NEW DELHI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, kOLkATA, CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD, HyDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, pUNE* VOL. 17 NO. 24 Rs10.00 in Delhi-NCR; Rs11.

-NCR; Rs11.00 outside Delhi-NCR. Mint is also available for Rs15.50 with Hindustan Times in Delhi-NCR only 16 pAGES

INDIAN COUTURE
IN PARIS
SATURDAY, JANUARy 28 2023 From Rahul Mishra’s fantasy
world crafted with fine
embroidery to Vaishali S.
heroing the sari, Indian
designers play with tradi-
tional embroideries and fab-
rics to showcase garments
that speak to everyone
SEE PAGE 3

ADANI STOCK CRASH WIPES OUT ₹3.19 TRILLION INVESTOR WEALTH | PAGE 16

TRACK
RECORD
THE DELHI METRO, WHICH HAS JUST TURNED 20, IS INSEPARABLE
FROM LIFE IN THE MEGA-CITY. IT IS MORE THAN A SYSTEM OF PUBLIC
TRANSPORT: IT REPRESENTS REFUGE, PRIVACY, FREEDOM, AND A
SLOW CHANGE IN THE CITY’S CULTURAL FABRIC

THINk
JLF 2023 diary: everything,
everywhere all at once
TASTE
India puts its spin
on the croissant
CULTURE
Sundance 2023: the calm
composition of ‘Pianoforte’
BUSINESS LOUNGE
Manu Chandra is ready
for service again
02 SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi FIRST

PLAN THE WEEK

A NOTE FROM
THE EDITOR
NEW ON SCREENS AHEAD
A Korean sci-fi action film, a French banlieue comedy
SHALINI UMACHANDRAN and other titles to watch this weekend
GAMAN
In Muzaffar Ali’s classic 1978 film,

Finding a city’s Farooq Shaikh plays a slacker from a

village who travels to Mumbai in search
of work. There he becomes a taxi driver
but is haunted by memories of his

rhythms home and wife (Smita Patil). (MUBI)

THE NUANCES Of GLASS ART

he Glass Maker’s Club is

HINDUSTAN TIMES

T presenting its inaugural

exhibition at Bikaner
House, Delhi. Titled The Glass
Menagerie, Contemporary Prac-
tices In Glass, the group show,
featuring work by 20 artists,
such as Hemi Bawa, Atul Bakshi
and Nandini Datta, has been
curated by Kristine Michael.
The club, an initiative of Ash-
wini Pai Bahadur from Art-
speaks India, is a platform to
showcase artistic innovations in
THE INTEREST OF LOVE the medium of glass. It hopes to
Ha Sang-soo (Yoo Yeon-seok) and An bring together artists, writers
Soo-young (Moon Ga-young), who are and collectors in a bid to create
colleagues at a bank, like each other but greater awareness about glass
are dating different people.The K- art. In the coming months, it
drama reflects the workplace plans to host more shows, work-
harassment faced by women and how shops and studio visits themed
wealth and social status play a role in on the genre. On view from 28
who you date and marry. (Netflix) January-2 February at Bikaner
House, Delhi, 11am-6pm
“Maybe I’m finally becoming a local,” said a friend I spotted and
hailed on Bengaluru’s Church Street last week. She had moved
to the city from Delhi a year earlier. “This is the first time some-
one recognised me on the street,” she said. It got me thinking
about how we tell ourselves that we’ve slipped into a city’s
rhythms. For another friend, being able to direct someone who
is lost—giving the right directions, not made-up ones—is a sign
of “becoming a local” or feeling at home. For me, being able to
navigate the Metro—or in its absence, the public transport sys-
tem—makes me feel like I’m coming to grips with a city.
Another friend collects maps and memorabilia of Metros of JUNG_E
every new city he visits. Metro systems, somehow, evoke all The earth is ravaged by climate change; humans have moved to colonies in
sorts of feelings in their users, from frustration and boredom to space and a war has broken out. Yoon Jung-e (Kim Hyun-joo), a legendary mer-
fondness and devotion. cenary, has been kept alive artificially to mine her consciousness to create a
As the Delhi Metro turns 20, we take a look at the slow combat android. The project is overseen by her daughter Yoon Seo-hyun (the STITCHING TOGETHER
change it has effected on the city’s culture and the role it plays late Kang Soo-yeon). How does she deal with this paradox? (Netflix) MEMORIES
in people’s lives. It has not just made commuting convenient
and quick—an opinion shared by the six million who use it ri Lankan visual artist and
every day—but also relatively safe. A Metro rail is ultimately a
public space in which we find ways to pass time every day as we
get across town; it’s space we share not just with strangers who
REPRESENT
Stéphane Blé’ (Jean-
Pascal Zadi), a youth
S activist T. Vinoja is pre-
senting her debut solo
show in India at the Experimen-
happen to be on the same route (and we can eavesdrop on) but counsellor in a ban- ter, Kolkata. Titled Anatomy Of
also with friends, family, crushes and colleagues. lieue, is trending after a Remembrances, the show is
To change track and move on to our other stories this week, verbal spar with a deeply personal, with the artist
Manu Chandra, the chef who freed fine-dining from the con- French presidential exploring how sites and material
fines of five-star hotels, has finally turned restaurateur. He is candidate, Éric André. archives convey experiences of
opening his first space, LUPA, on Bengaluru’s MG Road. He has Soon he finds himself loss and displacement. “Her tex-
been running a gourmet catering service for just over a year, running for office, rep- tile art, drawings, and installa-
but, with the restaurant, his aim is to bring the “real feels” to resenting the margina- tions examine how sites and
fine-dining by treating food firmly as food and not as artistic lised. As other candi- material archives convey experi-
expression, he tells Lounge. dates fall by the way- ences of loss, forced abandon-
If you missed either the Jaipur Literature Festival or Sun- side, his only opponent ment and shattered realities,
dance, we have reviews and wraps of both, giving you a sense of is the feminist and envi- especially during the final chap-
what was noteworthy and what you should be glad you avoided. ronmentally conscious ter of the civil war in Sri Lanka’s
And as always, we have recommendations for what to watch, do Corinne Douanier. Will North East and its prolonged
and read, as well as for the best croissants across the country. he be France’s first aftermath,” writes Natasha Gin-
black president? This wala, the curatorial adviser, in
Write to the Lounge editor shalini.umachandran@htlive.com political satire definitely her note. On view at Experimen-
@shalinimb raises a laugh. (Netflix) ter, Hindustan Road, Kolkata, till
31 March
Compiled by Nipa Charagi and Uday Bhatia. —Compiled by Avantika Bhuyan.

LOUNGE THINK VIEW DINE READ

ONLINE
How parents should ‘Pathaan’ review: Eat at Bengaluru’s Shobhaa Dé on her
YOUR deal with ChatGPT it’s a spectacle food truck of Pride new book ‘Insatiable’
FAVOURITE
WEEKEND READ new open AI chatbot that can iddharth Anand’s Pathaan, star- pened on 9 January, Benga- n Insatiable, we see an introspective

NOW THROUGH A write essays, solve problems and

THE WEEK
The best of Mintlounge.in from
the week gone by and what to
look forward to in the one ahead
answer complex questions is
sending educators into a tailspin.
S ring Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika
Already, ChatGPT has been banned in
public schools in New York because stu-
dents can use it to write essays and do
homework. But will ban-
ning a tool like this help?
Instead, we need to ask
ourselves why our chil-
dren would want to cheat
on their homework, writes
Shweta Sharan. If so, there is something
wrong with how we teach them. With
the imminent release of GPT4, parents
cannot hide from ChatGPT. Instead,
they need to approach it with cautious
enthusiasm.
Padukone and John Abraham, is
maximalist fun, a spy actioner that piles
spectacle on silly spectacle. Like War,
the last Yash Raj Films spy film, Pathaan
is consumed by the idea of patriotic duty.
These are not deep films
but it’s notable how much
wiggle room they find in
this regard. Some of the
CGI is dodgy. There’s too
much creative cutting.
Pathaan may take a lot of its cues from
the Mission: Impossible films but it
doesn’t pretend Khan is doing all his
stunts. Different megastar, different
contract with the audience, writes Uday
Bhatia, of the season’s biggest release.
O luru’s Pride Café is rooted in the
idea of creating sustainable live-
lihoods for LGBTQ+ persons. An initia-
tive by the Solidarity Foundation in part-
nership with WeWork, Amadeus and
AGAPE Hospitality Consultants, it is run
by eight LGBTQ+ persons
trained in culinary servi-
ces. The first food truck,
serving breakfast, lunch
and dinner, has been sta-
tioned at WeWork Galaxy,
Residency Road, following a long strug-
gle to get IT parks across the city to pro-
vide a space for it, writes Aisiri Amin. It
was inaugurated by drag performer Alex
Mathew and theatre artist and actor
Arundhati Nag.
I Shobhaa Dé, one who is not afraid of
embracing her vulnerabilities, writes
Shrabonti Bagchi after interviewing the
author, who turns 75 this year. The book
was written after the worst of the pan-
demic, almost in real time, as Dé
recorded the passing of
each month in 2022. It is
journal-like in recording
things of the moment that
also lead to reflection. “It is
an unconventional mem-
oir, I’d say,” explains Dé. “And attention
spans now being what they are, I thought
I’d rather do a snapshot of one year lead-
ing up to the big birthday. It’s a free-
flowing, chatty style, almost following
the rhythm of each occasion.”

lounge@livemint.com In Relationships >> Raising Parents In How To Lounge >> Movies & TV In Food >> Discover In Health >> Wellness
@mint_lounge
@livemintlounge

ON THE COVER: PALAM METRO STATION; PHOTOGRAPH FROM HINDUSTAN TIMES


Indian couture walks
the ramp in Paris
Indian designers
showcase traditional
embroideries and
fabrics in garments
that speak to
everyone
Pooja Singh
pooja.s@htlive.com
Paris, France
I
t’s 4pm in Paris. The minus-5
degrees Celsius weather hasn’t
dimmed the excitement in the
grand hall at The Westin Ven-
dôme hotel where Rahul Mishra
is going to showcase his collection on Day
1 of the Paris Haute Couture Fashion
Week (23-26 January). Dressed either in
what seems to be the latest trend, the all-
black bodysuit (or clothes that give the
impression of one), teamed with matching
coats, or Rahul Mishra creations, people
are busy clicking photographs or shouting
“hi-s” across the hall that was also Yves
Saint Laurent’s favourite location for pre-
senting his couture.
The front row is full of “donuts”—a term
I learnt from my neighbour. A “donut” is
essentially a better way to get photo-
graphed at an event: The more dressed up
(influencers, mostly) sit together—they
form the hole of the donut—flanked by the
“dough”, or those in black or other “basic”
clothes. Actors Ashley Park and Kelly
Rutherford and American stylist Law
Roach made a donut, too, at the show.
Then the lights dim. To the tune of a
piano, a woman in a bodysuit enters the
hall wearing heels full of sawdust-like glit-
ter, instantly reminding the viewer of
Mishra’s signature style. The heavily
embroidered garment evokes a world
where buildings sprout in several direc-
tions, plants grow in water and fish swim
in the sky. His Cosmos collection is a fan-
tasy world crafted with such fine embroi-
(clockwise, from above) Looks from Rahul Mishra; Gaurav Gupta; and Vaishali S.
dery that each piece looks like painting in
a different silhouette, all inspired by his
own work. When you look closer, under
the bright light of three chandeliers, you
realise why the jellyfish or the leaf or the
dancing flamingos seem so alive, or why
the golden ladybirds look like they are
crawling out of the garment. Each of the
30-plus hand-embroidered creations,
from gowns and capes to trousers in silk,
tulle and organza, took up to 3,000 man
hours to complete in his Noida, Uttar Pra-
desh, studio.
Mishra plays with layers of sequins,
FIRST
fringes and embroideries, from aari to
zardozi, in tones of black, blue and metal-
lic, bringing his craft to life with appliquéd
details. It’s a familiar maximalist Mishra
universe, soft yet bright. The designer,
always gushing over the handcraftsman-
ship and embroideries of India, reminds
the world of the versatility of traditional
clothing. Of how a dupatta can easily be a
cape. Of how a sari can be a gown.
“I have used my previous creations as a
canvas and perfected them,” Mishra tells
me. “It’s my 20th season now in Paris. I
want to showcase my USPs, and why not?
This is what makes me, me.”
Vaishali S., too, has played with her sig-
nature designs in her latest couture col-
lection, pushing the boundaries to make
space for more wearable art. Though not
part of the haute couture week, she pre-
sented her collection, Abyss, on 24 Janu-
ary under the landmark La Pyramide
Inversée skylight at Carrousel du Louvre.
In a room stripped of wallpaper, with rows
of electrical wires visible, the designer
takes the viewer on a journey of an abyss,
from darkness to light, underwater. With
sitar, sarangi and tabla music playing in
SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
the background, models—in Kolhapuri
chappals from Vaishali’s hometown—
present 35 garments made with different
silks. Her clothes are structured yet fluid,
offering a more futuristic take on Indian
textiles. The hero of the show remains the
sari. First, it’s a gown with cords. Then, it
transforms from a sari to a dhoti. In
New Delhi 03
between, there’s a dress in the shape of a
white spotted black manta ray. “There are
different drapes in the collection but the
sari is my hero,” Vaishali had said when
we met two days earlier. “I want the sari to
become part of the global fashion lan-
guage. The world has long been ready for
our fashion; we just have to remind them
again.”
Gaurav Gupta served a strong
reminder of this on 26 January at the Pal-
ais de Tokyo, a centre dedicated to mod-
ern and contemporary art in the city’s
16th arrondissement. Making his debut
at the Paris Haute Couture Week as a
guest member, the designer interpreted
the stillness and infinity of zero in his
collection of 35 garments, Shunya, made
with satins, chiffons and organzas. The
show opened with a gold metallic dress,
created with handwoven tissue, and
sculpted to resemble dancing wind fro-
zen in time. Then came elemental
dresses in black and nude, exploring the
idea of fantasy and surrealism. Whether
it was the kundalini-inspired snake
dress, or goth dresses in black leather-
like jersey and an acid trip neon yellow,
his craft makes you believe couture can
be elegant, royal, yet playful.
“I am not holding anything back; I am
going all out,” Gupta, who has dressed
celebrities like Sharon Stone, Lizzo and
Cardi B, said while walking me through
his collection at his atelier in the city. “I
think the couture becomes couture when
fashion meets art and that’s what I want to
reflect. I want the world to see the surreal-
ism of India in our mythology. I want to go
beyond the handloom conversation. India
is having a beautiful moment globally and
it feels good to be part of it.”
04 SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi HOW TO LOUNGE

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I
BETTER BETTY ndia may be the only country where skin flicks don’t actually show skin. We
may have seedy theatres—theatres that, according to the fascinating docu-
Harper Racer Rib Vest series Cinema Marte Dum Tak (Amazon Prime Video), were left covered in
US activewear Sweaty sticky handkerchiefs—but there was no nudity. This was an industry of
Betty is the new raunch, one of titillation and scandal, and one eventually felled by the inter-
Lululemon. Here, its net and pornography. The series focuses on four distinctive directors: Vinod
ribbed tank top with Talwar, J. Neelam, Kishan Shah and Dilip Gulati. Through the 1990s and early
contrast trim; pair with a
SLIPPERY navy skirt for those casual
2000s, they shot movies on tiny budgets that allowed dwindling theatres to
flourish again.
SLOPE tennis dates. Available on Executive-produced by Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota director Vasan Bala and
Ryder Sweatybetty.com; ₹3,700 co-directed by Disha Rindani, Xulfee and Kulish Kant Thakur—and featuring
Houndstooth an absolute banger of a title track, Pseudo Saiyaan, by Sneha Khanwalkar—
Softshell Ski Suit Cinema Marte Dam Tak takes the smart approach of not only talking to these
Going skiing in film-makers but giving them a budget (and film stock!) to make a film again, to
Gulmarg? The ski let us watch them bring monsters and vampires to life, accompanied by cleav-
suit from Perfect age and bad prosthetics.
Moment, crafted The series works because of the film-makers in focus. J. Neelam, one of the
in waterproof MOONWALKING only women directors who made “fultoo sex” pictures like Kunwari Dulhan,
softshell in an Logo Rainbow-Print Snow Boots approaches her work with pragmatism and sensitivity: She wants scenes to
oversized Iconic snow boots from Moon have a point, women to be in charge. Talwar reassures an auditioning actress
houndstooth Boot are making a comeback that she will be in a “full gown”. (His next line is that he hopes she owns one.)
pattern, is a must- thanks to the revival of Y2K Gulati, who wears a cowboy hat and sports long hair, quotes Raj Kapoor as
have. Available on fashion. Here, the brand’s classic saying, “Every scene in a film should touch either your head, your heart… or
Matchesfashion. rainbow print boots. Available on below the belt.”
com; $942 Farfetch.com; $387 “Bhansali mat bann, gaandu.” Most memorable is Kishan Shah, who some-
how looks like both Prakash Jha and Jackie Shroff. With excessive swagger
and flamboyant trousers, Kishan—the less successful older brother of sleaze
supremo Kanti Shah— is an absolute character. Known for shooting entire
movies in five-seven days, the director proudly wears black-tie for the glam-
orous premiere of his Amazon film, then walks out and hails an autorickshaw
to take him to a dive bar.
Harish Patel, who has acted for directors as wide-ranging as Kanti (on
Gunda) and Academy Award winner Chloé Zhao (on Eternals), says that when
ISLE SEE YOU he started acting in cheaper films, he was told not to judge the movie by what
Merino Fair Isle is on screen. It’s about the effect it has on the people watching. Speaking of
Sweater Kanti—who appears later in the series as an unforgettably lonely icon—the
A classic ski sweater first thing Patel learnt was that the director paid cash, and paid it daily. This
from Tory Burch allowed the director not only to get recognisable actors but even stars who
Sport featuring a could use a quick buck.
turtleneck and Director and visual effects pioneer B.
pattern inspired by Gupta once told me about how, when
vintage après-ski working on the 1957 invisible-man
style. Available on film Mr X, the film needed a big
Toryburch.com; $328 name. Therefore they hired STREAMING
legitimate superstar Ashok TIP OF THE WEEK
Kumar on a daily basis. Everything Everywhere All At
Compiled by Shrabonti Bagchi. Now, obviously unable to Once (streaming on BookMyShow
afford Kumar for long, Stream) is one of 2022’s hardest-to-
they cannily shot the describe films. A science-fiction
actor’s “visible” scenes comedy about a Chinese-American
over two-three days, and, immigrant and her very own

LOUNGE LOVES because he wasn’t on

screen for the rest of the
film, got a dubbing artist to
multiverse, the film has been
nominated for 11 Oscars and
deserves them all. It’s mad
mimic his voice. What an epic cool.
workaround.
Things to watch, read, hear, do—and other curated experiences from the team Similarly audacious is the way the
Cinema Marte Dum Tak gang circum-
SWEET TASTE OF HOME vented India’s arbitrary and ridiculous censor board. Because the censors

W
hile growing up, winter afternoons
meant sunning oneself on the ter-
race, munching on gond laddoos
and panjiri. With time, however, the practice
of making these at home waned and the mar-
ket-produced ones just didn’t make the cut.
Until I came across Viraasat, a small artisanal
brand in Gurugram, recreating age-old family
recipes with healthy ingredients. I tried their
delicious panjiri; instead of wheat flour and
semolina, it uses poppy seeds and dry fruits.
Their roasted chana sattu barfi is made with
desi khand and desi ghee. Viraasat’s date math-
AMBIENT AUDIO HEAVEN ris too are a great accompaniment to morning
CREATING A SIGNATURE SCENT
would come down hard on steamy scenes, producers started filming addi-
tional hot sequences—known in the trade as “bits”—which would not be sub-
mitted to the censors at all, and instead be added to a film later. This worked
wonderfully till a projectionist, mistaking a brother and sister entering a
room on screen for a couple, inserted a “bit” and sent the audience into a
furore. Cue police raids, arrests and the end of an era.
Stretched over six episodes, Cinema Marte Dam Tak feels repetitive, espe-
cially when various interviewees take turns making the same point. The series
also overdoes the video-clips of cleavage, to a sometimes gratuitous degree, as
if that is the only way to get a larger audience to pay attention. (Perhaps it is.)
The biggest issue, however, is lack of payoff. We see the making of four films
but in the end, aren’t shown the films themselves. Even if the results are
trashy, an audience—especially one now armed with context—should have
been allowed to watch and make up its own mind.

W E
hite noise lovers often spend tea and coffee. The brand home-delivers and ver liked a perfume so much that Interspersed with Hemant Chaturvedi’s evocative photographs of single-
a lot of time searching for is also available at select farmer’s markets. you would wear it to sleep? screen theatres, the show strikes an odd balance between aesthetics and the
good audio they can listen to —Avantika Bhuyan Recently, I made one from defiant lack of them. The stories are obviously hilarious—Kanti was report-
while working or sleeping. YouTube is scratch and used some before edly beaten up by Dharmendra after he had shot the actor doing push-ups
a treasure trove. I recently found an bedtime. During a media trip and intercut it with footage of a moaning girl—as are the innuendo-laden dia-
interesting channel, Ambient Ren- BRING THE BREEZE WITH YOU organised by the Singapore Tourism logues, most of them rhyming. A key takeaway for me is that these directors,

ders, which combines ambient audio
clips with great visuals. The channel is
run by a games industry artist who
makes ambient content and scenes
using Unreal Engine and other appli-
cations like Adobe After Effects, Pre-
miere and Photoshop. What
impressed me most is the variety of
videos: from a cosy Christmas fire-
place in Brooklyn to a Wednesday
Addams inspired dorm room, com-
plete with the sounds of thunder and
rain. There’s even one themed on a
zombie safe zone. Some of these vid-
eos are streamed live while some clips
are hours-long, perfect for those who
like sleeping to ambient sounds.
—Nitin Sreedhar
A
friend, whose particular talent is Board, I visited the lab of the for all their brazen attempts at seduction, never went fully explicit. Current
finding oddball gifts that come in fragrance workshop company Oo La OTT shows are more graphic, and when trailblazing adult actress Sapna
useful months after I have laughed at Lab, which offers hands-on sessions Sappu points to the toplessness in Netflix’s Sacred Games, we must question
her choices, sent me a portable neck fan as a for participants to hit the right notes. why some nudity is considered tasteful. It is vital to remove the stigma from
birthday gift last week. She has used the M6 They have a selection of 27 scents, these sensationalists.
Gaiatop Leafless Hanging Neck Fan through from oud, leather, vanilla and grass to There is nothing wrong with dirty pictures. Francis Ford Coppola began his
Kerala’s muggy summer and swears by it. The musk, stored in small dropper bottles. career with “nudie” films before being taken on by B-movie icon Roger Cor-
fan, designed to look like headphones, directs A trainer guides participants as they man, the producer who gave breaks to such struggling geniuses-to-be as Mar-
a breeze at your neck and face. Right now, shortlist the ones they like; these are tin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Peter Bogdanovich and James Cameron. Cin-
when it’s winter in Delhi and mild as usual in then mixed-and-matched in tiny vials ema Marte Dum Tak affectionately introduces us to four directors most of us
Bengaluru, the fan is just entertaining but I by the participants—somewhat like a might never have met. I am touched most by Talwar, who hadn’t made a film
can imagine how comforting it would be while chemistry lab—to create an eau de since 1996 but continued to write scripts, in longhand, because he is a story-
walking in summer. The bladeless fan weighs parfum. The final product is packed in teller. Raise a toast. Say no to smut-shaming.
a comfortable 200g—it’s right up there with a 50ml bottle, labelled with a name
other kooky contraptions like caps with tiny, you pick, and sealed with a list of scent Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written Chup, a film about
built-in fans and portable face misters but it’s notes to help you recreate it on your killing critics, and is now creating an absurd comedy series.
far better-looking, light and—excuse the pun next visit.
—breezy. —Shalini Umachandran —Jahnabee Borah @rajasen
 THINK SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi 05

Should writers just write, and not talk?

There is an argument that literary festivals make performing monkeys of writers. Yet a lit fest
is also a place for dialogue inasmuch as it is a place for autograph seekers
timid, as if they were editing in real share a link to the documentary, with
time,” writes Rothfeld. In fact, writing, one of them tweeting, “Sorry, Haven’t
CULT she claims, is “an antidote to the imme-
diacy and inexactitude of speech”. She
been elected to represent world’s larg-
est democracy to accept censorship.”
FRICTION says that was why Vladimir Nabokov Oddly, it all carries echoes of Jaipur in
insisted on preparing his answers to 2011. Even as Rushdie’s appearance was
SANDIP interview questions in writing and read- cancelled, writers decided to read from
ROY ing them aloud. He said, “I think like a The Satanic Verses in an act of solidarity,
genius, I write like a distinguished an act that mired everyone in more legal
author, and I speak like a child.” hot water.

I
t was like the before times.
The pandemic had receded and the
Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) was
back with a bang. “Are you going? Will
we see you there?” writer friends asked.
I wasn’t invited, I admitted sheep-
ishly. Then, to recover some lost pres-
tige, I said I had received an invite for a
publisher party at the festival anyway.
But the Kolkata season had also
kicked off, with back-to-back literature
festivals. There were books to read,
writers to interview, dinners to attend.
In the tangled skein of insecurities that
is a writer’s life, literature festivals pro-
vide a booster dose of literary relevance,
a way to reassure yourself that your
words still count for something. As my
friends sent cocktail selfies from the Jai-
pur opening party, and my Instagram
feed slowly filled up with JLF-in-action
photographs, I worked diligently
through my reading list for Kolkata. A
friend was visiting from out of town. We
cannot meet till the festival is over, I said
busily. Then I sent him an announce-
ment for my session with a Pulitzer
prize winner.
Right then another friend forwarded
an article from Gawker, titled Writers
Shouldn’t Talk—Stop Encouraging
Them. Are you saying I shouldn’t talk? I
asked him. Or was I not a writer at all but
a talker?
It’s not just that some writers are
good at talking while others are not.
Becca Rothfeld, a contributing editor at
the Boston Review, argues in Gawker
that writing and talking are different art
forms altogether. “(Writers) are drafters
and amenders, if not by vocation then
by profession, and in conversation, their
strongest pronouncements tend to be
Conversation is like a game of tennis
while writing is a solitary sport. Some,
like Shashi Tharoor or Javed Akhtar,
revel in both, relishing the back and
forth with their interlocutors, giving a
tweetable quote a minute, bringing the
audience to its feet. They understand
their role both as writers and as per-
formers. Some writers are soporific,
wandering off on a tangent that leads to
some blind alley, while the forgotten
question limps forlornly, lost in the
digressions.
I have seen a moderator’s face turn
somewhat ashen as the first guest took
the first question and launched into a
soliloquy that lasted 14 minutes while
the other panellists fidgeted and looked
at each other. Pulitzer winner Andrew
Sean Greer shared a story from the
other end of the speaking spectrum at a
session at the Tata Steel Kolkata Liter-
ary Meet this year. He once had to inter-
view the great Stephen King on stage.
King was ill with the flu and throwing
up on stage before the interview but he
would not cancel the event because he
wanted to be there for his fans. “So he
came and he sat there and he didn’t say
a word for an hour and a half. And I just
kept asking questions and saying, ‘Once
you said in an interview...,’” said Greer.
Rothfeld has a point. The writer
whose words sparkle with the precision
of a lapidarist can appear lost and inar-
ticulate on stage, humming and hawing
or droning in endless monologue. It’s
not their fault. What we see on the page
is a finished product, produced after
many, many painstaking drafts. What
we see on stage is the first draft, untidy,
cluttered and half-formed and served up
to the audience without a DEL button.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor with writer Caroline Elkins during the Jaipur Literature Festival on 19 January.
The Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee
would be very much on Rothfeld’s side
of the court. In 2011, the reclusive writer
made an appearance at Jaipur. He took
no questions from the audience and did
no media interactions. He told the audi-
ence that like most people he had opin-
ions but didn’t find his opinions particu-
larly interesting. So he chose to spend
his 45-minute session reading a 45-min-
ute story about The Old Woman And The
Cat. It was like listening to a Coetzee
audio book.
At the end of the session, the hapless
moderator, Patrick French, who had
spent those 45 minutes sipping water
for lack of anything else to do, said: “Mr
Coetzee you have done something
remarkable. You have held an Indian
audience silent for 45 minutes.”
I was not at Jaipur that year. But when
I went the next year, another writer was
making headlines by not speaking—but
in an entirely different context. This
time it was Salman Rushdie and his
appearance at the festival had been can-
celled after purported death threats.
Rushdie, unlike Coetzee, is a voluble
and willing talker. But in his case it
wasn’t a verbal gaffe, the unedited
speech as it were, that exposed him to
danger. It was the written word. Dec-
ades after writing those words, it was at a
literary festival in upstate New York that
he faced a horrendous attack last year.
All this circles back to the question—
should writers just write instead of talk-
ing about the book they just wrote, their
writing process, their writing heroes,
the state of the nation, the state of the
planet, and their favourite restaurant in
whatever city they happen to be in?
Many lament that in the age of social
media, writers are measured not so
PTI
much by the content of their book but
by their Twitter following.
There is an argument that literary fes-
tivals make performing monkeys of
writers. Yet a lit fest is also a place for
dialogue inasmuch as it is a place for
autograph seekers. There is something
indescribably touching about seeing
someone nervously fumble through a
question directed at a Booker winner. It
is also indescribably sad to see some-
one’s writing idol fall from grace
because he comes across as arrogant
and aloof on stage.
A lit fest can seem like an enchanted
bubble of self-delusion where writers
act as entertainers and drink Sula while
in the real word a BBC documentary is
blocked because the Union government
calls it a “propaganda piece that lacks
objectivity and reflects a colonial mind-
set”. Two opposition MPs defiantly
Thus, a writer is sometimes damned if
she speaks and damned if she doesn’t. In
a 24x7 news cycle, where freedom of
speech might be at stake, we cannot all
share the story of an old woman and a
cat. On the other hand, an off-the-cuff
remark, perhaps delivered ironically,
can sound completely different when
tweeted out of context. The next thing
you know, angry protesters are picket-
ing the literary festival.
That is the peril of dialogue. But dia-
logue is all we have. Several years ago, I
remember a literary festival in Kolkata
in a tizzy when Imran Khan was a guest.
It wasn’t because a Pakistani VVIP was
in town but because the power went out
momentarily in the auditorium. Not
everyone agreed with everything he
said but nobody thought it bizarre that
he was there.
The conversation was still happening.
Khattam-Shud, the antagonist of
Rushdie’s Haroun And The Sea Of Sto-
ries, is the “Arch-enemy of all stories,
even of language itself. He is the Prince
of Silence and the Foe of Speech.” In a
world where Khattam-Shud grows
more powerful, some write, some talk,
some write and talk to keep him at bay.
And someone in the audience puts up
his hand and tells the writer he has two
comments and a question.
We roll our eyes but I like to think
that as long as that hand goes up, there
is still hope.
Cult Friction is a fortnightly column on
issues we keep rubbing up against. San-
dip Roy is a writer, journalist and radio
host.
@sandipr

FINDING JLF IN THE CHAOS

The Jaipur Literature
Festival wrapped up
its 16th edition earlier
Moments from the fest
MARLON JAMES X EMILY BENN
this week. Where can A 50-minute conversation between UK politician and
it go from here? social activist Emily Benn and 2015 Booker Prize win-
ner Marlon James was laced with his wit and her pun-
chline-like interjections. The session was titled “Moon
Vangmayi Parakala Witch, Spider King”, after his 2022 book, the second in
vangmayi.parakala@htlive.com his Dark Star trilogy—its first book came out in 2019. Both
titles inhabit the same world but each tells the story of a dif-

T
he 2023 edition of the Jai-
pur Literature Festival
(JLF) ended on Monday. It
was the 16th successful edi-
tion, including its all-on-
line 2021 version and 2022 extended
hybrid format during the pandemic.
Its origin story has been told multiple
times, and, over the years, the JLF
expanded to the US, Canada, UK and the
Maldives. In an interview to Lounge in
2017, William Dalrymple, one of the two
festival directors, noted that the JLF had
“grown like a monster in a Puranic myth,
rising from the deep, with tentacles reach-
ing out” beyond Jaipur. In keeping with
this, they announced a JLF in Spain, too,
this year.
When it started in the mid-2000s at the
now 163-year-old Diggi Palace in Jaipur,
the JLF was a little spot of joy, waiting to
be discovered. In the early 2010s, it had
started making serious waves. Despite
courting its share of critique and contro-
versy about speakers and sponsors, the
JLF remained that bright kid in class even
the strictest teacher would grudgingly
admire, the well-read, cool kid with whom
everyone wanted to spend time.
And they all could. For close to 14 years,
it was free. All anyone had to do was regis-
ter. For a whole host of people, especially
millennials in high school or college from
the late 2000s to the early 2010s, this was
a big calendar event. Whatever your back-
ground and educational obligations, the
JLF felt like the most heady crash course
in liberal arts.
You could see your literary heroes in
the flesh, put up your hand and challenge
them with a question at Baithak, bump
into them while having a chai in the Front
Lawn, discover a new voice at Charbagh,
meet them at the festival book store and
exchange recommendations at the sign-
ing tent after their sessions.
For readers—whether of commercial,
literary, historical fiction, or of non-fic-
tion—the JLF was the space to find their
larger tribe. Regardless of ideology, the
JLF had been an almost idyllic place for
The JLF had outgrown Diggi Palace (above), where it started, necessitating its move to Clarks Amer, a five-star hotel.
readers and writers to meet and enrich
their worlds.
Now, it’s a teenager. And the teens are
never easy.
Last year, fresh off the pandemic, the
15th edition of the festival was held at
Clarks Amer, a five-star hotel in Jaipur, as
the JLF had outgrown Diggi and space for
social distancing was a necessity. Entry
and registration was no longer free, at
₹200 per day, and ₹100 for students. This
continued this year, too, but if the aim was
to disincentivise crowds, it barely worked.
In his paper The Jaipur Literature Festi-
val And Its Critics: World Literature As
Social Practice (based on the 2017 edition
of the JLF and published in Anthropology
And Humanism’s Vol.44, Issue 1), author
Per Ståhlberg writes that when Sanjoy
Roy, head of Teamworks Arts that produ-
ces the festival, “was inter-
viewed...about...its rising success...he
mentioned very little about authors,
books, sessions.... What he talked about at
length was the crowd of visitors, how it
had grown...now consisting of those
400,000 or more people.... It was appar-
ently very important for the producer to
declare that the JLF is the largest literary
festival in the world in terms of the audi-
ences.”
The JLF has always had chai and food
stalls (not including separate dining areas
for speakers, the press, and for those who
pay for special packages), a festival book
store, and local boutiques’ kiosks for craft
and knick-knacks. Alarmingly, this has
now grown into a full-fledged flea market
with clothes, handmade jewellery and
more, and three carnival-style zones for
food. It is distracting, and disheartening,
taking away from what the festival was
understood to be.
During the sessions at the Front Lawn
this year, many used the chairs to rest and
eat their snacks, no matter who was on
stage—whether crowd-pullers like singer
Usha Uthup, lyricists Gulzar and Javed
Akhtar, writer-politician Shashi Tharoor,
respected literary figures like Booker-
winner Daisy Rockwell, or lesser-known
stars like Wainwright Prize winning biolo-
gist-writer Merlin Sheldrake.
The disturbance was not limited to the
exchange of biryani and ice cream. At one
point, a session paused at a sudden, long
hoot—a gaggle of students exclaiming
over something in the stalls barely a hun-
dred metres from the last row of seats.
If critics had been talking of the JLF
beginning to lose its soul a few years ago,
the recent changes have made the shift all
GETTY IMAGES
the more palpable.
The editorial heart of JLF’s program-
ming, however, continues to beat strong.
The breadth of voices and their rele-
vance—from Booker winners talking
about craft and narrative to experts speak-
ing about the future of AI and the socio-le-
gal histories of countries—shows that the
JLF still cares to have something for read-
ers of all stripes.
It is from this strength and the depth of
conversations that a reader-attendee can
take heart. Even the casual listener has a
chance to catch lawyer Saurabh Kirpal
make a point about why he thinks land-
mark sexual harassment cases are not
irrelevant to a book on laws affecting
India’s financial landscape; writer Avinuo
Kire on how folklore can highlight social
inequities; or Nobel laureate Abdulrazak
Gurnah recall his immigrant experience
in a matter-of-fact manner.
Teenage is hard for everyone. When we
hit 16, we try to avert the angst to make
milestone decisions. We think about col-
lege, about the general direction our lives
might take; sometimes as we find new cit-
ies and new homes, we try to remind our-
selves of who we are, the friends we want
to keep. Growing up ought not to be too
different for this 16-year-old.
ferent character. The ideas of truth, authenticity, the white gaze, formed the
bulk of the conversation, with James also drawing from the other panels he
had been part of during the festival. “European backwardness is so refresh-
ing. Your reviewers are so basic. Why do they think our oral traditions are
primitive?” asked James at one point, speaking of the discursive nature of
storytelling traditions in Indian, Jamaican and Mexican cultures.
SHEHAN KARUNATILAKA X NANDINI NAIR
This was easily one of the most riveting and entertain-
ing conversations of JLF 2023. Karunatilaka, the Sri
Lankan writer and man of the moment given his 2022
Booker win, and journalist Nair discussed The Seven
Moons Of Maali Almeida and children’s writing. Nair
topped off the session with a rapid-fire round. Audience
questions were a treat: A young boy asked Karunatilaka about
writing about such tragedy with hilarity. “How do you make sure you are not
laughing at them?” he asked, receiving applause from the audience. Karuna-
tilka’s answer about distancing himself from the narrative through his char-
acters didn’t fully live up to the intelligent question. But, when Nair was curi-
ous about his research on the events of the Sri Lankan civil war and how that
history was recreated, the author responded: “I wasn’t recreating (anything).
I was imagining based on researched evidence.”
KATHERINE RUNDELL AT JAIPUR BOOKMARK
One of the best parts about being at the JLF is discover-
ing the passion, clarity and humour with which writers
spontaneously express themselves. The charm and
enthusiasm with which writer Katherine Rundell spoke
was electrifying. At one of the Jaipur BookMark sessions
on children’s literature with Bijal Vachharajani of Pra-
tham Books and illustrator Kristin Roskifte, Rundell, who is
also an academic, said: “You can get away with bullshit in academia. But chil-
dren won’t wait while you pontificate.” Her voice and thoughts are so unique
that picking up her 2019 essay, Why You Should Read Children’s Literature,
Even Though You Are So Old And Wise, is as enjoyable as listening to her
in-person.
BREAKING INTO INDIAN LANGUAGES
Despite JLF’s attempts to make space for non-English
writing over the years, many panels were seen as
Anglo-centric. Lately, an industry-wide interest in
translations has led to a noticeable increase in non-
English discourse. In a session on “The Spirit Of Bihari
Literature”, an audience member asked the panellists,
including poet Anamika and writers Akshaya Mukul and
Abhak K., to speak in any of Bihar’s languages and not in English. The
nudge was good enough for Abhay. Poet Meena Kandasamy’s conversation
on the Tirukkural with Penguin Random House India’s editor-in-chief
Manasi Subramaniam was a highlight, too, but this one for her easy recita-
tion of Tiruvalluvar’s many verses from memory throughout the talk.
06 SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi TASTE

CARE FOR BURNT

LEMON CROISSANT?
India too is seeing
modern, innovative
avatars of the
ubiquitous croissant
as it moves beyond a
popular viennoiserie
Bubble tea is said to have originated in Taiwan in the 1980s. ISTOCKPHOTO
Arzoo Dina

I
f you have been scrolling through
your Instagram feed of late, you
have probably come across the
suprême croissant at Lafayette
Grand Café and Bakery in New
Looking for tea
York City that has been going viral on the
internet—one which pastry chefs and
cafés around the world have been recreat-
ing. Its round, spiral shape is probably its
biggest appeal, coupled with the fact that
in bubble tea
it is stuffed with flavoured pastry cream
and glazed on the outside for added effect,
The drink can be disappointing. Have the best
making it one of the most trending des- version, though, and you may well be converted
serts currently. Its popularity soared on
social media platform TikTok initially, fol-
lowed soon by Instagram. Jahnabee Borah
Be it dipped or glazed, stuffed with jahnabee.b@htlive.com
sweet and savoury fillings or shaped into flavours such as tiramisu, chocolate, and mascarpone croissant with charred

different forms, the croissant’s versatility
is far-reaching.
In 2013, New York-based pastry chef
Dominique Ansel gave the world the cro-
nut—a cross between a croissant and a
donut that was the start of the croissant
getting an inventive makeover. The cruf-
fin, a stuffed croissant in the shape of a
muffin, originated at the Lune Croissan-
terie in Melbourne, Australia, in 2013 and
went on to gain popularity in India, with
bakeries like Mumbai-based Mag St.
Bread Co. and Delhi-based Suchali’s Arti-
san Bakehouse making it a staple on their
menus. At the newly-launched coffee
shop in Mumbai, Grounded, too, cruffins
are a signature.
Mumbai-based Love Crummbs, the
bakery arm of the experiential restaurant
The Lovefools, has just launched its own
version of the suprême croissant, calling
it the pinwheel croissant. In fact, the bak-
ery already has options like an inverted
croissant, which enable you to get a
mouthful of filling in each bite, rather than
just the dough.
According to chefs Sarita Pereira and
Aniket Sawant, co-founders of Love
Crummbs, customers are no longer eating
the croissant just as a breakfast staple or a
light bite with their coffee. Instead, they
look forward to eating these stuffed and
swirled versions as a post-dinner dessert
or treat.
Talking about the pinwheel croissant,
Pereira says that with the distinct round
shape, the layers are very visible. The
croissant dough is crispy outside and but-
tery and pillowy inside, and the circular
shape allows for it to be spongier. Love
Crummbs is currently offering the pin-
wheel in flavours like chocolate, pistachio,
and mixed berries.
One of the other places that has been
quick to jump on to this trend is BlueBop
Café in Mumbai, which is launching its
version of the spiral suprême croissant in
and red velvet.
FLAVOURS AND FORMS
When Mumbai-based TwentySeven
Bakehouse launched last year, chef
Rachelle Andrade, who heads the
kitchen, created a croissant cube
which quickly went on to become one
of their signature bakes.
According to Aditi Dugar, restaura-
teur and founder of TwentySeven
Bakehouse: “When we were brain-
storming ideas for the menu, we were
keen on trying something different
than just the traditional croissant. Peo-
ple are much more well-travelled and the
discerning customer wants to try some-
thing new and innovative. That’s how the
idea of doing a croissant cube came about.
“It’s also exciting for customers to get
their hands on something that’s trending
and Instagram-worthy. Taking something
traditional like the croissant and doing an
innovative version of it elevates the expe-
rience,” she adds. The cube’s flavour
changes monthly, with options like tiram-
isu, peach and thyme, strawberry cheese-
cake, etc.
In Bengaluru, ARAKU Coffee makes its
croissants with cultured white butter
sourced from a local cheesemaker,
instead of using imported
French butter, and creates
square-shaped versions in
sweet and savoury fla-
vours. According to the
head chef of ARAKU
Coffee, Rahul
Sharma, Indians love
buttery flavour pro-
files and using crois-
sant dough to inno-
vate fits the bill.
“Everything about the
croissant is rich and
indulgent.” Some of his ren-
ditions include a spring onion
(from top) Kimchi Guava
Croissant at ARAKU Coffee,
Bengaluru; stuffed croissant cube
at TwentySeven Bakehouse,
Mumbai; and Cruffins by
Grounded, Mumbai.
spring onion cream and sesame punch
(made with chilli oil and sesame seeds),
burnt lemon croissant, even a guava
kimchi croissant using locally-sourced
guavas.
So, what is it that makes the croissant
so wildly popular and versatile to inno-
vate with? According to chef Daniel
Trulson, co-founder and head chef at
the Puducherry-based Bread & Choc-
olate, president, Subko Bakehouse,
and co-founder of the Mumbai-based
Subko Coffee, the croissant itself
makes for a great vehicle to experi-
ment with flavours and fillings. “At Subko,
we have experimented with stuffed and
filled croissants and cruffins in flavour
profiles that range from mithai-focused
ones to classic chocolate or coffee ver-
sions.
“Given how temperamental the dough
can be and how it is subject to ingredient
and temperature changes, croissant
dough, if made well, is a brilliant pastry
dough to work with,” he says, adding that
it has wide global appeal. And if it wasn’t so
technical to make, it could become just as
popular as the pizza, he notes.
Frenchman Maxime Montay, executive
chef at the Delhi-based Monique Patisse-
rie, makes an interesting analogy. Point-
ing to the origins of the croissant, which
can be traced to Vienna, Austria, as the
kipferl, he says that when it reached
France, their version, known as
the croissant, became widely
popular as a breakfast staple
and a practical, on-the-go
pastry. “Just like it was
reinterpreted in France,
today we are seeing bak-
ers around the world
reinterpret the croissant
in their own ways.”
Arzoo Dina is a Mumbai-
based food and travel writer.
Y
ou must have this,” insisted my host in Aizawl, Mizoram, handing me a glass
of fruity, ice-cold bubble tea. It was milky, sugary and tasted synthetic. Is
it a milkshake with bubbles that pop in the mouth? Or, an iced tea with
chewy, tapioca pearls and extra sugar? A drink with the word tea in its name but
zero taste of the ingredient felt like a sham. The year was 2019, and I have stayed
away from bubble tea since then. Cut to 2023, though, and things have changed.
Two weeks ago, on a trip to Singapore, several well-meaning friends suggested
trying it. As an intrepid foodie who eats everything once, it’s difficult to say no,
despite unsavoury experiences in the past. KOI Thé, a bubble tea brand, was the
most recommended. Their menu has a list of drinks brewed with tea leaves, mixed
with chocolate and blitzed with fruit flavours. One can customise the drink by
choosing the preferred quantity of sugar, on a scale from 0-120%, and decide the
amount of ice with options like little ice, less ice and normal ice. There are a variety
of toppings, from golden bubble and coffee jelly to aloe vera. I ordered one of their
best-sellers, guava green tea, and wasn’t impressed.
By now, I needed to understand the big deal about bubble tea. It’s believed the
drink originated at a teashop in Taiwan in the 1980s and gained worldwide fame
due to the Asian diaspora. The chewy tapioca pearls, boba, are an essential ingre-
dient and they get their deep brown colour from brown sugar and honey. A classic
recipe has tea, syrup, milk, ice, sugar and the boba. It has been adapted to include
an array of flavours and formats, like smoothies and shakes. In the pandemic, sev-
eral places specialising in this drink cropped up across cities in India—there’s the
Mongoose bubble bar in Mumbai, ELIXIR-Luxury Pearl Drink in Bengaluru and
Got Tea in Delhi. Yusung Eo, co-founder of Got Tea, says they launched in 2020
because they noticed a gap. Apart from speciality coffee, such as Blue Tokai, and
chai places, like Chaayos, there were no beverage brands offering premium, fun,
trendy drinks for millennials and Gen Z. The inspiration for these drinks, he
tended to agree, could lie in K-culture.
A friend from Singapore, who lives in Mumbai, pointed out that India is at stage
1 of the bubble tea movement, where flavour from artificial syrups is the focus and
there is a lack of customisation. In Singapore, the evolution is in the second stage,
which is all about tea infusions and customisation, and moving towards the third
stage, hyper focused on an artisanal tea experience involving high-quality teas,
brewed at specific temperatures and spotlighting the star ingredient—tea.
For the friend, CHICHA San Chen, with outlets in South-East Asia, Canada and
California, US, encapsulates stage 3. I tried their black tea with cream in Singa-
pore. With zero expectation, I took the first sip, and there it was—insert GIF of the
food critic Anton Ego, fork in hand, overcome with food nostalgia from the film
Ratatouille. I was transported back to the tea estates from my small hometown
in Assam, with aromas of roasted leaves perfuming the air. CHICHA San Chen,
a Taiwanese brand, sources its teas, from oolong to green and black tea, from plan-
tations and brews them fresh. The end result is a drink that preserves the essence
of tea.
This experience led to two realisations: Good bubble teas exist. Indians are no
strangers to the sublime flavours of teas from Darjeeling and malty notes of those
from Assam. If a bubble tea is made with these brewed to perfection, it can give
them an enduring Indian identity—but we are not there yet.

Eggs, sausages and preteen Nanga Parbats

critical and will allege a banned ingredi- days, when they were slipped into a sage into three pieces
OUR ent has been added, such as clove or car- potato curry or a fried egg was made for 4 eggs, beaten
D A I LY damom, which she abhors.
Sometimes, she will eat very little of
dinner. I did remember though that we
often had an old-fashioned casserole
Two tomatoes, sliced
One large onion, sliced
BREAD what I have made and argue that today and loved it. 2 small sprigs, rosemary
she only wants her ultimate comfort It had been decades but it was worth a 2 tbsp, fresh basil
SAMAR food: mosranna (curd rice) with pome- shot. So, the last weekend, I made bold Half tsp black pepper powder
HALARNKAR granate seeds. I have no truck with my to present eggs for Sunday lunch as part Half tsp paprika
daughter’s great favourite, pizza, so that of a casserole. My original idea was to Half tsp dried oregano
is best left to Domino’s, which makes a bung in eggs with sausages, as we had as 3-4 tbsp Edam and sharp cheddar

W
inning a 12-year-old’s
approval for what you cook is
a bit like climbing Mount
Everest (although I hear Nanga Parbat is
a more accurate comparison)—you may
strive, you may struggle but getting to
the summit is a rare feat.
My adoring child, who always said
“mmmm, I love it appa”, is more dis-
cerning than ever. I am now told it’s
good but a bit spicy, it’s good but I am
not so hungry, it’s good but I will eat it
tomorrow. She still cares about my feel-
ings but only just, I suspect. As the great
chasm of preteen-hood opens before
you, it is best not to understand why but
to try and bridge it.
To that end, I strive.
It took me some time to realise that
the things that once worked now may
not. She’s still eager to eat my interpre-
tation of my Ajji’s Goan fish curry but I
notice she eats a tiny piece of fish and
turns the rest into comfort food—white
rice and curry. She still smiles and eats
my roast pork but I notice she is more
dubious industrial-production-line ver-
sion that she and her grandmother
enjoy every Friday on date night—theirs
and ours.
The challenge begins with eggs on
school days. Where once mutte (egg)
dosas and creamy scrambled eggs were
sources of delight, eggs themselves are
contentious. But eggs are a very impor-
tant part of our lives, and even the wife,
who is vegetarian, has started eating
them for protein and energy. Eggs, as
we well know, are nutritional power-
houses.
Since an egg, we tell her, is non-nego-
tiable, it’s up to us to figure out how it
can be made acceptable. Her mother
gives her the occasional half-boiled
eggs, which she makes much better
than I, and her gooey omelette is much
appreciated.
I have taken my cue from my wife and
served up gooey omelettes as well—if
you cannot beat them, copy them—add-
ing in bits of ham, cheese and olive.
These are delicious omelettes, even if I
Sausage, rosemary and basil casserole.
say so myself.
I may be ordinary at most things in
life but the one thing I do well is to make
high-class omelettes, done to your pref-
erence and stuffed with all kinds of
interesting ingredients. The child
appears to still like these omelettes but
the question of an egg a day remains. On
some days, there is eager acceptance of
the egg, on some, resistance is strong.
Students of Karnataka government
schools may recently and overwhelm-
ing have chosen eggs as part of their
midday meals but privilege is a difficult
SAMAR HALARNKAR
thing to convey to a preteen attending a
school where SUVs and German cars
swarm the gates. She does grasp the
concept of privilege though, aware that
holidays abroad and five-star hotels are
not her life and that there are some stu-
dents in her class who are noticeably
worse off.
As the tussle over eggs continued, I
thought back to my childhood and how
we could never could get enough of
eggs, sometimes eating three at a time.
We even had eggs for lunch and dinner,
especially on vegetarian-only Thurs-
children, and leave it at that. But since
one has become fancy and all that over
the years, I added on a bottom layer of
onions and tomatoes and incorporated
fresh herbs.
When the child came by the lunch
table, she was hungry and looked at the
casserole quizzically. “Is there egg in
this?” she asked, not without menace.
She took a slice and carted it off to watch
with a TV lunch. For reasons best
known to her, she was watching—and
enjoying—Peter Sellers’ The Party for
the second time, a movie that, to me,
hasn’t aged well.
Either Sellers’ brownface or the cas-
serole improved her mood. “Really
good,” she said of the casserole. She
didn’t take a second helping though.
SAuSAge, RoSeMARy ANd bASiL
cASSeRoLe
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 packet of five sausages. Cut each sau-
cheese
Salt to taste
Method
Fry the sausages in a non-stick pan and
set aside. Grease a casserole and lay out
a bed of sliced onion, place sliced toma-
toes over this. Sprinkle with paprika,
black pepper and a little salt. Grill in the
oven at 200 degrees Celsius for 25 min-
utes, flipping over once. Scatter the sau-
sages, half the basil leaves and rosemary
over the tomato and onion. Pour in the
eggs so that they cover everything.
Sprinkle cheese and oregano. Bake at
200 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes or
until the cheese browns. Remove, gar-
nish with fresh basil and serve hot.
Our Daily Bread is a column on easy,
inventive cooking. Samar Halarnkar is
the author of The Married Man’s Guide
To Creative Cooking—And Other Dubi-
ous Adventures.
@samar11
 SMART LIVING SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi 07

Season of ‘seenzoned’ & THE WEEK IN TECH

too many notifications

The weight of too
many notifications is
leading to a shift in
the way people
communicate on
the internet
Shephali Bhatt

1
shephali.bhatt@livemint.com MICROSOFT OUTLOOK, TEAMS SUFFER GLOBAL OUTAGE
Microsoft Outlook and Teams users worldwide reported a massive

N
ipun Jain has a compli- outage on 25 January. Multiple users took to social media to point
cated relationship with this out, and in a status update Microsoft reported “service degrada-
social media notifications. tion” for a number of its Microsoft 365 services, which included Teams,
When she receives one, the Outlook, the Azure cloud computing service and the XBox Live online
26-year-old artist finds gaming service. There was no fix on the number of users affected, but,
herself reacting to it in her head but often according to Reuters, Microsoft Teams, used by more than 280 million
forgets to share her reaction with the people globally, forms an integral part of daily operations for businesses
sender. “If it’s something funny they send, and schools. Microsoft said in a tweet that it had rolled back a network
for instance… I see, I laugh, I move on.” change that it believed was causing the issue. “We’re monitoring the
Two days later, she realises she has missed service as the rollback takes effect,” the tweet said.
responding but a “haha” won’t suffice
now, “so you tell yourself you will send a

proper reply in a bit”. That almost never
happens. “I think I have lost touch with
several acquaintances because I didn’t
reply to their mention or message. And
they stopped engaging after a while,” says
Jain, who works as a marketing profes-
sional in Gurugram, Haryana.
Incoming notifications drain her but
when the tables are turned, she doesn’t
like being seenzoned, a situation where
your text is seen but not replied to.
Recently, she left a heartfelt comment on
a writer-lifestyle-creator’s Instagram
post. It has yet to receive any form of
acknowledgement, be it a thank you, a
smiley, or even a simple heart reacji (reac-
tion emoji). Generally, people don’t
expect to be acknowledged by celebrities
with millions of followers, though some
still reply to their posts, especially on
Twitter, as it allows them to be discovered
by more users. But this was not even a
popular account, Jain says, adding that the
user had no more than 3,000 followers.
“Somehow, I have already started dis-
liking this person now. It has gotten to a
point that I skip their Instagram Stories
when they appear in my feed,” she adds. “I
have revisited the post in question a few
times to check if the user has replied to
other people’s comments. (They haven’t).”
The discrepancy in her attitude towards
incoming and outgoing notifications isn’t
lost on her. It does, however, encapsulate
the growing chaos in the notification-to-
Smartphone users get an average of 50 notifications a day.
demanding the same kind of time in a
physical space can be quite overwhelm-
ing,” says Taamra Ranganath, counselling
psychologist with MindPeers, a mental
health consultation platform. Globally,
over one-fifth of smartphone users choose
to disable push notifications—pop-up
alerts on their mobile screens—from cer-
tain apps. This is reflected in a 2021 report
from Airship, a mobile marketing plat-
form, which states that roughly 19% of
Android users and 49% of iOS users opt
out of push notifications. Fun fact:
Android automatically enables push noti-
fications but iOS users have to proactively
consent to receive them.
In addition to excessive notifications,
technical glitches on platforms can mean
some notifications do not appear, height-
ening the fear of not receiving or offering
acknowledgement online. This is leading
to a shift in the way people communicate
on the internet, especially with the
from Delhi. “I struggle to interact on
social media. I read somewhere that my
online behaviour is similar to those who
have social anxiety in real life. Every
message and mention on social media
feels like a missed call to me and I am
hesitant to call back, fearing it will esca-
late into a meeting.”
Ranganath says social media places an
unrealistic expectation on us to constantly
stay connected. “Someone not replying to
notifications due to anxiety is drawing a
healthy boundary for themselves. But on
social media, people can interpret it as
plain rude without any context. Applying
real-life boundaries on social media gets
complicated,” she adds.
Some people increasingly prefer mes-
saging an acquaintance directly in
response to their social media post, rather
than leaving a public comment. An unac-
knowledged public comment hurts far
more than a message left on “read”, says
2
ONEPLUS 11 LAUNCH INCHES
CLOSER
The next OnePlus flagship launch
is right around the corner but there
could be a surprise in store. Apart from
the OnePlus 11 phone, and Buds Pro 2,
the company is expected to launch the
mid-range One Plus 11R smartphone as
well. A report on the technology web-
site GSMArena said that Amazon had
ISTOCKPHOTO revealed the launch date for the
device—7 February. As expected, there
neer from Bengaluru. “We tend to pas- is quite a lot of excitement around the OnePlus 11, which, according to a
sively stalk other people’s public replies Mint report on Wednesday, could be the cheapest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
and when we see a reply not getting phone in India. Apart from the two phones, OnePlus is also expected to
acknowledged, we do wonder what is hap- launch the OnePlus TV Q2 Pro smart TV and its first keyboard.
pening between those two. You know oth-
ers do this, too. And nobody wants to be
that person who’s being judged by a pas-
sive stalker,” she adds.
Further, you can always follow up on a
direct message. “With mentions in public,
you are a lot less in control,” says Shriya
Karanam, 23, a community manager at a
SaaS-tech startup. “It’s weird to ask some-
one to acknowledge your comment on
their post. You just end up waiting and
wondering, ‘Is this not giving?’ (slang for:
Is this content not giving a good vibe?).”
This preoccupation with “acknowl-
edgement in public” is making people
neglect basic messaging etiquette too, it
would seem. “Earlier, people at least apol-
ogised for seeing a message and forgetting
to reply,” notes Pragun Dua, a 22-year-old

acknowledgement pipeline. It has made
room for a new content subgenre where
reels and memes are capturing the senti-
ments of many boomer parents who are
tired of reacting to every post in the family
WhatsApp group, and younger folks
whose unread Instagram messages are pil-
ing up because all of them carry reels and
memes from friends they cannot just see
without sharing their reaction. Smart-
phone users get an average of 50 notifica-
tions a day, many of them unnecessary
and irrelevant. “It is easy to expect some-
one to respond to 50 notifications across
apps in a day. But 50 people in front of you
“extremely online” millennials and Gen
Zers, many of whom keep oscillating
between dopamine hits and digital detox.
“I don’t tag anyone on social media any
more,” says Mehvish M., 33, a technology
writer from Kashmir. “It keeps me from
wondering: Why haven’t they replied yet?
Is it because they missed seeing the notifi-
cation, they never got it, or because the
content wasn’t up to snuff? This is too
much anxiety for me to take,” she says.
Srishty Ranjan, 25, has 20 unread
messages on Instagram right now. “I am
just not able to open my DMs and reply,”
says the corporate account manager
Tanisha Sabherwal, 23, a software engi-
Globally, over one-fifth of
smartphone users
choose to disable push
notifications—pop-up alerts
on their mobile screens—
from certain apps
product designer. “Now, missing texts and
not caring to explain has almost become
the norm, at least in your inner circle,” he
says. That’s why you have memes that say
“your best friend will die for you but won’t
respond to your texts”.
Jokes aside, lack of acknowledgement
on social media can have consequences in
real life too, says Ranganath. “It could trig-
ger feelings of loneliness if you weren’t
acknowledged, or guilt if you failed to
acknowledge someone.” Identifying the
boundaries of your online comfort zone is
a constant process, she adds, and hard to
enforce. Memes, on the other hand…
3
EARTH’S INNER CORE ROTATING SLOWER THAN SURFACE
A new study revealed on 25 January that Earth’s inner core has
stopped spinning faster than the planet’s surface and might now
be rotating slower than it. According to the new research, published in
the journal Nature Geoscience, which analysed seismic waves from
repeating earthquakes over the last six decades, the inner core started
rotating slightly faster than the rest of the planet in the early 1970s. It
had been slowing down before coming in sync with Earth’s rotation
around 2009, it added. There has been a “negative trend” since, meaning
the inner core is now rotating slower than the surface, an AFP report
explained. The researchers predicted the next change would occur in
the mid-2040s and that this rotation timeline roughly lines up with
changes in what is called the “length of day”—small variations in the
exact time it takes Earth to rotate on its axis.
—Compiled by Nitin Sreedhar.

REVIEW | INSTA360 X3

Never miss a moment with this action camera

Record 360-degree stand up independently on a flat surface. which continuously records posed video, no matter whether I was
There’s a standard tripod mount at the footage while saving only the shooting on the fort in sunny Galle or
videos and edit them on bottom, rather convenient if you have a most recent 1-30 minutes of the while trekking up Little Adam’s Peak in
the go with this action selfie stick already. Check ahead, though, video, say, for a dashcam on your overcast Ella. Videos shot indoors and in
if you are planning on using this for motorcycle or MTB. low-light aren’t as impressive. Photo-
camera. The question is, adventure activities like white-water raft- As easy as it is to record videos graphs offered plenty of detail, as long as
do you need one? ing—while the X3 is waterproof, most
safety gear (helmets) with operators has
via the X3, the Insta360 has
made it equally easy to edit vid-
you didn’t go pixel peeping. While the X3
is fairly impact-proof, it will serve you well
incompatible GoPro mounts. eos, either via the Android/iOS to be careful with those two bulbous len-
Tushar Kanwar Of course, the first thing you may notice app (over Wi-Fi) or via Win- ses— you don’t want them to be rubbing
about the X3 is the fisheye lenses on either dows/macOS desktop apps (by against anything harsh or coarse. Battery

l
must admit the Insta360 X3 360-de-
gree camera was about as much of an
impulse purchase as it gets, one that
went against the well-meaning advice of
peers—“this is smartphone-level money”,
“buy a game console instead”, “too much
money for an action camera”. All of these
may have a hint of truth but we were Sri
Lanka-bound for an year-end vacation
and I wanted to take the X3 along for some
unique perspectives. It delivered in spa-
des—what I hadn’t bargained for was how
much fun I would have using this rather
unique piece of tech.
Let’s back up for a moment and under-
stand why the Insta 360 X3 isn’t yet
another pocketable carry-everywhere
camera of the sort we have come to associ-
ate with the likes of GoPro or DJI. It
eschews the squat form factor preferred
by GoPro/DJI—instead, you get a candy
bar form factor in a two-tone grey finish
with a rubberised grip along the sides. It’s
easy to hold and wide enough to let the X3
side, with a 2.29-inch touch screen and
four hardware buttons to operate the
device. Both these near-180-degree lenses
work in tandem to stitch their outputs
in-camera to produce a seamless 360-de-
gree spherical view of everything around,
no matter whether you are shooting 5.7K
spherical videos or absolutely massive
72MP still images.
Why do you need 360-degree videos?
No, they are not for niche virtual reality
applications. Instead, this all-encompass-
ing capture method lets you start filming
without worrying about framing your
shot—since you are capturing everything
around you, all you have to do is hit record
and go back to the smartphone/desktop
app later to decide which parts to use.
It’s a disarmingly simple approach to
recording a moment or an activity, one
which keeps you in the action and lets you
savour the moment rather than worrying
if you are in the frame (or out of it com-
pletely!) as you bob around in your raft or
transferring over the USB-C
port). The X3 saves 360-degree
INSTA360 X3
Aperture: F1.9
Photo modes: Standard, HDR,
Burst, Interval, Starlapse
You no longer have to worry about framing your shot. Run time: 81 minutes
Compatibility: iOS and
while holding on to the safety apparatus your group in the Android devices
while parasailing. You will never miss a photo, plus everyone
moment with the X3, unlike other action else in the room as well! Price: ₹46,990
cams which depend on you to make the Great for overhead shots at
right choice about which direction the parties. Using a selfie stick? No
camera should be pointing. problem, the camera’s smarts detect the
While 360-degree is its marquee attrac- selfie stick and stitches it out of the final
tion, the X3 just as easily switches into video. Want the video to focus exclusively
action camera mode, recording 4K stabi- on you as you record a vlog? Try the Me
lised action video from either the front or Mode, where the camera creates a 180-de-
rear lens. Hit a button and you can shoot gree video with you at the centre of the
regular or HDR photos for selfies that have frame. Or how about the Loop mode,
files in a proprietary for-
mat, so the apps are a
strict requirement, but
it’s well worth the ini-
tial learning curve
(the apps have
included video
tutorials) to figure
out how to tame the
sheer number of cre-
ative possibilities all
this footage presents.
Internally, the X3’s
two half-inch sensors and
each lens shoot at a super wide
angle with an f/1.9 aperture. This combi-
nation of a largish sensor and a bright lens
delivers sharp and clean video —up to 5.7K
resolution at 30 frames per second (fps) or
4K/60fps, and 4K/30fps and 3.6K/60fps
in single lens mode. The X3 did a tremen-
dous job of capturing sharp and well-ex-
life is middling, lasting just about 80 min-
utes of continuous 5.7k 30fps 360-degree
recording.
Making your videos stand out when
millions of creators are trying to do the
same on Instagram and YouTube is no
easy task, and the Insta360 X3 represents
a formidable weapon to this audience.
Even for normobs, the X3 earns an easy
recommendation for the outdoorsy types,
though it would be a tad harder to justify
the ₹46,990 outlay. The rather under-
stated reason to consider the X3 is that it’s
a ton of fun to use, thanks to the extensive
range of shooting modes and creative
options that it presents with a degree of
assured confidence and user-friendliness.
The fact that you can pull it out and press
record and worry about the rest later is a
little bit of imaging magic that simply can-
not be matched right now.
Tushar Kanwar, a tech columnist and
commentator, tweets at @2shar.
08 SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi
TRACK
RECORD The Delhi Metro, which has just turned 20, is
inseparable from life in the mega-city. It is
more than a system of public transport: it
represents refuge, privacy, freedom, and a
slow change in the city’s cultural fabric
Pooja Singh
pooja.s@htlive.com
N
amita Narula Gandhi lives by the clock. Every work-
day, she wakes up at 6.30am, gets ready, packs the
breakfast and lunch she has prepped the night
before, feeds her one-year-old child, and is in her car
at 7am. Within 30 minutes, she is on the Delhi
Metro’s Yellow Line, travelling from the Haiderpur
station to Huda City Centre in Gurugram.
An hour and 50 minutes later, she is hailing an
auto for the 10-minute ride to her office, a private
hospital, where she works as the head of corporate
communications. That’s two-and-a-half hours of
travel every morning. It’s the same on the way back.
Gandhi doesn’t mind those five hours on the move,
for the Metro allows her to be independent.
“I moved to Sonipat in 2017 after getting married,”
explains the 35-year-old, who was born and brought
up in Delhi. “The Metro is the reason I can still hold
my job. Imagine how much it would cost me in petrol
to drive all the way.” She estimates that it would be
over ₹10,000 a month; using the Metro cuts it down
to ₹1,500. Travelling in a bus feels unsafe to her.
Shifting to Delhi is not an option since her husband
works in Sonipat. Plus, there’s family to take care of
her baby at home when she’s at work.
The Metro means different things to different
people, whether you are in New Delhi, New York,
London or Paris. It can just be another mode of pub-
lic transport that takes you from point A to B. It can
be a place where you indulge in some innocent peo-
ple-watching. You can enjoy the air-conditioning
while the sun blazes outside, try not to overhear an
argument, discuss existential questions with friends,
meet your sweetheart, read that book that has long
been sitting in your bag, talk yourself into writing
that complicated article. Or just watch the city
through the glass windows. You can do pretty much
anything and everything while on the move.
There’s another reason Gandhi prefers the Metro.
It offers her “bliss time”: 50 minutes of patchy inter-
net between stations in north and south Delhi, when
Delhi Metro staff. calls drop every second or messages don’t get deliv-
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ered on time. That’s when she tunes out from the
HINDUSTAN TIMES outside world to listen to music. “In the morning, it’s
COVER
a bhajan (either Gayatri Mantra or something on Sai
Baba). In the evening, trending music; these days, it’s
Koka (by Diljit Dosanjh and Sargi Maan). I know, I
need to update my list,” she laughs. On days she
doesn’t feel like plugging in her earphones, she likes
to see what people are wearing. “We all do that, no?”
she says. “With the baby, family and work, I hardly
ever get time to read up what’s in fashion. During
those two hours inside the train, I learn all about the
trendy stuff.”
SMALL BEGINNINGS
It was on 24 December 2002 that the then prime
minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, inaugurated the first
Metro corridor, an 8.2km stretch spanning six sta-
tions on the Shahdara-Tis Hazari corridor of the Red
Line. A mass rapid transit plan, first conceived in the
1960s and formally sanctioned in 1996, had finally
come to life six years later following a political push.
Vajpayee said it would eventually create a safer, less
congested and less polluted Delhi (on a good air
index day, Delhi’s reading continues to be poor).
The next day, about 100,000 people used the
Metro, while several non-users dismissed it as
another government project built to tank. But there
was no denying the fact that the Delhi Metro Rail
Corporation (DMRC) had built an engineering mar-
vel to navigate a high-density metropolis. Other
public transport lifelines at the time—buses and
autos—didn’t offer as much safety or the luxury of
air-conditioning at a cost of ₹10 (for 2km or less). For
5-12km, it was ₹30. And the trains ran on time.
Travelling by the Metro meant you didn’t have to
haggle with auto drivers, suffer harassment in
packed buses, or get stuck in a traffic jam in swelter-
ing weather. Areas in the vicinity flourished. In the
early years, one restaurateur in Connaught Place
said it had revived business, particularly on week-
ends, as crowds from relatively distant areas poured
in. It has also enabled easier access to heritage areas
like Chandni Chowk.
Twenty years later, the Delhi Metro is an integral
part of life in the city, with close to 400km of tracks
shooting out in every direction, connecting 286 sta-
tions across the city and neighbouring states—a net-
work no other Metro in India has built till now. Each
day, it ferries close to six million people in the
world’s second most populated city of 31 million. So
impressed are other states by the DMRC’s efforts
that they have roped them in as consultants to build
Metro projects in Mumbai and Patna, and Bangla-
desh’s capital Dhaka. “We are also bidding for con-
sultancy of international Metro projects such as Tel
Aviv (Israel), Alexandria (Egypt), Mauritius, Bahrain
and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam),” says Anuj Dayal,
principal executive director and official spokesper-
son of Delhi Metro.
He believes the success of the Delhi Metro can be
attributed to “various factors ranging from planning,
execution, efficient workforce and technological
advancement. Our Metro lines connect almost all
the important residential areas, major markets,
other modes of transport systems such as railways
and inter-state bus services, educational and health-
care hubs, and IT corridors in entire Delhi-National
Capital Region. We are further expanding the net-
work under Phase 4 project to connect the uncov- Any city needs good public transport, says public WHERE WORLDS MEET
ered areas in Delhi to improve mobility.” mobility expert Anumita Roychowdhury, executive Shreya Johri has travelled by the Metro since she
While recovering from the loss of over ₹3,800 director (research and advocacy) at the Delhi-based was in class XI because it’s right outside her east
crore in March 2022, owing to reduced ridership non-profit Centre for Science and Environment Delhi house. As her grandparents grew too old to
during the pandemic-induced lockdowns, the (CSE). “A lot of people have to use cars, cabs or autos drop her, and pick her up, from school, they encour-
15,000-workforce at DMRC is working to add three to reach a Metro station in Delhi. That discourages aged her to use a “safer” mode of public transport.
more corridors in and around the city, stretching the them from using the Metro. Last-mile connectivity Soon, it became her ride to a nearby Noida market,
network another 65km with an extra 45 stations. is one of the most crucial aspects we need to focus where, along with friends, she would drink banta. “It
on. We need to give people the right options. was all like ₹25, coming, going and drinking,” recalls
NIGGLING ISSUES Nobody likes to waste time in a jam with bad air.” Johri, 27. “We talked on the way, in the market, and
Despite this massive web, it’s not all hunky-dory. The capital city of one of the world’s biggest econ- saved money—it was just so easy.”
Land acquisition issues have dogged it on occasion. omies is also among the most polluted. At the time It was where she had her college “Metro
Dayal merely says they were able to acquire land as of writing this article, the city’s AQI was swinging romance”. For one-and-a-half years of the three
per the law. By the time work began, Delhi had between “severe” and “very severe”, a familiar trend years she studied in Delhi university’s north campus,
changed completely; the alignment had to adjust to over three years that leads to temporary shutdowns she used to take the Blue Line from her home in
what was possible underground or overground. of schools every year. Mayur Vihar to Rajiv Chowk station to meet her
Last-mile connectivity remains a big issue, push- A November study by the CSE found that vehicles, crush-turned-friend-turned-boyfriend. Together,
ing up commuting costs and posing a security chal- including private cars, are one of the biggest con- they would board the Yellow Line, not for college,
lenge for people returning late at night. Fare tributors to particulate matter (PM10) in Delhi. but to the Huda City Centre. They would get some-
increases over the years have pushed out lower-in- Towards late October, vehicular emissions thing to eat at a street food joint and return to the
come passengers. Many stations don’t have parking accounted for 51% of the concentration of PM 2.5, Metro platform to continue chatting, about their
facilities, discouraging people who would prefer to inhalable microscopic materials less than 2.5 micro- dreams, their friends , their lives, and their next date.
use the Metro. Long walks and stairs within stations metres in diameter. What makes this data more con- By evening, they would ride same the route back
are not easy to navigate, especially for the elderly cerning is that only a small number of families in the home. Even after they broke up towards the end of
and the disabled. On some lines, rush hour is an city own cars—19.4%, according to the latest data college, they continued travelling in the Metro
unbearable crush. from the National Family Health Survey. together as friends to go to college.
R STORY
(above) Mohd Shamim Ansari and
his wife, Tahseen Shaikh; and (right)
a map of the Delhi Metro network.
With the baby, family and
work, I hardly get time to read
about what’s in fashion.
During those two hours
inside the train, I learn all
about the trendy stuff.
NAMITA NARULA GANDHI
METRO USER
“We used to forget checking our phones, some-
times we even missed stations. It was such an easy
way of sitting in a clean, air-conditioned place, and
nobody disturbed you,” she recalls. “Those Metro
rides gave us the confidence to be free, to be like
proper adults who could take their own decisions. It
might sound like an exaggeration but it really did
teach me how to be independent—and more than
anything, it was safe.”
Gandhi doesn’t agree entirely, though she is a
devoted Metro user. She has been robbed twice. The
first time, the thief slashed her mother’s purse and
took out ₹15,000 they were carrying to go shopping
PRADEEP GAUR
WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
in west Delhi. Since then, her mother, who had used
the Metro for 15 years, has stopped travelling on it.
A few months earlier, when Gandhi was returning
from work, someone took her iPod—her first luxury
purchase—from her pocket. Cases of crime and theft
are common on the Metro. A December 2021 Times
Of India report states that till 7 November, of the
2,174 crimes that were reported in the year, 80%
were of theft. The police said 1,380 were solved and
564 people were arrested. The previous year, the
report states, “2,113 cases were reported, 1,170 solved
and 204 people arrested”.
As of December 2022, each station has at least
Snapshots from the
Delhi Metro.
DELHI
METRO NOW
391km
is the length of the Delhi Metro, including
parts of Noida, Ghaziabad (Uttar Pra-
desh), Gurugram, Faridabad, Bahadur-
garh and Ballabhgarh (Haryana)
286
stations on the 12 different lines serve
residents of three states
6 million
people use the Delhi Metro every day
to get from point A to point B
31 million
is the total population of
the city of Delhi
WHAT’S IN STORE
In the works: Phase IV
Corridors to be added: 3
Aerocity-Tughlakabad
Length: 23.62km
Stations: 15
Janakpuri West-R.K. Ashram
Length: 29.26km
Stations: 22
Mukundpur (Majlis Park)-Maujpur
Length: 12.31km
Stations: 8
SOURCE: DMRC
over 10 theft cases, shows the Delhi Metro site. The
super-crowded Kashmere Gate has the most, at 132,
followed by Rajiv Chowk, 44, and Netaji Subhash
Place, 42. Okhla Vihar has the lowest, at 10.
Dayal says: “The security and law and order in
Metro premises is handled by CISF (Central Indus-
trial Security Force) and the Metro units of local
police in Delhi-NCR. These forces have adequate
presence of their personnel in Metro premises and
have been doing excellent work.”
Aditya Sharma differs and says one has to be cau-
tious while travelling in the Metro. One December
morning last year, when the west Delhi resident was
taking the Metro from Uttam Nagar to feed stray
dogs in areas near the next two stations—something
he had been doing daily for a year after losing Pluto,
his first pet dog—a thief stole the only ₹500 note in
his pocket. “I informed the authorities but nothing
happened,” he says., though he still considers the
Metro the most convenient and fastest mode of
transport. “I can walk to the station from my house,
carrying the food for the dogs I feed,” says the
65-year-old.
It’s this convenience that makes the Metro every-
SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi 09
DMRC
one’s darling. According to an estimate by The
Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), the Metro will
help passengers save an annual 572.5 million hours
in 2031.
For Sharma or Johri, the nearest station is less
than a minute from home. This is exactly why Suvina
Rai, a north Delhi resident, used to prefer the train
to reach her office in Gurugram, south of south
Delhi. Every Monday-Friday, she would find a quiet
corner and immerse herself in the world of P.G.
Wodehouse or Harry Potter. “Those 60 minutes felt
like meditation,” recalls Rai, now based in Benga-
luru. “Whenever I am in Delhi, I prefer the Metro.”
CHALLENGES REMAIN
One of the big challenges to last-mile connectivity
is the Capital’s population. “Delhi is a challenging
city because of its huge population. Secondly, eco-
nomic growth is so high that it encourages owning
private cars,” says Roychowdhry, who, too, ends up
using her private vehicle to travel from her house on
the outskirts of Delhi to her office in the city’s south-
ern parts. “The Metro station is far from my house.
It will take me more time to reach office if I use it,”
she says.
That’s why Mohd Shamim Ansari uses a motorcy-
cle to reach his office in Okhla from Jamia Nagar.
When he first arrived in Delhi in 2017 and was work-
ing further away in Gurugram, the train was his
go-to. Those two hours in the train were like a peek
into Delhi life. Ansari couldn’t help but overhear sto-
ries of someone’s house help not showing up for
work, or a boyfriend checking whether their signifi-
cant other had had breakfast before leaving for work.
On the same train, colleagues became his best
friends. On weekends, he would take the train to
Lodhi Gardens or Qutab Minar, familiarising himself
with the city on his own. Nowadays, his wife, Tah-
seen Shaikh, accompanies him. “I would have con-
tinued using the Metro for work but the station is too
far from the office,” he says. “Just doesn’t make any
sense wasting time.”
A train station should ideally be within a 200m
radius to compel residents to use it over personal
vehicles or commercial personal vehicles such as
cabs, says Roychowdhry. “Public transport is all
about convenience. It’s a nightmare getting cabs,
autos, or even walking if the station is far. Let’s not
forget that our Delhi roads are made for cars, not for
pedestrians,” says Roychowdhry. “Public transport
has to come to people.”
She cites the example of Kolkata. “You just need
to get out of the house and there’s something availa-
ble for you to navigate the city, whether it’s a bus or
an auto. Kolkata’s public transport system is one of
the country’s oldest networks Delhi can learn from,”
explains Roychowdhry. “We also need to realise that
just offering world-class transport is not enough.
There need to be systems in place to ensure there are
no traffic jams because of the extra buses, rickshaws,
autos on the road.”
That’s part of the Delhi government’s plan. As the
fourth phase of Delhi Metro commences, the aim is
to expand other modes, including buses and autos,
to reach the last mile within the city at least.
“If Delhi wants to be the clean national capital of
the country, we need to clean up the pollution and
give more people the option to use the Metro,” says
Roychowdhry. “Otherwise, it won’t be liveable in the
next 10-20 years.”
Namita Narula Gandhi would like the Metro to be
closer to her house. It would mean more me- and-
we-time for herself, her child and family. “I don’t
know life beyond work and family right now. Metro
is my refuge, where I get time to be with myself,” she
says. “And 30 minutes more of that would be more
than welcome.”
10 SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi
A bird haven
for all seasons
To mark World
Wetlands Day on
2 February, we visit
Gajoldoba in West
Bengal and try to spot
its 120 species of birds
Anirudh Nair
T
he endless expanse of the
Teesta river stretched
before me until the hori-
zon. The wind rippled the
surface of the water as my
guide rowed against the current. Enor-
mous grey clouds loomed above us, with
the vast Teesta barrage behind us. I was at
Gajoldoba, a hamlet in the Jalpaiguri dis-
trict of northern West Bengal. The mas-
sive Kangchenjunga serves as a backdrop
for this picturesque settlement in the
Dooars region of the Himalayan foothills.
A reservoir formed by the barrage wel-
comes hundreds of migratory birds every
year to the village.
Taposh Mondal, a self-taught birder
and local resident who has been guiding
tourists at Gajoldoba since 2013, was keen
to show me the migratory waterfowl
which had lingered past their wintering
season. The tide dictated the movement of
Seeking diamonds in
BIRMINGHAM
In the Jewellery Quarter,
you will find stories of
industry and trade, and
of women fighting to
change history
Joanna Lobo
A
s stones go, it looks quite ordinary,
even though this felsite boulder
was deposited during the Ice Age
by a glacier. Once a boundary stone, the
War Stone now lies on a plinth inside a
cemetery on a street named after it. Leg-
end has it that two giants got into a fight
and the Birmingham giant was hit by a
large boulder that killed him and
destroyed his castle. In his honour, his fol-
lowers erected a stone in the lane. Hence
the name War Stone.
In Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter,
even the rocks tell a story. Once an indus-
trial town manufacturing metal products
(pens, chains, coins, whistles, coffin parts,
trophies), it was home to traders working
on every stage of the jewellery manufac-
turing process. The Great Depression and
World War II saw a decline in industry but
it still has about 700 jewellery-linked
businesses producing 40% of the jewel-
lery made in the UK.
The conservation of the Quarter has
turned it into a space for creative business
and hospitality ventures. Yet, there is his-
tory here—in the listed red-brick build-
ings, once bustling factories, the century-
old Chamberlain Clock, the ink in the Pen
the birds as they flew to and from the res-
ervoir and river. A flock of lesser whistling
ducks were among those reaping the
river’s bounty. We could hear the whistles
of the pale brown birds assembled on a
river island from a distance.
Mondal hushed my attempts to gather
trivia about the gregarious ducks when he
saw a pair of common shelducks. It was
uncommon for these migratory ducks,
with prominent red bills, to stay on past
the winter, he said. Their striking black
and white plumage contrasted sharply
with the grey sky reflected in the river.
On our cruise upriver, we saw more
ducks: the gadwall, common pochard,
ruddy shelduck and northern shoveler.
Migratory birds arrive in Gajoldoba from
their breeding grounds in Ladakh, Balu-
chistan, Central Asia, Mongolia, Russia,
Siberia and Europe at the onset of winter
in the subcontinent. The ducks we saw
were the few that had delayed the perilous
journey back to their breeding grounds.
The river’s depth wasn’t as impressive as
its width. The sedimented water only
reached Mondal’s knees when he stepped
out to pull his sal wood boat, stuck in a
patch of gravel. A pair of migratory crested
grebes waltzed nearby. Further ahead, a
lone river tern rested on a floating log a few
metres away from a flock of brown-headed
gulls. The raucous gulls, with their hooded
ensembles, flew away as our boat neared.
A small pratincole on a nearby sandbar
was more tolerant of our presence. I
Museum (the area once produced 75% of
pens in the world), and hidden in the soft
earth in Birmingham’s last Georgian
Square. St Paul’s Square is lush with
autumn foliage, a shaded courtyard with
old tombstones and memorials, and, in the
centre, the 18th century St Paul’s Church,
with its stained-glass windows.
I get a brief lesson in the Quarter from
Josie Wall, a PhD student, guide and part
of the Jewellery Quarter Business
Improvement (JQ BID), a company dedi-
cated to improving the district. Wall’s pas-
sion for the region is evident in the way
she rattles off figures and trivia, and the
way her eyes light up when talking about
its history. “The 1960s were the heydays of
the Quarter. There was more manufactur-
TRAVEL
(clockwise from top, left) Asian openbill; common merganser; migratory ducks; and
guide Taposh Mondal.
sighted the well-camouflaged, grey-
brown bird eyeing us suspiciously from
the sandbar. Other waders, such as the
common sandpiper, green sandpiper, lit-
tle-ringed plover and kentish plover, too
were foraging on the sandbar. The shrill
call of a river lapwing broke my reverie.
Mondal, who has recorded more than
120 species of birds in Gajoldoba, says
birdwatching took off in the area in 2003,
when fishers realised they could supple-
ment their income by guiding tourists. In
2016, the West Bengal government
ing than retailing. Factories typically
worked on one aspect of the process, like
plating or finishing. Beyond jewellery,
many small metal items were made here.
You needed the same skilled workers to
make coffin handles, or a coffee pot or a
nib,” she says.
The heart of the Quarter is the inter-
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DHRITIMAN MUKHERJEE
ANIRUDH NAIR
declared the 14.09 sq. km reservoir Pakh-
ibitan Wildlife Sanctuary to protect the
birds and conserve their habitat. Today,
an informal network of fishers and locals
ply around 30-odd boats in the reservoir
from morning to evening. Though the
sanctuary remains open through the year,
it sees maximum footfall during the winter
months from November-March.
We decided to explore the reservoir the
following day to see more birds, while
secretly hoping to glimpse an elephant or
two stopping by for a drink from the sur-
(clockwise, from top) The
Jewellery Quarter; a display at
Coffin Works; and
Chamberlain Clock.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOANNA LOBO
HOW TO
GET THERE
BY AIR
Bagdogra airport is around
40km from Gajoldoba.
BY RAIL
New Jalpaiguri Junction railway
station is around 28km away.
BY ROAD
Siliguri is around 36km away.
BIRDS TO LOOK FOR
Lesser whistling duck, common
shelduck, gadwall, common
pochard, ruddy shelduck,
northern shoveler, common
teal, Eurasian wigeon, among
many others. Guide Taposh
Mondal is an excellent birder
and boatman. He can be con-
tacted at 9547637042 for day-
long and hour-long boat rides
on the reservoir and river.
WHAT TO CARRY
A camera, a pair of binoculars, a
water bottle, a cap, and snacks.
STAY
The Bhorer Alo Tourism Prop-
erty (7029435557). You can
check availability and book a
room at the West Bengal Tour-
ism Development Corporation
website.
secting lanes of Warstone and Vyse Street,
which house jewellery shops, their win-
dows a-dazzle with gems. We walk into
alleyways with red-brick buildings. We
pass by a Sikh temple, beautiful in blue,
which was once the Highbury Independ-
ent Chapel. On the pavement, we look out
for plates embedded in the pavement
which offer more history lessons—on Gra-
ham Street, a sign indicates that it was
once the site of a roller-coaster.
Along the way, Wall feeds me nuggets:
Factories with “works” in the name were
actually workshops; the steam from the
pen factory was used for Turkish baths;
census records show the Quarter had
workers from South Africa, Australia,
Trinidad and Russia; and the cemeteries
are one of the few untouched open green
spaces. Wall grins when I suggest we visit
them. “You don’t find too many people
interested in hanging out in cemeteries,”
rounding Baikunthapur forests. A pair of
eye-catching pheasant-tailed jacanas, hid-
den amongst floating vegetation, lit up our
morning. Their cousin, a bronze-winged
jacana, was foraging nearby. Jacanas are
also known as lily-trotters or lotus birds
for their ability to walk on floating vegeta-
tion with their long, spidery feet.
A skilled boatman, Mondal used his oar
deftly to navigate through reedbeds. He
knew the reservoir like the back of his
hand and called out bird names as soon as
he spotted them. Common moorhen,
common coot, little grebe, Asian openbill
stork, purple heron, purple swamphen,
little cormorant, yellow bittern—the
sightings came quick and fast. The sheer
abundance of these aquatic birds indi-
cated that the wetland was thriving.
We heard the low-pitched buzzing calls
of black-breasted weavers as we
approached a reed island. Mondal steered
the boat right up to the edge of the island,
from where I could see the bird’s commu-
nal globular nests up close. Supported by
reeds tied together, the nests had large
circular entrances. The weavers, however,
were hidden among the tall reeds.
When the boatman hushed me for the
second time in two days, I knew immedi-
ately he had spotted another rare species.
Three cotton pygmy geese, with their
spotless, bright white heads, had sensed
the approaching boat. Before we could
brace ourselves, they flew over our boat
like aeroplanes over a parade.
Back at my cottage, as I observed the
unsuccessful hunting attempts of a pied
kingfisher, my thoughts circled back to
what Mondal had told me when he left me
at the jetty: “Visit again in the winter. We
will see huge flocks of ducks all around us.”
Anirudh Nair is a feature writer with
RoundGlass Sustain, a social impact initia-
tive telling stories of India’s natural world.
she says. The “cemeteries researcher” is a
manager at the JQ Cemeteries Project,
which looks at restoring at the region’s
two cemeteries.
In the city centre is the Warstone Lane
Cemetery. “This cemetery doesn’t have a
chapel; the existing one was destroyed in
WWII and after the war ended, rebuilding
it wasn’t a priority. Instead, the chapel’s
footprint was recreated as a garden of
memory,” she says. There is a war memo-
rial, and catacombs, arranged in a semi-
circle, in two tiers, and built on old sand
quarries. In summer, they screen films on
the catacombs; during Halloween, it is
decorated with pumpkins and there are
plays and events. “During the pandemic
lockdown, people would gather here to do
yoga,” says Wall.
In an old factory on Fleet Street, I find
myself confronting a different aspect of
death. The Newman Brothers were Bir-
mingham’s last coffin-furniture factory,
operating for 100 years. Today, Coffin
Works is a museum with rooms dedicated
to the many aspects of burials. There are
coffins, fitted with trimmings, shrouds
and face veils, brass handles (including
replicas of those made for Winston
Churchill and Princess Diana), chair and
coffin nails, a stamp room with mechani-
cal presses, sample pieces that travelling
salesmen would carry in leather bags, and
order books going back to the 1940s.
As I walk around the museum, it is clear
that women were at the heart of it. In the
shroud or sewing room, seamstresses sat
with machines, stitching the cloth used to
dress the bodies, and the coffins. It was the
late Joyce Green, the last owner of New-
man Brothers, who turned the factory into
a museum. Green joined as the office sec-
retary at 18, and, over the next 50 years,
climbed up the ranks—a woman who had
to fight to prove herself.
I came to the Jewellery Quarter seeking
bling. Instead, I find stories of industry
and trade, and of women fighting for
change.
Joanna Lobo is a Goa-based journalist.

Atul Dodiya’s moments
from Indian cinema
In a suite of 24
paintings, the artist
freezes moments
from 1960s-70s
films such as ‘Anand’
and ‘Padosan’
Avantika Bhuyan
Avantika.bhuyan@htlive.com
A
t the Chemould Prescott
Road, Mumbai, one is
greeted with a mixed sense
of the familiar and the
novel. The 24 oil paintings
on display, as part of the exhibition Dr.
Banerjee In Dr. Kukarni’s Nursing Home
And Other Paintings (2020-2022), evoke
a feeling of nostalgia, featuring frozen
moments from Indian films from the
1960s-70s. You can recognise the silhou-
ette of Amitabh Bachchan from Anand,
Soumitra Chatterjee walking away in
Kapurush, and, in the only film from an
earlier period, Nargis as Rita playing the
piano in Awara. Yet there is a sense of
mystery to the scenes—the protagonists
are shown with their backs turned, faces
covered, often suspended in motion. The
play of light, shadow and colour adds
immense depth to the scenes painted by
Atul Dodiya.
When you move beyond body lan-
guage, you start noticing other details in
the setting you may not have noticed in
the film. In Aarti In Office, which features
Madhabi Mukherjee in Satyajit Ray’s
Mahanagar, you begin to observe the
poster on the wall about a knitting
machine, the weighing scales, the texture
of the curtains and the stance of a man
looking back at Aarti. Each work comes
with detailed captions, mentioning the
actor, the name of the character they are
essaying and the film title. When taken
out of context— if one were not to look at
the captions and were to dissociate the
scenes from the films—the paintings
become a storyboard of their own. It feels
like one is going through a blown-up con-
tact sheet of Dodiya’s own film. Viewers
can create their own narrative based on
how they navigate the show.
For Dodiya, 64, it was a conscious deci-
sion to allow for this kind of reading. “The
paintings are not just about specific films
and sequences. That would have become
very limiting. One of the devices I have
used is to conceal the faces of the actors.
The actors are so well-known, and if the
viewers simply focus on the faces of
Rajesh Khanna, Sharmila Tagore and
Saira Banu, the experience will be limit-
ing,” he explains. However, now you sim-
ply notice a generic figure of a housewife,
a lady in an office, or a man emerging from
the kitchen. And then you start taking in
the décor and the surroundings—there is
so much more to engage with.
“Also, when you see a person from the
back in a painting, there is a sense of mys-
tery. That is more lasting as an experi-
ence,” adds Dodiya, who created these
works between 2020-22.
The artist’s engagement with cinema is
not new. Having grown up with interna-
tional and regional films, the impact of
Satyajit Ray, Jean-Luc Godard and Guru
Dutt is evident in his work. In 2019, he cre-
ated a set of 36 paintings that brought to
life Alfred Hitchcock’s 1929 film Black-
mail. In 1994, he worked on a self-portrait,
The Bombay Buccaneer, inspired by the
1993 film Baazigar. “My intention was to
think how can I interpret the narrative,
without making it a direct depiction of the
film. The work ought to stand on its own as
a painting,” he had mentioned in a 2019-
interview to the Architectural Digest.
He carries forward a similar ethos in this
set of works as well. Walking around, you
can’t help but wonder why Dodiya chose
these particular moments to paint. “When
you watch a film in a cinema hall, you sit
through the entire duration. However, at
home, whether you are watching a film on
a DVD or the OTT, there is a remote con-
trol in your hand. If someone rings the bell
or calls you, there is the option to pause
CULTURE
(from top) ‘Rita At The Piano’, 2020-
2022; ‘Dr. Banerjee In Dr. Kulkarni’s
Nursing Home’, 2020-2022; and
‘The Coward’, 2020-2022.
The artist’s engagement with
cinema is not new. Having
grown up with international
and regional films, the impact
of Ray, Godard and Guru
Dutt is evident in his work
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY CHEMOULD PRESCOTT ROAD
the film,” says Dodiya. This pause is often
so random and unintentional. “Mine is a
painter’s eye. I am always looking out for
a unique visual experience. Often one
stops between a movement—leading to a
partly blurred, partly hidden visual. There
is a tremendous amount of abstraction
within that,” he adds. And it is such visuals,
which take place in a fraction of a second,
that fascinate him.
For instance, one work, Isabhai Surat-
wala In Grief, shows Johnnie Walker, in
Anand, bent over weeping. This moment
ends quickly in the film as Amitabh Bach-
chan makes an appearance. “In my paint-
ing, however, that moment is so precise.
One can see a huge shadow of the actor
falling on a blank wall, which might not
have been noticed while watching the
film. Such frozen moments are special,”
explains Dodiya.
Over the past five-six years, the artist
took photographs of such moments on his
phone. He would download and print
them. Dodiya would keep these on his
table and mull over how he wanted the fig-
ure to be, the movement of hands, etc.
It’s also interesting that all the scenes
that he chose are set indoors. Dodiya was
interested in the décor shown in the films
from the 1960s-70s. The sets featured a lot
of knick-knacks, often randomly put
together. “In the films from that era, the
actors were so good that the audience
focused solely on them. Rest of the things
were relegated to the background,” says
Dodiya. “However, when I was painting,
everything was carefully attended to. I was
interested in the furniture, the way things
were kept, and the design on the walls and
doors.”
If you view the painting Bindu And The
Mirror, which shows a scene from
Padosan featuring Saira Banu, you will
suddenly notice a vase plonked on top of
an almirah. Its placement has no signifi-
cant relevance to the scene, but in the
painting, still life like this attracts the eye.
There is a certain vibrance to the paint-
ings, with the artist consciously adding a
touch of kitsch. He was interested in the
quality old black and white photographs
acquire when hand-painted. “That is a
method I adopted. I would paint all images
in thick black and white and then add thin
layers of transparent colours,” he explains.
The images you see in these paintings
can’t be found on the internet, for they are
his chosen moments. This also reflects his
deep familiarity with the films of the time.
Dodiya calls this a love-hate relationship
with popular Hindi cinema. “I hate the
term Bollywood. But if you look back at
the golden era, from the 1940s to the
1960s, the cinema was okay, but the music
was so beautiful. Sometimes we didn’t
even know which film the song hailed
from, or which actors sang it on screen,
but still remember the melodies and lyr-
ics. That led me to explore the film fur-
ther—who was the cinematographer, was
this Rajesh Khanna’s second film?” he
reminisces. “And that led to a total immer-
sion in the subject of cinema.”
On view till 25 February, 10am-6pm
(closed on Sundays and public holidays).
SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi 11
Stills from ‘Pianoforte’.
Everyone’s a
winner in
‘Pianoforte’
This Sundance film follows pianists dealing with
the pressures of a prestigious competition
A
lex is getting his body worked over by his coach. And he’s getting a pep
talk, the usual stuff—let go of the stress, the people will love you. Alex
could be a boxer before a big fight. He’s about to go play piano on stage.
“Chopin will be alive,” the coach says. “You’ll be playing for him.”
At several points during Pianoforte, Jakub Piątek’s mesmerising account of
the 2021 edition of the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, currently playing at
the Sundance Film Festival, I felt I could be watching a sports documentary. A
slim young man limbers up. Poland’s
Marcin jumps up and down, then takes
the stage at a light run. Later, we see WORLD VIEW
him use an app to measure if a vigorous
piano exercise to warm his muscles has A look at what’s making waves
taken him to 110 bpm. As China’s Hao on the global cinema scene
plays in his room, his coach massages
his shoulders. When Russian pianist Eva receives seven specific and different
instructions in seven seconds from her coach, it reminded me of the demand-
ing practice scenes with the gymnast—also named Eva—in Věra Chytilová’s
1963 film Something Different.
The Chopin Competition has been held 18 times since 1927. It takes place
over 21 days, with no break. It’s a prestigious tournament for young players,
and competition is intense. One pianist, dissatisfied with his own perform-
ance, rants entertainingly about his opponents’ flawless recitals. “They’re like
CIA or marines, you know? They wake up early morning and do push-ups.
Then they do etudes.” Leonora, the sunniest character in the documentary,
describes it as the “Olympics of piano”, adding, “If you win the 40,000 (euro),
you might be using it to go to therapy.”
Leonora says this jokingly but it’s probably not far from the truth. At the
level these pianists are playing, where a flub or two could mean elimination,
mental fortitude becomes crucial. At one point we see Hao—who’s still in high
school—do “mental practice”, sitting in front of the piano without touching
the keys. As the film progresses, you get a sense of who might handle the pres-
sure and who might crack. It’s especially evident in 17-year-old Eva, who
keeps advancing in the competition but never seems to find the calm she’s
looking for. “Flat. Everything is flat,” her coach says. “The piano or…?” some-
one asks. Eva just looks on, her eyes searching for an answer that isn’t forth-
coming.
Pianoforte is composed and handsome, far from the Pennebaker tradition
of musical verité. Unlike another great Polish documentary, All These Sleep-
less Nights (2016), it doesn’t redraw the boundaries of the fly-on-the-wall film.
Its success is derived almost entirely from how sympathetic and interesting it
makes its protagonists. There’s Marcin, who resembles a young Jean-Pierre
Léaud, playing for his cat, which is more interested in pizza. There’s the
straight-shooting Michelle, who packs off the film-makers with a firm, “Now
it’s time.” We see Hao practise in a tiny apartment in Guangzhou, his father
looking on, his mother cooking. The ease of the film belies the work that must
have gone into building relationships with so many young musicians, earning
their trust till they were comfortable with being recorded at their most vul-
nerable.
The editing by Ula Klimek-Piątek is a masterclass in precision and canny
choices. Five minutes into the film, we haven’t heard anyone play. There’s a
quick series of shots showing the participants poised to play the first note. We
focus on Leonora. Her fingers descend. We expect Chopin. Instead, as the
film’s title appears on screen, it’s the rumbling beat of Elephant by Tame
Impala, a choice so witty and so perfectly executed it made me laugh. Later,
there’s another musical montage, set to Arcade Fire’s Rococo, as the pianists
unwind, stroll, play football. Here, too, is a smart little decision: As the song
explodes, the camerawork does too, turning frenetic for once as it follows
Alex bearing down on goal.
I would have been happy with any of the protagonists winning, so appeal-
ing does Piątek make them. However, the stakes are clearly the highest for
Eva. The film knows this, focusing on her as the final results are announced.
That scene is wrenching but then Pianoforte is full of dreams deferred and
denied. Vivian, Hao’s coach, was a talented young player herself, but, as she
says ruefully, she never had the ambition for competition. Michelle predicts
she won’t advance in the tournament beyond that night’s performance, say-
ing, “I don’t believe in unicorns.” Even in defeat, though, there’s grace. A
musician from China, eliminated in an early round, is at the airport. He sees a
piano. You may think he would be sick of pianos by then but his face lights up.
He sits down and plays, beautifully. A small crowd gathers; one woman seems
overcome. Michelle would roll her eyes at the sentiment but to be able to
move people this way must be its own reward.
12 SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi BUSINESS LOUNGE

Manu Chandra
READY TO SERVE
The chef talks about his evolution as an entrepreneur, the business of running
successful fine-dining restaurants, and his new venture LUPA
Illustration by Priya Kuriyan
Shrabonti Bagchi
Shrabonti.B@htlive.com

C
hef Manu Chandra has been
profiled several times in the
Indian media, including in
the pages of Lounge. Any-
body who follows the res-
taurant scene in India knows about the
meteoric rise of the young chef, fresh from
I have eaten at a
culinary school in New York, who took
over as executive chef of the Olive group
and opened its Bengaluru outpost, Olive
Beach, in 2004, helping transform a nas-
lot of these
cent stand-alone fine-dining scene into
the vibrant, competitive space it is today—
far more interesting than its five-star com-
restaurants,
petition, once the unquestioned leaders of
fine-dining in India.
So do we really need another profile of
chef Chandra? Well, it becomes difficult
Noma included.
to avoid when he reinvents himself so
completely every few years. In his new
turn as an entrepreneur and business
And boss, I
owner, 42-year-old Chandra today is on
the brink of opening his own restaurant;
one that promises to refresh the jaded
fine-dining scene in Bengaluru. He is
didn’t get feels. I
watched by everyone in the industry—as
someone who gave pub food a quality
upgrade with Monkey Bar in 2012,
brought the baos and ramens of Asian
got zero feels.
cuisine into focus while breaking the
hegemony of Indian Chinese with Fatty
Bao in 2014, and propelled the gin revo-
lution in India with Toast and Tonic in
2016 (all in Bengaluru before branching
out in other metros). Chandra is univer-
sally acknowledged as someone who
knows not just what the next big thing is
going to be, but who can flip it into an
of-the-moment trend.
There is a lot of buzz in his new Euro-
pean restaurant, LUPA (named after the
legendary she-wolf La Lupa of Roman
mythology), where we are meeting on a
windy January morning. Chandra shows
me around the large space in the heart of

Manu Chandra Ventures

is divided into verticals,
such as the restaurant
arm Savaa Ser and
bespoke catering outfit
Single Thread

the city’s business district on MG Road—

he admits he wants to bring some excite-
ment back to this area, which has gone a
bit seedy since the microbrewery culture
took over Bengaluru and more and more
F&B brands moved to the outskirts in
search of larger spaces and lower rents.
Divided into several sections, each with
something distinctive about its design,
LUPA, set to open in the first week of Feb-
ruary, is large yet cosy—Chandra loves
design, it is obvious, and has paid atten-
tion to each corner, from the bar to the
kitchen to the two in-house pantries, a
gelato bar and a salumeria bar that will
serve the choicest cold cuts.
But he has more than one iron in the
fire. His company, Manu Chandra Ven-
tures, set up in December 2021, is divided
into several verticals, such as the restau-
rant arm Savaa Ser, which runs LUPA, and
Single Thread, a bespoke catering outfit
that has established itself as a benchmark-
setting concept within a year, delivering
slow, experiential catering services to its
who’s-who-of-India clientele—from Bol-
lywood actors to author and historian
Ramachandra Guha and tech mavericks
like the Nilekanis. It also runs Holy Duck,
a studio that serves as a branding, design,
strategy and content production collabo-
rator, and an F&B management and con-
sulting company called Duality Concepts.
Besides these, Chandra has also
invested personally in a number of niche
artisanal brands, such as Chota Hazari
Spirits, focused on small-batch spirits, and
plant protein company Shaka Harry,
besides being the founder-partner of Ben-
galuru-based artisanal cheese brand
Begum Victoria. Over the past year, he
managed to stay in the public eye with
high-profile assignments like curating the
inaugural dinner at the 75th edition of the
Festival de Cannes in June 2022.
It’s just over a year since he quit the
Olive group as executive chef and partner
in October 2021—how did all of this come
together in the time it usually takes to just
get a bar licence in India? “I worked at
Olive till end September and was very
much on the job till the very last day, and
none of this was brewing while I was still at
Olive. I wanted to start with a clean slate,
so I took the first couple of weeks off, just
to get my thoughts together and figure out
what we (he and business partner Chetan
Rampal, former partner at Olive, who left
with Chandra) wanted to do next,” says
Chandra. “I knew that setting up a restau-
rant, creating a vision around it, will take
time, especially if I want it to be definitive
in some sense. But I couldn’t disappear for
long—out of sight, out of mind. And that’s
why Single Thread came about, which I
knew was a gap in the market.”
“Single Thread” is an unusual name for
an F&B company—people have asked him
if he has set up a tailoring business—but it
has a strong connection with his child-
hood in Delhi, while a second layer of
meaning comes from what it stands for: an
end-to end solution. “I come from a fabric
background—my parents were exporters
of fine fabrics and furnishings. They had
their roots in India’s apparel industry….
My dad was one of the founding partners
of Intercraft, which brought out iconic
pre-liberalisation brands like Effuse
Jeans. My mom had joined it as a trainee
and that’s where they met,” says Chandra.
The family also had a Bollywood connec-
tion—film-maker Mira Nair’s brothers
were partners at the company and several
scenes in the 1983 film Masoom were shot
in the Chandras’ factory. “There’s actually
a picture of me with Jugal Hansraj and
Urmila Matondkar, sitting on a jhula and
crying away,” he says with a grin.
Sent to progressive schools Mirambika
and Mother’s International, he went on to
study history at St Stephen’s College.
Alongside, he apprenticed at the Dum
Pukht restaurant at the ITC Maurya and
Café Turtle in Khan Market; by the end of
college, his interests had veered firmly
towards food and he joined the Culinary
Institute of America in New York, appren-
ticing at famous New York kitchens like
Le Bernardin, Gramercy Tavern, Café
Centro, Jean Georges, and at the Manda-
rin Oriental Hotel. He also travelled to
Norway to work with the Michelin-starred
chef, Eyvind Hellstrøm, at Bagatelle, Oslo.
For Chandra, being something of a
Renaissance man—he has wide-ranging
interests in art, books, film, design, pho-
tography and music—came easy and he
agrees that it has helped him build his
personal brand. “I think it is extremely
important for a chef to be a ‘Renaissance
man’, as you put it,” he says. “Look at Gag-
gan Anand—he has established himself in
the upper echelons of culinary culture
but he is not just a great chef, he is a great
entertainer who is madly into music.
Some evenings, he will take over as DJ at
his restaurant, and that becomes a com-
pelling dining experience! If he did not
explore his DJ side, his mad side, he
would not be the chef he is today. That
works... it builds a whole persona beyond
just the kitchen.”
In the early days of his career, people—
photographers, journalists—would only
want to see a chef in a white coat and a
chef’s hat, “standing like an idiot with a
plate in front of your face”. This unidi-
mensional understanding has changed
over the past few years, he says, talking
about the acclaimed Hulu series The Bear,
which shows the struggles of a once high-
profile chef who has to run his brother’s
Italian sandwich shop, or The Menu, a film
that explores the darker side of the world
of haute cuisine.
Favourite home- The day before we met, we had learnt
cooked meal that the three Michelin-starred Copenha-
I went through a sambar phase gen restaurant Noma would be shutting
during the pandemic and daily operations by 2024-end. Chandra
sambar-rice is still a go-to lunch. has clear views on the failings of fine-din-
ing culture, which is being questioned
A recent memorable today for its treatment of workers and an
meal unsustainable, ego-driven view of what
At The Alchemist in Copenhagen: “quality” means. “It is like watching a slow
pure theatre, very memorable, train wreck in so many ways. Why is
but not something I would do. everything so complicated? Why is every-
thing so overstaffed?” asks Chandra.
What no one knows “There are so many ways of controlling
costs, of enhancing revenue.... In India, we
you are good at are broken at a fundamental level from the
Cleaning up.
back end—we don’t create better quality
kitchens. Budgets go into making the
place pretty! Efficiency leads to efficiency;
efficiency leads to profits.”
He blames the media and food critics
for creating larger-than-life figures of leg-
endary chefs. “I say this on record—the
deification of a certain number of culinary
talents across the globe for highly unsus-
tainable practices, who produce food in
order to please critics, makes no sense to
me. I don’t think I lack the talent or the
ability to be able to produce that level of
food—and I can probably do it cheaply.
But I didn’t ever feel the need to. When I
eat something, I want my food to be hot
and tasty,” he says. “I have eaten at a lot of
these restaurants, Noma included. And
boss, I didn’t get feels. I got zero feels.”
With LUPA and Single Thread, Chan-
dra’s aim then is to bring back those elu-
sive “feels” to fine-dining—create culinary
experiences that are high-quality and
innovative, sure, but treat food firmly as
food and not as artistic expression.
It is just the beginning of his entrepre-
neurial journey, one he has self-funded to
some extent, while accepting invest-
ments from outside investors as well. He
doesn’t like to call it “angel funding”
though. “I don’t think that’s quite the
right term…. I suppose I had a lot of well-
wishers in the market who were ready to
back me, from both an institutional and
individual perspective. I made it very
clear that I didn’t want partners breathing
down my neck but I promised them
returns on their money within a certain
period of time. If I do well, they do well,”
he explains. The total investment in
Manu Chandra Ventures, he says, is a
modest ₹12 crore, “which is not very
much, actually, because setting up a res-
taurant of this size today costs between
₹8-9 crore”. Single Thread is already gen-
erating revenue and will soon be able to
pay for itself, he says. “Sometimes the
financial aspects of F&B restaurants are
quite opaque because a lot of money can
come from dubious sources. That’s not a
road I want to go down. I don’t want to
wash anyone’s money.”
If there is one lasting legacy he wants to
call his own, it is—surprisingly—not being
the man behind the most successful or
most awarded restaurant in the world, but
being a mentor to young chefs and creat-
ing a culture of excellence in Indian kitch-
ens. It is a fact that many fine young Indian
chefs have worked under Chandra. “I
always tell these buggers—beat me. Your
goal should be to beat me. So bring it on.”
LIVEMINT.COM NEWS SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi 13

New policy
m MINT SHORTS
India budget seen pro-growth,
to classify Chemical firms face demand
prudent, and not so populist
New Delhi: India’s government will look to maintain its pace of
spending to bolster growth as it leans on asset sales while shun-
ning subsidies to shrink the deficit, according to a survey of econ-
economic
activities
woes though cost stress eases
omists. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will likely increase
expenditure by about 12.5% year-on-year to ₹44.40 trillion in the Reuters
year beginning April, according to the median of estimates in a feedback@livemint.com
Bloomberg survey ahead of the 1 February budget. BLOOMBERG Demand for agrochemicals remained steady but channel inventories in some regions worry
I
ndia is working on a policy
to classify economic activi-
India seeks changes in decades- ties and technologies into Ujjval Jauhari December and imports fell 7.5%, as per
sustainable and non-sustaina- ujjval.j@livemint.com analysts at Kotak.
old water treaty with Pakistan ble categories to help inves- New DelhI Among chemicals, demand for dis-
tors looking for green pro- cretionary applications such as dyes and

jects, three government offi-
cials say.
Under the proposal, similar
to the Green Taxonomy pio-
neered by the European
Union (EU), the government
will certify sustainable activi-
ties, which it hopes will attract
more funds and give investors
an extra layer of comfort, said
the three government offi-
cials, who did not want to be
New Delhi: India wants to change a 1960 World Bank-ne- named because they were not
gotiated Indus river water-sharing agreement with Paki- authorised to speak to the
stan and has issued a notice to its South Asian neighbour, media.
people with knowledge of the matter said. The current dis- The renewable energy
pute first flared in 2015 when Pakistan objected to two ministry and the finance min-
hydro-power projects on tributaries of the river in India’s istry are working on the draft
portion of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. policy. Neither ministry
Islamabad said the projects violated the pact by aiming to responded to queries from
divert the Indus waters. BLOOMBERG Reuters.
The officials said the draft
framework is the first step in a
Multiple bids received for NMDC long process of identifying
sustainable projects and
Steel disinvestment: Dipam secy phasing out others.
New Delhi: The government received interest from several bid- India projects $10 trillion to
ders for the planned strategic disinvestment of NMDC Steel Ltd $15 trillion in investment is
(NSL), Dipam secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey said in a Twitter needed to achieve net-zero
post on Friday. Mint reported earlier in the day that several steel carbon emissions by 2070, in
makers including Tata Steel, Jindal Steel and Power, JSW Steel, alignment with its Nationally
Adani Group and Vedanta Group are likely to bid for the govern- Determined Contribution
ment’s majority stake in NMDC Steel. GULVEEN AULAKH (NDC) commitments to the
United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate
Tata Motors to raise prices of Change (UNFCCC).
passenger vehicles by 1.2%
D
espite strong long-term pigments, polymers, and automobiles
growth drivers, the Indian continues to face headwinds, analysts
chemical industry is facing said, though demand for essentials such
pressure from rising raw as agrochemicals is steady. Higher crop
material prices, logistics prices are supporting agrochemical
issues and supply-side constraints, as demand, though high channel inven-
well as demand concerns because of tory could impact sales in the near term.
the economic slowdown in Western Although domestic demand for
markets. chemicals continues to remain healthy,
Some respite, however, is now being exports trend needs to be monitored
provided by China, which has eased amid demand weakness across the
longstanding covid curbs. Lower oil pri- European and Chinese markets, said
ces are another positive, as it helps ease analysts at Centrum Broking. Analysts,
raw material prices and supplies. Even however, do expect companies to bene-
shipping rates and container availability Demand concerns related to economic slowdown in the West have further added fit from lower chemical prices.
have improved over time. Strong to the near-term headwinds the industry is facing. ISTOCK “Most basic chemicals saw a sharp cor-
domestic demand for chemicals is rection in prices in Q3FY23 as crude oil
another major positive. He, however, kept a positive view of the India’s exports and imports of organic prices moderated 10% sequentially and
However, analysts remain cautious prospects of the Indian chemical indus- and inorganic chemicals trended lower chemical feedstock prices witnessed a
and watchful about the impact of the try. from a year ago in December 2022. fall of up to 20% sequentially on weak
global slowdown amid lingering reces- Trade data across India, China and Exports fell 6.6% from a year ago demand. Ocean freight costs declined
sion worries. the US reflect weakness engendered by (although they rose 9.8% sequentially 40-50% sequentially and are currently
Analysts feel that while compared with a back to normalized/ historical levels.
the pace of rate hikes and UNDER PRESSURE depressed base), while Rupee depreciated 3% versus the dollar,”
inflation are falling, the imports fell 20.4% from a analysts at Prabhudas Lilladher said.
interest rate hike cycle AMONG chemicals, THOUGH domestic DOMESTIC firms year ago (down 0.5% Chemical prices generally trended
may continue for some demand for those in
discretionary
chemicals demand
remains healthy,
may benefit only
partially due to
sequentially) in US dollar downwards sequentially in Q3,
time and inflation is still applications are still exports trend must spillover of high-cost terms, as per Kotak. impacted by demand weakness in
much higher than the 2% facing headwinds be watched inventories in Q3 Even trade data from Europe and China. Domestic companies
targeted by developed the US and China, too, are expected to benefit only partially
economies such as the US. reveal softness. US chemi- due to the spillover of high-cost inven-
Prahalathan Iyer, chief general man- an economic slowdown. Consequently, cal exports were lower by 9.5% from a tories in Q3, said analysts at Centrum.
ager (research and analysis) at the export revenues of Indian companies, year ago at $13.4 billion in November, Nonetheless, they expect some gross
Export-Import Bank of India, said reces- particularly those exposed to cyclical and imports declined 2.5%, while margin expansion for the chemical pro-
sionary concerns may lead to caution end-users, are under pressure, said ana- China’s overall exports (across all sec- ducers, with major benefits likely to
prevailing for about two quarters more. lysts at Kotak Securities Ltd. tors) fell 9.9% from a year earlier in accrue in the current quarter.

Adani Ent FPO subscribed 1% ‘Lenders’ exposure to Rout in Adani

FROM PAGE 16
Adani cos manageable’
January, has been fixed
between ₹3,112 and ₹3,276. Retail
investors have been offered an
additional ₹64 discount per
share. On Friday, Adani Enter-
prises shares plunged 18.5% to
Bengaluru: Indian carmaker Tata Motors Ltd said on Fri- ₹2,762.15 on BSE, trading below
day it would hike prices of its passenger vehicles by 1.2% on the lower end of the FPO offer
a weighted average basis from 1 February, citing a rise in price. However, subscribers to
overall input costs. The price increase comes a month after the offer need to pay only 50% of
the maker of the Tiago and Harrier cars raised commercial the price now, with the remain-
vehicle prices by up to 2% in January.Earlier this month, ing 50% to be paid at a later date
rival and India’s top car maker Maruti Suzuki raised prices to be decided by the company.
by an average of 1.1% across its models, blaming similar cost According to stock exchange
pressures. REUTERS data, the institutional investor
category of the share sale did not
see any subscription on day one,
Goldman slashes CEO Solomon’s while the portion reserved for
retail investors and non-institu-
pay about 30% to $25 mn tional/high net-worth individu-
New York: Goldman Sachs Group Inc. cut chief executive officer als was subscribed 2% and 1%,
David Solomon’s compensation by about 30% to $25 million for respectively. A small portion of
2022, a year in which the share price and profit tumbled and the the share sale reserved for
firm retreated from a highly public effort to create a consumer employees saw a 4% subscription.
bank. BLOOMBERG Ahead of the FPO opening for
public subscription, the company
raised ₹5,984.9 crore by allocat-
Visa, Mastercard see card spending ing shares to anchor investors.
The anchor investors, 33 in total,
slow as inflation persists included foreign and domestic
New Delhi: Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. saw purchase vol- institutional investors such as
umes on their cards climb less than expected in the final three Maybank Securities Pte Ltd, Life
months of the year, a sign that historic levels of inflation have Insurance Corp. of India, SBI
begun to put a damper on consumer spending. Spending on Employees Pension Fund, SBI
Visa’s cards climbed 1.7% to $3.01 trillion in the company’s fis- Life Insurance Co., HDFC Life
cal first quarter, missing estimates. Mastercard shares slipped Insurance Co, Abu-Dhabi-based
1.4% to $377.24 in New York trading. BLOOMBERG sovereign wealth fund ADIA,
Adani has denied several of
the claims made in the
Hindenburg report. MINT
Goldman Sachs Investment and
Morgan Stanley Asia.
“It is still too early to say. It is
becoming too hot for people to
put in money, but the group
still has a lot of influence with
institutional investors to
ensure sufficient demand for
the offer to be successful,” said
a market expert, speaking on
the condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, Adani group has
denied several of the allega-
tions made in the Hindenburg
Research report released ahead
of the opening of the FPO,
according to a presentation
made by the Adani group.
The Adani group said 21 ques-
tions (related-party transactions
and court cases) are nothing but
Adani portfolio’s public disclosure
from as far back as 2015. Hinden-
burg had sent the group 89 ques-
tions as part of its research into the
group. Mint has seen a copy of the
presentation. “Hindenburg asked
89 questions in total...21 in total
cannot be claimed to be a result of
any investigation over a two-year
period or any such assertion as they
were disclosed in the following
public documents all the way back
from 2015,” the presentation said.
The presentation added that the
accounting (or fraud-type asser-
tions) “investigation” was devoid of
facts. “Of Adani portfolio’s nine
public listed entities, eight are
audited by one of the Big 6,” it said.
On the issue of leverage, the
group said 100 of its firms are rated
by three global and seven domestic
rating agencies, with this account-
ing for nearly 100% of its Ebitda.
On revenue or balance sheet
being artificially inflated, the
group retorted that out of nine
listed firms in Adani portfolio, six
are subject to specific sector regu-
latory review for revenue, costs
and capex. “In addition to
accounts, Sebi, BSE or NSE
requirements, six of our listed
entities are also obliged to provide
regular filings for business regula-
tors. In these cases, revenue
claimed expenses and claimed
capital expenses are independ-
ently reviewed by the regulators as
part of the relevant legislation, e.g.
Electricity Act,” the presentation
noted.
group stocks
wipes out about
FROM PAGE 16 acquisitions has come via over- ₹3.19 trillion
seas sources,” CLSA said in its
Group following the report. The report.
NSE Bank Nifty Index fell 3.13% to “We estimate that incremen-
investor wealth
40,345.30, extending declines tally, banks have only lent FROM PAGE 16
from the previous session. Bank ₹15,000 crore, or 15% of the ₹1
of Baroda and State Bank of India trillion the group companies indices. The Nifty plunged 1.61%
were among the major losers, have borrowed over the past to 17,604.35, while the Sensex
falling at least 5% each. LIC’s three years. Large acquisitions, shed 1.45% to close at 59,330.90.
shares ended 3.4% lower at such as cement, have been fully The 12 constituents of Bank Nifty
₹665.95 apiece. funded by foreign banks,” fell 3.13% to 4,0345.30.
Hindenburg Research, CLSA added. Investors’ nervousness was
which in the past has shorted Jefferies, too, noted limited reflected in the fear gauge,
electric truck maker Nikola risk for banks due to their expo- India Vix, surging 18% to 17.32.
Corp., said it holds sure to Adani Adani Group released a pre-
short positions in Jefferies group companies. sentation through its flagship
Adani companies noted limited “From the Adani Enterprises to the stock
t h r o u g h banking sector’s exchanges after market closing
US-traded bonds
risk for banks
perspective, debt on Friday, with its responses to
due to their
and non-India to this group Hindenburg’s questions.
exposure to
traded derivative forms 0.5% of Earlier in the day, American bil-
instruments. Adani group total loans—0.7% lionaire and hedge fund manager
“Private banks’ companies for PSU banks and Bill Ackman weighed in on the
exposure is below 0.3% for private matter through a tweet wherein he
10% of total group banks. Our recent described the Hindenburg report
debt, and most banks (includ- conversation with industry as “highly credible and extremely
ing ICICI, Axis) have indicated participants also indicated that well researched”.
that they have largely financed cash-flows and repayment Proxy advisory firm InGovern
assets with strong cash flows, timelines of debt had been con- also weighed in: “Hindenburg, as a
such as airports/ports. PSU servatively planned. Hence, short seller, should be considered
banks do have material expo- DSCR (debt service coverage as just another participant who has
sure (30% of group debt), but ratio) could be even better. a motivated view to release a nega-
this debt has not increased in While we watch for develop- tive report with the aim to bring
the past three years. Most of the ments here, we don’t see mate- down the stock price.”
incremental funding to the rial risk arising to the Indian A Sebi official said that the reg-
group for new businesses and banking sector,” Jefferies said. ulator would wait for the clarifi-
cation by the company to the
exchanges before deciding the
further course of action. The offi-

Swiss watch imports touch JioMart tests India-UAE trade gap widens cial declined to be identified.
Corporate houses with
Centre’s e-com heavy leverage or expensive

$200 mn as Indians splurge
FROM PAGE 16
Also, newer clients are continu-
ing to enter the fold,” he said.
The major growth is prima-
rily being driven by products in
the price range of ₹8-16 lakh.
Late last year, Swiss luxury
watchmaker Franck Muller
launched a watch collection
exclusively for the Indian mar-
ket, priced between ₹8-20 lakh.
But one of the top distributors
of luxury watches in the country
cautioned that the sharp increase
in sales of luxury watches could
be due to certain factors.
The Chinese have been
largely absent from the global
luxury consumption market in
the last couple of years; as a
result of this, several interna-
tional companies have
renewed their focus on India.
The Swiss luxury watch
industry could also be gaining
in terms of value from the dol-
platform ONDC FROM PAGE 16 The pact immediately elimi-
nated duties for 90% of India’s
valuations were hit the most
during this selloff on Friday,
said Nishit Master, portfolio
dra Modi-led government since exports in value terms to the manager, Axis Securities.
lar strengthening and the their Asia-Pacific and other FROM PAGE 16 it came to power in 2014 and is UAE, covering sectors such as Foreign portfolio investors’
rupee devaluing. global counterparts in the ultra likely to benefit about $26 billion gems and jewellery, textiles, (FIIs) cautious stance ahead of
“The prices of luxury high-net-worth individual cat- ber, said ONDC may reach 250 worth of Indian products that are leather, and engineering goods the budget and US Federal Open
watches have increased by 25%. egory. As much as 53% of Indi- million users by 2027. subjected to 5% import duty by among others. Market Committee meetings
But the overall demand for lux- ans are likely to purchase lux- In December, T. Koshy, the UAE. Gems and jewellery exports also contributed to the collapse.
ury products in India has gone ury watches compared to 48% managing director and chief Ajay Sahai, DG and CEO, to the UAE grew by 33% in May. FIIs sold shares worth a provi-
up. Just like other Asia-Pacific and executive of ONDC, said the Federation of Indian Export It grew 18% during the June to sional ₹5,977.86 crore, while
asset classes, Indi- The Swiss luxury 46% global coun- company might charge a Organisations (FIEO), high- December period to $3.38 bil- domestic institutional investors
ans are now seri- watch industry terparts. “small fee” from platforms in lighted that the rising trade def- lion. Electrical machinery and purchased ₹4,252.33 crore
ously investing in could be gaining in “The proposi- future. He didn’t specify when icit with UAE is primarily on equipment exports expanded worth of stocks on Friday. FIIs
luxury watches,” terms of value tion of investible this would begin, however. account of large imports of Imports of crude oil surged by 28% to $2.25 billion in the have net sold ₹13,206 crore
said Nitin Chain- wealth towards The person also said that the petroleum and polymers. “In 60% in April-November to same period. While automo- worth of equity till 25 January.
from the dollar
ani, CEO of Swiss passion invest- source code for a reference value-added segments of elec- $20.12 billion from a year ago. biles and cereals exports grew Amid the gloom, the one silver
Promotion Pvt. strengthening and ments changed in ONDC app would be put up on tronics, electricals, automotive, by 35% and 39%, respectively, lining was India on Friday became
Ltd, a firm that rupee devaluing the last four to five the Microsoft-owned code machinery, gems and jewel- much lower. But after the that for machinery and electri- the first country in the world to
distributes luxury years. Today, since repository GitHub within a lery, our exports growth has Ukraine war, prices spiked and cal appliances expanded by 17% have a T+1 settlement cycle, which
watches here. 2018, when Indians few weeks. While ONDC is not been remarkable. Of late, we one of our major imports is oil. in this period. is expected to augur well for the
And it is no surprise that pas- spent 3% of their wealth on these a platform like the unified pay- have seen good growth in However, we can see that the Arpita Mukherjee, professor, equity markets from a liquidity
sion investments that are likely types of investments, there has ments interface (UPI) or apparel, textile and leather crude LPG that we are import- ICRIER, said a high-tariff coun- perspective, with settlements
to be made in 2023 showed a been a 1% increase. Luxury account aggregator (AA), com- footwear sectors,” said Sahai. ing from the UAE, we are re-ex- try like India will see a higher being made within 24 hours.
high percentage of growth in watches, for instance, which are panies can still build ONDC- While imports of crude oil porting half of that in terms of import bill once tariff is reduced. The shift will boost opera-
the Indian context. relatively better to store, transact compliant apps. surged 60% in April-November to finished products to the UAE. “However, we may gain through tional efficiency as the rolling of
According to a recent report, with and resell, compared to oth- The reference app to be put $20.12 billion, imports of poly- It’s contrary to intuition that oil investment. Besides, the UAE is funds and stocks will be faster,
titled The Wealth Report: Out- ers, are highly investable for this up on GitHub will allow any mers were up 30% to $1.09 billion. and gas trade flows only one used as a transshipment hub. said Ajay Menon, managing
look 2023, by Knight Frank, asset class of people,” said Vivek developer to gain access to the “The trade deficit has wid- way,” India’s ambassador to the Exports may not be rising due to director and CEO of broking
Indians were more likely to buy Rathi, senior vice-president of basic source code required to ened largely because of higher UAE, Sunjay Sudhir, said in a slowdown in key export mar- and distribution at Motilal
luxury watches as compared to research at Knight Frank India. build such an app. oil prices. Last year, prices were recent interview. kets,” said Mukherjee. Oswal Financial Services. l
14 SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi NEWS LIVEMINT.COM

Vedanta plans
Centre grants solar
firms extra time to
Bajaj Finance net profit up 40% $570 mn more
complete projects in Q3 on higher interest income dividend to
aid parent co
Rituraj Baruah
rituraj.baruah@livemint.com Bloomberg
NEW DELHI feedback@livemint.com
The company also recorded its highest-ever new customer addition of 3.14 million in Q3FY23
I V
n a bid to provide relief to edanta Ltd. will give an
solar power projects stuck interim dividend for a
amid a shortage of modules, Shayan Ghosh fourth time this finan-
the Centre has extended the
deadline for completion of pro-
shayan.g@livemint.com
MUMBAI
OYO expects cial year as billionaire Anil
Agarwal seeks to collect funds
jects for which bids were final- to pay off debt obligations at
first operating
C
ized before the announcement onsumer financier Bajaj parent Vedanta Resources Ltd.
of the basic customs duty on Finance Ltd on Friday The mining company’s total
modules. Several projects got delayed
In a letter to the Solar Energy due to the pandemic and the
Corporation of India (SECI), supply chain disruption. AFP
said consolidated net
profit in the December
quarter rose 40% from a
profit in FY23, disbursements so far in the year
to March come to ₹30,112 crore.
That includes ₹4,650 crore
NTPC and NHPC, the ministry
of new and renewable energy said the letter dated 25 January.
year earlier to ₹2,973 crore thanks to
higher interest income. says Agarwal ($570 million) in dividends for
the third quarter, according to
said the projects for which bids Arindam Ghosh, partner for Net interest income (NII) increased an exchange filing Friday.
were submitted before 9 power advisory at Nangia 24% to ₹7,435 crore during the quar- PTI The latest announcement
March, 2021, can now be com- Andersen LLP said: “It is a wel- ter, as against ₹6,005 crore in the third feedback@livemint.com comes even as the group’s net
pleted by March 2024. come move as it had implica- quarter of the previous financial year. income tumbled 41% to ₹2,460

H
On 9 March, 2021, the Cen- tions on 15 GW of capacity bid However, NII grew 28% after adjusting ospitality and travel-tech crore in the October-December
tre announced that from 1 prior to 9th March 2021. It is NII of ₹203 crore earned in IPO firm OYO estimates its quarter. However, that beat the
April, 2022 imported solar PV needed to address the supply financing in Q3 of FY22, which has revenue in 2022-23 to be average analysts’ estimate for a
modules would attract a basic chain disruption and as the since been discontinued due to $751 million on the back of profit of ₹1,740 crore.
customs duty (BCD) of 40% and domestic manufacturing has change in regulations. which it expects to post its first Agarwal has been sucking up
imported solar PV cells would not picked up after covid Bajaj Finance recorded the highest- operating profit in a full year, cash through dividends from the
attract BCD of 25%. period. The project execution ever new customer addition of 3.14 Given the strong momentum in first three quarters, Bajaj Finance expects new company Founder and Group Mumbai-listed firm and its unit
It noted that there are several would have been delayed fur- million in Q3 FY23. Given the strong customer addition at over 11 million in 2022-23. BLOOMBERG CEO Ritesh Agarwal has told its Hindustan Zinc Ltd. as debt matu-
projects for which bids were ther if the extension had been momentum in first three quarters, it employees. rities at Vedanta Resources loom.
finalized by government agen- extended, hence transmission expects new customer addition at over quarters, remains highly elevated. between the two (growth and mar- At an employees townhall Last week, Vedanta Ltd.
cies before the announcement charges and bid bonds would 11 million in 2022-23. Everybody seems to want to do retail gins), the choice is clearly on margins held this week, Agarwal is announced plans to sell its inter-
of the customs duty, which in need to be liquidated.” “(It was a) good quarter across all and between margin and growth, mar- as it creates a greater sustainability of understood to have shared how national zinc operations for $2.98
normal circum- “However, the financial and portfolio metrics, albeit gin takes precedence (for us) and that the business from a long-term stand- the company has been able to billion to Hindustan Zinc, the
stances would The projects for ambiguity regard- marginally lower assets under man- is our fundamental view at a manage- point,” he said. gradually strengthen its finan- group’s cash cow, which
have been com- which bids were ing either provid- agement (AUM) growth,” the lender ment philosophy level,” said Rajeev Bajaj Finance’s total deposits stood cials after overcoming announced a third-
pleted before the submitted before ing change in law said, adding that it is on track to Jain, managing director, Bajaj at ₹42,984 crore as of 31 December the challenges of the CORPORATE quarter dividend of
imposition of the 9 March, 2021, can provisions or deliver ₹52,000-53,000 crore of core Finance. 2022, showing a net deposit growth of pandemic. EARNINGS about ₹5,500 crore.
duty but got exempting these AUM growth in FY23. ₹3,562 crore. The company The London-based
now be
delayed due to the
completed by
projects from Bajaj Finance said it TAKINg STRIDES The company said that expects its revenue in FY23 to be parent has bonds worth $4.7 bil-
pandemic and BCD applicability witnessed the highest- deposits contributed 21% $751 million, up 19% from $629 lion maturing in the next 3 1/2
resultant supply March 2024 remains and any ever loans booked in Q3 BAJAJ finance saw IT saw an AUM THE lender is set to of consolidated borrow- million in FY22, he told the years, including $900 million of
chain disruption. additional costs and crossed 31 million the highest-ever
loans booked in Q3
growth of ₹12,476 cr
in Q3; it was slower
deliver its goal of
25% of borrowings
ings as of 31 December employees during the townhall. notes due in the first half of 2023,
“While a deci- incurred by net users on the mobile & crossed 31 mn net in mortgages due to from deposits in 2022 and it is on track to In the first half of the fiscal year, as per data compiled by Bloom-
sion on bids which were final- developers will be borne by app. With its second users on mobile app pricing pressures medium term deliver its goal of 25% of OYO posted an adjusted Ebitda of berg. Revenue at Vedanta Ltd.
ized before the announcement them directly,” he said. phase of consumer app consolidated borrowings $8.3 million. It had registered an was little changed at ₹33,690
of customs duty is pending, in Ghosh said that due to the starting to go live, it said from deposits in the adjusted Ebitda loss of $37 million crore during the three months.
the meantime, the extended extension of the applicability that it is on track to go fully digital Jain said the lender does not believe medium term. in the same period of FY22. Total costs climbed 17% to
completion dates of many pro- date, these projects will have to across all products and services by in compromising margins for growth In Q3, its gross non-performing For the second half of the fis- ₹31,330 crore.
jects have expired. It has there- pay the additional custom duty March 2023. and that is evident from the fact that asset and net non-performing asset cal, continued momentum on Shares of Vedanta Ltd.
fore been decided that solar if they fall under this period and The lender reported an AUM while its cost of funds went up by 23 ratios stood at 1.14% and 0.41%, respec- topline coupled with margin declined 2% in Mumbai on Fri-
PV/solar PV-wind hybrid pro- the project cost will increase as growth of ₹12,476 crore in Q3, and said basis points (bps) sequentially to tively, as against 1.17% and 0.44% as on expansion and healthy operat- day before the earnings were
jects, for which bids were final- a result. The high duties were it was slower in mortgages due to 7.14%, the overall net interest margin 30 September 2022. Its total capital ing leverage are expected to published. There are nine buy
ized before 9 March, 2021, may imposed to curb cheap imports intense pricing pressures. (NIM) remained flat and did not dilute. adequacy stood at 25.14% as of 31 result in $24 million adjusted recommendations on the com-
be given time for completion of from China and boost domestic “Competitive intensity, as I have “We, of course, want to grow and December 2022, of which tier-1 capital Ebitda, he added. pany, four holds and two sells,
project up to March, 2024,” supplies. talked about in the last three-four are a growth-oriented business, but was 23.28%. according to Bloomberg data.

Air India daily Athleisure, casual wear stay robust in post-covid world India’s CAD quite
flights up 30%
within a year
Suneera Tandon
suneera.t@htlive.com
manageable: RBI On Thursday, Myntra ting a lot of colour and print
announced the launch of Bol- elements incorporated in their
lywood actor Akshay Kumar’s assortment.
under Tata NEW DELHI
fashion brand Force IX on its “We are confident about the Gopika Gopakumar economy is projected to con-

D
emand for athleisure platform. The brand will sell category continuing the gopika.g@htlive.com tract significantly in 2023 in
Anu Sharma and casual clothing will t-shirts, sweatshirts and caps momentum for calendar year MUMBAI the aftermath of multiple
anu.sharma@livemint.com continue growing in targeted towards consumers 2023 with customers coming shocks. The Indian economy,

I
NEW DELHI line with the post-covid trend looking for street wear and in from both metros, as well as ndia’s current account deficit however, remains resilient,
that has held strong despite casual wear. smaller towns and cities,” is eminently manageable and drawing strength from its mac-

A
year after being
acquired by the Tata
Group, the number of
operating aircraft at Air India
has increased 27% to 100, the
airline said in an anniversary
update.
With more capacity availa-
ble, the airline has been able to
increase average daily flights
by 30% and weekly interna-
tional flights by 63%.
The Tata Group acquired
Air India and Air India Express
under a government-led stra-
tegic divestment programme
in January 2022.
Air India has 113 aircraft,
comprising 70 narrow-body
and 43 wide-body jets. In
December, the airline said 19
long-grounded aircraft have
returned to the skies and nine
more were expected to follow.
In order to address the sup-
ply chain issues experienced
by global aerospace compa-
nies, the company plans to
induct 36 aircraft on lease in
the first half of 2023 for short-
to-medium-term capacity
needs. These will comprise 21
the return of festive clothing
and occasion wear in the
December quarter, retailers
said.
Companies said the trend
points to consumers finding
more comfort in casual wear
and also mixing day-to-day
pieces with formal clothing.
In the December quarter,
department store chain Shop-
pers Stop saw strong demand
for casual wear, despite an
increase in demand for wed-
ding wear and festive clothing.
“I think if we look at the whole
casual space, that has
expanded and continues to
grow. Even during the third
quarter, where festive was a
strong category, casual wear
MCA to introduce e-adjudication before March-end
Gireesh Chandra Prasad
gireesh.p@livemint.com
NEW DELHI
Demand for casual wear held strong despite the return of festive
clothing and occasion wear in the December quarter.
grew. The casualization trend
that has happened (post-covid)
will continue to be strong.
Athleisure is a subset—that I
think will definitely continue
to grow because the base itself
is low. It’s eventually about
comfort and that’s something
which customers have gotten
used to,” said Venu Nair, man-
aging director and chief exec-
utive officer, Shoppers Stop.
Casualization as a trend
tion and compliance manage-
ment are proposed to be
launched within this financial
year. The ministry said it is also
“Athleisure as a category Samuel added. within the parameters of via- roeconomic fundamentals, he
(apparel and The pandemic bility, said Reserve Bank of India added. While inflation has sof-
accessories) has In peak covid also took away Governor Shaktikanta Das. tened during November and
witnessed a time, consumers the dominance of Speaking at the FIMMDA- December 2022, core inflation
steady growth in swapped office formal clothing as PDAI Annual Conference in remains sticky and elevated.
demand from shirts with casual c o n s u m e r s Dubai, Das said the net balance Das highlighted a few areas for
HT customers swapped office under services and remittances financial market development,
t-shirts and
including from shirts with casual remains in a large surplus, including the need to ensure
within apparel will continue to metros as well as joggers to stay t-shirts and jog- partly offsetting liquidity for retail
remain strong, Nair said. tier-2 cities and at home gers to stay at the trade deficit. RBI Governor investors in the
Jubi Samuel, senior beyond, with home for While slowing Shaktikanta Das government secu-
director, category manage- increasing focus extended peri- global demand is said that the net rities market. He
ment, sports at Myntra said and enthusiasm for fitness par- ods. weighing on mer- balance under also noted that sec-
that athleisure is now “well ticularly since the pandemic. However, even prior to the chandise exports, ondary market
services and
ingrained” in people’s every- Interestingly, the growth of pandemic, athleisure clothing exports of services liquidity in g-secs is
day wear. With more and more athleisure for women is faster such as leggings, tights, sweat- and remittances remittances is in a currently concen-
brands focusing on inclusive than for men,” Samuel said. pants, sneakers, hoodies, and remain strong, he large surplus trated in a few secu-
sizes, any-wear and all-day Samuel said the platform is jackets was established in pop- said. rities and tenors.
stylized comfort wear, this seeing leading brands in this ularity. India’s current “A term money
segment is poised to grow fur- segment betting big on Covid further accelerated account balance recorded a market remains absent, not-
ther, said Samuel. women’s athleisure and get- the trend. deficit of $36.4 billion, or 4.4% withstanding a host of facilitative
of the GDP, in the September policy measures. Access of the
quarter, up from $18.2 billion, retail segment to markets, espe-
or 2.2% of the GDP, in the first cially derivative markets, needs
quarter. In November 2022, to improve further,” he said. “In
the government’s chief eco- the forex markets, while corpo-
nomic advisor said the CAD for rates benefit from the tight bid-
the current fiscal year was ask spreads, smaller users con-
The planned roll out of the ministry of corporate affairs. ing the rules on conducting expected at around 3-3.2%of tinue to face pricing disadvanta-
e-adjudication facility follows Version three of MCA21 envisa- board meetings. GDP, which is much higher ges notwithstanding regulatory
the decriminalisation of offen- ges introduction of artificial Also, the ministry relaxed than 1.2% in the previous year. requirements for fair and trans-
ces under the Companies Act. intelligence and machine mandated physical meetings According to Das, the global parent pricing.”

T
Airbus A320, four Airbus A321, he ministry of corporate setting up a new national cen- Once imple- learning which on specified matters and
five Boeing B777-200LR affairs will roll out the tre—the Centre for Processing mented, the facil- The introduction will further facili- allowed all the matters in board CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS
widebody aircraft and six Boe- facility for e-adjudication Accelerated Corporate Exit—to ity is expected to of AI and ML tate ease of doing meetings to be dealt with
ing B777-300 ER jets. of company law violations act as a single window facility lower the compli- will further business, the min- through video conferencing or Mint welcomes comments, suggestions or complaints about errors.
In a speech to airline entirely in the virtual mode for companies that wish to vol- ance burden of facilitate istry said. other audio-visual means.
employees, Chief Executive before the end of this financial untarily exit from business. businesses. For The ministry Annual general meetings and Readers can alert the newsroom to any errors in the paper by
ease of doing emailing us, with your full name and address to
Officer and Managing Director year, the ministry said. The e-adjudication facility will the de-criminal- said it played a extraordinary general meet-
Campbell Wilson said the It said the ongoing process of be available for compoundable ised offences, a business, the proactive role in ings have also been allowed vir-
feedback@livemint.com.

turnaround of Air India is “one
of the most ambitious turn-
arounds in international avia-
tion history.” “More than our
successes, it is how we respond
to our lapses that will define
us,” Wilson said.
revamping the corporate filing
system will also be completed
by end of March as it is being
done in phases. The ministry
said key features of the
revamped MCA21 portal, such
as e-adjudication, e-consulta-
offences and will help in pre-
venting litigation reaching the
National Company Law Tribu-
nal (NCLT), which already has
a high load of cases. E-adjudica-
tion is also expected to improve
the ease of doing business.
designated gov- ministry said enabling hassle- tually.The ministry said the It is our policy to promptly respond to all complaints. Readers
ernment official free functioning way it has leveraged technol- dissatisfied with the response or concerned about Mint’s journalistic
will be the adjudi- of businesses dur- ogy and established linkages integrity may write directly to the editor by sending an email to
cating authority. Since these ing the pandemic by allowing with other agencies in facilitat- asktheeditor@livemint.com
are procedural or technical virtual board meetings through ing single window approvals
Mint’s journalistic Code of Conduct that governs our newsroom is
lapses, they will be resolved video conferencing and other has helped in the corporate available at www.livemint.com
within the ecosystem of the audio-visual means by amend- sector’s growth.

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First published in February 2007 to serve as an unbiased and clear-minded chronicler of the Indian Dream.
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LIVEMINT.COM NEWS SaturDay, 28 JaNuary 2023
New Delhi 15

Equirus to grow asset, Centre may increase cash payouts to

farmers under PM-KISAN to ₹8,000
wealth biz with ₹750 cr Zia Haq
zia.haq@htlive.com
new delhi
support of ₹6,000 a year to
farmers with a valid enrol-
ment, paid in three equal cash
Swaraj Singh Dhanjal Since 2018, Federal Bank has been a key transfers of ₹2,000—one

T
swaraj.d@livemint.com investor and partner of Equirus. Post the he Centre is considering every four months. It was
mumbai initial investment, the bank has partici- hiking the quantum of launched on 24 February,
pated in our rights issue and has always cash given to farmers 2019, when the first instalment

T
he year 2022 was a difficult one
for dealmaking, especially in
capital markets, as global macro-
economic woes kept Indian mar-
kets volatile and foreign inves-
tors withdrew liquidity. In an interview,
Ajay Garg, founder and managing director
of Equirus Capital, owned 20% by Federal
Bank, spoke about the dealmaking outlook
for this year and the investment banking
platform’s plan to expand its asset and
wealth management businesses with an
investment of ₹750 crore over the next five
years. Edited excerpts:
What is the growth plan for Equirus
for the next five years? How are you
building out the asset management
and wealth management businesses?
Equirus is rightly placed in all its busi-
nesses to enjoy significant growth in next
five years. Equirus Wealth is strategically
poised to significantly scale up in the next
five years as both the wealth and asset man-
agement businesses have been steadily
growing for the last 5-6 years and are oper-
invested in the past.
Will capital market deals such as IPOs
and QIPs see a good run in 2023 or do
you see a repeat of 2022?
2022 had been sluggish because of the
external headwinds. However, 2023 is a
year of hope as we expect the headwinds to
fade and therefore, capital market deals
should revive. Needless to say, the backlog
of 2022 itself will provide the much-
needed boost. As we will see return of for-
eign capital and revival of equity markets,
deals should improve. The attractiveness of
Indian companies, the confidence in
Indian markets remains intact. What is
needed is the return of risk in the global
arena which will happen with the abate-
ment of the headwinds. It is imperative to
for our clients in our flagship fund Equirus note that not just the private sector, but
Long Horizon and replicating the same in government is also “eagerly” awaiting the
a more diversified portfolio. We would also momentum with a sizable divestment pro-
wish to add debt PMS and AIFs as a part of gramme, the success of which is imperative
asset management offering, which shall in to long term fiscal discipline and consolida-
turn increase our overall proposition. tion path. Yes, tightening liquidity not just
How much capital do you plan to locally but globally means the easy money
invest in the platform for these plans? is no longer available. However, that reaf-
under PM-KISAN, an income-
support scheme from ₹6,000
to about ₹8,000 annually, in a
bid to boost rural demand and
consumption, two people
familiar with the matter said.
A proposal to enhance pay-
outs to farmers covered under
PM-KISAN was discussed dur-
ing preparation of the Union
Budget, for which inputs were
sought from various minis-
tries, including agriculture
ministry, one of the persons
cited above said.
The budget may renew
focus on the Atmanirbhar
Bharat (self-reliant India) push
while staying the course on fis-
cal consolidation given the
high expenditures in the past
two years due to the pandemic,
the people cited above said.
The annual financial state-
ment of the government will
A proposal to enhance payouts to farmers covered under PM-
KISAN was discussed during preparation of the Union Budget.
also likely announce new per-
formance linked incentive
(PLI) schemes, especially for
sectors involved in production
of mass-consumed goods, the
second of the two people said.
In discussions during the
budget’s preparations, various
proposals for an enhanced
PM-KISAN payout were evalu-
ated. One of the proposals sug-
gested doubling the amount of
₹6,000 per annum that farm-
ers receive under PM KISAN,
HT
the first person said, adding
that, according to a set of cal-
culations, an increase of
₹2,000 under PM KISAN (tak-
ing up the payment to ₹8,000
per annum) will entail an addi-
tional expenditure of ₹22,000
crore. The Niti Aayog last
month proposed converting
PM-KISAN into a broader uni-
versal basic income scheme
for the poor and invulnerable.
Under PM-KISAN, the gov-
ernment provides income
was paid.
The PM-KISAN funds are
deposited directly to the bene-
ficiaries’ bank accounts. In the
last instalment, cash transfers
worth over ₹21,000 crore were
made to nearly 100 million
cultivators.
Finance minister Nirmala
Sitharaman will likely increase
expenditure by about 12.5%
year-on-year to ₹44.4 trillion
in the year beginning April,
according to the median of
estimates in a Bloomberg sur-
vey ahead of the February 1
budget.
Sitharaman’s final full-year
budget before the 2024 elec-
tion is likely to keep spending
steady for the poor and mid-
dle-class to spur demand,
while curtailing subsidies,
especially in fertilizer and
food.

‘
ationally profitable as well. We are adding Will you look at going public to firms that only those companies with
a tech and digital team to increase our capa- raise the funds or will strong business funda-
bilities on the digital side as we have started
HNI broking, which was missing in our
overall proposition. Family office is
you look at private
equity investors? 2023 is a year of
mentals will get access to
the market. Overall, we
We plan to invest hope as we expect the could see activity pick up
Dealshare lays off around 6% of workforce
another proposition that we intend to start around ₹750 crore in all headwinds to fade with the pace and quan-
to cater to our businesses put tum increasing with Q2/ Priyal Mahtta difficult decision to reduce the the firm’s founder and co-chief investments, before becoming
and therefore, capital Q3 onwards.
m INTERVIEW the ment at
seg- together. There is specific
deployment for our digital market deals How are you planning
priyal.mahtta@livemint.com
new delhi
size of the team by 100 employ- executive Sourjyendu Medda,
ees which constitutes only 6% are likely to continue in the
profitable.” The firm aims to
realign its operations, particu-
w h i c h wealth business and should revive to grow the advisory of the company. We have taken near term. “We have toned larly in Madhya Pradesh and

J
Equirus parent entity has been operating NBFC business to help side of the investment oining the long list of Indian adequate meas- down the busi- Tamil Nadu, which were
Ajay Garg
over the last 15 years. At Equirus Wealth, we our wealth platform. We Founder and managing banking business? startups that have been ures to compen- The firm will ness plan a bit in among the recently launched
keep client at the centre of all decision- are adding the direct equi- director of Equirus Capital We continue to trimming their headcount sate the affected provide a notice terms of geo- geographies, as a measure to
making and all solutions that we develop ties options for wealth strengthen our track to cut costs, grocery-fo- employees,” a period of about 3 graphical expan- contain its costs. It currently
are to take care of client needs. This strat- platform. With Gift City records and broaden our cussed social commerce company state- months to laid off sion, and the operates in 150 cities.
egy has helped us cross ₹5,000 crore AUM presence, we are seeking to further our domain and deal track record. With the startup Dealshare run by Mer- ment said. newer spheres of The firm will provide a
staff, along with
across wealth and asset management and AMC vertical. Our core business of invest- broad platform, Equirus is the only middle abo Labs Pvt. Ltd on Friday said Layoffs at the the business that notice period of about three
over the next five years, we would want to ment banking and institutional equities are market bank which can help clients dis- it has laid off 100 employees, or social commerce out-placement we were going to months to the laid off employ-
increase this penetration into partner looking to broaden and strengthen the cover true value across private equity mar- around 6% of its 1,500-work- startup were support invest into,” ees, along with out-placement
banks by increasing our location network capability. Besides internal accruals, we ket, strategic market, and public market. force, across several verticals as undertaken Medda said. support. Medda said the com-
and RM (relationship manager) footprint. will supplement the same with the right Through this product-agnostic capabil- part of a corporate realignment across functions, The firm looks pany may offer and extension
Asset management would be focussed on external raising to implement the plans. ity, we are able to have a stronger client-ori- process. the company said. to pare down expenses from to the notice period to employ-
creating and managing high-quality alpha- Federal Bank is a minority investor in ented approach to deliver the best solution “As part of our business The realignment plan comes those parts of its operations ees unable to secure a job offer
generating portfolio; we would want to Equirus. Will they be investing more relevant for the client situation rather than restructuring plan and to sus- amid challenging macroeco- which “could lead to longer at the end of the three-month
piggy on the alpha that we have generated capital to fund these growth plans? force-fit solution at our product capability. tain growth, we have taken a nomic conditions, which, as per periods of cash infusion and period.

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 NEw DElhI, MUMBAI, BENGALURU, KOLKATA, CHENNAI, AHMEDABAD, HYDERABAD, CHANDIGARH*, PUNE* VOL. 17 NO. 24 Rs10.00 in Delhi-NCR; Rs11.00 outside Delhi-NCR. Mint is also available for Rs15.50 with Hindustan Times in Delhi-NCR only 16 PAGES

Saturday, January 28, 2023

Chemical cos face demand woes Bajaj Finance Q3 net grows 40%
livemint.com though cost stress eases uP13 on strong interest income uP14

SENSEX 59,330.90 874.16 NIFTY 17,604.35 287.60 DOLLAR ₹81.52 ₹0.07 EURO ₹88.73 ₹0.06 OIL $87.62 $0.83 GOLD ₹56,878 ₹25

Adani stock crash wipes out Bank exposure

to Adani firms
manageable,
DON’T MISS

₹3.19 trillion investor wealth

Rout in Adani shares also hit stocks of state-owned and private lenders with an exposure to the group
analysts say
Gopika Gopakumar
gopika.g@livemint.com
MUMBAI
Equirus Capital to grow asset,
Ram Sahgal & Ujjval Jauhari

T
he exposure of Indian wealth business with ₹750 cr
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI FrEE FAll Adani Ent FPO banks, primarily state-run
lenders, to the Adani
Ajay Garg, founder and managing director of
Equirus Capital, said the investment banking

A
dani Group stocks fell
5-20% on Friday,
Six of the 10 Adani group stocks hit the lower circuits before recouping some losses on Friday, while four that
don’t have price bands—Adani Enterprises, Adani Ports, Ambuja Cements and ACC—fell between 12% and 18%.
subscribed just group has dropped to 40% of the
conglomerate’s total debt as the
platform plans to expand its asset and
wealth management businesses with an
wiping out ₹3.19 tril-
lion in investor
% change from last session (closing) Sensex 1% on first day group diversified its funding
sources, including from bonds
investment of ₹750 crore over the next five
years. >P15
60,300 Swaraj Singh Dhanjal
wealth after Hinden- Adani Total Gas -20.00 60,205.06 and foreign banks, according to
Previous close
burg Research said it stood by its (in ₹)
swaraj.d@livemint.com analyst reports published after
Adani Green -19.99 Air India daily flights up 30%
findings of alleged share price 60,170.48 MUMBAI US investor Hindenburg
Open
manipulation and accounting Adani Transmission -19.99 59,900 Research alleged that the group within a year under Tata

fraud by the conglomerate.
The rout in Adani shares also
impacted stocks of state-owned
and private lenders with an expo-
sure to the group, fuelling the fall
in the benchmark indices, Nifty
and Sensex, to three-month lows.
Adani Enterprises, the flagship
of the Adani Group, dismissed the
report as “unresearched” and
“maliciously mischievous”, which
seeks to undermine the “goodwill
and reputation of the Adani group
and its leaders and sabotage the
FPO (follow-on public offering)
from Adani Enterprises,” a day
after its release on Thursday.
However, six of the 10 Adani
group stocks hit the lower circuits
before recouping some losses on
Friday, while four that don’t have
price bands—Adani Enterprises,
Adani Ports, Ambuja Cements and
ACC—fell between 12% and 18%.
The fall in Adani Group stocks
saw investor wealth worth ₹3.19
trillion get wiped off and took the
Adani Enterprises
Ambuja Cement
Adani Ports
ACC
Adani Power
Adani Wilmar
NDTV
MARKET MOVEMENT
ADANI Ports and Adani
Enterprises, part of the Nifty,
crashed by 15% and 18%
two-day loss since the Hindenburg
Research report surfaced on
Wednesday to ₹4.4 trillion. Adani
Group stocks’ market value loss
accounted for 47% of the overall
₹6.98 trillion loss of investor
wealth on Friday.
T
he ₹20,000 crore fol- engaged in accounting fraud and A year after being acquired by the Tatas, the
-18.52 low-on public offering stock manipulation. number of operating aircraft at Air India has risen
59,330.9
-17.16 Close (FPO) of Adani Enter- A 26 January CLSA report, 27% to 100, the airline said in an anniversary
59,500 prises Ltd got off to a weak titled Adani—Where does the debt update. With more capacity available, the airline
-16.03 start on Friday with a sub- sit?, said Indian banks’ exposure has been able to increase average daily flights by
scription of just 1%, as the is under 40% of total group debt, 30% and weekly international flights by 63%. >P15
-13.04
59,100 fraud allegations made by with private banks’ share plum-
-5.00 Hindenburg Research buf- meting from 31% to 8% and pub-
feted Adani group stocks. lic sector banks’ share falling Centre may hike cash payouts to
-5.00 The FPO received bids from 55% to 26%. farmers under PM-KISAN to ₹8,000
-4.99
58,700
9.15am 2.30pm
for only 470,160 shares CLSA estimates that the group The Centre is considering hiking the
against an offer size of 45.5 has a bank debt of quantum of cash given to farmers under PM-
Source: Capitalmarket,
Source: RIL earnings Bloomberg
documents
million shares, stock ₹70,000-80,000 crore out of the KISAN, an income-support scheme from
exchange data showed. total ₹2 trillion of debt at the end ₹6,000 to about ₹8,000 annually, in a bid to
To be sure, the first-day of FY22. While the group’s debt boost rural demand and consumption, two
jITTTEry investors also sold ThE 18% fall in Adani Ent. INVESTor nervousness was subscription figures are a levels have doubled to ₹2 trillion people familiar with the matter said. >P15
bank stocks such as SBI, ICICI, took it below the lower reflected in the fear gauge, poor indicator of the in three years, the group’s bank
which fell between 4% and 5% band of the FPO’s floor price India Vix, surging 18% to 17.32 demand for a share sale, as debt has increased only by 25%. A
these share sales typically greater part of the group’s funding Vedanta plans $570 mn more
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
draw the lion’s share of now comes from bonds at 37% and dividend to aid parent firm
Adani Ports and Adani Enter- Enterprises to ₹2,768.50 apiece investor demand on the foreign banks at 18% of the debt.
Vedanta will give an interim dividend for a fourth
prises, part of the Nifty, crashed by took it below the lower band of the final day of the offering. Shares of Indian banks and time this fiscal as billionaire Anil Agarwal seeks to
15% and 18% each. Jittery investors FPO’s floor price of ₹3,112. The price range of the Life Insurance Corp. of India collect funds to pay off debt obligations at parent
also offloaded bank stocks such as The cascading effect on the bank FPO, running through 27-31 plunged on Friday amid concerns Vedanta Resources The mining company’s total
State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and stocks dragged down the benchmark about their exposure to the Adani disbursements so far in the year to March come to
IndusInd Bank, which fell between TURN TO PAGE 13 ₹30,112 crore. >P14
4% and 5%. The 18% fall in Adani TURN TO PAGE 13 TURN TO PAGE 13

India-UAE trade RIL’s JioMart tests e-commerce Swiss watch imports touch
deficit widens by platform ONDC before going live $200 mn as Indians splurge REUTERS

$5 bn post FTA Prasid Banerjee

prasid.b@htlive.com
NEW DELHI
pany said orders on WhatsApp
were up 37% monthly.
To be sure, this won’t be the
Varuni Khosla
varuni.k@livemint.com
NEW DELHI
tablished and highly desirable
Swiss companies, are currently
focused on making and selling
first integration that Reliance more high-end collectable
Dilasha Seth

R D
Growing gap eliance Jio’s grocery Retail has done with the net- emand for luxury watches directly from their
dilasha.seth@livemint.com platform JioMart is cur- work. In August, Reliance watches in India has own monoband retail bou-
India’s exports to the UAE
NEW DELHI
grew by 11% in May-Dec, while
rently testing the Open Retail-owned logistics platform soared, with Swiss watch tiques,” he said.
imports climbed 24.4%. Network for Digital Com- Grab.in went live on ONDC. imports nearly doubling in 2022 This is primarily because the

E
ight months into a free trade
agreement with the United
Arab Emirates, India’s trade
gap with the Gulf nation has wid-
ened by more than $5 billion on a
year-on-year basis, lifted by ele-
vated global crude oil prices and
increase in non-oil trade.
While India’s exports to the
UAE grew by 11% during this
period to $20.25 billion, imports
climbed 24.4% to $36.23 billion,
data from the department of
commerce showed. This caused
a trade gap of $15.98 billion,
compared to a deficit of $10.89
billion in the corresponding
period last year.
India’s non-oil trade deficit
more than doubled between
May and December 2022 to
about $2.2 billion from $1.01
billion a year earlier. The India-
UAE comprehensive economic
partnership agreement (CEPA)
came into force on 1 May 2022.
India’s non-oil outbound ship-
ments to the UAE grew by 2.59%
to $15.03 billion, while non-oil
inbound shipments jumped
10.03% to $17.23 billion during
the May-December period.
An official in the department
of commerce said CEPA utiliza-
tion is “on an uptrend” and is
(year-on-year growth, in %)
Exports Imports
Trade deficit ($ bn)
5.09 2.2
24.4
11.02
10.03
2.59
Overall Non-oil
Source: Department of commerce
SARVESH KUMAR SHARMA/MINT
als, etc., where India gained duty
free access under the agree-
ment. That, experts pointed out,
was a good start.
“Significant duty benefits are
accruing to Indian exporters
under CEPA. This is a source of
competitive advantage for
Indian exports to the UAE.
Actual utilization of statistical
significance started in June
2022. Dedicated efforts have
been and are being undertaken
by the department of com-
merce to raise awareness. Reg-
ular industry interactions and
continuous end-to-end hand-
merce (ONDC) network and
may join the platform soon, a
person aware of the matter
said.
Seven hundred companies,
including financial services
giant Paytm, have already
signed up on ONDC, while
300 are in various stages of
integration, the person said on
the condition of anonymity.
Also, companies such as ITC
Ltd are building seller services
for ONDC, according to the
company’s website. IDFC Bank,
Kotak Mahindra Bank, and pay-
ments firm PhonePe, are other
big brands that are set to inte-
grate with the network. The per-
son added that 5,000 merchants
are already part of ONDC.
The ONDC network aims to
break hegemonies in the e-com-
merce industry. It does so by cre-
In a close call, truck-sized asteroid whizzes past Earth
AFP
feedback@livemint.com
LOS ANGELES
The ONDC network aims
to break hegemonies in the
e-commerce industry. MINT
ating a common registry of buy-
ers, sellers, logistics and tech ser-
vice providers, among others,
which all stakeholders can
access. This prevents any one
operator from controlling the
market by limiting access to buy-
ers by creating walled gardens.
JioMart is owned by billion-
aire Mukesh Ambani’s Reli-
ance Retail. The company also
partnered with WhatsApp and
allows consumers to place
orders through the messaging
service. In its earnings report
earlier this month, the com-
Phew.
The rock, which was spotted
for the first time on Saturday
by an amateur stargazer in Cri-
Reliance Jio did not respond to
a request for comment.
ONDC officially went live in
September, with a pilot launch
in Bengaluru. It has since started
running alpha tests in 84 cities
and is in beta in two cities—Ben-
galuru and Meerut. Alpha tests
are being run in Noida, Farida-
bad, Lucknow, Bijnor, Bhopal,
Chhindwara, Kolkata, Pune,
Chennai, and Kannur.
Logistics unicorns Dunzo,
Delhivery and Shiprocket
have already joined the plat-
form. Paytm and Meesho have
e-commerce integrations,
with Flipkart and Amazon
expected to join later.
A report by the non-profit
think-tank Digital India Founda-
tion (DIF), published in Novem-
TURN TO PAGE 13
Asteroid 2023 BU
One of the closest Earth approaches
ever and within satellite orbit
Trajector
from 2020, the Federation of
the Swiss Watch Industry said.
Watch distributors in India
imported luxury watches worth
Swiss franc 187.6 million ($200
million) last year, rising from
Swiss franc 97 million in 2020.
Imports have grown 19%
over 2021. With this, India has
surpassed countries such as
Kuwait, Ireland, Bahrain, Bel-
gium, Portugal, Greece, and
Malaysia in luxury watch
imports.
Despite the sharp increase,
the waiting period for some of
the most desirable watches,
including Rolex and Patek Phil-
ippe, is still about six months.
And while a lot of this demand
is said to be fuelled by an artifi-
cial shortage being created by
luxury brands themselves, sev-
eral collectors accept that they
EARTH
y of the Moon
Watch distributors imported
luxury watches worth Swiss franc
187.6 mn ($200 mn) last year, rising
from Swiss franc 97 mn in 2020.
never stopped buying luxury
watches during the pandemic.
Ashok Goel, founder of Delhi-
based Luxury Time Pvt. Ltd, a
distributor of brands such as
Hublot, Tag Heuer, Zenith and
Bomberg, confirmed the trend
is true for their products as well.
The company, he said, is report-
ing 50% more business than it
did in 2019 and 250% more busi-
ness than it did in 2020.
“Several brands across the
world, especially the well-es-
oid ment system rapidly deter-
tor yo
f as
ter
mined the alien visitor was
jec
Tra
coming in peace.
“Scout quickly ruled out
super-rich never stopped buy-
ing collectable luxury watches
during the pandemic, and the
more unique the watch was, the
more collectable it became.
Luxury watch retailer
Kapoor Watch Co., the Indian
retailer of Bvlgari, Cartier,
Omega and Tag Heuer brands,
also saw an uptick in business
last year.
Pratiek Kapoor, the com-
pany’s head of marketing, said
India’s purchasing power for lux-
ury goods has increased tremen-
dously during the pandemic.
The company is adding not
just newer clients but their
existing clients are also trading
up and buying more now.
“Existing buyers are trading
up with more high-end pieces.
TURN TO PAGE 13
meters (11 to 28 feet) across,
Asteroid 2023 BU is a bit small
to cause too much damage,
and would have largely burned

only likely to increase further.
Pointing at the increasing utiliza-
tion of the free trade pact by
Indian exporters, the official said
the issuance of preferential cer-
tificates of origin (COO) under
the CEPA increased from 415
certificates worth $133.2 million
in May 2022 to 6111 worth $1.11
billion in December 2022.
However, while the import
surge was largely led by high-
value petroleum products and
raw material shipments, exports
have been led by double-digit
expansion in gems and jewel-
lery, electrical machinery and
equipment, automobiles, cere-
B
holding is being done to assist
Indian exporters in leveraging
CEPA...,” said a commerce
department official. He added
that as the UAE is a transit hub,
most Indian imports from the
UAE happen under the World
Trade Organization frame-
work. Only limited products
that fulfil the value addition cri-
teria are sourced directly from
the UAE under the CEPA.
The pact, negotiated in a
record 88 days, was signed on 18
February. It is the first major free
trade pact signed by the Naren-
TURN TO PAGE 13
ruce Willis: you can
stand down.
A truck-sized asteroid
that suddenly loomed out of
the darkness a few days ago—
with the Earth in its sights—
sailed harmlessly past us on
Thursday, space scientists said.
Despite what we’ve seen in
movies like Armageddon, no
global mission to blow it up or
knock it off course with
nuclear weapons was
required.
Instead, Asteroid 2023 BU
whizzed past without incident
and back out into the black-
ness of space.
mea, came closest to the
southern tip of South America
at around 0029 GMT Friday,
according to scientists who
were tracking it.
At its nearest point, the
asteroid was just 2,200 miles
(3,600 km) from Earth’s sur-
face—just a quarter of the
height of many of the geosta-
tionary satellites that make our
telephones and car navigation
systems work.
Amateur astronomer Gen-
nadiy Borisov, who had
already spotted an interstellar
comet in 2019, raised the
alarm over the weekend, alert-
Asteroid
Source: NASA
ing fellow space-watchers to
the previously unknown celes-
tial body.
Scientists around the world
raced to calculate where it was
MOON Trajectory of
satellite
2023 BU as an impactor, but
despite the very few observa-
Geosynchronous tions, it was nonetheless able
satellite orbit to predict that the asteroid
35,000 km above
the Earth would make an extraordinarily
close approach with Earth,”
EARTH said NASA’s Davide Farnoc-
chia, who helped develop
Scout.
Friday
“In fact, this is one of the
0029 GMT 3,600 km closest approaches by a known
above Earth
near-Earth object ever
recorded.”
headed—and whether we If the math had been off,
needed to start making last- however, humanity would still
minute evacuation plans. probably have been alright,
But experts using NASA’s scientists say.
Scout impact hazard assess- At between just 3.5 to 8.5
up as it hurtled through the
atmosphere.
The few meteorites that
did make it to the ground
would have been small, not
the city-destroying, tsunami-
generating monsters of Deep
Impact.
The close call will leave a
more lasting impact on the
asteroid itself, NASA’s num-
ber-crunchers said.
Earth’s gravity will affect the
object’s orbit, lengthening the
amount of time it takes for
2023 BU to go around the Sun,
from 359 days to a more lei-
surely 425 days.