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CHENNAI, NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, KOLKATA, AHMEDABAD, HYDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, PUNE* VOL. 14 NO. 41 Rs10.00 22 PAGES

FEBRUARY 15, 2020

SATURDAY
LOUNGE

Love thy
neighbour
UNDERSTANDING THE ‘OTHER’ MAKES US
GOOD NEIGHBOURS. THIS VALENTINE’S
DAY, WE DIVE INTO STORIES OF
NEIGHBOURLY LOVE AND SOLIDARITY

SPECIAL ISSUE
Neighbourhood platters of plenty

The Good Samaritans

of No.4, Fane Road
Neighbourly love in
Bombay cinema
When love breaks
border barriers
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02 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI FIRST

Korean cinema starter kit

ED-LINE ANINDITA GHOSE

The lost neighbours

of our childhood
T
here were a few essentials to growing
up in the Bombay of the early 1990s Mamik had his
in a building complex. All doors breakthrough in the
would be open during waking 1992 movie, ‘Jo Jeeta
hours—especially on weekends and Wohi Sikandar’.
Loved ‘Parasite’? Here holidays. Badminton, roller skating, cricket or “dog
and bone”—we would play after school every even-
are five titles if you are ing until various mothers started calling out from
looking to dive deeper windows like cuckoos in a clock. The children were
unsupervised; the parents weren’t nervous. When
into South Korean film the outdoors were out of bounds for rain or heat, we
had indoor group projects. Decades before Lounge,
I was the editor of a building magazine my brother
Uday Bhatia and I published for a brief period. Colour photocop-
uday.b@htlive.com ies were for ₹10. There was a ₹5 black and white ver-
sion. It had ads. If you paid an advance, we personal-

O
n 9 February, Parasite won
four Academy Awards,
including Best Director for
Bong Joon-ho and Best Picture. Lost
in the excitement of a non-English
film winning the top prize for the first
time was a surprising statistic: Para-
site was the first South Korean film to
even be nominated for an Oscar. Yet
the country’s cinema has, since the
1990s, been a huge force on the
global scene, giving us intimate
chroniclers like Hong Sang-soo and
Lee Chang-dong, stylists like Bong
and Park Chan-wook, and several
excellent commercial directors. If
you are just starting out, here are five
films that give some idea of the range
of South Korean cinema.
POETRY
Lee Chang-dong’s Burning was one
of the great films of the last decade;
its biting class criticism makes it an
ideal double bill with Parasite. Lee
has been making quiet but heavy
films at regular intervals since 1997.
One of his finest is Poetry (2010), in
which the ageing Yang Mi-ja (Yoon
Jeong-hee) enrols in a poetry class at
the same time as her grandson is
implicated in a terrible crime and
she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
The last scene—a hand-off in verse—
is a gut-punch impossible to forget.
THE HOUSEMAID
A perverse delight, this 1960 black
and white film by Kim Ki-young has
found increased global acclaim after
Scenes from (top) ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’ and ‘The Housemaid’.
a 2008 restoration. A domestic
worker slyly disrupts the life of her
employer, a piano teacher, and his
dutiful, sickly wife. The precise, eco-
nomical film-making is at odds with
the psychosexual games being
played and the emotions forever
threatening to boil over. The House-
maid was remade in 2010, and you
can also see traces of it in Parasite
and Park’s The Handmaiden.
RIGHT NOW, WRONG THEN
Hong Sang-soo has made 24 films
since 1996. Most of them involve a
feckless artist, often a director or
writer, a self-possessed young
woman, extended takes with ram-
bling conversations, and copious
amounts of drinking. It sounds sim-
ple (and at first glance, it looks that
way) but Hong’s great gift is in
achieving utterly un-movie-like
movies, filled with hesitations and
imperfect characters. Right Now,
Wrong Then (2015), starring the
incandescent Kim Min-hee as a
painter infatuated with an older
director, is a delightful experiment:
Something happens midway
through the film that will make you
question what you have been
watching.
THE VILLAINESS
For all its auteurist cred, South
Korean film is best known for its end-
less capacity for repackaging and
reinvigorating genre cinema. Jung
Byung-gil’s The Villainess (2017) is a
straightforward assassin revenge
story, but filmed in such violent style
that cult status looks likely. The
7-minute opening scene has the hero
fight her way out of a building (with a
nod to the famous hallway scene from
Park’s Oldboy), and the film doesn’t let
up for the next 2 hours. You really
can’t top the high-speed chase by kat-
ana-wielding bikers—you can only
copy it, as John Wick 3 did.
THIRST
Jo Yeong-wook may not be as well-
known a name as Park, but the com-
poser’s collaboration with the
director is one of the most rewarding
in modern cinema, from 2000’s Joint
Security Area to 2018’s The Little
Drummer Girl. Thirst (2009), with
Parasite star Song Kang-ho as a
priest-turned-vampire in love with
his friend’s wife, is Park at his most
eerily seductive, and Jo sets the mood
beautifully with a mix of sensual
tango rhythms and shimmering
strings.
ized content.
When I think of neighbours and neighbourly
love, I only think of those we lived beside as chil-
dren. Now, beyond the occasional request for safe-
keeping keys, I haven’t known my current neigh-
bours for years. They seem like artefacts of the past.
There was a bhelwala who would come to the building almost
every evening. My parents, following the same line of thinking
they did in banning new Hindi films—until DDLJ released, after
which everything changed—had banned the consumption of bhel
(and gola on Juhu Beach). They were from Delhi and Kolkata and
had little patience for “Bombay junk”. They might only be learn-
ing today that I had every treat from the bhelwala’s portable tin
carrier as often as I could. Unbeknownst to my mother, some
neighbour aunty or the other was buying me an evening snack.
In what can only seem like real life imitating Amar Akbar
Anthony, our immediate neighbours were a Muslim family with
three sisters, my closest friends; a Catholic family with one girl
and two boys; and a Bengali-Japanese one with a girl my age. The
variety of food on offer was staggering. Obviously, everyone else’s
food and everyone else’s festivals are always better than our own.
There was not just the firni on Eid, I was also privy to the daily ift-
aar, my favourite memory of which is a tall glass jar of Rooh Afza
with sabza seeds floating in it like magic beads. The Japanese
home had an inventive range of sweet potato dishes. The Catholic
family made their own wine, which would be gifted to us before
Christmas. Since it was “home-made”, it passed parental controls.
To my parents, wine was a lesser evil than the corrupting influ-
ence of Hindi cinema.
Unfortunately for my parents, they picked the wrong neigh-
bourhood. At the time, our neighbourhood in suburban Andheri
was becoming a hotbed for Hindi film and TV folk, and, with it,
models and advertising folk. I remember being scandalized at
having spotted one of B.R. Chopra’s Pandavas smoking outside a
grocery store like he didn’t have a massive war to prepare for. Our
building complex contained one of the seven bungalows that gave
the area its name. It was popular for movie shoots (I wouldn’t rec-
ommend watching film shoots as a child. You watch water being
poured over sloping roofs to make rain and Manisha Koirala being
rude to the spot boys and movies lose some of their magic).
Neelam Kothari already lived in the next building. It was a
landmark for home deliveries and autorickshaws. The Bolly-
wood-ization was happening fast. One day, a didi from my build-
ing got cast in a music video while she was sitting in the ice-
cream parlour opposite our gate. And then, Bollywood started
moving in.
Our new neighbours included Pooja Batra, Khalid Siddiqui and
an American man who was in all the washing machine ads those
days. None was as popular with the younger lot as Mamik, who
had just starred as the virtuous and objectively handsome older
brother of Aamir Khan in 1992’s Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. In the
movie, Ratanlal Sharma wore chaste white kurta-pyjamas but
real-life Mamik went for topless runs on the beach, which was just
behind our building, in red running shorts. He had a beautiful dog
that ran with him. But the true reason for his popularity among
nine-year-old girls was more bare-boned than that.
Another essential of an early 1990s childhood was school chil-
dren being enlisted to raise money for various causes: old age
homes, the blind. The teacher would hand out a blue form annu-
ally, we had a week to give it back, with donations from neigh-
bours—I am certain parents today would shudder at the idea of
children knocking on random doors. But we knew most of our
neighbours back then. Though, sadly, even the bhel-buying aunt-
ies were limited in their contributions. ₹2 was the usual, and we
were lucky if it was ₹5.
Mamik was rarely home. But his young male caretaker really
upped the game with ₹20 contributions, reassuring us that Sir
had specifically given him a fund for “building activities”. We
were also given chocolates and (then imported) Tang. Needless to
say, tales of Mamik’s largesse flew far and wild. To return the
favour, we even took his autograph one day while he was return-
ing from a run. Mamik never did reprise the glamour of Jo Jeeta
Wohi Sikandar. But to us, the children of my building complex, he
already had the most treasured role of all: Best Neighbour.

Write to the Lounge team lounge@livemint.com @mint_lounge @livemintlounge Write to the Lounge editor anindita.g@livemint.com @aninditaghose

SHELF HELP
BY SOMAK GHOSHAL MEET INDIAN BOWLING’S IRON LADY
Take heart CRANKY
colloquial “dhulai” after winning the
tense final that could have gone
either way. Or maybe not. As Naresh
ing ball, Athica won her first Nation-
als. “After winning, I just kept crying.
I don’t know why I was crying,” she
It’s never a bad time to get real Palamappan, from the Karnataka says.
about the highs and lows of love CUSTOMER team, put it after the match: “That’s The couple have largely funded
why we call her the iron lady. She’s this sporting journey with their sav-
P R I YA five-six times mentally stronger than ings. They even paid their own entry
RAMANI the other players.” fee to participate in the Nationals and
Athica, an unflappable hijabi ath- drove from Chennai to Bengaluru in
lete who has played in eight world their own car, with 20 bowling balls
er male colleagues on the cups, is popular on the bowling cir- loaded in the trunk.

H Tamil Nadu team call her

It’s Valentine’s week and whether you are single,
attached, smarting from a break-up, or bracing
yourself for one, you cannot go wrong with Tiny
Beautiful Things: Advice On Life And Love From
Someone Who’s Been There (Grove Atlantic, ₹399), a
best-seller by Cheryl Strayed. Based on a popular
Agony Aunt column written between 2010-12
under the pseudonym “Sugar” for The Rumpus, the
book is now a classic. People from across the world
opened their hearts to Strayed, who consoled
them, answered their questions and gave them
strength when they felt most alone. Be it financial
trouble, disease or death, she knew exactly the
right thing to tell them. But it is in matters of the
heart that her advice shone the brightest.
A weekly guide to a better you at home, work and life.
ON THE COVER: PHOTOGRAPH FROM GETTY IMAGES
Singapenney, or lioness,
from the song in the 2019 Tamil film
Bigil, because she’s the lone female
player and she competes equally with
them. They also call her queen
because she has won the National
Tenpin Bowling Championships 10
times since 2001 (missing only one
title since 2015). Last weekend,
Sabeena Athica, a 52-year-old grand-
mother of two, won her 11th Nationals
title against an opponent who was
two decades younger.
At the 30th National Tenpin Bowl-
ing Championships held at the
Amoeba bowling centre in Bengaluru,
West Bengal’s Suchetana Mohanta
was leading until the knockout stage
and some, including Athica, forecast
that the younger player, an employee
at a bowling alley, might take home
the cup. Mohanta, in turn, was just
thrilled she would be playing the final
against “ma’am”. Earlier in the tour-
nament, Athica, who often guides
promising talent, had gifted her a pair
of bowling shoes from Malaysia.
As Athica ended the match with a
strike, her husband, Anwar Saleem,
who had sat unmoving in the audi-
ence through the final, shifted posi-
tion and smiled.
“Nobody has beat me like you
have,” Athica told Mohanta, using the
cuit, though not many people have
heard of her elsewhere—probably
because in the early years she stayed
away from publicity for fear it might
offend her family. When she’s not
bowling, she runs a crafting business
from home.
Her journey to conquer the world
of competitive bowling began with a
single-line request from her nine-
year-old daughter: “Mama, why don’t
you play?” It was 1999, bowling
arcades had just made an appearance
in our cities and an entertainment-
starved middle class flocked there.
Athica and Saleem too went every
weekend with their two young chil-
dren. She usually watched them play
until, one day, her daughter
demanded she join.
That was the first time Athica, from
an orthodox Muslim family where
adult women don’t play sport (though
she grew up playing everything from
cricket and basketball to frisbee with
her four brothers), picked up a bowl-
ing ball. “Back then it used to be so
crowded on weekends…one game
would take hours to complete.”
Soon she realized she was good.
The alley offered bonus games for
high scorers and Athica’s freebies
kept piling up. “Every night after I put
the children to sleep and my husband
finished his work at his plastics fac-
Sabeena Athica has just won her 11th Nationals.
tory, he would take me bowling,” she
laughs. She began participating in
city tournaments and kept winning—
until one day she heard about the
Nationals that were scheduled to take
place in Mumbai.
“My husband said, ‘Are you mad?
You want to play Nationals? You are
just a beginner who plays local tour-
naments.’ I made a big fuss, I said if
my dad had been around he would
have ensured I participated,” Athica
tells me a couple of days before the
finals in Bengaluru.
Saleem—who has been her rock
these past two decades—had to con-
vince his family that it was okay to let
his wife give sport a shot. She came
sixth that first time. “My fingers
bloated and I ruptured a tendon
because I played with a ball I had bor-
rowed from my Chennai centre. The
RAJ SAM/MINT
doctor said leave bowling. I left him
instead,” she says, laughing. She has
continued this tradition with other
doctors, including the one who told
her it was time to quit when she rup-
tured a ligament in her left knee and
couldn’t play for four months.
At the Nationals, she met competi-
tive bowlers like Harsh Vardhan
Sarda, who gave her tips: Track your
scores and note your average. So
that’s what she did five days a week,
playing six games from 7-10pm. “I had
even noted the scores of that year’s
winner,” she says.
She went with Saleem to Malaysia
to buy better equipment, including
balls that would perform best on dif-
ferent lane surfaces. That’s where she
later spent some time learning the
technique of hook bowling. And two
years after she first picked up a bowl-
“At first my family didn’t like it. I
was leaving the kids and going to
tournaments and practices all the
time. They worried about what peo-
ple would say. But when I kept win-
ning, and became famous, they
understood that they couldn’t stop
this girl,” she says.
Athica’s daughter, the catalyst for
this journey, also began playing. In
2006, mother and daughter partici-
pated in the Asian Games together
but these days her daughter is taking
a break from the sport after marriage
and children. “If both of us play, who
will babysit the children?” Athica
says, adding that she’s hoping her
daughter will return to the sport later
this year.
Athica says bowling changed her
life—it exposed the couple to a larger
world and allowed them to meet all
kinds of people. They travelled more
than they had ever imagined and
even bought property abroad.
“Our life has become bowling… We
were chatting that now that the CAA
(Citizenship Amendment Act) is com-
ing, Muslims will go to detention
camps,” she says. “Then what will we
do? We will teach everyone in the
camps bowling.”
Priya Ramani shares what’s making
her feel angsty/agreeable.
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FIRST SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI 03

SOCRATES, FEYNMAN, IMAGINATION CLIMATE CHANGE TRACKER

BIBEK BHATTACHARYA
THIS WEEK: The cost of business-as-usual
world, except through complicated mathe-
AN Y TH IN G matical equations. For example, it is impos-
sible to form a coherent image in our minds
GETTY IMAGES

TH AT of something that is simultaneously a parti-

MOVES cle and a wave.
The emotional content of “why” ques-
GIRISH tions can only be satisfied by alluding to a
SHAHANE deeper or higher purpose in observed phe-
nomena, which is what religion, faith, spiri-
tuality and mysticism do. By answering
n 15 February 399 BC, the philoso- “why” questions in a reassuring manner,

O pher Socrates was condemned to

death by a jury of 500 Athenians.
He had been charged with failing to honour
the official gods of the state and corrupting
Athenian youth. The true reason for his
arrest probably had little to do with impiety.
Athens had gone through a tough few years,
having suffered a humiliating defeat to
Sparta in 405 BC in which its navy had been
destroyed. Socrates and some of his former
pupils were considered sympathetic to the
Spartan constitution and culture. In today’s
terminology, they were anti-nationals. The
70-year-old philosopher was also linked
with a short period of tyranny through
prominent leaders who had been his disci-
ples.
The only accounts of the trial and execu-
tion that have survived were composed by
two of his most prominent students, Plato
and Xenophon. In their description,
Socrates refused to beg for mercy, and
demanded a reward instead of punishment
once held guilty, ensuring he would be sen-
tenced to death. When it came to drinking
hemlock, he consumed it calmly, chatting
with friends till the slow-acting poison took
effect. His bravery and defiance have come
to symbolize the spirit of free enquiry and
the courageous pursuit of truth.
What truth he uncovered, however, is
unclear. His method involved asking prob-
ing questions until the unproven assump-
tions behind a particular belief lay exposed.
The discussion inevitably ended in aporia,
or a state of perplexity, where interlocutors
were forced to admit the limitations of their
comprehension. In one of Plato’s Dialogues,
our primary source for understanding the
thought of Socrates, the Oracle at Delphi
declares Socrates the wisest man in Athens.
Puzzled by this pronouncement, since he
does not consider himself knowledgeable or
wise, he interrogates the Athenian elite,
only to find that they don’t actually know
what they claim to know. His own wisdom,
Socrates realizes, lies in knowing he does
not know.
One of the most compelling analyses of
Theoretical physicists Richard Feynman (left) with Yang Chen Ning.
the limits of mutual understanding is found
in a television show called Fun To Imagine,
aired by the BBC in 1983 and now available
on YouTube. It consists of an interview, cut
into six segments, with the Nobel Prize-win-
ning theoretical physicist Richard Feyn-
man. Feynman, who died on 15 February
1988, 2,387 years to the day after the trial of
Socrates, sits in a large wing chair wearing a
button-up in the baggy style of the 1980s
and holds forth for a little over an hour in
Queens English, by which I mean the broad
accent characteristic of New York City’s
largest borough. His constant gesturing,
often as graceful and precise as a dancer’s,
animates the static frame. He employs
accessible and down-to-earth imagery
throughout, like when he describes the
world as “a dynamic mess of jiggling things”.
The interviewer’s voice is heard only once
in the series, asking, “What is it, the feeling
between two magnets?” Feynman responds,
“What are you asking when you say there is
a ‘feeling’?” The interviewer continues,
“What is going on between these two bits of
metal?” “They repel each other,” the physi-
cist states, matter-of-factly. The interviewer
persists, “But what does that mean? Why are
they doing it?” This provides Feynman an
GETTY IMAGES
opening to explore the nature of “why”
questions.
He gives the example of a woman who
slips and breaks her hip. Why did she slip?
Because she was on ice. But why is ice slip-
pery? Because, when you stand on ice, your
weight causes a bit of it to melt underfoot, so
you are actually creating a liquid surface.
But why does this happen to ice and not
other solids? Because water expands when
frozen, and when pressure undoes that
expansion, it returns to liquid form. But why
does water expand when it solidifies while
other liquids do not?
The questioning, Feynman points out, is
endless. Explicating magnetism in the same
mode, he concludes that the interviewer
will just have to take the electromagnetic
force for granted, because “when you
explain why, you have to allow something to
be true. Otherwise you are perpetually ask-
ing why.” Perpetually asking why ends in a
Socratic aporia.
Approaching “why” questions through
science and logic provides answers that are
both fascinating and useful, but fails to
address their emotional core. This is partic-
ularly true in a world where, as Feynman
says, we cannot imagine the subatomic
they forestall further interrogation from
people who only pose those questions in
order to receive reassurance.
Scientific enquiry and religious belief can
be complementary, occupying two distinct
domains. They can be, in the words of the
palaeontologist and popular science writer
Stephen Jay Gould, “non-overlapping mag-
isteria”. All too often, however, the magiste-
ria do overlap. This is especially true in the
discourse of modern gurus, who borrow
from the language of science and technol-
ogy even as they make unfounded and often
clearly false assertions.
The phenomenon of magnetism, which
kicked off Feynman’s exploration of “why”
questions, is a popular source of supersti-
tion.
The late Sathya Sai Baba began one dis-
course with the words: “The entire earth is
permeated by magnetic power. All the living
beings and objects that are present on this
earth also have this magnetic power.” He
went on to claim his body had turned mag-
netic to facilitate the formation of lingams.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar advises against sleep-
ing with the head to the north because,
“magnetic currents are flowing in that
direction”. Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev goes
further, claiming that such a posture would
cause blood to be pulled into the brain by
the earth’s magnetic force. In the worst case,
“One could die in one’s sleep because of a
haemorrhage.”
The iron content of the body is too mini-
mal to be affected so greatly by the earth’s
magnetic field. Besides, as an ingenious and
hugely popular video on YouTube titled
“Monster Magnet Meets Blood” demon-
strates, human blood as a whole is mildly
diamagnetic, or repelled by magnets. Body
alignment is a trivial issue, but when it
comes to grave practical matters, the scepti-
cal enquiry of Socrates and Feynman works
better than the deep purposefulness offered
by any guru.
Girish Shahane writes on politics, history
and art.
Floods and landslides are damaging coffee plantations in Kerala.
Future foretold
I
n last week’s column, I had written about the massive financial losses
that the world, and India, has been incurring due to climate change. A
major new study published in the interim gives us a sense of just how
much worse this can get by 2050.
The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF’s) Global Futures report says that if
the world continues to burn fossil fuels at current rates, the global econ-
omy stands to suffer losses worth $10 trillion (around ₹700 trillion now),
at the very minimum, by 2050. As more and more natural assets get
stripped, from forests to wetlands to coral reefs, we will lose all the eco-
nomic benefits we receive from them.
According to the report, the US and Japan are expected to be the hard-
est hit, with economic losses of over $80 billion a year by 2050. The UK
and India come close behind, with India set to lose over $20 billion a year
by mid-century. India’s losses will be largely due to water scarcity. The
report also says that China, India and the US produce almost 45% of the
world’s crop production, which will be severely hit. What’s worse, these
are conservative estimates, as WWF’s director of sustainable economy,
Karen Ellis, told The Guardian.
The world, however, is still locked in a business-as-usual mode.
According to data released recently by the International Energy Agency
(IEA), global CO2 emissions for 2019 were pegged at 33 gigatonnes. This
was the same as 2018, and after many years, annual emissions hadn’t
climbed. But this won’t be enough. Earlier this week, the Mauna Loa
observatory in Hawaii recorded that the amount of atmospheric CO2
touched an all-time high of 416.08 ppm (parts per million).
That is a catastrophic figure: At the beginning of the
industrial age, this concentration was at about 270
ppm, and more than half the rise has been since 1980.
Follow the column with #MintClimateTracker. Scan
the QR code to hear the latest episode of the Mint Climate
Change Tracker podcast hosted by Bibek Bhattacharya.

Medium Talk More than small talk

Mining India’s literary riches FACEBOOK.COM/@MITAKAPUR

The new director of Mita Kapur.

the JCB Prize for
Literature shares her
vision for taking India’s
richest literary prize to
the next level
Somak Ghoshal
somak.g@livemint.com

S
oon after the announcement of the
winner for 2019 in November
(Madhuri Vijay’s novel The Far
Field), the JCB Prize for Literature,
India’s richest literary award, announced
the appointment of a new director. Mita
Kapur, CEO of the Jaipur-based literary
consultancy Siyahi, took over the mantle
from writer Rana Dasgupta, the founding
director of the prize since its inception in
2018. In January, one of the first public
announcements Kapur made is a plan to
make the shortlisted books widely availa-
ble to visually impaired readers. This
attempt to be more inclusive and amplify
the reach of the prize informs her vision
for it. Lounge met Kapur on the sidelines
of the Jaipur Literature Festival in Janu-
ary to find out more. Edited excerpts
from an interview:
What made you take on this role?
I had an instinctive respect for the
prize from the moment it was launched.
One could sense that it was an impartial
entity, that it was ethical, transparent and
genuine in its effort. What really held my
attention was that it is mandatory for
publishers to submit translations and, of
course, the fact that there is an award for
the translator, which, I believe, is the cry-
ing need of the hour.
It’s difficult to build something that
reaches an institutional level straighta-
way. Rana achieved this phenomenal feat
in the first two years. He gave the prize a
solid foundation. He worked with all the
stakeholders cohesively and made sure it
was truly representative of the Indian
spirit. For a founding director, all this was
like climbing Mount Everest, and he did
it. When I was approached, I knew it was
a big challenge, but I am always up for a
good one.
In the time since you started Siyahi
14-odd years ago, the literary fiction
landscape of India has changed dra-
matically. Advances have gone
down, the readership seems to have
fallen. What is your sense of this
moment in Indian publishing?
That’s a large question. Connected
with issue of advances is the condition of
the economy. And linked to the issue of
readership is the matter of disposable
income, what technology has done to us.
You can’t hold one reason responsible for
what literary fiction was 10 years back,
and what it is now. A decade ago, you
were not seeing so many translations
making it to the shortlists of literary
prizes, and winning them. When I began
Siyahi, one of my mandates was to
encourage translations. It remains a pas-
sion, even though there’s no money in it.
I am fortunate I am getting a chance to
work on the JCB prize because our
visions meet. And it also offers a resource
that can be used effectively.
Do you think the JCB prize has been
able to make literary fiction a part of
India’s public discourse?
A huge part of it has been achieved. It
is being noticed and talked about,
accepted and respected. The very fact
that the prize is fostering translations,
and making the effort to reach out to
more and more publishers across the
country, speaks for it. It has given a much
needed adrenalin push to the industry.
As a country, we are too large, too
diverse, too nuanced. There is a lot of
work in the translations going on in dif-
ferent parts of the country in isolated
pockets. What the JCB prize intends to
achieve is a comprehensive representa-
tion of the wealth of Indian storytelling
and a recognition of what India loves to
read—that’s my dream.
I want to make the prize more inclu-
sive in terms of creating new readers and
making sure people are exposed to new
forms of writing. I want readership sur-
veys, not only by speaking to editors but
also to the design teams, the salesperson
who goes to sell the backlist to distribu-
tors and retailers. I want to reach out to a
bookseller sitting in a small bookshop in
Shillong, Itanagar or Guwahati to check
which books are selling—in their own
languages. I want that kind of intel com-
ing in so that we can become more repre-
sentative. I want literary merit and popu-
lar taste both to be taken into account.
Is the perception of Indian literary
fiction in the West changing?
Every year when I am in Frankfurt, I
find publishers looking for new voices
from India. They want to read books
about how a young Indian woman lives,
works—those kinds of stories. The kind
of reach literary fiction by the big names
has is far larger, but publishers are look-
ing for that one unique voice to come up.
Any new plans and surprises?
Let the surprises come when they do!
I want to start at the base and build up
from there. For me, it’s always the larger
vision that matters, never the short-term
goal. I want to take the prize to the
smaller towns and cities of the country.
 Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney

04 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI HOW TO LOUNGE THIS WEEKEND

Source
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Brad Pitt and (right) Leonardo DiCaprio in ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’.

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ne criticism levelled at Once Upon A Time In Hollywood—Academy
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Adolf Hitler and company in a theatre. In this film that appears to culminate in
BLOOM IN BLISS the brutal 1969 murder of actor Sharon Tate, things don’t end as we expect.
LIGHT UP Love in Bloom by Seletti
The comparison is tempting but flawed. Basterds, for all its masterful sus-
pense, was rooted off-centre, in the unreal—“wouldn’t it be fun if the world
Neon Anatomical Heart by The phrase “blooming love” has been realized with
was like this”, as opposed to the way things were—thus a Nazi colonel pulls
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out an exaggeratedly large meerschaum pipe, and a film critic is played by
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Michael Fassbender. It is a celebratory film announcing that movies can save
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while channelling the oomph
Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is a drier film, albeit set in an oasis. Leon-
of billboards. The LED light is
ardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, a onetime TV cowboy who dreamt of a
also portable and easy to use
movie break, missed his shot, and is now reduced to bad-guy roles, getting
as a backdrop for themed LOVE THYSELF walloped by the new prime-time kids to make them look good. His only friend
parties. Available at WildFlower Hearts by Simran Chhabra is his stuntman, Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt, literally paid to make Dalton
AnatomyBoutique.com; £480 Handcrafted from brass alloy and look good, now an errand boy/chauffeur who talks the actor up. A producer
gold-plated with a cut-out of a sitting asks whether Booth is Dalton’s son, showing how far two men meant to
girl, these artistic earrings are inspired resemble one another have drifted.
by the idea of self-love, honesty Tarantino recreates the Los Angeles of his boyhood, flashy marquees and
and freedom. Available at neon-titled theatres serving cinema in every flavour. The film rightly won the
SimranChhabra.com; ₹4,500 Oscar for Production Design. The 1960s live. Hippie girls sell acid cigarettes
and get car rides from movie stars—or stars-to-be, anyway. Margot Robbie
plays Sharon Tate, who still has to point herself out in the posters of films
she’s in. Robbie is radiant as a bright-eyed starlet who colours this film about
jaded performers with hope, while Tarantino, making sure we see the real
Tate in film clips and posters, lets her posthumously do the same.
Tate is best known for her tragic death, as a pregnant woman slain with her
friends during the infamous 1969 Manson murders, committed by hippies
controlled by Charles Manson. Considered a crime that ended the 1960s and
made America lock its doors again, the killings were motivated by Manson’s
own petty rage towards former occupants of the house. Tarantino’s beatniks
instead want “to kill the actors who made them want to kill”, rather like
today’s keyboard warriors opposed to free expression, keen to blame movies
for real-world maniacs, eager to cancel people out.
Sharon Tate was married to Roman Polanski, then one of the most admired
directors in town. Eight years after Tate’s death, Polanski raped a 13-year-old
girl and has been a fugitive from the US ever since. In 1969, DiCaprio’s Dalton
feels vindicated about having listened to a friend and bought a house in Holly-
TRAVELOGUE wood instead of leasing one. Washed up as he is, he is now Polanski’s new
neighbour, living next door to “the director of Rosemary’s Baby”, conceivably
one pool party away from being in a big film.
Walk on the wild side Tarantino’s protagonist behaves strikingly anti-Polanski. Despite Pitt’s well-
earned Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, Cliff Booth is the true leading man. He
keeps Dalton in good spirits, bests Bruce Lee in hand-to-hand combat, wants

T
outed as India’s first forest to keep old friends safe, and loves his goddamn dog. When Booth picks up a
festival, F of X festival’s hitchhiking hippie giving him the eye (Pussycat, played by Margaret Qualley),
second edition is a four-day the chemistry is immediate. She offers him oral sex, and Booth asks for her age.
residential event that will be held She claims to be 18, but the steadfast stuntman insists on documented proof.
in the forests of Jim Corbett Through this act of restraint, Tarantino pointedly spells out whom we
National Park. There will be should root for— even though, a few scenes ago, he intentionally left it
sessions by around 40 creative unclear whether Booth had murdered his wife. That is a moral dilemma we
people, such as Microsoft AI’s are meant to struggle with, to observe how it affects our admiration of
Tulasi Menon and Memesys Booth—if at all it does. Heroism is an on-screen conceit. In the real world,
Culture Lab’s Zain Memon, for everyone’s grey. And greying.
around 250 participants. It is Like all stars, Dalton imagines he could have been a contender. One scene
billed as the confluence of “data features a digitally altered clip of DiCaprio’s Dalton starring in 1963 war epic
and magic”, with nature as a The Great Escape instead of real hero Steve McQueen, but that’s a wonderfully
majestic backdrop. —SL optimistic what-if dream. Three more famous actors (each named George)
F of X will be held from 20-23 were in line before him, plus McQueen did the iconic film anyway. He never
February at Jim Corbett stood a chance (which, in this film, is what McQueen says about himself at a
National Park, Uttarakhand. Playboy party, discussing his chances of wooing Sharon Tate).
For more information, visit On set, Dalton runs into a young co-star, assiduously staying in character
FofXFestival.com well before her take. Trudi (played by Julia Butters) is 8, doesn’t like sexist
nicknames and teaches Dalton how to pronounce his character’s name. It is an
extraordinary conversation, with a man choked up by a book, by fiction that
ON A PLATTER ART cuts too close, and a little girl showing him a kindness. She has no idea who he
is, and therefore, later, her applause overwhelms him. For an instant, he finds
enough faith to talk himself up. He tells himself what his stuntman would.
A community of art As Booth drives to his own humble trailer away from Dalton’s Hollywood
house, Tarantino uses snippets of a half-dozen songs to show how far the
stuntman has to travel before heading back early in the morning to pick the

P
ublic art initiative actor up. The budding Sharon Tate walks away from the camera, echoed by
Whitefield Art the rusted Rick Dalton lumbering on to set, framed just the same. Cinematog-
Collective (WAC) is rapher Robert Richardson concentrates on mood, lingering and digressing as
back with its fifth edition, characters do, unyielding and razor-sharp only when they force themselves
themed on sustainability. to be: when the stuntman is caught in a trip-wire-tense showdown, or when
The month-long festival, the actor finally finds his meter.
which started on 7 Pitt and DiCaprio are tremendous actors, and—as friends who are “more than
February, promotes a brother but a little less than a wife”—give us their finest. Here’s DiCaprio, ten-
regional art and artists, tative about asking his stuntman to join him and watch his TV show together,
featuring a unique mix of and there’s Pitt, phenomenal as an otherwise alert man tickled by an acid high.
programming and As the fateful night nears, time slows down. The acid kicks in. The infamous
Gourmet escapades commissioned works, in
partnership with regional
words used by the Manson murderers, about “doing the Devil’s business”, are
rubbished by Booth when recounting them later; he admits it isn’t verbatim.
institutions. Since it’s a Tarantino doesn’t do verbatim. The finish is magnificently unreal—a marked

T
he story goes that there’s a chef who made enfant terrible
Gordon Ramsay break down. He is the world-renowned
Marco Pierre White, who is visiting India for season 5 of the
gourmet food event, World On A Plate. He will be hosting two
masterclasses in the company of Indian chefs like Vikramjit Roy
and Ranveer Brar. Live cooking demonstrations, as well as pop-
ups by premium Delhi restaurants such as Rooh, The Kimono
Club and Savya Rasa, are also on the menu. —JB
World On A Plate is being held on 15-16 February at The
Commons at the newly revamped DLF Avenue, Delhi. Tickets,
starting from ₹600 per person for a day.
Curated by Shubham Ladha.
community art fest, this
year’s collaborators
include the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, JD Institute of Fashion
Technology, Bangalore Creative Circus, Indian Garbage Collective, The Broke Artist
Collective, Aravani Arts Project, and Synaesthesia Collective & Art Flute. Members
of the public may also contribute through programmes like UnGallery, which turns
spaces within the venue into gallery nooks, and a Basement Art Project that invites
students from art schools and city art groups to paint the walls of the venue’s
basement. —SB
The Whitefield Art Project is on till 7 March at VR Bengaluru, Whitefield,
Bengaluru.
departure for a film this grounded—and, in itself, forms a critique of the Hol-
lywood ending, the way things wrap up in the movies, the way movie tropes
facilitate easy escape. It thrills, but never feels joyous because we have been
made too aware of how it did not, and could not, happen. Tarantino’s con-
trasting finish is gratuitous, hilarious and disturbing, and where Basterds was
wishful, here is a wistful lament. Life isn’t filmed in Technicolor, and we don’t
have stuntmen. If only Sharon Tate had lived next door to the movies.
Stream of Stories is a column on what to watch online. Raja Sen is a film critic
and the author of The Best Baker In The World (2017), a children’s adaptation
of The Godfather.
@rajasen

We knew our neighbours because we sat on front porches and drank tea together. Our mothers hung out on the
balcony. Now the front porches have been torn down and the balconies are empty—we have retreated inside
CULT
FRICTION
SANDIP
ROY
T
hey made for the oddest of neigh-
bours at the Kolkata Book Fair.
Stall No.370 ( I kid you not)
belonged to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
It was covered with pictures of Sri
Krishna and holy men in orange robes
and a saffron flag flying overhead.
Smack opposite was the green and white
facade of the stall of the Ahmadiyya
Muslim Jamaat. On the last day of the
book fair, a line of uniformed police was
standing nearby, ready to spring into
action. A couple of days earlier, Bharat-
iya Janata Party supporters and anti-
Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)
activists had come to blows in the area.
These are troubled times in the
neighbourhood.
Kolkata-based photographer and
documentary film-maker Ronny Sen
says his CAA posts angered someone
who lived in the neighbourhood, not a
friend he had grown up with but a
“chena mukh” (or known face). That
man attacked him with a bhojali, or dag-
ger, he had hidden in the waistband of
his trousers. Film-maker Debalina
Majumder had organized a small peace
rally with a few friends in south Kolkata
during the recent protests. Afterwards
they were having tea in the local tea
shop when men shouting “Jai Shri
Ram” attacked them with hockey sticks.
I grew up in south Kolkata opposite a
tea shop famous for its strong tea and
the even stronger opinions of the tea
drinkers. Every morning, the street out-
side would buzz with conversation and
debate. After elections and football
matches, it would rise to a dangerous
crescendo, with the threat of fisticuffs,
but eventually everyone would finish
their umpteenth cup of tea and go home
‘Generosity is now a foundational virtue’
Elizabeth Gilbert on her
intense love of people
and life, making the time
to write, and what keeps
her grounded
Somak Ghoshal
somak.g@livemint.com
I
t has taken me two days of relentless
pursuit, but here I am at last, sitting with
Elizabeth Gilbert on a sunny January
morning on the grounds of the Rambagh
Palace in Jaipur. It’s the third day of the
Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) and the
star guest of this year’s edition has granted
only a handful of press interviews. It’s a
prudent decision for a writer who admits
she is much too invested in meeting new
people—a pleasant contrast from the con-
ventional image of the writer as a reclusive
misanthrope. She has to say no, for no
other reason than a practical concern over
conserving her time and energy.
Gilbert is gregarious, her joie de vivre is
infectious. She loves social media, she tells
me; it enriches her work. “I want to meet
everybody anyway, so it is a godsend for
me.” A big laugh punctuates this confes-
sion. “I enjoy rolling around the cyber
world and collecting information, like a
dog rolls around mud and gathers smell.”
This is Gilbert’s first visit to India since
2004, after three aborted attempts in
between. But she is just as thrilled as the
last time by the “sensory overload” of the
country (“For heaven’s sake, your senses
are there for being overloaded!”). She
describes a montage she saw the other day
as she stepped outside the “beautiful bub-
ble” of Rambagh Palace. “There was this
girl vomiting out of a car window, a camel
was sauntering by, someone getting a
shave on the street and then, almost like in
a Fellini movie, in comes a monkey into
the frame!” More laughter. “I came to this
life to do the full curriculum,” she says. “I
know sometimes it may be better for me to
stay inside a bubble, but that’s just not my
nature.”
If you follow Gilbert online, you know
this is not mere affectation. She puts her-
self out there like few writers of her celeb-
rity do. She posts deeply felt, often
intensely personal, updates; engages with
her audience regularly; keeps tabs on
what’s happening around her. But what’s
baffling is her prodigious output, in spite
of this commitment to living a full life—
eight books, numerous articles, speeches
Memories of ‘What A Jolly Street’
peacefully.
Lake Market was an ordinary hotch-
potch south Kolkata neighbourhood,
hardly exceptional. My father was an
engineer. The man who lived opposite
was an Ayurvedic kaviraj. The uncle on
one side ran a printing press. Others
were known by what they sold—beedi-
wala, daabwala, coalwala, button-
babu, who had a pavement stall selling
buttons and clips. Jam-ma lived next
door to us. Her niece had started calling
her Jam-ma and she became Jam-ma to
the rest of the children on the street. By
impeccable logic, her husband became
Jam-baba. Sometimes during the sum-
mer holidays, Jam-ma would corral all
the neighbourhood children and put on
a play with us. A professor, she would
recite Rabindranath Tagore and Will-
iam Wordsworth to us, coach laggards
in Bengali and find us books to read.
Jam-ma and Jam-baba’s house was a
treasure trove of books. I remember
piles of National Geographic magazines,
Russian classics, a candy-striped Mary
Poppins. But my all-time favourite was
the one I called “What A Jolly Street”.
Years later I realized it had another
name—365 Bedtime Stories by Nan Gil-
bert, one story for each day of the year.
It was about a street somewhere in mid-
dle America. The children who lived on
that street had so much fun that every-
one always exclaimed, “What a jolly
street”. Their lives were nothing like
mine. They were all white and Chris-
tian, they ate pumpkin pies, celebrated
Thanksgiving and had snowball fights.
Yet I would read and re-read that book
savouring the feeling of living on “What
A Jolly Street”. That was my ideal neigh-
bourhood.
Looking back, I realize our little street
was not that different. Three brothers
lived in the house next door. They all
followed different political parties, and
passionately so. It never seemed to get
in the way of anything. The house
behind us, where all the men were short
and their wives tall, shared a wall with
us. We carved a door into that wall. No
one in that house ever used their own
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote her first two books at the New York Public Library.
and talks, alongside a punishing travel
schedule.
“I have the soul of a serious writer but
the personality of an airline stewardess,”
Gilbert quotes herself when I ask her about
rationing her time while managing her
eventful and peripatetic life. “But I have
always been pretty good at demanding
time for my work, even when I was a col-
lege student or working as a bartender,
long before anyone heard of me or I had
published anything.” She mentions her
friend, the writer Ann Patchett, as a coun-
terpoint to her restless creative energy.
“She has lived in the same house in Nash-
ville for years, she’s sane and reasonable, a
creature of habit, married to the same per-
son for a long time—everything I am not.
Ann says I’m a hunter and she’s a gatherer.”
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney
THINK
Tea shops in Kolkata are the site of debates and disagreements that threaten to turn volatile but never do.
driveway. They went in and out through
our house, stopping to chat with my
grandmother and great-grandmother.
When my grandmother was dying, it
was the neighbour who would come
through that door to give her a sponge
bath. Long before everyone got their
own televisions, all the neighbourhood
children would pile on the big bed in
the big house at the end of the street to
watch Test cricket matches on their
black and white television.
It was not always a jolly street. Neigh-
bours fought with neighbours. Some-
one’s daughter would fall in love with
someone’s less-than-suitable son across
the way and ignite a neighbourhood
scandal. The couple next door would
have raging fights that would be exe-
cuted in stereo sound and we would
stand behind drawn curtains in our
kitchen and eavesdrop. But finally it
would all subside and life would return
to its unhurried pace. We never
ROHIT CHAWLA
Like any deft hunter, though, Gilbert is
focused and disciplined in her own way.
She wrote her first two books at the Rose
Reading Room of the New York Public
Library. “I was really broke back then, so
I intentionally took myself to a space—at
least twice a week—where other people
were working,” she says. This regime of
concentrated bursts of work persists to
this day. She arrived in India earlier this
year and spent 17 days at a retreat in north
Goa, overlooking the Arabian Sea (“Can
you imagine the exoticism of a place like
that for someone who grew up in a Christ-
mas tree farm in Connecticut?”). “I went
off social media, wrote all day every day,
and spoke to no one, except for the waiters
of the hotel I was staying at.”
It’s not surprising, Gilbert’s capacity for
doubted that when push came to shove,
our neighbours would have our back.
When my father was sick and someone
recommended some miracle homoeo-
pathic medicine, it was one of the tea-
drinking “uncles” on our front porch
who insisted on going to procure it.
At the Kolkata Literature Festival,
sociologist Ashis Nandy remarked that
in his study of Partition-era violence,
he found 40% of the survivors saying
they had lived through the barbarity
because someone on the other side of
the communal divide had helped them.
He said he would be “very, very sur-
prised” if anyone could find “any other
instance of genocide anywhere in the
world which can show a figure even as
much as 4%”. The audience broke into
loud applause. Lok Sabha member of
Parliament Shashi Tharoor agreed,
saying that Firoz Khan Noon, who went
on to become prime minister of Paki-
stan, was saved by Hindus. Tharoor
SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
GETTY IMAGES
said when he was with the UN during
the height of Yugoslavia’s bloody civil
war, “neighbours with whom you
would entrust your key when you went
on a summer vacation were raping
your daughter”.
But there is little to indicate that
neighbourliness is indelibly imprinted
in our DNA. I remember social activist
Harsh Mander telling me that during the
worst of the 2002 Gujarat riots, for every
act of unspeakable cruelty he could still
find three acts of kindness by Hindus in
the local area. When he travelled the
country after recent lynchings, he
remarked: “I keep saying, you know,
somebody must have saved you. Please, I
beg you, tell me about some kindness.
And I am not finding it.” When the
young Muslim boys playing cricket dur-
ing Holi in Gurugram came under
attack, their home was ransacked and
they were beaten with iron rods, hockey
sticks and water pipes. When Mander
single-minded immersion. Whether it is
writing, giving an interview, addressing
an audience, or taking care of her late
partner Rayya Elias, a musician, writer
and director who died of cancer in 2018—
Gilbert gives it her best shot. But perfec-
tionism can be a major deterrent, to crea-
tivity as well as in life, as she argued in her
2015 book, Big Magic: Creative Living
Beyond Fear. It was during her time as a
carer to Elias that she realized she would
never be able to administer her duties
without faltering. “Your job as a long-time
caregiver is to survive it, not to handle it
gracefully,” Gilbert says. “When I meet
anyone in that situation, all I tell them is
that I am praying for you to survive this.”
This mantra of survival is key to the nar-
rative of Gilbert’s life. It took her years of
penury and three books to get famous,
until the publication of Eat, Pray, Love: One
Woman’s Search For Everything Across
Italy, India And Indonesia in 2006 changed
her life. Not only did it become a giant best-
seller, it was also made into a hit movie,
with Julia Roberts in the lead, in 2010.
On the first day of JLF, Gilbert spoke to
Alexandra Pringle, the editor-in-chief of
Bloomsbury Publishing, and her long-
time editor and friend. The success of
Eat, Pray, Love, she said, liberated her not
only financially but also allowed her to
take risks in spheres she hadn’t ventured
into until then. Her ambitions as a writer,
for one, grew audaciously in the subse-
quent years. But just as importantly, Gil-
bert discovered a capacity for openness
within herself. She left a marriage of
nearly a decade to be with Elias when she
realized her feelings for her friend, soon
after Elias was diagnosed with cancer.
She found reserves of generosity in her-
self she didn’t know she had. “Generosity
is now a foundational virtue for me,” she
tells me. “It is the only legacy I want to
leave behind.”
Gilbert’s emotional awakening influ-
enced her ambitions as a writer and public
figure as well. She is invested in highlight-
ing the achievement of women who are
unsung. “Don’t wait for the culture to
catch up and bring in change,” she says.
“Do what you can in your private capac-
ity.” At the same time, she is attentive to
the conversations about cultural appro-
priation happening around the world.
“We can all agree that white Western cul-
ture has got a lot of attention and that it is
time to step back and let other voices
emerge,” she says. “For instance, at this
point in my life it is important for me to
share my platform and resources with
African American women.”
CHENNAI 05
met the family, they said no one from the
neighbourhood came to their rescue.
That, more than a random act of
gruesome violence, feels unimagina-
ble. Some vestige of our old neighbour-
hood still remains even in these frag-
mented times. Our tea shop is still
going strong, with tea-fuelled impas-
sioned conversations and vociferous
arguments. Our local councillor, a
card-carrying RSS (Rashtriya Swayam-
sevak Sangh) member, sits on a red
plastic chair in his khaki shorts. Right
in front of him is a poster board with
the Communist Party’s mouthpiece
Ganashakti pasted on it, warning us
daily about impending fascism. Some-
one vociferously disses Trinamool
Congress and Didi (the chief minster)
while someone lauds her guts. And
they all drink tea together.
In hindsight, I realize why it was easy
to Love Thy Neighbour or at least toler-
ate them on our “What a Jolly Street”.
Our neighbours were fairly inter-
changeable with each other—largely
middle to upper middle-class upper-
caste Hindu Bengalis with a handful of
south Indians and others thrown into
the mix. We did not truly confront the
“other”. But at least the aloowala’s son
played street cricket with the company
vice-president’s son, something that
rarely happens in the hermetically
sealed apartment buildings that have
replaced the old houses on the street.
We knew our neighbours because we
sat on front porches and drank tea
together. Our mothers hung out on the
balcony in the fading afternoon light
talking across balconies. Now the front
porches have been torn down. The bal-
conies are empty except for drying
clothes.
We have retreated inside with our
smartphones, which have brought the
world closer. But somehow, in the proc-
ess, the old neighbourhood seems to
have receded further.
Cult Friction is a fortnightly column on
issues we keep rubbing up against. Sandip
Roy is a writer, journalist and radio host.
The lives of women have been front and
centre in Gilbert’s work all along, though
the theme has returned in unexpected
forms in her recent novels. In 2013, she
published The Signature Of All Things, a
novel about a woman botanist in the 19th
century. Based on extensive research
spanning years, it tells the story of a
woman scientist’s courage and fortitude in
the face of thwarted recognition. Women’s
empowerment is explored in another con-
text in City Of Girls (2019), Gilbert’s latest
novel, set in the theatre scene of New York
in the 1940s. “I wanted to write a story
about promiscuous women, who were not
besieged with guilt,” she says.
Set in the epicentre of glamour, fashion
and showbiz, City Of Girls is a propulsive
read, poised to be turned into a movie by
Warner Bros, Gilbert says. But its hurtling
pace disguises the painstaking legwork
that went into its making. “I usually begin
with a rough idea of the historical moment
I want to write about,” Gilbert says. This
thought is followed by “voracious read-
ing” for months, while taking notes on
index cards, until she is able to funnel her
accumulated knowledge into the most
crucial receptacle for a novelist: character.
The plot comes last, and is often the hard-
est part.
You would think that after successive
best-sellers and enduring celebrity, life is
easier for Gilbert. But she quickly corrects
any such presumption. “My mental illness
keeps me grounded,” she says with dis-
arming candour. “It’s hard to get off on
how awesome you are when, literally,
every day of your life you wake up and
have to deal with this situation up here,”
she points at her head. “It is a full-time
job.” Having once hit rock bottom and
recovered from that utter loss of dignity—
a period of her life she wrote about in an
article titled “Confessions Of A Seduction
Addict” (The New York Times, 28 July
2015)—she knows it’s best not to go
around believing in her own press.
Since Elias’ death, Gilbert has achieved
one feat that she couldn’t earlier. She now
meditates, often twice a day, a habit she
inculcated along with her partner, as she
was nursing her through her last year of
terminal illness. “When Rayya got sick, I
ended up suffering from excruciating pain
in my neck and shoulders,” Gilbert says.
“So I went to a chiropractor, an Indian
woman in New York City, who told me
that I won’t be able to live through this
without prayer and meditation.” The
practice has continued since then. “No
one is more surprised than I am,” she says,
bursting into one of her trademark laughs.

06 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
CHENNAI
Inside an Indian
internment camp
This excerpt from a
new book chronicles
the tragic fate of the
Chinese community
in India in the
shadow of the 1962
Indo-China war
The Deoli Wallahs—The
True Story Of The 1962
Chinese-Indian
Internment: By Joy Ma and
Dilip D’Souza,Macmillan,
248 pages, ₹650.
Why the battle against patriarchy is far from over
LADY SAGA
A monthly guide to reading
more women
Political activist Kavita
Krishnan’s debut book
hits out at the blind
spots about women’s
rights in India’s public life
and policies
Kavitha Rao
f you are an Indian woman, you (like
I me) may be feeling completely over-
whelmed by the daily flood of assaults
against women in this country. Again, like
me, you may not be in the mood to read
another book about patriarchy—isn’t it
enough to battle it in every part of our
lives without having to read about it as
well?
Kavita Krishnan’s debut book Fearless
Freedom is a reminder that we cannot
afford to turn away, weary though we may
be. Brutal, shadowy stranger rapes and
murders often get all our attention, but as
Krishnan points out, some of the biggest
threats to women’s freedom are in plain
sight, from seemingly benign forces.
Who: Krishnan is a communist femi-
nist activist, secretary of the All India Pro-
gressive Women’s Association (Aipwa), a
leftist women’s organization, and a polit-
buro member of the Communist Party of
India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation.
This is her first book, and it grew out of
the 2012 rape and murder of Jyoti Singh
Pandey, when Krishnan gave a speech
outside the late former Delhi chief minis-
ter Sheila Dikshit’s residence that went
viral. Enraged at the suggestion that Jyoti
should not have been outside, Krishnan
said: “Why should women provide justifi-
Joy Ma and Dilip D’Souza
I
n 1962, as India went to war with
China, people of Chinese origin
living in the country were
rounded up and packed off to an
internment camp in Deoli,
Rajasthan. Overnight, entire families that
had lived in India for decades—some
spoke only Indian languages—were
arrested on the suspicion of acting as spies
for the Chinese state. Around 3,000 Chi-
nese-Indians languished for several years
in a disused prisoner of war camp, going
back to World War II, living in unsanitary
conditions and on meagre rations. Lives
were upturned, dreams crushed.
In The Deoliwallahs, Joy Ma, who was
born in Deoli, chronicles heart-wrenching
first-person accounts from a period in
Indian history that is little known to the
public. Based on interviews with the Chi-
nese community still living in India and in
the diaspora, she records the xenophobia
that her people faced in 1960s India, abet-
ted by government policies put in place
under the regime of then Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru. Dilip D’Souza provides
commentary and perspective on the war
as well as on the continuing strife between
the Asian neighbours for territorial
supremacy. Edited excerpts:
Ying Sheng Wong lives in the Toronto
area. He was present at the commemora-
tion of the fiftieth anniversary of the
internment of the Chinese in India....
Ying Sheng is as comfortable with Hindi
as he is with Hakka, often breaking out
into an old Hindi movie tune as he did on
the bus to Ottawa. In Rafeeq Ellias’s docu-
mentary Beyond Barbed Wires, Ying
Sheng speaks in Hindi. He reveals that the
officials in the Camp were shocked to
learn that the Chinese could speak Hindi.
They had expected a group of foreigners
who could not communicate with them.
Having grown up in India, immersed in its
culture and language, it was also a shock
for the Chinese who first arrived in the
Camp to learn that the camp officials in
that remote part of Rajasthan knew noth-
ing about them. The wide gap in knowl-
edge and the lack of information about the
Chinese interned in Deoli would take
years to sort out.
Sheng now reminisces about that day
decades ago when his family first heard
about their fate and what was to be a long
journey from which some did not return.
In 1962, Ying Sheng’s family lived in
cations if they want to walk on streets
alone, even if it is late at night?… We
believe that regardless of whether she is
indoors or outdoors, whether it is day or
night, for whatever reason, whatever she
is wearing, a woman has a right to free-
dom. And it is that fearless freedom that
we need to save and protect, that we need
to safeguard.”
Fighting talk. But how do we wrest back
this freedom? Last November, the brutal
rape and murder of a veterinary doctor in
Hyderabad raised this question again.
What has changed since 2012? Krishnan
says there are now more movements sup-
porting women’s autonomy, such as
Pinjra Tod, the group arguing for the
removal of curfew in women’s hostels. Yet
there are also ever more powerful play-
ers—the media, politicians, even the
courts—which take away the autonomy of
women in the guise of keeping them safe.
“‘If you want to be safe, why do you want
freedom?’ is a familiar question faced by
Indian women,” she writes. Why, indeed,
should women have to choose between
safety and freedom?
“The death penalty and encounter kill-
ings are just bakshish (a small tip) solu-
tions intended to disguise the fact that the
state is doing nothing for the safety of
women,” she says, referring to the
knee-jerk strategies being applauded.
As Krishnan points out, a 15-year-old
Adivasi girl in Chhattisgarh was killed
in a 2011 encounter with the police,
who claimed she was a Maoist. When
the opposition alleged she had been
raped and killed, the state’s home minis-
ter claimed she had been “habitual at
sex”. There are many such incidents. “A
police force that can kill with impunity,
can also gang rape and kill women with
impunity,” writes Krishnan.
What: For the first third of the book,
the informed reader may feel like he or
she has read this before. Krishnan tears
apart the ritual of raksha bandhan, khaps,
and the patriarchal, casteist Indian family.
This may seem to be based on the usual
arguments you read on social media. But
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney
BOOKS
Shillong, the capital of what is now the
state of Meghalaya. On 19 November that
year, military personnel went to Don
Bosco School and rounded up the Chinese
students. (Andy Hsieh, whose account
appears later in this book, was studying in
Don Bosco and was among the students
taken by the soldiers then). ‘I was sixteen
that year. I was born in Calcutta and had
gone to Shillong when I was thirteen. That
day now seems a lifetime ago,’ Ying Sheng
says.
He and his family were unaware that the
students were being rounded up until a
neighbour came to their house and told
his father, ‘All the Chinese students were
rounded up in the school today. Your fam-
ily must prepare to leave.’
The next day, on 20 November, a group
of six to eight soldiers came to his house.
He remembers it was close to 4.30 in the
evening when they knocked on the door.
The soldiers met with his father and
told him the family was to come with them
and to take only a few belongings. They
were told to take only a little money
because they would be released in a short
period.
The whole family was arrested that day:
his father, mother, four brothers and twin
sisters.
They were taken to the Shillong jail, a
place Ying Sheng had passed many times
without ever imagining he would one day
be inside it. He remembers seeing many
Chinese from the nearby area that day at
the jail including the families of Shantung
men who had married local Khasi women.
Most of the children didn’t speak Chinese
or spoke just a few words. When the
women were given the choice to stay
home with their children or go to jail, they
all chose to accompany their husbands
along with their children. Not one stayed
back in Shillong.
After the men and boys were separated
from the women, they were sent to the
area for the male prisoners. The prisoners
were curious about why Ying Sheng’s
father and sons were there and asked
them, ‘Why are you here? Did you murder
anyone?’
His father replied, ‘No, I didn’t kill any-
one. I’m here because of the war.’
The prisoners didn’t know about the
war so his father had to tell them about it.
Later one of the men advised Ying
Sheng’s father, ‘Now that you are here in
the jail, you have to act very tough or you’ll
have trouble with the jailer.’
His father didn’t know what to make of
(top) Protesters at Delhi’s
Jantar Mantar last year on
the seventh anniversary of
the Nirbhaya rape case;
and Kavita Krishnan.
Refugees of Chinese origin fleeing during the Indo-China war of 1962.
this. Were they expected to behave like
criminals?
The Wong family stayed in the Shillong
jail for about four days and was then taken
with the others to the Guwahati jail. Every
day more Chinese people from all over
Assam and Meghalaya were added to the
jail. As the jail became more crowded,
Ying Sheng stayed close to his father and
brothers. Days dragged by with no infor-
mation from the warden. What little they
knew came from his father’s conversa-
tions with the other men as they specu-
lated what would happen next.
After about five days at the Guwahati jail,
they were taken to the railway station. Ying
Sheng remembers the huge clouds of flies
that swarmed around the Guwahati rail-
way station. With the toilets overwhelmed,
people were urinating on the railway
tracks, attracting flies. It is a dark memory
that has stayed with him for all these years.
The journey to Rajasthan seemed end-
less. Besides looking out of the window
Having grown up in India,
immersed in its culture and
language, it was...a shock for
the Chinese...to learn that the
camp officials...knew nothing
about them
GETTY IMAGES
the book gathers steam a third of the way
in, when Krishnan takes on govern-
ment initiatives that are seemingly
good for women. This is a connect-
the-dots kind of book. As Krishnan
explains: “I wrote the book for people
who think, ‘Yes, khaps are bad but have
nothing to do with me.’ They haven’t
made the connection between, say,
khaps and the restrictions they are plac-
ing on their own daughters, or the restric-
tions placed in workplaces, hostels, and
government programmes.”
Occasionally, perhaps because the
book grew out of a speech, it can seem a
bit polemical. Krishnan’s voice is strong
and fearless, but I would have liked to hear
some other voices as well. The word
“patriarchy” is repeated on almost every
other page. It can get a bit monotonous,
and the reader may feel a bit harangued.
and listening to all the worried talk of the
adults, there was nothing to do. The train
would stop outside stations so the cooks
could prepare meals for them on clay
stoves set up on the side of the tracks.
At one such stop, the passengers were
not prepared for what happened. A group
of 150–200 villagers gathered, holding
chappals in their hands, shouting at them
to go back to China. The crowd started
throwing stones at the train. Ying Sheng
and others rushed to shut the windows.
The soldiers shouted at the villagers to
stand back and even threatened to shoot.
At that time, Ying Sheng wondered how
the crowd knew that the train was full of
Chinese. Who told them that they were
going to Deoli? After that incident, the
train would stop outside stations for food
to be prepared.
It wasn’t until four years ago that Ying
Sheng found out why the villagers had
attacked them that day. The words
‘Enemy Train’ had been written outside
the compartments they were travelling in.
There’s a sense of relief that he now knows
why the villagers attacked the train.
There was one nice thing that hap-
pened on the journey to Deoli though.
One day shortly after the Wong family left
Guwahati, there was news of a baby being
born in the adjoining compartment at
daybreak.
They finally reached Deoli at night. The
government had arranged a table outside
the camp to register every person and
everything they had—their belongings,
valuables, gold, cash. The internees were
Fearless Freedom:
By Kavita Krishnan,
Penguin Random House,
264 pages, ₹299.
Sometimes, Krishnan breaks the cardinal
writing rule of “show, don’t tell”, and I was
left longing for subtle inferences rather
than being told what to think.
Why: Read this book if you would like
to discover how seemingly progressive
campaigns can be terribly regressive for
women. The much lauded Swachh Bharat
movement, for instance. Krishnan
explores how Swachh Bharat slogans con-
stantly shame women into not going out
of the house, while linking toilets with
honour and the ghoonghat (veil). One in
Uttar Pradesh reads: “Daughters-in-law,
daughters should not go far, construct a
toilet in your house.” Another in Bihar has
an image of a man presenting a woman he
has abducted to a dacoit chief saying,
“‘Here boss, I have brought this beautiful
lote wali (bearer of a mug of water) from
the field for you’, while the chief replies
that today will be a day for rape.” The
shame attached to defecating outside, as
Krishnan points out, has also been used to
lynch and kill both men and women.
At one meeting of her organization, a
woman from Patna spoke about her expe-
riences in rural Bihar. As women got
ready to relieve themselves en masse in
GETTY IMAGES
given tea and bread, but the bread was so
hard, it could only be eaten after it was
soaked in the tea.
The Wong family went to Wing 3 to find
a place to live. The camp officials had been
in such a rush to ready the camp for the
huge, exhausted group that they did not
have proper arrangements for them all.
Military tents were set up with cots made
of jute, which is ideal for such a hot place,
except that it was November. The intern-
ees were freezing. Ying Sheng, like others
from the east, had no warm clothes. He
mused that even if they had them, they
would not have been allowed to bring
them as they had been instructed to take
just one set of clothes to the Camp. They
tried their best to sleep in the cold, falling
eventually into an uncomfortable, restless
slumber because they were so tired.
In the night, Ying Sheng woke up to the
sound of women and men yelling, ‘Snake!
Snake!’ The ground was open on all sides,
and animals scurried past the cots through
the night. Everything was terrifying that
first night. The desert. The strange place
where they were forced to stay like crimi-
nals. Every little unfamiliar sound. When
the branches shook in the wind, a terrible
sound came from the dark night. Every-
one was frightened. It wasn’t until the next
morning that Ying Sheng learned the
sound was a bird call.
It was the mournful lament of peacocks
crying.
Excerpted with permission from Mac-
millan India.
the early mornings and late evenings, she
asked them if they wouldn’t prefer to have
toilets in their homes. They scoffed. “Didi,
why give our men and in-laws another
reason to keep us captive indoors? This is
our only excuse to get some fresh air, take
a walk together, and speak to friends with-
out someone overhearing us.”
Similarly, Krishnan dissects factories
and the microfinance movement. Cloth-
ing and lingerie factories, she points out,
are supposed to be empowering places
that give women a chance to escape pov-
erty—“fairy tales” of rescue and libera-
tion. But often they impose huge restric-
tions on women, and are not looked at
with a critical eye. Krishnan argues that it
is much easier to draw attention to a ban
on mobile phones by “evil” khaps than a
similar ban on phones in factories, usually
done to prevent women from unionizing
and demanding better work conditions.
Krishnan is surprised that activists are
often seen as “negative” and anti-national.
“We are all so desperate for good news,
aren’t we?” she laughs. “The fact is all gov-
ernments, whether the Bharatiya Janata
Party or the Congress, are in favour of the
status quo. We are not saying ‘Don’t build
indoor toilets or factories.’ We are saying
build them in the right way.”
Nevertheless, Krishnan concludes that
things are changing, and cites the way
women of all shades are stepping up to
protest against the Citizenship (Amend-
ment) Act (CAA) and the proposed
National Register of Citizens as an exam-
ple. “I do see a lot of good news. I don’t
believe we need to accept things the way
they are, because that’s the way they
always have been. One instance is how
activists helped decriminalize homosexu-
ality.” She concludes with a plea for more
nuanced discussion. “I hope this book
allows people to strive for real under-
standing rather than a dopamine hit.”
Kavitha Rao is a Bengaluru-based jour-
nalist and author.
@kavitharao

What makes a smart
neighbourhood?
Nitin Sreedhar
nitin.s@htlive.com
he UN Population Fund
T estimates that by 2030,
about five billion people
will be living in urban
towns and cities. While
finding space for a swelling population is
important, a key prerequisite is to design
cities to match the demands of an increas-
ingly digital and technology-centric pop-
ulation. Smart cities, quite simply, can’t be
smart without the right technology.
Here’s a look at four smart technologies to
connect you to your neighbourhood, and
also keep it safe.
1 NEIGHBOURHOOD APPS
Launched in 2018, Google’s Neigh-
bourly marked the arrival of another
“India-first service” from the technology
giant. Neighbourly keeps you updated on
your neighbourhood. The app is available
in seven cities so far and comes with a sim-
ple interface where users can post ques-
tions, conduct polls and find answers to
questions pertaining to the neighbour-
hood. Users can share important local
updates and create events for others to
join in. The app also comes with options to
personalize the feed: They can choose to
see posts and content on different topics—
parenting, property, education, health,
local services, etc.
Nextdoor is another social networking
platform (though the app is not available
in India as of now) which enables the
exchange of useful information and servi-
ces in a neighbourhood.
2 DIGITAL ADDRESSES
Smart digital addresses are designed
to replace the conventional address.
Startups across India—EasyZip, Zippr,
MapMyIndia—are working in multiple
cities with unique eight- or nine-digit
number addresses that are more accurate
and easy to navigate than street addresses.
The common thread is the idea of a stan-
dardized address format. In 2018, Google
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on promising investments will help point your wealth
in the right direction–up.
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or write to us at subscription@livemint.com
E-scooters from Yulu Bikes can be picked up from specific parking lots in a city.
rolled out a new feature on Maps called
Plus Codes, which is based on a system of
identifying locations that don’t have a
street address—called geocode—with a
short code generated using latitude and
longitude coordinates. Writing a blog on
the occasion of Google Maps’ 15th anni-
versary, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said,
“One of the next frontiers for Maps will be
to help the billions of people who live
without a physical address get a digital
one.” These Plus Codes, he wrote, could
be used freely by anyone.
3 SECURITY TECH
With a slew of gadgets that can turn
a regular home into a smart home
on the inside, it is also important to think
of technologies that make it “smart” from
the outside. For instance, smart home
security company Ring, owned by Ama-
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LEFT BRAIN
zon, offers products like the Video Door-
bell, which can detect the motion of any-
one approaching your home. Apart from
getting notifications on your PC or
smartphone app, you can see, hear and
speak to visitors at your door in real time
with HD video and two-way audio sys-
tem. Users can also answer remotely if
they are not at home. Ring also offers a
smart security cam and lighting system
that is designed to make neighbourhoods
safer. Other companies like Eufy and
Remo+ also offer video doorbells that can
store video footage on a local drive and
stream it directly to your smartphone to
keep your data safe.
4 E-SCOOTERS
There is no doubt that a sustainable
transport system will be an impor-
tant factor in a smart city. And an
A look at some
technologies that can
help design cities to
match increasingly
technology-centric
neighbourhoods
e-scooter revolution is at our doorstep.
Yulu Bikes, which entered the Indian
market last year, offers compact electric
scooters that can be picked up from spe-
cific parking lots in a city and left at
another one. The e-mobility startup now
has a presence in Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune,
Mumbai and Bhubaneswar. Last-mile
connectivity has always been an issue for
neighbourhoods—but e-scooters might
just be the answer. In a recent opinion
piece, Alex Hern, the UK technology edi-
tor for The Guardian, wrote that the UK
was finally inching towards “legalizing
electric scooters on roads”, but reiterated
that the laws should focus more on safety,
not horsepower. “Micromobility can suc-
ceed with or without the Silicon Valley
business models—but it can’t succeed
without being given a chance on the
roads,” he wrote.
SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
CHENNAI 07
‘AO Tennis 2’
features
Rafael Nadal.
Lounge Review | AO Tennis 2 video game
Play like Nadal in this
Grand Slam sequel
‘AO Tennis 2’ bets big on customization, better
animation, ball physics and more game modes
Abhijit Ahaskar
abhijit.a@htlive.com
A
fter breathing new life into the tennis gaming genre with AO International
Tennis in 2018, developer Big Ant is back with a sequel, AO Tennis 2. Like
its predecessor, this game has been developed in collaboration with the
Australian Open that ended earlier this month. AO Tennis 2 has plenty to keep
users hooked and enjoy some action on the court, including unlicensed versions
of all the other major Grand Slams, along with ATP and WTA tournaments.
There are multiple new game modes such as Play Now, where you can play a
quick match; Scenario, which lets gamers create custom tournaments; and the
Online mode to take on real-world opponents. There’s also a Career mode, which
gets a huge boost with in-game animation similar to some of the latest Fifa video-
game titles. Players can chat with their agents, coaches and even hold press con-
ferences as well as react during matches. However, a negative reaction on the
court can affect fan approval ratings and sponsorships for the player.
The biggest upgrade comes in the form of improved ball physics. In the first
game, ball control felt inconsistent, affecting shot accuracy and putting gamers
at a disadvantage in tight games. Edging slightly closer to the line can lead to an
unforced error. In AO Tennis 2, the player is more in control of the ball. Different
courts now produce varied effects on speed, bounce and ball spin.
Unlike some Big Ant games like Don Bradman Cricket, which only supported
controllers, AO Tennis 2 can be controlled with either a keyboard or controller.
AO Tennis 2 has some big names you can play as: Rafael Nadal, Stan Wawrinka,
Gaël Monfils and Marin Čilić, for instance. From the women’s roster, one can play
as Angelique Kerber, Samantha Stosur and Johanna Konta.
Customization remains a big draw. This sequel allows gamers to create players
and stadiums in the Scenario mode. While this is ideal for gamers who love cus-
tom-made players and venues, the process can be tedious and time-consuming.
AO Tennis 2 feels like a more refined game than AO International Tennis, with
enough to keep you interested. Unlike EA Sports and 2K Sports (the developers
of the Top Spin series), Big Ant isn’t charging a premium for AO Tennis 2 at ₹1,299.
If you missed the Grand Slam, then this is your chance to experience it.
 Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney

08 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI TASTE

NEIGHBOURHOOD
ALAMY

PLATTERS OF PLENTY ISTOCKPHOTO

Festive foods, such as with fennel seeds. “When I was growing up, the
water for thekua dough was special. We would
Ladakh’s ‘mok mok’, source it from Gangaji,” reminisces Varma. The
river sacred to Hindus has become so pol-
Bihar’s ‘thekua’ and luted that its water is no longer deemed fit
Meghalaya’s ‘sakin’, for cooking. TEA NANNY
Festivals related to the new year
embody the culinary
tradition of sharing
according to the Hindu, Parsi, Sikh
or Buddhist calendars have multi-
ple culinary iterations. Nilza
Wangmo, the founder of Alchi
Drink ‘kahwa’
Jahnabee Borah
Jahnabee.b@htlive.com
kitchen in Ladakh, a restau-
rant that specializes in the
local cuisine, talks about
like a Kashmiri
Losar, the Buddhist new
Aravinda Anantharaman

A
n assortment of sweets, year according to the
from pastel-hued, fruit- Tibetan calendar. She

shaped marzipan to a
thick slice of plum cake
and kulkuls (deep-
fried, sugar-dusted flour sweets), gift-
wrapped, sealed with a ribbon and
tagged with a card that reads “compli-
ments from the Reggos” is sent to my
flat in suburban Mumbai every
Christmas. It’s from the landlady’s
family that stays opposite ours. The
distance between our flats is not more
than 5ft but we barely meet five times a
year, and even when we do, we don’t
spend more than 5 minutes exchanging
courtesies.
It has been about three years since we
moved into this neighbourhood and every
Christmas, I wait in anticipation of the small
food packet from their home. They are from
the East Indian Christian community of Maha-
rashtra and it is a culinary tradition to distrib-
ute sweets in the neighbourhood during
Christmas; an annual food ritual that I have
grown quite fond of. The daily grind can leave
one feeling rudderless and sharing food in this
manner can help forge friendships. For this, I
am grateful.
Holi is another such occasion that underpins
a neighbourhood through food. In north India,
particularly Old Delhi and parts of Uttar Pra-
desh, groups of people, called tolis, visit their
neighbours’ home to play with colour. With
faces smeared with colour, they wait to feast on
Holi snacks. Typically, it begins with something
sweet—malpua soaked in sugar syrup or gujiyas
stuffed with mawa, followed by a savoury item
such as chaat with dahi vada or dahi pakodi,
explains food writer Anoothi Vishal.
Vishal, who grew up in Lucknow, recalls the
women in her neighbourhood coming
together to make sun-dried potato chips.
Freshly harvested potatoes are available in
plenty during this season. They would be thinly
sliced, placed on the terrace to sun-dry, then
neighbour-
hood homes to
play with colour and
dig into Holi delicacies.
Alpana Varma is a Mumbai-based
home chef who co-founded Flavours of Bihar;
their food is available on Authentic Cook, an
online platform to explore local food experien-
ces. She comes from Patna and spent a part of
her childhood in a multicultural neighbour-
hood with Biharis, Parsis, Sikhs, Muslims and
Christians. “In a Bihari household, the Holi
lunch menu was set. It included dahi vada, dry
malpua or sookha pua, a mutton gravy dish
with poori. We would move from house to
house on a culinary adventure.” Every house-
hold would follow an unwritten kitchen rule,
that of making extra food to welcome guests
during Holi. The sookha pua, made from a bat-
ter of wheat, banana, jaggery, sugar and milk,
is unique to Bihari cuisine. They would be
deep-fried in small batches—during Varma’s
(above) Ladakhi ‘mok moks’
served during the Tibetan new
year; and ‘malpuas’ are made
during Holi in north India.
says the food that’s
cooked and shared with
neighbours is strictly
vegetarian, such as vege-
tarian momos called mok
mok and the Tibetian
thukpa. Mok mok is
stuffed with vegeta-
bles like carrots, cab-
bage and indigenous
spinach-like leafy greens
mongol. The noodle-based
thukpa is flavoured with yak
cheese and has brown peas,
radish and locally grown chives
and wild cumin. “These days, peo-
ple also prefer sweets such as halwa
and kheer,” she adds, unwittingly
highlighting the culinary diversity that
seeps in as cultures integrate.
Sesame and jaggery are the signature
ingredients for Makar Sankranti in Maharash-
tra. Til vadis (barfis), til podis (rotis stuffed with
sesame and jaggery) and til laddoos are eaten
and distributed in the neighbourhood. This
culinary tradition with sesame runs the length
and breadth of the country.
In the Garo hills of Meghalaya, the commu-
nity food during Christmas and new year is a
sticky rice cake with black sesame. Both the
ingredients are hand-pounded, placed in layers
in a banana leaf, wrapped and steamed over a
wood fire. It is cooked around a bonfire when
people from the community gather. Sakin, as
this sweet is known, has an irresistible chewy
texture and distinct rustic flavour. In our con-
temporary lives, so to speak, sakin would be
shared with neighbours and friends who are
not from the community.
Harvest festivals, like Pongal, are a commu-
nity affair in south India. Chef and food show
host Rakesh Raghunathan says that in urban
spaces with modern apartment set-ups, neigh-
bours, friends and family organize a potluck
T
he Kashmiri kahwa has joined the ranks of classic tea
blends, with the English Breakfast and the Earl Grey.
Like the others, it has no fixed recipe, and every brand
makes their version of it.
The most readily available form of kahwa tea is a green tea
blend made exotic by the addition of saffron, cardamom and
other spices. It’s almost the chai you make without milk. But
how close is it to the original made in Kashmir?
My search led me to Azmat Ali Mir, whose Kashmiri food
pop-ups have been so well received that she’s giving it a new
home in Sarposh, a Kashmiri restaurant and tea room in Ben-
galuru. Mir is an encyclopaedia on Kashmiri food, and within
minutes of meeting her, I had had my first kahwa lesson, fol-
lowed by an invitation to taste the kahwa.
Sarposh’s chef Nasir is a kahwa expert from the Gurez valley
in Kashmir, which falls along the old Silk Route. There was a
formality to our little gathering that befitted Kashmiri culture.
Like the Japanese matcha, the kahwa is not an everyday drink
but a ceremonial one, book-ending the wazwan, or feast.
Poured from a samovar, the saffron kahwa shone a reddish
gold, like sunlight, vibrant and fragrant. When sipped, it
seemed to travel deep inside, as if warming the soul. It was a
brew of water, saffron strands, cardamom pods, sugar, and was
garnished with some almond slivers. It had no tea leaves.
At the heart of the kahwa are the saffron and cardamom
pods, and some include tea leaves. Nasir brewed a version with
tea leaves, the doodh, or milk, kahwa. It is made by boiling milk
with cardamom and saffron. A pinch of green tea is added; in
Kashmir, locally available green tea (very likely a Kangra tea)
is used. The doodh kahwa looks like milk but tastes rich and
warm. The tea in it had neither coloured the kahwa nor caught
up with the taste of saffron and cardamom.
With our reference kahwa in place, we sampled a few
kahwa blends chosen for their varied green tea base. The
Assam green tea displayed astringency and turned bitter
before the flavours of saffron and cardamom had infused. The
Darjeeling greens were better but did neither the Darjeeling
nor the kahwa a favour. The one that came close to the original
was the blend with a Kangra green tea base. Unsurprisingly so,
since Kangra valley is next to Kashmir and it’s very likely the
green tea sold there. The Kangra tea is made from the Chinese
strain of the tea plant—in tea parlance, chinary or China jat—
and makes a fine tea that works very well for kahwa.
In choosing a kahwa blend, look for the inclusion of natural

‘
fried and served as snacks during Holi. “This childhood, the preferred medium to cook with a wide variety of rice dishes during this saffron and cardamom. Avoid those that use artificial flavour-
cultural community engagement sookha pua was ghee. festival, when paddy is harvested and multiple ing or overload on spices—aim for few ingredients. To make
is slowly fading,” she says. During Chhath, an rice dishes make an appearance—from tama- your own kahwa blend, choose an orthodox Kangra green tea
In Varanasi, they important Bihari festi- What’s beautiful is...this rind, coconut, lemon, curry leaf and coriander or even a gunpowder green tea (used in Moroccan mint tea)
would sun-dry val that involves sun to sesame rice. and add a few strands of Kashmiri saffron and some whole car-
thin squiggles of worship, thekuas
practice (of community In Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli region, he adds, damom pods. Garnish with almond slivers.
rice fritters are made and cooking and sharing) farmers from neighbouring villages gather for
known as distributed in breaks all class barriers the harvest. People, irrespective of their caste, TEA TAKES
chawal ki the neighbour- in a community. contribute by bringing rice, dal, spices and The Kashmiri Kahwa blend by the Dharmsala Tea Company
kachris, also a hood. These cooking oil to make a dish called kootanchoru. has a Kangra green tea base and Kashmiri saffron, which gives
Holi snack. are deep-fried, “Kootan means coming together of people and a vibrant colour to the cup.
RAKESH RAGHUNATHAN
A similar slightly crum- chooru translates into rice or anything that’s
CHEF AND FOOD SHOW HOST
food story bly sweets cooked. What’s beautiful is that this practice Tea Nanny is a weekly series steeped in the world of tea. Ara-
unfolds in Bihar, made with breaks all class barriers in a community,” he vinda Anantharaman is a Bengaluru-based tea blogger and

’’
with groups of wheat flour, jag- says, encapsulating the essence of community writer who reports on the tea industry.
people visiting gery and flavoured sharing.
ALAMY

Weed cookies, biryani and other neighbourly love

Until she left for Sweden, there was Some things don’t change though. At N tsp coriander powder
OUR Astrid, who did not cook much since she our little fairs—sometimes to raise funds N tsp cumin powder
D A I LY was a working woman, but when she
did, she always shared her beef or pork
to maintain a park, sometimes just
because—held twice or thrice a year,
N tsp turmeric powder
N tsp garam masala powder
BREAD with us, um, me. There’s Anaheeta, edi- there may be local bands or choirs, but K tsp tandoori masala
tor of our fine neighbourhood newspa- the focal point is always food. It’s cooked 2 tsp ginger-garlic paste
SAMAR per, from a few buildings down, who by all the good folks around us. There is Salt to taste
HALARNKAR first took me to the neighbourhood Kodava and Mangalurean pork; Anglo-
slaughterhouse to shop for fresh brain. Indian beef roast; biryani and kebabs Method
My mother, who lives in the same build- from our diverse Muslim communities; Wash and soak the rice overnight for 6-7

O
ne fine evening, our friendly
neighbour showed up at the
door with something she had
just baked. She offered me the tray,
accompanied by a bright smile.
“Wheat brownies? I just baked them.”
Now, you know, dear reader, that I do
not like desserts—along with tea, coffee
and beer—so sweet as this gesture was,
the brownies would be wasted. I told her
so, thanking her profusely.
I closed the door and turned to see the
wife staring at me.
“What did you do that for?” she asked.
“What? I don’t eat them, and you try
to stay away, so what’s the point of all
those wheat brownies?”
“Wheat brownies?” She looked
incredulously at me. “Those were weed
brownies!”
Unfortunately, we were never offered
those brownies again. But food from the
neighbours is a fine feature of life in
Richards Town, Bengaluru. There’s Ish-
rat aunty one floor below, sending up a
plate of some of her finest home-made
biryani for the nine-year old, who will
not share it.
ing, sends her bombil—Bombay duck.
There’s Gayatri, a professor, who sent
me a shredded beef pickle—we have a
food exchange running.
You get the idea. We are a diverse lot,
united by an abiding love for food and
fraternity.
Many in the neighbourhood have
realized this love for eating has com-
mercial potential. So, WhatsApp groups
of home chefs flourish, charging what-
ever they think is right and fair. Nothing
is exorbitant. For ₹100, you can get six of
the best shammi kebabs—no one could
tell they were chicken—or five chicken
samosas from Fathima Riyaz, the lady
behind “Lady and Ladle”. The advice is
free. “You must dip the kebabs in egg
and shallow-fry them,” she told me,
cheerfully accepting that I would likely
bake them. Her special is a Bhatkali biry-
ani, from her home town in Bhatkal
along the sunny coast of northern Kar-
nataka. For this column, she has shared
a Bhatkali dish I had never heard of
before: a prawn-rice bake.
A little further away is Lisa Govias,
proprietor of home business Pepper
Fathima Riyaz’s ‘shewsa poli’ (prawn-rice cake).
That, from whom I buy Thai chicken
meatballs, tomato kasundi and beef cut-
lets (there’s much more—from pork
pickle to chicken liver pate to East
Indian pork sorpotel). She “Dunzos”—in
Bengaluru, the Dunzo pick-up-and-de-
livery service is now a verb—my require-
ments and I do a bank transfer, even if it
is for ₹400. Sometimes, I forget, and
Lisa will gently remind me, laughing off
my profuse apologies.
The other Lisa—her daughter and
ours grew up together—always has us
over for the Fernandes family Christmas
party. Apart from the spectacular,
smoky pork roast laid down by her sister
Susie, the other attraction is that the
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAMAR HALARNKAR
party is accompanied by ceaseless sing-
ing. Everyone sings in the Fernandes
family and close harmonies of the sis-
ters—there are two more of them—are
things of beauty and joy. They clearly
get some of their talent from their aunt,
a nun in a local convent.
So, life goes on under the rain trees of
Richards Town. More traffic is routed
through the once-quiet neighbourhood,
once so quiet that cricket was played on
the streets. More homes go down every
month, to be replaced by ugly apart-
ment buildings that violate every
municipal law on setbacks and space.
Every time this happens, a tree or two is
lost, and something dies within us.
varieties of baked snacks and cakes; and hours. Add the coconut to the rice mix-
my roast chicken. Oh yes, beef and pork ture and grind. Remove shells from the
are sold together, and the thought of prawns, devein and wash. Add juice of 1
anyone objecting—I need to say this lime and set aside.
given the increasing fractiousness of our Heat the oil in a non-stick wok. Add
nation—does not enter anyone’s mind. cardamom, peppercorns, bay leaf and
May it ever be so. cloves. Sauté for a minute. Add sliced
onions and cook till soft or it starts to
FATHIMA RIYAZ’S SHEWSA POLI brown. Add ginger-garlic paste and
(PRAWN-RICE CAKE) sauté well. Add diced tomato, green
chillies and cook till it softens. Add pow-
Ingredients dered spices and sauté for 2 minutes.
Add the prawns and cook till done. Take
For the coconut mix care not to overcook.
1 cup boiled rice Let the masala cool. Then mix in the
K cup dosa rice coconut-rice. Check salt. Pour batter
K a coconut, grated into a greased baking cupcake tray. Pre-
K kg prawns heat oven for 5 minutes. Bake for about
40 minutes, grilling for the last 3 min-
For the prawn masala utes if you want the top crisp.
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 onions Our Daily Bread is a column on easy,
1 large tomato inventive cooking. Samar Halarnkar is
6-7 green chillies, finely chopped the author of The Married Man’s Guide
1 cardamom To Creative Cooking—And Other Dubi-
7-8 peppercorns ous Adventures.
2 cloves
1 bay leaf @samar11
 Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney

STYLE SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI 09

A DESIGNER WHO MAKES

SCULPTURES THAT MOVE
Designer Amit
PRADEEP GAUR/MINT

Aggarwal envisions a
futuristic world in
which industrial waste
can be recycled for
couture in a more
thoughtful way Sketches of
sculpted dresses
Avantika Bhuyan from the ‘Axil’
collection
avantika.bhuyan@htlive.com
featuring
recycled

I
t’s on a surprisingly warm after- polymers and
noon that we visit Amit Aggar- sequin tubes.
wal’s studio in Delhi’s Lado Sarai. COURTESY AMIT
The city is enjoying the last ves- AGGARWAL
tiges of winter, executives from
design studios located in the neighbour-
hood are sunning themselves, enjoying a
cup of tea. Aggarwal’s studio, however, is
engulfed in hectic activity—fabrics are
being tailored, embellishments are being
crafted for the last-minute finishing
touches. In one of the adjoining rooms,
Aggarwal and his assistants are busy with
fitting sessions for his grand finale at the
Lakmé Fashion Week Summer/Resort
2020 edition on 16 February.
The designer is planning to showcase a
new collection, titled Axil, with references
to futuristic bio-mimicry. “As a brand, we
have always tried to project the future and
envision the way fashion is likely to move
forward,” says Aggarwal, as we settle down
for a chat in his refurbished office. He
maintains that his language is the same as
when he started his journey as a designer.
“Only, what was futuristic back then has
now become the present,” he adds.
Axil is in sync with the overarching
theme this season—#BetterIn3D—and
gets its name from the angle between the
flower and the stalk that it grows from.
Aggarwal carries forth his engagement
with themes of coexistence between the
world of flora and fauna with bionic and
human life. “We have visualized a world in
the distant future where every kind of
form that has managed to survive comes Amit Aggarwal in the midst of fitting
together to create a cohesive whole,” he sessions at his Lado Sarai studio; seen here
says. This theme was also reflected in his is a skater dress from the ‘Axil’ collection.
previous collections such as the Crystalis
at the India Couture Week in 2018. For it,
he had created garments inspired by two really exciting is the way he fuses new-age ated a sculptural Artificial Intelligence-in- soft pink dress and says, “On the ramp,
natural phenomena—the formation of technology with traditional craft.” spired sari-gown in collaboration with when light will fall on the dress, it will look
crystals and the metallic chrysalis, from Over the past couple of years, sculptural IBM Watson’s cognitive technology. He like sunlight bouncing off a wave.”
which the butterfly emerges. may be able to mould a blouse from a dresses have emerged as a big trend on too engages with ideas of sustainability, Aggarwal believes that while weddings
Aggarwal’s eponymous label is known dump of plastic lying around the house to international runways. There were several both through materials and processes—in continue to lead the consumption of cou-
for creating sculptural garments and go with a sari. “Everything around us can instances at the Paris Fashion Week’s 2018, for example, he created Melt, a ture in India, the younger generation
working with recycled polymers and be utilized in a more elegant and thought- Spring/Summer 2020 shows. The Guard- 90-95% zero-waste collection. wants to invest in pieces that have a lifes-
industrial waste. For instance, his team ful way,” he adds. ian’s Observer, in an article in October, While Aggarwal’s garments are sculp- pan beyond just the wedding. “Within the
works closely with factories that regularly While Aggarwal has always used recy- made particular mention of the collection tural, there is a certain fluidity to his wedding itself, there are multiple occa-
cut sequins and end up with a significant cled polymer as strips, his latest collection by Loewe, the Spanish luxury fashion designs. “Water has been one of my big- sions to wear something more eclectic and
amount of waste. The idea is to use materi- uses them as full-moulded forms. “They house. “Playing with sculpture, knitted gest inspirations. It takes the form of modern. I think this collection addresses
als that would end up in a landfill or a become almost like second skin. I cast a lot shrugs formed capes and billowing pon- whichever container you put it in. It can that,” says Aggarwal. So he has teamed up
dump. “We turn these into embellish- of plastic on human forms for the collec- cho coats came with extravagant sleeves. travel between vapour, ice and steam and lehnga flounces with structured tops,
ments and they become a part of a product tion,” he says. The delicate touches were in transparent still be fluid. I think that quality of being which can be paired with something dif-
for life,” he says. Referring to Aggarwal’s futuristic Chantilly and marguerite lace, some fused Aggarwal believes that while amorphous and malleable brings me back ferent for another occasion. Then there
For Axil, Aggarwal has gone a step fur- design vocabulary, author and fashion with matte cotton or Japanese satin, deco- to water time and again,” he says. are skater dresses that could take one from
ther and used recycled sequin tubes too. “I commentator Sujata Assomull wrote in a rated with delicate overlays of fringe,
weddings continue to lead Aggarwal translates this quality in his cocktail nights to after-cocktail parties
imagine a future when a lot of material 2018 piece for the Khaleej Times: “There is pearls and wooden beading,” it noted. the consumption of couture garments with the use of fabrics such as with ease. “We have draped saris, which
which emerges from industrial advance- a term in international fashion called In India, the other designer who does in India, the younger liquid organza. In Axil, he has also used come with a detachable palla, and could
ment could be used in creating garments, ‘prêt-à-couture’, which involves the fus- sculptural garments really well is Gaurav generation wants to invest in water-finished metallic chiffons, which be worn as a skirt or a dress. These aspects
which you wouldn’t just use once and ing of ready-to-wear (prêt-à-porter) ease Gupta, whose asymmetrical dresses and have a three-dimensional quality. The fab- are important as they give the wearer a
throw,” he says. Aggarwal looks ahead, with the beauty of couture—and that is lehnga hybrids are inspired by origami pieces that have a lifespan ric reflects light every time it moves, lend- chance to invest in something more versa-
some 200-300 years hence, when you what Amit does. But what makes his work folds and magical forests. In 2017, he cre- beyond just the wedding ing it fluidity. In his office, he points to a tile,” he concludes.

3 labels that let you twin with your loved ones

DANDELION: Samyukta Nair’s Dandelion has been creating hand-
The twinning trend made sleepwear in quirky prints, all from pure cotton, since 2014. Its
latest collection—The Lunatic, The Lover And The Poet—a collaboration
might be driven by with Kolkata-based designer Bobo Calcutta, is inspired by William
social media, but it can Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She says: “Fashion’s idea
of self-expression reflects in things even as intimate as sleepwear, and
help you pair up with it can be shared between couples and in larger families with children.”
partners and family
Shubham Ladha
shubham.l@livemint.com

F
or centuries, we have seen twins
and sisters dress identically. In
the early 1900s, the trend for
mothers and daughters to dress alike
had become popular. And now, Insta-
gram is full of images of families dress-
ing the same way. While it can be said
that the hunger for likes on social
media fuels a massive part of this
image creation, it can’t be ignored
that dressing alike also comes from a
place of affection. While international
designers such as Stella McCartney
and Gucci and retailers such as H&M EKA: Apart from wispy, anti-fit clothes for adults, Eka’s Rina Singh PAYAL SINGHAL: The designer has expanded her bohemian aes-
and Target have been catering to the also makes an Eka Baby line. She says, “It’s a sustainable line that, apart thetic to her children’s-wear line. She says, “The twinning trend is
twinning trend, Indian designers are from using new fabric, also uses scrap material from fabrics used for winning because of the memorable bonding and shared branding
also chipping in. It might dilute fash- making the main line.” She executes it in the same textiles, prints and experience that families enjoy, apart from being just adorable.” Sing-
ion’s idea of individuality, but it can colours as the line for grown-ups. “It’s always interesting to see how hal uses comfortable, smooth fabrics and minimal embellishments
also, like some fashion, just be fun. passionately parents tell me about what they would like for their chil- and beadwork. “It’s surprising to see that children like following in
dren. It’s a great way to cultivate taste from an early age.” their parents’ footsteps when it comes to style,” she adds.

10 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
CHENNAI
HOW TO BE A GOO
The Good Samaritans
of No.4, Fane Road
When the Kapur family was
forced to leave Lahore
overnight in the wake of
Partition, the Kasuri family
helped them set up their
lives in Delhi
Aanchal Malhotra
T
he trial for the Lahore Conspiracy
Case began on 10 July 1929 in Bor-
stal Jail, Lahore, where Bhagat
Singh and 27 others were charged
with murder and waging war against
King George V. The average age of the revolution-
aries was 22. Their case was presided over by judge
Rai Sahib Pandit Sri Kishen, and the accused were
defended by a body of seven prominent Indian law-
yers, one of whom, Amolak Ram Kapur, would out-
live the 1947 Partition to tell a story of cross-border
friendship and humanity.
When I meet Kapur’s daughter, Raj Suneja, in
Delhi, she recalls the Lahore of undivided India. “4,
Fane Road was our address, close to the Punjab
high court where my father practised.” Fane Road,
prominent due to the many lawyers who inhabited
it, was named after General Sir Henry Fane, once
commander-in-chief of the Indian Army. She says
the kothis on the street were few but large, and tries
to recall the owners from memory, “Bakshi Tek
Chand, Bishan Narayan, Grover sahib, the Suris,
the Sonis….” Unable to remember any more names,
she says, “It was quite a close-knit community,
where families respected one another, regardless
of religion.” Fane Road was also home to the small
legal chamber of none other than the late author
Khushwant Singh.
When I ask her whether she still thinks about
Fane Road, Suneja smiles and says in Punjabi, “Iss
umar pe toh kayi cheezein bhool jaati hai, lekin bach-
pan da Lahore kadi nahi bhoolta, o’ shehr di baat hi
kuch aur si (Age makes the past hazy, but memories
of the Lahore of my childhood never leave me. There
‘Yes, we are all Park Circus now’
The organic nature of the
Park Circus protest is ripe
with lessons for the
citizens of Kolkata, which
has long had a reputation
for being neighbourly
Sohini Chattopadhyay
A
t about 8am, when Debu da, as he is known
to the Park Circus protesters, reaches his
Bhowanipore home from the Park Circus
ground, he calls on a couple of neighbours before
going home to shower and shave. He tries to speak
with two different families every day. In every
household, he makes the same request: Have you
gone to the Park Circus Maidan protest? Will you
go once this week please? Bring the children along
too if possible?
He had felt a real twinge of envy in the first days
of the sit-in protest at Park Circus. How did it all
come together in a snap, like the perfect surprise
party? Somehow, he couldn’t see this happening in
his own neighbourhood. Debu da had gone to the
ground on the evening of 7 January itself, the day
it began, after reading a Facebook post.
There were only 60-odd women under the small
pagoda-like structure, and as the cool Kolkata night
set in, the number dwindled to about half. Debu da
slept on the ground at a distance from the women,
where the husbands and sons of the women were.
But he was not Muslim and not from the Park Cir-
cus neighbourhood, so he thought it wiser to sleep
at a little distance from them as well. When he woke
the next morning, he found a sheet covering him.
“I had only seen this in films before. I hadn’t spo-
ken with anyone, yet these people were looking out
for me,” says Debu da. “The next day, I got someone
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney
From sending over boxes of belongings to old friends across borders after
initiatives that are helping bridge the gap between communities, it is acts of kin
(above) The Kapur family, pre-Partition. Raj Suneja is seated in the middle in the front row; and (right) Raj
Suneja holding a photograph of her father, Amolak Ram Kapur.
was something truly special about the city).” Fondly,
she continues to speak about the public park on
Fane Road, the akhara (wrestling area), their beau-
tifully manicured garden, the two cars, cows and
tanga (a horse-drawn carriage). She notes with
pride that theirs was the first home on the street to
get a Godrej refrigerator.
But the highlight of No.4, Fane Road was
undoubtedly Amolak Ram Kapur’s grand library,
with hundreds of books collected over the years.
Suneja opens her arms as wide as they go, to show
me the vastness of the book collection. And then
she reveals that the family had to leave it all behind
when they migrated to Delhi during the summer of
1947, hoping the move would be merely tempo-
to introduce me to the main organizer, Asmat apa.
I have never eaten alone after that. The whole
neighbourhood has come together for the protest-
ers. That first week, there were no portable toilets
(provided by the municipality) and the mosque
behind did not allow women to go in (at first). Peo-
ple living around Maidan opened up their homes
readily for the women to use the bathroom, or even
to rest. It made me emotional, I can’t see my neigh-
bourhood doing this.”
Asmat apa, who lives in the Ripon Street area,
began the sit-in protest—inspired by Delhi’s Shah-
een Bagh—with her husband, three children and
the women she managed to rally around. For some
years now, her children have been distributing the
food she cooks on Fridays among the poor, and she
has a certain moral capital. A kidney transplant
recipient, she will greet you by apologizing for sit-
ting on a chair while everyone else is on the ground,
then send a volunteer with lemon tea and cake in
your direction. “Vitamin C, beta. It will protect you
from cold in the ground,” she tells me. Influenced
by her, perhaps, protesters pass around strips of
paracetamol and headache pills like chocolate or
chewing gum, to protect from the dust and an unu-
sually cool Kolkata February. It’s easy to spot her:
When you see a knot of people bending forward,
that’s her they are asking for instructions or sug-
gestions. Early afternoon, late evening, night, she
is always there. It is unclear when she goes home
and when she returns. But you can tell that she has
gone home by the colour of her anti-infection
mask. Every day, she wears a mask that matches the
colour of her outfit. “We have to look good for your
cameras,” she says.
The protest completed a month on 7 February.
While other sit-in protests have bloomed at other
sites, the number of women who stay through the
night at Park Circus has swelled to over a hundred.
Friday to Sunday, the place looks like a fairground
packed with people, national flags and the sound of
old, familiar songs of land and love (this was, in fact,
a fairground until about 20 years ago, when it
housed the circus companies that would arrive in
COURTESY THE KAPUR FAMILY
rary—for a week or two, at the most. They had fled
in haste, acting in response to rumours of ghastly
violence against women in Lahore, carrying mini-
mum belongings and clothing.
During the early days in Delhi, they relied on the
goodness of friends and other refugees. Partition
had not yet happened, but Kapur’s eldest son, K.K.
Kapur, a well-known film distributor, had an office
space in Lahore and proposed to exchange it for a
Muslim friend’s property in Delhi. And so it came
to be that the family occupied 9, Rajpur Road, Civil
Lines, in Delhi. Suneja remembers walking along
Connaught Place, seeing many of her father’s old
friends and acquaintances selling their wares on
the roadside. At home, food was sparse and rela-
the city in winter. Hence the name Park Circus).
The Maidan sits in a crook of the Seven-Point
Crossing, an intersection of seven roads, the busiest
traffic point in the city. Unlike Shaheen Bagh, it
does not sit in the catchment area of a major Cen-
tral university like Jamia Millia Islamia with a
1,000-acre campus, whose infrastructure supports
the protest. There is only the 10-storeyed campus
of the state government’s Aliah University nearby.
There are almost no activists, researchers, journal-
ists here, unlike Delhi, which is the nodal point of
universities, NGOs, think tanks and media offices
in the country, and few visiting celebrities.
Plain tarpaulin sheets cover the protest site, not
a photogenic shamiana. You may not get the cele-
brated T.M. Krishna performing but you do have
the silver-haired archivist and singer Moushumi
Bhowmik. It can feel like a second-hand edition of
Shaheen Bagh, but to its credit, Park Circus is its
own thing, wholly managed by the Muslim women
of the neighbourhood.
THE ‘PAARA’ STORY
Kolkata has a reputation for being neighbourly.
The word paara (neighbourhood) is often used in
conjunction with Kolkata, a reference to the city’s
culture of so-called amiability and affection—
hence College Street is often called boi-paara (book
neighbourhood), central Kolkata, or the business
district, is the office paara, the refugee colonies are
Very few give out their last
names. ‘Just write Imran Park
Circus,’ says a young man
who works in
the retail space
LOVE THY N
tives from across the border flocked into the small
property, making it feel no less than a refugee
camp. But whatever the circumstances, their door When Partition was
would always remain open to all. With the sudden
influx of family, friends and other refugees, Kapur, declared...the Kasuris began to
once a member of the Lahore bar and owner of a pack the Kapur family’s
thriving, prosperous pratice, was now grateful for belongings. Boxes upon boxes
the additional financial support from his eldest son.
As the date for Partition approached, the family
were fitted in a truck and sent
would listen to bulletins on the radio and read the across the new border
called refugee paara, some of us call Kalighat the
chief minister’s paara. You see what that does—to
call the business district an office paara instantly
gives it a friendlier feel, doesn’t it?
Writer Amit Chaudhuri, among others, has
pointed to the way the architecture of old Kolkata
houses alludes to the centrality of the paara in
social life. Many of these houses have a feature
known as the rowak—a slender groove on the
ground-floor façade of a house, enough to seat
three-four slim bums and gather for a conversation.
This gave rise to the term rowaker adda—literally,
conversations on the rowak—leisurely all-male
conversations accessorized by tea and cigarettes,
a practice now only glimpsed in old films and pho-
tographs. The heart of the paara was the “club”, a
room with a carrom board or a table to play cards
on. The club would collect donations to organize
the annual Durga Puja, the biggest social event on
the Bengali calendar, and help with medical and
other neighbourhood emergencies. Typically, it
would be patronized by the political party in power.
With corporate funding becoming available over
the past decade, event management firms have
taken over from the paara club. Arguably, this is a
mark of the paara’s passing. The sense of commu-
nity has, in fact, withered everywhere, including
Kolkata, for broadly the same reason(s)—capitalism
works systematically towards private and individ-
ual rights. But the paara in Kolkata has retained an
influential afterlife as a cultural artefact: it is a The protesters at Park Circus Maidan are primarily wom
nicely handy term for state tourism and boutique
hotels and stores to capitalize on. would refuse to deliver in certain “Muslim areas”.
What remains unsaid, outside academia, is that A civil society initiative called Know Your Neigh-
the city is sharply segregated in spatial terms. Soci- bour was started in 2016 to address Kolkata’s spa-
ologist Anasua Chatterjee offers the most recent tial-communal segregation. “We believe in the
discussion of the continually hardening bounda- need for peaceful coexistence, not in the sense of
ries between Hindu and Muslim Kolkata. Neigh- living together separately but through actual inter-
bourhoods are Hindu, or mixed, meaning Muslim actions and meaningful relationships,” says their
and Christian and a smattering of others. Hindus introduction note. They organize walks in Muslim
and Muslims have almost never lived next to one neighbourhoods as well as discussions, spreading
another, except among the embarrassingly wealthy the word through social media. The multidisciplin-
or the savagely poor. Though this has changed ary artist Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee has started site-
recently, it was well-known that pizza companies specific theatre performances in neighbourhoods,

NEIGHBOUR
OD NEIGHBOUR
r Partition to Kolkata’s Know Your Neighbour project and various Bengaluru
ndness and attempts to understand the ‘other’ that make us good neighbours
COURTESY AANCHAL MALHOHTRA
newspaper, fearing with every passing day that
their home and life in Lahore would soon become
a thing of the past. As the summer of 1947 came to
a close, Kapur reached out to an old friend with a
sincere request. It is the mention of this very com-
munication that first caught my interest.
In his memoir, Neither A Hawk Nor A Dove,
Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, a Pakistani politician,
also alludes to 4, Fane Road, Lahore, writing from
the perspective of his family. In the summer of
men, who are often joined by students. ALAMY
using the homes of friends and acquaintances.
Debu da tells me his appetite for neighbourliness
was whetted by his experience of collective action
as part of the United Guardians Forum, an associa-
tion of parents formed to lobby against incidents of
sexual harassment in schools as well as steep fee
hikes. Arguably, this is the most diverse and active
of the groups—the high-handedness of private
schools unites parents of every religion. Members
of the forum have been actively discussing the Citi-
zenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) on their What-
sApp group, and visiting the Park Circus protests.
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney
1947, the Kasuris were vacationing in Murree, an
idyllic hill station. Young Khurshid recalls eagerly
waiting for the pastrywala when his father told the
family they had to pack up and return to Lahore
immediately. Khurshid, having just turned 6,
writes about being very angry at one “Amolak Ram
Kapur, whoever he may be” for having cut short his
summer vacation. Later, he found out that Kapur
was not only a noted Hindu criminal lawyer and his
father’s close friend, but had also rung up to ask
whether the Kasuris could occupy his now aban-
doned house on Fane Road, as he feared looters and
thieves might enter the grand premises.
When Partition was declared, Kapur realized
that his temporary absence would certainly be per-
manent, and the Kasuris began to pack the Kapur
family’s belongings. Boxes upon boxes were fitted
in a truck and sent across the new border to an old
friend. With tears in her eyes, Suneja recalls the
contents of the boxes, “Not only had they sent
across my father’s vast legal library and his com-
plete and enviable collection of the works of Shake-
speare, but the boxes even included all of our warm
clothes.” Winter was arriving, and because they
had left in haste and had no means to buy new win-
ter clothes, the Kasuris made sure they would not
freeze. It was a gesture of absolute kindness and
consideration.
“From the boxes, yet another treasure emerged,”
Suneja opens an old dusty file and offers it to me. A
photocopy of old pages written in longhand, begin-
ning from Sunday, 13 September 1914. This was
Amolak Ram Kapur’s personal journal that he had
begun as a 14-year-old boy in 1914. Carefully, it too
had been packed and sent across to its rightful
owner. As I perused the pages of history, Suneja
smiled as the inheritor of her father’s legacy.
“I think the Partition broke him—physically, emo-
tionally, even professionally. It took a few months
before the East Punjab high court was established in
Shimla, and we could return to a life of normalcy.
Eventually, my father was appointed president of
the Bar Association of the Punjab and Haryana high
court. But even in those first few years of beginning
again, we tried to hold no malice for all that hap-
pened. Lahore had now long been left behind. But
if we lost our homes, then so did people on the other
side; and if we were witness to communal violence,
then so were they. The pain of Partition is shared
amongst the people of India and Pakistan, and
though we constantly remember the madness and
bloodshed, we often forget or ignore the courageous
acts of kindness and friendship that also occurred.
“My father was so touched upon receiving the
boxes of our belongings that he wrote a letter of
gratitude to his friend, Mian Mahmud Ali Kasuri,”
she says. In his memoir, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri
recalls his father reading the letter out loud to the
family. “Aap kay liyee dil se dua nikaltee hai, I pray
for you from the bottom of my heart,” read the con-
tents of the note. It was truly a friendship that sur-
vived the divide and has sustained for generations.
Aanchal Malhotra is an oral historian and author
of Remnants Of A Separation: A History Of The
Partition Through Material Memory.
“In my daughter’s school, which is a Bohri Muslim
school, the Bohri kids sit in AC classrooms while all
other kids sit in non-AC rooms,” says Mohammed
Asadullah, a member of the forum. “The fight
against the CAA and NRC is a reminder that our
Constitution promises us equality. We have to fight
for it everywhere, no, because the impulse for ine-
quality is also everywhere.”
WHAT’S IN A NAME
I, too, am learning neighbourliness here. Everyone
in Park Circus helps me—not only do they speak
readily, they also effect introductions and help me
locate people. “Do you have enough for your
story?” a number of people ask. It looks and sounds
like chaos at the Maidan, with the traffic of seven
roads and loudspeakers in use, yet all interviews
take place at the set times, there are no last-minute
cancellations.
They are also good neighbours for the other pro-
tests—the Park Circus regulars are in demand at the
other sit-in sites in and around Kolkata, in Khidder-
pore, College Square and Metiaburuz. They go
there in shifts. Amid all this, they are busy with
chores too, organizing tarpaulin scaffolding, drink-
ing water, fixing the sound system, keeping an eye
on the portable loos.
There is only one thing: Very few give out their
last names. “Just write Imran Park Circus,” says a
young man who works in the retail space, a protest
regular who introduced me to many of the other
organizers.
“Tell me your full name,” I say.
“I am Imran. That is enough. I won’t tell you my
full name, and I won’t show you any papers,” he
says, but not unkindly.
That sets the tone. Debu da and other regulars
don’t give their full names either, nor details of
where they work. I notice that most of the contacts
I am sent on the phone have apa (sister), dada (elder
brother) and bhai in place of surnames. Perhaps
this is in the spirit of these protests: We are all citi-
zens, we are all Indians, we are all neighbours. Why
do you need more? One evening, I tried it myself.
When someone asked for my number, I said: “Save
it as Sohini Park Circus.”
“Yes, we are all Park Circus now,” he said, and
took down my number.
Sohini Chattopadhyay is a Kolkata-based journalist.
Locked into your own experience, it’s probably easier to blame the outsider for the city’s infrastructure issues and changing identity.
Amits of Bengaluru
Even as a photo project
tries to address the
hostility associated with
the north Indian male,
Lounge looks at initiatives
that help see Bengaluru
as a city of migrants
Shrabonti Bagchi
shrabonti.b@livemint.com
H
orrormangala”, “Forumangala”, “Kor-
mangle”—these are just a few of the epi-
thets used to refer to a Bengaluru neigh-
bourhood that’s also celebrated as the startup hub
of India: Koramangala. The rude names come
from its notorious traffic snarls and shoddy infra-
structure and, in the case of “Forumangala”, its
soaring commercial value—Forum is an old
neighbourhood shopping mall that still acts as a
landmark for people brave enough to venture
there. And even though newer localities spread-
ing ever-outward from the city also draw gasps of
horror from old-timers—the distance! The traf-
fic!—Koramangala continues to be a convenient
stand-in for many of the tensions that exist in this
city of close to 13 million people. The idea of Ban-
galore as it was till the IT boom in the 1990s can
only be described in clichés such as “leafy ave-
nues”, “balmy weather”, “AC city”. But the city as
it is today—a loud, chaotic urban mess—can still
sometimes take your breath away as you round a
corner and find yourself at a sun-dappled lake.
Unfortunately, there are no lakes in Koraman-
gala any more. There was one, and it was swal-
lowed when the neighbourhood was expanding
to make way for a residential layout. “Someone
like me...is very likely to use Koramangala as an
example for all that is wrong with the city’s recent
accelerated growth,” writes quizzer Thejaswi
Udupa in his column in the Deccan Herald on
Bengaluru neighbourhoods. Having grown up in
the city, Udupa, who is in his 30s, has seen it
change at a hectic pace and in a way that’s proba-
bly unique to Bengaluru.
The scale and rate of growth—the population
has grown by nearly nine million since 1991—has
been bewildering for many of the city’s older resi-
dents who saw their beloved parks and lakes and
gardens being turned into malls and shiny office
buildings. Unlike the perhaps more pragmatic
residents of Delhi or Mumbai, Bengalureans con-
tinue to be sentimental about these markers—
older residents recall a time when it was possible
to give directions by using trees as landmarks:
take right at the gulmohar, go straight till you find
the flowering pink...
With an estimated 50% of the population
described as “migrants” in the last census of 2011,
the sense of loss has occasionally turned into a
sense of anger towards the outsider—the peren-
nial other. Last year, an Uber driver sent me a text
by mistake—it was meant for his previous passen-
ger with whom he had had some altercation over
payment—saying “get out north Indian”.
Overt hostility is usually not the “Bangalore
way” but simmering resentments over how their
once-quiet neighbourhood has changed, how
SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
their language seems to be disappearing, some-
times do bubble over. And locked into your own
experience, it’s probably easier to blame the out-
sider than the corrupt politicians of your city who
are ultimately responsible for its degradation.
The Memory Maps project by urban historian
and writer Aliyeh Rizvi, founder of Native Place,
which works to create awareness of Bengaluru’s
local history and culture through curated experi-
ences, walks and travel writing, is an attempt to
build an understanding of what it means to have
memories of a place and to belong to it. “Some of
the ideas we ask participants to unpack are ‘who
is a neighbour?’, ‘what makes a community?’. And
we ask them to record if theirs is a story of loss, or
of change,” says Rizvi. “We are deeply distressed
by the sense of animosity, isolation and anonym-
ity that have emerged between communities in
the city, and this project is an attempt to bridge
those gaps.”
The ongoing project is Rizvi and artist Arzu
Mistry’s labour of love, and it sprang from the idea
that everyone builds memories of places they live
in, whether they have belonged for 30 years or
three days. “It started with us asking the ques-
tion—does city identity influence individual iden-
tity? How does place impact identity? We did
workshops at Cubbon Park and Rangoli Metro Art
Centre, and received some marvellous responses.
And we came to an understanding that memories
and experiences are not just ‘old’ ones—someone
who arrived in the neighbourhood a week ago has
a week’s worth of memories,” says Rizvi.
Rizvi and Mistry undertake “memory map-
ping” walks—they have covered areas such as
Malleswaram, JP Nagar and Richmond Town and
are planning to venture into Sadashivnagar and
Vyalikaval in north Bengaluru next. During these
walks, a group of 30 residents strolls around the
neighbourhood, exchanging memories of various
spots and notes on their lives in the area. At the
end of the walk, they go to a quiet place and
“draw” these memories on a map. The duo is plan-
ning to cover 10 neighbourhoods by the end of the
year and eventually come out with a book docu-
menting the experience.
Conservation architect Krupa Rajangam has
spent 10 years studying Bengaluru neighbour-
hoods. During the course of her project (con-
ducted between 2010-20), Neighbourhood Dia-
ries, done in collaboration with Jaaga, a creative
community space, Rajangam studied several fast-
‘
We are deeply distressed by
the sense of animosity...that
(has) emerged between
communities in the city, and
this project is an attempt to
bridge those gaps.
ALIYEH RIZVI
Founder, Native Place
CHENNAI 11
AP
evolving neighbourhoods like Whitefield and
Malleswaram which had a rich history—White-
field as the Anglo-Indian bastion and Malleswa-
ram as a traditional upper-caste hub. It took the
form of oral history interviews, videos, talks and
articles, and though most people spoke of loss
and longing—for heritage and a certain way of
life—Rajangam has come around to the view that
people like her need to take “their blinkers off and
see who is speaking for whom”.
“I have learnt not to see it as destruction of heri-
tage or culture but to understand that what peo-
ple value is a reflection of what they seek or what
they like to be identified with. I might see some-
thing as heritage but somebody else might
not...what is destruction to me might be the
means to a better life for someone else,” she says.
While acknowledging the many tensions
within Bengaluru—not just between the “old” and
the “new” but those arising from differences in
language, place of origin and income levels
—Rajangam feels there are also many aspects that
bind its residents. “At the level of individual
neighbourhoods, people share similar concerns
over the challenges of day-to-day life, irrespective
of the tensions. The tensions also come into place
over attempts to ascribe a singular identity to the
city. The diversity of its neighbourhoods attests
to the fact that the city was never singular—that’s
what has made it attractive to many people.”
For writer-editor and media entrepreneur
Gaurav Jain, who has recently embarked on a
photography project under a grant from India
Foundation for the Arts Project 560, the sense of
isolation and hostility has come to be embodied
in the shadowy figure of the north Indian male
who has migrated to the city and supposedly
remains clueless about it and its culture.
Titled “How da, Amit”, the year-long project
involves Jain photographing and interviewing
north Indian men living in Bengaluru whose first
names are Amit. Why “Amit”? That is a reference
to a meme of vague origin that sprang up on blogs
and social media sometime in the past decade as
a shorthand for a “brash north Indian male” in
Bengaluru/Chennai. “Amits”—they could be a
co-worker, a neighbour, a carpool partner—are
often unpopular in Bengaluru, and their otheriza-
tion is a fascinating subject of study that can tell us
a lot about who is seen as belonging to the city and
who isn’t (and why).
Through his photo project, Jain seeks to
humanize the random Amits of Bengaluru and
“explore the subjects’ sense (or lack) of inhabiting
this idea of one monolithic, homogeneous north
Indian identity in a fast-changing Bangalore”.
Jain also plans to maintain an Instagram account
for Amits in Bengaluru to publish an image of
their favourite activity or space in the city. “The
project is not about ‘victims’ or about feeling
sorry for Amits. It’s really about turning the ster-
eotype of random Amits upside down by explor-
ing and presenting the Amitness of Bengaluru
instead. It’s important to explore what makes
Bengaluru this great city of and for immigrants.
There is friction, but there is also what works. I
think what art can do is present the larger picture
of what makes the city so open and welcoming for
the so-called aggressive and obnoxious ‘Amits’,
many of whom are thoughtfully making a nest
here, building this city, calling it their home. The
cool thing about Amits, about north Indians, here
is that we are also assimilating our energy into
Bengaluru,” says Jain.

12 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
CHENNAI
Neighbourly love in Bombay film
From ‘Mili’ to ‘Katha’
to ‘Nukkad’, Bombay
cinema has long been
fascinated by the
people next door
Aseem Chhabra
T
owards the beginning of
Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s
1975 film Mili, Shobha
Khote, playing a nosy
neighbour of the Khannas
(Ashok Kumar and his daughter, played by
Jaya Bhaduri) living in a high-rise in Bom-
bay (now Mumbai), stops by every floor
asking women to come to her apartment
for an urgent meeting. The meeting has
been called to discuss a new apartment
owner, Shekhar (Amitabh Bachchan), a
man with a dark past, hence a “threat” to
the society’s otherwise friendly atmos-
phere.
In Mukherjee’s idyllic setting, the fic-
tional Sea-View Housing Society is a per-
fect world, where neighbours know each
other, drop by unannounced, and meet in
the stairwells and hallways. Children play
cricket and the exuberant Mili (Bhaduri)
holds dance classes for young girls on the
terrace. They genuinely care for each
other. There are no secrets, no surprises.
That is why Khote’s character is con-
cerned about the reclusive Shekhar mov-
ing into the building.
The 1970s and part of the 1980s were
The ‘ghoti’ versus ‘bangal’ rivalry in Bengali cinema
Romantic comedy in
1950s Bengali cinema
explored neighbourly
tensions between
Bengalis from two sides
of the divided state
Somak Ghoshal
somak.g@livemint.com
I
s it possible for the tragedy of Partition
to have a happy ending—where friends-
turned-foes become genial neighbours
again? Such a scenario might be hard to
realize in real life but the magic of cinema
could help us imagine, even embellish,
such a fantasy uninhibitedly.
In 1954, at a time when India was still
reeling from the aftermath of the division
of the subcontinent, a Bengali movie titled
Ora Thakey Odhare (They Live On The
Other Side), based on a story by the
acclaimed Bengali writer Premendra
Mitra, turned a familiar plot line of war-
ring neighbours into a successful roman-
tic comedy.
Starring Uttam Kumar and Suchitra
Sen, one of the best-loved on-screen lead
pairings in the history of Indian cinema,
the story is set in a middle-class neigh-
bourhood in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in the
1950s. Chanchal (Uttam Kumar) belongs
to a respectable family of ghotis (as Ben-
galis from West Bengal are colloquially
known), who live in a rented house,
belonging to a mildly avaricious, though
the high point of middle-of-the-road
Hindi cinema, with film-makers like Muk-
herjee, Basu Chatterjee and Sai Paranjpye
often exploring characters whose lives
were never complete without the love,
affection and even interference, to some
degree, of their neighbours. Everything
was shared with neighbours—tea, food,
family stories—and there were romantic
liaisons as well. In a key scene in Mili,
Bhaduri’s character explains to Shekhar
the importance of having neighbours who
care for you. “Jab main bimar hoti hoon to
sari building ko ekhatta kar leti hoon. Koi
tabayeet poochne na aaye to bimar padne ka
kya fayada hai? (Whenever I fall sick, I col-
lect all the residents of the building around
me. What is the point of falling sick if no one
comes to ask how I am feeling?)”
Mili has a leukaemia-like condition. In
Anand (1971), Mukherjee introduced
Indian filmgoers to a rare cancer no one
had till then discussed in Hindi films—
lymphosarcoma of the intestine. The
film’s terminally ill protagonist, Anand
Saigal (Rajesh Khanna), decides to visit
Bombay and spend the last months of his
life with a group of new friends.
It is a utopian world where people from
different parts of India form a support sys-
tem for Anand. A mini India, almost a
reflection of the Nehruvian belief of “unity
in diversity”. In fact, Mukherjee dedicates
Anand to the city of Bombay.
At one point Anand tells his oncologist
friend Bhaskar Banerjee, aka Babu Moshai
(Amitabh Bachchan), that he has decided
to stay in Bombay. “Even if Indiraji calls
me, I won’t go back to Delhi,” Anand says.
“The city of Bombay is amazing. Punjab,
Sindh, Gujarat, Maratha, Dravida, Utkal,
harmless, landlord (played by the comic
actor Tulsi Chakraborty). Across them
lives a family of bangals, a term used for
the Bengali migrants from East Pakistan
(which later became Bangladesh), of
which Promila (Suchitra Sen) is a member.
Under Sukumar Dasgupta’s deft direc-
tion, the plot unfolds crisply, with perfect
comic timing by such exceptional actors
as Bhanu Banerjee, Molina Devi and
Chhabi Biswas. The ground for conflict is
set early on. The ghotis and bangals may
come from the same geographical region
but their identities could not be more cul-
turally distinct. The culinary style in the
east, for instance, is spicier and features
recipes involving greens and fish that are
not as favoured in the west. Then there is
the ancient rivalry between the football
clubs East Bengal and Mohun Bagan—a
flashpoint that can make and break fami-
lies and friendships. The ghoti-versus-
bangal civil war for cultural supremacy is
as intense and long-standing as the enmity
between the Capulets and Montagues in
William Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet.
Ora Thakey Odhare invokes these well-
known tropes, still hotly debated in con-
temporary Bengali society. Being rela-
tively large families living in strained eco-
nomic circumstances, both sets of tenants
in the movie are in the habit of sharing
everyday resources. From the lone iron to
the one sewing machine to a ramshackle
radio, gadgets are circulated for daily
communal use. The young children of the
families are inseparable. Chanchal offers
free private tuitions to Promila. The patri-
archs help each other out when finances
are tight. And yet, the overall situation is
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Banga. Everyone is here. I have decided,
Babu Moshai. I will live and die in Bom-
bay.”
Anand is a Punjabi from Delhi. His ini-
tial contact in Bombay is a Maharashtrian
doctor, Prakash Kulkarni (Ramesh Deo),
and his wife Suman (Seema Deo). Through
them he meets the Bengali doctor Bhas-
kar. Prakash has a Catholic nurse in his
office, Mrs D’Sa (Lalita Pawar). And
because of his ability to connect with ran-
dom strangers, Anand even becomes
friends with a stage actor, Isa Bhai Surat-
wala (Johnny Walker).
Just as Mukherjee would further
explore in Mili, all of Anand’s supporting
characters drop by on a regular basis to
check especially on Anand but also Bhas-
kar. This was a time when local phone calls
could be expensive. So it was considered
Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen in a still from ‘Ora Thakey Odhare’.
The ‘ghoti’-versus-’bangal’ civil
war for cultural supremacy is
as intense...as the enmity
between the Capulets
and Montagues in William
Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo
And Juliet’
Middle-of-the-road Hindi
cinema often explored
characters whose lives were
never complete without the
love, affection and even
interference, to some degree,
of their neighbours
far from rosy.
The men of both families are quick to
lose their tempers over every perceived
slight. They are as prone to flaring up and
flinging the choicest insults at each other
as the women of their families are calm,
reasonable and compassionate towards
one another. Into this volatile maelstrom
of male egos arrives an elderly aunt from
a village in the east, played by Molina Devi.
Fortified with her simple trust in people,
innately affectionate nature and sense of
goodwill, she sets out to ease tensions
between the feuding families.
The Bengalis from the west are more
polished and sophisticated than the coun-
try bumpkins from the east—this is the
long and short of the hypothesis offered
(clockwise, from above) Stills from ‘Mili’, ‘Nukkad’ and ‘Katha’.
perfectly fine for neighbours and
friends—especially in films—to make
unannounced visits.
Such visits were more common in films
that were set in Bombay’s chawls. In Basu
Chatterjee’s Piya Ka Ghar (1972), Malti
Shankar (Jaya Bhaduri) has an arranged
marriage with Ram Sharma (Anil
Dhawan). Malti is from a village and her
family lives in a large, spacious house. But
Ram’s family lives in a chawl in Bombay,
although Malti is given to believe that he
resides in a five-storey mahal. The joint
family includes Ram’s parents, his two
brothers and sister-in-law. All day long,
Ram’s retired father Girdharilal (Agha)
has two friends over (Mukri and Keshto
Mukherjee) for card games. And Ram’s
brother and sister-in-law have their thea-
tre company actors visit to rehearse a
play.
It is considered normal, except Ram
and Malti have no privacy. The couple is
forced to sleep on the kitchen floor, where
a rat scurries around, while the family and
the guests who keep showing up are obliv-
ious to the newly-weds’ needs.
The ultimate chawl film is Sai Par-
anjpye’s Katha (1983), where life seems
even more neighbour-friendly and the
residents don’t seem to care much for
their own personal space. Neighbours
visit to borrow milk, sugar or just chat. The
new arrival in the chawl—Bashudev
(Farooq Shaikh), who is a friend of
Rajaram (Naseeruddin Shah)—takes full
advantage of this set-up and uses his
charm to get free meals. And he starts
romancing Sandhya (Deepti Naval), who
Rajaram is also interested in.
Meanwhile, most residents of the chawl
are satisfied living in their small apart-
ments. It is a life they thrive in. “Our son
keeps calling us to settle in Canada,” an
elderly couple tells Bashudev. “But once
you live in a chawl, you cannot leave it so
easily. It becomes a joint family.”
In 1984, director Saeed Akhtar Mirza
presented a very different life in a chawl in
his film Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho!—the
struggles of a retired man (played by
author Bhisham Sahni) with his landlord
and the court system. A few years later,
by the ghotis in the movie. The bangals, on
the other hand, having lost their original
homes and been forced to start anew in an
unfamiliar setting, are understandably
touchy about their self-respect. From
making saris to a rich literary repertoire,
their heritage is no less than anyone else’s.
However, their canny worldliness, along
with near-paranoid sensitivity to any
remark that could be construed as conde-
scending, results in hilarious scenes of
misunderstanding. A genial tea-time adda
between the men of the neighbouring
families suddenly erupts into a tempest,
where both parties claim to be humiliated,
aggrieved and threaten the other with the
direst revenge.
Ora Thakey Odhare is not unique in its
comedic treatment of neighbourly ten-
sions through the language of cinema. In
Sare Chuattar (Seventy-Four And A Half),
another uproarious comedy where Uttam
Kumar and Suchitra Sen made their debut
as the first couple of the Bengali silver
screen in 1953, community plays a key role
too.
In contrast to these laughter-filled sto-
ries stand the movies of Ritwik Ghatak,
like Subarnarekha (made in 1962 but not
released until the late 1960s) and Titas
Ekti Nodir Naam (A River Called Titas,
1973), where he kept returning to the
irrevocable sense of loss spawned by the
partition of Bengal.
If the tragedy of Ghatak’s vision lay in
his elegiac portrayal of the plight of indi-
viduals left without a country to call their
own, the mirth and optimism of movies
like Ora Thakey Odhare and Sare Chuattar
arose out of the unexpected solidarities
Saeed Akhtar, with his brother Aziz Mirza
and film-maker friend Kundan Shah,
directed a television series, Nukkad
(1986-87). Broadcast on Doordarshan,
Nukkad reflected the struggles and friend-
ships between an array of characters living
around a congested street. There is a
Hindu paanwallah who operates next to
a Muslim-owned chai shop. Everyone is
comfortable with each other.
The chawl films were on a decline
when, in 1992, Aziz Mirza directed Shah
Rukh Khan in one of the star’s early
films—Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman—and set
it in a rather sanitized basti, Azad Nagar, in
Bombay. Here too neighbours from differ-
ent religious backgrounds coexist. The
chai shop is owned by a Muslim while the
bakery is run by a Christian. And the entire
neighbourhood breaks into dances during
song sequences—Raju (Shah Rukh) sings
Loveria Hua when he falls in love with
Renu (Juhi Chawla). When Raju lands a
good job, the basti celebrates Diwali sing-
ing Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman. It is a Bolly-
woodized version of life in Katha.
At some stage, Hindi film-makers
almost stopped focusing on neighbours
and friends who would visit just to social-
ize. When friends met in the new Bombay
films, it was almost always prearranged—a
trip to Goa (Dil Chahta Hai, 2001, and Kai
Po Che, 2013) or on a cruise vacation (Zoya
Akhtar’s ensemble gathering in Dil Dha-
dakne Do, 2015).
In today’s India, people in high-rise
buildings live isolated lives. Their chil-
dren might play together but the parents
rarely socialize. And Hindi cinema also
began to reflect that reality.
Last year’s Gully Boy did show neigh-
bours curious about others living in a
slum, but it is a fact that space is so limited
in slums that one cannot help but notice
neighbours.
Sadly, however, the deeply connected
residents of Mili and Katha have stopped
appearing in films to shower neighbourly
love.
Aseem Chhabra is an entertainment
writer and the festival director of the New
York Indian Film Festival.
forged among communities meant to
regard each other as historical antago-
nists. In Sare Chuattar, for instance, the
story unfolds in a typical “mess bari”, a
quintessentially Calcuttan mode of com-
munal living, usually reserved for men
who moved from the suburbs and villages
to the city to pursue education or employ-
ment. Many Bengali movies from the
1950s and 1960s were set in such messes,
where men from different castes, educa-
tional backgrounds, social and economic
status were thrown, pell-mell, into a caul-
dron of collective coexistence.
If one character was conspicuous with
the markers of his Brahmin identity, his
roommate might well be an alcoholic
gambler. Almost invariably, there would
be a man speaking in a distinctly bangal
dialect (one of the many varieties of Ben-
gali spoken in Bangladesh)—Bhanu
Banerjee was routinely cast in such a
role—always ready with a wisecrack or
often turned into the butt of jokes. Then,
there would usually be an odd-job man, a
shrivelled creature lurking in the shadows
and passing around gossip like the mythi-
cal sage Narad muni, legendary creator of
rifts and disputes.
In the years following independence, as
the nation struggled to heal the scars of
Partition, Bengali cinema held up a world
of possibilities, where fighting neighbours
could learn to coexist harmoniously and
enact simple acts of kindness towards one
another. At a time when the trauma of
rupture and displacement was fresh in the
collective memory of millions of Bengalis,
hopefully these happy endings on screen
soothed some troubled souls.

WHEN LOVE BREAKS
BORDER BARRIERS Despite visa issues and diplomatic stand-offs, couples from India
and Pakistan continue to fight the odds to get married
Omkar Khandekar
omkar.k@livemint.com
H
e’s religious, she’s a real-
ist. He’s impulsive, she
likes to weigh her
options. He’s Indian,
she’s Pakistani. But Face-
book, they both agree, is “full of possibili-
ties”.
It’s a cold February evening and I am on
a video call with Amit Sharma from Gur-
daspur, Punjab, and his girlfriend, Suman
Rantilal, from Karachi, Pakistan. Amit and
Suman haven’t met. But last November,
Amit proposed to Suman. She said yes.
“I chanced upon her profile last Septem-
ber while checking out photos of Jana-
mashthami celebrations in Karachi,” says
Sharma, a sales manager at a rooftop sheet
manufacturer. “I wanted to know the cele-
brations in Pakistan better, so I sent her a
Salaam mubarak, smell the marigold
The day after Shivratri,
Kashmiri Pandits
celebrate Salaam. Till
three decades ago, it was
a day when their Muslim
friends and neighbours
would greet them
Nipa Charagi
nipa.c@livemint.com
I
n a short film by Naveen Pandita on
Wandhama village in north Kashmir, an
elderly Kashmiri Muslim man is point-
ing out the empty, crumbling houses and
listing the names of the people who used to
live there. He mentions Mohan Lal, and
recalls how he would greet his family with
Salaam/mubarak on Herath (Kashmiri for
Shivratri), and partake of the gaad (fish)
they had prepared and the soaked walnuts.
Herath is the biggest festival of Kashmiri
Pandits, marked by a night of praying fol-
lowed by a day of feasting. Some say “her-
ath” means the night of Shiva, others say
the word comes from the Persian word
hairat, which means to be surprised.
In Kashmir, which the Pandits were
forced to flee three decades ago, the prep-
arations would start a fortnight earlier in
the lunar month of Phalguna and usually
marked the end of intense winter, called
chilai kalan. The first week was devoted to
washing, dusting and cleaning the house,
like the intense flurry of activity leading
up to Diwali. All the windows in the house
would be flung open, as if to dislodge the
winter from its cosy corners. Every rug
and carpet would be dusted, slicing the
sharp, cold winter air with a whack sound.
In traditional houses, the earthen floors
and stairs would be swept with a fresh coat
of earth.
Next, the paraphernalia required for the
puja, called vatuk puja, would be collected.
A vital element of this is the earthen/metal
pots, which are filled with dry walnuts,
flowers and water. The big pot denotes
Shiva, the other one Parvati. These are sur-
rounded by an assortment of vessels, also
‘Hello’ on Messenger.”
It was a few days before Rantilal, an
MPhil student at Karachi University,
replied to his text. “He said that he was
pretty excited to talk to someone from
Pakistan,” she says. “It’s not new to me
because I often speak to my relatives in
Ahmedabad, Gujarat. But I have never
been out of Karachi, so I was curious as
well.”
Within days, the two of them had moved
on to phone calls. Soon, they had started
talking up to 3 hours at a time, exchanging
notes about their days and lives. Two
months on, he asked her to marry him. She
said yes after consulting her parents. On a
video call, Sharma assured them that he
would be happy to relocate to Karachi if
she didn’t get a visa for India. “I didn’t
expect him to do that but it helped,” says
Rantilal.
In the post-Citizenship (Amendment)
filled with water and walnuts. These pots
and vessels are draped in marigold flowers,
bael (wood apple) leaves and red thread.
On the ninth day, married women visit
their parents’ home. They return the next
day with auspicious items like a new kan-
gri (fire pot), salt, haarae (cowries)—for
playing, a Herath tradition—and a token
amount of money.
Unlike most other parts of the country
where Shivratri is celebrated on the 14th
day (on 21 February this year), Kashmiris
offer puja on the 13 night of Phalguna. The
gods are offered the rich feast prepared
during the day. In most cases, this used to
be a non-vegetarian affair, with a plethora
of fish and meat dishes—from roganjosh
and yakhni to maetsch—supported by an
equally impressive variety of vegetarian
dishes like damaloo, chaman (cottage
cheese), palak-nadur and nadur yakhni
(nadur being lotus stem, which, like the
potato, pairs well with vegetables as well
as meat and fish).
Post-1990, some people started making
vegetarian food on Herath, largely owing
to the financial constraints in the initial
years and also because of the scorn or
shock that their non-Kashmiri friends and
neighbours would express at meat being
cooked for puja.
The 14th day is Salaam, a Persian word
which means “hello”. It is the day to social-
ize, greet your relatives and neighbours.
Young people are given money, Herath
kharach (similar to the Eidi given to chil-
dren on Eid). In Kashmir, it was also a day
when your Muslim friends and neighbours
would come over and greet you with
Salaam mubarak and a handful of mishri
(crystallized sugar), cardamom and
almonds. One would say salamath in
return.
Delhi-based Roxy Raina, who is a senior
manager at an agro-chemical company,
says you could feel the festival approach-
ing in Kashmir. “There used to be a fra-
grance in the air,” she says,
Raina says that growing up in Srinagar,
their Kashmiri Muslim friends would
come over for lunch on Salaam, bringing
boxes of confectionery and sweets as gifts.
She recalls that some years ago in Delhi, a
Kashmiri Muslim friend of her father’s
happened to visit them on Shivratri, and,
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LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR
(above) Parvinder Singh takes a
selfie with his Pakistani wife, Kiran
Cheema, on their wedding day in
2019 in Patiala; and a still from the
2004 film ‘Veer Zara’, which had a
cross-border romance.
In Qadian, Punjab, members of
the Ahmadiyya community
from across the world
congregate for an annual
convention in December
during which several marriages
are solemnized
in keeping with the tradition, he gave
her Herath kharach.
Mumbai-based Ashish Seli, a media
marketing consultant, says that as a
young boy in Kashmir, he used to get
Herath kharach from three Kash-
miri Muslim friends of his grandfa-
ther. He recalls neighbourhood chil-
dren dropping in their house to
receive money and dry fruits from his
grandfather.
Seli says their former Kashmiri Muslim
neighbours—mostly those from his late
father’s generation—in Srinagar’s Raina-
wari still call him up on Herath. It is not the
same outside Kashmir, says Seli. “In most
cases, our rituals and beliefs are very differ-
ent from other Hindus, our next-door
neighbours.” Many of the festive elements
have now become a formality, he adds.
Both Seli and Raina, however, say that
they follow the rituals with the same inten-
sity, except that they play the puja on a lap-
top. While Raina’s family cooks non-vege-
tarian food on Herath, Seli’s cooks vegetar-
HINDUSTAN TIMES
Act (CAA), post-Pulwama era, when the
dominant discourse in broadcast media
and by ruling party politicians paints Paki-
stan as a “tormentor” of minorities, the
two are aware of what their marriage plans
symbolize. “In my neighbourhood, a lot of
people regard Pakistan unfavourably,”
says Sharma. “This won’t shut them all up,
but perhaps it might make them see its
people differently.”
India and Pakistan have a long tradition
of cross-border unions, especially in the
states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and
Kashmir, which share a 3,323km border
with the neighbouring country. Even after
nearly 14.5 million people migrated across
the border in the four years after Partition,
many still trace their ancestry and share
blood ties across the border, even forging
marital ties.
Members of the Hindu Maheshwari
community in Pakistan often come to Raj-
(top) The Shankaracharya Temple
in Srinagar which overlooks the
valley; and Deepa Kaul’s
vegetarian fare on Herath.
SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
kot, Gujarat, to get married. In Qadian,
Punjab, members of the Ahmadiyya com-
munity from across the world congregate
for an annual convention in December
during which several marriages are solem-
nized. There are also instances of public
figures marrying across borders, like ten-
nis player Sania Mirza with cricketer Sho-
aib Malik, and restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani
with singer Kiran Chaudhry. But despite
their willingness to adapt to a different cul-
ture and country, the difficulties in getting
visas often make it difficult for a couple to
stay together.
“India and Pakistan have a mutually per-
verse visa regime,” says Nandita Bhavnani,
author of The Making Of Exile: Sindhi Hin-
dus And The Partition Of India. “Since
there have been few visas granted in
recent years, Air India and Pakistan Inter-
national Airlines have both stopped direct
flights. Visitors now have to travel via Sri
Lanka, Nepal or Dubai. Additionally, you
can only go for business, conference or if
you have relatives across the border. Once
you get the visa, it lists a maximum of four
cities you can visit. You often have to
report to the police every time you enter or
exit these cities.”
Such rules, along with the worsening
diplomatic ties between the two countries
since the 2016 Uri attacks, have led to a
sharp drop in the number of Pakistanis
visiting India. According to the Union min-
istry of home affairs (MHA), visitors from
Pakistan declined from 104,720 in 2016 to
67,350 in 2017, and to 57,283 in 2018 and
the first three months of 2019. Cross-bor-
der couples find themselves squeezed in
the political standoff.
Take Parvinder Singh, a resident of
Ambala, Punjab. In 2014, Kiran Cheema,
daughter of a distant relative living in
Sialkot, Pakistan, visited Singh’s family.
The two got engaged during her next visit
in 2016. “Pakistaniyon ki khoobsoorti to
mashhoor hai hi (Pakistanis are known for
their good looks),”he chuckles on the
phone. “But the main thing for me was, our
culture was similar as well.”
It took another three years—and two
failed attempts to secure visas—before
Cheema could return to India to get mar-
ried. But the visa only allowed her to stay in
ALAMY
ian fare, followed by a non-vegetarian
feast on Salaam.
“The flavour of Shivratri has changed
ever since leaving Kashmir but the
essence remains the same,” says Lon-
don-based Deepa Kaul, who works for
a diplomatic mission. She says she tries
to clean at least one kitchen cabinet and
a spice box, takes the day off on Herath,
cooks vegetarian food and plays the puja
on her laptop. Instead of marigolds, she
ties the vatuk (the pot denoting Shiva) with
red roses, which she keeps on a big table.
She says Salaam is now restricted to
Herath kharach. She wishes family and
close friends on phone and FaceTime—a
couple of Kashmiri Muslim friends send
greetings on Facebook Messenger. She
mentions though that on Diwali, her Paki-
stani dry cleaner and Bangladeshi grocer
greet her family with a box of sweets.
In Kashmir, she remembers they had a
ritualistic menu on certain days, and they
would play with cowries. The day the clay
vatuk was purchased, the women would
CHENNAI 13
Patiala. “I have moved to Patiala now,” says
Singh. “My job is suffering, my wife hasn’t
been able to come to her sasuraal in
Ambala. Her visa expires in April and she’s
eight weeks pregnant. We applied for an
extension six months ago but haven’t
heard since.”
A person married to an Indian can stay
in India on a long-term visa and can apply
for citizenship after spending seven years
in the country, according to the Citizen-
ship Act, 1955. But if the applicant is from
Pakistan, it takes far longer to get the visa.
According to home ministry data released
in 2018, 526 of the 1,084 applicants who
applied for Indian citizenship before 2011
were from Pakistan.
“In most of the cross-border marriages,
the brides belong to Pakistan and move to
India,” says Hindu Singh Sodha, founder of
the Jodhpur-based Seemant Lok San-
gathan, which works for the rights of Paki-
stani refugees and immigrants in India.
“Compared to those from other countries,
it takes much longer for their applications
to be processed. The government cites
‘threats to internal security’ behind such
delays or denials. But this is indirectly a
policy of discouragement.”
Tahira Maqbool from Faisalabad, Paki-
stan, had to wait for nearly 13 years after
marrying Chaudhary Maqbool Ahmad, a
journalist in Qadian, Punjab, to get Indian
citizenship. “The problems started soon
after we had got engaged in December
2001,” recalls Ahmad over the phone. “A
week after, the Parliament attacks hap-
pened. India suspended visitor access to
Pakistan soon after. It was only after the
media took up my case, and I unofficially
went up to former prime minister Inder
Kumar Gujral at a seminar on Indo-Pak
relations in Jalandhar to intervene on my
behalf, that we could get married in 2003.”
Ahmad has helped over a dozen people
looking to get married across the border
since. At present, he’s helping Amit
Sharma to visit Pakistan to get engaged to
Suman Rantilal. “It’s only when people talk
to each other that they realize the distinc-
tion between politics and people,” says
Ahmad. “Then you realize you have some
really nice people around, on both sides of
the border.”
welcome it with a pot of water (alath).
For Delhi-born, Pune-based lawyer
Arunima Raina, the festival is not as excit-
ing as Diwali as she can’t share the fervour
with anyone apart from her family. Her
family are Gurits, who cook only vegetar-
ian food for the entire duration of Shivratri
and do not consume any outside food. She
says their food during this time is limited
to nadru cooked in various forms (fried,
made like hash brown, cooked with moong
dal or fresh fenugreek)—and this becomes
monotonous after a point. She can’t even
go over to the home of her maternal grand-
parents, who cook non-vegetarian food.
Not everybody holds an elaborate vatuk
puja, which can last for 2-3 hours, or even
longer. The volume of food cooked has
also come down. Now, only people of a cer-
tain generation have memories of Salaam
in Kashmir.
Arunima says she has heard that Salaam
meant your Muslim friends greeting you,
but for her, it’s the day you get Herath
kharach.
Seli says his two daughters also don’t
identify with the concept of Salaam as one
where Kashmiri Muslims were part of the
festivities. For them, it is the day they
receive money and enjoy good food.
Roxy Raina says that 30 years ago the
two biggest festivals on the calendar in
Kashmir were Herath and Eid. Now, things
have changed. “Had we been there (in
Kashmir), this culture would not have
been erased.”
In Pandita’s film on Wandhama, where
23 Kashmiri Pandits were massacred on 25
January 1998, the elderly man pauses in
front of an abandoned house. He’s strug-
gling to recall the name of the person who
lived there—it has been 30 years. He then
breaks into a smile and says, “Sodarshan.
We used to call him Saddae battae (a Kash-
miri Hindu).”
Forgetting is easy, and remembering
difficult. And while one expects it to snow
on Shivratri, there is also hope that the
weather will turn and the walnut trees will
start blossoming soon. As Kaul says,
“Three things keep our culture alive: age-
old traditions, food and language.”
As for the walnuts, they are had with
rice flour rotis on the 15th day—a simple
and earthy end to the feasting.
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14 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

A love story of the best version of ourselves

It reminded me of what my friend and was important for the family to honour one we are capable of being again.
MY colleague, Kamal Khan, had shared with the choice their daughter wanted to It makes me re-examine many ideas
DAUGHTERS’ me years ago when he was newly mar-
ried to Ruchi. “People came and con-
make.
The couple married and moved to
all over again. What does it mean to be a
liberal, if one does not honour differen-
MUM gratulated us and said you have done a
very brave thing. Others said we had
Delhi in 1958. They had three sons and
lived as a nuclear family, hosting many
ces in lifestyle and ideology? Does being
orthodox in terms of one’s adherence to
N ATA S H A done something great,” Kamal had friends who were also leading progres- caste and religion-mandated norms
BA D H WA R shared incredulously. Neither Ruchi sive artists of the time, like Kaifi and necessarily make one a less nice person?
nor he had imagined that there was any Shaukat Azmi. Baruah, who had grown What is the source of the hate crimes
“greatness” involved in their personal up in North Lakhimpur in Assam, rose and hate speech that mar the landscape

T
he first time I heard of Sharda and
U.L. Baruah’s love story was when
their son Amit told me about how
his father would insist that there was no
story to be told about their love. We
were travelling together on a work
assignment as colleagues when the
topic of inter-religious marriages came
up. I had recently written an article
about the backlash that Shah Rukh
Khan had suffered when he had spoken
about his Hindu-Muslim marriage and
mentioned my own mixed marriage in
the piece. Not entirely unexpectedly, I
was being trolled viciously in the com-
ments section of the online article and
on my Twitter timeline.
“Marriage between a Hindu and a
Muslim should be seen as the norm, not
an exception,” Amit had quoted his
father. This is what he had said when he
declined permission to an editor to
write about their love story and mixed
marriage in a leading magazine in the
1970s.
choice when they had decided to get
married in Lucknow in the mid-1990s.
Yet society saw something more in the
act than the lovers did.
A few years after Amit first mentioned
his parents to me, I met Sharda Baruah
at her home in south Delhi. It was a few
days before her 93rd birthday and I had
arrived with a film crew to listen to her
recall her memories of growing up, both
in pre- and post-Partition India. The vis-
ible fault lines in the socio-political dis-
course in contemporary India and the
fraying of the secular ideal that we had
taken for granted made me feel that we
must record Sharda’s retelling of the
story of independent India.
Sharda and Baruah first met when
they were colleagues at All India Radio.
She recalls that the city of Hyderabad
would easily classify as a conservative
place, and yet it was a time and place in
which she felt free and secure.
“Hyderabad was not a bad place,” she
says, trying to make us understand the
Sharda and U.L. Baruah celebrated the unique in each other.
difference between the times she grew
up in versus the times we now live in.
Her upper-caste Hindu grandparents
would insist on the teenage girls chang-
ing out of their school uniforms into
saris as soon as they returned home
from school. They would travel in rick-
shaws that would have a “purdah” that
shielded the young women from view.
Sharda joined All India Radio as a pre-
senter and even acted in a film in the
AJMAL JAMI
early 1950s. When Baruah and she fell
in love, he wrote a letter to Sharda’s
father asking for her hand in marriage.
“My grandparents were orthodox in
outlook, but there was no hatred for the
other in their hearts. To be conservative
about one’s religious or cultural prac-
tices doesn’t mean we cannot have com-
passion for all of humanity,” says
Sharda. Marrying outside one’s caste
and religion was not a norm, and yet it
to become the director general of All
India Radio. Sharda recalls many Hindu
and Muslim festivals when both of them
just had each other as family. “We used
to cook sevaiyan and eat it with each
other,” she tells me.
“My mother used to tell me that you
must have been a pious person in your
previous life, that is why you have got
such a noble husband in this life,” says
Sharda. In another anecdote, she laughs
and recalls how her father begged her to
speak more politely to her husband.
“I don’t like this talk about religious
identity,” she tells me. “My husband
used to tell me not to feel compelled to
answer nosy questions. He would say,
you make my name whatever you feel
like. Say my name is Upendra Lal
Baruah instead of Ubeidul Latif
Baruah…what does it matter?”
Listening to Sharda recall her stories
makes me think that the story of her life
and love is also the story of the best ver-
sion of India. An India we have been,
of our present times, a time we would
like to believe is more modern than
before?
How can we learn again to coexist as a
diverse society without amplifying
imaginary threats from those we con-
sider to be the other?
What does compassion corelate to?
How can we make it fashionable again?
As we prepared to leave, we were put-
ting back all the albums and framed
photographs of the Baruah family that
we had been admiring. “It has been over
35 years since he has been gone, but our
life together stays with me all the time,”
said Sharda. “There’s not a moment
when I can forget him,” she added, giv-
ing all of us listening to her a whole idea
of life and love goals to aspire for.
Natasha Badhwar is a film-maker and
the author of My Daughters’ Mum and
Immortal For A Moment.
@natashabadhwar

GETTY IMAGES

Making sure everyone

gets a homecoming

Our children are

living in their own
society full of love, Sachin Jain believes housing security is crucial for LGBTQ+ people to be integrated into society. ALAMY

while we are living in

a society of bigotry
and segregation
Online platform G.H.A.R helps and straight folks alike couldn’t understand the
need for a safe space that was solving a specific
LGBTQ+ folk find queer- problem,” he says. There was also the task of pro-
friendly homes and tecting the privacy of people while getting out

A house for Mr Azad

word about the group, and this was especially true
acceptance from neighbours of the years before 2018.
For, under Section 377, the group could have
been looked at as “aiding and abetting” homosex-
Shubham Ladha ual practices, then illegal. “All queer collectivism
shubham.l@livemint.com came under it as openly admitting to gay sex was
In NRC and CAA-racked explicitly told me that he had no problem with The next day, I realized that several criminal tantamount to admitting to a crime, and openly

Muslims. He had many friends from my commu-
Assam, a father tries to nity. “My friends from the Miya community come
here and we dine together,” he told me. He also
explain to his son why said that there were other children in the same
compound—he had two children and his brother
they had to leave their had a boy the same age as my son—and that my
rented home and friends son would probably love to be friends with them.
We shifted to the new house. As predicted by
the new landlord, my son started loving the com-
pany of other children his age. In a few months, he
Abdul Kalam Azad had picked up the local accent of Assamese,
though my wife and I speak a slightly different
I
cases had been filed against me and my fellow
poets and activists. I was in hiding, away from my
family. I didn’t see and hear my son for days. One
night, I managed to call my wife. Her biggest con-
cern was what would happen if the landlord had
watched the television debate. I comforted her.
“Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” I said.
But the reassurance didn’t work. As the months
passed, the anti-CAA movement was gaining
momentum in Assam. Simultaneously, the ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party was escalating its anti-
Miya rhetoric. On 15 December, I remember it was
n 1998, when the Indian queer community and
its movement for equality was beginning to
make its voice heard, Sachin Jain, a Mumbai-
based Spanish language teacher, created an online
community to facilitate information-sharing on
safe housing options for members of the LGBTQ+
community.
“At the age of 22, I had to rent a place in Thane
near Mumbai because of my job. As a gay man, I
experienced a lot of difficulties with nosy neigh-
bours, homophobic flatmates and inquisitive land-
lords. When I asked other gay men, who had come
being gay was an invitation for harassment from
moral vigilantes,” says Jain. However, the commu-
nity has become more visible since and things
have improved.
“It has helped more community members to
come out. Other stakeholders in the housing sec-
tor, such as realtors, brokers, landlords, neigh-
bours, are more sensitized and vigilante trouble-
makers no longer feel they have the impunity to
harass queer folks,” he adds.
While challenges still exist, this visibility has
empowered people to cultivate friendlier relation-

T
wo years ago, I decided to move
out of Guwahati to spend more
time on my research and grass-
roots activism. I was looking for a
house in a town that happens to be
a district headquarter. I finally found a place after
several rejections. The quality of the house, its dis-
tance from the school where I was thinking of
enrolling my then two-and-a-half-year-old son,
the rent, the separate electric sub-meter—almost
everything was perfect.
“Your house is nice but I would like my wife to
see it once and decide,” I told the landlord.The
soft-spoken retired schoolteacher replied: “No
problem. Just don’t take too long to decide. I have
enquiries from many prospective tenants.” I
thanked him and said goodbye. But before I could
reach the gate, he called out to me from the first
floor and asked me to stop. He came to the gate
and said, “Sorry, my wife is a religious person….”
I understood that my search for a new house
was not over.
Finding a suitable rented house is always a chal-
lenging task and I have accepted this challenge
since my early youth, having lived in a dozen
rented places across Assam. However, as I get
older, I realize that moving homes doesn’t come
with just physical and financial challenges; it takes
me through an emotional upheaval.
Whenever I speak to a homeowner, I make it
clear right from the start that I am a Miya Muslim,
a community often looked down upon in Assam,
to avoid wasting time on futile negotiations. The
landlord I spoke of earlier seemed to be okay with
this initially, but his family probably had second
thoughts about renting a house to us.
Fortunately, I soon found another (better)
house on the same street at an affordable rent. The
landlord was a young government officer. He
Miya dialect. It was his new friends from whom he
learnt the language so fast.
Almost every day after school, he would
enquire about my landlord’s nephew and his
daughter and after they had finished their lunch,
all the children would get together in the living
room of our second-floor home. They would play,
cycle, sing and make a lot of noise.
Though everything was nice and warm inside
the house, the outside world was changing fast.
In July last year, Assam was going through tur-
moil over the National Register of Citizens (NRC)
and the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (later
passed; CAA). In the meantime, a controversy
started over a new genre of poetry called Miya
poetry, alleging that the Miya poets were portray-
ing Assam and Assamese people in bad light.
I am one of those Miya poets against whom the
frivolous allegations were levelled.
One day, I was invited to a prime-time televi-
sion debate on the controversy. I was bombarded
with questions and allegations, with little oppor-
tunity given to clarify that this poetry actually por-
trays the pain and suffering of my community,
which they have had to endure because of the
faulty implementation of citizenship contestation
processes in Assam.
As I get older, I realize that
moving homes doesn’t come
with just physical and financial
challenges; it takes me through
an emotional upheaval
a Sunday, my son and I went to our landlord’s
house on the first floor to call his daughter to play.
I rang the doorbell. The landlord opened the
door and told me: “I have been thinking of calling
you. Please look for another house.”
For a moment, I couldn’t believe what I was
hearing. “But why?” I asked him.
“We need the space,” he said.
I insisted on knowing the real reason. Finally,
he told me: “You know I don’t have any problem
with Muslims. Miyas come and eat in my kitchen.
But I am facing problems from society. I have been
ostracized for renting my house to a Miya. People
don’t invite me to social functions.”
His eyes had welled up and both of us avoided
looking at the other directly.
Meanwhile, my son was not interested in our
conversation. He was busy calling out to his friend
and trying to get into the house.
The landlord told him “she won’t come today”
and closed the door.
We had to move out. My son couldn’t under-
stand why. It was difficult to make him under-
stand the concept of a rented house. And it was
definitely a hundred times more challenging to
answer his questions, like “how often will my
friends visit the new house?”
How strange it is that my son and I stay in the
same house but live in two different societies. I am
sure the children in the previous house are going
through the same confusion. Our children are liv-
ing in their own society full of love, while we are
living in a society of bigotry and segregation.
On this day of love, I hope my son and his
friends will grow up to conquer our society with
their love and compassion.
Abdul Kalam Azad is a human rights researcher
based in Assam.
here from other cities, they had had similar experi-
ences,” says Jain. He decided to help fellow mem-
bers of the gay community in India figure out a
basic necessity: a roof over their heads.
Initially, Jain hosted the online community as
an email group. Then, in 2002, it became a Yahoo
group. In 2012, as social media platforms prolifer-
ated, it transformed into a closed Facebook group
called G.H.A.R (Gay Housing Assistance
Resource). Today, it has over 13,000 members and
acts as a pan-India resource to help queer folk find
suitable housing or flatmates.
It functions in a simple and systematic manner.
The cover image of the group’s homepage on
Facebook offers easy instructions on how to create
a post on finding or offering rented accommoda-
tion across the country, while new members are
directed to a database of existing accommodation
requirements, which is updated weekly, through
a pinned post.
Historically, Indian society has been slow to
integrate the queer community. While Section 377
of the Indian Penal Code criminalizing homosexu-
ality was struck down in 2018, the Transgender
Persons’ (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2019, criticized
by many for not being effective enough, was
passed last year. Even today, it’s a struggle for the
community to get ready access to services such as
accommodation. Sometimes people are obliged to
pass as straight to rent secure housing. Sometimes
they don’t have the option of doing so because of
their gender or sexual expression. And even if they
do, they can be made to feel unwelcome and
uncomfortable by flatmates or neighbours.
Jain says one of the bigger challenges he faces is
screening the group to include only genuine
members united by the same need of finding a
home. “Initially, I had to break a lot of misconcep-
tions about it being a dating website, as both queer
ships with queer residents. “It’s easier now to
embrace free personal expression, from some-
thing as simple as bringing a partner home with-
out raising eyebrows to making friends without
having to self-censor,” says Jain.
It’s usually easier for cisgendered men and
women to find accommodation and acceptance
even if they are gay—things are much more diffi-
cult for transgender individuals.
Maya, a 40-year-old trans woman from the Hijra
community, works with an LGBTQ+ government
initiative. While she lives in Mumbai with her fam-
ily, who she’s out to, she worked in Delhi for some
years and lived with her guru (a tradition where
older Hijras adopt younger ones as their kin)
before moving out. “Even though my gender
expression doesn’t always coincide with my orien-
tation, I was sure to let the landlord know about my
orientation, and he was fine with it,” she says.
Her neighbours, however, were unaware and
had issues with Maya living in the flat. “Once, I had
other trans-women friends over and some stran-
gers who were men followed us in. People from the
building wrongly accused me of sex work, so I had
to explain to them about my background and why
it was important to hold these men accountable for
following us. That initially calmed things down
but the relationships were still tense,” she says.
It took a lot of time and many interactions for
Maya to build a good rapport with her neighbours.
“I had to keep my main door open, so my neigh-
bours weren’t suspicious, and had to be patient
with them to come around. It took a year of such
trust-building for things to get better.”
Jain believes that queer people living with secu-
rity fosters a greater sense of a joint and inclusive
community. “Such a home leads to better self-ac-
ceptance and builds a stronger sense of identity in
the communities we belong to,” he says.

Building bridges through art
A unique art initiative
in Delhi’s urban village
of Khirkee forges a
link between the
original residents of a
neighbourhood and
its migrant population
Avantika Bhuyan
avantika.bhuyan@htlive.com
T
he latest issue of the quar-
terly hyperlocal newspa-
per Khirkee Voice carries a
rather unique centre-
spread. Published in Janu-
ary, it features a pictorial timeline of the
urban village of Khirkee, which was home
to sprawling farmlands and a pristine lake
till the 1960s. Over time, along with dust
and grime, history started accumulating
in this Delhi neighbourhood as farms
began to give way to haphazard construc-
tion. Today, this mish-mash of homes and
shops opposite Saket’s swanky malls, with
an awning of wires on top, is home to a
multicultural community, with its resi-
dents hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,
West Bengal, Afghanistan, Iran and the
African continent.
The timeline published in Khirkee
Voice, titled “Time Traveling With The
Community”, looks at the personal testi-
monies of researcher Ekta Chauhan’s fam-
ily—one of the oldest inhabitants of the
neighbourhood.
It all started when the founders of Khir-
kee Voice, architect-artist Malini Kochupil-
lai and visual consultant Mahavir Singh
Bisht, introduced Chauhan to illustrator
Alia Sinha. Together, they set about recre-
ating images and stories from the past—
for instance, an illustration of the Satpula
Lake from the 1960s is accompanied by
the wistful memories of 69-year-old Sri-
chand Chauhan, who recalls the lazy after-
noons when he would wallow in the
waters with his buffaloes in tow. That was
a time when the waters of the lake were
clean enough to drink from.
Khirkee Voice is one of the handful of
community-driven projects in the country
which forges a link between the art world
and the neighbourhood—the other signif-
icant ones being the Dharavi Art Room in
Mumbai and Chitpur Local in Kolkata.
Such initiatives introduce locals to the
diverse sociocultural strains in their area.
For instance, the Khirkee Voice forges a
connection between the original residents
and the migrant populations. Over time, it
has helped overcome the fear and mis-
trust of the “other” to create a sense of
neighbourliness.
Also, by bringing together artists, schol-
ars and researchers, such projects seek to
create a meaningful exchange between
residents and new entrants from the art
world.
The newspaper has its roots in 2016,
when Kochupillai, an architect and urban
How a local paper created citizen vigilantes
A long-time ‘Metro’
supplements editor
reminisces about the
heart-warming stories of
neighbourhood love and
social responsibility that
she came across
Sonal Nerurkar
O
ver the last two months, several
inspiring stories have emerged
from the south Delhi neighbour-
hood of Shaheen Bagh. Mothers and chil-
dren have been braving the harsh winter
weather to participate in the sit-in. At a
local café, the lemon chai pe charcha is all
about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act
(CAA). A peek into the community
kitchen reveals biscuits, bananas and
biryani are fuelling the round-the-clock
protesters.
Amidst a larger narrative demonstrat-
ing the power of collective action, it’s
these tiny threads that captured my imag-
ination, taking me back to a time in my life
that was all about locality love.
Back in 2002, I edited a series of weekly
community newspapers called Metro.
Published and distributed free across the
Mumbai suburbs by Mid-Day Publica-
tions, these hyper-local editions were
conceptualized in a style similar to those
found in the US. I had just returned to
India after a short stint at the Times
Ledger, a weekly newspaper covering
every community in Queens, New York.
It was an unimaginable time to be in a city
(clockwise, from above) The
Khirkee Talk Show; an illustration
for ‘Khirkee Voice’ issue No.9 by
illustrator Pooja Dhingra; and an
issue of the newspaper.
researcher, was documenting the African
community in Khirkee for a photography
project. Soon after, she applied for the
Coriolis Effect Residency at the Khoj
International Artists Association, which
looked at artistic representations of Indo-
African ties. Kochupillai was keen to
develop a form that was accessible to peo-
ple on the street and didn’t seem intimi-
dating—the form of the “newspaper”
seemed ideal. She invited Bisht to join her
at the residency. The debut edition was
printed in both Hindi and English. Today,
Kochupillai and Bisht are co-editors who
conceptualize the issues together. While
Bisht edits the Hindi edition, she works on
the English one.
Since 2016, the duo has introduced sev-
eral public art interventions in the urban
village as well, the most popular one being
a “talk show” between the locals and Afri-
can residents. It was a collaborative inter-
vention with Swati Janu’s Phone Recharge
Ki Dukaan. Janu, an architect, had been
working on long-term community pro-
jects in the neighbourhood at the time and
had started Phone Recharge Ki Dukaan in
a small shop as a platform for self-expres-
sion for the residents.
The aim of both the newspaper and the
public art interventions has been to
demolish stereotypes about the African
community when it comes to drug ped-
dling and prostitution. The form of the
newspaper interested Kochupillai because
it stood as a symbol of legitimacy. “A news-
paper usually represents an identity of a
place, people and nation and embodies a
sense of collectiveness. However, instead
devastated by 9/11. But by turning the lens
on acts of local heroism, tributes to fallen
neighbours and the support mobilized for
grieving families, the Bayside Times and
Queens Village Times revealed to me the
greatest strength of a neighbourhood
newspaper: the ability to build a real rela-
tionship with readers.
Metro was all about fostering a commu-
nity spirit, and we were welcomed with a
great deal of enthusiasm. Families were
becoming smaller and, in the days prece-
ding the social media explosion, people
were still seeking out connections with
those around them. Love for the neigh-
bourhood became a common cause. On
the hunt for stories, our reporters discov-
ered the new ecosystems forming within
localities. Advanced Locality Manage-
ment (ALM) groups, made up of citizen
activists, lobbied for everything from
removal of speed-breakers, hawkers and
encroachments to the cleaning of public
gardens and stormwater drains. Signature
campaigns were undertaken to improve
by-lanes, install streetlights and dispose
of garbage efficiently. As they banded
together to improve their locality, a spe-
cial camaraderie among residents was
formed. Morning walks, scheduled calls
on the building intercom and coordinated
weekly visits to the offices of local author-
ities soon became de rigueur.
The Vigilantes—Metro’s version of the
Page 3 celebrity—entered into a commit-
ted relationship with their locality.
Mohammad Afzal didn’t just complain to
the traffic police about delivery boys
speeding—he stood at the traffic junction
for hours on end just to get a picture of
them breaking a signal. Shirley Singh fol-
lowed the garbage trucks in an autorick-
shaw for two weeks to ensure the door-to-
Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney
LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR
of news and reportage, we have tried to use
the form to not just tell stories of the locals
but to look at the larger city through the
lens of the neighbourhood,” she says.
While doing so, both Kochupillai and
Bisht have noticed a sense of excitement in
people when they see a mention of them-
selves or their acquaintances in the news-
paper, giving them a sense of ownership
and a new sense of responsibility towards
the neighbourhood.
“We try to be as inclusive as possible and
have stories from all strata. Sometimes, we
try to draw parallels between the history of
Khirkee and that of the African continent,”
says Bisht. For instance, one of the paper’s
most consistent contributors, Andrew
Ananda Voogel, has been writing a part
fictional and part historical account about
his great-grandmother having been taken
by force as an indentured labourer to the
Caribbean Islands from Uttar Pradesh.
‘Metro’ shut down in 2007 but the call of community remains strong.
For the paper, no story was too
small. From birthdays, school
sports and parish activities to
building ‘dandiyas’ and ‘iftaar’
parties, we covered it all
COURTESY MALINI KOCHUPILLAI
When people who reside and
work in Khirkee see outsiders
express an interest in the
neighbourhood, it makes
them more curious about
the place too
ALAMY
door garbage segregation programme in
her society was effective. On his daily
rounds in the locality, S.P. Jathan was
never spotted without his walking stick,
which he used to clean any clogged
stormwater drains he chanced upon.
Some of the custodians weren’t
opposed to using a little aggression to get
the job done. Angered by the overflowing
garbage dump in front of her house, one
SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
Each issue has a broad theme, be it
urban villages, love or local economies.
The team also reaches out to a pool of
existing and possible contributors whose
practice intersects with the subject. So far,
there have been collaborations with illus-
trators such as Gagan Singh, Pooja
Dhingra and Shivangi Singh. “In the last
issue, we asked a collective called Suryan/
/Dang to imagine a future for Khirkee in
2033,” says Bisht.
Khirkee Voice features all the elements
of a conventional paper—comic strip,
photo essay, posters—but imagined differ-
ently. “Khirkee is home to a lot of mem-
bers of the LGBTQ+ community and we
did a story on one such trans person. Peo-
ple have misconceptions and we wanted
to break those. The neighbourhood also
has lot of hip hop and b-boying collectives.
We talked about Ashif Khan, one such
b-boy artist, and his struggles,” says
Kochupillai.
In the past decade, Khirkee has served
as a canvas for several artistic projects.
There is the Khirki Living Lab, led by
Sreejata Roy and Mrityunjay Chatterjee of
the artist collective Revue. It recently
founded Khanapados, a kitchen managed
by nine refugee women from Afghanistan,
Somalia, Congo and Iraq living in the
neighbourhood. Revue also started the
Khirki Collective in 2015 to work on col-
laborative projects such as the Mobile
Mohalla with local young adults. A group
of 10-11 conducted interviews with the res-
idents to understand how women negoti-
ated public spaces. Objects and testimo-
nies from this survey were exhibited as
part of Conversing In Time, at the Kiran
Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in 2017.
How do the creative energies from the
various projects impact the neighbour-
hood? For one, it creates opportunities for
engagements between the various artistic
entrants. For instance, Khirkee Voice has in
the past collaborated with Saif Mehmood
and Aditi Angiras for a poetry discussion
pop-up at the Khirkee Festival commu-
nity exhibition at Khoj . “What helps is the
presence of Khoj there. It becomes a sort
of catalyst. Now there is KNMA across the
road. Both of these have created tools of
engagement with the neighbourhood as
resident threatened to move into the
municipal officer’s house until her local-
ity was cleaned.
For the paper, no story was too small.
From birthdays, school sports and parish
activities to building dandiyas and iftaar
parties, we covered it all. The achieve-
ments of local citizens were written about
and celebrated. I even recall a shout-out
for actor Raveena Tandon’s dog when it
went missing (yes, the dog was found).
Even as the paper reported on the com-
munity, the community in turn was being
shaped by the paper. Encouraged by the
coverage, residents persevered until solu-
tions were devised or demands met. One
example of how serious this relationship
with the neighbourhood became is from
the 2005 Mumbai floods, when the
homes of affluent Juhu residents
remained waterlogged for up to three
days. A spirited campaign to clean up the
locality followed, and in the local election
there, India’s first citizen corporator was
appointed from the Juhu Citizens Welfare
Group. It’s no coincidence that the suburb
never experienced this level of destruc-
tion again.
We once did an anniversary issue for
Bandra Metro where residents admitted
they would “beg, borrow or steal to live in
the neighbourhood”. Metro reporters had
front-row seats as they watched these love
affairs with the locality evolve. As honor-
ary residents, they were invited home for
tea and festivals, and even a few weddings.
Years after they moved on to other assign-
ments, the intimate bonds they formed
with these early sources have left a strong
impression.
Among the most joyous discoveries
during those years were the tales of neigh-
bourly love. A robbery attempt foiled
CHENNAI 15
well,” says Kochupillai.
She also observes that when people who
reside and work in Khirkee see outsiders
express an interest in the neighbourhood,
it makes them more curious about the
place too. In addition, the nature of Khir-
kee is such that the streets are spaces of
constant movement—vendors, shopkeep-
ers populate the area, the shopfronts act as
street facades, and many homes have steps
that come down directly on to the streets.
According to Kochupillai, it is because of
this that public art interventions become
even more visible on the street. The talk
show was a huge success. The shopfront
was like a TV screen, you had the option of
viewing from the outside or shouting into
it. That kind of informality allowed for
fantastic possibilities.
Mainstream art spaces have also found
new ways of discovering the neighbour-
hood they dwell in. Besides Conversing In
Time, the KNMA last year hosted Smell
Assembly, which took viewers on a senso-
rial journey through the neighbourhoods
of Majnu Ka Tila, fish markets of Chittar-
anjan Park and the spice market of Old
Delhi. Anecdotes by manual scavengers
and ittar makers, accompanied by immer-
sive exhibits, in this show put together by
researchers Ishita Dey and Mohammad
Sayeed and curated by Akansha Rastogi,
created a “social register of smells”. The
Mumbai Art Room too has created new
ways of social engagement with a robust
children’s outreach programme for those
in Pasta Lane who would otherwise not
visit a gallery.
Kochupillai feels that an important tak-
eaway from such neighbourhood-centric
projects is for galleries to set aside a certain
amount of money each year to do publica-
tions or interventions about a community
through the lens of the artists. “Every artist
lives in a community and every gallery
exists in a neighbourhood. Instead of
existing in silos, maybe they should lend
their shine to making art relevant to the
places they are in. Artists are able to think
critically and across disciplines. They can
engage with urban planners, architects,
school kids, workers and labourers and
create art that speaks to everyone. That’s
the way for the future,” she says.
when the victim’s desperate cries were
overhead by a group of youngsters in the
next-door apartment. Paying no heed to
their own safety, the boys overpowered
the thief to save the day. Residents col-
lecting money to support the family of a
security guard who died on the job. After
a series of leopard attacks were reported
in the central suburbs, neighbourhood
groups were formed to patrol the area at
night. Similar teams came together after
news of locality thefts. To provide one
another with emotional support, women
from one building set up a group that met
weekly.
Reminiscing with a former colleague,
and with Shaheen Bagh foremost in our
thoughts, we recalled many stories of soli-
darity. Ganpati and Muharram rituals
under one roof in a housing society in
Mumbra. Hindus fasting with their Mus-
lim friends during Ramzan. A dahi handi
celebration organized by a team of differ-
ent faiths. Then there is this wonderful
anecdote of a lasting friendship formed
during the 2005 floods. Soni Shukla, a
Hindu girl, found herself stranded in
Thane. She was rescued by two Muslim
girls, one of whom is Meenaz Munshi. The
reporter who covered their story says that
the two remain friends. I am delighted to
learn that the reporter has stayed con-
nected to them on Facebook.
I was heartbroken when the paper shut
down in 2007. Yet it’s evident from Shah-
een Bagh, and countless other neighbour-
hoods across the country, that the call of
community remains strong. Metro may
not be here with us in print, but I am
grateful that its spirit lives on.
Sonal Nerurkar works with HarperCol-
lins Publishers India.
 Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney

16 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

t Young Palestinian women in hijab on the q Palestinian director and

beach in Jaffa, Tel Aviv. Religious garments
have become more common among
Palestinians in Israel in the last few years as
more young people become fervent
believers in Islam.
producer Adam Zuabi with his
wife Asmaa Azaizeh, one of the
most established Palestinian
poets of her generation, outside
their home in Haifa, Israel.

SEVEN DAYS IN THE

MEDITERRANEAN A writer travels with Palestinian friends through Israel to discover warm hugs,
delicious hummus and a few surprises at the Wailing Wall
Text and photographs by Carlo Pizzati

W
hen I reach the border
in a car hired in
Amman, the Israeli offi-
cer at the Jordan River
Border Crossing asks
me how I knew the friends I was going to visit.
Their paterfamilias was studying with my
father in Geneva, I tell her, and when I was
nine I had lived with them for a month in
Rome. She lets me through. In the parking lot,
I meet Adam and Asmaa, Palestinian friends
who drive me to their home in Haifa, Israel’s
third largest city.
The day after, we head south to visit the
Israeli family. I’m worried about how they’ll
react to Adam and Asmaa. I know they are no
big fans of the Palestinian cause, to put it
mildly. But we are welcomed with hugs, warm
smiles and a yummy brunch of local fruits,
cheeses, fresh bread and good wines. I feel
quite the UN diplomat for a moment. Adam
and Asmaa get along splendidly with my long-
time friends. I can relax, and feel a happiness
settle in my chest.
The feeling doesn’t last long. On our way to
Jerusalem, a police officer stops our car, looks
at me sitting in the back seat and points to my
chest. “Seat belt!” he yells. “I didn’t know…,” I
say. “You don’t know, but I know!” he barks
while slapping a ticket on Adam’s hand.
Aggressive start.
When we reach Jerusalem, a young thug in
a pimped-up ride almost runs me over as I ges-
ture to him to wait while Adam parks. We walk p A young tourist guide smoking while riding a donkey in Petra, Jordan. Tourism regularly suffers because of wars and terrorism in the
to the Wailing Wall and run into a Yeshiva stu- region. After the IS was contained in Syria, one million visitors came to tour this historic site last year.
dent with a bloody nose, swollen lips and a red
stained white shirt. He is screaming: “I will p A sweets vendor in the
f#@k all the Arabs!” He says a Palestinian port city of Acre, north of
sucker-punched him and tries to take revenge Haifa, which has the
on a tiny pink stuffed camel which he wants to remains of a Roman city.
rip apart. Failing to do that, he throws it on the
ground. Shaken, we reach the Wailing Wall The day after, I drive up to the ruins of Petra,
and recover from the crowds at the Holy a 2,000-year-old village dug from sandstone
Sepulchre by having some delicious hummus. mountains. As I hike down from a monastery,
At night, we dine at Raisa restaurant in the I run into a very young guide, smoking with
trendy Flea Market in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv. passion while riding a donkey—Petra is cele-
An ambulance disrupts our feast as we watch brating its one million tourists last year, after
a doctor trying to revive a patient. Later we the IS scare has subsided in the Middle East.
discover the man in the ambulance died of On my last night of this perambulation of
bullet wounds during a shoot-out between the Dead Sea, I stay at the posh Ishtar Kempin-
drug gangs. ski hotel in Swaimeh, which offers salty mud
The morning after, as we have brunch on baths by the shore. I dine on a terrace with a
the beach in Jaffa, Adam points to three girls night view of the lights beyond the 1994
in hijab, as they chat facing the sea. “It has Treaty Line, which cuts across this sea.
become a more common sight, the religious There’s Palestine, over there, and Israel,
clothes, because when you lose all rational beyond the hills. I think of the feeling of vio-
hope, you turn to religion.” He tells me that lence that’s lingering within me. The student’s
Jaffa, which is still 70 % Palestinian, is becom- bloody nose, the aggressive cop, the driver try-
ing gentrified. With anti-Semitism on the rise ing to run me over, the shoot-out, the story of
worldwide, many Jewish American and Jew- the Palestinian homes in Jaffa, the sense of
ish European buyers are purchasing safe get- constant tension in the air. I’ve grown up fol-
away homes in this neighbourhood, driving lowing this conflict on the news and through
up prices. people involved in it—wars, terrorism, hopes
Adam leans down to pick up a broken tile fading quickly into disappointments, crystal-
from the shore. Palestinian homes were razed lizing into cynicism.
here decades ago, he says. The debris was bull- It would be easy to give up on this troubled
dozed to create artificial bluffs now blanketed corner of the world. But when I think back of
with bright green grass. With the tides, slowly Adam playing with my friend’s children and
the tiles are resurfacing. His brother Amir, Asmaa chatting with the Jewish Israeli ladies
who lives nearby, comes to collect them with in their home by the beach, during that
his children. They are recomposing the floors brunch filled with joy, for a moment I still want
as an art project puzzle at the Palestinian to believe things can change, one day. t A Yeshiva student screams p Palestinian workers taking a
National Museum. after being punched in the nose break under a sign that says
Soon it is time to fly south, to Eilat, cross the Carlo Pizzati is a political analyst and the in a crowded alley in Jerusalem. ‘Please do not sit on the
border back to Jordan into the city of Aqaba, author of seven books of fiction and non-fiction. Insults are exchanged. Soldiers stairs’, near the Wailing Wall in
rent a car and glamp at the UFO hotel in the His most recent is Bending Over Backwards—A arrive and question Jerusalem. A symbolic image
breathtaking desert of Wadi Rum, where The Journey To The End Of The World To Find A shopkeepers. Then life returns of the Palestinian-Israeli
Martian and Lawrence Of Arabia were filmed. Cure For A Chronic Backache (HarperCollins). to normal in the Holy City. historic relationship.
 Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney

BUSINESS LOUNGE SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI 17

Shriti Malhotra
THE BEAUTY BOTTLER The CEO of The Body Shop India talks about the Indian personal care market,
sustainable packaging, and her desire to grow a wood-rose shrub

Arun Janardhan

S
hriti Malhotra drops the culti-
vated correctness of a corpo-
rate leader only when she
talks about her love for plants.
Her face lights up as she
describes her home in Delhi, which, going
by her description, is the indoor version of
the Amazon rainforest.
Smaller towns have
“I grow them inside my drawing room
too and people are quite sick of them...the
whole house has hanging plants. You
bump into them everywhere,” Malhotra
aspirations, want
says, laughing. “I have no decoration
except plants.” Besides house plants, Mal-
hotra has a terrace garden and is part of a
brands and don’t
community-farming project to grow vege-
tables in Gurugram; this is also her “retire-
ment plan”.
“It’s not about gardening as much as
have them. We
that I find solace outside in nature,” she
says. “Everyone will agree gardening is
therapeutic. I started growing dhania
understood there
(coriander), pudina (mint) and palak
(spinach) on the windowsill and the joy of
watching them grow, plucking and put-
ting (them) in food…. The purity of that
is a part of India
garnishing is something to be experi-
enced. My biggest joy is a flowering plant.”
Seated at Vista at Taj Lands End in
Mumbai, 49-year-old Malhotra is meas-
outside big cities.
ured as she considers each question
before responding. The CEO of Body
Shop India, who has been with the com-
pany since 2007 and became its CEO in
2010, has just arrived in the city, on a brief
visit for a commercial shoot with actor and
brand ambassador Shraddha Kapoor.
The gardening hobby gels well with
some of Malhotra’s life philosophies,
including those of the company she works
for—The Body Shop, the skincare,

With nearly 200 stores

across 70-odd cities,
India is among the top 10
markets for The Body
Shop, though Malhotra
aims to get into the top 5

make-up and fragrance brand, was one of

the first to take a stand on animal testing in
the cosmetics industry. Malhotra turned
vegan about eight months ago, after being
a vegetarian for about 30 years, because it
just seemed the right thing to do.
As the hotel guests begin to shuffle in
for the buffet lunch, Malhotra orders a
black coffee, but barely pays attention to
it when it arrives. A by-product of her diet
change is a reduction in the intake of hot
beverages because there are only that
many black coffees or teas one can have.
Having grown up in Ranchi, Jharkhand,
Malhotra moved to Delhi for college,
graduating in history from Miranda House
before heading to the National Institute of
JAYACHANDRAN/MINT
Fashion Technology (NIFT), where her
interest in retail developed. It also seemed
the right time to get into the business of
fashion, which was on the rise post-liber-
alization. Besides Benetton, her first job,
she worked with Nike and Puma and did
licencing and distribution for brands like
Callaway (golf), Spalding (basketball) and
Wilson (tennis).
“In small towns, you really have nothing
to do,” she says about her interest in sport.
So, growing up, she followed every disci-
pline and idolized cricketers Ian Botham,
Dennis Lillee and tennis super brat John
McEnroe. With nearly 200 stores across 70-odd humans and animals, so those tests are But the obvious question is, why use ces of spokespersons.”
She prefers working in companies that cities, India is now among the top 10 mar- not that accurate anyway. When the Favourite author plastic packaging at all? About 25% of The Body Shop customers
are “disruptive”, like The Body Shop, set kets for the global beauty brand, though whole world was making musk from Leon Uris “I don’t know and I am not qualified on happen to be men, she explains, but they
up by animal rights activist and environ- Malhotra aims to get into the top 5. India deer, we made it from synthetic,” says how to eliminate it altogether. It’s every- don’t record men’s sales separately
mentalist Anita Roddick in the UK in 1976. has its own home-grown brands and tradi- Malhotra. Favourite genre where. What we can do is be responsible because the same products work for all
“She had her own way of upsetting the sta- tional practices like Ayurveda, which In 1987, Roddick introduced an initia- of books for what’s out there. The idea is to recycle, genders—other than, of course, specific
tus quo,” says Malhotra of Roddick, who makes any newcomer battle for the atten- tive called Community Trade, under War and historical fiction repurpose and reuse. I am sure there will ranges for men like shaving products.
died in 2007. “It attracted a lot of people, tion of the consumer. “The essence of which ingredients are produced by small, be more scientific advancement, which “The whole store is there for you,” she
including me. The fact that it has a voice— Ayurveda is strong, with 5,000 years of mostly women-led, communities. “For Last book read will help find alternatives to plastic.” says, laughing.
sometimes strong, sometimes weak—that tradition,” says Malhotra. “Our strong tra- instance, one of our top selling ranges, Tea ‘You Can Heal Your Life’ by Prior to Kapoor, who was signed up as She used to read a lot, Malhotra says,
resides within a set of cultural values. It dition of natural ingredients has made it Tree Oil, which is sold every 2 seconds Louise Hay brand ambassador last year, actor Jacque- emphasizing the past tense, because it’s
was an extension of what I wanted.” an easy connect with Indians. Our appeal globally, is produced by a small coopera- line Fernandez was The Body Shop’s increasingly difficult to do so now. “If I
She always found consumers interest- is wider...but each has its own path.” tive of 500 farmers in Kenya supplying to Book abandoned brand ambassador in India. Though the have nothing else to do, I just open Wiki-
ing, right from the time she was at NIFT She finds the Indian consumer discern- the world,” says Malhotra. ‘Midnight’s Children’ by Salman company was briefly associated with three pedia and look for information.”
two-and-a-half decades ago, even though ing, curious to know the stories behind Interestingly, one of the first Commu- Rushdie. “I could never read it. Too women cricketers in 2018, long-term I return to the subject of plants, asking
a lot of her colleagues went to work for their products, and with a deep social con- nity Trade initiatives was implemented in many words put me off. If someone engagement continues with movie stars. for her favourite or what she would like to
fashion houses. She believes retail is a cern. “We (Indians) have opinions, read a India, with the sourcing of handcrafted can explain something in a simple Last year, the company also did its first tel- grow next. Wood rose (Argyreia nervosa),
tough profession because it’s consumer lot and consume a lot of information. The wooden bath accessories from a small out- way, it’s a gift.” evision commercial, a first for the com- she says, laughing, describing a green
facing all the time. “It puts you out there segment we deal with has a definite point fit in Madurai. The Body Shop does not pany globally, with Kapoor. Is Bollywood plant that bursts into yellow flowers and a
and you get the brickbats as well.” of view, are vocal about it. They read the have production facilities in India the only representative of beauty in the (seemingly) wooden rose. She scans
The Body Shop attracted a lot of brick- fine print.” (because it’s an international brand with country? through her phone to show me some pic-
bats when it was sold to cosmetics giant Malhotra knows that 70-80% of con- global factories and sources, says Mal- “Globally we don’t have a communica- tures of the plant, which is indigenous to
L’Oreal in 2006 because animal rights sumers are searching for “green” and “nat- hotra) though it does source some ingredi- tion angle like this. But India is so frag- India and South America.
groups opposed the French company’s ural” in personal grooming. For religious ents from the country, like mango seed oil mented, it resides in all places, not just big “It used to grow in Ranchi,” she says. “I
testing methods. While L’Oreal had its or other reasons, people are conscious of from Chhattisgarh. cities,” says Malhotra. “It’s too complex. contacted a grower in Texas and planted
shares of challenges with The Body Shop what lipstick they use, for example. Last year, the company launched a Smaller towns have aspirations, want the seeds. It grew for three years, gave me
(in turn selling it to Brazil’s Natura Cos- “There are a few principles The Body Community Trade recycled plastic pro- brands and don’t have them. We under- one rose and died, because it needs to go
méticos for $1.12 billion, around ₹8,000 Shop is based on and I am happy to talk gramme for its 250ml haircare bottles. stood there is a part of India outside big deep and I didn’t have enough space.”
crore now, in 2017), competition also about it. Don’t hurt anyone for vanity The plan is to scale the initiative to buying cities. Bollywood is not the only symbol of
came from other brands like Boots in the because business should not cause harm 900 tons of recycled plastic in three years, beauty but we need a large brand voice. Arun Janardhan is a Mumbai-based
UK and Lush, and e-commerce more to anyone. If you have to test, use science, working with non-governmental organi- We started with Bollywood because it gets journalist who covers sports, business lead-
recently. as there is little similarity between zation Hasiru Dala in Bengaluru. your voice out. We are updating our choi- ers and lifestyle.
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18 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI

DELHI JAL BOARD, GOVT. OF NCT OF DELHI DELHI JAL BOARD, GOVT OF NCT OF DELHI
OFFICE OF THE EXECUTIVE ENGINEER WEST-I EXECUTIVE ENGINEER (NORTH EAST)-I
O.H.T. BERIWALA BAGH, SUBHAS NAGAR, NEW DELHI-110064 2142 JANTA FLATS, G.T.B. ENCLAVE, DELHI-110093
NO. DJB/EE (W)I/2019-20/ DATED: 13.02.2020 PRESS NIT NO.- 94 (2019-20)
PRESS NOTICE TENDER NO. 76/W-I/(2019-20) (1) Detail of the work:
S. Name of work Amount put Last date/time of receipt S. Name of Work Amount put Date of release of Last date/time of receipt
No. to tender of tender through No. to tender tender in E-Procurement of tender through
E-Procurement solution solution E-Procurement solution
1. Replacement of existing 600 mm dia water line with 700 mm at Rs. 06.03.2020 1. Providing house service sewer 86,84,038.00 13.02.2020 26.02.2020
S Block Conner to Khayala Road and 500 mm dia line with 600 mm 1,52,49,855/- up to 3.00 PM connections from nearest DJB Manhole 2020_DJB_187904_4 2.10 PM
dia DI pipe from Bhatta Sahab Gurudwara Road to Saleti building to individual house in Pradhan Wali Gali
School as per Hydraulic Medelling of Khayala UGR in Ac 27 Rajouri area (ward No. 52-E) AC-68 NE-I
Garden under EE(WES)-I re-invites. Tender ID: 2020_DJB_1879481
Can view this particular statement in detail https:// govtprocurement.delhi.gov.in Further details in this regards can be seen at https://delhi.govtprocurement.com
ISSUED BY P.R.O. (WATER) EXECUTIVE ENGINEER (WEST)-I ISSUED BY P.R.O. (WATER)
Advt. No. J.S.V. 813/(19-20) (O) 25125273 Advt. No. J.S.V. 816/19-20 Ex. ENGINEER (NORTH EAST)-I

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20 SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020
CHENNAI
FM says willing
to go beyond
the budget to
boost growth
PTI
feedback@livemint.com
NEW DELHI
F
inance minister Nirmala
Sitharaman on Friday
said that, if required, the
government would take more
steps beyond the Union bud-
get to boost economic growth.
S
At a session titled ‘Budget
and Beyond’ with profession-
als from asset management,
wealth advisory, tax consult-
ancy and other related indus-
tries, the minister also said the
budget’s impact on equity,
bond and currency markets
was positive.
“If more has to be done
beyond the Budget 2020, we
are willing to do that,” Sithara-
man said at the session, where
the participants made several
suggestions to revive the econ-
omy.
The government
announced a host of steps in
the Union budget, presented
on 1 February in Parliament, to
fix the economy at a time when
the country is faced with a
demand slowdown.
India’s GDP growth is esti-
mated to slow to an 11-year low
of 5% in the current financial
year.
On the ‘Vivad se Vishwas’
scheme to deal with the dis-
putes related to the direct
taxes, Sitharaman said the
finance ministry will provide
details soon. However, Parlia-
ment approval will be required
before the scheme is imple-
mented.
The Union cabinet has
approved certain amendments
to the scheme.
“In a day or two, we shall be
coming with a clear non-paper
(on the scheme) because Par-
liament is yet to pass it,” she
said.
To a suggestion regarding
PAN cards, the minister said
the issuance process would be
simplified further.
Sebi moves to bar 2 former CARE
executives from securities markets
Jayshree P. Upadhyay
jayshree.p@livemint.com
MUMBAI
T
he Securities and
Exchange Board of India
(Sebi) has moved to bar
two former executives of
CARE Ratings Ltd—managing
director Rajesh Mokashi and
chairman S.B. Mainak—from
the securities markets after a
forensic audit said they had
interfered with the ratings of
instruments issued by Infra-
structure Leasing and Finan-
cial Services Ltd (IL&FS).
Sebi has sent show cause
notices to the two former
CARE executives, asking why
should they be not barred
from the securities markets
and holding directorship posts
in any entity regulated by Sebi,
said two people with direct
knowledge of the matter, seek-
ing anonymity.
“The two allegedly asked
the rating staff to hold ratings
and prevented reassessment
of ratings even when the mate-
rial facts pertaining to IL&FS
and its subsidiaries changed,”
said the first person. “They
were also found to be in touch
with the management of
IL&FS in a breach of conduct
to prevent conflict of interest,”
he added.
Rating agencies are facing
allegations that they relied
excessively on claims made by
IL&FS management, failing to
make independent profes-
sional assessment, getting
comfort from the parent com-
pany and failing to spot dispar-
ities in public disclosures
made by IL&FS.
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NEWS
SpiceJet reports 21% rise Mallya claims CBI,
ED treatment has
in Q3 profit to ₹78 crore been ‘unreasonable’
PTI
feedback@livemint.com
Airline has included as part of ‘other income’ a compensation that Boeing has offered LONDON
E
REUTERS mbattled liquor tycoon
Rhik Kundu Vijay Mallya has claimed
rhik.k@livemint.com that the Enforcement
NEW DELHI Directorate (ED) and Central
Bureau of Investigation (CBI)
piceJet Ltd showed an have treated him “unreasona-
unexpected net profit in ONGC Q3 bly” over the past four years.
net halves
the December quarter after on fall in oil,
The 64-year-old former
reporting a huge loss in the gas prices, Kingfisher Airlines boss is
previous three months, output appealing against his extradi- Vijay Mallya claimed he
and analysts said this was because bit.ly/2uCgUON tion order to India on charges is a victim of the aviation
the company took into account a of fraud and money launder- industry’s misfortune. REUTERS
compensation offered by Boeing Co. ing amounting to an alleged
India’s second-largest budget air- ₹9,000 crore in unpaid bank same assets…What all they are
line by market share reported a con- loans. doing to me for the last four
solidated net profit of ₹77.97 crore in His lawyers told the British years is totally unreasonable,”
the December quarter, an increase of high court this week that Mal- he added.
21% from the ₹64.44 crore in the lya had been the victim of the Representatives from the
year-ago period. It reported loss of airline industry’s misfortunes ED and CBI were present in
₹461 crore in the September quarter. and had no fraudulent inten- court this week during the
A Bloomberg survey of eight ana- tions behind seeking loans for course of the appeal hearing,
lysts expected the carrier to incur a his now-defunct airline. The which began on Tuesday and
profit of ₹57.63 crore in Q3. Crown Prosecution Service, concluded on Thursday.
The growth in net profit was, how- arguing on behalf of the Indian Mallya also reiterated his
ever, based on ‘other income’, or an authorities, countered the message for the Indian banks
‘interim offer’ from Boeing Co. to The expenses for the grounding of Boeing planes in April-December was ₹537.27 crore, including ₹246.42 crore for Q3. claims and to take back 100%
compensate SpiceJet for the costs stressed that Mallya reiterated of the principal
incurred for the grounding of 13 ₹173.20 crore) and a loss of ₹6,649.56 ity has grown by 59% in 2019,” Spice- the sector closely. there is a prima his message for amount owed to
737MAX aircraft. According to Spi- million ( ₹664.96 crore), respec- Jet said in a statement. “The average “However, both SpiceJet’s and facie case for Mal- Indian banks them, which he
ceJet’s estimates, the expense for the tively, and accumulated losses as at 31 domestic load factor for the quarter (rival) IndiGo’s December quarter lya to answer in to take back stressed had not
grounding of the planes during the December 2019 would have been was 91.9%,” it added. results show the pricing pressure the Indian courts. been borrowed
nine-month period to December higher by ₹5,372.70 million (₹537.27 The airline’s consolidated total that existed during the previous “The Enforce-
100% of the by him but by
2019 was ₹537.27 crore, including crore).” revenue grew 55% to ₹3,926.58 crore quarters has tapered out,” he added. ment Directorate principal amount Kingfisher Air-
₹246.42 crore for Q3. The airline’s expenses increased in Q3, from ₹2,532.61 crore a year India’s largest domestic carrier attached the owed to them lines.
If the airline had not recognized by about 56% from the year ago to ago. The figure crossed the ₹3,201.2 IndiGo (InterGlobe Aviation Ltd) assets on the “I request the
such other income, it would have ₹3,848.61 crore in Q3. Fuel costs crore consensus analysts’ estimate reported a twofold increase in net complaint by the banks with folded
reported losses of ₹173.19 profit in Q3 to ₹496 crore. banks that I was not paying hands, take 100 per cent of
crore for the December REPORT CARD SpiceJet said it has added them. I have not committed your principal back, immedi-
quarter. Boeing is yet to six aircraft to its fleet. At the any offences under the PMLA ately… I am willing to honour
release the compensation IF the airline had EXPENSES at the FUEL costs were, CONSOLIDATED end of the quarter it had 119 (Prevention of Money Laun- my guarantee and pay them in
amount. not recognized such airline increased by however, down from total revenue grew planes, comprising 82 Boe- dering Act) that the Enforce- full. I do not want any discount
‘other income’, it about 56% from a ₹343.17 crore in Q3 55% to ₹3,926.58 crore
Auditors S.R. Batliboi and would have reported year ago to about FY19 to ₹102.46 crore in Q3 from ₹2,532.61 ing 737s, 32 Bombardier Q ment Directorate should suo on principal and the hangover
Associates LLP said in a a loss of ₹173.19 crore ₹3,848.61 crore in Q3 in December quarter crore a year ago 400s and five B737 freight- moto attach my assets,” Mallya of loss of public money,” he
statement on BSE website, ers. told reporters at the end of his said.
“In our view, there is no vir- “SpiceJet has done three-day appeal hearing at “Under the bankruptcy
tual certainty to recognise such other were, however, down from ₹343.17 by Bloomberg. remarkably well this quarter, despite the Royal Courts of Justice in code, so many companies are
income, as required by paragraph 33 crore in Q3 FY19 to ₹102.46 crore in “Despite a rise in costs, the air- a substantial profit hit from the London on Thursday. now changing hands with sig-
of Ind-AS 37. Had the company not the December quarter. line reported a healthy profit as it grounding of the (Boeing 737 MAX) “I am saying, please banks nificant haircuts being taken
recognised such other income, the “Despite the challenges that the was able to increase its revenue. MAX aircraft, which has impacted take your money. The ED is by banks. I don’t want any
reported profit for the quarter and airline is facing in terms of additional The costs went up despite lower our operations and led to additional saying no, we have a claim over haircut, I want them to take
loss for the year to date from 1 April costs incurred, compounded by the fuel prices, as the airline has been costs,” SpiceJet’s chairman and man- these assets. So, the ED on the their money in full,” added
2019 to 31 December 2019 would continued grounding of its Boeing steadily inducting capacity,” said a aging director Ajay Singh said in a one side and the banks on the Mallya, who has been based in
have been a loss of ₹1,731.95 million ( 737 MAX aircraft, the airline’s capac- Mumbai-based analyst who tracks statement. other are fighting over the the UK since March 2016.
FILM REVIEW LOVE AAJ KAL Amazon wins stay
against CCI probe
ANIRUDDHA CHOWDHURY/MINT
director of CARE Ratings, FROM PAGE 22 merce firms.
according to the disclosures On Thursday, Goyal said at a
filed with the exchanges. But stayed even before it has been Times Now summit that
CARE, in its latest statement, completed, experts said. e-commerce firms should
said the board has considered “A stay of an investigation strictly adhere to foreign
the report of the forensic audit initiated by CCI is not normally investment laws and that it
and has decided to terminate granted unless there is an “certainly does not look and
Mokashi’s employment with inherent question of jurisdic- feel and smell right” when a
effect from 16 July, the date he tion, or there is a significant company makes a loss of
was placed on leave. infirmity apparent on the face ₹6,000 crore on a revenue of
Mint could not reach out to of the record,” said Abdullah ₹5,000 crore.
Mainak. Calls to Mokashi went Hussain, partner, L&L Part- This was in reference to the
unanswered. ners. “(But) the huge losses
Sebi has commissioned a high court has DVM, and its reported by Flip-
Rating agencies are facing forensic audit on India Rat- stayed the investi- parent body, the kart and Amazon
charges that they relied ings, Icra and Brickwork Rat- gation only tem- Confederation of over the years.
ings for alleged lapses in rating Uday Bhatia 1990s, with a younger Raghu (also played porarily and the
excessively on assertions of All India Traders, Goyal said CCI or
the IL&FS management. the instruments issued by uday.b@livemint.com by Aryan) in love with Leena (Aarushi order of CCI may his ministry
or CAIT, said they would not have to
IL&FS and its subsidiaries. Sharma). yet be upheld in
the final deci- will file an appeal probe e-com-
I
On 11 February, CARE told Sebi has already sent sup- n a crowded nightclub, Zoe (Sara Ali Like their modern counterparts, he’s
the bourses that Mainak, who plementary showcause noti- Khan) stares hungrily at Veer (Kartik diffident but determined, she’s forthright sion,” he added. against the order merce companies
had earlier served as managing ces to three rating agencies— Aaryan). In no time, they’re shrugging and unembarrassed—when they finally DVM, and its if they adhered to
director of Life Insurance Cor- CARE, Icra and India Rat- off clothes on his bed. But before things get some time alone and he can’t make the parent body, the “the letter and
poration of India, had resigned ings—for enhancing the can go further, Veer stops. He won’t sleep first move, she points out that if he just Confederation of All India spirit of the law”.
from the ratings agency citing penalties imposed on them. with her because he likes her too much. wanted to talk they could have done that Traders (CAIT), said they will Flipkart and Amazon have
personal reasons. Sebi’s fresh notices to rating Zoe is understandably miffed. Who on the phone. file an appeal against the order. the biggest share of India’s fast-
“However, the actual reason agencies were issued under catches feelings on the bike ride home? Raghu leaving his job and family, and It also said its representatives growing e-commerce market,
is that Sebi had asked the Section 15(i) of the Sebi Act, Veer and Zoe find love to be compli- following Leena to Delhi, is twinned will meet commerce minister which stood at $30.8 billion in
agency to sack Mainak for which gives the regulators cated, unreasonable, infuriating, with Zoe’s guilt over turning Piyush Goyal and finance min- 2019, according to RedSeer
alleged lapses,” said the sec- board powers to review penal- tormenting—a world view down work in Dubai to be with ister Nirmala Sitharaman and Consulting.
ond person. “The ties. The IL&FS espoused so consistently by Aarti Veer. Both Raghu and Zoe go request them to initiate an Over the past three years,
board has also
been asked to
An audit found default left a
former CARE MD ₹99,354 crore
director Imtiaz Ali that his
films have started to assume
Bajaj into a tailspin because
they’re afraid that they’ve
Enforcement Directorate CCI has also increased scrutiny
probe against the two e-com- of internet firms.
had edited Imtiaz Ali’ s
hold back all the Mokashi and hole in the finan- those qualities. Like all of the ve “committed” too early on in
first iteration of ‘Lo
benefits to these chairman Mainak cial system, which director’s heroes, Veer falls in Aaj Kal’ (2009) life. Both Kartik Aaryans
officials,” he interfered with is the amount love hard—totally, tenderly, as well pick a fight for no reason and CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS
added. ratings of IL&FS’s owed by IL&FS tragically, as Michel Piccoli said get clobbered. If only symmetry
In a statement instruments and its subsidiar- to Brigitte Bardot in Contempt. But were a substitute for insight. Mint welcomes comments, suggestions or complaints about errors.
on Friday, CARE ies to its lenders. Zoe had been raised by her single mother People used to say Ali had nothing to
said the board has On 26 December, to put her career ahead of everything else offer besides ruminations on love; now Readers can alert the newsroom to any errors in the paper by
decided inquire Sebi had passed and, once she starts to grow genuinely even those thoughts have begun to grate. emailing us, with your full name and address to
feedback@livemint.com.
into the issue of interference by orders against the three ratings fond of Veer, she gets a show-stopping Self-regarding romanticism seems like
its officials, including Mainak agencies levying a penalty of case of cold feet. the only card he can play. The problem It is our policy to promptly respond to all complaints. Readers
and Mokashi, in the rating ₹25 lakh each. The agencies Like Ali’s earlier, Love Aaj Kal (2009), isn’t that Zoe and Veer aren’t deep charac- dissatisfied with the response or concerned about Mint’s journalistic
process in the past three years. had assigned IL&FS the high- the present-day love story is punctuated ters (which they certainly aren’t) or that integrity may write directly to the editor by sending an email to
Last July, Mokashi was est rating of AAA before the with an earlier one, told to Zoe by Raghu Aaryan and Khan aren’t lively performers, asktheeditor@livemint.com
asked to go on leave by CARE, default in September 2018, (Randeep Hooda), owner of the co-work- but that the film treats their heartaches
Mint’s journalistic Code of Conduct that governs our newsroom is
and five months later, he even though its unit had ing space she uses. It begins in the early like they’re special. available at www.livemint.com
stepped down as managing defaulted in June of that year.
 Telegram Channel: https://t.me/KittusWealthJourney

NEWS SATURDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2020

CHENNAI 21

AP

Exports decline 1.7% in January,

trade deficit widens to $15 billion
Merchandise exports fall for sixth month amid fears the coronavirus contagion may further dent economy
Asit Ranjan Mishra m MINT GRAPHITI
While exports of ready-made
asit.m@livemint.com Downward slope garment fell by 5%, gems and jew- Cruise ship Diamond Princess, with 3,711 people on board, arrived
NEW DELHI India’s exports fell by 1.7%, while imports declined by ellery dropped by 11.6% and engi- at the Japanese coast last week and was quarantined after a
0.75% in January, leading to a trade deficit of $15 billion. neering goods lost 4% during the passenger who de-boarded in Hong Kong was found to be infected.

I
ndia’s merchandise exports Exports Imports (Year-on-year in %)
month. However exports of phar-
fell for the sixth consecutive
month in January while the
trade deficit rose to a seven-
10

5
4.48
-0.75
maceuticals (12.4%), electronics
goods (32.8%), petroleum prod-
ucts (3%) and chemicals (2.5%)
2012 Delhi
gang rape
case: SC
rejects plea
No coronavirus peak in
sight, another Indian
month high amid rising fears 0 made a recovery. against
0.64 rejection of
that the novel coronavirus conta- -5 Among major imports, coal fell
-1.66 mercy
gion may further dent India’s -10
by 24.4%, chemicals by 12%, gold petition
trade and economy. 31.5% and electronics goods
The country’s exports fell by
1.7% in January, while imports fell
-20

by 0.75%, leading to a trade deficit
of $15 billion, according to com-
merce ministry figures released on
Friday. Imports fell for eight
months in a row.
According to experts, the pro-
longed coronavirus contagion in
China could hit India’s trade and
economy, which has become
highly dependent on its northern
neighbour with exponential
expansion of trade linkages since
2002-03.
Trade with China has grown
from $4.8 billion in 2002-03 to
$87 billion in 2018-19.
Last October, the World Trade
Organization (WTO) downgraded
its world merchandise trade vol-
umes growth for 2020 from 3% to
2.7%. It also cautioned that the
downside risks remain high, and
that the an upward revision will
depend upon revival of more nor-
mal trade relations.
Aditi Nayar, principal econo-
mist at Icra Ltd, said the increase
in the January merchandise trade
deficit has primarily been led by a
-30
shrank by 4.7%. However, signal-
ling a recovery in domestic indus-
bit.ly/2wcOwmw
infected on cruise ship
trial activity, imports of machinery
Trade deficit (in $ billion)
16 (4%) and transport equipment (2%) FROM PAGE 22 tracker for the disease, there
15.33 15.17 rose. are 64,447 positive cases
12
Sharad Kumar Saraf, president blocked from five countries across the world, mostly in
8 of apex trade body Federation of due to virus fears finally dis- mainland China, with 1,384
4
Indian Export Organisations, said embarked in Cambodia. people dying of the coronavi-
besides protectionism, liquidity In its latest update, China’s rus disease.
0 concerns and the sudden spread of National Health Commission The new figures give no
Apr 2019 Jan 2020
Source: Commerce ministry
the novel coronavirus, global sen- said it had recorded 121 new indication that the outbreak is
timent has worsened further, deaths and 5,090 new corona- nearing a peak, said Adam
PHOTOGRAPH BY MINT; GRAPHIC BY NAVEEN KUMAR SAINI/MINT
prompting exporters to delay their virus cases on the mainland on Kamradt-Scott, an infectious
sharp rise in crude oil imports FY20,” she added. India’s fledgling economic shipments. 13 February, taking the accu- diseases expert at the Centre
(15.3%), which will subside in Feb- During the first 10 months of growth, which is estimated to “Domestic issues, including mulated total infected to for International Security
ruary because of the correction in the current fiscal year (April-Jan- decelerate to an 11-year low of 5% uncertainty over the govern- 63,851 people. Studies at the University of
crude oil prices. uary), exports have contracted in 2019-20. ment’s Merchandise Exports from Some 55,748 people are cur- Sydney.
“The impact and dura- India Scheme, has been a rently undergoing treatment, “Based on the current trend
tion of the Coronavirus TANGLED TRADE major cause for concern while 1,380 people have died in confirmed cases, this
threat on manufacturing as exporters’ claims for of the flu-like virus that appears to be a clear indication
supply chains, tourism DURING THE first 10 OF THE 30 major TRADE WITH THE INCREASE in about six months are still emerged in Hubei province’s that while the Chinese author-
and trade, poses a risk to months of the current items in India’s export China has grown
fiscal, while exports and import baskets, from $4.8 billion
trade deficit has
primarily been led
pending. This has wiped capital, Wuhan, in December. ities are doing their best to
the level of exports and contracted 1.9%, 21 export items and 17 in 2002-03 to by a sharp rise in out their liquidity, and The latest toll takes account of prevent the spread of the coro-
imports of goods and ser- imports shrank 8.1% imported goods fell $87 billion in 2018-19 crude oil imports has restricted them from some deaths that had been navirus, the fairly drastic
vices in the ongoing quar- finalising new contracts. double counted in Hubei, the measures they have imple-
ter. Regardless, the The problem of risky health commission said. mented to date would appear
decline in commodity prices will 1.9%, while imports shrank 8.1%, Out of the 30 major items each exporters has further com- In India, aviation regulator to have been too little, too
cushion the impact on the current leading to a trade deficit of $133.3 in India’s export and import bas- pounded the liquidity problem as Directorate General of Civil late,” he said.
account deficit, which is now billion. kets, 21 export items and 17 their GST (goods and services tax) Aviation (DGCA) on Friday Chinese scientists are test-
expected to print around 1% of A weakening external sector imported goods witnessed con- and drawback claims have also added Japan and South Korea ing two antiviral drugs and
GDP (gross domestic product) in will put additional pressure on traction. been held up,” added Saraf. to its list of countries from preliminary results are weeks
where passengers coming into away.
India will be screened for coro- The head of a hospital in
navirus. Passengers from Wuhan, a city under virtual
Thailand, Singa- lockdown to pre-
pore, China and Kerala finance vent the spread of

SC threatens telecom Investors hang up on Vodafone Idea stock Hong Kong are minister Thomas the virus, told
already screened
for the virus.
Isaac said the reporters on
state has ‘won the Thursday that
firms with contempt Continuing slide
FROM PAGE 22

Vodafone Idea’s shares have lost 88% since the merger between
Ebitda (enterprise value/earn-
ings before interest, taxes,
In a meeting
convened by
health secretary
fight over Corona’ plasma infusions
as all 3 patients
have recovered
from recovered
patients had
nications,” said an analyst, depreciation and amortiza- Preeti Sudan on shown some
for failure to pay dues requesting anonymity.
To be sure, Vodafone Idea’s
shares have lost 88% since the
Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd in August 2018.

35
30.11
Vodafone Idea (in )
tion),” said Edelweiss in a note
on 5 February.
Analysts at SBICap Securi-
Friday, states and
Union territories
reported that protocols and
encouraging pre-
liminary results.
Japan confirmed its first
30
MINT merger between Vodafone ties Ltd think Bharti Airtel guidelines issued by the Cen- coronavirus death—a woman
25
FROM PAGE 22 India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd will gain from a possible tre are being followed to avoid in her 80s living in Kanagawa
in August 2018. 20 Vodafone Idea shutdown as a spread. They also said suffi- prefecture near Tokyo—on
com companies to repay AGR Vodafone Idea Ltd nar- 15 its subscriber market share cient stocks for personal pro- Thursday. The death was the
dues by the end of the day in rowed its net loss to ₹6,438.8 10 3.44 will rise to 40%, even if gets tection equipment and masks third outside mainland China,
order to comply with the Octo- crore in the December quarter 5 40% of Vodafone Idea’s sub- have been procured. Uttara- after two others in Hong Kong
ber verdict of the Supreme from the ₹50,922 crore loss in 0 scribers. khand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and the Philippines.
30 Aug 2018 14 Feb 2020
Court. the September quarter, having Source: Capitaline, BSE
“That said, the chances are West Bengal and Sikkim, A top infectious-disease sci-
“You are hereby directed to accounted for most of the lia- that Bharti will end up having which border either China or entist warned that things
NAVEEN KUMAR SAINI/MINT
make the payment of out- bilities related to adjusted an even larger share as only Nepal, have been advised to could get far worse: Two-
standing dues of licence fee gross revenue in the preceding (ARPU) and 3.6 The SC order “Bharti’s Q3 45% of Vodafone Idea’s total strengthen the disease surveil- thirds of the world’s popula-
and spectrum usage charges quarter itself. million quarter makes operational numbers demon- subscriber base are data sub- lance, the ministry said. tion could catch it.
by 11.59pm on 14 February In contrast, Bharti Airtel on quarter (q-o-q) sustainability strate its ability to scribers and the residual are Meanwhile, Kerala finance Estimates by Ira Longini, an
positively,” the DoT letter said. shares gained 58.85% in 2019, subscriber addi- more uncertain, garner high value 2G subscribers,” said SBICap minister Thomas Isaac on Fri- adviser to the World Health
In response, Bharti Airtel and are up 23.56% so far in tions. customers which Securities Ltd in a note on 11 day said the state has “won the Organization who tracked
particularly for
said it will deposit ₹10,000 2020. According to positions it well February. fight over Corona” since all studies of the virus’s transmis-
crore as part payment for AGR On Friday, Bharti Airtel analysts at Edel- Vodafone Idea, for further tariff Currently, Vodafone Idea three patients who tested posi- sibility in China, imply that
dues to the DoT by 20 Febru- Hopes for telcos, which wanted ended at ₹565.10 apiece, up weiss Securities, say analysts hike…Bharti, has five buy ratings, 10 holds tive for the virus have fully there could eventually be bil-
ary and the balance before 17 more time to repay AGR dues, 4.69% or ₹25.30. Bharti Airtel is however, is well and seven sell ratings by ana- recovered. lions more infections than the
March as it needs time to com- appear to have been crushed. Bharti Airtel’s December well placed to placed for the lysts on Bloomberg. “Just as in the case of Nipah, current official tally of about
plete the exercise of calculat- quarter results were opera- honour its adjusted gross reve- eventuality with its network Bharti Airtel, on the other Kerala has won battle with 60,000.
ing dues across 22 circles. pure 4G network. tionally strong with 5.5% nue liabilities without com- investments and strong bal- hand, has 26 buys, three hold Corona Virus,” he tweeted. Neetu Chandra Sharma,
The government, in a sepa- “If Vodafone were to invoke improvement sequentially in promising its abilities to make ance sheet. The stock is trad- and one sell ratings by analysts According to the Johns Rhik Kundu and M.K. Nidheesh
rate letter, also withdrew its 23 the insolvency provisions, average revenue per user future network investments. ing at 7.7 times FY21 EV/ on Bloomberg. Hopkins university’s live contributed to this story.
January order, in which it had then it may be likely that the
decided not to take coercive DoT will be an operational
action against mobile service creditor under the IBC (Insol-
providers that failed to meet vency and Bankruptcy Code).
the court-directed deadline It could result in a substantial
for paying the dues. loss for the government if
Mint has seen a copy of the Vodafone were to take that
letters by Airtel and DoT. route as they may not get paid
Repayment of AGR dues a tall order for Voda GoAir names former Jet
With this,
relief hopes for The govt withdrew also choose to
operators, which
much. DoT may

cancel the licence

Romita Majumdar
romita.m@livemint.com
from wireless operations in
India grew 0.7% quarter-on-
quarter to ₹3,420 crore, but
executive Dube as CEO
its 23 January Rhik Kundu
wanted more order, in which it due to default MUMBAI the management said that the
time to repay under the licence higher interconnect usage rhik.k@livemint.com
had decided not

T
AGR dues to the agreement, elecom operator Voda- charges weighed. MUMBAI
DoT, appear to to take coercive which may make fone Idea Ltd surprised Vodafone said it had lost 7.1
action against

W
have been it difficult for any the Street with Q3 reve- million customers, which was adia Group-con-
crushed. telecom firms prospective reso- nue beating analysts’ esti- more than analysts’ consensus trolled GoAir on
This also raises lution applicant mates, but a closer look at sev- estimates of about 5.5 million. Friday said it has
questions on the to bid for the eral other financial parameters During the same period appointed former Jet Air-
survival of Vodafone Idea and company,” said Saurav Kumar, show that it will be an uphill Bharti Airtel added 3.6 million ways (India) Ltd executive
competition in the Indian tele- partner, IndusLaw. task for the company to pay its subscribers and Jio gained Vinay Dube as its chief exec-
coms market, which could see Email queries to DoT, Voda- huge liabilities to the govern- almost 15 million. utive officer (CEO).
the risk of a duopoly and price fone Idea, Bharti Airtel and ment. But it was in terms of gen- Dube will report to the
rises. Tata Teleservices were unan- The company’s revenue was Vodafone’s subscriber base was down from 311.1 million in the eral subscriber usage metrics chairman, managing director New GoAir chief executive
Vodafone Idea’s ability to swered till press time. at ₹11,089.4 crore for the three past quarter to 304 million during the December quarter. REUTERS where rival operators have and the board. “He will be officer Vinay Dube.
continue as a going concern is “It is dispiriting to see the months ended 31 December, moved ahead of Vodafone responsible for the manage-
dependent on the positive out- Supreme Court drawing con- up 2.2% from the September perform peers in revenue ture and a change in the inter Idea. ment of the airline, and also more than 20,000 employ-
come of the modification tempt against telecom com- quarter. Lower subscriber growth—quarter-on-quarter connection user charge While its average minutes of for meeting the goals and ees and consistently deliver-
application filed in the apex panies. For the time being, usage metrics, such as minutes revenues were flat compared (IUC)—the cost paid by a usage per user increased sig- long-term growth objectives ing margin expansion, reve-
court and the subsequent telecom companies also have of usage and data consump- with a 5% sequential increase mobile operator to another nificantly from 583 minutes a of the company,” the airline nue growth and operational
agreement with DoT for pay- to deal with contempt tion, indicate that its subscrib- in adjusted cellular revenue when its customers make calls year ago to 674 minutes, it said in a statement. excellence, while developing
ment in instalments after some actions and will need to strat- ers may shift to rival operators. for Bharti, and a 6.4% increase to that network. continues to lag behind Jio Dube was the CEO at Jet platforms of world-class cus-
moratorium and other reliefs, egize on this front in addition While the company’s for Jio,” said a report by Bank On 10 October, Vodafone’s (760 minutes) and Bharti Air- Airways during its last few tomer service and employee
the company had said on to the demand notice. This is reported average revenue per of America Global Research. competitor Jio had said that it tel (898 minutes). turbulent years prior to its engagement is something
Thursday. a challenging time for the user (Arpu) was up from ₹107 It added that the Ebitda would charge users 6 paise per Greater clarity on Vodafone shutdown. The airline that GoAir will benefit from,”
To be sure, Jio paid its AGR industry and the government in the past quarter to ₹109, its (earnings before interest, minute for calls made to other Idea’s Q3 performance will be founded by Naresh Goyal was Jeh Wadia, GoAir’s manag-
dues on 23 January. Airtel is as no breakthrough seems to subscriber base was down taxes, depreciation and amor- networks to account for IUC. available post an analyst call, grounded last April due to an ing director, said in a state-
best placed to absorb 2G and be in horizon.” said Harsh from 311.1 million to 304 mil- tisation) margin at 30.8% Jio posted a net profit of which the operator postponed acute fund crunch. ment.
3G subscribers of Vodafone Walia, partner, Khaitan and lion during the period under missed the bank’s estimate of ₹1,350 crore for the December ahead of the Supreme Court “I welcome Vinay to the Earlier, Dube also had
Idea in case the telecom com- Co. consideration. 33.5%, on account of higher quarter. hearing on adjusted gross rev- GoAir family. His proficiency stints with Delta Airlines and
pany shuts down, as Jio is a navadha.p@livemint.com “VIL continued to under- network operating expendi- Vodafone Idea’s Ebitda enues. in leading enterprises with American Airlines.
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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2020
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MALHOTRA ON INDIA PLANS uP17 PROFIT IN DEC QUARTER uP20

Voda Idea runs out of talk time DON’T MISS

Supreme Court threatens mobile carriers with contempt proceedings unless they pay AGR dues to government
Navadha Pandey & m MINT GRAPHITI
MIDNIGHT DEADLINE
Prathma Sharma

NEW DELHI The Supreme Court has dealt a severe blow THE SC RAP
Investors hang up
to mobile carriers who have been seeking
on Voda Idea stock
T
he Supreme Court more time to settle thousands of crores in TELCOS pulled up MDs of the firms to Judge halts
back fees. The setback threatens to push for not paying dues appear in court on Microsoft
on Friday pulled up work on
mobile service Vodafone Idea to the brink, weeks after it despite dismissal of 17 March in case of Govt is willing to go beyond the
$10 billion
operators and the warned of a potential collapse. review application. failure to repay dues. Nasrin Sultana companies to settle pend- Pentagon budget to revive growth, says FM
department of tele- nasrin.s@livemint.com ing adjusted gross reve- cloud deal Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that,
CONTEMPT proceedings against the desk after if required, the government would take more
communications (DoT) for in  cr
officer who passed the 23 January order
MUMBAI nue dues by 17 March Amazon suit
failing to comply with its ver- makes operational sus- steps beyond the budget to boost growth. She
that said no coercive action will be taken alleges bias
said the budget’s impact on equity, bond and

dict, which mandated telecom
companies to pay the adjusted
gross revenue (AGR) dues of
over ₹1 trillion to the DoT by
23 January.
The development comes as
a fresh blow for Vodafone
Idea—once India’s largest
telco by subscriber base. The
company is in a parlous state
after an over-three-year battle
in the hyper-competitive tele-
com sector, which has shrunk
its revenue streams and sad-
dled it with debt.
“This case projects a very
disturbing scenario. The com-
panies have violated the order
passed by this court in pith and
substance. In spite of the dis-
missal of the review applica-
tion, they have not deposited
any amount so far. It appears
the way in which things are
happening that they have
scant respect to the directions
35,586
Bharti Airtel
14,000
Tata Teleservices
Source: Mint research
issued by this court,” the
Supreme Court order on Fri-
day said.
Ending a 14-year-long court
battle, the apex court on 24
October had upheld the gov-
ernment’s broader definition
of revenue, on which it calcu-
lates levies on telecom opera-
tors. The order had dealt a
body blow to the telecom
industry.
Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel
and Tata Teleservices last
month filed modification pleas
seeking more time to pay
against telcos for non-payment of dues.
WHAT NEXT
TELCOS told
by DoT to clear
50,000
dues by 14 Feb
Vodafone Idea
midnight.
AGR-related dues. The DoT
had on 23 January asked its
officers not to take coercive
action against telcos for non-
payment of dues.
The judges made scathing
remarks about an unnamed
desk officer.
“In the circumstances, we
draw contempt proceedings
against the desk officer for
passing the order and violating
the order passed by this court.
The managing directors/
directors of the companies
also to show cause why we
AIRTEL said VODAFONE
it will deposit Idea’s
10,000 cr position
by 20 Feb. unclear.
SANTOSH SHARMA/MINT
should not initiate contempt
proceedings against them for
violating the order passed by
this court by not depositing
the amount, on the next date of
hearing… It is made clear that
in case the order passed by this
court is not complied with, the
above persons shall remain
personally present in court on
the next date of hearing,” the
order said.
After the court hearing on
Friday, the DoT asked all tele-
TURN TO PAGE 21
S
hares of Vodafone tainability more uncer- bit.ly/2uOO0ef currency markets was positive. See Page 20
Idea crashed 23.21% tain, particularly for
to hit a low of ₹3.44 Vodafone Idea.
apiece on Friday after the “Its ability to pay over
Supreme Court asked tele- ₹55,000 crore by the stipu- India’s exports decline for the
sixth straight month in January
com compa- lated date is
nies to pay up The stock, which u n c e r t a i n , India’s merchandise exports fell for the sixth
consecutive month in January while the
the adjusted has been under given its cur-
gross revenue rent financial trade deficit rose to a seven-month high
severe selling amid rising fears of coronavirus impact on
(AGR) dues to pressure over flexibility. Air-
trade and economy. See Page 21
the depart-
the last few years, tel needs to
ment of tele- pay ₹35,500
communica- crashed 23.21% crore, and
tions (DoT). on Friday they have Sebi moves to bar two former
The tele- been able to CARE executives from markets
com stock has raise funds in Sebi has moved to bar two former CARE
been under severe selling the recent past. We expect Ratings officials—managing director Rajesh
pressure over the last few telecom tariffs to rise fur- Mokashi and chairman S.B. Mainak—from
the markets after an audit found they had
years as the industry chal- ther by at least 20-25% in
interfered with IL&FS ratings. See Page 20
lenged the policy changes, the near- to medium-term
slumping 40% so far in to support payments of
2020 and 73% in 2019. such large dues to the
Analysts are concerned department of telecommu- NOTE TO READERS Content on page 7 was produced by
that the Supreme Court Mint Brand Cell in collaboration with India Design ID 2020 as part
order directing telecom TURN TO PAGE 21 of our customer connect initiative. The news and editorial teams
of Mint had no role in its creation.

Amazon wins stay against CCI probe

Sharan Poovanna & Mihir Dalal sangh (DVM), a group repre- ended fishing expedition” and
BENGALURU senting small- and medium- accused it of jurisdictional
sized businesses, had overreach. An advocate repre-

T
he Karnataka high court approached CCI alleging busi- senting Amazon said the com-
on Friday stayed the ness malpractices by Amazon pany was compliant with for-
Competition Commis- and Flipkart, which included eign direct investment (FDI)
sion of India’s (CCI)’s investiga- preferential treatment to sell- laws and argued that it was
tion into Amazon India and ers affiliated with, or controlled being wrongly probed under
Walmart-owned Flipkart for by, the compa- the competition
alleged anti-competitive prac- nies, predatory The Karnataka act by CCI.
tices, including predatory pric- pricing and exclu- high court The court
ing and preferential treatment sive arrange- has granted eight observed that the
of sellers. ments w i t h weeks to Amazon CCI order does
The high court granted eight mobile phone
India and Flipkart not meet the test
weeks to the e-commerce com- brands. of prima facie
panies to file their responses, CCI, in its to file their opinion being
and is expected to resume hear- order, observed responses formed about the
ing thereafter, three people that a probe was need for an inves-
aware of the development said. warranted into tigation.
The stay came in response to a allegations of exclusive The court order comes as a
10 February writ petition by arrangements between brands breather to Amazon and Flip-
Amazon against CCI’s January and e-commerce companies, as kart amid intensifying scrutiny
decision to launch a probe fol- well the charges of preferential of e-commerce companies by
lowing complaints that the treatment to certain sellers. authorities. It is highly unusual
e-commerce platforms had mis- In its petition before the Kar- for a CCI investigation to be
used their dominant positions. nataka high court, Amazon lik-
The Delhi Vyapar Maha- ened CCI’s actions to an “open- TURN TO PAGE 20

No virus peak in sight, another

Indian infected on cruise ship
PTI & Reuters
TOKYO/BEIJING

A
third Indian crew on
board a cruise ship off
the Japanese coast has
tested positive for the novel
coronavirus, the Indian
embassy in Japan said on Fri-
day as authorities confirmed
that 218 people have been
infected with the deadly virus
on the quarantined ship.
The cruise ship, Diamond
Princess, with 3,711 people on A couple wearing protective face masks kiss at a subway station
board arrived at the Japanese in Hong Kong on Valentine’s Day on Friday. BLOOMBERG
coast early last week and was
quarantined after a passenger per information available with explained to them about the
who de-boarded last month in the embassy, no other Indian quarantine regulations of Jap-
Hong Kong was found to be national on-board Diamond anese authorities.
infected. Princess cruise ship has devel- Meanwhile, China’s corona-
A total of 138 Indians, oped any symptoms of infec- virus outbreak showed no sign
including 132 crew and six pas- tion,” the Indian embassy said. of peaking with health author-
sengers, are on board the ship. The Indian embassy has ities on Friday reporting more
“All 218 people, including reached out to the Indian than 5,000 new cases, while
Indian nationals, have been nationals—crew members and passengers on a cruise ship
taken to hospitals for further passengers—through emails
treatment and quarantine. As and telephone calls and has TURN TO PAGE 21