CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
08 ENSEMBLE
10 Exclusive Timepieces for Women 11 Return of the Superstars 14 Objets de Desire: Luxury accessories and jewellery 22 Ten Workplace Essentials for Men 24 Ten Workplace Essentials for Women 26 Auction Round-up and Boutique Hotels 30 Exclusive Watches Favoured by Iconic Men 32 The Luxury Wishlist
36 TALK
The AB of KBC—What is it that has made KBC and Amitabh Bachchan so much larger than legend? By Mayank Shekhar
46 TALK Tapestries of Life—Usha Hooda’s intricate tapestries are a treat for the textile connoisseur by Isha Singh Sawhney 72 The Fabric of Films: Arjun Bhasin explains how he weaves dreams together by Anjana Vaswani
50 WEAR Arranged Marriage Photography by Kristin Moolman, Fashion Editor—Louw Kotze 66 Nine Online Fashion Retailers
46
EDITOR ANANT NATH | EXECUTIVE EDITOR VINOD K JOSE | ISSUE EDITOR ANUP KUTTY | FASHION EDITOR LOUW KOTZE | ASSOCIATE EDITOR KAJAL BASU COPY EDITOR SERENA PECK | CONTRIBUTING EDITORS BANDANA TEWARI (VOGUE), GOVIND DHAR | CONTRIBUTING WRITERS MAYANK SHEKHAR, RIN JAJO, JANICE PARIAT, ISHA SINGH SAWHNEY, SURABHI CHAUHAN, V P ANAND, ANJANA VASVANI | DESIGN FN EDITORIAL MANAGER LEENA REGHUNATH | GRAPHIC DESIGNER PARAMJEET SINGH PHOTOGRAPHERS COLSTON JULIAN, KRISTIN-LEE MOOLMAN, SHOVAN GANDHI, UMESH BAJAJ
04 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
Complimentary with The Caravan November 2012 Not For Individual Sale EDITED, PRINTED & PUBLISHED BY Paresh Nath on behalf of Delhi Press Patra Prakashan Pvt. Ltd. E-3 Jhandewalan Estate, New Delhi - 110055 and printed at Delhi Press Samachar Patra Pvt. Ltd. A- 36 Sahibabad, Ghaziabad & Delhi Press E-3, Jhandewalan Estate, New Delhi-110055 and Published at Delhi Press Patra Prakashan Pvt. Ltd. E-3 Jhandewalan Estate, New Delhi- 110055 EDITORIAL, ADVERTISEMENT & PUBLICATION OFFICE E-3, Jhandewalan Estate, Rani Jhansi Marg, New Delhi - 110 055 Phone: 41398888, 23529557 Email: Advertising@Delhipressgroup.Com CLASSIFIED ADVERTISEMENT DEPARTMENT M-12, Connaught Circus, New Delhi - 110 001, Phone: 23416313
88 74 THINK The Sartorial Journey of the Mind: How fashion changed the way women looked at themselves in the mirror by Bandana Tewari
78 READ The Art Critic and the Politics of Memory: A compilation of selected writings from Richard Bartholomew’s vast archives
96 EAT A Culinary Blessing: MEGU makes its way from Manhattan to New Delhi by Govind Dhar
100 EXIT A Method Inimitable: Kallol Dutta’s distinctiveness is helping him find his place in the fashion world by Surabhi Chauhan
Title The Caravan is registered with Govt. of India as trade mark. ISSN 0971-0639
by Rosalyn D’Mello
84 FEEL The Power of a Dot: Bharti Kher uses bindis as both motif and medium in her giant art works by Janice Pariat
88 SEE Wear (to) Work: Explore the workplaces and wardrobes of 10 Delhi-based professionals Photography by Shovan Gandhi, Written and Produced by Rinyaokhan Jajo
06 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
OTHER OFFICES AHMEDABAD: 503, Narayan Chambers, Ashram Road, Ahmedabad - 380009 Phone: 26577845 BANGALORE: G-3, Hvs Court, 21, Cunningham Road, Bangalore - 560052 Phone: 22267233 MUMBAI: A 4, Shriram Industrial Estate, Wadala, Mumbai - 400031 Phone: 65766302, 65766303 KOLKATA: Poddar Point, 3Rd Floor, 113, Park Street, Kolkata - 700016 Phone: 22298981 KOCHI: G-7, Pioneer Towers, 1, Marine Drive, Kochi - 682031 Phone: 2371537 LUCKNOW: B-G/3, 4, Sapru Marg, Lucknow - 226001 Phone: 2618856 CHENNAI: 14, First Floor, Cison’s Complex, Montieth Road, Chennai 600008, Phone: 28554448 PATNA: 111, Ashiana Towers, Exhibition Road, Patna - 800001, Phone: 2685286 SECUNDERABAD: 122, Chenoy Trade Centre, 116, Park Lane, Secunderabad 500003, Phone: 27841596 JAIPUR: Geetanjali Tower, Shop No 114 Opp. Vyas Hospital, Ajmer Road, Jaipur-302006, Phone: 3296580 BHOPAL: B-31, Vardhaman Green Park Colony, 80 Fit Road, Bhopal - 462023, Phone 2573057
100
COPYRIGHT NOTICE © Delhi Press Patra Prakashan Pte Ltd., New Delhi-110055, India. All materials published in this magazine (including, but not limited to articles, quotations, extracts, or any parts of the article, photographs, images, illustrations also known as the “Content”) are protected by copyright, and owned by Delhi Press Patra Prakashan Pte Ltd. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce create new works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Content in whole or in part. This copy is sold on the condition that the jurisdiction for all disputes concerning sale, subscription and published matter will be settled in courts/ forums/tribunals at Delhi.
NOVEMBER 2012
ENSEMBLE At once MEDIEVAL and FUTURISTIC, the GAURAV GUPTA 2013 RTW COLLECTION is inspired by the SLAVIC CULTURE and the BOHEMIAN SPIRIT that is one of the major trends this season. It boasts of softly RELAXED SILHOUETTES that contrast nicely with BOLD PATTERNS and VIBRANT COLORS.
STYLE NOTES
CREDITS: PHOTOGRAPHER: KRISTIN-LEE MOOLMAN, FASHION DIRECTOR: LOUW KOTZE
08 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
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TREASURED POSSESSIONS Exclusive Timepieces FOR THE
DISCERNING WOMAN
Marie-Antoinette Dentelle M In a tribute to Marie Antoinette’s love of fashion and lace, Breguet lo has redefined elegance with the h Marie-Antoinette Dentelle jewelM llery watch. Made of white gold, th the lace-inspired watch is set with brilli brilliant-cut diamonds and boasts a mothe mother-of-pearl dial with an oval ruby. This sself-winding watch completes a set comprising co a necklace, bracelet, earrin earrings and a ring.
Vacheron Constantin Lady Kalla Flame
Piaget Couture Précieuse Cuff Watch
10 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
This watch from Vacheron Constatin’s Lady Kalla series features over 200 flame cut diamonds set in a case of 18K white gold. The flame theme continues into the small flame shape of the dial as well. This gives the piece a novel and adventurous edge while maintaining the grace we have come to expect from the brand.
TALK SABYASACHI MUKHERJEE
FASHION DESIGNER
1. LEONARD COHEN [ALL HIS MUSIC CDS]
2. NILIBHRINGADI TELAM [THE MAGIC HAIR OIL FROM KERALA]
3. HERSHEY’S CHOCOLATE BARS 4. ANGORA SWEATERS
TEXT BY SURABHI CHAUHAN
OBJECTS OF AFFECTION
The 18K white gold case of this elegant cuff watch is set with 69 brilliantcut diamonds and the dial is snow-set with 331 diamonds of the same cut. Reminiscent of the chain cuffed watches of the 1970s, it captures the heady spirit of the freedom of the era. Each bracelet is hand woven from a long strand of gold wire.
[ANY BRAND, ANY COLOUR]
5. BROGUES
[FROM CHURCH’S IN LONDON]
NOVEMBER 2012
ENSEMBLE / READ
RETURN OF THE
SUPERSTARS BY GARIMA GUPTA
Autumn’s exciting new book releases include the biography of an astonishing fashion talent, new novels by literary heavyweights and an unexpected but much-anticipated musician’s autobiography.
Woes of the True Policeman BY ROBERTO BOLAÑO [H1392, FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX]
Another posthumous novel by Bolaño? Well, yes. Another masterpiece? We believe so. Begun in the 1980s and worked on till Bolaño’s death in 2003, it returns to the themes of 2666—the disappearance of women. Oscar Amalfitano, a Chilean university professor, is forced to retreat to the north Mexico border town of Saint Teresa after a scandal. His obsession with the unsolved killings of hundreds of women turns him into the titular policeman of the novel’s title, and leads us into the lyrical, kaleidoscopic landscape of Bolaño’s last work of fiction
Alexander McQueen: The Life and the Legacy BY JUDITH WATT [H1912, HARPER DESIGN]
The man and his designs continue to fascinate. The posthumous Savage Beauty exhibition has become MoMA, New York’s, most successful till date. This new biography is both a journey through and a tribute to McQueen’s life, startling designs, raucous runway shows and impact on modern fashion. Illustrated with McQueen’s personal drawings and exquisite catwalk and editorial fashion images, this volume is a collector’s item. Flight Behavior: A Novel BY BARBARA KINGSOLVER [H1614, HARPER]
The eco-crusader author of The Poisonwood Bible and the 2010 Orange Prize winner for The Lacuna returns to form with her new novel about climate change. A dissatisfied, rural-Appalachian housewife encounters a lake of fire on her trek to an extra-marital tryst and her narrow world is invaded by scientists, religious leaders and the media, and finds the fault lines between belief, denial and miracles.
Who I Am: A Memoir
Both Flesh and Not: Essays
BY PETE TOWNSHEND [H1810, HARPER]
BY DAVID FOSTER WALLACE [H1503, LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY]
In a season rich with musicians’ auto/ biographies (Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, Neil Young), this might be the most intriguing of them all. The lead guitarist and songwriter of the legendary rock and roll band The Who had planned to write his memoirs when he was 21 and finally published them at 65. As he says, he “has some explaining to do”.
THE BRAIN PEN is Montegrappa’s collaborative effort with Dr. Richard Restak, MD, an authority on the cerebral who has authored over 20 books on gray matter. Much like the human body, the top part of the pen is rich and elaborate, while the body is straight and simple. The top of the cap has a cross-section of the brain with the cap itself featuring an overlay made up of neurons and the pocket clip representing the spinal cord. The nib has the image of a seahorse etched on it that refers to the hippocampus, a major component of the brain. The 18K gold version comes as part of a limited edition of 50 pieces. In case you’re wondering, ‘50’ refers to the diameter of a synaptic vesicle.
While there was Infinite Jest and The Pale King, there was also Federer as Religious Experience. Both Flesh and Not is a collection of 15 previously unpublished, pop culture-obsessed essays by Wallace, ruminating on his love for tennis and Roger Federer, James Cameron’s Terminator 2 and television’s effect on new writers. Is this our generation’s Mythologies?
GET
[The Brain Pen] NOVEMBER 2012
CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 11
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OBJETS DE
DESIRE
BVLGARI High Jewellery Collection BVLGARI HAS BEEN CREATING FINE JEWELRY since 1884, so you would not go wrong wearing a statement necklace from the Bvlgari High Jewellery Collection for the special events you’ll be attending this season. Take our featured necklace in yellow gold with pink and blue oval-shaped sapphires and emeralds and round brilliant-cut diamonds where magnificent jewels have been juxtaposed in an unmistakably original design. It speaks to Bvlgari’s penchant for glossy bright colours, bold contrasts and generous proportions. PRICE ON REQUEST. 14 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
EENSEMBLE EN NSSEEMBLE / GET NS
Lladró Limited Edition Figurines
CONSIDER A CONTEMPORARY work of art from Lladró. Pieces range from the religious to the delicate and sublime, such this cherub on a peacock and flower-bedecked bull. With just about 700 to 1000 pieces created for each design, these figurines really are a collector’s delight. PRICE ON REQUEST.
LUXE . DOW NLOADS CARTIER B R I D A L A PP
The Cartier Bridal App is perfect for those who are ready to tie the knot and are looking for a ring that will matter. Solitaire 1895, Ballerina, Declaration, Honeymoon, or Emblematic rings—browse them all here without having to drive down to the mall. The app also has a great feature where you can place a ring you wear on the screen to match it with Cartier’s available ring sizes.
SWAROVSKI REFR ACT BY SWAROVSKI
The Swarovski Refract is an engaging app that tends to get addictive after a bit. The app allows you to create audiovisual ‘artwork’ by just swiping your fingers on the device. Tap the screen twice and you can create a coloured prism that pulses with light and music. Your creations can then be saved as wallpapers for your iPhone, or you can share them as virtual postcards.
G U CC I S T Y L E B Y G U CC I
For Gucci fans, it doesn’t get better. The Gucci app for your iPhone provides editorial and shoppable content including a personal video blog and a playlist of songs all curated by Creative Director Frida Giannini herself. For those on the move, the ‘Little Black Book’ section lists all the stylish hang-outs in more than 30 cities, including a list of Giannini’s favourite restaurants, bars, clubs and hotels.
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OBJETS
D’ART
Chanel Céleste
This celestial-inspired brooch piece is set in 18k white gold with 881 brilliant-cut diamonds. PRICE ON REQUEST.
Wallace Chan
Stilled Life Numerous jadeite pieces adorn this cicada-shaped brooch. PRICE ON REQUEST.
16 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
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OBJETS D’ AFFECTION Treat youself to our selection of exclusive must-haves or browse them for gift ideas My Dior CUFF BRACELET
Chanel CLUTCH
Here’s a timeless cuff bracelet from the house of Dior in 18K gold that is reminiscent of mesh, woven straw, or a precious ribbon. It can be worn alone or paired with a matching ring.
This classic clutch bag in soft lamb-skin leather, which extends to the inner lining, has the house’s signature ‘CC’ interlocking clasps. B 80,100.
PRICE ON REQUEST.
Miu Miu NNOIR These sophistic sophisticated 1940s-style sunglasses com come with glitter clay frames, an antiqued metal temples, carbon lenses and a discreet d sc eet engraved-lettering e g aved ette g logo. ogo B 22,465.
Burberry
LIP VELVET This long-wearing matte lipstick from Burberry Beauty with silicone elastomers and polymer provides flexible all-day wear with a rich velvety finish and comes in 12 colours. B1, 1,612. 1,61 6 2. 61 2
The Gc Sport ort Class XL-S Glam l The Gc Sport Class XL-S Glam watch has a stainless steel case and is fitted with an analogue quartz movement. It fastens with a white ceramic strap and has a mother of pearl dial. Available in both black and white versions, the XL-S is part of the Gc Precious Collection that combines the brilliance of finely cut diamonds with Swiss quality standards. B 32,700.
ENSEMBLE / READ OBJET D’ INNOVATION
Vertu
CONSTELLATION TION SMILE
Objets d’ Affection Jimmy Choo
ROB PRUITT COLLECTION ON
THE CONSTELLATION SMILE from Vertu is handmade by a single craftsman. It features a single piece of flawless sapphire crystal for the touch screen, an 8-megapixel camera with an intricate ruby surround on the shutter key, a polished ceramic pillow, surgical-grade stainless steel with a satin and polished finish, the highest quality vulcanized rubber on its back plate as well as Vertu’s unique high-fidelity sound system. This phone is an outcome of Vertu’s partnership with the charity Smile Train, and with every sale of the handset, €200 will be donated towards corrective cleft lip and palate surgery for children in 80 developing countries. B5,03,650.
Da Milano
Versace Reve Ceramic
Da Milano’s unique wedding collection of bags, including this blue bag with weave detailing, should make this wedding season more entertaining.
The limited edition Versace Reve Ceramic is one of six new chronographs from Versace. The ceramic watch is enriched with a full pavé diamond dial and lugs with a Greca motif. The stainless steel and yellow gold details create impressive colour contrasts like g the typical Versace black-and-gold mix. B5,10,000.
WEDDING COLLECTION
B11,999.
Jimmy Choo unveils the much anticipated ticipated capsule collection created in collaboration aboration with contemporary artist Rob Pruitt. uitt. The collection features 19 styles of shoes, oes, bags and accessories featuring dégradé dé leather linings patterned with repeating angel and devil pandas. PRICE ON REQUEST
Swarovski
AMETHYST FLOWER BROOCH This rhodium-plated brooch in light amethyst and amethyst crystal pave is both playful enough to appeal to the young and elegant and graceful enough for more mature and refined tastes. B9,100
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OBJETS
Buck’s Luxury
D’ENVY
FOLIO CASE
A perfect balance between a briefcase and a satchel crafted in the finest genuine leather with heavy metal components, Swiss locks and fine inner styling, this folio case is best suited for those on the move. H22,400.
Longines
Tissot
The Longines Saint-Imier Collection includes watches that mark the hours, minutes, seconds and date, and chronographs, plus a prestige model featuring four retrograde functions as well as a day/night display and phases of the moon. PRICE ON REQUEST
This high-precision instrument with its brushed titanium case offers 15 different functions, all activated through its touch screen. H40,800
SAINT-IMIER COLLECTION
T-TOUCH EXPERT TITANIUM
Clive Christian No. 1
Lecoanet Hemant
One of the most expensive perfumes in the world, this cologne with base notes of wood really smells like it’s worth the price.
Lecoanet Hemant’s shoulder bag designed especially for this year’s F1 comes in racy shades of red and black. H7,900.
LIMITED EDITION F1 BAG
PRICE ON REQUEST
20 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
ENSEMBLE / READ OBJETS D’ENVY
Diesel
DZMC0001
TEXT BY SURABHI CHAUHAN
Diesel’s DZMC0001 features the iconic clown face by the irreverent and controversial tattoo artist Mr. Cartoon in silver on a black dial with red details and is based on his own hand- drawn design. H15,995.
Montblanc 2012 WRITERS EDITION: JONATHAN SWIFT
Montblanc pays tribute to the distinguished Anglo-Irish writer Jonathan Swift and his Gulliver’s Travels with this limited edition fountain pen. PRICE ON REQUEST
GABRIELE CORTO MOLTEDO, 35, has design and style running in his veins as the son of Laura and Vittorio Moltedo, founders of Bottega Veneta, the eponymous luxury goods brand. His brand, Corto Moltedo, is now in India. CORTO MOLTEDO’S FIVE MUST-HAVE ACCESSORIES WHEN TRAVELLING
1. A BOOK 2. SUNGLASSES FROM ILLESTEVA (http://www.illesteva.com/)
Oakley
DUCATI SQUARE WHISKER This special edition Oakley SQUARE WHISKER™ is a salute to Ducati with C-5™ alloy in Pewter. The stem sleeves and metal icons are in Ducati red. H15,950.
A Lange & Söhne
DATOGRAPH UP/DOWN
With a power reserve extended to 60 hours, a power-reserve indicator, and a proprietary oscillation system, the new DATOGRAPH UP/DOWN shines in a platinum case enlarged to a diameter of 41 millimetres. PRICE ON REQUEST
3. BEAUTY CASE / SHAVING KIT 4. PERFUME BY L’ARTISAN PERFUMEUR
(http://www.artisanparfumeur.com/)
5. THE CORTO MOLTEDO ‘CASSETTE’ BAG TO HOLD MY LAPTOP
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10
WORKPLACE ESSENTIALS FOR MEN
Dark indigo, grey or black jeans go great with shirts, sweaters and jackets. A good pair of work jeans are tapered, do not hang loose from the hips and are never shredded. AVAILABLE AT DIESEL, H9,013
SUIT UP Make a confident first impression at a business meeting in a contemporary style slim cut, wool-blend suit in charcoal grey, or navy blue. AVAILABLE AT ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA, H1,25,000
STRAIGHT-LEG DENIM JEANS
MONKSTRAP SHOES Monkstrap shoes are a contemporary twist on the classic black leather formal shoe. They are easy to wear and versatile enough to be worn for a dinner party or cocktails as well.
BRIEFCASE
AVAILABLE AT CANALI, H37,000 ONWARDS
No matter your profession , a sturdy handbag is essential to carry your paperwork, electronic devices and stationery to work. AVAILABLE AT GUCCI, H94,530
UMBRELLA UM A goo good umbrella doesn’t only offer protection from the elements but also prote reflects good taste. This functional refle accessory will always be a stylish acce presence in your wardrobe. prese
PERFUME Pick a perfume that doesn’t overpower yours and the entire office’s senses. A musky sense with undertones of spices will leave ave a pleasant and charismatic trail. AVAILABLE AT BURBERRY, H4,575
AVAILABLE AT NAPPA DORI, H2,600 AVAIL
CASUAL FOOTWEAR Most offices today allow smart casuals to be worn to work, and the right pair of good quality shoes can dress up a pair of jeans. Oxfords, brogues and suede boots in leather and rich tones are workwear wardrobe staples. AVAILABLE AT TOD’S, H26,000
TROUSERS
AVAILABLE AT BURBERRY PRORSUM, H63,000 22 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
DRESS SHIRT Worn under a suit, a jacket, sweater, or just as it is with trousers, a nice shirt will always look immaculate. AVAILABLE AT ROBERTO CAVALLI, H24,717
CASHMERE SWEATER A good quality sweater will last many winters and can be worn under a jacket or as it is with a pair of corduroy pants. A luxe knit should be a good fit, be comfortable, protect against the cold and not lose shape after a season or two. AVAILABLE AT BOGGI MILANO, H6,400–9,900
TEXT BY SURABHI CHAUHAN
A pair of good quality cotton blend or wool trousers can be worn with a jacket, polo shirt, casual shirt or dress shirt depending on the occasion.
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10
WORKPLACE ESSENTIALS FOR W WOMEN OMEN SUIT UP The menswear-inspired tailored suit for women is in vogue this winter. Take a cue from the 1970s classic film Annie Hall where lead actress Diane Keaton wore men’s inspired shirts, trousers, vests and ties while out and about town.
HAT A nice trilby hat is on trend when made in a luxe material like felt. Try it in demure colours and fabrics. AVAILABLE AT GUCCI, H23,762
AVAILABLE AT GIORGIO ARMANI, PRICE ON REQUEST
WAIST BELT ELT T
HEELS
Invest in a qualityy leather belt that will act as a punctuation mark to your look. AAvoid belts with sstones, sparkling gems and brand logos on the front.
This season a lot of footwear designers have included the midi-heel in their collection. These are practical, sophisticated and sturdy. Go for black or nude coloured leather which will go with a dress, trousers, suit and skirt with élan.
AVAILABLE AT TOD’S, H25,000
AVAILABLE AT CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN, H31,913
WRAP DRESS A wrap dress is easy to wear, comfortable and flattering on most female forms. It is a great option to wear for a work lunch, dinner or an office party. AVAILABLE AT DVF / DIANE VON FURSTENBERG, H20,000
PENCIL SKIRT The updated version of the pencil skirt is as womanly as the original historic shape but easier to wear when paired with crisp shirt, blouse, or even a t-shirt. Try a pencil skirt in a wool blend, which will render a formal look along with comfort. AVAILABLE AT BURBERRY,, H62,000 ,
PERFUME PE ERFU UME E A perfume from a reputed brand will complete your work outfit. Only a few drops of the parfum form applied to your pulse points will diffuse a scent throughout the day. AVAILABLE AT CHANEL, H6,500
STATEMENT JACKET
AVAILABLE AT LANVIN, H2,69,890 24 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
iPAD CASE Protect electronic items like the iPad in a sophisticated case that is an extension of your style and personality. Most luxury accessory brands have introduced a variety of cases to choose from.
This bag is simple enough to be worn differently with various outfits on a daily basis. At work, this bag can hold your essentials and gadgets.
AVAILABLE AT LOUIS VUITTON, H23,840
AVAILABLE AT FENDI, H1,25,698
THE IT BAG
NOVEMBER 2012
TEXT BY SURABHI CHAUHAN
Invest in a designer jacket and wear it over your winter wear staples for a quick style update. This season, the top layer can be varied with jackets, pea coats, long dress coats and even capes.
ENSEMBLE / STAY
GETAWAYS
These beautiful boutique hotels are perfect for a weekend, or even mid-week, escape. BY ISHA SINGH SAWHNEY
THE SERAI BANDIPUR
THE RAAS STANDS in the magical, bustling blue- and
pink-walled quarter of Jodhpur. Behind latticed stone jharokas (overhanging balconies) the rose-red sandstone property combines the riches of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Rajasthan history with the luxurious amenities of a contemporary boutique hotel. Blue-painted autorickshaws ferry customers through the crowded inner lanes of the old city to the Raas, where large wooden gates lead guests into an oasis with a calm azure pool, Mughal gardens and a delicately carved stone-panelled haveli. There are over 39 contemporarily designed, pareddown rooms with private balconies, each with a view of the imposing Mehrangarh fort. The dining pavilion and the 300-year-old women’s purdah section that was transformed into a spa bridge the old world and the new.
THE SERAI, BANDIPUR, is located near the Bandipur National
Park, about 246km away from Bengaluru. The architecture of the resort is inspired by African game lodges, with a touch of the Mediterranean seen in the sparkling white walls that surround the cottages. Thatched roofs, arresting animal prints, large glass doors, wooden floors, open verandahs, a profusion of strong-beamed wood work and delightful little touches like the large Nagra drums used in the durbars of old all come together to place guests in complete harmony with the dense forests surrounding them.
THE SERAI CHIKMAGALUR
RAAS JODHPUR
THE SERAI IS SET in a beautiful coffee estate in Chikmagalur, Karnataka, with the Baba Budangiri hills forming its backdrop. Designed along the curved lines of the water body that flows through the property, it is built around a central edifice that houses the lobby, restaurants, lounges, bars and the spa, and towers over an elegant infinity pool. Natural rosewood floors lead guests to their private pools and gazebos constructed with Chapdi, the stone indigenous to the plantation that has been used extensively for the interiors. Nature is an integral part of each cottage’s minimalist open design, and facades have been made with a variety of materials, with picturesque views, connecting walkways and harmonious lighting.
26 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
ENSEMBLE / STAY IN THE HEART OF THE ANCIENT FORT COCHIN , Kerala, a Dutch
OLD HARBOUR HOTEL KOCHI GET
AUCTION
ROUND UP BY GOVIND DHAR
MARK ROTHKO’S No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) Sotheby’s, New York, 13 November
Having remained in the same private collection for the last 30 years, the 2.88 x 1.71 metre No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) painting by the Russian-American abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko will go under the hammer at an auction of great impressionist works in New York this month. Considered an important work, No. 1 was made when Rothko was said to have been creating his best works. On show in New York from 1 November, the painting is expected to sell for anywhere between US$35 and 50 million.
NOVEMBER 2012
colonial building houses the Old Harbour Hotel. This 300-year-old heritage monument, reopened as a boutique hotel, is located just minutes from the famous Chinese fishing nets in Fort Cochin. The Old Harbour Hotel was among the first hotels of old Cochin. After serving as the residence to employees of English tea-broking firms, it was left unused for a period of time and has today been turned into an intimate hotel with only 13 rooms and suites. The hotel is packed with art, and the open-plan lobby has the feel of a private home. Guests can enjoy outdoor showers in their garden cottages, roam the carefully tended gardens by the pool, explore Fort Cochin and, when back at the hotel, have a seafood barbeque.
There’s nothing quite like the thrill of the chase at an auction. Here are just some of the beautiful rarities we’ll be offering up each issue just in case you happen to be looking for that elusive Munch or that limited edition Cartier watch for your personal collection.
PABLO PICASSO’S FEMME À LA FENÊTRE (MARIE-THÉRÈSE)
THE ARCHDUKE JOSEPH DIAMOND
Sotheby’s, New York, 5 November
Shrouded in mystery, the whopping 76.02 carat, perfect D-colour and internally flawless Archduke Joseph Golconda diamond will be up for sale for the first time since 1993 when it sold for US$ 6.5 million in Switzerland. The gem that was once owned by Archduke Joseph August of Austria (1872–1962) of the feted Habsburg dynasty is said to have disappeared during the Second World War only to resurface in 1961 at an auction in London. To add to the intrigue, the identity of its owner has been withheld by the auction house. It is expected to attract well over US$15 million this year.
One of the world’s most bankable artists at auction, Pablo Picasso continues to surpass expectations worldwide whenever his works comes up for sale. Known for his stormy romances, Picasso’s more-than-muses were often the subject of his paintings and Femme à La Fenêtre, a depiction of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, is no exception. With its vivid colour palette and clear lines, the painting of MarieThérèse Walter will come up for sale at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening and is expected to fetch anywhere from US$15 to 20 million.
Christie’s, Geneva, 13 November
CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 27
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REFINED S T A T E M E N T S BY VP ANAND
The elegant and exclusive timepieces favoured by today’s leading men VACHERON CONSTANTIN
BREGUET
When Academy Award-nominated actor Josh Brolin stepped into the shoes of a Wall Street raider in Oliver Stone’s sequel to Wall Street, he picked the American 1921 from Vacheron Constantin’s ‘Les Historiques’ collection to symbolize the power, tradition and ambition of America. The most unusual facet of the 1921 has to be the watch face’s 45-degree clockwise tilt that affords right-handed users a clear view of it without having to lift their hand off their desk.
For the role of a wealthy investor in last year’s Limitless, Robert De Niro was consistently and overtly displaying a Breguet Classique. The dial’s distinctive hands and inward-curving Roman numerals on the wrist of an actor who leaves no detail to chance speak volumes about the instantly recognisable brand identity of one of the world’s oldest and highly regarded watchmakers.
CORUM
OMEGA
When Portuguese sports superstar Cristiano Ronaldo isn’t busy finding the back of the net, he wraps an Admiral’s Cup Competition 48-mm watch around his wrist. One of the world’s highest paid footballers can easily afford a watch with 168 (2.53-carat) diamonds set in 18-carat rose gold to add just a bit of flash to his is strikes.
Entertainer and activist George Clooney defines easy masculinity without commitments, which make the five years he’s been wearing the Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra Chronograph his longest relationship to date. Red gold, smoked brown leather and a teakgrey dial encompass all things rugged.
JAQUET-DROZ Notoriously wary of courting celebrity, the Swiss watchmaker couldn’t escape filmmaker Martin Scorsese when he used Pierre Jaquet-Droz’s automata designs for the 2011 film Hugo. Considered the oldest ancestor of the modern computer, the still functional automatons sit at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire of Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
AUDEMARS PIGUET (AP) Hip-hop impressario Jay-Z may have 99 problems but missing bling on his wrist ain’t one. Odes to Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak Offshore collection have featured prominently in the rapper’s hits, and his own Offshore Chronograph has the number 10 completely set in brilliant cut diamonds. 30 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
ENSEMBLE / GET ULYSSE NARDIN Just after earning his spot as World Cup MVP and at the beginning of his courageous battle for his life, cricket sensation Yuvraj Singh began sporting a limited edition Ulysse Nardin Executive Dual Time. The 43-mm black ceramic bezel with oversized numerals was limited to just 62 pieces and breaks almost all design conventions associated with the watchmaker.
OFFICINE PANERAI Panerai’s large dials, luminous materials and straightforward design have often made it a popular choice among the brawniest of celebrities including Sylvester Stallone, Dwayne Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger and even powerful men like Bill Clinton and Benjamin Netanyahu. But it’s former diver Jason Statham who has shown the most love to the Italian navy’s diving watches, prominently sporting the Luminor Chrono Daylight in all Transporter movies.
PATEK PHILLIPE
A. LANGE & SÖHNE
Respected thespian and current heartthrob Ryan Gosling pushed the envelope in last year’s Drive. He also sported a very special Patek Phillipe ticker that he wrapped around the steering wheel to time the getaways in the film. The mysterious watch with a luminous dial, brown leather band and second stopwatch is not actually available for sale; it was specially created for Gosling in the movie.
Indian filmmaker and actor Farhan Akhtar possesses one of the exclusive wrists that wear the creations of these German watchmaking artists. Their line of Saxonia Thin watches measure a scant 5.9 mm in height, making their offering one of the most unique in the market.
JAEGER-LECOULTRE (JLC)
IWC SCHAFFHAUSEN
Bill Clinton famously kept a Timex on his wrist for his entire tenure as president. As soon as that ended, he switched to a stylish Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Diving Alarm. Clinton hasn’t been shy about showing it off: the sober interface belying its highly luminous material is designed to shine at even the darkest of times.
American director Quentin Tarantino is a devoted fan of IWC’s Big Pilot collection, and now, signalling a slight shift to a classic aesthetic, he wears the IWC Portofino HandWound Moon Phase. Roman numerals, a moon-phase display at 12 o’clock, and a seconds display at 6 o’clock signal understated elegance.
NOVEMBER 2012
CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 31
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T HE.HIGH.LIF E Carefully selected items to add to your luxury wish list BY GOVIND DHAR
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BMW M5
PRICE: APPROX. D 99 LAKHS, EX-SHOWROOM
Forty years after the ‘Motorwork’ division of BMW began dressing its mean machines with sportier accoutrements, BMW’s latest M5 continues to be the sportster you’ll choose to drive yourself. Consistently scoring high for comfort, driveability and fuel efficiency, the M5’s new avatar is further demonstration of BMW’s penchant for combining power and good looks. It delivers both a quietly confident and computer-assisted ride in economy mode by tapping the M1 button on the steering wheel. Despite the first-time employment of the smaller twin turbocharged 4.4 litre V8, the M5 cracks a pleasing 560 bhp and reaches 100 kmph in 4.4 seconds. This comes in addition to the comforts of the stock 5 Series on the inside of the car. 32 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA IPAD COVER Ever since the iPad joined the race with the iPhone and iPod as a coveted gadget, companies have fallen over themselves to provide it with accessories. For those who want to add a touch of panache to their work wardrobe, here’s an iPad cover made of calfskin in neutral powder tones. Handstitched and supple enough to withstand everyday wear and tear, Zegna’s iPad covers will complement most attire, both inside and outside the board room.
NOVEMBER 2012
ENSEMBLE In the world of motor yachts, Riva’s supremacy in carving pure pieces of seafaring art is second to none. Combining the cachet of yesteryear Hollywood celebrity (ubiquitous in the marinas at Cannes and Los Angeles)
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Riva 63’ Virtus PRICE: D18.62 CR.
and vivacious Italian styling, Riva’s fusion of wood panelling with cuttingedge materials makes their boats the envy of most. The 63’ Virtus follows in this tradition with sociability at the centre of its offering, boasting of being the largest open yacht produced by the shipyard with two large sundecks, a spacious salon and even three sofas packed into the cockpit. Twin 1360mhp MAN 12V engines afford it a top speed of 40 knots. Signature teak flooring and oak trimmings, beds with a leather-stitching finish and stainlesssteel details both on the inside and out complete its luxe, modern feel. ORDERS AT: INFO@MARINESOLUTIONS.IN
GUCCI SOFT STIRRUP BAG
3 PRICE: ON REQUEST
NOVEMBER 2012
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A classic and distinctive handbag says as much about the woman who carries it as does her choice of designer wear. In a sea of Louis Vuitton and Coach handbags, Gucci holds it own with its Stirrup bag. Fashioned signature Soft St on a timeless 19 1975 rigid-frame design, the Stirrup echoes echo Gucci’s equestrian roots with its elegant stirrup-shaped buckles and clasps. It’s a roomy shoulder bag, but its exterior python-scale patexter tern in warm tones of cocoa and carmine is pure chic. Available in washed calfAva skin and nubuck, and in sk ex exotic skins like python, os ostrich and crocodile, the Stirrup is part of Gucci’s Stirr Pre-Fall 2012 collection. PRICE: D2,50,000
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ENSEMBLE
TOD’S GOMMINO SHOES
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PRICE: D21,000
Understated and comfortable, these loafers from the Italian shoemaker TOD’s are the most-copied shoes of the moment. A self-styled ‘luxury moccasin’, there are close to 100 steps in the Gomminos’ construction and up to 35 pieces of suede and leather being hand cut and sewn to craft each shoe. Designed so they can suit formal or casual wear, TOD’s Gomminos come in no less than 14 hues from burgundy and camel to brown and navy blue. Their soles are formed of 133 ‘rubber pebbles’, which have become as much a part of the brand’s DNA as the shoes themselves.
CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN DECORAPUMPS How better to multitask your wardrobe come wedding season than to combine a love of glitter and shine with the artistry of one of the world’s most sought-after shoemakers. Enter Christian Louboutin’s Decorapump, which sees the marriage of his cult Daffodile shoe with designer crystals from Swarovski. Perfect with an LBD or with more traditional yet hip ensembles, the Decorapump’s crystal patterns are akin to Indian folk or Mughal design and show off Louboutin’s signature veneered red sole. The coveted pair is part of Louboutin’s Autumn/Winter collection.
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PRICE: D2,19,000
DIOR CHRISTAL PIECE UNIQUE PASSAGE N°7 Christian Dior’s attention to detail, classic lines and timeless elegance have established the couturier’s place in history. The Dior Christal Piece Unique Passage n°7 watch with its sapphire and diamond bejwelled case and waveengraved dial more than meets the requirements of high fashion and impeccable taste. Encased in white gold, the shimmering blue timepiece includes a blue taffeta strap with pleated black tulle. The piece is also water resistant up to 50 metres and offers a 50-hour power reserve.
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PRICE: ON REQUEST
34 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
ENSEMBLE
TAG HEUER RACER TAG Heuer’s contribution to the luxury mobile phone world goes back to 2008 with the launch of its Meridiist range of phones. Today the horologists have upped their game considerably with the Racer. This phone boasts the use of Grade 2 titanium, shockproof and lightweight materials such as carbon fibre, a black PVD coating, and nano-coated soft-touch rubber on its keypad. The design is inspired by the sporty lines and aggression of Gran Turismo cars, which show up in its grille-like trims, cross-hatched carbon-fibre back and orange borders. Pre-packed with a touch screen, an Android Gingerbread operating system, a 1 GHz processor, 16 million colour screen resolution, a large 3.5” display and a high-definition 5-mega-pixel camera, the Racer also comes in sporty or gold-plated avatars. ModeLabs, the company behind the phone’s design and creation has developed a variety of apps for these phones including a remote security feature that blocks usage and protects personal data if lost or stolen.
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PRICE: STARTING FROM D1.89 LAKHS.
HERMÈS LE LABORATOIRE DU TEMPS CARRE
9 NOVEMBER 2012
As signature a staple in the Hermes repertoire as the saddles that have made it famous, the versatile silk scarf or carré created by the French fashion house has always fascinated with its colourful and intricate designs. In the largest of the sizes created by Hermès (140cm), this Le Laboratoire du Temps scarf recollects a mad scientist’s laboratory and depicts the theme of ‘the gift of time’. The template for each design is created after hundreds or thousands of hours of ‘engraving,’ wherein a master engraver plays with different colours, painting separate motifs on frames with Indian ink and quill. The soft silk itself comes from a Brazilian mill and is then woven by Lyon-based master silk-and-velvet weavers Perrin & Fils whom Hermès has entrusted with this task for over half a century. After the scarves are completed, each carré is hemmed by hand. Perfect for draping over shoulders indoors or creating a cowl during sunny days, the inimitable Hermès carré is a style statement in itself. PRICE: ON REQUEST
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SEASON 6 OF KAUN BANEGA CROREPATI BEGAN ON 7 SEPTEMBER TO TRPS THAT OTHER REALITY SHOWS WOULD KILL FOR, AND AMITABH BACHCHAN WAS ITS COMPÈRE. WHAT IS IT THAT HAS MADE BOTH SHOW AND HOST SO MUCH LARGER THAN LEGEND? BY MAYANK SHEKHAR PHOTO CREDIT: COLSTON JULIAN
THE AB OF KBC
TALK
It’s mildly surreal to witness an event that you’ve been watching on TV for more than a decade now in live action. I’m at the closely guarded shooting floor of Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) in the stateowned Film City in Mumbai. I know the drill. Searchlights wipe the floor in semicircles. The well-known theme from the award-winning British father-and-son composer team Keith and Matthew Strachan (who wrote the theme music for the hit TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?) blasts from the background. Amitabh Bachchan is the host, facing a terminal he warmly calls “computerji”. A participant opposite him is on the proverbial hot seat, her legs dangling from an unusually high chair. Genial banter ensues between host and contestant, but below the calm runs a riptide. Bachchan calls the show’s ticking clock “Sui Mui” (needle), who is the progeny (“vivaah ka parinaam”) of “Ghadiyal Babu” and “Tiktikiya” (endearing terms he used for the clocks in the previous seasons of KBC). The audience laughs along.
NOVEMBER 2012
It seems I’ve seen parts of this episode before although it is only just being shot—the ebb and flow of questions and encouragement, answers and anxiety—as we watch. The mind can play games. The set itself looks much smaller, far less overwhelming than it appears on TV. The trick is to shoot from low angles—thus enhancing the height of the ceiling—and with wide-angle lenses. These were the shots Bachchan had preferred for the 70 mm screens of the 1970s and 1980s. He is 6’ 3” in his shoes, and age hasn’t diminished his physical stature. (He is tall by Indian movie standards: Dilip Kumar was 5’ 10”, Rajesh Khanna, 5’ 9”, and Aamir Khan is roughly 5’ 6”). He was called “Lambu” both on screen and off during his ‘angry young man’ heydays, and is today referred to, a tad more reverentially, as “Lambuji”. As a public figure, Bachchan has towered over his peers, and now juniors, for more than 40 years. The crowd on this Friday afternoon—some of which comprises KBC’s in-house audience—has travelled to this forested corner of north Mumbai in part to confirm, I suspect, that this national celluloid monument, with its corpus of 180 films, television appearances, thousands of posters, billboards and magazine covers, actually exists and is as human as they are. As the episode wraps up, people from the back walk over to the first row of the stands, stretching their hands out to touch Bachchan’s. He poses for group photographs, accepts gifts and takes compliments. Fans tell him how happy they are to see him. He smiles back warmly. The atmosphere is casual and relaxed. It helps that the show—unlike movie shoots—gets wrapped almost in real-time, with very few interruptions. The highs and lows
CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 37
TALK of the episode that airs on TV are equally entertaining for the live audience. As Bachchan exits the stage, you can sense that he also leaves all the drama behind, calmly shifting gears to his minor concern of the day: his new phone, a Samsung S3, that he says he’s yet to figure how to use. We walk over to a rented vanity van parked outside the shooting floor’s main foyer. In the early days, when KBC was a daily show (it airs on weekends now) and Bachchan would shoot two episodes every day—going up to about 300 episodes at a stretch—a posh suite was constructed for him behind the fake “Bombay High Court” building at Film City. The rooms also stored various memorabilia presented to him by fans. “It was a waste of money. I told them I don’t need it anymore,” he says as he takes his jacket off and sits on his mini-bed in the freezing-cold van. I ask him about the episode number
IN 2000, WHEN SAMEER NAIR FROM STAR TV APPROACHED BACHCHAN TO HOST THE INDIAN VERSION OF WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?, BACHCHAN WAS GOING THROUGH POSSIBLY THE MOST PURPLE PATCH IN HIS CAREER. of KBC he had just shot. He casually calls out to his assistant, “Babu se poochho yeh kaun sa episode tha, kab aayega? (Ask Babu what episode this was, when it will be shown).” I’d actually meant to ask which episode number this was over all of KBC’s seasons. (He’s been in and out of the show, laid low by illness and replaced for a single season—the third—by Shah Rukh Khan.) “Gosh,” says Bachchan, “close to 500.” One of the things that attracts him to KBC, he says, is its life-changing quality: “The person I was with right before the episode you watched, Vivek Kumar, hadn’t ever seen a cheque of C1,60,000. Or take Sushil Kumar (who took home C5 crore in Season 5). Every time I’d give him a cheque, he’d start counting. He said he’d never seen that many zeroes in his life. He had come to earn C10,000–20,000 to repair the roof of his house, and C10,000 to pay off the loan he’d taken to make phone calls to KBC. Some of these stories are so inspiring.” KBC has thrown up eight crorepatis (or rupee multimillionaires) so far, including Sushil Kumar, a computer operator from Motihari in Bihar, who ended up being the first KBC contestant to win C5 crore, but excluding the actor-couple Ajay Devgn and Kajol, who racked up C1 crore for a charity of their choice. The show has handed over almost C69.86 38 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
crore as prize money. The winners don’t get to take it all, of course: taxes slice off 40 percent. The average payout per contestant in Season 4 was C12.35 lakh, going up to C17.52 lakh in Season 5. For most winners, these are big numbers. But, the biggest winner on KBC is the Big B himself. In 2000, when Sameer Nair from STAR TV approached Bachchan to host the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Bachchan was going through possibly the most purple patch in his career. He was out of work, which wasn’t uncommon for a Bollywood actor at 58. Twelve years later, this is still mostly true. Between 1984 and 1987, he’d entered and quit politics, winning the Allahabad seat from a former Uttar Pradesh chief minister by one of the most remarkable differentials—68:42—in Lok Sabha election history; he quit three years later, ensnared—and later cleared of involvement— in ‘Bofors’, a $53 million defence procurement scandal. Bachchan then returned to the big screen with reasonably popular films: Shahenshah (1988), Hum (1991) and Khuda Gawah (1992). The film that stuck in the collective memory was Agneepath (1990), in which his role of a mafia don earned him his first National Film Award for Best Actor. But there were still hardly any meaty roles written for a 50-plus central character. He went into hibernation for five years, emerging as an entrepreneur in 1996 with his Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Limited (ABCL). Within three years of founding ABCL, the company went bust even though he had hired top management professionals to spearhead ABCL into various sectors of the entertainment industry. The company’s collapse is generally attributed to over-reach. Within a short span of time, the company had invested in a talent management division, an event management firm, a film production unit, a television software company and a music record label. Immediate returns didn’t match the investment, and Bachchan was in huge personal debt. His house in Juhu, Prateeksha, which is as much a tourist destination as the Gateway of India, had reportedly been mortgaged. Nor did it help that his films Mrityudaata (1997), produced by ABCL, Lal Baadshah (1999) and Hindustan Ki Kasam (1999) were fairly shoddy reprises of the angry young man as an angry old man and left his audience cold. Work for him remained no more a post-retirement hobby. He had creditors to take care of. One morning, he knocked at filmmaker and neighbour (the late) Yash Chopra’s door to ask for a movie role. It was Chopra’s Deewar that launched Bachchan into stardom as the nation’s eponymous angry young man in 1975. The desperate knock resulted in Mohabbatein, which breathed new life into Bachchan by reinventing him as a mature (read: elder) actor, setting him off to advantage against a younger, more energetic Shah Rukh Khan, and earning them both Filmfare Awards. It made Bachchan the ‘Big B’. However, it was an unlikely gamble with television that truly paid off. In 2000, there were lots of apprehensions about his doing TV, Bachchan admits. It certainly wasn’t commonplace for a leading man from movies to make the shift to television at NOVEMBER 2012
PHOTO CREDIT: SONY ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION
Bachchan on the imposing KBC set.
TALK the time: “A lot of people start the other way round—they go from television or theatre upward to films. Obviously there was the initial cynicism about reducing one’s self from 70 mm to a 25 inch screen. Metaphorically, that was terrible, because you’re reducing your size. The whole business of stars from films on TV began with KBC. Now we have everyone: Salman, Shah Rukh, Aamir, Madhuri, Akshay...” None have yet matched Bachchan’s success in terms of viewership. When the offer came to him, he says, “I looked on it as an opportunity. They showed me tapes. I went over to the UK to watch [Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host] Chris Tarrant record his show. I told the channel, if you can give me the same kind of management and set-up, I’d be happy to do the show. To their credit, they gave me all that. But yes, there was huge anxiety.” The format of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is simple enough to accommodate variations in its regional versions.
IT’S THE SHOW’S FAMILYORIENTED EDGE THAT GAVE THE ACTOR AN ALTOGETHER NEW PUBLIC IMAGE: THAT OF A GENTEEL FATHERLY FIGURE IN DARK SUIT AND GREY GOATEE, DOLING OUT ADVICE ON LOVE AND LIFE WITH ONE HAND WHILE HANDING OUT RELATIVELY LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY WITH THE OTHER. The contestant goes up a ladder of 13 multiple-choice questions (in KBC’s case, pocketing C5,000 to C5 crore the higher they go). Contestants can quit at any time, assured that the money already earned will come to them. Getting past the sixth and ninth questions guarantees them between C1.6 lakh and C12.5 lakh, respectively. However, as Bachchan points out, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? doesn’t have some of the other frills that we added on.” He’s referring to the fair dose of prose and poetry that punctuate the questions and answers, taking it beyond a regular quiz show. This was Bachchan’s idea. He says, “Nine o’clock at night is the time when you’ve had dinner with family and you sit around. We used to listen to elders and get our gyaan [knowledge] during those moments. I thought it’d be nice if we could talk about certain issues which have a moral or social basis at such an hour. Now we have a prelude, an ending that is humorous, visuals from contestant’s lives.... This doesn’t just build a good 40 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
story around a contestant. It also provokes lots of people to empathise with what’s on screen. You feel good when someone wins.” Bachchan personally supervises his scripts, he says, often picking up lines and concepts from books and editorials he reads. It’s the show’s family-oriented edge that gave the actor an altogether new public image: that of a genteel fatherly figure in dark suit and grey goatee, doling out advice on love and life with one hand while handing out relatively large amounts of money with the other. Analysing KBC’s phenomenal run, writer Javed Akhtar had told me in an interview for Mid Day in 2004, “A hero personifies a society’s contemporary morality, or aspiration. India’s current aspiration, one could argue, gets reflected through the success of Kaun Banega Crorepati.” Akhtar was part of the famous screenwriting duo Salim-Javed who had crafted for Bachchan the image of the angry young man in the 1970s, delivering hit after hit—starting with Zanjeer (1973) and running through Trishul (1978) and Kala Patthar (1979). In hindsight, the unprecedented success of those action dramas have been attributed to post-Nehruvian India’s angst against a blatantly corrupt socio-political system. Akhtar argued, “In the 1970s, life was black or white, Left or Right. Righteous people saw virtue in poverty and vice in riches.” Salim-Javed’s hero, Vijay, took on dishonest politicians, smugglers and robber barons, delivering divine justice to the helpless, frustrated masses. Indira Gandhi’s government imposed the Emergency in 1975, the year of Bachchan’s standout Deewar and Sholay (which the Encyclopaedia of Hindi Cinema [2003], compiled by Gulzar, Govind Nihalani and Saibal Chatterjee, considers among the greatest of Indian films). The public sector-led, protectionist, white-elephant Indian economy was lumbering ahead with about a 2 percent yearly growth rate. The national mood was somber, and popular theory suggests Bachchan’s films captured the sentiment best. The country had been bound by a semi-market economy for years, but in 1991 came the Narasimha Rao government’s initiation of the liberalisation programme. Suddenly, getting rich quick—the rags-to-riches dream—didn’t seem so impossible. In 2000, India’s GDP was moving at 5.4 percent, a modest number, given that the annual growth rate would zip to 10.4 percent a few years later. KBC was a television show about making a quick buck. Bachchan, a familiar figure providing a link between India’s immediate past and future, was the show’s host. The actor, it seemed, was becoming relevant again in a role almost opposite to the one that had established him as a super-star about three decades earlier. KBC also helped audiences warm up to his age. This freed the actor up to take on characters in films that weren’t necessarily older versions of his younger self. Filmmakers began to write scripts centred on him, whether as a paraplegic boy in a degenerating old body (Paa); a blind girl’s severely strict instructor (Black); a loutish cop (Bunty Aur Babli); or an extra-constitutional political leader, along the NOVEMBER 2012
Bachchan’s KBC look is styled by Rohit Bal.
lines of Shiv Sena’s Bal Thackeray (Sarkar, and its sequel, Sarkar Raj). These films were both critically acclaimed and commercial successes. Bachchan’s third successful climb toward busy stardom clearly ran parallel with the popularity of his prime-time television show. One fed into the other: the drawing room audience paid for the cinema ticket. Looking back at KBC, he says, “Professionally, you have to equate it with [the fact] that you came out to be an actor in films, but other forms of entertainment developed as you went along—no harm in being part of them as well. So I look upon it as an exercise that, for me, is an extension of what I was doing earlier.” Did he imagine it becoming this big? “I still don’t believe it is big,” he says. “Because I don’t know what these ratings are. If they are repeating me, then obviously someone likes it.” This cool detachment (some call it fake modesty), in sharp contrast to the melodrama of his movies, has defined Bachchan’s public persona for as far back as anyone can remember. Television ratings in India are calculated on the basis of metres attached to merely about 8,000 TV sets across the country. TAM (or Television Audience Measurement) Media Research, the agency that conducts this weekly exercise, has come under severe criticism in the past and the figures produced are often open to question. Be that as it may, TAM’S TRPs (television rating points) is still the only comparative scale available to measure a show’s popularity. KBC, in its last season, opened to 5.2 TRPs, soaring to 8 TRPs for its most watched episode. This year, the show opened to a higher 6.1 TRPs, beating its own record from NOVEMBER 2012
the previous season. The numbers make it one of the mostviewed shows on Indian satellite television ever, a position that it has consistently maintained since the first season onwards. Besides soap operas, KBC’s main competition comprises song-and-dance contests (Indian Idol, Dance India Dance, etc), and purely voyeuristic entertainment like Bigg Boss. KBC in comparison is completely a quiz programme. This year, it registered 1.5 crore hits for participation. The show’s Indian success story is quite in line with its global appeal. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? has already played in about 120 countries, with Afghanistan being the latest to join in. In India, KBC has versions in Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Bhojpuri, each with their own celebrity hosts. What makes an average question-and-answer format show one of the most watched episodic events in the history of world television? Siddhartha Basu, who’s been producing and directing KBC since its inception has a few ready answers. He lists them out, almost as if they were possible options for a question on his show. He says, “A) Size of the prize.” The sum of money offered is huge. Soon after KBC’s success, Star TV’s main rival, Zee, launched a similar show upping the jackpot to C10 crore. After going through three hosts (actors Anupam Kher, Manisha Koirala, Ashutosh Rana), it bombed. “B) The show’s platform and promotion.” The teaser campaign for Season 6, which ran for months before its telecast, was simply the KBC signature tune and Bachchan’s face. Both being synonymous with the show, the connection was immediate and complete. “C) Sting in the tale. While the quiz CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 41
TALK looks easy, and there are only 13 questions, you can’t make a single mistake. D) ‘Shoutability’ factor. The TV audience is as much a participant as the contestant on the set.” This ‘shoutability factor’ can be gauged by a clip on YouTube, where you watch the contestant Prashant Batar on his C5 crore question: “Who, in 1978, became the first person to be born in the continent of Antarctica?” His options are Emilio Palma, James Weddell, Nathaniel Palmer and Charles Wilkes. You can hear the anonymous viewer who has recorded this clip from his TV going crazy with excitement as he watches from his sofa. He keeps shouting out, “Emilio Palma! Emilio Palma!” He knows the answer, and he wants Batar to win. Batar, however, goes for James Weddell. The anonymous viewer probably falls off his sofa. Batar’s prize money plummets from C1 crore (and potentially C5 crore) to C12.5 lakh in a matter of minutes. You can feel the drama inherent in the show’s simple format: a beginning, middle, and an end; a rise and fall. The seasoned actor in Bachchan knows how to time his lines and keep the suspense alive. I ask him if he remembers the question he’d asked Sushil Kumar the first contestant to take home C5 crore. Bachchan replies, “It was about which colonial power was the last to leave (India). I remember because he was stuck on two options, he’d taken a double-dip option (attempting the question twice). He kept saying, ‘Italy aaya nahin, France gaya nahin; Italy aaya nahin, France gaya nahin.’ It’s so basic, and so correct.” The answer that Sushil got right was Denmark. Does he recall what he’d asked the first C1 crore-winner, Harshvardhan Nawathe, in 2000? “No,” he says, “I can’t remember. It was a really, really tough one.” The question had been: “Who among these does the Indian constitution permit to take part in the proceedings of Parliament? A) Solicitor General. B) Attorney General. C) Cabinet Secretary. D) Chief Justice.” By uttering two words, “Attorney General,” Mumbai resident Nawathe became a household name in India. Sushil Kumar has gone on to participate in another show Jhalak Dikhla Jaa, the Indian version of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing and ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. He now carries two cell phones, but it’s impossible to get through to either number. Both Nawathe and Sushil Kumar were once aspirants to the civil service, and before the show, were preparing for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) exam conducted by the Union Public Service Commission. Like Kumar, Nawathe didn’t pursue the IAS post winning. After he bought himself a sedan, a Maruti Esteem, he enrolled in an MBA programme in Scotland. Today, he works with an NGO. In an interview with the business newspaper Mint eight years after his windfall, Nawathe said that for six months after KBC he did precious little besides party and relax at home and explore the glamour of Mumbai’s highend nightlife: “It was cool that I had friends who were covered in the press every third day.” He then added, “I can’t say it disturbs you, but it does put you off-track.” This instant celebrity explains the appeal of reality televi42 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
sion. However, most reality TV stars either end up on the sidelines of their pre-fame ambitions or get tangled up in the net of notoriety. KBC offers few such guilty pleasures. It promotes itself as rewarding gyaan, although there are enough loopholes built into it to reward the simple recall of trivia or coincidental accuracy. This was the theme of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008), a film made for direct-to-DVD release that ended up with 8 Oscars, 11 nominations and about $377 million (and counting). While Slumdog Millionaire was actually based on KBC, in the upside-down world of reality shows, it was KBC that gained re-inspiration from the film after its stupendous box-office success. Says Siddhartha Basu: “That story of the underdog became central to the show’s story across all versions worldwide. Contestants played to a need: grandmother for a retired husband, a mother for her student son.... The participants presently come in from towns such as Kunj Bahadur, which had probably fallen off the Indian map years ago.” KBC has thrown its net wide open. The contestants go through a casting call and a team interviews all prospective participants. Their stories get turned into documentary films. The questions aren’t entirely computer-generated, either. At least in the initial stages, they are customised to fit into the likely knowledge spectrum and background of each contestant. Bachchan says, “Whenever I’m in town, I’ve been meeting fans outside my house every Sunday for over 28 years. But this aspect of directly engaging with people—their characteristics, and their problems—is very different.” The actor started the practice of ‘Sunday sightings’ with the crowd always gathered around his house in 1982, after his near fatal accident on the sets of Coolie. Now, he says, “I’m on Twitter, Facebook, voice-blog. It’s been 1,611 days since I have been blogging (writing long, personalised essays) every day, nonstop. I get an average of 400 comments every day. I not only get to see the comments, but I reply to them. They’re not all complimentary—some are abusive, critical ... But you may never have encountered these things, had you been aloof.” He calls followers on his blog, his “EF, or Extended Family.” He has now started encouraging them to form groups and do social work: “They hold blood donation camps, look after children’s education ... It’s just a lovely feeling.” This intimate social network of superstar and acolytes is a new thing in Bollywood, but has long been in existence in the states of southern India. Despite having anchored more than 525 episodes of KBC, Bachchan doesn’t seem to have lost his enthusiasm as host. If it has, it doesn’t show. Fame’s a drug for some; it’s obviously a booster shot for Bachchan. His guests are his fans. Earlier, they belonged to the middle classes—Harshvardhan Nawathe was an Indian Police Service officer’s son; today, a contestant could be broke—Sushil Kumar once had no roof over his head. Bachchan connects with both with the same ease. Almost simultaneous with the airing of Season 1 of KBC, cinema audiences in India were split into two: one camp NOVEMBER 2012
He is on Twitter and Facebook and has been blogging everyday non-stop for 1,611 days.
had the non-resident Indian (NRI) and ‘multiplex classes’, the other had the ‘single-screen masses’. Most Bollywood stars chose to cater to one or the other: for example, Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan to the multiplex multitude, Salman Khan and Sunny Deol to the small-towners. Bachchan, though, has never preferred one over the other, either in his films or in his extra-filmic interactions. Roles in all his memorable films can at some level be separated between that of the earthy, desi Indian (Kaalia [1981], Namak Halaal [1982], Amar Akbar Anthony [1977], Satte Pe Satta [1982]), and the middle-class gentleman (Anand [1971], Namak Haraam [1973], Kabhie Kabhie [1976], The Great Gambler [1979]). The film Don (1978) effectively exploited this range. In a double role, he effortlessly played both a semi-rural bumpkin (Vijay) and a suave, sophisticated Mafiosi (Don). Basu calls this Bachchan’s “bilingual eloquence.” I see it on display. He offers me a seat on his set, speaking in his usual urbane, enunciated Indian-British accent. On the show, he talks in chaste, Sanskritised Hindi. During the episode, he telephones a man from Munger in Bihar for a live phone-in. He can’t hear him properly because of a honking sound in the background. He makes a smooth transition, “Eeh kaun bhopoo baja raha hai?” The audience is in splits, joined in merriment as they rarely would be in the world outside. This is the reason for KBCs—and Bachchan’s—success: selling the notion that everybody can win, together, and that nobody need lose. NOVEMBER 2012
In 2006, following a health scare, Bachchan had to quit KBC (actor Shah Rukh Khan replaced him that season). Detailing his routine then, he’d said that his day would start at 5.30 am and finish usually at around 2.30 am. Bachchan was 64 years old at the time. He went on to do 10 films in 2007. Is his routine still the same? “That is a very conservative estimate by the way,” he laughs, “Sometimes I go up to 4:00 in the morning, and again at 6:00, I’m in the gym. It’s not just KBC, there are other things, too. Blog, recording a song, ad shoots that can go on for a while ... I feel the moment you change your vocational activity, start doing something new or different, you lose the monotony and tiredness that sets in.” Bachchan turned 70 on 11 October this year. His family hosted a party for him at the Reliance property next to KBC’s sets in Goregaon. On two walls of the venue were huge screens showcasing Bachchan’s films—he’s been in over 200. This is when you could truly sense the size and scale of his work. His latest release is a regional Bhojpuri blockbuster, Ganga Devi. He appeared in three movies in 2012, and has at least four lined up next year, including his Hollywood debut with Baz Luhrman’s The Great Gatsby. Surely he gets tired now more than, say, 20 or 30 years ago? He answers, “I won’t be able to gauge that, because I didn’t have television (work) at that time. You need to push your body, yes, and we never really know what our capacity is, until we push. Apparently humans use 33 percent of their brains. I am just trying to use 34 percent.” C CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 43
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Usha Hooda’s intricate tapestries are a treat for the textile connoisseur. BY ISHA SINGH SAWHNEY
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IN THE BYLANES of Delhi’s Hauz Khas Village, Usha Hooda
sits in her studio, her lap strewn with delicately embroidered tapestries. Her voice spills over with unmistakable passion as she pulls out ream after ream of white silk panels from their storage space. In the infinitesimal tonal and stitch detailings that reflect her penchant for nature are leitmotifs of intertwining branches creeping across the tapestries, some bent under the weight of ruby-red pomegranates, many with delicate sunflowers, hydrangeas, cornflowers, sweet pea and magnolia in different stages of bloom. Birds, butterflies, bees and dragonflies flit across the surfaces, dancing playfully in this magical garden, all centred round the majestic, invigorating and abundant (rejuvenating) Tree of Life. Twelve years ago, when quilt and duvet embroideries at Mirabelle, a quilt exporting company, wasn’t quite cutting it for Hooda, she decided to experiment with something more challenging. She approached her then-employer and now-patron, Rajeshwar Singh, with the idea of bifurcating into the world of seventeenth-century Pichwai paintings and textile art. Hooda wanted to transpose the designs of printed fabrics onto modern-day tapestries, translating her love for textile into museum-worthy art. “Nothing has ever come close in complexity or detail as Usha’s art,” says Singh. “Very few people appreciate the effort and difficulties involved in creating something like this.” Various forms of the Tree of Life motif occur throughout human history in theology, mythology, magic and religion. One of the most common of ‘world tree’ motifs, cutting across cultures as diverse as the Mesoamerican, Rastafarian, Jewish, Norse and Christian, it represents the source of all living things. At first glance, Hooda’s tapestries are alive and pulsating, and are almost as finely detailed as a painting. On a closer look, you realise that these life-like, three-dimensional works aren’t from an artist’s brush, but from the simple, hooked Aari (long needle). This fine chain-stitch embroidery, traditionally practiced by the cobblers of the KutchSaurashtra region, comes from what’s colloquially called the ‘prick and pounce’ method on a cloth held taut by a wooden frame. Cross-stitched in fine precision into each square inch of every panel are 4,000 stitches in hundreds of hues, shades and tones of thread. Hooda’s panels of around 12 ft by 12 ft retail between Rs 17 lakh to Rs 40 lakh. “It was a task convincing my karigars to do what they thought were impossibly fine stitches,” says Hooda, sitting on her four-poster, canopied bed overlooking the deep foliage of the Deer Park and the algae-filled green Hauz Khas lake. The afternoon sun plays on the tall and lean artist’s short-cropped hair, and as her studio fills with the warm OPPOSITE PAGE & TOP RIGHT Cross-stitched in fine precision into each square inch of every panel are 4,000 stitches in hundreds of hues, shades and tones of thread.
NOVEMBER 2012
AT FIRST GLANCE, HOODA’S TAPESTRIES ARE ALIVE AND PULSATING, AND ARE ALMOST AS FINELY DETAILED AS A PAINTING. ON A CLOSER LOOK, YOU REALISE THAT THESE LIFE-LIKE, THREEDIMENSIONAL WORKS AREN’T FROM AN ARTIST’S BRUSH, BUT FROM THE SIMPLE, HOOKED AARI (LONG NEEDLE). smell of walnut cakes and filter coffee, she talks about her karigars and how her earliest struggles were simply to keep clean the silk panels worked upon for months on end. Though the Aari has been used since the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the Mughals embellished everything in ornate embroidery, today’s degenerated variations send a shudder down Hooda’s spine. “These men have magic and pride in their hands. When I asked them to work with me, they were working on salwar-kameezes and kurtas with the routine range of three to thirty stiches per square inch. They couldn’t fathom the concept of two to three thousand, which is what we started with.” A determined Hooda asked the karigars to show her how to use the needle, and embroidered the first flower, an image from a photograph of a Pichwai. Even for men for whom this skill is hereditary, it took about three years to train the first batch of three workers. “It’s very hard work and these men work with intense passion. No one takes the trouble to do this kind of work today,” says Singh. Hooda’s delicate and painstaking interpretations of the mythical Tree of Life, across vast panels of silk, are today referred to as museum-quality textile art. For Pramod Kumar KG, the managing director of the Delhi-based Eka Cultural Resources & Research, who are curatorial consultants and experts in the preservation of culture, this kind of work is unprecedented in its depth of detail and purity of line. CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 47
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“The exclusivity of her works makes them museum quality,” says Kumar KG. Hooda also carefully catalogues and archives each colour and tone used in a piece in a key in the tapestry. Each piece is thus relevant years later, to be referenced by future artisans and researchers. “The lush quality, fully endowed figures and flowers are naturalist in a Mughal quality,” says Kumar KG. With each piece taking from four to 15 months to complete, and designs evolving and changing all the time, Hooda’s one constant is that no two leaves or two parts of a stem come out the same. Sometimes months of work is torn away and restarted if shades, tones and shapes don’t grow as they were envisioned. In wanting the works to emulate the age-worn aesthetic of antique textile prints and the way they fade over the years, each part of each petal and each stem had to be different in colour, aesthetic and identity. Her designs magically come alive in the hands of her able-fingered karigars, who work so fast that their needles often get searing hot and have to be set aside to rest their ‘souls’. Many hand-painted Tree of Life incarnations saw flowering trees growing from a fecund mound or from water, with all kinds of fabulous birds, beasts and plant life represented with teeming vitality. Dating from the eighteenth century, these ancient Kalamkari textiles were made on the Coromandel Coast of South India and can be seen in museums and textile collections in India and across the world. Tree of Life patterns were traditionally painted or printed by hand using a profusion of natural dye colours. “Usha’s work adheres to this aesthetic lineage, but brings a new dimension with the use of Aari embroidery. The tonal range in every mimetic fine detail is the hallmark of a true artistic 48 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
vision unimpaired by market conditions or the pursuit of a sale,” says Kumar KG. Comparing her atelier of trained master embroiderers to the finest existing in India, he says they bring to mind the workmanship of imperial karkhanas (workshops). Hooda’s biggest collector, with almost 60 odd pieces in his home, is her patron, Rajeshwar Singh. Some, he says will be put in future exhibitions, and are open to people interested in buying them. Outside of the six that have already been bought, two works of 10 ft by 10 ft are currently displayed, on commission, in the foyer of the British High Commission in New Delhi, from where eminent guests like the Blairs (the former inhabitants of 10 Downing Street) have expressed a desire to buy similar pieces. “I’ve been a textile freak and a tree freak for years,” Hooda says, laughing, as her slim fingers trace and caress petals, leaves and curled stems on a particularly intricate pattern in blue and red. “I can stop and stare at trees for hours. And I try to translate the diversities of nature into my work by exploring the ten shades of blue that can come through in just one leaf. People think I’m crazy, when they come back three months later and we’re still in the exact same place, with the exact same leaf.” With characteristic bluntness, Hooda says she couldn’t care less if anyone buys her work. She forgets about prices, catalogues and archives if her daughter isn’t with her. She adds that’s she’s also terrible at numbers and, as an afterthought, marketing too. Yet, the desires of her patrons, present and future, haven’t been struck off her list. For those looking to up the luxe factor even more, bespoke works are now in the pipeline, incorporating gold and silver threads and even semi-precious stones. C NOVEMBER 2012
PHOTOGRAPH BY SHOVAN GANDHI
Usha Hooda at her home and studio in Hauz Khas Village.
MILENA WEARS SEQUIN JACKET FROM SONIA RYKIEL, SILK TOP AND PANTS FROM PAUL AND JO, SUNGLASSES FROM LOUIS VUITTON, HANDBAG FROM DOLCE AND GABBANA, SHOES FROM JIMMY CHOO ANGELO WEARS JACKET, SHIRT AND PANTS FROM NARENDRA KUMAR, WATCH FROM CARTIER, SUNGLASSES FROM DOLCE AND GABBANA, SHOES FROM CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN
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ARRANGED MARRIAGE DON’T GO UNNOTICED THIS SEASON, WHETHER YOU WHISPER WITH A HINT OF DARKNESS OR SHOUT OUT LOUD WITH COLOUR. PHOTOGRAPHY BY KRISTIN MOOLMAN FASHION EDITOR: LOUW KOTZE
ANGELO WEARS SHIRT AND JACKET FROM NARENDRA KUMAR, SUNGLASSES FROM LOUIS VUITTON, BROOCH FROM JEAN PAUL GAULTIER
MILENA WEARS SILK TOP AND PANTS FROM PAUL AND JO, SUNGLASSES FROM DOLCE AND GABBANA, CUFFS FROM HUGO BOSS, EARRINGS FROM LOUIS VUITTON, CAP FROM GAVIN RAJA
MILENA WEARS DRESS, BAG, SHOES AND HEAD BAND FROM SABYASACHI, SUNGLASSES FROM DOLCE AND GABBANA, FUR COLLAR FROM LOUIS VUITTON ANGELO WEARS SHIRT, WAISTCOAT AND PANTS FROM TARUN TAHILIANI, SUNGLASSES AND SHOES FROM LOUIS VUITTON
MILENA WEARS DRESS FROM ROBERTO CAVALLI, CUFFS AND RINGS FROM LOUIS VUITTON AND SUNGLASSES FROM VERSACE
MILENA WEARS DRESS FROM TARUN TAHILIANI, EARRINGS FROM VERSACE ANGELO WEARS SHIRT FROM PAUL SMITH AND WATCH FROM CARTIER
MILENA WEARS DRESS FROM GAURAV GUPTA ANGELO WEARS TOP, WAISTCOAT AND PANTS FROM TARUN TAHILIANI, HAT FROM DIOR HOMME, WATCH FROM TAG HEUER
ANGELO WEARS SHIRT AND WAISTCOAT FROM NARENDRA KUMAR, SUNGLASSES FROM LOUIS VUITTON
MILENA WEARS DRESS AND SHOES FROM GAURAV GUPTA
ANGELO WEARS SHIRT,JACKET AND PANTS FROM NARENDRA KUMAR MILENA WEARS DRESS AND SHOES FROM GAURAV GUPTA
PHOTOGRAPHER AGENCY: ONE LEAGUE ARTIST MANAGEMENT; MAKEUP AND HAIR: LINDA O’CONNELL FROM GLOSS ARTIST MANAGEMENT; MODELS: MILENA AND ANGELO FROM BOSS MODELS, CAPE TOWN
MILENA WEARS SABYASACHI ANGELO WEARS NARENDRA KUMAR, SUNGLASSES FROM LOUIS VUITTON
FOR SHOP LIST, SEE P. 100.
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e-retail therapy Visit these sites to round out your wardrobe. Experiment with the avant-garde, indulge your inner bohemian or simply go super luxe, all at the click of a button. RINYAOKHAN JA JO
1 freepeople.com An offshoot of the American brand Urban Outfitters, Freepeople caters to the free-spirited woman with a range of clothes and accessories including bags and jewellery, shoes and lingerie. Their products follow a decidedly feminine theme with a bohemian vibe. The site has a special section called ‘Vintage Loves,’ which offers vintage clothes from the 1900s through to the 1980s sorted into different categories like ‘Farmer’s Daughter’, ‘Sweet Victorian’ and ‘Back to the Garden’.
1
OUR PICK Mi Amore lace dress ( C13,877) 3, 77)
2 asos.com T This UK-based website is one of the most popular sites for fast fashion because of the variety of si products available. In addition to their in-house p brand, you can choose from hundreds of others, b ra ranging from high fashion to highstreet for both men and women. The website has a regularly m updated section that offers items at discounted u prices. They have a free worldwide delivery polip cy, irrespective of how much you order. cy OUR PICK O
Asos backpack with tech detail ( C1,274)
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NOVEMBER 2012
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3 solestruck.com The ultimate destination for those with a taste for something out of the ordinary when it comes to footwear, this site caters to both men and women and offers unique, avantgarde footwear from brands like Finsk and Jeffrey Campbell. You can find platform creepers, sculptural pieces and even six-inch heels and wedged soles for men. Their USP is the vast range of colours and variations in material. OUR PICK
4
The Damned—Colt Man ( C10,821)
5 net-a-porter.com
4 mrporter.com
A pioneer in the field of luxury online retail, Net-a-Porter offers a range of high-end and cutting-edge designer products for women. Through their tie-ups with designers and fashion houses, they offer an exhaustive range of products and resources in terms of videos, interviews and tips. Their USP is the availability of the latest looks straight off the runway and an unparalleled range of shoes and accessories, ranging from Louboutin heels to faux suede iPhone cases by Stella McCartney.
This is the definitive website when it comes to classic luxury for men with over 170 designer brands offering fashion and lifestyle products. You can find anything here, from tuxedos and pajamas to candles and notebooks. The site is laid out neatly with links to interesting interviews, photo shoots featuring regular men and a style help column. It throws up the best luxury classics finds for men and offers helpful advice on how to put them together.
OUR PICK Victoria Beckham’s Victoria leather tote
jacket ( C49,776)
OUR PICK Sandro’s Shearling-collar wool biker
( C2,54,997)
5
NOVEMBER 2012
CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 67
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6 americanapparel.com American Apparel has an ubiquitous presence through its bold advertising in popular blogs and magazines. This image is a just projection of the comprehensive range of products on offer for men, women, children and infants with the unapologetic use of bold colours, patterns and cheeky prints. Their USP is the refreshing re-interpretation of classic American sportswear like T-shirts, denims, sweaters, sweatshirts, etc. OUR PICK
Nylon spandex micro-mesh long-sleeve minidress ( C2,217)
7 18andeast.com
7
This UK-based site stocks vintage and vintage-inspired clothing for women. Comprising mostly shirts, tops and skirts, there is an abundance of prints, subdued solid colours and flowing silhouettes with a romantic and whimsical vibe. While some of the products declare that they are ‘Made in India’, the pieces to look for are the genuine vintage finds that are sure to be unique in addition to being surprisingly affordable. OUR PICK
Beaded flapper dress ( C7,644)
8 luisaviaroma.com This is the online offshoot of the Italian store, Luisaviaroma, based in Florence, which has been in business since the 1930s. The site offers the latest designer goods for men and women with a fresh and young selection of clothes and accessories. Through their tie-ups with luxury brands, they allow customers to pre-order runway looks, which means you can get hold of them before they hit the stores. They provide free worldwide shipping inclusive of import fees and VAT.
8
OUR PICK Giuseppe Zanotti suede sculpture
boot wedges ( C63,023) OR Missoni shiny suede and calfskin pumps ( C66,529)
9 oki-ni.com
9
Catering to men, oki-ni offers a compactt and well-curated range of edgy products and d oneoff designer collaborations. They host several everal established brands like COMME des GARARÇONS SHIRT, Maison Martin Margiela and A.P.C. apart from cult labels like Undercover cover and Thom Browne. They offer a young and nd vibrant range of products and update their eir collection regularly. OUR PICK Uniform Wares 300 Series 302/RG-01
Chronograph wristwatch ( C52,664)
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NOVEMBER 2012
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THE FABRIC OF FILMS ARJUN BHASIN, THE COSTUME DESIGNER FOR THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST AND LIFE OF PI, EXPLAINS HOW HE WEAVES DREAMS TOGETHER. BY ANJANA VASWANI
Kiefer Sutherland in The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
I FIND REFUGE FROM THE CHAOS OF MUMBAI in the pebbly compound of the apartment complex that costume designer Arjun Bhasin calls home. It is one of a series of residences he has occupied while shuttling between New York and Mumbai over the past 12 years. I make my way up a dark, narrow staircase, past metal-grille doors, garlanded images of Hindu deities and a muffled percussion of pots and pans. Bhasin’s wooden door swings open to what could well pass for a studio apartment in Greenwich, New York. Mango, an old, adopted stray, greets me at the door. Bhasin settles down across from me, at a rustic, sleeperwood dining table in the centre of the room and talks about growing up in Jamshedpur, attending boarding school at Sanar, between Chandigarh and Shimla, and then studying Film at New York University. “My mum wanted me to do architecture,” he says. His mother, Zareen Bhasin, played Silloo Screwvala in the 2008 film Little Zizou and, while cognisant of the uncertainties of a career in film, was fully supportive of her son’s career choices. Still, Bhasin did not find his calling easily. “I wanted to do something creative,” Bhasin recalls, “something in film ... but I knew it wasn’t film-making.” Film-analysis, however, proved captivating for a while. “I did a lot of theatre design in college,” he adds, recollecting how costume-designing necessitated thorough research of historical eras and really understanding who the characters were. Among menial tasks like winding clocks and shining shoes, while interning on the sets of David Salle’s film Search and Destroy (1995), he also got to work with costume designer Donna Zakowska. “That was it!” He snaps his fingers. “Instantly, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.” With his dark, glossy curls, ample stubble and slim frame, Bhasin looks far younger than his 38 years. He moves around the room, adjusting Maharashtrian saris that serve as drapes over windows wiped so clean, you can’t tell
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they’re fitted with glass panes at all. Mango demands his attention, and as he plays with her he tells us he has a minor in photography. Framed photos on one wall evidence this claim, though he’s quick to point out that only a few are his handiwork. A series of fashion-designing courses followed, and it all came together to help him be, what he describes as, “a cog in the wheel” of cinema. “What you see on screen,” he explains, “is a collaboration of many minds. Everyone who contributes to the story—by way of the lighting, the costumes, the music, and the characters, etc—all of their ideas mesh to make up that work.” He’d read both Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi before he signed up for those projects. Mira Nair had introduced him to Ang Lee some years ago, and when Bhasin heard that the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain director had taken on Life of Pi, he sent him an e-mail offering to work as
Arjun Bhasin at home in Mumbai.
NOVEMBER 2012
OPPOSITE BOTTOM PHOTO CREDIT: PRASAD NAIK
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Kate Hudson and Riz Ahmed in The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
Pi’s simple kurta-pyjama.
costume designer on the project. He was roped in immediately. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, on the other hand, materialised as a consequence of a long-standing work relationship with Mira Nair. “I’ve worked on five films with Mira,” Bhasin shares, listing Monsoon Wedding, Kamasutra and The Namesake as examples. The underlying connection between his works reveals itself in the immaculate, manicured look he created for Kiefer Sutherland who plays the opportunistic financier Jim Cross, the mentor and boss of The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s protagonist, Changez—“elegant to the point of harshness,” he calls it. It was the same sort of painful refinement that he lent to Hrithik Roshan, in the early scenes of the 2011 Hindi film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, in which he played a wealth-obsessed workaholic. In both cases, the stiffness of the look was meant to be reflective of an inflexible persona. The transformation in Hrithik’s wardrobe through the course of the film represented a freer spirit, someone who, I imagine, Bhasin would have a lot more in common with. By his own admission, Bhasin prefers to be “sloppy”. “I don’t like to map things. I hate the idea of things looking stiff and crisp. I like fabrics that crumple and crush. I’ve held on to old T-shirts for years as they’ve got a personality of their own. I love things I’ve grown old with.” Coming back to the films, he says, “When I read Life of Pi, I never really thought of it as an Indian novel,” he shares, clarifying instead that “it’s an emotional read, one that makes you feel and think, but not visualise images, the way a book typically does.” The script, on the other hand, painted a clear picture of each scene, one that then had to be supported by voluminous research on the Indian setting. “Ang
wanted each garment to reflect the ideologies behind things. The colours, the texture and movement of the fabric—it all had to feel right, brutal, wonderful and magical.” Lee, shares Bhasin, wouldn’t tell him what a garment should look like, but rather what emotional response it should elicit. There were also basic considerations. “Pi’s on a boat for so much of the movie, so his kurta-pyjama primarily needed to be simple, not overpowering,” Bhasin explains. There’s a 30-day gap in between two consecutive scenes in the film, and while this meant accounting for the breakdown in the fabric over that time, Bhasin also had another ambition. “I wanted the garment to be a part of his person. After all, this garment was all he had while adrift on that boat. It was called upon to perform many duties. He used it to shield himself, to dry himself, but it was also his companion.” Stressing the need for costumes to feel right for the actors as well, Bhasin shares that designing the wardrobe for The Reluctant Fundamentalist lead, Riz Ahmed, necessitated several trips to the drawing board. Bhasin quotes Ahmed as saying, “I know you’re trying to make me look hip because I’m the romantic lead, but I want to look less cool.” His wardrobe had to convey that Changez wasn’t dressing to impress people. The suits chosen for him ultimately, communicated that, for Changez, these were more of a uniform than a fashion statement. There was also the fact that actor Kate Hudson, who plays Changez’ girlfriend, Erica, had just delivered a baby. Her body was going through a lot of changes, and then there was the need to darken her signature blonde hair. “There’s something so iconic about Hudson’s golden hair, but she instantly becomes this hip, Brooklyn artist when it’s coloured brown.” Shopping, brainstorming, researching and designing for the films were just half the work. Bhasin made it a point to hang around during the shoots, especially whenever a wardrobe change was scheduled. “There’s this one moment when everything comes together—the cast, the characters, the set, the clothes—if you want to add something, or take something off, this is when it jumps out at you, this is the moment to do it.” None of his efforts may be obvious to the audience, Bhasin knows, but he’s confident the subliminal effect will be tremendous. That’s how it is with weaving: It takes refined skill to achieve that invisible interlace. C
“I WANTED THE GARMENT TO BE A PART OF HIS PERSON. AFTER ALL, THIS GARMENT WAS ALL HE HAD WHILE ADRIFT ON THAT BOAT. IT WAS CALLED UPON TO PERFORM MANY DUTIES. HE USED IT TO SHIELD HIMSELF, TO DRY HIMSELF, BUT IT WAS ALSO HIS COMPANION.” NOVEMBER 2012
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THE SARTORIAL JOURNEY OF THE MIND
for so much character-playing that, through generations, we have seen women projected in various avatars—1920’s Flappers, 1950’s Stepford Wives, 1960’s Flower Power bohemians, 1990’s Grungesters and so much more. The most fascinating part about this fashion pigeon-holing is that each ‘fantasy’ eventually coincided and colluded with what women felt in their hearts and their minds and with how sociological ideas of social stature, political affiliations and sexual preferences were established into clothing trends that lasted about a decade each. The First World War rattled not only countries and continents, but shook the very foundation of gender roles. While men went to the trenches, women worked in factories. They cut their hair, swore like men and asserted their indepenBY BANDANA TEWARI, dence, including their sexual independence. The traditional FASHION FEATURES DIRECTOR, VOGUE codes of conduct were breaking down against the backdrop of a treacherous war where old rules did not (or could not) be applied. The 1920s is a fascinating era to examine within this premise. The character that best exemplified the spirit of the times was La Garçonne, the androgynous heroine of Victor Margueritte’s 1922 novel of the same name, who busied herself having FANTASY. REBELLION. SEX. Fashion’s preoccupation affairs ( just like men) and dressed in cloche with these three potent words, especially at the hats and dropped-waist dresses. She danced, beginning of the twentieth century, changed the smoked and even put on makeup in public. In America and the UK she was known as The way women looked at themselves in the mirror. Flapper, and in Paris she was La Garçonne. Interestingly, the Flapper was a woman whose sartorial code was the antithesis of the crinoline“FASHION EXISTS TO SATISFY that most difficult of causes, to wearing woman of the previous generation whose corsets make oneself a work of art. It is the mass unconscious dewere tied so tight that, if they didn’t occasionally bust their sire to shake off the ordinary. The means not only to find an ribs, they certainly induced the need for smelling salts to identity, but to escape one too,” said Cecil Beaton, a photogrevive their wearer from fainting spells. These ladies of leirapher, artist, terrible snob and fiery talent in the 1920s who sure were the women of the Belle Epoque, an era of excess, a was famous for documenting the lives of the ‘bright young time when crinolines and bouffants, ballroom dancing and things’ of that time. As a woman and fashion commentator, bourgeoisie haughtiness went hand in hand. The daunting I am always fascinated by the trajectory of female identity hour-glass figures that were sported by women of the Belle vis-à-vis her sartorial choices. If you can take your eyes off Epoque did not appeal to Paul Poiret, history’s first rebelthe hemlines, look beyond mere colours and cuts, the larger designer. “Decorated bundles … a pair of great semicircles picture tells a cunning tale of fashion and gender identity that looked as though they were towing a barge,” he snarled. being quite the lascivious bedfellows. This led to the exemplary contribution made by the talIn this tryst of mythical proportions, the element of ented Poiret who encouraged younger women to disregard fantasy has played cupid and catalyst. Fantasy is, after all, the sartorial dress codes of their turgid Victorian mamas, in the very DNA of fashion: a force for storytelling that prohelping them to loosen not only the drawstrings of their pels fashion forward. In fact, it is the quality of the fantasy clothes but the social mores of the times. His new fantasy that distinguishes a good designer from a great designer. involved the banishment of the starched, unforgiving hourSome of the best, most impactful designers in the world glass silhouette and the shift to a high-waist, fluid, youthful (Paul Poiret, John Galliano, Yves Saint Laurent, Coco Chaand slim one. Poiret planted the seed of rebellion against nel and Jean Paul Gaultier among many others) have been a puritanical, or worse, misogynistic, society. In Europe, the biggest fantasists. They created clothes that allowed 74 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
NOVEMBER 2012
RIGHT Fashion provides the means to escape one’s identity. BELOW RIGHT The Flapper was the anti-thesis of the crinoline-wearing woman of the previous generation. OPPSITE PAGE Paul Poiret banished the stark, unforgiving hourglass silhouette.
RIGHT BOTTOM: FOTOSEARCH / GETTY IMAGES
especially, it coincided with profound societal changes. This newfound self-worth exerted itself into bigger issues of emancipation and freedom, voting rights and gender equality. (It’s worthwhile to note here that decades later, in the hands of designers like Gianni Versace and Jean Paul Gaultier, the corset, the iconic symbol of oppression of women in the nineteenth century, metamorphosed into a tool of modern-day seduction. Who can forget Gaultier’s conical bustier that Madonna wore on her 1990 Blonde Ambition tour?) By the 1920s, social, political and sexual activism was in full swing: Jazz was the rage, imported from the brothels of the American South; women like Josephine Baker brought a blasé sexuality and love of sensual dance to the forefront; and everyone wanted to dance. Hemlines were raised and silhouettes loosened so that kicking one’s feet in the air was made easy. The last two centuries have seen phenomenal changes in the perception of femininity. The most significant being the appropriation of men’s clothes by women. Civil and religious law only a hundred years ago did not allow women to dress in men’s clothes. At the races, an arena of great pomp and pageantry, attended by the rich and mighty, Paul Poiret introduced the first pair of trousers to be flaunted by women in public. Of course, scandal ensued. In 1933, Marlene Dietrich shocked the citizens of Paris by posing in a man’s suit. Even during the Second World War, when women were working in factories or driving buses, trousers were a sign of loose behaviour. “Slack, we think is the word,” quipped Vogue. In the 1960s, when Yves Saint Laurent finally brought out a collection of trouser suits (the famous Le Smoking Jacket) for women in high fashion, the wearers were banned from entering ‘respectable’ restaurants. This constant chipping away of old norms of dressing
INTERESTINGLY, THE FLAPPER WAS A WOMAN WHOSE SARTORIAL CODE WAS THE ANTITHESIS OF THE CRINOLINE-WEARING WOMAN OF THE PREVIOUS GENERATION WHOSE CORSETS WERE TIED SO TIGHT THAT, IF THEY DIDN’T OCCASIONALLY BUST THEIR RIBS, THEY CERTAINLY INDUCED THE NEED FOR SMELLING SALTS TO REVIVE THEIR WEARER FROM FAINTING SPELLS. NOVEMBER 2012
found the biggest risk-taker in Coco Chanel. She observed how smart and utilitarian, for instance, her maids’ uniforms were and unabashedly appropriated the simple streamlined working woman’s clothes into her most iconic design—the Little Black Dress. With this philosophy of practicality, she ushered in an era where women worked in comfort, played sports and travelled outside their known environments. That was real emancipation. The benchmarks set in the 1920s and 1930s propelled future designers to chafe at restrictions and bring radical changes to the ways a woman was perceived by society and the roles she would embrace out of her own volition, and not by patriarchal coercion. Fashion’s fantasy has always been a volatile catalyst, igniting new ideas of expression and rejection alike. C CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 75
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Richard Bartholomew’s self-portrait with camera (1960).
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PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY THE ESTATE OF RICHARD BARTHOLOMEW, ALL RIGHT RESERVED. | NOVEMBER 2012
READ THE ART CRITIC IS A COMPILATION OF SELECTED WRITINGS FROM RICHARD BARTHOLOMEW’S VAST ARCHIVES AND PROVIDES AN INSIDER’S VIEW OF INDIA’S MODERN ART MOVEMENT.
T HE AR T C RI T IC AND
T H E P O L I T IC S OF MEMOR Y
BY ROSELYN D’MELLO
TOP RIGHT PT Reddy photographed asleep on a bed is testament to their camaraderie.
NOVEMBER 2012
ONE EVENING EARLIER THIS YEAR, my friend Pablo Bartholomew
suggested a celebratory dinner. It had been four years since my colleagues and I had come on board to help Pablo produce and publish The Art Critic, a seminal selection of his father’s, Richard Bartholomew, art writing. Between Rukminee, the book’s designer, Shweta Wahi, the image researcher, and I, the associate editor, there had been more than a few moments during that time when we’d slammed the phone down on a belligerent Pablo, threatened to never speak to him again or had enjoyable griping sessions in his absence. The reason we never acted on our irritation with Pablo was simply because by now, we had come to know his father intimately through his writing, and passionately felt that the bulk of his archive needed to be accessible to the larger art-reading public. We were all on the same page, and that mattered most. We had each spent about four years on this project, while Pablo had easily spent at least 15 years working with his father’s vast and complex archive of more than 17,000 photographs and art writings that totalled more than 300,000 words. A selection of Richard Bartholomew’s photographs was first shown in India at Delhi’s PHOTOINK Gallery (January–March 2009), giving the viewer a classical taste of not just technically accomplished, sophisticated compositions, but also a flavour of the country’s art scene from the 1950s to the 1970s: MF Husain is caught engrossed in a telephonic conversation, one hand holding the receiver, the other twirling a lock of his hair; an agitated FN Souza has been captured mid-sentence (1970–1971) in front of a canvas in his stark apartment in New York; Ram Kumar and Krishen Khanna are deep in conversation with the 1950s prime talent-spotter and gallery owner Virendra Kumar Jain; and there’s Jehangir Sabavala, paying attention to the extroverted Biren De, while SA Krishnan sits detached beside Sabavala, puffing on a cigarette. A Critic’s Eye: Photographs from the 50s, 60s & 70s, the exhibition and the photo-book published by Chatterjee & Lal, PHOTOINK and Sepia International (2009), gave to the Indian art world a sense that even something akin to a famCARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 79
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(PABLO) HAD SPENT 15 YEARS WORKING WITH HIS FATHER’S VAST AND COMPLEX ARCHIVE OF MORE THAN 17,000 PHOTOGRAPHS AND ART WRITINGS THAT TOTALLED MORE THAN 300,000 WORDS.
ily album could wholly communicate the ethos of an era of creativity so important that its influence continues to haunt us all. One could argue that The Art Critic, the selected art writings of Richard Bartholomew, is an extension of his photographs: intimate, revealing and filled with the insights of an insider; but they are all these and more. He was a poet, painter and photographer, but, above all else, he was an art critic who made a career out of reviewing provocatively every significant show from the 1950s to the early 1980s. Bartholomew was close to both the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG) and the Delhi Shilpi Chakra. Read in the historical context of a newly independent nation that was beginning to reestablish a scattered identity across a score of disciplines, The Art Critic is the family album you forgot existed or were convinced had been lost. To leaf through it now, decades later, is to be confronted with the most significant, landmark moments of the childhood and adolescence of modern Indian art. Richard Lawrence Bartholomew, born in the southeastern Burmese city of Dawei, escaped just ahead of the Japanese occupation of Burma (1942–1945). He arrived in Delhi around 1943, finished his schooling at Cambridge School and earned a Master’s in English Literature from St Stephen’s College in 1948. This is where he met Rati Batra, a refugee from Pakistan, who he would eventually marry in 1953. When he got into the art scene, the Bombay PAG had already been standing convention on its head since 1947. Among its stalwarts were FN Souza, and it included among its ‘Modernist’ activists artists such as Husain, Akbar Pad80 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
BELOW The Lalit Kala elections. BELOW LEFT Tyeb Mehta chats with Rati Bartholomew at his exhibition at the Shridharani Gallery. OPPOSITE PAGE MF Husain at the Shridharani Gallery.
amsee, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta and SH Raza. It had been preceded by, and then overshadowed, India’s first group of modern artists, the revisionist ‘formover-function’ Calcutta Group. The PAG’s plinth was the total rejection of the ideals of ‘the-past-is-the-future’ nationalist Bengal Revivalist Movement. In 1950, Bartholomew, who found himself in the same milieu as painters Biren De and Ram Kumar, attempted his first unofficial, and rather gushing, review. Years later, rummaging through his papers, he unearthed it and enclosed it in a letter to De. Dear Biren, I came across this “review” of your first one-man show while running through some old papers. It has something of the freshness of the days gone by. Very naïve, but perhaps we can see much of ourselves in it. Yours sincerely, Richard From 1951 to 1958, Bartholomew taught English at Delhi’s prestigious Modern School. Art critic Geeta Kapur was among his students, and printmaker Kanwal Krishna was a close friend and fellow teacher. Krishna’s classroom became a magnet for artists, an adda of sorts where artists of the day interacted with one another and hotly debated pressing aesthetic issues. After the end of his stint at Modern School, Bartholomew became a full-time art critic and assistant editor of Thought magazine. Henceforth, the initials RLB at the bottom of his weekly reviews became his signation, a critique institution. The Modernist movement in Indian art had begun to blossom with the presence of institutions like the Delhi Polytechnic, the All India Fine Arts & Crafts NOVEMBER 2012
Society, the Delhi Shilpi Chakra and the Shridharani Gallery. As artists like Souza, Husain, Khanna, De, Ram Kumar and Satish Gujral began making inroads into the Indian art world, critics like Richard Bartholomew and Keshav Malik in Delhi, and the Shantiniketan-based, Hungary-born Indologist Charles Louis Fabri, came into their best. For the artists of the day and the emerging generation, they functioned not only as witnesses to these new churnings but also as influencers and mentors who communicated directly with the artists, questioned their choices and often brought them down to earth. At the centre of the art scene was the government-run— but ostensibly autonomous—Lalit Kala Akademi (LKA), set up in 1954, which established the National Exhibition of Art a year later and the Triennale-India in 1968. Given the absence then of private galleries, the Akademi was possibly the only road to recognition for artists. But the LKA was government-run and bent to suit the power structure, and its practices, and its misguided ideals left much to be desired. For years, Richard Bartholomew took upon himself the responsibility to expose the Akademi’s malpractices and questionable standards concerning art. Today, Indian contemporary art has come into its own. Despite the post-art boom economy, the artists whose first and subsequent one-man shows Bartholomew keenly reviewed have become bestsellers whose works continue to break auction records: FN Souza, Tyeb Mehta, Biren De, Ram Kumar, Akbar Padamsee, SH Raza, Krishen Khanna, Sailoz Mookherjea, Bhupen Khakhar and Satish Gujral; sculptors like Ramkinkar Baij, Dhanraj Bhagat, Chintamoni Kar, Somnath Hore and Sankho Chaudhuri; graphic artists NOVEMBER 2012
such as Kanwal Krishna, Devayani Krishna, Krishna Reddy, Jagmohan Chopra and Jyoti Bhatt; and those photographers of rare renown, Raghu Rai and TS Satyan. Private galleries are flourishing, and they host, every other week, shows by both older and emerging artists. Curators outnumber critics, and the Modernist moment has given way to the Contemporary. Indian art has established itself, and after 64 years of independence, can be seen as a continuum, with the past, the present, and the possible future no longer a matter of mystique. Given this scenario, The Art Critic is a resoundingly significant artefact, and remains a dependable repository of information and analysis. What were initially written as reviews, published painstakingly the day after a show opened, have assumed the relevance of historical documents. While we were working on The Art Critic, more than a few stories of abiding interest floated to the surface. There’s one that hints to the undocumented fact about how, at a point in time, Delhi’s Nizamuddin and Jangpura areas were artists’ hubs. Rents were cheap. Artists like Husain moved from Mumbai into these neighbourhoods, often occupying barsatis (a small or one-room apartment on a terrace), and moved between each other’s houses unannounced. Bartholomew, who also lived in Jangpura with his theatre-activist wife Rati, used to feed many of these artists. Some stayed over, some sought shelter, though Bartholomew, like them, was never a man of means. But this camaraderie explains how he was able to photograph the Andhra-born artist Pakhal Tirumal (PT) Reddy (1915–1996)—who had organised the Amrita Sher-Gil-influenced ‘Bombay Contemporary India Artists,’ or ‘Young Turks’, in 1941, six years before the PAG— CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 81
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asleep on a bed; or of Biren De at ease outside his studio extension in Civil Lines in Old Delhi (1971); or of Husain’s stunning, contemplative silhouette (1958) three years after the government had awarded him the Padma Shri. Other snippets abound. On Husain’s decision to walk barefooted, Bartholomew had this to say in his 1965 review of Husain’s show at Shridharani Gallery (‘Rare Clarity and Power Part of Husain Make-Up’, Times of India): “Power, and movement, which itself is a sign of mystery; the clarity that comes between moments of tenderness and brilliant discovery; the quiet, soft spoken man who is tall and who stands on his own feet—Husain walks about bare-footed these days—the gentle and the patriarchal; all this is part of the Husain picture.” Or consider a review of Bhupen Khakhar (1934–2003) first solo show, of which Bartholomew wrote: It happened on a Wednesday evening. I saw first the photographers. There were painters—Jeram Patel with his Nikkormat and Husain with his Bolex motion picture camera on a tripod. The Government of India’s television team had stepped aside, perhaps to make way for the painter-cameramen. When called upon, they threw some light on the art and the artists, with occasional blasts of the sungun. The scene was Kunika-Chemould Art Centre where Bhupen Khakhar is holding his one-man show of paintings. The occasion was the Press Preview. The event a kind of happening. The author of the exhibition, Bhupen Khakhar, posed holding a mike before his own composition Old Man with a Transistor and Husain expended some footage on Jeram Patel seated before Khakhar’s painting called M.F. Husain Near a Tonga After Visiting the Darga, Nasreen Mohamedi and Geeta Kapur, painter and art critic respectively, were dressed in the costumes of a past generation. An hour before they were to crack the jokes—promise “on request” in the gulabi wedding style invitation card—these girls were shot (with the camera). So the facts of the situation got projected on the focal plane and negative material stored away the sentiments expressed. Buttons were pressed, shutters opened, and the cogs turned. (22 February 1970; The Times of India) Of all the photographs Bartholomew recorded that were taken by the “painter-cameramen”, the only one we have access to is the one by Bartholomew himself, of Khakhar holding a mike in front of his painting, Old Man with a Transistor. The other photographs elude us. As the date of the launch drew closer, Pablo started fidgeting with his newly acquired video camera. He had set up interviews with Raza, Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna, Satish Gujral and A. Ramachandran. He would return from each 82 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
interview superficially content but somewhat dissatisfied. When I asked him what was bothering him, he explained that the ephemeral quality of memory had revealed itself to him. There were too many gaps in the conversations that had transpired, too many anecdotes that had been lost because they slipped away into a state of forgetting. This was when I realised most poignantly that although much has been written on the history of modern Indian art and on the individual players who were instrumental in deciding the direction it has taken, it has mostly been told from a sterile, academic perspective, which isn’t particularly amenable to recording oral narratives and tends to neglect the power of digressions and the significances of sub-plots. Someone who can empathise with Pablo’s predicament is the art critic S Kalidas who has been working with his father’s, Jagadish Swaminathan, notes which were also his memoirs. (Jagdish Swaminathan [1928–1994], ‘Swami’, was a legendary painter, art critic and Leftwing firebrand.) “I’m working with memory at the moment and it’s not easy,” he prefaced at a discussion titled ‘Memory: Site for Creativity’ hosted by the Raza Foundation on 28 August at the India International Centre in New Delhi. Transits of a Wholetimer, Kalidas’s earnest and important attempt to present what he called “a wedge” from his father’s oeuvre, gives us a glimpse of the period from 1950 to 1969, when Swaminathan was building up, as a report says, a stock of “drawings, sketches, illustrations, photographs, paintings (including some prints of early works that have been difficult to source in the original), letters, catalogues and essays” and still discovering his artistic sensibilities. Kalidas’s exegesis that was recently presented at Gallery Espace, Delhi, offers us a dose of whatever it is that impelled Swami—from his Left disdain for material goodies, to his bluntness, to the ambitious and controversial publication in 1966 of the magazine Contra ’66 with Octavio Paz, then the Mexican ambassador to India. The Art Critic, which was funded entirely by Pablo with some support from the Raza Foundation, is, like Kalidas’s show, an attempt at retrieving and codifying a swath of art history that has been forgotten. As Pablo wrote in the book’s “Afterword”: Memory, collectively lost, can now be somewhat regained. This book needs to be out. To reshape some histories, to bring back the forgotten others, to reassess and alter the already hazily known, to redefine some standards of writing and our understanding, thoughts and feelings on an era now lost. More importantly, to allow this man to breathe his words and as a toast to all those who have passed on and to the ones surviving; friends who have been waiting and waiting for these words, maybe once again they will find the joy that described the youth of their lives. C NOVEMBER 2012
FEEL THIS TIME, THE PROVERBIAL ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM cannot be
ignored. It is large as life, and disquietingly lifelike, but it isn’t alive, literally or figuratively. Slumped over, it seems to have been caught off-balance, and because pachyderms are rarely caught off-balance unless they’re dead, you now realise that this is a poignant tribute. Like the Löwendenkmal, the monumental Lion of Lucerne (which Mark Twain called “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world”), this creature, too, is on the brink of death. Bharti Kher’s The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own (2006), a 1:1 “fibreglass-and-bindi replica plus imagining” of a dying elephant, sold for $1.5 million at Sotheby’s in 2010. This piece, she says, cradles many strands of her artistic practice; this is where they all come together. Kher uses a wide variety of animal motifs in her works—from the quotidian to the fantastical and mythical. The posture of the elephant shows a precise tipping over that she also captures ...
THE POWER OF A DOT
BHARTI KHER, INDIA’S HIGHESTAUCTIONED INSTALLATION ARTIST TO DATE, USES AS BOTH MOTIF AND MEDIUM IN HER GIANT WORKS ONE OF THE TINIEST OF TOOLS AVAILABLE TO HUMANS—THE BINDI BY JANICE PARIAT
FEEL
ABOVE The series Indra’s Net. ABOVE RIGHT Bharti Kher with The Great Chase in the foreground.
... in many other artworks—a tall pillar of bone china serving dishes topped by an amphora (The Mistress and the Master of Grand Ceremonies); an ornate wooden dressing table, which stands skewed because, for some reason, there’s a vanity box placed under one leg (Make Up [As You Go Along], 2010); a gorilla skeleton tipping backwards in a chair too small to accommodate a full-grown great ape in the flesh (Dead Ruler,
FOR KHER, THE PLACING OF THOUSANDS OF BINDIS ON A WORK TAKES ON THE NATURE OF A PERFORMANCE, AND MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT DOES, OR SHOULD.
HW; ANAY MANN
2008). In an interview for Galleryske, Bengaluru, Kher explains how everyone faces that one particular moment in a day when life threatens to throw you off-balance. In The Skin Speaks..., Kher’s use of the bindi transforms what can easily be seen as a vast, foundered, corporeal lump of meat into a creature ethereal and entirely too lovely to bear without heartbreak. “She [the elephant] becomes light,” Kher said during a talk at the Lalit Kala Akademi in Chandigarh in 2011, “as though she’s flying or being lifted.” On close inspection, the layer of white bindis covering the colossal installation appears to swim over and across the bulk, turning and swirling like a fingerprint, becoming, as Kher repeatedly affirms, a second skin. NOVEMBER 2012
Kher started working with bindis in the mid1990s, after noticing a woman in an Old Delhi market wearing a sperm-shaped bindi on her forehead. It struck her that the cardinal symbol of masculinity was being worn as a female decorative item. The use of the bindi in Indian art is neither new nor revelatory. In the 1970s, a growing interest in Tantric art prompted a cluster of artists, including KV Haridasan, Biren De, Ghulam Rasool Santosh, SH Raza and Pakhal Tirumal Reddy, to work into their paintings the ‘Bindu’. (The root word is Sanskrit for ‘dot’ or ‘point’, and originally conflated both female and male gametes, or ova and semen, with amrita, the nectar of immortality, which had its correlate in the Greek ambrosia). The main postcolonial artistic concern was how to represent with a single image a newly independent nation-state that was not only international in spirit but would proudly hark back to its unique territorial and cultural past. In the search of a visual language free from Western notions of design and perspective, the artists appropriated an abstract Tantric symbol to stand in for their perception of a truly ‘Indian’ modernism. Indian modern artists saw in Tantra the possibility of an Other that was, apparently, authentic, spiritual and universal. For Kher, of Indian origin but born and brought up in the UK, the bindi becomes her own material in a search, however subconsciously, for a language of her own that reflects her mixed background. In Hindu mythology, it represents the cosmic egg from which the universe is said to have been formed. It is also a “spaceless, timeless” point that CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 85
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is the source of all manifestation. For Raza, the Bindu was a mantra, a repetitive chant or prayer that gathered energy as it headed towards a crescendo. It was the seed, Raza said, the infinitesimal point in which all potential is compressed. It also alludes to Shiva’s third eye (the Tryambakam), which when opened is said to annihilate all evil and ignorance, and is also believed to function as the connection between the spiritual and material world. In many parts of Hindu India, a bindi on the forehead of a woman signifies that she is married, although lately it has morphed from a blood-red powder into a secular, plastic, adhesive-backed stick-on fashion accessory that is mass-produced and available in an array of designs and colours. For Kher, the placing of thousands of bindis on a work takes on the nature of a performance, and might or might not mean what you think it does, or should. “I think of a woman putting her bindi away at the end of the day, something she might do every day for years. And that bindi becomes the memory, or the residue, of that particular day,” says Kher.’ This remarkably poignant gesture is captured in Kher’s Make Up (As You Go Along), a wooden dressing table covered in swirling patterns of bindis. Kher’s bindis are markers of the passage of time, a theme that she returns to in various media. The Great Chase (2009–2010), a mechanical rocking horse with a unicorn in place of the friendly pony, is a metronome, constantly rocking
The book Bharti Kher, edited by Ziba Ardalan, is published by Parasol unit.
NOVEMBER 2012
GUILLAUME ZICCARELLI
ABOVE Make Up (As You Go Along).
in a room, serving as a reminder, a ‘clock’ for visitors in the gallery. While these interpretations might still seem to be well within the scope of the discourse surrounding bindis, Kher manages to endow the ready-mades with other more elusive functions. “They have become my material,” she says. “I am free to experiment with them, to make them into maps, the way the Earth looks from above, as bandages, skin, as text and code.” Make them into anything, in fact. The bindis work well as the epidermis on certain of her works; in An Absence of Assignable Cause (2007), for instance, she uses them to create startling capillary-level detail in an imagined heart of a whale, an installation the size of a small car. Close up, you can see veins, capillaries and blood. In other installations, the bindis function as bandages. In Contents (2010), a series of 21 vintage medical charts on birth deformities are pasted over with bindis in patterns that look like tiny firecracker explosions, but the text beneath is still legible. In her series titled Indra’s Net, mirrors set in what look like George II period frames are both granted personalities and held together by swirls of bindis. The title refers to an idea popular with the Huáyán Zōng (Flower Garland, or, in Sanskrit, Avatamsaka) school of Mahayana Buddhism —that of a mythical net strung in the heavens, stretching infinitely in all directions, interwoven with glistening jewels that reflect each other. It symbolizes a cosmos that depends on the interconnectedness of things, of mutual identity and intercausality. These mirrors too endlessly reflect the viewers and the rooms around them. In certain ways, Kher’s works, although usually multimedia, echo her formal training as a painter. Many of her bindi-based installations, with their riotous but unfailingly elegant Pointillist juxtapositions of colours and careful attention to form and structure, are just paintings by another name. In fact, she admits that using bindis as dots of paint has helped her become both an abstract and figurative artist at the same time. Part of her installation Somantic Cell Nuclear Transfer (2008) comprises a pentaptych of large panels together making a vivid symphony of seablue hues; her focus here is on texture and colour. The bindi, for all its everyday mundaneness, has endowed her art with crucial character, serving to question, construct meaning, and also lift it, like it does the elephant, swirling over her work in playful, whimsical abandon. C
SEE
wear (to) work Explore the work places of 10 Delhi-based professionals— designers, musicians and artists—for a peek into what inspires them, their work and their wardrobe. PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHOVAN GANDHI WRIT TEN AND PRODUCED BY RIN YAOKH AN JA JO
My friend Alka Pande gifted this artwork to me. I think it’s stunning, so I have it displayed on the table.
PERNIA QURESHI FASHION DESIGNER AND ENTREPRENEUR OFFICE/STUDIO: Defence Colony, New Delhi I picked up this mirror from Dubai.
“I like wearing clothes that are comfortable and easy. When I have to go out for a meeting I wear a pair of heels and dress up a bit. I sell clothes that I like personally on the site, so I wear them a lot. Today I’m wearing a Nimisha Shah top and skirt.”
JJ Valaya took this picture of me for his book.
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NOVEMBER 2012
SEE SHIVAN BHATIYA & NARRESH KUKREJA FASHION DESIGNERS STUDIO: Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi
(Narresh) The black monochromatic accessories are classic statements that work with almost all kinds of looks.
(Shivan) Quirky objects like the round sunglasses, the crystal vials along with classic stationery best represent the mental space I inhabit.
“Dressing for work is an amalgamation of comfort and style for us. Style meditates directly on the comfort that it brings with itself.” The book Resort Fashion gives an insight into the brand’s vision for resort lifestyles for India.
This iPad case is from our Cruise Resort ‘12/13 collection— EQUUS— which takes inspiration from the anatomy of horses.
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My father-in-law did this painting. I like the beautiful colours in it, and it goes with everything else in the studio.
SAMIRA GUPTA CO-FOUNDER OF THE DESIGN FIRM STUDIO EKSAAT STUDIO: Chittaranjan Park, New Delhi
“Our studio is on the ground floor while we live on the second floor. I always dress up to go to work even though I’m only walking down a few flights of stairs. I dress according to the season and always with comfort in mind. I do miss wearing heels to work though.”
This is a hand-painted tin board I picked up from a flea market in Italy. It used to be on my bathroom door when I was single and lived alone.
We also make these cushions. Chotu, our cat, likes to lounge around in the studio.
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This is a book our studio made. It came out of my personal struggle with grocery shopping. It organises the household grocery and laundry list extensively.
NOVEMBER 2012
SEE This tin box is indispensible to me, given by a friend who got it from Kolkata.
ADIT YA PANDEY ARTIST STUDIO: Shahpur Jat, New Delhi
“I pick out whatever I find on top of the pile of clothes in my cupboard. Most of my clothes are casual and I stick to a few basics for going out.” This is my camera bag made by my friends who own a brand called Sotomoto.
NOVEMBER 2012
The ping-pong table screens off my studio from the outside when I’m working. Otherwise I play when I feel the need to unwind. Sometimes I may not work in the studio for months at a stretch, but I drop in just to play.
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SEE
“I wear comfortable clothes but never something boring. I wear a lot of my own designs to see how it feels. I also like to mix vintage clothes and flea-market finds with high-street and luxury pieces.” RUCHIKA SACHDEVA FASHION DESIGNER STUDIO: Hauz Khas Village, New Delhi
I keep different diaries to keep myself organised and prefer scribbling in them rather than on a computer.
I picked up these telephones from a flea market in London and we use them in the studio and store.
This old measuring tape is also a flea market find. I don’t actually use it but I like the workmanship involved and the detail like the leather casing.
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NOVEMBER 2012
SEE
My Fender guitars with this vintage tube amplifier, you don’t see much of them around these days.
JEET THAYIL POET, NOVELIST, MUSICIAN, LIBRET TIST STUDIO: Defence Colony, New Delhi
“I work at home, on my desk in the living room, so I jump right out of bed and start working in whatever I slept in, mostly shorts. Otherwise I like the 1970’s rock and roll style, which makes me look a bit dated sometimes. But I’d choose style over comfort.” I picked up one of the skulls from Zurich and the other one from Nepal. The instrument is called a melodica.
These sketches will no longer be around when I move out. This seascape is a reference to a song by Nirvana.
I bought the Souza on the left from a dealer in Bombay in 1992, and he threw in the other one for free. I don’t think I’d be able to afford these today.
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“Work-wear – I am most comfortable in jeans and a T-shirt with a pair of Vans. I like colourful T-shirts with interesting graphics printed on them.” SAHEJ BAKSHI MUSICIAN, PRODUCER STUDIO: Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi
I started playing the guitar at the age of nine. I picked up this Fender Telecaster from a pawnshop in Los Angeles. It’s a 1952 re-issue, handmade and almost as old as me.
I like colourful plastic watches and have a few that match my shoes. I’m so glad Vans opened a store in Delhi, though I probably have about 10 pairs already.
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I always carry this diary along with me to put down concepts and philosophical ideas or just ramblings.
NOVEMBER 2012
SEE
SAPNA KUMAR AND MICHELLE ENTREPRENEURS, CO-OWNERS OF THE ZOO WORK PLACE: The Zoo, The Garden of Five Senses, Said-ul-ajab
(Sapna) This diary is a gift from a friend from France who makes them. (Michelle) Sapna’s husband is a movie buff and we screen movies at The Zoo – a lot of cult films, James Bond, Wong Kar Wai, etc.
“We’re at The Zoo at least five days a week. We’re mostly in jeans and T-shirts, though on big nights we dress up with a bit of make-up and high-heels.”
NOVEMBER 2012
(Sapna) There are some children’s apps on the iPad that my two-yearold son loves. I let him play as a treat once in a while.
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EAT
MEGU: A Culinary Blessing
THE FIRST TIME I visited MEGU at the gilt-edged and crystal-
laden Leela Palace in Chanakyapuri in February, I was struck by how serene, clean and ordered the restaurant’s interior seemed in contrast to the opulence of the chambers I’d come through. Walls with brick-like, lacquered Shoji screening stretched neatly towards the ceiling, upturned sake bowls of black-and-red ushered calm through each room, and low-lit alcoves led the way to several dining sections with origami, kimonos and a great crystal Buddha as backdrops. The soft sounds of ambient lounge music helped break the ice in what was obviously set to be a supremely luxe dining affair. In the central room, adorned with a Japanese Bon-sho (temple bell) looming over a Crystal Buddha, the so-called chef’s table gave us a picture view of the pristine kitchen 96 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
Another world-famous restaurant makes its way from Manhattan to New Delhi, claiming not to bend to the stubborn indian palate. Megu, Delhi, serves authentic Japanese in imaginative ways. BY GOVIND DHAR
of Chef Yutaka Saito, who has 30 years of experience in preparing traditional and modern Japanese food. The waiters nipped about efficiently in their starched uniforms and the well-informed restaurant manager, Rajat Kalia, was on hand, keen to impart the wise ways of the famed Manhattan original. MEGU prides itself on taking authentic Japanese ingredients and serving them up in imaginative ways that appeal to the jet-set foodie. An air of formality presided over the restaurant, seemingly thanks to its atypical cuisine and expensive menu. However, moments into my third tasting course, a corner table erupted with whisky-fuelled guffawing and salutary bellowing. As a perfect reminder of where we were, MEGU would, for all its fine-dining rectitude, have to contend with customers who are equally at home in Manhattan’s finest and in Pandara Road’s oldest restauNOVEMBER 2012
EAT
LEFT Chef Yutaka Saito and restaurant manager Rajat Kalia. OPPOSITE PAGE A Japanese temple bell looms over a crystal Buddha in the central room.
“IF IT’S TAKEN THE CHEF A LONG TIME TO CREATE SOMETHING AUTHENTICALLY JAPANESE ONLY FOR THE CUSTOMER TO ADD MIRCH (CHILLI) AND SAUCE TO IT, YOU’RE NOT EATING JAPANESE FOOD.” rants. On this, my second outing to the eatery, I wondered whether their menu and fine-dining atmosphere might have suffered at the cost of keeping well-heeled Delhiwallahs (or any other wallahs) happy. “When we devised the menu for India, we selected dishes from the original MEGU New York that would appeal to an international clientele. We didn’t look at dishes that were specific only to Indians in that respect, even with our vegetarian options,” says Rajat Kalia, restaurant manager at MEGU, New Delhi. “Restaurants that come in from abroad do have to start tailoring to the Indian palate,” says Marryam H. Reshii, renowned food critic for The Times of India. “If they do so from day one, so much the better. Later on, it’s seen as a cop-out.” Chef Saito and Kalia seem to have borne some of these principles in mind when it came to tailoring a menu for New Delhi. With their recruitment of Sous Chef Achal Aggarwal (the former chef at Wasabi by Morimoto), MEGU has capitalised on chef Saito’s experience of having worked at Muryowan, a vegetarian Japanese restaurant in Tokyo, three years previously to create a chunky portion of the menu for vegetarians. Kalia calls their food ‘modern Japanese’ suggesting that the vegetarian options rely heavily on authentic Japanese ingredients and chef Saito’s traditional techniques of preparation. Reshii approves of their vegetarian philosophy saying, “The vegetarian dishes at MEGU have been created with a keen understanding of Japanese NOVEMBER 2012
cuisine and the Indian customer’s habits, so if you approach it with that sensitivity I don’t see a problem. But if it’s taken the chef a long time to create something authentically Japanese only for the customer to add mirch (chilli) and sauce to it, you’re not eating Japanese food.” And that seems to be the catch with fine dining in India. Some of the best chefs or restaurants to come in from abroad have being criticised for pandering to local tastes at the cost of authentic ingredients or techniques, or, for simply not getting the menu mix right, restaurants including Le Cirque, Wasabi and Hakkasan have received inconsistent reviews from clientele and critics. Thankfully, seven months into their stride, the food and the service at MEGU are as exacting as when it first opened; merry clientele notwithstanding, the food doesn’t seem to have suffered from any heavyhandedness in flavouring, nor does the random fusion dish feel out of place on the resolutely cosmopolitan menu. For starters, I had the signature flash-fried asparagus in hand-milled rice crackers drenched in lemon juice, which was crunchy and moreish. A second winner is the restaurant’s well-known Kanzuri shrimp. Perfectly crisp, crunchy and bereft of excess oil as generally found in battered foods, the morsels quickly disappeared with no small thanks to the tangy Kanzuri sauce. I was then treated to one of the best salads I’ve ever eaten—the MEGU Oriental Salad, which felt almost like eating cold, glassy leaves bathed in a tangy and refreshing citrus dressing. Continuing with my tasting menu, I made short work of the succulent Silver Cod with Yuzu Miso, which flaked beautifully in the mouth, Tuna Soy Akami with Black Truffle, and Spicy Baked Unagi (smoked freshwater eel). MEGU’s fastidious preparation and lightness of touch is visually accentuated by the manner in which the combinations arrive at the table. Kalia reminds me that MEGU is as keen on preparing a feast for the eyes as the stomach. With the way in which dishes CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING | 97
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like the sublime Wagyu Carpaccio with micro basil, Shira Ae (spinach salad, tofu and slices of butternut squash in sesame sauce and chilli oil) and melt-in-the-mouth Kagero Wagyu Steak arrive at the table on their design-respective plates, it’s difficult not to be taken in by their presentational charm. MEGU has over 130 individually designed platters on which to serve its dishes, so that, visually, each dish is a sight to behold. In fact, MEGU takes plating up so seriously that even its custom Nikko Fine Bone China show plates come with almost comical descriptions of how they use the finest mouse-whisker brushes to paint their intricate patterns. If you have room for dessert, the Yuzu Crème Brûlée with Sake-scented Strawberries and Matcha Ice Cream with the interplay of orange notes, sake and cream with a crispy caramel shell is recommended. Overall, the dishes are designed to impress with interaction or table-side prepara98 | CARAVAN STYLE & LIVING
tion adding to the playfulness of the display, but once a month, the show at MEGU belongs entirely to the food. Despite how truly spectacular the grub at MEGU is, one of the consistent charges levelled at the modern Japanese eatery is that its prices are too high. On average, a good meal with enough sake to express a modicum of good manners is likely to set diners back a cool Rs 3,500 per head, if not more. Kalia assures me this is because so many ingredients have to be imported from Japan and MEGU doesn’t cut corners. For instance, twice a week, MEGU receives fresh fish from the famed Tsukiji Osakana Shijō (fish market) in Tokyo and sources its greens and vegetables from Thailand. Its prime beef is also from Japan. The proof, of course, is in the pudding, and there was plenty here to justify a heavy price tag. I ask Chef Saito what his biggest challenges in preparing Japanese food in India are. First he says, is the number of requests for modification he receives from guests coming to the restaurant. Kalia quickly points out that he recommends dishes on the menu close to what guests will want rather than entertain any modification. Second, Saito says, is the challenge of procuring the right ingredients. I ask him for an example, and the veteran chef looks pained by the prospect of having to use a variety of asparagus that is slightly thinner than that used at MEGU, New York. If this is the level of the man’s punctiliousness, I think, ABOVE MEGU takes long may he reign. From the selection plating up very seriously. of food I was served at the restaurant, TOP The interior of the attention to detail, balance of flaMEGU, New Delhi. vour and freshness are immediately evident. The challenges for MEGU will be for it to keep up its high standards of procuring the freshest ingredients, ensuring that they avoid overt modification and complacency in execution—two major pitfalls of foreign culinary art in India—and staying true to their modern Japanese ethos. Only time will tell if MEGU’s intentions can be sustained. But before the restaurant has to face that test, I would recommend a visit. MEGU is worth every rupee spent, because while they’ve been careful to tailor a menu that Indians can dive into, or at least dip a toe into, the execution and resulting experience packs enough of a punch to make good on its ambitions. C NOVEMBER 2012
EXIT
KALLOL DUTTA’S STUBBORN DISTINCTIVENESS IS HELPING HIM FIND HIS PLACE IN INDIAN AND INTERNATIONAL FASHION. BY SURABHI CHAUHAN
Kallol Datta, easy-going and low-key, is wearing a robe-like kurta and black trousers that enhance his signature long, open hair, chipped-black nail polish and heavily kohled eyes when I meet him before the grand finale at the Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) Winter/ Festive 2012. “I am quite nervous for the show,” he says calmly, nursing a fever he caught in Mumbai. Lakme’s unusual decision to have a young, decidedly offbeat, designer close the LFW is, in a way, path-breaking: last season, it was the well-established Rohit Bal. But Kallol’s work is so distinctive—he has long been thought of as fairly iconoclastic in Kolkata, a city of iconoclastic designers—that it shot him into the limelight. His garments flatter a range of body shapes and sizes; they are, prima facie, simple designs, and yet their complicated construction renders them inimitable. Kallol’s forte is pattern-making and off-key prints of cockroaches, spermatozoa, spoons and forks and dress forms. Quotidian prettiness doesn’t interest him. “I don’t do weaves, don’t do colours, only shapes,” he says.
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QUOTIDIAN PRETTINESS DOESN’T INTEREST HIM. “I DON’T DO WEAVES, DON’T DO COLOURS, ONLY SHAPES,” HE SAYS.
ARRANGED MARRIAGE (SHOPLIST) Refer p. 50. WHERE TO BUY: CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN, DELHI, DLF EMPORIO, 011-4101 7111 CARTIER, MUMBAI, ROSE WATCH BAR, 022-2362 0275; DELHI, JOHNSON WATCH COMPANY, 011-4151 3121; BENGALURU, RODEO DRIVE, 080-41248471 DIOR HOMME, DELHI, DLF EMPORIO, 01146005900 DOLCE AND GABBANA (dolcegabbana.com) GAVIN RAJAH (www.gavinrajah.com) GAURAV GUPTA, ENSEMBLE, MUMBAI, 02222872882; DELHI, DLF EMPORIO, 011-4104989 HUGO BOSS (hugoboss.com) LOUIS VUITTON, MUMBAI, 022-66644134; DELHI, 011-46690000 JEAN PAUL GAULTIER (jeanpaulgaultier.com) JIMMY CHOO, MUMBAI, 022-30277070; DELHI, DLF EMPORIO, 011-46609096 NARENDRA KUMAR, MUMBAI, 022-6522 4842 ROBERTO CAVALLI, LONDON, 0444-20-78231879; PARIS, 0033-1-56883770 (www.robertocavalli.com) PAUL SMITH, DELHI, DLF EMPORIO, 011-46040744; BENGALURU, UB CITY, 080-4173 8883 PAUL AND JOE (wwwpaulandjo.com) SABYASACHI, MUMBAI, 022-22623335; KOLKATA, 033-40648239 SONIA RYKIEL, PARIS, 0033-1-44398000 TARUN TAHILIANI, MUMBAI, 022-22870896; DELHI, 011-41553238 TAG HEUER, MUMBAI, ROSE WATCH BAR, 0222362 0275; DELHI, JOHNSON WATCH COMPANY, 011-4151 3121 VERSACE, MUMBAI, GALLERIA, 022-30277040
NOVEMBER 2012
UMESH BAJAJ
A METHOD INIMITABLE
Kallol studied at the best fashion schools: the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in Kolkata (2001–2004) and Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design (CSM) in London (2004–2006). He was determined not to let his peers and faculty change his way of thinking and working. “My professors at NIFT had told me to add colours, do embroideries and ‘show India’ if I wanted to get into CSM.” But Kallol instinctively sent drawings from a kids-wear project that was in black-and-white. “They were sketches of obese kids who wanted to commit suicide because their parents [were] in jail.” It got him into the CSM, where he proceeded to make full use of the creative freedom the school gave him to enhance his confidence and sensibilities and hone his skills. Unlike the vast majority of Indian designers, Kallol looks obstinately different and translates his strong-willed personality onto designs that attract an eclectic, and yet niche, audience. Artists, singers and actors wear his designs, but when I ask him who he wants to see wearing his clothes, he says, “I love it when corporate women pick up my clothes. It says they have a sense of humour to wear some of my prints, and it gives me a kick.” The “Kallol Datta 1955” prints (named for his mother’s year of birth) get him into hot water sometimes. “Some controversial prints, like cigarette prints, don’t do so well,” he says. “I was living like a university student all over again that season. I continue to do such collections, as having credibility is important.” But it was this very distinctiveness that had the Bacardi-owned Grey Goose inviting him this July to the Harrington Street Arts Centre in Kolkata to curate his own art. The event was named “Kallol Culture”, and The Telegraph called it “a theatre of installations”. It was art that ranged from The Infestation Installation, a room strewn with fat, black polythene garbage bags infested with faux cockroaches to a white top garment designed to resemble a straitjacket, with a block print on its chest and the emphatic legend, “This is not a garment,” mounted on the wall. Such creativity is lauded in the West: Kallol was invited to participate in the Berlin Fashion Week last season. He was met with surprise from Berlin’s fashionable crowd who had no inkling that designers like him— monochromatic and “ethno-grunge”, as he terms his oeuvre—existed in the land of rioting colours and intricate embroideries. For a designer who is bemused by glitz, glamour and ‘celebritydom’, Kolkata is the perfect city to call home. “It suits me very well. I’m super lazy, so it allows me to go into my space.” C
(REGISTERED) RNI DELENG/2008/27062/08 DL(C)-14/1296/2012-14/ KA/BGGPO/2568/12-14 Posted at BGGO on 1st, 5th & 10th of every month KL/EKM/727/12-14/MR/TECH/47/6/2012/118