Blink issue 44 november29 2014

SAFFRON RISING The recent World Hindu Congress, attended by people across geographies and professions, made Bharat not India its focus p3 saturday, november 29, 2014

shutterstock/lightspring

Deleting the middleman, youngsters today are looking for intimacy, love and marriage through a handful of apps.

A journey through this virtual roulette p9

Love me Tinder

NIGHTS OF FIRE Kerala’s theyyam season, where artists become divine spirits, captured on ďŹ lm p12

HOME, YET NOT HOME Author Moni Mohsin on being a Lahori by birth and not by choice p17

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Global chilling

in the world around us. Perhaps the most symmetrical object imaginable is a sphere, and nature is full of spheres — stars, planets, water droplets in clouds. The crystals found in rocks exhibit many different kinds of symmetry, the study of which tells us some important things about the structure of solids. Even the animal and vegetable worlds show some degree of symmetry, although the symmetry of a flower or of a bee is not as perfect or as fundamental as is that of a crystal.” A crystal is made up of the same basic unit, repeated across space.

Much like the Vedic altars of fire repeated bricks and the priests chanted mantras, repeating syllables across time.

In the late 1800s, Georges-Pierre Seurat, an artist, started using tiny coloured points to make large compositions on canvas. His technique foreshadowed the invention of computer pixels by over a century. It also emphasised the growing conviction that all matter in the Universe is composed of tiny identical particles, or atoms; and the birth of Marxism, wherein all individuals in a society should be considered on an equal footing, creating a dynamic ensemble or commune of indistinguishable entities.

As a result, the typical Seurat painting is highly granulated, giving the impression of coloured particles in restricted vibratory motion like a gas in a transparent chamber. Painted over two years on a canvas 2x3 metres in size, his major work — Un dimanche après-midi à l’île de la Grande Jatte (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grand Jatte) — is composed of over three million dots. The scientific implications of what Seurat was merely hinting at started becoming manifest by the turn of the square equal in area to a given circle was also century in 1900, when the architecture of the known to the Greeks (“the circlesquarers”). quantum world started emerging like a castle One may connect this content of the Sulba- from the mists of history. Reality itself apsûtras to modern ideas of symmetry. If you ro- peared to be made up of discrete, quantised tate a square by 90 degrees, it looks the same. dots. And all the smooth continuity of nature, If you rotate an equilateral triangle by 120 de- merely an illusion. grees, it looks the same. TransBy the faculties of the human formations that leave an object mind, a Seurat painting tranunchanged are called symmescends the disparate points it is tries of an object. In the case of composed of, and what we see is A crystal is made up fire altars, the priests were trya constructed mirage. The obviof the same basic ing to keep the area or number ous question Cold to ask playyourself Children is unit, repeated across of bricks unchanged. In modern whether a slightly different get ready to slide onarspace. Much like the of snow physics, the falcon and other rangement ofmounds the points on after SeuVedic altars of fire stormcreate in Buffalo shapes would be like molecules rat’s canvas the could the reuters/aaron lynett repeated bricks that remain unchanged if the exact same illusion? For examconstituent atoms (or bricks) ple, we can analyse Jatte’s paintare interchanged. several ingenough very closely, try to up. shuffle of phenomena: fog,Ordrizzle, rain (which is and if we have foodand stocked She shuffles of adrizzle), deck of dust cardsstorm that and cold. Ev- gave me a long some points while was mak-a mostly still stare andaround said, “Sandy leave thein original unchanged. sure thatRight. the overall appearance the eryone Delhi sequence spends the six torturous ing hurricane.”

Hurricanes are not of tornaAccording to Richard Feynman’soffamous remains same.

Mathematically, months of summer in anticipation winter, painting does, which are notthe cold waves and polar vorlectures on physics: “Nature arrangements that leave the paintand some of us spend theoften threeexhibits monthscerof these texes.new It’s about time someone clarified that tain kinds of symmetry in the objects find ing invariant under can be winter dreaming of warmth.

And likeweeveryglobal warming couldtransformations also be really chilling. the symmetries a Seurat one around the world who experiences more called I haven’t read muchofpoetry bypainting.

Pablo NeruThe history the history of than just the protracted range of da,of butscience this lineis‘I want to do with symmetry. Everything we does see iswith made up raining and not-yet-raining, Delyou whatthat spring cherof atoms andry molecules and these, turn, of hiites are surprised that winter trees’ from Every Dayin You Play… smaller elementary particles.

Even makes them hungry and is always on my mind.

Whatwhile does nothing seems to change, everything is changshocked that summer can get winter do? In New York City, it It’s the art-viewing ing. The countless elementary are bethat hot. Every year. makes drinking particles four glasses of season because exchanged in wine such aatway — at of Winter in New York City, howred 3pm onthe a speed weekday museumsing have light or, — that the overall view ever, did come too soon. One eveand faster snuggling close to strangers the best heating inperhaps, remains the same.

The falcon remains a falning, I was strolling down the on the subway perfectly acceptthe city con, the pond remains a pond, and the torstreets in an unbuttoned trench able.

It’s the art-viewing season toise remainsbecause a tortoise. coat, my hair limp and unrufmuseums have the best Interestingheating symmetries happen when space fled, and the next evening, the in the city. Currently on and time are interchanged, history retemperature plummeted from view across thewhen city are HenriisMaby fiction.

Perhaps quantum is 10°C to -3°C faster than I could update my Face- placed tisse (MoMA), Cubists (MET), Nam physics June Paik theZero Vedas, but the Vedas have book status on witnessing sub-zero temper- not (Asiainspired Society)by and (Guggenheim).

It’s the inspired quantum physics.

How atures for the first time ever. Buffalo, which is been profound poetrybyyou feel during the first 30 you enemy years about 600km northwest of New York City, was would seconds ofdestroy the firsta future snowfall and 3,000 the equally his glum appearance? rhombus is awinkey suddenly buried under six feet of snow, and before sweeping you feel The for the rest of the the looking theory forward of relativity, dewithin five days, 13 people were reported dead. figure ter. It’s in about to thewhich lit Christthe architecture The blizzard was apparently being caused by scribes mas tree and ice skatingof attime.

Rockefeller Centre.

Buffalo’s proximity to the Lake Erie and hence But mostly it’s about mulled wine. called a lake-effect blizzard. Petrified, I asked rohit gupta explores the history of science as t @fadesingh blessy augustine is an art critic based in New York my roommate if this will be another Sandy Compasswallah

Blindsided by a blizzard in Buffalo, neighbouring New York City finds out what winter does to the Christmas trees and strangers on the subway

THE COMPASS CHRONICLES

Fearsome symmetry Perhaps quantum physics is not inspired by the Vedas, but the Vedas have been inspired by quantum physics rohit gupta

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hose who wish to destroy existing and future enemies should construct a fire altar in the form of a rhombus,” declare the Sulbasûtras. These geometry manuals from the Vedic period deal with religious sacrifice, but the language is very cryptic. For example, the above rite could easily refer to a rhombusshaped military formation. According to Kim Plofker, a historian of mathematics, different theories lead us to infer that “geometrical figures symbolised religious ideas, and the need to manipulate them led to the relevant mathematics.” Other geometric shapes are also suggested — the falcon altar leads one to heaven, the tortoise shape to attainment of Brahman and so on.

Many Sulbasûtra wo monthsconstructions ago, just a feware daysabout after the transformation one shape intoYork another, I had firstofarrived in New City while preserving and was the yet toarea, find or mykeeping bearings,the an number ofAmerican bricks constant. are transfriend Squares prophetically anformed rectangles, triangles, trapezia,I nouncedinto in the elevator, “winter is coming”. and rhomboids. problem of bone-chillmaking a shuddered at theThe prospect of the ing cold, the sunless sky and the exhaustion that wearing five layers of clothing can cause.

The friend, of course, was reminiscing about The Game of Thrones. It is very difficult to keep up with pop culture these days; more so, when you have to split wasting your time between Yo Yo Honey Singh and Taylor Swift. And this is just to keep up with the things you don’t like for the sake of not being lost during a conversation — a completely irrational anxiety because in New York City your only friends are generally the characters of the sitcom Friends.

Winter, however, came too soon. That’s what she said! Yes, I’m spending my short days and long nights watching The Office: lonely, cold and suited up.

Having grown up in Mumbai, where the days are divided into rainy and humid, it was in Delhi that I realised that non-coastal Indians take the weather seriously. The average Mumbaikar is only concerned with the question: is the rain heavy enough to make the trains go slow? Not halt, just delay, mind you.

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Same difference Vedic fire altars repeated bricks as seen in the miniature painting (above); Georges-Pierre Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grand Jatte, composed of over three million dots, predated computer pixels by over a hundred years

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Majority report The recent World Hindu Congress in Delhi gave a platform to a few reasonable, and all too many extremist voices

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In focus The World Hindu Congress was attended by people from different walks of life — monks and laymen, to scientists and businessmen s subramanium

ight centuries after the reign of the last Hindu king Prithviraj Chauhan, “proud Hindus” have finally come to rule Delhi, claimed Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) patron Ashok Singhal at the recent World Hindu Congress, held in Delhi. The event was the first such gathering where 1,800 Hindus from different professions and geographies — doctors and academics, ministers and priests, businessmen and scientists, fathers and mothers, and from Suriname to Vietnam — came together for what appears to be the beginning of a Hindu renaissance. “When you start that is the right time. What can be a better time than this,” said Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat. Indeed, they couldn’t have chosen a more propitious time. A “swabhimani” (proud) Hindu government occupies the Capital; discussions were led by ministers of Narendra Modi’s cabinet; and official observers marked their presence at each session.

For three days, over 45 sessions, members of the community discussed what constitutes a Hindu family, society and State. Religion took a backseat; Bharat replaced India, and vedic knowledge became a base for technology and innovation. Women warned mothers about the ills of live-in relationships and WhatsApp, and NRI priests grappled with issues of interfaith marriages and homosexuality.

Dr IB Vijayalakshmi is a successful cardiologist and a multiple gold medallist (32, we were

told) from Karnataka. In her session on ‘Im- strictions on what you watch online. pact of live-in relationships, conversion, interIf global Islamisation was perceived as a religion marriages on Hindu society’, the threat to Hindus, aggressive evangelical congood doctor compared different forms of rela- version was identified as another. “They (mistionships. “Vivaah,” she told us, “is a pavitra sionaries) have a right to propagate, no right bandhan (pure bond) between a man and to convert,” says Vigyananand. “They can’t woman and their families.” Live-in relation- claim to have a right to proselytise. They can’t ships, on the other hand, were temporary claim to be minorities (here in Bharat).” In one bonds between only two people, presentation, figures were two “bitter halves”. According to shown to indicate the Eastward the Padma Purana and Manuexpansion of Christianity and Issmriti, she explained, there are lam from 1900 to 2010. In Asia, it Love jihad begins eight forms of marriage; Pishawas revealed that the Christian with a missed call. cha, the worst form of marriage, population increased from 2.3 Then it turns into translated into ‘Love Jihad’. “LJ,” per cent to 8 per cent and the a Mrs Call she told an audience, “begins Muslim population from 16 per with a missed call. Then it turns cent to 26 per cent. Unbekinto a Mrs Call. Our ‘converted nownst to the organisers, a daughters’ are ‘free wombs’ to fringe organisation was reported produce more Muslims. Then they become ve- to have circulated a pamphlet titled ‘M5: The hicles of terrorism.” A “bloodless coup”. biggest enemy of Hindu society’. The pamReports of false cases of love jihad in Mee- phlet asked — Who are the Malicious 5? The anrut, Mangaluru and Bengaluru notwithstand- swer was Marxists, Macaulayists, Missionaries, ing, “it is a global threat,” said Swami Materialists and Muslim extremists.

Vigyananand, joint general secretary of VHP, The proposal for the congress took root 15 in an interview. “We are living in denial. This is years ago, says Vigyananand, the brains bea menace and it is growing,” adds Sushil Pan- hind the World Hindu Congress and an IIT dit, spokesperson of the World Hindu Con- alumnus. Over the last decade, multiple edigress. At the Hindu Women Congress, it tions of the World Hindu Economic Forum seemed there was an overwhelming consen- and Hindu youth and women conferences sus for “freedom with fetters.” Freedom to paved the way for the organisation of a Hindu wear whatever you choose, but not who you society united by economic, educational and date. Freedom powered by technology, but re- political ties. “We didn’t time the congress with Narendra bhai’s government. It’s just a coincidence,” he says. While Atal Bihari Vajpayee, under the two NDA regimes, had to practise coalition dharma, Modi’s unencumbered government can carry forward the torch of Hindu dharma. “It’s a majority government with constitutional authority and people’s mandate. We won’t have to hide our agenda,” Pandit says.

In Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim Congresses, author Martin Kramer writes, “The congresses were grounded in the belief that the vastness of the Muslim world constituted a strength. In their numbers, and in their broad geographic dispersal, the Muslims represented a potentially formidable force. Were Muslims to express themselves as one, were they to define their political priorities, resolve their own disputes, and even mend doctrine, then their collective determination would serve to ward off their enemies.”

While the organisers maintain the assembly is not modelled after Islamic or Christian congresses, the aim — to bring together a “split diaspora” over “four-five common causes” — bears a striking resemblance to Muslim congresses, and maybe even the ecumenical movement of the Church.

While it’s too early to say if the congress will be successful in shaping Hindu nationalism, organisers hope it will help establish ties, provide information and foster collaboration. But could a congress like this, which makes Bharat and not India its foundation, risk excluding rather than including, and dividing rather than uniting people?

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Minister with mojo Small is still beautiful A BUTTERFLY BREEZE FROM MP

Suresh Prabhu proved his mettle Willfood he succeed doing theliesame It may seem counter-intuitive butas thePower key toMinister. the world’s securityindoes not with for the behemoth that isorganisms the Indian(GMOs) Railways?and industrial farming genetically modified

joanna van gruisen

Driver’s seat Suresh Prabhu is known for implementing smart reforms pti/kamal singh

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older nights finally arrived and put paid to our beetle plague. The garden is burgeoning again with rocket and lettuce. Our Sarai guests love these. We mainly grow vegetables and herbs that are unavailable at the local village markets, but have also planted some seasonal vegetables. When successful, our small garden produces enough, not only to feed our guests and staff, but for the latter to take home to their families. It is amazing how much a small plot can produce. Input costs are minimal apart from human labour. We spend little on seeds as most are saved from plants of the previous year. Neem and tobacco do well against most plant-destroying insects and fungi, and our compost provides the nutrients. It is a happy organic cycle.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), small plots have many benefits, which include reducing child mortality and incidence of eye diseases, and raising the status of women. They should be encouraged everywhere. In developed countries, there is a noticeable shift back to allotments and home gardens. For some, it’s the awareness of the role of transport in climate change; for others, it comes from a desire to know what they are eating in these days of unlabelled, genetically modified and pesticidepermeated foods. Here, an old adage bears repeating, since it is especially relevant to the agricultural scenario: small is beautiful.

It may seem counter-intuitive — and there are many agro-businesses that try to persuade us otherwise — but the key to the world’s food

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t was one of those only-in-India moments: in August 2002, then Shiv Sena minister Suresh Prabhu was withdrawn from Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government for being “too honest”. It happened on orders from party supremo Bal Thackeray, who was unhappy that Prabhu was not using his position as Power Minister to “fundraise” for the party. The joke in Mumbai was that Prabhu had failed to deliver real power to Matoshree.

A few days before Prabhu was withdrawn from the Union Cabinet, Thackeray told the party mouthpiece Saamna that ministers who did not work according to the “people’s wishes” had no right to continue in office.

The last straw was when he clashed with Bal Thackeray over the appointment of the Power Secretary: he had disregarded Thackeray’s nominee, choosing to reward efficiency over politics. PM Vajpayee went with Prabhu’s recommendation. Thackeray was livid.

Prabhu’s friend Uddhav Thackeray batted for him at the time. He unsuccessfully tried to cajole his father into keeping Prabhu in the Cabinet, where he was widely hailed for his work. But the Raj Thackeray camp, and senior Sena leaders like Manohar Joshi prevailed on Bal Thackeray to replace Prabhu in the Cabinet, overruling Uddhav’s protests. Ironically, it was Uddhav who nearly stopped Prabhu from becoming Railway Minister in 2014. But on this occasion, the four-time MP from Rajapur would have none of it: he dumped the Shiv Sena and moved to the BJP. In some ways, Suresh Prabhu was always a

the private sector.

His other big achievement came in securing dues from State electricity boards. In February 2001, the Montek Singh Ahluwalia Committee had found that states owed central PSUs over ₹40,000 crore in power dues. Prabhu got 22 states to agree to pay past dues and roped in almost as many states to a reforms-linked roadmap that included metering, regular audits and bottomline improvements.

While Prabhu’s changes to the Power Ministry were more incremental than radical, this current government has a stronger mandate than Vajpayee’s government did. And after the power sector, Prabhu now faces another ailing behemoth, Indian Railways.

Reforms express With over 1.3 million employees, a corrupt and change-averse bureaucracy, shoddy service and helpless passengers (roughly 23 million a day), the Indiana type Railways is afern, remnant of the Green choice Tribals of Pedabidda in the Visakhapatnam district use Azolla, of aquatic to reduce the old, socialist India that wore ineptness and pause of urea in their organic farms cv subrahmanyam tronage as a badge of honour. Moreover, the security does not lie with genetically modified benefit biodiversity.

If led we ministry is has increased had the misfortune of being organisms (GMOs) and industrial farming. Ex- changed agriculture on a—large wePrasad could by demagogue populists suchscale, as Lalu perts warn that such a path, far from provid- sustain much higher levels— who of biodiversity.

Yadav and Mamata Banerjee treated the ing enough food, will dangerously Imagine many more birds railways how as their personal fiefs. and bees there impoverish the world. It is already the small would be without tons of pesticides conInjecting a sensethe of purpose and reforms in farmer who feeds more of the world, especial- ventional farmingwill usesbeon the fields; this environment a difficult taskhow for ly in low-income countries. Many big interna- much healthier we would We do not needa Prabhu.

Being more of a be. technocrat than tional institutions such as the UN and World to travel far to see examples: 50,000 populist politician may work to hishectares advanBank now recognise that small farmers are the in Medak district of pressure Andhra Pradesh tage, but there will be on him tohave use key to feeding a growing global population. been proposed an ‘Agricultural Biodiversity his position toasextend favours to his home Unfortunately, more and more of the agricul- Heritage Site’ thanks toAnother the work ofchallenge — mostly State of Maharashtra. big tural land is moving into the hands of the rich women farmers there. This is thePrabhu first such remains—the bureaucracy, and here has and powerful, and government policies still site in India, and when you readtoofinnovate. the 12-23 vaalready shown that he is ready tend to favour large over small — 80 per cent of rieties themoves women than One of crops his first hasgrow beenon to less incentivsubsidies and 90Sena. per cent of research funds three misfit in the Shiv A chartered accountant acresproject of onlycompletion rain-fed land, know acise timely — you by declaring still to industrial agriculture. and go lawyer by training, Prabhu was managing that officials colades are chiefs well deserved. and project will receiveSelfup Yet study of after showsCo-operative that director thestudy Saraswat Bank, to two per cent sufficient in foodcost andfor seeds, their of the project finishing small are he more efficient which farms is where started making political on time. methods could be a life-andand that—there a strong inverse friends fromisthe Shiv Sena to its main rival, death for them. Thanks to The ministry haschoice also demonstrated its inBeing in favour of relationship sizefought his first tentions to encourage NCP’s Sharad between Pawar. In farm 1996, he eschewingforeign conventional ways investment on ecological farming and productivity.

Even part withofthe election from Rajapur, the coastal Rat- some pre-designated and market pressures become routes.

But to there is a does not mean least of in land, smallholdnagirishare district south Maharashtra. He de- deeper problem “progressive” hyunderlyingbyallplanting these initiawanting a return to ing farmers produce the largestDandavate. feated veteran socialist Madhu brids, there arehas no farmer suicidtives: until the government complete mothe past percentage of food — 70-80 per NDA Cabinet, nopoly over esrailintransport Soon he was elevated into the their district. a in India, (As it will cent less than 25 cent of first with as minister forperenvironjournalist pertinently asked, continue to treat domestic orwhy forthe agricultural ment and laterland. for chemicals does India celebrate eign private players independmerely as Here is another fact that and fertilisers.

In 2000, aftermay the ence every year only to cedenot it to vendors who it can exploit, as surprise of of you:R organic farms produce foreign companies sudden some demise Kumaralikepartners Mosanto?) genuine with whom it Prabhu is more of as much, and sometimes much more, than mangalam, Prabhu was made Being in can favour of strong ecological farming achieve results. a technocrat than a conventional farms.

Where there is a yield gap doesn’t mean wanting Power Minister.

Prabhu is more a return to thetopast — So if Prabhu is looking make grassroots Shiv Sainik in other direction, it tends to be in wealthy just wantingradical, of the a technocrat than a grassroots technology not from a ratherthat’s than incremental nations.

Organic far from being a chemical factory Shiv Sainik, rarelyfarming seen atistheir andinbased onrole, petroleum. changes his new then he luxury low-income shakhas:that his quick ascent countries caused cannot af- Rather, we need creatively combine wiswilltohave to bring about aold change ford; it is rather the way theSena world has to go. A dom with modern heartburn among many ecological knowledge and in thinking: ultimately, Indian University Essex research study examined veterans, of who eventually influenced Bal innovation “Technology with a human face.”

Railways is — only a transport corporation, and over 200 agricultural projects Thackeray into removing him. in the develop- that Have I said it before?

India has is how it should be treated.

Andeverything if the coning world (9 million farms on nearly 30 mil- required to leadisthe on this new sumer’s benefit theworld end goal, then thepath. govlion hectares) found that yields increased Her Packed with a and punch indigenous food knowledge base inover the ernment will have to cede its monopoly an of 93 perPrabhu cent when converted As average Power Minister, hadthey found his mo- adivasi and small farming communities is unrail transport in India. to ecological A seven-year jo. organic He was and credited for theways.

Electricity Act of surpassed.

Though dwindling, amOf course, bringing aboutthere thisis yet radical study Maikaal District centralsector India for (of ple 2003, from which opened up theinpower biodiversity noeasy shortage vision conand change will not and be an task. of Political 1,000 cultivating 3,200 hectares) greaterfarmers private investments.

The private sec- innovation.

What we have yet to achieve and are stituents, the rent-seeking bureaucracy found average for cotton, wheat, the tor for that the first timeyields got non-discriminatory agricultural policies could allow it to trade unions are likely that to oppose any such chilli and soy were as much asof20 per cent open access in the transmission power, and happen. needreal these fastatbefore the move. So And don’twe expect change the speed higher onElectricity the organic farms than convention- knowledge the State Regulatory Commissions and biodiversity arethe is lost forever. of a bullet train.

But as long as reforms exal ones nearby. to introduce open access in press is not derailed, there is hope. were mandated Organic farming after brings so many for benefits, power distribution, accounting State- joanna van gruisen is a wildlife photographer, and hotelier basedisnear Panna Tiger sambuddha mitra mustafi the founder of from cleaner water toToday, rural more stability, there is conservationist specific conditions. than oneThe Political IndianPradesh in Madhya not enough room to listcapacity them all.isBut one such third of India’s power operated

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Health, wealth and herbal Isolating the active ingredient catalysing the growth of Himalaya Drug Company, which sells everything from toothpaste to liver-care medicine

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rom toothpaste and diaper-rash cream to shampoos and India’s largest-selling liver support medicine, Himalaya Drug Company offers something for everyone. But that’s not all. It also sells calcium supplements for animals and herbal feed for fish. In conversation with BLink, CEO Philipe Haydon reveals what defines the company and why its competitors are not Dabur or Charak but Cipla and HUL. Edited excerpts: With 200 products across pharmaceuticals, personal care, baby care and animal health, what is the one thing that Himalaya stands for? Would you call yourself an FMCG or wellness company?

We stand for well-researched herbal healthcare products. We put science in herbal healthcare. It would be right to say that we are several companies in one. We have always been a pharmaceutical company and are also a personal care, animal care and baby care company. We stand for wellness — internal as well as external — through herbal healthcare.

Our pharmaceutical products are researched for 8-10 years on average and three to four years for personal care.

Haven’t you spread yourself too thin by being in four verticals and opening yourself to competition from everyone — from Dabur to HUL and P&G? What is your focus area?

We would have spread ourselves too thin if we were a single division. But we have separate, focus-driven divisions, each being a profit-loss centre functioning independently. In pharmaceuticals, my competition is not Dabur or Charak. My true competition lies (not in the herbal market but) in the Indian pharmaceutical market — Glaxo, AstraZeneca, Cipla etc. If they have products for cough and cold, or acidity or diabetes, so does Himalaya. The difference is that their API (active pharmaceutical ingredient) is of allopathic nature and mine is herbal, but our products are being sold alongside theirs in pharmacies. Our Liv 52 is the number one brand in the hepatic segment. We have more than 50 brands and the entire range is prescribed by al-

Science goes green The endangered tissue culture lab at Himalaya Drug Company’s R&D centre in Bengaluru; and (below) CEO Philipe Haydon

lopathic doctors (out of nearly 4 lakh doctors in India, 2.5 lakh are allopathic). All our clinical trials are done at allopathic hospitals, based on allopathic protocols, like KEM, JIPMER, Tata Memorial. In the personal-care segment, the competition is L’Oreal, HUL and Garnier, as our products are placed on the same shelf.

Today, we have extremely aware customers who know exactly what they are looking for.

They are information-seeking and you cannot take the consumer for a ride. Your product has to stand on three parameters — results, safety and brand equity. Also, we have seen a great acceptance of herbal solutions. More and more people now want to use herbal, organic, natural and gentler products. We are the right people in the right place at the right time.

Himalaya started as a healthcare company.

Why did you get into personal care? And the other categories?

How do you manage the supply chain — from Himalaya always had personal sourcing to distribution — for care products, but those were this vast product range? only for staff gifts. We had to It is pretty simple. We have 300 write to the head office and they clearing-and-forwarding agents would send us shampoos and and they supply products to Himalaya always had hair-restoring products. These more than 6,000 distributors personal care products were brilliant and across India, who then supply to products, but those there was a lot of internal presretailers. We source raw materiwere only for sure on the chairman to take it als from all parts of the country. staff gifts to the market. That’s what led to We have a three-year forecast the genesis of Ayurvedic Conready at any given point of time. cepts — our first foray into the It is shared with the production personal-care segment, in 2002. department, which ensures we have enough raw materials. We have also tied You spend little on branding and marketing up with 4,000 farmers, who grow crops based compared to the other players. Why? on our requirements and adhere to good agriAs far as baby care is concerned, we genuinely cultural practices. We buy 100 per cent of their believe that a mother should seek a doctor’s produce at better-than-market rates. guidance on what is best for her child. We promote our products to doctors. In personal Why have you taken only the organic route to care, our ad spends, at 18-20 per cent of our growth? And do we see that changing in the revenues, will be much more than most other near future? players’ (though not in absolute terms). We The kind of battle we fought has been differhave been growing at over 35 per cent in per- ent from other companies. We fought to estabsonal care. Our distribution system is robust lish that herbal medication can be backed by and we gained a lot of leverage when we scientific research. That is why we refused to launched our personal care division, as there launch any product that was not backed by was immediate acceptance for Himalaya, our quality and research standards. That which is a trusted brand. stuck, and has remained a part of our DNA. We don’t offer any product that does not meet the What changes in consumer trends — stringent standards of research we have set spending/product choices and so on — have for ourselves. you witnessed in the last decade? And how rashmi pratap has it affected Himalaya?

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I SPY

What’s colour of cold?

Glory the to dust

An alumnus of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, artist Nityan Unnikrishnan looks The government is thinking of privatising at Delhi, the city he now calls home, throughsick thepublic frostedsector glass undertakings (PSUs). BLink brings to you five companies that were It isn’t— a morning without MS responsible for several ‘firsts’ in08.00 India from watches and film rolls and Suprabhatam 07.30 A quiet start 09.00 A winter’s day to landline phones and air travel. Today, each of these companies is sick — having lost in a financial year 50 per cent or more of its average net worth in the four preceding years. Here’s a quick peek at their history and current status

HMT Watches

09.30 Off to work

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et up in 1961 in collaboration with Japan’s Citizen Watch Co, HMT was synonymous with watches and clocks in the ’60s and ’70s. On July 28 that year, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru released the first batch of hand-wound wristwatches manufactured at the company’s Bengaluru plant. In 1985, it began making floral clocks (the one in Bengaluru’s Lal Bagh garden is famous even today), solar clocks and tower clocks.

What went wrong: HMT failed to come up with newer designs to keep pace with changing consumer demands.

Lack of innovation, combined with the 10.00 Now this, I’d drive arrival of Tata group’s watchmaker, Titan, proved inimical to HMT, relegating it to the fringes of the industry.

12.00 At work

09.45 Build it

09.46 Break it

Status update: Net loss of ₹242.47 crore in FY13; negative networth of ₹2,012 crore.

10.30 Déjà vu: “We’ve found your key…

Please collect it from 2nd floor”

12.30 The mess

11.30 Winter light in the studio

Scooters India Ltd

13.00 A chair prototype

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he company was launched in 1972 with plant and machinery bought from Italy’s Innocenti. The buy included the worldwide trademark registration of the iconic two-wheeler Lambretta.

The scooter was sold as Vijai Super in the domestic market and Lambretta overseas. In 1975, SIL added an extra wheel to launch its Vikram or Lambro brand of three-wheelers.

What went wrong: By the late ’80s, there was competition from new

players such as Kinetic Honda, LML, Hero Honda and Yamaha, which created excess capacity in the two-wheeler industry. Beset by labour issues, SIL’s worn-out plant near Lucknow and outdated technology were no match for the competition’s advanced and fuel-efficient technologies.

Status update: Loss of ₹6 crore on sales of ₹209 crore in FY13. After losses over a decade since 2002-03, SIL was declared sick in 2009.

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Hindustan Photo Films

Hindustan Cables Ltd L

ocated in Rupnarainpur, West Bengal, since 1952 the company has connected the nooks and crannies of India through its jelly-filled and optical fibre cables. The Department of Telecom as well as the public-sector communication firms, BSNL and MTNL, were its customers in the pre-mobile phone era. HCL manufactured not just the fixed line networks, but also the coils in the phones.

What went wrong: Demand for polythene insulated jelly-filled (PIJF) cable, HCL’s main product, vanished with the advent of wireless (mobile) tech-

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his PSU, set up in the hill-station Udhagamandalam (Ooty) in 1960, manufactured raw cine films for the movie industry, X-ray films, graphic arts films and photographic paper. It was here that Bollywood film rolls were developed for decades until digital cameras took over. Today, the plant is only used to develop negatives.

What went wrong: Failure to adapt to newer technologies, which ne-

nology requiring optical fibre cables. In FY11, HCL’s optical-fibre manufacturing plant in Naini, near Allahabad, too became non-operative due to technological obsolescence.

Status update: Loss of ₹885 crore on revenues of a mere ₹3.22 crore in FY13. The company was referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction in 2002.

cessitated diversification into IV fluids, colour paper, digital films and non-silver films. The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction declared it sick in 1996.

Status update: It reported a net loss of ₹463.5 crore in the December 2013 quarter, with sales of just ₹22 lakh.

In March 2013, a ₹181-crore voluntary retirement package was announced for the employees.

Air India O

n October 15, 1932, Tata Airlines launched the country’s first commercial flight, carrying mail from London. JRD Tata, then a director in Tata Sons, piloted the flight’s Karachi-Bombay leg before it flew onwards to Madras. In February 1935, Tata Sons launched a trial flight — Bombay-Nagpur-Jamshedpur-Calcutta. In July 1946, Tata Airlines became a public company and was renamed Air India Ltd. Genell Moots of Trans World Airlines (TWA) arrived from Kansas City in the US to train

India’s first batch of airhostesses. In August 1953, Air India was nationalised. At its peak, the carrier commanded over 60 per cent of the market share and was the biggest airline in the subcontinent.

Ministers and bureaucrats fly Air India even today for official travel.

What went wrong: The airline took on huge debts for expansion to newer routes as well as buying aircraft. By June 2014, its debt exceeded ₹44,000 crore. The entry of private airlines

changed the rules of competition, with low-cost carriers eating into Air India’s market share. High staff costs (salaries make up 60 per cent of its expenses) and repeated union strikes have grounded it further.

Status update: Air India is one of the worst loss-making PSUs (net loss of around ₹5,000 crore in FY14). It has not yet been declared sick officially, but sick it is with a negative networth of ₹15,642 crore in FY13.

rashmi pratap

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PRESENT IMPERFECT

Go Sanskrit, yo!

ELSEWHERE

How do you say the following in Sanskrit? Take it from the top

Cracks within

A daughter’s brave and harrowing investigation into her mother’s madness

The happy comings and goings at a recent conference

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he South Asia Conference I attended in Madison, Wisconsin, was good fun. I had been given a room at the conference venue, the Madison Concourse HoLucile had written on the family — where the grandfather tel. It was around 5pm when I arrived and the lobby mirror in the bathroom in lusts after young girls, where multiwas already swarming with academics. Most had flown in blood-red lipstick: ‘I’m going ple family members commit suifrom around the US. What a complete contrast to my usual to crack.’ Every morning, we cide, where the author must face up life. It was like leaping from a tiny goldfish bowl into a giant would comb our hair looking to her own battles with anorexia. In aquarium, full of much bigger and more powerful fish. in this mirror, this threat how many ways can one family be The hotel achieved a very agreeable balance between being tattooed on our faces. unhappy, one might ask. Clearly, in grand and most efficiently run, while also being humanall too many ways. scaled and friendly. ow does a 12-year-old girl The most harrowing parts of the My charming host, Dr Aparna Dharwadker, Head of Theatre and her younger sister book provide a child’s view of her and English at Wisconsin University (WU), was waiting for me respond to a mother’s mother’s madness. “My mother was in the lobby. We had met once, many years ago, so it was good threats on a mirror, her an adult. My mother had read a lot to catch up with her. My stay was only for two nights and I had ravings, her listing? What fears am- and knew lots of things. My mother to plunge right into the swim of events. The conference reprebush the child as she watches her was clever. How could I imagine that sents a major meeting point for many different academic dismother descend into drugs and de- my mother was talking nonsense? I ciplines with South Asia as their focus. I had just enough time lusions? Is her biggest fear finding was thirteen years old.” The child’s to rush up to the 12th floor, have a shower and change before her mother dead? Or following her awareness of her mother’s disorrushing down again in time for the buffet dinner that had mother down a similar path of de- ders, and her inability to accept it been organised for all visitors and delegates. struction and destructiveness? come out all too vividly.

The weekend, for me, involved two highlights: at 8 the next These are just some of the quesWith every layer of family history morning I would have 45 minutes in which to talk about my tions raised in French Del- that is peeled back, Is there an appauthor for that?

Let’s create a hashtag and Tweet the life out lower case and must contain at least one nude Vigan finds play Harvest to a group of mostly phine de Vigan’s Nothing Holds Back Although education minister Smriti Irani deeper of it. Aparna’s students. In the evening, meralinto andunfortuone symbol. herself sinking the Night,has ansaid autobiographical CBSE schools under this new “Everything about history. that learning novel Sanskrit nate is nottruths compulbut alsoBringing growing all more there wasistonot be abad rehearsed read- Anthat is breathless with tragedy but effectively India greatdirected scientificbymind sory, the removal of German makes rabid about facts.rule She would listensmean to re- the number of students af- cient ing of had the play, one and of rich It was like leaping never maudlin fected run into tens of lakhs. But what’s knowledge.

We need to find how Lieder. to do its PR,” it the onlywith viablesuffering. option forImost students.pores over cordings, herwill mother’s these students, Katherine from a tiny goldfish came to this book with no expectaSeptember quarter disappoints India digs Inc. for more Ms Irani said.met Presumably, shein is referpapers, dates important? and huntsTradition, dude!

We had earlier inby thePRyear, bowl into a giant regional languages meant police to be records.

Does She that longs come in fuchsia? Or is it only ring to tions. The While paperback shows a glam- were public relations.

It is defined as a stratethrough India: bright as an acetylene torch, aquarium made available to the students since that saffron? orous woman (Lucile) on cover.as an gic communication process that foroption the liberties fiction might highly focused, intensely driven. we story judge this decision 1988,hair there hasover been a great of difficulty Her blonde falls her ears. deal mutuallyis beneficial offer, but believes Before that this Being inbuilds her company like hav- relaharshly,and we must uniformity.

Her lipsmaintaining gently parted, having just must adhere to events between organisations occur-understand the ing an tionships energy transfusion!

She Apparently, famous sentence minister exhaled smoke from the most cigarette andathe public. rences, not in whimsies andknows memo-what’s best for presented paper at the mornThe GDP of a country Girlfriend ries. is Madhav tell-becomes Youand canthen, hire aafter spinlunch, doctor pretBhagat’s Half the country.

Regional languages betweenChetan her fingers.

A distinct This book more than a ing’s session, another in the afternoon rises when reading, hai just to de,asvarna kat le”.narration and inghovers Riya — over “Detiher, ty easily these days. Send out a reSanskrit are she preparing for the evening’s reading.

French air it mere of tragedies, be-important,began writing and Studentsthis of book, Kendriya Vidyalayas who into questwoman for proposal said, the sweeps through where cause(KV) it delves thebecause very act ofGDP of a counThe play’s main character is a young calledASAP. Jaya. At comprehension Perhaps, further pursuit of have been hang studying now have tryVigan rises plots whenher reading, writing family members outGerman in the until writing.

Eventoas de this performance, Jaya’s part was played by a in very attractive is done in the local ancient India’s scientific anotherand language or alife, re- she andadmits comprehension is done in Dr Ayeshah Emon. She lectures buff, eatswitch lavishto meals spend — Sanskrit mother’s that a person, on Language and Cul- mind language and rich knowledge, gional oneFrom — irrespective of thebook, fact that theya fact, the will localalways language. days by the beach. first appeara story, be ture at WU. She and Aparna were both performing thatIrani eve- spent wash at 30°. Doning. not Ayeshah, who is originallyfour hours on Sunday consulting do not havethink academic in either. ances, one might this isgrounding just only one person’s Machine truth. Nothing from Pakistan, needed Bhagat’s Half with Girlfriend has somore, far sold a few less. tumble in get Karoi vilanother fey love story a Parinothing She dry. writes: “I sari-tying help, so both of them with camean to astrologer my room to However, not million copies. lage in Rajasthan. sian beauty. don’t want to know what sort ofMs wifeIrani did dressed.

It was like being college students together, the three Over 70,000 students from 500 KVs will be was. just got real. mention gatheredand for exchanging storiesShit It is anything but that.

The book or lover Lucile That’s what none kind of of dataofwas us chatting of growing up in differIt is entirely possible that astrology, palmistaffected by this knee-jerk decision.

But not to study nor did any examples of opens with the author finding her my business.

I amthis writing about Lu- she quoteent parts of the subcontinent.

I had lived in Pakistan for three ry and offered counselling, countries or communities that successmother’sworry, blue, they pale will blue,bedays-old cile throughthe the eyes of a child who yearshave as a child and have fondnumerology memories. would be introduced as possible compulsory subjects for students minister said. fully demonstrated body. That discovery throws her into grew up too fast, writing about the this ‘hypothesis’.

Though I’ve seen the play many times, a good performance Let me just Google that.

Yo Yo HoneyHer Singh’s most successful song to from ClassThe IV to XII. If it is, I am it would a “vast dung hill”, from which she mystery she always was to me...” is always interesting attend. multi-ethnic castcertain held the Themother’s policy of past.

KVs has been toinvestigations offer regional into It in hastheir nearly thisher yearmother’s is ‘Char bottle vodka’.

GDP too.passion and good excavates her Nothing scripts hands,help butincrease they read with Gotwent a mani-pedi recently? languages 15 or more for also three million Holds Back the Nightonly is deif Vigan’s at- students point ofopt rupture lead her toviews the on YouTube. energy. Afterwards, we all to the Capital Tap House, a loEconomists are struggling comprehend Armedofwith Sanskrit, regional languages hence,amost schools arefor unprepared any of her tempt toit;create “paper coffin” startingfor point own writing, caltobar and eatery, as guests Aparna’s equally charming howanother. use of local language affects the Vinay, GDP ofalso a aand palmistry scientists, will have so optionwho other than Sanskrit language. the woman was always tooas third where one feeds into husband professor at WU. EveryoneIndia was in high will too leave the next generation in country. defined as the monetary valuebut we much GDP, we won’t haveevening place toended keep it. It’ll beautiful, Subsidies too sensitive, distant, Through Nothing Holds GDP Backisthe and good spirits, were all tired too. The said Arun Jaitley.at the Night, de Vigan comes of alltogoods a happy be spilling out In of spring everyone’s and cupand whodebt, committed suicide admireand herservices produced early withwithin hugs and farewells. nextpockets year, there writingstrength, to all meets country’s borders in a specific time period, boards. We’ll buy hard disks andwe pen drives to age of 61. Education ministry is also sister’s her mother will be a staged performance of the play.

Perchance shall CBSE schoolsthat to make the—three languages — usually Someet far, the role of store our excess GDP. It’ll be awesome!

The first question de Vigan anew and ultimately findscalculated reconcil- annually.all again.

Wtf?!

English, Hindi and Sanskrit/regional language hadfinds been kept out while computing author of the well-acclaimed Under- iation.

In the act oflanguage writing, she — compulsory. growth,which but since said this, it ground Time and No and Me — must a semblance of meaning, was the minister MANJULA PADMANABHAN , author and artist, tells us tales of her parallel life passwordshe must be a mixdenied of upper t@veenavenugopal must be true. deal withYour is whether should herand in childhood. in Elsewhere, US, in this fortnightly series marginalien.blogspot.in write this book. A book — which unearths desperately dark secrets of a nandini nair

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Nothing Holds Back the Night Delphine de Vigan Bloomsbury ₹399

Script to stage

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UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY

The Gorakhpuri Justice Mohammed Ismail was not merely a former High Court judge at Allahabad. His past was far more complicated Sucked in, despite himself, into the politics of the times, Mohammed Ismail became a member of the Zamindar Party, something like the Unionist Party of Punjab, in that it did not wish to follow the line of either the Indian National Congress or the Muslim League. Liaquat Ali Khan, who would one day become the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and be assassinated, allegedly because he wanted to curtail the powers of the zamindars, served as the Secretary of the Zamindar Party when Mohammed Ismail was the President. As the political tensions heightened, Mohammed Ismail was called to the High Court at Allahabad and became Justice Ismail, watching the events of the mid-’30s and early ’40s unfold from behind the bench.

After retirement, he got a In the spotlight Justice Mohammed Ismail seen here with Indira Gandhi and India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who strange request. The Radoffered him a berth in his Cabinet courtesy shakil ahmad cliffe Award had been announced, India and Pakistan he letter came for Justice Mo- For two long years thereafter, the great tree were to be divided, but a Commission was hammed Ismail while he was in Rai- next to the Jama Masjid was used as a hanging needed to decide outlying issues. Patrick garh, setting up the judicial system tree for “rebels”. Munshi Khalil, as young as he Spens, the last chief justice of British India, of what was then the Eastern States was, became the eldest surviving male in the served as the head of the Commission. Harilal Agency. The Agency was an odd amalgamation family and was disallowed from setting foot Jekisundas Kania, who would go on to be indeof the princely states of Orissa and Chhattis- outside his house for years. Later, when his pendent India’s first Chief Justice, represented garh, which had, at first, resisted incorpora- sons grew up, Khalil understood that formal India’s interests. The Republic of Pakistan tion into India. Vallabhai Patel, India’s first education was the only way to acasked Justice Ismail. He did not Home Minister, and his able Secretary at the quire a ‘position’ in British India, wish to shift to Pakistan at his Ministry of States, met with the feudatory and so he sent his sons to study age. He had lived a full life, with chiefs in December 1947 and hammered out a in England, where his eldest, Ismany contacts in his homeland.

The Chauri Chaura resolution. Patel had a fairly clear idea of what mail, studied law, and his youngMountbatten, Jinnah and Nehru riots forced him to he wanted the Indian State to look like, and he est, Moezuddin, medicine. all accepted this condition. So he prosecute people he recruited people like Justice Ismail, a former Mohammed Ismail was in served his term, and then when High Court judge at Allahabad, to build the great demand as a lawyer when did not wish to, and it Patel asked, he went to Raigarh. was the first case in systems that would keep such a State running. he returned, and private practice And then came the letter: “Juswhich Justice Ismail Justice Ismail, though, was not merely a for- would have rewarded him well, tice Ismail, will you be the Pakisrecused himself mer judge; his past was far more complicated. but Munshi Khalil counselled a tani High Commissioner to Justice Ismail’s father, Munshi Khalil sahib different path. Therefore, when India?” There had been the Partiof Gorakhpur, was eight years old when the Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi tion massacres, the refugee prob1857 Uprising took place. Gorakhpur had come performed his first great train lem, the war in Jammu and under British governance only in 1810, and it yatra across north India, MoKashmir, and Pakistan wanted to had been a difficult few decades beset by pow- hammed Ismail was the government prosecu- communicate with India through somebody er struggles before the dust settled. Caught up tor. He wanted to welcome Gandhi, but his the latter would trust. Justice Ismail asked in the Anglo-Gorkha wars and then the pacif- position wouldn’t allow it, so he sent his bug- Nehru, who replied, “I would much rather you ication of the forest tribes, the British never re- gy. The horse was removed from the harness, would have joined my Cabinet.” “On what baally managed to assert themselves, and then and people pulled the buggy by the power of sis?” asked Justice Ismail, “Who has elected came the brushfire of 1857, and their rule was their limbs to the site where Gandhi made his me? If I were part of your Cabinet, I would only thwarted. For a year or so, Gorakhpur was a lib- first great public speech in north India, mov- represent you, since you would have selected erated area, under the administration of Mo- ing Premchand, who was in the audience, to me.” Nehru agreed, and Justice Ismail became hammed Hassan of Jaunpur and the give up his government job and become a the second Pakistani High Commissioner to generalship of Bandhu Singh. After Lucknow writer. For Mohammed Ismail, the outcome India, serving from 1948 to 1952, never surrenwas taken and Delhi overthrown, the British, was different. The Chauri Chaura riots that fol- dering his Indian citizenship, and returning assisted by the Sikhs and Gorkhas, had their re- lowed a year later, in 1922, forced him to prose- to Gorakhpur to live out his last days. venge upon the Purabias (people from mod- cute people he did not wish to, and it was the t@OmairTAhmad ern-day east UP and adjoining areas of Bihar). first case in which he recused himself.

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Omair Ahmad is an author. His last book was on Bhutan

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Love in the time of Tinder

Indigenous dating apps are giving new agency to young people who now believe romance, and perhaps even happily-ever-after are just a click away Breaking good In an ageist industry that usually relegates lead actresses to supporting roles after 30, Manju Warrier plays her age in How Old Are You

FILM FATALE

Moshé, Manju, Queen & I 2014 threw up three pleasant surprises — entertaining films that tell credible stories of women. That such films are rare is a result of gender politics, not economics anna mm vetticad

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inter is a time for bonfires, boots and smart overcoats.

It’s also the season for a parade of best-of-the-year-goneby lists from film critics. But I want to share with you a more personal compilation — three pleasant surprises for a cinephile forever in search of entertaining films that tell credible stories of women.

Queen Watching a mainstream Bollywood film which makes me go “oh my god, that could be me” is a rare experience. Queen was that kind of film. ife Thehad story a conservative justofbecome easier formiddlesingles class Delhi Ranaut) whotorediscovin girl the(Kangna city. Or so I was led believe. ers herself after her fiancé dumps hersolitude shortly The solution for melancholic before their reminded me Having of how waswedding, now justitan app away. starved we women of films about us. proved their worthare as effective icebreakers in US and India,dating home platforms to the world’s largetheThe West, mobile were fast st film industries, guilty on this in galvanising lonely are Indian hearts intofront action. different governed gender with politics The arrivalways, of Tinder neatlyby coincided the that drives economics.doppelgangers Here in India, film advent of indigenous suchinas dustry power structures are so male-dominatThrill, Woo and Truly Madly, which demanded ed, that despite a steady trickle in of through women a similar drill. Start by signing executives in production houses and the occayour Facebook account. Scan profiles of likely sional woman or writer,on films matches.

Makedirector snap judgments the remain basis of largely by the male gaze. age anddictated appearance.

Scan the personal details Result: most tell achievements, stories of men trite and are told — digests of career pick-up from a male pointquotes of view,byeven if women have lines even obtuse Rousseau.

Then, as substantial roles inwould them.have It is it, also generally Tinder vocabulary swipe left to assumed thatright women-focused reject, swipe to accept. films need to be about a dispiriting someone Approximately 48‘issue’ hours because after I had downsomewhere thinks womenbuzzed do not in have loaded Tinder, my phone theamusdead ing, uplifting of night.

Theexperiences. app had finally found me a In thisDevika*, scenario, was path-breaking in match. a Queen Mumbai-based advertising many ways. It was a woman whose existprofessional, wasabout passing through Kolkata ence in the film was dependent her reand was booked on anot flight the next on morning. lationship withwas a dominant hero, and it was A formal date logistically impossible.

A highly entertaining.

Director Bahl Tinder chat, however, helped easeVikas some boreshared theother writing with“I Parveez dom. “The day,”credits she typed, started Shaikh, Chaitally Anvita anddishy lead speaking to a manParmar, on Tinder whoDutt looked actor Kangna Ranaut herself — reminding us and obviously Punjabi.

It turns out, that that sometimes it takes to make warm, wasn’t a picture all of his to begin with.aHe was fun film about a woman is a sensitive man basically middle-aged, married and Bengali. who askshewomen what want and who His wife, later said, justthey wasn’t interested in they sex.” are.

I assured the 35-year-old that if I had to

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How Old Are You Moshé delivers an incredibly progressive, Director Rosshan Andrrews’ How Old Are You grim yet humorous take on women’s sexuality marked Malayalam actress Manju Warrier’s re- and sexual freedom. turn to films after a decade and a half. It turnThe film had a limited release in France back ed out to be startlingly courageous. Think then but got a lukewarm response, according about it: how often does a mainstream Indian to Moshé, “because the women’s liberation heroine ask her onscreen husband whether movement had not yet come into the French he would have wanted her to emigrate with media in a big way as it had in America by him to a foreign country if servants there were then, so French people thought the film was inexpensive? too much.” In 2008, a digitally restored verWarrier plays a woman who subordinated sion was released on DVD. Six years later at the her career ambitions in favour of a boring job Delhi screening, I asked myself for the mildipankar that would allow her to focus entirely on her lionth time: what prevents film industries husband and daughter, only to from making more such mainbecome their dis-I’d pick some- paused at pictures choose a the fakeobject pictureoffor myself, stream, of women-centric women snug infilms? the arms dain because of hercrop limited in- She laughed. of possible boyfriends one with a far richer of hair.

“Economics” is the standard and husbands.

Thrill’s terests and achievements.

In an whenFor And promised to party together in the answer. lies elsewhere. co-founder Josh IsraelThe saystruth he shares my bewilthe record, industry tends to retire lead had Queen city next.that My first Tinder exchange left me andderment.

In India’s inknow ifmale-dominated they are just bored How “I don’t actresses at a and relatively early age both curious confused. dustries, for instance,butmainorwere looking for another relationship, such Old Are You or Concerned relegate them to supporting about the breed of half-witted stream heroes are perennially anomalies can be seen the world over.” Two money-spinners roles, it was unusual see anbe ac-mistaken for, I years after shifting and desperate men Ito might cast inbase lead roles from withNew largerto India Jertress her late 30s playing the Manchanda* sey, Israel believes askedin23-year-old blogger Nisha than-life personas.

Mainstream there are perhaps other peheroine a film as if Indianin men knewpositioned how to navigate the world culiarities which heroines are rarely offered set the country apart.such The commercial, notHer ‘art cinema’. of online dating. answer was films.

Over time, this creates a 27-year-old entrepreneur says For the record, Queen HowexOld Are You were disparity in that a categorical “No!”andShe numbers and obsessiveness bedespite sharing many a habmoney-spinners, plained, “One of proving the first once mess-again that au- tween fans ofitmale stars.

This man usuwithand the female West, the Indian diences are far more open-minded than gen- ally ensures that ages I received on Tinder was the occasional commercial, still struggles when approaching One of the first dered film industries hilariously puzzling.give Thisthem guycredit for. woman-centric film —“Parents which ishave rarely marketwomen. found life messages I received just said, ‘Meow!’ Men use imaged as heavily partners as hero-oriented — doesn’t for theirfilms children for so on Tinder was Les a Sophie es ofStances dogs and picturesque landget the samelong opening that a herothat collections a strange mindset has hilariously puzzling.

Indian buffsprofile wouldpictures. perhaps best know Is- centric film does, scapes film as their is more dependent on comeand to define India’s youth. EvThis guy just said, rael’s Moshéyou’ll Mizrahi the Oscar-winning di- word of mouth.

Sometimes seeas them put“We wants told you so,” producers ery man to know — how do ‘Meow!’ rector Rosa (1977). ting upof aMadame group picture.

HowHe made his promptly say.I talk to women?” debut 1971 with theIFrench film Les Stances a shouldinI decode who am speakBut hey, you Released created the system,this and year, you earlier Sophie was lost to the work hard toThrill ing to?”(Sophie’s ThoughWays), tired ofwhich looking perpetuate Films 60,000 like Queen alreadyit.boasts usworld nearly four decades for theforproverbial Waldo everthereafter be- and How Old Are the Priyanka ers You and(and 20,000 matches.ChopraIsrael, cause thebecame producer went bankrupt and Nisha most starrer since she a Tinder user this May, Kom, realistic for that matter) have numbeen thoughMary remains about such prints were seized. does believe that most dating apps are more hits these Make such bers. despite “Apps like ours constraints. are only taking a crack at And then the Embassy of Israel women-friendly.

“I’d say that Icalled haveearlier been films in large numbers overOur a period a minute urban population. users of aretime, part this month.

They screening Sophie’s Ways create matched with 98 were per cent of the men I swiped circumstances heroes and of thatequitable hip, young crowd, whichfor is already frein Delhi. moderate discussion right for. Would It gaveIme a great aego boost at with first, heroines, and then see how many more quenting bars and nightclubs.

The idea is of to the but octogenarian after a while director? you realise that men swipe these It’spopulace.” a crying shame that in the accessyou the get. larger Thrill’s founders Sophie’s Ways is about a young in 21st right for almost every woman theywoman see. It can film buffs likeonmethe arecountry’s making havecentury, their hopes pinned 1970 who does not believe in being tied such get a Paris bit much.” lists of pleasant surprises. much-hyped 18-25 age demographic. “For down to onesuggests man, butthat impulsively Evidence dating succumbs platforms them, shaadi.com is just not cool. As time promma vetticad is the author of The pie Adventures to a marriage proposal early the film.

As she anna can be equally puzzling forinmen.

Browsing gresses, slice of that matrimonial will bean Intrepid Filmdating Critic t@annavetticad becomes frustrated with the relationship, through prospective profiles on Thrill, I of long to mobile apps,” says Israel.

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The likes of Tinder and Thrill are taking on a veritable Goliath. A matrimonial service like shaadi.com claims to attract 10,000 subscribers every day. Chances of a radical transformation seem remote, but for some, matchmaking is up for a swap and a swipe.

The traffic attracted by an online matrimonial profile is often the subject of an entire family’s curiosity. Mobile dating and discovery apps, on the other hand, offer more private agency. No longer reliant on just an aunt’s or colleague’s introduction, hundreds of Indian youngsters now carry in their pockets the possibility of an independent and sudden romance. Since social apprehensions dictate that the use of these mobile platforms remains both awkward and surreptitious, most urban users only secretly admit to playing a new kind of virtual roulette. The odds of rejection are high, but that doesn’t seem to dampen their hope for love and intimacy. Many believe that these novel wheels of Tinder-like fortune will one day turn enough for them to get lucky.

Standing apart Local Out of Africa dating apps like Truly The Songhoy Madly hope to attract Blues (from left) youngsters who are Oumar Touré, looking for partners Aliou Touré, without parental Nathanael supervision Dembélé and Garba Touré andy morgan

the rain. I had spoken to a stranger for eight Asian government employee. Checking the hours straight. It would have all been a drea- boxes of our criteria, I finally found the catch I my first romantic date, but things fizzled out.” instinctively knew existed. She expected me to There have been other long drives and earn a crore and more every year. My inadenights at the movies. Wanting to record her quacy plaguing me, I stayed away from the adventures in this brave new world of mobile website. A week later, I received an afternoon dating, Kakar is cataloguing them for her first call from a Shaadi executive. She wanted to book. Though she still remains part of the ar- know what I was looking for in a potential life ranged marriage framework, she feels that ap- partner. “Like-mindedness,” I muttered. “No plications like Tinder and Truly Madly help caste preferences, Sir?” Taken back, I realised engineer a more direct correspondence, my ‘No’ sounded more apologetic than emthereby eliminating the middleman. But a phatic. The conversation ended with an invitasuitably meaningful relationship, she asserts, tion to the matrimonial portal’s city office and might well be a rarity. “The general idea is that the carrot being dangled — “You can even get if a girl is using a dating app, she must be numbers, Sir!” promiscuous. Men often end up viewing such Mallika Garg*, a 31-year-old educationist spaces as hook-up platforms.” To counter such working in Bengaluru, had for long navigated perceptions, the founders of Woo and Truly the space of online matrimony before she Madly are trying to shed the ‘dating’ tag, delib- found her husband on shaadi.com three years erately positioning their apps as social discov- ago. Her first tip — “Make sure you don’t have ery and matchmaking products. “Hardly bad grammar. Badly written profiles are an inanyone wants to be matched with a thrill-seek- stant turn-off.” Dating applications, she says, er or someone looking for just a casual fling,” might possibly have been attractive to her if says Sumesh Menon, CEO and co-founder of she were 21. “Once you are 26 and have decided U2opia Mobile, the company that launched to settle down, you certainly wouldn’t want to be on a public dating platform.” Even though Finding middle ground Woo this July.

Six months ago, writer Esha Kakar* and her Rather than attracting the college-goer, Me- her husband doesn’t like telling acquaintfriend talked about the difficulties of meeting non stresses that Woo’s target audience is the ances that the couple met on a matrimonial single men in Mumbai. “At some point, this young professional who has made some head- platform, Garg is grateful for the relatively friend took my phone from me and downloadway in his or her career. “These people are fi- anonymous search Shaadi allowed her. “I ed Tinder,” says 26-year-old Kakar. The first nancially independent. They don’t want to didn’t have to give out my picture or any other date proved disappointing. Her Tinder match outsource the process of finding their life information I felt uncomfortable sharing. But needed alcohol to converse with women. partner. Unlike the conventional matrimonial that said, finding someone on Shaadi is a lot Worse still, he was preparing for his GMAT and website, where matches are made on the basis like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Garg remembers sifting through hundreds wanted Kakar to proof his English. “It felt like I of caste and complexion, individuals now had just met Rajesh Koothrappali from The Big want to set their own parameters that aren’t of profiles that were quite obviously faked. “It Bang Theory.” Another Tinder conversation transactional.” Menon clearly wants to create just made the whole process that much harone night carried itself to the phone and then a virtual environment that is conducive for a der.” Women and child development minister to an impulsive breakfast. “We even got wet in “serious” relationship. Hitesh Dhingra, co- Maneka Gandhi clearly had the interests of several Mallikas in mind when founder of Truly Madly, seems to she recently demanded that onbe on a similar page. line matrimonial sites revamp In the months of research that their security features. The minDhingra and his team conducted before releasing their app, Individuals now want ister even suggested that such portals make Aadhar numbers they noticed that a majority of to set their own their respondents felt that datparameters that look mandatory. “It’s a suggestion that obviously has the right ining in an Indian context felt too beyond caste and tent, but the penetration of Aadfrivolous. “We had never had a complexion har might not be enough for it to good dating site. On the ones be an altogether reliable meththat existed, over 90 per cent of od. Besides, we are also a global the users happened to be male. business,” says Gourav Rakshit There was no security,” says As president and COO of shaadi.com, RakshDhingra. The online matchmaking space, he adds, hadn’t transformed in over a decade. it doesn’t feel threatened by the advent of dating and too. matchmaking apps.is aHe it Gao, like Aliou, and Garba is from does. In Mali, we mostly “Moreover, enjoyeven Ta- matrimonial ent audiencesites but weren’t they’re definitely What we see here verysays differthe audience. wheat from chaff.

“It’s Timbuktu. Garba and Oumar knew kamba music — it’s safe for women. was this obvious prolifthe first music aThere dancing to Songhoy Blues. separates ent Wethe toured the UKwell last understood that you are looking we forfound a life each other. But we all got together in Songhoy child listens eration profiles.” to, it’sof sofake pureJuly, andifthe big difference partner, Shaadi is the shows place to be.timed If you—are Bamako, in 2012, following the (po- ly Songhoy. Nowadays,With improvement inby the younger peo- How and were sanitisation you discovered was how were bea casual date, have otherInapps litical) issue in north Mali. A friend ple listen to occidental mind,music the founders of Truly hitExpress? upon a looking for too, scouts ofMadly African fore, during andyou after shows.

Mafor that.” It been two years since of ours was getting married, and we but the older generation novel still idea.

For newWeusers up, Faceenjoys weresigning at a friend’s place, recordli, has we now played four-hour sets, but30in year-old Vikram posted his decided to get together and play at the Takamba, or famous book accounts first key this northernwould ing,only andprovide he tolda us about pro- architect Europe we had toGhosh* cater to the time BharatMatrimony.com.

“I met profile the wedding. It worked really well — artists like Ali FarkatoTouré the matchmaking platform.

The coming process of and Ibra- ject that was to town — onbefore and after the show assome well. women the site, butlooking they expected we played without a repertoire, but him Dicko. proving one’s credibility was to be more somebody called Marc exAntoine was from But we’re really forwardmy to parents be a presence from thedifferent start. I wantit was fabulous. The next day, we got haustive. Determined by a verification in Bamako to scout for of a band.

He todealing with the many culed to leavetures that encounter for later. a bottogether as a band. phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, driving liWhat are the other influences on suggested we contact and different waysI had of doing tom-up Theythe seemed cence and passport numbers, thehim. app’s makyour music?

Marc Antoine in- approach. things around world.to want a one.” After turning his attention to Did you run away from northern a totop-down Ali Farka Touré anders Ji-began assigning each of their subscribers troduced us Nick gaveis him more single Mali as you couldn’t listen to or play ‘trust score’. The idea, says Dhingra, was simmi Hendrix.

Zinner of theapps, Yeahwhich Which your access dream to venue? women inWe Kolkata, Ghoshname did go outplace, on more music there? ple — “The this score, theYeah betterYeahs. your Working can’t really one you Wehigher never imagined I blew chances An artist for whom music is banned Are you familiar witheventual prospects.”

Most datingwith appsNick often was adates. fabu-“I think know.

Aftermy India, we gowith backthe tolast Euthat one day we could girl by suggesting we spend a weekend tois like a body without a soul. Before Indian music? only allow users to connect with individuals lous experience. rope for a 20-date tour and play at be forbidden from said no. moved on,” says. we moved to Bamako, playing, and We’ve checked the linewho are located within a radius of 100-150 km. gether. Shesome bigI festivals, as he also with Juplaying music Writer Esha Kakar, however, the even living, under the rule of the Is- up at the festival but, By allowing its users to find matches be-you pick Whoeven would lian Casablancas fromdeserves The Strokes.

Shehope says, “The more I use these apps, lamic militants in Timbuktu had be- to be honest, we don’t yond this circumscribed limit, Dhingra says last word. We for a dream to get the chance to travel start that people are mudiscome impossible. We had never know much about any Truly Madly serves a more noble purpose: “We the more Iall collaboration? overbelieving the world and play our posable.

I don’t along with you, there is imagined that one day we could be of the other bands. will ensure that compatibility slowly to but We comes can’t say, we Ifsic to theget planet. littleAl-reason for me to give you a second forbidden from playing music — This is turning out to supersede be quitegeographical a dis- werelimitations.” very happy to meet Damon chance. There is looking someone else waiting and music is universal, there’s no one on covery for us. barn and work with Nick Zinner.

Are you forward to he’s only areturning free apptoaway.”

Fearing earth who doesn’t listen to music!

I do and some don’t northern Mali my and lot in modern matchmaking, If in you are lookingYou’ve for a collaborated match across thean the bins ofestablishing How does it feel to be India? with yourselves asI decide to quietly hitmusicians delete. there?

Does the underground music websites You’ve shouldplayed be your Amazing! India is oceans, all overmatrimonial African American. in London. of ofsome respondents haveplayed been culture make you different from next stop. Atofew after filled out an television, so getting a chance ac- days And nowI had you’re in India.

How (*NamesYes, course — we haven’t (the changed on request.) musicians elsewhere in the world? endless It’s questionnaire on shaadi.com tually be here is fabulous. very different were the experiences? there since we left.

I doan foropyou, dear reader),India I saw is that my No, but our music, which is born of good for a band likethings us to get Discovering amazing, and to SINGH is a freelance writer nevatia profile attractedget thethe attention of a Britishour roots and our culture, perhaps portunity to play here; it’shad a differopportunity to playshreevatsa here, PRERNA

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The banned band from Mali

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Bonding over the music they fled their country for, the Songhoy Blues are now playing at an NH7 Weekender gig near you

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hen armed Islamists took over northern Mali in early 2012, among the things they banned was music.

The penalty for playing or listening to music ranged from a public whipping to chopped hands. Among those who fled the country were guitarist Garba Touré, bass player Oumar Touré and singer Aliou Touré — the three are not related, Touré being a common surname in Mali, but all three belong to the Songhoy people. They met in Bamako in the south of Mali, bonded over their love for music, specifically the Desert Blues they played, and Songhoy Blues was born. Subsequently, they met drummer Nathanael Dembélé, and the band was complete. They hit the big time when they were discovered by musical talent scouts African Express. The Songhoy boys are currently playing at the Bacardi NH7 Weekenders across India. BLink caught up with them.

Did you know each other before you formed a band?

We were friends, yes. Oumar is from

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God of all things Once every year, Kerala’s theyyam artists bring the immortals down to earth

Red letter day An act of worshipping the Mother Goddess, a Bhagavathi Theyyam performance at Padannakad Tharavadu in Kasaragod

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ritualistic form of theatre believed to have originated two millennia ago, theyyam acts as the bridge between the believers and immortal spirits. It is unlike any other celebration in the subcontinent. For centuries, its practitioners have come from various subaltern communities of untouchables in Kerala’s caste hierarchy.

Legacy and years of committed obeisance turn the artists into divine incarnates and their performance into a supreme expression of myths, legends, metaphysical strains of thought and organic art.

But when does the mythical element of a culture morph into an art form that seeps into the lives of people and turns divine? From the moment a theyyam artist, who otherwise has an ordinary life, dons the face paint, the characters come alive on the streets of Kannur and Kasaragod in north Kerala. The cadence of the chendas (drums) set the tone for the night-long performances, as theyyam resuscitates myths and enlivens a culture.

Theyyam season gets underway from November, when the nights are filled with loud prayers and chants — the flames of torches gnawing away at darkness. Tales of caste humiliation give way to dignity, even honour and adulation. The earth is stamped with stories of revenge. The intensity of the ritual, the folklore, permeates the entire Malabar region.

One wonders what happens to the artists when they revert to being faces in the crowd though. How does it feel to suddenly give up the powers and magic of divinity bestowed upon them? Do the nights feel the same ever again?

The colour of magic An artist gets his face painted before a performance

thulasi kakkat

Blessed be thy name Bhagavathi Theyyam blesses devv Tharavadu in Kasaragod

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saturday, november 29, 2014

vvotees and hears their pleas at the Padannakad

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A proud lineage A boy from a traditional theyyam performers’ community

Evil eye A theyyam performance at Kamballur Kottayil Tharavadu in Kannur

Benediction home-delivered Bhagavathi Theyyam visits the homes of believers during the annual festival of Kaliyattam, near the Pilikodu Theru temple in Kasaragod

Motion picture Pottan Theyyam, a social satire, at Vavalithu Vanashastha temple in Kasaragod

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Love in the time of Tinder

Indigenous dating apps are giving new agency to young people who now believe romance, and perhaps even happily-ever-after are just a click away Breaking good In an ageist industry that usually relegates lead actresses to supporting roles after 30, Manju Warrier plays her age in How Old Are You

FILM FATALE

Moshé, Manju, Queen & I 2014 threw up three pleasant surprises — entertaining films that tell credible stories of women. That such films are rare is a result of gender politics, not economics anna mm vetticad

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inter is a time for bonfires, boots and smart overcoats.

It’s also the season for a parade of best-of-the-year-goneby lists from film critics. But I want to share with you a more personal compilation — three pleasant surprises for a cinephile forever in search of entertaining films that tell credible stories of women.

Queen Watching a mainstream Bollywood film which makes me go “oh my god, that could be me” is a rare experience. Queen was that kind of film. ife Thehad story a conservative justofbecome easier formiddlesingles class Delhi Ranaut) whotorediscovin girl the (Kangna city. Or so I was led believe. ers herself her fiancé dumps hersolitude shortly Theafter solution for melancholic before their reminded me Having of how waswedding, now justitan app away. starved we women of films about us. in proved their worthare as effective icebreakers US and India,dating homeplatforms to the world’s largetheThe West, mobile were fast st film industries, guilty on this in galvanising lonely are Indian hearts intofront action. different governed gender with politics The arrivalways, of Tinder neatlyby coincided the that drives economics.doppelgangers Here in India, such film inadvent of indigenous as dustry power structures are which so male-dominatThrill, Woo and Truly Madly, demanded ed, that despite a steady trickle in of through women a similar drill. Start by signing executives in production houses and the occayour Facebook account. Scan profiles of likely sional woman or writer,on films remain matches.

Makedirector snap judgments the basis of largely by the male age anddictated appearance.

Scan thegaze. personal details Result: of most tell achievements, stories of men trite and are told — digests career pick-up from a male pointquotes of view,byeven if women have lines even obtuse Rousseau.

Then, as substantial roles inwould them.have It isit, also generally Tinder vocabulary swipe left to assumed thatright women-focused reject, swipe to accept. films need to be about a dispiriting someone Approximately 48 ‘issue’ hours because after I had downsomewhere thinks womenbuzzed do not in have loaded Tinder, my phone theamusdead ing, uplifting of night.

Theexperiences. app had finally found me a In thisDevika*, scenario, was path-breaking in match. a Queen Mumbai-based advertising many ways. It was a woman whose existprofessional, wasabout passing through Kolkata ence in the film was dependent her reand was booked on anot flight the next on morning. lationship withwas a dominant hero, and it was A formal date logistically impossible.

A highly entertaining.

Director Bahl Tinder chat, however, helped easeVikas some boreshared theother writing with“I Parveez dom. “The day,”credits she typed, started Shaikh, Chaitally Anvita anddishy lead speaking to a manParmar, on Tinder whoDutt looked actor Kangna Ranaut herself — reminding us and obviously Punjabi.

It turns out, that that sometimes it takes to make warm, wasn’t a picture all of his to begin with.aHe was fun film about a woman is a sensitive man basically middle-aged, married and Bengali. who askshewomen what want and who His wife, later said, justthey wasn’t interested in they sex.” are.

I assured the 35-year-old that if I had to

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How Old Are You Moshé delivers an incredibly progressive, Director Rosshan Andrrews’ How Old Are You grim yet humorous take on women’s sexuality marked Malayalam actress Manju Warrier’s re- and sexual freedom. turn to films after a decade and a half. It turnThe film had a limited release in France back ed out to be startlingly courageous. Think then but got a lukewarm response, according about it: how often does a mainstream Indian to Moshé, “because the women’s liberation heroine ask her onscreen husband whether movement had not yet come into the French he would have wanted her to emigrate with media in a big way as it had in America by him to a foreign country if servants there were then, so French people thought the film was inexpensive? too much.” In 2008, a digitally restored verWarrier plays a woman who subordinated sion was released on DVD. Six years later at the her career ambitions in favour of a boring job Delhi screening, I asked myself for the mildipankar that would allow her to focus entirely on her lionth time: what prevents film industries husband and daughter, only to from making more such mainbecome their dis-I’d pick some- paused at pictures choose a the fakeobject pictureoffor myself, stream, of women-centric women snug infilms? the arms dain because of hercrop limited in- She laughed. of possible boyfriends one with a far richer of hair.

“Economics” is the standard and husbands.

Thrill’s terests and achievements.

In an when For And promised to party together in the answer. lies elsewhere. co-founder Josh IsraelThe saystruth he shares my bewilthe record, industry tends to retire lead had Queen city next.that My first Tinder exchange left me andderment.

In India’s inknow ifmale-dominated they are just bored How “I don’t actresses at a and relatively early age both curious confused. dustries, for instance,butmainorwere looking for another relationship, such Old Are You or Concerned relegate them to supporting about the breed of half-witted stream heroes are perennially anomalies can be seen the world over.” Two money-spinners roles, it was unusual see anbeac-mistaken for, I years after shifting and desperate men Ito might cast inbase lead roles from withNew largerto India Jertress her late 30s playing the Manchanda* sey, Israel believes askedin23-year-old blogger Nisha than-life Mainstream therepersonas. are perhaps other peheroine a film as if Indian in men knewpositioned how to navigate the world culiarities which heroines are country rarely offered set the apart.such The commercial, notHer ‘art cinema’. of online dating. answer was films. Over time, this creates 27-year-old entrepreneur saysa For the record, Queen HowexOld Are You were disparity in that a categorical “No!”andShe numbers and obsessiveness bedespite sharing many a habmoney-spinners, plained, “One of proving the first once mess-again that au- tween fans ofitmale stars.

Thisman usuwithand the female West, the Indian diences are far more open-minded than gen- ally ensures that ages I received on Tinder was the occasional commercial, still struggles when approaching One of the first dered film industries hilariously puzzling.give Thisthem guycredit for. woman-centric film —“Parents which ishave rarely marketwomen. found life messages I received just said, ‘Meow!’ Men use imaged as heavilypartners as hero-oriented — doesn’t for their films children for so on Tinder was LesofStances a Sophie es dogs and picturesque landget the samelong opening that a herothat collections a strange mindset has hilariously puzzling.

Indian film buffsprofile wouldpictures. perhaps best know Is- centric film does, scapes as their is more dependent on comeand to define India’s youth. EvThis guy just said, rael’s Moshéyou’ll Mizrahi the Oscar-winning di- word of mouth.

Sometimes seeas them put“We wants told you so,” producers ery man to know — how do ‘Meow!’ rectorupofaMadame Rosa (1977). ting group picture.

HowHe made his promptly say.I talk to women?” debut inI decode 1971 with theIFrench film Les Stances a should who am speakBut hey, youReleased created the system, andyear, you earlier this Sophie was lost to the work hard toThrill ing to?”(Sophie’s Though Ways), tired ofwhich looking perpetuate Films 60,000 like Queen alreadyit.boasts usworld nearly four decades for theforproverbial Waldo everthereafter be- and How Old Are the Priyanka ers You and(and 20,000 matches.ChopraIsrael, causeshe thebecame producer went bankrupt andNisha most though since a Tinder user this May, starrer Mary Kom, realistic for that matter) have numbeen remains about such printsbelieve were seized. does that most dating apps are more bers. hits despite these constraints.

Make such “Apps like ours are only taking a crack at And then the Embassy of Israel women-friendly.

“I’d say that Icalled haveearlier been afilms in large numbers overOur a period minute urban population. users of aretime, part this month.

They screening Sophie’s Ways of matched with 98 were per cent of the men I swiped create circumstances heroes and thatequitable hip, young crowd, whichfor is already frein Delhi. moderate discussion right for. Would It gave Ime a great aego boost at with first, quenting heroines, bars and and thennightclubs. see how many more The idea is of to the octogenarian but after a while director? you realise that men swipe access these you It’spopulace.” a crying shame in the the get. larger Thrill’sthat founders Sophie’s Ways is about a young in have right for almost every woman theywoman see. It can 21st century, film buffs likeonmethe arecountry’s making their hopes pinned 1970a Paris who does not believe in being tied much-hyped get bit much.” such lists of pleasant surprises.

18-25 age demographic. “For down to onesuggests man, butthat impulsively Evidence dating succumbs platforms them, shaadi.com is just not cool. As time promma vetticad is the author of The pie Adventures to a marriage proposal early the film.

As she anna can be equally puzzling forinmen.

Browsing gresses, slice of that matrimonial will bean Intrepid Filmdating Critic t@annavetticad becomes prospective frustrated with the relationship, through profiles on Thrill, I of long to mobile apps,” says Israel.

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saturday, november 29, 2014

The likes of Tinder and Thrill are taking on a veritable Goliath. A matrimonial service like shaadi.com claims to attract 10,000 subscribers every day. Chances of a radical transformation seem remote, but for some, matchmaking is up for a swap and a swipe.

The traffic attracted by an online matrimonial profile is often the subject of an entire family’s curiosity. Mobile dating and discovery apps, on the other hand, offer more private agency. No longer reliant on just an aunt’s or colleague’s introduction, hundreds of Indian youngsters now carry in their pockets the possibility of an independent and sudden romance. Since social apprehensions dictate that the use of these mobile platforms remains both awkward and surreptitious, most urban users only secretly admit to playing a new kind of virtual roulette. The odds of rejection are high, but that doesn’t seem to dampen their hope for love and intimacy. Many believe that these novel wheels of Tinder-like fortune will one day turn enough for them to get lucky.

Standing apart Local Out of Africa dating apps like Truly The Songhoy Madly hope to attract Blues (from left) youngsters who are Oumar Touré, looking for partners Aliou Touré, without parental Nathanael supervision Dembélé and Garba Touré andy morgan

the rain. I had spoken to a stranger for eight Asian government employee. Checking the hours straight. It would have all been a drea- boxes of our criteria, I finally found the catch I my first romantic date, but things fizzled out.” instinctively knew existed. She expected me to There have been other long drives and earn a crore and more every year. My inadenights at the movies. Wanting to record her quacy plaguing me, I stayed away from the adventures in this brave new world of mobile website. A week later, I received an afternoon dating, Kakar is cataloguing them for her first call from a Shaadi executive. She wanted to book. Though she still remains part of the ar- know what I was looking for in a potential life ranged marriage framework, she feels that ap- partner. “Like-mindedness,” I muttered. “No plications like Tinder and Truly Madly help caste preferences, Sir?” Taken back, I realised engineer a more direct correspondence, my ‘No’ sounded more apologetic than emthereby eliminating the middleman. But a phatic. The conversation ended with an invitasuitably meaningful relationship, she asserts, tion to the matrimonial portal’s city office and might well be a rarity. “The general idea is that the carrot being dangled — “You can even get if a girl is using a dating app, she must be numbers, Sir!” promiscuous. Men often end up viewing such Mallika Garg*, a 31-year-old educationist spaces as hook-up platforms.” To counter such working in Bengaluru, had for long navigated perceptions, the founders of Woo and Truly the space of online matrimony before she Madly are trying to shed the ‘dating’ tag, delib- found her husband on shaadi.com three years erately positioning their apps as social discov- ago. Her first tip — “Make sure you don’t have ery and matchmaking products. “Hardly bad grammar. Badly written profiles are an inanyone wants to be matched with a thrill-seek- stant turn-off.” Dating applications, she says, er or someone looking for just a casual fling,” might possibly have been attractive to her if says Sumesh Menon, CEO and co-founder of she were 21. “Once you are 26 and have decided U2opia Mobile, the company that launched to settle down, you certainly wouldn’t want to be on a public dating platform.” Even though Finding middle ground Woo this July.

Six months ago, writer Esha Kakar* and her Rather than attracting the college-goer, Me- her husband doesn’t like telling acquaintfriend talked about the difficulties of meeting non stresses that Woo’s target audience is the ances that the couple met on a matrimonial single men in Mumbai. “At some point, this young professional who has made some head- platform, Garg is grateful for the relatively friend took my phone from me and downloadway in his or her career. “These people are fi- anonymous search Shaadi allowed her. “I ed Tinder,” says 26-year-old Kakar. The first nancially independent. They don’t want to didn’t have to give out my picture or any other date proved disappointing. Her Tinder match outsource the process of finding their life information I felt uncomfortable sharing. But needed alcohol to converse with women. partner. Unlike the conventional matrimonial that said, finding someone on Shaadi is a lot Worse still, he was preparing for his GMAT and website, where matches are made on the basis like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Garg remembers sifting through hundreds wanted Kakar to proof his English. “It felt like I of caste and complexion, individuals now had just met Rajesh Koothrappali from The Big want to set their own parameters that aren’t of profiles that were quite obviously faked. “It Bang Theory.” Another Tinder conversation transactional.” Menon clearly wants to create just made the whole process that much harone night carried itself to the phone and then a virtual environment that is conducive for a der.” Women and child development minister to an impulsive breakfast. “We even got wet in “serious” relationship. Hitesh Dhingra, co- Maneka Gandhi clearly had the interests of several Mallikas in mind when founder of Truly Madly, seems to she recently demanded that onbe on a similar page. line matrimonial sites revamp In the months of research that their security features. The minDhingra and his team conducted before releasing their app, Individuals now want ister even suggested that such portals make Aadhar numbers they noticed that a majority of to set their own their respondents felt that datparameters that look mandatory. “It’s a suggestion that obviously has the right ining in an Indian context felt too beyond caste and tent, but the penetration of Aadfrivolous. “We had never had a complexion har might not be enough for it to good dating site. On the ones be an altogether reliable meththat existed, over 90 per cent of od. Besides, we are also a global the users happened to be male. business,” says Gourav Rakshit There was no security,” says As president and COO of shaadi.com, RakshDhingra. The online matchmaking space, he adds, hadn’t transformed in over a decade. it doesn’t feel threatened by the advent of dating and too. matchmaking apps.is aHe it Gao, like Aliou, and Garba is from does. In Mali, we mostly “Moreover, weren’t definitely enjoyeven Ta- matrimonial ent audiencesites but they’re What we see here verysays differthe audience. wheat from chaff.

“It’s Timbuktu. Garba and Oumar knew kamba music — it’s safe for women. was this obvious prolifthe first music aThere dancing to Songhoy Blues. separates ent Wethe toured the UKwell last understood that you looking we forfound a life each other. But we all got together in Songhoy child listens eration profiles.” to, it’sof sofake pureJuly, andifthe bigare difference partner, Shaadi is the shows place to be.timed If you— are Bamako, in 2012, following the (po- ly Songhoy. Nowadays,With improvement sanitisation inby the younger peo- How and were you discovered was how were bea casual date, have otherInapps litical) issue in north Mali. A friend ple listen to occidental mind,music the founders of Truly hit upon a looking for too, scouts ofMadly African Express? fore, during andyou after shows.

Mafor that.” It been two years since of ours was getting married, and we but the older generation novelstill idea.

For newWeusers up, Faceenjoys weresigning at a friend’s place, recordli, has we now played four-hour sets, but30in year-old Vikram posted his decided to get together and play at the Takamba, or famous book accounts first key this northernwould ing,only andprovide he toldaus about pro- architect Europe we had toGhosh* cater to the time BharatMatrimony.com.

“I met profile the wedding. It worked really well — artists like Ali FarkatoTouré the matchmaking platform.

Thecoming process of and Ibra- ject that was to town — onbefore and after the show as some well. women the site, butlooking they expected we played without a repertoire, but him Dicko. proving one’s credibility was to be more somebody called Marc exAntoine was from But we’re really forwardmy to parents be a presence from thedifferent start. I wantit was fabulous. The next day, we got haustive. Determined by a verification in Bamako to scout for of a band.

He todealing with the many culed to leavetures that encounter for later. a bottogether as a band. phone numbers, LinkedIn profiles, driving liWhat are the other influences on suggested we contact and different waysI had of doing tom-up Theythe seemed cence and passport numbers, the app’s makyour music? him.

Marc Antoine in- approach. things around world.to want a one.” After turning his attention to Did you run away from northern a totop-down Ali Farka Touré anders Ji- began assigning each of their subscribers troduced us Nick gaveis him more single Mali as you couldn’t listen to or play ‘trust score’. The idea, says Dhingra, was simmi Hendrix.

Zinner of theapps, Yeahwhich Which your access dream to venue? women inWe Kolkata, Ghoshname did go outplace, on more music there? ple — “The this score, theYeah better your Working Yeahs. can’t really one you Wehigher never imagined I blew chances An artist for whom music is banned Are you familiar witheventual prospects.”

Most datingwith apps often Nick was adates. fabu-“I think know.

Aftermy India, we gowith backthe to last Euthat one day we could girl by suggesting we spend a weekend tois like a body without a soul. Before Indian music? only allow users to connect with individuals lous experience. rope for a 20-date tour and play at be forbidden from said no. moved on,” we moved to Bamako, playing, and We’ve checked the linewho are located within a radius of 100-150 km. gether. Shesome big Ifestivals, as he alsosays. with Juplaying music Writer lian EshaCasablancas Kakar, however, the even living, under the rule of the Is- up at the festival but, By allowing its users to find matches be-you pick Whoeven would from deserves The Strokes.

Shehope says, “The I use these apps, lamic militants in Timbuktu had be- to be honest, we don’t yond this circumscribed limit, Dhingra says last word.We for a dream to getmore the chance to travel I start that aremudiscome impossible. We had never know much about any Truly Madly serves a more noble purpose: “We the more all collaboration? overbelieving the world andpeople play our posable.

I don’t along with you, there is imagined that one day we could be of the other bands. will ensure that compatibility slowly to but We comes can’t say, we Ifsic to theget planet. littleAl-reason for me to give you a second forbidden from playing music — This is turning out to supersede be quitegeographical a dis- werelimitations.” very happy to meet Damon chance. There is looking someone else waiting and music is universal, there’s no one on covery for us. barn and work with Nick Zinner.

Are you forward to he’s only returning a free apptoaway.”

Fearing earth who doesn’t listen to music!

I do and some don’t northern Mali my and lot in modern matchmaking, If in you are lookingYou’ve for a collaborated match across the How does it feel to be India? with an the bins ofestablishing yourselves asI decide to quietly hitmusicians delete. there?

Does the underground music websites You’ve shouldplayed be your Amazing! India is oceans, all overmatrimonial African American. in London. of ofsome respondents haveplayed been culture make you different from next stop. Atofew after filled out an television, so getting a chance ac- days And nowI had you’re in India.

How (*NamesYes, course — we haven’t (the changed on request.) musicians elsewhere in the world? endless It’s questionnaire on shaadi.com tually be here is fabulous. very different were the experiences? there since we left.

I doan foropyou, dear reader),India I saw is that my and to No, but our music, which is born of good for a band likethings us to get Discovering amazing, SINGH is a freelance writer nevatia profile attractedget thethe attention of a Britishour roots and our culture, perhaps portunity to play here; it’shad a differopportunity to playshreevatsa here, PRERNA

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The banned band from Mali

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Bonding over the music they fled their country for, the Songhoy Blues are now playing at an NH7 Weekender gig near you

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hen armed Islamists took over northern Mali in early 2012, among the things they banned was music.

The penalty for playing or listening to music ranged from a public whipping to chopped hands. Among those who fled the country were guitarist Garba Touré, bass player Oumar Touré and singer Aliou Touré — the three are not related, Touré being a common surname in Mali, but all three belong to the Songhoy people. They met in Bamako in the south of Mali, bonded over their love for music, specifically the Desert Blues they played, and Songhoy Blues was born. Subsequently, they met drummer Nathanael Dembélé, and the band was complete. They hit the big time when they were discovered by musical talent scouts African Express. The Songhoy boys are currently playing at the Bacardi NH7 Weekenders across India. BLink caught up with them.

Did you know each other before you formed a band?

We were friends, yes. Oumar is from

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PRESENT IMPERFECT

Go Sanskrit, yo!

ELSEWHERE

How do you say the following in Sanskrit? Take it from the top

Cracks within

A daughter’s brave and harrowing investigation into her mother’s madness

The happy comings and goings at a recent conference

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he South Asia Conference I attended in Madison, Wisconsin, was good fun. I had been given a room at the conference venue, the Madison Concourse HoLucile had written on the family — where the grandfather tel. It was around 5pm when I arrived and the lobby mirror in the bathroom in lusts after young girls, where multiwas already swarming with academics. Most had flown in blood-red lipstick: ‘I’m going ple family members commit suifrom around the US. What a complete contrast to my usual to crack.’ Every morning, we cide, where the author must face up life. It was like leaping from a tiny goldfish bowl into a giant would comb our hair looking to her own battles with anorexia. In aquarium, full of much bigger and more powerful fish. in this mirror, this threat how many ways can one family be The hotel achieved a very agreeable balance between being tattooed on our faces. unhappy, one might ask. Clearly, in grand and most efficiently run, while also being humanall too many ways. scaled and friendly. ow does a 12-year-old girl The most harrowing parts of the My charming host, Dr Aparna Dharwadker, Head of Theatre and her younger sister book provide a child’s view of her and English at Wisconsin University (WU), was waiting for me respond to a mother’s mother’s madness. “My mother was in the lobby. We had met once, many years ago, so it was good threats on a mirror, her an adult. My mother had read a lot to catch up with her. My stay was only for two nights and I had ravings, her listing? What fears am- and knew lots of things. My mother to plunge right into the swim of events. The conference reprebush the child as she watches her was clever. How could I imagine that sents a major meeting point for many different academic dismother descend into drugs and de- my mother was talking nonsense? I ciplines with South Asia as their focus. I had just enough time lusions? Is her biggest fear finding was thirteen years old.” The child’s to rush up to the 12th floor, have a shower and change before her mother dead? Or following her awareness of her mother’s disorrushing down again in time for the buffet dinner that had mother down a similar path of de- ders, and her inability to accept it been organised for all visitors and delegates. struction and destructiveness? come out all too vividly.

The weekend, for me, involved two highlights: at 8 the next These are just some of the quesWith every layer of family history morning I would have 45 minutes in which to talk about my tions raised in French Del- that is peeled back, Is there an appauthor for that?

Let’s create a hashtag and Tweet the life out lower case and must contain at least one nude Vigan finds play Harvest to a group of mostly phine de Vigan’s Nothing Holds Back Although education minister Smriti Irani deeper of it. Aparna’s students. In the evening, meralinto andunfortuone symbol. herself sinking the Night,has ansaid autobiographical CBSE schools under this new “Everything about history. that learning novel Sanskrit nate is nottruths compulbut alsoBringing growing all more there wasistonot be abad rehearsed read- Anthat is breathless with tragedy but effectively India greatdirected scientificbymind and rich sory, the removal of German makes rabid about facts.rule She would listens mean to re- the number of students af- cienting of had the play, one of It was like leaping never maudlin fected run into tens of lakhs. But what’s knowledge.

We need to find how Lieder. to do its PR,” it the onlywith viablesuffering. option forImost students.pores over cordings, herwill mother’s these students, Katherine from a tiny goldfish came to this book with no expectaSeptember quarter disappoints Indiadigs Inc. for more Ms Irani said.met Presumably, shein is referpapers, dates important? and huntsTradition, dude!

We had earlier in by thePRyear, bowl into a giant regional languages meant police to be records.

Does She that longs come in fuchsia? Or is it only ring to tions. The While paperback shows a glam- were public relations.

It is defined as a stratethrough India: bright as an acetylene torch, aquarium made available to the students since that saffron? orous woman (Lucile) on cover.as an gic communication process that foroption the liberties fiction might highly focused, intensely driven. we story judge this decision 1988,hair there hasover been a great of difficulty Her blonde falls her ears. deal mutuallyis beneficial offer, but believes Before that this Being inbuilds her company like hav- relaharshly,and we must uniformity.

Her lipsmaintaining gently parted, having just must adhere to events between organisations occur-understand the ing an tionships energy transfusion!

She Apparently, most famous sentence minister exhaled smoke from the cigarette andathe public. rences, not in whimsies andknows memo-what’s best for presented paper at the mornThe GDP of a country Girlfriend ries. is Madhav tell-becomes You canthen, hire aafter spinlunch, doctor pretBhagat’s Half the country.

Regional languages betweenChetan her fingers.

A distinct This book more than a ing’s session, another in the afternoon and rises when reading, hai just to de,asvarna kat le”.narration of inghovers Riya —over “Detiher, ty easily these days. Send out a reandtragedies, Sanskrit are she preparing for the evening’s reading.

French air it mere be-important,began writing and Studentsthis of book, Kendriya Vidyalayas who into questwoman for proposal said, the sweeps through where cause(KV) it delves thebecause very act ofGDP of a counThe play’s main character is a young calledASAP. Jaya. At comprehension Perhaps, further pursuit of have been hang studying now have tryVigan rises plots whenher reading, writing family members outGerman in the until writing.

Eventoas de this performance, Jaya’s part was played by a in very attractive is done in the local ancient India’s scientific another language or alife, re- sheand comprehension is done in Dr Ayeshah Emon. She lectures buff, eatswitch lavishto meals and spend — Sanskrit mother’s admits that a person, on Language and Cul- mind language and rich knowledge, gional oneFrom — irrespective of thebook, fact that theya fact, the will localalways language. days by the beach. first appeara story, be ture at WU. She and Aparna were both performing thatIrani eve- spent wash at 30°. Doning. not Ayeshah, who is originallyfour hours on Sunday consulting do not havethink academic in either. ances, one might this isgrounding just only one person’s Machine truth. Nothing from Pakistan, needed Bhagat’s Half with Girlfriend has somore, far sold a few less. tumble in get Karoi vilanother fey love story a Parinothing She dry. writes: “I sari-tying help, so both of them with camean to astrologer my room to However, not million copies. lage in Rajasthan. sian beauty. don’t want to know what sort ofMs wifeIrani did dressed.

It was like being college students together, the three Over 70,000 students from 500 KVs will be was. just got real. mention gatheredand for exchanging storiesShit It is anything but that.

The book or lover Lucile That’s what none kind of of dataofwas us chatting of growing up in differIt is entirely possible that astrology, palmistaffected by this knee-jerk decision.

But not to study nor did any examples of opens with the author finding her my business.

I amthis writing about Lu- she quoteent parts of the subcontinent.

I had lived in Pakistan for three ry and offered counselling, countries or communities that successmother’sworry, blue, they pale will blue,bedays-old cile throughthe the eyes of a child who yearshave as a child and have fondnumerology memories. would be introduced as possible compulsory subjects for students minister said. fully demonstrated body. That discovery throws her into grew up too fast, writing about the this ‘hypothesis’.

Though I’ve seen the play many times, a good performance Let me just Google that.

Yo Yo HoneyHer Singh’s most successful song to from ClassThe IV to XII. If it is, I am it would a “vast dung hill”, from which she mystery she always was to me...” is always interesting attend. multi-ethnic castcertain held the Themother’s policy ofpast.

KVs has been toinvestigations offer regional into It in hastheir nearly thisher yearmother’s is ‘Char bottle vodka’.

GDP too.passion and good excavates her Nothing scripts hands,help butincrease they read with Got a mani-pedi recently? languages 15 or more for also three million Holds Back the Nightonly is deif Vigan’s at- students point ofopt rupture lead her toviews the on YouTube. energy. Afterwards, we all went to the Capital Tap House, a loEconomists are struggling comprehend Armedofwith Sanskrit, regional languages hence,amost schools arefor unprepared any of her tempt toit;create “paper coffin” startingfor point own writing, caltobar and eatery, as guests Aparna’s equally charming howanother. use of local language affects the Vinay, GDP ofalso a aand palmistry scientists, have so option other than Sanskrit language. the woman who was always tooas third where one feeds into husband professor at WU. EveryoneIndia was inwill high will too leave the next generation in country. defined as the monetary valuebut we much GDP, we won’t haveevening place toended keep it. It’ll beautiful, Subsidies too sensitive, distant, Through Nothing Holds GDP Backisthe and good spirits, were all tired too. The said Arun Jaitley.at the Night, de Vigan comes of all a happy be spilling out In of spring everyone’s and cupand whodebt, committed suicide togoods admireand herservices produced early withwithin hugs and farewells. next pockets year, there writingstrength, to all meets country’s borders in a specific time period, boards. We’ll buy hard disks and pen drives to age of 61. Education ministry is also sister’s her mother will be a staged performance of the play.

Perchance we shall CBSE schoolsthat to make the—three languages — usually Someet far, the role of store our excess GDP. It’ll be awesome!

The first question de Vigan anew and ultimately findscalculated reconcil- annually.all again.

Wtf?!

English, Hindi and Sanskrit/regional hadfinds been kept out while computing author of the well-acclaimed Under- iation.language In the act oflanguage writing, she — compulsory. growth,which but since said this, it ground Time and No and Me — must a semblance of meaning, was the minister MANJULA PADMANABHAN , author and artist, tells us tales of her parallel life passwordshe must be a mixdenied of upper t@veenavenugopal must be true. deal withYour is whether should herand in childhood. in Elsewhere, US, in this fortnightly series marginalien.blogspot.in write this book. A book — which unearths desperately dark secrets of a nandini nair

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Nothing Holds Back the Night Delphine de Vigan Bloomsbury ₹399

Script to stage

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Out with the old Lahore is today a city of developments, but UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY the banks of the Ravi river remind one of a gentler city afp/arif ali

The Gorakhpuri Justice Mohammed Ismail was not merely a former High Court judge at Allahabad. His past was far more complicated Sucked in, despite himself, into the politics of the times, Mohammed Ismail became a member of the Zamindar Party, something like the Unionist Party of Punjab, in that it did not wish to follow the line of either the Indian National Congress or the Muslim League. Liaquat Ali Khan, who would one day become the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and be assassinated, allegedly because he wanted to curtail the powers of the zamindars, served as the Secretary of the Zamindar Party when Mohammed Ismail HOME SPUN was the President. As the political tensions heightened, Mohammed Ismail was called to the High Court at Allahabad and became Justice Ismail, watching the events of the mid-’30s and early ’40s unfold from behind the bench.

After retirement, he got a In the spotlight Justice Mohammed Ismail seen here with Indira Gandhi and India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who strange request. The Radoffered him a berth in his Cabinet courtesy shakil ahmad cliffe Award had been announced, India and Pakistan he letter came Justice Mo-in my rowing up infor Lahore, I lived For two long years thereafter, great tree and neighbourhoods I didn’t the know existed werewith to be divided, There but a are Commission customers. traffic jamswas at 11pm. hammed Ismailkothi while was in Raiparents’ inhe the quiet suburb next met to the Jama Masjid was usedacross as a hanging people I’d never come in my polite needed decideexpansion, outlying Lahore issues. has Patrick In itstorestless gobbled garh, setting up theOur judicial of Gulberg. kothisystem was surtree for “rebels”.

Munshipehelwans Khalil, as young as he Spens, Gulberg enclave: (bodybuilders), chief of that British upthe the last fields and justice orchards onceIndia, lay on its of what was then Eastern rounded bythe other suchStates kothis bewas, prostitutes, became the eldest survivingstreet male insweepers, the served gravediggers, as the head of isthe Commission. outskirts.

There a dizzying arrayHarilal of new ‘deAgency.

The Agency an odd amalgamation longing to mywas Lahori aunts and uncles and family and was disallowed fromofsetting foot mullahs, beggars, painters cinema hoardJekisundas Kania, who would go on to be indevelopments’: Defence Phase One, Two, Three, of thecousins, princely Orissa Chhattisof states which of there wereand many.

There were outside house for years. Later, his poings,hishakeems (medicine men),when truckers, pendent Chief Justice, represented Four,India’s Five, first Faisal Town, Bahar Town, Johar garh,mango which trees had, at resisted incorporain first, our gardens and fat, yellow sons ets. grew Khalil understood formal Inup, chronicling their lives,that I began for the India’s interests. of Pakistan Town.

DespiteThe all itsRepublic dysfunctions, Lahore pultion marigolds into India. and Vallabhai Patel, India’s At first Indian hoopoes. night, education was to theknow only way ac- the city fully. first time and to inhabit asked Justice Ismail. He did not sates with a new energy.

Homeswarms Minister, and his blinked able Secretary at the of of fireflies like indicators quire a Ten ‘position’ British years in later, I leftIndia, again. In the 20 years wish to shift to to Lahore Pakistan at unique. his What has happened is not Ministry of States, metcousins with the feudatory invisible cars. We hopped over each and so heI sent toaway study that have his nowsons lived from Lahore, I have Charming age. had all lived a full life, with oldHe towns over the subcontinent chiefsother’s in December hammered a of garden 1947 wallsand to play endlessout games in England, where changed.

I am his noweldest, a wife,Is-a mother, a house- have morphed many contacts in his homeland. into brash, congested cities. A The Chauri resolution.

Patel had a fairly clear idea of what mail,holder. hide-and-seek and badminton. studiedLahore law, andtoo his has youngchanged.

The smallChaura Mountbatten, Jinnah and for Nehru part of me welcomes this growth, intellecriots to I know he wanted the Indian State to look like, and heI had Mine was a calm, bourgeois existence. est, Moezuddin, medicine. town has grown into a teeming city.

Itsforced infras-himtually all accepted this condition. he that change is the onlySo evidence prosecute people he recruited peoplehaunts: like Justice Ismail,—a the former my regular my school Convent Mohammed wasstrained. in tructure isIsmail horribly served and then when of his life.term, But emotionally I resent did not wish to, and it Patelit.

HighofCourt at Allahabad, to build art the deco Jesusjudge and Mary; my grandparents’ greatThere demand as a traffic lawyerjams, whenpolluare epic asked, he went Raigarh.

Because everytotime someone I systems that would keep bazaar, such a State running. mansion; Anarkali where we bought he returned, andshortages, private practice tion, water prolongedwas the first case in And thenknew camedies the letter: once or a “Juspersonal Justice Ismail, was notChi merely a for- purshawls andthough, chappals; Kow restaurant, would have rewarded him Old well,land-which Justice Ismail electricity blackouts. tice Ismail, will disappears, you be the Pakislandmark I feel as if Intellectually himself I knowtani yet mer judge; far morecurries’; complicated. veyorshis ofpast finewas‘Chinese my best but Munshi counselled a My recused marks Khalil have disappeared.

High Commissioner to another of the many threads that change is the India?”

Justice Ismail’s father, sahib friend’s house on aMunshi shady Khalil road in Cantondifferent path. Therefore, grandparents’ house when is now a There been the Partithat oncehad tethered me to the city only evidence of life.tion massacres, of Gorakhpur, wasClub, eightwhere years we oldmet when ment; Punjab ‘ourthe sort of Mohandas Karamchand bank. In the place ofGandhi Regal CinetheAnd refugee has snapped. theprobtruth is I But emotionally I lem, feel 1857 Uprising tookSunday place. Gorakhpur hadCinema come on people’ over lunch; Regal performed his afirst train ma stands mall.great Kow Chi is long thebereft. war in Jammu and resent it under British governance only insaw 1810,the and it yatragone.

Mall Road, where we always three-toacrossMynorth best India, friend’sMofamily Kashmir, and Pakistan wanted to live I visit often. My parents had been a difficult decades besetfor by powsix show, so wefew could be home dinner. hammed It sold their Ismailhouse was the andgovernment moved. Theprosecu- communicate with Indiaasthrough there, do my somebody siblings. I still er struggles the dust Caught wasn’t abefore late-night city.settled.

By 10pm, mostup streets tor. He wanted welcome Gandhi, Convent of to Jesus and Mary, and but his the latter would have trust.many Justice Ismailthere. askedBut I friends in thewere Anglo-Gorkha and pacifdeserted, wars except forthen the the alleys of the position wouldn’t allowbut it, so heroads sent his bug- Nehru, who replied, Anarkali still stand the “I would much rather to you never stay long enough estabication of theCity forest tribes, the British neversensibilre- gy. The Walled where a more permissive horseare wassoremoved from to them congested thatthe it’sharness, would have joinedlish my Cabinet.”

“On what ba-forge new relationships, ally managed to assert and then ity prevailed.

But if themselves, I, safe and secure in my litand people pulled the buggy

by The the power of and been years since I visited. hoopoes sis?” new asked Justice Ismail, “Who bonds.

In moving away Ihas haveelected unhitched cametle theLahore, brushfire of 1857, and anything their rulebut wasstaid seldom heard theirfireflies limbs tohave the site wherefrom Gandhi his garvanished mymade parents’ me? If I were part ofnarrative your Cabinet, would my unfolding fromI that of only Lahore. I thwarted.

For aexpressed year or so,by Gorakhpur a libopinions bourgeoiswas folk, I didn’t first great publicofspeech in north India, mov- represent den. Many the inhabitants I interviewed you, since youLahori wouldby have selected tell myself I am still birth and will alerated area, under the know administration complain.

I didn’t any better.of Mo- ing Premchand, who was inwith the have audience, and forged friendships died. to me.” ways Nehru Justice beagreed, so. Butand as long as Ismail I don’tbecame live there, I hammed of to Jaunpur and theI met ThenHassan I went away university, where give upThe hisnewspaper government job andatbecome I worked is still athere, the second High Commissioner to am not Pakistani Lahori by choice.

There’s a difference, I generalship of Bandhu Singh.

Afterdifferent Lucknowcounpeople from different classes, writer.

For Mohammed outcome manned by a team Ismail, of freshthe young faces. But India,think, serving 1948 towith 1952,anever surrenin from identifying city and inhabitwas taken and of Delhi overthrown, the British, tries and different convictions.

Five years was different.

Theare Chauri thatgame fol- in newspapers nowChaura passé. riots The new dering inghis it. AIndian crucialcitizenship, difference. and returning assisted bywhen the Sikhs and Gorkhas, had their re- my later I returned to Lahore, I found lowed a year in 1922, forcedand him24-hour to prose-news town is later, satellite television to Gorakhpur to live out his last days.chronicle the ci(In this monthly series, authors vengelife upon the Purabias from modrestrictive.

I joined(people a newspaper, where my cute channels. people he Cool did not andmushroomed it was the — ties they call home.) newwish jobsto, have t@OmairTAhmad ern-day east UP and areas of alumni Bihar). nor colleagues wereadjoining neither Convent first case which he recused himself. event manthereinare educational consultants, Punjab Club members. Using my job as a pre- agers, web designers, nutritionists, environ- moni mohsin is the author of The Return of the text, I set about discovering Lahore. I visited mentalists, listening therapists. Shops heave Butterfly

It’s complicated

The hoopoes and fireflies have vanished from my parents’ garden in Lahore. With every disappearance, yet another thread that once tethered me to the city snaps

moni mohsin

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I SPY

What’s colour of cold?

Glory the to dust

An alumnus of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, artist Nityan Unnikrishnan looks is thinking of privatising sector at The Delhi,government the city he now calls home, throughsick thepublic frosted glass undertakings (PSUs). BLink brings to you five companies that were It isn’t— a morning without MS responsible for several ‘firsts’ in08.00 India from watches and film rolls and Suprabhatam 07.30 A quiet start 09.00 A winter’s day to landline phones and air travel. Today, each of these companies is sick — having lost in a financial year 50 per cent or more of its average net worth in the four preceding years. Here’s a quick peek at their history and current status

HMT Watches

09.30 Off to work

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et up in 1961 in collaboration with Japan’s Citizen Watch Co, HMT was synonymous with watches and clocks in the ’60s and ’70s. On July 28 that year, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru released the first batch of hand-wound wristwatches manufactured at the company’s Bengaluru plant. In 1985, it began making floral clocks (the one in Bengaluru’s Lal Bagh garden is famous even today), solar clocks and tower clocks.

What went wrong: HMT failed to come up with newer designs to keep pace with changing consumer demands.

Lack of innovation, combined with the 10.00 Now this, I’d drive arrival of Tata group’s watchmaker, Titan, proved inimical to HMT, relegating it to the fringes of the industry.

12.00 At work

09.45 Build it

09.46 Break it

Status update: Net loss of ₹242.47 crore in FY13; negative networth of ₹2,012 crore.

10.30 Déjà vu: “We’ve found your key…

Please collect it from 2nd floor”

12.30 The mess

11.30 Winter light in the studio

Scooters India Ltd

13.00 A chair prototype

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he company was launched in 1972 with plant and machinery bought from Italy’s Innocenti. The buy included the worldwide trademark registration of the iconic two-wheeler Lambretta.

The scooter was sold as Vijai Super in the domestic market and Lambretta overseas. In 1975, SIL added an extra wheel to launch its Vikram or Lambro brand of three-wheelers.

What went wrong: By the late ’80s, there was competition from new

players such as Kinetic Honda, LML, Hero Honda and Yamaha, which created excess capacity in the two-wheeler industry. Beset by labour issues, SIL’s worn-out plant near Lucknow and outdated technology were no match for the competition’s advanced and fuel-efficient technologies.

Status update: Loss of ₹6 crore on sales of ₹209 crore in FY13. After losses over a decade since 2002-03, SIL was declared sick in 2009.

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Hindustan Photo Films 14.00 Staring competition with ‘The Girl on the Wall’

Hindustan Cables Ltd L

ocated in Rupnarainpur, West Ben-

16.00 End of another workday... measured gal, since 1952 the company has in teacups?

connected the nooks and crannies of India through its jelly-filled and optical fibre cables. The Department of Telecom as well as the public-sector communication firms, BSNL and MTNL, were its customers in the pre-mobile phone era. HCL manufactured not just the fixed line networks, but also the coils in the phones.

What went wrong: Demand for polythene insulated jelly-filled (PIJF) cable, HCL’s main product, vanished with the advent of wireless (mobile) tech-

19.00 Cooking dinner (oh, the vegetables will also be cooked)

17.30 Weekly supply of vegetables

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his PSU, set up in the hill-station Udhagamandalam (Ooty) in 1960, manufactured raw cine films for the movie industry, X-ray films, graphic arts films and photographic paper. It was here that Bollywood film rolls were developed for decades until digital cameras took over. Today, the plant is only used to develop negatives.

What went wrong: Failure to adapt to newer technologies, which ne-

nology requiring optical fibre cables. In FY11, HCL’s optical-fibre manufactur16.30 A run at Lodhi Garden ing plant in Naini, near Allahabad, too became non-operative due to technological obsolescence.

Status update: Loss of ₹885 crore on revenues of a mere ₹3.22 crore in FY13. The company was referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction in 2002.

cessitated diversification into IV fluids, colour paper, digital films and non-silver films. The Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction declared it sick in 1996.

Status update: It reported a net loss of ₹463.5 crore in the December 2013 quarter, with sales of just ₹22 lakh.

In March 2013, a ₹181-crore voluntary retirement package was announced for the employees.

19.30 Music with friends

Air India O

n October 15, 1932, Tata Airlines launched the country’s first commercial flight, carrying mail from London. JRD Tata, then a director in Tata Sons, piloted the flight’s Karachi-Bombay leg before it flew onwards to Madras. In February 1935, Tata Sons launched a trial flight — Bombay-Nagpur-Jamshedpur-Calcutta. In July 1946, Tata Airlines became a public company and was renamed Air India Ltd. Genell Moots of Trans World Airlines (TWA) arrived from Kansas City in the US to train 19.45 Potato and beer (can)... entertaining children

India’s first batch of airhostesses. In August 1953, Air India was nationalised. At its peak, the carrier commanded over 60 per cent of the market share and was the biggest airline in the subcontinent.

Ministers and bureaucrats fly Air India even today for official travel.

What went wrong: The airline took on huge debts for expansion to newer routes as well as buying aircraft. By June 2014, its debt exceeded ₹44,000 crore. The entry of private airlines 20.30 And the lights come on

changed the rules of competition, with low-cost carriers eating into Air India’s market share. High staff costs (salaries make up 60 per cent of its expenses) and repeated union strikes have grounded it further.

Status update: Air India is one of the worst loss-making PSUs (net loss of around ₹5,000 crore in FY14). It has not yet been declared sick officially, but sick it is with a negative networth of ₹15,642 crore in FY13.

21.00 Dinner — one works so hard and god wouldn’t even give us bread! (The candles are a winter special.)

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Minister with mojo Small is still beautiful A BUTTERFLY BREEZE FROM MP

Suresh Prabhu proved his mettle Willfood he succeed doingnot theliesame It may seem counter-intuitive butas thePower key toMinister. the world’s securityindoes with for the behemoth that isorganisms the Indian (GMOs) Railways?and industrial farming genetically modified

joanna van gruisen

Driver’s seat Suresh Prabhu is known for implementing smart reforms pti/kamal singh

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older nights finally arrived and put paid to our beetle plague. The garden is burgeoning again with rocket and lettuce. Our Sarai guests love these. We mainly grow vegetables and herbs that are unavailable at the local village markets, but have also planted some seasonal vegetables. When successful, our small garden produces enough, not only to feed our guests and staff, but for the latter to take home to their families. It is amazing how much a small plot can produce. Input costs are minimal apart from human labour. We spend little on seeds as most are saved from plants of the previous year. Neem and tobacco do well against most plant-destroying insects and fungi, and our compost provides the nutrients. It is a happy organic cycle.

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), small plots have many benefits, which include reducing child mortality and incidence of eye diseases, and raising the status of women. They should be encouraged everywhere. In developed countries, there is a noticeable shift back to allotments and home gardens. For some, it’s the awareness of the role of transport in climate change; for others, it comes from a desire to know what they are eating in these days of unlabelled, genetically modified and pesticidepermeated foods. Here, an old adage bears repeating, since it is especially relevant to the agricultural scenario: small is beautiful.

It may seem counter-intuitive — and there are many agro-businesses that try to persuade us otherwise — but the key to the world’s food

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t was one of those only-in-India moments: in August 2002, then Shiv Sena minister Suresh Prabhu was withdrawn from Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government for being “too honest”. It happened on orders from party supremo Bal Thackeray, who was unhappy that Prabhu was not using his position as Power Minister to “fundraise” for the party. The joke in Mumbai was that Prabhu had failed to deliver real power to Matoshree.

A few days before Prabhu was withdrawn from the Union Cabinet, Thackeray told the party mouthpiece Saamna that ministers who did not work according to the “people’s wishes” had no right to continue in office.

The last straw was when he clashed with Bal Thackeray over the appointment of the Power Secretary: he had disregarded Thackeray’s nominee, choosing to reward efficiency over politics. PM Vajpayee went with Prabhu’s recommendation. Thackeray was livid.

Prabhu’s friend Uddhav Thackeray batted for him at the time. He unsuccessfully tried to cajole his father into keeping Prabhu in the Cabinet, where he was widely hailed for his work. But the Raj Thackeray camp, and senior Sena leaders like Manohar Joshi prevailed on Bal Thackeray to replace Prabhu in the Cabinet, overruling Uddhav’s protests. Ironically, it was Uddhav who nearly stopped Prabhu from becoming Railway Minister in 2014. But on this occasion, the four-time MP from Rajapur would have none of it: he dumped the Shiv Sena and moved to the BJP. In some ways, Suresh Prabhu was always a

the private sector.

His other big achievement came in securing dues from State electricity boards. In February 2001, the Montek Singh Ahluwalia Committee had found that states owed central PSUs over ₹40,000 crore in power dues. Prabhu got 22 states to agree to pay past dues and roped in almost as many states to a reforms-linked roadmap that included metering, regular audits and bottomline improvements.

While Prabhu’s changes to the Power Ministry were more incremental than radical, this current government has a stronger mandate than Vajpayee’s government did. And after the power sector, Prabhu now faces another ailing behemoth, Indian Railways.

Reforms express With over 1.3 million employees, a corrupt and change-averse bureaucracy, shoddy service and helpless passengers (roughly 23 million a day), the Indiana type Railways is afern, remnant of the Green choice Tribals of Pedabidda in the Visakhapatnam district use Azolla, of aquatic to reduce the old, socialist India that wore ineptness and pause of urea in their organic farms cv subrahmanyam tronage as a badge of honour. Moreover, the security does not lie with genetically modified ministry benefit has is increased biodiversity.

If led we had the misfortune of being organisms (GMOs) and industrial farming. Ex- by changed agriculture on a—large wePrasad could demagogue populists suchscale, as Lalu perts warn that such a path, far from provid- Yadav sustain much higher levels— who of biodiversity. and Mamata Banerjee treated the ing enough food, will dangerously railways Imagine as how many more birds their personal fiefs. and bees there impoverish the world. It is already the small would be without tons of and pesticides conInjecting a sensethe of purpose reforms in farmer who feeds more of the world, especial- this ventional farmingwill usesbeon the fields; environment a difficult taskhow for ly in low-income countries. Many big interna- Prabhu. much healthier we would We do not needa Being more of a be. technocrat than tional institutions such as the UN and World populist to travel far to see examples: 50,000 politician may work to hishectares advanBank now recognise that small farmers are the tage, in Medak district of pressure Andhra on Pradesh but there will be him tohave use key to feeding a growing global population. his beenposition proposed an ‘Agricultural toasextend favours toBiodiversity his home Unfortunately, more and more of the agricul- State Heritage Site’ thanks toAnother the work — mostly of Maharashtra. bigofchallenge tural land is moving into the hands of the rich remains women —the farmers there. This is thePrabhu first such bureaucracy, and here has and powerful, and government policies still already site in India, and when you readtoofinnovate. the 12-23 vashown that he is ready tend to favour large over small — 80 per cent of rieties crops the women than One of his first moves hasgrow beenon to less incentivsubsidies and 90Sena. per A cent of research funds ise misfit in the Shiv chartered accountant three acresproject of onlycompletion rain-fed land, know actimely — you by declaring still lawyer go to industrial agriculture. and by training, Prabhu was managing that officials colades are chiefs well deserved. and project will receiveSelfup Yet studyof after showsCo-operative that director thestudy Saraswat Bank, to two per cent sufficient in foodcost andfor seeds, their of the project finishing small farms are he more efficient which is where started making political on time. methods could be a life-andand that—there a strong inverse friends fromisthe Shiv Sena to its main rival, death for them. Thanks to The ministry haschoice also demonstrated its inBeing in favour of relationship farm he size NCP’s Sharad between Pawar. In 1996, fought his first tentions to encourage eschewingforeign conventional ways investment on ecological farming and productivity.

Even part withofthe election from Rajapur, the coastal Rat- some pre-designated and market pressures become routes.

But to there is a does not mean least share of in land, smallholdnagiri district south Maharashtra. He de- deeper problem “progressive” hyunderlyingbyallplanting these initiawanting a return to ing farmers produce the largest feated veteran socialist Madhu Dandavate. brids, there arehas no farmer suicidtives: until the government complete mothe past percentage of food — 70-80 per NDA Cabinet, nopoly over es Soon he was elevated into the their district. rail intransport in India, (As it willa cent with less than 25 cent of first as minister forper environjournalistto pertinently asked, continue treat domestic orwhy forthe agricultural ment and laterland. for chemicals does private India celebrate independeign players merely as Here is another fact that and fertilisers.

In 2000, aftermay the ence every year only to cede it as to vendors who it can exploit, not surprise demise some of of you:R organic farms produce foreign companies sudden Kumaralikepartners Mosanto?) genuine with whom it Prabhu is more of as much, and sometimes much more, than mangalam, Prabhu was made Being in can favour of strong ecological farming achieve results. a technocrat than a conventional farms.

Where there is a yield gap doesn’t mean wanting Power Minister.

Prabhu is more a return to thetopast — So if Prabhu is looking make grassroots Shiv Sainik in athe other direction, it tends to be in wealthy just wantingradical, of technocrat than a grassroots technology not from a ratherthat’s than incremental nations.

Organic far from being a chemical factory Shiv Sainik, rarelyfarming seen atistheir andinbased onrole, petroleum. changes his new then he luxury that low-income shakhas: his quick ascent countries caused cannot af- Rather, we need creatively combine wiswillto have to bring about a old change ford; it is rather the way theSena world has to go. A dom with modern heartburn among many ecological knowledge and in thinking: ultimately, Indian University who of Essex research study examined veterans, eventually influenced Bal Railways innovation “Technology with a human face.” is — only a transport corporation, and over 200 agricultural projects Thackeray into removing him. in the develop- that Have I said it before?

India has is how it should be treated.

Andeverything if the coning world (9 million farms on nearly 30 mil- sumer’s requiredbenefit to leadisthe on this new theworld end goal, then thepath. govlion hectares) and found that yields increased ernment Packed with a punch Her indigenous food knowledge base inover the will have to cede its monopoly an Power averageMinister, of 93 perPrabhu cent when converted As hadthey found his mo- rail adivasi and small farming communities is untransport in India. to organic ecological A seven-year jo.

He was and credited for theways.

Electricity Act of surpassed.

Though dwindling, amOf course, bringing aboutthere thisis yet radical study from centralsector India for (of change 2003, whichMaikaal openedDistrict up theinpower ple biodiversity noeasy shortage of visionconand will not and be an task. Political 1,000 farmers cultivating 3,200 hectares) greater private investments.

The private sec- stituents, innovation.

What we have yet to achieveand are the rent-seeking bureaucracy found average for cotton, wheat, trade tor for that the first timeyields got non-discriminatory the agricultural could allow it to unions arepolicies likely that to oppose any such chilli access and soy were as much asof20 per cent open in the transmission power, and move. happen.

And we need these fastatbefore the So don’t expect real change the speed higher onElectricity the organic farms than convention- of the State Regulatory Commissions knowledge and biodiversity arethe is lost forever. a bullet train.

But as long as reforms exal ones nearby. to introduce open access in press is not derailed, there is hope. were mandated Organic farming after brings so many for benefits, power distribution, accounting State- joanna van gruisen is a wildlife photographer, conservationistmitra and hotelier basedisnear Panna Tiger mustafi the founder of from cleaner water toToday, rural more stability, there is sambuddha specific conditions. than onePolitical IndianPradesh Reserve in Madhya not enough room to listcapacity them all.isBut one such third of India’s power operated

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Health, wealth and herbal Ceviche Serves 4

1 onion, finely sliced 500gm firm white fish like basa, bekti or red snapper, skinned and deboned Salt, preferably sea salt Juice of 5-6 limes 3/4 cup orange or grapefruit juice — or a combination of both 1tsp honey Red chilli of your choice, julienned, or chilli flakes A small bunch of coriander, leafy part only, roughly chopped

Isolating the active ingredient catalysing the growth of Himalaya Drug Company, which sells everything from toothpaste to liver-care medicine

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rom toothpaste and diaper-rash cream to shampoos and India’s largest-selling liver support medicine, Himalaya Drug Company offers something for everyone. But that’s not all. It also sells calcium supplements for animals and herbal feed for fish. In conversation with BLink, CEO Philipe Haydon reveals what defines the company and why its competitors are not Dabur or Charak but Cipla and HUL. Edited excerpts: With 200 products across pharmaceuticals, personal care, baby care and animal health, what is the one thing that Himalaya stands for? Would you call yourself an FMCG or wellness company?

We stand for well-researched herbal healthcare products. We put science in herbal healthcare. It would be right to say that we are several companies in one. We have always been a pharmaceutical company and are also a personal care, animal care and baby care company. We stand for wellness — internal as well as external — through herbal healthcare.

Our pharmaceutical products are researched for 8-10 years on average and three to four years for personal care. t’s not cold enough for heavy-duty smokingyou or roasting yet, but these early Haven’t spread yourself too thin by days beingof winter are perfect for ceviche — that in four verticals and opening yourself to wonderful Latin American—creation where competition from everyone from Dabur to fish ‘cooked’ in a salt-slaked citrus bath and HULisand P&G? What is your focus area? tossed with onions, peppers andtoo fresh We would have spread ourselves thinherbs. if we Of course, ceviche is prepared year round were a single division.

But we all have separate, in countries divisions, like Mexico, and Peru, focus-driven eachEcuador being a profit-loss where it’s the unofficial national In dish.

But I centre functioning independently. pharmaprefer to wait the cooler months in Kolkaceuticals, my for competition is not Dabur or ta, whenMy thetrue fish — from fishmonger to in fridge Charak. competition lies (not the — is at its freshest. herbal market but) in the Indian pharDespite the growingmarket popularity of Astrasushi maceutical — Glaxo, and sashimi Zeneca, in India,Cipla the idea raw etc. ofIf eating they have fish is still unpalatable many.

Others arecold, waproductstofor cough and ry of the cold chain and possible contaminaor acidity or diabetes, so does tion, even when Himalaya. they live inThe citiesdifference close to the is coast or a river. Unlike the Japanese delicacies, that their API (active pharmahowever, the fishceutical in ceviche isn’t raw is at of allal— ingredient) the citric acids inlopathic lime denature or break nature and mine down the proteins,ismuch Having herbal,like but heat. our products said that, for a dishare thatbeing depends on its soldsolely alongside main ingredient, one can’tin make ceviche ifOur the theirs pharmacies. fish is not fresh andLiv firm to withstand 52enough is the number one the acids — absorbing theinscents of lime,segyet brand the hepatic holding its shapement. and character.

We have more than 50 I was introduced to theand dishthe byentire my motherbrands range in-law, who first tasted it atisthe home of aby Mexprescribed alican friend working with the American Mission in Calcutta in the late ’60s. Soon, her finger food repertoire included papyrus-thin slices of bekti steeped overnight in lime juice, vinegar and brandy. Rolled up and held together by a toothpick, my mother-in-law’s ceviche gave Calcutta’s cocktail circuit a taste of adventure, one that left the devilled eggs and angels on horseback behind by a mile. Unlike her Mexican friend, who served it with diced peppers, tomatoes and fresh dill, she used whole peppercorns and dill fronds.

I stuck to her version for years, until I met Brooklyn-based food entrepreneur Nidhi Jalan, whose Masala Mama line of organic Indian spice kits is making inroads into American

1 Squeeze some lime juice over the onions and set aside. Dice the fish into 2cm cubes and rub with sea salt. Add the citrus juice after a couple of minutes, toss with the chilli, cover with clingwrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

2 Chop the tomato and capsicum about the same size as the fish.

Place the diced fish in a bowl. Remove chilli, if needed. Add the onions, tomatoes, capsicum and coriander, pour in some marinade and toss. Taste and adjust flavours.

3 Serve R&D on acentre largeinceramic Science goes green The endangered tissue culture lab at Himalaya Drug Company’s Bengaluru; platter with soft tacos or and (below) CEO Philipe Haydon tortilla chips on the side.

Not so fishy

The Latin American ceviche, ‘cooked’ in a salt-slaked citrus bath, can be quite an adventure for you and your guests lopathic doctors (out of nearly 4 lakh doctors Today, we have extremely aware customers

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in India, 2.5 lakh are allopathic). All our clini- who know exactly what they are looking for. kitchens. uses a at variety of whitehospitals, fish, but jolokia cal trials Jalan are done allopathic Assam, the round red dalley They areofinformation-seeking and you khorsacannot her favourites are prawns and scallops.

She be- ni based on allopathic protocols, like KEM, JIPMfrom even a tiny portion of has the take the Kalimpong, consumer for a ride.

Your product lieves as long as youInhave reliable fishmonER, Tata Memorial. the apersonal-care seg- dreaded jolokia (Naga chilli, whichsafety must to stand bhut on three parameters — results, ger who fresh,is properly cleaned, ment, the supplies competition L’Oreal, HUL and be wearing gloves) areseen great. andhandled brand equity.

Also, we have a great actop-quality not a tall in India — ceptance Garnier, as fish our —products areorder placed on the While the cling-wrapped the of herbal solutions.dish Moresits andinmore making ceviche is a toddle. Jalan marinates fridge, same shelf. slicewant onions, spritzing withnatulime peopleInow to use herbal,them organic, the fish for 20 minutes tops: this gives the ci- juice togentler dull theproducts. raw edge,We and tomatoes ral and arechop the right peotric acid enough to do its thing without and Himalaya started time as a healthcare company. capsicum same sizetime. as the fish. I ple in the rightabout placethe at the right turning into personal something unrecognisaWhy did the youfish get into care?

And the like adding some chopped coriander too. You ble.

However, if you’re still worried about serv- can other categories? dill and mint, avoidchain parsley — it’s Howuse do you manage thebut supply — from ing ‘raw’ seafood, ‘cook’ the prawns a too boisterous Himalaya always she hadsays personal for suchtoadistribution subtle ensemble. sourcing — for little for but another 10 were mincare longer, products, those Byvast now, the fish is ready: the this product range? utes only or forso.staff gifts. We had to acid bath has cooked It is pretty simple.

We the haveflesh, 300 Armed with new knowledge, write to the head office and they turning it opaque and flaky.

If I clearing-and-forwarding agents I’ve dived intousthe varied waters would send shampoos and use of the moreproducts lethal chilland any they supply to Himalaya always had In Peru, the leftover of ceviche-making again. Plump, hair-restoring products.

These ies, I discard fierydistributors red shards, more than the 6,000 personal care marinade is used as a fat prawns were make for divine and cevproducts brilliant knowing thatwho theirthen scent will linacross India, supply to products, but those cure for hangovers iche; tilapia do therered wassnapper a lot of and internal presger.

Then IWe transfer theraw cubes into retailers. source materiwere only for well But chairman my usual choice sure too. on the to takeisita aalsbowl, someofof marifrom add all parts thethe country. staff gifts local fishwhat in Kolkata to thefreshwater market. That’s led to nade (not aallthree-year of it at thisforecast stage), We have called pangash something I’d the genesis of —Ayurvedic Conthe veggies, and toss A ready at any given pointlightly. of time. tasted ago in Bangladesh, cepts —years our first foray into the now readily quick taste test toshared check ifwith it needs more mariIt is the production available at the neighbourhood personal-care segment, in 2002. market as nade, and it’sdepartment, ready to serve.which Incidentally, in Peensures we Bengal basa. It’s a large, firm-fleshed, almost ru, this leftover is We called Tiger have enough rawmarinade materials. have alsoMilk tied boneless meaty and texture and neu- and You spendfish, littlewhose on branding marketing prescribed as a curewho for hangovers! up with 4,000 farmers, grow crops based tral flavourtomake it ideal for ceviche. compared the other players.

Why? this basic approach, can agriplay onUsing our requirements and adhereyou to good get isthe fish sliced (medium around AsTypically, far as babyI care concerned, we genuinely ingredients andper flavours. cultural with practices.

We buy 100 cent ofRight their thick) grilling because filleting render now believefor that a mother should seekcan a doctor’s there’s an abundance of rates. pomelo in my produce at better-than-market the pieceson toowhat thin.isThen I stash fish inprothe garden, for instance, and I love tossing in its guidance best for her the child.

We freezer, taking it out to a few hoursIn before pre- pink mote our products doctors. personal segments.

Avocados anto exWhy sweet-sour have you taken only the organic are route paring thead dish, so it’sat all18-20 but totally defrosted, care, our spends, per cent of our cellent too.that Or changing you couldinexperigrowth?companion And do we see the retaining hint iciness; thisthan makes forother easy ment revenues, awill beofmuch more most with Asian accents — using rice wine near future? dicing. the timenot I finish the knifeterms). work, the players’By(though in absolute We vinegar, Mirin, lemon has juicebeen anddifferchilli The kindaoflittle battle we fought defrosting is complete and While have been growing at over 35 uniform. per cent in per- flakes to marinate your fish.

A fought friend who just ent from other companies.

We to estabsome recommend cutting the is fish into got sonal chefs care. Our distribution system robust China gifted uscan some Szechwan lishback that from herbal medication be backed by large cubes, I prefer smaller pieces, since and we gained a lot of leverage whenthey we pepper, a lightThat dusting of we these roughscientificand research. is why refused to ‘cook’ evenly. diced,care the division, fish needsasa there good ground launched ourOnce personal kernels was the perfect sign-off for the launch any product that was not backed by rub salt (preferably, sea salt)for before being Asian-style was ofimmediate acceptance Himalaya, I served as a starter our qualityprawn and ceviche research standards.

That immersed in a citrus cocktail. Lime juice is the recently which is a trusted brand.

— plated up on sushi cakes with stuck, and has remained a partrice of our DNA. Wea foundation, of course, but its acid hit needs to green tangle sesame-flecked, crispy-fried don’t offer anyof product that does not meet the be tempered. recommends or Nori What changesJalan in consumer trendsgrapefruit — (seaweed) ribbons on the side.

So find stringent standards of research we have set orange juice, a drop of honey a tiny bit of your spending/product choices andand so on — have own flavours and get ‘cooking’. for ourselves. olive oil. Also, I in like my ceviche with chutzpah, you witnessed the last decade?

And how rashmi pratap ray is a Kolkata-based writer so heatHimalaya? is a must — the little red dhani arundhati hasfragrant it affected

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Global chilling

in the world around us. Perhaps the most symmetrical object imaginable is a sphere, and nature is full of spheres — stars, planets, water droplets in clouds. The crystals found in rocks exhibit many different kinds of symmetry, the study of which tells us some important things about the structure of solids. Even the animal and vegetable worlds show some degree of symmetry, although the symmetry of a flower or of a bee is not as perfect or as fundamental as is that of a crystal.” A crystal is made up of the same basic unit, repeated across space.

Much like the Vedic altars of fire repeated bricks and the priests chanted mantras, repeating syllables across time.

In the late 1800s, Georges-Pierre Seurat, an artist, started using tiny coloured points to make large compositions on canvas. His technique foreshadowed the invention of computer pixels by over a century. It also emphasised the growing conviction that all matter in the Universe is composed of tiny identical particles, or atoms; and the birth of Marxism, wherein all individuals in a society should be considered on an equal footing, creating a dynamic ensemble or commune of indistinguishable entities.

As a result, the typical Seurat painting is highly granulated, giving the impression of coloured particles in restricted vibratory motion like a gas in a transparent chamber. Painted over two years on a canvas 2x3 metres in size, his major work — Un dimanche après-midi à l’île de la Grande Jatte (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grand Jatte) — is composed of over three million dots. The scientific implications of what Seurat was merely hinting at started becoming manifest by the turn of the square equal in area to a given circle was also century in 1900, when the architecture of the known to the Greeks (“the circlesquarers”). quantum world started emerging like a castle One may connect this content of the Sulba- from the mists of history. Reality itself apsûtras to modern ideas of symmetry. If you ro- peared to be made up of discrete, quantised tate a square by 90 degrees, it looks the same. dots. And all the smooth continuity of nature, If you rotate an equilateral triangle by 120 de- merely an illusion. grees, it looks the same. TransBy the faculties of the human formations that leave an object mind, a Seurat painting tranunchanged are called symmescends the disparate points it is tries of an object. In the case of composed of, and what we see is A crystal is made up fire altars, the priests were trya constructed mirage. The obviof the same basic ing to keep the area or number ous questionCold to ask playyourself Children is unit, repeated across of bricks unchanged. In modern whether a slightly different get ready to slide onarspace. Much like the of snow physics, the falcon and other rangement ofmounds the points onafter SeuVedic altars of fire stormcreate in Buffalo shapes would be like molecules rat’s canvas the could the reuters/aaron lynett repeated bricks that remain unchanged if the exact same illusion? For examconstituent atoms (or bricks) ple, we can analyse Jatte’s paintare interchanged. several ingenough very closely, try toup. shuffle of phenomena: fog,Or drizzle, rain (which is and if we have foodand stocked She shuffles of adrizzle), deck ofdust cards that and cold. Ev- gave me a long some points whilewas mak-a mostly still storm stare andaround said, “Sandy leave theinoriginal unchanged. sure that the overall appearance the eryone Delhi sequence spends the six torturous ing hurricane.”

Right.

Hurricanes are not of tornaAccording to Richard Feynman’sof famous remains same.

Mathematically, months of summer in anticipation winter, painting does, which are notthe cold waves and polar vorlectures onof physics: “Nature arrangements that leave the paintand some us spend the often threeexhibits monthscerof these texes. new It’s about time someone clarified that tain kinds of symmetry in the And objects find ing invariant under can be winter dreaming of warmth. likewe everyglobal warming couldtransformations also be really chilling. the symmetries a Seurat one around the world who experiences more called I haven’t read muchofpoetry by painting.

Pablo NeruThe history the history of than just the protracted range of da,of butscience this lineis‘I want to do with symmetry. Everything wedoes see iswith made up raining and not-yet-raining, Delyou what that spring cherof atoms andrymolecules and these, turn, of hiites are surprised that winter trees’ from Every Dayin You Play… smaller elementary particles.

Even makes them hungry and is always on my mind.

Whatwhile does nothing seems to change, everything shocked that summer can get winter do? In New Yorkis changCity, it It’s the art-viewing ing. The countless are bethat hot. Every year. makeselementary drinking particles four glasses of season because exchanged such aatway — at speed of Winter in New York City, howredinwine 3pm onthe a weekday museumsing have light or, faster — that the to overall view ever, did come too soon. One eveand snuggling close strangers the best heating in perhaps, remains the same.

The falcon remains a falning, I was strolling down the on the subway perfectly acceptthe city con, the pond remains and the torstreets in an unbuttoned trench able.

It’s thea pond, art-viewing season toise remainsbecause a tortoise. coat, my hair limp and unrufmuseums have the best Interestingheating symmetries happen when space fled, and the next evening, the in the city. Currently on and time are view interchanged, history retemperature plummeted from across thewhen city are HenriisMaby fiction.

Perhaps quantum physics is 10°C to -3°C faster than I could update my Face- placed tisse (MoMA), Cubists (MET), Nam June Paik the Vedas, but the Vedas book status on witnessing sub-zero temper- not (Asiainspired Society)by and Zero (Guggenheim).

It’shave the inspired physics.

How atures for the first time ever. Buffalo, which is been profound poetrybyyouquantum feel during the first 30 you enemy 3,000 years about 600km northwest of New York City, was would seconds of destroy the firsta future snowfall and the equally hisglum appearance?

Thethe rhombus is awinkey suddenly buried under six feet of snow, and before sweeping you feel for rest of the in thelooking theory forward of relativity, dewithin five days, 13 people were reported dead. figure ter. It’s about to thewhich lit Christarchitecture The blizzard was apparently being caused by scribes mas treethe and ice skatingof at time.

Rockefeller Centre.

Buffalo’s proximity to the Lake Erie and hence But mostly it’s about mulled wine. called a lake-effect blizzard. Petrified, I asked rohit gupta explores the history of science as t @fadesingh blessy augustine is an art critic based in New York my roommate if this will be another Sandy Compasswallah

Blindsided by a blizzard in Buffalo, neighbouring New York City finds out what winter does to the Christmas trees and strangers on the subway

THE COMPASS CHRONICLES

Fearsome symmetry Perhaps quantum physics is not inspired by the Vedas, but the Vedas have been inspired by quantum physics rohit gupta

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hose who wish to destroy existing and future enemies should construct a fire altar in the form of a rhombus,” declare the Sulbasûtras. These geometry manuals from the Vedic period deal with religious sacrifice, but the language is very cryptic. For example, the above rite could easily refer to a rhombusshaped military formation. According to Kim Plofker, a historian of mathematics, different theories lead us to infer that “geometrical figures symbolised religious ideas, and the need to manipulate them led to the relevant mathematics.” Other geometric shapes are also suggested — the falcon altar leads one to heaven, the tortoise shape to attainment of Brahman and so on.

Many Sulbasûtra wo monthsconstructions ago, just a feware daysabout after the transformation one shape intoYork another, I had firstofarrived in New City while preserving thetoarea, and was yet find or my keeping bearings,the an number ofAmerican bricks constant. are transfriend Squares prophetically anformed rectangles, triangles, trapezia,I nouncedinto in the elevator, “winter is coming”. and rhomboids. problem of bone-chillmaking a shuddered at the The prospect of the ing cold, the sunless sky and the exhaustion that wearing five layers of clothing can cause.

The friend, of course, was reminiscing about The Game of Thrones. It is very difficult to keep up with pop culture these days; more so, when you have to split wasting your time between Yo Yo Honey Singh and Taylor Swift. And this is just to keep up with the things you don’t like for the sake of not being lost during a conversation — a completely irrational anxiety because in New York City your only friends are generally the characters of the sitcom Friends.

Winter, however, came too soon. That’s what she said! Yes, I’m spending my short days and long nights watching The Office: lonely, cold and suited up.

Having grown up in Mumbai, where the days are divided into rainy and humid, it was in Delhi that I realised that non-coastal Indians take the weather seriously. The average Mumbaikar is only concerned with the question: is the rain heavy enough to make the trains go slow? Not halt, just delay, mind you.

Delhiites, on the other hand, witness a range

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Same difference Vedic fire altars repeated bricks as seen in the miniature painting (above); Georges-Pierre Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grand Jatte, composed of over three million dots, predated computer pixels by over a hundred years

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saturday, november 29,29, 2014 saturday, november 2014

Majority report Juice fix

Freshly-blended amphibians for better sex drive

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igh up in the Andean mountains, Peru-

vian folk have discovered a cure-all for The recent World Hindu that Congress in Delhi gave a platform to a few reasonable, and all too can treat all types of maladies, from slugmany extremist voices gish sex drives to high stress: Frog juice. As ex-

pected, there is little scientific evidence to support the healthy claims of the frog squash. ight centuries after the reignBut of the the recipe quickKarnataka. and simple:Indrop told)isfrom herwhole session on ‘Im- strictions on what you watch online. last Hindu king Prithviraj Chauhan, frogs, beaten skinned, into the pactto ofdeath live-inand relationships, conversion, interIf global Islamisation was perceived as a “proud Hindus” have finally come to Add blender. carrots, maca roots honey. religion marriages on and Hindu society’, the threat to Hindus, aggressive evangelical conrule Delhi, claimed Vishwa Blend Hinduthe good mixture till compared it turns smooth.

Voila, doctor different forms of rela- version was identified as another. “They (misParishad (VHP) patron Ashok Singhal atpale the regreentionships. but robust frog juice ready!

“Vivaah,” sheis told us,Ap“is a pavitra sionaries) have a right to propagate, no right cent World Hindu Congress, held in Delhi.

The locals parently, and foreigners have taken parbandhan (pure bond) between a man and to convert,” says Vigyananand. “They can’t event was the first such gathering where 1,800 towoman ticularly this panacea after families.” discovering that relation- claim to have a right to proselytise. They can’t and their Live-in Hindus from different professions andthe geogfrogs used in on the the drink belong to the criti-temporary claim to be minorities (here in Bharat).” In one ships, other hand, were raphies — doctors and academics, ministers cally endangered speciesonly Telmatobius coleus. bonds between two people, presentation, figures were and priests, businessmen and scientists, Timefafor a two croak down, we think. “bitter halves”.

According to shown to indicate the Eastward thers and mothers, and from Suriname to Viet- the Padma Purana and Manuexpansion of Christianity and Isor many lam Indians, is a to matter nam — came together for what appears to be smriti, she explained, there are fromit1900 2010. of In Asia, it Love jihad begins pride that Father Kuriakose Elias the beginning of a Hindu renaissance. “When eight forms of marriage; Pishawas revealed that the Christian with a missed call. was canonised and conferred Chavara you start that is the right time. What can be a cha, the worst form of marriage, population increased from 2.3 Then it turns into sainthood byper Pope Francis thecent Vati-and the better time than this,” said Rashtriya Swayam- translated into ‘Love Jihad’. “LJ,” cent to 8 at per a Mrs Call can recently. Muslim Even as apopulation bishop in rural sevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat. In- she told an audience, “begins from 16 per Chhattisgarhcent celebrated Kurai- Unbekdeed, they couldn’t have chosen a more with a missed call. Then it turns to 26Father per cent. kose’s achievement, Hindu propitious time. A “swabhimani” (proud) Hin- into a Mrs Call. Our ‘converted nownstthe toVishwa the organisers, a Parishad (VHP) issued a list, demanddu government occupies the Capital; discus- daughters’ are ‘free wombs’ to fringe organisation was reported compliance by aCatholic schools sions were led by ministers of Narendra produce more Muslims. Then they become ve- ing to have circulated pamphlet titledin‘M5: The the state.enemy Demands includesociety’. the instalModi’s cabinet; and official observers marked hicles of terrorism.” A “bloodless coup”. biggest of Hindu The pamof goddess statues 5? in The anshield and escort their presence at each session.

Reports of false cases of love jihad in Mee- lation phlet asked — WhoSaraswati are the Malicious schools, the addressing of teachers the tourists For andthree the days, over 45 sessions, members of rut, Mangaluru and Bengaluru notwithstand- all swer was Marxists, Macaulayists, Missionaries, priests as ‘pracharya’ and ‘uppraballoon operator away discussed what constitutes a ing, “it is a global threat,” said Swami and the community Materialists and Muslim extremists. and banning old Santa from theHindu prisoners. family,The society and State. Religion took Vigyananand, joint general secretary of VHP, charya’ The proposal for thegood congress took root 15 gifts and choc‘unwelcome’ guests Bharat were replaced dea backseat; India, and vedic in an interview. “We are living in denial. This is Claus years from ago, distributing says Vigyananand, the brains bethis World Christmas.

In the light ofand re- an IIT tained forknowledge more thanbecame two hours of for technology and a menace and it is growing,” adds Sushil Pan- olates a base hind the Hindu Congress attacks on Christian missionaries, questioning, before ‘walking free’ innovation.

Women warned mothers about dit, spokesperson of the World Hindu Con- cent alumnus.

Over the last decade, multiple edibodies have decided to Forum again. Onethe of the tourists a local ills of live-intold relationships and WhatsApp, gress. At the Hindu Women Congress, it Catholic tions of school the World Hindu Economic theand VHP’s demands. daily, “Theand police really courte-with issues of inter- seemed there was an overwhelming consen- to NRIwere priests grappled andcomply Hinduwith youth women conferences be organisation coming to town ous and just wanted to know we faith marriages andhow homosexuality. sus for “freedom with fetters.” Freedom to Santa pavedthough the waywill for the of a Hindu protest against the saffron Grinch and ended up here. we isare Dr IB Tomorrow Vijayalakshmi a successful cardiolo- wear whatever you choose, but not who you in society united by economic, educational stoleties.

Christmas. thinking gist of going on an elephant and a multiple gold medallist (32, we were date. Freedom powered by technology, but re- who political “We didn’t time the congress ride and, hopefully, it won’t be this with Narendra bhai’s government. It’s just a adventurous.” coincidence,” he says. While Atal Bihari Vajpayee, under the two NDA regimes, had to practise coalition dharma, Modi’s unencumbered government can carry forward the torch of Hindu dharma. “It’s a majority government with constitutional authority and people’s mandate. We won’t have to hide our agenda,” Pandit says.

In Islam Assembled: The Advent of the Muslim hen you think of the Defence digenously made torpedoes and so- crore on Martin the ‘project’.

Inwrites, fact, an“The enCongresses, author Kramer Research and Development nars. The Pune office of congresses DRDO, tire team devoted in thethe better part of were grounded belief that Organisation (DRDO), you think of however, has added something lastofyear it. Allegedly, when a scitheunvastness thefor Muslim world constituted Brahmos missiles, anti-satellite usual to this repertoire — a batteryentist raised objections, he their was a strength.

In their numbers, and in weapons, ballistic missiles and in- operated, silver temple chariot.

Ac-geographic quietly shipped offthe toMuslims Nashik, repprebroad dispersal, cording to reports in a national to mull on defence techresented asumably potentially formidable force. Were daily, it has spent a whopping ₹5 to nology andthemselves wine.

Muslims express as one, were they to define their political priorities, resolve their own disputes, and even mend doctrine, then their collective determination would serve to ward off their enemies.”

While the organisers maintain the assembly is not modelled after Islamic or Christian congresses, the aim — to bring together a “split diaspora” over “four-five common causes” — bears a striking resemblance to Muslim line is even longer than Russia’s congresses, and maybe even the ecumenical Trans-Siberian Railway. The ‘New movement of the Church.

Silk Road’, as the project is called, While it’s too early to say if the congress will will cut through China’s far-west, be successful in shaping Hindu nationalism, plough through Kazakhstan and organisers hope it will help establish ties, proenter Europe through Turkey. vide information and foster collaboration. But With the ‘New Silk Road’ and Chicould a congress like this, which makes Bharat na’s growing footprint in Africa, and not India its foundation, risk excluding Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the gerather than including, and dividing rather opolitical balance might tilt in than uniting people?

Asia’s favour. Take that, US. priyanka kotamraju

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Full of hot air

No Santa in Chhattisgarh?

It seems that it’s no entry for ‘Father Christmas’ this year

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A balloon ride landed these tourists ‘behind bars’

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hen two women from the Caribbean decided to take a joyride in a hot-air balloon over Pushkar, they could not have known which way the wind would blow.

Keen on a bird’s-eye view of the In focus The World town’s annual cattle fair, the ladies Hindu Congress was were inbyfor a shock when, due to attended people strong windswalks andoffaulty machinery, from different life monks andmade an impromptu the—balloon laymen, scientists stop attothe Ajmer jail — among the and businessmen most notorious prisons in the couns subramanium try. Caught off-gaurd, the jail authorities went into a tizzy trying to

Building chariots, not rockets

What is the country’s premier defence research organisation building?

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A passage to Spain

This is the world’s longest train ride

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ow long can you survive a train journey? Think you’ll manage 21 days? On November 18, a freight carrier left from the Chinese industrial city of Yiwu. Three weeks later, sometime in December, the train is scheduled to arrive in Madrid, covering nearly 10,000km and two continents, bringing Chinese muscle into European towns. The Yiwu-Madrid

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cornerstone in-faq by joy bhattacharjya Got the blues

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egendary musician John Mayall, founder of the iconic John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, turns 81 today. Reason enough for a ‘Blue’ quiz.

1

An easy start — why are the highest-valued stocks in an exchange called ‘Blue Chip’ stocks?

2

Which ungulate is the State animal of Tamil Nadu? It helps if you remember the subject of the quiz.

3

Which singer’s critically and commercially successful fourth album, which released in 1971, was titled ‘Blue’ and featured classics like A case of you and On this flight tonight?

4

If the President of America lives in the White House, which Asian head of State lives in the Blue House?

5

The distinctive white shirts with dark blue stripes sported by Christ Church College students helped start which sporting tradition?

6

The Blues is a 2003 documentary film series, produced by Martin Scorsese, dedicated to the history of Blues music. In each of the seven episodes, a different director explores a stage in the development of the Blues. Which versatile actor-director helmed the episode on Blues music based on the piano?

the new york times crossword-0622

enrich

7

Which term, translated literally from Spanish, originally referred to the proud old families of Castille, who claimed never to have intermarried with other races?

8

Which specific group of nomadic North Africans traditionally wear a blue turban called a tagelmust, which is coloured by pounding powdered indigo into the cloth. They were originally known as the ‘Blue Men of the Sahara?’

9

Blue is a very common colour for national teams. The ‘Les Bleus’ of France, and ‘Gli Azzurri’ of Italy are some of the better-known European national teams. But which two international teams would be competing in a soccer match if the ‘La Celeste’ went up against the ‘Los Albicelestes’?

10

What was the name for the unofficial accolade for the fastest passenger liner crossing the Atlantic Ocean in regular service.

The competition encouraged the creation of faster and larger ships, and Winston Churchill once estimated that the liners created by Cunard for the competition helped shorten World War II by at least a year.

ANSWERS

1. The term comes from poker, where the blue chips are of the highest value.

2. The Nilgiri tahr or the Blue Mountain goat.

3. Joni Mitchell 4. The President of South Korea 5. ‘The Battle of the Blue Boats’ in the annual OxfordCambridge boat race. The Oxford Crew had many students of Christ Church College in their team and adopted dark blue as their colour, while Cambridge University decided to have a light blue kit, probably because they had a lot of students from Eton.

6. Clint Eastwood 7. Blue blooded, from ‘Sangre Azul’ in Spanish.

8. Tuareg 9. Uruguay and Argentina, the ‘Sky Blues’ against the ‘Sky Blue and Whites’.

10. Blue Riband, a term borrowed from horse racing.

It was easily the most prestigious competition for passenger liners.

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

ACROSS 1 Sack lunch staple, for short 7 Bumbling sergeant on “Hogan’s Heroes” 14 Like a universal recipient 20 Night lights 21 Wyoming people 22 Chief Theban deity 23 Episode title for a cooking show featuring chicken recipes?

25 Alex of “Blazing Saddles” 26 Nixon’s veep 27 “Get ___!”

28 Lighten 30 Grub 31 Certain petty officer: Abbr.

32 Goal for a comic working the Strip?

38 Ballet and others 40 Court grp.

41 Awed 42 Gere’s wife in “Dr. T & the Women” 43 Bit of needlework?

45 What a 9-5 worker worked on?

46 Caper movie plot piece 47 Informal advice to an overeager picker?

52 “O.K.” from Tom Sawyer

53Spot, maybe 57 Warning 58 Floor 59 German geographical name suffix 61 “___ Street Blues” 62 Jane ___, Helen Mirren’s “Prime Suspect” role 64 Roberto Benigni’s Oscarwinning role in “Life Is Beautiful” 65 Writing tip 66 Ill. neighbor 67 Request to represent a Minnesota senator’s side of a debate?

70 Word shouted immediately before “FelizAño Nuevo” 71 Without exception 73 Journalist Pyle 74 Well maintained 76 Go for ___ 77 Additions and subtractions, of a sort 78 Lao-___ 79 Health care company in the Fortune 100 80 Command 81 Like one saying “I told you so!”

82 Tarzan’s response when

asked if the noodles are cooked?

84 “You dig?” reply 86 Murder 88 Philip of “Kung Fu” 89 Tries to hear better, say 92 Either Abby or Martha in “Arsenic and Old Lace” 93 Carrying one is part of a tour duty 95 Performer of tricks?

99 Naval officer who’s an expert in astrology?

103 “I’ll pass” 104 Lupino and Tarbell 105 Scottish hillside 106 Basketball goaltending locale 107 Nimble 109 “Oh, no? I’ll show you!”

111 Religious ceremony for two Hollywood brothers?

116 Rearward 117 Portmanteau landmass 118 It comes as a shock 119 Whitfield of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” 120 Flower parts 121 Cause for burning at the stake DOWN 1 Fruit popular in Thai salads

2 Turkey ___ 3 Playground retort 4 “I don’t think so” 5 One might say “y’all” with one 6 Rattle 7 Cannabis ___ (marijuana) 8 Fiction genre 9 Vietnamese coin 10 Former “Veronica Mars” airer 11 “Well, ___-di-dah” 12 Option for “Which came first …?”

13 Like London Tube pricing 14 Points 15 Diva Sumac 16 Beauty ideal 17 Incense 18 Genesis mount 19 Like the lowest of low blows 24 Pequod captain 29 Most conservative 33 ___’acte 34 Indian bread 35 Supermarket chain 36 Head 37 Bugs, of a sort 39 Severe 44 A, but not B or C 45 Do some needlework 46 Pleasure seeking 47 Queen of “Chicago”

48 Title girl in a 1968 hit by the Turtles 49 Certain shoot 50 When repeated, a happy cry 51 Forked over 52 When tripled, blah, blah, blah 54 South Pacific archipelago 55 Truing: Var. 56 Kerr of “An Affair to Remember” 59 Muslim mystics 60 Need spelling, say 61 Not worthy of 63 Bando of baseball 64 Fellow 65 According to 68 Jolly Roger in “Peter Pan,” e.g.

69 One might be brought up in a brawl 72 Supervise 75 Showy bloom 77 Key of Dvorák’s Symphony No. 9 78 M&M color replaced by blue

81 Shank 82 Luxuriousness 83 River whose source is Mount Saint Helena 85 N.Y.C. sports venue 86 [Forehead slap] 87 1300 hours, to a civilian 89 Classic German cameras 90 – 91 People of Ghana: Var. 92 Paid for dinner, say 93 Title sneaker brand in a Run-D.M.C. hit 94 Food critic Sheraton 96 Punctually 97 Bozos 98 Short-story award 100 Mugs 101 Politico Hatch 102 County near Limerick 108 Ancient artery 110 Iron ___ 112 Disco ___ 113 ’60s service site 11 4Sugar suffix 115 Ultimate

By Tony Orbach / Edited by Will Shortz

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