Lounge for 31 Mar 2012 by HT Media

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Saturday, March 31, 2012

Vol. 6 No. 13

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

OLD BOYS

IN A NEW WORLD

One of India’s most prestigious colleges, known to have produced elitist, illustrious students for more than a hundred years, St Stephen’s is undergoing change

BUSINESS LOUNGE WITH CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN >Page 9

>Pages 1012

ARMCHAIR TRAVEL Luggageinspired furniture to bring some wanderlust into the living room >Page 7

EYES ON THE TARGET India’s archery teams are peaking at the right time. Can they bring that long elusive medal from London? >Page 8

The chapel at St Stephen’s College.

REPLY TO ALL

GAME THEORY

AAKAR PATEL

WHY IT IS BETTER TO THE PAIN OF LIVE IN THE SOUTH BEING PERFECT

prefer south India to north India. I also prefer s o u t h I n d i a n s to north Indians. I wish Mehmood had defeated Kishore Kumar in Padosan’s singing contest. The audience thinks Kishore’s Vidyapati trounces Mehmood’s Master Pillai. But Vidyapati is on home ground singing in Khamaj to a tabla playing Keherva and Teen Taal. Pillai is singing the other man’s music. What if it had been the other way around? The south Indian can access the north Indian’s music easily. Often he even masters it. >Page 4

THE GOOD LIFE

ROHIT BRIJNATH

here is a swollen, primitive appeal to the sound of glove on naked flesh. You flinch, then you look again. You don’t want blood, yet you do. It’s insanity, it’s human. Joyce Carol Oates once wrote: “Boxing is about being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.” I prefer the art of sport, but there’s no turning away from its brutality. In risk, we examine character... >Page 5

SHOBA NARAYAN

CONSTRUCTION ON CANVAS

Contemporary art is drawing talent from a new niche. Meet the architect artists, who are trying to keep both their identities alive >Page 13

TUNING IN TO CHANGE

rtist Sudarshan Shetty and I are sitting on the steps of the Pushya Mahal ghat in Thiruvaiyaru town and chatting. The river Cauvery, so resonant to us south Indians, is flowing in front of us. Flowing is an overstatement. There are islands of sand in between large puddles of water. Behind us, art collector Lekha Poddar sits on the steps and photographs the scene. Shetty’s wife, Seema, a Bharatanatyam dancer, is beside her. Art critic S. Kalidas is standing nearby. >Page 6

A WOMAN FOR ALL SEASONS

The first complete English translation of the memoirs of Ismat Chughtai, the subcontinent’s iconic feminist writer >Page 17

e en presents

Theof T Toast time i 1868 Distillery capacity 1,800 gallons per week.

HOME PAGE L3

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

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

LOUNGE REVIEW | BOARDRIDERS, MUMBAI HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

LOUNGE EDITOR

PRIYA RAMANI

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Write to us at lounge@livemint.com

DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA

THE NEW LUXURY

MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

R. SUKUMAR

The 24 March issue was terrific. The luxury industry is a growing segment in India but one rarely finds coverage that goes beyond the diamonds and bling aspect. The design angle made it different from the usual luxury coverage. SABAH

(EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (EXECUTIVE EDITOR)

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

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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Vol. 6 No. 12

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

The Dining Throne by Gun jan Gupta, whose works will be showcased at the Milan Furniture Fair next month.

VELVET ON THE CARPET >Page 11

LIVING IN THE FUTURE

Lidewij Edelkoort, the renowned Dutch trend forecaster, says the future of luxury will be time, peace, amazing natural scents... >Page 14

‘BACK TO DESIGNOCRACY’ For the world’s most prolific designer, Karim Rashid, the ultimate luxury is a world without door handles >Pages 1617

The new frontier of luxury is design—functional, inventive and inspiring PUBLIC EYE

THE GOOD LIFE

SUNIL KHILNANI

THE INDIAN DESIGN MANIFESTO

esign” and “designer” now function as trivial if not unglamorous terms in our globish lexicon—as in designer sunglasses and jeans, saris and salads. Design—like the vast labeliana it has spawned—is now deployed to define consumer lifestyle, incite consumer need. It sprinkles the logo-gold of desirability upon objects otherwise lost in the flotsam of overproduced banality that is so much of the modern economy. In India, design has become hostage to the big-jewel, big-print Ethnarchs and the... >Page 4

LUXURY CULT

SHOBA NARAYAN

DESIGN WITH A DOMESTIC LINK

ven for design junkies such as myself, the world of product design is overwhelming. An obvious—and useful—constraint is budget: How much are you willing to spend to own an object by a designer you adore? But even there, the spread is pretty wide—you can own a beautifully designed object for a few thousand rupees, and it goes all the way to several crores. For example, a friend gifted me Philippe Starck’s Juicy... >Page 5

RADHA CHADHA

IS LESS REALLY MORE ALWAYS?

MOLECULAR ALCHEMY As markets, ingredients and tastes change, the identity of a perfume has come to depend on its design and construction >Page 19

ood design is as little design as possible —Dieter Rams I am at the Sabyasachi store in Delhi. The salesgirl sizes me up and down—I have come in jeans and T-shirt—and picks out a “beautifully subtle”, cream-coloured sari for me. As she mock-drapes it, I suck in my breath. It is beautiful, stunningly so. But subtle? Not by a yard. The fabric is lush Kanjeevaram silk, with an intricately woven black and gold zari border—look closely, and you will... >Page 6

NO SHEEN

tepping in to the Boardriders store in Phoenix Market City, Mumbai, is like getting punched in the face by the 1990s, as you might expect from a large shop dedicated to skateboarding and surfer culture. The array of boardshorts, high-tops and loose-fit checked shirts might dial you back to an era when music videos were still a relevant art form. But Boardriders is retail paradise for athletes, beach bums and fans of slacker chic. Most intriguingly, the store’s centrepiece is a 3x6m skate ramp, where skateboarders can come to learn, practise or goof around. The store assures us that it is one of only eight such “concept stores” in the world, and the first in Asia.

The good Happily, the skate ramp isn’t just a prop. We visited on a quiet weekday afternoon, but three small boys whizzing up and down the ramp, whooping with joy, were practically bringing the house down. The store’s inhouse trainer and skateboard expert, Nikhil Bhosale, teaches beginners as well as advanced skaters, and offers practical advice on buying and caring for the kind of board

best for you. While they don’t stock protective gear like elbow or knee pads, skaters are thoroughly schooled in safety practices when they start out. This may be the best store yet in Mumbai for shoppers who want authentic surf fashion. Boardriders stocks clothing and accessories from Quiksilver, as well as DC—whose range of flat-soled skate shoes look scrumptious—and womenswear brand Roxy. The store’s options for men currently outweigh those for women, but all the fashion on display looks sassy and sporty, and much more versatile than the sort of sportswear you’re likely to find at your regular, single-brand sneaker store. There are enough shorts, flip-flops, beach bags and swimsuits here to last through several months of sun and sweat, which makes it a good place to check out even if you aren’t spending summer in Baja California. You can buy Quiksilver, Roxy and Cartel brand skateboards, and the store’s staff can offer solid advice on whether you should be buying a stunt board, a cruiser or a ramp board, depending on how (and where) you plan to use it. They’re also actively building

Introducing the new Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook™.

skate teams and momentum for a championship, so skaters or aficionados looking for a community of board fanatics might do worse than stop by.

First, congratulations for putting together a terrific issue (24 March) which covered both luxury and design elegantly. I was mildly disturbed by the glossy format though. Glossy paper is not luxury. High GSM matte paper connotes luxury far better. I love ‘Lounge’ and it’s really difficult to read in a glossy format. Hope this was a onetime occurrence. UPENDRA ADI

The notsogood

THE QUIET ONES

While there’s no dearth of surf gear, the surfboards themselves aren’t currently anything to write home about. When we visited, four of the five boards on display were damaged, presumably dented while shipping out. The store assures us that new stock will be coming in soon, but anyone looking to get started early on their beach holidays will have to wait until that happens.

Talk plastic Boardriders offers a variety of skateboards with prices ranging from `3,500 to `6,500. Surfboards start at `17,000 and go up to `35,000. The Boardriders store opened this month at Phoenix Market City, LBS Marg, Kurla, Mumbai. Supriya Nair

It was a pleasure to read “In defence of the quiet”, 17 March. As a “quiet” person myself, I value your perceptive article as it validates and vindicates the quiet person’s contribution. I hope leaders take it seriously and create space for the quiet innovators. BHUVANA RAMALINGAM ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS: In “Art, with augmentation”, 17 March, BlueAnt Digital Intelligence has clarified that Arun Kumar has not worked with it since September. BlueAnt says it did not at any point work with the developers of Layar, an augmented reality platform, but used Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that Layar has created and offers to developers. The company says the showcase mentioned was in effect a workshop and was held in August. It adds that 1SAM’s servers cannot be used by the program Panoramio.

L4 COLUMNS

LOUNGE

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

AAKAR PATEL REPLY TO ALL

Why it is better to live in the south

HINDUSTAN TIMES

prefer south India to north India. I also prefer south

Indians to north Indians. I wish Mehmood had defeated Kishore Kumar in Padosan’s singing contest. The audience thinks Kishore’s Vidyapati trounces Mehmood’s Master Pillai. But Vidyapati is

on home ground singing in Khamaj to a tabla playing Keherva and Teen Taal. Pillai is singing the other man’s music. What if it had been the other way around? The south Indian can access the north Indian’s music easily. Often he even masters it. Witness Kannadigas Kumar Gandharva and Mallikarjun Mansur in Hindustani music. Or Tamilians A.R. Rahman and Shankar Mahadevan in Bollywood. The reverse isn’t true. North Indians have little access to Carnatic, being able to neither penetrate its rhythm nor absorb its melody. Few can even bear listening to it because it is so foreign. Historian Ramachandra Guha once described reading an editorial on M.S. Subbulakshmi in a Hindi newspaper, I think it was Dainik Bhaskar. He reported that the writer accurately and knowledgeably illustrated the difference between the two music systems, and was able to locate the Carnatic singer’s greatness. This is exceptional and it is the rare north Indian writer who has interest in, let alone knowledge of, the south’s music. On the other hand, the best writer on Hindustani music I have read is a south Indian, Raghava R. Menon. The north Indian caricatures the south Indian in his popular culture, his movies. This caricature is an accurate reflection of his own crudeness and lack of subtlety. The south Indian has no such caricature for the north. In fact, he is inclusive, and Bollywood movies are shown in Chennai, to say nothing of Bangalore and Hyderabad. I don’t think it is only the northern expatriate who watches these, but again we cannot say the same of southern movies in the north. Clearly, the two cultures are different. Let’s look at some of the substantive ways in which they differ. The first thing that strikes us is that south Indians have a written classical music. This has enormous implications. It separates them from north Indians who

have no canon of music. The average southerner can assess a performance of his classical music better than the average northerner can. This is because he knows how a particular song is to be sung. He understands how long it must be, where and how the thing must be modulated. And he knows how others have sung it, because the works of Purandaradasa, Thyagaraja, Syama Sastri and Muthuswami Dikshitar are standards. To appreciate Hindustani music other than instinctively, a northerner must study the deep form of his music, which few can. Else, he must just nod his head at the mood emoted by the singer, which is what most do, saying: “Wah!” Writer Sheila Dhar observed that even here the southerner was different. On first encountering it, she described the sound of appreciation made by listeners of Carnatic music thus: “Whenever the listener was smitten by something particularly wonderful that the performer was doing, he would raise his chin, bring his lips together in a protruding ‘O’, and make a series of little clicking sounds by striking the tongue against the back of the front teeth, gently shaking his head from side to side in mock helplessness.” Their canon makes south India’s classical tradition like that of Europe’s, where also the music of the classical period is recorded by note and reproduced in exact fashion. The second thing that strikes me as being different is that south India’s high culture has little influence of Islam. It is Hindu culture, not a mix. There is not as much secular music in Carnatic as there is in Hindustani. There’s no equivalent of “Ganga Jamuni”, as the northerner refers to his high culture, a mix of Hindu tradition and the aristocratic Perso-Arabic tradition produced during Muslim rule. This might be seen as a bad thing. But the south Indian is actually quite tolerant. There are five loud mosques around my house in Bangalore, and some

Classics: It takes merit to understand the true greatness of Subbulakshmi (centre). robust proselytizing on the billboards surrounding them. However, this carries on without any sense of friction. North India’s high culture is Indo-Persian, whether in music or poetry. Even some of the popular culture is influenced by Islam, such as Amir Khusro. What is the south Indian Muslim’s high culture? I do not know. There is no urban Muslim aristocracy here unlike the north, were one to exclude the Dakhni speakers of Hyderabad. Much of the culture appears imitative of the north’s Indo-Persian tradition. This seems out of place here, and perhaps one reason for the lack of mingling is that for the most part the southern Muslim’s culture is low church, and therefore unappealing to the outsider.

I puzzled over what the name of the largest mosque near my house—called Khuddus Saheb—meant till I looked at the Arabic lettering which showed it to be in fact Quddus Saheb. Similarly, Qadiriya is spelled Khadiriya on the mosque in English. This is a mistake no educated north Indian Muslim will make because the letter qaaf is different from the letter khay. The third thing is southern tolerance. Unlike the Baniya’s, the southern Brahmin’s vegetarianism isn’t oppressive. The intolerant and insular Gujaratis and Marwaris of Malabar Hill (writer Bachi Karkaria called them the Malabar Hill Tribes) have banished all meat from their neighbourhoods. There is little sign of such horror of pork and beef eaters around where I

live. This may be because the area is not a traditional Brahmin neighbourhood. But generally speaking, the Gujarati’s fanaticism against meat is absent. The fifth thing is the most important one for me. Mumbai has its charms, but an intellectual life isn’t among them. It is a city of singularly dull conversation. This is because south Mumbai is dominated by Gujaratis, who are not an intellectual people and quite proud of that fact. In the north of the city, Bollywood’s cacophony effectively obliterates any other culture. It is true that the middle-class Marathi is different, but he has no voice. To my mind, the south’s urban culture is more intellectual. My hypothesis is that this is so because its culture is dominated by the Brahmin. I like keeping the company of Brahmins, I must admit. When I listen to intelligent conversation in Bangalore and look around the table, they dominate. People like U.R. Ananthamurthy would not be treasured in another culture as they are in Bangalore. It seems to me that civic life here is more intellectual, and certainly it strives to be more intellectual than in Gujarat or Maharashtra. The sixth observation is the commonly found ability of south Indians to speak another (southern) state’s language. This comes from proximity more than from any pressing desire to be multicultural. But it shows the southerner’s openness, and even his canon of sacred music includes songs from another state, in another’s language. Few Gujaratis speak Marathi or are bothered to learn it, even when they live in Mumbai. Cartoonist Hemant Morparia is the only Gujarati I know who engages with Mumbai’s Marathi theatre. I like Mumbai, and it is our one great city. But getting off a flight from that city and into one of the cabs at Bangalore’s airport is always a relief. As I said, I prefer south India, and it is where I call home. 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

THINKSTOCK

MY DAUGHTERS’ MUM

NATASHA BADHWAR

THE POWER OF BOREDOM

ome gather near me. Today is going to be a secret tips kind of a day. It’s that time of the year when the children are between classes in school. We have just bought a new set of books. Labels are being stuck and names written stylishly. The nursery-ready child is getting advance lessons from her siblings. She is in a humming and scribbling-all-over-her-new books kind of mood. No, no, Naseem! They explain to her that school is not a liberal joint like home. Teachers are nice in their own way, but they have less patience with little children. Soon enough they turn to me and ask, “What should we do now?” I’m not going to tell them. I’ll tell you instead. Bore your children. It’s easy enough to do, it just needs some sustained inaction on your part. However, between the time that the children get bored and their imagination kicks in to transcend the

boredom, there is usually a tedious, often dramatic stage in which all hell breaks loose. “You never take me anywhere, buy me anything, let me do anything that I want. You said you will…” Grunts, yelling and throwing of objects around the house. “Put me in a hostel,” says Aliza. “A hostel?” “Yes, like Sahar’s friend, Nisha. I want to be in school on holidays also. I have more fun at school.” “On holidays they will send you home from the hostel.” “Oh.” She re-strategizes. “May I open the presents that Nipa mami has sent me?” “Yes, of course.” “Yes? Mom said yes!” “But clear your toys from all over the house first, Aliza.” “Harrumph!” She stomps off. I type a few sentences. She’s back. “The person who makes the biggest mess in the house is Naseem.”

“I agree, baby, but you just clear your own stuff. Those puzzles, books, bags, blocks, Ludo and Uno.” “The person who makes the second biggest mess in the house is you,” she says to me. I don’t need to look around. She is right. But she also wants her new diary and pen with the glittering, bobbing pompom. Sahar calls out to her. They get down to business. They have all the resources to challenge and amuse themselves within them. It will be a few hours before they need me again. Unless the little one attacks them. Which brings me to the Beyond ennui: Children have the resources to keep themselves amused. second secret tip. Speak gibberish. arrives, wearing her slippers on That’s my final point anyway. Language has its limitations. her palms. The trick is to have so much Used all the time, it loses its “Huwashow kotto wowow ikka fun together that our children see power. Support it with gibberish. ponw-ponw,” I say. it as a normal way of life. Not If you’ve never done this “What, Mamma?” “fun” as a carrot at the end of a before, you’ll want to know how “Kani khusow waka rompow?” stick that one never quite to start. Think of a foreign or “You want me to stop hitting manages to bite into. If you do regional-language film. Stop Aliza and Sahar?” well, you can have fun. When you reading subtitles, listen to the “Gouwa.” grow up, you can have fun. If we characters speak. Choose your “Okay,” she says. were richer, we could have fun. favourite accent. I use the lilt of I don’t claim that this Man, if you wait so long, you will French Creole from Réunion technique enhances the forget the spelling of fun. island but that’s just me showing intellectual development of Nothing is going to shield our off the exotic details of my travels. children. It does prevent mine children from competition, You could try Bengali or Bhojpuri. from atrophying. humiliation, defeat, heartbreak “Mamma, look Naseem is You are laughing at me. I and school projects on global attacking us with her chappals!” sound like my brain has warming anyway. “Nonokuttu,” I call out. already atrophied? At least they will know they “What, Mamma?” she Go on, laugh. must keep laughter on their

side. That happiness is not a side effect of life events. It is an independent enterprise. “I have a headache, Mamma,” says the little one. “Let’s eat,” I say. “Eating is what causes it, Mamma.” “You know more than me?” “Yes, Mamma.” “How much more?” “I know up to 39, Mamma.” I get the hint. “Come on everybody, wear your sandals and comb your hair. Let’s go and have dosas.” “I will have mini-idlis,” says one. “I want cone ice cream,” adds another. I will have a chilled coke, I want to say. But I better hold my tongue for now. Think buttermilk instead. I will do exactly what pleases me when I grow up. Or when they grow up. Same difference, I guess. Natasha Badhwar is a film-maker, media trainer and mother of three. Write to Natasha at mydaughtersmum@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Natasha’s previous columns at www.livemint.com/natashabadhwar

COLUMNS L5

LOUNGE

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

ROHIT BRIJNATH GAME THEORY OLLY GREENWOOD/AFP

The pain of being perfect

being hit rather more than it is about hitting, just as it is about feeling pain, if not devastating psychological paralysis, more than it is about winning.” I prefer the art of sport, but there’s no turning away from its brutality. In risk, we examine character; in wearing pain, we see a higher accomplishment; in danger, we find sports’ masculinity; in collisions, we discover thrill. If athletes can be loco, we’ve got a little crazy in us too; if they’re the gladiators, then we’re the Roman crowd. Death, as a consequence, as fluke occurrence, inevitably stalks sport. Scan the Internet and you’ll find it on motorcycle tracks and boxing rings. We care, yes. But we also shrug, we see it as tragic but as an accepted risk, part of the sporting calculation. But what unsettles us more is the athlete who dies abruptly on the field, absent of collision, not visited by evident violence, just keels over as footballer D. Venkatesh did in Bangalore. This sort of casualty we are not ready for, this is like a disturbance to the very order of the sporting universe. We’re taken aback because on matters of the athletic heart, our conversations are only symbolic. When athletes triumph, they point not to the mind where it is fashioned, but to the chest. Novak Djokovic even beats his. When the heart fails it is a figurative criticism: as if a fellow lacks this organ required for a scrap. But literally we never expect its failure, as if there is an obscenity to young people, in full stride, falling inert on a field. Still, we know, it happens, and death by heart attack is no foreign cause in sport. Shortly after Venkatesh, the Italian volleyballer Vigor Bovolenta cried, “Please help me, I’m falling” and died on court. But what we’re bound to do surely, both for athletes caught in violent sports and those who push their hearts too far, is to safeguard them the best we can. Some of it already exists. Race cars are safer. Support teams are bigger. A

spokesman for the Australian Olympic Committee told me they will take 26 medical personnel to the Olympics and some sports might bring their own. More persuasive health screenings are done in some nations. Rules, like the Australian Open’s Extreme Heat Policy, are instituted to protect players. Debates on concussion in impact sports continue to amplify. Even in boxing, one of the ancient arguments not to ban it, is that since there exists such a powerful human appetite for the sport, it will continue regardless, except this time underground. And thus without any of the reasonable medical facilities which exist. But evidently, in India, such facilities are still insufficient. And it is unforgivable. If young men, and women, are going to make this deal with us, to push the envelope, to test themselves physically for our entertainment—and yes, their gratification—then we have a duty to protect them. To provide, within financial limitations, the safest environment possible while at work. With Venkatesh, we didn’t. We let him down. The picture of him being carried to an auto-rickshaw, like some limp body dragged by strangers in a sudden natural disaster, is staggering for this is organized sport. The football field is about play but a man does not expect he is doing so with his life. The tragedy is not just that Venkatesh died—this, alas, happens—but that we’ll never know if he could have been saved. Because there was no one reportedly there with the expertise to do so. How do you explain this to his father? *Sorry, sir, no doctor. Sorry, sir, no ambulance. Sorry, sir, we never thought it might happen. Sorry, sir, now take his body.* There is something about the Indian athlete’s anonymous, undervalued citizenry that can be moving and appalling all at once. He makes a small, unheralded living—Venkatesh apparently made `100 a match—is perhaps employed

LEARNING CURVE

GOURI DANGE

THE CUSTODY DILEMMA My husband and I are in the process of divorcing. We have two boys aged 8 and 6. Since we do not want to fight over the custody of the children, and one person cannot take all the responsibility, we have decided that each one will take one son. However, a close friend tells us that we are making a big mistake by splitting the boys. We will be living in different cities soon and neither one of us wants to be left without any child to bring up. What is your advice on this arrangement? Is it workable? While it may be “workable”—and you seem to have already put part of the plan in place—it seems like your children are losing two things in the break-up of this family unit: one parent, and one sibling, in one stroke. That seems to be a seriously sad twist to an already painful situation. While you may have talked to your children about this and they may have agreed without any protest, children this age sometimes do not understand the implications of getting separated from a sibling. It is for the parents to think about that. Is there an option for both parents to live separately but in the same city so you don’t disrupt the children’s lives more than necessary?

They can continue to have their school, extra-curricular activities, and most importantly, their sibling. For this you would have to be financially and emotionally more cooperative with each other in spite of being divorced. The arrangement you have planned seems good from a parent’s perspective, but not from the children’s perspective. Did you come to this arrangement because of some specific reasons? Does either child favour one parent over the other? Is either temperamentally more suited to the kind of life the mother or the father can provide, given their personalities, interests, friends, lifestyles, and perhaps the presence of another person in either the father or mother’s life? Nevertheless, I would still urge you to come up with an arrangement that may be more complicated for the two of you as adults, but possibly much less traumatic for your children. Gouri Dange is the author of ABCs of Parenting. Write to Gouri at learningcurve@livemint.com

by a company for which he competes, is heroic only among his neighbours, craves a Manchester United shirt, treats his boots like holy objects, and gives on the field that little bit which is everything he’s got. It’s rather beautiful. What isn’t is that he, largely, remains the prisoner of an inept, lazy officialdom. Even in his unglamorous arena, he has to believe that he has some worth, that his hectic, passionate existence is meaningful enough to warrant some kind of care should he fall. That the association whose rules he follows will not as a rule abandon him. Surely this is non-negotiable. This isn’t about a coach who’s untrained in teaching penalty kicks; this is life itself. An English friend discovered for me that in his nation’s fifth division there is a nurse, club doctor and an ambulance out the back. In the sixth division, a club press officer wrote to him: “We do not have to have an ambulance on site unless the attendance exceeds 5,000. As a ‘designated’ stadium, we still have two doctors at each match (crowd and team) plus a four-strong first-aid team and a paramedic. They are all highly trained.” In even lesser Indian leagues, a doctor, an up-to-date first-aid kit and

Close call: Fabrice Muamba of Bolton suffered a cardiac arrest during an FA Cup football match on 17 March. He is still undergoing treatment. workable stretchers do not seem too much to ask. If a sports culture is to be had, this is how you build it. Professionally. Dutifully. In six months, Venkatesh will be the what’s-his-name Bangalore footballer who died. In a year he’ll be forgotten. He isn’t important to us, is he? Not a famous player, not a face we know. Just a man earning a quiet wage and living a small dream. Life anyway in India, on street and field, has an unbearable cheapness to it. But we shouldn’t forget. We must track matches, check if care improves, demand a better

standard. Insist on it. We couldn’t save Venkatesh. But we can save the next man or woman. That truly would be the heroic in sport. 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

L6 COLUMNS

LOUNGE

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE C GANESAN

Dual approach: The Festival of Sacred Music is attempting to revive the temple town of Thiruvaiyaru.

Tuning in to change

rtist Sudarshan Shetty and I are sitting on the steps of the Pushya Mahal ghat in

Thiruvaiyaru town and chatting. The river Cauvery, so resonant to us south Indians, is flowing in front of us. Flowing is an

overstatement. There are islands of sand in between large puddles of water. Behind us, art collector Lekha Poddar sits on the steps and photographs the scene. Shetty’s wife, Seema, a Bharatanatyam dancer, is beside her. Art critic S. Kalidas is standing nearby. The group has spent the day visiting the nearby temples, including Darasuram, which in my view is one of the best-preserved temples in Tamil Nadu. Shetty waxes eloquent about the stone carvings in the temple and the fine examples of Chola architecture. “You know what I felt when I saw Darasuram temple?” he asks. “I felt proud. Because it is mine.” “Ours,” I correct automatically. We smile. The Darasuram temple is as much mine as it is Shetty’s. “So what are you looking at these days?” I ask Poddar. “Indian terracotta,” she replies. Can I

print this, I ask, imagining hordes of collectors veering towards terracotta simply because India’s grand dame of art is collecting it. Poddar nods off-handedly. “Sure,” she says. We break off because a woman from Coorg is giving an inspired speech in front of us. Standing knee-deep in the water and holding aloft a plastic bottle like the Statue of Liberty, or Bharat Mata, she urges the gathered crowd not to pollute the Cauvery. “I come from Kodagu, where the Cauvery is born,” she says in a choked voice. “So please, don’t pollute this holy river.” It is about 9pm. We walk up the steps to view the performance behind us. A tall lanky man gives an introduction in a faint Australian accent. Kalidas tells me that he is Devissaro, a classical pianist married to dancer Daksha Sheth. Devissaro has brought Asima, an

all-male vocal and percussion troupe from Kerala to perform for the Festival of Sacred Music (2-4 March)—which is the reason we are all there. Chennai-based Prakriti Foundation holds this festival every year. Friends from Bangalore have driven to Thanjavur. Others fly into Chennai or Trichy and motor down to Thanjavur. Most of us stayed at Hotel Gnanam, comfortable if soulless for `1,500 per night. The festival is held in Thiruvaiyaru, a holy town on the banks of the Cauvery where Saint Thyagaraja, one of the “divine trinity” of Carnatic music composers, lived and worked. Every January, thousands of musicians from Chennai, including heavyweights like T.M. Krishna, Bombay Jayashri, Aruna Sairam and Sudha Raghunathan (all of whom have sung at the Festival of Sacred Music, incidentally), gather for the Thyagaraja Aradhana and sing his Pancharatna Kritis in a group. The Festival of Sacred Music is attempting to revive this temple town through rural tourism. The hope is to bring in more people and offer them music, temples and later, home stays. The audience that evening is both global and local. Delhi-based Michael Pelletier, the minister-counselor for public affairs at the US embassy in Delhi, has come with his wife Sujatha—a Chennai girl

whose father, Manohar Devadoss, created wonderful pen-and-ink drawings for his affectionate book on Madurai. There is a tall Dutch man, Robert, who plans to ride to Amsterdam on his Enfield Bullet motorbike; musicians from France, London and Amsterdam; Shetty, Kalidas, and Poddar. There is a young fashion crowd from Chennai: fashion-show choreographer Sunil Menon; a young model named Sahitya; fashion designers Venkat Nilakantan and Raji Anand, who make us all laugh with their acerbic observations and biting wit, all delivered in superb Chennai Tanglish, now made popular thanks to Kolaveri. There is V. R. Devika, whom we all worship from afar for her knowledge of history and crafts. At the Thanjavur museum, Devika makes the Nataraja statues come alive for us with her tales. I used to look up to her while at college and here she is now, still clad in her khadi blouses and cotton saris, all bought from craftspeople in Kanchipuram. We take bus rides together, singing Tamil and Hindi songs, through the verdant paddy fields of Thanjavur. We drink at night and relive our college days. The evening concerts are alive with pretty young local girls in long skirts, braided hair and jasmine flowers. They

love Asima’s contemporary rendition of Kabir and Kerala folk songs. It is a nice change from the Carnatic music they are used to. Sitting in the back, Shetty, Kalidas and I are a bit less charitable. We spot mistakes in their sur as they sing the Darbari Kanada. Earlier that week, Shetty and I had lunch together at GallerySKE in Bangalore. Shetty’s gallerist, Sunitha Kumar Emmart, had sent over a home-cooked seven-course spread including delicacies like bisibele bhath, jowar rotis, and kosambari. “Try the rotis,” says Shetty. “Sunitha’s cook does a terrific job.” Shetty’s father, Adve Vasu Shetty, was an acclaimed Yakshagana artiste who could hold audiences spellbound with his renditions of Vali and Sugreeva. “I find the aesthetic strategies of that form—Yakshagana—compelling,” says Shetty. “You have to hold your audience through your ability to elaborate on what you are thinking and playing.” In Mumbai, Shetty grew up in a culturally rich, if materially poor household, with visiting Yakshagana musicians and performers who interacted with him and his sisters. When I comment on his fluent Kannada, Shetty says he went to a Kannada-medium school and speaks Konkani with his wife Seema at home. Being poor while young was a gift, he says, because it allowed him to take risks. There was nothing to lose. Shetty is the second person who has extolled the virtues of being poor while young to me. But money has its uses, he says, because it allows you to dream big. Shetty’s monumental public installation, Flying Bus, now stands in the Maker Maxity complex at the mouth of the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai. Over lunch, Shetty told me that his father had to confront philosophical questions about Ram’s deceit while killing Vali and make it come alive for his audience. What would Vali think and say, asks Shetty rhetorically. The same could apply to his bus: Why would a flying bus think? Stuck in traffic, flying buses make eminent sense to Shoba Narayan. 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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PIECE OF CAKE

PAMELA TIMMS

A SPICY, HOT TREAT

here was a time in Britain when the monarchy was given to interfering in the baking habits of its people. In 1592, Queen Elizabeth I of England issued an extremely stern edict forbidding the consumption of spiced buns except on certain days: “That no bakers, etc., at any time or times hereafter make, utter, or sell by retail, within or without their houses, unto any of the Queen’s subjects any spice cakes, buns, biscuits, or other spice bread…except it be at burials, or on Friday before Easter or at Christmas, upon pain of forfeiture of all such spiced bread to the poor.” Perhaps Britain has become a nation of Republicans or maybe the Brits just can’t resist a spiced bun, but hot cross buns, once only eaten over the Easter weekend, are now available in every supermarket all year round. Though a long way from being a royalist, I resolutely only make hot cross buns at Easter, enjoying the

once-a-year treat and the Christian symbolism in my baking. The start of Lent is marked by using up all the rich ingredients (sugar, milk, eggs) in the kitchen to make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. After 40 days of abstinence, people would celebrate by eating buns crammed with good things. The buns are made from a soft, yeasted, sweet and spiced dough and marked with a pastry cross to symbolize Christ on the cross. The first record of a bread marked with the sign of the cross is thought to be in the time of Pope Gregory IX when St Clare of Assisi blessed a stale loaf and a cross appeared on it. It is also thought that the spices in the bun represent the spices Jesus was wrapped in the tomb. There is nothing better (but only at Easter!) than a thickly buttered hot cross bun. They’re also lovely with a slice of mature cheddar—though I wonder what Good Queen Bess would have made of that.

Bake heaven: heaven: The buns are best fresh out of the oven.

Hot cross buns

2 tbsp caster sugar

Makes 12 Ingredients 450g strong bread flour or plain flour 7g (1 sachet) easy blend dried yeast 1 level tsp salt 50g caster sugar 2 tsp mixed spice (see note 1) 50g butter, cut into small pieces 100g currants 200ml lukewarm milk 2 eggs For the crosses 75g flour 80ml water For the glaze 2 tbsp milk

Method Grease a large baking tray. Gently heat the milk to lukewarm temperature, then beat in the eggs. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, yeast, salt, sugar and mixed spice. Add the butter and rub into the flour mixture until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the currants. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour in the warm milk and eggs. Incorporate all the flour into the liquid until you have a coherent, soft dough. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour.

On a floured work surface, knead the dough gently for 10 seconds, then put back in the bowl and leave for 10 minutes. Knead the dough again for 10 seconds, cover again and leave for about 1 hour (these timings are not a misprint—try it and see). When the dough has doubled in size, knock out the air and divide into 12 pieces. Knead each piece into a smooth ball. Put the buns on to the greased tray, place the tray in a large plastic bag and leave until the buns have again doubled in size. Heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Mix the water and flour to make a stiff paste for the crosses. Put the paste into a piping bag and pipe on the crosses. Alternatively, and quite traditionally, you can simply cut a deep cross on top of the buns. In fact, although I love the aesthetics of the cross, I prefer the taste of the buns without the chewy pastry on top. Bake the buns for 15-20 minutes (see note 2). While the buns are baking, make the glaze by heating the milk and sugar until the sugar dissolves. As soon as the buns are a rich

brown colour on top, take them out of the oven and immediately brush with the glaze. Eat the buns warm, buttered on the day they’re made. If there are any left the next day, they are beautiful toasted and buttered. u Note 1: Ready-made mixed spice blends can be bought but I usually blend my own using these proportions: 1 tbsp ground allspice 1 tbsp ground cinnamon 1 tbsp ground nutmeg 2 tsp ground mace 1 tsp ground cloves 1 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp ground ginger u Note 2: Using an electric surface-top oven, I kept the top and bottom elements on for 10 minutes, then turned off the top element for the remaining 5-10 minutes. Pamela Timms is a Delhi-based journalist and food writer. She blogs at Eatanddust.com Write to Pamela at pieceofcake@livemint.com

www.livemint.com For a slide show on how to bake hot cross buns, visit www.livemint.com/crossbuns.htm Read Pamela’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/pieceofcake

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SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012

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LOUNGE PICKS

Armchair travel

PHOTOGRAPHS

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

Luggageinspired furniture to bring some wanderlust into the living room

t Dak Bangla: Centre table in leather, at PortsideCafé, F301, Lado Sarai, New Delhi, `24,700.

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

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p Winston end table: Side table with a glass top and chrome bullet detailing, at FurnitureWalla, MehrauliGurgaon Road, New Delhi; and 55, Dr E Moses Road, Worli, Mumbai, `54,600.

t Side storage table unit: In powdercoated metal sheet with canvas lining the inside, at Nappa Dori, 4, Hauz Khaz Village, New Delhi, `8,800.

q 2wayStay coffee table: Made in canvas and faux leather, with storage compartments and floor cushions, at Nappa Dori, 4, Hauz Khaz Village, New Delhi, `22,000.

COURTESY NAPPA DORI

DL1VA8673

COURTESY FCML

p Bar cabinet: A colonial shipping trunk turned bar cabinet in leather, with wood interiors for wine glasses and bottles, at FCML, Sultanpur, MehrauliGurgaon Road, and Khan Market, New Delhi, `1,29,845.

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SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012

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LOUNGE

ARCHERY

Eyes on the target PHOTOGRAPHS

BY I NDRANIL

BHOUMIK/MINT

Focus: Focus: Chekrovolu Swuro (centre) and the core team of Indian archers in training.

India’s archery teams are peaking at the right time. Can they bring that long elusive medal from London?

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 ···························· ith 35 medals won at international archery competitions between 2010 and February 2012, it is a matter of intrigue why India is yet to be fully alert to the names of Deepika Kumari, Jayanta Talukdar, Chekrovolu Swuro and Laishram Bombayla Devi—the four archers who will represent India at the London Olympic Games starting July and on whom sport administrators have pinned the nation’s medal hopes. As of March, the Indian Recurve Women’s Team is ranked No. 2 in the world, among 52 nations, according to the World Archery organization. The Indian Recurve Men’s Team is ranked fifth among 63 nations. Talukdar, 26, well-built and tall, has a sharply contoured face framed by jet-black flowing locks, and from a distance he could easily be mistaken for cricketer M.S. Dhoni. But he is no pin-up boy in Indian sports, though he has won three individual medals and nine team medals in international archery tourneys over the last two years.

Finding physical likeness might be a subjective area, but a comparison with India’s cricket team captain and archery is not tenuous if one goes by what Deepika has to say. With seven international individual medals and 11 team medals under her belt since 2010 alone, 17-year-old Deepika, currently ranked No. 6 in the world, knows that she and her fellow Indian archers have achieved no less than Dhoni or the Indian cricket team in the international arena. “But archery can’t hold a stick to cricket’s popularity in India,” muses Deepika, between practice at Jamshedpur’s Tata Archery Academy. It’s certainly more in focus: The government has included archery among the six “priority sports” in the country, corporate sponsors like the Tata Archery Academy and Mittal Champions Trust are chipping in, and the archers have benefited from more international exposure. “Having played and won against strong teams like South Korea, China, Japan and some of the European nations, we realize that we can be on a par with the best,” says Bombayla Devi, the 27-year-old veteran from Manipur. An Olympic medal, most admit, might alter the equation; at the least, it can establish archery as a sport to consider in India and archers as celebrity material. But these are not issues that bother the Olympic quartet right now. At the archery training grounds of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in Kolkata, the archers, led by chief coach and former archer Limba Ram, are made to go through rigorous rounds of training. Practice begins at 6 in the morning and often stretches well into the evening—10-12 hours of work, during which most archers end up shooting around 800 arrows. On one of the days we met, an I-League football match between Kolkata’s Prayag United SC and

Sporting Clube de Goa was scheduled at the gigantic Salt Lake Stadium, adjacent to the SAI campus. Thousands of spectators trooped into the stadium bowl and the occasional roar rent the air. With the noisy football game as a backdrop, the archers continued to take aim and shoot arrows, honing their skills at a game that can never quite aspire to match the spectatorial proportions of a physically aggressive team-versus-team game like football. “Quite often during practice, you will not hear a single word being exchanged by the archers,” says Limba Ram. Here, the premium is on the mind’s ability to remain focused on a distant target; a tradition of single-mindedness that, Limba Ram reminds, goes back to ancient I n d i a n mythology, when Eklavya shot a single arrow to stitch together the mouth of a howling dog in the Mahabharat. “Beyond training hours, we spend time with books, music or do meditation exercises like Pranayam. The idea is not to agitate the mind since in archery mental stability is of utmost importance,” says Swuro, the 29-yearold archer from Nagaland’s Phek district who took to archery after getting inspired by her elder sister, the archer Vesuzolu Swuro. Talukdar explains the delicate balance required between the archer’s mind and body for a game where precision is religion. It is part of the archer’s “feeling”—where an ideal shot can be achieved only

“He has instilled new confidence in us and those of us who have trained under him have benefited a lot at international championships,” Talukdar says. “Whenever he puts on his sunglasses, we know that our every move is being observed and scrutinized. He is a disciplinarian and has the ability to lift players’ performance levels.” In Kolkata, SAI’s archery analyst Shashi P. Sharraf exudes cautious confidence about the team’s chances of a podium rank at the Olympics. “Ideally, the players should be practising in a stadium and in more windy conditions, since the Olympic archery championship in London should have similar conditions. But going by India’s recent remarkable showing in international archery, we can be hopeful,” Sharraf says. With archers Tarundeep Rai and Rahul Banerjee recently qualifying for the June World Cup in the US, a winning performance there may lead to them qualifying for the two vacant slots in the Indian men’s Olympic archery team. So far, players have been peaking at the right time. The women’s team came second in the Recurve Women’s Team category at the First Asian Grand Prix in Bangkok, Thailand, on 15 February, a creditable performance considering that many of the Asian countries are powerhouses in world archery. With the archery events at the London Olympics scheduled to be held at the city’s most famous sporting address, if the Indian archers do bring home a medal, it will be another picture-postcard Lord’s moment for the country’s sporting fans. And this time, not for cricket.

D R E A M C A T C H E R S through the synergy of the perfect draw of the bowstring, grip pressure, hooking technique, pull of the shoulders, standing posture and eventual release of the arrow. Above all, a mind that sees nothing but a target 70m away. “For instance, it is important to hold one’s breath and concentrate before releasing an arrow. But something as common as a blocked nose can hamper performance. I hardly do anything that tires the body since eventually a tired body can affect the mind,” says Talukdar. Ahead of the Olympics, the South Korean coach, Lim Chae Woong, at the Tata Archery Academy, where both Talukdar and Deepika train, has a sharp eye out during practice sessions. In broken English, Woong advises restraint to players and the media, counselling both parties to not highlight issues that might distract players from their Olympic goal.

Write to lounge@livemint.com

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Precision: Jayanta Talukdar.

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

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SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012

Business Lounge

LOUNGE CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN

Dressing up the woman in red The shoe designer on why women wear heels, on his signature red soles, and his intense connection with India

B Y S EEMA C HOWDHRY seema.c@livemint.com

···························· he scene unfolding before me at the deserted Club Bar at 10am at The Oberoi, New Delhi, is amusing. News has come that Christian Louboutin has finished his meeting and is now headed towards the bar. The women from the external public relations team in India which works for the brand, who are waiting with me for him, spring into action. Out comes the red pouch from the handbag and from it the famous red-soled, 6-inch, peep-toe pumps. These are slipped on, the more comfortable, manageable heels tucked into the pouch and then stuffed in the handbag. A little hesitant tottering on the heels, and we are ready to receive the czar of shoe design. Meanwhile, I sneak a glance at my sensible, boring, 2-inch, black slip-on sandals and wonder if I have made the fashion faux pas of the year. Louboutin arrives in a white L a c os t e T - s h i r t a nd s h a k e s hands with everyone, sits next to me and…coughs. The air conditioning bothers him and there is a flurry of activity as one of the girls on “tower heels” totters off to find out if the interview venue can be shifted to a non-AC location. My eyes are fixated on her retreating behind, half expecting her to topple in an ungainly heap on the Oberoi’s posh,

spick-and-span floors, but she sails out of my line of sight without a mishap. “When a woman wears my shoes, it changes her pace, changes her figure, adds to her confidence, and how she feels about herself,” says Louboutin, 49, whose label sells more than 500,000 shoes across 51 stores worldwide in a year. “It does not matter which culture a woman belongs to or where she is coming from. But when a woman tries heels, she will go to the mirror, stand in front of it and look at herself. That is the first thing she will do, I have seen it.” He should know, having grown up in a woman-dominated household and having worked for a brief period as a salesman. The iconic French footwear designer, who is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his label, has a big year ahead of him. His Capsule Collection—20 shoes and four bags most representative of his work—is now beginning to reach his stores worldwide, though his 51st store at the DLF Emporio mall in New Delhi, which opened in February, is yet to receive it. “Nothing goes completely everywhere from a collection because we have to keep many things in mind like the weather, what colours work in which country. For example, the CNN Girl, a pair of high boots in thick leather, will not make sense for India,” he says. Apart from the collection’s launch and his recent book release (a monograph revealing the artistry and theatricality of the world of Louboutin), he is most excited about the ongoing show for the Parisian cabaret Crazy Horse, for which he has designed and guestchoreographed some sequences. He is also now looking forward to a retrospective of his designs at the Design

IN PARENTHESIS Christian Louboutin is known to sign some of his shoes. He explains that it started when he was in the US. “It’s an American thing and usually happens during PAs (personal appearances). People keep asking for shoes to be signed and I just don’t do it on the box any more. I do it on the arch of the shoe. It’s just like book signing. It’s a classical thing.”

Film fan: Louboutin says his first exposure to India was through Indian cinema. He has a collection of posters from Indian cinema and continues to add to it.

JAYACHANDRAN/MINT

Museum in London in May. You may wond e r w h y a woman would willingly put herself through the torture of balancing on heels, but Louboutin does not. You see, he knows that women wear heels for many reasons—to look good, to feel confident. But the key reason is that they want to bridge the gap between themselves and men, he says. “Tradition starts everything. In different cultures, where men wore heels like in France, you will see it was specifically for aristocrats and royals so that they could look taller, raise their stature. If you look, literally in every country, women are shorter than men and one of the reasons why there is a desire to be on heels is to have the same type of height as men. “In my company, which has mostly women, I now find girls are always taller than the guys. It’s funny how earlier men would at least have eye contact with the girls, but now I mostly find men, including myself, having to look up at the girls. Maybe soon men will need heels too.” Louboutin, who designs for both men and women, started a full line for men only two years ago. While designing shoes for men can be equally exciting, one thing is certain: Shoes do not change the body language of a man. “Their shoe can be a little more sporty or dressy, but it does not change the way a man will walk,” he says. His men’s shoes also come with a red sole (and I know this because I got to see the underside of Louboutin’s shoe) but the Chinese Red ubiquitous in the women’s

shoes is something else. It started when he felt that a shoe design lacked energy and saw an employee painting her nails red. He took that nail polish and applied it to the soles of shoes, and voila! The design was complete. Louboutin is currently in the process of fighting a court battle with fashion house Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) to retain solo rights to produce shoes with that specific shade of red in the soles. There are some things that Louboutin detests in shoes—ends that are too pointed, shoes that mould themselves to the feet—but he hates nothing more than clogs. “I hear the sound of clogs and I am not expecting a girl to come up. It’s almost like I am waiting for a donkey to arrive,” he says. Louboutin says his first exposure to India was through Indian cinema. “I knew more about Bengali cinema, of course. In Paris, we saw Mrinal Sen, Satyajit Ray, Guru Dutt, etc., but I wanted to see real Indian cinema. I had seen some Bollywood movies from the 1960-70s—Mother India, another movie with Hema Malini and Dilip Kumar where she is becoming a princess.” His quest for Indian cinema led him to Madras (now Chennai) first and he remembers seeing huge, handpainted posters that are not around any more. He has a collection of posters from Indian cinema and continues to add to it. As someone who came to India in the 1970s for the first time and has continued to do so over the years, Louboutin says a lot has changed. “It’s probably less exotic from what it was 20 years ago but India still inspires me in many ways. You have such diverse craft traditions, so many colours, techniques.” Perhaps that is the reason why he suggested more colour in shoe stocks for the Indian store. “At the end of the day, 90% of the shoes are in black in most of our European stores. But in India, I said, colours are much more important. In fact, 90% stock in the Delhi store is coloured. In the nude category, gold is important because it is super ‘natural’ for Indians to buy that colour. It’s the complete opposite of Paris where the mentality is to stick with black.” The feedback from the Indian store in the first month has been that a lot of flat sandals and midhigh heels work here. “I did not foresee that in India this would be the demand to such an extent. But then, if you wear heels that are too high with a sari, you walk in a different way. Pumps don’t really work with a sari either and a medium heel is what works best. We must have more of those.”

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SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

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IN A NEW WORLD One of India’s most prestigious colleges, known to have produced elitist, illustrious students for more than a hundred years, St Stephen’s is undergoing change. We visited the campus to find its charm in a new, diverse, downtoearth environment

Hangout zone: Andrews Court, the lawn in front of the building.

PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

College colours: (from far left) Pianist Neha Abraham, a finalyear student, in the college chapel; students at the college café; a rehearsal for Macbeth in the mess lawns; (above) breakfast hour; and (left) firstyear student Anisha Victor teaching children of college employees in the evening classes held for them by the college’s Social Service League.

INSTITUTION

OLD BOYS

B Y M AYANK A USTEN S OOFI mayank.s@livemint.com

··························· orry, Stephanians. You will never get as majestic a view as enjoyed by the college across the road. “Hinduites are so lucky to have us facing them,” says Ketki Saxena, a final-year English (hons) student of St Stephen’s College, Delhi University (DU). Hindu College stands just across Sudhir Bose Marg, a road named after a Stephen’s alumnus. “On second thoughts, while Hinduites have all the reason to look at us,” says Saxena, “we Stephanians never look beyond our noses.” Snobs. Elitists. These are easy labels to put on a student of St Stephen’s, Delhi’s oldest college, and one of India’s premier institutions. Founded as a high school in Chandni Chowk before the 1857 uprising, Stephen’s became a college in 1881, with three teachers and five students. It later shifted to Kashmere Gate before moving to its present red-brick building in the university enclave in 1941; the foundation

stone is believed to have been consecrated by the bishop of the Anglican Church and the imam of Jama Masjid. Today, the college is a sort of local Oxbridge where everything and everyone is different from the lesser mortals of DU, at least in name. Here, the canteen is the café, the hostel is the residence, and the teachers and students are called senior members and junior members, respectively. The annual farewell ceremony for outgoing students is termed Dismissal Service. But change is at the doorstep. For the first time in 10 years, the day events in Stephen’s’ annual festival WinterFest, held in February, were open to students from other colleges. The college’s elite image is also being questioned. “St Stephen’s’ elite status is a myth,” says the college’s associate professor of philosophy K.P. Shankaran, “perpetuated by talking derogatively about other colleges.” In September, former cabinet minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, an ex-Stephanian, displayed what some see as snobbery typical of his alma m a t e r . Responding to an allegation in a letter written

by sports minister Ajay Maken to the Prime Minister blaming Aiyar for delaying Commonwealth Games projects, Aiyar said: “Firstly, we have to establish the authenticity of this letter. It contains words like ‘dichotomous’, which I cannot believe that a BA Pass from Hans Raj College would know.” In response, 40 Stephanians marched to Hans Raj to “express solidarity”. “We had to convey that today’s Stephanians do not subscribe to the views of old boys like Aiyar,” says Udit Bhatia, a thirdyear student and general secretary (academics) of the college’s Students’ Union Society. “Now more Stephanians attend festivals and debates in other colleges, where we see the brilliance of their students. We are no longer in a position to say that we are superior.” The primary choice for many who score 95%-plus in school, Stephen’s is struggling to adapt itself to a rapidly evolving world. Running an institution that fancies carrying the burden of nationbuilding on its shoulders, the reverend Valson Thampu, the college’s controversial 12th principal, says, “The business of St Stephen’s is to produce leaders for tomorrow’s India.” In that, the college’s record is impressive. Look around and you will find the illustrious old boys. Montek Singh Ahluwalia is deputy chairman of the Planning Commission; Kaushik Basu is chief economic adviser to the finance ministry; A.P. Singh is director, Central Bureau of Investigation; S.Y. Quraishi is the chief election commis-

sioner; Ajit Seth is the cabinet secretary; and Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid are Union cabinet ministers. The college seems to have, at least partially, colonized other aspects of India too. In fashion, Rohit Bal; in cinema, Shekhar Kapur; in TV, Barkha Dutt; and in literature, almost every renowned novelist, including Amitav Ghosh, Khushwant Singh and Upamanyu Chatterjee. The college is in the final stages of paving with new bricks the paths on which these famous names walked. “Ah, the old brick paths,” says Lok Sabha member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor, who was St Stephen’s college union president in 1974. “What memories that conjures! And yet, bricks and stone only matter as storehouses of our own associations with them. The new bricks will, soon enough, become repositories of new memories. So traditions are made and revived...” The brick paths aren’t the only things being changed. Thampu says, “St Stephen’s College is now less snooty.” It’s rare for a college head to directly confess

how snobbish his college is, or used to be. Explaining why the WinterFest was opened to students from other colleges, Thampu says, “Every institution needs to be in healthy engagement with its sister institutions, especially in the neighbourhood.” In no other DU college is the algebra of infinite merit as complex as it is in Stephen’s. You have to be top-notch academically, have blue-chip public school pedigree or have parents belonging to the old boy network, be part of a religious quota or other reserved categories such as sports and physically handicapped, to get into the college. In 2011, the first cut-off list for admission into BA economics (hons), the most sought after course in St Stephen’s, rose to 96% in the general category. Established by a Christian mission from Cambridge, St Stephen’s calls itself “a religious foundation drawing inspiration from the life and teachings of Jesus Christ”. The principal is always a member of the Church of North India or a church in communion with it. Thampu was ordained in old Delhi at the historic St James Church, which at one point served as the college’s chapel. Apart from him, Stephen’s has had three priests as principals. A minority institution, the college reserves seats for Christians. Though the seats were always allotted unofficially, Thampu, “in the interest of transparency”, became the first principal to put it on paper in 2007,

when he increased the quota from 34.6% the previous year to 40%. For the first time in its history, Thampu says, the college also introduced 7% reservation for non-Christian scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes. “To make sure that we produce leaders in the future, we must involve the college in the country’s unfolding destiny that is experiencing revolutionary changes,” says Thampu. This could be more out of compulsion. The exclusivity that marked Stephen’s is now being challenged. The old bastions of privilege are crumbling. Thampu, a man with decided views—he talks against the growing materialism and the pitfalls of globalization in his morning assemblies—says: “The disarray among hegemonistic political parties like the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party is on the increase. More people from low castes and communities are entering

the corridors of power. In social terms, the mushrooming of merit in mofussil towns is seriously challenging the dominance of metropolitan cities.” The changes that are transforming India are being reflected in the college. According to the principal, 20% of the Indian Administrative Service and Indian Foreign Service officials in the 1970s and 1980s were from Stephen’s. In the past five years, that percentage is not more than 10, says Thampu. This is not only an indication of seats in the civil service being claimed in large numbers by engineers and doctors, but also that corporate and media careers are more alluring. Thampu says the number of students from extremely poor backgrounds has gone up three-

fold in the last five years. Today, there are about 50 such students, up from 10 about two decades ago. When Prakash Chand Verma, son of a bus driver from a village in Rajasthan, arrived in Stephen’s three years ago as an SC candidate, he knew no English, had never talked to girls, and was embarrassed to have classmates who changed outfits twice a day. “I’d got admission because I scored 90.4% in school and I was a good basketball player,” says Verma, a “resident” in the college. He refused to be photographed in his basketball uniform so as not to give readers the impression that he had gained TURN TO PAGE L12®

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admission through the sports quota. “Initially, I hardly talked except to the few fellow Hindi speakers in the class, but as others saw my good results in the internals, I started making friends. I’m now in the final year and no longer feel shy around girls.” Stephen’s claims to emphasize merit during admission. In the old days, that was a bird usually caged inside public schools. “It’s true that if you played cricket for Mayo College (Ajmer) or The Doon School (Dehradun) or for St Paul’s (Darjeeling), you had a better chance of getting through to St Stephen’s,” says environmentalist Pradip Krishen, an alumnus. “But that’s not the complete story.” In 1971, when a 16-year-old Siddhartha Basu sat down to be interviewed, his chances of admission were slim. He was from a no-frills Kendriya Vidyalaya in Chennai, his father was on pension, and he had modest higher secondary results. His only hope was his drama and debate record in school. “I had a freeflowing discussion with the panel on the plays of Samuel Beckett and Vijay Tendulkar, the novels of (Albert) Camus and poets I liked...” says Basu, the producer of TV shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati. “I somehow got into the college. I’d have never made it in my son’s time.” Thirty years later, his son, Aditya Basu, discussed Malcolm X and the zamindari system with the interview panellists. A history (hons) graduate, Aditya made a 30-minute film on St Stephen’s in 2006. Uploaded on the Internet, The Unofficial Guide to Mission College remains the most definitive account of the institution in its 125th year. “By my time, the elitism had begun to fade,” he says. “The parents of most of my classmates had regular jobs. They were travel agents, doctors, engineers, lawyers… yet most had old boy connections.” Thampu admits that the interview round in the college’s admission process favoured Englishspeaking candidates, who had better communication skills than students from a vernacular background. “Those more comfortable in Indian languages felt intimidated by the ambience of the interview, a feeling aggravated by the awe the college inspires,” he says. “Since 2007, depending on the candidate, our interviews also take place in Hindi, and that’s why you find more people coming from the towns and villages of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.” This segment, however, still forms less than one-tenth of the college’s total student strength of 1,200, according to Thampu. Unlike other DU colleges, Stephen’s has no regional factions, though it’s always had substantial contingents from Bihar and Rajasthan. There are no Jat gangs or Bihari groups, although students from, say, Kerala or Nagaland might stick together. In the 1970s, “religion and region were not the distinctions that mattered. What counted was whether you were ‘in residence’ or a ‘dayski’ (day scholar), a ‘science type’ or a ‘DramSoc type’, a sportsman or a univ topper, or best of all, both. Caste and creed were no bar, but these other categories determined your share of the Stephanian experience,” Tharoor wrote in “Stephania: An Evocation”, an article in HT City (published by HT Media Ltd, which also publishes Mint). The distinctions have further disintegrated into inoffensive categories of “Gurgaon crowd” and “Paharganj crowd”. “The Gurgaon crowd hangs out in Hauz Khas Village wearing branded clothes. They talk about who is dating whom when they are not talking about their old days in Shri Ram School or Vasant Valley,” says Saxena, referring to two of Delhi’s upper-crust schools. Vasant Valley School, incidentally, is run by a former Stephanian. “The other crowd eats out in Paharganj’s rooftop cafés. If anyone is wearing clothes priced

Inside the college: The grand staircases and old photos on the walls give the college its character; (below) Prakash Chand Verma, a finalyear student; and Blesson Mathew, a secondyear student.

more than `200, it’s capitalistic and unforgivable.” Some teachers, students and alumni feel that the college’s liberal character has taken a beating. The Bible is read every morning in the assembly—for a minute. After becoming principal, Thampu became strict about assembly attendance for first-year students. In the first year, Christian students have to compulsorily attend religious classes. In an opinion piece, “St Stephen’s: Murder in the Cathedral?”, in Outlook magazine in 2007, historian Ramachandra Guha, from the class of 1979, commented on the college’s reservation policy: “St Stephen’s has stood for a Catholic and truly Indian Christianity. Now, the college is in danger of being captured by a group of Christians who are insular and narrow-minded. These powerbrokers seek to usurp a highly valued brand, a brand deepened and developed by other people using altogether different (and more noble) methods. Once the student body has been made the property of a particular religion, pressures to remake the faculty in the same image will follow. At risk then would be St Stephen’s’ reputation for intellectual excellence as well as its cosmopolitan character. Mediocrity and its even uglier cousin, parochialism, will rule.” Five years later, Guha says, “I stand by it.” “Guha sang the last song of Stephen’s,” says Thampu. “When I took over in 2007, the college was ranked No. 2 in arts and No. 4 in science in the annual India

Today AC-Nielsen-ORG-MARG survey of India’s best colleges. Last year, it was No. 2 in arts and No. 1 in science.” While a few students hinted that increasing reservation for Christians has led to students with poor marks getting in, dampening the significance of academic merit, it’s not the only view. “If one compares a student who entered the college through reservation with one who got in through the general category, they wouldn’t find much difference in their grades at the university level,” says Mikhail Sen, a finalyear history (hons) student, who heads the college’s famed Shakespeare Society, and who got admission in the general category. “A lot of quota students have done better in exams than me.” The reservation comes with the rider that the maximum difference in marks between the general merit category and any reserved category cannot exceed 15%. In 2011, 11.6% of total seats in the Christian category remained unfilled, according to Thampu. He adds that these seats went to the general category. Arjun Rajkhowa, a master’s student who has been living in the college for five years, says: “Earlier, there was a certain creative and unconventional element to life in college—the people were more eccentric and adventurous. Now, the culture is more conventional.” From 1949-75, girls were not admitted to the college, which meant they were free to enter the boys’ blocks but not the class-

rooms. Today, the girls’ blocks are locked at 10pm, and girls can’t visit the boys in their blocks. “In my time, the college didn’t wear its missionary character on its sleeve,” says Basu. “The chapel was a serene place of sanctuary, open round the clock. I was first drawn to it at midnight, hearing a student’s soulful rendition of the Moonlight Sonata. There were memorable times thereafter where my senior Param Vir played everything from (Ludwig van) Beethoven to (Béla Viktor János) Bartók to an audience of just one or two of us with a virtuoso flair.” Sitting inside, facing the cross, Blesson Mathew, a second-year student from Kanpur, says, “I got admission through the Christian quota.” Praising the principal for increasing the reservation for people of his faith, he says: “Reverend Thampu has attracted much criticism. He is being persecuted for standing for justice. Remember, Christ was crucified not because he was wrong, but because he was right. Christians have been persecuted in this country—look at what happened in Orissa—and Stephen’s should continue to uplift this section of society.” Unlike most of his college mates, who wear casual dresses, Mathew is always dressed in suits. “A true Stephanian always carries himself in a dignified manner,” he says. Thampu’s stint as college principal has sparked controversy ever since he took over as officiating principal in 2007. A former post-graduate student of the same

institution, he had to quit a year later following doubts over the genuineness of his PhD degree in theology from the Allahabad Agricultural Institute, a deemed university. He returned as principal the same year. Last year, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s son and Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit, an ex-Stephanian, echoed Guha’s views, saying the college has become communal. Thampu says: “Those who allege this aberration do not know the college as it is today at close quarters. They go by hearsay, distorted further by distance. The other reason for such attacks is because I’m a priest and it is tempting to assume all priests are monsters of fundamentalism.” One afternoon, the pale rays of the sun struck the red columns of the corridor, casting a lattice of light and shadow on the floor. Classes had ended. So had the hushed atmosphere of the first half of the day. The Shakespeare Society members were rehearsing Macbeth on the mess lawns. In the College Hall, The Gandhi Study Circle society was preparing to welcome activist Medha Patkar, who had been invited to speak on “Exploring tribal cultures and challenges of indigenous development in India”. The Informal Discussion Group student forum had put up a poster for a talk on secession and the idea of a nation. The library noticeboard was plastered with covers of books like The Fall and Rise of Keynesian Economics. The college’s perceived elitism remains. “Elitism was part of Stephania, but by no means the whole,” says Tharoor. Another old boy, former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi, says: “Used as a noun, the word ‘Stephanian’ is a tawiz, a celebratory, protective charm. Used as an adjective, it carries tehzib, the mark of civilization, refinement.” Shankaran, who has been teaching in the college since 1985, says: “St Stephen’s was socially

elite, but never intellectually. Well-read people are an exception. We are like any college, except that there are fewer rowdy elements and it is easy to manage the college due to a long tradition of political passivity.” The one time Stephen’s became politically engaged was when quite a few students went underground to join the Naxal movement in the 1960s. To Ayesha Adlakha, a first-year student, the college is like a “camp” where you can meet adventurers of various kinds. “Coming here is the most liberating thing that happened to me,” says Adlakha, whose hair is dyed red. “People are so non-judgemental. You say and do whatever you want. Everything we need in this world is right here.” The world immediately outside, however, is moving on, and the college may find itself left behind one day. It’s a fact acknowledged by St Stephen’s’ living legend. David Baker, a retired history professor who lives in an apartment in a boys’ block, is busy writing a history of the college. “My book deals with how Delhi’s history overlapped with that of St Stephen’s,” he says. “After crushing the 1857 uprising, the British reshaped Delhi into a commercial, industrial, railway city, and the college began in this new world. It acquired more importance when the city was made India’s capital... Each chapter of my book explores what effects these two made on each other during significant periods. Today Delhi has become a megalopolis of 16.7 million people. The college’s hold on the city has begun to taper. That could be the final chapter, but, in general, my proposition holds true.” Admission season will start in May. According to Thampu, the college attracted 12,000 applications for 400 seats in 2007. Last year, the figure was 26,000. The lure of Stephania might survive.

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L13

Culture

LOUNGE CROSSOVER

Construction on canvas DIVYA BABU/MINT

Contemporary art is drawing talent from a new niche. Meet the architect artists, who are trying to keep both their identities alive

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

···························· n his studio space in Maharani Bagh in New Delhi, architect Martand Khosla brings out a large blue ink portrait of a man’s face. Having seen his artworks at the India Art Fair in January, I’ve come to meet him to talk about exhibiting for the first time. But this portrait—the first artwork he created in 2009—evokes a strong sense of déjà vu. “It’s the cover of A Free Man!” we both say almost at once, him answering my puzzled look, and me recalling the cover of the most-feted Indian non-fiction book of 2011, A Free Man by Aman Sethi. The portrait, made with rubber-stamp imprints, is part of a series of six portraits of dailywage workers called Without Any Title, which explore the idea of identity, rights and the interaction between migrant workers and state establishments. It was Sethi’s editor, Chiki Sarkar, then the editor-in-chief of Random House, who sought Khosla’s artwork for the book’s cover. “Chiki saw it ahead of a private exhibition I had organized in my house and said that it was a visual manifestation of what Sethi was chronicling in his book—the life of a free labourer,” says Khosla. So it was: Two debuts married each other. In Auroville, the idyllic township near Puducherry which has over the years developed into a haven for avant-garde design in India, architect Ganesh Bala, 37, has made room in his home and studio for his growing body of paintings. Bala’s engagement with art precedes his 15 years in architecture. “Painting is possibly what brought me to architecture school,” says Bala, outlining an often-heard narrative, that of the artistically inclined student nudged towards a career in civil engineering or architecture by a social system that’s driven by the words “career” and “profession”. Bala’s works are abstract figurative, mostly acrylic on paper. While he has worked on portraits and landscapes in the past, his latest focus is buffaloes and cows—abundant in his environs in rural Tamil Nadu. As an artist with a robust architectural practice in Ganesh Bala Architects, Bala has pondered how the two intersect. He recalls asking Roger Anger—the French architect who designed Auroville with funding from Unesco, and who died in 2008—how his prolific artistic output fed his architectural work. Anger told him that the two were “connected but in no formal way”. Bala’s own response is more nuanced. “Painting feeds me courage. It’s the letting go that’s the most important part when I’m facing a canvas. The textures, forms and compositions are secondary.” Looking at Bala’s stunning

Drawing board: (clockwise from top) Martand Khosla, 37, in his New Delhi studio; his installation The State (of Union of India); and one of Ganesh Bala’s acrylic onpaper paintings. rammed earth walls and residential spaces whose principal components appear to be reinforced concrete and sunshine, you know he uses this courage well. One of his recent residential projects, a house which appears to be floating on an artificial pool of water, was a runner-up at The Architect and Interiors India Awards 2011. While Bala has exhibited in group shows in Auroville and Puducherry, he is too consumed by his architectural assignments to take things further or network with gallery owners. If the India Art Fair in January is any indication, the galleries will come to him, as they did to Khosla. The fair, in its fourth edition this year, had at least three architects who were exhibiting their artworks for the first time. Seven Art Ltd, a Delhi gallery, exhibited three of Khosla’s newer works, priced between `45,000 and `80,000. Sketches for Adam, a series of worker portraits created with different grades of brick dust, positions the brick as an object of construction as well as a symbol of destruction. Khosla’s other work, the nostalgic In the Other Rooms, is a set of 10 vitrines encasing objects made out of brick dust, such as a miniature cycle, a bed, a rocking horse and a television set. Khosla, 37, graduated from the Architectural Association in London. He returned to India in 2001 and co-founded Romi Khosla Design Studio, an architectural design office in Delhi. In 2009, he started creating artworks, which largely address the rights of migrant workers—the sort of

labour his own construction sites employ. Khosla’s installations are severe in their political import: The State (of Union of India) is a fruit cart (of a migrant worker) bearing apples, oranges and bananas covered with the text of the Bombay high court’s landmark Olga Tellis judgement

defending the rights of slum and pavement dwellers. He has exhibited in group shows in the UK, Netherlands and Milan, but is presently expanding on his brick dust series for his first gallery exhibition later this year. The Mumbai gallery, The Guild, also represented two

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Talking art: Bhatri in his Mumbai studio; and (top) Cabinet Rs.hwat.

architects at the India Art Fair. Saleem Bhatri, 36, had a single artwork on exhibit called Cabinet Rs.hwat (2011). Priced upwards of `2 lakh, it is a design-artwork that deals with the “under the table” metaphor: the ubiquitous table relinquishes itself to playing the role of an efficient organizer of corrupt practice. Metal tables so characteristic of Indian government offices fit one under the other, suggesting the labyrinth of hierarchies. The other architect represented by the gallery was Kaiwan Mehta, who now teaches in a couple of architectural schools in Mumbai and has authored Alice in Bhuleshwar: Navigating a Mumbai Neighbourhood (Yoda Press, 2009). Mehta’s artistic practice centres on reading architecture as a “literary text”, where architectural elements and motifs are repositories of history and memory. Before the art fair, the gallery also hosted a working studio with Mehta. Shalini Sawhney, director, The Guild, says she is excited to be working on something that may lead to new inflections in art. “Conceptual design and architecture have been part of visual arts programming for a long time in the West,” she explains. The Guild is planning another exhibition with Mehta in August and one with Bhatri in early 2013. Bhatri trained as an architect and furniture designer at the Academy of Architecture, Mumbai; the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad; and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des

Arts Décoratifs, Paris. His wooden furniture designs are part of the permanent collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. For now, he has chosen to put his design work on hold to evolve an art practice. He is also pursuing a postgraduate course in modern and contemporary Indian art history at the Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum. “Design involves material culture. Art has conversational relevance,” says Bhatri, articulating the way he differentiates the two. He cites Cabinet Rs.hwat as an instance. “It is a hybridized formation that seeks to supplant typical representations of furniture. There are essential differences in the way a cabinet can be conceived by an architect, designer or an artist.” While for Bala art was the founding stone of his architectural practice, Bhatri says his art has evolved through his architecture and design career as “the next step; as an investigation into exploring contemporary life and politics”. For Khosla, on the other hand, art and architecture are interlinked. “I know I can’t be as prolific as someone doing either one of the two but I don’t see them as different.” He goes as far as to say that at this point, if he stopped one, the other would cease to exist. The young Indian architect artists are on a virgin site. No one knows which way it slopes. Bala evokes Le Corbusier. “He used to paint…a lot,” he says. “He wanted to be known as a painter but because of just how good he was as an architect, that first identity was eclipsed.”

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Travel

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COLOMBIA

Off the hot ‘tamale’ trail MAURO A FUENTES ÁLVAREZ/ABOUT.ME/FOTOMAF

Aromatic like its coffee, robust like its meat and spicy like its chillies, the Colombian trail is for the hearty

B Y J HAMPAN M OOKERJEE ···························· e escaped early on the sixth day. It had been, to say the very least, a tough conference. Almost everyone was vegetarian or worse. They even had a vegan chef. My Brazilian colleague was categorical: “A vegan Colombian is an impossibility. He cannot be from here.” One evening after three large neat aguardientes (fire water), she caught him alone and couldn’t resist asking. “Colombia,” he said, “but I trained in the US.” “You know,” she said after much introspection, “the US is the root of all evil. Imagine, they brainwashed a Colombian into turning vegan!” That morning, we had been served tamales for breakfast. A tamale is a Latin American speciality that usually combines either pork, beef, chicken, or all of them, wrapped in banana leaf with some veggies and corn, and steamed. It is traditional Christmas fare made with effort and love. This one, though, was a characterless mash of corn with a layer of rubbery…stuff. What was it? we asked. “Precooked gluten. It comes packed; you can make a dough out of it and then roll it, bake or steam it. Isn’t it great?” came the response. That was when we flipped. We decided to leave by the first available minibus, some hours ahead of the formal conference closure. Two Brazilians, one Scot, one Kenyan Goan, and one Bengali Indian were united by a common, transcontinental urge to eat a large Colombian steak. It hadn’t been all bad. The conference was in a stunning tourist village called Villa de Leyva, about 3 hours from Bogotá, in a verdant valley with rainbow skies, hummingbirds, and just a handful of people on horses. Its sleepy 16th century charm, cobbled streets,

medieval church, whitewashed, double-storeyed, rammed earth structures, wood balconies and tiled terracotta roofs grew on you. Close to the village was an ancient native spiritual site devoted to worshipping enormous stone phalluses which women touched to get pregnant, and men just looked at fondly and wished for. The region was known for fossils of the Kronosauruses, huge prehistoric marine reptiles with teeth like daggers. You could even trek to some startlingly beautiful and precipitous mountain lakes browsing the fabled biodiversity en route, if the rain let you. In the evening, if you still had energy, you could wander around looking at kitschy souvenir shops or just lolling around in cafés and bars, which remained open as long as you wished them to. If you were one of those who needed exercise to sleep, the Latino rhythms never faded. The smell and taste of Colombian coffee first thing in the morning eclipsed everything. The vegan chef would boil the dark roast in a 5-litre stock pot for a while, which was unusual. But had black, without sugar, it was heavenly. In the evening, my favourite Colombian

TRIP PLANNER/COLOMBIA Indians travelling to Colombia will need a visa. Apply to the embassy of Colombia, 3, Palam Marg, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi (tel: 011-51662103, 51662105; fax: 011-51662108, email: edelhi@cancilleria.gov.co). Visas are usually issued in about 10 days (be warned that most documents need to be provided with Spanish translations). Advance airfare to Bogotá from Indian metros: Lufthansa (Star Alliance)

Delhi R101,800

Mumbai R103,500

Bangalore R161,200

Air France/ Delta (Skyteam)

R104,000

R103,500

R190,800

Fares may change. You may also need transit visas, depending on your flight route. Consult your travel agent.

South America Ca r i b b ea n S ea

Panama

Santa Marta Venezuela Chia Bogotá

COLOMBIA

Eat

This is omnivore country but food is never a problem in Colombia, even for vegetarians and vegans. It is reasonably priced as well. There isn’t too much choice in terms of international cuisines, but there is enough available to suit all tastes. Ron Cana (sugar-cane rum) and beer are the most popular local alcoholic drinks, but there is an excellent range of wines from Argentina, Chile and Peru on offer. The variety of fruits and fresh juices is amazing.

In Bogotá, spend the day walking around Carrera Séptima (Road No. 7), starting from the Brazil presidential palace and going on to the various Peru museums, art galleries and some of the most exciting local eating places. Villa de Leyva, a stunning tourist village, is a 3-hour drive away. From Santa Marta, trek to Ciudad Pérdida or the Lost City, not as spectacular as Machu Picchu in Peru, but older. You can do this week-long trek through rainforests for about $300 (around R15,200), all inclusive. Colombia’s 55 national reserves display an amazing array of niche ecosystems and are a paradise for wildlife enthusiasts, especially birdwatchers. Take a guide to optimize time.

Ecuador

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AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

drink, aguardiente, came in handy. Had puro (neat), it is deceptively easy on the tongue and soon knocks you out. After aguardiente, what you ate did not matter. But five days without meat, and talking to women who extol the virtues of vegetarian sushi, was too much. We went questing for meat. The minibus hurtled through the cold morning drizzle on a road that went up and down narrow passes in misty montane rainforests. These would open up in valleys with water bodies and meadows peppered with pied cattle. The driver would not take the curves gently. He stopped only when three people threatened to throw up inside. “It feels good,” the Scot said as he crawled back. “This is certainly creating space for meat.” On cue, we reached Ubaté, where we were greeted by an imposing statue of a Jersey cow. The Milk Capital of Colombia, said the high pedestal. But along with milk and cheese, prodigious quantities of beef were on display too. Large boiled broiler chickens with yellow skin sat in glass boxes along with brown, black and pink sausages made with beef, veal, pork, and chicken, some as thick and long as my arm, spiced and smoked. There was enough offal to make a Scot forget haggis. We spent a few hours there, just looking around in awe and drinking coffee. But we did not eat, for we had a goal: a steak, only at Andrés Carne de Res. Located further down the highway at the Chia village (an hour out of Bogotá), Andrés Carne de Res—literally, Andrés’ meat restaurant—typifies the meaty side of the Colombian highlands. Meals in these parts usually consist of a large piece of boiled or grilled (parrilla) beef, pork or chicken, along with a small piece of churitzo as a savoury with potatoes or rice. All this could be combined in a sopa (soup) as well. Small, thick rotis made of a roughly ground maize dough called arepa are also served, sometimes filled with melted cheese. For a region that lies in the midst of so much botanical diversity and is reputed for its chillies, there is surprisingly little spice or green in the food. Andrés Carne de Res is the acid rock star of Bogotá restaurants. The exterior, with its blue plastic cows and steam engines, gives only a hint of the Dali-esque madness that rules inside. The cavernous

Bring on Bogotá: Evening at Villa de Leyva; and (left) Carne de Res is the rock star of Colombian meat. hall is divided into many parts and in it lie a million things in a bizarre mix of hanging cutlery, muted strobe lights, bottles, stuffed toy tigers, metal birds, old clocks, adding machines, gramophones, and clunky rustic tables and benches to seat guests. A steady, but muted, salsa beats in the background. We started with Aguila cerveza (eagle beer) accompanied by deepfried crunchy cubes of pork belly, unripe banana fritters, boiled tapioca, crackling, and various kinds of chopped sausages. This came on a large plate with salsa and a sharp green chutney. While we were thulping this, the waiters brought us butchers’ aprons and some seriously long steak knives. And then, everyone looked up on hearing the sound of an approaching storm. I never knew five large sizzlers could make so much noise. The humongous steaks were delivered to us with equally large avocados, and some rice on a side plate. Mine was just about seasoned, a bit chewy and delightfully meaty. The musky onion and red wine sauce complemented it perfectly. Even for five starved carnivores, it took some effort to finish. Tired, we asked for another beer, and out of the dark came people with drums and a trombone. With a roll and flourish, we were made to wear a sash in the colours of Colombia and awarded a medal. Write to lounge@livemint.com CHILDFRIENDLY RATING

Colombia is Asian in its attitude to children, who are welcome almost everywhere. SENIORFRIENDLY RATING

Most museums, art galleries and libraries are seniorfriendly, but in general it does not seem to be a major concern for the government or people. LGBTFRIENDLY RATING

There are no legal constraints on homosexuality. No one bothers you, but Colombia is Catholic and macho. Being gay may attract crude humour.

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LOST WORLDS

Storyteller: A 1903 portrait of Roald Amundsen.

The polar express Reading ‘The North West Passage’, Roald Amundsen’s account of his pioneering expedition through the Arctic sea route B Y S UPRIYA N AIR supriya.n@livemint.com

···························· n early modern Europe, explorers dreamed about it as a direct sea route to the fabulous wealth of China. An 18th century story goes that the English ship Octavius sailed eastwards, off the coast of Russia, into its freezing waters; it was discovered a decade later, afloat, with the macabre cargo of the bodies of its entire crew frozen to death. For ages, the Northwest Passage, a sea route through the Arctic Ocean which connects the Atlantic and the Pacific, was the stuff dreams were made of—but it was only crossed for the first time in 1906. The man leading that pioneering three-year expedition was Roald Amundsen, a tall, tough Norwegian who became one of a handful of European men who were the emblems of the “heroic” age of polar expedition, exploring the world’s coldest regions for the first time in recorded history. Born into a shipping family in coastal Norway, Amundsen was a pioneer where ice was concerned: He conquered the North Pole and became the first to reach the

Roald Amundsen fulfils a childhood dream At 8 A.M. my watch was finished and I turned in. When I had been asleep some time, I became conscious of a rushing to and fro on deck. Clearly there was something the matter, and I felt a bit annoyed that they should go on like that for the matter of a

South Pole, a few years after his Arctic naval expedition. All his life, he loved the frigid world he helped to map, and returned to it again and again. He would eventually die in 1928, in a plane crash during a rescue mission in the Barents Sea, north of Norway (The plane, like Amundsen’s body, has ever been found). Amundsen’s record of this landmark early journey, Nordvestpassagen, appeared in English as The North West Passage in 1908. Amundsen had the body and soul of a Viking, and a literary style for which writers of British boys’ school stories would have given their right arms. Reading the book today gives us a sense of a man more charming than any frostbitten polar adventurer should have the right to be. Full of sniffy asides, benign racial paternalism (“My sincerest wish for our friends the Nechilli Eskimo is, that civilisation may never reach them.”) and an unflappable good cheer about three winters of death, deprivation and sub-zero temperatures, Amundsen’s storytelling can make his achievement sometimes sound like a boyish quest fantasy. Perhaps all great explorations are a bit of both. (The text of Volume II of Amundsen’s book, The North West Passage, can be read online at http:/ /www.archive.org/details/ roaldamundsensth02amun) bear or a seal. It must be something of that kind, surely. But then Lieutenant Hansen came rushing down into the cabin and called out the ever memorable words: “Vessel in sight, sir!” He bolted again immediately, and I was alone. The North West Passage had been accomplished

—my dream from childhood. This very moment it was fulfilled. I had a peculiar sensation in my throat; I was somewhat overworked and tired, and I suppose it was weakness on my part, but I could feel tears coming to my eyes. “Vessel in sight!” The words were magical. My home and those dear to me

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there at once appeared to me as if stretching out their hands—“Vessel in sight!” I dressed myself in no time. ...On the appearance of the unknown vessel we hoisted our Norwegian flag. It glided slowly up under the gaff, every eye watching it. Many pleasant words were whispered to the flag, it seemed as if everybody wanted to caress it. It had become a bit worn and ragged, but it bore its wounds with honour. “I wonder what he’ll think when he sees it?” “He’ll think it is a venerable old flag.” “Perhaps he’s an American.” “I shouldn’t be surprised if he were an Englishman.” “Yes, he will see by the flag what we are!” “Oh, yes—he will see we are boys from good old Norway!”

Roald Amundsen goes postracial

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Journeyman: (above) One of Amundsen’s later ships, the Maud, found in the Arctic two years after it was lost; and an early flight over the polar regions. Amundsen would eventually lose his life when a similar plane crashed in 1928.

On November 7th, at 3.30 in the afternoon, Jimmy suddenly stopped; his sharp eyes had discovered something unusual away on the ice. He rushed to the spot and called out to us, “Itkillich tomai!”—tracks of Indians! His voice had an echo of gladness in it. Now our troubles would soon be over and we should have plenty to eat. We followed the track and soon came to a wooden hut. My excitement was intense, for I was at last to see real Indians, who, in boyhood’s days, had so filled my imagination with vivid scenes. I expected to see the door open and a copper-coloured fellow emerge, with feathers in his hair, swinging his tomahawk over his head, and yelling “Ugh!” to us. Or perhaps he was lurking behind one of the trees in the wood. The door opened, and out came a quiet man in black clothes and wearing a black hat. He stood quietly and looked at us. We greeted him in a friendly way in English, and he also answered us amiably in the same language. Shortly afterwards his wife appeared. It might all have been an incident from a walking-tour at home; they

looked exactly like a couple of peasants from the Norwegian highlands. We remained with them for a couple of days, and fed up the dogs as well as ourselves. They sold us some frozen fish and some elk meat in exchange for tea and candles.

Roald Amundsen contemplates women’s underwear Of the bowhead whale, the whalebone alone is used; all the rest goes to the fishes. But then the present average value of the whalebone taken from one whale is 10,000 dollars. Whale hunting is not by any means easy or free from danger. The bowhead whale is very wary, and is scared away by the least noise. As soon as a whale is sighted, the propeller is stopped and sails alone are used. While the whale is still a long way off, a boat is lowered to begin the actual hunt. Oars must not be used; It must be propelled by sails only. The little boat is steered direct to the huge monster, the harpooner standing in the bows ready to throw his harpoon. Shooting is out of the question, as a shot would scare away all the whales for miles around. Tonite is used as an explosive. If the whale is not killed by the first throw, he darts off madly, and ample rope must be given him if the harpooners are to follow him, just as in hunting the bottle-nosed whale between Jan Mayen and the Faroes. If there is ice in the fairway, the hunters must be on the alert. If it becomes necessary to cut the harpoon line, this means an absolute loss of something like L1800. When killed, the whale is towed to the vessel. The head is cut off and taken on board, and the carcass is sent adrift. Then the whalebone is taken out and the head is hove overboard. …I inquired what this costly material is used for, and I learned that it is chiefly used for the manufacture of corsets. A ladylike figure is an expensive thing but I think that, after my experience as a Polar resident, I would vote in favour of dress reform.

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In Doctor Disco

back home for Christmas.’ He remembers Anna talking, before they left, about where in the living room they should put the tree. His dad stops eating and looks calmly at Samir. ‘Son, this trip is special. You know how long we’ve kept your mother’s ashes in the closet, waiting for a break to come here. That’s what she’d have wanted, wouldn’t she?’ Samir thinks for a few moments and then says, his eyes widening, ‘I don’t know what to call Mum’s parents. What am I going to call them?’ This is serious. He cannot meet them. He doesn’t have a name for them. ‘You’re going to spend time with them,’ says his dad slowly, pointing at Samir. ‘You’ll soon learn what to call them.’ Samir looks unhappily at the fly on the lip of the Coke bottle and the filthy ashtray on the crumb-filled blue tablecloth. There is still no straw.

A boy, his father and a missing mother: an exclusive extract from ‘Difficult Pleasures’, Anjum Hasan’s forthcoming short story collection

hen Samir is afraid, he smiles. This morning there was the camel in the narrow lane, its strangely long neck crowded with thick loops of plastic roses; mirrors, pompoms and coloured bathroom mops hid the rest of it. The camel raised its ugly pointed face and regarded Samir with one eye. To see its other eye, they’d have to cross to the far side, through the excited throng that was leading the camel, beating drums strung around their necks to clear the way. Samir had, smiling and for his father’s sake, put out one finger to touch its hard, warm leg, careful not to go as far as the tail. He’d looked away from the shirtless man on the camel, his forehead dyed yellow, who slapped his chest as he laughed into Samir’s dad’s camera. Samir and Dad are sitting in Doctor Disco now, high above the street; he can see two men bent over a chessboard outside a café below. Bikes slide past the pushcarts filled with long red carrots and bunches of grapes for sale, and women sit on the ground with round baskets of small cauliflowers and even smaller oranges. He looks at his dad and then looks away. Why are the women’s faces hidden? Where is the camel going? What language is that in which the man at the next table just cracked a joke? ‘You’re going to like it here,’ says Dad. He has said this already. He said it on the flight to India. He said it when Samir woke up this morning. Samir nods. ‘Can I have a Coke?’ ‘Samir,’ says Dad. ‘Mum probably went to that little place down there to buy her curry powders or whatever. She probably knew everyone in this square.’ Samir looks down intently at the women in loose, shiny pants and slippers; some walk alone, others sit with the chess-playing men, drinking a honey-coloured liquid out of tall glasses. He already knows that none of them is his mother. Once, after she died, he’d run after a woman on the street outside his primary school in Jersey City. ‘Mummy!’ he’d screamed and she’d stopped and turned to him and became another woman with a longer face and a different handbag. After that he stopped looking for his mother. When the man brings the Coke there is no straw in the bottle. ‘Dad,’ says Samir hesitantly.

**************

Dad says, ‘When we meet your grandparents tomorrow, speak extra slow because they don’t know much English.’ Samir is not sure he wants to meet his grandparents. ‘Are they Indian?’ asks Samir. Dad laughs and, immediately, Samir joins in. ‘Of course they’re Indian. What do you think your mum was?’ says Dad, no longer laughing. ‘You’re Indian too.’ ‘No, I’m not,’ says Samir. He only knows three Indians—his mum and his friends, the twins Shruti and Aditya, to whose sixth birthday party the whole class was invited. Everyone got spiders or pink-and-green flames painted on their faces but the best part was the toiletpaper blower game. A man started a giant hairdryer which blew out swirls and swirls of toilet paper. They screamed for an hour and got themselves properly entangled, finally smothering the birthday twins in it. Afterwards, everyone got to take a big box of watercolours home. It’s the best birthday party Samir has ever been to. ‘Dad, where are my watercolours?’ His dad doesn’t answer; he’s pointing his camera at some-

JAYACHANDRAN/MINT

thing down in the square. Then he points higher, at the sunset that has suddenly changed the light over the hills. Ha, ha, ha, say the people at the next table. Maybe they’re Japanese, thinks Samir. He knows what the Japanese look like. But the woman in the far corner, writing postcards, with flowers piled up in her hair that look like she took them off the camel? Where is she from? Am I Indian, thinks Samir. When he was five years old and Miss Patty said to everyone in his kindergarten class, ‘And Samir’s from India,’ he knew she had mixed him up with his mother. He remembers that as the start of a confusion that never went away.

The waiter brings them pizzas. ‘Straw, please,’ says Samir politely. His dad sits back and looks at his pizza. ‘You like it here?’ he asks Samir. Samir asks, ‘Dad, we’re going to be back home for Christmas, aren’t we? Aditya’s going to get a PS3 for Christmas. I need to go take a look at it.’ ‘Samir, we’re here for your mother. We’re here because you’ve never met your grandparents.’ Samir looks around Doctor Disco again as he eats his pizza. He had imagined India not from what his mother told him, because she told him so little, but on the basis of Aditya and

Shruti. He thought the whole country would be like their home, with the coloured fountain outside, in the centre of the lawn, and the huge black leather couches in the living room into which the entire class of twelve had easily fitted. But India’s nothing like that. There’s nothing to do here and everything down in the streets smells of shit. One wall of the restaurant is filled with a huge painting of a bearded man with long grey hair, smoking a big fat cigarette. Samir imagines that when his father was in India eight years ago, the man in the picture was younger just like his dad was then a younger man. ‘Dad, why is that guy’s cigarette so fat?’ ‘It’s a chillum, son.’ ‘What’s a chillum?’ Dad takes a huge bite. ‘Jesus, what an awesome pizza,’ he mumbles. Samir kicks restlessly at the leg of the table. He can’t quite say what’s on his mind straight out to his dad. He’s learnt from his mother not to spell out everything. His dad, he knows, is the kind of person who wouldn’t want to hear exactly what people want. ‘Dad,’ he says cautiously. ‘Anna said we’re going to be

The first thought that popped into Samir’s head when his father told him that his mother had taken a wrong turn and crashed her car into a huge freight truck was—But the key to Freddie, only she knows where it is. His dad, as expected, had no clue, so they had to break the translucent plastic frog into whose open mouth Samir had been pushing coins for a whole year. Samir bought a laser gun with blinking lights and shot down everything in the house. He shot the clock off the wall and it shattered silently into a million pieces and vanished in a swirl of dust. He shot the cat with it and Timmy yawned his final yawn, crept under the sofa and never came back. He was going to shoot the little stuffed birds made of red-and-yellow cloth, hanging on strings by the living room windows, but stopped because they were his mother’s. She’d brought them with her from India, she told him, when he asked if he could cut up the strings and feature the birds in his puppet show about the going-ons in a zoo. ‘Look at them, Sam,’ she’d said and Samir couldn’t understand what she meant. He saw them every day; they’d been hanging there ever since he could remember. Later the same day, his parents had an argument about something to do with a block in the sink and his mother sat at the kitchen table and cried. And even though it had nothing to do with those birds, his mother’s crying, Samir couldn’t shake the feeling that it did. After he’d called out, mistakenly, to the woman who looked like his mother, and after he’d stopped searching for his mother’s face among the faces of women at the bus stop and in the supermarket, Samir started to believe that his mother had gone back to India. She was dead, which in some possible sense meant that she’d gone back to India. Now they’re in India—Samir and his dad—and she’s not here. From the short story Birds, part of the collection Difficult Pleasures by Anjum Hasan, forthcoming from Viking Penguin in April. Write to lounge@livemint.com

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A LIFE IN WORDS: MEMOIRS | ISMAT CHUGHTAI

A woman for all seasons COURTESY PENGUIN BOOKS INDIA

The first complete English translation of the memoirs of the subcontinent’s iconic Urdu writer and feminist

B Y F AIZA S ULTAN K HAN ···························· he Indian publishing market is flourishing. It has recently started laying claim to throwing off its colonial shackles and producing work solely for an Indian market. A critical and not just commercial success is something that is well-received in India; the approval of the English-speaking West is unimportant. India’s numerous literary prizes, often too numerous to find deserving books to award them to, have yet to really reflect this trend and tend to go to an India as seen more or less from the outside. This is reflected in the general paucity of quality translations from Indian languages. To not offer to an increasingly English-speaking reading market the best of this country’s peerlessly rich, diverse and plentiful canon going back to time immemorial, is, well, plain bizarre. If you think it’s going too far to say it’s the equivalent of not being able to find Charles Dickens in England, then at least allow me to say it’s like not being able to choose from an array of translations of Beowulf. While the dearth of quality translations doesn’t, mercifully, stem from the same reasoning, it is, in effect, like living with Franco’s predilection for banning books. The first thing one notices on starting the short story writer, feminist, educationalist and iconoclast Ismat Chughtai’s remarkable memoirs, A Life in Words: Memoirs, with due credit to M. Asaduddin’s elegant translation, is how utterly unselfconscious, unaffected and natural the writing seems. It isn’t bogged down with explanations of everyday objects and rituals. There is no positioning of the voice within

A Life In Words—Memoirs: Penguin India, 282 pages, `499.

Shavian moralist: Chughtai’s writing on women and religion was often pegged as controversial.

{

FIRST WORDS: ISMAT CHUGHTAI (191191) HAS REMAINED URDU LITERATURE’S MOST COURAGEOUS AND CONTROVERSIAL WRITER AND ITS MOST RESOLUTE ICONOCLAST.

some sort of global (that is, white) context. One isn’t looking in as if from the outside. The writer is merely the writer and hasn’t taken it upon herself to act also as interpreter. It allows for a wealth of subtlety often lost in subcontinental writing in English. And subtlety is Chughtai’s forte. Hailing from an educated, liberal Muslim family, the sort that educated their children equally in the Quran, Farsi and Urdu literature, with her elder

brother already a well-known writer in her teens, Chughtai is best known for her stories about the lives of middle-class Indian women. If her sensitive, thoughtful work is pegged as controversial, it must also be said that it only causes a flutter among those who adamantly refuse to see the world for what it is. Writing largely on women, religion and the domestic sphere, she neither generalizes nor preaches, as she knows her

}

subject far too intimately for that sort of artless moralizing. Nevertheless, Chughtai as moralist—and that too of the Shavian school—is a major feature of her life and work. “From a young age we were aware that there was some distinction between Hindus and Muslims. Outward profession of brotherhood went hand in hand with discreet caution... They talked about enlightenment and liberal ideas, professed deep love for

each other, and recounted tales of great sacrifice for each other. The English were held to be the main culprits. All this would go on while the elders were secretly nervous about the children doing something that would defile the purity of religion!” While one would wish to imagine it otherwise, this split between private sphere and public face, between conversational and actual liberalism hasn’t exactly faded into oblivion. Chughtai’s unforgiving eye picks it out in the details. If their Hindu guests weren’t due, “then seekh kebab and roast chicken would have been cooked; lauki raita and dahi bade would not have been prepared. The difference between ‘cooked’ and ‘prepared’ was interesting.” In the first chapter itself, Chughtai, quite casually, while discussing her fiction, puts forward theories over which contemporary feminists are still fighting pitched battles, “If a wife stays with her husband simply because he is her provider, then she’s as helpless as a prostitute.” She disapproves of purdah, but when writing about women, manages to focus on what’s in a woman’s head rather than what’s on top of it. Her own marriage is a subject largely absent from this memoir, other than her initial reluctance to get married at all, and her husband’s threats of divorce during the notorious censorship trial of Lihaaf. A Life in Words focuses more on her education, her writ-

ing, and her struggle to become the first Indian Muslim woman to get both a bachelor’s degree in arts and a bachelor’s in education degree. This is enough for a memoir, but it’s a shame nonetheless. She is so perceptive when it comes to pointing out the myriad ways in which women are oppressed and the way in which they get around this, as in the account of Mangu, the coachman’s daughter, who feigns demonic possession to get away with hitting her mother-in-law when finally tired of being at the receiving end of beatings. Women manipulate, she deduces, as fairness is often not an option for them. Hers is the feminism, the defiance, learnt from a full engagement with life and not by rote and politically correctly from books, often from entirely different cultural contexts. She advises the reader quite simply to “talk to people”, to engage with them, to ask them questions, to understand the context of their life before attempting to understand them. If only the various Pakistani op-ed writers who present “I asked the driver” as their most profound communication with a class outside themselves, would listen. Chughtai does not position herself as a crusading truth-teller. She is far too honest and straightforward for the truth to be a special mission; it is, quite simply, the truth. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the moving account of her and Saadat Hasan Manto’s obscenity trials which happened to come up before the same judge on the same day. She has far more social clout than the beleaguered Manto, and the judge calls her into his anteroom for a private conversation, “‘I’ve read most of your stories. They aren’t obscene. Neither is Lihaaf. Manto’s writings are often littered with filth.’ ‘The world is also littered with filth,’ I said in a feeble voice. ‘Is it necessary to rake it up, then?’ ‘If it is raked up it becomes visible, and people feel the need to clean it up.’” Faiza Sultan Khan is editor-inchief, The Life’s Too Short Literary Review. Write to lounge@livemint.com

LITTLE, BROWN/BLOOMBERG

THE READING ROOM

TABISH KHAIR

AT THE CROSSROADS Combating amnesia Islamic terror and the “war against terror”: Despite all the negativity inherent in both these constructs, they have led, indirectly, to at least one good in some (thinking) circles. Some writers—whether American, European or Asian—are again talking, with great seriousness of purpose, of what we share across cultures and religions. This is a necessary and long overdue development: one that has finally escaped the boundaries of academic research, where it had been largely confined until recently, and entered more popular genres, such as the debate book or the novel of ideas. A World Without Islam by Graham E. Fuller is one such book. The title is brilliant in a deeply ironic manner, as it makes one expect a (predictable) rightist/chauvinist rant against Islam. What one gets is the exact

opposite: a deeply considered book that examines, again and again, the social, historical and political grounds of today’s conflicts. The aim of the book is not to exonerate either Islam or the “West”, but to examine matters in context—and in the process explode such simplistic notions as the proclaimed hostility of “Islam” to (“Western”) modernity, the supposed violence of Islam, and the warped thesis of an inevitable clash of civilizations. In India, two other recent books explore related territory. Ranjit Hoskote and Ilija Trojanow’s Confluences: Forgotten Histories From East and West (which was reviewed in Lounge in February) and Saeed Akhtar Mirza’s The Monk, The Moor & Moses Ben Jalloun. Hoskote and Trojanow write fluently and with passion. Their impressive trek across the centuries highlights how all

cultures have borrowed from each other, and how our current “modernity” is by no means a European invention. They defamiliarize the given purist accounts of religions like Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism just as much as they explore how non-Europe has penetrated Europe for centuries. They reveal how Europe also owes its “modernity” and “rational” traditions to non-Europe, particularly Muslim and Jewish Arabs and Moors. What Hoskote and Trojanow do in non-fiction prose, Mirza does as fiction in The Monk, The Moor & Moses Ben Jalloun. Mirza’s novel is less “pure” fiction (whatever that might be!) and more an attempt to use fiction to narrate a half-forgotten history and fill in some blanks.

alternative history, this is a fascinating novel by an Israeli writer I will want to read again. God’s Own Untouchable by Ulahannan Thoppil, published by Vitasta in India, is also interesting and worth reading. When Aaron Micah is elevated to a bishop and his origin traced to the Pulaya (untouchable) community, it brings to the surface the tensions of casteism among Syrian Christians in Kerala. It is in unravelling these tensions and its ironies that this novel assumes force.

Magic book

Offbeat publishers

Scholar: Graham E. Fuller, author of A World Without Islam.

It is always difficult to find books brought out by smaller houses, and then there is the danger that the books will disappoint. But I still try and read outside the usual highways of publishing, and every once in a while I find my effort rewarded: I discover an interesting book that would have escaped my notice otherwise.

Osama by Lavie Tidhar, published by the small but cult house PS Publishing (UK), is one such novel. In a world without global terrorism, Joe, a private detective, is hired by a mysterious woman to find the author of some obscure pulp novels that feature a seemingly

fictitious “vigilante” called Osama bin Laden. As Joe delves into the case, and is sucked deeper into it, he discovers truths about the world that leave him facing a decisive choice atop a hill in Kabul. With echoes of Thomas Auster and Paul Pynchon, film noir and

The Puffin Book of Magic Stories for 8-Year-Olds, with delightful stories by friends and colleagues such as Padmini Mongia and Sébastien Doubinsky, had me smiling all evening. Excellent new stories for children and those parents who like reading aloud to their children. Tabish Khair’s new novel, How to Fight Islamist Terror From the Missionary Position, will be released by HarperCollins in India later in April. Write to Tabish at readingroom@livemint.com

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Notsofamous four: (clockwise from above) Urs in Khwaja Qutub’s dargah; the dargah of Mirza Mazhar Jan e Janan Shaheed; the mausoleum of Shaykh Jamali Dehlvi; and the dargah of Mai Sahiba. Lodhi. In the Capital, the Qadris are represented by Shah Abdul Haq Muhaddith Dehlvi, whose dargah is in Mehrauli. Reaching there is complicated. A hundred yards north of the historical Hauz e Shamsi (a reservoir) is a road leading to Islam Colony, which takes you to Shaykh Dehlvi’s dargah. He established his khanqah (spiritual retreat) in Delhi around 1611; it came to be called the Khanqah e Qadriya. The saint lived through the reign of Jehangir, teaching Hadith, the sayings of Prophet Muhammad. Most of Shaykh Dehlvi’s writings attempt to reconcile Islamic jurisprudence with the Sufi path. Along with several other books of prose and poetry, he authored Jazb al Qulub ila diyar al Mahbub, a history of Madinah.

DELHI’S BELLY | SEEMA CHOWDHRY

Sufi symbols Sadia Dehlvi’s guide to the lesserknown ‘dargahs’ in Delhi offers an insight into the different Sufi orders

lease don’t call them shrines. That word does not fit into the Islamic context. These are dargahs,” says Sadia Dehlvi, sitting in her second-floor Nizamuddin East apartment. The living room has a lived-in feel with musical instruments like the harmonium and tabla stacked up on one side and old black and white photographs framing the walls. Sufis are the heart of Islam, believes Dehlvi (she authored a book with the same name Sufism: The Heart of Islam in 2009), who took about three years to finish her latest book The Sufi Courtyard: Dargahs of Delhi. This city, she says, has always been an important centre of the different Sufi orders called silsila. In the book, Dehlvi explores the lesser-know dargahs of Sufi masters in the city, and briefly touches upon the different orders and their philosophies. “Delhi’s inclusive culture ensures that though Chishtis are the dominant order here, other orders such as Suharwardis, Qadris and Naqshbandis continue to have a presence.” Dehlvi says. Providing an insight into the evolution of Sufi orders, she says: “In early Islam, there were spiritual leaders with small groups of followers. Around the 11th century, these groups grew to a mass movement, with Sufi orders being formed around renowned Sufis.

Naqshbandi order

The Sufi Courtyard— Dargahs of Delhi: HarperCollins India, 252 pages, `699. The orders came to be known by the name of their founder masters and spread all over the world.” In the 13th century, according to Dehlvi, Delhi became a centre of Sufism owing to the Sufis who migrated to the city after the Mongol invasions in Central Asia. We asked Dehlvi to choose dargahs from the four orders and explain why she thinks they are worth a visit. Edited extracts from the book:

Chishti order Khwaja Qutub’s ‘dargah’, Mehrauli Khwaja Qutubuddin Bakhtiar Kaki established Delhi’s first Sufi centre in Mehrauli village in south Delhi in the 12th century. He was the spiritual successor of Ajmer’s Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti, who established the Chishti order, known for its traditions of music and inclusiveness, in South Asia. Owing to Khwaja Qutub’s exalted rank, Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti decreed that those who came to him in Ajmer must first pay homage to Khwaja Qutub. The tradition is still followed.

It’s said rulers may come and go, but Delhi will survive as long as the dargah of Khwaja Qutub exists. And so, almost all the emperors who ruled Delhi sought his blessings. Mai Sahiba’s ‘dargah’, Adchini village It’s a rare Sufi shrine dedicated to a woman (the other famous one is Bibi Fatima’s dargah in Kaka Nagar in central Delhi). The dargah of Mai Sahiba, the mother of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, is in Adchini village. Women visit in large numbers. They believe Mai Sahiba cannot bear the sorrow of a woman and blesses her immediately. She died in 1250 and lies buried in the house where she lived.

Suharwardi order Khwaja Makhdoom Samiuddin’s ‘dargah’, near

Auliya Masjid in Mehrauli In contrast to the Chishti doctrine of staying away from the state, Suharwardis believed it to be a religious duty to advise the state on policy matters. They always played an active role in Delhi politics. The Suharwardi order gained a stronghold in Delhi largely because of Khwaja Samiuddin and Jamali, his poet disciple. A great scholar, Khwaja Samiuddin authored the Sufi manual Mifatah ul Asrar (Key to Divine Secrets). His tomb, which has a lovely green dome, is inscribed with a Persian couplet composed by Jamali. Shaykh Jamali Dehlvi’s ‘dargah’, Mehrauli Archaeological Park Hamid bin Fazalallah Jamali was the favourite khalifa of Khwaja Samiuddin. The mystic poet’s pen

name was Jalal, meaning wrath, but he changed it to Jamali, meaning splendour, as advised by his spiritual mentor. Shaykh Jamali is buried close to Khwaja Samiuddin’s dargah. His mausoleum is decorated with ceramic work; its walls are inscribed with his verses. The dargah remains locked, but the government-appointed caretaker, who has custody of the keys, opens it for visitors.

Qadri order Shah/Shaykh Abdul Haq Muhaddith Dehlvi’s ‘dargah’, Mehrauli The Qadri order in Delhi focused on spreading the teachings of its founder, Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani of Baghdad. He came to the Deccan in the late 14th century and arrived in Delhi in the 16th century, during the rule of Sikandar

Mirza Mazhar Jan e Janan Shaheed’s ‘dargah’, Turkman Gate, Old Delhi Founded in Bukhara in Central Asia, this order is considered the most orthodox. For instance, it doesn’t allow the use of music to achieve spiritual ecstasy. The order came to Delhi through Khwaja Baaqi Billah, whose dargah is near Sadar Bazar in Old Delhi. Born in 1699, the poet-mystic Mirza Mazhar Jan e Janan Shaheed is another major figure in India’s Naqshbandi traditions. From Turkman Gate, two roads lead into the interiors of the old city. A walk down the street by the side of Haj Manzil takes you to Chitli Qabar, a lane lined with shops. Further down, on the right side of the bifurcation, the domes of the mosques in the compound of Mirza Mazhar Jan e Janan’s dargah are visible. A small winding alley leads to the large, quiet compound known as Khanqah e Mazhariya, where four graves lie under a domed enclosure. His descendants presently occupy the house where the poet-mystic lived. Devotees from all over the world come to attend religious gatherings at this important centre of the Naqshbandi Sufi order. On completing his initial education in Agra, Mirza Mazhar became a disciple and khalifa of Syed Nur Muhammad Badayuni, a prominent Naqshbandi Sufi who lived in Delhi. Mirza Mazhar took an important step in representing Hinduism as a monotheistic tradition. The poet successfully bridged the differences between religious orthodoxy and Sufism. Mirza Mazhar is recognized as one of the four pillars of 18th century Urdu poetry. seema.c@livemint.com