(Hindu Sunday Magazine, December 2010)
“A creative photographer is one who either captures mystery or reveals things, everything else is useless,” said Raghu Rai when he was asked for qualities a good photographer should have. In his latest compilation in Portraits – The Indians published by Penguin, Rai has captured that same mystery, revealed those same secrets, discovered the power of personality as embodied in a sideways glance, a soft smile, a knife-sharp jawline. The book is a record of imagery, of history captured through a camera lens, not just by Rai himself, but by a group of distinguished photographers and some whose names have never been known. It is divided into two sections – the first a selection of pictures by 19th and early 20th century photographers in India of the ilk of Raja Deen Dayal, Bourne and Shepherd and Johnston and Hoffman and the second, Rai’s own work from over 40 years of exploring the world of the still camera. These portraits tell a story of empathy, of creativity, of a time and place that seems almost otherworldly today, the pomp and splendor of royalty, the grandeur of ancient palaces, the gentle cadence of a language spoken with the eyes rather than the tongue.
Rai also advised non-professional photographers to “begin clicking portraits as it teaches them to connect with emotions better than juggling between doing overambitious pictures”. He added that “If your mind is not connected to what you are shooting, you are not a good photographer.” From the collection he has presented in this new book, not only is the mind of the photographer connected to the subjects’, but that emotional bond is lifted off the static page and into the mind and soul of the reader, the person who turns page after page and is absorbed into the lives of the faces he or she may look at. Putting them all together in one volume was a job that has taken many years and a great deal of thought and, more, introspection, Rai says. There were “many institutions organizations and people who collect old photos – such as the British Library, which has treasures from the countries that the Raj ruled, the Alkazi collection, as well as a number of others - there have been exhibitions and books on these too.”
But it has become a case of almost overkill for him, since “With the many books available, I was getting bored – creativity is the first criterion for me, after all, and if the image is old and creative it has strength, a special power. Because I was bored with all that I had been seeing all these years, I decided to get into collecting pictures myself.” It started with Rai “buying pictures wherever and whenever I could. I would travel and look for pictures everywhere I went. Gradually I discovered that I had collected so much material and, in today’s digital technology age, when you scan everything, new things start taking shape.” What did take shape was a new sense of excitement, a new exploration of the world of faces, old and new, with added value from Rai’s own work that had also been scanned. “While looking at my own old portraits, a friend sitting with me said that I had my own style and collection, and that I should do my own book.” The spark was lit, the fire started. Rai “started looking at old works and some of my own and I discovered that they were coming along very well. I sent the creative director of the British Library in London a first draft – that was about two-and-a-half years ago. He had the knowledge to judge and I wanted to know what he thought of it. His first response was that it looked great, but he said that the first section needed more work.” Editing, re-editing and yet more revision was called for, until finally Rai decided that it worked. “This is the sixth draft - he has not even seen it yet! When the editors at Penguin saw it, “Bina Sareen, who looks at every image carefully and understands it, was very encouraging.” And the concept of the book became reality.
But the process was not as easy as clumping together images and adding some text as binder. Rai explains, “When a photo is 150 years old, it does not mean that it becomes of great archival value, unless the subject matter or the aspect of life or the portraits that the photographers have done is powerful. By sheer virtue of age, it does not mean every image is valuable for me.” But the cachet of antiquity, however recent, is invaluable. “In the old days, it was old cameras, old film, slow film, a slow process, so you needed time and a lot of patience to take one picture. You to almost rivet people to their chairs, since the exposure was longer, the camera was open to the person for a more extended period. With this technical limitation – or perhaps because of it - their eyes showed so many emotions coming and going. In the old portraits, the eyes were very strong and stunning.” This was one of the primary aspects of the portraits that made most sense to Rai. And there was more, in the sheer innovativeness shown by those early photographers. For instance, “The first double spread (in the book) of the different princes of India taken in 1910, is actually a collage of individual portraits” stuck together against a common background of a majestic palace. Another favourite he cites is the portrait of an entire Parsi community during a Navjyot ceremony; it shows such patience and control, with each individual carefully positioned and dressed in traditional clothing. “The original was tiny, just two inches by four inches; we have restored it and blown it up to two pages. My idea is to have a big exhibition of these photos – we could make a six-foot long print and right next to it we could place the original to show off the scale and quality of the work done. Each one of these shows off the imagination and creative ideas that the photographer of that time had.”
Some of the portraits have interesting effects – for instance, lithographs combined with painting and photography, or miniature paintings with photographic faces. One of Rai’s favourites is the triple-set of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – “as a barrister, as a satyagrahi, then as the Mahatma, a transformation into three different personalities.” It is with this amazing creative variety and imaginative flair that the project was conceived. “The book was planned in that direction, making a definitive statement about portraiture and the habits of the times. I did it this way because I was tired of seeing other pictures and books, with the same old treatment. I felt a sense of responsibility to do something new and creative, because that is what I am: a creative photographer.”
Rai’s own work includes some images of strangers, ordinary people living ordinary lives, but their eyes telling stories of extraordinary souls. “My house was being painted and every day some new people would turn up – simple, wonderful human beings. The experience of watching them was so overpowering, a powerful feeling. So I made them pose and I took the pictures.” And then there are the more famous images, or Indira Gandhi, of Satyajit Ray, of MS Subbulakshmi. Rai says that “The politicians are part of my journalistic work. I am especially connected to the great masters of Indian classical music, with their stylized and special expressions; look at the great Bismillah Khan – he is looking up and still inwards, his head almost like a monument! He seems to be looking into himself with a smile…music transforms him into someone extraordinary.” During a shoot of Ghare Bhaire, Rai saw Satyajit Ray sitting by himself on a bed, re-creating the sequence he is going to shoot. “The lighting looked very dramatic. I called to him and he turned to me and the picture happened. And then there is the image of Alkazi at Arles, watching a photo show – I asked him to turn around and he made some very funny remarks about me; he was a very funny guy!”
Call it a career or a matter of thoroughly enjoying work. Raghu Rai knows just how to do it. “I had lots of fun with these situations,” he remembers.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Book review
(This was published in the Bengal Post. I do not know when, since the person in charge still has not sent me a clipping!)
BATTLE FOR BITTORA
Anuja Chauhan
Harper Collins
Many years ago, during World War II, irony and humour were not just a route to stress relief, but also trenchant commentary on the state of world affairs, politics and the world in general. In Britain, cartoonists and jokesmiths took regular and pointed swipes at politicians, political systems, rationing, shortages, soldiers, the trenches…almost anything that could possibly be mentioned, all with a spin that made it tolerable to face and reflected public sentiment. Humour of that genre – funny ha-ha and funny peculiar, famously compiled under that name in the UK in slim hardbound collectible volumes – rarely finds unrestricted and accepting audiences in this country, even though Indian politics is the stuff of any side-splitting, tongue-in-cheek or totally insane humour. It is the embodiment of a kind of laughter that comes from biting satire mixed with Bollywood-ishtyle successful slapstick of the genre of Andaz Apna Apna. This could be the time for it to all happen.
Ideally suited, in fact, to production as a Hindi movie – perhaps made by the likes of the quietly rude Gurinder Chaddha or a completely OTT David Dhawan – is Battle for Bittora, the new Anuja Chauhan book that comes after The Zoya Factor, already snapped up by Shahrukh Khan’s production house for the big screen. Politics is the hero, the theme, the villain, the supporting cast, with Sarojini (named after the lady, not the Delhi market) Pande the main actor in the chaotic drama. She has to leave her city job in an ad-agency as creator of animated kitaanus to deal with her grandmother Pushpa, aka Amma, the power that energises Pavit Pradesh, the state that Jini needs to win votes to rule. She has a battalion of advisors, from the larcenous, vodka-swilling Gudia aunty to the sneaky Nauzer Nulwallah, the underhanded Dugguji, floral Bunty, Our Pappu, Hasina behenji, the doughty Jugatram, the villainous Uncle Tawny and various others. And then there is Zain Altaf Khan, erstwhile royal scion of Bittora, who makes her blood boil and her hormones dance…
Take a dash of melodrama, a helping of nepotism, a soupcon of truth, plenty of lies, lots of cash floating around and some rural practices (honour killing, for one) and stir it all about with Dabanng-style dialect and you have a glorious Indian election. With lots of thinly veiled criss-crossing plot lines, characters that could jump straight off the ‘breaking news’ headlines and more insider information than the Official Secrets Act could consider restricting, the book is a fun read, often giggle-worthy, albeit vaguely repetitive and occasionally irritating. As a reader, you want to get to the end faster than it arrives, and tend to skip every now and then. But if you see your favourite Bollywood hero playing the role of Zain and your pet heroine as Jini in a total-timepass masala entertainer based on the story, you plug in and plough through. And you have to admit that Amma was right when, with her last breath, she says, “Don’t let that fat Katrina play us in the movie”!
BATTLE FOR BITTORA
Anuja Chauhan
Harper Collins
Many years ago, during World War II, irony and humour were not just a route to stress relief, but also trenchant commentary on the state of world affairs, politics and the world in general. In Britain, cartoonists and jokesmiths took regular and pointed swipes at politicians, political systems, rationing, shortages, soldiers, the trenches…almost anything that could possibly be mentioned, all with a spin that made it tolerable to face and reflected public sentiment. Humour of that genre – funny ha-ha and funny peculiar, famously compiled under that name in the UK in slim hardbound collectible volumes – rarely finds unrestricted and accepting audiences in this country, even though Indian politics is the stuff of any side-splitting, tongue-in-cheek or totally insane humour. It is the embodiment of a kind of laughter that comes from biting satire mixed with Bollywood-ishtyle successful slapstick of the genre of Andaz Apna Apna. This could be the time for it to all happen.
Ideally suited, in fact, to production as a Hindi movie – perhaps made by the likes of the quietly rude Gurinder Chaddha or a completely OTT David Dhawan – is Battle for Bittora, the new Anuja Chauhan book that comes after The Zoya Factor, already snapped up by Shahrukh Khan’s production house for the big screen. Politics is the hero, the theme, the villain, the supporting cast, with Sarojini (named after the lady, not the Delhi market) Pande the main actor in the chaotic drama. She has to leave her city job in an ad-agency as creator of animated kitaanus to deal with her grandmother Pushpa, aka Amma, the power that energises Pavit Pradesh, the state that Jini needs to win votes to rule. She has a battalion of advisors, from the larcenous, vodka-swilling Gudia aunty to the sneaky Nauzer Nulwallah, the underhanded Dugguji, floral Bunty, Our Pappu, Hasina behenji, the doughty Jugatram, the villainous Uncle Tawny and various others. And then there is Zain Altaf Khan, erstwhile royal scion of Bittora, who makes her blood boil and her hormones dance…
Take a dash of melodrama, a helping of nepotism, a soupcon of truth, plenty of lies, lots of cash floating around and some rural practices (honour killing, for one) and stir it all about with Dabanng-style dialect and you have a glorious Indian election. With lots of thinly veiled criss-crossing plot lines, characters that could jump straight off the ‘breaking news’ headlines and more insider information than the Official Secrets Act could consider restricting, the book is a fun read, often giggle-worthy, albeit vaguely repetitive and occasionally irritating. As a reader, you want to get to the end faster than it arrives, and tend to skip every now and then. But if you see your favourite Bollywood hero playing the role of Zain and your pet heroine as Jini in a total-timepass masala entertainer based on the story, you plug in and plough through. And you have to admit that Amma was right when, with her last breath, she says, “Don’t let that fat Katrina play us in the movie”!
Just a little respect
(bdnews24.com, January 14, 2011)
It happens more than you would expect. Every now and then the newspapers carry a report on how a ‘domestic worker’ – as they oh-so-politically correctly put it – has been abused by her or his employers. For the most part, these unfortunate individuals tend to be young, distressingly so, and either far from home and family or else abandoned by those who should have been of the most support. They are taken into a household with promises of being provided an education or a means of helping their families survive, but few find any kind of satisfaction in that kind of job well done – most have to live as almost-slaves, deprived of the most basic of child right, like education, food, shelter and stimulation. Many need to deal with the nightmare of physical, emotional and often sexual abuse, accompanied by pain, trauma, horror and that endless feeling of degradation and humiliation. And if questioned, the employees either run away, deny any wrongdoing or insist that the child is theirs, body, soul and mind, to with as they wish.
But is that really possible? Can anyone own anyone else, especially an innocent human who is unaware of what he or she is legally, morally and rightfully entitled to? Does the young person have no say in the matter? Do dreams, hopes, ambitions and beliefs – especially in the integral ‘goodness’ of human nature count for nothing in a world where, essentially, everything can be bought and sold? It seems not. Consider simple instances of how you, me and others like us (to give it a strange kind of classification that goes beyond socio-economic class and stratum) behave with the people that we employ to help us live our admittedly privileged lives. We tend to need a staff to cope with maddening schedules, commutes, comfort, and all else that goes with the trappings that make us busy, hardworking and eventually successful people in today’s highly professional and near-automated world. There is a maid or two, a driver, a laundryman, a vegetable vendor, a grocer, a gardener, a babysitter, a stylist, a tailor, a handyman…the list can be never-ending, depending on the degree of dependence we may have on support outside ourselves and our families. Many of these may be underage, taken on for their low price and easy availability, sent to big cities to find work by their own families in order to swell coffers back home, to find their own way in a world that is hard and poor, to better themselves perhaps, or to find escape from the rigors of a life not wanted and not wanting them. We look for them, find them, interview them, haggle over how much to pay them, hire them and then? Do we really look after them?
‘Look after’ does not always mean treating the employee as your own child – since most of them are mere children. It is about much more – ensuring that their rights as human beings, as individuals, as children are respected. Ensuring that they as those human beings, individuals and children have access to food, shelter and clothing, to opportunities for betterment and advancement, education, healthcare and a viable future. And ensuring that they are safe, live without fear, can face the world as strong and balanced people. How many of us – myself included – manage to do that?
I find it shocking in some instances that my own friends, people I expect to be aware and with active consciences, since they are as highly educated and informed and capable as I am, if not more so, do not seem to believe that the domestic staff they employ are deserving of respect. The same respect that those who employ them enjoy. They may be less advantaged from the social or economic standpoint, but they are no less deserving or entitled. A ‘please’ or a ‘thank you’, small marks of respect and humaneness, is always needed, however menial a task that the worker has been hired to perform. Speaking politely is just the start; there is always more – being aware of the need for a break in routine, a need for warmth when the weather turns cold, a need for food when it comes time for a meal, a need for rest when a long day’s work is done. Most of all, a need for compassion, healing, caring, involvement, an assurance that they are not alone, not abandoned, not un-respected. How much effort does it take for a smile, a sharing of a snack, a consciousness of right over wrong?
It makes sense to me to see that my own maid is comfortable, is not unwell, is properly fed and clothed, is safe, is happy. A smile in her face brings a certain joy into my household for the hour or so that she is within it. And the sense of caring and involvement that she gets from me gives her and me the assurance that she will stay with me and give of her best as long as she is able. She laughs, talks, jokes, even yells at me when I do not give her what she wants – which is usually the right detergent to wash the marble tile of the floor, the perfect scrub for those non-stick pans, the right to bring me onions from the factory she works at even while onion prices shoot through the proverbial roof.
All that, to me, is worth so much more than having someone under my thumb, slave to my whims and fancies, someone who works for me rather than with me to keep my life ticking along smoothly.
It happens more than you would expect. Every now and then the newspapers carry a report on how a ‘domestic worker’ – as they oh-so-politically correctly put it – has been abused by her or his employers. For the most part, these unfortunate individuals tend to be young, distressingly so, and either far from home and family or else abandoned by those who should have been of the most support. They are taken into a household with promises of being provided an education or a means of helping their families survive, but few find any kind of satisfaction in that kind of job well done – most have to live as almost-slaves, deprived of the most basic of child right, like education, food, shelter and stimulation. Many need to deal with the nightmare of physical, emotional and often sexual abuse, accompanied by pain, trauma, horror and that endless feeling of degradation and humiliation. And if questioned, the employees either run away, deny any wrongdoing or insist that the child is theirs, body, soul and mind, to with as they wish.
But is that really possible? Can anyone own anyone else, especially an innocent human who is unaware of what he or she is legally, morally and rightfully entitled to? Does the young person have no say in the matter? Do dreams, hopes, ambitions and beliefs – especially in the integral ‘goodness’ of human nature count for nothing in a world where, essentially, everything can be bought and sold? It seems not. Consider simple instances of how you, me and others like us (to give it a strange kind of classification that goes beyond socio-economic class and stratum) behave with the people that we employ to help us live our admittedly privileged lives. We tend to need a staff to cope with maddening schedules, commutes, comfort, and all else that goes with the trappings that make us busy, hardworking and eventually successful people in today’s highly professional and near-automated world. There is a maid or two, a driver, a laundryman, a vegetable vendor, a grocer, a gardener, a babysitter, a stylist, a tailor, a handyman…the list can be never-ending, depending on the degree of dependence we may have on support outside ourselves and our families. Many of these may be underage, taken on for their low price and easy availability, sent to big cities to find work by their own families in order to swell coffers back home, to find their own way in a world that is hard and poor, to better themselves perhaps, or to find escape from the rigors of a life not wanted and not wanting them. We look for them, find them, interview them, haggle over how much to pay them, hire them and then? Do we really look after them?
‘Look after’ does not always mean treating the employee as your own child – since most of them are mere children. It is about much more – ensuring that their rights as human beings, as individuals, as children are respected. Ensuring that they as those human beings, individuals and children have access to food, shelter and clothing, to opportunities for betterment and advancement, education, healthcare and a viable future. And ensuring that they are safe, live without fear, can face the world as strong and balanced people. How many of us – myself included – manage to do that?
I find it shocking in some instances that my own friends, people I expect to be aware and with active consciences, since they are as highly educated and informed and capable as I am, if not more so, do not seem to believe that the domestic staff they employ are deserving of respect. The same respect that those who employ them enjoy. They may be less advantaged from the social or economic standpoint, but they are no less deserving or entitled. A ‘please’ or a ‘thank you’, small marks of respect and humaneness, is always needed, however menial a task that the worker has been hired to perform. Speaking politely is just the start; there is always more – being aware of the need for a break in routine, a need for warmth when the weather turns cold, a need for food when it comes time for a meal, a need for rest when a long day’s work is done. Most of all, a need for compassion, healing, caring, involvement, an assurance that they are not alone, not abandoned, not un-respected. How much effort does it take for a smile, a sharing of a snack, a consciousness of right over wrong?
It makes sense to me to see that my own maid is comfortable, is not unwell, is properly fed and clothed, is safe, is happy. A smile in her face brings a certain joy into my household for the hour or so that she is within it. And the sense of caring and involvement that she gets from me gives her and me the assurance that she will stay with me and give of her best as long as she is able. She laughs, talks, jokes, even yells at me when I do not give her what she wants – which is usually the right detergent to wash the marble tile of the floor, the perfect scrub for those non-stick pans, the right to bring me onions from the factory she works at even while onion prices shoot through the proverbial roof.
All that, to me, is worth so much more than having someone under my thumb, slave to my whims and fancies, someone who works for me rather than with me to keep my life ticking along smoothly.
Screen playing
(bdnews24.com, January 7, 2011)
The film biz in India spans almost every language that is officially recognised in the country. But, where public perception is concerned, there is one overwhelming influence that is the colour of all things filmi: Bollywood. A word coined by some enterprising wordsmith or journalist many years ago, one disliked by superstar Amitabh Bachchan and many others, it still works well to describe a world that is about dreams and ambitions, successes and failures and great joy and even greater heartbreak. The age-old and astonishingly seductive showreel of a young man (women were less visible in the particular sequence) from the village coming to the big bad city that was (in those days) Bombay and serendipitously meeting a big-time producer/director and becoming the new Big Star illuminated by flashbulbs and starry eyes still brings people — young and surprisingly older too — to the City of Dreams, as Mumbai is called now, is still very much a valid, working clip. There are still hundreds who come to the megalopolis to become the next Salman Khan, the next Madhuri Dixit, the next celluloid sensation, the latest Yash Chopra or anyone else whose name may echo through the peninsula. And some of them do…as was seen in various films released over the past year.
Annum 2010 was not a time when big was better. A number of films that came from established and reputed production houses sat flat on their cans (sic!) while the box office rattled sadly to poor collections. Movies expected to go stratospheric in their success fizzled unexpectedly, shaking Bollywood and its fan following out of a state of cinematic complacency. Big-budget big-star big-prediction films like Kites (with Hrithik Roshan), Guzaarish (directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan), Raavan (by Mani Ratnam), Veer (Salman Khan) and We Are Family (with Kajol) failed. And smaller, less touted productions from comparative unknowns, like Love Sex Aur Dhoka, Ishqiya, Tere Bin Laden, Peepli Live and Band Baaja Baaraat did startlingly good business, pushing all those involved with them into the spotlight.
The result of this shake-up could have been predicted, following all patterns of uncertainty and surprise: Bollywood decided that it was time to rethink formulae and strategies and try, once again, to figure out what worked, what could win and what would bring in the money. Unfortunately, as with anything filmi, that attempt to rewrite the formula and find a success guarantee will never be possible. After all, there were too many unpredictable wobbles that happened – Salman Khan, superstar of the mass audience, wrote a film called Veer that failed almost as it was released; that same Salman Khan rewrote audience perception with Dabangg and his act as a corrupt cop had cash registers ringing all the way to the bank and back. Farah Khan’s success with Main Hoon Na and the Om Shanti Om, both starring Shahrukh Khan, spurred her into declaring her independence from the star with Tees Maar Khan with Akshay Kumar playing the lead. It was panned by critics and audiences alike, with not even a steamy ‘item’ number by hot-stepper Katrina Kaif being able to revive its fortunes. Shahrukh underlined his track records by retaining and building on his fan base with no releases and not many appearances over the year, though his My Name Is Khan still brought in good business overseas.
Unusual stories and screenplays were perhaps the deciding factor in the success-failure game in 2010. First time directors hit it huge (Abhinav Kashyap being the best case in this point with Dabangg), small towns were centrestage (as in Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti) and comedy was central, especially if it was slapstick (see Golmaal 3). Thrillers did well too, from Once Upon A Time In Mumbai to the aforementioned Ishqiya. And, as total ‘paisa vasool’, or value for money, Rajnikanth’s Robot (more in the Tamil version) and, of course, Dabangg, with their clichéd dialogue, dramatic delivery and over-the-top action did the trick best of all for everyone, even the most carping critic. It was a time when big stars lost a lot of their starry sheen to the raw newcomer, the underdog, even the obvious non-starter. Consider the surprise hit of the year in Band Baaja Baaraat, where Ranveer Singh, who came out of nowhere to play a loud, crude, un-citified hero against the more experienced Anushka Sharma, won accolades from his critics, his audiences and, best of all, his more senior colleagues in filmbiz!
So what does Bollywood hold for the next year? Filmmaking now is all about polish, sophistication of technique and a much greater degree of depth than has been visible for some time. Production houses and financiers have realised that whatever the name attached to the film, however big and bright the star, whoever the director and the ‘item number’, what really does make the difference is the story itself. If there is a tale worth telling, Bollywood is finding that it needs to be told in order to tell a different story at the box office: that which is about finding – and keeping – the limelight.
The film biz in India spans almost every language that is officially recognised in the country. But, where public perception is concerned, there is one overwhelming influence that is the colour of all things filmi: Bollywood. A word coined by some enterprising wordsmith or journalist many years ago, one disliked by superstar Amitabh Bachchan and many others, it still works well to describe a world that is about dreams and ambitions, successes and failures and great joy and even greater heartbreak. The age-old and astonishingly seductive showreel of a young man (women were less visible in the particular sequence) from the village coming to the big bad city that was (in those days) Bombay and serendipitously meeting a big-time producer/director and becoming the new Big Star illuminated by flashbulbs and starry eyes still brings people — young and surprisingly older too — to the City of Dreams, as Mumbai is called now, is still very much a valid, working clip. There are still hundreds who come to the megalopolis to become the next Salman Khan, the next Madhuri Dixit, the next celluloid sensation, the latest Yash Chopra or anyone else whose name may echo through the peninsula. And some of them do…as was seen in various films released over the past year.
Annum 2010 was not a time when big was better. A number of films that came from established and reputed production houses sat flat on their cans (sic!) while the box office rattled sadly to poor collections. Movies expected to go stratospheric in their success fizzled unexpectedly, shaking Bollywood and its fan following out of a state of cinematic complacency. Big-budget big-star big-prediction films like Kites (with Hrithik Roshan), Guzaarish (directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan), Raavan (by Mani Ratnam), Veer (Salman Khan) and We Are Family (with Kajol) failed. And smaller, less touted productions from comparative unknowns, like Love Sex Aur Dhoka, Ishqiya, Tere Bin Laden, Peepli Live and Band Baaja Baaraat did startlingly good business, pushing all those involved with them into the spotlight.
The result of this shake-up could have been predicted, following all patterns of uncertainty and surprise: Bollywood decided that it was time to rethink formulae and strategies and try, once again, to figure out what worked, what could win and what would bring in the money. Unfortunately, as with anything filmi, that attempt to rewrite the formula and find a success guarantee will never be possible. After all, there were too many unpredictable wobbles that happened – Salman Khan, superstar of the mass audience, wrote a film called Veer that failed almost as it was released; that same Salman Khan rewrote audience perception with Dabangg and his act as a corrupt cop had cash registers ringing all the way to the bank and back. Farah Khan’s success with Main Hoon Na and the Om Shanti Om, both starring Shahrukh Khan, spurred her into declaring her independence from the star with Tees Maar Khan with Akshay Kumar playing the lead. It was panned by critics and audiences alike, with not even a steamy ‘item’ number by hot-stepper Katrina Kaif being able to revive its fortunes. Shahrukh underlined his track records by retaining and building on his fan base with no releases and not many appearances over the year, though his My Name Is Khan still brought in good business overseas.
Unusual stories and screenplays were perhaps the deciding factor in the success-failure game in 2010. First time directors hit it huge (Abhinav Kashyap being the best case in this point with Dabangg), small towns were centrestage (as in Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti) and comedy was central, especially if it was slapstick (see Golmaal 3). Thrillers did well too, from Once Upon A Time In Mumbai to the aforementioned Ishqiya. And, as total ‘paisa vasool’, or value for money, Rajnikanth’s Robot (more in the Tamil version) and, of course, Dabangg, with their clichéd dialogue, dramatic delivery and over-the-top action did the trick best of all for everyone, even the most carping critic. It was a time when big stars lost a lot of their starry sheen to the raw newcomer, the underdog, even the obvious non-starter. Consider the surprise hit of the year in Band Baaja Baaraat, where Ranveer Singh, who came out of nowhere to play a loud, crude, un-citified hero against the more experienced Anushka Sharma, won accolades from his critics, his audiences and, best of all, his more senior colleagues in filmbiz!
So what does Bollywood hold for the next year? Filmmaking now is all about polish, sophistication of technique and a much greater degree of depth than has been visible for some time. Production houses and financiers have realised that whatever the name attached to the film, however big and bright the star, whoever the director and the ‘item number’, what really does make the difference is the story itself. If there is a tale worth telling, Bollywood is finding that it needs to be told in order to tell a different story at the box office: that which is about finding – and keeping – the limelight.
Eat it and weep
(bdnews24.com, December 30, 2010)
It’s all about knowing your onions. And in India, where life is full of flavour, colour, spice and all things nice, onions are getting to be one of those essential aspects of everyday life that are getting more rare by the day. The other day, walking through the small market I generally get my vegetables from, I found that there were only two stalls there selling onions, where normally there would be about seven. Also, the wares that they did have on show were sub-standard, small, stunted, battered, rejects rather than the prize bulbs I would have chosen. ‘Sorry, the supply is like this, we have no choice,’ the vendor said, even as I reeled backwards at the price he cited – about four times what I usually paid for quality I would never look at.
This has been the scenario in this part of the world for a few weeks now. The headline news has concentrated on onions, with slight tangents to look at the case of other vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant and yams. Garlic comes a close second to its cousin the onion where price and standard of supply is concerned, so expensive and so low-grade that few want to buy it, even if they could afford to. Carrots, tomatoes, cauliflower and other staples that every household has in the larder are being replaced by sprouted lentils and protein granules/chunks and other substitutes, just to balance budgets and dietary requirements. Restaurants are still providing onions with curries and kebabs, with sandwiches and burgers, with salads and suppers, but as a side or extra, to be specially ordered and separately paid for. And many menus are citing the non-availability of the stuff, replacing it with cabbage, with extra jalapenos and, in one hilarious case, with a plus order of ketchup.
All this sounds very odd and rather dire, considering that the shortage of one particular common vegetable has become the stuff of national debate. India, as the world’s second largest producer of onions after China, has been facing a crisis of sorts as onion production has gradually but inexorably fallen over the past four or so years. Farmers in my own home state, Maharashtra, are choosing to use their land to cultivate crops that are more income-generating for them and their families, with guaranteed harvests, guaranteed sales and guaranteed returns. Perhaps a major factor in this choice has been unpredictable rainfall – either there has been too much, as happened in 2010, or too little, as in 2009. All this has led to no control of the situation, arbitrary price allocation with no common minimum rates, hoarding, a black market and a kind of vegetable (especially onion) mafia, all of which could be part of a very bad Bollywood movie plot. The irony is that not too long ago, there was such a glut of onions in the market that the bulbs were being sold at a mere four rupees or less per kilogram!
But somewhere in this vegetable soap opera, the government plays a rather significant role. Many blame the Indian minister in charge of food and agriculture, Sharad Pawar, saying that he did not do much to analyse the situation in time and deal with it before it could escalate to the levels it is at now. He cannot possibly be faulted for unseasonable and unpredictable weather conditions, but he could have foreseen the issues of unstable supply after becoming aware of the damage to the standing crops and the harvest that was nowhere at normal, at-par levels. Crop damage at between 25 and 50 percent in the onion-producing regions of the country was noted in October 2010; the low supply to the markets was seen in the next month. In December, prices had shot past affordable limits. But the honourable minister, it is reported, was busy with more important issues – he was signing licenses for the export of the onions the Indian kitchen so urgently required! The stuff of so many savoury Indian culinary products was being sent off to Pakistan and parts beyond.
And the irony does not end with the price factor. The real crux of the whole drama has come now, when the onion market has been given a fillip in a process of crisis management rather than logical functioning of a balanced economy. All export permits are being reassessed, all onion exports have been stopped and all supply chains and storage facilities are being examined. Maddest of all in this madhouse of supply, demand and sales is the fact that we, India, are now getting onions from the country many still see as the ‘enemy’ or ‘rival’ – on and off the cricket field – Pakistan. Yes, those same onions that we sent them not so long ago. Of course, that too has a bit of a rider attached – the Pakistani onion is said to be of lower quality than the Indian one; but that could be just that same cross-border rivalry rearing its idiotic head.
But then, with onions, who really knows them!
It’s all about knowing your onions. And in India, where life is full of flavour, colour, spice and all things nice, onions are getting to be one of those essential aspects of everyday life that are getting more rare by the day. The other day, walking through the small market I generally get my vegetables from, I found that there were only two stalls there selling onions, where normally there would be about seven. Also, the wares that they did have on show were sub-standard, small, stunted, battered, rejects rather than the prize bulbs I would have chosen. ‘Sorry, the supply is like this, we have no choice,’ the vendor said, even as I reeled backwards at the price he cited – about four times what I usually paid for quality I would never look at.
This has been the scenario in this part of the world for a few weeks now. The headline news has concentrated on onions, with slight tangents to look at the case of other vegetables like tomatoes, eggplant and yams. Garlic comes a close second to its cousin the onion where price and standard of supply is concerned, so expensive and so low-grade that few want to buy it, even if they could afford to. Carrots, tomatoes, cauliflower and other staples that every household has in the larder are being replaced by sprouted lentils and protein granules/chunks and other substitutes, just to balance budgets and dietary requirements. Restaurants are still providing onions with curries and kebabs, with sandwiches and burgers, with salads and suppers, but as a side or extra, to be specially ordered and separately paid for. And many menus are citing the non-availability of the stuff, replacing it with cabbage, with extra jalapenos and, in one hilarious case, with a plus order of ketchup.
All this sounds very odd and rather dire, considering that the shortage of one particular common vegetable has become the stuff of national debate. India, as the world’s second largest producer of onions after China, has been facing a crisis of sorts as onion production has gradually but inexorably fallen over the past four or so years. Farmers in my own home state, Maharashtra, are choosing to use their land to cultivate crops that are more income-generating for them and their families, with guaranteed harvests, guaranteed sales and guaranteed returns. Perhaps a major factor in this choice has been unpredictable rainfall – either there has been too much, as happened in 2010, or too little, as in 2009. All this has led to no control of the situation, arbitrary price allocation with no common minimum rates, hoarding, a black market and a kind of vegetable (especially onion) mafia, all of which could be part of a very bad Bollywood movie plot. The irony is that not too long ago, there was such a glut of onions in the market that the bulbs were being sold at a mere four rupees or less per kilogram!
But somewhere in this vegetable soap opera, the government plays a rather significant role. Many blame the Indian minister in charge of food and agriculture, Sharad Pawar, saying that he did not do much to analyse the situation in time and deal with it before it could escalate to the levels it is at now. He cannot possibly be faulted for unseasonable and unpredictable weather conditions, but he could have foreseen the issues of unstable supply after becoming aware of the damage to the standing crops and the harvest that was nowhere at normal, at-par levels. Crop damage at between 25 and 50 percent in the onion-producing regions of the country was noted in October 2010; the low supply to the markets was seen in the next month. In December, prices had shot past affordable limits. But the honourable minister, it is reported, was busy with more important issues – he was signing licenses for the export of the onions the Indian kitchen so urgently required! The stuff of so many savoury Indian culinary products was being sent off to Pakistan and parts beyond.
And the irony does not end with the price factor. The real crux of the whole drama has come now, when the onion market has been given a fillip in a process of crisis management rather than logical functioning of a balanced economy. All export permits are being reassessed, all onion exports have been stopped and all supply chains and storage facilities are being examined. Maddest of all in this madhouse of supply, demand and sales is the fact that we, India, are now getting onions from the country many still see as the ‘enemy’ or ‘rival’ – on and off the cricket field – Pakistan. Yes, those same onions that we sent them not so long ago. Of course, that too has a bit of a rider attached – the Pakistani onion is said to be of lower quality than the Indian one; but that could be just that same cross-border rivalry rearing its idiotic head.
But then, with onions, who really knows them!
Nothing like new technology
(bdnews24.com, December 25, 2010)
Many years ago, the phenomenon called the Internet arrived in the subcontinent. It was not very extensive, Google did not exist as a public service and Wiki-anything was still unknown. Connections were slow, the bandwidth was limited and getting online was expensive, a privilege of corporate houses and the wealthy at home. That was the first coming.
To be a part of the wave had a certain special snob value that could not be matched by anything else that could be bought off the shelves, even the mobile phone, which was an equally prestigious acquisition at the time. The reach of this new concept was enormous, its potential unimaginable, its possibilities endless. Writers could be read all over the world without too much effort, information could be exchanged almost instantly and communication was no longer a case of missed phone calls and waiting for the postman to deliver the mail.
In that time and space, journalists had tough choices to make. The adventurous plunged into this new realm of technology driven news-gathering, developing abilities that they had perhaps never been trained for. They had to create stories without delay, since they had only a small and often unlikely chance of being first to ‘break’ something. Newspapers and magazines were starting to explore the idea of an online edition, cautiously and with many reservations, primarily because many of the established journalists were of an older school that was wary of anything that happened too quickly and used too much science that needed too much explanation.
The dotcom wave was sweeping through this part of the world and many bright and ambitious individuals were buying their ways into it. Salaries that were tempting, to say the least, were up for grabs — all that you needed was excitement, enthusiasm and a certain recklessness and willingness to play in an unknown field.
And then the bubble went pop. There was no money being made, since advertisers had not yet caught up with the immense potential of this new medium. Many of the better established writers and editors stayed away, preferring the tangible evidence of bylines to the rather more ephemeral world of the Internet, where you could read writing only if you knew where to look for it, most cited.
If you were published online, you ‘vanished’, was often the belief. But it was a time when those who looked very far ahead bought domains, registered URLs and were savvy enough to squat on possibly lucrative-in-the-future space in the cyberworld and wait until the rest of mankind caught up. The recession did quite a lot to destroy a great many dreams of this kind, but patience did pay off. The dotcom business is back!
I do not speak just as an insider, working in the Internet space and writing for this newspaper, an online publication. I speak as someone who has watched people and their attitudes evolve from being wary of and shying away from a new medium to absorbing and accepting it as something that has more interesting possibilities that should — must, really — be looked into and tapped. Today, as part of a web company, managing content and looking for new ways to capture audiences, I realise the huge range of permutations that can be easily managed, new ways of presenting the information, innovative methods of finding that same information and a hitherto unknown universe of design and style and creativity using technology and stimulating the very core of human thought processes.
And the reservations have, to a great extent, dissolved. Writers are flocking to the Internet space to write blogs, to create fiction chains, to find kindred spirits, to sell their works. They are discovering novel ways to present their writing, to tap into new audiences, to explore new ways of saying things that have been said so many times over since man started learning how to write. The feeling of ‘vanishing’ has itself vanished, and even the known and famous advocate use of the Net to show off their work to the discerning, to locate agents that could help, to publish unedited writing and have it critiqued or to present new stories for a select – and occasionally paying – reader population. And there is now money to be made with that kind of writing, since those with advertising budgets are willing to give healthy cheques for work of quality that can be used to bring the public in to browse and thus increase page views.
New technology is never a bad thing, especially if it does nothing to disturb the balance of the environment and our world. The Internet is indeed technology of a unique kind, non-polluting, not-interfering, non-invasive, for the most part with no attached health hazards (apart from human weaknesses like addiction to Facebook and online chatting) that should become part of every life, if only for the enormous realm of novelty that can be explored to learn, to study, to think, to understand and to reach out to the rest of the world out there.
Many years ago, the phenomenon called the Internet arrived in the subcontinent. It was not very extensive, Google did not exist as a public service and Wiki-anything was still unknown. Connections were slow, the bandwidth was limited and getting online was expensive, a privilege of corporate houses and the wealthy at home. That was the first coming.
To be a part of the wave had a certain special snob value that could not be matched by anything else that could be bought off the shelves, even the mobile phone, which was an equally prestigious acquisition at the time. The reach of this new concept was enormous, its potential unimaginable, its possibilities endless. Writers could be read all over the world without too much effort, information could be exchanged almost instantly and communication was no longer a case of missed phone calls and waiting for the postman to deliver the mail.
In that time and space, journalists had tough choices to make. The adventurous plunged into this new realm of technology driven news-gathering, developing abilities that they had perhaps never been trained for. They had to create stories without delay, since they had only a small and often unlikely chance of being first to ‘break’ something. Newspapers and magazines were starting to explore the idea of an online edition, cautiously and with many reservations, primarily because many of the established journalists were of an older school that was wary of anything that happened too quickly and used too much science that needed too much explanation.
The dotcom wave was sweeping through this part of the world and many bright and ambitious individuals were buying their ways into it. Salaries that were tempting, to say the least, were up for grabs — all that you needed was excitement, enthusiasm and a certain recklessness and willingness to play in an unknown field.
And then the bubble went pop. There was no money being made, since advertisers had not yet caught up with the immense potential of this new medium. Many of the better established writers and editors stayed away, preferring the tangible evidence of bylines to the rather more ephemeral world of the Internet, where you could read writing only if you knew where to look for it, most cited.
If you were published online, you ‘vanished’, was often the belief. But it was a time when those who looked very far ahead bought domains, registered URLs and were savvy enough to squat on possibly lucrative-in-the-future space in the cyberworld and wait until the rest of mankind caught up. The recession did quite a lot to destroy a great many dreams of this kind, but patience did pay off. The dotcom business is back!
I do not speak just as an insider, working in the Internet space and writing for this newspaper, an online publication. I speak as someone who has watched people and their attitudes evolve from being wary of and shying away from a new medium to absorbing and accepting it as something that has more interesting possibilities that should — must, really — be looked into and tapped. Today, as part of a web company, managing content and looking for new ways to capture audiences, I realise the huge range of permutations that can be easily managed, new ways of presenting the information, innovative methods of finding that same information and a hitherto unknown universe of design and style and creativity using technology and stimulating the very core of human thought processes.
And the reservations have, to a great extent, dissolved. Writers are flocking to the Internet space to write blogs, to create fiction chains, to find kindred spirits, to sell their works. They are discovering novel ways to present their writing, to tap into new audiences, to explore new ways of saying things that have been said so many times over since man started learning how to write. The feeling of ‘vanishing’ has itself vanished, and even the known and famous advocate use of the Net to show off their work to the discerning, to locate agents that could help, to publish unedited writing and have it critiqued or to present new stories for a select – and occasionally paying – reader population. And there is now money to be made with that kind of writing, since those with advertising budgets are willing to give healthy cheques for work of quality that can be used to bring the public in to browse and thus increase page views.
New technology is never a bad thing, especially if it does nothing to disturb the balance of the environment and our world. The Internet is indeed technology of a unique kind, non-polluting, not-interfering, non-invasive, for the most part with no attached health hazards (apart from human weaknesses like addiction to Facebook and online chatting) that should become part of every life, if only for the enormous realm of novelty that can be explored to learn, to study, to think, to understand and to reach out to the rest of the world out there.
Power of press
(bdnews24.com, December 10, 2010)
The Indian media has been shaken somewhat over the last few weeks by what could only be called “indiscreet behaviour”. Two very senior journalists — people who have been listened to, read, respected over the past so many years — are in the dock for being inappropriately involved with a matter that has reached judicial proportions, with those involved in it being indicted by opinion, the press and, to some extent, the government in India. They insist that they were only stringing along their “source” to get more information on the story that they were independently investigating, but many beg to differ on that one.
After all, being responsible journalists, responsible adults and responsible human beings, they should have known what they were doing and understood their limits. Most of all, being public figures with popular television shows and print columns to their credit, they should have realised when they were crossing that fine line between investigation and involvement, and kept the distance that is so important in such situations. But they did not.
And the media — rivals or else-wise — is working hard to generate support on the one hand and, on the other, to make it clear that this is just not done. There are no apologies forthcoming, no believable excuses for what happened, no real reasons for it to be done. And the scandal value has dwindled to almost nothingness, the breaking news that it was just last week fading off the headlines and being relegated to the inside pages of papers that have nothing else to report.
Why did it happen? Who knows, except for one small point that is well known but rarely accepted by those involved: the journalists had started thinking that they were truly powerful; their word, such as it was, had to be accepted without questions asked, with no terms and conditions attached, no sanity check. Why? Simply because for years they have been the voice of that same sanity; their words have been taken for Gospel, the whole truth, reliable, honest, unbiased. But, as one of the two people concerned said when he was spot lit by the media for his role in the matter, it only takes a moment of indiscretion to wipe out 30 years of solid reputation. His name, for its immediate recall value, is now ‘mud’. The same can be said of the lady involved in the fracas — her television news show is well-known and looked forward-to, her interviews hard-hitting and incisive, her face and her voice famed for their presence whenever, wherever there is news to be reported.
And now both these luminaries, winners of more awards than a single person has a right to, have a somewhat tarnished public image.
All simply because they thought they were inviolate and all-powerful, people who could make things happen with a mere wave of a verb, conduits for a change that would normally take much longer and a lot more effort than one individual could manage to put in. Why? Because they had already tasted that heady sense of power, had already made things happen, had already influenced not just public opinion, but powerful opinion-makers too.
As senior journalists with an impressive body of work behind them, they had lobbied successfully to make change happen, be it increased privileges for the armed forces or greater protection for endangered big cats. But in trying to, as they both separately insisted, elicit information from a source as they worked to break a story that could shatter sections of the government, they overstepped their limits, blurring the lines between reporter and lobbyist, seemingly aiming to influence the flow of power rather than explore its tides and discover what the power equation actually was all about. In doing so, in getting a little too personally entangled, they have managed to not just mess with their own images, but push the entire press community into the spotlight, making almost anything that is done in the quest for a story, questionable. Responsible journalism? Perhaps not! Time for some kind of control mechanism to be implemented in journalistic research? Perhaps, yes!
In 1887 Lord Acton wrote to Bishop Creighton saying, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” A more fitting paraphrase attributed to William Pitt, British prime minister in 1766-1778 goes: “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” With great power comes great responsibility — the responsibility to see that it is used with discretion, intelligence and, most of all, common sense.
The Indian media has been shaken somewhat over the last few weeks by what could only be called “indiscreet behaviour”. Two very senior journalists — people who have been listened to, read, respected over the past so many years — are in the dock for being inappropriately involved with a matter that has reached judicial proportions, with those involved in it being indicted by opinion, the press and, to some extent, the government in India. They insist that they were only stringing along their “source” to get more information on the story that they were independently investigating, but many beg to differ on that one.
After all, being responsible journalists, responsible adults and responsible human beings, they should have known what they were doing and understood their limits. Most of all, being public figures with popular television shows and print columns to their credit, they should have realised when they were crossing that fine line between investigation and involvement, and kept the distance that is so important in such situations. But they did not.
And the media — rivals or else-wise — is working hard to generate support on the one hand and, on the other, to make it clear that this is just not done. There are no apologies forthcoming, no believable excuses for what happened, no real reasons for it to be done. And the scandal value has dwindled to almost nothingness, the breaking news that it was just last week fading off the headlines and being relegated to the inside pages of papers that have nothing else to report.
Why did it happen? Who knows, except for one small point that is well known but rarely accepted by those involved: the journalists had started thinking that they were truly powerful; their word, such as it was, had to be accepted without questions asked, with no terms and conditions attached, no sanity check. Why? Simply because for years they have been the voice of that same sanity; their words have been taken for Gospel, the whole truth, reliable, honest, unbiased. But, as one of the two people concerned said when he was spot lit by the media for his role in the matter, it only takes a moment of indiscretion to wipe out 30 years of solid reputation. His name, for its immediate recall value, is now ‘mud’. The same can be said of the lady involved in the fracas — her television news show is well-known and looked forward-to, her interviews hard-hitting and incisive, her face and her voice famed for their presence whenever, wherever there is news to be reported.
And now both these luminaries, winners of more awards than a single person has a right to, have a somewhat tarnished public image.
All simply because they thought they were inviolate and all-powerful, people who could make things happen with a mere wave of a verb, conduits for a change that would normally take much longer and a lot more effort than one individual could manage to put in. Why? Because they had already tasted that heady sense of power, had already made things happen, had already influenced not just public opinion, but powerful opinion-makers too.
As senior journalists with an impressive body of work behind them, they had lobbied successfully to make change happen, be it increased privileges for the armed forces or greater protection for endangered big cats. But in trying to, as they both separately insisted, elicit information from a source as they worked to break a story that could shatter sections of the government, they overstepped their limits, blurring the lines between reporter and lobbyist, seemingly aiming to influence the flow of power rather than explore its tides and discover what the power equation actually was all about. In doing so, in getting a little too personally entangled, they have managed to not just mess with their own images, but push the entire press community into the spotlight, making almost anything that is done in the quest for a story, questionable. Responsible journalism? Perhaps not! Time for some kind of control mechanism to be implemented in journalistic research? Perhaps, yes!
In 1887 Lord Acton wrote to Bishop Creighton saying, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” A more fitting paraphrase attributed to William Pitt, British prime minister in 1766-1778 goes: “Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” With great power comes great responsibility — the responsibility to see that it is used with discretion, intelligence and, most of all, common sense.
Doing the green thing
(bdnews24.com, December 4, 2010)
An international publishing house has me on its mailing list and I get emails from there on a regular basis, as do a lot of other journalists I know. I also get print outs in the mail, replicating what the emails say. While I once took that for granted, since the snail-mail acted as a kind of mnemonic through an incredibly chaotic week, it now seems wasteful and redundant. I have told the various people at the publishing house this and asked them to send me only the email, save a tree and build on their carbon credits, but they do not react or respond. Maybe this is a case of a tree falling in the deepest part of the forest.
Environmental awareness is taking on new avatars every day. It can be visualised as a social movement or a very personal form of activism that speaks passionately and persistently of the need for various measures to protect natural resources and ecosystems. Sustainable management through public policy, lobbying, protests and the setting of examples could be the route to a better world, a healthier planet, a safer future. That awareness has indeed grown, spread and become part of the everyday ethos for many all over the world. The effects of ignoring or abusing Earth are becoming more pronounced by the hour, and the consciousness that it is man who is destroying his own home is increasing. There have been books written on the subject, films made, papers presented at international conferences and laws changed to deal with the issue, but how much do each one of us, at a very personal level, actually do? Have we changed our own lifestyles to make sure that there is a world for our descendants to live in, long after we ourselves have crumbled to dust? Think about it.
Many of the problems we face today are not of our making, admittedly. Blame it on the quest for “progress” as it was called, that began a very long time ago, perhaps when man first stood on two feet and found that fire was a useful tool. In more contemporary history, the Industrial Revolution in Europe set the tone for modern-day engineering, technology and manufacturing units. The euphoria of doing things faster, bigger, better and more easily did much to deplete the planet of precious resources like fossil fuels and minerals. And we – as a species – did not really know better when we dug up the earth and poured chemicals into rivers and puffed carcinogen-laden smoke into the air. In the mid-1970, people began to see what was going on, how “progress” was making sure that there may not be a life worth living not too far down the line. And a slow, wary and oft-reviled awareness started growing. We, the people of today’s world, realise that what we inherited is not healthy, for our bodies as much as for our planet. And we have started working on dealing with that particular issue. In fact, the Chipko movement of the 1970s holds as much credence – if not more – now than it did then, with its slogan of “ecology is permanent economy”, which is easily adapted to the new brand of environmentalism, which deals with aspects like global warming and genetic engineering as comprehensively as it does with the traditional issues of priority, protection and preservation.
Or have we? Just as I get printouts of already-sent emails, there is a paper trail that leads inexorably from company to client, no matter whether it is necessary or not. Any shareholder will be familiar with company reports and newsletters dropping through the letters slot in the front door or being received from the courier man. New stores, services and sales will be announced by inserts in the daily newspapers, sometimes blank on one side and shoved in by the dozen. Team discussions in the office invariably have executives – and, as major offenders, journalists – taking notes on paper, sometimes just a large box outlined on a larger sheet or one word scribbled in a corner, the whole crumpled and thrown into the basket.
And it is not just about saving trees by saving paper. A train ride or a drive through almost any big city in India and many anywhere else in the world is an environmentalist’s nightmare. Peek out the window and there will be plastic bags, scrap paper, cans, PVC bottles and other rubbish tossed casually out on to the tracks, the road, the nearby streams, the sea. Rituals in India, for instance, result in a good deal of waste in the form of flowers, bricks, wood, et al, all mandatorily dumped into flowing water. But does it all have to be contained in a plastic bag, of the kind that does not have a biodegradable-by date attached?
Our planet does come with that date – and time, it is a-wasting!
An international publishing house has me on its mailing list and I get emails from there on a regular basis, as do a lot of other journalists I know. I also get print outs in the mail, replicating what the emails say. While I once took that for granted, since the snail-mail acted as a kind of mnemonic through an incredibly chaotic week, it now seems wasteful and redundant. I have told the various people at the publishing house this and asked them to send me only the email, save a tree and build on their carbon credits, but they do not react or respond. Maybe this is a case of a tree falling in the deepest part of the forest.
Environmental awareness is taking on new avatars every day. It can be visualised as a social movement or a very personal form of activism that speaks passionately and persistently of the need for various measures to protect natural resources and ecosystems. Sustainable management through public policy, lobbying, protests and the setting of examples could be the route to a better world, a healthier planet, a safer future. That awareness has indeed grown, spread and become part of the everyday ethos for many all over the world. The effects of ignoring or abusing Earth are becoming more pronounced by the hour, and the consciousness that it is man who is destroying his own home is increasing. There have been books written on the subject, films made, papers presented at international conferences and laws changed to deal with the issue, but how much do each one of us, at a very personal level, actually do? Have we changed our own lifestyles to make sure that there is a world for our descendants to live in, long after we ourselves have crumbled to dust? Think about it.
Many of the problems we face today are not of our making, admittedly. Blame it on the quest for “progress” as it was called, that began a very long time ago, perhaps when man first stood on two feet and found that fire was a useful tool. In more contemporary history, the Industrial Revolution in Europe set the tone for modern-day engineering, technology and manufacturing units. The euphoria of doing things faster, bigger, better and more easily did much to deplete the planet of precious resources like fossil fuels and minerals. And we – as a species – did not really know better when we dug up the earth and poured chemicals into rivers and puffed carcinogen-laden smoke into the air. In the mid-1970, people began to see what was going on, how “progress” was making sure that there may not be a life worth living not too far down the line. And a slow, wary and oft-reviled awareness started growing. We, the people of today’s world, realise that what we inherited is not healthy, for our bodies as much as for our planet. And we have started working on dealing with that particular issue. In fact, the Chipko movement of the 1970s holds as much credence – if not more – now than it did then, with its slogan of “ecology is permanent economy”, which is easily adapted to the new brand of environmentalism, which deals with aspects like global warming and genetic engineering as comprehensively as it does with the traditional issues of priority, protection and preservation.
Or have we? Just as I get printouts of already-sent emails, there is a paper trail that leads inexorably from company to client, no matter whether it is necessary or not. Any shareholder will be familiar with company reports and newsletters dropping through the letters slot in the front door or being received from the courier man. New stores, services and sales will be announced by inserts in the daily newspapers, sometimes blank on one side and shoved in by the dozen. Team discussions in the office invariably have executives – and, as major offenders, journalists – taking notes on paper, sometimes just a large box outlined on a larger sheet or one word scribbled in a corner, the whole crumpled and thrown into the basket.
And it is not just about saving trees by saving paper. A train ride or a drive through almost any big city in India and many anywhere else in the world is an environmentalist’s nightmare. Peek out the window and there will be plastic bags, scrap paper, cans, PVC bottles and other rubbish tossed casually out on to the tracks, the road, the nearby streams, the sea. Rituals in India, for instance, result in a good deal of waste in the form of flowers, bricks, wood, et al, all mandatorily dumped into flowing water. But does it all have to be contained in a plastic bag, of the kind that does not have a biodegradable-by date attached?
Our planet does come with that date – and time, it is a-wasting!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Forget the ethic, just pay!
(Published in BDNews24 online, November 26, 2010)
Scandal and sensation is part of everyday life anywhere in the world. Like an epidemic, it has occasional flare-ups and then subsides into a subliminal mutter, all set and waiting to erupt once again into a storm that hits headlines in print, on television and over the Internet. Over the past few weeks, an epicenter has been India, a land-building scam vying for public attention with one focusing on the telecommunications industry and many others just waiting for their share of the media spotlight. It is all about high level politics, contacts, licenses, permits and, obviously, a great deal of money. With that quantum of power comes a lot of privilege, many perquisites and even more permissiveness, at least in the local ethos. And all along, though everyone knows, nothing can be proved or used in a court of law. Not so much because it is not useful and useable evidence, but because the process of untangling it all would be too time-consuming, too messy and just too complicated to deal with on a fast-track basis.
Transparency International’s latest ranking of 178 nations by their perceived level of corruption indicated that India had fallen three places, with most Indians being labeled “utterly corrupt”. Congress President Sonia Gandhi recently said that the fast pace of economic growth in India was happening at the cost of a “moral universe” that was “shrinking”. The biggest noise was perhaps made at the Commonwealth Games, which concluded not too long ago in Delhi, and was coloured a darker hue by the taint of corruption in places that should, ideally, have been clean and whitewashed, with no hint of anything that was not above board and honest. And, as the latest nail in the ethical coffin, Ratan Tata, a very respected industrialist with a huge and immensely successful conglomerate to his name, told the story of how he was asked for a bribe by a government official when he was thinking about starting a new domestic airline.
In everyday life too there is a great deal of wheeling and dealing, some of it astonishingly underhanded. There is corruption everywhere, from the parking lot attendant taking a little something to find you a good space ahead of the waiting line of cars to a minor minion at the local municipality office who wants to be “induced” to expedite signatures so that you can buy your new home. We have all faced it and are usually so inured to it that we do not find it strange, let alone dishonest, any more. I am as much part of this cycle of a little bad-tinged good as anyone. When I was just 14 years old I got a driving license that stated that I was 18, just by handing over a surprisingly small amount of money to the official at the local authority office. When I was rather older, living alone in a city that was not mine, Delhi, I was asked blatantly for some money to escape dealing with a court appearance when I took a right turn against the sign, never mind that the sign was nicely hidden in a tangle of leafy branches of an overhanging tree, thus giving me no indication that what I was doing was not allowed. Since then, life has not been all honest either – most recently, we gave a traffic policeman a little pourboire to let us off the offense of jumping an unexpected red light at a crossroads. All in the urgency of getting somewhere to get something done without the wait and accompanying hassle.
The current news focuses on much larger instances of wavering morals. There is no traffic policeman to bribe or government minion to coax into granting favours. Huge amounts of money are involved and people in positions of greater power are part of the scenario. From the Commonwealth Games, where the issue of accountability was clouded by accounts that were fudged on a massive scale, to the Adarsh housing society, where premium apartments were built ostensibly for war windows but bought at extraordinarily low rates to less needy souls, to under-quoting and over-charging bidders for a new-generation telecommunications service, the dirt is flooding into the public domain and the figureheads who were supposed to maintain a code of conduct and the dignity of their post are falling off their self-attained pedestals, fast. And as each scandal is unearthed, rodents who were part of the tangled web woven around it desert the fast-sinking ship, ratting, as it were, on their superiors whose orders they were merely following. Who takes the blame? Who accepts the responsibility? Who pays the price of these shortcuts to a better life for themselves? Who knows!
But life is not all murky in these parts. We do have honest officials, politicians who are not corrupt and a great number of ordinary citizens who will not resort to the easy route to wherever they are going. It all takes a little longer to get there, that is all. If you have the time, honesty is still, after all, the best policy.
Scandal and sensation is part of everyday life anywhere in the world. Like an epidemic, it has occasional flare-ups and then subsides into a subliminal mutter, all set and waiting to erupt once again into a storm that hits headlines in print, on television and over the Internet. Over the past few weeks, an epicenter has been India, a land-building scam vying for public attention with one focusing on the telecommunications industry and many others just waiting for their share of the media spotlight. It is all about high level politics, contacts, licenses, permits and, obviously, a great deal of money. With that quantum of power comes a lot of privilege, many perquisites and even more permissiveness, at least in the local ethos. And all along, though everyone knows, nothing can be proved or used in a court of law. Not so much because it is not useful and useable evidence, but because the process of untangling it all would be too time-consuming, too messy and just too complicated to deal with on a fast-track basis.
Transparency International’s latest ranking of 178 nations by their perceived level of corruption indicated that India had fallen three places, with most Indians being labeled “utterly corrupt”. Congress President Sonia Gandhi recently said that the fast pace of economic growth in India was happening at the cost of a “moral universe” that was “shrinking”. The biggest noise was perhaps made at the Commonwealth Games, which concluded not too long ago in Delhi, and was coloured a darker hue by the taint of corruption in places that should, ideally, have been clean and whitewashed, with no hint of anything that was not above board and honest. And, as the latest nail in the ethical coffin, Ratan Tata, a very respected industrialist with a huge and immensely successful conglomerate to his name, told the story of how he was asked for a bribe by a government official when he was thinking about starting a new domestic airline.
In everyday life too there is a great deal of wheeling and dealing, some of it astonishingly underhanded. There is corruption everywhere, from the parking lot attendant taking a little something to find you a good space ahead of the waiting line of cars to a minor minion at the local municipality office who wants to be “induced” to expedite signatures so that you can buy your new home. We have all faced it and are usually so inured to it that we do not find it strange, let alone dishonest, any more. I am as much part of this cycle of a little bad-tinged good as anyone. When I was just 14 years old I got a driving license that stated that I was 18, just by handing over a surprisingly small amount of money to the official at the local authority office. When I was rather older, living alone in a city that was not mine, Delhi, I was asked blatantly for some money to escape dealing with a court appearance when I took a right turn against the sign, never mind that the sign was nicely hidden in a tangle of leafy branches of an overhanging tree, thus giving me no indication that what I was doing was not allowed. Since then, life has not been all honest either – most recently, we gave a traffic policeman a little pourboire to let us off the offense of jumping an unexpected red light at a crossroads. All in the urgency of getting somewhere to get something done without the wait and accompanying hassle.
The current news focuses on much larger instances of wavering morals. There is no traffic policeman to bribe or government minion to coax into granting favours. Huge amounts of money are involved and people in positions of greater power are part of the scenario. From the Commonwealth Games, where the issue of accountability was clouded by accounts that were fudged on a massive scale, to the Adarsh housing society, where premium apartments were built ostensibly for war windows but bought at extraordinarily low rates to less needy souls, to under-quoting and over-charging bidders for a new-generation telecommunications service, the dirt is flooding into the public domain and the figureheads who were supposed to maintain a code of conduct and the dignity of their post are falling off their self-attained pedestals, fast. And as each scandal is unearthed, rodents who were part of the tangled web woven around it desert the fast-sinking ship, ratting, as it were, on their superiors whose orders they were merely following. Who takes the blame? Who accepts the responsibility? Who pays the price of these shortcuts to a better life for themselves? Who knows!
But life is not all murky in these parts. We do have honest officials, politicians who are not corrupt and a great number of ordinary citizens who will not resort to the easy route to wherever they are going. It all takes a little longer to get there, that is all. If you have the time, honesty is still, after all, the best policy.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The great divide
(Published in BD News Online, Bangladesh, November 19, 2010)
Once upon a very long time ago God created man and, of course, woman. One school of thought maintains that woman – let’s call her Eve, since that would be more convenient and comprehensible – was formed from a bone from the ribcage of the man – Adam, again for more convenience. A Greek myth says that Pandora, the first woman, was a gift given to men by Zeus to punish them for having received fire, stolen from Prometheus. Zeus – oh, wise man! – commanded the creation of the first woman, a ‘beautiful evil’, destined to give birth to descendants who would torment the race of men. That was, perhaps, one of the last instances of men acting with wisdom and foresight. And it did, just to even out the points, give women the power to deal with men and men the possibilities of telling really bad and chauvinistic jokes.
Be that all as it may, the fact of the matter is that in Asia the woman has to live with a strange balance of power. In many parts of India, for instance, like in some clans in Kerala and certain communities in the northeast, the woman reigns supreme in a society that is still matriarchal and matrilineal. In the bustling commercial capital of Mumbai a tiny proportion of the female population fight battles like the glass ceiling and gender equality, while in the rest of the teeming metropolis, there are bigger wars to face, from everyday and startlingly casual sexual abuse to exploitation, poverty, hygiene, health…name it and the woman must arm herself to conquer it. Driving buses through the crowded streets, steering trains along the maze of the commuter network, working on construction sites, directing films, catering lunch services - today there is little that women do not generally aspire to, frequently struggle towards and usually manage to do better than their male counterparts. There is almost always a male bastion to breach, an age-old barrier to clamber over, with sari, high heels, make up and all. In the process, an aggression builds up, slowly evolving into a core of steel and fire, hiding a tiny kernel of softness and sensitivity.
Mythology that stretches its legends across the world have examples a-plenty of a woman’s life not being an easy one. Consider Draupadi, daughter, princess, wife, warrior, heroine of the Mahabharata. She had to deal with not one husband, but five, all because of a thoughtless command from her mother-in-law to her husband – share your prize with your brothers, said Ma-in-law to Arjun, the prince who had shot the arrow that won the hand of the princess. A literal translation of the command into action gave Draupadi five men to be wife to – some interpretations see it as various aspects or face of the same man. Along the way, the poor woman had to deal with poverty, deprivation, manual labour, humiliation and, as the ultimate insult, sexual abuse, where she was stripped in front of a full court of gawking men. But she won, with a little divine intervention, and is now considered a paragon among women.
And there was Sita, wife of Lord Rama, hero of the Ramayana. She went from being a foundling in a field to being a pampered princess and then the wife of a princeling revered as the Ultimate Man. But there was more to Sita than most people who are told the story as children usually think about. She was taken from a safe, happy, luxurious home with promises of being the queen of a kingdom. And within a short time of being married, she found herself living in a forest, surrounded by wild animals and wilder demons, and then was whisked away by an amorous man with an amazing ten heads to his island in the south. One deadly war later, she found herself back with her husband, all ready to resume life as his queen, at the closing of a full circle of adventure. But a tiny voice – a male one, the ancient texts say – demanded proof of Sita’s virtue and the unfortunate lady had to go through trial by fire, at which point she decided she was fed up of men trying to run her life and walked away to a more bucolic existence with her sons.
And somewhere along the way, a different consciousness stirs…
Women like myself, an admittedly privileged lot who do not need to worry about the next meal, a roof overhead or clothes to wear, have seen their mothers and seniors fight the battle and, for the most part, win. Our paths have already been cleared and made ready for our stiletto heels to tick-tock along. We have decided to focus our energies not on waging that ancient war, but using the hard-won territory to make ourselves more comfortable as we fight newer, more relevant battles, whether to find new territories to conquer or mould those we already own to suit our particular situations. Today we see what is traditionally considered ‘male power’ as a sort of convenience for women – go ahead, guys, tote that luggage because it is too heavy for us, we would rather not get calloused palms; go through that door first because anything nasty out there can get you rather than us; sit on that lone free seat in the train, we do not want our nicely laundered clothes to collect the leftovers of the previous commuter; get that promotion at work, we will fix all the messes you make when we take over and come out smelling of roses. Go ahead, be men. We are happy being who we are: women.
Once upon a very long time ago God created man and, of course, woman. One school of thought maintains that woman – let’s call her Eve, since that would be more convenient and comprehensible – was formed from a bone from the ribcage of the man – Adam, again for more convenience. A Greek myth says that Pandora, the first woman, was a gift given to men by Zeus to punish them for having received fire, stolen from Prometheus. Zeus – oh, wise man! – commanded the creation of the first woman, a ‘beautiful evil’, destined to give birth to descendants who would torment the race of men. That was, perhaps, one of the last instances of men acting with wisdom and foresight. And it did, just to even out the points, give women the power to deal with men and men the possibilities of telling really bad and chauvinistic jokes.
Be that all as it may, the fact of the matter is that in Asia the woman has to live with a strange balance of power. In many parts of India, for instance, like in some clans in Kerala and certain communities in the northeast, the woman reigns supreme in a society that is still matriarchal and matrilineal. In the bustling commercial capital of Mumbai a tiny proportion of the female population fight battles like the glass ceiling and gender equality, while in the rest of the teeming metropolis, there are bigger wars to face, from everyday and startlingly casual sexual abuse to exploitation, poverty, hygiene, health…name it and the woman must arm herself to conquer it. Driving buses through the crowded streets, steering trains along the maze of the commuter network, working on construction sites, directing films, catering lunch services - today there is little that women do not generally aspire to, frequently struggle towards and usually manage to do better than their male counterparts. There is almost always a male bastion to breach, an age-old barrier to clamber over, with sari, high heels, make up and all. In the process, an aggression builds up, slowly evolving into a core of steel and fire, hiding a tiny kernel of softness and sensitivity.
Mythology that stretches its legends across the world have examples a-plenty of a woman’s life not being an easy one. Consider Draupadi, daughter, princess, wife, warrior, heroine of the Mahabharata. She had to deal with not one husband, but five, all because of a thoughtless command from her mother-in-law to her husband – share your prize with your brothers, said Ma-in-law to Arjun, the prince who had shot the arrow that won the hand of the princess. A literal translation of the command into action gave Draupadi five men to be wife to – some interpretations see it as various aspects or face of the same man. Along the way, the poor woman had to deal with poverty, deprivation, manual labour, humiliation and, as the ultimate insult, sexual abuse, where she was stripped in front of a full court of gawking men. But she won, with a little divine intervention, and is now considered a paragon among women.
And there was Sita, wife of Lord Rama, hero of the Ramayana. She went from being a foundling in a field to being a pampered princess and then the wife of a princeling revered as the Ultimate Man. But there was more to Sita than most people who are told the story as children usually think about. She was taken from a safe, happy, luxurious home with promises of being the queen of a kingdom. And within a short time of being married, she found herself living in a forest, surrounded by wild animals and wilder demons, and then was whisked away by an amorous man with an amazing ten heads to his island in the south. One deadly war later, she found herself back with her husband, all ready to resume life as his queen, at the closing of a full circle of adventure. But a tiny voice – a male one, the ancient texts say – demanded proof of Sita’s virtue and the unfortunate lady had to go through trial by fire, at which point she decided she was fed up of men trying to run her life and walked away to a more bucolic existence with her sons.
And somewhere along the way, a different consciousness stirs…
Women like myself, an admittedly privileged lot who do not need to worry about the next meal, a roof overhead or clothes to wear, have seen their mothers and seniors fight the battle and, for the most part, win. Our paths have already been cleared and made ready for our stiletto heels to tick-tock along. We have decided to focus our energies not on waging that ancient war, but using the hard-won territory to make ourselves more comfortable as we fight newer, more relevant battles, whether to find new territories to conquer or mould those we already own to suit our particular situations. Today we see what is traditionally considered ‘male power’ as a sort of convenience for women – go ahead, guys, tote that luggage because it is too heavy for us, we would rather not get calloused palms; go through that door first because anything nasty out there can get you rather than us; sit on that lone free seat in the train, we do not want our nicely laundered clothes to collect the leftovers of the previous commuter; get that promotion at work, we will fix all the messes you make when we take over and come out smelling of roses. Go ahead, be men. We are happy being who we are: women.
Book review
THE CHAPEL AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
by Kirsten McKenzie
Conflict is often a route to miracles, a time when unlikely friends are made and bonds forged that could last a lifetime. Many stories like this one emerged from the darkness of World War II. This book is a gently written, vaguely disconnected and very readable fictionalised record of one of these wonderful tales. Once upon a real time, when battle raged across what used to be Europe, a group of soldiers taken prisoner during the war came together to create something that exists even today – a small chapel on a hill on a small and desolate island in Orkney, where the PoWs are stationed. They built it from salvaged material, nuts, bolts, scrap found in the mud, and home-concocted paint. And they learned how to see faith as not some kind of saviour, but as a way to be thankful for what they found within themselves.
The story begins when the artistic Emilio and Rosa, childhood sweethearts and just formally engaged, are separated by war. He, along with others from his unit, are trudging through the desert, weakened by heat, a lack of water and proper food, and are taken captive. As PoWs, they are shipped off to Lamb Holm, on a tiny island which seems like the edge of the world. There they learn to live with each other and, in essence, with themselves. Emilio finds friends in Paolo, Romano, Bertoldo and others, sketching everything and everyone inside and outside the small hut they call home. A priest takes a small makeshift mass, but it is not enough for Emilio, who longs for a real church, one with an altar and a picture of the Madonna framed by elaborately patterned arches.
Suddenly, it all becomes possible. Italy surrenders to the Allies and is out of the war. So the prisoners are no longer prisoners, but men free to live as they wish. But there is no one who tells them how to go home. So they make lives for themselves on the island and, soon, a small place from where they can speak to God. Emilio designs a chapel in abandoned Nissan huts, making it beautiful, artistic, simple, with all the devotion and skill that he, the artist, has in his soul.
Meanwhile, back in Italy in her little village on the banks of Lake Como, Rosa becomes embroiled in the local resistance movement. She finds diversion in Pietro, in the excitement of subterfuge and the attempted escape of Rachele and her father, Jews who attempt to flee the persecution they face. And, of course, there is Heinrich…
Both stories, forming a whole by virtue of the connection between the two protagonists, have their moments of drama, of grey dullness, of suffering. At the end, which is actually where the book starts, the married couple are visiting the island – Emilio is not all there in his mind, while Rosa tends him with all the devotion but not quite all the love that she has. Bertoldo is still young, his memories of trauma buried either too deep to be felt, or felt to deeply to be shown. And all that really matters is the small chapel at the edge of the world.,,
by Kirsten McKenzie
Conflict is often a route to miracles, a time when unlikely friends are made and bonds forged that could last a lifetime. Many stories like this one emerged from the darkness of World War II. This book is a gently written, vaguely disconnected and very readable fictionalised record of one of these wonderful tales. Once upon a real time, when battle raged across what used to be Europe, a group of soldiers taken prisoner during the war came together to create something that exists even today – a small chapel on a hill on a small and desolate island in Orkney, where the PoWs are stationed. They built it from salvaged material, nuts, bolts, scrap found in the mud, and home-concocted paint. And they learned how to see faith as not some kind of saviour, but as a way to be thankful for what they found within themselves.
The story begins when the artistic Emilio and Rosa, childhood sweethearts and just formally engaged, are separated by war. He, along with others from his unit, are trudging through the desert, weakened by heat, a lack of water and proper food, and are taken captive. As PoWs, they are shipped off to Lamb Holm, on a tiny island which seems like the edge of the world. There they learn to live with each other and, in essence, with themselves. Emilio finds friends in Paolo, Romano, Bertoldo and others, sketching everything and everyone inside and outside the small hut they call home. A priest takes a small makeshift mass, but it is not enough for Emilio, who longs for a real church, one with an altar and a picture of the Madonna framed by elaborately patterned arches.
Suddenly, it all becomes possible. Italy surrenders to the Allies and is out of the war. So the prisoners are no longer prisoners, but men free to live as they wish. But there is no one who tells them how to go home. So they make lives for themselves on the island and, soon, a small place from where they can speak to God. Emilio designs a chapel in abandoned Nissan huts, making it beautiful, artistic, simple, with all the devotion and skill that he, the artist, has in his soul.
Meanwhile, back in Italy in her little village on the banks of Lake Como, Rosa becomes embroiled in the local resistance movement. She finds diversion in Pietro, in the excitement of subterfuge and the attempted escape of Rachele and her father, Jews who attempt to flee the persecution they face. And, of course, there is Heinrich…
Both stories, forming a whole by virtue of the connection between the two protagonists, have their moments of drama, of grey dullness, of suffering. At the end, which is actually where the book starts, the married couple are visiting the island – Emilio is not all there in his mind, while Rosa tends him with all the devotion but not quite all the love that she has. Bertoldo is still young, his memories of trauma buried either too deep to be felt, or felt to deeply to be shown. And all that really matters is the small chapel at the edge of the world.,,
Amitava Das - Interview
(Published in the Hindu Sunday Magazine, 14th Nov, 2010)
There are two aspects of Amitava’s show, currently on at the Sakshi Gallery in Mumbai, that strike a viewer: the amorphous, almost Rorschach-ian forms on the canvas and the general mod of pain. His works are home to bright splashes of colour, to near-fluorescent hues, to light-reflective gold and silver, to what seems to be the occasional sequin (but is actually a kind of paint cleverly used), but there is an anguish that seeps into the air as you stand in front of Tamra and the Wounded Tree, or Inflicted Wounds or even the diptych titled Wounded Earth, without really looking at the names neatly placed alongside. As the canvas reveals its various facets, you start seeing, understanding, where the darkness is, where the tears come from: Small strips of medical sticky-tape, carefully placed on the paint, centred by a red blotch, a wound given rudimentary first aid. There is nothing specifically delineated, but much that is felt, unsaid, emanating from the thought that has created the work. And in the gentle wash of pain, there are small stars of celebration, of joy, as in Vivaho, where the couple stand shyly separated by a dividing line, the red sprays perhaps of the flowers in the garlands that will soon make them one…
Delhi-bred and based Amitava Das, a Bengali in accent, appearance and sensibility (even though he avers, albeit with a smile, that the people of Kolkata need to grow out of an obsession with Tagore and Rabindra Sangeet), showed in Mumbai after a hiatus of six years. “I have shows in other places,” he says, “it is not possible to show only in one place all the time!” He refuses to classifies his work, insisting that “When I work, I do not work from a particular point of view saying it belongs to a particular style or phase or school. It is up to the viewer or anyone who can appreciate my work to classify it; I don’t believe in doing so – a true work of art doesn’t belong to any school or anything else.”
A graphic-cum-exhibition designer by professional, Amitava studied at the Delhi College of Art even as he worked on various shows, mainly designing pavilions for India in major trade fairs and events abroad. “The last project I did before I quit (exhibition design) was to design the India Pavilion for the Cannes Film Festival. That was the year Devdas was the official Indian entry.” It began many years earlier, but the true importance of this field and his contribution to it came in 1984 – “I did a show that gave me a space of 23,000 square meters – it was the Hanover Industrial Fair, and India was a partner country. The next day, they stopped showing India of the past and started showing modern India - that is the impact that we had!” Amitava remembers that “in 1989, the same thing happened. Trade through fairs is the new culture, the way of thinking - that is why there are so many art fairs today. India has slowly become a global partner in almost every field, especially in the visual arts.” He believes that this is evident in “the fact that Hollywood actors want to act in Bollywood these days!”
Indian art is fast gaining a position of great respect in the international realm. However, “Many people try to showcase their work from their point of view, which is wrong. We should try and showcase our work from our cultural point of view, from the Asian or Indian point of view,” Amitava insists. “We have to act according to international terms – this is something that India should try and change, so that our point of view is recognised. We should be able to make art from this region be seen and acknowledged and recognized the world over as having a unique cultural identity. We should not have a complex about that. We should feel that we are strong, that this is our/my art.” This, he feels, is hardly a simple issue to deal with. “The problem is that we do not have the right promoters. Also, we do not have good art writers, or the right backing – not government backing, since the government should not interfere, but should merely provide support. Otherwise red tapism and bureaucracy will not allow art to grow.” In this, though, self-promotion, is not a player, since promotion is “not my job – that is what the galleries or art writers and promoters should do.”
With many years of experience backing him and his own feeling of satisfaction in helping younger artists, Amitava has some advice to give. “Young artists should work sincerely and consciously and with respect for art and for their own culture. I cannot advise them on how to promote themselves. But, of course, the whole world has become far more transparent now, with the Internet, and there is a great revolution happening in communication. Facilities are available, and now younger artists have to have a different way of presenting their work, but they should always remember that the mind is far more important than the information that is available to it. Too much information has to be matched by a point of view.”
So what is the magic formula to find success, especially internationally? The painter explains his perspective that “Certain artists have been recognized, but there are so many more who are good but do not have promotional avenues and ways of being seen and noticed internationally. If you want to participate in a biennale, for instance, you have to do a certain kind of art – multimedia or installation, perhaps. That should not be a factor in selection, though it tends to be. I don’t accept it.” How does he manage to keep ahead in this kind of environment, especially since competition is, to put it mildly, cut-throat? “I paint, I draw, but I don’t do installation art or sculpture – after all, I have done that on a very large scale in exhibition designs! And my work was more architectural then. I do not feel like doing it now since I have already done it, though with a different purpose! In Moscow some years ago I was given a huge glazed wall to work on, wonderfully brightly lit by the sun. I did a tapestry mural with the help of 250 women from Mehrauli village, through an NGO, and they wove my design on canvas with felt to show a Krishna Leela.” Amitava makes it clear that “I am not against installation art – I appreciate it greatly, but feel that it is a greater organizational feat than an individual one. Many works of this kind today are not original, but derivative to a great extent.” And, to make it worse, “Many younger artists are confused about it and so do all sorts of things to grab attention.”
Inspiration for the veteran artist comes from many sources, “film, music, poetry, anywhere”. Many years ago, “I divided my attention into study work and my own work ever since I was in art college. By the fourth year I had a successful one-man show.” Family support comes, even though “My father originally wanted me to study commerce, be a CA, have a career. So after school I joined the commerce course, but quit soon enough. At the time I never took art as a subject since I did not like the way it was taught. I would visit shows, read, watch others – that is how I learned enough to get into college.”
Commerce and art need not be separated, Amitava says, since “Ultimately, artists need to survive. Why should they keep the old image of the jhola-carrying struggler? They should have the best of whatever is available, a good life and lifestyle, so why not aim to sell?” But intentions as an artist should be clear, “You should not play to the gallery. That’s why I never depended on anyone – I was independent, worked for my living and did art, since it was my passion.”
There are two aspects of Amitava’s show, currently on at the Sakshi Gallery in Mumbai, that strike a viewer: the amorphous, almost Rorschach-ian forms on the canvas and the general mod of pain. His works are home to bright splashes of colour, to near-fluorescent hues, to light-reflective gold and silver, to what seems to be the occasional sequin (but is actually a kind of paint cleverly used), but there is an anguish that seeps into the air as you stand in front of Tamra and the Wounded Tree, or Inflicted Wounds or even the diptych titled Wounded Earth, without really looking at the names neatly placed alongside. As the canvas reveals its various facets, you start seeing, understanding, where the darkness is, where the tears come from: Small strips of medical sticky-tape, carefully placed on the paint, centred by a red blotch, a wound given rudimentary first aid. There is nothing specifically delineated, but much that is felt, unsaid, emanating from the thought that has created the work. And in the gentle wash of pain, there are small stars of celebration, of joy, as in Vivaho, where the couple stand shyly separated by a dividing line, the red sprays perhaps of the flowers in the garlands that will soon make them one…
Delhi-bred and based Amitava Das, a Bengali in accent, appearance and sensibility (even though he avers, albeit with a smile, that the people of Kolkata need to grow out of an obsession with Tagore and Rabindra Sangeet), showed in Mumbai after a hiatus of six years. “I have shows in other places,” he says, “it is not possible to show only in one place all the time!” He refuses to classifies his work, insisting that “When I work, I do not work from a particular point of view saying it belongs to a particular style or phase or school. It is up to the viewer or anyone who can appreciate my work to classify it; I don’t believe in doing so – a true work of art doesn’t belong to any school or anything else.”
A graphic-cum-exhibition designer by professional, Amitava studied at the Delhi College of Art even as he worked on various shows, mainly designing pavilions for India in major trade fairs and events abroad. “The last project I did before I quit (exhibition design) was to design the India Pavilion for the Cannes Film Festival. That was the year Devdas was the official Indian entry.” It began many years earlier, but the true importance of this field and his contribution to it came in 1984 – “I did a show that gave me a space of 23,000 square meters – it was the Hanover Industrial Fair, and India was a partner country. The next day, they stopped showing India of the past and started showing modern India - that is the impact that we had!” Amitava remembers that “in 1989, the same thing happened. Trade through fairs is the new culture, the way of thinking - that is why there are so many art fairs today. India has slowly become a global partner in almost every field, especially in the visual arts.” He believes that this is evident in “the fact that Hollywood actors want to act in Bollywood these days!”
Indian art is fast gaining a position of great respect in the international realm. However, “Many people try to showcase their work from their point of view, which is wrong. We should try and showcase our work from our cultural point of view, from the Asian or Indian point of view,” Amitava insists. “We have to act according to international terms – this is something that India should try and change, so that our point of view is recognised. We should be able to make art from this region be seen and acknowledged and recognized the world over as having a unique cultural identity. We should not have a complex about that. We should feel that we are strong, that this is our/my art.” This, he feels, is hardly a simple issue to deal with. “The problem is that we do not have the right promoters. Also, we do not have good art writers, or the right backing – not government backing, since the government should not interfere, but should merely provide support. Otherwise red tapism and bureaucracy will not allow art to grow.” In this, though, self-promotion, is not a player, since promotion is “not my job – that is what the galleries or art writers and promoters should do.”
With many years of experience backing him and his own feeling of satisfaction in helping younger artists, Amitava has some advice to give. “Young artists should work sincerely and consciously and with respect for art and for their own culture. I cannot advise them on how to promote themselves. But, of course, the whole world has become far more transparent now, with the Internet, and there is a great revolution happening in communication. Facilities are available, and now younger artists have to have a different way of presenting their work, but they should always remember that the mind is far more important than the information that is available to it. Too much information has to be matched by a point of view.”
So what is the magic formula to find success, especially internationally? The painter explains his perspective that “Certain artists have been recognized, but there are so many more who are good but do not have promotional avenues and ways of being seen and noticed internationally. If you want to participate in a biennale, for instance, you have to do a certain kind of art – multimedia or installation, perhaps. That should not be a factor in selection, though it tends to be. I don’t accept it.” How does he manage to keep ahead in this kind of environment, especially since competition is, to put it mildly, cut-throat? “I paint, I draw, but I don’t do installation art or sculpture – after all, I have done that on a very large scale in exhibition designs! And my work was more architectural then. I do not feel like doing it now since I have already done it, though with a different purpose! In Moscow some years ago I was given a huge glazed wall to work on, wonderfully brightly lit by the sun. I did a tapestry mural with the help of 250 women from Mehrauli village, through an NGO, and they wove my design on canvas with felt to show a Krishna Leela.” Amitava makes it clear that “I am not against installation art – I appreciate it greatly, but feel that it is a greater organizational feat than an individual one. Many works of this kind today are not original, but derivative to a great extent.” And, to make it worse, “Many younger artists are confused about it and so do all sorts of things to grab attention.”
Inspiration for the veteran artist comes from many sources, “film, music, poetry, anywhere”. Many years ago, “I divided my attention into study work and my own work ever since I was in art college. By the fourth year I had a successful one-man show.” Family support comes, even though “My father originally wanted me to study commerce, be a CA, have a career. So after school I joined the commerce course, but quit soon enough. At the time I never took art as a subject since I did not like the way it was taught. I would visit shows, read, watch others – that is how I learned enough to get into college.”
Commerce and art need not be separated, Amitava says, since “Ultimately, artists need to survive. Why should they keep the old image of the jhola-carrying struggler? They should have the best of whatever is available, a good life and lifestyle, so why not aim to sell?” But intentions as an artist should be clear, “You should not play to the gallery. That’s why I never depended on anyone – I was independent, worked for my living and did art, since it was my passion.”
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Cubicle connections
(The Times of India Crest Edition, November 6, 2010)
Make friends, influence people and move on. That is the story in today’s get-ahead-fast world, where changing jobs is fairly easy, the after-effects of the recession notwithstanding. Once upon a time a career was all about staying with the same organization for years, even decades, steadily slogging on in a job that was about stability and loyalty rather than rapid advancement and incremental salary jumps. Now it means being on the constant look-out for a better opportunity, a better paycheck, a better position, even a better commute to work. With each experience, there is a take-away, be it a store of memories – some good, some entirely forgettable – or a higher visibility in the field. Then there are the friends made at work. These ‘office friends’ are special, a non-sexual yet intimate relationship with people who share the work experience, personal and professional angst, often the same boss and, almost always, lunch. But there comes a time when the dabba with a BFF yields to a cup of coffee with a headhunter and, soon, a new job. Everything changes, from the work itself to the boss to the location of the office, with new friends, new gossip circles and new timings. Keeping in touch with that BFF is suddenly more difficult and meeting, even more so. Lunch dates become increasingly infrequent, telephone calls gradually peter out and then, startlingly, those same close friends are seen more as other people’s Facebook buddies. But some are lucky and manage to keep in touch with friends from various jobs. Networking sites and modern communications make it easier, they say, albeit sometimes with a tiny tinge of regret at the sweet sorrow of the parting when a job hop was done.
“I fly solo,” says Arun Katiyar, who now works as a consultant in the content and communication space, “no office, no colleagues, no politics, no back biting”. He “changed jobs on average every two years between 1982 and 2007 when I worked for others. But in that period, I worked 18 years for the same company, my assignments and job profile changing almost every two years.” He does not make friends quickly, “But I have been often told I have a big smile by everyone other than my wife. Obviously, even a small smile at work and with colleagues does wonders.” He has been fortunate enough to work with people who are “young and have the energy to stay in touch with me. Often, when I travel, even to places like San Jose, past colleagues turn up to accompany me for dinner or a drink. The world is kind and forgiving place!”
Indu Prasad, producer of an auto website, has changed jobs “as often as the next phase of life happens”. She does not make friends easily, but needs that “special click that happens only with a few people”. Former colleagues are still part of her life and she manages to keep in touch “all the time - they are some of my closest friends”. As she explains, “You spend more than half the waking hours in office and they become your buddies, a surrogate family of sorts.” But she admits that the contact “has decreased. You have your work, life, love, universe and some people do fall off your planet. And the level of interaction that you have when you are in the office is not there. Keeping in touch over chat or phone is not the same.” But for Prasad, “It's part of moving on. But the important thing is we still make time for each other whenever possible. That might be once in three months instead of every week, but that is not bad either. Facebook and Twitter have changed the timelines of keeping in touch. It also helps when you call each other once in two months to take up conversations instantly, since you already know what's happening with the other person.”
For Alok Bhatnagar, a senior digital professional, changing jobs has been “purely circumstantial”. He makes friends very easily, he says, and “I keep in touch with my peers from my former offices - less so with seniors and juniors, but I do talk enthusiastically if anyone from there calls me.” He has a degree of equanimity when it comes time to move on. “I think that I have resigned myself to the fact that one needs to leave behind office friends when one changes jobs. I always promise to be in touch and somehow do manage to do so one way or the other.” Social networking helps; “My contact level has increased thanks to everyone now joining FB. And the feeling of missing them is completely gone!” But he has another bond that is stronger, since “With some of my office friends, I have had a deeper relationship than only work. In fact, I have a set of friends (former colleagues) with whom I try to do at least one annual outstation holiday trip. Our families are also closely integrated.”
According to psychiatrist Harish Shetty, “Office friendships have a range of variables – there are different networks established: trust, wherein you trust your colleagues with personal matters; expertise, where you learn from colleagues, go to them when you have work problems; love, when the person is more than a friend but less than a lover; guru – a papa figure, or godfather, who becomes a lover sometimes; and buddy, the person who is always around, to keep you company or give you money when you need it or take you to the hospital when you have a crisis.” Some of these may overlap, while others remain as they are, no matter what happens.
Aligned to friendship and bonding is a level of competition at work. Vying for the same position, for a higher annual increment, even for a better work-station or desk near a window can cause some friction in the closest relationship. As Katiyar remembers, “There was competition. And it was a lot of fun. I remember working with two other people in a newspaper and when we left, we found ourselves working for the same magazine. We were good friends, but also wanted the best assignments. Over a period of time, we learnt to work on assignments together or to help each other. But the outcome was not always pleasant. However, today, with almost two decades between then and now, it seems like the right thing to have happened. No regrets!”
Bhatnagar admits that “There has been competition at work, but the feeling goes when one quits. There can be exceptions here, especially if there has been negativity in the relationship. However, those are people whom you would not call office friends.” He believes that “Friendship can never be forced. It comes when you realise that the other person is temperamentally compatible. I do not think any of my friendships in office were a matter of propinquity.” And, along the career path, if he comes across those people again, “Yes, I am open to work with most of my office friends again.”
Prasad, on the other hand, would prefer to keep the two worlds apart where some of her former ‘office friends’ are concerned. Parting made no major difference, as “Some people you miss because your friendship was beyond office lunches, parties, shopping, bitching, etc. They become your friends without the constraints of geography or time zones. Some others you miss because they made the job fun. You realise that your learning curve was better while working with some people than with others. And yes, there are more that are lunch / dinner / drinking / shopping / travelling buddies and, thank God, those things can still be done even if you are not working together, only, not as often!” For her, “Our friendships have evolved beyond the work place and I like that space.”
Katiyar “knew I'd stay in touch with some of them and that felt good. Even more importantly, many of them expressed the fact that they would like to work with me in the future.” But there is a faint feeling of regret sometimes, “Sometimes I do feel bad when I hear about major developments in their lives from others. Recently, an ex-colleague and now a friend who runs a restaurant with a business partner took over his partner's share of the business. I heard about it from another friend. I felt a twinge.” He does also miss some people “for the conversations and the many common things we shared. When I think back to those subjects/ discussions, I wish I could ping them, just for old time's sake. Friendships with some people who were not part of the office I worked in, but were in the organization, have endeared despite the fact that we did not share any ‘closeness’ of office space. I think it was more that we shared some views of life, shared something deeper than proximity.”
And did competition play a role in the relationship? He says, “Yes, there was competition. And it was a lot of fun. I remember working with two other people in a newspaper and when we left we found ourselves working for the same magazine. We were good friends but also wanted the best assignments. Over a period of time, we learnt to work together or to help each other. But the outcome was not always pleasant. However, today, with almost two decades between, it seems like the right thing to have happened. No regrets.” For Katiyar, even as one door opened, another was firmly shut. “I don't think I want to work with them again. I'd rather have them as friends. You know the funny thing about life? Office colleagues can become friends, but friendships can be easily destroyed by an office environment.”
As Shetty explains, “Even when you change jobs, you still maintain some relationships across the board. Most young people today have no loyalties towards establishments and infrastructures,” he says, “the brand is yours alone, resume is yours. Networks stretch across borders of jobs; companies may compete, but your friendships endure. There is a crisscross of friendships that does not break and does not come in the way. Young people are clear about what they want from a friend.” He feels that “These are fantastic friendships, with no workplace loyalty but more bonding to peers, so there is a lot of acceptance, along with a lot of bitching at times, a lot of forgiveness, and connectivity always. The interactions may be short, in bursts, but it is beautiful.”
Make friends, influence people and move on. That is the story in today’s get-ahead-fast world, where changing jobs is fairly easy, the after-effects of the recession notwithstanding. Once upon a time a career was all about staying with the same organization for years, even decades, steadily slogging on in a job that was about stability and loyalty rather than rapid advancement and incremental salary jumps. Now it means being on the constant look-out for a better opportunity, a better paycheck, a better position, even a better commute to work. With each experience, there is a take-away, be it a store of memories – some good, some entirely forgettable – or a higher visibility in the field. Then there are the friends made at work. These ‘office friends’ are special, a non-sexual yet intimate relationship with people who share the work experience, personal and professional angst, often the same boss and, almost always, lunch. But there comes a time when the dabba with a BFF yields to a cup of coffee with a headhunter and, soon, a new job. Everything changes, from the work itself to the boss to the location of the office, with new friends, new gossip circles and new timings. Keeping in touch with that BFF is suddenly more difficult and meeting, even more so. Lunch dates become increasingly infrequent, telephone calls gradually peter out and then, startlingly, those same close friends are seen more as other people’s Facebook buddies. But some are lucky and manage to keep in touch with friends from various jobs. Networking sites and modern communications make it easier, they say, albeit sometimes with a tiny tinge of regret at the sweet sorrow of the parting when a job hop was done.
“I fly solo,” says Arun Katiyar, who now works as a consultant in the content and communication space, “no office, no colleagues, no politics, no back biting”. He “changed jobs on average every two years between 1982 and 2007 when I worked for others. But in that period, I worked 18 years for the same company, my assignments and job profile changing almost every two years.” He does not make friends quickly, “But I have been often told I have a big smile by everyone other than my wife. Obviously, even a small smile at work and with colleagues does wonders.” He has been fortunate enough to work with people who are “young and have the energy to stay in touch with me. Often, when I travel, even to places like San Jose, past colleagues turn up to accompany me for dinner or a drink. The world is kind and forgiving place!”
Indu Prasad, producer of an auto website, has changed jobs “as often as the next phase of life happens”. She does not make friends easily, but needs that “special click that happens only with a few people”. Former colleagues are still part of her life and she manages to keep in touch “all the time - they are some of my closest friends”. As she explains, “You spend more than half the waking hours in office and they become your buddies, a surrogate family of sorts.” But she admits that the contact “has decreased. You have your work, life, love, universe and some people do fall off your planet. And the level of interaction that you have when you are in the office is not there. Keeping in touch over chat or phone is not the same.” But for Prasad, “It's part of moving on. But the important thing is we still make time for each other whenever possible. That might be once in three months instead of every week, but that is not bad either. Facebook and Twitter have changed the timelines of keeping in touch. It also helps when you call each other once in two months to take up conversations instantly, since you already know what's happening with the other person.”
For Alok Bhatnagar, a senior digital professional, changing jobs has been “purely circumstantial”. He makes friends very easily, he says, and “I keep in touch with my peers from my former offices - less so with seniors and juniors, but I do talk enthusiastically if anyone from there calls me.” He has a degree of equanimity when it comes time to move on. “I think that I have resigned myself to the fact that one needs to leave behind office friends when one changes jobs. I always promise to be in touch and somehow do manage to do so one way or the other.” Social networking helps; “My contact level has increased thanks to everyone now joining FB. And the feeling of missing them is completely gone!” But he has another bond that is stronger, since “With some of my office friends, I have had a deeper relationship than only work. In fact, I have a set of friends (former colleagues) with whom I try to do at least one annual outstation holiday trip. Our families are also closely integrated.”
According to psychiatrist Harish Shetty, “Office friendships have a range of variables – there are different networks established: trust, wherein you trust your colleagues with personal matters; expertise, where you learn from colleagues, go to them when you have work problems; love, when the person is more than a friend but less than a lover; guru – a papa figure, or godfather, who becomes a lover sometimes; and buddy, the person who is always around, to keep you company or give you money when you need it or take you to the hospital when you have a crisis.” Some of these may overlap, while others remain as they are, no matter what happens.
Aligned to friendship and bonding is a level of competition at work. Vying for the same position, for a higher annual increment, even for a better work-station or desk near a window can cause some friction in the closest relationship. As Katiyar remembers, “There was competition. And it was a lot of fun. I remember working with two other people in a newspaper and when we left, we found ourselves working for the same magazine. We were good friends, but also wanted the best assignments. Over a period of time, we learnt to work on assignments together or to help each other. But the outcome was not always pleasant. However, today, with almost two decades between then and now, it seems like the right thing to have happened. No regrets!”
Bhatnagar admits that “There has been competition at work, but the feeling goes when one quits. There can be exceptions here, especially if there has been negativity in the relationship. However, those are people whom you would not call office friends.” He believes that “Friendship can never be forced. It comes when you realise that the other person is temperamentally compatible. I do not think any of my friendships in office were a matter of propinquity.” And, along the career path, if he comes across those people again, “Yes, I am open to work with most of my office friends again.”
Prasad, on the other hand, would prefer to keep the two worlds apart where some of her former ‘office friends’ are concerned. Parting made no major difference, as “Some people you miss because your friendship was beyond office lunches, parties, shopping, bitching, etc. They become your friends without the constraints of geography or time zones. Some others you miss because they made the job fun. You realise that your learning curve was better while working with some people than with others. And yes, there are more that are lunch / dinner / drinking / shopping / travelling buddies and, thank God, those things can still be done even if you are not working together, only, not as often!” For her, “Our friendships have evolved beyond the work place and I like that space.”
Katiyar “knew I'd stay in touch with some of them and that felt good. Even more importantly, many of them expressed the fact that they would like to work with me in the future.” But there is a faint feeling of regret sometimes, “Sometimes I do feel bad when I hear about major developments in their lives from others. Recently, an ex-colleague and now a friend who runs a restaurant with a business partner took over his partner's share of the business. I heard about it from another friend. I felt a twinge.” He does also miss some people “for the conversations and the many common things we shared. When I think back to those subjects/ discussions, I wish I could ping them, just for old time's sake. Friendships with some people who were not part of the office I worked in, but were in the organization, have endeared despite the fact that we did not share any ‘closeness’ of office space. I think it was more that we shared some views of life, shared something deeper than proximity.”
And did competition play a role in the relationship? He says, “Yes, there was competition. And it was a lot of fun. I remember working with two other people in a newspaper and when we left we found ourselves working for the same magazine. We were good friends but also wanted the best assignments. Over a period of time, we learnt to work together or to help each other. But the outcome was not always pleasant. However, today, with almost two decades between, it seems like the right thing to have happened. No regrets.” For Katiyar, even as one door opened, another was firmly shut. “I don't think I want to work with them again. I'd rather have them as friends. You know the funny thing about life? Office colleagues can become friends, but friendships can be easily destroyed by an office environment.”
As Shetty explains, “Even when you change jobs, you still maintain some relationships across the board. Most young people today have no loyalties towards establishments and infrastructures,” he says, “the brand is yours alone, resume is yours. Networks stretch across borders of jobs; companies may compete, but your friendships endure. There is a crisscross of friendships that does not break and does not come in the way. Young people are clear about what they want from a friend.” He feels that “These are fantastic friendships, with no workplace loyalty but more bonding to peers, so there is a lot of acceptance, along with a lot of bitching at times, a lot of forgiveness, and connectivity always. The interactions may be short, in bursts, but it is beautiful.”
Book review
(The Hindu Literary Review, November 7, 2010)
DAYANITA SINGH
Penguin Studio
231 pages
Rs4799
This is an unusual book. Eponymously named, it features the work of photographer Dayanita Singh and writing by Aveek Sen and Sunil Khilnani, as well as a set of emails from Mona Ahmed. Taken as a whole, rather than each of its parts, it is not a book about photography, or a book of writing on photography, but a synergy between the two, where the writing complements the photography and the photography offsets the writing, with each illustrating the other. The volume is divided into ‘stories’, in turn with the obvious classification of ‘writing’, which tells stories with words, and ‘pictures’, which tell their own versions of the stories with light and shade.
The introduction itself tells the story of the photographer and how she became one. The “fall off the horse”, as it is described, when she realised what she was going to be, came when Singh was just 18, taking pictures as part of an academic project for her first year at the National Institute of Design. At a concert by tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, she was stopped from taking photographs and protested with a vow of “one day I will be a famous photographer and then we will see.” It is incidents of this kind, personal, intimate, that make the academic tenor of the writing more digestible. And it is indeed academic in writing style, well-researched, lucid, erudite and occasionally tough going for the average reader of ‘coffee table’ books - which this is very likely to be seen as by most people.
Sunil Khilnani speaks of the holy city of Kashi in What To See In Benares, the lead-in to I Am As I Am. The setting, the mood, the dirt, even the sounds and smells of piety and how they are all, strangely enough, captured on film (or pixels) are suddenly left behind at the stone walls of the Anandmayi Ashram. At that point, the images take over. And there is an overwhelming sense of serenity, of acceptance of simplicity, of innocence and gentleness. The same kind of cloistered feeling comes in Singh’s Ladies of Calcutta, of which Aveek Sen writes in Fiction in the Archives. There is a sense of travelling back in time, to a place where life is slow, studied, purposeful and all feminine. The women and their accoutrements pose – their images are slowly and deliberately taken apart and as carefully put together again in evocative prose.
Sen’s A Distance of One’s Own, and its accompanying set of photographs in Singh’s Go Away Closer, is not as obvious and easy to understand. There is an eerie emptiness, a desolation that comes with the images, and, as Sen says, “Departure and arrival become mysteriously inseparable”. The writer’s The Eye in Thought which goes with Sent a Letter explains the progression of images in a “diary-like” set that grew from the way in which Singh’s mother Nony presented her own work. Like any book worth owning, it can be seen, savoured, put away and then looked at again with a new pleasure, the essay and the images forming a coherent unit.
Blue Book, prefaced by Sen’s A Land Called Lost, bursts suddenly, shockingly, into colour after a series of black and whites. The ‘leaving behind’ is complete, the objects pictured are abandoned, but there is also a feeling of anticipation, of waiting, of knowing that something urgent, eventful, will happen not too long hence. Dream Villa is, as Khilnani writes, India by Night, its colour, light and mood weird, spooky, a story being told even as something lurks behind the door at the edge of horror…or could it be overweening joy? The last piece in the book is Sen’s Difficult Loves, writing that is sheer poetry, even as it fairly pragmatically discusses Singh’s work and its intent.
But all this apart, perhaps the most moving story in this book is Myself Mona Ahmed, three emails from Mona Ahmed to ‘Mr Walter’ (Keller). She talks of her life and her own evolution, as a child in a fairly stable home, her castration, her adulthood as a eunuch, her small joys and large griefs, her love, her isolation. It is touching, the images bringing on tears at times, the writing even more. Her words in 2000, “Suddenly I felt better, maybe it was the magic of the old woman, or the gods took pity on me” could be the bon mot of the entire volume – there is magic in the words, enchantment in the pictures.
DAYANITA SINGH
Penguin Studio
231 pages
Rs4799
This is an unusual book. Eponymously named, it features the work of photographer Dayanita Singh and writing by Aveek Sen and Sunil Khilnani, as well as a set of emails from Mona Ahmed. Taken as a whole, rather than each of its parts, it is not a book about photography, or a book of writing on photography, but a synergy between the two, where the writing complements the photography and the photography offsets the writing, with each illustrating the other. The volume is divided into ‘stories’, in turn with the obvious classification of ‘writing’, which tells stories with words, and ‘pictures’, which tell their own versions of the stories with light and shade.
The introduction itself tells the story of the photographer and how she became one. The “fall off the horse”, as it is described, when she realised what she was going to be, came when Singh was just 18, taking pictures as part of an academic project for her first year at the National Institute of Design. At a concert by tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, she was stopped from taking photographs and protested with a vow of “one day I will be a famous photographer and then we will see.” It is incidents of this kind, personal, intimate, that make the academic tenor of the writing more digestible. And it is indeed academic in writing style, well-researched, lucid, erudite and occasionally tough going for the average reader of ‘coffee table’ books - which this is very likely to be seen as by most people.
Sunil Khilnani speaks of the holy city of Kashi in What To See In Benares, the lead-in to I Am As I Am. The setting, the mood, the dirt, even the sounds and smells of piety and how they are all, strangely enough, captured on film (or pixels) are suddenly left behind at the stone walls of the Anandmayi Ashram. At that point, the images take over. And there is an overwhelming sense of serenity, of acceptance of simplicity, of innocence and gentleness. The same kind of cloistered feeling comes in Singh’s Ladies of Calcutta, of which Aveek Sen writes in Fiction in the Archives. There is a sense of travelling back in time, to a place where life is slow, studied, purposeful and all feminine. The women and their accoutrements pose – their images are slowly and deliberately taken apart and as carefully put together again in evocative prose.
Sen’s A Distance of One’s Own, and its accompanying set of photographs in Singh’s Go Away Closer, is not as obvious and easy to understand. There is an eerie emptiness, a desolation that comes with the images, and, as Sen says, “Departure and arrival become mysteriously inseparable”. The writer’s The Eye in Thought which goes with Sent a Letter explains the progression of images in a “diary-like” set that grew from the way in which Singh’s mother Nony presented her own work. Like any book worth owning, it can be seen, savoured, put away and then looked at again with a new pleasure, the essay and the images forming a coherent unit.
Blue Book, prefaced by Sen’s A Land Called Lost, bursts suddenly, shockingly, into colour after a series of black and whites. The ‘leaving behind’ is complete, the objects pictured are abandoned, but there is also a feeling of anticipation, of waiting, of knowing that something urgent, eventful, will happen not too long hence. Dream Villa is, as Khilnani writes, India by Night, its colour, light and mood weird, spooky, a story being told even as something lurks behind the door at the edge of horror…or could it be overweening joy? The last piece in the book is Sen’s Difficult Loves, writing that is sheer poetry, even as it fairly pragmatically discusses Singh’s work and its intent.
But all this apart, perhaps the most moving story in this book is Myself Mona Ahmed, three emails from Mona Ahmed to ‘Mr Walter’ (Keller). She talks of her life and her own evolution, as a child in a fairly stable home, her castration, her adulthood as a eunuch, her small joys and large griefs, her love, her isolation. It is touching, the images bringing on tears at times, the writing even more. Her words in 2000, “Suddenly I felt better, maybe it was the magic of the old woman, or the gods took pity on me” could be the bon mot of the entire volume – there is magic in the words, enchantment in the pictures.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Khalil Chishtee interview
(The Times of India Crest Edition, October 16)
Art today is not just about aesthetics, but more about making statements, voicing an opinion, getting a point across. Everyone has something important to say and many artists use their inspiration to say it in a way that is ‘hatke’, different, eye-catching, attention grabbing. Forty-seven-year-old Khalil Chishtee, a Pakistani by birth who lives in the United States, has a lot to say about the world as it is now, about lost faith and belief, about courage and, with his medium, the state of the environment. He uses trash bags made of plastic, apart from other materials that somehow do not grab the same kind of attention, and has said that “This is the beauty of the contemporary art world that it understands the importance of content than durability.”
The content he creates is in the intent of his works – he explains his view that “humanity is tormented by its compulsive need to categorize and differentiate along any number of physical, cultural, political and economic factors, ignoring the obvious common denominator of our human-ness that makes us alike”. Blame II (2008), for instance, is a graphic representation of crucified martyrdom, while Broke Messiah (2009) has a male figure hung on a wall, the legs mere shreds of plastic skin. Figures suspended upside-down seem to dance, in Unbearable Lightness of Being II (2010), and I Love My Dad (2010) and I Love My Mom Too (2010) are less graceful, almost awkward and caricaturish.
Khalil studied at the National College of Art, Lahore and California State University, Sacramento, and has been part of a number of shows in the US, Pakistan, the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Middle East. This is his first exhibition in Mumbai.
How would you define a “plastic age”? Or is that a literal meaning that you aim at?
'Plastic age’ means literally a plastic age. If you look around you, you would see plastic everywhere; in fact, in all new technology, plastic is the main ingredient used. This is the one material that we use the most.
Why do you use trashbags?
Although I use many materials apart from trash bags to make my art, but I think this plastic speaks the language of our time. Things and trends change within no time in our fast paced lifestyle - if something is very trendy or pricey today, it could become trash by tomorrow.
I Love My Dad and I Love My Mom Too have been called ‘comic’, ‘cynical’ and ‘disrespectful’? Why? Do these pieces make any comment on your relationship with your parents or other family?
Disrespectful? Interesting, this comment! In Pakistan elderly people snub youngsters with, “No one ever told you how to talk to elders?” We hide our wrongdoing in the name of respect or trends. I Love My Dad and I Love My Mom Too refers to all those who live in foreign countries and consider themselves to be ambassadors of their homeland. They are the one who will sell everything in the name of culture, religion or patriotism. If you look at the form of these sculptures, you will notice one Muslim child is carrying a larger-than-life-sized head, exactly the way people in the subcontinent carry wares on their heads and sell them on the streets. To me, when immigrants say great things about their home countries, they are trying to say they love their father or mother, but what is the big deal about that? All of us do love our parents – but we need to learn how to love other people’s parents as much as our own.
You straddle two worlds with many differences. For the US, Pakistan is not all good and vice versa. How do you maintain an emotional/intellectual balance?
Art has made me different from any ordinary individual. To look at things without preconceived ideas or a fixed mindset is a gift that my work gives to me. I can easily see and understand these differences – after all, when you see a ditch, it’s easy to avoid it. I can easily see what Pakistan is doing wrong politically and what America is doing in the name of helping others. I cannot reduce myself to become Pakistani or American; I am a human being who is trying to see things clearly without clinging on to any one thing.
Does your art reflect your life across cultures? How?
I see myself as someone who has lived all his life in the East and now lives in the West. My art is whoever I am.
What are the identities you are recycling here?
When you recycle plastic it remains plastic; but when you recycle people, they change from Indian to Pakistani, from Pakistani to American, or from Hindu to Christian and from Buddhist to Muslim. What I am trying to find out is whether there is a tiny bit of a chance that they become human, which is a greatest and truest identity.
Your sculptures show men (no women?) who are in so many ways anguished, tortured, in pain. Why?
Being a man, that is the only body I am familiar with and have the ability to say anything about. Where a woman’s body is concerned, either I would romanticize it or look at it with some preconceived ideas; I cannot do justice to it because I have very little information about it.
I think ‘anguished’, ‘tortured’ or ‘pain’ are big words for me, but I speak about the suffering one goes through in life. I know we all seek happiness and go to extremes to find it, but in reality there is only one true happiness that I am familiar with: suffering. It is when you get to that state of clarity that you understand that all other forms of happiness are a denial of suffering, which is to live a lie.
You are passionate about Urdu literature and poetry. How do you channel that in your art?
I studied in an Urdu medium school as a child, so it’s very easy for me to read and write in that language; like every other Urdu reader I am a big fan of Mirza Ghalib’s poetry. In some of my work I am exploring his romantic verses in a political context.
Art today is not just about aesthetics, but more about making statements, voicing an opinion, getting a point across. Everyone has something important to say and many artists use their inspiration to say it in a way that is ‘hatke’, different, eye-catching, attention grabbing. Forty-seven-year-old Khalil Chishtee, a Pakistani by birth who lives in the United States, has a lot to say about the world as it is now, about lost faith and belief, about courage and, with his medium, the state of the environment. He uses trash bags made of plastic, apart from other materials that somehow do not grab the same kind of attention, and has said that “This is the beauty of the contemporary art world that it understands the importance of content than durability.”
The content he creates is in the intent of his works – he explains his view that “humanity is tormented by its compulsive need to categorize and differentiate along any number of physical, cultural, political and economic factors, ignoring the obvious common denominator of our human-ness that makes us alike”. Blame II (2008), for instance, is a graphic representation of crucified martyrdom, while Broke Messiah (2009) has a male figure hung on a wall, the legs mere shreds of plastic skin. Figures suspended upside-down seem to dance, in Unbearable Lightness of Being II (2010), and I Love My Dad (2010) and I Love My Mom Too (2010) are less graceful, almost awkward and caricaturish.
Khalil studied at the National College of Art, Lahore and California State University, Sacramento, and has been part of a number of shows in the US, Pakistan, the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Middle East. This is his first exhibition in Mumbai.
How would you define a “plastic age”? Or is that a literal meaning that you aim at?
'Plastic age’ means literally a plastic age. If you look around you, you would see plastic everywhere; in fact, in all new technology, plastic is the main ingredient used. This is the one material that we use the most.
Why do you use trashbags?
Although I use many materials apart from trash bags to make my art, but I think this plastic speaks the language of our time. Things and trends change within no time in our fast paced lifestyle - if something is very trendy or pricey today, it could become trash by tomorrow.
I Love My Dad and I Love My Mom Too have been called ‘comic’, ‘cynical’ and ‘disrespectful’? Why? Do these pieces make any comment on your relationship with your parents or other family?
Disrespectful? Interesting, this comment! In Pakistan elderly people snub youngsters with, “No one ever told you how to talk to elders?” We hide our wrongdoing in the name of respect or trends. I Love My Dad and I Love My Mom Too refers to all those who live in foreign countries and consider themselves to be ambassadors of their homeland. They are the one who will sell everything in the name of culture, religion or patriotism. If you look at the form of these sculptures, you will notice one Muslim child is carrying a larger-than-life-sized head, exactly the way people in the subcontinent carry wares on their heads and sell them on the streets. To me, when immigrants say great things about their home countries, they are trying to say they love their father or mother, but what is the big deal about that? All of us do love our parents – but we need to learn how to love other people’s parents as much as our own.
You straddle two worlds with many differences. For the US, Pakistan is not all good and vice versa. How do you maintain an emotional/intellectual balance?
Art has made me different from any ordinary individual. To look at things without preconceived ideas or a fixed mindset is a gift that my work gives to me. I can easily see and understand these differences – after all, when you see a ditch, it’s easy to avoid it. I can easily see what Pakistan is doing wrong politically and what America is doing in the name of helping others. I cannot reduce myself to become Pakistani or American; I am a human being who is trying to see things clearly without clinging on to any one thing.
Does your art reflect your life across cultures? How?
I see myself as someone who has lived all his life in the East and now lives in the West. My art is whoever I am.
What are the identities you are recycling here?
When you recycle plastic it remains plastic; but when you recycle people, they change from Indian to Pakistani, from Pakistani to American, or from Hindu to Christian and from Buddhist to Muslim. What I am trying to find out is whether there is a tiny bit of a chance that they become human, which is a greatest and truest identity.
Your sculptures show men (no women?) who are in so many ways anguished, tortured, in pain. Why?
Being a man, that is the only body I am familiar with and have the ability to say anything about. Where a woman’s body is concerned, either I would romanticize it or look at it with some preconceived ideas; I cannot do justice to it because I have very little information about it.
I think ‘anguished’, ‘tortured’ or ‘pain’ are big words for me, but I speak about the suffering one goes through in life. I know we all seek happiness and go to extremes to find it, but in reality there is only one true happiness that I am familiar with: suffering. It is when you get to that state of clarity that you understand that all other forms of happiness are a denial of suffering, which is to live a lie.
You are passionate about Urdu literature and poetry. How do you channel that in your art?
I studied in an Urdu medium school as a child, so it’s very easy for me to read and write in that language; like every other Urdu reader I am a big fan of Mirza Ghalib’s poetry. In some of my work I am exploring his romantic verses in a political context.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Book review
(Published in the Hindu Literary Review, Sunday, October 3)
SARASWATI PARK
by Anjali Joseph
(Harper Collins)
Anjali Joseph has been listed as one of the top 20 writers in Britain below the age of 40. Her book, Saraswati Park, has been collecting astonishingly favourable reviews, as being ‘beautifully rendered’, ‘impressively assured’, ‘unhurried gossamer prose’ that is written with ‘wit and delicacy’ and much more that is laudatory, flattering and so much else that it seems like a serious case of severe hyperbole rather than genuine critique. To some extent, this is indeed deserved, since the writing is polished, crafted, with flowing paragraphs and some interesting turns of phrase. But where it hits a roadblock, for me at least, as reader, reviewer, is the story itself.
Saraswati Park is about a man and his family who live in Saraswati Park, a housing ‘society’, as it is called in Mumbai, a Harbour Line ride away in the suburbs. It is a small bubble of slow calm, as many of these places still can be in the metropolis, where neighbours become family and the troubles of one are shared by all those who exist closely around them. Many of these matters are never acknowledged aloud, but are known and sympathised with, often discussed over the dining table around the high-low din of prime time soaps and mulled over through the afternoon episodes. It is the women who are keepers of all secrets, who have the discretion of a spy with the intuition of a fisherwoman. Even in the thick of the hustle and hurry world that is the city, in the very centre of all the activity, outside one of the busiest commuter stations in the world, there is a tiny oasis where time, like the cliché, seems to have stopped, or slowed down enough to be caught in a long time ago. Just outside the General Post Office, close to where the hordes pour out of VT station, as it is still fondly known, under a tree on a small traffic island sit eight or nine letter writers. They do write the occasional letter, but are more occupied, when they are, with packing small parcels, filling in forms for job applicants, helping sex workers send money home to the village, advising folk on all things postal and perhaps occasionally playing counsellor, psychiatrist and mentor.
Mohan Karekar is one such gentleman, who lives his life in a very understated manner. What gets him excited is books; he dreams of one day writing his own, and scribbles possible plot lines and incidences in the margins of the books he buys from the constantly endangered breed of pavement booksellers. His life at home is mundane, everyday, but in quiet crisis, with his wife not happy but not especially unhappy either, not completely accepting that reality but trying to escape it in her own quiet way. His nephew, who comes to stay and study, is gay, but manages to hide it, or so he believes, from everyone who actually knows but is tactful enough to be silent.
In the telling of the story, there are some issues that a reader, especially a Mumbaikar with a certain love for the city, will balk at. Why does Mohan, also a Mumbaikar, work as a letter-writer, even though he was not able to go to college after his father’s business went bust? And if this is all he does, and does not use the money his daughter in America sends him, how does he maintain his standard of living? According to Joseph, who says that “essentially the family is not moneyed, though his children are doing really well,” it is how the story goes. “There are just a lot of potential contradictions involved in that very wide description of being middle class – it could mean people who go out and spend a lot of money shopping on weekends, or it could mean people who are really working hard to pay their children’s school fees. This is just one of the things it does mean. I began to really like the idea of this person who is not unemotional, it is not that he does not care about his own family and cares about other people’s, but at the same time there is this intrinsic detachment. And also he is not a go getter, the new driving Bombay.”
This is a very polite book, one that skims the surface of a vibrant, multidimensional, bustling metropolis, never getting too deep into uncomfortable reality or even capturing it in words. An easy pleasant read, but not a particularly memorable one.
SARASWATI PARK
by Anjali Joseph
(Harper Collins)
Anjali Joseph has been listed as one of the top 20 writers in Britain below the age of 40. Her book, Saraswati Park, has been collecting astonishingly favourable reviews, as being ‘beautifully rendered’, ‘impressively assured’, ‘unhurried gossamer prose’ that is written with ‘wit and delicacy’ and much more that is laudatory, flattering and so much else that it seems like a serious case of severe hyperbole rather than genuine critique. To some extent, this is indeed deserved, since the writing is polished, crafted, with flowing paragraphs and some interesting turns of phrase. But where it hits a roadblock, for me at least, as reader, reviewer, is the story itself.
Saraswati Park is about a man and his family who live in Saraswati Park, a housing ‘society’, as it is called in Mumbai, a Harbour Line ride away in the suburbs. It is a small bubble of slow calm, as many of these places still can be in the metropolis, where neighbours become family and the troubles of one are shared by all those who exist closely around them. Many of these matters are never acknowledged aloud, but are known and sympathised with, often discussed over the dining table around the high-low din of prime time soaps and mulled over through the afternoon episodes. It is the women who are keepers of all secrets, who have the discretion of a spy with the intuition of a fisherwoman. Even in the thick of the hustle and hurry world that is the city, in the very centre of all the activity, outside one of the busiest commuter stations in the world, there is a tiny oasis where time, like the cliché, seems to have stopped, or slowed down enough to be caught in a long time ago. Just outside the General Post Office, close to where the hordes pour out of VT station, as it is still fondly known, under a tree on a small traffic island sit eight or nine letter writers. They do write the occasional letter, but are more occupied, when they are, with packing small parcels, filling in forms for job applicants, helping sex workers send money home to the village, advising folk on all things postal and perhaps occasionally playing counsellor, psychiatrist and mentor.
Mohan Karekar is one such gentleman, who lives his life in a very understated manner. What gets him excited is books; he dreams of one day writing his own, and scribbles possible plot lines and incidences in the margins of the books he buys from the constantly endangered breed of pavement booksellers. His life at home is mundane, everyday, but in quiet crisis, with his wife not happy but not especially unhappy either, not completely accepting that reality but trying to escape it in her own quiet way. His nephew, who comes to stay and study, is gay, but manages to hide it, or so he believes, from everyone who actually knows but is tactful enough to be silent.
In the telling of the story, there are some issues that a reader, especially a Mumbaikar with a certain love for the city, will balk at. Why does Mohan, also a Mumbaikar, work as a letter-writer, even though he was not able to go to college after his father’s business went bust? And if this is all he does, and does not use the money his daughter in America sends him, how does he maintain his standard of living? According to Joseph, who says that “essentially the family is not moneyed, though his children are doing really well,” it is how the story goes. “There are just a lot of potential contradictions involved in that very wide description of being middle class – it could mean people who go out and spend a lot of money shopping on weekends, or it could mean people who are really working hard to pay their children’s school fees. This is just one of the things it does mean. I began to really like the idea of this person who is not unemotional, it is not that he does not care about his own family and cares about other people’s, but at the same time there is this intrinsic detachment. And also he is not a go getter, the new driving Bombay.”
This is a very polite book, one that skims the surface of a vibrant, multidimensional, bustling metropolis, never getting too deep into uncomfortable reality or even capturing it in words. An easy pleasant read, but not a particularly memorable one.
I, me, myself
(Published in The Times of India Crest edition, last weekend)
When G Stanley Hall stated that the single child situation was “a disease in itself”, he left himself wide open for future pillory. Since then, the myth that an only child is spoiled, selfish, bratty and overindulged has been smashed often enough for it to become a tired joke. The reality is that only children are indeed more privileged, in that they have more resources at their command, more attention since it is not divided, more parental attention and, thus, more potential to develop into truly interesting individuals. There are issues like a lack of competitiveness, a feeling of complacency and some social maladjustment, but those are individual-dependent. What does seem to be unique is a sense of being alone, a lack of a support structure that a child with siblings would almost automatically have, never mind that intra-family stress may come in the way.
As N Meenakshi, a single 40-something writer puts it, “My parents chose to have me and no more, because they wanted to give me the best. But once I grew up and various crises happened, I realised it was not all joy!” She refers to the time when her mother fell ill, when she herself had to deal with the aftermath of major surgery and then, more recently, when her mother passed away. “Now that there is only me and my father, I get unimaginably stressed when either of us falls ill. And as Dad gets older, I worry more, about everything, major, minor and silly. If he even coughs, I start thinking of all sorts of horrendous possibilities and I am paranoid that some day he will not wake up - I don’t think I have slept well in years now!”
Dancer Alarmel Valli married fairly late and is based in Chennai, while her husband lives in Delhi. As an only child, she has understood that “Ultimately, one has to rely on oneself. Of course, it is more easily said than done!” Even though she grew up with a host of cousins to play with, she remembers that “I was a bit of a weakling, so with boys playing boisterous games, I would be an outsider. Books were my companions. Only children have to create their own worlds; they don’t feel alone - the world of imagination is very real.” This looking inwards to find companionship helped her “formulate ideas; there was a constant dialogue going on in my head. This has a tendency to tuck you away from the rest, but then you get used to the idea and you find a lot of beauty and strength from it. You get more introspective, which helped in my dance.”
Art expert Ranjit Hoskote found that “As a child, an only child, I found I could live, effectively, in a rich interior reality without being disturbed. You get your parents' nurturing attention - in my parents' generation, this attention was truly nurturing and balanced, giving the child his/ her own space and time. It was not overwhelming or obsessive, as I find it to be among my own contemporaries who are parents.” But it has its downside, he admits, in “a periodic sense of isolation. And, as you grow older, a sibling to share duties with would be a good idea.” There is a sense of responsibility that sets it, he finds, however capable and active the parent (s) may be. “As they grow older, I (more than they themselves) feel more protective, anticipating things they might need, ways in which I could help them deal with a fast-changing present. My mother jokes that our roles have now been reversed!”
In the laughter, there is one overwhelming byte of reality that only children get more aware of as they get older: parents are also getting older and will not be with them for ever. As Hoskote says, “A sensitive point indeed, and one that only children will be haunted by but never articulate.” As children grow up, find their own lives, but with maturity, age and perhaps parenthood comes a strangely insidious insecurity. “The insecurity probably comes from a gradual distance that the years inevitably bring about, from the Golden Age of childhood and the sense of near-perfect serenity, nurture, emotional expansiveness and creative possibility of the family of three people. Especially as a citadel against a confusing world. So the insecurity is a more general awareness of growing up.”
According to psychiatrist Dr Ashit Sheth, it’s “all about how the parents go about it – most times, parents do not address issues” that bother only children later in life. “I can understand that the pain-bearing capacity of an only child is less,” he says, “since he or she has not learned to face difficulty, how to compete (for time, attention and privileges), and may be afraid about coping with responsibility as they get older.” Parents need to address these issues, he feels, though “in our kind of society set up there will always be relatives, some family, to help” in a crisis situation. “Children know that they will have to take care of aged parents, but parents should bring to their notice that they need to be ready for that kind of responsibility and must rise to their own potential rather than be pampered and spoon-fed.” Marriage, Sheth believes, is inevitable, with children to follow, which provides a support structure in itself. “These are issues more abroad; in India, we have family bonds that protect only children.”
Valli believes that “As you get older, the only child thing starts becoming a bane at times. I had a rich inner life as a child, now my life is extremely creative, as a dancer and with my students.” For her, her mother was the anchor, “a very uncompromising mirror that never distorts a reflection. She has been there for me right from the time I first started going to dance class – I carry the values of dance and in life that she instilled in me.” Her father, whom she calls a “good man, a kind, gentle soul” may have “spoiled me silly if not for my mother. Now that she is older and not in the best of health, she is still very much there to provide moral support. But as one gets older, that same support structure starts being eroded; there is a great sense of insecurity.”
Insecurity is what dentist Dr Pankaj Mehta, father of an only son, occasionally feels. “We could afford only one at that time, but now I think we should have had another child.” He finds that he and his wife are starting to worry about him being alone, “but he does not really bother. In fact, he is planning to have only one child too!” The worry works both ways. Meenakshi finds that, particularly since she is single and has no children, “I worry about Dad, but now I find that I am worrying about myself too. In fact, ever since the news of how Parveen Babi died alone came out, I get terribly stressed about how I could die alone in my home and not be found until much later!” But she, like so many others, knows that at times when she needs them, friends become family and stand by her. “It happened when my mother died – a friend from work came along and became family. Even today, Anita has a special place in our home and hearts for her unstinting support when we needed it!” Hoskote’s parents react to his occasionally paranoid concern “with patience and a very warm amusement,” he smiles. “Being an only child sounds tough, but maybe that's not such a bad thing to have gone through after all! And, over the years, as only children, we find our siblings among our friends. And they can be closer than blood.”
Valli agrees: “I try and tie together 100 things at the same time - this is when one feels the lack of a family structure, brothers and sisters who actively help, offer input, ease the pressure. If you are not with these people in the place that is the wellspring of one’s creative inspiration it gets increasingly insecure; as your parents get old or pass away, you do feel more alone. I think it is a boon and a bane to be an only child. If I had not been an only child, my mother may not have been able to dedicate herself to me as completely as she did. I may not have been able to focus so completely on my dance if I had not had that isolation. You grow used to being by yourself, through living with your own thoughts and you don’t feel as alone as some people would when constantly surrounded by people. I even holiday alone, don’t feel at all bereft. But when my mother fell ill, it was quite frightening, panic stricken, at that point I was eternally grateful to have friends, cousins, husband, etc.”
Most of all, Meenakshi has learned, “It takes a great deal of courage. You find that strength from somewhere, a strength you never knew you had. It hurts like crazy, and I get really tired of being told I am a ‘strong person’, but you survive, you occasionally go on auto-pilot and keep bashing on. After all, there is always a deadline that you need to meet and a story you have to write!” Valli avers that “You need to have faith that you are not alone, you have to have the confidence that you come through that, that you have that inner core of strength that allows you to cope. One has to aspire towards creating that inner core of strength – the purnatvam, of fullness, fulfilment, sense of power.”
When G Stanley Hall stated that the single child situation was “a disease in itself”, he left himself wide open for future pillory. Since then, the myth that an only child is spoiled, selfish, bratty and overindulged has been smashed often enough for it to become a tired joke. The reality is that only children are indeed more privileged, in that they have more resources at their command, more attention since it is not divided, more parental attention and, thus, more potential to develop into truly interesting individuals. There are issues like a lack of competitiveness, a feeling of complacency and some social maladjustment, but those are individual-dependent. What does seem to be unique is a sense of being alone, a lack of a support structure that a child with siblings would almost automatically have, never mind that intra-family stress may come in the way.
As N Meenakshi, a single 40-something writer puts it, “My parents chose to have me and no more, because they wanted to give me the best. But once I grew up and various crises happened, I realised it was not all joy!” She refers to the time when her mother fell ill, when she herself had to deal with the aftermath of major surgery and then, more recently, when her mother passed away. “Now that there is only me and my father, I get unimaginably stressed when either of us falls ill. And as Dad gets older, I worry more, about everything, major, minor and silly. If he even coughs, I start thinking of all sorts of horrendous possibilities and I am paranoid that some day he will not wake up - I don’t think I have slept well in years now!”
Dancer Alarmel Valli married fairly late and is based in Chennai, while her husband lives in Delhi. As an only child, she has understood that “Ultimately, one has to rely on oneself. Of course, it is more easily said than done!” Even though she grew up with a host of cousins to play with, she remembers that “I was a bit of a weakling, so with boys playing boisterous games, I would be an outsider. Books were my companions. Only children have to create their own worlds; they don’t feel alone - the world of imagination is very real.” This looking inwards to find companionship helped her “formulate ideas; there was a constant dialogue going on in my head. This has a tendency to tuck you away from the rest, but then you get used to the idea and you find a lot of beauty and strength from it. You get more introspective, which helped in my dance.”
Art expert Ranjit Hoskote found that “As a child, an only child, I found I could live, effectively, in a rich interior reality without being disturbed. You get your parents' nurturing attention - in my parents' generation, this attention was truly nurturing and balanced, giving the child his/ her own space and time. It was not overwhelming or obsessive, as I find it to be among my own contemporaries who are parents.” But it has its downside, he admits, in “a periodic sense of isolation. And, as you grow older, a sibling to share duties with would be a good idea.” There is a sense of responsibility that sets it, he finds, however capable and active the parent (s) may be. “As they grow older, I (more than they themselves) feel more protective, anticipating things they might need, ways in which I could help them deal with a fast-changing present. My mother jokes that our roles have now been reversed!”
In the laughter, there is one overwhelming byte of reality that only children get more aware of as they get older: parents are also getting older and will not be with them for ever. As Hoskote says, “A sensitive point indeed, and one that only children will be haunted by but never articulate.” As children grow up, find their own lives, but with maturity, age and perhaps parenthood comes a strangely insidious insecurity. “The insecurity probably comes from a gradual distance that the years inevitably bring about, from the Golden Age of childhood and the sense of near-perfect serenity, nurture, emotional expansiveness and creative possibility of the family of three people. Especially as a citadel against a confusing world. So the insecurity is a more general awareness of growing up.”
According to psychiatrist Dr Ashit Sheth, it’s “all about how the parents go about it – most times, parents do not address issues” that bother only children later in life. “I can understand that the pain-bearing capacity of an only child is less,” he says, “since he or she has not learned to face difficulty, how to compete (for time, attention and privileges), and may be afraid about coping with responsibility as they get older.” Parents need to address these issues, he feels, though “in our kind of society set up there will always be relatives, some family, to help” in a crisis situation. “Children know that they will have to take care of aged parents, but parents should bring to their notice that they need to be ready for that kind of responsibility and must rise to their own potential rather than be pampered and spoon-fed.” Marriage, Sheth believes, is inevitable, with children to follow, which provides a support structure in itself. “These are issues more abroad; in India, we have family bonds that protect only children.”
Valli believes that “As you get older, the only child thing starts becoming a bane at times. I had a rich inner life as a child, now my life is extremely creative, as a dancer and with my students.” For her, her mother was the anchor, “a very uncompromising mirror that never distorts a reflection. She has been there for me right from the time I first started going to dance class – I carry the values of dance and in life that she instilled in me.” Her father, whom she calls a “good man, a kind, gentle soul” may have “spoiled me silly if not for my mother. Now that she is older and not in the best of health, she is still very much there to provide moral support. But as one gets older, that same support structure starts being eroded; there is a great sense of insecurity.”
Insecurity is what dentist Dr Pankaj Mehta, father of an only son, occasionally feels. “We could afford only one at that time, but now I think we should have had another child.” He finds that he and his wife are starting to worry about him being alone, “but he does not really bother. In fact, he is planning to have only one child too!” The worry works both ways. Meenakshi finds that, particularly since she is single and has no children, “I worry about Dad, but now I find that I am worrying about myself too. In fact, ever since the news of how Parveen Babi died alone came out, I get terribly stressed about how I could die alone in my home and not be found until much later!” But she, like so many others, knows that at times when she needs them, friends become family and stand by her. “It happened when my mother died – a friend from work came along and became family. Even today, Anita has a special place in our home and hearts for her unstinting support when we needed it!” Hoskote’s parents react to his occasionally paranoid concern “with patience and a very warm amusement,” he smiles. “Being an only child sounds tough, but maybe that's not such a bad thing to have gone through after all! And, over the years, as only children, we find our siblings among our friends. And they can be closer than blood.”
Valli agrees: “I try and tie together 100 things at the same time - this is when one feels the lack of a family structure, brothers and sisters who actively help, offer input, ease the pressure. If you are not with these people in the place that is the wellspring of one’s creative inspiration it gets increasingly insecure; as your parents get old or pass away, you do feel more alone. I think it is a boon and a bane to be an only child. If I had not been an only child, my mother may not have been able to dedicate herself to me as completely as she did. I may not have been able to focus so completely on my dance if I had not had that isolation. You grow used to being by yourself, through living with your own thoughts and you don’t feel as alone as some people would when constantly surrounded by people. I even holiday alone, don’t feel at all bereft. But when my mother fell ill, it was quite frightening, panic stricken, at that point I was eternally grateful to have friends, cousins, husband, etc.”
Most of all, Meenakshi has learned, “It takes a great deal of courage. You find that strength from somewhere, a strength you never knew you had. It hurts like crazy, and I get really tired of being told I am a ‘strong person’, but you survive, you occasionally go on auto-pilot and keep bashing on. After all, there is always a deadline that you need to meet and a story you have to write!” Valli avers that “You need to have faith that you are not alone, you have to have the confidence that you come through that, that you have that inner core of strength that allows you to cope. One has to aspire towards creating that inner core of strength – the purnatvam, of fullness, fulfilment, sense of power.”
Fasting, feasting
(Published in The Bengal Post, Sunday, September 26)
Fasting is an integral part of religion, especially in India, where so many faiths co-exist, occasionally blending to create an entirely new concept with its own sounds, symbols and sensations. While to abstain from food is sometimes advocated for health reasons, it is most often a voluntary abstinence, done with one eye on heaven, but the mind firmly in the stomach. Perhaps ironically, many communities ‘allow’ foods that would generally be considered ‘junk’, from potato crisps to ghee-soaked fried bananas, making a day of fast rather more delicious than any other more healthy time!
The concept of restriction food in any way is not limited to India. In fact, almost every part of the world observes some kind of fasting period, with exceptions for the very old, the very young, the pregnant, the infirm and the unable (those travelling, labourers or people otherwise physically stressed). The Bahá'í faith, for instance, mandates fasting – complete abstinence from food and drink - from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ala (March 2-March 20). While Buddhists do not fast, per se, they do avoid eating after a meal at noon at least about once a week, as per the Buddha’s teachings: “Not eating a meal in the evening you too will be aware of good health... and living in comfort.” Christianity varies by denomination over the practice of not eating, but the most familiar is the Lenten period, when a partial fast is maintained for 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter to commemorate the time that Jesus went food-less in the desert. The Jewish faith demands complete austerity, with no food or drink, not even water to brush teeth in major fast days like Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av.
Islam upholds fasting as the third of the five pillars of the faith. Ramzan is the most notable time for this abstinence, where people eat before dawn or after dusk, avoiding food, water, fighting, lying, sex and more in between. It is believed that by this, a Muslim gains taqwa, or the awareness of God, along with protection from hell, brings about a feeling of brotherly love and teaches the virtues of control, charity and austerity. The Jains fast to attain a state of ahimsa, or totally non-violence, doing so primarily during Paryushan, a period that recently passed, mainly to decrease desire for the physical world and gain spiritual bliss. The Sikhs, in contrast, do not follow the practice, since the holy book, the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, states that “Fasting, daily rituals, and austere self-discipline - those who keep the practice of these, are rewarded with less than a shell.”
Hinduism, like almost any other faith, has complex rules of fasting and, of course, its polar opposite, feasting. Sravan, the holy month that was over a couple of weeks ago, was about a certain degree of abstinence, with no alcohol, meat or certain other foods and habits. Ekadashi, Pradosha and Purnima, for instance, are specific days of every month where people do fast. Different Gods demand different restraints: for Shiva, Mondays mean no food, while for Vishnu, Fridays and Saturdays are hungry. In South India, devotees of Mariamman do not eat between sunrise and sunset on Tuesdays, while in North India Thursday tends to be a day of abstinence. It is particularly at this time of year, when the major Hindu festivals like Ganesh Chaturti, Navratri, Durga Puja and Diwali come around that food finds centrestage. The mornings will be filled with the sounds and sights of prayer, meditation and ritual, while the evenings are a time of celebration – after the prayer lamps are lighted, the feasting begins, especially for Gods like Krishna (Gokulashtami) and Shiva (Mahashivratri). For Ganesha, the elephant-headed God who has just gone home (on or a few days before Anant Chaturdashi) after a ten-day stay at the homes of his devotees, it is all about food –bananas, sugarcane, modaks, all that any self-respective young elephant would relish!
Fasting has to balance need with the dietary restrictions prescribed by the ancient texts. This has given rise to a whole library of cuisine, from the peanut-rich recipes of Maharashtra to the arbi undhiyo of Gujarat and the roti kootu of South India. Favourites will include elements such as sago, potato, sweet potato and banana. Here are a couple of easy and familiar recipes:
Sabudana khichdi (sago pulao)
1 cup sago washed, drained and left to stand for 1 hour (should squash fairly easily when pressed between the fingers)
2 tbs oil
1 medium potato, cubed
1/2 tsp cumin
1-2 green chillies finely chopped
chopped coriander leaves to garnish
salt to taste
roasted peanuts
Fry the potatoes till brown and slightly crisp and keep aside. Crackle cumin, add chillies and sago. Stir constantly over medium heat. Add salt and potatoes. Sprinkle over with peanuts and coriander leaves. Eat hot.
Banana varuval (Kerala banana chips)
(Use red bananas or the raw green ones)
Peel the bananas
Slice directly into hot oil using a mandoline
Sprinkle salted water into the oil during the frying (CAREFULLY!)
Drain the crisp chips.
Add more seasoning if wanted.
Eat warm or store in an airtight container.
Fasting is an integral part of religion, especially in India, where so many faiths co-exist, occasionally blending to create an entirely new concept with its own sounds, symbols and sensations. While to abstain from food is sometimes advocated for health reasons, it is most often a voluntary abstinence, done with one eye on heaven, but the mind firmly in the stomach. Perhaps ironically, many communities ‘allow’ foods that would generally be considered ‘junk’, from potato crisps to ghee-soaked fried bananas, making a day of fast rather more delicious than any other more healthy time!
The concept of restriction food in any way is not limited to India. In fact, almost every part of the world observes some kind of fasting period, with exceptions for the very old, the very young, the pregnant, the infirm and the unable (those travelling, labourers or people otherwise physically stressed). The Bahá'í faith, for instance, mandates fasting – complete abstinence from food and drink - from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ala (March 2-March 20). While Buddhists do not fast, per se, they do avoid eating after a meal at noon at least about once a week, as per the Buddha’s teachings: “Not eating a meal in the evening you too will be aware of good health... and living in comfort.” Christianity varies by denomination over the practice of not eating, but the most familiar is the Lenten period, when a partial fast is maintained for 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter to commemorate the time that Jesus went food-less in the desert. The Jewish faith demands complete austerity, with no food or drink, not even water to brush teeth in major fast days like Yom Kippur and Tisha B'Av.
Islam upholds fasting as the third of the five pillars of the faith. Ramzan is the most notable time for this abstinence, where people eat before dawn or after dusk, avoiding food, water, fighting, lying, sex and more in between. It is believed that by this, a Muslim gains taqwa, or the awareness of God, along with protection from hell, brings about a feeling of brotherly love and teaches the virtues of control, charity and austerity. The Jains fast to attain a state of ahimsa, or totally non-violence, doing so primarily during Paryushan, a period that recently passed, mainly to decrease desire for the physical world and gain spiritual bliss. The Sikhs, in contrast, do not follow the practice, since the holy book, the Sri Guru Granth Sahib, states that “Fasting, daily rituals, and austere self-discipline - those who keep the practice of these, are rewarded with less than a shell.”
Hinduism, like almost any other faith, has complex rules of fasting and, of course, its polar opposite, feasting. Sravan, the holy month that was over a couple of weeks ago, was about a certain degree of abstinence, with no alcohol, meat or certain other foods and habits. Ekadashi, Pradosha and Purnima, for instance, are specific days of every month where people do fast. Different Gods demand different restraints: for Shiva, Mondays mean no food, while for Vishnu, Fridays and Saturdays are hungry. In South India, devotees of Mariamman do not eat between sunrise and sunset on Tuesdays, while in North India Thursday tends to be a day of abstinence. It is particularly at this time of year, when the major Hindu festivals like Ganesh Chaturti, Navratri, Durga Puja and Diwali come around that food finds centrestage. The mornings will be filled with the sounds and sights of prayer, meditation and ritual, while the evenings are a time of celebration – after the prayer lamps are lighted, the feasting begins, especially for Gods like Krishna (Gokulashtami) and Shiva (Mahashivratri). For Ganesha, the elephant-headed God who has just gone home (on or a few days before Anant Chaturdashi) after a ten-day stay at the homes of his devotees, it is all about food –bananas, sugarcane, modaks, all that any self-respective young elephant would relish!
Fasting has to balance need with the dietary restrictions prescribed by the ancient texts. This has given rise to a whole library of cuisine, from the peanut-rich recipes of Maharashtra to the arbi undhiyo of Gujarat and the roti kootu of South India. Favourites will include elements such as sago, potato, sweet potato and banana. Here are a couple of easy and familiar recipes:
Sabudana khichdi (sago pulao)
1 cup sago washed, drained and left to stand for 1 hour (should squash fairly easily when pressed between the fingers)
2 tbs oil
1 medium potato, cubed
1/2 tsp cumin
1-2 green chillies finely chopped
chopped coriander leaves to garnish
salt to taste
roasted peanuts
Fry the potatoes till brown and slightly crisp and keep aside. Crackle cumin, add chillies and sago. Stir constantly over medium heat. Add salt and potatoes. Sprinkle over with peanuts and coriander leaves. Eat hot.
Banana varuval (Kerala banana chips)
(Use red bananas or the raw green ones)
Peel the bananas
Slice directly into hot oil using a mandoline
Sprinkle salted water into the oil during the frying (CAREFULLY!)
Drain the crisp chips.
Add more seasoning if wanted.
Eat warm or store in an airtight container.
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