(bdnews24.com, August 26, 2011)
Many years ago, when I was in graduate school in the United States, I saw my first Shammi Kapoor film. I was staying with an Indian friend and knew next to nothing about Hindi movies, stars or anything about the place called Bollywood that existed in and around my home city of Mumbai. But as I sat with my friend’s small daughter cuddled on my lap and watched this portly gentleman slide down in the snow yelling what sounded like “Yahoo!”, I caught the first spark in what eventually became a fascination with the world of Indian cinema. The word was indeed ‘Yahoo’, the snow was packed against a hillside in Kashmir and the stout man was Shammi Kapoor.
The film was Junglee, a classic black and white movie that created a special brand of history when it was released and made its hero and heroine (Saira Banu) stars. And as I started to get more familiar with the music of the hundreds of Bollywood productions that my friends knew so much about, the tunes stayed in my head, along with the many interesting bits of information I heard, read and saw about this exotic new (for me) realm.
It got better – once I started working on the Internet, creating online versions of magazines, writing content for websites and using cyberspace to talk to friends, find information and enjoy discovering new concepts and facts, Shammi Kapoor played a surprisingly non-filmi role. I learned that the star had retired many years before I saw that sliding-in-the-snow routine. He was ill with kidney trouble, underwent regular dialysis and did the occasional cameo in a film.
But, more interestingly, he had a fairly full life that had little, if any, connection with films. He was the founder and chairman of the Internet Users Community of India (IUCI) and had played a major role in setting up the Ethical Hackers Association. Best of all for his fan club, he also maintained a website dedicated to the Kapoor family.
And that perhaps is the story of a star. Born on October 21, 1931, into the first family of Hindi films, as it is often called, Shamsher Raj Kapoor was the son of Prithviraj and Ramsharni Kapoor, brother to Raj and Shashi. He spent a few years in Kolkata, where his father acted in films, and then the family moved to Bombay, as it was known then. Academics was not his forte and he preferred to start working first in his father’s company, Prithvi Theatres, and then as a junior artiste in films – he made his big screen debut as a hero in 1953, with Jeevan Jyoti, co-starring Chand Usmani.
Serious roles got him nowhere near the big time, and he was almost forced into a change of image with Nasir Hussain’s Tumsa Nahin Dekha (1959), with a young Ameeta as his heroine. Dil Deke Dekho with Asha Parekh cemented this new avatar in the minds of the audience and Shammi Kapoor was labelled a ‘star’. Tall, athletic, light-eyed and handsome, his looks made it even easier, while his wealthy playboy persona seemed true to life and won hearts all over the world. Junglee was followed by Dil Tera Diwana, Professor, China Town, Rajkumar, Kashmir Ki Kali, Janwar, Teesri Manzil, An Evening in Paris, Bramhachari, Andaz and Vidhaata.
Music played a huge part in Shammi Kapoor’s success. Most of his super hit songs came from the composers Shankar-Jaikishen or OP Nayyar, and were sung by Mohammed Rafi. They include – apart from the exuberant ‘Yahoo…Chahe koi mujhe junglee kahe’, of course - Suku Suku, Ae Gulbadan, Govinda Aala Re, Deewana Hua Badal, Tumne Pukara Aur Hum Chale Aaye,Tumse Achha Kaun Hai, O Mere Sona Re, Akele Akele Kahan Jaa Rahe Ho, Aajkal Tere Mere Pyar ke Charche, Badan pe Sitare and Hain Na Bolo Bolo. We all remember those and can sing along with them.
But even as we do, we tend to close our eyes rather than watch Shammi Kapoor on the screen in so many of his films. He may have started out as a handsome, agile, gloriously ogle-able heartthrob, but soon gained a lot of weight and became lined, ungainly, unappealing. By the 1970s he had stopped acting as hero and did character roles in films.
He even directed two films – Manoranjan and Bundal Baaz, neither too successful. And earlier this year, he managed to shoot for his grand-nephew Ranbir Kapoor’s next movie, Rockstar. But by then he was fairly seriously ill with kidney failure. And early morning on August 14, he died in Mumbai.
Shammi Kapoor is an integral part of Hindi movie history. He was called the ‘Elvis of India’ and sang, danced and romanced on the big screen like few others have managed to do. For his sheer joie de vivre and the memories of friendship, movies, music and masti that his work have given me, I will always be a fan.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Book review - The Tiger's Wife
(The Times of India Crest Edition, August 19, 2011)
THE TIGER’S WIFE
Tea Obrecht
A book is generally the sum of its parts. There is the story, the characters, the development of the plot, the point of view, the overall coherence and, of course, the writing itself go a long way to making a book readable, buyable and, eventually successful. Once in a while, the entire package comes together beautifully, and you, as reader, will not just buy the book, but read it over and over again for the sheer pleasure of imbibing something worth owning. But sometimes a book comes along which makes sense in a strange way, for just the experience of being something different, with a story that is so unlike the norm, characters that make sense but are obviously not anyone you would know well and all in a setting that is unusual, magical, enjoyable. The writing may not be the best. The language may not be the most refined or evolved or even adult. The various parts could be disjointed and not all of a high quality. But the book does well, the critics love it and you, as reader, like it without being sure what is wrong with it, though you know there is something off-kilter. But, frankly, you don’t really care.
This is what happens with The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obrecht. The story is amazingly interesting, enchanting, casting a rarely used spell with its out-of-the-ordinary progress. It begins with the small girl-child Natalia being taken to the zoo by her grandfather. They have food for the animals, from cabbage heads for the hippos to sugar cubes for the pony that pulls the carriage, but what they really head for is the tiger cage. And, as they watch, the dustpan keeper is attacked by one of the big striped cats, his arm mauled and bleeding, a matter of shame for the man and frustration for the animal. When she grows up, Natalia becomes a doctor in the big city, like her grandfather was. All through her life – she ‘speaks’ when she is over 60 – the tiger has been a major influence on her family, somehow deeply connected to the copy of the Jungle Book that her grandfather has always kept, no matter what the circumstances.
Natalia is on her way to a seaside town orphanage somewhere in the Balkans to treat the children there when she is told that her grandfather has mysteriously passed away. The young doctor chases up the reason for his death, by going back along the path that he too while he was alive, going through the stories he had told her, the places they had been to together, the small pleasures that they had shared in the process. And along the way there are two stories that always resurface – of a tiger escaped from the zoo which prowled around the fictional village of Galina, and the ‘deathless man’ who is fated to live on in spite of whatever is done to him. The deathless man and the tiger walk side by side with Natalia’s grandfather through his life, whimsically appearing and vanishing in a complex puzzle that the reader tries to unravel as the story unfolds.
The tale has a special magic, the characters played out, the bonds strong, though lacking emotional depth and perhaps endurance, even the clichés making sense in their positions. Most of all it is the imagination of the author that carries most weight, making her well deserving of the applause that has come her way since the book was published. It is not an easy book to read, but it is well worth the effort.
THE TIGER’S WIFE
Tea Obrecht
A book is generally the sum of its parts. There is the story, the characters, the development of the plot, the point of view, the overall coherence and, of course, the writing itself go a long way to making a book readable, buyable and, eventually successful. Once in a while, the entire package comes together beautifully, and you, as reader, will not just buy the book, but read it over and over again for the sheer pleasure of imbibing something worth owning. But sometimes a book comes along which makes sense in a strange way, for just the experience of being something different, with a story that is so unlike the norm, characters that make sense but are obviously not anyone you would know well and all in a setting that is unusual, magical, enjoyable. The writing may not be the best. The language may not be the most refined or evolved or even adult. The various parts could be disjointed and not all of a high quality. But the book does well, the critics love it and you, as reader, like it without being sure what is wrong with it, though you know there is something off-kilter. But, frankly, you don’t really care.
This is what happens with The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obrecht. The story is amazingly interesting, enchanting, casting a rarely used spell with its out-of-the-ordinary progress. It begins with the small girl-child Natalia being taken to the zoo by her grandfather. They have food for the animals, from cabbage heads for the hippos to sugar cubes for the pony that pulls the carriage, but what they really head for is the tiger cage. And, as they watch, the dustpan keeper is attacked by one of the big striped cats, his arm mauled and bleeding, a matter of shame for the man and frustration for the animal. When she grows up, Natalia becomes a doctor in the big city, like her grandfather was. All through her life – she ‘speaks’ when she is over 60 – the tiger has been a major influence on her family, somehow deeply connected to the copy of the Jungle Book that her grandfather has always kept, no matter what the circumstances.
Natalia is on her way to a seaside town orphanage somewhere in the Balkans to treat the children there when she is told that her grandfather has mysteriously passed away. The young doctor chases up the reason for his death, by going back along the path that he too while he was alive, going through the stories he had told her, the places they had been to together, the small pleasures that they had shared in the process. And along the way there are two stories that always resurface – of a tiger escaped from the zoo which prowled around the fictional village of Galina, and the ‘deathless man’ who is fated to live on in spite of whatever is done to him. The deathless man and the tiger walk side by side with Natalia’s grandfather through his life, whimsically appearing and vanishing in a complex puzzle that the reader tries to unravel as the story unfolds.
The tale has a special magic, the characters played out, the bonds strong, though lacking emotional depth and perhaps endurance, even the clichés making sense in their positions. Most of all it is the imagination of the author that carries most weight, making her well deserving of the applause that has come her way since the book was published. It is not an easy book to read, but it is well worth the effort.
We all need a hero
For the past few months one small and unassuming man has been making a lot of noise all over my country, India. His name is Kisan Baburao Hazare, and he is usually known as Anna. He has a reason to make his presence felt and has much of this nation – educated and not, rich and poor, urban and rural – on his side, rooting for him.
The social activist is best known for his fight against corruption and, while his methods may be questionable, his goals are indeed noble, a cause worth doing battle for. And while a lot of my friends and others I know may support him and his way of getting heard, I certainly do not. But then, for now at least, he is a hero and all of us needs one of those every now and then, I know.
Hazare was born June 15, 1937, and does his work from a village in my home state of Maharashtra called Ralegaon Siddhi, a place he has been credited with helping to develop and structure into what is today known as a model township. As part of a family that was not very well off or highly educated, he was brought to the city by his aunt, who brought him up, educating him till the 7th grade. To bring some money into the family, he started working after that, selling flowers in central Mumbai. He prospered and brought two of his brothers to the city to work.
It is perhaps the next stage of his life that taught him much about strategy and battle – in 1962 the 25-year-old Hazare joined the army as a driver, posted near the Pakistan border at the Khem Karan sector. In an air attack on Indian bases in 1865, Hazare narrowly escaped death, but his comrades were all killed – this started him thinking about the purpose and meaning of life and death and set him on the path of reform and service of the less advantaged. A road accident in the mid-70s was the true turning point – that decided Hazare’s future; he vowed to dedicate his life to the service of humanity. He was 38.
Hazare retired from the army in 1978. Much of his work centred around the small village of Ralegaon Siddhi, where he worked on development and in fighting alcoholism. In that battle, he was unstintingly harsh. Hazare himself flogged drunk villagers and justified his actions: “Rural India is a harsh society. Doesn’t a mother administer bitter medicines to a sick child when she knows that the medicine can cure her child? The child may not like the medicine, but the mother does it only because she cares for the child. The alcoholics were punished so that their families would not be destroyed.” And the tough love seemed to pay off; he became the crusader, the saviour, the hero.
Soon Hazare’s work and its ambit had stretched to cover more than just one village and more than the issues he was already known for. He battled politicians and industry alike, laying the foundation for the Right to Information Act, among other milestones. This time, over the past few months, his aim is to wipe out a national ailment: corruption. He has proposed to the Indian government the Jan Lokpal Bill, a law to establish an ombudsman, or Lokpal, who has the power to deal with the problem of corruption in public office – from the prime minister to a less exalted minion in the corridors of government.
On April 5 this year, he decided to begin a fast unto death at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi to push the Indian government into taking action on a strong anti-corruption act. The fast ended four days later, when the government agreed to his demands, hoping to get him out of the spotlight, but Hazare’s name had already become a buzzword all over the country.
For so many reasons, the little man from a little village is now a national figure, respected, almost revered, by luminaries like social activists Medha Patkar and Arvind Kejriwal, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi, spiritual leaders Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Swami Ramdev and Swami Agnivesh, former Indian cricketer Kapil Dev, along with countless less well-known people nation-wide. The protests continue, every now and then flaring up into mass rallies and marches, as Anna Hazare and his team find new issues to object to – the arrest of Baba Ramdev, the draft of the Lokpal Bill, something a government official said, a new sugar factory, an obscure point in the draft being considered for approval…anything that could even remotely be contentious becomes so.
Along the way, there is a lot that I cannot understand. If – as so many people call him – this ‘new Gandhi’ is really on the side of progress, why is he stopping a city like Mumbai, the commercial capital of the country, working with his rallies and protest marches? Does he realise that one day off work can mean the difference between starvation and a meal for some of the urban poor? Why are so many people, some extremely well qualified, highly educated, reputed as thinkers, see him as such a significant presence today? Are they all – are we all – so tired of the way India survives with corruption as an everyday- every moment companion to accomplishment of anything from getting a ration card to gaining admission into primary school? We are. I am.
But do I believe in Anna Hazare as the solution to all the problems faced by a modern, progressive and developing nation? No, I don’t. I would, frankly, stop all these marches, rallies, protests and find a way to keep myself free from any taint of corruption first, be it paying a cop for a traffic offence or accepting a favour for writing a story published in a newspaper. It starts with me. As an individual, I can make a difference, quietly, effectively, without having to make any noise about it, without playing a tangled game of politics in doing it, without confrontation and hordes of unwashed people gathering in a public space and creating chaos and disrupting life. To me, for me, that is where the battle can really be won: in me, with me, by me.
The social activist is best known for his fight against corruption and, while his methods may be questionable, his goals are indeed noble, a cause worth doing battle for. And while a lot of my friends and others I know may support him and his way of getting heard, I certainly do not. But then, for now at least, he is a hero and all of us needs one of those every now and then, I know.
Hazare was born June 15, 1937, and does his work from a village in my home state of Maharashtra called Ralegaon Siddhi, a place he has been credited with helping to develop and structure into what is today known as a model township. As part of a family that was not very well off or highly educated, he was brought to the city by his aunt, who brought him up, educating him till the 7th grade. To bring some money into the family, he started working after that, selling flowers in central Mumbai. He prospered and brought two of his brothers to the city to work.
It is perhaps the next stage of his life that taught him much about strategy and battle – in 1962 the 25-year-old Hazare joined the army as a driver, posted near the Pakistan border at the Khem Karan sector. In an air attack on Indian bases in 1865, Hazare narrowly escaped death, but his comrades were all killed – this started him thinking about the purpose and meaning of life and death and set him on the path of reform and service of the less advantaged. A road accident in the mid-70s was the true turning point – that decided Hazare’s future; he vowed to dedicate his life to the service of humanity. He was 38.
Hazare retired from the army in 1978. Much of his work centred around the small village of Ralegaon Siddhi, where he worked on development and in fighting alcoholism. In that battle, he was unstintingly harsh. Hazare himself flogged drunk villagers and justified his actions: “Rural India is a harsh society. Doesn’t a mother administer bitter medicines to a sick child when she knows that the medicine can cure her child? The child may not like the medicine, but the mother does it only because she cares for the child. The alcoholics were punished so that their families would not be destroyed.” And the tough love seemed to pay off; he became the crusader, the saviour, the hero.
Soon Hazare’s work and its ambit had stretched to cover more than just one village and more than the issues he was already known for. He battled politicians and industry alike, laying the foundation for the Right to Information Act, among other milestones. This time, over the past few months, his aim is to wipe out a national ailment: corruption. He has proposed to the Indian government the Jan Lokpal Bill, a law to establish an ombudsman, or Lokpal, who has the power to deal with the problem of corruption in public office – from the prime minister to a less exalted minion in the corridors of government.
On April 5 this year, he decided to begin a fast unto death at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi to push the Indian government into taking action on a strong anti-corruption act. The fast ended four days later, when the government agreed to his demands, hoping to get him out of the spotlight, but Hazare’s name had already become a buzzword all over the country.
For so many reasons, the little man from a little village is now a national figure, respected, almost revered, by luminaries like social activists Medha Patkar and Arvind Kejriwal, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi, spiritual leaders Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Swami Ramdev and Swami Agnivesh, former Indian cricketer Kapil Dev, along with countless less well-known people nation-wide. The protests continue, every now and then flaring up into mass rallies and marches, as Anna Hazare and his team find new issues to object to – the arrest of Baba Ramdev, the draft of the Lokpal Bill, something a government official said, a new sugar factory, an obscure point in the draft being considered for approval…anything that could even remotely be contentious becomes so.
Along the way, there is a lot that I cannot understand. If – as so many people call him – this ‘new Gandhi’ is really on the side of progress, why is he stopping a city like Mumbai, the commercial capital of the country, working with his rallies and protest marches? Does he realise that one day off work can mean the difference between starvation and a meal for some of the urban poor? Why are so many people, some extremely well qualified, highly educated, reputed as thinkers, see him as such a significant presence today? Are they all – are we all – so tired of the way India survives with corruption as an everyday- every moment companion to accomplishment of anything from getting a ration card to gaining admission into primary school? We are. I am.
But do I believe in Anna Hazare as the solution to all the problems faced by a modern, progressive and developing nation? No, I don’t. I would, frankly, stop all these marches, rallies, protests and find a way to keep myself free from any taint of corruption first, be it paying a cop for a traffic offence or accepting a favour for writing a story published in a newspaper. It starts with me. As an individual, I can make a difference, quietly, effectively, without having to make any noise about it, without playing a tangled game of politics in doing it, without confrontation and hordes of unwashed people gathering in a public space and creating chaos and disrupting life. To me, for me, that is where the battle can really be won: in me, with me, by me.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The freedom to be independent
(bdnews24.com, August 14, 2011)
It is the 65th year of my country’s independence on August 15, and I feel a strange sense of joy at knowing I am part of a nation that has earned its freedom. We – my grandparents’ generation actually – fought long and hard to earn that right and took huge risks, sacrificed their lives, their homes, their families to get it all. They gave it to us as a kind of birthright, something we never worked to get, something we took and still take for granted. And 64 years is a long time for anyone to learn how to be free. But what bothers me is one simple question: Have we deserved that same freedom? I wonder.
With freedom comes responsibility, maturity, ambition, ethics, honesty, reliability, accountability…so many add-ons that it gets bewildering. Freedom is not just about not needing to carry a permit to get in and out of anywhere, to be able to work and live as you may wish to or to be able to exist without persecution and prosecution for your sheer existence. It is far more than material; it has to be ethical, almost spiritual. Freedom is about giving as much as it is about taking; it speaks of a need to be a useful productive, supportive, grown-up member of a family, a community, a society, a nation.
And so I wonder, are we doing all that? Are we, in fact, capable of doing any of it? I am honestly not too sure about that one.
Consider life as it is today. We face major issues like corruption, terrorism, inefficiency, instability, poverty, backwardness and goodness knows what else, all issues that seem to have no real solution, not unless we stop, end everything and start over again. We cannot, obviously, afford to do that. We have over the past few years battled immense economic problems, recovering amazingly well from a downturn, a recession, a gradual climb back up and a volatile job market that still is not up to par in many fields.
We have battled graft in so many different forms at so many different levels, finding the corrupt in more high places than we would ever have expected, from heads of state governments and prestigious departments to chiefs of the biggest and most successful corporations. Terrorism has been less terrorising than even a year ago, but the violence has not stopped – just recently there were three bomb blasts, one rapidly following the other, in parts of Mumbai that are highly populated and thus vulnerable.
There has been environmental crisis, with oil leaking into the sea after a ship was holed and slowly sank just off the coast of my home city; another threatens even as I write this. Our roads are a mess, with the infrastructure victim to corruption and inefficiency, putting lives at risk every day in every way – people die in uncovered manholes, after skidding on badly surfaced roads, after accidents caused by potholes and rash driving. And our government…well…the less said about its functioning and organisation, the better.
So are we a bad people in a bad nation? No, not at all. We have the drive, the knowledge, the experience, the ambition and, best of all, the ability to be all that is good and positive and successful. And we are, in many pockets, in many fields, in many ways. But, as always, the bad tends to overshadow the good, working against what we actually are and highlighting what we seem to be. We are a people of God, in so many ways, a people who believe that good always triumphs. We are a people who always accept, often understand and are willing to believe, just because that is the tradition we grow up with. And we are willing to work hard, in our individual capacities, to get where we think we should be, without shortcuts, if the system permits.
Now there is the problem. Very often, the system does not permit. We get stuck in the cracks that have developed with time and negligence and, to come extent, habit. We know that, for instance, it is easy to get away with a traffic offence, especially if it is minor, like jumping light or driving without a seatbelt; all we need to do, we have seen, is pay off the cop who has stopped us and then we proceed as if nothing had happened. We know, for instance, that to get a passport, we can, if we are willing, pay a gent standing outside the passport office and thereby jump a lot of lines and shortcut a lot of procedure that would normally take longer than we like. We know, for instance, that we can get a job that we are not really best qualified for by telling the headhunters that we are related to so-and-so or you-know-who and get a salary we do not really deserve. It is all a matter of the life we know…and this, unfortunately, is it.
So whom do we blame? Ourselves or the system? Either, both, all of the above. Freedom is a flexible concept that we can easily learn to use. We should start by doing a little growing up…then we will indeed be, as they say, Indians shining!
It is the 65th year of my country’s independence on August 15, and I feel a strange sense of joy at knowing I am part of a nation that has earned its freedom. We – my grandparents’ generation actually – fought long and hard to earn that right and took huge risks, sacrificed their lives, their homes, their families to get it all. They gave it to us as a kind of birthright, something we never worked to get, something we took and still take for granted. And 64 years is a long time for anyone to learn how to be free. But what bothers me is one simple question: Have we deserved that same freedom? I wonder.
With freedom comes responsibility, maturity, ambition, ethics, honesty, reliability, accountability…so many add-ons that it gets bewildering. Freedom is not just about not needing to carry a permit to get in and out of anywhere, to be able to work and live as you may wish to or to be able to exist without persecution and prosecution for your sheer existence. It is far more than material; it has to be ethical, almost spiritual. Freedom is about giving as much as it is about taking; it speaks of a need to be a useful productive, supportive, grown-up member of a family, a community, a society, a nation.
And so I wonder, are we doing all that? Are we, in fact, capable of doing any of it? I am honestly not too sure about that one.
Consider life as it is today. We face major issues like corruption, terrorism, inefficiency, instability, poverty, backwardness and goodness knows what else, all issues that seem to have no real solution, not unless we stop, end everything and start over again. We cannot, obviously, afford to do that. We have over the past few years battled immense economic problems, recovering amazingly well from a downturn, a recession, a gradual climb back up and a volatile job market that still is not up to par in many fields.
We have battled graft in so many different forms at so many different levels, finding the corrupt in more high places than we would ever have expected, from heads of state governments and prestigious departments to chiefs of the biggest and most successful corporations. Terrorism has been less terrorising than even a year ago, but the violence has not stopped – just recently there were three bomb blasts, one rapidly following the other, in parts of Mumbai that are highly populated and thus vulnerable.
There has been environmental crisis, with oil leaking into the sea after a ship was holed and slowly sank just off the coast of my home city; another threatens even as I write this. Our roads are a mess, with the infrastructure victim to corruption and inefficiency, putting lives at risk every day in every way – people die in uncovered manholes, after skidding on badly surfaced roads, after accidents caused by potholes and rash driving. And our government…well…the less said about its functioning and organisation, the better.
So are we a bad people in a bad nation? No, not at all. We have the drive, the knowledge, the experience, the ambition and, best of all, the ability to be all that is good and positive and successful. And we are, in many pockets, in many fields, in many ways. But, as always, the bad tends to overshadow the good, working against what we actually are and highlighting what we seem to be. We are a people of God, in so many ways, a people who believe that good always triumphs. We are a people who always accept, often understand and are willing to believe, just because that is the tradition we grow up with. And we are willing to work hard, in our individual capacities, to get where we think we should be, without shortcuts, if the system permits.
Now there is the problem. Very often, the system does not permit. We get stuck in the cracks that have developed with time and negligence and, to come extent, habit. We know that, for instance, it is easy to get away with a traffic offence, especially if it is minor, like jumping light or driving without a seatbelt; all we need to do, we have seen, is pay off the cop who has stopped us and then we proceed as if nothing had happened. We know, for instance, that to get a passport, we can, if we are willing, pay a gent standing outside the passport office and thereby jump a lot of lines and shortcut a lot of procedure that would normally take longer than we like. We know, for instance, that we can get a job that we are not really best qualified for by telling the headhunters that we are related to so-and-so or you-know-who and get a salary we do not really deserve. It is all a matter of the life we know…and this, unfortunately, is it.
So whom do we blame? Ourselves or the system? Either, both, all of the above. Freedom is a flexible concept that we can easily learn to use. We should start by doing a little growing up…then we will indeed be, as they say, Indians shining!
Potholing could become an Olympic sport!
(bdnews24.com, August 7, 2011)
I was out yesterday and most of the time, trying to navigate the roads of my city, Mumbai. It was not just a time-consuming effort, given the traffic bogging up every street, but also a rather painful one. This, because at every six or so paces or so the car dipped in and out of a pothole, often unexpected, that bane of the Mumbai municipality’s infrastructural department.
There were, of course, alternatives to sitting in a comfortable automobile doing little more than checking text messages or talking gently to the driver and my co-passenger. I could have started a small business in milkshakes, adding flavour to milk and letting it froth happily in the spin, whirl and rattle of the road against the wheels. I could have started a whole range of milk products, really, churning butter in the boot, fluffing up espresso in the front seat and making cheese under the hood. But the fallout of all my mad entrepreneurial thoughts? And that long bumpy trip in the car: a severe backache, a cricked neck, stiff legs and a whacking great headache.
The main topic of discussion these days in any home from almost any socio-economic stratum is the state of the city and its various essential services. In other words, whatever affects the ordinary resident of the megalopolis, from the price of milk to the number of potholes to the collection of garbage to overall cleanliness is up there for hot debate that can include everything from curses to the government in general to vexed noises about the vegetable market that tends to accumulate garbage and thus pests and thus illness.
And along the way there will be many rude words said, many dire predictions made, many what-ifs and opinions aired. Reams of newsprint and hours of airtime will be occupied with the ramifications of the problem, and audits will be done on whether any solutions have been found and, if so, how effective they have been and for how long. But along the way, people seem to forget one simple way into and around the whole issue of civic maintenance, be it road surfaces, garbage heaps or prices of essential commodities.
The ones directly impacted are the users, the customers, but the ones almost directly responsible for the problems are, in fact, the same users, customers.
Consider my horror some years ago, when I started commuting by the local trains – those amazingly efficient (especially considering the load they carry and the conditions they need to function in) metal worms that wind their way around my city transporting millions of commuters from one place to another – and found that personal space and habits lose all importance. I sat there watching life out the train window and inside the compartment, wondering at the number of people piling in and out of the bogies at breakneck speed. There were people spitting, throwing plastic bags, pieces of paper, fruit peels and who knows what else on to the rails, children squatting on the tracks doing a happy and thorough bowel-cleansing and, alongside, women cutting vegetables and meat, vendors selling fried snacks and cotton candy, stalls hawking assorted local medicines, hairclips, T-shirts and umbrellas and so much more.
When I started driving to work in my own car, I would see men in suits leaning back in fancy, foreign-labelled, chauffeur-driven limousines casually tossing empty plastic mineral water bottles out of the window, women glittering with diamonds and immaculate manicures flicking things out of their cars – biscuit packets, magazine tags, plastic bags, even orange peels and chocolate wrappers.
And there will be the civic authorities, made responsible for the task of getting the city’s infrastructure working to par. Highly placed officials finance their luxury homes and travel jaunts abroad with bribes taken to ignore the quality of the asphalt used to pave the streets. Contractors responsible for getting the job done, be it resurfacing the roads or installing safety devices for a metro-railway will use the payments they receive to make their own lives more comfortable, compromising on the effectiveness of whatever task they are assigned, and putting so many lives at risk.
Huge budgets allocated for making my city – or, indeed, so many others all over the world – a better place to live and work in will be used to line pockets of those who hardly deserve the rather dubious honour, destroying any chance of making life better for those who provided the money by paying taxes or creating corpus funds.
The result? Backaches, headaches, miscarriages, accidents, deaths.
Roads once built and surfaced should stay that way for a few years, if not decades, able to withstand the onslaught of heavy container trucks and the lightest of footfalls from a beauty queen alike. Instead, one shower of rain and the potholes appear, reappear, and again. The sand is washed away, the bricks come bursting out and it is as if nothing has been fixed, nothing is built to last, nothing has been done to make life better, nothing changes.
I was out yesterday and most of the time, trying to navigate the roads of my city, Mumbai. It was not just a time-consuming effort, given the traffic bogging up every street, but also a rather painful one. This, because at every six or so paces or so the car dipped in and out of a pothole, often unexpected, that bane of the Mumbai municipality’s infrastructural department.
There were, of course, alternatives to sitting in a comfortable automobile doing little more than checking text messages or talking gently to the driver and my co-passenger. I could have started a small business in milkshakes, adding flavour to milk and letting it froth happily in the spin, whirl and rattle of the road against the wheels. I could have started a whole range of milk products, really, churning butter in the boot, fluffing up espresso in the front seat and making cheese under the hood. But the fallout of all my mad entrepreneurial thoughts? And that long bumpy trip in the car: a severe backache, a cricked neck, stiff legs and a whacking great headache.
The main topic of discussion these days in any home from almost any socio-economic stratum is the state of the city and its various essential services. In other words, whatever affects the ordinary resident of the megalopolis, from the price of milk to the number of potholes to the collection of garbage to overall cleanliness is up there for hot debate that can include everything from curses to the government in general to vexed noises about the vegetable market that tends to accumulate garbage and thus pests and thus illness.
And along the way there will be many rude words said, many dire predictions made, many what-ifs and opinions aired. Reams of newsprint and hours of airtime will be occupied with the ramifications of the problem, and audits will be done on whether any solutions have been found and, if so, how effective they have been and for how long. But along the way, people seem to forget one simple way into and around the whole issue of civic maintenance, be it road surfaces, garbage heaps or prices of essential commodities.
The ones directly impacted are the users, the customers, but the ones almost directly responsible for the problems are, in fact, the same users, customers.
Consider my horror some years ago, when I started commuting by the local trains – those amazingly efficient (especially considering the load they carry and the conditions they need to function in) metal worms that wind their way around my city transporting millions of commuters from one place to another – and found that personal space and habits lose all importance. I sat there watching life out the train window and inside the compartment, wondering at the number of people piling in and out of the bogies at breakneck speed. There were people spitting, throwing plastic bags, pieces of paper, fruit peels and who knows what else on to the rails, children squatting on the tracks doing a happy and thorough bowel-cleansing and, alongside, women cutting vegetables and meat, vendors selling fried snacks and cotton candy, stalls hawking assorted local medicines, hairclips, T-shirts and umbrellas and so much more.
When I started driving to work in my own car, I would see men in suits leaning back in fancy, foreign-labelled, chauffeur-driven limousines casually tossing empty plastic mineral water bottles out of the window, women glittering with diamonds and immaculate manicures flicking things out of their cars – biscuit packets, magazine tags, plastic bags, even orange peels and chocolate wrappers.
And there will be the civic authorities, made responsible for the task of getting the city’s infrastructure working to par. Highly placed officials finance their luxury homes and travel jaunts abroad with bribes taken to ignore the quality of the asphalt used to pave the streets. Contractors responsible for getting the job done, be it resurfacing the roads or installing safety devices for a metro-railway will use the payments they receive to make their own lives more comfortable, compromising on the effectiveness of whatever task they are assigned, and putting so many lives at risk.
Huge budgets allocated for making my city – or, indeed, so many others all over the world – a better place to live and work in will be used to line pockets of those who hardly deserve the rather dubious honour, destroying any chance of making life better for those who provided the money by paying taxes or creating corpus funds.
The result? Backaches, headaches, miscarriages, accidents, deaths.
Roads once built and surfaced should stay that way for a few years, if not decades, able to withstand the onslaught of heavy container trucks and the lightest of footfalls from a beauty queen alike. Instead, one shower of rain and the potholes appear, reappear, and again. The sand is washed away, the bricks come bursting out and it is as if nothing has been fixed, nothing is built to last, nothing has been done to make life better, nothing changes.
Style vs substance
(bdnews24.com, July 29, 2011)
The Indian media has been buzzing madly with news and views on the visit of Hina Rabbani Khar to India. She landed at Delhi airport a few days ago with all the noise and fanfare that only a young and good looking woman from a traditionally male-dominated country with a history of hostility with our nation can drum up.
We the media, in various ways and various means, were waiting with anticipation and breath baited (literally) with speculation, and came up with all sorts of reasons for her appointment as foreign minister of Pakistan, known more for its restrictive Islamist attitudes towards the fairer sex rather than equality or even any degree of suffragette-like freedom.
Most believe that it is cosmetic — a token gesture to please the western world who expects sexual parity, at least to some extent. Some believe that it is due to the fact that Ms Khar comes from a very wealthy and extremely influential family, which could help the political balance in Pakistan tip in favour of those connected with that same family. And a few believe that she actually will do the nation and its rather troubled image some good, that she is a shrewd politician, a sharp operator and a very clever negotiator with carefully honed skills in observation and analysis.
And her speeches have certainly been clever and careful. She arrived in India last Tuesday to meet and talk to Indian foreign minister SM Krishna, with the optimistic statement hoping that India and Pakistan can “move forward… that these two countries have learnt lessons from history, but are not burdened by history and we can move forward as good, friendly neighbours who have a stake in each other’s future and both the countries understand their responsibilities to the region and within the region”, she said, with doubtful English but earnest intent.
And the meeting and talking was with some focus on bilateral issues, from confidence building between the two nations, to India’s concerns on terror attacks and on the Jammu and Kashmir argument (to put it mildly). Ms Khar is understood to have said to the Pakistan media that she and her government are looking forward to “pro-active, productive and result-oriented engagement” with our nation on everything that is planned for discussion.
Along the way, peace has always held centre stage. According to Ms Khar, both India and Pakistan are determined to commit to an “uninterrupted and uninterruptible peace process”, something that is often and tragically interrupted at frequent intervals by a terrorist incursion and attack on (usually) Indian soil, leaving us as a people and a nation stunned and shocked to the point that any trouble that cannot be accounted for as perpetrated by any single individual is automatically and inevitably blamed on Pakistan, its government, its government-supported militants or anything in that context.
So the meeting that Ms Khar had with the Hurriyat leaders could be a matter for concern, though the powers-that-be insist that it will have no effect on the peace process in general. According to the Dawn, “What Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and SM Krishna, her Indian counterpart, have achieved arouses hopes for a tension-free relationship between the two South Asian neighbours.” We can only keep our fingers crossed that media optimism is indeed made concrete with deed rather than merely word.
In this very sunny environment, however, there is a note of caution that needs to be sounded, clear and very loud. The media in India, whether local or international, seem to prefer seeing Ms Khar as a glamorous female presence rather than a woman of substance, one who was in India for a definite, important and very necessary process. Her star power, her fashion statement, her sunglasses…all theses became much more important than why she was actually here.
As one scathing and well-deserved editorial said, “Just how little was achieved at the summit is demonstrated by the fact that the talks themselves were a sideshow obscured by Khar’s star power. In just one day, she has become a bona fide celebrity in India, not for her diplomatic skills but for her looks, sense of style and pricey handbags.” Ms Khar’s presence was made notable for her Birkin bag, especially, which bodes well for the just-opened Hermes store in South Mumbai’s elite shopping precinct, but not happy for the diplomatic raison d’etre of her visit.
What is encouraging is that Ms Khar herself is not especially happy with her positioning as a ‘fashion icon’. She is reported to have been quite annoyed at the coverage in the press for her style and attitude, saying that “You see paparazzi are everywhere. Besides, you (media) should not do such acts.” And thereafter she refused to answer any more questions. So is she serious about her diplomatic intent doubted during her visit to India? We give her the benefit of the doubt, but wonder, especially since she does not have the experience that a diplomat ideally needs for this delicate job. But the Wall Street Journal said it all, with “From her blue tunic pants ensemble to her Roberto Cavalli shades, everything grabbed Indian eyeballs, with media coverage of her accessories practically overshadowing the India-Pakistan dialogue….”
And at the end of it all, the Hermes Birkin bag grabbed more headlines with the general public than Ms Khar did as foreign minister of Pakistan. And that, amazingly, amusingly, is how that cookie crumbled.
The Indian media has been buzzing madly with news and views on the visit of Hina Rabbani Khar to India. She landed at Delhi airport a few days ago with all the noise and fanfare that only a young and good looking woman from a traditionally male-dominated country with a history of hostility with our nation can drum up.
We the media, in various ways and various means, were waiting with anticipation and breath baited (literally) with speculation, and came up with all sorts of reasons for her appointment as foreign minister of Pakistan, known more for its restrictive Islamist attitudes towards the fairer sex rather than equality or even any degree of suffragette-like freedom.
Most believe that it is cosmetic — a token gesture to please the western world who expects sexual parity, at least to some extent. Some believe that it is due to the fact that Ms Khar comes from a very wealthy and extremely influential family, which could help the political balance in Pakistan tip in favour of those connected with that same family. And a few believe that she actually will do the nation and its rather troubled image some good, that she is a shrewd politician, a sharp operator and a very clever negotiator with carefully honed skills in observation and analysis.
And her speeches have certainly been clever and careful. She arrived in India last Tuesday to meet and talk to Indian foreign minister SM Krishna, with the optimistic statement hoping that India and Pakistan can “move forward… that these two countries have learnt lessons from history, but are not burdened by history and we can move forward as good, friendly neighbours who have a stake in each other’s future and both the countries understand their responsibilities to the region and within the region”, she said, with doubtful English but earnest intent.
And the meeting and talking was with some focus on bilateral issues, from confidence building between the two nations, to India’s concerns on terror attacks and on the Jammu and Kashmir argument (to put it mildly). Ms Khar is understood to have said to the Pakistan media that she and her government are looking forward to “pro-active, productive and result-oriented engagement” with our nation on everything that is planned for discussion.
Along the way, peace has always held centre stage. According to Ms Khar, both India and Pakistan are determined to commit to an “uninterrupted and uninterruptible peace process”, something that is often and tragically interrupted at frequent intervals by a terrorist incursion and attack on (usually) Indian soil, leaving us as a people and a nation stunned and shocked to the point that any trouble that cannot be accounted for as perpetrated by any single individual is automatically and inevitably blamed on Pakistan, its government, its government-supported militants or anything in that context.
So the meeting that Ms Khar had with the Hurriyat leaders could be a matter for concern, though the powers-that-be insist that it will have no effect on the peace process in general. According to the Dawn, “What Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and SM Krishna, her Indian counterpart, have achieved arouses hopes for a tension-free relationship between the two South Asian neighbours.” We can only keep our fingers crossed that media optimism is indeed made concrete with deed rather than merely word.
In this very sunny environment, however, there is a note of caution that needs to be sounded, clear and very loud. The media in India, whether local or international, seem to prefer seeing Ms Khar as a glamorous female presence rather than a woman of substance, one who was in India for a definite, important and very necessary process. Her star power, her fashion statement, her sunglasses…all theses became much more important than why she was actually here.
As one scathing and well-deserved editorial said, “Just how little was achieved at the summit is demonstrated by the fact that the talks themselves were a sideshow obscured by Khar’s star power. In just one day, she has become a bona fide celebrity in India, not for her diplomatic skills but for her looks, sense of style and pricey handbags.” Ms Khar’s presence was made notable for her Birkin bag, especially, which bodes well for the just-opened Hermes store in South Mumbai’s elite shopping precinct, but not happy for the diplomatic raison d’etre of her visit.
What is encouraging is that Ms Khar herself is not especially happy with her positioning as a ‘fashion icon’. She is reported to have been quite annoyed at the coverage in the press for her style and attitude, saying that “You see paparazzi are everywhere. Besides, you (media) should not do such acts.” And thereafter she refused to answer any more questions. So is she serious about her diplomatic intent doubted during her visit to India? We give her the benefit of the doubt, but wonder, especially since she does not have the experience that a diplomat ideally needs for this delicate job. But the Wall Street Journal said it all, with “From her blue tunic pants ensemble to her Roberto Cavalli shades, everything grabbed Indian eyeballs, with media coverage of her accessories practically overshadowing the India-Pakistan dialogue….”
And at the end of it all, the Hermes Birkin bag grabbed more headlines with the general public than Ms Khar did as foreign minister of Pakistan. And that, amazingly, amusingly, is how that cookie crumbled.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Living with virtuality
(The Hindu Sunday Magazine, July 24, 2011)
With his latest show on in London, artist Baiju Parthan reflects on how his exploration of mythology and technology contributes to his art.
He once floated through the halls of a media house, his glasses glinting with an almost-childlike glee as he saw the world from a different perspective. Baiju Parthan drew, he said mildly. From his prolific pen and fertile mind came illustrations that seemed otherworldly, often surreal, bizarre, from a reality that was not easy to visualise, leave alone comprehend; until suddenly, startlingly, it all came together brilliantly. And then he vanished, as suddenly, emerging anew as an artist with the same view of his world, his art selling like the proverbial hotcakes; his image as an artist soaring, albeit in the same gentle, detached, off-earthly way that he always seemed to have around him.
Tell him this and he will laugh, still gently, vaguely embarrassed. He lives in a world that to him is real, though perhaps not always practical, and he sees his art and his former job in the same light.
“I haven't categorised it as ‘practical', but respond to a kind of feedback from the condition I live in. At one point in time I needed to survive, but those conditions changed when the job became non-essential. I am not saying that I did not have that idealistic notion when I was a student, that art was art and life were separate and that one should not sell art, etc., but I started looking at it differently. When you are a student you are full of idealism and when you are out of college, you are full of realism. Unless, of course, your tummy is full, you can't produce art!”
Learning something new
Study is a fact of life for Parthan, even today, ‘established' as he is as a reputed artist. But to call him an ‘intellectual', as many do, makes him blush. “The intellectual side was nurtured when I was a student; I kept on studying, enrolled for distance learning courses. It is a personal quirk of mine; I believe that as long as you keep learning something new, you feel young and hopeful. But I do not think I am an ‘intellectual' in the sense of someone who is possessed with the notion of ideas. I am interested in knowledge.” And he is also passionate about science, technology and the realm that computers have opened up to him. “I work essentially with 3D graphics directly linked with animation and virtual reality. I am now learning a bit of programming with Python, a scripted language used in 3D procedural animation.”
This kind of not-all-there air hides a very sharp mind that is open and absorbing. And that has come from his youth, reveals Parthan, who is originally from Kerala but studied art in Goa. “I came from a very Marxian background with extremely well defined ideas to conform to social norms. I met this group of people that were the opposite and were much happier and for the first time I realised that I had a choice. This changed me. I was exposed to a lot of not-so-mainstream literature that was mind-bending and loosened up my ideas of the world. I did get very interested in anthropological studies, sculpture, mythology, all adding to my artistic growth.” And he created his own reality in the process. As Parthan says, “Reality is what you make of it; it is up to you to extract meaning from it, depending on the peculiarities of your perceptual framework. You see the world depending on who you are and what you are. My whole idea of art itself got shaken up, almost 30 years ago. We were taught Western art history, as part of the curriculum; I was quite disillusioned that you had to be of British or Western origin to be an artist of substance. That was when I started becoming realist and earned a living.”
From there on, it was all about exploration for Parthan. “At some point I got deeply involved in philosophy: the definition of the self in the western and eastern modes of thinking. The western self is self-aware and separated from what is around to become what you are; the eastern is more an inclusion that makes you what you are. The eastern self is also more inclined towards metaphysical thinking, while the western sees cause and effect. The way the self is organized defines how you make art.” His own quest is something to do with knowledge “Every new piece of knowledge, once imbibed, can never be undone. I try and transform myself through learning…how far you can extend yourself into yourself, your immediate family, the community, the nation. I have lived in a personal bubble, totally involved with my own pursuits ... job, art, whatever. One blocks out the environment to do what one is doing. At some point I decided that maybe I was being unfair to the rest of my life.”
Symbiotic
His interest in technology, married to his passion for mythology is reflected in his art. Parthan sees them as symbiotic. “I think technology and mythology feed off each other. I am always hunting for metaphors that can be translated into symbols used in art. I studied mythology and got a chance to pit different systems against each other and find motifs like the hero myth, creation, etc. I am a hardcore science fiction junkie – that is where the two meet for me. Metaphysical becomes science fiction – Matrix is essentially the hero myth in a cyberpunk environment! You start finding parallels in these worlds.” All narratives are indirectly quests of some kind. I enjoy the whole aspect of technology because it shifts perceptions, makes us extend our own selves in newer ways into the environment we live in.”
The Show
Dislocation: Milljunction Part II @ Aicon Gallery, London, July 15 – August 20, 2011.
Baiju Parthan's new show at the Aicon Gallery in London is a solo, Dislocation: Milljunction Part II, which includes painting, photography, video and lenticular prints. Different styles of painting coexist within a single frame in some works, while in others, there seems to be a time-space continuum, with two different realities working together. There is a mirror effect in some; in others, computer code races vertically. Which world are you in, as a viewer? Are you in today or a time that is long past, that may not actually have existed? And should you be joyous, maddened, angered or just plain confused? That depends on you. Parthan just handles the controls in a subtle, clever, almost disturbing manner.
The artist explains: “This is actually part two of my solo, Mill Junction, held in New York in March, 2010. It was originally planned as a dual location show simultaneously opening in two venues of the Aicon Gallery, but I couldn't come up with the required number of works at the time. Hence the slightly modified title - Displacement- Mill Junction 2. It is about 'Bombay/Mumbai' as a city that exists in retrospect, solely as memory or recollection. It is also about how these memories get erased or modified through technological and social change.” Parthan uses the city's iconic presences to describe the vestiges of a fast-changing cityscape. “The most coherent aspect of Bombay is the mill area – there's really no coherence otherwise through the city, since so many people live so many lives. In all Bollywood movies, the early black and white ones especially, the mill and the worker is so prominent. I haven't lived here during that time, but the vestiges of that reality still exist, seen in the symbols and motifs strewn around. As we move forward in time, the motifs vanish gradually – the mills become towers, the taxis give way to cars. I am trying to relate to them more personally, making a point of view.”
The show has “paintings as well as modified photographs or photoworks, a combination of photographs and 3D graphics elements. The paintings form a series of ‘soft graffiti' and are derived from photographic references. The paintings are intentionally defaced with over-painted ASCII computer code - today the (digital) photograph is actually a document made up of ASCII code which is parsed/translated into the image by the computer.” Three photo-works titled Lunch Break present the city environment from the vantage point of someone engaged in a First Person Shooter game (FPS computer games), an oblique reference to the vandalism the city is often subjected to by some political party or the other. Two large photoworks Titled Chorus and Monument are lenticular prints that create a virtual 3D-like space.
According to Parthan, “The show is also about the softening of our reality experience as information/digital technology and economy conquers every domain of human activity. Probably this is the first time in our intellectual history that we have two categories of reality overlapping each other – virtual and real - we have augmented our reality with virtuality.” But the virtual transactions that we do, from paying bills to shopping to social networking, which happen away from hard-edged physical reality, soften the experience of everyday reality.
With his latest show on in London, artist Baiju Parthan reflects on how his exploration of mythology and technology contributes to his art.
He once floated through the halls of a media house, his glasses glinting with an almost-childlike glee as he saw the world from a different perspective. Baiju Parthan drew, he said mildly. From his prolific pen and fertile mind came illustrations that seemed otherworldly, often surreal, bizarre, from a reality that was not easy to visualise, leave alone comprehend; until suddenly, startlingly, it all came together brilliantly. And then he vanished, as suddenly, emerging anew as an artist with the same view of his world, his art selling like the proverbial hotcakes; his image as an artist soaring, albeit in the same gentle, detached, off-earthly way that he always seemed to have around him.
Tell him this and he will laugh, still gently, vaguely embarrassed. He lives in a world that to him is real, though perhaps not always practical, and he sees his art and his former job in the same light.
“I haven't categorised it as ‘practical', but respond to a kind of feedback from the condition I live in. At one point in time I needed to survive, but those conditions changed when the job became non-essential. I am not saying that I did not have that idealistic notion when I was a student, that art was art and life were separate and that one should not sell art, etc., but I started looking at it differently. When you are a student you are full of idealism and when you are out of college, you are full of realism. Unless, of course, your tummy is full, you can't produce art!”
Learning something new
Study is a fact of life for Parthan, even today, ‘established' as he is as a reputed artist. But to call him an ‘intellectual', as many do, makes him blush. “The intellectual side was nurtured when I was a student; I kept on studying, enrolled for distance learning courses. It is a personal quirk of mine; I believe that as long as you keep learning something new, you feel young and hopeful. But I do not think I am an ‘intellectual' in the sense of someone who is possessed with the notion of ideas. I am interested in knowledge.” And he is also passionate about science, technology and the realm that computers have opened up to him. “I work essentially with 3D graphics directly linked with animation and virtual reality. I am now learning a bit of programming with Python, a scripted language used in 3D procedural animation.”
This kind of not-all-there air hides a very sharp mind that is open and absorbing. And that has come from his youth, reveals Parthan, who is originally from Kerala but studied art in Goa. “I came from a very Marxian background with extremely well defined ideas to conform to social norms. I met this group of people that were the opposite and were much happier and for the first time I realised that I had a choice. This changed me. I was exposed to a lot of not-so-mainstream literature that was mind-bending and loosened up my ideas of the world. I did get very interested in anthropological studies, sculpture, mythology, all adding to my artistic growth.” And he created his own reality in the process. As Parthan says, “Reality is what you make of it; it is up to you to extract meaning from it, depending on the peculiarities of your perceptual framework. You see the world depending on who you are and what you are. My whole idea of art itself got shaken up, almost 30 years ago. We were taught Western art history, as part of the curriculum; I was quite disillusioned that you had to be of British or Western origin to be an artist of substance. That was when I started becoming realist and earned a living.”
From there on, it was all about exploration for Parthan. “At some point I got deeply involved in philosophy: the definition of the self in the western and eastern modes of thinking. The western self is self-aware and separated from what is around to become what you are; the eastern is more an inclusion that makes you what you are. The eastern self is also more inclined towards metaphysical thinking, while the western sees cause and effect. The way the self is organized defines how you make art.” His own quest is something to do with knowledge “Every new piece of knowledge, once imbibed, can never be undone. I try and transform myself through learning…how far you can extend yourself into yourself, your immediate family, the community, the nation. I have lived in a personal bubble, totally involved with my own pursuits ... job, art, whatever. One blocks out the environment to do what one is doing. At some point I decided that maybe I was being unfair to the rest of my life.”
Symbiotic
His interest in technology, married to his passion for mythology is reflected in his art. Parthan sees them as symbiotic. “I think technology and mythology feed off each other. I am always hunting for metaphors that can be translated into symbols used in art. I studied mythology and got a chance to pit different systems against each other and find motifs like the hero myth, creation, etc. I am a hardcore science fiction junkie – that is where the two meet for me. Metaphysical becomes science fiction – Matrix is essentially the hero myth in a cyberpunk environment! You start finding parallels in these worlds.” All narratives are indirectly quests of some kind. I enjoy the whole aspect of technology because it shifts perceptions, makes us extend our own selves in newer ways into the environment we live in.”
The Show
Dislocation: Milljunction Part II @ Aicon Gallery, London, July 15 – August 20, 2011.
Baiju Parthan's new show at the Aicon Gallery in London is a solo, Dislocation: Milljunction Part II, which includes painting, photography, video and lenticular prints. Different styles of painting coexist within a single frame in some works, while in others, there seems to be a time-space continuum, with two different realities working together. There is a mirror effect in some; in others, computer code races vertically. Which world are you in, as a viewer? Are you in today or a time that is long past, that may not actually have existed? And should you be joyous, maddened, angered or just plain confused? That depends on you. Parthan just handles the controls in a subtle, clever, almost disturbing manner.
The artist explains: “This is actually part two of my solo, Mill Junction, held in New York in March, 2010. It was originally planned as a dual location show simultaneously opening in two venues of the Aicon Gallery, but I couldn't come up with the required number of works at the time. Hence the slightly modified title - Displacement- Mill Junction 2. It is about 'Bombay/Mumbai' as a city that exists in retrospect, solely as memory or recollection. It is also about how these memories get erased or modified through technological and social change.” Parthan uses the city's iconic presences to describe the vestiges of a fast-changing cityscape. “The most coherent aspect of Bombay is the mill area – there's really no coherence otherwise through the city, since so many people live so many lives. In all Bollywood movies, the early black and white ones especially, the mill and the worker is so prominent. I haven't lived here during that time, but the vestiges of that reality still exist, seen in the symbols and motifs strewn around. As we move forward in time, the motifs vanish gradually – the mills become towers, the taxis give way to cars. I am trying to relate to them more personally, making a point of view.”
The show has “paintings as well as modified photographs or photoworks, a combination of photographs and 3D graphics elements. The paintings form a series of ‘soft graffiti' and are derived from photographic references. The paintings are intentionally defaced with over-painted ASCII computer code - today the (digital) photograph is actually a document made up of ASCII code which is parsed/translated into the image by the computer.” Three photo-works titled Lunch Break present the city environment from the vantage point of someone engaged in a First Person Shooter game (FPS computer games), an oblique reference to the vandalism the city is often subjected to by some political party or the other. Two large photoworks Titled Chorus and Monument are lenticular prints that create a virtual 3D-like space.
According to Parthan, “The show is also about the softening of our reality experience as information/digital technology and economy conquers every domain of human activity. Probably this is the first time in our intellectual history that we have two categories of reality overlapping each other – virtual and real - we have augmented our reality with virtuality.” But the virtual transactions that we do, from paying bills to shopping to social networking, which happen away from hard-edged physical reality, soften the experience of everyday reality.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
The new Iron Lady comes to tea
(bdnews24.com, July 22, 2011)
She came, she saw, she spoke and she conquered a few sceptics with her neat logic and undoubted enthusiasm. But Hillary Clinton’s main strength is perhaps her genuine interest in my country, India. She was here earlier this week, speaking of many issues that concerned not only India and the United States as friends and political allies, such as they are, but the subcontinent as a whole and its people in general. While the eyes of the world were fixed on her clothes, her hair, her mien and her handshakes, we looked into what she was saying and wondered whether it was more eyewash than concrete plans to get things moving, to make this part of the world a safer place to live in, to change certain realities that, for the world, are not exactly positive and progressive.
Clinton’s speech wherever she went focussed on her “vision for the 21st century” and the desire of the United States to “forge multi-faceted ties with India”. Her reason: “We understand that much of the history of the 21st century will be written in Asia…and that much of the future of Asia will be shaped by decisions not just by the Indian government but by governments across India and by the 1.3 billion people who live in this country,” according to her and so, presumably, her government. Even as China is a nation that has perhaps the strongest and more enduring ties with the United States, a fact that has been proven again and again through time, we found – as we have known for a while – that the American politic looks at us to be a “steward” in the region, a presence that will set the standards and the rules for the behaviour of governments across this part of the world. And the reason for this is fairly simple, one that we well recognise and accept as fact: India is, after all, the largest country in the subcontinent and can channel that power into being the most influential. If we do things right, that is.
But one aspect of existence in the region is of concern now, has been for a while and will remain so, until it is dealt with in a more effective and permanent manner: counter-terrorism. This was the prime focus this time, since Mumbai became the victim of terrorism once again just a few days ago, when three bombs exploded in the most crowded parts of the city, one quickly after the other…and then the third. The United States, in a message and via Clinton, has once again pledged its full support to Indian efforts to deal with terrorist threats and with security to prevent such activities, and has also promised to stress the point with Pakistan – often the first suspect in any terror events on Indian soil – in its drive to ‘clean up’ the region. In this direction, Clinton has suggested that India should be more proactive and strong in its responses to any threats and actions that jeopardise the security of the subcontinent.
As she put it, “India’s leadership has the potential to positively shape the future of the Asia-Pacific… and we encourage you not just to look east, but continue to engage and act east as well,” and play its role as an ally of the United States in regional meets such as ASEAN and the East Asia Summit planned for later this year. As she said, “We are betting that India’s vibrant pluralistic society will inspire others to follow a similar path of tolerance. We are making this bet not out of blind faith but because we have watched your progress with great admiration.”
On the whole, Clinton’s visit to my country was seen as a positive one, full of promise for the future and for increased interactions and cooperation between India and the United States, And she left us with three key agreements: an “end-use monitoring” deal that will give the United States the ability and freedom to track arms supplies to India to ensure that there is no further trade in these weapons to third and perhaps hostile elements. The technical-safeguards agreement is set to give India the capability of launching non-commercial satellites containing American components, in conjunction with a science and technology cooperation agreement. And there will be, as there tends to be, a strategic dialogue on a whole range of issues – from education to climate change, terrorism to nuclear non-proliferation.
All this sounds great, especially in the light of the current political situation and the goal that India has of earning a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. But who gets the better deal in this set of bargains? It sounds as if the United States is giving more than it is getting, but that country has not achieved its power and position in the world political scenario by being altruistic. Somewhere along the way, we have to be sure that we have not got hold of the short end of the stick and that we are indeed the power that Hillary Clinton has told us we are. And, if we are, we need to be sure that we know how to use it, be truly powerful, without abusing what we are and what we can be…
She came, she saw, she spoke and she conquered a few sceptics with her neat logic and undoubted enthusiasm. But Hillary Clinton’s main strength is perhaps her genuine interest in my country, India. She was here earlier this week, speaking of many issues that concerned not only India and the United States as friends and political allies, such as they are, but the subcontinent as a whole and its people in general. While the eyes of the world were fixed on her clothes, her hair, her mien and her handshakes, we looked into what she was saying and wondered whether it was more eyewash than concrete plans to get things moving, to make this part of the world a safer place to live in, to change certain realities that, for the world, are not exactly positive and progressive.
Clinton’s speech wherever she went focussed on her “vision for the 21st century” and the desire of the United States to “forge multi-faceted ties with India”. Her reason: “We understand that much of the history of the 21st century will be written in Asia…and that much of the future of Asia will be shaped by decisions not just by the Indian government but by governments across India and by the 1.3 billion people who live in this country,” according to her and so, presumably, her government. Even as China is a nation that has perhaps the strongest and more enduring ties with the United States, a fact that has been proven again and again through time, we found – as we have known for a while – that the American politic looks at us to be a “steward” in the region, a presence that will set the standards and the rules for the behaviour of governments across this part of the world. And the reason for this is fairly simple, one that we well recognise and accept as fact: India is, after all, the largest country in the subcontinent and can channel that power into being the most influential. If we do things right, that is.
But one aspect of existence in the region is of concern now, has been for a while and will remain so, until it is dealt with in a more effective and permanent manner: counter-terrorism. This was the prime focus this time, since Mumbai became the victim of terrorism once again just a few days ago, when three bombs exploded in the most crowded parts of the city, one quickly after the other…and then the third. The United States, in a message and via Clinton, has once again pledged its full support to Indian efforts to deal with terrorist threats and with security to prevent such activities, and has also promised to stress the point with Pakistan – often the first suspect in any terror events on Indian soil – in its drive to ‘clean up’ the region. In this direction, Clinton has suggested that India should be more proactive and strong in its responses to any threats and actions that jeopardise the security of the subcontinent.
As she put it, “India’s leadership has the potential to positively shape the future of the Asia-Pacific… and we encourage you not just to look east, but continue to engage and act east as well,” and play its role as an ally of the United States in regional meets such as ASEAN and the East Asia Summit planned for later this year. As she said, “We are betting that India’s vibrant pluralistic society will inspire others to follow a similar path of tolerance. We are making this bet not out of blind faith but because we have watched your progress with great admiration.”
On the whole, Clinton’s visit to my country was seen as a positive one, full of promise for the future and for increased interactions and cooperation between India and the United States, And she left us with three key agreements: an “end-use monitoring” deal that will give the United States the ability and freedom to track arms supplies to India to ensure that there is no further trade in these weapons to third and perhaps hostile elements. The technical-safeguards agreement is set to give India the capability of launching non-commercial satellites containing American components, in conjunction with a science and technology cooperation agreement. And there will be, as there tends to be, a strategic dialogue on a whole range of issues – from education to climate change, terrorism to nuclear non-proliferation.
All this sounds great, especially in the light of the current political situation and the goal that India has of earning a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. But who gets the better deal in this set of bargains? It sounds as if the United States is giving more than it is getting, but that country has not achieved its power and position in the world political scenario by being altruistic. Somewhere along the way, we have to be sure that we have not got hold of the short end of the stick and that we are indeed the power that Hillary Clinton has told us we are. And, if we are, we need to be sure that we know how to use it, be truly powerful, without abusing what we are and what we can be…
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Blood on the streets, again
(bdnews24.com, July 15, 2011)
It seems to be a never-ending story. Back in 1993, about 18 years ago, a series of bombs went off across the city of Mumbai – or Bombay, as it still was then. I was in the city then, doing a little shopping very close to the Stock Exchange building, where the blast tore through the side of the fairly new tower. Not too far away, another bomb went off, blowing a hole into the base of the Air India building, a South Mumbai landmark and part of what is considered among the most expensive real estate in the world. In quick succession, there were more bombs and more deaths – near the Passport Office, near a gas station, at a hotel, in a crowded market. In all, 13 bombs went off. When the carnage was over, the bodies were counted. About 700 people were hurt, some very seriously; about 250 people died.
A few years later, it seemed to be happening again. Between 1997 and 2003, there were 9 reported bomb blasts, with about 29 people dead and 199 injured. Par for the course, some would say, and certainly far fewer than the number killed or hurt in everyday accidents, illness or criminal acts. And then came August 2003, when twin blasts echoed through the mean streets of my city, leaving 50 dead and 150, at least, badly hurt. About three years later, seven bombs went off in local trains, the city’s commuter network, injuring 890 and killing 181. This was in 2006.
In 2008, November 26, something happened that shook not just the city, but the world. Terrorists attacked Mumbai, choosing crowded locations to kill and shock; the difference: this time, the targets were elitist enclaves too, two multi-star hotels – the Taj Mahal and the Trident – as well as the main railway station, our historic Victoria Terminus, now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. At the end of the three days that the attack lasted, 166 had died, over 300 were injured.
And now it is as if those black days have come back. Two days ago, on July 13, three bombs went off in my city. The first, at 6:45 pm, blew up at the very crowded Zaveri Bazaar, in the heart of the diamond market. The second, at 6:46 pm, blasted into the evening crowds at Opera House, just outside the main diamond export centre. The third, at 7:05 pm, occurred at the Kabutar Khana in Dadar, near a key railway terminus.
The sites were well chosen – there would be people milling, pushing and shoving to get to their trains or buses to go home, not really noticing anyone who did not belong, who was acting in any way unusually, who carried a high-intensity explosive designed to destroy. When the sound of the pouring rain could be heard again, before the sounds of pain and death echoed through the blood-soaked streets, 18 people had died; 131 were being treated for injuries, some life-threatening. No one had seen it coming; there were no warnings at all, the government insists. Nothing could have been done.
But there is something that could be done, at least now. While various government bodies, parties and politicians debate the who, where, why, what and how of the whole nightmare, we are citizens of India’s commercial capital – and we as citizens of the country and the world, in general – can do something to make ourselves and our lives and loves safer. To start with, for the moment, we can all stop blaming each other and the authorities and deal with the situation as it is now, as people have so valiantly been doing ever since that first drop of blood spattered on the ground. We can all stop pointing fingers at terrorist groups – be it Al-Quaeda, Lashkar-e-taiba, Indian Mujahideen, whatever, whoever – and at the government that we think is not doing enough, and take a good hard look at what we may be doing wrong.
Hang on, I am not saying that we are to blame. All I am saying is that we are not helping any by playing the blame game and shoving responsibility on to other people. We need to look at what we are doing – or not, really – to keep ourselves, our surroundings and our city (or cities) safe. We still pack a lot into very little where space is concerned; true, we need to, but there is a neat and clean and SAFE way to do that, too, where there are escape routes, where anything untoward would be noticed, where clutter is not a way of life, but a temporary inconvenience that does, indeed, stay strictly temporary and is cleared out within minutes or at least hours.
We need, regrettably, to be a little less accepting of strangers and what they are doing, not just in the community, or the city as a whole, but as a nation, making sure that those who want access to our world are worthy of existing in it.
There is so much more that we can do, but so little that we actually do. But we need to learn to do it, as much as I need to learn to do it, soon, before the next bomb goes off in this city that is my home.
It seems to be a never-ending story. Back in 1993, about 18 years ago, a series of bombs went off across the city of Mumbai – or Bombay, as it still was then. I was in the city then, doing a little shopping very close to the Stock Exchange building, where the blast tore through the side of the fairly new tower. Not too far away, another bomb went off, blowing a hole into the base of the Air India building, a South Mumbai landmark and part of what is considered among the most expensive real estate in the world. In quick succession, there were more bombs and more deaths – near the Passport Office, near a gas station, at a hotel, in a crowded market. In all, 13 bombs went off. When the carnage was over, the bodies were counted. About 700 people were hurt, some very seriously; about 250 people died.
A few years later, it seemed to be happening again. Between 1997 and 2003, there were 9 reported bomb blasts, with about 29 people dead and 199 injured. Par for the course, some would say, and certainly far fewer than the number killed or hurt in everyday accidents, illness or criminal acts. And then came August 2003, when twin blasts echoed through the mean streets of my city, leaving 50 dead and 150, at least, badly hurt. About three years later, seven bombs went off in local trains, the city’s commuter network, injuring 890 and killing 181. This was in 2006.
In 2008, November 26, something happened that shook not just the city, but the world. Terrorists attacked Mumbai, choosing crowded locations to kill and shock; the difference: this time, the targets were elitist enclaves too, two multi-star hotels – the Taj Mahal and the Trident – as well as the main railway station, our historic Victoria Terminus, now known as Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. At the end of the three days that the attack lasted, 166 had died, over 300 were injured.
And now it is as if those black days have come back. Two days ago, on July 13, three bombs went off in my city. The first, at 6:45 pm, blew up at the very crowded Zaveri Bazaar, in the heart of the diamond market. The second, at 6:46 pm, blasted into the evening crowds at Opera House, just outside the main diamond export centre. The third, at 7:05 pm, occurred at the Kabutar Khana in Dadar, near a key railway terminus.
The sites were well chosen – there would be people milling, pushing and shoving to get to their trains or buses to go home, not really noticing anyone who did not belong, who was acting in any way unusually, who carried a high-intensity explosive designed to destroy. When the sound of the pouring rain could be heard again, before the sounds of pain and death echoed through the blood-soaked streets, 18 people had died; 131 were being treated for injuries, some life-threatening. No one had seen it coming; there were no warnings at all, the government insists. Nothing could have been done.
But there is something that could be done, at least now. While various government bodies, parties and politicians debate the who, where, why, what and how of the whole nightmare, we are citizens of India’s commercial capital – and we as citizens of the country and the world, in general – can do something to make ourselves and our lives and loves safer. To start with, for the moment, we can all stop blaming each other and the authorities and deal with the situation as it is now, as people have so valiantly been doing ever since that first drop of blood spattered on the ground. We can all stop pointing fingers at terrorist groups – be it Al-Quaeda, Lashkar-e-taiba, Indian Mujahideen, whatever, whoever – and at the government that we think is not doing enough, and take a good hard look at what we may be doing wrong.
Hang on, I am not saying that we are to blame. All I am saying is that we are not helping any by playing the blame game and shoving responsibility on to other people. We need to look at what we are doing – or not, really – to keep ourselves, our surroundings and our city (or cities) safe. We still pack a lot into very little where space is concerned; true, we need to, but there is a neat and clean and SAFE way to do that, too, where there are escape routes, where anything untoward would be noticed, where clutter is not a way of life, but a temporary inconvenience that does, indeed, stay strictly temporary and is cleared out within minutes or at least hours.
We need, regrettably, to be a little less accepting of strangers and what they are doing, not just in the community, or the city as a whole, but as a nation, making sure that those who want access to our world are worthy of existing in it.
There is so much more that we can do, but so little that we actually do. But we need to learn to do it, as much as I need to learn to do it, soon, before the next bomb goes off in this city that is my home.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Singing on the rain
(bdnews24.com, July 8, 2011)
The monsoon has just revived in Mumbai after a few weeks of muggy weather and people are celebrating. Yes, there are problems with flooded roads, stalled trains, water logging, slugs and worms, fungus, damp clothes, smelly carpets and much more, but it is that time of year when the temperatures suddenly and pleasurably drop after too long being too high, the earth and air smell fresh and clean and the water is cool and sweet. And even as the average Mumbaikar complains about the rain and says many rude words at having to travel to work in the wet, he or she will almost always start humming one or the other of the many songs that are associated with this time of year. And almost all of them will be from Bollywood productions.
Even I, who do not watch movies very often but run a film website with my team, have been heard bursting into song when the rain is coming down, preferably outside my window and not on my head. And when there is rain, when there is song, the two together will invariably spell romance, with a capital ‘R’, the kind that needs an umbrella built for two, the kind that is about chai and pakoras, the kind that doesn’t really need a significant other but works with one too.
Sometimes the rain reminds me of romance classic style. Like in Shri 420, when Nargis and Raj Kapoor sang Pyar hua ikrar hua hai. It is considered to be iconic of the genre, with two rain-washed faces gazing lovingly at each other under a large black umbrella. The couple under the shelter are soaking wet, but don’t seem to notice, and the rumoured real-life love story of the leading lady and gentleman (in those days they were, I am told!) made the scene even more romantic.
In contrast was the cutely funny ditty from Kishore Kumar’s Chalti ka Naam Gaadi, with the delectable Madhubala. As he sings, softly at first, then louder, Ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si, I never fail to smile, in empathy, in amusement, in some degree of wistful wishful thinking. There is such fun in the lyrics and such liveliness in the tune, and such a happy sound when the two come together to create one unforgettable moment!
More elaborate harmony and difficult vocals come with Rimjhim gire saawan, from Manzil. It comes in two versions, for male and female voice, and both are superb. The first, with Kishore Kumar, shows off the strength, the power, the force of the rain pounding down on the ground, on roofs, on bare heads, while the softer feminine version is more soulful, plaintive, gentle, with Lata Mangeshkar evoking visions of giggling girls, hot tea pouring into a cup, rain drizzling on flowers, the fresh wetness of grass tickling bare feet.
Lagaan had a more contemporary take on this, as the villagers wait for the long-delayed rain to give them and their fields and wells some respite from the heat and drought. As Aamir Khan and Gracy Singh join the rest of the community to sing Ghanan ghanan ghir ghir aye badara, in an AR Rahman composition, you can almost hear the rain rattling down on a wooden roof, pattering into an almost-empty well, drenching the cows and village folk alike as it soaks quickly into arid ground.
And then there is the seduction of the rain, a gentle, lazy, swaying kind of rhythm that lulls frazzled minds and nerves into soft lethargy. In Bheegi bheegi raaton main, from Ajnabee, Zeenat Aman manages to seduce Rajesh Khanna and everyone watching her – or even just listening to the song – with the gorgeous lyrics: Bheegi bheegi raaton main, meethi meethi baaton main aisi barsaaton main kaisa lagta hai? (in the rain-soaked nights, with sweet words and the monsoon season, how do you feel?). More seduction comes in the shape of a sexy Sridevi singing Kaate nahin katte in Mr India, with a mesmerised Anil Kapoor keeping her company, though invisibly as the object of his adoration sings Lo aaj main kehti hoon…I love you (Listen, I will say it today…I love you!)
But there are so many different ways to play in the rain, some of them a lot more energetic and young, maybe not even romantic, but great fun. In the Aamir Khan-Sonali Bendre starrer Sarfarosh, they sing to each other, Jo haal dil ka idhar ho raha hai (The condition of the heart that is happening here…), there is love, romance, seduction, fun, but all in a joking, jesting, teasing way, with a driving beat and very western tune. And Kareena Kapoor danced in the pouring rain to first try and seduce a rather staid Rahul Bose and then in sheer joy of being washed clean by the rain in Chameli, singing Beheta hai mann kahin, kahaan jaante nahin, koyi rokle yahin..Bhaage re mann kahin, in her character as a prostitute.
Of course, no writing on fun-filmi-fabulous rain songs would be complete without speaking of one that is not from Bollywood, but has that contemporary beat and a beautiful voice backing it – Shubha Mudgal’s Ab ke saawan aise barse…that one could inspire anyone to go running out to dance in the rain. Even me!
The monsoon has just revived in Mumbai after a few weeks of muggy weather and people are celebrating. Yes, there are problems with flooded roads, stalled trains, water logging, slugs and worms, fungus, damp clothes, smelly carpets and much more, but it is that time of year when the temperatures suddenly and pleasurably drop after too long being too high, the earth and air smell fresh and clean and the water is cool and sweet. And even as the average Mumbaikar complains about the rain and says many rude words at having to travel to work in the wet, he or she will almost always start humming one or the other of the many songs that are associated with this time of year. And almost all of them will be from Bollywood productions.
Even I, who do not watch movies very often but run a film website with my team, have been heard bursting into song when the rain is coming down, preferably outside my window and not on my head. And when there is rain, when there is song, the two together will invariably spell romance, with a capital ‘R’, the kind that needs an umbrella built for two, the kind that is about chai and pakoras, the kind that doesn’t really need a significant other but works with one too.
Sometimes the rain reminds me of romance classic style. Like in Shri 420, when Nargis and Raj Kapoor sang Pyar hua ikrar hua hai. It is considered to be iconic of the genre, with two rain-washed faces gazing lovingly at each other under a large black umbrella. The couple under the shelter are soaking wet, but don’t seem to notice, and the rumoured real-life love story of the leading lady and gentleman (in those days they were, I am told!) made the scene even more romantic.
In contrast was the cutely funny ditty from Kishore Kumar’s Chalti ka Naam Gaadi, with the delectable Madhubala. As he sings, softly at first, then louder, Ek ladki bheegi bhaagi si, I never fail to smile, in empathy, in amusement, in some degree of wistful wishful thinking. There is such fun in the lyrics and such liveliness in the tune, and such a happy sound when the two come together to create one unforgettable moment!
More elaborate harmony and difficult vocals come with Rimjhim gire saawan, from Manzil. It comes in two versions, for male and female voice, and both are superb. The first, with Kishore Kumar, shows off the strength, the power, the force of the rain pounding down on the ground, on roofs, on bare heads, while the softer feminine version is more soulful, plaintive, gentle, with Lata Mangeshkar evoking visions of giggling girls, hot tea pouring into a cup, rain drizzling on flowers, the fresh wetness of grass tickling bare feet.
Lagaan had a more contemporary take on this, as the villagers wait for the long-delayed rain to give them and their fields and wells some respite from the heat and drought. As Aamir Khan and Gracy Singh join the rest of the community to sing Ghanan ghanan ghir ghir aye badara, in an AR Rahman composition, you can almost hear the rain rattling down on a wooden roof, pattering into an almost-empty well, drenching the cows and village folk alike as it soaks quickly into arid ground.
And then there is the seduction of the rain, a gentle, lazy, swaying kind of rhythm that lulls frazzled minds and nerves into soft lethargy. In Bheegi bheegi raaton main, from Ajnabee, Zeenat Aman manages to seduce Rajesh Khanna and everyone watching her – or even just listening to the song – with the gorgeous lyrics: Bheegi bheegi raaton main, meethi meethi baaton main aisi barsaaton main kaisa lagta hai? (in the rain-soaked nights, with sweet words and the monsoon season, how do you feel?). More seduction comes in the shape of a sexy Sridevi singing Kaate nahin katte in Mr India, with a mesmerised Anil Kapoor keeping her company, though invisibly as the object of his adoration sings Lo aaj main kehti hoon…I love you (Listen, I will say it today…I love you!)
But there are so many different ways to play in the rain, some of them a lot more energetic and young, maybe not even romantic, but great fun. In the Aamir Khan-Sonali Bendre starrer Sarfarosh, they sing to each other, Jo haal dil ka idhar ho raha hai (The condition of the heart that is happening here…), there is love, romance, seduction, fun, but all in a joking, jesting, teasing way, with a driving beat and very western tune. And Kareena Kapoor danced in the pouring rain to first try and seduce a rather staid Rahul Bose and then in sheer joy of being washed clean by the rain in Chameli, singing Beheta hai mann kahin, kahaan jaante nahin, koyi rokle yahin..Bhaage re mann kahin, in her character as a prostitute.
Of course, no writing on fun-filmi-fabulous rain songs would be complete without speaking of one that is not from Bollywood, but has that contemporary beat and a beautiful voice backing it – Shubha Mudgal’s Ab ke saawan aise barse…that one could inspire anyone to go running out to dance in the rain. Even me!
Saturday, July 02, 2011
Book review
(The Hindu Magazine, June 18, 2011)
The Konkani Saraswat Cookbook by Asha S Philar
The perfect cookbook is easy to use. The perfect cookbook has lovely pictures that whet the appetite and culinary ambition, inspiring people to try the recipes in it. The perfect cookbook is made of the right paper; that is easy to write on, easy to read even through various identifiable and anonymous stains of spices, oils and the occasional singed hole. And the perfect cookbook has pages that stay open to a page; that can be turned with the handle of a ladle, wiped clean of spilled stock or coconut milk and put away without any worries that a damp volume could cause a whole shelf of books to catch fungus. Along the way, the perfect cookbook makes cooking simple, fun and not too stressful, with delicious results.
Unfortunately, Indian food being the genre it is, and publishers of Indian cookbooks interested more in a mass buyer base and low prices than the contents, very few Indian cookbooks handle any of the above-mentioned issues to any degree of satisfaction, making them in general very difficult to like...for me, at least.
This one has its moments, though not enough. It is exciting because the food is usually found in a home kitchen rather than a public eating space, and the recipes may vary from kitchen to kitchen, cook to cook, eater to eater. As with any recipe book speaking of food that is not familiar or comfortably classifiable, everything is subjective and a little tinkering works better than following every instruction faithfully. Fortunately, the organisation of the recipes was immaculate; from breakfast to festival menus, food segued smoothly through the day...and the year.
Once the aspiring cook (myself) of Konkani-Saraswat cuisine untangled the minor mysteries involved — since here usli equals upma, both of which are rather different in the Tam-Bram repertoire, some translation and de-confusing had to be done — and got past the phonetically graphic imagery of Mashinga Saang Ghalnu Kholmbo, it was fun to work on. Goli Baje, which sounded like a song from a Hindi movie, was a fritter that developed interesting shapes in the hot oil and tastes fabulous with a more western yoghurt dip. Gradually, things got more familiar with the Ravey Unde earning demands for more, the level of the Tomato Jam falling faster than manna from heaven and the Batate ‘High Jump' causing its fan club to leap up to catch the last, slightly crispy morsel of sautéed potato. The seafood, for which the Konkan region and the Saraswat kitchen are so well reputed, were highly spiced, redolent with the sweetness of grated coconut or coconut milk and ideal with thick buttery roti or a heap of fresh, hot, ghee-laden rice.
Does this book meet all the requirements for a perfect cookbook? No, but for its sheer ‘home food' value, for the little notes that the writer adds as helpful hints at the end of some recipes, for the effort and the involvement that has gone into it, the book is a treasure worth owning. Also, perhaps by the end of it, the user can figure out just what Konkani-Saraswat life is all about!
The Konkani Saraswat Cookbook by Asha S Philar
The perfect cookbook is easy to use. The perfect cookbook has lovely pictures that whet the appetite and culinary ambition, inspiring people to try the recipes in it. The perfect cookbook is made of the right paper; that is easy to write on, easy to read even through various identifiable and anonymous stains of spices, oils and the occasional singed hole. And the perfect cookbook has pages that stay open to a page; that can be turned with the handle of a ladle, wiped clean of spilled stock or coconut milk and put away without any worries that a damp volume could cause a whole shelf of books to catch fungus. Along the way, the perfect cookbook makes cooking simple, fun and not too stressful, with delicious results.
Unfortunately, Indian food being the genre it is, and publishers of Indian cookbooks interested more in a mass buyer base and low prices than the contents, very few Indian cookbooks handle any of the above-mentioned issues to any degree of satisfaction, making them in general very difficult to like...for me, at least.
This one has its moments, though not enough. It is exciting because the food is usually found in a home kitchen rather than a public eating space, and the recipes may vary from kitchen to kitchen, cook to cook, eater to eater. As with any recipe book speaking of food that is not familiar or comfortably classifiable, everything is subjective and a little tinkering works better than following every instruction faithfully. Fortunately, the organisation of the recipes was immaculate; from breakfast to festival menus, food segued smoothly through the day...and the year.
Once the aspiring cook (myself) of Konkani-Saraswat cuisine untangled the minor mysteries involved — since here usli equals upma, both of which are rather different in the Tam-Bram repertoire, some translation and de-confusing had to be done — and got past the phonetically graphic imagery of Mashinga Saang Ghalnu Kholmbo, it was fun to work on. Goli Baje, which sounded like a song from a Hindi movie, was a fritter that developed interesting shapes in the hot oil and tastes fabulous with a more western yoghurt dip. Gradually, things got more familiar with the Ravey Unde earning demands for more, the level of the Tomato Jam falling faster than manna from heaven and the Batate ‘High Jump' causing its fan club to leap up to catch the last, slightly crispy morsel of sautéed potato. The seafood, for which the Konkan region and the Saraswat kitchen are so well reputed, were highly spiced, redolent with the sweetness of grated coconut or coconut milk and ideal with thick buttery roti or a heap of fresh, hot, ghee-laden rice.
Does this book meet all the requirements for a perfect cookbook? No, but for its sheer ‘home food' value, for the little notes that the writer adds as helpful hints at the end of some recipes, for the effort and the involvement that has gone into it, the book is a treasure worth owning. Also, perhaps by the end of it, the user can figure out just what Konkani-Saraswat life is all about!
Book review
(Times of India Crest Edition, July 2, 2011)
SUMMER AND THE CITY by Candace Bushnell
Once upon a time there was a naïve, simple, small town girl called Carrie Bradshaw. She made friends, she lost them and, once in a rare while, found them again. But along the way, with each person that she met, she grew up a little, learned a little more about life and living it and found friends that could, fingers crossed, be forever. When she moved to the Big Apple, she was initially swept away by the glitz and glamour of New York City. But again, that growing up thing happened and she found herself in a place that she, over time, graduated to calling her own.
The Carrie Diaries told that story. This one takes up where the other left off – Carrie finds herself in her new friend Samantha’s apartment, the plan she was supposed to take sliding right off track and out of her mind. The older woman was kind, but in a sort of absent-minded though affectionate manner, and took Carrie to all sorts of interesting parties without keeping tabs on her or behaving in any way like an inhibiting adult. Samantha made the introductions, Carrie could do what she wanted with them.
A dream existence for any young person who wanted to live the glamorous life. But is that what college in the big, bad city was all about? Parties, getting drunk, making out, meeting famous people? Carrie was there to study, to become a writer to find herself and hone her skills. She did do a little more playing around than she had planned to, but found her groove soon enough and settled into making a career of her writing.
Along the way, she met some fascinating men. She liked one, but found that she was not important enough in his life. She was sought after by others, but did not want them to be important to her life. How she finds the balance between love and living, life and work, friends, family and professional contacts is what the books is all about.
Writing done with a happy, fluffy kind of tone, knowing itself not to be a serious, significant piece of literature is perhaps what makes the book work, as a quick read, one bought for a flight and perhaps left on the plane. There are insider jokes and insights right through, and a solid awareness that this is embroidery on an American television icon – the best-selling, high TRP Sex and the City series. And take it all with a huge pinch of salt, preferably the designer kind, and sip on a Manhattan while you read…
SUMMER AND THE CITY by Candace Bushnell
Once upon a time there was a naïve, simple, small town girl called Carrie Bradshaw. She made friends, she lost them and, once in a rare while, found them again. But along the way, with each person that she met, she grew up a little, learned a little more about life and living it and found friends that could, fingers crossed, be forever. When she moved to the Big Apple, she was initially swept away by the glitz and glamour of New York City. But again, that growing up thing happened and she found herself in a place that she, over time, graduated to calling her own.
The Carrie Diaries told that story. This one takes up where the other left off – Carrie finds herself in her new friend Samantha’s apartment, the plan she was supposed to take sliding right off track and out of her mind. The older woman was kind, but in a sort of absent-minded though affectionate manner, and took Carrie to all sorts of interesting parties without keeping tabs on her or behaving in any way like an inhibiting adult. Samantha made the introductions, Carrie could do what she wanted with them.
A dream existence for any young person who wanted to live the glamorous life. But is that what college in the big, bad city was all about? Parties, getting drunk, making out, meeting famous people? Carrie was there to study, to become a writer to find herself and hone her skills. She did do a little more playing around than she had planned to, but found her groove soon enough and settled into making a career of her writing.
Along the way, she met some fascinating men. She liked one, but found that she was not important enough in his life. She was sought after by others, but did not want them to be important to her life. How she finds the balance between love and living, life and work, friends, family and professional contacts is what the books is all about.
Writing done with a happy, fluffy kind of tone, knowing itself not to be a serious, significant piece of literature is perhaps what makes the book work, as a quick read, one bought for a flight and perhaps left on the plane. There are insider jokes and insights right through, and a solid awareness that this is embroidery on an American television icon – the best-selling, high TRP Sex and the City series. And take it all with a huge pinch of salt, preferably the designer kind, and sip on a Manhattan while you read…
Getting away with murder
(bdnews24.com, July 1, 2001)
Grabbing headlines and TV slots in India lately, is one big deal of a case: murder. About three years ago, on May 7, 2008, a young man called Neeraj Grover was brutally killed by an ex-navy officer called Emile Jerome Mathew in the apartment of a Kannada actress called Maria Susairaj. Mathew and Susairaj were in a relationship, but she also had a ‘sleeping partnership’ with Grover, a producer with a private television channel. The story was almost farcical, but had tragic consequences.
As far as it can be reconstructed, this is how the morning went: Grover was at Susairaj’s apartment early that morning. Unfortunately for him, his presence could not be put down to his being a colleague or a reporter or even an electrician or deliver man, since he was naked. Susairaj’s regular boyfriend, Mathew dropped in without warning and lost his temper at seeing an unclad man in the flat. In a fit of passion, he stabbed Grover with a kitchen knife. Grover collapsed and died soon after.
But there is more to the story. First, Mathew had heard Grover’s voice in the background the evening before, when he called Susairaj on the phone. The woman told her boyfriend that Grover was merely helping her move into her new apartment, but Mathew warned her not to let the ‘friend’ stay overnight. The anger in his mind over the new man in his lady love’s life had already been ignited.
Second, and worst of all, once the murder had been committed, Mathew and Susairaj apparently had sex, with the body in the same room, before dismembering the corpse and then packing it in plastic before getting rid of it. And the disposal was as macabre – they wrapped each part of the cut-up body in garbage bags that they went out to buy, then stuffed the bags into the boot of a borrowed car, took it to a wooded area on the outskirts of Mumbai, poured liquid fuel on the remains and set fire to the heap.
Then came the great cover-up. They reported Grover missing, they made up stories about knowing him or not, they lied at every corner and with every word they spoke.
And, after all that, they got caught. Susairaj has spent the last three years in jail. So has Mathew. And while they have done their time, the case has been fought in court, all the evidence presented and debated.
Yesterday, the verdict was pronounced. And Mumbai is stunned. Maria Susairaj was sentenced to three years in jail for attempting to conceal evidence, while Emile Jerome Mathew was given ten years in jail for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and attempting to conceal evidence.
This means that Susairaj will walk free, having already served that term, while Mathew has just seven years to go, probably getting out earlier for good behaviour, if he manages that. Grover’s parents are shocked and demand that the case be reopened.
His father has told the press: “We were expecting death sentence for both Maria and Jerome. I think the investigating agency has not probed the case properly. I am not going to sit quiet. I will spend every single penny of mine to get Neeraj’s killers the death sentence.”
It is not just Mumbai and the Grover family, but the judiciary that is horrified by this sentence. Most judges and lawyers asked their opinion believe that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice.
The public, of course, has been voicing their collective protest on the matter and its outcome. Most want to know how such a blatant and horrific murder could be excused so easily. Is it that easy to kill and get away with it, with no consequences? That is the questions many are asking.
The same kind of question was asked some years ago, when a young model called Jessica Lal was shot and killed by Manu Sharma when she refused to serve him another drink. The murder happened in front of a huge party of people well known in the Delhi circuit, but Sharma managed to walk free for many years… until the power of public opinion went to work and managed to get the case reopened, re-heard, re-judged and the murderer re-accused.
Justice did get served in that instance, with the killer being handed a life sentence. It took years of fighting by the media, by Jessica’s sister and by those who believed that the law should be upheld honourably and fairly, for an unnatural death to be appropriately dealt with.
Is that what needs to happen in this case, when a young man’s fault was to be enamoured of a pretty young woman? And will any murder, done for passion, be considered so trivial a pursuit that the killer can walk free without too much trouble? Is this what justice is all about?
Is anyone listening?
Grabbing headlines and TV slots in India lately, is one big deal of a case: murder. About three years ago, on May 7, 2008, a young man called Neeraj Grover was brutally killed by an ex-navy officer called Emile Jerome Mathew in the apartment of a Kannada actress called Maria Susairaj. Mathew and Susairaj were in a relationship, but she also had a ‘sleeping partnership’ with Grover, a producer with a private television channel. The story was almost farcical, but had tragic consequences.
As far as it can be reconstructed, this is how the morning went: Grover was at Susairaj’s apartment early that morning. Unfortunately for him, his presence could not be put down to his being a colleague or a reporter or even an electrician or deliver man, since he was naked. Susairaj’s regular boyfriend, Mathew dropped in without warning and lost his temper at seeing an unclad man in the flat. In a fit of passion, he stabbed Grover with a kitchen knife. Grover collapsed and died soon after.
But there is more to the story. First, Mathew had heard Grover’s voice in the background the evening before, when he called Susairaj on the phone. The woman told her boyfriend that Grover was merely helping her move into her new apartment, but Mathew warned her not to let the ‘friend’ stay overnight. The anger in his mind over the new man in his lady love’s life had already been ignited.
Second, and worst of all, once the murder had been committed, Mathew and Susairaj apparently had sex, with the body in the same room, before dismembering the corpse and then packing it in plastic before getting rid of it. And the disposal was as macabre – they wrapped each part of the cut-up body in garbage bags that they went out to buy, then stuffed the bags into the boot of a borrowed car, took it to a wooded area on the outskirts of Mumbai, poured liquid fuel on the remains and set fire to the heap.
Then came the great cover-up. They reported Grover missing, they made up stories about knowing him or not, they lied at every corner and with every word they spoke.
And, after all that, they got caught. Susairaj has spent the last three years in jail. So has Mathew. And while they have done their time, the case has been fought in court, all the evidence presented and debated.
Yesterday, the verdict was pronounced. And Mumbai is stunned. Maria Susairaj was sentenced to three years in jail for attempting to conceal evidence, while Emile Jerome Mathew was given ten years in jail for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and attempting to conceal evidence.
This means that Susairaj will walk free, having already served that term, while Mathew has just seven years to go, probably getting out earlier for good behaviour, if he manages that. Grover’s parents are shocked and demand that the case be reopened.
His father has told the press: “We were expecting death sentence for both Maria and Jerome. I think the investigating agency has not probed the case properly. I am not going to sit quiet. I will spend every single penny of mine to get Neeraj’s killers the death sentence.”
It is not just Mumbai and the Grover family, but the judiciary that is horrified by this sentence. Most judges and lawyers asked their opinion believe that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice.
The public, of course, has been voicing their collective protest on the matter and its outcome. Most want to know how such a blatant and horrific murder could be excused so easily. Is it that easy to kill and get away with it, with no consequences? That is the questions many are asking.
The same kind of question was asked some years ago, when a young model called Jessica Lal was shot and killed by Manu Sharma when she refused to serve him another drink. The murder happened in front of a huge party of people well known in the Delhi circuit, but Sharma managed to walk free for many years… until the power of public opinion went to work and managed to get the case reopened, re-heard, re-judged and the murderer re-accused.
Justice did get served in that instance, with the killer being handed a life sentence. It took years of fighting by the media, by Jessica’s sister and by those who believed that the law should be upheld honourably and fairly, for an unnatural death to be appropriately dealt with.
Is that what needs to happen in this case, when a young man’s fault was to be enamoured of a pretty young woman? And will any murder, done for passion, be considered so trivial a pursuit that the killer can walk free without too much trouble? Is this what justice is all about?
Is anyone listening?
Saturday, June 25, 2011
The female of the species
(bdnews24.com, June 24, 2011)
Many years ago, my parents decided it was time to have a child and went about the job with one aim in mind: they wanted a daughter. They got one. And they were happy. But this not always the case in this country that I call home: India.
A long time ago, or so we were taught in school, most Indian families wanted boy-children, for various reasons, some religious, some financial, some a matter of prestige and power. Most of all, a boy was necessary in a Hindu family, since only men were considered suitable to light the funeral pyre of the male head of the family when he died.
To make things worse, the girl child had to be married off at the appropriate age and to get that done, a dowry had to be provided; which meant extra expenditure for the family. Put all this together and it is understandable that a female infant was not preferred by many couples. But we would all expect that attitude to change with time, progress, education and better socio-economic status. In fact, the change has happened, though not for the better.
According to the recently released results of the census in India (2011), the sex ratio, instead of improving in favour of females, has become even worse. The number of girls per 1,000 boys in the age group 0-6 over the last ten years is now 914, down 13 points. Any plans to decrease or prevent female foeticide and infanticide are, the authorities admit, not working well at all.
Astonishingly, these figures reflect not just in what most would consider ‘backward’ areas, but in urban, educated populations as well. Sex determination, though made illegal and punishable by law, is still being practiced in the worst way possible, sometimes with scores of female foetuses being aborted by clinics of doubtful repute, the remains found dumped in gutters or septic tanks to rot or be eaten by vermin.
Way back in 1990 reputed economist Amartya Sen spoke of the “missing women of Asia” when he tried to understand why 50 million women in China and 100 million in India were just not there any more. He explained that on a global level, at birth there are many more boys than girls; women last longer and survive better, since they are hardier. This is the case even in sub-Saharan Africa, devastated as it often is by natural calamity and war.
However, in much of Asia, especially India and China, the numbers are reversed and there are far more boys than girls, men outnumber women significantly. As Sen says, “These numbers tell us, quietly, a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to the excess mortality of women.” He believes the reason to be, simply and emphatically, a matter of gender discrimination, something that could possibly be corrected with a suitable environment of employment, literacy and economic rights, including property rights.
But I, as a woman, a girl child, empowered, educated, literate, employed, economically stable, with a right to family property, wonder about that one. I have seen my own peers, classmates in college and colleagues at work worry that the child they carry within themselves as young to-be mothers could be female. I have even heard, much to my amazement and a certain incredulous horror, a close friend telling me with great relief that she was glad that her baby had been a son, or else life would have been far more difficult.
To make the situation even more confusing and, to me, irksome – to say the least – I read a CNN report recently that told me this: “If Americans could have only one child, they would prefer that it be a boy rather than a girl, by a 40 percent to 28 percent margin”. This, the report says, is not too much different from “what Gallup measured in 1941, when Americans preferred a boy to a girl by a 38 percent to 24 percent margin”. And this, in what considered itself to be the most highly developed nation in the world.
But Bangladesh seems to be in a rather more enlightened zone with reference to this particular subject. According to reports, the country’s population is more balanced apropos the male-female ratio, at about 0.93 (male to female) in the adult age-group.
What bothers me is one simple fact – for a nation that reveres the female deity, Shakti, in Her various forms and powers, India is abysmally ignorant in its behaviour towards women and its overall attitude to the girl child. The female cannot stay the weaker sex, as she is generally thought to be, and needs to be given her rightful place in society, in the family, in the ethos of the people.
We as a nation seem to forget one small but very important fact – if there were no women, there would be no men!
Many years ago, my parents decided it was time to have a child and went about the job with one aim in mind: they wanted a daughter. They got one. And they were happy. But this not always the case in this country that I call home: India.
A long time ago, or so we were taught in school, most Indian families wanted boy-children, for various reasons, some religious, some financial, some a matter of prestige and power. Most of all, a boy was necessary in a Hindu family, since only men were considered suitable to light the funeral pyre of the male head of the family when he died.
To make things worse, the girl child had to be married off at the appropriate age and to get that done, a dowry had to be provided; which meant extra expenditure for the family. Put all this together and it is understandable that a female infant was not preferred by many couples. But we would all expect that attitude to change with time, progress, education and better socio-economic status. In fact, the change has happened, though not for the better.
According to the recently released results of the census in India (2011), the sex ratio, instead of improving in favour of females, has become even worse. The number of girls per 1,000 boys in the age group 0-6 over the last ten years is now 914, down 13 points. Any plans to decrease or prevent female foeticide and infanticide are, the authorities admit, not working well at all.
Astonishingly, these figures reflect not just in what most would consider ‘backward’ areas, but in urban, educated populations as well. Sex determination, though made illegal and punishable by law, is still being practiced in the worst way possible, sometimes with scores of female foetuses being aborted by clinics of doubtful repute, the remains found dumped in gutters or septic tanks to rot or be eaten by vermin.
Way back in 1990 reputed economist Amartya Sen spoke of the “missing women of Asia” when he tried to understand why 50 million women in China and 100 million in India were just not there any more. He explained that on a global level, at birth there are many more boys than girls; women last longer and survive better, since they are hardier. This is the case even in sub-Saharan Africa, devastated as it often is by natural calamity and war.
However, in much of Asia, especially India and China, the numbers are reversed and there are far more boys than girls, men outnumber women significantly. As Sen says, “These numbers tell us, quietly, a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to the excess mortality of women.” He believes the reason to be, simply and emphatically, a matter of gender discrimination, something that could possibly be corrected with a suitable environment of employment, literacy and economic rights, including property rights.
But I, as a woman, a girl child, empowered, educated, literate, employed, economically stable, with a right to family property, wonder about that one. I have seen my own peers, classmates in college and colleagues at work worry that the child they carry within themselves as young to-be mothers could be female. I have even heard, much to my amazement and a certain incredulous horror, a close friend telling me with great relief that she was glad that her baby had been a son, or else life would have been far more difficult.
To make the situation even more confusing and, to me, irksome – to say the least – I read a CNN report recently that told me this: “If Americans could have only one child, they would prefer that it be a boy rather than a girl, by a 40 percent to 28 percent margin”. This, the report says, is not too much different from “what Gallup measured in 1941, when Americans preferred a boy to a girl by a 38 percent to 24 percent margin”. And this, in what considered itself to be the most highly developed nation in the world.
But Bangladesh seems to be in a rather more enlightened zone with reference to this particular subject. According to reports, the country’s population is more balanced apropos the male-female ratio, at about 0.93 (male to female) in the adult age-group.
What bothers me is one simple fact – for a nation that reveres the female deity, Shakti, in Her various forms and powers, India is abysmally ignorant in its behaviour towards women and its overall attitude to the girl child. The female cannot stay the weaker sex, as she is generally thought to be, and needs to be given her rightful place in society, in the family, in the ethos of the people.
We as a nation seem to forget one small but very important fact – if there were no women, there would be no men!
Monday, June 20, 2011
MF Husain...RIP
(Written for the Hindu, but used rather differently there....)
So much has been said and written about the artist often called the ‘Picasso of India’. Many speak of the sadness that MF Husain felt at being exiled from the land that was his home and most feel that he would have wanted to end his life in India. But the ‘barefoot painter’, as he is known, died in London, with friends and family in attendance, leaving behind a host of memories and an enormous body of work. That work, and the aura of the man himself, will live for ever. As artist Anjolie Ela Menon has said, “I consider him sort of immortal in my mind – even if he is not physically there, his whole body of work stands.”
Artists old and young see him as an icon, almost a God, albeit a very human one, perhaps even something that he himself may have painted. Jitish Kallat intellectualises his impression of Husain: “He forged a language very early on, in the decades immediately after Independence,, that in some ways merged the tenor and texture of an emergent India with the language of modern Europeanism – he found a novel middle ground with his typically agile and intuitive manner.” To Kallat, “He will always be seen as a visionary cultural figure, for the entire transformative effect he has had on the landscape of contemporary Indian art and for expanding its circumference to where we have it today.” And doom and gloom was not the artist’s story once he fled the country. “He dodged the tragedy of his exile and the legal brouhaha through humour, a kind of insightful equanimity,” and his fantastic artistic legacy is more relevant than the hate felt by the few who objected to some of his works so many years ago.
The lawsuits, the exile, the analysis – all this did not detract from the very warm and funny human being called Maqbook Fida Husain. Geeta Mehra of Sakshi Gallery remembers, “Whenever I was in Dubai or London I would call and meet with him – on one occasion I was going to visit some gallery and he immediately put his Jaguar and driver at my disposal! In the morning of the same day he invited me over to tea and in the backyard he had a proper Bedouin tent set up, fully furnished, tent style, and served me chai from a samovar. And he told me that if I had come in the evening, he would have arranged for a belly dancer!” He was always great fun, Mehra says fondly, “His joie de vivre was amazing – i use to tell him he was always my ideal person. He had time for everyone actually, no matter who they were, and the capacity to take whatever he found in anyone.” And exile was not that big a deal, for Husain, she believes. “I think he was a man who lived practically out of the boot of his car – it held audio cassettes, CDs, a quilt, books and brochures, even an Armani suit! He could sleep anywhere, travel at short notice; he carried his paintbrush and some paints and could set up a studio anywhere. He lived in his head – he did have his favourite restaurants and tea stalls, but that we all have terms of endearments. He was having a ball living between continents.”
Art collector Ashwini Kakkar owns six Husains, last count. “My favourite work is Bull Leading a Procession – it never had a formal name, but it is from the Bull series and is almost like a Ganpati procession, with people dancing and singing, except that the Ganpati head is replaced by a bull-head.” And Kakkar has a favourite memory to share of the “man with a very large heart”, one that has him laughing as he tells it: “One day I was driving out of my office in Mumbai and saw this man walking along barefoot - it was so hot, the peak of summer and the road must have been burning – I offered him a lift. He was going to Regal cinema. We chatted in the car and when he got off, he said ‘You send your car to me tomorrow and I will paint the whole thing for you!’ It was a brand new white Fiat and I completely chickened out – to this day I regret not having sent my car to him!”
There are some who may never have spoken to Husain, but revere him. Artist Sudarshan Shetty explains that “I never met him formally, I only saw him a few times. The first time I really saw his work was when I was in art school, in a book published in the ’80s by Abrams. I think his work in the ’50s and ’60,s was truly marvellous. Moreover, I was always fascinated by the distinction that he was able to create between the artist and his persona.”
There will always be life after death, in a legacy that lives forever. After all, that was the way Maqbool Fida Husain would have painted it!
So much has been said and written about the artist often called the ‘Picasso of India’. Many speak of the sadness that MF Husain felt at being exiled from the land that was his home and most feel that he would have wanted to end his life in India. But the ‘barefoot painter’, as he is known, died in London, with friends and family in attendance, leaving behind a host of memories and an enormous body of work. That work, and the aura of the man himself, will live for ever. As artist Anjolie Ela Menon has said, “I consider him sort of immortal in my mind – even if he is not physically there, his whole body of work stands.”
Artists old and young see him as an icon, almost a God, albeit a very human one, perhaps even something that he himself may have painted. Jitish Kallat intellectualises his impression of Husain: “He forged a language very early on, in the decades immediately after Independence,, that in some ways merged the tenor and texture of an emergent India with the language of modern Europeanism – he found a novel middle ground with his typically agile and intuitive manner.” To Kallat, “He will always be seen as a visionary cultural figure, for the entire transformative effect he has had on the landscape of contemporary Indian art and for expanding its circumference to where we have it today.” And doom and gloom was not the artist’s story once he fled the country. “He dodged the tragedy of his exile and the legal brouhaha through humour, a kind of insightful equanimity,” and his fantastic artistic legacy is more relevant than the hate felt by the few who objected to some of his works so many years ago.
The lawsuits, the exile, the analysis – all this did not detract from the very warm and funny human being called Maqbook Fida Husain. Geeta Mehra of Sakshi Gallery remembers, “Whenever I was in Dubai or London I would call and meet with him – on one occasion I was going to visit some gallery and he immediately put his Jaguar and driver at my disposal! In the morning of the same day he invited me over to tea and in the backyard he had a proper Bedouin tent set up, fully furnished, tent style, and served me chai from a samovar. And he told me that if I had come in the evening, he would have arranged for a belly dancer!” He was always great fun, Mehra says fondly, “His joie de vivre was amazing – i use to tell him he was always my ideal person. He had time for everyone actually, no matter who they were, and the capacity to take whatever he found in anyone.” And exile was not that big a deal, for Husain, she believes. “I think he was a man who lived practically out of the boot of his car – it held audio cassettes, CDs, a quilt, books and brochures, even an Armani suit! He could sleep anywhere, travel at short notice; he carried his paintbrush and some paints and could set up a studio anywhere. He lived in his head – he did have his favourite restaurants and tea stalls, but that we all have terms of endearments. He was having a ball living between continents.”
Art collector Ashwini Kakkar owns six Husains, last count. “My favourite work is Bull Leading a Procession – it never had a formal name, but it is from the Bull series and is almost like a Ganpati procession, with people dancing and singing, except that the Ganpati head is replaced by a bull-head.” And Kakkar has a favourite memory to share of the “man with a very large heart”, one that has him laughing as he tells it: “One day I was driving out of my office in Mumbai and saw this man walking along barefoot - it was so hot, the peak of summer and the road must have been burning – I offered him a lift. He was going to Regal cinema. We chatted in the car and when he got off, he said ‘You send your car to me tomorrow and I will paint the whole thing for you!’ It was a brand new white Fiat and I completely chickened out – to this day I regret not having sent my car to him!”
There are some who may never have spoken to Husain, but revere him. Artist Sudarshan Shetty explains that “I never met him formally, I only saw him a few times. The first time I really saw his work was when I was in art school, in a book published in the ’80s by Abrams. I think his work in the ’50s and ’60,s was truly marvellous. Moreover, I was always fascinated by the distinction that he was able to create between the artist and his persona.”
There will always be life after death, in a legacy that lives forever. After all, that was the way Maqbool Fida Husain would have painted it!
Killing the story
(bdnews24.com, June 17, 2011)
Over the past few days in India, all media headlines have been focused on one issue – the killing of crime journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, in the daytime, in well-populated Mumbai city. The story is tragically simple – Dey was riding his motorbike, on his way home to his wife, when four other bikes veered around him. He was shot a number of times before the bikers sped off. He died of his wounds before he could be admitted into hospital.
The murder took all of 45 seconds. Just last month, Pakistan – a country facing more trouble than ever before as regards law and order is concerned – was the scene of a ruthless killing. Journalist Saleem Shahzad had vanished soon after leaving home in Islamabad, headed for a studio to film his segment for a television talk show. He was found dead two days later, his body showing signs of interrogation under torture, it was reported.
According to the organisation Reporters Without Borders, since the beginning of 2010, 16 journalists have been killed in Pakistan. The country ranks a dismal 151 of 178 countries in its press freedom index.
In the Philippines, in Nabua, Camarines Sur, Romeo Olea was on his way to a radio office when he was shot, most likely for some story that he had done or was working on. This was the third murder of its kind in the nation in 2011. And there have been many more over the past year.
In Bangladesh, the toll is two (in recent times) – Hossain Altaf, publisher of the daily Bajrakontha, was found in a decomposed state in the septic tank of his own home, nine days after he was reported missing. Mahbub Tutul of the Ajker Prottasha and Ajker Surjodoy was killed in Chittagong, but the crime is likely to be business connected, since he had already quit journalism a few years ago.
These countries figure on the CPJ Impunity Index published this year. In the latest index, unsolved journalist killings that occurred between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2010 have been examined and analysed and the 13 nations with five or more such cases included in the list. To explain a little, the Community to Protect Journalists is an independent, non-profit organisation formed in 1981 to promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report news without any fear of reprisal. The index was first published in 2008, with the aim of identifying countries where journalists are murdered more frequently than natural deaths occur, and governments fail to solve the crimes – not identifying the culprits or not bringing them to justice. “The index calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population” is the way the process is defined.
The focus of the 2011 Impunity Index is to highlight countries where “journalists are slain and killers go free”. On top of the list is Iraq, still a lawless and dangerous place to be, where killers of 92 media persons were never caught and/or punished. Pakistan joins the list at number 10. Unfortunately for your country and mine, Bangladesh, Brazil and India follow close behind.
As the executive director of CPJ Joel Simon says, “The findings of the 2011 Impunity Index lay bare the stark choices that governments face: either address the issue of violence against journalists head-on or see murders continue and self-censorship spread.”
But somewhere along the way, there is a flip side to the whole story. It is not just doom and gloom and the fault of governments or nations, or even the criminals alone. Many journalists rush in where armour-plated fighting machines fear to roll in, and are killed because of their foolhardy behaviour. Sure, it is the job of a journalist to hound for news. But in countries like Iraq or, more currently, Libya, there is strife, ongoing for a while now. This could better be defined as a state of war rather than armed hostility.
In other words, for a journalist to run into such an environment, it needs caution, training, protection and, always, always, always, full knowledge that death could be around the corner.
The same goes for a more ‘safe’ country where news is being made. A city like Mumbai, for instance, has crime, has an underworld, has dealings that, if exposed, could create a situation of grave personal danger for a journalist. There should be protection from the state, yes, but the media also needs to be ultra-cautious about getting into corners that there is no backing out of. Tragedy is often the result of a misstep.
They say that Dey was killed for knowing too much about the wrong people. Perhaps he died because he did not keep the right people informed about what he knew?
Over the past few days in India, all media headlines have been focused on one issue – the killing of crime journalist Jyotirmoy Dey, in the daytime, in well-populated Mumbai city. The story is tragically simple – Dey was riding his motorbike, on his way home to his wife, when four other bikes veered around him. He was shot a number of times before the bikers sped off. He died of his wounds before he could be admitted into hospital.
The murder took all of 45 seconds. Just last month, Pakistan – a country facing more trouble than ever before as regards law and order is concerned – was the scene of a ruthless killing. Journalist Saleem Shahzad had vanished soon after leaving home in Islamabad, headed for a studio to film his segment for a television talk show. He was found dead two days later, his body showing signs of interrogation under torture, it was reported.
According to the organisation Reporters Without Borders, since the beginning of 2010, 16 journalists have been killed in Pakistan. The country ranks a dismal 151 of 178 countries in its press freedom index.
In the Philippines, in Nabua, Camarines Sur, Romeo Olea was on his way to a radio office when he was shot, most likely for some story that he had done or was working on. This was the third murder of its kind in the nation in 2011. And there have been many more over the past year.
In Bangladesh, the toll is two (in recent times) – Hossain Altaf, publisher of the daily Bajrakontha, was found in a decomposed state in the septic tank of his own home, nine days after he was reported missing. Mahbub Tutul of the Ajker Prottasha and Ajker Surjodoy was killed in Chittagong, but the crime is likely to be business connected, since he had already quit journalism a few years ago.
These countries figure on the CPJ Impunity Index published this year. In the latest index, unsolved journalist killings that occurred between January 1, 2001 and December 31, 2010 have been examined and analysed and the 13 nations with five or more such cases included in the list. To explain a little, the Community to Protect Journalists is an independent, non-profit organisation formed in 1981 to promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report news without any fear of reprisal. The index was first published in 2008, with the aim of identifying countries where journalists are murdered more frequently than natural deaths occur, and governments fail to solve the crimes – not identifying the culprits or not bringing them to justice. “The index calculates unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population” is the way the process is defined.
The focus of the 2011 Impunity Index is to highlight countries where “journalists are slain and killers go free”. On top of the list is Iraq, still a lawless and dangerous place to be, where killers of 92 media persons were never caught and/or punished. Pakistan joins the list at number 10. Unfortunately for your country and mine, Bangladesh, Brazil and India follow close behind.
As the executive director of CPJ Joel Simon says, “The findings of the 2011 Impunity Index lay bare the stark choices that governments face: either address the issue of violence against journalists head-on or see murders continue and self-censorship spread.”
But somewhere along the way, there is a flip side to the whole story. It is not just doom and gloom and the fault of governments or nations, or even the criminals alone. Many journalists rush in where armour-plated fighting machines fear to roll in, and are killed because of their foolhardy behaviour. Sure, it is the job of a journalist to hound for news. But in countries like Iraq or, more currently, Libya, there is strife, ongoing for a while now. This could better be defined as a state of war rather than armed hostility.
In other words, for a journalist to run into such an environment, it needs caution, training, protection and, always, always, always, full knowledge that death could be around the corner.
The same goes for a more ‘safe’ country where news is being made. A city like Mumbai, for instance, has crime, has an underworld, has dealings that, if exposed, could create a situation of grave personal danger for a journalist. There should be protection from the state, yes, but the media also needs to be ultra-cautious about getting into corners that there is no backing out of. Tragedy is often the result of a misstep.
They say that Dey was killed for knowing too much about the wrong people. Perhaps he died because he did not keep the right people informed about what he knew?
Monday, June 13, 2011
MF HUSAIN: An artist who made history
(bdnews24.com, June 10, 2011)
Many many years ago, when I was a very small girl, I remember going to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai with my parents and looking up at an enormous wall. There were these huge horses galloping toward me, all black, white, grey and brown, their tails flowing, their manes waving, their eyes wild, nostrils flared. They were beautiful, free and fast, running against the wind along an open plain. And I was awed, even then, by the fast that all that freedom, all that movement, all that speed, was captured in just a few brushstrokes on a wall. The artist was a man who epitomised the spirit of the city he made his home for many years, Mumbai, colourful, always excited, youthful and just that wee bit crazy. He was MF Husain, who went on to earn titles like ‘Picasso of India’, and died earlier this week in London at the age of 95.
Maqbool Fida Husain, born in Pandharpur, a Hindu pilgrimage town in Maharashtra. His father made kandeels, or lanterns and the family was not very wealthy. The young Maqbool made his way to Mumbai, where he eked out a living – at one stage, he hand-painted posters for Hindi films, developing a passionate interest in the world of cinema, which led him to make a couple of movies with popular Bollywood stars. By the late 1940s, he was making a name for himself as an artist and had joined FN Souza’s Progressive Artists’ Group, a clique of like-minded artists who wanted to foster the avant-garde, with an Indian flavour, and break away from the more traditional portrayals familiar in the Bengal School of art. In 1952 he had his first international showing in Zurich and over the next few years had become known all over the United States and Europe. Along with his art, he also made films – his 1967 Through the Eyes of a Painter won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; Gaja Gamini, starring Madhuri Dixit (who became his muse after he saw her in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?) showed off the various manifestations of a woman; Meenaxi: A Take of Three Cities was a paean to actress Tabu. None of these was commercially successful, but they were appreciated by a discerning audience. A film on his life, his autobiography, is planned for a film called The Making of a Painter.
Controversy could have been Husain’s very believable alter ego. Some of his works have been incomprehensible, mystifying fellow artists, critics and viewers alike. I remember, when I had just started working as a journalist, I walked into a major Mumbai gallery to see Husain’s new show. Called Shwetambari, it made little sense to me, but it somehow gave me a feeling of clean serenity, a peace that could only come from within and radiate towards the rest of my world. Seen from a more practical perspective, it was all about white – the walls of the large space were draped in white handloom fabric, while the floor was covered in torn, crumpled bits of newspaper. When asked about it by a rather outraged public, Husain’s explanation was simple, and in a strange way, logical: “It is a powerful statement that is meant to be experiences, not understood and interpreted,” he maintained, “I wanted people to come and stand there and feel the overabundance of white, which is the basis of all colour.” To him, the man with the artistic soul, it was only in the presence of white that other colours could be seen and felt and appreciated. From that point of view, it all made perfect sense.
I have seen Husain often in Mumbai, wandering around art galleries, at parties, in hotels, even in bookshops. He was usually barefoot – until the time he, as rumour had it, developed some kind of fungal infection in the foot and was made to wear shoes – and carried a long paintbrush. His white beard was immaculately neat, his glasses glinted with his passion for life and he eyes watched the world as it moved around him. He walked fast, spoke gently and laughed delightedly. And he got into messes of all sorts – from the controversial works of goddesses as nude figures to an unclad Mother India used in an advertisement – which, eventually, made him flee India in 2006 to settle in the Middle East. Qatar was thrilled to have him there and offered him citizenship, which he accepted in 2010. Even in exile, he had to face problems – the government of Kerala was to give him the Raja Ravi Varma award, but a petition was filed against it for various reasons.
Right now, in India, there is a sadness at the death of an artist of such stature. But many of us feel another grief – that we ourselves could not prevent a treasure slipping out of our own hands. And even here there is controversy – many believe that he wanted to be buried in his homeland, India. He did say in a television interview last year, “My heart will always be in India...it is my beloved land.” But his family tells us that “He said he should be buried wherever he dies.” And though he is no longer here, he will live for ever in the work that he left behind – work that is thought-provoking, thoughtful, beautiful and always worth seeing.
Many many years ago, when I was a very small girl, I remember going to the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai with my parents and looking up at an enormous wall. There were these huge horses galloping toward me, all black, white, grey and brown, their tails flowing, their manes waving, their eyes wild, nostrils flared. They were beautiful, free and fast, running against the wind along an open plain. And I was awed, even then, by the fast that all that freedom, all that movement, all that speed, was captured in just a few brushstrokes on a wall. The artist was a man who epitomised the spirit of the city he made his home for many years, Mumbai, colourful, always excited, youthful and just that wee bit crazy. He was MF Husain, who went on to earn titles like ‘Picasso of India’, and died earlier this week in London at the age of 95.
Maqbool Fida Husain, born in Pandharpur, a Hindu pilgrimage town in Maharashtra. His father made kandeels, or lanterns and the family was not very wealthy. The young Maqbool made his way to Mumbai, where he eked out a living – at one stage, he hand-painted posters for Hindi films, developing a passionate interest in the world of cinema, which led him to make a couple of movies with popular Bollywood stars. By the late 1940s, he was making a name for himself as an artist and had joined FN Souza’s Progressive Artists’ Group, a clique of like-minded artists who wanted to foster the avant-garde, with an Indian flavour, and break away from the more traditional portrayals familiar in the Bengal School of art. In 1952 he had his first international showing in Zurich and over the next few years had become known all over the United States and Europe. Along with his art, he also made films – his 1967 Through the Eyes of a Painter won a Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival; Gaja Gamini, starring Madhuri Dixit (who became his muse after he saw her in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun?) showed off the various manifestations of a woman; Meenaxi: A Take of Three Cities was a paean to actress Tabu. None of these was commercially successful, but they were appreciated by a discerning audience. A film on his life, his autobiography, is planned for a film called The Making of a Painter.
Controversy could have been Husain’s very believable alter ego. Some of his works have been incomprehensible, mystifying fellow artists, critics and viewers alike. I remember, when I had just started working as a journalist, I walked into a major Mumbai gallery to see Husain’s new show. Called Shwetambari, it made little sense to me, but it somehow gave me a feeling of clean serenity, a peace that could only come from within and radiate towards the rest of my world. Seen from a more practical perspective, it was all about white – the walls of the large space were draped in white handloom fabric, while the floor was covered in torn, crumpled bits of newspaper. When asked about it by a rather outraged public, Husain’s explanation was simple, and in a strange way, logical: “It is a powerful statement that is meant to be experiences, not understood and interpreted,” he maintained, “I wanted people to come and stand there and feel the overabundance of white, which is the basis of all colour.” To him, the man with the artistic soul, it was only in the presence of white that other colours could be seen and felt and appreciated. From that point of view, it all made perfect sense.
I have seen Husain often in Mumbai, wandering around art galleries, at parties, in hotels, even in bookshops. He was usually barefoot – until the time he, as rumour had it, developed some kind of fungal infection in the foot and was made to wear shoes – and carried a long paintbrush. His white beard was immaculately neat, his glasses glinted with his passion for life and he eyes watched the world as it moved around him. He walked fast, spoke gently and laughed delightedly. And he got into messes of all sorts – from the controversial works of goddesses as nude figures to an unclad Mother India used in an advertisement – which, eventually, made him flee India in 2006 to settle in the Middle East. Qatar was thrilled to have him there and offered him citizenship, which he accepted in 2010. Even in exile, he had to face problems – the government of Kerala was to give him the Raja Ravi Varma award, but a petition was filed against it for various reasons.
Right now, in India, there is a sadness at the death of an artist of such stature. But many of us feel another grief – that we ourselves could not prevent a treasure slipping out of our own hands. And even here there is controversy – many believe that he wanted to be buried in his homeland, India. He did say in a television interview last year, “My heart will always be in India...it is my beloved land.” But his family tells us that “He said he should be buried wherever he dies.” And though he is no longer here, he will live for ever in the work that he left behind – work that is thought-provoking, thoughtful, beautiful and always worth seeing.
‘I want a thali of movies...'
(Hindu Magazine, June 12, 2011)
... says film journalist and author Anupama Chopra as she discusses her addiction to Bollywood films, her writing on that subject and her latest book First Day First Show, released recently.
Of movies and more...
She is passionate about Hindi movies, be it the classic Sholay (a ‘ perfect film') or the rather disastrous Kambakth Ishq, which she drove miles to see when holidaying in the US because she had serious withdrawal from the song-and-dance routine she is addicted to. For many years now Anupama Chopra has been expressing this passion through reviews, articles, interviews and so much more, as a film journalist and writer. She has compiled a number of these articles, written for India Today, Variety, the New York Times, LA Times, NDTV (from her popular review show, Picture This) and more in her latest book, First Day First Show. This is her fourth, after Sholay: The Making of a Classic, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema.
Chopra says about her latest, “The idea was to sort of create a way to see the history of modern Bollywood, because it has evolved so much from when I started; 1993 to 2011; it's another world now. We wanted to record that change. The articles are not chosen for being the best written, but for being a snapshot of the time. When I look at it, I look at the kind of questions being asked, the issues discussed and the kind of films being made, I realise how much things have changed and how much things haven't. This book is my testament to my enduring love affair with Hindi movies!”
Surprising choice
Bollywood was a rather surprising choice of journalistic focus for Chopra, who grew up in privileged South Bombay (as it was then). Educated in St Xavier's college, with a first class first in English Literature, she laughs, anything filmi was considered déclassé. “I was just seduced by Hindi cinema. When I began, my mother was mortified that I would think of film journalism!” Her mother Kamna Chandra — who wrote two very big films Prem Rog for Raj Kapoor and Chandni for Yash Chopra among others — said things like “You say you want to roam around Film City and interview Sunjay Dutt and Sunny Deol! Oh my God, how can you! What did we do wrong?”
Chopra recalls, “You just did not go into movies in any capacity! I did not grow up watching a lot of Hindi films; if you were a South Bombay person, you didn't even go beyond Worli! But, truly, I just did it first as a lark, a job to have because I did not know what I wanted to do.”
But she knew what she did not want to do. “I wanted to do film journalism, but knew I couldn't spend my life worrying about who is sleeping with whom.” She went to Northwestern University, US, because “I wanted to learn the craft of journalism and I came back after working for a year at Harper's Bazaar magazine. I got myself a job at Sunday magazine and then joined India Today specifically with the aim of covering the film industry in a way that looks at the movies.”
At the right moment
She was exceptionally fortunate, because just when she came into the field (1994-95) things changed. “If it had been somewhere with just the men in safari suits and suitcases of cash, I don't know how long I would have lasted, but 1995 was DDLJ and Rangeela; there was a generational change. And I had a ringside view on this complete evolution. It was really fortunate I was at the right place at the right time.”
The attitude of film-folk towards journalists has also changed. “You have the classic stories of Dharmendra chasing Devyani Chaubal and Anupam Kher slapping someone from a magazine, but now I think everyone is savvier; marketing teams have realised that they need the media to sell movies. Some journalists have great relationships with some stars, but I also hear stars complaining that they are asked either very offensive questions or very inane ones. I just hope it doesn't get more aggressive like in the West. There is such a hunger for scoops, for information, it's hard to sustain quality and standards.”
With all her passion for and knowledge of Hindi films, Chopra will not consider writing a film script. She insists, “Never ever! I think it takes way more talent than I have. I tell other peoples' stories, which is much easier and does not require the same level of talent or confidence or ambition. To write fiction you need a great soaring imagination, to be able create other worlds. I honestly don't think I have the talent or have ever had the interest. I have no interest in creating, I just like to consume.”
Anyone would think that Shah Rukh Khan was her favourite person, considering that three of her books feature him prominently; he starred in DDLJ and has written the foreword for her new book.
She is amused, “So many people say that to me! He is somebody I first interviewed in 1996 or 1997. Since then, our paths have crossed often. As it happened, Salman never talked to the press and Aamir was extremely reserved and not accessible. Shah Rukh is superbly articulate, superbly entertaining, tells the best stories, so it's never been a chore to go back to him. It's so much fun. He talks very passionately; he always seems engaged in the conversation. There is never a boring moment. I have a great time listening to him. He said to me that he needs to entertain all the time, whether on the big screen or one on one. He has this compulsive need to make you happy!”
Improved quality
In her tracing of cinema for all these years, has there been improvement in the quality of films from Bollywood? “Oh my God, yes! You see some of the films made in 1992-93, they are appalling! People hammed like crazy! I think they have vastly improved. You are getting more voices, and there aren't as many second generation kids as those from other backgrounds. In terms of craft, it has hugely improved. What we do need to go back to is the fundamentals of storytelling; we do not invest enough in writers or time in writing. But in every other way we have really moved ahead.”
For Chopra, the world of movies is a driving need. And she likes her dose of masala as much as she likes an off-beat thriller. She says, “I think anything different is a good thing. It's great to have the traditional Bollywood film, mainstream masala, but it's also great to have a Shor in the City! But I was heartbroken when Karan Johar said he was going serious with My Name is Khan. I loved Udaan, but am as happy to weep when Shahrukh died in Kal Ho Naa Ho. I want it all, the Guju thali of movies, not a minimalist French meal with one dish at a time!”
... says film journalist and author Anupama Chopra as she discusses her addiction to Bollywood films, her writing on that subject and her latest book First Day First Show, released recently.
Of movies and more...
She is passionate about Hindi movies, be it the classic Sholay (a ‘ perfect film') or the rather disastrous Kambakth Ishq, which she drove miles to see when holidaying in the US because she had serious withdrawal from the song-and-dance routine she is addicted to. For many years now Anupama Chopra has been expressing this passion through reviews, articles, interviews and so much more, as a film journalist and writer. She has compiled a number of these articles, written for India Today, Variety, the New York Times, LA Times, NDTV (from her popular review show, Picture This) and more in her latest book, First Day First Show. This is her fourth, after Sholay: The Making of a Classic, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and King of Bollywood: Shah Rukh Khan and the Seductive World of Indian Cinema.
Chopra says about her latest, “The idea was to sort of create a way to see the history of modern Bollywood, because it has evolved so much from when I started; 1993 to 2011; it's another world now. We wanted to record that change. The articles are not chosen for being the best written, but for being a snapshot of the time. When I look at it, I look at the kind of questions being asked, the issues discussed and the kind of films being made, I realise how much things have changed and how much things haven't. This book is my testament to my enduring love affair with Hindi movies!”
Surprising choice
Bollywood was a rather surprising choice of journalistic focus for Chopra, who grew up in privileged South Bombay (as it was then). Educated in St Xavier's college, with a first class first in English Literature, she laughs, anything filmi was considered déclassé. “I was just seduced by Hindi cinema. When I began, my mother was mortified that I would think of film journalism!” Her mother Kamna Chandra — who wrote two very big films Prem Rog for Raj Kapoor and Chandni for Yash Chopra among others — said things like “You say you want to roam around Film City and interview Sunjay Dutt and Sunny Deol! Oh my God, how can you! What did we do wrong?”
Chopra recalls, “You just did not go into movies in any capacity! I did not grow up watching a lot of Hindi films; if you were a South Bombay person, you didn't even go beyond Worli! But, truly, I just did it first as a lark, a job to have because I did not know what I wanted to do.”
But she knew what she did not want to do. “I wanted to do film journalism, but knew I couldn't spend my life worrying about who is sleeping with whom.” She went to Northwestern University, US, because “I wanted to learn the craft of journalism and I came back after working for a year at Harper's Bazaar magazine. I got myself a job at Sunday magazine and then joined India Today specifically with the aim of covering the film industry in a way that looks at the movies.”
At the right moment
She was exceptionally fortunate, because just when she came into the field (1994-95) things changed. “If it had been somewhere with just the men in safari suits and suitcases of cash, I don't know how long I would have lasted, but 1995 was DDLJ and Rangeela; there was a generational change. And I had a ringside view on this complete evolution. It was really fortunate I was at the right place at the right time.”
The attitude of film-folk towards journalists has also changed. “You have the classic stories of Dharmendra chasing Devyani Chaubal and Anupam Kher slapping someone from a magazine, but now I think everyone is savvier; marketing teams have realised that they need the media to sell movies. Some journalists have great relationships with some stars, but I also hear stars complaining that they are asked either very offensive questions or very inane ones. I just hope it doesn't get more aggressive like in the West. There is such a hunger for scoops, for information, it's hard to sustain quality and standards.”
With all her passion for and knowledge of Hindi films, Chopra will not consider writing a film script. She insists, “Never ever! I think it takes way more talent than I have. I tell other peoples' stories, which is much easier and does not require the same level of talent or confidence or ambition. To write fiction you need a great soaring imagination, to be able create other worlds. I honestly don't think I have the talent or have ever had the interest. I have no interest in creating, I just like to consume.”
Anyone would think that Shah Rukh Khan was her favourite person, considering that three of her books feature him prominently; he starred in DDLJ and has written the foreword for her new book.
She is amused, “So many people say that to me! He is somebody I first interviewed in 1996 or 1997. Since then, our paths have crossed often. As it happened, Salman never talked to the press and Aamir was extremely reserved and not accessible. Shah Rukh is superbly articulate, superbly entertaining, tells the best stories, so it's never been a chore to go back to him. It's so much fun. He talks very passionately; he always seems engaged in the conversation. There is never a boring moment. I have a great time listening to him. He said to me that he needs to entertain all the time, whether on the big screen or one on one. He has this compulsive need to make you happy!”
Improved quality
In her tracing of cinema for all these years, has there been improvement in the quality of films from Bollywood? “Oh my God, yes! You see some of the films made in 1992-93, they are appalling! People hammed like crazy! I think they have vastly improved. You are getting more voices, and there aren't as many second generation kids as those from other backgrounds. In terms of craft, it has hugely improved. What we do need to go back to is the fundamentals of storytelling; we do not invest enough in writers or time in writing. But in every other way we have really moved ahead.”
For Chopra, the world of movies is a driving need. And she likes her dose of masala as much as she likes an off-beat thriller. She says, “I think anything different is a good thing. It's great to have the traditional Bollywood film, mainstream masala, but it's also great to have a Shor in the City! But I was heartbroken when Karan Johar said he was going serious with My Name is Khan. I loved Udaan, but am as happy to weep when Shahrukh died in Kal Ho Naa Ho. I want it all, the Guju thali of movies, not a minimalist French meal with one dish at a time!”
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Book review
(The Times of India Crest Edition, June 4, 2011)
THE CONVERT
Deborah Baker
Once upon a time there was a young woman called Margaret Marcus. She lived in Larchmont, a postwar suburb of New York City, and was born and brought up a Jew. As she grew into an adult, she became absorbed in certain questions that, to her, were important. And these have been discovered, read, mulled over and re-presented by the author as a book that highlights the disconnect between the beliefs and tenets of Islam and the ways of the West. The subject, Margaret, did something unusual for the time and unexpected for her context – she converted to Islam, left her country and moved to Lahore, Pakistan, to live a far more restricted life and yet become one of the best known individuals in the discussion on what Islam is in the modern world. As Maryam Jameelah comes through as a woman not at peace with herself or her life, but one who teeters on the edge of fundamentalism and wrote loud and long and profusely about and against her former existence and the West in general.
As a character with issues Maryam is not the first of her kind that Baker has profiled. She has written about suicidal poet Laura Riding and about the mentally fragile Beats of India. But in Maryam she finds a subject who is the personification of the age-old debate between Islam and the West, sometimes loud and hectoring, sometimes quiet and strangely frightening, always edgy and just that fraction off a balance that could tip either way with unwanted, unwonted results. As she trolled through anonymous grey boxes that made up the archives at the New York Public Library, Baker found a little surprise: a Muslim name where most were Christian or Jewish. There were nine boxes containing letters home to parents and astonishingly contrasting texts written with a fanatic flavour and cited and respected in madrassas, vignettes of a life that changed so dramatically and drastically that it was as if one person had died and another had been born. It was a choice made – “a life lived by the sacred laws laid out in the Holy Qur’an or one blackened by hell-bent secular materialism”.
The book is in some ways confusing, wavering between Baker’s thoughts and Maryam’s rather more radical arguments, but it is absorbing, interesting, informative and, eerily, acceptable. There is a culture that to an Indian – especially a modern-day Hindu - is familiar, but as if seen from behind a veil composed of all the traits, characters and quirks of a religion that is not fully known or understood. And there is a personality that is so swept away by faith and the people with whom she associates that it is difficult to accept that degree of trust. There is suspense, there is an almost-soap-opera like story that twists and turns and goes from secrets about very intimate feelings, situations and happenings to a forum that is very public and global. And there is the underlying and growing awareness that Maryam is indeed a woman who is mentally disturbed, one who has demons to face that only she can see and hear.
Whether Maryam was unusual in her beliefs and decisions is not for anyone except herself and her conscience to say. But whether Baker should have recorded this life should not be in question – it is one worth knowing, if not living.
THE CONVERT
Deborah Baker
Once upon a time there was a young woman called Margaret Marcus. She lived in Larchmont, a postwar suburb of New York City, and was born and brought up a Jew. As she grew into an adult, she became absorbed in certain questions that, to her, were important. And these have been discovered, read, mulled over and re-presented by the author as a book that highlights the disconnect between the beliefs and tenets of Islam and the ways of the West. The subject, Margaret, did something unusual for the time and unexpected for her context – she converted to Islam, left her country and moved to Lahore, Pakistan, to live a far more restricted life and yet become one of the best known individuals in the discussion on what Islam is in the modern world. As Maryam Jameelah comes through as a woman not at peace with herself or her life, but one who teeters on the edge of fundamentalism and wrote loud and long and profusely about and against her former existence and the West in general.
As a character with issues Maryam is not the first of her kind that Baker has profiled. She has written about suicidal poet Laura Riding and about the mentally fragile Beats of India. But in Maryam she finds a subject who is the personification of the age-old debate between Islam and the West, sometimes loud and hectoring, sometimes quiet and strangely frightening, always edgy and just that fraction off a balance that could tip either way with unwanted, unwonted results. As she trolled through anonymous grey boxes that made up the archives at the New York Public Library, Baker found a little surprise: a Muslim name where most were Christian or Jewish. There were nine boxes containing letters home to parents and astonishingly contrasting texts written with a fanatic flavour and cited and respected in madrassas, vignettes of a life that changed so dramatically and drastically that it was as if one person had died and another had been born. It was a choice made – “a life lived by the sacred laws laid out in the Holy Qur’an or one blackened by hell-bent secular materialism”.
The book is in some ways confusing, wavering between Baker’s thoughts and Maryam’s rather more radical arguments, but it is absorbing, interesting, informative and, eerily, acceptable. There is a culture that to an Indian – especially a modern-day Hindu - is familiar, but as if seen from behind a veil composed of all the traits, characters and quirks of a religion that is not fully known or understood. And there is a personality that is so swept away by faith and the people with whom she associates that it is difficult to accept that degree of trust. There is suspense, there is an almost-soap-opera like story that twists and turns and goes from secrets about very intimate feelings, situations and happenings to a forum that is very public and global. And there is the underlying and growing awareness that Maryam is indeed a woman who is mentally disturbed, one who has demons to face that only she can see and hear.
Whether Maryam was unusual in her beliefs and decisions is not for anyone except herself and her conscience to say. But whether Baker should have recorded this life should not be in question – it is one worth knowing, if not living.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Hunger is a good weapon
(bdnews24.com, June 3, 2011)
For the past few months in India, protest has been the name of various games. People want something, they protest; if they don’t want something, they protest; if they think something is wrong, they protest; and, once in a strange while, if they think something is right, they do a little bit of a protest too. And one very Indian way of protesting is to stop eating, the practice known as a ‘hunger strike’.
Many years ago, when I was a student doing a kind of internship at a high-level research facility, the worker’s union at the institute decided to go on a mass hunger strike to protest, among other issues, the fact that I wore a sweatshirt with the official logo emblazoned on it. Why that should have been a point of contention I do not know, since the shirt had been made for me by my father and had nothing to do with any official permissions or commercial transaction.
Any which way, the union members gathered outside the cafeteria at about 10:30 in the morning, nicely fortified with sweet tea, snacks and slogans shouted under a big banner. They sat there reading magazines, gossiping, listening to music and got slowly more and more hungry. Crowds walked in and out, stopped to stare, chat and sympathise, official security did a quick and regular check every now and then and I watched from the balcony overlooking the scene.
It was a long, slow, painful time, as hunger gradually crept upon the strikers, inch by tortuous inch until finally, unable to bear the suffering any longer, they unanimously declared the strike over, their cause, if not won, at least made clear to the management. It was time to stop the protest; it was time to regroup and re-strategise; most importantly, it was time for lunch.
This one left me – for one – in giggles, but not all hunger strikes lend themselves to levity. Take, for instance, Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, as we Indians like to call him, the man who fought for freedom and won it by a shrewd mixture of politics, diplomacy and bargaining. He had many routes to getting what he wanted, the most effective, perhaps, being a foodless one. Not getting his way through logical and more devious means of argument, good sense and political discussion, he would take the emotional route and retreat into a shell, either not speaking – because of the intense sadness he felt, he has said – or, as a last resort, not eating.
Fasting was a non-violent way of communicating, of getting the message across, he believed, in keeping with the tenets of satyagraha, or civil resistance. And it worked, though it did occasionally cause the British, who were the opposing team, to dig in their colonial heels and stand firm against such blandishment – on at least one occasion, this brought Gandhi rather too close to death for comfort!
Hunger has been used to make the point not just in India, but all over the world. It was a favourite method of protesting injustice in pre-Christian Ireland, according to the Internet, but had all sorts of rules, caveats and codes by which it could be done. In 1909 suffragette Marion Dunlop decided to go on a hunger strike while she was in jail for wanting the right to vote. She was quickly released, because the authorities did not want her to die in their jurisdiction – unfortunately, many women died after being force-fed, a process that was painful and injurious.
In the US, too, women demanding rights went on hunger strikes and had to undergo force-feeding while in prison. Other such horror stories have come out of Tibet, Cuba, Turkey, Canada and Iran, Japan, Venezuela and Palestine – anywhere that ordinary people have a point to make and no other way to deal with it. This is peaceful, non-intrusive and very personal. And, as history shows again and again, it works.
Why this topic at this time? Various reasons, actually. At the moment, a glorified yoga teacher called Baba Ramdev has been holding my country to ransom as he threatens to go on a hunger strike to protest the government’s inaction against the evils of black money and corruption. Just a few weeks ago well-known social activist Anna Hazare did the same, staying off food for 96 hours – a significant time period considering the gentleman’s age (71) and state of health (needs medication and care) – but at the end of it convincing a recalcitrant government to think about his demands and start the wheels of investigation and change turning, albeit excruciatingly slowly.
But for me, personally, all this makes little sense. Apart from the fact that I like food and I think eating is one of the pleasures of everyday living, it does not make sense to starve to win a battle – where do you get the strength to fight then? How does that work into making the protest, for whatever cause, powerful and convincing?
If someone can answer that one for me, I will fast…at least until dinner time!
For the past few months in India, protest has been the name of various games. People want something, they protest; if they don’t want something, they protest; if they think something is wrong, they protest; and, once in a strange while, if they think something is right, they do a little bit of a protest too. And one very Indian way of protesting is to stop eating, the practice known as a ‘hunger strike’.
Many years ago, when I was a student doing a kind of internship at a high-level research facility, the worker’s union at the institute decided to go on a mass hunger strike to protest, among other issues, the fact that I wore a sweatshirt with the official logo emblazoned on it. Why that should have been a point of contention I do not know, since the shirt had been made for me by my father and had nothing to do with any official permissions or commercial transaction.
Any which way, the union members gathered outside the cafeteria at about 10:30 in the morning, nicely fortified with sweet tea, snacks and slogans shouted under a big banner. They sat there reading magazines, gossiping, listening to music and got slowly more and more hungry. Crowds walked in and out, stopped to stare, chat and sympathise, official security did a quick and regular check every now and then and I watched from the balcony overlooking the scene.
It was a long, slow, painful time, as hunger gradually crept upon the strikers, inch by tortuous inch until finally, unable to bear the suffering any longer, they unanimously declared the strike over, their cause, if not won, at least made clear to the management. It was time to stop the protest; it was time to regroup and re-strategise; most importantly, it was time for lunch.
This one left me – for one – in giggles, but not all hunger strikes lend themselves to levity. Take, for instance, Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, as we Indians like to call him, the man who fought for freedom and won it by a shrewd mixture of politics, diplomacy and bargaining. He had many routes to getting what he wanted, the most effective, perhaps, being a foodless one. Not getting his way through logical and more devious means of argument, good sense and political discussion, he would take the emotional route and retreat into a shell, either not speaking – because of the intense sadness he felt, he has said – or, as a last resort, not eating.
Fasting was a non-violent way of communicating, of getting the message across, he believed, in keeping with the tenets of satyagraha, or civil resistance. And it worked, though it did occasionally cause the British, who were the opposing team, to dig in their colonial heels and stand firm against such blandishment – on at least one occasion, this brought Gandhi rather too close to death for comfort!
Hunger has been used to make the point not just in India, but all over the world. It was a favourite method of protesting injustice in pre-Christian Ireland, according to the Internet, but had all sorts of rules, caveats and codes by which it could be done. In 1909 suffragette Marion Dunlop decided to go on a hunger strike while she was in jail for wanting the right to vote. She was quickly released, because the authorities did not want her to die in their jurisdiction – unfortunately, many women died after being force-fed, a process that was painful and injurious.
In the US, too, women demanding rights went on hunger strikes and had to undergo force-feeding while in prison. Other such horror stories have come out of Tibet, Cuba, Turkey, Canada and Iran, Japan, Venezuela and Palestine – anywhere that ordinary people have a point to make and no other way to deal with it. This is peaceful, non-intrusive and very personal. And, as history shows again and again, it works.
Why this topic at this time? Various reasons, actually. At the moment, a glorified yoga teacher called Baba Ramdev has been holding my country to ransom as he threatens to go on a hunger strike to protest the government’s inaction against the evils of black money and corruption. Just a few weeks ago well-known social activist Anna Hazare did the same, staying off food for 96 hours – a significant time period considering the gentleman’s age (71) and state of health (needs medication and care) – but at the end of it convincing a recalcitrant government to think about his demands and start the wheels of investigation and change turning, albeit excruciatingly slowly.
But for me, personally, all this makes little sense. Apart from the fact that I like food and I think eating is one of the pleasures of everyday living, it does not make sense to starve to win a battle – where do you get the strength to fight then? How does that work into making the protest, for whatever cause, powerful and convincing?
If someone can answer that one for me, I will fast…at least until dinner time!
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