Lounge for 24 Feb 2012 by HT Media

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

www.livemint.com

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Vol. 6 No. 8

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

GROWING UP GEEK

Generation 2.0, the iPad child, is enriched by technology, and many parents are embracing it wholeheartedly. But can technology transform the way a child’s abilities develop? >Pages 1011

ON THE SPOT >Page 9

GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN BOW

Coaches believe archer Deepika Kumari is an obvious contender for an Olympic medal >Page 8

RECLAIMING THE NARRATIVE

Enough of the ‘white guilt’ and the ‘lifechanging experience’ the Western world travels with. Let nuance win >Pages 1213

Agni Murthy, 14, modified his mother’s Acer Iconia tablet to access 3G on a WiFi model.

DICKENS OF A TOWN

REPLY TO ALL

GAME THEORY

AAKAR PATEL

LIVING UP TO A NAME

n Gujarati, the Tata logo is spelled with a soft T, like the one we use in tara, though we say Tata with the hard T. Which is correct? The truth is that Tata is actually misspoken now. The name was modified to make it Anglicized, though the Gujarati spelling was retained because it was original. The other famous industrial name to be mispronounced is Ambani. We use the soft N for Ambani. But Gujaratis know the name with its rolled N used in the word... >Page 4

ROHIT BRIJNATH

WHAT DOES SPORT MEAN TO YOU?

o really. Why do you watch sport, what do you see, what do you believe in, what does it all mean to you? Are you looking at Roger Federer’s grip when he serves, or his knee bend, or guessing where it lands, or where he tosses it for that sliding serve wide on the deuce court? Or do you just prefer his tush to his toss? Ladies, please, it’s fine. Do you tire friends with inept impersonations of Virender Sehwag’s non-footwork? Do you look down on the less discerning as being of lower intellect? >Page 4

THE GOOD LIFE

SHOBA NARAYAN

NOSTALGIA AND NIELSEN

eryl Streep is going to win, of course, for The Iron Lady. Then again, giving Streep an Oscar is like awarding Albert Einstein a Nobel; or calling Sachin Tendulkar the greatest Indian cricket player. It’s a safe choice; a win-win situation that makes both the recipient and the jury look good. I didn’t think much of her high-pitched voice by the way. It was too similar to her Julia Child portrayal in Julie & Julia. But the Academy loves English accents, witness last year’s Oscars for The King’s Speech. >Page 5

For Charles Dickens’ 200th birth anniversary, contemporary London is suffused with his spirit. We go in search of the great author >Page 16

MINT MEDIA MARKETING INITIATIVE

More than three hundred years have elapsed

e en presents

Theof T Toast time i

since the influence of light on chloride of silver was observed by the alchemists of the sixteenth century. A mechanical invention, known today as Camera, is one of the most savored treasures ever.

1822

It had been eight eventful years since a Frenchman called Joseph Nicéphore Niépce obtained the first ever photographic image with his “Camera Obscura”. This image was taken by having the shutter left open for eight hours ad faded shortly after.

1840

1859 The panoramic camera is patented in Sutton.

1840

1850

William Henry Talbot patented the process of Calotype- which involves the first negative-positive printing process making it possible to make multiple copies of a picture.

Collodion process is invented by Frederick Scott Archer. This requires only two or three seconds of sunlight exposure for the image to be captured.

1871

1884

A man called Richard Leach Maddox invents a gelatin dry plate silver bromide process-negatives are no longer needed to be developed immediately.

Flexible, paper based photographic film is invented by company “Eastman”.

1900 The turn of the century brought around the first mass marketed camera “the Browning”.

1935

1973

Eastman Kodak starts selling Kodachrome film on the market.

Polaroid develops one step instant colour film, shoot and print with one click.

2008 Two years back in 2006 camera phones had outsold all film-based cameras and digital cameras combined.

King George IV makes a state visit to Scotland in a gesture of reconciliations between the two countries. At the welcoming ceremony the king requests for a glass of the illegal Glenlivet.

collector and connoisseur and why every other malt still measures itself by The GlenlivetThe Single Malt.

1840 George Smith becomes a tenant of the farm of Minmore

1850 George Smith rents Deinabo Estate and opens Cairngorm Distillery. Also Usher & Co introduces Old Vatted Glenlivet.

1859

1884

more a legacy than an indulgence. Perhaps the reason why it is sought out by the

1822

1850

1871

Quite like The Glenlivet, which is considered

1871 Death of George Smith. His son John Gordon Smith inherits Glenlivet.

1887 Eastman has another invention, the Kodak roll film camera.

1900

1992

1935

It’s been a year since Kodak released the first professional digital camera system (DCS), aimed at photojournalists. It was a Nikon F-3 camera equipped by Kodak with a 1.3 megapixel sensor.

1973

1992

Glenlivet becomes synonymous with quality. Some are so far afield that Glenlivet becomes known as ‘The Longest Glen in Scotland’.

1935 Neil Gunn writes, “Historically speaking, Glenlivet is synonymous with the ‘real stuff’.”

1887 Distillery capacity reaches 4,000 gallons per week or 200,000 per year. Also four excise officers start living at the distillery.

The Boer siege of the garrison town of Ladysmith is relieved by British troops. John Gordon Smith receives letter of 30 March from Major C H MacReady, GMC, Arcadia Camp by Ladysmith. “The cask arrived here yesterday in perfect condition. I am directed by Colonel Scott to convey to you the hearty thanks of the battalion for your most handsome and welcome present.

1973 Two new stills installed, dark grains plant opened. The number of stills increases from four to six, reflecting the continued success of Glenlivet in the USA.

1992 2008

George & J G Smith & Co is created. The new distilleries at Upper Drumin and Delnabo are closed. All copper still are moved to the new distillery in Minmore.

1900

1884 1887

1859

The Chivas and Glenlivet Group created

2008 Global Sales of The Glenlivet surpass 500, 0009 litre cases

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, FEBRUARY 25, 2012 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

LOUNGE REVIEW | SONY’S TABLET P

GARDENING WORKSHOPS, MUMBAI

ony’s Tablet S and Tablet P are their first entries in the fast growing tablet market. First announced in 2011, the Tablet P went on sale in India on 13 February; the Tablet S was launched in December. Both tablets look (and feel) different from iPad style slabs that are the norm today. The Tablet P has an unusual look. It has two screens that fold to look like a case for reading glasses, which can fit easily in your trouser pocket. At 5.5 inches, each screen is slightly bigger than a Samsung Galaxy Note (5.3 inches). The ports are on the right side of the lower screen—there is a micro USB connector for transferring files, a power button, volume buttons and a jack for the charger. The Tablet P has only one model, with 4 GB storage (2 GB onboard and 2 GB microSD, upgradable), Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Inside, there’s a 1 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM and a customized Android OS that makes use of the dualscreen design. Apps can be run in either just the top screen, or spread across both screens. Using just the top screen gives a crisper appearance, but effectively means you are toting a dead screen without a reason. The full-screen view leaves a blank band in the middle, where the two screens connect, which can be distracting in some situations. The Tablet P has a lot to offer, but at a time when budget tablets like the Kindle Fire are dominating sales globally, Sony needs to reconsider its pricing (`36,990 for Tablet P). The Tablet S saw its price cut, but such moves only alienate early adopters.

The good stuff The Tablet P is light, and convenient to hold. At 370g, it’s lighter than most 7-inch tabs, and its shape distributes weight well, so it’s easy to carry. It looks sleek—the hinge turns smoothly with enough stiffness to feel reassuring, and the cover fits flush against the body, with no visible gaps. There is a front-facing VGA camera for video chat, and a 5 MP camera on the back. Both the S and the P can run PlayStation games and access the PlayStation Store, giving them a huge library of games to draw on that other

LOUNGE PREVIEW | UNDER THE TREE’S

Android devices can’t play. The upper screen of the Tablet P has the video, which looks crisp and bright, while the lower screen becomes a gamepad. Sony’s custom apps make good use of the double screen. The built-in Reader app shows one page on each of the two screens, and is possibly the best e-book app around, fitting comfortably in your hands and displaying the text neatly.

The not so good The only problem we had with its design is that the corners are not rounded; they end in sharp points that dig into your palms if you don’t hold it carefully. The battery ran out in around 6 hours of testing, mostly gaming and video playback. That’s a far cry from 10.5 hours on an iPad. Only 2 GB of onboard storage is surprising for a premium-priced device. Some functions, such as moving icons and widgets, are painfully slow, though most apps themselves work well. Your mileage may vary with the virtual keyboard for the PlayStation games. Since there are no physical buttons, you can easily press the wrong one as they are placed high up on the screen. While Sony’s custom apps use the dual screens well, most popular apps don’t. This means that if you’re already invested in the Kindle ecosystem, you will have to endure a sub-par experience to read your existing library. The same is true for many other popular apps as well.

n the heart of Khar’s Union Park enclave, lost in the midst of the concrete jungle around it, is a bungalow lush with trees, shrubs, potted plants and creepers. A variety of orchids hang from coconut shells in the veranda and a giant wine glass forms a terrarium—a self-contained plant ecosystem. It can make you forget that summer has just arrived. On its terrace, chirpy red-hatted Anusha Babbar, 31, is in the process of starting her own garden workshops. Babbar, whose family runs the wellknown Green Grower nursery in Bandra, has a post-graduate diploma in horticulture from Australia, and has been handling the family’s plant business for more than 10 years. “I grew up with plants. My grandmother had plants everywhere. Our terrace (where the workshops will be held) had greenhouses, vegetable and herb gardens when I was a child,” she says. Babbar has taken a break from the family business because she wants to get her hands dirty again. She spent the past year travelling to farms from Auroville to Punjab to gain exposure to Indian flora. Babbar points out the tomato and brinjal plants on her terrace, which are bursting with fruit. “Plants that grow fruit, flow-

ers or have flavour, need extra sunlight,” she explains. In a shaded corner, she grows celery, wheatgrass, chives, basil, mint. She pulls newly-grown coriander and shows us how to replant it. Her workshops, (which have a mandatory `500 registration fee so she can be sure of participation to organize snacks) range from miniature landscaping, potting plants, creating a terrarium, growing orchids, to caring for roses, ferns, composting, vegetable and herb garden growing. One workshop teaches you to create a garden for the lifecycle of a butterfly. Each stage, Babbar explains, will teach the basics. “Because people assume they know the basics; but where to keep the plant and how much to water, are key.” You can opt for half-day, one-day or two-day workshops, and prices range from `850-3,000. The cost includes snacks and refreshments for the half-day one, and lunch along with snacks and refreshments for the full-day one. Under the Tree, No. 1, Union Park, Pali Hill Road, Khar (West), Mumbai. For details, call 9833921120. Gayatri Jayaraman HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

Green fingers: Anusha Babbar on her terrace garden in Khar.

Talk plastic The Sony Tablet P is available for `36,990. Gopal Sathe

ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

AAKAR PATEL REPLY TO ALL

Living up to a name

retained because it was original. The other famous industrial name to be mispronounced is Ambani. We use the soft N for Ambani. But Gujaratis know the name with its rolled N used in the word for atomic, parmanu. To complete our trio of mispronounced industrialists, we have the Birlas. In her biography of G.D. Birla, Medha Kudaisya writes that the family was first called Baidh, then Behada, then Behadia, and finally Bedla/Birla. Old Marwaris still pronounce it Bidla. As prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee wrote two letters to K.K. Birla in Hindi. One on 11 January 1999 addressed to “Priya Dr Birla”, the other on 24 August 2001 addressed to “Priya Dr Bidla”. We know that the Birlas use an R in English because of their firms’ names. But do they, like Tata did, retain the old spelling in the original Hindi, with a D? No. In K.K. Birla’s autobiography is a photograph of G.P. Birla’s Padma Bhushan certificate. Here the name in Hindi is spelled with an R, and it is Birla in the way it is familiar to us. This transition of D to R is interesting. Most Indians spell horse ghoda, but upper-class north Indians and Pakistanis use ghora. Why is this so? The rolled D is a unique sound to India, and present in neither Sanskrit nor Perso-Arabic. In Hindi it is shown by modifying the letter D, by placing a dot under it. In Urdu, however, the rolled D is produced by modifying the letter R. This explains the spelling difference when the word is articulated in Roman, though the pronunciation is the same. They see an R when thinking of ghoda, while we see a D. Pakistani names with R are often misleading and

should alert us to the way in which they are spoken. The Bhuttos’ ancestral village is near Ladkana, not Larkana. My mentor in Surat, Badriprasad Benday, had a theory about names. He felt the label given to a man infused its value into his person. Someone named Suraj, for instance, would be radiant. Benday thought the person’s natural personality was altered by his constant, though unconscious, living up to his name. Let’s look at some names, and consider if their owners lived up to them. Jawahar is Arabic for jewel. Nehru shares his name with Gandhi’s comrade in the Khilafat movement, Mohammad Ali Jauhar, after whom Mumbai’s Mohammad Ali Road is named. In 1960, Nehru signed the Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan’s field marshal Ayub Khan. Ayub’s son was Nawaz Sharif’s foreign minister Gohar Ayub. Gohar is the Persian version of Jauhar. Arabs can’t say “G” and convert G into J. Gohar is also the word for pearl. And so the Nehrus, Motilal and Jawaharlal, actually shared the same name by meaning. His daughter Indira Priyadarshini was named after Emperor Ashoka, who was called Priyadarshi because he was magnificent to behold. Ashoka means he who doesn’t grieve. But Ashoka’s most famous act was one of grief, after he slaughtered the Kalingan army and renounced violence. Another thing that interests me about names is how the same one changes when used across cultures. We saw how the Arabs substituted G for J. The Greeks had G but no J. See how the Biblical name John changes across

Europe: Iohannes/Giovanni/Juan/Ivan/ Juha/Jens/Hans/Eoin/Iain/Ian/Jan/Yanni. In Arabic the word for John is Yahya. This was the name of Ayub Khan’s successor, the man who presided over the partition of Pakistan in 1971. The other Arabic name for John is Youhana. We are familiar with it because of Pakistani batsman Yousuf. He became Mohd Yousuf after converting to Islam from Christianity. But he needn’t have changed his name at all because John the Baptist is a revered figure in Islam as well. Christianity’s other popular name is Peter. From this we get Peer/Pierre/Pyotr/ Pedro/Petr across Europe. Peter comes from the Greek word for rock, Petros. The Arabs don’t have “P” and so in Arabic Peter is Boutros, the first name of the former UN secretary general from Egypt. Boutros Boutros-Ghali was Coptic Christian by faith, which is why he was named after Peter the Apostle. One South Asian famous in the UN was Pakistan’s A.S. Bokhari. In 1958, The New York Times wrote in his obituary: “Occasionally we have been blessed with the presence of some individual, who could give human form to our abstractions. We have just lost such a person in the untimely death of Prof. Ahmed S. Bokhari, diplomat from Pakistan, who served as chief of information in the United Nations. He was, in the best sense, a citizen of the world.” The talented Bokhari was the first humourist of Urdu essay writing. He wrote under the name “Patras” Bohkhari, which also means Peter. At Partition, his brother Z.A. Bokhari was packed off as the first Indian director general of All India Radio by Vallabhbhai, apparently because he insisted everyone use a very Perso-Arabic form of Hindi. Students of Arabic are taught that all its words have a root of three letters. For instance, the root s-j-d is to prostrate in prayer—sajda. From that we get the person who prays, Sajid and Sajida. We also get the place where we pray—masjid. The letter “m” in Arabic usually represents “that which” or “he who”. For instance, mu-jahid is he who does jihad.

KEYSTONE FEATURES/GETTY IMAGES

Namesake: ‘Jawahar’ is Arabic for jewel, a name Nehru shared with Gandhi’s Khilafat movement ally, Mohammad Ali Jauhar.

President Obama’s name is Arabic not only because of his middle name Hussein but also his first name. Barack is the same word Indians use when we say “mu-barak ho”. To return to sajda, writer and former minister Rafiq Zakaria pointed out that the Quranic injunction was against Muslims prostrating to anyone but Allah. Singing Vande Mataram was fine, he reasoned, because it only referred to bowing through vandan. I am always attracted to such pragmatism. Rafiq means friend, and he was a dear friend of mine, whom I miss. Zakaria was the father of famous journalist Fareed, only in his 20s when he commissioned Samuel Huntington to write The Clash of Civilizations. The name Zakaria probably comes from the Arabic word for remembrance, dhikr, what Indians call zikr (to mention/remember). Arabs don’t use the clean Z sound always and that’s why our Ramzan is actually their Ramadan. Few Indians can pull off the lisped Arabic D. But this doesn’t stop Indian Muslims from trying to Arabicize themselves. Instead of Khuda hafiz is now said Allah hafiz. This is because Khuda is Farsi and so not Islamic enough. Even hafiz is Farsi (as opposed to Arabic hafidh) but this word is not yet under assault. Hafiz means protector, but also

ROHIT BRIJNATH GAME THEORY

What does sport mean to you?

CLIVE BRUNSKILL/GETTY IMAGES

o really. Why do you watch sport, what do you see, what do you believe in, what does it all mean to you? Are you looking at Roger Federer’s grip when

he serves, or his knee bend, or guessing where

it lands, or where he tosses it for that sliding serve wide on the deuce court? Or do you just prefer his tush to his toss? Ladies, please, it’s fine. Do you tire friends with inept impersonations of Virender Sehwag’s non-footwork? Do you look down on the less discerning as being of lower intellect? Is it fair to say that when writer Erma Bombeck says “If a man watches three football games in a row he should be declared legally dead”, she’s really talking about you? Have you ever asked an athlete for an autograph and then asked him his name? Don’t lie. Do you simply just watch the ball in football? Or do you divide the game into Xs and Os, do you study formations and do you consider sports writer Jonathan Wilson’s artful dissections as religious texts? Is body language a sporting

science, a lie or simply overrated as a clue to attitude? Is there a philosophy you hold tight to? Are you a flag-bearer of International Olympic Committee founder Baron de Coubertin’s ancient belief that “it’s-the-taking-part-in-sport-whichcounts” or prefer football coach Vince Lombardi’s hard-edged question of “If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?” Is it true that you stand up when Sachin Tendulkar goes out to bat, even in your drawing room? Have you ever stood up for Ricky Ponting? Just asking. Is sweaty people on a field a representation of real life to you, is it a noble living, a fantasy pastime or just George Orwell’s war minus the shooting? Is technique your holy grail or does sport represent itself as a human drama? Does the suffering of Rafael Nadal-Novak Djokovic, perched on the edge of ecstasy

and pain where great art lives, envelop you in awe? Do you sit back dazzled, exhausted or feel compelled to tweet? Can you say anything profound about 5 hours, 53 minutes in 140 characters? Really? Should everyone just take drugs in sport? Is minutiae your thing, wherein you know Carolyn Davidson, a student, designed the Nike swoosh and made out a bill for $35 (around `1,700) for it? Or are you a Smith kind of fellow, either Ed or Gary, who sees sport in a slightly different way? Is one wall at home a library and is David Halberstam in it? Are you more likely to quote from Joyce Carol Oates on boxing or from Lord Woolf’s ICC report? Is sport less literature for you and more mathematics wherein statistics, more than anything, reveal performance most clearly? I’m just curious. Do you stack sports subconsciously into the manly and the sissy? Are non-contact pursuits somehow lesser and would you be willing to say that to badminton’s Lin Dan? Have you seen him with his shirt off? Is it fine for Virat Kohli to give the finger to an abusive crowd and then use invective himself? Is there is a separation point between aggression and silliness or is it only about the

Fan fare: Do you focus on Roger Federer’s grip when he serves, or his knee bend?

colour of the shirt a fellow is wearing? Are you so deeply tribal that Kenny Dalglish can never be wrong? Are you a jingoist or a lemming or neither? Should an 18-year-old basketballer, with no college degree, earning $4 million a year, be a role model for your child? Or you? Do you ever consider what is “role model”? Do you really buy the image that athletes project? In fact, do you buy David

memorizer, from the word for memory, hafiza. Lashkar-e-Taiba’s leader Muhammad Saeed calls himself Hafiz because he claims to have memorized the Quran. Doing so “protected” it, from being corrupted or being lost, because the early Muslims were illiterate. The first three Indian prime ministers all had Islamic names. Arabic Jawahar Lal, Farsi “Gulzari”lal and Turkic Lal “Bahadur”. It strikes me that of the others we have had mainly Krishna-named prime ministers and no Ram. The Krishnas are Manmohan, Morarji Bhai (through Murar), while Atal Bihari evokes Krishna through Banke Bihari. We have also had a Narasimha, two Shivas (Vishwanath and Chandra Shekhar) and one Indra (Gujral). If the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had won the last election, we would still have got Lal Krishna or Murli Manohar. We await our Ram. 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

Beckham underwear? I am not judging you. Promise. Do you enter stadiums early and then bask in the anticipation of a match? Do you put off the TV when Federer is losing and refuse to wake up at 4am for golf if Tiger Woods isn’t in contention? Do you change your sitting position thinking it will help your losing hero? Have you danced on your wife’s/mother’s couch? In your shoes? Do you wish great pain on TV producers who miss the first ball of an over? Is £1 million (around `7.7 crore) for hitting tennis balls on a lawn better than anyone else just a trifle obscene? Is there a woman athlete you switch on your TV for? Do you truly feel equal prize money is a farce? Do you know Billie Jean King’s story or is history just bunk? Would you recognize Mary Kom in a crowd? And does it bother you that you don’t? Have you ever cheered for Dipika Pallikal, clapped Shiva Keshavan on the back or kept 10 minutes aside for Sushil Kumar? Or is it just cricket that calls? Just one last thing. Do you really watch mixed doubles? No, I won’t tell anyone. This is not a survey. This is just 10 minutes to consider a few questions. We believe, don’t we, that sport tells us about the athlete’s character. Maybe it also us tells us a little something about ourselves. Rohit Brijnath is a senior correspondent with The Straits Times, Singapore. Write to Rohit at gametheory@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Rohit’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/rohitbrijnath

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SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE

Nostalgia and Nielsen at the Oscars

GERO BRELOER/AP

eryl Streep is going to win, of course, for The Iron Lady. Then again, giving Streep an Oscar is like awarding Albert Einstein a Nobel; or calling Sachin Tendulkar the greatest Indian

cricket player. It’s a safe choice; a win-win situation that makes both the recipient and the jury look good. I didn’t think much of her high-pitched voice by the way. It was too similar to her Julia Child portrayal in Julie & Julia. But the Academy loves English accents, witness last year’s Oscars for The King’s Speech. I think we all like English accents because it makes us feel cultured, somehow more civilized. Isn’t it funny that all the recent Hollywood movies about England have been about women? Helen Mirren’s Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana’s multiple biopics, and now Maggie Thatcher. On Sunday night, the Hollywood elite will assemble once again for the Oscars. They will put aside petty rivalries and come together for the sake of history, pomp and Nielsen ratings. Trumpets will hit the high note as presenters walk in through the laser lights to deliver their scripted announcements and awards. Those in the audience will control the rise of bile when their names aren’t read out and smile prettily like the actors they are. “Please god, let it be me.” “Not me?” “Oh no, not him. Not HIM.”

Strapless gowns will glitter as pretty women sashay down the red carpet. We will all gawk at Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson; George Clooney and Ryan Gosling. And this is the thing about the Oscars. You can call yourself literary and engage in high-octane debates about whether Indians are indeed among the happiest people on earth as poll results show; or about the meaning of long-term love as depicted in a recent essay (Discovering the Secrets of Long-Term Love) in the Scientific American magazine. But in the end, what draws viewers to the Oscars are the pretty people. Eye-candy with a fluff of buttery popcorn: That’s one recipe for time well spent. At least, Billy Crystal is hosting the awards this year. Last year, James Franco tried to imitate Crystal’s dour persona and ended up looking stoned. I had high hopes from co-host Anne Hathaway, but she too sounded quite scripted and bubbly. Just goes to show that even if you memorize your lines, it is all in the delivery. It takes a Shah Rukh Khan to riff wittily and poke fun without being too insulting. Clooney used to do this

In the running: Streep has been nominated in the Best Actor (Female) category. when he accepted an award, but nowadays he runs the danger of commenting on a topic that is as appropriate to an Oscar ceremony as a stripper in our Parliament: Darfur. Clooney is ageing these days. His grey-specked hair is beginning to look like Amitabh Bachchan’s toupee. My

teenage friends tell me that Gosling is “where it’s at”, these days. He was great in Crazy Stupid Love, which I watched, not for Gosling’s chiselled chin and dreamy blue eyes—really—but for the historical allusions and its premise about the state of wedlock in the current world. As Vanity Fair magazine’s recent Hollywood issue cover suggests, Hollywood is harking back to the 1920s and 1930s this year, what with two nominated films, Hugo, and The Artist, set in that period. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo is not as brilliant as his early films but the Academy may continue its apology for not awarding Scorsese an Oscar for his early films—Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, for instance—by bending backwards and awarding him this year as well. The film that got Scorsese an Oscar, The Departed, was good but nowhere close to Goodfellas. Nostalgia is taking over the world. Fashion designers and movie directors all over the world are harking back to a more classical definition of beauty and style. Photographer Mario Testino who shot the cover for Vanity Fair’s Hollywood issue talks about his longing for a “1920s’ pure beauty”, which he attempted to capture with the young stars who grace the cover. At Chanel’s recent Paris-Bombay show, displaying Karl Lagerfeld’s pre-autumn/winter 2012-13 collection, models wore his exquisite take on Indian outfits and the classic tikka which Indian brides wear on their forehead. Japan is perhaps the one culture that has somehow managed to modernize its art, architecture, design

and films without leaving its heritage behind. Not so in the US, where technology and animation have overtaken moviemaking, ergo the longing for the past. Kurt Andersen, in an essay for Vanity Fair, calls it “devolution” of popular culture. In it, he says that movies, books and music haven’t evolved in the last 20 years and are, therefore, caught in this nostalgic wheel as witnessed by a few of this year’s Oscar nominees: My Week With Marilyn (about Marilyn Monroe), Hugo (about 1930s’ Paris), The Artist (about silent movies), Midnight in Paris (set in the 1920s), and The Iron Lady (about Margaret Thatcher). See a pattern? So go ahead and settle down with your bag of chips. Watch Crystal deliver his lines in that practised conversational tone of his. Bet on or against Streep, depending on how much of a risk-taker you are. Root for The Artist if you are a contrarian. Lose yourself in the irony of watching 1930s’ Paris with the latest 3D technology in Scorsese’s Hugo. But for god’s sake, don’t go all nostalgic and maudlin on me. As Scarlett O’ Hara said, “Tomorrow is another day”, so let’s not get caught in “Groundhog Day”. Shoba Narayan is happy that Bollywood is racing to the future instead of being stuck in the past. Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/shobanarayan

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RADHA CHADHA LUXURY CULT

A tour of the Johnnie Walker House

PHOTOGRAPHS

COURTESY

JOHNNIE WALKER HOUSE

oo much of anything is bad, but too much of good whisky is barely enough. —Mark Twain

I was in Shanghai last week, empathizing with Mark Twain’s sentiments while I took an

unhurried tour of Johnnie Walker House, a heady pleasure I would strongly recommend. If, like me, you are wondering why Shanghai (as against Scotland), the answer is simple: All roads lead to the Chinese consumer’s wallet, and Johnnie Walker House is working on the Chinese palate en route. In fact, the offering is so exclusive, and prices so heady, that you could cleanse your palate and wallet simultaneously—try £80,000 (around `61.6 lakh) for a cask blended just for you and if that is a wee stratospheric, try a much-closer-to-earth Johnnie Walker Blue Label in a personalized leather box, nameplate and other details chosen through an interactive computer program, yours for a few hundred pounds, although you do have to order a minimum of 10. Not that the Chinese are complaining—and neither is yours truly who prudently left her credit card in the hotel safe—as clearly there is no such thing as too much of good whisky. It is hard to benchmark Johnnie Walker House, as I have never been to anything quite like it, but I suppose you can think of it as the equivalent of being immersed in a bottle of very fine whisky. Part museum, part whisky tutorial, part sensory seduction, part gentleman’s club, part ultra-high-end store, and of course, part very nice bar—it is a multi-layered blend quite like the whisky itself. You unravel it as you go up floor by floor with your personal guide. The design is so clever that by the time you reach the third floor, lean on the stylish bar, holding a warm honey-and-Gold-Label concoction called “Winter” that is gliding down your gullet with surreptitious ease, it hits you that the tour is not so much about soaking it all in, but rather making you soak in Johnnie Walker’s heritage. The property itself is steeped in history, a restored villa in the Sinan Mansions area, part of Shanghai’s famed French Concession, where the wealthy lived it up in the 1920s and 1930s. But here’s the twist: Apparently, Mao Tse-tung’s teacher lived in the

building, and while it is impossible to verify, after a drink or two it is easy to imagine that perhaps a young Mao came by for lessons. Of course, Sinan Mansions’ villas fell into disrepair for several decades, and now they are being restored, and the historical district redeveloped into a hot spot for China’s new class of wealthy, whose views seem to be more in sync with Twain’s, giving rise to haute bars like the Alchemist—molecular mixology, no less—and Chicha, the trendy Peruvian lounge next door, both a short walk from Johnnie Walker House, and both definitely worth a visit. Johnnie Walker entered China in 1910, and you guessed it, there is a special commemorative 1910 edition on sale here, signed by master blender Jim Beveridge, and I can’t help but think what a perfect name he has. Whatever Beveridge puts his signature on tends to multiply in price, and much of the stuff he signs tends to be in Baccarat crystal bottles with gold stoppers, which doesn’t help the price either. But the surroundings are so conducive that soon you are lulled into thinking like a Chinese multi-millionaire, so much so that when you come upon the Porsche-designed Blue Label bar for sale—very space-age with parts moving up and down like in a James Bond movie—price tag £100,000, you take it in your stride, pretty much like the striding man on the Johnnie Walker bottle. Every aspect of the whisky-making process is amplified and put under the spotlight here. My favourite spot is the semi-circular blending room on the second floor, the walls of which are lined with hundreds of single malt Scotch whiskies—backlit for dramatic effect—surrounding a mixing table at the centre of the room. Place a bottle in the middle of the table, and as if by magic, the table lights up and plays a video about that whisky—the bottles have sensors at the bottom that activate the appropriate video—while you sniff-test the line-up of little glasses with different flavours of whisky, ranging from creamy vanilla to

Sensory seduction: The Johnnie Walker House is a museum, a store, a whisky tutorial centre, and a bar under one roof. fresh fruit to smokey. This is the table where Beveridge concocts his own magic potions, flying down from Scotland every so often, to mix a signature blend for very special customers who buy by the cask. Barley-studded walls, peat bricks, oak floors angled at 24 degrees (to reflect the angle of the Johnnie Walker label), copper installations that spell out the A to Z of whisky production, quaint lights made from decanters, even an entire roof lined with whisky glasses, each one lit up,

forming a giant undulating wave of light—there is plenty to razzle-dazzle the whisky lover. As I walk out into the cold Shanghai night, bracing myself against a light drizzle, I am reminded of the American comedian W.C. Fields’ advice: “Always carry a flagon of whisky in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake”. I wonder how his advice would be interpreted in China? I suspect the snake would simply be served up as a snack to accompany a fine glass of Scotch.

Radha Chadha is one of Asia’s leading marketing and consumer insight experts. She is the author of the bestselling 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

THINKSTOCK

LEARNING CURVE

GOURI DANGE

DON’T TAME THE TOMBOY My 14-year-old daughter is a tomboy. She is pretty, but dresses and walks like a boy. She bullies other girls, and even many boys are afraid of her. She means no harm, but just seems to want to be rough and use rough humour. For instance, the other day, the teacher told me that her way of ragging some boy was sitting on his journal and then giving it back to him saying, “I farted on your journal”. While everyone enjoys these kind of jokes in her class, I, her father and her teachers think she could become a little more ladylike. How to do this without lecturing and insisting she behaves differently? Your mail will make many parents smile, but your concerns are understandable. Often one of the two (or both) factors operate when a girl goes the “tomboy” way. a) With

some girls, it is a way of not coming to terms with one’s growing body, femininity and male interest in them. b) With some girls, it comes (perhaps unconsciously) from another factor: It is the “female role” ascribed by society around us that she is rejecting with her actions and her “guy” attitude. Perhaps you live in a city, town or community environment where implicit and explicit messages are that girls are weak or “lesser” than men; girls have to ultimately be groomed only to be good wives and mothers; a young girl is fair game for sexual harassment ranging from “eve-teasing” to more aggressive forms…girls have to play coy-shy games to be attractive to boys…and other such overt and covert messages. Another factor that operates sometimes is an overload of aggression in the child that finds its way to the

surface most easily through “male” behaviour. While I would urge you not to make a big deal about this (it will end up making her feel she has to live up to a reputation more and more), perhaps there are a few things you, as well as any sensitive teacher willing to collaborate with you, could do. First, find ways to help her accept her emerging femininity. Help her dress slightly more feminine by shopping with her for clothes that are not necessarily frilly and girlie, but are less manly versions of what she’s already wearing. For instance, better fitting jeans and shirts. This can be done without discussion by simply pointing such choices out to her. It’s equally important not to make a big deal when she does something more “girlish” or dresses femininely on your insistence (say, for a wedding, etc.). People feel they must gush and reinforce how wonderful the feminine behaviour or look is and how it suits her, etc. This only scares tomboys into rushing back into their safe zones. As we have said in this column before, a father’s role

in this stage of the girl’s life is important. Do see that he maintains a close relationship with her, does not admonish her “to act more like a woman” but acknowledges her femininity in subtle ways. Both of you, as well as her teacher, can encourage and reward (and notice, firstly) some of the small sensitive things she does, and help her feel that being loud and raucous is not her only identity. Help her see that there are many ways one can be (and there are plenty of role models for this around, really) a woman and yet in control of one’s life, choices and environment. The other thing is to address her aggression, if there is a lot of it, and find a way to have her express it, deal with it, rather than assume a rough posture. There are vulnerabilities and anxieties hiding behind that demeanour, and if you draw these out and tackle them, you will have done her a service. Gouri Dange is the author of ABCs of Parenting. Nonconformist: Help your daughter accept her emerging femininity.

Write to Gouri at learningcurve@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012

Eat/Drink

LOUNGE

SAMAR HALARNKAR

OUR DAILY BREAD

SAMAR HALARNKAR

A rash promise, a golden hour T

he children are actually playing with each other instead of trying to pull out one another’s teeth and take the curtains down. At the dining table, amid bursts of laughter, the food and wine are disappearing with satisfying rapidity. One of the children—hello, that looks a lot like my child—dragging her feet, breaks away from the kiddie scrum and wanders over. Her spirit is weakening. “Mama,” she says. “Mama!” The wife looks down, reluctantly. “Dudu.” “What baby?” “Dudu! Doooodu!” With great reluctance, someone sighs and says, “I guess we should go. Bedtime.” Everyone looks not a little crushed at our little party-pooper. This is a dangerous time. This is when I, the eternal optimist, brighten up, and usually say, “So, let’s continue the party tomorrow. Our place. Brunch!” With so much wine swirling through their synapses, brains react incoherently, and the party gaily agrees. The wife is no longer horrified by such invitations. She

There are no expec tations from a man who promises an early brunch the morning after a winesuffused party. Perfect

PHOTOGRAPHS

shrugs, smiles sweetly—and means it. Alright then. But things are not so simple. One friend is a nurse, she has a shift starting at 12.30pm, two husbands are working, but I still have to start the party at, ummm, 10.30am. We sleep peacefully that night. My approach to such invitations: Sleep well, and the morning will take care of itself. So, I sleep until 8.30am, the wife and daughter till 9. The phones ring almost immediately. “You didn’t really mean this, did you?” a friend asks. “Shall we just call it off, this wine-fuelled invitation?” The wife raises an eyebrow. It’s up to me. And I never back off. It’s really quite easy. Keep the food simple and fresh. Here in Berkeley, California, our home until May, a morning-after brunch requires only an hour’s effort. I hop on to my cycle, strap on my helmet and speed down the hill, struggling with the unfamiliar gears of the posh Bianchi (give me my Enfield Bullet), trying to remember that it’s a good idea to halt at a stop sign. The Korean grocer is closest to us. After breaking a few local traffic laws, I burst into the store, grab some fresh organic vegetables

THINKSTOCK

Aromatic: (from far left) Basil, galangal and lemon grass are the key flavouring agents in Thai food.

The setting: The picnic bench in the writer’s backyard in Berkeley, California, ready for another brunch. (let’s see—golden beetroots, small black and red potatoes, onions, zucchini, giant red peppers), fresh salad and herbs. How about that loaf of Russian rye bread? This giant Mexican papaya? And that bottle of unbranded, locally squeezed pure orange juice? That should do it. I load the bags in my cycle basket and wobble and huff my way up the hill. There are two packets of fish in the freezer, two tins of coconut milk and a packet of Texas-grown brown basmati. So, here’s the menu: Thai fish curry, roasted vegetables, bread, brown rice, fresh papaya and salad. The vegetables are easy—chop roughly; sprinkle with olive oil, soy sauce, pepper and salt; season with two sprigs of rosemary, whole garlic; cover with foil and roast in a hot oven (400 degrees Fahrenheit, or 204 degrees Celsius, will do) for an hour. The brown basmati takes 50 minutes, but that’s within the hour. The fish curry takes no more than 20. The papaya is cut. The wife is an expert at quick, home-made salad dressing (fresh lemon juice, olive oil, a herb—parsley, oregano—a crushed garlic, et voila), and American salad, as we know, comes

home triple-washed. My version of the Thai curry, as you can see below, is really simple. It’s also fragrant and mild enough—and here comes the day’s great triumph—for the older children to say, “Mom, this is great.” Funny, isn’t it, the satisfaction you get when children eat the food you’ve cooked for the party and don’t demand a special menu. And there it is. By 11.50am, the picnic bench under the oak tree in our yard is ready with brunch. The children are glad to pick up where they left off, even if the parents are a little subdued after last night. But this was a great idea, wasn’t it? Not having to look after the children on Sunday morning? One is on a tricyle, others are peering at the homing pigeon (our landlord, an Iranian, keeps one), the football is being kicked around, and someone is plucking a lemon for our table. I look around. All hail the golden hour.

Timely Thai Curry Serves 3-4 Ingredients 750g firm fish (I used Hake and tilapia; pomfret, sea bass or kingfish will do) 1-inch piece of Thai ginger, galangal, finely chopped

3-4 tsp garlic, finely chopped 3-4 lime leaves 1 twig of lemon grass, chopped into K-inch pieces A handful of fresh basil leaves (wash and chop roughly just before using) 1-2 tsp of red chilli powder (depends on how spicy you want it) 1 tsp turmeric 2 cans coconut milk 1 tbsp olive oil Salt to taste Method Gently heat olive oil. Sauté garlic till it begins to brown. Add galangal and sauté for a minute. Stir in red chilli and turmeric powders, mix quickly. With heat on low, pour in the coconut milk. Add the lime leaves and lemon grass. When the coconut milk starts to bubble, add the fish and salt. Cover and cook for 15 minutes or until the fish is done. Stir in chopped basil leaves just before serving. Samar Halarnkar is consulting editor, Mint and Hindustan Times. He is presently a visiting lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley. Write to him at ourdailybread@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Samar’s previous columns at www.livemint.com/ourdailybread

HUNGRY PLANET | CHEFS KWINTEN DE PAEPE AND GUY VANTOORTELBOOM PHOTOGRAPHS

What Brussels sprouts Two Belgian chefs tell us what’s beyond beer, waffles and fries in their cuisine B Y G AYATRI J AYARAMAN gayatri.j@livemint.com

···························· his is like Goodness Gracious Me from Western Europe—everything that can be traced back to Belgium, is. First, chefs Kwinten De Paepe and Guy Vantoortelboom, who are at The Taj Mahal Palace hotel, Mumbai, for the Belgian food festival (which ended on 17 February), pronounce Belgium the true beer capital of the world. Not Germany, which has tried hard with Oktoberfest to appropriate that. French fries, they point out, originated from frites which is how the Belgians have always described their stubby potato sticks. And Kurfju and Bobby are the true Belgian identities of Tintin and Snowy, the famous reporter and his dog. Even my Coldplay ringtone (Clocks) is pounced upon, and credited triumphantly to an original Belgian songwriter.

De Paepe runs Trente, in Leuven, Belgium, and also bears an uncanny resemblance to Tintin, a nickname by which he used to be called in his youth. Vantoortelboom runs Leuven’s more traditional Kokoon restaurant. It is their first experience of India, and more than spice, it is the municipal election-spun dry days that shock them. “In Belgium, if there was a dry day, there would be a revolution,” Vantoortelboom says. De Paepe explains that Belgium is a mix of Dutch, German, Swiss and French influences. Their perceived signature dishes are, of course, fries, waffles, chocolates and beer; “but to me, it is asparagus, endives, pear and apple tarts, apple beignets, scampi (small grey shrimp) and rabbit,” De Paepe says. Edited excerpts from an interview: What constitutes Belgian taste? De Paepe: We find your food spicy, but it is also sweet. Our food is not so sweet. We use a lot of acid—vinegar and lime—to cut the fat in our proteins; but we also use a lot of bitters. We use endives, which are bitter, and also unsweetened chocolate in our savoury food. Also,

reductions of certain strong beers develop the quality of bitterness. We are more protein-based. We do not have pasta or rice. Potatoes are starch. What would a Belgian meal be? Vantoortelboom: For breakfast, rösti (grated potato pancakes), cereal, breads with marmalades, hazelnut paste, waffles. In proteins, we eat a lot of fish—scampi, plaice, cod—as we have a good coastline. Rabbit and pork are seasonal. A daily meal might have Gentse Waterzooi, a Dutch stew, or Gehaktbrood met Noordkrieken (a meat loaf). We use red cabbage in salads, cauliflower purée or Brussels sprouts in baked dishes. How much of Belgium’s cuisine is influenced by local farming? De Paepe: We have a great dairy industry, so we use a lot of butter, milk, cream. But each of our dairy products is distinct. Here, it all seems similar and salted. Our butter is never salted. Vantoortelboom: Since we have the coast, a grilled cod or marinated shrimp is popular. We have menus for each season. In winter, we have warm vegetables and proteins—like rabbit which is fat-heavy. Also, in Belgium, quite opposite to India, vegetables are

SAURABH SAWANT/MINT

with brown sugar and macaroons are a Belgian treat.

Beef Tenderloin with Endives and Pickles Serves 1

Belgian treats: Chefs Kwinten De Paepe (left) and Guy Vantoortelbloom stir up the Beef Tenderloin with Endives and Pickles (right). more expensive. Meat is cheaper, so we are 80% non-vegetarian. Are you open to world cuisine? De Paepe: At Trente, we do a lot of gastronomy, like I do a brussel sprouts foam. Molecular gastronomy’s hype is over. But we do classic French cuisine with a twist, so we have kept those elements that interest us. Vantoortelboom: My kitchen (Kokoon) is classic Belgian food, but my chefs are from across the world—Arabic, Asian, Japanese—so we have elements from everywhere. How does Belgium’s passion for beer translate to food?

Vantoortelboom: We cannot do without beer. I sometimes use beer instead of wine in a reduction. We marinate pork in beer, or cook beef in it. Different beers have different flavours, so each adds its quality to the dish. What constitutes street food? De Paepe: We have fries with melted cheese. In apple beignets, the apple is batter-fried, and then dusted with sugar. Smouten bol is also made of a fried batter. Does sweet go beyond waffles? Vantoortelboom: We have over 500 kinds of cakes though the tarte tatin is traditional. Rice pudding with saffron, sprinkled

Ingredients For the tenderloin 400g tenderloin 250ml classic French brown broth 2 tbsp Belgian pickled lemons 2 tbsp double cream Salt and pepper to taste 2 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp butter For the salad 2 leaves of endives 1 cherry tomato, halved 1 onion, julienned Salt and pepper to taste For the fries 1 potato (sliced, for French fries) Enough oil for deep-frying Salt to taste Method Mix all the ingredients for the salad in a bowl and season. Deep-fry the French fries. Season with salt. Set aside. For the tenderloin, heat the brown broth in a pan, add cream and pickles, mix and bring to a boil; season. Pan sear the tenderloin with little butter and olive oil till medium rare. Season. Pour sauce over it. Plate with the salad and French fries.

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012

Play

LOUNGE

ARCHERY

Girl with the golden bow Coaches believe archer Deepika Kumari is an obvious contender for a medal

Every fortnight we focus on an athlete or a discipline for an inside look at their efforts to secure an Olympic medal in London 2012.

LOUNGE SERIES

B Y S HAMIK B AG ······································ t might just be in the way her gaze freezes while sizing up a distant dot. But there is something about Deepika Kumari (aside from her dimpled smile). There she is, at the training ground in Jamshedpur’s Tata Archery Academy (TAA). It’s just past breakfast time, and Deepika is, by now, a few hours deep into her daily regimen—her 5ft, 4K-inch frame standing erect under the sun, arms straight and still, eyes narrowed to a hawkish slice, the bow perfectly anchored, the string stiff against the side of her lips and chin, ready to hit the yellow-circled heart of a target 70m away. Twang, she lets go of the arrow, which swishes through the air carrying with it a faint whistle, while the bow collapses around her hands and rebounds against her thigh. A gap of a few seconds and it’s time to take position again, till Deepika has shot right through 8 hours of daily practice. Arrow after arrow after arrow, like yesterday, like it’ll be tomorrow—a meditative monotony that, really, is the bullseye of her game. In terms of the long history of archery in India—her early knowledge, like for most of us, is from centuries-old mythology and epics—Deepika is but a toddler, having first held a traditional handmade bamboo bow in 2007 after being goaded towards the game by her cousin, Vidya Kumari, herself an archer. In the five years since, Deepika’s rise up the archery ranks—winner of the individual and team gold medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, team bronze at the Asian Games the same year, No. 1 at the cadet recurve and junior events at the Youth Archery World Championships in 2009 and 2011, respectively, runners-up at the Archery World Cup 2011, a total haul of 18 medals at international events, the senior national champion for four years running, and a current world ranking of 6 after being No. 3 in 2011—is now part of modern Indian archery history. An achievement, some even qualify, to be of epic dimensions. To put Deepika’s prospect as an archer in perspective, in June, the Ranchi-born archer will turn 18. A month later, having already qualified, she will take aim at the Olympics in London, as one of India’s shiniest hopes for a podium finish. “Going by her current form, expecting an Olympic medal from her is natural,” says Purnima Mahto, coach of the Indian women’s archery team. Understandably, Deepika is heavily sheltered by TAA’s South Korean coach Lim Chae Woong and Mahto—her phone number is not shared, interviews rarely allowed, the media is briefed beforehand. At her village home, 12km from Ranchi, an Olympic medal, says Deepika, is the only one missing from the family showcase. We sit on the lush green practice field at TAA, and in between questions, Deepika ties little knots with blades of grass. Half her face is shaded from the sun by a hat and quite often she keeps her eyes lowered when talking. Occasionally though, those eyes light up when asked such seemingly dim-witted questions like: “Will you beat yourself up if you don’t get an Olympic medal?” “There is no question of that. I’m getting a medal, bas,” she says, almost shooting right through the core of cynical journalism with a sunny youthful confidence that coach Mahto thinks is Deepika’s biggest asset. Having participated in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics in Athens and Beijing, respectively, ace Indian archer Dola Banerjee knows how the spirit of the game can overwhelm firsttimers like Deepika—the playing arenas, the huge pool of participants, the crowd and the weight of the Olympic dream can daze and

distract players, she says. But having participated alongside Deepika in four-five major tournaments, including the 2010 Commonwealth Games where the women’s team bagged the gold, Banerjee thinks Deepika has the ability to plough through adversities. “While it is difficult to maintain the performance curve in international archery, Deepika has continuously been first-rate. Even if there are minor flaws in her shooting, she can often overcome those with self-belief. She hasn’t let pride follow her many achievements and it is only a good human being who can eventually triumph. I’m expecting much from her in London,” says Banerjee. Only a few years ago, Deepika heard herself telling her father, Shivnarayan Mahato, “Papa, think of me as your beta (son).” The family, including two sisters and a brother, went through numbing financial crisis after the shop that Mahato ran closed down, and her mother Gita Devi’s salary as a nurse in a government hospital became increasingly erratic. “There would be problems at home and the situation became such that there wasn’t enough to eat. To tide over, papa drove an autorickshaw in Ranchi,” remembers Deepika, the tone of her voice taking in a distinct peppiness as she speaks. There is, as is now known, a happy twist to her tale. Having earned, as she admits, over `37 lakh in prize money after her Commonwealth and Asian Games feats, Deepika’s father has not only overcome his initial reservations against archery as a profession, but now is the proud owner of a Tavera, she exults, after pondering over the name of the car. She handed over her entire earnings to her parents who have since “wisely” invested in property and other assets. On his part, Mahato has not given up on two things: the autorickshaw, which he continues to ply, and his desire that Deepika, a class XII student of humanities at Jamshedpur’s Karim City College, continues with her formal education. “Even now when papa calls, he’ll first ask me about my studies and only later about archery.” Unaware of the fairytale-like contours of her story, Deepika rewards listeners at the end with that deep-dimpled smile. It would not have been so had Meera Munda, wife of the Jharkhand chief minister Arjun Munda, not admitted Deepika, even after having failed the initial test, to the archery academy that she runs in Jharkhand’s Seraikela Kharsawan. That was in 2007, an event that Deepika admits to be life-altering. In 2008, after joining the residential TAA, Deepika didn’t stay for more than a day at her parents’ home for three years. “She would only train and her world revolved around archery,” says coach Mahto. “I have hardly found any archer of her age so disciplined, hardworking and focused.” The coach recounts an occasion when Deepika, at a competition, went on shooting despite a shoulder injury from which she was crying out in pain. “I have proved to be a beta for my father. An Olympic medal might help me prove to the world that girls like me too can win if only they are released a little from the strict regimentation at homes.” That seems like the bigger aim, as we walk to the target. One by one, Deepika pulls out the arrows that she had earlier shot from a 70m distance. All of them have pierced the innermost highest-scoring yellow bands— three eights, three nines and four 10s. Her eyebrows knit together for a moment, as if Deepika was expecting all 10s. But eventually, the dimples deepen and she smiles.

DREAM CATCHERS

Unwavering: Deepika (left) has a total haul of 18 medals at inter national events. She hopes to add an Olympic medal to that list.

INDRANIL BHOUMIK/MINT

Write to lounge@livemint.com

www.livemint.com To read our previous stories in the Dream Catchers series, visit www.livemint.com/dreamcatchers

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012

Style

LOUNGE OUT OF THE CLOSET | ANJANA SHARMA

Backstage confidential PHOTOGRAPHS

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

For one of the driving forces behind the forthcoming Lakmé Fashion Week, style is all about the classics and comfort B Y V ISESHIKA S HARMA viseshika.s@livemint.com

······················· njana Sharma has been one of the driving forces behind Lakmé Fashion Week (LFW) in Mumbai since joining IMG Reliance as director, fashion, in January 2011. Lakmé and IMG Reliance have jointly organized the biannual fashion industry event since its inception in 2000, though the name changed to Lakmé Fashion Week only in 2006. Obsessed with fashion, Sharma has converted the balcony of her second bedroom into a walk-in closet which is just bursting at its seams with little treasures. A specially designed full-length mirror in her bedroom is weighed down with jewellery and the higher shelves of her closet are chock-a-block with neatly labelled shoe boxes. Lounge catches up with her as she prepares for an exciting season with Lakmé Fashion Week—Summer/ Resort 2012 (2-6 March). Edited excerpts:

What did you wear when you first started your career? It was 1988, I worked in advertising. I was crazy. I’m so embarrassed when I look back at it. I was loud, in your face and brash, and about 20kg heavier. I had a Cyndi Lauper period, I had a Madonna period, I was loud and, just in case nobody noticed me, I was even louder. What do you think of women’s work wear today? It’s such fun! You can do whatever you want to. When I first started working, meeting day meant salwar-kameez. Now everyone gets to wear what they think reflects their personality. Do you have a budget for your

wardrobe shopping? I wish! I used to spend crazy till about a couple of years ago, but luckily I pick up classics. I like to wear my clothes, I don’t let my clothes wear me any more. I have things in my wardrobe which are 15 years old and still wearable today. I don’t go over the top; I don’t buy many designer labels. What’s the oldest thing in your wardrobe? I have vintage Wendell (Rodricks). I’ve been buying his clothes since he started out. So I’ll definitely have something that’s 15 years old from him. He says that when he does a retrospective, he’ll take all the clothes from me! Who do you look forward to seeing at fashion week? I wish Lady Gaga would come—I’d go crazy! Aki Narula—I look forward to seeing what he is wearing every single day. He’s very interesting in the way he dresses. Who are the young designers you like? Oooh, I’m waiting to get into Nimish’s (Shah, of Shift) clothes, and he knows that! Payal Khandwala is another person whose clothes I love. Vaishali (Shadangule) who works with a

On the spot Whether printed or textured, dots accent this season

lot of Indian fabrics. Drashta (Sarvaiya) does some interesting stuff; Rehané from Chennai does great work. Masaba (Gupta), Shivan & Narresh—there are a lot of great young designers. How about the people who haven’t shown at Lakmé Fashion Week? Rajesh Pratap Singh hasn’t shown at fashion week in a while and I admire his work, love his clothes. I like a lot of the work that Rahul Mishra is doing with Indian weaves. Rimzim Dadu, Rahul Reddy, Pankaj & Nidhi— there’s a whole fleet of them out there. Pick three Indian weaves that you think everybody should have in their closet? Kunbi cotton from Goa for its amazing fall and feel; a Patola silk for being so classic and rich; and a Tussar silk from Madhya Pradesh, for its texture and distinctiveness.

q MICHAEL Michael Kors: Berkley ostricheffect leather clutch, at Netaporter.com, £244.26 (around `19,000).

B Y V ISESHIKA S HARMA viseshika.s@livemint.com

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q Steve Madden: Coutur pumps with Swiss dot rosettes, at Palladium mall, Lower Parel, Mumbai; Road No. 36, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad; DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi; Phoenix Market City mall, Whitefield Road, Bangalore, `3,499.

How many saris do you have? Any heirloom pieces? At least 50! I only wear pure fabrics, so cottons, chiffons and silk. They are treasured and timeless pieces that I’ve picked up during my travels. My favourite heirloom piece is my mother’s wedding sari—it’s with my sister because she wore it for her wedding. It’s a beautiful pink and dull gold sari which is old and priceless today. I have some Patolas which are not easily available today and there’s one temple sari, that’s what I’ve managed to get out of my mother so far. Who’s your favourite sari designer? I prefer traditional saris. I like Raw Mango, but there’s only so much of contrast of border and pallu that you can wear. Vimor is a store in Bangalore that’s run by these women who source saris from all over and they have an amazing collection, starting at `500. I go to the handloom houses because you get the real stuff then. Where do you shop? I do my shopping with Wendell on remote control because I don’t have to think about it. Otherwise I do my shopping abroad—H&M, River Island and Topshop are

stores that I love. I haven’t shopped at Zara so much since they’ve opened in India because everyone wears them. I like to stand out from the pack. I was once at a bar night when Mango had just launched in India, where six women were wearing the same off-shoulder Mango top in different colours! I love On My Own (OMO) in Bandra and I love Cottons—I think you can find some real treasures there. Who are your style icons? While growing up, it was my mother—I love the way she used to pleat her saris. I like (actor) Emma Watson a lot, the way she experiments. My friend Ila Chatterjee Mucadam has a dress sense I just adore. She’s a complete style icon according to me, and I just wish she would start designing. What was your first big fashion moment? I have this memory of Gudda (designer Rohit Bal) where a model was stuck in one of his churidars, and even 15 years ago it was a `27,000 ensemble, and he just leaned over and ripped it open! It was amazing! Where do you buy jewellery? Topshop and H&M have some amazing stuff. I love Curio Cottage and the street vendors

in Khan Market in Delhi, I even wore a piece from there for the LFW press conference (earlier this month). I also buy from the flea market in Goa and when I’m travelling. What’s the most comfortable thing in your closet? I have a pair of pyjamas which I treasure. They are old, bright red and have “drama queen” printed all over them. They were given to me by a friend and I’ve had them for five-six years. I only dry-clean them. What are your absolute must-haves? Wendell Rodricks slip dresses, white shirts by Anne Fontaine, and kaftans from Cottons. Who are the Indian designers to watch out for? I feel Masaba and Shivan & Narresh have great careers ahead of them. I think Raw Mango is moving away from saris and trying new stuff which is interesting. Rahul Reddy is still underrated and he can go places.

u Zara: Sheer pullover with large silver paillettes, at Palladium mall, Lower Parel, Mumbai; Phoenix Market City mall, Whitefield Road, Bangalore; and DLF Promenade mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `4,790.

q Burberry Prorsum: Embellished leather sandals, at Netaporter.com, £798.34 (around `62,100). p Zara: Sheer draped dress with graduated hem, at Palladium mall, Lower Parel, Mumbai; Phoenix Market City mall, White field Road, Bangalore; and DLF Promenade mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `2,390.

Swamped: (clockwise from top and above) Two of Sharma’s Wendell Rodricks dresses; a few favourite pieces of jewel lery; saris from her collec tion; and her closet.

p Alberta Ferretti: Polkadot silk chiffon dress, at Neta porter.com, £1,164.66 (around `90,600).

t Christian Louboutin: Vaudoo black leather flats with organza bow and sequined spots, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `34,000.

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Early starters: (left) Agni Murthy, 14, teaching his mother, Manisha Lakhe, how to use her Acer Iconia tablet more effectively, using tools on the Internet; and Gauri Uttam, 11, using FaceTime to help her cousin in Bangalore do homework while her parents look on.

PARENTING

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GEEK Generation 2.0, the iPad child, is enriched by technology, and many parents are embracing it wholeheartedly. But can technology transform the way a child’s abilities develop? B Y G OPAL S ATHE gopal.s@livemint.com

···························· auri Uttam, 11, loves reading books. Her room houses a huge number of books that her parents have collected for her over the years. But her favourite books are not in these piles. They are on her iPad. Ask her what her favourite book is, and pat comes the reply: The Pedlar Lady, downloaded on the family iPad 2. The Pedlar Lady app, by Moving Tales Inc., is a beautifully animated story for children. Background images move, the text flows in and out, and the app reads the text aloud as well. “The book looks beautiful, and whenever you turn the page, it reads the words,” says Gauri. “You can carry it around anywhere, it’s not like sitting on the computer, but it’s much more fun than reading a book. There are pictures and if you get bored and want to draw something, you can, right there.” Gauri’s father Sachin Uttam, 44, a director (consulting) with the Gurgaon-based technology start-up Enabling Dimensions, has also introduced her to software such as FaceTime on their iMac to teleconference with her cousins for homework. “Computers are a part of everything now,”

Believe it or not: The Pedlar Lady (top) and Khoya are changing the expectation of what a children’s sto rybook is supposed to be, going well beyond just words.

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Sachin says. “When children grow up, we try and teach them to sing, paint, write stories... In the same way, we need to teach them to be able to use computers. I’m a techie, so is my wife. We both have iPads and iPhones, and so it wasn’t surprising that Gauri started to use them too.” Technology is revolutionizing the way children grow up. Parents put the Internet and technology to a variety of uses. It is not uncommon to see toddlers gurgling to a touch screen that tiny fingers don’t find daunting. In December, the Podar International School in Mumbai announced that from its next term, lessons for classes VI to XII would be on iPads.

The shakeup For some parents, it is a way to help their children hone their creativity. Bangalore-based Viswanath Poosala, 41, head of Bell Labs Research India, has two children, a daughter (9) and a son (7) (names withheld on request), and he has been teaching them programming for the last year and a half. Poosala wanted to show his children how computers can be fun. “The key is to find ways to relate your children’s interests to computers. If you make a computer a tool that helps them do what they want, then they will

learn enthusiastically,” he says. Poosala’s son uses a tool called Scratch, a free MIT software for children, to make simple games that he can share with friends; his daughter uses Scratch to make animated, interactive versions of the stories she writes. To teach his children programming, Poosala first introduced them to a free online game called Light-Bot. “In the game, you have to click on a set of commands, and once you are done, the robot will follow your choices to try and clear an obstacle course. It’s a fun game so children are keen to play it, and it shows them how a computer follows inputs.” But in Light-Bot, commands are limited, and it is not possible to add custom elements. So Poosala downloaded Scratch. “It’s a visual programming language. You can add images and sounds, but it’s still completely visual, with no actual programming. You just click and choose from different icons,” he adds. By engaging children with their own creations around their interests, they become more involved in what they are doing, and are keen to share their work with friends. They are more likely to finish projects and start new ones. Using such tools also helps them understand logic as a con-

cept, which can then be applied to any field. Sachin believes the iPad, especially, is a powerful reading resource that can make books far more attractive to children. He says, “Ever since Gauri discovered iBooks, she’s reading so much more than before. When she gets stuck on a difficult word, she just needs to tap it with her finger to get a definition.” One such book is the Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland app. The book is presented with big, interactive illustrations on every page. Give Alice different bottles when she falls down the rabbit hole, and she will become bigger or smaller, depending on the bottle. Tilt your iPad on another screen, she will fall down and stand up.

New avenues Enhanced books, such as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Pedlar Lady, are more advanced, redefining our expectations of children’s books. Take, for instance, Khoya, an iPad app illustrated by Shilo Shiv Suleman and written by Avijit Michael. The app has been showcased at TEDGlobal 2011 in Scotland, the Wired conference in the UK in 2011, and launched at the INK conference

in Jaipur in 2011. Khoya has art- they can create a small machine, work, animated pages, quests entirely by themselves. that have to be completed in the Rajesh S. (full name not given real world, that require children on request), runs an environmento help the two protagonists tal NGO in Bangalore, and has navigate various worlds. worked in the US with several Bangalore-based Suleman leading IT firms. His two sons, says, “People are so excited Parthiv, 14, and Tarang, 11, have about how technology is func- picked up their parents’ interest tional and useable that they for- in technology and gone with it in get how technology is also magi- different ways. Parthiv learnt cal. Sure, it’s useful to be able to about film-making thanks to a fly to London in 10 hours, but the discarded video camera, Tarang idea that we are actually floating experiments with circuits around in the clouds, flying around the the house, and knows his way world is forgotten.” around capacitors and resistors. Khoya uses technology to get Rajesh says, “When my elder children to explore the natural son was 8, I had an old video camworld along with a screen. While era that no one was using any the protagonists of the story more. Instead of throwing it away, undertake their quests, readers I gave it to my son. It was an are given their own quests such as expensive gift, but it didn’t matter collecting flower seeds and mak- even if he broke it.” ing photo collections of these Parthiv became fascinated by seeds. “It’s a real problem that the camera, and would find new children in the last 10 years have ways to keep using it. Rajesh says been glued to computers, but now Parthiv would write short poems with mobile technology we can and then make small videos for get them outside their houses. them. Since he didn’t have a track Photo quests, augmented reality or a dolly, he mounted the camin the garden, are just two exam- era on an old toy truck and made ples of how we’re trying to find the his younger brother pull it to take links between the earth, magic panned shots. and technology,” Suleman says. “As he experimented with it, we Technology can also help chil- also encouraged him. He was dren find their passions, and quickly teaching himself how to guide them through life. Aveek, make the best use of it. Using their the son of Bangalore-based computers, the boys learnt to edit media expert Arun Katiyar (56), their footage, and put it up themfound his passion through tech- selves as well. Parthiv is interested nology. Lego blocks helped Aveek, now 23, develop an interest in mechanical engineering. Katiyar says Aveek, now studying industrial design at the National University of Singapore, was a fan of Legos since he was 6. When Aveek turned 15, he was gifted Lego Technic, a programmable Lego set. Katiyar says, “The Technic was exceedingly advanced for its time. You take a programmable microchip, and PUNZEL connect it to a computer. GRIMM’SBROAOK You can then program comPOPUP mands in the remote to control the chip. Then you remove the chip, and put it in your Lego creation that is a lot more advanced than the coloured bricks most will be familiar with, as a Technic set includes moving parts, pistons, engines and much more.” The Technic is not available any more, but Lego now sells the more advanced Mindstorm. Legos are particularly useful as learning tools because of how versatile they are. Children can AND THE fit the pieces together to make FREDDI FSISHHELL almost anything they can imagSTOLEN ine. By fitting joints and gears,

in the media, and is determined to either direct, or write, or act, undoubtedly because he had access to the right technology in his childhood.” Tarang used the Internet and a lot of trial and error to find his way around a circuit board—a skill many adults lack. Rajesh says, “I don’t know what got him started. He’s fascinated by circuits, always experimenting and we are happy to buy circuits and capacitors too.” At the same time, as an environmentalist, Rajesh also wants the boys to experience the outdoors. “My role has actually not been to support them but to discourage them. I want them to spend more time outdoors, and find more interests. Play sports and explore the world as well as their hobbies,” he says.

Childfriendly apps Top picks from the huge world of content in the App Store

he App Store has a lot of childfriendly apps available—some are meant to entertain, while others have an educational component. We handpicked five of the best apps that have launched this year, for different age groups. We have focused only on iOS apps that offer something over and above realworld analogues. ALPHATOTS: $0.99 (around `48) Learning the alphabet is a slow process that involves a lot of repetition and trial and error. The AlphaTots app uses funny sounds and cute animations to make this more fun, and also demonstrates things that a standard “A is for Apple” style book can’t. For example, F is for Flower is accompanied by a picture of a flower, and turning the page shows G is for Grow, and the flower gets bigger. GRIMM’S RAPUNZEL POPUP BOOK: $3.99 This version of Rapunzel’s story is simple, beautifully animated, and from time to time, the angle changes from a 2D view to a 3D angle, where parts of the book pop out of the page and can be played with. SPARKY THE SHARK: $3.99 This funny ebook is meant for children above six years of age, and tries to impart lessons of selfconfidence, and the importance of being yourself through the adventures of ‘Sparky the Shark’. There’s clever animation work mixed with text and readaloud sections as well. FREDDI FISH AND THE STOLEN SHELL: $2.99 Somewhere between a game and an interactive book, ‘Freddi Fish and the Stolen Shell’ tasks children with solving a mystery. There are various touchable elements on each screen and by following the clues, it’s easy to go through the story. Unlike similar games, the app follows consistent logic, so it’s a fun way of teaching children critical thinking.

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The points of debate Expert opinion on the use of technology is divided. Chennai-based child psychologist Lakshmi Rajaram says parents need to monitor how their children are using technology and moderate the amount of time they spend with it. “While it can look harm-

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ALPHATOTS

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SPARKY SHARK THE

less, these Internet-connected devices can be a gateway to pornography, violence and all kinds of disturbing and harmful content,” she says. Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, also feels that it’s important that younger children at least be given limited access to technology. He says children have to learn fine motor and social skills; tablets and other technology hinder the development of these skills. “For young children, this is counter-productive—if your two-year-old can scroll and zoom on an iPad, that’s nothing to be proud of. You’re underestimating your child, who should be capable of much greater dexterity. New technology is too simple, and doesn’t give the child enough feedback to develop their skills.” Ramya Somashekhar and her husband, both doctors, live in the UK, but grew up in India. They have a two-year-old son, whom they have kept away from new technology. Somashekhar says, “There’s an information overload in the world today. We want our son to grow up at his own pace, and let him stay a kid for as long as we can. Just because he thinks an iPad is pretty doesn’t mean we want our two-year-old playing with something that expensive. He thinks that a teddy bear and a singing toy truck are equally fascinating. A gadget doesn’t begin to compare to the real world, and we want to keep it that way, so he grows up the way we did.” At Podar International School in Mumbai, though, students have started using iPads, and Vandana Lulla, director of the school, says only around 10% of the parents have not opted for it. While the school is not providing the iPads, they are offering a financing scheme for them. She says, “Moving to iPads was a natural step because they are easier for students to use than laptops. We had observed how tech-

savvy and comfortable they were, and had gone through studies that show the use of computers makes the learning of science more effective. We can also block access to games on the iPads, so the devices would allow students to work more effectively.” Mumbai-based writer and freelance journalist Manisha Lakhe almost bought an iPad last year, but her then 13-year-old son Agni Murthy was able to talk her out of it. She says, “Agni told me to buy the Acer Iconia instead, because it was better. I was sure I needed a 3G tablet. He convinced me to get the Wi-Fi one, then sat with it, entered its programming and was able to change it so that it worked using my old 3G dongle, saving me a lot of money.” By looking up a lot of different methods, Agni was able to find the best way to change the installed operating system on the Iconia, and instead run a routed version which would support the function his mother needed, without buying the more expensive 3G model. He says, “I use my laptop to study, to work with my friends on chat, to do homework and Photoshop. I used to draw but now I do a lot of that on Photoshop. I look up a lot of tech stories on the Net, because that’s really interesting. I read about how to make the Iconia work on 3G so I could give my mother advice.” This positive view is also supported by a study carried out by the US department of education. The 2010 study, Young Children, Apps and iPad, concluded that touch-screen technology allows younger children to play productively with a sophisticated media technology platform. The study found that “the use of touchscreen devices improved tacit and explicit learning, and was easy to pick up for children.” It continues, “Children are fascinated and engaged by touch-screen devices, and the engagement goes up over time. Using such devices, children learn ‘motor skills, exploration, game concepts and generalization of skills’, where the learning from one app can transfer to another app.” The study also says, “Well-designed apps give children the opportunity to play/ learn independently, and to participate in activities that would be messy in the real world, for example, finger painting.” As Gauri says, “You can do everything with the iPad. You don’t need to carry anything else. I have books, cartoons, and games and we can take them in the car, or outside, or in any room, all the time.”

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Believe it or not: The Pedlar Lady (top) and Khoya are changing the expectation of what a children’s sto rybook is supposed to be, going well beyond just words.

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Childfriendly apps Top picks from the huge world of content in the App Store

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Travel

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CAMBODIA

Reclaiming the narrative HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

Enough of the ‘white guilt’ and the ‘lifechanging experience’ the Western world travels with. Let nuance win

B Y A BHIJIT D UTTA ···························· had just landed in Siem Reap, a place made famous for its proximity to Angkor, an archaeological site strewn with remains of the Khmer Empire. It is a popular destination: well over two million international visitors pass through the petite Siem Reap International Airport annually. The news that I would be visiting had led to several oohs and aahs from colleagues who had recently been there. They all wanted to go back; their first trips had been magical. One of them, an American, had lowered her voice to a whisper and told me “It will

TRIP PLANNER/CAMBODIA

Indian citizens need a visa to enter Cambodia. Apply for one online at www.mfaic.gov.kh/evisa Thirty-day advance return airfare to Siem Reap from Indian metros at the time of going to press were: Delhi Mumbai Bangalore Singapore Airlines (Star Alliance) R39,470 R35,040 R37,600 Bangkok Airways

R33,190

R33,620

Fares may change.

Laos

Thailand Siem Reap

CAMBODIA Tonle Sap lake

Vietnam

Kompong Luong

Phnom Penh G ul f of Thai lan d

Stay

Eat

The Sojourn resort (www.sojournsiemreap.com) has twin rooms available at $140 (around (R6,900) a night, going up to $190 a night for private villas (double occupancy). Weekend packages and early booking discounts are available. While Cambodia has its own beer brands—Anchor and Angkor—try to get hold of neighbouring Laos’ Beer Lao, also easily available. The non-alcoholic drinks of choice are coconut water and iced coffee, made Vietnamese-style, with lots of milk powder. The must-try foods are Amok, the local coconut-based curry, and K’tieu, a noodle soup that’s served with options of beef, pork, and seafood.

GRAPHIC BY AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

change your life. I know it did mine. I have never quite seen anything like it. It was am-ay-zing” As a doubtful-looking van carried me through the road to Angkor—an undulating stretch of red soil pockmarked with potholes—I began to worry. Did I board the wrong flight? Had I gotten off at the wrong stop? Where on earth was this dream destination, the exotic charmer that everyone promised would take my breath away? I was in Siem Reap, Cambodia, but I could well have been in Bankura, West Bengal. And that is a problem, because my parents who joined me on this trip had travelled from Kolkata, where they live, to Singapore, where I live, from where we flew into Cambodia. And now Cambodia looked like all those places that train journeys of my childhood took me through. About an hour before the Rajdhani Express would pull into Howrah, the scene outside would resolve into a similar tableau of paddy fields and muddy dykes, well browned naked children running next to my window, fighting each other to claim my plastic water bottles. It was my cue that I was home. But right now, having sunk many rupees and many planning hours, home was really not what I was looking forward to! For our stay, I had picked an eco resort called Sojourn (“for journeys of an entirely different nature”) that offered boutique villas away from the backpacker and tourist heavy “downtown”. It’s a refreshing sort of place, sitting as it does in the heart of Treak village, a settlement of 200-odd families. Around it, bulbous lotuses grow wild, roosters, ducks, and swans troop around without a care in the world; rain-fed ponds brim with water snakes, spawn, and insects; and thickets are heavy with fruits and vegetables. And yet, we found ourselves struggling to enjoy this “sylvan

scape”, niggled as we were by the thought: Did we travel this far to see a village? The next day, at Angkor Wat, our English-speaking tour guide tried to explain to us stories of Lord Vishnu, of seven-hooded nagas and nubile apsaras, of devas and asuras, all etched into intricate bas-reliefs of the nearly 1,000-year-old temples. “And that, you see with beard, is Indian high priest, Saa-dhoo” he says. “We know,” my father tells him. The merits of Angkor Wat, Bayon and Baphuon, the three main temple complexes in Angkor are of course obvious. These are some of the oldest monuments that exist in the world, and yet display a sophistication of architectural design that would put to shame any contemporary creation. A group of foreigners who stood near us could barely breathe with astonishment. Only the distraction of even more bizarre stories about Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara could

nudge them past their disbelief of exactly how ancient and how grand these temples were. To us, it felt like someone was teaching us how to count. For every fragment of history our guide, Sokha, had memorized, my father would fill in the details, gently correcting him. Even my sketchy knowledge of mythology, grounded in Ramanand Sagar teleserials, seemed advanced. I felt cheated. Later, sitting underneath the stern gaze of a stone-faced Jayavarman VII in Bayon, a temple inspired by Buddha (or Brahma, if you prefer—there is no agreement on whether the temple is dedicated to Buddha or Brahma) in Angkor Thom, I wondered if my holiday was being ruined by the burden of the travel narratives I carried. As an urban, English-speaking Indian, my idea of travel is borrowed. From the adventures of Phileas Fogg and Passepartout to the incredible travels of Lemuel

Close encounters: (top) A boy jumps into a tank at the Angkor Wat complex; and an image from Gul liver’s Travels, which promises that travel brings a new world. Gulliver, my childhood was littered with stories which promised that distance would lead to a different world. Tintin offered clear proof of this. His travels came illustrated with vistas and experiences far removed from his home (or mine). In fact, even home looked different when seen through the eyes of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. In later years, Graham Greene, Paul Theroux and Jack Kerouac would confirm this understanding of travel with their epic journeys and discoveries of the strange, the weird and the different. In Siem Reap, I realized, this is a curse. The “narrative of difference” is really an alien—Western—construct that is grounded

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in the fact that, historically, only the privileged could travel. It was only the men of great colonial empires of the last millennium—the British, the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish—who could hop on to their ships and set sail to unknown lands, or rather, lands unknown to them. Travel was always about new discoveries they made, about places they never imagined existed. And so travel writing came to be located in the imaginative territories of the Western, establishing an idiom that continues to govern the structure of contemporary travel narratives. It was typically the big-name Western publications that could afford to send their writers out into the great unknown, new-age Ibn-e-Battutas dispatched to dark corners of the world, to tell readers back home how different the rest of the world looked. Writers now thronged the jungles of India, the peaks of Hindukush, the rivers of China, the pastures of Mongolia, the villages of Mekong Delta, and yes, the temples of Angkor. They returned with extraordinary stories of people in mud huts and palaces, of bizarre mythologies and alien palates, of prosperity and poverty, of stereotypes and caricatures, of riotous colours and a joie de vivre that knocked the wind out of their reader’s pipes. You just have to see Michael

Palin’s Himalaya with Michael Palin 2004 BBC mini-series to learn how utterly cinematic (and strange) our otherwise ordinary backyards can be. Publishers and editors here, bereft of budgets and any significant pool of good travel writers, gladly reproduced these narratives for the local population. We consumed stories about our own lands written up in evocative prose that transformed our daily lives into an incredibly thrilling experience. Asia became a theme park and we all bought tickets. Perhaps it is unfair to expect it any other way. For the average Indian, travel revolves around pilgrimages, weddings and, more recently, business with fixed agendas. The idea of recreational travel, the idea that summer holidays and vacations could mean something other than going back home—that travel could be for its own sake—has created the need for charting a whole new unfamiliar space, and the availability of international travel writing at the nearest book store (whose primary audience remained Western) is a comforting crutch. Even revered travel writers of Indian origin, like V.S. Naipaul and Pico Iyer, offer a mostly foreign gaze characteristic of their non-resident status. It is revealing that India’s best-known resident travel writer, William Dalrymple, is a Scotsman, and his City of

Djinns regularly outsells Khushwant Singh’s Delhi. More recently, Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City created some hope of an authentic Indian travel narrative, but is yet to dislodge Gregory David Roberts’ definitive Mumbai book—Shantaram—from the popular imagination, for readers, just as much as writers and travellers, are victims of this neo-Orientalist travel discourse. As the late Edward Said argued, so authoritative is this Western articulation of Asia (and West Asia and Africa) that “no one writing, thinking or acting on the Orient could do so without taking account of the limitations on thought and action imposed by Orientalism”. However, this discourse is beginning to fissure. According to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, or Pata, India has one of the fastest growing outbound travel markets in the world, with approximately 12 million outbound travellers in 2010. The United Nations’ World Tourism Organization sees this trending to 50 million by 2020. This means that sooner rather than later, as more and more Indians travel to distant shores, Siem Reapian dissonances will become a hallmark of our travel experience. Take the idea of summers, for example. The idea of “glorious”, “sun-filled” summers spent outdoors getting a “high colour” or a “brilliant tan” is grounded in a cli-

matic reality: the western hemisphere is subjected to bitter winters for four-five months every year. The onset of summers then is indeed something to welcome and travel magazines are right to eulogize its many benefits. Travelling to Helsinki, Finland, last June, I stared in dismay at hordes of Finns, sweat streaking their faces, drunk on joy of 23-hour days steaming at 30 degrees Celsius (remember there is limited ventilation, a precaution for the winter). It was the hottest summer Finland had seen in years and they couldn’t get enough of it. Having travelled from a city that makes me sweat practically every day of the year (if it is not toasting me with dry heat) to see the magic of the Nordic, of being in the Arctic Circle, I was crestfallen. If only I had been seduced by travel writing exulting the charms of a white Christmas in the border town of Imatra, or the believe-it-or-not temperatures of Lapland, and encouraged to ditch the “best time to go”. Is it possible for tourism departments and tour guides to rethink and reframe their spiels in culture-specific contexts? Can the ancientness of Angkor be referenced to the 14th century ruins of the Vijayanagara empire in Hampi, Karnataka, or to the 13th century Konark Sun Temple in Orissa—narratives that allow us to marvel at the shared ancestry,

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the linked histories? Can the writing about Cambodia’s Tonlé Sap, the largest freshwater lake in South-East Asia, now an exploitative narrative that features floating destitution not shift instead to the immensity and fertility of the Great Lake? As a culture that grows up to respect rivers and lakes as sources of sustenance and spiritual deliverance, are we not uniquely placed to appreciate lives lived in perpetuity by the Tonlé Sap’s banks? Free from the distractions of “white guilt”, can we not instead delight in the fact that the green coconuts here are of spectacular size, and their taste sweetest in all of Asia? Or that the wild lotuses growing effortlessly in Siem Reap’s villages would be considered a prize pick anywhere? Can we not get a little closer, penetrate a little deeper, discard the differences and instead celebrate the nuances on offer? On one of our rest days in Siem Reap (being “templed out” in Angkor is as real as altitude sickness), my mother and I signed up for a Khmer cooking class. It began to rain furiously and our “classmates” decided to stay inside. And so we began cooking, just the chef and us. The ingredients were immediately familiar—these are things my mother cooks with every day—and prompted detailed conversations on the right texture and the particular varieties. Notes were exchanged on the constituents of the curry powder, and the conversation seamlessly shifted to what people really use at home. We left the sanitized experience that had been planned for us, and arrived at the chef’s home to settle down to some real Khmer cooking. Awkwardness disappeared, the familiarity of our skin colour and our ease at being inside a hut allowing a natural intimacy. My last day was kept for a sunrise at Angkor Wat, but I arrived a little too early and my driver, Sary, suggested we head out to Banteay Srei, a 10th century Hindu temple, about 32km from Angkor. We sped through the ink blue predawn, a light rain pattering on to the windscreen and arrived at Banteay Srei just as the sky dissolved to a mysterious grey. At barely 6am, we were the only ones here. Sary, a soft-spoken man of 60-odd years, took me around the tiny temple, the only one built with pink stone (most being in red sandstone), and we stared at the clefts left behind where Shiva lingams should have been (“stolen, all stolen,” he said). We spent

New world views: (clockwise from above) The Ta Prohm temple in Siem Reap; Tonlé Sap is the largest fresh water lake in South East Asia; and Buddh ist monks in front of the Angkor Wat. some time sitting by the statues of monkeys and then came out for a cup of Cambodian coffee. He talked about his days as a guerrilla fighter for the Cambodian People’s Party, the years he spent in the forest fighting Pol Pot’s men, and the great coffee the Vietnamese would bring in from across the border. His eyes moistened as he talked about his pregnant aunt being killed in front of the family, about how angry he felt. “But now it is all over. My country has peace,” he said, “the young build new country”. On our way back, we stopped at Ta Prohm, more famous as the “Angelina Jolie temple” from Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Standing atop a pile of rubble that’s been there for 900 years, I stared in disbelief at the spung tree that holds the temple in a stranglehold, its unimaginably thick roots snaking around the entire complex (incidentally, Jolie’s connection with this place is just as entangled as the spung tree—her eldest son, Maddox, is Cambodian). Sary knew by now to not bother with a historical description, and instead told me of the erstwhile king cobra burrow in the temple (“Now no more, eaten already”). He has been coming here since he was six years old, and he took me through completely dark pathways and past areas cordoned off for restoration work, giving me a closer look at Ta Prohm’s mosskissed beauty. In the end, I did succumb to the charm of Siem Reap. Throughout my trip, memories from my travels to West Bengal, to Orissa, to Kerala and Karnataka came back to me, but instead of lessening, it enhanced my appreciation. Without the distraction of differences, I could rest my mind on the essential, teasing out more meaning than my colleagues had promised. Sometimes seeing our own existences recreated on another canvas, with a patina of colours we recognize but perhaps don’t use ourselves, can create some of the most memorable travel experiences. No, Siem Reap didn’t change my life, but it was a pretty amazing trip. Write to lounge@livemint.com

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Books

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CONFLUENCES | RANJIT HOSKOTE AND ILIJA TROJANOW

With love from Andalusia DISENYO/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

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A new work defines culture as a running conversation between societies and explores how East and West meet through history B Y M ATT D ANIELS ···························· n eye for an eye; a head for a tweet. Judgement awaits Hamza Kashgari, a Saudi journalist who mused on Twitter about meeting the Prophet Muhammad. A total of three lines—fewer than 420 Arabic characters—may earn him a death sentence in his home country. In recent weeks, the Islamic world’s intolerance for writers and its hair-trigger for accusations of blasphemy have been on full display. Less widely known is that medieval Muslims invented Twitter. Or, if not Twitter itself, then the original Twittersphere: The idea of a public arena in which the merit of pensées such as Kashgari’s is debated and their claims adjudicated. The seeds of the European Enlightenment were thus sown by Arab Aristotelians who preserved the spirit of rational inquiry, as they elaborated its philosophical foundations, through Europe’s Dark Ages. So claim Ranjit Hoskote and Ilija Trojanow in a scintillating new work, Confluences: Forgotten Histories from East and West. Confluences is not a book about Islam. Nor is it an abstruse work of high theory, though its title, Homi Bhabha epigraph and indeterminate blurb risk turning off jargonallergic readers. Its synthesis of narrative and historical detail is as accessible as it is far-reaching. Vaulting millennia, continents and tongues and spilling over with erudition, Confluences examines the commerce of ideas at the geographical, economic and intellectual intersections of societies. It formulates a definition of culture as a kind of conversation. Hoskote and Trojanow find their models in the tolerant polities of Al-Andalus, the Muslim kingdom that controlled southern Iberia from 711 to 1492, and the Kushan Empire, which straddled the Indian subcontinent and West Asia from the first through fourth centuries. These civilizations, situated at ethnic and commercial crossroads, are lauded as vessels

for the transmission of culture rather than the containment of it. Confluences leads us through millennia of intellectual history without breaking stride. New settings and significant figures are introduced through brief forays into narrative, the better to immerse us in the atmosphere of extraordinary eras of tolerance and cultural flourishing (one inspired passage relates the misadventures of a Vishva Hindu Parishad time traveller). The result is an engrossing journey strewn with unexpected gems, like the Arabic root of the word “Baroque”: burga, meaning unevenly shaped, as the irregular pearls traded Westward. The greater part of Confluences recounts the cultural developments that underpin two of the West’s most significant institutions: the rationalist Enlightenment and Christianity. Al-Andalus extended, for the most part, full religious tolerance to Jews and Christians. Partly as a result, it witnessed a flourishing of culture, science and philosophy. Foremost among these developments was Arab Aristotelianism, embodied by Ibn Rushd (known to the Latinspeaking world as Averroes). When Ibn Rushd’s ideas reached Christendom, they were viewed as dangerous apostasy and their proponents persecuted, yet his Scholastic followers included in their ranks Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. Latter-day interpretations of religions have erased the traces of their syncretic influences. Hoskote and Trojanow quote, for example, Father Hugo Rahner: “Christianity is a thing that is wholly sui generis. It is something unique and not a derivative from any cult or other human institution, nor has its essential character been changed or touched by any such influence.” They calmly proceed to dismantle Rahner’s assertion. Nearly all the world’s major religions come in for similar treatment. If Islam is left uninterrogated, perhaps the authors see the task as trivial: Islam’s canonization of Moses and Jesus explicitly mark

Confluences—Forgotten Histories from East and West: Yoda Press, 219 pages, `295. its foundations as hybrid. The pervasive traces of outsiders in Western religions register not only Muslim but Zoroastrian, Mithraic and, yes, even Hindu influences. The West has returned the favour in kind. Most recently, the authoritarian movements of the 20th century inspired militant offshoots of Islam and Hinduism. Witness, for instance, the malig-

Q&A | ANISUL HOQUE

B Y A NUPAM K ANT V ERMA anupam.v1@livemint.com

···························· angladeshi journalist and novelist Anisul Hoque was barely six years old in 1971 when the war that ended in the formation of his country took place. In 2002, he began writing what would become one of the most popular novels written in Bangladesh, a book already in its 46th edition, Maa. It is the true story of Safia Begum and her son, Azad, told lucidly, employing the tools of fiction. Hoque spoke to us a day after

Cultural convergence: US President Barack Obama in Egypt in 2009; and (left) the AlAndalus mosque in Malaga, Spain. but in its final part, Confluences’ broad-mindedness begins to curdle. Declining to assert an unassailable high ground for liberalism, the authors instead resort to sarcasm. Their equivocal tactics issue not from faint-heartedness but rather a flaw (some might say a feature) endemic to left world views, or to open epistemologies, of systematic doubt—a concept they owe to Rushd. Confluences succeeds in demonstrating that the antagonism of Islam and the West originates in a specious distinction. “Culture,” write Hoskote and Trojanow, “is that part of human experience and expression which cannot be co-opted into the banality of polar confrontation.” If only the knot could be cut so easily. Do societies bend, in the long arc of history, towards tolerance? How, then, do they evolve violent, absolutist ideological movements? Through their assiduous scholarship Hoskote and Trojanow have arrived at a paradox with which they decline to wrestle. Write to lounge@livemint.com IN SIX WORDS An engrossing journey through shared histories

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

Mother courage The Bangladeshi journalist on the inspiration behind his novel ‘Maa’

nant cult of Hitler still alive in India. Hoskote and Trojanow identify, from M.S. Golwalkar to Godhra, the reflection of tactics and principles of Nazism in the ideology of Hindutva. Islamists, meanwhile, have brought their experience as subalterns under colonial powers to bear on their views of the West. Their contempt for Western values is diagnosed as an “equal and opposite Occidentalism” that narrows their understanding of Europe and America’s diversity. But Hoskote and Trojanow have reserved some of their most pointed criticism for the West’s recent anti-Muslim backlash, for which they have coined the term “Islamoclasm”. They observe that it mirrors Islamism in its erasure of internal distinctions, its willful ignorance of culture and, of course, its use of war as a tool of policy (the portrait is something of a caricature. US President Barack Obama, speaking in Cairo in 2009, cited the significant contributions of Al-Andalus to the West even while waging two simultaneous wars in Muslim countries). They inveigh against leaders who

would “instrumentalize differences” according to the age-old principle of “divide and rule”. They take issue with the often asserted claim that, unchecked, Islam will supplant tolerant Western democracies, calling it “no more than a projection of the aims and methods of European colonialism”: a false analogy. Fighting all these ideologies at once, Hoskote and Trojanow seek to propagate the view that cultures cannot be “purified” because each is, at its origin, a hybrid. That view undermines the thesis, put forth by Orientalist scholar Bernard Lewis and popularized by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, that the West and the Islamic world are engaged in a “clash of civilizations”. Lewis would presumably be among the first to acknowledge the formative contributions of pre-Enlightenment Islamic scholars to Western discourse, but differs in his emphasis. Lewis notes, for instance, in The Crisis of Islam, that in issuing a fatwa against Salman Rushdie, Khomeini spurred a significant “deviation” from the tradition of law and justice embodied in Muslim jurisprudence. He is, however, alarmed that these deviations, as in the “sanctification” of suicide bombing, have come to increasingly define the norm from the mid-20th century onwards. For all their erudition, Hoskote and Trojanow lack the killer instinct of the ideologues they critique. Polemics occupy a relatively small section of the book,

the launch of the English translation of the Bengali novel, Freedom’s Mother, in Delhi earlier this month. Edited excerpts from the conversation: Tell us about the conception and development of ‘Freedom’s Mother’. It all began in 2002, with a former freedom fighter and theatre person, Nasiruddin Yousuf, and his one-line story. The story of the mother of a freedom fighter who did not have boiled rice for 14 years because when her son—who was in a prison, arrested by the Pakistan army—asked for it, she was not allowed to give him boiled rice. He asked me to write a TV drama about it. If it’s true, I told him, I need to do more research on the subject. I also thought that television dramas

are easily forgotten. So I decided to write a novel. I began my research by publishing an advertisement in Prothom Alo, a leading newspaper, asking people who knew Azad (the protagonist of the story) to help me. Quite amusingly, the first person I talked to was Azad’s stepmother. Azad’s father was a rich man, with Azad the only child. But Safia Begum, Azad’s biological mother, left her husband’s mansion in protest against his decision to keep another wife. This was way before the arrival of feminism in Bangladesh. After that, I talked to scores of relatives and freedom fighters. In 2003, the novel was published by Samay Prakashan. What intrigued you about Safia Begum? It was common during the 1960s for a man to keep two wives. But this woman left everything she had, unwilling to share her husband with anyone else. Let us

Bestseller: Maa is already in its not forget that this woman sacrificed her only child. When she visited Azad at the police station, she asked him not to disclose the name of his fellow freedom fighters, whatever the cost he may have to bear. She was a strong lady.

What do you remember of the war of 1971? I was in class I. This, I told myself, is my first lesson. Schools were closed. Even as a boy of 6, I used to join the processions and chant slogans. “Bhuttor pete laathi maro (Kick Bhutto in the belly!)”. When the war broke out, we fled from place to place, finally settling in our village. I remember seeing dead bodies floating in the river. 46th edition. Towns and cities were being razed. The Pakistani army had seized control. Houses were being burnt. One of my classmates lost a finger while fooling around with a bomb, which he took for a plaything. We live in the memory of 1971. How does the younger

generation view that time? The new generation wants to know history. People want to be part of the victory. Nowadays, there are two competing ideologies in Bangladesh: pro-liberation, and anti-liberation—backward, reactionary. The young want to side with the forces of liberty. They want to know. But history, you see, is dry: places, names, years, dates. But when you introduce characters, when you describe the soul, that makes it interesting. Stories touch readers. I receive new emails every day, even phone calls from people expressing their gratitude for my writing this book. Why did you choose ‘Freedom’s Mother’ as the novel’s English title? I preferred Mother, but I agreed with the publishers when they said it was too common. We all know (Maxim) Gorky! Also, Azad means a free man. Azad’s mother is, therefore, freedom’s mother.

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CULT FICTION

THE PRISONER OF PARADISE | ROMESH GUNESEKERA

Romance and merlot

Even with fine prose and a beautiful setting, this is a disappointing work because it doesn’t reach out to the world it is set in B Y A RUNAVA S INHA ···························· he set-up is perfect for the mother of all post-colonial fiction statements. It is 1825 in Mauritius. The British and the French occupy the tropical island in uneasy harmony, vying for the hand of the recklessly abundant spirit that this flower-strewn, stream-struck, storm-threatened land represents. Obviously, the heroine will arrive shortly, the fearless embodiment of these very qualities. The place is simply teeming with subaltern individuals. There are convicts, labourers, local hired hands, slaves and former slaves, an exiled ruler or two and simmering discontent that is about to brew a revolution. Into this cauldron throw in some delicious dialogue straight out of Jane Austen between proud men and prejudiced women—and vice versa; between sensible wives and husbands without sensibilities; and among figures intent on persuasion. Harking directly back to the era when young blood flirted with words as their amatory weapons, when ruddy Englishmen grew ruddier as they whipped the natives and glugged their Merlot, and wives tolerated their husbands scornfully, the Sri Lankan writer Romesh Gunesekera’s new novel trembles with all the elements of a blockbuster that can please both the senses and the intellect. The first false note, however, is struck by the title. The Prisoner of Paradise? The buckle is so swash,

the heart so thudding…but wait, could this be irony masquerading as historical romance? Lucy Gladwell’s arrival in Mauritius, with dreams in her destiny and determination on her dossier, marks the journey of idealistic innocence into the “paradise” that appears to mirror her free-flowing nature. Poised geographically between the rational but repressive world view of the West and the mystic but emancipating gestalt of the Orient, Mauritius offers Lucy every possibility on earth. While Lucy’s yearning for love is foregrounded, the probable object of this soaring affection is revealed as the Sri Lankan translator Don Lambodar (fortunately, he does not let Lucy know that his name is that of the deity Ganesha), who

The Prisoner of Paradise: Bloomsbury, 389 pages, £16.99 (around `920).

has some dozen languages, though he claims to be fluent in none of them. The symbol is almost too pat: the translator as the figure who introduces Lucy to an alternative existence, and yet is himself in figurative chains, his limits determined by the colour of his skin and the whims of the British administration. Even so, the first half of the novel, which is all exposition, does create the sneaking suspicion that the framework of the society romance—complete with heaving bosoms and batted eyelids, though both are profiled in far more elegant language—is being used to tell a story that will turn out to be far more apocalyptic than a mere love story would warrant. This is reinforced by the referencing of the story of Paul and Virginie, a French novel by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre—in which Mauritius is depicted as a land of equality, including the ownership of land. For, Gunesekera uses the issues of liberty, equality and fraternity to skilfully etch the fault lines that will bring forth tremors in this paradise. The second half of the novel, then, could well have exploded with quiet ferocity, but, in fact, it does nothing of the kind. The denouement, such as it is, belies the pent-up energy of the build-up, with the predictable violence being schematic and almost perfunctory in its role in shaping the outcome of events. Most inexplicably, the characters directly involved in the uprising and the conflict remain the bit players that they had been at the beginning—cardboard marionettes, employed to take the story to its conclusion. Gunesekera’s writing is an

R. SUKUMAR

A BUG’S LIFE

n the 19th century, French entomologist Jean-Henri Fabre wrote a book on insects. Called Souvenirs Entomologiques, it was more than a scientific study. Rooted in science, it still looked at insects in mythology and religion. The book was translated into English by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (both the original and the translation can be easily found on the Web). It became famous in the early 20th century as Fabre’s Book of Insects (again, this is easily found on the Web), retold by Rodolph Stawell and illustrated by Edward Detmold. I have dipped into the book and encountered some surprising gems. Such as this: “After all, ... the Mantis has her good points, like most people. She makes a most marvellous nest.” Or this: “If the Glow-worm possessed no other talent than that of chloroforming his prey by means of a few tweaks as gentle as kisses, he would be unknown to the world in general. But he also knows how to light himself like a lantern. He shines; which is an excellent manner of becoming famous.”

Blue lagoon: Mauritius, where Gunesekera’s novel is set. invocation to the mind’s eye in gentle but confident strokes, building the picture of the island as a whole— especially the sea—and the individual theatres on it where the different acts of the drama unfold. In his hands, Ambleside, the mansion where Lucy comes to live with her intriguing aunt Betty, her obstinate uncle George and the enigmatic houseboy Muru, is a sensory creation whose sight, sounds, and smells are given life by words. That the love affair central to the novel is doomed is, somehow, understood from the beginning. A happy ending might have seemed trivial, but in the event, the actual conclusion does little except to seal a climax that had been expected all along. Gunesekera provides a fine texture of prose, using a combination of exquisitely delicate description, scintillating conversations and an imaginative cast of characters. But, like the characters, the novel too remains a prisoner to the writer’s unwillingness to scale the story of individuals and create a personal history that weaves in and out of the larger reality. No po-mo here, only slo-mo. Arunava Sinha translates Bengali fiction into English. His recent publications are Samaresh Basu’s Fever and Anita Agnihotri’s Seventeen. Write to lounge@livemint.com IN SIX WORDS When language takes precedence over history

Parasitic: Tezuka’s book (below) tells a story through entomology. I can see why this book achieved cult status. I can also understand why Osamu Tezuka, aka the Godfather of modern manga, adapted the name for one of his most complex works, The Book of Human Insects. The book tells the story of Toshiko Tomura, the “human insect”. She metamorphoses, adapts, mimics, kills her mates, and leads an amoral life that seems focused on only one end—getting ahead. In effect, Tomura is a sociopath with the face of an angel. Tezuka tells the story of the parasitic young woman in four chapters, Spring Cicada, Leafhopper, Longhorn Beetle, and Katydid, and there are enough entomological parallels that can be drawn between the goings-on in each and the insects referred to. Peppered with violence, politics, corruption, sex, and some deviant behaviour involving a wax doll, the book is illustrated by Tezuka in his usual masterful style. His storytelling is equally masterful. The plot itself is unusual enough—even for an author whose previous books have featured, among others, a hermaphrodite and a man turning into a dog. The Book of Human Insects doesn’t have any good guys, and is reminiscent of one of those 1970s B-movies where everyone ends up sad, or dead, or both. I am not going to reveal how the book ends, although that usually doesn’t matter for a work such as this. Vertical Inc., which has been publishing English translations of Tezuka’s books, published The Book of Human Insects last year. R. Sukumar is editor, Mint. Write to him at cultfiction@livemint.com

THE FLOWERS OF WAR | GELING YAN

Blossoming in darkness A moving Chinese novel about the Nanjing Massacre gets its first English translation B Y K AREN M A ···························· n December 1937, China’s then-capital Nanjing came under violent attacks at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army. For six weeks, the soldiers committed unspeakable crimes against the Chinese people, raping and murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians and women. The event, better known as the Nanjing Massacre, which remains controversial as scholars dispute the scale of the atrocities, has inspired

scores of novels, films and historical accounts, both in China and beyond. The Flowers of War by renowned Chinese novelist Geling Yan, is the latest addition to shed light on this appalling event, inspired by events that occurred during the massacre. Unlike other works, however, its main focus is not on the number of murders or the sheer evil of the incident. Rather, it looks at the psychological transformation of a group of people from different backgrounds who seek shelter inside an American church—a supposedly neutral territory. As their protective walls crumble, we see them increasingly exposed to the onslaught beyond. The outcome is a short but powerful look at humanity, both at its best and its worst.

We witness the unfolding horror through the eyes of Shujuan, a 13-year-old schoolgirl. She and 15 other pupils are being protected by the American priest Father Engelmann and his deacon. Their safety is greatly compromised, however, when prostitutes from a nearby brothel scale the compound’s walls in search of shelter. Matters are made worse when a handful of injured Chinese soldiers join the girls at their hideout. As supplies dry up and Japanese soldiers continue pouring into the city, raping and pillaging as they go, the group is pushed to a near breaking point. Spats, cruelty and ugly catfights erupt, revealing deeply felt prejudices and mistrust. At every juncture, characters, including the slightly priggish priest and his reluc-

tant Chinese staff, find themselves making individual choices that could spell survival or death. Yet we also witness fleeting moments of love, tenderness and unexpected acts of heroism in the heart of this darkness. Yan, a Shanghai native known for her eloquent writing about family ties, social injustice and heroic women capable of great kindness (she’s the author of The Banquet Bug and The Lost Daughter of Happiness, both available in English) is at her best at building tensions and observing small details in a character’s transformation. We see Shujuan, for example, progress from a naive, selfish girl disgusted with the newly arrived prostitutes, anguishing over her changing body, into someone able to appreciate and respect the brothel women. The novel is a heavy read, but Yan’s inclusion of a group of sassy, irreverent women, particularly Yumo, Cardamom

The Flowers of War: Harvill Secker/ Random House India, 250 pages, `499. and Hongling, into the mix adds a touch of humour and light-heartedness to an otherwise grim subject. The Flowers of War is not without its critics. The new English-language translation, by Nicky Harman, has been criticized elsewhere for its underdeveloped characters and lacklustre language. This, however, is largely unfair. The

problem lies more with the translation than with the original writing. Harman does an adequate job, but her language is somewhat plain and at times uninspiring, missing the mark in rendering the rich, vivid and colourful original language. On occasion, sections that would have given greater depth to some of the main characters, noticeably Shujuan and Yumo, were left out from the translation, perhaps under pressure to coincide with the release of the film version. The movie, directed by famed director Zhang Yimou, had a limited US release in January. Translation issues aside, The Flowers of War remains a powerful and moving read with its ultimate message intact. At extreme times, prejudices and boundaries are easily challenged, and those from the socalled bottom rung of society can rise far above others with the simple choices they make. Write to lounge@livemint.com

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LITERARY TOUR

Dickens of a town

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For Dickens’ 200th birth anniversary, contemporary London is suffused with his spirit. We go in search of the great author

B Y S IDIN V ADUKUT ···························· he weather is painfully clichéd on the noon of 1 February in London. It is everything you expect a winter’s day to be here, the city Charles Dickens made his own through a legacy of the most splendid literary output. Singularly, perhaps more than any other novelist in modern history, Dickens’ work changed everything about everything—literature, society, poverty, human rights and even language. It is cold, grey and dreary enough to break fragile souls. The kind of weather people move cities to avoid. The kind of weather that makes you stop halfway across a bridge and wonder if all this trouble is worth it. The kind of weather that makes Scandinavian crime novels Scandinavian. But on this sun-less noon, there are dozens of people milling about the BBC Broadcasting House building, a short, blustery walk from the Great Portland Street tube station. The weather means nothing to them. Usually, recording sessions of the BBC World Service’s wildly popular World Book Club (WBC) radio programme are less frenzied. Pictures of the show suggest an intimate affair with a small room full of people all watching the host, Harriett Gilbert, interview an author of international repute. But this show is special. For one thing, it has two guests, one more than usual: both Claire Tomalin, author of a best-selling biography of Dickens published in 2011, and Simon Callow, renowned actor and author himself of a well-received new book on Dickens and theatre. Callow is perhaps best known to audiences outside the UK as the eccentric bearded chap whose

death leads to the funeral in Four Weddings and a Funeral. This special bumper edition of the WBC is not only being recorded for the radio and podcast, but also for a special televised edition. The two major UK TV networks, BBC and Sky, are giving Dickens’ legacy the obsessive, repetitive televised treatment they otherwise reserve solely for World War II. So many people have requested tickets for the WBC recording that the producers send almost daily reminders for confirmations and cancellations. Indeed, a large number of people waiting outside the Broadcasting House, in the cold, have tickets valid only if there are any empty seats. And in the large, two-tier recording studio, used for this special episode, there isn’t a single empty seat to be found. The UK, in general, and London, in particular, are marking the bicentennial by going nuts about Dickens. A few days after the recording, I pack my iPhone full of Dickens podcasts and set out to go on a guided walk themed Bloomsbury and Charles Dickens. The walk starts at Tottenham Court Road station and en route I listen to several short audio clips. The first is a July 2001 BBC radio discussion on Dickens. Moderator, journalist, author and polymath Melvyn Bragg starts off by wondering if Dickens was truly an agent for change. Or was he merely “a great caricaturist but really a conservative at heart”. Two hundred years after he was born in Portsmouth, and 176 years after the publication of his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, Dickens still appears to be a figure open to analysis and discussion. In his time, we know, Dickens kept details of his wretched childhood hidden. It was only after his death that his friend and biographer John Forster revealed how Dickens spent 10-hour days at a blacking factory near today’s Charing Cross station sealing pots of shoe polish. In fact, an expert told Bragg in 2001 that he was, at one point, the sole earning member of his family. Did this make him uniquely sensitive to the plight of children? My themed walk, recorded and published freely online (Londonwalks.libsyn.org) by a sleepy voiced Londoner called Robert

Boz’ world: (clockwise from left) The Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children; Charles Dickens Museum; and the author.

Wright, takes me past one location that seems to suggest that Dickens was passionate about children. This is the famous children’s hospital at Great Ormond Street. When the hospital first opened in 1852 as the nodal institution for children’s health for the entire city, it had just 10 beds. However, one of its first benefactors was Dickens. The author, who by then had started making a fortune from public readings, held sessions and wrote articles specifically to raise funds for the hospital. He continued to be a benefactor until his dying days and made a veiled reference to the hospital in his last complete novel Our Mutual Friend, where he writes of it as “a place where there are none but children; a place set up on purpose for sick children; where the good doctors and nurses pass their lives with children, talk to none but children, comfort and cure none but children.” Wright’s walk is a pleasant, if not particularly Dickensian, walk through the Holborn neighbourhood. Some of his Dickens-related sights are somewhat tenuous but the walk is free and, conveniently, ends at the Charles Dickens Museum near Coram’s Fields. Coram’s Fields, now a play area, was the site of the Foundling Hospital, an orphanage that counted Dickens and composer George Frideric Handel as benefactors. The chaplain of the hospital’s chapel, says Wright’s voiceover, was the inspiration for Mr Brownlow’s character in Oliver Twist. Dickens was a

prolific borrower of people and places for his writings. The Charles Dickens Museum is easy to miss completely as you walk by, especially in winter when the front door is left closed. Also, it looks like nothing but an old-fashioned brick London house from the outside. But push through the door, step into 48 Doughty Street, and you are now in the building where Dickens spent two years with his bride and young family from 1837-39. It was in this house that Mary Hogarth, Dickens’ 17-year-old sister-in-law, died in 1837. There is little doubt nowadays that Dickens was in love with Hogarth. She died in his arms and the death devastated Dickens, who later found inspiration in Hogarth for numerous characters, including Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop. In the basement of the museum is a short film on Dickens that brings even the most ignorant tourist up to speed. When I go downstairs, the basement room is filled with pensioners, including one man in a pair of shimmering turquoise corduroy pants who is fast asleep. While Dickens did not originate the term, he did make the phrase “red tape” very popular. And perhaps gave it the dreadful connotations it has today. This passage from a magazine article written in 1851 is masterful: “Your public functionary who delights in Red Tape—the purpose of whose existence is to tie up public questions, great and

small, in an abundance of this official article—to make the neatest possible parcels of them, ticket them, and carefully put them away on a top shelf out of human reach—is the peculiar curse and nuisance of England. Iron, steel, adamant, can make no such drag-chain as Red Tape. An invasion of Red Ants in innumerable millions, would not be half so prejudicial to Great Britain, as its intolerable Red Tape.” The Charles Dickens Museum is an enjoyable way to spend an hour, excluding any time you may spend at the coffee shop—perhaps the largest room in the complex. The small gift shop is well stocked with knick-knacks and books, and the man at the counter is remarkably pleasant for a British service employee. The museum, however, will close for several months this year as part of a major renovation project. A small model of the renovated building is kept in the museum. To my eyes, it looks identical except for a vaguely modern looking extension in the back made out of wooden beams. Sadly, it looks like something you’d see in an expensive spa. A museum already so modern it hurts is the Museum Of London which, till 10 June, has an exhibition titled Dickens and London. When I visit the museum, it is hosting some kind of children’s day and is overrun with parents, teachers and wards. The gift shop is a seething mass of unhappy children seeking approval to purchase various Chinese toys. But

the exhibition is a well-executed show with many interactive elements and plenty of trivia. The highlight for me was the video at the end. Called The Houseless Shadow, it is a portrait of contemporary London inspired by Night Walks, a Dickens essay on roaming around the city due to “a temporary inability to sleep”. The video superimposes Dickens’ words to images from London today. It is utterly haunting. When it ends after a few minutes, nobody gets up, as if entranced, staring at a blank screen as the titles roll. “His words are so modern, aren’t they?” says an old woman as she waddles out. “So, is Dickens relevant to London today?” I wonder, rather unoriginally, as I walk out of the museum. Does his passion for children, women, the sleepless and the hopeless still resonate all these years later? I exit and walk up Aldersgate Street to St Paul’s, where I intend to pick up a sandwich and coffee at a reliable French café. But the pedestrian network around St Paul’s is a mess. I am momentarily puzzled. Paternoster Square is usually empty at any time. And then it hits me. I walk out of the square and then take the long way around a building, and back up Cheapside till I reach the square in front of the cathedral. On the right side, there are a few remaining vestiges of the Occupy London protests at St Paul’s. There are still many tents around, some very filthy indeed. One tent, manned by a couple of men who could easily get cast as some grizzly Victorian extras, has a sign outside: “My tent for your bonus”. Another one has the universal symbol for anarchy—an A with a circle over it—spraypainted on to it. Dickens’ work will remain timeless. But equally timeless, it seems, are the things Dickens wrote about. For more information on Charles Dickens’ 200th year celebrations around the world, visit www.dickens2012.org Write to lounge@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012

L17

Culture

LOUNGE PREVIEW

OLD IDEAS | LEONARD COHEN

The business of design COURTESY RUY TEXEIRA

COURTESY TATIANA UZLOVA

A fine vintage A great singersongwriter faces old age with wit and grace B Y S UPRIYA N AIR

bent and low, he sings on Show Me The Place, relatively the most ··························· radio-friendly of the tracks on eonard Cohen used to write the first half of the album. Show about death—perhaps the me the place where you want only theme in his body of work your slave to go. that overshadows his concern Old Ideas leans gently, as with sex and, in a different way, Cohen often has, on the tones of with writing itself—like he was blues and gospel, without approthree steps from the threshold p r i a t i n g t h e m . H i s m u s i c between this world and the next, remains irrepressibly Cohen, bending towards a mysterious quiet, direct and scrubbed free of veil whose flutter it was his sole superfluous arrangements. His privilege to hear. He sang about voice, for the first time almost as it in a low-key growl which strong an instrument as his slouched towards his tunes; The words, is constricted almost to a least subtle words he ever made single key, the songs’ melody famous about this feeling were delineated largely through the written by someone else. The counterpoint of his female colwind, the wind is blowing/ laborators. Yet the younger through the graves the wind is voices—and even the violin blowing, he sang on the legend- sounds younger than Cohen ary The Partisan (whose English here—are more distant than his lyrics were written by Hy Zaret, near-whispering. The effect, on t h e m a n w h o a l s o w r o t e steady listening, is moving. Even Unchained Melody). the old Cohen never croaks, Cohen’s return unlike his to the recording near-counstudio, years after terpart Bob discovering that Dylan, and his erstwhile there are manager had moments in made off with his the lower frelife savings, is a quencies on return to that this album that threshold, will make Tom nearer than Waits sound like ever before. a show-off. O l d I d e a s is But his poetry Old Ideas: the 77-year-old songremains the greatSony Music, writer’s closest engageest reason to listen CD: `499, ment with mortality to him, and the closVinyl: `1,499. yet, and its directness ing half of the will strike deeply even album, which draws those listeners who are intimate back a little into the knowable with the sly wit and enlightened world of women, writing and melancholia of his four-decade- ageing, is just as limpid and long recording career. direct as the first. He closes not I love to speak with Leonard/ on the transcendent note of the He’s a sportsman and a shep- opening, but with amusement. herd, he begins, in the voice of a You say you want to live where creator, with the gospel music of the suffering is/I want to get out of Going Home. He’s a lazy bastard town, he sings on Different Sides. living in a suit/But he does say Come on baby, give me a kiss/ what I tell him/Even though it Stop writing everything down. isn’t welcome. No one has Gone is the hit-or-miss cheek invoked the language of religion of the man who shamelessly in modern music with quite the rhymed “free” with “thee” in delicacy and irreverence of one of his greatest songs, Bird Cohen. He has never been on a Wire. Cohen the poet churchy or transcendental, but seems to have succeeded in he has never quite sung in the doing what he once flippantly present the way he does here. told reporters he tried to do: Show me the place, for my head is waking up in a state of grace. supriya.n@livemint.com

A pioneering forum in Delhi will bring together design practitioners from across disciplines The insiders: Spanish designer Nacho Carbonell; (left) artwork by Sid dhartha Chatterjee; and Dutch trend fore caster Li Edelkoort.

B Y K OMAL S HARMA komal.sharma@livemint.com

···························· esign is in everything— from the simple cup we drink tea in to the skyscrapers which achieve the perfection of mathematics, engineering and physics. Yet, ironically, it lives on the periphery, at least in the Indian context. In the first event of its kind, the India Design Forum (IDF) will bring together in Delhi in March world-famous practitioners, thinkers and trendsetters from across borders and disciplines, to address this gap. The event will start with Design Trail (from 2-8 March), with activities at different venues across the Capital—entry to most of these is free and open to public—and culminate in the two-day, pre-registered forum from 9-10 March. IDF founder Rajshree Pathy, chairperson and managing director of the Rajshree Group of Companies, says: “I first want to reach out to the corporates because they are the propagators of design. Then to design practitioners because they are the creative minds, and thirdly, to students because they are the future.”

TOUR GUIDE

Highlights from the Design Trail which precedes the forum

510 March, 11am7pm: Artist Vishal K. Dar conducts a design experiment through his interactive project ‘Prototype’, which involves the creation of products, contemporary space and art practices at The Stainless gallery, Mathura Road, New Delhi. 5 March, 4pm: Graphic design studio Infonauts presents a project on data visualiza tion, at 24, Hauz Khaz Village, New Delhi. Entry on firstcome, firstserved basis. 924 March: Design Exhibition by Apparao Galleries and Mughal Pop by stArt&D, at Aman Hotel, Lodhi Road, New Delhi. All events open to public. For the full schedule, visit www.indiadesignforum.com/Design_Trail_Programme.pdf

Pathy plans to make IDF an annual event. Good design is an elitist prerogative in India, there’s no argument. But artist Vishal K. Dar says, “The business of design hasn’t taken off because it’s inaccessible to a lot of people. If IDF can move into a sphere of commerce, it’s important because design is not about patronage, it’s about satisfying a need.” Dar has curated the (p)ROTO-type project, a work-in-progress, which will be shown at Design Trail. “Everything is designed, one way or the other,” says Paola Antonelli, senior curator of the

Faces in the dark Photographic works that navigate darkness, dreams and human delirium B Y S HAMIK B AG ···························· n the evening before the inauguration of her exhibition on 17 February, photographer and film-maker Natasha de Betak is a livewire, constantly moving between spaces, exchanging hellos and hugs among visiting friends, munching on a kathi roll, stepping out for a smoke and keeping an eye out for last-minute glitches in what seems to be a well-orchestrated show. Nevertheless, she wants you, the viewer, to relax. Just to ensure one is unburdened of all stress inside the whitewashed interiors of the Experimenter gallery in Kolkata, she divests me, almost forcefully, of my backpack and deposits it inside the gallery office. “Just relax, relax,” she murmurs delicately in an accented English that carries

sediments of her multiculturalism—born in Madrid, Spain, to an Argentinian father and a French-Polish Jewish mother, de Betak went to film schools in Budapest, Hungary, and New York, US, she has strong links with Mexico, Russia and India, and is married to the India-born filmmaker Pan Nalin. She lives in Paris, France. Later, facing the screen on which a series of her photographs is being projected, she lies down flat on the bare floor (“a little dusty, but…”) and eggs one to do the same. The idea, she says, is to feel. “Look at this,” she points to a frame from her series, Impulse. In keeping with the series, the photograph is compelling in its abstraction, a dark visualization of the photographer’s mind. “Can you see those faces? Those are

designers. It will be interesting to see how conversations overlap,” he says. Besides design for social impact, education is high on the agenda of IDF. “We’re in a time when it’s important to foster a culture of not only innovation, but ethical and sustainable design practices,” says Pradyumna Vyas, director of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. And why can’t the need for good design be met at home? Pathy waits for a time when Indian design will come of age. “Why should India be content with being a manufacturing hub? When will a label read ‘Designed in India and manufactured elsewhere’?” she asks. This and many more questions will be discussed at IDF.

department of architecture and design at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, who will open the IDF (on 9 March) with her talk on the best design ideas of the year. Since design permeates art, architecture, technology, everyday lifestyle products and more, the forum will address multidisciplinary issues. Alex White-Mazzarella, director of the Dharavi project in Mumbai, Artefacting, which experiments with art for social change, finds diversity the most interesting aspect of IDF. “Speakers at the forum are artists, architects, graphic and industrial

IDF will be held from 9-10 March at Le Méridien New Delhi. Registration fee for delegates, `20,000, students, `5,000, on first-come, first-served basis. For registration and programme details, visit www. indiadesign forum.com

spirits,” she says. I believe in the kind of motion-blurred ingenuity that extreme low-light, handheld photography often conjures. The photographer, though, believes in spirits. But in her first solo exhibition in India, where she has worked for 15 years, de Betak is understandably reluctant to detail technique; it’s more about the photographs’ emotional core. Impulse, shot consistently in light-deficient conditions, is a state of mind—a photographic rendering of human delir-

ium, where objects lose their contours only to gain newer, surrealistic identities. Overhanging branches of trees here can seem like stricken hands suspended in the air, intertwined vines could be the wet strands of a girl’s hair, a lady in a meditative pose gains spectral contours, and there are frames which even seem like indeterminate portrayal of television doomsday grabs. While at one level Impulse has an avant-garde cinematic rawness—de Betak claims inspiration INDRANIL BHOUMIK/MINT

Creative licence: Natasha de Betak at Kolkata’s Experimenter gallery.

from Russian cinema legend Andrei Tarkovsky, her documentary film work has made it to the Sundance Film Festival, Amsterdam’s International Documentary Film Festival and Paris Film Festival, and she has made documentaries on film-makers like Pedro Almodóvar—the photography is unbridled and aspiring, despite the needless obfuscation of a few, of the creative licence exploited by a watercolourist. In Impulse, she uses the camera and the post-production stage to hypnotic effect, freeing the camera from its conventional attachments in return—here, apparitions too can be shot and the lens can craft fiction. It is like looking into a well, says photographer Dayanita Singh who was present at the exhibition’s opening: “You can go really deep.” Nightshade, the other series at the exhibition curated thoughtfully by Aveek Sen, which also lends itself to the title of the exhibition, is less experimental but scores higher on the aesthetic and compassionate scales. She is a very one-to-one person, de Betak says leaning forward, kathi roll breath

and perfume in the air. Not for her the short cut of the telephoto, de Betak prefers the macro lens, the shooter and the shot close enough to touch, barter breaths. In Nightshade, she “steals a moment” from sleeping people, a private act that millions in India are compelled to carry out in public. Nightshade, though, is not about romanticizing or documenting the plight of the homeless. Instead, she catches people at their sublime best—children, sadhus, women, vagrants, migrants, travellers, drug pushers, all found in moments of supreme static having overcome their daytime rigours for hours of serenity. The photographer makes a wonderful blend of light and colour tones and the macro lens creates a delightful indistinctness to background details: as if to lay emphasis on that “in-between moment between life and death”. The result is dreamlike. Nightshade is on till 31 March at Experimenter, 2/1, Hindusthan Road, Gariahat, Kolkata. Write to lounge@livemint.com

L18 FLAVOURS

LOUNGE

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

PHOTOGRAPHS

BY I NDRANIL

BHOUMIK/MINT

KOLKATA CHROMOSOME | SHAMIK BAG

The new rhythms of Sonagachi As the city’s sex workers collective turns 20, we meet members who have found confidence in their enhanced social presence

or what is sometimes referred to as the world’s oldest profession, a mere passage of two decades can seem irrelevant in the life of Sonagachi—the red-light area in Kolkata and among the largest brothel districts in Asia. Yet, in these 20 years, 38-year-old Swapna Roy has seen a change in the way people refer to her—from being sneeringly mentioned in the coarse Bengali equivalent of slut, Roy today is a jouno kormi—a sex worker. Roy’s daylight hours are busy—every day she is on the field in areas like Ultadanga and Janbazar as the joint coordinator of a project which sensitizes around 3,000 sex workers on safe and hygienic practices. She also keeps a tab on her two schoolgoing children, one of whom got a first division in the Madhyamik examinations last year. There is no unease about the business of her sundown hours. “We have come to realize that sex work is like any other work and I’m like any other worker. In these two decades, we have learnt to appreciate this.” We are in the office of the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), a collective of 65,000 sex workers from West Bengal. The organization works for women’s rights and is at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS and related issues. Sex workers are the primary office bearers and stakeholders at DMSC, and in the 20 years of its existence, the organization has been responsible for bringing out into the streets—and into middle-class drawing rooms, through newspaper and television coverage—the issues facing sex workers, including the demand for legal sanction for the profession.

“You will find bank managers trying to woo them for their accounts and senior police officers calling up to seek appointments. Many of them are frequent fliers to Delhi and some travel abroad every three months on official work. There has been a cultural shift in society’s perception of sex workers,” says Shubha Ranjan Sinha, a senior DMSC official, sitting in the spacious front room of Durbar’s Nilmoni Mitra Street office, near Sonagachi. Posters with slogans like “Liberty, Equality, Sexuality” and “Only rights can stop the wrong” adorn the walls. The three-storey office is abuzz. The next day, 15 February, would mark 20 years since a team of medical professionals, led by Smarajit Jana of Kolkata’s All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, visited Sonagachi on an HIV intervention research study. In due course, Dr Jana realized that for the sex workers, their children’s education, access to financial services and fending of police harassment and torture by local thugs was more important than urging a client to use a condom. So Dr Jana founded DMSC, with sex workers as stakeholders, based on the value of “collective bargaining power”. From 12 members in 1995, DMSC draws its current strength of 65,000 members from 48 branches across the state, each headed by an elected secretary, according to Dr Jana. The following day, the terrace of the Durbar office, the venue of the anniversary celebrations, is cheerfully decorated with streamers and balloons. With a cake waiting to be cut, speaker after speaker gives short speeches to mark the occasion. There is much to cheer about, it seems. In 1995, Usha, the consumer cooperative society and micro-credit programme under DMSC, convinced the Bengal government to alter the state’s cooperative law to register it as a sex workers cooperative instead of being wrongly labelled a housewives cooperative. With more than 5,000 members putting in their small savings, Usha, as of 2006-07, had an annual turnover of `9.75 crore and has disbursed `2.12 crore in loans to members. This came against the monopoly of Sonagachi moneylenders, some of whom charged 300% interest against loans.

Step by step: (above) A prac tice session at Komol Gand har, the cultural initiative of the Durbar Mahila Saman waya Committee sex workers collective in Kolkata; and the Avinash clinic run by Durbar.

Some sex workers also have health insurance, while some have got voter identity cards with the Election Commission of India recognizing their Usha membership as valid identity proof. State Bank of India has also begun to recognize sex work as a profession while opening accounts, says Dr Jana. DMSC also runs 17 non-formal schools for children of sex workers, and two hostels at Ultadanga and Baruipur. There are regular teachers who give tuition to boarders (students who are pursuing higher education) in different subjects. Members of Komol Gandhar, DMSC’s cultural wing dedicated to dance, drama, mime and music and run by the children, get invited regularly for paid shows. Eminent theatre personalities like the late Badal Sircar and Rudraprasad Sengupta have earlier trained its theatre unit. The Durbar football team, largely comprising children of sex workers, has for the first time in the 2011-12 season, participated in the nursery football league conducted by The Indian Football Association, West Bengal. They have won six of the seven games they have played so far, says coach Biswajit Majumdar. Some of the young footballers, says Majumdar, have represented Bengal at national-level junior championships. Mrinal Kanti Dutta, one of the 12 founding members of Durbar, is the author of three non-fiction books, one of which is based on his experience of living in the Kalighat red-light area with his mother. While the

three books have been published by Durbar Prakashani, the in-house publishing wing which has around 25 titles and brings out a popular monthly magazine, Dutta’s forthcoming novel, Pakhi Hijrer Biye, will be launched soon by a well-known College Street publisher. Dutta dropped out of college out of fear of getting ridiculed after his batchmates spotted him in the Kalighat red-light area. Yet, on various occasions, Durbar has been hauled up for its insistence on legalizing sex work, its inability to eradicate violence and exploitation in red-light areas, and for not disclosing to patients the positive results from HIV tests. As Dr Jana says, HIV+ results are not disclosed only on occasions when Durbar has to follow norms under National AIDS Control Organisation’s (Naco) “unlinked anonymous” testing programme, even while admitting that more needs to be done to stem violence. The terrace party comes across as a zone that is manifestly liberated from the moral scruples of the greater society that surrounds Sonagachi. Here, taboos are taboo and the fringe of Kolkata life—sex workers, their children, cross-dressers and transgenders —are comfortably cocooned through their commingling. Part of the confidence and inspiration comes from the story of Bharati Dey, secretary, DMSC. Dey is a frequent flier and has already exhausted the pages of two passports. As a sex worker in the mid-1990s, Dey is well-known

for the movement she launched in 1997 in the NaihatiBarrackpore industrial belt against the mafia and political extortion. As she speaks, words like attempted murder, lynching, revolver and gang rape flow effortlessly—almost as if she is nonchalant to the indicators of her earlier existence. But, as Dey admits, it is life’s experiences that have shaped her and these days words and phrases like AGM (annual general meeting), Geneva Conference, donor agencies, advocacy and human rights, are uttered as easily. “We don’t dissuade adult and willing girls from entering the profession. It is easy to say sex work is bad, but most girls come from poverty stricken families and are uneducated,” says Purnima Chatterjee, who sits on a self-regulatory board, which works as a watchdog body in all DMSC branches against trafficking and introduction of minor and unwilling girls into the trade. “You don’t expect us to find work in Writers Building do you?” The barb against Writers Building, the seat of government in Bengal, seems well-timed, though possibly unintended. The newspapers of the day are flooded with reports of Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee prematurely dismissing as “concocted” allegations of rape of a 37-year-old woman in a moving car. The allegations were later proved to be true. The state sports minister, Madan Mitra, also finds mention in newspaper reports after questioning the moral code of the rape victim in

a television interview: “She has two children, and so far as I know, she is separated from her husband. What was she doing at a nightclub so late in the night?” By all parameters, there is a lot that women in general are up against. “We know of so many girls who got raped when they went to work as household help or in factories. Many of them opted to come to Sonagachi and get paid for sex. Who are we to stop them?” retorts Pushpa Sarkar, who works at Avinash clinic (for sexually transmitted infections) run by Durbar and is also on the self-regulatory board. It’s close to noon, and outside the clinic, where we meet, Sonagachi is stirring after what must have been yet another late night out in an area that is home to an estimated 11,000 sex workers. Bare-bodied men soap themselves frenetically at a public bath, a juice vendor peels the skin off pineapples, rickshaw-pullers wait for passengers, petticoats and blouses are collected from clotheslines in surrounding brothels. Crows and vultures fly above an overflowing garbage dump next to a black granite-faced building named Night Lovers. Through this scene, 23-year-old Mita Mondal’s thin voice can be heard. Mondal is the lead vocalist and face of the Durbar band. She was rescued as a minor from the streets of Sonagachi eight years ago. The band practises on the vacant third floor of the building which houses the Avinash clinic, and the strident music filters out of the open windows to the streets below. Mondal occasionally goes off key and the conga player misses a rhythm or two. But everything falls into place when Mondal begins singing the Durbar anthem. It seems well-rehearsed, the dholak player shakes his head like a wound-up toy, and everybody mouths the chorus lines amid a sudden outburst of collective energy. Write to lounge@livemint.com