OPEN Magazine 28 October 2013 by Open Media Network

fashion special

RS 35 28 October 2013

INSIDE What is Maharashtrian about Sachin? l i f e

a n d

t i m e s .

e v e r y

w e e k

The psychology of style

Nawazuddin Siddiqui in an outfit designed by Arjun Saluja

Open Mail | editor@openmedianetwork.in Editor Manu Joseph managing Editor Rajesh Jha Deputy Editor Aresh Shirali Political Editor Hartosh Singh Bal Features and Sports Editor Akshay

Sawai

Senior Editors Kishore Seram, Haima Deshpande (Mumbai) Mumbai bureau chief Madhavankutty Pillai deputy political Editor Jatin Gandhi associate editors Dhirendra Kumar Jha, Rahul Pandita assistant editors

Anil Budur Lulla (Bangalore), Shahina KK, Aastha Atray Banan, Mihir Srivastava, Chinki Sinha Special Correspondents Aanchal Bansal, Lhendup Gyatso Bhutia (Mumbai), Gunjeet Sra Assistant Art Director Tarun Sehgal SENIOR DESIGNER Anup Banerjee photo editor Ruhani Kaur assistant Photo editor Ritesh Uttamchandani (Mumbai) Staff Photographers Ashish Sharma, Raul Irani Editorial Researcher Shailendra Tyagi asst Editor (web) Arindam Mukherjee staff writer Devika Bakshi Associate publisher Deepa Gopinath Associate general managers (advertisement) Rajeev Marwaha (North

and East), Karl Mistry (West), Krishnanand Nair (South) Manager—Marketing Raghav Chandrasekhar

National Head—Distribution and Sales

Ajay Gupta regional heads—circulation D Charles

(South), Melvin George (West), Basab Ghosh (East) Head—production Maneesh Tyagi pre-press manager Sharad Tailang cfo Anil Bisht hEAD—it Hamendra Singh publisher

All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner is prohibited. Printed and published by R Rajmohan on behalf of the owner, Open Media Network Pvt Ltd. Printed at Thomson Press India Ltd., 18-35 Milestone, Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad—121007, (Haryana). Published at 4, DDA Commercial Complex, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi-110017. Ph: (011) 30934199; Fax: (011) 30934162 To subscribe, sms ‘openmagazine’ to 56070 or log on to www.openthemagazine.com Or call our Toll Free Number 1800 300 22 000 or email at: subscription@openmedianetwork.in For corporate sales, email ajay@openmedianetwork.in For marketing alliances, email alliances@openmedianetwork.in For advertising, email advt@openmedianetwork.in

Volume 5 Issue 42 For the week 22—28 October 2013 Total No. of pages 74 + Covers

4 open

There are a lot of differences between ‘The Hero’ and ‘The Prince’ and therefore it is unfair to term both as ‘Hollow Men’ (‘The Hero and the Prince’, 14 October 2013). On one hand we have a gentleman who believes that the power that some people seek is “poison” and tries to keep himself away from that, and on the other hand is a man who got One promises inclusive himself declared as his growth while the other party’s PM candidate after fighting with his refuses to admit moral political guru and responsibility for his mentor. One realisticalrole in one of the worst ly admits that “one man communal episodes in on a horse” cannot the history of India “suddenly come and solve all the problems”, while the other is famous for making unrealistic and cheaply popular one-liners and claims that he will solve each of India’s problems with ease. One promises inclusive growth while the other refuses to admit moral responsibility for his role in one of the worst communal episodes in the history of India. The people of India, in my opinion, are aware of the differences between the two personalities and will express their opinion rightly in the 2014 polls.  letter of the week Give Modi a Break

R Rajmohan

cover photo

Vatsal Chirimar

Raul Irani

when none of the sheets is clean, you select a sheet that can give you better protection than others (‘The Hero and the Prince’, 14 October 2013). Comparing what we saw in the past decade under Congress rule and what we saw in Gujarat, anyone will agree that governance in Gujarat is the better of the two. Give Modi a chance to prove it. If you just wallow in negativity, when will you get positives out of any leader of the country? 

the PMO has lost control of our country’s affairs and has to depend on media leaks, but also puts in doubt the integrity of the office of India’s chief executive. 2014 cannot come faster, and each day of election campaigning is pushing us deeper into the swamp.  Shiv Kumar Mishra

Justice on the Fast Track

we need to ‘fast track’ the entire justice system (‘The Case against Fast Track Courts’,

14 October 2013). Sure, rape trials need to be fast-tracked but corruption and murder cases need to be fast-tracked too. And so do dowry cases— where dowry-related torture leads to the daughter-in-law’s committing suicide.  Sachi Mohant y

Cheap and Sick Men

i had been to Uzbekistan with my wife last month. We really enjoyed whatever we could see in Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara (‘Nights out in a New Town’, 21 October 2013). However, the return flight from Delhi to Tashkent left a bad taste. The behaviour of these male groups on the flight was ridiculous, cheap and sick. It made me feel really ashamed of being an Indian.  Adit ya Marathe

Naive Idealists

i am sorry but many of the AAP candidates sound like naive idealists (‘Of the People’, 14 October 2013). Governance need smart motivated people with their heart in the right place. These candidates may have their hearts in the right place, but I am not sure how they will handle complex governance issues.  Rushabh

Utsav

Of Leaks and Media Trials

though i am not against reining in the Army, especially in an immature democracy as ours, I am saddened by all these selective leaks and media trials (‘What is Sauce for the Goose…’, 7 October 2013). It not only gives the impression that

Congratulations Ashish Sharma of Open won the Best ‘Photojournalist Award’ at the photography contest held by Fashion Design Council of India during the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week Spring-Summer 2014, in New Delhi. Moreover, Raul Irani has won a prize in the ‘General News’ category of Media Foundation of India Photography Awards. —Publisher 28 october 2013

How a Political Party’s Office Got Bangalored takeover

The Karnataka High Court has asked the JD-S to turn its premises over to the Congress

b a n g a l o r e The Janata Bhavan in Bangalore is a beautiful two-storied stone building on Race Course Road. It functions as the Janata DalSecular’s head office in the state and has been under possession of the Janata parivar for the past 40 years. It was here that former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda decided to sever ties with the Janata Dal and float the JD-S. However, as the Karnataka High Court ruled recently, Janata Bhavan is in fact not Janata Bhavan. It is Congress Bhavan and belongs to the Congress party. 28 october 2013

The JD-S has been given three months to vacate the premises and hand it over to its rival, the Indian National Congress. The building first came under Congress possession in 1969, when it was gifted, along with some land around it by a veteran Congressman, A Rangaswamy, to the Bangalore City Congress Committee. It was then named Congress Bhavan. In the same year, when the Congress split into two parties—one led by Indira Gandhi and known as INC (J) and the other, INC (O), headed by S Nijalingappa—–the

building came to be occupied by the INC (O). The party continued to occupy this property despite a 1971 Election Commission ruling, and subsequently a Supreme Court ruling, that recognised the INC (J) as the original Congress. Later, the INC (O) merged with several non-Congress groups to form the Janata Party, which continued to occupy the building. The Congress party approached the Judiciary to regain control of the building. In 2005, a trial court ruled in favour of it, but the JD-S took

the matter to the Karnataka High Court. On 11 October, a division bench comprising Justices N Kumar and VS Appa Rao upheld the trial court’s ruling. Incidentally, when the legal battle over the building began, JD-S’s state president was Siddaramaiah. Today, he is a member of the Congress party and Karnataka’s Chief Minister as well. The JD-S’s current president, HD Kumaraswamy, Deve Gowda’s son, has declared that his party will approach the Supreme Court for justice. n Anil Budur Lulla

open www.openthemagazine.com 5

express archives

small world

contents

cricket

angle

God and Bigg Boss: neither exist, or do they?

How Maharashtrian is Sachin?

44 34

cover story

comment

On fake encounters

The psychology of style

spin

felt

spark

Khadi denim

Fashion with emotion

Anand Kabra: Inspired by women

Out of Fashion

The Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week, held recently in Delhi between 9 and 13 October, is perceived to be a somewhat more serious affair than its cousin in Mumbai, the Lakme Fashion Week. This time though, the Delhi Fashion Week turned out to be an almost dead affair. Very few buyers turned up and

N o sh o w

Photos ashish sharma

style special

a number of designers abstained from the event. One designer told this correspondent that the current surfeit of fashion events takes away from the novelty of a Fashion Week. During the shows, a few buyers were seen seated in the front rows, but one thing was certain—business wasn’t as usual. n Chinki Sinha

Pelting Problem According to the Central Reserve Police Force stationed in Kashmir, the state has seen a phenomenal six-fold increase in the number of instances of stone pelting this year, compared with figures from last year; 55 such instances were reported in 2012, whereas this year, by September, there had already been at least 318 instances, as a result of which a total of 628 security personnel have been injured and 250 bulletproof-vehicles damaged. According to some news reports, these

S T ONE C OL D

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stone-pelting attacks are organised and one report estimates miscreants are paid as much as Rs 400 per week to participate. n Mihir Srivastava

on able Pers Unreasotnhe Week ■ of erawat ■

Mallika

F o r asking her suitors to bungee

jump to prove their love for her As she continues to sift for her ‘true love’, Mallika Sherawat is giving the 30 suitors desperately vying for her attention on her reality dating show The Bacherolette India: Mere Khayalon ki Mallika a tough run. After director Mahesh Bhatt put all the contestants through an ‘integrity’ test, offering them a role in his next movie to see whether they’d choose it over Mallika, the actress dared them to ‘fall’ for her—literally. “It’s quite simple,” she said, “if you can’t do something as small as bungee jumping for me, how can I be sure you can provide for me?” So much for being an independent woman who went against her father to carve out a career in Bollywood. All 30 managed to pull it off. But Malllika, what if the love of your life had ended up a heap of pulp? How would he have ‘provided’ for you then? 28 October 2013

photography

Portraiture: truth or theatre?

47 52 Bollywood costume designers

strut

Flaunting personal style

cinema

true life

No cigs please, we’re Indian

Kurosawa in Kolar

Ravana leela? I n t e r p r e tati o n

Vijayadashami or Dussehra, which fell on 13 October this year, is celebrated across the country as the day Lord Rama slayed Ravana, as the triumph of good over evil. However, there are a few groups that do not agree with the manner in which Ravana has been portrayed. One such group is Adi Dharam Samaj in Jalandhar; they pray to Ravana and refer to him as ‘Mahatma Ravan’. According to them, at a time when a number of rape cases are being reported across the country, Ravana should be feted for protecting Sita, who was his rival Rama’s wife. They claim that

Custom T o u r ism There has reportedly been a surge in the number of Chinese tourists visiting India. In 2003, only about 21,000 Chinese tourists visited the country via Delhi’s international airport. By 2008, this number had shot up to 100,000. Last year, around 900,000 Chinese tourists came visiting through Delhi. In response, the Duty Free operator at Indira Gandhi International Airport has recently hired six students of 28 October 2013

NOT PEOPLE LIKE US

Parineeti’s prep work

After implicating BCCI chief N Srinivasan and Gurunath Meiyappan for IPL betting in his book, Chennai Super Kings opener Michael Hussey abruptly changes his stance backf o o t

‘Our owner was India Cements, headed by Mr Srinivasan. As he was also on the board of the BCCI, he gave control of the team to his sonin-law Mr Gurunath, [who ran it] with Kepler Wessels, who was coach’ —Michael Hussey, in his book Southern Cross

he could prove an icon for women’s safety. Not so demonic now, is he? n Mihir Srivastava

turn

glitz

“I may have written the wrong thing... I am certainly not going to question the word of N Srinivasan... he would know better than me who is running the show... I knew [Gurunath] was a close part of the team”

—Michael Hussey, quoted on ESPNcricinfo.com 14 October2013

around

Service Mandarin at Jawaharlal Nehru University as shopping managers. There are plans to hire four more by February next year and to train sales staff to speak basic Mandarin. Signage and leaflets in the script have already been put up at the airport. According to the Duty Free operator, an average Chinese traveller spends three times more than his Indian counterpart—about $250-300 on products like tea, tobacco and cognac, all available at the airport’s Duty Free. n Aanchal Bansal open www.openthemagazine.com 9

angle

On the Contrary

God and Bigg Boss Neither exists, but both are brought into being by common consensus M a d h ava n ku t t y P i l l a i

hat is most interesting a

month after the start of the latest season of Bigg Boss—the reality show on Colors in which a bunch of half-celebrities are cooped inside a house with cameras recording every moment—is not how it slowly bares the true character of its contestants. It is not the bursts of rage and bullying of Armaan Kohli. It is not the doomed and possibly fake romance of Gauahar Khan and Kushal Tandon. It is not the late realisation of Kamya Punjabi, a potential winner given the show’s history of crowning TV serial stars, that she has made a strategic mistake by allying with the wrong camp. Or the various artifices of each and every one of them. The most extraordinary thing about Bigg Boss is that Bigg Boss does not exist. On an average day in the Bigg Boss House, whenever there is a necessity or dispute, you can see the contestants promptly put their mouths to the microphone and ask Bigg Boss for redressal. They speak to Him as the Master of the House and someone everpresent looking over them. This is how the audience too relates to the show. They all know that Bigg Boss is an idea. He is represented by a voice, but even this voice addresses him in the third person. Yet, despite this full disclosure, it becomes evident at some point that, as if by a gradual sleight of psychology, he has turned into a real person for everyone. Something comes into existence where nothing was by the consensus of all interested parties. This is fascinating because in early societies, before secular and written laws appeared as guides, the concept of God must have firmed up in some similar fashion. In a chaotic environment, it is in everyone’s interest to have order, but there needs to be an entity to provide it. The only human way is by force of arms (that would be the king’s) or through obedience to an unknown superior force to whom all can be obedient. But while such strange faith in such a non-existent monitor prevents anarchy, what it does not is make for better human

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tele-made divinity At some point it becomes clear that Big Boss has turned into a real person for everyone

beings. They continue to do whatever is necessary in their own interest but in the name of God. You can witness that in the Bigg Boss House too. The broad guidelines are maintained by the fear of punishment, but within those limits, it is a free play of machinations. Aggressive ones like Kohli try to establish their alpha male authority while others team up to keep him tame. The idea of good-and-evil or ethical-andunethical applies only as long as it does not threaten survival. Like God, Bigg Boss’ influence is overarching within his universe. Since neither exists, their will is exercised by

Like God, Bigg Boss’ influence is overarching within his universe. Since neither exists, their will is exercised by agents: in the show’s case, its producers. This includes throwing out housemates who are dull

agents: in the show’s case, its producers. This includes throwing housemates who are boring out. This can be done either by omission—reducing the screen time of contestants until viewers don’t vote for him/her; or by commission—merely by saying someone didn’t get enough votes since there is no independent audit of who got how much that is ever revealed to the public. Week after week, you can be almost certain that the contestant who gets the least airtime on the show is also going to get the boot. The contestants have also figured it out. It is incumbent on them to provide spectacle to stay on and there are only so many ways to do it with a bunch of strangers—romance, pick fights, form tribes, have a nervous breakdown, be nasty, show repentance and so on. Almost all of them know that what they do could mean courting a bad image, but that is also the Faustian pact one makes with God for an extended life. There is no good or bad publicity. To be remembered badly is still renown; to be forgotten is death. n 28 october 2013

india

A Hurried Man’s Guide to Ranjib Biswal

Ranjib Biswal, 43, was appointed the new chairman of the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the cricket board’s Annual General Meeting in Chennai recently. Biswal was a bit of a surprise choice. Former India captain GR Vishwanath and the Haryana Cricket Association’s Anirudh Chaudhary were touted as the top candidates for the job. Biswal takes the place of Rajeev Shukla, who resigned after the spot-fixing scandal around this year’s IPL. The son of former Deputy Chief Minister of Odisha Basant Kumar Biswal and a former MP himself, Biswal has been associated with Indian cricket in various capacities. He is president of the Orissa Cricket Association. He managed the Indian team during the 2011 World Cup and this year’s Champions Trophy and was the chairman of the National Cricket “We will work to Academy, where he ensure that the will now be replaced IPL remains a coveted product of by Kerala’s TC Mathew. He was also one of the the Indian cricket selectors when the fraternity” Mahendra Singh Dhoniled Indian team won the first World Twenty20 Championships in 2007.

utsav devdutta/solaris images

He has played a bit of cricket too, turning out for Odisha from 1987 to 1996 as an offspinning all-rounder. He scored 2,170 runs,

insider “I can see things from the players’ perspective”

including five centuries, took 153 wickets and captained the Odisha U-19 team in 1989. “This is a big responsibility and I am hoping to call a meeting of the governing council soon,” Biswal said after his appointment. “I will try to make the IPL a clean cricket tournament. I will also see that IPL matches are played in a better way with every passing season. Being a cricketer myself, I can see things from the players’ perspective. Yes, these are challenging times, but we will work to ensure that the IPL remains one of the most coveted products of the Indian cricket fraternity.” n

It Happens

Vada Pav: Zara Hatke While the classic recipe remains strong, experimental versions of the vada pav are gaining traction O m k a r K h a n d e k a r sajjad hussain/afp/getty images

real

More sauce please! A Jumbo King vada pav

he first bite reminds you

of sambar. In the second, the sliced coconuts hit a home run. It is the usual potato stuffing, but with a distinct South Indian touch. By the time you finish, it’s hard to believe you just ate a vada pav. The vada pav has come a long way over the last four decades. Today, it is as synonymous with the city of Mumbai as the sea. A typical vada pav consists of a potato patty dunked in gram flour, deep fried and served piping hot, nestled in a bun with some chutney. With time and a growing breed of entrepreneurs, a new pedigree of the snack has emerged over the years. The South Indian vada pav in question is the brainchild of Nilesh Gupta, kitchen manager of a recently-shut shop in Ghatkopar. “Before I came up with such dishes,” he says, “I went on a tasting spree. Eventually, I realised that not a lot of innovation has gone into making a vada pav.” While he was in business, Gupta also sold a Jain vada pav made to suit that community’s dietary restrictions. Its patty was made of raw bananas, using a completely different palette of spices. Though these flavours are quite unheard of, the concept isn’t. Chains like Jumbo King Vada Pav and Goli

Vada Pav No.1 have been doing it for years. The vada pav sold at these chains range from the interesting to the bizarre, with Chinese, Punjabi and Western influences. There’s Goli Mix Veg Vada Pav with a patty made of green peas, carrots and beans and coated with crumbs. Corn Palak Jumbo King has a corn and spinach patty and is served with mayonnaise. The double decker A roadside vada Tandoori pav is Rs 10 at Paneer most; Jumbo Jumbo King King’s tandoori is served with Thousand paneer version Island sauce. costs Rs 80 The chains offer a mishmash of other flavours, even a customised patty. But these innovations come at a price: as opposed to a roadside vendor who sells a conventional vada pav for no more than Rs 10, Jumbo King’s Tandoori Paneer vada pav costs Rs 80. Thankfully, the experiments are unlikely to drive the classic into retirement. Says Dheeraj Gupta, founder of Jumbo King: “60 per cent of our business still comes from selling regular vada pav. High-end ones like the Tandoori Paneer barely account for 1 per cent.” n 28 october 2013

business

BREAKU P “We wish Walmart the very best for the future,” said Rajan Bharti Mittal, managing director of Bharti Enterprises, after the mutual parting of ways between his company and the US mega-retailer, a six-year joint venture that was operating a series of wholesale stores in India. Their big plan was to run a chain of US-style supermarkets here, but the split looked inevitable because of the stringent riders imposed by India’s FDI policy in the multibrand retail sector. The big plan was simply not working out. Also, there had been some friction between the partners over a bribery scandal that had placed Walmart under the cloud of a US law, apart from local allegations in India of FDI rule violations by the JV. Their wholesale business of ‘cash-andcarry’ outlets will now be run only by Walmart, while Bharti keeps its current chain of EasyDay outlets. However, Harminder Sahni of Wazir Advisors, a retail expert, foresees Bharti’s poor finances forcing it “to close its retail shops”. Walmart, he says, would most likely hold on to its wholesale business and wait for a policy relaxation that puts foreign retailers at par with domestic players on the 30 per cent local-sourcing condition for supermarkets, a policy irritant which insists that foreign players source at least one-third of their supplies from Small and Medium Enterprises in India. Walmart will probably stay on the sidelines waiting for full and free access to the Indian retail sector “either because it

has an inkling of such a change in policy happening in a year’s time or does not see it happening in the immediate future” says Sahni. In either case, it seems to have calculated it does not need a local partner. Since the break-up has been taken as a sign of Walmart’s frustration with Indian policy, pressure on the Government to ease norms may increase. The event has drawn attention, as analysts see it, to how the 30-per cent sourcing rule blunts

Walmart and Bharti have split. Is India’s retail FDI policy really a non-policy?

India’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, which together employ an estimated 70 million people across sectors, remain woefully short of formal loans. So much for monetary policy Total demand for credit by Indian MSMEs is estimated at Rs 32 lakh crore

Public Sector Banks 14.3% Private Sector Banks 4.7%

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“I can give you examples of dozens of people who have defrauded investors, shareholders and banks and continue to walk free. You are scaring business out of the country, this is why industries are looking outside…”

Starved of Credit

Informal Credit Channels 81%

Infographic by tarun sehgal

Walmart’s competitive edge of low-cost global sourcing; how its being restricted to 1-million-plus population towns is too arbitrary; and how mandatory back-end investment interferes with its freedom of strategy. While much fanfare was made over India’s retail opening up, analysts say it is still not clear if it is truly open. It is a $600 billion sector, mostly unorganised, with vast profit potential for large-scale players that use the clout of size to source goods cheaply. What India gains, says Sahni, is improved supply chains and greater choice at lower prices for Indian consumers. n SHAILENDRA TYAGI

chairman, HDFC, expressing shock over the CBI’s move to name Kumar Mangalam Birla as a co-accused in the coal block allocation scam

Deepak Parekh, compiled by Shailendra Tyagi

Demand met through formal channels

pile it high, sell it cheap Walmart may have to content itself with wholesale stores instead of supermarkets

Source: ASSOCHAM

credit Demand met through Informal channels

Sanjit Das/Bloomberg/Getty Images

All Restive on the Retail Front

comment violation

Close Encounters of the False Kind ruhani kaur

Let’s get some perspective on the issue of extra-judicial killings kishalay bhattacharjee

has elicited a lot of debate on the issue of police encounters in India. That is because Gujarat has been on the radar of civil rights-waalas since the 2002 riots and every development there is tracked with a rigour that’s lacking in several other places in India. The truth is, such encounters happen all over India and many of them get no mention in the 24-hour news cycle. While routinely going through its newsletters in 2012, India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) discovered that Assam had not reported over 60 killings to the Commission over a ten-month odd period. According to NHRC rules, every death in police action must be reported to it within 48 hours. In 2011-12, the NHRC opened 79 fresh cases on encounter deaths in Assam; 65 of these were opened on intimation from the state police and the rest on complaints from NGOs and others. In the same year, the United Nations observed that ‘a credible commission of inquiry into extra-judicial executions in India, or at least in the areas most affected by extra-judicial executions, should be appointed by the [Indian] government’. In 2013, the Supreme Court of India set up a three-judge committee to examine a claim of 1,500 fake—or staged—encounters having taken place in Manipur. Led by Justice Santosh Hegde, it found that six killings were not genuine encounters. On 12 July 2013, a Mumbai sessions court sentenced 21 people for life including 13 policemen for staging an encounter in the city. Since the 1990s, at least 1,200 people have been killed in Mumbai by a special posse of policemen called ‘encounter specialists’. Despite this statistic, the National Crime Record Bureau of India records zero fake encounters by the police of Maharashtra. Nearly 60 per cent of all extra-judicial death cases are in Uttar Pradesh, where the victims are usually individuals with criminal backgrounds. Listed as ‘death in

The Ishrat Jahan case

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breach Mohammed Wahid Ali, father of Azad Khan who was killed in a 2009 fake encounter in Manipur

encounters’, the NHRC hears at least 60 cases of such killings every week. Most cases are heard more than once, so not all are new cases. In 2012, of the 129 cases that the Commission heard, it found 50 cases involving 59 deaths to have been staged. This is a shocking number; 46 cases involved the police, three involved paramilitary personnel, and one, the Army (which had killed two people in this case).

One of India’s most controversial legal provisions is one that shields security personnel from prosecution for such killings: the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Granting immunity to armed forces engaged in anti-insurgency operations, it was first deployed as an emergency measure in the Northeast in the 1950s and is still in force despite loud civil society protests against it. 28 october 2013

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comment Applicable in Kashmir too, the armed forces have used AFSPA as a shield in several cases. It does not guarantee impunity for all time. Recently, the CBI registered a case after 15 years against police and Army personnel accused of killing 19 people in the Poonch area in August 1998. In 2010, the Army had tried to invoke AFSPA in the case of a colonel, major and seven others charged with killing three youths taken as foreign terrorists in Kupwara, but the case is not closed yet. In what is known as the ‘Red corridor’ of India where the armed Communist Party of India (Maoist) operates, detentions resulting in custodial deaths and other extra-judicial killings are not uncommon. India has a culture of impunity in practice that will continue unless justice is upheld. There are several examples of police, paramilitary and armed personnel accused of such killings, but they have rarely been arrested and punished. It speaks of a warped incentive system. Often, such encounters are staged to win medals and awards. In the Army, unit by unit scores are kept and points earned by the elimination, apprehension or surrender of militants in insurgency zones. If an Army unit wins an award citation, it may get to join a United Nations mission overseas—prized among other things for the money it can earn the men in uniform. It is like a bonus for the ‘good work’ they have done. It matters little that this ‘good work’ could include extra-judicial killings or false surrender cases. This is how it works: while combat formation in a conflict zone is hard work, the need for recognition pushes them to scout for easy heads to scalp and candidates for surrender. It creates demand for an illegal arms trade, too, since the security forces often buy weapons to display as ‘captured’. These arms come in handy for staged surrenders and are seen in ceremonies attended by the media where former ‘militants’ turn their guns over to the State. Many of these men are freelance actors; they readily serve a three-month jail sentence and emerge for another

round of the same farce. Their families get compensated while they serve jail terms. In many places, the police join the effort for the spoils. While the police lack the military training needed for encounters, they help by identifying and drawing up lists of targets. They sometimes get to pose with these dead targets too, often gun-in-hand, though they may never have held one ever before. The judicial commission on the Manipur killings set up by the Supreme Court held an Army major responsible for one of the killings. Major D Sreeram was awarded India’s highest peacetime gallantry medal in 2009 (one of only two serving Ashok Chakra winners) for the same ‘encounter’ in which cousins Gobind and Nobo Meitei were killed in Imphal’s Langol area on 4 April 2009. Sreeram, leading the Assam Rifles unit, was awarded the medal for a ‘palpable decrease in insurgency activities’ and bringing ‘succour’ to the state’s people. But one of the most brutal examples of innocent civilians killed by State forces— missing from the current discourse on fake encounters—is from Assam. In 1991, the state government managed to break the United Liberation Front of Assam (Ulfa) and draw a large number of this armed separatist group’s leaders and senior fighters overground. They were banded together to form an irregular force under the banner of the Surrendered United Liberation Front of Assam (Sulfa), tasked with taking on insurgents. As part of the rehabilitation package, they were given business contracts, permits to run liquor shops and other privileges. They were also allowed the use of firearms. While this new militia was used by the State to eliminate Ulfa cadres, it soon began a reign of terror, targeting family members of Ulfa leaders and turning trigger-happy in violation of all norms. This issue became so contentious that the subsequent government ordered an enquiry of ‘secret killings’, accusing the previous government of covert exterminations. The Assam killings recorded between 1998 and 2000 led to three inquiry

commissions under India’s Commission of Inquiry Act of 1952. On 3 November 2005, the KN Saikia Commission was constituted, and it submitted its report to the government on 15 November 2007 (to be presented to the Assembly). The Saikia report investigated 35 cases of secret killings. According to the report, most of the killings occurred in the dead of night and the assailants spoke in the local language. ‘The assailants were invariably armed with sophisticated firearms of prohibited bores, and masked with black wrappers or caps to avoid being identified,’ notes the report. ‘The vehicles used were mostly Maruti Gypsies and vans always without registration numbers. There was police patrolling in the crime areas prior to and after but not during the killings.’ The report alleges a nexus between the state and the surrendered cadres: ‘There was lurking evidence of police-SULFA nexus in the killings, some of the latter being constituted as an extra-constitutional authority and used as executioners. The modus operandi being to visit the family, ask members to persuade its ULFA members to surrender, failing which, to send an advance team to survey the location and structure of the house, then to send armed and masked men at dead of night, knock at the door to wake up the inmates and then drag him/them out and shoot him/them dead, or take him/them away and secretly kill and throw the bodies somewhere.’ So far, nobody has been held responsible for the killings. The police officer who allegedly put together the Sulfa operation later ascended to the highest rank in the police force, serving as Director General of Police in two states of India. The story is far from over. The use of irregular militia is common in Maoist areas as well as Kashmir. Since Independence, India’s concern with internal security threats has made observers look the other way. It is true that India has had to contain insurrections without policy guidelines and has been successful to a large extent. But it has been at the cost of blatant violations of human rights. n

ashish sharma

I N T E RV I E W

“The history of racism varies with the decades... like fashion” As part of a monthly conversation series organised by Open at Smoke House Deli, William Dalrymple spoke to Pavan K Varma about writing for a foreign audience, romanticising the Raj, and much else . Excerpts: Pavan K Varma: The moment I mentioned your name—(sound of a chair drag) William Dalrymple: Large farting noise... (Laughter in the audience) Varma: I want to ask you about [your] first book... At that time, Willy had a much slimmer persona, [and a] far greater body of hair... When Willy came [on the scene], the scepticism with which you see a foreigner trying to discover your country [was], in my case, very quickly overcome by the transparency of his passion... It is an audacious project to profile a city. [City of Djinns] was a success. Was it written partly with a foreign audience in mind? Dalrymple: ...It’s true that for both 20 open

my first two books, I had a very specifically British audience in mind. I was lucky that I started writing at a time when travel writing was extremely popular in Britain. There was this great wave in the late 80s... Patrick Leigh Fermor... Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, Eric Newby— these were big bestsellers when I was at university... I arrived on the scene in 1986 [when] I did this journey following Marco Polo while I was still in college... I don’t think either of [my first two books] initially had an American publisher and I certainly didn’t imagine that either would sell very well here. I think City of Djinns was actually a bestseller here, surprisingly, but in those days that meant 4,000 copies. In the early 90s, [that was] a bestseller in English in India; today, of course, it is 50-60-80,000 [copies]—a mea-

sure of how the market has changed. One of the strange things that has happened to me in the course of writing nine books is that, certainly with Nine Lives, my biggest audience is not in Britain anymore but here. Nine Lives sold [around] 45,000 hardback copies in India and it was the book I was most frightened of releasing to the Indian audience. Of all the subjects a foreign writer can write about, the three most clichéd are poverty, maharajahs and mysticism. This, obviously, was the third and I thought it would get a very hostile reception in India. In the end it turned out the British were not at all interested in it; it hardly sold [there]. Americans, funnily enough, are into a particular form of Indian mysticism, and it sold very well in California, but for all the wrong reasons, I suspect. 28 October 2013

Varma: I greatly enjoyed City of Djinns... and obviously you were writing with a sense of an observer who empathises greatly with his subject, but when you write for a foreign audience primarily, what does it do to the projection of this subject? Do you choose frames which you believe will get a better response, even if they exclude areas that should’ve been a part of the narrative? Dalrumple: When I write now... I do write very differently, with an Indian audience in mind, but the only difference is how much you explain. In both cases I write what interests me and what I think will interest my audience and I try to tell the best story in the most well researched manner that I can. The difference is how much you explain. Today, nothing goes into italics. There was a famous instance where Rajesh Joshi wrote a very cruel review of one of Pankaj Mishra’s books where he showed how much Pankaj had explained daal—a confection of lentils fried in onions or something. You can tell who the author is writing for by how much he explains. I remember Arundhati Roy making a comment in an interview when The God of Small Things came out that she made a point of not explaining various aspects of Mallu culture, of the culture of Kerala. Because, she said, John Updike would not explain to me how to play a baseball game; you can look it up if you want to. And there were complaints from my British audience about this—that I was assuming that people would know stuff that they didn’t. But I don’t think it fundamentally alters the way that I personally go about writing a book. You still try to tell the story in the most interesting manner, in a sense, for yourself; the only difference is how much you explain. Varma: Moving to your next hat, that of the historian, and your pre-occupation with the Raj, starting with White Mughals. Do you imagine yourself as a White Nabob? Dalrymple: I have never written about the Raj proper. The Raj proper begins in 1858 with Queen Victoria taking over the Government of India and it ends 1947 at the Gateway of India. And it’s a period which has been much written and argued about, probably the best written about period of Indian history. The period that I have been fascinated about and become a specialist in is the period 28 October 2013

stretching from 1739 to 1857—the period from Nadir Shah to [Bahadur Shah] Zafar—and that in contrast is one of the least studied periods. The Raj proper, [by] technical definition, begins in 1858 and what I am interested in is the twilight and the East India Company. The company seems to me to be the most fascinating and sinister organisation in world history. It was not the British who conquered India; it was a public limited company. It was a company which had shareholders, which had annual general meetings, which had dividends— Varma: But which had the backing of the government... Dalrymple: Eventually. And that whole story is fascinating. And there is no modern equivalent. The modern equivalent would be Halliburton, if Halliburton were nuclear, or if PepsiCo had fighter jets. It is a deeply sinister organisation and you have a company taking over a continent. It is a unique thing in world history and something which absolutely fascinates me... The Company begins in the year 1599, which is the year Shakespeare writes Hamlet. It’s in a Jacobean England, [at a time] when India is the richest polity in the world—what China is today, what America was in the 80s, what Britain was in the 19th century, India was in 17th century. The British arrive in India as scruffy provincial underdogs trying to get a bit of the commercial action that’s going on here. When Milton writes Paradise Lost, he takes Adam on a tour of the future wonders of humanity... and if you [were to] do it today, you’d go to maybe Shanghai or New York, but Milton takes Adam on a tour of Fatehpur Sikri, Delhi and Agra, as the supreme wonders of the world to come. So you have that early phase when the British are underdogs, scruffy guys with codpieces trying to get a bit of the action. Varma: With respect for the local civilisation... Dalrymple: That comes next. Then you get [a phase when] there is a measure of cultural parity; where the British are a bit more powerful but they can still be beaten. In 1779 at the Battle of Pollilur, Tipu Sultan defeats the Company, takes their entire army prisoner. The power is debatable and a chance fluke in a battle can make it go either way. At this point, you get a measure of inter marriage—one

in three British men in India is married to an Indian woman. As power decreases on the Indian side and increases on the British side, as industrial revolution kicks in, as a militarised, mechanised army arrives, as the British government becomes more involved as opposed to the Company, you get to see that slipping away. So from one in three inter marriages in 1780s, it goes to one in four in the 1800s, one in five by 1810, one in six by 1830 and more or less gone by the 1840s. And then you get a measure of racism setting in. The history of racism varies with the decades—it is not a solid thing. It is like fashion—like hemlines or anything else. High British racism kicks in properly in the 1830s and 1840s, and you get a completely different attitude... Varma: Have you ever been accused of romanticising some aspects of what the British interaction brought to India? Dalrymple: I think there were accusations of romanticism in White Mughals. And I had a very interesting debate with Pankaj... We had a disagreement over White Mughals. He thought it was a very romanticised take. We had a long debate in an American journal. But by the time The Last Mughal came out, there was much less of that, in that The Last Mughal gives, I think, by far the most graphic account of British war crimes [in Delhi] that has ever been published. [It] revealed the degree to which the British completely destroyed a city and created what in any modern court of law would be described as terrific war crimes. In the final instance, the gates were locked, troops were placed outside each of the exits and every single male who was found in the city of Delhi—over the age of 16—was killed. Varma: And the vandalisation of the city! Bayonets [scraped] away even the last semi-precious stones of the Divan-eKhaas in the Red Fort. The whole ground was cleared up to Jama Masjid... Dalrymple: Again, we use the term ‘the British’. It is always important in these things to distinguish individuals. The fact that Jama Masjid exists at all today—because it was slated to be replaced by a Gothic Cathedral—is due to the Governor of Punjab, who arrived just in time. And the fact that the Red Fort wall survived... The British were all set to follow the original plan to completely destroy the Red Fort. n open www.openthemagazine.com 21

identity

The Ala Re Sachin

Just how Maharashtrian is Tendulkar? Akshay Sawai

couple of years ago, there was a

ritesh uttamchandani

TV commercial for Royal Bank of Scotland. It shows a tailor taking a man’s measurements for a suit. Standing against the light, the man is silhouetted. When the suit is ready, he buttons up his sleeves. The camera slowly rises to the man’s face to reveal his identity. It is Sachin Tendulkar. The royal blue pinstripe suit—oldschool and powerful—does a classy job of signifying Tendulkar’s status. He speaks no lines in the film. Nor does the tailor. The background score, the minimal

voiceover, the suit and the wearer’s piercing gaze make an eloquent statement of dignified authority. It is not the most famous Tendulkar commercial ever to air, but captures his aura better than most. Cut to another image of Tendulkar—in a world that is far different from suits and banking, money and status. Parleshwar Vada Pav Samrat, a prominent vada pav outlet in Vile Parle East, is as blue-collar Maharashtrian as it gets. Its wall bears a large collage of photographs of Maharashtrian celebrities, many of them endorsing the quality of its vada pav. One

of those pictures is of Tendulkar, flashing his wholesome smile, the smile of a man who has lived clean and full. These two Tendulkars straddle both ends of his cultural spectrum. On the one hand, he is a world celebrity who outgrew the profile and lifestyle of the quintessential Maharashtrian long ago. He is cosmopolitan, married to a non-Maharashtrian, Dr Anjali Mehta, and named after a Bengali music director, SD Burman. On the other hand, he is irrepressibly Maharashtrian in several other ways. He loves vada pav, for one. And also Marathi staple food. Jai Bokey, a USbased sports marketer, became friends with the cricketer when he was in India working for Professional Management Group. Once, when Tendulkar happened to be in Pune, where Bokey lived then, Bokey invited him for dinner. Tendulkar accepted it on the condition that the menu would be “varan bhaat poli bhaji”. (‘Varan’ is a mild Maharashtrian dal, ‘bhaat’ is rice, and ‘poli bhaji’ is ‘roti subzi’). His son, Arjun, can eat varan-bhaat with sautéed potatoes every day. Some friends jokingly call Tendulkar not ‘Master’ but ‘Maastoor’, a rustic Marathi pronunciation of the original word. There are other manifestations of Tendulkar’s abiding Marathihood as well. Anjali speaks fluent Marathi and their children call Tendulkar ‘Baba’—a traditional Maharashtrian term for ‘father’—in accordance with his wishes, reportedly. Says Pravin Amre, Tendulkar’s former teammate and like him a student of Ramakant Achrekar, “Every Guru Purnima, he visits Achrekar sir. He is dressed in ethnic attire on festivals and prefers home food. These are some of the ways in which his ‘Marathipan’ comes through. But one must remember that first and foremost, he considers himself an Indian, and that is why he has always batted with the tricolour on his helmet.” Sunil Harshe, Sachin’s childhood friend, is at his home in Sahitya Sahawas colony in Kalanagar, Bandra East. This housing estate is where Tendulkar grew up and lived for many years even after he became a superstar, moving out only at the start of the last decade. Harshe, a jovial man with scant regard for convention, wears a half-sleeved shirt over blue Adidas shorts given to him by Tendulkar. 24 open

As children, the two were the Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn of their colony, often up to antics. In the summer of 1991, Harshe remembers, when his parents were away for almost a month, Sachin spent most days at his house. “We moved all the furniture from the drawing room inside, laid down mattresses, got stacks of video cassettes and saw tonnes of movies on a VCR Sachin had won in some tournament,” he says, “We slept and got up when we wanted, ate all kinds of things.” Sahitya Sahawas has nine buildings, each named after a Marathi poem; all but three of the 84 families living here are Maharashtrian. “We weren’t jingoistic,” says Harshe, “There wasn’t [any of] what you call ‘Marathi baana’ or being a Marathibaaz. But by default, it was a very Maharashtrian atmosphere.” Dozens of friends, hours of playing, and going home reluctantly only to wolf down meals—it was a life with every sort of competitive activity packed in. “Shigrupi, gotya (marbles), bhavra (spinning top), tikkar (hop-scotch), lagori, chor-police, cricket and even tennis, we played everything,” says Harshe. To gauge how Maharashtrian Tendulkar is, one must understand what marks a member of the tribe out in the first place. Here is a rough shortlist of characteristics: serious about studies; physically not too large nor slight; a fondness of cultural activities; a love of cricket; and a tendency to refer to Marathi icons by initials or first names. Such as Pu La for PL Deshpande, Ga-di-ma for GD Madgulkar, Bhimsen for Bhimsen Joshi, Lata for Lata Mangeshkar, Sunil for Sunil Gavaskar, and of course Sachin for Tendulkar. Maharashtrians are usually middle-ofthe-roaders who go about their lives quietly, rarely wanting to stir things up. Most prefer to weigh in on the side of moderation, which may explain why Tendulkar steered clear of controversy throughout his career. Tendulkar has always maintained he is proud to be Maharashtrian and fellow Marathi speakers have always had a sense of ‘aaplepana’ (kinship) with him. Yet, 25 years of success, celebrity and global travel, of interactions with world leaders and CEOs, have expanded his horizons enor-

mously. What’s admirable is how he has kept his old world ties without clinging to them. His move from Bandra East to West about a decade ago was symbolic. Geographically the two neighbourhoods are just a few hundred metres apart. Culturally, they are different worlds. From a colony named Sahitya Sahawas, he moved to a building called La Mer, and then to his current home, a bungalow in a quiet lane on Perry Cross Road in the same suburb. In Sahitya Sahawas, his next door neighbours were Velankars and Deshpandes. In La Mer, his neighbours were Aishwarya Rai and Prahlad Kakkar. Today, when Tendulkar speaks Marathi, he cannot avoid using English words. There is another thing about Tendulkar that is an anomaly for Maharashtrians: his ambition. At the start of his career, the wow factor about Tendulkar was his precocity. It seemed incomprehensible that a 16-year-old could face Imran Khan and Waqar Younis. Or an 18-year-old could score a century against a rapacious Australia in Perth. It was hard to imagine that a 22-year-old Indian boy would sign a contract for $7.5 million when such figures were only associated with tennis champs and golfers. The previous most lucrative contract was Mohammad Azharuddin’s reported Rs 50-60 lakh Reebok deal. But as the years went on, Tendulkar’s wow factor became his records and longevity. Now, it seems incomprehensible that anyone would hit 100 centuries and play 24 years. Hundred hundreds is possibly the most remarkable stat in contemporary sport, and also the record least likely to be beaten. Such hunger is hardly ever associated with Maharashtrians. Yes, there have been a few insatiable achievers like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle and Gavaskar. But they are exceptions. The typical Maharashtrian often has the skill and discipline but not the bellyfire to go the whole hog. Tendulkar, of course, did all that and then some more. And he inhabits two worlds apart with such ease and adaptability, perhaps not seeming so Maharashtrian has to do with his being one at heart. “He is a connoisseur of red wine,” as Harshe says, “but he can have drumfuls of sol kadhi or kokam sherbet.” n 28 october 2013

The Style Issue

The psycholo

ogy of style In putting together this style issue, we wanted to move beyond the pretty photos, the hyper-reality, the airbrushed perfection of fashion glossies. We wanted to tell the stories of people who take their style cues from their environment and experience rather than preset notions of beauty, the stories of designers whose work goes beyond parading recycled ideas or the need to be commercially viable or the need simply to be noticed. We wanted to tell the stories of designers who have stories to tell. ISSUE EDITOR: Chinki Sinha

raul irani

ashish sharma

The Style Issue satyagraha chic Social activist and Gandhi impersonator Mahesh Chaturvedi in khadi denim jeans from the ‘100% handmade’ line of luxury brand 11.11 by CellDSGN

Mood Indigo How Gandhi’s khadi got a denim spin Lhendup G Bhutia

n the outskirts of Rajkot in Gujarat, there is a room filled with the din of 12 noisy mechanical handlooms in operation. The clamour is so loud, machine operators have to wear either large orange headphones or stuff their ears with cotton buds. There are however some who wear neither. They are simply too used to it. Speech seems impossible here, let alone chitchat. Yet, oddly, the operators have no trouble pursuing conversations, even with their ears muffled. Some banter, some gossip and some even crack jokes. “They are so used to this,” explains a manager, “they can read each others’ lips.” But that is not the only odd thing about this khadi making unit in Gondal, near Rajkot. Amid a sea of white being woven, one handloom works the warp and weft of a suspicious material. In colour, it is dark blue, almost indigo. It has red borders. Upon touch, it appears slightly thick and weighty. Like denim.

unique material is being woven in India’s western-

most region. Khadi, that traditional Indian handspun and woven cloth which Gandhi used as a political symbol against imperialism, is getting a new spin. It is embracing an archetypal Western cloth and making it its own. Ten different khadi institutes in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region are creating what they call ‘khadi denim’. Khadi, according to various institutions that run khadi making centres, is in a bad way. They claim government neglect, with large sums of money often held up that are supposed to reach them as rebates. Many weavers of the traditional Indian weaving community of Bunkars are quitting the profession for better opportunities. At the retail end, things are no better. Sales of khadi have seen a drastic decline over the years. About 20 years ago, when many of these troubles were first being noticed, various khadi institutes in Gujarat started experimenting with different materials, one of which was a khadi version of denim. “We showed it around,” says Ajay Doshi, general manager at Khadi Gramodyog Sangh, “We tried to get various companies and retailers interested, but it was all a big failure. People thought it didn’t make sense. And we shelved it and forgot about it.” The idea, though, did have power. “With the right pitch,” adds Doshi, “it could have worked—a unique denim material suited for warm climates like ours. Great for the skin, eco-friendly and extremely comfortable.” A little over two years ago, one of the largest denim makers in the world, the Ahmedabad-based Arvind Ltd, contacted Gujarat Rajya Khadi Gramodyog Board, the apex body of khadi institutions in Gujarat. “They said they have an idea,” recounts Doshi, “Could we make denim that was handspun and handwoven?”

hread for khadi denim, like any other khadi materi-

al, is first spun on spindles. However, while most khadi thread nowadays is spun on spindles and then wrapped on cones, that for khadi denim is spun on spindles and later accumulated on wooden charkhas (wheels). This is done because when thread on a charkha is dipped in vege-

28 october 2013

table dye, it gets uniformly coloured. This dyed thread is then woven with handlooms like any other khadi cloth. The khadi industry has undergone many technological changes. For example, the charkhas are now mechanical units called ambar charkhas, which have ten spindles running on a single machine. Udyog Bharti, one of the khadi institutes producing khadi denim, also possesses solar ambar charkhas that demand no manual labour. But these aren’t being used for khadi denim because Arvind Ltd has asked for handspun materials that would lend weight to its marketing pitch of ‘handmade denim’. Many weavers at the institute are not even Bunkars. The traditional handloom has been tweaked and the weaver now simply has to work her feet on two pedals to operate the loom. In all, three types of khadi denim are being produced. The thinnest of them is used for shirts, while two thicker materials are used for trousers. Some like Udyog Bharti get the denim shirt materials woven at their units with mechanical handlooms. But for the thicker varieties, they still have to depend on the traditional handlooms of Bunkars who work at home.

dyog Bharti is one of the oldest and largest khadi

makers in India. It was set up in 1957 by a Gandhi follower named Hargovindbhai Patel. It began with just a room with 10 weavers. Today, it boasts a network of 2,004 weavers and craftsmen, of which only 300 work at Udyog Bharti’s five mills. The others work at home. The mills have an all-woman workforce. On the windowsills of one such mill, you see soapboxes and torn plastic bags with facial creams and lipsticks amid a variety of bolts, wheels and tools of mechanical handlooms. There are mirrors and combs tucked away in various crevices of some looms. Some of the women in their early twenties hope to make and save enough money for their weddings and leave the job once they get married. Some are older women in their late fifties and sixties whose children have abandoned them. A few are divorcees who have turned to weaving to support their families. It is a mix of people faced with different circumstances in life, but there is a convivial atmosphere at the workshop. Children of employees sometimes visit and the women take breaks to sit and talk to the child. “We cannot let khadi disintegrate,” says Chandrakant Patel, the current secretary of the organisation and son of the late founder, “We need to keep it alive. Too many people depend on it.” One of the women working at the mill is Akhruti Pakwara, a 25-year-old who separated from her husband a few months ago. She now lives with her parents in a village about 7 km away from the unit. After undergoing three days’ training, she has been working here for a week. She is now an operator of a mechanical charkha, spinning out thread for khadi denim. “When I asked the manager in charge why I was spinning thread into a charkha and not a cone, like the others, I was told because I was making ‘jeans’. The others also said so,” she says. “But I thought they were pulling my leg. So I stole into the store room one evening to catch their lie. And just imagine what I saw: rolls and rolls of dark blue material among whites!” open www.openthemagazine.com 29

Doshi remembers how many of his weavers at Khadi Gramodyog Sangh struck work in the initial days. “We were weaving thread immediately after the dying. We were not letting the colours settle down. As a result, the weavers would be covered in blue by the end of a day’s work. Then a rumour started doing the rounds—that the colour was composed of harmful chemicals,” he says. “I had to go about visiting them,” he adds between laughs, “telling them that the colour was absolutely harmless and made of vegetable dye.” Khadi denim is not without its naysayers. Patel says that some institutes believe that it amounts to a sell-out. In 1971, his late father faced a similar hurdle when he headed the institute. His father had wanted to introduce what’s now called ‘polyvastra’: a dash of polyester in cotton for shirts and pants that would crumple less and look smart. “But for most people, this was sacrilege. They said, ‘You are going against Gandhi’s teachings.’ But my father stuck to it, and, look how commonplace it is today,” Doshi says. “We have to understand that these are different times,” he goes on. “Gandhiji’s time was different. Today is different.” Since the process of making denim is so labour-intensive, very little is produced. Each weaver produces no more than 5 metres of cloth everyday. Udyog Bharati, which produces the most khadi denim, has been able to deliver no more than 12,000 metres in the past two years. “They say, ‘Make more.’ But we just can’t,” says Prakash Panchamiya, general manager at Udyog Bharti. “I hear they produce more than one lakh metres of denim themselves each day,” he adds, “What are we in comparison?”

t is evening and the storeroom is shutting for the day. In a corner are stacked up rolls of blue and white khadi denim. A month later, all of this will be lifted onto a truck and disappear into an Arvind Ltd warehouse in Ahmedabad. So far, the company hasn’t launched any khadi product of its own in the consumer market. Khadi institutes believe the company is stocking up on material to make a big splash later. Asked about it, Panchamiya says, “We’ve heard they are going to launch it abroad—in Paris or London. They are going to market it as a premium product: handspun, handwoven, coloured in vegetable dyes and eco-friendly.” Contacted by Open, Arvind Ltd declined any comment for this article. About eight months ago, Arvind Ltd supplied some of its stock to designers of a luxury brand called 11.11 by CellDSGN in Delhi, which plans to unveil a line of khadi denims titled ‘100% handmade’ by the end of this year. It will retail at boutiques in Tokyo, Paris and New York, apart from some in Indian cities. Smita Singh Rathore, a designer and one of the brand’s founders, calls the material a beautiful product with a beautiful philosophy. “What we got to do was make a traditional Indian textile meet modernity,” she says, “Each piece of ours will be a cultural conduit. [It is] an optimistic—and at the same time rebellious—luxury approach to traditional garment creation.” CellDSGN has also made a film on the process of making khadi denim that they plan to screen at exhibitions 30 open

during the line’s launch. Each khadi denim item will also be accompanied with a darning kit to repair any damage. “Not only will patching and darning extend the life of every item, it will give each piece its uniqueness,” she says. “It will [extend] the amazing story of its creation.”

ravelling 110 km from Rajkot to Surendranagar—a

journey across vast expanses of cotton fields and a few barren patches that extend into the Kutch desert—I reach an old warehouse tucked behind some industrial units. This warehouse is managed by Khadi Utpadan Vechan Kendra, an institute that produces khadi denim and has a couple of weavers working on handlooms. These are classic handlooms, intricate contraptions of wood with four pedals that only a trained Bunkar can operate. Bhanji Gullabhai and Chavda Devji Chagganbhai are both Bunkars, and work the pedals with ease. Much of the khadi denim woven for the institute by weavers in villages was being rejected by Arvind Ltd for not being up to the mark, so the two of them were employed to work right at the warehouse. Yet, between the two, an entire day’s work produces no more than 10 metres of khadi denim. Gowardhanbhai Wagela, a 68-year-old weaver who rose through the ranks to become the unit’s manager, bemoans the lack of interest in khadi among youngsters. He cites the example of his son who is in college. “Woh bolta hai, ‘Khadi boring hai’ (He says khadi is boring),” Wagela says. When his son recently learnt of khadi denim and asked for a few samples to be brought home so he might consider using it, Wagela claims to have told him, “‘Boring hai na? Dekhna hai toh godown pe aana” (Its boring, right? So come to the warehouse if you want to see it). Surendranagar, a hub for Indian textiles and weavers, is in transformation mode. Factories and industries are springing up everywhere, luring away Bunkars from their traditional occupation of weaving. As far back as Gullabhai and Chagganbhai can remember, their ancestors have been weavers. But they be the last of them in their families. Gullabhai, 50, moved from his village in Gautamghat, about 20 kilometres away, to a rented apartment in Surendranagar a few years ago after his two children found jobs as electricians in a local factory. Chagganbhai, 42, hopes to save enough money to move to the city in a few years. His children work as labourers in a pharmaceutical company. The two turn up at work by nine every morning and help each other out whenever the need arises. According to Wagela, the two of them are very good weavers. Had the unit not required weavers for khadi denim, they may have had to quit weaving. “If you weave at home, you need the whole family to help you out,” says Wagela, “In their case, like in many others, when children take up other professions, they also quit weaving. Khadi denim has helped them continue with it.” At around 6 pm, the two weavers leave for home. Wagela has already left an hour earlier. Gullabhai takes a cycle, while Chagganbhai waits to hitch a ride on a truck. At a distance, an amber sun is setting. Inside, the warehouse bears a forlorn look. In the rapidly vanishing light, the only thing striking is the sight of indigo on a couple of traditional handlooms. n 28 october 2013

The Style Issue

Crazy-good/crazy

A flip-back diary of my feelings during the creation of a collection

ost runway show: I feel depressed. What now?

How can I avoid the post show press conference? During the show: my name is announced for me to take a bow. I feel irritated. Why bother with it at all? During the show: the last model walks out into the arc lights. I feel relieved. The show went off without a hitch. During the show: buttoning up garments, tying closures on models, I feel like I am on steroids. Adrenaline high. I scream, I hug, I manage to squeeze in a smoke break. Pre show: I spot mum and friends seated waiting for the show to begin. I feel happy and blessed. Morning of the show: I feel nauseous. I need a bucket near me, and a bottle of water. One day to show: I am filled with trepidation. Preps for show are done. There really is nothing left for me to do. I still refuse to leave my room, somehow feeling if I step out for a drink or a meal, it’ll all go wrong. My fellow designer friends are functioning normally. They are so well adjusted. I hate them. Three days to show: Model castings and fittings. I feel like the second lead in every Bollywood movie—inconsequential. There is nothing really for me to do. I have the shortest fitting schedule always. The entire exercise takes 15 minutes. There is no point having a sit down with the hair and make-up KALLOL DATTA artist. Even with references provided, they is India’s heaviest will still do their own thing. Why bother? fashion designer. Five days to show: Prepping guest-lists, His Twitter last minute dry-cleaning, collecting accessosignature is ries from vendors. I feel like The Brain @KallolDatta Whisperer. I can hear a pop in my head each time I feel like I’m experiencing an aneurysm. Apparently, we as a nation do not understand the significance of RSVP. I’m willing to bet any amount that on the morning of my show, I will have people calling and texting me for invites. 14 days to show: I feel crazy-good/crazy. The last batch of printed textiles comes in to the workshop. They’ve turned out great! But wait! Is there enough time to create a minimum of four garments out of these fabrics to have a cohesive sub-story in the collection? Crazed. 18 days to show: I feel like I need to finish the world’s supply of ice cream. 29 days to show: I feel a need to ameliorate. Actually I don’t. This day just needed a word I do not understand. 31 days to show: I feel there needs to be a way I can expand time. One month left. 37 days to show: I feel, dare I say, happy with the way 32 open

preps for fashion week are progressing. 55 days to show: Pattern cutting and calico toiles are done! I feel like I deserve a pat on the back. Except that if I ask my tailors to do that, they’ll certify me insane. 61 days to show: I feel a manicure session coming up. Finally, print artworks have been sent across to my printers. Screens will be made. Soon. Hopefully. Hours on the computer; my right palm can carry out only one function—cradling a mouse. Patterns are being cut; I’ve got callouses from using old school iron scissors. There is no emoji that can represent my physical state of being. What’s that you say? You’ve found one with a hunchback and deformed hands? 63 days to show: I am indebted to my Meitei friends for their instructions on how to pronounce Manipuri cuss words. With everyone in Kolkata familiar with English, Hindi and Bengali cuss words, screaming out a thunaba or a thigun means nothing to them and everything to me. 71 days to show: I feel snails would outrun me at this pace. Colour samples have been finalised. I mean, how difficult is it to decide between two shades of black? Shapes have been frozen. 79 days to show: I feel I am a functioning depressive. During ideation, if I am momentarily happy, the ideas I come up with are scrapped within the hour. Creative juices flow well when I brood. 83 days to show: Music is sorted. I feel like an entourage is in order. For every showcase, I decide on music first. I know which tracks are going to be played. These tracks are on 24/7 in my studio, workshop, car and home. This time, I’m leading with Shelter by The XX. I imagine myself being part of The XX, holding intimate gigs in my studio, workshop, car and home. I’m crooning Shelter with such familiarity, it seems like I’m a songwriter too. I am tone deaf. 90 days to show: I feel like I’m exotic. Hotter than the tropics. No, wait. I feel like I need to feel. ASAP. Three months left. Just the storyline in place. There are, however, no catalysts to get my brain to work. It’ll happen of its own accord. I slip out of the studio for a drink. Expensive wine and wasabi nuts. Now I feel exotic. Where art thou, Pitbull? A few snippets from my journal leading up to a showing of my Spring/Summer 2013 ‘Grotesque Nonsense’ collection at the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week. The collection was based on how Eastern concepts get lost in translation when they travel Westwards. n 28 october 2013

The Style Issue

The emotion in fashion A model clad in a burqa-sari walks down a smokefilled runway, with the Faiz ghazal Dasht-e-tanhai, sung by Farida Khanum, playing in the background. It’s an enduring image. It was designer Arjun Saluja’s interpretation of the story of Dimple, the eunuch, from Jeet Thayil’s Narcopolis. Saluja, who owns the label Rishta, had done his version of the burqa-sari. It grew out of an emotion—his experience of androgyny. “Dimple’s story made me feel lonely,” he said. How does one use betrayal as inspiration? How does one show loneliness in pieces of a garment? “Live the emotion through the piece,” the designer offers. CONCEPT: CHINKI SINHA photographs by raul irani

Angoori is the ‘unsentimental bride’ in an Abraham & Thakore red brocade jacket from their New Bride collection of last year, which was inspired by women anchored in their beliefs, who don’t see marriage as the defining point of their lives. Angoori was married at 15 because her mother, who works as domestic help, knew slums were unsafe spaces for women. She talks about marriage as a routine affair, something that had to be done. She is now done with it. Aamna, her mother, wanted her daughter to be a bride once again. A dancer who lives in Chennai, Shreyasi Gopinath (right) is seen in a bridal lehenga that took Ngairangbam Sailex, a designer from Manipur, five years to make. To the maker, this ensemble represents a modern bride. For both designers, this was their first attempt at bridal wear. 34 open

Painter BaaraAn Ijlal in a Deepika Govind sari. Bangalorebased designer Deepika Govind had gone for a family wedding in Tamil Nadu four years ago. The check saris she saw her aunts and grandaunts wearing took her on a nostalgia tour. “It reminded me of my grandmothers. They would wear checks and stripes, with cotton lace blouses and chintz prints. “That era is memorable. When I did this collection, I remembered my grandmothers,” says Deepika. Painter Mithu Sen in a Kallol Datta kaftan. Kallol Datta’s kaftan was inspired by his traveller grandfather, who worked in the UN. Kallol found the lungis and kaftans after his grandfather passed away and the family was going over his stuff. The kaftan was from Senegal.

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“Unless you pass through here, you will never reach beyond…,” says designer Arjun Saluja on how his collection Aik—which drew inspiration from the shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi—came about. He simply says “something happened” while he was there. During his struggle years in Delhi, actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui has spent time in Nizamuddin, and says he is able to intuit what this costume (the one he is wearing) is about. “I saw how people were sitting, and I connected. He talks about a feeling of peace, a spiritual aura (the words he uses are ‘sukoon’ and ‘ruhani’)

ashish sharma

Muslin was his first dog. “I used to plan work around him. He used to watch movies with me. When I went away, I got separation anxiety.” Muslin passed away in November 2012. For three days, designer Anand bhushan sat in hospital. He was depressed, and on mood stabilisers. He didn’t want to see colour. It all translated into a collection on mourning. “I needed to do a collection to get closure,” he says. Graphic designer Smriti Sagar in an Anand Bhushan outfit 28 october 2013

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The Style Issue

doggie doting

And the hundreds of ways you can do it if you’ve got the cash

aisy and Alfred are no ordinary couple. After

a $600 trip to a spa, including a jacuzzi, tea wraps and a massage each, they are off for a yoga session with a private instructor. That doesn’t sound excessive, one might think. But Daisy and Alfred are designer Marc Jacobs’ bull terriers. Ask my family and friends and they’ll tell you that I’m all for Marc spoiling his pets. I don’t see the care given to pets as ‘spoiling’ them. Instead, I consider any ‘excess’ care to be ‘pampering’; after all, a dog holds the esteemed position of being ‘man’s best friend’. Pet-obsessed individuals like myself have inspired limitless designer animalfriendly lifestyle products meant for ‘spoiling’ a pet dog. If you thought Paris Hilton’s well-dressed Chihuahua Tinkerbelle was the only one with designer clothing and jewellery, think again. Closer home, designer Masaba Gupta’s pug Luka wears his very own customised camera-print ties and has loads of designer accessories to choose from. Roberto Cavalli Designer Pet Couture has become a rage all over the world. The collection includes a variety of elaborate satin bathrobes, silk shorts and velour tracksuits priced at $1,200. The designers at Hartman & Rose have created a $725 mink fur coat for dogs, a status symbol to let everyone know ANAND yours is a pedigree pup and not some flea-ridBHUSHAN is a designer cultivating den mongrel. The best part: PETA can’t dump a bucket of paint on a dog wearing fur. a modern, edgy My dog Muslin, before he left for his heavtake on upscale enly abode, had customised clothing from dressing Kallol Datta 1955 and Pero. Seeing him look dapper, I understood why people indulged in designer clothes, diamond collars, luxurious beds and accessories for their dogs. Most of us treat our dogs with a humble home-cooked meal or packaged dog food. So it was a surprise when I came across a phenomenon of some sort that involved homecooked pet meals by celebrated chefs being delivered to your door. Executive chef Kevyn Matthews, no stranger in the culinary world, got his love for dogs from his father, who taught him how powerful that love could be. His dogs passed away from heart attacks, overweight thanks to low quality dog food. He

started studying what dogs truly need to thrive, working with holistic veterinarians to get answers to his many questions. After seven years of intense research, his company, The Dog Chef, was born. The Dog Chef has designed custom meal plans for a variety of ailments, including cancer and kidney failure, with great success, using only the freshest local organic ingredients. And here I thought that my doggie treats were fancy. Why should your dog sleep on some old rug that you macraméd in design school or make your dog eat out of an ordinary bowl when you can spend India’s GDP on the new Louis XV Pet Pavilion for $23,990 with a $3,000 22K Gold-Thread Pet Mattress and the 22K gold leafed Versace Barocco Pet Bowl for $1,000? In the maddening city noise of Delhi where things seem chaotic and morose, a lush farm house in Chhattarpur has been converted into a beautiful, luxurious five-star boarding house for dogs. I used to take Muslin there for a Sunday swim, and agility and obedience training. Muslin often challenged founder Sonya Kochhar on the obedience part. Usually, team Bhushan won in brattiness. I left Muslin with Sonya for a month while I was on a trip to Europe. During his stay, he was given his very own luxurious suite, a gourmet meal delivered to his room, games, toys, a personal trainer, massage therapist and custom-made designer dog bed. Their experienced trainers and handlers dealt with my American Cocker Spaniel’s mood swings with great finesse. Doggie birthday parties were a regular affair, and he made friends with other adorable pooches. The best personal touch was that I was updated with his picture every day, and could Skype with him once in a while so he could make sure I was okay! Diamonds are a sign of luxury and elegance, but dogs don’t know that. Only humans do, since we’re the ones who invented those connotations in the first place. If you’ve got a few million dollars worth of jewels and lot of spare time, it’s only natural you’d have a $4.2 million dog collar made for your dog. I surely fall into the ‘If you have to ask, you can’t afford it’ income range. I imagine no matter what you spend on this million dollar dog treat, it will surely go completely unnoticed by the little guy—but unless he’s chewing the dangly necklace into pieces, it will surely bring a million dollar smile to his owner’s face. Is Mrs Ambani taking note? n

Hartman & Rose sells a $725 mink fur coat for dogs, a status symbol to let everyone know yours is a pedigree pup, not some flea-ridden mongrel

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28 october 2013

The Style Issue

Why Stories Matter

Designers must become part of the stories consumers tell of themselves

n that far off land of kaleidoscopic imagery, there were candy-coated flora and fauna, appliquéd ferris wheels and carousels, techno-indulged Indian street art, sequinned animae. As you delved deeper into this whimsical wonderland, things got ‘curiouser and curiouser’. “Oh my god, this embellishment is done with gold latex!” “The detailing is not from fabric, it is acrylic!” This was a pilgrimage to a world where ‘nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?’ It was my first encounter with the exuberantly imaginative world of Manish Arora. And like Alice in Wonderland, I was drawn, awestruck, childlike in my curiosity and euphoric at each discovery. I didn’t buy the lehenga I had become so enamoured of (there was no occasion). But I did become a follower that day; I bought a dress instead. The very first Indian luxury piece I owned (much before I was exposed to the terms ‘high fashion’ or ‘luxury’) was a Rajesh Pratap shirt. The ascetism in the organised precision of the pleats and the understated sophistication of the crisp soft cotton evoked a Zen-like serenity and calm APARNA within me. RODDAM is a The contrasting natures of the designers’ design enthusiast self-expression connect with the dichotoand has worked my of my own nature. And there lie the two in advertising, sides of emotion in design: self-expression communications (of a designer) and connection (with an auand marketing dience). In the modern culture of self-actualisation, everyone from professional coaches to spiritual gurus and pop psychologists insistently pose one question—‘Who are you?’—and almost always answer: ‘Who you are is a mix of beliefs, philosophies, ideas and experiences that shape the way you perceive the world.’ What are you passionate about? What moves you? What does beauty mean to you? What incidents have shaped you? Your story—how only you see and feel the world—is your unique identity. How you express it is your message. This idea is not limited to the scope of the design industry, as is evinced by Meghan M Biro, a globally recognised leader in talent strategy and a pioneer in building the business case for brand humanisation. In a contribution to Forbes.com, she declares, ‘I want to know you for the real 42 open

you. I want to celebrate your personality—every nook and cranny. Real success has always been about knowing ourselves and staying true to that core. No one is perfect and no one is expected to be perfect… Steve Jobs was a freak. Authentic people are exciting, original and refreshing, the essential element of an exciting, vibrant workplace culture that leads to knockout performance.’ Perhaps that explains why the iPhone is a culture; Apple, a religion. In his book Emotional Design, Donald Norman (former Apple Vice-President and design guru) says there are three levels at play in design and in how people process it—visceral, behavioural and reflective. The first refers to the look of a product, the aesthetics; the second to functionality and use; and the third to the message, how it makes one feel. Norman believes visceral people are strongly biased towards appearance, behavioural people towards function, and reflective people by brand name, by prestige and by the value a product gives their self-image. A product may be good looking, even excellently engineered. But a brand starts a conversation; it tells a story, revels in its history, and connects with the ‘now’ of its audience. That is perhaps why networks like the Design and Emotion Society (established in 1999) ‘facilitate dialogue among practitioners, researchers and industry, in order to integrate salient themes of emotional experience into the design profession’. Last year, Central Saint Martins in London hosted the 8th International Conference on Design and Emotion, ‘to consider all aspects of the relationship between human experience and design’. Simply put, the market has shifted. Terms like ‘experiential marketing’, ‘user experience’ and ‘engagement’ are new age buzz words. The audience is no longer a consumer with a ‘need or interest’. S/he is a person with her/his own unique story to tell, with her/his own view of the world. What drives them, their aspirations, how they connect with a product comes from their own narrative of who they are, want to be and want to be seen as. Social media—Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram—is rife with these stories. And perhaps a deeper connection is forged when you, a designer, help an audience discover who they are through your own story. Connection is a two-way street; it is empathetic. But how empathetic it is depends on whether you, the designer, are content with the tribe that naturally veers towards you, or if you would like to reach out to those on the fringe in a language they understand—without sacrificing your own story. n 28 october 2013

The Style Issue ritesh uttamchandani

The Craft of the Feminine

Fashion designer Anand Kabra draws inspiration from Indian history and the inner strength of women Haima Deshpande

nand Kabra almost became a doctor. It is not

hard to understand why. He grew up in a well-off Marwari family in Hyderabad and his father was a well-known ophthalmologist. He did a year-and-ahalf of medical college before he decided he’d had enough. When he told his parents that he had chosen to be a designer, there were tears, recriminations, threats, strained relationships and much family unhappiness. “I just knew it in my heart that this is what I wanted to do,” he says, “and stood my ground.” So he switched from medicine to studying fashion design at a London college. Today, the 40-year-old Kabra has a basement studio in a building owned by his family in a quiet lane of Hyderabad. 44 open

The walls are bare. Muted lighting casts warm shadows around the room lined with colourful creations of his. A teak centre table displays a beautiful red lehenga. It belonged to Kabra’s grandmother who handed it over to him for his bride. “Marriage will happen when it does,” he says, “Meanwhile I decided to display the lehenga as it is such a superb work of art.” It is embellished with exquisite zari work. “If it’s [still] intact,” he laughs, “my bride will wear it.” Each of Kabra’s designs has a story to tell and it is almost inevitably about a woman’s valour. His latest collection, Taramati, embodies the tale of a courtesan whose voice once held time itself in a hypnotic spell. An accomplished singer and dancer, she would perform every night for her 28 october 2013

tracing a legend Anand Kabra under an arch of Tarmati Baradari, which inspired his clothing line called Taramati

beloved Abdullah Qutub Shah, the 7th Sultan of Golconda. History did not record Taramati in art or literature. All that remains of her legend is an open pavillion of lime-and-mortar with 12 doorways and a terraced garden known as Taramati Baradari. That’s where she would sit and sing for the ears of the Sultan seated in Golconda Fort miles and miles away. Like the legend, Kabra’s collection pieces together Taramati’s story partly from imagination and partly from the pavillion’s design. The inlay pattern and borders of the tiles, fragmented mosaics, jaali windows and doorway arches form the collection’s base for further embellishment. The colours are lime gold, royal blue, ivory and white, kohl black and alta red, and they go supremely well with the jaali cutwork, beaten metal embroidery, bead work and zardozi. By way of fabric, he has used malkha, cotton, lightweight silk, georgette, chiffon and crepe de chine to evoke Taramati’s felicity of song and dance. A story that is often told about Kabra is that he drew his inspiration from sex workers. “It is utter rubbish,” he says, “I have never been to a red light area nor to any of them. What inspiration can they possible give me when they seem to be a reflection of garish Bollywood and Tollywood fashion? When Indian history is the best showcase of fashion, style and elegance, why would I need to go elsewhere?” It’s not all form either. Kabra says he pays close attention to function as well. He relates strongly to the one-sizefits-all wonder that is the sari.

abra guards his privacy and is that rare designer

who has fixed working hours. He does not take kindly to telephone calls after 6 pm and only a tight group of friends may break this rule. “We are the bad boys or rebels in the fashion world,” he says, “We keep hearing so many stories about ourselves that safeguarding our privacy becomes an obsession.” Not that it hinders his creativity. His 2010 collection, She Was So Dark That She Was Blue, was acclaimed for how it drew parallels between Draupadi and the Krishna River. It was inspired by Draupadi’s narrative in Chitra Banerji Divakaruni’s book Palace of Illusions. The collection traced the depths of darkness in tumult beneath quiet waters. Another collection, Kumari, is a story about a goddess no one idolises; at another level, it is about the coexistence of two sides, only one of which is acknowledged and revered. The strength of women is a consistent motif in Kabra’s work. He attributes it to his family. “My mother and grandmother were the true decision makers,” he says,

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“Nothing moved without their consent and they were housewives with limited exposure to the outside world. They have shaped my perspective [of] women. No woman is a weakling. There is a steely resolve within each. It is this I see when I create my designs.” “I would rather have an unknown woman of substance wear my clothes than [someone] who has the money but lacks the spirit,” he says. However, commercial considerations mean that he has little control over who wears what he designs. “Once I create a collection, that’s it. I have learnt to be calmer now. In a way, I do not want to know who’s wearing my label. I know I will be hugely disappointed, so why bother?” Only a few celebrities dress up with elegance, he feels, while most labour under delusions of sensuality. “Showing skin is not sexy,” he says, “You should know how much to show.” Kabra’s ideal is Vidya Balan, who he believes is beautiful and sexy and has substance—the origin of which he traces not to her role in The Dirty Picture, but to an ‘inexplicable completeness’.

abra’s designs are widely plagiarised and this is something he is unhappy about. He says that fashion

His 2010 collection, She Was So Dark That She Was Blue, was acclaimed for how it drew parallels between Draupadi and the River Krishna is in the midst of a great churn, with everyone copying everyone and designers popping out of nowhere. Even housewives who employ tailors now call themselves designers. “People tell me that there are so many Anand Kabra ripoffs in Karol Bagh. There is nothing I can do. Once a design is done, it is in the public domain and is bound to be copied.” It’s not a loss of sales that bothers him, he says, but what it does to his feelings. “I find my emotions bastardised when someone rips off a creation.” This is because of his artistic intimacy with each of his creations. The Taramati collection, for example, was inspired by a failed relationship, a failure that made him feel that everything he was chasing had fallen apart. He now craves the stability of a lasting relationship. “There are days when I want to disappear into anonymity,” he says, “It is scary, as I don’t know what I want and where I am headed. I have always planned everything and been a control freak. But now everything seems different. I have lost control of where I am headed.” n open www.openthemagazine.com 45

The Style Issue

Golden Armour

On creating a line of wedding jewellery that’s about self-respect and protection, not merely ornamentation

t’ll be three years on 19 October. I remember that

phone call at night. Her voice was full of panic, fear, pain and confusion. I took the first flight to her in the morning and rang the doorbell as they were having breakfast. There was relief and denial on her face. “You didn’t need to come! Everything is okay, don’t worry, I’m fine!” This was not going to be easy. The day after her wedding, she had recognised the first of a series of lies. She was shocked, but didn’t want to worry her family. She would figure it out; she was sure things would be okay. The violent rage, subtle denials, abuse and manipulation were punctuated with just enough justification and “I’m sorry, I love you, it’ll never happen again” to keep her holding on. But soon his songs got less pretty: “There’s nothing you can do, you can’t go back to your family; you’re stuck with me forever.” He was a coward. He hung his head in shame and shook his head remorsefully at everything I had to say. A brother-in-law turned up to defend his cause, saying she had provoked him and asked for it; it was all her fault. We filed a case of domestic violence just so that the next girl he married Eina didn’t hear, “What can you do? Nothing!” Ahluwalia Just for justice, and to fix the balance in is a conceptual the world. jewellery artist. I was left with anger and indignation at Her designs are the idea that there are thousands of other inspired by her homes mirroring this ugly truth. I realised journey through life that no matter how strong, self-aware and confident a girl is, a situation like this can leave her emotionally paralysed. I learnt that the Protection of Women against Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA) was passed in 2005, and even though 60 per cent of Indian women have suffered abuse or violence, most cases go unreported. It’s ironic that women themselves conceal their abuse. I wanted to tell women that, as part of their wedding vows, they must also vow to love, respect and protect themselves, even if the other person doesn’t. I wanted them to always remember the power within them. I realised that the best way to pass this message on to women was to whisper it in their ears through the jewellery they wore. The typecasting of brides as shy and demure disturbs me, and I wanted to present an alternate image. I visualised confident girls with strong strides; I wanted to see the 46 open

power and confidence of a career and boardroom presence carried over in the bride. In March 2011 we presented ‘Wedding Vows’ at the Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai. The show opened with a bride in a red lehenga and racer-back blouse, with a thin veil covering her face, walking up the head ramp and pulling a kirpan, for protection, out of her intricately carved necklace. Tridents, ceremonial knives, warrior helmets and spear heads were worked into wedding-style jewellery as symbols of empowerment and strength. The message was for families too: their daughters’ trousseaus must contain strength, support and knowledge, not just gold. Saris were printed with parts of the PWDVA. Two conceptual neckpieces looked like road signs: ‘Violators Will Be Prosecuted,’ referring to the PWDVA, and ‘No Entry Unless Authorised’ hanging low enough to allude to sexual abuse in marriages. The ‘bridal veil’, a cage like headpiece, had serrated edges. Most of these were later converted into wearable pieces of jewellery; the kirpan necklace, which was meant to be just a runway piece, has become one of our most iconic bestsellers. Someone once called me a ‘fashion activist’, and though I hadn’t heard the term before, I think it makes perfect sense. Fashion in conjunction with media can be a powerful way to convey a social message. There are a lot of gender-stereotypes, but I believe positive empowering messages will stand out even more in contrast. To me, jewellery is not about ornamentation; it is a liberating expression of one’s personality. It speaks of who we are, how we think, our sensibility, and even our ideology. Making jewellery is not a business for me; it is an extension of me. It is where I place my thoughts and emotions; it is my language. When the kirpan necklace was opened at the head ramp, there was a collective gasp from the audience; goose bumps and tears were reported throughout the show. I have received emails telling me how these pieces have become symbols of journeys out of violent marriages, reminders of personal strength. I have had brides buy these for their weddings, mothers for their daughters, and wonderful husbands for their wives. I’ve created a lot of collections, but none has had the emotional and transformational impact Wedding Vows has. They say good things come out of difficult situations; this would be a gratifying example. n 28 october 2013

The Style Issue Three Bollywood costume designers talk about their unique techniques for visualisation, research and getting the details right As told to Shaikh Ayaz the chameleon and the collage Saif Ali Khan as the slippery, sinister Langda Tyagi in Omkara (left), and Ranbir Kapoor as the layered, weathered Jordan in Rockstar

Imagining Saif Ali Khan as a Lizard Dolly Ahluwalia Tewari, costume designer for Omkara and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, on her ‘animal theory’

ust as emotion is at the core of the human experience, it is present in every frame of cinema. There are emotions even in clothes. Clothes breathe. That’s why, besides the script and director’s vision, one of the things I focus on while doing film costumes is the cast. I am always curious who is playing which role, their body language and how they need to carry off their costumes. How the characters speak is also important because it reveals who they are and where they belong. That’s the starting point of creativity for me. I use what I call an ‘animal theory’. By this I mean I visualise the characters of a film in terms of the animals they resemble, or, in some cases, how similar they are to an object. When I read about a character, I ask myself, ‘Does s/he look like a ball, pen or a tree?’ All humans have animalistic instincts. In the most trying of circumstanc-

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es, our internal animal takes charge of our body. When I heard that Saif Ali Khan was playing a character in Omkara based on Iago (of Shakespeare’s Othello), I could see him as a lizard. A lizard is sinister. It’s always alert—waiting, watching and looking right through your eyes. You see it, and within seconds, it’s elsewhere. When there is danger around, it changes colour. Iago is similarly untrustworthy. On the other hand, Desdemona (played by Kareena Kapoor) was like a jasmine flower, a bud trying to blossom. To emphasise her purity and innocence, we gave her whites in romantic scenes. For Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, I had the image of Farhan Akhtar as a tiger and also as a graceful white horse. A horse looks harmless, but it’s a very powerful animal. Most of its strength lies in its legs. Taking a cue from the horse’s anatomy, director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra open www.openthemagazine.com 47

and I discussed the shape of an athlete’s legs from where s/he gets grip and power. It was suggested that we focus on Farhan’s arms along with his legs because though the legs bear the weight, the arms give them motivation. It’s the body’s way of ‘give and take.’ In costume design, the director’s contribution is a great deal. It’s good to be on friendly terms with the director. Professional relationships can be too dry for creativity. Vishal Bhardwaj and I share that kind of relationship. He never runs an artiste down. He will never say, “Dollyji, it’s not good,” or “I don’t like it.” When we were filming Kaminey, he would come and say, “Very nice but can we put some more masala in this?” Similarly, Shekhar Kapur gave us a free hand in Bandit Queen (based on the life of dacoit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi). He said, “I want each and every character to come out from the soil—Indian soil.” That was his brief. I was in love with Shekhar. He was such a good-looking fellow. The first time we met, I said teasingly, “Shekhar, I have to give you a hug before we start.” I had to keep my romantic feelings aside to work with him. And what an experience Bandit Queen turned out to be. I learnt the ABC of costume design from that film. I didn’t know anything about the lives of dacoits. I decided to do a little research of my own. A friend helped put me up with a gang of 13 dacoits and a young boy near

Chambal. They were very nice to me. They assured me of protection and safety. I cooked for them. One night, we sang Bollywood songs while some members of the gang played dholak and harmonium. They sang Kasme Vaade, that famous song from Upkar. I broke into Jhumka Gira Re from Mera Saaya, and everybody joined in. The costumes of all the dacoits were real, rugged and textured. My National School of Drama and theatre experience had taught me how to age clothes. Bandit Queen was the first film I handled on my own. I had no idea whether I had done a good or bad job. One day, cameraman Ashok Mehta was framing a wide shot from the top of a crane. When he saw me, he came down and said, “Beta, come here. Do you want to see what you have done?” I was frightened. I thought I had messed up. He put took me up on the crane and said, “Look what a brilliant job you have done!” I asked him, “Sir, why do you feel so?” He explained how the brown colour of the ravine stood out against the sky and how the faded green merged with the dry bushes and how the clothes blended so well with the landscape. That’s how I understood the relationship between colour, texture and background. To this day, I believe God is in the details. If the background details are weak, the foreground details would appear incomplete. It’s like chess. What’s a king without knights and pawns?

Gatecrashing Delhi Weddings Niharika Bhasin Khan, costume designer for Kai Po Che, Band Baaja Baaraat and The Lunchbox, on unconventional research

lothes have the power to transform a movie. They

tell a story. You learn a lot about the person from the clothes s/he wears. Characters wear clothes as much as clothes wear characters. Sometimes, we have to make that impact in just two seconds. That’s how much time we might get for a scene. For The Lunchbox, the costume and look of the characters told us a little more about their private lives. Nawazuddin Siddiqui comes in first as a Saudi Arabia-returned man who doesn’t put much thought into his clothes, but once he meets Irrfan Khan, he starts idolising him and everything about him changes. His confidence and way of dressing reflect those changes. Irrfan works as a government official. So we gave him subtle colours. But when he is going on a date with Nimrat Kaur, he works a little on his appearance. Nimrat, on the other hand, rarely goes out of her house. You only see her cooking and her clothes literally smell of food. When she is trying to seduce her husband, she wears what she wore on her honeymoon, a slightly tight dress that suggests she isn’t the demure newly-wed she once was. She has had a child since and has put on weight. We

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didn’t give her dupattas because that’s how most housewives are within the privacy of their homes. In fact, she may look like a bored housewife on the surface, but I know men who found her sexy in her white kurtas with black bra straps visible. If we had given her a prim and proper look, it would perhaps have backfired. I don’t ever want the clothes to jar and take attention away from the film. Usually, it’s the director, art director, director of photography and costume designer who decide the look. The colour palette is determined by the director of photography. All of us work under the director’s instructions. The look depends entirely on the director’s vision. My design philosophy is to ensure as much. We may have ideas of our own, but even if they are damn good ideas, translating the director’s vision takes all our effort. Then come the details. Although I am not a ‘details person’ in my own life, I pay close attention to it in films. In Kai Po Che, the whole thing of Govind (played by Raj Kumar Yadav) wearing tight half-sleeved shirts was inspired by a conversation I overheard at a friend’s place. They were talking of somebody who wears small shirts 28 october 2013

to save money. Govind is like that. He is not the sort to fuss over appearance and wouldn’t mind if he had to spend less or nothing at all on clothes. Another character, Omi (Amit Sadh), is a priest’s son and though he owns a sports shop which also sells shoes, he only wears chappals. Ali’s green taaweez was another minor but important detail. To research Band Baaja Baaraat, I gatecrashed weddings in Delhi. I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone. However, any kind of research can be useful. Speaking strictly for myself, I rely on research because I don’t have that background. For Kai Po Che, I studied the way Gujarati boys dress and behave, the mentality of middle-class Gujarat

and the colours and textiles there. For Anurag Kashyap’s upcoming period film Bombay Velvet, we did eight months of research before starting work. We read tonnes of books, visited libraries in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata, spoke to experts and even sourced photographs of the 1970s’ Bombay from friends and acquaintances. If you don’t know the world you are trying to recreate, you have to research it. Your mind stores its own observations, of course. I was recently at my high school reunion and I can’t tell you how many style details I picked just by observing people. “My God,” I said. “I am going to use that detail for a film someday.”

Getting Orgasmic Over the Script Aki Narula, stylist for Rockstar and Barfi!, on why he smeared Burnol on Ranbir Kapoor’s shirts

irector Imtiaz Ali once told Tehelka magazine, “Aki doesn’t design clothes. He designs people.” I think he got it bang on. My clothes are honest and organic. They come from a space that lends an organic honesty to the characters and the story, particularly in Rockstar and Barfi!. The key trick in getting costumes right is to have them absolutely belong to the character. For example, you have to know where the character is coming from, what he can afford to wear, what his likes and dislikes are. It’s about creating a wardrobe. For me, the script is God. You’ve got to be excited about the script. Only when that perfect marriage happens can you actually peak an orgasm. Imtiaz Ali sent me the script of Rockstar at 8 pm. I read it over the next few hours and called him up at 3 am. I was like a child bursting with ideas. The next day, I showed him a lot of pictures and references that I had worked on overnight. The starting point for Jordan (played by Ranbir Kapoor), who is like a tormented musical genius, was that he had to have a distinct identity. We had no reference points in mind, no one really who we could have emulated because that was not what Jordan’s journey was about. We didn’t want him to be like, say, Jim Morrison. In India, we have no concept of a rock star. Jordan’s look was created out of pure love, originality and imagination, keeping only his struggles and growth in mind. Every garment that Jordan wears has a story to tell. He starts out as a simple college-going, middle-class Delhi boy. He goes from being a student to having epiphanies at the Nizamuddin Dargah to finally superstardom, Kashmir and Prague. Every experience adds to his depth as a person. For example, the salwars he wears in Prague are influenced by what happens to him in Kashmir. And then, the experience of his Prague days is reflected in his final concert where he wears a military-inspired jacket. Even

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the guitar strap has charms and anecdotes that remind him of his journey—for example, it has his mother’s mangalsutra boondi, the green fabric of the dargah where he started singing, the red mata-ki-chowki chunri when he used to do jagrans. Remember the sweaters he wears in college? We got them handknitted by Delhi housewives because Jordan comes from the kind of family where grandmothers knit sweaters. We shopped at various markets in Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar, Palika Bazaar and Janpath. All of Jordan’s salwars were made at my workshop. T-shirts were cut up to make hoodies for kurtas. It was not one of those films where you just fly abroad, buy clothes in bulk and put them on the actors. That’s not the kind of costumes I believe in. Another fulfilling experience was Barfi!. It was an emotional journey for me. I was born and brought up in Kolkata and have stayed there for 26 years. I believe the best journeys are those that take you back home. Barfi! did that to me. Sourcing saris for Ileana D’Cruz from shops frequented by my mother in Kolkata was like revisiting old times. I went back to all the old khadi shops to get stuff for Ranbir, especially buying shirts and getting them starched in Kolkata because there’s a certain starchy feel that only dhobis there deliver. A lot of work went into Ranbir’s styling. We used to apply Burnol cream on the underarms of shirts to give them the effect of sweat stains. We used Brylcreem on his hair. He also carries a comb. For Priyanka Chopra’s look, we thought of school-girlish fabrics; little blouses, bloomers and skirts, all which were sourced in Kolkata. Yet, one thing I never do is overdo. Sometimes, costumes are so overpowering for a character that they detract from the film. That should never happen. My clothes never scream for attention. They blend in—quietly. n open www.openthemagazine.com 49

The Style Issue

I Wear, So I Am People who embrace their style in a hostile environment

photographs by ashish sharma

Aien Jamir “I started saving money to buy clothes from the flea market when I was in Class 5. They wouldn’t always fit, but I would alter them and fashion them into my own designs,” says this entrepreneur, who moved to Delhi from Bangalore three years ago and set up an online retail business with only Rs 2,500. Born to two government employees, it had been assumed she would go down that road. “My parents refused to support me. It was hard, but I managed.” Style, she says, is “something you either have or don’t—you can’t buy it”

Kenny Lory “I don’t go home often because I feel claustrophobic,” says Lory, a management professional who recently quit her job to follow her dream of becoming a woman. She was always a fashionista, she says, but Delhi sharpened her aesthetic sensibilities. Afraid of being targeted as a type, she tries to stay away from others like her

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Sumiran Kabir “I am taking a break from mainstream fashion because I don’t believe in it. I find ‘ugly’ things beautiful,” says Kabir, who works for a textile house in Noida and believes his environment has subdued him. Flamboyant till a year ago, he transitioned to a more understated style because “I couldn’t get any work done. People kept staring at me. But I’m beginning to rediscover myself”

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Pupps Roy... discovered his sense of style in his late teens. “It was always my sister who kept up to date with fashion trends. I spent those years wearing kurta-pajamas, engrossed in my books,” says Roy. He lives a kind of double life. “At work [as an infotech professional], I’m a team leader. So, I have to be completely professional.” He calls his style ‘glam rock’ and says he wants to feel like a rock star, so he dresses the part

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The Style Issue

A Stitch in Time

And what it means for the contemporary sari

t is a garment that goes back at least a thousand years

and there are over a hundred ways of wearing it. We are, of course, talking about the sari. The word ‘sari’ is derived from Sanskrit ‘sati’, which means a strip of cloth. While this beautiful piece of clothing may fast be losing its place as a daily wear garment in urban India, it retains its allure as special occasion wear. The sari is currently the darling of fashion. Nearly all Indian designers have a version of it. By taking six yards of fabric and adding a tailored touch, they have transformed a strip of cloth into a constructed garment. The sari that you see on the ramp, on the red carpet and in advertising campaigns is rarely unstitched. For some, this means the essence of the sari has been stripped away. For others, it is progress. “To call a garment a sari, it has to be unstitched,” says Rahul Mishra, a young designer known for his weaves, “Once you add a stitch, you cannot call it a sari. It is sariinspired, but not a sari. It’s almost like adding a collar to a T-shirt and still calling it a T-shirt.” Palak Shah, CEO of Ekaya, which has been in the sari business for four generations, agrees. “Once you put a stitch in a sari, it is a SUJATA gown,” she says, “The point of a sari is that it ASSOMULL should be able to be draped in many ways SIPPY is an and should not come in a size. The same sari author and should be able to be worn by a mother and fashion daughter. And it should be something that’s commentator kept for generations. That is the beauty and DNA of a sari.” While Shah believes evolution is necessary, she says this is best done with colour, motif and fabric. “There is no question that a woman wants a sari that drapes easily today,” she says, “so fabric experimentation is important.” The classic unstitched sari is enjoying its own revival. Ekaya, which is now collaborating with designers Abraham and Thakore for a collection, is counting on the sari’s rising fashion profile for its retail push. Sanjay Garg’s Raw Mango has become a Rs 10 crore firm in just five years selling modern-weave saris. Then there’s Chic’s Ensemble, a pio-

neer in high fashion that recently ran a ‘Sartorial Sari’ promotion to celebrate the comeback of the unstitched sari. The woven unstitched sari has never had so much attention from the design fraternity. The question is: has the arrival of the stitched sari brought about this revival? Gaurav Gupta’s sari gowns are a regular feature of any fashion magazine today. His store in Delhi’s Emporio luxury mall has one of the highest rupee-per-sq-ft yield of any Indian designer. He started designing saris with his second collection and soon realised that these would be among his most popular pieces. “A lot of women tell me they started wearing the sari because of me,” he says, “It is about ease today, so we are just adapting the sari to fit our times. That is how fashion works.” By using contemporary weaves, structures and embellishments, designers have made the sari a regular nightout garment for fashion-forward women and film stars. Sonam Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor and Deepika Padukone are often seen in a pre-stitched drape. Meanwhile, the dhoti sari of Anamika Khanna and Shantanu-Nikhil and the lehenga sari of Sabyasachi and Manish Malhotra have given the drape a hipster touch. To them, the sari is open to interpretation. Interestingly, most social historians acknowledge that the sari started as a garment that covered just the lower half of the body, with another drape for the upper half. You could argue that the single-piece sari in itself is not true to its original form. Also the length of the sari varies from state to state in India. “The embellished sari itself is not traditional,” points out Gupta, “Designer outfits are about fashion and fashion is about evolving.” Designer Manish Malhotra considers both forms of the sari important: “I love the beauty of the pure form and enjoy the ease of innovations. One does not take away from the other. This is why I work with both forms of the sari.” Perhaps the boldest avatar of the sari is Shivan and Narresh’s bikinisari, which Narresh says stays true to the sari’s soul. “It has the modesty of the sari and functionality of the bikini, so if a woman wants to wear a sari on a resort, this gives her the option. It shows the versatility of the drape—which is the sari’s essence.” It is versatility, ultimately, that will ensure the sari’s survival for generations to come. n

The classic unstitched sari is enjoying a revival of its own. The question is: has the arrival of the stitched sari brought it about?

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true life

mindspace The Greater Game

Op e n s pa c e

Ekta Kapoor Parineeti Chopra

np lu

Fire In the Blood Gravity

71 Cinema reviews

Acer C720 Chromebook Frédérique Constant Slimline Moonphase Sony DSC-QX 100 Lens

Tech & style

What’s the Point of a Kiss? New Forecast of Climate Change Elephants Get the Point

Sc i e nc e

Smoke and Mirrors

CINEMA

The Ziro Festival of Music

M USI C

This Side That Side

books

Performance in Portraiture

Photography

Kurosawa In Kolar

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Suresh Punjabi/Courtesy Art Heritage

photo fantasy The portrait is always a kind of performance 60

true life

Kurosawa In Kolar On a remote hill several miles outside Bangalore, a social and cultural experiment is underway DEEPA BHASTHI

ou are allowed your imagi-

satyavrata raut

nation here—here on top of Terahalli Betta, a few miles from the burrowed-out gold mine town of Kolar, a few dozen miles from Bangalore. The sense of being the only man or woman under a starless sky, looking down at the rocky hillocks past the thin road; the romance of seeing the gentle silhouettes of others under the blinding brightness of the moon; the feeling of being away, reclusive. On top of the hill, on a full moon night, you are allowed to imagine anything, to make up your own stories, to write your own poetry. This is why Aadima was started, and why it was named ‘Aadima’—that which harks at the primitive, the rural, the ancient. In September, on the night of the full moon—hunnime in Kannada—a friend and I are on this imaginative hill. It is quiet on the ledge where we find our-

selves. Behind us though, we hear voices and some drum beats now and then. Under bright bulbs, among a large gathering of people, this month’s hunnime haadu (full moon song) is underway. It is poetry reading this time. They usually end around midnight, but this time, it seems the event could go on all night. Closet poets, bad poets, good poets—they all read. They read political reflections, rhyming lines on nostalgia or love—there isn’t a common theme. There are no rules. Aadima, the cultural organisation that runs these monthly events, almost aggressively shuns rules, established forms and defined structures. While the readings continue, we follow Kotiganahalli Ramaiah to a room next to a cowshed. A black cow moos but lets us through. Ramaiah is one of the founders of Aadima. He is a poet and playwright; outspoken, some

would say radical. Sitting on a makeshift cot in a sparse room, his temporary quarters, Ramaiah says he would call himself an activist first. By the 1980s and 90s, when the Dalit rights movement in Karnataka had begun to wane, Ramaiah was already a political activist. Many charged sessions with friends would involve discussions about finding new ways to protest, creating new cultural texts for the emancipation of Dalits, culturally decoding the established vocabulary of social norms and rules, sifting through feudal debris, wondering how to resurrect the Dalit movement, and suchlike. “During one such meeting in a friend’s house, I saw a decorative sticker of a rupee note stuck to the mirror in the bathroom. That led to the idea where some 20-30 of us saved one rupee every single day,” he says. The group would meet at a different venue

show and tell A scene from Aadima’s award-winning play Matte Ekalavya at a performance in Delhi

each time; one such venue was atop the Terahalli Betta under a large tree, united by the collective memory of Jinke Ramaiah, a legend, saint and dreamer revered by local villagers, who had once lived there. By then, the rupees saved had cumulated to a fairly large amount. Buoyed by further contributions from here and there, the friends bought a small piece of land on top of the hill, and the organisation took off. Not without trouble though, Ramaiah says, telling us about skirmishes with fundamentalist groups, resistance from locals and the effect of caste politics. “But there was a dreamer here who lived in the collective memory still. The greatest politics is to kindle the collective memory. We decided not to go down the hill without creating a reference point here first,” he says.That reference point was a cultural experiment, which the founders hoped would be emancipatory. Ramaiah and his friends had used children’s theatre elsewhere to make cultural interventions. That was replicated here with the Makkala Mela, a month long summer camp that has now been running for over six years. The region is home to people of many castes and riddled with the expected problems that brings. “There is a lot of cultural context that surrounds the full moon,” Ramaiah says. “These nights [of the full moon] have always been very democratic, open, living spaces. In the social context where we were trying to work, there was a need to establish some social security.” This need to establish a neutral common ground was what led to the Hunnime Haadu. The one I attended was the 89th edition of the monthly event. Siddalingaiah, one of the best-known Dalit writers in Kannada, was to make an appearance, but his book release the next day kept him busy. There were a few other familiar names at the Kaavya Hunnime, the poetry session that full moon’s night. Every month it is a different programme, and villagers sometimes turn up in the hundreds. Once there is a 28 october 2013

Kurosawa film screening, another time a Japanese folk art performance. An inhouse group might perform a preview of a new performance they are working on, or a theatre group from the city might turn up. The Aadima team’s performance of the play Matte Ekalavya won several awards at the presti-

Through Aadima, locals around Terahalli Betta get

access to a wide variety of cultural events, plus a steaming hot dinner, all for free. This poetry evening has drawn the least number of people, we are told.

There are easily over a hundred for most events, a number most organisers would kill for

gious Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards festival this year. Through Aadima, locals around Terahalli Betta get access to a wide variety of cultural events, plus a steaming hot dinner, all for free. This poetry evening has drawn the least number

of people, we are told. There are easily over a hundred for most events, a number most organisers would kill for. That the locals watch Kurosawa and non-linear plays and might indulge in intellectual discussion provokes a comparison of Aadima with Ninasam, a similar institution started by the late KV Subbanna in central Karnataka. Now run by Subbanna’s son KV Akshara, Ninasam is an influential theatre school and cultural institution— villagers in the region can supposedly hold their own talking about Brecht or neo-realism. I wonder if Aadima is cultivating similar non-traditional audiences for cultural texts that are otherwise perceived as elitist. Ramaiah is dismissive. He is wellknown for his distaste for structured learning and criticises academic institutions for no longer reflecting reality. “There is no layman reading of texts. Academic reading does not reflect the new. They don’t want to reflect and raise these questions,” he alleges, insisting Aadima is different. Its property is collectively owned and it is classblind—it is a cultural experiment. He uses all the key words. Yet when I ask him if caste politics has loosened, if there have been visible shifts in the social order, he skirts around a direct answer. Instead, he says only that people of all castes and religions come to Hunnime Haadu. Other voices on the hill and elsewhere grumble at how he garners all the attention these days, how he has become the face of Aadima, though there are other founders. Wrinkles in institutional management exist, and not all villagers are happy about this social experiment. Wealthy people are snapping up land to build villas, even as labour displacement and crime increase—the regular ills that plague most societies. But here, atop this hill, Ramaiah and his team are trying something new. And on a full moon night, when a gentle breeze bears down and you can see the sharplytraced silhouettes of mountains miles away, anything seems imaginable, anything possible. n open www.openthemagazine.com 59

photography Truth and Theatre Two recent exhibitions blur the distinction between portraiture and ‘performance’ TRISHA GUPTA

he wonderful 1982 Hindi film

Shriman Shrimati is about a middle-aged couple (Rakhee Gulzar and Sanjeev Kumar) who go about the country solving domestic problems in middle-class households caught on the horns of a tradition-modernity dilemma. The film has a marvellous opening sequence that showcases one such dilemma. The feisty, trouser-wearing, ‘modern’ Aruna (played by Sarika) and the charming, sari-clad, ‘traditional’ Veena (Deepti Naval) are childhood friends. One day, Aruna (a rich man’s daughter who owns a camera with a tripod) decides it would be fun to photograph herself and Veena wearing each other’s clothes. A reluctant Veena is cajoled into posing in Aruna’s pants and sleeveless top, while Aruna is photographed looking demure in Veena’s cotton sari. The photographs duly find their way to prospective grooms who, misled by the play-acting images, marry the ‘wrong’ girls. Great unhappiness ensues. Shriman Shrimati can be read as a barometer of the anxieties of 1980s’ India: how to ‘contain’ the transgressive modernity of women and channel it in directions perceived as socially legitimate. These anxieties are still with us, though perhaps in new forms. But what I want to draw attention to is the photo mix-up because it highlights a different kind of anxiety, one that cuts to the very foundation of how we understand photography’s role in the world: do photographs simply capture reality, or do they create it? A recent exhibition of photographs titled Studio Suhag at Delhi’s Art Heritage Gallery provoked just this question. The pictures were taken by Suresh Punjabi at his little photo studio in the town of Nagda, Madhya Pradesh, between the 60 open

early 1970s and late 1980s, and are all portraits in black-and-white shot against one of the backdrops offered by Studio Suhag. Visual anthropologist Christopher Pinney, who curated the show, first met the photographer in late 1982 when he arrived in Nagda to do fieldwork. Pinney has been back nearly every year since, and some of Punjabi’s images feature in his book Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs. The recent exhibition was occasioned, in part, by a storm that destroyed much of Punjabi’s neatlyphotos suresh punjabi; courtesy art heritage

ordered archive of negatives, leading Pinney to salvage what he could. Many of Punjabi’s customers wanted what he calls ‘banking-vanking’ photos: standard front-facing halflength portraits shot for ration cards and bank loan applications. But many other clients were unmarried young men and women, and Punjabi divides the pictures he took of them into two

canned and candid Suresh Punjabi’s photos are either meant for ‘bhejna’ or for ‘istyle’

categories: ‘bhejna’ (Hindi for ‘to send’) and ‘istyle’ (style). ‘Bhejna’ images are commissioned pictures to be sent out to families of prospective partners, while ‘istyle’ images refer, in Pinney’s words, ‘to a genre of portraiture made for the theatrical pleasure of the customer’. What happened in the case of Shriman Shrimati was not just a mix-up between two girls; it was a mix-up of ‘istyle’ and ‘bhejna’.

n image meant for ‘bhejna’, Pinney

writes (in Artisan Camera, the beautifully produced though somewhat hurriedly edited hardback volume from Tara Books that accompanies the exhibition), must manifest the sitter’s beauty or handsomeness, but it ‘must not have too much ‘glamour’ or be too ‘theatrical’. There must be ‘nothing that would indicate that a prospective

bride is ‘zyada advans’ (excessively advanced), because such girls ‘will cause trouble for their in-laws’. The zyada advans picture in Shriman Shrimati snags the hapless Deepti Naval a zyada advans husband, but the photograph of the girl in Studio Suhag gazing adoringly at a bunch of fakely luscious grapes was unlikely to get her married. Nor was the young man who cast himself as a sort of Devdas figure—with his head laid on his arm and a glassful of ‘whisky’ poured from an open bottle of coloured water— likely to have been looking for a wife. Lovelorn drunkenness might be a heroic trait in Hindi cinema, but not in prospective marital partners. It is unsurprising to me that most of the ‘istyle’ images, involving the overt staging of identities, feature men. Cinema is clearly a popular source of inspiration.

The young man in white flared pants and dark sunglasses is indubitably channelling an 80s Amitabh Bachchan, as is the one with a flower in his lapel, holding the receiver to one ear while placing a leather-booted foot on the telephone table. Other men are content to partake of cinema’s glamour by association: one is photographed with a camera slung over his shoulder, flipping through a film magazine; another hides his eyes behind dark glasses, even as Sanjeev Kumar’s eyes smile brightly at us from the cover of the Mayapuri he is reading. There are plenty of women in the Studio Suhag images, but most of them appear with husbands in photos affirming their conjugal bonds, or with babies, or with a brother on the occasion of Rakshabandhan. The few women photographed solo look almost ‘natural’ in comparison with the men, until you realise that two different women are posing in the same ‘Kashmiri belle’ jewellery popularised by Hindi movies like Kashmir ki Kali: really long jhumkas and ornate hathphool, a kind of jewelled tracery covering the hands. Like the telephone, the ‘whisky’ bottle and the magazine, the jewellery turns out to be only a prop. When you dress in your best clothes for the camera, and put forward your most serious/most attractive/most youthful self, you are always already performing, presenting a persona. Is the bandmaster who poses in his own uniform that different from the young fellow who wears a neckerchief and sticks a cigarette in his mouth? Can a distinction really be sustained between what Pinney calls ‘truthful solemnisation’ (of what already exists) and ‘potentially deceitful theatricalisation’ (the photo-as-makeover or actualised fantasy)? That is the question with which Studio Suhag confronts us.

ne sort of answer to that question is offered by the show that ran parallel to Studio Suhag at Art Heritage: My Life Is My Message. The photographer, Shivaraju BS, has a remarkable backstory—he is a policeman in Bangalore who started taking photographs after open www.openthemagazine.com 61

cop shiva; courtesy art heritage

unseating the icon By placing ‘Gandhi’ in unlikely contexts, Cop Shiva presents the Father of the Nation’s legacy in sharp relief

being exposed to contemporary art at the art collective 1. Shanthi Road. Cop Shiva, as he calls himself, is, in his own words, “fascinated with the idea of masquerade and the roles people play in public and private”. The photographs here are a documentation of two men who impersonate icons: Vidyasagar, who dresses up every day as the late Tamil matinee idol MGR, and a teacher named Bagadehalli Basavaraju, who regularly incarnates the Father of the Nation. Vidyasagar stages himself carefully as MGR; Basavaraju, in white loincloth, round spectacles and a stick, appears to be doing the same. But the attempt is not to pass off as Gandhi, like an actor in some film. The painstakingly applied silver facepaint gives him a strangely otherworldly quality; a Brechtian manner of drawing attention to the performance and the gulf that separates Gandhi from us. Writing about the circulation of national images, theorist Partha Chatterjee once contrasted the romantic proximity of historical ‘inhabiting’ (potentially offered up by photograph62 open

ic detail) with the decontextualised sacredness of the icon—more often than not shorn of detail so as to appear timeless. Cop Shiva’s images of Bagadehalli are superb because they destroy such easy binaries. The silver-faced impersonator draws his audience in with the appeal of the iconic Gandhi image, but consciously unsettles our expectations

Can a distinction really be sustained between ‘truthful solemnisation’ (of what already exists) and ‘potentially deceitful theatricalisation’? of timelessness. This is not done cheaply through the simple use of shock, which would be easy enough to do with a figure like Gandhi (think of him downing whisky in a dance bar or with his feet up on a corporate desk). What we get instead is a marvel of complexity. In one image, a middle-aged man in a veshti folds his hands in a prayer-

ful namaskar, while several schoolgirls around him seem distracted and unconvinced. In another, he ploughs a field with a pair of bulls, looking both more and less convincingly representative of the rural India he so tirelessly championed. In yet another, Gandhi seems to ride towards us at the head of a group of motorcyclists, until we notice that Bagadehalli is the only one on a cycle—our only non-fossil-fuel vehicle. Is the cycle in front because it’s going to win? Or does its presence simply point to the inescapable fact that Gandhi’s greatest bugbear— speed—has already won the race for modernity? What is remarkable about these images is their ability to evoke something much more complicated than history, or even nostalgia. ‘This performance of a past for the present,’ writes Pinney, ‘always introduces something new.’ The ‘theatricalisation’ here is foregrounded. There is no question of it being ‘potentially deceitful’. Instead, in the best tradition of fiction, it produces a new kind of truth. n 28 october 2013

Books A Graphic Recollection A recently published anthology of visual narratives of Partition revisits a haunting part of history with mixed results MADHAVANKUTTY PILLAI

This Side That Side

Curated by Vishwajyoti Ghosh yoda press | 336 pages | Rs 595

ne of the more unusual stories in This Side That Side, an anthology of graphic narratives related to Partition, is by Ahmad Rafay Alam and Martand Khosla. Titled 90 Upper Mall, it begins with Alam, a Lahori, reminiscing about going to London as a law student. At the hostel, he befriends Khosla, an Indian who is there to study architecture. ‘One evening,’ he writes, ‘Martand barged into my room at Willie G and said, in mock outrage—’ Below, there is an image of Khosla with his hands around Alam’s throat and a speech bubble saying, ‘Oi b***ch*d, I want my rent! You’re living in my fu**ing house!’ The rest of the story is a short history of both families and how it comes together in 90 Upper Mall, a house in Lahore built by Khosla’s great grandfather. His family moved out during Partition, and in 1959 it was allotted to Alam’s grandfather. When Khosla’s father comes to meet him in London, they stumble on the connection during a casual conversation. The story ends with these lines: ‘The rhetoric of Partition has always been characterised by loss and violence. Yet, in writing this or reflecting on the story, I can’t but think of Partition in terms I’m familiar with: the story of 90 Upper Mall. Maybe this has been our buffer against the prejudices of history.’ 90 Upper Mall is one of the exceptions in the anthology because most

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of the stories are—exactly as Alam puts it—‘characterised by loss and violence’ and they run like a steel thread through the book. This Side That Side, curated by Vishwajyoti Ghosh, runs on familiar tropes like the grief of exile or suddenly turning stranger in one’s own country. What is novel is the use of the graphic form. India’s Partition was needless and arbitrary but without any wilful malicious force behind it. Perhaps that’s why, in An Old Fable, Tabish Khair and Priya Kuriyan use the allegory of a king so beholden to reason that he slices a child into parts to settle a dispute

This Side That Side runs largely on familiar tropes like the grief of exile or suddenly turning stranger in one’s own country. What is novel is the use of the graphic form between two women claiming to be the mother. The most powerful stories in the book are those that speak of the human experience. A Letter From India is a fine translation by Mahmood Farooqui of a short story by Intizar Hussain. It is a letter from an uncle to his nephew in Karachi after Partition, with lines shuffling between prose and poetry: your aunt says you must not come alone, you must bring our daughter-in-law and your children. This way we will at least be able to observe your children

and see which one is fair and who is dark. In The Taboo, writer Malini Gupta finds that the village in West Bengal where she goes for her social work can be reached through another route that no one has told her about because it runs through a refugee camp. Intrigued, she deliberately starts taking her vehicle that way and begins piecing together their story. The refugees there, she learns, arrived from East Bengal after Partition, but the Government forgot about them after its relief and rehabilitation policy ended in 1958. Left to fend for themselves, the camp became home. She brings out the prison of that existence through the story of Lily, a woman who leaves her husband to start a garage so that she can break free. ‘If I had stayed I would have remained a faceless refugee, disliked, disowned. To me that taboo is greater than the taboo of a single woman,’ says Lily. Partition’s after-effects continue to the present in myriad ways, from the psychological to the political, including the second Partition between Bangladesh and Pakistan, and there are stories in This Side That Side representing the gamut. Some fail by trying to intellectualise the experience, or by being so clever that they become cryptic. One story titled Bastards of Utopia, for instance, uses lines from Memoirs of My Nervous Illness by Daniel Schreber presumably as a metaphor for the madness of Partition, and makes little sense. But all in all, there is enough in This Side That Side to make it an arresting kaleidoscope. n open www.openthemagazine.com 63

music photos shiv ahuja

A Crescendo in the Valley Now in its second year, the Ziro Festival of Music is a platform for cultural expression and resistance in the Northeast, allowing a new generation to renegotiate its relationship with mainland India MICHAEL SNYDER

he Northeast is famous for two

things above all else: political instability and music. Without either, the Ziro Festival of Music—the Northeast’s only festival committed entirely to independent rock—might never have come into existence. While on a tour of the Northeast in 2011, the members of Delhi-based rock band Menwhopause faced a sudden postponement of their gig in Itanagar thanks to a curfew during a particularly turbulent week. With some days to spare, Bobby Hano, who had organised the Itanagar gig through his management company Phoenix Rising, suggested the band join him on a visit to his hometown in the Ziro Valley. During that impromptu trip, Hano and bandmembers Anup Kutty and Randeep Singh conceptualised the Ziro Festival of Music, a brand new event for India’s rapidly expanding festival circuit. A year later, a bamboo stage was erected over a disused burial ground on a small grassy rise at the centre of the valley, surrounded by rice fields, villag-

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es and pine- and mist-cloaked hills. Some bands I spoke with compared the event to Southern California’s Coachella, a destination event. At least in terms of remoteness, Ziro is something more like Burning Man, the famous festival held annually in Nevada’s remote Black Rock Desert, several hours from the nearest airport. The journey to Ziro, some 18 hours up rough mountain roads from the nearest major airport at Guwahati, demands patience and resolve. The government, in turn, requires permits for both domestic and foreign travellers, thanks to Arunachal’s sketchy northern border with China. These are the challenges under the best of circumstances. In the first year, the persistent rain before and during the three-day festival flooded the roads, transforming an already long journey into a harrowing one. At the outdoor venue, the few hundred people who gathered each day waded ankle-deep into the muck to dance. About a month before this year’s festival, I met members of the Mumbai-

based band Sky Rabbit to ask about their experience last year. Frontman Raxit Tewari described the event thus: “Loads of really young kids in the front going ape shit. They’re covered in mud; they’ve fallen 500 times.” None of this—not the difficult journey, nor the permits, nor the stories of last year’s unfortunate weather—prevented some 1,200 people from turning up for the second edition of the event in September, more than double last year’s attendance. They had good reason. Despite the Northeast’s well-deserved reputation as a breeding ground for rock musicians, no other festival in the region—or in the country—gives so much stage time to the region’s young independent rock bands. While the three big headliners travelled from Delhi, Bombay and New York, respectively, half of the 22 acts that played over the course of the festival’s three days trace their roots to the Northeast. “There are a lot of bands in the Northeast,” Kutty told me on the last day of the Festival, “but they hard28 october 2013

embedded ‘I’d seen local families walking their kids through the festival grounds by day and teenagers from surrounding villages dancing by night’

ly have a chance to play.” It is one of the great ironies of the Northeast’s music culture: despite producing some of India’s best musicians, the region has relatively little infrastructure to support their ambitions and talents. Take, for instance, The Vinyl Records. Though three of the four members of the Delhi-based riot girl band hail originally from Itanagar, until last year’s Ziro Festival they had never played a show in their home state (though they’d been together two years). “In Itanagar, there is barely even one venue,” says Mithy Tatak, the band’s drummer, “So you can imagine how difficult it is for the artistes.” It’s a complaint I heard repeated frequently among Northeastern artists at the festival, many of whom have begun shifting base to Delhi, the hub of mainland India’s nascent indie music scene. “Ziro is probably the first festival where bands from all over the country and the Northeast come together and play their own music,” says Daniel Langthasa, guitarist and vocalist for 28 october 2013

the Guwahati-based electro-pop duo Digital Suicide. “If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see one band someday somewhere, but there’s nowhere else to see six or seven good Northeast bands playing on the same stage.”

hen Akhu Chingangbam returned to Imphal after 12 years in Delhi, he found the musical life of his city still tethered by decades of political strife. “Venues are very rare,” he says. “Even if we have a proper venue, there’s always the police who come and destroy the whole thing. That’s how it’s been.” He pauses for a moment and adds: “But people are there doing music.” I heard similar stories from owners of bars and music venues in Nagaland. There, venues operate under the constraints both of church-supported prohibition laws and of an underground government, operating parallel to the official state government, that demands ‘taxes’ to keep doors open and alcohol flowing. And yet Nagaland con-

tinues to produce a disproportionate number of musicians. Another irony: the forces that today hamper performers (whether directly or obliquely) in the Northeast are the same ones that enabled the region’s music culture in the first place. It’s no coincidence, for example, that India’s three majority Christian states—Meghalaya, Nagaland and Mizoram—have the country’s strongest affinity for Western musical idioms. “Even in our cultural ethos, music plays a very large role,” says Sentila Yanger, convener for Intach in Nagaland and recipient of a 2008 Padmashree for her work in cultural conservation and the arts. “We don’t have [an indigenous] written text, so the language of music was one way of conveying [oral narratives to people at large].” With the arrival of American and English missionaries in the 19th century, these tribal languages were transposed into the Roman alphabet; today, English is the official state language for both Nagaland and Meghalaya, and is commonly spoken in Mizoram. Men, women and children began singing hymns in church choirs, a practice that introduced them to Western modes and melodic structures. “We come from a culture—you know, from Mizoram—that’s very musical,” says Joseph Dinji, guitarist and frontman for The Frisky Pints, another Delhi-based band with roots in the Northeast. “Everyone sings in church. We’re taught how to read music and everything.” Danny Dakta, the band’s bassist agrees. “When you’re young,” he says, “you’re taught music.” It is a matter of course. ‘Guru’ Rewben Mashangva, one of the most respected figures in Northeast folk music, also had his first encounters with music in church. Mashangva came of age during the 1960s in a Naga tribal village in Manipur’s northwestern Ukhrul district. “In my time,” Mashangva says, “we bought our records from Myanmar [and] listened to Rangoon radio.” Western music came open www.openthemagazine.com 65

not through India, where playback recordings were costly, but across newly formed borders into a region just beginning its still ongoing fight for cultural and political autonomy. Fashion, another of the Northeast’s signature strengths, arrives through similar trade routes, and, like music, has long represented a form of cultural resistance to mainland India. In the violence that followed the formation of the Indian state and Nagaland’s failure to achieve autonomy, Yanger describes “that sense of alienation” breeding a culture that “detested anything ‘India’.” “Clothing was a signature statement. Men wouldn’t be caught dead wearing even a kurta, because that was so closely associated with India,” Yanger says, “and music came much earlier.” It is hardly surprising, then, that much of the music absorbed by musicians of Mashangva’s generation had overtly political overtones. “I learnt from Bob Dylan, Bob Marley. I like to sing political songs,” Mashangva says. With those early influences, Mashangva began composing original songs in his indigenous tongue (Thangkul, a Naga dialect), combining Blues-inflected guitar with handmade instruments and the socio-cultural preoccupations of home. “When I start singing in front of people,” he tells me, “I don’t sing love songs.” Though plenty of the Northeast bands at Ziro did sing love songs (and some very earnest ones at that), rock music remains an essential element in the region’s dearly held tradition of cultural independence—the same tradition fought for, if sometimes just in name, by the political dissidents and insurgents who long defined the region’s identity. “We [Northeasterners] have never been identified as Indian. I lived in Delhi for 12 years and I know how people see you,” Chingangbam says. Yet while the old truism that the Northeast is ‘another world’ remains commonplace (it’s a truism, after all, because it’s true), the way people identify that difference, Chingangbam observes, has begun to change.

n the third night of the Ziro

Festival, when the last band had finished its set and the food and rice beer stalls had shut for the last time, most of the artistes loaded their bags into

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Sumos and Tempos and started immediately for Guwahati. Many of the performers had flights to catch back to Delhi or Bombay or Calcutta; a few others had to reach Shillong in time for the 18 Degrees Festival beginning just a few days later. In the weeks preceding Ziro, activists in favour of instituting an Inner Line Permit for Meghalaya had thrown the state capital into some turmoil. There had been roadblocks and bandhs and a handful of abortive attempts to burn government buildings. The festival went off smoothly nonetheless. While it is not surprising that the majority of people I met at Ziro—band- and audience-members alike—were more interested in the festival than the political tensions in the state, it is nevertheless illustrative of a larger point: many young people across the Northeast, even those who participate actively in the region’s political culture, have grown tired of disruptive scare tactics

For Northeastern bands, music serves as a cultural ambassador, a means of expressing difference from the rest of India, even as the musicians themselves grow ever more integrated with it and begun to reconsider their region’s relationship with mainland India. “Almost all the [Northeastern] states want…sovereignty,” Daniel Langthasa says. “Younger people—they would think differently. We don’t think that’s the solution... to be separated from the mainland. I don’t think that’s possible.” Though political instability, ethnic strife, insurgency and abuse from State actors remain palpable problems throughout the region, young people are more comfortable with the idea of being Indian, at least politically, than any generation before them. This is not to say they have accepted the status quo; bands like Imphal Talkies and Digital Suicide continue to use music as a platform for political dissent. But for Northeastern musicians, political and otherwise, music also serves as a kind of cultural ambassador, a means of expressing (sometimes quite loudly) cultural difference from the rest of India even as the musi-

cians themselves grow increasingly integrated with it. That bands like The Vinyl Records and The Frisky Pints wholeheartedly consider themselves Delhi bands, and that the indie music world of Delhi seems to accept them (and many others like them) as such, is indicative of this integration. That people in Indian metros will still say of the Northeast, ‘Oh, everyone there is a musician’ demonstrates the extent to which music has supplanted instability as the primary referent for the region. Of course, little of this registered on the ground at Ziro. “We learn a lot from this environment,”Mashangva had said. We sat watching on a bamboo bench, built here specifically for the event, even as tiny figures carrying umbrellas in their hands and woven baskets on their heads wended their way slowly along the sinuous paths that divide the rice fields along the valley floor. Two villages, both built almost entirely of bamboo, stood low-slung and gray over a one-lane road, silent in the shadow of the hills. Mashangva was right. For the last two days, I’d seen local families walking their kids through the festival grounds by day and teenagers from the surrounding villages dancing by night. I developed serious brand loyalty for the bottles of millet wine and rice beer that I bought from a group of old ladies still marked by the traditional facial tattoos that have become a fading symbol of this remote valley’s long preserved indigenous culture. And I met people from across India who had come together—a touchy-feely kind of phrase I use reluctantly but also quite seriously—for the sake of music and a beautiful place. At such a remove from the social ills and political turpitude that plague so much of the Northeast—and indeed, so much of India—many old clichés and truisms start to feel…well, true. ‘Unity in Diversity’ is not just a platitude. Sustainability and local empowerment are ideals, not trends. When the organisers say that the festival ‘belongs to Ziro’, it’s clear that they mean it. And when Rewben Mashangva says, “If you are talking into a microphone, people will not listen,” I know how he is going to finish his sentence, but this time I’ve seen proof: “If you say it through music,” he says, “then people will listen.” n 28 october 2013

CINEMA Smoke and Mirrors Woody Allen’s refusal to screen Blue Jasmine in India citing the country’s intrusive anti-smoking health advisory revives an old debate over whether art must lead society by example or be left alone by it AKSHAYA PILLAI

or a six-year old Ammu seat-

ed in the multiplex waiting to watch Despicable Me, what preceded the yellow multitude of minions was a gory advertisement. Her eyes were glued to the mucky sponge being squeezed on the big screen during the anti-tobacco health advisory issued in public interest by the Government of India. Wide-eyed and startled, she nudged her father, “Is this how your lungs are, Papa?” The beaker on screen was now brimming with tar; her father, wearing a cold smile, fumbled in the dark for the right words. Woody Allen may not have sat through the 30-second clip, but it was one of the reasons he cancelled the release of his new film Blue Jasmine in India. Allen couldn’t stand the thought of anti-smoking statutory warnings surfacing at the bottom of the screen every time one of his characters lit a cigarette. “In a survey we conducted in theatres, six out of ten [people] admitted that they stepped into the theatre [only] after this ad was shown,” says Anita Peter, director of Cancer Patients Aids Association. What you and I and filmmakers misunderstand is the underlying intension of the advisory. It is not a means to inform us that smoking is harmful; it is, instead, a deliberate attempt to create a distinct disturbing image that will linger. This is something Vishal Bhardwaj can never digest. “It is a Nazi approach!” he explodes. “If there is a line in a book where a character smokes, will there be a footnote saying smoking is injurious to health? If that sounds absurd, why are we doing this in films? The answer is simple: because here, films are not treated as art or lit-

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erature. [Their] individuality is not respected. Ours is the only country with such a stupid rule. Doesn’t this mean something is wrong with us? A Woody Allen can afford to ignore this market. I, on the other hand, am helpless,” he says, heaving a long sigh. Kids, adults, smokers, non-smokers, moralists and libertines all huddle up and recline on their seats watching the Health Ministry’s warning, but who can say how effective this approach is? Who can say whether six-year-old Ammu will grow up to be a smoker or not? Children spend years gathering morals, but somewhere, as they grow,

In India, laments Vishal Bhardwaj, “films are not treated as art or literature. Ours is the only country with such a stupid rule. Woody Allen can afford to ignore this market. I am helpless” these are given away along with their undersized shirts. Trailing the crumbs back to her childhood, the writer of this article recollects that she was never fond of smoking. The first time she tried it, she closed her ears and nose so that she would know, for once, how it felt to inhale the smoke. Almost a year later on a rainy night, skin-soaked as she walked into her apartment, she gave it a second try. What began then as an occasional indulgence slowly graduated to a routine. Every night, a lit cigarette in hand, she eyed the blind bats screech-

ing in the guava tree next to her balcony as the city lights went off one after the other. She had begun to like the roughness that spread on her palm as she took a long drag, the powdery soot here and there on her fingers, the feeling that her feet rose an inch or two above the cold floor. A few months later, the cigarette gave her nothing, neither a headiness nor relief. Without any reason, she withdrew from it. Why does one smoke anyway? In Chapter 8 of his much acclaimed book The Tipping Point, Malcom Gladwell calls smoking an epidemic and goes on to explain that a possible reason people get addicted to nicotine is depression. When you are depressed, your serotonin levels are usually low; a cigarette, a dose of nicotine, prompts your brain to produce more serotonin, giving you momentary solace, sometimes a faint high. Chandrasekhar Rath was seven when he first saw a cigarette, 17 when he first smoked one. Right hand clasping one of the rusty bars of the window, left hand holding a cigarette; pausing occasionally to take drags as he hummed along with the transistor: ‘Chalo ek baar phir se ajnabi ban jaaye hum dono’ (Come, let us become strangers once again). This image—watching his uncle smoke by the window— is still vivid in Rath’s memory. He doesn’t remember the first film in which he saw a hero smoke. A documentary maker by profession, his daily count was five packs, sometimes six. He quit smoking after he went to Tata Cancer Hospital to record footage for an anti-smoking advertisement he made for the Cancer Patients Aid Association. “As I watched them wriggle in their 28 october 2013

roman soumar/corbis

en garde With pictures of cancerous lungs on them, every pack of cigarettes is now an ode to sincere marketing, but must every film be used as well?

beds regretting every drag, I knew they would give up anything to exchange places with me. Something inside me churned; I walked out and threw [away] the entire packet. I haven’t smoked since then. In the initial few months there were days when I had to drag myself away from the shop near the alley where I usually bought my daily quota from. I even had to stay aloof from my friends who smoked and parties and fun for a while,” Rath says. He was 37 when he quit. Jasmine, played by Cate Blanchett, is seen holding a bottle of rum, clinking wine glasses at a party and sipping cocktails on and off nine times in Blue Jasmine’s two-minute-long trailer. Had the film released in 30 theatres across India as scheduled, only two scenes would have required statutory warnings. Yet, Allen wouldn’t compromise. “It was his personal choice to go against the rules of our land which force a warning sign every time a character on screen lights a cigarette,” says filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt. “He just used his right to ignore the Indian market,” says Bhatt, “ [rather] than imagine that his audience would [be distracted] from his film, an illusion that he so painfully created.” Bhatt had previously filed a case against the ban of smoking in films during the production of Raaz 3. 28 october 2013

In the 1970s and 80s, bidis and cigarettes were vices that escorted the villain, very rarely a self-destructive habit the good guy picked up after he was wronged or abandoned. According to a WHO study, tobacco use is portrayed in 76 per cent of Bollywood films, with cigarettes making up 72 per cent of all portrayals. When Aswini Malik plays a scene from Sholay on screen before his class, the lights are switched off and phones are on silent; such is his respect for films. “Nothing should distract you while experiencing a film,” says Malik. “It is totally absurd when an anti-smoking warning scrolls in [during] the film. Moreover, it interferes with the emotional engagement of the audience.” Malik is a scriptwriter and a professor at Whistling Woods International Institute of Film, Fashion and Media in Mumbai. Why does one have to state the obvious? Would you buy a carton of milk if it revealed that it contained traces of tar? Would you buy a pastry if it showed an obese woman wedged in a doorway? Every pack of cigarettes is now an ode to sincere marketing. No matter the brand, each pack of cigarettes and each flimsy green wrapper of gutka bears a pictogram of a pair of lungs indicated by a red arrow followed in bold by ‘Warning: Smoking

Kills’. How much more can you educate a society? In a country where a 20 year old hangs himself because his favourite superstar’s film was not released in his town, how well educated is well-educated? Some 4.5 trillion cigarettes and 40.3 trillion bidis have been produced between 1910 and 2010, and are estimated to be responsible for nearly 100 million premature deaths in adult men above 35 years of age. The Government appears to believe Bollywood is a culprit, though there is no data for it. In May 2005, a ban was implemented prohibiting actors from smoking on screen. It took four years for the Delhi High Court to overturn the ban and a couple of years more to come up with the current measure of screening an anti-smoking warning in the beginning and during the film. Anusha Rizvi, whose film Peepli Live had countless smoking sequences, blames the arbitrary nature of decision-making in India. “The film is a visual medium,” she says, “Tampering with an image means disrespecting hundreds who have worked behind every scene. It is like pouring ink over a few pages of a novel. Even if it is just a scroll, it becomes part of the bigger picture. A director cannot morally avert all possible risks; it is a story being told, not a moral science lesson.” n open www.openthemagazine.com 69

climate threat Over one billion people under an optimistic scenario and five billion under a business-as-usual-scenario live in areas that will experience extreme climates before 2050

Kiss and Tell What purpose does the activity of locking lips serve?

New Forecast of Climate Change

nico de pasquale photography

science

issing as a form of courtship

behaviour is incredibly widespread and common. It has been observed even in our closest primate relatives, chimps and bonobos, although less common and intense. Yet people have remained clueless about its function. A recent study attempted to decode the role kissing plays in human relationships. The study was conducted via a survey by two researchers from Oxford University, Rafael Wlodarski and Robin Dunbar. Over 900 individuals, both in long-term and short-term relationships, answered a questionnaire on the importance of kissing. Their findings were published in two journals, Archives of Sexual Behavior and Human Nature. According to the study, kissing helps people judge the quality of potential mates through taste, smell and fitness. It plays an important role in judging the hidden biological cues indicating the genetic fitness or desirability of a potential mate. Dunbar told The Independent, “Mate choice and courtship in humans is complex. It involves a series of periods of assessments where people ask themselves ‘Shall I carry on deeper into this relationship?’ Initial attraction may include facial, body and 70 open

social cues. The assessments become more and more intimate as we go deeper into the courtship stage, and this is where kissing comes in.” The survey found that women value kissing more than men; they value kissing the most when they are in the initial phases of a relationship and also when they are in a phase of their menstrual cycle that makes them most likely to conceive. According to the authors, kissing a man in these circumstances helps them assess his genetic quality. The survey also threw up some interesting findings related to the type of relationship kissers are in. Those men and women who have more short-term relationships or who rate themselves as being attractive find kissing more important than those not of these groups. The respondents of these two groups also claimed that kissing was more important to them before sex and less so during and after sex. In the case of those in long-term relationships, where forming and maintaining a lasting bond is an important goal, kissing was equally important before sex and at times not directly related to sex. Frequent kissing in a committed relationship was linked to the quality of the relationship. n

According to a new and massive analysis of all climate models, within 35 years, even the lowest monthly dips in temperatures will be hotter than we’ve experienced in the past 150 years. The tropics will be the first to exceed the limits of historical extremes and experience an unabated heat wave that will threaten biodiversity and heavily populated countries with inadequate resources to adapt. The study conducted by a team of researchers at University of Hawaii, Manoa, projects unprecedented climates within the next decade for tropical regions. This will have global implications as these are home to most of the world’s population, contribute significantly to global food supplies, and house much of the world’s biodiversity. n

Jumbos Get the Point

Elephants understand the gist of human finger pointing and can use it as a cue to find food, according to a study in Current Biology. The researchers say that the findings help explain how humans have been able to rely on wild-caught elephants as work animals, for logging, transport or war, for thousands of years. Elephants have a natural capacity to interact with humans, even though—unlike horses, dogs and camels—they have never been bred or domesticated for that role. They seem to understand us in a way most other animals don’t. It also shows that the ability to understand pointing is not uniquely human. Nor is this cognitive ability about having fingers of one’s own. n 28 october 2013

tech&style

Acer C720 Chromebook A value-formoney notebook, especially for a web experience gagandeep Singh Sapra

Rs 22,999

solid state drive It has no moving parts and thus makes no sound or vibration. Less power draw and no moving parts mean little heat is produced. Compared to a Hard Disk Drive, its file opening speed is up to 30 per cent faster. Plus, it is also safe from any effects of magnetism

Frédérique Constant w Slimline Moonphase

Price on request

One of the new five models of Slimline Moonphase Collection, the FC705N4S6 is the second of its stainless steel models and has a navy blue dial, which contrasts with the nickel indexes and hands. The alligator strap is also a striking blue. It is driven by the unique FC-705 Manufacture caliber, and each complication— winding; date and moonphase adjustments; hour and minute hands adjustments—can be accessed through the watch’s single crown. It comes with a 26-jewel movement and an impressive 42hour power reserve. Its case diametre is 42 millimetres. n

Sony DSC-QX 100

es, this is a laptop for

Rs 22,999, but it has its own limitations. Let’s look at some of the specifications. It runs on an Intel Celeron 2955U processor that is based on Intel’s newly launched Haswell design, 2 GB of RAM and a 16 GB solid state drive. It uses Chrome as an operating system, a version of Android designed for laptops by Google, and boots up in less than 7 seconds. The onboard battery lasts about 8.5 hours and its 11.6-inch screen supports a maximum resolution of 1366x768. The specifications may look interesting other than the storage part, but one has to remember this is a new generation of machines that expect you to stay connected all the time. The C720 has Wi-Fi on board, and gives you 100 GB of storage in the cloud for 2 years free on Google Drive, where you store most of your content. It also features a USB 3.0 and a USB 2.0 ports that let you use a 3G dongle to connect to the internet. Weighing around 1.25 kg, and just 28 october 2013

0.30 inch thick, this is a great gizmo to travel with. However, taking it on a holiday will limit you, as most of the applications on Chromebook are designed for online operations. You can compose a document, a spreadsheet or a presentation, view pdf files and even play Angry Birds while offline, but to get the most powerful suite of applications, you need to be online. The operating system is secure enough to handle what you throw at it, and if you use web apps to manage your work, you can use Evernote to store your notes, Dropbox or Google Drive to store your files. You can also hook up the Chromebook to a TV via its HDMI port. The Chromebook has a high-definition camera that you can use for Google hangouts, but you cannot use Skype or other Android apps that let you make video calls. You may also find some of your apps unavailable, so it’s advisable to check those details before making the purchase. n

Rs 24,990

With F1.8 Carl Zeiss optics, a 20.2 Megapixel sensor, 3.6 x optical zoom, NFC, WiFi Direct, a battery that lasts 200 shots, a slot for a memory card, a tripod mount and a clip mount to attach on any smartphone, the QX100 is an innovative device for people who like to take great pictures on the move and share them immediately online. It uses Wi-Fi Direct to connect with a smartphone. Android users can turn on NFC and tap the lens for quick pairing. The Lens is a full featured camera but uses your cellphone as its viewfinder. n Gagandeep Singh Sapra is The Big Geek at System3. He can be reached at gadgets@openmedianetwork.in

open www.openthemagazine.com 71

CINEMA

full circle Gravity’s running time matches the orbit cycle of the International Space Station perfectly. The film is 90 minutes long and the ISS, travelling at roughly 28,164 kmph, orbits the Earth in around the same time.

Fire In the Blood A documentary on the fight over pharmaceutical patents lands firmly on India’s side ajit duara

o n scr een

current

Gravity Director Alfonso Cuarón cast Sandra Bullock, George Clooney,

Ed Harris

Score ★★★★★

am hurt narrator willi mohan gray Director dylan

ext to the arms industry, global pharmaceutical corporations function as the most important political force in the confrontation between rich Western nations and emerging non-Western ones. The obstacle in this game of intimidation and exploitation for Western corporate profit is always India; its ability to make high quality generic drugs and sell them at a fraction of the West’s price to poor people all over the world is seen as an impediment to that profit. Just recently, the Indian Supreme Court judgment rejecting Novartis’ plea to protect its cancer drug Glivec and allowing Indian drug companies to sell generic copies at low prices was hailed by Cipla Chairman Yusuf Hamied, one of the heroes of the documentary Fire in the Blood. The documentary goes back decades to the AIDS epidemic to trace the process by which patents held by Western drug companies kept expensive antiretroviral drugs out of reach of sufferers in Africa and the rest of the poor world. People died like flies— 72 open

simply horrible deaths, their immune systems shutting down completely— even though all the while, in Mumbai, Cipla was ready to supply generic copies that could have saved most of them. The film argues that intellectual property rights are not applicable if they interfere with a nation’s fundamental rights, in this case the right to life-saving medicine; that it is neo-colonial and anti-democratic to insist otherwise; that patent laws become morally invalid when the health of a country is at stake. In the most effective moment in the documentary, Hamied refers to Mahatma Gandhi’s views on ethics, nationality and profit. Fire in the Blood uses the time tested documentary technique of a voiceover, archival footage and interviews. So, aesthetically, it is not unusual. But there are two breakthroughs: one, it charges global corporations with criminality outright, and two, it gets to reach out to people via movie theatres, an opportunity rarely accorded to documentary films. n

There is no doubt that in terms of technical accomplishment, Gravity achieves a three dimensional true to space effect. But it is also true that the script of the film—about a space mission being hit by debris, leaving astronauts stranded and their shuttle destroyed—is rather one dimensional. Some of the conversation is stupid enough to make you laugh in disbelief. Commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) deals with the biggest personal and professional crisis of his career by making a series of jokes to lighten the spirits of mission specialist, Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock). When she stares at him in terror, he asks her if it’s because he is so good looking. Later, when Kowalski sacrifices himself to save Stone, he speaks with the levity of a man amused by his own need to take a toilet break. Perhaps he thinks he is the space version of Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), in Apocalypse Now, the Lieutenant Colonel who nonchalantly chats and jokes around while leading a helicopter attack in Vietnam. The difference is that the irony here is unintended. In one scene, Stone hears dogs bark on the wireless and starts barking herself. This must be the 2001: A Space Odyssey moment of Gravity—to tell us what evolution and technology have led us to. What on earth was all the hype about? n ad

28 october 2013

Not People Like Us

R aj e e v M asa n d

Shuffling the Deck

Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Milan Talkies is fast turning out to be a jinxed project. The director had originally cast Imran Khan and Priyanka Chopra in leading roles. But after the recent fiasco that was Once Upon Ay Time In Mumbaai Dobara, producer Ekta Kapoor unceremoniously dropped Imran from the project, saying cryptically: “The film requires a certain amount of aggression.” Imran, while making it clear he wasn’t pleased by the development, remained professional and wished the makers good luck for the film. Priyanka was let go too, albeit quietly. Next, the producers approached Shahid Kapoor for the male lead, and the actor verbally accepted the offer while maintaining that he was yet to hear a finished script and work out shooting dates, salaries and other details. Aashiqui 2’s Shraddha Kapoor—currently starring in another Balaji project, Mohit Suri’s Villain opposite Student of the Year’s Sidharth Malhotra—was roped in to replace Priyanka. But Shraddha quickly exited Milan Talkies when she was reportedly asked to pick between the two Shahid starrers she’d been offered, committing to Vishal Bhardwaj’s Hamlet remake Haider instead. And now, the news is that Shahid Kapoor may not be doing the film either. Details are sketchy, and while Shahid has said he hadn’t even officially signed the film in the first place, insiders reveal there may have been a falling out between the actor and the notoriously opinionated producer. At the time of going to press, there were reports that Balaji is still trying to convince Shahid to stick with the film. Others reveal, however, that Ekta has begun looking around for a suitable replacement, and Varun Dhawan (who’s starring in Balaji’s Main Tera Hero, directed by his father David Dhawan) has been made an offer.

Match Fixing

So Parineeti Chopra and Aditya Roy Kapoor were spotted at a Juhu multiplex last weekend, taking in Ron Howard’s thrilling car-racing drama Rush. Tabloids reported that both actors were having a good time, laughing and whispering throughout the film. They quickly deduced that Aditya and Parineeti might just be the latest ‘item’ in Bollywood. Alas, the gossip rags may have jumped the gun. A little snoop28 october 2013

ing around reveals that the actors had in fact been asked by the director of their new film, Ishaqzaade’s Habib Faisal, to spend some time together so they could get to know each other before they showed up on set. They have apparently been encouraged to go to movies and on coffee dates so they’re comfortable with each other while filming Habib’s love story, which is slated to go on the floors shortly. Parineeti, who has repeatedly been linked to her Shuddh Desi Romance director Maneesh Sharma, has just as many times refuted those rumours, insisting that they’re no more than good friends. Aditya’s current romantic status, however, remains hazy, given that he’s been linked to everyone from Shraddha Kapoor and Mere Dad Ki Maruti’s Rhea Chakraborty since breaking up with his former girlfriend Ahana Deol.

The Miserly Megastar

Not only is he Bollywood’s most versatile actor working currently, he’s also got a keen eye for the best scripts. Reams of newsprint have been expended discussing his virtues, but co-stars on the set of his latest film complain of his one bad habit—his reluctance to share. A star-kid shooting with him on their new project liked the senior actor’s hairstyle so much, he reportedly asked his manager to check with the actor’s stylist if he’d work on his hair too. The stylist in question, who was recruited to travel with the senior actor to the foreign location they were shooting at, asked the boss if he could take on the younger actor’s work, expecting a positive response. But he was surprised when the senior star asked him to make an excuse and decline the job. Turns out the older star wasn’t thrilled with the idea of sharing his staff. When twice the stylist made lame excuses to avoid working with the younger actor, the star kid allegedly approached the older actor directly and asked if he could employ the stylist’s services. Now in an awkward position, the senior star said it was up to the stylist if he had the time. And that’s how the younger actor was finally able to get his way and how the stylist got to earn a second salary. n Rajeev Masand is entertainment editor and film critic at CNN-IBN

open space

The Greater Game

by as h i s h s h a r m a

Covered head to toe, the Afghanistan National Under-17 Football womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s team plays the Indian state team of Meghalaya in a league match of the Subroto Cup at the New Willingdon Camp ground in New Delhi. Football is one of the more recent arenas of opportunity opened up for the women of this socially conservative country. The Afghan womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s team has been participating in the event since 2011

74 open

28 october 2013