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Not just his surgeon’s scalpel, his business brain and ‘undoctor-like’ attachment to his patients ensures that Dr Naresh Trehan stands out.PRESENT: Gianormous is not a word. However, there are times when one needs to resort to not words to describe something as big as Medanta–The Medicity. Walk in through its doors and straight up is the OPD (out-patient department) sign flanked by two, tall marble screens. Carved on them are ivory-white trees; exquisite in their details. These are the wishing (mannat) trees at Medanta. This is where patients and families—who knows, an occasional doctor or two—make their wishes by tying ruby-red threads to its branches. At their base are two stone bowls. One simply reads mannat (wish) while the other states a vital truth; each life is precious. It is a hospital after all, and there are wishes galore. The lower branches, crimson due to the threads, stand testament to that fact. On the left of the entrance are the reception areas, on the right are the refreshment corners. Yes, everything exists in plural in this place. Built over 43 acres with 45 operation theatres, 350 critical care units managed by 20 specialists and 1,250 beds, Medanta is a massive operation. The nerve centre of this bustling medical hub is in its first floor which mainly consists of a long corridor—sterilised and hushed—which leads to a small sitting area with steel chairs, almost never empty unless the main man is missing. The man in question is the founder, chairman and managing director of Medanta; Dr Naresh Trehan. Dr Trehan needs little introduction in India. He is a medical administrator who has served as a personal surgeon to the President of India since 1991. He has been granted the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan. But to his patients and to their families, he is more than a celebrated doctor—he is the doctor. Trehan is respected because he judiciously avoids the lessons of “non-involvement” that most of his ilk learn early in their careers. “Unless you are emotionally involved you can’t do your best,” he lets you know. In fact, in one of his older interviews he had compared his involvement with his patients to the Chipko Movement. “I told the doctors at Medanta: chipko (stick on) to your patient and do not let him slip out of your hands. Hang on to his life, like you would hang on to your own.” It is this dogged devotion that makes him a hero in his patients’ lives. On the day DW was to meet Dr Trehan, there was a man—a father—also waiting for his turn, along with other families. People usually wait patiently for Trehan and when he does enter a room everyone sits up. The doctor has that effect. On that day as he entered Trehan’s chamber, the father took the seat closest to the black desk and awaited his turn as Trehan navigated interview questions (“Why don’t you copy-paste what I have said in my previous interviews? What, you never do that?”). When his turn came, the father passed on his file and lay a shaking hand on the table. It was the doctor’s turn to quiz, “Is he still feeling the spasms?” (Yes.) “What does he play?” (Soccer.) After a moment’s pause, he looked up beaming and said, “Please ask him to play as much as he wants. He is just feeling post-surgery muscle spasms. They would pass, anyway a 14-year-old shouldn’t worry too much.” The case is closed. The father rises and finally, he is genuinely smiling. Watching the interaction one wonders, who does he treat more? The patients or their families? Well, both. In a country where words such as “pull” or “connection” are used to extract the best medical facilities, it is often a family that needs more care after a loved one’s ailment. It is no wonder then that Trehan and Medanta are so well respected—the doctor makes mandatory rounds of all wards, everyday. The hospital with its advanced technologies and techniques draws all sorts of people to far-off Gurgaon and the patient demography proves that—Africans, South-east Asians, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis, every nationality is present there. There are the better-off waiting for their turn, with people you do not normally see in ‘posh’ receptions of five-star hospitals—and it is a fivestar hospital as far as facilities are concerned; Medanta ranks the best in Asia in liver and kidney transplant surgeries. It is one of the few that conducts minimally-invasive, robotically-controlled cardiac surgery and beating heart surgery. Trehan’s patients consider him to be a Scalpel King. Not without reason. He loves conducting surgeries. “If I spend four hours in a surgery I am not tired. I can go on for 24 more hours and still be happy.” Currently, Trehan performs approximately 12 operations a day, meets patients, families, media, his Board and investors. And he is frequently spotted at Page 3 dos. How does he manage all that? “By not thinking about a schedule and jumping right in. Plan, but do not waste time thinking whether you can do it, just do it.” He could be the Nike man or he is simply well-trained. “For seven years Dr Frank Spencer (his mentor) trained us like commandos in his medical boot camp. We slept for four hours. I was barely at home.” On the flip-side, he missed his daughters’ childhood. And Shyel and Shonan (“I don’t know what the names mean, ask Madhu, won’t you?”) grew up with an “absentee father”. Trehan makes sure that he does not repeat the same mistake with his granddaughter now. Talking of his legendary time management skills, Dr Savita Dhillon, director of the Medanta Duke Research Institute, admits, “He is so focused. I believe it has something to do with a tremendous sense of discipline. Interestingly, he manages to make it all look so easy.”
PAST: Trehan’s journey began in a three-roomed apartment at Connaught Place which he shared with an elder sister, Neena, (incidentally not a doctor), a Sindhi gynaecologist mother and a Punjabi father, an ENT specialist. Parents had travelled to New Delhi from Lahore (Faisalabad) post-partition. After the Centre granted the Senior Trehan a flat at Connaught Place, the couple converted two rooms into chambers, while the family happily lived in the third one. “The house was always filled to the brim with patients. Watching my parents interact, I was slowly being indoctrinated. In Class X, I took up biology as a ‘special subject’. That was the first time I made a conscious career statement and proved that my parents’ work had left an imprint. I knew that the sense of gratification was immense in this profession. Much like the Stockholm Syndrome, I grew up to love my captor. But it was not an overnight decision.” In fact, while still in school (Modern School, Barakhamba Road) there was a time when Trehan wished to be a pilot. He went on to study at Hindu where at a party he met his future wife, Madhu Trehan, hailing from one of the most influential media families of India. Fate intervened and Trehan was soon off to King George’s Medical College, Lucknow. After completing his internship at Safdarjung Hospital, he obtained a scholarship from American Board of Surgery and American Board of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Finally, he went on to practice at the New York University Medical Centre from 1979 to 1988. “There was something positive about heart surgeries—those nearly dying and breathless would come out smiling after surgery within some days. Next to that I found neuro-surgery depressing.” Though he switched soon after, there was a catch—Trehan decided to train under the legendary Dr Frank Spencer and none else. “I was a ‘rock star’ complete with a handlebar moustache and sideburns. Dr Spencer must have been shocked to see me,” says Trehan with a laugh. It was Dr Spencer who taught him his greatest lesson. (Along with The Godfather—yes, the film). “On a given day your patients and families will treat you like god. As long as you do not believe it, it is okay. If you do, that’s the beginning of the end,” Dr Spencer would inform his students. By 1976, Trehan had performed his first surgery on a 55-year-old man, a father of three. The operation took four hours and he was exhausted yet elated by the end of it. “Dr Spencer pushed me to grow and create new highs. Even today, I strive to do better. It is such people who question everything, every time, and try to grow, who are able to grow positively.” By mid-1980s Trehan was earning over $1.5 million a year as a Manhattan heart surgeon. Then, he dropped jaws by deciding to move back. “Indian patients kept on reminding me that I was needed more here than there. Not everyone could afford to travel to the US to get themselves operated.” Upon his return, he had two options—to be on his own or practice with an established institution. He did what he was meant to do; finance his vision of a private heart institute and research centre thus forming Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre (1988). Under his guidance, within decades, Escorts grew to be one of the largest heart institutes in Asia with 325 beds, nine operating theatres and satellite operating rooms in five cities. By then Trehan was the most prominent heart surgeon in the country. He had operated on political figures, businessmen and celebrities. He was a celebrity himself with a Padma Shri, a Padma Bhushan, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award and Dr BC Roy National Award in his kitty. Dr Trehan was also the president of the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery. It was around that time that he thought of the concept of Medanta–The Medicity. But a doctor proposes and management disposes. A string of controversies and a management change later, Trehan packed up and left Escorts, working with Apollo for a while. That idea of an integrative health care system and a facility that would usher in a new era of alternative and cutting-edge medicine in India continued to niggle. So he did what he does best—jump right in. He approached Siemens, and numerous proddings later the `1,200-crore project, with Trehan as its chairman, began. Trehan personally oversaw the building of this “integrated health care facility” fashioned after Mayo Medical School and Johns Hopkins Hospital. Its aim; to educate doctors and teach them that they do not need to run to the west to start meaningful research. And he did all that and turned his venture into a commercial success—a fact that he doesn’t shrug off. In fact, he brushes aside allegations that suggest doctors do not make good entrepreneurs. “We are better-equipped to guide and manage hospitals since we are less driven by the thought of profit and more by gratification derived from treating patients. As I have said before, medicine is a business with a soul. We need to think of what we are doing and what we want to do. We do not want any business person coming to us and telling us how to do our surgery and earn money,” he asserts. In his characteristic bluntness he points out that he is a “social capitalist”. Just as he does not mind accepting that he is an occasional smoker and social drinker (two glasses of wine max, seven hours of sleep later and mandatory exercise session in the morning).
FUTURE: These are desolate times for Indian medical care. Private health sector’s dignity is waning and the common citizen’s perception of health care, especially private health care system, is that it is rotten to its core. “I was aware of all the notions. So I felt that the need of the hour was to create an organisation that has a transparent billing system and governance. With Medanta I wished to create such an environment,” he stresses. A member of a patient’s family vouches that Medanta does try to “stay clean”—at least more than others. “An injection that we paid for which was to be used during my husband’s operation was expensive. There was no way that I, or my husband who was unconscious at that time, could know if it was indeed used. It was not. And I was returned the money by the authorities. It is these little points that make patients trust Medanta. It is so easy to fool patients and families when they are at their vulnerable best. Medanta does not take the easy way out,” says she. Dr Trehan dismisses the idea that India’s health care sector’s prominence remains on a decline even after 60 years of Independence. “That time when the health sector was treated as a step-child is past,” says he. “I look after my patients, the administrative bit of the hospital and call myself an entrepreneur. I don’t see why someone can’t do all that,” again that amazing time management Guru. When he started Medanta, despite establishing top-notch cardiac care, Trehan missed a system where there was similar expertise in other specialties. “We needed a space where the unique Indian conditions could be treated. The Indian gene is very different and we should be able to find ways to cure our conditions.” Thus, Medanta’s emphasis is on Indian (Asian) gene, body, its well-being and medicinal traditions. It has the Medanta Duke Research Institute and the Integrative Medicine Department—both slated to play important roles in the future of the hospital. The “Indian theme” of Trehan’s dreams continues even in the design details of the buildings, in its signages and in the mannat trees. “Today I take pride in stating that there is no other institution in the world, including Mayo and Cleveland, which has such talent across the board. We collectively strive to deliver care which is better than any other institute in the world. One day we hope that a major chunk of global research will be conducted right here at Medanta. And that we would be able to treat problems that ail us and help others as well.” He has several similar hopes, wishes and dreams. One wonders, among those thousands of ruby-red threads, is there one that the good doctor has tied?
Articulate your Social Media Strategy for an EnterpriseThe adoption of social media has been increasing in enterprises at a rapid pace across the world. As the social media ‘behaviour’ or the way it engages with the community, forms an impression about the brand of the enterprise in the minds of the prospective and existing customers, it’s imperative to have a well-articulated and detailed strategy in place. There are seven key decisions for drafting the social media strategy. If your enterprise has already embarked on the social media journey, it may be helpful to revisit some or all of these on a periodic basis to ensure an efficient Social Media presence.
1. OBJECTIVE: This is the first and most important step. The primary motivation to be on social media should be well defined. For instance, it may be for boosting sales, enhancing brand awareness, crowd sourcing ideas or raising funds in case of non-profits. There would be ‘spill overs’. For instance, the objective of improving brand image may result in increased sales. However, it’s important to prioritise and thus target efforts towards the focus area. Based on the level of success in achieving the primary objective, later on the enterprise can focus on other areas.
2. SELECTING SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: Based on the dedicated bandwidth available to engage on social media, and the Social Media Platforms ( Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc) which ‘influence’ the target audience the most, the next key decision is to select a mix of social media sites which enterprise may like to engage on. The enterprise should never commit the mistake of being present on ‘all popular platforms’, just because it’s a fad. There may be a high possibility that the audience is not engaged appropriately, either because of lack of response from the enterprise or absence of TR stimulating content tailored to that particular platform. This will result in a negative brand perception.
3. CONTENT STRATEGY: Depending on the target audience, the next step is to decide the core messaging, identify the form in which to serve the content (video, picture or text), select the timing (when most of the audience is logged in to the social network) and set the frequency (periodicity of delivering the tweet, status update et al).
4. PLANNING THE ENABLING ORGANISATION: One of the critical choices at this point is to decide whether to outsource the execution of social media presence or do the same in-house. While there are pros and cons for both, it’s always beneficial to build capability in-house and dedicate executives having an in-depth understanding of the enterprise offering and the community members (fans on Facebook, followers on Twitter, etc). Community Manager (CM) is the key interface and voice of the enterprise on any social network. Besides CM, content creators or curators and design team also needs to be identified.
5.ESTABLISHING WAYS OF WORKING: The CM should be well connected to the various departments or functions like R&D, HR, and Marketing, etc. within the enterprise. This is required as there may be query or a grievance pertaining to a particular department of the company seeking in-depth information. The time to respond to a particular query internally (from the department to the CM), the time to respond to the community member externally and other SLAs (the extent to which information can be shared taking into account confidentiality, etc) should be agreed on between the CM and the department, functions. Also in case of conflicting views between the CM and the respective department on how to respond to a query or address a grievance, the escalation mechanism should be worked out in a detailed manner. This is important to give timely and adequate reply to the community member.
6. CRISIS MANAGEMENT: Crisis may strike in the form of a virus attack (posting repeated messages) or hacking of the community page or a particular community member trying to repeatedly tarnish the image of the enterprise by posting negative messages or a particular status update/tweet by the enterprise received in poor light by the community. A mechanism should be worked out for responding to all such crisis situations clearly nominating the respective personals/executives to be involved.
7. SOCIAL MEDIA ROI MEASUREMENT: The enterprise needs to decide on which metrics to monitor for measuring it is RoI linked to the objective and also to continuously improve its social media engagement. The metrics can be operational like number of views (YouTube), retweets, Followers ( Twitter), Likes ( Facebook) etc. Or business linked like increased sales, cost of handling a customer query etc. It can also be a mix of the two. Tools to track social media metrics across platforms can be leveraged by the enterprise for measuring RoI. For instance, Adobe SocialAnalytics and ‘Social Reports’ in Google Analytics aim to measure Social Media RoI and provide insights.
Great ideas and clever people aren’t the only arsenal your marketing plans need. Often, technology is the missing linkDOES YOUR CMO have a tech strategy? Nope, that’s not a typo. I am talking about a technology strategy, not a marketing strategy. And before you ask, for a marketer, technology isn’t limited—and definitely should not be mistaken to be limited—to social media. Technology for marketing is a different ball game, and has significant implications on how you run the function. For example, marketing technology can mould how valuable company information is being treated. A little-pondered over corporate secret is that most sales teams and recruiters have their most-current data on public platforms like LinkedIn. Not because—as is popularly whispered— they want to hide it from the prying eyes of their bosses; not even because they are planning to scoot from the company with the data. Most simply, they do it because many companies have not provided an in-house equivalent which is as easy and intuitive to use. I’ll bet even most of you have your most updated contacts database either on Facebook or LinkedIn as well. Customer contact information is just the tip of the iceberg, although that is mission-critical information. It goes without saying that customer knowledge is the biggest marketing weapon. If your marketing team has information on them in their personal social networking accounts, they have access to the customers’ wedding dates, birthdays, food preferences, annual income, credit card number and a whole lot more. That’s a lot of data, and makes predicting milestones, like pregnancy, for example, a breeze—as one retail chain did! They used that information well to promote their baby care business, where catching them as early as possible hugely impacts sales and of course, loyalty. The retail chain began by sending expecting parents coupons for things that would be relevant to be a new parent. To reduce the big brother effect of the exercise, they made sure they added offers on other household items too. Almost every company today is drowning in data—very valuable data, very BIG data. But unless you have the right analytics system in place, it’s not data, it’s just noise. Depending on how big the data trove is and the size of your business you could consider simple, free, cloudhosted tools, or go in for a high-powered solution like Unica. For example, as a marketer, one of the most frustrating things is to go for trade shows, collect a 1,000 cards, and then have sales tell you six months later that nothing has converted. In fact, half the prospects have not even been contacted. Now, depending on which team you’re on, it’s tempting to blame the quality of the event, or the quality of the sales approach. But actually the problem is a technical one. If you had a system in place which could triage the leads, automatically map them to existing prospects or clients, remove those locations where you have no dealer network, and then send an automated message to all of them, imagine how much faster and more efficiently things would move. Imagine, further, that this was linked to the customer contact system and you actually could see and control how often and how each prospect was contacted. This isn’t sales utopia—it is simple tool usage. Sadly, it’s the bit that somehow gets left out when IT buys its sales system. There are other obvious smart tech usages possible. Many of us have tablets now, and playing games, reading and doodling on them are absolutely wonderful. But does your firm have an app that allows customers to interact with you, and learn about your products? Often, when someone begins talking about IT solutions and smart apps, many marketers switch off. They dismiss these ideas as only viable or executable for big companies. But, that’s old-tech thinking. Today, thanks to the cloud, there are solutions priced as low as `1,000 a month. For example, you can host your contacts on constantcontact.com and run your newsletter from there. Surveys can be run on surveygizmo. com and there are many such options available. Deploying apps and IT solutions suited to your needs can strongly impact your company’s ability to deal with your customers. Brands not knowing us well enough is a situation we all face. I’m actually quite fond of certain brands I use; I’m even loyal to some of them so it hurts when they treat me badly. Given a choice, I don’t go back to the brands that have done that to me. Mostly though, the person giving me the brush-off has no idea of my past history with the brand. In the rare cases that they do, they are not incentivised to treat loyal/ profitable/happy customers any differently. (Here, I’m not talking about employees who don’t care enough about their company’s reputation to deliberately ignore customers, though that is also not that uncommon!) Every company hunts for that one sharp differentiator— the usual levers are supply chain, distributor network and product uniqueness. But what about knowing your customers better than anyone else? Wouldn’t that be the ultimate differentiator? And, what if you could use that knowledge to customise their user experience to make sure that different types of customers are treated in the manner they find most welcoming. Wouldn’t that be great for business? Banks like Citibank, ICICI and HDFC do this. Once your spends are consistently high, you’ll find an automatic upgrade to a higher status card. You’ll also find yourself being offered loans and vacations. Behind the ability to do this is a lot of technology which analyses customer information. Ever wondered why you get a call from the bank when you’ve suddenly spent a lot of money on your card? That’s a fraud prediction engine at work. Here, technology makes customers happy, brings in revenue and reduces losses for the firm. What’s the equivalent of that for your firm? I recently came across an interesting story on a medical product. A reputed pharma company wanted to re-engineer their product—which sold at around $20,000—to be able to price it at $4,000 for an emerging market like India. The R&D team (that was outsourced to India) analysed the bill of materials and realised that they could reduce the cost by around 40 per cent by dropping all the customer experience bits. That was the engineering viewpoint. But the marketing viewpoint was that the 40 per cent is what made people pay the balance 60 per cent! Do you know what component of your product is customer experience? So, what should a CMO do? How can s/he use technology to enhance customer experience, and derive insights from it? Here are my three rules. First, analyse the customer experience and put down all the ways in which technology can improve it. Second, study all your stakeholders, and understand how your relationship with each of them can be improved by technology. Finally, understand current business bottlenecks and see how technology can improve those.
From being a bride at 15 years to a mother at 16, to running a beauty empire, Shahnaz Husain, the czarina of Indian beauty business, has done it all...I was born into a conservative family. But, I was fortunate to have a broad minded, Oxford-educated father in Chief Justice NU Beg, who put me through La Martiniere in Lucknow and an Irish convent (Queen Mary’s) in Allahabad. He instilled in me a love of poetry and English literature and imbued within me the right combination of traditional values and progressive ideas. In school my favourite subject was English Literature—I loved poetry and still do—and I loved the creative arts. I used to take part in poetry-writing and essay competitions. I remember that I won an award from the Governor of Allahabad. However, I had to comply with existing traditions and entered into an arranged marriage at the tender age of 15, becoming a mother by the time I was 16 years. From my childhood I learnt to love and respect the rich heritage of India. In fact, one of the traditions that I inherited was natural and herbal therapy. Faith in herbal healing was very much a part of my family tradition (my mother had a fair milkand- roses flawless complexion). She always followed traditional beauty treatments, mixing herbs and ingredients at home, to care for her own skin and hair, and ours. As a young girl, poised on the threshold of life, I always wanted to make a difference, but I did not know that I would be a successful entrepreneur someday. Of course, my life was on a very different course. Even though I was a mother at 16, life seemed perfect. But I was bored with the drudgery of endless routine. Then the mental upheaval began. I was always interested in beauty and in making others beautiful, so I decided on beauty as a career. I was determined to get the best training possible and decided to work my way to the prized institutions of the West, to learn cosmetic therapy and cosmetology. My husband was posted in Tehran at the time, as head of foreign trade with the State Trading Corporation of India. I was not a college graduate, but I loved to write, so I started writing articles for the Iran Tribune. Somehow, I was convinced that if I was highly-qualified in my field, I could have the world at my feet. So gradually, I worked my way to leading institutions like Helena Rubinstein, Christine Valmy, Swarzkopf, Lancome, and Lean of Copenhagen. While training in London, I came across instances of damage caused by chemical treatments. It changed the course of my life and career. I wanted to find a natural alternative that was safe and without risks. From my family I had inherited faith in natural healing and my study of Ayurveda convinced me that it could offer the ideal answers to modern cosmetic care. I came back to India and started my first herbal salon in the verandah of my home in New Delhi, in 1971, in a very small way. In order to implement my ideas of natural beauty care, with an emphasis on the good health of the skin and hair, I established customised beauty care, with a personalised style, based on individual needs and problems. I adopted the concept of “herbal care and cure”. It was a totally unique, pathbreaking concept. I rejected the existing salon treatments and devised my own. I also began to formulate my own products using plant ingredients and natural substances, based on the ayurvedic system. Today, the salon treatments and products have become breakthroughs in natural beauty care. We have become known, not only for our treatments for general beauty care, but also for our therapeutic products and salon treatments for problems like acne, hyper-pigmentation, scars, premature ageing, dandruff, hair damage and hair loss. Once I started my salon, I became totally involved in devising treatments and formulating products, based on ayurveda. It was a totally new field at that time and there was plenty to be done. I have also been interested in designing. I have made use of it in designing our line of accessories and gift items. I also design my own clothes. It was because of my mother that I followed natural beauty care from childhood. It is from her that I learnt to have faith in nature and natural beauty remedies. I remember that henna used to be applied on our hair. It used to be mixed with amla, yogurt and lots of eggs. We also applied ubtan, made with gram flour, ground almonds, dry and ground mint leaves, rose petals, turmeric, cream of milk or yogurt. We used cleansing grains and rose water, which I later incorporated in our products. In fact, I incorporated the henna and other treatments, like our body packs, scrubs and hair oils. Ayurveda is the oldest and most organised system of healing. It has a long history of safe usage. Ayurvedic texts contain the details of a staggering number of plant products, minerals and natural substances, along with their medicinal properties, their methods of collection and extraction, as well as specific combinations of complementary herbs. It includes treatments and prescriptions for skin and hair care, as well as specific skin and hair problems. Ayurvedic ingredients offer safety from the side-effects of synthetic and chemical ingredients. Importantly, ayurveda is a holistic system, which takes diet, exercise and lifestyle into consideration. In fact, ayurveda offers the ideal answers to the demands of beauty care. It is difficult to choose only one, because we use hundreds of ingredients. But some of the most versatile are sandalwood, neem and rose. Trifala, a combination of three herbs, has varied uses. It comprises of amla, haritaki (Terminalis chebula) and vibhitika (Terminalis belerica). Neem leaf infusions have been used to cure skin diseases and are still used to relieve itching, soothe rashes, create a germicidal environment and clear inflammatory conditions. Neem contains organic sulphur compounds, which have a healing action. The first Shahnaz Husain product was Shalife—a nourishing cream—which was used for massage in our salons. In fact, today it is our fastest-moving product used in salons worldwide. I am often asked how I got to where I am today—by following my heart or my head? I believe to be really successful, a combination of both is necessary. One must have an instinctive feel for the market and future trends. Strategy is also important. Our business strategies have been unique. Apart from our franchise system, we have never relied on commercial advertising. Instead, I relied on word-of-mouth believing that a satisfied client was the best advertisement. In fact, our products grew out of clinical usage, based on massive client feedback. As already mentioned, I opened my first herbal salon in my own home. I began to extend my salons on a unique franchise system. I started encouraging homemakers to start a beauty salon in their own homes. This way they could have a career and yet be close at hand to care for home and family. I trained them and gave them the Shahnaz Herbal franchise by which they could carry out my specialised treatments. It was the beginning of my franchise system and beauty training academy. The fast-paced extension of the Shahnaz Husain Salons and other ventures is due to our franchise system. Today, the Shahnaz Husain franchise has become a successful business model, with tremendous international goodwill and demand. We operate in more than 100 countries, with our franchise ventures and direct product distributors. From one herbal salon to a worldwide chain of ventures, it has been a phenomenal journey. Entering the international market was the biggest challenge. I participated in the Festival of India in London in 1980 and was given a counter in the Perfumery Section at Selfridges. In the face of fierce competition, to stand up alone and sell India’s ancient civilisation in a jar was not easy. To everyone’s surprise, the entire consignment sold out in three days, breaking the store’s existing cosmetic sales records. It resulted in a permanent counter at the London store. From there, we moved on to Harrods in London, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, the Seibu chain in Japan, La Rinascente in Milan and El Certe Inglis in Spain. The Shahnaz Husain Group has experienced the increasing demand for Indian ayurvedic products across the globe. We recently launched our product sales again at Selfridges, the famous London store, where our sales have transcended all expectations. It just indicates the global demand for ayurvedic beauty care. One of my greatest achievements is representing India at US. President Obama’s World Summit of Entrepreneurs in Washington DC in April 2010. It was not only a great honour, but also an international recognition for ayurvedic beauty care and my spirit of entrepreneurship. I was also invited by Harvard Business School and MIT at Boston, USA, to speak on how I established an international brand without commercial advertising, highlighting the strategies I adopted to establish my global network of franchise ventures. Recently I spoke to students at the University of Oxford on Women Entrepreneurs in India and the London School of Economics on India’s rising global influence. From one herbal salon to a global chain of franchise ventures, it has been a phenomenal journey. The brand’s future plans include concentrated international branding, strengthening and widening our global chain of franchise salons, beauty training institutes, shops and spas. Product innovation has helped our organisation to remain a dynamic one. In fact, beauty care in India is fashioned after the Shahnaz Husain products and innovations. So we will continue to launch new and revolutionary products. Our recently launched “platinum range” has stormed the international markets. In our mission to spread ayurveda, our international presence is gaining further momentum. Our forays into the international market in ayurvedic beauty care have been a phenomenal success story. We are expanding our footprints across the globe. Together my daughter and grandsons will take ayurveda and Brand India to more countries within a year. My family is an intrinsic part of my beautiful world and they are in my plan with a crusader’s zeal, the way I am. They have been groomed with meticulous care and together we will lead the entire cosmetic world into the next century, with ayurveda. A major thrust in growth during 2010 and coming years will be the increasing demand for spa and wellness treatments. Salons are including spa treatments or are being converted into “day spas” offering both salon and spa services. In the Shahnaz Signature Salons, we have found that apart from basic services, treatments like anti-ageing facials, rejuvenation, body massage, body polish, hair spa treatment, have steadily gained in popularity. We will be extending our ayurvedic spas, and also converting salons into day spas, where treatments will be geared towards revitalisation, rejuvenation and stress reduction, upholding the principles of holistic care. We have introduced a new repertoire of treatments, using traditional ingredients. I think every woman owes it to herself to look her best. Lack of time is a very poor excuse. A daily beauty routine actually takes only a few minutes. I always say, beauty is power—brain and spiritual power. In my book The Book of Absolute Beauty, I have written, “A beautiful woman is one who values herself physically, mentally, emotionally and even spiritually.” Yes, beauty is a total impact of all these aspects. Mind and body are inter-related and interlinked. The state of one reflects on the other. There is yet another dimension—the soul. How can beauty be complete without taking inner beauty into account? To be a complete person, you not only have to work on your external beauty, but also develop your inner beauty.
Beauty is not merely my career. It is the sole purpose of my existence. I cannot think of anything else I would have rather done. (As told to Rohini Banerjee)
When the Government of India passed the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act-2009, education went on to become a Fundamental Right and not a privilege accessible to a handful. Post-RTE, private schools were ordered to reserve 25 per cent of their seats for students coming in from financially-weak sections. They had to be given compulsory admission. A process was put in place through which parents could submit documents proving their economic status and neighbourhood school/s had to accept them minus admission tests. The Act also stated that students could not be denied admissions under any circumstances, nor could authorities flunk them in examinations till they had crossed the elementary-level classes. The Act’s 25 per cent reservation demand created a stir—private schools began to talk about the Act’s ‘unfairness’, adding extra financial burdens on them. Even then, the Bill was passed and implemented. And five years were granted for its execution. While the government was busy celebrating its ‘victory’ over private schools, voices were being raised in several quarters regarding the feasibility of the Act. Somewhat similar to the partly successful, partly disastrous ‘No Child Left Behind Legislation’ of the US, the sustainability of the Act was being questioned. Some of the questions raised was surrounding the plausibility of the Act; with 80 per cent of the Indian population living in rural areas; how was the government planning to provide a culturally acceptable education which was also pan-Indian in character? Acceptability, after all, was one of the four pillars of the Act, including availability, accessibility and adaptability. Critics also felt that the available infrastructure was too weak to support quality education to all. There was also fear surrounding the question of reaction—how would children coming from completely different economic realities react to being clubbed together? Could this Act bridge the gap between classes or just widen them further? Is it fair to throw children from financially-weak backgrounds into fancy schools and ask them to cope? Was it fair to promote these children to the next class, even if they flunked previous ones? Most importantly, was the Right to Free and Compulsory Education-2009, a pragmatic idea? In the past few years cases have come up where children have been denied admission by schools and no visible action has been taken. Will it be fair to assume that this idea is powerful in thought, but like every other policy, fails miserably when it comes to execution? We asked experts about their opinions in the Issue of the Month.
SHYAMA CHONA// India has been an independent nation for over 60 years now. But the difference between our haves and have nots has not been bridged yet. Since the gap will not disappear by itself, it is the duty of our nation’s policy makers to create an environment where the discrepancies are addressed. Through the RTE Act, which reserves 25 per cent of seats in private schools for underprivileged students, the Centre is asking us to dream a little bigger. We should give the Act our consent because the idea behind it is to create a healthy learning environment. As every new pebble creates ripples in a pool, this idea, too, has managed to stir up a debate. But I believe that the positives of the Act outweigh our concerns. It is true that our country has are too many cultural and regional differences which will prove to be difficult to bridge by a single Act alone. Having said that, no one can deny a child her or his right to quality education. Because our country is a democratic one, it is but natural that there would be difference of opinions. However, one does not abandon an idea because of difference of opinions. Thus, the Act’s implementation should be carried out by individual institutions according to their systemic needs. What the Centre has ensured is a system of checks-and-balances; adopt it, when you do, according to your style, but adopt it nonetheless. What the Centre is planning to do is to offer young minds a chance to grasp a reality that is different. It is what children, as they grow into adults, will eventually be expected to do. As far as peer pressure is concerned, it is the school and parents’ responsibility to teach children tolerance. It is also a parents’ duty to teach children to not differentiate. I realise that change is difficult, but it always is. The bit that leaves me disheartened is the fact that such an Act had to be forced down our throats like a bitter pill. We, the teachers, are responsible for the holistic growth of students. We should be able to teach them to live with others which the Act expects us to do. I believe that the Act is a pragmatic one. Education is no longer a charity; it is not even an act of social welfare anymore. Privatised education is an industry where money is being parked. What are we doing with all that money? Why is the Centre not allotting more land to private schools? Why are private schools not offering scholarships to bring in more meritorious students—from every background—into its fold? And why are we not talking of the better-run government schools such as Kendriya Vidyalaya when we are seeking a change in the system? These are the questions that we need to ask ourselves while discussing the Act. As for the argument surrounding the ‘added financial burden’, I find it an unfounded worry. Instead of spending too much on infrastructure (swimming pools, polo tables or AC buses), spend on quality education (teachers). Instead of arguing about who is from where, teachers should see their students according to their merit, capacity and ambition. The rest is immaterial. What every child deserves in this country is a child-friendly school. For that to happen we need to make teachers’ training mandatory. We need to make sure that we let our egos go, before we start ‘teaching’ others about equality. Teaching is not a nine-to-five job; it is a calling. A life of a teacher does not have compartments—it is not enough to have knowledge alone, it is also imperative to respect human beings, albeit a human being who is younger. I recently travelled to a village in Kashmir where I met such lovely children, who are now going to school wearing uniforms and shoes like ‘privileged’ children. Their parents now believe that education is not an expenditure, it is an investment. I concur.
ARUNA SANKARANARAYANAN// The RTE Act is significant as it has brought the issue of education into the forefront of the public debate. For decades, our society has been indifferent to the question of quality education—especially the kind we offer to our children coming in from lowincome groups. The RTE has stirred-up the proverbial hornet’s nest and stoked the much-needed fire. But the Centre is yet to seriously address the question of quality in education, especially in its primary schools. RESEARCH SHOWS that a powerful predictor variable of student quality is dependent on the teaching quality. That in turn is based on the capability of teachers. The better the teacher the more qualified the student will be. The Indian reality is that here quality has been on a decline and even ‘reputed’ schools are fighting high attrition rates. Furthermore, it is not enough to just meet the ‘numbers’—if the right people are not in that group. People who are passionate about learning, have strong communication skills and are empathetic are the best teachers— do we have them? In India, teaching is still a profession which does not attract the crème de la crème of graduates. The Centre needs to address this issue first and make policy changes to turn teaching into a coveted profession. Teachers’ training programmes need to be revamped. They need to be selective when choosing the future mentors of our nation. Compensation has to be comparable with other coveted professions—say a management or an IT degree. Teachers should be encouraged to think out-of-the-box and make rote learning a thing of the past. Only then will the RTE seem a plausible design. While younger children, by and large, do not come with a baggage of prejudices and biases, in older classes, students would need to be counselled on how a person’s family background need not entirely determine a child’s future aspirations and ambition. Therefore dealing with the children (especially from the privileged background) is not that big a problem. Parents and teachers are the ones who may find it hard to dispel their preset notions. The spirit of the Act , indeed, has to be lauded, but it is also essential to note that the Centre is not resolving problems by asking private schools to reserve 25 per cent of their seats for the disadvantaged. Despite those available seats, 80 per cent (and above) of India’s students will continue to be schooled in government-run primary schools with weak infrastructure and erratic classes. We cannot ignore the reality that quality of education offered in government schools has to improve for the RTE Act be ‘fair in spirit’. On their part, private institutions will have to offer supplementary remedial programmes (tuitions) to the underprivileged children. We need to remember that academics is just a singular aspect of school life. Institutions should try to promote integration in sports and co-curricular activities alongside classroom interactions—sports in fact can serve as a great leveller and agent of peer acceptance than classroom interaction. When students from different backgrounds are thrown together, umpteen issues are likely to arise. Rather than shying away from these, schools should use them as opportunities to help children learn problem-solving and social skills. Boarding schools here can serve as great equalisers as day to day differences among children of different classes will not be so obvious in that environment. However, the boarding schools have to have sensitisation and counselling programs to make sure all children feel comfortable in an alien environment away from parents. We have to remember that creativity flourishes when there is diversity and a diverse classroom can propel intellectual growth. The change required thus will have to be more social than infrastructural within a classroom and more logistical on the Centre’s part. Honestly, the Act comes with a host of problems. Yet there is no denying that it wishes for the best. Intrinsically, there is nothing harmful in the idea of children from different backgrounds studying together. But good intent is not enough to make a scheme a success. What we need are more child-friendly schools which offer a stimulating environment for every child, ensure all children are physically and emotionally secure. Further more, support children with difficulties with additional help— both academically and emotionally.
Why the West should sit up and notice the Sleeping GiantNAPOLEON warned us that China was a sleeping giant best left undisturbed. No longer. The giant is well awake and not only has the West disturbed it, many of the West’s elite appear to fear it. Nowhere is this more true than when it comes to the debate about China’s growing naval power and in particular its attitude towards China’s claim for sovereignty over the South China Sea, to which other bordering nations—the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia—also claim rights. A number of policy-makers in the West, and especially in the US, warn of China’s rapidly expanding military expenditure and especially that of its sea forces. It has just put into service its first aircraft carrier and appears to be strengthening its navy to the point that it could mount an attack on longclaimed Taiwan. In reality China’s naval growth starts from a low base. It would take decades of its present rate of growth before it would come anywhere near matching US capabilities. India, with its vested interest in free passage, watches carefully from the sidelines. India will leave the wrangling to others but if they ever slackened in the struggle India would become more outspoken, even vociferous on the subject. Long before Napoleon China had Admiral Zheng He who in the fifteenth century led large fleets as far away as Africa. But unlike his European contemporaries Zheng He and his emperor had mainly curiosity. They possessed no idea of subjugation, slavery or colonisation. They were not on any mission to “civilise”. Only in the most recent of years has China given its navy prominence and even today its expenditure on naval power compared with the US or Europe is small. In late April, the US and the Philippines staged a mock battle to show they could recapture a Philippino island from foreign forces. Earlier in April a Philippino warship found Chinese fishing boats close into the Scarbough reef, a submerged shoal of rocks that the Philippines claim. The fishermen called in two Chinese civilian patrol boats. Beijing persuaded the Philippines to withdraw their warship and replace it with a civilian coastguard ship. But China did not withdraw either its fishing boats nor its patrol boats. “Chicken can be a dangerous game,” observed The Economist in the final week of April again. Neighbouring countries have rushed to occupy as many of the sea’s land spots as possible. Today, China controls the entire Paracels islands and 15 reefs and shoals within the Spratleys. Both islands probably have in their waters large deposits of oil, gas and minerals. Since 2007 China has repeatedly warned foreign oil companies that cooperating with Vietnam would affect their business in China. Beijing insists that its historic map, claiming the whole South China Sea, is a valid territorial claim. It argues that this has been so since the fifteenth century. But its contours are vague and it is not recognised under international law. Contradicting this claim China has ratified the United Nation’s Law of The Sea Treaty. The treaty compels states to surrender the majority of their historical claims in favour of the maritime zones awarded under the convention—in particular a 200 kilometre off-shore economic zone. (But the US has not, shooting itself in the foot.) The other countries involved have not stood still. The Philippines has proposed that ASEAN (the regional co-operation body) set aside disputes among themselves and form a united front to force Beijing to clarify its aims. The US has reiterated UN policy that there must be freedom of navigation in the sea and, according to a new report by the International Crisis Group, Beijing is worried that US involvement will internationalise the disputes, isolating China. The report also points out that “the proliferation of domestic actors and the complicated structure behind Chinese management of the issue has often been described with reference to the traditional myth of nine dragons stirring up the sea.” There is a bulky bureaucracy which includes 11 ministerial-level government agencies. Then there are the powerful national oil companies. Apparently the politburo for years has not given any directives and the foreign ministry lacks the clout to bring them into line, although it has to carry the can when dealing with the outside world. Its work is complicated by the lack of legal clarity, growing nationalist opinion within China, the belief that economic growth and political stability at home outweigh foreign policy and that a vociferous military outranks the foreign ministry, even not reporting some of its decisions to the politburo. China loses much credibility with its refusal to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice. A few years ago Nigeria took the issue of its dispute with neighbouring Cameroon over the oil-rich Bokassa peninsular to the Court. It lost and President Olusegun Obasanjo gracefully turned over the territory to Cameroon. China also refuses to use the arbitration mechanisms of the Law of the Sea. However, the debate is not frozen in its parameters. Some of the agencies and the National People’s Congress have been calling for the establishment of a co-ordinating body. At the top there is the feeling that China suffers from a lack of good policy options. There is now appears to be a policy of leaving this intractable problem to the next generation as was first proposed by Den Xiaoping in 1978. Last year China reaffirmed these guidelines when it signed the White paper on Peaceful Development with ASEAN. China should loose no time in sorting out its bureaucratic mess and taking the issue to the International Court of Justice as Nigeria did.
Sara Pilot and Lora Prabhu, co-founders of Cequin have one thing in common—their commitment to women’s issues“I hope we can make things different. Otherwise Lora and I would just pack up Cequin,” says Sara Pilot, founder, Centre for Equity and Inclusion (Cequin). It is this never-say-die spirit that keeps her and partner and co-founder Lora Prabhu going on with their struggles for Delhi’s marginalised women even in the face of extreme pessimism. Sara radiates the positive energy that infuses all their endeavours. She is convinced that things are changing for women—people are waking up to gender issues, media is becoming sensitised and problems are being discussed in forums. Yet, her optimism is tempered with prudence. “But overnight things will not become okay. Change will take place and that gives us the motivation,” she says. Lora pinpoints their eternal hope for change to a shared passion for their vocation. “We are passionate about whatever we want to do. If we think there is a need for it, then we just struggle to raise funds for it,” she says. It is due this single-minded focus that Cequin, a relatively young NGO (set up in 2009) has gained recognition in the development sector. In fact, the organisation is a culmination of a series of informal discussions between the two former United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) colleagues and friends Sara and Lora. It was a short internship after her BSc at UNIFEM that initiated Sara into a world hitherto unknown to her. “At 22, you are out of university and thinking about yourself. It was at UNIFEM that I began understanding the issues women face in India,” says Sara. The influence was so deep that Sara went on to UK for a Master’s in international relations and returned to take up a job with UNIFEM. It was here that she met Lora Prabhu. For Lora though Cequin was an extension of media career. She was already deep into women-focused issues and had “done a whole series on women’s issues for Doordarshan called Sabla” among other programmes and her stint at UNIFEM was an obvious trajectory.” They both chose to quit UNIFEM around the same time—Sara for family commitments and Lora on consultancy assignments. But the two kept in touch, and with a desire to do something for the less-privileged still strong within them the discussions continued. The seeds of Cequin were set rather informally in 2008 when they were still exploring the possibility of starting a formal organisation. “Working for women’s issues is not a profession, it is a calling, and we just started working together,” says Lora adding, “Frankly starting something of our own sounded great, but I was not at all sure that we could pull it off. But Sara seemed confident.” The first grand opportunity presented itself when the Working Committee of the Congress Party sought some inputs from Sara for its election manifesto. Sara immediately advised a roundtable of women’s organisations to seek their views instead of basing the manifesto on individual inputs. Next, the duo partnered with the Women Power Connect and Centre of Budget and Governance Accountability and on October 13, 2008, brought around 50 women groups to the roundtable. The draft report was later presented to the committee. Enthused by the success, Lora and Sara, formalised their partnership and Cequin was born. They started working in a more “institutionalised manner following that and everything started taking shape,” says Lora. One of the projects that took shape was the Gender Resource Centre— Samajik Suvidha Kendra (GRCSSK) in 2009 in partnership with Jamia Milia Islamia. A Government of Delhi initiative, the GRC-SSK is a unique public private partnership project called the Mission Convergence, aimed at the inclusion of the marginalised sections of women. Though Cequin had a choice of opening a GRC-SSK centre in other areas too it chose Jamia because “it fitted with our overall vision and gave us the opportunity to work with Muslim women in urban slums—the most marginalised people,” says Sara. But mobilising 10,000 Muslim households to send their womenfolk to attend classes—educational and vocational—was no cakewalk. “It is difficult for women to come out not because they lack aspirations, but because their men have to give the go ahead and then what about the brood of children at home,” asks Lora. They had to first convince the community elders and leaders to permit the women to come out of their homes. It worked for Cequin for two reasons: one that they were a government-sanctioned agency and secondly the fact the university had given it space to operate on its premises. “Today we have 70 women wanting to enroll for a class that can only hold a batch of 30,” says Sara. For these women, denied the luxury of privacy, the centre is also a personal space where they can meet. The GRC-SSK works on the premise that women are the nuclei of society. By promoting their access to economic, social and cultural rights they can be made agents of far reaching change. The first step to empowerment was to understand the gaps in the existing social benefit schema of the government and the Jamia residents, one of the most closeted areas of the city. A door-to-door survey of 10,000 households was conducted to understand the specific demographic profile of area and targeted interventions planned. This was a six-pronged strategy breaking away from the conventional dole mode of welfare and beneficiaries. Rather, it focused on holistic development and empowerment to make women self-sustaining, economically- viable community members. Cequin provides the women of the area vocational training, non-formal education, regular health services, legal help and counseling, and also organises them in self-help groups to promote micro credit and micro enterprise activities. The SSK component provides information and linkage with the various government welfare schemes and departments. But Cequin has a much vaster vision for the women of Jamia than the one defined by Mission Convergence, Government of Delhi, for its GRC-SSK. It created a Jamia Bazaar to not only showcase their products but also act as a platform for these women to come out of their cloister and let the world get a whiff of elusive Jamia Nagar. No mean feat, if you look at the society they belong to. “There isn’t much movement in Jamia Nagar,” says Sara, adding “And yes, there is a particular flavour which we feel people of Delhi are missing out on.” They did not hold the Bazaar in Jamia, as they felt the residents must come out to mingle with the rest of Delhi. Says Sara, “We wanted the girls to step out and come to south of Delhi.” Both the bazaars have been a phenomenal success. First year, in 2010, there were 18 stalls, and the next year about 39 stalls. “The kiosks showcased the work of girls and also smaller NGOs working around the Jamia area,” informs Sara. They have refined the vocational training component to make the products being produced by the Jamia women to a fine art. For the second bazaar they sought the help of established designers like Usha Prajapati of NID to impart skills to the women trainees. “Usha sat with the girls, identified their skills and then developed a range of products that we showcased at the second Jamia Bazaar in 2012,” says Lora. Adds Sara, “In 2012 we had developed the Cequin craft identity because our vocational training had evolved and we had done next level workshops with these women on design and quality, so a range of products had emerged from those training.” NGOs from Jamia area, Muslim organisations beyond the Jamia area, and a few other women entrepreneurs participated as well, broadening the perspective of the bazaar slightly. From the visionary of the duo, as Sara says, “Lora has great ideas. I am not creative,” flow in concepts together that they sieve for the doable ones. “Since neither of us is stubborn,” Sara adds, “it is the larger picture of Cequin that dominates.” Funds are never a problem though they start with grand ideas that are “too-bigfor- our boots kind of a situation”. Says Lora, “We are so determined to roll it that we practically do so without much money.” For Sara the future is open ended: “If you had asked us our plans three years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to tell you about our Delhi Daredevil Campaign or Jamia Bazaars. This is not to say that we don’t have a vision. But certain things, they haven’t been planned. You have a bigger idea and then it all depends on the current scenario or funding, which is a big thing. Lora and I can have 20 ideas. But if we are not able to raise funds for 19 of them then there is not much one can do about that.” But there is hope for change. As Sara says, “Women have moved so much from our grandmothers generation. Obviously there is a movement. But yes, there are worse kinds of violations that we are unable to remove from our society. As a society we need to step back and think why it is happening and analyse it to some extent. We know because we are in the field. But these are things which an average citizen has to realise.” Cequin is doing much to raise our consciousness and conscience.
An incredible story about the Neeraj Grover murder. Uncovered brilliantly and written lucidly by a first-time author HUMANS, ESPECIALLY writers, have always been intrigued by the topic of death. It is partly due to this fascination, and partly due to the larger-than-life, cinematic quality to the turn of events which led to the murder, that makes Meenal Baghel’s debut novel—Death in Mumbai—the next best thing. Death in Mumbai indepthly explores events, circumstances that occurred before and after the murder of Neeraj Grover. The book’s strength lies in the honest eye it casts on the lives of the three protagonists—Neeraj Grover (the victim), Emile Jerome Mathew (the convict) and Maria Monica Susairaj (the mutual lover). Though it may read like a potboiler, the 2008 murder was as real as they get. Baghel, who is the editor of Mumbai Mirror, does what every good journalist should do—her homework. As a result she does not abandon the story midway. Where most murder stories end, Death in Mumbai begins and goes beyond the regular grid of murder mysteries to tell the stories of the shaken families of the three protagonists, trying to come to terms with their realities. Baghel also offers readers a candid glimpse into the three lives; that of Grover’s—the dynamic TV producer’s womanising ways—to glamdoll Monica’s efforts to get a foothold in the glittering world of Bollywood and her tumultuous relationship with naval officer Emile. India’s prime time queen Ekta Kapoor, small-time actress Moon Das and maverick movie maker Ram Gopal Verma (RGV) also find a place in the book. Neeraj had worked a brief stint with Ekta Kapoor, while RGV made a film (Not a Love Story) based on the murder and Das played Maria in a lesser known B-grade film. But a keen reader will understand that these are not just passing references, and that the writer takes a dig at the glamorous, dark matinee world where no story, however unpleasant, is left unexploited. The 231-pages well-researched book keeps the readers hooked till the end. It is written with finesse and is deliciously-paced. Though Baghel tries to stay fair—the mutual exploitation of Maria and Grover of each other for physical pleasure and opportunities is not skimmed over—Maria and Emile come across as malicious, brutal killers (as they probably were). It is the police that gets the fairest deal in the book. After bad raps, it is refreshing to read how the Indian Police Force get things done.
A one of its kind plot and book from the Japanese authorTHE DEVOTION OF SUSPECT X is a distinctive book—a murder mystery, and not quite. It begins faithfully enough; with a murder and an investigation (as they should). But The Devotion of Suspect X conveniently leaves that format behind within five pages leaving a reader wondering, “What then?” Inspired by the ‘puzzle genre’ of detective fiction, right from the start the book is less about ‘what’ and more about the ‘how’. For those uninitiated into the world of the puzzle genre, it is an integral part of detective fiction, first introduced in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1847). The premise of this genre is simple enough; a body is discovered in a closed room minus apparent exits. Thereby leading to the main puzzle; how did the murderer get in and out? The other characteristic of this genre—a reader is introduced to the actors as they enter a stage. In the case of this particular book, readers meet the protagonists while they are still backstage; rehearsing their alibis, putting on costumes and getting into the skin of their characters. This style too Personis a departure from the usual staple of Poirots and Dalglieshes. The story revolves around Yasuko Hanaoka, a divorced, single mother trying to create a better life for her school-going daughter, Misato, after escaping the clutches of an abusive former husband Togashi. Her seemingly calm world shatters when one day Togashi shows up at her work place to follow her home and tries to extort money. An altercation ensues that leaves Togashi dead on Hanaoka’s apartment floor. That is when Yasuko’s neighbour, Ishigami—a middle-aged, high school mathematics teacher and a genius—offers his help. Ishigami, a borderline sociopath, is infatuated with Hanaoka. Thus, the good professor not only disposes off the body but plots an elaborate web to cover up the murder, complete with an iron-clad alibi. When Togashi’s body allegedly washes up and is identified, Detective Kusanagi is brought into the case. He suspects Yasuko almost immediately. However, Kusanagi is unable to find any holes in Yasuko’s alibi. As his doubts trouble him, he goes to an old friend and classmate, Dr Manabu Yukawa, who is also a former college mate of Ishigami. Following leads Yukawa meets Ishigami and is convinced that his old friend had a hand in the murder. A battle of wits begins as the two geniuses try to outsmart each other. While one adds layers to web of deceit, the other tries to peel each layer off. Can Ishigami, and thereby Hanaoka, get away with murder—therein lies the mystery. The book is a homage to good-old sleuthing style based on mathematical deduction, logic, and often, chess! Its regular, day-to-day, honest- to-god prose is often a tad too matter-of-fact. As a reader one is not (almost) allowed to attach emotionally to any one of the characters— apart from the master-plotter, Ishigami, who frankly, stands out. The high school mathematics teacher is the most well-drawn-out character and is treated affectionately by the author. His quiet and deep obsession with his neighbour is outlined with a uncharacteristic tenderness. The ruthlessly pragmatic yet romantic sociopath, Ishigami will, in all probabilities, remain in the collective memory of the readers. Personally, it was the dry prose of the book which was a welcome change. With increasing number of thriller-crime novellas putting too much of an emphasis on building ‘drama’ and eventually climaxing into something absurd, the end of this particular book came as a surprise—simply because it is so commonplace and thereby, probable. Though the beginning may leave a reader wondering about the great reviews that the book has received thus far, if one can sustain interest despite the slow start, his or her devotion, too, will be rewarded at the end. The Devotion of Suspect X is the second Higashino book to be translated into English. Allegedly, there are several more translations in the pipeline. For those who are fond of their detective fiction, this must be on their reading list, simply because it is so very different.
Desolate and breathtaking, Ladakh has a rugged magic to itI visited Switzerland after I went to Ladakh. I sincerely wish it had been the other way around. That is because all the romantic Bollywood hype about plush, enchanting and picture-perfect Switzerland pales in comparison to the stark, naked beauty of Ladakh. It may be the lesser-loved cousin of the Jammu & Kashmir joint family and a late notation on most tourists’ calendars, but it towers unassuming, yet somehow haughtily, over the rest. Even though air tickets are quite expensive, we had decided to fly up to Leh, sacrificing a gorgeous drive in the interest of saving time. Strict departure briefings included words like ‘rest’ and ‘acclimatisation’. Wise advice you should ignore at your own peril—it is actually the difference between life and near-death. Leh—at a breathtaking height of 3,505 metres (11,500 ft) above sea level—has 35 per cent less partial pressure of oxygen than Delhi, sunshine like you would not believe and air you can actually get high on. For the vain, like me, the air is also a natural hair straightener, lighting up your blanket with static after lights out. It is so dry that you are actually ‘advised’ to eat plenty of butter—usually best with locally baked Ladakhi bread, a cross between a doughy kulcha and roti. But I would not recommend the Ladakhi butter tea to the faint of heart, which packs a pungent punch with dollops of yak butter and salt. Get the highest SPF sun block you can legally get, lay on the chapstick and do not forget to pack those sunglasses, especially if you plan to go where the snow is. If you are expecting tall trees and lush green then you are in for quite a surprise. As the plane sweeps into the Leh airport, your first impression is brown. And olive green. Leh is an Army town. From the lumbering ‘One-Tonnes’ to the CSD mark on tins of Milkmaid; from a thriving second-hand market for combat boots and frayed windcheaters to the hillside golf courses with diesel-greased putting patches; from rows of oil drums lined up like tin soldiers to the glint of the Officers’ aviator Ray-Bans—the Indian Army is omnipresent. Till you step into any of the monasteries just outside of Leh—Alchi, Shey, Thikse—where a burst of colour greets you on the outside—multicoloured prayer flags, bright gold, blue and red motifs on the walls and shy monks in their saffron and maroon robes. Most monasteries are dank and dark inside and those with serious claustrophobia would do well to avoid the sanctum sanctorum. If you have a relative in the Army posted at Ladakh, this should be reason enough for you to go right away—permissions come easy and the Army does have access to prime real estate. We went in the post-tourist season, in October, which was all very well, except we often had to survive on dry fruits and chocolates, while wearing up to four layers of clothes to ward off the biting winds. Outside of the tourist season, most eateries and shops in towns along the Indus—both toward the Pakistan and China borders—close down for the winter. Besides, the Ladakhis do like their afternoon siesta, so avoid the lunch hour for any shopping, especially after the summer when they are not even willing to entertain your lame attempts at bargaining. Taxis are the obvious way around but are quite expensive, so do settle the fares in advance. We were quite lucky with Norbu—our cheeky and daredevil driver who insisted on swinging his head back for a chat, while negotiating the curves at over 16,000 ft. Do not venture too far out of Leh if you have the slightest vertigo. Roads are dizzyingly narrow, flanked by jagged rocks and sheer 90 degree drops, though some places seem to have jumped right out of The Lord of the Rings movies. For those who do wish to venture beyond touristy Leh—and I strongly recommend that you do—there are a set of permissions that are required from the civil administration. Save those permits and do be careful of convoy timings, as the narrow roads become one-way every time a large Army convoy’s on the move.We had the opportunity to see one of these on the move. As long lines of olive green snake through the mountain ranges, along narrow serpentine tracks, the sight is as awe-inspiring as the rest. Ladakh sits between four parallel mountain ranges and plays host to a number of rivers, including the historically-evocative Indus. Each valley comes with its own colour palette and a surprise awaits you at every hairpin bend—white sand-like dunes to hard rock and warm yellow, rainbow-coloured sunsets to moonlit brown. Gompas and monasteries give way to mosques as you move from Leh toward Kargil. Combined with the abundance of sunshine, the purity of colours against vast expanses of land, it’s a photographer’s delight—I took over 400 pictures in two weeks and I can not even call myself an amateur shutterbug! There are hidden delights too, like the gazing yaks in the Nubra and Shyok river valleys, the Indus that flows quietly alongside a shrunken riverbed that serves as a road. In fact, two definitely deserve a spot on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. One is a shrivelled hand rumoured to be Chenghis Khan’s, inside a temple in the Shyok Valley. The other is Darchik village near Batalik. Billed as the only surviving ‘pure Aryan’ village in the world, I brave the trek and a nose-bleed only to find a handful of regular-looking people, lots of empty Maggi packets and one of the most beautiful old women I have ever seen. I suppose it is all that healthy trekking and the fresh mountain air, but for a moment I seriously consider the rumours of neo-Nazis coming there to breed. But bluer than the eyes of the old lady is the regal Pangongg Tso (lake)—towards the China border, onethird of which is inside India, with the rest in China. Fluffy white clouds and brown mountain ranges provide the perfect backdrop to the blinding blue. Of course, no self-respecting adrenaline junkie can ignore Khardung La—the world’s second-highest pass and the highest motorable road at 18,380 ft. Once there, as I get out of the car to pay my compulsory respects at the famed multi-faith temple-cum-room, it is like wading through thick syrup on floating legs. Till Norbu tells me it is the sudden ascent, and I realise we have gone from 11,500 feet at Leh to over 18,000 in 40 kilometres! Ladakh is haunting not just for its beauty, but also for tales of bravery in the face of extreme adversity. The Kargil War memorial at Bhimbet, with its view of Tiger Hill and Tololing, and those who fought in the 1962 Sino-Indian War at Rezang La brings both tears and goosebumps. They are stark reminders of the soldiers still on the border, especially the treacherous Siachen Glacier and braveheart drivers and pilots who connect them to the rest of the world. Many of the nameless migrant labourers and engineers who seem to have carved roads out of sheer force of will are immortalised by incongruous-looking memorial stones after every other mile along the Indus trail. Interspersed, of course, with warnings to the living: the stark “Overtaker, beware of Undertaker” and “It’s better to be Mr Late than Late Mr.…”; a flirty “Be gentle on my curves”; the cryptic “Be weatherwise, not otherwise”; and the pithy “Do not gossip, let him drive” or “Drive. Do not fly”. All the while the mountains stand, majestically unaware of their beauty, standing guard over the deafening sounds of silence, twirling prayer wheels, sun-kissed mosques and crinkly-eyed, smiling people. Ladakh might stand witness to a bloody border, but driving along the Indus, one is struck by the sheer inconsequentiality of human life, dwarfed as man is by Nature at its forbidding best.