Blink issue 11 april05 2014

MEERUT KI NAGMA The “secular” star who knows her way around politics and the North Indian town P3

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A drongo lingers near the fire, waiting for a hearty meal of insects shola trust

Animals survive. Trees grow back. Tribals know their benefits. Strange as it sounds, forest fires are not always destructive p9

Wood for the fire

BREAKING BREAD In Paris, a baguette is, literally, a matter of life and death p21

ITINERANT LIVES This Place is a warm narrative about failure, and occasional triumphs p17

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V for victory BSP candidate Shakeel Saifi campaigning with Daler Mehndi ramesh sharma

THE COMPASS CHRONICLES

Tales of attraction rohit gupta

Decoding the myths around the humble and not-so-humble magnet in colonial India

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hat the Sun Temple of Konark once contained a giant lodestone magnet, which held the entire edifice together by its force — is a story often told. And in the telling, this tale becomes taller, whence idols in the sanctum sanctorum begin to levitate, and the temple’s magnetic field is said to disorient the mariner’s compass on any ship passing in the Bay of Bengal. Or imagine, the holy magnet pulling out all the iron nails of a Chinese wooden ship causing it to fall apart. Some have even tried to explain the infamous Indian rope trick using various magnetic contrivances.

Another tall story, both incredible and uncertain, attributed to an American general named Benjamin Alvord in a letter to the poet Longfellow (circa 1842), is about a magnetic plant: “There has been discovered in the forests of India a strange plant (philotacea electrica) which possesses, to a very high degree, astonishing magnetic power. The hand which breaks a leaf from it receives immediately a hakeel Saifi’s convoy was scheduled shock equal to that which is produced by the to Chand Cinema Trilokpuri conductorarrive of anat induction coil. At in a distance at 10am on its way to file his nominaof six metres a magnetic needle is affected by tion as the Lokit,Sabha candidate for the and it will be quite Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) from if East Delhi. A deranged brought couple of people are playing on the footnear.cards The energy of path and a man who cleans earssingular for a living this in- is setting up shop. An old manfluence with cataract-ridvaries den eyes is leaning on his stick and looking with theinto the distance. None of themhours have heard of the of Shakeel Saifi. day.

All Half an hour goes by before the candidate finally arrives in a black SUV with character actor Arun Bakshi. I ask Saifi, who until recently was a Congress member, when his political career began. He starts talking about 1982, when as a nine-year-old he accompanied his “Congressi” father to a State dinner with Indira Gandhi and Saddam Hussein. A couple of kids kept pointing to him and saying ‘ro’. He asked Indira why he was being asked to cry.

She explained ‘ro’ in Arabic means go away. He told her he will beat them up. After this pointless tale, Saifi begins talking about his checkered history with the party. He claims he was disillusioned with it after the Muzaffarnagar riots. He recounts an “interesting” meeting with Rahul Gandhi “in Shangri-La” (the hotel, he means). “He was also getting his haircut and I was also getting my haircut. I personally stopped him and asked him about Muzaffarnagar, and he said I will tell you after I have visited, and then he visited but nothing came of it.” His disaffection with the Congress might have other reasons too. “They don’t give tickets to Muslims and they have been using us as a vote bank for 60 years,” he complains.

Therefore he met “Behen Mayawati” who impressed him by saying there have been no riots in UP during her regime. She also offered him a ticket.

I find it hard to piece together what exactly Saifi does. People in the area offer salacious theories about his ‘busi-

powerful about two o’clock in the afternoon, through his invention, the magnetic crescoit is absolutely annulled during the night. At graph. There is no public record, but one wontimes of storm its intensity augments to strik- ders whether Bose knew of that mysterious ing proportions. While it rains the plant Indian plant mentioned by Alvord, the philotaseems to succumb: it bends its head during a cea electrica. His early biographer Philip thunder-shower and remains without force or Geddes does mention a similar American virtue even if one should shelter it with an “compass plant” (silphium laciniatum) in the umbrella. No shock is felt at that time in book The Life & Work Of Sir Jagadis C Bose (1920).

More importantly, Geddes describes Bose’s breaking the leaves, and the needle is unaffected by it. One never by any chance sees a bird or spectacular experiments with radio waves: insect alight on this electric plant; an instinct “Bose himself had as early as 1895, in a public seems to warn them that in so doing they lecture in Calcutta, demonstrated the ability would find sudden death. It is also important of electric rays to travel from the lecturethat where it grows none of the magnetic met- room, and through an intervening room and passage, to a third room 75 feet als are found, neither iron, nor away from the radiator, thus passcobalt, nor nickel — an undeing through three solid walls on niable proof that the electric the way, as well as the body of the force belongs exclusively to the chairman (who happened to be plant. Light and heat, phosIt may be said that the Lieutenant-Governor). The rephorescence, magnetism, elecout of the very ceiver at this distance still had entricity, how many mysteries imperfection of his ergy enough to make a contact, and botanical problems does senses, man has been which set a bell ringing, disthis wondrous Indian plant able, in science, to “agreed to campaign for himadecharged a pistol, and exploded ness’ — within none verifiable. has connections in Mehndi, conceal its leaf He and build for himself a raft who a Congress member,” Saifi says. miniature mine.” the film industry but he is not very forthcomflower!” of thoughtspite being for Jamia Nagar, where This ability to transmit signalshis ing about how he made them. Bakshi, who is They are headed Apart from a few scattered He tellsspace me he enjoys overwhelmthrough would soon evolve “like his father”, is sitting in on our interview. family lives. references, the history of magin better the area and the “Muslim with engineering into so-saHe hasintrained Saifi intopublic netism India prior the speaking. Ekta ing support vote forradar him. He is quick add phisticated systems into the Kapoor, he met “through a friend”, has maj” will only British Raj who is poorly documentthat thetoImam Jama Masjid, Ahmed WorldofWar II, and radar — in Bukas rakhi to chagrin him in the Ajmer historians.

Dargah”. His build-up ed,“tied much to the of science hari,as has also being pledged support topurpose the BSP. Iofask it was used for the company Films does promotion, That Indian Saifi sailors were already using distrithe much AAP is a threat.was “If really AAP had fielded Shaandifair navigation, an advanced bution and production, is all he tells The seahim magnetic compass had been noted by me.

Vasco zia Ilmi or amagnetic Muslim candidate, I would have of the compass. Both the rawebsite and the Face- avatar Dacompany’s Gama (circa 1497).isAdefunct few decades later, my nomination. they gotofan and the compass were for But Bose, ways book page near mostly with diowithdrawn while sailing Goahas andpictures Bombay,of theSaifi Portuoutsider (Rajmohan and bechaa“invisible light”,Gandhi) they were hissent prosthetSunny Leone.

All IJoão find on personal website seeing guese naval officer de his Castro discovered ri Shazia tofor Ghaziabad,” says dismissing Eye — visible lighthe and radio waves is newsreel from when Emraan Hash- ic Third magnetic declinations in he histook compass caused Heelectromagwas in Mecca slicesprospects. of the same to promote Dirty Picture out- Jai Singh were different their bymi nearby ferrous rocks.

Even Sawai the Parliament —ofincluding, II,side the astronomer-king Jaipur — although netic spectrum.last week to pray for his victory.

Mehndi, tells me,and asked Bose’s vision is bothheromantic elo-for oddly, news reports his artistic sundials are criticising singular — seems to votes“From for him and sangthe ‘Allah Allah quent, he writes: amongst innuthem forhad disrespecting the have little interest inpremmagnetism.

Bismillah’ to a fawning crowd. merable octaves of light, there is only one ises. Saifi callingin magneThesays firststars majorare character Sridevi, John I meet Mehndi in the eye. lobby with power to excite the human In of him — “Sridevi, tismeveryday from India appears to be Ja- octave, Abraham, Vidya thein Surya Hotel, of where Saifi puts we stand, the midst a luminous John Abraham, Vidya Ba-in the gadish Chandra Bose late willreality, Balan all come up all his I ask Thestar littlecampaigners. that we can see lan, will allcentury, come.” by I ask 19th whose time ocean, almost blind! him what of Saifi’s bid, tohe themakes vastness of that him if stars help get between is nothing, compared thecan relationship andBut heitsays understand may“Ibedon’t said that out of more votes.electricity He says heand mag- which we cannot. politics. of Allhis I know is they senses, manare hasall is getting stars onlyhad been the very imperfection netism theable, same. keep fool of aus, and inThey science, tomaking build forahimself raft to prove a point to Congress. firmly establish- been beloved keepsdaring gettingadvenfooled.” thought

by Hindustan which to make Saifi insists MP, of our ed. the Andcurrent for some ingreat Jamiaseas Nagar, 12year-old tea seller Naon the of the unknown.”

Sandeep Dikshit, lose. reasonwill Bose be-His ture Back only competition is BJP’s Ma- deem has heard of neither Mehndi nor Saifi. gan to investigate explores the history science The gupta local paan seller says heofwill be as “surprised heish He doesn’t know rohit theGirri. electrical and magt@fadesingh if Saifi’s own family votes for him”. “Gandhi ka Girri butsignals has met him in Compasswallah netic in plants Shangri-La too. Both Girri beta hi jeetega,” he adds, despite the fact that and he reach the SDM’s of- Rajmohan is yet to start campaigning. The fice at the same time to file same sentiment is echoed when I speak to their nominations. Many of Muslims near Medina Masjid in Trilokpuri. EvGirri’s supporters, like him, eryone laughs off Saifi and Girri’s prospects. are in saffron robes. Saifi’s They don’t seem to dislike Sandeep Dikshit people are wearing finely em- but believe AAP can work miracles.

Back at Chand Cinema, when I had asked broidered skullcaps. Girri’s supporters mob Bakshi, but the ear cleaner who he’ll vote for he had said claim Girri will win and take he doesn’t know — “Maybe I will only stand.” care of their needs “in this “For MP or MLA?” I ask him. “I don’t know the world and the next.” Girri, who difference.” Most people blame Dikshit for ran an ashram in Gujarat, is now a tasks the MCD or their local MLA have failed to disciple of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. carry out. The old man with cataract-ridden “When he delivers sermons you can eyes, 85-year-old Ram Dhir Pradhan, was a freedom fighter in Lahore and has been a Consee god in his face,” say BJP workers. gress worker since. He says Dikshit won’t win nperturbed, Saifi is off to cam- but he’ll “never leave Congress, jeete ya haare.” paign the next morning. He is in a Porsche Cayenne driven by Daler pragya tiwari edits thebigindianpicture.com

The curious case of Shakeel Saifi

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On the campaign trail of a debutant BSP candidate in the busy lanes of East Delhi

Secrets of a temple A plate from James Fergusson’s Ancient Architecture in Hindoostan depicting the Konark Sun Temple (1847) wikicommons

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Yeh toh cocktail hai Nagma might be a vision in yellow in Meerut, but she is quick to prove that she knows the pulse of the city and the ways of politics

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n the morning of March 21, in the quiet residential locality of Saket in Meerut, house number 68A wears a festive look. The newly acquired headquarters of the Congress, about three-weeks-old now, is yet to be inaugurated.

Scores of party workers huddle on the lawns.

In the innermost room, acting president of district Congress committee, Manoj Tyagi, sits on a white couch, greeting party members and checking his phone. It is 11am. Nagma (best known for being the damsel in distress in Baaghi) is expected to make an entrance anytime now. “I think we have a strong contender,” says Tyagi. “And she has secular credentials,” — an important draw in the communally sensitive town of Meerut. In an interview, Nagma says, “I was born to a Hindu father and Muslim mother on Christmas day.

You can’t get more secular than that.”

A week later, Nagma was groped by a youth while campaigning in the the city’s Jali Kothi area, best known for its musical instruments.

Outraged, she slapped the young man and left the roadshow. Five days prior, Congress MLA Gajraj Singh had allegedly pulled her face close to his and planted one on her cheek at a rally in Hapur. The actress cut short her programme and walked away in a huff. The incident has since been hushed up and errant party members have been asked to toe the party line (to not kiss candidates) and to call the act a harmless one. On that day, Nagma’s attempt to file nomination papers went comically awry when a party member carrying her documents disappeared.

Two hours behind schedule, at 1pm, a vision in mustard yellow arrives at 68A to greet an unruly mob. A short press statement is issued, where she underscores her “secular credentials”. Then, Nagma proceeds to the district collectorate to file her nomination papers.

Within minutes of her entrance, hundreds gather for a sighting, in what seems like a reenactment of the time when a leopard had strayed into Meerut. Soon, the bag containing

her documents goes missing. Harried Con- Court bench and a focus on making Meerut gress workers swing into action. For some un- the country’s sports capital once again. “She known reason this journalist was mistaken for has promised ‘Meerut ko Dilli bana denge’,” the errant party member and quickly shuffled says Naeem, a long-time party supporter. into the room. A little later, Nagma is inTo Seema Mittal and her group of Mahila formed that her aide Salim Bharti is on his way Congress workers, Nagma’s promises come as with the bag. As a furious collectorate looks a breath of fresh air. “How many times have on, Nagma takes a few questions. While she is you been to Meerut?” Mittal asks me. “What do happy with Meerut’s response, are these fans you think of the city?” she continues. A thirdor voters, I ask. “I would like it if the fans be- time visitor to Meerut, I cringe involuntarily came voters and the voters became fans.” before quickly rearranging my facial features.

Two years ago, she was in the running for a But it’s too late. “Disgusted is how we feel evRajya Sabha seat. Would she have preferred ery day in this city,” she says. that to the rough politics of the heartland?

Nagma’s roadshows in Meerut city have “Yes, I would have preferred the RS seat. But drawn an enthusiastic response. But, after the what I can do for Meerut is give it groping incident of March 28, Kaa voice in parliament because I mal Bhargav, a local journalist am a national figure,” she says. says she has grown wary of mobs.

It is close to 3pm; the deadline Taking a leaf out of the Hema Mafor filing the nomination is minlini-school-of-campaigning, “she I was born to a utes away. Nagma turns to the ocis not stepping out of her car anyHindu father and togenarian Congressman more. She’s got herself bodyMuslim mother on standing beside her. “Yeh kya ho Christmas day. You guards,” says Bhargav. raha hai… Babuji,” she says, in According to news polls, the can’t get more true filmi style. Despite all efforts, Congress is moving steadily up secular than that her documents don’t make it in the rankings. Yet, not all memtime. The vision in yellow brushes bers of the party are convinced. aside the goof-up and promises to “The Nagma effect is restricted to be back the next morning. the city,” says Abhimanyu Tyagi, a Nagma has her work cut out in Meerut. 26-year-old blogger for the Congress Party. But While her roadshows have been popular, they Pandit Jayanarayan Sharma, the 89-year-old have been confined to the city. Yet to address a Congressman planning the campaign stratepublic rally, Nagma has avoided serious ques- gy is certain of her victory. “Hindu hai, Muslim tions, such as those on the Muzaffarnagar bhi hai. Film star bhi hai. Nagma toh cocktail riots and Narendra Modi. Mahila Congress hai,” he says. She however, wears the “glammembers have also remarked on the absence our” tag lightly. “I didn’t want to remain an acof women in her all-male team, even as she tress forever. I needed something serious and talks about “girl child welfare and women’s politics was a good bet,” she says. empowerment”.

How will she deal with the caste-driven poliHowever, in the short span of a few weeks, tics of UP, I ask, she snaps back, “You don’t ask Nagma has identified local problems that are Modi these hard questions. What groundwork keenly felt by Meerut’s citizens. In her speech- has he done for Varanasi? Where is the Modi es, she has promised betwave? I know what I’m doing here.” ter linkage to Delhi Indeed, posters of the sitting BJP MP Rajenand Ghaziadra Agrawal or Modi are nowhere to be bad, a High seen in Meerut. But neither is Nagma.

For the elections in Meerut this time, there are some obvious factors at work. “Anti-incumbency.

(The sitting MP is a BJP candidate, the municipal body is BJP and so is the mayor.)

There is Muzaffarnagar. But the real battle is about caste,” says Abhimanyu.

While the clans of the Hindu Tyagis, Jats — with the backing of RLD chief Chaudhury Ajit Singh — and other Hindu communities have promised their fealty to Congress, it is the Muslim votes the party needs to secure, currently split between the BSP and SP. The Congress candidate, however, has so far failed to make it to the eight jan sabhas organised in various villages of the Muslimdominated Kithore region and a Samajwadi Marigolds and Party stronghold. musclemen But for now the star-studded corridor of Congress western UP — from Raj Babbar in Ghaziabad, candidate Nagma Nagma in Meerut to Jaya Prada in Bijnore — is during her living up to its “glamorous” billing. election

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Dhoni crony That the outgoing BCCI President N Srinivasan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni share business interests, is an open secret v ganesan

joanna van gruisen

A BUTTERFLY BREEZE FROM MP

No singing in this rain

Not a solitary reaper One ill-timed hailstorm can wreak havoc on the harvest; climate change affects everyone afp/diptendu dutta

Well into March this year, we were still in three layers and a shawl in North India. Climate change, anyone?

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constant source of conversation this winter, this prolonged winter that only recently ended in northern India, has been the weather. As a Brit, I am used to the elements being a popular topic, but here this is not usually so. The climate of the subcontinent used to be so regular, it was said you could set your watch by the coming of the monsoon. It has been a while since this was so, nevertheless, if one was asked, for example, what the weather would be like in February, it was easy enough to give an accurate response. Not this year! Who could have predicted that well into March, we would still be in three layers and a shawl, watching downpours of monsoon weight? In our eco-resort with no air conditioning and with outdoor activities, we

close mid-April as it becomes too hot to be comfortable in the open. This was hard to believe when only six weeks before, we were still using hot water bottles to take the chill off the beds at night!

The only bright side to this is that finally more people — including hopefully, our politicians and policy makers — will recognise that ‘climate change’ exists. It’s extraordinary that there are still doubters, even when in the field of climate science, the consensus is unequivocal: human activities are causing global warming and severe climate changes (at least 97 per cent of all relevant papers show that.) It’s even more shocking that those in authority are not taking steps to mitigate the effect, or taking into account the implications of this, especially for vulnerable sectors like agriculture.

Excessive cold, sunless and wet days may be tiresome for tourists travelling in India, but for some, this weather presents a life-and-death situation. In our area the wheat crop had just reached that greengold stage. Tall waving strands turning colour — the worst possible time for powerful winds, hail and slashing rain that lay them flat. Walking around the neighbouring channa field, I notice it’s lush and green but there’s hardly a chickpea to be found.

We should be heading for the height of the dry season. This year, in our district of MP, 86.2mm of rain has been recorded for January and February — almost 200 per cent more than is considered average. Six of these eight weeks recorded excessive rain, according to the India Meteorological Department. Such wreckage to the

crops is already starting a new wave of farmer suicides. Since 1995 over 2.8 lakh farmers have taken their lives in the face of crop failures and excessive debts, that’s more than 45 suicides every day!

Banking policies, exploding input costs and crashing crop prices provide the dry tinder that any spark may set alight — even an untimely hailstorm.

In what warped world can it make sense to give a loan for a Mercedes Benz car for half the interest of buying a working tool like a tractor? The agricultural community may be a diminishing vote bank, but it’s time we gave them the attention they deserve — for all our welfare.

Back to the pavilion

joanna van gruisen is a wildlife Does Mahendra Singh Dhoni owe his long innings as a Testphotographer, captain to his ties with the conservationist and hotelier based near the Panna Tiger Reserve outgoing BCCI president N Srinivasan?

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here was a time when Mahendra Singh Dhoni could do no wrong… be it his love for motorcycles, his hairstyles or his performance on the field as the captain of the Indian cricket team.

He was called the man with the Midas touch.

The 2007 T20 World Cup triumph shot Dhoni into prominence and his popularity continued to grow in the following years. It skyrocketed after he led India to the 2011 World Cup win and was nicknamed ‘captain cool’ — ad campaigns and strategies were devised around his style of cricket and captaincy. In other words, he was the blue-eyed boy of the fans, the media and the experts.

Dhoni still remains the blue-eyed boy, but perhaps, only of the controversial, now former, BCCI president N Srinivasan. How else do you explain a skipper holding on to his position in Test cricket, after performing worse than say, the so-called ‘terrible’ captains like Sachin Tendulkar?

India has failed to win a single Test match away from home in the last three years. This winless streak has stretched to 14 Test matches now, including the humiliating 4-0 defeats at the hands of England and Australia. Dhoni’s overseas captaincy record reads like this: 23 matches, five wins, seven draws and 11 losses.

Sourav Ganguly even called his captaincy “obnoxious” and too defensive.

Former selector Mohinder Amarnath, in fact, had said that after the disastrous tours of England and Australia in 2012, it was suggested by the selectors that Dhoni should be sacked. But due to ‘internal reasons’ the idea was rejected. The BCCI constitution states that the list drawn up by selectors ought to be vetted by the approval of the president.

Former chairman of selectors, Kiran More, however, feels that Dhoni got a lot of flak for

captaining a side, which doesn’t have the abil- well. Two cricketers who were considered for ity to win overseas. “Look at the bowling at- the job — Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehtack he has had — it’s inexperienced and lacks wag — now find themselves on the periphery the quality to win Test matches,” he says. of Indian cricket due to poor form, age (in SehBishen Singh Bedi, former India captain, wag’s case) and according to some, differences says that the support Dhoni has enjoyed from with Dhoni. “He has formed a coterie of crickthe BCCI is unparalleled. “Every Indian captain eters around him, who rarely get dropped,” — be it Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev or Ganguly — says a former selector. Suresh Raina, who incihad differences with the authorities. But no dentally is part of Chennai Super Kings, is one one has enjoyed so much power and support such name. Sehwag’s coach AN Sharma went as Dhoni,” he says. on record to say his ouster from the team was Could this be linked to Srinivasan, India Ce- due to personal reasons. For Gambhir, howevments and Chennai Super Kings? “I believe er, Dhoni expressed surprise at his exclusion, so,” says a former captain. In July 2013, in an in- and Gambhir too quashed any rumours of a terview, Srinivasan said people rift between the two. were “jealous” of Chennai Super Dhoni’s potential replacement Kings because they had Dhoni. He is Virat Kohli. Former Australian went as far as to suggest that the captain Ian Chappell recently Dhoni’s overseas “savage attacks” on him were hapsaid that Kohli would make a betcaptaincy record is pening because he had Dhoni. ter captain. Kohli, 25, hasn’t 23 matches, five It’s not as if a president and a proved his mettle as a skipper in wins, seven draws captain haven’t enjoyed a special the recently concluded Asia Cup and 11 losses bond before. Ganguly was supbut is the only possible successor. posedly very close to Jagmohan In 2013, Dhoni had hinted that Dalmiya, while Mohammad Azhahe was burdened with captaining ruddin had close ties with the late the team in all three formats — Raj Singh Dungarpur. But those ties were re- ODIs, Tests and T20 — but expressed his desire stricted to cricket and personal relations, not to defend the ODI World Cup. Unlike Tests, in business interests. In 2013, Dhoni was appoint- ODI cricket, his record as a captain remains ed the vice president at India Cements. credible and perhaps, safe. But in Test cricket, Ever since the IPL spot-fixing scandal broke he should have been sacked long ago. and Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath MeiyapWith challenging tours to Australia and Enpan’s role in handling Chennai Super Kings gland pencilled 2014, theterminus time is right to Eating out of his hands Founder Satish Chamyvelumani at Atchayam’s, nearin thefor Koyambedu r ravindran came under the scanner, Dhoni has kept mum blood a new Test captain. Perhaps, the wise on the issue. Last week when the Supreme men of Indian cricket are awaiting orders not the ideal date. We in unfamiliar bus terminus, overlooks Courtt’sordered Srinivasan toare step down, the Koyambedu from the Supreme Court toand bring down the territory, thespeaking traffic is relentless, and with wholesale vegetable market. Tucked skipper avoided to the media and grim axe. And perhaps, like Srinivasan, Dhoniinto too sunSharma beatingindown on us, takes a amust small at the entrance of refuses Hotel Chennai sent the Rohit his place foritthe prebekiosk forced to leave, for he to bow while to find Atchayam’s Food the ‘food box’ is a large, automated match conference at the World T20.Box (afood- Deluxe, out gracefully. box.com).

It’squestion a bright, air-conditioned nook in vending machine that issues set meals As for the of who should he be rethe not-so-salubrious near Chennai’s from restaurants the city. A aabhas sharma is a Delhi-basedacross freelance writer placed with, that hasenvirons been asked earlier as sourced

In the fast lane

Chennai’s new-age ‘food box’ heats and serves food from restaurants across the city in 90 seconds flat

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Civil disobedience Anti-incumbency murmurs are getting louder in the corridors of South Block as elections approach vv krishnan

DILLI DARBAR

The darbaris have voted Delhi’s ‘babudom’ has already defected and wants a change of political leadership

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Sanjaya Baru’s book The Accidental Prime Minister: Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh will be published later this month

ever before has the mood within the labyrinthine corridors of the Dilli Darbar been as anti-incumbent as it is today. More interestingly, never has the mood been as ‘pro-challenger’ as it seems to be today. Delhi’s ‘babudom’ has already voted — in favour of a change of government. A large majority would like to see Narendra Modi as their next prime minister.

The residual minority may go on April 10, when Delhi votes, and cast their ballot in favour of a candidate of the Aam Admi Party, knowing full well that it would be a wasted vote, but at least cast against the Congress. The votes in favour of AAP are truly ‘anti-incumbent’ — in the sense that these are negative votes against the current dispensation. But the sentiment for Modi in the Dilli Darbar is not merely ‘anti-incumbent’, it is ‘pro-challenger’.

This phenomenon, of the higher bureaucracy desperately seeking change in the political leadership of government, has been seen before in various State capitals. Sick and tired of the corruption, the bossism, the uncouth ways of this or the other dictatorial chief minister in that or the other State, civil servants have in the past contributed to the public mood of anti-incumbency and even helped shape it. Delhi has rarely, if ever, witnessed this phenomenon.

The Dilli Darbar may have been relieved when Indira Gandhi, the ‘Empress of India’, was voted out in 1977 but the mood then was more anti-incumbent than pro-challenger.

The higher civil service may have wanted to see the back of whoever was in power but rarely has it favoured the challenger as much as it

seems to favour Modi today. Call it upper-caste forced by the Congress Party to do in 2004. At bias, as the sociologists, the psephologists and that time, Dr Singh had to change the cabinet, the political scientists are wont to, but the sen- home and defence secretaries — all good and timent is strong. highly regarded officers. Will Modi do the Several factors have contributed to this but same if and when he becomes PM? none more than the manner in which the ConBut that thought would not bother more gress Party leadership and its ministers have than a handful. An overwhelming majority are treated the civil service. Senior civil servants waiting for a head of government who would are also deeply disappointed with Prime Min- re-empower them and restore their elan. That, ister Manmohan Singh after seeing his re- without doubt, is the mood in the corridors of sponse to the action taken by the Central the Dilli Darbar.

Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case of two Apart from such hopes for themselves, upright civil servants — former coal secretary many in the Indian administrative service PC Parakh and former head of the (IAS) are also hoping Modi will Securities and Exchange Board of end the IPS-Raj of the Sonia GandIndia (SEBI), CB Bhave. They conhi era. From MK Narayanan in Koltrast this with the manner in kata to ESL Narasimhan in which Modi praises and defends Hyderabad, from BL Joshi in LuckThe IAS have long his loyal civil servants. now and Bharat Wanchoo in Panconsidered In a recent television interview jim to Ashwani Kumar and KK themselves the Modi recalled the work of officers Paul in the Northeast, retired Indipurest metal in the who had served him and his state an police service (IPS) officers ocsteel frame well in his early days as chief mincupy more Raj Bhavans than ister — PK Misra and G Subba Rao. retired IAS officers. In Andhra PraWhile journalists have panned desh a retired IPS officer is adminModi and the interviewer Madhu istering President’s Rule, telling Kishwar for the shoddiness of a PR-job, Delhi’s IAS officers what to do. All this goes against the babudom has taken note of the fact that Modi grain of babudom. The IAS have long considremembers those who have served him and ered themselves the purest metal in the steel his State well. More to the point, these are frame. At the centre, in the Dilli Darbar, they good officers, not just ‘family retainers’. wield more power than any other central serIt is possible that the civil service will even- vice. They hope Modi will restore their status. tually be disappointed if Modi does not rise up Whatever the hopes and aspirations of the to their expectations. Many may cry foul if higher civil service, most of it has already dethey are removed from their present positions fected. They want a change of political leaderbecause they would be seen as having been ship in Delhi. The ground has shifted in Modi’s too close to the current dispensation. And, the favour even before voting has started.

Bharatiya Janata Party may well expect Modi to sanjaya_baru@hotmail.com do what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was

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janice pariat

Organic growth Is it like a hamburger?

PAPERWALLAH

A small band of businesses across India is stitching together a market for ethical clothing Some critics feel creative writing is a vulgar hybrid, others that it is the mark of a good writer. But the debate lies elsewhere

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anif Kureishi has just been called a d**k.

We are at a weekly literary evening by thefelt School of Enaniorganised Chinnaswamy a loss of glish at the University of Kent, and the remark identity when genetically modielicits some nervous laughter,began and polite, if unfied varieties replacing easy, silence. The teaches at cotton the univertheindicter extra-long staple his sity’s for cultivating Creative Writing, and he inis familyCentre had been for five decades miffed, over certain remarkswho KuPollachi.extremely, Unlike many other farmers reishi hastomade about his profession.

Speaking shifted the GM variety, Chinnaswamy perat the Independent Bath Literature festivalitearsisted with the old variety and cultivated orlier in March, Kureishichemical called creative writing ganically by avoiding fertilisers. courses a “waste of time”,there implying that But soon he realised was further no market the of storytelling cannot be with taught. for skill this variety any more.

Saddled tons(Kuof reishi was with Vijayalakshmi, resembling a certain cotton, he charged and his wife, decidpart the male body because he istoalso profesed tooftake up handloom weaving make use sor of creative writing Kingston of their produce.

Theyatbought 42 University.) handlooms We are gathered forthat a reading

by Evie Wyld, from a cooperative was shutting downa London-based writer. second novel, All the and refurbished themHer with the help of carpenBirds, hasbrought recently been published,from and ters. Singing They also in a designer shortlisted the Costa Novel Prize and longMumbai tofor help them produce organic cotton listed forAnd thisin year’s Bailey’s Women’s for sarees.

2008, Ethicus — the Prize ‘ethical’ Fiction. andfrom the moderator are discussing fashionShe brand Tamil Nadu-based Appacreative writing Wyld obtained both chi Cotton mill —courses; was born. an undergraduate and postgraduate degree in In a market where regular cotton sarees the subject. it hadn’t been the for that,” she says, rarely retail“If beyond ₹3,000, Ethicus range “Istarts would have a writer.” atnever ₹3,500 andbecome is priced up to ₹10,000.

This, in3,000 a nutshell, of Nearly sareesexemplifies sell each the year,polarity and dethe debate, on-going for seemingly millennia mand is growing steadily.

This thena is the stonow, ry ofsurrounding hundreds ofcreative other writing organic courses. cotton (Possibly there has more about clothing brands too,been as they findwritten ready buyers creative courses than allconthe among writing educated and collectively environmentally writing actually tourists done in these courses.) We have scious Indians, and expatriates. its “There critics is and champions, its advocates and a growing awareness about orgamalcontents, aggravatingly, equal in nic clothing. almost, We are witnessing 100 per cent count. piece that creative growthFor in every sales every year,”describes says Sonal Baid, writing as the with “biggest con job in academia” who together her husband, Arun, set up Aura Herbal Wear in Ahmedabad in 2003.

Shishir Goenka, who has been manufacturing organic clothes since 2006, would readily concur. Supplying to brands in Canada, Sweden and Italy, he soon realised the growing demand back home. “I set up my own line, Fusion Clothing, in 2010,” he says. In the first

Chic ethic Organic cotton on the stem; (top right) handpainted, Bollywoodinspired bag by Indigreen; Samtana’ s ‘wearable art’

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there is another that claims it can “produce in- garding them, as the critic and novelist dependent-thinking, craftsman like innova- Malcolm Bradbury put it, as being “like the tors”. Is it a system set up to silence writers, and hamburger — a vulgar hybrid which, as everydupe students? does introduce ways of one once knew, no sensible person would ever year, his revenueOr was ₹20itlakh; today the busithinking about writing are strong and pur- eat.” The UK’s first master’s degree program in ness, including exports,that brings in a whopping poseful? every Hanif Kureishi there is a Jea- creative writing opened in 1970. By 2011, there ₹10 croreFor annually. nette Winterson. were over 90. And the ‘vulgar hybrid’ has The naturally issue with creative writing courses, spread even further. To Australia, Canada, New Zany, though, to do with whether are Zealand, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, and the A varietyhas of less factors are driving the they organic beneficial or counterproductive. craze. “People realise chemicalsThe areproblem, bad forI Philippines. In India, even though they’ve takthink, lies consumption elsewhere. as well as the environ- en time to catch on, they’re being offered, personal My concern creativealso writing ment… belief is inthat the brand plays courses an im- mostly as a minor part of an English Literature may disallow a diploma, a handful of white places,fabinportant role,” creativity says Baid. from flourishing out- course Whileorone metre ofatpure organic sideAsthe enclosure of acent university curriculum.

National Open Univermuch as 95 per of the cotton culti- cluding ric costsIndira ₹150, Gandhi the regular cotton comes for That ‘creative writing’ couldsecond becomelargest inextricaSymbiosis college, T-shirt Pune, is Jawaharlal vated in India, the world’s ex- sity, around ₹120. An organic priced beble fromofthe subject ofmodified. To tween ₹500Nehru University, Delhi, The Britporter thename fibre,of is agenetically and ₹1,000, which compares fauniversity That these ishthe Council recently, stand out tuition. in a crowded market, organic vourably with prices and, of bigmore brands but is courses become ‘badges’ or the workshops in Kolkata organised brands rely on their differentiating designs, more expensive than the unbranded stuff. sole markers by which one graduthe University of East Anglia, colours and aesthetics.

Aura uses only herbal “Prices will by remain a little high till scale is ates the rank of ‘good’ writer.

In UK (for theofsum of ₹25,000). dyestoderived from indigo, pomegranate peel, writing achieved. Economies scale will make our Creative an already publishing inI cannotcheaper help but this saffron andbiased turmeric. products thanfind convencourses threaten dustry, they could stratify the trend forBaid. reasons that Bangalore-based Samtana tionalunsettling, cotton,” says the existence of process even further — many pubhave little to do with the debate prints selected works of Indian Only a handful of factories are writing as a craft, lishing houses, especially in the on the efficacy of creative and international designers on currently certified by thewriting Global branding it instead Economies of scale programmes. For one, creative UK US, refuse to consider itsand organic cotton T-shirts. manIndiOrganic Textile Standard (GOTS). as a ‘skill’ that can will eventually uscripts not submitted a writing courses of arethese pre-eminentgreen, founded in 2009through

by Nidhi “The majority are exbe bought and sold make our products literary agency.

Will Gupta, literarybrings agenly an English-language Singh and Gaurav tremely large factories phenomthat supcheaper than cies one daytorefuse to consider enon theinternational process by Bollywood organic clothing ply theand, big like brand conventional cotton which English originally spread manuscripts aren’t written by with designsthat featuring funny momarket and cannot, or do not, someone with a creative writing around world, athey bearindethe vie dialogues. want tothe support small, degree? filtersco-founder could be endless.

And the stench of colonialism.

They arebrand. embodiments Ben The Heinkel, of pendent Indian Finding gatekeepers of ‘good manifold. of a lurkingthe ‘bigright brother’ attitude, here whereby Samtana, says manyliterature’ people now partnership has Louis Menand, professor of they English Har- anything in the West is always, somebuy organic cotton clothes as are at drawn been very done challenging,” says Heinkel. vard University, creativeappeal. writing“And pro- how, worthy of imitation under an to their designscalls andthe aesthetic To counter thisstudious shortcoming, 28 companies gram (which) of being beneficial.

Secondly, this is“an onlyAmerican natural at invention, this stage, until therehas is assumption banded together last year as the Green People recently become anofAmerican export.”and The Britmay exist, they invariablyEven apmore awareness what organic fair wherever of India, they to promote eco-enterprises. ish were initially of the idea, re- pear to serve the goal of enclosing whatever trade clothing is contemptuous about.”

Fairtrade International, which helps pro‘autonomous zones’ temporary spaces outducers gain access to—markets at better terms, side formal structures of controllast — that Affordably ethical set up its India arm in November year.exist Designs apart, the brands are working over- for the development of the writing craft, into a system of accountability and time to erase the ‘organic is more expensive’ bureaucratic Partnering change then, what writtag. “We are offering the consumer a price- control.

“With theUltimately, help of Fairtrade India creative we have manis thethat verywe existence of competitive product with the additional su- ing agedcourses to formthreaten partnerships are happy writing as will a craft, it instead as a per-values of being organic,” says Baid. with. This helpbranding us bring out new collec‘skill’ can bequicker bought,pace,” sold and certified. tions that at a much Heinkel adds.

My suggestion is forthe us to work towards Eager to expand, organic brands the are multiplication of common spacesof—Ethicus bookhowever selective.

Chinnaswamy shops, independent festivals does notlibraries, retail through outlets that don’tand use publishers, bookonly clubs, literary his tag. Samtana sells online groups for now.and Aueven — where writing may thriveand as craft, ra hascafés a flagship store in Ahmedabad frannurtured in the half grassroots.

The chisees incommunally, Kolkata, although of its sales only reason I would findsells to join a creative writhappen online.

It also at 20 multi-brand ing course would be three to access a nurturing enoutlets in India and in Europe.

“We aim vironment mymetros writing, where to have storesfor across and big citiesno in alternatives available.

It is to those alterthe next fewwere years, as the demand is huge,” natives, not to the further branding of creBaid says.

Chinnaswamy agrees: “Indians are ative writing courses, that I hope we turn sensitive to the cause of organic cotton.

Forour us, attention, andmarket where we place our faith. the domestic is the future, and branding is the route to it.” janice pariat is the author of Boats on Land t@janicepariat To con or not to con Can and should students be taught the art of storytelling and writing? k gopinathan rashmi pratap

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Home, tweet home Grabhouse uses social media to keep out brokers and help students and young professionals find the perfect rental accommodation

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t’s a simple case of necessity giving birth to invention. Back in 2012, when Pankhuri Shrivastava was a fellow of Teach For India, a non-profit organisation, she experienced firsthand the many challenges of living in Mumbai. It was tough to rent a house without paying high brokerages and even tougher to find like-minded flatmates.

Around that time, her friend Prateek Shukla too had completed his engineering course from IIT-Kanpur. He came to Mumbai that October and the two of them decided to find a solution to the housing problems of students and young professionals.

Over the next six months, they asked around in the city’s colleges and realised that the major problems were high brokerages (two months’ rent in Navi Mumbai) and house-owners reluctant to take in tenants who were single.

“We didn’t know how to start, but were sure that just as travel agents had been replaced by travel websites as they didn’t create any value, the same model could be replicated in the rental space,” says Shukla.

The duo then happened to be selected for India Quotient (IQ) Bootcamp, a free and nocontract 50-day incubator for tech start-ups.

The Bootcamp team, including Anand Lunia,

Home run Prateek Shukla, the 24-year-old co-founder and CEO of grabhouse.com, in Mumbai shashi ashiwal

angel investor and founder of IQ, and Tarun Davda, venture capitalist at Matrix Partners, provided mentoring and free office space.

Within three months of its launch, Grabhouse had saved ₹25 lakh in brokerage and, by October-end, it had helped around 350 people find a house in Mumbai. That prompted IQ and MV Krishnan, vice president of Deutsche Bank, to provide an undisclosed sum as seed funding in January 2014.

‘Share’ a home

By July 2013, Shrivastava and Shukla were ready to launch grabhouse.com in its minimalist avatar — an online space that lets you find roommates without paying brokerage. Those Know your housemate looking for a flat can post requirements after Grabhouse has now added a flats section, answering with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to where owners can call for tenants. eight lifestyle-related preferencThe challenge was to narrow the es, including smoking, drinking, choice to ‘educated and wellfood and overnight guests. placed’ hopefuls. “We’re creating House-seekers “We are leveraging the power of a sign-up for seekers through must answer ‘yes’ social networks to help people LinkedIn that will give the details or ‘no’ to eight find flatmates and tenants about their educational and prolifestyle-related through their common friends, fessional background. This enpreferences keeping in mind compatibility. sures people get quality seekers,” We have built a smart algorithm says 24-year-old Shukla. that matches owners with tenYet another challenge was to ants and flatmates on the basis of counter brokers, who charge a their preferences,” says Shukla. commission to publicise a property on real-esThis, then, has been the USP of Grabhouse: tate websites. “We countered it by generating zero brokerage and heavy use of social media the details of a flat in the form of a poster, to reach out to youth looking for rented ac- which the owners could post as a photo on FB, commodation — markedly differentiating it Twitter or WhatsApp. In this way, they could from the bigger daddies 99acres.com, common- wouldn’t have to type in the details repeatedly floor.com and magicbricks.com. or pay a commission,” he says.

Grabhouse also allows users to create a customised tiny, easy-to-remember URL, which can be shared by a house owner or seeker. A click on this will generate the house details or a prospective tenant’s requirements. In December last year, the website acquired a Facebook group — Flats and Flatmates Mumbai, which is adding 700-800 people every day.

From 10,000 initially, the number of members has grown to 25,000. This has strengthened the website’s reach in Mumbai. It has also spread to 10 cities including Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Indore, Bhopal and Ahmedabad.

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Niche services “About 250 houses are listed daily by those looking for tenants or roommates,” says Shukla. But so far, Shrivastava and he haven’t spent a penny on marketing. Their costs have been nominal as their eight-member team — average age 22 — hasn’t taken a month’s salary yet.

The angel funding has enabled them to rent an office in Malad and meet other expenses.

Having carved a niche for itself, Grabhouse is now ready to charge for its services. For starters, flat owners have to pay ₹100 for the contact details of a prospective tenant.

“House-seekers too are willing to pay for the services and we are considering charging them,” says Shukla, but nowhere near what brokers charge. He is also ready to take rent agreements online and charge ₹200-300 for each. “We’ve tied up with lawyers in all the cities we are present in. Flat owners and seekers just have to sign the papers,” he adds.

In the next six months, Grabhouse will spread to Chennai, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kota... “Right now, people are posting requirements through our website and WhatsApp. In future, they will be able to do it through any social media website,” he says. Brokers excuse… click! rashmi pratap

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In bikini-clad heaven PRESENT IMPERFECT

New old stock

ELSEWHERE

manjula padmanabhan

Khushwant Singh didn’t merely stand up for the female orgasm, he stood up for freedom itself Politics, the last bastion of old men, is now placing a premium on youth too

No breeze, this How hard could it be to work at a laundromat?

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he nearest commercial laundry is a 20-minute hike from where I live. It’s called the Breezy Bee Laundry and I go there with a backpack full of dirty clothes once a week.

It’s a small place. Nine industrial-sized dryers line the walls, with names like Whomping Wilma and Bouncing Bertha. Ten washing machines huddle together in the middle. There’s just Last laugh Khushwant Singh, writer, editor and son of a businessman learned quickly that sex sells shanker chakravarty enough place to walk around to the back to get $5 worth of quarters from Magdalena, the manager. She’s friendly but e are Indian, reflexively stiff looks permanently stressed. Her frizzled red hair stands on Beyond the jest, Singh had a healthy disreabout our sex, God and poli- spect for the sexual knowledge of Indians. In end, her skin is covered in tiny pinkChange blotches at 15-minute of and guard tics. And then Khushwant Sex, Scotch and Scholarship (1992) he rued, intervals she runs outside to suck energy fromLK cigarettes.

BJP leaders Advaniher andhead Jaswant Singh’s “ribald, rib-tickling “Most Indian men are not even aware that When I go in this time, she’s clutching as she hands have been and outrageous” joke books taught us to take women also have orgasms; most Indian womme the stack of shiny coins. I ask if it’sSingh a busy day and she snorts. forced to take a it easy, knock back a Patiala peg and keep en share this ignorance because although “Huh! I wouldn’t mind busy! But this?

I tell ya, it’s crazy.” Breebackseat rajeev bhatt chomping the Viagara. zy’s main business, she says, is from the fancy yachts that tie up they go from one pregnancy to the next, they Singh deflowered many taboos through his have no idea that sex can be pleasurable.” at Elsewhere’s harbour. Crews need to maintain their uniforms dirty writing, and notwithstanding his manand table linen blinding white and they’re always on the brink Singh was much ahead of his time: the clitoere’s my question. What is our not one shared by the party, it can safely be Most studies prior to this had shown a clear crush on Sanjay Gandhi, the mainstreaming ris was scientifically discovered only in 1998, of departure. She glances up. “You looking for a part-time job?” stance on old people? For the long- said that for old people across political parties, bias towards younger participants in being of sex jokes was Singh’s own statement and ‘cliteracy’ experts last year claimed, “Free“Umm,” I say, flustered. I’ve been a est time, we were not just told that the writing is on the wall and it is in a large able to take better decisions. Worthy’s study, against India’s frustrating culture of censor- dom in a society can be measured from the freelancer for all but three years of older was better, but lest we forget font. Indian politics is the last bastion of dod- however, makes a distinction in the kind of deship. Indians bought these joke books in libid- (gender) distribution of orgasms.” As early as my long life. Keeping routines, arrivit, also foisted with really bad adages regard- dering old men and here too, it is now clear, cisions. Under choice — independent condiinous droves: in an interview with Pakistan’s 1992, Singh was not only standing up for the ing at work on time, earning a reguing them (I’ll jog your memory and ruin your there’s a premium on youth over experience. tions (where the choice you make is Friday Times, Singh admitted that his five joke female orgasm, he was standing up for freelar salary: alien territory. Still. How There are many day by reminding you of the most annoying of It isn’t because I am crossing over from one independent of your previous choice), youngbooks earned him more royalty than anything dom itself. hard could it be, working in a launLatino maids and them — old is gold). Anyone old you ran into — category to the other (okay, it’s a little bit be- er people perform better. They were more effielse he had written (he eventually wrote or dry? Customers stuff their clothes Being the son of a smart businessman, he housekeepers in this grandparents or unrelated geriatrics — was to cause of that) but relegating all old people as cient in identifying the choices that gave contributed to more than 100 books). into washers and dryers, ask for understood quite early that sex sells. Like genteel resort town. be treated with respect, because when people unproductive, and therefore unimportant, higher rewards. Whereas, in decisions that are Frankly, I could never get my to feed into the machines, most men, Singh bragged about assumed I wasmadequarters said old, they meant wise. Old(er) people knew seems neither fair nor wise. She People now live under choice-dependent conditions teeth into Khushwant Singh’s risremove the clothes and leave. “Sure. his sexual exploits, but only he one of them better than you, they had lived lives of endur- for about twice as long as they did (where each choice you make will qué writing, like The Company of Why not?” It would be fun. In my turned the bragging into a maring adventures and enviable deprivations and in the 1940s, and to draw line at have a bearing on your next Women (2003), particularly when spare time I could chat with customketable art form, and bragged for He probably had afor it, went the age 60 or 70 as the end of any were all the more divine choice), older people fare better. it was described on the back cover ers, gaining insights and making his millions of readers, not just argument.fraction of the sex work-related accomplishment is “In real-world situations, it’s likely as an “uninhibited, erotic and friends. Plus I’d get paid to do it! for his circle of friends. He probaTo assume all old claimed Then inhe the 1990s, to thehave, country liberalised a parameter that seems dated. To more common that the rewards endlessly entertaining celebraMagdalena people straightens assesses me. “Ever done this bly had a fraction of the sex he are up and available but he made good and suddenly everything changed. Old yield- assume all old people are irreledepend on previous tion of love, sex and passion”. The work before?”

I shook my head.

“We’re a full service laundry: claimed to have, but he made irrelevant is just as money talking and in our ‘demo- vant is just as ignorant as assumed to young.

We were cashing choices made, similar to Experirustic Punjabi sex in The Train to meaning, we do washing, folding, the whole deal,” for good money talking and writing ignorant as ironing,ment writing about it graphic dividend’, economists told us, as ing all young people are going to 2. The advantage found for Pakistan (1956) was sweet, but paying customers.

“We are open from eight to eight but sameabout it. And while doing that, in assuming all young though the capital invested in women’s be Mark Zuckerberg. older adults in this experiment there always loomed the bizarre day deliveries gotta completed regardless. Half hour off for powerfully funny doses, Singh people arebe going to wombs had finally landed on a profitable Darrell Worthy, a Texas A&M may have been partially due to guilt of being aroused by a Partilunch.” She hands me an employee sheet to fill up. “Believe me, made sex more real for millions be Mark Zuckerberg stock. Everyone began to be endowed with psychologist, conducted a study age-based expertise in decisiontion novel, so Harold Robbins was honey, there’s no time to breathe.” of Indians. cool. You were either “with it” or without any- to understand how old people making situations where current easier to get off on. On the other hand, Singh’s Just then the owner comes in. He is a short, balding man with It is said that a team researching the sexual thing. Like the old man in the Vodafone ad, make decisions compared to the decisions will impact future posjoke books were delicious quickies, with cover habits of city-dwellers interviewed a cross-seca tan and the remains of an Italian accent. He asks me what my you could earn your street cred only by beat- young. The first part of the experisible outcomes,” Worthy says. For illustrations that set them up perfectly: volup- tion of Mumbai’s business community. A work experience is. I say I’m a writer. Magdalena is disbelieving. ing the young at being young. Old is now cold, ment involved a controlled game of chance. want of another word, he calls this wisdom. tuous, bikini-clad women, prancing around question posed to them was: “What do you do “Really? I figured maybe childcare. Nanny.” There are many Latia liability one must constantly apologise for.

Participants were asked to make four choices The argument against doddering old men the beaming sardar. no maids and housekeepers in this genteel resort town. She asimmediately after you have had sex?” The anThe reason I bring this up is because of to see which of these options yielded a higher running the country is that they are unable to The joke books held their own beside the swers were revealing. Ten per cent replied that sumed I was one of them. what’s been playing politically in the last cou- aggregate. It required identification of pat- understand the aspirations of the large majorcleavage-fest of Debonair at railway station they simply went to sleep. Another 10 per cent I say that I’ll have to think about the job offer. “Don’t take too ple of weeks. The sulking old guard of the BJP, terns but mostly involved taking risks. The ity of the population, which is under 25. It is a bookstands; as a friend told me, they were the replied that they washed themselves and took long!” says the owner with a wheezy laugh. “Positions like this, LK Advani, 86, and Jaswant Singh, 76, in partic- younger lot, 18- to 26-year-olds, aced this test. valid argument. Certainly, the older you are, only ‘naughty’ books on her father’s shelves of some nourishment — a glass of fruit juice, aery’know? They get snapped up!” He’s kidding. He tells me he ular, have been thrown into professional ob- The second test was a simulation of extracting the harder it is to understand the digital, everTolstoys and Hemingways. And Singh’s books ated water or sandwich. The remaining 80 per used to own two laundries. “Had to close one down. Everyone’s scurity and asked, in a manner of speaking, to oxygen in Mars. Participants had to decide morphing environment we live in now. Dewere perhaps the only writings that could cent, after much cajoling, replied: “Then we go got their own machines these days.” sit quietly somewhere and read the Ramayan which of the two options they would use to ex- spite that, although 18-year-olds certainly unite fundamentalists and some feminists in home.”

Just then Leaping Lizzie, my dryer, gives a loud PAAAARP. My or whatever it is that old people read. On the tract oxygen and then transfer it to larger would be the best people to take on a trip to righteous rage. load is done. I smile, shrug apologetically and leave, deciding to (From Khushwant Singh’s Big Fat Joke Book, other side, Congress’ Jairam Ramesh (who tanks. This test involved understanding past Las Vegas, if it is the 60- to 84-year-olds who are Many of the jokes were sourced from his 2000) remain jobless for the time being. turns 60 in four days), came out and said party patterns and using that knowledge to make likely to keep us alive on Mars, I dare say we loyal and leery band of male contributors After a long, steamy intercourse with Earth, leaders above 70 must retire. Even though decisions. The amount of oxygen extracted should all sit down and think about this a bit MANJULA PADMANABHAN, author and artist, tells us tales of her parallel life in around the country, with a disproportionate Singh has now gone home. members of his party were quick to jump and successfully transferred to the larger tank before hustling them out of Parliament.

Elsewhere, USA, in this fortnightly series. marginalien. blogspot. in number of Saxenas, it seemed. The jokes were RIP. (well, as quick as arthritis allows you) and clar- by the older group (60- to 84-year olds) was far Veena Venugopalquite is editor BLink to andwhat goes around on old boys’ similar t@veenavenugopal ify that it was Ramesh’s personal opinion and higher than the younger lot. author of Would You Like Somegroups Bread today, lots WhatsApp of innuendo and sambuddha mitra mustafi is a journalist, Fulbright With That Book? plenty nudge-nudge-wink-wink. scholar and a media entrepreneur

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UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

The sanyasin and the sanyasi As outcasts, shunned even by the weakest in society, renunciation was their only refuge Strength in numbers A mendicant’s bowl and a walking stick are hardly a defence against the indignities sanyasins might suffer alone PTI

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Omair Ahmad is an author. His last book was on Bhutan

ikan ki Ma became a sanyasin.

She shaved off her hair, took up the mendicant’s bowl, and said she was renouncing the world.

Her heart was not in it though, or at least that is what my mother tells me. Beaten by her husband, mistreated by her own sons, Mikan ki Ma found a refuge of sorts at our farm, under my mother’s care.

The farmhouse was mostly the domain of women. The men were in the towns and cities, some far away in other States, in other countries, struggling to rise beyond where they had been born. The women did not have this option, but they had each other, a sorority of sorts, and many of them gathered at our farmhouse because it had the largest area, and because in times of need, they could appeal to my mother for help.

Some of them would always be there to do the little tasks and maybe talk to my mother about their particular problems. They would squat in a circle or exchange comments as they worked, a mixture of breathless gossip, tart jibes and vociferous arguments. Mikan ki Ma took part in these. She was an intelligent woman with a great amount of life in her.

Away from her men with drunken tempers and loose fists, she blossomed.

The farmhouse was not entirely without men. There was the caretaker, the man who took care of the guava trees my father was trying to raise, and there was Pandey, the tractordriver. For such men, whose work rhythms involved long seasons of nothing, and short seasons of frenetic activity, the farmhouse was a place to meet, relax and shoot the breeze. Although stray comments were exchanged between the men and the women, such conversations were always distant, formal.

The division between the two groups was as Sanyas is not a path usually given to women. solid as a brick wall, and no one thought to Who knows what sorts of indignities may be breach it except Pandey and Mikan ki Ma. forced upon a woman on her own with nothPandey was a bit of a rascal but not a bad ing to her name except a begging bowl and man. He was nice to her. Who knows what that maybe, a walking stick? But for Mikan ki Ma might have meant to her, she for whom every nothing else was left. She renounced a life of supposed guardian had been a tormentor? abuse and slander, of poverty and injustice, of I am not sure what passed between them. endless work, and the one man who showed They were both married, and in such a society, her kindness. an affectionate smile is as unforgivable as a My mother says her heart was not in it. torrid affair. After all, the argument goes, what Maybe the escape to sanyas runs in the famis the difference between the two except for ily, because Mikan, the favoured son whose time and opportunity? birth gave Mikan ki Ma her public name, beThe refuge that Mikan ki Ma had unexpect- came a sanyasi too, not long after. It was not as edly found lasted then, only for a if the spirit touched his heart. For while, about a year or so, until she a man who would beat his own found this kindness. She was not mother, that seems a hard thing allowed both. to believe. Instead rumour has it It became a piece of gossip, a that Mikan went to the city to Pandey and Mikan tale of transgression, a calumny make money and ran up huge ki Ma were both inextricably tied to her name. She married, and in such debts instead. In the face of destiwas shunned by the women at the tution and threats, his wife a society, an farm and lost the little place she affectionate smile is drenched herself in kerosene and had had in society. Life itself be- as unforgivable as a died in a blaze of flame and burnt came unbearable. For all her pain, flesh. Not content with such ditorrid affair all the cruelties and all her misforsaster, Mikan tried to grow crops tunes, Mikan ki Ma had always on the small section of land that had people to talk to. Now she had he had inherited to somehow relost even that. Although they pay his debts. The only such crops could not do anything for her, the other wom- would be illegal ones, and reportedly the poen had given her their sympathy and shared lice soon caught on. Desperate to avoid getwith her their own joys and sorrows. She could ting jailed he shaved his head, took the walk into their homes and be entitled to what mendicant’s bowl and said he was renouncing little hospitality there was to be had, or at least the world. their good wishes. Now there was nothing. She It is possible that his heart was not in it eibecame an outcast, shunned even by the weak- ther, but he comes around to the farm now, est in society and allowed neither forgiveness again wearing a wide grin, and apparently carnor pity. rying nothing upon his conscience.

So she became a sanyasin, and renounced t@OmairTAhmad the world.

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Bag of goodies Through the Postman Shankar smokescreen The recent knows the nooks, fires at Bandipur and crannieshelped and residents Nagarhole remove Basavanagudi, theofinvasive lantana plant ma where sriram he delivers mail grn somashekar

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Real mail, that is. We follow a Bangalore postman as he offers deliveries and counsel to all

Starts with a spark Forest guards rush in to quell the flames as a clump of dry bamboo blazes pti/sr madhusudhan

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he lumpy deep bags are of indescribable colour — not quite military green, and not yet completely grey, from years of use — and brimming with registered letters, magazine subscriptions, money orders, bills, notices, advertisements and the odd inland letter. If reality came with a soundtrack, like in the movies, I would hear the opening track of Malgudi Days every time a postman walked by dressed in allkhaki, a stack of letters in hand and many more in his bag.

The way he would holler out ‘Madam, post’ to catch mother’s attention; the tring of the bell on the handlebar of a sturdy cycle; the image of him by the doorstep — all seem sepiatoned now. He has time only for a line or two of small talk. In the movies, in books, he is the herald of all news, rarely, if ever, the main man, but crucial for that all-important twist in the tale. Secret-keeper of sorts, the postman is what the memories and mythologies of childhood look like for those of us belonging to a certain generation.

Postman Shankar (fondly called Shankarappa) is among the thousands of postmen in the country who walk miles every day to bring people their bills and letters. India Post lets me follow him around on his beat one day. He covers a few roads in Basavanagudi, one of Bangalore’s older parts where houses still have front yards, where jacaranda and tabebuia grow along wide roads and where the pace of life seems just a tad slower. By the end of nearly two hours, most of which I spend running to keep up with Shankarappa, I leave glad about some things that don’t change and some things that do.

Sixty-year-old Shankarappa is due to retire this May; he looks 15 years younger. The wise men are right when they say exercise keeps you younger and fitter. He gets plenty of that, from 7am onwards when he sets off on his bicycle from home , well over 10km away. Duty — that all-pervasive word for every work, the

dharma you are born for — begins by 7.30am rishnappa well, they still get inland letters, with sorting the mail in a large room filled Shankarappa says, as they belong to the prewith government-style metal tables and email, pre-mobile phone, analogue generachairs. The other postmen in the office look up tion. The tender coconut vendor gets letters for a second at the flashing bulb when the too. Apart from narrating his replies to Shanphotographer takes a photo, but quickly fall karappa to post, he sends money to temples, back into the rhythm of work. Any disarray in and our friendly postman even fills out all the stack will only mean more walking that those money order forms. Shankarappa day. The size of the stack of mail varies on a dai- doesn’t give me names, but speaks of his ly basis, taller at the start of the month when friend the tailor who he insisted open a savcompanies send bills, and closer to elections ings account. The owner of a house being torn wo weeks while seeking we were re- down when politicians mailago, fat letters voter Amidstasks this ifpandemonium, broader debates he has had ‘tiffin’, a lady for searching the spread of lantana, an whom support. He sorts them according to house about fires areout all money but forgotten. he fills orders invites him in invasive plant, a fire broke outon in the forIta is numbers and street names, depending easy to assume the long-term efcup of coffee.

Manythat passers-by ask for diBandipur Tiger route he will take that day. Reserve. Activities rections, fects of fires devastating.

Flames than that can whoare better to find houses the around anti poaching For thehabitat last 25 management, years, Shankarappa has been neighbourhood reach 50 feet destroy all that comes in the way postman? patrolling and even tourism in With Bandipur at this routine, six days a week. a bagand on — the grasses, theinsists shrubs, saplings, even entire Shankarappa I have a tender cocothe neighbouring ranges to a standstill either shoulder, he runs came out, and I behind nut, trees.the Arboreal like langurs and maMarchmammals sun in Bangalore is cruel.

He as the staff, volunteers and local villagers him.

I get a running commentary of who lives has labar squirrels die horrible been doingsometimes so all morning, insistingdeaths.

I have rushed to quell Almost a Wildlife activists in each in house andit.what theysimultaneously do. that since fires are a fruit,believe some coffee, perhaps some fire broke in Nagarhole, and the State of never ‘natural,’ “There livesout Muniyappa, he loves they havefor to the be ‘bad’ juice.

I relent coffee.and are Karnataka to be upalways in arms. Headlines ‘inevitably started the postalseemed department, off by Along thesome way,locals’.

Shankarappa screamed — ‘Verdant asks me about our day.Bandipur You see tells me of the village in Channadevastated by fire’, ‘Bandipur that big house, madam?

It usedfire to Naturalthat vs unnatural patna he left behind many For all the hoo-ha sparks off theories.’ belong to conspiracy two brothers, both are But every story hasoften another side years ago. He visits though, over emails, post is Blame onone theto heels of not yet endangered to dead now,followed there is no claim that being Two lost sons in all seerisks his mother. arethe in The ‘critical tiger panic.

Politicians, activthe house now, it’swildlife abandoned. noise. Firstly, scientists today college, a daughter now married habitats’ we value ists and accused forest That’s BJPNGOs leader Ananththe Kumar’s agree that ‘natural’ and He ‘pristine’ has a child of her own. helps today are often a department; Nagarhole field office, this is the a women’s hostel,” forests don’tinexist.

All the chores forests the ‘missus’ household product of a director blamed Villagers he reels off.

A dayNGOs. of duty takes in theheworld have at some once reaches home at thepoint end burning legacy werethrough accusedoffices, and arrested, theapartments, of his duty, around him residences, in their4pm. history been significantly CBI came in to investigate. local fast food joints, printers, HC garages, travel people.

Evenhas thebeen AmaTwo hoursaltered quicklyby pass by, today a Kantharaju, the field directortender of agencies, tailors, fruit-sellers, coconut short beat forzon rainforest has evidence of exShankarappa.

When a colleague Bandipurand says,the “Wesheds did our vendors of best, security guards is on leave, two tensive and beats human must be settlements taken on. He still but there were out firesletters in multiple locations at has whom he reads to. modifications starting 4,000 years ago.deposit Closer to give back the undelivered post, theHesame Ourhis staff suppressed tells time. me that beat, the roadsthe thatfirst he money home, indigenous in our profrom Moneypeople Orders living and Value Payable fire, tobut the changes dead bamboo clumps has cover, every two years.started Given Post, tectedfill areas forestland for fileshave and been formsburning for people.

After tagblazing in other places.

The fire goes high and ging non-existent door numbers and haphazard centuries, in him, someI places up until the behind have learnt this: forWildlife all the sparks flystreets everywhere, makingeach it nearly imposhashtag that crisscross other back hoo-ha Protection in 1972 it became overAct emails andwhen mobile phones, illegal. post is sibleforth, to control.” and how does he locate any address at not The yet ‘pristine’, ‘core areas’ ‘criticala wide tiger endangered.

There and still exists happens all,And I ask.this “It takes a dayalmost at most.every We getsummer. trained world habitats’ we see and value is today are often where Shankarappa relevant.

Televi-a Lastthe year, the then for over Environment by postman weMinister are taking the beat sion product of this burning legacy. pastoraldid not kill the radio star.

TheFor world is big and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan was even asked from.

And then we draw our own maps,” Shan- enough ists, the for burning new grass to sprout, them allowed all. a question in Parliament about the increasing which was good for their livestock. And for karappa says.

Mentally, I presume. bhasthi iscommunities, a Bangalore-based freelanceprovidwriter number of forest across the He knows retireesfires Vanjamma and country.

Ramak- deepa hunter-gather burning

It is easy to assume that forest fires are destructive. But a closer examination proves that when managed properly they aren’t just beneficial, but essential

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ed more grass for the herbivores, which they in turn could hunt as food.

around’. If the park is not burnt every year, can clearly be traced back to 1864 and the Imtrees will establish, as is happening with silk perial Forest Service and its management obcotton trees in one area that has not been jectives. The primary use of a forest at that burnt for three years. So, an ‘unnatural’ fire is time was timber extraction, and the target needed to keep the park ‘natural’, with its high was maximising tree growth for sustainable density of mammals and the now abundant, harvests. The Forest Department’s structure itbut once almost extinct one-horned rhino. self was designed with a view of forests being What is the baseline for ‘natural’ in a decid- timber factories, and officers were (and still uous forest like Mudumalai or Bandipur? Be- are, to this day) trained mostly in efficiently fore humans were in the picture thousands of growing trees. years ago? Or when the British cameothin unexpected form Paraiyattam, Oyilattam andfirst various ease.

She says,plan’ “In my village there Every forest ‘working (not conservaand declared game reserves and sancer folk forms across villages in ourwildlife areas. In the tion usedplan to or be management a punniyasthalam (holy place) plan) had a section tuaries somethere, 100 odd years ago or when the on years I spent I must have seen the entire where they to brought were Fire losing “Injuries which people, the cropwho is liable”. by Wildlife Protection Act intoa force in the State twice over since wecame travelled lot with their mindswho or were possessed, to be cured. natives wanted more mammals was aI 1972?

If the latter baselines are chosen, then problem our productions.” have seenfor them sinceproduction, I was a child.

When timber and was the acfireInis2008, a natural part of this that has tively along with fourecosystem other theatre-artrole was explained me, I could understand stamped out. to Ironically, elephants often been managed by indigenous dwellers ists from the State, Janagi wasforest invited to at- topped it well since I had seen sotomany the list of injuries crop people (closelyin fol-a for centuries. tend a month-long workshop on Naveena lowed similarby situation myself.” adds, “They gaur and other She herbivores), as used they The tribals attribute theconducted huge spread Nadagam or often modern theatre by routinely to be tied to the treestree outside the church and destroyed saplings and even of plants, particularly the adult theinvasive National School of Dramalantana, (NSD), to Delhi. whiletrees growing up,inherently we children used to tease as they tried to open up forest department’s policy of suppressing The following year, she enrolled in NSD foralla athem a lot, I feel bad about now. Butkedwe forest.

Thewhich British foresters prescribed (large-scale elephant to fires over the last few decades.

They also blame diploma programme in dramatics.

Janagi dah usedoperations to see them all the time in ourtraps) village, of elephants to deal the the intensity destructiveness of thelearnfires capture spent the nextand three years in the Capital, and theyherds were always completely lostwith in their problem.

When management objectives on bad management. ingthis theatre skills, theory and a bit of Hindi. own world.

Theirour families came to feed them and weFather decided wetowanted to save In her final semester, Spinosa and crew changed and the church used say prayers to animals ratherthat than eliminate Fires forests clean As Spinosa says, “De- these calledkeep her for an audition. exorcise the spirits they believedthem, were plans were not thrown out and In traditional burningwith regimes, fires are start- sadly the oldhaunting spite my familiarity Tamil them.” logical ones, they just contined very early summer (January-Febru- replaced by new cinema, I had in notthe heard of Janagi With a French movie behind ary), thedirector temperatures till mybefore assistant Revathi peak and ued with minor her,changes.

Janagi is looking for other opBut I see change the Bandipura everything turns completely dry. Only the leaf told me about her.”

He adds, “Durtions. coming, Malini 22and Palayamkottai, When the role was example.

I wasshe asked to map the litter burns, withwe bushes, tree saplings and fire is a goodthriller, ing the audition, realised she where plays a rowdy explained to me, I I found the in Forest adult relatively intact. had alltrees the left qualities that an ac- The forest fire with a GPS, in aand jail, released bothDepartTamil could understand it Onthis theyear. surface of floor kept ‘clean’, an early tress is needs to have:and instinct, au-summer rain ment’s attitude andfascinating.

Telugu earlier Apart well since I had seen was this, upsetshe about the regularly fire, and prompts flushcreativity. of new grasses, ensuring food it, everyone from thenticitya and She had features so many genuine efforts made tochannel, find and Puthiya punish for the animalsand through summer. an immediate intimate comon awere Tamil news ‘possessed’ people But the entire area that got When firesofare year after year, the perpetrator. prehension thesuppressed character she Thalaimurai’s programme Routhiby where lantana, a performs plant nathe up, and when a fire razed was dominated wasbiomass about totends play,to inbuild her appearram Pazhagu she America, which the British eventually through, it has ance and blazes her background.

She devastating tive to South Therukoothu (traditional street brought overisasalso an set ornamental effects.

Soliga to (traditional hun-I was theAclosest the character drama). She to travel shrub intheatre 1809. It group has spread across ter-gatherer tribe in the Biligiri had imagined.

Working with her was amazing with her erstwhile to villages numerous forests, now Rangan Hills) saying goes, and as you will see, she did“Aa forfantastic job in near Kanyakumari, where she’lland be one of feathe in the global top 10 invasive est the needs film.” a fire like a human be- A forest needs trainers month-long theatre workshop. a fireat a tures plants’ list.

If manually copingJanagi needsona her haircut.”

Babu, a sceptical part was initially With a promising career ahead ofcut, her,itwhat like a human being producing of Kattunayakan (traditional about the audition.

“Revathihoney akka askedneeds me to a haircut has been herpices, proudest momentasonumber far? “It was new and shoots that came growtoupDelhi to six gatherer) neartheMudumalai, income attend two-day audition held in when my father mother to times faster than the mother sists, “A fire should burn leastme to impro- see me perform Chennai.

There Michel sir at asked while at NSD. They didn’t realplant. plant produces once every threeout to five years. vise and I read scripts inAniTamil and then ly think highly ofEach my choices till then.thouBut sands which remain viamals are not English.”

She like adds,humans, “I reallythey didn’t think I when they saw meof inseeds, front of all those people in the soil festival, for up tothey 11 years, and sprout at can manage a week without much food after a ble would get through and when I was informed at the theatre found new respect givensays opportunity. fire. justselected one light rainvery comes, sweet that If I was , I was happy but new also any for me,” Janagi. Animals can’t eat it (except possibly, new leaves) since it contains toxgrass sprout in 24 hours.” reallywill surprised.” sibi arasu and all management efforts, such as Ecological at Ashoka forwith Re- ins, Janagi tookscientists to the role in Son Trust Épouse search in Ecology and the Environment, Ban- manual cutting, using elephants/JCBs to upgalore, have detailed documentation on root it, have failed.

An intense fire was, perhaps, the only way to traditional Soliga burning practices, and are convinced it has a net positive effect on the get rid of the lantana, and staff across ranks in forests. Recent research from the Indian Insti- the department seemed to quickly move on tute of Science, Bangalore, also shows that tree from the fire and focus on restoration. I’m not saplings that get burnt in low-intensity fires sure the laws on forest fires are going to can keep their root systems intact, and change any time in the near future. We can’t, ‘bounce back’ to the same height as their un- of course, let everyone burn forests as they wish, but we, undoubtedly, need a more nuburned counterparts in about two years.

Naveen Kumar, the honorary wildlife war- anced policy on the role of fire in forest manden of Bandipur, despite being very proactive agement, differentiating between a blazing in suppressing the fire, had an interesting ob- all-consuming fire and a more controlled, lowservation; “While the fire was burning I saw intensity, litter fire. Most importantly, there animals like hares, mongoose and deer run- needs to be more democracy in India’s forest ning all over the place, but once it subsided, I decision-making, allowing for all the stakehave to admit I didn’t see any dead animals. holder groups’ opinions to be considered.

The hope is that we incorporate the opinThey all seem to have somehow escaped.”

We came across one dead langur, but when ions all the stakeholders — beyond one or two we went by the area on the second day it had elite groups — be it elected politicians, forest disappeared, probably eaten by a carnivore — officers, wildlife enthusiasts, scientists, villagnothing in a forest goes to waste, really. We ers living alongside parks and last but no least watched what seemed like suicidal racket- the tribals. We cannot continue with the Impetailed drongos and other birds flying towards rial forestry legacy when conservation science the fire to capitalise on all the fleeing insects and thinking has moved so far ahead everywhere else. Tribal forest department staff I inotherwise hidden in the woods. teracted with were even outwardly happy with the fire, further suggesting, “Now burn it Imperial value system Considering all this, why are forest fires every few years and we will soon have a good thought to be bad? Perhaps it stems from an- forest with plenty of grass and animals.” other widespread value-based judgement system — a good forest is thick with trees while tarsh thekaekara is a biodiversity conservationist grasslands are ‘wastelands’. The roots of this and researcher based in the Nilgiris

From Nagercoil to Paris

Good for tigers even We seem blissfully unaware that forest fires are good for mammals, including our coveted tigers. Fires are used extensively in some of the best known wildlife areas — the Maasai Mara and Serengeti in western Africa, Kruger in South Africa, the Great Plains in central North America, and even habitats Europe. f someone had told Janagiacross five years ago Fires that createshe heterogeneity and patchiness in a would be starring in a French landscape, which enhances mainstream feature overall film, biodiversialongside ty. They open up forests and shift them toCharlotte Gainsbourg (of Nymphomaniac wards grasslands, support much and Antichrist fame) which and French heartthrob higher mammal densities than closed in forests.

Yvan Attal, she would have laughed your A thick rainforest (likeTamil partsactress of the did Periyar face.

But the 30-year-old just Tiger Reserve) may support as little as one tithat with Son Épouse (His Wife), directed

by Miger 100 sq km, released but a grassland (like Kazichelevery Spinosa, which early March. ranga, the entire park Gracie is burnt every The where film revolves around (Janagi) year) support over 30 tigers same arwho can is possessed by the spiritinofthe her friend ea.

The anti-fire lobby may ‘natural’ Catherine (Gainsbourg) whoraise dies the in ‘unresolvargument — that Kaziranga naturally Joa ed’ circumstances.

Catherine’sis husband grassland whereas a dryto deciduseph (Attal) travelsBandipur to TamilisNadu meet ous forest. some merit in recognising Gracie andThere the is plot unfolds thereafter.

Far different management in different from being just a ‘native’regimes side-character, Janaforest types, but again the ‘natural’ is gi plays a prominent roleidea andofeven speaks ambiguous.

The Brahmaputra floodplain French in the film.

“Learning French waswas the grassland because river adding, would periodicalmost difficult,” saysthe Janagi, “But then ly flood sir, andthe deposit silt — and quitetwo literally movMichel film team months of ing the land around, denying chance to French classes helped a greattrees deal.a So I could grow.

Now peopleduring occupying most lands manage mywith dialogues shooting.” other than park, the natural flow of theoutrivBorn in the Devasahayam Mount village, er is Nagercoil, limited, and can’t be ‘moved side sheKaziranga grew up surrounded by the Western Ghats and tall-spired churches. The youngest of four, she completed high school, but her parents did not have the means to send her to college. The choice before her was either to find a job or join her sister, Prema, at Murasu Kalai Kuzhu, a street theatre group run by the local Christian diocese.

Inspired by Badal Sircar’s Third Theatre, where the lines between the actor and the audience is blurred and those watching the play are encouraged to be active participants in the production itself, Kalai Kuzhu uses songs to spread awareness about societal issues, such as the importance of education, anti-caste messages and Dalit rights. A Christian Left ideology permeates all their works. “I really would not be where I am without the help of the Kalai Kuzhu,” Janagi says. “We used to per-

The daughter of a brick kiln worker, theatre-actress Janagi is now a star in a French movie

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Story lies in the details The devastation after an intense fire in Bandipur; (below) cheetal rest after a moderate fire shola trust

Real to reel Janagi (right, in a still from the movie) used memories of her village for Son Épouse

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Twilight zone A man relieves himself in front of a poster of the movie 2 Piece, screened at the Shankar Takies (sic), Ramanagara

Sales pitch Manning the ticket counter at the Manoranjan Cinema in Mandya

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Reel cinema The projection room, like this one at the Shankar tent, is usually decrepit

The end The audience disperses after the last show at Ramanagara

Poster boy Changing the posters to announce the arrival of Sujata Tent’s next film at Dasarahalli

Three’s company Krishna cinema in Mathikere, now shut down, screened films even when there were three people in the audience: “If we don’t, they won’t show up the next time either”

nt n cinemas seldom have anti-smoking stipulations... Taking a puff at the Krishna Tent in Mathikere

Tent talkies The last flicker at the fast-disappearing tent cinemas of Bangalore

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he disappearance of the travelling cinema from our cities and their outskirts has been gradual, yet near-complete. As the real estate boom consumes the countryside at will, and any vacant land is swiftly built upon, the pleasure of watching a film under the open skies is all but lost. Seen along with the rise of the multiplex, the folding up of such cinemas also suggests the end of film-watching as the experience of an inclusive community. Where tent cinemas were once associated with afternoon shows of Bhakta Kumbhara (Kannada) and Maya Bazaar (Telugu), there is something furtive about them today, and it is perhaps only at night that they come into their own.

These photographs attempt to capture tent cinemas as they are today in Bangalore — surviving, away from the glare of the metropolis, in crevices where the law doesn’t bother to reach, and where a faint whiff of illegality hangs in the air.

pradeep ks is a designer and photographer at Time Out Bengaluru

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Bag of goodies Through the Postman Shankar smokescreen The recent knows the nooks, fires at Bandipur and crannieshelped and residents Nagarhole remove Basavanagudi, theofinvasive lantana plant ma sriram where he delivers mail grn somashekar

You’ve got mail

A good fire T

Real mail, that is. We follow a Bangalore postman as he offers deliveries and counsel to all

Starts with a spark Forest guards rush in to quell the flames as a clump of dry bamboo blazes pti/sr madhusudhan

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he lumpy deep bags are of indescribable colour — not quite military green, and not yet completely grey, from years of use — and brimming with registered letters, magazine subscriptions, money orders, bills, notices, advertisements and the odd inland letter. If reality came with a soundtrack, like in the movies, I would hear the opening track of Malgudi Days every time a postman walked by dressed in allkhaki, a stack of letters in hand and many more in his bag.

The way he would holler out ‘Madam, post’ to catch mother’s attention; the tring of the bell on the handlebar of a sturdy cycle; the image of him by the doorstep — all seem sepiatoned now. He has time only for a line or two of small talk. In the movies, in books, he is the herald of all news, rarely, if ever, the main man, but crucial for that all-important twist in the tale. Secret-keeper of sorts, the postman is what the memories and mythologies of childhood look like for those of us belonging to a certain generation.

Postman Shankar (fondly called Shankarappa) is among the thousands of postmen in the country who walk miles every day to bring people their bills and letters. India Post lets me follow him around on his beat one day. He covers a few roads in Basavanagudi, one of Bangalore’s older parts where houses still have front yards, where jacaranda and tabebuia grow along wide roads and where the pace of life seems just a tad slower. By the end of nearly two hours, most of which I spend running to keep up with Shankarappa, I leave glad about some things that don’t change and some things that do.

Sixty-year-old Shankarappa is due to retire this May; he looks 15 years younger. The wise men are right when they say exercise keeps you younger and fitter. He gets plenty of that, from 7am onwards when he sets off on his bicycle from home , well over 10km away. Duty — that all-pervasive word for every work, the

dharma you are born for — begins by 7.30am rishnappa well, they still get inland letters, with sorting the mail in a large room filled Shankarappa says, as they belong to the prewith government-style metal tables and email, pre-mobile phone, analogue generachairs. The other postmen in the office look up tion. The tender coconut vendor gets letters for a second at the flashing bulb when the too. Apart from narrating his replies to Shanphotographer takes a photo, but quickly fall karappa to post, he sends money to temples, back into the rhythm of work. Any disarray in and our friendly postman even fills out all the stack will only mean more walking that those money order forms. Shankarappa day. The size of the stack of mail varies on a dai- doesn’t give me names, but speaks of his ly basis, taller at the start of the month when friend the tailor who he insisted open a savcompanies send bills, and closer to elections ings account. The owner of a house being torn wo weeks while seeking we were re- down when politicians mailago, fat letters voter Amidstasks this ifpandemonium, broader debates he has had ‘tiffin’, a lady for searching the spread of lantana, an whom support. He sorts them according to house about fires areout all money but forgotten. he fills orders invites him in invasive plant, a fire broke outon in the forIta is numbers and street names, depending easy to assume the long-term efcup of coffee.

Manythat passers-by ask for diBandipur Tiger route he will take that day. Reserve. Activities rections, fects of fires devastating.

Flames than that can whoare better to find houses the around habitat anti poaching For the last 25 management, years, Shankarappa has been neighbourhood reach 50 feet destroy all that comes in the way postman? patrolling and even tourism in With Bandipur at this routine, six days a week. a bagand on — the grasses, theinsists shrubs,I saplings, even entire Shankarappa have a tender cocothe neighbouring ranges to a standstill either shoulder, he runs came out, and I behind nut, trees.the Arboreal like langurs and maMarchmammals sun in Bangalore is cruel.

He as the staff, volunteers and local villagers him.

I get a running commentary of who lives has labar squirrels die horrible been doingsometimes so all morning, insistingdeaths.

I have rushed to quell Almost a Wildlife activists in each in house andit.what theysimultaneously do. that since fires are a fruit,believe some coffee, perhaps some fire broke in Nagarhole, and the State of never ‘natural,’ “There livesout Muniyappa, he loves they havefor to the be ‘bad’ and are juice.

I relent coffee.

Karnataka to be upalways in arms. Headlines ‘inevitably started the postalseemed department, off by Along thesome way,locals’.

Shankarappa screamed — ‘Verdant asks me about our day.Bandipur You see tells me of the village in Channadevastated by fire’, ‘Bandipur that big house, madam?

It usedfire to Naturalthat vs unnatural patna he left behind many For all the hoo-ha sparks off theories.’ belong to conspiracy two brothers, both are But every story hasoften another side years ago. He visits though, over emails, post is Blame onone theto heels of not yet endangered to dead now,followed there is no claim that being Two lost sons in all seerisks his mother. arethe in The ‘critical tiger panic.

Politicians, activthe house now, it’swildlife abandoned. noise. Firstly, scientists today college, a daughter now married habitats’ we value ists and accused forest That’s BJPNGOs leader Ananththe Kumar’s agree that ‘natural’ and He ‘pristine’ has a child of her own. helps today are often a department; Nagarhole field office, this is the a women’s hostel,” forests don’tinexist.

All the forests the ‘missus’ household chores product of a director blamed Villagers he reels off.

A dayNGOs. of duty takes in theheworld have at some once reaches home at thepoint end burning legacy werethrough accusedoffices, and arrested, theapartments, of his duty, around him residences, in their4pm. history been significantly CBI came in to investigate. local fast food joints, printers, HC garages, travel people.

Evenhas thebeen Ama-a Two hoursaltered quicklyby pass by, today Kantharaju, the field directortender of agencies, tailors, fruit-sellers, coconut short beat forzon rainforest has evidence of exShankarappa.

When a colleague Bandipurand says,the “Wesheds did our vendors of best, security guards is on leave, two tensive beats human must be settlements taken on. He and still but there were out firesletters in multiple locations at has whom he reads to. modifications starting 4,000 years ago.deposit Closer to give back the undelivered post, theHesame Ourhis staff suppressed tellstime. me that beat, the roadsthe thatfirst he money home, indigenous in our profrom Moneypeople Orders living and Value Payable fire, to but the changes dead bamboo clumps has cover, every two years.started Given Post, tectedfill areas forestland for fileshave and been formsburning for people.

After tagblazing in other places.

The fire goes high and ging non-existent door numbers and haphazard centuries, in him, someIplaces up until the behind have learnt this: forWildlife all the sparks flystreets everywhere, making each it nearly imposhashtag that crisscross other back hoo-ha Protection in 1972 it became overAct emails andwhen mobile phones,illegal. post is sibleforth, to control.” and how does he locate any address at not The yet ‘pristine’, ‘core areas’ tiger endangered.

There and still ‘critical exists a wide happens all,And I ask.this “It takes a dayalmost at most.every We getsummer. trained world habitats’ we see and value is today are often where Shankarappa relevant.

Televi-a Lastthe year, the then for over Environment by postman weMinister are taking the beat sion product of this burning legacy. pastoraldid not kill the radio star.

TheFor world is big and Forests Jayanthi Natarajan was even asked from.

And then we draw our own maps,” Shan- enough ists, the burning new grass to sprout, for themallowed all. a question in Parliament about the increasing which was good for their livestock. And for karappa says.

Mentally, I presume. bhasthi is a Bangalore-based freelanceprovidwriter number of forest fires across the He knows retirees Vanjamma andcountry.

Ramak- deepa hunter-gather communities, burning

It is easy to assume that forest fires are destructive. But a closer examination proves that when managed properly they aren’t just beneficial, but essential

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ed more grass for the herbivores, which they in turn could hunt as food.

around’. If the park is not burnt every year, can clearly be traced back to 1864 and the Imtrees will establish, as is happening with silk perial Forest Service and its management obcotton trees in one area that has not been jectives. The primary use of a forest at that burnt for three years. So, an ‘unnatural’ fire is time was timber extraction, and the target needed to keep the park ‘natural’, with its high was maximising tree growth for sustainable density of mammals and the now abundant, harvests. The Forest Department’s structure itbut once almost extinct one-horned rhino. self was designed with a view of forests being What is the baseline for ‘natural’ in a decid- timber factories, and officers were (and still uous forest like Mudumalai or Bandipur? Be- are, to this day) trained mostly in efficiently fore humans were in the picture thousands of growing trees. years ago? Or when the British cameothin unexpected form Paraiyattam, Oyilattam andfirst various ease.

She says,plan’ “In my village there Every forest ‘working (not conservaand declared game reserves and sancer folk forms across villages in ourwildlife areas. In the tion usedplan to be a punniyasthalam (holy place) or management plan) had a section tuaries somethere, 100 odd years ago or the when the on years I spent I must have seen entire where they brought were Fire losing “Injuries to which people, the cropwho is liable”. by Wildlife Protection intoa force in the State twice over sinceAct wecame travelled lot with their mindswho or were possessed, to be cured. natives wanted more mammals was aI 1972?

If the latter baselines are chosen, then problem our productions.” have seenfor them sinceproduction, I was a child.

When timber and was the acfireInis2008, a natural part of this that has tively along with fourecosystem other theatre-artrole was explained me, I could understand stamped out. to Ironically, elephants often been managed by indigenous dwellers ists from the State, Janagi wasforest invited to at- topped it well since I had seen sotomany the list of injuries crop people (closelyin fol-a for centuries. tend a month-long workshop on Naveena lowed similarby situation myself.” adds, “They gaur and other She herbivores), as used they The tribals attribute theconducted huge spread Nadagam or often modern theatre by routinely to be tied to the treestree outside the church and destroyed saplings and even of plants, particularly the adult theinvasive National School of Dramalantana, (NSD), to Delhi. while trees growing up,inherently we children used to tease as they tried to open up forest department’s policy of suppressing The following year, she enrolled in NSD foralla athem a lot, which I feel bad about now. Butkedwe forest.

The British foresters prescribed (large-scale elephant to fires over the last few decades.

They also blame diploma programme in dramatics.

Janagi dah usedoperations to see them all the time in ourtraps) village, of elephants to deal the the intensity destructiveness of thelearnfires capture spent the nextand three years in the Capital, and theyherds were always completely lostwith in their problem.

When management objectives on bad skills, management. ingthis theatre theory and a bit of Hindi. own world.

Theirour families came to feed them and weFather decided wetowanted to save In her final semester, Spinosa and crew changed and the church used say prayers to animals ratherthat than eliminate Fires forests clean As Spinosa says, “De- these calledkeep her for an audition. exorcise the spirits they believedthem, were plans were not thrown out and In traditional burningwith regimes, fires are start- sadly the oldhaunting spite my familiarity Tamil them.” logical ones, they just behind contined very early summer (January-Febru- replaced by new cinema, I had in notthe heard of Janagi With a French movie ary), thedirector temperatures till mybefore assistant Revathi peak and ued with minor her, changes.

Janagi is looking for other opBut I see change coming, the Bandipura everything turns completely dry. Only the leaf told me about her.”

He adds, “Durtions. Malini 22and Palayamkottai, When the role was example.

I wasshe asked to map the litter burns, withwe bushes, tree ing the audition, realised shesaplings and fire is a goodthriller, where plays a rowdy explained to me, I I found the in Forest adult left relatively intact. had alltrees the qualities that an ac- The forest fire with a GPS, in aand jail, released bothDepartTamil could understand it Onthis theyear. surface of floor kept to ‘clean’, an early tress is needs have:and instinct, au-summer rain ment’s attitude andfascinating.

Telugu earlier Apart well since I had seen was this, upsetshe about the regularly fire, and prompts flushcreativity. of new grasses, ensuring food it, everyonefrom thenticitya and She had features so many genuine efforts made tochannel, find andPuthiya punish for the animalsand through summer. an immediate intimate comon awere Tamil news ‘possessed’ people But the entire area that got When firesofare year after year, the perpetrator. prehension thesuppressed character she Thalaimurai’s programme Routhiby where lantana, plant nathe up, and when a fire razed was dominated wasbiomass about totends play,to inbuild her appearram Pazhagu shea performs America, which the British eventually through, it has ance and blazes her background.

She devastating tive to South Therukoothu (traditional street brought overisasalso an set ornamental effects.

Soliga to (traditional hun-I was theAclosest the character drama). She to travel shrub intheatre 1809. It group has spread across ter-gatherer tribe in the Biligiri had imagined.

Working with her was amazing with her erstwhile to villages numerous forests, now Rangan Hills) goes, and as you willsaying see, she did“Aa forfantastic job in near Kanyakumari, where she’ll and be one of feathe in the global top 10 invasive est the needs film.” a fire like a human be- A forest needs trainers month-long theatre workshop. a fireat a tures plants’ list.

If manually copingJanagi needsonaher haircut.”

Babu, a sceptical part was initially With a promising career ahead ofcut, her,itwhat like a human being producing of Kattunayakan (traditional about the audition.

“Revathihoney akka askedneeds me to a haircut has been herpices, proudest momentasonumber far? “It was newand shoots thatcame growtoup to six gatherer) neartheMudumalai, income attend two-day audition held in when my father mother Delhi to times faster than the mother sists, “A fire should burn leastme to impro- see me perform Chennai.

There Michel sir at asked while at NSD. They didn’t realplant. plant produces once every threeout to five years. vise and I read scripts in AniTamil and then ly think highly of Each my choices till then.thouBut sands which remain viamals are not English.”

She like adds,humans, “I reallythey didn’t think I when they saw meof inseeds, front of all those people in theatre the soil festival, for up tothey 11 years, and sprout at can manage a week without much food after a ble would get through and when I was informed at the found new respect givensays opportunity. fire. justselected one light rainvery comes, sweet that If I was , I was happy but new also any for me,” Janagi. Animals can’t eat it (except possibly, new leaves) since it contains toxgrass sprout in 24 hours.” reallywill surprised.” sibi arasu and all management efforts, such as Ecological at Ashoka forwith Re- ins, Janagi tookscientists to the role in Son Trust Épouse search in Ecology and the Environment, Ban- manual cutting, using elephants/JCBs to upgalore, have detailed documentation on root it, have failed.

An intense fire was, perhaps, the only way to traditional Soliga burning practices, and are convinced it has a net positive effect on the get rid of the lantana, and staff across ranks in forests. Recent research from the Indian Insti- the department seemed to quickly move on tute of Science, Bangalore, also shows that tree from the fire and focus on restoration. I’m not saplings that get burnt in low-intensity fires sure the laws on forest fires are going to can keep their root systems intact, and change any time in the near future. We can’t, ‘bounce back’ to the same height as their un- of course, let everyone burn forests as they wish, but we, undoubtedly, need a more nuburned counterparts in about two years.

Naveen Kumar, the honorary wildlife war- anced policy on the role of fire in forest manden of Bandipur, despite being very proactive agement, differentiating between a blazing in suppressing the fire, had an interesting ob- all-consuming fire and a more controlled, lowservation; “While the fire was burning I saw intensity, litter fire. Most importantly, there animals like hares, mongoose and deer run- needs to be more democracy in India’s forest ning all over the place, but once it subsided, I decision-making, allowing for all the stakehave to admit I didn’t see any dead animals. holder groups’ opinions to be considered.

The hope is that we incorporate the opinThey all seem to have somehow escaped.”

We came across one dead langur, but when ions all the stakeholders — beyond one or two we went by the area on the second day it had elite groups — be it elected politicians, forest disappeared, probably eaten by a carnivore — officers, wildlife enthusiasts, scientists, villagnothing in a forest goes to waste, really. We ers living alongside parks and last but no least watched what seemed like suicidal racket- the tribals. We cannot continue with the Impetailed drongos and other birds flying towards rial forestry legacy when conservation science the fire to capitalise on all the fleeing insects and thinking has moved so far ahead everywhere else. Tribal forest department staff I inotherwise hidden in the woods. teracted with were even outwardly happy with the fire, further suggesting, “Now burn it Imperial value system Considering all this, why are forest fires every few years and we will soon have a good thought to be bad? Perhaps it stems from an- forest with plenty of grass and animals.” other widespread value-based judgement system — a good forest is thick with trees while tarsh thekaekara is a biodiversity conservationist grasslands are ‘wastelands’. The roots of this and researcher based in the Nilgiris

From Nagercoil to Paris

Good for tigers even We seem blissfully unaware that forest fires are good for mammals, including our coveted tigers. Fires are used extensively in some of the best known wildlife areas — the Maasai Mara and Serengeti in western Africa, Kruger in South Africa, the Great Plains in central North America, and even habitats Europe. f someone had told Janagiacross five years ago Fires that create heterogeneity and patchiness in a she would be starring in a French landscape, which enhances mainstream feature overall film, biodiversialongside ty. They open up forests and shift them toCharlotte Gainsbourg (of Nymphomaniac wards grasslands, support much and Antichrist fame) which and French heartthrob higher mammal densities than closed in forests.

Yvan Attal, she would have laughed your A thick rainforest (likeTamil partsactress of the did Periyar face.

But the 30-year-old just Tiger Reserve) may support as directed little as one tithat with Son Épouse (His Wife),

by Miger 100 sq km, released but a grassland (like Kazichelevery Spinosa, which early March. ranga, whererevolves the entire park Gracie is burnt every The film around (Janagi) year) can support over 30 tigers same arwho is possessed by the spiritinofthe her friend ea.

The anti-fire lobby may ‘natural’ Catherine (Gainsbourg) whoraise dies the in ‘unresolvargument — that Kaziranga naturallyJoa ed’ circumstances.

Catherine’sis husband grassland whereas a dryto deciduseph (Attal) travelsBandipur to TamilisNadu meet ous forest. some merit thereafter. in recognising Gracie andThere the is plot unfolds Far different management in different from being just a ‘native’regimes side-character, Janaforest types, but again the ‘natural’ is gi plays a prominent roleidea andofeven speaks ambiguous.

The Brahmaputra floodplain French in the film.

“Learning French was was the grassland because river adding, would periodicalmost difficult,” saysthe Janagi, “But then ly floodsir, andthe deposit silt —and quite literally movMichel film team two months of ing the land around, denying chance to French classes helped a greattrees deal.aSo I could grow.

Now peopleduring occupying most lands manage mywith dialogues shooting.” other than park, the natural flow of theoutrivBorn in the Devasahayam Mount village, er isNagercoil, limited, and can’t be ‘moved side she Kaziranga grew up surrounded by the Western Ghats and tall-spired churches. The youngest of four, she completed high school, but her parents did not have the means to send her to college. The choice before her was either to find a job or join her sister, Prema, at Murasu Kalai Kuzhu, a street theatre group run by the local Christian diocese.

Inspired by Badal Sircar’s Third Theatre, where the lines between the actor and the audience is blurred and those watching the play are encouraged to be active participants in the production itself, Kalai Kuzhu uses songs to spread awareness about societal issues, such as the importance of education, anti-caste messages and Dalit rights. A Christian Left ideology permeates all their works. “I really would not be where I am without the help of the Kalai Kuzhu,” Janagi says. “We used to per-

The daughter of a brick kiln worker, theatre-actress Janagi is now a star in a French movie

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Story lies in the details The devastation after an intense fire in Bandipur; (below) cheetal rest after a moderate fire shola trust

Real to reel Janagi (right, in a still from the movie) used memories of her village for Son Épouse

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In bikini-clad heaven PRESENT IMPERFECT

New old stock

ELSEWHERE

manjula padmanabhan

Khushwant Singh didn’t merely stand up for the female orgasm, he stood up for freedom itself Politics, the last bastion of old men, is now placing a premium on youth too

No breeze, this How hard could it be to work at a laundromat?

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he nearest commercial laundry is a 20-minute hike from where I live. It’s called the Breezy Bee Laundry and I go there with a backpack full of dirty clothes once a week.

It’s a small place. Nine industrial-sized dryers line the walls, with names like Whomping Wilma and Bouncing Bertha. Ten washing machines huddle together in the middle. There’s just Last laugh Khushwant Singh, writer, editor and son of a businessman learned quickly that sex sells shanker chakravarty enough place to walk around to the back to get $5 worth of quarters from Magdalena, the manager. She’s friendly but e are Indian, reflexively stiff looks permanently stressed. Her frizzled red hair stands on Beyond the jest, Singh had a healthy disreabout our sex, God and poli- spect for the sexual knowledge of Indians. In end, her skin is covered in tiny pinkChange blotches at 15-minute of and guard tics. And then Khushwant Sex, Scotch and Scholarship (1992) he rued, intervals she runs outside to suck energy fromLK cigarettes.

BJP leaders Advaniher andhead Jaswant Singh’s “ribald, rib-tickling “Most Indian men are not even aware that When I go in this time, she’s clutching as she hands have been and outrageous” joke books taught us to take women also have orgasms; most Indian womme the stack of shiny coins. I ask if it’sSingh a busy day and she snorts. forced to take a it easy, knock back a Patiala peg and keep en share this ignorance because although “Huh! I wouldn’t mind busy! But this?

I tell ya, it’s crazy.” Breebackseat rajeev bhatt chomping the Viagara. zy’s main business, she says, is from the fancy yachts that tie up they go from one pregnancy to the next, they Singh deflowered many taboos through his have no idea that sex can be pleasurable.” at Elsewhere’s harbour. Crews need to maintain their uniforms dirty writing, and notwithstanding his manand table linen blinding white and they’re always on the brink Singh was much ahead of his time: the clitoere’s my question. What is our not one shared by the party, it can safely be Most studies prior to this had shown a clear crush on Sanjay Gandhi, the mainstreaming ris was scientifically discovered only in 1998, of departure. She glances up. “You looking for a part-time job?” stance on old people? For the long- said that for old people across political parties, bias towards younger participants in being of sex jokes was Singh’s own statement and ‘cliteracy’ experts last year claimed, “Free“Umm,” I say, flustered. I’ve been a est time, we were not just told that the writing is on the wall and it is in a large able to take better decisions. Worthy’s study, against India’s frustrating culture of censor- dom in a society can be measured from the freelancer for all but three years of older was better, but lest we forget font. Indian politics is the last bastion of dod- however, makes a distinction in the kind of deship. Indians bought these joke books in libid- (gender) distribution of orgasms.” As early as my long life. Keeping routines, arrivit, also foisted with really bad adages regard- dering old men and here too, it is now clear, cisions. Under choice — independent condiinous droves: in an interview with Pakistan’s 1992, Singh was not only standing up for the ing at work on time, earning a reguing them (I’ll jog your memory and ruin your there’s a premium on youth over experience. tions (where the choice you make is Friday Times, Singh admitted that his five joke female orgasm, he was standing up for freelar salary: alien territory. Still. How There are many day by reminding you of the most annoying of It isn’t because I am crossing over from one independent of your previous choice), youngbooks earned him more royalty than anything dom itself. hard could it be, working in a launLatino maids and them — old is gold). Anyone old you ran into — category to the other (okay, it’s a little bit be- er people perform better. They were more effielse he had written (he eventually wrote or dry? Customers stuff their clothes Being the son of a smart businessman, he housekeepers in this grandparents or unrelated geriatrics — was to cause of that) but relegating all old people as cient in identifying the choices that gave contributed to more than 100 books). into washers and dryers, ask for understood quite early that sex sells. Like genteel resort town. be treated with respect, because when people unproductive, and therefore unimportant, higher rewards. Whereas, in decisions that are Frankly, I could never get my to feed into the machines, most men, Singh bragged about assumed I wasmadequarters said old, they meant wise. Old(er) people knew seems neither fair nor wise. She People now live under choice-dependent conditions teeth into Khushwant Singh’s risremove the clothes and leave. “Sure. his sexual exploits, but only he one of them better than you, they had lived lives of endur- for about twice as long as they did (where each choice you make will qué writing, like The Company of Why not?” It would be fun. In my turned the bragging into a maring adventures and enviable deprivations and in the 1940s, and to draw line at have a bearing on your next Women (2003), particularly when spare time I could chat with customketable art form, and bragged for He probably had afor it, went the age 60 or 70 as the end of any were all the more divine choice), older people fare better. it was described on the back cover ers, gaining insights and making his millions of readers, not just argument.fraction of the sex work-related accomplishment is “In real-world situations, it’s likely as an “uninhibited, erotic and friends. Plus I’d get paid to do it! for his circle of friends. He probaTo assume all old claimed have, Then inhethe 1990s, to the country liberalised a parameter that seems dated. To more common that the rewards endlessly entertaining celebraMagdalena straightens assesses me. “Ever done this bly had a fraction of the sex he people are up and available but he made good and suddenly everything changed. Old yield- assume all old people are irreledepend on previous tion of love, sex and passion”. The work before?”

I shook my head.

“We’re a full service laundry: claimed to have, but he made irrelevant is just as money talking and in our ‘demo- vant is just as ignorant as assumed to young.

We were cashing choices made, similar to Experirustic Punjabi sex in The Train to meaning, we do washing, folding, the whole deal,” for good money talking and writing ignorant as ironing,ment writing about it graphic dividend’, economists told us, as ing all young people are going to 2. The advantage found for Pakistan (1956) was sweet, but paying customers.

“We are open from eight to eight but sameabout it. And while doing that, in assuming all young though the capital invested in women’s be Mark Zuckerberg. older adults in this experiment there always loomed the bizarre day deliveries gotta completed regardless. Half hour off for powerfully funny doses, Singh people arebe going to wombs had finally landed on a profitable Darrell Worthy, a Texas A&M may have been partially due to guilt of being aroused by a Partilunch.” She hands me an employee sheet to fill up. “Believe me, made sex more real for millions be Mark Zuckerberg stock. Everyone began to be endowed with psychologist, conducted a study age-based expertise in decisiontion novel, so Harold Robbins was honey, there’s no time to breathe.” of Indians. cool. You were either “with it” or without any- to understand how old people making situations where current easier to get off on. On the other hand, Singh’s Just then the owner comes in. He is a short, balding man with It is said that a team researching the sexual thing. Like the old man in the Vodafone ad, make decisions compared to the decisions will impact future posjoke books were delicious quickies, with cover habits of city-dwellers interviewed a cross-seca tan and the remains of an Italian accent. He asks me what my you could earn your street cred only by beat- young. The first part of the experisible outcomes,” Worthy says. For illustrations that set them up perfectly: volup- tion of Mumbai’s business community. A work experience is. I say I’m a writer. Magdalena is disbelieving. ing the young at being young. Old is now cold, ment involved a controlled game of chance. want of another word, he calls this wisdom. tuous, bikini-clad women, prancing around question posed to them was: “What do you do “Really? I figured maybe childcare. Nanny.” There are many Latia liability one must constantly apologise for.

Participants were asked to make four choices The argument against doddering old men the beaming sardar. no maids and housekeepers in this genteel resort town. She asimmediately after you have had sex?” The anThe reason I bring this up is because of to see which of these options yielded a higher running the country is that they are unable to The joke books held their own beside the swers were revealing. Ten per cent replied that sumed I was one of them. what’s been playing politically in the last cou- aggregate. It required identification of pat- understand the aspirations of the large majorcleavage-fest of Debonair at railway station they simply went to sleep. Another 10 per cent I say that I’ll have to think about the job offer. “Don’t take too ple of weeks. The sulking old guard of the BJP, terns but mostly involved taking risks. The ity of the population, which is under 25. It is a bookstands; as a friend told me, they were the replied that they washed themselves and took long!” says the owner with a wheezy laugh. “Positions like this, LK Advani, 86, and Jaswant Singh, 76, in partic- younger lot, 18- to 26-year-olds, aced this test. valid argument. Certainly, the older you are, only ‘naughty’ books on her father’s shelves of some nourishment — a glass of fruit juice, aery’know? They get snapped up!” He’s kidding. He tells me he ular, have been thrown into professional ob- The second test was a simulation of extracting the harder it is to understand the digital, everTolstoys and Hemingways. And Singh’s books ated water or sandwich. The remaining 80 per used to own two laundries. “Had to close one down. Everyone’s scurity and asked, in a manner of speaking, to oxygen in Mars. Participants had to decide morphing environment we live in now. Dewere perhaps the only writings that could cent, after much cajoling, replied: “Then we go got their own machines these days.” sit quietly somewhere and read the Ramayan which of the two options they would use to ex- spite that, although 18-year-olds certainly unite fundamentalists and some feminists in home.”

Just then Leaping Lizzie, my dryer, gives a loud PAAAARP. My or whatever it is that old people read. On the tract oxygen and then transfer it to larger would be the best people to take on a trip to righteous rage. load is done. I smile, shrug apologetically and leave, deciding to (From Khushwant Singh’s Big Fat Joke Book, other side, Congress’ Jairam Ramesh (who tanks. This test involved understanding past Las Vegas, if it is the 60- to 84-year-olds who are Many of the jokes were sourced from his 2000) remain jobless for the time being. turns 60 in four days), came out and said party patterns and using that knowledge to make likely to keep us alive on Mars, I dare say we loyal and leery band of male contributors After a long, steamy intercourse with Earth, leaders above 70 must retire. Even though decisions. The amount of oxygen extracted should all sit down and think about this a bit MANJULA PADMANABHAN, author and artist, tells us tales of her parallel life in around the country, with a disproportionate Singh has now gone home. members of his party were quick to jump and successfully transferred to the larger tank before hustling them out of Parliament.

Elsewhere, USA, in this fortnightly series. marginalien. blogspot. in number of Saxenas, it seemed. The jokes were RIP. (well, as quick as arthritis allows you) and clar- by the older group (60- to 84-year olds) was far Veena Venugopalquite is editor BLink to andwhat goes around on old boys’ similar t@veenavenugopal that it was Ramesh’s personal opinion and higher than the younger lot. author of Would You Like Somegroups Bread today, lotsify WhatsApp of innuendo and sambuddha mitra mustafi is a journalist, Fulbright With That Book? plenty nudge-nudge-wink-wink. scholar and a media entrepreneur

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Seeking roots Set in Baltimore, This Place tells of itinerant individuals searching UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY for more than just the American dream ap / patrick semansky

The sanyasin and the sanyasi As outcasts, shunned even by the weakest in society, renunciation was their only refuge Strength in numbers A mendicant’s bowl and a walking stick are hardly a defence against the indignities sanyasins might suffer alone PTI

Baltimore blues A narrative of neither heroes nor villains, which leaves the reader with a deep understanding of the characters, and affirms that stories are the best way to tell of human lives

MI

This Place Amitabha Bagchi Fourth Estate Fiction ₹499

ikan ki Ma became a sanyasin. The division between the two groups was as Sanyas is not a path usually given to women.

She shaved off her hair, took up solid as a brick wall, and no one thought to Who knows what sorts of indignities may be f there is one unerring skill that AmitabThe actual drama in their lives comes to a over the anarchic progression of events in the mendicant’s bowl, and said breach it except Pandey and Mikan ki Ma. forced upon a woman on her own with nothha Bagchi possesses, it is the one he uses flashpoint around the possibility of Miss Lucy their lives. Perhaps it is more than a linguistic she was renouncing the world.

Pandey was a bit of a rascal but not a bad ing to her name except a begging bowl and to home in on characters whose actions being evicted from the home in which she has symbol that the one character who seems to Her heart was not in it though, or at least that man. He was nice to her. Who knows what that maybe, a walking stick? But for Mikan ki Ma are immoral by social standards but pe- lived, loved and lost. But this is just a setting do least in the entire novel, only responding to is what my mother tells me. Beaten by her hus- might have meant to her, she for whom every nothing else was left. She renounced a life of culiarly ethical from their own standpoint. for the people to play out their uncertainties, the true north of his moral compass in each of band, mistreated by her own sons, Mikan ki supposed guardian had been a tormentor? abuse and slander, of poverty and injustice, of His second published novel, The Householder, inner journeys and moral conflicts through a his encounters, is Jeevan, whose name, obviMa found a refuge of sorts at our farm, under I am not sure what passed between them. endless work, and the one man who showed was a splendid unravelling of this theme. In marvellous unspooling of dialogue and di- ously, means life. my mother’s care.

They were both married, and in such a society, her kindness. its successor in bookshops, This Place (it is ac- lemmas. Bagchi’s ear for conversation is so Bagchi’s people are neither heroes nor vilThe farmhouse was mostly the domain of an affectionate smile is as unforgivable as a My mother says her heart was not in it. tually the second novel Bagchi wrote), this is good that it almost compensates for some of lains, though their choices can make them apwomen. The men were in the towns and cities, torrid affair. After all, the argument goes, what Maybe the escape to sanyas runs in the famwhat drives Shabbir Ahmad, the Pakistani im- the clichés in his characters: for instance, pear that way. But his ability to stand some far away in other States, in other coun- is the difference between the two except for ily, because Mikan, the favoured son whose migrant in Baltimore, who insists on making a Kamran, the second-generation Pakistani, is scrupulously clear of judgement makes his tries, struggling to rise beyond where they had time and opportunity? birth gave Mikan ki Ma her public name, beliving by repeatedly straying across the line of inevitably caught in a cultural no-man’s land, book both uncomfortable and warm. The first, been born. The women did not have this opThe refuge that Mikan ki Ma had unexpect- came a sanyasi too, not long after. It was not as moral acceptability. And yet, when looked at while the handicapped Henry has the prover- because, denied the opportunity of approving tion, but they had each other, a sorority of edly found lasted then, only for a if the spirit touched his heart. For as a means for a representative of the Third bial heart of gold. or censuring, the reader can see the uneasy sorts, and many of them gathered at our farm- while, about a year or so, until she a man who would beat his own World to play the system in the US and come The precision of the structure of this novel contours of herself or himself in the one or house because it had the largest area, and be- found this kindness. She was not mother, that seems a hard thing out a winner, there’s something grudgingly belies the chaos that passes for real life. The two heightened qualities of the characters cause in times of need, they could appeal to allowed both. to believe. Instead rumour has it justifiable about his tactics. characters, too, are etched not in all their com- here. And the second because, almost as my mother for help.

It became a piece of gossip, a that Mikan went to the city to Pandey and Mikan Bagchi’s forte is to make the reader under- plexity, but as figures representthough this is an urban parable, Some of them would always be there to do tale of transgression, a calumny make money and ran up huge ki Ma were both stand — if not actually cheer for — such people. ing specific qualities. And at least there is peace and acceptance in the little tasks and maybe talk to my mother inextricably tied to her name. She married, and in such debts instead. In the face of destiThis Place is set in Baltimore, which becomes a one of the tracks, featuring Jeethe story, even if no one actually about their particular problems. They would was shunned by the women at the tution and threats, his wife a society, an suburban confluence of itinerant individuals van and Sunita, is simplistically gets what he or she has been seeksquat in a circle or exchange comments as farm and lost the little place she affectionate The precision smile of is thedrenched herself in kerosene and in search of that something which will make romantic to the point of maudlin ing, even if some of the lives seem they worked, a mixture of breathless gossip, had had in society. Life itself be- as unforgivable novel’s structure as a died in a blaze of flame and burnt their lives more meaningful than living the in places. There is no high passion bound for tragedy and the others, tart jibes and vociferous arguments. Mikan ki came unbearable. For all her pain, flesh.

Not content with such dibelies the chaos torrid affair American dream of having two cars in the ga- or dramatic collision of wills or for nondescript contentment.

Ma took part in these. She was an intelligent all the cruelties and all her misforthat passes for saster, Mikan tried to grow crops rage. Tellingly, none of the characters in the perspectives here, but there is a This is a book about personal woman with a great amount of life in her. tunes, Mikan ki Ma had always on the small section of land that real life novel besides Shabbir seems to possess a car. tenderness between people that failure, and the attempt to rise Away from her men with drunken tempers had people to talk to. Now she had he had inherited to somehow reThere is Jeevan Sharma from Delhi, who has makes the world seem human above it through kindness and inand loose fists, she blossomed. lost even that. Although they pay his debts. The only such crops drifted into the city after giving up a career as again. Although This Place is set in tegrity. This is a book about the The farmhouse was not entirely without could not do anything for her, the other wom- would be illegal ones, and reportedly the poa taxi-driver elsewhere, trading in his mathe- 1997, when the Wall Street-funded roots that even a person perpetumen. There was the caretaker, the man who en had given her their sympathy and shared lice soon caught on. Desperate to avoid getmatical skills for a life of helping people with American excessive living was peaking, it cap- ally on the move can set down in a seemingly took care of the guava trees my father was try- with her their own joys and sorrows. She could ting jailed he shaved his head, took the their taxes and accounts. There is Sunita, tures ways of life that are neither ostentatious alien land. This is a book about the kind of exing to raise, and there was Pandey, the tractor- walk into their homes and be entitled to what mendicant’s bowl and said he was renouncing whose husband, thrust upon her by her moth- nor fuelled by greed. perience that lies at the core of our lives, but driver. For such men, whose work rhythms in- little hospitality there was to be had, or at least the world. er in Meerut, sleeps with other women and Bringing together as it does Indian and Pa- all too well camouflaged by the sensory overvolved long seasons of nothing, and short their good wishes. Now there was nothing. She It is possible that his heart was not in it eibeats her. There are Kay and Mathew, neither kistani immigrants and middle-class Ameri- load that our daily existence has turned into. seasons of frenetic activity, the farmhouse was became an outcast, shunned even by the weak- ther, but he comes around to the farm now, happy with their work, thwarted from their cans, this novel might appear to be treading This Place is not the perfect novel, but reading a place to meet, relax and shoot the breeze. Al- est in society and allowed neither forgiveness again wearing a wide grin, and apparently cartrue calling in life and pursuing dreams that on Jhumpa Lahiri territory. But it seems more it is a reaffirmation of faith in the story as the though stray comments were exchanged be- nor pity. rying nothing upon his conscience. they know can never be realised. And there is reminiscent of Hanif Kureishi’s screenplay for best way to tell truths about human lives. tween the men and the women, such So she became a sanyasin, and renounced Miss Lucy, the embodiment of the older world Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, in which, too, sex bet@OmairTAhmad conversations were always distant, formal. the world. order that the drifters are both dismantling comes a metaphor for individuals trying — arunava sinha translates classic and contemporary and protecting. and mostly failing — to impose their control Bengali fiction and non-fiction into English

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Omair Ahmad is an author. His last book was on Bhutan

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9 17BL BL

work read

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janice pariat

Organic growth Is it like a hamburger?

PAPERWALLAH

A small band of businesses across India is stitching together a market for ethical clothing Some critics feel creative writing is a vulgar hybrid, others that it is the mark of a good writer. But the debate lies elsewhere

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anif Kureishi has just been called a d**k.

We are at a weekly literary evening by thefelt School of Enaniorganised Chinnaswamy a loss of glish at the University of Kent, and the remark identity when genetically modielicits some nervous laughter,began and polite, if unfied varieties replacing easy, silence. The teaches at cotton the univertheindicter extra-long staple his sity’s for cultivating Creative Writing, and heinis familyCentre had been for five decades miffed, over certain remarkswho KuPollachi.extremely, Unlike many other farmers reishi has about his profession.

Speaking shifted tomade the GM variety, Chinnaswamy perat the Independent Bath Literature festivalit earsisted with the old variety and cultivated orlier in March, Kureishichemical called creative writing ganically by avoiding fertilisers. courses a “waste of time”,there implying that But soon he realised was further no market the of storytelling cannot bewith taught. for skill this variety any more.

Saddled tons(Kuof reishi was with Vijayalakshmi, resembling a certain cotton, he charged and his wife, decidpart the up male body because he istoalso profesed tooftake handloom weaving make use sor of creative writing Kingston of their produce.

Theyatbought 42 University.) handlooms We are gathered forthat a reading

by Evie Wyld, from a cooperative was shutting downa London-based writer. novel, All the and refurbished themHer withsecond the help of carpenBirds, hasbrought recently in been published, and ters. Singing They also a designer from shortlisted the Costa Novel organic Prize and longMumbai tofor help them produce cotton listed thisin year’s Bailey’s Women’s for sarees.forAnd 2008, Ethicus — the Prize ‘ethical’ Fiction. andfrom the moderator are discussing fashionShe brand Tamil Nadu-based Appacreative writing Wyld obtained both chi Cotton mill —courses; was born. an In undergraduate and postgraduate degree in a market where regular cotton sarees the subject. it hadn’t been the for that,” she says, rarely retail“If beyond ₹3,000, Ethicus range “Istarts would have a writer.” atnever ₹3,500 andbecome is priced up to ₹10,000.

This, in a nutshell, the polarity of Nearly 3,000 sareesexemplifies sell each year, and dethe debate, on-going for seemingly millennia mand is growing steadily.

This thena is the stonow, ry ofsurrounding hundreds ofcreative other writing organic courses. cotton (Possibly there has more about clothing brands too,been as they findwritten ready buyers creative courses than all the among writing educated and collectively environmentally conwriting actually tourists done in these courses.) We have scious Indians, and expatriates. its “There critics isand champions, its advocates and a growing awareness about orgamalcontents, almost, aggravatingly, equal in nic clothing. We are witnessing 100 per cent count. piece year,” that describes creative growthFor in every sales every says Sonal Baid, writing as the with “biggest con job in academia” who together her husband, Arun, set up Aura Herbal Wear in Ahmedabad in 2003.

Shishir Goenka, who has been manufacturing organic clothes since 2006, would readily concur. Supplying to brands in Canada, Sweden and Italy, he soon realised the growing demand back home. “I set up my own line, Fusion Clothing, in 2010,” he says. In the first

Chic ethic Organic cotton on the stem; (top right) handpainted, Bollywoodinspired bag by Indigreen; Samtana’ s ‘wearable art’

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there is another that claims it can “produce in- garding them, as the critic and novelist dependent-thinking, craftsman like innova- Malcolm Bradbury put it, as being “like the tors”. Is it a system set up to silence writers, and hamburger — a vulgar hybrid which, as everydupe students? does introduce ways of one once knew, no sensible person would ever year, his revenueOr was ₹20itlakh; today the busithinking about writing are strong and pur- eat.” The UK’s first master’s degree program in ness, including exports,that brings in a whopping poseful? every Hanif Kureishi there is a Jea- creative writing opened in 1970. By 2011, there ₹10 croreFor annually. nette Winterson. were over 90. And the ‘vulgar hybrid’ has The naturally issue with creative writing courses, spread even further. To Australia, Canada, New Zany, though, to do whether are Zealand, Israel, Mexico, South Korea, and the A varietyhas of less factors arewith driving the they organic beneficial or counterproductive. craze. “People realise chemicalsThe areproblem, bad forI Philippines. In India, even though they’ve takthink, lies consumption elsewhere. as well as the environ- en time to catch on, they’re being offered, personal My concern creative writing ment… belief is inthat the brand also plays courses an im- mostly as a minor part of an English Literature may disallow a diploma, a handful of white places,fabinportant role,” creativity says Baid. from flourishing out- course Whileorone metre ofatpure organic sideAsthe enclosure of cent a university curriculum.

National Open Univermuch as 95 per of the cotton culti- cluding ric costsIndira ₹150, Gandhi the regular cotton comes for That writing’ couldsecond becomelargest inextricaSymbiosis college, T-shirt Pune,is Jawaharlal vated‘creative in India, the world’s ex- sity, around ₹120. An organic priced beble fromofthe a subject ofmodified. To tween ₹500Nehru University, Delhi, The Britporter thename fibre, of is genetically and ₹1,000, which compares fauniversity That these ishthe Council recently, stand out tuition. in a crowded market, organic vourably with prices and, of bigmore brands but is courses become ‘badges’ or the workshops in Kolkata organised brands rely on their differentiating designs, more expensive than the unbranded stuff. sole markers by which one graduthe University of East Anglia, colours and aesthetics.

Aura uses only herbal “Prices will by remain a little high till scale is ates the rank of ‘good’ writer.

In UK (for theofsum of ₹25,000). dyestoderived from indigo, pomegranate peel, writing achieved. Economies scale will make our Creative an already publishing inI cannot help but this saffron andbiased turmeric. products cheaper thanfind convencourses threaten dustry, they could stratify the trend forBaid. reasons that Bangalore-based Samtana tional unsettling, cotton,” says the existence of process even further — many pubhave little to do with the debate prints selected works of Indian Only a handful of factories are writing as a craft, lishing houses, especially in the on the efficacy of creative and international designers on currently certified by thewriting Global branding it instead Economies of scale UK US, refuse to consider programmes. one, creative its and organic cotton T-shirts. manIndiOrganic TextileFor Standard (GOTS). as a ‘skill’ that can will eventually uscripts not submitted writing courses of arethese pre-eminentgreen, founded in 2009through

by Nidhia “The majority are exbe bought and sold make our products literary agency.

WillGupta, literarybrings agenly an English-language phenomSingh and Gaurav tremely large factories that supcheaper than cies one daytorefuse to consider enon theinternational process by Bollywood organic clothing ply theand, big like brand manuscripts aren’t funny writtenmoby conventional cotton which originally spread with designsthat featuring marketEnglish and cannot, or do not, someone with a creative writing around world,athey bearindethe vie dialogues. want tothe support small, degree?

The filtersco-founder could be endless.

And the stench of colonialism.

They arebrand. embodiments Ben Heinkel, of pendent Indian Finding gatekeepers of ‘good manifold. of a lurkingthe ‘bigright brother’ attitude, here whereby Samtana, says manyliterature’ people now partnership has Louis Menand, professor of they English at Har- anything in the West is always, somebuy organic cotton clothes as are drawn been very done challenging,” says Heinkel. vard University, creativeappeal. writing“And pro- how, worthy of imitation under an to their designscalls andthe aesthetic To counter thisstudious shortcoming, 28 companies gram (which) of being Secondly, this is “an onlyAmerican natural at invention, this stage, until therehas is assumption banded together last yearbeneficial. as the Green People recently become anofAmerican export.”and The Britmay exist, they invariablyEven apmore awareness what organic fair wherever of India, they to promote eco-enterprises. ish were initially of the idea, re- pear to serve the goal of enclosing whatever trade clothing is contemptuous about.”

Fairtrade International, which helps pro‘autonomous zones’ temporary spaces outducers gain access to—markets at better terms, side formal structures of controllast — that Affordably ethical set up its India arm in November year.exist Designs apart, the brands are working over- for the development of the writing craft, into a system of accountability and time to erase the ‘organic is more expensive’ bureaucratic Partnering change then, what writtag. “We are offering the consumer a price- control.

“With theUltimately, help of Fairtrade India creative we have manis thethat verywe existence of competitive product with the additional su- ing agedcourses to formthreaten partnerships are happy writing as will a craft, it instead as a per-values of being organic,” says Baid. with. This help branding us bring out new collec‘skill’ that can bequicker bought,pace,” sold and certified. tions at a much Heinkel adds.

My suggestion is for us organic to work towards Eager to expand, the brands the are multiplication of common spacesof —Ethicus bookhowever selective.

Chinnaswamy shops, independent festivals does notlibraries, retail through outlets that don’tand use publishers, bookonly clubs, his tag. Samtana sellsliterary online groups for now.and Aueven — where writing may thriveand as craft, ra hascafés a flagship store in Ahmedabad frannurtured in the half grassroots.

The chisees incommunally, Kolkata, although of its sales only reason I would find to join a creative writhappen online.

It also sells at 20 multi-brand ing course would bethree to access a nurturing enoutlets in India and in Europe.

“We aim vironment mymetros writing, where to have storesfor across and big citiesno in alternatives available.

It is to those alterthe next fewwere years, as the demand is huge,” natives, not to the further branding of creBaid says.

Chinnaswamy agrees: “Indians are ative writing courses, I hope we turn sensitive to the cause ofthat organic cotton.

Forour us, attention, andmarket where is wethe place our faith. the domestic future, and branding is the route to it.” janice pariat is the author of Boats on Land t@janicepariat To con or not to con Can and should students be taught the art of storytelling and writing? k gopinathan rashmi pratap

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getaway

saturday, april 5, 2014 saturday, april 5, 2014

Home, tweet home Track change

Finland: Travel log

Kittila

Get there

Finnair has several direct flights every week from Delhi.

Other major European carriers, such as KLM, Air France, Lufthansa and British Airways, also offer one-stop connections through their hubs.

Grabhouse uses social media to keep out brokers and help students and young Warming upfind to the Lapland professionals the Arctics perfectinrental accommodation

I

t’s a simple case of necessity giving birth to invention. Back in 2012, when Pankhuri Shrivastava was a fellow of Teach For India, a non-profit organisation, she experienced firsthand the many challenges of living in Mumbai. It was tough to rent a house without paying high brokerages and even tougher to find like-minded flatmates.

Around that time, her friend Prateek Shukla too had completed his engineering course from IIT-Kanpur. He came to Mumbai that October and the two of them decided to find a solution to the housing problems of students and young professionals.

Over the next six months, they asked around in the city’s colleges and realised that the major problems were high brokerages (two months’ rent in Navi Mumbai) and house-owners reluctant to take in tenants who were single.

“We didn’t know how to start, but were sure that just as travel agents had been replaced by travel websites as they didn’t create any value, the same model could be replicated in the rental space,” says Shukla.

The duo then happened to be selected for India Quotient (IQ) Bootcamp, a free and nocontract 50-day incubator for tech start-ups.

The Bootcamp team, including Anand Lunia,

A

Home run Prateek Shukla, the 24-year-old co-founder and CEO of grabhouse.com, in Mumbai shashi ashiwal

New frontiers (clockwise from above) A dip in the frozen Ounasjoki river; a meatheavy Lappish meal with lingonberry jelly; and snowmobiling near Levi (photos were shot with the Nokia Lumia 1020 and 1520)

ll my adventures so far have been entirely unplanned. Learnt to ride a bicycle; rode it straight under the chassis of a public bus. Signed up for swimming lessons; nearly drowned in five feet of water (scarlet swimsuit and cap, notwithstanding). Went skiing in the Alps; returned with pulled hamstrings you could play a quartet on. It is no minor matter then that my travel insurance (and visa) arrives hours before I set out on my greatest adventure yet.

In northern Finland — hunched across the Russian border, extending right up to and beyond the Arctic Circle.

That Lapland has hospitals and tall, strapping paramedics on call, is subzero comfort — what with Accuweather predicting, quite accurately, a balmy -26°C on arrival. But what really sets off a polar freeze of spinal fluids is the final itinerary in the inbox. Ice carting, ice dipping, reindeer and husky sledding, snowmobiling (on Yamaha-ha, are you kidding me?)… it’s like a death wish in Helvetica. The only bright spot in this minefield of misadventures is the promise of sighting the northern lights, in a year expected to throw up some of the most brilliant spectacles in the last decade.

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vercompensating for my cowardice, perhaps, I wake up on my first morning in the resort town of Levi at 5.30am to watch the sunrise. In the footsteps of a reindeer, plodding through knee-deep snow past an army of pine trees, a fellow traveller and I make our way to a river that runs across the Lappish countryside. In March though, frozen over with three-odd metres of ice, Ounasjoki is an open field. Bereft of trees, it affords a great view of the rising sun, but only if you’re camera-ready — fingers parted from the glove to press the shutter, and brr, freeze the moment.

I soon find out, however, the sun can be as

Stay

WeTarun stayed at the Levi three Spirit, months a clusterofofits charming angel investor and founder of IQ, and Within launch,villas Grabadjacent to house the Ounasjoki river, minutes and, fromby Davda, venture capitalist at Matrix Partners, had saved ₹25about lakh in10 brokerage provided mentoring and free office space.

October-end, had helped around 350 people Levi town and 15 minutesitfrom the airport at Kittila.

All house Mumbai. That prompted wood, stonefind and aglass, theindouble-storey villas come IQ ‘Share’ a home andsaunas, MV Krishnan, Deutsche with their own Jacuzzisvice andpresident ‘kammis’, of a partly

By July 2013, Shrivastava and Shukla werelounge Bank, to provide an open undisclosed sum as seed covered with a crackling fire, otherwise ready to launch grabhouse.com in its minimalfundingSami in January found in traditional lodges2014. (from €500; levispirit.fi). ist avatar — an online space that lets You you find can also consider booking a room at K5 Levi (from roommates without paying brokerage.

Those Know your housemate €100; golevi.fi). looking for a flat can post requirements after Grabhouse has now added a flats section, answering with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to where owners can call for tenants. eight lifestyle-related preferencThe challenge was to narrow the es, including smoking, drinking, to on ‘educated and wellIf you’re not too focusedchoice on skiing the gentle slopes food and overnight guests.

“We’re creating of House-seekers Levi or cross-country placed’ skiing inhopefuls. the woods, make a “We are leveraging the power of sign-up through short stop at the Levia Husky Parkforforseekers dog sledding. mustpit answer ‘yes’ social networks to help people LinkedIn that will give the details They also offer guided tours in summer (closed or ‘no’ to eight find flatmates and tenants about educational between April 29 and June 20; their polarspeed.fi).

Forand prolifestyle-related through their common friends, background.

This ensnowmobile safari routesfessional and operators and ice carting, preferences keeping in mind compatibility. contact the local tourist sures officepeople (levi.fi).get quality seekers,” We have built a smart algorithm says 24-year-old Shukla. that matches owners with tenYet another challenge was to ants and flatmates on the basis of counter brokers, who charge a their preferences,” says Shukla. commission publicise hostess a property real-esSave an afternoon for thetocharming andonher This, then, has been the USP of Grabhouse: tate websites.

“We countered it by rustic Lappish meals at Tikun’s Tii Pii, close to generating town zero brokerage and heavy use of social media the details of aOn flatthe inmenu, the form of aother poster, (facebook.com/Tiikuntiipii). among to reach out to youth looking for rented which the owners could post as and a photo on FB, things,acare reindeer meat, warm crowberry commodation — markedly differentiating it juice Twitter this way, they could lingonberry andoraWhatsApp. homemadeIndessert of fresh from the bigger daddies 99acres.com, commonwouldn’t have to type in the details repeatedly cheese smothered in cloudberry preserve. floor.com and magicbricks.com. or pay a commission,” he says.

Grabhouse also allows users to create a customised tiny, easy-to-remember URL, which stones a dimly log cabin, is well outside elusive as the northern lights in the Arctics. can be in shared by lit a house owner or seeker.

A my comfort zone.

But with sauna details for every Over an hour later, with frost on my eyelashes click on this will generate thea house or people in Finland where grandparents and truant snow in my boots, the fool refuses atwo prospective tenant’s—requirements.

In Deborn in last saunas euroa deals to rise. Defeated, we tread back to warmth and cember year,and themulti-million website acquired Facestruckgroup in the —buff areand kosher — the one thing to a fantastic breakfast that includes among book Flats Flatmates Mumbai, you can’t is avoid an invitation one. day. other things, an unleavened barley-based flat- which is do, adding 700-800 people toevery And10,000 oh, come buck-naked, would bread called rieska and an orange-gold jelly of From initially, the number of you? members the changing room, however, in a largely cloudberry, the ephemeral fruit that sends the hasIngrown to 25,000.

This has strengthened Asianwebsite’s huddle of tourists, I’m not the one Finns foraging in the woods for three weeks the reach in Mumbai.

It only has also loath to my inhibitions and my every summer. (For the rest of the year, you spread to shedding 10 cities including Delhi, Bangalore, clothes. Au naturel may beand theAhmedabad. default dress can find cloudberry on the Finnish €2 coin Hyderabad, Indore, Bhopal code here, but I’m not bartering my modesty and of course, in expensive jam jars.) yet forservices a scraggy branch of birch — the token Back on the frozen river, this time on a sled Niche fig leaf with medicinal Belligerent with 12 huskies, I prepare for my first taste of “About 250 houses areproperties. listed daily by those in my scarlet swimsuit (sans the jujusays cap) and feral speed and wind chill. The sled driver, 20- looking for tenants or roommates,” Shukfindhemy birch in the year-old Yohanna, who moved la. But so far,scrambling Shrivastavatoand haven’t spent (just in case), I’mhave hotbeen and here from a neighbouring town a penny on dark marketing.

Their costs long before the sauna is. two years ago for the love of husknominal as sweaty their eight-member team — averOncetaken inside though,salary it’s all ies and foxes, seems perfectly age age 22 — hasn’t a month’s yet.a I’m not the only one haze. Loose-limbed and to toasty, amiable and disconcertingly The angel funding has enabled them rent loath to shedding spiritsand aremeet periodically revived young. Addressing the barking an office in Malad other expenses. my inhibitions and with cold beers, cider and a local pack by their names — some of Having carved a niche for itself, Grabhouse my clothes mixtoofcharge gin and juice called whom can run up to 200km a day is now ready forgrape its services.

For I could get ₹100 used for to this — she pushes the wooden throtstarters, flatlonkero. owners have to pay the (lucky But alltenant. light-headed tle down with such great force contact details of aFinns!). prospective mirth,too andare any air intomy lungs, is that we go flying through the “House-seekers willing pay for the knocked out Frida, the only Finn snow, battling the wind and errant shards of services andthe wemoment are considering charging in our says all-girl groupbut (they may not ice, over endless bolts of white. A few brave them,” Shukla, nowhere nearhave whata stitch on,charge. but traditional perfectly punters even record the ride on their cell brokers He is alsosaunas ready are to take rent prudish single-sex insists₹200-300 we do what phones (for a full 15 seconds, if you must agreements onlinezones), and charge for the locals do,tied go up where localsinhave been. know). But I hold on for dear life (photos be each.

“We’ve withthe lawyers all the ciThe we latter, as it turns out,owners is downand theseekers hatch damned), pulling the reindeer skin rug under ties are present in. Flat and have into atohole intohe a frozen me tighter and tighter around the shoulders. just signpunched the papers,” adds. river or under anGrabhouse open sky. will Although we go riding again — once on a lake, In skinny-dipping the next six months, “No half-measures saysBhubaneswar, Frida, darting gentler reindeer sled and once on a snowmo- spread to Chennai, here,” Kolkata, into the subzero darkness a barely bibile on overdrive between the village-towns of Chandigarh, Jaipur, Kota... in “Right now,there people kini.posting I followrequirements suit, and livethrough to tell the — Kittila and Levi — the thrill of the husky sled is are ourtale webmandible and hamstrings intact. never outdone. site and WhatsApp. In future, they will be able travelled to Finland at the invitation to The do itwriter through any social media website,” he t is not until that evening however, that I fi- says. of Nokia Lumiaexcuse… last month.

Brokers click! nally meet my Waterloo. The Finnish sauna, pratap soity banerjee lovingly prepared by splashing water on hot rashmi

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Dhoni crony That the outgoing BCCI President N Srinivasan and Mahendra Singh Dhoni share business interests, is an open secret v ganesan

joanna van gruisen

A BUTTERFLY BREEZE FROM MP

No singing in this rain

Not a solitary reaper One ill-timed hailstorm can wreak havoc on the harvest; climate change affects everyone afp/diptendu dutta

Well into March this year, we were still in three layers and a shawl in North India. Climate change, anyone?

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constant source of conversation this winter, this prolonged winter that only recently ended in northern India, has been the weather. As a Brit, I am used to the elements being a popular topic, but here this is not usually so. The climate of the subcontinent used to be so regular, it was said you could set your watch by the coming of the monsoon. It has been a while since this was so, nevertheless, if one was asked, for example, what the weather would be like in February, it was easy enough to give an accurate response. Not this year! Who could have predicted that well into March, we would still be in three layers and a shawl, watching downpours of monsoon weight? In our eco-resort with no air conditioning and with outdoor activities, we

close mid-April as it becomes too hot to be comfortable in the open. This was hard to believe when only six weeks before, we were still using hot water bottles to take the chill off the beds at night!

The only bright side to this is that finally more people — including hopefully, our politicians and policy makers — will recognise that ‘climate change’ exists. It’s extraordinary that there are still doubters, even when in the field of climate science, the consensus is unequivocal: human activities are causing global warming and severe climate changes (at least 97 per cent of all relevant papers show that.) It’s even more shocking that those in authority are not taking steps to mitigate the effect, or taking into account the implications of this, especially for vulnerable sectors like agriculture.

Excessive cold, sunless and wet days may be tiresome for tourists travelling in India, but for some, this weather presents a life-and-death situation. In our area the wheat crop had just reached that greengold stage. Tall waving strands turning colour — the worst possible time for powerful winds, hail and slashing rain that lay them flat. Walking around the neighbouring channa field, I notice it’s lush and green but there’s hardly a chickpea to be found.

We should be heading for the height of the dry season. This year, in our district of MP, 86.2mm of rain has been recorded for January and February — almost 200 per cent more than is considered average. Six of these eight weeks recorded excessive rain, according to the India Meteorological Department. Such wreckage to the

crops is already starting a new wave of farmer suicides. Since 1995 over 2.8 lakh farmers have taken their lives in the face of crop failures and excessive debts, that’s more than 45 suicides every day!

Banking policies, exploding input costs and crashing crop prices provide the dry tinder that any spark may set alight — even an untimely hailstorm.

In what warped world can it make sense to give a loan for a Mercedes Benz car for half the interest of buying a working tool like a tractor? The agricultural community may be a diminishing vote bank, but it’s time we gave them the attention they deserve — for all our welfare.

Back to the pavilion

joanna van gruisen is a wildlife Does Mahendra Singh Dhoni owe his long innings as a Testphotographer, captain to his ties with the conservationist and hotelier based near the Panna Tiger Reserve outgoing BCCI president N Srinivasan?

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here was a time when Mahendra Singh Dhoni could do no wrong… be it his love for motorcycles, his hairstyles or his performance on the field as the captain of the Indian cricket team.

He was called the man with the Midas touch.

The 2007 T20 World Cup triumph shot Dhoni into prominence and his popularity continued to grow in the following years. It skyrocketed after he led India to the 2011 World Cup win and was nicknamed ‘captain cool’ — ad campaigns and strategies were devised around his style of cricket and captaincy. In other words, he was the blue-eyed boy of the fans, the media and the experts.

Dhoni still remains the blue-eyed boy, but perhaps, only of the controversial, now former, BCCI president N Srinivasan. How else do you explain a skipper holding on to his position in Test cricket, after performing worse than say, the so-called ‘terrible’ captains like Sachin Tendulkar?

India has failed to win a single Test match away from home in the last three years. This winless streak has stretched to 14 Test matches now, including the humiliating 4-0 defeats at the hands of England and Australia. Dhoni’s overseas captaincy record reads like this: 23 matches, five wins, seven draws and 11 losses.

Sourav Ganguly even called his captaincy “obnoxious” and too defensive.

Former selector Mohinder Amarnath, in fact, had said that after the disastrous tours of England and Australia in 2012, it was suggested by the selectors that Dhoni should be sacked. But due to ‘internal reasons’ the idea was rejected. The BCCI constitution states that the list drawn up by selectors ought to be vetted by the approval of the president.

Former chairman of selectors, Kiran More, however, feels that Dhoni got a lot of flak for

captaining a side, which doesn’t have the abil- well. Two cricketers who were considered for ity to win overseas. “Look at the bowling at- the job — Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehtack he has had — it’s inexperienced and lacks wag — now find themselves on the periphery the quality to win Test matches,” he says. of Indian cricket due to poor form, age (in SehBishen Singh Bedi, former India captain, wag’s case) and according to some, differences says that the support Dhoni has enjoyed from with Dhoni. “He has formed a coterie of crickthe BCCI is unparalleled. “Every Indian captain eters around him, who rarely get dropped,” — be it Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev or Ganguly — says a former selector. Suresh Raina, who incihad differences with the authorities. But no dentally is part of Chennai Super Kings, is one one has enjoyed so much power and support such name. Sehwag’s coach AN Sharma went as Dhoni,” he says. on record to say his ouster from the team was Could this be linked to Srinivasan, India Ce- due to personal reasons. For Gambhir, howevments and Chennai Super Kings? “I believe er, Dhoni expressed surprise at his exclusion, so,” says a former captain. In July 2013, in an in- and Gambhir too quashed any rumours of a terview, Srinivasan said people rift between the two. were “jealous” of Chennai Super Dhoni’s potential replacement Kings because they had Dhoni. He is Virat Kohli. Former Australian went as far as to suggest that the captain Ian Chappell recently Dhoni’s overseas “savage attacks” on him were hapsaid that Kohli would make a betcaptaincy record is pening because he had Dhoni. ter captain. Kohli, 25, hasn’t 23 matches, five It’s not as if a president and a proved his mettle as a skipper in wins, seven draws captain haven’t enjoyed a special the recently concluded Asia Cup and 11 losses bond before. Ganguly was supbut is the only possible successor. posedly very close to Jagmohan In 2013, Dhoni had hinted that Dalmiya, while Mohammad Azhahe was burdened with captaining ruddin had close ties with the late the team in all three formats — Raj Singh Dungarpur. But those ties were re- ODIs, Tests and T20 — but expressed his desire stricted to cricket and personal relations, not to defend the ODI World Cup. Unlike Tests, in business interests. In 2013, Dhoni was appoint- ODI cricket, his record as a captain remains ed the vice president at India Cements. credible and perhaps, safe. But in Test cricket, Ever since the IPL spot-fixing scandal broke he should have been sacked long ago. and Srinivasan’s son-in-law Gurunath MeiyapWith challenging tours to Australia and Enpan’s role in handling Chennai Super Kings gland pencilled 2014, theterminus time is right to Eating out of his hands Founder Satish Chamyvelumani at Atchayam’s, nearin thefor Koyambedu r ravindran came under the scanner, Dhoni has kept mum blood a new Test captain. Perhaps, the wise on the issue. Last week when the Supreme men of Indian cricket are awaiting orders not the ideal date. We in unfamiliar Koyambedu bus terminus, overlooks Courtt’sordered Srinivasan toare step down, the from the Supreme Court toand bring down the territory, thespeaking traffic is relentless, and with grimAnd wholesale vegetable market. Tucked skipper avoided to the media and axe. perhaps, like Srinivasan, Dhoniinto too sun beatingindown on us, takes a small at the entrance of refuses Hotel Chennai sent the Rohit Sharma his place foritthe pre-a must bekiosk forced to leave, for he to bow while to find Atchayam’s Food Deluxe, the ‘food box’ is a large, automated match conference at the World T20.Box (afood- out gracefully. box.com).

It’squestion a bright, air-conditioned nook in vending machine that issues set meals As for the of who should he be rethe not-so-salubrious near Chennai’s sourcedsharma from restaurants the city. A is a Delhi-basedacross freelance writer placed with, that hasenvirons been asked earlier as aabhas

In the fast lane

Chennai’s new-age ‘food box’ heats and serves food from restaurants across the city in 90 seconds flat

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saturday, april 5, 2014 saturday, april 5, 2014

MEAL TICKET Dr Who’s TARDIS The machine that heats and serves food in record time r ravindran

hulking red-and-yellow contraption, it takes up almost a fourth of the space. You can pay by card or cash, in which case, Nirmal, who mans the shop, will swipe his card for you. Barcodes match your order to the right tray inside the food box, and then begins the fun. (If you’re not watching carefully, you’ll miss it altogether.)

The food arrives through a slit just large enough to let a rectangular tray slip out of the box. The package then travels on automated rails to Stage 1. Here, a device pierces holes in its cling-film cover, before it rolls over to Stage 2, where two microwave ovens are fitted on the rails. We place two orders and the trays go in, one into each oven, and emerge piping hot. The entire process — payment to delivery — is meant to take no more than 90 seconds.

My companion asks for a soda but it’s not available. There are, disappointingly, few choices for lunch (unlike dinner, we’re told) — a chicken and a mutton biryani combo from Aasife and Brothers and a South Indian vegetarian meal from Adyar Ananda Bhavan. My companion orders the mutton biryani and I order the vegetarian meal, which includes sambar, vathal kuzhambu, potato fry and curd rice with pickle. The curd rice is issued in a separate container as it can’t be heatPerhaps, a ed. We pay ₹79 customer wants for the vegetara biryani to lift his ian meal and mood, if fleetingly, ₹149 for the othon a hot and er (taxes extra). hard day The food is fresh and hot.

But I don’t care very much for the taste and find myself making sorties into my companion’s. The biryani comes with fried mutton, brinjal curry and raita.

Both the meals are far too spicy and rich for a hot March afternoon, but perhaps, that’s what an average customer here wants — either a traditional full meal or a biryani to lift the mood, if fleetingly, on a hot and hard day that may even involve a long and tiring bus journey.

Nirmal tells us that travellers can order by phone or online, and meals will be delivered to them at their seat in the bus. For now, however, novelty outweighs utility at the Food Box. Most customers prefer to eat at the spot, says Nirmal, who sells about 20 lunches and 80 dinners each day.

When we ask to have a look inside the box, he doesn’t refuse, and leads us to the back of the kiosk and opens the doors. There are rows upon rows of slots, 250 of them, stacked with trays. It is the coolest part of the establishment and I am loath to leave.

Sanjaya The Accidental But leaveBaru’s I must,book as more customers trickPrime Minister: andcomes Unmaking le in and the Making food box toof life again.

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Manmohan Singh will be published later this month

sravanthi challapalli

naintara maya oberoi

Our daily kneads

In the French capital, where erring bakers have been hung from lampposts in the past, bread is a matter of life and death

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week ago, I decided to go on a But everything pales before the carb-free diet. This is a terrify- simple perfection of a traditional ing prospect for me, but not baguette. The best kinds have a half as terrifying as it is to any- sturdy, golden-bronze crust that Civil disobedience one French. “But you’re allowed bread, of cracks if you tap it hard, and a pale, hoAnti-incumbency course?” they ask tenderly, preparing to ley, chewy interior. I like them bien cuite murmurs are riot on my behalf outside the gates of Ver- (well-cooked), but many prefer pas trop getting louder in sailles, if not. A life without bread is one cuite, slightly undercooked and blonde. the corridors of not worth living, in France.

The right to fresh bread has legal proSouth Block as Frankly, I agree. Despite the fact that I tection in France: the 1,200 odd boulanelections approach wasn’t blessed with the Gallic metabolic gers of Paris are not permitted to take vv krishnan inheritance of a breadstick-like shape their summer holidays whenever they was the baguette from Aux Delices de Pa(mine is best described as brioche-like), want to. Instead, they have to apply to the lais, a small family-run boulangerie in DILLI DARBAR French bread is, without exaggeration, prefecture, which regulates the summer the 14th arrondissement. The winning worth overthrowing governments for. closures of bakeries in each neighbour- baker, Anthony Teixeira, is only 24; his faOne of the few cultural exports that sur- hood, so that no Parisian is ther Antonio Teixeira won passes its own fame, it never quite tastes ever without bread. This is in the same prize in 1998. The the same in any other country. A meal is accordance with a 1790 law, bakery will now supply the incomplete without bread here. I have instituted after a hungry Palais de l'Élysée — the home The 1,200 local even seen it being served on the side of crowd, peeved at the lack of of the President of France — boulangers can’t Thai curry, a carb-carb pairing that would bread, strung baker Denis with 40 baguettes every day. take summer stop Dr Atkins in his bacon-filled tracks.

François up from a Paris Aux Delices de Palais is a holidays whenever Everyone in Paris has their favourite lamppost; the authorities modest neighbourhood afthey want to bakery, and lunchtime sees long queues quite understandably decidfair, whose doorway comever before has the mood within seems to favour Modi today. Call it upper-caste forced by the Congress Party to do in 2004. At at popular ones. And it’s perfectly nor- ed that a lack of pain was a memorates the 1998 victory the labyrinthine corridors of the bias, as the sociologists, the psephologists and that time, Dr Singh had to change the cabinet, mal, I was glad to find, to reach into your dangerous thing. And here I in discreet lettering. Inside, Dilli Darbar been as anti-incum- the political scientists are wont to, but the sen- home and defence secretaries — all good and paper bag minutes after exiting the bou- was voluntarily depriving a line of people — “Une babent as it is today. More interest- timent is strong. highly regarded officers. Will Modi do the langerie, tear off the quignon, the floury myself. In preparation for the impending guette, s’il vous plaît” — snakes to the back, ingly, never has the mood been as Several factors have contributed to this but same if and when he becomes PM? heel of a baguette, and start to eat. I con- knell of breadless doom, I decided I owed and two women hurry to fill orders. It ‘pro-challenger’ as it seems to be today. Delhi’s none more than the manner in which the ConBut that thought would not bother more sider myself a pillar of self-discipline if I myself one last baguette. looks like any bakery in any Parisian ‘babudom’ has already voted — in favour of a gress Party leadership and its ministers have than a handful. An overwhelming majority are haven’t eaten half on the way home.

I decided to follow the recommenda- quartier, but the saleswoman says that change of government. A large majority treated the civil service. Senior civil servants waiting for a head of government who would I have my own favourites: olive fou- tions of this year’s Meilleure Baguette de they’ve sold thousands of baguettes de would like to see Narendra Modi as their next are also deeply disappointed with Prime Min- re-empower them and restore their elan. That, gasse, the wood-smoked pain des amis at Paris competition, which was held a fort- tradition since the prize. prime minister. ister Manmohan Singh after seeing his re- without doubt, is the mood in the corridors of Du Pain et Des Idées, the fig bread at Eric night ago. By law, a baguette de tradition Teixeira wrote in Le Nouvel ObservThe residual minority may go on April 10, sponse to the action taken by the Central the Dilli Darbar.

Kayser, and the soft, plaited challah bread can only contain four ingredients: wheat ateur that owing to the sudden skyrockwhen Delhi votes, and cast their ballot in fa- Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case of two Apart from such hopes for themselves, from the Jewish Boulangerie Murciano, flour, water, yeast or raising agents and eting demand, he was no longer able to vour of a candidate of the Aam Admi Party, upright civil servants — former coal secretary many in the Indian administrative service and almost any fresh-baked flaky crois- salt. (No preservatives, no additives, “rest” his dough for as long as he would knowing full well that it would be a wasted PC Parakh and former head of the (IAS) are also hoping Modi will sant. Rebels like Gontan Cherrier even which is why the bread doesn’t last more like. Then, in an example of charming vote, but at least cast against the Congress. The Securities and Exchange Board of end the IPS-Raj of the Sonia Gandmake curry baguettes and squid-ink than a day.) The winner, chosen from and obsessive French solicitousness votes in favour of AAP are truly ‘anti-incum- India (SEBI), CB Bhave. They conhi era. From MK Narayanan in Kolbreads with nigella seeds. among 137 entries in a blind taste test, about bread, he advised customers to rebent’ — in the sense that these are negative trast this with the manner in kata to ESL Narasimhan in turn in a couple of weeks, after the media votes against the current dispensation. But which Modi praises and defends Hyderabad, from BL Joshi in LuckThe IAS have long frenzy has died down. the sentiment for Modi in the Dilli Darbar is his loyal civil servants. now and Bharat Wanchoo in Panconsidered Teixeira’s bread was airy, toasty, pernot merely ‘anti-incumbent’, it is In a recent television interview to Ashwani Kumar and KK themselves thecrusty.jim fectly But I compared it with my ‘pro-challenger’.

Modi recalled the work of officers Paul in the Northeast, retired Indipurest metal in the own neighbourhood stalwart, La Petite This phenomenon, of the higher bureaucra- who had served him and his state an police service (IPS) officers ocsteel frame Marquise, who placed joint-eighth this cy desperately seeking change in the political well in his early days as chief mincupy more Raj Bhavans than year, and couldn’t really discern the difleadership of government, has been seen be- ister — PK Misra and G Subba Rao. retired IAS officers. In Andhra Praference. Almost all the bread here is so fore in various State capitals. Sick and tired of While journalists have panned desh a retired IPS officer is adminuniformly excellent, that all this quibthe corruption, the bossism, the uncouth Modi and the interviewer Madhu istering President’s Rule, telling bling about crumb size and aeration and ways of this or the other dictatorial chief min- Kishwar for the shoddiness of a PR-job, Delhi’s IAS officers what to do. All this goes against the dough is for experts. I’m content to be ister in that or the other State, civil servants babudom has taken note of the fact that Modi grain of babudom. The IAS have long considstanding in my boulangerie when they have in the past contributed to the public remembers those who have served him and ered themselves the purest metal in the steel bring out the floury, just-baked bamood of anti-incumbency and even helped his State well. More to the point, these are frame. At the centre, in the Dilli Darbar, they guettes, suffusing the air with the warm shape it. Delhi has rarely, if ever, witnessed this good officers, not just ‘family retainers’. wield more power than any other central sergolden smell of new bread. As for the phenomenon.

It is possible that the civil service will even- vice. They hope Modi will restore their status. bread-free diet, it lasted six days. SomeThe Dilli Darbar may have been relieved tually be disappointed if Modi does not rise up Whatever the hopes and aspirations of the one bought croissants for breakfast on when Indira Gandhi, the ‘Empress of India’, to their expectations. Many may cry foul if higher civil service, most of it has already deSunday, and I’m only human, after all. was voted out in 1977 but the mood then was they are removed from their present positions fected. They want a change of political leadermore anti-incumbent than pro-challenger. because they would be seen as having been ship in Delhi. The ground has shifted in Modi’s maya oberoi is a food writer based The higher civil service may have wanted to too close to the current dispensation. And, the naintara favour even before voting has started. in Paris t@naintaramaya see the back of whoever was in power but rareBharatiya Janata Party may well expect Modi to A whiff of mystery At the Meilleure Baguette de Paris competition last month afp/martin bureau sanjaya_baru@hotmail.com ly has it favoured the challenger as much as it do what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was

The darbaris haveQvoted Delhi’s ‘babudom’ has already defected and wants a change of political leadership

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V for victory BSP candidate Shakeel Saifi campaigning with Daler Mehndi ramesh sharma

THE COMPASS CHRONICLES

Tales of attraction rohit gupta

Decoding the myths around the humble and not-so-humble magnet in colonial India

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hat the Sun Temple of Konark once contained a giant lodestone magnet, which held the entire edifice together by its force — is a story often told. And in the telling, this tale becomes taller, whence idols in the sanctum sanctorum begin to levitate, and the temple’s magnetic field is said to disorient the mariner’s compass on any ship passing in the Bay of Bengal. Or imagine, the holy magnet pulling out all the iron nails of a Chinese wooden ship causing it to fall apart. Some have even tried to explain the infamous Indian rope trick using various magnetic contrivances.

Another tall story, both incredible and uncertain, attributed to an American general named Benjamin Alvord in a letter to the poet Longfellow (circa 1842), is about a magnetic plant: “There has been discovered in the forests of India a strange plant (philotacea electrica) which possesses, to a very high degree, astonishing magnetic power. The hand which breaks a leaf from it receives immediately a hakeel Saifi’s convoy was scheduled shock equal to that which is produced by theto Chand Cinema Trilokpuri conductorarrive of anatinduction coil. Atin a distance at 10am on its way to file his nomination as the Lokit, Sabha for the and candidate it will be quite Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) from East Delhi. A deranged if brought couple of people are playing on the footnear.cards The energy of path and a man who cleans earssingular for a living this in- is setting up shop. An old manfluence with cataract-ridvaries den eyes is leaning on his stickwith and looking theinto the distance. None of themhours have heard of theof Shakeel Saifi. day.

All Half an hour goes by before the candidate finally arrives in a black SUV with character actor Arun Bakshi. I ask Saifi, who until recently was a Congress member, when his political career began. He starts talking about 1982, when as a nine-year-old he accompanied his “Congressi” father to a State dinner with Indira Gandhi and Saddam Hussein. A couple of kids kept pointing to him and saying ‘ro’. He asked Indira why he was being asked to cry.

She explained ‘ro’ in Arabic means go away. He told her he will beat them up. After this pointless tale, Saifi begins talking about his checkered history with the party. He claims he was disillusioned with it after the Muzaffarnagar riots. He recounts an “interesting” meeting with Rahul Gandhi “in Shangri-La” (the hotel, he means). “He was also getting his haircut and I was also getting my haircut. I personally stopped him and asked him about Muzaffarnagar, and he said I will tell you after I have visited, and then he visited but nothing came of it.” His disaffection with the Congress might have other reasons too. “They don’t give tickets to Muslims and they have been using us as a vote bank for 60 years,” he complains.

Therefore he met “Behen Mayawati” who impressed him by saying there have been no riots in UP during her regime. She also offered him a ticket.

I find it hard to piece together what exactly Saifi does. People in the area offer salacious theories about his ‘busi-

through his invention, the magnetic crescograph. There is no public record, but one wonders whether Bose knew of that mysterious Indian plant mentioned by Alvord, the philotacea electrica. His early biographer Philip Geddes does mention a similar American “compass plant” (silphium laciniatum) in the book The Life & Work Of Sir Jagadis C Bose (1920).

More importantly, Geddes describes Bose’s ed by it. One never by any chance sees a bird or spectacular experiments with radio waves: insect alight on this electric plant; an instinct “Bose himself had as early as 1895, in a public seems to warn them that in so doing they lecture in Calcutta, demonstrated the ability would find sudden death. It is also important of electric rays to travel from the lecturethat where it grows none of the magnetic met- room, and through an intervening room and passage, to a third room 75 feet als are found, neither iron, nor away from the radiator, thus passcobalt, nor nickel — an undeing through three solid walls on niable proof that the electric the way, as well as the body of the force belongs exclusively to the chairman (who happened to be plant. Light and heat, phosIt may be said that the Lieutenant-Governor). The rephorescence, magnetism, elecout of the very ceiver at this distance still had entricity, how many mysteries imperfection of his ergy enough to make a contact, and botanical problems does senses, man has been which set a bell ringing, disthis wondrous Indian plant able, in science, to “agreed to campaign for him decharged a pistol, and exploded a ness’ — within none verifiable. has connections in Mehndi, conceal its leaf He and build for himself a raft who a Congress member,” Saifi says. miniature mine.” the film industry but he is not very forthcomflower!” of thoughtspite being for Jamia Nagar, where his This ability to transmit signals ing about how he made them. Bakshi, who is They are headed Apart from a few scattered He tellsspace me hewould enjoyssoon overwhelmthrough evolve “like his father”, is sitting in on our interview. family lives. references, the history of magin the area and the “Muslim with better engineering into so-saHe hasintrained netism India Saifi priorintopublic the speaking. Ekta ing support vote for radar him. He is quickintothe add phisticated systems Kapoor, he met “through a friend”, has maj” will only British Rajwho is poorly documentthat thetoImam Jama Ahmed WorldofWar II, Masjid, and radar — in Bukas rakhi to chagrin him in the Ajmer Dargah”.

His build-up ed,“tied much to the of science historians. hari,as has support to purpose the BSP. Iof ask it also was pledged being used for the company Films does promotion, That IndianSaifi sailors were already using distrithe much him AAP is a threat.was “If AAP had Shanavigation, really an fielded advanced andifair bution and production, is allnoted he tells The sea by me.

Vasco magnetic compass had been zia Ilmi or amagnetic Muslim candidate, I would of the compass. Both the have rawebsite and thelater, Face- avatar Dacompany’s Gama (circa 1497).is Adefunct few decades withdrawn my nomination. they gotofan and the compass were for But Bose, ways booksailing page near mostly Saifi with dio while Goahas andpictures Bombay,ofthe Portuoutsider (Rajmohan and bechaa“invisible light”,Gandhi) they were hissent prosthetSunny Leone. All I find on his personal website seeing Shazia Ghaziabad,” heand says dismissing Eye to — for visible light radio waves is newsreel from when Emraan Hash- ic riThird magnetic declinations inhe histook compass caused their prospects. He was in Mecca to promote out- Jai Singh bymi nearby ferrous Dirty rocks.Picture Even Sawai last week to pray for his victory.

Parliament — of including, II,side the the astronomer-king Jaipur — although netic spectrum.

Mehndi, heromantic tells me, and asked Bose’s vision is both elo-for oddly, news reports his artistic sundials arecriticising singular — seems to votes“From for him and sangthe ‘Allah Allah quent, he writes: amongst innuthem forhad disrespecting theinpremhave little interest magnetism.

Bismillah’ to a fawning crowd. merable octaves of light, there is only one ises. Saifi calling in magneThesays firststars majorare character Sridevi, John I meet Mehndi in the lobby with power to excite the human eye. Inof him everyday — “Sridevi, tism from India appears to be Ja- octave, Abraham, Vidya the in Surya Saifi puts we stand, the Hotel, midst where of a luminous Johngadish Abraham, Vidya Ba- in the Chandra Bose late willreality, Balan all come all his campaigners.

I ask blind!

Thestar little that we can see lan, will allcentury, come.” Iby ask 19th whose time ocean, almost up him what makes of Saifi’s bid, tohe the vastness of that him if stars help get between is nothing, compared thecan relationship andBut he itsays understand may“Ibedon’t said that out of more votes.electricity He says heand mag- which we cannot. politics. All I know is they of his senses, manare hasall is getting stars only had been the very imperfection netism the able, same.inThey keep fool of us, and science, tomaking build fora himself a raft to prove a point to Congress. firmly establish- been beloved keeps daring getting advenfooled.” thought byHindustan which to make Saifi insists MP, ofour ed.the Andcurrent for some in great Jamiaseas Nagar, 12year-old tea seller Naon the of the unknown.”

Sandeep Dikshit, lose.beHis tureBack reasonwill Bose only competition is BJP’s Ma- deem has heard of neither Mehndi nor Saifi. gan to investigate guptapaan explores the says history science as The local seller heofwill be “surprised heish He doesn’t know rohit theGirri. electrical and magt@fadesingh if Saifi’s own family votes for him”. “Gandhi ka Girrinetic butsignals has met him in Compasswallah in plants Shangri-La too. Both Girri beta hi jeetega,” he adds, despite the fact that and he reach the SDM’s of- Rajmohan is yet to start campaigning. The fice at the same time to file same sentiment is echoed when I speak to their nominations. Many of Muslims near Medina Masjid in Trilokpuri. EvGirri’s supporters, like him, eryone laughs off Saifi and Girri’s prospects. are in saffron robes. Saifi’s They don’t seem to dislike Sandeep Dikshit people are wearing finely em- but believe AAP can work miracles.

Back at Chand Cinema, when I had asked broidered skullcaps. Girri’s supporters mob Bakshi, but the ear cleaner who he’ll vote for he had said claim Girri will win and take he doesn’t know — “Maybe I will only stand.” care of their needs “in this “For MP or MLA?” I ask him. “I don’t know the world and the next.” Girri, who difference.” Most people blame Dikshit for ran an ashram in Gujarat, is now a tasks the MCD or their local MLA have failed to disciple of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. carry out. The old man with cataract-ridden “When he delivers sermons you can eyes, 85-year-old Ram Dhir Pradhan, was a freedom fighter in Lahore and has been a Consee god in his face,” say BJP workers. gress worker since. He says Dikshit won’t win nperturbed, Saifi is off to cam- but he’ll “never leave Congress, jeete ya haare.” paign the next morning. He is in a Porsche Cayenne driven by Daler pragya tiwari edits thebigindianpicture.com powerful about two o’clock in the afternoon, it is absolutely annulled during the night. At times of storm its intensity augments to striking proportions. While it rains the plant seems to succumb: it bends its head during a thunder-shower and remains without force or virtue even if one should shelter it with an umbrella. No shock is felt at that time in

The curious case of Shakeel Saifi

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On the campaign trail of a debutant BSP candidate in the busy lanes of East Delhi

Secrets of a temple A plate from James Fergusson’s Ancient Architecture in Hindoostan depicting the Konark Sun Temple (1847) wikicommons

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saturday, april 5, 2014 saturday, april 5, 2014

Click to print… a house!

Yeh toh cocktail hai

Nagma might be a vision in yellow in Meerut, but she is quick to prove that she knows the Who needs builders when we pulse of the city and the ways of politics have printers?

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hen Chuck Hull invented the process of stern the morning of March 21, in the her documents goes missing. Harried Con- Court bench and a focus on making Meerut eolithography or 3D printing in 1983, little quiet residential locality of Saket gress workers swing into action. For some un- the country’s sports capital once again. “She did he imagine that the technology will grow at in Meerut, house number 68A known reason this journalist was mistaken for has promised ‘Meerut ko Dilli bana denge’,” this pace, and literally, find a home. Dutch firm Dus wears a festive look. The newly ac- the errant party member and quickly shuffled says Naeem, a long-time party supporter.

Architects is building the first 3D printed house in headquarters of the Congress, about into the room. A little later, Nagma is inquired To Seema Mittal and her group of Mahila Amsterdam, of which a three-metre sample corner three-weeks-old now, is yet to be inaugurated. formed that her aide Salim Bharti is on his way Congress workers, Nagma’s promises come as is complete. The firm plans to recreate a traditional Scores of party workers huddle on the lawns. with the bag. As a furious collectorate looks a breath of fresh air. “How many times have Dutch gabled canal house, which on completion In the innermost room, acting president of on, Nagma takes a few questions. While she is you been to Meerut?” Mittal asks me. “What do will have 13 rooms. A faceted plastic façade willdistrict reCongress committee, Manoj Tyagi, sits happy with Meerut’s response, are these fans you think of the city?” she continues. A thirdplace hand-laid bricks, scripted by computer softon a white couch, greeting party members or voters, I ask. “I would like it if the fans be- time visitor to Meerut, I cringe involuntarily ware. The architects say that the technology could and checking his phone. It is 11am. Nagma came voters and the voters became fans.” before quickly rearranging my facial features. be the future of construction. “With 3D printing, (best known for being the damsel in distress Two years ago, she was in the running for a But it’s too late. “Disgusted is how we feel evthere is zero-waste. This could revolutionise how in Baaghi) is expected to make an entrance Rajya Sabha seat. Would she have preferred ery day in this city,” she says. we make our cities,” declares the firm. By the time anytime now. “I think we have a strong conten- that to the rough politics of the heartland?

Nagma’s roadshows in Meerut city have the 13-room complex rises up in 2017, ‘cool’ der,” will says Tyagi. “And she has secular creden- “Yes, I would have preferred the RS seat. f you’re piece on 30 Naughtiest But browsing drawn anBuzzfeed’s enthusiastic response.

But, after the have found a new address. tials,” — an important draw in the what I can do for Meerut is give it Dogs and What They Did, you must have scrunched upKagroping incident of March 28, communally sensitive town of Meerut. In an a voice in parliament because I your eyes and nose but mal laughed very hard.

Thatjournalist priceBhargav, a local interview, Nagma says, “I was born to a Hindu am a national figure,” she says. less expression of yourssays is officially hybrid emotion, she has agrown wary of mobs.

As the six national parties andday.

47 recognised Statetoparties rundeadline father and Muslim mother on Christmas called ‘happily disgusted’, felt awhen something grossMaIt is close 3pm; the Taking leaf out of the Hema to woo voters in the run-up to the a mot- is minYou can’t get helter-skelter more secular than that.” happens thatto is also funny. A new study has for filing thepolls, nomination lini-school-of-campaigning, “she I was born a incredibly leyNagma crew ofwas a dozen ‘unrecognised — including Humto the ocA week later, groped by a youth parties’ revealed the existence of 21 emotional states, more utes away.

Nagma turns is not stepping out of her car anyHindu father and Sabki Party, Ex-Sainik Vikas Free Thought Party — are while campaigning in the the city’s JaliParty Kothiandtogenarian than tripling theon number of known Congressman more.

She’s emotional got herselffacial bodyMuslim mother hoping to musical get theirinstruments. proverbial foot in the beside door. Notable area, best known for its expressions.

Until scientistssays have focused on six standing her. “Yeh kya ho Bhargav.

Christmas day.

Younow, guards,” thethe crew is Garib Partyraha (GAP),hai… formed by former Outraged, sheamong slapped young manAadmi and left basic emotions: fearful, angry, surprised Babuji,” she says, in According to news polls, the can’t get morehappy, sad, AAP member Shyam Bharti. And corruption is theirall efforts, the roadshow.

Five days prior, Congress MLAof course, and disgusted.

But theCongress new study, in Pro- up true filmi style. Despite is published moving steadily secular than that plankpulled too. GAP, fielding 50 candidates Gajraj Singhmain had poll allegedly her which face isher ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which documents don’t make it in the rankings.

Yet, not all memacross the country, plans to bring digital currency abol- brushes close to his and planted one on her cheek at a intime. photographed expressions The vision intoyellow bers of of 230 the volunteers, party are convinced. ishThe corruption.

Not one her to shy from tough contest, rally in Hapur. actress cut short pro-away found no less than 21 emotional states, aside thea goof-up and promises to “The Nagma effectinis restricted to will takeinon BJP’s Narendra former Argramme andBharti walked away a huff.

The inci- Modi, cluding contradictory emotions like Abhimanyu ‘hapbe back the colleague next morning. the city,” says Tyagi, a vindbeen Kejriwal andup former-colleague-turned-rebel dent has since hushed and errant disgusted’ and ‘sadly angry’.

These Nagma has independher work cut out in pily Meerut.

26-year-old blogger for the Congress Party. But enthave Vinod Binny intoVaranasi.

WhileWhile the contest in Varanasi party members been asked toe the parnewthey feelings are sure to make their way onthe 89-year-old her roadshows have been popular, Pandit Jayanarayan Sharma, a whopping parties waiting in the wings, ty line (to nothots kissup, candidates) and 1,617 to call the are emoticon but more importantly, they have been confined to the city. Yet to address a lists, Congressman planning the campaign stratehoping for the Commission’s nod to be registered act a harmless one. On thatElection day, Nagma’s at- public could aid in diagnosis conditions rally, Nagma hasatavoided serious quesgy the is certain of herofvictory.

“Hindu hai, Muslim as ‘unrecognised parties’. tempt to fileleast nomination papers went comi- tions, such as those on the Muzaffarnagar such as post-traumatic disorder. bhi hai. Filmstress star bhi hai. Nagma toh cocktail cally awry when a party member carrying her riots and Narendra Modi. Mahila Congress hai,” he says. She however, wears the “glamdocuments disappeared. members have also remarked on the absence our” tag lightly. “I didn’t want to remain an acTwo hours behind schedule, at 1pm, a vision of women in her all-male team, even as she tress forever. I needed something serious and in mustard yellow arrives at 68A to greet an talks about “girl child welfare and women’s politics was a good bet,” she says. unruly mob. A short press statement is issued, empowerment”.

How will she deal with the caste-driven poliwhere she underscores her “secular credenHowever, in the short span of a few weeks, tics of UP, I ask, she snaps back, “You don’t ask tials”. Then, Nagma proceeds to the district Nagma has identified local problems that are Modi these hard questions. What groundwork collectorate to file her nomination papers. keenly felt by Meerut’s citizens. In her speech- has he done for Varanasi? Where is the Modi Within minutes of her entrance, hundreds es, she has promised betwave? I know what I’m doing here.” gather for a sighting, in what seems like a re- ter linkage to Delhi Indeed, posters of the sitting BJP MP Rajenenactment of the time when a leopard had and Ghazia- nti-government protesters in Venezuela, dra reAgrawal or Modi are nowhere to be volting against hyperinflation, one of the strayed into Meerut. Soon, the bag containing bad, a High seen in Meerut. But neither is Nagma. world’s worst crime rates and food shortage, For the elections in Meerut this ell, so what if only three students have registered for take up your pens and pick up the newspapers. time, there are some obvious facThe Sociology of Miley Cyrus course at Skidmore ColFor a revolution is coming and the message is in tors at work. “Anti-incumbency. lege, New York? Assistant professor Carolyn Chernoff has the daily crossword. Or so alleges Venezuelan (The sitting MP is a BJP candihigh hopes for this summer class that seeks to explore race, minister of information Delcy Rodriguez. El Aradate, the municipal body is gender stratification, appropriation, queerness and hyperduerio, a daily based in Aragua where 35 people BJP and so is the mayor.) commodification of childhood. “Miley is a surprising, comhave died in the last two months in protests, has There is Muzaffarnagar. But plicated cultural moment. She is seen as a she-beast (and) been accused of encrypting messages in crossthe real battle is about had to rebrand herself as a wild, crazy sexual being,” says word puzzles to incite revolts. More than a year caste,” says Abhimanyu.

Chernoff of the 21-year-old chart-topping, twerking popstar. ago, in a similar incident, the country’s largest While the clans of the HinThe course will look at what’s relevant about sociology newspaper, Últimas Noticias, had allegedly cardu Tyagis, Jats — with the through the Miley lens. And sorry, there will be no room for ried instructions to assassinate Hugo Chavez’s backing of RLD chief Chaudlazy Miley fans in her class. “Learn to twerk on your own brother, Adán Chavez, in their crossword puzzle hury Ajit Singh — and other time,” warns Chernoff. Miley Cyrus is not the first popstar to — including words “kill”, “burst” and “Adán”. But Hindu communities have prombecome classroom curriculum; Jay-Z and Kanye West made does that for an assassination make? ised their fealty to Congress, it is for popular subjects in the last year. the Muslim votes the party needs to secure, currently split between the BSP and SP. The Congress candidate, however, has so far failed to make it to the eight jan sabhas organised in various villages of the Muslimdominated Kithore region and a Samajwadi Marigolds and Party stronghold. musclemen But for now the star-studded corridor of Congress western UP — from Raj Babbar in Ghaziabad, candidate Nagma Nagma in Meerut to Jaya Prada in Bijnore — is during her living up to its “glamorous” billing. election

In pursuit of happiness

Mind the GAP

New research triples the number of known emotional expressions

Debuting this election, Garib Aadmi Party, Free Thought Party

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Classroom twerk

Learning about race, class and gender through Miley Cyrus

In today’s paper: How to overthrow the government

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cornerstone in-faq by joy bhattacharjya The Red Quiz

It is April 5, and exactly 57 years ago EMS Namboodripad was elected the first communist chief minister of India. Since I spent my college days in the ’80s in a university which had just three political factions, ‘left’, ‘extreme left’, and ‘just a little further left,’ the socialist movement seemed like a really good idea for a quiz. Answer away, fellow traveller.

1

638 Ways to Kill ______ is a Channel 4 documentary film that was broadcast in the UK in 2006. It tells the story of some of the numerous attempts of the CIA to kill a particular gentleman, which included exploding cigars, radio stations filled with LSD and poisoned fountain pens. Fill in the blank.

2

Who was kidnapped on March 16, 1978, by the Red Brigade (BR), a Marxist–Leninist urban guerrilla organisation, and killed after 55 days of captivity?

3

Which song is now believed to have been inspired by a gospel hymn of the mid ’30s titled If my Jesus wills, which was credited to a Baptist choir director named Louise Shropshire?

4 5

The country that made it in the early ’60s called it the ‘Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart.’

How do we know it?

This gentleman started his political career as a follower of Bhagat Singh. After hoisting the Indian tricolour at Hoshiarpur in 1930, he was arrested, and when produced in court stated his name as ‘London Tod Singh.’ By what name do we know this veteran leader?

the new york times crossword-0209

it was 50 years ago

6

He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College in Oxford. While at university he was a staunch supporter of the Labour party and was an executive committee member of the Oxford University Labour Club.

Interesting beginnings for someone currently the 91st richest person on the planet, with a net worth of around $13.4 billion, and who was once one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest supporters.

Who am I talking about?

7

Where would you see a memorial column that has the following names: Dhaneswari Devi, Simaswari Mullick, Nayaneswari Mullick, Surubala Burman, Sonamati Singh, Fulmati Devi, Samsari Saibani, Gaudrau Saibani, and Kharsingh Mullick ?

8

Started in 1942, original members included Prithviraj Kapoor, Ritwik Ghatak, Utpal Dutt, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Salil Chowdhury and Pandit Ravi Shankar. Balraj Sahni was a member of the Punjab group. Name this organisation, which provided many more luminaries to the Indian film industry.

9

Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume biography — The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Outcast — is considered one of the most comprehensive works on which political leader?

10

Which Hollywood star produced, directed and played the lead role in the film Reds, based on American journalist John Reed’s work on the Russian revolution, Ten Days That Shook The World?

Answers

1. Castro 2. Aldo Moro, the former Italian PM 3. We Shall Overcome (previously it was believed to

have been based on Charles Tindley’s song I’ll Overcome Someday)

4. The Berlin Wall 5. Harkishen Singh Surjeet 6. Rupert Murdoch 7. Naxalbari, these are the villagers who died in the original police firing 8. IPTA (Indian People’s Theatre Association) 9. Leon Trotsky 10. Warren Beatty

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

ACROSS

1 Cellphones, in Britain 8 Alone 13 13-Down, in Dresden 20 A debater takes it 21 Jazz count?

22 In that direction 23 One favoring a strong central government 24 ___ Vista 25 Turns in 26 Film terrier 27 Bar order, with “the” 29 Sadness 31 Narrow cut 32 Move in an ungainly way 34 Mine, in Madrid 36 Cherished by 38 Literary inits.

40 It’s below the humerus 41 Trig. function 42 “Let ___” 43 ___ deferens 46 Dweller on the Red Sea 48 Less than right 50 Crème de la crème 52 1996-2001 show featuring home videos 53 Actress Gardner 54 The People’s Champion 56 “The Battleship Potemkin” locale

57 An O’Neill 58 More appropriate 60 Houston sch.

62 Followers of exes 63 Detour, e.g.

65 Coal distillate 67 Announcer’s aid 69 Plural French word that spells its singular English form in reverse 70 Much of the audience for 6-Down’s show on 2/9/64 73 Trounces 74 “When ___ younger, so much younger …” (“Help!” lyric) 76 More modern, in Munich 77 Relative of a convertible 79 Part of a train from a refinery 82 Servant, e.g.

86 “Why ___ so shy when …?” (“It’s Only Love” lyric) 87 Snack chip 89 Nest on a cliff 91 Author Umberto 92 Dave Clark ___ 94 “___ the time …”

96 Playwright Fugard 97 General ___ chicken 98 Attractive legs, in slang 100 “Yuck!”

101 Actor Hemsworth of “The Hunger Games” 102 Bold 103 Stuck, after “in” 104 Queen who fell for Zeus’ swan song?

105 It may be a plot 106 Lone-Star State sch.

107 500 letters?

108 Cause of the witch’s demise in “Hansel and Gretel” 110 ’60s war zone 112 Rice-A-___ 114 Fraternity chapter 116 Big to-do 120 They’re played at un conservatoire 122 Undermines, as support 123 Living in a swing state?

124 Kind of jacket with pockets on the chest 125 Tilted 126 Oxford’s St. ___ College 127 City on the Seine upstream from Paris

DOWN

1 A majority 2 Aware of 3 Craze caused by this puzzle’s subjects 4 Schoolyard rejoinder

5 Card count in Caesar’s Palace?

6 Host for this puzzle’s subjects on 2/9/64 7 Places atop 8 Eban of Israel 9 With 11-Down, subjects of this puzzle 10 Enzyme suffix 11 See 9-Down 12 Rampage 13 Way to go 14 Nickname for this puzzle’s subjects 15 Free 16 Bikini blast, informally 17 Song sung by this puzzle’s subjects on 6-Down’s show on 2/9/64 18 Big rig 19 Lead-in to while 28 ___ creek 30 Dictator Amin 33 Broadway’s ___-Fontanne Theater 35 Promise of payment 37 Frist’s successor as Senate majority leader 38 One of the six counties of Northern Ireland 39 Escort to the door 44 Yes

45 Balanced conditions 47 Band material 48 Park, e.g., in N.Y.C. 49 Wallach of “The Misfits” 51 Subtitle for “Star Wars Episode IV,” with “A” 53 Just so, after “to” 55 Bakeshop worker 59 Free throw avgs., e.g.

61 One team in the N.B.A. All-Star Game, with “the” 64 City on the Nile 66 Junior Olympics org.

68 Certain NASA launch 71 Had a ball at 72 Unpredictable 75 Composer Khachaturian 78 Slave 79 Apes 80 Apes 81 Where this puzzle’s subjects got their start 83 Song sung by this puzzle’s subjects on 6-Down’s show on 9/12/65 84 Earth’s habitable parts

85 Dawnlike 88 Common monthly expense 90 Ladies’ man 93 Prey for a dingo 95 Molly formerly on “S.N.L.” 96 Like some dessert orders 97 King in 1922 news 99 Hot 102 Instrument depicted by the shaded squares in this grid 107 1965 and 1966 concert site for this puzzle’s subjects 109 Sweeping 111 Soon 113 Be domestic 115 Medical suffix 117 Calendar keeper, for short 118 Medical suffix 119 The “S” of CBS: Abbr.

121 Sci-fi sighting

By Charles M. Deber / Edited by Will Shortz

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