Blink issue 88 october03 2015

WARRIOR WOMEN They have taken charge and become the frontline protesters in the fight to protect tribal land in Manipur’s Churachandpur p2 saturday, october 3, 2015

ramesh sharma

The World Championship silver in hand, Indian women archers draw their bows with added confidence for a shot at that elusive Olympic medal p10

Destination bull’s-eye

BOSE IS BOSS The declassified Netaji files may add little to the ‘drawing room’ gossip in Kolkata p4

REAL DEAL When Tay-Tay’s less-charming traits seep into her manufactured world of unicorns p14

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BEYOND THE FIELD

Unfair&trial Sound fury

the Bible before storming back inside: “Read Exodus 23:2, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment.” Haokip’s words, however, fall on deaf ears. The crowd that had barely moments before stomped and kicked his belongings around the street, was in no mood to listen.

The DC chair usually commands respect in CCpur, as Churachandpur is popularly called.

But these aren’t normal times. On just two days — August 31 and September 1 — nine people died in police firing during violent prosuhrith parthasarathy tests against three new state laws. The largest district in Manipur, CCpur lies only 65km south of the capital, Imphal, which had recently witnessed a two-month-long agitation for an Inner Line Permit (ILP) system in the state. (The ILP is currently operational in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.) Just as those protests died down, Manipur was on the boil again with the passage of three land bills that the hill tribes are opposed to, on the grounds that they play into the hands of the Meiteis, the dominant Vaishnava Hindus. One of the most controversial clauses relates to the right to property ownership. state asReturnThe to form Manchester United sembly has set 1951 as the base year to identify has pipped non-indigenous people, who are regarded as to the outsiders by a section of Manchester Manipuris.City The law first position in the decrees that those who settled in Manipur afLeague table after ter 1951 will have to give up propertyvictories and may consecutive even have to leave the state. against Liverpool, Southampton and laws The tribals were incensed that the Sunderland would make them foreigners in their own afp/oli scarff land and they rallied against the government in large numbers. In the widespread arson e live in an age that demands unsuitability to the Premier League. Manches-thated’s ensued the houses of some their electvictories and defeats thatofthe team is now an instant inquiry. Only a ter United still builds play slowly from de-ed representatives were down. harder to defeat, itsburnt defence is supremely ormonth ago, if you believed fence, and continues to concentrate on The policeand action led to nine fol- and ganised its midfield spinedeaths, is as solid the pundits, Manchester Unit- keeping possession, ith often greatmoving power the comes footballlowed by a curfew that been paralysed normal life powerful as it has for nearly a decade. ed was in a state of irreversible disarray. At the tediously sideways great responsibility.” and backwards.

Their ideain this volatile region.

Conversely, there are also areas of concern: the Liberty Stadium, against a superbly organised is to wear downBenjamin Parker’scontrary (Uncle to The the opposition coffins of theWayne nine dead areisn’t still the in the club’s captain, Rooney player Swansea side, United had allowed a lead to slip blowing them away Benthrough of Spiderrapid surges and that he once District a two-minute was,Hospital, and the team can certainly through two quickfire goals scored within theman)counter-attacks. words come handy as Rose United’s three consecutive do with far walk fromurgency the DC’s greater andresidence. ingenuity in space of five seconds. As a result of the loss,Ngaihte, a resident of Churachandvictories in the league, against Liverpool, attack. But, Families wait each for aof resolution, attributing United’s losses United, a 20-times champion, slipped to fifthpur,Southampton takes on district collector (DC) have all come to the system and Sunderland, which increasingly diffi- as ofappears play is just as incongruous In an attempt to position in the English Premier League table,Lunminthang Haokip fullmethods. view by an adherence toin these cult, victory before they arethat ready to bu-a pohailing every as one heralds ‘contain’ the and experts were quick to jump on the ‘I-told-of the public.

Microphone in hand, No doubt, Martial has also made a signifi- tential title ry run. their loved Onlyofthe It was the ones. latter kind assessviolence, the police you-so’ bandwagon. The abilities of their man-Ngaihte the senior offi-Monaco for an ment that cant berates difference.

SignedIAS from brave wouldManchester venture inside thisearly trailed City’s resorted to some ager Louis van Gaal, who has been a winner atcer for trying to fee ‘sneak out’ of his potentially ris- season form. eye-catching of £36 million, room, where two hurriedly inmore, killing nine virtually every other club he has managed,official residence as hundreds ing to £58 million dependingofon his performIn the stalled first fiveair-conditioners league games thiswork season, came under renewed scrutiny. But more thanprotesting womenhad laidbeen siegequickly to it. written off as City’s football ances, Martial round-the clockirrepressible. at 14°C — 10 Not de- onwas often anything else, any chance of United catchingSucha waste behaviour doesn’t become of money, even beforeahe had played a ly did they grees higherathan idealintemmaintain cleanthe sheet each of up to Manchester City, who had at that stagemansingle of hisminute stature,for Ngaihte tellsExUnited. perature.

There is no freezer or to these matches, they appeared raced to the top of the table, was already con-him,perts to loud from the protesters.

Pre- any attempt to get saidcheers he was unproven at one.also regained great fluency have sidered nigh on impossible. vented leavinglevel, the house an escort vethefrom highest and inthe Sitting outsideto the hospital, Ching Nuhoih, their attacking play.

It seemed “I haven’t got a clue what van Gaal is tryinghicle, the harried with a quote from an employee ofthat amount paidDC forretorts his signature a restaurant Chennai,they the myriadinproblems The master to do,” said former Arsenal striker Ian Wright represented a colossal gamble. faced last season had been miracAttributing each of Manager Louis van on BBC Radio 5 Live, after the Swansea defeat.

These judgments, much like United’s losses to the ulously overturned. And with Gaal has “What’s their system? Surely Manchester Unit- the assessment of United’s early Chelsea struggling, Arsenal and consistently argued system of play is ed have got to play with a bit more pace and season form, have proved unduManchester United developing that his footballing incongruous philosophy is thrust and tempo. They seemed desperate.” ly hasty. Martial not only scored into big bungling messes, City’s difficult to grasp, Now, just three matches later, United are at on his debut against Liverpool road to the title, the pundits asbut will eventually the summit, two points ahead of City, who in a 3-1 victory, but he also serted with great confidence, bring success slumped to consecutive defeats, at home to bagged a brace of goals, both had been sealed. reuters/jason cairnduff West Ham, and away to Tottenham Hotspur. taken in nerveless style, in his second league Yet again, as is so often the case with the PreThese recent developments are certainly in- match, against a doughty Southampton side. mier League, we have ourselves an altered narstructive. There exists a definite temptation to Apart from his obvious abilities as a finisher rative. City’s consecutive defeats have jolted make an immediate appraisal: to hail United par excellence, the quality of Martial’s all- their surge to the championship. But, on closfor having suddenly found the winning po- round play has also been impressive. Almost er analysis, what’s interesting is that in at least tion, and to question City’s defensive frailties. every sign in his first games for the club points one of these losses — the match against West But, to compartmentalise these results into a to his ultimate growth from a supreme talent Ham — City didn’t play particularly poorly. specific narrative would tantamount, once into a world-class footballer.

They were simply unlucky. But to make such again, to viewing the game reductively.

Van Gaal, it must be said, has consistently an evaluation would not help satiate our appeAlthough United have added French teenag- argued, since taking charge of United at the tite for instant, final judgements. Each victory er Anthony Martial to their squad, van Gaal’s beginning of last season, that his footballing or defeat, for us, ought to be pigeonholed into approach to the game — his philosophy, as he philosophy can be difficult to immediately a specific plotline: of a team that is either on likes to call it — has remained largely un- grasp, and that his methods would eventually an endless run of success or on a slippery changed. He continues to line United up to bring success. Of course, there’s no reason to slope towards catastrophe. play the same style of football that was unsuc- take him on his word. A dispassionate analysis suhrithDC parthasarathy is a Chennai-based lawyer cessful against Swansea, the same style (DC) thathouse; of van Gaal’s ways surely reveals merits well addresses Anger strikes (clockwise from top) Protesters attack a government vehicle outside the district collector’s a massive rally at Lamka Public Ground; RoseasNgaihte Lunminthang Haokip as he tries to leave was the vivek singhsubject of a lengthy harangue for its his residence, gheraoed by women from Manipur’s hill tribes as demerits. Thus far, it’s clear from both Unit- and writer t@suhrith

Manchester United is back in the reckoning at the English Premier League. But each victory On the boil for over a month, Churachandpur finds its or defeat doesn’t indicate a potential title run or a catastrophe women leading from the front as it challenges the Manipur government’s ‘anti-tribal’ land bills

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Hard times (clockwise from bottom left) A protester mourns the death of nine tribals; a deserted street in Churachandpur; banners demanding a separate administration for the hills of Manipur; a woman argues with paramilitary personnel outside the DC office; a memorial for those who died in police firing on August 31 and September 1 vivek singh

Churachandpur; September 2015; agitation; conflict in India's north-east; documentary photography; ethnic conflict; ethnic strife; hill tribes; india; manipur; north-east india; photojournalism; reportage; tribal rights; under-reported; vivek singh; women protest

animals.” The violence stopped only after a lators who didn’t oppose the passage of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the various land reform bills. tribal bodies in the district decided to put “We are like a tree, and our branches are bewomen at the forefront of the agitation. This ing cut off. There’s an ongoing effort to uproot was done to prevent the men from becoming us,” says Lahlimum Joule, a 27-year-old teacher easy targets. taking part in a late-night protest at Rengkai Dressed in black, women line the streets of village. At another sit-in at Bungmual, NingCCpur, at the intersection of every village, ev- sialchin, a 53-year-old daily-wage worker, who ery town square and road. Armed with sticks, earns ₹200 a day for her family of seven, refusthey occupy long wooden benches as they es to budge till the government gives in to the take turns to chant slogans against the gov- demand for a new administration for the hills. ernment. No vehicle passes durTwenty-eight-year-old Niang ing the bandh hours — the Hoi Ching makes ₹150 a day; her timings change every day as per husband ₹200. Both haven’t notifications from the JAC. worked for almost a month, so A massive rally at Lamka Public there’s no money for food. But We are like a tree, Ground greeted the observer Ching says she is in mourning and our branches from the Union home ministry on and won’t go back to work till the are being cut off.

September 22. A few days earlier, ‘martyrs’ are laid to rest and the There’s an ongoing thousands of women, again bills revoked. She says she is preeffort to uproot us dressed in black, formed a 14kmpared to brave hunger, even long human chain for over five death, much like every other prohours as they shouted demands tester around her. for annulment of the ‘anti-tribal’ With its ramshackle shops, bills as well as a separate administration for potholed roads, poor electricity and weak inthe state’s ethnic minorities. The human ternet service, CCpur speaks volumes about chain started at a village called Kangvai and an indifferent administration. The ongoing extended up to the District Hospital. It is inter- protests, centred around the nine corpses in esting to see how the different tribal groups — the makeshift mortuary, have just added to including Hmar Inpuis, Kuki Inpuis, Nagas the general disarray. An uneasy calm prevails from the hill districts, the Zomi Council and for now as several other hill-towns in Manipur several student bodies — have put past ani- watch CCpur closely. mosities and differences on the backburner in their effort to challenge the state government. vivek singh is a documentary photographer and High on their shaming list are the tribal legis- journalist based in Delhi

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weeps inconsolably, “I have one brother, now no brother (sic)”. The brother, Kham Sian Muan, was among those killed when the police opened fire on a group that gheraoed the police station in Lamka. “They shot him thrice… Why three bullets?” Ching asks as she sits in solidarity with the movement she lost her brother to. She doesn’t know when she can return to her job, which supports her family, in Chennai.

Liankansuan Volte’s hands tremble as he describes the police firing on September 1. He was among the group of men who marched to the Lamka police station to demand answers for the killings of the day before. “They shot at us, hit us with rifle butts. They treated us like

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The death Analyse thisof a myth SPIRITUAL SWEAT

Thedrink declassified Netaji filesatmay not have anything that panders to the complexes of the We different things different times, with different people… uncritical hero-worshipping Bengali

harry’s bar + cafe

added to his magnetism.

That he rose quickly in the freedom movement, was as famous as Jawaharlal Nehru, beshatbhi basu came Congress president twice, was Blood onby thethe Mahatma, was arrested ‘backstabbed’ rooftop numerous times, and that he escaped from house-arrest in tallest Calcutta in Robin Hood fashGlass: The ion, and across Afghanistan and beyou travelled have yond,Ingredients: marked his presence in Germany, Singapore, and other dots on the world map, 15 ml orange is part of legend. That he allied with the fasvodka cists 15 to ml wage gin a war to overthrow the British 15 mlreally white diluted rum has never Bose’s enigma for the 15 ml Bengali tequila hero-worshipper. uncritical 10 ml Amitav peach syrup Indeed, Ghosh, in one of his finest 10 ml juice documented the incredijournalisticlime essays, A wedge of lime ble stories of the ‘rag-tag’ soldiers of the Azad 30 ml red wine HindFizzy Fauj,lime including scores of women, who drink to top fought hunger, mosquitoes and disease in Garnish: A slice of orange, fresh hard mint terrains, to wage a difficult war led by sprig Bose.1.InFill theglass essay, ‘India’s Untold War with ice. Pour in all of Independence’, in The New Yorker (A Reporter At the spirits.

Large,2.July 1997), Ghosh Add23,lime juice and writes: wedge. “He had participated Mahatma 3. Addinfizzy lime till Gandhi’s 3/4 full. nonviolent campaign earlyininthe hispeach careersyrup and remained an 4. Drizzle and stir. all his life. But over time his own tactiadmirer 5. Slide inhad thebecome, red wineasonitthe cal thinking were, the inform theHe ‘blood’ layerthat Britain’s verseice of to Gandhi’s... believed 6. Garnish.

Sip. enemies were his natural allies, and he had no qualms about seeking their help. The British, for their part, treated Bose with untiring, vengeful hostility, jailing him repeatedly. In January 1941, he slipped out of his Calcutta home in shutterstock disguise, and made his way across the Indian subcontinent to Afghanistan. He made apNever say gone The fact that Subhas Chandra Bose rejected a job with power, perks and privileges his image a revolutionary-intellectual the hindu archives icture yourself walking intoadded a bar.toYou sicasbeer. that maketoyour work Union worthwhile.

Just being a few proaches the Soviet and, upon look around, getting a feel of the peoAs the last one ordering, he could get it questions to the adventurous and you can ofrebuffed, travelled to Hitler’s Germany, in anple already in. You glance at the bar to right, whichever way the boss went. fer them drinks that to make themsupport smile. You other vain attempt garner for are Insee lively (non-resident) enough, fun maybe. venifasit’s probashi Benga- Satyajit But say he came with a group peers, tie Ray’s PatherinPanchali — the of memory of that wizardHis whobiographer, sees all andLeonard knows dia’s amazing independence.

But you never that someone out undone, li kids,ever we think were aesthetically awakshirt sleeves halfwith, rolled. calling Bose would always arrive first,My a pang of all.

It’s then youNazi become SOMEONE from Gordon, saidthat that Germany depressed there mayened be observing you too.Islam’s Or wondering to Kazi Nazrul robust out to The himangst in recognition would a power angst. ran deeper; how be Bengal was being justa another this is what him. At solemn bartender. ceremonyAnd in Singapore’s what theysongs might and offer you to drink; debating if move.

Rabindranath Tagore’s This announce that he especialis some- ICathay betrayed bywould the Congress leadership, try to Theatre, impress Bose upontook everyone who wants to over the leadership you would stick to your usual or if there’s an one dance-drama Chitrangada to protect our ‘supeto reckon with and holds a certain sway. be ly Mahatma Gandhi. a ‘bar star’ — to realise thatDuring it’s notthe about of the Indian National Army. reopportunity forAnd, swaying your decision. rior’ identities. of course, the ‘Mahalaya’ And if other the communication begins withon“Will The betrayal, among several the YOU but about THEM. mayhe know to maining 20 months of You his life, gavehow the ArAs I treadon on pre-dawn uncertainradio, territory behind the you recitations even as it was yourthe usual are you’ll celebrating list, have has been twoortragic partitions (1905 make greatsense drinks. they areOn great only18, if my a new of But purpose...

August bar in my career, I quickly understood darkearly and wintry, and Goddess Durga was just this has made of an impression. the person drinking and evening?”, 1947). Theheseparation they are.

And 1945, hethem diedthinks in a plane crash at the keyarriving to my on future.

Observe, ob- You about earth, perhapsobserve, on an elethethe tables Westmay andhave East turned Bengal by Brit-in your favour that will only Dahappen Nang...” if you have listened serve. phant It’ll or a tell boat.you everything. Show you the and chance suggest a few ish ina1905 led totoa psychosomatwhile theythe talked and told you Indeed, declassified files in way Give powerroom to change Onforward. the walls of you the the drawing were drinks is now not. was ic sense of open. exile.OrThis about Kolkata themselves. are pointers And to all you the the course of an evening.

I noticed little exemplified framed pictures of Bengal’s icons:the IshwarLet’s now switch to aGhatak’s scenario in Ritwik picked enoughincluding to tweak your ‘Bose myths’, that he That he allied with things. a quietSwami guy Vivekananda, on the counter chandraHow Vidyasagar, Ta- where young friend a la- the fascists to wage a drink Komal our Gandhar (1961), has which to make for them. did not die init perfect the Taipei plane mulled over his rum and cola. learned to dy gore and Subhas Chandra Bose.I On festival withahim thiscoming evening.toIf you shows train an war to have applied thisspotted rule through that he was in sunoverthrow Imagine his the I crash, leave alone for a bit, letting himreligious, ponder. have days, him my mother, who wasn’t really been practising the abrupt, screeching halt onobservwhat all endeavours.

Talking a drymySiberian prisons, that tothe British has neverif embarrassment At the smallest opening, I’d on go chat him a ing would put a chandan tika theirwith forehead, game a while you really seemed likefor a dead end,now, the borroomful of ‘high-net-worth-indiBritish hated and feared him, diluted Bose’s he ordered single bit, him toofloosen uparound and drop his should and allowing wrap a garland jasmine them. quite easily be able to fig- malt and der of the imagined homeland. bank on the hows and so for didathe Nehru dynasty, enigma the big guy viduals’ guard.

I now knew that the worst was over and In my childhood home in Saharanpur, in ureThat out Kazi if theNazrul damseland in question Tagore and the snooped single malt. and,whys that ofthey on Enhis chose a basic beer he was ready be a miteand, social. western UttartoPradesh, as I presume, in is a buddy, a girlfriend who’s were left on two sides of been this thusing a group cardiac family and were of jittery thatsurhe Every once in a while regular younginproevery middle-class houseaacross Bengal the around a bit or someone he painful milepost, made their geons thea niceties of wine would on make grand comeback. fessional would come to the bar with group post-Independence decades, there wasaone in- needs to impress. musical repertoire more poiwhile He didthey not.offered me advice on that definitely ‘upper management’. evitable title inshouted the bookshelves alongside the gnant A. With buddy he’ll drinkkaleidoscope. for the Bengali cultural the health benefits, if any, in a Later, the mythical Bose, still alive, emerged He’d at meChandra with theChattopadhyay, serious ‘I am with worksglance of Bankim Sa- his usual beer, straight.

Here, the — synthesis is indigenous and unique, glass of wine.

To impetuous on in various forms, including asundergrads an enigmatic the boss’ look.

This was my cue to smile be driven rat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Tagore andand other B. With the political established girl — slightly more by the unconscious across ide- the wisdom of with staying awayeyes from “let’s do Gumnami Baba blazing in Faizabad polite, but iconic not be myinusual cheery self. Ingreats. The book hardback, reeking of premium drink. — between the bhadralok and shots, ological barriers guys!” in UP. He was also spotted at Lal Bahadur Shasstead, I would was focusAami on the rest of the group, naphthalene, Shubhash Bolchhi by revolutionary, C. New girl —the thispoet is when you can pull and dropout, the out un- tri’s Here’s what happened meplaces. one evening funeral 1966), amongwith other getting his It drink It’s avery simple.

ShaileshtoDey. was last. at once journey into the all the stops.

A single malt for himself, a Marrequited lover and perennial drunkard, the at aThe nightclub files alsobar: reveal what has been ‘drawing If I had gone all gung-ho onand him, the boss life1.and times, as also the magic miracle of garita for her, Long Island Iced Tea for both, a room’ brother-in-law and beautiful boudi (brother’s Drinker: “Love Long Island Iced there Tea but gossip in Kolkata.

Indeed, is am no may have wondered how popular much ofashis free bottle the heroic figure of Bose, Netaji. of wine… wife), the eclectic and intellectual. now bored.

I’d like a spin with a little more reason for Delhi to be so secretive about the time was spent my bar. that Bose This book was drinking always a in testimony And so, jeans and a t-shirtbemay say one The angst would inevitably followed by depth and character” files buried in its dossiers. For all you know, 2. never In hisdead. enthusiasm to impress was He just could not die.upon his thing, but jeans and afor shirt totally another.

A there the romantic longing a charismatic revoluMe:is“Hmmm…”

See the (above) no ‘Deep Throat’ twistbox in the tale. for boss he too was in the know when it came In that a landscape addicted to lost icons — as little black dress willThat demand attention, a ca- what I created. tionary-intellectual. he was Cambridgeto the that Bengal cheer, he might get it all sual that of spirits lush green with the autumnal top will say “I know what I’m drinking, educated, young, handsome, radical, andsoa amit sengupta is Associate Professor, English a mixologist, author, television host, Journalism,basu Indianis Institute of Mass Communication, wrong.

Imagine his embarrassment he or- stop ‘kash’ flowers (which, interestingly, is aifvariety giving me ideas!” if that wasn’t shatbhi Civil Services’ topper whoAnd rejected the power, dered single malton and the big guy chose a baNewhead Delhiof Stir, a bartending academy in Mumbai of grass in white) riverbanks, as depicted in enough, it’sprivileges those thatoflove bar counter perks and the the British Empire, and

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Period drama Soldiers march at India Gate during a recent event to mark the golden jubilee of the 1965 Indo-Pak War reuters/ adnan abidi

STATES OF MATTER

The globalisation of war Contemporary tensions are clearly being signposted in the commemoration of past military events

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ovie franchises could be planned in advance with a number assigned to each production in order of precedence. Not so for wars of global expanse. The Great War became World War I (WWI) only because there was a sequel involving largely the same cast of characters in just two decades.

In the early bravado of its global war on terror in 2001, the US actually believed that it could choose its moment of victory. Enthusiasts like Paul Wolfowitz, then a senior bureaucrat in the Defence Department, spoke of “ending states” that supported terrorism.

James Woolsey, a former CIA director and part of the same neoconservative cabal, hyped up the adventure as the Fourth World War. Had the spook got his numerals wrong after being put out to pasture? Seemingly not. The status of Third World War had been pre-empted in his imagination by the Cold War which pitted the US against the Soviet Union in frenetic competition in nuclear arsenals and third country clients cultivated through charm and coercion. In what became a constant refrain with ideologues of power, the US was called upon in 2001 to summon up the same moral purpose it had shown in vanquishing the Soviet enemy.

In a book timed for a decade since the war, veteran reporter Jason Burke offered a sobering assessment. Far from winning, the best that could be said was that the US had avoided defeat. And as postscript, it may be added that this was partly because it allowed no clear victor to emerge from the shambles it created in the arc from Afghanistan to Syria.

In July last year, Europe staged a series of solemn commemorations of the WWI centenary.

Books by popular historians spoke of the global conflagration as an avoidable folly emanating from a sequence of missteps that drew the great European powers into a localised Balkans dispute.

The commemoration of wars has since become a growth industry. Between May and September this year came the extended ob-

servance of 70 years since WWII’s end. The Despite the windfall profits of its armaevent was marked with a special sense of pur- ments industry, there are signs now that the pose in Moscow, with President Vladimir Pu- US is awakening to the escalating strategic tin resonantly reminding the West that the risks of ongoing conflagrations in the Arab Soviet Union had paid by far the greatest price, world. This acknowledgement was implicit in that in fact it was left “all alone” to deal with the recent meeting President Barack Obama the Nazi threat while other Western powers had with Putin in New York, when the Russian stayed in the comfort zone of phoney war. leader reportedly delivered an admonition Putin had suffered a similar visitation of sol- against the preferred US strategy of pulling itude in the G20 summit at Brisbane in No- down established regimes in troubled counvember 2014, in a display of petulance by tries. Obama seemingly was not deterred from Western leaders over his newly assertive strat- his insistence on regime change in Syria, but egy in Russia’s near-neighbourhood. In the sufficiently chastened by recent imperial overkind of juvenile pique more in place in an un- reach to give his Russian counterpart a 90ruly schoolyard, Western leaders minute hearing. gave Putin a wide berth through India placed a multi-billionthe event, refusing to even share dollar order for two varieties of his meal table. military helicopters from the US Global armaments Despite these tensions, Geraerospace giant Boeing, as Prime firms are meanwhile man Chancellor Angela Merkel Minister Narendra Modi left for having the time of attended May’s triumphal milithe UN General Assembly in New their lives tary parade in Moscow. Her presYork. Just days before, it had ence on the podium alongside staged a pageant of its own to Putin was necessary atonement mark 50 years since the 1965 war for German historical guilt. against Pakistan. What lay beThat spirit of conciliation was absent in Chi- hind this sudden awakening to the glory of an na’s commemoration of the war’s end in Asia. encounter that the former soldier and Union Japan stayed away, obviously thinking China’s minister Jaswant Singh has described as “simstrutting of its military might unseemly and ply a slugging match of attrition”? arrogant. India sent a political delegation, less The same anniversary in Pakistan was a from goodwill than from recognition of the time of introspection at least for the human prudence of humouring a powerful neigh- rights activist and public intellectual IA Rehbour. Eager to embrace a position as under- man. Aside from being a military stalemate, study to a formidable military power, Pakistan he wrote, the war was a significant political had a contingent marching with the Chinese. setback for Pakistan, since the world from Contemporary tensions are clearly being then on was less inclined to entertain its case signposted in the commemoration of past on Kashmir. military events. Global armaments firms are India’s newfound triumphalism over 1965 meanwhile having the time of their lives, pos- and the ongoing political manoeuvres in ing the kind of moral dilemma that Pope Fran- Kashmir, where the BJP for the first time ever cis articulated in a recent address to the US enjoys substantial political clout, bring a cliCongress. “Why are deadly weapons being chéd old aphorism vividly to life: those who resold to those who plan to inflict untold suffer- fuse to learn from history are condemned to ing on individuals and society?” asked the repeat it.

Pontiff: “Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money: money that is drenched in sukumar muralidharan is an independent writer, researcher based in Gurgaon and Shimla blood, often innocent blood”.

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ON THE SHELF

Proper,with proper loveplan Lawyer a flight Read or listen to Allan Watts not for what he might teach you, but for the sheer pleasure At the of the country’s fastest-growing private airline, IndiGo president Aditya the controls exercise is Ghosh deploys a winning mix of professional and personal skills anita roy

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n June this year, when Delhi-based IndiGo Soaring from law courts the then Manmohan Singh government aldecided to go for an initial public offer- The son of an IAS office, Ghosh did his master’s lowed several new entrants — including Spiceing (IPO), journalists covering the avia- from Kirori Mal College in Delhi. After six years Jet, GoAir and Kingfisher — to take to the skies. tion beat became gleeful. The low-cost of law practice, he made a switchover to avia- Soon there was a huge churn in the market as airline known all along for avoiding the media tion when InterGlobe, IndiGo’s parent compa- the private players decided to experiment in would now be forced to be in the news in the ny, began scouting for a General Council in their quest to come up with a winning formubuild-up to the listing. What the journalists 2004. With interests in a range la. Hence, while some like Kinggot, however, were not insights from the air- of hospitality- and travel-related fisher transformed from a line owner Rahul Bhatia but its president, Adi- services, the group had just delow-cost airline into a full-service tya Ghosh. cided to launch IndiGo, and one before realising that the IndiGo has not only At stake is an issue of over 1,200 crore many saw Ghosh’s move as suimodel wasn’t working and finalAll is IndiGo real Trickster, been garnering shares, which is expected to raise over ₹3,000 cidal, but that didn’t deter him. ly shutting down, stuck to mystic, crore. IndiGo is still to decide when it will hit “Aditya quickly understood market share but also its low-cost model. philosopher, guru, scholar, steered clear of the market, but is expected to be sooner than all the figures that were being Clearly, this strategy smoker, joker, has enemployee unrest or later, as its roadshows are on in India and over- bounced around, such as the sured that while the likes gourmand, loverof of Spiother negative news seas to attract investor interest. Here again, it size of the market, the potential ceJet have had a turbulent women, reader of few to discover is Ghosh who is leading from the front. routes, and the latent demand years, IndiGobooks… has not only been his “realshare but also As Ghosh finds himself thrust into the lime- based on spending power and garnering market never light, it is in a way a tribute to his professional the rising numbers of the midsteered clear personality” of employee unrest meant much to and personal skills. dle class. This despite having no or other negative news.

Alan Watts shutterstock As his résumé shows, he has not been to any previous background in aviation,” recalls a sebusiness school or worked at any airline be- nior official of a rival airline, who had first met Cruising altitude fore (he is, in fact, a lawyer by training); and Ghosh in 2003 when the two of them worked “Aditya’s training as a lawyer allows him to love Alan yet, underproper him IndiGo wasWatts. voted one of the on a gently disciplined, simply airline profound,” plan for launchingand a low-cost (In- but to Watts onview YouTube. take listen a dispassionate of theThere’s many reams, issues and Falling in love with a rapscallion, best companies to work for in 2015, for the sev- Enfavourite is his sketch of former ArchbishdiGomy launched in 2006). his stuff, largely an audio that reams, plagueand the reams Indianofaviation industry and philosopher-mystic moreover, However, enth year glish in a row, and has become who, the fastestop of Canterbury, Temple:of“He was imbesides hisWilliam astute reading numarchive curated by his son,articulate Mark. Watts Senior express his arguments in an manin 1973, mayinnot as theInmost growing died private airline thecount country. stout, reputed to beskills a formidable bers,mensely Ghosh used hisand sharp analytical as a ner,”issays a marvellous speaker. talks right Amber Dubey, KPMG’sHe India head for into of my into adultthe life.airline’s But, on the 2007,sensible Ghosh decision was inducted trencherman.

He had a belly laugh which lawyer to gain a strong foothold in the counyou: intimate, informal with that sandpaper aerospace and defence.

Introduced to Ghosh other ‘sensible’ is not the first word that board and hand, became its president following beaviation heard for miles. It rang out like try’s could evolving space. of awhen devout smoker, backrasp in 2009, they workedlaughter togetherbubbling on a mind when surveying wreckage Hechurch year,leaps whichtoput him at the head of the all operbewitched by elves. undulated movedbells to IndiGo at a time whenItthe do- project justfor below the surface.

“I have always the ministry of civil aviation, Du-been that for said adult life, especially ations andpasses management. theairspace air so aswas to make weak leaves fallafter from the mestic becoming crowded aware of my asdisciplined a pianist is aware bey describes himown as avoice sharp, per- of around the ventricles. trees.” his fingers,” he says, “I am unashamedly in Then, a couple of years back, his name Trickster, mystic, philosopher, guru, schol- ‘show-biz’. But then, so is everyone.” cropped up in one of the most bizarre cine- ar, smoker, joker, gourmand, lover of women, “I do not… bother with the vicious circle of matic curveballs ever thrown, in Spike Jonze’s reader of books, thinker of thoughts, writer of discovering my ‘real personality’ or make any Her, a film in which a man falls in love with a more than 20 books, twirler of silver-topped special attempt to act naturally. I just put on computer operating system (yes, it’s a ROM- canes, pricker of egos, teacher, failed priest, fa- whatever personal style seems appropriate to com). At one crucial juncture, ‘Samantha’, the ther of seven, husband to three, friend, wise- the circumstances, or entertaining to myself sexy albeit disembodied OS, introduces her ass, wanderer, poet, maker-up of terrible lim- or others. Others may see a consistent personhapless human boyfriend (a pitch-perfect per- ericks, alcoholic, dropper of LSD, explorer of ality underlying all these ‘acts’, but this must formance by Joaquin Phoenix) to another arti- consciousness, delver into be their projection on my Rorficial intelligence called ‘Alan Watts’. He the mysteries of the universe, schach blot, and this autobiogradoesn’t say much — but clearly he and Saman- iconoclast, gazer-at of flowphy is my projection on the same. tha have a lot in common. “Theodore,” says Sa- ers, hugger of trees, sage, All interesting descriptions of humantha considerately, “do you mind if I shade, dead person, alive man character are poetic, imaginaI am unashamedly in communicate with Alan post-verbally?” presence, a loose agglomerative, dramatic, and fantastic, ‘show-biz’. But then, I mean, what can you say to that? Go ahead, tion of oxygen, carbon and whereas all attempts at valid deso is everyone knock yourself out. hydrogen molecules... Would scription are myopic, interminable, Alan and I have a special relationship too. It the real ‘Alan Watts’ stand up? and dull.” is not post-verbal, but it is posthumous. I crawl This flibbertigibbet, this I know which one I’d choose. into bed with him every night. He doesn’t take will o’ the wisp, started out as Which one I’d rather live by. Which up much room — what B-format paperback a precocious child and a voracious scholar. He one I’d rather have in my bed. “I find it difficult does? He doesn’t snore either and he’s totally quickly realised that his vocation in life was to relate to people who cannot admit to an elenot a blanket-hog. So, so wonderful. “to wonder about the nature of the universe.” ment of the rascal in themselves… I distrust I’m loving his life. In My Own Way is a de- In his search for the divine, he was even or- people who show no sign of naughtiness or lightful book. It’s an autobiography of some- dained into the Christian church in 1945 and self-indulgence.” Me too, Alan, me too. one who doesn’t believe in the ‘self’ or in the spent several years trying to fit the role. But If you can’t get hold of Watts’ autobiogralinear progression of events. So it’s a book to Watts was always too much of a shaman to be phy, do not lose heart. Read The Wisdom of Insedip into and out of, as the narrative dances a good priest: “Priests follow traditions but curity, or The Way of Zen or any of his other around chronologically, peppered with curi- shamans originate them… the shaman fol- books. And if you can’t be bothered to read, ous asides and delightful details (“I loved lows his own weird… he is ‘out of this world’ plug your headphones into your laptop, get a boiled eggs, and when my eyes were no higher and credited with magical powers.” cup of cocoa and listen to this mesmerising, than the edge of the table the appearance of He also had just too much panache for the delicious, insightful, playful voice not for eggs would set me to trotting around it say- Christian church — or any church, for that what he might teach you or what conclusion ing, ‘Egg-egg-egg-egg-egg-egg…’” This image matter. Confronted by a US immigration offi- he reaches, but for the same reason as you lisamuses me no end.) cer who asked, “Whaddya carry a cane for? You ten to music.

In the public IndiGo is on its way His life often reads like a carnival parade of sick?,” he replied, “Not at all… It’s just for I promise I won’t beeye jealous. to the stock markets with an offer of colourful characters. He describes J Krishna- swank.” crore shares is a writer, editor andbloomberg/ publisherdhiraj singh murti as “a spiritual window cleaner”, and DT Rather like Theodore with his OS snuggled anita roy 1,200 Suzuki as “a naïve intellectual — wisely foolish, down in his ear, I curl up with my laptop and www.anitaroy.net

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Bird count IndiGo’s fleet has grown from 18 to 97; it ordered 250 Airbus Neo Engine Options aircraft this year reuters/vivek prakash

son who is completely dedicated to his job airline stuck to the low-cost model that was and his team. put in place by Bruce Ashby, the company’s What endears him to his staff, especially first chief executive officer, who passed on the those at the lower level, is the fact that he al- baton to Ghosh. ways responds to every message they send his Says Kapil Kaul, chief executive of Centre for way, over email or SMS, even WhatsApp. In fact, Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), “He (Ghosh) was he also responds to feedback from flyers. involved with IndiGo from the very start and There are those who claim that it is his prox- critically involved in all major decisions, and imity to not only Rahul Bhatia but also Rakesh this helped in gaining strategic insights. The Gangwal, the other promoter of IndiGo, that very strong foundations laid by Bruce Ashby, bestows on Ghosh considerable freedom and Indigo’s first CEO, made things easier as well, flexibility in running the airline. but Aditya has connected his entire staff base Aside from being a team player and enjoy- to the organisation’s goals, led from the front, ing a closeness to the owners, maintained profitability with there is certainly more to Ghosh high standards of service and opas a skilled professional. After erational excellence while exall, it is under him that IndiGo panding aggressively.”

Ghosh’s constant has reached where it has. The airStaying true to the model is refrain is that what line’s fleet has something that Ghosh had acyou hear from IndiGo grown from 18 knowledged in a recent interis plain boring to 97 aircraft, view to The Hindu Business Line. because of the “The simplicity of the model is and it now ofconsistency with what drives its efficiency. I am fers 633 flights which it executes its not saying we are doing rocket connecting 43 destioperations model science. But in the same market, nations in India and during the same period, in the abroad. Its staff strength insame circumstances and same creased from 1,100 to more opportunities, you cannot name than 10,000, and its revenue grew more than 12-fold. The compa- another airline with one type of aircraft, or anny ordered 250 Airbus Neo Engine other airline which is consistently profitable Options aircraft in August this year, or… believes in the opportunity in India and and it expects to eventually have a fleet orders aircraft,” he said.

Ghosh’s constant refrain that what you hear strength of 430. Personal accolades are not far behind either — Ghosh made it to from IndiGo is plain boring because of the Fortune India’s first ‘40 Under 40’ list and consistency with which the model is executed, has remained on it three years in a row; this is also what gains him respect from the senior year, he has been named one of the Young management of other airlines who grudgingGlobal Leaders by the World Economic Forum. ly admit that they will never say something Tellingly, however, Ghosh’s Kodak moment like that. is probably the one from 2011 when he was Others like Dubey go a step further and say photographed driving a Wagon R, with his that if Ghosh were ever to hang his boots at Inboss Bhatia as co-passenger, on the way to a diGo, or should the Government go ahead and meeting of airline representatives with Prime poach him to head Air India or the Directorate Minister Manmohan Singh.

General of Civil Aviation and give him a free hand for 10 years, “Indian aviation would Same difference change for the better”.

Industry watchers say that the key to IndiGo’s success has been the fact that under Ghosh the ashwini phadnis

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GOVERNMENT TO BAN INTERNET ON TUESDAYS! I

SHOVON CHOWDHURY is chief Truthdigger and author of Murder with Bengali Characteristics

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and clean the arnot up to the mark. The fodder is for water. “That's a very good suggestion,” he ea in front of their homes. In this cows. This is part of a wider agenda, says, tears streaming down his face. “Put in shutterstock way, entire localities will be which is being purposefully an application in triplicate and we’ll set up cleaned up. This is part of a misunderstood. The aim is a committee.” universal development.

Despite his discomfort, I am merciless in new model known as public-public partnership, The first step is to ensure my pursuit of the truth. It’s how they train that each member of the us at The Hindu . Our editors are relentless. wherein the public sector provides the vision, while public personally sup- Each and every one of them is a role model. the public does the work. ports one cow. Subse- “So this Internet ban will be all day and all quently, we will advise night, every Tuesday?” I ask. “Initially only Once we can get them to install drainage pipes and them on how to install go- Tuesday,” says the Under Secretary, “eventuconstruct sewage facilities, bar gas plants. In this man- ally, we will remove it completely, to faciliour job will be complete. We ner, India’s power crisis will tate good governance. But don’t worry. be solved.”

These things take time. Till then, the public are also suggesting additional haratrihari is that considered “Will we reimbursed for this?” I canfor use it onofother days.for Except for thethe Pa-carnipractice of yoga, so they canone par-of San- larger collapse ofget morality. a tour Ujjayini, witnessing skrit’s greatest in thewholesame ask. ticipate in World Yogapoets, Day more The Under Secretaryishas a choking I tels, can only use it on Sundays, beUjjayini’s decadence caused by “afit. creepvalwho of Kamadeva mahotsava that introduces league Kalidasa.

However, there heartedly.

Lastas time, their performance was pat on the backofand himwhere a glasskama of tween 2 and 4pm.” ing him feminisation thehand land”, Bharatrihari into the royal circle. One of his reare more legends than facts about seems to hold sway over all. The debate be- citations at the competition goes: him. The Goa-based psychoanalyst and writer tween dharma (duty) and kama, embodied by “Only a fool, waiting to be told, suspends Dear Tulsiram, Sudhir Kakar, in his most recent book, brings Bharatrihari, is played out on a much larger judgement. good that court you are taking her on Kakar your to lifeIt’s this ancient poet of Ujjayini. scale in the urban space. While Bharatrihari is a poem like an arrow has met its mark holiday.to It’sglean a celebration of emotional our tradition, attempts the poet’s self disillusioned with his king, he is equally reonly when the listener’s senses reel andhis very commendable. Slowly you are befrom works. pulsed by this “city of kama”. as the poem sticks quivering in the heart.” ginning to understand.

Ujjayini was a flourishingSome urbanmisguided settlement, The poet who once focused solely on womSuch instances of Bharatrihari’s poetry elements areShiva comparing cows with people, known for its and Krishna temples, as a en now begins to see only Brahman, as Kakar form an important part of the book. He is insaying, cows, first careand of people. centre of why Buddhism and take Jainism, a place puts it. n Every news generation that has been greetedaswith the he agreed that an What of scholars, Bhara- explained troduced assituation, an “alchemist of feelings”. is theof wrong forThis devotees kama approach. (desire). Cows are not

by Apple sharehol- iPad would be preferable.” triharicautious pointsoptimism out, bemoans stays with you is the essence of people.

Cows are like our mother.

Would The Jalandhar-born Bharatrihari arrived in that there ders,isthe Mathura unitless of the Indian According to reliable sources, many Conmore kama and his poetry. youcosmopolitan deprive yourcity mother of the this in search of simple success dharma watched the National Congress has announced gress members have in its time.

With a poet as itsmotion protagonist, pleasures life? Afterachieved all, without and fame. Heofgradually bothmothby exnow that it will soon be purchasing How, then, can we take hisan iPad. This picture Steve Jobs, The and Devilare Take Lovewearing is peppered It tells of a poet ers, who are we? in During the but flight, don’t pressing sensuality his work, came un- cynicism was afterseriously? a speechAfter delivered black turtlenecks.

“It’s into hardpoetics to see — in all, it to with insights seduced, and then forget to his provide headphones. done when preoccupation withOtherwise the erotic isthem national scion Rahul them in of theboth dark,” the by same Bharatrihari who terms the compsyche of repulsed by a city thereplaced video hasbynodisillusionment. meaning. This also means was It was not can Gandhi, in which askedof plained a colleague. see beyond thehe façade those times and the “The universal drowning in the “ethic that your beverage requirements arerun taken just his professional life that had its morality, other night, Iof thought I saw them to be more like Apple. especially when he is sentiment creative expresof pleasure” care of. cat-cuckolded. course, hePlus hadyou alsocan been asion. dhoti floating towards “He togave thismonogamy instruction able critique and Kavya (poetry) and kama Ally Subramaniam was born in the The Devil Take Love er infants dis-gives an account of Bhara- makes ThetoDevil Takein Love and once disap- by me, interlinked. until I realised was pura casemore for adultery are Theitchief South-West Sunderbans, but was Sudhir Kakar tress. Once youItretrihari’s disgrace. is about the poet’s journey sympathising our local leader in black peared. He is no longer in with a courtepose of poetry isa to achieve blown away by a cyclone and washed Penguin achthe Amsterdam, into realms of love and passion, as he san’s India,”point said of a local turtleneck.” view.party He also fame, which inMeanwhile, turn is fickle. But up on the₹499 shore near Chennai. He was adopted by a poor Brahmin family keep her away from of beauty to someone brings changes from a captive the RSS has protested member.

“Thefigure others are bored housewife: then, the pursuit in the of the of poetry at least gives some from Tiruppur. He can answer all your local cows, who are burned by passion.

It tells of a poet seduced, “can imposition of profit.

Western fruit, Maharashblaming but weofdidhousehold not do anything. thisus, routine sex, this thepleasure, if not The moment of creation questions. Just send them to Christian, as wellbyasa city drowning in the wretched and then repulsed We tried to make his stay comfortable.

We traishas banned apples durthing, deserve the name of love?” “that state consumption of fullness, its of silence resounding askallysubramaniam@gmail.com red light areas, where “ethic of pleasure”. even a Dalit person, butofdue to ingwith Diwali, andvoices, Kapil Sibal has written an wing Theprocured seventh-century township Ujjayini myriad before a poem takes her morals be ear Ally, In the book, could Bharatrihari narrates his ver- has timebeen constraint, Rahul Sir could not dedicated to the iPhone, leading minutely researched, andstay its in opu- epic inpoem words”.

Is it OK if my cow flies with me sion corrupted.

I wish you athe hapof the events before king’s men arrive lence party members.

“Weghost” his house.

Also brought because alive he did have and spirit bynot Kakar.

At athe to complaints Kakar callsfrom Bharatrihari a “historical to Amsterdam? pyhe holiday.

Don’t to consequences fasand is forced to forget face the of same to escapethough to the adjacent rooms,” said ato be house.

Meanwhile, wedoes arenot both inspired time, the author seem to make trybecause, his poems continue Regards, your seatbelts. histen actions.

The title of the novel comes from aand a lawyer, he man confused.

Our localThe head to party virtue out of research. easewanted with which readmember, today, so “but little being is known about the Yours affectionately, Allya declamation of the Tulsiram, Nagpur one of Bharatrihari’s verses, howThis to project his voice.”fills in the blanks. purchase an orchard Kullu, buttoafter we of knows narrative flows is ain testimony his feat himself. book creatively curses in reaction to his wife’s infidelity. imagination. The book never feels burdened The Investigator is a monthly round-up of all things droll and newsy.

Allpoet views are personal.

Reallyof personal The fate of the is also symptomatic a byt@shovonc the information of the past. Read the novel soni wadhwa is a Mumbai-based research scholar cannot see the Under Secretary. There are no files on his table, just a picture of the PM, a yoga manual, a broom, and a small pile of fodder. I hear odd scratching noises. I clear my throat. He emerges from under the table, clutching a laptop. “Sorry, today it’s my turn to be porn ombudsman. We are currently not banning porn sites, but the surveillance continues.”

“What’s all this for?” I ask, pointing at the items on his table. “They are what we want the public to do on Tuesdays, in lieu of internet usage,” he says. “Naturally the first question we considered before banning was, what will people do? These are the government-approved optional activities. Using the broom, they can participate in the

ASK ALLY

Bringing alive ghosts

Sudhir Kakar does a fine job of creating a poet out of his poems and locating him in time

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MATHURA CONGRESS TO PURCHASE iPAD!

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THE CRITICAL ISSUE

Blind faith India and her neighbours ought to remember that from superstition to intolerance is often a short step

All for good karma A spot for feeding pigeons — a common sight in Delhi shanker chakravarty

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Urvashi Butalia is an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan

e’re in a sort of skiff under a small bridge over the river Ravi in Lahore. Heavy traffic, incessant honking, and all the expected city noises fill the air. The river itself is sluggish, and, like the Yamuna in Delhi, more a drain than a river. As our little boat makes its way from one shore to another, a strange packet floats down from the bridge into the river. I think resignedly how alike we are across borders: stand anywhere, and chuck anything overboard without a thought about the consequences.

But I’m wrong — in one thing at least. This is not rubbish as I soon discover: a bunch of kites parked on a small mud island quickly wing it across and pick at the packet. Later, standing on the bridge, the story unravels. Dotted here and there along both sides of the bridge are men and women holding plastic bags. They’re poor, some are disabled and what they have in their hands is meat — the offal and leftover bits of meat that humans don’t eat, which they purchase from butchers for cheap.

Here, on the bridge, the meat-sellers stand and offer this to anyone who wants to leverage some good karma by feeding the birds. So, the rich and the middle-class stop by, and they or their drivers step out and buy, and then cursorily chuck it over the side. Good deed done, they can get on with life. Meanwhile, as an environmental activist tells me, the birds suffer, they grow fatter and fatter, and sometimes this kills them and their numbers fall.

I’m struck by how alike we are — no matter that we are across the border. And no matter that there may be differences in religion. Here, in Delhi, every day when I drive to work, I see a similar sight.

Turning off the main road to the lane that Delhi or elsewhere, it’s a way to trade on peoleads to my office, I traverse a small traffic is- ple’s blind faith and make a rupee or two out land on my right. Here, every morning, a of it. You have to admire that. young man arrives bearing two large sacks of But then, there’s also this question that grain and chana, and a number of light metal bothers me every day: how have we become so plates. He sets himself up with four or five deeply superstitious? Where does that come plates and, soon enough, cars stop, oblivious from? And why are we unable — or unwilling — to the vehicles of office-going people they are to see that the pigeons and kites and other blocking. They buy a plate and then chuck its sundry animals and birds are being overfed? contents right there. Then, there’s a great flapThere are other concerns too: it’s easy for me ping of wings as hundreds of pigeons descend to laugh at the pigeon-feeders but this isn’t onto the food and begin to eat it up. Mean- just funny. It’s precisely this kind of superstiwhile the grain-throwers get on with life, se- tion and blind belief that kills the Dabholkars, cure in the knowledge that they have earned Pansares and Kalburgis of this world. From sutheir brownie points for this life perstition to intolerance is ofand the next. ten a short step: you can The scattering of grain on the convince yourself that, say, eatground goes on all day. By eveing beef will bring you bad karWhy are we unable — ning, the pigeons are stuffed ma — even if it’s your neighbour or unwilling — to see and disinterested, the young eating it — and you then take that the pigeons and entrepreneur (what else can law into your own hands and kites and other sundry you call him?) is still there, and kill them. Or you can convince animals and birds are sometimes a desultory customyourself that a woman is actualbeing overfed? er will show up and he’ll get ly a witch and you destroy her some more business. One day I life (and sometimes take over watched a young girl arrive in a her property too). large limousine. While her rich Increasingly, in India today — parent sat in car, the girl stepped out, ayah in and who knows, perhaps across the border too tow. Instructions relayed from parent to driver — using superstition and blind belief, or exto ayah to the supremely bored girl, who fol- ploiting the human need for faith, have belowed those nonetheless. Perhaps she had an come weapons in the hands of cynical exam to clear or an engagement in the offing. politicians and corporates.

Elsewhere there may be people feeding If a builder can conduct human sacrifices to monkeys, or cows, or crows. It’s a strange appease the evil spirits in a building where thing: we destroy their habitat, and then feed people will live and love and give birth and them silly to gain good karma. die, there has to be something seriously I’m struck by many things about this phe- wrong with us. nomenon: there’s the spirit of entrepreneur blink@thehindu.co.in ship. For the poor, whether it’s in Lahore or

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the ticket to Rio. Their longtime coaches, Dharmendra Tiwari and Dronacharya awardee Purnima Mahato, see them as a strong bet at the Olympics.

But before that, Tiwari and Mahato have set their sights on a different target — preparing the players mentally for the big fight.

Eyes on the prize On a clear, warm September morning, quiet efficiency reigns over the shooting range at the Tata Archery Academy (TAA) in Jamshedpur. Tiwari and Mahato watch as the archers line up, group themselves into three and shoot at targets 70m away. All the top archers are participating in the ongoing national camp. Veterans like Banerjee are at hand too, to set right technical niggles. Buriuly believes Powerpuff girls there is healthy competition among the archTaylor Swift, ers. The selection forbythe surrounded herfinal team to Rio will be made next year. “All top 10 girls have equal supermodel besties HaileeisSteinfeld, Gigi chance. There tension, but that ought to be Hadid, there,” she adds.Karlie Kloss and accepts thehandling of pressure Mentalothers, toughness and video of the year often cropaward up in andatMahato’s converforTiwari Bad Blood sations. “Archery is also a mental game,” says the MTV Video Music Tiwari. “When Awardsan arrow leaves the bow, an ap/matt sayles archer should mentally feel good and confident about it.”

Buriuly vividly remembers the moment things turned at Copenhagen. The two-set lead had sent her into a tizzy. “I learnt that till the last tie-breaker is played it is not over.” She still cannot fathom how she shot a dismal eight. “In the earlier round against Japan, we all shot 10. But the atmosphere in the finals is different with the cameras and the crowd around. And my focus wavered,” she admits.

Mahato, who watched the trio lose the tiehese two used to have bad that strikes one as just that — an act. A carefully as breaker, pattern. She has noticedonthat part ofsees hera high-pitched discourse feblood, but not on my watch ‘coz constructed charade, and also a demonstra- male her players — most of them ruraltwo Jharkfriendship, despite thefrom fact that of feminism is all about friend- tion of Swift’s newly acquired feminist values, her handmost — falter at the big arena. She remembers popular numbers, Better than Reship! PLEASE WELCOME TO THE or more specifically, her understanding of venge Kumari’s first-round lossgot at the andheartbreaking Bad Blood, target women who on STAGE, TONYA HARDING AND NANCY KERRI- feminism as girls coming together to take pic- her London The world number-one wrongOlympics. side.

Awesome (From the left) Rimil Buriuly, Deepika Kumari andInstagram.

Laxmirani Majhi at the Tata Archery GAN!” shethreesome said, uniting once-infamous, tures on player Kumariuncritically had landedaccepted in LonHavethat we, year, the public, Academy in Jamshedpur; (below) former world is working her way outseem of poor form with now largely obscure figure-skating rivals.number one Kumari Schoenhals’ sentiments to chime don,idea battled viralSwift, infection and found herself the of Taylor the virginal sweetness ramesh sharma Well, no, this isn’t Taylor Swift, but the point many fellow millennials, notably Miley Cyrus incarnate? up against an English player in the opener. is, it could have been. and Rihanna, who’ve both stated their unwil- “Home support points for hertoopponent imThis, perhaps, the kind ofwas public This is actually one of the many jibes You- lingness to join Tay-Tay’s cult. Her squeaky- figures mense. we They announced eachWe ofcrave her achievechoose to validate. celebriTube user Lara Marie Schoenhals takes at clean record also seems to be threatened by ties ments. it came they said whoWhen are ‘just like to us’Deepika, (but notall quite).

The Swift’s recent concert antics during her ongo- her recent altercation with Nicki Minaj where, quintessential was ‘she is a top girl-next-door, Indian archer,’” says whoMahato. is not ing 1989 World Tour. The multiple award-win- upon hearing Minaj’s passionIn archery, theher big‘basic-ness’, tournaments afraidonly to own andare inning singer, 25, known for churning out ate rant on the latent racism in played before crowd.inIndian archers haveall, ofsteadarevels it. She is, above irritatingly catchy pop-hooks that cap- the music industry, all Swift ten foundnon-threatening. boisterous crowds “I Notdisconcerting. for her the subture teenage imagination, has taken to could pick up on was a purcan understand situation better now. At versive the imagery and politicallyTay-Tay’s is a world calling on stage a wide host of female ce- ported jibe about “other girls”, the Olympics, I gotthemes scared that just seeing the numcharged other young fewhere rainbows and lebrities in one of the flashiest displays of which she took to be herself. ber of people There will always be male watching. artistes like Cyrus and Azealia unicorns reign and girl power seen in a long time. Supermodels She took to Twitter, accusing nervousness, but a good way,” says Kumari.

Banks areinroutinely lambasted for. In everyone gets along (Karlie Kloss, Cara Delevingne, Gigi Hadid), fel- Minaj of betraying the “love The Archery of India, theteenTAA a pop Association landscape littered with famously low singers (Selena Gomez, Ellie Goulding, and support” that she, Swift, and the Sports Authority ofprovocative India are together age burnouts and rebels, Lorde), actresses (Julia Roberts, Lena Dun- had bestowed on her. Minaj’s working she to equip to handle presstandsthe outplayers as the sole purveyor of ham), and plain-and-simple legends (Joan reaction, much like ours, was a sure better and stay focused.

Earlythat thisother year, a prelapsarian innocence Baez), all brought together by the hypnotic stunned — “Huh?” Americangirls mental Beltrame just trainer seem toLorenzo have forgotten. power of a skinny white girl with eyes like The dust seems to have settled on this feud, Hers conducted a 15-day session with them.

He is exis a world where rainbows and unicorns Bambi’s and hair the colour of sun. when both singers made a very public recon- reign, pectedand to be back ingets December.

The Olympic everyone along famously. sia bounced the next two sets to Gold WorldTay-Tay Archery This is the year oft the ‘Queen’ — ciliation at back, the winning August MTV Video Music is providing mental trainers, It isQuest compelling to accept this version ofand the Championships equalise.But After this, has the Russians appeared far world she is the deus ex machina, the ultimate Awards.

Tay-Tay stirred a new hornet’s the team has a physiotherapist andher a manager as represented

by Swift and gang of morewith assured the shootout.

When Dreams.

Buriuly supermodel in Copenhawhite saviour, the (WC) feminist hero, all nest herinlatest video, Wildest at hand. The training andso, swimbesties. includes But, in yoga doing we gen,she in can July,do Indian shot an eight, it wasfor almost over foran India.

To choose rolled into one. And it all Roundly criticised portraying exotiming. Though the women’s team is qualifying to overlook the more disturbing asstay incolonial the match, hadittopoints shoot once a 10. pects women took onnight Russia in the re- cised, while dancing the away. viewKumari of Africa, for their fourth straight Olympics, this time of this fantasy.

We forget that the person She came up withuncomfortable nine and India relationship at its centre isthey curve This championship, This isfinals. exactly what Schoenhals’ again to Swift’s seem determined to but get not the authentic ‘real-girl’, heldmercilessly every two lampoons. years, is a with wentquestions home withofanother silver.perhaps, stems the creation things viral video race, which, It’s only a week of a PRright. machine.

Or that she’s Theher archers, though, arediscourse no one take, for archIn this prestigious darkly satirical the from ignorance of the around made a careersince Kumari, on Majhi and Buriuly capitalising heartbreak and greenhorns ers.an India come close the guests are evenhad more imaginasame. in the big league. Bereturned from Rio after playing teenage insecurity.

Indian archers have to aincluding, world championship them,defend over the past tive bunch among oth- tween One could Swift, asdecmany have, by ar- found the testthe event.

The other Tay-Tay, one with the less-charoften ade, Kumari, Buriuly, in 2011, in Italy, butthe had to seters, the victims of ISIS, ashes of guing that she isMajhi, a savvy businesswoman who ming “We never played test events traits of self-absorption and cultural inboisterous crowds tle silver. Deepika Kumari, Lax- has Bombayla Devi Laishram, thefor victims of the Salem Witch built an empire from Dola scratch. That her before.

Tests give an idea about sensitivity, has slowly started to show up, in disconcerting mirani Majhi and from Rimil Buriuly Banerjee Chekrovolu Sworu Trials, and also Eve, Adam and brand of and non-intersectional feminism is not run-ins with artistes the atmosphere in like Minajand andweather in her muwere aware of that moment in hishaveless won medals inisall major Eve. However ridiculous this fic- any valid, and it unfair to criticise her sic videos. Maybe, the host city,” says Mahato.

Schoenhals’ insights The are championships other steps thaninthe tory. trio fromitJharkhand went for tionalThe depiction, seems to point her first stumbling the movement. now percolating teamdown lost to in section the quarto China a larger of Olympics. or team in, flying, winningofthe to arrows the disingenuousness the first real Taylor SwiftIndividual the poor victim, all of this seems the interweb,ters, learnt.

She andbut thelessons days ofwere ‘Queen’ Tay-Tay twothing. sets to lead with 4-0. They medals have come from the World Cup, Com- are Despite the fanfare, andwere the to suggest. says,numbered.

“Archery will be held where carnivals all smiles and quiet confidence.

But monwealth Games, projected solidarity of sisterAnd so it isand thatAsian we feel for her,Asian ratherChamthan usually happen. The stages will be built at a chakravarty is a student at Jawaharlal as the match heated up, nerves began the pionships, European Prix and the WC. hood, there’s something string of exes she Grand has publicly shamed in amrita higher level.

We will make a similar stage here University, Delhi, and a music writer The break-up performance at She Copenhagen them Nehru to show. Andabout beforeTaylor they knew it, RusSwift’s act her songs. can co-optgave feminism for practice.”

Pop’s deus ex machina

Is Taylor Swift a feminist hero or just a savvy businesswoman? A sceptic millennial ponders on Tay-Tay’s world of rainbows and supermodel friendships

“T

Target RioQ Indian women archers have won medals at every major tournament except the Olympics. Will they finally hit the Olympic bull’s-eye in 2016?

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Battles of the mind For sports authorities and coaches, Rio may be about setting right a few things. For the players, an Olympic medal is the ultimate sporting glory. It assuages years of toil, battles with poor form, moments of hopelessness and months of pushing themselves to the extreme. After shooting nearly 200 arrows during her morning practice, Kumari sits down for a short break. Her two-year-long lean patch has tested the 21-year-old’s resolve, yet she is Indian archery’s most famous product. She has two individual golds from the Commonwealth Games and another from the World Cup. An Arjuna award has also come her way.

But nothing has eased the pain of the past two years. “It has been very difficult. There have been times when I wanted to leave everything

To Lucknow, post-haste A dramatised reading of old letters conjures up a cosmopolitan city that once was The concept of ‘Lucknow in Letters’ — when did it first come to you?

Sanjay and I were part of a reading on ‘Feminists of Awadh’ at the Mahindra-Sanatkada Lucknow Festival in early 2014, and the idea of doing a reading of letters began to take form just after that. I knew of letters in the family that had been cherished and preserved, and thought that it would be worthwhile to look for more in other homes as well as from published sources.

We wanted it to be a complete experience for the listener, which is why there’s music together with images of people, buildings, manuscripts, and the letters itself accompany the reading. This also reinforces authenticity and makes it more real.

How did the performance with Sanjay Muttoo first come about?

Sanjay is a friend. He is also a filmmaker and storyteller with a long experience in broadcasting. I think both of us have learnt immensely from this project, and our understanding of the city and its experiences continues to grow. One can’t ask for more.

Ink and memories The many charms of the lost art of letterwriting and the city of Lucknow come alive in ‘Lucknow in Letters’ rajeev bhatt

Not many write letters these days. Is that true of traditional families in Lucknow too?

Reading letters from close family and friends used to be a shared experience. With email and messaging taking over, letter-writing is becoming lost art. Only some people of my Get set, shoot (Top) Buriuly, Kumari and Majhi with their World Championship silver sushil kumar verma Coaches Dharminder Tiwari aand Purnima Mahato (seen with Dola parents’ generation write letters now, and Banerjee) are hoping for a superlative performance from the women at Rio; (inset) Majhi ramesh sharma ost people no longer take the also formed a part of her grandmother’s remi- that’s also true in Lucknow. We need to pretime to sit and write a letter. Not niscences, as the city she married serve old letters. and go home,” says Kumari.

“I have risen only motivation, when modernity, more specifiall she needed was into. Habib, currently a senior sci-a glimpse of get up,” she says, “Once you enter archery, you to fall again.”cally technology, is rife with al- her seniors’ entist at themedals. city’s Central Drug can’t get out, What even if you to. The was thewant process of game Tiwari considers this anhasn’t inevitable phasethe in Research luring alternatives.

That deterred The shadow of bad however, lingers Institute, andform, Muttoo, a keeps pulling you back.”

Mahato pins grand retrieving the original letters, We wanted to aduo sportsperson’s life.and “When youMuttoo are young, of Saman Habib Sanjay from over Kumari. “At times I felt curit was better to the sixth-generation Lakhnavi hopes Now a railway employee, Majhi and photographs retrieve ideaon of her. manuscripts you don’tanthink much.

But the you grow making earnest attempt to older help people re- die.

All Iteaching can think while sleeping is rently journalism atand eating has to apply for leave if she has to attend like?

Lucknow from the and more knowledge you have about but the about live the charms of not just letter-writing arrow not Delhi getting to target.debris Ar- of Kamla that Nehru College, Unicamps desires is We looked at All old she family papers this and tournaments. game, it gets,” he says.

The Lonalso a the city tougher as old and steeped in culture as chery a mindgame.

Whentheir an arrow leaves versity,isrecently performed camps and coaching till Rio. “No camp means and asked friends, friends of ‘destruction’ don Olympics, he adds, a case in point.

“The your Lucknow, through theiris dramatised reading bow, you have toGandhi feel 100Naper cent about no scope for excellence.”

11th show at Indira friends, academicians and hisplayers who won were either very young or ve- it.” of ‘Lucknow in Letters: endeavours, achieveThe Centre WC silver tional forand ArtsOlympics (IGNCA),qualification The fingers torians Buriuly uses to release bow to dig for us.the People ry experienced.”

Unlike in other sports, arch- have ments and tragedies’. done her morale good. After Copenha- string are painted New Delhis. blue and A mehendi pointed out orange. possible sources the first upto the ersWhile enjoy longer years; some even play in one playing letter Mahatma Gandhi ap- gen, to Warsaw for the fourth design runs down WeKumari caught went up with Habib. Exand helped usfinger, connect.

I was Hertrust recent lessons for over years.

Tiwari knows Kumari supwill stage peals to a20 father in Lucknow to financially the World Cup. Though she didn’t win edge cerptsoffrom the interview: movedofbyher thehand. immense placed in ushave and on remaining calm. family The psychologists eventually tide over son, the poor port his nationalist who form. is helping set up a medal, her performance was heartening. “Af- been the openness with which papers and a huge help, shedeeply says. “They a novice, Kumari hadthere shot without a care ter the AsJamia Millia, in others are exchanges time, was shooting Tellauslong about yourI association with, and love photographsare were shared.

I am conhelping relax and in the world.

“Shoot and win was allwere I thought between siblings and cousins who sepa- confidently for Lucknow.without fear,” she scious of thisare trust and weme have tried to handle pressure better.” Having been an about.

But as I became aware of expectations, rated by Partition.

There are several classics asI says.

This monthwith she Lucknow is off to is layered. It the reading with My engagement the sensitivity it demands. archer for close to 20 years, Bafeared failure.”

Her individual performance well — letters exchanged between writers, so- Mexico City at to first play sight. in the IWorld wasn’t love found attitudes in When an arrow leaves nerjee has change has slumped, but friends the bronze cialists, and close suchatasthe SM second Mehdi, Cup finals.

With and a year for discrimina- Which of these the city casteist sawleft gender letters areseen closest to yoursweep your bow, you have to through the game. “In our time, World Cup this year hasand beenKaifi a solace. bat- Olympics Munish Narain Saxena Azmi.Her As also and I saw tournaments tion. Much that around me initially was heart? feel 100 per cent an international year was tles are internal rather by than on-field. Paying the last letters written Ramprasad Bismil lined desperately at oddsup, withKumari the impression I had of its cultur- I love them all… but since youtour ask,amy favouabout it enough.

But little heed to unsolicited advice, she looks wants and Ashfaqullah Khan, before their execution, be on that team to not Rio.sure if I like to rites are the considered al and to social heritage.

I am Maleeha-Arifgood exchange (two giftthings began to change after the within forthey answers.

“I am constantly talking to put in which express deep concern for Hindu Just before World Archeryfor letters that ed cousins separated it like this,the but this search

by Partition, who wrote Busan in 2002.

That myself. know it is all in the mind,” she says.

MuslimIunity.

Championship Copenhagen, reflect the city’sin experiences over the last 150 long letters to eachAsian otherGames for over 50 years), was the time we had good Her on the technical—side.

The coaches readingshelp — in her English/Hindi/Urdu are nothing was fortoMajyears or so is going also anright effort retrieve what we and Kaifi’s letter to first Zehra Mehdi on aher faHer bow strength has been increased to 42 hi informed by a commentary in Hindustani Heratshots some ar- international aretoo. losing such awere rapidhaphazard, pace. ther’s death. performance.” She actively pounds tothe allow betterthrough endurance in windy that takes audience post-1857 Brit- rows even landed outside the target board. played at a time when there were no managphysiotherapists to help. is glad that weather. familythe is standing her too.the “If “This ish-ruledHer Lucknow, efforts tobypreserve two days before the tour- ers Whatwas has happening the city lost?

Anyorplans to take the reading toShe Pakistan? process for equipment has has benot for them, Iat would not bethe here,” she says. city’s heritage that time, national move- nament sir was worried,” she re- the Lucknowand wasTiwari a cosmopolitan city and evolved We would love to getting take it there.

The reading “I definitely see from progress.

But Archery may be her butonwhen Ku- calls. ment, the Partition andlife its now, impact families Majhiculture, practised on awas 10mthreatened range and and the come a syncretic which a very simpler. important contribution Karachi, to my other countries, it isIslow.” mari joined the Sarai Kela Archery Academy as coaches and relationships, progressive writers, social made technical changes.

She compared continues to beminor threatened by the parochialfrom where cousins, whom have never Thesearched players are for the amovements, teenager, she only to decrease the peaked and sowished on. Reflecting varied on time.

She played a key role in met, ism andright insularity that seem to be spreading andwarming sent old up letters andNationphotoBefore the Olympics in August, there is the burden on her “I hadn’t even seen a the moods, some of family. the letters are humorous, othteam’s silver and shot few tens. also everywhere.

We wanted toaretrieve theShe idea of als. graphs to us.

Cup.family, “An Olympic is close at bow.

All I thought was they would give me finished ers desolate. career-best fourth in the individual World Lucknowafrom the debris of this ‘destruction’ Sanjay’s too, has medal old Lahore links.

TheLucknow players just up again their food, clothes a place to stay.” But, Habib had and moved to Lucknow for soon, work event, theto bronze to the world numberand trylosing to bring our audience the beauty of hand.

Perhaps will have spin to itsscale charm on theheal. big stage,” says Mahato. she was “Then I came TAA and, god two, about 15hooked. years ago.

Before thatto she had visited the Southand Korean Choi Misun. relationships language as well as the city’s performance and help everyone knows, thing I wanted tosumstay past the city the for only family weddings andwas short At 26, Majhi is theand oldest in the team and her achievements tragedies, as reflected anima mazumdar is a Delhi-based journalist arunima here all my during life. I had best coaches.”

For career mer breaks herthe schooldays.

Lucknow has seen ups and “You fall, you p in the lived experience of down. its inhabitants.

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Deathly pall Yama, Chamundi and Durga with corpses, wee

First steps Gopuram (entrance tower) roger vogler

Masterpiece revisited

Gentle giants Elephant sculptures on the north side of Vim m

A new book studies the magnificent Kailas Temple at Ellora from a different perspective

K

The Kailas at Ellora A New View of a Misunderstood Masterwork Roger Vogler (With photographs by Peeyush Sekhsaria and Roger Vogler) INTACH Aurangabad & MAPIN ₹2,250

ailasa, or Kailas, is the centrepiece of the World Heritage cave temple of Ellora. Dedicated to Shiva, this eighth-century temple is a symbolic model of the real Kailash — the snow-capped mountain in Trans-Himalayan Tibet that is sacred to Buddhists, Hindus and Jains. The Hindus revere the mountain as the celestial abode of Shiva, the Destroyer.

Carved in sheer rock on a hillside and set within towering cliffs, the Kailas is rich in sculpture and visual metaphor, with the akasha (sky) as a powerful component of the whole picture.

The Kailas’s magnificent sculptures and carvings have been extensively documented by scholars, archaeologists and historians.

The great volume of space that envelops them, however, is almost totally absent from these writings, as are many of the moral and reli-

gious messages hidden under the stones.

In a new title, The Kailas at Ellora — jointly published by INTACH Aurangabad and MAPIN — American architect Roger Vogler takes readers on a tour of the rock temple. Focusing not merely on its stones but also its untold stories, this book turns out to be both insightful and informative.

Vogler served as consultant for the design and construction of the Indian Institute of Technology campus at Kanpur from 1968 to 1971. He subsequently served as Director of Facilities Planning for the University of Connecticut and the University System of New Hampshire. His experience of the Kailas, which he considers among the world’s greatest works of architecture, spans over 55 years.

The book also has photographs by Peeyush Sekhsaria, an architect and geographer based in Delhi.

Dances with gods First glimpse of Shiva Nataraja sculptur

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eest wall of Yajnasala Cave peeyush sekhsaria

m mana’s base, looking west from East Gallery peeyush sekhsaria

ure in Lankeshvara Cave, viewed from west corridor peeyush sekhsaria

Divine wrath Shiva Tripurantaka destroying the three fortresses of the asuras with a single arrow roger vogler

Etched in time Full view of Gajalakshmi sculpture peeyush sekhsaria

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the ticket to Rio. Their longtime coaches, Dharmendra Tiwari and Dronacharya awardee Purnima Mahato, see them as a strong bet at the Olympics.

But before that, Tiwari and Mahato have set their sights on a different target — preparing the players mentally for the big fight.

Eyes on the prize On a clear, warm September morning, quiet efficiency reigns over the shooting range at the Tata Archery Academy (TAA) in Jamshedpur. Tiwari and Mahato watch as the archers line up, group themselves into three and shoot at targets 70m away. All the top archers are participating in the ongoing national camp. Veterans like Banerjee are at hand too, to set right technical niggles. Buriuly believes Powerpuff girls there is healthy competition among the archTaylor Swift, ers. The selection forbythe surrounded herfinal team to Rio will be made next year. “All top 10 girls have equal supermodel besties HaileeisSteinfeld, Gigi chance. There tension, but that ought to be there,” sheHadid, adds.Karlie Kloss and accepts thehandling of pressure Mental others, toughness and video of the year often cropaward up in andatMahato’s converforTiwari Bad Blood sations. “Archery is also a mental game,” says the MTV Video Music Tiwari. “When Awardsan arrow leaves the bow, an ap/matt sayles archer should mentally feel good and confident about it.”

Buriuly vividly remembers the moment things turned at Copenhagen. The two-set lead had sent her into a tizzy. “I learnt that till the last tie-breaker is played it is not over.” She still cannot fathom how she shot a dismal eight. “In the earlier round against Japan, we all shot 10. But the atmosphere in the finals is different with the cameras and the crowd around. And my focus wavered,” she admits.

Mahato, who watched the trio lose the tiehese two used to have bad that strikes one as just that — an act. A carefully breaker, sees pattern. She has noticedonthat as part of hera high-pitched discourse feblood, but not on my watch ‘coz constructed charade, and also a demonstra- her — most of them ruraltwo Jharkmaleplayers friendship, despite thefrom fact that of feminism is all about friend- tion of Swift’s newly acquired feminist values, hand — falter at the big arena. She remembers her most popular numbers, Better than Reship! PLEASE WELCOME TO THE or more specifically, her understanding of Kumari’s first-round lossgot at the venge andheartbreaking Bad Blood, target women who on STAGE, TONYA HARDING AND NANCY KERRI- feminism as girls coming together to take pic- London Olympics.

The world number-one her wrong side.

Awesome (From the left) Rimil Buriuly, Deepika Kumari andInstagram.

Laxmirani Majhi at the Tata Archery GAN!” shethreesome said, uniting once-infamous, tures on player Kumariuncritically had landedaccepted in LonHavethat we, year, the public, Academy in Jamshedpur; (below) former world is working her way outseem of poor form with don, now largely obscure figure-skating rivals.number one Kumari Schoenhals’ sentiments to chime battled viral Swift, infection and found herself the idea of Taylor the virginal sweetness ramesh sharma Well, no, this isn’t Taylor Swift, but the point many fellow millennials, notably Miley Cyrus up against an English player in the opener. incarnate? is, it could have been. and Rihanna, who’ve both stated their unwil- “Home support points for hertoopponent imThis, perhaps, the kind ofwas public This is actually one of the many jibes You- lingness to join Tay-Tay’s cult. Her squeaky- mense.

They announced eachWe ofcrave her achievefigures we choose to validate. celebriTube user Lara Marie Schoenhals takes at clean record also seems to be threatened by ments.

When it came they said ties who are ‘just like to us’Deepika, (but notall quite).

The Swift’s recent concert antics during her ongo- her recent altercation with Nicki Minaj where, was ‘she is a top Indian archer,’” says quintessential girl-next-door, whoMahato. is not ing 1989 World Tour. The multiple award-win- upon hearing Minaj’s passionIn archery, theher big‘basic-ness’, tournaments afraidonly to own andare inning singer, 25, known for churning out ate rant on the latent racism in played before crowd.in Indian archers haveall, ofsteada revels it. She is, above irritatingly catchy pop-hooks that cap- the music industry, all Swift ten foundnon-threatening. boisterous crowds “I Notdisconcerting. for her the subture teenage imagination, has taken to could pick up on was a purcan understand situation better now. At versive the imagery and politicallyTay-Tay’s is a world calling on stage a wide host of female ce- ported jibe about “other girls”, the Olympics, I gotthemes scared just the numcharged thatseeing other young fewhere rainbows and lebrities in one of the flashiest displays of which she took to be herself. ber of people There will always be male watching. artistes like Cyrus and Azealia unicorns reign and girl power seen in a long time. Supermodels She took to Twitter, accusing nervousness, but a good way,” says Kumari.

Banks areinroutinely lambasted for. In everyone gets along (Karlie Kloss, Cara Delevingne, Gigi Hadid), fel- Minaj of betraying the “love The Archery of India, theteenTAA a pop Association landscape littered with famously low singers (Selena Gomez, Ellie Goulding, and support” that she, Swift, and the Sports Authority ofprovocative India are together age burnouts and rebels, Lorde), actresses (Julia Roberts, Lena Dun- had bestowed on her. Minaj’s working she to equip to handle presstandsthe outplayers as the sole purveyor of ham), and plain-and-simple legends (Joan reaction, much like ours, was a sure better and stay focused.

Earlythat thisother year, a prelapsarian innocence Baez), all brought together by the hypnotic stunned — “Huh?” Americangirls mental Beltrame just trainer seem toLorenzo have forgotten. power of a skinny white girl with eyes like The dust seems to have settled on this feud, conducted a 15-day session with them.

He is exHers is a world where rainbows and unicorns Bambi’s and hair the colour of sun. when both singers made a very public recon- pected to be back ingets December.

The Olympic reign, and everyone along famously. bounced the next two sets to Gold WorldTay-Tay Archery This is the year oft the ‘Queen’ — sia ciliation at back, the winning August MTV Video Music is providing mental trainers, It isQuest compelling to accept this version ofand the Championships After this, the appeared far the she is the deus ex machina, the ultimate equalise.

Awards. But Tay-Tay has Russians stirred a new hornet’s team has a physiotherapist andher a manager world as represented

by Swift and gang of assured the shootout.

When Dreams.

Buriuly at in Copenhawhite saviour, the (WC) feminist hero, all more nest with herinlatest video, Wildest hand. The training andso, swimsupermodel besties. includes But, in yoga doing we gen,she in can July,do Indian an eight, it wasfor almost over foran India.

To ming. rolled into one. And it all shot Roundly criticised portraying exotithe women’s team is qualifying choose Though to overlook the more disturbing asthe match, hadittopoints shoot once a 10. for women took onnight Russia in the re- stay while dancing the away. cised,incolonial viewKumari of Africa, their fourth straight Olympics, this time pects of this fantasy.

We forget that the person came withuncomfortable nine and India relationship at its centre isthey curve This championship, This isfinals. exactly what Schoenhals’ She again to up Swift’s seem determined to but get not the authentic ‘real-girl’, heldmercilessly every two lampoons. years, is a went home withofanother silver.perhaps, stems the creation things viral video with questions race, which, It’s only a week of a PRright. machine.

Or that she’s Theher archers, though, arediscourse no one take, for archIn this prestigious darkly satirical the from ignorance of the around made a career since Kumari, on Majhi and Buriuly capitalising heartbreak and ers.an India come close greenhorns guests are evenhad more imaginathe same. in the big league. Bereturned from Rio after playing teenage insecurity.

Indian archers have to aincluding, world championship them,defend over the pastasdective bunch among oth- tween One could Swift, many have, by ar- found the testthe event.

The other Tay-Tay, one with the less-charoften Buriuly, in 2011, in Italy, butthe had to seters, the victims of ISIS, ashes of ade, guing Kumari, that she isMajhi, a savvy businesswoman who ming “We never played events traits of self-absorption and test cultural inboisterous crowds tle silver. Deepika Kumari, Lax- Bombayla Devi Laishram, theforvictims of the Salem Witch has built an empire from Dola scratch. That her before.

Tests give an idea about sensitivity, has slowly started to show up, in disconcerting mirani Majhi and from Rimil Buriuly Chekrovolu Sworu Trials, and also Eve, Adam and Banerjee brand of and non-intersectional feminism is not run-ins with artistes the atmosphere in like Minajand andweather in her muwere aware of that moment in hiswon medals inisall major Eve. However ridiculous this fic- have any less valid, and it unfair to criticise her sic videos. Maybe, the host city,” says Mahato.

Schoenhals’ insights The are other steps than in the tory. trio fromitJharkhand went championships tionalThe depiction, seems to point for her first stumbling the movement. now percolating teamdown lost to in section the quarto China a larger of or team in, flying, winningofthe toarrows the disingenuousness the first real Olympics.

Taylor SwiftIndividual the poor victim, all of this seems the interweb,ters, learnt.

She andbut thelessons days ofwere ‘Queen’ Tay-Tay twothing. sets to lead with 4-0. They were have come from the World Cup, Com- says, Despite the fanfare, and the medals to suggest.

“Archery will be held where carnivals are numbered. all smiles and quiet confidence.

But monwealth Games, Champrojected solidarity of sisterAnd so it isand thatAsian we feel for her,Asian rather than usually happen. The stages will be built at a amrita level. chakravarty is a student at Jawaharlal as the match heated up, nerves began pionships, European Prix and the WC. hood, there’s something the string of exes sheGrand has publicly shamed in higher We will make a similar stage here Nehru University, Delhi, and a music writer performance at She Copenhagen them for to show. Andabout beforeTaylor they knew it, RusSwift’s act The her break-up songs. can co-optgave feminism practice.”

Pop’s deus ex machina

Is Taylor Swift a feminist hero or just a savvy businesswoman? A sceptic millennial ponders on Tay-Tay’s world of rainbows and supermodel friendships

“T

Target RioQ Indian women archers have won medals at every major tournament except the Olympics. Will they finally hit the Olympic bull’s-eye in 2016?

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Battles of the mind For sports authorities and coaches, Rio may be about setting right a few things. For the players, an Olympic medal is the ultimate sporting glory. It assuages years of toil, battles with poor form, moments of hopelessness and months of pushing themselves to the extreme. After shooting nearly 200 arrows during her morning practice, Kumari sits down for a short break. Her two-year-long lean patch has tested the 21-year-old’s resolve, yet she is Indian archery’s most famous product. She has two individual golds from the Commonwealth Games and another from the World Cup. An Arjuna award has also come her way.

But nothing has eased the pain of the past two years. “It has been very difficult. There have been times when I wanted to leave everything

To Lucknow, post-haste A dramatised reading of old letters conjures up a cosmopolitan city that once was The concept of ‘Lucknow in Letters’ — when did it first come to you?

Sanjay and I were part of a reading on ‘Feminists of Awadh’ at the Mahindra-Sanatkada Lucknow Festival in early 2014, and the idea of doing a reading of letters began to take form just after that. I knew of letters in the family that had been cherished and preserved, and thought that it would be worthwhile to look for more in other homes as well as from published sources.

We wanted it to be a complete experience for the listener, which is why there’s music together with images of people, buildings, manuscripts, and the letters itself accompany the reading. This also reinforces authenticity and makes it more real.

How did the performance with Sanjay Muttoo first come about?

Sanjay is a friend. He is also a filmmaker and storyteller with a long experience in broadcasting. I think both of us have learnt immensely from this project, and our understanding of the city and its experiences continues to grow. One can’t ask for more.

Ink and memories The many charms of the lost art of letterwriting and the city of Lucknow come alive in ‘Lucknow in Letters’ rajeev bhatt

Not many write letters these days. Is that true of traditional families in Lucknow too?

Reading letters from close family and friends used to be a shared experience. With email and messaging taking over, letter-writing is becoming lost art. Only some people of my Get set, shoot (Top) Buriuly, Kumari and Majhi with their World Championship silver sushil kumar verma Coaches Dharminder Tiwari aand Purnima Mahato (seen with Dola parents’ generation write letters now, and Banerjee) are hoping for a superlative performance from the women at Rio; (inset) Majhi ramesh sharma ost people no longer take the also formed a part of her grandmother’s remi- that’s also true in Lucknow. We need to pretime to sit and write a letter. Not niscences, as the city she married serve old letters. and go home,” says Kumari.

“I have risen only motivation, when modernity, more specifiall she needed was into. Habib, currently a senior sci-a glimpse of get up,” she says, “Once you enter archery, you to fall again.”cally technology, is rife with al- her seniors’ entist at themedals. city’s Central Drug can’t get out, What even was if you to. The thewant process of game Tiwari considers this inevitable phasethe in Research luring alternatives.

Thatanhasn’t deterred The shadow of bad however, lingers Institute, andform, Muttoo, a keeps pulling you back.”

Mahato pins grand retrieving the original letters, We wanted to aduo sportsperson’s life.and “When youMuttoo are young, of Saman Habib Sanjay from over Kumari. “At times I felt curit was better to the sixth-generation Lakhnavi hopes Now a railway employee, Majhi and photographs retrieve idea on of her. manuscripts you don’t much.

But the you grow making anthink earnest attempt to older help people re- die.

All Iteaching can think while sleeping is rently journalism atand eating has to apply for leave if she has to attend like?

Lucknow from the and more knowledge have about but the about live the charms of not justyou letter-writing arrow not Delhi getting Ar- of Kamla that Nehru College, Uni-to target.debris camps desires is We looked at All old she family papers this and tournaments. game, it gets,” he says.

The Lonalso a the city tougher as old and steeped in culture as chery a mindgame.

Whentheir an arrow leaves versity,isrecently performed camps and coaching till Rio. “No camp means and asked friends, friends of ‘destruction’ don Olympics, he adds, a case in point.

“The your Lucknow, through theiris dramatised reading bow, you have toGandhi feel 100Naper cent about no scope for excellence.”

11th show at Indira friends, academicians and hisplayers who won were either very young or ve- it.” of ‘Lucknow in Letters: endeavours, achieveTheCentre WC silver tional forand ArtsOlympics (IGNCA),qualification The fingerstorians Buriuly uses to release bow to dig for us.the People ry experienced.”

Unlike in other sports, arch- have ments and tragedies’. done her morale good. After Copenha- string are painted New Delhis. blue and A mehendi pointed out orange. possible sources the first upto the ersWhile enjoy in longer years; some even play one playing letter Mahatma Gandhi ap- gen, to Warsaw for the fourth design runs down WeKumari caught went up with Habib. Exand helped usfinger, connect.

I was Hertrust recent lessons for over years.

Tiwari knows Kumari supwill stage peals to a20 father in Lucknow to financially the World Cup. Though she didn’t win edge cerptsoffrom the interview: movedofbyher thehand. immense placed in ushave and on remaining calm. family The psychologists eventually tide overson, the poor form. port his nationalist who is helping set up a medal, her performance was heartening. “Af- been the openness with which papers and a huge help, shedeeply says. “They a novice, Kumari hadthere shot without a care ter the As Jamia Millia, in others are exchanges time, was shooting Tell auslong about yourI association with, and love photographsare were shared.

I am conhelping relax and in the world.

“Shoot win was allwere I thought between siblings andand cousins who sepa- confidently for Lucknow.without fear,” she scious of thisare trust and weme have tried to handle pressure better.” Having been an about.

But as I became aware of expectations, rated by Partition.

There are several classics asI says.

This monthwith she Lucknow is off to is layered. It the reading with My engagement the sensitivity it demands. archer for close to 20 years, Bafeared failure.”

Her individual performance well — letters exchanged between writers, so- Mexico City at to first play sight. in the IWorld wasn’t love found attitudes in When an arrow leaves nerjee has change has slumped, but friends the bronze cialists, and close such at as the SM second Mehdi, Cup finals.

Withand a year for discrimina- Which of these the city casteist sawleft gender letters areseen closest to yoursweep your bow, you have to through the game. “In our time, World this year hasand been a solace. bat- Olympics MunishCup Narain Saxena Kaifi Azmi.Her As also andI saw tournaments tion. Much that around me initially was heart? feel 100 per cent an international year was tles are internal rather by than on-field. Paying the last letters written Ramprasad Bismil lined desperately at oddsup, withKumari the impression I had of its cultur- I love them all… but since youtour ask,amy favouabout it considered good enough.

But little heed to unsolicited advice, she looks wants and Ashfaqullah Khan, before their execution, be on that team tonot Rio.sure if I like to rites are the Maleeha-Arif al and to social heritage.

I am exchange (two giftthings began to change after the within forthey answers.

“I am constantly talking to put in which express deep concern for Hindu Just before Archeryfor letters that ed cousins separated it like this,the butWorld this search

by Partition, who wrote Busan in 2002.

That myself. know it is all in the mind,” she says.

MuslimIunity.

Championship Copenhagen, reflect the city’sin experiences over the last 150 long letters to eachAsian otherGames for over 50 years), was the time we had good Her coaches help on the technical—side.

The readings — in her English/Hindi/Urdu are nothing was fortoMajyears or so is going also anright effort retrieve what we and Kaifi’s letter to first Zehra Mehdi on aher faHer bow strength has been increased to 42 hi informed by a commentary in Hindustani Herat shots some ar- international aretoo. losing such awere rapidhaphazard, pace. ther’s death. performance.” She actively pounds tothe allow betterthrough endurance in windy that takes audience post-1857 Brit- rows even landed outside the target board. played at a time when there were no managphysiotherapists to help. is glad that weather. familythe is standing her too.the “If “This ish-ruled Her Lucknow, efforts tobypreserve two days before the tour- ers Whatwas has happening the city lost?

Anyor plans to take the reading toShe Pakistan? process for getting equipment has has benot them, Iat would not bethe here,” she says. city’sfor heritage that time, national move- nament sir was worried,” she re- the Lucknowand was Tiwari a cosmopolitan city and evolved We would love to take it there.

The reading “I definitely see from progress.

But Archery may be her butonwhen Ku- calls. ment, the Partition andlife its now, impact families Majhiculture, practised on awas 10mthreatened range andand the come a syncretic which a very simpler. important contribution Karachi, tomy other countries, it isIslow.” mari joined the Sarai Kela Archery Academy as coaches and relationships, progressive writers, social made technical changes.

She compared continues to beminor threatened by the parochialfrom where cousins, whom have never Thesearched players are for the amovements, teenager, she only to decrease the peaked and so wished on. Reflecting varied on time. played a key role in met, ism andright insularity thatShe seem to be spreading andwarming sent old up letters andNationphotoBefore the Olympics in August, there is the burden on her family.

“I hadn’t even seen moods, some of the letters are humorous, oth-a the team’s silver and shot few tens. also everywhere.

We wanted to aretrieve theShe idea of als. graphs to us.

Cup.family, “An Olympic is close at bow.

All I thought was they would give me finished ers desolate. career-best fourth in the individual World Lucknowafrom the debris of this ‘destruction’ Sanjay’s too, has medal old Lahore links.

TheLucknow players just upagain their food, clothes a place to stay.” But, Habib had and moved to Lucknow for soon, work event, theto bronze to the world numberand trylosing to bring our audience the beauty of hand.

Perhaps will have spin to itsscale charm on theheal. big stage,” says Mahato. she was “Then I came TAA and, god two, about 15hooked. years ago.

Before thatto she had visited the Southand Korean Choi as Misun. relationships language well as the city’s performance and help everyone knows, I wanted tosumstay past the city the for only familything weddings and was short At 26, Majhi is theand oldest in the team and her achievements tragedies, as reflected anima mazumdar is a Delhi-based journalist arunima here all my during life. I had best coaches.”

For career mer breaks herthe schooldays.

Lucknow has seen ups and “You fall, you p in the lived experience of down. its inhabitants.

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GOVERNMENT TO BAN INTERNET ON TUESDAYS! I

SHOVON CHOWDHURY is chief Truthdigger and author of Murder with Bengali Characteristics

cannot see the Under Secretary. There Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and clean the arnot up to the mark. The fodder is for water. “That's a very good suggestion,” he are no files on his table, just a picture ea in front of their homes. In this cows. This is part of a wider agenda, says, tears streaming down his face. “Put in of the PM, a yoga manual, a broom, shutterstock way, entire localities will be which is being purposefully an application in triplicate and we’ll set up and a small pile of fodder. I hear odd cleaned up. This is part of a misunderstood. The aim is a committee.” universal development.

Despite his discomfort, I am merciless in scratching noises. I clear my throat. He new model known as pubemerges from under the table, clutching a lic-public partnership, The first step is to ensure my pursuit of the truth. It’s how they train that each member of the us at The Hindu . Our editors are relentless. laptop. “Sorry, today it’s my turn to be porn wherein the public sector ombudsman. We are currently not banning provides the vision, while public personally sup- Each and every one of them is a role model. porn sites, but the surveillance continues.” the public does the work. ports one cow. Subse- “So this Internet ban will be all day and all quently, we will advise night, every Tuesday?” I ask. “Initially only “What’s all this for?” I ask, pointing at the Once we can get them to items on his table. “They are what we want install drainage pipes and them on how to install go- Tuesday,” says the Under Secretary, “eventuthe public to do on Tuesdays, in lieu of in- construct sewage facilities, bar gas plants. In this man- ally, we will remove it completely, to faciliternet usage,” he says. “Naturally the first our job will be complete. We ner, India’s power crisis will tate good governance. But don’t worry. be solved.”

These things take time. Till then, the public question we considered before banning are also suggesting additional haratrihari is that considered “Will we reimbursed for this?” I canfor use it onofother days.for Except for thethe Pa-carniwas, what will people do? These are the gov- practice of yoga, so they canone par-of San- larger collapse ofget morality. a tour Ujjayini, witnessing skrit’s greatest in thewholesame ask. ernment-approved optional activities. Us- ticipate in World Yogapoets, Day more The Under Secretaryishas a choking I tels, can only use it on Sundays, beUjjayini’s decadence caused by “a fit. creepvalwho of Kamadeva mahotsava that introduces league Kalidasa.

However, there ing the broom, they can participate in the heartedly.

Lastas time, their performance was pat on the backofand himwhere a glasskama of tween 2 and 4pm.” ing him feminisation thehand land”, Bharatrihari into the royal circle. One of his reare more legends than facts about seems to hold sway over all. The debate be- citations at the competition goes: him. The Goa-based psychoanalyst and writer tween dharma (duty) and kama, embodied by “Only a fool, waiting to be told, suspends Dear Tulsiram, Sudhir Kakar, in his most recent book, brings Bharatrihari, is played out on a much larger judgement. good that court you are taking her on Kakar your to lifeIt’s this ancient poet of Ujjayini. scale in the urban space. While Bharatrihari is a poem like an arrow has met its mark holiday.to It’sglean a celebration of emotional our tradition, attempts the poet’s self disillusioned with his king, he is equally reonly when the listener’s senses reel andhis very commendable. Slowly you are befrom works. pulsed by this “city of kama”. as the poem sticks quivering in the heart.” ginning to understand.

Ujjayini was a flourishing Some urban misguided settlement, The poet who once focused solely on womSuch instances of Bharatrihari’s poetry elements areShiva comparing cows with people, known for its and Krishna temples, as a en now begins to see only Brahman, as Kakar form an important part of the book. He is insaying, why cows, first careand of people. centre of Buddhism and take Jainism, a place puts it. n Every news generation that has been greetedaswith he agreed that an What of scholars, Bhara- explained troducedthe assituation, an “alchemist of feelings”. is theofwrong forThis devotees kama approach. (desire). Cows are not

by Apple sharehol- iPad would be preferable.” triharicautious pointsoptimism out, bemoans stays with you is the essence of people.

Cows are like our mother.

Would The Jalandhar-born Bharatrihari arrived in that there ders,isthe Mathura unitless of the Indian According to reliable sources, many Conmore kama and his poetry. youcosmopolitan deprive yourcity mother of the this in search of simple success dharma watched the National Congress has announced gress members have in its time.

With a poet as itsmotion protagonist, pleasures life? Afterachieved all, without and fame. Heofgradually bothmothby exthat it will soon be purchasing How, then, can we take hisan iPad. This picture Steve Jobs, The and Devilare Takenow Lovewearing is peppered It tells of a poet ers, who are we? in During the but flight, don’t pressing sensuality his work, came un- cynicism was afterseriously? a speechAfter delivered black turtlenecks.

“It’s into hardpoetics to see — in all, it to with insights seduced, and then forget to his provide headphones. done when preoccupation withOtherwise the erotic isthem national scion Rahul them in of theboth dark,” the by same Bharatrihari who terms the compsyche of repulsed by a city thereplaced video has meaning. This also means was bynodisillusionment.

It was not can Gandhi, in which askedof plained a colleague. see beyond the he façade those times and the “The universal drowning in the “ethic that your beverage requirements arerun taken just his professional life that had its morality, other night, Iof thought I saw them to be more like Apple. especially when he is sentiment creative expresof pleasure” care of. catcourse, hePlus hadyou alsocan been cuckolded. asion. dhoti floating towards “He togave thismonogamy instruction able critique and Kavya (poetry) and kama Ally Subramaniam was born in the The Devil Take Love er infants dis-gives an account of Bhara- makes ThetoDevil Takein Love and once disap- by me,interlinked. until I realised was pura casemore for adultery are Theitchief South-West Sunderbans, but was Sudhir Kakar tress. Once youItretrihari’s disgrace. is about the poet’s journey sympathising our local leader in black peared. He is no longer in with a courtepose of poetry is a to achieve blown away by a cyclone and washed Penguin achthe Amsterdam, into realms of love and passion, as he san’s India,”point said of a local turtleneck.” view.party He also fame, which inMeanwhile, turn is fickle. But up on the₹499 shore near Chennai. He was adopted by a poor Brahmin family keep her away from of beauty to someone brings changes from a captive the RSS has protested member.

“The others are bored housewife: then, the pursuit in the figure of the of poetry at least gives some from Tiruppur. He can answer all your local cows, who It aretells of a poet seduced, “can burned by passion. imposition of profit.

Western Maharashblaming but weofdidhousehold not do anything. this us, routine sex, this thepleasure, if not Thefruit, moment of creation questions. Just send them to Christian, as wellbyasa city drowning in the wretched and then repulsed We tried to make his stay We traishas banned consumption of apples durthing, deserve thecomfortable. name of love?” “that state of fullness, its silence resounding askallysubramaniam@gmail.com red light areas, where “ethic of pleasure”. even a Dalit person, butofdue to ingwith Diwali, andvoices, Kapil Sibal written an wing The procured seventh-century township Ujjayini myriad beforehas a poem takes her morals be ear Ally, In the book, could Bharatrihari narrates his ver- has timebeen constraint, Rahul Sir could not in epic dedicated to the iPhone, leading minutely researched, andstay its opuinpoem words”.

Is it OK if my cow flies with me sion corrupted.

I wish you athe hapof the events before king’s men arrive lence party members.

“Weghost” his house.

Also brought because alive he did have and spirit bynot Kakar.

At athe to complaints Kakar callsfrom Bharatrihari a “historical to Amsterdam? pyhe holiday.

Don’t to consequences fasand is forced to forget face the of same to escapethough to the adjacent rooms,” said ato be house.

Meanwhile, wedoes arenot both inspired time, the author seem to make trybecause, his poems continue Regards, your seatbelts. histen actions.

The title of the novel comes from aand a lawyer, he man confused.

Our localThe head to party virtue out of research. easewanted with which readmember, today, so “but little being is known about the Yours affectionately, Allya declamation of the Tulsiram, Nagpur one of Bharatrihari’s verses, howThis to project his voice.” purchase an flows orchard Kullu, buttoafter we of knows narrative is ain testimony his feat himself. book creatively fills in the blanks. curses in reaction to his wife’s infidelity. imagination. The book never feels burdened The Investigator is a monthly round-up of all things droll and newsy.

Allpoet views are personal.

Reallyof personal The fate of the is also symptomatic a by t@shovonc the information of the past. Read the novel soni wadhwa is a Mumbai-based research scholar

Bringing alive ghosts

Sudhir Kakar does a fine job of creating a poet out of his poems and locating him in time

ASK ALLY

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MATHURA CONGRESS TO PURCHASE iPAD!

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THE CRITICAL ISSUE

Blind faith India and her neighbours ought to remember that from superstition to intolerance is often a short step

Time travels Back in the nineties, how similar or different did Bangalore look compared to the city of today the hindu archives

On the beaten track

All for good karma A spot for feeding pigeons — a common sight in Delhi shanker chakravarty

Twenty-five years ago, Joe Roberts travelled, like a tourist and not an adventurer, through south India. His travelogue provides a peep into the mundane and plenty of nostalgia

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Three-quarters of a Footprint: Travels in South India Joe Roberts Aleph ₹399

Urvashi Butalia is an editor, publisher and director of Zubaan

e’re in a sort of skiff under a Turning off the main road to the lane that Delhi or elsewhere, it’s a way to trade on peosmall bridge over the river Ra- leads to my office, I traverse a small traffic is- ple’s blind faith and make a rupee or two out vi in Lahore. Heavy traffic, in- land on my right. Here, every morning, a of it. You have to admire that. cessant honking, all their the naountries change; itand is in young man — arrives two large sacksaround of theme there bearing were certain hip tailors Butthethen, there’s also this thatmany only food on offer, bringquestion to mind the expected city noises filldo the Theof river itself ture to so.air.

Some these are magrainBrigade and chana, and a number light metal Road who could beoftrusted’.

He capbothers me every day:that howpassed have we so strange places offbecome as traveller’s is sluggish, and, the Yamuna in Delhi, jorlike changes, like the effects of wars plates.

He conversations, sets himself upattitudes, with four or five lintures manners, deeply superstitious? thatBack come habitations in theWhere oldendoes days... in the more a drain than a river. As our little boat or revolutions, resulting in grand platesguistic and, soon enough, cars stop, oblivious quirks and many other intangibles from?

Andbefore why are weadvent unableof— the or unwilling time the boutique—hotel makes its way from one to another, a to thethat history-writing and shore analysis.

But ordinary vehicles office-going people theytoday. are to see we’ve of probably forgotten about that pigeons and kites and other with itsthe attached designer bistro. strange packet floats down in- blocking. things often change infrom waysthe thatbridge go unnoticed a plate and then chuck its evTheThey waybuy Roberts meticulously recorded sundryAnd animals are so it and goesbirds on, as webeing traveloverfed? with Roberts to the—river.

I think resignedly how we are often, the only evidence of alike the past was recontents righthe there. there’s a great flaperything saw Then, is the real asset of this book: a There otherresort concerns too:nothing it’s easy for me hapto aare jungle (where much across borders: stand anywhere, andtravel chuck corded by the outsider’s eye, the writer ping flashback of wings astohundreds of pigeons descend to laugh 25 years ago. thethe pigeon-feeders thisatisn’t pens),at to Vijayanagar but ruins Hampi anything without a thought who overboard makes it his business to takeabout down imonto the food and begin to eat it Mean- just funny.

However, if one is looking forup. a scintillating precisely this kindhappens), of supersti(again It’s where nothing much to Ponthe consequences. pressions for posterity to review. whiletravelogue, the grain-throwers on with life, sehis actualget travels border on the tion and blind(where belief that kills the Dabholkars, dicherry he chats up an intriguing, diBut I’m wrong — in one thing Thishistory: is cure mundane This is particularly trueatofleast.

Indian in the knowledge that they have — he frequently takesearned Karnataka Pansares and Kalburgis world. From suvorced Indian of this woman), Madurai, not rubbish as Western I soon discover: a bunch kites to we have merchants andofenvoys theirState brownie points for this life Tourism Development Corporation Mahabalipuram, perstition intolerance is of- he andtothen Kerala (where parked on afor small mud island wing itof the thank descriptions of quickly the grandeur and the next. tours rather than pursuing indetenencounters a short step: you can a hilarious, tragic across and pickVijayanagar at the packet.

Later,(whose standing erstwhile empire capital Thependent scatteringadventure of grain on the tourism, convince that,on say,the eat-train Britishyourself drunkard on the bridge, thenow story unravels.

Dotted here and city was the ruined village of Hampi) ground day. in Bythe eve-Lonely andgoes putson hisallfaith ingwho beeflater will bring youabad kar- of a becomes disciple Why are we unable — and there along bothpilgrims sides of the are of ancient Chinese givebridge us a wealth ning,Planet. the pigeons stuffed his Despiteare consulting ma guru — even it’s your neighbour inifBengaluru).

Although osor unwilling — to see The most dramatic eating men detail and women plastic bags.sites They’re on theholding historical Buddhist (such as and guidebook, disinterested, young he the takes a trip to it — aand youonthen take in tensibly book his travels that moments the pigeons and of consist poor,Nalanda). some are disabled and whatmay theybehave in for These narratives biased, entrepreneur else the can monMangalore(what the week lawsouth into India, your own hands he also goes and north to kites traveller’s and other sundry diarrhoea killKhajuraho theirwhich hands is meat — must the offal andthe leftover bits ada reader make necessary you call him?) is still and soon breaks out,there, only to remain them. Or you convinceIn efandcan Varanasi. animals birds are andand vomiting spells yourself of meat that humans don’toften eat, detailed which they justments, but they’re enough sometimes desultory customcoopedaup at the resort (instead thatdoes a woman is actualfect, he all the mandatory being overfed? purchase from cheap. to give us abutchers sense of for local life in another time.er will show upthe and he’ll at getUdupi of visiting temple ly atourist witch activities, and you destroy her vennever quite Here,Such on the bridge,cross the meat-sellers thoughts my mind asstand I read Joe someasmore One day Ibooks perbusiness. plan), reading life turing (and sometimes taketrack. over The off the beaten and offer this tobook, anyone whoof wants to leverage Roberts’s a diary six months spent in watched a young arrive in ain MG (bought fromgirl Gangaram’s hermost property too). moments consist dramatic somesouth good India karma feeding the birds.

So, the pubinby the early 1990s — originally largeRoad limousine. her rich when itWhile still ruled the city’s Increasingly, India today of traveller’sin diarrhoea and—vomrich and theinmiddle-class stop by, and they lished 1994, but recently reissued byor Aleph. parent sat market). in car, the girl stepped out, ayah in and who book the border too itingknows, spells. perhaps Like any across travel diary, it is amusing theirRoberts drivers step and and then cursowas out based inbuy, Bengaluru (then Bangatow. Instructions relayed from parent driver the Despite these drawbacks in thetoplotline, — using and superstition dull by turns.and blind belief, or exrily chuck it overhethe side.aGood lore), where rented room deed with adone, local famto ayah to the has supremely bored girl, who fol- ploitingYetthe narrative its merits.

In Ooty, for example, need sense for faith, have be-that I it ishuman with a deep of nostalgia they can get his on vivid with life.

Meanwhile, ily, and descriptions giveasusan anenidea of lowed Perhaps she had an comefinished hethose staysnonetheless. at a highly recommended, venerable weapons in the hands of cynical this little story of a tourist’s life in Invironmental activist suffer, life in a city thattells hadme, notthe yet birds become a global examold to clear an engagement inbe thebreathing offing. its hotel,orwhich turns out to politicians and corporates. dia a quarter of a century ago. Maybe it is a they hub growovertaken fatter andbyfatter, and sometimes IT money and shopping Elsewhere theretomay be over people feeding last. It is soon be taken by the Taj group If anostalgia builder can conduct human sacrifices to in that can only be felt if one lived this kills them and their numbers fall.Roberts takes malls for international brands. monkeys, or cows, ora crows.

It’s a (astrange and restored into luxury hotel sign of the appease the evil—spirits in a building where those times by a curious coincidence I made I’mnotes struck how alike including we are — no matter onbyeverything local fashions thing: we age destroy theirknocking habitat, and thendoor). feed His new already on the people love and give birth and mywill firstlive tripand to India in the same year, 1991 — that we are across the border. no matter among the urban youth And — ‘jeans with three themdescriptions silly to gain of good karma. dusty corridors ruled by mice, die, but, there has to beI am something nevertheless, sure thatseriously in the future, that there be differences in inset religion.

Here,panel I’mmusty pleatsmay at the waist and an pleated struckhotel by many about thisgrand, phe- waroomsthings that were once wrong with us. a book like this will be consulted by people in Delhi, every when drive to work, I see a nomenon: from the day knee to Ithe hem, snow-bleached there’s the spirit of entrepreneurterlogged bathrooms with broken plumbing, who search for remembrances of things past. blink@thehindu.co.in similar sight. jeans with suede patch pockets. Because deship.indifferent For the poor, whether it’s in the Lahore or hall waiters sleeping dining signer labels weren’t readily available they where tablecloths and napkins stay un- zac o’yeah is a Bengaluru-based author, travel writer, dreamt up their own variations of a Western washed, and fried pork or brain curry being literary critic. His new novel is titled Hari a Hero for Hire

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Proper,with proper loveplan Lawyer a flight Read or listen to Allan Watts not for what he might teach you, but for the sheer pleasure At the of the country’s fastest-growing private airline, IndiGo president Aditya the controls exercise is Ghosh deploys a winning mix of professional and personal skills anita roy

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n June this year, when Delhi-based IndiGo Soaring from law courts the then Manmohan Singh government aldecided to go for an initial public offer- The son of an IAS office, Ghosh did his master’s lowed several new entrants — including Spiceing (IPO), journalists covering the avia- from Kirori Mal College in Delhi. After six years Jet, GoAir and Kingfisher — to take to the skies. tion beat became gleeful. The low-cost of law practice, he made a switchover to avia- Soon there was a huge churn in the market as airline known all along for avoiding the media tion when InterGlobe, IndiGo’s parent compa- the private players decided to experiment in would now be forced to be in the news in the ny, began scouting for a General Council in their quest to come up with a winning formubuild-up to the listing. What the journalists 2004. With interests in a range la. Hence, while some like Kinggot, however, were not insights from the air- of hospitality- and travel-related fisher transformed from a line owner Rahul Bhatia but its president, Adi- services, the group had just delow-cost airline into a full-service tya Ghosh. cided to launch IndiGo, and one before realising that the IndiGo has not only At stake is an issue of over 1,200 crore many saw Ghosh’s move as suimodel wasn’t working and finalAll is IndiGo real Trickster, been garnering shares, which is expected to raise over ₹3,000 cidal, but that didn’t deter him. ly shutting down, stuck to mystic, crore. IndiGo is still to decide when it will hit “Aditya quickly understood market share but also its low-cost model. philosopher, guru, scholar, steered clear of the market, but is expected to be sooner than all the figures that were being Clearly, this strategy smoker, joker, has enemployee unrest or later, as its roadshows are on in India and over- bounced around, such as the sured that while the likes gourmand, loverof of Spiother negative news seas to attract investor interest. Here again, it size of the market, the potential ceJet have had a turbulent women, reader of few to discover is Ghosh who is leading from the front. routes, and the latent demand years, IndiGobooks… has not only been his “real As Ghosh finds himself thrust into the lime- based on spending power and garnering market share but also never light, it is in a way a tribute to his professional the rising numbers of the midsteered clear personality” of employee unrest meant much to and personal skills. dle class. This despite having no or other negative news.

Alan Watts shutterstock As his résumé shows, he has not been to any previous background in aviation,” recalls a sebusiness school or worked at any airline be- nior official of a rival airline, who had first met Cruising altitude fore (he is, in fact, a lawyer by training); and Ghosh in 2003 when the two of them worked “Aditya’s training as a lawyer allows him to love Alan yet, underproper him IndiGo wasWatts. voted one of the on a gently disciplined, simply airline profound,” plan for launchingand a low-cost (In- but to Watts onview YouTube. take listen a dispassionate of theThere’s many reams, issues and Falling in love with a rapscallion, best companies to work for in 2015, for the sev- Enfavourite is his sketch of former ArchbishdiGomy launched in 2006). his stuff, largely an that reams, plague and the reams Indianofaviation industry andaudio philosopher-mystic who, moreover, However, enth year glish in a row, and has become the fastestop of Canterbury, Temple:of“He was imbesides hisWilliam astute reading numarchive curated by his son,articulate Mark. Watts Senior express his arguments in an manin 1973, mayinnot as theInmost growing died private airline thecount country. stout, reputed to beskills a formidable bers,mensely Ghosh used hisand sharp analytical as a ner,”is a marvellous speaker. talks right says Amber Dubey, KPMG’sHe India head for into of myinto adultthe life.airline’s But, on the 2007,sensible Ghosh decision was inducted trencherman.

He had a belly laugh which lawyer to gain a strong foothold in the counyou: intimate, informal with that sandpaper aerospace and defence.

Introduced to Ghosh other ‘sensible’ is not the first word that board and hand, became its president following beaviation heard for miles. It rang out like try’s could evolving space. of awhen devout smoker, backrasp in 2009, they workedlaughter togetherbubbling on a mind when surveying wreckage Hechurch year,leaps whichtoput him at the head of the all operbewitched by elves. undulated movedbells to IndiGo at a time whenItthe do- project justfor below the surface.

“I have always the ministry of civil aviation, Du-been that for said adult life, especially ations andpasses management. theairspace air so aswas to make weak leaves fallafter from the mestic becoming crowded aware of my asdisciplined a pianist is peraware of bey describes himown as avoice sharp, around the ventricles. trees.” his fingers,” he says, “I am unashamedly in Then, a couple of years back, his name Trickster, mystic, philosopher, guru, schol- ‘show-biz’. But then, so is everyone.” cropped up in one of the most bizarre cine- ar, smoker, joker, gourmand, lover of women, “I do not… bother with the vicious circle of matic curveballs ever thrown, in Spike Jonze’s reader of books, thinker of thoughts, writer of discovering my ‘real personality’ or make any Her, a film in which a man falls in love with a more than 20 books, twirler of silver-topped special attempt to act naturally. I just put on computer operating system (yes, it’s a ROM- canes, pricker of egos, teacher, failed priest, fa- whatever personal style seems appropriate to com). At one crucial juncture, ‘Samantha’, the ther of seven, husband to three, friend, wise- the circumstances, or entertaining to myself sexy albeit disembodied OS, introduces her ass, wanderer, poet, maker-up of terrible lim- or others. Others may see a consistent personhapless human boyfriend (a pitch-perfect per- ericks, alcoholic, dropper of LSD, explorer of ality underlying all these ‘acts’, but this must formance by Joaquin Phoenix) to another arti- consciousness, delver into be their projection on my Rorficial intelligence called ‘Alan Watts’. He the mysteries of the universe, schach blot, and this autobiogradoesn’t say much — but clearly he and Saman- iconoclast, gazer-at of flowphy is my projection on the same. tha have a lot in common. “Theodore,” says Sa- ers, hugger of trees, sage, All interesting descriptions of humantha considerately, “do you mind if I shade, dead person, alive man character are poetic, imaginaI am unashamedly in communicate with Alan post-verbally?” presence, a loose agglomerative, dramatic, and fantastic, ‘show-biz’. But then, I mean, what can you say to that? Go ahead, tion of oxygen, carbon and whereas all attempts at valid deso is everyone knock yourself out. hydrogen molecules... Would scription are myopic, interminable, Alan and I have a special relationship too. It the real ‘Alan Watts’ stand up? and dull.” is not post-verbal, but it is posthumous. I crawl This flibbertigibbet, this I know which one I’d choose. into bed with him every night. He doesn’t take will o’ the wisp, started out as Which one I’d rather live by. Which up much room — what B-format paperback a precocious child and a voracious scholar. He one I’d rather have in my bed. “I find it difficult does? He doesn’t snore either and he’s totally quickly realised that his vocation in life was to relate to people who cannot admit to an elenot a blanket-hog. So, so wonderful. “to wonder about the nature of the universe.” ment of the rascal in themselves… I distrust I’m loving his life. In My Own Way is a de- In his search for the divine, he was even or- people who show no sign of naughtiness or lightful book. It’s an autobiography of some- dained into the Christian church in 1945 and self-indulgence.” Me too, Alan, me too. one who doesn’t believe in the ‘self’ or in the spent several years trying to fit the role. But If you can’t get hold of Watts’ autobiogralinear progression of events. So it’s a book to Watts was always too much of a shaman to be phy, do not lose heart. Read The Wisdom of Insedip into and out of, as the narrative dances a good priest: “Priests follow traditions but curity, or The Way of Zen or any of his other around chronologically, peppered with curi- shamans originate them… the shaman fol- books. And if you can’t be bothered to read, ous asides and delightful details (“I loved lows his own weird… he is ‘out of this world’ plug your headphones into your laptop, get a boiled eggs, and when my eyes were no higher and credited with magical powers.” cup of cocoa and listen to this mesmerising, than the edge of the table the appearance of He also had just too much panache for the delicious, insightful, playful voice not for eggs would set me to trotting around it say- Christian church — or any church, for that what he might teach you or what conclusion ing, ‘Egg-egg-egg-egg-egg-egg…’” This image matter. Confronted by a US immigration offi- he reaches, but for the same reason as you lisamuses me no end.) cer who asked, “Whaddya carry a cane for? You ten to music.

In the public IndiGo is on its way His life often reads like a carnival parade of sick?,” he replied, “Not at all… It’s just for I promise I won’t beeye jealous. to the stock markets with an offer of colourful characters. He describes J Krishna- swank.” croreeditor shares is a writer, andbloomberg/ publisherdhiraj singh murti as “a spiritual window cleaner”, and DT Rather like Theodore with his OS snuggled anita roy 1,200 Suzuki as “a naïve intellectual — wisely foolish, down in his ear, I curl up with my laptop and www.anitaroy.net

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Gourmet stripes La Glace, founded in 1870, is famous for layered cakes; (below) fresh seafood at Nyhavns Ferry Inn www.copenhagenmedia center.com

Capital pleasures Bird count IndiGo’s fleet has grown from 18 to 97; it ordered 250 Airbus Neo Engine Options aircraft this year reuters/vivek prakash

A culinary star in the Nordic block, Copenhagen’s food is both sprightly and innovative

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Aditya Ghosh, president of IndiGo

une 30, 2015 — it was the first day of sunshine in Copenhagen and my first in the city. A bright sunny day calls for celebrations in all of Scandinavia, and Copenhagen was making the most of it. The entire city was outdoors. I decided to do the same.

It took me just five minutes to check-in and deposit my bags at Hotel Absalon, in the central area of Vesterbro. I followed a quaint cobbled street down the harbour nearby. The itinerary decreed a boat cruise at 5.30pm but I had a pilgrimage to make before that. It was the high temple of patisserie — La Glace, established in 1870 and famous for its layered cakes.

It is here that I came to the instantaneous conclusion that if Denmark has a national food, it is cream. Light, frothy and fresh, cream is used in various forms to elevate its cuisine.

There are 40 masterpieces on the menu but my tummy could take in only three: Rubinsteinslagkage, named after the pianist, was a package of rum mousse, whipped cream, hazelnut and chocolate éclairs; Othellolagkage was custard, macarons, chocolate icing and butter cream; and HC Andersen combines lemon mousse, nut sponge, raspberry butter and white chocolate.

The harbour cruise, which followed the pastry binge, was a delightful way of taking in Copenhagen’s architectural highlights. But people-watching is always more interesting — on both sides of canals were hundreds of locals drinking wine, beer or coffee, and munching on takeaway food. In July and August, the insides of all restaurants in the city are deserted. The buzz shifts to the tables outside.

Even I wanted my share of al fresco delight.

My choice for dinner was one of the oldest restaurants in town — Nyhavns Ferry Inn. I tried to visualise sailors of yore as I ordered the traditional rye bread with beef carpaccio, fish roe with sour cream and dill, and succulent baby lamb chops with a green sauce.

The next few days were also full of food, punctuated by activities that helped build my appetite — a cycle tour of the city, a visit to the

son who is completely dedicated to his job airline stuck to the low-cost model that was and his team. put in place by Bruce Ashby, the company’s What endears himMuseum to his staff, especially executive officer, who passed the impressive National and Viking Mu- first parkchief — Tivoli Gardens, which opened in on 1843 — those at Roskilde, the lowera level, is the Stroget, fact thatthe hepeal- baton to Ghosh. seum at stroll along I booked a meal at Brdr Price, a fine dining resways responds shopping to every message they his taurant Says Kapil chief executive Centresetfor destrians-only street and sosend on. The bangKaul, in the middle of theof fairytale way, emailtemple or SMS, Ieven WhatsApp. In fact, Asia Aviation (CAPA), “He (Ghosh) next over culinary visited was Schønneting Pacific of castles, towers and turrets, a miniwas Taj he also responds feedback from open flyers.sand- involved with IndiGo from theisvery start and mann, the Meccatoof the Danish Mahal and a rollercoaster that 100 years old.

There are those who claim it istray his was prox-a critically all major and wich or smørrebrød.

Piled on athat silver Brdr Priceinvolved owes its in name to twodecisions, brothers who imity to not only Rahul Bhatia butsandwiches, also Rakesh this helped in gaining strategic insights.

The colourful variety of rye bread hail from a family of circus owners.

The meal Gangwal, thecrumbed other promoter of IndiGo,salmthat very strong laid by Bruce Ashby, topped with plaice, gravadlax began with afoundations leek and asparagus tart, served bestows on Ghosh considerable and Indigo’s first things easierPan-fried as well, on, Greenland shrimp, smoked freedom eel, withCEO, dry made Chablis.

Up next: flexibility running thepickled airline. but Aditya hasplaice connected entire staff base roast beefinand duck, servedhis with caper-butter Aside from being a team player and enjoy- to the organisation’s from the front, spicy herring.

The sandwichsaucegoals, andled cranberries.

The ing a closeness the owners, maintained with es came with to generous wine thisprofitability time was a Bourthere is certainly to Ghosh high standards of service and opdollops of creammore cheese gogne (Burgundy).

Dessas a skilled professional. erationalertexcellence whilewith exor mayonnaise, lettuce, After was crêpes all, it is under himand that IndiGo panding aggressively.” potatoes, mustard apricot and whipped Ghosh’s constant has where itget has. The airStayingcream. true to the model dill.reached The toppings Butter, cream is — refrain is that what line’s for fleet has something Ghosh had acmore creative thethat leitmotifs of this you hear from IndiGo grown knowledged in a opera. recent interChristmas lunches and from 18 gourmet is plain boring toand 97 aircraft, view to TheI Hindu dinners. Local beer spent Business my last Line. evebecause of the “The simplicity the model to is and of it now ofales do a great job ning in of Copenhagen consistency with what drives I am fers 633 washing it all down.

My flights what Iits hadefficiency. started considwhich it executes its not saying doing Vesterrocket connecting 43 destismørrebrød session ended ering we my are backyard: operations model science. the same original market, India —and with anations summerinspecial bro, But inthe during the same period,Asinwith the abroad.

Its staff and strength inplump strawberries cream, meat-packing district. same and world, same creased from to more with meringues for1,100 crunch. manycircumstances cities across the opportunities, cannot name 10,000, and its reveThethan Danes love seasonal proCopenhagen’syou warehouses and with oneare typenow of aircraft, annue grew more than 12-fold. duce, unlike many countries in The compa- another airlinefactories swishorbars It isEngine here thatother I came to which airline is consistently profitable nyStrawberries, ordered 250rhubarb, Airbus Neo Europe. and restaurants. theyear, instantaneous or… believes in the opportunity India and Options aircraft in August this cherries, myriad berries and I chose to dine atinKul, known conclusion that ifaircraft,” it expects to eventually tender and asparagus appeared at have a fleet orders forheitssaid. contemporary food that Denmark nationalconstant refrain that whatThe you man hear strength of 430.

Personal arehas a Ghosh’s the table in many avatars.

I lost accolades is mostly chargrilled. food, it is cream boring because the behind either —and Ghosh made it to from IndiGo is countnot of far the strawberry in plain charge is Chef HenrikofJyrk, Fortune India’s first ‘40 Under which model is executed, rhubarb trifles, fresh berry tarts 40’ list and consistency with who takesthe pride in his global fuhasspears remained on it three respect from the and of asparagus in years herb in a row; this is also what gains sionhim menu.

I sampled thesenior trout year, hasfound beentheir named whoand grudgingbutterhe that wayone into of the Young management of roeother withairlines yuzu pear wasabi Global Leaders the World Forum. admit that they ham will never say something my system.

Thebyseafood wasEconomic equally fresh — ly vinaigrette, Iberico with octopus tempuhowever, Ghosh’s Kodak moment that. theTellingly, shrimp was juicy and sweet, the white hali- like ra, and lamb chops with charred pimento. is onesalty fromsea 2011 whenand he was Others Dubeyaway go a step and say butprobably smelled the of the breeze, the Tearinglike myself fromfurther the buzzing photographed driving a WagonKnowing R, withthat his that if Ghosh were ever hang his boots Insalmon was melt-in-the-mouth. square was tough but to there were only aatfew boss Bhatia as co-passenger, onfresh the produce, way to a diGo, the Government go ahead and I couldn’t carry back any of the hoursor ofshould sleep before the flight back home.

If meeting ofmyself airlinewith representatives Prime poach him to head Air India or the Directorate I consoled cheeses andwith the Danish the waiting list at Noma, legendary for its New Minister Manmohan of Civil moves Aviation and give him free sausage or pølse. TheSingh. purchases followed sev- General Nordic cuisine, sans hiccups, mya next 10 years, is“Indian would eral helpings of the Nordic hot dog — pølse hand trip to for Copenhagen only twoaviation years away.

Same serveddifference in a baguette with pickled cucumber change for the better”.

Industry watchers say that the key to IndiGo’s sheema mookherjee writes on food and travel, and and mustard. success been the fact that under Ghosh the ashwini is currentlyphadnis based in Gurgaon and Kanha At thehas world’s second oldest amusement

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The death Analyse thisof a myth SPIRITUAL SWEAT

The declassified Netaji filesatmay not have anything that panders to the complexes of the We drink different things different times, with different people… uncritical hero-worshipping Bengali

harry’s bar + cafe

added to his magnetism.

That he rose quickly in the freedom movement, was as famous as Jawaharlal Nehru, beshatbhi basu came Congress president twice, was Blood onby thethe Mahatma, was arrested ‘backstabbed’ rooftop numerous times, and that he escaped from house-arrest in tallest Calcutta in Robin Hood fashGlass: The ion, and across Afghanistan and beyou travelled have yond,Ingredients: marked his presence in Germany, Singapore, and other dots on the world map, 15 ml orange is part of legend. That he allied with the fasvodka cists 15 to ml wage gin a war to overthrow the British 15 mlreally white diluted rum has never Bose’s enigma for the 15 mlBengali tequila hero-worshipper. uncritical 10 ml Amitav peach syrup Indeed, Ghosh, in one of his finest 10 ml juice documented the incredijournalisticlime essays, A wedge of lime ble stories of the ‘rag-tag’ soldiers of the Azad 30 ml red wine HindFizzy Fauj,lime including scores of women, who drink to top fought hunger, mosquitoes and disease in Garnish: A slice of orange, fresh hard mint terrains, to wage a difficult war led by sprig Bose.1.InFill theglass essay, ‘India’s Untold War with ice. Pour in all of Independence’, in The New Yorker (A Reporter At the spirits.

Large,2.July 1997), Ghosh Add23,lime juice and writes: wedge. “He had participated Mahatma 3. Addinfizzy lime till Gandhi’s 3/4 full. nonviolent campaign earlyininthe hispeach careersyrup and remained an 4. Drizzle and stir. all his life. But over time his own tactiadmirer 5. Slide inhad thebecome, red wineasonitthe cal thinking were, the inform theHe ‘blood’ layerthat Britain’s verseice of to Gandhi’s... believed 6. Garnish.

Sip. enemies were his natural allies, and he had no qualms about seeking their help. The British, for their part, treated Bose with untiring, vengeful hostility, jailing him repeatedly. In January 1941, he slipped out of his Calcutta home in shutterstock disguise, and made his way across the Indian subcontinent to Afghanistan. He made apNever say gone The fact that Subhas Chandra Bose rejected a job with power, perks and privileges his image a revolutionary-intellectual the hindu archives icture yourself walking intoadded a bar.toYou sicasbeer. that maketoyour work Union worthwhile.

Just being a few proaches the Soviet and, upon look around, getting a feel of the peoAs the last one ordering, he could get it rebuffed, questionstravelled to the adventurous and you can ofto Hitler’s Germany, in anple already in. You glance at the bar to right, whichever way the boss went. fer them drinks that to make themsupport smile. You other vain attempt garner for are Insee lively(non-resident) enough, fun maybe. venifasit’s probashi Benga- Satyajit But say he came with a group peers, tie Ray’s PatherinPanchali — the of memory of dia’s that amazing wizardHis whobiographer, sees all andLeonard knows independence.

But you never think aesthetically that someone out Bose li kids,ever we were awakundone, shirt sleeves halfwith, rolled. calling would always arrive first,My a pang of Gordon, all. It’s then you become SOMEONE from saidthat that Nazi Germany depressed there mayened be observing you too.Islam’s Or wondering to Kazi Nazrul robust angst. out to The himangst in recognition would a power ran deeper; how be Bengal was him. beingAt justa another this is what solemn bartender. ceremonyAnd in Singapore’s what theysongs mightand offer you to drink; debating if betrayed Rabindranath Tagore’s move. This announce that he especialis some- Cathay bywould the Congress leadership, I try to Theatre, impress Bose upontook everyone who wants to over the leadership you would stick to your usual or if there’s an ly dance-drama Chitrangada to protect our ‘supeone to reckon with and holds a certain sway. of Mahatma Gandhi. be the a ‘bar star’ — to realise thatDuring it’s notthe about Indian National Army. reopportunity forAnd, swaying your decision. rior’ identities. of course, the ‘Mahalaya’ And if other the communication begins with The betrayal, among several on“Will the maining YOU but 20 about THEM. mayhe know to months of You his life, gavehow the ArAs I treadon onpre-dawn uncertainradio, territory behind the list, recitations even as it was you has havebeen yourthe usual are you’ll celebrating twoortragic partitions (1905 my make greatsense drinks. they areOn great only18, if a new of But purpose...

August bar early in my career, I quickly understood dark and wintry, and Goddess Durga was just and this evening?”, has made of an impression. the person drinking 1947). Theheseparation they are.

And 1945, hethem diedthinks in a plane crash at the keyarriving to my on future.

Observe, ob- West about earth, perhapsobserve, on an eleYou may thethe tables andhave East turned Bengal by Brit-in your favour that will only Da happen Nang...” if you have listened serve. It’ll phant or a tell boat.you everything. Show you the ish andina1905 chance suggest a few led totoa psychosomatwhile theythe talked and told you Indeed, declassified files in way Give powerroom to change Onforward. the walls of you the the drawing were ic drinks is now not. was sense of open. exile.OrThis about Kolkata themselves. are pointers And to all you the the course of an evening.

I noticed little exemplified framed pictures of Bengal’s icons:the IshwarLet’s now switch to aGhatak’s scenario in Ritwik picked enoughincluding to tweak ‘Bose myths’, thatyour he That he allied with things. How a quietSwami guy Vivekananda, on the counter chandra Vidyasagar, Ta- Komal where our young (1961), friend has a la- the fascists to wage a drink Gandhar which to make for them. did not die init perfect the Taipei plane mulled over his rum and cola. learned to shows gore and Subhas Chandra Bose.I On festival dy withahim thiscoming evening.toIf you train an war to have applied thisspotted rule through that he was in sunoverthrow Imagine his the Icrash, leave my himmother, alone for a bit, letting himreligious, ponder. abrupt, days, who wasn’t really have been practising the screeching halt onobservwhat all endeavours.

Talking drymySiberian prisons, that tothea British has neverif embarrassment At the smallest opening, I’don go chat him a seemed would put a chandan tika theirwith forehead, ing game a while you really likefor a dead end,now, the borof ‘high-net-worth-indiBritish hated and feared him, dilutedsingle Bose’s roomful he ordered bit, allowing him toofloosen uparound and drop his der and wrap a garland jasmine them. should quite easily be able to fig- malt and of the imagined homeland. bank on the hows and so for didathe Nehru dynasty, enigma the big guy viduals’ guard.

I now knew that the worst was over and In my childhood home in Saharanpur, in ureThat out Kazi if theNazrul damseland in question Tagore and the snooped single malt. and,whys that ofthey on Enhis chose a basic beer he was ready be a miteand, social. western UttartoPradesh, as I presume, in were is a buddy, a girlfriend who’s left on two sides of been this thusing a group cardiac family and were of jittery thatsurhe Every once in a while regular young every middle-class houseaacross Bengal inprothe painful around milepost, a bit or someone he made their geons thea grand nicetiescomeback. of wine would on make fessional would come to the there bar with group post-Independence decades, wasaone in- musical needs to impress. repertoire more poiwhile He didthey not.offered me advice on that definitely ‘upper management’. evitable title inshouted the bookshelves alongside the gnant A. With the Bengali buddy he’ll drinkkaleidoscope. for the cultural the health benefits, if any, in a Later, the mythical Bose, still alive, emerged He’d glance at meChandra with theChattopadhyay, serious ‘I am with works of Bankim Sa- Here, his usual beer, straight. the — synthesis is indigenous and unique, in glass of wine.

To impetuous on various forms, including asundergrads an enigmatic theChandra boss’ look.

This was my cue to smile be driven rat Chattopadhyay, Tagore andand other B. With thepolitical established girl — slightly more by the unconscious across ide- Gumnami the wisdom of with staying awayeyes from “let’s do Baba blazing in Faizabad polite, The buticonic not be myinusual cheery self. Ingreats. book hardback, reeking of ological premium drink. — between the bhadralok and in barriers shots, guys!”

UP. He was also spotted at Lal Bahadur Shasstead, I would was focusAami on the rest of the group, naphthalene, Shubhash Bolchhi by revolutionary, C. New girl —the this is when you can pull poet and dropout, the out un- tri’s Here’s what happened me one evening funeral 1966), amongwith other places. getting toDey. hisItdrink last.

It’s avery simple.

Shailesh was at once journey into the requited all the stops.

A single malt for himself, a Marlover and perennial drunkard, the at The a nightclub files alsobar: reveal what has been ‘drawing If I had gone all gung-ho onand him, the boss life1.and times, as also the magic miracle of brother-in-law garita for her, Long Island Iced Tea for both, a room’ and beautiful boudi (brother’s Drinker: “Love Long Island Iced there Tea but gossip in Kolkata.

Indeed, is am no mayheroic have wondered how popular much ofashis free wife), the figure of Bose, Netaji. bottlethe of wine… eclectic and intellectual. now bored.

I’d like a spin with a little more reason for Delhi to be so secretive about the time book was spent my bar. that Bose This was drinking always a in testimony And angst so, jeans and a t-shirtbemay say one The would inevitably followed by files depthburied and character” in its dossiers. For all you know, 2. never In hisdead. enthusiasm to impress was He just could not die.upon his the thing, but jeans and afor shirt totally another.

A there romantic longing a charismatic revoluMe:is“Hmmm…”

See twist the box (above) no ‘Deep Throat’ in the tale. for boss he too was in the know when it came In that a landscape addicted to lost icons — as tionary-intellectual. little black dress willThat demand attention, a ca- what I created. he was Cambridgeto the that Bengal cheer, he might get it all educated, that of spirits lush green with the autumnal sual top will say “I know what I’m drinking, young, handsome, radical, andsoa amit sengupta is Associate Professor, English shatbhi basu a mixologist, author, television host, IndianisInstitute of Mass Communication, wrong.flowers Imagine his embarrassment he or- Civil ‘kash’ (which, interestingly, is aifvariety stop Services’ giving me ideas!” if that wasn’t Journalism, topper whoAnd rejected the power, and head dered single malton and the big guy chose a baDelhiof Stir, a bartending academy in Mumbai of grass in white) riverbanks, as depicted in perks enough, it’sprivileges those thatoflove bar counter and the the British Empire, New

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There’s something about Ella All the world has the time to stand and stare at this quiet, lazy Sri Lankan hill-town

Travel log Getting there

Ella is a seven-hour train ride from Kandy. The train journey is an unforgettable experience in itself.

Third/ second-class (without reservation) tickets can be bought on the day of travel and cost around ₹300. If you’d like a firstclass/second-class ticket with reserved seats, you need to book in advance at the ticket counters.

Stay

Ella offers accommodation in all ranges, from backpacker to luxury travellers. I stayed at Sita’s Heaven, a cosy three-room guesthouse Period drama that SoldiersDoubles march atare India offers sweeping views.

Gate during a recent at $40 (₹2,500 approximately), and event to mark the includes breakfast.golden jubilee of the Tel: +94 77 615 7030 1965 Indo-Pak War reuters/ adnan abidi

Tip

STATES OF MATTER

Visit Adisham, a monastery run by Benedectine monks in Haputale, 30km from Ella. It is open to visitors on weekends and public holidays. Adisham has a lovely garden with views of neighbouring mountain ranges on a clear day.

The globalisation of war

Contemporary tensions are clearly being signposted in the commemoration of past months. We bond over, other than curd and military events

treacle, the narcissism of travelling youngsters, the self-entitlement and rudeness of tatovie franchises could be planned servance of 70 years since WWII’s end. The tooed Despite the and windfall profitsofoflong-haired its armahipsters the vanity in advance with a number as- event was marked with a special sense of pur- dudes. ments industry, there to arehike signs thatRock the We also agree upnow to Ella sukumar signed to each production in or- pose in Moscow, with President Vladimir Pu- the US is awakening following day. to the escalating strategic muralidharan der of precedence. Not so for tin resonantly reminding the West that the risks ongoing conflagrations in the Arab Theofhike, however, remains incomplete. wars of global expanse. The Great War became Soviet Union had paid by far the greatest price, Though world. This was implicit in we acknowledgement set out early and amble along the World War I (WWI) only because there was a se- that in fact it was left “all alone” to deal with tree-canopied the recent meeting Obama road President with red Barack autorickshaws quel involving largely the same cast of charac- the Nazi threat while other Western powers zipping had withby, Putin York, when Russian we in getNew distracted by athe restaurant ters in just two decades. stayed in the comfort zone of phoney war. leader reportedly delivered admonition perched on a rock jutting outan into the valley.

On a roll The train journey from Kandy prepares you for the landscapes at Ella; (below) a helping of curd and treacle, a Lankan favourite images by prathap nair In the early bravado of its global war on terPutin had suffered a similar visitation of sol- The against the preferred US strategy of pulling hotel that accompanies the restaurant is ror in 2001, the US actually believed that it itude in the G20 summit at Brisbane in No- booked down established regimesbut inthe troubled out for a wedding owner,couna Sincould choose its ahead moment of my victory.

Enthusiazing from hotel’s balco- out vember display petulance by halese while2014, thereinisastill light.ofI pick the Little tries. Obama seemingly not deterred from woman with anwas overdose of bronze asts like Paul then aon senior ny,Wolfowitz, while holding to itsbureaurails, I Adam’s Westernpeak, leaders over40 hisminutes’ newly assertive strata brisk walk from El- wedding his insistence on regime changeus.in We Syria, but make-up, welcomes order crat in theseeDefence Department, spoke of la an imposing green mountain egy in Russia’s near-neighbourhood.

In the town, cutting through tea gardens. The up- drinks sufficiently chastened recent imperial and nurse themby for the rest of the overday. “ending states” terrorism. staringthat backsupported at me. Beyond the hill kindwalk of juvenile pique more but in place in an un- reach makes me perspire the view from to give his in Russian counterpart a 90We get caught the rain during our atJames Woolsey,arrangement a former CIA director and parta the tumbledown of tea bushes, rulytop schoolyard, Western leaders is what really makes me breathminute hearing. tempt to hike to the Ravana falls of theroad samesnakes neoconservative cabal, hyped up less. black along the feet of the moungave Putin a wide through is Gawking at berth the landscape India according placed a to multi-billion(where, Hindu mythe adventure as the like Fourth World War. tain.

Cars and buses, gleaming ants, creep routine the event, to even share inrefusing Ella. I stand around, dollar order for two of thology, Ravana hidvarieties Sita after Hadthe thetarmac. spook got numerals after staring along “Ithis is Ella Rock,”wrong says Sitara, his mealdown table.jagged cliffs and a military helicopters from the We US abducting her from India).

Global armaments being put outattoSita’s pasture?

Seemingly not. The the minder Heaven, breaking my green Despite these tensions, Gervalley ridged by trees aerospace giant Boeing, Prime walk back, having aswhiled firms are meanwhile status ofmomentarily.

Third World War had been trance Bearded andpre-emptshaggy- that man filter Chancellor Angela Merkel the soft rays of the Minister Modiday leftand for away Narendra most of the having the time of ed in his imagination by theSitara Cold must War which haired but sweet-natured, have evening attendedsun.

May’s miliAstriumphal darkness dethe step UN General Assembly and in New into a restaurant ortheir lives pittedthis thecountless US against the Soviet Union in freseen times — visitors fixated at scends, tary parade in Moscow.

Her presI peel away, leaving York.der Just days before,—itkurakhad their speciality neticscenery competition in nuclear arsenals and the the even before they check in. Disreenceviewpoint on the podium to the alongside French staged pageant of its ownragi to kana pizza, made from third country clients garding my dropped jawcultivated and dilatedthrough pupils, couple Putin was thatnecessary has beenatonement throwmarkflour.

50 years the 1965 war It is since probably the best charm and coercion.

In what became a conhe proceeds with his instructions: “There is a ing for German historical sullied glances at guilt. me. against Pakistan.

What befusion pizza we have lay tasted. stant refrain ideologues power, mosquito net,with there is a fan inof the roomthe andUS if “Leave That spirit of conciliation already,” they was absent in Chi- hind this suddenThe awakening to the glory an crust is topped withofcurwas need calledanything upon inI am 2001downstairs.” to summon up the seem you na’s commemoration of the war’s end in Asia. encounter that the to say. formerand soldier Union ry sauce babyand jackfruit same it had shown Sri in Lanvan- Japan I ammoral at Ella,purpose a hill-town in southern stayed On my wayaway, back,obviously in a little thinking China’s minister Jaswant Singh has described “simpieces (ambul polos inasSinhaquishing the Soviet enemy. ka 60km southwest of Nuwara Eliya. I choose alley, strutting military might I findofaits handwritten boardunseemly and ply a slugging match of attrition”? lese) cooked in a tangy gravy. “It’s In atranquillity book timedover for aitsdecade since the war, announcing Ella’s neighbour’s bucket arrogant. India sentand a political delegation, less ‘curd treacle’.

The same heaven, anniversary in Pakistan Ella heaven,” Aprilwas says,a veteran reporterAJason offered a soberlist popularity. wildlyBurke swaying train from Dark from brown goodwill than from recognition of must the have palm syrup swirled timeseen of introspection at least for the as human trying not to choke she Sitara ing assessment.

Far its from best over Kandy, which snakes waywinning, along teathe plantaprudence of humouring powerful thick curd, it is spoonaafter rights activistchomps and public intellectual IA Rehgreedily. thisneighcountless times that could beme said US peaks had avoided tions, brings towas Ella.that Thethe green I chug spoon bour. Eager to embrace a position as of probiotic goodness.

I man. Aside being a military Amid failed hikingstalemate, attempts — undervisitors fixated at from defeat.

And as postscript, it may be addedMost that find past are crowned by indolent clouds. studythe to ahouse formidable military power, Pakistan and the woman heeven wrote, theand war was of a significant political hours unending conversathe scenery this was partly it allowed no National clear vic- who passengers getbecause off at Horton Plains had asells contingent Chinese. curd andmarching treacle. with thebefore sinceElla thehas world from tion, we realise slowed us they setback check infor Pakistan, tor toand emerge from thethe shambles created in Park at Nanu Oya, railheaditfor Nuwara Contemporary tensions are clearly being then on was less It might seem that Ella’s time inclined itstime case down.

Beforeto weentertain know it, it’s the arc from Afghanistan Syria.

Eliya.

I disembark at Ella’sto little station to find as signposted in the commemoration of past on Kashmir. to leave. As we sit under the an isolated patch of secret In July lastoffbeat. year, Europe staged a series of so- heaven it relatively military isevents.

Global firms are drawing to armaments a close.

India’s newfound over 1965 shade oftriumphalism a gigantic eucalyptus lemn commemorations of the WWImap centenary.

Sitara hands me a photocopied of Ella Tourists meanwhile the time their lives, pos- and the ongoing are having taking note of it of and political manoeuvres in tree waiting for the bus the next Books bywith popular historians spoke of Overleaf, the glob- footfall marked the town’s attractions. ing the kind of moral dilemma Fran- day, has increased over thethat last Pope few years.

Kashmir, where thein BJP for the first time a Tamil woman fluorescent blue sariever apal conflagration as an‘interested avoidableplaces folly emanatthere is a table titled in Ella’. Construction cis articulatedatinvarious a recentplaces address US proaches in to thethe town enjoys substantial political clout,with bring a clime. Like reconnecting a longing from of a sequence of missteps that drew the forebodes It speaks rock temples, tea factories and waCongress. a“Why are deadly weapons being different tomorrow.

I notice ma- lost chédrelative, old aphorism vividly to don’t life: those whofor reshe asks,.

“Why you stay great European powers a localised Bal- sons terfalls.

At an elevation of into 1,041m (only slightly sold to those who plan to inflict untold working in the curd-seller’s house.sufferShe is afuse learndays?”. from history condemned to fewtomore I draw aare blank.

I consider kans dispute. above Bengaluru) and with a population of extending ing on individuals asked the telling it, in the and hopesociety?” that when tourists repeat it. her I can’t let Ella slow me down any The commemoration ofcovered wars has be-a come around 50,000, Ella can be bysince foot in Pontiff: as weextra all know, in“Sadly, hordes,the sheanswer, makes some bucks.is further. I don’t. I simply smile. come aofgrowth couple days. industry. Between May and simply money: that April, is drenched in sukumar muralidharan is an independent writer, At thefor same shopmoney I also meet an Amerresearcher nair basedisinaGurgaon Shimla freelanceand writer based in Bengaluru September thisluggage year came ob- ican Tossing my into the the extended room, I step blood,nurse often who innocent has blood”. been travelling for 15 prathap

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BEYOND THE FIELD

Unfair&trial Sound fury

the Bible before storming back inside: “Read Exodus 23:2, “Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment.” Haokip’s words, however, fall on deaf ears. The crowd that had barely moments before stomped and kicked his belongings around the street, was in no mood to listen.

The DC chair usually commands respect in CCpur, as Churachandpur is popularly called.

But these aren’t normal times. On just two days — August 31 and September 1 — nine people died in police firing during violent prosuhrith parthasarathy tests against three new state laws. The largest district in Manipur, CCpur lies only 65km south of the capital, Imphal, which had recently witnessed a two-month-long agitation for an Inner Line Permit (ILP) system in the state. (The ILP is currently operational in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.) Just as those protests died down, Manipur was on the boil again with the passage of three land bills that the hill tribes are opposed to, on the grounds that they play into the hands of the Meiteis, the dominant Vaishnava Hindus. One of the most controversial clauses relates to the right to property ownership. state asReturnThe to form Manchester sembly has set 1951 as the base year toUnited identify has pipped non-indigenous people, who are regarded as to law the outsiders by a section of Manchester Manipuris.City The first position in the decrees that those who settled in Manipur afLeague table after ter 1951 will have to give up propertyvictories and may consecutive even have to leave the state. against Liverpool, Southampton andlaws The tribals were incensed that the Sunderland would make them foreigners in their own afp/oli scarff land and they rallied against the government in large numbers. In the widespread arson e live in an age that demands unsuitability to the Premier League. Manches-that ed’s ensued the houses of some ofthe their electvictories and defeats that team is now an instant inquiry. Only a ter United still builds play slowly from de-ed representatives were down. harder to defeat, itsburnt defence is supremely ormonth ago, if you believed fence, and continues to concentrate on The policeand action led to nine fol- and ganised its midfield spinedeaths, is as solid the pundits, Manchester Unit- keeping possession, ith often great moving power the comes footballlowed by a curfew paralysed normal life powerful as it that has been for nearly a decade. ed was in a state of irreversible disarray. At the tediously sideways great responsibility.” and backwards.

Their ideain this volatile region.

Conversely, there are also areas of concern: the Liberty Stadium, against a superbly organised is to wear downBenjamin Parker’scontrary (Uncle to The the opposition coffins of theWayne nine dead are isn’t still in club’s captain, Rooney thethe player Swansea side, United had allowed a lead to slip blowing them away Ben through of Spiderrapid surges and that he once District a two-minute was,Hospital, and the team can certainly through two quickfire goals scored within theman)counter-attacks. words come handy as Rose United’s three consecutive do with far walk from urgency the DC’s residence. greater and ingenuity in space of five seconds. As a result of the loss,Ngaihte, a resident of Churachandvictories in the league, against Liverpool, attack. But, Families wait each for aofresolution, attributing United’s losses United, a 20-times champion, slipped to fifthpur, Southampton takes on district collector (DC) have all come to the system and Sunderland, whichofappears increasingly diffi- as play is just as incongruous In an attempt to position in the English Premier League table,Lunminthang Haokiptoin full methods. view by an adherence these cult, before arethat ready to bu-a pohailing every victorythey as one heralds ‘contain’ the and experts were quick to jump on the ‘I-told-of the public.

Microphone in hand, No doubt, Martial has also made a signifi- tential title ry run. theirIt was loved Onlyofthe theones. latter kind assessviolence, the police you-so’ bandwagon. The abilities of their man-Ngaihte the senior offi- Monaco for an ment that cantberates difference.

SignedIAS from brave wouldManchester venture inside thisearly trailed City’s resorted to some ager Louis van Gaal, who has been a winner atcer for trying to ‘sneak out’million, of his potentially ris- season form. eye-catching fee of £36 room, where two hurriedly inmore, killing nine virtually every other club he has managed,official as hundreds ofon his performing residence to £58 million depending work In thestalled first fiveair-conditioners league games this season, came under renewed scrutiny. But more thanprotesting womenhad laidbeen siegequickly to it. written off as City’s football ances, Martial round-the clockirrepressible. at 14°C — 10 Not de- onwas often anything else, any chance of United catchingSucha behaviour doesn’t become waste of money, even beforeahe had played a ly did they grees higher athan the idealintemmaintain clean sheet each of up to Manchester City, who had at that stagemansingle of hisminute stature, for Ngaihte tellsExUnited. perature. is no freezer or to these There matches, they appeared raced to the top of the table, was already con-him,perts to loud from the protesters.

Pre- any attempt to get saidcheers he was unproven at one.also regained great fluency have sidered nigh on impossible. vented leavinglevel, the house an escort vethefrom highest andin the Sitting outsideto the hospital, Ching Nuhoih, their attacking play.

It seemed “I haven’t got a clue what van Gaal is tryinghicle,amount the harried with a quote from an employee ofthat paidDC forretorts his signature a restaurant Chennai,they the myriadinproblems The master to do,” said former Arsenal striker Ian Wright represented a colossal gamble. faced last season had been miracAttributing each of Manager Louis van on BBC Radio 5 Live, after the Swansea defeat.

These judgments, much like United’s losses to the ulously overturned. And with Gaal has “What’s their system? Surely Manchester Unit- the assessment of United’s early Chelsea struggling, Arsenal and consistently argued system of play is ed have got to play with a bit more pace and season form, have proved unduManchester United developing that his footballing incongruous philosophy is thrust and tempo. They seemed desperate.” ly hasty. Martial not only scored into big bungling messes, City’s difficult to grasp, Now, just three matches later, United are at on his debut against Liverpool road to the title, the pundits asbut will eventually the summit, two points ahead of City, who in a 3-1 victory, but he also serted with great confidence, bring success slumped to consecutive defeats, at home to bagged a brace of goals, both had been sealed. reuters/jason cairnduff West Ham, and away to Tottenham Hotspur. taken in nerveless style, in his second league Yet again, as is so often the case with the PreThese recent developments are certainly in- match, against a doughty Southampton side. mier League, we have ourselves an altered narstructive. There exists a definite temptation to Apart from his obvious abilities as a finisher rative. City’s consecutive defeats have jolted make an immediate appraisal: to hail United par excellence, the quality of Martial’s all- their surge to the championship. But, on closfor having suddenly found the winning po- round play has also been impressive. Almost er analysis, what’s interesting is that in at least tion, and to question City’s defensive frailties. every sign in his first games for the club points one of these losses — the match against West But, to compartmentalise these results into a to his ultimate growth from a supreme talent Ham — City didn’t play particularly poorly. specific narrative would tantamount, once into a world-class footballer.

They were simply unlucky. But to make such again, to viewing the game reductively.

Van Gaal, it must be said, has consistently an evaluation would not help satiate our appeAlthough United have added French teenag- argued, since taking charge of United at the tite for instant, final judgements. Each victory er Anthony Martial to their squad, van Gaal’s beginning of last season, that his footballing or defeat, for us, ought to be pigeonholed into approach to the game — his philosophy, as he philosophy can be difficult to immediately a specific plotline: of a team that is either on likes to call it — has remained largely un- grasp, and that his methods would eventually an endless run of success or on a slippery changed. He continues to line United up to bring success. Of course, there’s no reason to slope towards catastrophe. play the same style of football that was unsuc- take him on his word. A dispassionate analysis suhrithDCparthasarathy is a Chennai-based lawyer cessful against Swansea, the same style (DC) thathouse; of avan Gaal’s ways surely reveals merits well addresses Anger strikes (clockwise from top) Protesters attack a government vehicle outside the district collector’s massive rally at Lamka Public Ground; RoseasNgaihte Lunminthang Haokip as he tries to leave was vivekthe singhsubject of a lengthy harangue for its his residence, gheraoed by women from Manipur’s hill tribes as demerits. Thus far, it’s clear from both Unit- and writer t@suhrith

Manchester United is back in the reckoning at the English Premier League. But each victory On the boil for over a month, Churachandpur finds its or defeat doesn’t indicate a potential title run or a catastrophe women leading from the front as it challenges the Manipur government’s ‘anti-tribal’ land bills

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Law over love Do Chinese men save their mothers or girlfriends?

Stuffed potatoes

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If found in prison, it’s a recipe for disaster

hom do you love more, your mother or me?” The query that put many boyfriends’ lives in peril has worked its way into question papers. Trainee lawyers and judges in China, who took the National Judicial Exam, were stumped by the many loyalty questions left to answer. Whom do you save in case of fire; girlfriend or mom? Is it a crime to choose the girlfriend? Another asks, whom does the man save when both his mother and girlfriend are drowning? If the questions were not trouble enough, wait for the answers.

China’s ministry of justice says it is indeed a crime for a man to choose his girlfriend over the mother. Well, at least China can end an ancient battle by showing the law!

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ow do you like your potatoes?

Roasted brown in their jackets, fried to crispy perfection, or stuffed with blue cheese and bacon? Or, as authorities recently discovered in Patna — halved, packed with marijuana pouches, and neatly sewn back together? Last week, an undertrial attending a court hearing in Patna, returned to prison with a bag full of onions and potatoes. On closer inspection, officials found the onions okay, but the potatoes fishy. To their surprise, they found the modest tuber turned into a snug drug mule worth thousands of rupees. Well that's an entirely different kind of aloo dum!

Empty classrooms The government’s bicycle scheme for students is off to a flying start

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ast year, Mamata Banerjee’s government started a scheme distributing to students to helpmourns the death of nine tribals; a deserted street in Hardoftimes (clockwisebicycles from bottom left) A protester Churachandpur; demanding a separate administration for the hills of Manipur; a woman argues with them reach school. In banners Nadia district, girls and boys of paramilitary personnel outside DC office; a memorial classes IX and above happily rodethe bicycles from their for those who died in police firing on August 31 and September 1 vivek singh homes to government-aided schools. However, the well-meaning scheme seems to have backfired. First, students were asked vacate their classrooms to store animals.”

Thetoviolence stopped only after a lators who didn’t oppose the passage of the the precious Next, classes for students of IX, X, land reform bills.

Joint bicycles.

Action Committee (JAC) of the various XI and tribal XII were heldintogether.

Finally, the students bodies the district decided to put “We are like a tree, and our branches are bewere asked to attend school onofalternate weeks.This Stu- ing cut off. There’s an ongoing effort to uproot women at the forefront the agitation. dents, wary of thetochaotic schedule, to simply us,” says Lahlimum Joule, a 27-year-old teacher was done prevent the mendecided from becoming drop out.

Current status: Classrooms full of 4,000 bicy- taking part in a late-night protest at Rengkai easy targets. cles, and no students.

Dressed in black, women line the streets of village. At another sit-in at Bungmual, NingCCpur, at the intersection of every village, ev- sialchin, a 53-year-old daily-wage worker, who ery town square and road. Armed with sticks, earns ₹200 a day for her family of seven, refusthey occupy long wooden benches as they es to budge till the government gives in to the Churachandpur; September 2015; take turns to chant slogans against the gov- demand for a new administration for the hills. agitation; conflict in India's north-east; ernment. No vehicle passes durTwenty-eight-year-old Niang documentary photography; ethnic ing the bandh hours — the Hoi Ching makes ₹150 a day; her conflict; ethnic strife; hill tribes; india; timings change every day as per husband ₹200. Both haven’t manipur; north-east india; t eight am for yesterday, phone so notifications from the JAC. worked almost the a month, photojournalism; reportage; tribal rights; beeped.

“I do not want people toBut A massive rally at Lamka Public there’s no money for food. under-reported; vivek singh; women We are like a tree, protest be veryChing agreeable, saves me the Ground greeted the observer says as sheit is in mourning and our branches troubleand of liking a great deal” from the Union home ministry on won’tthem go back to work till—the are being cut off. we read on theare Jane Dailythe September 22. A few days earlier, ‘martyrs’ laidAusten to rest and There’s an ongoing weeps inconsolably, “I have one brother, now thousands of women, again app. day had bringbillsThe revoked.

Shebegun, says she is preeffort to uproot Quote us no brother (sic)”. The brother, Kham Sian dressed in black, formed a 14kming with it unpleasant There pared to brave tasks. hunger, even Muan, was among those killed when the po- long human chain for over five were maids fire, landladies to deal death,tomuch like every other prolice opened fire on a group that gheraoed the hours as they shouted demands with, and eligible bachelors to woo. tester around her. police station in Lamka. “They shot him for annulment of the ‘anti-tribal’ Horoscopes in daily newspapers only With its ramshackle shops, thrice… Why three bullets?” Ching asks as she bills as well as a separate administration for potholed hadroads, vaguepoor mumbo-jumbo theinelectricity andonweak in solidarity with the movement she lost the state’s ethnic minorities. The human ternetfickle 08, 172, 159 — these are the number of votes thatsits Bambi, Kaya nature of speaks life. Butvolumes Austen, about suservice, CCpur her brother and Sheroo bagged respectively in a PETA contest to be-to. She doesn’t know when she can chain started at a village called Kangvai and an indifferent preme mistress of comedyThe andongoing manadministration. to her job, which supports her family, extended up to the District Hospital. It is inter- protests, come the three cutest desi dogs in the country.return Allahabad’s ners, prepared us better to corpses keep it in centred around the nine Chennai.

Sheroo — Bambi is from Bengaluru while Kayainhails from real. A highly recommended app to esting to see how the different tribal groups — the makeshift mortuary, have just added Liankansuan Chennai — was an orphaned pup that followed Ranjeeta Nath Volte’s hands tremble as he de- including Hmar Inpuis, Kuki Inpuis, Nagas the general then, for an Austen quote acalm day keeps disarray.

An uneasy prevails scribes thebypolice firing on September 1. He from the hill districts, the Zomi Council and for now Ghai and her husband during their evening walks.

Smitten expectations low. hill-towns Here’s one get as several other in to Manipur was among the tiny charmer, the couple decided to adopt him around sixthe group of men who marched to several student bodies — have put past ani- watchthrough yet another tedious weekCCpur closely. the Lamka police station to demand answers mosities and differences on the backburner in years ago. And now they are eagerly awaiting Sheroo’s photos end: “Happiness in marriage is entireis a documentary photographer and forTimes, the killings in a ‘100% Desi Dog’ t-shirt in the next issue of Animal the of the day before. “They shot at their effort to challenge the state government. vivek singh ly a matter of chance.” us, hit us with rifle butts. They treated us like High on their shaming list are the tribal legis- journalist based in Delhi PETA magazine.

Sense and sensibility

Bite-sized wisdom brought to you daily by the Jane Austen app

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Day of the desi dogs

Allahabad pooch charms India at a PETA contest

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n October 3, 1985 OJ Simpson was acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Here is a quiz on injustice.

here,there & elsewhere

Unfair trials

1

Goat night

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e arrive at the Harts’ farm around eleven in the morning. The last stretch takes us up a gentle incline under a canopy of broad-leafed trees. A sharp left turn and we’re there. At the end of a long driveway is a picture-book scene: peaked-roof house on the left, red barn on the right and a forested hill behind it all.

As we move along the driveway, the still-photograph suddenly springs to life.

On our right, in the vast green meadow, two shaggy horses swing their great heads towards us. Escaping from beneath our wheels, a flock of outraged chickens squawk and scatter. On our left, bouncing away in alarm, is a family of goats. Directly in front of us now, as we bring our sky-blue travelling hearse to a halt, the door of the house flies open. Two huge dogs leap out barking a greeting, their mouths grinning wide.

They are followed by a tall smiling man and one little blonde girl, plus another blonde girl and a dark-haired boy, both slightly older. Their mother is behind them and everyone is calling out hellos and sharing the news that one of their goats has just given birth to two white kids!

As if borne up on invisible conveyor belts, in a very short while the three of us travellers have been brought inside the cosy-warm house with all our

cornerstone

luggage. We’re seated at the dining table and drinking herb tea, everyone talking at once, making introductions and sharing recent histories. The littlest child, whose name is Persephone (but everyone calls her “Peace” because that was how she first pronounced her own name) still speaks in a baby’s lisp, yet she was an attendant at the morning’s birth. “I saw the afterbirth,” she says matter-of-factly to Bins, on whose lap she is sitting. “Very clever of you,” he replies, “Do you want to look at it?” she asks, staring at him with piercing blue eyes. “Not today,” he says, staring back

with his own piercing blues. Whereupon she gives him a hug.

From the edge of consciousness I hear Birk talking to Peter about the “arrangements”. There are only two bedrooms, I hear, but a number of horizontal surfaces. Birk claims that he had planned all along to sleep in the hearse, but Jeremy, the dark-haired boy and son of the house, insists that he deserves that privilege. Grace grins in my direction. “I let everyone do what they want,” she says, “until I’ve decided what’s best for ME.” She already knows it’s going to be me and Bins in Jeremy’s room, while the children will all sleep with her and Peter. “And Birk?

You’ve got the living room couch.”

The rest of the day passes in a happy blur of food and chatter. By 9.30 we are all tired and ready for bed. Little chirping voices sing out “Goodnight, goodnight!” around the house. In our room, Bins and I discover that Daphne, the middle child, has covered the sloping ceiling with fluorescent stars. “I’m glad we came,” I whisper. “Me too,” says Bins and begins snoring at once. manjula padmanabhan, author and artist, writes of her life in the fictional town of Elsewhere, US, in this weekly column

In Indian mythology, which great warrior, till then neutral in the battle, almost jumped in to attack Bhima after he unfairly hit Duryodhana on the groin with his mace or ‘gada’ to finish their epic bout?

2

Which diwan and tax collector for the British was hanged on charges of fraud and corruption? The charges were put upon the diwan

by Warren Hastings two years after he accused Hastings of stealing company funds. The judge, Elijah Impey, was a close friend of Hastings.

3

In 1973, an eminently forgettable film called Be-Imaan swept the Filmfare awards, winning seven of them, including those for the Best Picture and Best Actor. Why did Pran, who won the Best Supporting Actor award for the same film, refuse to go up and receive the statuette?

4

The 1994 Oscars ignored two of the most widely regarded films of recent times — Shawshank Redemption, which tops IMDb’s list of Top 250 movies, and cult favourite Pulp Fiction.

Which film upset these favourites to win the Best Film and Best Actor Oscar?

5

What was significant about the non-awarding of the 1948 Nobel Peace Prize? The official statement said ‘there was no suitable living candidate’.

6

In which archetypal 19th-century tale would you read about the adventures of Edmond Dantes and his quest for justice after being betrayed by a junior officer and rival suitor?

7

The decision of the referee Renato Righetto to grant three seconds more during the basketball finals remains one of the most controversial decisions in Olympic history. Name the year and the two teams.

8 9

For which shocking non-call in the ’80s is Tunisian referee Ali Bin Nasser remembered, especially in the UK? Which leading author investigated the ‘closed case’ of British-Indian lawyer George Edalji and proved his innocence after he had been unjustly tried and sentenced?

10

Which prolific American author founded the ‘Court of Last Resort’ where he and six other attorneys take on the cases of wrongly accused or unjustly convicted criminals?

Answers

1. Balarama. He was restrained by his brother Krishna, who reminded him of Duryodhana’s evil deeds 2. Maharaja Nandakumar 3. He was protesting Be-Imaan winning the award for the best film score over the sublime Pakeezah 4. Forrest Gump. Tom Hanks won again the next year for Philadelphia 5. The award was supposed to go to Mahatma Gandhi.

He had been nominated for it at least four times before.

After his assassination, the committee pondered over breaking the rule to give it to a posthumous candidate, but finally decided against giving the award that year 6. The Count of Monte Cristo, the name Edmond Dantes assumed in his journey of retribution 7. 1972; the US lost by a single point to the USSR. The Americans refused to accept their silver medals 8. He was the referee who allowed Maradona’s famous ‘Hand of God’ goal in the 1986 match between Argentina and England 9. Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. As a result of his efforts, the first Court of Criminal Appeal was established in the UK in 1907 10. Erle Stanley Gardner, the author of the Perry Mason stories

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

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