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Saturday, June 11, 2011
Vol. 5 No. 24
LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE Goguha (right), a ragpicker, is being trained as a housekeeper at a placement agency in New Delhi.
JELLY FEET >Page 7
‘SUPPLEMENTS ARE A BIG NO’
Why your teen’s sudden weight loss should worry you and why exercise is a must >Page 6
Middleclass India now wants the groomed domestic help, earlier confined to the households of wealthy expats and Indians—and a burgeoning home service staff industry is building up the supply >Pages 911
Domestic revolutions REPLY TO ALL
PIECE OF CAKE
AAKAR PATEL
IDENTIFY THE CLICHÉ FROM THE OBJECT
C
lichés communicate complex ideas in a word or two. Some are about an event, such as the Arabic word hijra. It refers to Prophet Muhammad’s flight from Mecca. Urdu poets use it for separation or for exile, and Indians in Karachi call themselves Muhajirs (those who fled). Some clichés are about people. Draconian refers to laws that are oppressive. The word comes from the Athenian lawgiver Draco, who had a fondness for the death penalty. A pyrrhic victory is one like those achieved by Greek-Macedon... >Page 4
PAMELA TIMMS
GO DUTCH ON THIS ONE
Q
uick, grab the hankies, it’s going to be a weepie. Today marks the end of a particularly wonderful period of my life in India: After five years, my great friend Laura is leaving Delhi to return to her home in the Netherlands. As well as a friend, Laura has also been a co-conspirator in a plan to convert Delhiites to the delights of pukka afternoon tea. Two years ago we launched Uparwali Chai and about... >Page 5
DETOURS
SALIL TRIPATHI
THE INCONVENIENT SURNAME
How two writers, unfamiliar with the chaotic ways of the film industry, navigated it and found success >Page 16
THE URDUWALLAHS
Urdu newspapers, which were once crucial to Mumbai’s antiimperial past, continue to see themselves as the voice of a people >Page 18
DON’T MISS
in today’s edition of
THE TOWERS OF THE MIDWEST
W
riting about the Arabian Sea, my friend Ajay once wrote in a story during our college years that horizon was the place where the sky became the sea. From the eyrie of the 95th floor of the John Hancock Centre in Chicago one recent evening, the horizon took a different meaning for us: where the clouds blended with the lake, and you couldn’t tell where the clouds ended, where the lake began, and where they touched the sky. The lake was... >Page 13
FILM REVIEW
SHAITAN