Acknowledging the markers of a patriarchal world

MUCH OF THE recent public discourse in India has centred on the gang-rape and murder in Delhi last December. The savage crime has led to introspection about the kind of society we are and about the prejudices deeply ingrained in our fabric; there has been discussion of the misogynistic elements of our popular culture, which can both reflect and influence social attitudes. At a cinema-related session I recently moderated at the Apeejay Kolkata Literature Festival, the conversation steered to representations of women in popular Hindi films—about how even seemingly innocuous movies have scenes where the “hero” pursues and harasses a girl until she falls in love with him. On the panel was Shyam Benegal, who himself has been such a sensitive portrayer of women that he is sometimes referred to as a “feminist director”. Unfortunately, the word “feminist” can draw ambivalent reactions. Many people I know are not comfortable describing themselves as such, because it is sometimes used as a derisive term, built around the stereotype of a man-hating woman who is venting her personal frustrations. But as the journalist Rebecca West said with ironic terseness, feminism is not a complicated idea at all—it is merely “the radical notion that women are people”. Seeing women as sentient human beings appears not to be easy in the Indian context, where they are typically treated as either objects to be possessed or goddesses to be worshipped. The two things often go together: the image of women as custodians of a family’s “honour” easily becomes a pretext to suppress them, to deny them basic rights such as freedom of movement. (Those goddess idols you see in temple—they stay rooted where they are, unless they are carried by men.) In the current climate, then, it is important—even for those who consider themselves liberal—to constantly be reminded of the many forms of discrimination that women face on an everyday basis. Some fine books on the subject have been published recently, among them Nivedita Menon’s Seeing Like a Feminist, which is a clear-sighted setting out of the feminist position as it tries to shift the markers of a patriarchal world. There is much food for thought in Menon’s book, but one section I found particularly stimulating was the one about the fluidity of gender— built on the idea that the classification of people into watertight “male” and “female” categories can be misleading. Referencing the work of the feminist philosopher Judith Butler, as well as observations of gender roles in pre-colonial African cultures, Menon writes that being specifically a man or specifically a woman is to a large extent a “performance” that most people engage in, according to what society expects of them. Human bodies are really quite versatile and complex, occupying positions along a spectrum (lactation can be induced in men, for example), but due to stern cultural codes “a range of bodies becomes invisible or illegitimate”. Thus, a mother might worry about her son’s bulging breasts and a doctor might tell her that surgery might be required—though it is not a biologically “abnormal” condition. Another recently published book that touches on gender performancesand learned behaviour is Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets, co-written by Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan and Shilpa Ranade. The authors point out that in public spaces in India, the act of constant self-surveillance by women produces what the French thinker Michel Foucault called Disciplined Bodies. “At bus stops and railway stations,” they note, “a woman will often hold a file, folder or book close to her chest, keep her eyes averted and seem to focus inward rather than outward [...] the average woman will occupy the least possible space, rendering herself as inconspicuous as she can.” For a male reader, Why Loiter? is an eye-opening analysis of how hard it can be for women to use public spaces in a relaxed manner. Especially disturbing, I thought, was a chapter about the disgraceful shortfall in public toilets for women even in big cities, a feature of urban planning that tells us something significant about the still-prevalent attitude that a woman’s place is in the home—that she has no business wandering about too much. A more piquant approach to the subject of feminism can be found in The Fabulous Feminist: A Suniti Namjoshi Reader, which includes extracts from Namjoshi’s previously published work such as the 1981 book Feminist Fables. These page-long fables are fresh takes on existing folktales and myths, done to emphasise the workings of social dominance. Much of their content is didactic, but also entertaining. Namjoshi compresses a lot of social observation and sarcasm into a few pithy lines. In one fable a Brahmin who wanted a son is given a daughter instead. “Though only a woman, she was a Brahmin, so she learned very fast, and then they both sat down and meditated hard.” (Of course, the father’s purpose in meditating is to ask again for a son, and Vishnu grants him this wish but not quite in the way he had expected.) In a Beauty and the Beast retelling, the lovelorn Beast is not a nobleman but a lesbian; since the books she reads make it clear that women love men, she decides that she can not be human. Questions of what is socially permissible are discussed elsewhere, too. “A plant with feet is not natural,” says the mother of a plant (or a human girl?) that has had the temerity to pull out its roots and prance about. Namjoshi’s original manuscript title for Feminist Fables was The Monkey and the Crocodiles, and the story by that name is one of her most representative works. In it, a monkey who has grown up with two crocodile friends near a riverbank decides she wants to explore. The crocodiles try to warn her of beasts that are “long and narrow with scaly hides and powerful jaws”, but the monkey goes anyway and returns years later, badly injured. “Did you encounter the beasts?” her friends ask, “What did they look like?” “They looked like you,” she answers slowly. “When you warned me long ago, did you know that?” The story can be seen as an allegory for parents warning a daughter of a world populated by other humans who look like them and might not seem intrinsically threatening, but who could turn out to be predators. Namjoshi’s work, like the other books mentioned above, is a constant reminder of how hostile our world can be to 50 per cent of our population— and of the urgent need for both sexes to participate in the carving out of spaces and mindsets that let women live on their own, human terms.

Playwright, actor, director,producer and activist, M.K. Raina talks about theatre, films, culture and the lack of it

If you are in your early twenties and addicted to watching commercial cinema, then you might remember M.K. Raina as a man who played Sonam Kapoor’s father in Aisha. Or, as the man who played Anushka Sharma’s father in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. If you do, you can put the magazine down; this article is not for you. It is for a reader who, when he or she thinks of theatre, thinks of M.K. Raina. Who, when he or she talks about inspired performances, talks about Raina’s role in 27 Down, who does not forget to discuss Ek Ruka Hua Faisla either. Only such a reader will be interested to know why M.K. Raina cut himself off Hindi parallel cinema. She or he will wish to know why he did irrelevant roles in commercial films such as Aisha or Rab Ne... Such a reader will be surprised by Raina’s answer; that being an actor was never his ambition. M.K. Raina passed out of National School of Drama in the year 1970, with a best actor award. Ironically, he never aspired to be actor. “Being an actor never fascinated me,” says he, adding, “I was always a stage person, I fancied the roles of a director, a producer and a writer more.” Had he chosen it, he could also have become a teacher at NSD. Right after his graduation, Raina was asked to teach at the institute— an honour bestowed on few. He declined the offer. His reason: “I was never a nine-to-five person. Staying at a single place was impossible for me.” There cannot be a more truthful sentence; if one notices the way he talks, the way he sits and the myriad expressions that flash across his face, one understands that this man has an active brain and can’t sit still. He is a restless soul, so restless in fact, that the very day he finished shooting for his debut film—27 Down—he took the first train to Delhi. But more on that later. Raina was offered 27 Down while still studying at NSD. One fine day, while he was sitting in his hostel room at NSD, Naseer (Naseeruddin Shah), a year junior and a good friend, came knocking. He informed Raina that ‘a director’ had come to meet him. When Raina went downstairs, he came face-to-face with Awtar Krishna Kaul—a young director who made just a single gem of a film before his untimely death. That film was to be 27 Down. Kaul asked Raina out for tea, and Raina, Kaul and a mutual friend went off to New Delhi’s Bengali market. “Kaul and Bakshi (the friend) got into an intellectual discussion about literature and what not,” Raina recalls. “They gave me a book and said why don’t you read this and meet us later. I took it, read it and made a few notes. Then we met again to discuss the book. They asked me if I drank, and I said ‘why not!’ Somewhere between the drinks I was told that I was selected for Kaul’s first film.” He was cast opposite Raakhee, who was already a veteran actor and a star. But Raina was not intimidated, even though he had barely stepped out of NSD. He says that at times “arrogance is a good thing”. On sets, people would tell him to “behave himself and not be too intimidated” by the superstar. Raina, blissfully arrogant as he was, told himself that if Raakhee was a superstar, he, too, was a trained theatre actor who had Shakespeare and Munshi Premchand dramas in his repertoire. This arrogance, made him shy away from Raakhee on the first day of the shoot. Then when he saw the actor’s dedication to her craft and saw how she without a fuss worked her way through crowded trains and stations during the shoot, they became friends. The film shoot also made him realise how he did not like living in Bombay (now Mumbai). “The thing about Bombay,” he says is that “one has to ask for work all the time. I knew I had enough talent to get work and keep my life going.” So, the moment he finished the shoot, he booked a ticket in third-class sleeper, made a bed out of newspapers and returned to Delhi. Here, he founded his own theatre group called Prayog, and occasionally went down to Mumbai to do films when he got exciting offers. He talks fondly about the time he spent in NSD, calling himself and his generation the ‘guinea pigs of Indian theatre’. That was a time when Indian theatre was moving away from the shadows of western theatrics and trying to find its voice. And that was also a time when Indian cinema was experiencing a major change—when legends like Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal and Govind Nilhani were trying to redefine cinema. Those were the first days of Parallel cinema. “That was an exciting time to be,” says Raina. He expresses his disappointment on the current state of Indian cinema. The fall of the parallel cinema movement, according to Raina, was caused by the focus shift of many of its frontrunners. “Several of the directors tried to make similar kind of films with big budgets and bigger stars. That just fell flat,” says the thespian. “The biggest mistake of them all was that directors also tried to become producers. For small budget directors, producing and directing a big budget film was a disastrous decision,” he adds as an afterthought. The fall of parallel cinema also brought upon the end of Raina’s film career. For almost two decades he did not act in films. The films that he does today do not do justice to Raina’s potential or talent. Then why does he choose to be a part of such ventures? Because he loves a picnic! “The roles are easy, the money is good and it is fun to be a part of such a posh picnic.” Films, he stresses, have never been his priority. And they never will be. Theatre is his life and his soul. Today, when he is not-so-active in the theatre scene, he is busy reviving the Kashmiri art and culture. M.K. Raina or Maharaj Krishna Raina—a Kashmiri pandit—was born and brought up in Srinagar. He learnt acting in Kashmir; he fell in love with theatre in Kashmir. When Raina was a boy of nine, he performed in his first play— Neki Badi—written by his school principal, the famous Kashmiri poet Dinanath Nadim. In it, he played a flower in a jungle, where birds and plants get together to fight an evil owl. That play laid the foundation of his theatre years. So, it isn’t surprising that when he was offered a state scholarship for studying drama, he abandoned what could have been a flourishing career as a dentist, took a train to Delhi, gave an interview at the NSD and decided to settle here. “Tum ab kahi nahi ja rahe ho, tum yahi rahoge (You are not going anywhere, you are staying here)” were the words of his interviewers at NSD—Mohan Rakesh, Ebrahim Alkazi and Mukesh Awasthi. Kashmir of that time wasn’t the Kashmir we know. It was a more beautiful and peaceful Kashmir akin to the paradise on earth that it is often called. The Kashmir which gave him everything is in shambles today. This fact pains him the most. Some 12-13 years ago, he went back to Srinagar, and what he saw there —the years of violence and bloodshed—had robbed his beloved land off its beauty. The culture was dead, art was dead and life was dead, it seemed to him. The visit left him in distress, and he decided that he had to do something for his land. He spoke to a few like-minded people and decided to start a cultural movement. As the first step, the group began to organise drama classes and invited people for it. “The first day, just two people turned up,” he tells us. “There were four teachers and two students! The morale was running low. I informed my group that I will teach even if one person turns up. We started the classes and in seven days we had 30 people showing up. And after a few months of practice our play was ready and Rabindra Auditorium opened its doors for a cultural performance after years,” he adds smiling proudly. Today, his theatre group travels country- wide performing from ‘Kashmir to Kanyakumari’ quite literally. Raina also started a pan-India literacy movement. Today, he is still trying to change the way formal education is being imparted to students. He goes to the smaller public schools and teaches the kids through drama, performance and visual arts. If you, like me, were taught Shakespeare by enacting his plays instead of reading them, then you will appreciate the power of this rather silent movement better. It is a movement that will bear fruits years from now, it is a movement whose value shall be realised only when these children grow up to become citizens of our country and contribute towards nation building positively. In the words of the man, “It is not a glamorous movement, so no one talks about it.” And the man himself is much like his movement. He is a simple being who has dedicated his life to stage; his problems are like yours and mine. He, too, like you and me, gets angry with the system, with the governance and when the politics becomes disruptive. And he uses theatre as a medium to convey his feelings. It is not about the bread and butter, but theatre is about life, purpose, and a way to give back to people. And it is a medium that has given him his closest friends and confidants. If he talks fondly of his friendship with Naseeruddin Shah and Om Puri, who he met at NSD, he talks about his friendship with the legendary Safdar Hashmi with a sense of nostalgia and loss. Safdar Hashmi lost his life while performing his street play called Halla Bol, in an attack by the goons of the Indian National Congress. When this news reached Raina, he rushed to the hospital thinking, “Haath ki haddi tooti hogi, ye sab to hota rehta hai.” When he reached the hospital, it was a sight of horror that greeted him. Hashmi was unconscious, bleeding profusely. Lying on the bed of a government hospital, he was moments away from his death. Raina and friends took Hashmi to a better hospital, but the doctor informed them that “only a miracle” could save Hashmi. A miracle that never occurred as the very next day Hashmi died, leaving a vacuum in Raina’s life and in the Indian theatre scene. As a cultural activist he worries that “culture has seeped out of the society; it is no longer a priority.” In the wake of recent incidences, one could but agree. Crimes such as the one that happened in Delhi recently, do not occur in a ‘cultured and a civilised’ society. “There is an intellectual bankruptcy in today’s time,” he says, and falls silent. A silence that is a rebellion against all that is wrong. This silence is similar to his other endeavours (strong and motivated) through which he is trying to bring out a change. If he succeeds, the success will be his, but the celebrations will be ours. If he fails, the failure will be his, but the sufferings will be ours. For a country stuck in a time of anguish and hopelessness, people like Raina are the silver linings. They should be celebrated, lest we forget.

I Wish I Could Be

M.K. Raina hailed from a family of doctors and engineers. Almost everyone in his family was a dentist. So it was natural for him to take up science in school. He studied biology and chemistry and was prepared to take up medicine when a drama scholarship came knocking. This scholarship provided him with an opportunity to study arts and he decided to break away from the family tradition and became a dramatist instead. Raina, however, waves it all aside as conjecture. “Even if I had studied medicine, I don’t know what I would have done. I don’t think I had the capability of becoming a clerk even,” says he and breaks into laughter. He tells me that he isn’t good at anything else—apart from the stage. Perhaps he is not. But that’s a blessing.

India is a country with many laws, but little law, and a very little fear of the law

IT IS BOTH poignant and in the broader sense surprising that the year gone by will be defined for many of us by the events of its final fortnight. The horrific and brutal rape of the young woman in New Delhi on the evening of Sunday, December 16, and her subsequent passing in Singapore on December 29, has become the signature of 2012. I remember the night after I heard of the crime. It was difficult to just doze off; there was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, and a gnawing concern as I watched my children sleep. What sort of a world and what sort of city would they grow up in? At least two friends—both of them happened to be active on Twitter at that point—too confessed they were unable to sleep and for similar reasons. Somehow, somewhere the episode—not just the rape but the gruesome act of violence that accompanied and followed it—had stunned us. We were not alone. There has conbeen an emotional upsurge in Delhi in the past week. Thanks to the media—shocked by the incident and also driven by the consumer interest in a crime that has such implications for white-collar, middle-class communities in the heart of a metropolis—the issue has been reported and talked about in other cities as well. In 1978, the Billa-Ranga case and the sexual assault on and murder of a young woman in the capital, Geeta Chopra, and the killing of her brother Sanjay had become a national story. In today’s much more connected media age, the quick transmission of the terror of December 16 can only be imagined. To be fair not every—in fact few—rape incident involves such dramatic events on the street and the kidnapping of strangers. Many involve men the victim or survivor knows quite well, as a family member or acquaintance. A study by the police in Indore found “94 per cent of reported molestation of women and children was done by relatives or persons known to the victim”. Apparently a national study came up with a similar figure. A friend of mine who is a police officer once had a long chat with me about sexual crimes against women. She was indignant because a senior police officer in another state had sought to draw a correlation between western clothing and likelihood of being targeted by an assailant. In her 20 years in the Indian Police Service, she said, she had seen victims of rape who ranged from the “age of two to 60”. An overwhelming majority came from rural areas and wore nothing but traditional Indian clothing, dressing in a conservative sari or the like. Most of them had been attacked not by unknown men but those they recognised. My friend’s experiences and assessments reflected both urban and rural settings, because she had been posted in outlying districts as well as larger cities. The broad contours of what she was saying would hold true in Delhi as much as in Dhubri. The problem is a far deeper one. It requires policing and sensitisation of the law, but it also calls for social engineering of the male of the species. Unfortunately, none of this is rocket science. It has been known, acknowledged and agonised over for decades. In 1978, the same year as the Billa-Ranga outrage, a film called Ghar was released. It was a remarkable portrayal of the emotional trauma that is the aftermath of rape, and survives far longer than any physical scar. I have thought a lot of Ghar in the past few days, and not just because of its melodious songs (Lata Mangeshkar singing Aaj kal paoon zameen par). The storyline is eerily similar to what happened to that medical student and her friend. In Ghar a young couple are walking home after a film, they are accosted by roadside thugs and brutalised. The incident becomes a media and political cause and then simply dies away. Over 30 years have passed. Has anything changed? Rekha, the young actor who made a mark for herself in Ghar, is today a senior artiste, almost retired and even an MP. Her life and career have run the gamut. Two generations of Indians have grown up in this period. Yet, the basic, defining problem that was at the core of her first big film all those years ago still remains unresolved. Challenging the mind-set of sexual assault and making our cities and living spaces more secure necessitates education of males and a more equitable gender balance. It also necessitates old-fashioned law enforcement and community policing, including in the form of beat policemen who patrol their streets and know their citizens, whether in the form of sentinels or, in another context, intelligence gatherers. Pitifully, we are seeing too little of this being discussed. Instead, there is talk of the death penalty for rape and esoteric solutions such as chemical castration. Frankly, not all cases of sexual assault deserve the death penalty. If death is pronounced as automatic punishment for proven rape then not only will it incentivise murder of a victim—and removal of the key witness—but it will also raise the threshold of proving guilt in court. As for castration, chemical or otherwise, it can be considered but it should be noted that punishment— whether imprisonment or castration—can come only after conviction. If our criminal justice system is so slow and lackadaisical and our conviction rate for rape is so low (25 per cent) does it matter if the end- punishment is chemical castration, physical castration, limited-term imprisonment or life imprisonment? That is where the nub lies, in a country with many laws but little law and very little fear of the law. The rest— including the convenient expedient of fast-track courts for some cases of some crimes—is only detail.

Conserve India is working towards making rag-pickers of our country climb the social ladder and earn the respect they deserve

An ignorant Wikipedia article describes rag-pickers as a term for someone who made a living by rummaging through refuge in the streets to collect material for salvage. Then it informs us that while such a practice is no more functional in the first-world, it is active in the so-called third-world countries. And, it goes on to quote an example of India! I know what you will say India is not a third-world country. I know you will say how we are the leaders of the G20 nations, and that we are at par with China in terms of economic growth. I know you remember the GDP figures, like you remember your telephone number. But each morning, that young pre-adolescent who comes to collect the garbage from your place does not understand all your jargons, nor is he interested in them. The man who collects the waste you dump on the streets is unaware of the so-called economic growth that you rant about in get togethers. Rag-picking is all that he cares about, as it gives him a chance to eke out a living-a hand-to-mouth survival. While most of these people continue to live in inhuman conditions, there are some who escape a bit; get a better home, send their children to school, and go to a doctor when they get ill. Who are these rag-pickers who get a little more lucky? These are the ragpickers who work for Conserve India. Started in 1998 by Anita and Shailendra Ahuja, Conserve India is one of the handful of organizations which takes care of the poorest of poor and ensures that they get their right to a better life. A very long time ago, before the Ahujas started the NGO, one day they met their colony residents and spoke about the heaps and piles of garbage that was nearly submerging their locality. Other residents, too, were rightfully worried about the possibility of germs and infections that could spread due to the mess. So, they decided to team up and clean up the residential area on their own. In the process, they realised that it was impossible to create a zero-waste zone, owing to the non-biodegradable plastic bags, floating around on every corner of the country. And thus was born Conserve India, an NGO which takes plastic bags from ragpickers, recycles them and turns them into high-end fashionable products. “We wanted to work for the rag-pickers because they really are the most marginalised,” says Anita Ahuja. “They do not have any social skill set or any vocational skill set. We take them in and train them so that they get factory jobs and improve their lives.” When Ahuja began, she collaborated with 25 rag-pickers. Today, the number has gone up to a remarkable 300 workers or collaborators. There were several more former ragpickers who have been promoted to senior ranks, and are now involved in the key functions of the organization. The process that they follow is quite simple; the rag-pickers collect the waste which is brought in to their factory where it is sorted according to the material, and then it is cleaned, and cut out in proper shapes and sizes, and then it goes into the machines, where it is recycled and converted into thick fabric, which is then used to making the much fashionable bags. Ahuja informs us that these bags are quite in-demand and that they are able to not just scrape through, but also make profits out these bags. It is these bags which pay for the salaries of the many rag-pickers and the factory workers. For an NGO which started with a mere investment of `10 lakh, they seemed to have done well for themselves. The rag-pickers, who, before Conserve India happened to them, were scrapping through and barely managing on one square meal a day. Today they are rewarded a monthly salary which ranges between `4,800 to `5,200. That is not all. Conserve India’s main ambition was and remains to train rag-pickers and help them climb the economic and social ladder. The collaborators associated with Conserve India are trained so that they can build up a skill set and join the skilled labour set. “Primarily, when they just come in, the rag-pickers are trained in cutting the polythene, identifying colors, and sorting all cuttings, etc. Once a particular person shows promise, we promote him or her to the next level. He or she is then trained in factory work such as running the machines and maintaining them. And they are also responsible for quality control,” says Ahuja. Once the rag-pickers become factory employees, they get benefits such as provident fund, medical insurance, holidays, et al. Their children are sent to schools, run by the community, and are provided with doctors, who also run the community healthcare programme. The rag-pickers have much to benefit from Conserve India; and the most important aspect of the non-government organization is that they provide rag-pickers the respect they deserve. “When you ask a rag-picker to sit on a chair and treat him or her as your equal, you immediately see a change,” says Ahuja, and goes on to add that, “When you say you love your country, you surely do not mean you love the land, the mud and the rocks in it, right? What is the point of loving the country, if you can not love its people?” A well-made point. While most of us in our blissful ignorant state are still treating our ‘beloved’ country as a dustbin, there are some like Ahuja, who are busy cleaning it.

Liddle’s third book is a success with its simple plot and intricate storytelling

THE FIRST Muzaffar Jang book that I happened to lay my hands on was The Eighth Guest. That was the second in the trilogy consisting of The Englishman’s Cameo, The Eight Guest And Other Muzaffar Jang Mysteries and Engraved in Stone. With her third book, Liddle has established herself as a master storyteller and a desi Agatha Christie; the closest we can get to one. And, I am glad to note, she has won herself a fan in me. What is remarkable about Liddle is her confident grasp over her genre. Add to that her writing style (precise) and you have a hit. This time, too, Liddle transports her readers to the Mughal era (circa 1650s). Jang is back, escorting his elder sister (Zeenat Apa) and her beautiful lady friend (Shireen), to Agra. In the old city of Agra, Jang gets embroiled in a murder at his friend’s house and it is up to Jang to unravel a web, which started at Kabul and Bijapur. Though, the slowest of the three, it makes up for the pace by creating interestingly-layered characters—Mumtaz and Basheer Hassan, Ibrahim, and Jang’s friend, Akram. As always, the best bit is how Liddle manages to impart history lessons (yes, as I said before, I wasn’t paying attention in school) without sounding tedious. This time though, Liddle does not leave the readers with the delightful footnotes. They were sorely missed. While Liddle focused on Delhi for the previous two books, for Engraved in Stone she takes us to Agra, with a quick detour to Sikandrabad. The best bit about this book is its subtle humour which is spot on and she uses the humour to de-mystify a lot of legends (for example, an exasperated Basheer Hassan informs Jang that Shahjahan did not chop off artisans’ hands after the Taj Mahal was completed). An added attraction in Engraved in Stone was the close examination of the Taj Mahal, the then newly-constructed mausoleum. Though Jang remains the endearing and stoic detective, choosing to listen more, his character does not reveal any new facet. The book does introduce a softer side to the young detective. Yes, there is a smattering of romance, and fortunately and sensibly, it remains only a short bit of the tale. While some loops are tied neatly, one or two bits (a staged dacoity, for instance) left me wishing for a tighter style. For those who have not read a single book in the Jang series, you can start with this one. You will not be disappointed!

Less of literature and more of a slam piece, Durbar is an intelligent and indulgent piece of work

THERE ARE exasperating books—they read smoothly even brilliantly in parts and deplorably in rest. They are exasperating because they leave a reader confused—is it even worth the effort? Tavleen Singh’s memoir is one such. It hooks you in some pages or bores the pants off you. There are sentences which make you think did a seasoned journalist actually write it? Then there are sentences which make you wish you were standing by her side when she experienced a slice of India’s equally exasperating and checkered history. Sentences such as “...I ended up doing a course in journalism at the New Delhi Polytechnic only because it was the shortest course on offer” may be honest. As is the sentence “...as a result, I did not discover that the earth moved around the sun until I became a journalist but I learned how to type”. But, they do little to give credibility to an old-time profession or to its participants. Which is important especially today, when newspeople are fast becoming news-makers in their own right (to expand the point I can only request readers to find out Arnav Goswani’s “remixed” interviews which are being played by young people at dance parties). Also, a small complaint; why could she not provide her readers a sample of all the brilliant political speeches which she had the fortune of hearing. Personally, I would have given my right arm to know just what Atal Behari Vajpayee said to the congregation at the Ram Lila Maidan in 1977. From a celebrated and well-calibrated author like her, one did expect more of newsroom experiences to fill the pages. Instead of newsrooms, I got more of lazy, booze parties. In most parts, Singh offered beautifullywritten genealogy of famous people. Where they hung out, cool places of yesteryears (again, do we really care?) and how bootlegger’s supply was the only poison available for the rich and famous under Indira Gandhi’s Emergency (oh, poor them!). Singh often feeds us mind-numbingly worthless details of posh people—what they wore and how they smelt—who could be found prowling the drawing rooms of Delhi, where she found most her contacts and fodder. Does the details manage to create an atmosphere? Sure it does, if Nora Roberts is your favourite author. The first few chapters of Durbar does serve as a treasure trove of pet names, as well. If you are expecting a baby any time soon, how does Mapu, Roon, Dumpy, Biki or Goodie sound? If Ms Singh is planning a sequel, there were three alternative titles which popped into my mind while I was reading it. How about; My Life with Sonia, Delhi’s Drawing Rooms or Foreign Matters. However, everything is not bad in the book. For the good parts—which make the book well worth it at the end of it all. When Singh really concentrates on writing reportage she gets really, really precise, eloquent and crisply descriptive. The bits in the Kumbh Mela where the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decides to makes an announcement which booms across the fairground like voice of god, goes on to show the absurdity of India’s political circus. Her portrayal of Rajiv Gandhi’s strengths and weaknesses, the cruelty and stubbornness of his brother Sanjay— are all fascinating bits to read. And she is less unkind to her subjects than a lot of others who have come out with their memoirs recently. Where she earns her readers’ attention is when she writes about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. Her style (which appears burdensome when she talks of Cartier rings or lasagna cooked by Sonia Gandhi), suits passages where she talks of hopelessness and terror of those days. A takeaway; it is comforting to note that the rich, upper middleclass, public school educated India has changed very little in the years after the Independence. It had little clue then as to what was going on and has little clue now. While the poor were too unempowered then and too unempowered now to actually make a difference. Thus, one blanket (reductionist) statement that we can take away is that status quo—of not caring—has not changed much. It is a pity, that books such as these will not help matters much either.

No money? Take a trip to Thailand, won’t you?

Let’s face it, when your plans of foreign travel on a shoestring budget is so frayed that even a trip to the nearest cobbler seems a bit too pricey, deciding on where to go becomes a wee bit easier. All those gorgeous (read: pocket unfriendly) places get crossed out of the must-visit list even before you can conjure their beauty in your mind’s eye. That means no Cliff’s of Moher, Salar de Uyuni can wait till I hit a jackpot and as for New Zealand, there’s always LOTR and now The Hobbit as consolation, thanks to Peter Jackson. So when my fellow travel-planner joked about how the only place we could fly to and back on our budget was Calcutta (my hometown), my mind went from being depressed to being seriously desperate. We had to find a place to go to. That’s how Thailand happened. A round-trip to Thailand is actually cheaper than a Calcutta trip. Hearing this, my friend said. “Well, why not? Any place is better than no place, right? The place is gorgeous, and think of all that Thai food we can binge on.” Right! And if we are lucky we just might miss running into our neighbour and their best friends honeymooning there. But idioms like “beggars can’t be choosers” have some grain of truth in them even if they are, well, clichéd. So we got researching. We booked Air Asia, which is the best budget airline, got hotels through Asia Rooms (again, gives great deals) and decided we would die rather than go to Pattaya— the one place in Thailand every Indian tourist seems to know other than Bangkok and even has “authentic Indian” food joints I have been told. Call us snooty but that is one thing we decided to avoid. So, we got ourselves Thai visas and stuffed our backpacks, determined to have a trip worth remembering. So here’s what our itinerary looked like—number of days in Thailand; six. First stop; Bangkok. The thing most people associate with Bangkok is great shopping, but honestly, for us it will always be food. It is a city that starts chomping at 6am and goes on chomping till way past midnight; it is no surprise that Bangkok is often considered the street food capital of the world. Walking down any street in Bangkok is a treat for the senses—the sizzle of oil in a wok, the smell of fried or steamed delicacies, the array of fresh fruits displayed and the flavours of every kind of food imaginable, from pork satay and fish ball soup to grass jelly and mango rice sold in kiosks by the roadside. Everyone knows about Bangkok, so there is really no point in penning much about its wonders, but the wonders of Bangkok are in walking down its sois and tasting its cuisine. Oh, and if you happen to be in the Sukumvit area, do visit Soi 11 and have a drink at one of the many Volkswagon dive bars hitched up along the roadside. Quite cool! Mind you, if you do try Durian, please brush your teeth at least twice! And if you want to try eating bugs start with the bamboo worms; more palatable! So, after one-and-a-half days spent walking, bussing, eating, tuktuking, sky-training, eating and ferrying around glitzy Bangkok, all the while getting a million offers to be taken to “Pingpong Shows”, we decided to head to the historical city of Ayutthaya, situated along the banks of the Chao Phraya river, about 85 km from the Bangkok. The capital of Siam for over 400 years and named after Ram’s Ayodhya, Ayutthaya is now a sleepy small town littered with crumbling yet majestic ruins of Wats (temples) and palaces. It is, of course, easier to hire a car or bike and drive down, but being on a budget meant taking a 12-seater minivan, which dropped us off at the town centre. The best bit about visiting the ruins is that it is never crowded as The Grand Palace or Wat Pho in Bangkok. Needless to say language is a problem. But what’s a journey without your own stint of Lost in Translation, eh? We realized our van dropped us off a good 5km from our desired destination with not a rickshaw or bus in sight to take us to Wat Mahathat and Wat Ratchaburana, both UNESCO World Heritage sites. We had to exercise our dumb charades and take a roundabout walk under the sweltering afternoon sun. It was definitely worth the walk. Looming over the city, the crumbling Buddhist temples are stunning in their grandeur. Beautifully restored and loosely assembled and structured, Wat Ratchaburana, built in the 1400s, spans a lesser area where as Wat Mahathat is vast spread with stupas, Buddha idols and is also home to the iconic Buddha in a Bodhi tree—a pristine Buddha head entwined for centuries in the roots of an old Bodhi tree. It will make you contemplate on the nature of miracles. After remaining land-locked for three days, we decided to head to our next stop— the island of Phi Phi. We took a flight to Phuket. A quick deal with a fellow Phi Phi goer got us a cab ride from the airport to the Rasada pier, where ferries leave for the island every hour till 2pm. After a quick lunch, we boarded the 150-seater ferry and began our one-and-a-half hour boat ride through the breathtaking blue waters of the Andaman Sea. If you have a stomach for serious sun and choppy seas, I suggest you slap sunblock and sit out on the open deck rather than remain cooped up in the airconditioned chambers within because this is a trip where every second is majestic, thanks to the jutting rock structures dotted along the way. A word of caution, if you do take the ferry, make sure you board at the very last second. The luggage section is a mess! Though there is no chance of anyone stealing it, you might never find your bags. When they stow your luggage, they literally pile them. The ones at the bottom are the lost causes and the ferry might leave the pier before you even manage to fish them out. After wrestling with the bags, yelling at the helper grinning and watching us struggle, we got off at the Ton Sai Pier. Koi Phi Phi Don, the largest of the Phi Phi islands, is where all the action is. The main stretch is pretty with narrow roads disappearing into woody hills, littered with cottages run by locals. For those into peace and quiet, stick to the cottages. Closer to the beach, it gets crazy. Imagine the Goa party scene, only concentrated on a single stretch. After sunning all day, the party starts late and goes on into the wee hours. Beach shacks are crowded with tourists dancing and drinking. The island is also known for its fire shows where islanders do unthinkable tricks, which can make fire-jugglers look like novices. Everything is a little expensive, that is to be expected if you have to purchase everything from the mainland by boat, but the food is divine. If you happen to be in Phi Phi, definitely eat at a restaurant called Papaya, which makes the yummiest Tom Yum soup along with some of the freshest seafood dishes ever. And oh! If you can hold your liquor, do try out the 100 Baht drink buckets. A bucket comprises one pint of alcohol, one red bull, one soft drink and a straw. Simply pour it all into the bucket and sip it with the straw. Hangover guaranteed. Phi Phi, however, is not only about partying. There are several walkways, bicycle lanes and endless walking trails that one can explore while taking a break from the sun and sea. There are charter boats that take tourists on day-long-trips to the other islands in the area and offer incredible snorkeling stints. If, like us, you do go to the Phi Phi viewpoint to get a breathtaking view of the island, please, I repeat, please, don’t wear your beach flip-flops for the trip. At the top, it is beautiful. There is only the sound of the wind, the blue sea down below. It is the perfect spot for basking in the surrounding beauty. But we wanted to be adventurous and go looking for a less crowded beach—Rantee. We had read that the only way to reach the beach was by a quick boat ride or via one “pretty” trail winding down from the viewpoint. We were determined to go take a dip in the translucent waters. Hence, we decided to go walking. Unless you are ready for serious hiking (boots, protective hat, bottles of water, endless supply of insecticide et al)—do not attempt it. We thought it to be a charted, proper trail, but it was not. Six-inches wide at one point with a sheer drop on the other side, nothing but tropical jungle—its sights and sounds—for company, the trail is fun, only if you are planning to brag about it. The hike took us an hour. We were dirty, bitten and scratched, hysterical from almost tumbling to our deaths (sarong and slippers, not the most ideal option) but the end was well-worth the price. The sight that met our eyes on finally reaching the clearing was something out of The Beach, the film. White pristine sands, sparkling blue-green clear water, hardly four shacks on the small strip of beach and a handful of backpackers sitting around. Perfect! After catching our collective breaths and digging into lip-smacking crab cakes and beer, and spending hours in the water, we did the sane thing—took a small, six-seater ferry back to Tonsai pier. The next morning, we took a boat out of Krabi mainland. After savouring a taste of some authentic Thai Muslim cuisine (a unique combination of cooking methods and spices which emanates flavours akin to a mix of Thai and Indian) at Bismillah, one of the oldest restaurant in town, we took a shared tuktuk ride via beautiful, wide roads nestled amidst looming cliffs to Ao Nang district in Krabi, which is home to the popular Nopparattara beach. The seascape is similar to that of Phi Phi, cliffs set against an endless blue backdrop. The beachside town is quiet with restaurants twinkling with ferry lights and live music lining the beach, a perfect place to spend time post sundown. On our second day, we chartered a share-boat from the beach which took us to the secluded Railay beach, well known for its limestone caves, its fertility temple, its rock climbing cliffs and of course surf and sand. The best part about Railay? It is completely cut off from the mainland and can only be approached via sea. It also just has one resort (extremely un-pocketfriendly) which means the beach is absolutely empty, with no shacks or food stalls to spoil it. If you do want a bite, you can get it from any of the boat-food shacks anchored on the beach. Yes, locals come to the beach in their own boats and sell drinks and food. Railay is beautiful, especially because a part of it is riverine and has mangrove vegetation, the ancient limestone structures add to its striking beauty. And keep an eye out for those monkeys which come out for a quick bite too, they definitely add to the fun. And if you are lucky maybe you will be able to spot a gecko or two. Back on the mainland, we also got a quick glimpse of a typical night bazaar, with its mix of Angry Birdshaped fish sticks and all other kinds of seafood dishes, quail eggs and what not, gorgeous clothes at throw away prices (yes I did shop. I would be insane not to) and some wicked Thai pop music live acts. After six days of being gloriously tanned and gastronomically satiated (and thoroughly exhausted), we returned home, with a happy heart and a happier pocket. And only two honeymooning Indian couples. Definitely worth a second visit I say!

Themes on dispossession, space clash find their way into Binoy Varghese’s canvases

Don’t ask me tough questions,” is the first sentence that artist Binoy Varghese utters softly. A man with a ready smile and a quiet demeanour, Varghese is a pleasure to meet. When you do, you notice his hands first. They are small for a man known for his broad and vast canvases, lapped up by contemporary art galleries and art aficionados. His strokes are bold and the colours on the canvas pop out in their opaqueness. All that life and colour that his canvases breath out, comes from a mild-mannered, small man. The other peculiarity, is just how neat his studio is. It is spanking clean and austere, apart from the two easy chairs, a table, two frayed carpets spotted with paint and two canvases (one nearly complete and the other just starting to get brushes of colour). Both, I am informed, will find a place in the upcoming India Art Fair, to be held at the end of January. The walls of his studio are a unobtrusive cream—not quite the messy, ‘statement studios’ that some artists seem to prefer. The artist himself, like most members of his ilk, loves to work in the morning light. He makes ample use of the rays that streams in from the large verandah that adjoins his studio room. Clean and organised, the studio apartment breaks a layperson’s notion of how an artist lives and works. When you tell him such, you are greeted with a chuckle. “That is quite the romantic notion, is it not? An artist being an untidy, cluttered being, working in a similar environment; an artist being that person who ekes out a living and sustains herself or himself on cups of chai and adda?” he nods. trip to the library for the free books and hours of sessions on art were a part of Varghese’s life. Not the clutter though, never the clutter, as he had strict parents who emphasised on cleanliness. “I have seen both sides of an artist’s life—relative poverty and anonymity and the fame and fortune. I was a part of the art scene both before and after the Indian art boom. When I was a student at the Chennai Cholamandal Art Village, chai and adda sessions were all that we had in our life. We attended classes, went to the library to pore over books, then sat in the sun with chai and then talked till it was dark and we could not see each other. When we managed to sell a painting we patted our backs and thanked the Lord, and went out to party,” he ends with a chuckle. That life has changed. Today, Varghese is almost a household name—I say almost, as Indian laypersons pay little attention to fine arts or artists on most days, apart from a few world-famous personalities such as a Hussain or a Anjolie Ela Menon (incidentally, the lady in question provided Varghese a home and a studio space in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area when he had arrived as a student with just a few shows under his belt). Varghese does not agree with the statement that fine art is mugh-neglected. To him the Indian art scene has changed considerably. So much so that parents do not faint at the mention of art as a career—as his nearly did. Before it was all about fine art, it was all about music for Varghese. All the five siblings were a part of the church choir. Varghese’s eldest brother is still in-charge of the local choir. Varghese is still known for his melodious voice and is often pestered to sing in parties and get-togethers. “I have two sisters and two brothers. I am, sort of, in the middle. I was a sickly sort of a child, while my siblings were the boisterous lot, the local heroes, who went outdoors to play, mingle and be the stars. I would be at home sitting with my mother. In fact, I was at home even when she was not around. She would tell me sit at a spot and not move unless I needed to. Then she would go for a visit to a relative’s house. She would come back and find me sitting at the very same spot,” he remembers. The fact that the less-boisterous Varghese spent hours indoors in the company of his mother did help him develop an affinity towards silence and introspection— two things that are precious to him even today. By the time he was in school he was an introvert who wanted to be “different” from his “super-liked” elder brothers. “I realised that I could not be one of them, so I wanted to be me, and be liked for what I was. I wanted to develop my language and art seemed like a strong voice,” he says. Partly, the inclination towards art was also a familial effect—his parents were always inclined towards art. “In my childhood years, while visiting my maternal uncle’s house I would enjoy music and singing by my two maternal uncles; one a harmonist and the other a violinist and both singers in their own right. My parents always encouraged me and my siblings to be active in school singing competitions. We were a part of the church choir. We used to sing devotional songs every evening,” he adds. But coming back to his art, he started with a basic plan; doing illustrations of film posters and advertisements, which got the attention and nod of neighbours and family. During his Plus-Two, Varghese did the switch and enrolled into the RLV College of Fine Arts, Kerala, for a National Diploma in Fine Arts and specialised in commercial art, which he considered to be “pragmatic”. Post-diploma, Varghese did two solo shows and then went on to spend two precious years in the Cholamandal Artists Village, which he considers to be formative years for him. There, he met people (singer Minmini was a batchmate and Yesudas an alumni) who would act as valuable peers and mentors. “I was still experimenting with mediums, and around that time I received a scholarship Kanoria Art Center in Ahmedabad. Again that exposure to various forms did me wonders and got me close to Delhi, which was always a city that attracted me.” But he soon understood that the mixed medium that he loved to experiment with—some of the earlier works still strewn around his studio—had few takers in the Indian market. He needed to be a part of something more familiar—and thus he started with oil and acrylic. At first he would paint people who he knew—friends and their spouses, putting them in a background that was interesting and different. In the year 1998 he received a studio space in Delhi and started working on his first solo show at the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature. Though the NCR is where he has been living for decades now, Varghese’s colorful canvases, are brimming with images that lie in the politics of his native Kerala. Migration and displacement, the clash between rural and urban cultures, violence, and gender discrimination are just some of the underlying concerns which he paints about. Varghese picks his imagery from the mundane— newspapers and magazines. There was a time when he would cut out photographs from newspapers. Off late, he has been contemplating and taking photographs on his own. Most of the time his protagonists— always Asian women and children—appear in their worlds against a background of a made-up environment of thick flora and fauna that engulfs them. Verghese tries to capture lives of dispossessed but they are not always the victims of bad times, but optimistic survivors of hard times. His paintings have a beauty, romance and dignity to them and a calm which is intrinsic to the character of the artist.

CHESS \\ Chess legend Viswanathan Anand was chosen as the CNN IBN Indian of the Year 2012 in sports category for defending his title for the third year in a row. Other nominees were billiards ace Pankaj Advani for claiming eight world titles at an age of just 26 years, shuttler Saina Nehwal for winning India’s first Olympic medal in badminton and four titles on the circuit that saw her regain her no-3 world ranking, wrestler Sushil Kumar for becoming the first Indian individual athlete to win back-to-back medals at the Olympic, shooter Vijay Kumar for decimating some big names on his way to winning a Silver at the London Olympics and Virat Kohli for cementing his status as the next big name in Indian cricket. In December, Anand finished his campaign with a draw against Magnus Carlsen of Norway in the ninth and final round of London Chess Classic.

CARNAGE \\ A gunman named by Connecticut Police as Adam Lanza, 20, shot and killed his mother Nancy Lanza at their home in Newtown, an affluent town of 27,000 people about 60 miles north-east of New York City and then went to his former school, Sandy Hook Elementary School to go on a killing rampage where he shot 20 children and six adults at close range in December. It is still not clear why Lanza killed his mother who was a school teacher, but Connecticut education officials say that have found no links between her and Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 700 pupils aged between five and 10. Lanza was dressed in black fatigues and was carrying an assault rifle, which police say was the main weapon used during the shooting, as well as two handguns loaded with high-capacity magazines. Police say a fourth weapon, a shotgun, was later found in his car parked outside the school. About 9:30am, Lanza shot his way into the school, as children hid in classrooms during the shooting. Newtown police were notified of shooting at the school over their radios at 09:36am. Most students were saved by the staff and teachers. One school employee ran through halls warning of a gunman on the loose, and someone switched on the intercom, alerting people in the building to the attack by letting them hear the mayhem in the school office. A survivor said the gunshots sounded like pots and pans falling to the floor. Teachers locked their doors and ordered children to huddle in a corner or hide in cupboards as shots echoed through the building. Connecticut medical examiner Dr H Wayne Carver said on Saturday that the seven dead children he personally examined had been shot between three and 11 times each, and two of those were shot at close range. “The bullets are designed in such a fashion that the energy is deposited in the tissue and so the bullet stays in,” he added. Authorities allege that the shooting lasted a few minutes and took place in two rooms. At 9.38am a police dispatcher radioed that there was “There is silence at this time. The school is in lock down.” Fearful that the gunman could still be at large, police swarmed into the building, breaking windows to enter at several points. As officers searched and secured the woods surrounding the school, inside the building, officers found 18 children and six adults shot dead, including principal Dawn Hochsprung, 47. Two more children later died from their wounds. The latest shooting to happen in American schools shook the entire nation. As parents and families resorted to prayers, reports of bravery also poured in. The police, who did not fire their weapons during the search, found the body of Lanza, who appeared to have killed himself.