2018-02 Sydney (2)

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EDITORIAL

Grains of salt

PUBLISHER Pawan Luthra EDITOR Rajni Anand Luthra

BY RAJNI ANAND LUTHRA

ASSISTANT EDITOR Harshad Pandharipande MELBOURNE COORDINATOR Preeti Jabbal CONTRIBUTORS Radhika Bhatia, Jyoti Shankar, Amit Dasgupta, Amulya Ganguli, Mohan Dhall, Mayabhushan Nagvenkar, Kishori Sud, Hamsa Venkat, Deepa Gopinath, Sandip Hor, Auntyji ADVERTISING MANAGER Vivek Trivedi 0410 578 146 ADVERTISING ASSISTANT Charuta Joshi 02 9279 2004 Indian Link is a fortnightly newspaper published in English. No material, including advertisements designed by Indian Link, may be reproduced in part or in whole without the written consent of the editor. Opinions carried in Indian Link are those of the writers and not necessarily endorsed by Indian Link. All correspondence should be addressed to:

INDIAN LINK MEDIA GROUP Level 24/44 Market St, Sydney 2000 GPO Box 108, Sydney 2001 Ph: 02 9279-2004 Fax: 02 9279-2005 Email: info@indianlink.com.au COVER IMAGE: Ekansh Sydney University Indian Cultural Society

I

t may have only been the seventh week of the new year, but the US has seen its seventh school shooting.

That’s one incident per week, so far.

In the latest attack in Parklands in Florida, 17 people - mostly students - lost their lives.

In a country with a population of about 300 million, there are almost 300 million firearms. And these mind you, are not single shot weapons but handguns and semiautomatic weapons. The AR-15 rifle used by the Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz uses bullets which can not only penetrate the human body but tear it apart like a grenade would.

The world watches - in disbelief as the US shows no rush to change its archaic gun laws, and in awe as its youngest citizens take up the cudgels in the fight against gun violence.

Teenaged Parklands survivor Emma Gonzalez touched a chord with her inspiring anger as she called “BS” to the adults whose responsibility it is to see that she goes to school safely. Her speech - filled with tears of pain and grief and rage - will probably go down as a historic moment in

the fight for gun control. In fact, she left little doubt of her resolve as she vowed to put her school in the history books as the last school to suffer the horror of mass shootings.

Fellow students from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida have spoken up with just as much passion at Call to Action Against Gun Violence rallies. Together, they have inspired students across the country’s schools to walk out in solidarity, and to head to Washington on 24 March in what they’re calling March for our Lives.

Even the kids in America realise that it is legislation that is the ultimate answer, regardless of what the gun lobby has been saying for decades.

Australia is a wonderful example of this, as Emma pointed out in her fiery protest speech.

The swift and decisive government action following the horror of Port Arthur 1996 - when gunman Martin Bryant killed 35 people with his semi-automatic - is reprised often in the narrative on gun violence. Within two weeks of the incident, Prime Minister John Howard had secured the support of all states in Australia in banning semi-automatic weapons and handguns. In the last 20-plus years, it is believed that just over a third of the country’s semi-automatic weapons, about a million, have been sold back to the government and destroyed. Not only

have mass shootings been prevented, but homicides and suicides have also reportedly come down.

Meanwhile, in the United States, mass shootings continue to take precious lives with increasing regularity.

When indeed, as a Gosford priest asked in a billboard to world acclaim, will they love their kids more than their guns?

History tells us that momentous social change comes about when common people, disillusioned with the system, take it upon themselves to be the change they want to see.

Such as when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white person in segregated USA. Such as when one British woman allowed into the House of Commons, instead of going to the Ladies Gallery as expected, ran onto the floor of the chamber as a suffragette.

Such as when a frail old man in India picked up a grain of salt to break the Salt Laws, and inspired a nation to disobey peacefully and bring a colonial empire to its knees.

Even those as powerless as a grain of salt can make a difference, Gandhi said then.

Acts of defiance by common people mere grains of salt - who had had enough, have transformed societies.

Here’s hoping that the kids in America become the grains of salt their country clearly needs so desperately.

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CONTENTS SPECIAL FEATURES SPECIAL REPORT No entry: India to ABC Radio crew

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ART Exhibition by visual artists of Chinese and Indian heritage

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MARDI GRAS SPECIAL Gay activist and film director Sridhar Rangayan

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STAGE Dazzling debuts by Bharatanatyam dancers

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FOOD Celebrating the versatility of nectarines

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24

34

COVER STORY

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Tips for those starting Uni

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YOUR SAY

AUSTRALIA’S LIKELY FIRST HINDI NOVEL

INDIA SLAMS DOOR ON ABC RADIO CREW

HARSHAD PANDHARIPANDE reports on whether the Four Corners documentary on Adani led to the refusal of the visas. Read the article on pg 16 GDM wrote: I don’t know if anyone is aware, but for the last week or two, the government also seems to have gotten some ISPs to block ABC’s website (abc.net.au). When you try to access the website, you see a blank page with the text “The URL has been blocked as per the instructions of the Competent Government Authority/ in compliance to the orders of Court of Law.” This is definitely about Adani.

Akhil Jham wrote: If indeed the visa denial is because of the previous ABC story on Adani, it doesn’t show the Indian authorities in a good light. There are already instances when news reports against the high and mighty have been quietly withdrawn or taken down from news websites. There are many examples of liberal journalists being mercilessly trolled, or worse, threatened online. And on the other hand, there are many news channels that are allowed to push their hypernationalist and jingoist agenda and spew venom against dissenters. In such a scenario, the refusal of visa to the ABC crew deals a big blow to India’s global image, especially since it looks very much like the government was acting after being pressured by a corporation.

What’s worse is the silence of the Indian authorities on the issue. It looks a bit like admission of guilt to me. Another unfortunate thing is that this issue didn’t get the coverage it deserved in mainstream media in India. Just goes to show their hands are tied too.

A book written by WA resident Laxmi Tiwari was unveiled recently. PUNEET ANAND reported Varun wrote: She is my aunt and she is an amazing, lovely human being.

The novel is truly top notch and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read Hindi literature.

POROUS BORDERS

APARNA ANANTHUNI reported on last year’s Mapping Melbourne festival that allowed performers to present experimental work in intercultural fusion Chandra Kishore wrote: Indian/Aboriginal fusion will promote the Aboriginal music and arts. Go for it.

RESCUE ACT

WHERE IN INDIA?

We reported on how an Indian-American teacher saved students’ lives in the Florida shootout Aneeta Menon wrote: This isn’t what being a teacher ought to be about.

Shweta Singh wrote: Kudos to the lady

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Our photo on an iconic church got good responses Udaykumar Shanvi wrote: Most picturised in Bollywood movies near Sunset point in Shimla...

Ritu Sharma wrote: Ridge, Shimla Great guesses! It is Christ Church in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh.

I was about Xav’s age when I first visited the Taj Mahal almost 35 years ago... and it’s amazing to be back with him & the family Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

I genuinely believe that this is not just a purple patch for Kohli, this is genuine greatness Former India cricket captain Sourav Ganguly, on Virat Kohli’s form

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Top t i p f or ne s s tu d e w nt s

O L L E H Y A S E F I L I N U TO BY RADHIKA BHATIA

A

s a current 5th year university student, I’d almost forgotten the complex jumble of emotions I’d felt on the lead up to my university’s orientation week. During the three-and-a-half-hour drive down to the Australian National University, where I had enrolled weeks earlier, I remember trying to supress bubbling apprehension over how little I knew about what was in store. After living thirteen years of my life on a dependable 8:20am-3:30pm timetable, at the same school and in the same city, I was jumping head first into completely unfamiliar territory.

Not all of you first year students will move to another city to attend university.

Some of you might be studying overseas and for some of you, university might be a mere train stop away from home. Either way, adjusting to university life can be a challenge and anything you may currently be feeling, from trepidation or fear to

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buzzing excitement, is completely valid!

Below are a few of the things that I would have found valuable to know at the start of my first year, and that I hope might help you adjust to the next 3-5 years!

Organise your timetable in a way that suits you

One of the greatest things about university is the lifestyle. Say goodbye to 7+ hour days, 5 days a week, and hello to minimal contact hours (depending on your degree) and a timetable of your own choosing!

Whilst lecture times are set in stone, you can often choose which days and times you would like to attend your tutorials.

After a few semesters of experimentation, I discovered that what works for me is having all my classes compiled into 2-3 days, freeing the rest of the week for studying or work. If going to university involves extensive travel, I’d recommend this course of action for you too.

Make sure you know how to get to your classes Practically speaking, your university is likely to have a larger campus than your school, with different buildings for different academic colleges. I’d

recommend downloading the ‘Lost on Campus’ app to help you get around and make it to classes on time.

Sign up to clubs and societies (but not too many)

As you’re probably aware, most universities have a multitude of eclectic clubs and societies for you to choose from. Societies are not only a great way to continue to develop a current hobby but also to find a completely new one. Sign up to something new and you may find that you have a hitherto undiscovered talent for Quidditch or competitive Frisbee. Just be sure not to overdo it on the society sign-ups, unless you want your inbox to be bombarded with emails about clubs you don’t even remember joining.

Find a cool place on campus to study

Your timetable may leave you with several hours to spend on campus between classes and what better way to spend that time than study? Check out all the different libraries, study halls and even outdoor benches to find the best study environment for you.

Alternatively, cafes can be great places

to sit and work if, like me, you prefer a more relaxed learning atmosphere. Once a friend and I spent the most productive four consecutive days of our lives at my favourite café, researching and writing our 3500-word International Relations essays.

When choosing your ideal study-café, be sure to look out for large tables so you can spread out your work, plenty of natural light so you don’t ruin your eyes, music you enjoy and kind owners that will allow you camp out for as long as you need.

Learning at university is different to school

Quick disclaimer: I am an Arts/Law student so I know little to nothing about how maths or science courses are run at university. The two pieces of wisdom I can offer first year STEM students have been borrowed from my STEM friends. 1.

Avoid statistics courses where possible and 2. Eat before university labs because they are very long.

In the humanities world, learning is divided into lectures and tutorials.

Lectures generally run for between one to three hours. Most lectures are not interactive, but rather consist of a professor spieling as much information as

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she or he possibly can in their allotted time. I recommend that you avoid trying to record everything they say in your notes because, at least in my experience, that is nearly impossible! Instead, focus on understanding the material and use your textbook to fill in your notes with the content you missed.

If the idea of a three-hour class overwhelms you than you are definitely in the majority! But don’t worry, lecturers are aware that three hours of intense concentration is a lot to ask, and often allow for short breaks in the middle of their class. Also, lectures are often recorded so you can watch them at your own pace and in your own time.

Quick tip: to save time, you can play your lecture at 1.5 speed or even double the speed and cut a three-hour long lecture down to an hour and a half!

Tutorials are more involved. They typically run for one hour and involve discussions about assigned readings (be prepared for both awkward silences and soapbox orating!) or working through problem questions. Participation is often compulsory so try to come prepared!

Make sure you stay on top of your coursework

With the excitement of escaping from the slightly overbearing nature of school life still fresh, it’s easy to forget the realities of being entirely accountable for your own learning. Although there are no immediate repercussions for falling behind on your coursework, try and keep up to date. Learning an entire university course in the week before your exams may be possible for you, but it’s never a fun or healthy experience!

It’s also important to remember that you can ask for help when you need it.

Don’t be afraid to email or organise a meeting with your university tutors and lecturers to discuss any questions you may have. I’d also recommend befriending a senior student who may be able to pass along some helpful advice!

1 University is a big change from high school Learning at the tertiary level is self-driven and open to whatever approach works best for you; just remember to maintain those time-management skills from high school!

2 Dive into everything O-week has to offer O-week is the place to be for first years. You’ll have no trouble meeting all kinds of people and forging lasting friendships by signing up to the kaleidoscope of clubs, societies and events that are on offer (not to mention all the freebies and discounts that inevitability go hand in hand with large gatherings at any university).

3 Study abroad! Don’t hesitate if you come across the opportunity to go on exchange. A two-week vacation can’t compare to the depth of experience you get living in another country. For me, six months in London included making amazing friends from Japan to Norway, visiting eight countries across Europe and embracing a truly independent lifestyle.

SUDARSHAN ARVIND 3rd Year, Bachelor of Biomedicine, University

More than anything, don’t try and fit what everyone else is doing. Everyone’s experience of university is different. Make your own experience, but the only way you can really do that is by getting involved at uni. It’s easy to fall into a trap of uni being the same as studying all day every day. The memories, experience and knowledge you actually gain, generally occurs outside the classroom. Get involved with whatever you’re vaguely interested in and see where it takes you.

For me, the Law Society gave a world of new opportunities; the UN Society let me travel to conferences at an Asia-Pacific level where I met and learned from delegates from across the globe. That’s not to say that these experiences should interest you, but more to say that without getting involved, a lot of doors open for me now would never have even been visible in the first place.

KHUSHAAL VYAS Arts/Law UNSW, 5th Year

My advice is to jump in right from Day 1 of O-Week. Sign up for the campus tours and go to course events even if they seem like they might be boring because you are likely to meet some amazing people who you will remain friends with for your whole degree!

Additionally, sign up to all the clubs and societies that appeal to you; most are either free or have a nominal fee to join.

Finally, try your best to keep up with course content on a weekly basis. It’s hard during certain weeks when you’re bogged down with assessments and midsemester exams but at the end of semester you will be so thankful for the couple of hours taken to do this!

And as a side note, your first days, weeks and months at university are usually a completely novel and incredible experience. But, it is very different from anything you’ve done before and if you find the new structure or environment a little foreign at first, don’t stress too much; it will slowly grow on you and you will eventually settle in and LOVE it!

SIMREN SAMRAI Commerce/Arts USyd, 4th Year

Meet new people

Try to make new friends at university.

This may sound incredibly obvious and may even be inevitable for those of you who are going to university away from home. However, if you are tempted to stick to your school friends, I advise you against it. One of the best things about university is the diverse range of people you will meet. Your peers will have come from all around Australia and the world and will bring with them interesting and unique ways of approaching life. At the risk of sounding clichéd, discussions with my university friends have definitely challenged and still constantly challenge the way I see and do things. Also, having friends from all around the world means I have places to stay when I go travelling!

Good luck with university, first years, I’m sure you’ll love it!

RADHIKA BHATIA is an Arts/Law student at ANU

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I would tell any incoming uni students to make the most of the social opportunities you’re offered: get involved in things that interest you and especially things that involve your classmates, and as long as you don’t overcommit you’ll find that being around more members of your cohort actually drags your marks up, not down JAMES WILSON Economics/Law USyd, 3rd Year

Take care of yourself, and ask for help when you need it. It’s the most common advice people give you throughout university, but it’s also the most important.

It can often feel like someone has handed you ten flame clubs to juggle, even though you’ve only ever learned how to manage two tennis balls at once (and you weren’t very good at that either).

That’s when you need to step back and focus on yourself for a while. If you’re sick, don’t pressure yourself to get better overnight.

Give yourself time and ask for help from your lecturers, tutors and peers. There is no shame in asking for help. University is about you, learn as much as you can, and have fun along the way.

SAHIBNOOR SINGH Bachelor of Science (Microbiology) USyd, 3rd Year

University can be really daunting because it requires independence and a strong work ethic. It’s important to take time out and reflect on progress and achievements. These small affirmations can make all the difference, giving you the confidence and motivation you need to succeed.

ANISHA GUNAWARDHANA Economics/Law USyd, 3rd Year

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MELBOURNE WORLD’S MOST LIVEABLE CITY

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SPECIAL REPORT Amruta Slee and Phillip Adams

India slams door on ABC Radio Did the Adani story on Four Corners have anything to do with the refusal of visa?

BY HARSHAD PANDHARIPANDE

T

he Indian government’s recent refusal to grant visas to a team of journalists from ABC Radio is being seen as a blow to the freedom of press in the world’s largest democracy.

Senior radio presenter Phillip Adams, who has hosted Late Night Live (LNL)

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for decades, and Indian-born journalist Amruta Slee were among the journalists who were denied entry into India for a week-long trip. The journalists say they had been planning the trip for over a year. No reason for the visa refusal was provided – although Indian authorities are not bound to provide one.

The Adani link?

There has been, however, strong speculation that the visa refusal is a fallout from a report by ABC’s Four Corners program on the Adani Group’s alleged environmental and corporate malfeasance.

The Four Corners team had travelled to India in October 2017, and had claimed that ‘while attempting to film and gather information about Adani’s operations, (the team) had their cameras shut down, their footage deleted and were questioned for hours by police. The team were left in no doubt that their investigations into the Indian company triggered the police action.’

The Adani Group is a corporate colossus in India and it’s no secret that its head, Gautam Adani, is on very friendly terms with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Slee - a producer at Late Night Live and the one who set up the India trip, the interviews and applied for the visas - suggested the Adani link in an article titled “‘It’s About Adani’: Did India deny me a journalist’s visa because of a story?” days after the visas were refused. A cryptic explanation then came by way of a tweet by the Indian Consulate in Sydney. “Delay in issuing visas to ABC news team has nothing to do with the issues mentioned in this article. ABC news journalists voilated (sic) Indian visa rules recently by engaging in activities which were not declared at the time of applying their

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I’ve been going to India for 50 years, always shown great private and professional courtesy… until now. The curse of Adani? Tweet by @PhillipAdams_1 visas,” it said. Replying to the tweet, Slee asked for elaboration. “Dear CGI please explain who violated what and how this contradicts what I wrote?” she said. She got no a response.

Likewise, the Consulate did not respond to Indian Link’s emails, phone calls or text messages seeking comment and elaboration. A request for comment to the Indian High Commission in Canberra was also diverted to the Consulate General of Sydney.

The silence of the Indian authorities on the issue raises further questions of whether there is more to the refusal of the visas than meets the eye.

Outrage on social media

Of course, the ABC team, smarting from the snub, took to social media to express its displeasure. Adams was the most vocal with a series of tweets. Here are a few: • After a year’s planning & months seeking visas LNL was blocked from entering India... no reasons given, just obsfucation. (might it have something to do with 4C’s Adani report?) Now my proposed guests are telling Indian media.. this is a grim portent for all ABC journalists.

• Let me repeat... I’ve been going to India for 50 years - this would have been my fifth visit... wrote an admiring book on the country 20 years ago (A Billion Voices)... always shown great private and professional courtesy... until now... The curse of Adani?

• Despite high level diplomatic support here and in Delhi LNL’s visit to a friendly democracy was sabotaged... a pointless effort by the Modi Govt as LNL will interview many of the distinguished guests we planned to meet... starting this week • 20 ys ago LNL spent weeks in India talking to everyone from ‘untouchables’ to the Dalit President-given unrestricted access and shown every personal and professional courtesy we made many programs-and I wrote a book called A Billion Voices. But this time?

How it all unfolded

In an interview with Indian Link, Slee detailed the sequence of events. “We initially went in to apply for visas in late October but were told by VFS Global, an agency that manages administrative and non-judgmental tasks related to visa, passport, identity management and other citizen services, that it was better to come back as late as January because the clock would start ticking the minute we got them - we were worried about leaving it that late so we went back to submit our applications on 21 December. Our flights were booked for 1 Feb,” she said.

Here’s an extract from her article about what happened next: “We waited. And waited. Jokes were made about bureaucracy.

“I called the Sydney visa office to check where they were up to and found their helpline was outsourced to somewhere in India and no-one there had a clue about

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what was happening back here. More jokes.

Then anxiety crept in.

“I called DFAT, who had given us the grant, to ask if they knew what the hold-up was. I called friends who were old India hands, people who worked at embassies, journalists who might have a contact. I sent countless emails, I called Julie Bishop’s office, I called Delhi.

“Reassurances flowed - this was “always the way”, the consulate “often waits until the last moment.” But that last moment was a fortnight away, a week away. Then, with days to go, a highly placed government source admitted there was a problem: “It’s about the Adani story.””

This was an obvious reference to the Four Corners investigation into the Adani Group. But the point is, this ABC team hadn’t even planned to do a story on Adani. Slee said emphatically, “We were not going to cover Adani.”

She added that the purpose of the trip was to look at the country from a variety of standpoints. “My idea for the trip was that western media continues to represent India one-dimensionally. I wanted to talk to people about the challenges the country faces politically societally, environmentally.

We were going to speak to a wide cross section of prominent people - journalists, architects, ecologists, satirists, artists to give listeners a deeper insight into a country I think most Australians have little insight into.”

Slee says the team supplied a list of stories and guests in our visa documents as requested. “We were travelling on a grant from DFAT’s Australia India Council so I had already done an extensive program breakdown which had been forwarded and approved by DFAT here to the embassy in Delhi.”

Slee claims she was not asked to sign any agreement. “48 hours from when we were due to leave, I was asked to re-submit a list of stories and guests to DFAT and to the Australian ambassador (to India) Ms Harinder Sidhu - I did that.”

At that point, says Slee, she was asked

by DFAT if someone could accompany us on our stories. There was no suggestion this was a visa requirement, and it was not formerly brought up by anyone at the embasssies, consulate or visa offices who she had spoken to.

“I do accept that some countries insist on officials being in on interview processes. India is a secular democracy and as such has a commitment to free press,” she says.

“Some 24 hours before we were due to get on a flight, we were advised to postpone our flights. When we asked for how long there was no response. When

my EP (executive producer) Gail Boserio managed to get a number for the consulate she was told the person in charge was in a meeting and would get back to us. We’ve never heard from the consulate.”

More questions than answers

The silence from the Indian authorities is deafening. At a time when dissenting journalistic voices within India have been trolled and even threatened into submission, the refusal of visas to the ABC team lends further credence to the theory that censorship is rising in mainstream Indian media. This also reflected in the latest World Press Freedom Index 2017 in which India slipped three places to the 136th rank out of 180 countries.

If indeed there were visa rules violations by the Four Corners team last year, an official explanation would have ensured that all speculation was scotched.

As things stand now, India’s response, or lack of it, raises more questions than answers.

No wonder then that it has come under criticism. Ramachandra Guha, a well-regarded political commentator in India, wrote a scathing piece about it in Hindustan Times. “Why was Phillip Adams not allowed by our Government to visit India? He is not a drug smuggler, terrorist, or tax evader; on the other hand, he is a venerated public figure in a country that is a democracy like ours, a country with which we have close ties,” he wrote, adding that a senior ABC producer told him it ‘does seem like payback for the Four Corners program last year on Adani and Australia.’

On Adams’ Twitter feed as well, discontent was apparent. Andrew Garton, a Twitter user from Australia, added to the debate with this: “I was recently in India, a guest of the Oz High Comm, to launch my film at the Chennal Intl Film Fest. A film about internet impact in India. Was warned by a regulator that my film must not critique govt. Even local journos sensitive to issues raised during interviews.”

And Anubhav Bhargava, a Twitter user from India, wrote in, saying: “As a citizen of the world’s largest democracy, I regret my government’s denial of visa to you and your team sir. We are sorry. And I hope this mistake gets rectified immediately.”

Meanwhile, Guha summed up, “I hope the speculation (of payback for Adani) is untrue. For otherwise it would reflect very badly on the Ministry of External Affairs… In any case, it cannot be the job of our Government to carry on a vendetta on behalf of a private company.”

ABC news journalists voilated (sic) Indian visa rules recently by engaging in activities which were not declared at the time of applying their visas Tweet by @cgisydney

Gautam Adani

JOURNALIST VISA TO INDIA > Journalist visas are issued to professional journalists and photographers for a period of up to 3 months (single or double entry). > Details of places to be visited and the persons to be interviewed needed with the application > Processing time is an average of 5 working days for applications submitted in Sydney > The ABC crew submitted its application on 21 Dec 2017 and was planning to travel to India on 1 Feb 2018. The team wanted to talk to a variety of people about the challenges the country faces - politically societally and environmentally. It claims it did not intend to cover Adani

THE STORY SO FAR > In October last year, an ABC team travelled to India and made a documentary for the Four Corners program that charged the Adani Group with using illegal tax havens to minimise their tax liabilities in Australia, and with promoting environmentally hazardous projects > The ABC Radio team’s visa applications were not granted, and the producer claimed that a highly placed government source told her it was because of the Adani story > The Consulate General of India in Sydney denied this in a tweet: “Delay in issuing visas to ABC news team has nothing to do with the issues mentioned in this article.

ABC news journalists voilated (sic) Indian visa rules recently by engaging in activities which were not declared at the time of applying their visas” > Request for explanation elicited no response from CG Sydney

FEBRUARY (2) 2018 17

ART Anurendra Jegadeva’s Red Wedding

When art starts conversations Kevin Bathman’s exhibition Chindia explores issues of cultural identity and how these inform national identity

BY RAJNI ANAND LUTHRA

A

s a person of Chinese heritage, this time of the Lunar New Year is a special time for Kevin Bathman.

Yet, he will admit that growing up, he actually observed dates of significance from the Indian cultural calendar more frequently.

You see, Kevin also has Indian heritage.

With part Chinese and part Indian heritage, Malaysian-born Kevin Bathman is ‘Chindian’, and in Sydney at least, he is the best known person from the Chindian community.

His work in carefully documenting the stories of others like him of this very special joint ethnicity, an ongoing project that he calls The Chindian Diaries, is wellknown in the multicultural community, and has been reviewed many times in this very publication.

The online endeavour of The Chindian Diaries became an opportunity not only to meet others like himself from across the globe, but also to understand his own identity better.

The deeply personal stories that he gathered unearthed cultural clashes, struggles and misunderstandings, as his subjects learned to straddle two distinct identities. Yet bubbling over and above

18 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

these, themes shone through of enduring love and acceptance and peaceful coexistence.

“Of course, it was also a way of telling our own stories to help others in the mainstream understand us: to let them know who we are, how we think and operate,” Kevin told Indian Link.

“We don’t do this often enough, or well enough.”

The larger by-product for Kevin, was that it allowed for viewers to gain a sense of exploration within themselves, of their own cultural identity.

Expanding on this is Kevin’s latest exhibition Chindia, which brings together visual artists of Chinese and Indian heritage. The exhibition explores similar issues of cultural identity, but goes a step further in looking at ways in which these issues inform national identity.

Chindia, held at the Gaffa Gallery in Sydney’s CBD, is part of the Sydney Chinese New Year Festival 2018. The project is supported by the City of Sydney.

It all started for Kevin when he was picked to design one of the lunar animals for this year’s celebration. (The Tiger that sits on Pier 6 currently, is designed by him.) He used the funding that he received late last year from the City of Sydney to devise the exhibition, and it was accepted as part of the Lunar New Year festival.

Amongst the artists in the exhibition is Anindita Banerjee, whose video Fade is based on an alpona (floor decoration or rangoli) from her native Bengal. Anindita

Kevin Bathman

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Texta Queen’s Roots

filmed herself creating an alpona pattern, but with water, and on hot concrete, so that it vanished within a few minutes.

The ephemeral piece is a statement about cultural otherness: the cultural other’s voice must remain in constant dialogue if it has to have lasting impact, or it will die away.

Artist Texta Queen (who creates portraits with felt tip markers), views her identity as defined - and empowered equally by both her native Indian culture and that of her adopted home Australia.

In Roots, she depicts herself astride an elephant trunk that morphs out of a tree trunk, the roots of which caught her attention as she completed a residency on Tappan land.

For Anurendra Jegadeva, former journalist and writer, art has now become the medium to make comments on current affairs, through the use of stories, histories and legends. In Red Wedding, Anurendra explores recent Chinese incursions into the South China Sea and the Malaysian government’s muted objections to their presence. In his newer portraits, Anurendra uses parchment paper from a vintage London magazine, describing life in the colonies of Australia, as a canvas on which to make comments about contemporary Australian life.

The works in Chindia, as Texta Queen concludes, are a continuation of dialogues that hyphenated Australians are having in their lives already.

Along the sidelines of the exhibition, the artists in Chindia also got an opportunity to share their own family stories as well as inspirations and motivations with the general public. In another segment, Stories from the Diaspora, six short films were screened based on the lived experiences from the diaspora communities in Jamaica, Singapore, Malaysia and Samoa.

It is quite clear that to Kevin, showcasing artists that use their craft to enrich cultural identity, promotes shared values and empowers communities.

Thus the arts are not only a self-affirming activity that helps us to understand – and challenge – our cultural life, they also allow us to reveal and enhance our ‘sameness’ and thus promote tolerance.

“Perhaps we don’t exploit nearly enough, the socially relevant role that the arts play in our lives,” says Kevin. “In my work as a creative professional, whether in exhibiting my own work, curating the

Anindita Banerjee’s Fade

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In Red Wedding, Anurendra explores recent Chinese incursions into the South China Sea and the Malaysian government’s muted objections works of others, providing platforms for others, or putting festivals together, the end goal is always social change.”

Even in his day job in multicultural health, this multifaceted person is constantly looking for ways to incorporate art. His award-winning work with the Pink Sari breast cancer awareness campaign is but one example: one project brought the breast screen message to the South Asian community through a photographic exhibition of survivors, and another project used a song-writing competition towards the same end.

“Art is a wonderful tool to start conversations,” he concludes.

There is no doubt that thanks to Chindia, this Lunar New Year will become a particularly memorable one for Kevin Bathman.

FEBRUARY (2) 2018 19

WHAT’S ON ARTS Parramasala 9-11 March A free, public celebration of the diverse and rich cultures in Sydney, the multicultural arts festival Parramasala will offer entertainment, food, markets and music from over 40 different cultures in a positive, diverse and friendly atmosphere. Details www. parramasala.com FILM Queer Screen: Mardi Gras Film Festival Sun 25 Feb (7.30pm) Evening Shadows (Hindi film with English subtitles) at Event Cinemas, George Street, Sydney. Directed by Sridhar Rangayan and starring Mona Ambegaonkar, Ananth Mahadevan, Devansh Doshi and Arpit Chaudhary.

Details www.queercreen.org.au or www. trikone.org.au COMMUNITY Women’s Day celebrations Sat 17 March (10:30am-3:00pm) International Women’s Day 2018 celebrations hosted by UIA Women’s Steering Committee. Haveli Function Centre, 57-59 Main Street, Blacktown.

Details 0450 450 191 THEATRE Kaifi Aur Main Fri 9 March (7:30pm-9:30pm) Written

by Javed Akhtar. Starring Shabana Azmi and Javed Akhtar. Kaifi Azmi’s ghazals and film songs performed by Jaswinder singh (with live orchestra).

Director Ramesh Talwar. Sir John Clancy Auditorium, 9 High Street, Kensington.

Details 0425 204 364 FUNDRAISER Royal high tea for Breast Cancer awareness Sun 25 Feb (1.00pm-5.00pm) RJ Events and Design presents a Royal High Tea fundraising for the National Breast Cancer Foundation. The event features information sessions and survivor experiences, as well as exclusive high tea indulgence, entertainment, raffle draws, giveaways. Details Loreen Lal 0432 440 889.

VALENTINE’S DAY Valentines - Love Continues Sat 24 Feb (7:30pm-12:30am) Hosted

by Aus-Indo Cultural Group Inc. Net proceeds will go towards Lifeline Fiji Project. Rooty Hill RSL 55 Sherbrooke Street. Details 02 9677 4916

FESTIVAL Cumberland Festival of Colours Sat 3 March (12.00 noon onwards) Hindu Council of Australia, supported by Cumberland Council, celebrates Holi the festival of colours at Civic Park, Targo Rd, Pendle Hill. Free event featuring cultural presentations and festival shopping opportunities along with variety of food stalls. Details Vikrant Pahuja 0402 676 548.

Holi Festival of Colours Sat 24 Feb (12 noon- 7.00pm) CIA and The Ponds and Kellyville Ridge Community Association present Holi, a free event featuring Holi colours, food, stalls, music and entertainment. Plaza Park, Pebble Cres, The Ponds. Details Praful Desai 0411 964 506 .

Holifest (Festival of Colours) Sun 25 Feb (11am-4pm) Apart from colours, this multicultural festival will also feature live on stage performances, food stalls, children’s fun rides and entertainment activities, non-stop music and heaps of entertainment. Castle Hill Showground, Doran Dr, Castle Hill.

Details 1300 338 368 Rockdale colour festival Sat 3 March 11:00am to Sun 4 March 9:00pm Rockdale Bicentennial Park, West Botany St, Rockdale. Details kameroevents.com.au Holi Mela Parramatta Sun 4 March (11:00am-5:00pm) Between Wilde Avenue and Queen Street, Parramatta. Details Anuj Kulshretra 0426 155 227 Holi Mahotsav Sat 14 April 10:00am to Sun 15 April 7:00pm Tumbalong Park, Pier St, Sydney, Australia 2000. Details: www. holimahotsav.com.au ENTERTAINMENT Bappi Lahiri show Sat 10 March (7:30pm) Whitlam Centre, 90A Memorial Avenue, NSW. Details Rakesh 0411 621 371 Unity Bollywood Concert Sat 24 Feb (7:00pm-11:00pm) An impressive line-up of performers will inaugurate Bollywood Live-in-Concert.

Diamond Showroom, Blacktown Workers Club, 55 Campbell Street Blacktown.

Hosted by Fame Events. Details 0412 779 418.

To list your event email: media@indianlink.com.au Gujarati Comedy Factory Show Sun 25 Feb (6:00pm) Hosted by Star Alliance Entertainment. 42 Campbell St, Parramatta. Details 02 9191 9638 Tarang Sat 17 March and Sun 18 March (3:00pm onwards) On the occasion of Rhythm Dance Academy Sydney’s 9th annual day, experience various art, music and dance forms with three wellrenowned overseas artists, 15 Sydneybased artists and RDA’s whole bunch of students in a two-day festival Tarang.

UNSW Science Theater Kensington, Sydney. Details harshudance@gmail.com Indian Standup Comedy Festival Sat 24 March (7:00pm) Featuring Mahdeep Singh, Manish Tyagi and Gaurav Gupta. 632 Old Northern Rd, Dural. Details gumberv@yahoo.com MUSIC Sufi Night Sat 3 March Humwatan presents Ustad Rafaqat Ali Khan. Parramatta RSL Club Cnr Of O’ Connell St & Macquarie St, Parramatta. Details 0433 433 455 Kannada Musical Melody Night Fri 16 March Multiple award winner Santhosh Venky, melody queen Nanditha and rapper Chandan Shetty to perform. 108 Silverwater Road, Crn Egerton Street. Silverwater.

Details 0401 432 282 SPIRITUAL Sri Ramakrishna’s birthday celebration Sun 25 Feb (From 10:30am, concluding with lunch) Spiritual music, silent meditation, Vedic chants, live music by India Jiva: Ron Ragel & Vicki Hansen, panel exploring interfaith relations with Rev. Bill Crews (Exodus Foundation), Ida Walker (Baha’i Community) & Pravrajika Gayatriprana.

Facilitated by Robert Grant. Vedanta Hall, 15 Liverpool Rd, Croydon.

Details 9745 4320 Ram Navami celebrations Sun 25 March (12:00pm) 25 Rose Crescent Regents Park NSW 2143.

Details 1300 524 724 or www.shirdisai.org.au Life enrichment program (Fortnightly) G.O.D. Australia Sydney Chapter invites school children to Gopakuteeram, A life enrichment

program imparting universal values through stories from Indian scriptures, slokas, bhajans, choir, games, drama, art festivals and more. These two-hour, fortnightly classes start from 4 February at 4.00 p.m. Namadwaar 44 Oakes Road Winston Hills. Details Jayashree 0420 522 629 The Journal of Dharma Studies http://www.springer.com/ philosophy/philosophical+traditions/ journal/42240 (previously, the International Journal of Dharma Studies) through Springer Publications, has been launched under the editorship of Rita D Sherma and Purushottama Bilimoria. Submissions and details ldunn@ses.gtu.edu Holika Dahan Thu 1 March (7:00pm-8:30pm) Shri Shiva Mandir, 201 Eagleview Road, Minto. Details Chetan Sharma 0415 809 963 Bhajan Kirtan Sat 3 March (6:00pm-7:15pm) Shri Shiva Mandir, 201 Eagleview Road, Minto.

Details Chetan Sharma 0415 809 963 TECH FOR KIDS Annual Code Challenge: Your school is invited!

DXC Technology Foundation announces its Annual Code Challenge using Scratch, a fun and free coding platform for beginners. Free event, open to all children aged 10-14, groups and schools welcome to join. All that is required is access to a computer, an internet connection and an imagination! Teams will have until April 27, 2018 to develop and submit an online project. Entries will be evaluated by our panel of judges for creativity, originality, technical merit and accuracy and good programming practices.

Details dxc.technology/dxccodes or email dxcgivesback@dxc.com MISC Domestic violence awareness program Sun 25 Feb (10.00am1.00pm) Indian Support Centre and CIA present a seminar on domestic violence, featuring information session, Q and A, victim and survivor experiences, contact resources, and oath to end DV. Venue Australis Institute of Technology Lvl 2, 25 George St Parramatta.

Details Jaspreet Chopra 0430 705 830

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20 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

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YOUTH

Fantastic plastic 15-year-old Angelina Arora wins top young innovators prize for her eco-friendly plastic developed from prawn shells

BY JYOTI SHANKAR

W

ould you say it is possible to make a pliable substance from the hard shells of prawns?

Plastic seems so essential to all aspects of our life today but its ubiquity has become the bugbear of every person concerned about its environmental impacts. Is it ever possible to find a replacement for plastic that is eco-friendly?

Fifteen-year-old Year 11 student of Sydney Girls High, Angelina Arora, has managed to do both of this. She will soon be on her way to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in the USA where over 1,800 high school students from 75 countries, regions and territories are given the opportunity to showcase their independent research.

This journey has been made possible as Angelina is one of six prestigious winners of the 2018 BHP Billiton Foundation Science and Engineering Awards. The awards are a partnership between the BHP Billiton Foundation, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and country-wide Science Teacher Associations (STA). Since 1981, these awards have been supporting pioneering research of young people in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects.

Other amazing winning inventions this year includes a bionic arm that can detect and disarm landmines without putting human lives at risk, a picnic rug that

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repels ants, a biochar product that can filter water and also be used as a fertiliser, a flood warning device and a robotic window cleaner.

Indian Link spoke to Angelina at the national camp of top 26 finalists of these awards where she participated in a series of lab and science activities and presented her project to judges. “I tested the strength, elongation, clarity, solubility, deconstruction and endurance of the plastic that I created from prawn shells and protein from the cocoons of silkworms, as well as other plastics made out of potato, corn and tapioca,” said Angelina, launching straight into the details of her creation. Angelina said that she was first made aware of the harmful effects of plastics when a shop attendant said that she had to pay for the plastic bag, which until then was given for free. The attendant explained that it was because plastic was bad for the environment and we need to reduce its use. This was trigger enough for Angelina’s questioning bent of mind.

She delved further into the extent of ill-effects of plastic and found that plastics have now found their way into the oceans and the creatures that live in water. As seafood consumers, humans are not far removed from ingesting plastics indirectly, she learnt.

Angelina wanted to find a sustainable alternative. With the support of her school teachers, a lot of experimenting - and patience! - Angelina was ready to present her findings.

The first part of her project was to examine different breeds of fish for micro-plastics, for toxics that leach from plastics into their flesh and enter the

human food chain. The second was to research options for bioplastics made from starches extracted from corn, potato and tapioca which would be environmentfriendly as they return to nature when they disintegrate. Current plastics made from petroleum products stay intact in nature for hundreds of years, even after they disintegrate.

Angelina’s initial experiments led to her picking up the first prize in chemistry in her age bracket at the STANSW Young Scientist Awards 2016. As a result, she was introduced to top scientists at CSIRO who are now mentoring her through her current project of turning discarded prawn shells into bio-plastic. The spur for this idea was a visit to her local fish and chip shop and the sight of discarded piles of crab and prawn shells, smelly and destined for the bin. Surely there had to be a better, more sustainable way of disposing them, thought Angelina. So she took some of this waste to her school lab and began experimenting.

“Prawn shells consist of a hard yet flexible protein called chitosan. I combined this with fibroin, another sticky protein extracted from the silk of silkworms.

This shrimp plastic was sturdier than the corn-starch bioplastic I made from plant sources. It does not disintegrate in water.

And when it finally disintegrates, it doesn’t leave harmful substances in nature. In fact, it can act as a fertiliser for plants,” explains this young scientist. “Right now, I have got offers for developing this product commercially for packaging products.”

Angelina has, in fact, been declared the winner of the Innovator to Market award for the 2018 BHP Billiton Foundation Science and Engineering Awards and this

will make her research a practical reality.

She hopes this new plastic could replace plastic shopping bags and other packaging to reduce the environmental impact on landfills and oceans.

Angelina acknowledges that she couldn’t have done this all alone. “I am lucky to have people in the CSIRO and Sydney University, my parents and school science teachers to guide me,” she says. Time management seems easy for this young lady who balances inventing, school work, swimming, cricket, playing the clarinet and piano, public speaking, dance, drama and volunteering.

Angelina says she hopes to be a role model for other young girls considering a career in science. “I am not sure if I want to be a doctor or an environmental engineer yet. All I know for now is that I would like to help people and nature,” she says, revealing the mind of a confused teenager, just this one time.

PLASTIC 2.0 • Prawn shells consist of a hard yet flexible protein called chitosan.

Angelina combined this with fibroin, another sticky protein extracted from the silk of silkworms • It is sturdier than the corn-starch bioplastic Angelina made from plant sources. It does not disintegrate in water.

• When it finally disintegrates, it doesn’t leave harmful substances in nature. In fact, it can act as a fertiliser for plants • Angelina has had offers for developing this product commercially for packaging products

FEBRUARY (2) 2018 21

INDIAN NEWS Kolkata’s iconic Howrah Bridge marked its 75th birthday this month.

Photo: http://famousplacesinindia.in

Management Act) guideline.

Bank of Baroda also alleged in its complaint that “most of the transactions of Rotomac are with limited number of buyers, sister companies and sellers and no genuine business transactions were carried out,” according to another CBI official who did not want to be named.

Coming close on the heels of the Rs 11,300 crore Punjab National Bank’s fraud, the Rotomac case that surfaced had fanned speculations that Kothari too, might try and flee the country. However, the CBI could reach Kanpur and question the three accused.

‘Each year, 600,000 newborns die within 28 days of birth in India’

PNB fraud: CBI arrests five staffers of Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi

The CBI on 20 February arrested five employees of diamond merchants Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi in the Rs 11,300 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud.

Those arrested include three employees of the Nirav Modi group of companies and two of the Choksi-owned Gitanjali group.

Nirav Modi’s Firestar International firm’s President Vipul Ambani, its Senior Executive Arjun Patil, and Executive Assistant and authorised signatory of the diamond merchant’s three accused firms, Kavita Mankikar, were arrested after daylong questioning.

Chief Managing Officer (CFO) of Gitanjali group, Kapil Khandelwal, and its Manager Niten Shahi were also held.

The arrests were made in two cases registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on 14 and 15 February against Nirav Modi and the Gitanjali group of firms respectively.

The CBI had earlier arrested five PNB officials and one authorised signatory of Nirav Modi.

Meanwhile, the CBI on 19 Feb sealed the Brady House Branch of the Punjab National Bank as multiple probe agencies continued with their probe into the Rs 11,515 crore fraud, according to officials.

The Central Bureau of Investigation pasted an official notice outside the branch in Fort - the bank’s flagship lending window in Mumbai and its second largest national outlet.

All have been barred from opening or entering inside this branch without prior permission of the CBI or the CBI Special Court or the CBI Competent Authority.

The central agency also questioned 10 Punjab National Bank (PNB) officials, including an Executive Director, and 18 employees of Nirav Modi and the Gitanjali group.

A CBI team also conducted raids at diamantaire Nirav Modi’s Alibaug farmhouse near Mumbai which has a palatial bungalow, an official said.

22 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

The CBI also questioned 10 employees of Gitanjali group firms - Gitanjali Gems Ltd, Gili India Ltd, and Nakshatra Brands Ltd. Gitanjali group and its India-based 18 subsidiaries are headed by Mehul C. Choksi.

The central agency is also said to have seized some significant documents from the Navi Mumbai, Andheri and Dombivli residences of three PNB officials arrested on 19 Feb. The CBI had raided these places on 19 Feb after the arrest of Brady House branch’s Chief Manager Bechu B Tewari and two colleagues Yashwant Joshi, Scale II Manager (Forex Department), and Praful Sawant, Scale I officer (Export) after daylong questioning.

While the CBI is scrutinising the details of LoUs and FLCs submitted by the PNB, the bank’s head office too has scrutinised the documents and submitted a report to the CBI. An LoU is a guarantee by the bank that should the borrower default on repayment, it would pay back the money to the original lender.

An FLC is a sort of guarantee to a third part or vendor that money for the goods supplied would be paid.

The scam surfaced when officials of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi groups approached the PNB’s Brady House Branch in January to seek LoU for making payments to suppliers.

Shetty had retired last May and the new PNB officials demanded margin money to issue the LoUs. However, they were told by Nirav Modi group officials that they had been getting such a facility for years without any margin money. Once the PNB officials checked, the whole fraud unravelled.

Rotomac took Rs 2,919 cr loan for wheat export but failed to execute business: CBI

Rotomac Global Private Limited cheated a consortium of banks to the tune of Rs 3,695 crore (including interest) by siphoning off loans sanctioned to the company for procurement of wheat and other goods for export.

No export was undertaken, though, according to officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) who referred to details given in the Bank of Baroda complaint.

The central agency filed an FIR on 18 Feb in the case after getting a complaint against the Rotomac Pen company’s chief Vikram Kothari, his wife Sadhana and son Rahul.

The complaint said that the consortium of seven banks had extended credits to the Kanpur-based firm and its related companies from 2008.

Kothari is the Chairman and Managing Director of Rotomac while his wife and son are directors of the company.

Kothari had obtained Rs 2,919 crore from the consortium of seven banks - Bank of India (Rs 754.77 crore), Bank of Baroda (Rs 456.63 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs 771.07 crore), Union Bank of India (Rs 458.95 crore), Allahabad Bank (Rs 330.68 crore), Bank of Maharashtra (Rs 49.82 crore) and Oriental Bank of Commerce (Rs 97.47 crore), the FIR by the CBI said.

CBI Spokesperson Abhishek Dayal, quoting the Bank of Baroda complaint, said, “Rotomac cheated the consortium of banks by siphoning off bank loans.”

Interestingly, the official said Rotomac was working for interest rate differential in local and foreign currency. “A number of front and fictitious companies were formed to carry out illegal activities by Rotomac which submitted forged documents to obtain the money from the banks,” Dayal said.

The official said the credit disbursed and sanctioned to the company was utilised for the purposes other than executing export orders.

“For example, credit sanctioned for export order received from Singapore for supply of wheat was diverted to a Singapore-based firm Bargadia Brothers Pvt Ltd but the money was later remitted back to Rotomac,” he said.

“In other cases, the money disbursed by bank for procurement of goods and some other export materials was not utilised for this purpose and no export order was executed by the Rotomac.”

The official said “this misappropriation of funds” violated the FEMA (Foreign Exchange

A quarter of global neonatal deaths happen in India where nearly 600,000 newborns die within 28 days of their birth every year, according to a new UNICEF study.

The study, which found the number of newborn deaths in India was one of the highest in the world, says the causes of such deaths are preventable and treatable as 80 per cent of these fatalities happen for no serious reason.

On a brighter side, the study says, India has remarkably reduced the under-five mortality.

“Though infant mortality in the country has declined considerably, the number of newborns dying each year remains unacceptably high. India, with nearly 600,000 newborn deaths each year, accounts for a quarter of the global burden of neonatal deaths,” said UNICEF in its global report on neonatal mortality “Every Child Alive” released on 20 Feb. Of the 184 countries, which the report covers, India’s 31 rank with 25.4 neonatal mortality rate (per 1,000 live births) kept the world’s seventh largest economy below 153 countries who have better survival rates for their newborns.

A year earlier, India was the 28th worst country among 184 nations in terms of neonatal mortality.

The first 28 days of life - the neonatal period - are the most vulnerable time for a child’s survival. Children face the highest risk of dying in their first month of life, at a global rate of 19 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Globally, 2.6 million children died in the first month of life in 2016, most of which occurred in the first week, with about one million dying on the first day and close to one million dying within the next six days.

“Among those children, more than 80 per cent died from preventable and treatable causes such as premature birth, complications during delivery, and infections like sepsis and pneumonia,” says the UN children’s agency.

Affordable and quality healthcare solutions should be there for every mother and newborn. It includes steady supply of clean water and electricity at health facilities, presence of a skilled health attendant during birth, disinfecting the umbilical cord, breastfeeding within the first hour after birth and skin-to-skin contact between the mother and child, it said.

“India is currently off-track to meet the SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) target for neonatal mortality of 12 by 2030,” said the report. However, the country has made

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Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, and children, Xavier, 10, Ella-Grace, 9, meet movie star Shah Rukh Khan in Mumbai on 20 Feb. Photo: AP impressive progress in reduction of underfive mortality and with the current rate of decline “is on track to meet the SDG target for the under-five mortality of 25 per 1000 live births by 2030.”

India registered a reduction of 66 per cent in under-five deaths during 1990 to 2015, nearly meeting its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target. In comparison, the decline in under-five mortality for the world was 55 per cent.

The recent progress is even better, with 120,000 fewer deaths in 2016 as compared to 2015. The number of annual under-five deaths in India has gone below one million for the first time in 2016, said the agency.

On the policy front, introduction of conditional cash transfers, provision of free transport services - 102 and 108 - and making free healthcare an entitlement for every women and infant have led to doubling of institutional deliveries from 39 per cent in 2005 to 79 per cent in 2016.

However, the progress has been inequitable for girls, with under-five mortality rate for girls being at 41 per 1,000 as against 37 per 1000 for boys. India is the only big country in the world to have a higher mortality for girls as compared to boys, it said and added girls are biologically stronger but socially vulnerable in India.

IT exports growth likely to be 7-9% in 2018-19: Nasscom

India’s IT exports are expected to grow at 7-9 per cent to be at $135-$137 billion in 2018-19, the industry outlook by the National Association of Software & Services Companies (Nasscom) said on 20 Feb. The IT exports during the current financial year are projected to be $126 billion, a growth of 7-8 per cent over the previous year.

The domestic revenues, excluding hardware, are expected to grow by 10-12 per cent to be at $28-29 billion in the next financial year against $26 billion likely in FY2018.

During 2018-19, the industry is expected to add 100,000 new jobs, the same numbers added during the current year.

Nasscom announced the key trends for the current year and the outlook for the next year on the sidelines of the special edition of Nasscom India Leadership Forum in conjunction with the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT).

Nasscom president R Chandrasekhar told reporters that the positive outlook is based on global economic growth and growth trends of digital spending.

“The year 2017-18 began on a muted note, but driven by a better growth in the second half of the year is expected to clock revenues of $167 billion, representing a growth of 7.8 per cent for export revenues and 10 per cent in domestic revenues. E-commerce sector is expected to grow by 17 per cent in GMV terms,” he said.

Nasscom expects that the future of the industry will lie in ‘Digital at Scale’ as global digital spending is growing at 20 per cent annually. India’s digital revenues grew at 30 per cent in FY 2018, demonstrating the base for a solid foundation in digital capabilities built by the sector.

“It’s a great milestone for the software and services industry to cross $150 billion - tripling in size in less than a decade. The growth of the B2B startup sector also

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represents a unique opportunity for India to build innovative solutions for India and the world. However what lies ahead is even more exciting. From small digital pilots, to POCs with product players, we are witnessing industrialisation of digital as the wave ahead,” said Raman Roy, Chairman, Nasscom.

Indian-American teacher hailed for saving students during Florida shooting

A quick-acting Indian-American maths teacher is being hailed for saving the lives of her students during the shooting rampage at a Florida high school that left 17 dead.

When an alarm sounded for the second time on 14 Feb, Shanthi Viswanathan shut the doors to her algebra classroom, made the students crouch on the floor and covered the windows, keeping them out of the reach and sight of the gunman, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

“She was quick on her feet. She used her knowledge. She saved a lot of kids,” Dawn Jarboe, the mother of one of Viswanathan’s students, told the newspaper.

When an elite police contingent known as a SWAT team came and knocked on the door asking her to open it, “Viswanathan took no chance that it wasn’t a trick by the gunman to get in” the newspaper said.

“She said, ‘knock it down or open it with a key. I’m not opening the door,’” Jarboe quoted her as telling the police.

“Some SWAT guy took out the window and cleared our room,” Jarboe’s son, Brian, texted his mother, the newspaper said.

A former student of the school, Nikolas Cruz, barged into Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Valentine’s Day and killed 15 students and two staff members with an AR-15 automatic rifle.

Iconic Howrah Bridge turns 75

Kolkata’s British-era Howrah Bridge, which ferries over 100,000 vehicles and over 150,000 lakh pedestrians daily, has turned 75.

On 3 February 1943, the bridge was

thrown open to the public, replacing a pontoon bridge linking what was then Calcutta and Howrah.

The steel colossus - christened Rabindra Setu (in 1965) after one of Kolkata’s greatest sons, Nobel Laureate and poet Rabindranath Tagore - has become a symbol of the city over the decades, connecting the bustling eastern metropolis with the terminal Howrah station over the Hooghly river - a distributory of the mighty Ganges.

However, the beginning of the journey, of what was the world’s fourth-longest cantilever suspension at that time, was unheralded, amid the dark days of World War II. The 26,500 tonne structure, which finds mention in Rudyard Kipling’s works, was “thrown open to the public of Calcutta, as the city was then called, in the dead of night... a tramcar rolling down from the city end to the station,” says a commemorative coffee table book Howrah Bridge: An Icon in Steel brought out by Tata Steel.

“The eerie silence upon completion was a testament to the terrifying oppressiveness of the War. The Howrah Bridge was the targeted bridge for bombing.” The Japanese attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, “weighed heavily on every mind”.

The work at the site began in October 1936, and it took around six years to make the bridge ready for traffic.

And the construction work brought together all communities. “(It was) built in an environment of religious bonhomie between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. There were also the Nepalis, Gurkhas and even Pathans making valiant contributions... and never was a day lost to labour trouble,” the book says.

It needed special legislation to begin with - The Howrah Bridge Act, 1926 - as the structure involved a plethora of laws to acquire land, levy taxes, employ people and ensure maintenance. The Act was replaced later with the New Howrah Bridge Act of 1935.

The bridge aroused much interest worldwide. The London-based monthly magazine The Engineer - considered the voice of authority on all matters related to

engineering, technology and innovation followed and reported every major discussion on the upcoming structure.

Rendel, Palmer and Tritton were the civil engineers, and the British company Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company Ltd secured the contract for the whole work.

The Calcutta-based Baithwaite, Burn and Jessop became the sub-contractors for the fabricated steel work.

The Tata Iron and Steel Company supplied 23,500 tonnes out of the total 26,500 tonnes of steel for the project. The remaining 3,000 tonnes were made in England.

With the completion of the bridge, where not a single nut or bolt was used, the Kolkata skyline changed forever. It is now the sixthlargest bridge of its kind in the globe.

The Kolkata Port Trust is the custodian of the bridge that stretches for 2,150 feet and rises up to 280 feet from its foundation.

On June 24, 2005, a private cargo vessel had its funnel stuck underneath for three hours, causing Rs 15 million worth damages.

Rendel, Palmer and Tritton, the original bridge consultants, were called in, and they provided matching steel used during the construction, for the repairs.

Corrosion, bird droppings and paan (beetle leaf) mingled spit have damaged the bridge. In 2011, an inspection showed that, between 2007 and 2011, spitting had reduced the thickness of the steel hoods protecting the pillars from six millimetres to less than three millimetres.

Remedial measures were taken and regular painting done. “In 2014, Kolkata Port Trust spent Rs 6.5 million to paint 2.2 million square metres with a whopping 26,000 litres of lead-free paint.”

“Between 2013 and 2016, the average annual expenditure on engineering maintenance was Rs 2.5 crore,” said the book.

The bridge has featured in numerous films

by Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Raj Kapoor, Roland Joffe and Mira Nair, to name just a few. Shakti Samanta’s Hindi film Howrah Bridge, with the beautiful Madhubala in the lead, was a huge box office success.

IANS

FEBRUARY (2) 2018 23

MARDI GRAS SPECIAL

Coming out of the shadows In conversation with gay activist and film director Sridhar Rangayan whose film Evening Shadows will premiere at Mardi Gras BY HARSHAD PANDHARIPANDE

A

t Queer Screen, the Mardi Gras Film Festival this year, an Indian filmmaker will make a bold statement with a tender film. Evening Shadows (Surmaee Shaam) is about a young man coming out to his mother and the upheaval it causes within the traditional family and society around.

The film will have its world premiere at the festival.

The director of the film, Sridhar Rangayan, is a filmmaker, writer, activist and festival director. Rangayan has many creditable firsts to his credit. He is the Founder Festival Director of KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, which has, over eight years, become the biggest LGBTQ film festival in South Asia.

He is the co-founder of The Humsafar Trust, India’s first registered gay NGO. And he co-founded Solaris Pictures, a production house that brings out films with LGBTQ themes.

Evening Shadows is the sixth production

24 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

by Solaris Pictures. Rangayan insists it’s a film about relationships, and one that he hopes every family watches.

In an interview with Indian Link, Rangayan, one of the jury members to judge the ‘My Queer Career’ Australian short film competition at the festival, talks about his journey and challenges, and why there is a need to normalise LGBTQ issues.

How does it feel to be part of the spectacle that is the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras?

The Sydney Mardi Gras is one of the oldest and grandest celebrations in the world of LGBTQ community. I was privileged to be part of it last year when I was invited to by Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival to attend a conclave of Asia Pacific Queer Film Festival Alliance, a network of about 25 LGBTQ film festivals in the Asia Pacific region. I also marched with the Queer Screen float: it was indeed a heady feeling being cheered by thousands of onlookers! It was magical.

Evening Shadows will be screened at Queer Screen. What does the film mean to you?

Evening Shadows is a film that is very close to our heart: it is our most ambitious

project and the most mainstream one.

It is a film about parental acceptance of LGBTQ children, and a film that we hope every family watches. More than a gay film, it is about relationships - between son and mother, between son and father, between father and mother and also between two men who are in love. It’s about how these relationships sometimes conflict with each other because of intergenerational viewpoints and existing social mores. A lot of hope is riding on this film - not only for the cast and crew, but also for around 180 contributors across the world who have supported the film’s crowdfunding campaign. And, of course, the hope of the entire Indian LGBTQ community and the South Asian diaspora across the world.

What kind of reaction are you expecting?

As a conscious decision, we have tried to make a simple film that will touch hearts. There are no auteur flourishes or sensational moments. The film’s narrative and the characters are real and universal.

We hope that the audience takes back a story that makes them reflect about prejudices - whether it is against LGBTQ persons or against women. The screening at Mardi Gras being the World Premiere

of the film, we are hoping for the film’s journey to begin on a grand positive note.

What have you seen here in Australia - or elsewhere around the world - with regard to the LGBTQ community that you have been surprised by, or have liked and would like to see in India?

Obviously the laws need to change in India - Sec 377 needs to be read down so it doesn’t criminalise the community.

And then we need marriage laws, adoption and inheritance laws that will give the community an equal footing in the mainstream social space. What I have really liked in Australia and other countries around the world is that there are so many LGBTQ persons in power who are out - statesmen, politicians, judges, actors, sports personalities etc.

When LGBTQ persons who are wellknown come out and underline the normalcy of their gender identity or sexual orientation, it will inspire an entire generation to be more accepting. Only when you are out can you expect families, allies and stakeholders to support you in your fight for equality and dignity.

What is your own story of coming out?

I was a late bloomer! It was only when

www.indianlink.com.au

Scenes from Evening Shadows

KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival has managed to change perceptions and impact attitudes towards the LGBTQ I was around 27 or 28 that I became comfortable with my sexuality. Because, remember, this was in the early 1990s when in India there was not even a whisper in public about homosexuality, unlike in the US, Australia and some parts of the world where gay rights were talked about in the open. I have been a victim of homophobia and discrimination which left deep scars that took years to heal. But once I managed to look in the mirror and say I was okay and my desires were normal, my journey of coming out spiralled out quickly. From being part of Bombay Dost, India’s first gay magazine in 1990, to co-founding The Humsafar Trust, India’s first registered gay NGO, and then being out in the media, there was no looking back.

Why did you choose to make films with a focus on queer subjects?

At the time I was coming out, I was also directing several mainstream television programs (Rishtey and Gubbare on Zee TV, Krisshna Arjun on Star Plus, Haqeekat on Sahara TV). But in none of these programs was there an opportunity

Sridhar Rangayan

to include either stories or characters who were LGBTQ. The channels back then did not want any of it as they felt it will alienate family audiences! So Saagar Gupta and I (both professional and life partners) decided to start our own company, Solaris Pictures, that will focus on making films with LGBTQ content. We wanted to tell stories that concern our community and impact our lives. Our first film was The Pink Mirror which was a peek into the boudoir of Indian drag queens in 2002 and we have followed it up with five more films over the years. Always, while we want to make films about the community, we want to make it for a larger audience. So with every project of ours, the effort is to reach it to larger mainstream audiences.

While The Pink Mirror and Breaking Free are now on Netflix, Purple Skies was telecast on the national network in India, and 68 Pages was taken on a tour of 25 cities in India. So the effort has always been to mainstream LGBTQ issues through cinema, and our latest film Evening Shadows is another step ahead in that direction.

Purple Skies

Is it easy to make films on queer subjects?

In India, because of the prevailing legal and social environment for LGBTQ rights, it is quite challenging to make films on LGBTQ topics. There is no government funding and the mainstream industry is very cautious about how they want to approach the topic. Also issues of censorship complicate matters. So stuck between the devil and the deep sea, most filmmakers turn to crowdfunding or personal resources. While there is no externalised homophobia, there is reluctance by mainstream actors and distributors to be part of LGBTQ films.

Things are changing with a few films, but we are not there yet. Our hope is in the independent films, documentaries and short films - a substantial number of LGBTQ films are being made in these genres.

What kind of reactions have you got for KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival? It’s been around for eight years. Have you seen more acceptance come your way since its first edition?

When we started KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival in 2010, soon after the Delhi High Court striking down Sec 377 in 2009, our main aim was to have a LGBTQ film festival in a mainstream theatre - as a celebration for the community, but also for mainstream audiences to get a window into LGBTQ lives. Over the years, the festival has grown not only to become South Asia’s biggest LGBTQ film festival, but also

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VOICES OF PRIDE Evening Shadows is an invitation to a journey of self-reflection.

It’d be my hope that everyone who watches it finds it thoughtprovoking Maulik Thakkar, one of the 180+ contributors to the film’s crowdfunding effort It’s rare for us to be able to program narrative features from India, especially ones that have such a universal and relatable story. I’m thrilled we will have its World Premiere and a number of the key players as festival guests Lisa Rose, festival director of Queer Screen Mardi Gras Film Festival It’s a matter of great pride that our film is being appreciated so much across the world; it validates all our hard work and all our hopes for the film. I hope and pray that our simple and honest narrative will touch those who watch it Mona Ambegaonkar, who plays the mother in the film

FEBRUARY (2) 2018 25

MARDI GRAS SPECIAL

GAY BOLLYWOOD Ranveer Singh and Jim Sarbh’s homoerotic act in Padmaavat is a big deal in Indian cinema, writes SUBHASH K JHA

I one of the important events in Mumbai’s cultural calendar.

We have had corporate houses supporting us, embassies coming forward, A-list celebrities gracing the festival, but most gratifying is that out of 2000+ audience who attend the festival every year, around 30% are non-LGBTQ audiences. Based on the feedback we have received (the festival does a post-event survey), it is evident that the festival has managed to change perceptions and impact attitudes towards the LGBTQ community. Even the number of Indian LGBTQ films has grown exponentially. Last year, we had over 50 Indian LGBTQ films at KASHISH. Even quality-wise and content-wise, there is more promise now with their diversity and storytelling power.

You have made films on HIV/AIDS within the LGBTQ community. What other issues or problems does the community face that those in the mainstream wouldn’t know about? Do you plan to address them in your upcoming projects?

While the LGBTQ community has issues about their self and society, more complicated is the dilemmas of the parents who are caught on the one side with their children’s issues, and on the other side with social mores. Especially when they are from a generation that has been entrenched in an environment with negative attitudes towards non-binary gender and non-heteronormative sexualities, the families suffer a lot. Evening Shadows tries to address this and we hope the film can become a tool for parents to understand their children and stand up against prejudices.

Some of the other areas which need understanding are bisexuality and asexuality.

There is hardly any information about these sexualities. Domestic violence among samesex couples, drug abuse, old age issues are (other topics) to deal with soon.

Which other films or projects are you working on? Since your work revolves around LGBTQ community, how do you achieve a variety of themes and subjects within it?

I am a filmmaker who not only makes a film, but is involved in taking it ahead. So dissemination, distribution and the dialogue enabled therein is very much part of my filmmaking process. With Evening Shadows just beginning its journey, it will be some time before I embark on my next film. The one in the pipeline which I hope to get made soon is a feature length film English Songs of Eternal Love, a poignant romantic

26 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

story at the cross section of religion and sexuality.

The Pink Mirror is still banned in India.

Do such restrictions dishearten you? How do you work around them?

The Pink Mirror still doesn’t have a censor certification. Our application was rejected thrice and we didn’t have the energy to follow up. That was back in 2002-03. The censor board has definitely been more liberal since then. My film Purple Skies received a ‘U’ (universal) certificate though it was about lesbians, bisexual and trans persons; and our latest film Evening Shadows received a ‘UA’ certificate (children below 12 need parental guidance). My attempt has never been to sensationalise the issue or use it as a peg to promote the film. My films deal with LGBTQ issues as normally as in real life.

How has Section 377 affected the LGBTQ community in India?

While Sec 377 hasn’t been used often in legal terms, it has been misused by the police and blackmailers to both extract money and sexual favours from LGBTQ persons. Our feature-length documentary film Breaking Free (now available on Netflix) is a detailed account of how Sec 377 impacts the community - with real life testimonies of those affected as well as lawyers and stakeholders – and also the two-decade-long legal challenge to change the law. The film won the National Award for Best Editing (non-fiction) at the National Film Awards, which is the highest recognition for creative excellence in the country. It was a big victory for an LGBTQ film to receive the award and was a proud moment for me receiving it at the hands of the President of India.

n the West it’s Armie Hammer and Timothy Chalamet giving interviews as a couple for their gay love story Call Me By Your Name. We haven’t reached that nirvanic stage in India.

But Ranveer Singh and Jim Sarbh’s homoerotic act in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmaavat comes closest to obtaining a kind of legitimacy for same-sex relationships that this country has so far only seen in fringe films by Hansal Mehta (Aligarh) and Onir (My Brother Nikhil).

Of course, detractors will argue that showing the villain as bisexual in Padmaavat doesn’t legitimise homosexuality as much as demonise it.

Then there will always be those who will look at mainstream cinema’s attempts to validate non-mainstream sections and relationships with suspicion and distrust.

But the fact remains that Ranveer Singh playing a man who is sexually attracted to another man is a big deal in Indian cinema.

He even gets into a bath-tub with Sarbh and at one point in the nubile narration, Sarbh gestures to ask if he can join his lord and monster..., pardon me, master, in bed.

Says Onir, “I love the chemistry between Ranveer and Jim Sarbh. I really like the shades that Sarbh has brought to his gay character.”

We can now tell you that there was a lot of debate on the sets of Padmaavat as to how Sarbh should play Ranveer’s “doosri begum”, the first one being Aditi Rao. The director wanted the character to be ruthlessly macho and not the least effeminate, so that when Sarbh bursts into an evocative erotic number about unrequited love we almost feel the stretched-out strains of a gender-free love that has no definition or demarcation, only rejection and ridicule.

And then there is the tenderness between the two men. There is a sequence where Sarbh takes Ranveer’s

hand and places his face in it... the tenderness and anguish of that moment are clear. Call him by any name, but the gay lover is finally here to stay. Indeed, there is more chemistry between Ranveer and Sarbh than there is between Ranveer and his screen wife Aditi Rao. In the global cinema, though, the movement towards mainstream legitimisation of same-sex relations has been in the making for years, with the mould being perhaps broken by Brokeback Mountain in 2005.

In the new flamboyant franchise film Maze Runner: The Death Cure we see another homoerotic relationship being given a healthy fillip - in the intense relationship between Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and Newt (Thomas BrodySangster). Not that anyone says they are gay. But their passionate friendship runs through the course of this sinewy tale of dystopian derring-do, almost topping the hero’s passionate relationship with the film’s official female lead.

The film ends with Dylan reading a posthumous love letter written to him by Newt which very clearly states the passionate nature of their mutual affection. All this is in the domain of the forbidden being forced out of the uncapped tube of moral freefalling that would have been frowned at by the moral police in the past.

Now that there is, what shall I say, more acceptance, a forthcoming film, Surmayee Sham directed by Sridhar Rangayan, talks about a young man coming out of the closet on the eve of his marriage.

Just two years back, it took a Fawad Khan from another country to play the gay son of a Delhi business family in Kapoor & Sons.

Given a chance, would Karan Johar have cast Ranveer Singh in Fawad’s role?

And more importantly, are we ready for the long-delayed sexual revolution in Hindi cinema?

Same sex marriage has recently been legalised in Australia after a postal ballot, but the Indian community’s vote wasn’t an unequivocal ‘Yes.’ What do you want to say to them?

There are always some people who will have regressive views. Perhaps they are not even their real views, they just want publicity by standing out. My message to them is, ‘Don’t be the barricade, it will fall.

Be the wings, so you can soar too.’

Evening Shadows will be screened on Sun 25 Feb (7.30pm) at Event Cinemas on George Street. Stay on for a Q and A with director Sridhar Rangayan and lead actress Mona Ambegaonkar

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FEBRUARY (2) 2018 27

INDIA DIARY

Sri Lanka challenge

India has failed to respond to Sri Lanka’s aspiration with the scale and speed that China has, writes AMIT DASGUPTA

M

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y wife and I recently visited Sri Lanka on a holiday with friends. For both of us, it was the first visit after almost 15 years. At that time, the idyllic island country was caught up in a deadly civil war that claimed countless lives and devastated the economy. When Mahinda Rajapaksa assumed power as the Sri Lankan President, he made the elimination of the Tamil Tigers his foremost objective.

After 30 months of relentless assaults, the 26-year-old civil war finally ended in 2009, with the killing of Tamil Tigers (LTTE) leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and the ruthless decimation of his supporters.

It is argued that widespread human rights excesses occurred and that the Tamils were openly discriminated against. This is true.

Yet, what is also true is that the island country finally saw peace for the very first time after decades of unrest, uncertainty and terrorism. The Sri Lanka we visited was in complete contrast with the one I had grown accustomed to, with gun-toting security personnel everywhere. Now there was a sense of calm. Even impatience, at being held back for so many years. It is as if it was time to claim the life that had been long denied.

For India, the end of the civil war and of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was good news. It had already declared the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, but domestic compulsions with its allies in Tamil Nadu openly aligning with Prabhakaran - forced New Delhi to opt for covert support for the anti-LTTE military operations. Tragically, with the end of the civil war, history repeated itself and India, once again, lost its momentum.

Today, we are on the brink of losing Sri Lanka to Beijing.

The Chinese presence in Sri Lanka is not covert. Far from it. You see them everywhere and the pace of the activity is hectic. Chinese dredging ships can be openly seen working at a furious pace. Work on the Hambantota port has started. Chinese workers are everywhere, from shopping malls to pubs. Many are learning to speak Sinhalese. Hotels, roads and infrastructure, performing arts theatres, a swanky cricket stadium - these are not simply projects on the drawing board. People can see them.

The importance of the visual should never be underestimated. And given the speed with which the Chinese execute projects, a real estate transformation is credibly under way.

Over a period of 12 years (200517), Beijing has poured in $15 billion into projects in Sri Lanka. The Chinese Ambassador conveyed an unambiguous message to India, which sees Chinese presence in Sri Lanka as an intrusion in its immediate sphere of influence, when he said, “No negative force can undermine the cooperation between Sri Lanka and China.”

For India, this is a disturbing development.

Indian foreign policy has relied heavily on “time-tested civilisational links.” While this is undoubtedly appealing, there is an aspirational impatience among Sri Lankans that India failed to see and respond to with the scale, speed and imagination that only Beijing appears capable of.

It is common enough to hear Sri Lankans say how disgruntled and unhappy they are with the intrusive presence of the Chinese, who are loud and arrogant. It is like a deadly embrace but one that they find lucrative, if they wish to fast-track to a prosperous future. Artists’ impressions of future Colombo tell Sri Lankans that it will rival Singapore. It will bring in investments, tourism, employment and economic wellbeing. This can be seriously tempting.

From all accounts, India’s encirclement has begun with ruthless efficiency. Pakistan is gone. Maldives is about to fall. Nepal is almost there. And Sri Lanka is under an understandable hypnotic trance. India genuinely faces its most serious security challenge.

If India is to get its act together, it needs not only imagination but the speed and efficiency to deliver on its promises to offer Sri Lankans a future that the civil war denied them. For Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, India’s neighbourhood will be a disturbing challenge. The problem he would face is convincing the political, bureaucratic and corporate partners that India faces its greatest-ever security threat and one that we are on the brink of losing.

As the legendary chess player Bobby Fisher once remarked, “If you are playing the game, you play to win. But if you’ve lost the game, it’s because you took your eyes off the pieces and then, you deserve to lose.”

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INDIA DIARY

Modi road to 2019 may be steeper Reducing victory margins in recent elections point to decreasing popularity of BJP, writes AMULYA GANGULI

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or the Bharatiya Janata Party’s supporters, the growing belief that the party is no longer as favourably placed as before must be both bewildering and disheartening.

They must be wondering what could have gone wrong when the BJP was looking forward to not only a comfortable victory in 2019 but was also planning to celebrate the 75th year of India’s independence in 2022.

The talk of a “New India” under the BJP’s near-permanent control was in the air with both Nitish Kumar and Omar Abdullah from two opposite sides of the political spectrum saying that Narendra Modi faced no challenge.

Yet, the scene has changed. What is more, it has happened so over a rather short period of time. Among the reasons for it may be the BJP’s electoral setbacks in, first, the Chitrakoot assembly by-election in Madhya Pradesh in November last year, the near-defeat it faced in the Gujarat assembly polls in the following month and finally the huge margins by which it recently lost three by-elections in Rajasthan.

Before these contests, the successes of the Congress’s student wing in the Delhi University and of a leftist union in the Jawaharlal Nehru University student union elections over the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the saffron

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brotherhood’s student wing, were significant pointers to the emerging trends.

The new scenario has now led to conjectures about a fall in the BJP’s number of Lok Sabha seats to 200-220 from the present 282 in a House of 545.

Since these figures have been mentioned by a saffron scribe, it is obvious that assessments on these lines are currently on in the BJP. Another scribe has identified the absence of effective speakers other than Modi as one of the factors behind the BJP’s slide in popularity.

Perhaps one of the first to say openly that the Modi magic was fading was a Shiv Sena spokesperson, who also noted the change in Rahul Gandhi’s “body language” and his transformation into a credible leader. Not long after, the Sena decided not to align with the BJP in 2019.

The BJP’s old ally is not the only party to begin thinking of greener pastures. The Telugu Desam Party, too, has expressed its displeasure over the perceived neglect of Andhra Pradesh in the Union budget.

To forestall a rupture, the BJP has offered the Shiv Sena 144 seats in Maharashtra in an assembly of 288 seats, but the generous gesture is more indicative of the BJP’s nervousness than of magnanimity.

So, what went wrong for a party which was riding high during the first three years of its tenure?

First and foremost reason is its failure to usher in the promised achhe din or better days because of a sluggish economy.

The scene might have been better but for the twin blows of demonetisation, which dealt a blow to small businesses, and the shambolic rolling out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which also unsettled traders and businessmen.

The second reason is the widespread rural distress which eroded the BJP’s influence in Gujarat. As a party essentially of urban lower middle class areas, the BJP’s connection with the countryside has never been very strong. In its Jan Sangh days, the party once even forgot to adopt a resolution on agriculture till the lapse was noticed at the last minute.

Modi is now said to have sought the advice of farming experts to reach out to the cultivators. But the move is unlikely to pay immediate political dividends.

To compound the BJP’s problems, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the Sangh Parivar’s labour wing, has raised the red flag over the “disappointing” Union budget.

Another explanation for the BJP’s woes is undoubtedly the inability to control the saffron goons, who have been running amok to impose their diktats on diet, interfaith romance and film scripts, among other things.

The rampages of the cow vigilantes have hit the meat and leather industries and resulted in ageing cows being let loose by their owners to roam the countryside and city streets to forage on their own. Hence the proposal to impose a fine on the guilty owners.

The result is the prevalence of an atmosphere of intolerance of the kind which made a section of the intelligentsia return the awards which they had once won in protest against the deteriorating state of affairs in the country.

Perhaps the BJP’s only solace at the moment is that its opponents haven’t been able to get their act together. Moreover, the fissures in their ranks are palpable with a rift in the Communist Party of IndiaMarxist (CPI-M) over whether to align with the Congress in an anti-BJP front, and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) teaming up with the Janata Dal (Secular) in Karnataka on the eve of the assembly elections.

There are also said to be reservations among the senior opposition leaders about accepting Rahul Gandhi as the leader of an alliance.

Karnataka will be the next big electoral battle for the BJP. If it can dislodge the ruling Congress in the state, it will be able to brush aside the party’s setbacks in Gujarat and Rajasthan. Otherwise, the road to 2019 will seem steeper.

FEBRUARY (2) 2018 29

SCHOOL

The problem with goal-setting Most academic goals are not students’ own, but rather those set by parents or teachers

BY MOHAN DHALL

T

here is a trend in schools to encourage students to set goals.

Primarily, the focus here is on academic goals, though it can be interpersonal goals or a goal related to emotional resilience.

Whilst the setting of goals sounds like a noble pursuit, and can generate real focus for some students, generally, goal setting for school students is fraught with problems. This is particularly the case if the students are in primary school or junior secondary school.

In the academic context, students can be asked to reflect on the results of an assessment task, such as an exam or assignment, and to consider what they want to achieve ‘going forward’. Or they can be asked early in the year to set academic goals in various subjects.

The overarching issue is that students cannot simply be asked to set goals so that teachers can tick off the ‘helped them set goals’ outcome as being done. Goals are never real when the person setting the goals is doing so by request or to help a teacher do their job.

There are several assumptions and issues that undermine student goal-setting, most particularly in the area of academic achievement.

The first is that students actually have academic goals in the subject in which they are asked to set them. If you ask most students what they want to achieve in English they will say, “Ummmm…” or “I don’t know” or the predictably standard “to pass”. In each of these replies, it is clear the student is either unsure or unconvinced.

After all, what is the teacher’s role if the student is setting the learning goals? A coach? Moreover, how can a student even

30 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

articulate what they are supposed to want to achieve when the person inquiring is a subject matter expert? This issue acts as a significant roadblock.

The second assumption is that of ownership. Even if a student could actually articulate some sort of goal, the only way to properly achieve it is to own it. Since the process is manufactured, student ownership is most likely going to be minimal. A student can only lose in this scenario because, if they do not achieve their stated goal, they can be subject to a critique that questions the student’s effort.

Why try if this can happen?

Teachers and their goals

A third issue centres on the genuineness of asking students to set goals in the first place. This is because most teachers themselves do not actually set goals. If you ask most educators what their professional goal for the year is, they will not have considered one. Most of their efforts will be directed towards the achievement of their job to the best of their ability.

It is rare for an educator to have set goals that shape or guide their professional growth each and every year. If a teacher does have a goal, it is often centred on the completion of personal course of study that has already commenced - and thus it is compelled by an external factor. In this regard, for the majority of educators, asking students to set goals is ingenuous.

Other goals that teachers will articulate tend to relate to life-stage and circumstance - such as pay down a mortgage, manage the family and the like.

These, though important, are external factors that motivate behaviour, rather

than actual goals.

Goals are achieved when a person is motivated through a desire to achieve. The central question when assisting students to set goals, academic or otherwise, is to address the issue of why.

Why should a student want to achieve academically?

The logical-rational answer is doing well academically will help them in the future. This might as well be articulated as “blah, blah, blah…” for this is what adults want and not what a student would normally articulate for themselves. Adults often hope that they can superimpose their desires onto their child and that this superimposition will automatically become embedded in the child’s psyche.

Children, by some mechanism of hope and transference, will somehow magically become interested in doing what adults

want, taking ownership and valuing the same things their parents and teachers value. Alas, the contrary is true. The more pressure by parents or teachers on students, the less interested the child becomes. In essence, the process is selfdefeating because the locus is not the child, it is the adult.

If well-meaning adults seek to help students to learn setting goals, the starting point is things that matter to the student and not things that matter to teachers, parents or educational systems. If the starting point is somewhere else, then there may be compliance or obedience but there will not be ownership. So the question arises - do we want children to be themselves or be what adults want them to be?

Goal setting should be based on a premise of freedom to be disciplined rather than being bound to achieve.

There is an issue with the genuineness of asking students to set goals… This is because most teachers themselves do not actually set goals www.indianlink.com.au

ADVERTORIAL

Hindu Council to felicitate women HCA launches the Gargi Awards for role models in various fields

T

he Hindu Council of Australia (HCA) is known to conduct various activities that have kept the rich traditions of the community alive and helped a large number of diaspora stay connected with their roots.

In a new initiative this year, it has launched the Gargi Awards to felicitate women achievers in the community.

HCA National Executive Committee Vice-President Surinder Kumar Jain told Indian Link, “We are launching the award this year to commend outstanding women in Australia who make good role models for girls and women in our community.”

The award will be given in several categories such as sports, journalism, performing arts, defence, community carers, home carers, senior carers, educationists etc. The award will be presented by the President of Hindu Council of Australia at an International Women’s Day ceremony on 11 March at Parramasala in Parramatta.

“We have instituted the award so that our young women don’t remain inward-looking but integrate well into the Australian society,” Jain said.

The award is named after well-known Hindu philosopher Gargi Vachaknavi,

born around 700 BC. Gargi, whose philosophical debates and writings have addressed metaphysical questions about the origin of the universe and the nature of the soul, is considered to be one among many in the long history of Hindu women’s intellectual contributions to human society.

At a time when the women’s movement for equal opportunity is gaining momentum across the world, this new initiative comes as a welcome move in our own backyard here in Australia’s Hindu community.

Another initiative that the HCA plans to promote this year is Hindu chaplaincy.

A chaplain fulfils the emotional needs of people in challenging situations or distress.

Their work could be in sectors such as law enforcement, prisons, hospitals, schools, universities and defence establishments.

“Currently, we have 11 chaplains in Sydney who visit hospitals at the request of critically-ill patients or their family to read out the mrityunjaya mantra or a passage from Bhagwad Geeta to them,” Jain said.

He added that any practising Hindu can apply to become a chaplain after attending a 40-hour course on counselling. HCA also pays scholarships to help cover a large

percentage of fees. “For the short course, HCA pays $200 while the applicant pays $50. Similarly, for the one-year advanced course worth $2,000, HCA bears 50% of the cost,” Jain said.

The HCA is conducting an online survey to find out if students are bullied for displaying Hindu symbols. “If we find that this does, in fact, take place, we will request the authorities to allow Hindu chaplains in schools as well,” Jain said.

Many Hindus are vegetarians, but often, there are various interpretations of the term. For the benefit of consumers as well as food manufacturers, HCA has come up with a definition of vegetarianism and also a list of suspect foods (which may contain animal products) so that consumers can exercise their choice.

The HCA also offers one-off financial help through its Hindu Benevolent Fund, for emergency situations such as funerals,

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hospitalisation, transporting mortal remains back to India etc.

The HCA-run Karma Kitchen at Parramatta, which feeds the homeless and destitute every Saturday, is one of its more well-known programs, now into its third year. “It has helped build bridges.

In the past, there were a few incidents of Indians being subject to racially-motivated attacks, but this is a good way of telling the perpetrators, most of whom were from the lower-income strata, that we are there for them in their time of need,” Jain said.

Talking about HCA’s upcoming events, Jain said that the most exciting one in the near future is the Cumberland Festival of Colours Holi Milan. Scheduled to take place on 3 March at Civic Park in Pendle Hill, it will have food stalls, fun rides for children, and of course, plenty of colours to play Holi. Entry to the event is free.

Harshad Pandharipande

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BOOKS

A slice of Goa in the ’60s A look at the tiny state’s history during a tumultuous time The Sting of Peppercorns by Antonio Gomes. Amaryllis, 2017

A

ntonio Gomes’ The Sting of Peppercorns is set in an era of transition and tumult. It opens in the lavish, stately village of Loutolim in South Goa, once the abode of elite Catholic landlords, who had converted from the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin caste. Incidentally, Loutolim is now a well sought-after piece of real estate for the wealthy elite from Indian metros who are obsessed with the quest of owning perfectly preserved Indo-Portuguese homes.

On a balmy summer morning in 1961, one of the village’s grandest mansions and its masters - Afonso de Albuquerque, his wife Dona Maria Isabella dos Santos Albuquerque, other son Roberto and daughter Amanda - await the return of their ward Paulo from Coimbra in Portugal, where he had ostensibly gone to pursue law, but had wallowed in debauchery in the seedier parts of the river-fronted city, unknown to most others in the family.

The author immediately establishes the inevitable air of change, when Paulo, soon after his return, faces a brutal attack by a band of anticolonial guerrillas keen on looting the valuables in the homes of the rich landlords of the time in the name of raising money for their subversive war against the colonists.

The Sting of Peppercorns captures the steady decline in the fate and fortunes of rich, aristocratic Catholic families in Goa in the wake of the socio-political changes following the Liberation by the Indian armed forces and the subsequent takeover by the Indian administration.

Thanks to Paulo, the privileged, stoic Albuquerque lineage now finds itself getting charmed by the hippies in Anjuna and Calangute beach villages who had just begun to descend on Goa from Europe and Northern America in the mid to late 1960s.

The major socio-political changes in Goa in the 1960s, like the transition

of power, the iconic referendum where Goans chose to be an independent state rather than merge with the neighbouring state of Maharashtra, the emergence of the hippies on the Goa canvas, as well as clash of cultures, both old and new, is vividly described by the author using the characters which are at his disposal.

The Sting of Peppercorns, where the reference to peppercorns is undoubtedly linked to the overwhelming spice trade

off Goa and the west coast fuelled by the colonisers, serves as a timely fictional reference of a relatively less-documented period and region.

Antonio Gomes, a native of Goa, is a professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York and specialises in cardiology. Not surprisingly, he has very aptly analysed Goa’s beating heart through one of its roughest periods.

MAYABHUSHAN NAGVENKAR

A buried seed that bloomed Tracing Vikas Khanna’s culinary arc from Amritsar to a Michelin-star chef Buried Seeds: A Chef’s Journey The Story of Vikas Khanna

by Karan Bellani. Wisdom Tree, 2018

H

e never gave up, rising from the ashes like a phoenix every time life tried to bury him. Chef Vikas Khanna, called Vikku by his near and dear ones, was a buried seed that was meant to bloom.

Buried Seeds traces the journey of the Michelin-star chef from the boy who helped his grandmother in their kitchen in Amritsar while other children played outside, to the man who worked with influential chefs like Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay and Jean-Georges Vongerichten, to presenting his book UTSAV: A Culinary Epic of Indian Festivals to former US Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

Interestingly, before the book Buried Seeds emerged, Andrei Severny released a documentary on the chef titled Buried

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Seeds: A Life Journey of Chef Vikas Khanna which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

The author describes how the phrase “when life gives you lemons, make a mojito” is something Khanna has adhered to in his roller-coaster of a life and has remained free of arrogance.

Bellani comes across as extremely loyal to the chef, but at a personal level, having interviewed him myself once, the adjectives penned for the chef are certainly believable. The read, however, tends to get too mushy at times.

The author has tried his best to squeeze in all the key memories of Khanna, but they run a bit helter-skelter, confusing the reader as to which turning point came first in the chef’s life - especially the phase after he shifted base to the US. Nevertheless, the journey is an inspiration not just for a commoner who aspires to touch the sky but also for a physically challenged person. Khanna was

himself born with misaligned feet and wasn’t able to run until he was 13.

Yet, he scaled heights. He is also counted among the hottest chefs of America and was once listed as one of the sexiest men alive by People’s magazine.

“There’s no shortcut to success” is a key fact Khanna never forgot, and the author has shed light on instances when he fought against the odds to rise and shine.

Buried Seeds is a must read if you want to know more about the success recipe of this down-to-earth chef.

KISHORI SUD

FEBRUARY (2) 2018 33

Photos: Sidd Rishi Photography

STAGE

Elegant simplicity Double debut proves refreshing with its focus on essentials BY DEEPA GOPINATH

I

n an age when Bharathanatyam arangetrams (debut performances) are becoming more and more elaborate, with multiple costume changes and extensive repertoires, it is refreshing to attend one that focuses on the essentials.

On 10 February 2018, Asha Vishwanath and Keertana Avalur had their priorities in order, with an elegant repertoire that covered all the bases and left the audience feeling fulfilled without any audience fatigue. Students of Guru Gayatri Krishnamurthy, Asha and Keertana ascended the stage at Sydney’s NIDA, with a very competent performance that saw them earn their place where many a talented artist before them had been.

While the program was neat and not overly complicated, the evening was anything but typical, with many a personal element to charm the attendees. The welcome speech, in my opinion one of the most heartfelt and eloquent of arangetram welcome speeches, was delivered by Keertana’s cousin and Asha’s brother Ajai. Ajai

34 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

reminded us of the intangible nature of the performing arts, that we hold on to the experience only with our memories, and thus we as an audience were blessed to be the few witnesses to the evening’s performance. The most lovely and novel way of asking attendees to switch off their phones!

Another family contribution came in the form of the lyrics in the opening item Shivastuthi, which were composed

by Asha’s grandmother, Loganayaki Vishwanath. In this item, both young dancers showed that they possessed the talents of expressiveness, or bhavam, and technical finesse in equal parts.

The Varnam, designed to be the most demanding component of the repertoire, was executed seemingly effortlessly by Keertana and Asha. Varanamukha, in Ragam Nattaikurinji and Thalam Aadi, was choreographed such that each dancer had an opportunity to display her talents and retain the audience’s attention throughout. There was a strong connection established with the audience by both dancers. Their abilities were well matched, leading to a smooth performance that was easy to watch.

The most memorable item of the evening was Manthara Kaikeyi, a scene from the Ramanatakam, where the maid Manthara convinces Queen Kaikeyi that

Lord Rama should not be allowed to take the throne. In this piece, Keertana was delightful as the cunning and manipulative Kaikeyi, not-so-patiently influencing the Queen’s way of thinking. A chuckle was elicited from the audience when Keertana as Kaikeyi cleverly makes to leave the Queen to her own devices, knowing very well that Kaikeyi would not allow her to leave. Asha was convincing as the Queen, initially bewildered when she is rudely

Krishnamurthy on nattuvangam, violinist Kalaiarasan Ramanathan, mridangist Mr Bala Sankar Shastri and flautist Mr Venkhatesh Sritharan provided flawless accompaniment to the dancing. The event was well organised, with clever touches such as display of each musician’s profile during the musical interlude, rather than being read out separately as is typical. Of course, the big bowl of mouth-watering Lindt balls that guests were welcomed with

Comedy is difficult to portray in Bharathanatyam, particularly for young dancers, so Asha and Keertana’s success in ‘Manthara Kaikeyi’ was impressive awoken by her elderly maid, evolving to agreement with Manthara and indignation at the choice of Rama as King. Comedy is difficult to portray using Bharathanatyam, particularly for young dancers in the beginning of their careers, so Asha and Keertana’s success in this scene was impressive.

Vocalists Mrs Radha Badri and Ms Sindhuja Ganapathy, Mrs Gayatri

did not escape this reporter’s notice!

Keertana Avalur and Asha Vishwanath’s arangeteram was an immaculately assembled evening, with all roles played to perfection. Keertana and Asha proved themselves to be bright and talented young dancers, who no doubt have exciting Bharathanatyam careers ahead and an ability to carve their places in the Sydney dance scene.

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Three sisters Trio work together to make a cherished dream come true

BY HAMSA VENKAT

Photos: Binu Photography

C

lassic and contemporary, subtle and dramatic, at the same time, the artform of Bharathanatyam has withstood the test of time enriching the lives of many that practise or witness it. Embarking on the journey of exploring this ancient and aesthetic dance form, Namrata Pulapaka, Thanuja Kuntumalla and Shishira Bindiganavile, under the guidance of their guru Aruna Gandhi, performed their arangetram earlier this month at the Science Theatre, UNSW. The performance commenced with a crisp exhibition of footwork with rhythmic variations in Thodaya Mangalam which set the pace for the evening. This was followed by the Navasandhi Kauthuvam, on Agni and Yama, rare compositions that were pioneering works by the famous Tanjore quartet. Presenting the Lord of Dance in the Mahadeva Kauthuvam the various attributes of Lord Shiva were portrayed with divine energy.

The three-pronged approach for the event worked well in the presentation based on Krishna. Shishira presented the sweetness of Lord Krishna through her honeyed expression of the composition ‘Adharam Madhuram’. Namrata furthered the longing for the beauty of the Lord in ‘Nachiyar Thirumozhi’, skipping around the stage in the timeless plea of Andal to be one with the Lord.

Thanuja portrayed the tussle between Radha and Krishna beautifully in the Ashtapadi ‘Yahi madhava’: life can never

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be a bed of roses, the beauty of life is in the excitement of its conflict.

The piece de resistance, the Varnam ‘Maye mayan sodhariye’, stood testimony to the dancers’ passion, hard work and commitment for the art form. Rehearsed to perfection the three dancers weaved various patterns on stage with their jathis and narrated exotic stories from the epics. The story presenting the birth of Krishna, who is the brother of Devi, was dramatised in detail, providing great scope for the dancers to express themselves through abhinayam (hand gestures) and bhavam (facial expressions). The popular story of the Tulabharam, where Lord Krishna’s proud wife Sathyabama weighs him on a balance against material possessions and fails miserably, only to be brought to her senses by the selfless offering of Rukmini who tilts the balance with the offering of a single tulsi leaf, a tale replete with the power of true love, struck a chord with the audience. The expansion of the phrase, ‘sringara shruthi laya bhavame,’ enhanced the equal importance of the

beauty of silence against sound, the magic of repose versus movement, brought to a climax with the navarasas or the nine emotions.

A breezy Thillana in Ragam Valaji brought the evening to a joyous close.

The live orchestra made up of vocalist Lakshmi Kumaraguruparan, violinist Kranthi Kiran Mudigonda and mridangist Pallavarajan Nagendran certainly added an extra spark to the experience to the evening.

Vandana Anand steered the evening with her confident compering and introduction to the proceedings.

Aruna Gandhi, presenting certificates of achievement to the dancers, remarked, “With the blessings of my revered Guru Prof. Sudharani Raghupathy, our school has grown since its inception in 2009, and today it gives me great pleasure to present my first batch of students in a full-fledged traditional Bharatanatyam performance. It is quite fulfilling to see them pursuing this art with dedication and perseverance and blossoming into competent, aspiring dancers.”

The dancers themselves spoke of the commitment and dedication that went into this major milestone in their lives.

“Balancing a full-time study program, social and cultural commitments with preparation and intensive dance rehearsals for the arangetram was the biggest challenge,” Namrata said.

“However it is not the destination that counts but the journey,” added Shishira.

“Yes it required a lot of commitment and focus, but I am very grateful to have had this opportunity which I view as a milestone in my life,” emphasised Thanuja.

The hard slog notwithstanding, all three came to realise an essential truism, which should inspire others on a similar path: “There comes a point when one decides to let go of all cares and worries, and simply enjoy the moment.”

They thanked their near and dear ones for making the evening possible for them.

“Hosting an event like this requires more than one pair of hands, and the positive energy emanating from everyone helped make the event a grand success.”

FEBRUARY (2) 2018 35

TRAVEL

Central America’s hidden gem Nicaragua has awe-inspiring nature, but it is just as proud of its 500-year-old heritage

BY SANDIP HOR

I

t’s my last evening in Nicaragua, the largest republic in Central America.

The sun has already set. Darkness is nibbling away at the last of the dusk.

I am inside Masaya Volcano National Park to see a spectacular show of nature. Only, I don’t know what exactly it is. The thought makes me anxious and excited. As we drive up the hilly slope, the tour guide Elvis tells me, “It will stay in your memory forever.”

Every minute seems like an hour until we arrive at the summit. Elvis hurriedly escorts me through the blackness to the edge of a volcanic rim.

I peer into the crater below and instantly, a burst of colours assaults my vision. I see a combination of red, orange, crimson, yellow and many unknown hues spinning around the walls, as if chained by a ruthless, invisible monster. The smoke spiralling through the luminous mass tells me what I see 500m lower is fire from the burning of volcanic rocks. The grand spectacle of light hypnotises me.

“Technically, it’s called magma. It becomes lava when the molten mass gushes out from the vent,” says Elvis. I feel both blessed and contended to come so close to one of nature’s most awesome - and awe-inspiring - forces. I thank Robyn Smith of Movidas Journeys, an Australian tour operator specialised for tailor-made journeys in Central America, for including Nicaragua in my itinerary. “If for nothing

36 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

else, it’s worth travelling across the world to this off-beat destination just for this sight,” she had told me. Beholding the incredible sight, I can’t help but agree.

Nicaragua generally finds space in world newspapers only in reference to civil wars, killings or natural disasters. Not much is known about its hidden treasures. Hence my Nicaraguan odyssey, which started a few days earlier, has been like a discovery mission with surprises awaiting around every corner.

The well-known cliché ‘There is something for everyone’ fits well for Nicaragua. It’s a haven for nature aficionados, adventure seekers, culture lovers, history buffs - and of course rum and coffee connoisseurs.

Nature’s splendour is of high order here. With Caribbean Sea on the east and Pacific Ocean on the west, the landscape is dotted with many mountains, lakes and lush valleys. Seen from the sky, Nicaragua appears as a cluster of several water bodies and pointy outcrops tucked in the centre of the isthmus connecting North and South America. The water bodies are lakes and pointy outcrops are volcanic mountains. There are so many of them, it’s natural to nickname Nicaragua as the Land Of Lakes And Volcanoes.

Nicaraguan volcanoes form part of the famous Pacific Rim of Fire. Adventure seekers can hike up on some of them; those not seeking an adrenaline rush can still enjoy their beauty from various lookouts.

Seven from the lot of around 50 are still active and smoke billows from their top.

Towering over the shores of Lake Managua, one of the nation’s largest waterbodies, the 1300m high and highly active Momotombo volcano is the most

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Nicaragua is a haven for nature aficionados, adventure seekers, culture lovers, history buffs - and of course rum and coffee connoisseurs striking. However, the Masaya volcano, protected inside the national park, is the easily accessible one because of the paved road leading to the mouth of the crater.

Inside the park is a nice museum which is a great venue to pick up more about Nicaraguan volcanoes and geological mysteries behind their formation.

I gather from the exhibits that the myriad lakes and lagoons were once part of the ocean and got separated as results of volcanic eruptions. One such is Lake Nicaragua which, archaeologists believe, was once part of the Pacific Ocean.

Anyone standing at its shore will see this 8000sqkm body of water more like sea than anything else - the presence of sharks and other marine life in the lake only strengthening the impression.

Locals claim this lake to be the ultimate chillout spot in Central America. I can’t vouch for it. But can surely say cruising this lake, edged by the majestic Mombacho volcano and crowned by numerous islands, mostly inhibited by herons, egrets and kingfishers, is a most relaxing encounter with nature.

It will be a big mistake to think there isn’t much to Nicaragua beyond fascinating nature. Equally enticing are the nation’s 500 years of history and culture, which can be best experienced in Granada and Leon, two of the nation’s oldest settlements founded by Spaniard

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Francisco Fernández de Córdoba in early 16th centuries. Visitors generally stay at either of these townships, dotted with reasonably good hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés. Both are not far from other popular attractions and are also located close to capital Managua which is the nation’s getaway for international visitors arriving by air.

The landscape of the two cities is pretty similar. Full of squares, parklands, churches, museums and rows of colourful houses separated from each other by their pastel hues, they reflect styles which were imported from across the Atlantic. The tiled-roof dwellings are mostly lowset as anything high-rise was never thought of in the earthquake-prone zone. Horse-drawn carriages are still used to carry people and goods, giving an old-world character to the ambiance. More of that antique flavour comes out when talking to friendly locals who enjoy their slow-paced lifestyle and are happy to live without much of modernday infrastructure.

A majestic cathedral in each city dominates the skyline. Splashed with yellow and white in the body and red in the domes, Granada Cathedral is almost like the nation’s pictogram. It reflects a Moorish tint, while the one in Leon, which is Central America’s largest cathedral, has a Castilian influence. These two are definitely showstoppers but not the only ones to

command attention. There are many other beautiful churches in both cities, each displaying distinct architectural flavours.

Almost from their birth, both cities were locked in a pitched battle to become the nation’s political capital. This animosity stemmed in civil wars, deaths and massive architectural destruction until the neutral Managua was selected. Granada was virtually burned to the ground but has now gradually been restored to its past glory.

In Leon, bullet holes in some buildings are painful reminders of the horror days, while a Mausoleum in the city centre stands as a symbol of respect for the dead. The stormy history of the two cities, along with rest of the nation, is engraved in murals on the surrounding wall.

Elvis works as a guide with Careli Tours, who are experts on the region. But he has other qualities too. Like his more illustrious namesake, he sings very well. So we are

Clockwise from left to right: Active volcano; old houses, capital city Managua; tour guide Elvis singing; Granada cathedral; volcanic spectacle; horse-drawn carriages; streetside produce sales

melodiously entertained whenever the moment is right. He tells us Nicaraguan people are very proud of their culture and heritage. This sentiment resonates when I drop in at the only McDonald’s outlet in Leon. It’s housed in a colonial building with no sign of the usual golden arches on the façade. The inside looks more like a museum of Nicaragua’s natural splendours and architectural marvels rather than an advertisement of burgers and chips. Next to the counter is an image of Leon Cathedral, perhaps repeating to the modern generation the nation’s past glory. “To preserve our culture, we could change even McDonald’s in our country,” comments Elvis while I queue for a Big Mac.

TRAVEL NOTEBOOK NICARAGUA GETTING THERE Fly Qantas (www.qantas.com) to Santiago Chile and then Copa Air (www.copaair.com) to Managua with an aircraft change at Panama City.

STAY Hotel Colonial (www.hotelcolonialgranada.com) in Granada, located close to the main cathedral

NICARAGUA VISA Australian passport holders need no visa to enter Nicaragua

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FEBRUARY (2) 2018 37

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FOOD

The nectarine scene This stone fruit can be a gourmet delight BY RAJNI ANAND LUTHRA

N

ectarine season is nearly over. I have enjoyed this stone fruit this time round like never before, particularly the white-flesh variety. Nectarines are sort of like smooth-skin peaches, and are quite similar to peaches nutritionally and by way of use. They are a good source of vitamin C and dietary fibre. Yellow-flesh nectarines have

NECTARINE SALAD 1 nectarine, thinly sliced 50 g rocket leaves 2 red radishes, thinly sliced 15 almonds Parmesan, shaved Dressing: 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tbsp lemon juice 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp sugar

Toast almonds in a dry frying pan and cool.

Put rocket leaves and radish in a deep bowl. Whisk dressing ingredients together and pour over. Gently toss, and then lay out on a platter.

Throw nectarines, almonds and shaved parmesan over greens.

NECTARINE SALSA

3 medium nectarines, diced 1/4 cup red capsicum, diced 1/2 cup red onion, finely chopped 1 tsp garlic, crushed 2 tsp orange juice 1 tsp honey Fresh coriander, chopped

more beta-carotene, but both varieties also have potassium and some vitamin E. You can cut up nectarines for use in a fruit salad or a smoothie. Or you can cook them: you can bake nectarines (halve, sprinkle with honey and cinnamon and cook until tender in a hot oven, cut side up), or grill them (brushed with fruit juices or an appropriate alcoholic beverage), or poach them (in wine or fruit juice).

My favourite method in recent weeks has been to use nectarines in salad. White-flesh nectarines are lower in acid than the yellowflesh version, and their subtle sweetness adds a wonderful flavour to salads, offsetting beautifully the saltier ingredients.

Salt, pepper and red chilli powder or chilli flakes to taste

1 packet salad greens of choice Chopped fresh chives

Toss all ingredients together in a deep bowl. Serve over grilled chicken breasts.

Also great as a dip for chips.

Whisk together yogurt, sugar and pepper.

Arrange salad leaves on platter and throw nectarines and avocados over.

Spoon yogurt dressing over, and top with chives.

NECTARINES WITH HAM

2 cups nectarine slices 1 ½ cups cooked ham, cut into juliennes 3 cups baby spinach leaves ¼ cup olive oil 2 tbsp white wine vinegar ½ tsp ground ginger Salt to taste Whisk together the oil, vinegar, ginger and salt in salad bowl. Add ham, fruit and spinach and toss gently.

NECTARINE AND AVOCADO SALAD

¾ cup plain yogurt 1 tsp sugar ¼ tsp white pepper 4 medium nectarines, stoned and sliced 2 avocados, pitted, peeled and sliced

NECTARINE RELISH 6-7 medium nectarines 1 cup walnuts ¼ cup dark brown sugar 2 tbsp diced crystallized ginger 2 tbsp lemon juice Salt to taste

Stone and dice nectarines. Put into deep bowl, add all other ingredients and toss gently. Cling wrap and refrigerate at least three hours before use.

BARBECUED NECTARINES 6 ripe nectarines 25 gms pistachio nuts, blanched and chopped 75 gms unsalted butter, softened

Halve and stone nectarines. Tear out a large piece of Alfoil and spread some butter in the centre. Pile all the fruit in and wrap up Alfoil securely by folding in edges. Make sure there are no gaps.

Place on a hot barbecue and cook for about 15 minutes. When done, open the package, lift fruit onto a platter and carefully pour the juices over. Sprinkle with pistachios, and serve with a good quality vanilla ice cream, yogurt or ricotta sweetened with honey.

You can add a dash of alcohol (rum or sherry) if you like - sprinkle on top of the fruit before wrapping up in foil.

GRILLED NECTARINES 4 ripe nectarines 1 tbsp butter 8 tsp brown sugar 8 tsp sweet sherry

Cut nectarines in half, remove stones and place, cut side up, on a baking sheet. Divide butter among halves, placing little in each cavity. Add 1 teaspoon each Sherry and brown sugar to cavity of each nectarine half. Grill until topping is bubbly and fruit softened,

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FEBRUARY (2) 2018 39

ENTERTAINMENT

CINE TALK AKSHAY SHINES IN THIS PUBLIC SERVICE FILM

PADMAN

STARRING: Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Radhika Apte, Amitabh Bachchan DIRECTOR: R Balki

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The concept for this film, Padman, is credited to Twinkle Khanna for the story that is based on the short tale in her book, . This story has been inspired by the life of Arunchalam Muruganantham, a social activist from Tamil Nadu who revolutionised the concept of personal hygiene during the menstrual cycle in rural India by creating low-cost sanitary pads.

Incidentally, the film shares the same premise as that of which was released in June 2017.

Set in rural Madhya Pradesh, Lakshmikant Chouhan (Akshay Kumar) a mechanic by profession and a loving and devoted husband to Gayatri (Radhika Apte) ensures that his wife leads a comfortable life by introducing small inventions to enhance her daily life.

But when he learns about the stigma and taboos that surround menstruation and the unhygienic methods used by women during this period, he is pained.

So he embarks on a mission to make affordable sanitary pads. How he succeeds in his endeavour, forms the crux of the tale.

Lakshmikant’s story is truly inspirational and writer-director R Balki leaves no stone unturned to magnify it for the large screen. Narrated in a linear manner and laced with light humour, stellar performances and statistics-filled

40 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

dialogues, this film conveys the strong message with ease and is entertaining from word go.

But the graph of the story is flat and the plot, laden with and certain elements truly stretched a la Bollywood style especially Lakshmikant’s invention and his speech at the UN, truly makes the film, “filmi.” It loses the charm of a realistic, biographical film.

Akshay Kumar’s portrayal of Lakshmikant Chouhan is sincere. He delivers on every front and is the soul of the film. You are with him during

his struggle and obsession. He is aptly supported by Radhika Apte as his wife Gayatri. She is every inch the submissive, rural lady struggling to survive within societal norms. Their onscreen chemistry is palpable.

Sonam Kapoor as Pari the city-bred, tabla maestro and a freshly minted MBA, is a misfit and strictly mediocre.

She walks through her role and what makes her further unacceptable is the frivolous demeanour that she is forced to portray.

On the technical front, the film has all

the trappings of an A-lister.

Cinematographer P C Sreeram’s camera work is definitely commendable.

He captures the locales in all its glory.

Amit Trivedi’s music is effective and it does elevate the viewing experience.

The songs has interesting lyrics and that celebrates womanhood is wellchoreographed. The other two songs don’t register at all.

Overall, though entertaining, Padman is like a long-drawn public-service film that’s worth your ticket money.

Troy Ribeiro

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protagonists represent patriotic valour at its most played-down scale.

Malhotra is especially surprising, fine-tuning his inner pain, channelising the Ranbir rather than Ranveer within himself, to deliver a mellow blow to a system of governance that fosters corruption. Adil Hussain as an arms dealer has one very powerful sequence with Bajpai where the two actors address a devastating debauchery in the defence system with lethal élan.

True to the action genre, the female characters are sketchily written. Capable actresses like Juhi Babbar and Nivedita Bhattacharya scarcely get to make even a fleeting impression. As for Rakul Preet

THAT SEAMLESS POLITICAL THRILLER BOLLYWOOD NEEDED AIYAARY

STARRING: Manoj Bajpai, Siddharth Malhotra, Naseeruddin Shah, Rakul Preet Singh DIRECTOR: Neeraj Pandey

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At first, Aiyaary seems less seamless than it actually is. “Where is all this leading to,” you wonder at the outset, as writer-director Neeraj Pandey sets up what eventually turns out to be pieces of a jigsaw that fits perfectly into the mindboggling zigzag of India’s political conditioning in contemporary times.

It is very hard to point out plot points in Aiyaary that stand out to build the

compelling construct on corruption in military forces. It seems miraculous that Siddharth Malhotra, playing an army renegade, is allowed to mouth dialogues that openly castigate the corrupt political system. Illegal arms-deal scams are not only whispered into the commodious plot. The narrative screams in wounded agony at the dizzying heights of corruption in the highest places.

This is no mean achievement.

The performances are not consistently polished. Some of the actors are impossible high-pitched, clamouring to make themselves heard over the bustling officious background music by Sanjoy Choudhary that could have been less

hammering in its impact.

Blessedly, Manoj Bajpai and Malhotra play against each other with vitality and force, giving both heft and history to their respective parts of a veteran who won’t desert the cause and the junior who won’t stay within the corrupt system. The confrontation sequences between them are a treat to behold, largely because they play not for effect but for reasons that come from within their conscience.

There are two vivid flashbacks in Kashmir where we see the two heroes’ heroism from each other’s point of view.

Taking the bullets from the enemies with a refreshing lack of flourish associated with cinematic soldierliness, the two

Singh as Malhotra’s love interest, she looks clueless in the plot.

But truly, my favourite performance in this film of indubitable force and inner strength, is by Naseeruddin Shah.

His cameo as a common man who, according to the smart script, brings out the Adarsh Housing Society scam, is peerless.

It takes a vast amount of integrity and guts to bring to the screen a drama that dismantles the image of ‘Saare jahan se achcha..’ to focus on the corruption within. Designed to poke needles into our collective national conscience, Aiyaary is a film that must be seen by every Indian.

Subhash K Jha

WHERE TENDERNESS ADDS BALM TO MISFITS OF METROPOLIS KUCH BHEEGE ALFAAZ

STARRING: Zain Khan Durrani, Geetanjali Thapa DIRECTOR: Onir

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In his latest directorial venture, the prolific and insightful director Onir probes wounds that never heal. The love that grows between two wounded people trapped in the numbing bustle of the metropolis, Kolkata (it was Delhi in Onir’s previous film Shab) - is not uncharted territory in the cinema of emotional diaspora that Onir has constantly explored in Life in a... Metro.

In Kuch Bheege Alfaaz, the traditional tearfulness associated with the emotions of hurt, pain, betrayal, isolation and guilt are alchemised into a warm-hearted, frothy-but-never-frivolous look at how craggily man-woman relationships pan out in the city.

There is a lot of ‘ping’ in the pain of mutually shared hurt between the pair as they exchange messages on the phone that they find very entertaining.

In the movie, the male lead, Alfaaz, suffers in abundance for a guilty secret that he harbours from his teens. Hint: It has to do with a pretty bright 15-year-old NATIONAL EDITION

girl Chhavi played by Shefali Chauhan.

It’s Alfaaz’s good fortune that his misfortune is portrayed by an abundantly emotive new actor. Zain Khan Durrani is most decidedly a prized find.

His command over his character’s dithering emotional graph is impressive.

His command over the Urdu language and the sher-o-shayari that his radio jockey’s character is insistently required to spill into the scanty screenplay, is even more impressive, especially in today’s cinema where our heroes “think” in English.

Zain, with his restrained ruminative romanticism, makes you overlook the film’s bleaker bits - the repetitive use of the WhatsApp theme to drive in the point of how contemporary relationships are driven in to the zone of tenability on the smartphone. After a point, those pings on the screen just begin to seem annoying.

The lead pair, though, keeps our attention from flagging. If Zain is every bit the dreamy RJ with a nightmare tucked in his heart, Geetanjali Thapa (so brilliant in Liar’s Dice) as the sunshine girl with a skin ailment, gets into the skin of her character, though

some of the script’s attempts to scrub her conscience clean of all self-pity is way too tactless (a blind date who keeps digging his nose, for example, hardly makes for a convincing case of self-worth for the girl with the skin ailment).

Zain and Thapar keep us watching.

Zain’s voice playing across the radio waves gives the narrative a romantic heft that the film may have otherwise lacked. The supporting cast is also well-woven into the script.

Mona Ambegaonkar as Thapa’s feisty mother and Shrey Rai Tiwari as Thapa’s best friend with a nosy mother serve potentially hackneyed roles with an empathy that goes a long way into making the core romance convincing, at times even sublime.

The film’s Kolkata locations are solidly shot by Nusrat Jafri to capture a city trapped between an evaporating traditional edifice and a rapidly

developing urbanisation.

Significantly, Kuch Bheege Alfaaz ends not in Kolkata, but scenic, silent, serene Shimla with the film’s most memorable moment of empathy where Zain’s Alfaaz is shown resting his weary, guilt-ridden head on the shoulders of a grandfatherly figure.

The moment expresses a stirring mix of regret and hope, the kind of emotional synthesis that we rarely get in today’s cinema. Cherish it.

Subhash K Jha FEBRUARY (2) 2018 41

entertainment

the BUZZ UP-TO-DATE NEWS ON WHAT’S HOT AND HAPPENING IN BOLLYWOOD

TAAPSEE PANNU

GERMAN ORCHESTRA PLAYS ‘KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI’ IN BERLIN

It’s a well-loved Bollywood classic that you can safely say after listening to, that kuch kuch hota hai. No matter that those words exactly are its actual lyrics!

Well, this past fortnight, many of you must have said that too after the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra gave a rendition of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. And guess who was in the audience listening? None other than Karan Johar, who directed the film of the same name in 1998 which launched his Bollywood career. It starred Kajol, Rani Mukherjee and Shah Rukh Khan and became a runaway hit.

Karan said he felt honoured and excited after listening to the German chamber orchestra.

He was representing Indian cinema at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in partnership with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was participating in the European Film Market from February 16-18 in Berlin. The Indian delegation, which also consisted of filmmakers like Jahnu Barua and Shaji Karun, was led by Karan.

GOING BACK TO HINDI MEDIUM

DEV-ID COPPERFIELD!

I

ndian-origin British actor Dev Patel is set to play David Copperfield in the new retelling of Charles Dickens’ story The Personal History of David Copperfield.

The film will be directed and written

by Veep creator Armando Iannucci.

The project will offer a modern take on Dickens’ title character as he navigates a chaotic world to find his elusive place within it.

The original David Copperfield was first published in 1850 and describes the journey of the titular protagonist, who was modelled after Dickens himself, from impoverished childhood to becoming a successful author, thanks to perseverance and despite a lack of personal discipline.

Patel, who rose to prominence in Danny Boyle’s 2008 film Slumdog

42 FEBRUARY (2) 2018

Millionaire, was last seen in the 2016 drama Lion, the true-life story of a young man’s cross-continental attempt to reunite with his ily, for which he won the best supporting actor award at last year’s BAFTAs. He will next be seen in Hotel Mumbai, an account of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. However, that film is currently in production limbo, due to its rights being owned by the troubled Weinstein Company.

Patel was recently nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Lion, which made him the third Indian actor to have ever been nominated for the award. Patel is currently filming The Wedding Guest for Sony Pictures.

He also recently made his directorial debut with the film Home Shopper, which premiered at Sundance.

Homi Adajania will be directing the sequel to Hindi Medium with actor Irrfan Khan playing the lead.

The filmmaker says the film’s story is very “amusing yet emotional”.

The news of Adajania getting on board to direct the quirky franchise comedy for Dinesh Vijan’s Maddock films banner was announced recently.

“I ambled into Dinoo’s (Vijan) room and he was sitting down to a narration.

I had enjoyed the first one (Hindi Medium) and the way these writers have taken the narrative forward is very clever,” Adajania said in a statement.

“So yeah, I pretty much gate-crashed the narration and it was so engaging and hilarious that I told him I’d be happy to direct it if he had no director attached to the project. It’s been a while since I’ve found any material so amusing yet emotional,” he added.

Vijan and Adajania have worked on films Being Cyrus and Cocktail.

Directed by Saket Chaudhary, Hindi Medium revolves around a couple who wants to give their daughter the best education, so that she becomes accepted by the elite in society. It also features Pakistani actress Saba Qamar.

While Irrfan has come on board for the sequel, there is no word on Qamar getting back for the second part.

About roping in Adajania for the sequel, Vijan said: “Homi doesn’t make films very often as he refuses to do

stuff that doesn’t bowl him over. But when I narrated this one to him, he loved it. And when I saw his reaction, it was a no-brainer. I guess from Maddock’s stable of directors, Homi was the most unlikely choice for Hindi Medium 2 and that’s exactly I have signed him on.”

The story will be flash-forward by a decade and will narrate the story of Irrfan’s character Raj. “Hindi Medium will always be an important film for me as it was a story that was relatable and the reality depicted impacts most of us at some level,” Irrfan said recently. “Audiences loving the film and the awards that the film bagged have made the journey exciting.”

RICHA CHADDA: STOREY STORY

Richa Chadda is one happy lady, as the year looks quite promising with two of her films - Daas Dev and 3 Storeys ready for release.

In 3 Storeys, which releases on 9 March, she playa a mysterious woman named Leela. The film is set in a ‘chawl’ in Mumbai. The story revolves around different neighbours living in the same building.

That’s all she’s saying for now. Except to add that she selects films based on the merit of the story, so that should serve as a hint!

Richa is known for featuring in critically acclaimed films like Oye Lucky!

Lucky Oye!, Gangs of Wasseypur, Masaan and Sarbjit.

What makes her choose unusual films?

Richa said, “I sign films based on their potential, but we have to understand that at times, how a story looks on paper might not be turned out on the screen in the same way.”

“Some stories get lost in the process of execution. My film Jia Aur Jia faced this problem. Though as an actress I understand that the film is going to the wrong director, I cannot do much because cinema is a director’s medium.”

Helmed by debutant director Arjun Mukerjee, 3 Storeys also features Pulkit Samrat, Sharman Joshi, Renuka Shahane and more.

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TAAPSEE PANNU: HOCKEY STAR

Taapsee Pannu’s hockey training from Soorma is coming in handy for Manmarziyan.

“It’s very rare and uncanny that a sport I learnt for a specific film carried forward in my immediate next,” Taapsee said recently. “But unlike Soorma, I don’t play a professional hockey player in Manmarziyan; instead, I play a sports shop owner who sells sports goods and has learnt hockey from her parents. The good part is that we saved the preparation time because of that,” she added.

Taapsee has begun with the first schedule of the Anurag Kashyap directed Manmarziyan with actors Vicky Kaushal and Abhishek Bachchan.

ASHWIN SANGHI’S ‘THE KRISHNA KEY’ BOUND FOR SCREEN

Author Ashwin Sanghi’s hit novel The Krishna Key is set to be adapted into a film and an original series for the digital platform.

Eros International has acquired the rights to adapt Sanghi’s thriller which came out in 2012.

The book follows a history professor who must prove his innocence against a murder charge.

“I am delighted that Eros International has acquired the rights to ‘The Krishna Key’. Eros has an

incredible team that is exceedingly capable of adapting this actionpacked thriller into a very interesting story for cinema. I am confident that the final product will be exciting and entertaining,” said Sanghi.

The Krishna Key was Sanghi’s third novel which tried to unfold the secrets of the Mahabharata and establish Krishna as a historical rather than a mythical character.

The series is in initial stages of development with talent yet-to-be finalised.

SUCHITRA PILLAI: DIALOGUE ON DEPRESSION

Actress Suchitra Pillai’s award-winning American film The Valley will be releasing in India on 2 March.

Produced by Wavefront Productions and helmed by Saila Kariat, The Valley, also starring Alyy Khan, brings out an important message on depression.

It follows a distraught Silicon Valley entrepreneur as he searches for answers after his teenage daughter’s suicide.

The film has won awards at many film festivals like Berlin International Filmmaker Festival of World Cinema, Madrid International Film Festival, Out of the Can Film Festival and DC South Asian Film Festival. Suchitra herself

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took the Best Actress award at two festivals.

The film “deals with themes of ambition and the drive for success versus human connection, through the story of a young girl suffering from depression, who makes the ultimate tragic choice”.

At a time when talk about depression is becoming more and more open in India, the film will be a welcome addition to the dialogue.

WORTH WAITING FOR? YOU DECIDE!

Director Ali Abbas Zafar has started work in London on his next film titled Bharat with superstar Salman Khan in the lead. The film is an official adaptation of the 2014 South Korean film Ode to My Father. Filming will take the unit to Abu Dhabi, Spain, Punjab and Delhi. This will be the third time Salman and Zafar will be collaborating for a movie after Sultan and Tiger Zinda Hai. It is scheduled to hit the screens on Eid 2019.

Come 9 March, and we will be offered a closer look at the demonetisation that the Indian government launched in 2016. Filmmaker Imran Ahmed Khan explores the uncharted territory of the real-life based political-satirical comic genre with the film Note Pe Chot At 8/11. Actor Ajay Kkuundal says the movie is about how the move to withdraw high-denomination notes from circulation affected the nation, and that it does not favour or criticise Prime Minister Modi’s decision. Ajay said, “I play the role of a serious guy, devoted to his work and who is always shying away from romance. But he finally meets a girl, decides to get married, and just then demonetisation happens.

So the movie is about what happens next in their lives.”

Meanwhile, actor Tiger Shroff will start shooting for the third instalment of Baaghi in China in December. Baaghi 2 is yet to release (with release date set on 30 March), but the producers have announced that they will be taking forward the franchise.

Produced by Sajid Nadiadwala under the banner Nadiadwala Grandson Entertainment and presented by Fox Star Studios, Baaghi 3 will be helmed

by Ahmed Khan again.

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BACKCHAT

ASK AUNTYJI disconcerted that my husband

not insisted that I go along Painful yarns has with them. Should I be feeling

DEAR AUNTYJI

I have been married for almost 10 years, and my husband Neel is a wonderful man and a loving father. Most of my husband’s family lives in the UK, except his father and mother who live here in Australia. Now mum-in-law’s brother in the UK has been sick for a while - we had told Uncle Harry that we would visit him when we came to the UK later this year. However, we have decided to buy a bigger home this year, so the UK trip is off.

But last weekend, I was talking to my hubby and I indicated that he should visit Uncle Harry, as it was the right thing to do. I was not too keen to visit, because it would be quite dull for me.

But then, after a genius idea, I suggested that my hubby take his mother and go visit Uncle Harry. Neel thought it was an excellent idea, and now he and my mother-in-law are planning a quick UK trip, and I am a little

left out, Auntyji? And is this small-minded of me to think this way? Mind you, if I had gone along with MIL, I would have had to listen to a continual litany of complaints about health. Lekin, I am still feeling left out. Please advise?

AUNTYJI SAYS

Oh my poor little gulabo, my little chameli - you have put forward an idea and now you are feeling upset because you are no longer part of the fun team. There is no reason for you to feel this way. You have given birth to your idea, and your work here is done. Did you seriously want to go on a yatra with your MIL and hubby? Did you know how boring that would have been? Sara din aur sari raat you could have had to listen to constant complaints about bad knees-shees, bad heart-shart, and gout-shout.

And then, this torture would have been amplified as soon as you reached England, nah?

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Uncle Harry would have been like a broken record, probably complaining about his ill health and with his sister by his side, it would have been a symphony of the damned. Just be grateful that your wonderful hubby is sparing you this misery and is taking one for the team. Wish your MIL and hubby a safe journey, give him a list of gifts to bring you back, and sit back and enjoy your week without worrying about listening to dard bhare dukhde.

Moving out vs moving in DEAR AUNTYJI

I was hoping for your advice, Auntyji. I am married to an Australian, who is the most wonderful man I have ever met.

I have two grown up children from my first marriage. Now, Vicky is 23 and is still living with us. Recently he found himself a new girlfriend and they seem to

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be rock solid. The thing is, I was hoping that when he found a girl, he would move out. However, this girl is of Hungarian descent, and is very family oriented. Now Vicky announced the other day that he loves living with us and does not want to move out.

Grace spends 5 nights a week in our house, and she loves being with us as well. She is a doctor, and is very nice. Now I feel the house is a little small for us and with Sydney’s prices, I am thinking of moving to a larger home where Vicky and Grace can live in the granny flat out the back until they decide whether they want to buy their own house. But when we told this idea to our Australian friends, they are baffled by why we would do this. They think that kids should go out and make their own way in the world. What are your thoughts on this matter, Auntyji?

AUNTYJI SAYS

Looks like you have a great sense of family and community, and understand what duty

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means. You brought your son into this world and Sydney prices being what they are, you have a duty to help them. You are very lucky to have a son and potential daughter-in-law who get along very well with you.

So if they want to live with you, even better. The important thing I note is that your hubby - who is not Vickey’s father - does not have any issues with this.

And his is the most important viewpoint. If he is in favour of the idea, then you are very fortunate. It looks like you have a great family, and you are a loving mum who wants to do right by her son. You have a daughter-in-law who is smart and loving, so consider yourself doubly blessed. It is wonderful to see that family ties still mean a lot to some people! So don’t waste your time thinking about what others might say, and do what you feel is right. All the best with finding a house in Sydney. By the way, it’s good to have an in-house doctor fortune has indeed smiled at you my little jalebi!

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