Blink issue 59 march14 2015

WINGS OF FIRE Fuelled by the sun, the Solar Impulse-2 makes a smooth landing in Ahmedabad, and clears the ground for greener, cleaner aviation P3 saturday, march 14, 2015

arunangsu roy chowdhury

A severe drought of AIDS drugs, made worse by State apathy, leaves lakhs of HIV Positive Indians in the lurch and threatens to undo two decades of good work P10

Staying Positive

SIKH IS KING The ďŹ rst turbaned superhero ďŹ nally arrives on the international comic scene p4

VINES IN MY BACKYARD A taste of the life of a winemaker, just 70km from the ruins of Hampi p20

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CREATURE FEATURE

Wide interests In search of the ‘pharmacy’-shrub Vasaka’s winged friends and the secret of its persistence

Stand by me The green acres of the Madras Christian College are home to 600 species of plants a muralitharan

Seeds of strife

Natural ties Vasaka flowers vasant kamath; (insert) a Purplethroated Carib hummingbird draws deep from a Heliconia bloom geoffrey giller

The much-loved green residents Some of Madras Christian College are being axed tobeaks make room his winter, on my first trip back to Inplants emof female humdia since I’ve begun writing this the notion that the only casualty mingbirds. Each Helifor concrete structures.

Butco-thebody trees are not

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lumn, I spent some time in our garden just outside Delhi looking for plants and animals to write about In t first glance, courtesy of here.

Google searching Earth, for unusual almost a thick creatures, green coverI is what didn’t notice one of the Madras area’s most common distinguishes Christian Colplants — the Vasaka shrub.

Inthe fact,concrete I’d have mislege (MCC) from junsed if aitsuburb weren’tin forChennai. a single white gle it ofaltogether Tambaram, Zoom flower caught a foggy furtherthat in and youmy seeattention a train ofonbuildings morning otherwise devoid of brightness. guarded by trees that are strikingly dissimilar began to read about Vasaka, realised toIeach other — a stout trunk withand a rich upper something ourone knowledge of nacover; a tallodd andabout slender with a thinner ture — very wewizened seem to know a lot about crown; andoften, old and neighbours with aroot few branches interestingdisappearing aspects of aninto organism, but the earth. almost nothing other equally imporWith nearly 600 about plant species, this anthropotant facetsview of its life.trees In the caseanofoddity Vasaka, morphic of the is not to we’ve known for ages thisofplant has exthe many students andthat alumni the 175-yearceptional medicinal Acrosswithout the Inold college.

“We wereproperties. all tree-huggers dian subcontinent, parts this says plant have ever having an agenda to beofone,” Vishnubeen to treatwho conditions ranging from priya used Bhandaram, graduated in 2010. coughs to jaundice to dislocated One wouldn’t expect allegationsshoulders. of forest Even today, when aour lives seem more distant thinning against college that boasts an umfrom than ever before, youBut canthat’s buy capbilicalnature connection with its trees. exsules Vasaka extract atNanbargal the pharmacy.

I think actly of what Poovulagin (friends of it’s to say that, over thousands years, Vathefair earth) is saying about MCC. RRofSrinivasan saka substantially to human fromhas thecontributed NGO focused on environmental iswellbeing andadministration persistence. is indifferent to sues says the But do we image know of much about persistthe college’s being a rolethe model for ence the Vasaka plant forestofpreservation.

Theitself?

NGO’sThough social plants media face of the same challenges that we aniand many SMS campaigns have caught the attention mals plants’ inability to move means that of thedo, city’s residents, and alumni members their to these over challenges are radicalhave solutions voiced concerns their alma mater ly different from ours. reproduction, losing an intrinsic partConsider of its identity. for“Woods instance.are Being stationaryinmeans you can’t a signature campuses like move around in search of a mate, flowering MCC and IIT. What is Deep Woodsso(MCC’s culplants have evolved towoods,” employasks other natural tural fest) without the Nityanand forces — wind, water, bees,activist. butterflies, bats, Jayaram, an environmental He claims birds and more — to search in their stead.

In that students send him pictures of the felling this role, covertly. these forces are called ‘pollinators’ activities Students are afraid to go on because they transfer pollen is (tiny grains that record, which, in his words, as worrying as are plant equivalent of The sperm) between inthethe “loss of biodiversity”. dissent, accorddividual plants. ing to one student, has not assumed an active

there are many routes conia species is thus to love and procreapollinated only by one tion — they areyet. visited political form Another admitted that the tion to make way forsex of hummingbird — development, earning by many different types frequent. ‘clearance’ is disturbingly you can’t get much pickthe name of kaaduvetti (clearer of forest). of MCC’s pollinators, least a points out that the officialat statement ier than that!

Aware of the subterranean changes at the few of which willof transfer negative impact developmental activities college, Selvamony Returning the Vasaka presents ato much-needed the plant’s pollenbank, to another (hostel buildings, solar panel and other understandingflower I saw that winter mornof conservation.

“Conservaplant of the same species.

However, facilities) have been neutralised by measures tion is noting — can we guessthe whoprotection might pollijust prioritising of many ofplanting these pollinators willsaplings. also visitItothsuch as of trees and attri- endangered nate it? Everything about this flower points species, but standing up for ecoer species’ flowers,toand transferred butes the activity thepollen dramatic increase to in us towards bees.

Bees find white flowers espelogical rather than human rights,” he says. the species is wasted. Some are cially the wrong number of enrolments.

The plants statement and will often use flat petals Theattractive, shrub jungle MCC is ensconced in, therefore andtakes employ specialised pol- as adds that pickier, the college pride in the variety a landing platform.

The fine purple lines on which originally extended from South Orissa linators who only flowers of a single plant this of life forms on itsvisit grounds. platform canhas guide to by thehigh pool of to Kanyakumari, beenbees sullied popspecies.

These plants don’t waste as much pol- nectar The 365-acre tropical dry evergreen forest the centre the flower. growth As the bee ulationat density andof economic in len, but riskMCC not getting all. aban- feeds on which stands pollinated used to beatan onareas. its payment, pollen is probably showcoastal Chennai’s Guindy National Park So how can you tell how pickyReserve a flowerForest is, or ered doned scrub of the Selaiyur onare it from above, ready to befor ferried to and IIT the only other reserves this vawho a particular flower inand the Alice first the closepollinates to a century ago. Edward next flower. forest. This knowledge is all riety of tropical place? a flower looks like offers many Barnes,What the first couple to make the campus But these associations flower’s the more disturbing in thebetween light of aarecent reclues as to the pollinators it attheir home, were its green archicolour or shape and its pollinaport stating that Chennai has the tracts.

Consider, for example, tects. They brought saplings tors are forest far from perfect, and our lowest cover among the Heliconia plants from the West from places they travelled to. guess about Vasaka’s pollinametros.

Shreya Yadav,bee a researchIndies.

Their flowers are by small, This legacy was nurtured gention wouldMysore-based need to be confirmed er with Nature Alumni members white, nectar-filled tubes, hardly erations of botany professors by actual observation. was Conservation Foundation,I says, E ach Heliconia have voiced concerns showy at all. But thesetrees flowers and curators.

Several on about to end this essay with just “The loss of biodiversity, irrespecspecies is thus over their alma mater are in bright red or yel- pollinated only by one ative theenclosed campus today — Rosy Trumguess — my is search of scale, causefor forscientific concern losing an intrinsic low leaf-like structures called pet tree, Redsanders and Talipot studies on that Vasaka had yielded in a world is already changsex ofof hummingbird part its identity bracts, series of bracts arpalm —and areareminders of those plenty of fascinating ing rapidly.

The loss of aninformaendemranged alongthem. a stem stands out that planted tion aboutcan how we consequences humans have ic species have likeSome a beacon amid green leaves, of the plant species at used thisentire plantecosystem for our own—benefor the from especially to hummingbirds.

MCC find mention in Tamil literfit almost nothing about soilbut health to the richness and The beaks fit neatly the tubeaturebirds’ from the Sangam period.into “A special resi- how the plantof itself persists.species.”

Then, in a final efcomposition dependent shaped flowers, giving them exclusive access fortMCC dent is aathondai (thondai, Cappariszeylanica), at combing through the literature this has long been an example of how simto the nectar offered by the flowers in morning, named after rewards the region for which it was the I unearthed some researchtoabout ple measures can restore vegetation origiexchange forItpollen transport. state flower. adorned the insignia of the Pal- this plant’s pollinators!

I scrolled through the nal composition.

“Walking to German classes Butkings,” some informs HeliconiaNirmal are even choosier.alumTwo article lava Selvamony, somewhat nervously, through the forest; to sit atbut thestopped Botany with tank species of Heliconia on the island of St Lucia satisfaction nus and retired professor of the college. a photo a carpenter bee fitand catch a at glimpse of of a deer while enjoying are both pollinated a single species hum- ting Fortunately, thondaibyand several otherofplants neatlymost into of a Vasaka flower,came its back dustthe rain… our learning from the mingbird.

However, one Heliconia has flower ed survived the developmental efforts of aKarikaawith pollen.itself,” an alumnus reminisced. surrounding shaped exactly likewho the ruled beak of theregion male of this lan, a Chola king this much The loss, clearly, is not just physical. species, the other Heliconia haswas a longer, before while the Pallavas.

Karikaalan also ambika kamath studies organismic and evolutionary at Harvard University niharika mallimadugula more curved flower, a near-perfect with the biology known for his policies of extensivefitdeforesta-

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Rise of the sunbird Ahmedabad was a welcome stopover for Solar Impulse-2, the plane that could change the future of aviation and, more importantly, of clean technology

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n March 10, minutes before midnight, Solar Impulse-2 (Si2) hovered gently over Ahmedabad’s skyline, the LED lights on its giant wingspan flickering brightly. The city’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International airport was clogged with flight traffic and the world’s only solar-powered aircraft would spend nearly 30 minutes in the air before landing to set a world record. “It looked like an eagle, steadily circling in the sky,” said Vikram Jani, a student who was part of the throng that had gathered at the airport to witness aviation history in the making. Elsewhere in the city, as Si2 prepared for landing after a 14-hour “fantastic” flight from Oman, residents took to the streets and terraces to catch a glimpse of the no-fuel-onlysolar bird. The last time Ahmedabad was this excited to see an airplane was perhaps in 1932, when the first commercial flight flying between Karachi and Mumbai made a stopover here. Pilot Bertrand Piccard, looking fresh and relaxed, emerged from the craft to wave to a large contingent of enthusiasts. Already, Si2 had broken a world record: It had covered 1,465km between Oman and India, the longest journey yet for a solar-powered flight.

Si2 is no ordinary aircraft. It’s a zero-emission, no-fuel aircraft running solely on solar power, attempting to circumnavigate the world in 25 days spread over five months, 10 countries and 35,000km. It took pilots Piccard and Andre Borschberg 13 years to perfect the design for a solar-only aircraft. On March 9, Si2 began the first leg of its journey, leaving the

hangar at Abu Dhabi for a 430km ride to Mus- make money,” says Piccard. “It was to inspire cat, Oman. A journey that takes a commercial the world.” airliner just over an hour took the single-seaLife in the cockpit, however, is not going to ter Si2 13 hours 1 minute, as it cruised at an alti- be easy for Piccard and Borschberg. While they tude of 19,000 feet. On the second leg, are both trained to pilot Si2, it has just one between Muscat and Ahmedabad, Si2 flew for seat, which comes with a built-in toilet, that’s nearly 15 hours over 1,400km, crossing its first less than 4 cubic metres in volume, a confinesea leg over the Arabian Sea. ment that can only be matched by the public Its 72m-long wingspan is longer than that of phone booth. The pilots will take turns to steer a Boeing-747 and nearly as long as that of an the flight, catching only 20-minute catnaps as Airbus A380 superjumbo. It carries 17,248 solar they have to remain alert at all times. The cacells, which run the aircraft and bin has neither heating nor oxalso recharge four lithium poygen and the in-flight food is lymer batteries for night travel. “dehydrated and vacuum-packAt 2,300kg, it weighs as much as aged”. To beat the intense stress The Si2 website can a family car, but less than 1 per of what will be a rough ride, the even tell you if the cent of the Airbus superjumbo. pilots have undergone serious pilots remembered to The Si2 can climb to an altitude training to prepare for long solo have lunch! of 28,000 feet and it can stay in flights. They have taken to yoga the sky for several days and and self-hypnosis to remain calm nights. But it has an optimal during trying times like cloudy speed of 20 knots or roughly patches, rainy weather, long sea 35kmph, which is slower than an average pro- journeys and night flights. “Yoga has helped fessional cyclist, slower than even a pigeon! throughout the journey. Self-hypnosis is also a While Solar Impulse-1, which made the first way to restore energy and stay fit,” says the 63manned solar-powered flight when it flew for year-old Borschberg. Under the training of yo26 hours in Switzerland in 2010, was just a pro- ga practitioner Sanjeev Bhanot, both pilots are totype, Si2 is attempting a trip around the using asanas to stay warm when it’s cold and world with several more challenges — long sea to get energised when they’re tired. legs, night-time flights and difficult solo trips Si2 is unlikely to break any speed records, for the pilots. The aim of the flight is not to fa- but what’s more exciting for Broschberg and cilitate commercially viable solar-powered Piccard is the energy efficiency. The project is planes, but to show what’s possible. “When more a symbol of clean technology than an the Apollo astronauts went to the moon, it aviation journey. “This is the way we demonwasn’t to launch tourism, open hotels and strate that clean energy can achieve the impossible. It’s not just a human or technical adventure. This is for a cleaner world with a better quality of life,” says Piccard, who first thought of a round-the-world solar flight after successfully completing a round-the-world trip in a hot air balloon in 1985. Gujarat, where the aircraft will be parked in a special hangar for four days, was a natural destination, thanks to its remarkable progress with solar energy. Over 900 megawatt of solar power projects are under operation in the state.

While weathermen are stationed in Morocco, the pilots are travelling with 65 members of ground staff. On the aircraft’s website, tiniest details about its movements are being recorded — logbook entries, telemetry data and satellite imagery. The website can even tell you if the pilots remembered to have lunch!

Si2 will stop for a night halt next in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi on Sunday, before taking off for Myanmar, China, Hawaii and New York. From there, Si2 will begin its return journey to Abu Dhabi via either southern Europe or North Africa. On its journey around the world, the aircraft will face tough passages across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, where the pilots will have to travel non-stop for five days and five nights.

The longest single leg will see one of them fly solo over the Pacific from Nanjing, China to Hawaii — a distance of 8,500km.

As Piccard says of every port of call — “We hope that people will always remember that a solar airplane landed there.”

Soaring expectations The Solar Impulse-2 rises over the Omani capital of Muscat after taking off for Ahmedabad on March 10 afp/solar impulse/jean revillard

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In vine company

of his dad. It’s also our way to connect with a global audience, for who doesn’t like Elvis,” explains Manchanda. In bits and pieces, Deep Singh’s origins are revealed — he was born in Africa, moved to Amritsar with his aunt after his parents disappeared, studied in France and the US. Unlike Bruce Wayne, heir to a billion-dollar empire, he has a normal job that “allows him to travel and implement technology globally, as a cover for his secret missions.”

Much like 007’s R&D specialist Q, Super Sikh over the Kaur name,supplying we decided to call it first attempts at winemaking certainly we- agonising too has Gurpreet him with ren’t ‘bottled poetry’; but after a fair share of ‘Krsma’ short forand Uma and Krishna.

We also fabulous—gadgets weapons.

An acclaimed to theshe’s stateagovernment to recognise botched trials, I did come up with something applied ninja master, “highly-educated, multiarea as scientist”. the appellation Hampi drinkable. Yet it wasn’t anything like the this disciplinary And it isofnot mere Hills. coinThis wasthat the easy wines I had tasted from vineyards abroad. cidence Deeppart.

Singh’s arch-enemy is TaliNothing, and I mean absoluteAt this point, my passion for ban squad leader Salar Al-Amok, a villain so ly nothing, can he prepare you up to wine had to take a backseat bedesperate to join the ISIS that is blowing run a winery. all terrorist my dabcause I started my pharmaceutischools in Pakistan just toDespite boost his winemaking, a short cal company, Granules India. But profile. “He isbling crazyinand driven by insecurity, course University of California I never gave up my dream of and saysat Alden.

The region isego part ofgreed,” and all our travelsdevices to obstarting a winery.

Super SikhDavis, might have Batman’s the Deccan Plateau, In 2007, my wife Uma and I at an averageand servelicence viticulture winemakJames Bond’s to kill,and but his stories altitude ingcontemporary processes, making own found a tiny vineyard nestled will talk about issues our faced by of about 500m, anespecially entirely different examongst the rocky terrain in hundreds of wine Sikhswas daily, in a post-9/ watered by the perience.

Everything fromracism long Hampi Hills, just 70km from the 11 world problems of misplaced Tungabhadra river where hours of For manual labour and World Heritage Site. The region often rear their head. instance, the Sikh to thethan real 300 romance of is part of the Deccan Plateau, at coalition hasplanning reported more instancan average altitude of about bringing to life a unique wine was (and continues to be) one 500m, watered by the Tungabhadra river, which originates in the Western grand adventure.

Ghats 500km away and drains into the Tungabhadra reservoir nearby. One look and we A season of hard labour knew we had found the place for our vineyard. With the help of Peter Hayes, our consultant We bought it, and after many long hours of viticulturist from Australia, we quickly pulled

In 2007, a Hyderabadi couple found a tiny vineyard nestled in the rocky terrain of Hampi Hills, just 70km from the World Heritage Site, and a sip of wine was never the same again

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n his book The Silverado Squatters, Robert Louis Stevenson likens vine-planting to the beginning of mining for precious metals. The winegrower also prospects, he writes. “One corner of land after another is tried with one kind of grape after another.

Those lodes and pockets of earth, more precious than the precious ores, that yield inimitable fragrance and soft fire; those virtuous Bonanzas, where the soil has sublimated under sun and stars to something finer, and the wine is bottled poetry.” Stevenson is, of course, writing about California. But he could just as well be talking about India — another emerging winegrower’s destination.

Yet this wasn’t apparent to anyone in 1971 in Guntur. Having grown up there, I knew nothing of wine till I had my first sip at the age of 17.

The local bishop gave me some to taste, and that’s when my love affair with wine began.

Coming from a background in Chemistry, I decided I had to try my hand at making it. It wasn’t long before I had a room full of demijohns, with quietly fermenting wine. These shutterstock/nailia schwarz

He loves Elvis...

Hates bad guys

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Meet Super Sikh, the world’s only turbaned-superhero

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ast week, in a video that went viral, a artist Amit Tayal came on board, and a KickSikh schoolboy was subjected to ra- starter campaign was launched this year. cial abuse in Georgia, US. Filming the Twenty-seven hours into the campaign, they entire episode with his phone cam- had achieved their target of $5,000, and a era, the boy captured school bullies calling month later raised $22,000, nearly 400 per him “terrorist, terrorist”. But what if the bully, cent more. With four issues of the comic done who perhaps lived in an all-white neighbour- — the first issue is out and available for downhood and never met a Sikh person, had read load — the comic world has found one of its Super Sikh? “Maybe then, when he sees a first multicultural, non-superpower-wielding brown kid in the school bus, his first thought superhero in Deep Singh. won’t be ‘looks like a terrorist, let’s mess with “Every culture needs its own heroes. The him’, but rather ‘looks like Deep Singh… I love world has had just a few comic heroes, who that comic!’” says Eileen Alden, co-creator of keep getting recycled,” says Manchanda. the world’s newest superhero While the Marvel universe — comic, Super Sikh. Meet Deep with a female Thor, a black CapSingh aka Super Sikh — an IT protain America and a Muslim Ms fessional by day, a turbaned-suMarvel — is slowly opening its Twenty-seven hours perhero by night, who is also an doors to diversity, the comic into the campaign, undercover British Secret Service world still has few homegrown they had achieved agent. He loves Elvis and hates heroes who deal with contempotheir target of $5,000, baddies. Bearded and turbaned, rary problems or even routine and a month later, the 20-something hunk has menaces like racism. “It’s time to raised $22,000 James Bond’s suave and the skills have heroes who actually reflect of assassin Jason Bourne. He is their ethnicity,” says Manchanjoined by female sidekick Janelle da. “We want to support the idea Williams, an African-American that respecting other people and with her own “ass-kicking” skills, and a female defending the innocent are universal qualiprotagonist Gurpreet Kaur, his cousin and a ties. Good guys and villains come in all “STEMinist” (women in the fields of science, packages.” technology, engineering and math). Together, In the first issue of the comic, Deep Singh is they take on bullies, racists and the dreaded seen bidding farewell to the schoolgirls in PaSalar Al-Amok, leader of a Taliban squad. kistan he rescued from an explosion, an epiIn 2011, screenwriter Alden and Silicon Val- sode eerily similar to the recent Peshawar ley entrepreneur Supreet Manchanda were incident. Super Sikh climbs into his cool car, tossing up ideas for stories with a Sikh protag- cranks up the volume on the radio blaring onist. They talked of fast cars, Elvis imperson- Blue suede shoes and hits the road for his next ators and their love for comics. Soon, mission. A superhero with a penchant for Elstorylines began to shape up, award-winning vis? “He is an uber-Elvis fan as it reminds him

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Relax, it’s just a turban Super Sikh is out to kick some intolerant ass

es of hate crimes, workplace discrimination, school bullying and racial stereotyping since 9/11, including the shooting at a gurudwara in Wisconsin in 2012. That the Sikhs, who have a distinguished military history, can’t serve in the US military in religiously-mandated turbans and beards, has only worked against the community. “No one takes offence at being called a Muslim — that’s ignorant. What’s offensive is being labelled as a threat to people.

Super Sikh is our response to not being heard — we are reclaiming the turban in a positive way,” says Manchanda.

Deep Singh will fight prejudice, not with preachy propaganda, but with justice. “It’s a comic, so it’s a simple story, yet readers will find that one can’t assume the ‘white guy’ is the good guy, the ‘guy in the turban’ is a terrorist, or a ‘damsel in distress’ is a weakling,” says Alden, who describes herself as the first known person to have become a Sikh while working on a comic. For her research to create Deep Singh’s character, she learned Gurmukhi, read the Gurbani and turned to Sikhism (formerly an atheist, she now goes by the surname Kaur). Now, how many superheroes can claim to have done that?

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STATES OF MATTER

The developing story Will the growth-versus-distribution debate finally be settled in favour of the former?

sukumar muralidharan

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here are few areas of settled concord in economic theory. That the dynamic of power is often determinant in the limited enclaves of consent has been evident in recent times in the growth-versus-distribution debate.

Residual doubts about the tilt of current policy were laid to rest with the Economic Survey for 2014-15. In this assessment of the year gone by and prognoses for the immediate future, the Union Finance Ministry laid out the maxim that “the importance of economic growth, both for lifting up those at the bottom of the income and wealth distribution, and for providing opportunities for everyone in that distribution, cannot be overstated”. The authorities referred to were the Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati and his collaborator Arvind Panagariya, now the head of Niti Aayog, which supplants an ideologically disfavoured Planning Commission.

In a book published in 2013, Bhagwati and Panagariya had stated their essential point upfront in the very title — Why Growth Matters: How Economic Growth in India Reduced Poverty and the Lessons for Other Developing Countries.

This book, curiously, came out within a few weeks of another, which put the range of questions addressed in rather different perspective. In An Uncertain Glory: India and its Contradictions, the Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen, and his long-time collaborator Jean Dreze, made a strong case for a welfare approach that would enhance human capabilities, making the poor participants in growth.

And then began the war of words. “Sen is not simply wrong; he also poses a serious danger to economic policy in India,” wrote Bhagwati. Growth was a precedent condition for

distributive justice. And Sen was “with no evi- umph was transient, as the gains in purchasdence and with only wishful thinking to sup- ing power were eroded by rampant inflation. port his assertions (claiming that)...

When Narendra Modi rode the wave of disredistribution should precede growth”. content to emerge winner in 2014, there were Sen maintained a lofty silence for a while, expectations that he would cut back on welbut then responded with an admonition fare and restore a focus on so-called producagainst the misrepresentation of his views. In- tive sectors. This intent was frontally critiqued deed, a little pause would show that the rela- by a group of economists who, in turn, drew tionship Bhagwati outlines in strict logical Bhagwati’s ire. With a clever play on words, and temporal precedence is not quite how Bhagwati termed the “leading economists” to things work. The pattern of growth is deter- be “mischievous” and adept at “misleading”. mined by income distribution, On the eve of the recent Union in a relationship of reciprocal reBudget, Prime Minister Modi inforcement. The rural job guarshowed where his sympathies antee scheme, launched in 2005, lay. With heavy-handed irony, he recognised this reality and disavowed any intent to cut back Difficulties could sought to create a mass-market on the job guarantee scheme, arise from states’ by putting purchasing power insince he was aware of the inherown perceptions of to the pockets of the poor. It may the utility of the rural ent political rewards. It was, he have succeeded in this quest, said, a monument to the Conemployment though without quite augmentgress’s failures over 65 years. programme ing productive capacity in rural Though he could not envisage a India, creating an inherent risk future in which the youth of the of inflation. country, driven by aspiration, The fiscal burden was a cause would be sent out to dig holes in for worry right from the beginning. But for a pretence of employment, he was not about unrelated reasons, a purple patch of growth to squander an easy opportunity to gain politensued for the Indian economy since 2004, ical capital. largely relieving that concern. With unpreceIn seeming disregard of the PM’s disdain, Fidented revenue buoyancy, the government nance Minister Arun Jaitley the next day acseemed actually emboldened to begin think- tually increased allocations for rural jobs. ing aloud about larger ambitions, such as the There was pressure on the Centre following its rights to food and education. decision to devolve — in accordance with FiIt all turned sour with the global economic nance Commission recommendations — a meltdown of 2008. For a while, the Congress- substantial 42 per cent of tax revenues in the led government held its nerve, boosting its divisible pool to the states, against the current spending on welfare schemes. That may have 32 per cent. Despite this, said Jaitley, “adequate won the ruling party another term in power in provision (was) being made for the schemes the 2009 general election. But the sense of tri- for the poor and the disadvantaged”.

The minister’s numbers did not quite square with the detailed expenditure breakdown for the year ahead. And that is where the accounting magic lay. While claiming a higher devolution of funds to the states, the Union Budget was still insisting on controlling how these were spent. “The significant sums that will be spent by the states on these programmes will ensure a quantum leap in expenditures in these areas,” said Jaitley, “I urge states to utilise their enhanced resources effectively in these areas.”

Difficulties could arise from states’ own perceptions of the utility of the rural employment programme. Powerful politicians such as Sharad Pawar and Parkash Singh Badal have, in recent times, spoken against the employment guarantee, terming it an inconvenience as it compels higher wage payments for essential agricultural labour. This is representative of a certain viewpoint that remains strong among agrarian elites influential in state politics. To expect an unchanged level of commitment to the rural jobs programme, despite the financial power shifting to the states, may be unrealistic. The growth-versusdistribution debate may soon be decisively settled in favour of the former, though with unpredictable political consequences.

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Vertical limits Is distributive justice contingent on growth, or is it the other way round? Here, a view of Visakhapatnam, which awaits its transformation into a smart city KR DEEPAK

sukumar muralidharan is a fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla

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Pooling along Grey’s anatomy

In it together Lastmile connectivity, finding people who share a route and comfort level with co-passengers are among the prime concerns of those willing to carpool r ragu

READER’S DIE JEST

A company that offers to iron out creases and make the shared-ride concept work in India

Since they won’t let you see the Fifty Shades of Grey, read it here in black and white

arunava sinha

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year ago in Hyderabad, Anurag ance papers, and other documents. Zify ike mostwas lecherous buta lot lazy Rathor spending ofpeople, time at corporate czarvehicle Christian today unveiled to persuade Ms Anastasia Steele to sign a forinspects the for Grey its road-worthiness you were waiting to taxi readstands.

Fifty Shades autorickshaw and Each his of Bondage Dominance Submis- mal agreement not to disclose the terms of andcollection other safety parameters.

Its four-member ofday, Greyhe bywould watching theat movie — get- sion arrive the stands material to reporter Anasta- their relationship to the stock markets are teamMasochism also verifies the owner’s credentials ting turned onpassengers, in a darkened movie and offer prospective mostly IT sia Steele.

Further revealing theout decaying through social profiling.

“It filters a lot of questionable. True, revealing such informahall is so muchthe more discreet than breathing professionals, option of commuting with mindset ofpeople. the market Mr Grey are ad- tion may have led to insider trading by bears, unwanted A feweconomy, of these processes heavily in the room.

And anow they mitted his friends and living him. The charge: nominal to Msand Steelesome that he maximise his for the knowledge that Mr Grey is a BDSM enautomated arecould done manually,” won’t allow movie on to be because amount andthe feedback thereleased, ride-sharing.

Af- investment Rathor says.in sexual activity only by adopting thusiast would lead to an erosion of investor in Sanskaar SpankHer. terIndia weeks of thisbeats exercise, he was convinced theThe dominant position in any relationship, in confidence in his company. However, Mr Grey same rigour is applied to passengers, So,people Anastasia Steele, majoring in journalism that were not averse to sharing a vehi- the displaying hisacontempt for social- appears to have made the fundamental mistoo,process who have to upload government-issued and virginity, decided matters in her ism cle. The challenge wastointake bringing together in sex.such ThatasheAadhar conducted Steele to his ID proof card Ms or passport be- take of handing over power to the consumer, own… er… hands, migratedintoaIndia, and used museum in his fore car owners and passengers private helicopthey can request a ride. which has made many corporaher successive sprawling city. jobs at different newspapers, ter only underlined thecompany appro- website, car On the tions pay a heavy price in the news channels is and “Carpooling anwebsites old con-here to tell the priation of sexual powercan by upload the owners their ride past. In his decision to demonstory that itthe censor won’t let you see wealthiest 1 per cept, but has neverboard worked cent of plan the on a daily or or commute strate to Ms Steele the pleasures Ana loves Christian. on the big is the in India.

Wescreen. decidedThis to first un-result, scooped world, whose assets are basis. currentweekly Other members of erotic activities while being Christian whips Ana. exclusively for you.

Yes, we know, derstand the psychology of the pleasur- ly the same as those of thethe re-route can use who share tied up, blindfolded, spanked Ana rejects Christian. e’s all yours. people who travel and then admaining 99 perthe cent.

ZifyJust app like to request a ride. and stripped, he allowed her to Christian ejects AnaRathor, founder and CEO of Zify Anurag dress the difficulties they the quintessential proletariat- will get an The co-travellers develop a romantic fondness for #TinyTales It all began on Buzzfeed: faced,” says Rathor. victim of the modern world, Ms starts. There SMS once the ride him, which will severely restrict Kate ill andtoasked Anapeoto interview Chris- Steele was not repelled, Afterfell talking several sensing pick-up and sector. The company are designated relies on several to his ability to exploit her‘Nos’ to his tian instead of the her. probYou’ll never believe instead the seductive ple, Grey he discovered of drop-offallure points. ensure safe shared-rides. own advantage. Falling in love what next. last-mile lems happened centred around wealth and its accompanying Women members have the “We are not carpooling in theis middle of with the consumer a dangerSeventy-two finding heart-warming connectivity, people questions that sexual entitlement. flexibility to insist on a female ous night.

At anyand given time, there are appears thousands liaison, although Mr Grey to Ana to findlevout if he was gay. whoasked share Christian a route, comfort co-passenger; car owners can be of people onitthe roads, and wecertain don’t allow veresisting, is by no means that his He answered ‘no’ to all ofand them. el with co-passengers cost Then Timesspecify Now picked the story: otherupsuch preferences resistance hicles withwill tinted glass,” says persist over theRathor. sequels.

Twenty-five to find if you’re falling sharing.

Onceways these wereout tackDo you, Mronline.

Grey, deny that you wished Ana IT professional Vishakha Within eight months of launching, Zify has in withsure thethe man you’re interviewing, led,love he was shared-ride sign about Zify her over Bharadwaj agreement has been using 5,000 registered andupthe numbers Eventually, the storyusers wound — as all stoWhat you to pay fora non-disclosure while he only wantsfind to have hard sex. sharing an AC concept would takers. relationship with you?

Why, in“Earlier, that case, dida ries for five months.

I was are growing. do — on Twitter: car is Guess what Christian buyingless at the “What you pay for sharingwas an AC you violate terms of your ownmy proposed little unsure about co-pasThe team tries is working make app more Christian to buy to Ana withthe an expensive than what you the hardware store where Anaforworked.

(Hint: car is less than what you pay a when you discovered shebywas a virgin? sengers.

I began asking other laptop user-friendly and less data-consuming.

As usand car, threatens her with spanking. pay for a NDA threerope, duct tape).he says. three-wheeler,” No, I will not take ‘virginity automatically im- Typical verified community members ers on the move can ill-afford to waste their Sanghi manoeuvre #AchheDin wheeler Seven drunk-texting the plies non-disclosure’ Rathorstrategies invested to hisavoid savings as as anNow, answer. did phone about them.

I am Why not only batteryAAPtard or data Christian plan in searching for Left liberal whips Ana’s guy have a borrowed crush on while well you as money from celebrating you deflower Ana on your bed without signing buttocks comfortable with carpooling nearby cars, appShould will attempt to work six the times. have been 666 your graduation. friends to set up his dream venthe agreement? youmade suggesting that virbutAre have new friends as times without GPS. A yet-to-be-patented algorithm #NumberofDevil What dolast when ture.

In to May year,you he wake raisedup in a hotel gins cannot sign agreements? well,” she says. No, I will NOT that relies onChristian. location matching be used Ana loves Christian will whips Ana. room in the bedevent of the guy you have theIndus hots letOf ₹10 lakh at an organised

by The you talk youpaid explain.

No,passenger, you CANNOT the ₹5until per km by each Zi- Ana instead.

Rathor is, in fact, currentlyejects in Ireland rejects Christian.

Christian Ana for but who insists must be paperwork Entrepreneurs (TiE)there in Hyderabad.

By June, he whip Never ever ever fy getsme. a commission of 20ever per ever cent ever or ₹1ever per #TinyTales to tap that market. before sex.with Zify, describing it as a company ever was ready attempt to make submissive. km, and the car ownerme keeps the rest. “We are “WeAna are take in talks Ireland to Did thewith lift down andauthorities out of Christhat is making carpooling work in India by trying to reduce the charges to ₹3.5 per km. tian’s launchlife theforever? app in that aswhom it has aathuge Whocountry, will beat the The Hindu make its charging justfelt ₹5compelled per km for to a shared AC obsercar.

TheourEconomist wentwill ahead andtheput the end?

But commission remain same,” market of commuters as well as car owners,” #lulz #sequel vations in an op-ed article: The business model is simple. Car owners whole thing on its cover: says Rathor. he says.

Signalling of the capitalismregister with the the decadence company with proof of a valThe strategies employed Christian company focuses on by theMr city’s office- arunava sinha translates classic and contemporary and non-fiction into English rashmifiction pratap fuelled sexual excesses Western civilisation, id driving licence, car of ownership and insur- Grey, CEO of of whom Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc, goers,the a bulk work in the booming IT Bengali

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Gentlemen’s club Nearly one-third of the 1,475 NSE-listed companies are yet to appoint women directors the hindu archives

Get on board, women A handful of accomplished Indians are courted as companies scramble to appoint at least one woman board director before April 1

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enu Sud Karnad, managing director of Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), sits on the board of seven companies. Ramni Nirula, former CEO and managing director of ICICI Securities, is also a board director in seven companies including Jubilant Foods and Avantha Power and Infrastructure. Former McKinsey executive Ireena Vittal is on the board of six companies including Wipro, Axis Bank and Tata Global Beverages.

A handful of accomplished Indian women find themselves pursued as India Inc scrambles to comply with the requirement to have at least one woman director on board from April 1. Not surprisingly, companies are favouring either family members or non-independent directors.

“We talk about young India, with enough lawyers and finance professionals who have done well for themselves. They need to be given a chance. But if companies don’t want to appoint strangers to boards, then even highly accomplished individuals can’t make it,” says Pranav Haldea, managing director at Prime Database group.

According to data from nseinfobase.com,

developed by Prime Database, 32 per cent of vidual must have some experience and knowlthe 1,475 NSE-listed companies had not ap- edge to be able to contribute to the board and pointed a woman director until February 21. participate in discussions. Today, you don’t The deadline now demands at least 12 appoint- have enough women with the experience to ments a day over the following month. be independent (directors),” he says.

Credit Suisse’s global study on gender diverHead hunters are working overtime to find sity and corporate performance found that be- suitable candidates. “For effective board functween 2005 and 2011, companies with female tioning, you need prior experience. And it is board representation outpernot easy to find such candidates,” formed the others in terms of says R Suresh, Managing Director share price. Even their return on – RGF Executive Search. Moreover, equity (ROE) was four per cent women hesitate to join the The deadline of April higher, at 16 per cent. boards of companies that have a 1 now demands at Among Indian companies, muddy record or are largely ownleast 12 appointments over the past year, 507 women ed by a single family, he adds. a day over the have been appointed to 572 diK Ullas Kamath, joint managfollowing month rectorship positions. At least 141 ing director at Jyothy Laboratoof these positions are non-inderies, agrees that while it is not pendent, while 80 vacancies easy to get talented women, a lot were filled by women belonging depends on the companies too. to the promoter group. “These women shall “Good companies don’t find it too difficult to have the same voice as the promoter, defeat- attract talent,” he says. ing the very purpose of genuine gender diverB Thiagarajan, executive director at Blue sity,” says Haldea.

Star, says the company did face some difficulAbhay Gupte, senior director at Deloitte In- ties in finding the right candidate. “Directors dia, takes a different view. “You don’t get them should bring strategic value and it should not just for the sake of gender diversity. An indi- be an honorary position. We wanted someone who could bring in entrepreneurial values, had grown a business, knew market realities…” he says. Finding them all in one person was not easy. Finally, they found the perfect fit in Shobana Kamineni, executive vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, who joined the board in June last year.

To be able to find suitable women directors, Thiagarajan says companies will have to necessarily promote as many women as possible to top management levels. “Then there will be a ready pipeline of talent for the board level,” he says.

Deloitte’s Gupte points out that each company has its own specific requirements, which can make the search for the right candidates extra challenging. “We will have to be a little patient… The essence of the requirement has to be understood and we will have to give it some time to mature,” he adds. Till then, it’s bound to be lip service to gender diversity in India Inc.

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Perfect fit Shobana Kamineni, (above) executive vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, is an independent director with Blue Star mohammed yousuf; Ramni Nirula (right) serves on the board of seven companies graham crouch/bloomberg

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PRESENT IMPERFECT

Caution: Women not at work Career is one of the first things that thousands of Indian daughters-in-law lose control over once they tie the knot. Along with the paycheck, they also bid farewell to self-respect Body and sole Part of a montage, this still from In Their Shoes shows a worker carrying his wares; followed soon after by barefoot namaazis holding their shoes

PICTURE THIS

Walking in Sathyu’s shoes?

Four decades after Garm Hava comes a lively documentary on the Agra shoe trade. But In Their Shoes steers clear of any reference to actual leather production

trisha gupta

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Out of service arly in MS Sathyu’s Garm Hava, Balraj talking heads, most of them old hands, ac- Hava tangewalla’s apposite comment does not Once married, a Sahni boards a tanga from the rail- quaintances of the elder Sabharwal. The film- make it to the documentary. woman, especially way station, where he’s just seen off maker doesn’t hide his ease of access: again The elder Sabharwal offers up a charming in north India, is some more relatives moving to Pa- and again, his father Om Prakash appears in origin myth forexpected leather work in Agra. The to choose kistan. The tangewalla, in the way of the small the frame, introducing him to shop-owners: wholesale market for shoes, Heeng ki Mandi, between work and town, is familiar with Salim Mirza and his pos- “Bachcha, ek documentary bana raha hai... where his shop home. is, was once the Mughal marA working wife is still seen as a from Iran, on sible routes: ‘Haveli ya karkhana (home or fac- Poochhna hai Atul toh poochh le Uncle se.” ket for asafoetida.

Heeng arrived blot been on thepounded family’s and packed tory),’ he asks. As they trot through town to Sabharwal displays both a sustained inter- camel-back, having honour ap/saurabh das Mirza’s shoe-manufacturing unit, the tange- est in the big picture and a sympathetic con- in calf-leather pouches.

When the heeng was walla says conversationally, “Our Hindu broth- cern with the personal histories of his unpacked, the leather was discarded. Slowly, ers ast hereweek, are good, no matterNitya what Rao happens photographer protagonists.

Through so eager to get married to him businessmen, no matter what,small shoesbut began be made Thiswomnarrative ries exist, the to reality that from theseit. were theywrote won’tatouch The(‘The same, aplovelyleather articlework!” in BLink andtoed large, and toand a lesser Anshika the line gaveextent up herthe job.artisans, “It en from may urban, have some truth to it. And one can see the educated families.

Anshika’s parently, cannot said of thefrustrations Hindu refugees tyranny lifts’)beabout the the film to provide inside view of was hell,” she manages told me, “once Rahulan and his dad appeal tracing abusiness-people, grubby business like in-laws are of successful theirleathfrom theanborder: dhandhe of across being on H4 visa“Je in toh the US. H4 ke howoffice, a trade is passed through left for there was on nothing to generations: do. My Facebook erworkphotographs back to the time of Akbar, feature with all the frequently dharam kaholder bhi lihaaj nahi karein statuspeechhe does not allow its — the spouse of hain from fathers sons, faults and from mother-in-law keptto finding with things I Chanel bags, cruise romance of camel caravans, ships and colourful cock- Irabhaiya (So intent areoption they on an H1B visa holder — the to business seek em- that to shagirds.

Rather did —ustads the shoes weren’t lined upthan properly, the tails on exotic beaches. nian heeng and handmade Nikita’s two sisters-in-shoes they’ve stopped attending tocountry. religion,Afbrothployment or start a business in the dullness and— chafing you sit there law are both educated fridgethe wasn’t spotless and I’d just that took a kaarigarBut (artisan) and employed. her a er).” A the daypiece, will come, predicts ter reading I logged on to athe fewtangewalla, blogs and stew might expect atwait thefor lack of to come mother-in-law wouldn’t in it.

I would Rahul week toaccord make. her But the for me, it also same There is one fleetingfreedom when they’ll own this Tikonia and Facebook pages, which workedBazaar. as support homechoice, mostsosecond-genin thewhat evening that I points to the absence in that shebiggest had allowed Hava is set Agra inmostly 1947, inwomthe aftergroups Garm to thousands of in people, traders communicate coulderation lash out at him.

It was a is mention of tanneries, the film: the making of leather. her daughters. in the context of a The stories math Partition. it utter was made en, who are of forced to live But a lifesince of such bo- in the cooker sense of pressure andbelonging, after a yearadultI There is fleeting ofone millions likemention Anban on them for shikaofand 1973, itsthe writers the advantage of hindredom that most had exciting event of their hood and, dare I say, fun that thought I could either go back to the tanneries, in the context Nikita are reflected in of a Nearly 50 per cent sight: be by taking the ’60s, day might theshoe trashtrade out. in Allthe thecity ac- had offered young polluting the Yamunathe statistics workbusiness or sit here and them slowlyasgo ban on them forleaking polluting the Yaof the pipewomen in India drop passed into the hands of Punjabis relocated counts in these forums are about how depressStylistically, mad.”men.

She spent another there’s year try-little Else, the 90-minute line, muna. the number of women who film out of the workforce from Karachi and Lahore.

Screenwriter Shama ing and damaging it is for educated women to though ing quirkiness, to convince her I enjoyed in-laws the anyreaching reference to quit stays theiraway jobs from before within a few years of Zaidilives (alsoreduced Sathyu’sto wife) began the script see their cooking, cleaning archival photoaboutsmall goingtouches: back to work.

Finalleather production.

It is as if the middle-management positions. starting their careers from conversations with Urdu novelist Ismat and making babies. ofshe bazaars and to family ly, bygraphs the time went back sat down decided Indiafilmmaker fares poorly, evenand when Chughtai relatives and friends leaving I was startledabout by how familiar these stories business and one montage using that anything teaching at thedocuments, same school, her to dotowith cattle, animalinskins, compared other countries for Pakistan.

But in it was Kaifi Azmi’s sounded to me — both theirco-writer tone of helpless a striking match between workers car- MuslimsAsia, marriage and visual her relationship and Dalits might be with nearly 50 too percontrovercent with shoe-manufacturing defeatexperience and the words used — self-respect, workers de- with rying shoeshad andtaken namaazis her in-laws such carrying shoes, sial, or need viewers with strong stomachs. women employees dropping out in Kanpur that produced the damaging film’s nuanced pression, dependence, suffocating, barefoot across Masjid. a severe beating that the Jama scars of it continue to of the workforce Perhaps he’s right.

Certainly, would seem within a few years ofitstarting of how economy is interlaced to selfportrait and spouse.

A couple of years ago, when with Theoffilm also Despite does a fine of that contextualishaunt all them. thejob fact she theirso from The Vikram Seth’s fictional careers. gender ratiomemorable in Indian offices Salim runs one of several I was community. travelling across theMirza country researching thedo ups and downs the shoe trade in now ing has to double duty — of chores at home guided29tour theatBrahmpur shoe trade in A is a decent perof cent junior management Muslim-owned shoemother-in-law, karkhanas, with workers my book on the Indian these Agra, bothingeographically andishistorically.

It Suitable and her work school — Anshika a much levels.

Boy. Whether it is thethis desperate poverAt middle management, is 15 per either Muslim were who the are exact same wordsorI Jatav: heard.communities Of the happier shows, for instance, to the IUSSR person.

“I feel thathow I canexports now breathe. and insanitary conditions of Ravicent.ty And if you look at working corner offices, it’s a pitithe pale of ‘polluting’ by relimanyplaced thingsbeyond that daughters-in-law lose conthe Eastern countries became a 9daspur’s have and colleagues to talk Bloc to. And some place to able the posher per cent.Jatav Whileshoe-makers, some womenor voluntarigion and When Mirza trol over oncecaste theyrespectively. get married, their war-must then led tofor losses the Ruble hide mainstay from my and mother-in-law a fewashours (Cawnpore Leather andtoFootwear ly optCLFC out of employment in order look afterComhis family haveli,are it isthe allotted to a Sinddrobevacate and career choices foremost. more recently, howlife,” the she post-libeverycrashed; day. Myand, job almost saved my tannery where the genteel Lata to Mehra theirpany) children, a large majority is forced refugee businessman.

Even hi before the wedding, daughters-in-law are told me. eralisation lifting of a longtime ban on leather and her mother choke from the smell, choose between a job nearly and a family. told how they would be required to dress and export wasn’t pushedtheleather prices through Anshika only one.

Across the the In Seth makes clear this is notover an easy milieu. the light of itthe celebrations the US afterthe Garm Hava comes a lively whether our theydecades would have freedom to work roof, paving in thenorth way Indian for Chinese synthetic board, especially families, a changing Even its though Haresh is “quick visa rules, it isKhanna imperative that weto exor not. documentary on the Agra shoe trade, leather-substitutes massive Relevant working wife is still seen in as asome kindway. of a blot Lata’s mother” that the hidesofwere look plain withintoour homes and take cognisance made (name by thechanged), grandsonaof one of those refuAnshika daughter-in-law footage from GarmNikita, Hava makes a split-second on the family’s honour. another daugh- the depression, from ‘fallenloss animals’, not slaughtered of financial freedom andones, gees theistangewalla of. Atul whose story featured might in the have book,spoken told me appearance, while the voiceover ter-in-law, told meunremarked, that her mother-in-law nev- self-respect and also that “they didon not accept hides that is inflicted the forcibly un-from Sabharwal, whoher debuted a director in Bollythat when she met futureasmother-in-law has antheelderly gentleman describing er blessed marriage purely because she how Muslim slaughterhouses”, the stench employed here.

That would mean taking of on‘dirty wood family-and-real-estate for the first with time, 2013’s she was told in no uncertain saga shoe traders would a basket was asmall-time working woman.

Even when shetake offered work’ seems to hang in the air.

I wishand Sabharthe formidable forces of tradition, culture sets out here to map termsAurangzeb, that she would have to quit herthe job contours and to quit full her of shoes aroundwas thetold mandi (wholesale job, Nikita that she family wal had taken some of that undeserved, values.

Sadly,on that’s a challenge very few linof the Anshika businesstaught that his quietly discourstay home. infather an international market).

But while we’re told gleeful postwouldn’t be accepted because her the professiongering are ready for.disdain. aged him from In Their Shoes al is lifePartition school in Mumbai and entering. had been dating Rahul anecdoteher of aforever.

Bania trader had tarnished Whatwho waswent critic based in Delhi structured, with shots of t@veenavenugopal sincestraightforwardly the two were in Class 10. Because she was fromto handling leather gingerly in a towel shocking me wasn’t the fact that these sto- to trisha gupta is a writer and Agra and its shoe karkhanas interspersed with sorting out leather pieces by hand, the Garm t@chhotahazri

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Veena Venugopal is editor BLink and author of The Mother-in-Law

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BAWDY LINE

Scrambled eggs Third-party reproduction, as it plays itself out in the market, is a violation of the fundamental premise of caste — endogamy

Ambarish Satwik is a Delhi-based vascular surgeon and writer

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ocyte retrieval is an ultrasoundguided obscenity. It is an invasive, needle-foisted f***, and I use that phrase advisedly. It’s done to a needy young woman whose ovaries are plumped up (on Gonadotropins for about 12 days) to a point of having a gaggle of sappy follicles.

Her legs are hauled up in stirrups and her parts prepped (with saline, inside-out) by a hard-bitten Mallu nurse. Then a truncheonlike ultrasound transducer probe coupled with a long metal tube is heaved into her vagina and manipulated till it rests against the vaginal vault and can see (ultrasonically), in the recto-uterine pouch, the brilliantly puddled burlesque in her ovaries.

For the harvest, a 30-centimetre needle is introduced through the metal tube to puncture the vault of the vagina and bayonet the ovary, repeatedly, to drain the sap from each of those follicles. In the sap, she gives up the most precious sequins she owns. Her oocytes.

For third-party reproduction, the donor sells her eggs to infertile couples. These eggs will be fertilised in vitro by the barren woman’s husband’s sperm. It fetches the donor anywhere between ₹30,000 to a lakh. By common consensus (ICMR guidelines), she’s allowed to peddle six ovarian cycles.

The ICMR guidelines mandate complete anonymity for gamete donors. The egg donor has to sign on a consent form (in her own language) that includes, among other things, the following: ‘I understand that there will be no direct or indirect contact between the recipient, and me, and my personal identity will not be disclosed to the recipient or to the child born through the use of my gamete.’

Registers maintained by Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) clinics and donor agencies are works of apolitical physical anthropology. They have everything on the subject that is phenotypically on the surface.

That’s allowed. Along with baseline anthropometric data — age, height, weight, body mass index, skin colour, colour of eyes, colour of hair, facial physiognomy, marital status, past medical history, details of education, etc. And evidential ‘matrimonial’ photographs — pimped up whole-body portraits and closeups, for that is their lure, the high cheekbones, the heritable cephalic and nasal index, the promise of fecundity in the eyes. Close-ups are also for genealogical clues. As per the ICMR guidelines, clients aren’t supposed to see this data or the photos, but they always do. The point of a registry of oocyte whoredom is that uxorious husbands and their wives can connubially give them the glad eye before making the selection. These women aren’t sexually available, but they’re sexually accountable.

In third-party reproduction, one isn’t allowed to administer identity to the eggs, so the only labelling activity that comes about is usually religious. Apart from that, these are lists innocent of social stratification, and strangely, there’s a category missing in them that might particularly confound many. Caste.

It was from a small but perkily formed of caste — endogamy. The system of caste was young lady (a donor, now a gamete broker) held in unchanging equilibrium for about that I received a sort of halfway Marxist expla- 2,000 years by an absolute prohibition on sexnation of caste as superstructure in third-par- ual congress across caste. The word jati is acty reproduction. Quite clearly, Assisted tually untranslatable into English. The closest Reproduction isn’t the Asiatic mode of pro- descriptor would be ‘birth group’. The caste duction. It is a free market. The prices are de- list above of egg donors includes the ‘ontologtermined at the intersection of supply and ically unclean’ (manual scavengers, sweepers demand. In this market though, individuals and hide skinners), the ‘ontologically menial’ with subordinate social identities have be- and those listed under the Criminal Tribes Act, come owners of capital. It is estimated that 60 1871 (from a tribe “addicted to the systematic per cent of donors are Muslim and about 80 commission of non-bailable offences”). per cent of the rest are Dalits. It’s a bit trite, but The ontology of these castes is found in it must be said: the Muslim and the Dalit, for chapter 10 of Manusmriti. It describes the horsavarna Hindus, is the anthropological ‘other’. rors of miscegenation, of hypergamy and hyAs an empirical exercise, my wife and I con- pogamy (f***ing up and f***ing down), more ducted a series of interviews with gamete do- elegantly called anulomyena (with the grain) nors and brokers as a part of an amateur caste and pratiloman (against the grain). The loss of audit for two of Delhi’s most prolific ART clin- endogamy produces mixed castes. These are ics. This is in no way representanot Shudras, one of their progentive of the trends in Delhi or itors was. They are a rung below. north India, but it does its share The further loss of endogamy in of question-begging. Women these mixed castes produces the The capital in the from the following castes are outcastes, and it goes on, like a reproductive market commonly found in the oocyte is with the subalterns self-fulfilling prophecy. A lot of trade (at these two ART clinics; in wordage is expended in chapter no particular order): Dhanak, Ja10 to produce a typology and notav, Balai, Balmiki, Khatik, Giamenclature of categories formed rah, Julaha, Dhobi, Mazhabi due to the many permutations Sikh, Pasi. The caste location of the donors is from such unions. Each of these is ordained an never in the registries. The donor is therefore occupation. Bed-makers, idol-dressers, betelwithout a social identity. The idea that identity leaf sellers, indigo-dyers, saddlers, horse-traincan be an indicator of merit or worth, and ers, rope-twisters, butchers, hill coolies, that, in turn, determines their labour market they’re all there. The Antevasayi, for instance, outcomes, obviously doesn’t exert itself here. has a Chandala male parent and a Nishada feAt least not sizeably. A utilitarian view is ap- male parent. These are the carcass removers. plied. Fair skin, a certain height, physiognom- The Chandala (scavenger) comes from a pratiic likeness, clean medical record, no infectious loma union between a Shudra male parent diseases, good ovarian reserve, previous moth- and a Brahmin female parent. erhood, graduate degree, and rarely, MongolThe registries in the ART clinics provide the oid or Caucasoid facial composite: these could unwilling blind spot for commensal taboos to be the basis for differential and discriminato- be suppressed. “The real remedy for breaking ry practices. Not caste. Obviously, there are caste is intermarriage,” wrote Ambedkar in a times when clients insist on Brahmin and Jain lecture he was to deliver to the Jat-Pat Todak oocytes, but what to do? Dubeys, Tiwaris, Os- Mandal in Lahore (it was called off because it wals and Jaiswals (for retail) are scarcer than questioned the scriptures). “Nothing else will hens’ teeth. The capital in the reproductive serve as the solvent of caste.” The loss of endomarket is with the subalterns. gamy in a lab can’t be a bad thing either.

Third-party reproduction, as it plays itself asatwik@gmail.com out, is a violation of the fundamental premise

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Not so positive India has been running one of the most successful AIDS control programmes in the world.

But State apathy is threatening to undo all the good work done in the last two decades

Me too Indian television is all about reality shows, as the packed auditions prove shashi ashiwal

A lawnmower on my nose The auditions of India’s Got Talent, in Mumbai, tell of innumerable hamming masters, desperate measures and a modicum of real skill

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is eyes are transfixed on the sharp lines from a play. “She won first prize in a dra- movies. Not surprisingly, the floppy-haired dagger clenched between his matics contest in school last year, so I thought Shah Rukh Khan hams away to glory and Sanprecariously on atwhy notofgive a ramesh shot.sharma I’ve prepared today’s jay Dutt speaks in tapori style. It’s all very preGround zero (left) A poster promoting early testing for HIV at the ART teeth. centre inBalanced Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi; (right) the gate the this centre the slender edge of the dagger is a act for her. I taught her how to say her lines dictable. “We are working on another act — it is fragile blue balloon. And on top of the balloon with expressions,” says the mother, peeping called Salman ki Shaadi. We show how Salman is a vase. With outstretched like those of out t onearms end of the labyrinth that is the from under her dupatta. tial AIDS-related testing kits and medicines; 22 and Shah Rukh make upControl with each other at the senior National AIDS Organisation a clock, the youngofman balancesHospital the heavy H-Block Safdarjung in of Indian television allpast about reality these were filed inisthe year alone.shows.

News wedding,” says the Dutt doppelganger.

(NACO) official hadSanjay to plead with the pharma load with his teeth.

As his eyes moisten, south Delhi, right next to the probenor- Every channel flagship of such scarcityhas hasaalso beendancing, trickling singing in from This caught the attention of the giantseems Cipla to tohave supply the requisite medicines, ably in pain, he casualty gently pricks balloon.

It and mous wardthe is one of the talent that seems have judges. otheracting centres acrosshunt the country.

The to website tothat see the right away will but stating They in hiswant letter “theact programme disappears into Antiretroviral thin air; the vase lands safely Capital’s nine Therapy (ART) been running forever. Those of the State’s procurement agent, Rites, for in- not have anythe group says the to restlittle of their drugs to dispense chilon the blade of room the knife.

Hedoctor doesn’t centres.

A small for the onwaste duty, who areshows rejected at60 one, try their stance, that tenders have been invit- dren from September cast is missing.

“We eventually can also 30”. Cipla time catching his breath. have counsellors, many more luck one each for the male and “I female at another.

A dance instruced for supply of various items under the supplied around bring2,500 Anilbottles (Kapoor) and syrup, Bachof LPV/R tricks like this I can perform.

I know how tor, a window for that dispensing medicines, a comwith the star students of his A(NACP) National AIDS Control Programme in confesses chan next time,” they say. solving the problem temporarily. producer to balance cycle on my nose.

I’m dance puter roomaand a few chairs forNowadays those waiting has travelled all the lastacademy, four years.

Many of them No there some “The doubt, last three yearsishave rethat some of the practising theallsame act with a lawnmower,” their turn are that make up the centre. Non- the way from Raigad. in were re-issued whenDressed requiregenuine talent that is discovered peatedly seen a shortage of life“gems” who fall into he says, panting.

20-year-old Ben- black-and-gold descript, it beliesBy itsday, rolethis in the fight against costumes that ments were not fulfilled. through but most saving these ARVs shows, (antiretroviral the so-bad-it’s-good galuru resident is anwhich accounts officer a firm.

HIV/AIDS in India, at 21 lakhinhas the they have themselves, It was in stitched September and Octoshould remain bathroom singdrugs) as well as diagnostics,” category are pushed The rest of hispopulation time is devoted such daredethird-largest of HIVtopatients in the the teens seem at home. ber last year thatquite the most acute ers family entertainers.

With saysand Mihir Sonam, a representaThe National ahead just soAIDS that vilry. biggest achievement is a Guinworld,Hisoutnumbered only by yet Nigeria and Are they nervous?

They collecshortages since the beginning of so of auditions, tivemany of thelevels Delhi-based LawyersI Control they canOrganisation embarrass ness World Over record the tively South Africa. sevenfor lakhbalancing Positive people at my preposterous NACP laugh were reported.

Across Inwonder who will make it towith the Collective, which has dealt has not had a themselves on tallest-ever object, anow 64-ft pole, on for assumption. across the country depend onhis thechin decadeturns dia, the Viral It Load (VL)out tests,that estelevision round.laws A since producer HIV/AIDS-related the secretary since television five minutes. ART programme. old State-run they are showthose veterans sential in reality identifying who confesses that some of indithe late ’80s. “Simply put, this August last year It a Saturday and the youngster Atisthe centre inafternoon Delhi, a handful of people, who haveresponding performed for years are not to treat“gems” who fall are intomajor the so-badcates that there probis performing for a panel of judges in athe school clutching medical documents, meet doc- on local are Marathi channels, and ment, either extremely it’s-good aresystem pushed lems in allcategory parts of the — classroom in suburban Mumbai.

The that desks tor and queue up for a cocktail of drugs is are finally toThere compete scarce or outready of stock. is alahead just soprocurement that they can and emforecasting, and have been replaced with aToday massive theirchairs only defence against the virus. is a with bigshortage players. This is a preliminary au- barrass themselves so a the severe of NeviraTV. This, then, wouldThe be supplyon chain management. blue that reads, ‘India’s Got Audi- dition goodfaçade day. There’s no shortage of Talent medicines, for India’s Got Talent, adapted from the the pine, which prevents the spread of infection guythrust who sings his heart outisbut hitto a entire of NACO’s policy forcan’t people tions’.

Like him,who there are leaves hundreds other hugely and everyone visits withofwhat’s successful Britain’s gotBlood TalentSpots created by single from mother to child.

Dried (DBS) notestatus or a businessman from If Punjab know their as early as possible. there hopefuls who at the school.

The master prescribed forhave him camped or her. But how long will of snark, Simon InisIndia, the who tests, used to identify if Cowell. an infant positive, can eat akits record number of lizards and are no testing even, how is this possible?” hallways are to lined withWill children and adults in show they be able do so? the stocks run out? is inrun its out sixthinseason air onPosiCol- frogs have also the lastand fourwill months. without a grimace. Unlike other shows, he asks. snazzy costumes colourful wigs, each ors The questions hangand in the air, heavily.

April.increasingly Those who make cut India’s Got Talent doesn’t specify what they are tivechannel patientsin are beingthe given holding interesting props that range from here getcourses to perform in the final auditions smaller of medicine, amidst fears in of hunting Close callfor. This leaves the contestants to be drums, hula hoops and pom-poms, to a cycle the Crisis-in-waiting presence of celebrity an imminent empty shelf.judges Karan Johar, the judge what constitutes talent.

NACO, theofcountry’s apex body, has So notwhethhad a tyre.

At the gatesof of the school is a huge crowd The indicators impending crisis are Malaika Arora Khan Kirron Kher.that 1,200 er The situation was and so bad last year you’re asince localAugust dancing star, anAutonomous expert at basecretary last year. waiting in the blazing sun.ofA Positive young mother, many. The Delhi Network People bottles Meanwhile, inside the classroom aresyrup, three lancing of Lopinavir/Ritonavir (LPV/R) have itanwas appetite for since itslawnmowers inception inor1992, recently covering 11-year-old head and men (DNP+), aher support groupdaughter’s run by and for HIV— lookalikes of Shah Salman another paediatric drug,Rukh was Khan, arranged by creepy crawlies all are welcome. brought under— the aegis of the National her ownpeople, with a dupatta, this Khan positive has filed judiciously no less thanuses 40 comand SanjayAccess Dutt, respectively.

Theyto take Clinton Health Initiative (CHAI) be Health Mission (NHM), raising fears of red-tatime to since coach2011 herabout child,the who will be of reciting plaints shortage essen- turns performing scenes the stars’ iconica mohini brought from Nigeria.

Onfrom another occasion, pism. Aschaudhuri for raising capital, the Global Fund to

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apne Kai Po Che dekha hain (have you seen Kai Po Che)?” the guide asks us during our heritage walk in Ahmedabad. “Haan, yes, yes,” my husband and I nod. “See that first floor with lights... some portions of the film were shot there,” he says, pointing. We were at the Mangaldas ni Haveli, at the start of our hour-long walk. More than 200 years old, the mansion is a great starting place to discover how people in this old city of many gates lived across centuries. The Hindi cinema connection is a popular draw with visitors, prompting my husband to remark on Bollywood’s extraordinary reach. We next explore the city’s numerous pols (neighbourhoods) and end our walk at Manek Chowk, where ’90s music — Kumar Sanu and all — blares from street corners. We are pointed to a crumbling old mansion. There is garbage dumped in front, and cows forage amongst the scraps of paper and plastic. This, our guide tells us, used tolike be the Stock Exchange. supplies testAhmedabad kits, ART medicines and so Adding, for greater effect, “Guru film dekhaenvoy hain na on,” says Prasada Rao, special of aapne... the UN (have you seen Guru)?”

We areon allHIV/AIDS attentionfor now, Secretary General thewanting Asia-Pato know more about the building.

It once housedcan theresult councific region.

“Occasional shortages try’s second-oldest stock exchange Mumbai).

The from problems with the(after supply chain, but movie, of course, loosely based on the have life ofalways the Gujaratsuch is temporary shortages been born business magnate Ambani. overcome byDhirubhai timely action.

But this time it appears to be much more serious, and [the shortHrithik Roshan here age]ishas lasted for a longer period,” says Rao. Travelling across Gujarat, wewho bump into B-town trivia time Stakeholders have fought hard to make and again. Driving fromprogramme Bhuj to the agreat white Rann India’s AIDS success now fearof a Kutch, our cab driver Sohail suddenly“AIDS gets chatty. complete disintegration. is like Pointing diabetes to the vast desolate landscape right, he informs in one sense; they on areour both treatable.

Only us in that furtherthe inland film you Mohenjadaro was being shot. casethe of AIDS, have to ration your life.

If “Hrithik Roshan aayaishai (Hrithik here),” says. a person missing hisRoshan dose, itiscan havehe severe Take us there, we ask, but hesays doesn’t indulge us. Dr As though consequences,” Chennai-based Sundar to make up,Sundararaman, he divulges thatwho the was actorpart andofthe film theother national crew were staying at a hotel Bhuj, and drove down core group that in initiated thethey NACP consultato this part of Kutch around every Henumber rattles off tions 25 years ago.5am Given theday. large of the names of hotels in town weState-run are likelyART to catch patients who relywhere on the prosight of a star or two, including Saif Ali Khan and Kareena gramme, he worries that its problems will Kapoor. Sohail also proudly reminds us that large parts of leave many in the lurch. “Private treatment is the Aamir Khan-blockbuster Lagaan in and frightfully expensive, and were what shot is going on around Bhuj.

Thisnow movie crops up repeatedly during the right is an absolute public health disastrip, as someone’s mention at every ter. Thebound healthtopolicies areitnot at allturn. pro-poor, and I wonder if the Prime Minister even knows Song-and-dance ruins the seriousness of the situation.”

At the 19th-century Prag Mahal in Bhuj, placards proclaim Meanwhile, public health officials either that parts ofhave the little Aishwarya Khan-Ajay Devgnto say Rai-Salman about the issue or are unwillstarrer Huming Dil to Decomment.

Chuke Sanam were there. There is “There is shot no shortage of testeven a picture of Amitabh with hordes of ing kits,” says DrBachchan, Sunil Khaparde, deputy schoolchildren milling around it. A huge vase ofadried director-general, NACO, who maintains stoic flowers, otherwise is the object of everyone’s gaze. silence drab, on the non-availability of essential Reading outdrugs. from NS a placard near it, teachers explainand to Kang, the additional secretary their wards de-facto that a scene from Lagaanand was in-charge canned here. head of NACO, of the cessful AIDS programmes in the world.

As The we drive away in our cab, Sohail points to a complex Central Government Health Schemes (CGHS), NACP, since its launch in 1991, has seen the like of exquisitely carved on aofficials raised foundation — the otherpillars senior approached by also to talk. Even non-governnumbers of newly infected patients dwin- orBLink, Chhatedi, tombs of refused Bhuj’s royalty.

It’s Hum Dil De… mental but influential bodies, such as the Bill dling steadily. After 2000, there’s again, been this as time the scene of an “Aishwarya Rai-wala” song. & Melinda Gates Foundation and demuch as Mangaldas a 50 per cent decline. But some like from We alight the car and take a closer look at GFATM, the partialPol-scape ni Haveli comment on the drug shortages, rediVikas Ahuja, Positive since 1992 and the presi- cline ly damaged structure. recting us tothe NACO. dent of the DNP+, believe that India is now los- later, Hours entering charming but dusty port town ing ground. “I can guarantee that when the our first stop is the imposing 20th-century of Mandvi, WhatVijay now? Vilas. Again a favourite shooting surveys are conducted in 2015, for summer the first palace In Chennai, P Kausalya, of the Positive time in a decade we will see a rise in the numspot, with Hum Dil De… and Lagaan founder references.

On the wall Network and oneon offilm the ber of HIV/AIDS-infected,” he of a passage are picturesWomen of actors and directors first women says, when we meet him at the sets. Of course, people stop andIndian stare. Some rushtoto openly the pilthat was HIV-positive, DNP+ office, a three-bedroom lared balconies and strikestate a pose likeshe Aishwarya Rai! says, “They keep reducing the apartment in the bylanes of dosage period every time we go south Delhi’s Neb Sarai, his tone Take Afterthat 2000, there’s the centre.Laxmi At least earlier underscored by desperation In Vadodara, 19th-century Vilas Palace, been as muchwe as avisit 50 theto there more media coverage rather than anger. “The crisis is which is four times of was Buckingham Palace.

Large per cent decline in the size on the issue, furniture, but now that has remost severe now,” adds Ahuja, halls, stained-glass ornate a massive newly infected windows, almost to “earlier, at least we knew who to collection of paintings... duced in a nutshell, allnil.” things opulent. patients even at as the theDurbar world go to in case there was a probWe opt for an audio guidedLast tourweek, and arrive commemorated 30 years since lem. Now even NACO is not realHall, only to be stopped by security personnel — a shoot is theto first AIDSfrom test was conducted, ly there. Who do we turn to? in progress. We are allowed watch the windows.

A for uncertainty in We’re against the wall.” security guard walks up India to mebraced and whispers, “Purani acthe pata immediate future.

While agencies tress Anita Raj hain aap ko (do youfunding know the yestetheRaj)?” government are trying to get their act The silent treatment ryear actressand Anita before helpfully pointing her out until do, people Ahuja must Ahuja is not the only one raising an toalarm. me. Wirestogether, crisscross thethey beautiful floorlike and I glimpse forthe a drug drought. is the Across the board, doctors, lawyers, other Peo- brace the actress walking length of the “Treatment hall. The security important aspect forthe a Positive ple Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) groups, interguard movesmost closer and discloses that shoot isperson,” for a TV heke says, “a person HIV already national observers and largely everyone serial. “Zee TV liye,” he tellssuffering me. And from smiles.

Heishas just through lot. Andgesture this isfor making it outside the Health Ministry and its let subsidime in ongoing a huge secret. Aa special a visitor much worse.” aries, are vociferous about the problems. from Bengaluru.

“The crisis began developing from 2013. It sibi arasu savitha is a Bengaluru-based freelance journalist has its origin in faulty procurement of keykarthik

Star-struck in Gujarat

Bump into Bollywood everywhere you travel in this land of ancient gated neighbourhoods, palaces, forts and royal tombs

Regal repose Chhatedi, or royal tombs, on the outskirts of Bhuj photographs: savitha karthik

The good fight People at work at the NGO, Delhi Network of Positive People ramesh sharma

Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), the largest funding body in this segment, is currently reviewing India’s applications for access to over $850 million earmarked for it during 2014-17.

Thememory Bill & Melinda Gates FounShooting stars Picture gallery of film sets at Vijay Vilas Palace Fresh Lagaan memorabilia dation, however, withdrew its financial support to India’s AIDS programme in 2013.

Meanwhile, pouring in from across the country is news of drug shortages at various levels and non-payment of salaries of aid workers who work with high-risk communities and play a pivotal role in preventing the disease from spreading. Apart from Delhi, Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram have also reported shortages and lack of payment . There are reports too of non-availability of condoms across India, including in Tamil Nadu, a state which has consistently been among the top performers in key health indicators, such as numbers of institutional deliveries, immunisations and health insurance.

To top it all, the recent Union Budget has slashed funding to key AIDS prevention programmes, such as free condom distribution as well as the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) programme. This, when the entire spend on public health by the Centre is less than one per cent of India’s GDP. Many stakeholders are also raising an alarm over the apparent shift in focus from prevention to cure — a regressive strategy.

Indiafor hasa TV been running one of the most sucTelly star The 19th-century Laxmi Vilas, in Vadodara, is the setting serial

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saturday, march 14, 2015

Fly away home Will the flamingos, regular visitors to Mumbai’s Sewri mudflats, be forced to look for another home for the holidays?

O

nce a tiny hamlet on the eastern shore of Parel, one of Mumbai’s seven original islands, Sewri is now an industrial hub with only a handful of residential pockets. Among other things, Sewri is known for one of the city’s biggest cemeteries, a large shipyard, mangroves and, in the cooler months, hundreds of pinkish-white lesser flamingos flying in from Kutch.

Anyone who knows about mudflats will tell you that low tide is the worst time to be there. It is when garbage and plastic waste are either lodged in the mud or found floating in small puddles slick with effluent. Come flamingo season and even low tide begins to look attractive.

It’s not the leggy vision in pink alone that attracts hundreds of birdwatchers to Sewri every

Seeing is believing Birdwatchers from across the city are drawn to Sewri mudflats for the flamingos

year. Adding multiple hues to the grey mudflats are other winged visitors like greater flamingos, sandpipers, greater spotted eagles, herons and black-bellied terns.

But the future of the mudflats and its seasonal visitors is far from colourful. Already facing grave ecological damage, the mudflats may just sink under the weight of a trans-harbour link (read a long, winding bridge) from Sewri to Nhava in Navi Mumbai. The link is the brainchild of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), which promises to spend ₹800 crore, around nine per cent of the project cost, on environmental concerns. Only time will tell if this promise was made to be kept. paul noronha

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Looking in vain An egret hunts for food

Toxic truth An industrial chimney looms menacingly behind the mangroves at the Sewri mudats

All in a day's work Boat repair in progress

Decked in pink A colony of amingos near the Sewri jetty

Pose perfect A mother-daughter duo waits patiently to frame a leggy beauty

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Not so positive India has been running one of the most successful AIDS control programmes in the world.

But State apathy is threatening to undo all the good work done in the last two decades

Me too Indian television is all about reality shows, as the packed auditions prove shashi ashiwal

A lawnmower on my nose The auditions of India’s Got Talent, in Mumbai, tell of innumerable hamming masters, desperate measures and a modicum of real skill

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is eyes are transfixed on the sharp lines from a play. “She won first prize in a dra- movies. Not surprisingly, the floppy-haired dagger clenched between his matics contest in school last year, so I thought Shah Rukh Khan hams away to glory and Santeeth. inBalanced precariously on atwhy notofgive this a ramesh shot.sharma I’ve prepared today’s jay Dutt speaks in tapori style. It’s all very preGround zero (left) A poster promoting early testing for HIV at the ART centre Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi; (right) the gate the centre the slender edge of the dagger is a act for her. I taught her how to say her lines dictable. “We are working on another act — it is fragile blue balloon. And on top of the balloon with expressions,” says the mother, peeping called Salman ki Shaadi. We show how Salman is a vase. With outstretched like those of out t onearms end of the labyrinth that is the from under her dupatta. tial AIDS-related testing kits and medicines; 22 and Shah Rukh make with each other at the senior National AIDSupControl Organisation a clock, the youngofman balancesHospital the heavy H-Block Safdarjung in of Indian television allpast about reality these were filed inisthe year alone.shows.

News wedding,” says the Dutt doppelganger.

(NACO) official hadSanjay to plead with the pharma load with his teeth.

As his eyes moisten, south Delhi, right next to the probenor- Every channel flagship of such scarcityhas hasaalso beendancing, trickling singing in from This caught the attention of the giantseems Cipla to to have supply the requisite medicines, ably in pain, he casualty gently pricks balloon.

It and mous wardthe is one of the that seems have judges. otheracting centrestalent acrosshunt the country.

The to website see the right away will but stating They in hiswant lettertothat “theact programme disappears into Antiretroviral thin air; the vase lands safely Capital’s nine Therapy (ART) been running forever. Those of the State’s procurement agent, Rites, for in- not have anythe group says the to restlittle of their drugs to dispense chilon the blade of room the knife.

Hedoctor doesn’t centres.

A small for the onwaste duty, who areshows rejected at60 one, try their stance, that tenders have been invit- dren from September cast is missing.

“Weeventually can also 30”. Cipla time catching his breath.

“I have counsellors, many more luck one each for the male and female at another.

A dance instruced for supply of various items under the supplied around bring2,500 Anilbottles (Kapoor) and syrup, Bachof LPV/R tricks like this I can perform.

I know how tor, a window for that dispensing medicines, a comwith the students of his A National AIDSstar Control Programme (NACP) in confesses chan next time,” they say. solving the problem temporarily. producer to balance cycle on my nose.

I’m dance puter roomaand a few chairs forNowadays those waiting has travelled all the lastacademy, four years.

Many of them No doubt, there some “The last three yearsishave rethat some of the practising theallsame act with a lawnmower,” their turn are that make up the centre. Non- the from Raigad. in wereway re-issued whenDressed requiregenuine talent that is discovered peatedly seen a shortage of life“gems” who fall into he says, panting.

20-year-old Ben- black-and-gold descript, it belies By itsday, rolethis in the fight against costumes that ments were not fulfilled. through but most saving these ARVs shows, (antiretroviral the so-bad-it’s-good galuru resident is anwhich accounts officer a firm.

HIV/AIDS in India, at 21 lakhinhas the they have stitched themselves, It was in September and Octoshould remain bathroom singdrugs) as well as diagnostics,” category are pushed The rest of hispopulation time is devoted such daredethird-largest of HIVto patients in the the teens seem at home. ber last year thatquite the most acute ers family entertainers.

With saysand Mihir Sonam, a representaThe National ahead just soAIDS that vilry. biggest achievement is a Guinworld,Hisoutnumbered only by yet Nigeria and Are they nervous?

They collecshortages since the beginning of so of auditions, tivemany of thelevels Delhi-based LawyersI Control Organisation they can embarrass ness World Over record the tively South Africa. sevenfor lakh balancing Positive people at my preposterous NACP laugh were reported.

Across Inwonder who will make it towith the Collective, which has dealt has not had a themselves on tallest-ever object, now a 64-ft pole, on for assumption. across the country depend on his thechin decadeIt turns dia, the Viral Load (VL) out tests,that estelevision round.laws A since producer HIV/AIDS-related the secretary since television five minutes. ART programme. old State-run they are showthose veterans sential in reality identifying who confesses that some of indithe late ’80s. “Simply put, this August last year It a Saturday and the youngster Atisthe centre inafternoon Delhi, a handful of people, who haveresponding performed for years are not to treat“gems” who fall are intomajor the so-badcates that there probis performing for a documents, panel of judges in the a school clutching medical meet doc- on localare Marathi channels, and ment, either extremely it’s-good aresystem pushed lems in allcategory parts of the — classroom in up suburban Mumbai.

The that desks tor and queue for a cocktail of drugs is are finally toThere compete scarce or outready of stock. is alahead just soprocurement that they can and emforecasting, and have been replaced with aToday massive theirchairs only defence against the virus. is a with the bigshortage players. This is a preliminary au- barrass themselves so a severe of NeviraTV. This, then, wouldThe be supplyon chain management. blue that reads, ‘India’s Got Audi- dition goodfaçade day. There’s no shortage of Talent medicines, for India’s Got Talent, adapted from the the pine, which prevents the spread of infection guythrust who sings his heart outisbut hittoa entire of NACO’s policy for can’t people tions’.

Like him, there are leaves hundreds other hugely and everyone who visits withofwhat’s successful Britain’s gotBlood TalentSpots created by single from mother to child.

Dried (DBS) notestatus or a businessman from IfPunjab know their as early as possible. there hopefuls who at the school.

The master prescribed forhave him camped or her. But how long will of snark, Simon Cowell.

InisIndia, the who tests, used to identify if an infant positive, can eat akits record number of lizards and are no testing even, how is this possible?” hallways are to lined withWill children and adults in show they be able do so? the stocks run out? is inrun its out sixth air onPosiCol- frogs have also inseason the lastand fourwill months. without a grimace. Unlike other shows, he asks. snazzy costumes colourful wigs, each ors The questions hangand in the air, heavily.

April.

Those who make cut India’s Got Talent doesn’t specify what they are tivechannel patientsin are increasingly beingthe given holding interesting props that range from here getcourses to perform in the final auditions in hunting smaller of medicine, amidst fears of Close callfor. This leaves the contestants to be drums, hula hoops and pom-poms, to a cycle the Crisis-in-waiting presence of celebrity an imminent empty shelf.judges Karan Johar, the judge what constitutes talent.

NACO, theofcountry’s apex body, has So notwhethhad a tyre.

At the gatesof of the school is a huge crowd The indicators impending crisis are Malaika Arora Khan Kirron Kher.that 1,200 er The situation was and so bad last year you’re asince localAugust dancing star, anAutonomous expert at basecretary last year. waiting in the blazing sun.ofA Positive young mother, many. The Delhi Network People bottles Meanwhile, inside the classroom aresyrup, three lancing of Lopinavir/Ritonavir (LPV/R) have itanwas appetite for since itslawnmowers inception inor1992, recently covering 11-year-old and men (DNP+), aher support groupdaughter’s run by andhead for HIV— lookalikes of Shah Salman another paediatric drug,Rukh was Khan, arranged by creepy crawlies all are welcome. brought under—the aegis of the National her ownpeople, with a has dupatta, this Khan positive filed judiciously no less thanuses 40 comand SanjayAccess Dutt, Initiative respectively.

Theytotake Clinton Health (CHAI) be Health Mission (NHM), raising fears of red-tatime tosince coach2011 herabout child,the who will beof reciting plaints shortage essen- turns performing scenes the stars’ iconica mohini brought from Nigeria.

Onfrom another occasion, pism. Aschaudhuri for raising capital, the Global Fund to

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saturday, march 14, 2015

“A

apne Kai Po Che dekha hain (have you seen Kai Po Che)?” the guide asks us during our heritage walk in Ahmedabad. “Haan, yes, yes,” my husband and I nod. “See that first floor with lights... some portions of the film were shot there,” he says, pointing. We were at the Mangaldas ni Haveli, at the start of our hour-long walk. More than 200 years old, the mansion is a great starting place to discover how people in this old city of many gates lived across centuries. The Hindi cinema connection is a popular draw with visitors, prompting my husband to remark on Bollywood’s extraordinary reach. We next explore the city’s numerous pols (neighbourhoods) and end our walk at Manek Chowk, where ’90s music — Kumar Sanu and all — blares from street corners. We are pointed to a crumbling old mansion. There is garbage dumped in front, and cows forage amongst the scraps of paper and plastic. This, our guide tells us, used tolike be the Stock Exchange. supplies testAhmedabad kits, ART medicines and so Adding, for greater effect, “Guru film dekhaenvoy hain na on,” says Prasada Rao, special of aapne... the UN (have you seen Guru)?”General We areon allHIV/AIDS attentionfor now, Secretary thewanting Asia-Pato know more about the building.

It once housedcan the result councific region.

“Occasional shortages try’s second-oldest stock exchange Mumbai). from problems with the(after supply chain, The but movie, of course, loosely based on the have life ofalways the Gujaratsuch is temporary shortages been born business magnatebyDhirubhai Ambani. overcome timely action.

But this time it appears to be much more serious, and [the shortHrithik Roshan herelasted for a longer period,” says Rao. age]ishas Travelling across Gujarat, wewho bump into B-town trivia time Stakeholders have fought hard to make and again. Driving fromprogramme Bhuj to the agreat white Rann India’s AIDS success now fearofa Kutch, our cab driver Sohail suddenly “AIDS gets chatty. complete disintegration. is like Pointing diabetes to the vast desolate landscape right, he informs in one sense; they on areour both treatable.

Only us in that furtherthe inland film you Mohenjadaro was being shot. casethe of AIDS, have to ration your life.

If “Hrithik Roshan aayaishai (Hrithik here),” says. a person missing hisRoshan dose, itiscan havehe severe Take us there, we ask, but hesays doesn’t indulge us. As consequences,” Chennai-based Dr though Sundar to make up,Sundararaman, he divulges thatwho the was actorpart andofthe film theother national crew were staying at a hotel Bhuj, and drove down core group that in initiated thethey NACP consultato this part of Kutch around 5am every Henumber rattles off tions 25 years ago.

Given theday. large of the names of hotels in town weState-run are likelyART to catch patients who relywhere on the prosight of a star or two, including Saif Ali Khan and Kareena gramme, he worries that its problems will Kapoor. Sohail also proudly reminds that large parts of leave many in the lurch. us “Private treatment is the Aamir Khan-blockbuster Lagaan in and frightfully expensive, and were what shot is going on around Bhuj.

Thisnow movie crops up repeatedly during the right is an absolute public health disastrip, as someone’s mention at every ter. Thebound healthtopolicies areit not at allturn. pro-poor, and I wonder if the Prime Minister even knows Song-and-dance ruins the seriousness of the situation.”

At the 19th-century Prag Mahal in Bhuj, placards proclaim Meanwhile, public health officials either that parts ofhave the little Aishwarya Khan-Ajay Devgnto say Rai-Salman about the issue or are unwillstarrer Huming Dil to Decomment.

Chuke Sanam were there. There is “There is shot no shortage of testeven a picture of Amitabh with hordes of ing kits,” says DrBachchan, Sunil Khaparde, deputy schoolchildren milling around it. A huge vase of adried director-general, NACO, who maintains stoic flowers, otherwise is the object of everyone’s gaze. silence drab, on the non-availability of essential Reading outdrugs. from NS a placard near it, teachers explainand to Kang, the additional secretary their wards that a scene from Lagaanand was in-charge canned here. de-facto head of NACO, of the cessful AIDS programmes in the world.

Thedrive As we away in our cab, Sohail points to a complex Central Government Health Schemes (CGHS), NACP, since its launch in 1991, has seen the like of exquisitely carved pillars on aofficials raised foundation — the other senior approached by also to talk. It’s EvenHum non-governnumbers of newly infected patients dwin- orBLink, Chhatedi, tombs of refused Bhuj’s royalty.

Dil De… mental but influential bodies, such as the Bill dling steadily. After 2000, there’s again, been this as time the scene of an “Aishwarya Rai-wala” song. & Melinda Gates Foundation and demuch as Mangaldas a 50 per ni cent decline. But some like from We alight the car and take a closer look at GFATM, the partialPol-scape Haveli comment on the drug shortages, rediVikas Ahuja, Positive since 1992 and the presi- cline ly damaged structure. recting us tothe NACO. dent of the DNP+, believe that India is now los- later, Hours entering charming but dusty port town ing ground. “I can guarantee that when the our first stop is the imposing 20th-century of Mandvi, WhatVijay now?Vilas. Again a favourite shooting surveys are conducted in 2015, for summer the first palace In Chennai, P Kausalya, founder of the Positive time in a decade we will see a rise in the numspot, with Hum Dil De… and Lagaan references.

On the wall Network and oneon offilm the ber of HIV/AIDS-infected,” he of a passage are picturesWomen of actors and directors first women openly says, when we meet him at the sets. Of course, people stop andIndian stare. Some rushto to the pilthat was HIV-positive, DNP+ office, a three-bedroom lared balconies and strikestate a pose likeshe Aishwarya Rai! says, “They keep reducing the apartment in the bylanes of dosage period every time we go south Delhi’s Neb Sarai, his tone Take Afterthat 2000, there’s the centre.

At least earlier underscored by desperation In Vadodara, 19th-century Laxmi Vilas Palace, been as muchwe as visit a 50 theto there more media coverage rather than anger. “The crisis is which is four times of was Buckingham Palace.

Large per cent decline in the size on the issue,furniture, but now that has remost severe now,” adds Ahuja, halls, stained-glass ornate a massive newly infected windows, almost to “earlier, at least we knew who to collection of paintings... duced in a nutshell, allnil.” things opulent. patients even at as the theDurbar world go to in case there was a probWe opt for an audio guidedLast tourweek, and arrive commemorated 30 years since lem. Now even NACO is not realHall, only to be stopped by security personnel — a shoot is theto first AIDSfrom test was conducted, ly there. Who do we turn to? in progress. We are allowed watch the windows.

A for uncertainty in We’re against the wall.” security guard walks up India to mebraced and whispers, “Purani acthe pata immediate future.

While agencies tress Anita Raj hain aap ko (do youfunding know the yestetheRaj)?” government are trying to get their act The silent treatment ryear actressand Anita before helpfully pointing her out until do, people Ahuja must Ahuja is not the only one raising an to alarm. me. Wirestogether, crisscross thethey beautiful floorlike and I glimpse forthe a drug drought. is the Across the board, doctors, lawyers, other Peo- brace the actress walking length of the “Treatment hall. The security important aspect forthe a Positive ple Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) groups, interguard movesmost closer and discloses that shoot isperson,” for a TV heke says, “a person HIV already national observers and largely everyone serial. “Zee TV liye,” he tellssuffering me. And from smiles.

Heishas just through lot. And this isfor making it outside the Health Ministry and itslet subsidime in ongoing a huge secret. Aa special gesture a visitor much worse.” aries, are vociferous about the problems. from Bengaluru.

“The crisis began developing from 2013. It sibi arasu savitha is a Bengaluru-based freelance journalist has its origin in faulty procurement of keykarthik

Star-struck in Gujarat

Bump into Bollywood everywhere you travel in this land of ancient gated neighbourhoods, palaces, forts and royal tombs

Regal repose Chhatedi, or royal tombs, on the outskirts of Bhuj photographs: savitha karthik

The good fight People at work at the NGO, Delhi Network of Positive People ramesh sharma

Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), the largest funding body in this segment, is currently reviewing India’s applications for access to over $850 million earmarked for it during 2014-17.

Thememory Bill & Melinda Gates FounShooting stars Picture gallery of film sets at Vijay Vilas Palace Fresh Lagaan memorabilia dation, however, withdrew its financial support to India’s AIDS programme in 2013.

Meanwhile, pouring in from across the country is news of drug shortages at various levels and non-payment of salaries of aid workers who work with high-risk communities and play a pivotal role in preventing the disease from spreading. Apart from Delhi, Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Mizoram have also reported shortages and lack of payment . There are reports too of non-availability of condoms across India, including in Tamil Nadu, a state which has consistently been among the top performers in key health indicators, such as numbers of institutional deliveries, immunisations and health insurance.

To top it all, the recent Union Budget has slashed funding to key AIDS prevention programmes, such as free condom distribution as well as the Information, Education and Communication (IEC) programme. This, when the entire spend on public health by the Centre is less than one per cent of India’s GDP. Many stakeholders are also raising an alarm over the apparent shift in focus from prevention to cure — a regressive strategy.

Indiafor hasa TV been running one of the most sucTelly star The 19th-century Laxmi Vilas, in Vadodara, is the setting serial

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PRESENT IMPERFECT

Caution: Women not at work Career is one of the first things that thousands of Indian daughters-in-law lose control over once they tie the knot. Along with the paycheck, they also bid farewell to self-respect Body and sole Part of a montage, this still from In Their Shoes shows a worker carrying his wares; followed soon after by barefoot namaazis holding their shoes

PICTURE THIS

Walking in Sathyu’s shoes?

Four decades after Garm Hava comes a lively documentary on the Agra shoe trade. But In Their Shoes steers clear of any reference to actual leather production

trisha gupta

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Out of service arly in MS Sathyu’s Garm Hava, Balraj talking heads, most of them old hands, ac- Hava tangewalla’s apposite comment does not Once married, a Sahni boards a tanga from the rail- quaintances of the elder Sabharwal. The film- make it to the documentary. woman, especially way station, where he’s just seen off maker doesn’t hide his ease of access: again The elder Sabharwal offers up a charming in north India, is some more relatives moving to Pa- and again, his father Om Prakash appears in origin myth forexpected leatherto choose work in Agra. The kistan. The tangewalla, in the way of the small the frame, introducing him to shop-owners: wholesale market for shoes, Heeng ki Mandi, between work and town, is familiar with Salim Mirza and his pos- “Bachcha, ek documentary bana raha hai... where his shop home. is, wasA working once the Mughal marwife is still seen as a from Iran, on sible routes: ‘Haveli ya karkhana (home or fac- Poochhna hai Atul toh poochh le Uncle se.” ket for asafoetida.

Heeng arrived blot been on thepounded family’s and packed tory),’ he asks. As they trot through town to Sabharwal displays both a sustained inter- camel-back, having honour ap/saurabh das Mirza’s shoe-manufacturing unit, the tange- est in the big picture and a sympathetic con- in calf-leather pouches.

When the heeng was walla says conversationally, “Our Hindu broth- cern with the personal histories of his unpacked, the leather was discarded. Slowly, ers ast hereweek, are good, no matter Nitya what happens photographer Rao so eager protagonists.

Through to get married to him businessmen, no matter what,small shoesbut began be made Thiswomnarrative ries exist, the to reality that from theseit. were theywrote won’tatouch The(‘The same, aplovelyleather articlework!” in BLink andtoed large,the and toand a lesser Anshika line gaveextent up herthe job.artisans, “It en from may urban, have some truth to it. And one can see the educated families.

Anshika’s parently, cannot said of thefrustrations Hindu refugees tyranny lifts’)beabout the the film to provide inside view of was hell,” she manages told me, “once Rahulan and his dad appeal tracing abusiness-people, grubby business like in-laws are of successful theirleathfrom theanborder: of across being on H4 visa“Je in toh the dhandhe US. H4 ke howoffice, a trade is passed through left for there was on nothing to generations: do. My Facebook erworkphotographs back to the time of Akbar, feature with all the frequently dharam kaholder bhi lihaaj nahi karein statuspeechhe does not allow its — the spouse of hain from fathers sons, faults and from mother-in-law kepttofinding with things I Chanel bags, cruise romance of camel caravans, ships and colourful cock- Irabhaiya intent areoption they on an H1B visa (So holder — the to business seek em- that to shagirds.

Rather did —ustads the shoes weren’t lined upthan properly, the tails on exotic beaches. nian heeng andtwo handmade Nikita’s sisters-in-shoes they’ve attending to country. religion,Afbrothployment or stopped start a business in the the dullness and— chafing you sit there law are both educated fridge wasn’t spotless and I’d just that took a kaarigarBut (artisan) and employed. her a er).” A the daypiece, will come, predicts ter reading I logged on to athe fewtangewalla, blogs and stew might expect at wait the for lack of to come mother-in-law wouldn’t in it.

I would Rahul week toaccord make. her But the for me, it also same There is one fleetingfreedom when they’ll own this Tikonia and Facebook pages, which workedBazaar. as support homechoice, mostsosecond-genin thewhat evening that I points to the absence in that shebiggest had allowed Hava is set Agra inmostly 1947, inwomthe aftergroups Garm to thousands ofin people, traders communicate coulderation lash out at him.

It was a is mention of tanneries,her daughters. the film: the making of leather. in the context of a The stories math Partition. it utter was made en, who areof forced to live But a lifesince of such bo- in the cooker sense of pressure andbelonging, after a yearadultI There isofone fleeting millions likemention Anban on them for shikaofand 1973, itsthe writers the advantage of hindredom that mosthad exciting event of their hood and, dare I say, thought I could either go fun backthat to the tanneries, in the context Nikita are reflected in of a Nearly 50 per cent sight: be by taking the ’60s, day might theshoe trashtrade out. in Allthe thecity ac- had offered young polluting the Yamunathe statistics workbusiness or sit here and them slowlyasgo ban on them forleaking polluting the Yaof the pipewomen in India drop passed into the hands of Punjabis relocated counts in these forums are about how depressStylistically, mad.”men.

She spent anotherthere’s year try-little Else, the 90-minute line, muna. the number of women who film out of the workforce from Karachi and Lahore.

Screenwriter Shama ing and damaging it is for educated women to though ing quirkiness, to convince her I enjoyed in-laws the anyreaching reference to quit stays theiraway jobs from before within a few years of Zaidilives (alsoreduced Sathyu’sto wife) began the script see their cooking, cleaning archival photoaboutsmall goingtouches: back to work.

Finalleather production.

It is as if the middle-management positions. starting their careers from conversations with Urdu novelist Ismat and making babies. of she bazaars and to family ly, bygraphs the time went back sat down decided Indiafilmmaker fares poorly, evenand when Chughtai relatives and friends leaving I was startledabout by how familiar these stories business and one montage using that anything teaching at thedocuments, same school, her to dotowith cattle, animalinskins, compared other countries for Pakistan.

But in it was Kaifi Azmi’s sounded to me — both theirco-writer tone of helpless a striking match between workers car- MuslimsAsia, marriage and visual her relationship and Dalits might be with nearly 50 too percontrovercent experience with shoe-manufacturing defeat and the words used — self-respect, workers de- with rying shoeshad andtaken namaazis her in-laws such carrying shoes, sial, or need viewers with strong stomachs. women employees dropping out in Kanpur that produced the film’s nuanced pression, dependence, suffocating, damaging barefoot across a severe beating that the Jama scars Masjid. of it continue to of the workforce Perhaps he’s right.

Certainly, would seem within a few years ofit starting of how economy is interlaced to selfportrait and spouse.

A couple of years ago, when with Theoffilm also Despite does a fine of that contextualishaunt all them. thejob fact she theirso from The Vikram Seth’s fictional careers. gender ratiomemorable in Indian offices Salim runs one of several I was community. travelling across theMirza country researching ups and downs the shoe trade in now ing has the to do double duty — of chores at home guided29tour theatBrahmpur shoe trade in A is a decent perof cent junior management Muslim-owned shoemother-in-law, karkhanas, with workers my book on the Indian these Agra, bothingeographically andishistorically. and her work school — Anshika a much It Suitable Boy. Whether it is thethis desperate poverlevels.

At middle management, is 15 per either Muslim were who the are exact same wordsorI Jatav: heard.communities Of the happier shows, for instance, to the IUSSR person.

“I feel thathow I canexports now breathe. and insanitary conditions of Ravicent.ty And if you look at working corner offices, it’s a pitithe pale of ‘polluting’ by relimanyplaced thingsbeyond that daughters-in-law lose conthe Eastern countries became a daspur’s have and colleagues to talk Bloc to. And some place to able the posher 9 per cent.Jatav Whileshoe-makers, some womenor voluntarigion and When Mirza trol over oncecaste theyrespectively. get married, their war-must then led tofor losses ashours the Ruble hide mainstay from my and mother-in-law a few (Cawnpore Leather andtoFootwear ly optCLFC out of employment in order look afterComfamily haveli,are it isthe allotted to a Sinddrobevacate and his career choices foremost. howlife,” the she post-libeverycrashed; day. Myand, job more almostrecently, saved my tannery where the genteel Lata to Mehra theirpany) children, a large majority is forced refugee Even hi before the businessman. wedding, daughters-in-law are told me. eralisation lifting of a longtime ban on leather andbetween her mother choke from the smell, choose a jobnearly and a family. told how they would be required to dress and export wasn’t pushedtheleather prices through Anshika only one.

Across the the In Seth makes clear this is notover an easy milieu. the light of itthe celebrations the US afterthe Garm Hava comes a lively whether our theydecades would have freedom to work roof, paving in thenorth way Indian for Chinese synthetic board, especially families, a changing Even its though Haresh is “quick visa rules, it isKhanna imperative that weto exor not. documentary on the Agra shoe trade, leather-substitutes massive Relevant working wife is still seenin as asome kindway. of a blot Lata’s mother” that the hidesofwere look plain withintoour homes and take cognisance made (name by thechanged), grandsonaof one of those refuAnshika daughter-in-law footage from GarmNikita, Hava makes a split-second on the family’s honour. another daugh- the depression, from ‘fallenloss animals’, not slaughtered of financial freedom andones, gees theis tangewalla of. Atul whose story featured might in the have book,spoken told me appearance, while the voiceover ter-in-law, told meunremarked, that her mother-in-law nev- self-respect and also that didon not accept hides that is “they inflicted the forcibly un-from Sabharwal, whoher debuted a director in Bollythat when she met futureasmother-in-law has anthe elderly gentleman describing er blessed marriage purely because she how Muslim slaughterhouses”, the stench employed here.

That would mean taking of on‘dirty wood family-and-real-estate for the first with time,2013’s she was told in no uncertain saga shoe traders would a basket was asmall-time working woman.

Even when shetake offered work’ seems to hang in the air.

I wishand Sabharthe formidable forces of tradition, culture sets out here to map termsAurangzeb, that she would have to quit herthe job contours and to quit full her of shoes aroundwas the told mandi (wholesale job, Nikita that she family wal had taken some of that undeserved, values.

Sadly,on that’s a challenge very few linof the Anshika businesstaught that hisinfather quietly discourstay home. an international market).

But while we’re told gleeful postwouldn’t be accepted because her the professiongering are ready for.disdain. aged him from In Their Shoes is school in Mumbai and entering. had been dating Rahul Partition anecdoteher of aforever.

Bania trader al life had tarnished Whatwho waswent critic based in Delhi structured, with shots of t@veenavenugopal sincestraightforwardly the two were in Class 10. Because she was fromto handling leather gingerly in a towel shocking me wasn’t the fact that these sto- to trisha gupta is a writer and Agra and its shoe karkhanas interspersed with sorting out leather pieces by hand, the Garm t@chhotahazri

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BAWDY LINE

Scrambled eggs Third-party reproduction, as it plays itself out in the market, is a violation of the fundamental premise of caste — endogamy

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shutterstock

ocyte retrieval is an ultrasoundguided obscenity. It is an invasive, needle-foisted f***, and I use that phrase advisedly. It’s done to a needy young woman whose ovaries are plumped up (on Gonadotropins for about 12 days) to a point of having a gaggle of sappy follicles.

Her legs are hauled up in stirrups and her Aligning my words parts prepped (with saline, inside-out) by a Mussoorie changes hard-bitten Mallu nurse. Then a truncheonwith the seasons, from like ultrasound transducer probe coupled winter snowfall to with a long metal tube is heaved into her vagimonsoon mist, yet na and manipulated till it rests against the the landscape has vaginal vault and can see (ultrasonically), in a constancy virender singh negi the recto-uterine pouch, the brilliantly puddled burlesque in her ovaries.

For the harvest, a 30-centimetre needle is inHOME SPUN troduced through the metal tube to puncture the vault of the vagina and bayonet the ovary, It was from a small but perkily formed of caste — endogamy. The system of caste was repeatedly, to drain the sap from each of those young lady (a donor, now a gamete broker) held in unchanging equilibrium for about follicles. In the sap, she gives up the most pre- that I received a sort of halfway Marxist expla- 2,000 years by an absolute prohibition on sexcious sequins she owns. Her oocytes. nation of caste as superstructure in third-par- ual congress across caste. The word jati is acFor third-party reproduction, the donor ty reproduction. Quite clearly, Assisted tually untranslatable into English. The closest sells her eggs to infertile couples. These eggs Reproduction isn’t the Asiatic mode of pro- descriptor would be ‘birth group’. The caste will be fertilised in vitro by the barren wom- duction. It is a free market. The prices are de- list above of egg donors includes the ‘ontologan’s husband’s sperm. It fetches the donor termined at the intersection of supply and ically unclean’ (manual scavengers, sweepers anywhere between ₹30,000 to a lakh. By com- demand. In this market though, individuals and hide skinners), the ‘ontologically menial’ mon consensus (ICMR guidelines), she’s al- with subordinate social identities have be- and those listed under the Criminal Tribes Act, lowed to peddle six ovarian cycles. come owners of capital. It is estimated that 60 1871 (from a tribe “addicted to the systematic The ICMR guidelines mandate complete per cent of donors are Muslim and about 80 commission of non-bailable offences”). hometown of Mussoorie didn’t exanonymityf my for gamete donors.

The egg donor tendoftothe berest first-person places, though they en- The per cent are Dalits.

It’s a bit trite, but cliffs that fallof away beneath It’s ainplace ontology these castesmy is feet. found have been to invent has to signist, onI awould consent form (inforced her own lan- it. courage omniscience asand well.the Dalit, for chapter it must be said: the Muslim more vertical than horizontal.

10 of Manusmriti.

It describesEverything the hor- is Most writersamong tend toother locate themselves guage) that includes, things, the in any writer, cartography of the printsavarnaFor Hindus, is the the anthropological ‘other’. either up or down. Mullingar Hill, named rors of miscegenation, of hypergamy and hy-after setting, following:a‘I specific understand that whether there willit’s be Mysore, no is like a mapmy surveyed with instruAs ed an page empirical exercise, wife and I conanother hometown in Ireland (from where pogamy (f***ing up and f***ing down), more or Manhattan.

It’s where an author directMalgudi or indirect contact between the recipments ducted a seriescalibrated of interviewsby with memory gamete do- and Captain Young, the original European settler, elegantly called anulomyena (with the grain) from, he oridentity she establishes a imagination ient, writes and me, andand mywhere personal will nors theodolites and brokers as—athose part ofinner an amateur caste and departed for India) the marks the The site loss of the and pratiloman (against grain). of first perspective onthe the rest of the For me, not be disclosed to recipient or toworld. the child levels that measure altitude and disauditspirit for two of Delhi’s most prolific ART clinpermanent building in Mussoorie.

Today, endogamy produces mixed castes. These are this is use as much point of view, as it is bornMussoorie through the of my agamete.’ tance, asno well as representaour most secret fears and de- steep hill ics. This is in way is Shudras, an extension oftheir the Mall Road, at not one of progenmy birthplace.

Through the windowpanes Registers maintained

by Assisted Reproduc- of tive sires. of the Long trends before in Delhiheor was declared a the eastern ofThey town.are The twisting incline, itorsend was. a rung below. my study, I(ART) lookclinics eastward across agenthe Tehri tive Technology and donor Salman Rushdie wrote about which follows northblasphemer, India, but it does its share precipitous contours in of the The further loss of endogamy sun rises each morning cies Hills, are where worksthe of apolitical physicalwhen ‘Imaginary Homelands,’ lost places where we of question-begging.

Women ridge, is lined with shops.

Each contains ecthese mixed castes produces the The capital in the I sit at myThey desk.have Thiseverything familiar vista anthropology. on changes the fromseek or exile from real-market the refuge following castes arethe uncertain centric characters outcastes, and andstories. it goesMullingar on, like ais dereproductive with the seasons, from on winter snowfall to subject that is phenotypically the surface. ities of found a post-modern world. Through commonly in the oocyte lineatedself-fulfilling by personalities much prophecy.asA lot of as is with the thenarsubalterns mist, yet the landscape has a conThat’smonsoon allowed. Along with baseline anthropoeach in of us traderatives (at thesewe twowrite, ART clinics; landmarks — the tailor who wordage is expended in chapter stancy anchors and alignsbody my words metric datathat — age, height, weight, mass— the traces ourorder): existence to an Jaelusive no particular Dhanak, in and the nonick of 10 tostitches produceclothes a typology syntax andof grammar of place. index,inalienable skin colour, colour eyes, colour of tav, Balai, point Balmiki, of origin Khatik, that liesGiabeyond time; the mechanic formed who can fix menclature of categories Being in the foothills of the status, Himalayas, hair, facial physiognomy, marital pastoverand Dhobi, now. When I write of rah, here Julaha, Mazhabi evenpermutations the most derelict due anything, to the many looking thedetails Gangetic plain and the medical history, of education, etc.MahabhaAnd Sikh,Mussoorie, it’s often a town thatdonors When Pasi. The caste location of the is from vehicles; the DVD vendor such of these is ordained an I write ofunions.ofEach rata range of snow peaks toward Tibet, evidential ‘matrimonial’ photographs — my on a map, but a ficneverdoesn’t in the exist registries.

The donor is therefore whose video parlour betelis an old occupation. idol-dressers, Mussoorie, it’s oftenBed-makers, mind travel in either direction.

Or remain pimped upcan whole-body portraits and closetional placeidentity. nestledThe somewhere without a social idea that identity paan shop, withhorse-traina selection of indigo-dyers, saddlers, a town leaf thatsellers, doesn’t where is. Writing is ahigh lonely business; the ups, for thatit is their lure, the cheekbones, in the of myofbrain. can be an folds indicator merit or worth,exist and oners, films that rivals the Oscars. rope-twisters, butchers, hill coolies,Each a map, but a companionship readers the heritable cephalicof and nasaloccurs index,only the after whichlabour pri- market that, inEven turn, non-fiction, determines their of these characters is part of an all there. The Antevasayi, for instance, fictional they’re place nestled the hard work isin done.

The point of departure promise of fecundity the eyes.

Close-ups are outcomes, marilyobviously depends doesn’t on observation exert itself here. ongoing defines has a Chandala parentstory and athat Nishada fe- this somewhere in the male story is oftenclues. ‘a room one’s also for agenealogical Asofper theown,’ ICMRas Virandnot experience, as much to At least sizeably.owes A utilitarian view is applace.

Likecarcass a narrative that demale are the removers. folds of myparent. brain These ginia Woolf out, yet what liesthis beyond guidelines, clientspointed aren’t supposed to see fictional places of deparplied.these Fair skin, a certain height, physiognom- The Chandala (scavenger) tours andcomes digresses, road up fromthe a pratidoors and windows equallydo. important. data the or the photos, but theyisalways The ic likeness, ture and is infectious a cleanreturn. medicalWriting record, no Mullingar Hill takes bends loma union between a Shudra malesharp parent at the edge ofwhoredom the yard, aissilver pointThe of atrees registry of oocyte that lanformgood of literary trigonometry, diseases, ovarian reserve, previous moth- and a Brahmin female and climbs parent.out of sight, even as it gur looking down branch, the alarm uxorious husbands andfrom theirawives canor connuwhich charts a and landscape erhood, graduate degree, rarely, Mongolto leadprovide us home.

The registries inpromises the ART clinics the of them a barking in the valley biallycall give the deer glad somewhere eye before making thefacial triangulation of words, ideas and oid orthrough Caucasoid composite: these could From thespot timefor mycommensal grandparents firsttocame unwilling blind taboos below. Every bookwomen I’ve written in Musthe selection.

These aren’tstarted sexually emotions. my most recent book, Becoming be a suppressed. be the basis forIn differential and discriminatoto Mussoorie in 1916, our family lived here, “The real remedy forhas breaking soorie, when I wasaccountable. away from home. available, buteven they’re sexually Mountain:Not Himalayan Journeys inthere Search ry practices. caste. Obviously, areof the and on, for nearly a century.

Yet, asinana itincasteoff is intermarriage,” wrote Ambedkar mountains remain my compass In These third-party reproduction, one isn’t al-— the the insist Sublime, set out from MussootimesSacred whenand clients on IBrahmin and Jain erant lay no to ancestral claims on this lecture he writer, was to Ideliver the Jat-Pat Todak that points me back I belong. lowedneedle to administer identity towhere the eggs, so oocytes, rie and traveltointo mountains, seeking but what do? the Dubeys, Tiwaris, Ostown.

Though, I’d like tooff think the itplace Mandal in Lahore (it was called because novels,that of which written a paths the onlyHill-station labelling activity comesI’ve about is wals to high(for places likeare Nanda Devithan and Kaiand Jaiswals retail) scarcer claims me. questioned the scriptures). “Nothing else will few,religious. always face in two directions: toward usually Apart from that, these are the ButThe each of these circuitous journeys hens’lash. teeth. capital in the reproductive this monthly column,The authors chronicle serve as(In the solvent of caste.” loss of endo- the mountains the north and the lists higher innocent of social to stratification, eventually brings me back home. market is with the subalterns. call home.) gamycities in a they lab can’t be a bad thing either. spreading plains to themissing south. This is the to- Third-party strangely, there’s a category in them If I imagined Mussoorie, rather reproduction, as it playsthan itselfliving 15 books, is now out with pography that gives our fiction itsCaste. expansive that might particularly confound many. here for mostofofthe myfundamental life, I would have made up stephen alter, author of asatwik@gmail.com out, is a violation premise panoramas, as well as the sheltering insularity the same paths I walk every day, the same Becoming a Mountain. He is also the founding director of being perched on top of a ridge. Mountains shapes of the ridges around me, and the same of the Mussoorie Writers’ Mountain Festival

A place of one’s own

For Stephen Alter the mountains of Mussoorie remain his compass — the needle that points to where he belongs

stephen alter

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Ambarish Satwik is a Delhi-based vascular surgeon and writer

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Pooling along Grey’s anatomy

In it together Lastmile connectivity, finding people who share a route and comfort level with co-passengers are among the prime concerns of those willing to carpool r ragu

READER’S DIE JEST

A company that offers to iron out creases and make the shared-ride concept work in India

Since they won’t let you see the Fifty Shades of Grey, read it here in black and white

arunava sinha

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year ago in Hyderabad, Anurag ance papers, and other documents. Zify ike mostwas lecherous buta lot lazy Rathor spending of people, time at corporate czarvehicle Christian today unveiled to persuade Ms Anastasia Steele to sign a forinspects the for Grey its road-worthiness you were waiting to taxi readstands.

Fifty Shades autorickshaw and Each his of Bondage Dominance Submis- mal agreement not to disclose the terms of andcollection other safety parameters.

Its four-member ofday, Greyhe bywould watching theat movie — get- sion arrive the stands material to reporter Anasta- their relationship to the stock markets are teamMasochism also verifies the owner’s credentials turned onpassengers, in a darkened movie and offerting prospective mostly IT sia Steele.

Further revealing theout decaying through social profiling.

“It filters a lot of questionable. True, revealing such informahall is so muchthe more discreet than breathing professionals, option of commuting with mindset ofpeople. the market Mr Grey are ad- tion may have led to insider trading by bears, unwanted A feweconomy, of these processes heavily in the room.

And anow they mitted his friends and living him. The charge: nominal to Msand Steele that he maximise his for the knowledge that Mr Grey is a BDSM enautomated some arecould done manually,” won’t allow movie on to be because amount andthe feedback thereleased, ride-sharing.

Af- investment Rathor says.in sexual activity only by adopting thusiast would lead to an erosion of investor in Sanskaar SpankHer. terIndia weeks of thisbeats exercise, he was convinced theThe dominant position in any relationship, in confidence in his company. However, Mr Grey same rigour is applied to passengers, So,people Anastasia Steele, majoring in journalism that were not averse to sharing a vehi- the displaying hisacontempt for social- appears to have made the fundamental mistoo,process who have to upload government-issued and virginity, decided matters in her ism cle. The challenge wastointake bringing together in sex.

ThatasheAadhar conducted Steele to his ID proof such card Ms or passport be- take of handing over power to the consumer, own… er… and hands, migratedintoaIndia, and used museum in his fore car owners passengers private theyhelicopcan request a ride. which has made many corporaher successive sprawling city. jobs at different newspapers, ter only underlined thecompany appro- website, car On the tions pay a heavy price in the news channels is and “Carpooling anwebsites old con-here to tell the priation of sexual powercan byupload the owners their ride past. In his decision to demonstory thatitthe censor won’t let you see wealthiest 1 per cept, but has neverboard worked cent of plan the on a daily or or commute strate to Ms Steele the pleasures Ana loves Christian. on the big is the in India.

Wescreen. decidedThis to first un-result, scooped world, whose assets arebasis. currentweekly Other members of erotic activities while being Christian whips Ana. exclusively for you.

Yes, we know, derstand the psychology of the pleasur- ly the same as who thoseshare of the re-route can use the tied up, blindfolded, spanked Ana rejects Christian. e’s all yours. people who travel and then admaining 99 perthe cent.

ZifyJust app like to request a ride. and stripped, he allowed her to Christian ejects AnaRathor, founder and CEO of Zify Anurag dress the difficulties they the quintessential proletariat- will get an The co-travellers develop a romantic fondness for #TinyTales It all says began on Buzzfeed: faced,” Rathor. victim of the modern world, Ms starts. There SMS once the ride him, which will severely restrict Kate ill andtoasked Anapeoto interview Chris- Steele was not repelled, Afterfell talking several sensing pick-up and sector. The company are designated relies on several to his ability to exploit her‘Nos’ to his tian instead of the her. probYou’ll never believe instead the seductive ple, Grey he discovered of drop-offallure points. ensure safe shared-rides. own advantage. Falling in love what happened next. last-mile lems centred around wealth and its accompanying Women members have the “We are not carpooling in theis middle of with the consumer a dangerSeventy-two finding heart-warming connectivity, people questions that sexual entitlement. flexibility to insist on a female ous night.

At anyand given time, there are appears thousands liaison, although Mr Grey to Ana to findlevout if he was gay. whoasked share aChristian route, comfort co-passenger; car owners can be of people on itthe and wecertain don’t allow veresisting, is roads, by no means that his He answered ‘no’ to all of them. el with co-passengers and cost Then Timesspecify Now picked the story: otherupsuch preferences resistance hicles withwill tinted glass,” says persist over theRathor. sequels.

Twenty-five to find if you’re falling sharing.

Onceways these wereout tackDo you, Mronline.

Grey, deny that you wished Ana IT professional Vishakha Within eight months of launching, Zify has in withsure thethe man you’re interviewing, led,love he was shared-ride sign about Zify her over Bharadwaj agreement has been using 5,000 registered andupthe numbers Eventually, the storyusers wound — as all stoWhat you to pay fora non-disclosure while he only wantsfind to have hard sex. sharing an AC concept would takers. relationship with you?

Why, in“Earlier, that case, dida ries for five months.

I was are growing. do — on Twitter: car is Guess what Christian buyingless at than the what “What you pay for sharingwas an AC you violate terms of your ownmy proposed little unsure about co-pasThe team tries is working make app more Christian to buy to Ana withthe an expensive you the hardware store where Anaforworked.

(Hint: car is less than what you pay a when you discovered she a virgin? sengers.

I began bywas asking other laptop user-friendly and less data-consuming.

As usand car, threatens her with spanking. pay for a NDA threerope, duct tape).he says. three-wheeler,” No, I will not verified take ‘virginity automatically im- Typical community members ers on the move can ill-afford to waste their Sanghi manoeuvre #AchheDin wheeler Seven to avoid drunk-texting the plies non-disclosure’ Rathorstrategies invested his savings as as anNow, answer. did phone about them.

I am Why not only batteryAAPtard or data Christian plan in searching for Left liberal whips Ana’s guy have a borrowed crush on while well you as money from celebrating you deflower Ana on your bed without signing buttocks comfortable with carpooling nearby cars, appShould will attempt to work six the times. have been 666 your graduation. friends to set up his dream venthe agreement? youmade suggesting that virbutAre have new friends as times without GPS. A yet-to-be-patented algorithm #NumberofDevil What to dolast when ture.

In May year,you he wake raisedup in a hotel gins cannot sign agreements? well,” she says. No, I will NOT that relies onChristian. location matching be used Ana loves Christian will whips Ana. room in the bedevent of the guy you have theIndus hots letOf ₹10 lakh at an organised

by The you talk youpaid explain.

No,passenger, you CANNOT the ₹5until per km by each Zi- Ana instead.

Rathor is, in fact,Christian currentlyejects in Ireland rejects Christian.

Ana for but who insists must be paperwork Entrepreneurs (TiE) there in Hyderabad.

By June, he whip Never ever ever fy getsme. a commission of 20ever per ever cent ever or ₹1ever per #TinyTales to tap that market. before sex.with Zify, describing it as a company ever was ready attempt to make submissive. km, and the car ownerme keeps the rest. “We are “We Ana are in talks Ireland to Did take thewith lift down andauthorities out of Christhat is making carpooling work in India by trying to reduce the charges to ₹3.5 per km. tian’s launchlife theforever? app in that aswhom it has aat huge Whocountry, will beat the The Hindu make its charging justfelt ₹5 compelled per km for to a shared AC obsercar. wentwill ahead andtheput the end?

ButThe ourEconomist commission remain same,” market of commuters as well as car owners,” #lulz #sequel vations in an op-ed article: The business model is simple. Car owners whole thing on its cover: says Rathor. he says.

Signalling of the capitalismregister with the decadence company with proof of a valThe company strategies focuses employed Christian on by theMr city’s office- arunava sinha translates classic and contemporary and non-fiction into English rashmifiction pratap fuelled sexual excesses Western civilisation, id driving licence, car of ownership and insur- Grey, CEOof of whom Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc, goers,the a bulk work in the booming IT Bengali

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BIKIFEEDIA

Bananas over catfish A light curry, often dismissed as food for the ailing, evokes fragrant memories

bikramjit ray Gentlemen’s club Nearly one-third of the 1,475 NSE-listed companies are yet to appoint women directors the hindu archives

Get on board, women A handful of accomplished Indians are courted as companies scramble to appoint at least one woman board director before April 1

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enu Sud Karnad, managing director developed by Prime Database, 32 per cent of vidual must have some experience and knowlof Housing Development Finance the 1,475 NSE-listed companies had not ap- edge to be able to contribute to the board and Corporation (HDFC), sits on the pointed a woman director until February 21. participate in discussions. Today, you don’t board of seven companies. Ramni The deadline now demands at least 12 appoint- have enough women with the experience to Nirula, former CEO and managing director of ments a day over the following month. be independent (directors),” he says.

ICICI Securities, is also a board director in sevCredit Suisse’s global study on gender diverHead hunters are working overtime to find en companies including Jubilant Foods and sity and corporate performance found that be- suitable candidates. “For effective board funcAvantha Power and Infrastructure. Former tween 2005 and 2011, companies with female tioning, you need prior experience. And it is McKinsey executive Ireena Vittal is on the board representation outpernot easy to find such candidates,” boardfind of six companies including fish irresistible.

All kindsWipro, of fish,Axis es- formed others terms of tried to the recreate theincombination, but failed says R Suresh, Managing Director Magur– RGF Machh’er JholSearch. (a light Bankpecially and Tata—Global Beverages. and this is because of where I share price.There Even must their return on magic in my miserably. have been Executive Moreover, catfishwomen curry) hesitate to join the A handful Indian women grew upof— accomplished river fish cooked in light cur- equity was in four father’s(ROE) hand and theper kagjicent lebu (kaffir lime).

The deadline of April find themselves asfish, India Incmatters. scram- higher, ries. When itpursued comes to size at 16ofper The star thecent. curry, though, was the planboards of companies that have a 1 now demands at2 catfish, cut and cleaned bles to comply the requirement to from have tain For me as well with as many fellow Indians Among and notIndian the fish,companies, and I dare say it because I muddy or are 1 large potato, record peeled and cutlargely ownleast 12 appointments at onepart woman from theleast eastern of thedirector country,on theboard smaller the over 507 womenversion that’s have the alsopast hadyear, a vegetarian ed by a single family, he adds. into wedges a day over the 1 plantain,K peeled and cut joint managApril 1. better Not surprisingly, companies are fa- have fish the it tastes. been appointed to 572ofdi-the recipe is to equally delicious.

The secret Ullas Kamath, following month into wedges vouring either family members or non-indeTake the smallest catch in the basket — mou- rectorship positions.

At least 141 fry the vegetables before starting the curry ing director at Jyothy Laborato1tsp whole pendent directors. rola maach (mola carplet) in Bengali. We usual- of these positions and to get the mixare of non-indecoriander (which cools ries, cumin agreesseeds that while it is not 1.5tsp easy gingertopaste “We talk young India, with enough ly have it as about a starter at home, deep-fried until pendent, while vacanciescumin and turthe stomach and is80 medicinal), get talented women, a lot 2tbsp fried bori (the Bengali lawyers professionals who crunchy,and withfinance a light squeeze of lime.

Theyhave are were by women belonging mericfilled powder used to flavour the base just depends on the companies too. version of vadi) done well for themselves. to beisgivlike non-vegetarian chips,They and need the trick to to theCatfish promoter group. here “These women right. is favoured above othershall fish “Good 1tsp companies don’t find it too difficult to coriander powder en a chance.

But if companies don’t to have chew until they dissolve, bones and all,want in your theitsame voice as the promoter, because is light, quite bland and easydefeatto di- attract1tsp talent,” he says. cumin powder appoint to boards, then even highly ing the very purpose mouth. Istrangers had a similar fish while of genuine gender divergest. Most people would turn up B Thiagarajan, 2tsp turmericexecutive powder director at Blue accomplished individuals can’tinmake it,” says sity,” says Haldea. researching for a TV show their noses at this curry and call Star, says company did face some difficulSaltthe to taste Pranav Haldea, director at Prime Coimbatore withmanaging a Nadar family.

Abhay Gupte, senior In- ties in Oil it rugir jholdirector or curryat forDeloitte the ailing. finding the right candidate. “Directors Database group.I clearly rememIn that version, dia, takes a different view.

“You don’t get them shouldWater But I beg to differ. bring strategic value and it should not from nseinfobase.com, berAccording the lady to of data the house first justcurry, for the sakeGetting of gender diversity. indi-a be an honorary position. We wanted someone the recipe hasAn been The star of the 1 Clean the catfish and rub it drowning the live fish in milk bebit of an adventure in itself, since who could bring entrepreneurial values, though, was the with salt andinturmeric. fore starting the dish. I felt the everyone I know has a different had grown business, market realplantain and not the 2 Fry ina oil until the knew flesh turns sauce was pungent, but the fish version and the person whose ities…”white. he says.

Finding them in one person fish, and I dare say it Remove and keepallaside. was lost in the crowd. recipe I have grown up eating is was not theyadd found perfect fit 3 easy.

In theFinally, same oil, the the cumin because I have also Living in Delhi, the choice of no more. in Shobana executive vice-chairperseedsKamineni, followed by the potatoes had a vegetarian theHospitals, plantain. Cook until the river fish is sometimes limited to version that’s equally What I have here is courtesy of son of and Apollo who joined the board vegetables get a reddish tinge. the larger varieties, so I crave the my kakima (aunt) Sreelata.

She in June last year. delicious In a to small mix women the dry directors, joys of eating the smaller lot. I sacrificed her siesta in Kolkata to To be4 able findbowl, suitable spices says with companies water to form don’t know about you, but for honour my request. Her version Thiagarajan willahave to necpaste. The right colour for this me particular dishes have strong is the closest to the one I would essarily promote as many women as possible mix is a very light green, so keep connections with incidents in be served at home. A word of cau- to top management levels.

“Then there will be trying till you get it right. my life — they are like time machines. And one tion: the measures are based on guesswork, a ready5pipeline talent Add this of paste to for thethe board level,” such dish that I absolutely love is a catfish cur- which, in the case of most seasoned chefs like he says.vegetables and mix well. ry made with plantains, bori (or vadi, dried my aunt, is mostly on the mark.

Deloitte’s Gupte points that 6 Put in the bori andout then addeach comwater (a couple of requirements, cups at least) which marble-sized balls of dal, sometimes flaAs mentioned earlier, the base recipe for pany has its own specific and the let the vegetables voured with asafoetida) and very few spices. this dish can also be enjoyed in a vegetarian can make search for the boil rightuntil candidates done. Add salt towill taste.

It’s simple, homely fare but, somehow, it al- avatar. It is cooling and perfect for the day extra challenging.

“We have to be a little 7 Once the vegetables and the ways makes me happy. when you want to go easy on the stomach. I patient…

The essence of the requirement has bori are done, add the andto give it This curry was eaten at home when your fe- have treated myself to this curry on many a to be understood and we willfish have bring it to another boil until all ver broke and you were particularly hungry. I delicate occasion and I can safely declare that some time to mature,” adds. Till then, it’s the ingredients arehecombined. remember relishing a plate of rice and fish you will digest this in no time. boundPS to Ifbeyou lip are service to gender diversity in going vegetarian, curry, specially mixed with lime by my father, India Inc. the dish is ready to eat once the bikramjit ray is executive director of (right) BW Hotelier who would come back from office justdirector to do with Perfect fit Shobana Kamineni, (above) executive vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospitals, is an independent Blue Star mohammed yousuf; Ramni Nirula serves vegetables and bori are cooked. on the board of seven companies graham crouch/bloomberg that. That taste is unbeatable. For years, I’ve rashmi pratap t@bikramjitray

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In vine company

of his dad. It’s also our way to connect with a global audience, for who doesn’t like Elvis,” explains Manchanda. In bits and pieces, Deep Singh’s origins are revealed — he was born in Africa, moved to Amritsar with his aunt after his parents disappeared, studied in France and the US. Unlike Bruce Wayne, heir to a billion-dollar empire, he has a normal job that “allows him to travel and implement technology globally, as a cover for his secret missions.”

Much like 007’s R&D specialist Q, Super Sikh agonising over the Kaur name,supplying we decided to call it first attempts at winemaking certainly we- too has Gurpreet him with ren’t ‘bottled poetry’; but after a fair share of fabulous ‘Krsma’ —gadgets short for Uma and Krishna.

We also and weapons.

An acclaimed applied to theshe’s stateagovernment to recognise botched trials, I did come up with something ninja master, “highly-educated, multithis area as scientist”. the appellation Hampi drinkable. Yet it wasn’t anything like the disciplinary And it isofnot mere Hills. coinThis wasthat the easy wines I had tasted from vineyards abroad. cidence Deeppart.

Singh’s arch-enemy is TaliNothing, and I mean absoluteAt this point, my passion for ban squad leader Salar Al-Amok, a villain so ly nothing, can he prepare you up to wine had to take a backseat bedesperate to join the ISIS that is blowing run a winery. all terrorist my dabcause I started my pharmaceutischools in Pakistan just toDespite boost his winemaking, a short cal company, Granules India. But profile. “He isbling crazyin and driven by insecurity, course University of California I never gave up my dream of and saysat Alden.

The region isego part ofgreed,” and all our travelsdevices to obstarting a winery.

Super SikhDavis, might have Batman’s the Deccan Plateau, In 2007, my wife Uma and I at an averageand servelicence viticulture winemakJames Bond’s to kill,and but his stories altitude ingcontemporary processes, making own found a tiny vineyard nestled will talk about issues our faced by of about 500m, anespecially entirely different examongst the rocky terrain in hundreds of wine Sikhswas daily, in a post-9/ watered by the perience.

Everything from long Hampi Hills, just 70km from the 11 world problems of misplaced racism Tungabhadra river where hours of For manual labour and World Heritage Site. The region often rear their head. instance, the Sikh to thethan real300 romance of is part of the Deccan Plateau, at coalition hasplanning reported more instancan average altitude of about bringing to life a unique wine was (and continues to be) one 500m, watered by the Tungabhadra river, which originates in the Western grand adventure.

Ghats 500km away and drains into the Tungabhadra reservoir nearby. One look and we A season of hard labour knew we had found the place for our vineyard. With the help of Peter Hayes, our consultant We bought it, and after many long hours of viticulturist from Australia, we quickly pulled

In 2007, a Hyderabadi couple found a tiny vineyard nestled in the rocky terrain of Hampi Hills, just 70km from the World Heritage Site, and a sip of wine was never the same again

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n his book The Silverado Squatters, Robert Louis Stevenson likens vine-planting to the beginning of mining for precious metals. The winegrower also prospects, he writes. “One corner of land after another is tried with one kind of grape after another.

Those lodes and pockets of earth, more precious than the precious ores, that yield inimitable fragrance and soft fire; those virtuous Bonanzas, where the soil has sublimated under sun and stars to something finer, and the wine is bottled poetry.” Stevenson is, of course, writing about California. But he could just as well be talking about India — another emerging winegrower’s destination.

Yet this wasn’t apparent to anyone in 1971 in Guntur. Having grown up there, I knew nothing of wine till I had my first sip at the age of 17.

The local bishop gave me some to taste, and that’s when my love affair with wine began.

Coming from a background in Chemistry, I decided I had to try my hand at making it. It wasn’t long before I had a room full of demijohns, with quietly fermenting wine. These

shutterstock/nailia schwarz

He loves Elvis...

Hates bad guys

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Meet Super Sikh, the world’s only turbaned-superhero

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ast week, in a video that went viral, a artist Amit Tayal came on board, and a KickSikh schoolboy was subjected to ra- starter campaign was launched this year. cial abuse in Georgia, US. Filming the Twenty-seven hours into the campaign, they entire episode with his phone cam- had achieved their target of $5,000, and a era, the boy captured school bullies calling month later raised $22,000, nearly 400 per him “terrorist, terrorist”. But what if the bully, cent more. With four issues of the comic done who perhaps lived in an all-white neighbour- — the first issue is out and available for downhood and never met a Sikh person, had read load — the comic world has found one of its Super Sikh? “Maybe then, when he sees a first multicultural, non-superpower-wielding brown kid in the school bus, his first thought superhero in Deep Singh. won’t be ‘looks like a terrorist, let’s mess with “Every culture needs its own heroes. The him’, but rather ‘looks like Deep Singh… I love world has had just a few comic heroes, who that comic!’” says Eileen Alden, co-creator of keep getting recycled,” says Manchanda. the world’s newest superhero While the Marvel universe — comic, Super Sikh. Meet Deep with a female Thor, a black CapSingh aka Super Sikh — an IT protain America and a Muslim Ms fessional by day, a turbaned-suMarvel — is slowly opening its Twenty-seven hours perhero by night, who is also an doors to diversity, the comic into the campaign, undercover British Secret Service world still has few homegrown they had achieved agent. He loves Elvis and hates heroes who deal with contempotheir target of $5,000, baddies. Bearded and turbaned, rary problems or even routine and a month later, the 20-something hunk has menaces like racism. “It’s time to raised $22,000 James Bond’s suave and the skills have heroes who actually reflect of assassin Jason Bourne. He is their ethnicity,” says Manchanjoined by female sidekick Janelle da. “We want to support the idea Williams, an African-American that respecting other people and with her own “ass-kicking” skills, and a female defending the innocent are universal qualiprotagonist Gurpreet Kaur, his cousin and a ties. Good guys and villains come in all “STEMinist” (women in the fields of science, packages.” technology, engineering and math). Together, In the first issue of the comic, Deep Singh is they take on bullies, racists and the dreaded seen bidding farewell to the schoolgirls in PaSalar Al-Amok, leader of a Taliban squad. kistan he rescued from an explosion, an epiIn 2011, screenwriter Alden and Silicon Val- sode eerily similar to the recent Peshawar ley entrepreneur Supreet Manchanda were incident. Super Sikh climbs into his cool car, tossing up ideas for stories with a Sikh protag- cranks up the volume on the radio blaring onist. They talked of fast cars, Elvis imperson- Blue suede shoes and hits the road for his next ators and their love for comics. Soon, mission. A superhero with a penchant for Elstorylines began to shape up, award-winning vis? “He is an uber-Elvis fan as it reminds him

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Relax, it’s just a turban Super Sikh is out to kick some intolerant ass

es of hate crimes, workplace discrimination, school bullying and racial stereotyping since 9/11, including the shooting at a gurudwara in Wisconsin in 2012. That the Sikhs, who have a distinguished military history, can’t serve in the US military in religiously-mandated turbans and beards, has only worked against the community. “No one takes offence at being called a Muslim — that’s ignorant. What’s offensive is being labelled as a threat to people.

Super Sikh is our response to not being heard — we are reclaiming the turban in a positive way,” says Manchanda.

Deep Singh will fight prejudice, not with preachy propaganda, but with justice. “It’s a comic, so it’s a simple story, yet readers will find that one can’t assume the ‘white guy’ is the good guy, the ‘guy in the turban’ is a terrorist, or a ‘damsel in distress’ is a weakling,” says Alden, who describes herself as the first known person to have become a Sikh while working on a comic. For her research to create Deep Singh’s character, she learned Gurmukhi, read the Gurbani and turned to Sikhism (formerly an atheist, she now goes by the surname Kaur). Now, how many superheroes can claim to have done that?

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STATES OF MATTER

The developing story Will the growth-versus-distribution debate finally be settled in favour of the former?

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here are few areas of settled concord distributive justice. And Sen was “with no evi- umph was transient, as the gains in purchasin economic theory. That the dy- dence and with only wishful thinking to sup- ing power were eroded by rampant inflation. namic of power is often determi- port his assertions (claiming that)...

When Narendra Modi rode the wave of dissukumar nant in the limited enclaves of redistribution should precede growth”. content to emerge winner in 2014, there were muralidharan consent has been evident in recent times in Sen maintained a lofty silence for a while, expectations that he would cut back on welthe growth-versus-distribution debate. but then responded with an admonition fare and restore a focus on so-called producResidual doubts about the tilt of current against the misrepresentation of his views. In- tive sectors. This intent was frontally critiqued policy were laid to rest with the Economic Sur- deed, a little pause would show that the rela- by a group of economists who, in turn, drew vey for 2014-15. In this assessment of the year tionship Bhagwati outlines in strict logical Bhagwati’s ire. With a clever play on words, gone by and prognoses for the immediate fu- and temporal precedence is not quite how Bhagwati termed the “leading economists” to ture, the Union Finance Ministry laid out the things work. The pattern of growth is deter- be “mischievous” and adept at “misleading”. maxim that “the importance of economic mined by income distribution, On the eve of the recent Union growth, both for lifting up those at the bottom in a relationship of reciprocal reBudget, Prime Minister Modi of the income and wealth distribution, and inforcement. The rural job guarshowed where his sympathies for providing opportunities for everyone in antee scheme, launched in 2005, lay. With heavy-handed irony, he that distribution, cannot be overstated”. The recognised this reality and disavowed any intent to cut back Difficulties could authorities referred to were the Columbia sought to create a mass-market on the job guarantee scheme, arise from states’ University economist Jagdish Bhagwati and by putting purchasing power insince he was aware of the inherown perceptions of his collaborator Arvind Panagariya, now the to the pockets of the poor. It may the utility of the rural ent political rewards. It was, he head of Niti Aayog, which supplants an ideo- have succeeded in this quest, said, a monument to the Conemployment Liquid returns The Chigurupatis drink to a good, if hard, life in Hampi, which has its own appellation now programme logically disfavoured Planning Commission. though without quite augmentgress’s failures over 65 years.

In a book published in 2013, Bhagwati and ing productive capacity in rural Though he could not envisage a out most ofhad thestated existing on the estate andandedication than I had ever can be the single Panagariya theirvines essential point up- edge, important one in India, time creating inherent risk futuremost in which the youth of the and acreage withGrowth selected varie- imagined. frontplanted in the fresh very title — Why Matters: If you pick too early, the grapes of inflation.We had to rip the rocky soil to a life of a wine.country, driven by aspiration, tals clones.Growth Uma and I dived in headPoverty first — depth three feet and create ideal conditions aren’t ripe enough.

Howand Economic in India Reduced If sent you out picktotoo The of fiscal burden was a cause would be diglate, holesthe in quite literally. most of the for the roots to penetrate soil. Thankfully, and the LessonsWe forwere Otherspending Developing Countries. will be overripe. Peterhe and thenot team use worry right from the the beginning.

But for grapes a pretence of employment, was about day over at the waist, heads was reasons, not a challenge, a bigofreservoir Thisbent book, curiously, camewith outour within a and few water tools to measure sugar,to acid and pH unrelated a purpleaspatch growth analytical to squander an easy opportunity gain politarms the tangle vines.ofCaring rain-harvesting waseconomy created tosince deal2004, with in weekssubmerged of another,in which put theofrange ques- for ripening grapes. But he makes the most ensued for the Indian icalthe capital. for grapevines, andperspecturning the aridrelieving conditions. dry climate tions addressedharvesting in rathergrapes different decisions on a combination of intuilargely thatThe concern.

With certainly unprece- crucial In seeming disregard of the PM’s disdain, Fithe intoUncertain a delicious butIndia complicated character our grapes,the butgovernment also makes tion tive. juice In An Glory: and its adds and experience. dented revenuetobuoyancy, nance Minister Arun Jaitley the next day acproduct is hardthe labour, andlaureate takes more knowl- cultivation challenging.

Muchtoofbegin the terrain Contradictions, Nobel economist As they say in Burgundy, youfor might onlyjobs. get seemed actually emboldened think- tually increased allocations rural dramatic of granite.such Over Amartya Sen, and his long-time collaborator has few was chances in aon lifetime to make a great ing aloud abouthillocks larger ambitions, as the aThere pressure the Centre following its topsoil washed away, so finding wine.

Jean Dreze, made a strong case for a welfare years, When we started we managed to rights the to food andhas education. decision to devolve — inout, accordance with Fihere was a bonus.

The economic iron-rich, build approach that would enhance human capabil- arable of the winery in time for the 2010 It all land turned sour with the global nancepart Commission recommendations — a soil of has2008. low For moisture and the vintage ities, making the poor participants in growth. rocky and 42 crushed a small quantity of Cabermeltdown a while,levels the Congresssubstantial per cent of tax revenues in the send their roots deep into boosting the ground, And then began the war of words. “Sen is vines Sauvignon the existing vineyard.

The led government held its nerve, its net divisible pool tofrom the states, against the current forwelfare nutrients, and focus their ef- winery not simply wrong; he also poses a serious dan- searching itselfDespite didn’t this, havesaid a roof in place as we spending on schemes.

Thatallmay have 32 per cent.

Jaitley, “adequate on ruling producing few grapes ger to economic policy in India,” wrote Bhag- forts were still made building it. The wine won the partyaanother term in power in provision (was) being for the schemes are robust rich,But conwati. Growth was a precedent condition for that we made was quite good, but it the 2009 generalwith election. the sense of tri- for the poor and the disadvantaged”. centrated flavours. did not meet our The minister’s numbers didexpectations not quite I often find it strange that decided not to release it. square with and the we detailed expenditure breakOver the years, the when people experience the utLater, of course, 2011 vindown for the year ahead.

And thatour is where the topsoil has washed ter beauty and romance of siptage lay. of Cabernet, mostly from accounting magic While claiming a higher away, so finding ping a cool glass of Cabernet newly acreage, came devolution ofthe funds toplanted the states, the Union arable land here was Sauvignon, they almost never out insisting really well, all vintages of Budget was still onand controlling how a bonus envision the long hours of care different for the subsethese were spent.

“Thevarietals significant sums that and labour that goes into cultiquent yearsstates were on alsothese good.proWe will be spent by the vation, pressing the grape and continued improveleap until grammes will ensure a to quantum inour exthe ageing process. The bulk of penditures in2013 theseCabernet, areas,” saidwhich Jaitley, was “I urgea the work is done manually — every single shock.

This vintage not up to the mark, states to utilise theirwas enhanced resources efplant is hand-inspected multiple times. Ever and again, we decided fectively in these areas.” not to release this as so often, Uma, who puts to use her knowledge our premiumcould Cabernet and had to own create Difficulties arise from states’ per-a in soil microbiology, excitedly shows me the second-line blend.

Theof whole experience ceptions of the utility the rural employfirst grapes of the season. Each time we go made us realise thatPowerful winemaking can besuch surment programme. politicians through the whole process of growing, har- prisingly if you get grapes and put as Sharadsimple Pawar—and Parkash Singh Badal vesting, crushing and fermenting. After four them a vessel,times, you’llspoken get wine.

On the other have, in recent against the emvintages, I understand the work — but also the hand, it’s incredibly subtle, and ployment guarantee,complex termingand it an inconvelove required to create a product. you’ll masterwage it. Thepayments more exniencenever as itcompletely compels higher perience youagricultural have, the more variation you see, for essential labour.

This is repreLike expectant parents the more you have to that learn.remains sentative of a realise certainyou viewpoint In any vigneron’s life, there is no greater, more strong Someamong believe that winemaking is an art, but agrarian elites influential in dramatic part of the year than the Crush — in mypolitics. book, itToisexpect a craft.an You take the uniquestate unchanged level of which begins when the grapes are picked and ness that the vineyard gives you go with it. commitment to the rural jobsand programme, continues through processing and fermenta- All the toil, labour, care andshifting patiencetowith despite the financial power the tion until the last drop of wine is in the barrel. which your vineyard will give you states, you maynurture be unrealistic.

The growth-versusIt’s like having a baby — about 9-10 months of adistribution wine with adebate sense ofmay time,soon placebeand persondecisively preparation followed by the actual birthing. ality.

Wine that can’t be made elsewhere, by settled in favour of the former, though or with Like expectant parents, we wait for the grapes others.

In short,political wine with a heart. unpredictable consequences. to ripen and for the crush to begin. And it is sukumarprasad muralidharan is a fellow the Indian krishna chigurupati is theatowner of justwhich as irrevocable; full of stress, hope, anxiety Vertical limits Is distributive justice contingent on growth, or is it the other way round? Here, a view of Visakhapatnam, awaits its transformation into a smart city KR DEEPAK InstituteEstates of Advanced Study, Shimla India and MD of Granules and elation. The decision to pick the grapes Krsma

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CREATURE FEATURE

Wide interests In search of the ‘pharmacy’-shrub Vasaka’s winged friends and the secret of its persistence

Stand by me The green acres of the Madras Christian College are home to 600 species of plants a muralitharan

Seeds of strife

Natural ties Vasaka flowers vasant kamath; (insert) a Purplethroated Carib hummingbird draws deep from a Heliconia bloom geoffrey giller

The much-loved green residents of Madras Christian College are being axed tobeaks make room his winter, on my first trip back to InSome plants emof female humdia since I’ve begun writing But this cothe notion that the only casualty mingbirds. Each Helifor concrete structures. thebody trees are not

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lumn, I spent some time in our garden just outside Delhi looking for plants tand animals to courtesy write about In first glance, of here.

Google searching Earth, for unusual creatures, a thick green coverI isalmost what didn’t notice one of the Madras area’s most common distinguishes Christian Colplants — the Vasaka shrub. fact,concrete I’d have mislege (MCC) fromInthe junsed it altogether weren’tin forChennai. a single Zoom white gle of Tambaram,ifaitsuburb flower caught a foggy furtherthat in and you my see attention a train ofonbuildings morning otherwise devoid of brightness. guarded by trees that are strikingly dissimilar began to — read about Vasaka, realised to Ieach other a stout trunk withand a rich upper something ourone knowledge of nacover; a tallodd andabout slender with a thinner ture — very wewizened seem to neighbours know a lot about crown; andoften, old and with aroot few branches interesting aspects of aninto organism, but disappearing the earth. almost nothing aboutspecies, other equally imporWith nearly 600 plant this anthropotant facets of of itsthe life.trees In the case Vasaka, morphic view is not anofoddity to we’ve known for ages thisofplant has exthe many students andthat alumni the 175-yearceptional medicinal Acrosswithout the Inold college.

“We wereproperties. all tree-huggers dian subcontinent, parts thissays plant have ever having an agenda to beofone,” Vishnubeen used to treatwho conditions ranging from priya Bhandaram, graduated in 2010. coughs to jaundice to dislocated One wouldn’t expect allegationsshoulders. of forest Even today, when aour lives that seemboasts more distant thinning against college an umfrom than ever before, youBut canthat’s buy capbilicalnature connection with its trees. exsules Vasaka extract atNanbargal the pharmacy.

I think actly of what Poovulagin (friends of it’s to say that, over thousands years, Vathefair earth) is saying about MCC. RRofSrinivasan saka substantially to human fromhas thecontributed NGO focused on environmental iswellbeing andadministration persistence. is indifferent to sues says the do weimage know of much about persisttheBut college’s being a rolethe model for ence the Vasaka plant plants forestofpreservation.

Theitself?

NGO’sThough social media face many of the same challenges that we aniand SMS campaigns have caught the attention mals plants’ inability to alumni move means that of thedo, city’s residents, and members their to theseover challenges are radicalhave solutions voiced concerns their alma mater ly different from ours. reproduction, losing an intrinsic partConsider of its identity. for“Woods instance.

Being stationary you can’t are a signature inmeans campuses like move around in search of a Woods mate, so(MCC’s flowering MCC and IIT. What is Deep culplants have evolved employasks other natural tural fest) without thetowoods,” Nityanand forces — an wind, water, bees,activist. butterflies, bats, Jayaram, environmental He claims birds and more — to search in their stead.

In that students send him pictures of the felling this role, covertly. these forces are called ‘pollinators’ activities Students are afraid to go on because they transfer pollen is(tiny grains that record, which, in his words, as worrying as are plant equivalent ofThe sperm) between inthe the “loss of biodiversity”. dissent, accorddividual plants. ing to one student, has not assumed an active

there are many routes conia species is thus to love and procreapollinated only by one tion — they areyet. visited political form Another admitted that the tion to make way for sex of hummingbird — development, earning by many different types frequent. ‘clearance’ is disturbingly you can’t get much pickthe name of kaaduvetti (clearer of forest). of MCC’s pollinators, least a points out that the official at statement ier than that!

Aware of the subterranean changes at the few of which will negative impact of transfer developmental activities college, Selvamony Returning the Vasaka presents a to much-needed the plant’s pollenbank, to another (hostel buildings, solar panel and other understandingflower I saw that winter mornof conservation.

“Conservaplant of the same species.

However, facilities) have been neutralised by measures tion is noting can we guessthe who might pollijust— prioritising protection of many these pollinators willsaplings. also visitItothsuch asofplanting of trees and attri- endangered nate it? Everything about this flower points species, but standing up for ecoer species’ flowers,toand transferred butes the activity the pollen dramatic increase to in us towards bees.

Bees find white flowers espelogical rather than human rights,” he says. the wrong species is wasted. Some plants are cially number of enrolments.

The statement and will often use flat petals Theattractive, shrub jungle MCC is ensconced in, therefore pickier, andtakes employ specialised pol- as adds that the college pride in the variety a landing platform.

The fine purple on which originally extended from Southlines Orissa linators whoon only flowers of a single plant this of life forms itsvisit grounds. platform can guide to by the pool of to Kanyakumari, has beenbees sullied high popspecies.

These plants don’t waste as much pol- nectar The 365-acre tropical dry evergreen forest the centre the flower. growth As the bee ulationatdensity andof economic in len, but riskMCC not getting all.aban- feeds on which stands pollinated used to beatan onareas. its payment, pollen is probably coastal Chennai’s Guindy NationalshowPark So how can you tell Selaiyur how picky a flowerForest is, or ered doned scrub of the Reserve onare it from above, ready to befor ferried to and IIT the only other reserves this vawho a particular flower in theAlice first the closepollinates to a century ago. Edward and flower. forest. This knowledge is all rietynext of tropical place? a flower like offers many theBut Barnes,What the first couplelooks to make the campus these associations flower’s more disturbing in thebetween light of aarecent reclues as to the pollinators it attheir home, were its green archicolour or shape and its pollinaport stating that Chennai has the tracts.

Consider, for example, tects. They brought saplings tors areforest far from perfect, and our lowest cover among the Heliconia plants the West from places theyfrom travelled to. guess about Vasaka’s pollinametros.

Shreya Yadav,bee a researchIndies.

Their flowers areby small, This legacy was nurtured gention wouldMysore-based need to be confirmed er with Nature Alumni members white, nectar-filled hardly erations of botanytubes, professors by actual observation. was Conservation Foundation,I says, E ach Heliconia have voiced concerns showy at all. But thesetrees flowers and curators.

Several on about to of end this essay with just “The loss biodiversity, irrespecis thus overspecies their alma mater are in bright red or yel- pollinated only by one ative the enclosed campus today — Rosy Trumguess — myissearch of scale, causefor forscientific concern losing an intrinsic low leaf-like structures called pet tree, Redsanders and Talipot studies onthat Vasaka had yielded in a world is already changsex ofof hummingbird part its identity bracts, series of bracts arpalm —and are areminders of those plenty of fascinating ing rapidly.

The loss of aninformaendemranged alongthem. a stem stands out that planted tion aboutcan how weconsequences humans have ic species have like a beacon amid green leaves, Some of the plant species at used this plantecosystem for our own for the entire — benefrom especially to hummingbirds.

MCC find mention in Tamil literfit almost nothing soil but health to the richnessabout and The beaks fit neatly the tubeaturebirds’ from the Sangam period.into “A special resi- how the plantofitself persists.species.”

Then, in a final efcomposition dependent shaped flowers, giving them exclusive access fort dent is aathondai (thondai, Cappariszeylanica), at has combing through the literature this MCC long been an example of how simto the nectar offered by the it flowers in morning, named after rewards the region for which was the I unearthed some research ple measures can restore vegetation to about origiexchange forItpollen transport. state flower. adorned the insignia of the Pal- this plant’s pollinators!

I scrolled through the nal composition.

“Walking to German classes But someinforms Heliconia are even choosier.alumTwo article lava kings,” Nirmal Selvamony, somewhat nervously, through the forest; to sit atbut thestopped Botany with tank species Heliconiaprofessor on the island of St Lucia satisfaction nus andof retired of the college. a photo a carpenter bee fitand catch a at glimpse of of a deer while enjoying are both pollinated a single species hum- ting Fortunately, thondaiby and several otherofplants neatlymost into of a Vasaka flower,came its back dustthe rain… our learning from the mingbird.

However, one Heliconia a flower ed survived the developmental effortshas of Karikaawith pollen. surrounding itself,” an alumnus reminisced. shaped exactly like theruled beak of theregion male of this The loss, clearly, is not just physical. lan, a Chola king who this much species, the other Karikaalan Heliconia haswas a longer, before while the Pallavas. also ambika kamath studies organismic and evolutionary at Harvard University niharika mallimadugula more a near-perfect with the biology knowncurved for hisflower, policies of extensivefitdeforesta-

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Rise of the sunbird No weddings, please

Is Gujarat getting set for a ‘marriage drought’?

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indus of Gujarat behold. If the diktat of the on these ‘serious’ planetary turn of events.

Ahmedabad was a welcome stopover for Solar plane that could change thefor a top astrologers of not only Impulse-2, Gujarat, but Ra- theAll is not lost though.

A few extra rupees jasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are to pooja that ensures planetary appeasement will go future of aviation and, more importantly, of clean technology be believed, beginning July 2015, there will be no a long way in dulling Jupiter’s wrath, claim other weddings for a year. carpetbagging pundits. But for couples who The reason: Jupiter will be in an ‘unpropitious’ would rather not take a chance and put their marn March 10, minutes before midphase, and marital discord, on the block,says mayPiccard. we suggest a destination hangar at Abu Dhabi an forinevitability. a 430km rideAttoan Mus-riage make money,” “It was to inspire night, Solar Impulse-2 (Si2) astrologer’s ho- cat, Oman. summit in the city Mehsana, 300 wedding — in Timbuktu. Or anywhere else, really, A journey thatoftakes a commercial the world.” vered gently over Ahmedabad’s astrologers came together andthe conferred planets and their readers areiskinder still.to airliner just over anrecently hour took single-sea-whereLife in the cockpit, however, not going skyline, the LED lights on its giant ter Si2 13 hours 1 minute, as it cruised at an alti- be easy for Piccard and Borschberg. While they wingspan flickering brightly. The city’s Sardar tude of 19,000 feet. On the second leg, are both trained to pilot Si2, it has just one Vallabhbhai Patel International airport was between Muscat and Ahmedabad, Si2 flew for seat, which comes with a built-in toilet, that’s clogged with flight traffic and the world’s only nearly 15 hours over 1,400km, crossing its first less than 4 cubic metres in volume, a confinesolar-powered aircraft would spend nearly 30 sea leg over the Arabian Sea. ment that can only be matched by the public minutes in the air before landing to set a Its 72m-long wingspan is longer than that of phone booth. The pilots will take turns to steer world record. “It looked like an eagle, steadily a Boeing-747 and nearly as long as that of an the flight, catching only 20-minute catnaps as circling in the sky,” said Vikram Jani, a student Airbus A380 superjumbo. It carries 17,248 solar they have to remain alert at all times. The cawho was part of the throng that had gathered cells, which run the aircraft and bin has neither heating nor oxat the airport to witness aviation history in the also recharge four lithium poygen and the in-flight food is making. Elsewhere in the city, as Si2 prepared lymer batteries for night travel. “dehydrated and vacuum-packfor landing after a of 14-hour “fantastic” flight At 2,300kg, it weighs as much as K’s Houses of Parliament may be Unesco heritage sites, edifices neo-Gothaged”. To beat the intense stress The Si2 website can from Oman, to the streets and a family car, but less than 1 per ic splendour, with some parts of the buildings dating residents to the 11thtook century, of what will be a rough ride, the even tell you if the terraces to catch a glimpse of the no-fuel-only- cent of the Airbus superjumbo. but its insides are crumbling, leaky and overrun with mice.

Members of Parliapilots have undergone serious pilots remembered to solar bird.

The last Ahmedabad was this The Si2 can climb to an altitude ment have been busy catching rain in their dustbins rather thantime transacting training to prepare for long solo have lunch! excited the to see an airplane perhaps in 1932, of 28,000 feet and it can stay in business. Rodents were spotted so frequently around members’ tea was rooms flights. They have taken to yoga when report the first commercial flying be- the sky for several days and that a mouse hotline was set up, so politicians could sightings insteadflight of and self-hypnosis to remain calm Karachi andof Mumbai made a stopover nights. But it has an optimal drafting policies. That’s not all, the MPs are tween also complaining congested during trying times like cloudy Pilot Bertrand looking fresh and speed of 20 knots or roughly workplaces and faulty heating. This comes at here. a time when BritishPiccard, lawmakers patches, rainy weather, long sea relaxed, emerged the with craft to wave to a 35kmph, which is slower than an average pro- journeys and night flights. “Yoga has helped have been hit by a string of scandals and MPs have been caught redfrom handed large of $4.5 enthusiasts. second jobs. And what are these repairs going to costcontingent the taxpayer? billion! Already, Si2 fessional cyclist, slower than even a pigeon! throughout the journey. Self-hypnosis is also a had broken a world record: It had covered While Solar Impulse-1, which made the first way to restore energy and stay fit,” says the 631,465km between Oman and India, the longest manned solar-powered flight when it flew for year-old Borschberg. Under the training of yojourney yet for a solar-powered flight.

26 hours in Switzerland in 2010, was just a pro- ga practitioner Sanjeev Bhanot, both pilots are Si2 is no ordinary aircraft. It’s a zero-emis- totype, Si2 is attempting a trip around the using asanas to stay warm when it’s cold and sion, no-fuel aircraft running solely on solar world with several more challenges — long sea to get energised when they’re tired. power, attempting to circumnavigate the legs, night-time flights and difficult solo trips Si2 is unlikely to break any speed records, world in 25 days spread over five months, 10 for the pilots. The aim of the flight is not to fa- but what’s more exciting for Broschberg and countries and 35,000km. It took pilots Piccard cilitate commercially viable solar-powered Piccard is the energy efficiency. The project is and Andre Borschberg 13 years to perfect the planes, but to show what’s possible. “When more a symbol of clean technology than an design for a solar-only aircraft. On March 9, Si2 the Apollo astronauts went to the moon, it aviation journey. “This is the way we demonbegan the first leg of its journey, leaving the wasn’t to launch tourism, open hotels and strate that clean energy can achieve the impossible. It’s not just a human or technical aybe we haven’t discovered it adventure. This is for a cleaner world with a yet, but the ISIS seems to have better quality of life,” says Piccard, who first found a long lost connection with thought of a round-the-world solar flight after t doesn’t exist in the Chinese dictionary. our very own Haryana — home of successfully completing a round-the-world what in it means.

Yet it’swhere apthe khap panchayats, Gurgaon and tripNo in aone hotknows air balloon 1985. Gujarat, peared more eight million times on very few women. the aircraft willthan be parked in a special hangar China’s Weibo, and was destination, searched According to Haryana police, a for four Twitter days, was a natural nearlyto 6,00,000 times on Baidu, with China’s website hack last week indicates thanks its remarkable progress solar Google.Over But why they ‘duang’ it? power that Haryana is on the terror energy.

900are megawatt of solar They are sayunder it all started with action star group’s radar. The statement folprojects operation in the state.

Jackie who in aare shampoo ad in lowed a complaint by the State CenWhileChan, weathermen stationed in2004 Morocsaid had not used any ‘duang’ spetre for Education, Research and co, thehe pilots are travelling with 65(or members effects) to make hair look sleek tiTraining (SCERT), which claimed ofcial ground staff.

On thehis aircraft’s website, and details black. about The word resurfacedare when that ISIS had hacked its website and niest its movements being Chan posted on it his Weibotelemetry account rethus, by a far-fetched corollary, enrecorded — logbook entries, data cently.

And following his lead, thousands dangered the state. and satellite imagery. The website can even took to bandying the non-word about.

The matter had come to light durtell you if the pilots remembered to As have a confused blogger says, “To duang or not ing the Holi holidays when a messlunch! toSi2 duang, thatfor is the question.” age was posted on the website’s will stop a night halt next in Prime homepage. It read: ‘Hacked by IsMinister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varalamic State (ISIS), We Are Everynasi on Sunday, before taking off for Myanmar, where ;)” The ISIS flag was also China, Hawaii and New York. From there, Si2 posted — just for good measure. will begin its return journey to Abu Dhabi via either southern Europe or North Africa. On its hat do mice dream of? Do they been to in their waking hours with posjourney around the world, the aircraft will dream of larders filled with itive feelings. So, when the mice wake face tough passages across the Pacific and Atcheese, or cats and bonny kittens? up, they retrace their way to the relantic oceans, where the pilots will have to Scientists at the Le Centre National serves of cheese, grains, and other haptravel non-stop for five days and five nights. de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, py-making stuff. The study shows that The longest single leg will see one of them fly have succeeded in creating false but facts and emotions stored in our mesolo over the Pacific from Nanjing, China to happy memories in mice — the first in- mories can be changed independently.

Hawaii — a distance of 8,500km. stance of memory manipulation. By The findings could also potentially be As Piccard says of every port of call — “We rigging electrodes in the memory and used to treat PTSD disorders. Incredihope that people will always remember that a reward centres of the brain, they make ble science or just the plot of Eternal solar airplane landed there.” sleeping mice associate places they’ve Sunshine of the Spotless Mind?

Soaring expectations The Solar Impulse-2 rises over the Omani capital of Muscat after taking off for Ahmedabad on March 10 afp/solar impulse/jean revillard rutam vora

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Rat-a-tat-tat

Rodents stage a coup at Britain’s crumbling, leaky Houses of Parliament

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What the hack?

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Everybody’s ‘duang’ it

ISIS sends an online shiver down Haryana’s spine. Or not

A new word is breaking the internet. But what does it mean?

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Sweet dreams

Scientists are planting false but happy memories in mice as a new treatment for depression

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in-faq by joy bhattacharjya Numbers

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ins loves to cook. “Cut five medium onions and call me,” he says. His style of cooking involves getting me to do all the boring stuff while he watches a movie on my laptop. Fortunately, I like the boring stuff. I can enter a trancestate while dicing tomatoes, grating carrots and peeling individual pods of garlic. The hiss and crackle of food on the fire makes me nervous. So I end up either undercooking the food by taking it off the electric ring too soon or burn it by pretending I can’t hear the sound.

Onions are a problem, however. I cry so much while slicing them that I get dehydrated. I’ve tried the usual remedies, such as chewing gum and wearing swim-goggles. The thing that works best is storing the onions in the fridge. Bins is horrified by this solution. “Where is my flavour?” he howls the first time he catches me at it. “Cold onions are dead onions!

Thermocol onions!” In Bins-speak, thermocol is the anti-Christ of edibility. So I revert to wearing the swim-goggles.

I’m in the kitchen, with the five onions arranged alongside the chopping board. There’s a plastic bag positioned so that I can shove the slimy pink skins into the bag for quick disposal. I have the big,

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Weed seed

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shiny knife ready. Now all I need are the goggles. They’re in the drawer under the counter, where I keep cutlery and other little bits of hardware related to the table and kitchen. I open the drawer, get the goggles out and put them on when I notice a small plastic bag filled with seeds, in the drawer.

I call out to Bins. I want to know why the seeds are in the drawer instead of on the shelf with the other spices. To my surprise, he dashes into the kitchen, snatches the baggie out of my hands and dashes back out again. “Nothing,

arch 14 is World Pi Day. To write it like in the US, it’s 3.14 (month.date) — the value of pi to two decimal places. All the reason we need a quiz on numbers.

nothing,” he mumbles. Of course, I follow him out. What was that about, I want to know. “Go cut your onions,” he says. “Put the dal on the fire. Turn on the rice-cooker.” Not until you tell me what’s in the baggie, I say.

“Enna di,” he says, giving it those Tamil ones. “Let me watch my movie, no?” Tell me now, I say. He changes tactics. Turning around, he looks at me, still wearing my goggles and begins to cackle. “Look at you! Haha! You look like a storm trooper — or no! A raccoon! An angry raccoon!” I am not amused. Tell me, I say, in my most Darth Vader-y voice. What. Is. In. The. Baggie. “Hoo-hoo,” he says, now pouting. “You will just make a big noise. I wanted to save you that effort.”

There is a silence. Then I ask him if it’s what I think it is. Bins is too lazy to lie. “Yup,” he says. “Weed seeds. Really good stuff. All the way from Pondicherry!” He looks up with a naughty grin. Completely shameless. “And you want to know the best part? Fooling the little sniffer-dog at Boston airport!” manjula padmanabhan, author and artist, writes about her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

Which iconic jazz piece was inspired by a group of Turkish musicians performing a traditional folk song in 9/8 time, a rare meter for Western music?

2 3

Which PO Box number is the mailing address of every Australian Broadcasting Corporation office in the state capitals of Australia?

Who or what is listed as the 13th greatest villain in film history in the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest heroes and villains? Remember, this is a quiz on numbers.

4

Which iconic book originally had the number 18 in its title, which was changed to another number at the last minute because Leon Uris’s Mila 18 had just been published?

5

8208 is a number that has four digits, each of which if raised to the power 4 and added will end up giving the original number. Because of this self-referential ‘loving’ quality, by what name are such numbers known?

6 7 8

Which Hindi film revolves around a hero figuring out the significance of ‘NO 17’?

Which character in an iconic television series claims to have memorised the value of pi to 40,000 places, noting that the 40,001st digit is 1?

The “paperback line theory” claims that this is the average number of lines on a page of a paperback book. Then there is the “Lewis Carroll theory” that claims the author is celebrating Carroll’s use of the number in Alice in Wonderland. These are both theories explaining a well-known number in popular literature.

Which is it?

9

The cicadas of the genus Magicicada are often mistaken for locusts. What is unique about their birth cycle, the subject of many scientific studies?

10

On April 15 every year, which number will you see on the back of every player in a Major League Baseball game in America?

Answers

1. Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’, which abandoned the traditional 4/4 time of jazz and used a 5/4 time. It remains the bestselling jazz single of all times 2. 9994, as a tribute to Sir Donald Bradman’s test batting average of 99.94 3. HAL 9000, the computer in Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey 4. Catch 22, which was originally supposed to be ‘Catch 18’ 5. Narcissistic numbers 6. Kallicharan. Spoiler alert. It turns out that it’s actually LION, the nickname of the villain upside down. Deep, very deep!

7. Apu, in The Simpsons. Simon Singh wrote a whole book about the math in the Simpsons and Futurama.

8. 42 as the answer to Life, the universe and everything in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide series 9. They appear every 13 or 17 years. Apparently, returning in prime number years increases their chance of survival and they are the only living creatures following a prime number cycle 10. 42, to commemorate the day Jackie Robinson became the first Afro-American to play Major League baseball. It was his jersey number

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

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