Blink issue 68 16 05 2015

MOM IN A FUNK Postpartum depression is an all-too-real experience for thousands of mothers, who find themselves lonely and misunderstood p2 saturday, may 16, 2015

anand singh

Development in Narendra Modi’s constituency, Varanasi, impresses some. But many are growing impatient at the lack of tangible change. No acche din yet in rural India.

And is the Prime Minister winning the style stakes p6-11

One year later

HOME FOR THE PALETTE The best residencies in India for artists and writers p14

PLUS-SIZE PENCILS Colouring books are the new rage with adults looking for time-out from screens p18

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Shadow lives Postnatal depression does not exist in India because families and even doctors don’t recognise it kr deepak

Baby, don’t sing me the blues Postnatal depression is also about losses — of other parts of our lives as women, of other parts of our identities, as they become subsumed under the one title ‘mother’

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an I say this out loud? As a woman, can I give myself permission to acknowledge that I am not entirely, deliriously happy with my newlyacquired motherhood? Does our society, especially the media, give a woman, from any socio-economic class, the permission to have mixed feelings, including unhappiness, about becoming a mother? Yes. There is one clause under which you may get such permission — if you have given birth to more than one daughter. A friend was told by a psychiatrist, “You have had a son! How can you be upset?” And since this is not an acknowledged psychiatric category, one cannot be diagnosed with ‘postnatal depression’. It does not exist in India because no one will believe you. Not your mother, your gynaecologist, your child’s paediatrician, not even your husband.

Worried sick So what do you tell the 15 per cent of women who are likely to experience postnatal depression? This would be 15 per cent of non-Indian women. After all we deny the very experience, so there is no question of quantifying it. A bit like marital rape, postnatal depression is ‘not in our culture’.

Postpartum depression is mostly because of

Postnatal depression is also about losses — the anxiety of death. From the moment the baby is conceived, this anxiety grows from being of other parts of our lives as women, of other barely perceptible to more palpable. ‘Will my parts of our identities, as they become child be fine?’, ‘How will I handle this preg- swamped and subsumed under the one title nancy?’, are just a few of our concerns. We fret of ‘mother’. It is a continuous, often lonely (beover the right diet, the right exercise, but our cause women don’t converse with each other real worry is whether this baby will be okay in- about the internal struggles that matter the most) personal battle to reclaim side. The truth is that the baby the lost parts — the friendships, will never be safer anywhere else. the career, the sexual life and, The outside world will always most immediately, the body. feel more threatening, with Every woman who has given germs and viruses, unsterilised I was not surprised to birth and not had a ‘tummy bottles and strangers and whatfind that no one tuck’ simultaneously, knows ever else have you. spoke of depression that she still looks about sixThen there is the birth; also reand motherhood in months pregnant even though plete with the anxiety of death the same sentence the baby is out. Only now, it is a but once you have survived the in India hanging bag of loose muscle — terror of childbirth, whether by terribly unattractive yet unpushing and shoving or by being avoidable. My male friends exslit open, the haze of pain repressed horror at my leftover cedes as the baby — hopefully, with 10 fingers and 10 toes intact — is brought pregnant body, saying, ‘Why is your stomach to your chest. One way or another, the baby still like this?!’

Your body has not been your own since you you have longed to hold is finally in your arms.

You are overwhelmed, perhaps crying and went into labour and will not be for many follaughing at the same time. Our anxiety of lowing months. A friend told me she felt like looking after a fragile life and creating it into a she was a cow since her primary function was halfway-decent human being — if we are lucky to eat right and produce milk. Luckily, she got on with the task at hand and her body took — begins here.

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care of its shape after a few months. To be honest, even your mind is not your own. It has probably become a conduit for intense feelings from your own past, the present and anxieties about the future. Any lurking feelings leftover from adolescence and early adulthood are probably going to resurface now and create inexplicable low moods, hopelessness and weepiness. Add to that incessant infantcare advice from in-laws, parents and every passing neighbour, and you have a recipe for internal chaos.

Big picture For a decade, I worked in the UK in a multidisciplinary mental health team that included midwives and children’s nurses. My job description specifically included working with families with postnatal depression. Mind you, families. Not just mothers. It is possible for the father to experience difficult feelings after the birth of his child — girl or boy — but we cannot address this here. Let’s just deal with one bit of denial at a time.

I recall young women abandoned by their boyfriends after an unplanned pregnancy; couples lonely and drifting away from each other by the entry of a baby they thought they were looking forward to. I remember homesick, immigrant first-time mothers who yearned to be looked after by their own families but instead were in an alien country with grey, dripping skies, surrounded by unfamiliar food, a foreign language and strangesounding child-rearing advice. It’s enough to send anyone spiralling into depression.

When I returned to Delhi, I was not surprised to find that no one spoke of depression and motherhood in the same sentence. However, I was surprised that even medical doctors dismissed it. When I met an old college friend after 10 years, we spoke about ourselves as ‘working mothers’. She is a successful businesswoman and shared with me how she was terribly unprepared for the total takeover of her life by her newborn son. She was exhausted all the time and could not keep up with work, yet her business was her ‘baby’ too. She had set it up from scratch and could not let it die. It was an important part of her identity.

She felt lonely, trapped and resentful at her husband, who was working in another city.

No let-up Our anxiety of looking after a fragile life and creating it into a halfway-decent human being — if we are lucky — begins with the child’s birth g ramakrishna

Upset at herself for feeling upset, she looked was three days old and here I was, a first-time for someone who would hear her out. Her gy- mother, being told that I was fundamentally naecologist told her to go away; the psychia- ‘wrong’ and needed formula to keep my child trist told her that she could not possibly be alive. I was so vulnerable, and in pain, that I upset after giving birth to a son was devastated, even as my raand prescribed antidepressants tional mind refused to believe anyway; her mother denied that it. It did not occur to me to such a feeling could even exist. throw her out of my house.

A friend said she felt Eventually, my friend found a Luckily, it did occur to my husshe was a cow since psychotherapist, people of my ilk, band, who did exactly that. her primary function who at least believe that her expeA friend who was also a was to eat right and rience is legitimate. She could be trained midwife came over, produce milk overwhelmed with panic, lonelihelped me hold my baby the ness and love for her child, all at right way and we figured it the same time. A few months later out together. I breastfed my she forgave herself, acknowldaughter successfully for a edged that conflicting emotions year and turned into one of were normal and moved on. She continues to those annoying mothers who never used a be a wonderful mother, friend, and a success- bottle and whose child went from ‘breast to ful businesswoman. cup’. There was nothing ‘wrong’ with me. But I My own story is not too different. The post- saw how callous handling of the postnatal natal midwife watched me struggle to breast- mother, an over-mechanised, medicalised feed my first-born. Instead of helping to adjust birthing experience, complications in the the latch, she told me that my nipples were mother and baby’s health also lead to postnathe “wrong shape” and that I should probably tal depression. give up and give her formula. My daughter However, the fatigue, loneliness and sheer repetitiveness of caring for an infant did tip me into feeling depressed. Six months later, when my baby woke incessantly at nights and I had not had four hours of unbroken sleep for a month, I found myself crying in the day and easily overwhelmed by every small demand. I was lonely at home with a baby, while everyone else had resumed their pre-baby life. I had not had an uninterrupted meal, nap, bath or conversation ever since she had been born. I could not read or concentrate on any adult conversation, let alone on intelligent adult conversations about society, politics or my work. I could not focus on anything, not even the baby. I was slipping away from everyone, including my husband. I was a zombie.

Eventually, it was my mother who rescued me by taking the baby away so I could sleep for a while. I had clearly needed mothering, alongside conversations about how I was feeling and sufficient rest. A routine that included meeting likeminded mothers with children, physical exercise and a few breaks from the baby also helped.

Did I just say that out loud, again? Breaks from the baby made me feel better. That is what I needed and I refuse to feel guilty about it. If I needed to look after my baby to the best of my ability, I needed to look after myself.

Darkness and light As parents we can be overwhelmed with panic, loneliness and love for the child, all at the same time ap/eugene hoshiko

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nupur dhingra paiva is a clinical child psychologist who teaches at Ambedkar University, Delhi, and is the mother of two daughters

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MAN FACES JAIL FOR COPYING VIP CRIMES!

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e takes one last look at the diamond belt before they take it away. “When I first ordered it, they had to bring it three times,” he says, “Because each time I was slightly fatter. Finally the jeweller said, ‘Sir, why don’t you try a necklace instead, or perhaps some earrings’, but I told him, “Rascal, go give your mother a necklace, I want a diamond belt.” But he was right, it was too much. Next day, an IT officer came to my house, asking, where did you get the money? This was just after I ran over three people with my BMW. “Were you wearing your diamond belt at the time?” I ask. “No, that was my driver,” he says. “He may have removed a few diamonds. Afterwards, it was feeling tighter. Of course, this was just after I had consumed large quantities of endangered species ke-

ASK ALLY Ally Subramaniam was born in the South-West Sundarbans, but was blown away by a cyclone and washed up on the shore near Chennai. He was adopted by a poor Brahmin family from Tirupur. He can answer all your questions. Just send them to askallysubramaniam@gmail.com

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ear Ally, Ever since marital rape has been legalised, my wife has been eyeing me thoughtfully. Is there anything I can do?

Regards, Shekhar, Cuddalore

bab, so my waistline may have expanded.

I had shot the endangered species personally, along with two of my friends, in the face of stiff opposition from villagers.”

“Did you face any trouble from the police?” I ask. “Oh, immediately,” says the man. His name is Gurdeep.

He is the son of a driver from Jalandhar. Despite the handcuffs, and the fact that he has been beaten up repeatedly by the police, he seems cheerful.” “What were you trying to do?” I ask. “It was the Guinness people,” he says. “They encouraged me. I was trying to set the

Dear Shekhar, The fact that you are asking this question seems to indicate that lying back and enjoying it is not an option. There are a number of steps you can take to avoid your sacred duty. Try not to dress provocatively. Wear loose pants, instead of something clingy. Avoid smoking, drinking, dancing, or any other form of obvious enjoyment. Do not go out at night. Do not get on a bus owned by Sukhbir Singh Badal. Ask your wife to take plenty of cold showers. Urge her to consider the consequences. View it through the lens of tradition. Cite historical examples to support your case. For example, Dhritarashtra had a hundred sons.

This did not end well.

Also he went blind.

The moral of the story is clear. Too much sex is bad for the eyes.

Yours affectionately, Ally.

record for most crimes committed by a non-VIP.” “How did that work out for you?” I ask.

“Not well,” he admits.

“Soon, I found myself pursued by the police, the CBI, the Enforcement Directorate, the Vigilance Commission, the Intelligence Bureau and the Niti Aayog, not to mention Madhu Kishwar.

“Maneka Gandhi also came to my house, with a Doberman, but I managed to distract it with some deer

SHOVON CHOWDHURY is chief Truthdigger and author of The Competent Authority

meat, which I had kept in the fridge. I was very polite to all of them. I told them I was very happy to form a committee, headed by me, in order to investigate myself, but they said that this would be conflict of interest.

What is this conflict of interest? I have never read about it in the newspapers.” “It’s a foreign thing,” I explain. “What are your plans?” “Well, I did Gabbar’s speech from Sholay, and also a small item number, to show my qualifications, but the police were not convinced. Unless I stand for election, they said, there is no hope for me.”

FOREIGN COW MILK INJURIOUS, SAYS RSS

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laborating further on the government’s rapidly expanding cow policy, the RSS has now provided guidelines for milk consumption.

“As per Hindu tradition, all men are not equal,” said Makarand Eklunchwar, a volunteer from Sholapur. “Same is the case for cows. Infiltration by foreign cows is rapidly becoming a concern area. Who are these cows? What is their background?

Are they victims of conversion? German cows may look very attractive, but what are their religious beliefs? Before giving your child milk, you must verify that the cow is 100 per cent Indian. Pure Indian cow’s milk leads to better intellect, smoother skin, lustrous hair, improved marriage prospects and better urine production. On the other hand, drinking the milk of foreign cows can cause loss of culture, indiffer-

The Investigator is a monthly round-up of all things droll and newsy. All views are personal. Really personal t@shovonc

ence towards hygiene, and support for terrorists. Threats are many. Vigilance is required. Care should be taken during consumption of not just milk, but also milk products. Degenerate foreign elements, supported by the Western Military Industrial Complex, with full encouragement from Sagarika Ghosh, have been trying to spoil our children, as well as adults who are unable to control their craving for sweet dish. This should not be taken in a light vein. Remember, your choice of dessert has political, social and moral consequences. When it comes to ice-cream, you must restrict yourself to Amul, Vadilal or the soon-to-be-launched Reliance Ice-cream. Hand-churned local products are acceptable, so long as foreign hands are not involved. Imported chocolates must also be treated with care, unless they are from Switzerland, which is neutral.”

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Image makeover The cuddly panda becomes the apt emblem of China’s softer side afp

AGENDA

Panda power What Modi can learn from China’s ambitious soft-power push

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sambuddha mitra mustafi

n early 2012, an angry dragon on a post- and Harvard professor, coined the term “soft age stamp was greeted with serious con- power” in the 1990’s. If power is the ability to sternation in Beijing. China Post had influence others to get what you want, Nye released the stamp to coincide with the said that a country needs three primary tools Year of the Dragon. But users of Sina Weibo, for achieving that: coercion (military might), China’s Twitter, were breathing fire over the payments (economic collaborations) and atfearful creature, which they said harmed their traction (soft power). If foreigners are attractcountry’s image. ed to your culture, it becomes easier for you to While dragons have been the symbol of im- influence them strategically. perial power for centuries in the Middle KingAmerica is undoubtedly the greatest expodom, its government prefers to use the cuddly nent of global soft power. In Nye’s construct, panda as a diplomatic gift to project its softer apart from its battleships and economic heft, side. The dragon-to-panda transformation is a what makes the US powerful is the universal carefully thought-out image makeover by Chi- appeal of the American dream and its accessona’s top leadership: with their ries. From Apple to Coke, Holrising global power, they unlywood movies and The New derstand the need to reassure York Times, the global elite and the world that they are a force decision-makers are vorafor good, more like the panda cious consumers of American China Radio International than the dragon. culture. This gives Americans now broadcasts in more It’s a project that began in a unique strategic heft. than 60 languages across earnest at the turn of the decIn the long term, the top the world, while All India ade, with billions of dollars inChinese leadership has the viRadio has almost zero vested to globalise its sion for creating its very own global presence State-run media companies Chinese dream with global apand Confucian Institutes as peal. Of course there are chalamplifiers of Chinese culture lenges to this vision: the across the world. “To some deaverage American is still gree, whoever owns the comabout eight times richer than manding heights of cultural development, the average Chinese, and till that gap closes and soft power, will enjoy a competitive edge the American dream will dominate. But what internationally,” declared a communiqué that you see from the Chinese leadership is a 20came out of the Communist Party’s Central year vision and a holistic approach to power, Committee plenary in October 2011. something that is completely missing in LuAs Narendra Modi wraps up his China visit tyens’ Delhi. Indian politicians, at most, think today, he will undoubtedly be taking notes on in five-year election cycles. the country’s strategic might and impressive In many ways India, being a democracy, had economic strides. But he would also do well to a natural advantage over China in projecting learn from the Chinese leadership’s vision on its soft power. But the lack of political vision soft power, that crucial third element in the and bureaucratic will has resulted in China power matrix which India’s leadership seems stealing a march over us. A simple example to have exclusively left to Bollywood. would be the contrast in the quality, ambiJoseph S Nye, an American strategic thinker tions and reach of the respective State-run

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media companies.

China Radio International (CRI) now broadcasts in more than 60 languages across the world, while All India Radio has almost zero global presence. In Africa, where both China and India have considerable economic interests, CRI has replaced BBC World Service as the go-to source for news, very often delivered in local languages.

The rapid global expansion of CCTV, their Doordarshan, is equally impressive. Apart from stealing the show in Africa, CCTV America hired more than 100 journalists and support staff in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential elections in the US. They are already competing with CNN, BBC World and Al Jazeera on the global airwaves.

And, Xinhua is now one of the largest news agencies in the world with more than 10,000 employees in 107 bureaus. In the developing world, especially, it is challenging the dominance of The Associated Press, Bloomberg News, and Reuters.

India’s “free media”, the public broadcasters or private channels, are nowhere close to achieving the global reach the Chinese have achieved. Through its global reach, the Chinese are slowly transforming the dragon into the panda, while India’s slow-moving elephant remains just that in the international mindspace.

Among Indian politicians and thinkers, Shashi Tharoor has been fighting almost a lone battle to bring soft power at the forefront of India’s foreign policy. “In the information age, Joseph Nye has argued, it is often the side which has the better story that wins,” he wrote in his book The Elephant, The Tiger and The Cellphone. “India must remain the ‘land of the better story.’” sambuddha mitra mustafi is the founder of The Political Indian tsome_buddha

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Despair in every fibre Carts laden with cotton await buyers at an auction market in Yavatmal, Maharashtra.

Growers stare at loss and looming poverty amid a global output glut and lower export demand dhiraj singh/ bloomberg

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Acche din? Villages are not buying From a scorching pace of sales growth in the recent past, the rural consumption story has suddenly soured thanks to a combination of natural and policy-made causes

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armer Ravidas Varma in Madhya Pradesh’s Amar Pathan village cannot rebuild his crumbling house.

Unseasonal rains in March ruined his chana (Bengal gram) crop and damaged the house further. As for his wheat crop of over 100 quintals, the rollback of bonus (₹150) on the minimum support price will leave him poorer by ₹20,000. He will suffer a similar loss on paddy later this year as the government has declared it will not buy crops that have been procured after paying a bonus to farmers. “Acche nahi, burey din aa gaye hain (Not good, but bad days are here),” says Varma, staring at his dilapidated house.

In Rajasthan’s Khinwsar village, Bhanwar Das is mourning the loss of his jeera (cumin) and sarson (mustard) crop after the untimely rains. “Suna tha muavza milega. Kuch nahi mila hai,” he says, lamenting the absence of any relief measures from the government. For now, he has abandoned plans to send his daughter to Nagaur for higher education as he can’t af-

ford the fees. Also on the backburner is the family’s dream of owning an LCD television. “I am not sure if we will have enough to eat this year,” he says.

In the past few years, rural areas witnessed a scorching pace of sales growth. That rural consumption story has suddenly soured, buffeted by erratic rainfall, withdrawal of bonus on MSP, reduced allocation for the rural employment guarantee scheme MGNREGA, a slowdown in the construction sector, and the threat of a below-normal monsoon this year.

To begin with, incomes have fallen as rural wages grew a meagre 3.8 per cent in November — the lowest since July 2005, according to data from the Labour Bureau.

“Rural wages have not been rising fast enough; that is the phenomenon of 2014-15 and it is continuing this year,” says Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist at Crisil.

In the past, as MNREGA provided assured employment, rural labourers were unwilling to take up other activities, leading to rising

wages. That effect, however, is waning, primarily due to the declining allocation to MNREGA in the last few years — for instance, from ₹34,000 crore in 2014-15 to ₹31,000 crore in the revised estimates. In March this year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley nominally hiked the allocation, from ₹34,000 crore to ₹34,699 crore. The highest allocation was in 2010-11, at ₹40,100 crore.

Sliding numbers The impact of this is directly felt by companies operating in rural India. “There has been a general sluggishness in consumption in rural areas,” says Ullas Kamath, joint managing director at FMCG company Jyothy Laboratories.

As his company sells basic necessities such as detergents and mosquito coils among other items, it has not faced a drastic fall in demand. “But in a slowdown, the shift is from higher SKUs (stock keeping unit) to a lower SKU.” So, from buying 1kg of detergent, a customer now buys a half-kg pack, while another

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moves from half-kg to 250gm. Kamath cautions that if the following monsoon too turns out to be poor, “we will see a shift from bigger brands to lower-level brands.”

Already, discretionary products like shampoos, skincare items and deodorants are selling less in rural areas. FMCG growth in rural India has fallen to 8 per cent from the 9-15 per cent witnessed over the last few years. “The pace of market recovery is dependent on how the rural areas fare,” Sanjiv Mehta, chief executive of Hindustan Unilever, had said while announcing the company’s results this month.

Pradeep Lokhande, CEO of Rural Relations, a rural consumer relations organisation, says the reduced MSP and unwanted rains almost every month in various parts of the country, coupled with the poor monsoon last year, have shaved off a significant part of rural income. “The result is that if a user was buying three soaps in a month, she now buys only two; shampoo is used sparingly and buying decisions are postponed,” he says.

Not in demand (Clockwise from top) Reduced allocation to the rural job guarantee scheme MNREGA is, in turn, putting less money in rural pockets; tractor sales, which best mirror rural economic sentiment, are down; in tough times, villages buy smaller packs and cheaper brands of consumer goods pti/ap/bloomberg

Trailing tractors More than any other item, tractors best mirror the economic sentiment in rural areas. Sales were down 8.3 per cent in the first nine months of FY15, according to ratings agency ICRA. Decline in crop output and weakening prices have negatively impacted farm sentiment, with a likely dip in farm incomes.

The farm equipment division of Mahindra & Mahindra, the largest player in the segment, has been reporting a decline in tractor sales for the past few months, with a 31 per cent slide at 12,254 units in March. M&M, however, declined to comment on this.

This slide is mirrored by the two-wheeler segment too. Rural markets buy half of the bikes sold in India. Dinakar Singh, a dealer in Uttar Pradesh’s Hardoi, says April and May usually see good sales as it is the marriage season. From 25 vehicles a month two years ago, he now sells only seven to eight. “People are not buying this year,” he says resignedly, hoping for an improved festive season ahead.

According to research firm Nomura, a revival appears unlikely over the next two months: “We expect the two-wheeler industry’s volume growth to slow to 5.6 per cent in FY16 (instead of 11 per cent) from around 8 per cent in FY15.”

And the caveat: “If the monsoon turns out to be poor this year, then there could be some downside risks to our growth estimates.”

Devendra Kumar Pant, chief economist and senior director (head — public finance) at India Ratings & Research, says the demand slowdown in rural areas is due to slower growth in incomes and high inflation. “While inflation

problem is one of unemployment. A family cannot depend on one piece of land. As long as they don’t get jobs, this problem will continue.” Back in the ’90s, people migrated to cities.

That has slowed as urban India has become very expensive. They are better off staying back in villages than spending more on surviving in cities. “Make in India has to reach villages in a big way; jobs have to be created. Only then can a long-term rural growth story be The missing jobs scripted,” Kamath says.

However, while farmers and other Make in India has For now, the eyes of farmers, consumers are vocal about their to reach villages in a companies and analysts are coldisillusionment with the Modi big way; jobs have to lectively focused on the mongovernment and the decrease in be created soons. The India Meteorological their income, the corporate secDepartment has forecast belowtor is more circumspect. Despite normal monsoon at 93 per cent dwindling sales and a shrinking of the long-period average (LPA) rural market, companies are not owing to the El Nino phenomwilling to admit to a slowdown.

Economists, however, believe that the gov- enon. “But if it is below that, then there will be ernment’s policies are aimed at creating a difficulty in rural India and it will be a very more balanced economy, moving away from bad phase,” says Kamath.

Farmers like Varma and Das have turned to consumption- to investment-driven growth.

Crisil’s Joshi believes that MNREGA should be the rain gods now. Varma has promised his villinked to productivity to help create income- lage deity a grand feast if it rains well this year. generating assets. Regarding factors such as With a government that is gradually pulling MSP, he believes these are adverse incentives its hand away from rural India, farmers will and need to be corrected. “Eventually, the agri probably need heavenly intervention to sursector needs better irrigation and farm prac- vive the slowdown. tices. They have to be hastened,” he says.

Jyothy Labs’ Kamath agrees: “The entire rashmi pratap has now come down significantly, consumers will open their purses only when they are sure that the decline is permanent,” he says.

Hero MotoCorp, the world’s largest manufacturer of two-wheelers, is feeling the pinch.

Its April sales declined for the fourth straight month by 7 per cent to 533,305 units, compared to 571,054 sold the same month a year ago.

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My experiments with suit-boot Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s moorings may be in a conservative party, but he displays a liberal fashion sense that swings, worrying for many, between hits and misses

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arendra Modi’s fashion in his first year as prime minister of India, after a resounding election victory, is like his politics: inventive, imaginative if slightly unconventional, often loud, and — yes, that monogrammed suit — sometimes controversial.

His penchant for coining terms — ‘cooperative competitive federalism’, which he stakes claim to in his Time interview this month, or his by now famous ‘news traders’ coinage for the media shortly after his win — reflects sartorially too.The half-sleeve ‘Modi kurta’ has, much like the Nehru jacket, entered global fashion lexicon from the realm of Indian politics.

Fashion and governments have this in common: both are cyclical and each season’s trends exist only in comparison to the outgoing ones. So if skinny pants are ‘in’, it is as a reaction to the flares or bootleg cut fading out, and any review of Modi’s fashion is incomplete without comparisons with his predecessor. Manmohan Singh’s choice of stately, if repetitive and uniform-like attire, consisted of crisp kurta pajama teamed with blue or black jacket for regular wear and the bandhgala for formal. The turban always remained shades of blue. Modi’s sartorial canvas, on the other hand, is a riot of colours.

Like several other PMs and politicians before him, Modi too dons the khadi jacket — the cut that FabIndia in a recent ad referred to as ‘The Prime Jacket’, worn by India’s first premier, Jawaharlal Nehru, who reinterpreted the traditional silhouette in a western minimalist style. But unlike the usual black-on-

PM material Modi kurta on sale at the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas held in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, early this year afp/sam panthaky; (top) Modi’s personal style on his recent tour of France and Germany drew cheers and jeers alike afp/pti

white or blue-on-white or white-on-white combinations that other politicians stick to, Modi references all colours of the cassata ice cream — salmon pink-on-lilac, yellow-onbeige, blue-on-lavender and olive-on-pista green — giving the ensemble his unique stamp.

While he does not shy away from saffron — a colour identified with his party, the BJP, as also with Hinduism — and even stepped out in a blaze of orange to receive the visiting US President at the airport in January, he remains politically correct on solemn State occasions by making sure there are ample references to India’s diversity in his choice of clothing. On his first Independence Day as PM, he wore a bandhani safa in the colours of the national flag. He followed this up on Republic Day with another grand safa, the green and saffron prominent yet again, but with other colours like purple and pink appearing too.

In using his sartorial choices to complement the occasion, Modi is in fact taking forward the legacy of the late Congress leader Indira Gandhi and her daughter-in-law and Congress President Sonia Gandhi. Both women are known for wearing saris that reflect local handloom and craft traditions during their visits around the country. Despite his moorings in a nationalist and conservative party, Modi displays a liberal fashion sense that is open to experimentation, markedly unlike the fixed dress code of his predecessor. .

Modi instead evokes comparisons with Rajiv Gandhi, the modern prime minister, who famously teamed kurta pajama with sneakers, Michelle Obama, the US First Lady, who mixes and matches high-street labels with couture, or Sonia Gandhi, known to source her range of saris from Karol Bagh Saree House to weaves with a designer twist from Tulsi.

Modi teams his khadi and silk kurta churidars with foreign brands like Bvlgari glasses and Movado watch and many interpret this as a sign of his pro-business stance.

He has also drawn criticism with his attempts to extend his mildly disruptive personal style to western clothes. Columnist Karan Thapar, for instance, frowned on Modi’s appearance in formal jackets minus a tie or teamed with polo-neck jumpers during his tour of Germany and France. He declared that the PM was ‘inappropriately dressed’ when everyone else had stuck to a formal dress code.

Here Modi appears one with the several Indian PMs before him who have shunned the tie.

On the other hand, his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif wears it.

You’d be hard put to recall Manmohan Singh in a tie, but he never raised eyebrows because his formal bandhgalas did away with the need for one. While Modi’s critics lose no opportunity to point out that he seems headed to a golf course rather than a summit of world leaders, you could also argue that his colour palette back home is more akin to paint advertisement than the wardrobe of a head of state.

Like it or hate it, the PM has been nothing but consistent in his fashion iconoclasm.

Which brings us to the much-reviled monogrammed Modi suit that zoomed into the world press’s viewfinder at the tea he hosted for US President Barack Obama on the lawns of Hyderabad House. As far as dress diplomacy goes, this was a clear disaster — a gracious host does not draw attention to himself with loud clothes — the etiquette watchers hiss. It doesn’t help that the antic puts him in the dubious league of Hosni Mubarak and Carlos Menem.

Political legacies of the sartorial kind have a life of their own. Cue Marcos of the Philippines, whose political downfall catapulted Imelda’s mountain of shoes into a symbol of corruption and misrule, rather than just an indulgence of First Ladies everywhere. Closer home, Tamil Nadu supremo Jayalalithaa may have got a clean chit against corruption charges, but the ‘inventory of her 10,000 saris and 750 shoes’ is unlikely to fade out of popular imagination anytime soon.

Modi’s detractors are quick to characterise the infamous suit as yet another sign of his suspected megalomania and boastfulness. His admirers prefer to pitch it as a former tea-seller’s sign of arrival in a world in thrall of class snobbery: not much unlike the Egyptian-born businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed’s attempt to win the affections of the British elite with his love of flash and labels, or Mayawati’s ostentatious handbags dangling in the face of uppercaste privileges. kanika gahlaut is a Delhi-based journalist

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Prized catch Assi ghat is one of the few ghats in Varanasi that have been spruced up rajeev bhat

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Expectations unmet A year after winning the elections, Narendra Modi’s ‘adopted’ village Jayapur shows signs of change, but his constituency Varanasi would rather be a sensible city not a smart one

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urgawati Devi remembers Narendra Modi’s November 7 speech almost verbatim. “I thought God had come to our village. He asked about my education, where my parents were from.

He asked what I’d want him to do for our village. His concern for these little details of my life left me tongue-tied.” Jayapur’s pradhan beams when recounting her brief exchange with the country’s prime minister, “The women of our village are now learning how to weave. Factories are going to give us employment. I’m certain Modiji will transform Jayapur entirely.”

When adopting the village of Jayapur under his Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana programme, Modi had urged its 3,205 residents to indentify a birth date for their home. Exactly a year after the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won an unassailable majority of 336 seats, Jayapur is perhaps the one corner of the country where the government’s claim of ‘sabka saath, sabka vikaas’ will not be openly contested. This village in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi district now has three banks, solar streetlights and nearly a dozen bio-toilets. Politicians and bureaucrats apart, doctors and agricultural experts visit often. Farmer Laxman Prasad says, “It’s like we won the lottery.” Wearing a saffron t-shirt with the PM’s face embossed in its centre, 70-year-old Lal Chand Patel pulls out an LED lantern. “One of these was given to ev-

ery family here. It comes with a solar charger. clean drinking water.” As if on cue, a power We can also use it as a radio. It helps us tune in- outage interrupts a television bulletin about Modi’s recent Dantewada speech. Sweating to the PM’s Mann ki Baat.”

Mukhai Vanvasi stands on a green patch profusely, his wiry frame quaking, Hari Shanoutside Atal Nagar, a newly built settlement of kar Pandey returns from his fields. His ire palone-room houses. An adivasi who has never pable. “I will say this in front of a thousand availed himself of the benefits of permanent people if I have to — Modi is anti-farmer! Inhousing, Vanvasi says, “There are 10 men in my dustrialists will have their taxes waived, but family. We find work in brick kilns or on other farmers won’t get a decent meal. My land must be worth at least ₹10 crore. people’s farms. Finally, we will This Land Acquisition Bill will not now have a place that we can call get me even half that sum.” our own.” Narayan Patel, the pradPandey rails against an inhan’s pratinidhi (representative) creasing divide between the rich and brother-in-law, says that a settlement for the Vanvasis was Mo- You have this money and the poor. He echoes that fabeing spent on miliar ‘suit boot ki sarkar’ admondi’s idea alone. “He said he’d like to do something for those who Ganga’s cleaning, but ishment. The farmer, who had were the most disadvantaged in you can’t tell if it’s a voted for Modi in 2014, says the river or a drain PM has now lost his approval and Jayapur, and you can now see that his vote. he does what he says.” Patel spells On May 16, 2014, Modi’s hold in out the PM’s ambitious vision — the Varanasi constituency “By 2022, all of India’s villages will seemed absolute. His tally of be more like Jayapur.”

5,81,022 votes was staggering. A Jayapur’s immediate neighbourhood, however, tells a different story. Shiv year later, though, that confidence has shakShankar Pandey, a resident of Singahi, can re- en. While news of ₹18,349 crore being earach the PM’s adopted village in a matter of marked for the development of Varanasi minutes, but the imagined distance, he says, is impresses some, many are growing impatient getting longer by the day. “I too am Modiji’s at the lack of tangible change. The PM’s supconstituent. I voted for him, but only Jayapur porters often argue that one year can’t be a fair is getting the benefits of his attention. We measure for intent or achievement. His critics, don’t get electricity for hours. We don’t get however, say they need a cure for the conta-

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gion — which Modi helped spread — of great expectation.

A river runs through it In April last year, Modi said he had reached Kashi after having been called by ‘Maa Ganga’ — “I feel like a child who has returned to his mother’s lap.” In November, he took a spade and shovelled away at Assi ghat. Ram Das Sahni says he was witness to the many photo-ops that day. “Assi is cleaner, yes, but apart from that, there has been no change whatsoever.

There’s less garbage on four out of 87 ghats. On the river, you can see the animal carcasses float past,” rues the boatman. At 33, Anil Kumar Sahni lacks the restraint of his older colleague. He has heard of the ₹20,000 crore that has been allocated to the National Mission for Clean Ganga. “You have this money being spent on Ganga’s cleaning, but you can’t tell if it’s a river or a drain.”

Sahni says that with numerous sewers emptying effluents into the Ganga, its water has now become toxic. “A few years ago, we’d drink water from the river when we were thirsty. The water is now so polluted that we can’t even think of bathing in it. To drink it, we’d have to be Lord Shiva. Poison can linger in his throat, not ours.” A professor of electronics engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology on Banaras Hindu University’s (BHU) campus, Vishwambhar Nath Mishra bolsters Sahni’s gripe with numbers. In Varanasi, he says, 350 million litres of sewage are dumped into the Ganga every day. Fecal coliform bacteria — “the main cause behind water-borne diseases” — enter the river without being treated.

If measured upstream, the count of the bacteria is almost 90 times more than permissible limit for bathing. Downstream, the number increases to 3,000 times.

“There were at first 22 points from which drains dumped sewage into the Ganga. Now there are 33. The Ganga is dying and all they are concerned about is a cosmetic change like the cleaning of Assi. The problem here is not one of management. The problem here is that of political will,” says Mishra, who is also the mahant (head priest) of Varanasi’s Sankat Mochan temple. Behind Mishra hangs a framed photograph of the prime minister listening to the priest’s instructions in rapt attention. “He had sought my advice about the Ganga in the run-up to the elections,” explains the IIT professor. “The last time I met Modiji, I did so with affection and I will do the same today. He

Six feet under Even if Prime Minister Narendra Modi wields a spade and his power in Varanasi (pti), 350 million litres of sewage are dumped into the Ganga every day (ap/rajesh kumar singh)

should understand Benares more. If you’re my of Varanasi’s larger structural quandary. “In benefactor, you should know that a gift of 20 the past 60 years, I have seen cities like AllahaGodrej cupboards will be cumbersome.” bad grow substantially, but in Benares, everyThough Pandit Channulal Mishra support- thing has been dumped into a fixed ed Narendra Modi’s nomination from Varana- geographical area. The city needs to expand si last year, he dismisses political questions. and it needs to expand quickly,” says BHU’s re“Ask me about the notes that make Darbari in- tired information and public relations officer. stead.” Finally, a remark about his With 36 lakh residents, and a MP’s performance punctures the population density of 2,399 permusician’s reticence. “How can one sons per sqkm Varanasi is bursting man clean the Ganga so quickly? at its seams. By reviving an outer For there to be cleanliness, every The Ganga is dying ring road project, the Modi govand all they are person will have to be responsible. ernment is working towards deWe will all have to adopt the PM’s concerned about is a congestion. Its proposal of mindset. Every man will have to be- cosmetic change like developing satellite towns has furthe cleaning of Assi ther emboldened Varanasi’s ambicome Modi.”

Documentary filmmaker Bishwation for more space. Sanskrit jeet Mookherjee recently stood on scholar and journalist Amitabha the steps of a ghat, framing a wide Bhattacharya is enthused by these shot. He heard a man shout, “Don’t plans. “In this past year, Narendra dirty the Ganga with your shoes.” Mookherjee Modi has proved that he is the best MP we have turned to see a sign that banned the use of had in the last three decades. But I am consoap in the river. “There was my chastiser, cov- cerned by his aspiration to turn Varanasi into ered in shampoo, chest-deep in the Ganga. The a ‘smart city’. The need of the hour is to be senirony was perfect.” sible, not smart.”

Ever since Modi and Japanese PM Shinzo Too smart for class Abe signed an MoU to develop Varanasi into a Varanasi might not be the best prototype for Kyoto-like smart city in August, Benarasis have the PM’s much-touted Swachh Bharat Abhi- been confounded by the spectre of irreversyan. On a wall adjacent to a roadside tap, a pen ible change. Rajendra Tiwari, mahant of the company has plastered a poster that spells ‘I Kashi Vishwanath temple, says that Modi’s Love Modi’ in a bold font. Beside the sink, talk far exceeds the action on the ground. “It is there sits an overflowing garbage can. The un- unfortunate that without understanding the collected litter now pours onto the street. A true relevance of Kashi, our PM is using the consultant to film production crews that have template of another city to transform it. Kashi worked in the city, Gyaneshwar Shukla con- is a city of reflection, not resources.” Tiwari fesses that despite Modi’s efforts, unblem- talks of a WhatsApp message that has been doished locations in Varanasi are hard to come ing the rounds in Varanasi this past month. “It by. He frowns at a cow that noses its way into says we have elected Vasco da Gama as our MP. our conversation, but then admits to a weak- He is on a mission to discover the world.” ness he shares with most Banarasis — the ubiqMayor of Varanasi since 2012, Ram Gopal uitous paan. “I was an offender myself, but I Mohley returned from a trip to Kyoto only a now look for a proper place to spit. A whole fortnight ago. The BJP leader has a rather becity’s apathy will be difficult to shake.” musing line of defence to silence his prime Author and columnist Vishwanath Pandey minister’s many detractors. “Kashi is the believes that the city’s littering and paan- world’s spiritual and cultural capital. Thanks chewing habits only form the cultural aspect to a boon bestowed by Lord Shiva, the first rays

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Leading from the front Jayapur, Narendra Modi’s adopted village, in Varanasi district now has three banks, solar streetlights and nearly a dozen bio-toilets shreevatsa nevatia

of the sun fall on Japan. There isn’t much difference between Kashi and Kyoto. They’re both cities of temples and lanes.”

Mohley iterates that the Modi government does not want to demolish Kashi in order to build a new Kyoto. “I saw that while Kyoto had kept its traditions intact, it has used modern techniques to develop itself. We want to lend our culture to Kyoto and borrow its techniques.” Usually known for its effective communication machinery, the BJP hasn’t convinced everyone on the merit of using Kyoto as a prototype. Varanasi isn’t distrustful of modernity itself, rather it seems wary of nebulous words such as ‘smart.’

Author of Benares: A Journey Within, Roli Jindal believes that though Modi has the right intent, her hometown desperately needs to see a comprehensive plan for the year 2030 or 2040. “We are only hearing of piecemeal initiatives. Beyond that, we can’t see a big picture of what the city will look like 20 or 30 years from now. Once you have that vision, people will then know what to work towards.”

State of the nation When the Obamas visited in January this year, the city’s weavers had pieced together a rare gift for the American First Lady — a hundred Banarasi saris. But that was a rare moment in the limelight for Varanasi’s weavers. With declining demand, Kalim Hashmi has not worked his loom for 10 days now. Saeed-ur Rahman, owner of Taj Estate, one of Varanasi’s leading sari emporiums, says that weavers like Hashmi first need to be financed by Modi and his government.

“Once those at the bottom are propped up, the industry should be given the benefits of uninterrupted electricity and water. If the textile industry has to be helped, the everyday problems of a weaver will have to be addressed.” The prime minister had inaugurated a trade facilitation centre for the textile sector in November with typical pageantry.

“The only trouble,” says Rahman, “is that this centre is in Lalpur. It is outside the city and far from where most weavers live and work. It isn’t very useful.”

BJP’s MLA from Varanasi North, Ravindra Jaiswal admits that the location of the trade centre isn’t quite ideal. But he quickly shifts the blame, “The centre had to come up in Lalpur because even after six months of negotia-

tion, the Uttar Pradesh government did not ranasi. A loyal Congress voter, Singh switched give us any land within the city.” He adds that sides to the BJP after hearing Modi deliver a the Samajwadi Party leadership and the dis- speech. “The BJP won in my constituency, but I trict administration have tried to deliberately haven’t seen my MP, Ram Charitra Nishad, stall projects like the ring road’s construction even once after May 16.” Singh feels shortand a highway’s expansion. changed by the Modi government, but says he The MLA then deftly makes a will still vote for the BJP in 2017. pitch for Assembly elections in “I’ve had enough of UP’s caste2017: “People are now realising based politics. No Mayawati or that development will hasten only Mulayam Singh Yadav for me.” when the same party forms the His saffron turban apart, GaA WhatsApp government at the Centre and in message doing the nesh Pandey wears many hats. Afthe state.” filiated to the Rashtriya rounds is, ‘We have Jaiswal’s claim rings true on VaSwayamsevak Sangh, the BJP elected Vasco da ranasi’s streets. A BJP voter since Gama as our MP. He worker also works at a Central the party’s inception, taxi driver Bank of India agency in a village is on a mission to Mahendra Pratap Singh had discover the world’ near Varanasi’s airport. “It’s clear loaned his car for electioneering to me that the PM’s Jan Dhan Yojapurposes last May. “As a driver, I na has had a resounding impact. know roads better than anything Modiji has shown us a trailer. The else. I can tell you this — nothing best is yet to come.” Pandey lists has changed. Making and mainthe BJP’s achievements over a cup taining roads is the responsibility of the UP of tea. It is finally the mention of corruption government. The prime minister of the coun- that forces Jitendra Kumar Gupta to intervene. try will not give up his duties to come and get Not disheartened by Arvind Kejriwal’s dismal a pothole fixed.” In its battle against Akhilesh showing in Varanasi last year, the AAP volunYadav’s Samajwadi government, the BJP’s Vara- teer still thinks his party is a viable alternative. nasi unit is strangely not being helped by the “There’s a lot to read after Modi became PM, fact that it has a parliamentarian, a mayor and but nothing to see. If you want growth, start three MLAs on its side. Prince Pandey, a 25-year- looking towards AAP.” old branch president of the party’s Yuva MorIt is tempting to look at Varanasi as a microcha, reduces the idea of an inharmonious fed- cosm. Its lanes and inhabitants tell stories that eral structure to a simple analogy. “Think of it are often translated for a national audience in like a game of kabaddi. We are trying to touch television debates and newspaper headlines. that line of success, but the Samjawadi gov- PM Modi carries a double burden here. As his ernment keeps dragging us back.” policies are lauded and his speeches ridiculed, Sanjay Srivastava, professor of sociology at he shoulders the responsibility of reversing Jawaharlal Nehru University, doesn’t buy this nearly 68 years of neglect. comparison. He says no historical evidence The enormity of this task, however, isn’t imsuggests that the same ruling party at the Cen- pelling Banarasis to show mercy. They seem tre and state can ensure extraordinary eco- determined to hold their Member of Parlianomic development, policy implementation ment to account. Gaurav Kapoor, chief curator and infrastructure building. “If that were the of the Banaras Utsav, believes the Modi sarkar case, states like Madhya Pradesh should have is suffering a perception deficit. been highly developed by now.” Though “The hot air of their Gujarat model is fast flawed, the BJP’s logic of persecution again withering away. They need to come up with a raises the expectations of an electorate. “Modi Benares model of development soon. If the BJP was promoted as an antithesis to an apparent- hopes to win UP, the PM should be able to ly impotent Manmohan Singh, as a man point to Benares and say — ‘This is what’s possiwho’ll get things done immediately. But you ble here.’” Kapoor invents an adage for Modi’s will just end up setting your party and candi- future in Varanasi — “If the PM can’t, no one evdate up for eventual failure,” says Srivastava. er will.”

Retired high school teacher Gajraj Singh lives in Machhali Shahar, a city adjacent to Va- shreevatsa nevatia

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Here comes the sun...

And Delhi knows how to stay cool even when the heat is beating down

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ust storms. Power cuts. Water shortage. Delhi’s list of summer woes is long. Come May and the mercury, without fail, climbs above 40 degrees Celsius and stays there almost till the end of June. But ‘wilting’ doesn’t exist in the Delhi lexicon — not when it has kulfi, chuski, fizzy drinks, summer fruits and a generous green cover (Delhi has 42 forest areas) to stay cool. Tourist footfall in the Golden Triangle — Delhi, Jaipur and Agra — doesn’t take a beating. Even on the hottest days, you will find tourists queuing up at Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb, Lodi Gardens and India Gate. To slake everyone’s thirst, Delhi puts out iced teas, fruit juices and its very own banta (lemonade in glass bottles).

And Lutyens’ Delhi — among many other green pockets in the city — adds colour to the season with its amaltas and gulmohar trees.

The occasional thunderstorm is always welcome, but there’s no dearth of fun even when the heat is beating down.

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Dripping cool A slab of ice on its way to a stall for summer drinks

Up for grabs Shades at a traffic light near Rajpath

Drops of relief Pigeons at a fountain near India Gate

Man and machine Workers at a store selling desert coolers, which are synonymous with Delhi summers

Bloom town Amaltas trees provide both shade and colour

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Pulp it down Fruits of summer at India Gate. Don’t miss his bespoke hat

Cold cuts Scoops of kulďŹ in an Old Delhi bazaar

Bloom town Amaltas trees provide both shade and colour

Pot luck The most pocket-friendly way to cool drinking water

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Off the beaten track Georgina Maddox on five art residencies where the environment helps to mould the work itself

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n art residency is a time-honoured route to invigoration. A space in which to reflect, research and share, it helps an artist plunge headlong into work.

While most residencies tend to be gritty, like KHOJ in Delhi and CONA in Mumbai, there are others that aspire to provide more material comforts.

Often set in a luxurious natural ambience, the thrust here is on maintaining an apt physical environment for the artist to create in. Here are five handpicked art destinations that bring you in touch with your ‘natural side’.

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aking up to an expanse of mustard fields, stone chhatris, step-wells and the sound of birds can be inspiring for an artist or writer. Situated in Madhya Pradesh, Maihar is en route to Khajuraho and Bandhavgadh. It is famed for its Sharda Devi temple and the mausoleum and home of Baba Allaudin Khan — virtuoso and teacher of Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan. Set in this rich historical landscape is Art Ichol, an innovatively designed art residency run by Ambika Beri, and designed by artist Narayan Sinah and architect Suraj P Sabherwal.

Ichol’s residency programme aims to provide the space and tools for artists to experiment and produce works in stone, bronze, clay and other media. Its on-site artist-aids and technicians allow artists to work with mediums outside their speciality. Artists like Sakti Burman, Paresh Maity and Lalu Prasad Shaw attended the inaugural workshop. Beri is the gallery director of Sanskriti in Kolkata and has been passionate about the arts for many years. Her idyllic writer’s residency, Amaria, along the Tamas river is yet to open, but art-writers like Beena Sarkar and Ina Puri have already given it the thumbs-up.

Price: Mentored by Beri, invited artists stay as her guests in the newly designed space, with all meals and travel taken care of — all it costs is a donated artwork. Larger mentorship programmes and scholarships are in the pipeline.

Contact: +91-9831009278, 10am to 8pm, Monday to Friday info@gallerysanskriti.com

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n the Mehrauli-Gurgaon highway, this one emerges as an oasis.

Sanskriti Kendra International Residency, started in 1993, is one of Delhi’s first residencies, but among its best-kept secrets. Unsullied by the Capital’s pollution, trees, peacocks and terracotta sculptures of Aiyanar horses abound here. Traditional architectural elements fuse with modern ones creating organic comfort. The three craft museums offer artists the perfect environment to work with natural materials.

The founder, OP Jain, has been supporting artists for many years, but now the programme has expanded to include international artists, craftspersons, students and children.

Bharti Kher and LN Tallur are the Kendra’s fellows.

Duplex apartments are available; the ground-floor works as a studio and the first floor has the bedroom. Since the rent is steep, artists often pool and bunk

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in together — dormitory-style. The meals are wholesome, vegetarian fare.

Enamelling and pottery workshops, lectures and seminars are held frequently; however, one can just do their own thing.

Price: The duplex studios are for ₹3,000 a day; the dormitories at ₹1,000 a day.

Contact: +91-11-26501796/1125, 64675041 kendra@sanskritifoundation.org

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Goa Studio

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iving up to its name meaning forest, Vana is a 21-acre estate in Dehradun. Located near clusters of reserve sal forest, it is bordered by the hills of Mussoorie to the north and the bustling town of Dehradun to the east. The architecture is in harmony with nature. Designed by Esteva i Esteva Arquitectura, a boutique studio from the Balearic Islands in Spain, the aesthetic is chic yet simple.

The residency invites both emerging and established visual artists, writers, musicians, chefs, academics, spiritual guides and performers to this healing space.

The programme works towards restoring an individual’s sense of well-being, which in turn acts as a catalyst to creativity.

Residents can have the wholesome, organic breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea provided at the cafeteria in the estate and also participate in fitness and well-being

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place where artists, writers and poets come together to live in a creative commune. Goa Studio has all the charms of a Portuguese villa and is located in Aldona, a village in Bardez. Palm trees and the beach are right next door.

Run by Margaret Mascarenhas, a Goan expat and author, this is where William Dalrymple and Nilanjana Roy put up their feet. Artists like Walter D’souza and Subodh Kerkar are frequent visitors.

The high-vaulted ceilings, four-poster beds, spacious studios and community kitchen take to solitude and gregariousness alike. This is a long-term residency programme and people usually stay for a month or two. The air is characteristically one of laidback bliss.

Price: Mascarenhas is currently not running a ‘guided’ residency since she is busy writing her new book. Artists and writers stay for ₹20,000 a month. The rooms are big enough for large canvases and most artists cook their own food or visit local eateries. For shorter stays, Mascarenhas is happy to provide lodging free of cost to those who dog-sit her pooch.

Contact: m_masc2004@yahoo.com, http://mmascgoa.tripod.com/

activities. Featured at Vana are the works of Siraj Saxena. Over the past four years, he has created almost 500 pieces of bespoke art across several mediums. Rajesh Deoria has also worked closely with Saxena and the Vana team to develop unique sculptures from scrap metal, and these have become an iconic presence at the retreat.

The light pieces by architect Angus Hutcheson bring a sense of warmth and mystery.

Designers Abraham and Thakore have created a line of clothing to be worn by the residents, while Spanish designer Rosa Esteva has designed the staff uniforms, made of cotton and natural fibres.

Price: Every application is treated as an individual package with terms mutually agreed upon. Applicants need to send in their profile along with images and video clips.

Contact: contactus@vanaretreats.com

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ealing Hill Art Residency (HHAR) is the newest art-res to offer cooler climes and a peaceful getaway to artists and writers interested in creating environmental and issue-based artwork. Perched on the Morni Hill range, the residency is removed from the hubbub of the city, though Chandigarh is only two hours away. The rustic, raw brick edifice looms over a green valley, where a tributary of the Ghaggar river snakes past a horticulture farm. The rooms and dormitories are basic and the camp-style quarters require rugged living. However, it makes for a good budget trip, easily housing a group of 10-15 at one go; the bonhomie and great outdoors make up for what might lack in creature comforts. The in-house cooks, who double as folk musicians post-dinner, serve an array of vegetarian fare that is homely and wholesome. The only expense is the travel to Chandigarh; all other expenses are borne by HHAR. Mentored by Chandigarh-based artist Harpreet Singh, the first residency kicked off this May with a group of emerging and established artists. It featured performances by Korea-based artist Yonggu Shin and Satadru Sovan. Works by New Zealander Brydee Rood, Nitin Dutt, Renu Bariwal, Anjali Goel, Jaskiran Singh and Tapati Chowdhury were also presented.

Contact: vkharry@yahoo.com +91-7508273623, +91-9805748454

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Kin in the crosshairs Veteran director Feisal Alkazi’s stage adaptation of the Nanavati murder case turns the spotlight on factors that make or break present-day families

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ensational court cases are rarely for- now. Nanavati was a naval officer, and heaven gotten in a hurry. The many twists and and earth was moved for him to be given an turns scream out from newspaper acquittal, though he may have committed the headlines and the comcrime. I find this moral ambiguity mon man stays riveted. Myriad extremely interesting. And then such cases have been dissected there are the back stories, about both inside and outside the courwhat happens to the family after troom, but one of the oldest and the trial. How does the family get most intriguing is the trial of Natogether? The officer’s wife, SylSo many people in val Commander Kawas Manekshvia, is still alive and must be well their thirties and aw Nanavati, charged with the forties are into their into her eighties. It’s so interestmurder of his wife Sylvia’s lover, ing that all these questions stayed second marriages Prem Ahuja. at the back of my mind. I was also and, mind you, That trial has inspired several intrigued by something I read they’re happy stage and movie adaptations in about six years ago called Bombay the past, and the latest is by the Fable written by the historian Delhi-based theatre director FeiGyan Prakash. It brings together sal Alkazi’s Ruchika Theatre Prodifferent facets of Bombay — mill ductions. The Kambatta Case not workers, the media, the cinema only recreates the Nanavati murder case of industry — and the Nanavati case is a part of it.

1959 but also scrutinises factors such as gender discrimination, expected loyalties and What’s your take on the media’s perspective class-consciousness that make or break pre- in such cases? sent-day families. Post-performance, Alkazi In Bombay Fable, the way the author treated talked about his fascination with court trials the case from the media angle was very interand the different angles that fuel his ideas for esting to me. The media trivialises the situatheir stage adaptation. tion and makes it look horrible. The way they treat people is outright nasty and this is the Why recreate this case? case even today. They’re not bothered about This is among the most extraordinary cases to the person undergoing the trial and trauma, have captured my imagination for a long time or the families involved. I wanted to put these

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Home affairs The characters in the play The Kambatta Case, based on a decades-old murder case, have been reimagined for current realities; (top) the director Feisal Alkazi shanker chakravarty

two perspectives side by side — the media’s ruthless take on the case, fetching bonuses from the greasy circulation of their publications at the cost of a family facing incredibly tough times.

How much of the play is imagined?

I started working on the characters a couple of years ago, when I was in San Francisco directing another play of mine called Noor Jahan.

The plot remains the same — an Indian naval officer being tried for the murder of his British wife’s lover — but most of the characters are imaginary. Rosy, who plays Sylvia, has been shown to be 41 years old, but in reality she was only 26 when it all happened. And then I’ve thrown in a bit of modern perspective by showing both Kambatta and his wife in their second marriages.

Do you feel present-day relationships are growing more fragile?

We all know the complexion of families is changing completely, and certainly in India this is happening to a great extent. I think it’s a big, invisible question mark that hovers over every family; the tension is apparent. We can see it in our lives. So many people in their thirties and forties are into their second marriages and, mind you, they’re happy. I have been a counsellor with Sanjeevani for 35 years and I’ve been up close and personal with such couples on a weekly basis. One can’t help but see the crazy numbers of couples who are getting divorced these days.

What’s your opinion on the government’s plan to simplify gun licensing?

I am against the whole freedom of gun possession; we’ve seen what it does. In the last scene of the play, it is made clear that people in a fit of rage shoot in all directions — the sky and the floor and everything. That’s really what happens in real life and it’s not okay to make lethal arms easily available to people.

(The two-hour long The Kambatta Case will have repeat shows today and tomorrow, 7.30pm, at the Epicentre, Gurgaon.)

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arunima mazumdar is a Delhi-based journalist

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Man without a cause Set in the city of the Colosseum, No Direction Rome is a happy romp into the mind of an Indian hypochondriac

Happy to be a phony

afp/filippo monterforte

No Direction Rome tells of today’s overpaid expats aware of their own ludicrousness

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No Direction Rome Kaushik Barua Fourth Esate Fiction ₹399

t is, or at least should be, standard reviewing practice to read or re-read a writer’s back catalogue to offer an intelligent opinion on the writer’s latest work. How else to note patterns, the ideas that move a writer, to discern the shape of a career? So it is with some shame that I confess I haven’t read Kaushik Barua’s debut novel, Windhorse — published just over a year ago and winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar award for 2014. But, to the relief of derelict reviewers, it appears that Barua’s second novel, No Direction Rome, is wholly different from his first in setting, tone and preoccupation. Nothing, I gather, in Windhorse would have prepared me for No Direction Rome.

Although, there is one thing. (There always is.) Windhorse is about Tibetan revolutionaries engaged in doomed armed resistance against China. For the Tibetan in exile, as for the Palestinian or any exiled people, the lost home, at once real and chimerical, becomes defining, even for generations that know only statelessness, whose knowledge and experience of ‘home’ is at best secondhand.

Krantik, in whose sardonic, antic voice No Direction Rome is told, is found early in the novel at a bar telling a woman that his name means ‘the fighter’: “Fighting against what?

Against oneself, against the universe, I think.

Wow, that’s so profound.” If the Tibetan revolutionaries in Windhorse had an obvious purpose and foe, Krantik is a revolutionary in search of revolution, a fighter not even lucky enough to be fighting for a lost cause. It is that flailing for purpose, as the novel’s title suggests, that directionless drifting, that defines Krantik as clearly as the loss of home might define an exile.

Krantik’s is a voice I haven’t heard before in Indian writing in English. He is related to Agastya Sen of Upamanyu Chatterjee’s English August, and shares his urban disaffection, his scatological humour. But Agastya, for all his alienation, is mired to India. Krantik has left India behind: “Don’t ask me about that stuff, find someone else. They’ll tell you about their

Indian mother’s spices and mangoes and ele- of pictures on Facebook of a recent island holiphant dung and shit.” This is a literary state- day, an existential panic occasionally sets in. ment of intent. Barua’s Krantik is Ever get the feeling, as Johnny Rotten once uninterested in romanticising India from asked, you’ve been cheated? “Sometimes my New York or London. Neither is he interested anger is fake,” Krantik observes. “Often my sorin contemporary India, its inequalities, its ug- row is fake too. If I don’t fill my soul with wind ly, unlivable cities or its moribund villages. In- and bluster, the world may know it’s empty dia intrudes into his life only in the form of and crush it like a Coke can.” guilt over his mother, and the vague menace Krantik, a whiny hypochondriac, is not a of an arranged marriage. The book begins likeable protagonist but he is funny. Barua has with Krantik’s betrothed, the daughter of a described him in interviews as Holden Caulpolitician, attempting suicide in Amsterdam. field in his thirties, but this is to sell Krantik Uninterested in evoking India from afar, short. Caulfield is sentimental about childKrantik is also uninterested in the immigrant hood innocence, terrified that adulthood narrative, in telling the story of leaving India means becoming a phony. Krantik knows he is to find material success, if spirituludicrous, knows that he is alal confusion, in New York or Lonready a phony. He understands don. Krantik is not a migrant. that even his alienation is not Instead he is that privileged speoriginal but an attitude, a pose — cies — the expatriate, a label hithlike much of contemporary life it Krantik’s is a voice I is, as Barua writes, “an image of erto reserved for Westerners condescending to work in the don’t think I’ve heard an image”. before in Indian third world. “And I’m not a stupid Krantik is vividly drawn, an apwriting in English foreigner anyway,” Krantik sneers, propriately shallow example of a “I’m the overpaid expat.” He is particularly shallow class of perpart of a globalised technocracy, a sons, the “overpaid expat”. It’s protean, mobile class of well-eduunfortunate that Barua felt it cated, well-compensated whitenecessary to fill the rest of the collar workers for whom the novel with so much contrived ‘zaworld blends into a succession of airport niness’. Chiara, with whom Krantik carries on lounges, coffee shops and office lobbies. Wher- a desultory affair, is a nerd-boy fantasy, a wildever in the world they are from they speak an haired bohemian with an open marriage and Americanised English and share an air of gild- a penchant for cutting herself; she’s a stock ed imperviousness. character, as Barua himself acknowledges in Changez in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant the text, out of a Woody Allen film, the allurFundamentalist is such a technocrat, as are the ing, damaged Charlotte Rampling in Stardust protagonists in Zia Haider Rahman’s ambi- Memories, for example. Some of the slapstick tious debut In The Light of What We Know. But comedy, a prolonged scene with sleeping gas, these novels teeter on the fault lines that trace for instance, is out of kilter with the blacker a jagged path between that imperviousness comedy, the social satire No Direction Rome gesand the political realities of being Muslim in tures towards without fully committing to. the West after 9/11. In Krantik’s case there is Rome itself, where Barua works for an internothing, political or religious, to obtrude on national aid agency, is an inspired setting, the good life, the casual hedonism of those mouldering and falling apart albeit with far who take recreational drugs and go to clubs more grace than poor Krantik can muster. while the world burns around them.

Still, as they carefully curate another album shougat dasgupta is a freelance journalist

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ON THE SHELF

Colouring for adults The surge in popularity of adult colouring books is a move against technology and a certain nostalgia for pre-computer childhood experience

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here’s nothing like a long, dull seminar, or a Powerpoint presentation, or even a long phone call to a chatty relative to bring out the creative doodler in you. Interlocking spirals. Obsessive cross-hatching. Branches and leaves and many-petalled flowers… it’s amazing what the hand will do when the brain is in neutral.

In these days of productivity overdrive, idling synapses are hard to come by. But all the latest conjecture suggests that these moments of mental downtime, are crucial to our wellbeing. And in an increasingly electronic world, we need to reconnect to the physicality of — for example — putting pen to paper.

It is impossible to doodle productively: doodling suggests purposelessness, a wistful, unselfconscious, daydreamy saunter through the forgotten neural byways. The end-product might be marvellously intricate, visually pleasing, aesthetically thrilling. But it absolutely doesn’t matter if it’s not. Who cares? It’s just a doodle.

You can read too much into bestseller lists (if you’ll pardon the pun), but when two of Amazon’s hottest sellers of the recent past have been from an entirely new genre, then you tend to sit up a bit and wonder what that says about society.

When Scottish illustrator Johanna Basford’s colouring book Secret Garden was published in 2013, neither she nor her publisher, Michael O’Mara Books, had any inkling (sorry) that it would tap into the zeitgeist with such spectacular success. It has sold over 1.5 million copies to date, launching an entirely new genre — the adult colouring book. She followed up with Enchanted Forest, another wordless colouringin book. It has sold 225,000 copies since it was published three months back.

Basford’s artworks are intricately patterned leaves and flowers, intertwined tendrils and tattoo-like designs. They are somewhat Art Deco-ish, and unabashedly whimsical — Aubrey Beardsley minus the

sexuality and darkness. “I like sugar mice, Alice nix Yard’s books and am currently experiencin Wonderland, peonies and 0.05 Staedtler pig- ing a very pleasurable Benjamin-Button-like ment liners,” Basford announces on her web- regression to the age of about six. Given the site. “I love natural form and all its weird fact that even a cursory trawl on the internet curiosities; bumblebees, seed pods, dung bee- throws up Christmas-themed colouring tles, blossoms, thorns, gnarly apple trees, fox- books, mandala colouring books, ‘de-stressgloves, spiders webs...” She describes herself as ing’ colouring books, 1940s colouring books, an “ink evangelist who prefers pens and pen- cannabis fantasy, steampunk, and Japanesecils to pixels. For me, computer generated themed colouring books, and even one featurgraphics can feel cold and soulless whereas ing ‘Fat Ladies in Spaaaaaace’ [sic], the One and hand drawings captures a sense of Only Colouring Book for Adults is a energy and character which no pixbit of a misnomer. In fact, not el can ever replicate… I like the rocontent with mis-noming one mantic charm of an illustrator book, Phoenix Yard brought The sitting down to a blank piece of paSecond One and Only Colouring per, getting their hands dirty and Colouring for adults Book for Adults as well as three is a natural crafting a beautiful image from other One and Only colouring response to the graphite and ink.” books all on the same day! modern world The surge in popularity of adult Compared to the Beardsleyescolouring books is linked both to que elegance of Basford’s work, this move against technology and most of the others are but crude with a certain nostalgia for preexamples of the genre. None computer childhood experience. cruder, it must be said, than ColVicki Berwick of Phoenix Yard pubour My Boobs, a colouring book lishers (which launched five — count ’em — with the emphasis on adult. This collection of adult colouring books this month) explains: (and I quote) ‘iconic jugs’ also connects you to “It seems that colouring for adults is a natural your younger self — but only if your younger response to the modern world. It is hard to self is a sniggering horny 13-year-old boy. avoid digital products, and we need to have It takes all sorts, I guess. time out away from a screen. Putting pen to Perhaps it is the calming effects of spending paper is like getting back to basics for many, the last three days studiously avoiding writing and a link to their childhood too. It’s some- this column, and instead inking carefully bething many adults haven’t done for them- tween the black lines. I must confess, I love colselves for many years.” ouring in. It has all the pleasure of drawing Canadian independent bookstore manager with none of the artistic angst. More ‘craft’ Mike Hamm agrees: “It’s something tactile, it’s than ‘art’, it’s the opposite of original — all of something that has a nostalgic aspect to it.” us inklings, huedonists, colouristas (all terms I don’t know what the term for it is, but suggested by Basford’s numerous Facebook there should be one: the fear that digital tech followers) happily producing marginally difis overtaking real life. Marketing communica- ferent versions of the same patterns over and tions company JWT Worldwide called it “rag- over again. ing against the machine,” and last year pronounced it one of the 10 trends that would anita roy is a writer, editor and publisher shape the world in 2014. One of the other Y www.anitaroy.net things on the JWT list was ‘mindful living’ — cue Boxtree’s The Mindfulness Colouring Book launched in January and doing very nicely, thank you.

I have one of Phoe-

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SPIRITUAL SWEAT

Red obsession Many wine enthusiasts think that red is the drink for anyone in the know. Sadly, they are missing out on fun with colours and notes Sangria Glass: Jug, all-purpose (AP) wine glass Ingredients:

shatbhi basu

Cut fruit — your favourite from what’s available 1 bottle cold white/ rosé/red wine 75ml orange liqueur or orange vodka (optional) Top with any fizzy lime or apple drink Garnish: fresh mint sprigs

Method: 1 Place the cut fruit in the jug.

2 Add wine, orange liqueur/vodka.

3 Wrap in cling film and allow it to soak in the refrigerator until serving time.

4 Add ice. Top with fizzy lime or apple.

5 Pour into glasses and garnish with fresh mint sprigs.

Cool logic A glass of warm red wine is blasphemy, according to the connoisseur shutterstock

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Phone 6 or S6 Edge? Does your watch give lag (it’s true, I swear) and finally gave in last better time than mine? Is the little band evening, as I cooked an impromptu pasta and on your shirt the right one? BMW or Au- prawn dinner. Needed some easy white wine di? Is this who we really to elevate the sauce and out are? Does that say we ‘belong’? came an icy bottle of a young I’ll tell you why I am ranting. chardonnay from the Nandi ValThe sun has been relentless in ley near Bengaluru. its blistering attack. And that’s ‘Room temperature’ that Then, of course, our waiting all I seem to be hearing from all wine experts refer to is glasses were splashed with a quarters. Buy, buy, buy. bright gold nectar, which approximately 16-18°C, So I went shopping too. In even cooler with current looked happy and had a very Bengaluru. And came back with fruity nose.

It was juicy, slightly year wines a boxful of wine along with sweet on the palate and made chocolate biscuits, pickles and you smile as you allowed the flaother spicy yumminess. But vour to take over, the cool freshmostly wine — key to my happiness chasing away the blues of a ness and far removed from the scorching summer. silly battle for gizmos, thank goodness.

Which brought me to this. There are those Like the sensible wine enthusiast, I let my who drink red wine and those who will drink bottles rest for a week or so to recover from jet only red wine. Now, there’s nothing wrong in

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having a marked preference. Go right ahead if that’s what makes you happy. There are those who will drink only red as they have this crazy theory that if you have arrived, and are in the know, then red it is. Sadly they’re missing the joy of seeing the wonderful hues and delicate notes of fresh whites and the redolent-withflavour rosés.

They will drink a glass or two or more at all hours of the day, irrespective of the weather, the wine, its style, the grape. In bars, nightclubs, brunches, cocktail evenings… They quite often will simply ask for a glass of red wine. And they will drink it at ‘room temperature’! Warm and usually quite revolting.

Some will call me opinionated. Others will look upon me with disdain. But honestly, what a waste! I love a glass of juicy red wine just as much as anyone else. Cool, not warm. As cool as a claypot (matka) holding water on a breezy day. Colder if the wine is young and of the current year or close. But to forsake all the other colours of happiness for it? Not a chance.

I remember one evening when I was asked to ensure some good wine for a friend’s uncle, supposedly a connoisseur of sorts. Red. So I pulled out the best bottle I could, cooled it just right and had the glass all ready. To my complete dismay, he preferred to drink it at ‘room temperature’, which, at that moment, was 34°C! For those of you who are wondering — the ‘room temperature’ that wine experts refer to is approximately 16-18°C, even cooler with current-year wines.

So let’s keep our options open, wine or otherwise. And enjoy every offering that life puts forward. Then partake more often of those that make you most joyous. And if it’s all ordinary, turn it into sangria.

By the way, my colleagues ordered an Mi4 for me because I refused to upgrade on my own. I still don’t know how to use it but it seems to make them happy. Now my friendly neighbour who ‘knows’ cars thinks there’s no point in my buying just another mini SUV that I mentioned in passing. That it’s about time I looked at the Mercedes! And life goes on… shatbhi basu is a mixologist, author, television host and head of Stir, a bartending academy in Mumbai

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Over to Islamabad A journey from the nondescript Wagah to the meticulously planned capital of Pakistan

City beautiful The Pakistan Monument in Islamabad represents the country’s four provinces and three territories shutterstock

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he sign announces, “We respect all; We suspect all,” in two straight lines, printed on an A4 sheet. My hands itch to take a picture, but there is something eerie about an immigration building that freezes the paparazzi instinct in the most hardened photographer. I am on the Pakistan side of Wagah border, waiting for its officials to clear my papers. I have never travelled to Pakistan by land before, and do not know what to expect. And Pakistan is Pakistan, the country where I am more out of place than in any other.

The crossing at Attari is almost deserted when I reach it just after nine in the morning.

The infrastructure is huge, with massive warehouses for the trade between the two countries. The coolies rushed towards me, but I have only one small suitcase. The guards tell me to wait until 10, and I sit down to read a book in the waiting area, where there is nobody else. A few people dribble in and there are maybe half a dozen when the crossing opens. It is all quite smooth; the only odd thing is the polio drops we have to take. This is the gift that the CIA and the Taliban have given to the world. The CIA used medical teams to surreptitiously track Osama bin Laden, and now the Taliban kill medical workers on suspicion. Polio, which was nearly stamped out, is flowering again in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands, and everybody entering or leaving Pakistan has to prove they have been recently vaccinated.

A bus takes us from the Attari side to the Wagah side, where we go through the process again, but the officers are still arriving. The Xray machine for the luggage is still warming up, but the customs fellow takes a look at me and decides that if I am smuggling anything, it cannot be very profitable. He just waves me

through. I thank him briefly and make my way to friends introducing me and adding, ‘He is out of immigration. The coolies on the Pakis- from India.’ I do not get used to how hands tani side are visibly poorer, thinner and with clench a little involuntarily at the name of my patched kurtas. It is a long walk out of the fa- country in the middle of a handshake. Along cility. No car is allowed to come close by. A sui- the roads the signs say, ‘Ahista’, in Urdu, ‘Slowcide attack in November last year had claimed ly’. It makes me smile. The Indian Foreign Secdozens of lives during the flag-lowering cere- retary, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, is due to mony. The shock seems to hang in the air, al- arrive any day now and it seems that the city though no mark remains of the carnage. I do seems to be saying, ‘Slowly, slowly’. notice, with amusement, that Wagah is There is something else as well. In Decemspelled in three different ways within a ber 2014, the Pakistani Taliban stormed a milihundred yards. Our revenge on the English tary school in Peshawar and killed 145 people, language persists decades after including 132 students. It has ratIndependence on both sides of tled Pakistan to the core. The the border. barbed wire around girl’s collegThe car that picks me up is a es and the presence of heavily spanking new Toyota Camry, ar- There are no roadside armed Pakistani Rangers patrolldhabas, only the ranged by the office. It takes me ing the city in flatbed pickup immediately to the highway. I expressway, with rich trucks are a constant reminder have only a visa to Islamabad, green fields and small that the ‘war’ is not far away. I and Lahore would be a no-no. village houses outside have a dinner invitation at the Inthe car window. We The drive, though, is beautiful. It dian High Commission, and I stop once, at a is about 400km from the border shock the guards by coming on modern rest stop, and foot. They are unsure how to deal to Islamabad, and the road is vethen we are in ry smooth, with incredibly civilwith me, and the security doors Islamabad ised traffic. The driver tackles it are reluctantly swung open.

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at average of 110kmph, and I catch a quick nap.

This is not the Indian Punjab.

There are no roadside dhabas, only the expressway, with rich green fields and small village houses outside the car window. We stop once, at a modern rest stop, and then we are in Islamabad. I scramble to complete my paperwork as an Indian in the land of our most intimate strangers.

Islamabad is well laid-out, lots of space. Everybody drives. Or at least those who can. I try and walk, get lost at times, but slowly discover the city in the four days I have. I am surprised by the number of Chinese I see, and I get used

The Indian High Commissioner’s residence is right next to the Danish Ambassador’s, which was the target of a 2008 suicide bomb attack. Conversation with the top diplomat and his wife, a literary editor in her own right, was about books, about Lord Wavell’s diary and how that shapes the telling of Indian history.

And then my time is up, my visa one day from expiring, I rush back to the border, to cross, to turn on my phone and call home again, to breathe, and leave our complicated, fraught neighbours behind. Until next time. omair ahmad is a Delhi-based author

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Odd ball Goya champuru, an Okinawan delicacy, combines bitter gourd, tofu and juicy bits of pork shutterstock

Southern comfort Japan’s southernmost prefecture, Okinawa is anything but our idea of ‘Japanese’. A cluster of islands with a rich coral life, its food is a far cry from sushi and sashimi

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bowl stuffed to the rim with bitter gourd (our very own karela), tofu and bits of fried pork. I stare hard at the odd combination — a delicacy in Okinawa, a prefecture at Japan’s southern tip — that awaited my attention at the table of a crowded marketplace eatery. The bitter gourd

took me back to the summertime lunches at my ancestral home in Kolkata. A firm believer of uniform civil code at the dining table, my mother ensured that every complaining child in the noisy joint family got a healthy dose of all bitter vegetables in the market. I showed uncharacteristic restraint each time I submitted to her diktat — only because I had my eyes set on the fish and meat that followed. With the same strategy, I returned to the generous helping of goya champuru. It was a sweltering afternoon in Naha, Okinawa’s largest city, and I didn’t want to waste more time on the strange delicacy. But just one bite and I was ready to drop my prejudice against the spiky vegetable. The crunchiness of the goya (bitter gourd) and the saltiness of the pork was a marriage made in culinary heaven, and I didn’t even mind the bland tofu, another big no-no on my food list.

Pork and any bitter vegetable is as unlikely a combination as garlic and granola. But few things in Okinawa are ordinary or anything like mainland Japan. Just like the screaming American fighter jets that fly across its islands (Okinawa is home to more than 20,000 US servicemen and their families, thanks to the military bases that have been around since World War II).

Independent from Japan until the late 19th century, Okinawa, then known as Ryukyu, was known for its historic trade ties and proximity to China. Ryukyu’s fairly independent past gave it many dialects — Amami and Yoron, for example — as well as its own cuisine, a far and distinct cry from the mainland fare of sushi and sashimi, yakitori and tempura.

Much has been said and written of the miracle effect of Okinawa’s nutritious diet, said to be the secret to long life (the southern islands are home to some of Japan’s oldest citizens).

Strangely for an island, Okinawa is not obsessed with seafood. The pig rules the Okinawan kitchen and not a single body part of the animal goes waste. Pork in all forms is relished — even the ears and the feet (the latter served in a soup). Seaweed often replaces the whitefish, prawn or the okra in the local version of the tempura.

A walk — generously peppered with foodstops — through Makishi Kosetsu Ichiba, Naha’s busy market, was a crash course in what Okinawa likes to eat and drink.

Brown sugar Made from sugarcane, which grows in abundance in the region, it is the healthiest and tastiest alternative to sugar. You’ll find it as the ingredient in a variety of sweets and ice creams, used in cooking and to sweeten tea.

The warm and smiling (most mainland Japanese, though very hospitable and polite, don’t smile too much) shopkeepers let you sample cubes of brown sugar piled up in containers.

All you need to do is smile back.

Doughnuts When the Americans are around, can the doughnut be far behind? The Okinawan version is the size of your palm, sans the hole in the middle. Don’t expect the usual varieties such as choco mocha, Irish coffee or strawberry jelly. Try brown sugar, black sesame, purple sweet potato and coconut.

Sweet potato The Okinawan-native purple sweet potato is actually not purple. It is a bright magenta, and that too without any food colour. And it goes into a bouquet of snacks and desserts: icecreams, pastry, doughnuts, soba and crisps.

Soba Unlike the usual buckwheat variety, Okinawan soba is made of white wheat. These come in a clear broth, almost always pork-based, paired with slices of pork and spring onions. Add koregusu (go easy on the killer chilli peppers) and garnish with pickled ginger, seaweed and sweet potatoes.

Awamori This is distilled rice liquor made without sugar. If you can’t handle the potency of 80 per cent(!), take home a bottle of chilli peppers doused in it. aditi sengupta

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Eyes of the beholder Does Jose Mourinho have an obligation to make his team subscribe to commonly held notions of beautiful football? reuters / carl recine

BEYOND THE FIELD

Dare to be more interesting Being defensive in a game is not only about trying to arrive at victory, but also winning against the establishment

suhrith parthasarathy

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hortly after Floyd Mayweather had secured a clinically brilliant victory against Manny Pacquiao in what was branded — perhaps incorrectly — as the fight of the century, at Las Vegas on May 2, comments abounded on social media comparing Mayweather to Jose Mourinho. Both, the commentators said, sucked the joy out of sports.

They focus their energies purely on an endeavour to win at all costs, concerned not about aesthetics or style, but solely raw efficiency. As it would happen, Mourinho’s Chelsea football club would seal their fifth English league title a day after Mayweather’s triumph, with a 1-0 win against Crystal Palace. Chelsea finished the 90 minutes with three defensive midfielders on the pitch. Having opened the scoring, Mourinho found the deployment of such a tactic the pragmatic thing to do. Considered impassively, his ploy seemed the natural one. But a deeper analysis, as some of the criticism of Chelsea has shown, can reveal more questions, even if Mourinho ultimately always seems vindicated.

Chelsea, it’s important to bear in mind, were phenomenally dominant in the first half of the season. They played a direct style of football, scored plenty of goals, and were often thrilling to watch. But an injury to their talismanic striker Diego Costa saw Mourinho revert to type after the turn of the year. He seemed to, at times, instruct his team to eschew possession of the ball, and to concentrate only on their defensive shape, working primarily on swift counter-attacks to score their goals. This, to the neutral observer, killed a lot of the fun in football. But, the first thing to recognise in this debate — if indeed we can call it that — is that good football and beautiful football, much like good boxing and beautiful boxing, do not always coincide. Good football represents any kind of strategy that allows a team, given its resources and playing staff, to win matches and titles, so long as it implements its plans fairly and ethically, by adhering to the fundamental rules of

the game. Beautiful football, on the contrary, ly, it’s easy to see Mourinho as the philosopher does not partake of such objective judgment. king of a form of anti-futbol, as a figure who apDetermining what is beautiful football in- pears to revel in producing teams that are devolves an inherently subjective dissection. One fensive for the sake of not merely a victory but a viewer, for example, might derive pleasure victory that rebels against the establishment. from watching football rich in passing and For some, this might make for frustrating viewmovement, and with a strong emphasis on ball ing. Yet, the question remains: does Mourinho retention. But other viewers might consider have an obligation to make his team subscribe such a style boring. In fact, when Spain was at to commonly held notions of beautiful foottheir zenith, many football fans found them ball. He is certainly answerable to Chelsea’s unwatchable; their style — the tiki-taka — to fans and its owner. But beyond that, must he resome spectators represented a joyless, tedious ally care? form of football. But yet, the tiki-taka, which inI have often vacillated on this question. I envolves endless passing, often sideways and joy watching teams that look to attack with backwards, to ensure ball-possession, began to speed and power, that look beyond mere defenbe considered, possibly because of sive solidity in the interest of allowits sheer effectiveness, as a protoing the team’s creative players to type of excellence. flourish. But the vagaries that go inIf you found Spain boring, you to determining what constitutes an were branded a philistine who appropriate aesthetic of good footIndeed, great knew little about the art of football. ball makes it difficult to make an ardefensive Yet, it was difficult at times to derive gument that there exists a larger showings often do pleasure from watching them. obligation to play football — or inmake for Their football was no doubt sophisdeed any sport — by conforming to wonderful ticated and productive, but their subjective opinions of beauty. spectacles lack of direct focus in trying to seek There are many reasons why we goals made their domination frewatch sport. Seeking artistic pleaquently drab and aseptic. If we were sure, and indeed entertainment, to hypothesise that teams have a might be amongst them; but these moral obligation to play beautiful are never the sole prerogatives. football, the question begs asking: who decides Sport, at its finest, evokes emotions that are dewhat is beautiful? rived not merely from aesthetics, but also from Gianni Brera, the great Italian journalist, ob- drama, from clever strategies, from a contrast served that the perfect game would end goal- in styles. If Mourinho, and for that matter, Mayless. It would mean neither team had weather can find ways within the confines of a committed a mistake. Such efficiency, you’d game’s structure to engineer victories, while imagine, must also make for fine viewing. sacrificing attacking aggression, they are not as There is a unique thrill to watching a team pro- much killing the sport, as they are making it duce a tactical master class, outsmarting the more interesting. Let’s celebrate that diversity. opponent through stratagem and nous, (This monthly column examines sports through through solid defensive organisation. Mourin- the lens of history, politics and culture.) ho is a kind of coach who prefers such an approach. But at the same time, as the journalist suhrith parthasarathy is a Chennai-based lawyer Jonathan Wilson wrote in the Guardian recent- and writer t @suhrith

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saturday, may 16, 2015

Off the floor Food conveyor belts may take over from air hostesses

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isle-blocking food trolleys in flights may become a thing of the past. Instead, your cappuccino, vodka or sushi could emerge on demand from the plane floor. Sell GMBH, the German division of Zodiac Aerospace, has filed for the patent for a quaint under-floor food distribution system in flights, which will be a combination of a conveyor belt and automat machine. Flight attendants might as well carry their favourite books to duty.

What does your cheese smell of?

Bacteria from human body used for new creations

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f you’re eating something as you read this, we suggest you put it away. In important food-related news, scientist Christina Agapakis and scent expert Sissel Tolaas have managed to make cheese from bacteria found in human armpits, feet, bellybuttons and even tears. The cheese, they have been quoted as saying, was made “to inspire new conversations about our relationship to the body and to our bacteria”. The next time the smell of cheese reminds you of stinky feet, remember, it could be a lot worse.

To let a toilet Bihar woman divorces husband for not building her a loo

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idya Balan’s incessant lessons to women on toilet rights are apparently not going unheeded.

Sunita Devi, from Vaishali in Bihar, has gone ahead and divorced her husband for not building a toilet in the house. Devi, who hails from ‘nirmal gram’ Paharpur, says she could no longer bear the humiliation of making her way through the dark fields for her daily ablutions. After failing to get her husband to act after four years of cusses and pleas, Devi called it quits at the village panchayat.

Monkey business Zoo in France loses 17 rare species to thieves

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onkey thieves are giving France a bad name.

It’s been a week since 17 ‘rare, extremely fragile monkeys’ were stolen from the zoo in Beauval, in central France. The seven golden lion tamarins and 10 silvery marmosets are native to rainforests of Brazil, the country that gifted the monkeys to the Beauval zoo. The thieves dodged security cameras and night patrols to sneak away the monkeys, each of which needs a special diet. Experts say a tamarin could fetch anywhere between €5,000 and €10,000 in the black market.

Click to kink A portal for the Christian Greys of the world

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rotic vacations are just a click away, thanks to KinkBNB, a new website for travellers who practise BDSM. An enticing list of 40 dungeons and prison cells across the world are offered as getaways.

Sample this: In Queensland, Australia, you can get all ‘amenities’ including dungeon, a playspace and toys. In Seattle, you have a 2,000 sqft place complete with spanking benches, cages, an isolation cell and a queen-size bondage bed. KinkBNB has 100 bookings already.

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saturday, may 16, 2015

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in-faq by joy bhattacharjya Justice

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his week’s quiz is about justice. Wondering why it struck me as appropriate . No clue, do tell me if you figure!

here,there & elsewhere

Kookie monster K

ookie has five-fingered paws very much like human hands. He can open boxes and climb up pipes and hang from the cross-beams on the ceiling, leaving paw-prints wherever he goes. He has only two states of being: fast asleep and what I call fast awake.

The moment he’s up, he’s galloping about, squeaking and chirping, while throwing things off the kitchen shelves.

He’s always looking for food, he eats everything and he poops everywhere except where pooping is permitted.

On the first day in the house Bins holds him over the toilet, crooning in his most reasonable toilet-training voice, “Behold the sundass!

Crowning glory of the human species!” Whereupon Kookie leaps up, nips Bins on the ear and poops on his head. Then he swings from the shower-curtain rod, bringing it down with a glorious crash.

Shocked out of his wits, he jumps onto the coiled hose of the handheld shower, slides down and hits the hot water faucet. The shower springs to life with a steamy roar and the nozzle begins to whip about like a demented anaconda, spraying scalding hot water in all directions.

Have I mentioned this is an old house? One feature of old-style American homes is the weird location of electrical connections.

cornerstone

For instance: in the floor. That’s right: there’s a plug-point flat on the floor, in the main room, directly in line with the bathroom door. TURN OFF THE WATER, I scream to Bins, OR WE’LL ALL GET ELECTROCUTED! “My hair is full of raccoon shit!” screams Bins. “It’s not my fault!” squeaks Kookie before diving into the toilet with a loud splash.

I charge in and subdue the shower before we’re all deep-fried. Bins fishes a shivering, bedraggled Kookie out of the thunder-box before he drowns.

Raccoons are nocturnal. So Kookie sleeps all day and parties all night. Soon

Bins and I are both hollow-eyed and cranky. On the fourth night, therefore, I am surprised to find our little guest snoring in his cot, a carton filled with bubble-wrap, right after dinner. The next morning, he doesn’t wake up till coffee o’clock, at 10. He waddles into the kitchen with a dreamy look on his small furry face, finds a packet of Oreos and falls asleep before he’s even gotten through the first cookie. Later he demolishes the whole packet, eats a tube of chrome yellow paint, throws up on my feet, climbs into the oven and eats the freshly baked loaf of bread I’ve left in there to cool. Then he falls asleep again.

I confront Bins. “Oi,” I say, “Your Kookie Monster is unwell.” “Nahh.

He’s just drowsy,” mutters Bins. “I think you’ve poisoned him,” I say.

“Tcheh. As if I would do that,” Bins answers. But he’s avoiding eyecontact. Finally he confesses. “Okay, I gave him a little weed,” he says. “To calm him down.” I clutch my hair, crying, “That’s all we need! A fourfooted junkie!” “Shhhh!” hisses Bins.

“Not so loud.” He nods his head in the direction of the snoring raccoon.

“We all need our beauty sleep.” manjula padmanabhan, author and artist, writes about her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

The personification of Goddess Justice holding the scales goes back to the depiction of Maat and later Isis of Egypt. How has her depiction changed since the 15th-century. A statue by Swiss sculptor Hans Gieng in 1543 is regarded the earliest extant version of this depiction.

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Quote from a 20th-century classic. Identify the work. “‘That’s not what justice is,’ the colonel jeered, and began pounding the table again with his big fat hand. ‘That’s what Karl Marx is. I’ll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning.’”

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The Dreyfuss affair is among the contentious cases in French history. A journalist covering the trial for Vienna’s Neue Freie Presse was so affected that he became obsessed with justice for his people. He staged a Congress in Basel in 1897 and spearheaded a movement that changed the course of 20th-century history. Name the movement or the man.

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What is the difference between ‘miscarriage of justice’ and ‘error of impunity,’ though we tend to use the first for almost all situations?

Who punished Narcissus for his good looks and arrogance by luring him to a pool? He fell in love with his reflection and died staring at it.

In Egyptian mythology, the jackal-headed Anubis would weigh all souls wanting to enter heaven. Any soul heavier than a certain amount would be devoured by Ammit the souleater. What were they weighed against?

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EL Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel is based on this case. The main character in Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is consumed by this case. The primary witness David Greenglass’ letter confessed that he perjured to save his wife. Which seeming miscarriage of justice am I talking about?

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The Scandinavian word for tax. In 11th-century Britain, people who got away without paying tax gave a two-word phrase to the English language. What is it?

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In 1951, who got away with just 13 days in jail after killing his wife while trying to shoot a glass off her head? The incident is believed to have sparked off his celebrated literary career.

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In January 2015, Shashi Singh Thakur, Sayyed Ahmed, Gyasudin, Dayal Singh, Balwan Singh and watchman Madan Singh were sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for an incident that occurred in June 2005. Name the seventh accused, whose name was removed for obvious reasons in 2011.

Answers 1. She is depicted wearing a blindfold. Before this Justice always had her eyes open!

2. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller 3. Zionism; Theodore Herzl — father of the modern Jewish State 4. Miscarriage of justice is used to describe a person convicted for a crime she/he did not commit. An error of impunity is getting away with a crime 5. Goddess Nemesis 6. Ma’at or truth, portrayed by an ostrich feather 7. The Rosenberg case in 1953, where Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for passing State secrets to the Soviet Union 8. Scot-free. ‘Skat’ meant taxes in Scandinavian 9. William Burroughs 10. Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi in the black buck case

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

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