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Saturday, December 24, 2011

Vol. 5 No. 52

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

SLOW DOWN MAKE 2012

LAST LONGER

BUILD A CLASSIC WARDROBE >Page 17

Get off the fast track. Clean up, refresh, embark on a journey or a project. Create a memory. Pick from our 50 ways to stretch time. MAKE A SCENT

Perfumemaking stands at the crossroads of art and apothecary. Learn how to create your signature perfume >Page 14

GET SOME ROCK

Rock climbing is a pensive and personal sport. The ground is our comfort zone, to take the first step up a wall is to walk past fear >Page 18

FIND YOUR WAY BACK HOME

The Eastern and Orien tal Express runs from Singapore to Bangkok, allowing a stunning view of the Kwai river from its observation deck.

A firsthand account of personal journeys, including one in which the writer traces his grandmother’s roots to her village in Bangladesh >Page 21

THE GOOD LIFE

LUXURY CULT

SHOBA NARAYAN

WHEN YOUR FOOD SINGS TO YOU

REPLY TO ALL

RADHA CHADHA

THE SHARED FAMILY WISH LIST

AAKAR PATEL

DON’T MISS

in today’s edition of

CULTIVATE A PASSION, LEARN TO LIVE

FILM REVIEW

DON 2

HOME PAGE L3

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

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (EXECUTIVE EDITOR)

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

THE ART OF HAPPINESS A

ncient civilizations such as the Mayan and the Incan believed that time was a circle, or a spiral. Far removed from our linear understanding of time, their sense of time was cyclical. The same events would happen over and over again. They could pause and stand in time. In Quechua, the most widely spoken language family of those native to South America, there is no way of saying you’re “running out of time”. You, on the other hand, don’t have the time for “this phone call”, “this argument”, and that piece of instrumental music that doesn’t climax till 11.52 minutes. It goes without saying that planning a sea voyage or taking up a sport that requires you to do more than lift weights—that category of “time-consuming” activities—are ruled out. If Mint’s readership surveys are right, we have you pinned down as an uber successful professional or entrepreneur who has, or will, travel the world. You’re on your second set of wheels already and paying back an ambitious house loan. You stop for nothing. So what did you do this year with all the time you saved not doing the things you wanted to do? Apart from those who celebrated or suffered personal milestones—first jobs, marriage, baby, divorce, the death of someone close—what will the rest of you remember 2011 for? What this issue says is, quit living life in bits and snatches. Quit the maddening mission to “save time”. You’re not running out of anything. You have the philosophy of Jean Cocteau as testimony: “Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.” Make your moments count. You can pause and stand in time too. You can stretch time, get more bang for your buck from 2012 if you purge the quick-fixes to take up the long-form: Get down to finishing that entire series of Alan Moore comics you ordered off Amazon but didn’t unwrap, start on your film queue of the 10 sexiest biopics of all time. Speaking at the Penguin Annual Lecture in New Delhi earlier this month, the Dalai Lama made the distinction between happiness at the Infinite time: An Aztec stone clock of spirals. sensory level and happiness at the level of mental consciousness. The Art of Happiness, he said, lay in understanding the latter: an all-encompassing happiness that stems from a calmness of mind. Beautiful things, good food and wine, all the sensory delights of the world, do bring joy, but they bring a joy that is short-lived; a joy that comes crumbling down with the slightest touch. The goal is to build a more lasting happiness—a warm home, a tightly bound family, a truly healthy body, knowledge, art, and dreams that will stay with you. Slowing down doesn’t mean going on a month-long meditative retreat. It means really living the moments in 2012. What this issue says is, take a deep breath. Slow down. Ditch the quickie. Make 2012 the year you make love. Anindita Ghose Issue editor

LOUNGE LOVES | THESTIFFCOLLAR.COM

Roll up your sleeves This portal has what the welldressed man is wearing

n the final reckoning, it might have been the name that did it. I buy a lot online—books, music, comics, T-shirts, stamps (once), iPods (twice)—but until recently, I had never bought a formal shirt on the Web. It all began when two people from a top audit firm came to meet me—to discuss a study their firm was working on that they thought might be of interest to Mint (it was, but that’s another story and one that has already appeared in Mint). In the course of the discussion, which was about private equity and venture capital, we got around to talking about the dot-com and e-commerce bubble that would appear to be building up. I shared a story about how a venture capitalist I had known in an earlier life contacted me—out of the blue—and sought a meeting. I thought it would be good to see the person again after almost a decade, but it wasn’t, as I quickly learned, a courtesy call. The venture capitalist had come to the point 2 minutes into the meeting—an offer of $5 million, or around `26 crore (and a promise that no questions would be asked for two years), to start the Indian equivalent of The Huffington Post. I laughed him out of my room.

LOUNGE REVIEW | BLUEFROG NEW DELHI

usic composers Dhruv Ghanekar and Ashutosh Phatak, film-makers Mahesh Mathai and Srila Chatterjee, and former investment banker Simran Mulchandani played a wild card when they opened blueFROG in Mumbai in 2007. It revolutionized the city’s indoor live music scene, hosting greats ranging from Zakir Hussain to the Austrian beatboxing group Bauchklang, while also providing a platform to up and coming performers. It was only a matter of time before a second edition was due. BlueFROG New Delhi, which opened on Thursday, is situated in a 100-year-old sarai (traveller’s inn), overlooking the Qutab Minar. It is a 6,000 sq. ft space with a seating capacity of around 100 in 13 pod-like enclosures and a standing capacity of 600-700.

We tried the Corn and Tofu Cakes, Crumb Fried Mushrooms, Shotgun Chicken and Kerala Calamari appetizers while the kitchen was on a test-run and came away impressed. The cocktails are inventive too. Get Fresh (vodka with fresh watermelon juice and a dash of kaffir lime) is wickedly flirty.

The notsogood

The square footage of both the Mumbai and Delhi venues is pegged at 6,000 sq. ft, which seems misleading: The Delhi space appears decidedly smaller (not necessarily a bad thing) but organizers insist it is, in fact, larger. BlueFROG New Delhi lacks the lavish, high-ceiling vibe of the Mumbai space, which almost emulates a modern opera (it’s hard not to draw comparisons with a second edition). The good Mathai does quell the floatBlueFROG New Delhi will have Music rings: A view of one of the 13 sitting pods. ing rumours of blueFROG New the music aficionado blow a trumpet. The fine-dining has been delight, with the sarai ruins beautifully D e l h i h a v i n g a “ s e p a r a t e V I P segregated to an outdoor area called restored by Serie Architects (London/ entrance”. “Absolutely not,” he says, The Courtyard. Drinks and “one- Mumbai), who were also responsible while adding that there are VIP hand food” will be served inside, for blueFROG Mumbai’s metamor- group tables— a special for flash-obphosis from a century-old mill com- sessed New Delhi—which can be says Mathai. booked for a minimum charge. BotThis is a blessing: Infected Mush- pound to a plush concert venue. BlueFROG New Delhi will run live t l e s e r v i c e c h a r g e s w i l l d i f f e r room goes down better on the palate without an extra helping of garlic but- music six nights a week (Mondays depending on the gig but start at ter. Or the clinking of champagne closed), with international artistes feat- `20,000-30,000 for 10 people for a uring regularly. There won’t be giant pod with dedicated butlers. flutes at the next table, thank you. Mathai says this resulted from leaps in terms of the programming. feedback over the years. “In Mum- But while genres have ranged from Talk plastic bai, we tried to address this gnawing jazz, Blues, funk, soul and Afro/Latin Entrance is free before 9pm. After that i s s u e b y s p a c i n g t a b l e s e a t i n g to electronic club rock folk and more, you pay `300. Cocktails are priced (8.30pm) with the gigs (10pm), but it the Delhi space will open its doors to from `500-600. Appetizers, `300-550. Indian folk music and dance on the was still not right.” BlueFROG, The Kila, Seven Style Mile, The sound design—by Soundwizard open-air terrace starting February. Executive chef Mrigank Singh, who Mehrauli, New Delhi. from Auroville, with equipment from German audio giants d&b audiotech- has moved here from Mumbai, Visit www.bluefrog.co.in nik—is an upgrade from the Mumbai describes his food as “Modern Eurovenue as well. The space is a design pean with underlying Asian textures”. Anindita Ghose ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: IAN LLOYD/ORIENTEXPRESS.COM

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS: In “What’s your millet mojo?”, 10 December, the food security Bill referred to was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 22 December.

For the record, I am not a big fan of HuffPo. I believe its model of “curated” content is based on edgy attribution practices. True curation would involve a site such as Brainpickings.org, but I am digressing... One of the audit executives had a tale of his own—not as interesting as mine, though—about how he had bought formal shirts online. He claimed the shirts were “nice”. I asked for the name of the website. “Thestiffcollar.com,” he said. It was the name that did it. There’s something interesting about a website devoted to shirts called The Stiff Collar. I typed in the URL. And realized there was something even more interesting about a website selling shirts that uses references to shirts (and collars), both lateral and linear, from

books such as The Great Gatsby and Saint Joan of the Stockyards. Without much ado, I bought two shirts—a nice blue gingham and a plain white—for the modest sum of `1,700. The shirts arrived a day later. In some fancy packing. The cut of both shirts was magnificent: cutaway collars, split yokes, a slim fit, and gussets (now, when was the last time you saw those on a shirt?). The only complaint I had—one which dawned on me after I had worn each shirt twice—concerned the collar stays. The Stiff Collar used stays made from cheap plastic. In a rare burst of energy and activism I wrote to the company. Three days later, I received a handwritten note thanking me for my feedback and assuring me that the company would look into it. A pair of stainless steel collar stays were enclosed—for my trouble. That may just make me give the website some more business. PS: In the weeks since my purchase, The Stiff Collar has expanded its range to include shirts with French cuffs, plus sizes, and paunch fits. I still think the range within each category (16 full-sleeve shirts; three ones with French cuffs; etc.) is a bit limited, which could result in embarrassing situations such as everyone in the room wearing the same shirt (if the website were to become a roaring success), but hopefully, it won’t come to that. R. Sukumar R. Sukumar is editor, Mint.

L4 COLUMNS

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

HAVEL, KURAN AND THE ARAB SPRING V

áclav Havel once gave us a beautiful parable to explain the fragile nature of political power when it is challenged by those living in truth. It is worth retelling at the very end of a year that saw ordinary people take to the streets—from Cairo to Moscow—to rattle some of the most brutal regimes in the world. The parable concerns a shopkeeper in Communist Prague who has bought his peace from a repressive regime by putting up a poster in his shop window announcing the mandatory proletarian solidarity: “Workers of the world unite!” He puts up the sign because it has been done that way for years, because everyone does it, NIRANJAN and because that RAJADHYAKSHA is the way it has ESSAY to be. Most importantly, he does not want to get into trouble. The shopkeeper lies. He pretends to be a loyal subject. One day, something snaps within him. He no longer wants to play the game. He is punished by the regime for deciding to live in truth. Havel, the playwright, political thinker and politician, who died on 18 December at the age of 75, wrote about the shopkeeper in a powerful essay, The Power of the Powerless, published in 1978. That was 10 years after Soviet tanks rolled into the city to extinguish the

Prague Spring and one year after dissident Czechoslovakian intellectuals had written Charter 77 in defence of civil liberties. The Communist system was ossified but stable. Few thought it was around a decade away from spectacular collapse. Havel argued that both the obedience of the citizen and the power of the Communist bureaucracy were shallow: “The sign helps the greengrocer to conceal from himself the low foundations of his obedience, at the same time concealing the low foundations of power.” Havel emerged as one of the heroes of the Velvet Revolution that toppled the Communist system in East Europe in 1989. Too many people had stopped putting up the official posters in their windows, as a wave of hope washed over public cynicism. People stopped believing in The Big Lie. Twenty-two years later, a young Tunisian street vendor could no longer bear the daily humiliations of a corrupt system. Mohamed Bouazizi, 26, set himself on fire outside a government building. That was the spark that lit the prairie fire that we now call the Arab Spring. The revolt of one powerless man led to the eventual overthrow of dictators such as Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Tahrir Square in Cairo continues to simmer. Havel helps us understand why repressed societies that seem calm OZIER MUHAMMAD/THE NEW YORK TIMES

on the outside suddenly see an explosion of the power of the powerless. He also argues in favour of putting morality above politics. “I think the moral order stands above the legal, political and economic orders, and that these latter orders should derive from the former, and not be techniques for getting around these imperatives,” he wrote in his memoirs. Author and former Lounge reviewer Chandrahas Choudhury had pointed out in his blog a few years ago that these views “closely resemble the thoughts of Gandhi, who, like Havel, sought to restore the spiritual and ethical dimension in politics, and whose thought, like that of Havel, achieved an extraordinary balance of idealism and realism”. This year provided yet another reminder of the fact that systems

based on lies and fear can suddenly collapse, be it East Europe in 1989 or the Arab region in 2011. The process has been explained in terms very similar to Havel’s by one of the most interesting economic thinkers of recent times. Timur Kuran is a Turkish economist who has done stellar work on how individuals do not reveal their true preferences but prefer to act in ways that are socially acceptable. The title of his most famous book, Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification, brings back memories of the greengrocer in Prague, who had private truths but preferred to tell public lies. Economist Tyler Cowen believes it is one of the best economics books of the last 20 years. Such “preference falsification” JOHN MOORE/GETTY IMAGES

has profound implications for society. An individual sending out a false signal about his true preferences makes it more difficult for others to also speak the truth. It gives rulers a false sense of security. But Kuran shows that there are moments when there are sudden flips of opinion that can never be predicted. One man stands up in protest, then 10 more, then 100, and soon thousands. These are part of what Kuran and Cass Sunstein have called availability cascades: a chain reaction that feeds on itself. At the end of this cascade are very often the ruins of an old regime. Kuran argues that revolutions can never be predicted. A tame herd can suddenly run wild. But his work does offer us one clue about what can enable a sudden change in public opinion: information. Availability cascades are based on information. It is not a surprise that social media has played such a central role in protests that have rocked autocracies. Even China has been struggling to keep its growing online citizenship under control. Information can travel fast these days, and not even censors in Beijing, leave alone Union minister Kapil Sibal, can control its flow. This year showed us that political regimes based on fear can be misled by their own citizens, who lie to them about their obedience. But then there comes an inexplicable moment when the lies wither away. People choose to live in truth. Havel wrote: “By breaking the rules of the game, he (the greengrocer) has disrupted the game as such. He has exposed it as a mere game. He has shattered the world of appearances, the fundamental pillar of the system. He has upset the power structure by tearing apart what holds it together. He has demonstrated that living a lie is living a lie. He has broken through the exalted façade of the system and exposed the real, base foundation of power. He has said that the emperor is naked.” Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is executive editor, Mint. niranjan.r@livemint.com MUHAMMED MUHEISEN/AP

Year of the protester: (clockwise from right) An antigovernment protest in Yemen in March; Václav Havel emerged as one of the heroes of the Velvet Revolution that toppled the Communist system in East Europe in 1989; and Libyan rebels pushing back government troops near Ras Lanuf in March.

L6 COLUMNS

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

WHEN YOUR FOOD SINGS TO YOU A MAURICE ROUGEMONT/GAMMARAPHO/GETTY IMAGES

s we are introduced, Paul Pontallier, the legendary winemaker of Château Margaux, takes my hand, bends down…and kisses it—exactly like Elaine Sciolino describes in her book, La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life. I walk in prickly (more about that later) but by the time Pontallier releases my hand, I am charmed. We are at The Leela Palace Bangalore to enjoy an evening of exceptional food and wine. Chef Alain Passard, who shocked the French establishment a decade ago by turning his three Michelin-star restaurant into a vegetarian’s paradise, has been flown down to offer a five-course, sit-down dinner with paired Margaux wines. Planning a pilgrimage to L’Arpège was on the bucket list of this lifelong vegetarian. Now, the mountain has come to Mohammed. I can hardly wait. A foodie friend has put together tables. Each of us has paid `15,000 for the evening—just for the chef and his food, not the wines, which are sponsored by Margaux, SHOBA NARAYAN Château we are told. Will it THE GOOD LIFE be worth it? Slow food and great wine: This is my recipe for what philosopher Robert Nozick calls “The Examined Life”. Like most idealistic notions, this too is easier said than done. Great wine is easy if you live in France or California, US, but not so in India. Accessing grand cru wines involves frequent trips abroad; and a fair amount of smuggling, thanks to our crippling wine taxes. So why are the Margaux people here, throwing dinners in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore? The short—and sceptic’s—answer would be: to drive up prices. With a finite supply, they have to somehow increase demand for their subtle “feminine” wines. They hope to repeat with India what happened with China’s huge (and very lucrative) appetite for Bordeaux first-growths, especially since recession hit the US, turning its buyers away. Today, the Bordeaux wineries avidly court China’s purchasing power. Yet, there is a whiff of snobbishness. Château

Beychevelle’s owner has said that the Chinese buy his wine because his logo looks like a dragon boat. Others talk about the Chinese buying only “show-off wines” without caring about vintages. The Chinese are “trophy chasers”, snickers one collector in an amusing blog called Grapewallofchina.com. They mix lemonade with fine clarets, worry winemakers. The Chinese have the money but what do they know about wine, is the general sentiment. Here’s why I am prickly: Are the French saying the same thing about Indian wine aficionados? We too, after all, are a young, immature wine market. The French may be happy to sell to us but do they respect our palate? Do we respect our palate? The food that evening gives me the answer. Alain Passard has a 2-hectare kitchen garden in France where he grows organic vegetables without the use of machinery. This is a man who reveres local, seasonal, organic food: a concept that has been embraced by every big Western chef. Dan Barber of Blue Hill Farm has taken the idea of farm-to-table quite literally by situating his award-winning restaurant inside his farm. Parisian star-chefs Eric Briffard, Pierre Gagnaire, Pascal Barbot and Sylvain Sendra, all work with a former boxer-turned-farmer, Asafumi Yamashita, who grows uber-pricey vegetables at his farm outside Paris. Yamashita has struck restaurants off his client list because the chefs didn’t treat his micro tomatoes, kabu turnips and tender spinach well. In Seattle and Portland, restaurants list the name of the farmer on the menu, as in “Farmer Dan’s russet potatoes mashed with garlic”. That may sound cutesy, but it is a nod to the person who produces the food on our plate. Passard is one such chef. I had high hopes of him. But that night, he served us middling food. The first course was some root vegetables coated in Himalayan honey and candied lemon. I liked it, but my table-mate—a south Indian foodie who rides around on his Harley-Davidson and BMW motorbikes—didn’t. The second course had tomatoes in a blackberry

As fresh as it gets: Chef Alain Passard has a kitchen garden in France. sauce. Not life-altering fresh tomatoes, the kind that you find in the Hamptons in summer, but passable ones. The third course was red roasted onion stuffed with a hibiscus, red carrot and orange mousseline. Chef Madhu Krishnan of the ITC Gardenia, who was at our table, thought it marvellous. Simplicity personified, but hard to get right, she said. It was downhill after that. The celery risotto with black Périgord truffles was stale, with nary a scent of truffles. When we dug into dessert, an avocado soufflé with undercooked pistachio and chocolate, my table-mate said, “Is this a joke?” All through the evening, chef Passard came around the tables and

socialized with the guests. He is a compact, genial man with an easy smile and a musician’s twinkle—he is the son of musicians. Passard was my big culinary hope. As a vegetarian, I cannot hope to enjoy Réne Redzepi’s food at Noma—in Copenhagen, Denmark—now the world’s top restaurant. I have hung out inside chef Daniel Boulud’s kitchen in New York and know the care that chefs lavish on game, meat and seafood. Here, finally, was a chef who channelled that care and energy into vegetables, I thought. I was so eager to eat Passard’s food and have it sing to me. It didn’t. The Margaux team may have wanted to woo us Indians, but the chef didn’t try too hard and it

showed. I got the feeling we were condescended to. So I have a message for Paul Pontallier: Come again to India with your subtle, amazing wines; but next time, dignify our palates by choosing a local chef for the meal. You’ll be surprised and so will we. As for chef Passard: Perhaps his cuisine only sings in La Paris. I may still have to make that trek to L’Arpège. I may not get a reservation after this account. Slow food; great wine. As ideas go, this one is very seductive. Evolved cities like Vancouver, Oslo and New York manage to do this by growing vegetables on small plots of land in the middle of the city—somewhat akin to growing bhindi (okra) in a corner of Lodhi Garden, or growing tomatoes in Jogger’s Park. Is such local, seasonal and organic food possible in India? Yes, of course. But such an effort would make even Carlo Petrini, founder of the Slow Food movement, throw up his hands in theatrical despair. Organic vegetables are available in India today but not widely. I have been ordering such vegetables from Adi Naturals in Bangalore through an Internet portal called Pristine Nature. They deliver weekly at my home. The prices are high but I bargained for that. Their quality is iffy and I am not sure they are organic. Local grains are also gaining ground, thanks to awareness and publicity (Lounge did a cover on such grains two weeks ago). I eat jowar rotis once a month, I buy unpolished rice and have made ragi mudde from millets at home. All through Indian cities are vacant plots of land waiting for vegetable gardens. City dwellers with a green thumb can turn these into something amazing. Dairy farmers thrive in our cities. So yes, slow food is possible in India; but it’s not easy. Great wine in that sense is easier. Shoba Narayan wonders if a woman can kiss a man’s hand; and why we don’t. Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shobanarayan

DEAR SANTA, CHISELLED ABS FOR THE FAMILY PLEASE L THINKSTOCK

ose 5kg. Get to the gym at least four times a week. Definitely join a yoga class. We were tossing around the same old New Year resolutions that we did every year, a harmless enough last-week-of-the-year activity, until our daughter, who was then 6, piped up and said we should have a “family resolution”. We paused, wondering how to explain to her the unspoken script surrounding New Year resolutions: Make promises with gusto, forget them a week later. We asked instead what she would like it to be. It has been a decade and a half, but I can still remember the moment. “We RADHA CHADHA should be a LUXURY CULT joy-giving family,” she announced, lisping slightly through two missing front teeth. Hmm. This was much more than we had bargained for. And while our brains nervously tried to process how we might turn into a “joy-giving family”, she wrote out the words firmly with pink felt pen, drew a few purple stars around it, and so it was settled. I am not sure if we have lived up to this lofty motto—the first year was relatively easy, we had to say more “please”, “thank you” and “sorry”, and she had to fight less with her brother, who was then 10—but it did start an annual family ritual that we have never missed. In fact, as the children grew

older, our New Year resolution meetings expanded in scope to include wide-ranging personal goals like “have chiselled abs before leaving for college” or “finish first draft of the book” or “buy an apartment by July”. One thing, however, has remained constant—our daughter leads the meeting every year. That’s what makes it fun, and more importantly, that’s what makes it stick. Explaining to a seven-year-old (or even a 21-year-old) why you couldn’t accomplish your goal in 12 full months is not easy! Usually over a glass of wine, or dinner at a nice restaurant (the “chiselled abs” goal was written on the Christmas menu of our favourite restaurant, squeezed in between “tartar of salmon” and “risotto with lime and black caviar”) or tucked under a quilt in bed, or even a conference call now that the family is spread across different cities, we go over a well-rehearsed three-step format. The first part is about savouring highlights of the year that was— learnt a new language, celebrated a landmark birthday, landed a first job, as also, sadly, the passing of a loved one, or dealing with a difficult disease—the usual pixels that make up lives, you list them out on paper, and suddenly you realize what a colourful year it has been. The next part is scary, taking stock of how we have fared against last year’s goals,

Quality time: Make your New Year resolutions with the entire family. usually a mixed bag of sheepish explanations and real achievements. And finally, making New Year resolutions, typically two or three personal objectives, and one or two for the family as a whole. And yes, some version of “lose 5kg” and “get chiselled abs” never fails to make the list. Has this annual stocktaking and goal-setting exercise made a difference to our lives? It started in jest with zero expectations but as I look back over the years I have to say it has become a powerful tradition that we cherish. Firstly, just the act of sitting down together as a family to pause and

reflect, to engage in each other’s lives, to share and support personal dreams, that’s enough in itself. You put that in the context of the busy, Internet-speed, multi-city, multitasking, never-ending-job-list family lives of today, and just taking a break from that and spending a couple of hours talking about something meaningful is a luxury. Secondly, silly as it may sound, I believe wishful thinking has a way of coming true. Just shifting gears from “what we are doing” to “what we’d really like to do” has some effect. They are simple enough wishes. Join a pottery class. Be a better parent. Get more As. Practise

piano. Quit job. Start business. Travel less. Listen more. Fight no more than twice a week. Spend less time in the shower. Make a new friend. Learn to focus. Write every morning. And, of course, lose 5kg. Get chiselled abs. I suppose it is a bit like corporate life where you set annual goals and track performance against them. This is the fun family edition of it, where instead of an exacting boss who expects you to deliver on the numbers, we have the youngest in the family presiding over it. As the last week of the year approaches, I have butterflies in my tummy. It has been a particularly hard year on several fronts, and I am curious to know how we have fared vis-à-vis the goals we set. I know I have more misses than hits. Ironically, the one goal I have accomplished this year is—you guessed it—lose 5kg.

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

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

CULTIVATE A PASSION, LEARN TO LIVE HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

know of three men who lived in the manner of their choosing. First was Socrates, who spent his days on the streets of Athens ambushing passers-by with seemingly simple questions. Like Ghalib, he loved argument. This was not to score a victory over another, it wasn’t a debate in that sense, but to try and bring understanding, to learn. Importantly, he also wanted to spread his spirit of inquiry. The aristocrats and upper-class youth loved him (it was a middle-class Athenian jury that put him to death). Socrates wrote nothing, but his disciple Plato gave us his teaching. The second man was Michel de Montaigne, who lived near Bordeaux. On 28 February 1571, his 38th birthday, Montaigne retired from work. He spent the day at home with his library of Greek and Latin classics. He wrote. He invented the modern essay, a short sketch on an arbitrary subject, such as the one you’re reading. He wrote 107 of them on cannibals, on cuckolds, and on smells. The third man is Shashikant Sawant, who lives in Vashi with his dog, a stray named Mozart. AAKAR PATEL He sells REPLY TO ALL second-hand books to a group of people, perhaps 25 or so. He comes to their home or office with a bagful of books he’s selected for them. It is how he makes his living. The bag is an open thaila, such as women use to shop for vegetables (“So I can easily pull one out to read on the train”). His selection is based on knowledge of the person over time. Often, as is the case with me, he has sold to them for over a decade. He is self-taught, what is called an autodidact. Because he is curious and has an open mind, Sawant is interesting company. He can speak informatively, often penetratingly, on the importance of Warhol, the relationship between Russell and Wittgenstein, the aesthetics of the Taj Mahal, the cinema of Bertolucci and of Sanjay Chhel, J. Krishnamurti’s conversation with David Bohm, living on a diet of zunka-bhakar, the Sicilian Defence in chess and the background to the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. I have spent many interesting

Man of words: Shashikant Sawant lives with his dog, Mozart, in a room crammed with books and watched over by a Mona Lisa print. evenings with him, and in another culture, he would be treasured. He paints abstracts and listens to symphonic music and Kishori Amonkar on his cassette recorder. These three men have something in common and it is that they did what they liked doing, and little else. We can catch glimpses of their freedom by doing the things that we might like, but don’t because we haven’t set our minds to it. And so here are 11 things you must consider doing in 2012.

Know: Every morning and evening in Monticello, his home in

Virginia, Thomas Jefferson measured the temperature and atmospheric pressure. He owned hundreds of slaves but this Jefferson did himself, to be aware of what was around him. We are an indoors culture and that is one reason we invent so little. Pradip Krishen wrote a book on the trees of Delhi, but few of us can identify the trees around us or the birds of India.

Cook: For the most part, India still has seasonal vegetables. Learning how they are cooked in season will give you great joy. The other realization cooking and shopping for vegetables will bring is how drastically modern farming is changing the produce available in the market. The fruit sections in particular are frightening. Where are the local fruits of our youth? Why is so much foreign? To know this, we must work with the ingredients.

Make: In the period of their intellectual maturity, Tolstoy began making shoes and Gandhi began to make fabric. These two very great men decided that the most noble thing a man could do was to work with his hands. Consider making small things, useful things, like a bench or a stool. Such work is uncommon in our culture, but Indians were once great craftsmen, so it lurks in your blood.

Fix: One thing that separates

Tasting freedom: Take up carpentry, draw or just cook with seasonal produce—set your mind to the things you would really like to do.

Indians from Europeans is our helplessness before breakdowns. Our absolute reliance on plumber, mechanic, chaiwallah and IT man means that we understand little about the way things work, their mechanics. Merely disassembling the basic parts of something and putting it together again will bring knowledge. America’s high schools have something called “shop class” where all students learn how to work with wood and metal. We don’t and must teach ourselves.

Draw: Drawing is a different thing from painting. It is more modest. Drawing is recording, while painting is art. But all great artists from da Vinci and Michelangelo to Picasso have also drawn. The artist David Hockney separates drawing from painting because of its

immediacy. This means we can draw what is before us, on what we have.

I eventually need it. Once you make your list of 20 books, go and get them.

Sing: Music is expression.

Write: We do not really think

Expression of what? Emotion. The melodic instrument—guitar, flute—evokes emotion by imitating the voice. The percussive instrument—the drum—imitates the rhythms of life’s movements: breathing, sex, threshing. In the hierarchy of musical instruments, the human voice is ranked No. 1. The Hindu-Muslim vocal tradition of north India is the single most expressive form of music in the world (this superlative isn’t true of Indian dance). Learning it will enrich your life as few things can.

until we write. All other thinking is superficial. This is something only writers know, and Bryan Magee mentions this in his book Confessions of a Philosopher. Few of us can use language with the sort of skill Rohit Brijnath does on these pages, but we can all observe and record. That is the important aspect of writing. What should you write about? One: The history of your neighbourhood. Its temples, churches, mosques, and their stories. Its schools, and who built them, who passed out from them. Two: The history and memories of your family. Its origins and professions, its ambitions and achievements. Its characters and its recipes. You will have a captive, interested audience for both subjects, and the material is waiting.

Go: Of the civilized nations, India has the poorest listings pages. We have few cultural events, and almost none where the audience pays. We have great culture but no patronage of it at the individual or collective level. This will change only when we attend events and pay for tickets. If you live in Mumbai, become a member of the Symphony Orchestra of India. In 2011, the audience is dominated by Parsis and the Indian musicians are mostly Catholic. This is because that has been the tradition. We can change that with our participation.

Grow: Few things are as rewarding to man as being able to grow food, or flowers. Coetzee writes beautifully of this in his Life and Times of Michael K. Even if it is just one pot or a little patch, to plant, nurture and harvest a living organism is something all of us should experience.

Read: Learning a new language is the best way of increasing what you know, because a culture opens itself to you. Make a list of the books that you will read next year. Include the classic texts of your faith, the Bhagvat Puran if you’re Hindu. Being familiar with the texts of other faiths makes us more open-minded, true, but fully knowing our own is an even better way. Writer Jerry Pinto once said his rule was to never buy a book he hadn’t already read. This is wise counsel for those who buy acquisitively, as I do. But I disregard Pinto’s rule because I want the book to be at hand when

Mark: Today is the last day of the Gujarati month of Magsar (what other Indians call Margshirsha), and it is the dark night of the new moon. U.R. Ananthamurthy once said “educated Indians have lost contact with their almanac”. What a devastating observation. We live by the solar calendar, but our grandparents marked their days on a lunar year. They needed to because the amount of moonlight available was important to know. The smaller festival was celebrated, the anniversaries observed. We know Valentine’s Day but not Sharad Purnima. Fortunately, since we are vaguely familiar with the major festivals and where they fall, we only need to consult the almanac regularly to understand the rhythm of India. The new year will bring things both happy and sad. I wish you give yourself a productive and fulfilling 2012. 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

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2011 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

SLOW DOWN

2012 MAKE

LAST LONGER Get off the fast track. Clean up, refresh, embark on a journey or a project. Create a memory that will make the year last forever.

PICK FROM OUR 50 WAYS TO STRETCH TIME

RESTORE BEAUTY: FIND THE MISSING PARTS

That iconic 1980s song by The Buggles, Video Killed the Radio Star, celebrated the romance of the radio. Some of us revel in that kind of attachment to the past. It needn’t always be destructive nostalgia. Tube radios, classic turntables, music boxes, pocket watches and grandfather clocks: These are all objects of great beauty and functionality. But only a few of us invest time, effort and money into preserving and restoring such pieces. Raj Jain, a Mumbai-based businessman with a passion for antiques, does so because, as he says, “(these things) were created with so much detailing and love that it breaks my heart to let go”. Jain is currently absorbed in restoring a music box he acquired from a family in Kutch, Gujarat. “It’s difficult to say how old it is, but it would be close to 100 years. Nobody in the Bhatia household had the time for a broken music box, and I was only too happy to pick it up,” he says. It is an ornately handpainted wooden box that used to play eight 1-minute chime-like tunes, which now sits on Jain’s desk waiting for its missing parts. “Music boxes usually have springs and combs; these snap because they’ve been wound too hard or just become brittle with time,” says Jain. Restoring anything with such intricate mechanics calls for some luck in finding the parts. Repairmen often use parts from other vintage items that are beyond repair. “Sometimes it could be just be a tiny brass coil that you need but you can do

nothing but wait till you find it,” he explains. Jain’s penchant for antiques dates back 10 years, when his ancestral family home in Kutch was damaged in the Bhuj earthquake. His family’s unanimous opinion was that it should be razed to the ground. But Jain protested; this consequently left him with the responsibility of restoring it. “It was a beautiful experience; my learning curve,” he says. Elsewhere, there are those who restore vintage pieces to different ends. For US-based Manmohan Durani, born and brought up in Kashmir, it was the ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

Popular mechanics: Mumbaibased Raj Jain acquired this music box from a family in Kutch, and is now waiting for replacement parts to fix it.

memory of his late grandfather that he wanted to preserve in the ticking of a pocket watch. “This is something he carried on himself, touched and wound up every day,” remembers Durani. Bought sometime in the 1920s, this was the Aftab by West End Watch Co. “While it lay as a keepsake for many years, I felt the urge to make it work again and thus began my search for watchmakers,” says Durani, who eventually got help from his uncle— T.N. Madan, a sociologist based in New Delhi. “It has a winding key mechanism, like most other watches of the time. You had to wind it once a day, and it would unwind itself in the next 24 hours. The winder moves a coil inside, which was broken. It’s a delicate movement, and needed delicate work. I told Manmohan that this would cost some money, but he said it didn’t matter how much,” says Madan. After checking with many watch shops in Delhi’s Khan Market and Connaught Place, Madan found GangaRam and Sons on Vikas Marg, near their home in Preet Vihar, who agreed to send it to some watchmakers in Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh. “When the watch came back to us, repaired, after three months, I would wind it religiously every night, but it would stop after 12 hours. So I went back to them,” says Madan. They greased it a bit but said that it’s because the brass part they put in was new and stiff, so there was resistance. They said, ‘have patience and keep winding, it’ll soften in time’.” It has.

FOLLOW A DIFFERENT ‘REAL TIME’

Make time for the real world by getting more efficient in the virtual world. Dealing with incoming emails and notifications on Facebook and Twitter can take up the whole day, and keep you from getting any work done. Follow these simple tips: Email: Keep yourself from being flooded with emails by using third-party software like SaneBox, which works with Gmail, Outlook and other popular mail systems. It helps reduce inbox clutter. Mails are rated by five levels of

SANEBOX.COM

importance, so you can stick to the important ones when you’re busy. Facebook and Twitter: Cull your lists. You’ve responded to a lot of friend requests over the years, and it’s time to let the cruft go. They won’t even get a notifier about it, and you’ll stop getting pointless updates about champagne brunches while missing out on news of your school friend’s newborn. Using a site-blocker such as Chrome Nanny will help too, allowing you to access social networks for only a set amount of time daily.

CREATE A HOME RETREAT

Imagine a room with a stunning view: a filigree of green with light filtering in. Outside, on the balcony, there are birds chirping. A part of you just bursts into Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, but stops in time because you don’t want to ruin the moment. The Armstrong aspiration apart, the rest is realizable, and doesn’t require you to extinguish your savings. This can be your own home, and the idea is to transform it into the ultimate holiday retreat in 2012. Begin by de-cluttering. Let there be pockets of your home that are secluded. If there’s a storeroom, convert that wasted space into a reading room or a music room or just a room to dream in. Keep your books here, a music player, the old guitar or tabla that you’ve lost touch with. Do it up with photographs that make you happy, a couple of rugs, and string lights. Elsewhere, introduce nature into your home. If you have a terrace or a balcony, fill it up with plants. Add a bird feeder, and some wind chimes; let it morph into an eco-lodge. If you have pets or children, watch how thrilled they get with the new surroundings (although there is a chance your dog might try to have a bird every now and then for lunch. Train it!). You’ll savour every moment you spend at home. And every time you want to run off to some place on holiday? Just run home instead. COURTESY MYSUNNYBALCONY

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STITCH IN TIME

Don’t let your favourite pieces gather mould in the back of your closet because they need a little repair and you don’t have someone on hand to fix them. No number of trips to the mall are perhaps enough to replace that perfect white shirt; or the dress that has, over the years, learnt to flatter your curves just right. Learn easy garment maintenance: Sew a button on, for a start. If a simple hem is beyond you, keep some double-sided fusing on hand so you can iron a hem in place.

MEND THE CRACKS WITH THAT FRIEND

It was a misunderstanding you haven’t bothered to fix. You didn’t have the “time”, you told yourself. The days have melted into weeks—and months—now you couldn’t care less. Make that call, write that email, do whatever it takes to fix things before the friend you learnt how to bike with becomes nothing more than a social acquaintance.

ZOOMIN.COM

PUT TOGETHER A FESTIVAL CALENDAR

Let 2012 be the year you organize your life around your biggest interest. India’s cultural calendar is full through the year, so it shouldn’t be hard. Enjoy books? Plan your vacations to Jaipur and Kerala for the literature festivals—you can get the sightseeing in edgeways. Want theatre? Clear your schedule for the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) and Ranga Shankara festivals. Music? Take a look at the beautiful locations and timings of some of next year’s greatest festivals.

2021 January: The Storm Festival in Coorg involves camping out and listening to some of the best Indian bands playing today: Swarathma, the Raghu Dixit Project, Parvaaz and Indian Ocean, among others. For details, visit Stormfestivalindia.com.

BACK UP THE PHOTO ALBUM

You’ve ditched your film rolls and gone digital. Fair enough. But don’t stop at storing photographs on your computer and displaying them on digital photo frames. Go for something more tangible, at least for those special albums: the Ivy League graduation, the scuba-diving trip to the Andamans, the 25th anniversary of your wedding. You can create photobooks, a more polished version of the photo albums of yesteryear. Upload your photos on websites such as Zoomin, iTasveer or Snapfish—all of which have simple user interfaces—and choose from custom cover options for affordable photobooks in a variety of sizes. These are priced affordably, in the `500-1,500 range, and shipping is usually free.

COURTESY SUNBURN FESTIVAL

Winter sunshine: Held in December every year, Sunburn is the biggest electronic dance music event in the country.

5 February: Sulafest in Nasik is held at the Sula vineyards. There’s music, wine and winter sunshine just a few hours drive from Mumbai or Pune. To reach the organizers, visit Sulawines.com.

May: The Escape Festival of Music and Arts at Naukuchiatal, Uttarakhand, is three days of summer in the Himalayas, and 30 indie bands playing at a scenic lake resort. 2630 October: The Rajasthan International Folk Festival at Jodhpur combines the best of local and global folk music, and happens over Sharad

Poornima, the brightest full moon of the year, at the gorgeous Mehrangarh Fort. For details, visit Jodhpurfolkfestival.org.

November: The Bacardi NH7 Weekender in Pune is a three-day festival of independent, offbeat and off-the-record music, inevitably featuring some of the best and most eclectic live acts in India. For details, visit Nh7.in.

KUNAL KAKODKAR

MidDecember: Sunburn in Goa is the biggest electronic dance music (EDM) festival in India and has been a one-stop shop for some of the most exciting EDM acts in the world. For details, visit Sunburn.in.

DecemberJanuary (till 1 January): The Margazhi Season in Chennai is the ultimate platform for Carnatic classical music. With a month-long gala of sophisticated concerts organized by Chennai’s music sabhas and attended by a crush of Carnatic fans from all over the world, it’s a chance to hear the legends as well as exciting new voices. Additionally, the canteens are a historic byword all by themselves. For The Music Academy’s calendar, visit their site Musicacademymadras.in.

Musical pilgrimages: Raghu Dixit; and (top) members of the Mumbaibased metal band Bhayanak Maut performing at the first NH7 Weekender in Pune in November.

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MAKE YOUR HOME PLASTICFREE

PURGE THE FAST FOOD

Everything that can be preprepared, is. Supermarket aisles stock parathas, bhuna (roasted) masalas, coconut milk, and even mashed potatoes in packets. Convenience is a slippery slope. Why bake a cake when you can order one? Mumbai-based nutritionist and Mint columnist Vishakha Shivdasani explains why throwing out pre-packaged food at all levels is the best thing to do: “Anything that is processed is not healthy. There are no FDA (US kind of) regulations that require bread pegged as ‘brown’ to mean it’s wholewheat.” Processed and pre-packaged foods spell convenience, but also include additives, toxic food colouring, chemical sugars and preservatives that cause hormonal imbalances. You don’t have to be radical. Begin by local sourcing; find a local bakery for bread. Use the “whole” product; buy wheat instead of pre-packed flour, and search for a local flour mill. Buy curd, milk from a dairy, and seasonal vegetables from farming communities. Make your own masalas; they are fresh and enhance the flavour of food. It takes 5 minutes more than cutting open a carton of reddish-brown powder. Jams and sauces, bottled in-season when fruits or tomatoes are cheap, are a fun kitchen activity. The more you do, the more ways you will find to connect with the food you’re consuming.

Know that faint ductile smell emanating from your plastic lunch box? It can convince a stubborn Tupperware-ian to convert. Making your home free of plastic is impossible. The buttons on your remote control are likely to be plastic. So are some medicine bottles. But the kitchen is a good place to start. You will stumble on a lifestyle change—it’s been more than four months since the project at this writer’s home began, and there’s a long way to go before it can be a 95% plastic-free home. All junk, non-perishable foods such as instant noodles are wrapped in plastic and they’re difficult to preserve without the plastic unlike, say, breads or biscuits. Outlets of the Lifestyle chain of stores have limited and infrequent stock of wooden bread boxes, available for around `1,300. Websites such as Indiamart.com and Alibaba.com provide telephone numbers of bread box manufacturers. Or find a local carpenter for a custom-made one.

PHOTOGRAPHS

THINKSTOCK

The three golden, proven and tested steps for a plastic-free kitchen: l Take a few weeks to replace all your plastic containers with steel or glass ones. The best stainless steel product costs less than the Tupperware of the same size. Indian kitchens traditionally use steel, cast iron and copper. Embrace your Indianness. Most steel water bottles do contain some plastic, but the degree of toxic transfer to your drinking water, which is inevitable in plastic bottles, will be far less. Another bonus: Water remains cool in steel bottles. In Mumbai, The Bombay Store and most malls stock stylish glass and ceramic jars and bottles. Steel of the highest quality can be found in every supermarket or utensil store everywhere in India. l Buy jute or cloth bags for your vegetable shopping. For meats and fish, carry your own container. The neighbourhood butcher’s initial amusement will soon wear off. Staying away from plastic makes supermarket shopping difficult as everything in a supermarket, including vegetables, is wrapped in plastic. You will go more to the local vegetable vendor or farmer’s market. l Use a steel garbage bin (although that has some plastic in it too). Layering the bin with anything but plastic garbage bags is difficult to imagine, but three layers of newspapers works and makes you conscious that you shouldn’t throw wet garbage in your bin unless absolutely necessary. You are likely to waste less food. The steel bin lined by paper requires a wash every day. It is a cycle, a slow process that takes getting used to, but freeing your body of even the smallest amount of dioxins, a kind of toxic chemical used in making plastic which transfers to food, will have long-term rewards.

REDISCOVER SLOW FOOD

Sealed handis of dum biryani, baked until the meat is tender; dal simmered for 36 hours till it’s creamy without the addition of cream, and Peking Duck hung over an open flame till crispy and flavourful. Slow Food is not just about taste though, it’s about awareness—where each ingredient of your food is coming from, how it’s grown, what’s gone into it, how it’s processed, cooked, and how it tastes. It is what the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh calls “Mindful Eating”. Food activist and vice-president of the Slow Food movement, or the Terra Madre worldwide network, Vandana Shiva promotes the movement through her Navdanya Slow Food cafés in India. Shiva says it is about “replacing carelessness with care in food. It’s cooking with a sense of knowledge”. There was a time when Slow Food was about the deliberate tasting of high-quality food—cheese and wine, which made it elitist. Restaurants became the few able to devote time to slow cooking. So you’ll find an ITC talking about its Dal Makhani simmered for

36 hours or an Aurus talking about the 3 hours it takes to slow-cook lamb shanks. Slow Food initially started off to counter the fast food culture, it then became about the cooking process itself, but has since moved beyond to become a grass-roots movement inclusive of biodiversity. Today, slow food is artisanal food vs industrial food; the Lijjat papads vs the factory papads; home-made pickle vs a store-bought pickle. How does one join the Slow Food movement? In Thich Nhat Hanh’s famous eating-an-apple illustration, he says: “Look deeply at the apple in your hand and you see the farmer who tended the apple tree; the blossom that became the fruit; the fertile earth, the organic material from decayed remains of prehistoric marine animals and algae, and the hydrocarbons themselves; the sunshine, the clouds, and the rain. Without the combination of these far-reaching elements and without the help of many people, the apple would simply not exist.” One part of it is this mental exercise. Physically, goals to set yourself include setting a time apart to eat; seating yourself to eat, not reading/watching TV/talking while eating, and

GET FREEWHEELING How do you help the environment, save on fuel costs, get a complete workout and get to work at the same time? Ditch the car and get a bicycle. Before you know it, biking enthusiasts say, it will become a way of life (maybe not in peak summer). Despite the fact that most motorists in India treat cyclists like they are the lowest life form on the roads, urban cyclists are a fast-growing tribe. And they are exploring every bit of India on pedal power. Ladakh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh are favourites for intrepid mountain bikers, both the ones who pedal gently up and down winding switchbacks and soak in the view, and those who crank it up by hurtling downhill on dirt trails. Bangalore is the biking capital of India, with dozens of biking groups and organizations such as Ride A Cycle, which organizes India’s premier bike race: the BSA Tour of Nilgiris. In Delhi, biking group PedalYatris goes on daily trips exploring the Aravallis. Rajasthan, the backwaters of Kerala, and coastal India are all prime destinations for bike tourists. If you are not part of a group, most adventure tourism companies arrange biking trips, and there are dedicated bike tour operators like Art of Bicycle Trips (www.artofbicycletrips.com) as well. Apart from Indian bikes, such as Hero Cycles and BSA Hercules, some of the world’s best bike brands, such as Merida and Kona, are now available in major metros.

Jhangora Upma Serves 1 Ingredients K cup jhangora/barnyard millet/samak 1 onion, chopped 1 green chilli, chopped N cup green peas, boiled N cup carrots Juice of 1 lemon 1 tbsp oil 2 tbsp coriander, chopped Salt to taste PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

understanding the play of flavours in taste. Shiva busts the myth that Slow Food means cooking for hours together. “It’s slowing down in the overall preparation of food,” she says, “In the cooking process, it means educating yourself on how the ingredients react in different methods of cooking, and with each other.” This knowledge extends to using vessels that enhance the flavour of the ingredient rather than chucking everything into a microwave or pressure cooker.

Method Clean jhangora thoroughly. Blanch it in two cups of hot water for 4 minutes. Drain and keep aside. Heat the oil in a pan. Add the onion and green chilli and sauté till the onion turns translucent. Add peas, carrots, jhangora and salt, and sauté for 3-4 minutes. Add 1K cups of water and cook. Add lemon juice and garnish with the coriander. Serve hot. Recipe courtesy Vandana Shiva.

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TAKE UP A PROJECT, MAKE A MEMORY Clear out the itsybitsy to make room for longform projects. Our suggestions span travel, books, films, needlework and board games MANOJ MADHAVAN/MINT

BUILD YOUR OWN BOARD GAME

You always enjoy the things you make. And if that thing happens to be a board game, then you can enjoy it with friends as well. The only drawback is that making a fresh and innovative board game from the ground up is hard (that’s why they have awards for best designers). A good way to start, though, is to modify an existing game. Take something familiar, like chess, and change the way it works. Some simple ideas: l Change the layout of the board. Set it up in a hexagon, and see how that works. l Change the way some pieces move. Give every piece an alternative “action”—let the pawns defend, allow the knights to charge straight through enemies, give the rook an artillery attack. l Change the objective of the game. Maybe the winner is the person who

COVER THE INDIAN COASTLINE

The apocryphal story goes that the British were trying to discover Chittagong when a storm caused them to stumble on the upriver settlement which would go on to become Calcutta. The Indian coastline: You just never know what it’s going to throw at you. While we may think of it alternatively in terms of beach holidays and monumental stormwhipped battlements, the coasts, of course, are every bit as variable as mainland India. And as an ambitious but rewarding annual project, it seems like there’ll be no better story to tell your grandchildren than the year you travelled the length of the coastline; 2012. Hiking down the Gujarat coast, scuba-diving off Mangalore, floating in and out of the Kerala backwaters—those are the most likely

things you’ll do on the western seaboard. On the east, there are the Andamans, Tranquebar, the Olive Ridley turtles of Puri beach, the Sundarbans: Even the most predictable sights are breathtaking. For millennia, the coasts have been a way for curious outsiders to discover India, and that’s exactly why landlubbers should explore them too. We are talking of a distance of more than 7,500km, so it’s unlikely you’ll have the time to do it all in one go. Break up the trips into convenient vacations, and choose your destinations based on the climate (it’s not all sun and sand, after all) and your mood. If the Romans brought their triremes all the way to Malabar, surely it can’t be that hard to hop on a chosen mode of transport and cruise down.

THINKSTOCK

WRITE YOUR NOVEL The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which falls in November, began in the US in 1999 but gains more international practitioners every year. The idea is to write a first draft, of a minimum of 50,000 words (around 1,600 words a day), in one month. The idea is to take the plunge. Mark it on a calendar, let loved ones and work colleagues know you’ll be putting all your spare time into it, and let it fly. Once the book is real, you can take all the time you want to worry about it. And while NaNoWriMo is great fun, there’s no reason you can’t pick your own month.

gets three pawns to the other end first. Or maybe the queen is the object, not the king. That’s going to force you to play differently. At this point, you might have reached a very different sort of game, and might want to customize the look of the pieces. Again, borrowing from something that already exists is a good way to start, until you come up with something that really speaks to you. Maybe people the board with GI Joes and Cobras. And then take a printout and paste it over cardboard. Once you’ve refined your ideas and play-tested them, you can get them fabricated via a number of awesome sites such as www.thegamecrafter.com and www.toybuilders.com—they even help you design a box for the game!

FOLLOW A CINEMATIC THREAD

Even if the hysteria surrounding the Mayan calendar sounds like balderdash to you, take time out to explore the apocalyptic visions as realized in cinema. Look beyond the frenetic spectacles usually served by Hollywood. A few picks for the apocalyptic films you shouldn’t miss: Time of the Wolf (directed by Michael Haneke, 2003), Dawn of the Dead (George Romero, 1978), La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006), Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984), Wall-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008), 28 Days Later (Danny Boyle, 2002), Delicatessen (Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, 1991) and The Road (John Hillcoat, 2009). Cast aside the verbal entourage that contemporary cinema tends to drag along and revel in the splendorous march of images that these directors conjured. They come in beautiful compilations, collectibles all. Our picks: l The Films of Sergei Paradjanov: A DVD set comprising four films by Sergei Paradjanov (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, The Color of Pomegranates, Ashik Kerib and The Legend of Suram Fortress) from Kino Video, $43.49 (around `2,300) on Amazon.com. l The Béla Tarr Collection: Three films by Béla Tarr (Damnation, Werckmeister Harmonies and The Man from London) on DVD, from Artificial Eye, £24.99 (around `2,100) on Amazon.com. l By Brakhage: An Anthology, Volumes One and Two: A Blu-Ray DVD set comprising films by Stan Brakhage, from The Criterion Collection, $55.49 on Amazon.com. l La Jetée/Sans Soleil: A DVD set comprising two films by Chris Marker (La Jetée and Sans Soleil), from The Criterion Collection, $24.24 on Amazon.com.

MEET THE STEVEN SPIELBERG OF ASIA

If you’re a fan of Hong Kong cinema, you’ve either seen producer-director Tsui Hark’s films, or you’re going to see them. Blazing trails through popular cinema, right beside John Woo’s gunshot ballets and the humane genius of Wong Kar-Wai, Tsui’s filmography is full of superstar-making, special-effects-revolutionizing action-comedy-dramas—it’s not for nothing that he’s called “the Steven Spielberg of Asia”. If you think anyone trying to understand Bollywood should see all of Manmohan Desai’s films, then you’ll know the wonder of Tsui instantly. His output is vast, and should keep you going through 2012. Our picks, available to borrow from DVD libraries and buy at select bookstores and music stores in Delhi and Mumbai: l Once Upon a Time in China (with four bonus sequels) (1991) l The Master (1989) l Peking Opera Blues (1986) l Ching Se (also called Green Snake) (1993) l Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010)

17 GET PUZZLED

Start a 3,000-piece jigsaw with your partner or child, of something you both love (it could be a Twilight poster, we’re not judging). When you’re done—after poring over it for months—it’s something you’ll remember having done in 2012 together. Have it framed! German puzzle maker Ravensburger (www.ravensburger.com) is the gold standard for intricate puzzles that go from African jungle scenes to mind-boggling world maps. If you’re feeling fancy, have someone bring down a Stave puzzle from the US (www.stavepuzzles.com)—this puzzle-maker has garnered a lofty reputation for their intricate, handcrafted and sometimes maddening hand-cut wooden puzzles. The Smithsonian magazine has called them the “Rolls-Royce of Puzzles”, and they don’t come cheap, starting at $275 (around `14,500) and going up to $3,000. Their 8ft-long masterpiece for $15,000 made the Guinness World Records as the world’s priciest puzzle in 1990. They even custom-make puzzles from photographs.

KNOT UP

Get hold of a beginner’s knitting guide and start on a scarf this January. Your loops might be awry, but work through it over the year—while you travel or lounge— and you’ll have a semblance of a scarf (notice we aren’t saying sweater) by next winter. Your local bookshop or Amazon.com will have a host of such guides. The Knitter’s Bible: The Complete Handbook for Creative Knitters (Claire Crompton) and Knitty Gritty: Knitting for the Absolute Beginner (Aneeta Patel) are good starting points.

EXPLORE ‘SKYRIM’

Video games offer the freedom to do things you normally can’t do, such as fly a spaceship or command armies, but the biggest release of 2011, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (which we reviewed earlier this month), goes a step further and allows you to do absolutely anything. The game has a story that lasts over 100 hours, but the best part is that it presents a thoroughly detailed world where you can take a break from fighting hordes of dragons to go on treks and see virtual sunsets over dazzlingly beautiful waterfalls. Or perhaps you’d prefer to be an alchemist—seeking hard-to-find reagents and then distilling them into powerful potions. The simple act of exploring the game world—its developers have described it as being roughly the same size as the UK—is rewarding in itself, but the rich lore that the creators have built in adds even more value when you start delving into the history of the virtual world. Players who get immersed in the game could take time to build virtual libraries, buying and trading rare books, or perhaps become master blacksmiths or, of course, since it’s a fantasy game, dragon hunters. Skyrim is available on the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 platforms, and you can buy it from shops that sell video games, or get it online via Flipkart or eBay.

UNDERSTAND PROUST

Start the New Year with Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. The seven volumes, which span more than 3,000 pages, are sure to influence you deeply. Tramp through the first few sleep-inducing pages (about an insomniac trying to sleep), acclimatize yourself to the long-winded lines, and you will become a permanent resident of Proust country, seeking lost paradises in Tarla Dalal’s recipes, Chetan Bhagat’s novels, Salman Khan’s films, Barkha Dutt’s television debates and Anna Hazare’s speeches. You will also discover the ultimate truth: No matter how many people you loved, Mummy loved you the best. The six-pack, boxed set of the Modern Library edition, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrief and Terence Kilmarti, and revised by D.J. Enright, is available at Amazon.com for $60.42 (around `3,200). A new edition by Penguin has Proust’s novel translated by seven different people. The first, Swann’s Way, translated by short story writer Lydia Davis, is recommended.

THE MOVIE ENTERPRISE

If 2012 is a milestone year for someone you love—your parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, your daughter turning 16, your brother getting married—make a movie about them, with all the special people in their lives featuring in it. All you really need is a high-definition camera, a microphone and a tripod. List the people you want to interview and create a storyline before you start recording the interviews. This will help you plan your questions so you can have everyone’s responses for something like, say, “the most embarrassing moment”. Keep a few still photographs, some clips from other films, maybe a shortlist of animation sequences and music clips ready for use in your final edit. It might be a good idea to hire an editing suite and a professional editor (in Mumbai, you can hire a studio and an editor at `500 per hour) to help you piece the film together.

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TAKE UP A PROJECT, MAKE A MEMORY Clear out the itsybitsy to make room for longform projects. Our suggestions span travel, books, films, needlework and board games MANOJ MADHAVAN/MINT

BUILD YOUR OWN BOARD GAME

COVER THE INDIAN COASTLINE

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FOLLOW A CINEMATIC THREAD

MEET THE STEVEN SPIELBERG OF ASIA

17 GET PUZZLED

KNOT UP

EXPLORE ‘SKYRIM’

UNDERSTAND PROUST

THE MOVIE ENTERPRISE

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22 MAKE A SCENT

You haven’t found that signature perfume. And like many of us, you’ve possibly tried what has appealed to you at the mall or come to you as a loving present. You’ve liked a few along the way, but haven’t committed to any. Here’s a revelation: It isn’t all that hard to blend your own perfumes. Perfume-making stands at the crossroads of art and apothecary.

Beyond the basic procedural instructions and the precise note-taking involved, it’s all rather freewheeling. Most simple perfumes are a mixture of essential oils, a base oil, alcohol and distilled water; the strength of the perfume depends on the ratio in which these ingredients are mixed. And what makes one perfume different from another is the nature of the essential oils used. Part of the fun in creating your own fragrance is being able to experiment and make one that is yours alone. This might take a while, so make notes on everything you do, including the exact quantities used. Remember that a single drop of an essential oil can change the smell of the perfume completely.

How to blend

HERE ARE SOME EASY ONES TO START WITH: A sensual women’s perfume, all floral power Base notes: 4 drops of sandalwood, 3 drops of patchouli Middle notes: 7 drops of ylang-ylang Top notes: 3 drops of bergamot, 4 drops of jasmine Bridge notes: A few drops of vanilla, as required

To make your perfume, you need at least 25 drops of essential oils divided evenly between base, middle and top notes. Start by pouring out 15ml of a base oil, such as jojoba or sweet almond oil, into a glass bottle. Then add the essential oils—first the base, then the middle and then the top notes (add a few drops to tie the base, middle and top notes together). To this, add 75ml of alcohol and shake for a few minutes. Let this mix stand undisturbed for at least 48 hours. Then add 2 tbsp of distilled water. This is where your nose takes over. Like wine, perfume needs to stand and mature before it reaches perfection. Let it stand for at least three weeks in a cool, dark place. You can take a whiff occasionally, and when you think it has reached where you want it to be (the smell will change every day), filter it through a coffee filter or fine muslin cloth to remove the oil sediments and bottle it. Take notes at every step so you know how to recreate your signature perfume if you find this to be “the one”. You can read up on the constituent notes of the perfumes you have liked on websites such as www.basenotes.net for hints.

A fresh, woodycitrus men’s scent

The anatomy of a perfume Since Perfumers’ Alcohol can be hard to find in most cities, go with vodka (this writer uses Smirnoff) in these recipes. Before you start, test a drop of each ingredient on your skin to make sure you aren’t allergic to any of them. You can buy essential oils (or cheaper, synthetic fragrance oils) online or in attar shops in your city. One of the best places in India to shop for olfactory delights is Gulab Singh Johrimal (www.gulabsinghjohrimal.com) in old Delhi, a 195-year-old historical store which stocks over 50 kinds of essential oils and fragrance oils, base oils, and elegant glass bottles to blend and store perfumes in. Prices vary vastly: A 5ml bottle of bergamot oil is `36, while rose, one of the most expensive, is `2,250. Essential oils are used as base notes, middle notes and top notes. Remember to buy some of each kind to have a well-rounded perfume. Base notes: Cedar wood, cinnamon, patchouli, sandalwood and vanilla. Middle notes: Clove, geranium, lemon grass, nutmeg, ylang-ylang. Top notes: Bergamot, lavender, lemon, lime, jasmine. Bridge notes: Vanilla, lavender. You also use essential oils to make scented bath or massage oils: Add a few drops of jasmine or a combination of sandalwood and vetiver in a base of sesame oil for a fragrant, natural moisturizer.

Base notes: 8 drops cedar wood Middle notes: 6 drops lemon grass Top notes: 6 drops lime, 2 drops bergamot Bridge notes: A few drops of lavender, as required.

PHOTOGRAPHS

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BLUE JEAN IMAGES/CORBIS

UNBOTTLE BEAUTY

As easy as it is to buy jars of creams laden with promise off the shelves, spending time in the kitchen and over books to understand skin types and seasons, and study the benefits of herbs, might be something you’d want to take up in 2012. The beauty industry is full of instances of people who went on to build a business out of their kitchen trials. The late Anita Roddick of The Body Shop started out by filling bottles with her home-made creams and selling them to friends and neighbours. Sometime in the late 1980s, The Body Shop had become an international brand built on fair and ethical trade. More recently and closer home, Mira Kulkarni launched Forest Essentials, with which she transformed the 6,000-year-old elaborate Ayurvedic beauty rituals into utilitarian ubtans (powders) and creams. Growing up in Tehri Garhwal in Uttarakhand, Kulkarni was amid exotic Himalayan flora—which continues to be her inspiration. Cold-pressed oils, organic plant extracts, steam-distilled essential oils—Kulkarni revived traditional ingredients, set up plants in villages and used local labour to build Forest Essentials. “Our brand works because you get fresh, pure ingredients without the bother of having to do the tiresome preparation yourself,” says Kulkarni. A few years ago, the international beauty giant Estée Lauder took a minority stake in her company—offering branding and distribution know-how while retaining the manual-intensive method of production. So if you’ve been nursing your grandmother’s hibiscus hair oil recipe,

now is the time to explore. Thirty-one-year-old Shaffali Miglani, a New York-based entrepreneur, did just that. “By the time I was 14, I was self-studying skincare,” says Miglani. Two years ago, Miglani started her own line of beauty products, Shaffali Skincare, which sells primarily in yoga centres and spas in New York and Los Angeles. The prices start at $30 (around `1,600). More importantly, Miglani believes it’s the process of creating these creams and the rituals with which you apply them that makes all the difference. “I like to do the cycle of steaming, cleansing, applying a mask and moisturizing once every week. It’s my time for myself. I put on some relaxing music, I meditate, I pause,” she says.

Avocado and Honey Face Mask Miglani gives us the recipe for her avocado, honey and turmeric moisturizing face mask. Avocado is rich in vitamins A, D and E, and honey has the ability to retain skin moisture, and has antibacterial and antioxidant properties (as does turmeric). This mask is particularly suited for mature skin. Ingredients K cup fresh avocado N cup honey N tsp turmeric Method Mash the avocado into a creamy pulp in a bowl, and then stir in the honey and turmeric. Apply on the face and leave for 10 minutes. Rinse with a cool washcloth.

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LEARN HOW TO DRAPE A SARI CREATIVELY

The urban Indian woman is often reluctant to wear a sari, save for special occasions, because she thinks Western garments and salwar-kameez are faster on the go. Rta Kapur Chishti (author of Saris—Tradition and Beyond, Roli Books, 2010) says the

only reason women think it takes too long to wear a sari is because they have stopped wearing it. “It takes as long to set yourself up in a sari as it takes to wear anything else. Besides, Indian women forget that our bodies are not really structured for Western

garments. From knees, ankles, backsides to bosoms, shoulders and arms, those garments require a different structure. But the sari, it can be worn in numerous ways to suit any workday or any silhouette you favour,” says Chishti.

Thumb through the book or attend Chishti’s New Delhi-based The Sari School (K-42, Jangpura Extension, 41823927) to learn more than 108 ways to drape a sari. After getting the hang of four-five styles, you will realize that a sari can serve the function you want. IMAGES COURTESY ‘SARIS—TRADITION

THE SARI GOWN You will need: A 9yard sari in a heavy silk weave. Avoid saris with stiff borders or weaves.

PANT STYLE You will need: A 6 to 9yard sari in a cotton weave.

Bring the innerend piece around the waist clockwise and tie a knot at the front or on the right side.

Leave 1.5m (half a metre if you are using a 6yard sari) from the innerend piece, wrap around the waist and tie a knot at the centrefront waist.

Bring the left innerend portion to the back between the legs.

Make pleats of the remaining loose portion facing right.

Make pleats of the pulled portion at the back.

Roll the pleats outwards and secure by wrapping over the innermost layer.

Tuck in the gathered pleats at the centreback.

Make pleats of the front free endpiece lying at the right side.

Bring up the lower borders at the two extremes.

BEYOND’

Bring to the centreback waist from either side and tuck in.

Pleat the outer endpiece and bring anticlockwise under the tucked and gathered pleats at the back to the front at the right waist.

Throw the outer end piece over the left shoulder.

DIVYA BABU/MINT

TAKE A SARI PILGRIMAGE

Visit a different city every two months and collect a sari indigenous to the area. Try to pick true classics with traditional motifs. Visit Kanchipuram for a Kanchi silk sari, but definitely avoid the wedding season so you don’t get stuck in the silk equivalent of a fish market. Also, add a Banarasi sari

MINT

Bring out the endpiece around the waist anticlock wise and throw over the left shoulder until thighlength.

AND

from Varanasi, a Muga silk sari from Assam, a Kerala cotton sari with pure zari from Thiruvananthapuram and a Bandhani sari from Jodhpur. Visit Andhra Pradesh for a Pochampally, and Uttar Pradesh for a Tanchoi sari. At the end of the year, you will have saris and memories to last you a lifetime.

START OUT WITH CLAY Getting down and dirty was never as rewarding as moulding that first clay pot. A functional art form beyond compare, pottery exposes you to the magical pliancy of earth. Let your imagination run riot on clay as it swirls around on the pottery wheel transforming into earthenware, stoneware or buttery smooth porcelain. Starting from the wheel to the firing kiln and the eventual glazing, the entire procedure is as challenging as it is soothing. And even the misshapen pieces could make for personalized gifts for friends. Most cities have beginners’ courses. Delhi Blue Pottery Trust (www.delhibluepotterytrust.com) offers a six-month pottery course; two classes per week for `8,000. In Mumbai, there’s Mitty (www.potterymitty.com), a pottery studio in Versova, Andheri West, offering different courses in the art. For details, email info@potterymitty.com

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Snaking through: The Pride of Africa cuts a picturesque swathe through the Transvaal region in South Africa.

27 TIME TRAVEL

You might not be a patch on George Clooney in Up in the Air but you’ve collected enough air miles to fly free for a decade. When was the last time you took a train; when travelling meant more than getting from home to hotel; when the journey was part of the holiday itself?

Cross an ocean Let 2012 be the year you go on a voyage. We mean the real crossing-the-bar deal to test your sea legs, not schmaltzy cruises. That’s not to say you become a galley slave, but do enjoy some old-world genteel-ness. • The Shipping Corp. of India runs passenger services to Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ships leave from Kochi,

Chennai, Visakhapatnam and Kolkata; prices start at `1,960 for a bunk, and go up to `7,640 for deluxe cabins). For details, visit www.shipindia.com • For a more deluxe experience, budget for a few extra days the next time you need to cross the Atlantic, and make it a historic crossing. Cunard Line, the company that operated the historic passenger liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, still operates on the trans-Atlantic route. Queen Mary II, the successor to Queen Mary, which crosses from Southampton in England to New York in the US in seven days, is currently the only passenger ship between Europe and North America and passage on the luxury ship costs

$895-3,795 (around `46,540-1.97 lakh) per head for twin-sharing. For details, visit www.cunard.com

Chug along If the prospect of seasickness daunts you, there are other ways to time-travel. Last month, the Indian Railways launched the longest train route in the country, mapping a varied 4,285km course. The weekly Vivek Express leaves Dibrugarh in Assam every Saturday just before midnight and arrives at Kanyakumari 82and-a-half hours later. If travelling three-and-a-half days (likely more) on an Indian train doesn’t sound like much of a vacation, there are the half-dozen palaces on wheels. And there are

28 FOLLOW YOUR WINGS

SHIVASHANKAR

Shy guy: The Malabar Trogon is known to be shy but gets spot ted because of its crimson belly.

To follow that shy, winged friend of yours into deep, dense forests, waiting for a glimpse in silence and identifying its call in the early hours—birders will tell you what sort of meditation that is. You might have attempted some weekend birding in your city. In the coming year, get your binoculars, trekking shoes and privilege leaves in order and follow a bird—a rare, endangered, exotic, or simply beautiful, bird—across the subcontinent. A migratory bird, the Osprey, flies all the way from Europe in winter (November-February). It’s a magnificent raptor and feeds on fish. So lakes, rivers and other water bodies are where you should be headed. The Kaziranga National Park in Assam or the Sultanpur National Park in Haryana, the backwaters of Kaveri and the Kutch region of Gujarat are your best bets. The more discerning birders could go after the rare Malabar Trogon. This beautiful, red-bellied bird is endemic to the Western Ghats and lives in dense, evergreen forests. You’re most likely to spot it in the Konkan belt, south of Goa. Anshi National Park in Karnataka, the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary and Eravikulam National Park in Kerala, Silent Valley National Park in the Nilgiri hills and Nagorhole National Park near Bangalore should be on your map. Apart from a love for birds, and an observant pair of eyes and ears, you may need to do some studying so you know who that beauty perched on that droopy branch is. Beginners could get a copy of Salim Ali’s quintessential The Book of Indian Birds (Oxford University Press, around `495), which packs in comprehensive information on habitats, nesting, migration and other trivia. A more recent book to pick up is Birds of the Indian Subcontinent: A Field Guide by Ranjit Manakadan, J.C. Daniel and Nikhil Bhopale, published by the Bombay Natural History Society and Oxford University Press (around `550).

other railways in the world. Here’s our wish list: • Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian Express: Do the world’s longest train route in comfort. Inaugurated in 2007, this entirely en suite train operated by the Russian Railways and a British travel company runs from Moscow to Vladivostok on two different routes. Depending on the route, the journey could take up to 15 days and set you back by £8,595-16,795 (around `6.96-13.6 lakh). For details, visit www.gwtravel.co.uk • The Eastern and Oriental Express: How many times have you been to Singapore? Next time, go in style. Though this isn’t the train Agatha Christie made famous, this luxury service between Singapore and

Bangkok certainly does take you back to an era of regal pampering. The stunning views of River Kwai from the train’s observation car will be worth every cent of the £1,440-3,010 that you fork out for this four-day journey. For details, visit www.orient-express.com • Pride of Africa: This is an epic journey, as envisioned by Cecil John Rhodes. Cutting through the length of Africa, the train leaves Cape Town in South Africa and reaches Cairo in Egypt 28 or 34 days later, depending on an aircraft option. The train passes through some of the most stunning landscape on earth. The tickets are priced at Rand (ZAR) 12,950-25,900 (around `81,836-163,681). For details, visit www.rovos.com

29 PICK UP THE PEN

In 2007, poet Robert Frost’s private notebooks were published. Analysts were amazed: He seemed dyslexic, deranged, and nothing he wrote seemed to make sense. In losing handwriting to the keyboard, we have lost the core of the creative process. It has become easier to delete, so we think less about what we “commit to paper” (a term in itself suggestive of a long-term promise), spellings are autocorrected, so we care less about mastering our language. We invest less in our personal creative processes when we do not allow ourselves the beauty of a poem rewritten, scratched and overwritten. Moods, captured in the tilt and pressure of a pen, or the slant of a letter, are replaced by the monotone of a universal font

that gives away nothing that words don’t. The written word, as a creative art, was once about individuality of expression. A writer was defined by the kind of pen he used, how blue or black the “writer’s depression” on his thumb was, and what paper he picked to tell his tale. Stories are incomplete without these. Every artist who still uses his brush and paint knows his mistakes on canvas, and working around them are what distinguish his art. Rugged Moleskins, your first Waterman, your father’s gold Sheaffer, India Ink and Chinese handmade paper, watermarks and wooden desk to hold them all in—whatever you are writing, book or letter—handwriting is a lost world that must be reclaimed.

GO BACK TO YOUR MOTHER TONGUE

Wondered how your parents read, wrote and spoke more than two languages with ease while you just about manage to juggle English with metropolitan slang? Going back to your mother tongue will take patience: If you really want to slow down, there’s nothing like reading the morning news in a language you don’t practise. Full-scale immersion may be impossible, especially in an Indian city. But take a subscription to your regional newspaper, put your native language music on your iPod, and don’t be afraid if relatives back home make fun of your accent. You’ll have bridged the greatest generation gap of them all.

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BUILD A CLASSIC WARDROBE

Fashion projections for Spring/Summer 2012 will tell you to watch out for print-on-prints, bold stripes, patterns and motifs. This “look” may not work next season. When it comes to fashion trends, timelessness is hard to achieve. But as much as fashion victims will cringe at bellbottoms in the time of skinny jeans, there are some cuts and fits that are always in season. Next year, take a look at those classics. Take time, visit the trial rooms

of every showroom before you decide to pick the best. Most of us love shopping enough to spend lots of time on it. Why still go with the impulse buying then? Pick pieces that will increase the lifespan of your wardrobe. To help with this, stylist and Vogue fashion director Anaita Shroff Adajania, and menswear designer Ravi Bajaj, give us tips on how to build a classic wardrobe—one that you won’t have to change every three months.

Gentlemen, start your engines Ravi Bajaj classifies what he calls the classics for the new cosmopolitan man The Italian tailored cut in a suit: From a hundred years ago and till today, it’s the most lasting thing. For instance, the (Ermenegildo) Zegna fit: something that is nicely sculpted, has soft shoulders, made in pure fabrics; it’ll last you forever. Well-tailored clothes are the most important things in menswear. In terms of fits, avoid what is ultra-fitted. Tom Ford and Kenzo are niche brands in India because they’re made for narrow-built men. The Indian man’s fit is not like that...it works for the Japanese. Plaid jacket: It may be old-school but it’s sharp fashion. In three basic patterns, windowpane, glen plaid and Prince of Wales, depending on how closely the horizontal and vertical pinstripes intersect to make checks—a plaid suit has to be part of your wardrobe. With it, you’re straddling the middle path and the avant-garde at the same time. Bandhgala: Velvet is a beautiful, rich material and a deep shade of purple will look stunning. A bandhgala can be formal evening-wear or it can be made trendy with a pair of jeans. Floral print shirt and tie: Fashion is about fun. It’s less necessity and more indulgence. A floral shirt and tie will brighten your wardrobe. For a necktie, avoid anything too skinny. A slim tie calls for a jacket with slim lapels and a shirt

Ladies vs fickle fashion A thumb rule that most stylists follow is to highlight your assets and hide your flaws. ‘Go with that philosophy and then have fun,’ says Adajania

with smaller collars. Blue suede shoes: No wonder there’s an Elvis song for them; blue suede loafers can add the casual, chic, resort-wear touch to any ensemble. Black patent leather shoes: There cannot be a classics list without these. Tradition calls for them, fashion calls for them, any wardrobe worth its salt calls for them. Sourced from: Zara, Tod’s, Etro, Canali, Blackberrys, Giorgio Armani, Gucci, Eina Ahluwalia.

32 AFP

Little white dress: This is the Sicilian twist to the Little Black Dress. Something that ends just above the knees is good for the day. Throw on a rich, coloured shawl and it’ll work well for the evening. Fitted shirt: This unconventional but well-fitted military green or navy blue shirt is a good thing to have. Teamed with a fitted knee-length skirt, this makes for secretary chic. And it works as an amazing layer over a sleeveless dress as well. White wide-legged pants: Such a pair can be worn with simple T-shirts on weekends, or straight-cut kurtas for a more formal do. Add a lace trim for some fun. The ‘Never Fail’ jacket: Pick something that has structure and style, and gives you an instant “power” look. It should be a jacket that gives your look a lift, no matter what you combine it with—a frock dress, a pair of jeans or black pants. Sling bag: In a bold colour and preferably a square shape, it works with both casual and party looks. Movie-star sunglasses: Have a pair of basic chrome aviators, or if you prefer retro, then the big 1970s frame. Always take a friend along when you’re out to buy sunglasses. You can’t always see. Vintage accessories: This is something that cannot be done in a hurry at all. Like, I love 1980s gold costume jewellery and I’ve been picking up pieces over the years. Look out for a few big earrings and statement pieces that can lift any ensemble. Flirty printed dress: A dress that mixes a couple of patterns, along with a Havana hat and your movie-star sunglasses, and you have a perfect weekend or brunch look. Made-for-you jeans: It’s important to buy the right jeans for your body type, and not necessarily go by what the trend is. Try 50 pairs if you have to, in different shapes, some really low-rise, some high. Bend over, sit and see how they fit. It needs to look like these jeans are made for your body. If your legs are shorter, buy straight-cut or boot-cut, go for skinny only if you have long legs. The length is important. It should look good with flats and should be long enough to accommodate heels. Shoe wardrobe: It’s crucial to have the right shoe, for the right occasion, whether it’s a pair of delicate sandals, statement stilettos or comfortable boots that will last you all day. Living in India calls for a beautiful pair of slippers as well. As hard as we try to ape the West, most of us end up in flats. Even big international brands are wizening up to that.

FIND YOUR SILHOUETTE Admit it, over the years you’ve switched from princess cuts to A-lines, trying to follow fads. Now think of those whose sartorial statements you admire they probably don’t wear the same colour or the same styles every day, but they do stand by a flattering silhouette. With some help from designer Hubert Givenchy, Audrey Hepburn, one of the most glamorous style icons of our times, identified and stood by what she considered the most flattering shapes for her slender frame: She wore capri-length pants, just-below-the-knee

dresses with cinched waists, and ballet flats or kitten heels, to accentuate her delicate curves. In interviews about designing Hepburn’s clothes for her 1954 movie Sabrina, Givenchy recalled: “She knew perfectly her visage and her body, their fine points and their faults. She wanted a bare-shouldered evening dress modified to hide the hollows behind her collarbone. What I invented for her eventually became a style so popular that I named it ‘décolleté Sabrina’.” While you might not have Givenchy to help, with some trial and error, and a little help from friends, you might be able to find your fashion shape.

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GET SOME ROCK

If the argument against renewing your gym subscription has been how terribly monotonous walking that treadmill or lifting those dumbbells is, hit the nearest climbing wall. Rock climbing requires climbing up, down and across natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. It is a physically and mentally demanding sport, one that tests your strength, endurance and balance. If heading out for natural rock is a bit much, start with artificial climbing walls. New Delhi has the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (www.indmount.org), Bangalore has Outback India (www.outbackindia.com), while those in Mumbai are spoilt for choice with climbing groups in Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Borivali, scores of indoor walls, and proximity to the Sahyadri hills. Climbing calls for a variety of specialized techniques and safety equipment. If ropes and gear befuddle you, you could begin with bouldering—free climbing on boulders no more than 10-15ft tall, with a cushion below to break your fall. “Climbing isn’t a binge exercise; it’s a multidimensional sport which increases your body awareness, your awareness of space...it’s a little bit like dancing,” says Anuraag Tiwari, co-founder of Delhi Rock, a volunteer group that trains and takes beginners for climbing sessions on weekends. “For city dwellers,” says Tiwari, “short day trips out to natural rock can wash the mind.” If you need more of a push: A 2010 survey conducted by the University of Hertfordshire in the UK polled over 6,000 people to find out which 15 sports they thought would make a member of the opposite sex more attractive. Climbing topped the list for women with 57%. Climbers tend to be trim, muscular and extremely flexible. Who wouldn’t want that? Vanity aside, a common misconception about climbing is that it’s all about strength. Being strong helps, and climbing is highly skill-intensive, but what’s more important is proper technique and a mind of steel. Fear can paralyse even the strongest climber. In a January 2010 article called Why Climbing Can Redefine Your Boundaries, Lounge sports columnist Rohit Brijnath wrote about how climbing calls for a leap of belief. “This leap is also one of discovery, it helps you locate physical reserves you weren’t sure you owned, it takes you to hideaways in the mind where a faint bravery might rest,” he wrote. “It is why I admire climbers, solo sailors, North and South Pole walkers, Sahara crossers, for whatever their mode of transport, they are nevertheless leaping, and they have a magnificent faith.” Climbing is a pensive, personal, and challenging sport. The ground is our comfort zone, we are safe on it, and so to take just the first step up a wall, even if roped, is to walk past fear. Brijnath also quoted author Craig Vetter, who captured the spirit of climbing beautifully: “In Yosemite (in America), the grapevine ethic...is that you do not climb to be famous or to make a living. You climb to climb, and if you do it with intensity, the rewards are deep and private. At its purest, you go alone, and when you get back, you might not even say where you’ve been or what you’ve climbed.”

THINKSTOCK

PICTURE THE WILD

The wilderness abounds in sights that are exotic to the human senses. Leave National Geographic and the comfort of your couch behind, arm yourself with a camera, and explore first-hand. “Out there, you realize how powerful nature is when compared to us,” says Raja Purohit, a Pune-based wildlife photographer. “You learn the difference between a tiger in a cage and a tiger in the wild.” Along the way, the toughest lesson, the lesson in patience. Animals in the wild abhor human intrusion, so wildlife photographers have to learn to be invisible, waiting in one position silently for hours for that elusive bird or beast to come within the frame of the viewfinder long enough to capture it. Wildlife photography requires that you travel to national parks or sanctuaries, and India has a mind-boggling variety of forests, from the grasslands of Bandhavgarh, the mountain forests of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve and the marshlands of the Sunderbans to the rainforests of Arunachal Pradesh. For weekend getaways, try photographing birds, since they gather on the outskirts of cities and are within easy reach. Purohit emphasizes the quality of lenses that ought to be used. “Birds usually require a 500mm lens while mammals need a minimum of 200mm focal length,” he says. Prices vary with the quality and brand, but get ready to spend anywhere between `50,000-4 lakh for a lens. Throw in a tripod and you are ready to go.

GO FISHING

There is no way to speed things up while fishing, the fish will bite when they will. But after you’ve cast your line, immerse yourself in the verdant beauty of the place you are in—because if you’ve gone angling, you are bound to be standing in a secluded area in a river valley. Fishing demands social isolation—go in a group, the fish will run; let your cellphone ring, they’ll give you a wide berth. It might not be widely known, but India is a premier destination for fishing holidays, with some of the least-explored waters in the world. Fast-flowing glacial streams all over the Himalayas offer great fishing, with the majestic mahseer, the beautiful rainbow and brown trouts, and the massive catfish. Goa and the Andaman islands offer salt-water fishing, a more adrenalin-driven venture. Most touring companies that organize fishing trips follow a strict catch-and-release policy, except for trouts, which are consumed. Contact Indiaangling.com; Mountainhighs.com, which runs the Himalayan Trout House in Himachal Pradesh; Himalayanoutback.com, which organizes fishing camps around the Indian Himalayas; Mahseerangling.com, which offers fly fishing in south Indian rivers; and Chennaisportfishing.com and Gamefishingindia.com, which take you out to the open sea.

BIRTH OF A BONSAI

Miniaturizing trees and creating an illusion of age—bonsai cultivation was started by the Chinese, and the Japanese perfected it. For the gardener at heart, a bonsai lets you put your creativity into something that will live with you. Cultivating it calls for persistence, with the constant pruning of branches, root cutting, potting, wiring and grafting to produce small trees that, even though confined in a shallow pot, live to be full-grown. The stage of growth at which you plant your bonsai is crucial. It cannot be a sapling, but it shouldn’t be much older: It has to be tender enough for you to be able to twist its branches to give it your desired shape. Six-eight months later, you may need to prune the branches in a way that it grows horizontally rather than vertically. Bonsais need some sunlight so don’t keep them indoors. Shaping your bonsai is where the creative process kicks in . When you tie tender branches with wires over a period of time, they will take the desired shape. You can develop various styles; for instance, the windswept, the forest, a rock-planter where the roots peep from crevices, or the artistic Bunjin. Like Renu Vaish, a bonsai lover and former president of the Indian Bonsai Association, New Delhi, puts it, “Like an artist makes a painting, a bonsai brings out your creativity through nature.”

LET THE HERBS GROW

There is great bliss in watching a tiny seed grow into a magnificent plant under your care—and if you could snip and pluck from it to put it in your pasta or salad, you’ve got a fistful of heaven in your hands. Growing herbs requires very little space, and they will grow abundantly in small pots—in a garden, in balconies or windowsills, and

even in hanging pots. They are also forgiving and hardy, and don’t need fussy handling or care. Some herbs, like coriander, thyme, mint and rosemary, like blasting sunshine. Flat-leaf parsley and basil thrive in semi-shade. The essentials can’t get simpler—terracotta or plastic pots, some good soil, organic compost and dried cow dung, and of course, the seeds. All these are available in most nurseries in any city. Create a mix with three parts soil, one part compost and one part cow dung, fork up the mixture till it’s loose and powdery, scatter the seeds in the pot, and cover it with half an inch of the soil mix, then drench the pots with water. A week later, you’ll have the thrill of watching the baby shoots spring through the soil, and then watch them grow, week after week, with just a little bit of watering every day. Soon you’ll be growing too much for personal use, and you’ll have to share your produce with friends and neighbours—you’ll never meet a selfish gardener! You could even think of graduating to a more robust herb—you know, the kind that is medicinal and makes you “feel good”.

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SOUND INVESTMENT Playing an LP on a turntable is nothing like flipping through songs on an iPod—it’s a meditative process, perched somewhere between aural euphoria and a collector’s obsessiveness. But why go retro with something that reached near-extinction four decades ago? The answer is as simple as it is fundamental: sound. As music players climbed the ladder of technology—from LPs to tapes to CDs to MP3s—what they gained in accessibility and mobility, they lost in sound quality. Music, when played live, is analogue by definition. On your CD or MP3, the sound waves are recorded and stored through a series of digital “snapshots” of the actual analogue output. When you play it, the digital data has to be reconverted into analogue signals to create the sound that comes through your speakers. In both, there are losses in sound quality. When you play an LP, though, there are no digital conversions involved, and the original sound is reproduced more accurately. What that techno-babble translates to is a rich, warm, fuller sound spectrum. You will discover subtleties you never imagined were frozen in those tiny grooves, and levels of sound quality you didn’t know even existed (unless you work in a recording studio). Less important, but perhaps even more addictive, are the processes involved in playing an LP. You scour through your collection, pick the one that suits your mood, feel the heft of the disc, appreciate the large-format album art, gently slide out the vinyl, place it on the turntable, softly place the needle on the groove, and then sit back. This slowing down of the process of reaching to your music, making it a deliberate act, only heightens the listening experience. This is how the casual music lover turns into a serious audiophile. The fact that for the last five-six years the return of the LP has gained some serious momentum around the world

helps as well. All the equipment you need—a turntable, a phono amplifier, a set of speakers, and both new and second-hand LPs—are now widely available in most major cities in India. Record labels, such as EMI Music, Saregama and Sony Music Entertainment, have begun reissuing LPs, and music stores such as Rhythm House, Music Land, Music World and Landmark have started stocking them; add to that the fun of trawling through Chor Bazaar in Mumbai or Free School Street (now Mirza Ghalib Street) in Kolkata for second-hand vinyls. For the serious collector though, the Internet is the true paradise; eBay, Flipkart and Amazon sell a wide collection of LPs, www.diversevinyl.com and www.discogs.com offer a breathtaking collection of Western music, and www.bollywoodvinyl.com stocks both Bollywood and regional Indian film music. An audiophile’s tip: If you have the money, look for Japanese pressings, widely regarded as the highest-quality vinyls issued today. Also look for reissues of jazz and Blues classics by the international music publishing houses Acoustic Sounds and Music Matters. Nova Audio in Mumbai, New Gramophone House in New Delhi and Absolute Phase in Bangalore stock excellent selections of turntables, amplifiers and accessories, including Denon, Audio-Technica, Sony and Lenco players, priced between `10,000 and `2.5 lakh.

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UNDERSTAND YOUR URBAN HABITAT

Make your trip in your own city this coming year. Turn the vacation into a staycation. The phrase, coined by the British press at the height of the slowdown of 2008-09, is a mash-up of “stay-at-home” and “vacation”. Poke around your city’s secret corners and ignore the tourist traps. In Delhi, go to the lakeside Jahaz Mahal, that melancholic ruin in Mehrauli that casts a jahaz (ship)-like reflection on the water. In Mumbai, attend the Sabbath-gathering of Jews in one of the city’s oldest synagogues in Byculla. Use books as a starting point to make travel plans. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children is a Mumbai cliché but it’s the most user-friendly guide for sightseeing tips on old Bombay. The forthcoming Mumbai Noir (edited by Altaf Tyrewala, releasing in March, Akashic Books), along with existing journalistic accounts of the city by Suketu Mehta and Sonia Faleiro, are handbooks to the new Mumbai. The newly released Delhi: 14 Historic Walks (Westland, `495) by walking guide Swapna Liddle might tempt Delhiites to check out their neighbourhood ruins, while the four-volume The Delhi Walla guidebook series (HarperCollins, `199 each) by Lounge staffer Mayank Austen Soofi is an alternative gateway to the Capital. Trawling the Net will introduce you to bloggers who are exploring your city’s bazaars, monuments and cuisines so passionately that they might put professional chroniclers to shame. Finally, every city has at least one famous flaneur who loves exploring its unexplored aspects and doesn’t mind sharing his enthusiasm with others. In Delhi, ask Pradip Krishen at treesofdelhi@gmail.com to take you for a pro bono excursion to the city’s jungles.

REDISCOVER SCIENCE

Science can be a fascinating field of endless study, but for most of us, it’s something we left behind in school. Catching up on those lost lessons can be extremely fulfilling, and it’s possible to do so without hitting the textbooks. For example, learning about the periodic table is now best done using the Elements app on the iPad. The $13.99 (around `730) app is the most beautiful and interactive periodic table—instead of just seeing the elements list, you can look up their uses, current prices, or handle a 3D sample image. Or visit Cellcraft.com to learn more about cell construction and behaviour—packaged as a quirky video game. You have to build a cell and fight off viruses, and in the process you’ll learn basic biology. Also worth playing is Super Energy Apocalypse, a brilliant educational game that can teach people about the direct consequences of reliance on polluting technology, and showcases the advantage and drawbacks of green technology. If you’re looking for something a little more straightforward, it’s also worth visiting Biodigitalhuman.com, a website with a fully explorable model of a 3D human, so visitors can take a tour of the bone structure, or get a proper look at what the pancreas really look like.

THINKSTOCK

GIVE A GIFT THAT LASTS...AND LASTS Always worried the gift you picked out isn’t “special” enough? You’ve learnt over time that it isn’t the value, or even how long you took to choose it that counts, but how it makes your friend remember the occasion the gift was meant to mark. Here’s a great gifting suggestion: If you know what your friend is really

interested in (wildlife, photography, art, architecture, popular culture?), gift him or her an annual subscription to a magazine that’s hard to get off the stands locally. When your friend receives the weekly copy of The New Yorker or a monthly copy Wallpaper, he won’t just think of his 30th birthday or gala wedding, he’ll also think of you. PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

EAT WITH THE SEASON

We used to mark time by the food we ate: the seasonal vegetables, the appropriate spices, the right kinds of oil, and the special festive foods. Life in a city or town may make these options moot today; for most of us, “seasonal” means avoiding bhelpuri in the monsoons. But there are some traditions for which we don’t need to invest time and energy finding exactly the right season or festival. So make 2012 your year to start a pickle tradition. It involves effort, perseverance and a little bit of love, but it will last for months. You might just end up creating something your family and neighbours will look forward to every year. One good way to do this is to hunt up those old recipes for lime pickle or mango jam which have been in the family for generations, and take a few weekends to make it happen. If those recipes are out of reach, peek into a regional cookbook. Here’s Lounge columnist Pamela Timms’ recipe for cape gooseberry preserve, with which you could start (if you want to make jam that will keep for a few months, you need quite a high sugar content).

Cape gooseberry preserve Ingredients 1kg cape gooseberries, washed 1kg sugar Method Keep 2x500ml, clean, dry glass jars ready. Put a saucer in the freezer. Put the fruit into a large, heavy-bottomed pan and pour in the sugar. Heat gently to dissolve the sugar and then bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes, then test for setting point: Put a small amount of jam on to the chilled saucer. If the jam wrinkles slightly when you push it, it is ready. If not, boil for a few more minutes and test again. Cape gooseberries have high pectin levels so you don’t need to boil for long. Five minutes is usually enough. When the jam is ready, pour it into the clean jars. When it is cool, seal with a lid. For a less sweet jam, reduce the sugar to 500g but keep the jam in the fridge because it won’t keep as well as the one with the higher sugar content.

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GO THE FAMILY WAY

When the apocalypse arrives (well, let’s just play along anyway), what do you think will be flashing before your eyes? That killer PowerPoint presentation? Or the cake your sixyearold baked? Doomsday or not, a new year provides the perfect opportunity to reconnect with the family and create lasting memories. Take up a project that involves the whole family, the more extended the better. We suggest some fun ways to renew the bond COURTESY THE ALKAZI COLLECTION

PHOTOGRAPHY

Freeze time: A family portrait circa 1910 (Rex Photo Studio).

Spectacle: A fibreglass statue of Kempe Gowda at the Kempe Gowda Memorial Museum in Bangalore.

CAPTION THOSE PHOTOS

Nothing evokes quite so much emotion as flipping through old family albums. The physical turning of the fraying, yellowing, slightly musty pages parallels a journey in time and long-forgotten moments live fleetingly again. On long winter evenings or scorching summer ones, when venturing out of home seems like a punishment, gather the family around and sit down to sort and caption old photos together. Go back to the oldest photo you can find—perhaps

that tinted, square one in which a dapper young man is standing next to a barely-visible-under-her-jewellery young woman, who you’re told are your grandparents; or of that picnic in Panchgani in 1987 where the whole clan had descended from every corner of the country. Watch the stories come tumbling forth as your mother introduces your son to the formidable aunt who had run away from home at 18 to meet Dilip Kumar.

CREATE AN HEIRLOOM

Don’t have a precious ornament that your grandmother passed on to you, or a carpet that has been in the family for decades? You could create one. Family heirlooms should ideally pass the test of time and are that much more valuable when they tell a story. Create a family heirloom along with the rest of your family in the coming year. Make a patchwork quilt or a sari that you might want to pass on to your daughter on her wedding day (or her graduation party). Pick designs that are contemporary and reflect the present time, with colours that you all like. Take bits of ideas from everybody for the project so it is truly a family effort. THINKSTOCK

45 BUILD A FAMILY TREE

You’ve got cousins in Bangkok and Boston, in Manchester and Mumbai and Mahabaleshwar. And while you dutifully swap New Year and Diwali greetings and mail each other wedding invitations, the extended family gets even more extended as you mix up who married who and who just had a boy. Make it a family project to trace all the branches spread out over the globe. There are plenty of websites (such as Genealogy.com) that help build family trees. A more collaborative way of going about it is having your own website or a Facebook page to post photos, videos, make family plans and generally reconnect. Link it to the family tree and perhaps you’ll even find the uncle who had vanished in Myanmar after World War II.

ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT

VISIT A MUSEUM A MONTH

You now know your Amrita Sher-Gil from a Tyeb Mehta, but only enough to smile politely when around art-inclined friends. Contemporary art galleries have disenchanted you with their oh-so-cool stance. But your city museum, despite the bad shape it is in, is a treasure trove of historical art. And despite what you believe, the exhibits do change every few months. If you’re in Mumbai, make a monthly trip, family in tow, to art spots such as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, the recently renovated Dr Bhau Daji Lad and the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). In Delhi, you have the National Museum and the larger NGMA; in Kolkata, visit the Indian Museum, India’s largest museum and the ninth oldest in the world.

STRING A FAMILY BAND

You sacrificed your dream of being a rock star at the altar of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) admission. But now that you are finally the master (or mistress) of your own fate, why not have that band you always meant to set up? And before you object that this would eat into family time, we suggest you begin scouting for band-mates within the family—that uncle who could play a mean riff, or the nephew who drives his mother nuts with his drum practice. Get them together for jam sessions. Offer to play at your next office party. If nothing, you can definitely wriggle centre stage at the next wedding in the family. Or better still, compose your own soundtrack for a YouTube release. There are countless audio-editing software available online, free as well as paid, such as FL Studio, Cool Edit Pro, Sound Forge, etc.

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Welcome home: home: A boat bridge on the Buriganga river in Dhaka; and (below) an artwork by Paula Sengupta, a Kolkatabased artist who has been exploring her family’s roots in Bangladesh.

FIND YOUR WAY BACK HOME

COURTESY GALLERY

ESPACE

‘Lounge’ contributor SHAMIK BAG gives a firsthand account of his personal travels, including an ongoing one to trace his grandmother’s roots in Bangladesh Of the many vices I can own up to, I’m not given to “doing acid”. Yet, millions of stars are floating below me; transient, almost hallucinatory, evidence of the millions above. The stars are being carried up-and-down up-and-down by waves, their sparkly brightness melting into the frothy phosphorescence of the sea. As the ship ploughed through the waves and the dark night, a million more stars got born and lost below me. The two-day ship journey from Port Blair in the Andaman islands to Campbell Bay in the Nicobar group of islands was an indulgence of the self, without the trappings of luxury the word has come to be associated with. As the final destination of a two-month stay in India’s southernmost cluster of islands, Campbell Bay on Great Nicobar Island seemed perfect—the last Indian island before the waters take you to Sumatra in Indonesia and the farthest one can travel by ship in India. In a map of the Indian subcontinent, Great Nicobar is the final dot. What is it I had left behind on shore? The cellphone signal of the private operator and the email connection were the easy sacrifices. Wrenching away from a salaried life and the cocooned security it creates was the difficult bit. It required a careful reorchestration of life and style: prioritizing necessities over wants, putting a premium on reuse and regeneration of objects amid the increasing use-and-throw culture of Indian society, finding value in a single rupee coin and making it stretch, opting for a brisk walk over a short drive—revisiting, basically, some of the lessons taught in childhood. Viewed from this side, it can be as simple as going back to the rum days.

Four years later, I was determinedly on my own, having lived through a job with the Indian edition of an American magazine where, even before you could utter Lehman Brothers, we were seeing salary cuts. India, nevertheless, was growing at a robust 8%, even as much of the advertising in the magazine came from brands based in America but making aggressive forays into the Indian market. When America was seeing bailouts and our magazine was feeling the squeeze, I wasn’t even the owner of a credit card. It was necessary to disentangle from the cross-currents of the global market slipstream, where an individual is no more than flotsam and jetsam getting tossed around in churning waters. I quit and unceremoniously filed for penury a little after Lehman Brothers filed for global headline-grabbing bankruptcy. Simple economics demanded that I not just return home, but also,

HOMECOMING CAN MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS TO DIFFERENT PEOPLE...(IT) CAN BE A SCREAM AGAINST THE CHOPPING OF THE GIANT NEIGHBOUR HOOD MANGO TREE AND THE ENTIRE BIO SYSTEM IT NOURISHED FOR YEARS...

metaphorically speaking, stay there. Homecoming can mean different things to different people. It might just be about watering the potted plants on the terrace, stopping for a long-pending chat with a neighbour, or lifting a stray puppy by the neck and keeping it off the busy breakneck roads. Homecoming can be a scream against the chopping of the giant neighbourhood mango tree and the entire biosystem it nourished for years, or plucking out, one by one, vinyl advertisement boards nailed to tree trunks. It can be about returning to the base of Mount Kanchenjunga in Sikkim and looking up from within the folds of whiteness as she slowly emerges—her outlines glowing like tubelights, outshining the whitewashed canvas of cloud; hearing the stately rumble of an early morning avalanche rolling down her spine; getting stunned by the sun reflecting off her snowy inclines, and in knowing, and celebrating, our fragile facts and statistics before nature. Homecoming can be in standing at the water’s edge on Great Nicobar Island, looking out at the dramatic turquoise of the ocean. It is when realization strikes that the same water which carries such sheer beauty now had brought with it unforgiving death and destruction a few years ago with the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004. And also that from here, there is nowhere else to go save home.

Earlier this year, in the village of my maternal grandmother in Bangladesh’s riverine Barisal district, I shared the darkness with her, felt at home. Well over half a century after my late grandmother quit her village, never to return, I had somehow managed to trace the route back to her home—the root, really. As it was during her time, electricity is yet to arrive there, though nature is abundant. The opaque darkness, the ceaseless buzz of crickets, the rustle in the bamboo forest, the erratic hoot of the owl, and the glow of fireflies belonged to her as much as it belonged to me. Behind me, inside the house of my grandmother’s neighbour, the two children in the neighbour’s family completed their homework around a kerosene lamp. Lives yet untouched by television, or even a radio. After being introduced for the first time, the elderly patriarch of the family had forbidden us to leave without

spending a night at their single-room home. The septuagenarian had laid out two plates full of mangoes and guavas plucked from their garden, gone out to buy chicken from the bazaar (reached after crossing a slippery bamboo-held bridge across a monsoon-fed rivulet), and for the fish, his son, who runs a small stationery shop, had flung the net in their bountiful family pond. The next morning, he had extracted from an iron chest a letter dated and signed by my grandmother’s father, Nilratan Chatterjee, its yellowed edges an indication of the letter’s century-old vintage. The family tearfully waved us goodbye, but not before bestowing gifts upon us, a white hand-spun kurta for me. I wanted to preserve the kurta forever, but couldn’t. I have worn—and shown it off—with juvenile pride. In it, again, I felt strangely at home.

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THINKSTOCK

Yoga guru B.K.S. Iyengar once famously said: “When you hold breath, you hold the soul”. The purpose of all of yoga—pranayam, asanas, suppleness of mind and limb—is to allow man, whether an ascetic or an ordinary householder, to gain awareness of his breath. In classical Indian music, drawing your breath from the pit of your stomach, and controlling its release, is what directs your tune. In poetry, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl was spun from breath-lengths and the meter of rhyme was nothing but the dipping and rising of breath. In sport, it is what propels you to the finish line. Rahul Dev, who runs the fitness centre Breathe in Mumbai, says: “If your breathing is wrong, no matter what you do, or how often you do it, it is of no use to your body.” When it comes to emotions, rhythmic or arrhythmic breath is what differentiates anger and joy, excitability and calm. In September, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that with rapid industrialization, India is one of the worst-affected by air pollution, and an epicentre for lung diseases. Our age is one of short, sharp, half-lung breaths. No wonder, we are so angry all the time. Breathing is the metronome to your day. To control breath is to control life itself. To realign life, begin with one, full, deep, clear inhalation. Breathe, now.

TRAVEL TO A FRIEND Facebook has helped us get back in touch with long-lost playmates and that college romance that ended with the final exams. You could trade those quick “remember the time...” chats online and take the effort to go out and meet these friends you’ve recently rediscovered. That friend you went to preschool with runs a resort in his native village in Kerala, your best friend from primary school is a mother of three in Lucknow, and your partner from kick-boxing classes is a mountaineering instructor in Leh. Choose three friends you’ve lost touch with and make that your next travel project. If you haven’t been to that part of the country before, do some research and make arrangements to travel around as well. Discover a new place, and rekindle an old connection.

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Contributors: Amrita Roy, Anindita Ghose, Anupam Kant Verma, Gayatri Jayaraman, Gopal Sathe, Komal Sharma, Pavitra Jayaraman, Rudraneil Sengupta, Sanjukta Sharma, Seema Chowdhry, Shreya Ray, Supriya Nair and Viseshika Sharma.

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