Lounge for 4 September, 2010 by HT Media

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

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Saturday, September 4, 2010

Vol. 4 No. 35

LOUNGE THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE

REPORTING

INDIA

BUSINESS LOUNGE WITH NETWORK18’S RAGHAV BAHL >Page 8

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Tennis is familiar with burnouts, talented teenagers succumbing to inconsistencies and injuries. The story repeats at this US Open >Pages 67

‘GIRLS PICK UP WRONG SIZES ALWAYS’

The new foreign correspondents look beyond exotica to negotiate a contemporary narrative for postglobalization India. But they have the task of juggling reportage in a country increasingly conscious of its global image

Kannada actor Diganth Manchale on developing his own style, shopping with girls, and his desire to change looks like Bollywood stars >Page 9

Vanessa Dougnac, South Asia correspondent for the French news magazine Le Point, with her Ambassador.

>Pages 1012

LUXURY CULT

THE GOOD LIFE

RADHA CHADHA

SHOBA NARAYAN

CHINA VS INDIA: OUR HAVE YOU EVER GAMES, THEIR GAMES HUGGED A TREE?

f, by the wave of a magic wand, we had a squeaky clean bunch of people running the Commonwealth Games, would we be able to do a fabulous job? Would we be able to do what Beijing did with the Olympics? As the dirt flies around our Games preparation, this is the question that’s been bothering me. So I am digressing from the world of personal luxury to explore instead what would definitely be a luxury for the nation today: a beautifully organized Commonwealth Games. I was in Beijing a couple of months ago... >Page 4

OUR DAILY BREAD

or a park that’s in the centre of the city, Bangalore’s Cubbon Park is remarkably deserted during the day. The Page 3 people who populate nearby UB City are absent here. Instead, the park is left to pedestrians, plebeians and proletariat, which is exactly as it should be. Unlike Central Park, Hyde Park, Lodhi Gardens or Tokyo’s Shinjuku, Cubbon Park hasn’t been overly gentrified: overtaken by stroller-moms in True Religion jeans, joggers in neon tights, or bare-chested drummers... >Page 4

SAMAR HALARNKAR

EYES WIDE OPEN

A spectacular look at the Yamuna is just one of the highs of India’s largest observation wheel modelled on the London Eye >Page 18

DON’T MISS

in today’s edition of

RESIST TEMPTATION, TEMPORARILY

FILM REVIEW

WE ARE FAMILY

HOME PAGE L3

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

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

LOUNGE LOVES | ULYSSE NARDIN TIMEPIECE

FIRST CUT

PRIYA RAMANI

LOUNGE EDITOR

Mongol masterpiece

PRIYA RAMANI DEPUTY EDITORS

SEEMA CHOWDHRY SANJUKTA SHARMA MINT EDITORIAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

FROM CHURCHGATE TO CHAMPARAN

INDRANIL BHOUMIK/MINT

R. SUKUMAR (EDITOR)

NIRANJAN RAJADHYAKSHA (MANAGING EDITOR)

ANIL PADMANABHAN TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY NABEEL MOHIDEEN MANAS CHAKRAVARTY MONIKA HALAN VENKATESHA BABU SHUCHI BANSAL

SIDIN VADUKUT (MANAGING EDITOR, LIVEMINT)

Bowled over: Kapil Dev’s Eleven does good business in Patna.

FOUNDING EDITOR RAJU NARISETTI

The winner of the first Watch World Awards is a masterwork of horology that rivals Genghis’ treasures

wonder what it means when a south Bombay girl like myself who has never been to Bihar decides she really likes the state’s chief minister Nitish Kumar. That he is her favourite politician. I wonder if it’s even good for Kumar’s career if members of the country’s most politically apathetic constituency start thinking of him positively and publicly declare the same. Some of you cynics might even call it the Bhojpurization of politics. You probably expect us Bombay girls to admire “lookers” such as Rahul Sipahi Gandhi and India’s youngest chief minister Omar Abdullah. Well, I’m not sure I subscribe to leadership that pits rich India against poor India. Or a CM who recently showed that he doesn’t believe in getting his hands dirty. Mumbai is driven by business and many of my city’s most influential industrialists have, in the past couple of years, indicated that Narendra Modi is their favourite politician. POLITICS They enjoy doing business in his state. They believe he’s the only chief minister with a vision. Let’s just say that some of us don’t subscribe to that vision. From a Bombay girl perspective, Bihar was always another, scarier India. It was a place where teenage girls rarely wore jeans to college; jeans were regulation dressing where I was growing up, the tighter the better. Champaran existed in my universe only thanks to director Prakash Jha’s acidic stories brought to life on the big screen. And in Churchgate where I grew up, the best known thing about Bihar was Lalu Prasad’s bovine-centric humour. His party misruled Bihar through my 20s and half of my 30s. Mumbai’s (and the Ivy League colleges’) fascination with Lalu’s cool quotient hit a high during the years when he supposedly turned around the Indian Railways and replaced plastic teacups with traditional kulhads. He made the journey to Harvard but Bihar remained trapped in itself. Five years after Nitish Kumar took over, Bihar still has the lowest literacy rate in the country; it remains one of India’s poorest states. Its recent growth figures

inbox

can be unravelled by any smart economist. The Lok Sabha may have passed the Nalanda University Bill in this session—the official go-ahead to resurrect one of India’s best known ancient universities—but currently, Bihar’s educational institutes wouldn’t make it to the top of any list. Yet, Kumar’s hard work has ensured that we no longer use the dreaded “ungovernable” when we refer to Bihar. Thanks to Kumar, in the eyes of people like me, Bihar is an even bigger rebranding success than Gujarat. After all, the latter has always been one of India’s best performing, most industrialized states. Unlike Lalu Prasad’s Bihar, Kumar’s Bihar is firmly part of New India. Make that Under Construction India. Crime has crashlanded and these days Patna’s policemen sound more efficient than their counterparts in Mumbai. The city even has a night life. Improving access to education is one of Kumar’s priorities. More media space has been dedicated to positive stories about the state than ever before. Of course, this worries Lalu Prasad. The Asian Age newspaper recently quoted him on Kumar: “This matchless chief minister of yours, flattered by the media for his good governance, is a magician like those who can turn pigeons into mice and vice versa. He has been a hypnotizer.” Personally, I’m happy to be hypnotized by any man who believes India should pin its hopes on the girl child. Kumar knows that our future depends on how well we educate and safeguard our girls. His cycle scheme—giving girls in classes IX and X a free cycle or `2,000 to buy one—has driven numbers of schoolgirl enrolments dramatically higher. Currently, Bihar’s cool quotient is higher than Lalu’s ever was. If Kumar wins a second term in November’s assembly election, I know one Churchgate girl who will celebrate noisily. Write to lounge@livemint.com www.livemint.com Priya Ramani blogs at blog.livemint.com/firstcut

lifestyles, almost by definition. Why would they settle for puritanical aberrations? STANLEY PINTO

Write to us at lounge@livemint.com THE COOLEST KHAN PROMOTION NEEDED Apropos “Four centuries in its corners”, 28 August, William Dalrymple’s ‘The Last Mughal’ would not have been so precise if it were not for the National Archives of India and its records of 1857. The government of India should take more interest in promoting this treasure house of history and modernize it to European standards. FEROZE

DRY STATE “Why isn’t Ahmedabad the seat of design?” asks Shoba Narayan (28 August). Narayan has provided the answer as well: Gujarat (ergo, Ahmedabad) is a dry state. Creative people live contemporary

I loved Priya Ramani’s “The last chicken curry hero”, 28 August. I am a movie buff too and she made me realize that I like Salman Khan more now than in the 1980s and 1990s. I think he comes across as a person who speaks from the heart and is not worried about being politically correct. ANA

NO HUMBLE PIE This refers to Pamela Timms’ “To the rescue of the apple pie”, 28 August. I tried it with a little twist—substituted around 75g of ‘maida’ (refined flour) with multigrain flour, and kneaded the dough with the liquid residue left after simmering the apples. I used the same residue to seal the edges, and voila, it turned out superb! Thanks, Pamela. YOSHA

ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPHER: PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

here are watches. Then there are watches. And then there is the Ulysse Nardin Genghis Khan Haute Joaillerie. The Genghis Khan, a goldplated, diamond-encrusted, vintage Rolls-Royce of a watch, won the Watch of the Year award at the recently held Watch World Awards in Delhi. The awards, held for the first time, were curated by Watch World magazine. The Genghis Khan is an odd name to give to such a luxurious timepiece. History tells us that the Khan and his Mongol hordes weren’t really a refined milieu. Didn’t the Mongols carry slabs of raw red meat under their saddles to tenderize them? And then eat the mince raw? Or was it the Tartars? Well, you know the type. This watch, on the other hand, has 148 baguette diamonds covering its bezel and lugs. The dial is made of black onyx, the strap is crocodile, and at the six o’clock position of the watch is a beautiful one-minute tourbillon.

Which in itself is enough to win a watch award. And haute clientele. But inside there is also a minute repeater, a mechanical system of gongs and bells that uses sonorous metals to tell the time at the pull of a little lever. When you pull the lever, the Mongol hordes swing into action. Crafted into the dial are little handcarved jaquemarts, or animated figures. There is a Mongol on horseback with a spear, two sabrewielding soldiers and a musician (even the Mongols had music). Every time the lever is pulled, and the gongs chime the time, the little animated figures move in sympathy. And all this, driven by clockwork. The Genghis Khan packs many watches worth of diamonds and movements into one. It is a visual and mechanical masterpiece. Is it bling? Yes, but in a nice way. The watch is available in three models in white and rose gold, and will cost anywhere upwards of half a million dollars per piece. Only 30 pieces each will be made over the next eight years or so, in each model. At that price, potential buyers of the watch surely have some form of criminal history. Genghis Khan would have approved. Sidin Vadukut

L4 COLUMNS

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

RADHA CHADHA LUXURY CULT

China vs India: our Games, their Games

NATALIE BEHRING/BLOOMBERG

the question that’s been bothering me. So I am digressing from the world of personal luxury to explore instead what would definitely be a luxury for the nation today: a beautifully organized Commonwealth Games. I was in Beijing a couple of months ago and right from landing at the swish Norman Foster-designed airport—built for the Olympics—it had me marvelling about China’s ability to put up spectacular buildings and enormous infrastructure networks with the ease of a child playing with Lego. As I drove to my hotel—on multi-lane, tree-lined, First World highways—the other part of my brain couldn’t help but compare and cringe about our inability to construct competently. Pictures of half-finished, debris-strewn Commonwealth Games sites and the dug out, tangled up roads went through my head. Corruption is the game spoiler in India—that’s the broad tune we have been humming collectively as a nation, as we watch overpriced treadmills and toilet paper turn into mascots of greed gone berserk. But I have been wondering how China, which too has record levels of corruption, manages to host a magnificent Olympic Games, and in the process build iconic structures such as the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. China and India are neck and neck on corruption measures—Transparency International

ranks China at No. 79 and India at No. 84, with a Corruption Perception Index score of 3.6 and 3.4 respectively. Chinese politicians and bureaucrats are up to the same hanky-panky as ours, and evidently to the same shameful extent. Taking corruption out of the running will be a blessing—and a much-needed moral victory—but that in itself won’t deliver a dazzler of a show. China is a winner, despite endemic corruption, because it has three essential enablers that we don’t—it aims higher, it implements faster, and it plays stronger.

Aims higher China has “satellite vision” whereas we tend to have “in the well” vision. China scans the world to see what is “best” and then sets out to better it. Take the high-speed train network that it is putting in place—when it is finished in 2020 it will be the world’s largest, fastest, and most technologically sophisticated. I had a taste of it: I took the train from Beijing to Tianjin (something like Mumbai to Pune)—also built ahead of the Olympics—and sat in wonder as the speed reached 300-plus kmph, zipping through the 117km distance in half an hour flat. What was equally compelling was the ease with which huge numbers of passengers were processed—it felt like an enormous airport, run so efficiently that even without speaking a word of Chinese I had an incredibly smooth

Soaring: Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium is a symbol of the ambitious new China. experience right from buying the ticket in Beijing to getting into a taxi at the other end in Tianjin. The stadiums built for the Olympics are another example of China’s better-than-the-best mindset. The Bird’s Nest isn’t just another stadium—it is a masterpiece on a global scale, utterly modern and unmistakably Chinese at the same time, an instant icon that always makes me smile. The Beijing Water Cube is another stunner. The best architects in the world put in their best effort for the Chinese Olympic structures—Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron won the prestigious Lubetkin award for the Bird’s Nest; Australian firm PTW Architects (for the Water Cube) and Foster and Partners (for the Beijing airport) were finalists for the same award. Contrast this to what we have made for the Commonwealth Games—even if you set aside the implementation snafus, the vision itself is limited, the aim being simply to have something better than what we had before. How can you dazzle when you aim so low?

Implements faster This is probably our greatest pain

point and China’s shining strength. While our Games preparation is in the hopeless scramble phase, the Chinese were so far ahead of schedule with their Olympic preparations that the International Olympic Committee had to urge them to take it easy. “We had to persuade the Chinese to slow down on their schedule,” Kevan Gosper, vice-chairman of the Olympic Coordination Commission, was quoted as saying in October 2006. Despite the slowdown, the Water Cube was delivered and tested with a national event in January 2008, a good six months before the Olympics start date. The Bird’s Nest was inaugurated in June 2008. All 31 games venues were finished in good time, even the polluted skies of Beijing were cleaned up, and the city itself was dressed up like a bride for her wedding.

Plays stronger It is finally about the games, the performance of the players, that’s what gets a nation’s pulse racing. While we struggle to put an occasional athlete on the world map, China has steadfastly built its sporting prowess with remarkable results. At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, China

ranked 11th with 28 medals; four years later at Barcelona it pole-vaulted to No. 4 with 54 medals; at Sydney it was up to No. 3, bagging 58 medals, 28 of them gold; at Athens it advanced to No. 2, 63 medals in its kitty, 32 gold; and then it put on a breathtaking show on home turf: a haul of 51 gold medals, the highest in the Games, although its total medal tally of 100 was behind the US’ 110. China can clearly build more than physical infrastructure. Is China perfect? Not by a long shot—the recent 10-day traffic jam near Beijing is a case in point. It struggles with developmental issues just like us, but by using the “aim higher, implement faster, play stronger” principle, it has managed to get streets ahead. Closer home, the Indian Premier League is a vivid example of the aim-higher-implement-faster-playstronger principle. Was the IPL a spectacular show? Yes. Was it clean? Doesn’t seem so. Exactly my point—killing corruption is necessary, but not sufficient. Faster, higher, stronger—the Olympic motto—that’s what we really need to embrace. And build an India that we can truly be proud of. Radha Chadha is one of Asia’s leading marketing and consumer insight experts. She is the author of the best-selling book The Cult of the Luxury Brand: Inside Asia’s Love Affair with Luxury. Write to Radha at luxurycult@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Radha’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/radhachadha

SHOBA NARAYAN THE GOOD LIFE

At Cubbon Park, under the greenwood trees

HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

proletariat, which is exactly as it should be. Unlike Central Park, Hyde Park, Lodhi Gardens or Tokyo’s Shinjuku, Cubbon Park hasn’t been overly gentrified: overtaken by stroller-moms in True Religion jeans, joggers in neon tights, or bare-chested drummers who jam all evening. Instead, Cubbon Park remains sedate, even somnolent, offering refuge for tired Bangaloreans who want to decompress in anonymity. I visit Cubbon Park three times a week to walk my dog off-leash while my daughter plays tennis. Often, I see the same people. Law clerks from the nearby Attara Kacheri walk across, discussing cases and files. Weary men who look like Arthur Miller’s Willy Loman sit in grey pants and beige shirts under the broad canopy of a fading rain tree, making peace with their thoughts. Furtive lovers lurk in the shadows. Boys speaking Bhojpuri climb trees and chase each other. Burqa-clad women clutch toddlers in shimmering frocks. Two dreadlocked men play frisbee. A British man walks two sleek Weimaraners off-leash. Men urinate under the bamboo bushes. Retirees walk by in eye-popping attire:

monkey cap, bright red tilak or namam, white banian, khakhi shorts, mismatched purple socks and chalk-whitened Bata shoes. A drunk auto driver gives a loud but perfect rendition of Mere naina, sawan bhadon. Humans are a minority in Cubbon Park though. It really belongs to the trees, and boy, are they characters. There is this grandmotherly fig tree with stomach-folds that seems to have compressed itself to spread its canopy to the maximum extent. People sit on benches under it. Geckos breed in its fold. Fur-balled squirrels run spirals before jumping off its trunk. Eagles rest on top. An upstart silk cotton tree arches sideways and upwards like a ballet dancer, surrounded by matronly peepal, gulmohar and banyan trees, all shivering and hovering. You can almost see this young tree navigating and negotiating with these matrons to get its place in the sun. After walking amidst these trees for three months, I did something I have never done. I hugged a Laburnum. This Cassia fistula is a common sight in

Treesome: Hugging them is addictive. Bangalore. One evening, I wrapped my arms around this Cassia for 6 seconds—that’s how long it takes for the beneficial oxytocin hormone to release itself and make you feel good, so if you are hugging your spouse, lover, friend, child, or pet, make sure you hug for 6 seconds at least. So I hugged this tree in Cubbon Park. That was the turning point. Like a drug addict, I wanted more. I googled “Trees of Cubbon Park”, and came across just one worthwhile site that documented the trees, done by S. Karthikeyan, the chief naturalist of JLR, or Jungle Lodges. Called Wildwanderer.com, this site, or

“Karthik’s Journal”, documents the flowering trees of Bangalore. I cold-emailed him and asked if I could walk with him the next time he was in Cubbon Park, which was how I found myself with the Wild Wanderer. “Trees as a group can do amazing things,” says Karthikeyan. “We don’t notice because they operate in a different timeline than we humans do.” When I ask for an example, he asks, “Have you ever seen a fig flower?” I say “No.” “Then how do we get the seed?” He talks about inflorescence and the fig wasp, a co-evolutional relationship for the last 80 million years. Karthikeyan points to an Albizia lebbeck or woman’s tongue tree, so called because the rattling of its pods sounds like women chattering. A proud peepal arches to the sky like a dad giving a lecture to a drooping millingtonia just across. Pink bauhinias are blooming and the sausage tree is shedding thick flowers. A Desi Badam or Terminalia catappa stands, slim and strong, like a teenage girl, preening before guests. Karthikeyan spent 45 minutes identifying trees in Cubbon Park, but the high point was when I asked about a native “Pongam” tree. He held its discoloured leaf and said softly, “Lovely”. Turns out that there were two jumping spiders in the leaves and off he went into an explanation about their mating. The true gift of spending time with a naturalist is not the species that he identifies, although that is a highlight. The true gift is how naturalists quietly transmit their enthusiasm for nature.

Karthikeyan has the kind limpid eyes of a musician who operates in a different dimension. He notices different things than perhaps you and I. He thinks, for instance, that “arachnids are quite amazing”. When I asked him to repeat the sentence in plain English, he said, “You know, most of us take a vacation to experience nature—we go on wildlife safaris and such. Nothing wrong with that. But nature surrounds us every day. Every urban Indian is exposed to bees, bugs and spiders. Why not observe and enjoy them? Why give up those pleasures?” Here is the takeaway: Next time you or your kids see a spider, ladybug, or even a cockroach, try not to squeal. Instead, become still and observe. Oh, and consider hugging a tree. Like a pet who will listen to you sob your broken heart out, without any seeming reaction, these trees will make you feel better. I know this because I was a sceptic converted into a regular tree-hugger. Just like Prem Koshy (of Koshy’s in Bangalore) and others like him. Bangalore, by the way, is full of tree-huggers. It is one of the best things about this city. Shoba Narayan is looking for the book, Forest Trees of South India, by S.G. Neginhal. 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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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

Eat/Drink OUR DAILY BREAD

SAMAR HALARNKAR

The temporary solution to temptation SAMAR HALARNKAR

poppy seeds, 1 tbsp olive oil. In a pan, heat 2 tbsp of olive oil. Fry onions till golden brown. Add ginger-garlic and fry for 1 minute. Add red chilli and turmeric powder. If dry, sprinkle water and sauté for a minute. Add the paste and tomatoes, and simmer for 5 minutes till the tomatoes start to disintegrate. Add 1 large cup of water (or more if needed) and stir well. Reduce heat to minimum and when the curry starts bubbling, place fish fillets. Cover and shake gently so all pieces are covered. Fish should be cooked within 10 minutes.

A quick, easy feast isn’t always the healthiest. Sometimes, leftovers make you lighter and brighter

uick and easy, you know you want us,” they leered. “Get lost you sluts,” I yelled and slammed the door on them. I’m not losing my mind. It did happen. And before you express outrage, let me hastily clarify that there were no women involved in the story behind this column. There were some loose morals at work though. I ate much red meat the past week, courtesy my friends, who make a lot of it but don’t really eat it for various health reasons. It follows that I end up eating a lot of meat. Since I love tucking into those goats and lambs, I am not complaining. I also ate a lot of coconut milk-heavy fish curries, courtesy the same friends who like the 10-minute interpretation of my grandmother’s old recipe. Since my birthday was last week, Old Monk and cognac accompanied these lavish meals. You see, I had to test drive some swish new glasses. It follows that I have not had

a healthy week. As these celebrations wound down, I was a little tired of cooking—of eating, less so, but I did feel the need for some light food. Wearily, I surveyed my fridge for inspiration: just odds and ends, and bits and pieces. I cleaned out the vegetable tray and searched the freezer. This is what I found: two cups of pressure-cooked chickpeas; some leftover red rice; a red pepper. In the freezer, a kilo of sole fillets, surplus from previous dinners. This was most promising. The shock came as I rummaged through my larder for spices and condiments to create this healthy leftover meal for the wife and myself. Two cans of coconut milk grinned at me. It’s they who leered and invited me to use them, offering that quick and easy time I told you about at the start of this column. I am happy to report I am made of sterner stuff than I thought. After slamming the door, I started off on the longer, more difficult way to putting together a fish curry. I got some inspiration from a

Go fish: Replace coconut with poppy seed paste for a healthy curry. recipe from Pushpesh Pant, one of India’s culinary godfathers, but as is usual with my cooking, it soon degenerated into a free-for-all with whatever was at hand. I always find using whatever’s at hand much easier when it comes to vegetarian cooking—at least for my wife, who treasures freshness and a light touch. So a cup or two of ready chickpeas is always hanging around in our fridge for easy days. Pair it with rice, chopped onions, tomatoes and whatever else is hiding in your larder. You will find it’s quite easy to resist the temptation of—temporarily—forbidden ingredients.

Fish with coriander and poppy seed Serves 5 Ingredients 1kg fish fillets (I used sole), or slices with bones 3 onions, sliced 3 tomatoes, finely chopped 5 large garlic pods, crushed 2 tsp ginger paste OR 4 tsp ginger-garlic paste (instead of garlic and ginger) 1 tsp red chilli powder 1 tsp turmeric powder Salt to taste Method Grind to a paste: 6 dried red chillies, 2 tsp coriander seeds, 2 tbsp tamarind extract, 1 tsp

Eat your heart out Get ready for a food marathon as Restaurant Week comes to Mumbai B Y R ACHANA N AKRA rachana.n@livemint.com

································· or Azeem Zainulbhai, director of Desi Restaurant Week Events Pvt. Ltd, it was a party every day during the week he was in New York three years ago. His visit coincided with Restaurant Week New York and in seven days he went out seven times for a meal to some of the most popular restaurants in the city. “That’s the kind of excitement we want in Mumbai. We are creating an excuse for people to go out and eat at places they wouldn’t regularly go to,” he says. He is referring to the Restaurant Week in Mumbai that starts on Monday. Last year was an exciting time for foodies in the city, with some new, experimental restaurants. Some internationally acclaimed names have entered the dining scene. Vineet Bhatia of Ziya and Ian Kittichai of Koh now have their outposts here and the buzz is Hakkasan of London and Megu of New York are going to open too. The cherry on top will be the Restaurant Week. The concept began in New York in 1992 as a celebration of food. For a week, participating restaurants offer a fixed three-course meal at a fraction of the cost of their regular menu. Usually, the

restaurants on the list are of the aspirational variety. In other words, places which most people would visit only on special occasions. Other cities around the world took to the concept too. And Zainulbhai, who started his company with three friends, is now bringing it to Mumbai. The number of participating restaurants in Mumbai has been limited to seven in the first year. But the list has some of the most well-known: Indigo, Tote, Botticino at The Oberoi in the Bandra Kurla Complex, India Jones at Trident, Koh at InterContinental Marine Drive, Stella at The Leela and San-Qi at Four Seasons. The menu options at San-Qi include dishes such as stir-fried prawns, green sprouts, chilli ginger, traditional spicy Thai herb, chicken minced salad, slow braised lamb nukti, cardamom, rose petals, dal makhni, chocolate fondant and hazelnut ice cream. This entire meal ordered a la carte would cost Cheque please: Ordered a la carte, this spread at India Jones would cost about `5,000.

about `2,800 plus taxes. But for the coming week, it will be available with accompaniments such as roti and rice at `1,000 (taxes extra), the price being charged for the fixed menus at all restaurants. But the dining experience, they promise, will not be downsized. For the pan-Asian restaurant India Jones at Trident, it was a chance to get more visitors during lunch hours that sealed the deal. “This will help us increase awareness for our restaurant,” says Nishant Agarwal, F&B manager, who has planned a menu with extensive choice. For places such as Indigo and Tote, it’s an opportunity to get in diners “who are intimidated by fine-dining restaurants”. Rahul Akerkar, whose company owns the two restaurants, has picked dishes that could be a representative meal there. “Of course, it can’t be the best of what we can offer, because of the price constraints,” he says. Farzana Contractor, editor, UpperCrust magazine, is excited. “What can be better than this for genuine foodies? Eating out three times a week is de rigueur for the people of Mumbai anyway,” she says. While menus at some restaurants seem restrained and predictable, for Koh it’s an opportunity to showcase what it has to offer since it opened only last month. So Romil Ratra, general manager of InterContinental Marine Drive, is presenting a tasting menu with three appetizers, five mains and a dessert sampler. If eating out at seven places in one week is not an option for you, choose your restaurants wisely. Pick the ones offering the best menu choices or visit places you haven’t yet. Make your bookings soon.

ABHIJIT BHATLEKAR/MINT

To make reservations, log on to www.restaurantweekindia.com

Quick fried fish Serves 1-2 I had six pieces that wouldn’t fit into the curry. So, I quickly dumped them in a steel bowl, added 1 tsp of red chilli powder, K tsp of turmeric, juice of 1 lime, 1 tsp of garam masala, salt and mixed it all up. Later, I shallow-fried the fish. An old favourite in many homes, I’m sure.

Red rice with chickpeas Serves 2-3 Ingredients 3-4 cups cooked red rice (remember, these were leftovers; you can use any rice) 2 cups of chickpeas 1 onion, finely sliced 1 tomato, chopped

2-3 tbsp mint leaves 2 tsp garam masala 1-2 tsp ginger-garlic paste (depends on the quantity of rice, reduce if less) 1 cup milk Salt Method Fry the onion in 1 tbsp of olive oil until golden brown. Add ginger-garlic paste and sauté. Add mint leaves and tomato and fry for 2 minutes. Add 1 tsp of garam masala and stir well, sprinkle water if needed. Add chickpeas and coat well. In a baking dish, lay down a layer of rice. Then add a layer of chickpea mix; top up with more rice. Sprinkle milk all over, seal with a foil and bake for 15 minutes in oven preheated to 180 degrees Celsius. Uncover, sprinkle another teaspoon of garam masala and mix. Garnish with coriander and serve. This is a column on easy, inventive cooking from a male perspective. Samar Halarnkar writes a blog, Our Daily Bread, at Htblogs.com. He is editor-at-large, Hindustan Times. Write to Samar at ourdailybread@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Samar’s previous columns at www.livemint.com/ourdailybread

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

Play QUINN ROONEY/GETTY IMAGES

SPORT

Where are they now? Tennis is familiar with burnouts, talented teenagers succumbing to inconsistencies and injuries. The story repeats at this US Open

KATHY WILLENS/AP

B Y M ATTHEW F UTTERMAN & D AVID B IDERMAN ···························· t the US Open last year, a 17-year-old girl from Georgia took the city by storm. A Belgian mother improbably won the women’s singles championship after a two-year “retirement”. A 20-year-old Argentine became the first player other than Rafael Nadal to beat Roger Federer in a Grand Slam final. The tournament looked to be one of those turning points in the game, with new, or renewed, stars emerging and older ones moving on. But this time around, several of the biggest breakout stars of the last Open are nowhere to be found. Some, sidelined by injury, will be sitting out this Open. Others simply haven’t lived up to the promise of last year. They have turned in decent performances in smaller tournaments, but in the year’s first three Grand Slams, they haven’t approached what they showed they were capable of last summer in New York.

There is ample historic precedent for flameout in a game dominated by teenagers and early 20-somethings whose mental and physical strengths aren’t always in sync. Psychological burnouts are commonplace for players who have done little else but beat balls for 6 hours a day since they turned 10. Starting in their late teens, they travel the world, largely isolated, on a professional tour that lasts from New Year’s until Thanksgiving. In addition, few individual sports exact more wear and tear on the body, leaving countless players hobbling with sore knees, stiff backs and arthritic hips long before their 30th birthdays. Often compared with golf, tennis at the highest level has far more in common with boxing, with two competitors trying to beat each other mercilessly into submission. It’s no wonder the game has produced its share of crashes and burns. “You never know how a particular player is going to react after they have success,” says Jim Curley, tournament director for the

ACES IN THE HOLE Nadal can’t stay on top forever. The men who might one day challenge him

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JOHN SOMMERS II/REUTERS

rofessional tennis favours domination. Pete Sampras spent 286 weeks atop the world rankings. Roger Federer has spent 285 weeks in that spot. Now, assuming Rafael Nadal’s knees stay healthy, it’s the Spaniard’s time. But who will be the one to unseat Nadal one day? Don’t count Federer out yet—at 29, he may have a few more years to challenge Nadal. Still, tennis actuarial tables suggest it won’t be much more time than that, and so the responsibility will likely fall to a contemporary of Nadal, who is 24. No clear favourite has emerged, and each candidate has his weaknesses. But a field of contenders is beginning to emerge.

Novak Djokovic He’s definitely the biggest tennis star on YouTube, where his imitations of the on-court antics of other professionals are a hit with fans, if not his tour mates. Analysts say the third-ranked, KEVIN C COX/GETTY IMAGES/AFP

Down and out: Defending champion Juan Martin del Potro is out with a wrist injury; (top, left) Melanie Oudin, last summer’s Next Big Thing, has had a middling year.

Top contenders: (from left) Djokovic; Berdych; Murray; and (far left) Nadal. 23-year-old Serbian also has the best all-around game among the top players, and he is the only member of the top five other than Federer and Nadal to win a Grand Slam, the Australian Open in 2008. But as the long-time coach Nick Bollettieri points out, Djokovic lacks that one indomitable weapon, such as a booming serve or a blistering forehand, and at 6ft 2 inches, he isn’t the frightening physical foe that some young emerging giants are.

his serve appear to be coming straight down at opponents, and analysts say he is now showing surprising agility for someone his size. He’s also won titles on every surface. But Berdych, ranked No. 7, still loses matches he should be winning. At the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Washington last month, where Berdych was the top seed, he fell in the quarter-finals to Belgian Xavier Malisse, ranked 49th in the world.

Tomáš Berdych

The 23-year-old Scot carries the hopes of Great Britain on his shoulders. Last year, his world ranking rose as high as second; he’s now No. 4. Admirers rave

A Wimbledon finalist, Berdych, 24 years old, is having a breakthrough season. His height, 6ft 5 inches, makes

Andy Murray

about the spins and angles he plays. Detractors say he’s basically a defensive-minded pusher who can’t put away the most powerful players. He’s made just two Grand Slam singles finals. Cliff Drysdale, the long-time ESPN analyst, says Murray can’t be considered in the top class, but he is definitely in a second group that might struggle to beat Federer and Nadal back-to-back but with a favourable draw can win a Slam.

Gaël Monfils The 23-year-old Frenchman, ranked No. 19, is the most stunning athletic specimen in the game. He’s 6ft 4 inches, with a seemingly endless wingspan and the shoulders of an NBA small forward. As a junior, he won the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon in 2004. As a professional, he has struggled with consistency. He’s 17th on the ATP Tour this season in aces but just 37th in his percentage of points won on first serve. His return game is also weak. He ranks 26th in his percentage of points won on his opponents’ first serve and 41st on their second serves. Matthew Futterman

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Please save us from all the neon From fluorescent greens to electric blues— this year’s Open is quite an eyeful B Y J ASON G AY The Wall Street Journal

························································ an’t take it any more. Can’t look, actually. Can’t take blinding bright neon shirts, neon sneakers, neon laces, neon rackets, neon handbags, neon wristbands, neon socks, neon tacos, neon cocktails, neon Pomeranians, and the neon Dick Enberg CBS plans to break out for this year’s US Open. It’s neonandonandon. The Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens feels like a rave with Audis in the parking lot. All that’s missing are the Chemical Brothers, the Cat in the Hat hats and a pacifier/lightstick stand. The Godfather of Tennis Neon, of course, is Rafael Nadal, the lustrous, preposterously talented world No. 1 from Spain. Nadal thankfully appears to have abandoned the Capri pants of his youth, but on Tuesday night for his Open debut, he unveiled a Nike techno black-with-neon-highlights number that made him look like a frogman on Karl Lagerfeld’s yacht. His jersey was relatively restrained, but the sneakers seemed ready to land jets at LaGuardia. Nadal’s opponent, Teymuraz Gabashvili, left the court with a 7-6, 7-6, 6-3 loss and temporary retinal damage. Look: Despite the watchful presence of Anna Wintour, JOHN G MABANGLO/EPA fashion emergencies happen at the Open. New York’s Grand Slam has traditionally been a sartorial outlier. This isn’t the uptight All England Club—we want fun. Want to dress like Andy Warhol or Andy Dick? Great. An Audrey Hepburn little black dress? Of course. Desperate to go sleeveless—an awful look that’s never worked on anyone, from Def Leppard to Chippendales dancers to Johnny Drama? It’s a free town—no one’s going to stop you. Even if they should. But neon is a hue too far. We get it: It’s supposed to be ironically hip. The trouble is, it’s been ironically hip for a while. There were Blinding: Nadia Petrova of Russia. earnest neon hiccups in the 1970s (black light posters of pumas drinking herbal tea with the Mad Hatter and Bob Marley, among other things), the 1980s (Max Headroom) and a full, pasty-bodied neon revival in the 1990s with the techno invasion. The current, super-kitschy neon revival has been kicking around for almost half a decade, popping up in Kanye West videos, Marc Jacobs shows, and that completely terrifying Ke$ha performance on SNL (Saturday Night Live). It’s not that neon has no place in fashion. It’s a perfectly acceptable colour for highway repair, emergency lifeboats, plastic surgeon Lamborghinis and walking grandma through Penn Station. Bicyclists may wear neon while riding on busy streets. Lady Gaga can wear it to bed, church, and the New York Yacht Club. Neon’s fine on tennis balls. Neon tennis clothing, however, just feels like something that geezery adults (like us) have suddenly decided is cool and are anxious to make happen again. It recalls Poochie, the sunglasses-wearing, skateboarding dog The Simpsons once used as an example of youth marketing gone amok. And you know what? It will probably work. But Nadal is one of the greatest players of his generation, who has won many Grand Slams and may win his first-ever US Open this time. When he looks at that fading photo of himself raising that magnificent silver trophy in the New York City night, does he really want to ask, “Why didn’t anybody say anything?”

FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

ALASTAIR GRANT/AP

Fleeting form: (clockwise from left) Jaeger’s promising career ended at age 19; defending champion Clijsters admits to struggling with form; Krajicek won his lone Grand Slam in 1996, beating Sampras; and Serena Williams is out with a foot injury. US Open. For any tennis fan over 40, the image of the teenage Andrea Jaeger nearly dissolving in tears as her father glared from the stands during her US Open losses in the early 1980s is indelible. Then a shoulder injury ended her career at 19. In 2006, she became an Anglican Dominican nun, but left the order last year. But Jaeger, or rather, Sister Andrea, is only the most dramatic of the examples. Remember Richard Krajicek? In 1996, at age 24, he became the first Dutch player to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon, beating No. 1 seed Pete Sampras. It was Sampras’ only singles loss at Wimbledon between 1993 and 2000. But Krajicek never won another Grand Slam tournament. In his next and final 18 major tournament appearances, he reached only one semi-final. Then there’s Jelena Dokic. She beat No. 1 seed Martina Hingis in the first round at Wimbledon in 1999, following Hingis’ win at the Australian Open that year. She was briefly hailed as the Next Big Thing—until losing in the quarter-finals. In her next 28 major tournaments, she’s made it to the semi-finals only once. Dokic, who’s currently ranked 82nd in the world, lost in straight sets last week in a US

Open qualifying match. Mark Edmondson is a legendary one-hit wonder. He was 21 years old and ranked 212th in the world before entering the 1976 Australian Open. He swept through the tournament, knocking off the defending champion in the title match. In his next 11 years on the tour, he played in 36 more major tournaments without ever playing for a championship. The US Open has produced plenty of its own flashes who looked to be on the verge of something big but actually weren’t. At 19, Jimmy Arias was an undersized baseliner with a huge looping top-spin forehand that took him to the tournament’s semi-finals in 1983. He won his next tournament but won only two more during the next 15 years and won just five more

The biggest disappointment has been defending champion Juan Martin del Potro

matches in his next eight US Open appearances. In 1990, Alexander Volkov, a 23-year-old Russian, pulled off one of the great upsets of the Open era, knocking off top-seeded Stefan Edberg in the first round. He then proceeded to lose his next match in straight sets, never won a Grand Slam and won just four other events throughout the rest of his career. Julie Coin probably knows how Volkov feels. At 25, she knocked off the top-ranked Ana Ivanovic in the second round of the 2008 US Open, then lost her next match and hasn’t made it past the second round the next seven major tournaments she’s played. Currently ranked 112th in the world, she’ll be an underdog in the first round of the Open this year. Andy Roddick, who won the US Open in 2003, may be the Open’s biggest tale of heartbreak. Since then, he’s tried—and failed—26 times to win another major tournament. As for last year’s big success stories, Kim Clijsters, the surprise women’s champion who appeared poised to reclaim the No. 1 ranking, has produced thrilling wins and surprising losses since that victory. She won just one of 13 games in a stunning third-round loss at the Australian Open, missed the French with a

foot injury, then fell in the quarters at Wimbledon in three sets to Russian Vera Zvonareva. “My main challenge is inconsistency, and I’m working on that,” Clijsters said after a win in Cincinnati last month, an event she won in a three-set final against Maria Sharapova. She’s currently ranked third in the world and earned a two-seed in the Open draw. Georgia’s Melanie Oudin, now 18 years old, gutted her way to the quarters last year, playing with a freakish calm in three, three-set duels. Ranked 44th in the world, she remains the top American woman not named Williams, but she has won just a single Grand Slam match this year. The biggest disappointment has been defending champion Juan Martin del Potro, who turned in several lethargic outings after his breakthrough win in last September’s final. He fell in the fourth round in Australia, then missed Roland Garros and Wimbledon with an injured wrist that was surgically repaired in May. He just started hitting balls again at the beginning of last month and announced last week that he won’t defend his title. Not to be forgotten is the Japanese line judge who called the most famous foot-fault in history, sending Serena Williams into a rage that cost her the semifinal and $82,500 (around `38.6 lakh) in fines. Shino Tsurubuchi has hardly disappeared the way controversial officials often do, however. She has worked numerous top events this year and a United States Tennis Association (USTA) spokesman says she’ll be back in her line-judge role for this year’s Open. Write to wsj@livemint.com

Write to wsj@livemint.com PTI

Neon dash: Mahesh Bhupathi (right) and Max Mirnyi at the US Open on Wednesday.

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

Business Lounge RAGHAV BAHL

Top of the amazing TV race After a twoyear lull, the man who launched iconic TV shows in the 1990s and struck it big in the 2000s is ready for more adventure

B Y V EENA V ENUGOPAL veena.v@livemint.com

···························· am early for my meeting with Raghav Bahl, founder and editor of Network18. The three television sets at the reception of the company’s office in Noida are tuned to three different news channels—all owned by Bahl—and I get a mild headache watching the hyper-dynamic images and primary colours. Which is why when I walk up to Bahl’s corner office on the first floor, I am stunned to see that the wall he faces has a dozen television sets, all tuned to different channels, and though his eyes constantly flicker over my head to the wall, he doesn’t seem to be discomfited by them. There is, of course, no such thing as too much TV in Bahl’s world. With 11 channels, 13 websites, 18 magazines and gross revenue of `3,000 crore, Bahl’s Network18 is now “standing abreast” (his words) with the big boys of Indian media. In the course of the 90 minutes that I spend with him, I get the feeling that though his media empire was built on a set of propitious circumstances and some very adventurous decisions, Bahl, 49, is probably mildly surprised at how quickly it has all happened. “I was always interested in television and even though I started working with AF Ferguson as a consultant after my MBA, I continued to make small news-based programmes for Doordarshan. Then in 1991, when cable TV came to India, we thought this was a great opportunity,” Bahl says. He invested all the money he had, `50,000, and made the pilots for two shows. One, a business show titled India Business Report, and the other, a current affairs show called The India Show. India Business Report was picked up by BBC World and telecast over six years across the world and the The India Show became the iconic Amul India Show on Star. That set the ball rolling. “Then when Zee was launching, I got on a plane and met them—they were a two-desk organization then—and we started making content for them.

Then Sony came along and the same thing happened,” he says. The real game changer, however, happened towards the end of the decade. TV18, as the company was called then, decided to tie up with CNBC and start a business news channel. It was a giant leap from being a content provider to a broadcaster. “Business news in India was a huge opportunity. And with our

experience of India Business Report, I knew that we had several advantages,” he says. Then the government changed the regulation and insisted that any news broadcaster uplinking from India could only have foreign ownership of up to 26%. CNBC had 51% and it had no interest in trimming down to 26%. So it asked TV18 if they would like to buy them out. “During the market frenzy of late 1999, we said let’s do an IPO. That’s the first time we got lucky. We raised close to `70 crore as capital. So

when the regulation changed and CNBC decided to sell, we had the capital to buy them out,” he says. Bahl talks much like he does on TV. He has an intense gaze and his answers are quick, yet comprehensive, chronological and constructed in visual, graphic words—“the markets were on fire”, “we were on song”, “strong doses of profitability”. And he is such an excellent conversationalist that he tends to ask questions and answer them himself, all rather animatedly. “Are we saying that TV news creates excesses? Of course it does. Do our channels also sometimes create excesses? Of course they do!” CNBC TV18 became successful and Bahl and his team focused solely on that until 2005. Then they thought they should try and play with the big boys. Aaj Tak was the leader in Hindi news and NDTV 24x7 had the English news monopoly. “So we thought this was a good time to scale up, let’s go for broke. We did a lot of things in very rapid succession; we

IN PARENTHESIS Raghav Bahl names his five favourite TV anchors: 1. Barkha Dutt does a fantastic job of ‘We the People’ 2. I also always like Rajdeep Sardesai’s signature shows—‘The Big Fight’ when he was in NDTV and now ‘India at 9’ on CNNIBN. I find them intelligently made 3. Karan Thapar’s ‘Devil’s Advocate’. He has a unique style of anchoring 4. Udayan Mukherjee’s market analysis I find extremely strong—he is not high on atmospherics, doesn’t crack jokes or any of that, but his content is strong 5. I know there are sharp reactions to Arnab Goswami on Times Now, but there is something to be said for that energy. His energy is quite infectious on air and in right contrast to that is Prannoy (Roy)—who is so consummate and easy, I have never seen him get angry or allow himself an excess on air. Allow me six!

Multimedia man: Bahl believes his investments in the online space will bear fruit now. ‘What cellular did in 2000, DTH did in 2005, broad band will do in 2011,’ he says.

launched the Hindi CNBC Awaaz, then we met up with Rajdeep Sardesai and Sameer Manchanda and launched CNN-IBN. In 2006, we acquired Channel 7 and made that our Hindi language service,” he says. The company also started investing heavily on the Web and when the opportunity came to partner Viacom and launch the entertainment channel Colors, they grabbed it. “Those were the days of taking big debts—markets were wild, we were successful and everything we touched was turning into gold,” he says. The acquisition spree continued and Network18 stumbled into magazine publisher Infomedia and bought that too. “We all made mistakes,” he laughs, “Tatas bought Corus and Jaguar and we bought Infomedia!” Then suddenly in 2008 the party ended, abruptly. “Risk” became a bad word and no one was willing to lend. Loaded with debts from all its new partnerships and acquisitions, Network18 hit crisis point. “For us, 2008 was a tough year. Our problem was that we were victims of our own success. All our channels were successful. If they weren’t doing well, it would have been an easy decision to walk out. We could have sold them or shut them down. So we borrowed. I was leveraged. We had to bor r ow to keep the ship going,” he says. When the markets turned in 2009, Bahl and his team quickly got in the game and raised some `1,200 crore of equity, using the money to reduce debt load. “The fact that we went through that valley of death and came out alive is the reason why we are where we are. Because of the crisis, we are now in a place where we are ready to change gears and take Network18 into its next phase,” he says. Crises by definition have long tails. “There is a point when you know the worst is over but you have to give time before the world settles down and you can afford to be adventurous again,” he says. Bahl used that time to write his debut book—Super Power? The Amazing Race between China’s Hare and India’s Tortoise. “I am quite illiterate about literature, I don’t read fiction. So my book had to be about current affairs. China was fascinating but I didn’t know much beyond the headlines. India I knew well—it was a story I had reported on since 1991. As I went deeper, I realized there was a fascinating interplay between these two countries. So I thought I have this one year and let me see if I can tell a story,” he says. He is busy promoting the book now and has no plans to write another in the immediate future. Now that the crisis is well and truly over, his focus is on squeezing profitability from all the investments. Though Network18 grew an average of 100% every year from 2005 to 2010, it has not been profitable during the time. “Now we not only have successful brands, we have a deleveraged balance sheet and we have cash. We are in the pink of health. The next two years can be a true bend in the river or true take-off for us. People who think we have bitten off more than we can chew should watch us closely now,” he says, eyes firmly on the multiple TV screens on the wall. www.livemint.com

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

Style OUT OF THE CLOSET | DIGANTH MANCHALE

‘Girls pick up wrong sizes always’ PHOTOGRAPHS

The Kannada actor on developing his own style, shopping with girls, and his desire to change looks like Bollywood stars

B Y P AVITRA J AYARAMAN pavitra.j@livemint.com

···························· e is too humble to claim it, but the title for the best-dressed, most stylish actor of the Kannada film industry has to go to Diganth Manchale. His career has been on a steady rise for the past four years after films such as Mungaru Male and Manasaare. His latest film Pancharangi, directed by the industry’s most successful director, Yograj Bhat, released on Friday. Manchale’s sense of style has got him as much attention as his acting skills. After meeting him, we discovered that his seemingly casual style is not accidental, but has been worked to perfection. Edited excerpts from an interview:

How did your sense of style evolve? I started my career with a Kannada film in which I wore what I was told to. I come from Thirthahalli, a village in Shimoga district in Karnataka, and my understanding of clothes was limited. Looking back, I must say I dressed very badly. But right after the movie I started modelling. My first assignment was for Madura Garments, I wore Allen Solly and Louis Philippe suits with basic and neat cuts, for print advertisements. The colours also were neutral and I loved the way I looked. That was the beginning. After that I began to model for designers like Rocky S., Wendell Rodricks and Rajesh Pratap Singh. Just being surrounded by people like that changed my

perspective. I picked up the concept of fit and how I should carry myself. I remember that someone I met on the shoot of my first movie met me three years later and was astounded by how I had changed. I’d define my style as casual—I am a jeans and T-shirt sort of guy. That does not mean I don’t enjoy wearing formals, just that my roles or the kind of places I am seen at don’t really demand formal wear too often. What was the transformation like? Six years ago, there were these boot-cut jeans that looked horrid on men, and I used to turn up for screenings wearing those! I have slowly realized what fashion is all about. So it was just through observation that you developed a sense of fashion? A lot of serious observation. I figured quickly that slim fits suit me. Even now before going for a shoot, especially photo shoots, I take references from international fashion magazines and shows. When not shooting, I watch fashion shows on television and have never missed the Bangalore Fashion Week. I like to know what’s in and what’s not. For me, that is a part of my job. People look closely at what I wear. Do you then change your everyday style according to the film you are working on at the time? The Kannada film industry hasn’t come to a stage, or rather there hasn’t been a role that has required me to change my look entirely the way Aamir Khan or Hrithik (Roshan) do. I wish I had those opportunities too. I think half the character is portrayed in just the way the person looks. What do you usually wear to parties? At a party for youngsters, I’d wear jeans, T-shirt and canvas shoes. But for a party with socialites, I’d dress it up with a suit maybe. Often, what I do is I wear a smart jacket over my jeans and T-shirt. Do you reinvent your style often? It’s time for me to get a makeover now (laughs). People have seen me like this forever. Do you shop with the designer

Red alert Let your feet do the talking and make it loud

for a shoot? Often, I have used my own clothes for shoots. I am very specific about the fit. Some films that have the budget have dedicated designers and I often go shopping with them and sit down to discuss what I should be wearing. What is your shopping style? I am not an easy shopper. I don’t blindly pick off the rack. It has to look good on me. I’d take a girl shopping rather than a guy friend. Girls have a sense of aesthetics. They can see the outfit on me. But gifts for men, I think boys should buy. From experience I can say that girls pick up the wrong sizes always. And where do you shop? When it comes to denims, I buy brands such as Diesel, or Jack & Jones because they have slim fits that suit me. I haven’t reached a point where I can afford very big designers or brands. I know someone who exports clothes to the biggest brands, so I just go to his warehouse and pick up tees from there. But from the Indian designers I’d like to pick up clothes from Rocky S. Your shoes seem to be a favourite with fans. I like shoes that are casual. Often they are just canvas shoes from brands such as Zara or Lacoste or even a pair of Converse that are ankle-high. I fold up narrow-fit jeans to show the entire shoe. I wouldn’t go for bright colours or graphics on my shoes.

A CHOWDHURY/MINT

Close fit: (clockwise from left) A jacket over his Tshirt gets Manchale ready for a big Page 3 event; Manchale dresses casually in Tshirt and jeans when he is at a film shoot; and he enjoys stocking up on watches and belts.

ACCESSORIES

t Canali: Calfskin moccasins, at UB City, Bangalore; JW Marriott, Juhu, Mumbai; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `24,000 onwards.

IMAGES BY

HEMANT MISHRA/MINT

t Paul and Shark: Red suede and leather shoes, at DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `24,990.

B Y R ACHANA N AKRA rachana.n@livemint.com

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q Adidas Originals: Red sneakers for men, at all Adidas Originals stores, `3,599. u Paul Smith: Red patent leather high top sneakers, available on order at The Collection mall, UB City, Bangalore; and DLF Emporio mall, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, `19,000.

p Puma: Lift Racer workout shoes for men, at all Puma stores, `3,799.

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······························· merican journalist Jeremy Kahn pegs the deference he gets as a foreigner in India, especially as a foreigner with white s k i n , a s “i nte r e st i ng ”—a g r e at advantage at times and sometimes highly disconcerting. Kahn has been Newsweek’s India correspondent since October 2007, and he comes to India with reporting experience in the UK, Western Europe, Venezuela, Ivory Coast and Iraq. But these were relatively shortterm assignments and India is the first place he’s lived full-time as a foreign correspondent. “I didn’t really call those places home the way I’ve called India home for the past three years,” says Kahn. Social concessions aside, there is the professional privilege of being a foreign correspondent in India. A stint here is a bright spot on the resume. The cost of living is low and one can use India as a base for covering South Asia. Over the last two years, the global recession and its impact on the media houses of the West has sent clusters of journalists, especially freelancers, to India where the journalism industry

continues to expand. Membership records of the New Delhi-based Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) reflect this. Its membership was close to 200 in 2008; it was 240 in 2009; and it is upwards of 300 today. These numbers are only a percentage of the total number of foreign correspondents, not all of whom are based in the Capital, and not all of whom are members of the club. This influx—largely of American, British, Chinese, Japanese and French—is skewed towards the visual media, with television journalists and photographers now assuming the majority. The New York-based South Asian Journalists Association (Saja) has been helping foreign correspondents and freelancers heading to South Asia for 16 years now. “But it’s only in the last few years that there’s been a real upswing in the number of new folks headed that way. Everything from fulltime correspondents to stringers to journalism students going on internships,” says its co-founder Sree Sreenivasan. Noticing an increase in outflow in May 2008, Saja even set up a tips forum on Sajaforum.org to serve journalists headed to the region. On The New York Times (NYT) website, “India” is almost always in the top 10 searched terms. “It is often at No. 2 or 3 in fact,” says Lydia Polgreen, one of the three journalists from NYT to move to India in 2009. Polgreen was the West Africa bureau chief for NYT before her India posting. In a webcast with Saja just before her move, she spoke of how she’d been thinking of moving here midway through her Senegal posting. “Foreign correspondent postings are always competitive. And India is a much coveted assignment,” she said, pointing out that a posting in the New Delhi bureau had been an important stepping stone for previous NYT veterans such as A.M. Rosenthal and Barbara Crossette.

paid position with the news magazine. “There’s no way I could have landed something like this in London,” he says, fittingly pleased, sipping champagne at a midday press conference at The Imperial in New Delhi. Foy is still figuring out his beat but it’s been good so far: He’s already had a dinner meeting with officials of the Japanese foreign ministry, is filing copy to the wire and getting to grips with the Indian political scene. The first full-time foreign correspondent to India was 22-year-old Henry Collins of Reuters, who arrived shortly after the telegraph lines between Europe and India were set up in 1865. His dispatches were limited to 77 words a day. A book of essays called Foreign Correspondent: Fifty Years of Reporting South Asia, compiled by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (Penguin India, 2008), chronicles how significant numbers of foreign correspondents only began to come to India after 1947. Business papers such as the Financial Times and The Wall Street

Historical dispatches Twenty-two-year-old Henry James Foy joined the Reuters bureau in New Delhi a little more than a month ago. He first came to India as a backpacker in 2006, when he walked into the Businessworld office and ended up spending his year off after high school with a

MEDIA

REPORTING

INDIA The new foreign correspondents look beyond exotica to negotiate a contemporary narrative for postglobalization India. But they have the task of juggling reportage in a country increasingly conscious of its global image

Journal opened bureaus in the 1980s, and foreign photographers began to be based here around the same time. In the anthology’s introduction, the editors—foreign correspondents themselves—write of how they have the “awesome task of covering a ‘beat’ that includes nearly a quarter of the world’s population…and as V.S. Naipaul put it, ‘a million mutinies’”. Foy is here chasing the belief that India offers the best opportunities for young journalists to learn the ropes. Though he is at one end of the spectrum, he is emblematic of a new battery of foreign correspondents who’re ready for the new India stories. Unlike the celebrity journalists of the past—BBC’s Mark Tully or Der Spiegel’s Tiziano Terzani—who stayed for years to become regional storytellers, Foy belongs to a breed

that is here to document the growth story of the decade. In terms of foreign correspondent currency, Kahn suggests that India is to the noughties what Kenya was to the 1990s. “Brazil is the ‘other’ country of the moment but a knowledge of Portugese is essential to report from Rio,” he says. Though language is not as big a hurdle for foreign correspondents here, reporting India doesn’t come without its own challenges. “It lies in trying to explain to American editors what a diverse county India is and how full of contradiction,” says Kahn, adding, “They tend to either think of India in terms of the Infosys campus in Bangalore or the slums of Calcutta or Mumbai. (The challenge) is in trying to get them to understand that it is not only both, but also the jungles of Orissa and the high Himalayan desert of Ladakh, and that all are equally true stories of India and equally deserving

of coverage.” But no matter how hard the correspondents push for them, some stories, such as the Naxal crisis or the Telangana issue, don’t translate across borders. Kahn lists other setbacks: The difficulty in reaching government officials for comment; the red tape involved in reporting from the North-East and the Andamans. Minders reportedly follow foreign journalists around Manipur and Pakistan’s so-called “Azad Kashmir” and violence is not uncommon—Most recently, on 7 July, Mark Magnier, the Los Angeles Times bureau chief, was roughed up by the police while reporting in Srinagar. And though one thinks English, or even Hindi, will suffice, Kahn has often found himself wanting to wrap his head around Bengali, Marathi and Tamil for ground-level reporting.

But there is the good that emerges from chaos. A Latin American television journalist, who did not wish to be named, observes that the relative flexibility in Indian systems can have its advantages. In Germany, where she was posted before this, one has to fix appointments weeks in advance. “In India, it’s easy to reach officials through casual channels…nowhere else in the world do government officials share their cellphone numbers,” she says. There are other admirers. For Nestor Marin, the South Asia correspondent of the Cuban wire service Prensa Latina, India is extremely organized. Having worked in Cuba, Nicaragua and Barbados, Marin believes India is essentially hospitable to foreign correspondents. “People are sometimes confused why I’m here and I need to explain that but I think it’s a cultural trait that makes people more helpful...” he trails off. Marin, who doesn’t speak Hindi, says he gets by without hiring translators because people are willing to help foreigners. Vanessa Dougnac, the South Asia correspondent for the French news magazine Le Point, came to India in 1998, also as a backpacker. At 26, she was at the right age to be struck by impulse and inspiration. She pushed her pending PhD at the University of Bordeaux a year at a time but didn’t quite end up going back to her home country. Twelve years later, she is researching a profile of the Ambani brothers and the economic model of Gujarat. A full-sized map of India frames her desk at her office-in-residence in New Delhi. And she speaks of a time when it wasn’t fashionable to be a foreign correspondent in India. “In the 90s, we were far fewer in number. It was difficult to get about things…even to make a long-distance phone call,” she says. Dougnac is a gratified member of the Indian Women’s Press Corps. She speaks Hindi, has largely Indian friends, and evinces a deep-rooted love for the country she has adopted as home. “People still have a high sense of respect for the press here. Even when you’re in a small village to report, everyone mobilizes around you to help, they really believe you can make a difference by telling their stories to the world,” she says. Visas are a non-issue for Dougnac, who got a person of Indian origin (PIO) card since she was married to an Indian. “Nobody asks me anything,” she says, suddenly bright-eyed, “And I can actually work on my stories instead of doing the rounds of government offices.” While the new arrivals might not necessarily espouse Dougnac’s nativized views, a scratch chat with journalists at the FCC makes it evident that no one is here on a punishment posting. The new India story is the contrast: the flash floods and fashion shows, the conundrum of the growing middle class, the economic boom on the one hand and food shortage on the other. This customarily gives rise to two kinds of stories. There are, however, a handful of cases that illustrate how it is getting difficult for foreign correspondents to report the “other” story. A number of cases highlight a backlash against foreign correspondents who’re suspected of reporting the unsavoury. An American journalist, who did not wish to be identified, says that a cover story he did for a weekly in 2008 earned the displeasure of the Congress party. The magazine’s top editor got the phone call from party bigwigs who strong-armed the publication into printing a retraction for a descriptor used for Sonia Gandhi. They threatened to ban the publication from circulating in India if the retraction was not carried.

India shining Vishnu Prakash lets out a laugh when asked about the complaint made by Susumu Arai of the Japanese daily Yomiuri Shimbun at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s nationally televised press conference in May. Prakash is the joint secretary and spokesperson of the external publicity division (also called the XP division) of the ministry of external affairs (MEA) and his department works as the liaison office for foreign correspondents in India. The infamous incident entailed Arai pointing out the tedious procedure for foreign correspondents to get accredited by the government’s Press Information Bureau (PIB). Singh said he would look into it. And as of 1 August, following a directive from the Prime Minister’s office, the PIB has initiated steps to simplify the accreditation procedures for foreign journalists. Like their Indian counterparts, they can now apply online at the time of applying for a journalist’s visa. Prakash is quick to point out that Arai’s case was purely one of organizational delays, ruling out any intentional malice. “The journalist you’re talking about is doing very well. He is a senior journalist from a reputed newspaper and there is no question of him facing any problems,” he says. But Arai’s fellow Japanese colleague did not enjoy the same goodwill. A few weeks after the press conference, the Union government refused to extend the visa of Shogo Takahashi, the New Delhi bureau chief of Japanese state broadcaster NHK since 2008. Takahashi, who had helped produced a documentary series titled Indo no Shogeki (The Impact of India), had to leave the country. An Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) report said government officials had disclosed that his reporting during the general election in 2009 dwelt overtly on the caste system and was “too negative”. Prakash, however, doesn’t agree that there is any system of control in place. “Look at how critical our own media is,” he says, adding that in a democratic country such as India the media is free to be critical as long as it is balanced. In the same vein, he concedes that on the rare (1%, according to him) occasion that a foreign correspondent is doing “consistently negative stories”, the MEA office might call him over for a chat. His office tracks foreign media reports with the help of Indian embassies and consulates—around 160 in all—who follow news reports in their home countries and alert the MEA if material is found to be offensive or erroneous. “We are gratified about the manner in which an overwhelming number of foreign journalists are reporting,” says Prakash, adding that it is only an isolated case every now and then that displays purposeful negativity. “In that case, we feel the need to sensitize the journalist,” he says. Several journalists recall these “meetings” with amusement. A journalist with a reputed French daily was surprised to find a translated file of his stories on an MEA official’s desk when he was called in. It had his name on it. Another British photojournalist was asked why he was focusing on snake charmers and cows when India had so much more to offer in terms of stories. TURN TO PAGE L12®

New chroniclers: (from far left) Jeremy Kahn of Newsweek, Henry James Foy of Reuters and Nestor Marin of Prensa Latina. Foy believes India offers the best opportunities for young journalists to learn the ropes.

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LOUNGE

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LOUNGE

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

RAMIT BATRA/MINT

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

MEDIA

REPORTING

L12 COVER

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM PRIYANKA PARASHAR/MINT

SOFT TARGETS Is India using visa denials as a tool to promote the ‘India shining’ trope? u The Indian government refused to grant a visa to journalist Hasnain Kazim of the German weekly ‘Der Spiegel’, ostensibly because he covered the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai without a journalist’s visa. According to Kazim, he was due to visit India on holiday in December 2008 and had been granted a journalist’s visa with a “no reporting allowed” clause (all journalists visiting India on holiday COURTESY HASNAI KAZIM

RAMESH PATHANIA/MINT

® FROM PAGE L10 u L11

Whether or not there is a policy to tackle foreign correspondents who don’t toe the official line, it is evident that they are subject to laborious visa and accreditation procedures. In all likelihood, some of this irritation gives way to allegations of malice. Foreign correspondents first come into the country on a three-month temporary journalist visa. Nearing the expiration of this, they can go to the MEA to get a letter that allows the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO) to grant them a one-year multiple entry journalist’s visa. Journalists describe the cumbersome paperwork, endless waits and multiple meetings as Kafkaesque. But certain cases of visa denials have sown tangible fear in the community. Twelve journalists contacted for this story refused to go on record. “I don’t want to be singled out by the MEA” was the standard response. Last year, the Indian government turned down a visa request by journalist Hasnain Kazim of the German weekly Der Spiegel, ostensibly because he covered the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai without a valid journalist’s visa. Kazim has another version of the story: Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders took up the case and learnt that Indian diplomats in Germany had told German officials that Kazim’s visa request had been denied because his articles were “overly critical and biased”. Kazim claims he had verbal authorization from the Indian consulate in Hamburg to report from India but has no written record to back his claim. Kazim, whose reporting of the terror attacks won him a nomination for the CNN Journalists Award in 2009, had planned to move to New Delhi in April 2009 to head Der Spiegel’s South Asian bureau—a container with all his belongings was already in India. He is miffed that not only did the Indian authorities hold his passport from January 2009 to May 2009 (when it was finally

LOST IN PAPERWORK

Most foreign correspondents describe the PIB requirements as maddening. Interestingly, these requirements are identical for Indian journalists

returned without a visa), but that customs officials also held back his container of belongings. He finally gave up and set up the German weekly’s bureau in Islamabad in July 2009. Raised in Germany, Kazim is of half-Indian and half-Pakistani origin. “The Indian government would never admit this but I am pretty sure now that my Pakistani connection is one of the reasons I was denied a permanent media residency in Delhi,” says Kazim over the phone from Pakistan (see box, Soft targets). In both Takahashi and Kazim’s cases, government authorities cite visa violations as the reason for visa denial. In Takahashi’s case, they say he often filmed his documentaries without taking permission or misused permissions to shoot something other than what permission had been taken for, and also that he shot high-security defence installations. Likewise for Kazim, Indian government sources told Reporters Without Borders that he was guilty of gross violation of visa norms. Other cases of visa denials include that of French photojournalist Viviane Dalles, for her trip to the north of Assam, and Swedish journalist Ulrika Nandra, who was denied a visa extension in 2008 because of her stories on sex trafficking in Mumbai and a series of articles about changing gender roles in India. Karan Singh, the vice-president of FCC and a correspondent for Russia Today, dismisses these instances as isolated cases. He says that the FCC will take up the issue if a significant number of journalists are affected. According to Singh, FCC members haven’t brought up these issues at their board meetings. “A handful of cases don’t reflect an anti-foreign correspondent wave,” he maintains. On the one hand, allegations might seem exaggerated when one considers that foreign correspondents have had relatively free reign to critically cover internal crises such as the recent spate of violence in Kashmir. But a degree of censorship,

are tracked in this manner). When the terror attack started, he decided to fly to India sooner and requested to have his visa changed at the Indian consulate in Hamburg. “I was told that I could report with the visa I had and that I should ‘go tell the world what’s happening in India’. But it’s entirely my fault that I didn’t get this in writing,” Kazim says over the phone from Pakistan. When contacted for comment, a government official who did not wish to be named said Kazim’s case was purely one of visa violation, something that no government would tolerate. u French photojournalist Viviane Dalles quit her job at the archives of the ‘Magnum’ agency in Paris to come to Tamil Nadu following the tsunami in early 2005. Recognizing the potential of documentary photography, after two years she decided to stay on in the country and applied for a journalist’s visa. She was granted a oneyear journalist visa. She did stories for the French papers ‘Le Monde’ and ‘Le Figaro’ and worked on stories about Tibetan refugees and the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, among other projects. In July 2008, Dalles was refused entry back into the country after a monthlong holiday in France (her journalist visa hadn’t expired at this time). Before her holiday, she had made CRISTINA VATIELLI/PROSPEKT

direct or tangential, isn’t a newfangled phenomenon. At his office-in-residence in Nizamuddin, Mark Tully, a BBC veteran of 30 years, points to a window where protesters threw stones in 1984 because the channel had carried an interview with a Sikh extremist. “The mob had a free reign because police protection had been withdrawn,” he says. Tully speaks of how he and other foreign correspondents made a mass exodus during the Emergency because they weren’t willing to cow down. Before Tully’s term, the BBC correspondent from India had been expelled because the Indian government was displeased with a series of Louis Malle documentaries that the channel had broadcast: L’Inde fantôme (Phantom India) had attracted the ire of the authorities because of its fascination with the pre-modern. Tully might be one of the only foreign correspondents to have been awarded the prestigious civilian honour, the Padma Bhushan (2005). Though he and his peers faced their share of checks—they were warned to cover the anti-Sikh riots with

ccording to the guidelines on the website of the Press Information Bureau (PIB), “accreditation” means recognition of news media representatives by the government for purposes of access to sources of information in the government and also to news material released by the PIB and other government agencies. Several journalists—both domestic and foreign—get by without PIB accreditation. However, there is talk that permanent PIB accreditation (temporary accreditation has been discontinued since August 2009) might become a prerequisite for permanent journalist visa extensions for foreign correspondents.

caution, for instance—they elicited a rare reverence from Indian citizens and Indian authorities. “The criticism came mostly from Indian journalists posted abroad,” says Tully. In times of pre-global connectivity, Indians in their home country rarely read or saw the reportage of the foreign correspondents on a daily basis. With the Internet and increasing global travel, criticism by Indian journalists and bloggers is a rising phenomenon, revealing a country of particularly thin-skinned citizens. The Indian blogosphere tends to react to critical pieces in the foreign press with allegations of elitism. Foreign correspondents are often accused of “missing the point” or subverting nuance. Consider this statement against former NYT bureau chief Somini Sengupta’s articles right after the 2006 train blasts in Mumbai. A blogger called Bongo Pondit wrote: “Anybody who has actually been on a Mumbai train won’t make a statement like Ms Sengupta’s.” Over an email exchange,

Accreditation is capped at seven for foreignbased dailies and periodicals. For foreign news agencies, it is 15, and for foreign photo news agencies, seven. To be fair, the requirements are identical for Indian journalists. Foreign journalists only have to additionally provide copies of their passport and journalist’s visa. But several requisitions become especially difficult for foreign correspondents—for example, submitting six months’ copies of their daily newspaper! A correspondent in charge of a European media bureau, who did not wish to be identified, says that the PIB asks for documents that may not

Dateline India: (top) Vanessa Dougnac of Le Point at her officeinresidence; and veteran Mark Tully, who worked with BBC in India for 30 years. Sengupta, who is currently on leave from the paper, says that she’s never felt victimized by the blogosphere. “In general, I take feedback seriously and if there are corrections to be made, we make them,” she says. “Sometimes, I point out to readers that I write what I see and hear. That’s my job as a journalist.” Sengupta recalls writing a story about driving on Delhi roads in which she referred to an elephant marching slowly. “A few readers criticized the mention of elephants on the road—one asked when I last lived in Delhi. The truth is, I have lived in Delhi for five years. And at the time I wrote the article and now, I see elephants on the road, along with Mercs and an occasional Porsche. That’s the richness of life here, and they are part of why I choose to live here,” she says.

exist in the journalist’s home country and that officials are not willing to accept substitutes. “So because we have nothing like a ‘letter of appointment’ back at home, my staff members cannot get their PIB accreditation,” she gripes. PIB guidelines clearly state that “no foreign freelance journalist” will be eligible for grant of accreditation. Most get around the system by getting an international media house to provide them with a sponsor letter that presents them as staff writers. The complete manual for acquiring PIB accreditation is available online at http://pibaccreditation.nic.in

a trip to the north of Assam to document the activities of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. When she arrived at Delhi airport, Dalles was asked to buy a ticket back to Paris. She has been unable to return to India since. A few months ago, her application for a tourist visa to fetch her belongings, which were still in India, was turned down. “I love India and I hate India. This country keeps me fascinated,” says Dalles, who is really keen on returning to India. When contacted for comment, a government official said the decision to disallow Dalles from returning to the country was a “considered one”. u According to information made available by the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Swedish freelance journalist Ulrika Nandra’s problems began in autumn 2007 when she was about to make a second visit to India as a freelance journalist. She submitted a visa application in September, but more than one year later she had still received no response. Representatives of the media for which Nandra worked, staterun ‘Sveriges Television’ and daily newspaper ‘Svenska Dagbladet’, held a meeting with the Indian embassy in February 2008 in which the embassy said they were displeased with her reports, including one about sex trafficking in Mumbai and a series of articles about changing gender roles in India. Reliable sources have told Nandra, who is halfIndian, that it is uncertain that she will ever be able to return to the country, even on a tourist visa. Apart from working in India as a journalist, Nandra also has relatives here, making the visa rejection a strong personal blow.

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L13

Travel SIKKIM

Stranger in a strange land

PHOTOGRAPHS

Hindi lessons and Tamil signboards notwithstanding, India’s at a remove here. Celebrate the difference

B Y C HARUKESI R AMADURAI ···························· ancy is the local schoolteacher at Lachung village in North Sikkim and has returned home recently after some years outside the state. She has been chatting non-stop with me in the darkness of the late evening about her school and students. Among other things, she says that Hindi is one of the languages taught in her school, as in all other schools in Sikkim now. In the middle of the conversation, she leans over and says confidentially: “It is for the Indian children, you know. Sikkimese children really don’t need Hindi.” I am slightly taken aback but do not give it much thought. Till a few days later, when back in Gangtok, Norgey, the owner of the guest house we are staying in, tells me breezily, “Oh, but there is nothing much to shop for here in Sikkim, we do all our shopping in India”. In the time I spend in Sikkim, India truly feels far away—and it is not just about what the people say. Like everywhere else in the

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AHMED RAZA KHAN/MINT

country, children are out on the streets, but it is not cricket they are playing. It is football that rules here, the way it rules the streets of perhaps only Goa. It is Bhaichung Bhutia who smiles from posters and hoardings all over the market, kicking a careless ball and seeking votes for the reality dance competition he was once part of; from Soccer King to Dancing King, they proclaim. Barely 2 hours out of Gangtok, on our way to Lachen—the base village for the trip to the high-altitude Gurudongmar Lake—we encounter groups of giggling, uniformed children waving down our vehicle for a ride. Our driver finally stops to take in Shaily, who gets into the front seat with him and starts chatting rapidly in the local language. She smiles diffidently when I ask her a question in Hindi but refuses to answer. At school 7km away, she hops off with a soft “Thank you bhaiyya, thank you didi” and disappears through the gate. All along the route, we see schoolchildren getting into and out of tourist vehicles, hitching rides with perfect strangers. The city cynic in me is horrified but our driver says this is normal in Sikkim: “Children have nothing to fear, madam.” Apart from this distraction, the roads are quiet. No blaring horns, no overtaking on the hills, no stopping in the middle of the highway. I realize I am overly sensitive by this point but I keep thinking about how different Sikkim indeed is from the India I know. The “difference” is perhaps in my mind as much as it is in theirs. For, in the general election last year, Sikkim had a record 83% voter turnout (compare this with just around 41% in Mumbai). In Gangtok, I keep meeting people who returned to their homes in towns and villages across the state just to vote. Sikkim became the 22nd Indian state in 1975, when the Chogyals (the royal family of Sikkim) gave up their right to the throne after 300 years—driven, people say, by fear of invasion from neighbouring China. It would be another 18 years before China finally gave up claims on Sikkim and accepted it as a part of India. It’s perhaps no accident that

CHARUKESI RAMADURAI

Paradise: (from above) Nonexistent roads on the way to Gurudongmar Lake; children on their way to school; and the army is a nearconstant presence.

the army is omnipresent in Sikkim. Most of the state is served by the 19th regiment from south India and the signboards and slogans on the rocks are written in Tamil, perhaps to keep the soldiers motivated. In conversation with one of them (in Tamil), I get a sense that these army men feel as much strangers in this part of the country as I do; the bitter cold, language, food and terrain all unfamiliar, perhaps even inhospitable. After a pit stop at the “The world’s highest cafe at 15,000 feet”, proudly managed by the army, we pass only bunker after desolate bunker on our way to Gurudongmar Lake. There are no signboards to show where we are headed. Our driver forges ahead on the rocky terrain on what seems like pure instinct. The landscape is stark and stunning, the snow-capped mountains of the Kangchengyao range seem within touching distance.

Most of this part of the drive is in monochrome, a dry brown with a few spots of snow visible in the distance. At the lake, the army makes its presence felt again, maintaining the tiny shrine on the shore and providing welcome cups of hot tea to visitors who feel rapidly breathless, sick and disoriented at that altitude (around 17,000ft). Even within Sikkim there is no place that gives such a strong sense of being alien as Gurudongmar. Like many other Sikkim lakes, Gurudongmar (named after Guru Padmasambhava) is held sacred by locals; indeed, it is the most revered of them all. The lake remains frozen for most of the year but, when the ice melts, the waters are a clear, sparkling blue. Colourful prayer flags flutter in the breeze as a few brave souls walk down the steep steps for a stroll around the edge of the lake. The wind starts to get bitter, cutting through the layers of pro-

tective clothing we are ensconced in. Despite the acute discomfort, there is a desire to linger, but local legend has it that after noon the wind factor is so strong that stones start flying. And so we reluctantly head back towards Lachen village, and then back to Gangtok. The next evening, I am strolling on MG Road, the cobble-stoned promenade in Gangtok where locals and visitors, young and old alike meet, shop and drink. I am here to shop for souvenirs—local tea and cherry brandy mainly—to take back to “India” with me. Kanchenjunga, the venerable protector deity, is an invisible presence in the far distance, revealing itself only in the postmonsoon winter months. Sikkim, I learn, is known variously as Sukhim (new home) to the Nepalese, Denzong (valley of rice) to the Tibetans and Ney Mayal Lyang (paradise) to the Lepchas. It is the Lepcha interpretation that I agree with the most. In the next few years, it will be possible to fly into the new airport coming up at Pakyong, close to Gangtok. Enhanced connectivity with the mainland may perhaps infuse a greater sense of belonging among locals. For now though, I have to make that long drive to Bagdogra for the return flight. Entering West Bengal, the cacophony of cab horns and traffic jams sounds unnaturally loud after two weeks of peaceful driving on Sikkim roads. Close to the airport, painted signs by the road say “Be Indian, Buy Indian”. I think they could have just as easily been “Be Indian, Bye Indian”. Write to lounge@livemint.com CHILDFRIENDLY RATING

While Gangtok passes muster, the highaltitude conditions of North Sikkim may not be suitable for young children.

L14 TRAVEL

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

DETOURS

SALIL TRIPATHI

What I think about when I’m naked In a Japanese hot spring nestled deep in the countryside, there’s no place to hide

igh mountains, covered with snow, formed the imposing wall on the horizon. Sunlight fell on the snow, which reflected it on the village, spreading a yellow glow, like sprinkled gold dust. The steep slopes of the mountain, popular with skiers, snaked their way through the army of evergreen trees. The trees were laden with fluffy snow on their branches, which occasionally collapsed in a flurry of whiteness, when sharp winds shook the trees hard. We were sitting in an open onsen, as the Japanese call their hot springs, our torsos feeling the autumnal chill, while warm, volcanic water invigorated the rest of our bodies. My legs floated in the water, taking painterly liquid shapes, as I perched myself along the wall, my arms holding me up. We were in the hot springs of Niigata, on Japan’s west coast. It was morning; my friend Ushio was by my side, telling me about a complex mathematical problem he had been unable to solve the previous night. This hour at the springs, he was convinced, would help clear his mind, and he’d be able to fix the proof he was working on. Does the water really have healing qualities, I asked. It has regenerative qualities, and it can lighten the load you are carrying, and help you look at things clearly, Ushio said. Ushio had politely told me the etiquette of onsen: You shower before you enter; and yes, you wear nothing, not even swimming trunks, although you can carry a washcloth. And you don’t stare at the men or women who are also in the water. The idea, then, was to walk calmly, as if you were fully clothed, and yet briskly, as if you were trying to keep an appointment. Walking quickly also helped because it was cold

Dump the trunks: At Japan’s onsen hot springs, taking off your clothes becomes a functional act. outside. It was an unreal experience—to walk through that path of stones through an even lawn, as we looked for a more secluded part of the pool, with nothing on. Ushio moved on his toes, and I kept pace with him. We had three more friends with us—colleagues of Ushio—two of them Japanese, and the third from India’s neighbourhood who had lived in Japan for many years. My subcontinental cousin used the washcloth to cover himself during our short walk. He said I could do the same, it was allowed. I didn’t. Once in the open, in that cool, crisp mountain air, I felt there was nothing to hide. Months later, I wondered why he had covered himself. He lived in that town; it was a small town, and his face was known. Taking off all clothes before entering the hot springs was an ancient custom here; everyone did it. The Japanese saw it as a form of bonding. But in the case of my subcontinental cousin, probably

FOOT NOTES | SUMANA MUKHERJEE

Bend it in Bhutan A weeklong yoga retreat in the world’s happiness capital could be the mind booster and soul soother you need

he Surya Namaskar’s second nature to you. You can twist your body into a pretzel in ways toddlers would be envious of. Ergo, you’ve earned yourself a yoga retreat at one of Bhutan’s most exclusive getaways. Amankora, part of the Aman Resorts chain, is hosting a seven-night programme with Iyengar Yoga teacher and practising Buddhist Cora Wen. Over four nights in the Paro Lodge and three nights at Amankora Thimphu, Wen will put you through 3 hours of meditation and personalized yoga sessions each

day. That will still leave you enough time to explore the surrounding forests and nearby temples, museums and monasteries, with a day-long excursion to Punakha, Bhutan’s old winter capital. The seven-night retreat (21-28 October) costs $9,100 (around `4.24 lakh) for single occupancy and $9,800 for doubles, which covers all meals and house beverages, laundry and airport transfers, visa processing, Druk Air flight reservations and ticketing assistance. To book, email reservations@amanresorts.com or call 09752331333.

it was his sense of modesty that prevented him from revealing himself fully, a deeply ingrained sense of shame associated with the display of the body. That modesty is oddly selective: Many bristle at the idea of their own divinities painted in the nude (think here of M.F. Husain or Chandramohan, pilloried for their art) but think nothing of the angels in the nude that they see in Western religious art. Many even fall at the feet of naked ascetics in certain faiths practised in India. And then there are Khajuraho and Konark—but those ancients can do what they want, modern India rationalizes. Modern Indians are—what’s that word?—decent. In any event, feeling the shock of seeing a naked body is not a particularly subcontinental trait. Travelling in Europe with American friends several summers earlier in my college days, I had noted how stunned they were when they saw European women going topless so nonchalantly on beaches and parks. I have to admit, the first

the other side. The novices were shocked. Later at night, sensing their troubled minds, the Master asked them what was bothering them. One of the novices said: “Master, you carried a woman across the river….” “And I left her on the other side. You are still carrying her in your mind,” he said, and laughed. In the land of Zen, that’s what the hot springs taught us—to shed not just our clothes, but also our inhibitions. Then, slip into the water, let its warmth cleanse and rejuvenate you. And you sit there, admiring the snow-capped peaks. Later that evening, Ushio told me he had solved the problem troubling him. And he too smiled. Write to Salil at detours@livemint.com www.livemint.com Read Salil’s previous Lounge columns at www.livemint.com/detours

Varanasi through a lens A

fter successful ventures across southern India, travel firm GetOff ur ass’ photo workshop arm Photography on the Move is going north—specifically, to the mystical city of Varanasi. If you have an SLR camera and can’t tell shutter speed apart from aperture—or if you can, and would like to hone your skills further with fabulous photo-ops—this is the must-do trip for you. The instructors welcome even the stupidest questions and will follow up theory classes with practical exercises that arm you with

Photoop: The ghats of Varanasi. confidence for the moment when you hit the picturesque ghats of Varanasi. From the Ramlila narration to musical concerts, and from the basics

of night photography to the enchanting life of the famed galis, this is one way of getting up close and personal with one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities of the world. The four-day workshop (30 September-3 October), inclusive of stay at a heritage hotel, intra-city travel and food, costs `18,000 per person. Group discounts are available, as are cameras for hire. Join the Beginners’ SLR photography course in Varanasi by calling Supriya on 09980655944 or mailing her at supriya@getoffurass.com

Brahmaputra beckons I

Air supply: At the Paro Lodge, the mountain air and asanas will rejuvenate tired and jaded city folk.

time I saw rows upon rows of people wearing the barest minimum the laws would permit on beaches, I was taken aback, too. For my American friends it was the first such sight, and they kept taking pictures of the women, training their zoom lenses from a safe distance, lest their boyfriends came chasing; the women stared back angrily, some covering themselves with beach towels. In Niigata that day, though, there were no cameras. The nudity was aseptic, almost as if in a hospital ward. Taking off your clothes became a functional act. If you tried to cover yourself, it would seem you were acting like the novice monks who followed their Zen Master across the river. The Master had taught them never to look at a woman, nor touch her. When the two novices and the Master reached a river they had to cross, they saw a beautiful woman who wanted to go across, but she could not swim. The Master carried her on his shoulders and brought her to

t’s that time of the year when the adventurous start testing their river-legs. Outdoors outfitters Aquaterra Adventures just announced its Great Brahmaputra Descent (20 November-2 December) that’s sure to leave the adrenalin thumping in your veins long after your wetsuits are dry. “An option only for the true adventurer,” says Aquaterra’s Vaibhav Kala, who is welcoming first-timers, even non-swimmers—so confident is he of the safety trappings. The highlight of the trip is a seven-day run from

Tuting to Pasighat, a distance of 180km, when one is completely cut off from the rest of the world. The rapids here are no laughing matter: The class IV-plus Ningguing rapid on Day 6 is followed by the Pulsating Palsi, a class IV rapid. There’s also Moing Madness, Ponging and other big and small rapids that will test your skills to the utmost. The expedition costs `1.3 lakh for rafters and `1.2 lakh for kayakers (big water experience essential), inclusive of Delhi-Dibrugarh-Delhi flights, all accom-

Upsurge: For the true adventurer. modation and meals (except in Delhi), restricted area permits and fees, professional guide fees and transfers. Interested? Email aquaterra@airtelmail.in. All formalities need to be completed by 1 October. Write to lounge@livemint.com

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

L15

Books DAY SCHOLAR | SIDDHARTH CHOWDHURY

CULT FICTION

Rangbazi in North Campus JASJEET PLAHA/HINDUSTAN TIMES

A Patna boy comes to Delhi and finds a voice. Nothing new except the funny, sly narrative that brings him alive

B Y H IMANSHU B HAGAT himanshu.b@livemint.com

···························· he unpretentious, honest and lucid writing of Patna Roughcut, Siddharth Chowdhury’s debut novel, left the reader wanting more. Here was a new voice rooted in a place one doesn’t come across often in English fiction. The slim coming-of-age tale featured Ritwik Ray who, having come back to his hometown Patna as a newspaper man, looks back on his adolescent and teen years— and the oddball cast of characters that populated it—with feeling and wry humour. Day Scholar, Chowdhury’s equally slim and readable second novel, feels like a continuation of his earlier work. Like Ray, the protagonist and narrator Hriday Thakur is a Bengali boy who grew up in Patna. While Ray mostly talked about his life up until he turned 17 and left for Delhi, Hriday in Day Scholar picks up the thread as a 17-yearold, first-year student in Delhi University (DU). The son of an English professor, Hriday likes cricket, doesn’t care about studies and is quite friendly with fixers and crooks who carry kattas (country pistols) and ustaras (barber’s razor) and are known as rangbaz. Knowing such characters had its advantages in Bihar in the early 1990s. Sudama Pathak is one

University blues: Miranda House features in Chowdhury’s novel. such rangbaz. “…(H)e was a shy unassuming boy whom his friends called ‘tikki’ on account of the long rat-tail that he sported, but in the intervening two years he had blossomed into a tough little bastard,” Hriday informs us. Thanks to Pathak, Hriday appears for his intermediate exams not in the classroom of the College of Commerce, Patna, but in the tea shop outside its gates where he has ample assis-

Day Scholar: Picador India, 164 pages, `250.

tance. His decent marks enable him to study English literature at Zakir Husain College in DU. Pathak also helps Hriday find accommodation in Delhi in a private hostel called Shokeen Niwas which is owned by a larger than life Delhi equivalent of a rangbaz, Zorawar Singh Shokeen. The colourful opening chapter delves into how Zorawar—with a combination of charm, sexual prowess of mythical proportions and complete ruthlessness—acquired Shokeen Niwas. The book begins with a memorably coarse description of the newly arrived Hriday and his fellow hostellers spying on Zorawar’s antics in the bed. It augurs well for what lies ahead. And Day Scholar doesn’t disappoint. Hriday’s North Campus life is typical in many ways—tea and omelette breakfasts, endless drags on Gold Flake, girls, “socials” and films at Batra Cinema. But for all his self-proclaimed lack of drive and ambition, he finds himself in the middle of plenty of action—with a Mauser during a college election campaign, for instance, or with his Punjabi girlfriend in the darkened cinema theatre.

Somewhere along the way, just as we have suspended judgement and are relishing Hriday’s accounts of his big and small adventures, his other side begins to emerge. The one that cares about his parents, feels guilty about being a wastrel, gets up at 5 in the morning every day to write short stories and, most tellingly, begins to see Zorawar and his ilk as bad people. Sure enough, as the narrative shifts between Hriday’s DU days and his richly evoked past in Patna, Day Scholar moves towards the denouement where he is faced with a choice—to get more deeply involved with the fixer-crooks and their patrons or to embrace the world of reading, writing and literature. The only problem is that the nice Hriday, with his didactic monologues, is not terribly interesting. Bad boy Hriday’s world, on the other hand, is a discovery for the reader—a bit far-fetched perhaps but so lovingly and convincingly etched that it feels real. Here, Chowdhury’s writing and his descriptions soar, borne aloft by irreverence and pitch-perfect funny lines. As in his first novel, the pace slackens in the second half and some sections feel flat—his NCC teacher in Patna’s extended lament on the decline and fall of Bengalis, for instance, is vastly more real and entertaining than the exchanges at a book launch soiree in Delhi. Chowdhury’s works start off as a series of picaresque vignettes but as the tone and content become “serious” and a bit melodramatic, the reader’s interest flags. But Chowdhury’s is an original voice—funny, sly and fresh, but also worldly wise. As he grows as a writer, one eagerly awaits his next offering. IN SIX WORDS A promising voice comes of age

QUICK LIT | VEENA VENUGOPAL

Love in Mumbai and London Two quests for the right partner—north of Mumbai and in north London Across three generations If there is one good thing about a job that involves reading piles of bad books, it is that once in a while comes a story that is so exquisitely plotted, researched and written that it blots out the bad memory of all the trash you have read. Anosh Irani’s Dahanu Road is that book. Set in Dahanu, the chikoo-growing suburb of Mumbai, Irani tells a tale of three generations of Iranis—Shahpur, Aspi and Zairos. It is a story of intertwined destinies and uncomfortable class divisions crafted in an unapologetic voice. In 1920, Shahpur Irani, a 10-year-old boy, escapes Muslim persecution and flees to India with his father. Eighty years later, at the turn of the millennium, he is a grand old seth, the owner of acres of chikoo farms that employ the local Warli tribals. Dahanu Road begins with the suicide of Ganpat, a worker on the farm. Zairos, Shahpur’s 20-something grandson who discovers the body, is left to deal with the family of the deceased. He meets Ganpat’s daughter Kusum,

who’s married to an abusive drunk, and finds himself irresistibly attracted to her. Zairos breaks the century-old class rules and upsets the delicate balance of the fair-skinned Iranis and the sunhardened Warlis not because he pursues his passion for Kusum, but because he cares for her. The narrative interlaces the past and present, each providing the context for the other. Irani has researched the Warlis, their disagreement with and revolt against the landowners of Dahanu, extensively and sets down a powerful context of the conflict in the plot. And though the author has lived in Canada for a dozen years now, he

Dahanu Road: By Anosh Irani, HarperCollins India, 304 pages, `299.

paints a very intricate and very real picture of dusty Dahanu. So much so that days after I finished the book, my dreams were still of Zairos and Kusum—running through the chikoo plantation, riding the bike through the suburb’s tiny streets, having lunch at the Crazy Crab restaurant. In this age of multiple stimuli and fleeting narratives, anything that endures more than a day is implicitly superior.

Familiar search Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is a British Muslim girl living in north London who wears a headscarf out of choice and wants to get married. So she makes a list of six qualities for her ideal man. He should be attractive, university-educated, be born or have lived in the UK, Canada or US since he was at least 18, have a social circle, vision and some sparkle. Then, she proceeds to have a series of the familiar samosa and sweets “boy-seeing” ceremony. There is Mobeen, who plays a practical joke on her, Karim, who blames a bolt of lightning for not reverting with an answer, and Khalil, who did not want to marry anyone who was only 5ft 3 inches tall. And so they go on, some 280 pages of badly behaved or completely unsuitable boy stories. It’s all too familiar, none too hilarious.

R. SUKUMAR

WERTHAM AND COMIC DANGER

have been reading comics for the past 35 years and my brain is yet to turn to jelly or, to quote the popular song, a “jellyfish in the ocean of my head” (the first person to write in with the name of the group that sang this song will get, what else, a comic book) but there was a time when comics were considered dangerous. Now, this writer has been horribly disappointed by many comics, including several new (and serious) Indian ones, but dangerous? I was reminded about this as I set out to write this version of Cult Fiction—on the Tintin in Hindi books that I have been trying to write on for several weeks now—by an email from an acquaintance. The mail pointed me to the Library of Congress blog (Blogs.loc.gov), specifically a 27 August post by Matt Raymond pointing to an article by his colleague Erin Allen for the library’s newsletter. Allen’s piece was about the papers of the late psychiatrist Fredric Wertham that apparently were made available to public researchers in May, nearly 23 years after the library received them. Now, I didn’t encounter Wertham till the early 1990s when my interest in comics took a marginally academic turn and I started reading about the history of comics. By then, he was long dead (he died in 1981). Wertham figures in comics history as a villain—my first encounter with the name was as the man responsible for the creation of the Comics Code Authority (CCA). Wertham was convinced that comic books blurred the lines between fantasy and reality for many young readers and, with their violent presentation, encouraged them, in Violence galore: The Preacher series. turn, to perpetrate acts of violence. In its early days CCA made life difficult for the publishers of comic books. It is also this writer’s opinion that some of this interference curbed the freedom of expression because the CCA pretty much behaved like a censor. My initial opinion of the man was that he was indeed a villain, but over the years, as I have seen the impact of mass media on young children (Indian media has been replete, for a few years now, with stories of children hurting themselves or others by imitating the acts they see in movies, TV shows, even advertisements), my view has changed. As Allen points out, Wertham “was dedicated to protecting children from harmful material in all mass media”. Allen’s article goes on to quote Sara Duke, the curator of the Library’s comics art collections: “I think he (Wertham) was part of a movement that is uniquely American—the need to protect children from adult life.” That isn’t really an American trait; it is a human one. Still, life, and the comics book industry, have moved on since then. Today, many publishers, DC and Marvel included, publish comics that do not have the CCA seal of approval and are meant for adults. But the very fact that the books mention that they are for “mature audiences”—a sort of warning—is a doff of the hat to the CCA and Wertham. R. Sukumar is editor, Mint. Write to him at cultfiction@livemint.com

FREE VERSE | TISHANI DOSHI Love in a Headscarf: By Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, Amaryllis, 288 pages, `295. As someone indifferent to marriages, I find it hard to understand why Janmohamed—Oxford-educated, well-employed and welltravelled, as she constantly reminds us—is obsessed about finding a husband. But her explanations of the challenges of being a cosmopolitan, practising Muslim are engaging. She discusses her interpretation of the Quran and powerfully details her choice of wearing what is often perceived as the garb of the oppressed. In an ideal world, this book would not have been written at all—girls shouldn’t be preoccupied with finding the One and Muslims shouldn’t have to explain their choices to the world. But then an ideal world is as fictitious as a perfect husband. veena.v@livemint.com

How Not To Age It happens one night that the hurdles champ of Loyola, Class of ’58, finds himself on the lawns of a gentleman’s club—shoulders stooped, bandy-kneed, unable to hear or digest sugar. It happens his wife dies first, and his children frequently think, Hypothetically, if dad had gone first, mum would still have had things to do. It happens that the man who threw the best parties, the first person in town with disco lights, psychedelic shirts, the works—now finds it difficult to smile. And as if to prove this unhappy man once had the capacity to dance, the moon skids over his spectacles, does a little jig on the wintry expanse of his head, eclipsing for a moment this night, these stars, all the borrowed future ahead. Tishani Doshi is the author of The Pleasure Seekers. Write to lounge@livemint.com

L16

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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

Culture TRIBAL ART

COURTESY

Gond’s own country

HERVÉ PER DRIOLLE

A forthcoming New York auction promises to change the way the global market views contemporary Indian tribal art

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

···························· n the September auction of South Asian art by Sotheby’s in New York, among the modernism of Husain and Padamsee, will lie a relatively unknown folk idiom. In a bold move, the auction house has included works by the Gond tribal artist Jangarh Singh Shyam in the same collection. Hailing from a small village in the Mandla district of Madhya Pradesh, Shyam is the poster boy of Gond art, and arguably of contemporary Indian tribal art itself. Before him, there was no Gond art; not in the manner that it is known today. What was there was relief work on clay walls painted with rudimentary colours, traditionally done by women on the walls of their own homes. In 1981, the painter Jagdish Swaminathan came across 17-year-old Shyam, with an extraordinary sense of form and style, decorating village huts. Swaminathan brought him to Bhopal, where he worked on a giant mural in the Charles Correa-designed arts complex, Bharat Bhawan. It was there that Shyam took his native art to canvas and paper, using watercolours and acrylic paints to create works that would circulate in galleries not just in India, but in France, the US and Japan. For these reasons, the cultural historian Jyotindra Jain, member secretary of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, believes that what has come to be known popularly as the “Gond idiom” should, in fact, be known as the “Jangarh idiom”. “Jangarh chose to transform his community’s fables and

COURTESY HERVÉ PERD RIOLLE

Native: (clockwise from left) Paysage avec Araignée (Landscape with Spider) (1988); Untitled (1997); and Tigers (1995) by Jangarh Singh Shyam.

airport, the state of the nation—nothing escapes our stars. From the privacy of their limousines and air-conditioned trailers, the filmi gods and goddesses give their fans a New-Age style darshan. Often, though, they also inform followers of their latest movies and their newest endorsements. Some big names seem to be on Twitter only to remind the world about their desirability, but the tweets are nevertheless revealing. Some stars can’t spell. Some have a childlike view of the universe. Others have a refreshingly off-kilter view of the world, which doesn’t always emerge in interviews. In the 1970s and 1980s, a spat between Amitabh Bachchan and film magazines led to a blanket ban on interviews with the star. Bachchan’s second coming in the 1990s was helped in no small part by the access that the media gained to his every move. The angry young man had grown into a sound-bite-friendly older man.

Hindi films have changed a great deal, but audiences remain as star-struck as ever. The film industry has always been obsessed with numbers. How much did the film cost? How much did it earn? How much more could it have possibly made had it been flogged some more? Enter the star, the most recognizable advertising tool for any movie. In order to ensure success, stars must participate in what advertising pundits call the “360-degree” experience. To guarantee an initial, a star can’t just loom over the public consciousness in a hoarding, but must work towards achieving a multiplier effect through as many platforms as possible. Ubiquitousness has become a sign of achievement. Exclusivity simply doesn’t pay any more. Starting with the Big B, our stars are more easily accessible than they have ever been. Sure, you can’t just call them up on their cellphones and chat about the weather (though some

COURTESY SOTHEBY’S

myths into images,” says Jain, adding that these images were mediated by references from the new art world he had entered. The images born of this crossover were transient: birds morphing into airplanes; or a stag’s horns turning into a vast forest. Jain was part of the board that selected Shyam for the Bharat Bhawan mural and curated Shyam’s works in the Autres Maîtres de l’Inde (Other Masters of India) exhibition at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris that concluded in July. The first major and most sig-

nificant exposition of Shyam’s work was in Paris as well: Magiciens de la Terre, a historical exhibition curated by Jean-Hubert Martin at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1989. But the Sotheby’s sale will be the first time that a canvas by an Indian folk artist has been estimated at $30,000-50,000 (around `14-23.4 lakh), and the sale price may exceed that range. The work, Paysage avec Araignée (Landscape with Spider), was part of the Pompidou show. This is the third time that Sotheby’s has included Shyam’s

STALL ORDER

NANDINI RAMNATH

GIVE MYSTIQUE A MISS

weekly magazine recently paid a visit to Rani Mukherjee to find out if she was indeed morphing into Rekha, as rumours seemed to indicate. In Bollywood, recluse is code for an out-of-work actor with weight issues. Mukherjee, who apparently looked like a million bucks, brushed away her recent absence from the movies and blamed the stories about her alleged Media savvy: Shah Rukh Khan.

RAFIQ MAQBOOL/AP

work, the first being in its March auction, when a 2001 work estimated for $5,000-7,000 was sold for $13,750. Two large paper works executed in 1988 and 1989 were sold in July for $15,000 and $18,000. Though he was feted in his lifetime, Shyam’s canvases are experiencing this sort of commercial success only posthumously. The 37-year-old artist’s tragic suicide at the faraway Mithila Museum (outside Tokyo) in July 2001 points to a frightening trend of exploitation of folk artists at the hands of commer-

cial agents. The privately owned museum was paying him a monthly salary of `12,000 for creating works in residence at a time when each of his works was already selling for close to lakhs. With an increasing interest in Shyam’s work, these trappings of disparity might change for other Gond and tribal artists. The list runs long: Mumbai galleries Chemould and Pundole held two exhibitions in August 2009 that focused on tribal art. Earlier this year, the Delhi outfit of the London-based W+K Exp gallery had an exhibition of Gond sculpture called Dog Father, Fox Mother, their Daughter & Other Stories. And in November, the Devi Art Foundation will host a show called Vernacular, in the Contemporary. The show will have works by 60 folk and tribal artists, including works by Shyam and his family. There are also efforts to push the Gond idiom into unexplored media: The anticaste publisher Navayana has just published a graphic novel by Gond artists Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam. The art market for Indian con-

reclusiveness on the current craze for Twitter. “Everyone has become so accessible,” Mukherjee complained about the social networking service. “To me, being exclusive and being mysterious is what makes a star.” Twitter is many things to many people. To Bollywood stars, it’s only the latest twin-engine vehicle of self-expression and self-promotion. Marquee names such as Amitabh Bachchan, Shekhar Kapur, Abhishek Bachchan, Priyanka Chopra and Karan Johar tweet with amazing—and sometimes alarming—regularity about all and sundry. Bollywood and Hollywood, football, Mumbai on a rainy day, Heathrow

temporary tribal and folk arts, however, is still in its infancy. The highest price achieved so far is $13,600 for Warli artist Jivya Soma Mashe’s painting on canvas, far removed from the record price of $2.4 million achieved by the Aboriginal artist Clifford Possum. A lot of the credit for the global curatorial relook goes to Paris-based Hervé Perdriolle who started his pursuit as a collector in 1996. Now, as a gallerist, he is an active agent in promoting artists such as Shyam, as well as Mashe and the Mithila painter Chano Devi. Over an email exchange, he says he is interested in these artists in the same vein that he is interested in Warhol, Basquiat and Ravinder Reddy. Shyam’s early works show a rare primitive force that depict the animist imagery of the Gonds; his last works show a fabulous graphic mastery. His own life is the stuff of a mythical tale: from a poverty-stricken childhood to sudden fame. In his success, Shyam encouraged his cousins and village folk to follow him. He even helped sell their work. Today, Shyam’s 24-year-old son Mayank is an artist in his own right. One can only hope that his father’s story will help him get the recognition he deserves in his lifetime.

journalists enjoy that privilege), but they are constantly in the limelight, more out of choice than compulsion. Apart from the films, they’re in the tabloids and society magazines and on television chat shows. They are at hand to launch jewellery stores and laptops. Shah Rukh Khan’s ascent is partly because of his expert media-savviness. Aamir Khan, who kept away from the press in the early noughties, is now a regular presence in the media. Earlier, we had to twist our necks out of shape to spot our stars. Now, all we need to do is pick up the television remote and change the channel—or get a Twitter account. Twitter proves that in the newly liberalized India, mystique is an outdated and overrated concept. Nandini Ramnath is the film critic of Time Out Mumbai (www.timeoutmumbai.net). Write to Nandini at stallorder@livemint.com

CULTURE L17

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

PHOTOGRAPHY

An IndoMexican wrap Two disparate countries through Mexican eyes; rare images of ancient historical sites

Spiritual connect Graciela Iturbide is on her fourth visit to India and she is full of plans. The celebrated photographer from Mexico is here for a joint show with Raghu Rai, called An Eye for an Eye, to mark the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s fight for independence. She will then spend a month in Varanasi; it will also be her fourth trip to the city. “When I first went there I didn’t find it remarkable,” she says in Spanish (with the aid of a translator). “But then I went again and I loved it.” When she first came to India in 1997 as a traveller with her two sons—one is an architect and the other a musician—she was fascinated by what she saw. “In the beginning I was thinking, ‘Why have we come so far? It is so much

like Mexico!’” she says. “But in the second trip I was saying, ‘This is different.’” Iturbide says Mexico and India are both “spiritual” places but in their own ways. When she visited Rishikesh, she was reminded of the holy city of Chalma in Mexico and she was struck by how marigold flowers are used in both cultures for religious celebrations and funerals. Tlazolteotl, pre-Spanish Aztec goddess of earth, wears a skirt made out of serpents and reminds her of Kali. But with time, Iturbide seems to have developed a keen and subtle appreciation of the differences between the two cultures—her black and white photos of Mexico and India, which will be on display, reflect this play of resemblance and differLong shot: Jaipur ence. At times, she seems by Graciela Iturbid e. to focus on similarities by her choice of subject—eunuchs, birds, cacti—and An Eye for an Eye will be on view at their pose and demeanour. But Instituto Cervantes, 48, Hanuman what emerges is the reality of two Road (Connaught Place), New very different places, being Delhi, until 31 October. observed by the same eloquent and empathetic eye. Himanshu Bhagat

Tracing time

Marshall’s contributions A forthcoming exhibito South Asian archaeoltion by the Alkazi Founogy, the themes predation for the Arts, The sented in the exhibition Marshall Albums: Phoinclude the rise of tography and Archaeolarchaeology as an ogy, will present for the authoritative element for first time, the extraordihistorical scholarship nary career of Sir John during the 18th and 19th Marshall, the first director centuries, the politics general of the Archaeologinvolved in the archaeical Survey of India, or ASI. ological creations of These early images tespreserved monuments, tify how photography was and the relationships used for conservation between photography projects, establishing and archaeology. trends in the formative Timed as a run-up years of the ASI. to the 150-year celeAccording to Rahaab brations of the ASI, Allana, curator of the Alkazi the exhibition is Foundation, the collection accompanied by a is one of the most imporpublication from the arshall albums. M e tant in their archives, which Alkazi Collection of th m fro , 00 , circa 19 has been built by its chairPhotography and Temple at Martand a ry Su e Th y: tor His DATION COURTESY ALKAZI FOUN man, Ebrahim Alkazi, over Mapin. the last 30 years. The albums were acquired focus is on sites such veys became central to archaeo- The Marshall Albums: Photograby Alkazi in the early 1990s at an as Delhi, Sanchi, Mohenjodaro logical projects, and Marshall’s phy and Archaeology will be on auction. They comprise around and Taxila, which are often systematic efforts at creating view at the Shridharani Gallery, 300 images taken between 1862 referred to as Marshall’s archae- comprehensive excavation and Tansen Marg, New Delhi, from and 1934, mostly by ASI staff ological triumphs. conservation methods were to 7-17 September, 11am-7pm. photographers, illustrating ASI’s As early as 1847, the East India endow post-colonial South Asia work, especially those under- Company decided to document with its unique architectural her- Anindita Ghose taken during Marshall’s tenure India’s historic architecture. itage of national heirlooms. between 1902 and 1928. The Photographing architectural surWhile maintaining focus on Write to lounge@livemint.com

MUSIC MATTERS

SHUBHA MUDGAL

GEORGE IN MUMBAI

confess to being an incorrigible iTunes hoarder, and if that description confuses anyone, it’s meant to denote a music lover who buys music voraciously, transfers the tracks to iTunes, carries them round on her iPod for indefinite periods of time, and finally listens to the tracks only much later when there’s time for careful listening, reading about the tracks and gazing at album artwork. My iTunes stash recently revealed an album titled Wonderwall Music composed by George Harrison and recorded in 1967-68. The 1968 leg of the recordings was made in Mumbai at the HMV Studios, and became part of the soundtrack for the film Wonderwall. For fans of the Beatles and of Harrison in particular, this must be a sort of “so what?” moment, given that they probably have information on the colour of the shirt he wore during the recording. For me, it was a happy discovery about a segment of Harrison’s work that I wasn’t familiar with. Of the 19 tracks included in the soundtrack, 11 were recorded in Mumbai with a host of Indian musicians, including santoor maestro Shivkumar Sharma, Mahapurush Mishra playing the tabla and pakhavaj, and Aashish Khan on the sarod. Peter Lavezzoli in his wonderful book, The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi, informs us that Joe Massot first approached the Bee Gees to score the music for the film, but was turned down. He later approached Harrison, who agreed to score the music for the film, which he found greatly intriguing. But unsure of how to go about the task, he decided to adopt the following strategy. Harrison explains how he “used a regular wind-up stop watch…” as he watched the film “to ‘spot-in’ the music with the watch”. He would then write the timings down in his book, go to the studio, first at Abbey Road, and later in Mumbai, “make up a piece, and record it”. I have not seen the film, and it sounds like a strange Beatle mania: George Harrison. tale of delusion and hallucination according to the IMDB synopsis. Apparently, the plot centres on a lonely English professor’s obsession with spying on a gorgeous young model living next door, and her steamy escapades, seen through a small hole in his wall. Track names such as Fantasy Sequins, Dream Scene, Love Scene and On the Bed suddenly felt appropriate. Lavezzoli also mentions that Harrison recorded the Mumbai tracks hastily at the HMV Studios, “mixing each piece as he went along on HMV’s primitive two-track machine”. For the track titled In the Park, Harrison gets santoor great Sharma to play a melody that is easily identifiable as the Raga Chandrakauns. He is joined on the track by surbahar player Chandrashekhar Naringrekar and tabla tarang artiste Rij Ram Desad. The surbahar seems overdubbed on two tracks, unless Harrison got a sitar player to perform on the track. So did Harrison actually write down the Chandrakauns phrases and improvisations for the track, and ask the artists to play them? Or did he merely select Chandrakauns, santoor, surbahar and tabla tarang for the track and then let the artistes improvise within certain given parameters of the raga, and the eight beat groove on the tabla tarang? Many of the tracks on the album throw up similar questions about the composition/writing. Wonderwall Music has the distinction of being the first ever album released on the Beatles-owned Apple Records. It managed to reach No. 49 on the US charts in early 1969, but did not make the charts at all in the UK. The first ever Apple record to be deleted, it was reissued once again on CD in 1992. It is now available for downloading on digital stores for those who want to hear a more classical Indian soundtrack than most others written by Indian composers for any Indian film. Write to Shubha at musicmatters@livemint.com

TV REVIEW | THE NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY

Redemption in Botswana Alexander McCall Smith’s detective series retains its magic on television B Y V EENA V ENUGOPAL veena.v@livemint.com

···························· recious Ramotswe is the owner and detective at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, Botswana’s only detective agency run by a woman. From her office in the middle of a shopping area, Ramotswe solves problems of philandering husbands, missing dogs and ravenous alligators. Ramotswe is no Sherlock Holmes or Remington Steele—her cases do not require acute intellectual insight nor does solving them involve putting herself in adrenalin-packed, high-speed life and death chases. Much like the wellloved series written by Alexander

McCall Smith on which it’s based, HBO’s television show The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is uplifting and comfort-inducing. The series starts with a 2-hour special which captures the backstory of Ramotswe in its entirety—growing up in a village, playing with meerkats and giraffes, learning lessons of life and survival from her father, her early ability to find easy solutions to challenging problems. When her father passes away leaving her with 120 cows, Ramotswe decides to sell them and move to the city. She befriends J.L.B. Matekoni a mechanic, recruits Grace Makutsi as her secretary and settles down to a life of solving people’s puzzles for them. Though clients take a while to come and when they do, not all of them turn out to be paying customers, the agency gets well on its way to solving problems. Each episode introduces new characters as Ramotswe tracks down witchcraft practitioners, insur-

Scott is a perfect fit of “traditionally built” Ramotswe character that McCall Smith described. Anika Noni Rose does a comical ance fraudsters and denturn as her secretary Makutsi, who tists without licences. repeatedly reminds us of the 97% Even for those who that she scored at the Botswana found the books dull, secretarial school. there are two compelling The music, composed by Mingreasons to watch the hella’s long-term collaborator, show. One, the character Gabriel Yared, is outstanding. It of Precious Ramotswe is almost seems to play a part in the played by Grammy winplot; it’s full-blooded, African and ning R&B singer Jill Scott, wonderfully uplifting. a woman who’s comfortThe No. 1 Ladies’ Detective able with her generous Agency is different from HBO’s proportions, is a welcome other successful shows such as Six change from the size zero, Sleuth: Scott (centre) as Precious Ramotswe. Feet Under, True Blood and The perfectly ironed-haired Pacific. The drama is subdued and women who populate the English an Oscar for The English Patient the pace leisurely. It lacks the shows we get to watch. Second, the and whose previous credits breathless excitement of tasting a series is shot in Botswana and it include Talented Mr Ripley and multi-textured cheesecake in the shows Africa like you have never Cold Mountain, directed the pilot newest bakery downtown but proseen before on a TV screen. for the series. vides the warm and fuzzy comfort Botswana is beautifully nuanced This was the last screenplay he of eating mum’s sponge cake and colourfully shot, and even ref- directed and he called it “his straight out of the baking tin. erences to the great AIDS tragedy slow seduction by Botswana”. of Africa is shown through the Minghella’s sudden death threw The No.1 Ladies’ Detective multi-hued prism of an orphanage the future of the series in doubt Agency debuts on HBO on 11 playground than a hospital ward of but producers BBC and HBO September at 9.45am. Subsethe dying and the destitute. decided to go ahead with the q u e n t e p i s o d e s w i l l a i r a t Anthony Minghella, who won series anyway. 10.45am on Saturdays.

L18 FLAVOURS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2010 ° WWW.LIVEMINT.COM

DELHI’S BELLY | ANUJA & ANINDITA GHOSE

PHOTOGRAPHS

ANKIT AGRAWAL/MINT

Eyes wide open

Vertical limit: (clockwise from left) The Delhi Eye at the Delhi Rides amusement park; the VIP cabin; and Denny Kalff and Patrick Beck (foreground), international operator trainers from Vekoma, at the Delhi Eye control room.

A spectacular look at the Yamuna is just one of the highs of India’s largest observation wheel modelled on the London Eye

n the year that the London Eye—UK’s most popular paid visitor attraction—turns 10, New Delhi is set to host its own iconic observation wheel. At 175ft, the Delhi Eye will be India’s largest wheel. It will open to the public on 26 September. This mesh of white steel and UFO-like cabins is part of Delhi Rides, which also opens on the same day—a 3.6-acre amusement park that is still under construction in Kalindi Kunj as we visit. The park is situated close to New Delhi’s border with Noida in Uttar Pradesh and Faridabad in Haryana, and hopes to attract visitors from all three areas. Tahir Rana, the director of Delhi Rides, was convinced to go ahead with the `17 crore investment at the insistence of his 25-year-old son, Imran Ali Khan, who went on several rides on the London Eye as a student in that city. Rana is expecting 5,000-7,000 visitors daily and is confident of breaking even soon. “We’re hoping that everything will be ready in time for the Commonwealth Games,” he says. Among the rubble and mounds of cement, the Delhi Eye rises like an out-worldly installation on one edge of the park. As we step gingerly into one of the 36 air-conditioned cabins for a test ride, we’re promised views of city attractions such as the Qutub Minar, the Lotus Temple and the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The ride provides a panoramic view of the city. What is most spectacular though is the bird’s-eye view of the Yamuna—the water standing out

in the city’s crowded landscape. A 20-minute ride in which the wheel does three rotations costs `250 per person. At 4m per second, the wheel moves slowly enough to accommodate infants as well as the aged. Each cabin can hold eight people, which makes the total capacity of the wheel 288. The cabins have light and music controls, along with a vent in case passengers feel claustrophobic. Additionally, there’s one VIP cabin with plush red and black couches, an LCD screen and a phone connected to the control room. This privilege will set you back by `500. The giant wheel has been manufactured by the leading Dutch coaster design company Vekoma and will be run by the company that operates the Singapore Flyer, the world’s highest observation wheel. As we descend, we see representatives from Vekoma instructing local staff on operating the wheel. Padam Kumar Chaudhary, a Dubai-based engineer who is a consultant for the project, addresses our safety concerns by pointing out that all the rides in the park have been certified by TÜV, an international assessment company. The Delhi Eye is a far cry from its global counterparts—some of which stand at more than three times its height. Still, coming back to earth is disappointing. The distance puts a rose tint on the city. Ground level is a reality check. anuja@livemint.com

ANATOMY OF THE WHEEL 36

4m per second

number of cabins

maximum speed

148ft wheel height

persons (600kg)

GOING HIGHER AND HIGHER George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr designed and built the first 264ft giant wheel in Chicago, US, in 1893. This first wheel could carry 2,160 people. In 1999, the creation of the London Eye popularized the concept of a very tall “observation” wheel. It led to a number of other cities (including Belfast, Birmingham, York, Manchester, Kuala Lumpur, Las Vegas, Melbourne, Moscow, Nanchang, Shanghai and Singapore) installing, or proposing to install, similar wheels. u The current record holder for the world’s tallest Ferris wheel is the Singapore Flyer in Singapore. It is 541ft high and has been in operation since February 2008. u The Star of Nanchang, in Nanchang, China, previously held the world record (20062008). The 525fthigh wheel opened in May 2006. u The preceding record holder was the London Eye, in London, UK. It is 443ft high and opened in December 1999. It held the record for being the world’s tallest from 19992006.

134.5ft

wheel diameter

number of spokes

56ft

base depth

75.5ft

base width ILLUSTRATION

JAYACHANDRAN/MINT