Blink issue 01 january25 2014

ARE YOU THE FRUMP? Decode the rank and file at the Jaipur Literature Festival p18 saturday, january 25, 2014

Dar Yasin

On the eve of Republic Day, architect Gautam Bhatia asks why public space is constricted, even non-existent, in India. Also, raptivist Ashwini Mishra on writing music for protests p9

No room for protest

FOOL’S RUSH How the Tatlu Gang cheated people into buying “Mughalera” gold bricks p2

LETTING ME BE Author Tishani Doshi on why Chennai overcomes and underwhelms her p17

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Dipankar

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The gold rush Incredibly, even today, smooth operators from Mewat successfully run a Mughal-era gold bricks scam

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n December 10 last year, Sandeep (name changed on request) was rather nervous. He was waiting at a chowk near IMT Manesar in Gurgaon. He checked his pockets again, the cash was there.

But there was no sign of Rahul. In a little over a month, and after about a dozen phone calls, Rahul, a conman from Mewat, had lured the 20year-old student from Odisha here to buy a “Mughal-era gold brick”.

While Sandeep waited anxiously, a group of policemen hovered nearby. Just then, Rahul appeared and said, “We are being shadowed, let’s walk.” As they walked down the road, Sandeep grew suspicious. “Where are you taking me?” he said. Abruptly, Rahul asked him to return to the chowk and wait for his instructions. Scared, Sandeep sprinted back to the chowk where Delhi Crime Branch officers homed in on him, asking if Rahul had given him anything. Several minutes later, he learned that the police had nabbed Rahul and his aides from Rajokri, near NH 8. They had recovered from his person a 0.315 bore pistol, two live cartridges and one “fake Mughal-era gold brick”.

Tatlu bana rahe the, the policemen told Sandeep later. Thoroughly rattled, he has returned home since, disturbed and unable to resume his normal routine. “They call their victims tatlu, someone who is a fool, that’s how they got their name,” says Head Constable Yashpal Singh.

Rahul then painted a sad picture of his life — he Mohammed Salim Khan, 25, a native of the Mewat region, was identified by the Delhi Crime was poor, illiterate, landless, and he had a sister Branch as the leader of the “tatlu gang” they to marry off. He was scared of what he’d found nabbed that day. According to ACP Hoshiyar and didn’t want to deal with excessively curious Singh, the Mewat region is particularly rich in authorities. His aged father, who he claimed was such tatlu gangs who exploit people’s weakness an expert, had the bricks checked at the local for gold, practicing their art on scores of people goldsmith and as unbelievable as it sounded, it over the years. Their victims in the recent months was real gold. For a man of his means, he said, it was too dangerous to be in posseshave mostly been from Odisha and sion of a small gold mine. He just Jammu & Kashmir. wanted to get rid of the gold, even if Dreaded and blamed for causing it was at half the market rate. nightmares and fevers, these gangs Dreaded and blamed In many ways this is the real life have inspired some sensational for causing version of the online scam where headlines. Sample this from an arnightmares and everyone from Nigeria seems inrest made in June 2013: Tatlu giroh ka fevers, the tatlu gangs tent on giving their money to you. dehshat desh ke kone kone main phail have inspired “The beauty of the trap lies in their gaya hai (The terror of the tatlu sensational headlines innocence,” says DCP Bhisham gangs has spread to every corner of Singh. “They speak with such innothe country). cence that the victim is fooled into The tatlu gang’s shtick is simple thinking that he is the one cheating but effective. The gang members the poor man.” Sandeep also randomly dial phone numbers with an innocent tale. In this case, Khan pretended to agrees, “itni sharafat se baat boli thi, I thought I be Rahul from Mewat, a labourer working JCB was being smart.”

Sometime last November, Sandeep came to cranes at an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) dig on the banks of the Yamuna, behind the Taj know that his friend’s colleague had received a Mahal. While digging, he said, they had found a call from Rahul. Initially they laughed it off, but package wrapped in a tattered, smelly piece of the idea began to slowly appeal to him. What if cloth. Inside the package were gold bricks that he this man wasn’t lying? To him, an engineering believed were from the Mughal era, each weigh- student in Odisha working part-time for a Noidabased company to fund his education, this ing more than 800gm.

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saturday, january 25, 2014 seemed like an opportunity too good to pass. “My mistake was that I kept taking his calls,” he says.

On one of the calls, Rahul told Sandeep that he had sold a small piece and made ₹28,000; a whole brick would fetch him at least a few lakhs.

Borrowing from friends and raising loans, Sandeep collected ₹15,000. His college fees could also come in handy, he had thought. And yet, Sandeep had no clue about the prevailing gold rates in the market.

In December, Sandeep found an occasion to travel to Delhi. His Noida-based firm was late with a renewal amount due to him, so he took five days off to collect the money and simultaneously set up a meeting with Rahul. If things had gone according to the tatlu gang’s plan, Sandeep would have returned to Mewat to buy the brick, which would have been nothing but copper dressed up to look like ancient gold.

“The brick looks very authentic,” says Yashpal Singh. The Urdu seals embossed on the brick make it seem even more so. “It’s highly unlikely that the bricks could belong to the Mughal era,” says Swapna Liddle of INTACH, “Even the coin-like seals are fake.” And they are certainly not gold.

After convincing the buyers, the gang asks them to come to Mewat with the cash. On their turf then, victims are robbed at gunpoint. Salim and his tatlu gang had been plying their trade for a year-and-a-half. His gang had made more than ₹10 lakh in this time. “They choose their victims indiscriminately, just dialling numbers in a serial order. Of hundred calls they make every day,

perhaps one falls into the trap,” says DCP Bhisham Singh. “I even recall a senior police officer getting such a call a while ago. He hung up saying he was not interested.”

In 2009, Navin, a Chennai-based businessman, fell prey to a similar tatlu gang robbery staged by Pappu and two others. Pappu’s tatlu gang asked Navin to come to Chata in Haryana, where they

Brick bane A ‘gold’ Mughal brick in copper

gave him a piece of the brick. “I got it checked, it was 73-74 per cent gold,” says Navin, who then came back to buy the brick. He lost ₹14 lakh. In December 2011, almost three years after the incident, Pappu dialled Navin’s number again. “I don’t think Pappu recognised me, but I knew, immediately, who it was,” says Navin. “And this time I decided to give it back. I enlisted the help of the Delhi Police, which asked me to set up a meeting with Pappu in Delhi. Predictably, Pappu insisted

that I come to Haryana instead. But I knew he was desperate to make the sale. So, I told him I could only meet him in Delhi and I had just two hours to spare.” Pappu agreed reluctantly, only to be trapped by the police. They also arrested his partners in crime, including the man who played his “aged father”.

“I realised how they did it the first time. There were three of them. While one talked to me, the other hammered away at the brick. The third man would distract me with something else and then they would cleverly drop a piece of real gold on the ground from their pockets and offer it as the only piece they could break off. It was all distraction and sleight of hand,” says Navin.

Tatlu banaya re, the policemen had said to him then.

“I filed an FIR, something I should have done the first time but I was too embarrassed then. I won’t get my money back but you won’t believe how well I have slept since these guys were all arrested. My nightmares are gone,” says Navin.

In instances of tatlu gang robberies, FIRs are hard to come by. Most victims prefer to keep mum and forget these episodes, or file cases in local police stations of their home states. Even in Navin’s case — the FIR was lodged in May 2012 in Delhi — the proceedings of the case are yet to begin. “In the latest case of Rahul, there is no complainant. We don’t even have a case,” says Bhisham Singh. “He’ll walk free in a month’s time, lie low for a while, and then he’ll be back.”

Priyanka Kotamraju

I spy with my little eye…

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ne of the first things that Arvind Kejriwal did after being elected as the chief minister of Delhi was to set up a corruption hotline. This initiative, meant for citizens to complain and get advice on carrying out sting operations to nab the corrupt redhanded, is a step towards making the aam aadmi the de-facto anti-corruption cell. Predictably, this has led to a spike in demand for spying devices.

Here are the bestsellers:

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Camcorder glasses: These fashionable spectacles let you record everything you see, in high-definition.

With a 60° field of view and a microphone range of 2m, they’re perfect for “stingvestigations”. With a removable flash drive (8GB), it works for up to three hours on full-charge (₹7,000).

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Wristwatch: They might look like your average Rolex knockoffs, but these watches are anything but average. With their 5 mega pixel pinhole camera, 4GB in-built memory and 12hour battery life, they are built for reconnaissance. What’s more, they even tell the time (₹4,500).

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Button camera: Said to be the “world’s smallest AV recorder,” the button camera is also one of the most popular devices. It has 2G connectivity, so the recording can be monitored in real-time from a remote computer and weighs less than 18gm (₹3,000).

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Key ring: Designed like a car key, it is impossible to guess that this is actually a high-definition, night vision camera with video, image and sound recording features. Phew! On fullcharge, the key ring functions for up to 75 minutes (₹7,000)

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Pen: Just slip it in your vest-pocket and its 1-2-3 action. This pen camera boasts a 16GB microSD card, and supports uninterrupted recording for over an hour (₹3,000).

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Photo frame: Religious or not, this photo frame-camera with an image of Krishna is the answer to all your prayers. With infra-red remote control and motion-activated recording, you can get crystal-clear clips of all things suspicious (₹25,000).

Sibi Arasu

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The books don’t tally Only participation, no profits, in the booming business of literary festivals in India — over 60 at last count

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would increase so rapidly. DSC, therefore, had to very January, the 200-year-old haveli of Diggi Thakurs in Rajasthan is trans- make way this year for the Zee Group, which formed into the Mecca of literature. Au- could bring in more funds than was envisaged thors, publishers, book lovers, when the festival was originally curated.

While entry for visitors is free, the Jaipur Litjournalists and gawkers gather at the Diggi Palace for what is now India’s most celebrated lit- Fest charges a delegate fee of ₹2,500 per day and a discounted rate of ₹10,000 for five days. This fest — the Jaipur Literature Festival.

Cut to Kolkata. Just when India is gearing up to doesn’t add up to much. Other festivals are even celebrate Republic Day, Kolkata Literary Meet (Ka- worse off. Their only sources of revenues are LaM) will kick off at the grand Victoria Memorial. grants and sponsorships. “Sponsors don’t conAuthors will hold forth during the day and the firm till the last minute about giving funds. The evenings will reverberate with music and dance. government is not yet forthcoming to put monIt is irrelevant that just a fortnight prior, the city ey in fests. It is difficult to sustain for long withplayed host to a similar event — the Kolkata Liter- out support,” says Atif Hanif, director, marketing, at the Lucknow Literary Festival, now in its secary festival.

Miles away, the National Centre for Performing ond year.

Yet, Hanif doesn’t want to give up so soon.

Arts (NCPA) on the shores of the Arabian Sea is host to the Mumbai International Literary Festiv- “Lucknow has a rich history and culture. And a al every year. These are few of the over 60 lit- fests lit-fest is the best platform to showcase it all. We created a concept last year. And this held in India annually. Their venues year, sponsors are showing a little are magnificent and settings opumore willingness to fund the event. lent. In theory, this should spell We hope that with time, things will profits for the publishers and orgaSponsors remain get better.” nisers. But the reality is that despite choosy about putting Sponsors, on their part, remain the vast number of attendees and money in lit-fests. choosy about putting money in litthe general acceptance of literature Many feel the festival fests. Most of them feel the festival festivals, most of these accumulate should resonate with should resonate with the values of losses. This raises a question mark the company's values the company. Google is a major on their survival. sponsor for both Jaipur and Kolkata The Jaipur fest, in its ninth year festivals. “The Jaipur lit-fest is a platnow, has never made profits. “Every form for free expression — also the year, we have to invest in the propercore values for Google. Thinkers exty more than before due to the exponential increase in the number of visitors,” says change opinions freely. It gives us good visibility Sanjoy Roy, Managing Director at Teamwork Pro- as a brand,” says Paroma Roy Chowdhury, direcductions, which organises the Jaipur Literature tor and country head, Public Affairs at Google Festival apart from 18 other annual festivals in 11 India.

She says KaLaM is a similar effort in the east. different countries.

Roy reasons that an increasing number of vis- “The fest gets an excellent line-up of speakers. itors (and hence costs) outstrip the increase in in- The east is also a critical talent market for us. Bevestments made every year. From an attendance ing associated with such a fest will give the brand of 7,000 in the first year, the fest saw nearly 2 lakh a fillip,” she adds.

As things stand, fests have two options to bepeople in 2013. Neither Teamwork nor DSC, the real estate company that was the lead sponsor come profitable — increase sources of revenue or until last year, had realised that the numbers cut down costs. The first option is a tad difficult

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Literally yours Full house at the Jaipur Literature Festival (below) and Sanjoy Roy from Teamwork Productions, which organises this and 18 other festivals in 11 countries (left) ROHIT JAIN PARAS

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Penny wise Malavika Banerjee from Gameplan Sports, which manages KaLaM, one of the few profitable lit-fests in the country Ashoke Chakrabarty

as sponsors are selective and Indians aren’t particularly fond of paying for cultural events even though they don’t mind spending on Bollywood movies or cricket matches. “We don’t see that culture in India yet. Literary meets are meant to reach out to people and so you don’t charge,” says Malavika Banerjee, director at Gameplan, a sports management company that also manages the Kolkata Literary Meet (KaLaM).

Interestingly, KaLaM, in its third year now, has been a profitable venture since its inception.

While its only source of funding is sponsorships, Banerjee carefully chose the second option to remain profitable — keeping costs under check.

“We invite smartly. We don’t have a flabby festival — only 45-50 sessions,” she says. Banerjee has also capped the number of visiting writers at 70. Besides, she has access to a lot of local writers, who don’t have to be brought in. This saves her the ex-

he government has found a new way to check inflation — tweak the calculator itself.

Wholesale Price Index (WPI, the price of a representative basket of wholesale goods) is used to measure inflation. Currently, WPI is skewed in favour of potatoes and onions, which have the highest weight. This means when the prices of these two increase, inflation shoots up. The 200 per cent rise in onion prices last year is among the reasons for the defeat of the Congress party in recent State elections. Not surprisingly, efforts are on to widen the veggie basket for WPI. That will bring down the overall weightage of onions in WPI. A new index, proposed by Saumitra Chaudhuri-led committee, will be based on a bigger, better veggie basket and include carrot, drumsticks, cucumber and pumpkin as well.

pense of travel and stay in expensive hotels. cials. Organisers prefer to keep profitability unIn contrast, the Jaipur Literature Festival is a der wraps as love for literature rather than lucre far more costly proposition. Roy points out that makes for a good pitch. But for those who are sethey buy 4,000 room nights in the city’s hotels rious about making money and declaring it to for visitors and guests. “Around ₹1 crore to ₹1.5 the world, Banerjee’s formula of not turning the crore is the cost for flying in over 300 authors, fest into a kumbh mela should work. speakers and musicians from across the world.

Banerjee, so far, seems to have had a strong Some have to be flown business class and along grip on finances. Unlike Jaipur, where four or five with local travel, this is about a fifth of the total sessions run simultaneously, Banerjee is particufest cost,” he says. lar about having only one session at Money spent on infrastructure, a time. That saves money on multivenues, technical arrangements ple locations at the venue and such as LED screens, lights, mikes, maintains the essence of sessions.

“You can’t be the and recordings for live streaming Moreover, focused fests require kumbh mela of for worldwide distribution cost ansmaller venues to accommodate literature, if you want other ₹3 crore. about 500-600 people. “We also to make money and Food for 1,500 visitors, 750 jourhave a clear brief — to capture the cover costs” nalists, 250 volunteers, and 300 readers’ perspective. So we try to crews for five days is also a huge bring in only writers who are read chunk of the cost. Along with misand a few interesting names who cellaneous expenses for website deadd to the programming,” she says. sign, print and marketing, the At Jaipur lit-fest, while organisers Jaipur lit-fest cost about ₹8 crore don’t seem to be making money, this year. there are plenty of others who are. Books worth “Where most lit-fests tend to start becoming ₹90,000 were sold in 2006 and the figure economically unviable is when they start being zoomed to ₹49 lakh in 2013. “I have a firm belief less discerning, and thinking that more pro- that the festival, in the long run, will not only gramming is good programming. A lit-fest break even but more than pay the costs,” says should be qualitatively good rather than large,” Roy. But then, Jaipur lit-fest has almost become Banerjee says, adding that “you can’t be the an international event. Most other literary festivkumbh mela of literature, if you want to make als in India will be better off trying to follow Banerjee’s formula of keeping costs under check. money and cover costs.”

Since lit-fests are not corporate entities, there is no way to verify the truth behind their finan- Rashmi Pratap

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Defining WPI It is an indicator of the average price movement over time of a fixed basket of goods and services.

Defined as the index comprising all transactions at first point of bulk sale in the domestic market. >> WPI was used for the first time in August 1939. It was calculated for 23 commodities. >> The current series of 2004-05 has 676 items in the commodity basket. Groups included are primary articles — food and non-food, fuel and power, and manufactured goods. Vegetables and

fruits fall under primary articles. >> The calculation is based on Lasperyre’s formula, on the principle of weighted arithmetic mean. >> Japan, Austria, Greece, Norway, Turkey and Ireland are the other countries that use WPI. >> Proposed changes will help define a more representative basket of goods indicative of consumption patterns, reduce price volatility and reduce food inflation.

WPI 2004-05 (Current)

WPI proposed

Has 676 items in commodity basket

A tentative basket of 1,132 items proposed

11 vegetables under Primary Articles

17 vegetables under Primary Articles

Potato, onion, sweet potato, cauliflower, brinjal, cabbage, tomato, tapioca, lady’s finger, green peas and ginger. Potato has the highest weight.

New veggies introduced include bitter gourd, point gourd, carrot, drumsticks, cucumber and pumpkin. Potatoes and onions will continue to have highest weight.

Current fruit basket consists of 13 fruits – banana, mango, apple, orange, cashewnut, coconut, papaya, grapes, pineapple, guava, litchi, lemon and chikoo.

Lemon incidentally was added in 2004-05.

New basket will have 3 more items - pomegranate, sweetlime and gooseberries.

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present imperfect

The commonly uncommon Is Delhi ready to give up its capital assets? Change its extraordinary ways?

Pink revolution An aam Arvind Kejriwal is subtly influencing the capital’s psyche too.

Seen here with advocate Prashant Bhushan RV Moorthy

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Veena Venugopal is Editor-BLink and author of Would You Like Some Bread With That Book

n Monday evening, the road leading from the office to the metro station was barricaded. Policemen in riot gear stood on one side. A dozen or so supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) huddled in a group by the side of the road, drinking tea out of paper cups and blowing at their hands to keep warm. On this side of the barrier, helplessly, stood the real aam aadmis, the common men. Police officers weren’t letting anyone pass.

The chief minister and founder of AAP, Arvind Kejriwal, was sitting in a dharna further down the road. “I’ve been working all day, I just want to go home,” a man pleaded, shoving a tattered identity card under the police officer’s nose.

“All gates are closed. The metro station is closed,” he replied.

After waiting around for a couple of minutes or so, trying to figure out a plan to get home, on a lark, I pulled out my press card and showed it to the officer.

“This way,” he pointed.

And right there, in front of the people who were waiting far longer than us, my colleague and I slipped under the rope and skipped to the station. It was only 10 feet away. And it was open.

Whether the CM’s dharna ended in a compromise or climb down is irrelevant. What is significant is that Kejriwal and his AAP have managed to refashion a critical aspect of the Delhi psyche. Be it a press card or a red beacon atop your car, Delhi is a city where the primary aspiration is to be anything but aam (ordinary). To call oneself common and to align with other commoners is an idea so abhorrent to Delhi, it makes the success of AAP an even greater phenomenon.

Anti-aam Delhiites spend an awful lot of time and a whole heap of money in convincing others that they are, just that bit, more important. And even though the city and its residents have been long caricatured for this one aspect of their mental make-up, it is so integral to Delhi culture, it is hard to let go.

Six years ago, when I was moving here from how the answer begins.

In his search of the top of the line, an acquaintMumbai, a friend told me of the time she spent in the Capital. It was the early 1990s and she had just ance sold his house to buy a BMW. Sure, the house moved to the city and started living with her new was an inheritance and in another city. Still, even husband in a central Delhi colony. The neigh- to the financially disinclined, it seemed like a bit bourhood was wholesome and middleclass. And of a wild move. Another friend showed videos of walking home from work, in her first scorching her cousin’s wedding celebrations, where “imsummer here, she much envied her neighbours ported” Russian girls were dancing inside six-feet their air-conditioners. All the homes had the met- tall bottles. The previous family wedding feaal cage sticking out of their windows. “All sum- tured blonde girls, so the bottles were a necesmer I grumbled about my new husband and his sary step-up.

In his new book, Capital, a tome about modernlow-paying job in an advertising agency. The day Delhi, Rana Dasgupta writes neighbours were a curious bunch — about why the city finds it difficult some were shopkeepers, trading in to spring out of its desire for preferautomobile parts and industrial ential treatment as well as queuegoods, and others were government jumping privileges. “One might employees. But they all had fancy To call oneself think that a place of inequalities as cool rooms,” she said. In August, the common and to align entrenched as Delhi’s would breed first rains arrived. And my friend was standing just outside the build- with other commoners democratic yearnings, but it is not ing waiting for the rain to recede is an idea so abhorrent the case: Delhi’s fantasies are feuto Delhi, it makes dal. Even those who have rather litwhen she looked up. All those metal cages were empty. None of them AAP’s success an even tle social power respect the greater phenomenon privileges of those who have a lot — held actual air-conditioners. “While perhaps hoping that one day they I can see how smart the first person will enjoy for themselves the same who thought this idea up was, what exemption from law and custom,” made it hilarious was that everyone he writes. followed suit. So not only did people The success of AAP might be the first step in the know that their fake air-conditioners were fake, they also knew their neighbours’ fakes were fake. democratic yearning of Delhi. But its desire to But to them it was important that strangers who possess the best remains. On Tuesday evening, walked past the building shouldn’t think they the station remained shut. Colleague and I found ourselves sharing an electric rickshaw with two couldn’t afford an air-conditioner,” she said.

Today, the air-conditioners are real. But the awe gentlemen. They were returning from the proabout acquiring something new and shiny re- test. In the conversation that ensued, the youngmains. Most visits to friends’ homes involve some er of the two men defended his party but amount of time gaping at a fancy new purchase, conceded that a few aspects about Kejriwal and usually something electronic or electrical. After a AAP needed a re-look. As we alighted, the older respectable silence for a couple of minutes, gentleman, a Sardarji with Santa-like white beard marking admiration and respect, someone, often made his only pronouncement. “You can say a man, will ask something with the words ‘horse what you want, but our man is the best.” End of power’ or ‘amplification’ in it. “This is top of the argument. Delhi-style. line, boss, the best in the category…” is usually t@veenavenugopal

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bawdy line

Hourglass truths

Shutterstock/Julynx

What she of the large breasts and narrow waists might tell us of fecundity

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Ambarish Satwik is a Delhi-based vascular surgeon and writer

asienska’s paper on large breasts and narrow waists,” I declared to my wife, over a late-night cup of coffee, “was the first to present a sort of evolutionary endorsement of Sappho’s famous line: what is beautiful is good.”

That’s the kind of platonic sterility with which my wife and I conduct our conjugal lives after dinner these days. For three successive nights that week, we were discussing the evolutionary mating theory. This, in particular, was meant to provoke her and lead the way to a post-prandial discussion on Grazyna Jasienska’s 2004 paper that finally provided the empirical evidence for the theory that large breasts and narrow waists indicated a higher degree of health and fecundity in women. The premise was that level of the ovarian steroid hormone estradiol produced during the menstrual cycle was an excellent indicator of fertility. Jasienska et al collected morning saliva samples in 119 regularly menstruating Polish women in their reproductive prime and determined daily levels of estradiol (E2) and progesterone therein. These women were then assembled (on paper) into four categories with differing combinations of waist-hip ratio and breast size: ‘narrow waist, large breasts’, ‘narrow waist, small breasts’, ‘broad waist, large breasts’ and ‘broad waist, small breasts’. The ‘narrow waist, large breasts’ group showed 26 per cent higher values of mean estradiol and 37 per cent higher values of mean mid-cycle estradiol than women from any of the other sample groups. The results more or less liquidated all feminist perspectives on the role of attractiveness and evolutionary psychology.

“Not all standards of beauty,” I told the wife, “are arbitrary and constructed”.

The wife, who is a gynaecologist and an IVF specialist, and can also be loosely labelled a Darwinian feminist, is measurably less tolerant of sociobiological drivel coming from me after her 11 p.m. cup of tea. She looked at me as if I were a nine-year-old practising imaginary cricket strokes in his underwear.

“Alright, cowboy, let’s raise the stakes,” she said. “Do you know what PCOS is?”

In the course of her clinical practice in infertility, Ruma has evolved a heuristic for diagnosing

the cause of the patient’s infertility by just look- seasons her with pulchritude. In fact, it works on ing at her. According to her, there’s an obvious di- a pro rata basis. The more fetching her form — as morphism that’s hard to overlook and there are, defined by Darwin’s evolutionary mating theory often, facial, cutaneous, fleshly and sometimes — the more regular her periods, the more fleeting her run of fertility. The much ballyhooed ovaries vocal cues that clearly advertise the pathology.

So, shapely, statuesque women with gracile of the Fatima Bhutto strains, ovulating unrelievcheekbones, full lips and mesmeric skin, who edly, will thus spend themselves too soon. Perhave been regularly menstruating and generally haps as soon as 35 or 37. After that she’ll be look like older, homologous strains of Fatima infertile. It’s called Loss of Ovarian Reserve.

The other set, the fugly cohort of ‘unappetisBhutto, are likely to be suffering from a Loss of Ovarian Reserve. Contrarily, pear shaped or tubu- ing’ (Darwin’s mating theory again, not mine) lar figures that are acne-ridden and hirsute and mardani khawateen, the ones with PCOS are achave insulin resistance, manly voices and men- tually subfertile, not infertile, and much easier to strual disorders, assuredly, are suffering from treat. What they have is a bit of an internal riot one of the many variants of Poly Cystic Ovarian caused by an excess of masculinising hormones.

They don’t menstruate or ovulate Syndrome (PCOS). regularly. That finite stockpile of Now, before we proceed, let me seed lies safe and unused in the state that the obviously well-chosen ovarian warehouse, the testosterimagery here is all mine so the wife one contriving to preserve the eggs may be spared the burden of its The much ballyhooed in a state of deep freeze. With treatphraseology. But, the amateur adapovaries of the Fatima ment, the embargo on ovulation is tionist hypothesising that follows is Bhutto strains, lifted and these women can ovulate entirely hers. And it wonderfully situates female infertility in The Great ovulating unrelievedly, well into their forties as if it’s the will spend themselves springtime of their lives.

Evolutionary Narrative. The one too soon The Fatima Bhutto strains are like that states that all human biological the Amaltas, the golden shower tree affairs are guided by Darwinian natthat is so beauteous in blossom that ural selection. A lot of people might it takes your breath away. But its efconsider it just warm swill, but anyflorescence lasts only about three how, I shall let you gargle with it: All the eggs that a woman will ever produce are weeks. That’s because those fragrant yellow dandeposited in her ovaries when she is a foetus in gling sprays will always find pollinators. Three her mother’s womb. From birth to menarche the weeks are more than enough. The Fatima Bhuttos eggs lie dormant in the ovarian warehouse in an are the magnetised females of the species. They undeveloped state. With sexual maturation, with will always attract mating partners.

But then look how the unseen hands of the every menstrual cycle, she starts maturing a large immature contingent of several hundred Keeper and Comptroller of Accounts (Natural Seeggs. But, just one of these eggs can actually ma- lection, not God) level the playing field for the ture and develop. This one preeminent anda is ov- other cohort. The ones with PCOS are actually givulated (per cycle) at the metabolic cost of en the evolutionary advantage. Geneticists call it bumping off all other kindred andas of that con- antagonistic pleiotropy: the same gene having a tingent by a process of hormonal negative feed- detrimental effect on one trait but a beneficial efback. Ovulation, in humans, is clearly a wasteful fect on another. High levels of testosterone break campaign. With every proper cycle, the woman out as acne and facial hair in women with PCOS depletes her finite stockpile of seed just to pro- but they also preserve ovarian function. These ladies have more time for the mating games. What duce one ripe egg worthy of fertilisation.

The abundance of estradiol (as in one of Jasien- is lost in sexual signalling is gained in reproducska’s cohorts), its cyclical throb that makes the tive longevity. woman menstruate and ovulate regularly, also asatwik@gmail.com

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Off the mark? Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh armed for the general elections RV Moorthy

dilli darbar

India’s power elite The Nehru-Gandhi darbar is now under threat from rank ‘outsiders’ vying for the PM’s chair

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Sanjaya Baru is former media advisor to PM Manmohan Singh and former editor The Financial Express and Business Standard

he first Indian from the south of the Vindhyas to ever preside over the Dilli darbar was P V Narasimha Rao. Technically, it was C Rajagopalachari, as the first Indian to be governor-general. But CR’s post was titular. Narasimha Rao also felt he was never part of the Dilli darbar but ironically titled his fictionalised autobiography, The Insider. When he died the Congress Party made sure that he was cremated in Hyderabad and no trace of his presiding over the Dilli darbar would be left here. A Hindi-speaking and polyglot Brahmin, he was the darling of the darbar till he went rogue. His fault — a genuine desire to give the Indian National Congress a life apart from and beyond the Nehru-Gandhi family.

In many ways Manmohan Singh, Rao’s protégé, was the darbar’s quintessential ‘insider’ when he became prime minister, having walked up the ladder of power over three decades, occupying every single important position in the field of economic policymaking. Singh was first interviewed to be hired for a job in Delhi by Jawaharlal Nehru, but eventually worked for Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and so became a favoured member of the Dilli darbar.

However, almost every prime ministerial aspirant today claims to be a darbar outsider — Narendra Modi, Jayalalithaa, Mayawati, Mulayam Singh Yadav and the new kid on the block, Arvind Kejriwal. Each one of them has, in their own way and deploying their own metaphors, laid siege to the Dilli darbar, hoping to flush out the inhabitants, like the mutineers and their gujjar compatriots did a century and a half ago.

So who are the insiders? Some tell me that Bharatiya Janata Party’s Lal Krishna Advani and his family fancy themselves as Delhi insiders. At one time they were regular diners at New Delhi’s India International Centre, one of the chambers of the Dilli darbar, and they are generally treated

gently by the national media. Another attribute lot, made more powerful by popular media, and of the darbari. Atal Bihari Vajpayee certainly they too have been beneficiaries of the Nehruthought of himself as an insider, and having the Gandhi dispensation. Both Bollywood and the late Brajesh Mishra next to him also helped him Delhi media are generally deferential to the darfeel so. Mishra was the quintessential darbari, bari ‘insiders’. The Lohia socialists of the 1990s with friends in the government and outside, in- and the BJP loyalists of the Vajpayee-era have tried to break into this exclusive class in the past cluding the media.

However, after nearly six decades of being the but without too much success. The awe that Socapital of a Republic, Delhi’s real darbaris are the nia Gandhi continues to inspire among the darNehru-Gandhi family, their hangers-on, their re- bar’s commentariat, and the kid-glove treatment tainers and their cronies. They constitute India’s her son generally receives, stand testimony to this assertion. ‘power elite’.

All this makes the 2014 election a particularly American sociologist C Wright Mills popularised the term in his 1956 classic The Power Elite de- interesting one. Assuming that it will be a threecornered contest between the Confining it narrowly as those who gress, the BJP and a motley group of dominate the political, business and ‘others’, including the Aam Aadmi military institutions. He ought to Party, this election would be a conhave added cultural institutions as Delhi’s real darbaris test between the incumbent elite well. In India the military elite have are the Nehru-Gandhi and its representatives, and the asbeen circumscribed by the civil serfamily, their hangerssortment of ‘outsiders’. Of course, vice, but the civil service has failed to on, their retainers and in the past, ‘outsiders’ such as Moretain its status within the power their cronies. They rarji Desai, Jagjivan Ram, Neelam elite. The declining quality of India’s constitute India’s Sanjiva Reddy, Kasu Brahmananda administrators and diplomats, and ‘power elite’ Reddy, Yashwantrao Chavan, Shathe fact that ‘the best and the brightrad Pawar and Chandra Shekhar est’ no longer enter the IAS or IFS, and his ‘young turks’ tried to chalbut prefer to either migrate or work lenge Indira Gandhi. Vishwanath in the corporate and financial secPratap Singh successfully chaltors, has curbed their claim to membership of the power elite. This lot, interestingly, lenged Rajiv Gandhi, but he was not much of an is now less loyal to the Nehru-Gandhi darbar, as outsider. He was a quintessential darbari who betrayed his benefactor and had his comeuppance. was established by their enthusiastic embrace of Narendra Modi is different. He fulfils all the both Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee and their general disappointment with Manmohan Singh for qualifications of being an outsider, except that he speaks chaste Hindi. The business and milihis yielding so much space to the Family.

While Mills did not pay much attention to tary elite love him, but the cultural elite do not America’s cultural elite in the 1950s, he may have and the political elite remain wary. If he succeeds done so if he were writing in the 1970s when Hol- in winning power this year, he could well alter lywood and the media became such powerful in- the nature of the Dilli darbar. That is what unnervstitutions, and not just instruments, of the power es so many darbaris. elite. India’s cultural elite have been a powerful baru@iiss.org

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Walled in

Do we have a Tahrir Square, Taksim Square or a Zuccotti Park? On the eve of Republic Day, we examine the idea of public space and why it is constricted, even non-existent, in India

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oody Allen famously wrote in A Brief Yet Helpful Guide to Civil Disobedience, “In perpetrating a revolution, there are two requirements, someone to revolt against, and someone to do the revolting… but if either faction fails to attend, the whole enterprise is likely to come off badly”. In any protest, drama and visibility are necessary to communicate both cause and effect.

From Vietnam War protests on the Washington Mall to Tiananmen Square in China, and the more recent Tahrir Square marches in Egypt, in public protest around the world one thing was common: all cities provided space for protest, maybe not designated as such, but the public square in the centre of town was space available, as it always has been, for art, culture, social life, commerce, and most of all, public grievance.

Urban visibility provided focus to the seriousness of the protest. When the million man march descended on Washington, the great flank of museums and memorials enclosed the protesters in a momentous public display of popular strength. The numbers were all that were needed to make the point. With the Lincoln Memorial as the stage and the Tidal Basin as the public enclosure, the cameras captured a historic moment, viewed around the world. The eloquence of Martin Luther King’s I have a Dream speech was all the more heartfelt when it resounded against the backdrop of such urban monumentality.

Other anti-capitalist, national, gay, feminist, Is-

Fists of rage Jantar Mantar has witnessed anti-corruption protests as well as pension parishads Sandeep Saxena

centre of Indian cities makes all forms of public protest secondary and insignificant. While older cities in Rajasthan and elsewhere made clear public markers through street chowks and maidans, newer cities make no distinctions between places for protest, sport recreation, parks, baghs or maidans. The public is free to choose its own use for any available public space. The Prime Minlamic, anti-colonial, anti-establishment move- ister speaks at the Red Fort, Arvind Kejriwal conments have also appeared in recognisable public ducts his Dharna at Rail Bhavan, Ramlila is city space. Urban governments abroad have long performed at the maidan, minor protests are since realised the importance of the symbolic staged at Jantar Mantar, marches at India Gate.

The open park becomes a cricket public space in the city. Tahrir pitch, the sidewalk an invitation to Square was the epicentre of the commerce, the larger paved plazas Egyptian uprising of 2011 that overare parking lots. The uncertainty of threw Hosni Mubarak and paved The absence of public designation makes every the way for a new government. Cersquares in the centre form of Indian city space into a free tainly the space of the square was a of Indian cities makes for all. flash point of violence that killed alall forms of public Some years ago I was part of a most 900 people, but the publicity of the event — however catastrophic protest secondary and small crowd of about 200 protesinsignificant ters at the candle light vigil at India — was visible for all to see. At TiananGate to demonstrate against the Inmen in Beijing the 1989 student dian explosion of the nuclear protests were made more public by bomb. We were however clearly outthe sheer scale of the square itself. numbered by families who had As sociologist Duncan Hughes come to the park for an evening noted, “There was no place to hide.

For once, the Chinese government’s atrocities lay stroll, an ice cream and some illicit love making.

In a city so completely lacking of urban space, Inexposed to the rest of the world.”

Indian public space, by contrast is constricted dia Gate had become the hub of all activity — soor non-existent. The absence of squares in the cial, political, commercial — in the truly Indian

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Charge of the lathi brigade Power play at an anti-inflation protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi

saturday, january 25, 2014

Bridge over troubled waters Activists block Kolkata’s iconic Howrah Bridge in response to the socio-economic turmoil at Nandigram Vijay Verma

aspect of turning any public event into a mela.

What then really distinguishes India Gate from Pragati Maidan, Pragati Maidan from Dilli Haat, Dilli Haat from Connaught Place?

The lack of visible structures to public life in the city ensures that its citizens remain entirely free of the norms of collective living. The absence of walkable ground, usable sidewalks, public libraries, street culture, places for meeting or congregation (except for marriage halls) and other activities of co-operative intent makes the city into a mere assortment of private houses and self

protecting fearful gated communities. Tyres will be deflated, driver will be shot… So you learn to see the world beyond the boundary wall of your home as wasted place, its people and sights a proverbial enemy. You navigate the city as you would a dangerous battle ground, not as individuals occupying collective space but as families, usurping family compounds, filling restaurants and malls, an urban sub-species so self-absorbed, it is incapable of existing outside the family. Or as disjointed gangs playing by gang rules, threatening women, intimidating and terrorising as you move through the streets.

The park opposite my home has an 18 point list of Dos and Don’ts at the entrance, among them: No washing of clothes in Park, No eatables allowed, No bathing, No entry for pets. But at any given time of the day, plastic wrappers litter the ground, while stray dogs sniff food leftovers.

Men bathe, while local women wash clothes at the hand pump. Rich people walk their dogs even when the sign forbids them. The need to institutionalise public behaviour and graphically display it on a board is the inevitable necessity of a culture that has little regard for public space, and scant interest in preserving anything outside the domestic domain. That public space belongs to everyone is a strangely western notion; that it must be preserved and paid for, is equally, an un-Indian idea.

City for no one

Dousing political fires Water cannons attempt to quell the angry voices raised against fuel price hikes at Jantar Mantar in Delhi S. Subramanium

Bills of rights Women activists outside the Secretariat, Thiruvananthapuram S Mahinsha

Rooms with a view The pin codes of outrage in India The Secretariat, Thiruvananthapuram

•It’s the capital city that hosts the maximum number of rallies in India.

•Last August, the Opposition Left

Front declared a siege of the Government Secretariat. At least a lakh activists demanded the CM’s resignation.

•Protesters also gather at the Legislative Assembly and Martyr’s Square.

The current dangers of rape, molestation, robberies, water wars, electricity pilferage, deflated tyres, road rage, private gates on public streets, high boundary walls, and electrified fences are all the unfortunate byproduct of an urban culture of growing insularity. A fear that whispers

•Jantar Mantar in the heart of the capital, might be an 18th century observatory, but today it is the epicentre of protests, peopled by surging crowds for a range of causes, and few permanents residents who have been here for years.

•But Jantar Mantar is a relatively new site of protest. The Boat Club lawns leading to the Raisina Hill, were the

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Beast of burden An activist in Andhra Pradesh brings to bear, in person, the issue of rising LPG prices PTI

into private ears: protect yourself and your turf.

In the past decade the commercialisation of India has itself ensured that public life in the city is confined to malls and restaurants. Even the treelined street in residential neighbourhoods has been replaced by glassed-in shops for Bvlgari, Revlon and Rolex, making a clear and unequivocal statement that if you have nothing to buy and nothing to sell, there is no place for you in the city.

In cities that are increasingly being designed by builders, for outrageous private profit, the worst is yet to come. Every Malibu Towne and Beverly Heights being built as extensions to the old city is turning inwards to its own private merits — home, shopping, recreation, pool, and community within the high wall — without ever needing the outside, without the ugly face of the real city.

So, you sit alone, connected only on social media, in a ghostly buzz, living in cyberspace, a place at once inviting and menacing, the blue screen always flickering... Your social relevance is measured by the number of followers, the number of tweets, and the number of friends on Facebook.

You learn to revel in the false seduction of social connection, in the excess of information and the promise of its senseless performance. You learn to wallow in private occasions, knowing full well the absence of a real view out of your window: the public opportunity that accidentally brings people together and makes cities livable, lovable and human. Perhaps it is time to rethink the city as an extension of home, and bring back — in real physical form — the long forgotten ideal of public space. The city as the family living room.

Gautam Bhatia is an award-winning Delhi-based architect and author.

A stone’s throw Protesters at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, pelt stones Sandeep Saxena

Jantar Mantar and Ramlila Maidan, Delhi

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original choice. The shift happened only in the early 90s after Mahendra Singh Tikait, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, and farmers from Uttar Pradesh camped on the lawns for around a week.

•Ramlila maidan has witnessed many, much larger, historic protests from Jayaprakash Narayan’s rally against Indira Gandhi’s Emergency to the recent swearing in of Arvind Kejriwal as Delhi’s chief minister.

Red-letter day At Azad Maidan Vivek Bendre

Azad Maidan, Mumbai

•Mahatma Gandhi addressed the largest ever political meeting at the Maidan in December 1931. During the freedom struggle, Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri often used it as a venue for their speeches.

•On August 11, 2012, a gathering held at the Azad Maidan to protest the Assam and Rakhine riots turned violent, claiming two lives and injuring 54 people. By the end of the day, the

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An unequal music A ‘raptivist’ lends his voice to the many songs of freedom

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o protest march has been complete to the arrest of the two Palghar girls for their without a protest song. From the gos- Facebook post on Bal Thackeray’s death. At this pel songs of the Civil Rights Move- concert, I had the privilege of performing with ment in America and the freedom street theatre artists, folk musicians, poets and ballads of the anti-apartheid movement in South fellow cultural activists. Sambhaji Bhagat and his Africa to the protests against Vedanta in Niyamgi- cultural troupe performed, and so did the musiri, music has always played a crucial part. cian-activists from Mumbai, the Republican PanIn the past, I have been called a “raptivist” but I thers. Although Deepak Dengle of Kabir Kala prefer, protest musician. My music is an act of Manch, a band of Pune-based Dalit protest singprotest, an expression of dissent. As I have be- ers, was in prison at the time, his poetry was read come more active, I have realised that my music out. The names, Kabir Kala Manch and Republicannot ring true if I’m not involved in the strug- can Panthers, may seem new to crowds that gles I write about. My musical activthrong Blue Frog and Hard Rock, ism is as much on the streets as it is but to their audiences, Kabir Kala in the studio and onstage. Over the and the Panthers are rockstars for last year, I have participated in severtheir music, passion and honesty.

If protest music al rallies, both as a performer and as As political artists, we are often is a religion, one of the an agitator. told to tone down our politics. But places of worship is 2013 was the year that saw middleAmbedkar Bhavan was a platform Ambedkar Bhavan in class protesters erupt on to the where political content and artistic Dadar, Mumbai streets — whether it was the surge afdissent was celebrated. We perter the Delhi gang rape or the anformed in Marathi, Hindi and Enti-377 protests in December. But glish. But across languages, one India also saw demonstrations at thing was consistent — the theme the grassroots that were equally imof resistance. portant. I had the privilege of being a part of Protest music can’t be confined to a stage; it beboth, observing resistance on different planes. longs to the streets too. One of the street protests, If protest music is a religion, one held last year in Delhi, was a musical satyagraha of the places of worship is Ambed- in front of Patiala Court. We stood outside the kar Bhavan in Dadar, Mumbai. With court and sang to a crowd about AFSPA in Maniits long and rich history, it has been pur. This protest, held on May 22 (the day of the a site of many cultural performanc- court hearing), was in solidarity with Irom Shares that continue to play a big role mila’s 14-year fast against AFSPA. One of the great things about protesting in open spaces is people in the Ambedkarite movement.

On January 26, 2013, we had a walking into our performances, asking quesspecial protest concert on the tions. As we sang that day, many young people theme of freedom of expression — came up to us to know more; college students ‘Bol ke lab azad hain tere’ (say that asking simple questions like ‘do you think all solyour words are free, from Faiz’s diers are bad?’ It was a powerful moment when works) at the Bhavan. This was, they told us that our songs, not lectures and semamong other things, a reaction inars, made them think. And that, in a nutshell, is why we do what we do.

Sound and fury Ashwini Mishra Of the many demonstrations I was part of last wants to be heard Satyen Bordoloi year, the most memorable moment was at Bij-

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15,000-strong crowd had swollen to 40,000. Colleges and hospitals in the area padlocked their gates to keep rioters at bay.

•While it might be a site of protest, the maidan has also been a training ground for budding cricketers. Most recently, 14-year-old Prithvi Shaw made history by scoring a record 546 runs at the Harris Shield. He played for six hours and seven minutes and faced 300 balls.

behara in Islamabad (Anantnag), Kashmir. On October 22, 1993, over 40 Kashmiris were massacred by the armed forces. In 2013, I went to the town to attend a meeting held in a mosque. It was interesting to see the enthusiasm of the young attendees; even the choice of a mosque as a site of dissent. The mosque became more than just a place of worship. It became a common space for the community to rally round.

There were many other protests where I sang, and there will be many more. From the Golibar Demolitions protest and the march for Soni Sori to protests for Muzaffarnagar riot victims and the anti-POSCO marches across the nation, the struggle continues. What remains is the need to reclaim public spaces and use the power of protest music.

On that note, here’s an excerpt from one of my unreleased songs: Rise Up We protest, we resist, we stand up and we fight, Do your best, raise your fist, understand what is right, Understand what is right, I put my hand on this mic, To take a stand, this is life, they think their plans will survive, The wrath, the voice of people, but their glasses are quite cracked, Lack of choice is evil, they can’t see, the masses will strike back, Revolution is coming, you can run or you can stand, The resolution is stunning, Justice in HD, that’s humongous demand, I’m an emcee who just spits, let me just bust it and go speak, No Peace No Justice, No Justice and No Peace.

Ashwini Mishra is a protest musician from Mumbai (soundcloud.com/alistrap) and creative director at the Nirman Foundation. Views are personal.

Top draw Mamata Banerjee holds court at an anti-left rally in Kolkata Ashoke Chakrabarty

Light, camera, action Mediapersons duck for safety at Lal Chowk, Srinagar Nissar Ahmad

Maidan, Kolkata

Lal Chowk, Srinagar

•Protest is to Kolkata, what trade is to Mumbai. And historically, Kolkata’s anger has played itself out best on the green acres of the Brigade Parade Ground or maidan. Now an urban park, an entire village, Gobindapur, was cleared out in the late 18th century for it. Allowing cannons a clear line of fire, it secured the borders of the new Fort William, built by East India Company after the Battle of Plassey.

•Originally barred access, locals started reclaiming Kolkata’s Hyde Park in mid-19th century, with makeshift bazaars, holy festivals and rallies. Football was first played by Bengali teams in the 1880s. Maidan still hosts Beighton Cup, the world’s longest-running hockey series (1895), and the oldest polo (1862) and turf club (1847).

•Early mornings though, belong to the goats. Cattle-grazing is allowed for an annual fee paid to the police.

•The fulcrum of dissent in the valley, it was named after the Red Square in Moscow. Some claim it was christened by local communists, stirred by Lenin’s October Revolution in 1917. Others insist it first appeared in Naya Kashmir, the memorandum submitted by the leader of the National Conference party Sheikh Abdullah to Maharaja Hari Singh in 1944; the document was drafted by

leftist leader BPL Bedi and his wife Freda, parents of actor Kabir Bedi.

•The clock tower, Lal Chowk’s proverbial symbol of strife — where the tricolour was unfurled by Murli Manohar Joshi in 1992 and later by separatists and the army (till 2009) — was raised for publicity by Bajaj Electricals in 1980.

•Sher-e-Kashmir, a park about 2km away from the Chowk, is now the official venue for protests.

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Fibre rich After five long years, the first consignment of jute arrives at the Kanoria Mill in Howrah

Hanging by a thread A day in the life of a jute mill on its last legs in Sigberia, a village on the Hooghly, near Kolkata

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Death metal Raw material was once transported to this 100-year-old mill by boat. But with the decline in jute production and in the use of waterways, the cranes idle on the riverbank

ntil recently it was common to see several men of Sigberia village, young and old, while away their days on the banks of the Hooghly. Smoking beedis, drinking tea, the men had little to do but stare out at the river flowing by the side of the old jute mill that loomed over their lives. For over five years, ever since it closed its doors (even earlier for the elders) the Kanoria Mill has had a long, embattled history and the lives of workers had not seen any stability. So it was with triumphant smiles that most of them returned in mid-2011 to a large warehouse to collect their dues.

The West Bengal government’s labour ministry decided to adopt Kanoria as a mascot for its alleged commitment to revive the rotting industrial belt of Howrah. On a rainy August day, local politicians, the Pasari family, who own the mill, and members of the Sangrami Shramik Union (SSU) announced that they had brokered an agreement to bring the mill back to life on September 10. Notices were pasted on the large, green gate at the entrance.

The big day began on a damp note as the workers sifted through piles of five-year-old raw jute soaked in the

previous night’s rain. But under the first layer, were unspoilt strands. “The golden fibre,” beamed a worker.

Before us lay a sprawling graveyard of rusting machines. Many, we were informed, were stolen under the watch of lazy security personnel. Meanwhile, a permanent electricity supply line was arranged and contracts were handed out for the repair of leaking roofs. A few dozen labourers began chipping away at the rust, oiling and greasing hinges and levers, even as the first consignment of raw jute in five years arrived in a lorry.

Workers on break expressed their scepticism. The idealism with which the labour struggle of the mill began in the early 1990s — in the era of liberalisation, disinvestment, when the plague of industrial sickness spread through the country’s manufacturing belts — had taken a beating. Sure, the State labour minister Purnendu Bose had fulfilled his promise to comrades of SSU, but the workers complained about how his foot soldiers were summarily replaced by opportunists.

The mill, at least, for the time being, was stolen back from the hawkish gaze of land sharks.

Nikhil Roshan is a Delhi-based photojournalist.

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The bright side A worker sorts through strands of jute before feeding them into an ironing machine. The durable fibre loses little sheen even after five years of storage under poor conditions

Homeward bound The decrepit workers’ colony.

In the years that the mill was closed, many workers found other means of eking out a living

Wheels of change A jute processing machine that was consigned to the scrap heap by the owners, now scraped clean, greased and ready for use

Back to the future Workers who overshot their retirement age while the mill was ‘closed’, return to collect their dues and pensions

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I am 67 We track down the protagonists of SNS Sastry’s iconic documentary I am 20, which went viral recently

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n 1967, SNS Sastry, a Films Division director who is regarded by many as one of the first Indian masters of the short non-fiction documentary, released I am 20. In his documentary, which won the “Best Film on Social Documentation” award at the 15th National Film Awards, Sastry speaks to Indians, all of whom are either born on August 15, 1947 or in the same year that the country was “born”. He asks them questions, about themselves, about the country and what they feel has been achieved and what is to be done moving forward. The documentary is filled with sharp questions and honest answers. As one of the characters say, “ For me security is a government job, I’d like to join the IAS, sit in an AC room, drink lots of coffee, attend meetings and just be a cog in the machine. What else do you want me to do?”

Forty seven years have passed since this documentary was made. But recently, it found its way to YouTube where it has received more than 1.06 lakh hits at last count. The film is both shocking and revealing in that much of what the interviewees say is as relevant today as it was in 1967.

BLink tracked down a few people featured in the documentary, and asked them the same questions Sastry asked, along with a few more.

Their answers reveal that some promises have been kept but others remain unfulfilled. This is what they had to say...

Shailesh Gandhi “Today it only means that the man has the freedom to starve, to go naked, to die of hunger and go uneducated.”

Anubrotto (Dunu) Roy director, Hazards Centre, Delhi

Kamal Narang

Dunu Roy “There are plenty of things I’d like to do. Study French, German and Russian...

But either there’s no time, or the means to do so.”

Both for me and the country, it seems to be a long history of failures right through, but I think it’s very valuable because failures give insights into what should be done and what shouldn’t be. August 15, 1947 was a moment of high aspiration.

Whether the aspirations got fulfilled since, is another issue. Regardless, it’s definitely a high point which is part of our national memory now.

I think our generation, the 20-year-olds of the 1960s, was incredibly privileged, we didn’t realise this in ’67. It was not just a question of financial privilege. It was also the privilege to explore various ideas. I don’t think any other generation has had it since in India.

After finishing Chemical Engineering at IITBombay, I travelled around the country, spent 20 years in Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, trying to run a

Vinayak Namjoshi “My proudest moment was qualifying for the Davis Cup final... Lal, Krishnan, Mukherjee played wonderfully well.”

small mechanical workshop, one of the first experiments in environment planning and education. Then I came back to Delhi, worked for the World Wildlife Fund for Nature till they kicked me out and started the Hazards Centre.

For how the country has developed and is developing, I’m not so optimistic though. India is going in a completely wrong direction, particularly now and by “now”, I mean since 1990 when liberalisation kicked in. We seem to have completely lost the social welfare dimension since.

I think drastic changes are required to turn things around, especially in the government model. The current model is to a large extent going to satisfy only the wealthy and is actually geared towards helping them retain their power.

And often, economic power translates to political power, so the corporate powerhouses are able to determine which way the nation is going to go, and I don’t think this is good.

Having said this, India is basically the place where one has roots, and is also the society that one is most comfortable in, apart from providing a plank for looking at the rest of the world. There might be a high degree of inequality but at the same time there is also an extremely stubborn and wonderful sense of survival within that inequality, which is what I find most amazing.

What are my plans for the future? Well, not much more than eat, sing and retire...

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Nitin Lawate

Vinayak Namjoshi former executive director, Tata Administrative Services, Pune

I was very lucky that I got into IIT and got the best of facilities for education and subsequently, it might be because of the selection process, I was able to get into good management course. After IIT, I was to go abroad, but I could not get my work permit so I decided to while away my time at CIDCO and that’s when I learnt about this thing they called an MBA. We must have been the third or fourth batch of MBA students in India. I was also very fortunate to get into the Tata Administrative Services and work for them for a number of years.

One thing I am bitter about is the corruption I’ve seen. During my years with TAS in Delhi, I saw many of the other big corporations like the Ambanis and all would just walk in with the government in their pockets. I think corruption has only become more rampant. Hitting down from top is not the answer.

The answer is to cut out the reasons for corruption. I realise it’s easy to sit here and criticise people who did the work. I think a lot of work happened earlier but we did not move apace. We started losing momentum after Nehru died. And it’s because of this that I admire people like Kejriwal. What he has done is what everyone wants to do but no one does.

It’s a wonder that we have remained one country for so long and I think the idea means to me that, if we have managed to be one for so long, we should strive to continue as one as well.

What do I do for entertainment? Well, earlier, I used to love playing tennis, swimming and even a little bit of rugby. Now I farm, and I enjoy it. In a personal sense, I don’t really need very much more but when it comes to the country, I’m just hoping we get a stable government.

Shashi Ashiwal

Shailesh Gandhi first chief information commissioner and RTI activist, Mumbai

In our 20s, we used to criticise society, but over the years I have developed the belief that we will do better. In those days, we could afford to blame society for all our troubles, but at 67, I feel responsible for the way things are in the country, whether good or bad.

If you remember, in the film I talk about people of this tribal village I saw in Gujarat, who had never heard of flights or even trains. While change has arrived, in some ways, for people like them, the situation remains the same for many.

People like Dhirubhai Ambani or Indira Gandhi being revered as national icons gives a false sense of pride, these people should receive a gold medal in intolerance, if you ask me. No one should ignore the fact that a first-rate government is important, citizens can’t start running behind privatisation and give up on the public machinery, nothing good is going to come out of that.

It’s not all grim though, the RTI movement, the AAP are definitely empowering. There is hope of a great future ahead. And I for one at least hope to leave the place in the same form that I found it in.

On another note, about the documentary itself, Sastry ended up in IIT-Bombay after scouring the entire country, quite disappointed with the footage he had collected. After interviewing us at IIT (I think at least five-six of the interviewees are from there), I remember Sastry saying, “I have now got my film.”

(I am 20 is available on the FD Zone channel on YouTube.com)

As told to Sibi Arasu

Arunabha Deb

manjh khamaj

Guru vs school Why the guru-shishya tradition might not always trump institutionalised classes

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recently noticed a tweet by Shubha Mudgal, whom I stalk on Twitter, about something called True School of Music in Mumbai. Amused by the somewhat cocky name, I visited the school’s website. (And now that I have a column on Hindustani music, I can waste time on such investigations. It’s called Manjh Khamaj because I was listening to Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’s rendition of the raga while thinking of a name for it.) It seemed to be a school of Western music and music production; I browsed with little interest.

Then, under the tab for ‘Foundation’ courses, I spotted ‘Indian’. I was suspicious.

Smart website, sharp copy: the context was ripe for a shallow offering of Hindustani music to fusion philistines, the kind that want to learn how to recite bols after listening to Shakti. I would probably not have read on if Shubha Mudgal and Aneesh Pradhan were not named as mentors of the Indian classical programme. Institutional teaching of Hindustani music — more particularly, its efficacy — remains a contentious subject.

Hindustani music is quite hung up on the notion of sanctity; it has a sizeable army of self-fashioned crusaders who labour under the belief that they are protecting it. (I confess I often sympathise with this group.) And of all things sacred, the one that would top any list is the guru-shishya parampara. Treading on it is as blasphemous as entering the garbhagriha with shoes on. The gurushishya parampara is the antithesis of institutional teaching: there is no place in it for lecture-room teaching or mass learning; there are no exams to write. Most significantly, there is no formal end to the learning process in the guru-shishya system; no degree or medal awaits the diligent student. In its purest form, the guru-shishya system requires the student to live in the teacher’s house over a period of time.

Though not obsolete, this setup is now rare.

The modern-day manifestation is the student learning from his teacher at the latter’s house or private school.

As hoary as the guru-shishya system might be, institutional teaching of Hindustani music too has been in existence for over a century. Pandit Vishnu Digambar Paluskar started the Gandharva Mahavidyalaya in Lahore in 1901. The institute (now

with many branches in India) remains hugely popular. There are many other institutes in the country, and several music faculties in universities, which offer degrees and diplomas in Hindustani music. But a divide exists between students who have learnt in the guru-shishya parampara and those who have learnt in institutes. The snobbery of the former group has been historically vindicated by the fact that there has been no eminent performing artiste in Hindustani music who is entirely a product of institutional training.

Mudgal and Pradhan acknowledged this.

Both of them have received exhaustive talim in the guru-shishya parampara. They rec-

Partha PS

ognise the system — with its rigour and its intimacy between the guru and the shishya — as irreplaceable when it comes to shaping quality performers. What, then, is the point of offering eight-grade or six-grade courses in Hindustani vocal, bansuri and tabla at the True School of Music? What can the students hope to achieve after taking a course? Surely, an eight-grade course cannot produce a professional (or really, any kind of) performer.

It took me a while — two very long conversations with Mudgal and Pradhan, followed by weeks of troubled thinking — to

accept that my cynicism is perhaps misplaced. Coming from a guru-shishya system myself (I have little to show for it), I have seen most contemporaries go through the rigorous process of talim, riyaz and then the more exhausting task of establishing themselves professionally. A career in performance (or at least a decent shot at it) has always seemed to be the natural outcome of the training process. Since institutions have historically failed to produce professional performers, the whole endeavour seemed utterly futile. Why should one invest time in structured learning in pursuit of a hobby?

This is where I was tripping: viewing the practice of Hindustani music within the hobby-profession binary and denying any space between the two. It is possible to pursue Hindustani music with seriousness and without intentions of performing for an audience. A disciplined engagement with an art form can be an uplifting experience in itself. The gatekeepers of Hindustani music are perhaps guilty of keeping too many people out, precisely by overemphasising the imperative of excellence (and by implication, professional success) and the futility of ambitionless pursuit. Many who are interested in Hindustani music hesitate to take a step closer because the entire music system gives off an aura of the formidable. Practitioners and connoisseurs have perpetuated this perception by constantly evoking grand notions like tradition, gharana, sadhana and by using needlessly complex vocabulary. I’m not undermining either the notions or the vocabulary. It’s just that throwing Chaucer at someone who has expressed an interest in poetry is not the most welcoming gesture.

The True School idea, therefore, holds potential — an unintimidating space with a no-fuss approach to teaching Hindustani music. With a curriculum that is worded simply and by virtue of teaching other genres on the same campus, it promises to attract a demography that might not have taken a Hindustani music course in a traditional setup. What an exciting thought — a new group of music enthusiasts, with little prior knowledge of Bageshree and Bhupali being taken on a guided discovery of these majestic ragas.

Arunabha Deb is a Kolkata-based lawyer and a music writer. shubhodeb@hotmail.com.

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Mad methods While All India Bakchod was shooting Kejriwal — The Movie in an abandoned house (left), veteran actor Alok Nath dropped in to play his part (below) Lowfundwala Productions

Batman with a mop

A film set with no electricity. A surprise visit by Alok Nath.

A sneak peek at how All India Bakchod shot Kejriwal — The Movie

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rom crazy job applications to effusive fan mail, the official email account of All India Bakchod promises to be an interesting read. “Keep up the Bakchodi” or “Where do these Bakchodful ideas come from?” are some of the gems that come its way. Such attention on these talented stand-up comics — Tanmay Bhat, Gursimran Khamba, Rohan Joshi and Ashish Shakya — is not entirely surprising. Last

year, they performed at 44 sold-out shows and ter in the script was initially represented by his their video It’s your fault, a satirical take on public photo, till the actor learnt of the video from his figures blaming women for rapes, clocked over a daughter Junhai, an assistant director on the set. million hits in five days on YouTube. More recent- “My daughter said, ‘Papa, I don’t know if I should ly, their clever spoof on Yashraj Films had the gi- do this. They are making a caricature of you and ant production house in splits, albeit after an Kejriwal.’ I thought what the hell, I want to do initial disagreement. With work picking up, this part myself,” says Nath, clad in his trademark these 20-something-year-olds are finally looking Babuji attire, a white churidar-kurta with a shawl to officially register their company and maybe wrapped around his shoulders.

When power resumes, the crew scrambles to get a workspace. On the way to Madh Island in Mumbai to shoot Kejriwal — The Movie, the next make up for lost time. The actor playing Kejriwal, video for their YouTube channel, Bhat argues Hussain Dalal, googles the new chief minister’s with his chartered accountant, who’s understan- picture to ensure he has the length of the mousdably wary of registering a company that has the tache and the knot of the muffler exact. The room word Bakchod in its name. “What is wrong with falls silent as Nath takes his mark. With a garish AIB Pvt Ltd? If they ask, can’t you just say Aib is my red light flashing on his face and smoke billowing from behind, he says, “Elections ke pehle Bafather’s pet name?” he says.

The shoot is at an old, dilapidated two-store- buji ke pair nahi chhuega, Kejru?” in a scene which yed bungalow that looks particularly daunting looks straight out of a tacky horror movie. “Awesince there’s no electricity at the site. Yet, work some. Seeti bajega,” whispers a voice. Another exclaims, “The internet will break goes on. The bulky equipment is ofwhen people see him.” floaded from a truck and the props Like with all its other videos, AIB are carried up a narrow staircase is not yet looking to make money under the thin stream of cell phone Kejriwal — The Movie out of it. At this point, the goal is to lights. Everyone on the set — the actors, director, make-up artist — is a is crucial for AIB, as for effectively tap social media, reach the first time, their as many viewers as possible and to friend who has volunteered servicbudget has run up to get more fans for their comedy coles, pro bono. a lakh lective. Yet, the precision with This video is crucial for AIB. In a which each shot is captured makes first, their budget has run up to a one forget that the video will be uplakh, some of which came out of loaded on the Web for free. their own pockets. A bulk of it was Even with a final script in hand, spent on acquiring sophisticated cameras. But it’s a gamble they’re hoping pays the boys leave room for last-minute improvisaoff. “We chose this subject because it was huge tions. The first draft, they say, got too emotional news. It’s something everybody reacted to be- with lines like “Aam aadmi jaagega”. They infused cause nobody expected Arvind Kejriwal to win,” the later drafts with funnier punch lines. It’s says Shakya. The sketch is a tongue-in-cheek rei- close to midnight, and the shoot is still undermagining of Kejriwal’s rise to power. He’s seen as way. The crew has an exhausting night ahead of a troubled, Batman-like superhero, crouched on it. As the camera rolls, so do the gags and wisea ledge that overlooks the city. He is armed with cracks on Kejriwal. A new one is invented periodhis most deadly weapon — a modest mop. His ically. “Let’s do something with his Wagon R,” mentor from whom he imbibes his middle-class they decide. Minutes later one overhears, “Do you virtues is veteran actor Alok Nath, Hindi cinema’s think Kejriwal smokes or drinks alcohol?” righteous Babuji. “Alok Nath is basically playing Morgan Freeman,” guffaws Bhat. Nath’s charac- Mohini Chaudhuri

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Listen up G Khamba, Ashish Shakya, Tanmay Bhat and Rohan Joshi of All India Bakchod

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saturday, january 25, 2014

Tishani Doshi

A city that lets me be Chennai that odd creature which is quick to condemn, slow to forget

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magine a city that falls asleep before midnight. A city where everyone smiles but no one tells you what they’re smiling about, where men frequently walk the streets holding hands but aren’t necessarily gay, and where regardless of the season, a bit of on-the-spot jogging can engulf you in sweat. Then imagine the second longest coastline in the world — 13 km of biscuit-coloured sand, which runs like a dream along the city. And beside this dream there is an ocean that gleams and patiently breathes, but in those waters, hardly anyone ever swims.

This is Chennai née Madras, the slow, unfashionable seaside city where I was born and came of age. In her many shaded and shady corners I discovered love and fear and contradiction. I learned to not always say what I was thinking, to be kind to strangers, to regard boasting with disapproval, and to stare openly if I found something curious. I also learned to be restless.

It wasn’t always so. My childhood was absurdly halcyon. I went to an avant-garde school, which eventually turned orthodox, but in those years there were no uniforms, the classrooms were made of thatch and bamboo, and everyone shared their tiffin boxes under tamarind trees.

Other people called us snobs (the ultimate condemnation in this city), but we were happy, likeable children. Our pleasures were innocent: buns from Adyar Bakery, softies from Aavin, sleepovers and the occasional movie at Blue Diamond. My girlfriends and I lied only once to our parents, to say we were going to study maths when, in fact,

Light and shadow Chennai, of biscuit-coloured sand, has the second longest coastline in the world Vivek Nagarajan

we were meeting the boys from our class at El- aged to know everyone else’s business, and ambiliot’s Beach in the middle of the afternoon. We sat tion in anything except excellence in studies was there, boys and girls both, burning our backsides considered vulgar. Twenty years later I still bump on the sand, saying little to each other, but feel- into those skinny boys from the Sindoori, transing a quiet pride of rebellion. Had the city not be- formed now, into gouty uncles, and those once gun her own quiet rebellion I probably never pretty girls struggling with new fangled fashions and I know they are judging me as surely as I’m would have left.

I often envy people who have spent their youth judging them. That’s the law of this town. Quick in great cities at great moments. Paris 1968, New to condemn, slow to forget.

Still, I miss it. I find myself yearning for that York in the decadent 1990s, Bombay’s poetry scene in the 1960s. When these people meet a fel- old city with the old name, which I had to abandon because I was struck as most low member of their tribe they talk people are, at some point, by what about where they lived and hung Baudelaire called the horreur du out, who they knew and the crowd domicile. I had to get the hell out of they moved with. They become Cities can overcome Dodge, but all the time I was away I young and indestructible again beus or underwhelm us, dreamed about it — soft, unabashed cause their mythologies are forever but Chennai is that dreams where the sepia lanes of linked to others of their clan and to the city itself. Not all cities can have rare entity that can do childhood pressed up against the both simultaneously tangled, technicoloured roads of great mythologies. If Chennai had adulthood. The dreams were always such a moment it certainly wasn’t in noisy, orchestrated upon the calls of the late 1980s, where the only place housewives and vendors, cat brawls for young, hip people to go was the and crows. And of course, they basement of the Sindoori Hotel, a grimy discotheque called Down Under, where ev- reeked: of jasmine and bidis, of a fine, heady slick eryone drank beer or rum and coke, and the in- of coconut oil, and the sea.

Why’d you come back? People asked when I reduction into lust happened under smoky lights turned, as if to escape Chennai meant never reto the tune of Roxette’s She’s Got the Look.

We still experienced the full scale of young turning. As if to live here meant to relinquish the adult trauma, it was just less heroic because the world. I tried explaining how the wonder of this options were so few and there was so little to pin port city of two names and multiple personaliit against. Our lives, our complications carried on ties was that it allowed you to be a stranger here in this sleepy town where everyone was encour- even though it was home. I told them I had seen so much of the world, travelled to all seven continents and been enamoured by countless elsewheres, but in truth I had found my most significant romances here, in the streets of this weird and middling city.

I discovered my great love and mentor, Chandralekha, in a house ten minutes away from mine, and even though there was half a century between us we could still talk about everything under the moon on her parapet. I met the man who became my husband here, swept in from a faraway country when I wasn’t even looking. I have my family here, my oldest and newest friends, who are all beset with the most ardent faithfulness. And no matter how much I complain about how this city closes in on me with her salty fingers, or how many of the luminous paddy fields have been turned into cemeteries for plastic bags; no matter how many years of yoga will not keep me calm in a traffic jam, there are still so many remarkable people quietly doing remarkable things in this city’s hidden corners.

You just have to seek them out.

Cities can overcome us or underwhelm us, but Chennai is that rare entity that can do both simultaneously. Her whimsical imagination flits continuously in and out of her horizon, and much of the reason why I continue to live and work here is because she always leaves her doors half-open. She may impose her judgement, but never her pace. She still surprises, and very simply, she lets me be.

(In this monthly series, authors chronicle the cities they call home)

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Tishani Doshi is a Chennai-born poet, author, journalist and dancer

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Who is Who at JLF Manjula Padmanabhan

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The Most Famous Author

Likely to be a Booker or Pulitzer winner. Living somewhere suitably first world. Pet themes include identity, diaspora, and when they speak you’ll hear “belong”, “somewhere”, “nowhere”, “confusion”, and when they are being fancy “liminal”. Being Most Famous, they must also play Most

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The literary junkie At the ‘kumbh mela of lit-fests’ Rohit Jain Paras

Every Journalist

He who has only two questions. “Sir, what is your book about?”, “Ma’am, how long did you take to write your book?” And to a white-skinned person, “Do you like India?”

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ELSEWHERE

A primer on the perennial attendant species at the Jaipur Literature Festival aybe you have been to the Jaipur LiterHard to Get. They will have near-stampede sesature Festival, maybe you haven’t. If sions in the front lawns, and will bestow interyou haven’t, chances are, you do not views on two or three choice publications. You’d live in Delhi. Or that you live in Delhi imagine, they might ask for the CVs of interviewand are singularly devoid of pretensions. I then saers, instead they just look for the word SPONSOR. lute you.

I went first in 2007 (it started in 2006), and have The Confused Schoolboy been back many times since. Make of that what In grey blazer, full trousers. He has only one quesyou will. In the early days, Salman Rushdie could tion — Why am I here? (Token Celebrity, also a pebe found, swamped in a white shawl, sipping a rennial festival species, shares the same crisis.) drink in a corner, or listening to the Manganiyar Then he finds a store where he can punch buttons, singers. People regarded him as one might your scroll down a screen, hear beeps AND win a certifineighbour’s prize-winning Alsatian. You want to cate. Life has meaning again. get to know it better. If you can chinwag with it, you will win acclaim in your mohalla. But you don’t The Luckiest One in the House have the guts to make the first move. Do you start The guest delegate, or in layman’s language, the with a smile, do you stretch out your hand, do you spouse. Gets watered with scotch, dined at the Taj. mention an ex-wife? You don’t know and you don’t Duties include sitting in the front row, standing by know how. And so you do nothing at all. But in the side while spouse autographs, and occasionalthose gentle years, for the most part, you did your ly helping carry a handbag or a BlackBerry. own thing and Rushdie did what he does best — discuss his brilliant books The Rajput Male and unmake friends. Quite unlike the Tall, strapping, wearing trousers recent years, when even the suggestimeant to expedite the straddling of a People regarded on of his virtual presence sent extrehorse. The only page he has ever read Rushdie as one might mists growling and editors is the restaurant menu. Good looking your neighbour’s orchestrating 70-point headlines. and sought after. Because at Diggi he prize-winning Those were the days when journaltrots in a sea of literary frumps.

Alsatian ists travelled by bus, stopping to eat pakoras in dhabas while watching the The Literary Frump sun drop over the mustard fields. ToRead somewhere that books make for day, they all demand their own cabs sexy, smeared kaajal make for hot and and will eat nowhere that isn’t free tribal shawls make for allure. Is still and five-star. If liquor isn’t an elbow-length away, deciding if Rajasthani mochis or knee-length boots they wrinkle their noses and say, “Standards gir maketh for boho-chic. When not at Full Circle buygaye hai.” (Standards have fallen.) ing books, is secretly penning his/her own novel But nostalgia, as they say, is the handmaiden of and batting eyelashes at the white author, hoping delusion. JLF then was not the Greatest Literary for that elusive intellectual conversation.

Show ever. Today, however jaded one might have become over the years, there is no denying that a He With The Question FREE festival of this scale and scope, which has enIs yet to learn the difference between a statement dowed authors and books with a social currency, and a question. A left-brained-type studying engideserves the kudos that come its way. neering. Has now decided to be intellectual, forWell, for the frequent flyers and for the yet-to-bemulates his questions (sorry, statement) on a initiated, here is a list of the essential JLF types who newspaper before rising to speak. Uses “theory”, have remained faithful through the years: “theorem”, “conversion” in rapid succession.

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Opening doors Getting to know neighbours one post-it at a time

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tiny apartment in downtown Elsewhere, Rhode Island is now my new home. It has windows on all sides, entrance corridor, kitchen, big room, small room and a bathroom the size of a mustard seed. And it’s mine, all MINE! On rent, of course.

The building is two storeys high, has a sloped roof and a twostep stoop. In the narrow space between the front door and the inner door, there are six mailboxes. I’m on the ground floor with a neighbour on either side. Upstairs, the exact same arrangement of three units is repeated. My friend Muriel’s brother Daniel helped me move. He’s got a pick-up truck. As we staggered across the entrance hall, carrying furniture and cartons, the door to the right of my front door snapped open. Out popped a wizened little man.

The same height as me, but my goodness, he was thin. Like a plucked sparrow: beaky nose, bright brown eyes, hollow cheeks and skin as yellow and creased as old newsprint.

“Oh!” he said. “You’re the new tenant, huh?” I nodded, uncertainly. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, “Rose was telling me about you.” Old Mrs Rose, the landlady. “She told me you’d be moving in this week.”

Daniel came out just then. The sparrow-person’s eyes flickered towards him. “This is Daniel,” I said. “He’s helping me move.” Daniel gave a quick nod and perfunctory smile before going out to fetch more stuff.

The little man relaxed at once. “That’s right. Rose said you’re by yourself. Well ... I’m Pete. I live right next-door to you.” Then he pointed to the door across from his. “And that one there? That’s where my brother Trevor lives.” Then he handed me a blank stickylabel. “You’ll need something for your mailbox.” He pointed to the entry space where the mailboxes were. “Yours is between mine and Trevor’s,” he said, with a big grin. I noticed he was missing all the front teeth on his lower jaw.

“Uhh … thanks,” I said, accepting the sticky label. I didn’t know whether or not to feel uneasy about this friendliness. On the one hand, Pete and the brother whom I’d not yet seen would be my immediate neighbours. I didn’t want to begin my stay on a hostile note. After all, if a fire broke out, or burglars broke in, I needed to be able to depend on whoever was close at hand. At the same time, as I’ve explained to countless friends, the whole point of this move – to an independent residence on the other side of the planet – is just so that I can be ALONE. The very last thing I want is a whole new team of best buddies!

Still, it’s easier to be friendly than not. Once I’m settled in, maybe I can claim to be suffering from tropical allergies that make human contact injurious to my health. I accepted Pete’s pen and wrote out my full long name in block letters. His eyebrows disappeared into his thinning hairline as the syllables stretched across the whole label. “Wow! That’s ... all one name?”

I gave him a pinched smile. I’ve had the same name my whole life, been teased about it in schools and college, endured annoying pet names and mangled pronunciations. I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. In my view, it’s not even long compared to Thai and Sri Lankan names. But I didn’t mention this to Pete. “How do you say it?” he wanted to know. I repeated it three times after which he shrugged and said, “I’ll get it eventually.”

All the while I’d been talking to Pete, Daniel had been moving stuff back and forth across the hall. I excused myself and went into my apartment. Daniel was putting the knockdown bed frame together.

I perched on a stack of cartons. “That guy Pete ... how’d you suppose he got so thin?” I asked. Was he recovering from cancer? Or maybe AIDS? “Oh no,” said Daniel at once. “Probably just drugs.”

Then he glanced up and caught my wide-eyed expression.

“Welcome to America!” he said, with a cheeky grin.

Manjula Padmanabhan, author and artist, tells us tales of her parallel life in Elsewhere, USA, in this fortnightly series. marginalien.blogspot.in

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saturday, january 25, 2014

Trap dancing A Nephila spider at work in Florida AMBIKA KAMATH

Discoveries of India Glad tidings from the Zoological Survey of India

Meet the Golden Orb Web Spider Eating a willing mate, fending off ant attacks, trapping bees... these super spiders are incy, wincy, invincible

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piders are perhaps not your favourite creatures — along with snakes, spiders are more reviled than any other animal.

But suspend your emotions temporarily, while I convince you that spiders are more interesting than scary by introducing you to the Golden Orb Web Spiders or Nephila, as they are known scientifically. Nephila are found all across the tropics, including India. When you encounter a Nephila web, you’ll be struck by two things — the size of these spiders and their immense, golden webs. Both of which are great entry points to the exciting world of spider biology.

In many animals, males and females differ in size. In most examples one can think of, males are often bigger than females — humans, peacocks, garden lizards and so on… However, the land-dwelling species with the biggest size difference between sexes is none other than Nephila. Female Nephila can be up to 500 times as heavy as males — that’s comparable to the difference in weight between you and a potato.

This dramatic size difference makes reproduction somewhat daunting for male Nephila, especially when you consider that female spiders often eat their male counterparts. How could this situation, where half of a species regularly cannibalise the other half, be stable? It boils down to timing. If a male gets eaten by a female after mating, being eaten is actually beneficial to the male too — by supplying nutrition to the female, he indirectly gives his own offspring some extra food and a head start in life. (Hey, we’re trying to be positive here).

The complexities of eating and being eaten also affect how Nephila interact with ants. When I imagine a contest between an ant and a spider, the outcome is obvious — the spider will win, of course. But what about a spider versus an army

of ants? Even spiders as big as Nephila, which can be larger than the palm of your hand, worry about being attacked by ants. These spiders have therefore evolved a way to prevent ant attacks by coating their silk with a chemical that ants find repulsive. But the downside of this defence is that Nephila webs drive away nonthreatening ants as well, perhaps, failing to capitalise on an important food source. It appears that, in this case, the fear of being eaten trumps the need to eat.

Yet Nephila have evolved other ways of luring insects towards them. Glowing in the sunlight, Nephila webs can be a lovely golden colour.

This colour is crucial to the trap set by Nephila for nectar-feeding bees. Many bees have an innate preference for yellow, a preference that is co-opted by flowers, and also Nephila webs, to attract bees towards them. Unlike their relationship with flowers, the interaction between bees and spiders is decidedly asymmetrical — a sticky demise for the bee and a tasty meal for the spider.

Yet bees are unable to learn to avoid yellow webs, even when they narrowly escape being caught in them. From the bees’ perspective, the risk of being eaten by a spider pales in comparison to the benefits of feeding on the nectar of yellow flowers.

Like any creature, spiders are part of a web of interactions that, when traced, uncover the intriguing biology of many different organisms.

So next time you spot a spider, consider quelling your fear, and focus on this many-legged creature’s role in the vast natural world around you.

This is a monthly series on animals you may have never met, but must (at least, on page).

Ambika Kamath studies organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University.

Rajesh Kumar S

creature feature

SPOTTED A new species of bird was identified in the Great Nicobar Islands. The Great Nicobar Crake (it does not have a scientific name as yet), of the Rallidae family, is described by scientists as a “combination of pale green bill, black-banded under parts and heavy orange-red legs”, the bill thick and short, neck somewhat long and a rich rufescent plumage. It is similar in size to an adult Waterhen. Initial studies have revealed that although a quick runner, the Crake cannot fly and is camera-shy. Scientists have managed to get just one photo of it.

Great Nicobar Crake

AT RITCHIE’S Climate change and the tsunami may have sounded the death knell for marine biodiversity but the Zoological Survey of India has found resurgence in marine life on the east coast of India. In just one year, 42 species, entirely new to the country, of hard

Ian Lockwood

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n Zoological Survey of India’s 2013 animal discovery report, 133 animal species new to science and 109 species new to the Indian terrain were recorded. Species across 19 categories, including 4 species of spiders, 19 species of fish, 2 species of crab, 66 insect species and a new bird were reported for the first time. In just 2.2 per cent of the world’s total land surface, India is home to 92,279 animal species or over 7.5 per cent of faunal diversity. And about two times the present number of species are waiting to be discovered. Here are some of the exciting discoveries:

Shrub frog

and soft corals have been discovered at the Havelock Island wall in Ritchie’s Archipelago, a few miles east of Great Andaman .

AMPHIBIAN TALES Two new species of amphibians have been discovered — the Kakachi shrub frog from the Western Ghats and a caecilian (limbless) amphibian from Kerala. Named Raorchestes kakachi, the frog from Kakachi tea estate has an oval snout, moderate webbing and ivory to brown colouring.

SOMETHING FISHY Of the 19 new species of fish discovered, 13 are from the Northeast and four from different parts of the Western Ghats. Scientists have also discovered a freshwater crab from Ganjam in Odisha and a freshwater shrimp from the Vamanapuram River in Kerala. The Ganjam crab, Oziotelphusa ganjamensis, inhabiting the rice fields of Odisha, was known to local farmers but new to the scientific community.

ARACHNID RICH Of the four new species of spiders discovered, three are from Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. They belong to a new genus Neoheterophrictus, close to an existing genus of spiders. This genus is described as a Gondwana relic i.e. species that have ancestors in Africa. Presence of such connections adds to the paleogeographic theory of the ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland and its constituents.

Priyanka Kotamraju

Coral draw A bleached coral colony in Kavaratti, Lakshadweep Islands Zoological Survey of India

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Sage pursuits A Mexican-origin Buddhist monk at the Loseling Center in Mexico City, days before the Dalai Lama’s arrival REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Half a world away The words ‘home away from home’ take a life of their own on the storied shores of Mexico

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The auto-rickshaw has always seemed idiosynoday, it’s inevitable that we find traces of home no matter where in the world cratically Indian to me. Driving through the State we travel to. Going exactly halfway of Oaxaca, I began to see in the smaller towns around the world to Mexico, I expected these chariots of the Indian middle class. They to find connections with India, but was still tak- were brightly coloured here, and I stopped to ask en aback by the insistence with which home one of the drivers which company made them.

“Baahah,” he said. A tiny plate at the front read seemed to be following me around.

The distance between India and Mexico is Bajaj.

Mexico also happened to be full of people who shortened by their occupying similar latitudes.

The quality of light and the length of a day — could pass off as Indian. This I was able to overthings that create an ambient sense of place — look until it turned out that some of them were are indistinguishable from India. The two coun- actually Indian. One night, at a roadside snacktries share a similar climate, and as a result, com- stall in Mexico City that looked like any other, I patible flora, which led to the discovery of a heard a voice ask in Spanish for masala tostada. It personal psycho-botanical minefield that I didn’t was a group of Indians. Switching to Hindi they told me that the stall had become popular even know existed.

You see, there used to be a creeper that grew at among Indians because “Pure veg hai,’’ and with home in Bangalore and produced enormous the clientele came their tastes. It served Mexican quantities of an insipid gourd known locally as snacks, but with extra vegetables and lashings from a bottle of pav bhaji masala. If seeme badnekaayi (or chow chow in Indo-Mex takes off as a cuisine, this other places). Our desire not to let might well be where it all started. any of its fruit go waste was so inEven the non-Indians I hung out tense that for a while we ate its tasteOne woman was so with turned out to be Indian in less curry almost every day. I can overcome by the their own way. The friend I was stayonly surmise now that the creeper mood, she began belly ing with in Mexico City is a yoga for me became associated with a dancing to a bhajan teacher, and so I made my acquaintcertain compulsively prudent way with Ganesha looking ance with the yoga community of life from which I had to escape. I on cheerfully there. I went to a birthday party learnt just how deeply the creeper that had a local ‘satsang band’ lead had got under my skin when, standthe singing of chants and mantras ing on a balcony in Mexico, I was in bravely enunciated Sanskrit with shaken in all sorts of way upon seeprojected images of Hindu gods. ing familiar heart-shaped leaves sprawled across the vista. Agitated enquiries re- The audience sat on the floor with their glasses of vealed that the plant is native to Mexico and wine and obeyed blissfully when asked to close known there as chayote. Then, another plant their eyes and place their right hands on their from my childhood made a surprise appearance: hearts. One young woman was so overcome by parthenium, a weed that used to occupy empty the mood she took her shirt off and began belly plots everywhere in Bangalore, and which I had dancing to a bhajan with Ganesha looking on spent many hours wading through looking for cheerfully from the wall. This customised adoplost cricket balls. It too was native to these parts, tion of a distant sacred culture seemed less about and one of the first photographs I took in Mexico the culture and more about their own identity.

This was rebellion. But then, it negated my own was that of a parthenium plant.

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Travel Log Visit

Any time of the year, barring June to October.

Get a visa

Indians with a valid US visa can enter Mexico for tourism. The rest can apply at its embassy in Delhi; portal.sre.gob.mx/indiaeng.

Get there

Many airlines with hubs in the US or Europe fly to Mexico from major metros in India (about ₹1.1 lakh return). Buses connect Mexico City to Puebla and Oxaca. Else, fly no-frills for as little as $30; vivaaerobus.com.

Stay

Spend the night at Hotel Catedral ($60, hotelcatedral.com) or Mexico City Hostel ($12, mexicocityhostel.com).

Hop around

Mexico City is sprawling but very well-connected — metrobuses run in special lanes, microbuses connect junctions and arteries to the city’s innards, and there is an extensive and cheap subway system. Take the hopon-hop-off Turibus for sightseeing.

BLink tips

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If you’re missing Indian food, despite the ubiquity of rajma and rice, head to Dawat in Mexico City; resdawat.com.

You may even find Mexican Odissi dancers performing between tables!

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cation Secretariat in Mexico City where a wall bears Diego Rivera’s tribute to Khankhoje: a mural showing him distributing bread to the nations of the world.

Some Indian friends living in the US happened to visit Mexico on vacation while I was there. On fter a period of running into India and Indi- the track of another Indian revolutionary who ans by accident, I felt I might as well actively spent time in Mexico City in the early twentieth seek them out. It turns out that Indians have a century, we ended up one rainy night in front of a long history in Mexico. One of the earliest Indi- rundown building in the Roma district. It used to ans on record as having visited Mexico is a wom- be the house of MN Roy, who can be said to have founded the communist parties of an named Meera, born in North both India and Mexico. Now, it is India around the end of Akbar’s one of the most exclusive nightreign. She made her dramatic way clubs of Mexico City, called MN Roy to Mexico via Kochi and Manila, after its one-time inhabitant. Incourtesy the Portuguese, and ended If we think of all travel side, it is remodelled in leather, up as a nun in Puebla. Her mystical as flight from home, wood, copper and stone in soaring visions were of sufficient quality for home may not be in pyramidical configurations, a decher to be regarded as a local saint, pursuit. It may be we adently chic evocation of Mexico’s and she was later made into an arwho set out with eyes pre-Hispanic roots. We were five Inchetype of Mexican womanhood for home dians looking for a piece of our own known as La China Poblana. Legend history, and were finally let into the even credits the traditional attire of members-only club. We stood for a Mexican women as having been inwhile amidst empty low tables and spired by Meera’s saree-influenced outlandish interiors and walked dress sense.

In more recent times, there was Pandurang back out into the rain.

Khankhoje and Roy eventually came back to Khankhoje, who after an extraordinary life as Ghadar revolutionary, worked in Mexico for India much-changed. Most of our travels are three decades as an agricultural scientist. He shorter and less charged than theirs, of course. chose to live and work in Mexico because it re- But if we think of all travel as flight from home, minded him of India, which he could not return home may not really be in pursuit. It may be we to while the British still ruled. His instinct about who set out with eyes for home, seeking its reMexico being an agronomic home-away-from- fractions in distant lands so we may return home may have been validated, shortly after his changed and to a different place. death, by the Green Revolution in India, which began with a strain of wheat developed for Mexi- Srinath Perur is the author of If It’s Monday It Must co (though not by him). I made a trip to the Edu- Be Madurai: A Conducted Tour of India.

concert: free passes were being sold in black, the merchandise stalls had stocked themselves with rosaries and CDs, T-shirts, cigarette lighters and tequila glasses that bore the beaming visage of the Dalai Lama.

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Discovery of the Indies A pageant at the Columbus Day in Mexico City to mark the 521st anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus REUTERS/Henry Romero

rebellion in every possible way. Soon it was discovered that I had a little Sanskrit from school, and a week later I found myself delivering a talk on Sanskrit pronunciation for Spanish speakers.

All together, I’ve probably chanted Om more times in Mexico than I have in India. Visiting someone’s house I saw the perfect symbol for what I was experiencing — a laterally inverted Om sticker proudly affixed to the front door.

My compatriot the Dalai Lama, whom I’ve never seen in India, came visiting. He spoke of the need to pause and reflect at a raucous football stadium with vendors selling pizzas and soft drinks in the stands. Once when he paused for breath, a woman pierced the silence with “Te amo, Dalai!” Outside, it was like any other rock

In-flight entertainment A Scaly-breasted munia carrying a twig for its nest KR Deepak

A bird’s eye view Where the binoculars should be trained this season

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hances are, you know (or know of) at least one serious birdwatcher. The thumb rule? Not a cyclist or a marathoner by forty? Ought to be a birder then. And since they must all migrate to avianfriendly locations this season, here’s a list of places you could steer them to:

Arunachal Bird Festival

Once the last frontier of tourism in India, Arunachal Pradesh is now well within reach, or so it would seem. With music festivals, herpetology and rafting expeditions drawing the intrepid lot already, can twitching be far behind? The State will host its first ever bird festival, including a bird race, from February 2-4 at the Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in the West Kameng district (arunachalbirdfestival.org). And why should it not? Two of the most recent bird species discovered in India, the Bugun liocichla and the Rustythroated ‘Mishmi’ wren-babbler were spotted here in 2006 and 1948, respectively.

HSBC Bird Race

Bangalore is already off the mark, but here’s a call for birders in Mumbai (February 2), Pune (February 9) and Hyderabad (February 23) to register for the local editions of the annual bird race (birdrace.dhaatu.com). A fun way to keep a tab on the resident and migrant bird population (as also fellow hobbyists) in the urban lungs, bird races often net a fresh flock of amateur birdwatchers too. Schoolchildren are just as welcome as the old birds.

Uttarakhand Spring Birding Festival

The greatest threat to the birdwatcher population in India (and elsewhere) is the growing community of lens-lugging, tripod-hugging bird photographers. For those keen on joining the latter, the Uttarakhand Spring Bird Festival (February 7-9) offers a bird photography workshop as well as guided tours in the Asan Conservation Reserve and the Timli Reserve Forest (facebook.com/uttarakhandbirding)

Global Bird Watchers’ Conference

The fourth edition of this international event at Gandhinagar, pencilled in for January 31 to February 3, is likely to attract the usual suspects — bird lovers, green crusaders, travel writers and bird photographers (gbwc.org). Expect field trips, discussions on conservation, photo competitions and workshops on documentation; some with a special focus on birds in Gujarat.

Great Backyard Bird Count

Loath to travel? Train your binoculars on your terrace or backyard instead. Find a 15-minutelong chink between February 14 and 17 to record what you see around you and upload it on an online bird listing platform (birdsource.org/gbbc); identify what you can and as best as you can, there are no prizes to be won. A global event — 111 countries participated last year, logging 35 million birds across 4,000 species — this is ‘armchair’ birding at its best.

Soity Banerjee

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A run of the mills

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hat can be better than good food and great tipple? Watching good food and great tipple in the making — preferably, in satisfyingly large quantities. Factory tours in India may not be as well-packaged as their kin abroad, but they certainly offer a rare treat, especially to children who think bars of chocolate grow on trees.

Cadbury Dairy Milk Chocolate Factory, KidZania, Mumbai

Thanks to Charlie Bucket, some children do know that factories and chocolates are old friends. At Mumbai’s KidZania, they can even be Oompa Loompas for a day, playing chocolatiers and muddying their aprons all afternoon to make their own sweet tuck. (Tickets ₹600-950; mumbai.kidzania.com)

Impero Cheese Factory, near Chandigarh

Made in India can be a good thing. Ask Giuseppe Mozzillo, an investment banker-turned-entrepreneur who was on a holiday in India when he discovered that Italian water buffaloes were descendants of the Indian Murrah. Now he churns out mozzarella and mascarpone, bocconcini and scamorza “Italian-style” in Haryana’s dusty, gaon-style Golpura. Although visits to the Impero Cheese factory have been strictly by requestonly so far, Giuseppe says he would be happy to show you around, if you ask politely, and may even throw in a free tasting session, while he’s at it. (Free; info@exitogourmet.com)

Amul Dairy, Anand

If you’re going all the way to Anand for a factory visit, Marge, it butter be good. And by all accounts, it is. Guided tours are led through this butter- and milk powder-producing plant every day between 2 pm and 4 pm (it’s best to arrive by 3 pm though — the factory comes to a grinding halt exactly an hour later when the shift changes). There’s a dairy museum and an ice cream parlour too on the premises. (Free; amuldairy@amuldairy.com)

Fratelli Wines, vineyards and winery, near Akluj

Can’t hold your drink? Skip this para. For a visit to the Fratelli universe in the rolling countryside of Garwad in Maharashtra or its plant at Motewadi (4 hours from Pune) is as much about a tour of the facilities, with 58 multi-capacity tanks imported from Velo in Italy, as it is about wine tasting. Sip, swirl and knock back (alright, alright, savour) the wines before slipping into a deep, sangiovese- and chenin-induced sleep at their guesthouse. Remember to bring back a bottle of their new sparkler, the Gran Cuvée Brut, launched in October last year. (₹7,000; fratelliwines.in)

Amrut Distilleries, near Bangalore

Scotland may be 7,000km away, but good whisky is nigh.

Hop over to Bangalore’s very own crucible of single malts to watch barley milled, mashed, fermented, distilled and matured in oak before being bottled into liquid gold at the award-winning Amrut Distilleries — 20km outside the city limits. Guided tours that last for about an hour and a half are conducted on Wednesdays and Saturdays alone. (Free; info@amrutdistilleries.com) NI-X _ A

Soity Banerjee

Naintara Maya Oberoi

meal ticket

The whole hog In Andalusia, pigging out is a present continuous verb

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res cosasa me tienen preso/ de amores el corazón/ la bella Inés, el jamón/ y berenjenas con queso.

(There are three things that hold my heart’s love captive, the beautiful Inés, raw ham, and aubergines with cheese),’ sixteenth-century Sevillian poet Baltasar del Alcazar wrote. Reading it five centuries later, in the centre of Alcazar’s city under the searing August sun, three people who had once thought they really liked ham, groaned. Three days earlier, one of us had misguidedly proclaimed, “I could eat pork all day long.”

In Andalusia, this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Pork is one of the region’s specialties, and no one can eat ham like the Andalusians do. Such scorching weather would have led any other nation to adopt a diet of cold salads and yoghurt, but in Seville, everyone was eating grilled bacon, fried cod, potatoes and rabo del toro, bull’stail stew. After a few days of waxy ham-andcheese for breakfast, huge pork chops that could only have come from a relative of the Empress of Blandings for lunch, and chorizo paella for dinner, we were quailing at the very sight of pork.

Andalusia boasts a wonderfully mixed gastronomic heritage, leavened with all kinds of cultural influences. Between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, the old Moorish kingdom of al-Andalus, modernday Spain and Portugal, was a centre of learning, art and culture. In the grand me-

tropolises of Cordoba and Granada, Iber- have us deported if the authorities ever ians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, found out. In Cordoba, our next destinaRomans, Goths and Moors, mingled, ate tion, we contrived to avoid the pig and all and drank. So why was all the food so uni- its forms thereof, by only eating in seafood restaurants, Moroccan tapas bars, and finalformly porcine?

The last straw came after a lard-laden din- ly, a Sephardic Jewish restaurant where koner in the Santa Cruz barrio, when our wait- sher laws and the Sephardic-style of ress recommended a Jerez specialty for cooking precluded pork.

But on the third day as we ate our gazpadessert. “Tocino del cielo,” she said brightly. cho out in the sun, I found myself staring at “I bring you three.”

My friend, who had once taken a six- a fellow diner’s lunch. Oblivious to the heat, she was mowing into a plate month Spanish course, paled. of pork chops and a side of pin“I don’t want to scare anyone,” chitos, pork cubes grilled on a she hissed. “But tocino del cielo skewer with garlic and spices. means ‘heavenly bacon.’”

One of us had We stared far too long, and “Heavenly bacon? For proclaimed, "I could when she’d finished, asked for dessert?” eat pork all day long." some of the pinchitos. After all, “This is Andalusia,” she said, In Andalusia, this was we reasoned, one could only a look of resignation flitting a self-fulfilling hold out for so long. “When in across her face. “There’s probaprophecy Rome…” we chorused to each bly bacon in the sangria too.” other, trailing off distractedly When it appeared, tocino del as the pinchitos arrived, cielo turned out to be a cusflanked by cold black olives tard flan, celestially light and, and bread. thankfully, baconless. ApparHaving swung around to the Andalusian ently, the people in the sherry-making region of Jerez de la Frontera used egg whites way, we never looked back. We said yes to evto strain the yeast scum from sherry, and erything from then on: yes to spicy morcilla the enterprising nuns at the Convento del sausage with our wine, yes to black pudEspiritu Santo invented this 20-egg dessert ding in filo parcels, yes to tiny meatballs in to use up all the leftover yolks. The bacon in sherry sauce. One night at a chic tapas bar in Seville’s hipster barrio, Alameda de Hérthe name is only a reference to the fat.

Worn out by this latest example of Anda- cules, we said yes to so many things that we lusian jamón mania, we decided it was time had to roll ourselves home: yes to salted to go pig-free, a decision that would likely Ibérian pork carpaccio with sheep’s milk cheese and truffle oil, piquillo peppers stuffed with tuna, boar stew in red wine, pulled pork with aioli and golden cod croquettes.

But we knew we’d hit gold with the very best of Andalusian ham: the salty, deep-red cured Serrano, and the unctuous Ibérico de bellota, the pata negra or black foot. This pricey ham is made from Iberian black trotter pigs raised in oak groves, fed only on acorns; the hams are air-dried for years before being eaten.

It was the bellota, the pride and joy of Andalusian farmers, which won our hearts in the end. Cut wafer-thin to show off its translucency, the pata negra glistened, almost dissolving into the bread. It was supple and laced with fat, and it tasted like the platonic ideal of pig: meaty, silky and nutty, elevating ham to something ethereal: heavenly bacon indeed. Perhaps Alcazar had been on to something after all.

A slice of life Ibérian carpaccio with herbs and parmesan Max Sugar/Shutterstock

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Naintara Maya Oberoi is a food writer based in Paris. t@naintaramaya

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AAP ka BAAP

V for Vendetta by Arvind Kejriwal

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or two nights, Delhi’s newly anointed CM Arvind Kejriwal, lay in the cold outside Rail Bhavan wrapped up in his pale blue floral blanket. In the midst of his largerthan-life battles for state control of Delhi police and statehood, Kejriwal, we’re told, was also fighting diabetes, stress-related asthma and bronchial issues. Adding to the protesters woes were the lack of toilets, which Kejriwal painted as yet another conspiracy by the Centre. The agitation, originally intended to be indefinite, folded by the end of day two thanks to some thunderstealing by BAAP (Bharatiya Aam Aadmi Party whose politics comprises supporting BJP and being anti-AAP), looming Republic Day preparations, the bad weather and a minor compromise managed by the Lt Governor.

This is not the first time AAP has been upstaged by a father figure. Last year, disgruntled AAP members broke away to form a splinter group, the Bharatiya Aam Aadmi Parivar — which also abbreviates to BAAP.

Go Goa Gone When the games States play go wrong

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he land of sun, surf and sand is seeing some exciting sporting action. Goa is hosting Lusofonia 2014, the Portuguese equivalent of the Commonwealth Games. But all’s not well, we hear. First, there was the three-month delay; the games were to be held last November. Then there was the noholds-barred criticism from the state sports minister, Ramesh Tawadkar, who changed his tone just before the games, when he was missing an invite to the opening ceremony. Interviews too are in Portuguese only. Notwithstanding political and communication hurdles, publicity also has been a damp squib — a stray poster here, a lonely mascot there. How very susegad!

Goddess of small states The latest place of worship to stir up controversy

Fail !

We don’t need no education

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ink Floyd’s seminal anthem for students has found an unlikely audience in Bihar. More than 2,500 contractual teachers are being sacked by the Bihar government after failing a competency test for the second time. Last November, 10,000 of them had failed the first round. The number of teachers sacked for twice-failing the competency test in 2012 was 151. In a year, the figure has leaped to 2,734. The test must be very tough, one guesses.

But according to Bihar government officials, the teachers are tested for knowledge of English, Math, Hindi and General Knowledge up to Class V. Time we asked, “Kya aap paanchvi pass se tez hain?”

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t’s not sycophancy, cried the Congress legislator, it is gratitude.

Whatever it is, it is not the solution to the crisis in Andhra Pradesh.

Congress MLA P Shankar Rao has decided to thank Sonia Gandhi personally for the Centre’s decision on the creation of Telangana by building a temple and installing her statue in it. Ironically, the artist chosen to sculpt the nine-feet-tall bronze statue is from Seemandhra.

The 500kg statue of Mrs Gandhi is also modelled on TRS’s Telangana talli statue. If you can look past the tricky politics of art, there’s more trouble brewing. While the temple is slated to come up on his fields in Mahbubnagar district, the legislator has been accused of alleged land grabs in the same region.

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cornerstone in-faq by joy bhattacharjya

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his is a quiz column. Ten questions — as eclectic as we can get. Each week we will pick a theme for the questions. For the very first column, we racked our brains and finally came up with the stunningly original idea of having a quiz on ‘firsts.’ All questions are eminently guessable. Dive in!

Questions

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First lines of which novel. “It was love at first sight.” Hint! I wouldn’t look amongst the romantic classics.

And while we are on first lines, these are the first lines of which award winning film from the ’70s — “Chapter one. He adored New York City. He idolised it all out of proportion. Eh uh, no, make that he, he romanticised it all out of proportion. Better.” Lots of hints...

3

Which organisation’s first tweet was: “I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010.” And what would it happen to mean!

4

Though he probably was the first, in fact, thanks to a crooked patent clerk, Elisha Grey, missed patenting an extremely important invention by a few hours. Who was the first, and what was the invention?

5

Birute Galdikas, a former UCLA student is regarded as the third of _____ Angels. She, along with the first two is among the pioneers in primate research. Two-part question. Name the first and fill in the blanks.

the new york times crossword-1124

two halves in one

6

While most of us are not into aviation records, every year, between late May and early June, we tend to remember the first man to fly solo across the Mediterranean Sea. Who is he, and why are we reminded of him at that particular time of the year?

7

The first female flight attendant ever was 25-year-old Ellen Church. Which profession was she originally from, a stipulation of most airlines till they were forced to relax it during World War II?

8 9

Who was the first Industries’ minister in independent India, and part of Pandit Nehru’s first ever cabinet?

If Grammy-winner Pat Benatar’s You Better Run and Rod Stewart’s She Won’t Dance With Me were second and third respectively, which was the first?

10

Sachin made his test debut in Karachi in 1989. While there was a bit of interest in his performance, the media focus at the time centred around the 100th test appearance of which leading cricketer?

Across Answers 1. Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 2. Manhattan directed by Woody Allen 3. This is the first ever tweet by Google, it’s “I’m feeling lucky” in binary 4. Alexander Graham Bell, the telephone in 1885 5. Jane Goodall, chimpanzee research, the two, along with gorilla researcher Dian Fossey (the subject of the film Gorillas In The Mist) were known as Leakey’s angels after the well-known archaeologist Dr Louis Leakey. Galdikas works with Orangutans 6. Roland Garros, also a World War I ace. The Stadium that hosts the French Open tournament is named after him 7. She was a qualified nurse, all airlines preferred nurses till they had to relax the regulations thanks to the huge demand for trained nurses during the war 8. Shyama Prasad Mookherjee, who later went on to start the Bharatiya Jan Sangh 9. The Buggles ‘Video Killed the Radio Star.’ Appropriately enough, the first music video ever played on MTV 10. Kapil Dev, he did pretty well too, grabbing seven wickets and scoring 55 in a drawn match

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Joy Bhattacharjya is, in this age of television pundits and Facebook gurus, simply grateful that facts are not opinions. t@joybhattacharj

1 Shot from a gun 4 Hummus, e.g.

7 One-named rapper with a hyphen in his name 12 C2H5OH 19 “Yuck!”

20 Disney deer 21 Company named for a volcano 22 Ones with bouquets, maybe 23 Actress ___ Dawn Chong 24 Aught 25 Subject for the philosopher Heidegger 26 Dressed with elaborate care 27 Passage from life to death 30 Scorecard column 31 Unwritten reminder 32 Wedges, e.g.

34 Sources of feta and ricotta cheese 38 Biological ring 39 Round trip … or the subtitle of “The Hobbit” 41 — 42 “This I Promise You” band 43 Neptune’s home 44 Brewer’s oven 45 “Really?”

46 Fins 48 Aquatic singer 49 — 50 Camp treats 53 Astronomical datum

54 20-Across, e.g.

55 Nutritional std.

58 Eponym of Warsaw’s airport 59 Numismatic classification 60 Private gatherings 63 Having macadamias or pecans, say 64 Part of E.S.L.: Abbr.

65 Word with holy or sacred 66 Sweats 67 Met one’s potential 69 Old capital of Europe 70 Cat also known as the dwarf leopard 71 51-Down unit 72 YouTube posting, for short 73 Firm (up) 74 Basketball play 75 Inexpensive reprint, maybe 78 — 79 Ocean menace 80 Less prudish 82 Deuteronomy contents 83 German Expressionist Otto 84 Sin city 89 2005 nominee for Best Picture 90 — 92 Name on some European stamps 93 “Do the Right Thing” pizzeria 94 Where the wild things are?

95 Steeply discounted product, maybe 97 Distort

98 1980 hard rock album that went 22x platinum … or a hint to how to cross this puzzle’s 27-Across 99 University in Lewiston, N.Y. 103 Speculate, say 105 Cadenza or Forte maker 106 Terre in the mer 107 Some badges 108 ® accompaniers 109 Not a reduction: Abbr.

110 South of Spain?

111 Anne Bradstreet, for one 112 Lane in Hollywood 113 Fa-la connector 114 Conan’s network

Down 1 Director with three Best Foreign Film Oscars 2 Messengers, e.g.

3 Todd of Broadway 4 Tooth decay, to professionals 5 Not going anywhere?

6 Michael or Sarah 7 Daughter on “Bewitched” 8 The Carolinas’ ___ River 9 End in ___ 10 Comfort or country follower 11 Badger 12 Seen 13 Revisits an earlier time 14 Speeds 15 Tucked away 16 Prefix with smoker

17 What a picker may pick 18 “Purple haze” 28 Lots 29 Plebiscites 30 Stands one’s ground 32 Clothing lines 33 Metal fastener 34 Yves’s “even” 35 Amphibious rodent 36 Autobahn hazard 37 With 60-Down, carnival treat 40 Stir 41 It might be heard when a light bulb goes on 43 Parisian possessive 45 — 47 Try very hard 48 Remain undecided 49 Korean money 50 Coach with two Super Bowl championships 51 Collection of vehicles available to personnel 52 Makes a choice 53 Look after 54 — 56Three-time N.B.A. All-Star Williams 57 Part of P.D.A.: Abbr.

58 Jim Cramer’s network 59 Cause of an audio squeal 60 See 37-Down 61 It’s caught by a stick on a field 62 Busy as ___

65Go pfft, with “out” 68Yuri’s “peace” 69 Publicize 73 Atlas index listings 74 One was blown in Ellington’s band 76 Quizzes 77 Presentation opening?

78 Dial-up unit 79 European capital on the Svisloch River 80 Scale abbr.

81 ___ pro nobis 82 — 83 Bishop’s place 85 Libran stone 86 Arp or Duchamp 87 Lowest bid in bridge 88 Buoys, e.g.

90 Mire 91 Support group since 1951 92 Cause of weather weirdness 94 — 96 Dickens villain 97 Goods 98 Nickname for Georgia’s capital 99 Small amount of drink 100 Oath-taking phrase 101 ___-high 102 “Little Caesar” weapon 103 Superseded 104 Dish made from a root

By Alan DerKazarian / Edited by Will Shortz

BLink is a 24-page weekend tabloid, which seeks to go beyond the news and offer an interesting and intelligent mix of opinion and reportage. We feature prominent columnists on art, culture, literature and the polity. Do write in with your comments and suggestions. Reach us at blink@thehindu.co.in. Follow us on t@Ink_BL and facebook.com/blink.hbl Website: thehindubusinessline.com/blink Veena Venugopal Editor, BLink