Blink issue 104 january30 2016

POLL PALS Will the two leaves decide to walk with the lotus? Is the DMK allying with old hand Congress? Election matchmaking peaks in Tamil Nadu p2 saturday, january 30, 2016

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A series of discussions at the Jaipur Literature Festival showed us how privacy, little valued in India, is no longer a premium concern for policymakers anywhere in the world p10

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SLOW CITY As Allahabad gets ready for a smart shake-up, what will be left of its old-world mores p17

A FERN HAND How female ferns use their bizarre power of changing the sex of others nearby p22

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Up, close Gametophytes — a tiny plant made of almost nothing but a few oddly shaped leaves — under a microscope; (right) Asplenium cuspidatum joel nitta

female by swimming through a film of water that extends continuously between the two gametophytes. So by producing a chemical that induces her neighbours to be male, a female gametophyte is taking her future into her own hands, ensuring that the gametophyte closest to her is one she can mate with.

Though being tiny makes fern gametophytes fascinating, it also makes them tremendously difficult to study. Gametophytes, Lotus and leaves Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s continuing bonhomie with the Narendra Modi-led ruling Nitta NDA has given risehave to speculations of a likely poll explains, “been largely overlooked alliance between the AIADMK and BJP, although this entails the risk of alienating minority votes pti because, literally, we overlook them.” When you’re out walking in the woods, marvelling at the lush fern sporophytes, the gametophytes are “beneath your feet somewhere.” As a result, Nitta continues, “a lot of our understanding of fern ecology comes from sporophytes, he longer I consider ferns, the more up to the requisite two copies of each gene. and we’re missing an important part of the they seem like a collection of conWhat’s unusual about ferns is that the ga- picture.” And even once you find a gametotrasts. Just a few weeks ago, before I metophytes, the fern-equivalents of eggs, live phyte, figuring out what species it belongs to, talked to fern researcher Joel Nitta, I completely independently of the sporophytes what its corresponding sporophyte looks like, found ferns uncomplicated. A fern’s feathery that birthed them. It’s like an unfertilised egg is no easy task. But technology is helping this leaf, in my mistaken imagination, was some- growing into an entirely different creature, effort. Researchers like Nitta can identify gathing delicate, something fragile. Unscientifi- one that looks nothing like a hen. This egg-de- metophytes by spelling out the code of their cally, I projected from my mother’s many rived creature (the gametophyte) then has to DNA. We’re at the cusp, therefore, of beginunsuccessful attempts to cultivate ferns in our mate with another one of its kind to produce a ning to understand the hidden halves of ferns.

Delhi garden to the conclusion that a fern’s hen-like creature (the sporoBut there’s one group of ferns life itself was unusually fragile. But in learning phyte). The strangeness of this for which we know much more Nadu ChiefaMinister Jayala- metaphor about the amil biology of ferns, group of Jspecies years after,”should he added. convince you most,” confided thegametophytes senior DMK leader about thanquoted sporolithaa sounded theacross poll bugle the that spread thousands of miles the on globe The Congress would be an eximportant, if ju- earlier. “Theyphytes, the duality of the fern’s are stillforrelevant as a national the simple reason last of dayyears of 2015 at the ruling In- istence and millions into past, I All have nior ally any party, if one goes byThough the 2011being is for complicated. party and have a vote bank.” that these ferns have no sporotiny dia Anna Munnetra come to find that Dravida ferns also embodyKazharesilstate national party recordLikeelection with data. eggsThe becoming sayall. theThese party is likelylive to phytes at ferns make fernCongress insiders gam (AIADMK) party’s general ience.

And this resilience stems body from meeting the con- chickens, ed a vote the share of 9.3step per in cent.

This, of course, crucial a gaonce again ally with the DMK, now deep inside caves especially at the base of gametophytes in Chennai. trasts they contain. was before the state unit witnessed afascinating, mutiny that metophyte becoming a sporoRahul Gandhi has given theNorth greenAmerisignal sandstone cliffs in it also “All elections be faced thelife same Consider, for cannot example, how awith fern’s is phyte and the Union exit- them is former the fusion of Minister two cellsGK Vasanmakes at a recent meeting. initially not ca, and “Rahul nowhere else.wasThey strategy,” she told the rapt “I will take neatly, equally divided intocadre. two halves: the with ed tohalf revive the his DNAlate intofather’s one cellTamil Maanila keen on themoved DMK, so we millions were waiting for there of years tremendously the right decision at the right time, What according sporophyte and the gametophyte. you with Congress (TMC), taking with a full set of DNA. For this to word,” another Congress leader difficult to study ago from the balmy tropics, and to theof prevailing political situation.” think as a fern — with large, green, feathery happen, him a sizeable of the alfern chunk gametophytes said.

“The DMKsheltered and Congress in their caves, from are exInwardly, leaders of rival parties the must fronds and wispy brown roots — is alike sporoready come lean cadre.

In the 2014 Lok in two types: male natural allies.

We have issues like treme heat or cold, these gametoDravidaBut Munnetra Kazhagam phyte. a fern spends only(DMK), part ofthe itsConlife and Sabha elections, the is Congress female.

And this where 2G, which we are tied together by. phytes thrive.

The DMK and gress and the Desiya Dravida Kaz- some this way.

The rest of theMurpokku time, it lives as a gamefared poorly on its own in the ferns become really biWeIndon’t see solely much of option living as angametoCongress are natural hagam — (DMDK) chuckled glee.nothing For the zarre. tophyte a tiny plant madewith of almost state A and garnered barely growing female fern half gametophyte, by have otherwise in the state,” he said.to phytes, and thus abandoning the ability allies. We issues formidable Jayashaped to consider an“It’s electoral alli- exuding but a few oddly leaves. really like its previous share. thevote right chemicals into the The Congressmust state persist president, mate, these gametophytes by likewater 2G, which we are ance must mean different a perceived dentin inone her around having twosurely completely plants Tamil her, Nadu Comcan Congress cause nearby gametophytes however, maintains the replicating exactly.

By shedding bits that of themtied together by popularity,inthey organism, onereasoned. package,” Nitta described. mittee president to become male. EVKS ElangoHigh Command take the selves, each part growing into awould new, identical Some DMK who did nothas wish tocobe van In terms of leaders, DNA, a sporophyte two insisted GKhave Vasan’s exit this odd be- gametophyte,final How mightthat ferns evolved “Rightanow we are contheycall. become population of named, said it a matter of stitching haviour? pies of each ofwas its now genes.

The gametophyte, had madeLike no with dent many on theaspects party. of a gameto- clones. So these centrating on all constituencies, ferns persist, unchanged in an up the right alliance. however, hasOpposition just one copy, half of the full set. phyte’s “The party is much stronger biology, a possible answer lies in its unchanging environment. getting readyBut tobeing battleidentical all 234 This difference in DNA content, by itself, is not size. thanFrom a yearaago,” he claimed. human vantage point, two game- puts seats,” Elangovan “But if there a necesthem at risk ofsaid. extinction whenis change — DMK-Congress again? unusual. An egg, after all, has half the DNA as tophytes On December 28, like DMKthey’re chief Mgrowing Karunanidhi may seem right asity that there should be an alliance with othchange in temperature or moisture, disease “Wehen certainly needit.the Congress parliathe that laid Recall that for the an egg to next once to again extended a hand friendship to — each other. But for of a gametophyte ers, the Resilience High Command will wrapped decide. You arrives. and fragility, up mentary more than thebe Assembly grow intopolls a chicken, it must fertilisedelecby that’s the Congress. will not long, leave this out distance the Con- into just a few“We millimetres cannot say wecontradictory are natural allies.

We have allied a single, organism. tions,” with said aa senior leader, who fusing sperm DMK cell. Because the wished sperm to gress weneighbour invite parties part of the or fought alone depending on the need of the its when nearest mayasseem insurto remain “Considering thatthat the mountable. cell also hasunnamed. half the DNA of the rooster DMK alliance,” toldatreporters in Chennai.

Thehetask hand — fusion of egg ambika times,” kamath he said. studies organismic and evolutionary Harvard Modi government has lostof its egg sheenand now,sperm an al- and produced it, the fusion “Vasan’s exit wouldeven affect the Congress by biology sperm — is made tougher by the fact Theatprice forUniversity the DMK, though, might be a ambikamath@gmail.com liance the withtotal theDNA Congress help us four brings count will in a fertilised egg that maybe or two share at the the theone sperm fromper thecent malevote must get to steep one. Congress insiders say the national

CREATURE FEATURE

Dual identity

Biologists know almost nothing about half of the lives of ferns, a bizarre stage in which female ferns can turn nearby ferns into males ambika kamath

Political Tinder, TN-style

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Will AIADMK swipe right for BJP, or will DMK swipe left for old hand Congress…?

Matchmaking reaches fever pitch as Tamil Nadu parties head into a crucial election year. And everybody is out to woo the young and upwardly mobile ‘swing voters’

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party would certainly insist on power sharing if the combine comes to power in 2016. Elangovan in fact has made this point repeatedly in public meetings over the past four months.

ruling NDA has given rise to speculations of a likely alliance.

“At present, we are cats on the wall as far as an alliance with the BJP is concerned,” grinned the AIADMK leader contacted for this story. “It AIADMK-BJP again? is a double-edged weapon,” he added Analysts point out that the ruling AIADMK was meaningfully. riding high until the December 2015 floods “No other party will really add to the vote submerged at least partly the dream of a con- share of the AIADMK,” said political analyst secutive landslide victory. “Jayalalithaa hint- Sathiyamoorthy. “The only positive in an alliing that she could be open to an alliance ance for the AIADMK is that it will tell its voters shows this,” said N Sathiyamoorthy, Director that it is not left alone. But even if the AIADMK of Observer Research Foundation in Chennai. benefits by the tiny one to two per cent vote But with at least four chief ministerial hope- share brought in by the BJP, it stands to lose fuls lurking in different parties, finding allies much more in terms of minority votes and anmay be easier said than done for the powerful ti-intolerance votes. Also any alliance partner Dravidian party. “There is still time to decide,” could demoralise the AIADMK cadre as workexplained a senior leader of the AIADMK, also ers know it cannot add to the vote share. For under condition of anonymity. “We are study- the DMK, on the other hand, allying with paring the alliance situation, which is very fluid ties like the Congress and the DMDK can add as of now. The recommendation at the field some strength in terms of vote share, but, level so far is to contest alone. Now mandate is more importantly, it will add to the morale of given to Madam. She will take a the DMK cadre, who remain cluecall after studying the political less at the moment,” he said. situation,” he said.

The BJP continues to send conIn 2011, with DMDK’s Vijayflicting signals. While calling itNo other party will kanth for an ally, the AIADMK self an alternative to the really add to the vote swept to power with a huge maDravidian parties in Tamil Nadu, share of the AIADMK jority, winning a whopping 203 it continues to maintain secure seats out of 234. Subsequently, and noncommittal relations however, relations with Vijaywith the ruling party. “It is too kanth soured and the once early to say who will or will not “friendly Opposition” quickly turned on the be part of the NDA in Tamil Nadu,” said H Raja, ruling party. The AIADMK is also riding high national general secretary of the BJP. “The paron the back of a sweep in the 2014 Lok Sabha ty leadership in Delhi will decide.” polls, where it singlehandedly won 37 out of Rush for swing votes 39 seats.

Post-floods, however, a sombre mood has The DMK and the AIADMK can both boast a deset in within the party. Its IT wing has em- pendable vote share of around 25 per cent barked on social media propaganda since late- each, as confirmed by past performances in December, releasing audio clips and videos state and parliamentary polls. Another 20 per that defend the party and government against cent of the vote share is gobbled up by other, criticism of its handling of the floods. In one smaller parties in the state. What analysts call such audio clip released on WhatsApp, the the ‘swing voters’ constitute the rest of the votmessage is clear — “The Chief Minister request- er pie. “The swing voters constitute about 25ed the Centre to bring in an ordinance to en- 30 per cent,” explained Sathiyamoorthy. “They able the performance of Jallikattu are possibly the third-largest constituency af(bull-taming sport) in the state. The Centre too ter the DMK and the AIADMK.” has agreed and said they will bring in an ordiIt is for these swing voters — the young and nance within a few days… It was the DMK and upwardly mobile, voters without the baggage Congress government which banned Jallikat- of ideology — that political parties in Tamil Natu without respecting the culture and senti- du will wage a pitched battle. These swing votment of the Tamils,” says the recording ers are the reason for the inevitable change in released on January 2. The Supreme Court may political rhetoric from all parties — keywords have forestalled the revival of Jallikattu, but like development, change, progress and aspiJayalalithaa’s continuing bonhomie with the rations are now being bandied about by par-

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Alliances that clicked, and those that didn’t 2006 The winner:

DMK+ with 163 seats

DMK, Congress, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), CPI, CPM

The loser:

AIADMK+ with 69 seats

AIADMK, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK)

The lone ranger: Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), winning one seat in its first ever election

2009 The winner:

UPA with 27 seats DMK, Congress, VCK

The loser:

Third Front with 12 seats AIADMK, MDMK, PMK, CPI, CPM

The lone ranger: DMDK, which did not win a seat

2011 The winner:

AIADMK+ with 203 seats

AIADMK, DMDK, CPI, CPM and other smaller parties

The loser:

DMK+ with 31 seats

DMK, Congress, PMK, VCK and other smaller parties

2014 The winner:

AIADMK with 37 seats

AIADMK, DMDK, CPI, CPM and other smaller parties

The loser:

Democratic Progressive Alliance (DPA) with 0 seats DMK, VCK and other smaller parties

The upstart:

NDA with 2 seats

DMDK, PMK, BJP, MDMK and other smaller parties Source: Election Commission of India

ties once steeped in traditional campaigns of caste calculations and freebies.

A group of smaller parties including Vaiko’s Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), Thol Thirumavalavan’s Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) and the CPI and CPM have come together to form an alternative Third Front, calling themselves the People’s Welfare Front. This move too, say insiders in these parties, was precipitated by a perception that the swing voters were looking for a change, an alternative to the two Dravidian parties. The DMDK’s Vijaykanth is making full use of his time in the sun, as he is wooed by all political parties, except the AIADMK. As talks shift into high gear, what is clear however is that 2016 will be a battle, yet again, between the two Dravidian behemoths. An alternative is yet to appear on the horizon.

Bend in the road Tamil Nadu Congress president EVKS Elangovan has repeatedly declared that the national party would insist on power sharing if its alliance with M Karunanidhi’s DMK tastes victory b jothi ramalingam

sandhya ravishankar is an independent Chennai-based journalist

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Crossing caste lines

A willing choice Rohith Vemula redefined identity as one based on life experience, political choice and social relations kvs giri

The politics over Rohith Vemula’s caste is meant to thwart the identity he chose for himself

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ohith Vemula has sparked off a de- the late scholar’s father, Mani Kumar, and voked by Hindutva forces and certain caste bate on the politics of caste identity mother, Radhika, were of Vaddera caste (BC). associations. He belonged to a single parent and the possibility of crossing caste Subsequently, the media too began raising family and mentioned suffering from lonelilines for a better future. In his sui- doubts about Vemula’s identity and the focus ness in his childhood. cide note and public statement he wrote, “The shifted to the issue of unscrupulous parties He claimed his mother’s caste identity as value of a man was reduced to his immediate politicising caste. his own. He wrote on Facebook that he folWelcome to Christiania Copenhagen’s enclave zone;document, you can walk,an cycle or ride atohorse arunima mazumdar identity and nearest possibility.

Tohippie a vote.

To a is a car-free Another affidavit register lowed the footsteps of famous Telugu Dalit ponumber. To a thing. Never was a man treated the birth of her second son, was released et Jashuva, who claimed his mother’s Madiga as a mind.” Vemula, a staunch Ambedkarite, where Vemula’s mother declares herself a Vad- caste (SC) identity instead of his father’s Golla believed in the annihilation of caste identity. dera. Vemula is not around to answer these (BC). He exercised his choice in favour of maHis life was a search for a new and liberating charges. The ASA later released a caste certifi- trilineage. He identified himself as an unidentity. He challenged the idea of Dalit identi- cate issued by the tahsildar of Guntur that touchable and suffered social stigma and ty based on birth, kinship relations, patrili- shows Vemula as Mala (an SC). Vemula’s father, discrimination. His idea of kinship was not neage and nuclear family. He redefined who had deserted the family more than 20 based on blood relations. The ASA was his famidentity based on life experience, political years ago, was brought in to announce his ily and it was based on shared political ideas choice and social relations. Vemula practised son’s caste identity as Vaddera. and community. identity as a willing choice in a given situa- The Vaddera association now deHe apologised to his ASA famtion. No wonder, the Hindutva forces and cer- manded an enquiry to ascertain ily in his suicide note. He did not tain caste organisations turned his identity Vemula’s caste identity as SC. subject himself to the policing of He never allowed the into a site of policing and tried to fix it. They When the character assassinahis identity as Vaddera, considstate rituals of did not allow his mother to mourn his death. tion of Vemula reached an unacered a natural identity both by identity yearand since theinterrogated British life- in They, thevery media the2007, police 1971. They took over an abandoned militarycertification rectly into the infamous A ceptable level, his mother and society and law.Pusher He didStreet. have an overrefreshingly his right style magazine has personal brought village, her, humiliated her, andMonocle made her acres in all, and settouptake their green cannabis into a her twoabout other 84 children declared SC certificate butplant nevergrows used it to live mind outstory. a list of the 25 most liveable cities own life a public community — onethat thatthey was free and un-as aflowerpot kept thestate sidebenefits of the entrance.

A at a press conference geton any or entitletheidentified world. The is based on a bound Vemulainwas asstudy a “Dalit PhD scholby any rules or regula- sweet, almostments. fruity fragrance of weed in hangs belonged to governmental Mala caste. The He was admitted the variety ofhis factors the quality living tions. ar” when deathsuch was as reported.

Bothof AmbedThey madethat their street iscategory flanked by mother clarified sheown was laws, in- flew their in the air. The general andmakeshift demonconditions, architecture, en- own kar Students’ Associationpublic (ASA)transport, and Vemula flag (a red banner three yellow dots, booths, each strated of them with formally adopted by awith Vaddera hisstocked capability bydifferent winning vironmental issues, medical and so on. representing mentioned their identities as care, Scheduled Caste the three to‘I’sMani in Christiania), versions of hashish.

The other thing common family and later married CSIR and UGC fellowships.

Copenhagen, with its green andUniversity sustainable in their memorandums to the of built their homesher using army barthechallenged booths are the masked, Kumar.

She own mentioned casteold as Vaddera in among Vemula policing bouncerof caste lifestyle, award-winning and me- racks, Hyderabad authorities. architecture, Following Vemula’s and made their ownlogic cur-of patriarchal identities and likeexercised men guarding them. Inside, the affidavit, based on the his freedom to reticulous city planning, predictably topped death, the issue of Dalithas identity and caste dis- rency (which is no longer in use; other men sell, buy,a smoke, or law that a married woman inherits her hus- main an outsider.

He invented new Dalit the list for 2008, 2013 and 2014 respectively. crimination assumed importance in all the re- they now accept Danish krone). from Mani identity which roll Every wall isand adorned band’s caste.

When she separated is joints. fluid, open-ended based On the face of it, the capital seems to They sulting campaigns andDanish debates.

The ASA filed didn’t want to bea part with a mural graffiti. colKumar, she moved into Mala of colony with heralmost on certain ideas or and sharedI see values.

A sweet, fruity political have a rhythm of itsunder own. There’s an unspoken a police complaint the SC/ST Atrocities the city in They any way; they wanted our, I sense controversy.

It’s excitchildren. subsequently declared themHis caste certificate allowed him to symbolfragrance of weed and reciprocal pedestrians cy- to Prevention Actrespect againstfor vice chancellorand Appa keepasdistance from the glare andthe intimidating at untouchthe same selves Mala through certificates from thein the ically with stigmatised hangs air identifying clists.

The Danes content and carefree, Rao Podile, Unionseem minister of state Bandaru of lawful Danish institutions time.He Sale of drugs is not Guntur tahsildar. able community. never allowed the legal, state and they goAkhil aboutBharatiya their livesVidyarthi pretty simply.

It’s and Dattatreya, Parishad wished an alternative way yet they’re bought and The controversy surrounding Vemula’s rituals of identity certification to take overconhis almost impossible to nitpick the Danish way of leader Susheel Kumar and others. living.

They had several their way openly, perhaps caste identity brings issues to the fore. right to live sumed as a mind.

His lastand words reveal of The life. complaint But then there’s Christiania, theassumpcontro- then was accepted on the and they’reidentity going strong thetobeauty of Christiania.

Is caste a natural based on the patrili- that Vemula that’s aspired go beyond his birth versial ‘free town’was thatfrom existsa contrarily tion that Vemula Scheduledwithin Caste. even with about a thousand visitslife. areHe also frequent. temponeagetoday of a nuclear family?

Are casteresidents endoga- Police and cursed desired to beThere’s a writer, an inthe existence of Copenhagen, and I forming Thecontrolled BJP and several Hindutva organisations, the corethe community, while several furore,and fines paid, people are arrested, my and bloodline basis of identity?

Is caste rary tellectual a are Buddhist philosopher.

It is wonder Christiania toodoubts has hadover a role to play others however,if began raising Vemula’s in the hope being included in and then backforces to normal. only a live sociological and of legal identity?

Does ironic thatlife thegoes cynical are trying to bury in upping thein rank of Copenhagen to match Dalit identity an apparent bid to derail the the commune someday.

“Christiania is policed open forbyeverybody, but not caste have a social, moral and political con- him in identities Manusmriti. the urbane estimates of as Monocle’s survey of tent? debate on caste violence, also dilute the poIn its 44th year, Christiania is negotiable a car-free everybody can come in, become a part of the Is identity a position that is k satyanarayana is a professor of Cultural Studies the most liveable cities. lice world’s case under the SC/ST Act. zone.

One could choose toand walk, cycle, or ride a community and live here,” says Martha, who by conscious individuals social groups? at The English and Foreign Languages The anarchic enclave of Christiania was horse.

An anonymous video released online shows I packcase my camera phone to in athe rucka resident nine years University, ago and now Vemula’s poses aand problem re- became Hyderabad founded a groupgrandmother of squatters and hippies Vemula’s by paternal stating that sack andunderstanding enter the mainof gate, which opens diat Grønsagen, an organic fruits and vegceived caste identity in- works

Home is where the hippie is Forty-four years after its conception, ‘free town’ Christiania, with its anarchic attitude, continues to exist rather peacefully in Copenhagen

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It’s only words A message of friendship at the Indo-China border, a site of frequent skirmishes, at Bumla in Arunachal Pradesh ap/anupam nath

AGENDA

Little democracy With President’s rule in Arunachal Pradesh, India’s political leadership shoots itself in the foot yet again

sambuddha mitra mustafi

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ery rarely does Arunachal Pradesh, one of India’s most beautiful and underdeveloped states, get to be in the national news radar. When it does, it’s mostly thanks to the Chinese army, whose border skirmishes with Indian soldiers prick our territorial nationalism. But who cares about the hardships on the land that we so loudly claim is ours?

Last month I was in Dambuk — an idyllic hamlet in Arunachal Pradesh’s Dibang Valley — for the Orange Festival of Music and Adventure. But the real adventure was the eighthour road trip from Assam’s Dibrugarh airport to Dambuk.

It included crossing the Brahmaputra on wooden boats with SUVs on board to enter Arunachal Pradesh, and then driving over dry riverbeds that can only be crossed by elephants during monsoon. A ferry and a bus got stuck in the river at night, leading to a dramatic rescue operation of festival participants that continued into the morning.

That morning, then chief minister Nabam Tuki was supposed to visit Dambuk to inaugurate the Orange Festival. He cancelled at the last moment: there were rumours that a political coup was imminent in Itanagar, though the Delhi media mostly ignored the development. A couple of locals warned that with uncertainty in the capital, the terrible infrastructure on display would not improve before next year’s festival.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the McMahon Line in Tibet, China has connected every county in the restive province to its extensive road network. Last year, China Tibet Online reported on the construction of a road to Metok County, the last village in Tibet before the Tsangpo/Brahmaputra enters the Upper Siang district of Arunachal. China also has several ci-

vilian airports and military airfields close to ed task. On January 23, for example, hundreds the border, as well as a modern railway net- of Buddhist monks protested against plans work. The strategic asymmetry could not be for a dam in Tawang, only a few kilometres starker. from the Chinese border. The state needed a “I drove on the Kathmandu-Lhasa road, and transparent local government, which could the Chinese side was fantastic,” said Hari have worked towards infrastructure and ecoSingh, former national car rally champion, nomic environment with central assistance. It who was part of the Festival’s organising needed a bipartisan approach to push aside team. He reckoned Arunachal’s border infras- political differences, to work in the national tructure is the worst he has seen in many years interest and build on the democratic goodwill spent rallying around the world. “But I also of the people. noticed how people in Tibet were scared to Imposing President’s rule before a test on speak anything about the army. Here you the floor of the Assembly is a mockery of the don’t have that fear among locals,” he said. democracy that distinguished India from ChiFor all its better infrastrucna, and made us a more desirable ture, Tibet does not have a demohome for the Arunachalis, decratically elected government. spite the many hardships they Arunachal had one till January face in their daily lives. Instead of The political turmoil 26, 2016 and people of the state and slugfest between asking its MLAs to back Congress were proud of its democracy, if the BJP and Congress rebels and destabilise the Tuki not of those running the governgovernment, the BJP leadership would bring smiles ment. Every Tibetan I met in the could have taken a less partisan only in Beijing state felt they were better off in approach in this small but sensiIndia than China, though they tive state. would probably be materially The Congress did not cover itmore comfortable in Tibet. Even self in glory either. First, it failed the Indian Army — often the crowd villain in to pacify the rebellion brewing against Tuki. sensitive states — is quite popular in Aruna- And then, faced with the BJP joining hands chal Pradesh, and seen as the line of defence with the rebels, it delayed the floor test to preagainst Chinese aggression. India’s freedom vent losing power. The self-serving, cavalier trumped its shoddy infrastructure. approach of politicians in both Delhi and ItaNow with President’s rule imposed in the nagar has pushed the state towards the Himastate, India has jeopardised its trump card layan precipice, further away from the Indian with the people. The political turmoil and mainstream. slugfest between the BJP and Congress would As journalist Shekhar Gupta asked on Twitbring smiles only in Beijing. The corruption ter: “Could you have done this if we were UP, and the leadership vacuum that have hobbled Bihar, even Delhi? Some R-Day gift to a tribal Arunachal for decades have now blown up in state of just 15 lakh tribals, 2 MPs.” our face.

Admittedly, economic development in a sambuddha mitra mustafi is the founder of state such as Arunachal remains a complicat- The Political Indian t@some_buddha

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The empire’s loyal subject The popular legend of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa has a backstory, that of a man with fawning loyalty to the British

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here is a backstoIndian. ry to the legend of Could Gandhi’s subseMahatma Gandquent political trajectory be hi, enacted in linked with the arc traced in South Africa, and told in South Africa? Desai and large part in the glow of revVahed show how his early erence that envelops him in moves since returning to Innationalist historiography. dia followed an established Further embellishments loyalist pattern. World War I were added since South Afrisaw him stepping up eagerly ca’s liberation from decades to volunteer for the British of white racist rule, when war effort, and when the emthe bonds established by pire was threatened with disGandhi’s supposedly unintegration in 1918, he flinching commitment to declared his willingness — to equality, became the subthe dismay of pacifist Eustratum of its diplomatic ropean associates from bonding with India.

South Africa — to bear arms It is an appealing story, for the imperial cause.

Pregnant with possibilities between bothpoliticbut fails every basic test The of proposal for an eight-month maternity break for women promises utopia for many, more so if it were to be Individed 1958, the Marxist parents: five months authenticity.

In of Thematernity South leave followed by three months of paternity leave namas bhojani/bloomberg ian and theoretician EMS African Gandhi: StretcherNamboodiripad published a Bearer of Empire, Ashwin Depioneering assessment of EXCERPT sai and Goolam Vahed use, Gandhi’s politics, titled The for the most part, their subMahatma and the Ism. ‘EMS’ as ject’s own locutions to eshe was known, pointed out tablish a different persona. how, even after the JallianwaThey do not have to delve vela Bagh massacre of 1919, ry deep to lay bare Gandhi’s Gandhi remained torn befawning loyalty to the Brittween his revulsion at the ish empire and his naive becrimes of the empire and his lief in its commitment to belief in British fair play. He fair play. This fealty to the waffled and vacillated as Blinkered view The native African and the indentured Indian remained peripheral to white man’s empire was inmass discontent spread, only Gandhi’s vision hindu archives flected with a conspicuous making up his mind when sense of disdain towards General Reginald Dyer, the the native African, whose supposed moral in- governor-general Lord Gladstone and Boer commanding officer responsible for Jalliancapacity made him an undeserving claimant prime minister Jan Smuts sought to tighten wala Bagh, was accorded an effusive public refor equal rights. the structures of white supremacy with extor- action on his return to Britain. It was then that These political attitudes would have swiftly tionate taxes and oppressive restraints on In- he issued his famous diktat that any form of been rendered irrelevant had Gandhi not rode dian and native African alike. Imprisoned at cooperation with the ‘satanic’ colonial regime a pregnancy boss is an panies a week paternitythat leave.

How is was the crest ofnnouncing colonial history.

When to thea British at home,’ shesin. says, ‘and I could see their exearlyhave stage in theofagitation followed, a mortal not something womenhe in volthe Gandhi that enough?

Ideally, if a woman takes care of pressions empire collided with Boer most nationalism, suddenly change into a questioning acquired a certain mystique in the It was the beginning of successive waves of corporate workplace lookqueen, forward herself andof both the baby firsteven three unteered as a loyal subject of the to perception look. Howunrest could Ithat leaveunsettled my little baby travIndianfor andthe African, as political the and empire, to. effort.

They are worried about how they months, theprotests baby still another three leading serve the war el? So, oftocourse I was quickin to 1947. add that my tookbut their in needs directions he would its final demise Gandhi their boss react.

A friend saidheshe mus- never months of nurturing, When Britwill made peace with Boer, lobbied taking him. to And their have endorsed. why can’t the father get husband was sought at care everyofstage stay on tered up the courage to tell boss about months paternity leave unsuccessfully for parity in her political rightsher for three and side hardened.

I realThe burgeoning violence and in the baby’s eyes grew wider, the right of the Damn! public mood pregnancy only when she was fiveThe months’ first year so that the mother the Indian trader and professional. native unrest “wrong” so I quickly stirred anxieties in Del-can go back to ised I had said andthe contain it thing, in a fashion that pregnant and beginning to show. walked hi, work?

Sharedestablished parental leave.

That’s real equity. added that my African and the indentured IndianShe remained mother and a order. maid were there the newly vicerewould maintain At various World War I saw him up to him at company party where he rose was galHow wouldofextended materperipheral to ahis vision. When the Zulu to help.he They smiledincapable and nodded. capital the British stages, proved of stepping up eagerly having a drink and said, ‘I have something to nity leave impact bias?

Unless up against white settler expropriation of his empire. Already perturbed by I finallywith exhaled, knowing I had coping the complexities of to volunteer for the tell you.’ HeGandhi asked her whatto it was. we turn change the way companies homeland, rushed battleShe insaid, the the said the thing. unleashed As long as towards violent resistcaste and“right” community British war effort ‘I’m pregnant.’

His firstreprising reaction?his ‘OhBoer shit.’war ance approach this, the I fear these vicemeacause of the empire, was a woman with the bain India, British inthere the struggle.

He seemed expliI told them I had a Three maternitycorps. leaveThe is British legally roy suresurged may have imrole in themonths’ army ambulance by, ittowas all right.early And claims two were a faira negative settlement. repudiate of little boy and a baby citly mandatory India. Thiswhile is farthe more progrespact both delighted on hiringat and on suffered fewincasualties, Zulus, who Seemingly even better. the father the the atAryan descentBut that made theofIndigirl at home... and I sive than thein US,the where there is no manwomen of coming back tomasthe were killed thousands andlegally herded in tention child?

Definitely not!

Thethe expecthe imperial an a superior being, since concould see their dated maternity leaveconcentration by legislation.camps, Some ters, workplace leave.

Vandana to portray larger numbers into the bit pressure on Gandhiafter caved in, managing as suddenly sequences oftations clingingand to that of hokum expressions companies world over have added to the aSaxena Poria livesthat in Pune and the foundaearned littlethe of his sympathy. to stayalienating. home with the triumph a deal left intact would been deeply Affect change into a have women leave prescribed by their respective she and husband moved to Bitter disillusionment followed withgovernBritish tions child are enormous.

Else we are of aher formal regime of racism. rather or history would prove his questioning lookthan reason ments and providingceasing a moretheir bal- India fromdid Budapest when she capital and are Boernow nationalism Gandhi not stay behind to experience at main weaponjudged in all harshly.’ struggles. And he was to anced maternity policy well on as first-hand was pregnant for the second hostilities to createleave a new unionasbased It’s bitter not just the men who are the consequences of his deal with suffer many more disappointments, of paternity leave. India’s minister for Women time. She started work full- of the Brit- greater proportions white supremacy and shared plunder of the Smuts. biased. than One those would imagine He had shedtothe vestments South Africa and Child Development is proposing an eight- ish timebarrister after sheforhad baby girl.and tunic fa- handed him.women land.

It was in this interlude of disappointwho had babies thea loincloth In all that he have remained, as the monththat maternity forhis women.

Utopia for voured Her workby demanded she travel often, andThat she British ment Gandhibreak wrote anti-modernist would historian understand, butBrown that’s has notaptly always the the indentured worker.

Judith said, a many! EvenHind more so, inWritten my opinion, these transformation left the baby at was home, in carried the careradically of her husmanifesto, Swaraj. in the if frustracase. Howofinsensitive one is can isalso to be for- “prisoner hope”. That perhaps his stem final eightofmonths were towas betodivided band.after Onehis day, while a business trip tion defeat, Gandhi insist tobetween his last ward from how removed the privileged return to on India.

From then on,to it legacy as anfar icon of national liberation.boss is both that parents: months of maternity leave was Mumbai, asked about by from the people who work down the line. days Hindfive Swaraj was his most complete part ofshe hiswas personality to tryher andfamily embody muralidharan is an independent followedtestament. by three months of paternity leave. — two a business meeting. political The story below is folklore in a large writer media inmen the at sartorial, culinary and every other sukumar researcher based in Gurgaon Shimla Why we have paternity com- sense ‘I told them had aspirations a little boy and a baby girl and Andon’t illusory triumph came leave? when Some the British company.

My friend, Yana and Puri, gave me the — the lifeI and of the poorest

Pregnancy, pumps and paternity

Shared parental leave is win-win but are companies and, importantly, co-workers ready for it?

The South African Gandhi: StretcherBearer of Empire Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed Navayana Non-fiction ₹595

Own It: Leadership lessons from women who do Aparna Jain HarperCollins Business ₹599

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lowdown over dinner one night: ‘You know TV staff have shifts and different days of the week off, depending on the timetable. A young woman had a Saturday off. She got a call that morning about an urgent meeting that the head of the company had called. (The head of the company was informally called ‘Dayan Didi’ because she had the reputation of behaving like a witch.) This woman had no reliable babysitter, and could not arrange one at short notice, but was worried that if she did not go, she would lose out on something important.

Besides, Dayan Didi had summoned them, and that was scary enough. So, with her parttime nanny and baby in tow, she drove to the office, where she was stopped from entering the office. Why? Because her baby and nanny were not allowed in. She called her boss, but he said he couldn’t help. No exception was made for them to come up with guest badges and sit near the desks in an empty office or at the reception lounge. In mortal fear of Dayan Didi, she went upstairs, and attended a twohour-long meeting while her nanny and baby suffered in the heat outside. They were not even allowed to sit in the guard room. When Dayan Didi was later told that this had happened, she was unrepentant. “Of course, we do not have a facility for babies here. I don’t know why people can’t find babysitters.”’

No empathy, no understanding. Just elitism and utter disdain. When one is disconnected from their employees, they will lose out on women and the workforce.

‘As far as performance ratings for women coming back from maternity are concerned, they are based on the six months they work in the firm. But it’s not as simple as only changing the policy,’ says Sona Pillai, the diversity and inclusion lead at a large firm in India. ‘You need to address the men’s bias towards their women colleagues on account of this decision. I find that men who have working wives get it but many others don’t. I have heard in the past from managers: “Bell curve fit karna hain. I have four men who have done well all year, but this woman has only done six months; why should I give her a high score in her appraisal based on her six months of work?” Our human resources division has been brilliant and has done a great job with training managers. They started workshops in 2008, long before most companies did, to address this issue and other biases, and with every passing year the attitude of men has turned more positive.’

There is a flip side to having a policy — and one day and said she was going to leave bethat is when it does not come with sufficient cause the environment was stifling. Her boss support. In essence, are your colleagues ready did nothing to get his team to behave. to deal with your motherhood? Have they ‘I spoke to the head of HR but she couldn’t been suitably sensitised and trained? find a solution to address the bad attitude.

Seema Mathur, who has worked in one of Ironically, this HR head is a woman who talks the country’s largest multinational banking incessantly to the media about how they firms, says: ‘I was overseeing a certain team as bring women back from maternity in an inpart of my diversity work and in clusive fashion. She couldn’t it was a number-one ranked asmanage it. No effort was made to sociate. She had got the highest try and retain this young womratings. She went on maternity an. She was junior enough so How dare she get a leave and when she came back, bonus? Basically, how they let her go, although they she got her bonus. Her colneeded her. dare she have a baby leagues were resentful — both ‘The organisation was not gowhile we work? the men and the women. Acing to implement any serious cording to them, she was out, changes to make the environshe was away. How dare she get a ment conducive for women to bonus? Basically, how dare she not only return, but to stay on. If have a baby while we work? one makes a serious commitment to keeping ‘She had informed HR that she needed to women in the workforce, they do stay. I have get home by seven every evening, which was seen companies where colleagues and bosses agreed upon. She would go home and dili- support women who come back after delivergently get down to work on her computer and ing a baby. A good boss is flexible. A good boss work till 2 a.m. But her colleagues were hostile says we will find a way to work this out. So, and treated her poorly. She finally came to me why does a number-one ranked woman leave?

It’s simple; it’s because the organisation doesn’t want to change.’

No matter how successful a woman is in the corporate workplace there are a number of questions that cross her mind. Among the most common are: The pressure of being able to manage bias at the workplace and the pressures at home can take a hit on the woman’s emotions. While statistics point to a large number of women falling off the corporate ladder during or after maternity, progressive Indian companies have stepped up to make changes within their organisations to support women. And they have seen a positive shift in the numbers of women coming back to work — and staying there.

What is truly needed in corporate India are not only a change in policies, it is a mindset change. Across genders. That includes a shift to including the father as primary caregiver, a deeper understanding of the pressures on a woman when her child is young and a more emphatic and supportive workplace.

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Double whammy The stress from dealing with bias at the workplace and the pressures at home can take a toll on the woman’s emotions afp photo/frederick florin

own it: leadership lessons from women who do was published this month

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Beauty are in the bizarre Valleys lit up, one by one First they took lighting to remote Himalayan villages, Battiviewer Project Taking a leaf outsolar-based of Naïve Art, Mumbai artist Nayanaa Kanodia laysnow outThe for the a bold members are taking donorsofon a cycling feast of the idiosyncrasies Indian life expedition to see the results for themselves

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resh, exuberant, wacky, detailed, childlike and profound — Mumbai artist Nayanaa Kanodia’s paintings provide a bird's eye view of every cultural milieu she picks. She was inspired by the d’Art Naif tradition, as its intrinsic naiveté allowed her the freedom to explore the ambiguities of life, making even prickly subjects and differences flavourful and palatable. An acute observer, she holds a mirror to the idiosyncratic slips and bizarre paradoxes of Indian life. Tossing together nuances of religion, occupation and class, she boldly lays out a banquet for us to feast on. The beauty is in the details, and oh! how many she packs in: vivid kajal-lined eyes, a frilly handkerchief, a lantern, a giraffe and a book. The viewer is always drawn back to discover, as in puzzles that ask “What is different about this picture?” The artist spoke with BLink on the sidelines of her recent show, The Journey of Life, at Gallery Veda in Chennai.

Excerpts: rarely follow theinnorms of Travelling light The on-ground team of The Batti Project,Your whichpaintings aims to light up 1,500 homes the Seppa-Bama-Lada belt of Arunachal Pradesh by the year end; (right) at Mitaka village, team members test and install a Batti kit, perspective; three-dimensional forms are batti project which includes a solar panel, battery and three LED bulbs the represented in illusory ways, sometimes flat.

Did you draw realistically before you moved to this style? hile most of us took the day offonthis Day, 15 cyI studied painting my Republic own but felt I should clists rolled out afrom in learn it systematically.

We teach childTezu, the alArunachal partare of phabet before reading canPradesh, begin. Ifasyou the Mishmi Hills Challenge. not strong in the basics, how canInterestingly, you do somewhen finishMy on early February 3, the were winner thing they different? paintings of will notfrom be one ofrealistic them; instead, it will be a horses, very to impressionistic, community in the State’s remote Seppa varying brushstrokes.

When I visited theValley, State where lives are set to change thanks to the 10day ‘Ride To Light’ cycling expedition.

The 300-km ride in the Lohit, Dibang and Lower Dibang districts has been envisioned as a fund-raiser for The Batti Project, launched in 2012 by Rajiv Rathod and Merwyn Coutinho.

Bitten by the adventure bug, the duo had in 2010 quit their jobs and hit the road with no clear plan other than being on the move.

In December that year, on a trek to Gandhigram in Changlang, Arunachal Pradesh, what struck them was the lack of basic lighting in those parts. The following December, they decided to spread some Christmas cheer and played Santa Claus by giving out 140-odd solar lamps to the residents, for which well-wishers had pitched in with funds. Their insatiable wanderlust had met a newfound cause, and before long they set up The Batti Project.

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Bright smiles Hermitage Museum at St Petersburg, the ex“People otherearly villages approached usand for hibit onfrom Picasso’s realistic drawings help.

It set the ball in motion Rathod how he evolved to Cubism wasfor an us,” eye-opener. said telephone from Bengaluru, just beIf he over had not taken that route, he could never fore to Arunachal Pradesh for the ridhaveheading been as profound. ing challenge.

How did you adopt the d’Art Naif style that He took charge of the project’s administrahas characterised your oeuvre? tion, while Coutinho became the on-field scout; a 1989 Land one Cruiser I saw athey showbought of Art Naif abroad timesome and years ago an which is now Coutinho’s home-onfelt it was appropriate way to represent our wheels. hasand beencorner on theinroad culture. “Merwyn Every street Indiasince has 2010, finding our target car something interesting andvillages.

I wantedThat to poralone is enough to draw localsstyle. rectray these patterns in aattention… contemporary ognise him and buildings approach was himvery directly My series onnow Mumbai pop-

Hello, good buy In Nayanaa Kanodia’s ‘The Tourists’, foreigners are intent on sightseeing while Indians are more keen on shopping; (below) the artist with her work ‘The Red Quilt’ sujatha shankar kumar

with their requests,” Rathod quipped. members have been raising funds by recyCoutinho finds out the requirement in the cling electronic waste collected from individular. Then, I explored studios uals. selected village and thephotographic project’s seven-mempeople never mind to it. Iinvolve don’t want anystrata section “We wanted every of during British Raj. With no access ber corethe team arranges to supply it. to cam- society of society to be hurt by what — you don’t always needI paint. moneySurpristo coneras, at photo studios are for tribute Thefamilies solar assembled home-lighting systems ingly, ittowards is easierato render tragicexplained. scenes — cacause,” Rathod portraits.from There was this big preparation, se- tastrophes, sourced Australia-based Barefoot Power. earthquakes.

But idea to of exemplify Soon, the team hit upon the getting lecting costumes andpanel, posing against aancharge artifi- the Each unit has a solar a battery, satire is far more difficult.

It isinalso to donors actively involved thedifficult project so cial Kashmiri backdrop!

Inbulbs, 1995, I did an entire controller, and three LED holders and that workthey out so many on a single could seecolours for themselves thecanvas. differseries onItcity on the for beach — sevthe ence switches. can vendors provide lighting about My patterns aremaking laid outto with great care.of the they were lives in some phoolvaala, naariyalvaala — old market scenes en to eight hours using the charge from four most remote hamlets of India. That, in turn, Your paintings always try to create a selfwhich, with economic growth, will disappear. led to five hours of sunlight. to Ride To Light, which will culminate in sustained narrative.

MyAfter paintings are like records our society.

Gandhigram, the teamofpicked the iso- lighting up 10 homes in Indili village, in Lower lated hamlet of Dopuwa, in Lower Dibang Val- Dibang It is a story within a story. Many collectors tell Valley.

When begin to create a and lit up seven ley, foryou their pilot project me, time seeof your “The cyclists get‘Each to ride inwe some thepaintmost scene, do homes in you Maytake 2012;photographs a year later, ing, we find something new inpristine surroundings — intothe or make sketches to put to 13 vilthey provided lighting terpret, they something in process help us different raise funds. together your compositions? lages in the Hunli-Desali belt. every corner’.

They feel happy the We realised that we were simply On a street in Tijara, If Their I take photographs, I may befavourite memory resame message is not providing a channel for carried people She had spent her in Alwar, thereall were come careless recollection four mains that ofinamy 70-something across paintings. to do what they love.

This project life roadside in darkness and dentists of the woman scene. Sowho I bank my tribal had on never depends on people, and our aim wanted tokinds have the doing all of Into ‘Spoilt Choice’, what are memory and light makeand preparatory seen artificial kept flipis buildfor communities through light on untillike theroot day procedures, the manRathod and woman doing — to sketches the actual ping the for switch on andpainting. off, unthem,” said.

In order shewithout died canal, celebrating their In ‘The foreigners able to tearTourists’, her eyes from it. make the cut, theanniversary cyclists notin onanaesthetic the middle of an exotic standing in a line are more “Her fellow villager toldinterus a ly had to prove their fitness, but Rousseau-type jungle setting? estedyears in sightseeing Indifew later that but shethe refused also raise a minimum of ansturn are keen on shopping.

In our to the light off even during The woman goes to jungle as ₹40,000 towards thethe cause. villages, we co-exist plants the day, arguing thatwith she had spent all her life she is fedhave up ofsigned the city The 15 cyclists who uplife, for but the and animals, identify with in darkness and wantedsimultaneously to have the light on entire she still needsride herhave comforts and wants to 300-km been joined by variEast and alldied,” the while tenaciously cling- ous until the West, day she Rathod said. make her choices. she takes her cheflegs along groups of localSo, cyclists for shorter of ing to our roots. Once I was in a street in Tijara, the andtrip. he is serving her cake and beverages, all Fund of goodwill in Alwar, and there were four roadside den- her favourite She’s also got her pet for After a day things! of riding hard, the party settles tists doing kinds of procedures, likesources root ca- down Even as theall team waits to tap formal company.

If you observe human we for the night in camps that nature, have been nal,funding, without it anaesthetic.

You get to see a very set for has kept going on the strength getup so in used our comforts life, and more theto idyllic jungles eninroute. different perspective and realise that many of the enthusiastic responses to its posts on than comfort, it’swill the choices weBatti make.Project There Ride to Light help The thingsmedia. are taken for granted. I translate these move social are innumerable situations in one person’s one step closer to its target of powering opinions and minimal choices ofeffort people a vision.

“Even with oninto social media, 1,500 life and endless possibilities at home,belt at the homes in the Seppa-Bama-Lada by we’ve had people stepping forward time and the workspace, during holidays soto many situaend of the year. “We want — this be a study You have found a unique form that brings again to help. On an average, we always man- on tions thatis are unforeseen.

MyGive paintings are what truly sustainable. us money acceptance to stereotypes and inherent age to raise the money needed to light up at and aboutwe thewill journey light of uplife. all of the North-east,” cultural differences. least one home each month,” said Siddharth Rathod signed off.

My seriesaon Parsis brings out their Prakash, member of the core team.traits, but sujatha shankar kumar is a writer and visualiser based indesai Chennai is a Mumbai-based writer theAdditionally, way I depictsince communities is healthy and shail August last year, team

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COSMOPOLIS

Dadu’s tree and the headless Kanishka Collections at Indian museums may not swell with the spoils of empire, but they help cross borders of time and remind us of the complexity of history site counterpoint to a series of 2,000-year-old statues from Gandhara (the region today in northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan, where similar antiquities have been smashed by Islamist militants). These largely Buddhist artworks are remarkable for the fine pathos of the faces, their downturned gazes, delicate moustaches. Though shaped in stone, their robes and ornaments fall gently. There is a great lightness to these figures, and a sense of quiet, individual poise.

Elsewhere in the museum, you can troop through a superbly crafted (and very modern) display on the evolution of coinage in India from ancient times to the present. Only steps away is a cobwebbed room of wooden display cases full of the bones and fossils of ancient creatures, captioned with hand-painted signs.

The room seems frozen in the 19th century.

One of the charms of the Indian Museum is this dissonant museography; the museum’s Timekeeper The Indian Museum’s eclectic holdings reflect the spirit of an older age of gentlemen polymaths chambers — and not simply their contents — and curious collectors, melding human and natural history sushanta patronobish belong to different times.

Museums in India will never have the adhen I visited Kolkata’s Indian well-organised halls. I couldn’t help but feel a vantages of those in the West that formed Museum in the past, I went little embarrassed for the Indian Museum. their collections over a century of free-wheelprincipally to admire a fossil- This was our closest equivalent to the famous ing imperialism. But I hope for a time when Inised tree and gawp at a head- museums of the West, and half the time it dians will have more easily available to them less statue. Both had personal meaning. The wasn’t even clear what you were looking at. the pleasures and civic virtues of museums first was the discovery of my maternal greatThough the Indian Museum is actually ol- like the Met and the Louvre. As we increasingly grandfather, a geologist. In 1924, he was sum- der than many of its illustrious western coun- grapple over history and its meanings, mumoned to examine the long trunk of a petri- terparts (it was founded in 1814), it has never seums play an essential role. They excite the fied tree that had been unearthed in rural had the same resources as institutions like the imagination, help us cross borders of time Bengal. It was 250 million years old, a suffi- British Museum in London or and place, and remind us of the ciently venerable age to win its place in the In- Louvre in Paris, whose global colcomplexity of history. And they dian Museum’s motley collection. The object lections are swollen with the make us humble in the face of we know as ‘Dadu’s tree’ now wards the en- spoils of empire. The Kolkata the immensity of both the past It allowed me a kind trance of the geological wing. Visitors walk by museum’s eclectic holdings reand present. it bemused, not entirely sure what to make of flect the spirit of an older age of of intimacy, the sense I was heartened to see that the that I had a special its grey, prehistoric bulk. gentlemen polymaths and curiIndian Museum was brimming claim over the statue The second object was a statue of the king ous collectors, melding human with people. It was a holiday Kanishka. Its defining feature — apart from an and natural history. Geology weekend and the Jadu Ghar — elegant belted tunic and sword scabbard — brushes up against palaeontolo‘magic house’ as the museum is was its lack of a head. With a child’s narcis- gy, which tumbles into archaeoldelightfully called in Bengali — sism, I had always taken a particular interest ogy and numismatics. was full of visitors of all sorts of ages and backin the signs and symbols of the historical figThis month, I visited the museum for the grounds. Some plodded through the halls ure that all modern-day Kanishks and Kanish- first time since its 2014 renovation. Dadu’s tree with a kind of dutiful misery, feeling obliged kas are named after. I wasn’t troubled by the was still where we remembered it to be, snak- to look at this and look at that (we all have a fact that the statue was decapitated, but in- ing along one side of the great courtyard in in- habit of treating museums like sacred spaces, stead projected my own head on top of the numerable glass cases. Kanishka’s statue, as if our pious visits were a kind of pilgrimbody of the warrior king. I didn’t know any however, was blocked from public view, sup- age). Others thrilled to the range and splenother Kanishks at the time and I thought my posedly hidden for maintenance. Sometimes a dour of artefacts on display. A mother led her name rather rare (Facebook has since cruelly headless king needs a facelift, too. daughter from statue to statue, reminding her disabused me of that idea). It allowed me a Even if the museum cannot match the ‘en- of the importance of each. Teenagers posed for kind of intimacy, the sense that I had a special cyclopaedic’ range of those in the West, it selfies in front of ancient Buddhas. A young claim over the statue. boasts some marvellous artefacts. I was boy pressed his nose to the glass between him I had little interest in the rest of the mu- stunned by a 1,000-year-old Durga from Od- and Dadu’s tree. He left a smudge, the trace of a seum. It seemed quaint and dusty, a muddle of isha , a sword held aloft over her head, an im- child communing, however briefly, with uncaptioned sculptures and objects. Having placable smile on her face, the moustachioed something unfathomably old. grown up in New York City, I was accustomed mahishasura crushed beneath. That strength t@kanishktharoor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its and writhing movement provided an exqui-

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Kanishk Tharoor is the author of Swimmer Among the Stars: Stories, a collection of short fiction

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The end of reason ‘Saint’ Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan, chief of Dera Sacha Sauda, which has been variously described as a spiritual organisation and a cult k ananthan; (right) Kiku Sharda, whose mimicry of Insan led to the comedian’s arrest earlier this month rajeev bhatt

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The right to offend Snap judgement Photographer Dayanita Singh started focusing on empty spaces to avoid intruding into people’s privacy meeta ahlawat

Unless we agree that freedom of expression must include the right to offend, our society will continue to routinely bow to bigots and punish artists

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anuary has been tough on lovers of the arts. As the first month of the new year draws to a close, fans worldwide are still mourning the loss of David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Glenn Frey in quick succession.

These legends were admired in India too, but we here have our own personal losses to mourn: among them, Rajesh Vivek, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Kalpana, and — the most heartbreaking of them all — the death of common sense and a sense of humour.

Though the connection is not obvious, Mumbai-based comedian Kiku Sharda’s recent arrest came to mind as I read a moving tribute to Rickman in The Guardian. It cited this quote from the late thespian: “Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theatre, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.”

Contrast this with Sharda’s obsequious apologies to those offended by his mimicry of hen it(DSS) comes to privacy, the the Dera Sacha Sauda chief, a man who odds haveRam been stacked calls himself Saint Gurmeet Rahim Singh humanity; wise isas the Ji Insan. DSS has against been variously described a man and still the womspiritual organisation andwiser a cult.

Insan co-dian whowrote realises From moment ode lanrected, andthis. starred in athe horrendous guage began to MSG: exist,Thewe have conflated to himself called Messenger in 2015. privacy with theout unnameable the shadMSG2 too came last year. Itfear, is while lamowy threat, thelampoon-worthy subtle knife. Private pooning these films are andthe Inthings go bump in thecaused night.“outrage” In the Bible, san thatthat Sharda allegedly to God basically punishes Adam andindicate Eve for cov“religious feelings” (quote marks the ering whatofIndian autopsy reports language the IPC’s Section 295A).call ‘private parts’.

It’s no coincidence that ‘Private’ is alsoina We have long been a nation of nutcases military term, of theofshock-and-awe lexithe matter of part freedom expression. What con of American machismo. makes Sharda’s arrest arguably the final nail week, of I saw photographer Dayanita in Last the coffin freethe speech is the sub-abysmal Singh making a similar point at the Jaipur Litquality of the entity he derided. erature Festival (JLF), about howseen Hindithe didMSG not Seriously, anyone who has have an analogue for ‘private’.

Singh was films could be forgiven for assuming thatpart the of a panel discussion ‘Total by Recall: The ‘Saint’ was begging to titled be mocked comediEnd cartoonists, of Privacy’, moderated by the Harvard ans, critics and the citizenry at professor Bhabha andtoalso featuring large.

HowHomi else isKone to react a ‘guru’ who writer and design-thinker Bhushan encases his stocky frame in Niyam multiple multiand Pratapsequined, Bhanu Mehta (Director, Centre for coloured, flashy, body-hair-baring

outfits on screen? How is one to respond when threats of violence or calls to violence. he sings the words, ‘Without you any other, Beyond this, anyone objecting to the words never never…/ Forever you are my heartbeat/ of others should feel free to spread awareness Another name is beat my heart, never never’? about their objections through all available The argument parroted in all such cases is non-violent means. Write a blog, hold a semithat freedom of expression cannot extend to nar, sit on dharna in protest. the right to “hurt religious feelings”. But what As a society we constantly bow to bigots and does that phrase mean? Who, for instance, de- snub artists because we cannot agree on a cides a legitimate measure of “hurt”? point that should have been a given by now in Earlier this month, I was on a television de- 21st century India: that freedom of expression bate about the Sabarimala shrine’s practice of must include the right to offend. Because “ofkeeping out women in the 10-50 age group. A fend”, “hurt”, “feelings”, “religious sentirepresentative of the holy place held that op- ments” and other such clichés are intangibles ponents of the tradition are trampling upon that can be put to dangerous use to stifle all inreligious freedom. The same point was made convenient debate this week about women’s protests against beIf as liberals we do not dig our heels in on ing barred from the Shani Shingnapur temple this matter, we will routinely find ourselves in in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district. The situations like the present one, where a come“hurting religious sentiments” dian is arrested for ridiculing one contention in the Kiku Shardaof the worst Hindi films in history, ‘Saint’ Insan incident could well simply because the hero happens Policy Research).

This discussion part for of instance, (on social media) a kind of publicity. The be extended to feminists criticis- wasWho, to be a for guru to some. the Privacy series, conceptualised curateda legitimate question of privacy — the publica and the priing Sabarimala and Shani Shing- anddecides We are already society in

by Bhabha.

— is not only a spatial metaphor about sonapur.

Question: does my measure of vate which the Alan Rickmans among “hurt”?

To be sure, these talks but directors, also about how and we freedom of expression endweren’t where really what ciety or legality, us — actors, writers you call big ticket events by JLF standards. The perceive theother boundaries the personal: your freedom of religion begins? creativeofpeople who dowho not first discussion in this the column series clashed with a is a person?take What is a person?”

Please note that is lightly their power to influenRuskin Bond session.

The second Singh wasce the to offer her views. Being not advocating free speech abso- (the afore— first are abused, threatened, evena mentioned ‘Totalcivilised Recall’) picked photographer, sheof admitted lutism.

Clearly, discourse requires killed when they act as “agents change”.that up the leftovers from the Margashetempted was “in the most obvious sitreasonable restrictions.

Since this debate is beYou may be to see this as a misret Atwood Asthe a result, uation since with Kiku privacy”.

“When ing draggedtalk. down gutterthe of low intellect placed comparison Sharda is noI crowds at the Privacy were couldn’t bear itKhan, any more, diby right-wingers, it isseries best to spell out the ex-exchanging Alan Rickman, no Aamir Shah the Rukh We are par rather than and extraordinary. lemma of violating people’s ceptions in black white: critiques areprivacy fine, (on Khan, Salman Rushdie, MM Kalburgi or priGoour social This turned to be propitious vacy that’s whenIn-I abuse is not,out so you may say “X indulges in sen-for avind either,repeatedly, and his show on ‘Saint’ media) kindPansare of for your journalism” correspondent, who started photographing sationalist but not “Journalist X is san can by no yardstick be consideredempty high publicity arrive seconds spaces, because I thought maybe acould ****ing bitch30 who shouldbefore be raped” (this is a art. It does not matter, because the mindset each session and still get a falsehoods that seeks to suppress there won’t be this of intrusample frombegan Twitter); deliberate them all iskind the same: an seat.unacceptable; At some level,so though, it felt or invasion there.” are is rumour-mongering (of attitude thatsion certain issues, institutions and like akind shame thesemischievous were 1989, The Times had commisthe webecause saw when SMSes people are holyIn cows. somecirculated of the most trenchant at sioned Singhoffor a photo-essay oninclude eunuchsthe in were in 2012 about sessions possible held violent Freedom expression has to Jaipur inbyrecent years.against people from the right India.to During assignment, she struck up a attacks Muslims diss allthis holy cows.

Introducing ‘TotalIndia Recall’, Northeast in south asBhabha revengesaid: for “We the friendship with a 49-year-old eunuch called vetticad is the author Theassignment Adventures want theofmost technical forms ofand protection Monamm Ahmed.

It was only afterofthe killings Muslims in Myanmar Assam); anna an Intrepid Film Critic but we are exchanging our privacy of was completed that t@annavetticad Ahmed realised the inalso notourselves allowed should be clearly identifiable

…or just go to the bottom and sign anyway. A series of panel discussions at Jaipur Litfest debated the future of private information and personal space

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saturday, january 30, 2016

India: A million monsoons now

tended destination for her pictures: a London McCurry, who is still lauded for the iconic newspaper, which was bad news because she portrait of an Afghan girl for a NatGeo cover, is had relatives in that city, relatives who had no quick to clarify that he is not against ‘modernidea about Ahmed being a member of the isation’: “Who can be against development, third sex. She asked Singh to hand over the progress? No one. It’s nice to have a horsefilm and Singh obeyed. Ahmed promptly drawn carriage on a cobbled street as a subject threw it in the dustbin and embraced the for a photo, but would I even think of riding to young photographer. More than a decade latthe airport on horseback? But yes, the sense of er, in 2001, the duo collaborated on a photoadventure was far greater when I lived for memoir called Myself Mona Ahmed, one of months without the air-conditioner or strugSingh’s early triumphs. gled with having curry and rice at a roadside Art may be amoral on occasion, but one can eatery. There was more poetry, more character always create great art while staying within in those years.” the bounds of ethical conduct: Singh is proof.

The photographer found a soul companion Her concerns about individual privacy were in American novelist Paul Theroux, whose amplified by Bhushan, who warned of a future travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar left him where the concept of private information smitten with the idea of capturing the railwould become obsolete. He also pointed out ways in the subcontinent. Together they travthe irony of voicing privacy concerns in midelled by rail from Peshawar to Chittagong in dle-class India. “I discovered that the only time 1984. Their journey resulted in The Imperial people in this room would understand privaWay, a volume of stunning photographs and cy is if you live in a joint Indian family. At that vivid prose. “It’s a privilege to work with a perbased on the creations Salman Rushdie that anchored time you all have your issues: don’t say this to Story of creation A still from the film Midnight’s Children,son whose havenovel inspired you. Paul our destiny as a nation to the fictionalised biography of Salim Sinai bhabhiji and don’t say that to chachaji.” and I went on to work together on other asBhushan spoke with a great deal of passion signments,” says McCurry. He also recalls how and theatrical flair, aided by a passing resem- any system of governance — is a major deter- if yourason turns out to bevisited gay — which is, after India, country he has more than 70 blance to Prakash Raj, the renowned villain rent to privacy. If knowledge is currency, then all, something over which has absolutely times, made him switch tohe colour photografrom Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. any and all private knowledge is perceived as no — is awful in many ways. fact phy.control More than 30 years after his firstThe colour At one point, he demanded a show of hands to withheld capital from the production cycle. that heMcCurry would fail to discharge hisidea obligation frame, is now open to the of phoestimate the number of audience members These are the kind of judgments that lead to to pay his fair share ifphones. the son told the truth the is a tography on mobile He dismisses with WhatsApp installed on their phones: as populist fascism. reason not phone to tell him the truth.” claim that cameras have made photogexpected, almost everybody met this criteIt is frivolous. not such a“Astretch to imagine this case Last year, the film Masaan, directed by Nee- raphy good photograph involves rion. “Look at this room,” he said, vindicated. raj Ghaywan and written by Varun Grover, fea- in with the father being adepend rich, influenanIndia, internal process…

It doesn’t on the “How do you think Mark Zuckerberg is going tured several scenarios that did corroborate tial man. He would haveactive probably used policeI equipment.

I am very on Instagram. to recoup his $19 billion if not from this gold- Mehta’s bleak view of public policy in India or a private investigator to keep tabssays on the his keep taking photos with the mobile,” mine of your private, intimate, candid, hon- (Bhabha referred to the film on more than one son.

Indeed, BCCI supremo veteran, whothe wasformer seen clicking away atand the cereest, truthful conversations?” Before Bhabha occasion). In the very first scene of the film, we ment N Srinivasan kept centlytycoon concluded edition ofhad theallegedly Jaipur Literasteered the conversation into policy and legal see Devi (Richa Chadda) furtively watching his Ashwin in captivity because of his aftureson Festival.

What remain unchanged in the grounds (to bring Mehta in), Bhushan drop- porn. She then dresses up to meet a young fair with another man. ped some more one-liners, gallows humour man at a hotel room, where their sexual enOn the whole, the Privacy series was enjoyapearls that wouldn’t have been out of place at counter is interrupted by a police inspector, ble because of the sheer quality of the converan open mic. “I’ve used Google Glass and it’s who tells Devi: “Ab tumhaari zindagi kandam sations, the way the panelists played off each the fastest way to get hit by a lady’s handbag.” (condemn)…” How did the inspector get so other’s strengths and — last but certainly not Every great debate should have a naysayer empowered, so brazen that barging into a the least — the charm and erudition of Bhabwho, in a way, attacks the very foundation of room and beating up two consenting adults ha, who expertly moderated each discussion the conflict. For ‘Total Recall’, this was Mehta. having sex wasn’t even a difficult choice for and made sure that in between the artillery “Are we really concerned about privacy in the him? To put it mildly, privacy stands no fire of relevant questions, there were a few inclassical sense?” he asked. “I would submit, chance against the peculiarly Innovative answers in there as well. not really. Because there are four or five things dian ‘honour code’ that has been Bhabha is best known for his that emanate from what we want as a society, running the show in this countheory about the nation-state bethat are fundamentally at odds with privacy. try for a long time now. ing primarily a feat of collective The only time people Which is why it was fitting And these are things that we actually like. I or community imagination, aidin his this room would Horizons calling A 1993 photo of a man carrying a Ganesha into the Arabian Sea, Mumbai india by steve mccurry, published by phaidon/roli books; (right) Steve McCurry during recent visit to India kamal narang mean, the beef ban was an easy case, because that the third discussion of the understand privacy is ed by nationalist texts and other it clearly violated some notion of choice. But series was the one that finally shared cultural tropes. Working if you live in a joint teenager in a red sari, full house. he Called going aeverywhere,” says. ‘The what about the intrusions of holding privacy up thata drew from thisethics starting point, phoyou McCurry world are the that govern Indian family facethat to the drops of a Honour Code’, it conversaThe journey forwas theaIndia series had started tography. “There come withsmiling the choices we first exercise?” could of areanalyse no grey the areasworkings for a photomonsoon shower.that Shot

by Brian tion between Bhabha and the And before journalist. What’s in Goa, on a sultry May afternoon.

Mehta went on to explain accountabilthe nation-state using and theoretithere is there, you Brakeand at a balances south Kolkata rooftop philosohe knew it, McCurry found himself in coastal cannot use tools ity — the checks that we place in Ghanaian-American cal tools like typically advancedreserved softwarefor to 1961, this photograph — one in a series on pher Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Gujarat, followed

by Rajasthan.

“In what misrepresentworks of fiction. anything.

The rules are different monsoon in India — made more than just Appiah writes a column called ‘The in India seemedcurrently like the blink of an eye, I was shooting some traits such of theasVictorothercertainly areas ofhas photography, fashNew York wherein he ian headlines across the world. It catapulted the Ethicist’ for The the vigorous Bagmati riverTimes, in Nepal,” he says, many misguided Darcy ion, novel. but notThere’s when you are acovering topics like answers moral dilemmas posedenby among face of a young Aparna Sen, 16 at the time, to provides adding that thetounrelenting showers upper middle-class Indianwho mencome and the abuse of domestic workers He with was clearly to see the mas- most socialistfrom the photographic hall of fame. And it also in- readers. dowed him a wholetickled new set filmsNepal of theand ’50sthe andPhilippines,” ’60s have at crowd that had gathered spired Steve McCurry, the American photo- sive of survival skills.

Learning for to the conversa- least one Uriah Heep figure. Midnight’s Chilhe says. most famous Indianfor novel when Bhabha told him, “They dren, perhaps the journalist, to document the moods and tion, wadelaughing through neck-deep waters McCurry’s latest series, the of all time, anchored our destiny to the fictionare alltrying very interested inthe honour.” moments of the season. while to balance cam2016 Spring/Summer Collection There are no grey alised of Salim Sinai (Bhabha Septemberfor last year, a gay had for Flipping through the pages of his latest eraInoverhead, instance.

“Byteenager areas of Valentino, took him to a used Maaa biography this book as one of the on examples for his theoEthicist, if it was alright book, India (Phaidon/Roli Books), at a Central written the timetoIThe finished theasking project sai village the border between photojournalist later played Sinai“There in the were novlie to over his father sexuality. His fa- ry; his son Satya Delhi bookstore, McCurry recalls how Brake’s to (lasting a yearabout acrosshis a dozKenya and Tanzania. had madeI it clear thattohere-would disown el’s film version). photo-essay opened a whole new world for ther en countries), had learnt moments in that shoot that reBut of late,minded we areme beginning to days resemble paying his (hefty) tuition fees if him: “I was only 11 when I saw those photos, him spectand thisstop weather phenomenon of my first in InMrAnd Orwell, after all, was out thatnot he the wasmenace gay (the discovery of the fictions of and it made me think that I must experience it asturned a life-changer, dia. thatwho, includes a dust here.

How long before we abandon the old seem love letter to a high school classmate this phenomenon. And that feeling of awe was an it may to someone with a Western eye,” born storm!

Everyone thought it was time to wind of privacy One feels certain prompted ultimatum).

Shockingly, alive even when I proposed a monsoon series had he says.

Gettingthis soaked to the skin became a pursuit up and run, but weentirely? kept shooting through it,” a Ministry of Truth beofwelcomed demanded see printouts of that to National Geographic, almost 20 years after I the dailyfather affair,had something he to seems to have enhe says with a smile.

Thatwould feeling awe that hundreds of thousands of peoplethe in today’s all hisasemail correspondences toduring leave the no by fell in love with Brake’s images in LIFE.” joyed much as running for cover McCurry spoke about is perhaps initial political climate. an perseveAnti-Sex for doubt.

The power of the rains — both nurturing room dust storms that often preceded downpours. charged stage of engagement withPerhaps India. The well. Whoto is endure, a person, Bhabhamonhad Aghast shocking breaches and destructive — compelled the young Mag- “I was newattothese the region, I didn’t speak of anythe of League rance —as willingness through at theand beginning of ‘Total Recall’. man’s privacy, Appiah had or replied num photographer to dedicate more time to young the languages, I didn’t even look dressunelike asked soon bursts dust storms — comes later.PerAs 10 years down the line, weus, will asking onlyinismy thisphotos… young man entitthe project than planned. “It was one of my quivocally: most of the“Not subjects But it was haps, McCurry’s photographs show it be is almost “Who conceal truth hiswith father, he (privately), first trips to India, and I had to, quite literally, led fun,tomore funthe than evenfrom today thebut interalways worth it. is an unperson?” him bottled a repayment when he toss the official itinerary out of the window. doesn’t net, cellowe phones, water,later better toilets, mani jha aditi sengupta afford it. Threatening to do he your duty aditya to handbag” the next,—and I found myself can bigger hotels and fast foodnot chains,” says.

Look away “I’ve used Google Glass and it’s the fastest way One to getthing hit by led a lady’s Niyam Bhushan

The iconic American photojournalist Steve McCurry looks back on his numerous trips to India, journeys that taught him survival skills and steered his craft in new directions

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Yet another day A young patient is carried out of Tata Memorial Centre by his mother

Living with cancer The road outside Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre is the only home for hundreds of patients and their kin

A

Hope floats A doctor arranges medicines for distribution among the patients

wave of green surgical masks greets the eye as you arrive at Dr E Borges Road in Parel, a Mumbai neighbourhood that had little more than textile mills a few decades ago. The next thing you notice is the makeshift tents these masked faces are peeping out from. The flimsy masks are the only protection these cancer patients have from the dust and pollution of the busy road outside Tata Memorial Centre.

Coming from various parts of India, the patients and their families have no other place but the footpath to call home. The non-availability of beds at the hospital forces families to stay in the open for months and, in some cases, years.

Stories of land and houses mortgaged or sold are common among these families. Some of them don’t have a house to return to in their town or village. “We sold our land in Bihar… We’ve been living on the footpath for two years. We had to shut down our busi-

ness of selling bhurji pav,” says Manoj Kumar, 45, suffering from blood cancer.

A friend in need is Jeevan Jyot, an NGO that helps these families with cards for free meals and medicines. “The NGO tries to help us, but can’t take care of all the expenses. The bill for my son is ₹4 lakh and they helped me pay ₹3 lakh. I still have to arrange for the balance and I don’t know how,” says Mufizal, a resident of West Bengal and the father of a one-yearold blood cancer patient.

It often takes months for a patient to get a consultation at Tata Memorial Centre. However, a number of doctors, associated with NGOs, have come forward to help those languishing in the queue. They attend to patients outside their work hours and some even procure free medicines and help treat these patients on the footpath. paul noronha

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Small bites Basic meals distributed daily by social welfare workers

Tiding together Junaid and his parents share a quick bite

In sickness and despair Families from all over India have made footpaths their home

Small mercy A box of candies brings a smile to the lips of a blood cancer patient

Sleeping child A mother awaits her turn at the hospital while her toddler sleeps

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The end of reason ‘Saint’ Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh Ji Insan, chief of Dera Sacha Sauda, which has been variously described as a spiritual organisation and a cult k ananthan; (right) Kiku Sharda, whose mimicry of Insan led to the comedian’s arrest earlier this month rajeev bhatt

FILM FATALE

The right to offend Snap judgement Photographer Dayanita Singh started focusing on empty spaces to avoid intruding into people’s privacy meeta ahlawat

Unless we agree that freedom of expression must include the right to offend, our society will continue to routinely bow to bigots and punish artists

anna mm vetticad

Read our privacy policy

J

anuary has been tough on lovers of the arts. As the first month of the new year draws to a close, fans worldwide are still mourning the loss of David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Glenn Frey in quick succession.

These legends were admired in India too, but we here have our own personal losses to mourn: among them, Rajesh Vivek, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Kalpana, and — the most heartbreaking of them all — the death of common sense and a sense of humour.

Though the connection is not obvious, Mumbai-based comedian Kiku Sharda’s recent arrest came to mind as I read a moving tribute to Rickman in The Guardian. It cited this quote from the late thespian: “Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theatre, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.”

Contrast this with Sharda’s obsequious apologies to those offended by his mimicry of hen it(DSS) comes to privacy, the the Dera Sacha Sauda chief, a man who odds haveRam been stacked calls himself Saint Gurmeet Rahim Singh humanity; wise is as thea Ji Insan. DSS has against been variously described man and still the womspiritual organisation andwiser a cult.

Insan co-dian whowrote realises From moment lanrected, andthis. starred in athe horrendous ode guage began to MSG: exist,TheweMessenger have conflated to himself called in 2015. privacy with theout unnameable the shadMSG2 too came last year. Itfear, is while lamowy threat, thelampoon-worthy subtle knife. Private pooning these films are andthe Inthings that go bump in thecaused night.“outrage” In the Bible, san that Sharda allegedly to God basically punishes Adam andindicate Eve for cov“religious feelings” (quote marks the ering whatofIndian autopsy reports language the IPC’s Section 295A).call ‘private parts’.

It’s nolong coincidence that ‘Private’ is alsoina We have been a nation of nutcases military term, of theofshock-and-awe lexithe matter of part freedom expression. What con of American machismo. makes Sharda’s arrest arguably the final nail week, of I saw photographer Dayanita in Last the coffin freethe speech is the sub-abysmal Singh making a similar point at the Jaipur Litquality of the entity he derided. erature Festival (JLF), about howseen Hindithe didMSG not Seriously, anyone who has have an analogue for ‘private’.

Singh was films could be forgiven for assuming thatpart the of a panel discussion ‘Total by Recall: The ‘Saint’ was begging to titled be mocked comediEnd cartoonists, of Privacy’, moderated Harvard ans, critics and by the the citizenry at professor Bhabha andtoalso featuring large.

HowHomi else isKone to react a ‘guru’ who writer and design-thinker Bhushan encases his stocky frame inNiyam multiple multiand Pratapsequined, Bhanu Mehta (Director, Centre for coloured, flashy, body-hair-baring

outfits on screen? How is one to respond when threats of violence or calls to violence. he sings the words, ‘Without you any other, Beyond this, anyone objecting to the words never never…/ Forever you are my heartbeat/ of others should feel free to spread awareness Another name is beat my heart, never never’? about their objections through all available The argument parroted in all such cases is non-violent means. Write a blog, hold a semithat freedom of expression cannot extend to nar, sit on dharna in protest. the right to “hurt religious feelings”. But what As a society we constantly bow to bigots and does that phrase mean? Who, for instance, de- snub artists because we cannot agree on a cides a legitimate measure of “hurt”? point that should have been a given by now in Earlier this month, I was on a television de- 21st century India: that freedom of expression bate about the Sabarimala shrine’s practice of must include the right to offend. Because “ofkeeping out women in the 10-50 age group. A fend”, “hurt”, “feelings”, “religious sentirepresentative of the holy place held that op- ments” and other such clichés are intangibles ponents of the tradition are trampling upon that can be put to dangerous use to stifle all inreligious freedom. The same point was made convenient debate this week about women’s protests against beIf as liberals we do not dig our heels in on ing barred from the Shani Shingnapur temple this matter, we will routinely find ourselves in in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district. The situations like the present one, where a come“hurting religious sentiments” dian is arrested for ridiculing one contention in the Kiku Shardaof the worst Hindi films in history, ‘Saint’ Insan incident could well simply because the hero happens Policy Research).

This discussion part for of instance, (on social media) a kind of publicity. The be extended to feminists criticis- wasWho, to be afor guru to some. the Privacy series, conceptualised curateda legitimate question of privacy — the publica and the priing Sabarimala and Shani Shing- anddecides We are already society in

by Bhabha.

— is not only a spatial metaphor about sonapur.

Question: does my measure of vate which the Alan Rickmans among “hurt”?

To be sure, these talks but directors, also about how and we freedom of expression endweren’t where really what ciety or legality, us — actors, writers you call big ticket events by JLF standards. The perceive theother boundaries the personal: your freedom of religion begins? creativeofpeople who dowho not first discussion in this the column series clashed with a is a person? take Whatlightly is a person?”

Please note that is their power to influenRuskin Bond session.

The second Singh wasce the to offer her views. Being not advocating free speech abso- (the afore— first are abused, threatened, evena mentioned ‘Totalcivilised Recall’) picked photographer, sheof admitted lutism.

Clearly, discourse requires killed when they act as “agents change”.that up the leftovers from theSince Margashetempted was “in the most obvious sitreasonable restrictions. this debate is beYou may be to see this as a misret Atwood As the a result, uation since with privacy”.

“When ing draggedtalk. down gutterthe of low intellect placed comparison Kiku Sharda is noI crowds at the Privacy were couldn’t bear itKhan, any more, diby right-wingers, it isseries best to spell out the ex-exchanging Alan Rickman, no Aamir Shah the Rukh We are par rather than and extraordinary. lemma of violating people’s ceptions in black white: critiques areprivacy fine, (on Khan, Salman Rushdie, MM Kalburgi or priGoour social This turned to be propitious vacy that’s whenIn-I abuse is not,out so you may say “X indulges in sen-for avind either,repeatedly, and his show on ‘Saint’ media) kindPansare of for your correspondent, who“Journalist X started photographing sationalist journalism” but not is san can by no yardstick be consideredempty high publicity arrive seconds spaces, because I thought maybe acould ****ing bitch30 who shouldbefore be raped” (this is a art. It does not matter, because the mindset each session and still get a falsehoods that seeks to there won’t be this of intrusample frombegan Twitter); deliberate suppress them all iskind the same: an seat.unacceptable; At some level,so though, it felt or invasion there.” are is rumour-mongering (of attitude thatsion certain issues, institutions and like akind shame thesemischievous were 1989, The Times had commisthe webecause saw when SMSes people are holyIn cows. somecirculated of the most trenchant at sioned Singhoffor a photo-essay oninclude eunuchsthe in were in 2012 about sessions possible held violent Freedom expression has to Jaipur inby recent years.against people from the right India.to During assignment, she struck up a attacks Muslims diss allthis holy cows.

Introducing ‘Total India Recall’, Northeast in south asBhabha revengesaid: for “We the friendship with a 49-year-old eunuch called vetticad the author Theassignment Adventures want theofmost technical forms ofand protection Monamm Ahmed.

It wasis only afterofthe killings Muslims in Myanmar Assam); anna an Intrepid Film Critic but we are exchanging our privacy of was completed that t@annavetticad Ahmed realised the inalso notourselves allowed should be clearly identifiable

…or just go to the bottom and sign anyway. A series of panel discussions at Jaipur Litfest debated the future of private information and personal space

W

Q R Q R

ND-X _ A

BL

watch cover

saturday, january 30, 2016

India: A million monsoons now

tended destination for her pictures: a London McCurry, who is still lauded for the iconic newspaper, which was bad news because she portrait of an Afghan girl for a NatGeo cover, is had relatives in that city, relatives who had no quick to clarify that he is not against ‘modernidea about Ahmed being a member of the isation’: “Who can be against development, third sex. She asked Singh to hand over the progress? No one. It’s nice to have a horsefilm and Singh obeyed. Ahmed promptly drawn carriage on a cobbled street as a subject threw it in the dustbin and embraced the for a photo, but would I even think of riding to young photographer. More than a decade latthe airport on horseback? But yes, the sense of er, in 2001, the duo collaborated on a photoadventure was far greater when I lived for memoir called Myself Mona Ahmed, one of months without the air-conditioner or strugSingh’s early triumphs. gled with having curry and rice at a roadside Art may be amoral on occasion, but one can eatery. There was more poetry, more character always create great art while staying within in those years.” the bounds of ethical conduct: Singh is proof.

The photographer found a soul companion Her concerns about individual privacy were in American novelist Paul Theroux, whose amplified by Bhushan, who warned of a future travelogue The Great Railway Bazaar left him where the concept of private information smitten with the idea of capturing the railwould become obsolete. He also pointed out ways in the subcontinent. Together they travthe irony of voicing privacy concerns in midelled by rail from Peshawar to Chittagong in dle-class India. “I discovered that the only time 1984. Their journey resulted in The Imperial people in this room would understand privaWay, a volume of stunning photographs and cy is if you live in a joint Indian family. At that vivid prose. “It’s a privilege to work with a perbased on thecreations Salman Rushdie that anchored time you all have your issues: don’t say this to Story of creation A still from the film Midnight’s Children,son whose havenovel inspired you. Paul our destiny as a nation to the fictionalised biography of Salim Sinai bhabhiji and don’t say that to chachaji.” and I went on to work together on other asBhushan spoke with a great deal of passion signments,” says McCurry. He also recalls how and theatrical flair, aided by a passing resem- any system of governance — is a major deter- if yourason turns out to be gay — more whichthan is, after India, country he has visited 70 blance to Prakash Raj, the renowned villain rent to privacy. If knowledge is currency, then all, something over which has absolutely times, made him switch tohe colour photografrom Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada films. any and all private knowledge is perceived as no — is awful in many ways. fact phy.control More than 30 years after his firstThe colour At one point, he demanded a show of hands to withheld capital from the production cycle. that heMcCurry would fail to discharge hisidea obligation frame, is now open to the of phoestimate the number of audience members These are the kind of judgments that lead to to pay his fair share ifphones. the son told the truth the is a tography on mobile He dismisses with WhatsApp installed on their phones: as populist fascism. reason notphone to tell him the truth.” claim that cameras have made photogexpected, almost everybody met this criteIt is frivolous. not such a“Astretch to imagine this case Last year, the film Masaan, directed by Nee- raphy good photograph involves rion. “Look at this room,” he said, vindicated. raj Ghaywan and written by Varun Grover, fea- in with the father being adepend rich, influenan India, internal process…

It doesn’t on the “How do you think Mark Zuckerberg is going tured several scenarios that did corroborate tial man. He Iwould haveactive probably used policeI equipment. am very on Instagram. to recoup his $19 billion if not from this gold- Mehta’s bleak view of public policy in India or a private investigator to keep tabssays on the his keep taking photos with the mobile,” mine of your private, intimate, candid, hon- (Bhabha referred to the film on more than one son.

Indeed, BCCI supremo veteran, whothe wasformer seen clicking away atand the cereest, truthful conversations?” Before Bhabha occasion). In the very first scene of the film, we ment N Srinivasan kept centlytycoon concluded edition ofhad theallegedly Jaipur Literasteered the conversation into policy and legal see Devi (Richa Chadda) furtively watching his Ashwin in captivity because of his aftureson Festival.

What remain unchanged in the grounds (to bring Mehta in), Bhushan drop- porn. She then dresses up to meet a young fair with another man. ped some more one-liners, gallows humour man at a hotel room, where their sexual enOn the whole, the Privacy series was enjoyapearls that wouldn’t have been out of place at counter is interrupted by a police inspector, ble because of the sheer quality of the converan open mic. “I’ve used Google Glass and it’s who tells Devi: “Ab tumhaari zindagi kandam sations, the way the panelists played off each the fastest way to get hit by a lady’s handbag.” (condemn)…” How did the inspector get so other’s strengths and — last but certainly not Every great debate should have a naysayer empowered, so brazen that barging into a the least — the charm and erudition of Bhabwho, in a way, attacks the very foundation of room and beating up two consenting adults ha, who expertly moderated each discussion the conflict. For ‘Total Recall’, this was Mehta. having sex wasn’t even a difficult choice for and made sure that in between the artillery “Are we really concerned about privacy in the him? To put it mildly, privacy stands no fire of relevant questions, there were a few inclassical sense?” he asked. “I would submit, chance against the peculiarly Innovative answers in there as well. not really. Because there are four or five things dian ‘honour code’ that has been Bhabha is best known for his that emanate from what we want as a society, running the show in this countheory about the nation-state bethat are fundamentally at odds with privacy. try for a long time now. ing primarily a feat of collective The only time people Which is why it was fitting And these are things that we actually like. I or community imagination, aidin his this room would Horizons calling A 1993 photo of a man carrying a Ganesha into the Arabian Sea, Mumbai india by steve mccurry, published by phaidon/roli books; (right) Steve McCurry during recent visit to India kamal narang mean, the beef ban was an easy case, because that the third discussion of the understand privacy is ed by nationalist texts and other it clearly violated some notion of choice. But series was the one that finally shared cultural tropes. Working if you live in a joint teenager in a red sari, full house. he Called going aeverywhere,” says. ‘The what about the intrusions of holding privacy up thata drew from thisethics starting point, phoyou McCurry world are the that govern Indian family facethat to the drops of a Honour Code’, for it was conversaThe journey theaIndia series had started tography. “There come withsmiling the choices we first exercise?” could the workings of areanalyse no grey areas for a photomonsoon shower.that Shot

by Brian tion between Bhabha and the And before journalist. What’s in Goa, on a sultry May afternoon.

Mehta went on to explain accountabilthe nation-state using and theoretithere is there, you Brake and at a balances south Kolkata rooftop philosohe knew it, McCurry found himself in coastal cannot use tools ity — the checks that we place in Ghanaian-American cal tools like typically advanced reserved software for to 1961, this photograph — one in a series on pher Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Gujarat, followed

by Rajasthan.

“In what misrepresentworks of fiction. anything.

The rules are different monsoon in India — made more than just Appiah writes a column called ‘The in India seemed currently like the blink of an eye, I was shooting some traits such of theasVictorothercertainly areas of has photography, fashNew York wherein he ian headlines across the world. It catapulted the Ethicist’ for The the vigorous Bagmati river Times, in Nepal,” he says, many misguided Darcy ion, novel. but notThere’s when you are acovering topics like answers moral dilemmas posedenby among face of a young Aparna Sen, 16 at the time, to provides adding that thetounrelenting showers upper middle-class Indianwho mencome and the abuse of domestic workers He with was clearly to see the mas- most socialistfrom the photographic hall of fame. And it also in- readers. dowed him a wholetickled new set filmsNepal of theand ’50sthe andPhilippines,” ’60s have at crowd that had gathered spired Steve McCurry, the American photo- sive of survival skills.

Learning for to the conversa- least one Uriah Heep figure. Midnight’s Chilhe says. most famous Indianfor novel when Bhabha told him, “They dren, perhaps the journalist, to document the moods and tion, wadelaughing through neck-deep waters McCurry’s latest series, the of all time, anchored our destiny to the fictionare alltrying very interested honour.” moments of the season. while to balanceinthe cam2016 Spring/Summer Collection There are no grey alised of Salim Sinai (Bhabha Septemberfor last year, a gay had for Flipping through the pages of his latest eraInoverhead, instance.

“Byteenager areas of Valentino, took him to a used Maaa biography of the on examples for his theoEthicist, if it was photojournalist alright this book as one book, India (Phaidon/Roli Books), at a Central written the timetoIThe finished theasking project sai village the border between later played Sinai“There in thewere novlie to over his father sexuality. His fa- ry; his son Satya Delhi bookstore, McCurry recalls how Brake’s to (lasting a yearabout acrosshis a dozKenya and Tanzania. had madeI it clear thattohere-would disown el’s film version). photo-essay opened a whole new world for ther en countries), had learnt moments in that shoot that reBut of late,minded we areme beginning todays resemble paying his (hefty) tuition fees if him: “I was only 11 when I saw those photos, him spectand thisstop weather phenomenon of my first in InMrAnd Orwell, after all, was out thatnot he the wasmenace gay (the discovery of the fictions of and it made me think that I must experience it asturned a life-changer, dia. thatwho, includes a dust here.

How long before we time abandon the old seem love letter to a high school classmate this phenomenon. And that feeling of awe was an it may to someone with a Western eye,” born storm!

Everyone thought it was to wind of privacy One feels certain prompted ultimatum). alive even when I proposed a monsoon series had he says.

Getting this soaked to the skinShockingly, became a pursuit up and run, but weentirely? kept shooting through it,” a Ministry of Truth beofwelcomed demanded see printouts of that to National Geographic, almost 20 years after I the dailyfather affair,had something he to seems to have enhe says with a smile.

Thatwould feeling awe that hundreds of thousands of peoplethe in today’s all hisasemail correspondences toduring leave the no by fell in love with Brake’s images in LIFE.” joyed much as running for cover McCurry spoke about is perhaps initial political climate. an perseveAnti-Sex for doubt.

The power of the rains — both nurturing room dust storms that often preceded downpours. charged stage of engagement withPerhaps India. The well. Whoto is endure, a person, Bhabhamonhad Aghast shocking breaches and destructive — compelled the young Mag- “I was newattothese the region, I didn’t speak of anythe of League rance —as willingness through at theand beginning of ‘Total Recall’. man’s privacy, had or replied num photographer to dedicate more time to young the languages, I didn’tAppiah even look dressunelike asked soon bursts dust storms — comes later.PerAs 10 years down the line, weus, will asking onlyinismy thisphotos… young man the project than planned. “It was one of my quivocally: most of the “Not subjects But itentitwas haps, McCurry’s photographs show it be is almost “Who conceal truth hiswith father, he (privately), first trips to India, and I had to, quite literally, led fun,tomore fun the than evenfrom today thebut interalways worth it. is an unperson?” him bottled a repayment when he toss the official itinerary out of the window. doesn’t net, cell owe phones, water,later better toilets, mani jha aditi sengupta afford it. Threatening to do he your duty aditya to the next,— and I found myself can bigger hotels and fast foodnot chains,” says.

Look away “I’ve used Google Glass and it’s the fastest wayOne to getthing hit by led a lady’s handbag” Niyam Bhushan

The iconic American photojournalist Steve McCurry looks back on his numerous trips to India, journeys that taught him survival skills and steered his craft in new directions

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saturday, january 30,30, 2016 saturday, january 2016

Beauty in the bizarre Valleys are lit up, one by one First they took lighting to remote Himalayan villages, Battiviewer Project Taking a leaf outsolar-based of Naïve Art, Mumbai artist Nayanaa Kanodia laysnow outThe for the a bold members taking donors a cycling feast of theare idiosyncrasies ofon Indian life expedition to see the results for themselves

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resh, exuberant, wacky, detailed, childlike and profound — Mumbai artist Nayanaa Kanodia’s paintings provide a bird's eye view of every cultural milieu she picks. She was inspired by the d’Art Naif tradition, as its intrinsic naiveté allowed her the freedom to explore the ambiguities of life, making even prickly subjects and differences flavourful and palatable. An acute observer, she holds a mirror to the idiosyncratic slips and bizarre paradoxes of Indian life. Tossing together nuances of religion, occupation and class, she boldly lays out a banquet for us to feast on. The beauty is in the details, and oh! how many she packs in: vivid kajal-lined eyes, a frilly handkerchief, a lantern, a giraffe and a book. The viewer is always drawn back to discover, as in puzzles that ask “What is different about this picture?” The artist spoke with BLink on the sidelines of her recent show, The Journey of Life, at Gallery Veda in Chennai.

Excerpts: rarely follow theinnorms of Travelling light The on-ground team of The Batti Project,Your whichpaintings aims to light up 1,500 homes the Seppa-Bama-Lada belt of Arunachal Pradesh by the year end; (right) at Mitaka village, team members test and install a Batti kit, perspective; three-dimensional forms are batti project which includes a solar panel, battery and three LED bulbs the represented in illusory ways, sometimes flat.

Did you draw realistically before you moved to this style? hile most of us took the day offonthis Day, 15 cyI studied painting my Republic own but felt I should clists rolled out afrom in learn it systematically.

We teach childTezu, the alArunachal partare of phabet before reading canPradesh, begin. Ifasyou the strong Mishmi Hills Challenge. not in the basics, how canInterestingly, you do somewhen they finishMy on early February 3, the were winner thing different? paintings of will notfrom be one ofrealistic them; instead, it will be a horses, very to impressionistic, community in the State’s remote Seppa varying brushstrokes.

When I visited theValley, State where lives are set to change thanks to the 10day ‘Ride To Light’ cycling expedition.

The 300-km ride in the Lohit, Dibang and Lower Dibang districts has been envisioned as a fund-raiser for The Batti Project, launched in 2012 by Rajiv Rathod and Merwyn Coutinho.

Bitten by the adventure bug, the duo had in 2010 quit their jobs and hit the road with no clear plan other than being on the move.

In December that year, on a trek to Gandhigram in Changlang, Arunachal Pradesh, what struck them was the lack of basic lighting in those parts. The following December, they decided to spread some Christmas cheer and played Santa Claus by giving out 140-odd solar lamps to the residents, for which well-wishers had pitched in with funds. Their insatiable wanderlust had met a newfound cause, and before long they set up The Batti Project.

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Bright smiles Hermitage Museum at St Petersburg, the ex“People other villages approached usand for hibit onfrom Picasso’s early realistic drawings help.he It set the ball in motion Rathod how evolved to Cubism wasfor an us,” eye-opener. said telephone from Bengaluru, just beIf he over had not taken that route, he could never fore heading to Arunachal Pradesh for the ridhave been as profound. ing challenge.

How did you adopt the d’Art Naif style that He took charge of the project’s administrahas characterised your oeuvre? tion, while Coutinho became the on-field a 1989 Land one Cruiser Iscout; saw athey showbought of Art Naif abroad timesome and years ago an which is now Coutinho’s home-onfelt it was appropriate way to represent our wheels. “Merwyn hasand beencorner on theinroad culture.

Every street Indiasince has 2010, finding our target car something interesting andvillages.

I wantedThat to poralonethese is enough to draw localsstyle. rectray patterns in aattention… contemporary ognise him and buildings approachwas himvery directly My series on now Mumbai pop-

Hello, good buy In Nayanaa Kanodia’s ‘The Tourists’, foreigners are intent on sightseeing while Indians are more keen on shopping; (below) the artist with her work ‘The Red Quilt’ sujatha shankar kumar

with their requests,” Rathod quipped. members have been raising funds by recyCoutinho finds out the requirement in the cling electronic waste collected from individular.

Then, I explored studios people selected village and thephotographic project’s seven-memnever mind to it. Iinvolve don’t want anystrata section uals. “We wanted every of during British Raj. With no access ber corethe team arranges to supply it. to cam- of society to be hurt by what society — you don’t always needI paint. moneySurpristo coneras, at photo studios are for ingly, Thefamilies solar assembled home-lighting systems is easierato render tragicexplained. scenes — catributeittowards cause,” Rathod portraits.

There was this big preparation, se- tastrophes, sourced from Australia-based Barefoot Power. earthquakes.

But idea to of exemplify Soon, the team hit upon the getting lecting costumes andpanel, posing against an artifi- satire Each unit has a solar a battery, a charge is far more difficult.

It isinalso to the donors actively involved thedifficult project so cial Kashmiri backdrop!

In bulbs, 1995, I did an entire controller, and three LED holders and work out so many on a single that they could seecolours for themselves thecanvas. differseries on Itcity on the for beach — sevthe My switches. can vendors provide lighting about patterns aremaking laid outto with great care. of the ence they were lives in some phoolvaala, — old market scenes en to eight naariyalvaala hours using the charge from four most remote hamlets of India. That, in turn, paintings always try to create a selfwhich, with economic growth, will disappear. Your to five hours of sunlight. led to Ride To Light, which will culminate in sustained narrative.

MyAfter paintings are like records ofpicked our society.

Gandhigram, the team the iso- lighting up 10 homes in Indili village, in Lower lated hamlet of Dopuwa, in Lower Dibang Val- It is a story within a story. Many collectors tell Dibang Valley.

When begin to create a and lit up seven ley, foryou their pilot project me, time seeof your “The cyclists get‘Each to ride inwe some thepaintmost scene, photographs homesdo in you Maytake 2012; a year later, ing, we find something new inpristine surroundings — intothe or make sketches to put to 13 vilthey provided lighting terpret, something in process they help us different raise funds. together your compositions? lages in the Hunli-Desali belt. every corner’.

They feel happy the We realised that we were simply On a street in Tijara, If ITheir take photographs, I may befavourite memory resame message is not providing a channel for carried people She had spent her in Alwar, thereall were come recollection four mainscareless that ofinamy 70-something across paintings. to do what they love.

This project life roadside in darkness and dentists of the woman scene. Sowho I bank my tribal hadon never depends on people, and our aim wanted tokinds have the doing all of In ‘Spoilt Choice’, what are memory and light makeand preparatory seen artificial kept flipis to buildfor communities through light on untillike theroot day procedures, the manRathod and woman doing — to sketches the actual painting. ping the for switch on and off, unthem,” said.

In order shewithout died canal, celebrating their In foreigners able ‘The to tearTourists’, her eyes from it. make the cut, theanniversary cyclists notin onanaesthetic the middle of an exotic standing in a line are more “Her fellow villager toldinterus a ly had to prove their fitness, but Rousseau-type jungle setting? ested in sightseeing Indifew years later that but shethe refused also raise a minimum of ans are keen on shopping.

In our to turn the light off even during The woman goes to the jungle as ₹40,000 towards the cause. villages, we co-exist plants the day, arguing thatwith she had spent all her life she is fedhave up ofsigned the city The 15 cyclists who uplife, for but the and animals, identify with in darkness and wantedsimultaneously to have the light on she still needsride herhave comforts and wants to entire 300-km been joined by variEast alldied,” the while tenaciously cling- make untiland the West, day she Rathod said. her choices. she takes her cheflegs along ous groups of localSo, cyclists for shorter of ing to our roots. Once I was in a street in Tijara, and he is serving her cake and beverages, all the trip.

Fund of goodwill in Alwar, and there were four roadside den- herAfter favourite She’s also got her pet for a day things! of riding hard, the party settles tists kinds of procedures, like sources root ca- company.

Evendoing as theall team waits to tap formal If you observe human we down for the night in camps thatnature, have been nal, without it anaesthetic.

You get to see a very get for funding, has kept going on the strength so in used our comforts life, and more set up theto idyllic jungles eninroute. different perspective and realise that many of the enthusiastic responses to its posts on than comfort, it’swill the choices weBatti make.Project There Ride to Light help The things are taken for granted. I translate these are social media. innumerable situations in one person’s move one step closer to its target of powering opinions and minimal choices ofeffort people a vision.

“Even with oninto social media, life and endless possibilities at home,belt at the 1,500 homes in the Seppa-Bama-Lada by we’ve had people stepping forward time and workspace, during holidays so to many situathe end of the year. “We want — this be a study You have found a unique form that brings again to help. On an average, we always man- tions thatis are unforeseen.

MyGive paintings are on what truly sustainable. us money acceptance to stereotypes and inherent age to raise the money needed to light up at about thewill journey and we light of uplife. all of the North-east,” cultural differences. least one home each month,” said Siddharth Rathod signed off.

My seriesaon Parsis brings out their Prakash, member of the core team.traits, but sujatha shankar kumar is a writer and visualiser Chennai shailindesai is a Mumbai-based writer theAdditionally, way I depictsince communities is healthy and based August last year, team

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saturday, january 30,30, 2016 saturday, january 2016

COSMOPOLIS

Dadu’s tree and the headless Kanishka Collections at Indian museums may not swell with the spoils of empire, but they help cross borders of time and remind us of the complexity of history Stand your ground Allahabad’s quiet, counterhegemonic culture is site counterpoint to a series of 2,000-year-old reflected at a fireworks statues from Gandhara (the region today in display, attended by people northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan, where from various faiths, on similar antiquities have been smashed Christmas eve by Isla-

afp/sanjay kanojia mist militants). These largely Buddhist artworks are remarkable for the fine pathos of the faces, their downturned gazes, delicate moustaches. Though shaped in stone, their robes and ornaments fall gently. There is a great lightness to these figures, and a sense of quiet, individual poise.

Elsewhere in the museum, you can troop through a superbly crafted (and very modern) display on the evolution of coinage in India from ancient times to the present. Only steps away is a cobwebbed room of wooden display Agar mazhab khalal-andaz hai Flashback 1: I am stranded on a street in the traffic.

What grieves me isofthe sceptre of casesnised full of the bones and fossils ancient mulki maqasid mein/ pre-mobile phone era. It’s night time. Two slowness displaced non-inclusive, uncomcreatures, captioned withbyhand-painted signs.

To sheikh-o-brahmin pinhan rahen young men appear from nowhere and knock passionate efficiency.

The room seems frozen in the 19th century. dair-o-masjid mein on my car window. I panic. But they offer to to my neighbourhood parkisI noOne of As theI walk charms of the Indian Museum (If religion becomes meddlesome in the af- push my car to the nearest petrol station a paradoxical sign erected above a newly this tice dissonant museography; the museum’s Timekeeper Museum’s eclectic reflect of an older age ofjump-starts gentlemen polymaths fairs ofThe theIndian nation/ Shaikh andholdings Brahmin arethe spirit where a mechanic it and I fumble repaved street; chambers — and not simply their contents — sushanta patronobish and curious collectors, melding human and natural history better confined to mosque and temple) for words to express my gratitude. But Allahakatimes. hai yahi kamal belongAllahabad to different Akbar Allahabadi (1846-1921) bad is gearing up to become a smart city. In Museums Tan, mann, dhan,will teenon khushaal in India never have the adhen I visited Kolkata’s Indian well-organised halls. I couldn’t but feel the smart Allahabad, I will help probably call aa toll(Accomplishments Allahabad are/ Protecvantages of those in the ofWest that formed llahabad the Icities Museumisinone theofpast, wentI call littlefree embarrassed the Indian number forfor assistance andMuseum. not count on for yourover body,a soul andof wealth) theirtion collections century free-wheelhome and ittofills me awith principally admire fossil-sweet This was our closest to the famous ing imperialism. the kindness of equivalent good-hearted strangers.

It’s a divided with separate But street, I hope for a time whenlanes In- for pride and and the gawp reasonatbears special ised tree a headmuseums of the 2: West, andreturning half the from time ait long Flashback We are and easily pedestrians.

In typically dianscars, willbicycles have more available to them Allamention.

The above Urdu The couplet less statue. Both had personal meaning. wasn’t even clear you were looking at. milk.the pleasures vacation; thewhat neighbours send food and habadi form rebellion, recline where andofcivic virtuescows of museums by a the 19th-century ofmaternal Allahabadgreatpoints to Though first was discovery poet of my the Indian is actually ol- It’s Flashback 3: MyMuseum older daughter is sick. pedestrians areLouvre. meantAs towe walk and pedestrilike the Met and the increasingly the success formulaInfor running governgrandfather, a geologist.

1924, he was asumder than of don’t its illustrious western coun4ammany and we have a car.

We knock on our ans over walk history in car lanes. a few feet away grapple and Just its meanings, mu- are ment — separation of religious affairs from afmoned to examine the long trunk of a petriterparts (it was founded neighbour’s door. in 1814), it has never seums yellow, tents of the builders play plastic-covered an essential role.

They excite the of fairs that of had the been nation.

Given inthe recent fied tree unearthed rural had theThe same resources as institutions fast-vanishing Allahabad islike anthe oft-prethis street.

Early the borders morning, imagination, help us in cross of men time split hand-wringing and debates Bengal.

It was 250 million years about old, a pluralism, suffi- British Museum ininLondon or Ghalib at Dusk is wood and sent character my writing. the women on roadside and place, andcook remind us of thefires. cultural diversity, tolerance, ciently venerable age toand winreligious its place in the In- AkLouvre in Paris, whose global col- era a story about a pre-Partition Children in the dirt and cry complexity ofsquat history.

And they Allahabadi’s secularism is reflected in predian bar Museum’s motley collection.

The object lections are swollen with labyrinthine house thatthe had to with vacant, sleep-laden makeoruswait humble in the face of sent-day Allahabad’s we know as ‘Dadu’s tree’ nowpluralism, wards the cultural en- spoilsmake of empire.

Kolkata way for aThe block of flats. A eyes. WhenofAllahabad achieves the immensity both the past me a kind diversity and religious Tolerance trance of the geological wing. tolerance.

Visitors walk by museum’s eclectic holdings re- ex-It allowed dried-up well that no longer smart city status, will it protect Winterthe is asense traditionand present. and secularism are inbred values, part of Allait bemused, not entirely sure what to make flect ists the spirit an older age of of intimacy, in theof84-pillared Chaurasi those huddledtoatsee the bottom I was heartened that the of lived on terraces habad’s Ganga-Jamuni its grey, prehistoric bulk. tehzeeb (composite culgentlemen polymaths and curi- in that I had a special Khamba is a crucial character theMuseum development Indian was pyramid? brimming claim over the statue Ayodhya’s contagion notking infected Theture). second object was a statuehas of the ous collectors, melding human the story Love: Unclassified.

No guesswork needed to with people.

It was ais holiday Allahabad.

Not yet.

Eid, Diwali and Christmas Kanishka.

Its defining feature — apart from an and natural history.

Allahabad and itsGeology people cherknowand whose lives Ghar and —liveliweekend the Jadu are belted celebrated weddings of Muslim, elegant tunicand and sword scabbard — Hinbrushes against ish up their habitspalaeontoloand traditions. hoods willasbethe protected in is smart ‘magic house’ museum du lack or Christian friends attended with an was its of a head.

With are a child’s narcisgy, which tumbles into archaeol- on rooftop terrac- Allahabad.

One such habit is wintering Cintu hascalled been selling bread, delightfully in Bengali — butsism,unassuming I had alwayseverydayness. taken a particular interest ogy and numismatics. es, which in the fast-encroaching era of multiter of and biscuits forsorts years.ofHe starts day on was full visitors of all ages andhis backAllahabad is not what call a smart in the signs and symbols of theyou historical fig- or This month, I visitedapartments, the museum the habstoried, terraceless is afor dying his bicycle, his wares his singgrounds.

Some calling ploddedoutthrough theinhalls happening place, asKanishks is clear and fromKanishthe steady ure that all modern-day first time its 2014 renovation.

Dadu’s it. A since winter morning unfolding ontree an old voice.

I noticemisery, the absence his ‘gomti’, with song a kind of dutiful feelingofobliged exodus of after. its younger, kas are named I wasn’teducated troubled population. by the was still where we remembered it to delicious. be, snak- You Allahabad terrace is something his atlittle from to look this wooden and look cabin at thaton (westilts, all have a the Asidethe from its association with Hindi-Urdu fact that statue was decapitated, but in- liting along side of the great courtyard in incouldone sprint from one to the other end of street.museums It was smashed by thespaces, Allahabad habitsmart of treating like sacred luminaries Varma and Fisteaderature’s projected my own (Mahadevi head on top of the numerable glass Kanishka’s these lanes overcases. the common wallsstatue, of terraces.

Nigam as part beautias if Nagar our pious visits wereofatheir kindcity-wide of pilgrimbeginknow with) bodyraq of theGorakhpuri, warrior king.toI didn’t any and however, was from public view, sup- age).fication Winter is blocked a tradition lived on terraces. heto tells All the teasplenand paan Others drive, thrilled theme. range and marvels like Ithe Nehrumy family otherarchitectural Kanishks at the time and thought posedlyAs hidden forthe maintenance. soon as sun climbs Sometimes up, people aclimb from on thedisplay. smartened streetled have dourgomtis of artefacts A mother her vanBhavan, the Mughal-era fort, the namehome, ratherAnand rare (Facebook has since cruelly headless kingWomen needs achat, facelift, too. up too. plait hair, shell peas, or ished.from “They say ittoisstatue, aboutreminding gareebi hatao daughter statue her(povtombsme of Khusro the beautiful disabused of that Bagh, idea). and It allowed me a but Even if the cannot match the ‘enpick overmuseum rice. Cleaned and washed grain is alleviation) but it’s really about gareeb of theerty importance of each.

Teenagers posed for ko University kind neglected of intimacy,Allahabad the sense that I had a campus, special tocyclopaedic’ range of Children those inplay thegames, West, shout, it selfies spread out to dry. hatao (remove the poor),” Cintu reflects. in front of ancient Buddhas.

A young the city is known for its laid-back lawyers claimday over the statue. boasts some school marvellous artefacts.

I wasdoze memorise lessons.

Grandmothers I return tothe more disquieting news in boy pressed his home nose to glass between him andlittle clerks.

You can seerest them clamouring I had interest in the of the mu- stunned by charpais. a 1,000-year-old from Od-from off on Washed Durga saris are hung the papers andleft I wonder what and Dadu’s tree. He a smudge, thecharacter trace of a will tea quaint and samosa stallsanear the of courts. seum.around It seemed and dusty, muddle isha ,parapets a sword like heldlong aloftprayer over her head, im- tea, flags.

Menandrink Allahabad assume writing? childsmart communing, howeverin my briefly, with Other unforgettables areobjects.

Allahabad’s melons uncaptioned sculptures and Having placable on her face, moustachioed readsmile the paper and sunthe their oiled bodies. something (In this monthly column, unfathomably old. authors chronicle the and A sweet, pinkgrown upguavas in Newand Yorkkachori-jalebi.

City, I was accustomed mahishasura crushed is beneath.

That strength This Allahabad set to morph into a futuris- cities they call home) t@kanishktharoor fleshed Allahabadi guava isofworth biting to the Metropolitan Museum Art and itsinto. and writhing movementinprovided an exquitic city. Something me grieves.

I am not But it’s the citizens who make the city what against modern sewage plants, functioning nighat gandhi is the author of Ghalib at Dusk and it is. garbage disposal, reliable electricity and orga- Other Stories

HOME SPUN

Smart city wannabe

The fast-vanishing slowness of Allahabad is worth preserving in writing

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Kanishk Tharoor is the author of Swimmer Among the Stars: Stories, a collection of short fiction

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The empire’s loyal subject The popular legend of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa has a backstory, that of a man with fawning loyalty to the British

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here is a backstoIndian. ry to the legend of Could Gandhi’s subseMahatma Gandquent political trajectory be hi, enacted in linked with the arc traced in South Africa, and told in South Africa? Desai and large part in the glow of revVahed show how his early erence that envelops him in moves since returning to Innationalist historiography. dia followed an established Further embellishments loyalist pattern. World War I were added since South Afrisaw him stepping up eagerly ca’s liberation from decades to volunteer for the British of white racist rule, when war effort, and when the emthe bonds established by pire was threatened with disGandhi’s supposedly unintegration in 1918, he flinching commitment to declared his willingness — to equality, became the subthe dismay of pacifist Eustratum of its diplomatic ropean associates from bonding with India.

South Africa — to bear arms It is an appealing story, for the imperial cause.

Pregnant between bothpoliticbut fails with everypossibilities basic test The of proposal for an eight-month maternity break for women promises utopia for many, more so if it were to be Individed 1958, the Marxist parents: five months maternity authenticity.

In of The South leave followed by three months of paternity leave namas bhojani/bloomberg ian and theoretician EMS African Gandhi: StretcherNamboodiripad published a Bearer of Empire, Ashwin Depioneering assessment of EXCERPT sai and Goolam Vahed use, Gandhi’s politics, titled The for the most part, their subMahatma and the Ism. ‘EMS’ as ject’s own locutions to eshe was known, pointed out tablish a different persona. how, even after the JallianwaThey do not have to delve vela Bagh massacre of 1919, ry deep to lay bare Gandhi’s Gandhi remained torn befawning loyalty to the Brittween his revulsion at the ish empire and his naive becrimes of the empire and his lief in its commitment to belief in British fair play. He fair play. This fealty to the waffled and vacillated as Blinkered view The native African and the indentured Indian remained peripheral to white man’s empire was inmass discontent spread, only Gandhi’s vision hindu archives flected with a conspicuous making up his mind when sense of disdain towards General Reginald Dyer, the the native African, whose supposed moral in- governor-general Lord Gladstone and Boer commanding officer responsible for Jalliancapacity made him an undeserving claimant prime minister Jan Smuts sought to tighten wala Bagh, was accorded an effusive public refor equal rights. the structures of white supremacy with extor- action on his return to Britain. It was then that These political attitudes would have swiftly tionate taxes and oppressive restraints on In- he issued his famous diktat that any form of been rendered irrelevant had Gandhi not rode dian and native African alike. Imprisoned at cooperation with the ‘satanic’ colonial regime a pregnancy boss is an panies a week paternitythat leave.

How is was the crest ofnnouncing colonial history.

When to thea British at home,’ shesin. says, ‘and I could see their exearlyhave stage in theofagitation followed, a mortal not something womenhe in volthe Gandhi that enough?

Ideally, if a woman takes care of pressions empire collided with Boer most nationalism, suddenly change into a questioning acquired a certain mystique in the It was the beginning of successive waves of corporate workplace lookqueen, forward herself andof both the baby firsteven three unteered as a loyal subject of the to perception look. Howunrest could I that leaveunsettled my little baby travIndianfor andthe African, as political the and empire, to. effort.

They are worried about how they months, theprotests baby still another three leading serve the war el? So, oftocourse I was quickin to 1947. add that my tookbut their in needs directions he would its final demise Gandhi their boss will react.

A friend saidheshe mus- never months of nurturing, When Brit made peace with Boer, lobbied takingat care him. to And their have endorsed. why can’t the father get husband was sought everyofstage stay on tered up the courage to tell boss about months paternity leave unsuccessfully for parity in her political rightsher for three and side hardened.

I realThe burgeoning violence and in the baby’s eyes grew wider, the right of the Damn! public mood pregnancy only when she was fiveThe months’ first year so that the mother the Indian trader and professional. native unrest “wrong” so I quickly stirred anxieties in Del-can go back to ised I had said andthe contain it thing, in a fashion that pregnant and beginning to show. walked hi, work? parental leave.

That’s real equity. added that my African and the indentured IndianShe remained mother and a order. maid were there the Shared newly established vicerewould maintain At various World War I saw him up to him at company party where he rose was galHow would of extended materperipheral to ahis vision. When the Zulu to help.he They smiledincapable and nodded. capital the British stages, proved of stepping up eagerly having a drink and said, ‘I have something to nity leave impact bias?

Unless up against white settler expropriation of his empire. Already perturbed by I finallywith exhaled, knowing I had coping the complexities of to volunteer for the tell you.’ HeGandhi asked her what to it was.

She we change the way companies homeland, rushed battle insaid, the the said the thing. unleashed As long as turn towards violent resistcaste and“right” community British war effort ‘I’m pregnant.’

His firstreprising reaction?his ‘OhBoer shit.’war ance approach this, the I fear these vicemeacause of the empire, there was a woman with the bain India, British in the struggle.

He seemed expliI told them I had a Three maternitycorps. leaveThe is British legally roy suresurged may have a negative imrole in themonths’ army ambulance by, ittowas all right.early And claims two were a fair settlement. repudiate of little boy and a baby citly mandatory India. Thiswhile is farthe more progrespact both delighted on hiringat and on suffered fewincasualties, Zulus, who Seemingly even better. the father the the atAryan descentBut that made theofIndigirl at home... and I sive than thein US,the where there is no manwomen of coming back tomasthe were killed thousands andlegally herded in tention child?

Definitely not!

Thethe expecthe imperial an a superior being, since concould see their dated maternity leaveconcentration by legislation.camps, Some ters, workplace leave.

Vandana to portray larger numbers into the bit pressure on Gandhiafter caved in, managing as suddenly sequences oftations clingingand to that of hokum expressions companies world over have added to the aSaxena Poria livesthat in Pune and the foundaearned littlethe of his sympathy. to stayalienating. home with the triumph a deal left intact would been deeply Affect change into a have women leave prescribed by their respective she and husband moved to Bitter disillusionment followed withgovernBritish tions child are enormous.

Else we are of aher formal regime of racism. rather or history would prove his questioning lookthan reason ments and providingceasing a moretheir bal- India fromdid Budapest when she capital and are Boernow nationalism Gandhi not stay behind to experience at main weaponjudged in all harshly.’ struggles. And he was to anced maternity policy well on as first-hand was pregnant for the second hostilities to createleave a new unionasbased It’s bitter not just the men who are the consequences of his deal with suffer many more disappointments, of paternity leave. India’s minister for Women time. She started work full- of the Brit- greater proportions white supremacy and shared plunder of the Smuts. biased. than One those would imagine He had shedtothe vestments South Africa and Child Development is proposing an eight- ish timebarrister after sheforhad baby girl.and tunic fa- handed him.women land.

It was in this interlude of disappointwho had babies thea loincloth In all that he have remained, as the monththat maternity forhis women.

Utopia for voured Her workby demanded she travel often, andThat she British ment Gandhibreak wrote anti-modernist would historian understand, butBrown that’s has notaptly always thea the indentured worker.

Judith said, many! EvenHind more so, inWritten my opinion, these transformation left the baby at was home, in carried the careradically of her husmanifesto, Swaraj. in the if frustracase. Howofinsensitive one is can isalso to be for- “prisoner hope”. That perhaps his stem final eightofmonths were towas betodivided band.after Onehis day, while a business trip tion defeat, Gandhi insist tobetween his last ward from how removed the privileged return to on India.

From then on,to it legacy as anfar icon of national liberation.boss is both that parents: months of maternity leave was Mumbai, she asked about by from the people who work down the line. days Hindfive Swaraj was his most complete part of hiswas personality to tryher andfamily embody muralidharan is an independent followedtestament. by three months of paternity leave. — two a business meeting. political The story below is folklore in a large writer media inmen the at sartorial, culinary and every other sukumar researcher in Gurgaon Shimla Why we have paternity com- sense ‘I told them had aspirations a little boy and a baby girl and Andon’t illusory triumph cameleave? when Some the British company.

Mybased friend, Yana and Puri, gave me the — the lifeI and of the poorest

Pregnancy, pumps and paternity

Shared parental leave is win-win but are companies and, importantly, co-workers ready for it?

The South African Gandhi: StretcherBearer of Empire Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed Navayana Non-fiction ₹595

Own It: Leadership lessons from women who do Aparna Jain HarperCollins Business ₹599

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lowdown over dinner one night: ‘You know TV staff have shifts and different days of the week off, depending on the timetable. A young woman had a Saturday off. She got a call that morning about an urgent meeting that the head of the company had called. (The head of the company was informally called ‘Dayan Didi’ because she had the reputation of behaving like a witch.) This woman had no reliable babysitter, and could not arrange one at short notice, but was worried that if she did not go, she would lose out on something important.

Besides, Dayan Didi had summoned them, and that was scary enough. So, with her parttime nanny and baby in tow, she drove to the office, where she was stopped from entering the office. Why? Because her baby and nanny were not allowed in. She called her boss, but he said he couldn’t help. No exception was made for them to come up with guest badges Life in the slow and sit near the desks in an empty office or at lane Qibao elders at the reception lounge. In mortal fear of Dayan a teahouse; (below) the amazing array of Didi, she went upstairs, and attended a twostreet food zac o’yeah hour-long meeting while her nanny and baby suffered in the heat outside. They were not TUMMY TRAVELS even allowed to sit in the guard room. When Dayan Didi was later told that this had happened, she was unrepentant. “Of course, we do not have a facility for babies here. I don’t know why people can’t find babysitters.”’

There is a flip side to having a policy — and one day and said she was going to leave beNo empathy, no understanding. Just elitism and utter disdain. When one is disconnected that is when it does not come with sufficient cause the environment was stifling. Her boss from their employees, they will lose out on support. In essence, are your colleagues ready did nothing to get his team to behave. to deal with your motherhood? Have they women and the workforce.

‘I spoke to the head of HR but she couldn’t ‘As far as performance ratings for women been suitably sensitised and trained? find a solution to address the bad attitude.

Seema Mathur, who has worked in one of Ironically, this HR head is a woman who talks coming back from maternity are concerned, they are based on the six months they work in the country’s largest multinational banking incessantly to the media about how they the firm. But it’s not as simple as only chang- firms, says: ‘I was overseeing a certain team as bring women back from maternity in an inn Shanghai, I kept hearing a near- part my diversity work and in crickets are stinky tofu, was ing the policy,’ says Sona Pillai, about the diversity clusive fashion. couldn’t whileofonlookers place bets.

Qibao of course there, She but also cakes by ‘ancient town’ calledfirm Qibao.

But being was aasnumber-one as-in this combat of glutinous rice and inclusion lead at a large in India.

‘You it manage No effort waspaste, madebato known the toughestranked winners filledit.with red bean dude I focused the sociate.

Shetournaments had got the highest need atomodern addresssort the of men’s bias towardsontheir try and retain young womsport, and are held in May and nana rice in bamboo tubes, this roasted sweet popleasures of present-day Shanghai its ratings. women colleagues on account of this — deciShewrapped was junior enough so October She evenwent today.on maternity tatoes, tofu in lotus leaves, How dare she get adriedan. jazz bars, clubswho andhave speciality when she camemuseum, back, bonus? sion.

I find rock that men workingrestauwives leave they on let her go, deep-fried although they Theand most interesting from my fried how sparrows sticks, silk Basically, rants.

I filed Qibao away at the back of my got culture her bonus.

Her col-was devoted get it but many others don’t.

I have heard in she needed her.soy-braised pig’s trotpopular point of view, feet, dare she haveworms, a baby chicken karna leagues brain, under label ‘miscellaneous data’. werelocal resentful — by both the past fromthe managers: “Bell curve fit ‘The organisation goto a famous sculptor the ters, intestine soup was andnoteven while we work?

I have four menstay who well all the hain.

As my two-month in have Chinadone progressed, men and theChongren, women. Acing smoked to implement anyto serious name of Zhang toads! Just name a year, but this woman only done six I gradually got more andhas more interested in cording to them, she was out, changesfew topeculiarities make the on environwho studied in Belgium offer. months; whyand should I givetraditions. her a highWhenevscore in she food history culinary was1930s away.where How dare ment conducive women to in the he she get a Whichforwas tastiest? her basedsearches on her for six months of bonus? er I appraisal ran internet traditional how dare she not only return, but toIstay If became Basically, close Although am on. a fan work?”

Our human division snacks, Qibao popped resources up as the place to gohas to. have a baby while one makes a serious commitment keeping friends with thewe work? of stinkyto tofu (chou been brilliant andinhas a great jobimagwith cartoonist It looked nice too thedone accompanying ‘She hadHergé informed HR that she needed to women in the workforce, they doin stay.

I have doufu Chinese), training managers.

They started workshops in get es: bazaar streets, bridges straddling a river, home by seven every evening, which was seen companies where colleagues bosses of Tintin fame. whichand has the 2008, long before did, to ad- agreed traditional housesmost withcompanies those raised eaves afterand deliverIt was upon.

ZhangShe would go home and dili- support women who come back flavour texdress thismostly issue and and with ev- gently that one seesother in oldbiases, photographs from get down to work on her computer and ing a baby. A good boss is flexible. who educated tureA good of a boss fine ery passing the attitude of men has work China.

Qibao year was said to be at least a 1,000 a.m. But her colleagues were hostile says we will find a way to work this out. So, Hergétill 2about matured turned more positive.’ years old; it was a prosperous trading centre and treatedChiher poorly. She finally came to me why does a number-one rankedcheese, womanitleave? all things can during the Ming dynasty, after which it fell in- nese and was It’s simple; it’s because the be organisation a bit heavy to disrepair and, until recently, it was appar- thus immortaldoesn’t want to change.’ on the digesently merely a slum. About a decade ago it was ised as the charNo matter how successful ation, woman is in the so perhaps restored and today it is ranked as one of the acter ‘Chang’, a corporate workplace therethe aregourmet a number of expelesser -known tourist attractions of the Shang- sidekick to Tintin questions that cross her rience mind. of Among the the day hai area. most common are: in the The Blue Lotus was the steamed and Then one day on the metro, I spotted the and Tintin in Tibet.

The pressure of being able to manage subtle crab roe bias flaname on the network map — and realised that at the workplace and the pressures at home Wandering about, I invoured pork dumplings. the ancient settlement had been swallowed deed got the feeling that Qican take a hit onAlso the woman’s While known emotions. as xiaolongbao, up by the humongous megacity of Shanghai bao looks a bit like the China statistics pointthese to a dumplings large number women costofabout 18 and turned into yet another suburb. The fact imagined in the Tintin comics. falling off the corporate ladder during or after RMB (₹150) per plate at the fastthat it had a metro station suddenly made it Crammed with souvenir shops maternity, progressive food eatery Indian next to companies the square Wandering about, I much more attractive as a destination. have stepped up make changes within their selling handicrafts, faux anbyto one of the bridges. indeed got the feeling I swiped my travel card and headed out on a tiques, and calligraphy paintorganisations toFurthermore, support women.

Andadmit they I must that Qibao looks a bit very long subway line — the train took me ings, it had the vibe of a tourist like the Chinahave seen a positive shift in the numbers ofI that due to squeamishness imagined about 18 km west from downtown Shanghai. trap. But soon I found a teaback to — and staying skipped allwork the chicken claws in the Tintinwomen comicscoming Qibao turned out to consist of two ancient house where old-timers sat and there. and toads, and instead sat down main streets (surrounded by a handful of al- nursed their umpteenth tumWhat is trulyinneeded in corporate India are a restaurant by the canal, orleys), a canal and those picturesque bridges, bler of tea while listening to a not only a change is a mindset deredina policies, local beer,itwatched peowhich had been developed into a tourist at- folk drama being recited from a change. Acrossple genders.

That includes a shift mill around, and realised traction along the lines of ‘Old Towns’ all over podium. A pot of the cheapest variety cost a to including father as primary caregiver, that epic foodthe adventures can be had within a the world. Eight buildings had been converted mere 3 RMB (or ₹24) and it came with a three- deeper of the pressures onofa subway understanding ride from the futuristic skyscrapers into small museums covering topics as di- litre thermos flask of hot water, allowing one woman when her child is young and a more central Shanghai. verse as textiles and cricket fighting — the lat- to sip tea for hours on end. emphatic and supportive workplace. ter has nothing to do with cricket as it is And in the streets there was the most amaz- zac o’yeah is a part-time travel writer and part-time Hari,women a Hero for detective novelist. His latest novel is own it: leadership lessons from played whammy in India; The in China we’re talking the array of I’d ever seen: Double stress from dealing withof bias at theing workplace andjunkfood the pressures at home canmy takeperpeta toll Hire was published this month afp photo/frederick florin other on the woman’s dozacnet@email.com insects, whichemotions are made to battle each ual favourite, the fermented and deep-fried who

Once upon a time

Qibao, an ancient town that Shanghai swallowed up before turning it into a suburb, brings flavourful respite from futuristic skyscrapers

zac o’yeah

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Crossing caste lines

A willing choice Rohith Vemula redefined identity as one based on life experience, political choice and social relations kvs giri

The politics over Rohith Vemula’s caste is meant to thwart the identity he chose for himself

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ohith Vemula has sparked off a de- the late scholar’s father, Mani Kumar, and voked by Hindutva forces and certain caste bate on the politics of caste identity mother, Radhika, were of Vaddera caste (BC). associations. He belonged to a single parent and the possibility of crossing caste Subsequently, the media too began raising family and mentioned suffering from lonelilines for a better future. In his sui- doubts about Vemula’s identity and the focus ness in his childhood. cide note and public statement he wrote, “The shifted to the issue of unscrupulous parties He claimed his mother’s caste identity as value of a man was reduced to his immediate politicising caste. his own. He wrote on Facebook that he folWelcomeand to Christiania Copenhagen’s enclave zone; you can walk,an cycle or ride atohorse arunima mazumdar identity nearest possibility.

To hippie a vote.

To a is a car-free Another document, affidavit register lowed the footsteps of famous Telugu Dalit ponumber. To a thing. Never was a man treated the birth of her second son, was released et Jashuva, who claimed his mother’s Madiga as a mind.” Vemula, a staunch Ambedkarite, where Vemula’s mother declares herself a Vad- caste (SC) identity instead of his father’s Golla believed in the annihilation of caste identity. dera. Vemula is not around to answer these (BC). He exercised his choice in favour of maHis life was a search for a new and liberating charges. The ASA later released a caste certifi- trilineage. He identified himself as an unidentity. He challenged the idea of Dalit identi- cate issued by the tahsildar of Guntur that touchable and suffered social stigma and ty based on birth, kinship relations, patrili- shows Vemula as Mala (an SC). Vemula’s father, discrimination. His idea of kinship was not neage and nuclear family. He redefined who had deserted the family more than 20 based on blood relations. The ASA was his famidentity based on life experience, political years ago, was brought in to announce his ily and it was based on shared political ideas choice and social relations. Vemula practised son’s caste identity as Vaddera. and community. identity as a willing choice in a given situa- The Vaddera association now deHe apologised to his ASA famtion. No wonder, the Hindutva forces and cer- manded an enquiry to ascertain ily in his suicide note. He did not tain caste organisations turned his identity Vemula’s caste identity as SC. subject himself to the policing of He never allowed the into a site of policing and tried to fix it. They When the character assassinahis identity as Vaddera, considstate rituals of did not allow his mother to mourn his death. tion of Vemula reached an unacered a natural identity both by identity year since theinterrogated British life- ceptable They, thevery media and the2007, police in 1971. They took an abandoned militarycertification rectly into the infamous A level, hisover mother and society and law.Pusher He didStreet. have an take over refreshingly his right style magazine haspersonal brought her her, humiliated her, andMonocle made her village, acres in all, and settoup their green cannabis intoa twoabout other 84 children declared SC certificate butplant nevergrows used it to live mind outstory. a list of the 25 most liveable cities at life a public own community — onethat thatthey was free and un-as aflowerpot kept thestate sidebenefits of the entrance.

A a press conference geton any or entitletheidentified world. The is based on a belonged Vemulainwas asstudy a “Dalit PhD scholbound by any governmental rules or regula- sweet, almostments. fruity fragrance of weed in hangs to Mala caste. The He was admitted the variety ofhis factors the quality living mother ar” when deathsuch was as reported.

Bothof Ambedtions. They madethat their laws, flew their in the air. The street iscategory flanked by clarified sheown was ingeneral andmakeshift demonconditions, architecture, en- formally kar Students’ Associationpublic (ASA)transport, and Vemula own flag (a red banner three yellow dots, booths, eachstrated of them with adopted by awith Vaddera hisstocked capability by different winning vironmentaltheir issues, medical care, and so on. family mentioned identities as Scheduled Caste representing the three to‘I’s in Christiania), versions of hashish.

The other thing common and later married Mani CSIR and UGC fellowships.

Copenhagen, with its green andUniversity sustainable in their memorandums to the of Kumar. built their own homesher using army barthechallenged booths are the masked, She mentioned casteold as Vaddera in among Vemula policing bouncerof caste lifestyle, award-winning and me- the Hyderabad authorities. architecture, Following Vemula’s racks, and made their ownlogic cur-of patriarchal identities and likeexercised men guarding them. Inside, affidavit, based on the his freedom to reticulous city planning, predictably topped death, the issue of Dalithas identity and caste dis- law rency (which is no longer in use; other men sell, buy,a smoke, or that a married woman inherits her hus- main an outsider.

He invented new Dalit the list for 2008, 2013 and 2014 respectively. crimination assumed importance in all the re- band’s they now accept Danish krone). from Mani identity which roll Every wall isand adorned caste.

When she separated is joints. fluid, open-ended based On the face of it, the capital seems to Kumar, sulting campaigns andDanish debates.

The ASA filed They didn’t want to bea Mala part of with a mural colshe moved into colony heralmost on certain ideas or andgraffiti. sharedI see values.

A with sweet, fruity political a rhythm of itsunder own. There’s an unspoken ahave police complaint the SC/ST Atrocities children. the city inThey any way; they wanted our, I sense controversy.

It’s excitsubsequently declared themHis caste certificate allowed him to symbolfragrance of weed and reciprocal pedestrians cy- selves Prevention Actrespect againstfor vice chancellorand Appa to keepasdistance from the glare andthe intimidating at untouchthe same Mala through certificates from thein the ically with stigmatised hangs airidentifying clists. The Danes content and Bandaru carefree, Guntur Rao Podile, Unionseem minister of state of lawful Danish institutions time.He Sale of drugs is not tahsildar. able community. never allowed the legal, state and they goAkhil aboutBharatiya their livesVidyarthi pretty simply.

It’s and Dattatreya, Parishad wished an alternative way yet they’re bought and The controversy surrounding Vemula’s rituals of identity certification to take overconhis almostSusheel impossible to nitpick the Danish way caste leader Kumar and others. of living.

They had several their way openly, perhaps identity brings issues to the fore. right to live sumed as a mind.

His lastand words reveal of The life. complaint But then there’s Christiania, theassumpcontro- Is was accepted on the then and they’reidentity going strong thetobeauty of Christiania. caste a natural based on the patrili- that Vemula that’s aspired go beyond his birth versial ‘free town’was thatfrom existsa contrarily tion that Vemula Scheduledwithin Caste. neage even today with about a thousand Police visitslife. areHe also frequent. tempoof a nuclear family?

Are casteresidents endoga- and cursed desired to beThere’s a writer, an inthe controlled existence of Copenhagen, and I my The BJP and several Hindutva organisations, forming the corethe community, while Is several rary furore,and fines paid, people are arrested, and bloodline basis of identity? caste tellectual a are Buddhist philosopher.

It is wonder ifbegan Christiania toodoubts has had a role to play only however, raising over Vemula’s othersa live in the hope being included in ironic and then backforces to normal. sociological and of legal identity?

Does thatlife thegoes cynical are trying to bury in upping theinrank of Copenhagen to match Dalit identity an apparent bid to derail the caste the commune someday.

“Christiania is policed open forbyeverybody, but not have a social, moral and political con- him in identities Manusmriti. the urbane estimates of as Monocle’s survey of tent? debate on caste violence, also dilute the poIn its 44th year, Christiania a car-free everybody can come in, become a part of the Is identity a position that isis negotiable satyanarayana is a professor of Cultural Studies the world’s most liveable cities. lice case under the SC/ST Act. zone.

One could choose toand walk, cycle, or ride a k community and live here,” says Martha, who by conscious individuals social groups?

The English and Foreign Languages Theanonymous anarchic enclave of Christiania was horse.

An video released online shows I packcase my camera phoneto in the a ruckbecame a resident nine years University, ago and now Vemula’s poses aand problem re- at founded by a groupgrandmother of squatters stating and hippies Vemula’s paternal that ceived sack andunderstanding enter the mainof gate, which opens indi- Hyderabad works at Grønsagen, an organic fruits and vegcaste identity

Home is where the hippie is Forty-four years after its conception, ‘free town’ Christiania, with its anarchic attitude, continues to exist rather peacefully in Copenhagen

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Happy to be here Martha from Peru has lived in Christiania for It’s only words A almost a decade message of friendship arunima mazumdar ; at the Indo-China (below) just another border,in a site of corner the ‘free frequent skirmishes, at shutterstock town’ Bumla in Arunachal Pradesh ap/anupam nath

AGENDA

Little democracy

etable market-cum-café across Pusher Street.

She came to Denmark 18 years ago from Peru and fell in love with a man who belonged to the community. “It was easy for me as I married into the community. I didn’t choose Christiania, it was destiny,” she says.

Over the years, Christianites have learned to co-exist more naturally with the ways of the Danish government. They pay for electricity and water, along with an annual rent, and are now an integrated part of Copenhagen. And why not — it is, after all, the second-most visitery rarely does Arunachal Pradesh, ed attraction in Copenhagen after Eriksen’s one of India’s most beautiful and The Little Mermaid. underdeveloped get to be in They have also found newstates, and smart ways of the national news radar. When it does, it’s mostly thanks to the Chinese army, whose border skirmishes with Indian soldiers prick our territorial nationalism. But who cares about the hardships on the land that we so loudly claim is ours?

Last month I was in Dambuk — an idyllic hamlet in Arunachal Pradesh’s Dibang Valley — for the Orange Festival of Music and Adventure. But the real adventure was the eighthour road trip from Assam’s Dibrugarh airport to Dambuk.

It included crossing the Brahmaputra on wooden boats with SUVs on board to enter Arunachal Pradesh, and then driving over dry riverbeds that can only be crossed by elephants during monsoon. A ferry and a bus got stuck in the river at night, leading to a dramatic rescue operation of festival participants that continued into the morning.

That morning, then chief minister Nabam Tuki was supposed to visit Dambuk to inaugurate the Orange Festival. He cancelled at the last moment: there were rumours that a political coup was imminent in Itanagar, though the Delhi media mostly ignored the development. A couple of locals warned that with uncertainty in the capital, the terrible infrastructure on display would not improve before next year’s festival.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the McMahon Line in Tibet, China has connected every county in the restive province to its extensive road network. Last year, China Tibet Online reported on the construction of a road to Metok County, the last village in Tibet before the Tsangpo/Brahmaputra enters the Upper Siang district of Arunachal. China also has several ci-

sustaining themselves — selling stocks of there is an Indian woman named Radha who Christiania to outsiders, organising guided sells trinkets in the market. tours, hosting music festivals, et al.

There are no IDs or stamp papers to prove Their autonomous approach to life also you’re part of Christiania. It’s a small commumakes them an innovative bunch. Case in nity and everyone knows everyone. There was point is the Christiania Cargo Bike, which was only one day in the history of its existence invented in 1984 by blacksmith and resident when Christiania was closed to outsiders. The Lars Engstrom as a birthday gift for his wife situation, however, says Martha wasn’t as Annie Lerche, to haul their young kids in and tense before 2002 as it is now. “The governaround the commune. It is an award-winning ment takes Pusher Street as a peg to attack our Danish design classic and is a success all over community, which is wrong. There’s a law in the world.

Christiania that anyone The airports citizens and of Christiavilian military airfields close to ed task. On Januarywho 23, for example, hundreds sells hash has to live nia the believe border, in as having well asroom a modern railway net- of Buddhist monks protested against plans here, but the big bosses for everyone.

Their asymmetry collecwork.

The strategic could not be for a dam in Tawang, few kilometres don’tonly livea here anymore. tive ability to support social starker. from the Chinese border.

The are state The junkies notneeded a part ofa freedom marvellous, and “I droveison the Kathmandu-Lhasa road, and transparent local Christiania; government, which they could come perhaps that is whywas people the Chinese side fantastic,” said Hari have worked towards and ecohereinfrastructure only for business. are desperate be a part car of rally champion, nomic environment Singh, formertonational withknow central assistance.

It They nothing about it even Butthesadly, who wastoday. part of Festival’s organising needed a bipartisan to Christiania push aside theapproach history of there such thing as an team. is Henoreckoned Arunachal’s border infras- political differences, work in the national andtothey don’t respect our application membertructure is thefor worst he has seen in many years interest and build on the democratic goodwill ways.

We’re working on ship. difficult way is to world. “But I also of the people. spent“The rallying around the ways to co-exist with them work lot here, for were scared to noticeda how peoplesay in Tibet Imposing President’s rule legalise before athe testsellon and even three, four or about even five speak anything the army. Here you the floor of the Assembly is a mockery of the ing of drugs.

But it’s not so years.

Slowly startlocals,” he said. don’t have thatpeople fear among democracy that distinguished from Chieasy becauseIndia Scandinavian seeing youitsevery day,infrastructhey For all better na, and made us are a more countries verydesirable conserstart getting tonot know ture, Tibet does haveyou. a demohomevative for the Arunachalis, deby nature.”

But there elected are people who cratically government. spite the manyevery hardships they Almost communistay on forhad years Arunachal oneand till still January face in their daily lives.

Instead of ty in the world is bound by The political turmoil don’t find a house. hasstate and slugfest between askingsome 26, 2016 and peopleOne of the its MLAs back or Congress faith,tobelief followreally got toofpush.

There’s noif the BJP and Congress rebels were proud its democracy, and it’s destabilise the Tuki ing, and only a matter of waiting list running and it’sthe only the not of those governgovernment, thefalter, BJP leadership time that they owing to would bring smiles As I stroll along the consensus the thousand-odd ment. EveryofTibetan I met in the could have takenand a lessdisagreepartisan disharmony only in Beijing marijuana-scented Christianites over state felt theythat werematters better off in tracks, I find canoodling approach in this small butinsensiment. Auroville is still fullwhom to include the comIndia than China, in though they couples and youngsters tive state. but it is inclined toswing, munity,” explains Martha. would probably be materially The Congress did not coverThe itwards spiritualism. setting up barbecues Thecomfortable lake is a short more in walk Tibet.from Even self in glory either. First,freedom it failed no-strings-attached Pusher Street.

There are the fewer the Indian Army — often crowd villain in to pacify the rebellion brewing promises against Tuki. that Christiania is, people here.

The— silence andpopular solsensitive states is quite in Aruna- And then, faced with the BJP joining frankly, nowhere to be hands seen. itude is mesmerising. chal Pradesh, and seenAsasI stroll the line of defence with the rebels,There’s it delayed the floor test tothere preno belief system, along marijuana-scented tracks, Ifreedom find ca- is againstthe Chinese aggression. India’s vent losing and power.

The no leader there areself-serving, no followers.cavalier It is an noodling couples and youngsters setting up anarchist trumped its shoddy infrastructure. approach of politiciansbut in both Itacommunity, can Delhi there and be harbarbecues, each of them smoking thick joints.

Now with President’s rule imposed in the mony nagar in hasanarchy? pushed the state towards the HimaThey’re outsiders who’ve comeits to spend sun- layan state, India has jeopardised trumpa card precipice, further away smile from as theshe Indian Martha gives us a knowing gets ny afternoon by the lake.

The people of Chriswith the people.

The political turmoil and up mainstream. to bring us her favourite carrot, orange and tiania however, a and mix Congress of Europeans, slugfestare, between the BJP would ginger As journalist Shekhar asked onofTwitjuice, “There haveGupta been episodes vioAmericans Americans, most of lence, bring smilesand onlyLatin in Beijing.

The corruption ter: “Could youincomparable have done thiswith if weother were EuUP, but it’s whom part of hippiethat andhave rebel move- ropean and thewere leadership vacuum hobbled Bihar, even Delhi?like Some R-Day gift to tribal countries Spain, which is aknown ments in other countries. was a up man Arunachal for decades haveThere now blown in for statemuch of justmore 15 lakhviolence. tribals, 2As MPs.” per European from India too who, Martha says, died this standards, we are a peaceful bunch.” our face. year — a musician who setdevelopment up a Jimi Hendrix Admittedly, economic in a sambuddha mitra mustafi is the founder of The Political Indian t@some_buddha mazumdar is a Delhi-based journalist band and sang his songs.

And now, she says, arunima state such as Arunachal remains a complicat-

With President’s rule in Arunachal Pradesh, India’s political leadership shoots itself in the foot yet again

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Up, close Gametophytes — a tiny plant made of almost nothing but a few oddly shaped leaves — under a microscope; (right) Asplenium cuspidatum joel nitta

female by swimming through a film of water that extends continuously between the two gametophytes. So by producing a chemical that induces her neighbours to be male, a female gametophyte is taking her future into her own hands, ensuring that the gametophyte closest to her is one she can mate with.

Though being tiny makes fern gametophytes fascinating, it also makes them tremendously difficult to study. Gametophytes, Lotus and leaves Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s continuing bonhomie with the Narendra Modi-led ruling NDA given risehave to speculations of a likely poll Nittahas explains, “been largely overlooked alliance between the AIADMK and BJP, although this entails the risk of alienating minority votes pti because, literally, we overlook them.” When you’re out walking in the woods, marvelling at the lush fern sporophytes, the gametophytes are “beneath your feet somewhere.” As a result, Nitta continues, “a lot of our understanding of fern ecology comes from sporophytes, he longer I consider ferns, the more up to the requisite two copies of each gene. and we’re missing an important part of the they seem like a collection of conWhat’s unusual about ferns is that the ga- picture.” And even once you find a gametotrasts. Just a few weeks ago, before I metophytes, the fern-equivalents of eggs, live phyte, figuring out what species it belongs to, talked to fern researcher Joel Nitta, I completely independently of the sporophytes what its corresponding sporophyte looks like, found ferns uncomplicated. A fern’s feathery that birthed them. It’s like an unfertilised egg is no easy task. But technology is helping this leaf, in my mistaken imagination, was some- growing into an entirely different creature, effort. Researchers like Nitta can identify gathing delicate, something fragile. Unscientifi- one that looks nothing like a hen. This egg-de- metophytes by spelling out the code of their cally, I projected from my mother’s many rived creature (the gametophyte) then has to DNA. We’re at the cusp, therefore, of beginunsuccessful attempts to cultivate ferns in our mate with another one of its kind to produce a ning to understand the hidden halves of ferns.

Delhi garden to the conclusion that a fern’s hen-like creature (the sporoBut there’s one group of ferns life itself was unusually fragile. But in learning phyte). The strangeness of this for which we know much more Nadu Chief aMinister Jayala- metaphor about the amil biology of ferns, group ofJ species years after,”should he added. convince you most,” confided thegametophytes senior DMK leader about thanquoted sporolithaa sounded theacross poll bugle the that spread thousands of miles the on globe Thethe Congress be an important, if ju- earlier. “Theyphytes, duality would of the fern’s exare stillfor relevant as a national the simple reason last day of 2015 at the In- istence and millions of years into the ruling past, IAll have nior allyisfor any party, if one goes by Though the 2011 being complicated. party and have a vote bank.” that these ferns have no sporotiny dia Anna Munnetra come to find that Dravida ferns also embodyKazharesil- state national party recordLikeelection with data. eggsThebecoming say all. the These party isferns likelylive to phytes at make fernCongress insiders gam (AIADMK) party’s general ience.

And this resilience stemsbody from meeting the con- chickens, ed a vote share of 9.3step per in cent.

This, of course, the crucial a gaonce again ally with the DMK, now deep inside caves especially at the base of gametophytes in Chennai. trasts they contain. was before the state unit afascinating, mutiny that metophyte becoming a witnessed sporoRahul Gandhi has given greenAmerisignal sandstone cliffs the in North it also “All elections be faced thelife same Consider, for cannot example, how awith fern’s is phyte and the Union exit- them is former the fusion of Minister two cellsGK Vasanmakes at a recent meeting. initially wasThey not ca, and“Rahul nowhere else. strategy,” she told the rapt “I will take neatly, equally divided intocadre. two halves: the with ed tohalf revive Tamil Maanila the his DNAlate intofather’s one cell keen on themoved DMK, so we millions were waiting for there of years tremendously the right decision at the right time, according sporophyte and the gametophyte.

What you with Congress (TMC), taking with a full set of DNA. For this to word,” another Congress leader difficult to study ago from the balmy tropics, and to the of prevailing situation.” think as a fern political — with large, green, feathery happen, him a sizeable of the alfern chunk gametophytes said.

“The DMKsheltered and Congress in their caves, from are exInwardly, leadersbrown of rival parties the must fronds and wispy roots — is alike sporoready lean In the 2014male Lok comecadre. in two types: naturalheat allies.

We have issues like treme or cold, these gametoDravidaBut Munnetra Kazhagam phyte. a fern spends only(DMK), part ofthe itsConlife and Sabhafemale. elections, And the this Congress is where 2G, which we are tied together by. phytes thrive.

The DMK and gressway. andThe therest Desiya Dravida Kaz- some this of theMurpokku time, it lives as a gamefared poorly on its own in the ferns become really biWeIndon’t see much option living solely of asangametoCongress are natural hagam (DMDK) chuckled glee. nothing For the zarre. tophyte — a tiny plant madewith of almost state and garnered barely A growing female fernhalf gametophyte, by have in the state,” he said.to phytes, thus abandoning the ability allies. We issuesand otherwise formidable Jaya shaped to consider an“It’s electoral but a few oddly leaves. really allilike exuding its previous share. thevote right chemicals into the The Congressmust state persist president, mate, these gametophytes by like water 2G, which we are ance must mean adifferent perceived dentin inone her around having twosurely completely plants Tamil her, Nadu Com-gametophytes canCongress cause nearby however, maintains the replicating exactly.

By shedding bitsthat of themtied together by popularity,in they organism, onereasoned. package,” Nitta described. mittee president to become male. EVKS ElangoHigh Command take the selves, each part growing into would a new, identical Some DMK who did nothas wish to cobe van In terms of leaders, DNA, a sporophyte two insisted that GKhave Vasan’s exit this odd be- gametophyte,final How might ferns evolved call.

“Right anow we are conthey become population of named, said itofwas a matter of stitching haviour? pies of each its now genes.

The gametophyte, had madeLike no dent on theaspects party. of a gameto- clones. So these with many centrating on allunchanged constituencies, ferns persist, in an up the right alliance. however, hasOpposition just one copy, half of the full set. phyte’s “The party is much stronger biology, a possible answer lies in its unchanging environment. getting readyBut to being battleidentical all 234 This difference in DNA content, by itself, is not size. thanFrom a yearaago,” he claimed. human vantage point, two game- puts seats,” Elangovan said.

“But if there a necesthem at risk of extinction whenischange — DMK-Congress again? unusual. An egg, after all, has half the DNA as tophytes On December 28, DMK chief Mgrowing Karunanidhi may seem like they’re right asity that there should be an alliance with othchange in temperature or moisture, disease “Wehen certainly needit.the Congress parliathe that laid Recall that for the an egg to next once again extended a hand friendship to — to each other. But for of a gametophyte ers, the High Command will decide. arrives.

Resilience and fragility, wrappedYou up mentary more than the be Assembly elecgrow intopolls a chicken, it must fertilised by that’s the Congress. will not leave out the Con- into just a few“We millimetres long, this distance cannot say wecontradictory are natural allies.

We have allied a single, organism. tions,” with said aasenior fusing spermDMK cell. leader, Becausewho thewished sperm to gress we neighbour invite parties part of the or fought alone depending on the need of the its when nearest mayas seem insurkamath to remain “Considering that that the mountable. cell also hasunnamed. half the DNA of the rooster DMK alliance,” toldatreporters in Chennai.

Thehetask hand — fusion of egg ambika times,” he said. studies organismic and evolutionary Harvard Modi government lost of its sheen now,sperm an al- and produced it, the has fusion egg and “Vasan’s wouldeven affect the Congress by biology sperm exit — is made tougher by the fact The at price forUniversity the DMK, though, might be a ambikamath@gmail.com liance with the DNA Congress us four brings the total count will in a help fertilised egg that maybe or two vote share theone sperm fromper thecent male must get at to the steep one. Congress insiders say the national

CREATURE FEATURE

Dual identity

Biologists know almost nothing about half of the lives of ferns, a bizarre stage in which female ferns can turn nearby ferns into males

ambika kamath

Political Tinder, TN-style

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Will AIADMK swipe right for BJP, or will DMK swipe left for old hand Congress…?

Matchmaking reaches fever pitch as Tamil Nadu parties head into a crucial election year. And everybody is out to woo the young and upwardly mobile ‘swing voters’

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Run, Ludivine, run Marathon renamed after star finisher — a bloodhound

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two-and-a-half-year-old bloodhound from the US has become the toast of the internet after she ran a half-marathon. Ludivine, let out by her owner April on a pee break, wandered over to the starting area of the first Trackless Train Trek Half Marathon close to her home in Elkmont, Alabama. She was distracted by mules, cows and even a dead rabbit, but kept pace with race leaders and eventually finished seventh, earning herself a medal. The race has now been renamed the Elkmont’s Hound Dog Half.

party would certainly insist on power sharing if the combine comes to power in 2016. Elangovan in fact has made this point repeatedly in public meetings over the past four months.

ruling NDA has given rise to speculations of a likely alliance.

“At present, we are cats on the wall as far as an alliance with the BJP is concerned,” grinned the AIADMK leader contacted for this story. “It AIADMK-BJP again?

2006 is a double-edged weapon,” he added The winner: Analysts point out that the ruling AIADMK was meaningfully. riding high until the December 2015 floods “No other party will really add to the vote DMK+ with 163 seats DMK, Congress, Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), submerged at least partly the dream of a con- share of the AIADMK,” said political analyst ndian hackers being offered upwards of positive in an alliCPI, CPM secutive landslide victory. “Jayalalithaa hint- areSathiyamoorthy.

“The only $10,000 to wreck ance government websites ing that she could be open to an alliance for the AIADMK is and that it will tell its voters The loser: steal sensitive data.that ISIL it(Islamic State of Iraq shows this,” said N Sathiyamoorthy, Director is not left alone.

But even if the AIADMK AIADMK+ with 69 seats and in theChennai.

Levant) has benefits used theby internet to reach of Observer Research Foundation the tiny one to two per cent vote AIADMK, Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra out to over 30,000 people.

The hackers are alBut with at least four chief ministerial hope- share brought in by the BJP, it stands to lose Kazhagam (MDMK), Viduthalai Chiruthaigal so being asked database of potenfuls lurking in different parties, finding alliesto create muchamore in terms of minority votes and anKatchi (VCK) tial recruits using social media.

To keep track may be easier said than done for the powerful ti-intolerance votes. Also any alliance partner The lone ranger: social media threats, government Dravidian party. “There is stillof time to decide,” couldthe demoralise the now AIADMK cadre as workDesiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK), plans to have a 24/7 centre. explained a senior leader of the AIADMK, also ers know it cannot add to the vote share. For winning one seat in its first ever election under condition of anonymity. “We are study- the DMK, on the other hand, allying with paring the alliance situation, which is very fluid ties like the Congress and the DMDK can add 2009 as of now. The recommendation at the field some strength in terms of vote share, but, The winner: level so far is to contest alone. Now mandate is more importantly, it will add to the morale of UPA with 27 seats given to Madam. She will take a the DMK cadre, who remain clueDMK, Congress, VCK call after studying the political less at the moment,” he said.

The loser: situation,” he said.

The BJP continues to send conIn 2011, with DMDK’s Vijayflicting signals.

While calling itThird Front with 12 seats No other party will kanth for an ally, the AIADMK self an alternative to the AIADMK, MDMK, PMK, CPI, CPM really add to the vote swept to power with a huge maDravidian parties in Tamil Nadu, share of the AIADMK The lone ranger: jority, winning a whopping 203 it continues to maintain secure DMDK, which did not win a seat seats out of 234. Subsequently, and noncommittal relations however, relations with Vijaywith the ruling party. “It is too 2011 kanth soured and the once early to say who will or will not The winner: “friendly Opposition” quickly turned on the be part of the NDA in Tamil Nadu,” said H Raja, AIADMK+ with 203 seats ruling party. The AIADMK is also riding high national general secretary of the BJP. “The parAIADMK, DMDK, CPI, CPM and other smaller on the back of a sweep in the 2014 Lok Sabha ty leadership in Delhi will decide.” parties polls, where it singlehandedly won 37 out of The loser: Rush for swing votes 39 seats.

DMK+ with 31 seats Post-floods, however, a sombre mood has The DMK and the AIADMK can both boast a deDMK, Congress, PMK, VCK and other smaller set in within the party. Its IT wing has em- pendable vote share of around 25 per cent parties barked on social media propaganda since late- each, as confirmed by past performances in Js are not amused with Hard Kaur’s new dance December, releasing audio clips and videos state and parliamentary polls. Another 20 per 2014 number. With lyrics like Jaldi bajaa tu saale and that defend the party and government against cent of the vote share is gobbled up by other, The winner: Nahin criticism of its handling of the floods. In one smaller parties in the state. What analysts call toh doon kaan ke neeche, the song — set in a AIADMK with seatsRaghu nightclub with cameos by Cyrus37 Broacha, such audio clip released on WhatsApp, the the ‘swing voters’ constitute the rest of the votAIADMK, DMDK, and other smaller Ram25and Diandra Soares — isCPI, notCPM on many a playlist message is clear — “The Chief Minister request- er pie. “The swing voters constitute about parties the ‘personal attack’ on the jockeys. Hard Kaur, ed the Centre to bring in an ordinance to en- 30 per cent,” explained Sathiyamoorthy.for “They The loser:by the flak: “The best DJs in however, able the performance of Jallikattu are possibly the third-largest constituency af- is unaffected the country perform with me. So, don’t use me. Get a (bull-taming sport) in the state. The Centre too ter the DMK and the AIADMK.” Democratic Progressive life.and Get some talent,” she says. has agreed and said they will bring in an ordiIt is for these swing voters — the young Alliance (DPA) with 0 nance within a few days… It was the DMK and upwardly mobile, voters without the baggage Congress government which banned Jallikat- of ideology — that political parties in Tamil Naseats tu without respecting the culture and senti- du will wage a pitched battle. These swing votDMK, VCK and other smaller parties ment of the Tamils,” says the recording ers are the reason for the inevitable change in The upstart: released on January 2. The Supreme Court may political rhetoric from all parties — keywords NDA with 2 seats have forestalled the revival of Jallikattu, but like development, change, progress and aspiDMDK, PMK, BJP, MDMK and other smaller Jayalalithaa’s continuing bonhomie with the rations are now being bandied about by par-

Top dollar for hackers

Alliances that clicked, and those that didn’t

Militant group woos Indians

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Shot in the dark Gunshot injures moviegoer

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wenty-nine-year-old Dane Gallion from Seattle took his fear of mass shootings a stretch too far. Apparently terrified at the prospect of being gunned down in a mass shooting, Gallion last week entered a theatre with an unholstered gun strapped to his waistband. Fifteen minutes after the movie began, his gun went off accidentally, injuring the woman seated in front.

Though he quietly made his way out, his father learned of the incident and called 911, after which Gallion was arrested and charged with third-degree assault.

Singer gets a rap from angry DJs

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Sheroes!

parties Haryana spotlight on girls at R-Day

Source: Election Commission of India

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o counter an infamous sex ratio, Haryana has made ambitious plans to support girls and their mothers in the State. On Republic Day this week, over onecampaigns lakh ties once steeped in traditional of mothers of infantcaste girlscalculations were invited school proand to freebies. grammes and given front-row seats.

In villages the Vaiko’s A group of smaller partiesacross including state, the Tricolour was hoisted by the ‘most educated Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetragirl’ Kazhagam in the village.

(MDMK), Thol Thirumavalavan’s Viduthalai Not bad for a State that was importing brides from Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) andAssam the CPI and and Kerala just twoCPM yearshave ago. come together to form an alternative Third Front, calling themselves the People’s Welfare Front. This move too, say insiders in these parties, was precipitated by a perception that the swing voters were looking for a change, an alternative to the two Dravidian parties. The DMDK’s Vijaykanth is making full use of his time in the sun, as he is wooed by all political parties, except the AIADMK. As talks shift into high gear, what is clear however is that 2016 will be a battle, yet again, between the two Dravidian behemoths. An alternative is yet to appear on the horizon.

Bend in the road Tamil Nadu Congress president EVKS Elangovan has repeatedly declared that the national party would insist on power sharing if its alliance with M Karunanidhi’s DMK tastes victory b jothi ramalingam

sandhya ravishankar is an independent Chennai-based journalist

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in-faq by joy bhattacharjya

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ouglas Engelbart, the man who invented the computer mouse, would have been 90 on January 30. As a tribute, this week’s quiz is on inventions.

here,there & elsewhere

Taut plots

The debut

1

What did James Ritty, the owner of a popular restaurant named Pony House, invent in 19th-century Ohio that is still used around the world?

2

Which invention of British railway engineer JP Knight was first installed outside London’s Houses of Parliament in 1868? Again, something very much around!

3

This is a rare case where one corporation wanted to credit an invention to their biggest rival. The product was originally called ‘Old Sparky’. What was the invention? Why did a rival company want to credit them?

4

Which culinary product was born when Englishman Richard Blechynden felt there was no use for his normal products on an unusually hot day during the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904?

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On June 26, 1974, in what way did a Wrigley’s 10-pack fruit gum purchased in Troy, Ohio, herald a first in consumer experience?

Which famous 19th-century writer is believed to have invented the game of snow golf, using red balls, while writing one of his popular novels based in India? He was in Vermont at the time.

7

Which invention was called the ‘noisy serpent’ when it first came out in 1902?

People actually threw parties so that their neighbours could see it at work?

8

Jeanette ‘Jennie’ Jerome was born in Brooklyn in 1854 and is regarded as the person who commissioned the first-ever ‘Manhattan’ cocktail to celebrate the election of Samuel Tilden as the governor of New York.

However, she is better known as the mother of one of the most influential political figures of the 20th century. Who was Jennie’s son?

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What was invented in 1816 because a certain Rene Laennec was uncomfortable getting too close to female chests?

y right hand is almost back to normal. First the charred and M blackened skin of my first three fingers turned hard and shiny as an enamel sheath. Then one day it slipped right off. The new skin underneath was satiny soft. According to Bins, the raw pink colour will also gradually fade back to brown though right now it’s hard to believe that.

What will not return to normal, however, is this column. Bins claims that after two stints at the helm, he’s not ready to give up. “We can argue about new books every week,” he says.

“The readers are tired of the same old blah-blah about me, you and fire alarms.” I start to protest but he shushes me. “Stop! Don’t waste time. I want to talk about those two murder mysteries set in France – ” I roll my eyes up. “Don’t make that face! You read them so fast you got a nosebleed!” he says.

The books are called Irène and Alex, both by Pierre Lemaitre, both set in and around Paris. Irène precedes Alex but the English translations appeared in reverse order so that’s how I read them. In some ways I am grateful: the novels are linked by one particular death. It occurs in the first book, but if I had read about it in the correct sequence I think my nerves would have

been shattered beyond repair. Bins read them in French, in the correct sequence. “You cannot imagine the level of sadness and terror,” he says, “when you don’t know what is going to happen. It is like breathing your last on every page. Reading it back-to-front is a sissy-way to read!”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I say in my defence. “And they are SO gory.

Really, it was almost too much.”

Though blood-soaked and gritty-real they are also written with wry humour and a kind of tired acceptance of human foibles. The protagonist, a police detective called Camille Verhoeven, is 4 ft 11” — practically a

midget. He suffers the indignities of a short man in a tall world with fortitude.

“He’s like Asterix,” I say, “without the magic potion.” “— yah, except that he is credible,” says Bins. “Even the killers are credible: you can smell their madness. Taste their bile.” “YUCK!” I squeal.

That’s what makes the books so intense: they’re like watching securitycam footage of the characters scurrying about in the maze of the plot. In Irène we see the diminutive detective struggling inside a trap so fiendish that readers don’t realise how neatly we ourselves are trapped inside it too. Then in Alex, another kind of inward-curling plot uncoils around a very troubled young woman and her equally troubling history.

There’s a third book in the series, Camille. I haven’t read it yet. Neither has Bins. “The title is the same as the hero’s name,” he says. “That makes me worry.” “Oh — so now you’re worrying about a fictional detective?” I tease him. “He lives in my mind,” says Bins tapping his head, “I care for him.”

I tap my head too. “These Frenchmen are crazy,” I say. manjula padmanabhan, author and artist, writes of her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

cornerstone

What did Reverend Jonathan Scobie invent in 1869 to transport his invalid wife around the streets of Yokohama?

Answers 1. The cash register. Ritty worried about dishonest clerks and called it the ‘Incorruptible Cashier’ 2. Traffic lights. They were manually controlled by policemen for a few years before becoming automated 3. The electric chair for condemned criminals.

Thomas Alva Edison wanted to prove that Westinghouse’s alternating current was more dangerous than the direct current used by them, so they kept advertising large animals killed by AC. Westinghouse finally patented the chair 4. Ice tea. Blechynden realised nobody was interested in the normal tea 5. It was the first-ever product purchased using a bar code, and started a revolution in retail shopping 6. Rudyard Kipling. He was writing The Jungle Book at the time 7. The vacuum cleaner invented by Hubert Cecil Booth 8. Winston Churchill. Jennie married Lord Randolph Churchill 9. The stethoscope. Laennec was one of the foremost French physicians of his time 10. The rickshaw, far more popular in other parts of the world

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joy bhattacharjya is a quizmaster and Project Director, FIFA U-17 World Cup t@joybhattacharj

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