifice. What he gets is…silence, at best. Usually, he gets the same accusation that started off their quarrel in the first place: “Why say sorry when you don’t mean it?” she’ll mutter.

“You work so late and then come home and expect me to be there to serve you dinner. I have a life too, you know. I’m

not a maid. I want a career.”

Say what?

What happened to the church organ and the rose petals? What happened to the halo, for God’s sake? He had said “sorry”, hadn’t he, which was more than she could summon? Instead of worshipping him as a marital hero, she was treating him as the convict. So he storms off and vows never to say “sorry” again. That’s how it starts.

By the time five years roll around, both partners are willing to do anything just to avoid the “S” word. He will buy her diamonds, compliment her ad nauseum, or carry bags of garbage out of the door. She will wordlessly offer a hot dinner plate, served with a contrite expression; massage his neck; give him an umbrella as he walks out the door, all in an effort to express remorse without actually saying anything.

Whichever party apologizes first, it is usually the one who cannot stand the ugliness; the one who wants to smooth things over and return the relationship to normalcy. If it happens to be the woman, it’s because an apology isn’t tied up with her ego.

Women are egotistical about many things: their recipes, clothes, posture, their sideways come-hither glance that is supposed to Unapologetic: Men are experts at not saying the word ‘sorry’. reduce their boyfriend,

spouse or significant other to putty. But apologizing isn’t a power play for the women—or men—who apologize.

Usually couples in long-term relationships fight about the same things over and over again: in-law interference; how to share duties when each person thinks the other isn’t doing as much; proving that she or he is No. 1 on the long list of your priorities; showing you care when you have a demanding job; child-rearing philosophies; the usual.

Each partner is wedded to one way of doing things and even though they fight about it, each is convinced that their way is better. They say “sorry” but in a half-hearted “I know this isn’t going to change anything but I’m going to do it anyway” kind of way. Many couples keep tabs on who said sorry and have a tacit agreement to alternate. If she said “sorry” this time, next time, he’d better cough up the words. After millions of times of coughing up those loathed words, is it any surprise that spouses have become adept at the non-sorry sorry? If anything, we should have thought of it much earlier.

There is, however, one thing in a marriage worse than the apology.

That’s up next week.

Shoba Narayan has considered smoke signals and Braille as instruments of torture…ahem…apology. Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shoba­narayan

COLUMNS L5 SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

AAKAR PATEL REPLY TO ALL

Why we should de­weaponize our vanity

W

HC TIWARI/HINDUSTAN TIMES

ho is our atom bomb aimed at?

We have only two enemies: China and Pakistan. Our bomb is aimed at them. India’s nuclear doctrine specifies no first use. This means we

will not use the bomb unless our enemy first uses it on us. This reveals two things: 1) We have no offensive intention; 2) But we are concerned that China and Pakistan might.

How valid is that concern? Let us look at what these states want from us.

We were defeated by China in a short border war fought in 1962. China is stronger than us, and it controls the land that it wanted before the war. It withdrew from the parts it did not want. The position is to China’s advantage, and it does not need anything from India except for us to formally convert the Line of Actual Control into the border.

Though India’s leaders have known this for 25 years, no government can agree to this. This is because it is difficult to sell Indians a new map of India with bits of Bharat Mata’s anatomy lopped off. The textbook narrative of the war against China is irrational and emotional in India.

However, India’s governments have been mature and pragmatic on this matter. Their view has been to accept the defeat and to move on. Conflict is always avoided when the stronger side (China) enforces the status quo, and the weaker side (India) does not attempt to change it.

China’s nuclear doctrine also specifies no first use, and no use against non-nuclear powers. Our atom bomb is useless against China.

What about Pakistan? Pakistanis believe we are in illegitimate possession of Muslim land (Kashmir).

India is the stronger power and favours the status quo. The Kashmir solution India wants is to convert the Line of Control into the border.

However, despite being militarily defeated by us, and losing half their country, Pakistan’s leaders have not accepted the status quo. This is because Pakistanis will not let them lose focus on Kashmir. Pakistan’s craving to defeat India keeps its army dominant even in periods of democracy. Pakistan is unstable because it keeps trying to compel the stronger power, though it has no capacity to do so. We cannot force it to change this behaviour, because we can no longer defeat Pakistan militarily as we could in 1971. But we must be aware of it.

Pakistan has only one enemy, and its atom bomb is aimed at us.

Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine warns that it could strike India first. This is because it recognizes that the conventional force of India is superior.

Therefore Pakistan will use the atom bomb against India if it feels threatened. This has created an umbrella under which it can do mischief, because India is wary of the consequences of war.

India was unable to punish Pakistan after Hafiz Saeed’s boys killed 173 in the 26/11 Mumbai attack. Why?

Because the Indian government knows that all military action carries the seed of a potential nuclear exchange.

We have put ourselves in this position. Here’s how. China tested in 1964, and became the fifth power to legally possess atom bombs. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in 1968, but Indira Gandhi kept India out of it and went rogue, testing a bomb in 1974, hypocritically calling it a “peaceful nuclear explosion”.

Pakistan, which had just been cut in half by India, was compelled to follow under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Pakistan’s programme became capable at some point during the Afghan war in the 1980s, as America looked away. Under Atal Bihari Vajpayee, India admitted that the “peaceful” bit was really a lie, and we weaponized our programme in 1998. Again, Nawaz Sharif was compelled to follow, at great loss to the economy, as capital fled Pakistan.

Two nuclear states should quickly reach a state of non-conflict because of the danger to their populations.

But India and Pakistan are special.

Months after weaponizing its programme, Pakistan confidently launched war in Kargil. The world was scared, but we went at each other as if nothing had changed.

When George Fernandes was defence minister, he was asked whether Vajpayee’s adventure at Pokhran might not result in atomic exchange with Pakistan. Fernandes accepted that Pakistan might take a couple of Indian cities out, but he was confident that after that they “would be destroyed. Completely destroyed”.

Many Indians think nuclear war is like a football game: Pakistan scores two, we hit four, and we “win”. Many Pakistanis also think in this fatalistic way, and they are generals serving in the army.

Introducing atom bombs to the subcontinent has made India weaker, and Pakistan unhinged.

India’s focus after its stupidity at Pokhran has been on the economy.

Our concern is how to get back to 9% growth and remain there for 20 years.

But Pakistan’s economy is in a death spiral. Its GDP grew 2% last year (its population grew 2.14%). Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says India can only prosper if Pakistan is stable.

We can wish it, but what can we do to make it happen?

We should de-weaponize the subcontinent. We should give up our atom bomb, and open up all our nuclear sites to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection. We should induce Pakistan to do the same, by signing a no-war pact with them. This means we will need to swallow our hurt every time attacks like the one on Parliament and in Mumbai happen. And they will happen because Lashkar-e-Taiba is more powerful than President Asif Ali

Monster: The nuclear warhead­capable Agni­II missile has a range of 2,500km.

Zardari’s government. But we can do little about them even now, other than to be vigilant and attempt prevention.

The threat to India is not from such attacks, but from the possibility that an unhinged Pakistan damages us through a nuclear exchange. We should absolutely and totally eliminate that possibility. Under our deal with the US, we have to open up 14 of 22

nuclear plants to the IAEA anyway.

We should complete this, and end our military nuclear programme, which is not only useless, as we have seen, but actually damaging. This will also make our nuclear sites, which haven’t been properly inspected in 35 years, safer.

Indians have no culture of safety (the slab of Kaiga’s reactor dome fell during construction) and India has

the worst rail and road safety record on the planet. There’s no reason to believe that the government runs our nuclear programme any more efficiently than it does the railways.

Additional benefits will come from this move. Pakistan’s proliferation will end, and it might be able to refocus on its economy.

India will also save the money we are spending on atom bombs and delivery devices such as fancy missiles and fighter planes. Strategic experts say we can have the bomb without sacrificing benefits, but this isn’t true.

The reason hundreds of millions of Indian children will sleep hungry and die illiterate is that the state has no money. But India and Pakistan nurture their nuclear weapons of vanity. Beggars flashing trinkets.

Aakar Patel is a director with Hill Road Media.

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

L6

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SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010

Parenting ADOPTION

Single, and ready to be a parent It’s legally viable, but arduous for singles to adopt children in India.

The story of Nilufer Mistry is testimony to this

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

···························· uruchi and Suniti are not yet aware that their thick dark hair and brown skin stand out in this colony of Parsi families. The five-year-old twins became permanent residents of the New Khareghat Colony in south Mumbai when their mother, 52-year-old Nilufer Mistry, adopted them in 2008.

The girls are hooked to their mother’s PC and her digital camera, delighting in the new things they find in them. Mistry also takes them skating to a rink nearby almost every evening.

The community, enclosed in a sloping cul-de-sac next to the Babulnath temple and overlooking the Queen’s Necklace, is more than 50 years old.

Mistry’s life—which centred around her ageing mother, who lives with her, and her two jobs, as a government of India tourist guide and a Japanese interpreter—has changed after her daughters came home. “When I’m not travelling for work, often my mom and I would sit around in the house and not have anything to say to each other. Now the walls are scribbled and there’s a lot of happy noise.

Although I have them to look after and be responsible for two daughters, life is much less stressful,” Mistry says. The unpretentious home where she grew up is undergoing renovation, making it, as she says, “even more chaotic”.

Mistry is one of a small but growing number of unmarried or divorced professionals who are choosing to adopt children.

Actor Sushmita Sen was a trendsetter. Choreographer Sandip

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Soparrkar also made news when he adopted a child before he got married last year.

New amendments to outdated laws now make it easier for unmarried or divorced people to become parents. The Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Regulation Bill 2010, on its way, may soon legalize single parenthood by allowing unmarried couples and single persons, including gays and lesbians from India and abroad, to have children using ART procedures and surrogate mothers in India. In May, the Maharashtra government issued a circular to schools, instructing them to accept the middle and last name of a single mother in a child’s records from the new academic year. Suniti and Suruchi are soon officially going to be Mistrys in school; at the moment, they don’t have a last name.

Adoption is not an easy choice, but as Najma Goraiawalla, vice-president of the Indian Association for Promotion of Adoption and Child Welfare, a Mumbai-based voluntary organization, says, in Indian cities it is becoming a choice for unmarried and divorced people, mostly for financially independent working women. “In the last 10 years, we must have got about 10 cases, but more women are coming to us with enquiries now.” According to the latest figures of the Indian Council of Social Welfare, a non-profit organization that documents the number of adoptions in Maharashtra, eight children were adopted by unmarried people, mostly women, between 2007 and May. These statistics don’t lie.

Adoption agencies require addi-

tional paperwork and insist on more scrutiny regarding a single parent’s support network such as family and friends. Goraiawalla says: “We prefer that a child goes to a home where she has both parents. The role model of a father, together with the mother, will allow for a child’s overall development.”

Around a decade ago, when Mistry sent out applications to around 10 agencies in Mumbai and Pune, some of them refused to accept her application. Some asked for three letters from family members younger than her, vouching to take responsibility for the child in case of the mother’s early or unexpected demise. Mistry does not have siblings of her own, and members of her extended family were not willing to give her that letter. “I was heartbroken, and gave up.

For about three years I immersed (myself) in work and forgot about it.” Around that time, she met Usha Pillai from Child Adoption and Orphan Childcare in India, a nonprofit organization based in Pune. “They were encouraging, and I again started the process. In April 2008, I got a call from them saying there are two abandoned girls in Bhawanipatna, Orissa.

Their mother had passed away and their father HINDUSTAN TIMES

gave them up to the Nehru Seva Sangh, an orphanage in the district. I went there two days later with all my papers. They did not ask for more than what I had, and after a few days I was on a flight with Suniti and Suruchi.”

It was a day-long trip—a flight, a train ride and then a drive to Bhawanipatna, the headquarters of Orissa’s Kalahandi district—an area devastated for years by drought and famine, whose people are the subject of journalist P. Sainath’s book, Everybody Loves a Good Drought. It took them a week to stop missing their “didi” from the orphanage and take to their mother. “A couple of weeks after they came, I had to go to Europe on work. On the phone, they called me ‘mummy’ and asked me when I was coming back. It was the turnaround.”

The twins don’t yet have their birth certificate, but they are cushioned in their new life in Mumbai. They are fluent in Hindi, Gujarati and English.

Without birth certificates, Mistry initially found it difficult to get them admission in schools. “Being a single mother was not a problem, but not having the birth certificates was an impediment.” She went back to her own school, Girton High School on Grant Road. Suniti and Suruchi got admission.

“They are doing well in school. I used to think I will change their names to something fancy like Shirley or something but they have an identity now and I would not like to change that.”

Very soon, says Mistry, she wants to introduce them to their biological father, who still lives in the village where Suniti and Suruchi were born.

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

Worth the wait: (above) Sushmita Sen with daughter Renee; and Nilufer Mistry with her twins, Suniti (left) and Suruchi.

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SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010

L7

Style TREND TRACKER

The new power suit for summer

Grooming is business­as­usual.

Save that rugged stubbly look for the weekend.

A bright contrasting pocket square in silk or cotton can dress a suit up for an important meeting or lunch.

How to convey power and authority at your workplace without breaking a sweat

B Y C HRISTINA B INKLEY ···························· ress codes tend to relax in the summer months.

It’s difficult to endure business-formal when it’s around 30 degrees Celsius. But it’s equally difficult to maintain an aura of authority when you’re wearing a hot-pink golf shirt. When executives drop blazers, ties and dress shoes, they are eliminating important clues to rank and power. The elements of a fully suited ensemble are designed to create a look of command.

So how to exude power-suit attitude in a summer-casual environment? Sticking to business formal often isn’t an option these days.

Eric Berg, a 31-year-old attorney in Washington, DC, prefers suits for work, but says if he wore them every day, “People would be like, ‘who does this guy think he is?’” He compromises by wearing linen pants and sport jackets with driving shoes on Fridays.

With few clear rules—corporate dress rules can be so vague—people often reach for their weekend clothes during the summer, and then dress them up a notch. Skin-baring designs and lighter fabrics can reveal chest hair, lingerie straps and generally more than anyone needs to see across your desk.

Such looks can be memorable: My office mates are still discussing the summer intern who wore a strapless sundress to work five years ago.

An effective approach is to begin with the office in mind.

Rather than looking to the weekend portion of your closet, start with traditional workwear in summer fabrics. You can then dial down the dressiness or style it up for summer.

Yuta Powell, owner of the eponymous Madison Avenue boutique in New York, sometimes slings a rustic belt over a conservative dress, toning down the look ever so slightly. Also, she advises that women wear statement jewellery by artists, rather than the standard power earrings. Some of her favourites come from a Paris gallery called Ibu in the Palais Royal.

Summer is a terrific time to wear bright colours, as well as patterns from florals to argyle.

Don’t be fearful, but do be tasteful. Think seasonal touches and small accents, not head-totoe garden-party attire. Colour standards differ regionally. And with patterns, a little goes a long way. Powell has the sleeve linings of some blazers replaced with brightly patterned silk that looks simultaneously elegant and relaxed when the sleeves are folded back.

Tom Kalenderian, executive vice-president for menswear at Barneys New York, recommends that men start with a good sport jacket, paired with a colourful shirt (he suggests

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Etro, a brand known for its swirly, often brilliantly coloured prints) and cotton trousers from a quality maker such as Incotex or Zegna. “Be comfortable, but keep it sophisticated,” he says. It’s not necessary to buy luxury clothes—but it is smart to choose quality fabrics and construction that will hold up to wear.

It’s possible to dispense with the jacket in some offices.

George DeMarco, a 47-year-old consumer-lending risk manager in Morristown, New Jersey, says he wears wool slacks and a pressed shirt with lace-up shoes on casual days. “You could look at it as wearing one half of a suit—the bottom half, without the tie and jacket,” he says.

But keep some of the elements of formal dress, such as collars, which project authority, whether they’re on a jacket, a shirt or a dress. And don’t dispense with socks (for men), undershirts under thin men’s shirts, and high-quality leather belts and shoes. Summer is no reason to wear your first miniskirt to work.

Equally important: Watch out for summer fabrics that wrinkle badly. Cotton and linen are often the culprits here, but there are linens and treated cottons that hold up nicely. Generally, the higher the quality, the better. Before buying apparel, test the fabric in the store by taking a fistful and squeezing. If it wrinkles dramatically, leave it on the rack.

Of course, every office is different, and creative people at an ad agency can show more whimsy than an accountant.

But remember, the whole point of dressing for the office: It’s to hide our faults in the armour of strong clothing and put our best facade forward. We’re not at work to reveal our vulnerable parts.

Which brings us to shorts.

The fashion industry hasn’t helped women lately with the all-out push to sell us shorts for the office. For stores, this is a way to sell a whole new clothing category—shorts suits—when shoppers are baulking at buying more pairs of pants.

But shorts convey leisure.

Even with a matching blazer, the primary thought they’re likely to trigger is not, “What a smart lawyer,” but rather, “Is she wearing shorts?”

Unless you work in the fashion industry, shorts could shortcircuit your presentation to the board—even if they were excellently tailored by Carolina Herrera. Charla Krupp, author of the practically minded style books How Not to Look Old and How To Never Look Fat Again, takes a dim view of shorts in the office. “I think those shorts suits for work are insane,” she says.

“It isn’t professional.” Her general rule of thumb: “If you can wear it to the beach, don’t wear it to the office.”

Even those who work in very

Dispense with the tie.

Or if you wear one, try a colourful one in summer tones.

Wear statement jewellery such as this necklace, rather than the standard power earrings.

This checked shirt has a casual pattern, but the cut is all business.

The wide belt commands the right kind of attention but it is still informal.

The jacket is well­tailored plus the fit is stylishly trim.

The hemline covers the thighs.

Avoid miniskirts.

Good shoes are key to anchoring a lighter look.

These slip­ons do the trick. Avoid sandals.

These flats have office­appropriate closed toes and heels but are nearly flat, which looks relaxed.

GRAY HAMNER/WSJ;

STYLIST: P AGE S CHULTZ; HAIR AND MAKE­UP: K ERRIE U RBAN

casual offices often need to project authority. Steven Holben, who runs Holben Building Corp. in Denver, wears colourful sweaters and other clothes that are casual but nonetheless subtly convey quality. He calls his highly constructed St Croix sweaters and strong-toed Johnston and Murphy shoes his “power attire”, because the quality of the manufacturing is recognizable. He wears a vintage IWC watch for important meetings.

The people he wants to do business with “will recognize the shoes,” says Holben. “It makes a difference in the way people perceive me.”

Write to wsj@livemint.com

WORK IT Do

Don’t

u Wear a collar (in a shirt

or jacket) if you need to convey authority. u Choose high­quality clothes that will hold up to the work day without wrinkling or stretching. u Cover all the body parts you’d cover in traditional business attire. u Use colour and pattern to jazz up your summer wardrobe. u Wear business clothes in summery fabrics—for instance, cotton pants and blazers.

u Wear shorts to the

INTHEHOLEGOLF.COM /WSJ

office. u Wear halters, flip­flops, strapless or spaghetti­string tops or other revealing leisure clothes. u Wear mules or other shoes that impede graceful movement. u Wear Capri pants, miniskirts or other clothes you can’t bend down in. u Dress like you’re heading for a round of golf or other sport. Unless you are.

L8

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SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010

Eat/Drink REVIEW | VITIQUETTE, GOOD EARTH WINERY

Oenology to the rescue ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

A new service lets you host wine parties at home, with a sommelier in attendance.

Sadly, it’s not for connoisseurs

B Y S ONAL H OLLAND ···························· hat does it take to sell a successful red wine brand? Conventional wine producers believe it is the careful tending of grapes that grow in your own vineyards, utmost elevage techniques at the winery, and estate-bottled wines—always in demand and commanding a premium price.

Girish Mhatre, the Mumbai born, New York-based promoter of Good Earth Winery, seems to be breaking that mould by operating a virtual winery. Much like the négociants of Burgundy and other wine regions in France, Good Earth Winery buys the grapes from various vineyards.

These are then made into wine at a third-party winery that lends its unutilized or excess production capacity for winemaking by other brands. One advantage is that it saves the initial investment in land, winemaking and ageing equipment, licences and labour.

But an even greater advantage is that it allows the company to concentrate on branding and intelligently marketing its wines, and getting to know the customer and catering to his wine needs. Vitiquette, a private wine party programme offered by Good Earth Winery, epitomizes this. It promises to deliver a complete wine-drinking experience within the comfort of your home.

A great promise, so I decided to

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experience it first-hand.

I called a few friends over one Friday evening and that was pretty much all I had to do. The Vitiquette team arrived an hour before the party with Good Earth wines, glassware, decanters, ice buckets and some delicious finger food. Great, I thought, for someone who does not wish to go through the hassle of choosing and buying wine or does not own the paraphernalia and equipment to host a wine party at home.

As the party began, wine was served from decanters at the right temperature. Service temperatures can make all the difference to wine enjoyment—the correct temperature lets the wine show off its variety of flavours and nuances. Whites must be served cold (8-10 degrees Celsius) and reds cool (15-18 degrees Celsius). Serve it too chilled and all the complex fruit flavours get masked and numbed; serve it too warm, and the wine tastes insipid. The glasses, too, were just right—not the small sizes one sees at five-

star hotel banquets. They were of generously proportioned, well-shaped Bordeaux and Burgundy styles.

We tasted three wines that evening. Aarohi 2008, made from 100% Sauvignon Blanc grape, was a crisp dry white wine with mostly pungent green pepper aromas and a citrus lemon herbaceous on the palate. Glycerol content provides the wine with body, mouth-feel and a reasonably medium length. Priced at Rs725, this was a well-made wine that displayed the typical varietal expression of a Sauvignon Blanc. The youthful, readyto-drink wine paired well with the bite-sized tomato and caramelized onion tart.

Basso 2008, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon, was an attractive ruby colour dry red with generous black fruit and sweet spice aromas. The biggest positive was that unlike most other Indian Cabernet Sauvignons, this one did not taste as unripe and green and although big on fruit flavours, it was not jammy or over-

Server: Vitiquette takes care of the paraphernalia, but the wine menu is limited to Good Earth brands. ripe. However, for the price of Rs1,450 and a maturing period of one year in oak barrels, followed by four months of bottle ageing, the wine seemed young and relatively unevolved. Perhaps a bit of further ageing in bottle was necessary to bring out the complexity and harmony in flavours. But otherwise a well-made wine, with all the ingredients of acidity, soft tannins, alcohol and fruit in correct proportion.

The last wine we tried was Brio 2008—100% Shiraz. They say this wine is their best-seller, and I wanted to find out why. A deep ruby colour, surprisingly medium bodied and a restrained red fruit character with a hint of spice made this wine look attractive and taste elegant. It is almost made in an Old World Syrah style. I was slightly disturbed by the bitter finish com-

ing from the green yet soft tannins, but when paired with olives the red fruit bursts on the palate, making the wine taste slightly sweeter.

Overall, I was pleased with the prompt service of the wines with labels being presented for someone who wishes to read the information on the back label.

As far as possible, the finger food had been selected keeping in mind the food and wine pairing aspect. By now I was wondering if this end-to-end service would cost a bomb. The answer is that it need not.

If you wish to learn about winemaking, they will even arrange for the winemaker himself to attend.

Finger food is optional and is arranged mostly from good restaurants. So the programme seems to be perfectly customizable; the cost could vary from

Rs500 (for just wine) to Rs3,000 per person depending on the frills. But the wine is unlimited, so one can drink away.

Several of Mumbai’s party folk enjoy entertaining at home, but few among us are confident wine hosts. This programme aims to bridge that gap. However, its success will depend on how effectively it can access people who prefer to serve only wine at their parties.

My only crib: The programme is designed just to promote wines from Good Earth Winery. The formula for hosting a successful wine party is trying several different wines in one evening. Selling a Vitiquette-serviced party to a wine lover will be a challenge.

Sonal Holland is a Mumbai-based wine educator and consultant.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

PIECE OF CAKE

PAMELA TIMMS

‘NAN KHATAI’ TAKES THE CHEESECAKE

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long with railways and a mind-boggling bureaucracy, the British are also assumed to be responsible for India’s unbridled passion for biscuits. In fact biscuits were spotted in India as early as 1660 when French traveller Francois Bernier tasted “sweet biscuits flavoured with anise”: It wasn’t until 1847 that British firm Huntley and Palmers began to ship the colonialists’ favourite tea-time treats.

One of the first desi biscuits was the nan khatai which, despite tasting like a crumbly, buttery Scottish shortbread laced with cardamom, is actually a legacy of early Dutch settlers in Surat who introduced bakeries to the town. When the Dutch left, Indian bakers continued to turn out fresh loaves but as the colonial custom dwindled, so did the sales; locals never acquired a taste for European bread and it invariably went stale on the shelves. Happily, customers discovered slices of these “crunchy” loaves were perfect for dipping in tea and bread started

to be made purely to be turned into biscuits, a process which survives today at the Diamond Bakery in Old Delhi where a delicious brioche-style loaf is made into rusks.

When the Surat bakers started to experiment with Dutch Butter Biscuits, nan khatai, meaning “bread with six ingredients” (typically flour, semolina, butter, sugar, cardamom and nuts), was born, soon travelling on to Mumbai and almost every tea stall in India.

I first tasted nan khatai, hot off the pan, in Old Delhi and I never return from my frequent jaunts there without a big bag of warm, crumbly delights under my arm.

I recently had a surplus and decided to turn them into a cheesecake base.

Cheesecakes aren’t difficult to make but there are a few cardinal rules. First, a real cheesecake does not contain gelatine. Second, and this might sound obvious but I’m constantly amazed at what passes for cheesecake, there has to be

cheese, preferably Philadelphia.

You also need a good quality cream or mascarpone and I’ve also added malai for an additional sour note. I’m happy to report that the humble nan khatai continues to surprise—it gave the cheesecake a tantalizing other-worldly flavour, a semolina crunch and a spicy hint of the bazaar in every bite: If I’d been asked to bake a tribute to Old Delhi, this would undoubtedly be it.

Incidentally, the last time I went to get nan khatai, I was a little early and the sellers I normally buy from hadn’t yet rolled out their carts. I would have returned home empty-handed if my enterprising rickshaw driver hadn’t managed to track down the nan khatai wallah—whose family has been baking biscuits in the backstreets longer than Britannia—in one of the more obscure gullies. If you want a good dollop of Old Delhi in your cheesecake, and I can think of no good reason why you wouldn’t, look him up in Roshanpura, off Nai Sarak, Old Delhi.

Old Delhi Cheesecake Ingredients 300g plus a few extra nan khatai biscuits 80g Amul (what else?) butter, melted 400g mascarpone cheese

Unlikely marriage: Falsa and cheesecake make a good combination.

300g cream cheese 150g caster sugar 3 large eggs 1 egg yolk 150ml cream (malai) Zest of 1 orange Zest and juice of 2 lemons (nimbu) 1 tsp real vanilla extract (not essence) Method Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. You will need a 22cm, loose-bottomed baking tin (the springform variety is ideal here) and a large roasting tin which the baking tin can fit into. Fill a kettle with water and bring to the boil.

Melt the butter in a saucepan.

Crush 300g nan khatai either in a food processor or put them in a plastic bag and bash away with a rolling pin. Mix the biscuit crumbs into the butter then tip

into the baking tin. Press the nan khatai to cover the bottom and provide a smooth base. Put the tin in the freezer to harden while you make the topping.

Put the mascarpone, cream cheese, sugar, eggs, egg yolk, orange and lemon zest into a bowl, then beat either with a handheld mixer or wooden spoon and strong arm until the mixture is completely smooth.

Then gently fold in the lemon juice, malai and vanilla extract.

Take the tin out of the freezer and wrap two layers of aluminium foil around the outside—this step is important as the cheesecake tin will be

baked in water, so the tin has to be completely sealed. Pour the creamy mixture on to the nan khatai base and place the tin on the roasting tray. Slide the tray into the oven then carefully pour enough boiling water into the tray to come halfway up the sides of the tin. Baking over water in this way keeps the cheesecake smooth and moist.

Leave the cheesecake to bake for about 1 hour. The top will be firm with still a bit of a wobble in the middle. Switch off the heat but leave the cheesecake to cool in the oven.

When completely cool, gently remove the cheesecake from the tin and use the remaining crushed nan khatai to press on the sides.

This cheesecake really needs nothing else, it’s perfection as it is although I couldn’t resist gilding the lily a little with a few Old Delhi falsa berries. Some sour cream might be nice too.

Pamela Timms is a Delhi-based journalist and food writer. She blogs at http://eatanddust.wordpress.com Write to Pamela at pieceofcake@livemint.com

www.livemint.com For a slideshow on how to bake the cheesecake, go to www.livemint.com/cheesecake.htm Read Pamela’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/pieceofcake

EAT/DRINK L9 SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

VOCABULARY

Make crisp wine talk Amateur enthusiasts often end up being tongue­tied. How to be eloquent and exact

B Y L ETTIE T EAGUE ···························· friend of mine maintains a veritable library of self-improvement guides—though no book of his may be better thumbed than 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary. I was glancing through his copy recently (and found the chapter “Words for Human Faults” to be surprisingly short) when the thought occurred to me: Why wasn’t there an equivalent text for wine? There is likely no beverage whose procurement and pleasure is more descriptor-dependent. After all, I’ve enjoyed wine without food many times but I’ve never tasted a wine that was unaccompanied by words.

And yet, for many wine drinkers it’s hard to know which words to use. There are analytical terms such as tannic and extract that reference a wine’s structure and flavour, associative terms that call up vegetables and fruits and, of course, there’s the sort of pretentious verbiage that has inspired so many New Yorker cartoons.

The language of wine is so complex it has been the focus of accomplished linguists such as Adrienne Lehrer of the University of Arizona, US, who has puzzled over the subject for many years.

Lehrer tackled the language of wine most recently in a chapter titled “Can Wines be Brawny?” in Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine, a collection of essays published by Oxford University Press in 2007. As a linguist, Lehrer explained to me in an email that she wanted to figure out how a word such as “feminine” could be understood when linked with a wine described as “light and graceful”. And, she added in a note I found endearingly optimistic, she thought many new wine descriptors were created by wine writers who “don’t want to keep using the same words over and over” while gamely “trying to produce lively prose”.

Of course it’s all very well for academics to ponder such matters or wine writers to torture a few new terms into life while toiling over less-than-lively prose…but what does the language of wine actually sound like in restaurants and

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stores? What are the wine words that real people employ?

“Smooth,” answered Joe Salamone, the wine buyer of Crush Wine and Spirits in Manhattan, almost immediately when I posed the question. “It’s the word that people use the most often to describe the kind of wine that they want.”

Except, Salamone added, it’s also the most meaningless. “Smooth is such a relative term.”

“Without a bite” is another customer favourite that can mean any number of things, he said. “People will ask for a wine that ‘doesn’t have a bite’. It’s hard to figure that out. And dry. And sweet. Most people don’t know the difference between a fruity wine and one that is actually sweet.” I knew what he meant; the minute I’ve characterized a wine as “fruity” to a friend,

I’ve experienced an almost visceral recoil. “Not fruity!” my friend would say in horror.

Were there wine words he avoided, words that might kill a sale? “I stay away from ‘acidity’,” he replied. “I use a word like ‘crisp’ instead. Or ‘rich’ and ‘fullbodied’ and ‘spicy’. That’s a word everyone likes.” But he never used too many of them at the same time. “The fewer words, the better,” Salamone said.

Bernard Sun, the corporate beverage director of the Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant empire (20 restaurants in 13 cities to date) told me much the same thing; in fact, he said, he keeps the word count to five when talking about wine. “You don’t want to overwhelm someone with words,” he said. And what were the words that his customers liked to hear? “‘Spicy’ is a good word,” said Sun. “And ‘elegant’. Or you could say a wine has ‘a beautiful finish’.” White wines, he added, were easier to describe than reds. “It’s a lot more complicated to talk about reds, because it’s not just one grape, one flavour, but often blends of differ-

TEN WORTHWHILE WINE WORDS The following 10 words are simple, straightforward and readily understandable u Crisp: A fresh, bright, generally

young wine with perceptible acidity.

Wines such as Sauvignon Blanc and Italian whites such as Vermentino, Verdicchio and Arneis fall into this category, as well as Alabarinos from Spain and Chablis from France. u Fruity: A wine with pronounced

fruit flavours and aromas that may be completely dry or “off­dry” (which is to say “perceived as sweet”).

Rieslings, Muscats and Gewurztraminers are among the fruitiest wines and Zinfandel and Gamay are among the fruitiest reds.

describe any wine. u Rich: Wines that are viscous,

weighty and lush such as Chardonnay and Viognier are generally referred to as “rich”, as are reds with a lot of extract and flavour such as Cabernet, Syrah and Merlot. u Soft: Wines that are round and

fairly fruity with low or well­integrated tannins and fairly low acidity. The word applies to whites such as Semillon, and reds, such as Gamay and Grenache. u Spicy: This word is associated

with the Syrah grape (“peppery” is another) that’s grown in Australia and various parts of the world including California and Washington.

u Grassy: A wine with an herbal

character; a classic term to describe Sauvignon Blanc. u Hearty: This is a word used

almost exclusively to describe reds such as Syrahs and Malbecs with structure and tannins. u Oaky: This is pretty much as

it sounds; an oaky wine has a pronounced oak character. Most often used to describe Cabernet and Chardonnay though it could

u Supple: This is usually what

people mean when they say they like a “smooth” wine. Used for wines with fairly soft tannins and texture such as a Pinot Noir. u Velvety: This word is all about

texture. It characterizes a wine that is rich and supple as well.

See suggestions above for “supple” and “rich”.

ent grapes and multiple flavours.”

Both Sun and Salamone said they found Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc easy to describe. Words such as “rich” and “full-bodied” applied to Chardonnay, while “light” and “crisp” effectively conveyed the nature of Sauvignon Blanc.

But don’t most shoppers read the back labels of bottles for guidance? Not really, said Salamone.

Perhaps the reason that so few people read labels was that their word count was rather high. Most labels ran well over 100 words—and most of the time it wasn’t exactly inspiring prose. The word “balanced” showed up a lot too. But there were only a few short notes about the wine’s flavours and aroma. In fact, I was surprised at how few back labels described the wine’s taste. Did the winemaker find it hard to put into words?

One bottle had lots of words on both front and back labels: Penfolds Grange, the legendary Shiraz-Cabernet blend from Australia. It’s not only one of the world’s greatest wines, but it sports possibly the world’s wordiest label.

I counted 137 words on the front label of my 2001 Grange and almost as many words on the back. Did all those words help sell it? “Not really,” said Matt Lane, director of wine education for Penfolds Americas. “I mean, it’s Grange, that’s why it sells. We like to say that Grange has one of the worst wine labels in the world. But we have no plans to change it”.

But if labels aren’t really being read and retailers and restaurateurs are editing their descriptions of wine down to five words or fewer, a word-challenged wine lover might have a hard time ever improving his or her vocabulary.

Mary Ewing-Mulligan, president of the International Wine Center in New York and a leading wine educator for over three decades, had a three-step suggestion. First, she said, it was necessary to become a thoughtful taster and “smeller”. In other words, pay attention to everything—to which I’d add, “Write it down”. It’s always easier to remember words on paper than words that are said. Second, said Ewing-Mulligan, it was important to experience a wide range of wines from different places and grapes that had a variety of textures and flavours. Third, a person should taste wines with an experienced taster and try using his or her vocabulary. And perhaps take a wine course.

Lettie Teague Write to wsj@livemint.com

ILLUSTRATION

BY

JOEL HOLLAND/WSJ

DAVID KESMODEL/WSJ

Expert pick: Members of the tasting panel at MillerCoors’ brewery.

The best job in the world When it comes to tasting beer, women can often outshine the male species B Y D AVID K ESMODEL The Wall Street Journal

··························· honda Dannenberg, a suburban mother of three, stuck her nose in six glasses of beer at the MillerCoors brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and swished a bit of each in her mouth. Then she delivered the kind of frank verdict that’s shaking up the mens club world of beer tasting.

“I got a strong bruised fruit,” Dannenberg, 36, said of one of the Miller Lite batches, drawing a few nods from the three other women and two men at the table. “Slight cardboard taste.

Oxidized. Unacceptable.”

At many companies, the assembled panellists would have been men, typically brew masters and other technical types. And it makes sense. To judge from TV commercials, men like beer better than women do and sometimes even seem to like beer more than they like women.

But the British company SABMiller Plc decided several years ago to reach deeper into its employee pool to find adept tasters, inviting marketeers, secretaries and others to try their hand.

The company concluded that women were drinking men under the table.

“We have found that females often are more sensitive about the levels of flavour in beer,” says Barry Axcell, SABMiller’s chief brewer. Women trained as tasters outshine their male counterparts, he says.

If practice makes perfect, men should have the clear edge in beer tasting, since they account for 72.8% of the world’s beer sales, according to market research firm Datamonitor Group. But SABMiller, which makes Pilsner Urquell, Peroni and Grolsch in addition to Miller and Coors brands, says its empirical evidence shows that females are the superior sex when it comes to detecting such undesirable chemicals as 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, which makes beer “skunky”.

Finding the very best tasters is crucial to the beer industry. Tasting panels ensure that the beer spilling out of the tanks each day conforms with the specific characteristics for each brand—such as the mild fruit flavour in Coors Light or the dry finish of Peroni.

Tasters also help brewers decide how long their beers will stay fresh on store shelves, and what new products to introduce.

Today, 30% of SABMiller’s 1,000 advanced-level tasters are female, Axcell says. The number of women tasters has roughly quadrupled in 10 years.

Dannenberg studied microbiology in college and worked at a cheese factory before landing a job here as a pilot brewer testing new styles. She’s known for her colourful descriptions of beer

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flavours, such as “fish tank”. “We don’t want that,” she says.

“Sometimes guys will see red or brown and women will see shades in it,” says Jason Pratt, 30, a yeast and fermentation scientist who serves on the panel with Dannenberg.

Last year, Pratt took home the Golden Nose, the trophy that goes each year to the top MillerCoors taster in Milwaukee. He says he has sought out female tasters as tutors, listening closely to the advice of such women as Sue Thompson, who runs the tasting panels for MillerCoors, which is co-owned by SABMiller and US-Canadian Molson Coors Brewing Co. “There’s more of a camaraderie than a competition,” he explains. “Let’s be honest. We are getting paid to drink beer.”

Still, he says, he would like the men to make a better showing in SABMiller’s annual tasterof-the-year competition, in which its 2,000 panellists, in blind tastings around the world, identify beer types, aromas and the intensity of specific chemicals. Joanna Wasilewska, a 33-year-old former secretary at its brewery in Bialystok, Poland, has won both events held so far.

Only about one of every five people—male or female—who try out for tasting at breweries ascend to the level of corporate panellist, says Bill Simpson of Cara Technology Ltd in the UK, who consults companies on training and evaluating beer tasters. People with natural ability must go through at least several months of training and be able to recognize numerous flavours to qualify as an expert panellist, he adds.

Still, scientists say women may have a physiological edge.

Research shows they have a better sense of smell, a critical part of identifying flavours in beer, says Marcia Pelchat, a scientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a research institute in Philadelphia.

Wasilewska, the Polish beer taster, was working as a secretary and assistant to the board of the Bialystok brewery several years ago when she decided to attend a screening to see whether she might have an aptitude for tasting. The company soon realized she had an unusual knack for identifying extremely low levels of troublesome chemicals.

Now Wasilewska runs tasting panels as a sensory evaluation coordinator. She says she doesn’t know why she is so good at beer-tasting but thinks it may have something to do with her long love affair with perfumes.

“As a young girl, I tried to learn every single perfume by heart,” she says. “I never dreamed that I might use my skills.”

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L10 COVER

COVER L11

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SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

WE’VE FINALLY FOUND OUR FUNNY BONE—LAUGHING AT THE IPL, AT OUR CELEBRITIES, AT OUR WORRIES AND PEEVES. BUT CAN WE TAKE A LEAP AND START LAUGHING AT OURSELVES AND OUR HOLY COWS?

COMEDY

A BLUFFER’S GUIDE TO

B Y R OHAN J OSHI ··························· n Don Ward’s first day in Mumbai, he turned to his taxi driver and wondered aloud whether the man had any ill will towards the British for storming in and staying in India for 250 years. The cabbie just grinned and said: “You should have stayed another 25 years. You could have finished the roads before leaving, at the very least.”

“So, to answer your original question,” says Ward, “yes, I think Indians have a pretty good sense of humour.” As CEO of The Comedy Store, which opened its doors in Mumbai last month, it’s something Ward is counting on. With an auditorium that seats 300, a bar and a fine-dining restaurant in a plush 24,000 sq. ft space, Ward’s betting hard.

Ward isn’t the only one placing his bets on our sense of humour. The Indian comedy scene has been active for a while, and now it’s having a bit of a coming-out

O Funny men: (right) Comedian Vir Das performs to packed houses; and (far right) The Comedy Store CEO Don Ward is betting on Indians’ sense of humour.

party. Urban India is testing its funny bone with an explosion of comedic activity, both live and on television. So are we finally learning to laugh at ourselves?

That’s not a yes/no question.

At least not according to Johnny Lever. “Ab zyaada has rahe hain,” he concedes. “We’re at least laughing at ourselves more than we used to,” says the legendary comedian. He would know.

He might be Bollywood’s go-to comedian now, but he’s been doing live shows and stand-up in India and abroad since 1982, back when it was just called mimicry.

Lever argues that there’s a perfectly good reason for this. “Earlier, we could only imitate celebrities, it was too risky to do anything else,” he says, referring to the Indian penchant for moral outrage at, well, anything.

It’s this exact sense of conservatism that stopped us from laughing at ourselves for the longest time. When you consider that “ourselves” is made up of seven union territories, 28 states, more than 100 languages, 552 Lok Sabha members, a billion people and pretty much every major religion in the world, it’s not hard to see why you couldn’t tell a joke without upsetting someone. You could argue that humour has been a part of our cultural fibre. Hasya kavi sam-

melans (think centuries-old poetry slams) were around centuries ago, but then again, we also wrote the Kama Sutra, and look how we deal with sex.

But if we are laughing at ourselves more than we did 20 years ago, clearly something is changing. Maybe it’s the people doing the laughing? Has our sense of humour matured? Slowly, but it’s happening, says Lever, referring to recent audiences. Strangely enough, the maturity Lever speaks of might just be coming from younger, fresher audiences.

Over the last two years, there’s been a huge spurt in English stand-up comedy in our cities.

And it isn’t fuelled by a stream of foreign comedians. Professional comedians such as Vir Das and Cyrus Broacha play to packed houses across the country. Openmic nights at bars see full regis-

tration, with amateurs and newbies taking a shot under the spotlight. They’ve been dripfed on an endless stream of YouTube videos of the world’s best comedians, capped off with much-pirated Russell Peters videos that blew the doors off our poker faces. In fact, Peters wryly acknowledged his online fame during his shows on his first tour of India in 2007. “I’m surprised you showed up and didn’t just stay home and download it,” he grinned. For a lot of youngsters, the Russell Peters videos were a revelation. “Suddenly, you could be Indian and you could be funny,” says Tanmay Bhat, an amateur stand-up comedian.

With the Internet awash in quality comedy from around the globe (not just stand-up, you can get it all, from Monty Python to Reduced Shakespeare), urban audiences are demanding more from their comedians than just a set of tired old jokes. “Younger people have a different outlook on stuff,” argues Broacha, comedian, and motormouth extraordinaire, who has his own live act, The One and a Half Man Show.

“They don’t want to see some guy get on stage and go ‘Do bandar ped pe baithe the aur ek ne kaha...’ any more.” And he’s right. Stand-up comedy has never been about telling a joke.

It’s always been about your take on the world around you. “Audiences want to hear someone say ‘My job sucks’ or ‘My parents are such a pain’. They want to hear stuff that they can relate to.”

Broacha makes an interesting point. Are we finally laughing at ourselves? Yes, and then some. In fact, young audiences seem more

willing to laugh at themselves and the Indian condition than at things that are irrelevant to them.

Evidence of this theory was found at the launch of The Comedy Store, which threw its doors open in June with a preview gig featuring three international comedians. All three were at the top of their game and yet crowd energy levels dipped noticeably when one of the comedians riffed on the intricacies of growing up in one of London’s rougher parts.

“Indians are a tough crowd,” admits Das, stand-up comedian and founder of Weirdass Comedy, a comedy consultancy. “But you’ve got to make that connection with the crowd, talk about stuff they relate to. Do that, and suddenly they’re the greatest crowd in the world.” That’s not just lip service, it’s something Das takes seriously.

As a comic, Das is observational, chipping away at commonly observed peccadilloes. At a performance in Bangalore, he is a livewire from the second he hits the stage, prowling from end to end, working the crowd, searching for common ground. “Anyone watching the IPL?” he offers.

The crowd cheers. Das grins.

“You know what I don’t get about the IPL?” he begins. While there are no absolutes, and certainly no definitive list, it’s things like the IPL that make us finally laugh; things that move from charade to farce to three-ring circus in typically Indian fashion. “Look at our societal and political norms. I cannot think of a people more ripe for the picking, in terms of comedic gold, than us Indians,” says Sailesh Dave, producer of hit comedy programming such as Movers and Shakers (M&S), and

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

IN SEARCH OF

LAUGHTER

Looking for a night of comedy?

Want food and drink coming out of your nose while you laugh?

Visit these venues:

The Comedy Store,

Mumbai (www.thecomedystore.in) The world’s most iconic comedy venue, now in India. Drinks and food available, with a fine­ dining restaurant expected to open shortly.

Performances run Thursday through Sunday.

Tickets priced at Rs500 (Thursday and Sun­ day) and Rs700 (Friday and Saturday). The Palladium, Phoenix Mills, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai (43485000).

The Kyra Theatre,

Blue Frog,

Café Goa,

Bangalore (www.kyra.in) Kyra is a regular host to comedy both profes­ sional and amateur. Schedules are available on its website, and open­mics are usually every Tuesday. Kaatima Centre, 100ft Road, Indiranagar (43389292).

Mumbai (www.bluefrog.co.in) The Weirdass Hamateur Night hits Blue Frog on a Sunday evening every six weeks or so.

Ten amateur comedians, 2 minutes each at the mic, with pro­comedy from Vir Das after.

Mathuradas Mills Compound, NM Joshi Marg, Lower Parel, opposite Kamala Mills, Tulsi Pipe Road, Mumbai (61586158).

Mumbai (www.bombayelektrik.com) The Bombay Elektrik Projekt holds events every Monday night. Events differ, from poetry slams to open­mics. Everyone’s invited, first­ come, first­registered. Agnelo Building, Khadeshwari Mandir Marg, off St John Baptist Road, Bandra­West, Mumbai (26404115).

Rohan Joshi

India’s only mainstream sketchcomedy show, The Great Indian Comedy Show. When it first launched in 1997, M&S was “a risky proposition,” says Dave.

“The talk show has been a staple of the American TV landscape forever, but we were trying it here, and in our opening episode we decided to go for jugular.”

Anchor Shekhar Suman’s Lenoesque opening monologue was clean enough for Indian TV, but took a gentle swipe at the week’s biggest political, sporting and film news items.

Cu t to 2010 and Br oacha presents The Week that Wasn’t (TWTW), a weekly news-comedy show. The show isn’t exactly a scathing indictment of our system, but it’s a cult hit that bristles with cheeky comedic energy, and isn’t afraid of training its guns on everyone from Marathi manoos Raj Thackeray to former minister Shashi Tharoor. Das, on the other hand, riffs on Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati’s multicrore garland of notes, and even finds time to sing about her to a packed house. Dave is off skewering the Hindi film industry with The Bollywood Nonsensex, a mock celebrity stock index he produces for Channel V every week. Simply put, if it’s in the news, it’s fair game. And if there’s one thing that’s always in the news, it’s Pakistan.

“Pakistan’s an easy sell,” says Bhat. “There is no faster way of getting the audience on your side,” he grins. It’s easy to see where he’s coming from; Pakistan’s always been the easiest way for India to drum up populist support, so as an outlet for comedy it makes sense. “The IndoPak relationship is genuinely strange,” reasons Bhat. “There are times when you don’t even need a punch line.” Dossiers of evidence of terrorism come back marked “non-substantial”, a giant cyber-crackdown sees every single major social network banned, and Sania Mirza smashes one across the net by marrying a Pakistani cricketer.

And that’s just this year’s list. To not joke about Pakistan would be to ignore the elephant in the room. Comedy gives you the

Spreading cheer: (above) A perform­ ance at The Comedy Store in Mumbai; and Cheese Monkey Mafia during a recent open­mic event in New Delhi.

STAND­UP

So you’ve seen the Russell Peters video.

But here’s a list of comedians you’ve got to watch if you want to name­drop during a conversation on comedy Mitch Hedberg: Before his premature

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

licence to say the politically incorrect things, and besides, “everyone’s thinking it”, says Bhat. Also, let’s not forget, we’re Indian. Gossiping about our neighbours is practically a sport.

Having said that, this is still India, and we’ve still got some unassailable sacred cows. “Religion is sort of a no-no. Caste is definitely a no-no,” warns Broacha. “Don’t even bother with a historical figure.” Touche.

There are still some things we won’t laugh at or, to put it more accurately, some things we’re not allowed to laugh at. An amateur comedian found himself at the business end of some political goons at a wine festival in the Marathi heartland of Nashik. His crime? A joke about a much revered historical figure in those parts (on a completely unrelated note, I’d like to remind everyone that both Raj Thackeray and Bal Thackeray are cartoonists).

It’s the sort of intolerance that makes Lever furious. “Fine, we’re an emotional people,” he allows. “But it’s as if we can’t just like or respect someone. Unhe seedha bhagwan bana dete hai, and then God forbid you say anything about them.” Lever admits he often self-censors his work in film because he knows exactly what the censors won’t allow. “You can’t make one innocent joke about a community’s quirks because you know it’ll get into trouble.”

Moral brigades aside, there is also the fact that three of India’s biggest obsessions, Bollywood, politics and cricket, are fuelled by egos so inflated and fragile that a single joke could puncture them.

Lever talks about a famous star who cuts people out of future projects just because they make

jokes at his expense.

Dave sees it differently.

“There’s smart satire, and then there’s insulting someone for the sake of insulting them. Do it the smart way, and nobody can touch you. I’m not in jail, am I? Well, not yet,” he reasons optimistically. Das also believes there’s a loophole in every single sacred cow. “Sometimes, I think the idea that people will take offence is a lazy comedian’s defence,” he says. Instead, he argues, why not get the audience on your side with a few gentle jokes first, and then launch into more controversial material.

“Earn your profanity,” he shrugs, “if you want your audience to take a leap of faith with you, earn their trust first.”

Speaking of profanity, there is one other thing India loves to laugh at, even though it doesn’t do a particularly good job of it.

If you’ve ever been woken up at 3am by an SMS forward, or found your inbox choked full of spam, or even just signed up on Orkut, then you know what it is: sex. One open-mic session left an organizer aghast as a host of young amateur comedians went up one after another and talked about the same things— sex and pornography. Aside from the theme, these jokes had something else in common; they were all stale, and they all rang hollow. Comedy is good for a lot of things, but lying isn’t one of them.

If you’re telling a joke, no matter how explicit, it’s got to do one of two things—it needs to ring true, or at the very least it needs to make an honest argument, a valid point. The juvenile awkwardness of the moment drove home just how uncomfortably

and awkwardly we deal with sex as a culture.

And yet, on the bright side, at least we’re talking about sex, attempting to address its existence instead of pretending two sunflowers created us. So in the end, what is India laughing at?

We’re laughing at the things that worry us (my kidney for an LPG cylinder!), we’re laughing at the things that anger us (I’d like to walk around in a necklace made of money, but I’m afraid people will keep trying to stick their debit cards in me), and we’re laughing at things that make us sad (remember when Yuvraj Singh was AWESOME? Yeah, me neither).

It’s early days yet for the urban Indian sense of humour, and we haven’t given ourselves over to laughter just as yet. Forget laughing at ourselves, sometimes, we’re outraged that others would dare laugh at us (Time magazine’s Joel Stein found out the hard way last week, when people took a flame-thrower to his tongue-in-cheek piece about Indian immigrants in New Jersey). And yes, we can get juvenile (look! Another SMS with dirty shaayri!), but at least we’ve found our funny bone. With any luck we’ll hone it enough to keep The Comedy Store here for another 25 years.

I mean, we really could use better roads.

Rohan Joshi is a 27-year-old stand-up comedian. He likes dogs, reading and long walks on the beach. He also has an irrational hatred of contributor bios that sound suspiciously like matrimonial ads.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

death in 2005, Hedberg was famous for his oddball delivery of snappy one­line jokes, and always getting on stage in trademark shades with his hair covering his face. It wasn’t just a look. All his life, Hedberg had epic stage fright.

Robin Williams: Before he shot his credi­ bility in the head with a stream of cookie­cutter Hollywood fare, Williams was a furiously paced, hyperkinetic comedic force. Still is, actually, but go back to his old stuff for gold.

Eddie Murphy: s Robin William

See above. Lather, rinse,

repeat.

Bill Hicks: Controversial, prone to tirades and always angry, Hicks was one of comedy’s most unconventional voices. They called him “The Preacher”, and his famous misanthropy got him into a lot of trouble, like the time he said “Hitler had the right idea. He was just an underachiever.”

Richard Pryor: As a black man in a white world, Pryor’s routines were vulgar and uncompromising (if often drug­laced and rambly) takes on racism and topical comedy.

Also, comedy’s original sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll wild child.

Richard Pryor

George Carlin: Famous for his “7 Words You Can’t Say on TV” routine, Carlin’s comedy was heavily political and topical. It was also very, very good, which explains the five Grammy awards he won for his comedy albums.

Jerry Seinfeld: The world’s richest come­ dian is also a man with such a keen nose for observational comedy that he built the world’s most popular sitcom out of…well, nothing really.

Eddie Izzard: Uber­funny British rambler who floats from topic to topic for the fun of it because he’s dyslexic and couldn’t be bothered to read a script. Also cross­dresses regularly, purely for the fun of it.

Eddie Izzard

Honourable mentions for the completist: Steve Martin, Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, Ricky Ger­ vais, Rowan Atkinson.

Rohan Joshi

L12

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SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010

Travel

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK

Charm offensive PHOTOGRAPHS

In football­fixated South Africa, animals too pull out the stops in a bid to impress

B Y C HRISTINE P EMBERTON ···························· emember this tree?” my husband asked.

How could I ever forget it?

We both stared in reflective silence at an otherwise undistinguished thorn tree, standing in a copse of similarly undistinguished thorn trees, at the end of a dusty trail in Kruger Park.

Here it was, almost two years ago to the day, that we had been attacked by a huge female elephant, fiercely protective of the tiny babies in the herd.

The elephants won.

Driving along, just one of many cars on the road that fateful day, we had stopped to let a large breeding herd of elephants cross the path in front of us. Like all the other cars on the sighting, we kept a safe viewing distance from the herd, and watched in awe as the animals walked in a dusty group in front of us.

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For some reason, which we still don’t understand, the matriarch didn’t like the look of our car, and walked suggestively towards us.

We reversed as quickly as possible, even further away from the elephants, down the dusty, curvy track. That’s when the second huge female elephant silently materialized from behind, in a cunning pincer movement with the matriarch.

And that’s when we hit the tree.

The rear windows smashed, the back door got badly dented, I burst into tears of I-don’t-quite-knowwhat, and the two elephants calmly walked back to their babies, their point well and truly made.

So when last month, we encountered another huge breeding herd of elephants crossing the road to go drink in the Sabie river, I watched with trepidation as a car full of obvious Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) World Cup visitors sat slap-bang in the middle of the path of the herd.

The young men leaned out of the windows of their rented car, their little point-and-shoot cameras in overdrive, dazzled by the elephants around them. But this matriarch was on good form, obviously part of the soccer charm offensive.

Moral of our story? Whether it’s the Kruger Park or wilder parts of the African bush, we must never, ever forget that the spectacular creatures we encounter are wild.

And it is their bush, not ours.

Most of the time, however, a

BY

GETTY IMAGES

CHRISTINE PEMBERTON

eye open for wandering wildlife, but clearly the smell of bacon, fried eggs and boerwurst (a South African spicy sausage) just doesn’t Favourite expression appeal to most animals.

“Er, umm, isn’t that a leopard Having said that, the picnic in that tree?” spot at Timbavati has a resident bushbuck that is partial to anyMust do thing it can forage, preferably Go to Sunset Dam outside the Lower Sabie right out of your picnic basket. camp and watch pods of hippos A couple of years ago, while snorting and wallowing. our son Hari dreamily ate his ham sandwich, looking out Remember to pack over the panoramic view, the Binoculars. said bushbuck wandered up, bold as brass, and started Favourite sighting nibbling from the other side The smaller, more elusive creatures. An Animal instinct: (from of the sandwich. Hari generaardvark. A wild cat. And a trio of hyaena cubs top) Follow the king ously shared it, and then the tumbling over themselves as they chew the of the jungle; chat bushbuck wandered over to a tyres of a 4x4. with deer at the tiny, blonde, South African girl Timbavati picnic who was eating an apple. Her Dress spot; watch monitor parents weren’t watching, so she Comfortable clothes in “bush” lizards dance a would take one bite and offer the colours—khaki, green, fawn, beige. tango; or just take in apple to the buck. They finished Nothing flashy. It disturbs the th view from the tents the apple in record time. animals. Seriously. in the park.

But by and large you can do Kruger Park unmolested by buck or hornbills—or, as I mentioned earareas, constantly on the lookout desire. Camp gates open half an lier, elephants. The park roads are for predators—just like us visitors, hour or so before the park gates, well signposted and the “main” if truth be known. opening at dawn and closing at roads tarred and in good condition, The gradual dropping of fences sunset, so camp residents get a making driving easy. There are also between South Africa, Mozam- slight head start on day visitors. It’s hundreds of untarred, dusty trails bique and Zimbabwe will only customary to see cars silently line criss-crossing the park, leading to make the Kruger Park an even up at the camp gates in the cool waterholes and viewpoints. The larger biosphere. The ancient game dark of dawn, ready for a day of idea is to drive slowly to spot game corridors, which man interrupted game viewing. and watch Africa unfold. Not every with his political boundaries, are You can only get out of your drive has spectacular sightgradually being restored, allowing vehicle at designated areas, some ings—this is nature, not a zoo—but the wildlife to wander at will. of which are nothing more than a every game drive has beauty and Already, one can cross into wooden hide (basically, a lookout, charm and there is always someMozambique from South Africa via usually at waterholes), while other thing new to see. the park. rest stops have bathrooms, a little Earlier this month, we saw lion, Unlike national parks in India, shop and very often, cooking facili- leopard, cheetah and were duly you can drive all day in the South ties. This is when you will see South thrilled and excited. We saw big African parks if you so Africans in their element, pull- herds of elephants, with babies ing up at the rest stops, galore. But we also saw a lone eleunloading quantities of food phant taking an energetic mud from their cars, renting a bath, splashing mud everywhere braai (barbecue) and with obvious glee. We saw water cooking up a breakfast monitors mating in an elaborate storm. Park staffers ritual that sometimes bordered who are based at on fighting. Baboons jumped on these cooking the roof of our car, the alpha male areas keep an marking his territory all over our spare wheel, much to the amusement of the South Africans in the car next to us. A black mamba crossed out path, and who can forget the baby hyena peeping out from the grass watching us watching him.

We still dine out on our elephant story, however. And I swear that there is still a trace of our patrol’s green paint on that tree.

HIGH FIVE

visit to South Africa’s showpiece park is totally accident and incident-free. It is one of the greatest places in Africa to see game: The many different ecosystems over 2 million ha provide for many different kinds of animals, all of them in huge numbers. So where you are in the park determines the kind of game you see. For the elusive, sure-footed klipspringer, head to the rocky outcrops. Elephants love the dense mopane forests—that is, when they are not tangling with visitors like ourselves. Plains game such as zebra, wildebeest and impala wander in large herds through the flatter savannah

Write to lounge@livemint.com CHILD­FRIENDLY RATING

GRAPHIC

BY

AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

Lions, giraffes, elephants, zebras, all there waiting to be spotted. Camp shops selling endless numbers of T­shirts, soft drinks and French fries.

TRAVEL L13

SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

SHAJU KARAT

MALAPPURAM

On the ball Every four years, a corner of northern Kerala joins the world stage. Savour the flavour B Y S HAMANTH R AO ···························· razil fans at the 220kV substation in Malappuram have put up a huge hoarding of their team, heralding them as favourites for the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Argentina fans at the 220kV substation beg to differ, asking in a hoarding of their own stars: “Who can stop us?”

At Tirur, flags of England, Italy, Portugal and, of course, Brazil and Argentina flutter on ropes strung between buildings like oversized garments on a clothes line. The road from Tirur to Azhimugham, where one bus plies every hour, has banners of different colours every 200m or so.

In Ponnani, Argentina supporters put up a poster depicting Brazilian midfielder Kaka with the body of a crow (not so subtle: Kaka is “crow” in Malayalam).

Brazil fans hit back with a poster of a decapitated Messi.

George Orwell clearly knew what he was talking about when he said serious sport was “war minus the shooting”.

Every four years, Malappuram—a nondescript, mostly

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rural district in northern Kerala—goes into carnival mode.

Fans take out street rallies. Giant TV screens come up. Team jerseys replace T-shirts. Bakeries create cakes in the image of football players. Malappuram stands up to be counted for its devotion to football.

“This pre-World Cup rally brought Tirur to a standstill,” says Shaju Karat, a Tirur-based freelance photographer, displaying some images. He then shows me photos of a ground packed with 20,000 spectators at a local sevena-side match. So it isn’t just international teams that locals follow, I say. “Oh no,” he replies, “we love football as a game, the fact that it’s on TV is incidental.”

But why, exactly? Karat thinks a while over a lunch of nei choru (ghee rice) and chicken curry. He laughs good-humouredly at the waiter as an “England fan, they drew with the USA, bah”, and meditates on the greatness of his hero, Messi—“22 years old and worth 60 crores of rupees. Imagine, 60 crores!” (a vast underestimation: Messi is worth around $80 million, Rs360 crore)—before

conceding defeat and referring me to Abdul Latheef Naha, district correspondent for The Hindu.

Malappuram, Naha explains, was at the centre of the Gulf boom in the 1980s and 1990s.

One of the more obvious fallouts of the remittance economy was the proliferation of colour television sets over this period. “The district watched Maradona’s magic in Mexico 1986 on the first of these TVs. Maradona was larger than life, like a film star—and Malappuram loves its superheroes,” says Naha.

Until a decade ago, fans in this predominantly Communist state rooted only for Brazil and Argentina, symbols of anti-imperialist forces. Every four years, Che Guevara posters were replaced by Maradona’s. But after the English Premier League brought players of every nationality to television screens, almost every footballplaying country—including unfancied Nigeria and no-hopers Ivory Coast—finds backers here for the World Cup. In 2002 and 2006, French midfielder Zinedine Zidane was Malappuram’s favourite poster boy, if only by default. “Many regional newspapers deliberately referred to him as Zainuddin Zidane,” says Naha. “He became a symbol of Muslim pride.”

So there are a couple of political and ideological influences at play here. But why did Malappuram begin playing football, while the rest of India (with a couple of exceptions in Bengal and Goa) focused on cricket? For answers, I turn to Muhammed Ali Moonni-

FOOT NOTES | SUMANA MUKHERJEE

Beat the rains in the hills The ‘Queen of the Hills’ offers the most adventurous getaway this monsoon

T

he monsoon is the new getaway season. And why should you be denied because you live in the northern half of the country? Head to the once-upon-a-time Queen of the Hills, but 13km short of Shimla, turn off to Shoghi.

Away from the temple town, a number of resorts have cropped up at Queen of the Hills in recent years. Among them, Aamod at Shoghi, run by three-year-old Tarangan Leisure, claims to be redefining ecotourism in the hills—the 16-cottage property is built in a natural clearing that required no felling of oak and pine trees that crowd the slopes here.

Besides multiple activities for your city-weary mind—from rappelling and mountain biking to no-sweat options such as the Burma Bridge and Monkey Crawl—there’s also the Sublime

Fan fare: (from top) Argentina and Brazil fans flaunt their colours; and the town goes into carnival mode, complete with vuvuzelas.

yur, a college coach deeply passionate about local football and seven-a-side matches.

Unlike the presidencies, Muniyoor tells me, the first Britishers here were the foot soldiers deployed to tackle the Moplah rebellion in 1921. “They played

football, the common man’s game. And the locals—neither rich nor sophisticated themselves—caught on,” he says. “But the World Cup hoopla is just a ploy to win media attention. It doesn’t really translate into support for local players.”

discounts on their regular services. Valid from 15 July-15 September, the two-night/three-day package costs Rs10,500 for two, including accommodation for two children below the age of 6. To book, call 09213022540/41/42 or log on to www.aamod.in

ROGER GREEN/FLICKR

G

ender-specific travel isn’t exactly new, but international travel experts Abercrombie and Kent now have a completely women-oriented itinerary for Jordan and Egypt that should please your inner feminist to the core. In the first half, which covers biblical country and the rose-red city of Petra, it allows you to work with a local chef in cooking up a special dinner and gives you entry to a lecture by a woman minister of the Jordanian government. In Egypt, it takes you to the Valley of Queens and the Temple of Hatshepsut, the first female pharaoh, as well as a perfumery and a lecture on women by an Egyptologist. All this, of course, in addition to the usual elements of a tour of this region: Jerash, a third century city of Roman ruins; Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt; the necropolis of Sakkara; the great

E spa for tired bodies.

None of these, however, are the star attractions this season.

Instead, go for Monsoon Mystique, their seasonal package that includes welcome drinks, a deluxe cottage, breakfast, hour-long guided access to the adventure package and

Write to lounge@livemint.com

Feminist Egypt

Out of the box Eco­friendly: No trees were felled to build Shoghi’s cottages.

The media, though, is hoping to cash right into the fan base.

Around 40km from Malappuram, in Kozhikode, a local daily has put up a giant television screen at Kuttichira. The road is enclosed by flex banners for every team. In front of the screen, more than 500 people—mostly men—watch Ivory Coast play Portugal.

Salomon Kalou is replaced by Didier Drogba. A chorus goes around: “Drogba, Drogba, Drogba”. As forwards needle their way through defences, an intermittent yet steady “ay ay ay ay” goes up. There’s a breakthrough, the ball rushes into the penalty area, and... “Yaaaaaaay!” The ball misses the goalpost, and a collective groan rises, “Oaaahhhhhhhhhhh.”

In the 90th minute, Ivory Coast have control of the ball. The crowd brings out its whistles and steps up its cheers. Three minutes into stoppage time, Ivory Coast have a corner kick. The crowd is willing them on, the chorus rising to a crescendo. Ivory Coast don’t take a kick and walk away with a draw. A hum of disappointment courses through the crowd. Amid match post-mortems, bikes are drawn out and people drift away. Someone unfurls a Brazilian flag, waves it about and runs around in a circle.

veryone’s travelling these days, but not everyone has the patience to put together itineraries.

Some of us just aren’t fortunate enough to know in advance when we can take time off. It’s for such people that SOTC has come up with the idea of Box Holidays: a one-of-a-kind packaged holiday available at a day’s notice. Currently available only in Mumbai, these include freebies and discounts too.

On offer right now are destinations in and around Maharashtra: Jadhavgarh (Rs12,100 for a couple, for two nights/three days), Aronda (Rs10,999, two nights/three days), Chiplun (Rs13,700, two nights/ three days), Goa (Rs13,499, three nights/four days), Mahabaleshwar (Rs12,000, two nights/three days), Lonavala (Rs4,300, two nights/three days) and

Historic: The temple of Hatshepsut near Thebes. temple of Abu Simbel; a Nile cruise on Sun Boat IV, et al. The Sands of Time trip (15 October-26 October) costs from $6,890, or around Rs3.18 lakh, per person on double occupancy, exclusive of internal airfares, and can be customized as well. For more details or to chat with an agent, log on to www.abercrombiekent.com Nashik (Rs14,000, two nights/three days). Also available are “boxes” for Mauritius (Rs79,999, three nights/four days), Bangkok (Rs39,990, three nights/ four days) and Hong Kong (Rs59,999,three-night/ four days). The way it works is simpler than making up your mind on the choice of destinations: Once you’ve paid for your holiday at any Globus store, log on to www.sotcboxholidays.com and fill up a reservation form with your travel details.

While the fares are built in with the foreign destinations, SOTC will help you book local travel at an additional cost.You’ll receive a confirmation from SOTC and you’re on your way. Getting away from Mumbai really couldn’t be simpler—but residents elsewhere in India needn’t worry. There are plans to launch in other cities as well.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

L14

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SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010

Books CRIMINAL MIND

ZAC O’YEAH

HINDUSTAN TIMES

The madeleine and the tandoor

PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

Mimicking fiction: The tandoor at the Ashok Yatri Niwas where the body of Naina Sahni was burnt.

UNIVERSAL/THE KOBAL COLLECTION

There is a blurry line between real crimes and crime fiction. But just how close to reality can an author go?

H

ow close is too close is a question we authors are sometimes faced with.

There is a very blurry line between fiction and reality in a creative mind, because reality often feeds into fiction—and in some cases fiction may feed right back into reality.

I really started thinking about this problem after reading a recent interview with one of my current favourites, Surender Mohan Pathak, who talked about how some of his thrillers seem to have inspired real-life crime—Mavaali (not yet translated into English), for instance, in which a murderer disposes of a corpse by grilling it.

An uncannily similar crime was committed in Delhi in the mid-1990s, in which a hotel tandoor was used in a strikingly analogous manner. Pathak’s stonecool comment was, “These small things keep happening.”

This is, I should point out, not the norm for a crime novel’s impact. Yet a novelist like Mukul Deva, who writes thrillers on terrorism, ends Salim Must Die with the disclaimer that the factual or technical errors in the novel “have been deliberately left in there by me to prevent any misuse of a technology or an idea”.

At the other extreme is the king of modern noir, James Ellroy, who has at the centre of his imagination an unsolved real-life crime: the brutal slaying of his mother when he was a child. This horrifying experience imprinted itself so deeply on his mind that much of his writing draws on it,

Murders, they wrote: (above) Crime author James Ellroy’s mother was murdered; and Surender Mohan Pathak’s Mavaali has uncanny similarity with the Naina Sahni case.

indirectly as in his great breakthrough best-seller The Black Dahlia, or more directly as in his acclaimed autobiography My Dark Places, as well as his forthcoming book, The Hilliker Curse, which is yet another return to the case (out in September).

While some writers are quite open about mining their own and other people’s lives for inspiration, others remain circumspect and exercise caution—this is, after all, a matter of exposing private lives, and even if names are changed there will always be readers who put one and one together to make three.

Within the tradition called roman à clef, French for “novel with a key”, it was something of a bourgeois sport to figure out who’s who and what’s what—such as in Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins in which it’s possible to guess who

Sartre is, who Camus, and so on.

These narratives were supposed to be more or less caricatured off real life and readers who figured out the key unlocked the story and identified each celebrity in the sordid saga.

Thinly disguised reality has since then come to be a staple of writerly life—but isn’t fiction supposed to be “fake”, you may ask.

Uh, well…curiously, many readers seem to feel cheated when a book is entirely made up, they want the details to be if not 100% true, then at least lifelike. This is possibly a result of the human love for gossip, for the gossip value naturally goes down radically if everything is invented.

It would be surprising if writers, being only human, never used interesting events as triggers a la the madeleine teacake in Marcel Proust’s seven-volume Remembrance of Things Past. Another

case in point is the novel Home Products published a few years ago by Amitava Kumar, otherwise better known as a powerful nonfiction writer. In the novel, a journalist goes back to his native Bihar (Kumar’s native place too) to write a screenplay based on a murder scandal: fact into metafiction?

“I had read about this murder, in Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, of a young poet,” Kumar tells me. “But the crime and the milieu were very familiar to me. I also liked the name of the place where she had lived, Paper Mill Colony, and, of course, the fact that the main accused was a politician. The image that arrested me was that a neighbour had said that a car with a red light—a white Ambassador with the revolving red light on the top—would stop outside the house at all hours. This was a language I recognized; it spoke to me.

I also liked the fact that the victim was a bad poet. The sordidness, the corruption, the crime itself, was good enough. The element of bad art made it irresistible.”

In such a situation, a writer can choose to write a non-fiction narrative such as In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the book that pioneered the genre of “novels”

based on real-life crime and involving actual people, or, closer in time and space, the forthcoming Indian addition to the genre—Death in Mumbai by Meenal Baghel, about a 2008 crime case in which an aspiring Bollywood actress was accused of hacking a TV executive into approximately 300 pieces and grilling them (although not in a tandoor, as far as I know). Or one could decide to just write a novel.

But why even bother writing a novel, one might ask, if the real facts are juicier than tandoori chicken? In Kumar’s youth, George Orwell (incidentally also born in Bihar) mattered and in Home Products, he lets his protagonist/journalist be heavily influenced by Orwell’s four great motives for writing prose: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse and political purpose. Kumar hereby achieves a blurring between author, protagonist and subject, in order to create something that rises above both reality and fiction. He says: “There are various points in the novel when the main protagonists reflect on the challenge of turning non-fiction into fiction. That was really the artistic goal I had set for myself too. To tell a story from life, while making sure it was a story.”

Occasionally the novel tilts heavily towards non-fiction—because Kumar feels that, sometimes, there is nothing as startling as reality itself. Long segments are based on interviews with a Bollywood star, for

instance. “His village is very close to mine, and I wanted to write about his journey,” says Kumar, who wanted to tell a larger story about ambition.

So how much time does he spend thinking about using real people, real crimes, versus making up stuff? “I like to write about real people, real crimes. But what has increasingly come to interest me, and also appear to me as a challenge, is the idea of doing strange things with what is real.

Take what is real and make it more or less real.”

But how close can you go to the truth before getting uncomfortably close? In Home Products, Kumar gives a new name to the character based on the movie star, but retains the name of a real film journalist from Mumbai because it gave him a kick to have reports presented as factual inside a fictional landscape. Why? “I wanted my novel to remind readers that what is in the news has something in common with the novel form. In fact, I was trying to deliver to the reader a sense of what happens to a crime in the space between a space called the newspaper and the space called your home.”

Next he might use his journalistic experiences to get even deeper into fictionalizing fact. “I have a couple of thick files about things that have gone wrong between people: I ought to write about them in the manner of a thriller. It would finally convince me that I was a real writer.”

A real writer, I think to myself, is probably the best filter there is between fact and fiction, someone who helps a reader, through his/her imagination, to analyse what goes on out there. And for a reader it would, perhaps, be disappointing to know for sure what the real deal is and what isn’t—maybe that is what makes the blurred line so fascinating.

Zac O’Yeah is a Bangalore-based writer of Swedish fiction whose new book is Once Upon a Time in Scandinavistan.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

BOOKS L15

SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

CHARLES DICKENS | MICHAEL SLATER

Under the magic lantern PERRY­CASTAÑEDA LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY

OF

TEXAS

AT

AUSTIN

A new biography sheds light on the art and business sense of the great 19th century novelist

B Y C HANDRAHAS C HOUDHURY ···························· or anyone who loves literature, the question of how literary work comes into being, of what relationship there is between the creation and the creator, is of an interest almost as urgent as that felt for the books themselves. When a writer gives us the gift of a character we cannot forget, of a scene or story that changes our relationship to our world, of a way of thinking that wakes us from linguistic or moral inertia, we crave a closer contact with that life and mind. These are the pleasures offered by literary biography, and they may be abundantly found in Michael Slater’s new biography of a man who we might legitimately consider the 19th century’s greatest writer, Charles Dickens.

Slater’s book weighs in at over 600 pages, and in all fairness it would have been hard to make his book any shorter than this, for Dickens’ life itself was a vast one.

The son of a financially reckless clerk who on more than one occasion was sent to jail for not paying his debts (forcing the young Charles, at the age of 12, to leave school for a few months and work in a factory), Dickens acquired his enormous success, wealth, goodwill and standing purely by dint of his energy, ambition and resourcefulness. Beginning his working life as a parliamentary reporter, he swiftly demonstrated the power of what a famous actor friend of his called his “clutching eye”, or eye for detail that seemed to bring a scene alive. His journalistic descriptions of London streets and incidents soon found an audi-

F

Best­seller: Dickens, says Slater, had an acute mind for business.

Charles Dickens: Yale University Press, 696 pages, £25 (around Rs1,700). ence not just in the periodicals but when collected, into books. This work constituted Dickens’ training for a literary career in which London—a city he called his “magic lantern”—occupied the centre.

To a greater extent than some of Dickens’ earlier biographers, Slater emphasizes that the writer is worth understanding not just as a literary figure but indeed as a busi-

nessman. In Dickens’ time it was not very common for a writer to make a living from his books alone. Indeed, book publication itself was not the thing that we know it to be now. Most novels of the day—and most of Dickens’ novels—appeared first in serial form in weekly or monthly periodicals, accompanied by illustrations. Only later were some of them given the dignity and standing of book publication.

Slater shows how, once Dickens began to acquire a sense of his audience, he relentlessly plotted and schemed to make not just his art thrive but also his finances.

At times, by undertaking to cover all production costs in return for a larger share in profits, he overturned the traditional publisherauthor business relationship by turning his publisher essentially into no more than a printer. He was happy to prepare handsome, expensive editions of his slim “Christmas books” (the best and most famous of which is A Christ-

mas Carol, one of the greatest short novels in the English language) and cheap omnibus editions of his collected works. Having sold the copyright of some of his books when in need of money, he later bought them back at a much steeper price, just so that he might have control over his entire oeuvre.

Indeed, Dickens’ greatest success was to to balance the competing pulls and pressures of literary artistry and commercial success.

His stories are often melodramatic, but they are incandescent with marvellous metaphors, powerful descriptions of people and place, great flights of comic imagination, and also a sympathy for human frailties and an outrage at injustice perpetrated both by individuals and by systems. There is in them a luminous perception not just of particular characters and their predicaments, but also of an entire society. Slater describes the working notes that Dickens used to prepare to set up the structure of a story, and the way Dickens’ language, themes and characters develop across his career. Dickens’ sociability, infectious energy, and appetite for life and for narrative are in evidence everywhere.

In her short biography of Dickens, the novelist Jane Smiley remarks that the relationship between a novelist’s life and his work is not unidirectional, but rather dialectical. “Just as Dickens’s novels were in part commentary on his life,” she observes, “so his actions, in part, grew out of the way that writing novels gave his feelings and thoughts specific being.” In other words, just as Dickens wrote novels, so too did his novels in some way write him. The evidence of this claim is most fully worked out in Slater’s meticulously researched and readable biography.

Chandrahas Choudhury is the author of Arzee the Dwarf.

Write to lounge@livemint.com IN SIX WORDS Immensely readable new insights on Dickens

Q&A | DEEPAK DALAL

Indian Hardy Boys The author on a forgotten city and why urban children can relate to two precocious boys B Y A MRITA R OY

Adventure-I: Anirudh’s Dream and Sahyadri Adventure-II: Koleshwar’s Secret. Though set in gritty Mumbai, the books tell the story of the city before it became a megapolis, when Fort was not just an address and Churchgate meant more than a railway station. Edited excerpts from an interview:

amrita.r@livemint.com

···························· chemical engineer by profession, Deepak Dalal set out to write “Indian tales for Indian children” in 1998. And thus was born the VikramAditya series of adventures, set in some of the most picturesque places on the map—Lakshadweep, Ladakh, the Andaman Islands and Ranthambore. Vikram is a meticulous, intelligent and very correct schoolboy. His friend Aditya is the opposite—strong, impulsive and not averse to bending a few rules. Both love the great outdoors, which helps forge a bond among them as they fight to save wildlife from poachers and evil traders.

Twelve years and six books into the series, Dalal has turned publisher. This week, the newly launched Tarini Books released the seventh and eighth books in the series—Sahyadri

A

What are the ‘VikramAditya’ books about?

They are stories of adventure of two schoolboys, Vikram and Aditya, set in the very beautiful wild world beyond our cities.

These are primarily meant for the 12-16 age group. Today’s children live very urban-centric lives. What I’m trying to do is tell them about the exciting country beyond: the Himalayas, the coastlines, the wild forests.

There’s a lot of wonderful children’s books—old favourites like Enid Blyton or the Harry Porter series or Artemis Fowl.

But there’s hardly any good Indian stories being told to Indian children. Yet India is one of the most vibrant countries in its history and geography.

Vikram and Aditya sound like the Hardy Boys.

There is a bit of the Hardy Boys element. But these are very Indian stories. Today parents

On the trail: Deepak Dalal. take children to the Maldives and Australia to see the coral reefs but Lakshadweep is equally beautiful.

My stories are drawn from my own experiences. I had actually been on a snow leopard expedition before I wrote The Snow Leopard. When I’m writing about a place, I usually land up there and spend a few months, meeting and talking to the local people, learning about the flora and fauna, the history and geography.

But the two new books are set in very urban Mumbai?

Actually it’s about Bombay as it was 150 years ago. For the first time, the VikramAditya stories get a historical perspective. And unusually for me, most of the

four years it took to write the books were spent at the Bombay University library, researching the city’s history.

The Sahyadri Adventures are about the forgotten city. Say, for instance, Fort. Everyone knows it as the downtown district. But there was actually a fort there.

This vanished bastion had three gates, one of them beside a church, hence the name Church Gate. Fronting this Fort was a massive open ground known as the Esplanade. The open spaces of the Esplanade still exist, only now they are known as the maidans (grounds). The second book, Koleshwar’s Secret, is set in the forests of the Sahyadris.

It’s a place I go to often, specially during the monsoon.

They are lush and wild. It’s a world worth exploring.

Aren’t Vikram and Aditya too grown up in their ways for the average schoolgirl/boy to identify with?

The current way of writing is to address children as adults. Kids like to see their heroes take on problems and situations which adults too will find difficult to handle. For example, in the Harry Potter books, Harry and his friends, without any help from adults, handle very difficult situations. This is across the board in writing for young adults. Children’s writing and their expectation from their readings have evolved.

CULT FICTION

R. SUKUMAR

HAVE YOU MET THE REAL SUPERPOWER?

H

e’s inventive, unpredictable, dark and wickedly creative. And since he has been mentioned only in passing in this column before (for a work called Heavy Liquid), I decided to write about an old favourite rather than a new book. We will return to new books—and there are some very interesting ones—next week. So, indulge me.

The writer, as those who know their comics already know from the work I have named, is Paul Pope, the man called “the dark prince of comics” by Wired magazine.

And the book that is the focus of this fortnight’s Cult Fiction is Batman 100, Pope’s 2006 work, a nice mix of Pope’s science-fiction-ish approach (evident in most of his works) and classic superhero comics.

Cult Fiction has usually steered clear of commenting on technique but Pope’s drawing style is unique. There is something about the intensity as well as asymmetry of his lines that gives his illustrations a distinctly futuristic dystopian look (I have commented on the similarity between Pope’s work and the writings of Philip K. Dick in the past so won’t belabour that point again).

Batman 100 is also, undoubtedly, inspired (at least to some extent) by Frank Miller’s Dark Knight books where an ageing Batman returns to clean up Gotham. Miller, for those interested in such trivia, is a good friend and mentor of Pope’s, according to the same Wired article I have quoted from at the beginning of this piece.

Interestingly, there’s a reference in the comic to a 1986 report on Batman Dark prince: Pope’s Batman is faceless. by a Commissioner (Ellen) Yindel, a name that should be familiar to anyone who has read The Dark Knight Returns.

Batman 100 is set in Gotham in the year 2039, which is the origin of the title itself. Batman first appeared in 1939. The setting is totalitarian and the plot is convoluted but time-tested—of a government agency planning to use a super chemical to kill millions—and while Batman ultimately saves the day (like he usually does), the real greatness (yes, greatness) of this comic lies, apart from Pope’s style and visualization, in two other things.

The first is the identity of Batman. Batman 100 features a Captain Gordon who is Commissioner Gordon’s grandson, so is Batman 100 Bruce Wayne? If so, how has he managed to live to be at least 120-130 years old? He doesn’t seem rich, so, if he is Bruce Wayne, what happened? Pope doesn’t answer the question, not even indirectly, and far from leaving readers with a sense of incompleteness, this makes the book better.

The second is possibly Pope’s own take on what makes a superhero in 2039. Sure, Batman jumps walls, scales buildings, fights an army of people, and flies around (albeit on wires), but his real superpower in 2039 is that he is off the grid. In an information- and communication-rich world, no one knows who he is or where he comes from. In the future complete anonymity, Pope seems to suggest, can create the truly invisible man.

R. Sukumar is editor, Mint.

Write to Sukumar at cultfiction@livemint.com

FREE VERSE | GIEVE PATEL

Moult The sodden dripping weight which he moulted and offered to the god who received it in cupped hands—was it skin really, or rather something amphibious, half metallic scales, half mutely screaming integument smelling of fish, while flayed Karna shivered from a cold he had never thought to endure, shivered animal-like, a mere beast prepared for the cooking pot; and walked to the battlefield certain to be pierced by the first lance aimed at him. But the burden!

Amazingly it had lifted, and might it not be one’s heart’s desire fulfilled to die unrehearsed of lightness.

Gieve Patel is a renowned Mumbai-based painter and poet.

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L16

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SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010

Culture DOCUMENTARY

A train­sized passion DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP

An award­winning series on the Indian Hill Railways brings a living legacy to the fore

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

···························· uring his world tour in the 1890s, Mark Twain had famously noted that the women porters of Darjeeling could carry a piano to the top of a hill. Surely he had someone like Sita Chhetri, a 45-year-old Nepali widow, in mind. Chhetri lives in a one-room wooden shack and carries travellers’ suitcases to raise her five sons. She prays to the gods every morning to bless her station.

Portraits of fascinating people like her are at the heart of the 1-hour documentary, The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway. The documentary is the opening film in the tri-series on the Indian Hill Railways that was recently awarded UK’s prized television honour, the Royal Television Society Award (Best Factual Series).

After its initial screening on BBC’s Channel 4 in February, it has been screened more than seven times on national television. Its director, Tarun Bhartiya, is a Shillongbased film-maker who went scouting for possible stories for several months before he began filming in June 2009.

There are poignant moments in the film, such as when the illiterate Chhetri shares her dream of sending her 18-year-old son to Darjeeling’s best college, St Joseph’s College. She can’t afford the fees, but she appeals to the principal, who agrees to waive it.

Chhetri knew the value of having a BBC crew along for such a meeting. There are other characters that are compelling: The pointsman who is a frustrated harmonica player and who only lives to see his musically inclined son make a career in pop music;

D

the ticket collector who wants to be a Buddhist priest.

These tales rumble along with the ancient steam engines, built in factories in Glasgow almost 150 years ago. The little blue engine of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway may have only three carriages but it does a vertigoinducing 7,000ft climb in 52 miles.

The series is produced by British film-maker Gerry Troyna, who has been making films and documentaries for around 30 years for the BBC, Channel 4 and broadcasters around the world. This series is one in a long line of films that are a testimony to Troyna’s obsession with the subject. His first encounter with the railways was in 1980 when, after directing the pilot film with Sir Ludovic Kennedy for the BBC series Great Railway Journeys of

Whistle­stops: (clockwise from top) The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway; Chhetri; and Troyna during a shoot. the World, he was given his choice of country. He chose India. Over the years he has made several films on the railways in India, including one on the Deccan railway (British Academy of Film and Television Arts, or Bafta, nomination, 1981) and another on Mumbai’s suburban railway (Royal Tel-

evision Society Award, 2008).

The other two films in the series are the Nilgiri Mountain Railway (directed by Hugo Smith) and the Kalka-Shimla Railway (directed

by Nick Mattingly); they too delve into the lives of those working with the hill railways—porters, pointsmen, ticket collectors, drivPHOTOGRAP

Art of the here and now A group show presents photos that capture unadorned reality B Y H IMANSHU B HAGAT himanshu.b@livemint.com

···························· ocumentary photography” sounds like a redundant term—if we consider that basically all photography is documentary in nature. After all, we paint to create something that is beautiful and pleasing to the eye, whereas we take a photograph primarily to “capture” or record something—a person, a building, a waterfall. The question of how to make the picture pretty only comes later.

But then photography is also an art form. And much of photography does concern itself with beauty and style.

What distinguishes “documentary photography” is its primary focus on recording objects and events. That includes photojour-

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nalism, and also images that are documentary but then go beyond it in some manner—they could be a powerful set of photos that make a larger point or they could evoke a certain mood or feeling.

The press release from Gallery BMB, Mumbai, says that its latest show, Docu Tour, examines the role of documentary photographs in critiquing society and culture.

Well-known artist Bose Krishnamachari, who co-owns the gallery, is the curator of the show which features works by photographers Anup Mathew Thomas, Shankar Natarajan, Gauri Gill and Vivek Vilasini.

“The four photographers are more like four artists,” says Krishnamachari. “They are all very passionate (about their work).”

What brings them together, according to him, is that they are all “conceptually sound”.

Gill spent over a decade shooting photographs of people in the parched and sandy Barmer district of Rajasthan and mounted a show in March in New Delhi, titled Notes

HS COUR TESY

As it is: Jogiyon ka Dera, Lunkaransar by Gauri Gill (left) and Unconstitutional by Vivek Vilasini. from the Desert, capturing different facets of their lives—daily routines, as well as special events such as births and marriages. Just 11 of those images feature in the BMB show. Gill sees the project as a

“document” because the photos have been shot “in particular places, in particular time and with particular people”. Her subjects—young and old—have posed for some of these black and white

ers—who live along the narrow track that weaves across towns.

The Indian Railways is also a vast reservoir of data regarding track miles, rolling stock and employment levels. Troyna is interested in these details but he eschews statistics for a more personal approach. “I am concerned with the micro, not the macro, level of things; with the purely human scale of the railways in India,” he says in an email exchange. Troyna is also involved with a photography

GALLERY BM B

images, while others are candid shots of groups and individuals. All of them feel completely artless though, as if shot by a technically competent photographer, but one who is not an “artist”. But the breadth and scope of her decade-long endeavour points to an original vision, one which seeks to make rural people visible to the more privileged urbanites, while also charting a personal journey that, in her words, is “contradictory, fragmented and not neat capsules of anything”.

Krishnamachari says he selected the photographers for their simple and natural approach to a project. This holds as true for Vilasini as it does for Gill. The three photos by him that are on display in the show are marked by simplicity and a piercing eye. There is a hybrid sign on a public wall that combines Hindu, Muslim and Christian symbols in a mordant display of secularism in the service of public hygiene—the sign is meant to deter those tempted to urinate against the wall; there is a forlorn plaster-ofParis Gandhi on an empty street,

exhibition, Meri Rail, which was first exhibited in India (National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai) in 2008 and is currently touring the UK. Victorian imperial ambition built the railways. But eventually India grew over the railways like a creeper vine until they took on a local hue. The railways were the harbingers of democracy, a journey on which there was a seat for everyone. Things have changed but the railways, especially in the isolated hill railway avatars, continue to be a constant.

Arguably, the railways were the greatest bequest to India by the British. “It was a symbol of everything that was good about the British. An engineering marvel, strong, reliable, honest, born of hard work and craftsmanship,” says Troyna. He adds nostalgically, “We’ve always been proud of our railways.” His words chime with those of the Times reviewer, who gave the documentary series a five-star rating, saying: “We Brits are soft on the railways”.

DVDs of the series are available on Troyna’s website www.gerrytroyna.com

his legs terminating in stumps instead of feet; and there is an Ambedkar statue, recognizable by the attire and the pose, with the whole upper half missing, as if neatly sliced off by a big knife.

While Gill’s images make themselves felt gradually, evoking very different lives and rhythms, Vilasini’s photos grab immediately—each a sharp, funny and depressing comment on the here and now.

“I frame the works,” Vilasini says, by which he means that he has captured sights he chanced upon and then framed and hung them, so to speak. “If I were to create this—the Gandhi statue, for instance—they would beat me up.” What, according to Krishnamachari, distinguishes the photos in the show from photojournalism is the photographers’ interest in the history behind each work. The context in Gill and Vilasini’s works, whether remote or immediate, points to both insight and empathy.

Docu Tour will be on display at Gallery BMB, Queens Mansion, GT Marg, Fort, Mumbai, from 5 July-7 August. For details log on to www.gallerybmb.com

CULTURE L17 SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

FILM

A debut takes flight B Y S ANJUKTA S HARMA sanjukta.s@livemint.com

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Boy story: (above) Rajat Barmecha as Rohan; with his stepbrother in a still from the film.

neer is considered an achievement, especially in smaller towns like Jamshedpur.”

Motwane has lived in Mumbai all his life. He began as a TV director and then entered films, working with director Sanjay Leela Bhansali on films such as Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam as assistant, and later associate, director. He met writer-director Anurag Kashyap while they were both working on Deepa Mehta’s Water. “His two films, Paanch and Black Friday, were in the cans without a distributor. I had given the script of Udaan to him to read. He said ‘Only I will produce it one day’. Six years later, after Dev.D was released, he called me,” Motwane says.

Motwane wrote the script when he was in his early 20s and

the coming of age theme was close to his heart: “I had read many books with that theme, Catcher in the Rye being one of them. But after watching Ken Loach’s Sweet Sixteen, I thought about writing the story seriously.”

The cruel father, with a few shades of grey of his own, was imagined, based on a real character Motwane had heard about, a role Roy perfected. It is the best performed role in the film.

The story was ready in the form of a screenplay by 2003 and was rejected by many producers and production companies before Kashyap took it up. Made with a production budget of Rs3 crore, Udaan is releasing in theatres in India, the UK, Australia and some parts of West Asia. UTV Motion Pictures, which is releasing the

film, is distributing more than 150 prints worldwide.

Motwane preferred to have two cuts. The India version is longer, with about 2 hours and 10 minutes of running time. For the US and Europe markets, Motwane has deleted an entire track in the film—an edgy sub-plot of Rohan’s friendship with a gang of boys who get high, get into brawls and laugh and cry talking about their sad, insignificant small town lives at the town’s seedy bar. “The shorter version is an entirely different film in mood and pace. It is more dark and relentless. I wanted to pull people into the two boys’ plight to a point from which it can only get better,” Motwane says.

The Super 16mm film medium works well for Udaan although that was dictated entirely by budget constraints. The slightly pixilated and raspy quality of the frames eliminates all possibilities of prettiness. The story stands tall.

“I wrote for two years and shot in real locations in Jamshedpur for two months. I think that will pay off,” says Motwane.

Udaan will release in theatres on 16 July.

Bangalore’s lore Not all Indian rock music apes the West; some reflect the struggles and spirit of the times B Y B IJOY V ENUGOPAL ···························· ometime back, an article in the Tehelka news magazine lamented that “original rock in India is still wandering around with its umbilical cord, trying to find some place to plug it in”. It is an old, familiar lament—rock music in India is unoriginal, elitist and disconnected from Indian traditions and realities.

In this context, here are some facts about Thermal And A Quarter (Taaq), the Bangalore-based band I have been associated with since it began playing at venues in India and overseas 15 years ago.

A thousand or so 30-something Bangaloreans might remember the date 24 July 1999. That day, Taaq performed at the Potatoe Junkie concert and hauled the city’s underground rock music movement to the surface. The theme song—its title inspired by former US vice-president Dan Quayle’s infamous spelling howler—sneered at the city’s

S

NANDINI RAMNATH

FIRST­MOVER ADVANTAGE

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A unique sensibility and a terrific team behind it make ‘Udaan’ deserving of laurels at home and abroad

···························· he steel town exudes a cold, industrial, oppressive energy in Vikramaditya Motwane’s debut film Udaan.

Seventeen-year-old Rohan (Rajat Barmecha) returns to Jamshedpur, his hometown, after being expelled from his boarding school in Shimla. He comes back to an abusive father (Ronit Roy), a factory owner, and a young stepbrother whose mother abandoned him and the father.

Most of the film is heartbreaking and dark—but eloquent—in the hands of a terrific team. Motwane, 33, was surprised when Udaan became the first Indian film in 15 years to be selected for a top competitive category, the Un Certain Regard, at the Cannes Festival this year. Most Western critics, however, were unmoved; some praised it with the lens of someone used to the “Bollywood” language. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: “It’s well made, involving, but (to my eyes at least) not particularly Indian.

This story could have been set anywhere; it doesn’t depend on location, but on personalities.”

He ended the short review by saying, “But India has one of the world’s largest middle classes, and its members spend little time riding around on elephants.”

Motwane says he was not surprised. “Only in India can people get it. It was not made with a Western audience in mind. Only here, and perhaps in some other Asian countries, it is outrageous to want to be a writer or anything creative. Being an engi-

STALL ORDER

growing obsession with cable television. The band played a 2-hour set consisting mostly of original songs and, after breaking even, donated Rs15,000 to a relief fund for the families of soldiers martyred during the Kargil war.

Cooperative efforts such as the Bangalore Music Strip and Freedom Jam had launched amateur bands in the 1980s, but the Potatoe Junkie concert marked the first time a single band executed—and profited from—original live music.

The only paying avenues at the time were collegiate festivals but organizers favoured cover bands (that is, bands that played existing popular songs). Meanwhile, some bands started performing intimate shows for small, appreciative audiences, playing original songs that dealt with local themes. Notable among them was the Sarjapur Blues Band, which inspired younger groups to find their nascent voice.

In 2000, with the dot-com bubble about to burst, Taaq released its debut album, Thermalandaquarter.com, which commented on the city’s obsession with information technology (IT)—everything had to be dot-commed to be cool (a barbershop in Lingarajapuram was called Haircut.com).

The songs in the album warned of changes in the erstwhile pensioner’s paradise. One of those

Rooted: Taaq’s Bruce Lee Mani (right) and Rajeev Rajagopal (on drums) with jazz guitarist Vinny Valentino in Jakarta.

Days fumed at peak-hour traffic snarls in a city where commuting used to be a breeze and Somebody’s Fool smirked at simple folks confused by big consumer brands that had landed like aliens in their backyards.

Released in 2002, Jupiter Café was arguably the first concept album by an Indian band, reflecting the angst of Bangalore, notorious as the back office of the world at the time. Brigade Street was perhaps the first song written about everybody’s favourite downtown haunt and State of Mine was about being pink-slipped. While composing for the album, the band jammed on the sixth floor of a well-known high-rise notorious for suicides. One evening, we looked out below to see the body of a woman, her wedding invitation cards scattered in the air.

That, along with reports of suicide

by IT workers, inspired the gloomy Without Wings.

In the album Plan B (2005),

the band members were frogs in a well, looking out. Among other things, the band toasted the Bangalorean’s ravenous appetite and deplored the metro-mania of an overzealous government that uprooted trees, stacked flyovers and dug up streets in the name of “development”.

City authorities clamped a ban on “live bands” in 2006, clubbing rock bands along with clandestine businesses such as dance bars. For three years, the band had few opportunities. Though they gigged across the country and abroad, they worried that Bangalore had no future. This sentiment was reflected in the title track of their fourth album This is It (2008).

There are more Bangalore stories in Taaq’s repertoire, and they will be told in albums to come.

Bijoy Venugopal is a biographer for Thermal And A Quarter.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

he worst possible thing that has been said about Mani Ratnam’s Raavan is that the movie is his Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag. Until Raavan, popular opinion held up Ratnam as one of the best mainstream directors in the country. Stars turned down other directors for a chance to work with him.

Cinematographers and production designers salivated at the prospect of being in the credits of a Mani Ratnam production. The Raavan misadventure has brought the director down from the stratosphere to earth. Raavan and its superior Tamil version Raavanan don’t even begin to compare with Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag, but this is the age of instant criticism and super-fast dismissals. Most critics and viewers turned their backs on Raavan faster than Abhishek Bachchan can make faces.

Ratnam isn’t the only veteran film-maker to be summarily dismissed in recent months. Directors are now only as good as their last movie, and must reinvent themselves over and over again with each new project. Anurag Basu’s reputation, built up bit by bit with such films as Gangster and Life…in a Metro, is in tatters after Kites crashed and burned at the box office.

Hindi cinema, like the sporting world, is brimming with impatience. Film-makers with history also carry baggage. It’s the age of the debutant directors, who represent freshness and the triumph of youthful achievement (some of them are well into their 30s, but never mind that). It’s the year of first-timers such as Ayan Mukherjee (Wake Up Sid), Abhishek Chaubey (Ishqiya), Parminder Sethi (Badmaash Company), Punit Malhotra (I Hate Luv Storys), Vikramaditya Motwane (Udaan), Abhishek Sharma (Tere Bin Laden), Anusha Rizvi (Peepli Live, releasing on 16 August), and Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat (scheduled to release later this year).

Candyfloss: I Hate Luv Storys is Punit Malhotra’s debut film.

The cult of the first-time director is especially seductive in a country where half the population is estimated to be under the age of 25. The national media often refers glowingly to “youth power”, which has the ability to influence everything from consumer behaviour to government policy. Bollywood is serious about young people who, it is assumed, have short attention spans, a lack of nostalgia, and purchasing power that seems resistant to the vagaries of inflation. The cocktail is not an easy one to swallow. How can you understand the psyche of a youth market that feeds on Roadies and Splitsvilla? Does anybody have the patience any more for a dreamscape of a movie such as Raavan?

Infinitely more interesting than the age of the film-maker is the subject matter of the debutant movie. Bollywood’s Young Turks have scored well in this respect. Films such as Wake Up Sid and Ishqiya are not anonymous studio products, but retain the individual stamp of their directors. Tere Bin Laden, Udaan, Peepli Live and Dhobi Ghat have offbeat subjects that reveal a desire to swim against the mainstream and test the ability of audiences to embrace new ideas.

The media loves newness, but does the paying public really care? First-time film-makers are celebrated as rebels who have managed to tear down walls and leap over obstacles to achieve the first expression of their creativity. Their only record is of having slogged as assistant directors or scraped their knuckles on the doors of producers’ offices. However, experience is needed to understand what today’s diverse audiences are willing to shell out money for. It takes youthful guts to break into Bollywood. It takes a few grey hairs to make a movie that works at the box office. The biggest hits in recent months have been by accomplished film-makers, such as Rajkumar Hirani’s 3 Idiots, which charmed almost everybody from preschoolers to grandmothers, and Prakash Jha’s Raajneeti, which tapped into a national obsession with, and cynicism about, Indian politics.

I Hate Luv Storys released on Friday. Udaan and Tere Bin Laden will release on 16 July.

Nandini Ramnath is a film critic with Time Out Mumbai (www.timeoutmumbai.net).

Write to Nandini at stallorder@livemint.com

L18 FLAVOURS SATURDAY, JULY 3, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

Citrus central: (clockwise from above) A banta seller near Delhi University; the chemical flavouring agent responsible for the taste; and a bottling machine in operation.

DELHI’S BELLY | ANUJA & KRISH RAGHAV

Pop culture Delhi’s ‘banta’ lemon soda has a history as effervescent as the drink—with a curious contribution to the freedom struggle

E

xamine the bottles on display at any of Delhi’s banta shops and you’ll see evidence of a remarkable panDelhi operation.

Banta is the colloquial term for a peculiar kind of lemon soda sold in the city—packed in distinctive, green-tinged, Coddneck bottles locked in place by a marble, and embellished with ice of dubious origin and generous quantities of black salt.

Banta stalls are a common sight in Delhi’s suburbs—an operation consisting of lines of bottles with lemons perched on them, a thermocol icebox and a crate of glass tumblers. They are priced between Rs5 and Rs20, and a well-placed stall near a Metro station can sell up to 70-80 bottles in a day.

At one such stall on Chhatra Marg, in the Delhi University campus, many of the bottles come from a one-room bottling operation located deep inside the north Delhi colony of Vijay Nagar. Some come from a similar outfit buried inside a warren of flats in Mehrauli, in south Delhi.

Others come from Anmol Lemon, which flanks a row of hardware shops on Bhogal’s Masjid Road, near Nizamuddin.

The banta supply chain, so to speak, supports a number of interconnected cottage industries.

The story starts, strangely enough, in London in 1872. That year, a British engineer named Hiram Codd patented a kind of bottle designed specially for lemonade and other fizzy drinks. The bottle dispensed with the need for a

cork or cap by enclosing a marble in the bottleneck. The effervescence generated by the fizzy drink forced the marble up the neck, locking it against a rubber gasket to form an effective seal. Opening the bottle, a remarkably satisfying process, involves pressing down on the marble, which releases a jet of soda and liquid (like a cartoon whale in fast-forward) and a sound like an implosion.

The Codd bottle (considered an improvement over the bowling pin-shaped “Hamilton” bottle, which tended to slip easily and roll off surfaces) became standard across the British empire. These bottles, prized as collector items, can now be found only in two places—in India, for banta, and in Japan, for a curiously similar lemon drink called Ramune.

All of India’s Codd-neck bottles come from a single factory in Sasni, Uttar Pradesh—Khandelwal Glass Works Ltd. “We’ve been making Codd bottles since 1981,” says managing director Sanjay Jain. “There was one other factory back then, Mahalakshmi Glass Works in Hyderabad, whom we competed with—but they stopped a few years ago.” The company supplies mainly to Delhi, Punjab and UP for banta and the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh for panneer soda, a local variant flavoured with rose essence.

“Because of Pepsi and Coke, our business is going down,” Jain admits glumly. At its peak in the 1990s, the factory shipped around 100,000 bags per annum (a bag

consists of 75 bottles). That figure has now dropped precipitously, to “less than half”. “Our raw material is costly, and making the bottles is challenging. They cost much more than your ordinary soda bottles,” he says.

A single Codd bottle retails for Rs12 in Delhi, compared with an average of Rs3 for an ordinary bottle. Why, then, are the banta bottles still favoured? Jain’s answer is strange. “These bottles are iconic. They may not be for ‘hi-fi’ people who go to malls—but the common people identify with this. It’s more natural, more fizzy, more refreshing.”

The focal point for the distribution of these bottles in Delhi is a street behind Novelty cinema, near the Old Delhi Railway Station. A row of baking goods suppliers line this narrow stretch, a path fraught with loose construction material and a snaky queue of cars attempting

to make an exit. We visited Thakur Bros., which sells the two vital elements of banta production—the Codd bottles, and an enigmatic chemical flavouring agent simply called Lemon No. 1.

“This (flavouring agent) is used in a lot of places, from ice creams to pharmaceuticals,” says proprietor Manish Thakur. Manufactured by International Flavours and Fragrances (IFF), a multinational corporation with annual revenue of around $2 billion (around Rs9,200 crore), a 500ml bottle costs Rs283, and can flavour around 150 crates of 24 banta bottles each. “We do about Rs50 lakh worth of business per annum with this product,” he says.

Thakur also offers a more reasonable explanation for the Codd bottles’ continued popularity.

“It’s almost a culture, in a way. It’s an established chain that

has lasted for very long.” His family, which moved from Multan in Pakistan to Delhi after Partition, used to sell banta in Old Delhi in the 1950s—made on soda-making machinery mounted on horse-drawn carriages.

About 100 or so single-room bottling operations located throughout the city buy the bottles and essence from here. Most are not the epitome of hygiene and cleanliness. Oberoi Lemon, located deep within the bylanes of Vijay Nagar, hides behind a set of rusty double doors next to a small department store.

There’s a man in semi-naked repose on a charpai (bed) near the entrance, barking supply orders into his mobile.

Sacks of sugar are lined against the wall like sandbags, framing two large vats in the centre of the room. A transistor is placed precariously on an upturned bucket, and blares old Hindi songs.

Towards the back, oxygen cylinders are propped against racks of Codd bottles, and the bottling machine is consigned to a small corner flanked by a black Sintex tank. “We take a Rs500 deposit from every banta seller to deliver a crate of 24 bottles. We collect them in the evening, clean and refill them, and deliver them again in the morning,” says caretaker Shubhkaran.

The vats are filled with sugar syrup, and a 50ml measuring cup is filled with a combination of Lemon No.1 and sugar, and poured into

each bottle. There’s no exact science to this measurement, which is probably why each bottle of banta tastes slightly different.

The bottles are then placed in the bottling machine, which resembles a cross-section of a valve, covered with a perforated metal sheet. There’s a pleasingly steampunk wooden handle on top, which feeds the bottle with soda, and flips it around once, locking the marble in place.

Every morning, around 9, Shubhkaran and his crew load the crates of refilled bottles into a tempo and take them to the shops. The shops themselves are indifferent to how this chain operates, and merely fork out the cash to get their bottles. Not many are interested in scaling up.

Among the few to take supply chain matters into their own hands is the famous Ved Prakash Lemon Wale in Chandni Chowk.

At a little hole in the wall near Town Hall, co-owner Chand Behari runs his own bottling and refilling operation, which keeps his incredibly popular retail operation well stocked.

At 4pm on a Friday, there’s a healthy crowd milling around his shop. “You got me at a good time,” says Chand Behari, handing out bottles of banta to the unending queue of customers.

His hands seem to move of their own accord—picking out a bottle, opening it, adding black salt, handing it over, and placing the money in a metal box—as he speaks. “It’s just rained, so the crowd isn’t all that much.”

Behari is the closest one can get to an expert on the history of banta—his family, he says, has sold lemon-based drinks in various forms since the 1870s. “Back then, it was sherbet in earthen pots. “Our shop,” he gestures grandly, “was much larger.”

Behari says the Codd bottles were used since the early 1900s, when they were shipped from England. Local manufacturing facilities took over after independence, with factories in Ahmedabad supplying Codd bottles nationally. His shop does brisk business, shifting around 100 crates of banta every day, and the drink’s popularity, he says, will “not go away”. “What’s more refreshing (and inexpensive) on a hot summer day, I ask you?” he says.

Behari is a fount of banta trivia, and he says the drink has survived much worse in its long history. Case in point, his fascinating story of how banta contributed to the freedom struggle. “The bottles were actually banned sometime before 1947 in many cities,” he says.

“Rioters and protestors used to put chuna (calcium hydroxide) in them and used them as improvised cannons.” anuja@livemint.com