Blink issue 05 february22 2014

TWO IN ONE Author Anjum Hasan on the many meanings of fashion in her hometown, Shillong p16 saturday, february 22, 2014

dev raj agarwal

Even as it loses its lustre in the metros, winning the beauty pageant is still every aspirant’s dream in small-town India p10

Farrukhabad on the ramp

WE ARE LIKE THIS ONLY Does the pandemonium in Parliament reect our desi ways p3

NAUTANKI NIGHTS A photo essay on the after-dark entertainment at the Sonepur cattle fair p12

explore know

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saturday, february 22,22, 2014 saturday, february 2014

CREATURE FEATURE

Antlions & The secret ‘crusade’ helmeted basilisks

Religion and violence cross paths again in small-town Andhra Pradesh as right-wing fundamentalists target the local clergy, allegedly to arrest conversions

Find out why two of the laziest creepy-crawlies go slo-mo n January 10, at around 8:30pm in

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pend a moment visualising your most active days and your laziest days. On active days, you might visit the gym, trek the Himalaya or run a marathon. On lazy days, perhaps, you would walk from your bed to the fridge and back.

Some animals live in a state of perpetual activity like you on your active days — imagine a constantly buzzing bee or a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower. Today, however, we are taking a break from these exhausting creatures to talk instead about those that behave like you on your laziest days.

One of my favourite animals, the antlion larva, perfectly illustrates such a sedentary lifestyle. Have you ever noticed small, conical pits in the ground, often in sandy soil along walls, sheltered by trees or eaves? These pits have been dug by antlion larvae, who wait patiently at the bottom for their food — ants and other insects — to fall in. When an ant falls into the pit, all hell breaks loose. The antlion jerks its head violently to spray sand in the direction of the unsuspecting ant, which loses its balance and careens into the gigantic jaws of the antlion below. After grasping the ant firmly, the antlion

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Shiftless critters A helmeted basilisk alexis harrison; and (top right) an antlion ambika kamath

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Vikarabad, 69km from Hyderabad, a group of men knocked on Pastor Sanjeevulu’s door. They said they had come to offer prayers.

When the injects it with digestive juices and Pramila, retires bepastor’s wife,to opened door, she was struck low the sand eat it the at its own leisure, reon the to forehead with an iron rod. The assaiturning its placid existence. lants then marched the house and This mode of huntinginto is aptly called exstabbed the pastor,predation. repeatedly.Another He was beaten treme sit-and-wait fasciwith clubs andsit-and-wait hit on the head with the iron nating predator is the rod. The attack barely 10 minuteshelbut Central and lasted South American Sanjeevulu sustained severe injuries to his livmeted basilisk lizard. Like aner, spleen andtlions, intestines. days theseThree lizards arelater, mosthe succumbed to his wounds at the Yashoda Hosactive when catching food. pital in Hyderabad.

When a helmetBy the end of January, Stateedpolice had arbasilisk rested seven of the eight accused. of them spotsAllan inhave been linked to Hindu sect Vahini, a rightit wants to wing organisation described affiliate eat, as it an dashes offof the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, with itsbeen Statesitunit the tree it’s located in Hyderabad.

Sreenu, alias Rama tingGon and sprints on Krishna, was identified theacross leader the its hindaslegs theofforgroup formed by from the estyouth floor to catch theNalgonda insect. district. He had been working at Hindu But most of the time,Vahini this as a full-time pracharak forvery, the last years. lizard sits veryfew still.

So In December 2013, threethat other still, in fact, notattacks one buton clergy members reported in of thecreasame threewere different types district. These incidents have revealed turesfour — nine species of algae, a tiny a chilling pattern — the same modus plant called a liverwort, andoperandi, a slime the same right-wing outfiton behind the of attacks, mould — can grow the body the conversions as the alleged motive.

In what helmeted basilisk!

This association is apa pears win-win to be a series of planned churchsituation for attacks, everyone ines in Andhra are increasingly being volved. Pradesh By growing on the lizard’s targetedbody, by these right-wing assailants.help In the 2013 green creatures alone, the State 72 incidents antilizardwitnessed camouflage againstoftree Christian violence, with more trunks in theseveral its periods of unreimported, say local residents. to a remobility, butAccording the creatures port released by Catholic Secular Forum to last benefit by being dispersed year, AP had thenew second highest incidence environments whenof cases of persecution against Christians after the lizard runs across the Karnataka. In total, around 4,000 Christians, jungle. were targeted, 400 members among Inclergy thinking about how inthem. About 100frequently churches were alsoand attacked. antlions helIn Nalgonda district moremove, than and 1,000 metedalone, basilisks churches are now living inhow fear. infrequently therefore On December 29,eat, at 11:45pm, four men came they I’ve always wondered knocking atwhether Pastor Nama door It inapNartheyMoses’s get hungry. ketpally town, paspears Nalgonda. that bothSuvartha, animalsthe have tor’s wife, opened thedealing door, thinking was an found ways of with thisit probacquaintance.

She with was the struck on the head lem.

Antlions cope uncertainty of with an iron Pastor Moseswhatever was hit recatching preyrod notand only by eating peatedly and stabbed times — a chillingly they can catch, but alsonine by not eating very often — they can survive for several months without food, because they burn their energy reserves more slowly than most other coldblooded creatures. In contrast, helmeted basilisks are very picky eaters. They only decide to move when they can catch a very large insect, an insect big enough to satisfy the lizard’s appetite for over a day.

Nature documentaries have us believe that the animal world is always filled with motion and excitement, but this is definitely not the case. That antlions and helmeted basilisks exist today, in the same ecosystems as bees and hummingbirds, is proof that a sedentary lifestyle can be just as successful as an active one.

This is a monthly series on animals you may have never met, but must (at least, on page). ambika kamath studies organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University

similar sequence of events echoing the assault bad, Nizamabad, Medak — have also received on Pastor Sanjeevulu. Nearly two months later death threats. in February, when BLink contacted Pastor Mos“There is no personal angle in these ates, he had survived the brutal attack but was in tacks,” says Father Sudhakar, pastor of Telugu no condition to talk. “The pastor has been here Baptist Church in Warangal, who is involved for two decades now and I’ve never known in documenting anti-Christian atrocities in such enmity. I don’t understand why we were the State. “It is politically motivated and it is attacked. He has never forced anyone to con- right-wing terror against minorities. Hindutvert,” says Suvartha. Her daughters, she says, va elements have been attacking in three ways have been unable to go to school out of fear. — attacks on the clergy, implicating church ofAnd attendance church conflicts has dwindled. ficials in false cases hate speech and demolFood for thoughtat Nohis man-animal at the elephant rehabilitation centreof in southern Sri Lanka’s piersyouth,” locke Walewe National “AUda few of them werePark local says Suvar- ishing churches and burning Bibles.” In 2013, tha, “and they had recently attacked another he says, there was a 70 per cent increase in the pastor as well.” attacks. This year has already seen four at“People are afraid of persecution,” says Ka- tacks. “We have also documented 22 false cases vitha, a resident of Nalgonda town. “The pas- against pastors.” tor’s children were in the room when the In an election year, the threat to Christian attack happened. It was only the morning af- minorities has acquired a serious political colter when they got any help.” Four weeks ago, a our; various church associations have written meeting was held at the Church of South India to the CM seeking a ban on Hindu Vahini. MIM — Kavitha’s church — to discuss leader Akbaruddin Owaisi has althe violence targeting the comso demanded immediate action n July 7, 2013, runs the successful charity,inElemunity. “There have been herds manyof elephants la. He now against Hindutva elements the from the nearby Saranda forest phant Family, which supports attacks here,” Kavitha says, “but legislative assembly.initiatives on In an election year, stormed into news.”

Rourkela, a ‘steel elephant corridors India.it’s not only SCs, most of them don’t make “You in know, the threat to city’campaigned in Jharkhand.

They had to be If aggressively conother communities have also minorities has held captive till they could new approaches to ease versions are being cited as be thesafely herded What are thestarted turning toapplied Christianity,” acquired a serious out of for the the town.

This was the at first time that such conflicts? reason attacks, locals says Kavitha, “and it has not gone political colour elephant herds ever entered been involved withisandefinitely exciting least, dismiss thehad idea.

“I was the a city space I have recently down well.”

The base — villages, yes, but cities. new projectgrowing, to mitigatesays human-elephant confirst in my family to never turn to ChrisFather Sudhakar.

While a platonic Working at the tianity 13 years ago,”relationship says Kavitha.betweens hu- flict in Sri Lanka.

“We don’t call with thempeople conversions, mans and elephants existed Study ofofthe “Nobody forced me to. have Nobody of- for millen- Centre for the 90 per cent SCsAsian in AP Elephant, are Chrisnia, human-elephant conflict has existed Rajarata University, Srion Lanka, we have run a fered me anything in return.

Mytoo mother was a tians spiritually, if not paper.” for just as long.she The didn’t Ministry of Environment trial of a project using a newknow approach staunch Hindu, approve of it. But Pastor Jayraj still doesn’t why to heelecwas and Forests (MoEF) says an average of 400 attacked. tric fences to protect villagers from eletoday my family has converted.”

On August 9, 2011, in Narketpally, he people and 100 die every yearhave as a was phants.

These by areapeople tryingmob to resettle “The attack onelephants Pastor Moses might attacked 10-member at his result of human-elephant conflicts. their homelands years of and dislocation as been personally motivated,” says Nalgonda’s home.

He was hit after on the head left to die.

WithSuperintendent the rising number conflicts in “G In- “I’ve a result of war.

Previous attempts fence eleDeputy RamofMohan Rao. heard of Hindu Vahini but I to don’t know dia, research ongroup’s the relationship the what phants into by they huRaju, one of the members,between was known they do.territories I couldn’t designated identify them, species has never beenSomeone so vital. in At his the had mans haveon. failed — there was simply too totwo have a personal grudge. masks The police never caught them.” frontier ofathis Dr Piers Locke, senior lecturmuch to maintain, and elephants don’t family had badisexperience two years ago and Withfence the violence directed towards Chriser had in anthropology at the to University of Can- tian like minorities to be told what is and is not their space. he contacted Sreenu do something only growing, older, unsolved terbury, New Zealand.

Dr Locke, who spent cases This like project, contrast, putsbeing the revisitfence about religious conversions.” that ofbyPastor Jayraj are the best part of last year at various parts of ed around thefor village, andlinks givestothe villagers the However, Pastor Talla Christopher was atto look possible right-wing terSouth on Asia — same from day Chitwan National in rorism. responsibility for maintaining the fence. tacked the as Pastor MosesPark in an“After Pastor Moses, other cases that Nepalvillage to areas around Esala Perahera or were undetected have come to light,” says DSP other of the samethe district.

And, in yet the Temple of theinTooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka How have humans elephants shaped another incident December, Pastor Neela-— Mohan Rao. “Casesand from 2011, even 2009, are along with colleagues, is carrying outhave pio- being each others’ livestoo.” through history? dri Pal was also attacked. While the police reopened Even as investigations neering work in ethnoelephantology.

We are Humans have cohabited made some arrests, the accused have apparon, theand fearelephants of being attacked continueson to asked Dr Locke in an email interview he haunt the Indian subcontinent for millennia. Sri ently revealed a larger, systematic planwhat of HinAP’s Christian community. makes oftothe latest spate of human-animal Lanka would not be able to support such a du Vahini eliminate members of the clergy kotamraju clashes in India. large population of wild elephants if it were all over AP. Pastors in other districts — Adila- priyanka not for the 12,000 tanks built by the ancient What is ethnoelephantology?

Sinhalese, while the Mauryan Empire’s reserEthnoelephantology is a field meant to be an vation of forests to catch elephants for war umbrella subject that deals with the study of and trade has influenced the historical distrihuman-elephant relations in their social, his- bution of India’s wild elephants. torical and ecological aspects. This includes study of captive elephant management, con- What role do you think conservation efforts servation, human-elephant conflict or the an- need to play? cient Indian literature on elephant anatomy, It is an error to think about the natural world behaviour, and husbandry. It’s about recog- as if it were something separate from and unnising the myriad ways in which the lives, his- touched by humanity. This myth of a pristine tories and habitats of humans and elephants nature in which humans do not belong, has are entangled with each other. led to policies of ‘fortress conservation’ that some argue has exacerbated human-eleHow did you get interested in this field? phant conflict. I think rather than this apI was inspired after reading Travels on My Ele- proach, it is worthwhile to pursue initiatives phant by Mark Shand. In this travelogue, he that encourage strategies for peaceful recounts his 600 mile journey across India, coexistence. apprenticing as the mahout of an elephant named Tara, purchased from the Sonepur Me- sibi arasu

Elephants in the room

Decoding the tenets of ethnoelephantology in South Asia

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saturday, february 22, 2014

What lies beneath The central Hall at Parliament House in New Delhi is the site of many doings and un-doings s subramanium

you think I am a veteran, my dear. How tragic.

Keshav ke sang as kari, jas arihon na karaye.

Chandra badan mrig-lochani, baba kahi kahi jai.

(Even his worst enemy should not suffer the fate that has befallen Keshav. Beautiful women now refer to him as an old man.) Keshav was a romantic poet who wrote mostly in the lilting avadhi dialect of eastern Uttar Pradesh. Benevolent sexism, especially its feudal variety common among the parliamentarians of the princely lot, is not without its charm.

Besides the princes and thikanedaars, you can occasionally encounter the entirely charm-less Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hurrying through the corridors, hand in the pocket, barely glancing at the gawking scribes. In sharp contrast, various loquacious ministers can be found huddled with groups, whispering and sharing a joke. Those among the journalists fortunate to be blessed with a pass for the Central Hall have greater access and chance of interacting with the ministers and various leaders of opposition.

Before Pranab Mukherjee became President, his loud outbursts reverberated intermittently in the corridors where reporters stood around sipping flavoured Darjeeling tea for a princely sum of ₹1. You learn about how parliamentary democracy functions, in its quintessentially chaotic Indian fashion. It no longer has Jawaharlal Nehru or Piloo Modi and or even the last of the Bhadralok — the perennially outraged Somnath Chatterjee. But till recently, it had among the most diligent and upright politician of our times — the late CPI(M) MP Dipankar Mukherjee and has, of late, welcomed some outstanding young legislators such as Jyoti Mirdha and Meenakshi Natarajan of the Congress. Even the reduced Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) still has the sense to send the illustrious Raghuvansh Prasad Singh among its representatives in the Lok Sabha. It is no longer a genteel, exclusive club.

Some would argue that it was the Emergency and its aftermath, the rise of volatile socialconstitute a natural progression and deepen- ists such as Ram Manohar Lohia and the ing of democracy in India. The stately corri- student/Naxalite movement of the ’70s that dors and beautiful stone architecture that broke the stranglehold of the Bhadralok over once symbolised colonial power are now en- democracy’s highest seat in India. But for dowed with a quintessential Indian ethos. It is most, it was when elements from the politics where modern India, characterised by Consti- of Mandal and Kamandal entered Parliament tution, laws, legislature, fuses ceaselessly with that it no longer remained the domain of the traditional Bharat in its caste, community, mo- ruling elite. When Mandalites stormed Parliahalla, rituals and other myriad ways. Debates ment in the ’90s with a stunning new idiom may no longer be reminiscent of their West- symbolised in Lalu Prasad Yadav’s colourful minster reproductions carried out by the leg- vocabulary and quirky rusticity, the contempt endary parliamentarians of yore. But they do of the gentry who had thus far presided over reflect a very Indian reality. the haloed precincts was barely Even the most anglicised of the suppressed. They cried over fallMPs retain enough of their rusticing standards of the debate and ity to impart a typically Indian fla‘hooliganism’ in both the Houses.

Even the most vour to the goings-on in But the traditional had, by then, anglicised MPs Parliament. On July 23, 2008, the asserted its supremacy over the retain enough of day the Bharatiya Janata Party anglicised modern idiom their rusticity to (BJP) decided to ferry wads of cash mouthed mostly by the uppity impart an Indian inside the House to stage its senMarxists. flavour to the sational exposé of how the govThe real issue, as the late Indragoings-on in ernment was ‘buying’ MPs for jit Gupta of the Communist Party Parliament votes, I noticed the veteran Jasof India (CPI), explained to me want Singh sighing audibly in disyears ago, is not whether the idigust. Sensing his unease with the om of protest and debate is acshow his party had put up, I folceptable. It is the reason for both lowed him inside his beautifully decorated that is of paramount importance. The prochambers as the Leader of Opposition in the foundly disturbing aspect of the goings-on in Rajya Sabha. the last session of the 15th Lok Sabha was that But Jaswant Singh is a tough warhorse; not people were not at the heart of either protest easily lured into a confession by a half-way or debate. All the theatrics traced their root to clever reporter. “As a veteran MP, don’t you private business interests. think this is disgraceful?” I had barely started when he delivered his gallant putdown. “So poornima joshi

Not a lower house

Why protests in and outside both the Houses constitute a natural progression and deepening of democracy in India

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ok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar’s rather simulated sensibilities were outraged by the extraordinary spectacle in the Lok Sabha last week. Admittedly, the recent pandemonium marks an unprecedented chapter in the chequered history of the House of the People. But a lot of the highbrow criticism is misdirected; not excluding the Speaker’s description of the event being a ‘blot’ on Indian parliamentary democracy.

What is deeply disturbing about the histrionics exhibited by Congress’s Lagadapati Rajagopal and the TDP’s Venugopal Reddy was not that they used pepper sprays and wielded a knife respectively. It was that their own business interests rather than people’s issues were at the heart of their theatrics in the Lok Sabha.

Rajagopal presides over the ₹15,000 Lanco Group of Companies while Venugopal Reddy is the promoter of the Ramky Group that has invested in massive real estate interests in Hyderabad and adjoining districts. Creation of Telangana, which is what the protests in Parliament were about, would directly impact these business interests.

So when the Speaker despairs over the MPs’ behaviour, one can only hope that the reference is towards the cause and not the superficial effects that were visible in the Lok Sabha last week. While the Speaker is within her rights to ensure decorum in the House, the protests, however violent, are not the real danger that threatens our ‘temple of democracy’.

For those covering Parliament over the years, protests in and outside both the Houses

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saturday, february 22,22, 2014 saturday, february 2014

Smile please Are photographs the mirrors of our soul? Do they still conceal as much as they reveal?

Never too far News is determined by how far OB vans can travel

DILLI DARBAR

sushil kumar verma

Capital as the nation the hindu archives What happens when the media is used to massage the darbari’s ego?

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Shoot at site Over the years, striking irst, let us agree that bus. You will be faced with evidence of people a pose has come to mean informal, photographs are doing things that are incomprehensible to Facebook-friendly ephemera magic. They allow you hen Sabhaoff speaker Meira fake — Lok jumping cliffs, getting ratetattoos civil servants destroyed DD and helped in munication to reach out to the entire country. us to freeze time, to and Kumar decided to shut off the instead taking pictures of cocktails of of privately owned TV companies Today, ironically, a local player in the politics of the creation go back, remember what we downing television cameras andallstop the national capital, like Arvind Kejriwal, has them.

Through this you must be and channels. were, what we had hoped to patient the telecast of theyourself proceedand remind that all While sorts ofhundreds of television news chan- been able to take advantage of this centralised be. Once upon a time, our grandparents ings in beher chamber of Parliament, she took nels have blossomed around the country, communications infrastructure to become a people make up this world. lieved that photographs were powerful, they the first step back theyou media Life from will have lookstrategy at more photographs mostly owned and controlled by politicians national hero. Can you imagine a Kejriwal-like could reduce lifetimes, steal souls, that alter Indira desti- Gandhi first unveiled nearly of honeymooners than you four will know to capitalists, the so-called ‘national’ activist achieving even more in a distant Coimandwhat crony nies. They were serious as they faced cameras, decades ago. Indira Gandhi wanted to the estabdo with.

You will register awkwardness channelsofbecame Delhi-centric, like DD. Then batore or Guwahati hoping to showcase his loknowing that every inch of their faces lish awould direct connect between thestrange Delhi darbar arms around still shoulders andLok the Sabha TV, promoted by publicity cal achievements for acquiring a national came be scrutinised long after they were gone, to be village and every the length and effort ofacross looking good for the people who will hungry speakers of the Lok Sabha, and Rajya stature? aligned with who we thought they breadth were, who of India It took 15 years of hard work for a Narendra lookthrough at these satellite pictures television. later. You will Sabha see photoTV, promoted by equally publicity hunthey should be.

Meira Kumar revealed the first time acolleagues sense gry Modi to be able to use his achievements in Gujgraphs offor newly married seated on chairpersons of the Rajya Sabha.

That old photo album hidden away in the unhappy of nervousness on the part of the darbar about elephants, camels, feeding monkeys Together, the private and the public TV arat to seek and demand a national role. Other house you grew up in is embarrassing thebecause rest of India finding out what happens and wearing rented tribal costumes.channels You mustspent a lot of money on new technol- regional leaders, from NTR to Mulayam Singh, it reveals a part of you that you have tried to overcome your discomfort and try and within. ogy underbut mostly concentrated in Delhi. Since have tried with limited success. Because their forget over the years. Your appalling posture, Indira Gandhi’s first ministerial job thethe field of political activity was far stand very this impulse that makes guyradius from of news for a TV chanthat twist of hair that you was that of minister foraccounting information andthese away from the Delhi darbar they share nelpictures is defined by the length to thought looked awesome but re- broadcasting in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s were never seen as ‘national’ leadwith you andcabinet. the rest ofwhich the world. an OB van can drive, most ally just looked silly, the hands By the time she was Prime He Minister ers, always as regional. But a man wantsshe youunderto knownews that became he is Delhi-centric. An Aaand feet you didn’t know what to stood the political and strategic importance who ought to have been a Delhi not just the guy inofaccounting, he murder case in Delhi, rushi Tawlar In Indira Gandhi’s do with. Photographs help you centralised communication a continental mayor is now regarded as a potenis ain person, with a beating heart, rape case and an Ara Nirbhaya time Delhi was You’ll learn some understand that life is a slow nation.

She temples invested in money in developing tial prime minister. TV has bewith a blushing an bride,vind whoKejriwal’s will political theatrics never the news visit nine process of resolving all the con- Indianthree national and in became national news. come the medium that massages learn to love him. capital of India dayssatellite programme flicts of your heart, of learning to creating a nationwide public broadcasting the darbari’s ego.

Today the photographsPrivate we seenews channels, therelove the person you once were, system under the tutelage Doordarshan Indira Gandhi must wonder to are of curated perfection,fore, flattering have been no different from the person you are now. and the ministry of I&B. angles and predictable spontaneiwhat extent she has created this the public broadcaster as purveyWhat is harder to do still, is to The Indian Space Research Organisationit(ISsituation by centralising the naty. Accordingly, is easy orsto of hate information from the Delhi learn to love others. Especially when RO),others under the leadership ofand Satish half-strangers theirDhawan, perfect vacation darbar picto the rest of the country. Not surpris- tion’s news infrastructure in Delhi. In her own make you look at pictures of theircreated vacations. the hardware. spin doctors andhaveingly, tures. ThisHer is exactly when we to pause therefore, on the evening when Andhra time Delhi was never the news capital of India.

As you get older, you will be forcedpolitical to look at managers created thealternative software. album DD Pradesh and think of the of the dewas divided into two states, the focus The editors of the Times of India and even the more and more photographs of people you do very graduated quickly from in its ablack anduniverse, leted that exists parallel susof one of the more popular news channels was Indian Express sat mostly in Bombay, of the not really know or like, for that matter.

You andpended white days the erain of aHum Log, Simon not state of Rini displacement.

It is a fatwhat this means for the Telugu peo- Statesman in Calcutta and of The Hindu in Maabout will have no choice; you will have to be Tejeshwar brave album and Singhthat to has colour and yellow the live a bright rose on plethe andcovHyderabad city, but why LSTV shut off dras. Today, most newspapers have their ediand enthusiastic. telecast of the er Asian in 1982.

Rajiv Gand- The tors or their senior editorial staff based in withGames the words Sweet Memories. photos its live coverage.

You will learn that some people like go on image hi’stonational wasand created on television Delhi. All national TV channels are headquarare shaky sometimes the people in them ational pilgrimages where they see nine temples in watched as the nation him cremate assassilook bored, hungry, his tired and ready to go politics has travelled a long dis- tered in Delhi or Mumbai. Between Delhi and three days (all the temples will looknated the same mother.home. They will be touchingly humantance and from the time the prime minister Mumbai the two cities dominate TV news. A ofwill the find country wanted to reach out to every thunderstorm and heavy rain in Delhi gets but you will not tell them this). You Itwill see evenboth is testimony to the though youprofessional don’t want into, you hamlet photographs of people who travel competence to Switzer- ofspace the Delhi Darbar to the in your heartand to learn toinlove them too.ofIt this vast subcontinent, to the day more TV time than a cyclone in Orissa. The Delland as part of large tour groups while wearfluence of crony capitalism was never when the powers that be in Delhi decided to hi darbar is so obsessed with itself, it has no is nothing lessthat thanDD magic. ing name tags and you will not judge them for off like BBC and become a publicly shut themselves away from this audience. able to take time for the rest of India.

SANJAYAtaking BARU’Ssobook Thepictures from insideowned snigdha manickavel is a Hyderabad-based writer Time was when India’s most powerful polimany their tour broadcasting firm of international Accidental Prime Minister (Penguin sanjaya_baru@hotmail.com competence. Third rate politicians and second tician sitting in Delhi wanted a means of com-

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Viking) will be published later this year

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saturday, february 22, 2014

Calling card Yet to roll its shutters up, Mumbai wakes up to the day of the spectrum auctions with bids totalling about ₹45,000 crores($7.12 billion) on the first day dhiraj

singh/bloomberg

Game of phones While telecom operators shuffle and keep their cards close to their chest, the government watches its winnings mount... Here’s a behind-the-scenes account of the spectrum auction

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t 8.30am on February 3, the headquarters of eight telecom firms were buzzing with activity. The junior staff at an operator’s office in Mumbai arrived much earlier than their usual time of 10am to find their top bosses perched anxiously before a big screen, which was connected to the main server at the Department of Telecom. Two extra screens were linked as a backup in case there were technical glitches in the first one.

Miles away in Delhi, three top officials were huddled together in the conference room of another operator’s office. One was practising breathing techniques to control anxiety levels, while another had his eyes closed.

Another Mumbai operator had shrouded its conference room with black curtains to keep out prying eyes. The three executives inside had their mobile phones switched off and were not allowed to leave the room until the end of day.

This was, after all, their big day — spectrum, the lifeline of telecom operators, was on the auction block and their bids could make or break their business.

This scene repeated itself over the next 11 days, until the final results were announced on February 13.

Each day, senior officials arrived in office at 8am and did not leave until 8.30pm, an hour after the auctions wound up for the day. “After close of auction, we had to stay back to prepare the strategy for the next day,” says a CEO involved, who requested his name not be published. Most of them are still “recovering” from the hectic 68 rounds of bidding that

fetched the government more than ₹61,000 don’t, in which case the competitive scenario crore for airwaves that carry telecom signals. has to be forecast,” says the CFO of another Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone India, telecom company.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, Tata Teleservices, ReAccording to the notice inviting applicaliance Communications, Telewings Commu- tions (NIA) for spectrum, while the bid nications (Uninor) and Aircel Cellular were amounts flash on the screen in descending orthe participating companies. der, the operators’ identities remain un“It is like fighting 22 battles (for spectrum in known. So apart from one’s own bid, each as many telecom circles) simultaneously, and operator is left guessing about the rest. with more than one enemy. You can only antic“We prepared a software based on the rules ipate the moves of the competition, and you and the information provided in the NIA, are unlikely to guess everyone’s strategy along with the details of spectrum available in right,” says the CEO. each circle. This helped us gauge how many “You need to know what the players can be accommodated in other operators are thinking, and a circle given the evolving dehow eager and prepared they mand-and-supply situation at evmight be to battle — whether they ery stage,” says the CFO. The auction is are strong, average or weak in When an operator sees that almost like a game that market. Even a strong opersupply is constrained, it tweaks of poker ator will have a different view on its strategy to back off at an apdifferent markets,” he adds. propriate time and consider alterBut the exhaustion hardly benatives, such as an acquisition at gins or ends with just the auction. a later date. “The auction is al“Preparations begin months in advance, start- most like poker, involving betting and individing with a 20-year business plan for the spec- ual play. And much like poker, some moves of trum on offer and for its use in the 22 circles. every operator remain hidden until the end of This is the most difficult aspect,” says the CEO. the game,” says an official at a Delhi-based What makes this especially tricky is the fact company, adding, “The operational team dethat companies have to consider the evolu- cides the best way to expose yourself, while ention of technology over the next two decades, suring you don’t give away all your cards.” gauge the industry size, movement of tariffs, But ultimately, as all the operators agree, and the likely revenue from voice and data. the auction process is almost like a trap — deThe plan then goes through several rounds of signed to maximise revenue for the governdiscussion between shareholders, technology ment. No matter how the cards are played, the experts and the marketing team. only winner is the government exchequer.

“We have to consider the impact on the business if we win the spectrum, and if we rashmi pratap

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Journalist first Gaiutra Bahadur turned to history, songs and body art to tell the story of coolie women kamal narang

In India Inc, Gita is the new bible Krishna is the new guru at B-schools and boardrooms across the country as companies look to the scriptures for management strategies

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n October 2013, Tata group chairman Cy- rinths. From mind control to value-based ma) and care (bhakti). “Our partners tell us rus Mistry and other CEOs had an unusu- management, motivation and leadership, it that one of the reasons they want to work with al session at their annual conclave on seems to have an answer for everything. us is because we walk the talk when it comes ethics in Mumbai. An IIM director made a As things stand, Lord Krishna seems to be to our values.” presentation on the relevance of the Bhagavad emerging as the new Peter Drucker of manNot surprisingly, in 2011, when Vodafone Plc Gita in management. Mistry concurred. agement in India. After all, he is the one who was looking for a partner to meet shareholdThe result: copies of Timeless Leadership: 18 imparted the timeless wisdom to his disciple ing norms in its India operations, it sold 5.5 Leadership Sutras from the Bhagavad Gita, a Arjuna when he was indecisive about taking per cent stake to Piramal Healthcare in what book authored by this IIM Kozhikode director up arms in the epic battle of Kurukshetra in was termed as a “strange deal”. To the outside Debasish Chatterjee, have just been distrib- The Mahabharata. world, the engagement of teleuted across the Tata Group as the conglomerWhat makes the 5,200-year-old com with pharma was surprising. ate looks to move beyond compliance to text so relevant in today’s busiBut to both parties, it wasn’t. commitment and conscience. ness and economic context? “The Given the regulatory uncerIn the heart of the capital, India’s largest au- Gita is old in chronology but con- Spiritual texts often tainty in the Indian operations, tomaker Maruti Suzuki is busy training its temporary in essence. When basic Vodafone wanted a partner who contain sound leaders in self-management and time man- business principles cease to work not only had the money but also management agement. The two-day course module, also and when the rate of change outbelieved in all the values that principles based on the Bhagavad Gita, seeks to improve side is faster than change within, would allow Vodafone to focus on efficiency, effectiveness and effortlessness. Al- even businesses need deeper anoperations without bothering ready, employees are making a beeline for the chor points for decision-making about the future of its sessions, believing it will improve personal as not available in contemporary litshareholding. well as professional lives. erature,” says Chatterjee of IIM Kozhikode.

And that is the aim of most corporates — to Not too far away, engineering conglomerVivek Bindra, corporate trainer and direc- be able to run their businesses smoothly and ate, Escorts has roped in a motivation trainer, tor, Global ACT, says, “Gita is beyond time, effectively. Motivated employees who can imand a Bhagavad Gita-specialist, to inspire its 20 place and circumstances. The temporary solu- prove productivity with a smile are a bonus. union leaders. The leaders have to work with tions we are seeking from the West are often “Spiritual texts often contain sound managemanagement and workers, aligning their pri- inadequate. And that is turning corporates to ment principles that can provide vital lessons not in awith hateful or self-hateful but intough an in- they were all written by men.

In thewith absence of balance fact with imaginings a orities both.

This makesway their job the Gita.”

Bindra started in 2006 10 corin a corporate set-up.

In additiontotocreate our reguset in the past? timate, way.strongest I realise written traces of thenumber women,isIover had 100 to look as the comfortable, company haseven oneironic of the porate clients.

That now.to story lar programmes, we thought we could turn to book was Gita heavily with an eye that thein word hasTeachings been usedfrom by outsiders a oral and visual traces.

I was Enterprises, fortunate toSwati find The unions India. the Gitaas are Vice chairman at Piramal the Bhagavad for researched, management insights,” the high-resolution detail of slur.

I’m not condoning with“I several former indentured expected to ease the task.or echoing that nega- interviews Piramal agrees. think the importance of val- to saysrecovering SY Siddiqui, COO, HR, IT & finance, at Mative andBank hurtful association.

What I am MMTC doing women in Fiji and Trinidad, conducted a landscapes State of India, NTPC and NHPC, ue is being recognised worldwide now.”by Her ruti Suzuki. and lives. As one example, I was to teachings say the moon was full themore day my greatis its place history.lookThis linguist, a sociologist and abeen few historians.

My able areacknowledging among the growing listin of our corporates group has, for many years, following the The become even relevant ship environment pulled into British was thetoterm the British to describe in- book best I’m telling stories ing up the Gita to solveused management labyvaluessings of Gita — when knowledge (gyan), actionbased (kar- grandmother’s in today’s economic whereGuiabusidentured labourers, and at least two genera- on those interviews, because I could hear their na because I read the entire newspaper for tions of poets and writers from the Caribbean, voices (literally — I listened to tapes of some of that day, including the weather report and the Fiji and Mauritius have reclaimed it for their the interviews at the University of the West In- ads. I was able to say that the depot hospital own use. That said, my use of the word is more dies in Trinidad). When I couldn’t hear or read for indentured immigrants had once served figurative than it is political. The their own testimony, in their own as the pit where wild animals fought at the Nafigure of the coolie sums up the words, I had to find other ways to wab of Awadh’s court-in-exile, because I read lives of so many indentured recover their commitments and an early 19th century article in an obscure women. They carried the bagexperiences. I turned to family agricultural journal that described it. Every gage of expectations: expectahistories, photographs, folk detail in my book is documented. The footEvery detail in my tions that they preserve culture book is documented. songs, The Ramayan, even their notes are a point of pride! The unknown and and represent its honour; expecbody art. (A tattoo that new the unknowable in this story were so great, The footnotes are a tations that they meet the needs brides were inked with in north- that writing a novel might have made sense. point of pride of both Indian and British men, east India, called Sita ki Rasoi, in- But I chose not to because I’m a reporter; I believe in the integrity and also the enormous needs both economic and sexual, timated so much.) power of fact. Whenever I speculate...I show on the plantations. The title Coothe reader my hand very clearly. lie Woman suggests their “In our beginning, there was burdens. a boat, ” — is a great line. Was that the

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Author of Coolie Woman, Gaiutra Bahadur on why she chose not to write a novel and the burdens of the word 'coolie'

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n Coolie Woman (Hachette), GuyaneseAmerican journalist Gaiutra Bahadur reaches into her family history to create a riveting narrative of migration and colonisation.

Though vast in scope, and dense in facts, it remains a deeply intimate story of a woman who left India without a husband on a ship for Guiana in 1903. In an email interview Bahadur reveals how she knew her great-grandmother’s ship sailed on a full moon night, and on recreating the lives of women whose histories were either lost or repressed. Excerpts from an interview:

Coolie Woman is much more than a family history. When did you realise the scope of this project?

As soon as I realised that it was bigger than my great-grandmother (Sujaria), that it would balloon from the private and familial into a broader public history, that’s the moment I wanted to write it. It may have been the reporter in me at work. My great-grandmother’s story excited the part of my brain that likes representative figures. She left Calcutta in 1903, pregnant and alone, travelling without a husband. When I first found out about her, I thought she must have been really exceptional, lit up by this incredible halo of transgression. But in fact, the vast majority of the women who left India as indentured workers were just like her, women unmoored from men, leaving India without husbands.

The word coolie, as you mention, carries a history of connotations. Why did you decide to call the book Coolie Woman?

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From the start, I knew this would be my title.

Growing up, I heard the word coolie used by members of my family to refer to themselves,

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In the records that you came across, the voices of the women themselves were missing. What were the challenges of creating these voices from the past?

I did find women quoted in court documents or official reports, but this wasn’t their direct testimony. The paper trail on the lives of women was rich and detailed, but it was told from the perspective of colonial officials. It didn’t --it couldn’t --- tell me anything about the inner lives of the women, the texture of their thoughts. Since they were largely illiterate, they didn’t leave behind diaries, letters, memoirs. Only a few indenture memoirs exist, and

first sentence you wrote for this book?

What was the first sentence?

If only I had such clarity when I started! I like that sentence. It sets up the sea voyage from India as a creation story for Indians who found themselves in the Caribbean. Every group of people who see themselves as a distinct people have a creation story, and for Indo-Caribbeans it would have to be a story that unfolds on the oceans, with that transformative journey in the wake of slave ships and slave crossings.

Sujaria never returned to India. And you write “it fell to us to realise the return that she never did”… What are the parallel narratives of departures and arrival in Sujaria’s and your life?

When I was six, my family left Guyana, our home for four to six generations, for the US. We were voluntary migrants, and indenture was for many people involuntary in spirit if not in law. Still, I felt that I could imagine, with some confidence, what it must have been like for her as a transplant because we had been displaced too.

“Imagined” is a word that comes up on a few occasions in this book.

How did youSuits inNANDINI Karma connection search of divine inspiration shutterstock NAIR

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Bookmarked by corporates Timeless Leadership. 18 Leadership Sutras from The Bhagawad Gita was recently handed out to employees across the Tata Group

nesses are saddled with debts and losses while employees are uncertain about their future prospects. “You need internal cohesion, external resilience, ability to deal with stress and an ability to operate beyond the ego. And the Gita helps in all of this,” says Chatterjee.

At public sector undertakings, the crisis today is somewhat different. Under pressure from ministries as well as regulators, PSUs are suffering from a fear of decision-making. To motivate decision-making is a challenge at these companies.

Metals and Minerals Trading Corporation of India (MMTC) has opted for motivational soft skills programmes to improve their decisionmaking abilities. “When employees become push-start managers, learnings from the Gita help them become self-start leaders,” says Bindra. “This is precisely what Krishna did — he guided Arjuna to decide why fighting the battle was necessary.”

At India’s largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), it is the managers of SME branches (specialising in lending to small and medium enterprises) that require motivation. And so, the bank has started a course for them based on the principles of Gita.

While the focus of these ‘spirituality in business sessions’ may differ from company to company, their impact surely goes beyond professional to personal level. A Maruti employee, who has participated in the course, says it helps draw a great parallel between the shloka Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana in corporate life and real life. “Often we lose our cool over petty issues at work or at home. Practicing the mool mantra eases out things everywhere, gets things done fast and reduces stress,” he says.

An employee at SBI, who has participated in the course, says the content is very relevant for today’s lifestyle. “We are seeking return from every action. The Gita helps us understand the spirit of Karma and focus on doing rather than expecting immediate returns. It taught me to listen to others and take their perspective into account — something I had forgotten to do,” she says.

Bindra adds that lives today have become stressful and every day is like a battle. “Krishna trained Arjun to overcome depression and indecision in 48 minutes. Those similar questions are visible in today’s life and can be answered through the Gita.”

Guru Cool SY Siddiqui, COO at Maruti Suzuki India ; and (left) Swati Piramal, vice chairman, Piramal Enterprises, encourage their employees to apply tenets of the Gita vivek bendre

B-schools are also going all the way to inAt the Piramal group, it is not only the valcrease the spirituality quotient in their cours- ues that are based on spirituality, but the es. Corporate honchos as well as aspiring group’s logo as well. The logo is the Gyan Mumanagers are now making a beeline to man- dra, the universal sign of knowledge. It is the agement courses to understand the impor- sign of the hand when one is trying to gain tance of spirituality in business. IIM knowledge — the tips of index finger and the Kozhikode, for instance, has started a course thumb join to make a circle. “We have left the on ‘Timeless Leadership and Self Incorporat- circle open as a symbol of humility. We believe ed’, based on insights from the Gita. “It is an that the circle of excellence is incomplete and open-ended course, which runs through the that we want to learn more and keep an open year,” says Chatterjee. mind,” says Piramal.

Mumbai’s SP Jain Institute has made comShe has translated the teachings of the Gita pulsory a course on ‘The Science of Spirituali- into practical action. The group’s partnerships are based on values and ty’ under its executive MBA quality is paramount — so much programme. IIM Indore too has so that even the manufacturing incorporated sessions on the Gita as part of the course module on facilities that don’t require apKrishna trained ‘Ancient Oriental Philosophy and proval from the USFDA have been Arjun to overcome Spirituality’. designed in compliance with depression and Despite Gita being an integral those norms. “Sometimes, it leads indecision in 48 part of the Hindu culture, managto delays. But we prefer long-term minutes ers don’t look upon it as a relibenefits over short-term gains,” gious text. “I clearly believe that she adds. this has nothing to do with reliAs things stand, spirituality in gion or faith per se. We all recogbusiness seems to be here to stay. nise that the programme is management After all, when the economy is down and all -focused and not on religious dimensions. It is else fails, many do turn to the ancient texts for about identifying the universal principles sustenance. And the trend is catching up outcontained in the Gita and applying them to a side India too. Chatterjee is busy packing his corporate setting,” says Siddiqui. bags for a conference in Hawaii. He is going to He is quick to add, while the classic manage- address Japanese CEOs on the relevance of the ment texts provide valuable insights for peo- Gita in today’s fast-paced world. After 5,200 ple, the Bhagavad Gita and other sacred texts years, the wisdom of Gita is going global. offer fresh perspectives, contributing to the rashmi pratap body of management knowledge.

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HOME SPUN

Fact and fiction A ‘blissed out’ Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with her daughter PTI

Feels like two places In a city like Shillong, with its highly developed fashion sense, you are what you wear

anjum hasan

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return to my hometown of Shillong an- high priority in Shillong — and I’m reminded pends on where you look. During the mid-Ocnually and begin by recalibrating my mea- again of how it’s less slavish imitation and tober Durga Puja, one’s attention is wholly sure of beauty. It starts with the food on more self-expression. People dress according to taken by the muted colours of all the crisp, Benmy plate. The vegetables are smaller than their lights; they have an unerring sense (not gali jamdanis on display, their paleness comin the metropolises — slim, V-shaped carrots unlike the creativeness noticeable on the plementing the livid red of sindoor smeared with their green shoots intact, baby beetroots, streets of Paris or Milan) of what will suit them. on cheeks and foreheads on Dashami day.

PRESENT IMPERFECT mini-turnips — and distinctly sweeter. The soil Where do they get their ideas from? The westBut the Puja itself was muted this past year. seems to have a secret affinity with the scale of ern influence is obvious but another answer is Since a couple of months before the festival, lothis town and its people. It’s all of a piece: low — further east. Clothes have always made their cal groups were agitating for the enforcement lintels in shop fronts, foot-wide benches in tiny way to the markets of Shillong of a law requiring visitors to actea and rice stalls, tight little lanes winding out from Myanmar, but now I spot quire a permit before entering from the main roads, and on those roads small- DVDs of popular Korean TV seriMeghalaya. The agitation (and ocbuilt girls walking in stilt-high heels. als in the pavement bazaars, Thai casional incidents of arson and On a recent visit, I can’t resist chatting with a fashion magazines in the salon, murder) reinforced ethnic diLike the vegetables trio in Don Bosco Square, 14-year-olds dressed to and Japanese dress catalogues at which grow small and vides, with the result that Shilkill in frilly, tailored dresses and towering the tailor’s. The ‘cute’ fashion aeslong’s Puja pandals had sparser elegant in this wedge heels of, respectively, red velvet, leopard thetic of these cultures is big here crowds than usual and signs sayterrain, effortless print fabric and blue leather. I ask them about and for good reason — it perfectly ing ‘You Are Under CCTV Surveilcool sprouts out of the shoes. “We got them in Happy Valley,” says suits the dimensions of these lance’. this soil too the least shy one, trying to recall the name of bodies, the cut of these faces, this The most instructive thing the shop. Happy Valley is in my memory little hair texture and skin tone. about the ongoing debate over more than an army cantonment on the fringes Which brings us to the subject the permit is the terms in which of town. But I am behind the times; it’s clearly there is no escaping when in Shilit is conducted. Newspapers brisn athe video of cutting an interview atfashion Cannesas last on same edge of the restSince to have a child is perhaps longdeciding — ethnicity.

Friends point me to the the fash-Earlier this month, tle with opinions butnewspapers always with arrived reference to year of thethat’s city. making the rounds of social onlyion irreversible decision that one can make, smelling blog, Wearabout, whose Mumbai-based like babies’ bottoms.of Johnson & Johnthe blank abstractions ‘native’ and ‘outmedia now, Aishwarya In Laitumkhrah, hub of Rai the Bachchan stylish young,it Isimply makes sense that some it be evaluated on marauthor recently spent months here son sider’; wantedone to invoke “sweetstories memories” rarely reads about ofactual talks about motherhood.

“It is a kind count half a dozen new boutiques, someofclosetreality and not on celebrity-endorsement or motherhood velling at Shillong’s street style and lovingly triggering the smell of babies. people orby lived experience.

Shillong has started bliss,” she outlets says. Followed by, “It is blissful to be some sized for inexpensive readymades, marketing slogans. And thesaris. reality this. Par- A million photographing it. “No Noiskurta-pajamas,” a beat.

With the to feeluteruses like twoskipped places: the besieged cityvi-of the withglass-fronted the baby.” And then,sporting either because her enting stores local designer la- he says is the mostentry, difficult experience you sual in one and in another wonders if mind of a mother cuddly are baby, it was in whichand the abinaries neat, and that vocabulary failed her or because a out bels. You don’t even need tothird look time’s in to find would have.

It in isn’t just about changing an ever elderly gent a dhoti is a tourist.

It’s easyenough to other, to more set a lot of people dreamily in- of familiar citylook where, given waves charm, she au says, “Of course, it is exhausting, what’s courant.

It’s enough to take a walk diapers, staying up here, thinksterilising of ‘Indian’bottles appareland as an anomaly to mid-distance decide this was going to and migrations and decades of commingling but itdown is a blissful exhaustion.” the main road, or slip into one of the trennights with a colicky It’s about tois that and their wearersbaby. as tourists, buthaving the fact be the fragrance of their lives.communities, identiinter-marriage between I watched onjust a loop week.has Andalways each been dy cafes it and ogle.this Fashion put someone else ahead of you.

Every day.

It It de-The saris and dhotis are native to Shillong too. bliss-related narrative of parenthood is ties are inevitably blurred. time I saw it, it made me more angry. Here’s isn’t always possible. It is, in fact, never easy. likely to leave be a generation mothers It could argued thatofinnew a place with as dethe deal. There are all kinds of exhaustions And you have to do it for the rest of your life. and veloped fathers aghast at sense finding this 24X7 a fashion as out Shillong’s, you are when you have a child. There’s an eye-burning Mostly, parenting is about not knowing routine whatThis theyissigned for. Alwhatwasn’t you wear. not justupabout trendiexhaustion because you haven’t gotten a good what to do. It’s about taking a decision and ready, thebut pressure to have children very ness being able to affect that ismysterious night’s sleep in a year. There’s the puzzling ex- hoping it works out best. Mommy bloggers, high.thing Women whostyle. are childless their early called Like the in vegetables which haustion of post-natal depression. There’s the the latest entrants to the category of people 30s —grow whether or single — are forcedeffortsmallmarried and elegant in this terrain, dull exhaustion of not knowing what people trying to make motherhood trenthe out defensive about thecity’s less coolinto sprouts of this soil too. The are talking about when they discuss current dy and glamorous, would have choice make. for A friend tells famed talent at they rock music, instance, seems affairs. There’s the bone-weary exhaustion of you believe that it is all just a hipmeso people she’s expression selfish be- as a to rest not muchtell onher original running after a toddler. There’s also a meta-ex- pie trip. That your child would cause she has chosen to have marvellous ability to pull off anot Western style. I Mostly, parenting is haustion, exhaustion from feeling exhausted. jump into puddles and play in “It used to make me cry. attend achildren. concert one evening, and even though about not knowing None of it, I’m sorry to say, is blissful. dirt and run up mountains and Because is, deciding not to stanthe songs are thetruth well-worn rock and pop what to do It’s time to stop the lies about motherhood. waddle into seas and you just sit a child is thePurple, most selfless dards —have Eagles and Deep Beatles and This whole relentless positive spin on parent- there composing lines in your taken,” she says.

Abba — decision the effectI’ve is ever thrilling.

Those boys just ing — as this experience that elevates mun- head and clicking the perfect picShe’s right.

At the of theand day,those look amazingly good withend guitars dane lives into some level of spiritual ture. It isn’t like that at all. merely girls justparenting happen toissound likefoisting the realthe thing. salvation — is not just wrong, it is intensely daReality is what happens outside the blog. It’s responsibility life’s meaning then If style of is finding a form your of self-confidence, maging. It is ridiculous that even in 2014, in a wondering whether it’s a jacket day or a sweat- on towhat someone else.

It’s theyou reason why Shillong teaches is how to parbe yourcountry of 1.2 billion, we are still telling the er plus jacket day, whether regular schools are ents self.

— especially mothers — have to continue The danger of style, though, is that it disyoung and the fertile that procreate they good or alternative schools are better. It’s con- withtinguishes the narrative “this the look best thing I’ve not youofby howisyou and move, must. Let’s be honest — parenting isn’t all that stantly dealing with anxiety — is she smart ever what done.”you Besides giving themIndividuality an excuse to runs feel and think. it’s cracked up to be. enough, is he quick enough, does she trust too do nothing their it also gives deeper —else andwith maybe it’slives, respect for individualHaving a child is indeed a life-altering expe- easily, does he not trust at all, is she safe, is he themity, a lofty platform from preach. for what marks outwhich peopletofrom each, not rience, much like high-altitude trekking or being bullied. It’s torturing yourself whether Here’s truth.

Parenting challenging. whatthe lumps them togetherisunder impersonal swimming the Amazon. There are times when it’s okay to go back to work when she is one. Or It’s difficult.

Sometimes it’s rewarding.

Somegroup handles — that we ought to be after. you can’t believe you decided to embark on three. Or 10. It’s hating yourself that you’re at times it’s not. agree with Bachchan — we it isare to Dress andImanners areRai alluring but if this insane activity and there are times when it work and not at home. Or hating yourself that exhausting.

But in we a plain vanilla of way. live together might havekind to look further feels like it is worth the pain. But sadly, unlike you gave up your job to stay home, and some- The only than blissful fashion.exhaustion about parenting high-altitude trekking or swimming the Ama- how this motherhood thing is not feeling like happens nine months before the baby isthe ci(Inabout this monthly series, authors chronicle zon, you can’t check out of it midway when the elevated experience you’re supposed to born.ties Trust theyme. call home) you find out that it’s too hard and perhaps not have. It’s wanting everything to be perfect anjum hasan ’s latest book is Difficult Pleasures. t@VeenaVenugopal worth the effort involved. while knowing nothing will be.

Stop the lies about parenting Let's be honest, parenting isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

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VEENA VENUGOPAL is editor BLink ND-X _ A

and author of Would You Like Some Bread withways that Book Uniform In Shillong, schoolgirls by day transform into hip youngsters by night RITU RAJ KONWAR

She is books editor, Caravan

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BAWDY LINE Figure this What would the Muftis make of Beyonce and her song Partition, in particular afp / frederic j brown

Why the fatwa on music Can the blame for making music haram be placed only on the brows of Muftis

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AMBARISH SATWIK is a Delhi-based vascular surgeon and writer

don’t think the Darul Ifta, the department of the Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband that is responsible for answering queries and issuing fatwas, has been ever asked to adjudicate specifically on the status of Beyonce’s song Partition (Driver roll up the partition please, I don’t need you seeing ’Yonce on her knees), but one can be reasonably sure that the song and Beyonce’s accompanying romp are likely to be declared egregiously haram.

Last year, when North India was convulsed with the fatwa (music is Unislamic) issued by Mufti-i-Azam Bashiruddin Ahmad of the Supreme Court of Islamic Shariat, against the Kashmiri all-girl rock band Pragaash for singing and producing music, the Muftis of Darul Uloom Deoband and those of the All India Jamat-e Raza Mustafa (representing the Barelvi Sunni Muslim sect) eagerly and almost immediately endorsed it.

To understand why Muftis and Islamic law can’t allow latitude on the subject, I shall supply two fatwas issued by Deoband on music.

Query: They say that spreading the message of Islam in this generation has increased highly with music. And there are so many artists and record labels who prepare Islamic songs using music. What would be your views?

Fatwa: If the Nasheed (song) does not contain anything against the holy Quran and hadith, rather if it is as per the Shariah, then there is no harm in reciting it. However, it is haram and unlawful to read it with music. The holy Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) came into this world to eradicate music. Allah (Subhana Wa Ta’ala) knows best.

(Fatwa: 614/499/B=1434) Query: Twenty years ago people in my family used to sing and play the harmonium. Now we don’t do that. Someone gifted us a harmonium last year. Now it is of no use. What can we do with it? Can we sell it and use the money or do we have to donate the money?

Fatwa: Harmoniums (a kind of English musical instrument, Firozul Lughat p 1428) is solely the instrument of amusement. It is not lawful for a Muslim to sell it or give it as gift to someone. Hence you should break it. Do not sell it or give it as a gift to someone.

Allah (Subhana Wa Ta’ala) knows best. (Fat- Jurisprudence) run into volumes. Legalists, Traditionalists and Theologians have all itewa: 536/524/N=1434) A fatwa is a qualified legal opinion on any rated that music is both the cause and sympmatter given by a jurist (Mufti). Once pro- tom of libertinage. It precludes one from the nounced, for the believers, the opinion be- remembrance of Allah. There is, resultantly, an comes a decree. To form his opinion, the Mufti unequivocal and absolute embargo not just is allowed to invoke and glean particulars on recreational music but on all things musifrom three sources: the Quran (i.e. The Final cal. No functional song or dance is permitted and Unalterable Word of God), the Hadis (i.e. in Islam. It is a sin of the same denomination the traditions of the Prophet) and, consensus as adultery or consumption of alcohol. It is unin previous rulings on the subject (a sort of lawful (haram).

Can the blame therefore be placed on the stare decisis, wherein muftis are obliged to respect the precedent established by prior deci- brows of Muftis? The answer to that question is also the premise of Justice Ganpat Singhvi’s sions).

In the wake of the Grand Mufti’s fatwa, al- judgment on section 377: that the law was laid most reflexively, lot of opprobrium was cast down elsewhere; that jurists may only interon him and that was followed by some tele- pret it and not exercise the function of a legisvised and op-ed liberal grandstanding every- lator. Scholars and Sufis may submit where without actually seeking or proffering contrarian views, Muftis can’t. In Islam, there the exegesis on why music, for the Ummah, is can be no judicial activism. It is a prophetic religion wherein the Final Revealed Truth yields haram. religious law. The Final Revealed The full scale of the textual eviTruth can’t be latitudinarian. dence, quite manifestly, can’t be It was revealed in the seventh conveyed in a tract as cramped as century to an illiterate merchant this, but the salient features are as Scholars and follows: Sufis may submit in the Middle East (pbuh) over a peFrom the Quran, the commonest contrarian views, riod of 23 years and assembled for the first time as a text after his cited ayat is from the 31st chapter.

Muftis can’t death from parchments, palm leavAllah Most High says: “And there es, shoulder blades of camels (on are among men, those that purwhich verses had been scribbled) chase idle tales, to mislead (men) and from the memory of sundry from the path of Allah and throw ridicule. For such there will be a humiliating soldiers who knew it by heart.

The authorised account of this man and the punishment” (Surah Luqman, V. 6).

The great Companion of the Prophet Abd Al- story of this Revelation, which form the Hadis, lah ibn Mas’ud has this to say about the phrase comes from a chain of short narratives and ‘idle tales’: “By Allah its meaning is music” (Su- half-remembered testimonies relayed from nan al-Bayhaqi, 1/223 & authenticated by al-Ha- person to person and assembled as a text centuries after the events they claim to describe. kim in his Mustadrak, 2/411).

One wonders what the frame of reference The other pivotal reference is from chapter 17. Allah Most High said to Shaitan: was when Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote these lines in “Lead to destruction those whom you can his poem Dua: among them with your (seductive) voice” (SuJin ka deen pairavi-e-kibz-o-riya hain unko rah al-Isra, V.64). Here again, Mujahid, the Himmat-e-kufr mile, jurrat-e-tahqiq mile great exegete has interpreted the word voice To those whose religion is the pursuit of lying (sawt) as music, singing, dancing and idle and hypocrisy things. (Ruh al-Ma’ani, 15/111).

May there come courage for denial, resolution From the Hadis, approximately 40 referenc- for truth. es may be cited. The third source, the statements of the Fuqaha (experts in Fiqh or Islamic Views are personal asatwik@gmail.com

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Almost famous An art less ordinary in Farrukhabad

New York-based Bangladeshi visual artist Naeem Mohaiemen on how the personal and political collide in his work

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n the last week of January, days before he weThe just-concluded DASinforplace instance, boom (all and old houses are finesse destined to be ugly At local spin-offs of Miss India, find chutzpah offeaposhness, while was about to leave for Dhaka to attend tured, among others, one of the works from high-rises). Somewhere in here is the archeolthe second edition of the Dhaka Art Sum- this United Red Army: The Young Man Was ogy of a ghost city in the first decade of the Pamight be missing, entertainment isseries, guaranteed

mit (DAS) 2014, New York-based writer and visual artist Naeem Mohaiemen found himself explaining his art to a NY cabbie. “I work with different mediums, photo, film…”

The cabbie interjected to peddle his Pakistani actor friend.

“No,phone these are notringing. those kinds of avina’s keeps But she films, these talk about theit.history of Bangladoesn’t answer Her onion-seller desh. Histories after 1971 and from how things went husband, calling Fatehgarh, horribly wrong; happens wars, and doesn’twhat know that sheafter holds a makenew borders.” up brush at Saraswati Bhawan in Farrukha“Inher themaika context of Bangladesh, history is bad, (parents’ home). He must be sinever to create shothik lencedpast for and now,the as pressure she has more important itihaas (correct history) immense,” sayssister Mobusiness to attend to. is Her 17-year-old haiemen interview.

Thethe visual artsatwith Muskaan in is an about to take ramp the its endless possibilities for dualism, ambiguigrandly christened Farrukhabad Yuva Mahotty, “unfurl sav,offers whichthe alsospace passestooff as the and “Missunravel” UP conthese complicated indeed, test”. Ravina hoistshistories, Muskaan’s greenpresents. strapless Which is the why,back since this gown from to2006, conceal an44-year-old errant bra student of economics andgiggles historyand has compurstrap. Muskaan wriggles, sued historical quests,cold through plainshis against her sister’s hands.art. Combining archival research, critical “absences”, Ravina became a bride at the age of eight, personal pop culture anecdotes, Mohaieher sisterand however, is unmarried and has commen fills in schooling. gaps, challenges andin-laws complicates pleted her Ravina’s don’t popular of of history in Bangladesh, approve narratives of this world ‘showbiz’, but at her in particular, of the ultra left, maika, she can narratives take a few liberties, and chapthrough hissister ongoing series of video The erones her to this other world.works, As MuskYoung Man Was.touches (there is no such thing aan’s finishing as too much lipstick) are completed, her nephew makes a quick escape.

Ravina shrieks, “Ujwal, Ujwal,” and soon enough finds him hiding behind a pillar.

Grabbing his six-year-old wrist, she mumbles, “Naam hai Ujwal, aur kaala badnam hai chehra (his name means light, but his face is an unfortunate black).” Muskaan tweaks his ear. A suited and booted emcee calls her name, she pulls aside the makeshift shamiana flap, yanks up her gown, like an Oscar-hopeful, pulls out her

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Part 1, which was recently acquired by the Tate kistan era, vanquished by the dystopia of Modern. The 70-minute video is about the hi- Bangladesh’s contemporary hypercapitalism jacking of Japan Airlines Flight 472 en route project,” says Mohaiemen. “Amitav Ghosh prefrom Paris to Tokyo to Dhaka, by a unit of the figured this moment in The Shadow Lines, Japanese Red Army in September 1977, and Mo- when one of his characters sadly said, while haiemen’s memories eight-year-old frus- looking smile and walks onto as theanramp. at the city, ‘But Dhaka?

I can’t modelling, instead the where lure ofisHindi TV shows trated the suspension his have been and Bollywood The at official Miss India of might findtrumps Dhaka’.”all else. These wobbly favourite TV50Show, Zooand Gang. around for plus The years, after its slew of steps on too-high Mohaiemen’s artfirst is not meant heels are the attempt at The — grainy clips from the Missfilm World and Miss Universe titles in the mid winning recognition, to visually please the audience, inand perhaps, one day original hostage crisis broadcast, to late ’90s, it might have lost some sheen, but even celebrity stead it forces your imagination status.

“Famous banna chahti hu alongside cheerful openingacross cred- India’s similar events mushroom mai-context visualise seems whereano image ex(I want motto rather In the of to betofamous),” its of and Zoo malls, Gang —hotels woven together dans and arenas. At Bangladesh, these off- than ists. The Unitedwithout Red Army, for ina sentiment.

Spoken rehearsed history by Mohaeimen’s voiceover is sishoots, mothers and sisters become make-up stance,thetakes place ofmainly in artifice, aspirations all, where is never past and it reflects multaneously a real, chilling re- for one artists and choreographers and, evedarkness. money and television appearances equals the pressure to minder of gruesome ning, everygirl becomespolitical a star. Miss create India correct While is in keeping fame, and little elsethis matters.

Not the with cold realities colliding innocent might inspire thesewith events, but the final prod-is immense, theflesh absences historyevent and docuchewing one’s at aninoutdoor on a history personal ucts areones. bespoke rather than mentation change of December (with nightevery in Dehradun, says Mohaiemen The personal andto political clones.

Each caters its ownalso auguard, renot theState leer documents of men whoarepush collide another work, Rankin dience inand participants, and portedly destroyed and reagainst each other at FarrukhaStreet, 1953 which uses photohere’s where mimicry morphs inmoved), this is also partwho of bad, not the sneers of judges graphs of an old to innovation.

Whatfamily these house shows Mohaiemen’s attempt “investisit on the other side ofatthe table Why aren’t hot (taken Mohaiemen’s in 1953), demolmight by lack in poshness,father they subgating a minimal aesthetic” driventobyperform the deand ask contestants pants allowed here? ished the chutzpah, ’70s, to comment on “the hyper- sire to challenge stituteinwith and while the indignities. notion of art as a rarefied various capitalism of present-day Dhaka/Bangladesh,” finesse might be missing, enterspace, and thatAt “everyone is an artist.”Usha, Includ-a Saraswati Bhawan, Look at me Contestants versus theispast that it left behind. “The images ing the audience. tainment guaranteed. mother, stands in the corner and strike a pose for capture a form of family life that To track these events, BLinkhas been renHis Shokolwatches Choritro Kalponik (“all characters her daughter Ambalika the cameras at dered by a to property development travelsimpossible to Dehradun catch Miss Uttarak- are imaginary”), a work which premiered at sashay down the stage.

She whispers to us, “YaFarrukhabad's hand, Farrukhabad, for a so-called Miss UP and the summit, traces this line of “art as everyhan, hot pants mana hai.

Hum Lucknow se aaye Miss UP pageant kamal narang sits-in on the audition of Mr and Miss NCR in day” logical conclusion, thehota verhain.thought Wahan to haritsshow main hot pants Delhi. The facilities at these events range from nacular daily newspaper.

The project is a hain. Hum hot pants le aaye hain, lekhin Ambajugaad to professional, the level of talent, from fictitious newspaper whichpada imagines an alterlika ko short dress pehanna (hot pants are impressive to embarrassing. For some candi- nate course at of this history forWe the subcontinent: not allowed show. have come from dates you cheer, ‘You go girl’, for others, you here DelhiThere pays homage to border crossers Lucknow. at every show, hot pants are by alwish to gently lead the way to the door. building memorial (theAmbalika Banglalowed. Wea are carryingtoa Felani pair, but The one question that echoes time and deshi shot on the border by theShe BSF) outhad togirl wear a short dress instead).” quickagain is, why this? What is the magnetism of side the“She Indian ly adds, looksParliament. good in hotKarachi pants.” has to this world? Few contestants I meet know or repay historical four debt.hours Bangladesh wins like the Farrukhabad, from Agra, understand the world of design, fashion or 2030 Soccer World Cup,inchoate the Dhakacities Knight UP’s numerous other is Ridpreers drop Gautam Gambhir from to BPL and in an cious to its citizens but invisible the outside ultimate sign of the country’s prosperity, it world. A Yadav stronghold, it makes headlines gets first Salman corporate honcho,visits a towering gionly its when Khurshid or when ant in the world egg production, the ‘Russian stars’ (i.e.ofany fair, voluptuouson womForbes list. Combining the real with the imagan) gyrate at their annual Ramnagaria mela ined, the the ridiculous, the held on thesolemn banks ofwith the Ganga.

Most famous newspaper the imagination into terfor its potatotakes production, tourists tend to skip rains where wouldn’t go. When a it unless alooitmandis be typically their passion.

While on the one hand there has been much single white car, with a yellow number plate, international acclaim — shriek, his works beingaaye acpasses through, children “Tourists quired by thehave Tate come);” Modern,thereby British announcMuseum, hai (tourists and soon to premier ing the alien invasion.at the MOMA — Mohaiemen find it easy to explain his Butdoesn’t at thealways yuva mahotsav (youth festival), school to this people, including started of in art 2005, city of roughly old-school three lakh artists. thefoot lateforward.

Kolkata-based people,He getsrecalls to puthow its best Snobs artist-activist Shanu would puzzle over from the capital cityLahiri Lucknow, might believe how he hot could make an artwork without his that the pants embargo confirms its smallbrush touching paper. town status, nonetheless, they assemble here Theacross cabbiethe onState. the other hand — on learning from details of get Mohaiemen’s had a word I soon talking to work Divya —Maurya, who of is advice him. “Okay butDurga. don’t mind, here tofor support her sister Divya,let theme elsay thing.sisters, You think this is whather Pakistan, destone of three is completing MA in Bangladesh Always looking the past?

Education atneed? the PD Mahila DegreeatCollege in We’ve got toShe move Thesesmile, filmsbut need Fatehgarh. has forward. the prettiest is to have lessons.

So listen, take my number.

You content as a supporter rather than a participanever know maybe one day you will needseller, a Pant. Daughter of a wholesale vegetable kistani Heevent is verylike handsome.” she saysactor. that an this costs the family close to ₹5,000, as outfits for the three rounds Different course Naeem Mohaiemen’s fictitious newspaper imagines an alternative course of history for the subcontinent arifur rahman munir shreya is a writer andand musician based—inmust Delhi be — jeans,ray short dress gown

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Winning Vidya

Nothing to hide A contestant at Mr and Miss Delhi NCR obliges the judges; and (right) other hopefuls await their turn kamal narang

Side effects of a major national honour

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s a rule, Vidya Balan doesn’t check her phone when she’s shooting. So when her husband, managing director of the Walt Disney Company India, Siddharth Roy Kapur, was frantically trying to get in touch with her to inform her she was now a Padma Shri, he had to wait several hours.

“When I finally called him back, he told me the Ministry of Home Affairs had called him to give the news. I thought it was a joke. It took some time to seep in. Such an award wasn’t even on my radar. I’m so humbled by it,” she says. The others on the list included actor Paresh Rawal and script-writer Sooni Taraporewala.

The actress admits that at 35 and with just nine years of experience, she didn’t expect to be clubbed with such stalwarts.

And yet, she doesn’t want the honour to influence her career choices. “I always want to be myself. My job lets me live different people’s lives and that’s what I love the most about it,” she says. Balan has recently wrapped up the shoot for Bobby Jasoos, where she plays a sleuth. But the genre she adores the most is romance, which is partly what drew her to Shaadi ke Side Effects, her next release. “I’m a big romantic and this is in keeping with that. Plus, I can’t think of too many films that explore a married couple’s relationship,” she says.

The film, directed by Saket Choudhary, continues from where his earlier film Pyaar ke Side Effects ended. The premise — a newly wed man griping about losing his independence post marriage — isn’t entirely new. Before you can ask, Vidya says, “It is a stereotypical representation of marriage. This idea about marriage being scary and men being tied down to a nagging woman has been repeatedly used in films and books.” She adds that the humourous script, which is smart but not chauvinistic, sets the film apart.

The other strength of the film, she says, is her pairing with co-star Farhan Akhtar.

“We didn’t know each other too well. I think a certain amount of unfamiliarity always helps to build chemistry,” she says. To sceptics who believe they make an unlikely pair, she retorts, “We are unusual actors and that is what has worked.”

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saturday, february 22, 2014

bought by them. Her parents allow Durga to about riot control, but they need to caution participate as they feel Divya will take care of against boredom. It doesn’t take long before her. Articulate and wise, Divya says, in Hindi, “I each set of eight candidates resembles the pream happy to come here and help my sister. But vious set. Girl in red dress and red lipstick who this is a strange world. In the blink of one’s claims to be a poet; beefcake boy who plays eye, one risks losing one’s self-respect.” sport for his school; too-puny boy who is as atIn the midst of tyros, many of whom tug at tractive as a clothespin; tongue-tied boy and the hem of their dresses, willing it to lengthen girl whose vocabulary starts and ends with and sheathe their legs, Priyanka stands out. ‘sorry’; a limited number of tropes is on disDressed in a Zara-like white-and-black dress play. While 1,500 youngsters registered online, she struts down the stage, hand on hip and a 170 have been called for this round arunabha deb of audismirk on the face. When she comes backstage, tions. The judges sort through them with a MANJ KHAMAJ she says, “I am a software engineer from Ban- mix of cruelty and alacrity. galore. My family is from Etah (100km away), When a boy declares with a touch of pride, so I decided to participate. When I first saw the “I am lean now, not skinny,” the judges tell him crowd, I thought of turning back, but then my to take off his shirt. He demurs, slowly pops mother told me I might as well take part.” open one button, then another, then stops. “I To be generous, one might call the crowd can show you a photo,” he offers hopefully. But enthusiastic, although rowdy would be the the judges hear none of that. He removes his more appropriate descriptive. The organisers shirt and stands in his undershirt, acutely do their best to discipline them — they have aware that his baniyan is not audition-ready. banned mobile phone photography, they urge “Yeh bhi utaro (take this off also),” he is told. He the men to remain sitting and not follows instructions. The girls in to shove against the stage — and the group turn away, out of courwhen all else fails, cops are called tesy, I imagine. “Achchi body bahen friends ask me upon. would about thesurveying of at least 15 of us leaving the house to- the sense that they The use of choice expletives nayi hai,” fuss a judge says, I am happy to help about the best time to and charge restores gether andlathi returning the following overuse of komal nishad in Kedarup but they a quick and summing the chest on dismy sister. But this is visit Kolkata, they’re of- order maidan. in the morning, the elders fighting sleep to not did care about how artiste play.anThis voteunfurled of appreciation a strange world. In ten surprised by my very lose Thetheir Farrukhabad girls overhear ‘who- an alaap, about the clarity of edge in the never-ending evaporates thetans boy’sand, initial timidthe blink of one’s specific reply. January 22 to 27, I tell them. Priyanka tut-tutting atargument. their city When I above all, about ity; thehe temperament of a out once was-the-best-tonight’ puffs all six packs eye, one risks losing There is a nip in the air (the Delhi folk get and no uncertain lookremind back ather, thatincontingent (many of performance. Their moreengagement and throws awith quick glance one’s self-respect to sneer at the ‘cold’ and the Mumbai terms, she no canmore), leave ifIshe chooses them are realise that except the music was not technical, at the ladies. but it was guys get to wear their jackets); there is to disrespectful. course,was she trained serious. And, most significantly, their ap-of a hotel forbeone granduncle,Ofnobody Inside the confines notungur in Nakur. And those five days chooses to stay.music.

If we bump into anot even praisal of an artiste wascan always objective, in Hindustani They were one safely flash the odd witness the two most iconic Kolkata software engineer fromsimply Banga-lovers of based on the performance ofBut theinnight connoisseurs.

They were naked chest. late December events: The Dover Lane Music Conference lore in Farrukhabad, wefather, also meet Sadiq who rather thanyoung on reputation.

I havein heard Hindustani music. My for whom when girls, dressed white ganjis, and the Kolkata Book Fair. Though nei- has travelled from Bangalore at the thetapMr and there is little difference between the biggest names beingwalk torn to pieces shorts of and stilettos, down an outdoor ther has the word ‘festival’ in its name, I Miss auditions held in gandhar Delhi. Hailing ping NCR of a table and the komal in in conversations (with which the tea they reramp in the hill station of Dehradun, cannot view them as anything else. They from Patna, he is nowup completing a Bachelor’s Bageshree, stayed nights (he still stallsquire and the toilets used to buzz) for giv- Miss Uta warrior’s fortitude.

The official have an essentially cerebral focus, but al- in dental Why a flippant recitals taking their repdoes) in surgery. thrall of theabandon music; the andsafety my of ing tarakhand falls and smack in between the tamasha ways with an air of fun: food stalls, medical profession to trytoone’s in this utation (and,UP and by the implication, grandmother responded Ustadluck Ali Akof a Miss jadedness ofthe a Miss NCR. bumping into old friends, avoiding rela- world?

Shaking his fringe fromthat his eyes, audience) for agranted. bar Khan’s Jaijaiwanti in away a manner Held in vacant lot near the city’s biggest tives, and at Dover Lane, the guilt of sacri- he says,have “John Abraham has been my might gotten my grandfather a tadchild- That is it why I got a an jolturbane at thisaesthetic year’s with lomall, combines ficing an entire session of music at the hood model and hero. My parents’ dream for bit worried.

Dover whenWhile Anoushka Shankarof got calLane flavour. the majority the contesaltar of adda, outside the auditorium. meThere was towere be a many dentist.

But now I want to fola standing ovation. standing ovation is travelled families like mine. tants hail from ADehradun, a few have The Book Fair is usually a two-week af- low at Dover’s Lane— even the likesofofRishikesh, For my me,own thedream.” defining feature of Dover a rarity down from the higher altitudes fair; Dover Lane is more intense: four Lane was not the impressive line-up of ar- UstadChamoli Ali Akbar Ustad Vilayat andKhan Tehri.and Many have studied at connight-long sessions, starting at 8pm tistes t the Miss Delhi NCR audition, rarely got one. rendibutMr its and audience demography.

It Khanvent schools, they Shankar’s speak perfect English, are (read 9:30pm) and ending at 6am (read was held the Capital’s and plushest not in justone forofconnoisseurs the hotionswell-travelled of Maru Bihagand andwell-educated.

Pancham se GaA carefully ‘till the last artiste can keep going’), with tels, mostelite. candidates give a —‘non-reguvariation of 20ra displayed neither exceptional skillshow, nor the girls musical Music lovers choreographed and rehearsed five to six performances each night. I year-old Anshu’s “I want lar’ listeners whoanswer, were not part to of get the into exceptional imagination.

Comparable know the art of parading down the ramp, have been going since I was six, when our this field so that in another 10 years, every oth‘classical circuit’— comprised the largest recitals in theasame not half striking posefestival for thewere cameras and pouting Finishing touches Backstage at Miss family still qualified as Uttarakhand ‘joint’. I have er person will point and say, Anshu’.” received.

I couldn’t part of the audience.

And yet‘That this is was a as enthusiastically for the audience, arms akimbo. in Dehradun; (below) the shorts round on a warm memories of those winter nights, The judges at the DelhiNot audition, unlike discerning audience. discerning intheir understand why the ‘Dover Lane But when theyfabled dart backstage, their teeth winter night; and (left) Khyati Sharma, the winner of Farrukhabad counterparts, need not worry audience’ (that artistes was chatter, they wrap gush their about) arms around themMiss Uttarakhand dev raj agarwal on their feethug aftereach suchother a recital. same selves, and The quiver.

In a desperaudience had a certain ate bid to clapped keep warm in the Dagar five degrees of duo winter, off the they stagedance not sotolong ago. dil Since Yeh mera pyaar ka deewhenwana did itbefore become soemcee charitable? the calls Was theirit name. As a waythey of paying homage togown Shankar’s leg-a choreogget ready for the round, endary father,voice Panditrings Ravi out, Shankar, whodo somerapher’s “Sonali, passed away last year?

Or is it that thehai. au-(Sonali do thing.

Sirf tyres hi tyres dikh rahe dience that was only onceyour insulated against something, tyres can be seen).” It is the reputation artistes had finally giv-too late to too late forof Sonali to get a new dress, en inlose to perceptions created thewhat pop-she can do the guilty fat, so she by does ular — media?

I hope it’s the former but I sucks her holds her breath, doesn’t breathe, am inclined believe that it’s thethe latter. stomachtoin and walks into unforgiving The audience demography at Dover Lane glare of the stage. has been — music haveis to mask Thechanging idea of beauty andlovers glamour gradually been replaced bytolisteners for the messiness behind, render inconsequenwhom Lane is an event in precede their so- it. People tialDover all the hardships that cial calendar, notbest in their calendar. show their facemusic and never the struggle The change has been slow, but for me,Ifitthese men and pain that throb behind it all. is noand longer ignorable after this Dover struggles women get noticed, greater Lane.await Pandit Ravi Some Shankar had said that of their them. have the support for any Hindustani classical musician, families, others are willing to defy their parCalcutta the are ‘final frontier’. wonder ents.isA few ready to giveI up familiar homewhattowns he would now. professions for a chance andsay lucrative at fame. They strut and smile, their sore feet, achingdeb back, goosebumps invisible arunabha is a Kolkata-based lawyer and to all. The that they might win the crown, that shubhodeb@hotmail.com musicbelief writer they will be stars, spurs them onto the ramp Encore, really? Anoushka Shankar got a standing ovation at the recent Dover Lane Music Conference shiv kumar pushpakar and into the applause.

Final frontier crumbles

Has Kolkata’s Dover Lane audience become less discerning over time?

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Lights, camera, action Sangeeta, a nautch girl from Delhi, dances to the tune of the Bhojpuri hit Launda badnam hua, Naseeban tere liye

Dancing in the dark A peek into the now grungy world of nautanki, the evening attraction at Asia’s largest cattle fair at Sonepur, near Patna

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wenty five kilometres from Patna, Sonepur is home to around 38,000 people. For a small village, Sonepur has two distinct, some might say peculiar, claims to fame — it is home to the eighth longest railway platform in the world as well as to Asia’s largest cattle fair held in November every year.

Legend has it that even emperor Chandragupta Maurya bought elephants and horses for his army at the fair. Later, a travelogue published in 1919 by a British administrative officer, WW Hynter, claimed it encompassed 43 villages in the region.

An annual affair, the Sonepur mela gets underway on the day of Kartik Purnima. At 5am thousands of pilgrims and traders line up on the banks to take a holy dip at the confluence of the rivers Ganga and Gandak.

As the day wears on, bargains are struck and monies are exchanged for horses, cattle, elephants and other livestock on display.

By dusk, however, with the day’s business done and dusted, most men in the party gather for the evening festivities at the ‘theatre’ where young girls perform for their ‘clients’. For 26 days, the Sonepur mela sees the trade of cattle; for 26 nights, it witnesses trade of a different kind altogether.

On makeshift stages, women of varying age, agility and attractiveness gyrate to the latest Bollywood item numbers, sometimes pushing their all-male, lecherous audience into a frenzy. The barbed wire separating the performers from the spectators can barely contain the waves of excitement.

Most of the girls are brought in from Kolkata, Muzaffarpur, Varanasi and even Delhi to perform at these shows. There are a handful of dance companies that manage these theatres, and many of the performers are junior dancers in Bhojpuri films or are employed as make-up artists and masseurs, who make the annual trip to Sonepur for easy money. The dancers make anything between ₹15,000 to ₹50,000 during their stay here. Some have even performed for politicians and VIPs, the top ‘bosses’ from Bihar and neighbouring States like Uttar Pradesh.

At Sonepur, dancing suggestively, donning sequinned clothes and garish make-up, is the style du jour. The dancers’ modus operandi — tease and titillate as best as you can because that’s what brings the men here by the droves every evening. But that wasn’t always the case.

For nearly a century, nautanki reigned as northern India’s most popular form of entertainment, fusing dance, dialogue, romance, humour and melodrama; it defined ‘filmi’ before Bollywood could take a stab at it.

And one of its brightest stars was Gulab Bai, who was awarded the Padma Shri in 1990. Nautanki has had a sharp fall from grace since then, and the continued apathy can only hasten this rustic dance form’s slow, perfunctory death, reducing it to little more than cheap thrills for herds of men. udit kulshreshta is a Gurgaon-based visual artist and photographer, who documented Sonepur’s nautanki in 2012.

Text by Ruhi Batra

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The waiting room A dancer checks the programme guide backstage to figure out when she is expected to make an entrance

Come one, come all! Posters are pasted across town to advertise the events

Cheap thrills Cattle traders and visitors from Patna and other neighbouring towns and villages queue up to enter the theatres. At times, the show is an all-night affair from 5pm to 5am

Class act A troupe from Azadpur in Delhi prepares for its ensemble. The dancers usually enact religious and mythological dance remixes

Navel gazing One of the many theatres at Sonepur. Around 50 to 70 girls dance on this stage every night. Tickets are priced between ₹100 and ₹500 (for VIP enclosures)

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Almost famous An art less ordinary in Farrukhabad

New York-based Bangladeshi visual artist Naeem Mohaiemen on how the personal and political collide in his work

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n the last week of January, days before he weThe just-concluded DASinfor instance, boom (all and old houses are finesse destined to be ugly At local spin-offs of Miss India, find chutzpah place offeaposhness, while was about to leave for Dhaka to attend tured, among others, one of the works from high-rises). Somewhere in here is the archeolthe second edition of the Dhaka Art Sum- this United Red Army: The Young Man Was ogy of a ghost city in the first decade of the Pamight be missing, entertainment isseries, guaranteed

mit (DAS) 2014, New York-based writer and visual artist Naeem Mohaiemen found himself explaining his art to a NY cabbie. “I work with different mediums, photo, film…”

The cabbie interjected to peddle his Pakistani actor friend.

“No,phone these are notringing. those kinds of avina’s keeps But she films, these talk about theit.history of Bangladoesn’t answer Her onion-seller desh. Histories after 1971 and from how things went husband, calling Fatehgarh, horribly wrong; happens wars, and doesn’twhat know that sheafter holds a makenew borders.” up brush at Saraswati Bhawan in Farrukha“Inher the context of Bangladesh, history is bad, maika (parents’ home). He must be sinever to create shothik lencedpast for and now,the as pressure she has more important itihaas (correct history) immense,” says Mobusiness to attend to. is Her 17-year-old sister haiemen interview.

Thethe visual artsatwith Muskaan in is an about to take ramp the its endless possibilities for dualism, ambiguigrandly christened Farrukhabad Yuva Mahotty, and unravel” sav,offers whichthe alsospace passestooff“unfurl as the “Miss UP conthese complicated indeed, test”. Ravina hoistshistories, Muskaan’s green presents. strapless Which is the why,back since this gown from to 2006, conceal an44-year-old errant bra student of economics andgiggles historyand has compurstrap. Muskaan wriggles, sued historical quests,cold through plainshis against her sister’s hands.art. Combining archival critical “absences”, Ravina becameresearch, a bride at the age of eight, personal pop culture anecdotes, Mohaieher sister and however, is unmarried and has commen fills in schooling. gaps, challenges andin-laws complicates pleted her Ravina’s don’t popular narratives of of history in Bangladesh, approve of this world ‘showbiz’, but at her in particular, narratives of the ultra left, maika, she can take a few liberties, and chapthrough hissister ongoing series of video The erones her to this other world.works, As MuskYoung Man Was.touches (there is no such thing aan’s finishing as too much lipstick) are completed, her nephew makes a quick escape.

Ravina shrieks, “Ujwal, Ujwal,” and soon enough finds him hiding behind a pillar.

Grabbing his six-year-old wrist, she mumbles, “Naam hai Ujwal, aur kaala badnam hai chehra (his name means light, but his face is an unfortunate black).” Muskaan tweaks his ear. A suited and booted emcee calls her name, she pulls aside the makeshift shamiana flap, yanks up her gown, like an Oscar-hopeful, pulls out her

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Part 1, which was recently acquired by the Tate kistan era, vanquished by the dystopia of Modern. The 70-minute video is about the hi- Bangladesh’s contemporary hypercapitalism jacking of Japan Airlines Flight 472 en route project,” says Mohaiemen. “Amitav Ghosh prefrom Paris to Tokyo to Dhaka, by a unit of the figured this moment in The Shadow Lines, Japanese Red Army in September 1977, and Mo- when one of his characters sadly said, while haiemen’s memories eight-year-old frus- looking smile and walks onto as theanramp. at the city, ‘But Dhaka?

I can’t modelling, instead the where lure ofisHindi TV shows trated at the suspension his have been and Bollywood The official Miss India of might findtrumps Dhaka’.”all else. These wobbly favourite Zooand Gang. around forTV50Show, plus The years, after its slew of steps on too-high Mohaiemen’s artfirst is not meant heels are the attempt at The — and grainy clips from titles the in the mid winning recognition, Missfilm World Miss Universe to visually please the audience, inand perhaps, one day original hostage crisis broadcast, to late ’90s, it might have lost some sheen, but even celebrity stead it forces your imagination status.

“Famous banna chahti hu alongside cheerful openingacross cred- India’s similar events mushroom mai-context visualise seems wherea no image ex(I want motto rather In the of to betofamous),” its ofand Zoo malls, Gang — woven together dans hotels and arenas. At these off- than ists. The Unitedwithout Red Army, for ina sentiment.

Spoken rehearsed Bangladesh, history by Mohaeimen’s voiceover is sishoots, mothers and sisters become make-up stance,thetakes place ofmainly in artifice, aspirations all, where is never past and it reflects multaneously a real, chilling re- for one artists and choreographers and, evedarkness. money and television appearances equals the pressure to minder of gruesome ning, everygirl becomespolitical a star. Miss create India correct While is in keeping fame, and little elsethis matters.

Not the with cold realities colliding innocent might inspire thesewith events, but the final prod-is immense, theflesh absences historyevent and docuchewing one’s at anin outdoor on a history personal ucts are ones. bespoke rather than mentation change of December (with nightevery in Dehradun, says Mohaiemen The personal andto political clones.

Each caters its ownalso auguard, renot theState leer documents of men whoare push collide another work, Rankin dience inand participants, and portedly destroyed and reagainst each other at FarrukhaStreet, 1953 which uses photohere’s where mimicry morphs inmoved), this is also partwho of bad, not the sneers of judges graphs of an What old family house to innovation. these shows Mohaiemen’s attempt “investisit on the other side ofatthe table Why aren’t hot (taken

by Mohaiemen’s in 1953), demolmight lack in poshness,father they subgating a minimal aesthetic” driventobyperform the deand ask contestants pants allowed here? ished the chutzpah, ’70s, to comment on “the hyper- sire to challenge stituteinwith and while theindignities. notion of art as a rarefied various capitalism of present-day finesse might be missing,Dhaka/Bangladesh,” enterspace, and thatAt“everyone is an artist.”Usha, Includ-a Saraswati Bhawan, Look at me Contestants versus theispast that it left behind. “The images ing the audience. tainment guaranteed. mother, stands in the corner and strike a pose for capture a form of family life that To track these events, BLinkhas been renHis Shokolwatches Choritro her Kalponik (“all characters daughter Ambalika the cameras at dered by ato property development travelsimpossible to Dehradun catch Miss Uttarak- are imaginary”), a work which premiered at sashay down the stage.

She whispers to us, “YaFarrukhabad's hand, Farrukhabad, for a so-called Miss UP and the summit, traces this line of “art as everyhan, hot pants mana hai.

Hum Lucknow se aaye Miss UP pageant kamal narang sits-in on the audition of Mr and Miss NCR in day” to itsshow logical conclusion, thehota verhain. thought Wahan har main hot pants Delhi. The facilities at these events range from nacular daily newspaper.

The lekhin projectAmbais a hain. Hum hot pants le aaye hain, jugaad to professional, the level of talent, from fictitious newspaper whichpada imagines an alterlika ko short dress pehanna (hot pants are impressive to embarrassing. For some candi- nate course at of this history forWe the subcontinent: not allowed show. have come from dates you cheer, ‘You go girl’, for others, you here DelhiThere pays at homage to border crossers Lucknow. every show, hot pants are by alwish to gently lead the way to the door. building memorial (theAmbalika Banglalowed. Wea are carryingtoa Felani pair, but The one question that echoes time and deshi shot on the border by theShe BSF) outhad togirl wear a short dress instead).” quickagain is, why this? What is the magnetism of side the“She Indian ly adds, looksParliament. good in hotKarachi pants.” has to this world? Few contestants I meet know or repay historical four debt.hours Bangladesh wins like the Farrukhabad, from Agra, understand the world of design, fashion or 2030 Soccer World Cup,inchoate the Dhakacities Knight UP’s numerous other is Ridpreers drop Gautam Gambhir from to BPL and in an cious to its citizens but invisible the outside ultimate sign stronghold, of the country’s prosperity, it world. A Yadav it makes headlines gets first Salman corporate honcho,visits a towering gionly its when Khurshid or when ant in the world egg production, the ‘Russian stars’ (i.e.of any fair, voluptuouson womForbes list. Combining the real with the imagan) gyrate at their annual Ramnagaria mela ined, the the ridiculous, the held on thesolemn banks ofwith the Ganga.

Most famous newspaper the imagination into terfor its potatotakes production, tourists tend to skip rains where wouldn’t go. When a it unless alooitmandis be typically their passion.

While on the one hand there has been much single white car, with a yellow number plate, international acclaim — shriek, his works beingaaye acpasses through, children “Tourists quired by thehave Tatecome);” Modern,thereby British announcMuseum, hai (tourists and soon to premier ing the alien invasion.at the MOMA — Mohaiemen find it easy to explain his Butdoesn’t at the always yuva mahotsav (youth festival), school art to this people, including started of in 2005, city of roughly old-school three lakh artists. thefoot lateforward.

Kolkata-based people, He getsrecalls to puthow its best Snobs artist-activist Shanu would puzzle over from the capital cityLahiri Lucknow, might believe how he hot could make an artwork without his that the pants embargo confirms its smallbrush touching paper. town status, nonetheless, they assemble here Theacross cabbiethe onState. the other hand — on learning from details of get Mohaiemen’s work —Maurya, had a word I soon talking to Divya who of is advice him. “Okay butDurga. don’t mind, here tofor support her sister Divya, let theme elsay thing.sisters, You think this is whather Pakistan, destone of three is completing MA in Bangladesh Always looking the past?

Education atneed? the PD Mahila DegreeatCollege in We’ve got toShe move These filmsbut need Fatehgarh. has forward. the prettiest smile, is to have lessons.

So listen, take than my number.

You content as a supporter rather a participanever know maybe one day you will needseller, a Pant. Daughter of a wholesale vegetable kistani Heevent is verylike handsome.” she saysactor. that an this costs the family close to ₹5,000, as outfits for the three rounds Different course Naeem Mohaiemen’s fictitious newspaper imagines an alternative course of history for the subcontinent arifur rahman munir shreya is a writer andand musician based—inmust Delhi be — jeans,ray short dress gown

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Winning Vidya

Nothing to hide A contestant at Mr and Miss Delhi NCR obliges the judges; and (right) other hopefuls await their turn kamal narang

Side effects of a major national honour

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s a rule, Vidya Balan doesn’t check her phone when she’s shooting. So when her husband, managing director of the Walt Disney Company India, Siddharth Roy Kapur, was frantically trying to get in touch with her to inform her she was now a Padma Shri, he had to wait several hours.

“When I finally called him back, he told me the Ministry of Home Affairs had called him to give the news. I thought it was a joke. It took some time to seep in. Such an award wasn’t even on my radar. I’m so humbled by it,” she says. The others on the list included actor Paresh Rawal and script-writer Sooni Taraporewala.

The actress admits that at 35 and with just nine years of experience, she didn’t expect to be clubbed with such stalwarts.

And yet, she doesn’t want the honour to influence her career choices. “I always want to be myself. My job lets me live different people’s lives and that’s what I love the most about it,” she says. Balan has recently wrapped up the shoot for Bobby Jasoos, where she plays a sleuth. But the genre she adores the most is romance, which is partly what drew her to Shaadi ke Side Effects, her next release. “I’m a big romantic and this is in keeping with that. Plus, I can’t think of too many films that explore a married couple’s relationship,” she says.

The film, directed by Saket Choudhary, continues from where his earlier film Pyaar ke Side Effects ended. The premise — a newly wed man griping about losing his independence post marriage — isn’t entirely new. Before you can ask, Vidya says, “It is a stereotypical representation of marriage. This idea about marriage being scary and men being tied down to a nagging woman has been repeatedly used in films and books.” She adds that the humourous script, which is smart but not chauvinistic, sets the film apart.

The other strength of the film, she says, is her pairing with co-star Farhan Akhtar.

“We didn’t know each other too well. I think a certain amount of unfamiliarity always helps to build chemistry,” she says. To sceptics who believe they make an unlikely pair, she retorts, “We are unusual actors and that is what has worked.”

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bought by them. Her parents allow Durga to about riot control, but they need to caution participate as they feel Divya will take care of against boredom. It doesn’t take long before her. Articulate and wise, Divya says, in Hindi, “I each set of eight candidates resembles the pream happy to come here and help my sister. But vious set. Girl in red dress and red lipstick who this is a strange world. In the blink of one’s claims to be a poet; beefcake boy who plays eye, one risks losing one’s self-respect.” sport for his school; too-puny boy who is as atIn the midst of tyros, many of whom tug at tractive as a clothespin; tongue-tied boy and the hem of their dresses, willing it to lengthen girl whose vocabulary starts and ends with and sheathe their legs, Priyanka stands out. ‘sorry’; a limited number of tropes is on disDressed in a Zara-like white-and-black dress play. While 1,500 youngsters registered online, she struts down the stage, hand on hip and a 170 have been called for this round arunabha deb of audismirk on the face. When she comes backstage, tions. The judges sort through them with a MANJ KHAMAJ she says, “I am a software engineer from Ban- mix of cruelty and alacrity. galore. My family is from Etah (100km away), When a boy declares with a touch of pride, so I decided to participate. When I first saw the “I am lean now, not skinny,” the judges tell him crowd, I thought of turning back, but then my to take off his shirt. He demurs, slowly pops mother told me I might as well take part.” open one button, then another, then stops. “I To be generous, one might call the crowd can show you a photo,” he offers hopefully. But enthusiastic, although rowdy would be the the judges hear none of that. He removes his more appropriate descriptive. The organisers shirt and stands in his undershirt, acutely do their best to discipline them — they have aware that his baniyan is not audition-ready. banned mobile phone photography, they urge “Yeh bhi utaro (take this off also),” he is told. He the men to remain sitting and not follows instructions. The girls in to shove against the stage — and the group turn away, out of courwhen all else fails, cops are called tesy, I imagine. “Achchi body bahen friends ask me upon. would about thesurveying of at least 15 of leaving the house to- the sense that they The use of us choice expletives nayi hai,”fuss a judge says, I am happy to help about the best time to and charge restores gether andlathi returning the following overuse of komal nishad in Kedarup butthe they a quick and summing chest on dismy sister. But this is visit Kolkata, they’re of- order maidan. in the morning, the elders fighting sleep to not did care about how artiste play.anThis voteunfurled of appreciation a strange world. In ten surprised by my very lose Thetheir Farrukhabad girls overhear ‘who- an alaap, about the clarity of edge in the never-ending evaporates thetans boy’sand, initial timidthe blink of one’s specific reply. January 22 to 27, I tell them. Priyanka tut-tutting atargument. their cityWhen I above all, about ity; thehe temperament of a out once was-the-best-tonight’ puffs all six packs eye, one risks losing There is a nip in the air (the Delhi folk get and no uncertain lookremind back ather, thatincontingent (many of performance. Their moreengagement and throws awith quick glance one’s self-respect to sneer at the ‘cold’ and the Mumbai terms, she no canmore), leave ifI she chooses them are realise that except the music was not technical, at the ladies. but it was guys get to wear their jackets); there is to disrespectful. course,was shetrained serious. And, most significantly, their ap-of a hotel forbeone granduncle,Ofnobody Inside the confines notungur in Nakur. And those five days chooses to stay.music.

If we bump into not a even praisal of an artiste wascan always objective, in Hindustani They were one safely flash the odd witness the two most iconic Kolkata software engineer fromsimply Banga-lovers of based on the performance ofBut theinnight connoisseurs.

They were naked chest. late December events: The Dover Lane Music Conference lore in Farrukhabad, wefather, also meet Sadiq who rather thanyoung on reputation.

I have in heard Hindustani music. My for whom when girls, dressed white ganjis, and the Kolkata Book Fair. Though nei- has travelled from Bangalore at the thetapMr and there is little difference between the biggest names beingwalk torn to pieces shorts of and stilettos, down an outdoor ther has the word ‘festival’ in its name, I Miss NCR auditions held in gandhar Delhi. Hailing ping of a table and the komal in in conversations (with which the tea they reramp in the hill station of Dehradun, cannot view them as anything else. They from Patna, he is nowup completing a Bachelor’s Bageshree, stayed nights (he still stallsquire and the toilets used to buzz) for giv- Miss Uta warrior’s fortitude.

The official have an essentially cerebral focus, but al- in dental Why a flippant recitals taking their repdoes) in surgery. thrall of theabandon music; the andsafety my of ing tarakhand falls and smack in between the tamasha ways with an air of fun: food stalls, medical profession to trytoone’s in this utation (and,UP and by the implication, grandmother responded Ustadluck Ali Akof a Miss jadedness ofthe a Miss NCR. bumping into old friends, avoiding rela- world?

Shaking his fringe fromthat his eyes, audience) bar Khan’s Jaijaiwanti in aaway manner Held for in agranted. vacant lot near the city’s biggest tives, and at Dover Lane, the guilt of sacri- he says,have “John Abraham has been my might gotten my grandfather a tadchild- That is why I got a an jolturbane at thisaesthetic year’s with lomall, it combines ficing an entire session of music at the hood model and hero. My parents’ dream for bit worried.

Dover whenWhile Anoushka Shankarof got calLane flavour. the majority the contesaltar of adda, outside the auditorium. meThere was towere be amany dentist.

But now I want a standing ovation. standing ovation is travelled families like mine.to foltants hail fromADehradun, a few have The Book Fair is usually a two-week af- low at Dover’s Lane— even the likesofofRishikesh, For my me,own thedream.” defining feature of Dover a rarity down from the higher altitudes fair; Dover Lane is more intense: four Lane was not the impressive line-up of ar- UstadChamoli Ali Akbar and Ustad Vilayat andKhan Tehri.

Many have studied at connight-long sessions, starting at 8pm tistes t the Miss Delhi NCR audition, rarely got one. rendibut Mr its and audience demography.

It Khanvent schools, they Shankar’s speak perfect English, are (read 9:30pm) and ending at 6am (read was held the Capital’s and plushest not in justone forofconnoisseurs the hotionswell-travelled of Maru Bihagand andwell-educated.

Pancham se Ga-A carefully ‘till the last artiste can keep going’), with tels, mostelite. candidates give a —‘non-reguvariation of 20ra displayed neither exceptional skillshow, nor the girls musical Music lovers choreographed and rehearsed five to six performances each night. I year-old Anshu’s “I want lar’ listeners whoanswer, were not part to of get the into exceptional imagination.

Comparable know the art of parading down the ramp, have been going since I was six, when our this field so that in another 10 years, every oth‘classical circuit’— comprised the largest recitals in theasame not half striking posefestival for thewere cameras and pouting Finishing touches Backstage at Miss family still qualified as Uttarakhand ‘joint’. I have er person point and Anshu’.” received.

I couldn’t part of thewill audience.

Andsay, yet‘That this is was a as enthusiastically for the audience, arms akimbo. in Dehradun; (below) the shorts round on a warm memories of those winter nights, The judges at the DelhiNot audition, unlike discerning audience. discerning intheir understand why the ‘Dover Lanetheir teeth But when theyfabled dart backstage, winter night; and (left) Khyati Sharma, the winner of Farrukhabad counterparts, need not worry audience’ (that artistes was chatter, they wrap gush theirabout) arms around themMiss Uttarakhand dev raj agarwal on their feethug aftereach suchother a recital. same selves, and The quiver.

In a desperaudience had a certain ate bid to clapped keep warm in theDagar five degrees of duo off the stage not sotolong ago. dil Since winter, they dance Yeh mera pyaar ka deewhenwana did itbefore become so emcee charitable? the calls Was theirit name. As a waythey of paying homage to gown Shankar’s leg-a choreogget ready for the round, endary father,voice Panditrings Ravi out, Shankar, who do somerapher’s “Sonali, passed awaySirf last year?

Or is it that thehai. au-(Sonali do thing. tyres hi tyres dikh rahe dience that was only onceyour insulated against something, tyres can be seen).” It is the reputation artistes had finally giv-too late to too late forof Sonali to get a new dress, en inlose to perceptions created thewhat pop-she can do the guilty fat, so she by does ular — media?

I hope it’s the former but I sucks her holds her breath, doesn’t breathe, am inclined believe that it’s thethe latter. stomachtoin and walks into unforgiving The audience demography at Dover Lane glare of the stage. has been — music haveis to mask Thechanging idea of beauty andlovers glamour gradually been replaced bytolisteners for the messiness behind, render inconsequenwhom Lane is an event in precede their so- it. People tialDover all the hardships that cial calendar, notbest in their calendar. show their facemusic and never the struggle The change has been slow, but for me,Ifitthese men and pain that throb behind it all. is noand longer ignorable after thisgreater Dover struggles women get noticed, Lane.await Pandit Ravi Some Shankar had said that of their them. have the support for any Hindustani classical musician, families, others are willing to defy their parCalcutta ‘final frontier’. wonder ents.isA the few are ready to giveI up familiar homewhattowns he would now. professions for a chance andsay lucrative at fame. They strut and smile, their sore feet, achingdeb back, goosebumps invisible arunabha is a Kolkata-based lawyer and to all. The that they might win the crown, that shubhodeb@hotmail.com musicbelief writer they will be stars, spurs them onto the ramp Encore, really? Anoushka Shankar got a standing ovation at the recent Dover Lane Music Conference shiv kumar pushpakar and into the applause.

Final frontier crumbles

Has Kolkata’s Dover Lane audience become less discerning over time?

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Fact and fiction A ‘blissed out’ Aishwarya Rai Bachchan with her daughter PTI

Feels like two places In a city like Shillong, with its highly developed fashion sense, you are what you wear

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return to my hometown of Shillong an- high priority in Shillong — and I’m reminded pends on where you look. During the mid-Ocnually and begin by recalibrating my mea- again of how it’s less slavish imitation and tober Durga Puja, one’s attention is wholly sure of beauty. It starts with the food on more self-expression. People dress according to taken by the muted colours of all the crisp, Benmy plate. The vegetables are smaller than their lights; they have an unerring sense (not gali jamdanis on display, their paleness comin the metropolises — slim, V-shaped carrots unlike the creativeness noticeable on the plementing the livid red of sindoor smeared with their green shoots intact, baby beetroots, streets of Paris or Milan) of what will suit them. on cheeks and foreheads on Dashami day.

PRESENT IMPERFECT mini-turnips — and distinctly sweeter. The soil Where do they get their ideas from? The westBut the Puja itself was muted this past year. seems to have a secret affinity with the scale of ern influence is obvious but another answer is Since a couple of months before the festival, lothis town and its people. It’s all of a piece: low — further east. Clothes have always made their cal groups were agitating for the enforcement lintels in shop fronts, foot-wide benches in tiny way to the markets of Shillong of a law requiring visitors to actea and rice stalls, tight little lanes winding out from Myanmar, but now I spot quire a permit before entering from the main roads, and on those roads small- DVDs of popular Korean TV seriMeghalaya. The agitation (and ocbuilt girls walking in stilt-high heels. als in the pavement bazaars, Thai casional incidents of arson and On a recent visit, I can’t resist chatting with a fashion magazines in the salon, murder) reinforced ethnic diLike the vegetables trio in Don Bosco Square, 14-year-olds dressed to and Japanese dress catalogues at which grow small and vides, with the result that Shilkill in frilly, tailored dresses and towering the tailor’s. The ‘cute’ fashion aeslong’s Puja pandals had sparser elegant in this wedge heels of, respectively, red velvet, leopard thetic of these cultures is big here crowds than usual and signs sayterrain, effortless print fabric and blue leather. I ask them about and for good reason — it perfectly ing ‘You Are Under CCTV Surveilcool sprouts out of the shoes. “We got them in Happy Valley,” says suits the dimensions of these lance’. this soil too the least shy one, trying to recall the name of bodies, the cut of these faces, this The most instructive thing the shop. Happy Valley is in my memory little hair texture and skin tone. about the ongoing debate over more than an army cantonment on the fringes Which brings us to the subject the permit is the terms in which of town. But I am behind the times; it’s clearly there is no escaping when in Shilit is conducted. Newspapers brisn athe video of cutting an interview Cannesaslast on same edge ofatfashion the restSince to have a child is perhaps longdeciding — ethnicity.

Friends point me to the fash-Earlier this month, tle with opinions butnewspapers always with arrived reference to year of thethat’s city. making the rounds of social onlyion irreversible decision that one can make, smelling blog, Wearabout, whose Mumbai-based like babies’ bottoms.of Johnson & Johnthe blank abstractions ‘native’ and ‘outmedia now, Aishwarya Bachchan In Laitumkhrah, hub of Rai the stylish young,it Isimply makes sense thatsome it be evaluated on marauthor recently spent months here son sider’; wantedone to invoke “sweetstories memories” rarely reads about ofactual talks about motherhood.

“It is a kind count half a dozen new boutiques, someofclosetreality and not on celebrity-endorsement or motherhood velling at Shillong’s street style and lovingly triggering the smell of babies. people orby lived experience.

Shillong has started bliss,” she outlets says. Followed by, “It is readymades, blissful to be some sized for inexpensive marketing slogans. And thesaris. reality this. Par- A million photographing it. “No Noiskurta-pajamas,” a beat.

With the to feeluteruses like twoskipped places: the besieged cityvi-of the withglass-fronted the baby.” And then, either because her enting stores sporting local designer la- he says is the mostentry, difficult experience you sual in one and in another wonders if mind of a mother cuddly are baby, it was in whichand the abinaries neat, and that vocabulary failed her or because time’s a out bels. You don’t even need tothird look in to find would have.

It in isn’t just about changing an ever elderly gent a dhoti is a tourist.

It’s easy enough to other, to more set a lot of people dreamily in- of familiar city look where, given waves charm, she au says, “Of course, it is exhausting, what’s courant.

It’s enough to take a walk diapers, staying up here, thinksterilising of ‘Indian’bottles appareland as an anomaly to mid-distance and decades decide this was going to and migrations and of commingling but itdown is a blissful exhaustion.” the main road, or slip into one of the trennights with a colicky It’s about and their wearersbaby. as tourists, buthaving the facttois that be the fragrance of their lives.communities, identiinter-marriage between I watched it onjust a loop week.has Andalways each been dy cafes and ogle.this Fashion put someone else ahead of you.

Every day.

It It de-The saris and dhotis are native to Shillong too. bliss-related narrative of parenthood is ties are inevitably blurred. time I saw it, it made me more angry. Here’s isn’t always possible. It is, in fact, never easy. likely to leave be a generation mothers It could argued thatofinnew a place with as dethe deal. There are all kinds of exhaustions And you have to do it for the rest of your life. and veloped fathers aghast at sense finding this 24X7 a fashion as out Shillong’s, you are when you have a child. There’s an eye-burning Mostly, parenting is about not knowing routine whatThis theyis signed for. Alwhatwasn’t you wear. not justupabout trendiexhaustion because you haven’t gotten a good what to do. It’s about taking a decision and ready, thebut pressure to have children very ness being able to affect that ismysterious night’s sleep in a year. There’s the puzzling ex- hoping it works out best. Mommy bloggers, high.thing Women whostyle. are childless their early called Like the in vegetables which haustion of post-natal depression. There’s the the latest entrants to the category of people 30s — whether or single — are forced grow smallmarried and elegant in this terrain, effortdull exhaustion of not knowing what people trying to make motherhood trentheout defensive about thecity’s less coolinto sprouts of this soil too. The are talking about when they discuss current dy and glamorous, would have choice they music, make. for A friend tells famed talent at rock instance, seems affairs. There’s the bone-weary exhaustion of you believe that it is all just a hipmeso people she’s expression selfish be- as a to rest not muchtell on her original running after a toddler. There’s also a meta-ex- pie trip. That your child would cause she has chosen to have marvellous ability to pull off anot Western style. I Mostly, parenting is haustion, exhaustion from feeling exhausted. jump into puddles and play in “It used to make me cry. attend achildren. concert one evening, and even though about not knowing None of it, I’m sorry to say, is blissful. dirt and run up mountains and Because is, deciding not tostanthe songs are thetruth well-worn rock and pop what to do It’s time to stop the lies about motherhood. waddle into seas and you just sit a child is thePurple, most selfless dards —have Eagles and Deep Beatles and This whole relentless positive spin on parent- there composing lines in your taken,” she says.

Abba — decision the effectI’ve is ever thrilling.

Those boys just ing — as this experience that elevates mun- head and clicking the perfect picShe’s right.

At the of theand day,those look amazingly good withend guitars dane lives into some level of spiritual ture. It isn’t like that at all. merely girls justparenting happen toissound likefoisting the realthe thing. salvation — is not just wrong, it is intensely daReality is what happens outside the blog. It’s responsibility life’s meaning then If style of is finding a form your of self-confidence, maging. It is ridiculous that even in 2014, in a wondering whether it’s a jacket day or a sweat- on to someone else.

It’s theyou reason why what Shillong teaches is how to parbe yourcountry of 1.2 billion, we are still telling the er plus jacket day, whether regular schools are ents self.

— especially mothers — have to continue The danger of style, though, is that it disyoung and the fertile that procreate they good or alternative schools are better. It’s con- withtinguishes the narrative thelook best and thing I’ve not youofby“this howisyou move, must. Let’s be honest — parenting isn’t all that stantly dealing with anxiety — is she smart ever what done.”you Besides giving themIndividuality an excuse to runs feel and think. it’s cracked up to be. enough, is he quick enough, does she trust too do nothing their it also gives deeper —else andwith maybe it’slives, respect for individualHaving a child is indeed a life-altering expe- easily, does he not trust at all, is she safe, is he themity, a lofty platform from preach. for what marks outwhich peopletofrom each, not rience, much like high-altitude trekking or being bullied. It’s torturing yourself whether Here’s truth.

Parenting challenging. whatthe lumps them togetherisunder impersonal swimming the Amazon. There are times when it’s okay to go back to work when she is one. Or It’s difficult.

Sometimes it’s rewarding.

Somegroup handles — that we ought to be after. you can’t believe you decided to embark on three. Or 10. It’s hating yourself that you’re at times it’s not. agree with Bachchan it isare to Dress andImanners areRai alluring but if—we this insane activity and there are times when it work and not at home. Or hating yourself that exhausting.

But inwe a plain vanilla of way. live together might havekind to look further feels like it is worth the pain. But sadly, unlike you gave up your job to stay home, and some- The only than blissful fashion.exhaustion about parenting high-altitude trekking or swimming the Ama- how this motherhood thing is not feeling like happens nine months before the baby isthe ci(Inabout this monthly series, authors chronicle zon, you can’t check out of it midway when the elevated experience you’re supposed to born.ties Trust theyme. call home) you find out that it’s too hard and perhaps not have. It’s wanting everything to be perfect anjum hasan ’s latest book is Difficult Pleasures. t@VeenaVenugopal worth the effort involved. while knowing nothing will be.

Stop the lies about parenting Let's be honest, parenting isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

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VEENA VENUGOPAL is editor BLink ND-X _ A

and author of Would You Like Some Bread withways that Book Uniform In Shillong, schoolgirls by day transform into hip youngsters by night RITU RAJ KONWAR

She is books editor, Caravan

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saturday, february 22,22, 2014 saturday, february 2014

BAWDY LINE

Author meets rich people

Figure this What would the Muftis make of ELSEWHERE Beyonce and her song Partition, in particular

A monotone of greed and unhappiness doesn’t make for a Delhi book manjula padmanabhan

afp / frederic j brown

Greetings, Visiting Slave Oh, such a rough day for Alexander the cat and its absent-minded sitter

Why the fatwa on music Keep out Delhi has always been a city of power and pelf ramesh sharma

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y two best friends in Elsewhere live next to one another, 15 minutes from where I live. Michael y all accounts, Rana Dasgupta’s Capi- Delhi had to do with either the obsessive love and Margaux are an architect couple who tal: A portrait of twenty-first century Del- or Arora’s snapping out of it is unclear. Much sometimes ask me to cat-sit their four-footed hi, was the much awaited ‘big’ release like the other people Dasgupta features in the buddy best.

Alexander, they’re away. who lives Legalists, on don’t think book, the Darul Ifta,tothe departJurisprudence) runMuriel, into volumes. of the year. In Delhi’s literary circles, Allah (Fat- when the link Delhi is tenuous at best,(Subhana often Wa Ta’ala) knows the other side of the boundary hedge, invites me over for tea ment that of thejust Islamic seminary Darul wa: 536/524/N=1434) Traditionalists and Theologians have all itewhich is yet another vibrant Delhi being an irrelevant coincidence.

I’m on visiting cat. that music is both the cause and sympDeobandInthat is though, responsible for rated Dasgupta chooses to ignore in his Uloom book, the A fatwa is a qualified legalwhen opinion any the a way the positioning of Capital My duties involve talking to Alexander, replenishing his the answering issuing fatwas, It precludes one from buzz was that this would be the city’s equiva- queries matter is the and book’s essential problem.

Thegiven bookby a jurist (Mufti). Once pro- tom of libertinage. bowl andbeletting him stroll about in the garden.

He’s a an has City. beenAtever to adjudicate specifically remembrance of Allah.

There is, resultantly, lent of Suketu Mehta’s Maximum thisasked the opinion works if you think of capitalnounced, less as a for geo-the believers, food great orange powderunequivocal puff of pureand sweetness, a cat withoutnot a just onWilliam the status of Beyonce’s Partition absolute embargo year’s Jaipur Literature Festival, Dala decree. To form his opinion, the Mufti graphicsong construct and(Drivmore ascomes an economic single mean bone in his body.

When I enter the house, he adup the partition please,The I don’t needin you rymple in his introduction er toroll Dasgupta’s is allowed to invoke and glean particulars on recreational music but on all things musiconstruct. changes the social and moral vances towards at aNo stately pace, his whiskers twitched knees), one can be about functional song or dance is permitted book, talked of it as the one thatseeing would’Yonce replaceon her fromare three sources: the Quran (i.e. The Finalme cal. psyche that but Dasgupta writes indeed forward as if to say, ‘Greetings, Visiting Slave!

You may stroke sure that song and Beyonce’s his own City of Djinns as the reasonably ultimate Delhi and 10 Unalterable real.the Much has changed in the last years, as Word of God), the Hadis (i.e. in Islam. It is a sin of the same denomination here and here and …’ Then or heconsumption sniffs the Tuna and Wild accompanying are likely be declared as adultery of alcohol.

It is unbook. Perhaps it is the universal truth that re- romp the traditions and, consensus Indians havetogotten richer, more educated,of the Prophet)me Rice that onto(haram). his plate from a tin, nods his apegregiouslybut haram.better travelled and almost entirely ality will always be inferior to expectation, in previous rulings on the subject (a I’ve sortemptied of lawful ardent proval and wanders out into theblame open air.

Last year, when supporters North Indiaofwas convulsed Can the therefore be placed on the like eating an ice cream on a cold winter’s starecapitalism. decisis, wherein muftis are obliged to reany self-benefiting amprior familiar the house and The haveanswer my own key. question Marwith the fatwa Unislamic) issued of Muftis? to that is night at India Gate — an experience that(music themoney precedent establishedI by deci-withbrows Delhiishas always been theby placespect where gaux had mentioned something about lock Ganpat but I’d forMufti-i-Azam Bashiruddin Ahmad of both the Sualso the premise ofthe Justice Singhvi’s makes you wonder what everyone else sees in sions). and the buys power.

Now the power gotten itfatwa, by thealtimejudgment I reached the house at377: 3pm.

I let Alex preme against on section that the lawout was laid it that you are missing — Capital fallsCourt muchof Islamic In the wake money Shariat, needed to buy it the have increased many of the Grand Mufti’s and went over place. We chatted overmay herbonly tea interKashmiri all-girl rock Pragaash for singdown elsewhere; that jurists short of its promise. most business, reflexively, lot of opprobrium was castto Muriel’s fold.band Just like they have, in any other andbyfresh returned tothe take Alexander of Darul it andInot exercise function of a legisDasgupta moved to Delhiinginand producing music, the onthe himcountry. and that was followed somestrawberries. tele- pret Then inMuftis any other part of back in when … uh-oh! late, I recalled advice Uloom Deoband and those ofDasgupta’s the All India Ja- visedtoo lator.TooScholars and Margaux’s Sufis may submit 2000 from New York. He planned andcould op-ed liberal grandstanding everycharacters about not using thecontrarian lower lock.views, The upper the there Muftis lock can’t.works, In Islam, to stay for a short time, until hemat-e fin- Raza Mustafa (representing or proffering have the beenBarelvi in any where part ofwithout India. actually seeking lower sticks. almost imme- uniquely canlocked be no both. judicial activism. It is a prophetic reished his work of fiction and Sunni con- Muslim sect) eagerly and the exegesis on why music, for the one Ummah, is I had There is nothing Delhi It was five o’clock.ligion The sun was fading.

Alex Revealed was looking upyields diately endorsed it. wherein the Final Truth vinced his girlfriend (“my beloved” haram. about them. at me with his huge golden eyes.

Come on, Visiting Slave, he To understand why Muftis and Islamic law religious law. The Final Revealed as he refers to her) to move back to Thecaptured full scale of the textual eviMehta’s Maximum City said, grabbed the surI shall sup- and Truth can’tI be latitudinarian. the US. But as the true effects ofcan’t eco- allow latitude on the subject, dence, quite beI’m hungry. Thirsty. Cold. Panicking, the city’s craziness energy onlymanifestly, can’t prised house.

“Front — ply two fatwas issued by Deoband on music.

It was revealed indoor the seventh nomic liberalisation come to effect conveyed in its a tract as cramped as cat and ran over to Muriel’s because he threw himself into locked-out — cat!”

I panted as I struggled to maintain my Query: They say that spreading message to an illiterate merchant and the city shifts shape, Dasgupta this, salient features are as filthythe core.

Dasgupta, onbut the the other cholars and pet.century grip on the S now struggling He’d visited next-door of Islam in this generation hashand, increased in thenever Middle East (pbuh) over a peis too fascinated to leave. He finds holdshighhimself follows: back and views Sufis may submit before. “Can’t leave him outside!” with music. And there arethe so city many artists it were riod of 23 years and assembled for and talks to an array of typically DelFrom the Quran, the commonest as though an exhibit contrarian views, But Alex was churning in mythe arms liketime a tangerine whirland record labels who prepare songs first as a text after his hi characters — the super powerful, cited ayat Capiis from the 31st chapter. in aIslamic museum.

Beyond a point, Capital Muftis can’t I’dfrom haveparchments, been shredded. author:What Rana would Dasgupta using music. be your views? into simply death palm leavand the super rich. Through their Allah Most High says: “And wind. there If he hadn’t been de-clawed, tal crumbles a wellNon-fiction Just as Muriel opened the door, he sprang free.

She collapsed Fatwa:HarperCollins If the Nasheed (song) does not con- of are es, shoulder blades of camels (on stories, Dasgupta tries to draw out among men, those that purwritten account an experience in giggles. I ran back, scooped him up once more returnQuran andbe ha-summed which verses hadand been scribbled) the evolution of Delhi. What ittain dis- anything chaseup idle that can best as tales, “au- to mislead (men) ₹799 against the holy ed to Muriel’s house. The moment was the inside, he calmed dith, rather if it is as per the Shariah, then rich therepeople.” andhe from memory of sundry tils down to, however, is a monofrom the path of Allah and throw thor meets right down, posing at the edge her sofa a huge fluffy it. However, it is haram soldiers whoofknew it bylike heart. tone of greed and unhappiness.is no harm in recitingPerhaps Forfelt such there will be a humiliating Dasgupta and his ridicule. publishers and unlawful with music.

The holy The authorised account of this man and the The book paints fantastic pictures of fancyto read V. 6). thatitenough has been writtenpunishment” about Delhi’s(Surah Luqman,sphinx.

I spent Abd the next hour coaxing the keywhich into the door’s Prophetshifting Mohammed (pbuh) came into thisFree Man story of this Revelation, form the Hadis, homes and ordinary seeming people Theand great Companion of the Prophet Al- half ‘little people’.

Aman Sethi’s Mayhandle.

Finally I managed get itainchain the lock, but the handle and to eradicate music.

Allah (Subhana WaCanlah comestofrom of short narratives millions of dollars every day. world And then uses ank ibnYou Mas’ud the phrase Austen Soofi’s Nobody Love Morehas this to say about itself to rotate.

Muriel called hertestimonies brother Daniel.

He’s from best.are recent examples of sublime‘idle half-remembered relayed these examples to highlight anTa’ala) aspectknows of mortales’: is refused music” (Suworks that“By tellAllah its meaning the one who had helped me move into my flat.

He strolled (Fatwa: 614/499/B=1434) al devolution of the city. But in his eagerness nan you the story of the city through itsal-Bayhaqi, everyman 1/223 & authenticated by al-Ha- person to person and assembled as a text cenand, a moment later, The Twenty years peopleThey in myare family turies after the events theyclick! claim todoor describe. to draw the macro picture out ofQuery: a micro-exkimreveal in hisparts Mustadrak, 2/411). up, took in the situation (andago woman). books that been turning handle the wrong way. of reference used to sing and play Now we Onethe wonders what the frame ample, Dasgupta seems to take what he can The other repivotal referenceopened. is from I’d chapter of the the harmonium. city that even long-term residents Alexander sauntered withAhmed slow dignified steps.

17. Allah Most High said to Shaitan: don’t that. Someone gifted usof. a harmoniwas home when Faiz Faiz wrote theseHe lines in out of the story. In his interview withdoManish main ignorant But like a bunch of teenagnot so much at me.Dua: Beat it, dummy, he said, as his “Lead tolook destruction thosedid whom you can as look um last year.

Now ers it isin ofano use.metro, What can his poem Arora, for example, the designer tells him Delhi all ofwewho dress and luxurious orange scornfully from side hain to side. themrewith your (seductive) voice” (Su- tail swished dofor with it? Can we alike, sell it and use the money or among Jin ka deen pairavi-e-kibz-o-riya unko about an obsessive love he had someone the characters in Dasgupta’s Capital YouMujahid, are an embarrassment to your species.

I sighed and nodrah al-Isra, V.64). Here again, the doexperience we have to donate money? to be essentially Himmat-e-kufr mile, jurrat-e-tahqiq mile for five years. “Another drastic I vealthe themselves the same, I trudged home.whose religion is the pursuit of lying theasword voice my way Harmoniums (a kind English mu- great To those had in Delhi,” is how he begins Fatwa: the story.

“It fighting the of same insecurities and exegete beset byhas interpretedded,

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Can the blame for making music haram be placed only on the brows of Muftis

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(sawt) reading, as music, singing, dancing and idle and hypocrisy sical p 1428) is solewas not a little crush: it went on forinstrument, five or six Firozul similarLughat fears. Capital a book worth author and artist, us of her liferesolution in things.

(Ruh al-Ma’ani, 15/111). MANJULA PADMANABHAN, May the Iinstrument amusement. notat how there cometells courage forparallel denial, years. My friends told me I was ly blind, was ob- if of what you seek isIta is look Indian lives

marginalien.blogspot.in Elsewhere, USA, in this fortnightly series From Hadis, approximately 40 referenc- for truth. lawful for aAnd Muslimhave to sell it or give it as gift to sessed, but it just went on. It was horrible. changed after liberalisation.

But asthe a Delmay be cited. The third source, the statesomeone.

Hence should breakhas it. no Do capital not es suddenly — I don’t know what happened to you hi book it, sadly, whatsoever.

AMBARISH SATWIK a Delhi-based ments of the Fuqaha (experts in Fiqh or Islamic Views are personal asatwik@gmail.com sell itI looked or give it me — Iisgot out after five years and atas a gift to someone. vascular surgeon and writer the rest of my life and said Wow. Now…” What veena venugopal

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saturday, february 22,22, 2014 saturday, february 2014

Journalist first Gaiutra Bahadur turned to history, songs and body art to tell the story of coolie women kamal narang

In India Inc, Gita is the new bible Krishna is the new guru at B-schools and boardrooms across the country as companies look to the scriptures for management strategies

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n October 2013, Tata group chairman Cy- rinths. From mind control to value-based ma) and care (bhakti). “Our partners tell us rus Mistry and other CEOs had an unusu- management, motivation and leadership, it that one of the reasons they want to work with al session at their annual conclave on seems to have an answer for everything. us is because we walk the talk when it comes ethics in Mumbai. An IIM director made a As things stand, Lord Krishna seems to be to our values.” presentation on the relevance of the Bhagavad emerging as the new Peter Drucker of manNot surprisingly, in 2011, when Vodafone Plc Gita in management. Mistry concurred. agement in India. After all, he is the one who was looking for a partner to meet shareholdThe result: copies of Timeless Leadership: 18 imparted the timeless wisdom to his disciple ing norms in its India operations, it sold 5.5 Leadership Sutras from the Bhagavad Gita, a Arjuna when he was indecisive about taking per cent stake to Piramal Healthcare in what book authored by this IIM Kozhikode director up arms in the epic battle of Kurukshetra in was termed as a “strange deal”. To the outside Debasish Chatterjee, have just been distrib- The Mahabharata. world, the engagement of teleuted across the Tata Group as the conglomerWhat makes the 5,200-year-old com with pharma was surprising. ate looks to move beyond compliance to text so relevant in today’s busiBut to both parties, it wasn’t. commitment and conscience. ness and economic context? “The Given the regulatory uncerIn the heart of the capital, India’s largest au- Gita is old in chronology but con- Spiritual texts often tainty in the Indian operations, tomaker Maruti Suzuki is busy training its temporary in essence. When basic Vodafone wanted a partner who contain sound leaders in self-management and time man- business principles cease to work not only had the money but also management agement. The two-day course module, also and when the rate of change outbelieved in all the values that principles based on the Bhagavad Gita, seeks to improve side is faster than change within, would allow Vodafone to focus on efficiency, effectiveness and effortlessness. Al- even businesses need deeper anoperations without bothering ready, employees are making a beeline for the chor points for decision-making about the future of its sessions, believing it will improve personal as not available in contemporary litshareholding. well as professional lives. erature,” says Chatterjee of IIM Kozhikode.

And that is the aim of most corporates — to Not too far away, engineering conglomerVivek Bindra, corporate trainer and direc- be able to run their businesses smoothly and ate, Escorts has roped in a motivation trainer, tor, Global ACT, says, “Gita is beyond time, effectively. Motivated employees who can imand a Bhagavad Gita-specialist, to inspire its 20 place and circumstances. The temporary solu- prove productivity with a smile are a bonus. union leaders. The leaders have to work with tions we are seeking from the West are often “Spiritual texts often contain sound managemanagement and workers, aligning their pri- inadequate. And that is turning corporates to ment principles that can provide vital lessons not in awith hateful or self-hateful but intough an in- they were all written by men.

In thewith absence of balance fact with imaginings a orities both.

This makesway their job the Gita.”

Bindra started in 2006 10 corin a corporate set-up.

In additiontotocreate our reguset in the past? timate, way.strongest I realise written traces of thenumber women,is Iover had100 to look as the comfortable, company haseven oneironic of the porate clients.

That now.to story lar programmes, we thought we could turn to book was Gita heavily with an eye that thein word hasTeachings been usedfrom by outsiders and visual traces.

I wasEnterprises, fortunate toSwati find The unions India. the Gita as area oral Vice chairman at Piramal the Bhagavad for researched, management insights,” high-resolution detail of slur.

I’m not condoning with“I several former indentured expected to ease the task.or echoing that nega- interviews Piramal agrees. think the importance of val- to saysrecovering SY Siddiqui,the COO, HR, IT & finance, at Mative andBank hurtful association.

What I am MMTC doing women in Fiji and Trinidad, conducted State of India, NTPC and NHPC, ue is being recognised worldwide now.”by Hera landscapes ruti Suzuki. and lives. As one example, I was toteachings say the moon was full themore day my greatis its place history.lookThis linguist, a sociologist and abeen few historians.

My able areacknowledging among the growing list in of our corporates group has, for many years, following the The become even relevant ship environment pulled into British was thetoterm the British to describe in- book best when I’m telling stories ing up the Gita to solveused management labyvaluessings of Gita — knowledge (gyan), actionbased (kar- grandmother’s in today’s economic whereGuiabusidentured labourers, and at least two genera- on those interviews, because I could hear their na because I read the entire newspaper for tions of poets and writers from the Caribbean, voices (literally — I listened to tapes of some of that day, including the weather report and the Fiji and Mauritius have reclaimed it for their the interviews at the University of the West In- ads. I was able to say that the depot hospital own use. That said, my use of the word is more dies in Trinidad). When I couldn’t hear or read for indentured immigrants had once served figurative than it is political. The their own testimony, in their own as the pit where wild animals fought at the Nafigure of the coolie sums up the words, I had to find other ways to wab of Awadh’s court-in-exile, because I read lives of so many indentured recover their commitments and an early 19th century article in an obscure women. They carried the bagexperiences. I turned to family agricultural journal that described it. Every gage of expectations: expectahistories, photographs, folk detail in my book is documented. The footEvery detail in my tions that they preserve culture book is documented. songs, The Ramayan, even their notes are a point of pride! The unknown and and represent its honour; expecbody art. (A tattoo that new the unknowable in this story were so great, The footnotes are a tations that they meet the needs brides were inked with in north- that writing a novel might have made sense. point of pride of both Indian and British men, east India, called Sita ki Rasoi, in- But I chose not to because I’m a reporter; I believe in the integrity and also the enormous needs both economic and sexual, timated so much.) power of fact. Whenever I speculate...I show on the plantations. The title Coothe reader my hand very clearly. lie Woman suggests their “In our beginning, there was burdens. a boat, ” — is a great line. Was that the

Q In our beginning, there was a boatR

Author of Coolie Woman, Gaiutra Bahadur on why she chose not to write a novel and the burdens of the word 'coolie'

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n Coolie Woman (Hachette), GuyaneseAmerican journalist Gaiutra Bahadur reaches into her family history to create a riveting narrative of migration and colonisation.

Though vast in scope, and dense in facts, it remains a deeply intimate story of a woman who left India without a husband on a ship for Guiana in 1903. In an email interview Bahadur reveals how she knew her great-grandmother’s ship sailed on a full moon night, and on recreating the lives of women whose histories were either lost or repressed. Excerpts from an interview:

Coolie Woman is much more than a family history. When did you realise the scope of this project?

As soon as I realised that it was bigger than my great-grandmother (Sujaria), that it would balloon from the private and familial into a broader public history, that’s the moment I wanted to write it. It may have been the reporter in me at work. My great-grandmother’s story excited the part of my brain that likes representative figures. She left Calcutta in 1903, pregnant and alone, travelling without a husband. When I first found out about her, I thought she must have been really exceptional, lit up by this incredible halo of transgression. But in fact, the vast majority of the women who left India as indentured workers were just like her, women unmoored from men, leaving India without husbands.

The word coolie, as you mention, carries a history of connotations. Why did you decide to call the book Coolie Woman?

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From the start, I knew this would be my title.

Growing up, I heard the word coolie used by members of my family to refer to themselves,

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In the records that you came across, the voices of the women themselves were missing. What were the challenges of creating these voices from the past?

I did find women quoted in court documents or official reports, but this wasn’t their direct testimony. The paper trail on the lives of women was rich and detailed, but it was told from the perspective of colonial officials. It didn’t --it couldn’t --- tell me anything about the inner lives of the women, the texture of their thoughts. Since they were largely illiterate, they didn’t leave behind diaries, letters, memoirs. Only a few indenture memoirs exist, and

first sentence you wrote for this book?

What was the first sentence?

If only I had such clarity when I started! I like that sentence. It sets up the sea voyage from India as a creation story for Indians who found themselves in the Caribbean. Every group of people who see themselves as a distinct people have a creation story, and for Indo-Caribbeans it would have to be a story that unfolds on the oceans, with that transformative journey in the wake of slave ships and slave crossings.

Sujaria never returned to India. And you write “it fell to us to realise the return that she never did”… What are the parallel narratives of departures and arrival in Sujaria’s and your life?

When I was six, my family left Guyana, our home for four to six generations, for the US. We were voluntary migrants, and indenture was for many people involuntary in spirit if not in law. Still, I felt that I could imagine, with some confidence, what it must have been like for her as a transplant because we had been displaced too.

“Imagined” is a word that comes up on a few occasions in this book.

How did youSuits inNANDINI Karma connection search of divine inspiration shutterstock NAIR

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saturday, february 22,22, 2014 saturday, february 2014

Travel log Get there

The Cochin International Airport is connected to most major cities. It is 30km or 2 hours away from Ernakulum. Volvos and cabs are easily available here to get to Fort Kochi, 15km away.

Ernakulum and Ernakulum Junction are the two main railheads in this region.

Overnight buses by private and State operators also ply to and from major cities in South India.

One of the few places in Kerala that makes the most of its waterways for public transportation, the ferry service here is reliable, cheap and convenient.

Ernakulum, Fort Kochi, Vypin and other islands are connected by it. Ferries leave every 20 minutes between 6.30am and 9.30pm and cost a princely ₹2.50.

Stay

Make Fort Kochi your base to explore the areas around it. Try Silverweed Homestay (09995205828; silverweedhomestay.com), Eliphinstone (0484-2218222; eliphinstoneresidency.com) or the Tea Bungalow (09388719679; teabungalow.in).

In good faith The restored synagogue in Paravur h vibhu; and (below) devotees in a trance at the Bharani festival in Kondugallur kk najeeb

nesses are saddled with debts and losses while employees are uncertain about their future prospects. “You need internal cohesion, external resilience, ability to deal with stress and an ability to operate beyond the ego. And the Gita helps in all of this,” says Chatterjee.

At public sector undertakings, the crisis today is somewhat different. Under pressure from ministries as well as regulators, PSUs are suffering from a fear of decision-making. To motivate decision-making is a was challenge at hat I thought the last these companies. stroke of paint on the KathaMetals and Minerals Trading Corporation of kali dancer’s face took almost India (MMTC) has opted for motivational soft another hour to complete. skills programmes to improve their ready decisionThe painstaking process of getting for making abilities.is, “When employees become the performance of course, one of the most Gita push-start learnings cultural from theexpeintriguing managers, and well-advertised help them leaders,” Binriences in become Kerala. self-start Having seen thissays several dra. is precisely did — he times“This though, I decide what to takeKrishna a few perfunctoguided Arjuna to decide whyout fighting the evebatry pictures before walking into the tle was ning in necessary.” search of that elusive ‘something new’.

At India’s of India That’s when largest I meet bank, youngState Lijo Bank and his bike.

(SBI), it 20 is the managers of SMEupon branches (speAnd in minutes, we agree a daylong cialising in lending to small and medium entryst, starting the next morning, with a nonterprises) thatBeyond requirethe motivation.

And so, the Kochi ‘Kochi’. heady mix of culturbank has started a course for and thema based on es, histories, boutique hotels lively art Gita.to expect, even demand, the principles scene one has of come the focus of these ‘spirituality in busiat While this seaside town. ness sessions’ may differ from company to company, their impact surely goeswhat beyond he eight o’clock sun transforms is a professional personal level.

Maruti em-a mundanetoferry-crossing forA most into ployee, who has— participated in the course, fantastical ride the water softly gilded and says helps a greatslowly parallel between calmitlike thedraw morning, erasing the the silKarmanye manets phaleshu shloka houettes of the vadhikaraste Chinese fishing from in Soon, corporate lifeoff and life.

“Ofkadachana view. we hop at real Vypin Island ten we lose our pettyvillage-town issues at work andcool intoover the first on mantra eases or at home. Practicing the mool our journey, Paravur, near Koout things everywhere, gets Part things fast dungallur. of done long-forand reduces stress,”gotten he says.

Muziris — a seaport An employee at SBI,that whoserved has participated in as a gateway the course, says the content is very relevant for to Arab and Jewish tradtoday’s lifestyle. “We are return AD from ersseeking in 1st century — us understand the every action. The Gita helps the region was better spirit of Karma and focus on as doing rather known Cragnore. than expecting immediate taught Evenreturns. today, aIthandful me to listen to others and take their perspecof monuments in the tive into account — something I had forgotten area bear an imprint of to do,” she says. the cultural diversity Bindra adds that lives have become that today the foreign influx stressful and every day is like a100BC battle. and “Krishna between 1341 trained Arjun to overcome depression inAD brought with it. and Yet the decision in 48 minutes.

Those similar queslocal synagogues, churches, tions are visible in today’s life and canfew, be mosques and temples draw answered if through the Gita.” tourists. any, (non-pilgrim)

By the way A pilgrimage to the non-Kochi Kochi at Paravur and Kodungallur

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Bookmarked by corporates Timeless Leadership. 18 Leadership Sutras from The Bhagawad Gita was recently handed out to employees across the Tata Group

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For the third arm of this multi-faith trianAt Paravur, it takes a lot of imagination at first to transport myself from the traffic- gle, we stop at the Bhagavathy temple in Koclogged streets to what was a significant mar- dungallur. It greets us with a loud blast and a itime junction during the Chera rule. Para- puff of smoke. As I recover from the shock, I’m vur’s best-kept secrets are its two ancient reassured that these crude gunpowder bombs Gurupossibly Cool SY Siddiqui, COO at Maruti Suzuki India ; and (left) Swati Piramal, viceoffering chairman,here.

Piramal or vazhipad is a common Emsynagogues, built in the mid-16th Enterprises, their to applyboldened, tenets of the Gita vivek I pass on bendre a crumpled ₹10 note and century, around theencourage same time as employees the Paradesi Synagogue in Mattancherry. We arrive to find flee with hands cupped over my ears. Seconds the Chendamangalam synagogue padlocked later, I hear my offering go up in smoke! DediB-schools are also going all the way in- cated At the Piramal group, is not isonly the valto Bhadrakali, the it temple known for and peek at what we can.

A padipura or ato gatecrease the spirituality quotient in their coursthat are of based spirituality, but the the inclusion loweroncastes during festivals. way leads to the prayer hall, even as the pil- ues Gyan Mues.

Corporate honchos as aspiring logo Theby logo is theand Its 10-acre siteasiswell. shaded banyan peepal lared woodwork holds onastowell the last vestiges group’s universal sign of knowledge. is the managers are now making a beeline to man- dra, trees,the with the main shrine ensconcedIt in of antiquity.

One of the two oldest synagogues of (6am–12.30pm, the hand when4pm–8pm). one is trying to gain agement courses to understand the impor- sign middle in India, it’s disheartening to see its ineffectuthe tips ofinindex finger and thea tance of unlike spirituality business.

The idol is—slathered turmeric; possibly al upkeep, its betterinknown siblingIIM on knowledge joinpractice to maketo a circle. left the Kozhikode, for instance, has started a course medieval ward “We off have chickenpox, the town’s Jew Street, which was recently re- thumb open as amumps, symbol signs of humility.

We believe on ‘Timeless andProject.

Self Incorporat- circle smallpox and of ‘divine wrath’. stored as partLeadership of the Muziris Gita. “It is an that the circle of excellence is incomplete and ed’,Stbased on Church, insights at from Tiered oil lamps, a thula bhava Thomas the the edge open-ended whichtoo. runsItsthrough the that we want(scale to learn more andofferings) keep an open to measure and of town, is incourse, better shape year,” says Chatterjee. mind,” says Piramal. musicians line the front porch. manicured gardens and brightly Gita Mumbai’s SP Jain (restored Institute has She has translated theouter teachings the The yellow wallsof are bereft painted building in made comThe Bhagavathy group’s partnerpulsory a course ‘The of action. woodenThe rafters atyptical of 2002) bely its age.on This is Science where Stof Spirituali- into practical temple greets us ships valueslamp and ty’ under its in executive shrinesarein based Kerala.on Instead, Thomas set foot 52AD; theMBA first with a loud blast quality paramount — soinmuch programme.

IIM Indore too has stands isare embedded the of seven churches he founded in so thatnow evenshadowed the manufacturing incorporated sessions the Gita walls, with soot. the region, also theon very first as part in of India. the course facilities that roofs don’t of require apRed sloping different church Once module pillagedon by Krishna trained ‘Ancient Oriental and proval from the USFDA shrines, wooden wallshave andbeen the Tipu Sultan, it stillPhilosophy houses the relic Arjun to overcome Spirituality’. designed are all in finecompliance specimens ofwith the of the apostle and draws a steady streamdepression of pil- granite and flooring GitaJoseph, being an Despite those norms.

“Sometimes, it leads architecture.

If you visit around March or grims.

Jacob theintegral in-house guide, is local indecision in 48 part of to theshow Hindu managto delays.

But we prefer long-term April, you might witness the Bharani festival, happy us culture, around (7am–5pm). minutes ers don’t look upon it as a relibenefits over short-term when thousands of devotees in red sarisgains,” (even gious text.

“I clearly believe that busy mar- men) dance in shea adds. hizzing past a blur of narrow, trance. Called komarams, they this haskets, nothing to hit do an with reliAs things stand, spirituality in we soon oasis of peace — the perform the ritual of kavu theendal, hurling gion or faith per se.inWe all recog- where Ma- sticks and abuses business seems to beand herethe to temstay.

Cheraman mosque Kodungallur, at the goddess nise thetheprogramme is management all, when the around economy is down and all lik binthat Dinar, Islamic missionary who first After ple, while running it with sabres held -focused andIslam not oninreligious dimensions.

It is else many years, do turn to festive the ancient texts for propagated Kerala, weighed anchor. high.fails, In recent this frenzy draws about theunassuming universal principles And the trend is catching up outBuilt inidentifying 630AD, it’s an structure sustenance. many a photographers-in-the-know. and but applying to a side contained the Gita India too.atChatterjee busy his that allowsin women inside not inthem the sancBack again Fort Kochi,ismy legspacking feel the satcorporate setting,”insays Siddiqui. Hindu-style, bags for aweariness conferenceofinaHawaii.

He spent. is going to tum. Constructed a traditional isfactory day well ColHe islater quick to add, while the11th classic manageJapanese the relevance of theI it was renovated in the century.

But address lapsing in a heap CEOs at theon nearest coffee shop, fast-paced world. ment provide valuable insights for peo- Gita what istexts perhaps, as interesting as the mosque, thinkin of today’s the hallowed grounds I’ve After tread,5,200 mapBhagavad museum, Gita and other texts Gita is going global. theunmapped wisdom ofhandmaidens ple, is itsthe single-room wheresacred a model of years, ping the of Kochi. offer fresh perspectives, contributing to the the original edifice is on display (mosque rashmi body of management knowledge. supriyapratap sehgal is a Bangalore-based travel writer 5am–9pm; museum 7am–7pm).

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Smile please Are photographs the mirrors of our soul? Do they still conceal as much as they reveal?

Never too far News is determined by how far OB vans can travel

DILLI DARBAR

sushil kumar verma

Capital as the nation the hindu archives What happens when the media is used to massage the darbari’s ego?

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Shoot at site Over the years, striking irst, let us agree that bus. You will be faced with evidence of people a pose has come to mean informal, photographs are doing things that are incomprehensible to Facebook-friendly ephemera magic. They allow you hen Sabhaoff speaker Meira fake — Lok jumping cliffs, getting ratetattoos civil servants destroyed DD and helped in munication to reach out to the entire country. us to freeze time, to and Kumar decided to shut off the the taking pictures of cocktails instead of of privately owned TV companies Today, ironically, a local player in the politics of creation go back, remember what we downing television cameras andallstop the national capital, like Arvind Kejriwal, has them.

Through this you must be and channels. were, what we had hoped to patient the telecast of theyourself proceedand remind that all While sorts of hundreds of television news chan- been able to take advantage of this centralised be. Once upon a time, our grandparents ings in beher chamber of Parliament, she took nels have blossomed around the country, communications infrastructure to become a people make up this world. lieved that photographs were powerful, they the first step back the you media Life from will have lookstrategy at more photographs mostly owned and controlled by politicians national hero. Can you imagine a Kejriwal-like could reduce lifetimes, steal souls, that alter Indira desti- Gandhi first unveiled nearly of honeymooners than you four will know to capitalists, the so-called ‘national’ activist achieving even more in a distant Coimandwhat crony nies. They were serious as they faced cameras, decades ago. Indira Gandhi wanted to the estabdo with.

You will register awkwardness channelsofbecame Delhi-centric, like DD. Then batore or Guwahati hoping to showcase his loknowing that every inch of their faces lish awould direct connect between thestrange Delhi darbar arms around still shoulders andLok the Sabha TV, promoted by publicity cal achievements for acquiring a national came be scrutinised long after they were gone, to be village and every across thegood length and effort of looking for the people who will hungry speakers of the Lok Sabha, and Rajya stature? aligned with who we thought they breadth were, who of India It took 15 years of hard work for a Narendra lookthrough at these satellite pictures television. later. You willSabha see photoTV, promoted by equally publicity hunthey should be.

Meira Kumar revealed the first time acolleagues sense gry Modi to be able to use his achievements in Gujgraphs offor newly married seated on chairpersons of the Rajya Sabha.

That old photo album hidden away in the unhappy of nervousness on the part of the darbar about elephants, camels, feeding monkeys Together, the private and the public TV arat to seek and demand a national role. Other house you grew up in is embarrassing thebecause rest of India finding out what happens and wearing rented tribal costumes.channels You mustspent a lot of money on new technol- regional leaders, from NTR to Mulayam Singh, it reveals a part of you that you have tried to overcome your discomfort and try and within. ogy underbut mostly concentrated in Delhi. Since have tried with limited success. Because their forget over the years. Your appalling Indira posture,Gandhi’s first ministerial job thethe field of political activity was far standvery this impulse that makes guyradius from of news for a TV chanthat twist of hair that you was that of minister foraccounting information andthese away from the Delhi darbar they share nelpictures is defined by the length to thought looked awesome but re- broadcasting in Lal Bahadur Shastri’s cabinet. were never seen as ‘national’ leadwith you and the rest ofwhich the world. an OB van can drive, most ally just looked silly, the hands By the time she was Prime He Minister ers, always as regional. But a man wantsshe youunderto knownews that became he is Delhi-centric. An Aaand feet you didn’t know what to stood the political and strategic importance who ought to have been a Delhi not just the guy inofaccounting, he murder case in Delhi, rushi Tawlar In Indira Gandhi’s do with. Photographs help you centralised communication a continental mayor is now regarded as a potenis ainperson, with a beating heart, rape case and an Ara Nirbhaya time Delhi was You’ll learn some understand that life is a slow nation.

She temples invested in money in developing tial prime minister. TV has bewith a blushing an bride,vind whoKejriwal’s will political theatrics never the news visit nine process of resolving all the con- Indianthree national and in became national news. come the medium that massages learn to love him. capital of India dayssatellite programme flicts of your heart, of learning to creating a nationwide public broadcasting the darbari’s ego.

Today the photographsPrivate we seenews channels, therelove the person you once were, system under the tutelage Doordarshan Indira Gandhi must wonder to areof curated perfection,fore, flattering have been no different from the person you are now. and the ministry of I&B. angles and predictable spontaneiwhat extent she has created this the public broadcaster as purveyWhat is harder to do still, is to The Indian Space Research situation by centralising the naty. Organisation Accordingly, it(IS-is easy hate ors to of information from the Delhi learn to love others. Especially when RO), others under the leadership ofand Satish Dhawan, half-strangers their perfect vacation darbar picto the rest of the country. Not surpris- tion’s news infrastructure in Delhi. In her own make you look at pictures of theircreated vacations. the hardware. spin doctors andhaveingly, tures. ThisHer is exactly when we to pause therefore, on the evening when Andhra time Delhi was never the news capital of India.

As you get older, you will be forcedpolitical to look at managers created thealternative software. DD and think of the albumPradesh of the dewas divided into two states, the focus The editors of the Times of India and even the more and more photographs of people you do very graduated quickly from its anduniverse, leted that exists in ablack parallel susof one of the more popular news channels was Indian Express sat mostly in Bombay, of the not really know or like, for that matter.

You andpended white days the erain of aHum Log, Simon not state ofRini displacement.

It is a fatwhat this means for the Telugu peo- Statesman in Calcutta and of The Hindu in Maabout will have no choice; you will have to be Tejeshwar brave album and Singhthat to has colour and yellow the live a bright rose on plethe andcovHyderabad city, but why LSTV shut off dras. Today, most newspapers have their ediand enthusiastic. telecast of the er Asian in 1982.

Rajiv Gand- The tors or their senior editorial staff based in withGames the words Sweet Memories. photos its live coverage.

You will learn that some people like go on image hi’stonational was and created on television Delhi. All national TV channels are headquarare shaky sometimes the people in them pilgrimages where they see nine temples in watched as the nation him cremate assassilook bored, hungry, his tired and ready ational to go politics has travelled a long dis- tered in Delhi or Mumbai. Between Delhi and three days (all the temples will looknated the same mother.home. They will be touchingly humantance and from the time the prime minister Mumbai the two cities dominate TV news. A ofwill the find country wanted to reach out to every thunderstorm and heavy rain in Delhi gets but you will not tell them this). YouItwill see evenboth is testimony to the though youprofessional don’t want into, you hamlet photographs of people who travel competence to Switzer- ofspace the Delhi Darbar to the in your heartand to learn toinlove them too.ofIt this vast subcontinent, to the day more TV time than a cyclone in Orissa. The Delland as part of large tour groups while wearfluence of crony capitalism DD was never when the powers that be in Delhi decided to hi darbar is so obsessed with itself, it has no is nothing lessthat than magic. ing name tags and you will not judge them for off like BBC and become a publicly shut themselves away from this audience. able to take time for the rest of India.

SANJAYAtaking BARU’Ssobook Thepictures from insideowned snigdha manickavel is a Hyderabad-based writer Time was when India’s most powerful polimany their tour broadcasting firm of international Accidental Prime Minister (Penguin sanjaya_baru@hotmail.com competence. Third rate politicians and second tician sitting in Delhi wanted a means of com-

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Viking) will be published later this year

Calling card Yet to roll its shutters up, Mumbai wakes up to the day of the spectrum auctions with bids totalling about ₹45,000 crores($7.12 billion) on the first day dhiraj

singh/bloomberg

Pasta perfect It takes planning, and you can’t rush it, but making pasta from scratch can be as satisfying as cutting into an oozy egg ravioli

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infamous Hong Kong Market (a place where you can buy anything from around the globe provided you aren’t fussy about provenance!) and it continues to give me great service. A more recent buy, my food processor, has also simplified pasta-making — no more kneading by hand, the machine does it in minutes.

I don’t claim that making pasta at home is a hassle-free, spur-of-the-moment activity. It takes planning and you can’t rush it. Once you’ve got the hang of it though, it’s not tough to do, and the results are so eminently satisfying that I find it well worth the time and effort.

Along the way, through a number of unhappy experiences and some outright disasters, I’ve picked up a few simple rules. The standard measure for dough is one egg for every 100gm of flour. But because the eggs we get are smaller than those in the West, I add an extra egg for every two eggs. Many chefs don’t add oil or water to the dough, but I find a good slug of olive oil is a must. Resting the dough in the fridge is critical. So too is running it four to five times through the widest setting before gradually reducing the gap to make the sheet thinner.

Use small portions of dough at a time (wrap the rest tightly in cling film to prevent drying). Those impressively long sheets of pasta are hellish to manage, and unless you’re a real pro they will tear, bunch up and dry out.

Your work surface needs to be generously dusted with flour at all times otherwise the sheets will stick and tear, ruining all your hard work. At the same time you don’t want to coat the cases with flour which makes for tough

Fig and Goats’ Cheese Ravioli with Warm Rocket Dressing (Serves 4) On our last visit to Kalimpong, we spent a day with friends on their hillside farm where the family has lived and practised organic farming for generations. We came away laden with vegetables and fruit including a couple of enormous figs.

We enjoyed the sweet, grainy flesh in several forms, including a successful experiment of using the fruit as pasta filling.

Dough 300gm flour 5 eggs Olive oil Filling Scooped out flesh of 5 sweet, ripe figs 2-3 rashers of streaky bacon, chopped 2 small clove of garlic, minced 1 cup soft goats’ cheese Butter and olive oil Dressing Tender rocket leaves Balsamic vinegar

1. For the dough: place flour, eggs and a tablespoon of olive oil into food processor and whiz till the mix looks like breadcrumbs and is starting to come together. Take out on to work surface and knead into soft, smooth dough. Wrap this in cling film and place in fridge to rest — 40 minutes in the fridge then 10 minutes at room temperature before you start working with it.

Pretty pleased Porcini mushroom ravioli with thyme

Game of phones

s winter begins imperceptibly to yield to spring, I’m filled with a sense of urgency to make the most of my ‘winter kitchen’. Soon, both the smoker and the massive pot that cooks the leg of ham will be put away for the year. And the pasta machine will have to be unclamped and stored in its box. Through much of the year, when it’s far too humid and hot for pastamaking at home to be a pleasure, I make do with what’s there on restaurant menus. But in t 8.30am on February 3, the headwinter, I’m no longer compelled to order the quarters of eight telecom firms heavy, sauce-drenched interpretations that ofwere buzzing with activity. The juten feature in the filled pasta sections. Denior staff at an operator’s office in pending on what’s in season, my mood or the occasion, I create different combinations of Mumbai arrived much earlier than their usual taste and texture — highlighting one seasonal time of 10am to find their top bosses perched ingredient, assembling a subtly seasoned dish anxiously before a big screen, which was confor a light lunch with friends or a rich, luxe nected to the main server at the Department of Telecom. Two extra screens were linked as a preparation that’s fit for a celebratory dinner. werequail’s technical So while the cool dry weather still holds, I’m backup A boxin of case tiny,there speckled eggsglitches put me in one. caught in a frenzy of pasta-making — ravioli, the first mood for plump round cushions of ravioaway with in Delhi, threeyolk, top embedded officials were tortellini, pansotti and other filled pasta, deli- li, Miles each filled a single in huddled together in the of cate packages of exciting flavours lightly chives-scented ricotta andconference served withroom a smear another operator’s office. dressing.

One was practising brushed with subtle sauces. of creamy, garlic-flecked Prawns — breathing the techniques to control In winter, the flower beds in our Kalimpong especially large-headed ones, anxiety referredlevto els,galda whilechingri another had his—eyes home are bare of blossoms, but at their bor- as in Bengal areclosed. perfect for torAnother operator hadwith shrouded its ders herbs grow in profusion — spiky rosem- tellini.

UseMumbai the meat, seasoned parsley, conference room curtains to keep ary, star-like marjoram, velvety sage and the for the filling, andwith makeblack a gourmet sauce with out prying eyes.

The of three executives ubiquitous, chives and thyme. Rethe coral prawn heads, ainside smidhad their mobile offwhite and turning from visits at this time of geon ofphones garlickyswitched cream and were not allowed leaveplating, the roomI until year, our luggage is an assortwine. to When spritzthe it end of day. with gandhoraj lime for its fresh ment of local produce, including Speckled quail’s This was, after all, their dayhit.

— spectrum, all these herbs carefully stored befragrance andbig acidic eggs put me in the the lifeline of The telecom operators,red was pepper on the tween sheets of newsprint. char-grilled mood for plump auction block and theirand bidssmoked could make or The herbs provide an exciting sweetness paprika cushions of ravioli break their business. range of seasonings both for fillheat of the Catalonian Romesco This scenesauce repeated over 11 ings and sauces. But my favourite cries itself out to be the usednext with days, until the final announced is to crisp a handful — marjoram pasta too.results Prettywere triangles of panon Februarysotti 13. packed with smoked Bandel or sage do excellently here — in Each (from day, senior officialsPortuguese arrived in office at butter and olive oil and use this golden, green- cheese the former colony, 8am Kolkata) and did not leaveup until anextrahour speckled sauce to dress square parcels stuffed near mashed with8.30pm, basil and after the auctions wound up for thewith day.it.

“After with pumpkin puree, sprinkled with toasted virgin olive oil partner beautifully of auction, wesuch hadastojamieoliver.com, stay back to prepumpkin seeds or goats’ cheese. A rosemary close Several websites, ofpare the strategy for the day,” saysdough a CEO butter sauce is perfect when paired with ravio- fer excellent guidance on next making pasta involved, who requested his name notI’d besay pub-a li filled with leftover hummus refreshed with (also see recipe box for basic steps). lished.machine Most ofis them still “recovering” parmesan. Add crisped bacon to the stuffing pasta a wiseare investment.

I bought from (of theItalian hecticmake) 68 rounds bidding that and you take the dish to another level. mine 15 yearsofago at Siliguri’s

2. For the filling: saute figs, bacon and garlic in butter and olive oil.

Remove from pan and allow to cool before adding the goats’ cheese.

Season to taste.

3. For the ravioli: divide the dough into three or four rounds and work with one round at a time, keeping the rest wrapped tightly in cling film.

Put the dough through the pasta machine at its widest setting about 4 times. Then start moving the up case a notch each time —scenario fetched the government more than ₹61,000 don’t,setting in which the competitive dusting the dough with flour every crore for airwaves that carry telecom signals. has to be forecast,” says the CFO of another time — till the sheets are as thin as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone India, telecom company. possible but without any tears.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, Tata Teleservices, ReAccording to the notice inviting applica4.

Place sheet on flour-dusted liance Communications, Telewings Commu- tions (NIA) for spectrum, while work the bid surface and divide into two. Place nications (Uninor) and Aircel Cellular were amounts flash on the screen in descending orrounded teaspoons of the mix along the participating companies. der, the remain unone operators’ sheet leavingidentities equal spaces “It is like fighting 22 battles (for spectrum in known.

So apart from one’s own bid, each between each mound. Brush the as many telecom circles) simultaneously, and operator left guessing about the areaisaround each mound withrest. water, with more one enemy. antic“Wethen prepared software the rules pasta.

I findthan using a sieve to You dustcan theonly surface is place athe secondbased sheet on over this.information Use your fingertips to press the moves to of achieving the competition, and you provided in the NIA, aipate good solution that balance of and the thedetails doughofand eliminate any are unlikely to guess everyone’s strategy along down with the spectrum available in covering the work table evenly and lightly. air trapped around us thegauge fillings.how Use many a right,” CEO. This helped Makesays surethe you seal the edges of the pasta by each circle. serrated pizza cutter cut into “You need to know what players can beto accommodated in brushing the area around the the filling with waneat square parcels. other operators are thinking, a circle given the evolving deter.

Equally important, seal theand filling by press5. Repeat this rolling andsituation filling howaround eager itand prepared mand-and-supply at eving so there’s no airthey trapped. processery with the remaining dough might be to battle — be whether they stage,” says the CFO. The water should at a rollicking boil and The auction is are pot strong, average or weak in no more operator the should be a large one. Cook 6. Cook When ravioli inanboiling, saltedsees that almost like a game water in batches of three. Cookittilltweaks that market.

Even a strong oper-so they have supply is constrained, than four filled pasta at a time of poker they float up to thetosurface — at an apator of will haveand a different onsurface only its strategy back off lots room come upview to the about propriate three minutes. out with alterdifferent markets,” he adds. timeTake and consider when cooked adequately (three odd minutes) a slotted spoonsuch and as putanfour to five at But the exhaustion hardly be- and time to natives, acquisition Since you’re taking the trouble ravioli ain later warmed plates. gins orpasta, endsmake with just date.

“The auction is almake a bigthe lotauction. at one go and freeze 7. For theinvolving sauce: heat the pan “Preparations begin in advance, poker, betting andinindividwhat you won’t use.months Filled pasta freezesstartwell most like which figs like had poker, been cooked and of ing with a 20-year forthe thesauce. spec- ual play.

Andthe much some moves and all you need tobusiness do later isplan make add someremain butter hidden and balsamic trumaon offer and for its use(makai in the ka 22 atta) circles. until the end of Dust tray with maize flour or every operator vinegarsays to deglaze the juices in the This is the most difficult aspect,” sayssure the CEO. an official at a Delhi-based polenta.

Place cooked pasta, making they the game,” pan. Adjust the seasoning. Take it off What makes thisother especially trickythe is the adding, “The operational team dedon’t touch each and stash trayfact in company, the heat and toss the rocket leaves thatfreezer. companies to store consider the evolubest way to expose yourself, while enthe Once have frozen, in freezer bags cides the in this warm runny dressing. tion of technology overasthe twofresh decades, or airtight boxes. Cook younext would pas- suring you don’t give away all your cards.”

Spoon theasrocket leaves and theagree, gauge industry size, movement of tariffs, But8.ultimately, all the operators ta but athe little bit longer. dressing over each plate of ravioli, and likely revenue from really voice and is almost like a trap — deIn the pasta-making, practice doesdata. pay the auction garnishprocess with a sprinkling of goodTheSo plan then goes through several rounds of signedquality, to maximise for the governoff. even if you have a few disasters initially, crumbledrevenue goats’ cheese. discussion between shareholders,will technology stick with it.

Your perseverance pay and ment. No matter how the cards are played, the experts and the marketing team.and friends. only winner is the government exchequer. soon your pasta will wow family “We have to consider the impact on the arundhati a Kolkata-based food writer business ifray we iswin the spectrum, and if we rashmi pratap

While telecom operators shuffle and keep their cards close to their chest, the government watches its winnings mount... Here’s a behind-the-scenes account of the spectrum auction

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CREATURE FEATURE

Antlions & The secret ‘crusade’ helmeted basilisks

Religion and violence cross paths again in small-town Andhra Pradesh as right-wing fundamentalists target the local clergy, allegedly to arrest conversions

Find out why two of the laziest creepy-crawlies go slo-mo n January 10, at around 8:30pm in

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pend a moment visualising your most active days and your laziest days. On active days, you might visit the gym, trek the Himalaya or run a marathon. On lazy days, perhaps, you would walk from your bed to the fridge and back.

Some animals live in a state of perpetual activity like you on your active days — imagine a constantly buzzing bee or a hummingbird flitting from flower to flower. Today, however, we are taking a break from these exhausting creatures to talk instead about those that behave like you on your laziest days.

One of my favourite animals, the antlion larva, perfectly illustrates such a sedentary lifestyle. Have you ever noticed small, conical pits in the ground, often in sandy soil along walls, sheltered by trees or eaves? These pits have been dug by antlion larvae, who wait patiently at the bottom for their food — ants and other insects — to fall in. When an ant falls into the pit, all hell breaks loose. The antlion jerks its head violently to spray sand in the direction of the unsuspecting ant, which loses its balance and careens into the gigantic jaws of the antlion below. After grasping the ant firmly, the antlion

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Shiftless critters A helmeted basilisk alexis harrison; and (top right) an antlion ambika kamath

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Vikarabad, 69km from Hyderabad, a group of men knocked on Pastor Sanjeevulu’s door. They said they had come to offer prayers.

When the injects it with digestive juices andPramila, retires bepastor’s wife, to opened door, sheleisure, was struck low the sand eat itthe at its own reon the forehead with an iron rod. The assaiturning to its placid existence. lants into the house and This then mode marched of hunting is aptly called exstabbed the pastor,predation. repeatedly.Another He was beaten treme sit-and-wait fasciwith clubs and sit-and-wait hit on the head with the iron nating predator is the rod. The attack barely minuteshelbut Central and lasted South 10 American Sanjeevulu sustained severe injuries to hisanlivmeted basilisk lizard. Like er, spleen and tlions, intestines. days theseThree lizards arelater, mosthe succumbed to hisactive wounds at the Yashoda Hoswhen catching food. pital in Hyderabad.

When a helmetBy the end of January, Stateedpolicebasilisk had arrested seven of the eight accused. of them spotsAll an inhave been linked to Hindu sect Vahini, a rightit wants to wing organisation described affiliate eat, asit an dashes offof the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, withit’s itsbeen State situnit the tree located in Hyderabad.

Sreenu, alias Rama tingGon and sprints on Krishna, was identified theacross leader the its hindaslegs theofforgroup formed byestyouth from thethe Nalgonda floor to catch insect. district. He had been working But most of at theHindu time,Vahini this as a full-time pracharak forvery, the last few years. lizard sits very still.

So In December 2013, threethat other on still, in fact, notattacks one but clergy members reported in of thecreasame threewere different types district. These incidents revealed turesfour — nine species have of algae, a tiny a chilling pattern — thea same modus plant called liverwort, andoperandi, a slime the same right-wing outfiton behind the attacks, mould — can grow the body of the conversions as the alleged motive.

In whatisaphelmeted basilisk!

This association a pears to be a series of planned churchwin-win situation for attacks, everyone ines in Andhra are increasingly being volved. Pradesh By growing on the lizard’s targetedbody, by right-wing In the 2013 these green assailants. creatures help alone, the State witnessed 72 incidents antilizard camouflage againstoftree Christian violence, moreofunretrunks with in theseveral its periods imported, say local residents. to a remobility, butAccording the creatures port released by Catholic Secular Forum last benefit by being dispersed to year, AP had thenew second highest incidence environments whenof cases of persecution against Christians after the lizard runs across the Karnataka. In total, around 4,000 Christians, jungle. were targeted, 400Inclergy members among thinking about how inthem. About 100frequently churches were also and attacked. antlions helIn Nalgonda district moremove, than 1,000 metedalone, basilisks and churches are now living inhow fear. infrequently therefore On December 29,eat, at 11:45pm, fourwondered men came they I’ve always knocking at whether Pastor Nama door in NartheyMoses’s get hungry.

It apketpally town, paspears Nalgonda. that bothSuvartha, animalsthe have tor’s wife, opened door, thinking it probwas an found ways the of dealing with this acquaintance.

She with was struck on the head lem.

Antlions cope the uncertainty of with an iron Pastor Moses whatever was hit recatching preyrod notand only by eating peatedly and stabbed times — a chillingly they can catch, but alsonine by not eating very often — they can survive for several months without food, because they burn their energy reserves more slowly than most other coldblooded creatures. In contrast, helmeted basilisks are very picky eaters. They only decide to move when they can catch a very large insect, an insect big enough to satisfy the lizard’s appetite for over a day.

Nature documentaries have us believe that the animal world is always filled with motion and excitement, but this is definitely not the case. That antlions and helmeted basilisks exist today, in the same ecosystems as bees and hummingbirds, is proof that a sedentary lifestyle can be just as successful as an active one.

This is a monthly series on animals you may have never met, but must (at least, on page). ambika kamath studies organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University

similar sequence of events echoing the assault bad, Nizamabad, Medak — have also received on Pastor Sanjeevulu. Nearly two months later death threats. in February, when BLink contacted Pastor Mos“There is no personal angle in these ates, he had survived the brutal attack but was in tacks,” says Father Sudhakar, pastor of Telugu no condition to talk. “The pastor has been here Baptist Church in Warangal, who is involved for two decades now and I’ve never known in documenting anti-Christian atrocities in such enmity. I don’t understand why we were the State. “It is politically motivated and it is attacked. He has never forced anyone to con- right-wing terror against minorities. Hindutvert,” says Suvartha. Her daughters, she says, va elements have been attacking in three ways have been unable to go to school out of fear. — attacks on the clergy, implicating church ofAnd attendance church conflicts has dwindled. ficials in false cases speech and demolFood for thoughtatNohis man-animal at the elephant rehabilitation centreof in hate southern Sri Lanka’s piersyouth,” locke Walewe National “AUda few of them werePark local says Suvar- ishing churches and burning Bibles.” In 2013, tha, “and they had recently attacked another he says, there was a 70 per cent increase in the pastor as well.” attacks. This year has already seen four at“People are afraid of persecution,” says Ka- tacks. “We have also documented 22 false cases vitha, a resident of Nalgonda town. “The pas- against pastors.” tor’s children were in the room when the In an election year, the threat to Christian attack happened. It was only the morning af- minorities has acquired a serious political colter when they got any help.” Four weeks ago, a our; various church associations have written meeting was held at the Church of South India to the CM seeking a ban on Hindu Vahini. MIM — Kavitha’s church — to discuss leader Akbaruddin Owaisi has althe violence targeting the comso demanded immediate action n July 7, 2013, runs the successful charity, munity. “There have been herds many of elephants la. He now against Hindutva elements in Elethe from the nearby Saranda forest phant Family, which supports attacks here,” Kavitha says, “but legislative assembly.initiatives on In an election year, stormed into news.”

Rourkela, a ‘steel elephant corridors India.it’s not only SCs, most of them don’t make “You in know, the threat to city’ in Jharkhand.

They had to be If aggressively campaigned conother communities have also minorities has held captive till they could new approaches to ease versions are being cited as be thesafely herded What are the started turning toapplied Christianity,” acquired a serious out of for thethe town.

This was theat first time that such conflicts? reason attacks, locals says Kavitha, “and it has not gone political colour elephant herds entered been involved withisandefinitely exciting least, dismiss thehad idea.ever “I was the a city space I have recently down well.”

The base — villages, yes, but new projectgrowing, to mitigate human-elephant confirst in my family to never turn tocities.

Chrissays Father Sudhakar.

While a platonic Working with people at the tianity 13 years ago,” relationship says Kavitha.betweens hu- flict in Sri Lanka.

“We don’t call them conversions, mans and elephants have existed Study “Nobody forced me to. Nobody of- for millen- Centre for the 90 per centofofthe SCsAsian in AP Elephant, are Chrisnia, me human-elephant conflict has existed Rajarata University, we have run a fered anything in return.

Mytoo mother was a tians spiritually, if notSrionLanka, paper.” for just Hindu, as long.she Thedidn’t Ministry of Environment trial of a Jayraj projectstill using a newknow approach staunch approve of it. But Pastor doesn’t why to heelecwas and my Forests (MoEF) says an average of 400 attacked. tric fences to protect villagers from eletoday family has converted.”

On August 9, 2011, in Narketpally, he people and 100 die every yearhave as a was phants.

Theseby area people tryingmob to resettle “The attack onelephants Pastor Moses might attacked 10-member at his result of human-elephant their homelands years ofand dislocation as been personally motivated,”conflicts. says Nalgonda’s home.

He was hit after on the head left to die.

WithSuperintendent the rising number conflicts in “G In- “I’ve a result of war.

Previous attempts fence eleDeputy RamofMohan Rao. heard of Hindu Vahini but I to don’t know dia, one research the relationship the what phants into designated by they huRaju, of theon group’s members,between was known they do. territories I couldn’t identify them, species has never beenSomeone so vital. in At his the had mans haveon.failed — there was simply too totwo have a personal grudge. masks The police never caught them.” frontier Dr Piers Locke, senior lecturmuch to maintain, and elephants don’t family hadofathis bad is experience two years ago and Withfence the violence directed towards Chrisin anthropology at the to University of Can- tian like minorities to be told what is and is not their space. heer had contacted Sreenu do something only growing, older, unsolved terbury, New Zealand.

Dr Locke, who spent cases This like project, contrast, puts therevisitfence about religious conversions.” that ofby Pastor Jayraj are being the best part of last year at various parts of ed around the village, andlinks givestothe villagers terthe However, Pastor Talla Christopher was atto look for possible right-wing Southon Asia fromday Chitwan National in rorism. responsibility for maintaining the fence. tacked the—same as Pastor MosesPark in an“After Pastor Moses, other cases that Nepalvillage to areas around Esala Perahera or were undetected have come to light,” says DSP other of the samethe district.

And, in yet the Temple of theinTooth in Kandy, Sri Lanka How have elephants shaped another incident December, Pastor Neela-— Mohan Rao.humans “Cases and from 2011, even 2009, are along with is carrying outhave pio- being each others’ livestoo.” through dri Pal was alsocolleagues, attacked. While the police reopened Evenhistory? as investigations neering in the ethnoelephantology.

We are Humans have cohabited made somework arrests, accused have apparon, theand fear elephants of being attacked continueson to asked Dr Locke in an email interview he haunt the Indian subcontinent for millennia. Sri ently revealed a larger, systematic planwhat of HinAP’s Christian community. makes latest spate of human-animal Lanka would not be able to support such a du Vahinioftothe eliminate members of the clergy kotamraju in India. large population of wild elephants if it were allclashes over AP. Pastors in other districts — Adila- priyanka not for the 12,000 tanks built by the ancient What is ethnoelephantology?

Sinhalese, while the Mauryan Empire’s reserEthnoelephantology is a field meant to be an vation of forests to catch elephants for war umbrella subject that deals with the study of and trade has influenced the historical distrihuman-elephant relations in their social, his- bution of India’s wild elephants. torical and ecological aspects. This includes study of captive elephant management, con- What role do you think conservation efforts servation, human-elephant conflict or the an- need to play? cient Indian literature on elephant anatomy, It is an error to think about the natural world behaviour, and husbandry. It’s about recog- as if it were something separate from and unnising the myriad ways in which the lives, his- touched by humanity. This myth of a pristine tories and habitats of humans and elephants nature in which humans do not belong, has are entangled with each other. led to policies of ‘fortress conservation’ that some argue has exacerbated human-eleHow did you get interested in this field? phant conflict. I think rather than this apI was inspired after reading Travels on My Ele- proach, it is worthwhile to pursue initiatives phant by Mark Shand. In this travelogue, he that encourage strategies for peaceful recounts his 600 mile journey across India, coexistence. apprenticing as the mahout of an elephant named Tara, purchased from the Sonepur Me- sibi arasu

Elephants in the room

Decoding the tenets of ethnoelephantology in South Asia

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saturday, february 22,22, 2014 saturday, february 2014

Omnipresent one

What lies beneath The central Hall at Parliament House in New Delhi is the site of many doings and un-doings s subramanium

Don’t be a Glasshole

Where will she appear next?

Etiquette advice for the Explorer you think I am a veteran, my dear. How tragic.

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mma Canteens sure proved to be a success. After all, who can begrudge a scheme that makes available fresh and tasty idlis and saadam that sell for a few rupees?

Soon there was Amma water, which came at a fraction of the cost of packaged water.

And coming up next is an Amma Theatre close to you. Cheers to that. But now we even have AIADMK general secretary and prime minister hopeful J Jayalalithaa’s beauteous face gracing suitcases. Her finance minister O Panneerselvam looked most pleased carrying the face-on-a-box behind his leader to the Secretariat to present the budget. If her ministers were to come up with a rhyme, we bet it would be, “Here an Amma / there an Amma / Everywhere an Amma / Aiy yay yay ya yo.”

Keshav ke sang as kari, jas arihon na karaye. hen the manufacturer of a product comes outkahi with a jai.

Chandra badan mrig-lochani, baba kahi list of Dos and Don’ts, much merriment (Even his worst enemy shouldand not more suffer the mockery is expected.

Google, our friendly giant,Beautiful recently women refate that has befallen Keshav. leased a few pointers forrefer “Our community”. now to Glass him asExplorer an old man.)

Keshav was a The most interestingromantic aspect ispoet that who the list of Dos keeps wrote mostly inpointthe lilting ing you to the list ofavadhi Don’ts.dialect For example, theUttar “Do Take advanof eastern Pradesh.

Benevtage of the Glass voice commands” helpfully you tocomolent sexism, especially itsreminds feudal variety check out Don’t #2, which cautionsthe you against “water skiing, mon among parliamentarians of the bull-riding or cage-fighting”.

Who arewithout these Glass Explorers, princely lot, is not its charm. what do they do in their free time, wethikanedaars, meet them? you Besides the where princescan and Our favourite Don’t can is “Don’t Be creepy or rude (aka,the a ‘Glassoccasionally encounter entirely hole’). Respect others and if they have Minister questionsManmohan about Glass, charm-less Prime Singh don’t get snappy.” hurrying through the corridors, hand in the pocket, barely glancing at the gawking scribes. In sharp contrast, various loquacious ministers can be found huddled with groups, whispering and sharing a joke. Those among the journalists fortunate to be blessed with a pass for the Central Hall have greater access and chance of interacting with the ministers and various leaders of opposition.

Before Pranab Mukherjee became President, his loud outbursts reverberated intermittently in the corridors where reporters stood around sipping flavoured Darjeeling tea for a princely sum of ₹1. You learn about how parliamentary democracy functions, in its quintessentially chaotic Indian fashion. It no longer has Jawaharlal Nehru or Piloo Modi ap/john and or even the last of the Bhadralok — minchillo the perennially outraged Somnath Chatterjee. But till recently, it had among the most diligent and upright politician of our times — the late CPI(M) MP Dipankar Mukherjee and has, of late, welcomed some outstanding young legislators such as Jyoti Mirdha and Meenakshi Natarajan of the Congress. Even the reduced Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) still has the sense to send the illustrious Raghuvansh Prasad Singh among its representatives in the Lok Sabha. It bloomberg/andrew harrer is no longer a genteel, exclusive club.

Some would argue that it was the Emergency and its aftermath, the rise of volatile socialconstitute a natural progression and deepen- ists such as Ram Manohar Lohia and the ing of democracy in India. The stately corri- student/Naxalite movement of the ’70s that dors and beautiful stone architecture that broke the stranglehold of the Bhadralok over once symbolised colonial power are now en- democracy’s highest seat in India. But for dowed with a quintessential Indian ethos. It is most, it was when elements from the politics where modern India, characterised by Consti- of Mandal and Kamandal entered Parliament tution, laws, legislature, fuses ceaselessly with that it no longer remained the domain of the traditional Bharat in its caste, community, mo- ruling elite. When Mandalites stormed Parliahalla, rituals and other myriad ways. Debates ment in the ’90s with a stunning new idiom may no longer be reminiscent of their West- symbolised in Lalu Prasad Yadav’s colourful minster reproductions carried out by the leg- vocabulary and quirky rusticity, the contempt endary parliamentarians of yore. But they do of the gentry who had thus far presided over reflect a very Indian reality. the haloed precincts was barely Even the most anglicised of the suppressed. They cried over fallMPs retain enough of their rusticing standards of the debate and ity to impart a typically Indian fla‘hooliganism’ in both the Houses.

Even the most vour to the goings-on in But the traditional had, by then, anglicised MPs Parliament. On July 23, 2008, the asserted its supremacy over the retain enough of day the Bharatiya Janata Party anglicised modern idiom their rusticity to (BJP) decided to ferry wads of cash mouthed mostly by the uppity impart an Indian inside the House to stage its senMarxists. flavour to the sational exposé of how the govTheafter real issue, as the late Indrahat comes fisticuffs and pepper goings-on in ernment was ‘buying’ MPs for jit Gupta of the Communist Party Parliament sprays? India’s politicians sure must be votes, I noticed the veteran JasIndiaover (CPI), to me wracking theirofbrains this.explained It is no surprise want Singh sighing audibly in disyears from ago, is not Pradesh whetherquickly the idithat two ministers Uttar gust. Sensing his unease with the om to of this protest and debate is acfound the answer quandary in our Sallu show his party had put up, I folceptable. is the reason bhai. Two Rashtriya LokItDal (RLD) MLAsfor atboth the lowed him inside his beautifully decorated UPthat is Assembly of paramount The and proState rippedimportance. off their kurtas chambers as the Leader of Opposition in the stood foundly disturbing aspect of the goings-onon in wobbly-chested and wobblier-bellied Rajya Sabha. the tables, last session of the 15th Lok Sabha was that their demanding compensation for sugBut Jaswant Singh is a tough warhorse; not arcane peoplefarmers. were not atgovernor, the heart unable of either The toprotest stomeasily lured into a confession by a half-way ach or the debate.

Allscurried the theatrics their root to sight, out intraced a hurry.

Now that clever reporter. “As a veteran MP, don’t you our private business interests. dearly elected leaders have flashed us, think this is disgraceful?” I had barely started should we expect them to streak next? We hope poornima when he delivered his gallant putdown. “So the governorjoshi has an ambulance in waiting.

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Not a lower house ap/danny moloshok

Why protests in and outside both the Houses constitute a natural progression and deepening of democracy in India

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What he could have bought instead?

ok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar’s rather simulated sensibilities were outraged by the extraordinary spectacle in the Lok Sabha last week. Admittedly, the recent pandemonium marks an unprecedented chapter in the chequered history of the House of the People. But a lot of the highbrow criticism is misdirected; not excluding the Speaker’s description of the event being a ‘blot’ on Indian parliamentary democracy.

What is deeply disturbing about the histrionics exhibited by Congress’s Lagadapati Rajagopal and the TDP’s Venugopal Reddy was not that they used pepper sprays and wielded a knife respectively. It was that their own business interests rather than people’s issues were at the heart of their theatrics in the Lok Sabha.

Rajagopal presides over the ₹15,000 Lanco Group of Companies while Venugopal Reddy is the promoter of the Ramky Group that has n the March issue of Marie Claire (US), Twilight invested prinin massive real estate interests in cess Kristen Stewart unspools — manically, kineticalHyderabad and adjoining districts. Creation Zuckerberg has just ly and romantically. In the hilarious interview, Stewart of Telangana, whichark is what the protests in spent $19 directly billion to buy dishes out many revelations — her film choicesParliament are were about, would impact fuelled by how much they frighten her, the roadthese trips business mobile interests. messaging startup in a bid tothe woo a to New Orleans and Nashville, her pride in her ValleySo when the WhatsApp Speaker despairs over MPs’ With that girl roots and her book-club discussions (they’rebehaviour, curoneyounger can only crowd. hope that the referof dough, though, Zuckrently on Henry Miller’s Sexus). At a sufficiently ence awk-is towardskind the cause and not the superficouldin the have ward moment, she also reveals her poetic side.cial Sheeffects thaterberg were visible Lok easily Sabha bought any one is of within these five “often writes intense little verses,” we are informed, last week. While the Speaker her countries — Armenia, Equatoand that this poem “written after the Twilight rights Saga to ensure decorum in the House, the rialviolent, Guinea,are Laos, Papua ended is typically raw and candid”. Here are someprotests, lines however not the realNew danGuinea the Republic of Confor your edification: I reared digital moonlight/Youger read that threatens our or ‘temple of democracy’. go even. Parliament over the its clock, scrawled neon across that black/Kismetly… ubiqFor those covering uitously crest fallen… years, protests in and outside both the Houses

Her heart is a wiffle ball Kristen Stewart’s poetry comes from the same place as her acting

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The GDP of which countries equals the value of WhatsApp

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cornerstone in-faq by joy bhattacharjya Borders and boundaries

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his quiz is mostly about borders and boundaries, except when I try and sneak in a couple of my favourite subjects with extremely stretched and tenuous connections. Apologies, and good hunting!

1

During the Cold War, the Iron Curtain separated East and West Europe and the Bamboo Curtain insulated China from the world. The Cactus curtain was also a term coined during the Cold War, but is still extant today.

What does the Cactus Curtain separate? (Hint: it’s just 27km long)

2

Which book’s basic premise is a sporting take on a Kipling quote from the poem English Flag — “What do they know of England who only England know?”

3

He was the director general of BBC during World War II, but is better known for something done in a great hurry a few years later. When asked in 1977 whether he would like to return to the scene of his most famous creation he remarked, “I suspect they’d shoot me out of hand — both sides!” Who was he and what did he do?

4 5

Which specific variety of Indian saree is noted for its use of a string of upright leaves called jhallar on its borders?

This is probably one of the more serendipitous ecological accidents of the 20th century. Since the ’50s, this 5,000 sqkm area is home to tiger, leopard, black bear, the red-crowned crane and more than 450 other species of mammals and birds. Where would you find this nature reserve? How was it created?

the new york times crossword-1124

take a break

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In 1968, what ‘barrier’ was supposed to have been broken during the episode “Plato’ s Stepchildren” in the third season of Star Trek?

One of the most common questions in the pre-internet days used to be about something called a ‘ha-ha’. By the fifth repeat, even we managed to remember it was a sunken fence, common in British estates. My question, why would anyone want to have a sunken fence?

8

We all know that the ‘wetback’ is a derogatory term for an illegal immigrant.

Given the phrase’s origin, you could have got your back wet trying to cross which river?

9

Two national capitals, of fairly large countries, are literally within sight of each other on the opposite banks of a river. Name the river and the two capital cities.

10

His father was a resident of Baroda and died after falling off an elephant in 1870.

He himself passed away in the UK, but is buried in Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan. He has a sporting connection to India, but is most remembered for his skilful negotiations with Amir Abdul Rahman Khan. Who is he and what is his claim to fame?

Answers

1. Guantanamo Bay, the US territory, from the rest of the island of Cuba 2. Beyond the Boundary, CLR James 3. Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who decided the borders between India and Pakistan 4. The Banarasi saree 5. The DMZ that separates North and South Korea.

Given the tension between the two countries no human dares venture in that area, though the North Koreans have tried to tunnel under 6. The first inter-racial kiss on US television between Captain Kirk and Lt Uhura 7. A sunken fence stopped cattle from wandering off without obstructing the view, and was mostly used by British landscape designers 8. The Rio Grande, crossing from Mexico to the US 9. The cities of Brazzaville and Kinshasa, separated by the Congo river 10. Henry Mortimer Durand. The Durand Line, separating Pakistan from Afghanistan, and the Durand Cup football tournament are named after him

joy bhattacharjya is, in this age of television pundits and Facebook gurus, simply grateful that facts are not opinions. t@joybhattacharj

ACROSS 1 One at a woman’s side?

6 Fixes keys 11 Person who might bump into you on a subway 16 Starbucks size 17 Model/actress Keibler 18 Brother of Prometheus 19 Choice 20 Road runners 21 Animal with a flexible snout 22 Unduly 23 Spoken instruction in animal training 26 Best Musical of 1975, with “The” 27 Completely dominates 29 He said the most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible 30 “Oh, hmm …”

31 Elevator ___ 33 New York Titans’ org.

35 Bit of hopscotch equipment 42 Shady spot 44 In a state of conflict 45 Bee product 48 Iowa’s ___ Colonies 49 Name that’s Hebrew for “pleasant” 50 “Something ought to finally go my way” 51 Philadelphia/New Jersey connector 54 Half of sechs 55 “Il était ___ fois” (French fairy tale start) 56 Brand name that’s an anagram of 31-Across 57 Rejections 58 Acted like a rat 60 “Howdy” 62 Item on a chain 65 Center of activity 68 Like some expenses

72 Pop icon?

73 Wash against, as the shore 75 Like some duties 76 Finsteraarhorn, e.g.

77 It’s often divided into sections 0, 2, 4, 6, etc.

80 Country where the Blue Nile originates: Abbr.

81 Part of the healing process 83___ distance 84 A balconette is a low-cut style of one 85 Mlle., in Madrid 86 Like a Monday morning quarterback?

87 Symbols of dirtiness 89 “___ the Air” (2009 Clooney movie) 90 Part of FEMA: Abbr.

91 Rat 92 “Shoot!”

93 Pass again on the track 95 Big dos 96 Fake 97 Precept 99 Dangerous person to play against for money 101 Old Olds 103 No-goodnik 106 Sounds from Santa 107Sincere 113Ad Council output, briefly 115First president with a Twitter account 117Decoration under a dish 1182010 earthquake site 120Walk heavily 121Universal ___ 122Blown out?

123Best hand in Texas hold ‘em 124Talk face to face?

125Having a ton of money to draw on

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%Reach us at blink@thehindu.co.in. Follow us on t@Ink_BL and facebook.com/blink.hbl Website: thehindubusinessline.com/blink

DOWN 1 Presidential power first used by James Madison 2 Not on deck, say 3 Sometimes-caramelized item 4 First National Leaguer with eight consecutive 100-R.B.I. seasons 5 Chicken ___ 6 Michael and Peter 7 Lab item that sounds like a popular website 8 Birth-related 9 Reason for a food recall 10 Big name in food service 11 Show anxiety, in a way 12 1989 world champion figure skater 13 Bear necessities?

14 Talk show starting in 2012 15 Miniature 24 To be, to Béatrice 25 Jazz quintet’s home 28 Half of the Nobel Prize winners, typically 30 Secret society in Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons” 32 “Let’s call it ___” 34 Muslim ascetic 35 Low, moist area 36 On the way out 37 ___ worse than death 38 Hang (over) 39 Harold’s partner in comedies 40 Ice 41 Friendly term of address 42 Madam 43 “The Wire” antihero 46 Downhill sport 47 Tight ends?

52 “Come again?”

53 Scott of “Happy Days” 59 You’ll trip if you drop it

61 “Gross!”

62 Well-protected, nonrunning quarterback 63 Sign word often translated into multiple languages 64 Duds 65 Tries 66 Emotional peaks 67 Pressing needs?

69 Unlike eagles 70 Appropriate 71 Silver, say 73 Next-to-last #1 Beatles hit 74 Sully 78 Spits rhymes 79 Beer buy 82 Tongue-lash 85 Subject of a 2009 national tournament cheating scandal 88 “Meet the Press” guest, for short 94 Possibly 96 Formed rising bubbles 98 It’s “not” in Scotland 100Apiece, at Wimbledon 101Army attack helicopter 102 ___ Pitman, developer of shorthand 104 Freedom Tower feature 105Bar at the bar 106Microwaveable snack item 108States further 109Corner piece 110Miniature 111Dud 112Jane who becomes Mrs. Rochester 114Cause of a sudden drop in altitude 116Marie Curie, e.g.: Abbr.

119 Word often shortened to one letter in text messages

By Joel Fagliano / Edited by Will Shortz