Krazy Kochi

Migrant Workers in Kerala

2012-01-24T09:20:00.000+05:30

On Sundays, Gandhi Bazaar in Perumbavoor, a smalltown in Kerala, is thick with crowd upon crowd of migrant workers from India's east. It’s a kind of meeting place for migrants employed in different partsof Kerala and they congregate here with a week’s wages bulging in theirpockets. The small make-shift stalls of the bazaar spill out on to the road asthe people throng to buy clothes, Bengali beedis and other stuff from way backhome or simply hang out. An Oriyan bhajan in a CD shop competes with Assamesesinger Akashdeep in another store, creating the exciting cacophony of a fair. Tuckedaway in a corner, Rihaj from Orissa runs a tailoring shop offering specialdesigns while City Hotel serves hot bhai biriyani, samosas and Bengali sweets. Asfor the postal name Gandhi Bazaar–it has slowly withered away in references andhas been replaced by Bhai bazaar or Bengali bazaar.

22-year-old Ajis Khan, a mechanic from Assam turnsentrepreneur on Sundays. He does a brisk business by selling watermelon juiceand makes around Rs 1000 just on this day. Ajis, who stays in a single room,sends home Rs 8000 to 10,000 every month. Not everyone is as lucky as Ajis,many share a room with six or seven others and use the community toilet. Wemeet Noor, a school dropout, who tells a sordid tale. In 2004, when Noor washardly 14, he decided to abruptly terminate his hungry childhood and go insearch of a dream. He and four other friends boarded a train to Kerala-theveritable worker’s paradise- from the remote village in West Bengal, Jalangi,bordering Bangladesh. Noor roamed around till he found a job in a paper mill. Today,Noor sends at least Rs 5000 home to his parents and his two siblings. “I loveit here. Everyone in my village says Kerala is the best place in India,” saysNoor in faultless Malayalam.

It seems like the entire youth in the district ofMurshidabad, West Bengal, the villages of Orissa, Assam, Jharkhand had the samedream as Noor and decided to collectively move down to Kerala. They work in theplywood industry in Perumbavoor, construction industry, hotels, brick kilns inTrissur, plastic companies in Palakkad, road construction-the bhai is in everynook and corner of both urban and rural Kerala.

Kerala has become the Gulf tothese poor workers from the north east. Says N. Ajith Kumar, director of Centrefor Socio-economic & Environmental Studies, who did a study on them inNovember 2011, “Traditionally we have had large number of Tamil labour but theyhave declined because of jobs and better wages back home. The migration fromthese areas are akin to international migration because they travel more than2000 kilometers to come here. Another interesting feature you see is rural torural migration. They are not going to the big cities.” In the last few years therehas seen a massive explosion in their numbers- researchers like Ajith Kumar say10 lakh or more migrants are working in Kerala but there are no officialstatistics to prove this.

Kerala has been an exporter of man power for manyyears-20 lakh Malayalees work in the Gulf and other foreign countries and 10lakh in other parts of India. In an ironical reversal of roles, today, thestate is desperately seeking people in every industry. The shortage of manpoweris so acute that a small industrial town like Perumbavoor is totally dependenton migrant workers. State Bank of India has a single branch in Perumbavoor andon Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays there is a heavy rush to send money home. SaysC.M.Vijayan, bank manager, “On these three days alone migrant workers deposit 50lakhs.” Banking service is only one way they send money home, these workers alsouse postal services and the hawala route.

Sister Merin, co-ordinator of the Migrant Worker’sMovement, says that there are at least 2 lakh migrants in Perumbavoor. “It ishard to give an accurate figure. We call them the floating community. Todaythey work here but tomorrow they will be in Wayanad - wherever they are offeredhigher wages. There is no permanency in their nature. Initially they werebrought down by contractors but now people just come on their own.”

The migrants are usually male and in the age groupof 18 to 24 and though they are often paid less than the locals they earndouble or triple of what they would earn back home. The older skilled workerlike a mason or carpenter can command nearly the same wages as the locals whois paid anywhere between Rs 500 to 700 per day (much higher than the minimumwages). The construction industry is perhaps the largest employer of themigrant labour. There are approximately 350 builders in the state of which 120are part of the Kerala Builders association. T. Padmajan, president of theKerala Builders Association, says that at least 4 lakh migrant workers areemployed in this sector. “99 per cent of the workers are from outside thestate. There is a shortage of masons, carpenters, electricians, painters. Ourpeople are either employed in the Gulf or educated and are not interested inthese jobs.”

Though the migrants are found in every sector the trade unions arenot resisting their entry. Says P.S. Mohanan, CITU Ernakulam district committeesecretary, “It is extremely difficult to get workers here that is why themigrants have come in.”The hotel industry is facing the same crisis. Saysgeneral manager of Casino Hotel, CGH Earth, “In the last decade 10 to 12 five-starhotels have sprung up in Kochi alone. We are not getting quality man power for frontoffice, waiters and back area service. The Malayalee looks at local employmentonly as training period before he sets off abroad.” Says G. Gopinath, presidentof AACHK, “People from Manipur and Assam seek work in hotels on their own butwe insist our members only employ workers with identity cards.”

Under the Inter-state Migrant Workmen Act 1979,accommodation and medical facilities have to be provided to workers if theyhave been brought by a contractor. Though sometimes accommodation is providedthe conditions are extremely squalid and unhygienic. Says Sister Merin, “InKakkanad, Ernakulam we found 500 people were sharing one toilet. The workersare also often denied any medical benefits if there is an accident. Since mostdon’t have identity cards they avoid going to the police and cannot claim compensation.Here we step in and negotiate with the employers so they get faircompensation.” Mohanan agrees, “These workers are being paid much less and theyare not getting medical benefits or accommodation. We tried to form anorganization but the contractors who supply the labour removed them from thescene immediately.”

The state initiated the Kerala Migrant Workers’Welfare Fund under which the worker can claim medical benefits if he/she isregistered. Says additional Labour Commissioner V L Anil Kumar, “23,500 workershave registered so far. They need to have some sort of identity card toregister. The government is also planning a common shelter for these workers tobetter their living conditions.” Economist Dr Martin Patrick says, “In spite of all this exploitation,Kerala’s working environment is far better than other states. While studyingthis group we found many migrants are from Bangladesh with a criminalbackground posing as Bengalis.” Police sources too agree that theft and crimehave been on the rise because there is no check on the numbers coming into thestate. “We now send back people who do not have identity cards.”

(A shorter version of the article first published in the Outlook magazine)

Hermaphroditic Times

2012-01-05T09:42:00.003+05:30

Book Review: Spring Flowers, Spring Frost

I began this review at the start of the Arab Spring-that is near a year now- and yet it remains in a state of incompletion. I now think it is fitting that it remains so. Like the times… we have no clue how things will turn out.

And the moment-it is neither here nor there: a transitional phase that is quite out of character with the normal times. This moment cannot be defined by the behavioral traits of a given period and we epileptically grapple for a definition and fail-we don’t know how to quite put it. Albanian author Ismail Kadare is not so confused. He’s been there and he calls it a hermaphroditic moment, or to use the old language of the Albanian people: a bitch and a dog. Kadare’s novel, Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (Random House 2002), attempts to capture this peculiar time when his country, Albania, is in the throes of transition from a manacled communist state to a new-found freedom that turns into a Frankenstein monster with an ancient past.

It may seem trifle late to discuss a book that was written more than a decade ago but with the Arab Spring not quite dying out yet, (it’s been ten months or more) and a few Middle East nations in the heat of a bitch and a dog-Kadare’s novel brings a perspective hitherto unexplored in newspapers. Even the title refers to a Spring that seems to reflect the Arab Spring.

Libya, Syria, Algeria, there are more of them out there, are fighting vigorously for uncertainty. Better that than a corralled certainty. “The world is being reinvented now, by the Internet.” When Kadare wrote that line he would not have imagined the full potent of his statement. Yes, Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen made frantic escapes into unchartered freedoms riding on twitter-ing waves not knowing how to navigate them. Now that they have arrived in their freedoms what next? Should they divvy up their freedoms for a political settlement? Or should they willfully borrow from a mummified past to create a new future or even worse will the long evicted gory traditions of the past come visiting with their calling cards? Like what happens in Kadare’s Spring Flowers, Spring Frost.

In the town of B- Albania, artist Mark Gurabardhi is painting the tip of the iceberg that did the Titanic in and also, his girlfriend in the nude. He works in the City Arts centre where everything is discussed threadbare. In the old days “in the fear of the state, people altered their opinions to fit the official sources.” The Sigurimi, the state security network, kept tabs on people and was quick to shoot down dissent. But now that they were free, Albanians could not be bothered with official opinion and changed their view every day. People whispered about extra special meetings that took place though it hadn’t. “Mark put them (rumours) down initially to the mental muddle fostered by the psychotic atmosphere of the times.” Sometimes the atmosphere is just as stifling as the Communist years.

Mark learns from his girlfriend about the revival of the ancient law of the Kanun. Kanun, the law of vendetta, was prohibited during the Communist era but now it had got a new life and her family was entangled in a blood debt that had been lying dormant for fifty years. And her brother Angelin must take revenge with a single shot. But what Mark had not imagined was how close the Kanun would strike. Angelin’s target is his boss, the director.

Khadre’s play of chapter and counter-chapter aids in weaving myth and folklore into the novel effectively…

Park, A play by Just Theatre

2010-05-17T08:32:00.002+05:30

Park Synopsis
A squabble for the choicest of seats in the park.
Each man’s claim is the most fundamental.
And as always, there’s never enough room for everyone.
On the face of it Park is a comedy about three men in a Park fighting for their individual space.The playful banter turns into a serious squabble and questions of ‘space, territory and ownership’become fraught with tension as individual needs display traces of larger and more serious conflicts.Park is a hilarious take on what can be termed conflict for space or the character of ‘home’.Larger questions of political displacements loom over the play as characters invoke the trauma of forcible evictions suffered by political groups as diverse as Palestinians and Kashmiris, Tibetans and adivasis.

PRODUCTION: JUST THEATRE
DIRECTED BY MANAV KAUL
About the Writer and Director:Manav Kaul is one of the most importantvoices in Contemporary Indian Theatre. His play Park premiered in 2009 in Mumbai at PrithviTheatre and has won great critical acclaim since its debut.The cast has wide experience in acting, directing and play writing. Abhishek Mazumdar is a product of the London Institute of Performing Arts.
CAST:: Sachin Gurjale, Vinod Ravindran, Abhishek Mazumdar
LIGHTS: Anil Ramachandran
SOUND: Bharavi

Reading Zero Degree

2010-04-24T11:11:00.002+05:30

The novel begins by addressing The Lady Reader and it suggests, that as she begins reading the text of Zero Degree, she maybe upto anything—working, having sex, fantasising, chanting, screaming with labour pain etc… As Charu Nivedita spews his critique, or a disguised critique of magic realism that is undergoing an existential crisis—it gets a wee bit complicated here—one witnesses the throes of one literary genre getting transformed into another.

Whatever Charu Nivedita likes to call this form of writing it is far from boring. It is a laugh riot and you are sucked into the novel not knowing how to tackle it. I am warning you that there is no easy method to read this, you will get lost in the sea of ideas and words and there is no looking back. Don’t bother to go back to unravel things—I suggest you just flow with the words. Then it gets more complicated—the existential crisis of the author gets intertwined with the existential crisis of the genre and that gets intertwined with the existential crisis of the characters of the novel and all this gets reduced to absurdity. Oh god that’s another genre. Let me quote from the book to try and make you understand the complexities of dealing with this novel. “The ‘I’ that appears at the beginning of this novel refers to me, Charu Nivedita, the author. But there are actually several other ‘I’s responsible for the book. First of all, there is Surya, who wanted to write a novelisation of the life of Muniyandi, and dedicate it to his daughter, Genesis; he made pages and pages of notes, and pasted in lots of clippings from daily newspapers. Then there is Muniyandi himself, who later went through Surya’s notes and made all sorts of corrections and revisions.” That kind of sums up what you are going to encounter. And to add to that the "I" in the review is me.

Halfway through the novel, I throw up my hands and cry that things are quite inexplicable. Punctuation marks, grammar and sentence construction are given the miss, to deliberately create chaotic chapters. The narrative is interrupted by newsreports, critiques on Latin American novelists and reports about Africa without any manners. Yes, without any manners, I would say, because I want to cling to the last vestige of sanity—grammar and manners. I am not the only one who accuses the writer of a certain madness. “I think it would be a good for you to see a psychiatrist, said a Lady Reader.” To which the writer replies, “Lady Reader, if there was a psychiatrist who would do me any good, then he would also be able to eradicate starvation, famine, corruption, exploitation, megalomania, and jealousy, he said, vexed.” I am now beginning to understand why the first writer Muniyandi was killed or said to be killed by the words that he himself created, “he wrote these notes in reality the words themselves wrote this novel as is borne out by the fact that the characters attempted to kill the author….”

As in all experimental novels, the first time a reader attempts to read it, he is astounded, and then it grows on him. So does Zero Degree—it is a brilliant novel that was written in Tamil much ahead of its time. We had to wait for Pritham K Charavarthy and Rakesh Khanna to translate it and Blaft to publish it ten years after it was first published.

A good buffet spread at The International Hotel

2010-04-17T19:17:00.011+05:30

The Great Spoiler: It is great to be the first for a buffet. To run the spoon through the artfully designed dishes.

It's hot: the chutney and preserve section

Really that is not kichadi but pachadi: The bittergourd pachadi is an interesting idea

If there is one dish that I like at The International Hotel it is their Seafood Au Gratin. That afternoon I had that yearning for the cheesy gooey melt with its small bits of seafood- squid and all. The rings of squid or sear cube nudge against the softness of your inner cheek and urge you to sink your teeth into them while the cheese spreads slowly over your tongue. The texture is amazing against your palate. It was one of those moments when I just had to have the au gratin with warm buttered rolls. And believe me I am not even pregnant to have that sudden onslaught of yearnings. But I guess it was one of those moments.

But what greeted me at the Coq D’Or restaurant was a spread of the buffet. We were the first to arrive. There is a certain delicious appeal in running the spoon through the neatly arranged dishes and delicately moulded desserts. To ruin the look of the chef’s stylish creation belongs to the first customer: the great spoiler. I forgot my yearning for the seafood au gratin and settled for the buffet. I was not going to give up this rare privilege of being the first on the spot. And there I was running around clicking a few pictures before I set out delightedly nay wickedly to ruin every artfully done dish.

The buffet had three cuisines jostling for space on the crowded tables-the Chinese, the Keralan and the Continental. If you are clueless about the dishes it can confuse your tastebuds coz it is kind of weird if you take a portion of avial or pachadi (the card read kichadi) and have it with a roll that is appealing placed nearby. Or worse, if you mix the noodles with the sambar. Since we all have a fair idea of these cuisines and know how to co-ordinate them properly we have no problem but what if a foreigner who has never done any of these cuisines walks in? An alien walks in? No one had thought of that.

And since I am no alien I did not ruin the noodle with the spicy sambar. I went straight for the salads: cold cuts, Russian salad, the very Keralan coconut flavoured onion salad and a cabbage salad. The salads were good. The roasted masala fried fish- where the fried fish gets soaked in masala- though it had a greasy spicy look that can put you off- was delicious so was the beef.

Then I did a Keralan round: a little bit of rice, fried bittergourd pachadi was a completely new flavor, avial, sambar and chutneys.

For dessert I settled for vanilla ice cream and fruit salads. There was, of course, the mousse, the payasam, the caramel custard etc...
Rate per head: Rs 300 + taxes.

The Colour of Fantasy: A brief history of Graphic Novels in India

2010-03-08T19:33:00.019+05:30

(The Image above courtesy Moonward)
The relationship between the text and the visual is perhaps most intimate in a graphic novel. Each complements the other to hold the novel together. But, there are often times when the page or the frame is devoid of text. However, the narrative remains uninterrupted. The reader then has the liberty to assume control of the space and interpret the visual to give it a language that is exclusively his own. Undoubtedly, all this is complex and gripping.

Yes, these are exciting times for both the graphic novelists and the reader in India. Hardly five years in the Indian market, the graphic novel is on the threshold of a new phase. It is alluring more and more writers to the craft and interesting experiments in the structure of the novel are underway. The genre has grown by leaps and bounds and more than half a dozen graphic novels (by Indians) are expected to hit the stores in 2010.

What is it all about? The term ‘graphic novel’ conjures up images of a rebellious comic book, all grown up, adequately armed with literary devices that takes on the snobbish, condescending world of adults. The behaviour of this genre, too, is much more mature—serious and darker than the regular comic books. Not that there are no fun elements in these novels—plenty of it—Terry Pratchett’s ‘The Discworld’ series weave a fantasy world sequined with parodies and psychedelic images. However, ask the graphic novelist to explain the term and he becomes flippant and ambiguous—and that does not help the genre’s identity one bit.

Says Sarnath Banerjee, the author of ‘Corridor’, India’s first commercially successful graphic novel in English, “I think it is a waste of time to figure out what is a graphic novel and what is a comic book. I often interchange the term.” Novelist Appupen aka George Mathen says with a laugh, “I think it is cool to call it a graphic novel, so I stick to the term. It is a serious storyline in graphic format.”
Though this form of ‘serious-literary’ sequential art has been around for a while, it was the American graphic novelist Will Eisner who is believed to have given it that semantic distinction—he hit upon the term ‘graphic novel’ on the spur of a desperate moment to sell his work ‘A Contract with God’ to an editor. The pop-myth goes that the editor loved the idea.

Even if the west had their regular diet of this genre for more than half a century, it was only in the mid-nineties that these imported novels found space in the Indian bookstores. Films like ‘Sin City’ (based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller) further fuelled the consumption of this form of storytelling. In 2004, with the publishing of Sarnath Banerjee’s ‘Corridor’, the Indian novelscape changed forever; the author then had to literally cry in the wilderness, to herald the coming of this genre. Says Banerjee, “That time, 2004, doing a graphic novel required vision from the editor and the marketing people of the publishing house. The whole book launch had to be innovative, not just the usual readings and in-conversations. Images had to be brought in, sometimes performances. The bookshops and distributors had to be pushed with this new, weird looking book.”

It was a boost for the publishers that Iranian Marjane Satrapi’s ‘Persepolis, The Story of a Childhood’ (now a film) had been received well in India at about the same time. Since then, things have looked up and in the last few years, the interest for the genre has increased rapidly—today Landmark bookstore alone boasts of over 3,000 (mostly imported) titles and Crossword around 300 to 400 titles—whole sections in bookshops are religiously devoted to the graphic novel. With the film based on the iconic graphic novel ‘Watchmen’ by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore, the younger readers are gravitating to the genre.

Following Banerjee’s ‘Corridor’ and ‘The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers’ (2007), Amruta Patil made her debut with Kari and Tejas Modak too joined the gang in 2008. (We are only talking about mainstream Indian English graphic novelists here.) This year the brand new entrants are Parismita Singh’s The Hotel at the End of the World, Appupen’s Moonward (published by Blaft) and Anindya Roy’s When Kulbhushan met Stockli. That’s not all. HarperCollins is working on five new graphic novels that will be out soon.

Says David Davidar, CEO Penguin International, “If you publish the right author or book you're bound to make an impact. In this respect, graphic novels are no different from other literary novels (I must make clear that I'm discussing the graphic novel equivalents of literary novels and not books belonging to genres like manga). Graphic novels are still rather thin on the ground in India but I expect a lot more will be published in the future especially with graphic novelists like Sarnath Banerjee leading the charge.”

It is also challenging for book editors, too, who for the large part of their work have only dealt with all-text, wordy novels. VK Karthika, publisher and chief editor of HarperCollins India, says that it is very different to edit a graphic novel. “These novelists function at many levels—they see the image and the text together whereas an editor sees two separate forms. The editor’s intervention is basically textual—to see if there is continuity and to ensure that the image is stronger. As an editor this form of expression really shakes you out of your comfort zone when you approach a blank space. You don’t know what will come next. When you read a regular novel, you exclaim: ‘sparkling phrase’ or ‘clever line’. But with a graphic novel, the effect is much more with many layers—it is more sophisticated. And each time you unpack, you see the image and text have been subtly altered like in ‘The Barn Owl’s Wondrous Capers’. It is very rewarding and hugely satisfying.”
Diya Kar Hazra, editorial director and rights director, Penguin India, points out that these novels require greater attention to detail than the regular novels. “Text and visual have to come together perfectly, so it goes through several more rounds of editing. And text needs to complement the visuals to make the narrative complete. Apart from myths, legends and literary fiction there are many subjects that lend themselves to the form—non-fiction themes in particular.”

Often a very familiar picture stares back at you and you marvel at the casual use of it in a very different setting—Amruta Patil has interestingly used The Last Supper painting as a base for a frame. “Certain stories,” says Tejas Modak, “have a visual potential that demands the use of art in tandem with text for their expression. “My first book—‘Private-eye Anonymous: The Art Gallery Case’-was one such story. I always wanted to make a humorous detective character and visually depict his setting—the dramatic light and shadows of noir—with my drawings.” While Appupen’s fantasy land called Halahala and the people who inhabit it, cannot be imagined except as visual art—his thinking is so visual. This one-time adman sold his novel through Facebook and his website (georgemathen.com). He says, “The text is simple, it is more accessible and for some parts there is no text at all. Though it is a fantasy world, my stories are rooted in reality. My idea is to strike a chord with the reader.” That he has done undoubtedly.

Interview/ Parismita Singh
The Hotel at the End of the World, in stark black and white, diligently details stories, folklores and myths. The novel is not tethered to any particular time or to a specific geographical setting, it traverses with ease the world of cellphones and the era when the Great Wall of China was made. The protagonists Kona and Kuja in search of the floating island with the hidden treasure find themselves in the hotel at the end of the world with its regular customers. And soon each of them begins to unravel a story. The author in a brief interivew:

Why did you choose to tell your story in the graphic format?I am comfortable with the medium and I accentually draw as well as write. I chose to do it in black and white to create the effect.

Your novel is not set in a specific time or place?It was intended that way, but I have left regional clues and markers embedded in the novel for people to discover. The nicest thing is that different people react differently to the novel.

Most of your characters have some physical deformity. Why?
I did not consciously do that but yes, each of these characters was meant to tell a story.

You have woven myths, folklore from different parts of the world.
Yes, I have used folklore, myths and even disguised some stories as folklore.

You have connected the cellphone era with the making of the Great Wall of China.
Oh no, it was not meant to be the Great Wall of China. But it is interesting how you’ve interpreted it.

Face to Face with Rajat Kapoor

2009-11-14T10:08:00.011+05:30

If used with the right intonations, gibberish can appropriate the garb and grammar of any developed language. And how! Rajat Kapoor used it to perfection in his play Hamlet, The Clown Prince that was staged in Cochin. Almost mocking the literary intellectual, the play began with a dose of gibberish-Shakespeare was reduced to just that. And yet the language of nonsense was used craftily to bring a new meaning to the classic play.

Rajat Kapoor speaks his mind in this interview.

It is obvious Hamlet, The Clown Prince is very dear to your heart? How much research went into creating this brilliant play.

Not much research. No research actually. That is not my way of working. But a lot of work on stage- in rehearsals- the process was great fun, never work.

The use of gibberish, the language of nonsense, can be used so well in theatre. What made you use this for this script?
Well, that is something we discovered in the earlier play - C FOR CLOWN. And we continue using it in this-it was good to have a language for clowns and another for the Shakespeare text. We could thus move in and out of the text.
And the gibberish has the grammar of a proper language. How did you manage that?
I think it is the emotion that guides the actor… If the emotion is truthful, then that gets expressed – with or without words
There are parts that seem almost like an opera, the gibberish sound European, did you have a European audience in mind when you created this?
No we didn’t have an European audience in mind, but our clowns are European in origin for sure.
My inspiration for clowns is Chaplin and Buster Keaton films. those are the two Big Clowns for me… and my first and everlasting fascination.
On his acting and directing...

You easily juggle the roles of model, actor, director and scriptwriter? How do you manage this?
Well, for one thing, I think I am pretty disciplined- and I make the time available count. Modelling and acting actually does not take much time, but writing does, and directing takes most of it. By prioritising things, one manages...
Which role is the most endearing to you?
The most endearing? Oh well, it must be the one in Bheja Fry. Also a film called I AM 24- that is directed by Saurabh Shukla- it a really good role. Very moving.
It is in the recent past that you seem to be doing things with a certain intensity –directing, acting, script writing etc. Why so late?
"Seem to be" is the key to this question. You see even 20 years back I was working with the same intensity, same passion, but it was not "seen". We used to make plays in Delhi with a theatre troupe called Chingari- there would be an audience of 50 -60 people. If we were lucky 100… we have done shows with 13 people in the audience. And most of these plays would die a silent death after 5-6 shows.
It is only now that one is able to run a play for over 100 shows and over 10 years… These plays are seen by an audience.
It is the same with my films. In the first place I was trying very hard to make films, but there was no opportunity to do so. I did make my first film in 1995 called Private Detective. It had Naseeruddin Shah in it but was never released. It went to a couple of festivals and then, that is it! Nobody really saw it.
Then things changed around 2002- multiplexes came in, a new audience was born and filmmakers like us were given a second lease of life.
You did study film direction? And then what happened?
Studied at FTII from 85 to 88. Then came to Bombay and worked as an assistant to two great filmmakers: Kumar Shahani and Mani Kaul. That was for three years.
Then made my first short film in 1993 called TARANA. It won the national award for the best short film that year, also the national award for best cinematography. In 95 made Private Detective- my first feature film- never released and in 97 another short fiction film- HYPNOTHESIS. That won the National Award. Besides these, I continued theatre- and kept writing scripts that could not find the funds. I kept writing and kept meeting producers who had no faith in those scripts. Mithya was written in this period- finally got made in 2007
While acting, do you have the urge to advise the director?
Never never never... I leave my director at home- I am a very submissive actor and do what I am told. As an actor, I realise my job is to be a part of the larger image and only the director knows what that larger image is.
What was it like to direct your first film and then wait for the public reaction?
The making was fabulous fun. Though after shooting, the producers ran away and I had to wait almost two years to finish the film. That was one of the worst periods of my life. And then another two years, waiting for the film to be released and when it did not, that was heart breaking.
Do you compromise your artistic freedom for success now?
Never NEVER NEVER… not now, not ever.
With all this, yet, you manage to travel with Hamlet, The
Clown Prince? How do you manage your time on a given day?
By some good scheduling, doing one thing at a time and doing it with full focus and

As an actor, are you perhaps a little embarrassed of that adulating stardom? There is something restrained about your style.
But that is just me- it is not that I am embarrassed about my stardom- (you said it, not I- I would never refer to it as stardom… maybe popularity.)- but I know what it means. I also know that people are reacting to an image they have seen on the screen and not really to me. This divide is very clear to me- that is why I take it (adulation as you call it), for what it is... But it is very gratifying all the same- and I am grateful for it...

To Laugh Or Not To Laugh

2009-11-06T13:36:00.003+05:30

Hamlet, The Clown Prince

Hamlet, The Clown Prince, is an award winning play directed by Rajat Kapoor. It is a laugh riot. However, it cannot be left unsaid that this play in English and Gibberish, is made of several layers that is profound in meaning. And even while you laugh you cannot stop thinking. It seeks to look at things in a different perspective.

The play: A bunch of clowns is putting up a show. They have taken the Shakespearean tragedy, ‘Hamlet’ and are trying to enact it. They sometimes misinterpret the text, sometimes find new meanings in it, sometimes try to understand it and very often make a mess of it.

They choose to use phrases from the play mixed with gibberish. They even edit the text, throw out important scenes and often reverse the order of things. But through this all they look for the essence of Hamlet and try to find a context in our own times.

It is performed by The Company Theatre and the performers are Atul Kumar, Puja Sarup, Sujay Saple, Namit Das, Rachel D’Souza and Neil Bhoopalan.

Directed by Bollywood actor Rajat Kapoor, it has got standing ovation around the world. It has received the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) in 2009 for Best Play, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Costume Design.

The play is in Gibberish and English

• Date: 6.30 pm, 15^th November

• Venue: Fine Arts Hall, Foreshore Road, Cochin

Free Masons: All about them

2009-10-19T08:27:00.007+05:30

Free masonry- the 'spiritual society' of sacred brotherhood with its origins in antiquity has always been shrouded in mystery. Their initiation rites, rituals, symbolisms, secret signs and code of conduct have further enhanced the aura of mysteriousness. Is Free Masonry a remnant of an ancient religion that worshipped the Sun or is it just an exclusive, elitist boy's club that indulges in secret charity missions?

In 1961 the Grand Lodge of India, which is an off -shoot of the Grand Lodges of Scotland, England and Ireland was constituted. The Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of India Mr.Arun Chintopanth was recently here in Kochi to preside over the meeting of the Regional Grand Lodge of Southern India. In an exclusive interview with the Grand Master sought to demystify the Masonic Lodge.

Arun Chintopanth in full regalia. Dont miss the apron.

What is Free Masonry?

It is not a service organisation. It is not a religious group. It is not a mutual benefit society but it is a combination of all these. It is not religious but spiritual. Before the start of any of our meetings we open the five Holy books, Bhagavad Gita, Koran, Bible, Guru Granth Sahib and Zend- Avesta and place it on a special altar. We pay obeisance to them and only after that do we proceed with our meetings.

How many lodges and members are there in India?

There are 343 Lodges and 17,000 members.

Please name a few eminent Indians who were past and present Masons?

Swami Vivekananda, C. Rajagopalachari, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, H.H. Marthanadavarma, Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh etc...

Do you all do charity work?

Yes. Though we are not a service organisation, charity is an important component of Free Masonry. We contribute from our pockets and we don't do it for publicity. We do it quietly to satisfy our inner conscience. We run the Masonic Paediatric Hospital at Coimbatore, Masonic Public School at Delhi and we have collected Rs 1.5 crores for the Tsunami fund. We get requests for assistance all the time.

How does one become a Mason?

He should be known to two other members. If he satisfies the qualifications, there is a secret ballot and then he is initiated into the Lodge.

Can an atheist become a Free Mason?

No. He has to be a believer, irrespective of any religion.

If you are not a secret society why do you have your meetings behind closed doors?

We are not a secret society. Masonic directory has our names and addresses printed on it. Everyone knows our meeting places. But we have certain secret rituals and secret modes of recognising each other. The rituals are secret because we want it to be an exclusive mystical and spiritual experience for our members. To maintain the spiritual sanctity we have it behind closed doors.

What is the punishment if the secrets are revealed?

The punishment is only symbolic.

Does the ritual have any similarity to subterranean rituals?

The rituals are based on the construction of King Solomon's Temple. The artifacts, the tools are used as symbols. A subterranean passage is mentioned but it is a misconception that there is a similarity.

Does Free Masonry have any association with other secret organisations like Knights Templar, Order de Sion, Illuminati?

We do not have any connection with them. It is all popular fiction.

What is the symbolic association of the sun? Does the Grand Master represent the sun?

It illuminates. The motto is "Let there be light." It is symbolic because the Grand Master is the highest in the hierarchy, so he illuminates. This has nothing to do with Illuminati.

The ancient religions of the Druids worshipped the Sun. Is this a remnant of that religion?

No it is not. It is only symbolic. Not only the Druids many other ancient religions worshipped the Sun too.

Is this a cult?

We are not a cult. It is not a religious organisation because we are not dogmatic. We teach through our rituals and symbols.

Why are you demystifying now?

There is a lot of misconception about Free Masonry. It is a noble concept of Fatherhood of one God and Brotherhood of all men.

Medieval origins

The documented history of Free Masonry can (in all probability) be traced to the Guild of Masons of medieval England, who designed and built cathedrals. The guild of architects and builders organised themselves into a "Lodge" and guarded the secrets of their Craft, but during the Reformation Period non -operative members were included into the Guild. These members, the Speculative Masons, later separated from the Operative masons to form the Masonic Lodge in the 18th century, retaining the symbolic use of the tools used by the operative masons. The character of the Lodge has remained speculative since then. Free Masonry, though it claims to be just a trust today with spiritual connotations, is still not accepted in many parts of the world. It is banned in many of the Islamic countries and Communist China because of their requirement to perform rituals behind closed doors. And the church has often been suspicious about their activities The abundance of symbols and allegories in the Masonic rituals leave it open to multiple interpretations and there is enough material for dozens of bestsellers in the line of Dan Brown's school of writing. One example: the reverse side of the Great Seal of the USA has an incomplete pyramid and the All Seeing Eye (now found on US dollar bills). The All Seeing Eye is an important Free Masonry symbol. Benjamin Franklin one of the creators of the Great Seal is said to have been a Free Mason, and so was George Washington. (Sources: The Lodge system of Masonic education, Free Masons and the World Wide Web)

First Published by The Hindu in 2005 August.

Supper Theatre

2009-08-25T07:22:00.005+05:30

Indian Chick-Lit : Smug and selling

2008-09-20T13:39:00.017+05:30

Swati Kaushal

Anuja Chauhan

Meenakshi Reddy

The romance of the quick and spicy chick-lit (ingredients and flavour totally desi) is spurring the Indian market to buy and read like never before. And it is the pretty-young-things with their saucy, smug and sexy writing that are accelerating the sales into dizzy new highs. In most other genres—a struggling, breathless 3000 copies are applauded by publishers as best sellers while this savvy, in- your- face lit is instantly pulling readers and pushing over 10,000 copies per month. Aha, what have we here? Even as Indians writers are snatching worldwide attention with their heavy-weight literary fiction, it is this emerging breed of young authors that is likely to laugh all the way to the bank. For decades, Indian readers with an inclination for chicklit had to make do with the import of romance rapidly fleshed out by Mills &Boon, Harlequin etc… Neither the location nor the TDH (tall, dark and handsome) protagonists of these books quite belonged to the landscape of the Indian mind. Karthika V K, publisher and chief editor of HarperCollins, who has always enjoyed chick-lit (she hid them between text books and read them during class hours, I can vouch for that!) says, “The market is expanding and there is great scope for commercial books. With about 10–12 chick-lit titles put together by all the publishers in the Indian market—we have the right books at the right time. And these authors are writing books that have strong story lines. They are also extremely promotable authors, who are very visible.” The two titles published by HarperCollins—Almost Single by Advaita Kala and The Zoya Factor by Anuja Chauhan have become bestsellers and HC is planning to publish another 2-3 by next year. Interestingly even unknown authors are doing extremely well. “Yes,” agrees Karthika, “because it is packaged differently and the cover is designed for popular read.” As for You Are Here by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan— despite an iffy plot and wild meanderings, the effusions of this much hyped blog-writer of The Complusive Confessor blog— the chronicling of mundane stuff that is nowhere near as effervescent as her blog, sold over 12000 copies in the first month. The younger readers rave about the book. Says Swathi M, “I find the book interesting and I can identify with it because she has written about the people in the metros who are aping the western culture and trying to get there.” (However, when I read the book, I pondered how the complexities of a miserable heartache could be elevated to such profound inanities. Oh boy! And I am truly grateful that expression does not come with a six pack!) But not all chick-lit is as complex in its meanderings as You Are Here. Piece of Cake (Penguin) by Swati Kaushal did well and her latest work A Girl Like Me is wellwritten and is poised to do better. Says Abhinaya Chakirala, an avid chick-lit reader, “There is a lot of sarcasm and humour in chick-lit. I really enjoyed Piece of Cake because I could relate to the central character, who had a career and a family and it was almost real. I look forward to reading her new book.”

Says author, Swati Kaushal, “I think in India, chick-lit is a very new phenomenon. The market has really grown for books that reflect the lives of confident and modern young women. There is however, the danger of too many me-books, with similar story lines and that’s when the attractiveness of a genre like chick-lit will start to fade. I think the market for well-written, accessible novels with contemporary themes is here to stay and will only grow.” As for those who want to achieve this success—anyone can try their luck at chick-lit provided you come up with the right formula and do the research, Says Diya Kar Hazra, managing editor & rights manager, Penguin India, “There’s tremendous scope for writers because there’s great demand for chick-lit. Essentially what is required is good writing: a racy narrative, a sound plot, strong characters and a good style. A strong sense of dialogue and characterisation help.” It seems like finally English chick-lit writers have found romance on Indian soil. And this is only the beginning of the deluge of novels we are about to see.
Anuja Chauhan, the executive creative director and vice president of JWT, Delhi and author of The Zoya Factor speaks to What’s Hot. “The book took me one year to write—in which time I worked on it full time for three months, and part-time for nine months while also holding down my full-time day job. I wrote it because I wanted to really stretch myself out. Advertising writing is fun but there’s always a product to be sold, a story to be told, which is not mine. There are durations and budget constraints. There are other people involved—clients, directors, movie stars. Everybody has a point of view, and they should too, that’s the way advertising functions! But I wanted to write something in which there would be no constraints whatsoever. And in which there would be no one to call the shots but me. Writing a novel gave me that freedom. The writing process was wild giddy fun from start to finish. I had a total blast, people kept asking me if I was expecting while I was writing, I had a glow. The book’s been received very well! Much better than I would’ve imagined in my most optimistic dreams. Ninety five percent of the reviews have been raves. I’m very flattered and very excited. We’ve sold seventeen thousand copies in less than two months! I have some very exciting movie offers too. And yes, I am very wary of being pigeon-holed. Now if there was a genre called damned-good-book-ya-mustread-ya-couldn’t-put-it-down-ya, then I would love to be classified in that!”

A Poetry Soiree

2008-09-16T14:11:00.004+05:30

That's Kapil for you-I am sure you can recognize him from behind too

It began for Kapil Sibal (Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences) quite unintentionally. When he wrote poems for judges who were retiring, the verses were always laudatory—“At the bar, the golden rule, in order to seek discretionary relief, is to be exceptionally laudatory about the judges. I did not, after their retirement want to deviate from this well-accepted norm,” he says in the introduction of I Witness, Partial Observations, his first book of verse. It unleashes unbridled wit and scorn, nostalgia and angst of this lawyer-politician
turned poet.
At an evening of poetry at Landmark, Kapil Sibal in conversation with Kanimozhi explains, “I never thought I will write a book on poetry. It was result of boredom on long flights that I decided to pen a few thoughts mostly for self- entertainment.” When Kanimozhi asks him how he feels as a poet, he replies, “It would be too presumptive of me to think of myself as poet. That is why I call it parital observations.”
Kanimozhi goes on to ask him what makes him decide on a poem. He replies, “I write on what I see around me. And things are changing rapidly. Before people used to write love letters now they send SMSes.”
The themes of Sibal’s poems dwell on a wide range of subjects like love, Tsunami, nano, parents etc... The seductive excitement of Twenty20 cannot be more succinctly expressed, “Instant stroke play / without any foreplay:/” But the subjects turn often to the comfort of his core areas—the political and judicial realm. Who better than a politician can poetically describe the ways of a sycophant and his feelings, “I suitably choreograph my way / almost to perfection /” then the poem ends, “My leader is thoughtful and kind,/ makes me feel most wanted; / endangered species that he is,/ I can’t take him for granted. /”
There is also a poem devoted to the July 22 vote of confidence, To Trust or not to Trust, and an ode to the other politico-poet A B Vajpayee which is titled Man behind the mask. Sibal’s “thoughts in quarantine” sure did compile them into an amusing and interesting book of verse. Some of the lines get your attention and will soon become part of the quotable quotes. Take the lines from Winner’s Recipe, where he holds forth on elections, “Most electoral victories / an ephemeral illusion.
Kapil Sibal has not minced words in his satire of journalists, politicians and lawyers in his poem Defining Moments.
So how does this lawyer turned politician see a poet?
Kapil Sibal gives an exclusive byte to What’s Hot, “Poets always exaggerate things—all art is an exaggeration of reality. It is not just exaggeration, it is philosophical, it is a veneer of reality. You see reality as you see it, all art is partial. My poems are rooted in contemporary Indian context. The problem with modern poetry is it is too esoteric, too distanced from reality-completely uncommunicative. All art is a form of communication and it should be appreciated by the consumer of art.”
Will you be quoting poetry in the courts and for your political speeches like Vajpayee?
“There is a time and place for everything. Poetry has its own place in the overall architecture that we are part of. In the context of that I will continue to use it as form of expression as I will prose. I have also two books in mind.”

SINS OF SYNTAX

2008-09-15T17:58:00.003+05:30

The Power Of The Glance

The military generals, we are talking about geniuses here, are said to have a certain “coup d’oeil”— roughly translated from French, it means the power of the glance. In the military sense it is “the ability to immediately see and make sense of the battlefield” under high stress. The power of the glance is often undermined and considered to be irrelevant in a world where theory and study hold a hierarchical and privileged position. But Blink by Malcolm Gladwell pares away at those theories and proves that our power of assessing something in the first few seconds—our gut reaction can be absolutely correct, bang on. Interestingly Blink continues to dominate the prime areas on book shelves even though it was first published three years ago. I went into a re-read here because one of the bookshops in the city was having a discount sale and they were offering it for Rs 45 less. This is one book every one should have on their bookshelves, so go get it.

Written powerfully, Blink conveys that humans have an intuition that is often suppressed because “our world requires that decisions be sourced and footnoted.” Gladwell suggests that to get to know a prospective employee, it would be a good idea to check out his house instead of giving him a big fat test. He may pass your test but just may fail the house-peek because his house may reveal things that are quite different from the “deliberate expressions” about how he would want to be perceived by the world. So it is with relationships, there are experts who can tell you, if a marriage will last. Gladwell quotes marriage expert John Gottman, “Contempt is special. If you can measure contempt, then all of a sudden you don’t need to know every detail of a couple’s relationship.” That’s because, if someone you love expresses contempt then it begins to affect the functioning of your immune system. Gladwell tells you how to look at things but that doesn’t mean you cannot get it wrong. But he will tell you where you are going wrong. Guess, that's about all he can do.

SINS OF SYNTAX

2008-08-16T18:48:00.007+05:30

Review of Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

TALKING ABOUT A REVOLUTION OH NO!

Witnessing a revolution can be quite traumatic. In the graphic memoir Persepolis, The story of a childhood—a Bildungsroman—Marjane, a little girl grows up in Iran in the midst of the Islamic revolution. The dichotomy of thoughts reflected on the pages in stark black and white makes it painfully poignant.

Marjane begins her early childhood with visions of God and hopes of becoming the next prophet. In the midst of the religious revolution, Marji rejects God and banishes her “unshakeable faith” from the landscape of her mind. The ten- year-old has already read Marx and the history of Iran ( atleast in comic books) and sees the revolution clearly in the historical context.
Her games are not with sissy toys—though her parents don’t let her accompany them to demonstrations—she asserts her grownup-ness in the form of agitations in the garden, dressed up as Che Guevara. The grimness of the situation outside is quite graphically revealed in the shape of her mouth. The smiley curve is not visible on the young face instead it is a downward twist of the mouth—a painful glumness that runs through the entire book often spilling into tears. Her parents Eby and Taji have their hands full, trying to instil the right ideas into their child. But the adults had first demonstrated against the Shah during the revolution and then against the Islamic regime itself, which could confound any child. The outer conflicts merge with the inner conflicts—confusing Marji in the process.
She thinks she should hurt a schoolmate Ramin whose father was with the secret police of the Shah. So armed with brass knuckles, she and her friends go to attack Ramin but her mother intervenes. When the guardians of the revolution confront Marji for not wearing her scarf properly she lies to save herself and then one lie leads to another and she cannot help lying to her mother. Is it wrong or right to lie in the times of war is morally unclear and here the government itself officially lies—everyone seems to lie with impunity.
The scenes of empty supermarkets, the death of friends, the ‘veiled’ classrooms make for the mundane but overwhelming details of the war. Marji’s hidden “western” habits—wearing nailpolish or listening to music and her outspokenness only add to the problems of her living in Iran and her parents are forced to send her away to Austria. ( Persepolis, the animated film won the Jury Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.)

Appropriating Gandhiji

2008-02-07T15:07:00.000+05:30

Cordoned off in red! With no exit.

(Photograph by Rajeev Prasad)

Incredible India: A Shower Stop

2008-01-11T23:45:00.000+05:30

A quick shower before the next leg of the journey? Where else? An open platform serves the cool refreshing purpose.
(Photograph by Rajeev Prasad)

The Leela, Kovalam, Trivandrum

2007-12-30T09:22:00.000+05:30

Rediscovering Kovalam (Photographs by Avran Ittyipe)

The Leela undoubtedly has the best view in Kovalam. Perched prettily on a cliff it has restaurants (for that view with the bite) littered along the steep path down to the beach.

Sky Bar on the way to the beach

The Sky Bar on the slope is breaaaaaaath taking . The hidden infinity pool tucked into the side of the cliff and The Tides restaurant bang on the beach are the big attractions. Forget the food. It is the view sweet that’s going to make you loosen your purse strings mighty quick.

If you ask me the buffet is nothing to write home about. I will begin with the dessert coz it is the most memorable of the whole meal. There is a wide range but I loved the plain vanilla ice cream and the fruit crumble.

The main course: For the sake of eating I kind of twirled my fork through the plate, investigating and dwelling for a considerable time on a surprise- the apple pickle, the safe Russian salad and a delectable rice. Rs 700 plus taxes per head for the buffet.

But we came back for a day time deko. And I cannot help reiterating this is Paradise.

The Tides seafood restaurant on the Beach

On display. To turn into your favourite dish.

Ham and cheese sandwich. Rs 350 plus taxes

Kochi's Housing Sector

2007-12-18T20:56:00.001+05:30

You have a choice here: the Highs or the Lows.
(Photograph by Rajeev Prasad)

A Strike To Behold

2007-12-18T20:32:00.001+05:30

Police ready to strike against the striking public. A Political party had organised a strike to protest against the persistent price rise of commodities in Kerala.
(Photographs by Rajeev Prasad)

Syrian Christian Food: Nazarani Tharavad, Pala

2007-12-05T08:05:00.000+05:30

Nazarani Tharavad, Pala

It is in the geography of drenched greens and coconut palms where the persistent peal of the thundering rains wakes up every dormant seed and jerks it into a tangled mass of leafscape. We are in the Nazarani Tharavad in Pala, a rubber town in central Travancore.

The St.Thomas Church, Pala

The Nazaranis(Syrian Christians) have been around a long time in Kerala. Popular theory suggests Christianity was well established here, at least three centuries before it wore the official robes of a religion in Europe.

The rulers of ancient Malabar gave the Christian community the grant of privileges perhaps for their social and economical eminence and the traces of those privileges have survived to this very day. Some of the privileges granted to them were curious, like the light by day (Yes, the light by day had to be granted and was an exclusive privilege!), the use of the umbrella, the spreading cloth to walk upon, doubling up the end of the banana leaf which serve as a plate etc...

At the Nazarani Tharavad we sit down to lunch and the narrow end of the banana leaf is folded, in keeping with the traditional custom. This is supposed to be symbolical of the privilege of eating from a double plate. The Kerala sadhya on the banana leaf can be likened to an orchestra. The complex process of preparation of each dish can run into hours but what is placed on the leaf, in almost sacred reverence is just a small dollop, just enough to caress the palate, the right note to create beautiful music from the fusion of different flavours.

Dinner Setting at the Nazarani Tharavad

The Nazarani sadhya is a little different from the regular Kerala Hindu sadhya because of the addition of non vegetarian elements to the meal. Kerala has always had an integrative tradition and communities share and adopt ideas from each other and this is true to the cuisine of the region as well.

Fish Pollichathu

Fried fish with onion salad, followed by kallappam (rice pancakes) and mutton stew, duck roast, and then the full fledged vegetarian medley along with meen vevichathu (red fish curry) and erachi ularthiyathu (fried meat) accompanied by rice, dal curry, sambar, rasam and buttermilk is our hostess Thressi Kottukapally’s offering of the complete Nazarani sadhya. The inchi curry (ginger curry) with its pungent sweetness, the sweet neyyappam, fried banana coated with jaggery, the sweet- sour kalen, aviyal balances the hot red fish curry and the flaming pungency of the fried meat. The pungent, the sweet and the sour play out their moments on the taste buds. A wee kiss of the ginger curry prepares me for the banana, curds and the palm toddy syrup at the end of the meal. Again a touch of the ginger curry on my palate helps me to enjoy the climax of the meal- the lentil and jaggery payasam.

It is difficult today to draw the boundary of the cuisine of each of the communities as they are now all part of the Kerala repertoire. The Syrian Christian contribution to the Kerala cuisine has been manifold and the most noted are the hoppers, duck roast, meen vevichathu (red fish curry) and the isthew (stew). The rice flour cakes, hoppers and pancakes use the natural fermenting ingredient- toddy to leaven the batter.
These rice flour cakes are versatile enough to be eaten with the ishtews and the roasts, while the soft sweet vattayappam can be eaten as a snack. The mottayappam or the country pancake filled with coconut gratings and sugar is irresistible.

INRI Appam

The INRI appam, an unleavened rice flour cake flavoured with shallots, cumin seed and garlic dipped in pesaha pal (jaggery syrup) is eaten to commemorate the Last Supper. During this solemn occasion the appam and pal (denoting the body and blood of Christ) is shared by the members of the family. Interestingly this custom is perhaps most prevalent in Pala today. The red hot fish curry, which can set the taste buds on fire, goes well with tapioca, a staple of Kerala. The kokum used to give the tartness is of the large yellow fleshy variety, and the dried kokum is a pertinent ingredient for the meen vevichathu.

The duck roast, a ceremonial dish, is a Syrian favourite and graces the festive meals of Christmas and Easter। Thressi Kottukapally who has penned the “Kerala Syrian Christian Favourites”, a recipe book guides me through the process of the duck roast- the duck cooks in the ingredients and then the pieces are perfectly fried. There is nothing quite like this duck roast, I should say nothing quite like Thressi’s duck roast.

Recipe for Thressi’s Duck Roast

Ingredients

Dressed Duck : 1kg, 100 gms

Ginger : 20 gms

Garlic : 30 gms

Onions : 300 gms

Pepper powder : 2 Tablespoons

Turmeric powder : ½ Teaspoon

Vinegar : 1 Tablespoon

Salt : 2 ¼ teaspon

For Garnishing :

Potatoes : 300 gms (cut into long broad strips)

Onions : 250 gms (sliced fine lengthwise)

Method of preparation:

*Fry the sliced onions till golden brown.

*Fry the potatoes till golden in colour.

*Keep aside the fried onions and potatoes.

*Clean the duck and cut into big pieces.

*Grind the ginger, garlic and onions to a fine paste in a grinder.

*Mix pepper and turmeric to the ground paste.

*Add the duck pieces along with vinegar, salt and cook till duck is done.

*Remove from fire.

*Remove the duck pieces and fry lightly and keep aside.

*In the same oil add the gravy and cook till the gravy thickens.

*Add the fried duck pieces and cook for a few minutes.

Remove and serve hot, garnished with fried onions and potatoes.

Nazarani Tharavad Tariff: Euro 150 Double/ Full Board

Cookery classes: Additional Rs 1000/- per day. For further information

Contact 04822- 212438, email: nazaranitharavad@yahoo.com

(First published by Spice, India Today)

Buffet Weekends at Casino Hotel, Cochin

2007-12-04T10:19:00.000+05:30

(Photographs by Avran Ittyipe)

I abhor a buffet. Usually. The endless spread of food and decorations are deviously designed to deceive the eye more than satisfy our gastronomic fantasies. And the process of selecting can be tedious too. Every dish is nibbled at and then without a single thought the entire plate load of food is left to be cleared away, so I can then resume trying the remaining array of dishes. And it is on the third round that I realize there is only one dish that is worth eating or it is better to simply stick with curd rice and pickles. Well, in other words the badly tossed up dishes that pass for most buffets can be tiresomely boring. Forget the wedding arrangements. It is predictably worse when the plate is so godam heavy, the queues long, the seating arrangements are just anywhere you please and your worries about saving your beautiful sari from curry stains are endless; needless to say all this makes the buffet even more unappetizing.

So one Saturday night, when the lights were low and we were wondering where to go, every place in the city has been tried over and over and that goes for Casino too, but nevertheless we landed up at Tharavad Restaurant, Casino Hotel. When the bearer insisted I go for the buffet, I begged off. I really didn’t want to eat a whole lot of junk but he persisted, he said it was good. So I reluctantly consented, a little weary there.

But then there is no denying it was one of the best buffets I have ever had, considering the last good one I had was sixteen years ago, in Goa, and that was a breakfast buffet. Those breakfast pancakes with syrup are still a memory that I relish.

And that was the case here too. I fell hard for the Fish Orley. Crispy and delicious it was one sensation that I helped myself to shamelessly. Three or four times. Even as I harp on Fish Orley let me tell you the rest of the spread was good too. The pork roast, the beef in oyster sauce, the cheese balls, the boston bake and sweet, sweet desserts to top it all off. Every dish was carefully made, not just thrown in for the number, but lovingly done to please the eye and quieten the rumblings of the stomach. Every bite was worth the effort.

Weekend Dinner Buffet for one: Rs. 400 plus taxes. For reservation call 0484-2668221, 2668222

Fish Orley with Salads

Recipe for Fish Orley

Fish: 2 fillets of seer fish or red snapper

Coating ingredients

Flour: 100 gms,
Egg: 1,
Salt: a pinch,
Pepper: a pinch,
Chopped capsicum: 1 tsp,
Chopped tomato: 1 tsp,

Method: Mix flour, egg, salt and pepper and leave to rise. Add the finely chopped pieces of capsicum and tomato to the flour mixture. Dip the fish fillet and deep fry. Serve with sauce.

In Search Of A Village

2007-12-02T19:07:00.001+05:30

(Photographs By Minu Ittyipe)

For quite a while, an unknown malady has raged through my bones and clogged my throat. Any doctor worth his stet would have dismissed it as the evils of excessive work, but that was not the case with me coz for a long time now I have not wholly committed myself to the masochistic pleasures of wearing myself thin. And yet the fever raged on. After much medication I arrived at a diagnosis: it was the habitat, the caged atmosphere that drove me to the stage of rancid comatose. I had to get out of the urban confines and find a bit of breath air. Fresh air. Fast.

So I set out in search of a village, where I can spot a cow instead of the snorting vehicles or I could get to hear a hen announcing that she has laid a nice warm egg. When was the last time you heard a delighted clucking of the hen? Perhaps, you’ve never heard that one before. It’s the kind of music you will not hear in the city. And that is an urban fact. In the urbanscape, I find that I forget to listen to the whisper of the wind or call of the bird. And now I must go in search, like a sleuth, hunt down, track down, those earthy pleasures and my very own nature that I have lost.

Ponds and streams in the Kallanchery Retreat

But I am most often a sloppy sleuth, so I decided on the closest village, the Kumblangi Village that was hardly 20 minutes from Cochin. And I arrived at the village, where the green spell was still in place and the housing sector had not yet gone high rise. Where the fantasies of the village life was not a dream but a living reality.

Lucky Ducky and Gang, Kumbalangi Village

The ducks in the ponds, the hens worrying the worms, the cows mooing to glory and not a sound of the vehicular traffic to sully the air. The Kallanchery Retreat at Kumblangi village was just the place I needed to slip into a hammock and get my breath back.

Everything on the menu

We ordered lunch, everything seafood on the menu (how I love anything from the sea). Eat your vegetables is a nagging reminder, okay so a few plates of that too. The fare is simple and home cooked.

A Fishing I must go.....

Siddharth, a guest caught a fish and shows off. “Last time I caught three.” He said. He is one small veteran in this area.

Then I lay in a hammock in the retreat’s coconut grove and surveyed the stillness of the backwaters that seemed to extend in silvery tones to the right and to the left of the grove. What else was there to do in such a dreamy state except to enjoy the rice, curry and seafood and read awhile.

With no interest in conversation, I just lay back and took it all in: a slice of paradise.

Contact: P. R. Lawrence

Kalancherry Retreat, Kumblangi village

Phone: 0484- 2240564

E-mail: mail@kallancheryretreat.com

Book Review: An Autobiography Of A Sex Worker by Nalini Jameela

2007-11-30T08:36:00.000+05:30

I am 51 years old. And I would like to continue to be a sex worker.” This is how the candid and defiant opening statement in Nalini Jameela’s autobiography in Malayalam, Oru Lymgika-thozhilaliyude Atmakadha, goes. It at once throws a challenge at society’s double standards — harsh on prostitutes and soft on the clients. Nalini Jameela, who is the coordinator of the Kerala Sex Workers’ Forum, reveals her sordid story with no trace of compunction.

Nalini was a 24-year-old widow when she entered the profession to feed her two children. At that time she did not think about the repercussions of her act. She writes, “I was earning Rs 4.50 at a tile factory near Trissur. My mother-in-law served me with an ultimatum to either give her five rupees a day to look after my children or leave the house. I recounted my woes to a friend, who introduced me to Rosechechi. Rosechechi promised me Rs 50 if I spent time with a man. The first thought that came to my mind was that my children would be looked after for the next 10 days. So I went with her to Rama Nilayam, a guesthouse in Trissur for vip politicians. There was a senior police officer there. It was a farewell gift for him as he was getting transferred. When he asked me to remove my clothes I refused. I could not bring myself to stand naked before him. Rosechechi pacified him saying that I was from the villages and it was the first time that I was doing it. When he heard this, he was thrilled. After the police officer finished, the driver wanted to sleep with us but we refused.”

Nalini’s first foray as a sex worker gave her an inkling of the double standards she would face in this line of work. Next morning, when she left the guesthouse with Rosechechi, a police jeep picked them up and took them to the station. Nalini was given a beating. She screamed out in pain and anger, “The police are there to sleep with us at night, and beat us during the day.” The force of the beatings only increased. The question she asks to this day is, “Why wasn’t the guesthouse raided when we were there? Why did they wait untill we had left the premises, to arrest us?” She points out that there had been many instances like this when they got picked up afterwards so that the clients could be protected.

It didn’t stop with the police beatings either. Hearing of the incident her family decided to banish her from the area forever. “I was told by a friend that I would be chased away, so I left the place and never went back.” With her back against the wall, no place to stay and no job, Nalini was compelled to rent a house along with Rosechechi and continue in the trade. She managed to send money secretly for her children, through a friend, to her mother-in-law.

Nalini’s story, which is retold by I.Gopinath also traces the formation of the sex workers in Kerala into an organised forum that now meets openly to discuss their problems and demand their rights. What is also interesting is the change in society’s attitude towards prostitution over the years. In the early years of her profession Nalini seemed to be happy in the so called “company houses” in Palakkad district. “I was lucky that they were not like the brothels of Mumbai. These houses were old tharavads where only a few women resided with a bodyguard and a broker in charge, and I was able to live comfortably.”

Nalini describes those tharavads. “There were some cows at the house. On the pretext of buying cows, brokers would bring clients. While the value of the cow was decided outside, the clients would come into the house and the actual business would take place. The cow business was only a front. Even though people knew the truth, they never bothered us.”

Gopinath, a CPI(M) activist-cum-journalist, who has spent many years working for the upliftment of sex workers, both in Mumbai and Kerala, comments, “ The culture of Kerala has changed rapidly in the 80s and the 90s. A prudishness associated with a convent upbringing has spread through Kerala and sex is considered a sin. People do not have any tolerance towards sex workers. To cite an instance, when we organised a protest against waste dumping by the corporation in Laloor, near Trissur, sex workers were also invited to join the march. The other marchers refused to walk with them. We had to send the sex workers back.”

To escape the life of prostitution Nalini married twice more but she had to return to it time and again for her survival. Her third marriage lasted for 12 years and it was her entry into prostitution for the third time that saw Nalini actively work in the Sex Workers’ Forum. With the help of a social worker, Maithreyan, she was sent to Thailand for a video workshop for sex workers from five developing countries. There she was given a camera, and her first eight-minute documentary One day in the Life of a Sex Worker evolved. In 2003, she was commissioned to do a second one, A Peep into the Life of the Silenced. She now wishes to do a feature film.

Nalini points out that one of the most pertinent problems facing society in its fight against aids is the way it addresses the target group. She says that the Partnership for Social Health, aids cell, focuses only on the lower income group. “Our clients also come from the middle-class and the higher income group. Because they are not targeted we have problems convincing them to use condoms. They just refuse to use them.” According to Nalini, there are about 8,000 sex workers in Kerala and all of them are aware of aids.

She says today she has the freedom to choose her clients. Her youngest daughter and son-in-law give her moral support. “When my daughter was 17, I entered this field for the third time. I had to tell her what I was doing. Even if she was apprehensive about how society would treat her, she understood why I chose to do this. We had no other means of living. My third husband had taken another wife and for three years we begged around temples and mosques.”

Paradoxes abound in the small state of Kerala — a sex worker who had no freedom of choice because of her economic conditions, today speaks about the other freedoms that she enjoys. Even as the media revels in the glossiness of sexually tinted advertisements, and serials portray empowered women, the reality is pretty skewed in Kerala — it is not safe for women to go out alone after eight at night, and the sex scandals that rock the state compete hotly with serials on a regular basis. Nalini says that sex workers seem to have more freedom than ordinary women in this progressive state. She asks, “In Kerala, can other women walk alone on the road as bravely as we can? To some extent, sex workers have more freedom in matters of sex as compared to the ordinary married woman who has to take her husband’s beatings and abuses all her life. The sex worker has the freedom of choice not to go with a client that she does not like.” Perhaps there is some truth in her reasoning.

(First Published by Tehelka)

Book Review: Unsung By Anita Pratap & Mahesh Bhat

2007-11-26T19:21:00.000+05:30

Unsung
Text by Anita Pratap & Photographs by Mahesh Bhat

Changla artificial glacier: The highest watershed project in the world. It feeds several villages down stream in Ladakh. (Photograph By Mahesh Bhat)

In the raucous market place (read the globalized world), glam exteriority has encroached upon our consciousness and conquered every available space- be it the media, our sartorial sense, our attitudes, purchasing habits, culture etc.. . As a consequence the traditional Gandhian values, which were not sexy enough in the first place, have slowly been obliterated from our perception of what holds good. Who frankly has the time for concepts like selfless giving shorn of fame and media attention? It is so passé. So the book “Unsung” by journalist Anita Pratap and photographer Mahesh Bhat comes as a big surprise. The duo has chosen to capture the lives not of famous actors or cricketers but of ordinary people from different parts of the country. These unknown, “unsung” people have selflessly given of their time, energy and their lives to the happiness of others.

The story of Subhashini Mistry, a vegetable seller from Hanspukur, near Kolkata, who saved small amounts of money for twenty weary years to start a hospital for the poor, is heart rending and it ceaselessly nags you for your selfish stylish ways. Subhashini was married off at the age of twelve to Sadhan, an agriculture worker. He earned just Rs. 200 and with four children the couple struggled to make ends meet. In 1971, Sadhan was rushed to the Government hospital in Tollygunge, Kolkata for gastro enteritis. But the nurses and doctors refused to treat him because he was poor and he died as a result. A familiar story right? The story did not end with her husband’s death. Subhashini wowed she would build a hospital for the poor. And despite being dirt poor with four hungry children, she saved small amounts of money- Rs.100, Rs.50 towards her dream. Twenty years later she bought a plot and put up a shed and begged doctors to volunteer their service. Now after years of knocking on doors, the hospital has grown into a two- storied building which is absolutely free for the poor. She says, “What’s the use of material things like bangles and saris. We cant take them with us when we die. But the happy faces of the cured poor people have given me such joy and meaning in this life.”

George Pulikutiyil: "My mission is to make justice administration a mass movement. Protection of human rights should be part of people's culture." (Photograph by Mahesh Bhat)

Closer home the book focuses on George Pulikuthiyil in Thrissur. George Pulikuthiyil was formerly a priest but the priestly life of listening to the usual ritualistic confessions bored him and he felt “distanced from the everyday struggles of the ordinary people whom he yearned to serve.” So he gave up priesthood and looked without the walls of the church to find God and he took up a new cause to defend the defenceless. He studied law and started Jananeethi, an NGO to provide justice for the poor. Through Jananeethi, he fought for the rights of all sections of society, irrespective of caste, class and creed. He says, “My mission is to make justice administration a mass movement. Protection of human rights should be part of a people’s culture.”

Changla artificial glacier

The book even journeys to the cold hazardous terrains of Ladakh to showcase a man who makes artificial glaciers. If you thought “only God made glaciers” you are dead wrong because seventy-one year old Chewang Norphel makes glaciers to provide water for the water starved region of Ladakh. “Melting snows generate millions of gallons of water but it goes waste because it comes too late to Ladakh.” Cultivation in Ladakh is limited to a short season of spring and early summer but Ladakh receives water only in June and nothing grew in Ladakh till Norphel came up with his plan.

The book showcases people like Norphel and Pulikuthiyil- ordinary people with extraordinary ideas and a will to carry it through. Says Anita Pratap, who travelled to the four corners of the country to research these ordinary heroes, “Mahesh and I have chosen people who have dedicated their whole lives to the service of others. And we have ensured that there is a fair representation of geographical, religious and different causes in the book. What is interesting is that many of these people spoke about Gandhiji and his book “My story of experiments with truth.” I feel the book should be introduced to students as compulsory reading material. It took us three years to put Unsung together and it has been worth the effort.”

“Unsung” is a slim book, easy to read and the photographs by Mahesh Bhat in stark black and white are powerful and create the right tone. It is an inspiring read for both adults and adolescents. The proceeds of the sales go to the untiring efforts of these Unsung Heroes.

(First published by The New Indian Express)

BooK Review: Diary Of A Bad Year By J.M.Coetzee

2007-11-18T11:23:00.000+05:30

Book Review: Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

Knowing no other, one assumes it is in the natural order of things to read a book from the top of the page and then slowly scroll down to the bottom (it should be stressed here the language in reference is English). But given a chance it would be interesting to upturn that dull route and begin at the bottom or even bang in the middle of a page, read a paragraph then ascend to the top, read another para and then plunge to the bottom. And interestingly J.M.Coetzee’s new novel “Diary of a Bad Year” affords us that change – to take a detour from the only path we have perseveringly trodden since the advent of the novel or since the beginning of the written word.

Each page is divided into three distinct sections in “Diary of a Bad Year”. The top portion occupies the opinions of a decrepit writer named JC, the ostensible purpose of the book. The protagonist JC is one among six writers from different countries commissioned by a publisher in Germany to pronounce “what is wrong with today’s world.” The mid- section of each page is devoted to the narrator JC’s thoughts on Anya. JC hires Anya, a young woman who lives in his apartment block to type his manuscript titled: Strong Opinions.

JC, unwell and old, feels that perhaps Anya will be the last of his infatuations before he leaves this earthly abode and so he hires her to be close to her. However, JC goes on to construct Anya as a stereotype: a dumb woman with a perfect derriere. “There are times when I stare at dismay at the text that she turns in.” And he derides her enthusiasm for shopping. “What Anya mainly does to fill the dead hours is to shop. At around eleven in the morning, three or four days a week, she will drop off the typing she has done. Come in, have a cup of coffee, I will suggest. She will shake her head. I have shopping to do.”

But ironically in the third section, the narrator is Anya and Coetzee uses her as a tool for self criticism – to give the perspective from below. Says Anya about JC’s writings, “There is a tone- I don’t know the best word to describe it- a tone that really turns people off. A know- it- all tone. Everything is cut and dried: I am the one with all the answers, here is how it is, don’t argue, it wont get you anywhere.” These jabs at his own writings are amusing and there is even a suggestion to treat his decrepit opinions a little lightly as he meanders from the Origins of the state to National Shame to pedophilia to Avian Influenza. He covers a wide of range of topics in his Strong Opinions.

The reading gets a little complex as it tends gallop at full speed in the lower half of the page while on the top, reined in by the highbrow stuff it slows to a trot. The braiding of non fiction and fiction, the prurient thoughts and the intellectual engagement on a single page proves to be an interesting but taxing exercise for the reader.

But this kind of experimentation is not new for this Nobel laureate because Coetzee is a master of experiments. In his previous book “Slow Man” Coetzee had foisted a protagonist-writer Elizabeth Costello of an earlier novel onto the Paul Rayment in “Slow Man”.

In “Diary of a Bad Year”, Coetzee hints that he is perhaps too old to attempt another novel and he expresses regret at having spent his entire life clawing to the top at the expense of not enjoying his life enough.

(First Published by The Sunday Express)

Walking Through Jew Town, Cochin

2007-11-12T18:47:00.001+05:30

A perfect place to rummage and chaffer for fragments of history- truncated tales that one calls antiques, is the quaint old Jew Town at Mattancherry. The overwhelming melancholy of a town abandoned by its own people-the Jews, makes a walk through it is as fascinating as discovering bits and pieces of history to pack and carry back home. The long warehouses abutting each other spill out into narrow alleys and on the other side the tranquil backwaters merge with the roar of the Arabian Sea.

No one knows the exact date when the Jews first came to Cranganore, Kerala but somewhere in the fourteenth century they began fleeing Cranganore and wandered into Cochin. And Jew Town was built on the site granted to them by the Rajah of Cochin in 1567. After living in this town for almost four hundred years, trading prosperously and even waging wars with the Portuguese, in the 1950s the Jewry began to migrate to Israel and by the 1980s they were only a handful left in this town.

History's Junkyard

At about that time the first antique shop called Indian Arts and Curios was opened by a non- Jewish resident M P Isadore near the magnificent Paradesi Synagogue that was built in 1568. Slowly the pepper and ginger trading in the warehouses was displaced by the antique shops, which proved to be a far more lucrative business. The string of antique shops has a welter of objects piled precariously and the disorderly array of pieces make it truly history’s junkyard.

It is amusing to walk through the narrow streets and find what constitutes antiques and it is just not antiques but exact replicas too that jostle for space in the crowded shops. If our great grandmothers were alive they would be tickled to find that varpu (utensil for cooking payasam or halwa), chembu (utensil for cooking grains), spittoons, wooden spoon holders, old cash boxes, para (rice measures), spice boxes etc. now occupy pride of place as treasured antiques. The reason being that in haute style, drawing rooms are appropriating old kitchen utensils and showcasing them as objects of virtu!

Varpu and urulli, both round cooking utensils made of bronze are uniquely Kerala in character and when filled with water, flowers and floating candles it adds the dash of ethnic verve. You can pick up both the old and the new vessels and the price varies from Rs 450 to Rs 600 per kilo while the antique ones with motifs sends the costs accelerating further. The world’s biggest varpu is on exhibit at the Crafters Antique Shop and it draws thousands of curious tourists. Weighing 3184 kilos with beautiful motifs this three -year old varpu is not for sale.

The cash boxes with brass inlay sends a frisson of excitement down the spine when intriguing secret compartments are discovered within. Cash boxes and mundu pettis are increasingly being used as coffee tables or stools to enhance the traditional look. And very innovative idea is the use of Kerala’s ayurvedic massage platforms- modishly reinvented as longish coffee tables and the new designs are far more striking than the traditional ones. At Pappali’s Antiques Shop, the Kerala palanquins and the Kerala doors with shutter and frame with the intricate manichitrathazhu are heavier pieces that can be accommodated only in large spaces. The Jew almirah with coloured glass, an eighteenth century riveting piece of workmanship is here for the taking.

The Indian Arts and Curios has a fairly large collection of Chinese Jars that are mute testaments of a bygone trade. Long ago before the colonial crowd arrived on these shores the Chinese were peacefully trading with Kerala. The Cheena valla (Chinese fishing nets), Cheena Bharani (Chinese Jars), Cheena chatti (Chinese wok) etc. left behind by these traders are the remnants of a trading activity that took place over five hundred years ago. The Chinese Jars made of porcelain and clay are beautiful collector’s items and the big Chinese glazed jars with dragons embossed on them are period pieces that cannot be exported. It is believed that the Chinese brought water and oil in them and the bigger jars were used to balance the galley ships and on their return they carried spices. Every old Kerala home had the big and small Cheena Bharani, which were used to store salted mangoes, tamarind, salt etc. Ranging from Rs. 700 to Rs. 12000 or more, these jars are a great buy. While the Dutch left behind ink jars and alcohol bottles that are not as expensive but their lovely shapes make great objets d’art.

The colourful wooden Cow Heads that are used in temple processions on the 28^th day after Onam found in the Ochira region and the plainer white Cow Heads from the Palakkad are exclusive to Kerala. The originals with vegetable dye paint are a rare find but the replicas are widely available and even on close examination it is difficult to detect the difference. If it is Cow Heads that arrests your attention Epic Craft has a good collection.

Politically Inclined Derriere?

There is something here for everyone even for the hardened politician. When the electronic age with its voting machines beeped in, the sturdy old ballot boxes were jettisoned without a second thought and now one finds these curiosities only in the realm of antiquity. You can pick up wooden ballot boxes at the Indian Arts and Curios shop to either showcase them or use as seats for your politically inclined derriere!

Tips for the buyer

Never buy broken or welded pieces. They do not have resale value.
The proportions of the furniture should be right.
Make sure all the compartments of boxes are there.
The patina on the bronze and brass indicates the antiquity.
Look out for natural distinguishing marks.
Make sure the locks and keys of cupboards and tables are in good condition
(First published by India Today-Home. Some Changes have been made.)

The Lost World

2007-11-08T19:03:00.000+05:30

(Photograph By Rajeev Prasad)
Hey! Hey! What's happenin here? Can't a guy have a room with a view anymore?!!!

The Spectacle Of Silence: For Culture Tourists

2007-10-28T14:11:00.000+05:30

(Photograph by Rajeev Prasad)

There is no telling when a bandh or a hartal will be bestowed on the Kerala populace.
The tourists in Kochi forced to take a detour from their planned itinerary try to comprehend this unusual but popular culture of the place.
Where else can one witness the frequent spectacle of silent cities? Only in Kerala!
Asianet Business desk reports that Kerala makes a loss of 650 crores on a single bandh day.

The Idukki Dam In Kerala : Upto The Brim

2007-10-08T06:58:00.000+05:30

(Picture By Rajeev Prasad. Click on it to enlarge.)
The Idukki dam rising to dangerous levels. A beautiful but potentially catastrophic scenery.

Book Review : The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

2007-10-05T18:33:00.001+05:30

Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist By Mohsin Hamid.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist it is not about the hyphenated identity crisis where the emigrant longs for his roots- plenty books have dealt with that in plenty tired ways. Here the voice of the narrator - a tense monologue -reveals the dilemma of the Self as the Other sees him. Post 9/11, a Pakistani in

America

is viewed with suspicion and fear. The “fragile identity” of the narrator slowly merges with the image the Other has of the Self. The slow change of the protagonist from a self assured executive to the image of the “fundamentalist stereotype” manufactured by Americans is angst ridden and tense. Satre’s theory of Existentialism points to this effect: “The Other has not only revealed to me what I was; he has established me in a type of being which can support new qualifications. This being was not in me potentially before the appearance of the Other, for it could not have found any place in the For-itself….. ”

The protagonist Changez is a 22 year old Pakistani in the US, after an education in Princeton, he is employed by Underwood Samson a valuation firm. It’s a rosy life. Then 9/11 happens and the American attitude changes. The idea of the religious fundamentalist, a potential terrorist, is manufactured right down to The Look: A beard becomes a symbol to fear. The suspicion and antagonism of the people and the government on the roads, in the airport, in the office sends Changez through an “inflective journey”. He begins to study the position of himself as both a Muslim and as a Pakistani as America wages war against Afghanistan. And Changez views himself as a modern day janissary. “There really could be no doubt: I was a modern day janissary, a servant of the American empire at a time when it was invading a country with a kinship to mine and was perhaps even colluding to ensure that my own country faced the threat of war.” (“Janissaries were Christian boys captured by the Ottomans and trained to be soldiers in a Muslim army, at that time the greatest army in the world. They were ferocious and utterly loyal: they had fought to erase their own civilizations, so they had nothing else to turn to.”)

It is not easy to walk away from a cushy job and a comfortable life and return to Pakistan, a third world country, on the brink of war with India. I will not divulge more. Though I must mention here that the treatment of Changez’s American girlfriend Erica is both sensitive and interesting too.

In a lighter vein: Ah, the Booker Prize once again has us waiting without taking a loo break. Cant afford to dash in there in case we miss their silly announcements. Remember in 1997 the prize winning author went to the loo to relieve herself at the precise moment when the prize was announced. How do I know that you would ask? Well Silly, the author coolly revealed that on NDTV and poor Prannoy blushed to the roots of his…….

While in some years it is The Man Booker prize decisions itself that are made in the confines of the crappy loos. Take for instance last year when the prize went to the Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai. The big judge had perhaps taken it to flush it down the pot but seduced by the large Indian market had quietly come out and given away the prize to the goody Little Miss Muffet.

Little Miss Kiran Desai has nothing to say and says that becomingly well. And it was for that pertinent reason she was bestowed the prize. It just underlines the fact that everything is governed by the market forces and that SEDUCTIVE WHORE called MONEY. Compulsions are that the prize has to go the Indian way once in a while: even if the book is trash: the Indian market is obscenely too large to deny us the grand prize.

I have not attempted here a full fledged review of the Reluctant Fundamentalist. Just a few random thoughts. The book is worth the Read and our precious time. I hope this year the judges do not make their decisions in the loo and Mohsin Hamid gets the Booker.

The Age Of Chatter Boxers

2007-10-04T19:08:00.000+05:30

From Bakelite telephones to sleek BlackBerry the journey has been a flippant twenty years.

World has changed much, back then when the telephones were in dial mode, you can call that the Mumage- we talked less, surreptitiously and guiltily. Along the years Indians rapidly learnt to shed their guilt of enjoying themselves and did so with abandon. “Teacher we don’t need no self control” became the consumerist creed. Remember the time when “Talking” was considered a national waste- almost a crime during the dark years of the Emergency. The hegemonic dictates “Talk Less Work More” and “We Two Have Two” were pasted on the sides of buses, on the derriere of lorries, on signs all over the country. It had filled the Indian mind with a foreboding sense of hushed fear. And then a couple of decades later came the riot of excessiveness of the cell phone era with their luring “Talk More On Free Time” and “Free Talk” repeated in almost the same odious style of the infamous regime- plastering them on billboards and buses to colonize minds into endless inane jabbering. Well they succeeded- we are now in the age of constant communicating Jabberkhans: tell me if this breed can live without talking, SMSing or mailing inanities? Not anymore. It's Bol India Bol

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Looking back was it just twenty years ago that to make a phone call, we hostel inmates of St.Teresa’s College, Kochi had to beg and plead with the nuns. It was a period when the Rotary Dialing of the Indian Telecommunication System had yet to be replaced by the simple Push Button system. And the nuns of St.Teresa’s College considered the telephone a sacred instrument. So sacred, it required a Phone Guardian Angel, who put a lock in the holes of the 1 and 2 numbers of the finger wheel. The lock acted as an impediment and rendered it impossible to dial the numbers. Importantly, she strung the cold steel key on a chain and hung it around her neck; the key snuggled and sighed in the warmth of her deep valley.

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The telephone, a black crude bakelite instrument that belonged to the Department of Telecommunications, Government of India was placed in a hole in the wall. The Phone Angel, a young sixteen year old, with a squeaky voice was assigned no other work but to vigilantly guard the phone from seven in the morning till the commencement of classes and then again from four in the evening till bedtime. No one touched the finger dial, if anyone wished to make a call, the Phone Angel dialed the number before handing the receiver to the caller, collected the money, carefully wrote down the name and number in the logbook.
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Calls to boyfriends meant trouble, big trouble. So boys incestuously called the hostel inmates, beautiful young girls, in the guise of father, brother and cousin. And the nuns kept tab on the outgoing calls and the entries that got more frequent were checked against numbers given by guardians. Numbers that didn’t correspond, they knew were fraught with dangerous signals and immediately the guardian was informed of the caller’s behaviour and the very important phone number like a precious jewel was handed to them on a slip of paper. The nuns thought this system of peeking into the minds of young girls was absolutely foolproof, the heartbeats of the girls were well under their control.
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Little did they know, young girls hopelessly in love would do anything to speak to their male friends. Those innocent young things were phone- tapping experts, who knew more about phones than the nuns. Unknown to the nuns, though the finger wheel of the phone was locked, the rotary dial telephone used the pulse dialing system, this worked by the telephone getting disconnected at specific intervals when the number was dialed. So one didn’t need to use the finger wheel, one had to just tap on the hook switch once for number 1, the telephone disconnected once and twice for number 2 and the telephone disconnected twice and so on and ten times for 0 and pause between the numbers.
Got that?
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Those days, young sweethearts may not have been on the Blackberry 24* 7 but the thrill of giving the Phone Angel the slip and tapping the phone accelerated the heartbeats to feverish speeds like no Blackberry can.

India Vs Australia in Kochi

2007-10-02T16:03:00.000+05:30

All in the game: Rooting for a losing India
(photograph by Rajeev Prasad)

Cricket in Kochi: Rain, Rain Go Away

2007-10-01T21:00:00.000+05:30

(Photograph by Rajeev Prasad)
The Kochi weather cannot wash away the memory of the T20 win.
Even as the rain gods threaten to play spoil sport, fans are high and hoping for another exciting game in Kochi. Kochi has always been favourable to the Indian team.
Four of five games played here have gone to the Indian side.

Cricket And The Ravana Syndrome

2007-09-30T17:04:00.000+05:30

(Photograph by Rajeev Prasad)
The Ravana Syndrome seizes the fans: they wear many faces.
The icons they love to love can soon become
icons they love to hate. One bad game is enough.
Waiting for the ODI in Kochi on the 2nd. Will these guys bash their beloved players or love them?

Book Review: The Solitude Of Emperors By David Davidar

2007-09-11T15:10:00.000+05:30

Book review

When an ordinary, familiar locality suddenly twists into a theatre of horror- a riot- it is beyond human reasoning. There is no single problem that precipitates the absurd goriness. The causes are complex and multi dimensional- economic, political, historical, religious, demographic etc...And we find it a welcome relief to leave such analyses to judicial enquiries so we can get on with our normal lives.
David Davidar’s new political novel “The Solitude of Emperors” deftly delves into the psyche of rioters and tries to find answers to this complex problem.

"Historians and economists tell us that nations are ripe for ethnic and sectarian war when
a combination of things happen at once- the blurring of ethnic boundaries which arouses the ire of the puritans, the absence of enlightened government, but most of all the advent of sweeping economic change. It is at times like these that we are at our most vulnerable, and therefor liable to fall under the spell of false demagogues and prophets. This was true of Hitler's Germany and it is true of India today.....It is in periods of great volatility brought about by an upsurge in economic activity when millions of people are severed from their moorings, when the great divide between the haves and have-nots deepen."

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Davidar even has an interesting theory: He attributes the phenomenon of riots in the country to abandoned jealous gods waiting in the margins. When there is a surfeit of Gods in our universe, there is bound to be conflict between Gods at the centre of our attention and those we have abandoned over the centuries. “There are 333 million Gods –one for every three or four of us.” The abandoned gods wait patiently for the power of the new deities to fade so they can rise again to cause extensive damage. “For rioters are nothing but the children of these unholy Gods.” This is an unusual theory, but the mindless violence that convulses our cities and the periodic eruptions of hatred are so inhuman that it seems it can only be the handiwork of some unholy God.

**************************************************************

Vijay, the narrator, who lives in K- a small town in Tamil Nadu, stumbles into journalism as a profession when the family servant runs away to join the Ayodhya project- to demolish the Babri Masjid mosque. Vijay writes a story about his servant for "The Indian Secularist" and he soon lands in Bombay working for the magazine under Rustom Sorabjee. Even before Vijay has time to settle down in the big city, the demolition of the Babri Masjid choreographs the wanton dance of death in Bombay. Vijay, who is injured in the riots, is exposed to the obscenity and the ruthlessness of the rioters.
***************************************************************

He is sent to Meham in the Nilgiris on a working holiday to recuperate and to report on the Tower Of God, a Christian shrine. In the far removed Meham, where the only exciting prospects are the fuchsia wars, the aftermath of the demolition gently rocks its salubrious settings. It is in these mystical hills that we explore the inner terrain of a rioter. The darkness within the petty politician Rajan is yoked to historical hurt and he is determined to take over the Tower Of God. The custodian of the shrine, Professor Menon says of Rajan, “For him the question of whether that piece of rock is Hindu, Chrisitian or animist is not about religion, it’s a means to an end, and the end is Rajan’s rise to power. He dons the garb of a religious fanatic because it is useful to him.”

*************************************************************

It is in these hills that Vijay befriends Noah, an irreverent Pessoa quoting outcast, who lives in a graveyard. Interestingly it is Noah’s description of Bombay that is exciting and full of life as opposed to the Vijay’s unimaginative details. And it is this irreverent human being that Davidar calls the Emperor of the Everyday.
I love the description of Bombay by Noah and here Davidar is in his elements.

"The greatest city in the world, or it was at any rate when I lived there for a couple of years about a decade ago. It was the best time of my life......It was a city of poets and cafes, and all-night sessions of drinking and versifying, a place to rival Joyce's Dublin or Cavafy's Alexandria or Pessoa's Lisbon: Dom hammering away with one finger at his typewriter in Sargent House, spectacles slipping down his nose, as the poems ran wild in his head, Adil holding court in his eyrie on Caffe Parade, Nissim spinning his demonic verse in coffee houses and poet's gatherings, Kolatkar with his strange fierce
epic about gods of stone, Imtiaz and the agate-eyed women who glided through her work.... What a time that was, the nights of writing poetry and drinking and partying and fucking beautiful young women we all shared, the models and wannabe actresses pulled into that vortex of passion, song and metered rhyme.......

**************************************************************

Davidar’s narrative engages with India’s grand narrative of history and religion. But the moralistic preachy lessons in history- the interpolations aimed to instruct the youth in schools- come as a jarring note. One wonders whether there will be any takers for such didactic lessons.
(First published by The New Indian Express. Some changes have been made.)

SnooTea: Just My Style

2007-09-04T11:40:00.002+05:30

(Photographs by Minu Ittyipe)

It began on a lark to spiff up my morning cuppa. Oh well, I just wanted a change from what I had been drinking all my life. I am not complaining about the faithful brew that I stir up with tea dust, it does merrily improve with two extra spoonfuls of sugar but I was just plain bored with the regular. My concept of a cup of tea was corralled in the traditional Indian style- coppery coloured liquid topped with plenty of milk and sugar but now there was in me this undeniable thirst for a more delicate bouquet.

Tranquilitea, Coonoor

Curiously, though grown in our own backyard, few of us have heard of the orthodox leaf tea, forget the Silver Tips, Golden Tips and the White Tea etc.. that quietly find their way to the export market. To make a foray into this relatively unknown terrain, I headed for Tranquilitea, a tea lounge in the Nilgiris, for a cup of “Tippy” tea. On a sober note, you are cautioned not to confuse “Tippy” with the more commonplace “Tipsy” for the two words are not even distantly related. Tippy is the tea taster’s eloquent reference to a tea made mostly from tea leaf buds.

Tranquilitea is housed in the front portion of a 100 year old bungalow called Strathearn. The carpeted interiors with its letter panels makes it cozy and intimate perfect for a cup of tea. I ordered pots of Silver Tips and Green Tea along with a mushroom quiche and cookies and then unashamedly trooped into the kitchen to watch the bearer make the tea.

Agony of Tea leaves

When the water turned pearly- about seventy degrees, tea was added and covered. It was given three minutes to steep. The term “Agony of Tea Leaves” best describes the process of swirling and steeping of tea in boiling water: the painful necessity for the perfect liquor. The residual patterns of the tea leaves, the symbols of tasseography (the art of reading tea leaves) could reveal your future in a jiffy but such delicious digressions I reluctantly leave to the pleasure of another story. Here I must stick to the complex character of the liquors.

Tranquilitea, Coonoor

The complexion of the Silver Tips liquor is a pale yellow almost colourless. The tea is smooth and tastes great without any sugar and I loved the fine, flowery aroma. Sandeep Subramani, who runs Tranquilitea, charmingly delves into the making of the exotic Silver Tip “Silver Tips is amongst the rarest teas in the world. The tea is made of only unopened leaf buds that are plucked before daybreak and then dried in natural sunlight like a herb. It derives its name from the silvery hair that is present around the bud. On availability we sell a kilo of Silver Tips for Rs.6500/-. We are also reviving the method of hand rolled teas where the tea is gently crushed between the palms. The process is labour intensive so these teas are expensive. And our herbal teas are made with fresh herbs that are available in the garden.”

A pot of silver tips with cookies and quiche

Yes, the finest teas in the South grow in the Nilgiris and the story of tea in S. India began right here in these Mountains. It was in 1834, under the supervision of M Perrottett, a French botanist, that the first tea seeds were planted and it took another five years before it began to thrive. Though tea shops and canteens shape the contours of the Indian roadways it is hard to find Tea Lounges that serve specialty teas. I had to travel all the way to Kochi, Kerala to find another tea lounge. Tea Pot on Petercelli street in Fort Kochi lies very close to where the first tea auctions in the South were held.

I visited the office of the first brokers in the sunny South: Forbes, Ewart & Figgis. One of the directors A. I. Kurian pointed out, “It was to get a fair price for tea that auctions began in the office of Forbes, Ewart & Figgis on July 5^th 1947. Interestingly not a single lot was sold during the auction on that day but later it picked up.”

W. C. Thomas about to lip the cup
Tea taster, auctioneer and director W.C.Thomas, as he went about lipping the cup, examining the dry leaf and infused leaf, stressed that one should look for clean black tea without stalks and fibres if one is buying loose tea. Then he went back to concentrating hard on the liquor in his mouth, to understand the elements of the tea and the various characteristics like briskness, strength, thickness, body etc.. All these factors he assessed individually and translated into the language of terms rapidly. He then gave the value of each tea. I left him to his difficult task and went for a tea break.

Death by Chocolate with Iced Tea

It was at Tea Pot that I discovered the perfect pairing “Death by Chocolate”(a rich chocolate cake) with Pure Camomile. Camomile tea is fruity and aromatic and best without sugar or milk. Off Loafer’s Corner in Fort Kochi, Tea Pot sits pretty on history’s pages. The quaint lounge is embellished with tea chests, kettles and tea pots done to send out the right vibes so that one feels perfectly at ease sipping iced tea or the numerous flavoured teas or biting into the samosa chat.

Tea Pot, Fort Cochin

While I was at it, giving my jaded palate a respite from the ubiquitous dark brew I prudently fell in love with an English aristocrat called Earl Grey*. Like the stuff of fairy tales, this I think is the beginning of a long and intimate relationship. That is forever.

• The Earl Grey blend is named after the 2nd Earl Grey, British Prime Minister in the 1830s, who reputedly received a gift, probably a diplomatic perquisite, of tea flavoured with bergamot oil.The tea proved so popular in the Prime Minister's drawing room that his tea merchants, Twinings in the Strand, were given a sample and asked to come up with a close match of the blend. Twinings sold the first "Earl Grey's tea" in the British market.

The Best Teas in the South

Nilgiris

Nilgiris Clonal Teas: Exquisite flavour, aroma and fragrance ( You can buy clonal teas only on availability at factory outlets)

Silver Tips : Light, sweet, pleasant liquor (Only on availability from the Tea Gardens)

Golden Tips : Golden yellow liquor, slightly more flavour than silver tips (Only on availability from the Tea Gardens)

Glendale Garden Tea : High grown flavour, aromatic

Nonsuch Garden Tea: High grown flavour

Korakundah Garden Tea: High grown flavour

Munnar

Kannan Devan Tea: Bright, thick, tasty liquor

(You can buy Kannan Devan teas at the KDHP outlet in Munnar town.)

Surinallae Dust: Coloury, thick, brisk liquor (Factory outlets)

Kolukkumallay Garden Tea (Department stores at Munnar Town)

(First published by The New Indian Express. Some changes have been made.)

The House of Scrooge: Malabar House, Fort Cochin

2007-07-29T10:56:00.000+05:30

Food Review

I must stress here, it was a solitary prawn tempura that sat there looking forlorn in my white soup bowl. It was then smothered with chilled tomato juice. The famed Gazpacho? Hardly. What was in front of me was defined by nothing but the blandness of tomato juice and more tomato juice. The mélange of garnishes held off. It occurred to me as I tried to savour the bowl of disappointment that the tomato juice should have been more appropriately used for a Bloody Mary and done with that.

There is something about soups that sets the tone of a meal. Most often it gently stirs the inner warmth, just a little to the level of comfort and adds the dash of expectation. That goes for both hot and cold soups. The Gazpacho in Malabar House, Fort Cochin robbed one of any expectations and comforts. So I gobbled the lonely prawn and then drank the tomato juice a little too dutifully.

Then came the spinach and mushroom lasagne. Quantity matters to me and even if I do not have the acumen for accuracy without a measuring tape- I will put the approximate size of the portion at 2 inch * 2 inch on a large empty plate. It had all the promise of an interesting bite. But where was the bite? It had disappeared in a whiff. Like a minuscule pill of lasagne.

The roast pork with a teaspoon of red cabbage and a teaspoon of white cabbage on the side or the Malabar seafood platter did not help either. We were done in exactly one minute. We had polished the meal in record shattering seconds.

I was increasingly adopting the attitude of Oliver Twist. The ambience sharpened into an atmosphere of stinginess. And you could feel it.

Remember those famous lines:

Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:
"Please, sir, I want some more."
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.
"What!" said the master at length, in a faint voice.
"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more."
The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arms; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

I had already licked the fork clean but something stalled me from taking the extreme step of ordering a second lasagne. Another 2inch* 2 inch was not going to provide any solace. Wisdom set in. We skipped dessert and went to another restaurant and had a proper dinner.

Meal for two at Malabar House costs: Rs.2000 without drinks or dessert.

Kerala Murals: The Dancing Narrative

2007-07-26T10:55:00.001+05:30

Detail of the mural in the Pathy home in Coimbatore

Kerala Murals, once exclusive to the royal and sacred walls, instantly command your awe and reverence. The mesmerized beholder is then impelled into the realm of silence- transfixed by the play of Gods and Goddesses on the earthly walls.

It is perhaps to create a genuflecting atmosphere that temples, palaces and churches in Kerala decorated their walls with intricate chumarchitrangal (murals) that told stories from the Mahabaratha, Ramayana, Puranas and the Bible. One of the most fascinating works of mural art is on the walls of the Mattancherry Palace at Kochi which was probably executed in the late sixteenth century. It’s the Ramayana epic that seamlessly unfolds in the palliyara (royal bed chamber) on the upper half of the walls while the border is covered with simple textile designs that mural artists call veeralli pattu.

Murals in the Mattancherry Palace

However this highly stylized art went out of fashion for most part of the twentieth century and it is only in the last decade and half that there has been a renewed interest and revival. Today it is the new age royals- industrialists like Rajshree Pathy, the Chairman and MD of Rajshree Group of Companies, who can enjoy this art in the same manner as the Maharajas of yore. The entrance of Pathy’s home in Coimbatore flow with the paintings of the Dasavataaram (ten incarnations of Lord Vishnu) done by Sadaanandan, Krishnan Mallissery and Ajithan Puthumana.

Rajshree Pathy
She says that even after years of surrounding herself with Kerala murals she still feels inspired by the grandeur of this art. “It is a very fine form of expression and it is very different. The mural in my home was created with such devotion and there is much more fluidity in the work when it is done in the private space. Kerala Murals have the echo of the Ajanta and the Ellora tradition and what is fascinating is the cross cultural influences and intermeshing of the north and the south cultures. The borders of the murals are decorated with the motifs of the patola sari of Gujarat. This is South India.” She emphasizes. Rajshree who has always promoted art and craft strongly feels it is now the responsibility of the industrialists to promote this tradition and preserve it for the next generation or it would simply vanish.

It took nearly six months for the mural in the Pathy home to be completed. Says Sadaanadan,“It is one of the finest works done by three senior mural artists. We were of same wavelength and we knew perfectly how we should work. Such compatibility in team work in mural artists is now hard to find.”

The subject of the murals in the temples usually revolve around the principal deity, likewise even in the homes the subject and the positioning of the mural should be given importance feels Unni Thampuran of Poomully Manna, one of the richest Nampoothiri families in Kerala, who have been traditional practitioners of ayurveda for several hundred years. The ootupura (dining hall) in Poomully Manna where the patients and guests have their meals has a large mural Ganapathy Prathal by mural artist Manikandan Punnakkal. The story goes that anyone who came to the Manna never went away hungry and so the theme of the mural suggests that it is not what you give but how it is given is important.

The Kerala murals if done in the traditional method of treating the walls with the mixture of lime, sand and herbal water and then coating it several times with tender coconut water and lime mixture, then finally painting the mural with the five natural colours can last over a thousand years. But the modern concrete buildings with a lifespan of just hundred years make poor material to house this ancient art. Hence the rapid migration of this art from the walls to other surfaces like canvas and wood.

A beautiful “Gopika Vastraabharanam” on wood by Saju Thuruthil grabs the attention in the home of Mini and M. S. A. Kumar, MD of AVT McCormick Pvt. Ltd at Vazhakala. The “Gopika Vastraabharanam” symbolic of granting moksha to the gopikas and the complete subjugation of the ego in the presence of Lord Krishna is often interpreted as the god in a naughty mood. Set in the centre of the dark wooden bar cabinet, the oval mural becomes the focal point in the “cozy room”. Arranged around the mural are low Jaipur chairs and scatter cushions. It sets the tone in this comfort zone for libation and camaraderie and often the conversation gravitates towards the mural.

While the curlicue narrative on canvas in the adjoining dining area has quite the opposite effect. The Arrumugham placed above Mini’s collection of Ganapathy on the bhoomi pooja area creates a hallowed space. Says Mini, “After the bhoomi pooja, we were advised by the priest that no should walk over the area where the pooja was performed. Since it is in the dining room the only option I had was to create a space that is both holy and decorative.”

Interior designer Susheela Nair, who has been incorporating traditional and modern Kerala murals into her designs ever since the great revival in the nineties, says they complement both the contemporary and the oriental designs. “As the contemporary interiors are an eclectic mix- the Kerala mural style paintings fit perfectly with the fusion of the antique and the trendy. A traditional mural used with a chic glass and wood design can produce exciting results. The tricky part is the colour scheme. The colours of the murals are vivid so one needs to choose the right colours for furnishings otherwise it can look incongruous.”

Artist Thuruthil’s residential gallery at Kalady goes beyond the canvas. On invitation one can see both the art and the artist: the intimate relationship between the two is unbroken and on exhibit. Much of Thuruthil’s work sees a marked shift to the modern idiom where the detailed religious iconography is replaced by commoner themes. “The stylized traditional drawings of the figures are done on the basis of what has been pronounced in the ancient texts of Bharata Muni and Vatsyayana. I follow the same guidelines in my modern murals too and the subjects chosen by me create a positive atmosphere. In my Yekshi series (in charcoal) I have steered away from the stereotypical image of the yekshi (witch) and created a happy singing creature that lives on palm trees and emerges from flowers.” Says Thuruthil.

The Chayaamukhi(Magic mirror) Kerala mural style painting dominates the bedroom of the Thruruthil residential gallery. Done in vibrant colours the maidens entwined by the tropical allamanda are images that Thuruthil “sees in his magic mirror”. Set into one of the walls is the cement relief of Krishnakeli done in green. Living with imposing art work seems to come naturally to his wife Seena. She accepts the disruptiveness of their daily routine when people call on them at odd hours and adjusts her time accordingly. “An artist is an asset to society and I feel he cannot be confined to the family, others should be able to experience Saju’s work anytime they want to.

(First published in HOME –India Today. Some changes have been made.)

Kerala Floods Over: Strikes, Potholes, Garbage…

2007-07-25T16:50:00.000+05:30

Water, Water everywhere....(Photographs by Rajeev Prasad)

The habit of potholes popping up all over Kochi’s tar roads is a permanent feature of our heavenly landscape. And so the habit of strikes. They are now embedded ineluctably in the Mallu genes and the off springs holler “Inquilab” as soon as the umbilical chord is cut. (The protest at the doctor’s rough handling.) Today one habit protests another. The Bus federation of Kochi has called for a strike against the potholes of Kochi. Bad for the tyres and so all buses are off the roads.

Mercy Mayor of Kochi has reiterated that the garbage situation will facilitate the onset of plague. Garbage is piled sky high. Vector indices are high. And what does she do? Waits patiently for the disease to strike.

To add to such habitual pain. The rains have inundated the land.

We could blame it all on the devil. And Kerala has a new label for tourism brochures: One hell of a place.

The Chettinad Fantasy

2007-07-18T17:46:00.000+05:30

(Travel)
(This photo by Gireesh G.V)

The place where reality and illusion clandestinely meet
(Click on it to enlarge. Photographs by Minu Ittyipe)

In the middle of a parched nowhere, I traverse the collective fantasy of the Nattukottai Chettiars- mazes of monumental mansions in village after village. Even as I wander through this fantastic dreamscape I find I am still tethered to reality, you could say to the sweating banality of everyday life. I am soon convinced that it is the point of convergence, the place where reality and illusion clandestinely meet.
We have travelled far in pursuit of gastronomical pleasures, relishing the sensations of one cuisine before moving to the ephemeral joys of the next. We left behind the coolness of Coorg and Bangalore, flew over two dry river beds, long and sad, to reach Kanadukathan about eighty kilometers from Tiruchirapalli.

The Raja's Palace in Kanadukathan

Inside of the Palace

And the illusion of a sophisticated township in the barren village of Kanadukathan, beautifully designed, does not cease to amaze us. (Let’s live like kings and queens must have been the idea.)

There are about hundred and fifty ornate, ostentatious, palatial mansions in Kanadukathan laid out on a grid plan and interestingly the wide streets all gravitate to that ineluctable feature of a village scene: the village pond. The only source of drinking water, the shallow pond, is not exactly the source of flipping fish. And we soon stumble upon the illusion of the fish.

We expect the cuisine of Chettinad to be governed by the potent red chilly. It is quite the contrary. Though the red chilly is an essential ingredient of Chettinad cuisine its aggressive nature is subdued. And our fiery expectations are soon mellowed by the well blended tones of the authentic Chettinad cuisine. As in the other regions of the South, in Chettinad too, we succumb to the seductions of rice in its varied forms.

I am in the first inner courtyard of the 100 year old Chettinadu Mansion in Kanadukathan, listening to the carnatic ragas winding their way around the numerous pillars of the house. Either side of me the succession of doorways seems to stretch endlessly. The main entrance of the house and the secondary entrances lie on the same axis, framed by the inner pillared corridors, creating the illusion of infinite entrances.

The Illusion of Infinite Entrances

I sit there delighting in the sweet and glutinous kavunarasi (black rice pudding) that hostess Sivakami Chandramouli insists I try. I must admit I love the elusive bite of the grated coconut that I seek in the midst of that delicious purple stickiness. The Chettiars acquired a penchant for black rice during their prosperous trading and banking ventures in South East Asia that peaked during the British Raj. Teak from Burma, Italian tiles for the floor, copper- zinc plates for the ceiling from England, black rice from Indonesia etc.., the flavours of abundant wealth were brought back to embellish their homes in the Chettinad villages. (There are seventy five such villages.) And the Chettiar inclination for non-vegetarian food too is said to have been cultivated during those days.

A day slowly dies in Kanadukathan

Here the rice flour dough twists and turns into savouries and sweetmeats- the deep fried crispy kai murrukkus, cheedas and manaholam are famous Chettinad snacks. The manaholam is a mixture of rice and lentil dough, fried and coated with just a whisper of jaggery, while the rice flour steeped in jaggery syrup and then deep fried turns into lovely brown cakes called the athiresam. For me athiresam has the aroma of nostalgia. Sifting through my childhood memories, I find that athiresam and kai murrukku with its three circles of twists were always present in large Britannia biscuit tins to comfort my growing pains.
Sivakami enlightens me about the “chootte” or concentric circles of the murrukku- it kind of indicates the wealth of the person during the marriage ceremonies. “It is customary for the bride’s people to take snacks to the bridegroom’s house. The richer the person, the more the snacks and the number of concentric circles of the kai murrukku too increase proportionately.”

And it is always to the Chettinad villages that the Nattukottai Chettiars return for the wedding ceremonies. Each mansion has many locked up rooms or “houses” that are filled with things of the relatives, waiting for the big occasion.

The vegetable biriyani with curd pachadi is one of the numerous dishes served during the usually vegetarian wedding feasts. In this classic dish, the ascendant flavour is that of the marathi mokku- just a few pods of the spice and its delicate flavour spreads through the rice. But for us it is the vegetable biriyani with the famous Chettinad chicken. The chicken imbibes the generous helping of spices and masala that is combined perfectly with the milk of the coconut and cashew paste. It goes without saying that the softest iddilis and the crispiest dosais are made in this state. Our host Chandramouli stresses with pride that the hard iddilis found elsewhere will not be touched by the people here.

Women pounding spices in Chettinadu Mansion

The Chettinad iddiappam (string hoppers), a derivative of the Kerala iddiappam is surprisingly very soft too. The regular hoppers are secretly subjected to a softening process here. After the hoppers are steamed, water is sprinkled on them and immediately squeezed dry. The string hoppers are then soaked in butter milk and seasoned with mustard seeds and curry leaves. It is deliciously soft. If I have to get technical and employ the atavistic foodie lingo, that is at present only tele-comprehensible, it would be an “Mmmmmmm….Ahhhh”.
One particular dish that captures the essence of the place and fascinates me is a kolumbu (curry) with brown fishes floating in it. A bite reveals that it is not fish but fish shaped pakodas. Hot pakodas dropped into the curry is referred to simply as the pakoda kolambu. But I prefer to call it the illusion of the fish.
(Chettinadu Mansion Apr to Sep tariff: Rs.5300/- Double/ Full board. For further information contact 04565-273080 or email: chandramoulia@yahoo.com)
Extract of the culinary tour published in Spice (India Today Group). The full text in July 2007 issue

I was fascinated by this village and went snap, snap.

Caretakers of this crumbling mansion

Near the Village pond. People gather at the end of the day

A decaying facade

The disinterested sentinel

One of the few shops in Kanadukathan

Man at work

Urban Disease

2007-07-17T19:18:00.000+05:30

(Pix by Rajeev Prasad)
Whither shall we dump? Is the Problem. Kochi's dilemma and headache is its waste. The temporary dumping ground right in the middle of the city at Padiyathukulam created a hue and cry from the residents and students who took to the road. Of course they do everything to disinfect with an anti microbial deodorant! (see picture)
It ceases to be funny- this high mountain of waste has to be now moved to another spot.
For the next two days the waste will occupy the city's prime land- Marine Drive.
Why cant the Mayor ban plastics and ask the numerous high-rise buildings to manage their own wastes?

Trucks laden with city waste wait for the administration and the courts to decide where to dump the goods. Ah Marine Drive finally!
The statue seems to grimace at the sight.

This Thing Runs On Biofuel

2007-07-09T16:36:00.000+05:30

The wheel comes a full circle. (Picture by Rajeev Prasad)

Kerala is the Pits!!!!

2007-07-02T18:24:00.000+05:30

(Click on picture to enlarge. Pix By Rajeev Prasad)
SOMEBody help us...........
Does anybody out there have a clue about Waste Management???????
The Mayor and Co of Kochi have made the marshlands a convenient dumping ground.
The Environment be damned! We are upto our necks with waste and court rulings.
(Frankly I did not want to put this picture on the blog. It's not a pretty sight. Most newspapers are now ruled by the same dictum: Style sells. Garbage doesn't.)

The Legend called Rajnikanth

2007-06-16T10:47:00.001+05:30

The story goes, now part of popular Tamil lore, there was a time when Rajni was house arrested in his Poes Road bungalow. Whether it was inadvertent or intentional only his whimsy neighbour Jaya can say. Often, often, the story goes… when Jayalalithaa was Chief Minister, her bodyguards, black cats and policemen would block Rajni’s way to clear the road for Amma’s smooth ride. Security reasons, you know, it cannot be helped. And the dear lady would take her sweet time while Rajni was caged in his own home. Perhaps, a small punishment for his political alignment.

Then Rajni did his thing. One fine morning Rajni drove out of the gates. The inevitable happened. His car was blocked. No sweat. Rajni got out and sat on the car bonnet. Cool Man.

Then in characteristic Rajni style, he just combed his hair, and flicked it in preparation for the long wait.

The crowds swelled, Rajni got into the act: flicked his hair and flipped his coolers on to his nose. The crowd went wild. And Rajni just waited on that bonnet.... Only a couple of hours...
While Jaya sweated in her famed residence. That was the last time Rajni had to wait on the bonnet or anywhere else for that matter .

"Naan eppa varuven, eppadi varuvennu yarukkum theriyadhu, aana varavendiya neratthil correct-aga varuven." "When I will arrive, or how I will arrive, nobody will know, but I will arrive when I ought to." Rajni in Muthu 1995

(This story was deliciously told to me by my father in the 90s in the Southern tip of Tamil Nadu.)

Heritage Preservation: Fort Cochin

2007-06-15T18:10:00.001+05:30

Much ink has flowed in newspaper columns describing the mess - the mess we endeavour to preserve and showcase. Yes, that's what we do! And the dirt collects more enthusiastically.
The Chinese nets - Kochi’s most famous icon could soon be submerged under mesmerizing picnicking detritus. And the authorities of course do not even look the other way.
Here pictures tell the story. (Photos by Avran Ittyipe)

Fort Cochin Beach

Hey watch out!

Fort Cochin Beach

Chinese Fishing Nets: Remnants of a bygone trade. They have been greeting
visitors for hundreds of years.

Look at those nets closely. It may not be around too long.

Vasco da Gama Square in Fort Cochin.

Well, I Guess I Am Different

2007-06-14T12:52:00.000+05:30

A rebel nut has curved its niche.
(Pix by Rajeev Prasad. Pix has been edited.)

Saving The Meal From The Drink

2007-06-12T16:17:00.000+05:30

That's one hellava job when it monsoons here.
And Dude, you have one cool umbrella ad there!
(pix by Rajeev Prasad)

That Beautiful Country

2007-06-10T15:44:00.000+05:30

Once

I was in a country

Its language all too clear

Now lodged in my memory

Twisted lime on the sore.

Terrain of drenched greens

This place of no shadows

Where the verbs and the nouns

Entwine in splendid verse

My laundry upon the rainbow

The moon yo-yoed thru' the day

My chores were just silly songs

My feet in warm and scented herbs.

One day

I fled that lovely country and

The sun that dreams away the years

Love, he said to me, in this place

You are cheaper than the whore.

Devoted to Devouring

2007-06-08T09:10:00.001+05:30

After devouring the river, the weeds avariciously tentacle a country boat.
Kodoor river,Kottayam. (Pix by Rajeev Prasad)

How Green Is My River?

2007-05-27T19:41:00.000+05:30

(Pix by Rajeev Prasad. Click on it to enlarge.)
Carpeted with weeds. How much greener can it get?
It's not just Kodoor River in Kottayam but most rivers in Kerala now wear the weedy look.

The language of Rain

2007-05-25T14:45:00.000+05:30

Needs no Words.
(Munnar, Pix by Rajeev Prasad)

Conversations on MG Road

2007-05-22T22:50:00.000+05:30

Glee

Threatens to spill and smother

My lucid mind. Gay laughter.

Knocks at the hollows of my eyes.

Back and forth. Like a ping pong ball.

Appall is taken aback.

The driver of the three- wheeler too.

Government’s sluggish orders: Crunch down encroachers.

And 24 carat investments.

The driver’s sorrow. The backseat laughter.

We shock each other.

Fist against palm

Giddy mirth.

Disapproval stealthily spies. It’s Bond.

The driver too. Through the looking glass.

“Here wrongs are legitimate.

Road blocks tiresome.

This midday carnival is years too late.”

The conscience has a sermon.

Laughter no conscience.

“It is a grand spectacle.

Popcorn crunches. Live action.

Politicians as actors.

Administrators too. And the makeup man.

Cheese.” I say.

Three Twitchers and I

2007-04-29T12:41:00.000+05:30

The only barrier between me and the tusk less rogue is the languid river. Hardly fifty metres wide. On the other side, in the Thattekad forest the rogue elephant is said to enjoy his little game. The mischievous game of hiding, stealthily sneaking and chasing humans has earned him a wicked reputation. My tent at the Hornbill Camp flaps in the sultry night air but the deep and treacherously calm River Periyar is my infallible guard. And at night it is not the tusk less rogue (Mozha) that captures my dreams, but Twitchers* do. Being an amateur bird watcher I am seized by insurmountable anxieties about sharing space with Twitchers.

(*A Twitcher is prepared to travel great distances or go to great effort or expense in order to see birds, often just a single bird, that he or she has never seen before so that it can be marked on their list of birds seen (called a “tick” or “lifer”).

Hornbill Camp

6 am. I am up and ready but so are the indefatigable Twitchers who have arrived straight from England on the 3.30 am flight. With Jijo our guide we begin our four hour trek through the Thattekad Sanctuary-the veritable birding paradise. We adopt a measured gait –in other words we walk literally on tiptoe afraid even the rustle of the leaves would scare away the smaller details of the kaleidoscopic view. And we stop every other second to take in the lilting tunes of the dawn chorus. And what a chorus it is! The sanctuary has 330 different species of birds and though forty percent of them are migratory there are still plenty of rare residents.

The nature trail showcases different habitats: swamps, ponds, the river and the lowland forest replete with a rich congregation of water and land birds.

I spot a Darter. It sits perfectly still in the middle of a pond. Its long thin neck that slithers and sways like a snake is mesmerizing. The guide then points out a Paradise Flycatcher- a perfect beauty queen. I open my bird book and begin to tick rapidly, Black- Naped Oriole, White-Bellied Treepie, Snake Eagle etc.., tick, tick I go, a little smug that I am moving at great speed. Then a Twitcher opens his book- the entire page is neatly covered with deliberate ticks. And he announces with a casual shrug that there are only three to four birds left for him to see in the sub continent!

Jijo checks the electric fencing enclosing the trail and urges us to cross over. Only last week the elephants had damaged the watch tower. A little nervous I ask, “Do elephants have a specific time to visit this place?” “Yes,” he mumbles without meeting my eye and takes us to the spot where the Sri Lankan Frogmouth sits in certitude of its perfect camouflage. This resident bird looks exactly like a dried leaf and only the sharpest eye can detect it. And there is urgency in his voice as he asks us to return to the trail.

Dr.Sugathan, ornithologist and a student of Salim Ali, at the sanctuary office tells me that when Salim Ali came in 1933 to do an ornithological survey of the Cochin Travancore area, Thattekad was just a stopover at night on his way through the forests to Munnar. But next morning when he heard the call of the birds, he stayed on for seven days and identified 160 species. “Thattekad lies on the international migratory route and situated at the base of the Western Ghats it also receives a large number of altitudinal migratory birds. Besides the birds, the sanctuary has its share of leopards, spotted deer, barking deer and recently a tiger was sighted. The place is too small for a pair of tigers though.”

10.30 am. The drone of the cicadas fills the forest air and we can hear nothing else. We head back to the Hornbill Camp and sit down to a hearty breakfast and two hours later to a heartier lunch. Evening is apportioned for river rafting to leisurely explore the waters. The Twitchers of course are off on another birding trip. I pass, I’d rather laze by the river side.

Info on Hornbill Camp:

Web: www.kalypsoecolodges.com

Contact: 0484-2092280, 0484- 6583573

(First published by The Sunday Express.)

Death in the Afternoon

2007-03-20T11:17:00.000+05:30

"One for Sorrow

Two for Joy

Three for Letter

Four for Boy

Five for a Secret never to be Told."

(Oops I got that wrong. Comment alert.)

It goes....

"Five for Silver

Six for Gold

Seven for a Secret Never to be Told."

-Old School Rhyme

I still dread spotting the solitary Mynah. It is the Seal of Sorrow. And it adds to my pain of spotting another, the Joy. The usual was after an unsuccessful attempt I would resign to my fate and promptly forget the miserable portent.

It was at that time- when the Day wilted and the hour curled around the edges and drowsiness captured my thoughts and dulled it slowly. The wail of the Oriental Magpie Robin pierced the stillness and interrupted my siesta. It was an agitated wail, high pitched, enough to move me from my bed to the balcony. My mother likes to call these birds Kundikulikki translated it would mean Bum Shaker- they have a certain swagger when they walk. Well, a pair of Bum Shakers was creating a family, they had built a nest in a chimney and it was only yesterday, I had thought, they were ensconced in a private bliss.

For the next ten minutes I heard the helpless wail of death. High and horrible. Gleeful mynahs feasted in the nest. The chimney had a small roof that darkened the view so I prayed that the feast was eggs and not yet chicks. The birds tried fearful acrobatics -swooped up and down- to scare the mynahs. But had to watch in horror as their babies were consumed. Even the crows were silent and a little sparrow tried to help, fluttering in vain around the feast. In the end the mother bird, heart broken and spent, turned away and flew from the scene.

The mynahs content and burping left the nest.

And I said: “Hey it’s Two for Joy!”

The Business of Debates and Reviews

2007-03-09T09:58:00.000+05:30

I don’t know what genre the critics have slotted Nishabd. I think, so do the amused theatre goers in this small city, that it fits rather snugly into Senile Comedy (i.e.Comedy gone senile). The self inflicted compulsions of watching the ridiculous (Nishabd) or reading the ridiculous (Booker Prize: The Inheritance of Loss By Kiran Desai) is the result of studying with religious earnestness the reviews of fat and rich critics and agonizing weirdly that I will pass into the next world without seeing the Indian Lolita- an old man ascetically denying himself the touch of youthful silky lush flesh or before I finish the “momo”fied banal writing that is being brandished as the classic of the times. I cannot miss such stuff of the times if I need to comprehend the national debates that are indefatigably aired in my living room night after night. (The Gose and Barkha variety!)

Set in beautiful lush Munnar, the old man (you know who I am referring to) drives around, takes a few photographs and dreams himself silly over an irritating “free spirit”. (Irritating is her name. I have just opened up my thesaurus to dig up the synonyms: annoying, exasperating, vexing, irksome etc. are some of her other names.) Well Miss Irritating seduces the grand old man of the Indian films with a fleeting whisper of a peck ( A Bitter disappointment!) and thenceforth he is consumed by the inextinguishable flames of eternal love and is reduced to a pathetic weepy aching lover. (Oh Boy!) It was unconvincing act of the best kind. No one is deceived even for a moment and our national treasure Big B comes away unscathed without having committed any sin or without damaging his image and is victimized for his deep and delicate feelings. ( Oh weary dreary! I nearly cried with tiresome boredom of being confined to a theatre chair which I had convincingly persuaded myself not to vacate- All for some silly vacation romance that a bored girl indulged in.)

It was the same with that Book of Loss. I could not bring myself to abandon a Booker winner half way through hoping to find some treasure at the end of those pages that are burdened with so called immigrant dilemmas. Set in Kalimpong the book supposedly delves into the Gorkha problems and Kanchenjunga is my witness that the writing is real debilitating but critics have conspiratorially decided to fool the naïve reader. Sample this: “A delightfully original book, a triumph of the storyteller’s art, nuanced and even worthy of the most overworked term: luminous.” Here is another : “If God is in details, Ms Desai has written a holy book. Page after page, from Harlem to the Himalayas, she captures the terror and exhilaration of being alive in this world.” (Oh holy holies! It is just a damp and tasteless momo that gets undone.)

There was a time when I used to dread the verbal cascade of the sales folk. Now, I no longer fear those straightforward simple types but it is the disguised salesmen: critics and talk show hosts with their devious methods of marketing that I have the deepest respect for. Their words shimmer with so much intellectual gloss that I cannot detect the sales pitch. And unfailingly I fall for it. Over and over.

Dal Roti

2007-02-10T11:14:00.000+05:30

Sometimes I like to dress as if I walked off the FTV ramp. But of course I have something more to show: my bulges and love handles. So what better place to wear a skimpy top with a deep V neckline extending almost to the midriff – that I picked up at the spur of a defiant moment- ‘I can carry that off with panache’ moment- than Dal Roti. So I squeeze into the skimpy top and hold my breath (my stomach).

Dal Roti is the hot new food place on Lily street, Fort Cochin. It is a small cosy restaurant with an ambience that begs you to be casual. Well, I guess I like to experiment with the contrary to see how it feels to tuck into real dilli food holding my breath. (Tres mal idea! Excuse my French. That’s also pretty mal.)

Ramesh comes out to invite you in. I like that. He’s into shipping and his wife Kalpana has a travel job. And the restaurant is their “hobby” and they enjoy running it. Just a few small tables. And an almost plain décor nothing much to speak about. Ah, yes. There is a lovely picture window showcasing colourful cushions from their shop Yamini.

Ramesh takes the order. Another thing that I like. He does not have the time but does sit down for a moment to say: “I brought the cooks from the villages of Bihar and UP.” He suggests fresh lime soda with ginger. You expect something syrupy sweet and you swirl the lime soda on your tongue searching for the sweetness. The sugar is on the threshold waiting to enter and take over but is restrained from doing so and the consequence - the soda is perfect. The Mughalai parathas with chicken is a kind of flaky pastry that melt in your mouth. I abandon all thoughts of holding my breath and just tuck in. I forget my stomach, my bulges……and FTV.

The Lachidhar parathas have a tinge of sweetness and it is served with portions of chicken, paneer, dal and raita. The spices blend in mellow tones in the Hyderabadi biriyani. Mmm good! And it is the dessert section that I like best. The desserts are not sweet. The stewed apricot and the carrot halwa are perfected so that you can take another helping.

Meal for two costs about Rs. 250. And you are stuffed.

On Holidays

2007-01-26T16:48:00.000+05:30

THEN
It was my first piece as a reporter. The elections were over and we were awaiting the results. Prannoy Roy was just making his mark as a psephologist and there I was contributing to a small time magazine-the name I forget- I think it went something like ‘Career Entrance Master’or ‘Competition Entrance Master’. I had made a careful list of who to interview in Trivandrum city: Two doctors, two politicians, two government servants, two trade union leaders, two tea shop drinkers and so on. The subject -the outcome of the elections and other general blah.

I had an appointment with this genial doctor who had all the time in the world and who happened to be conveniently a relative of mine. So this hotshot journo presented herself at his doorstep and his beautiful wife opened the door and said with smug contempt, “Oh it’s yooou?!”
I took that in with tremendous maturity and replied with deadpan silence. I was ushered into the drawing room and the dear Doctor was there waiting for me. I cannot recall much what transpired at that interview but I remember one question. I must add here that it was an absolutely innocent question born out of my naiveté. But now to think of it he was the perfect person to answer it.
I posed: “Doctor, what is it about Keralites that they just don’t want to work?”
He should know. He had spent five or six years earning a doctor’s degree and there he was on a vacation from his responsibilities. A kind of permanent vacation. ( Some like to call it a national waste but I differ on this. A kind of family solidarlity.) And he had no intention of practising ever. What with four hundred acres of rubber and a race horse named Burning Desire he was not even contemplating it.
And in that white drawing room, the handsome doctor pondered awhile and then answered with tremendous sagacity, “Well, Why would a Malayalee want to work? God has blessed us abundantly. We don’t even need an air conditioner. We receive cool wind and every Malayalee has at least ten cents of land with enough tapioca and coconuts on his land to provide him with his staple diet.”
I went away far wiser. And later when I interviewed two road gazers I understood them perfectly well. (Road gazers do nothing but gaze at the road all day, smoke their beedis and indulge in politics. This is one public service that is done with unbridled perseverance in this part of the hemisphere; without pause and without strike). The doctor’s analysis had completely cleared my head of stupid perplexities.

NOW

We still have that desire to drop work and road gaze, or enjoy the wind or whatever. When they hanged Saddam Hussein in Iraq it was our Chief Minister who declared in the middle of the afternoon we should strike work, go home and protest against American Imperialism. (Newspapers report that the loss to small business establishments alone accounted for 50 crores in that single afternoon. Loss to tourism and other industries is unknown.) When WTO had a meeting in Hong Kong it is we in Kerala who protested with a bandh. We think along international lines and though the common man is often clueless he is no spoiler and he enthusiastically pitches in ( by doing nothing) to make the bandh TOTAL or SUCCESSFUL.
And that adds to our endless national holidays. (In Kerala it is a crime to work on a National Holiday. The District Administration is mighty quick to take action in case of any deviation from that law. Well that’s another story.)
In less than a year while working for a newspaper I did three features just on holidays- dwelling chiefly on how fortuitous it was that holidays were bunched up together. It was fortuitous indeed! The boss would say- just spread it Minu, with a cartoon it should fill up quarter the page. “People love to read about holidays.” We sure do.

Yesterday I read another holiday story- some other hotshot journo had usurped my space and spread it across the page- on the four day holiday and a bandh thrown in taking it to five.
I always assumed this was a local newspaper invention till I read Moni Mohsin’s novel “The End of Innocence” from across the border.

Excerpt (You must read this through to the end.)
Tariq turned the page to find two columns on the news of a forth coming holiday. He read
“Capital Wears Deserted Looks”
“Capital city Islamabad , has assumed a deserted looks owing to large outflow of government employees to other stations because of twin holidays on eve of the birthday of the Holy Prophet (May Peace be upon Him). The government employees have left for their native towns and cities for three days holidays including two holidays of the Holy Prophet’s birthday, weekly off and one casual leave they have taken to add to the strength of their duration of enjoyment among their near and dear ones who are always considering them some super creatures. Islamabad which stands distinguished due to its specific cultural milieu can be seen dejected like hollow-eyed virgin, who is disappointingly staring at the vast expanses before her to search for the nearest one who has lost into the bottoms of unknown destination.”
He laughed aloud as he read the last line…… “These inane newspapers.”

Alas, as a holiday writer I wish I had carried out my duties in a similar style. That, I regret I did not.

What's In A Reflection?

2007-01-03T20:13:00.000+05:30

HE: But Bai, is a reflection just a body?
WOMAN: What else? What do you see in the mirror-your mind? Yourheart? Your Soul?
-Mahesh Elkunchwar in Pratibimba

Elkunchwar’s “Pratibimba” was recently staged by the Cochin Theatre Group. I found it disturbing - it disturbed my comfortable routinized thoughts: What happens if you lose your reflection? What happens if one fine day you wake up and cannot see the way others see you?

The play opens with the protagonist HE aka Blockhead discovering the loss of his reflection in the mirror. HE is aghast. HE who had cared little for his reflection and never gave it a second thought is completely filled with nagging thoughts of the loss of his own reflection. And now consumed by this loss he cannot think of anything else: What does it mean? Does it mean the loss of one’s identity? HE is a paying guest and the coquettish hostess WOMAN (Shirley) has no time to spend pondering over such inane questions. The hostess’ sexual tension is evident in her silly laugh. And practical and worldly wise she sees it as an opportunity for instant fame and her imagination revels in the media frenzy and fortune for “The Man without a Reflection”.

What is globalization doing to our cultural identity?

Though written in the pre-globalization, pre 24* 7 news channel era, this existential play is true to the times and reflects the effects of globalization. The deterioration of one’s unique characteristics is the essential feature of globalization and the loss of cultural identity has already set in- the world over, everyone wears the same type of clothes, eats the same type of food, listens to the same music, watches the same films and even mouths the same language. The process of cloning of identity has begun and in the play “Pratibimba” the cloning of identity results in the loss of reflection for the character GIRL. So when GIRL comes in search of HE and tells him of her loss of reflection he does not recognize his own colleague.

“GIRL: Don’t we work in the same office, in the same section, in the same
corner?
HE: I wouldn’t know…….Fifty girls to a section. They all wear synthetic saris. They all wear perfume. They all wear lipstick. How am I supposed to remember them?”

The play speaks of the horrifying aspects of merging cultural identities and finally the loss of one’s own identity. The GIRL losing her reflection is the symbolic loss of her identity. On a higher plane one’s reflection is the process of identification for the self and how the Other sees one and the loss of this reflection entails darkness within too. This drives the protagonist HE to suicide.

Replete with symbolism, dark humour and tremendous sadness the play does not shy away from asking uncomfortable questions. T M Abraham who directed the play in Malayalam says, “It is not easy to direct absurd plays and it was staged to make the audience to think, to wake them from the comfort zone.”

Roots

2007-01-01T07:41:00.000+05:30

Arakkal at the book launch at Kochi

Review

In Touch With My Roots:
A Creative Journey Through Kerala
By Yusuf Arakkal
Penguin,
Rs 1250
One of the most telling images in Yusuf Arakkal’s book In Touch With My Roots is an oil painting titled “Tea Kada”: it reveals the dilemma of the hyphenated self. He has used an unusual combo of English and Malayalam to title the ubiquitous wayside teashop in rural Kerala! The artist who had spent his early years in Kerala had in his teens sought Bangalore and made it his adopted home. When he embarked on a 15-day “creative journey” through Kerala in 2001 to rediscover his roots, there was much he could not comprehend. He says, “Here was I — a non-resident Keralite who loved his hometown but found it difficult to comprehend the psyche of the locals and his land.”

He begins his musings with “Kerala is colours — magnificent colours” and details the varied hues of green Kerala: striking emerald, viridian and sap. “Starting from the dark green grass –so dark you will feel the colour will come out on your fingers if you so much as touch it.” But the vibrant colours, green and others, somehow escape his brush and paradoxically his evocations of Kerala are somber and dark. The mood is predominantly one of despair, which is characteristic of Arakkal’s works. Says Arakkal, “I lost my parents at a very early age and even if I had a happy childhood, I have always used earth colours in my paintings and this is not a conscious effort. And the character of my work has evolved over the years.”

Arakkal’s memories of Kerala are steeped in legends and he has infused it into his work. As a 10-year-old he had heard the story of the Rapayyi Mappila who sold coconut oil at the local market. “The old man sitting next to me on the wayside teashop bench began this story. ‘Rapayyi Mappila sold coconut oil at our local weekend market. He must have been in his late sixties at that time. But very sturdy. I was buying fish next door when I heard the commotion at Rapayyi Mappila’s store. I saw four mean and very menacing looking men shouting abuses at him. He merely smiled and asked them to leave. But suddenly one of them pounced on him. Rapayyi Mappila stood there like a rock and just pointed his index finger at them, as if shooting a pistol. You know what happened next? …..the old man continued, with a bewildered expression on his face, “they all fell down one by one like trees chopped down. That is choondani murman.” ( Choondani murman is an ancient martial trick that could bring an adversary down by pointing a finger at him.)
Arakkal has searched for the images that haunt his memory. And he has adhered to those images, almost clinging to his past afraid of disturbing his memories. Whether it is the “The Coconut-seller”, “The Fisherman”, “The Karnavar” or in the numerous other portraits, Arakkal has given the common man an aura of mystery.
These images are interspersed with those of boats. And the Kerala boats that Arakkal loves to draw are imbued with their own legends. “Do you only draw boats?” asks Bijumon. One of the happiest sketches in the book is of Bijumon. The artist says, “It is a very dear picture. I began to sketch him on the beach and his friends turned into instant critics and they pointed out that his eyes were not so slanted but on the all they seemed to agree it is a good picture.” It is these stories behind few of his paintings that lend colour to the book but the insertion of more anecdotes would have made the book much more interesting.
The book is filled with grammatical and spelling errors- It seems like Penguin just didn’t have the time to read the few pages of text.

Christmas is such a drag

2006-12-26T15:07:00.000+05:30

A wee bit accusatory, the cleaning woman’s sly question: “You don’t hang a star or put up a tree?!” I wanted to be blunt and say it has become one big bore. But instead I shrugged and let the question pass.

It is not just Christmas but all festivals have become aggressively predatory. The festival is packaged to entice and lure the unsuspecting stupid believer and then it closes in to make the monetary killing.

Once upon a time Christmas was simple. Life was not easy but the real fun was there and that was long before the ersatz fun became packaged ware. Planning began months before. The pinecones were collected from hill stations then painted silver, gold or left plain and painstakingly wired into the wreaths. Bright red suede with green leaves and dry flowers tucked into it became table runners and pretty candles entwined in tinsel became centre -pieces. We even borrowed Christmas decs when we had a dinner and that was about wowing and sharing and wowing again!

Every year an exhibition in Kochi announced handmade Christmas decorations that had a welter of glass bells, glass Santas, stuffed Santas, Christmas wreaths, colourful stockings, all crafted carefully. It took the talented ladies from Alleppey over four to five months to collect and make the stuff for that Christmas sale. And we flocked to see what new ideas they brought each year and their precious stock would sell out within half a day. But somewhere along they stopped when cheaper stuff became available. The sameness and niceness of cheap decorations are so convenient! It is hard to describe the instant joy that it brings to the world!

But What if I don’t put up that Made in China tree? What if I don’t hang up those Made In China trinkets? It seems like an affront that I can even think these Scrooge thoughts when Christmas is about spending and spending to spread the cheer around. And if you don’t the guilt will weigh you down. And Christianity rides on the guilt factor. And that guilt is cleverly factored in to the sales pitch and has even infiltrated the general bon homie. The compulsiveness of sending messages, giving gifts and throwing Christmas dinners makes Christmas an expensive drag.

Are we missing the Big Picture? There must have been a pertinent reason to add that Cow Shed and the natural stars to The Nativity. How I miss the simplicity of that scene.
(No problem. You want that effect? Sure, we will get it for you. Made in China of course.)

Code Name Re

2006-12-07T17:01:00.000+05:30

There is certain fallacy in the assumption that grizzled hair makes one wiser. And a personal example kind of endorses that statement: My beautiful grey hairs have done nothing for my grey matter. And even if I am warned a million times I succumb so daftly to the great Hope. I guess age only tweaks the gullibility factor.

The case I am making out here is the great e-mail spam trick. The e-mails that flood my mail box have subject heads that are ambitiously disguised to entice an opening.
“You have won a lottery!” “Check this”, “Urgent”, “Re”, “It’s Me” even an audacious "Thanks for last night!" and a million other heads that have all seen nothing but the trash. I have been quick to delete without even the slightest peek. Very clever of me! But sometimes Subject heads beyond my wildest dreams lead me into temptation and deliver me into …..

Here is a mail from the Volkswagen Automobiles Company that had me clicking hard on the mail to open up. The subject said: File for your prize!!

After all I had just won a car. What luck! It warranted an opening.

But on careful reading- the mailer just wanted my identity. To perhaps to create another like me. Is the mailer an identity thief?
Read it and tell me I am wrong. Tell me it is a prize winning letter. I am still hoping. I guess I am a born sucker.

ENGINE TYPE:...........................6 Cylinder
POWER:........................................145bhp
TRANSMISSIONS:.......................Automatic
FUEL:............................................29.1mpg(combined )
DRIVE TYPE: .................................. 2 wheel drive

The selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerized
email selection system(ess) from a database of over 250,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the world.

The Volks Wagen Car Promotional Lottery is approved by the British Gaming Board and
also Licensed by the The International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR). This lottery is the 3rd of its kind and we intend to sensitize the public.

To begin the processing of your prize you are to contact your claims officer through our accredited Prize Transfer agents as stated below:

===============================================================

Mr. John Elliot,
22 Garden Close, Stamford,
Lincs, PE9 2YP, London .
United Kingdom .

Email: http://f4mail.rediff.com/bn/compose.cgi?login=minuittyipe&session_id=4L17PK1KGKioovxUwiYtlpCiyrTLNrh0&FormName=mail_to_individual&email=johnelliot_agentonline@yahoo.co.uk

Tel: +44702 402 6166

Fax: +4487006989981

===============================================================

contact him, please provide him with your secret pin code x7pwyz2006 and your reference number VM:12052006/21.You are also advised to provide him with the under listed information as soon as possible:

Claims Requirements:

1. Name in full----------------------------------------------------------------

2. Address----------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Sex----------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. Nationality/Religion------------------------------------------------------

5. Maritual Status------------------------------------------------------------

6. Age---------------------------------------------------------------------------

7. Next Of Kin----------------------------------------------------------------

8. Occupation-----------------------------------------------------------------

9. Phone/Fax-------------------------------------------------------------------

10. Present Country----------------------------------------------------------

11. A scanned copy of your Identity sent via email attachment.

===============================================================

If you do not contact your claims agent within 7 working days of this notification,your winnings would be revoked. Winners are advised to keep their winning details/information from the public to avoid fraudulent claim (IMPORTANT)pending the transfer/claim by Winner.
*Winner under the age of 18 are automatically disqualified.
*Staff of the Volkswagen Company are not to partake in this Car Promotional Lottery.

Accept my hearty congratulations once again!
With Best Regards

Mr Henry Hills
Lottery Manager.

Casino Royale: Bond or Rambo?

2006-11-19T20:34:00.000+05:30

Hey, It's Rambo in a Tux!

That about sums up the Casino Royale effect. Is it a genre shifting of Bond? It sure is. The makers have given the pure cool headed impeccable Bond who could come out of any situation wholly intact – as cool as a cucumber – the royal snub and instead is the miserable amalgam of Rambo and Bond. A bloody Rambo who does not do it the Rambo way and a very uncool Bond who does not get his Bond right. The new Bonding effect – all that gore and the less mint attitude- is disconcerting and hard to swallow.

The Big Chase

An African runs up the steel frames like a lizard nay a Steel Monkey (high rise jockey?) and you begin to wow the guy. Then you watch Bond in a floral shirt in hot pursuit and your jaw drops. Its not the style, but the lack of style that makes the jaw drop. Bond sloppily scrambles up after him- more like the canine in the Hutch ad. Tsk, tsk!

Cut to another scene- Bond chases the bad guys and smashes up his car real bad. And he deserves all the credit there. He does it single handedly with no help from the bad guys.

Her Classic Act

The world over, they have been revving the raves of the new Bond for a while now. And drooling over Eva Green as the Bond diva. The one emotional line she had to say: about Bond being more of a man even if only his little finger was left (whatever, don’t remember the exact words) comes out so constipated that it was pathetic. And at that precise moment Kochi audience Booed her and I loved them for it. Then Bond replies with a supposedly sexy line about his little finger and her reaction is downright silly.

The Famous Martinis

Forget his martinis. A messy Bond looks both shaken and stirred after each battle. What next? What are they going to do with this guy? Maybe a Mad Max image will help in the next flick!

The Viewer Trap

I asked a 17 year old viewer what he thought of the film.
He replied: The Best Bond movie ever!
I asked: How do you know that?
He said: I saw it.
Yes he did. At the bottom of every poster is the same line. They have us believe it is the best Bond movie ever.
Ah! The power of advertisement.

Jethamalani and Manu Sharma

2006-11-04T11:10:00.000+05:30

A few years ago I interviewed India's legal ace Ram Jethmalani when he visited Kochi.

He was really sweet to talk at length to me. One of the questions that I posed to him then was: Why he does he defend people like Indira Gandhi’s assassins?

Ram replied: There comes a time in every lawyer’s life when he is called to defend such people. I consider it is as my duty to defend such a person if I am approached.

The brouhaha erupting over Ram Jethmalani defending Manu Sharma seems so silly. The man should be admired for having the gumption to defend such a person. Never mind the fact that I think Manu Sharma deserves the worst punishment if he did commit the crime.

It is not this eminent lawyer (a shame some said on TV) who should be blamed for callously defending this criminal ( that's his duty) but for the fact that a 100 people saw Manu Sharma pull the trigger and yet there is no concrete evidence. That speaks a lot for the people and our system.

And it was funny to see Sagarika of CNN IBN interviewing Jethmalani. She sounded like some greenhorn who had no idea how to handle people and situations. Or perhaps she is the smart one?!! Her questions were perhaps phrased in such a way to improve the channel ratings rather than trying to understand Jethamalani and why he was defending Manu Sharma! And she sure did that?!

Classmates

2006-10-30T09:55:00.000+05:30

According to Wikipedia Classmates is the highest grossing Malayalam film ever!

The ‘House Full’ sign outside a theatre is perhaps the best advertisement for any film and “Classsmates” has worn that tag for every show for more than fifty days now. Half past nine in the morning, soon after breakfast is an awkward time to run to the theatre but I did it to check out what was drawing the crowds……

Review

The lights dim and her laughter of arrogance echoes through the darkened cinema hall and his smirk suggests, ‘no one can get the better of me’. She- Thara Kurup (played by Kavya Madhavan) the daughter of a MLA is a dancer and he- Sukumaran (played by Prithviraj) is the SFK leader- both final year students of the BSc Chemistry Class of ‘91. Two strong personalities are out to get each other and the scenes rapidly unfold to tickle you with their mishievous inventiveness. You know they are destined to fall in love but meanwhile only Thara seems to have the guts to stand up to Sukumaran’s bullying political decrees: No one should attend class while a strike is on, least of all my classmates.

When the realization of love dawns on them, Director Lal Jose is careful to steer it away from excessiveness and the romance scenes are confined to the minimum. You naturally expect an immediate makeover of the woman’s character: the feisty woman to transmute into a demure faithful shadow. Not so. In the midst of sweet love when Sukumaran asks Thara with cocksure male chauvinism not to stand for elections as the Arts Club secretary from the opposing camp, her answer is succinct and firm. “You get a job, marry me and then I will listen to you and only you. But right now I live under my father’s protection and he has asked me to stand for elections and I have to listen to him. Our love will just have bear with this election.” It is not her sweetheart alone that is surprised even the audience is taken aback. She stands her ground conveying her individuality with aplomb. You want to get up and applaud her and the Director for getting it so right. Love does not have to be treated as servitude- we see so much of it in real life and reel life- the instant subversion of the feminine self for the sake of love and marriage. Here her lines come as a refreshing change.

As the election fever on the college campus rises to a crescendo the miffed lover boy seems to take the spirit of competition in his stride. But the art of manipulation and cunningness are often learnt on the campus and juvenile politicians learn the dirty tricks of a very dirty trade right there. So how did Thara Kurup’s revelatory love note find its way into the ballot box? It was meant only for Sukumaran. Did he put it in there to malign her and get her defeated? He was framed but he cannot convince Thara or anyone else of his innocence. There is something tragic about this hero: he is a failure. He fails as a son, as a lover, as a friend and as a student but it is this helpless vulnerability that reaches out to the audience and strikes a chord.

Fourteen years later at a class reunion the past begins to unfurl seamlessly interlacing with the present. Scenes are deftly repeated to reveal different perspectives and it does not bore the viewer. The erstwhile sweethearts have now matured and there is a resigned tenderness that is emoted and captured well in the film. It is the element of surprise that keeps you on the edge of the seat in this campus film with a death thrown in for shock. As the minor details of the death of the popular singer Murali emerge, a sub-plot evolves beautifully at the fag end of the film. Fun, love and dreary death Lal Jose has held it well.

Lal Jose's flms are different and he treats them differently.

By the way, it is a great idea to rush to the theatre first thing in the morning: a pleasurable way to start the day.

My corner : The End of Innocence

2006-09-23T17:59:00.000+05:30

Book Review

The End of Innocence
By Moni Mohsin

Almost immediately you will hurtle into a love story- one that is hectored by adult wisdom and succumbs to the inevitable consequences. This Bildungsroman nostalgically takes a peek into the affluent world of a curious eight- year -old Laila and her best friend Rani, the dreamy granddaughter of a maid. Rani is busy cavorting in her love story that gets briefly elevated to the cinematic kind by nothing else but the vehicle of her imagination.
A child herself, fifteen- year -old Rani plans her marriage and gets her dowry ready: “six glasses and a jug and four sets of new clothes. Oh, and shoes, golden and shiny, with heels-like brides wear-and maybe even some lipstick.” It is a secret that Laila promises to never reveal to the adult world further cemented by the fact that Laila and Rani are partners of a game called “Terrific Two”. Laila swears to never betray her partner. But in that innocence there lurks the hint of betrayal that is propelled by a childish selfishness to claim the sole proprietorship of a friend. Friendship being the space in childhood that is most precious and in this novel the eagerness to preserve the friendship unwittingly opens the door of evil.
The seemingly indolent narrative is delightfully interrupted by thoughts of George, Annie, Julian and Dick. This effortless migration of characters from Enid Blyton’s storybooks into Laila’s thoughts is charming. Laila constantly gauges how she would measure up to these characters often chiding herself, “Worse, she had failed as a detective. George would have found a way of giving Bua the slip.”
Set in the villages of Pakistan in the year 1971, the novel meanders through the atmosphere of ancient havelis and huge bungalows as the war with India looms in the horizon. While adults worry over the war, it is the children that think up innovative defensive contingencies to ward off the Indians. Says Rani, “I’ve hidden a bag of extra hot chilli powder by the door. If Indian soldiers come into our house, I’ll hurl fistfuls of chilli into their eyes until they run away screaming.”
Moni Mohsin’s “The End of Innocence” is the latest addition to the growing pile of literature from across the border. Effortlessly written it also gives their view of us and it is not that bad.
(First published by the Sunday express)

MY corner: King of Ayodhya

2006-09-11T10:26:00.000+05:30

My Corner: Transports me to wordy realms: Just me, a book and my imagination.

Book Review

King Of Ayodhya By Ashok K Banker

The complicated art of epic telling and retelling makes it an entangled mesh of imaginations. And the protagonists- their foresight has to be accommodated too. The protagonist of the epic, Rama, the future King of Ayodhya, hardly knows whether to smile or sigh as he crosses the living bridge of leviathans into the realm of rakshasa, “he was resigned to the knowledge that virtually everything they did would be turned into lore and legend, with all the accompanying flights of imagination and exaggeration that poetic licence allowed.” As Rama, traverses the making of his own legend he seems almost amused by what story -tellers would make of his feats as the defender of Dharma. Thousands of years later, Ashok K Banker’s retelling of the epic in the modern idiom only underscores what Rama had already envisaged.

Even if you have grown up listening to the Ramayana, each new telling will not cease to surprise you. And Banker explicates in this notes that it is through the works of Valmiki, Kamban, Tulsidas, Vyasa the tradition of telling and retelling the Ramayana began. “If it changes shape and structure, form and even content, it is because that is the nature of the story itself: it inspires the teller to bring fresh insights to each new version, bringing us even closer to understanding Rama himself.”

In the last of Banker’s Ramayana series, “King of Ayodhya”, Rama leads an army of vanars and bears onto the unassailable shores of Lanka to rescue Sita from the clutches of Ravana. No army had dared to land on the island of rakshasas before. At the behest of Ravana, the sea lord Varuna sends a tidal wave (tsunami) to destroy the bridge that they had built and kill thousands. The army manages to cross with the aid of greybacks but what awaits them is sorcerous engineering of Ravana-he commands the island of Lanka to reform into a new shape under the feet of Rama’s army killing many more. The language of the times seeps into the book-tsunami, hybrid, engineering etc..

Banker’s characterization of Ravana makes him a formidable foe but an interesting one too- the ten headed Ravana is well versed in the shlokas- he can chant them backwards, perfectly inverting every syllable to reverse the energies of Brahman. Besides being a destroyer of worlds and conqueror of realms he is artistic too, “with his many talents and gifts, he was a great artist as well, not to mention a gifted poet and musician, a connoisseur of all arts.’’ It is against such an evil force that Rama and his mortal army have to fight. In the inexorable battle of good and evil only one force will triumph….and Ravana knows there is no escaping the inevitable outcome. “This war is not about any woman, and never was. This war has been waged forever. It is the eternal war, mother of all wars. It is not merely about me, or Rama, or our differences. In another time, he and I were friends much beloved of each other: in another time, we may be so again. We shall be so. Yet in this age, and this place we are at war. And neither of us, if pressed hard, can answer honestly and truly why. For the reason goes to the very soul of ithihaas itself. And as you know the word for history means simply: That is what happened.” Explains the demon Ravana just before he leaves to keep his appointment with death.

Banker’s awe of the legend manifests in the lucidity of the composition and this is magically transported to the minds of the readers - the legend of Rama of Ayodhya grows enormously larger and larger as one negotiates the army of words.

The Magic of Godmen

2006-09-10T19:33:00.000+05:30

Saturday last was a dull and soggy day and Kochi had still to awake from the Onam hangover. A reporter’s mare –dearth of ads and large empty spaces to fill. When someone said there was a Magic Show I volunteered to go- for the reason I would not have twiddle my thumb for the next few hours. The show had me spell bound.

The art of illusion illumed that dull and soggy day: the sleight of hand, the ventriloquist’s act and the yarns that embellished the spells captivated me. And even as I was transported to the world of make believe, travelling through the illusionary maze of deception, incredulous at what magician’s can do to one’s mind, an illuminati interrupted the colourful magical forays with an interlude grounded in reality. He introduced the element of skepticism. It was his lesson to us that magic is nothing but an art or entertainment and should not be mistaken for the sacred. He unravelled the mystery of the purportedly arcane relationship between the Gods and Godmen that enables the latter to produce vibhuthi from thin air. Those of us given to blind superstitious beliefs about Godmen were in for some therapy- we were shown the almost simplistic method of producing vibuthi. “There is nothing sacred or miraculous in this act. Godmen are not divined with special powers and it is only their love of the lucre that make Godmen turn the art of illusion into something holy.” Ezhupunna Gopinath revealed how vibuthi mixed with starch, made into sun- dried pellets could be hidden in the shirt- sleeves or in the folds of the palm. “When required the small pellets can be swiftly and deviously brought into the palm and crushed into powder.” Abracadabra! The magician had revealed the secrets of Godmen.

Another that I liked was the ventriloquist’s act. It was a deviation from the usual tricks of cards and handkerchiefs. Chinchu, the hand puppet was the serious looking doctor’s alter ego at play. Chinchu’s amorous demands –insistent ones- that he be kissed by those who came to talk to him seemed to embarrass the ventriloquist. It was a remarkable strategy and I almost forgot there was no delination between the creator and the creation. “This is not considered as a form of magic. I try to create all the emotions but I find romance and jealousy a little hard to enact. Perhaps it is because I am not romantic.” Said Dr Shafath.

Taslima Nasrin in Kerala

2006-08-23T09:45:00.000+05:30

At 7 am on 22 August, Taslima Nasrin, feminist writer, poet and critic sat sipping tea without sugar at Shirley’s Home Stay, run by KV Thomas’ daughter Rekha at Maradu, Kochi. Taslima was scanning the morning papers carefully. (What are they writing about me? Perhaps she wondered.) "What Kamala Surayya said was a bomb. And when journalists questioned me in front of her I was careful not to say anything against Islam because I did not want to offend her. But Kamala had other things to say when we talked in private."
She looked up from the paper she was reading to tell me this. And there I was waiting patiently for her to stop reading about herself.

I got about five -ten minutes alone with Taslima. She was casually dressed in a black and white salwar kameez. When at ease "she shivers her legs".

Then a horde of journalists descended on the scene but I hung around for a little while longer before leaving. One lucky journo knew Bangla so he fired questions at her privately. Ahh what a way to disconnect the rest of us.

We sat down for breakfast. I managed to get a seat at the small table and helped myself to breakfast shamelessly. Some journos had to wait outside the bungalow. Hot steaming Puttu (steamed rice cakes) arrived and K M Roy( an old time journo) and MLA K V Thomas explained at length the history of puttu, very interesting- things i had never heard about in my life time. Taslima Nasrin was impressed too. She took hold of a log of puttu and took a bite of it like as if it was a banana. She then looked at the tastless puttu in total astonishment.(What's this?!!!) Then the next set of explanations and demonstrations flowed forth.

The repercussions of the Babri Masjid demolition in India were felt across the border in Bangladesh- the minority Hindu community in Bangladesh was targeted and out of this tragedy emerged the sad story of Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja (Shame). The sensitive portrayal of a young Hindu man and his family’s struggle to survive in their homeland in the midst of riots and her criticism of Islam brought the wrath of religious fundamentalists. In 1993 Islamic fundamentalist pronounced a fatwa on her head and in 1994 the government filed a case against her for hurting religious sentiments. Taslima has been in exile ever since.

My Few minutes with her....

Taslima, who has been in exile was given permission recently to stay in India for another six months on a tourist visa but she hoped the government will extend it further. “I have been in exile for twelve years and I have lived mostly in Europe. I feel at home in West Bengal. If I cant go back home I hope I will be allowed to stay in Kolkata. There I can write in my language and only there will I be able to survive as a writer.”

Taslima, referred to sometimes as the “angry young woman” has been a strong critic of the use of religious identity as national identity. She has maintained it is dangerous. When asked to comment on the “War on Terror” which was reinforcing an Islamic identity that crossed all borders.

She said, “This is happening because United States started bombing Islamic nations. Muslim countries feel that the world is against Islam. This is not so. And the young people who are rational human beings are becoming fundamentalists. It should be a war between secularism and fundamentalism, between rationalism and irrationalism, between people who value freedom and those who do not. I feel the super power is only greedy and they are not against the so- called Muslims. They will be against anyone who stands in their way when they try to fulfil their greed.”

Aren’t more women all over the world slowly going back to tradition and choosing to wear the burka or the head scarf?

Taslima replied, “This is a religious dress. Tradition is different and tradition in Arab countries and India are different. It is a political thing to wear a religious dress. As a minority, people have an identity crisis and they grab their religious identity as their identity. And that is why they wear the religious dress.

Aren’t women the keepers of the culture and tradition who perpetuate the patriarchal system?

Taslima explained, “Women have no personal choice. They have no proper education and they are taught for centuries that they are the slaves of men. Women are the carriers of the system. Religion is patriarchal and in the patriarchal system women are treated as sexual objects and child bearing objects.”

(The Kerala Muslim Jama-ath council (the apex body of the mosque committees) has urged the government to send Taslima back to Kolkata. They demanded that she should not be permitted to attend the release of the Malayalam translations of her novels.)

(First published by The New Indian Express. Changes have been made.)

Kamala Surayya and Taslima Nasrin: The Tale Of Two Women

2006-08-23T09:35:00.000+05:30

One a convert to Islam, the other a rabid critic of women’s position in the religion. It was the language of feminism that effused when two of the world’s most outspoken women writers met. When Kamala Surayya and exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin sat alone at the former’s residence at Kochi on Monday, their conversation was punctuated by eloquent silence. Talsima Nasrin told me, “I met Kamala Surayya. We talked. I asked her why she converted to Islam. She was silent. She said she is afraid now and disturbed whether people will do anything to her children and grandchildren. I told her if she did not like to remain in this condition she should leave. I asked her: Why don’t you live freely as a human being?”

Taslima Nasrin expatiated on the pain she felt for Kamala Surayya. “Kamala is a fine poet. I feel sorry for her. It is impossible for women to get salvation from any religion. She is suffocating. She should have the freedom to come out of the cage. She made that cage. If she wants to, she can break it too. She is threatened and she feels that people will not give her any peace to live her life. This may be the reason why she is hesitating. I told her to break the cage and come out and breathe.’’

Nasrin felt it was painful to live this way. “She has become a spokesperson for a religion. She should be out of dogmas and systems. Women are the victims of the patriarchal system. She is the victim of a patriarchal system, so why does she want to be a victim of a religious system too. Now she is suffering twice over.’’

NO FIZZ LEFT: Achu's RIGHT Choice Baby!

2006-08-11T10:17:00.000+05:30

Banned in Kerala

Every guy with a wee bit of Leftist imagination loves bashing the colas. Who wouldn’t want to put some salt in the cola fizz and watch it fizzle out- almost infantile are the games that politicians play. A few days ago, even as the LDF government was toying with the idea of banning colas in Kerala because of the high pesticide content, people in Kochi didn’t give a damn- they were guzzling the beverages (read "pesticide-cocktail") to the very last drop and shops were stocking up to cater to the demand. Sources say PepsiCo sells about 20 lakh cases per annum from 30,000 outlets in Kerala. (One case contains 24 bottles). Nothing is known about the Coke sales. And before the ban both the companies maintained their sales had not dipped. The shop-keepers in Kochi confirmed this. One guy said if the people want to drink poison who are we to stop them? “We will sell poison.”

The Left’s coke hysteria is much like the big terrorist attack on the planes from UK to USA that was foiled by Scotland Yard. Thank god for Scotland Yard! This sounds too much like manufactured terror than anything else. Someone on the idiot box said, “This terror attack is despicable.” That’s laughable- the bombings in Lebanon is no terror and not despicable either.

And Thank God for the Left. They took the Fizz off.
But we are missing the larger picture in Kerala. Banning coke is not going to solve the pesticide problem. It aint going to go away. It still persists in the other food items and the ground water.

The PespsiCo ads and the CSE

The PespsiCo advertisements in the media stating that the soft drinks manufactured by it are the safest beverages, with negligible pesticide levels and in compliance with the regulations laid down by the Indian Government have been openly challenged by the Centre for Science and Environment(CSE),Delhi. A press release from CSE accuses them of being ``masters of spin and misleading the Indian public. It is clever copywriting full of half truths.''

Souparno Banerjee, the co-ordinator for media resources CSE told me over the phone,``Following the first CSE report about pesticide levels in soft drinks three years ago, the Bureau for Indian Standards (BIS) had finalized standards for soft drinks in March 2006 after deliberations, but had delayed notifying it. So what regulations is PepsiCo talking about? They have quoted selectively from the Joint Parlimentary Report. For instance while the advertisements tabulate that the pesticides in its Diet Pepsi are `below limit', it conveniently forgets to add that the same sample exceeds the limit for DDT, a banned pesticide by 80 percent.''

``They use data of two brands to say that they are clean but hide the data of three other brands, which indicts them for being unsafe because they do not meet the drinking water standards. The advertised data does not tell you about the individual pesticides, which is even more deadly. Mirinda Lemon exceeded the safe limit of chlorpyrifos by eight times and that of DDT by nine times.''

When it was pointed out that the advertisements say that the pesticides in the soft drinks are negligible compared to other Indian food items like tea, eggs, rice, apple etc.

Banerjee said,``That is not the issue. The issue is that soft drinks are unsafe because of the pesticide content. Safety is defined as meeting standards. We cannot compare milk or apples with soft drinks. Milk is essential and it gives us nutrition but soft drinks are non
essential and non nutritive. They should not have pesticides.''

``Sources in both PepsiCo and Coca-cola point out they do not deliberately put pesticides into their beverages so why are soft drink manufactures being targeted when the larger issue is the pesticide levels in the drinking water?''

Banerjee reacted,``We are not targeting just PepsiCo and Coca-cola. The standards for soft drinks have been finalised by BIS and we are just pointing out that the government has not notified it and the pesticide levels in the drinks have not come down since our first report.''

``Are other food products also being tested for pesticide residue?''

Banerjee said,``Yes, we are researching and testing other food products but I cannot disclose what it is at the moment.''

The Fascinating World Of Joseph K

2006-08-07T23:00:00.000+05:30

I spent almost five and half hours with Joseph K negotiating the virtual world. It was fascinating to watch at him work nay play. In the end it was a full bladder and an empty stomach that made me say bye at 4.30 in the afternoon. He had lost track of time.

If you have seen MacGyver –the television series in the late eighties then you will know what the hell I am talking about. MacGyver could do anything with the things around him -even create bombs out of deodorant cans, vaseline and other household stuff.

MacGyver was a non-violent action-adventure hero. Armed with only a Swiss Army Knife, a roll of Duct tape, and whatever materials happen to be lying around, the ex DXS agent was the field operative for the Phoenix Foundation, MacGyver applied common sense and basic principles of science to imaginatively outwit his adversaries.

And there I was watching Joseph K do something pretty much like what MacGyver would have done.

Joseph K casually demonstrated how a small electronic USB enabled Digital Camera can be altered by modifying its flash memory to have a full fledged bootable operating system. With that he could directly access files on the hard disk bypassing system logins and permissions. Yea, he could do the same with a mobile phone or an MP 3 system. It was a cool thing to do.

He took me straight into a secret society- where guys with code names – published how security systems could be hacked. They got their thrill this way. They were harmless though-cause they did it for fame in the virtual world.
There is a whole society and a subterranean society in the virtual world: A world with its own language and culture: A world filled with hackers and crackers: A world with no boundaries or geographical contours.

And Joseph Kodiyil is into Information Security Management and Cyber Crime Investigations. He’s got one hellava comfortable chair at home –where he spends most of his waking hours navigating the neural networks of the virtual world- visiting virtual crime scenes, researching exploits and safeguarding the numerous servers that come under his purview.

It all began…..
In the early eighties, as a twelve- year- old kid, Kodiyil was rewriting programs for his computer games so that he could become invincible- so that he would never lose a game. (That was long before cheatcodes were freely available on the Internet.) He later dropped out of an electronics engineering course to research vulnerabilities and got a job with an Internet Hosting company at Bangalore. He began to record and document exploits used to breach the security system of his servers. He would often capture the data packets used for the attacks and file cases at the Cubbon Park Police station but with no IT Act in place then, the cases were dropped. When the Information Technology Act came into place in 2000, the IG at the Corps of Detectives, Bangalore Police asked Joe to train the first batch of officers to the new Cyber Crime Police station. He is now a Technical Consultant and Cyber Crime Investigator under the IT Act 2000 for the Karnataka Police.

``There is a information war going on the virtual world and crackers are up to date with the present day vulnerabilities. If you are unaware about the vulnerabilities in your system, then there is a hacker out there who may be scanning your systems for exploits to either enter your system to get the information or to use your system to hack other systems. Your system can be used for e-mail spoofing, identity theft, etc. And you have to constantly up date patches and check your IT resources for known vulnerabilities. No system is absolutely secure and there may exist a vulnerability in your system. The best way to check for these vulnerabilities is by penetration testing and vulnerability analysis.”

And he also supports the cyber crime cell of the Kochi City Police to track down people who misuse computers for forgery, defamation, black-mail fraud. For Joseph K this is just another game. A game that he loves playing.

A few Dos and Donts for Corporates and Individuals

1. Make your passwords strong and frequently change them. Don't use a dictionary word or a combination of dictionary words as a password. There are programs to break such passwords in a short period of time.

2. Remove unused or unneeded devices like modems, floppy drives USB ports, CD drive etc in a Corporate environment.

3 Have a good firewall.

4 Keep systems updated and Patched.

5 Routinely audit systems and networks (Know your vulnerabilities)

6 Have proper Policies and Follow Secure Practices.

7 Do Not Download applications or accept software, CDROMS etc. from an untrusted source.

8 Educate users in Information Security Knowledge.

9 Encrypt all Wi-Fi Communications otherwise you are susceptible to War Driving. The open wireless networks are extremely vulnerable and a hacker within Wi-Fi range can easily get into your network. Many Wi-Fi users today use open wireless networks without knowing the risks involved

10 Have backups of critical data and systems.

11 Use a good Anti Virus software. Update virus signatures regularly

(First published by The New Indian Express. Changes have been made)

The Law of Jealousies

2006-08-07T09:38:00.000+05:30

In antiquity, during the time of Moses, the ancient law of jealousies nailed the adulterous woman while for her male counterpart it was the law of silence that prevailed. And if you think that modernity has changed the laws much. You err. Those laws of an ancient culture still hold today. They give the balls of man much license and freedom of movement. It is ridiculously funny. Interestingly in the New Testament Jesus did intervene, but the lawmakers (some of these laws are inherited from the British Raj) looked to antiquity to script the modern laws that are all too archaic.

To quote from the Holy Bible

Numbers Chapter 5: Vs 13 to 17

If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,

And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and there be no close witness against her, neither she be taken with the manner.

And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:

Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense theron; for it is an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.

And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the Lord.

And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put into the water.

Vs 27

And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people…..

Vs 29
This is the law of jealousies…..

What has changed? Nothing really.

Advocate Jijo Paul of the Kerala High Court dug this out for me.

Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code reads as under:

"497. Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case the wife shall be punishable as an abettor."

This is the provision of law that makes adultery punishable. If you read the provision carefully the offence is committed when a man has sexual intercourse with THE WIFE OF ANOTHER MAN.

The Law of Silence prevails even today.

If an unmarried woman has sex with a married man then it is no criminal offence.

The validity of this provision was challenged before the Supreme Court but the court upheld the law.