My husband threw us out: Neera Chopra (26 April, 2009)

Gayatri, TNN, 26 April 2009, 04:25pm IST

Neera Chopra lived through abuse, poverty and some tough choices to make her once-unwanted girl child, Pooja Chopra, the Pantaloons Femina Miss 

Pooja Chopra with her mother.

India-World she is today. 

I don’t know where to begin... they were terrible times. My husband was well-placed, but the marriage had begun to sink almost as soon as it began. Like most women do, I tried to work against all the odds . 

My in-laws insisted everything would be alright if I had a son. My first child was a daughter, and that didn’t do me any good... but I couldn’t walk out. I had lost my father, my brother was in a not-so-senior position in Bata. I didn’t want to be a burden on my family and continued to live in my marital home in Kolkata. 

I looked after my mother-inlaw, who was suffering from cancer, and while bathing her, I would tell myself she would bless me and put things right. 

I don’t know how I tolerated it all. The least a man can do, if he must philander, is to not flaunt his women in his wife’s face. Then began the manhandling. I still wanted my marriage to survive. I was a pure vegetarian and learnt to cook non-vegetarian delicacies thinking it would please him. 

Then, I was pregnant again. When Pooja was eight months in my womb, my husband brought a girl to the house and announced he would marry her. I thought of killing myself. I hung on the slight hope that if the baby was a boy, my marriage could be saved. 

When Pooja was born a girl, for three days, nobody came to the hospital. There was a squadron leader’s wife on the opposite bed, who was kind enough to give me baby clothes for Pooja to wear. When she was 20 days old, I had to make a choice. I left the house with my girls — Pooja and Shubra, who was seven then. I haven’t seen my husband since. I promised myself, even if we had just one roti, we would share it, but together. 

I began life in Mumbai with the support of my mother, brother, who was by then married. It wasn’t the ideal situation, especially when he had children — space, money, everything was short. I began work at the Taj Colaba and got my own place. How did I manage? Truth be told, I would put a chatai on the floor, leave two glasses of milk and some food, and bolt the door from outside before going to work. I would leave the key with the neighbours and tell the kids to shout out to them when it was time to leave for school. 

Their tiny hands would do homework on their own, feed themselves on days that I worked late. My elder daughter Shubhra would make Pooja do her corrections... This is how they grew up. At a birthday party, Pooja would not eat her piece of cake, but pack it and bring it home to share with her sister. When Shubhra started working, she would skip lunch and pack a chicken sandwich that she would slip in her sister’s lunchbox the next day. 

I used to pray, “God, punish me for my karma, but not my innocent little kids. Please let me provide them the basics.” I used to struggle for shoes, socks, uniforms. I was living in Bangur Nagar, Goregaon. Pooja would walk four bus stops down to the St Thomas Academy. Then, too little to cross the road, she would ask a passerby to help her. I had to save the bus money to be able to put some milk in their bodies. 

Life began to change when I got a job for Rs 6,000 at the then Goa Penta. Mr Chhabra, the owner, and his wife, were kind enough to provide a loan for me. I sent my daughters to my sister’s house in Pune, with my mother as support. I spent four years working in Goa while I saved to buy a small one-bedroom house in Pune (where the family still lives). I would work 16-18 hours a day, not even taking weekly offs to accumulate leave and visit my daughters three or four times a year. 

Once I bought my house and found a job in Pune, life began to settle. I worked in Hotel Blue Diamond for a year and then finally joined Mainland China — which changed my life. The consideration of the team and management brought me the stability to bring them up, despite late hours and the travelling a hotelier must do. 

Shubhra got a job in Hotel Blue Diamond, being the youngest employee there while still in college, and managed to finish her Masters in commerce and her BBM. Today, she is married to a sweet Catholic boy who is in the Merchant Navy and has a sweet daughter. 

I continue to finish my day job and come home and take tuitions, as I have done for all these years. I also do all my household chores myself. 

Through the years, Shubhra has been my anchor and Pooja, the rock. Pooja’s tiny hands have wiped away my tears when I broke down. She has stood up for me, when I couldn’t speak for myself. Academically brilliant, she participated in all extra-curricular activities. When she needed high heels to model in, she did odd shows and bought them for herself. 

When I saw Pooja give her speech on TV, I knew it came from her heart. I could see the twinkle in her eye. And I thought to myself as she won “My God, this is my little girl.” God was trying to tell me something. 

Today, I’ve no regrets. I believe every cloud has a silver lining. As a mother, I’ve done nothing great. 

‘I won due to my mother’s karma’ 

Pantaloons Femina Miss India Pooja Chopra’s mother promised ‘One day, this girl will make me proud’. Pooja speaks on fulfilling that promise...    When I was 20 days old, my mother was asked to make a choice. It was either me — a girl child, or her husband. She chose me. As she walked out she turned around and told her husband, ‘One day, this girl will make me proud’. That day has come. Her husband went on to marry a woman who gave him two sons. Today, as I stand here a Miss India, I don’t even know if my father knows that it is me, his daughter, who has set out to conquer the world, a crown on my head. Our lives have not been easy, least so for my mother. Financially, emotionally, she struggled to stay afloat, to keep her job and yet allow us to be the best that we could be. I was given only one condition when I started modelling — my grades wouldn’t drop. 

All the girls in the pageant worked hard, but my edge was my mother’s sacrifice, her karma. Today, when people call to congratulate me, it’s not me they pay tribute to, but to her life and her struggle. She’s the true Woman of Substance. She is my light, my mentor, my driving force. My win was merely God’s way of compensating her. 

Art's Boom Time

Art’s boom time
Art prices have dropped, sales are crawling. Then why are artists and gallerists alike, overjoyed? Gayatri explores

Gallerist Ranjana Steinrucke says from the Madrid ARCO on her last day there, “We only sold two pieces this year. Good.” Stop short. “Good, did you say?” “Yes, good. In the long run, the slowdown will be good for art (more time for introspection) and for collectors (no more ridiculous pricing).”
She’s not isolated in sentiment. Even as world over the sales of art faces, much like any other ‘commodity’ market, shoot the moon prices falling short, plummeting demand and waning investment, artists, buyers and gallerists alike are heaving, strangely, a sigh of relief.
Pravina Mecklai of Jamaat says “The art market was insane. I had a cab driver asking me which ‘picture’ he should invest in, and it was known that a painting would change hands five times a week, which is madness. Paintings were not being finished properly to meet demand – issues of fungus, fakes, price rigging were cropping up. It is far better this way. Now that the investors are out of the market, it is the true art appreciators who are buying.”
International collectors and auction house Christies released figures for losses posted in 2008 – sales had dipped 11 per cent over 2007 figures for the same quarter, and yet, there’s a qualitative spurt, they say. Kate Malin, Asia spokesperson for the house explains “We are witnessing more disciplined buying than in previous years, but there is still strong demand and committed bidding for the rarest and the best despite economic challenges. Collectors are driven to buy unique works of art through passion and desire, and as such they are driven by opportunity. If a collector is active for a period of perhaps 20 or 30 years, then they are likely to have only one chance to bid on any particular work.”

Meet iconic Indian artist Tyeb Mehta, whose Mahishasura had fetched a whopping $1.54 million in 2005, and you will understand why he is glad to be left to his creative isolation in his unfussy apartment in Mumbai’s Lokhandwala suburb, where he continues to work, come bubble or burst, fighting fading vision and physical disability. Tyeb’s last canvas Kali broke the Rs 1 crore barrier, and his Celebration went for Rs 1.5 crore ($317,500) on September 19, 2003. Neither contributed to his personal financial stability. “In all these years, it is only Ebrahim Al Kazi, who put up Kali for auction, who gave us 25 per cent of what he sold it for. It was a gesture straight from the heart, a magnanimous, kind, gesture,” says Sakina, his wife, “but the rest of it, which canvas sold for how much, has passed by us completely. We are not associated with any of the hype around the canvases. We only know of it when a catalogue features his works,” she says.
But then, says art critic and curator, Ranjit Hoskote, Tyeb, who was all about the money to an exploding commercial art scene, has never been about the money at all. “To Tyeb, the need to articulate deep-seated psychic realities and the crises and exultations of his society is paramount. During the six decades of his artistic practice, this need has taken precedence over personal comfort, worldly success, commercial gain, and critical acclaim. All these have been secondary considerations to Tyeb, who has patterned his life on the ideal of the artist who must speak autonomously of social, economic or cultural systems of dominance,” he says.
Tyeb is hurt, if not a little angry at how little art is understood, but won’t comment on the changing world of art around him. “I don’t go to exhibitions, or to see artists’ works because I can’t relate to their works anymore. When I can spare time from being ill, I devote it to my work. Of course my work is symbolic of a changing world and time. Just not necessarily of a changing art world,” he quips. The commercial scenario does not bother him. “I do not paint for money, or for what people think of me or of my work. I paint because it is deeply personal to me. I live in isolation, I paint in isolation. That is what the true artists do – there are a few and far between the melee, but they exist here and there.”
Artist Dhruva Mistry laughs that the only quantitative impact of the recession has been “While reminding a dealer about payment, he had mentioned that ‘sales were sluggish’.” Apart from that, he says, the season has served to allow genuine artists to get on with their work. “One thing I know well is that what I care for in my work would bother no one except me. My life and work are part of my self-enlightenment kit and I must look after my mind and spirit from the mass of material affectations.” He explains what the boom-time bubble meant to Indian artists, “The art ‘hype’ has been part of boom and bust economics of Europe and the US since the early 1980s, which was part of novel reforms of 1990s for India, China and many other countries. Success from 2002 until 2008 seemed to require being in the right place at the right time. Dealer entrepreneurs gamble with select minds, matter and taste to satisfy their speculative creativity. When it works, it raises demand, prices and stakes. In the wilderness of art market, modesty seems passé, shadowing couture and success.”
The genuine artists are thus shrugging off recession, and the aficionados -- collectors and gallerists alike -- are letting them be. As artist Samir Mondal put it “in the time of adversity, the best art creations are made.”

Times News Network
gayatri.jayaraman@timesgroup.com

Landscaping of Umrao Jaan

(Written by Muzaffar Ali)
I have a penchant for landscape; and architecture placed in landscape; and landscape seen through architecture. I see a great story in there, which is difficult to explain in words. An emotion, a spiritual experience. It is what nostalgia is made of. For a filmmaker it is what becomes the essence of Production Design and Cinematography. The last and the first sequence of Umrao Jaan had to be placed in such a landscape, a suburb of Faizabad. I went around Lucknow looking for such spaces. A space which could justify the terrible pangs of nostalgia, though filled with so much beauty, it wrenches the heart. It had found its meaning in lyrics...
Ye kya jagah dosto, ye kaun sa dayaar hai,
hadde nigaah tak jahan ghubaar hi ghubaar hai....
Now it had to present itself visually.
Driving around exploring the Awadhian landscape I came upon something of extraordinary beauty. A breath taking setting of an old haveli and a small adjoining mosque in a vast mustard field . I knew this would get into the bloodstream of the audience.

This was Amethi 15 kms from Lucknow. It was all that I was looking for. A cloud to sandwich the beginning and the end of the film.

Every morning we had to leave before the crack of dawn with my son Shaad, who I would bathe in a tub and get him ready for the shoot. He was also doing a small role as Umrao's little brother. As the location approached there was a huge speed breaker which I would invariably forget each day, but Shaad would remember and jump up before it came with a gleeful scream ' kal bataya' ... Meant I told you yesterday. We were shooting a bidai song in the old village haveli, and Shaad's role was that he was supposed to sit quietly in a corner and enjoy the happening. He began to get bored and became restless. He started slowly ripping apart an antique jazim spread out for sitting. I happened to notice half the jazim missing and Shaad discreetly pulling away whatever was left. I reprimanded him. He got very upset and sat and sulked in a corner. A little later he told my assistants that 'Main continuity mein phans gaya hoon varna main abhi chala jaata ghar.'

As the shooting came to an end the Maulvi who sat in Umrao’s last mujra, (whose close up nodding on a rhythmic interlude appreciating her footwork used in the song), was immediately sacked from the Madrasa. Next thing I came to know that my father's maternal grandfather, a great poet Mir Muzaffar Ali Khan Aseer after whom I was named, belonged to this very village.
As this came to be known, the Maulvi was honourably reinstated. Now that he is dead and gone he continues to nod in close up every time the arc light illuminates those frames.
Muzaffar Ali

Indian Cheeses/ Unpublished

Heading: Say cheese, desi ishtyle
Intro: Indian cheeses are stealing the march on the imports. If you truly want to be a cheese snob, stick your fork into this, suggests Gayatri…

* All local cheeses retail in and around their dairies. A few like ABC farms, Kodai cheese and Sikkim cheeses are available at national supermarket chains.

You know your Emmenthal from your Gouda, you’ve swirled white wine with peaches and Parmiggiano Reggiano beneath a tree in Tuscany, and you sprinkle your salads with feta not shudder… paneer…? But how well do you know your Indian cheeses?

“My feedback from the expat crowd is that a young Indian gouda is comparable to the best in the world,” avers Kuldeep Shanker of Steak House Delhi. He’s not alone, blogger Elga from Germany writes of her search for Sikkim’s gouda after backpacking across the state. “We thought we would find more as we went along, but we didn’t,” she writes. “It’s by far the best gouda I’ve ever tasted!” A rare find, Kalimpong cheese as it is called, was made by Brother Abraham, a parish priest in Sikkim, but after his passing away the quality of the locally produced delicacy, just isn’t the same locals in Sikkim explain. While production of the region’s Gouda has been taken over by Amul, a small amount of the local variety by Pappu Diary Co-op, which shut down wholescale production a few years ago, is available occasionally in Kolkatta (only 10 kgs are made each day).

Scattered across the country, small farms and cheese projects in collaboration with the Dutch, the French and the Swiss are moulding the best cheeses with Indian air, water and milk from cows, goats and even camels! “The Flander’s farm in Delhi has their own jerseys, so their quality of milk helps them retain a stronghold in the North” explains Shanker, “And Nepalese cheese was the equivalent of the Kalimpong one, and is just as good when you can procure it.”

A German couple in Kullu Manali send out a batch from Himachal when the mood strikes them, and if you’re lucky that’s a rare find. “A lady by name of Vijaya Vatsala, an organic honey farmer, is experimenting with goat’s cheese” points out Viraf Patel, chief executive group chef, Impresario. Himalayan yak’s cheese, sold across shops in Ladakh, and the only fat-free cheese in the world is now sold in American gourmet stores as a delicacy. Mansoor and Tina, a young Mumbai-based couple chucked up their hectic city lives to move to Coonoor in the Nilgiri’s with their three children in 2004, and run Acres Wild farm, a brand of cheese that retails around Coonoor, Coimbatore and Ooty. The Balakrishnans, nestled in the Kodai hills, run a bed and breakfast and their Cinnabar farms is the only place to take an organic cheese farming class.

While some like Rahul Akerkar of Indigo don’t put much stock by Indian cheeses, Patel explains, “We still have a long way to go, but India is doing well with hard cheeses and very well with fresh cheeses like mozzarella and ricotta. We are also good with vegetarian cheese and are the largest exporter of rennet because in India we have little use for it. But by and large, Indian cheese is used in cuisine rather than on its own. As a gourmet cheese, we are yet to develop a signature Indian cheese.”

Box:
How to use Indian cheese:
Use Flander’s kwark for baking cheese cakes, and serve Pondicherry’s gourmet cheeses with your wines. ABC Farms’ bocconcinni stuffed with olives and fondue cheese flavoured with wine or cherry brandy are great for parties, use Kodai’s Romano to flavour soups and sauces, and their Gruyere for fondue. Cinnabar farms’ Cinnableu and ABC’s blue are the only two blue cheeses in the country. Monterey Jack is great for melty BLT sandwiches.

Where to get Indian cheeses:
ABC Farms: The Parsi-run establishment, by the trio of Rohinton Aga, Adi Bathena and Eruch Chinoy (hence the ABC), have over 60 varieties of cheeses. ABC farms: 20-26810555.
Kodaikanal cheese: Specialities include the Danish Havarti, a pear shaped Provolone, a South Italian speciality. (Kodai Dairy: 04542-240293).
Cinnabar farms: Specialties are the Cinnamano, a Cinnabar Colby, and a Cinnableu. (Cinnabar: 4542-240220).
Acres Wild: Do a mean feta and camembert. They retail around Ooty, Coonoor and Coimbatore. (Farm cell: 94870-68898)
Auroville cheeses: Under the brand name of La Ferme. Available only in Pondicherry. (Le Ferme: 0413 622212)
Flanders Dairy Cheese: The Cheese Ball: 11-25314237

Reality of Reality TV / Times Life August 31, 2008

It’s a virtual Lord of the Flies, and who is drawing the fine line between vicarious and vicious? The mental health fraternity is becoming vocal about participants like Monika Bedi, Raja Chowdhury, Rahul Mahajan – the three contestants on the Bigg Boss reality show now in its second season who are drawing in the TRPs as the nation watches for a potential meltdown. As a hoarding depicting former jailbird Monica Bedi screams ‘Himmat dikhayegi ki toot jaayegi’ (will she show courage or will she break?). You can bet the money is on her breaking.

“Bigg Boss is thriving on primitive human emotions and wants to exploit the pain, suffering and controversy of human beings. It’s sickening,” says eminent psychiatrist Harish Shetty best known for handling Faisal Khan’s case. “I would go so far as to say Bigg Boss is unethical in exploiting human beings who are going through a difficult time and a difficult phase and who would naturally gravitate towards such a medium for not knowing better.” His anger is shared by the mental health community. Psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria states “Sleep deprivation (the first task on the show) itself can trigger nervous breakdowns. What are they doing?”

Seeema Hingoranny, the clinical psychologist attached to Bigg Boss, (both seasons) stands in defense of the show. “The hoardings are put together by publicists. I’m not aware of that, but I handle the mental health of participants on the show,” she is quick to say. “The participants have asked me questions like ‘What if I go mad?’ Some had heard stories from previous contestants about how tough it is, and others had seen Amit Sadh break down on Bigg Boss 1. I have conducted psychological tests, interviews, observations on each participant, and briefed each participant on the show.”

“We haven’t considered their pasts because we have conducted the tests allowing them to look at how they are now. After their processes of healing have begun. We are not judgemental about their pasts, but have allowed for a fresh start,” she says. That’s not enough say observers if you consider the history. Monika Bedi has been through extradition and jail time, a family that disowned her, Raja Chowdhury battled alleged alcoholism, a wife who claimed abuse, divorce and a custody case, as well as allegations of assaulting a TV journalist. Rahul Mahajan has faced his father’s murder by his uncle, alleged substance abuse that accused the death of a friend, and his own divorce. All extreme circumstances that may or may not allow them to fare well under pressure-cooker situations. The perfect formula for TRPs. Very bad for mental health. “They could turn around and kill themselves or each other,” warns Anjali Chhabria, psychiatrist. “Have psychological tests been performed keeping in mind they are being put in such high-pressure situations?”

Media watcher and the man behind the move for self-regulation of media Peter Mukherjea is horrified, “I call it the bigg loser show as it’s no different to several news channels disguising complete nonsense as news. For me, general entertainment should be about family entertainment and putting a bunch of challenged people together to watch them through hidden cameras isn’t family entertainment by any stretch of imagination. It’s distorted and not enduring or endearing.”

Psychiatrists are also aghast that two others – Faisal Khan and Jahnavi – the individual who declared herself Abhishek Bachchan’s true wife on the morning of his wedding – were approached too. “It is an attempt to be whackier than others by being exploitative rather than being creative,” says Harish Shetty.

Friends of Faisal Khan were horrified when he was approached. “Even I am glad he’s not been institutionalized by his brother,” said a friend of Faisal’s who chose to stay anonymous, “but under that sort of a high pressure environment, he would have surely cracked, didn’t the organizers know that before offering him the show?” he asks. In all probability they – Endemol India – did know of the consequences. In fact, say inside sources, that’s why they offered it to him.
Psychiatrist Anjali Chhabria outlines the dangers of the situation “The participants in a reality show are sleep deprived, constantly under camera, watched all the time, and they are put to different tests that encourage them to extend beyond their physical capacities – singing or dancing, or preparing for some task. That is the format. Add to that the fact of not knowing whom to trust, the air of suspicion, manipulation, plotting an planning, and that’s a lot of pressure to take. I have treated a lot of so called ‘normal and strong’ people from previous shows who have broken down due to all the pressure. Definitely, people with a history of emotional disorder, breakdown or substance abuse are at higher risk in such an environment. In trying to get better TRPs, one should not play with emotionally frail minds of at-risk individuals. God knows at what provocation individuals may turn around to kill each other.”
TV actor Raj Logani, Raja Chowdhury’s former brother-in-law and Shweta Tiwari’s brother though dismisses reports of Raja’s violent behaviour, “Personally I may not fight in public, but Raja is just a guy’s guy. He’d react if it was intensely provocative and he was in a bad situation, but deep down he’s a very nice guy. Gem of a man who’s actually very helpful,” he says. “He was just going through some things,” he adds, “Who knows, he may actually show his nice side?”
Let’s hope so. Seema Hingoranny states she has qualified assistants monitoring them during the show. “We have a stand by team – a psychiatrist, an occupational therapist.” Now, fingers crossed that the fragile limits of endurance don’t crack irretrievably.

"I'll never write a love story again": Karan Johar/ Times Life Oct 5

Intro: The ultimate weaver of the romantic Indian fantasy has removed his rose tinted glasses. Love, relationships and marriage will never be the same again. Karan Johar journeys from romantic to cynic with Gayatri

When spinner-of-magical fantasies Karan Johar tells you he’s stopped believing in love, you don’t run to press. You hold on to his words, and wait, and hope it was a passing phase, that he spoke too soon, that he will change his mind. No such luck.
The man who helped spin Dilwale Dulhaniya and wrote the mush gush into Kuch Kuch Hota Hai ‘ declares “My idea of love is more cynical today, so I can’t find bring myself to write a love story because I find every line, every scene I’m writing to be artificial. I’m not feeling it. I’m trying to be a romance writer, which is why I’ve stepped away from the writing of My Name Is Khan. Because at its core it’s a love story, and Shibani Bhathija has written the screenplay. I believe in it. It’s a lovely love story. But it’s not come from me, it’s come from her. Because I knew that everytime I sat down to write something, I was just not feeling it. Suddenly, I feel the love in my writing is just dead.”
This and the willful withdrawal from public scrutiny have been some time coming, Karan admits. “If you see the graph there is a shift from idealism to cynicism,” he says. “I reached a zone after Kabhi Al Vida Na Kehna where I just needed to be. I want to make life more about me than it's been before. Today I am in a completely different zone. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was my understanding of first love, it’s what you hear in college of what you hear others are going through, heartbreak – I never went through any of those feelings. It was not a personal piece of work, it was very borrowed, but that is what my cinema is – it’s always a reflection of what I see around me. In Kabhi Khushi there is parental love which is still something I know about, and that for me was an honest film, (which people call manipulated, actually is my most honest piece of work). Kal Ho Na Ho was really the fear of losing a loved one, and ironically, I lost my father right after, so that kind of mirrored itself in my own life.”
And that’s when what he saw around him began to change his perspective of love. “Death has a way of bringing you back to life. It made me look at life very carefully and observe things. I traveled a lot in that zone for one year. And everywhere I went I met wives who had nothing nice to say about their husbands, husbands who were certainly not interested in their wives, relationships that were crumbling in front of my eyes. I think something is really wrong.”
Karan blames his cynicism on having seen too much and heard too much. “I sound extreme when I say in my perception of the institution of marriage. I do wonder if we turn a blind eye or are genuinely delusional, because somethings are very clear to me. There’s this lack of tolerance in relationships today, which generations before didn’t have. Large levels of communication can do that. Thirty years ago, when there were no computers and no mobiles, there was a certain mystery in people's day-to-day activity. Now there is too much communication, too much technology, everyone is in each other's faces all the time, literally. It’s taken away the beauty of romance and made everyone far more impulsive about what they're feeling and saying.”
Withdrawing is therefore a willful seclusion from emotional onslaughts for Karan. “I’m not in a relationship and therefore people download their problems on me because I have a tendency of playing therapist at times. I tend to be a good listener but now I want to stop listening and start saying. The problem is I’ve made a lot of friends listening and so it’s a lot of what I hear around me that kind of reflects in my work.”
Karan pauses, and hastily adds… “I’m not losing faith in the concept of love. I still believe in the emotion, everybody needs it, wants it, yearns for it, and hopes to get it, but I currently don’t know how to express it on paper. I’m not moved by love on screen anymore. It’s an odd shift, I can’t explain it. I would cry more for the emotion of loss or triumph than for a love story. Even the romantic comedy film that I would rush to see, I watch now and think this is over the top. In fact, the mush that I’ve been known for, love and all that, has died in my thought process. I would love to revisit the love story format post this phase to check if it is still alive and kicking. I saw Jab We Met with a tremendous amount of envy because I was like this is what I wanted to write -- just a simple slice of life love story and I couldn’t do it. I’ve stepped away because it will just disillusion me.”
And how much of what he sees will reflect in his personal life, let alone his films? “How romantic am I? I’m not. I’m 36 today and I’ve lost the zone in which I could have been romantic. Now there’s no point. I never believed in love at first sight, it is really just another word for infatuation, we confuse the two. My personal belief is that love in the 20s and love in the 30s are two different things. There is a lot of settling for in 30s and there’s a lot of searching for in the 20s. I’ve felt tremendous love, I’ve been in love and I know that that’s a different headspace. I know I won’t be in that headspace because I’m far too evolved. That’s the problem. Overthought, overanalysis can kill the most honest and earnest motions and love is one of them.”
You clutch at straws here. Anything to bring Karan back from the brink of hoplessness in love. Why, he wants to know. Because, if he goes down, he will, you tell him, take with him those celluloid dreams of happy endings from the kind of movie-goer who cries at the movies. You believe in destiny, right? What does your horoscope say? He breaks into a smile. “Sunita Menon says I will be in a relationship by the time I’m 38. So I guess, never say never hunh?”. We’re just saying “Phew!”

Sex & Spirituality / Times Life Feb 1/ 2009

Hdg:Is sex the way to spirituality? Intro: Can you be a sexual as well as spiritual being? Gayatri speaks to masters of the mind and body to find where the twain meet Body copy: Would you accept as your spiritual guru, one who is sexually active? Is sex more important than God? And must you choose between them? Ask a teenager and the answer seems obvious. "God made us sexual beings. It's as primal as hunger, why choose?" Before you dismiss it as licentiousness, remember it's an answer even the Buddha contemplated. Spiritual writer Parveen Chopra was a few days into a 10-day Vipassana camp, when he was disturbed by a series of erotic dreams. On the 10th day, the supervisor explained, "With extensive cleansing, deep-rooted vasanas and sanskaras, get released. Intense meditation manifests repressed sexual desires embedded in the psyche." Accepting sexual urges, not repressing them, is the key. Zen master Osho said, "Human beings can never be separated from sex. One is born out of it. Existence has accepted the energy of sex as the starting point of creation, and your holy men call it sinful… something that existence itself does not consider a sin! One has not to fight with sex, but to create a friendship with it, and elevate the stream of life to the heights." Sex and spirituality first held hands in the 60s and turned to India for influence. Fitness expert Rahul Dev explains; "One of the seven prime chakras is the sacral or swadhisthana chakra which nurtures sexual energy, and it is where spirituality and sex meet." Yoga expert Shameem Akhtar directs "the chakra can be awakened through Kundalini yoga, thrice during one surya namaskar, and once with bhujangasana, intertwining spiritual-sexual energy." Former MTV head honcho Cyrus Oshidar, describes its effects. "The Hare Krishna's of the 60s and the influence of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was magnified by the kind of lunatic fan following the Beatles had. At such a time, music to 'change the world' emerged with Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel and others, and India became the hub of its spiritual influence." Madonna's experiments with Kabbalah's Book of Sexand Sting's tantra continued the influence. Sting said, "It's about ritualising a period of the day with your partner; touching each other, reaching deeper levels of connection. Sex is only the surface. Tantra is about reconnecting with the world of the spirit through everyday things. My church happens to be the person I live with. She is my connection to the sacred." While lovers of sex integrated spiritual angles to the physical act, spiritualists exalted their devotion in sexual terms. Rumi and other Sufi poets referred to the Lord as the lover, Lord Shiva devotees exalted phallic symbolism, as did devotees of Krishna belonging to the Radha cult. Radha, born Veronica in Guatemala, has lived for over 35 years in an ashram in Andhra Pradesh. She says, "God to me is my husband, my lover. Surrender is always of tan, man, dhan." She smiles, "I am always in a state of Ananda." Sexologist Dr Prakash Kothari explains, "There are two paths to Moksha; the first of Lord Mahavira, where you don't experience sex at all; the second is tantra where you enjoy it so much that no desire is left. The second is said to be tougher. What is Brahmanand? Even the Vedas describe it as 1,000 times the pleasure of Sambhoganand (the bliss of union). Brahmacharya is 'searching for the soul' and even for Jains, marriage is the first step. Modern distortions are not mentioned in either Charak Samahita or Kamasutra." And yet, spiritual stalwarts remain celibate. At 36, Gandhi took a vow of celibacy, as did a young APJ Abdul Kalam at the ashram of Swami Sivananda in Hrishikesh. Where do the two seamlessly fit together, if at all? Sex is primal, like hunger, and thirst. But while spiritual seekers indulge their thirst and hunger, they suppress the urge for sex. The key is moderation. Khurshed Batliwala, head of the youth wing of the Art of Living explains the difference between sex out of lust and love, "Love is the ultimate experience two people can experience in their physical body." Everyday minds don't distinguish clearly between primal urges and mental desires. Taoist guru Mantak Chia in his Taoist Secrets of Lovesays, "Many confuse hunger and sex as being similar. Clearly they are connected, as many people feeling sexual frustration turn to food for gratification. An imbalance in ching(sex) energy ranks as a major cause of obesity — when you are sexually frustrated, food is the easiest substitute." Control comes only through conviction, says spiritual guru Andrew Cohen who explains his personal struggle to remain sexually active. "As my spiritual yearning grew, I began to find it an annoying distraction. When I embarked on a three-year period of celibacy, I learned more about sexuality than ever before. I came to the conclusion that lifelong celibacy didn't make sense for one who was living in the world." Soko Morinaga, Zen Shaolin monk, explains the simplest truth about sex and spirituality, "When Japanese Saint Hônen was asked whether a Buddhist religious person should be celibate, he said 'If it is easier for him to express faith by reciting the Buddha's name alone, he should be celibate. If it is easier to do that with a spouse, it is better to marry. What is important is only how one expresses one's faith'." Deepak Chopra directs you to use sexual energy spiritually; "In any situation where we feel attraction, awakening, alertness, passion, interest, inspiration, excitement, sexual energy is at work. Whenever we feel these, we must nourish its energy in awareness. Sexual desire is sacred and chaste. Its suppression is false, ugly and unchaste. Bliss is its essence. That is connect enough."

Will the real Obama stand up please?/ 16 Nov, 2008

Gayatri, TNN

WHEN my mother was a child, the only girl’s school around was the local Marathi medium school down the road. So that’s where my grandfather, a true
blue Tamil Brahmin who wore a veshti beneath his CA pin-striped shirt and a Brahmin pigtail on his head till his dying day, sent her.

Till date, she does household accounts in Marathi, and takes Marathi tuitions, and has a domicile certificate to prove her Marathiness. But she draws a rice flour kolam every morning, eats rice, not rotis, and sings Carnatic classical, not Hindustani, music. My son is part Kannada, part Tamil and speaks neither, his rakhi sister (a festive tradition completely borrowed from the North) is part Punjabi, part Oriya, part Maharashtrian. They communicate in English and Hindi. My son once asked me after a discussion at school, “Mom, what state am I from?” It’s no longer a cliché to pat the kid on the head and say “We’re Indian”.

Obama is part Hawaiian, part African-American, part Caucasian, part Indonesian. And yet it has not stopped him from being the most definitive American this year. So how much does the region you belong to, really matter? And in this march towards being integrated Indians, how much of our regions do we carry with us? “People cling to tokens,” says Antara Dev Sen, daughter of Amartya Sen, and editor of the alternative The Little Magazine. “You see this in changing place names like Mumbai or Bengaluru. It’s political gesturing. It means nothing to people like us from Calcutta, if you call it Kolkata, because both identities exist maturely,” she says.

If RK Narayan’s Malgudi Days brings alive a fictional South Indian town to viewers across the country, irrespective of age and demographic, so does Arun Kolhatkar’s very Marathi Jejuri. And before Ram Gopal Varma’s Aag sank, it drew in viewers as much for Mohanlal, as it did for Bachchan.

How relevant is regionalism then today? When was the last time you flew a kite, thought dandiya was for Gujaratis only, or saw a street play in your mother tongue? It’s now about taking the best of all your worlds. Even everyday food has become pan-Indian. “I’m half Muslim and half Parsi,” says restaurateur and foodie Riyaaz Amlani. “I enjoy being both. But this growing regionality is the single largest threat to our nation. You are either 100 per cent Indian, or not!”

But rather than deny regionalism, mainstream India is gathering its regions in. The film industry is filled with those who came from near and far to find their fortune. Actor Dev Anand came from Lahore, “does that make me Pakistani? India made me what I am,” he says. Director Sriram Raghavan is a Tamilian from Pune, doling out slice-of-Mumbai-life thrillers like Johnny Gaddar.

“Regional cinema like Vaalu has done great business, budgets are increasing and you can catch a Malayalam movie in a multiplex,” he points out. Actor Nandita Das, who has spanned regional films, explains, “It is possible to be rooted as well as just Indian. With the growing global village, the individual feels small, so he clings to an ‘identity’ given to him.”

In literature, The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction, edited by the US-born and educated Punjabi Rakesh Khanna, showcases crime writing — a genre absent in mainstream fiction — from small town writers. “Regional languages have cutting edge stuff,” says Khanna. And in couture, quiet revolutions are taking place. Designer Wendell Rodricks has returned to his roots in Goa.

He says, “Golawallahs and the weavers of Benares are kitschy tokens of India to the West, while true Indian craftsmen are being sourced by designers from Anna Sui to Chanel.” Designer Rohit Bal agrees that “regional craftsmen are the backbone of couture in India. But it does not work by couturiers regressing into villages. It is about bringing the regional up to the national and from there to the global.” The progression is towards a unified identity on all fronts.

And yet, it remains scratchy, as poet Gieve Patel puts it, “There are individual efforts, nothing I know of is giving regionalism momentum.” Tokenism is a clinging to turf by those who can’t make the transition.

Critic-poet-curator Ranjit Hoskote, says “I do not believe that anything like the ‘regional voice’ exists, except in the imagination of regionalists. The tragedy of India is culture turned into a mere pretext for the pursuit of a narrow, violent, and self-destructive politics of identity. Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu, Marathi, Malayalam and Kannada writers have been in the forefront of avant-garde tendencies, forming connections with ideological movements across the world. The idea of the regional voice is a chimera.”

Prahlad Kakkar, “quarter UP, quarter Maharashtrian, quarter Punjabi, quarter Dehra Ismail Khan” disagrees. “Political regionalism is valid because someone has to take responsibility for the turf. Respect the place you grow roots in. When the Iranians first landed on Gujarat shores, the king showed them a glass of milk and said, ‘It’s filled to the brim, where will you fit in?’ The Iranians took a spoonful of sugar, stirred it, and said ‘Like that’,” he says.

Politics views India as regions for votes. You are your constituency. Culture views an integrated Indian. Obama is proof the integrated man wins elections too. Is Raj Thackeray listening?

A joker’s tragedy!/ 9 Nov, 2008

If the films that best rock the box-office are laugh riots, you’d think star comedians — from Vinay Pathak to Boman Irani, Arshad Warsi to Paresh
Rawal — laugh all the way to the bank. But beneath the grease paint are worry lines.

“Three years ago, my cousin died in a motorcycle accident. I was devastated. I reached Ranchi and the media barricaded the car for bytes. I put on my dark glasses, and sat in the back seat, crying. That day I wished I wasn’t a comedian,” says Pathak.

Pathak’s just filed for divorce from wife Sonika Sahay in June, and Warsi’s fighting to save his sevenyear marriage to Maria Goretti. Both doting fathers, back-slapping friends, and known family men. And yet, both can’t stop smiling. At premieres, page 3 events, in TV bytes. And that’s ‘can’t’, as in ‘can’t afford to’. What’s it like to put on a mask you can’t take off? Pathak’s Dasvidanya, not even a comedy, is being perceived as one because of his presence. Says Pathak, “Being a public personality is a responsibility. People expect me to be funny. Even when I don’t make an effort, anything I say is construed as funny!”

Comedians have always dealt with immense social pressure to be funny all the time. Johnny Lever once said, “They will probably expect me to crack a joke at my funeral as well!” TV funny man Gaurav Gera is upset. “You don’t expect Emraan Hashmi to walk down the street kissing, do you? You saw Ehsaan Qureshi in Bigg Boss — one can’t be funny all the time!”

The result is comedians, like Gera, consciously move away from the tag. “I gravitated towards comedy because I’m naturally funny, but the pressure gets too much,” he admits. “A few years ago, I had just broken up and I couldn’t keep making myself smile anymore. I’ve worked to bring about the change from funnyman to actor.”

After Munnabhai, Warsi fought a lone battle to be recognised as an actor. “Being funny is taken too lightly,” he explained. “I want to go beyond the funny sidekick.” Friends say his need to constantly strike a balance was emotionally draining.

Clinical psychologist Shrradha Sidhwani explains, “Comedians smile even when collapsing inside. They don’t express negative emotions, and these fester. In this bid to keep laughing, you can lose yourself. But laughter can also be the best medicine.”

Take any of India’s greatest comedians — from Kishore Kumar to Govinda — and you’ll find mood swings, tempers and tantrums. The frustration of never being recognised enough? Lever asks, “Why does Jim Carrey command a diverse audience? His talent is showcased so beautifully by producers... Govinda is an awesome actor, but he can’t command the price of the Khans because he’s stereotyped.”

“You have to stop feeding the image,” says Pathak. Boman Irani plays villain, photographer, theatre artiste to add balance. But he also shrugs, “I want to die laughing!”

It would seem that the comedian’s gift is his laughter. And it is his burden too...

Shammi Kapoor: Enjoy the ride/ 30 Oct 2008

It was a summer I would never forget. We were at my sister-in-law (Mrs Krishna Raj Kapoor)’s maika. Her father was the then IGP of police of Rewas state.

Every year, bhabhiji would go to her maika and one of us would accompany her. That year, I went along. I had just passed my matric — I was around 16. It was very hot, so her younger brother Rajendranath, who later went on to become one of my closest friends and who acted with me in many films — and I would go swimming. We would jump into the wild river with one of those broad tyres and swim for a good two hours. That is how I learned to swim.

Every day at 6 am, police horses would be brought to the house for Rajendranath to go riding. When I was there, one was sent for me too. It is very tough to ride a police horse, especially when you are a light boy of 16. But we would go riding across the plains. On one of our rides, there was an Alsatian dog that began to chase us. The horses started to run. While Rajendranath veered to the other side, I went down a steep gully which turned out to be a dead end. I went flying over the head of my horse and smashed onto the top of the barricade at the end. I must have passed out for a few minutes.

Someone shooed away the dog, and I regained my senses. I stood up, took the reins of the horse, and even it, I’m sure, thought I was going to lead it back home. But I clearly remember what I did next. I put my foot in the stirrups, and mounted the horse again. And I rode him back to the house.

The incident has stayed with me all my life — life is full of falls, but the important thing is to get back on the horse and ride it again. If you develop a fear of failure, you will never really learn anything.

The first lesson of fame is always humility. But I never understand it when people try to act shy of, or deny, their achievements. I feel very proud of my achievements. Just the other day, I was watching Junglee on one of my iPods, and I saw the part where I slid down the snow slope in a song, and I felt so proud of myself , because the director had not asked me to do that. Enjoying and accepting fame is as important as being humble.

I am also always curious to accept change. When there’s a new car, I’m the first to go and open up the carburetor. When there’s a new musical instrument, I want to know how it works. My niece, Ritu (Nanda) brought a computer home in 1988. I was determined to get one just like it at a time when it was only available to defence establishments. And it became my hobby. I was completely self-taught. The Times of India once said of me, ‘When the mouse came to Shammi’s hand, the cigarette flew out.’ It’s true. I stopped smoking, drinking. I started learning, thinking. Showbiz today is so competitive. Because it’s all about the money.

Shah Rukh is the best, so he’s the richest. When Mr Bachchan doesn’t have a film here, he will take a troupe and tour other countries. And the endorsements...! But, never forget that whatever you spend money on, no matter how many girls in bikinis you put on screen, the script and good dialogues — that is the core of the movie.

The most important thing in life to me was my wife, Geeta Bali. She died at the wrong time. I was at the peak of my career, starting a new innings with Nasir Hussain. She had no business dying when she did. But with bad comes good. Towards the end of my career, came my wife Neela. I had known her all my life. I would travel to Bhavnagar with my father’s troupe and she and her family would come to watch. Then, years later they shifted to Vile Parle and I watched her grow up. Nasir and I would go to her house and sit with her father and talk shikaar. Life always comes full circle.

(As told to Gayatri)

The Other Side / Sep 7, 2008/ Times Life

The other side
7 Sep 2008, 0600 hrs IST, Gayatri, TNN
The man is more often than not forgiven an extra-marital affair, and the wife assumes martyr status. Where does that leave the Other Woman...


To the Other Woman of long standing, to borrow a line from Germaine Greer, watching society’s efforts to deny her existence is amusing. Angelina Jolie trots around the world collecting children in a do-gooding publicity blitz to wipe the memory of her home-breaking affair. Senator John Edwards smiles and is forgiven by a cancer-stricken wife who turns martyr for his campaign. The mistress becomes a ‘mistake’. And Carla Bruni almost makes it as a poster girl, until the too-socially-perfect a marriage to forgo happened.

The Delhi High Court considers the mistress equal to the wife in matters of domestic violence, but society still has its nose in the air. Shobhaa De, Pooja Bedi, Smriti Irani all distance themselves from even commenting. Other Women take the rap in Suchitra Krishnamoorthi’s rants on infidelity, on the cover of a society magazine pointing fingers at a silenced socialite Queenie Dhody, in Rani Mukerji’s professional isolation and self-imposed silence. Men dally and women take the blame. Hasn’t it always been that way?

When Shakespeare died, he left his wife Ann Hathaway only his ‘second best bed’ in his will. And who knows where the original went! But why go so far? The Other Woman remains embedded in Indian culture; in the harems of the Mughals, the erudite Bengali babu’s sonagachi of the 1800s and in the Tamil Brahmin’s chinna veedu. Mistresses were beautiful, talented, seductive magnets of men, and inescapably sidelined until they entered mainstream marriage.

At least those who were lucky did. Indian filmdom has pointed its finger at everyone from Waheeda Rehman to Madhubala, Rekha’s Silsila, Sridevi’s wait for respectability, and Hema Malini’s refusal to even pose for photographs with Dharmendra.

What motivates an affair? “Well the sex is amazing, I’m taken care of, and I have my parallel life. It’s fun without family,” says Sneha Upadhyay, a 34-year-old IT expert. She won’t extricate herself, though her partner’s wife is currently pregnant. “I don’t crave the stability his marriage has. If he gave it to me, I would run. My friends say I am in denial,” she says, “I think they’re denying I can be happy this way.” As Maureen Dowd phrases it, “Men are necessary not because we need them, but because we want them. It’s nice. Like an ice-cream or something.”

The man on his part treats his Other Woman as he would never treat his wife — international holidays, a penthouse, diamonds, flowers, and tenderly calling her the love of his life. The stuff of fantasies.

Suchitra Krishnamoorthi, who most famously accused Priety Zinta of being a part of ex-husband Shekhar Kapoor’s life, questions the role of the man in an affair on her blog. “Is forgiveness a virtue? The new-age man has to apologise or be damned. So he did. He became a martyr to his hormones. Would it not have been more honest for him to say I did it so what?” she says, referring to Edwards.

Prahlad Kakkar though says men in affairs are the wimps. “Very few men in affairs have the spine to give the Other Woman the option of moving on. Most pretend its leading somewhere,” says Kakkar adding, “He’s not going to jeopardise respectability for a potential soulmate. Women fall into the trap when the man lagaos the miserable three lines — I need you.”

But why presume that men are seduced beyond their will? A page 3 hostess admits, “It’s the married men who are angling for an affair. It takes a special kind of woman to sustain an affair and still be on the social circuit. To accept being sidelined, people’s glances... It’s not for the faint of heart my dear,” she says adding, “I would run the other way.” “It’s not like the man is being kidnapped, drugged or stolen away,” says Rosa, once accused of being actor Saif Ali Khan’s Other Woman. “A lot of people see only what is outward. They don’t notice the home they’re accused of wrecking probably had its own reasons for falling apart. They only see the explosion. They see what follows and not what went before.”

Anil Dharker is happy to stand up for the Other Woman. “Would a man be called the Other Man? Never. It comes from thinking of women as more chaste beings. That women have sexual urges is a surprisingly new idea. That a woman initiates sex, wants an orgasm is odd. The Other Woman doesn’t have an easy time of it.”

“As long as there is marriage, there will be a mistress,” writes Victoria Griffin in The Other Woman. And as long as there is a mistress, may she find a voice.

Always a mistress, never a wife

I love him without a tag, freely. We find peace in knowing glances, shared moments, stolen sighs. Worrying if people would find out, what they’d say, was a fleeting instant of fear. We don’t need public acknowledgement. It’s been a year of constant bliss. There’s firmness to being the strength inside a man. I glow with secret love. I think a mistress is on par with the wife. We just own a side of a man she doesn’t. We are equals, with spaces in our togetherness.

We share joys without responsibilities, we console without being involved. There is a distance too because the relationship is fragile. On the other hand, wives and husbands go where I will never. We don’t discuss ‘their’ life much. Nobody knows about tomorrow so we each live more fully for today. Today, here and now, is all it’s about. We’re happy in our own ivory tower. One day, it will come crashing I suppose. Shrug. Tomorrow is another day.

Religion Page: SHEKHAR KAPUR/ Aug 12, 2006

‘We are born with spiritual understanding’
Gayatri Jayaraman
Saturday, August 12, 2006 21:22 IST

Film-maker Shekhar Kapur looks deep into his inner self, saying he can detach himself and question everything he does

You have become increasingly spiritual after Bandit Queen. Was there a turning point in your life?

I believe we are all born with a spiritual understanding. As children, we see the universe is born of Leela, and is at play. In order to comprehend society, we begin to edit out things that become confusing, and when the consciousness comes into conflict with the individual, ego is born.

Children are born into consciousness because their sense of the imaginary and the real is not distinct. Spirituality is as much a path of unlearning as it is of learning.

As a child I would sleep on my terrace in Delhi and, looking at the infiniteness of the stars my consciousness was split into a schizophrenic understanding of the dual—finite and infinite realities. I have always had to contend with the imagined. At 26, I wrote a half-novel that was never quite published on the theme. I have written short stories and poems to express it. All my films are linked by the theme of loss of innocence. It is a sense that has been accelerated because I don’t quite understand the society in which I live.

Your spiritual poetry and writings reflect thoughts on your daughter. What’s been her impact on you?

As a father, I have come to recognise the unconditional love I feel for my daughter. It expands beyond her and in the process it de-crusts my soul.

When you experience love like that, your soul becomes flexible. It begins to shake and dance and flow and the crust that has formed over it through time begins to crumble. The debris shakes off. Maybe I want to leave her something to know me by when she grows up.

What do you live by? What spiritual urges channel your creativity?

What has shaped me is agony. You agonise, you act, you succeed, you fail, and through that agony you question the existence of reality, of desire, of joy. For me, it is necessary to drop individuality.

I find my individuality is my greatest prison. Who I am is shaped by the context in which I am placed. I question who I am when pulled out of context. The answer to that is out of context, I’m not.

Are you running from the context in which you were—Bollywood?

No, I will not, have not withdrawn. At the end of the day we all need that context to be. I am human, not a saint. I live in a way that many would term ‘immoral’.

The difference is that I am able to detach myself and question everything that I do. Spirituality does not make one a better person. The assumption of one being a better person is in itself a victory of the ego.

And how does this newfound understanding of consciousness impact you?

Consciousness is nothing more than a state of being. It has no purpose, unlike everything we imbibe with it.

Do you separate you, the director from you, the self, and your achievements?

People talk of the Big Bang. If there was a beginning, there must be an end. But there is no linear time, so where is the end? I call it the Big Laugh. Someone laughed ‘ha, ha ha’ And between the first and the second ‘ha’s, came a few billion years.

What I create has an identity that is separate from what I am. There are some who, instead of creating, block creation by their being. I find it important to allow creation to flow through me. Masoom, Bandit Queen, Mr India, they all exist with identities of their own.

How big an influence is Deepak Chopra?
I read no books, I follow no gurus, I visit no temples. Deepak Chopra is a friend, but I’ve never read a book of his.

He’s an amazing guy, he can quote you masters on any subject. He gave me the confidence that I was not mad. That it wasn’t me. It was others who didn’t get it.

Have you found a path that works best?
I have no answers. All I have are questions, and more questions, and more questions. This universe is Shiv’s tandav, the dance of unorganised chaos-spewing creation and destruction randomly as it is danced.

When you give in to the chaos, maybe, just maybe, you bring yourself into harmony with the unpredictable.

EDIT PAGE INTERVIEW: James Laine: I don't Apologise/ Jan 14, 2006

‘No. I am not apologising for the books’
Gayatri Jayaraman
Saturday, January 14, 2006 21:35 IST

The books 'Shivaji: Hindu King in Islamic India' and 'The Epic of Shivaji' have been banned by the Mahrasthra government after descendants of Shivaji protested. The scholarship of the author James W Laine has been trashed and there are now demands that he be extradited. Laine, a professor of religious studies in the US candidly fields Gayatri Jayaraman’s questions on freedom of speech and historical perspectives.

Your first book Hindu King was banned in 2004 and the second, actually a precursor, was banned recently. Was the first work available all this while with no controversy? How do you react to the bans?

Yes, it has been available in India since 2001. The precursor is primarily an English translation of a Sanskrit epic poem Shivaji himself commissioned (the Shivabharata). Since it is the work of a court poet and its sole purpose was to glorify Shivaji, it’s hard to see why it would be controversial. Given the second controversy, one can see how people might interpret the first book in the same light. I understand that the cause for offense was the use of the word “oedipal”. I used the word to highlight the father-son conflict theme rather evident in the text, but it was taken as an explicit comparison to mythical Greek hero Oedipus.

You had apologised for inadvertent controversy, but are you apologising for writing the books or for theories and facts in them?

No, I am not apologising for the books. Both are honest works of scholarship not intended to be offensive to anyone. If it were my intention to defame Shivaji, why would I translate a 340 page text the sole purpose of which was to glorify Shivaji?

Marathi scholar Bhalchandrarao Patwardhan challenges some of your facts and refutes your theories. How do you respond?

These critiques assume that my primary purpose was to re-write the history of Shivaji, whereas the purpose was to understand the forces that shape the way the stories are told. I am interested in how historical, and some not-so-historical ‘facts’ are shaped into a morality tale. I don’t believe Patwardhan ever took seriously its real purpose. One notes his lengthy refutation of the idea that Shahji was not Shivaji’s biological father. I never made such a claim which a careful reading of the book would make clear.

The reason I wrote “unthinkable thoughts” was because I believed the impulse to read the story as a patriotic tale or a religious morality tale is so strong, it becomes impossible to get into a different frame of mind. So I am not surprised some critics still reject the work so vehemently. Please note that no critic writing for a peer-reviewed academic publication has attacked the book.

Who did you meet in the course of research—other scholars, descendants who protested? Were they aware of your earlier book and the research? Why did the protest not erupt in the research phase?

Since some people who helped me with Marathi or Sanskrit had to later take police protection, I cannot mention names. During the research phase, I was more concerned with gathering data than with analysis. It is my analysis that has caused controversy. Except for a few scholars who understood the nature of my inquiry, most people in India assumed my work was an act of devotion rather than an exercise in critical scholarship.

You mentioned you hoped for debate and criticism, not condemnation. Since the first controversy has your work ever been academically challenged? Have facts contradicting yours emerged? Do you accept or refute them?

There is one area where I believe my work is flawed. Although I discuss the writing of Mahatma Phule, in light of recent conflicts, I see I underestimated the continuing influence of his critique of brahmin bias in writing about Shivaji. I am of course accused of colluding in that bias, a fact I vehemently deny. Otherwise, I think it has held up pretty well.

Has your reading of the history suffered for a lack of understanding of the cultural environment as alleged? Were you an outsider looking in?

I do not believe in framing things as insiders and outsiders. Clearly the big fight is between brahmins and Marathas. Both are “insiders.” I got caught up in this fight and became a convenient target. I wrote the book for other scholars, Indian and non-Indian. Within that community, the book has been well-received. Criticisms have come from a different audience who never accepted the scholarly premises.

Does history change according to perspective? Or is cultural context crucial to its interpretation?

Of course. History is always a story. The big issue is not simply the recording of facts, but the way they are used in a narrative. My real interest is in reflecting on the nature of that narrative and its motivations. Is it to inspire devotion? Serve the nation state? Criticise a particular religion or group? These are in a sense second-order questions, but perhaps the all-important ones, nonetheless.

What expectations did you have for your work in Indian scholarly circles? Surely, you must have foreseen it would make waves?

I hoped it would receive a respectful response and it did. Traditional scholarship was an act of following one’s guru, and transmitting ancient knowledge faithfully. Modern scholarship is about creative new responses, “making waves.” One hopes to “make waves.” One does not, however, hope to be banned, indicted or cause acts of violence.

How have the bans impacted your perception of India/Maratha culture and history? Do you continue your research in this field?

Yes. I no longer concentrate on Maharashtra as I do not foresee a time when I can research there. My Marathi gets rustier by the day. But I will always been interested in India.

Do you think controversy has actually helped stir interest in this field of study?

Unfortunately, there has been more heat than light. Of course, now scholars realise it is unwise to research any subject related to Shivaji.

There have been calls for your extradition and arrest. Do you fear for your safety and your research?

I have received threats and thus would not visit India, but otherwise I do not fear harm. I have re-oriented my research to broader themes that do not require fieldwork in India.

Your view on the practice of banning in democratic societies?

Scholarship depends on the free exchange of ideas and book banning would be intolerable in the USA.

What’s your next book on?

I am working on the relationship of religion and politics in the context of empires. It begins with reflections on Mauryan Emperor Ashoka.

Tamil Brahmins are the new minority/ May 21, 2006, DNA

Gayatri Jayaraman
Sunday, May 21, 2006 00:13 IST

Mumbai: “The only person in the state to oppose reservations and to insist no new categories be added to it is me, and I have no takers” says Cho Ramaswamy, journalist and political commentator.

“Forget Jayalalithaa, even a paper like the Hindu will never oppose reservations in this state because the minority - the forward classes - have no voice.”

The reason behind the success of reservation in the state, he says, is its brilliant use as a political tool to sway the majority vote bank and the ‘pathetic state’ of the minority community.

“Reservations in Tamil Nadu have been in place seen pre-independence from the time of the justice party. Hence the electorate is accustomed to it more than any other state,” he says. All political parties in Tamil Nadu support reservation without opposition.

Very few statistics are available on the state of the ‘forward community’ in Tamil Nadu. P V Indiresan, a Padma Bhushan awardee and former director of IIT Chennai, says, “I am in Delhi because of the reservations in Tamil Nadu. My immediate family and of those I know have all migrated from Tamil Nadu to other states or other countries and will never return.”

On December 27, 2005, the Tamil Brahmin Association, headed by N Narayan, submitted a proposal before the state government seeking 15 per cent reservation for Brahmins in educational and governmental institutions.

Nothing, not unexpectedly, came of it.In Tamil Nadu, Backward Castes (BC) get 30 per cent reservation in educational institutions, Most Backward Castes (MBC) 20; Scheduled Castes (SC) 18; and Scheduled Tribes (ST) one per cent. The 1,224 medical seats then get divided into 354 for BCs; 247 for MBCs; 226 for SCs; and 13 for STs.

The rest of the 384 seats are allowed as open competition, where everyone competes, regardless of community. In 2005, the final tally released by the Directorate of Medical Education indicates only 28 students from the `non-reserved’ or Forward Caste (FC) have got into government medical colleges, representing about 2.3 per cent.

Are Brahmins a minority in the state and should reservations be extended to them? “Brahmins were always a minority,” points out Prakash, a financial analyst in a leading multinational firm.

“Their focus was always on education. So when they were denied that, they just left and began to find it elsewhere.” While few grudge the righting of a historical wrong, many fear the lack of educational opportunity will shut the door on them.

EXCLUSIVE MAIN EDITION LEAD: Wardrobe Malfunctions: Accident or Design? April 02, 2006

Gayatri Jayaraman
Sunday, April 02, 2006 01:37 IST

MUMBAI: Underneath the clothes is a seamy story. Fashion’s biggest week ripped to reveal more than flashes of bosom and derriere — MMS clips, blame game, and rumours of publicity stunts.

Police chief AN Roy denied receiving an official complaint, but ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ on three successive days of the Lakme Fashion Week brought the event under a cloud. Turn to p18

“It’s hard to rule out a publicity stunt,” said Pradeep Hirani of Kimaya, a key Indian buyer. “But then a friend from Norway saw it on the news. It’s put Indian fashion on the map. If they can have a Janet Jackson, we can have ours.”

While all lauded the models’ grace under fire, some weren’t too sure about the designers. “The designer-model relationship is one of trust,” said designer Lascelles Symons. “A new model might begin to distrust her designer, wondering if rumours are true.”

Symons, who himself started out as a model, said he does not know how to make it up to Gauhar Khan, who was modelling his skirt when the zipper came undone. “I asked her to stop by my store and pick up a dress,” he said. “But she’s afraid the media would make something of her coming to the store. So she said she’d rather have it sent to her place.”

Khan was livid at being caught on camera. The MMS clips doing the rounds have just made it worse. “It’s not the designers who are doing this to me, it’s the media,” she fumed. “Designers have mothers and sisters and wouldn’t do this to me. Some said I didn’t wear underwear. Don’t they know models wear thongs?”

Designer Narendra Kumar believes such incidents are not good publicity and only reflect bad workmanship. “If it is a publicity stunt, it’s very wrong,” he said.

Nevertheless, designers in Delhi are jittery. “The designers showing on day one have been told to pull in the celebrities after Bollywood walked the Mumbai ramp,” said a member of the Fashion Design Council of India.

Women Criminals on the rise?/ Sept 17, 2005, DNA

They're more victims than criminals
Gayatri Jayaraman, DNA News
It will never quite be the same to be a woman in Mumbai again. Sharmila, Amishi, Preeti, and Tarannum have, perhaps, forever changed whatever little the inelegant ladies storming railway compartments at peak hour did not.

A diploma holder in advanced computing, Tarannum Khan is the latest to be thrust into the limelight. A little over a year ago it was Sharmila Shanbag, the first ever Indian woman to be extradited from Germany with an Interpol Red Corner notice. In between, came the elitist Amishi Vaish (who kidnapped Vaibhav Agarwal, the 16-year-old son of Mumbai-based stock broker Ramdev Agarwal), and the bewildering Preetii Jaiin (who is alleged to have paid a 'supari' to the underworld to murder film director Madhur Bhandarkar).

This could well have a little bit of history. In 1975, feminist theorist Freda Adler in her 'Sisters in Crime' stated her belief that the 1970's second wave of feminism consequently coincided with a 'dramatic' upsurge in women's criminal activity. Has the wave caught up with Mumbai, too?

Prayas director Vijay Raghavan, a field action project of TISS and one of the few NGOs working for women prisoners within state prisons, differs. "I wouldn't correlate it quite so simplistically, but it is symptomatic of the social migration of women. It is said society creates crime, and individuals commit it. Crime is a complete economic system. There is a demand for it and hence there is supply." Hence, he says, there is little logic to projecting Tarannum as a criminal in a society of which she is probably also a victim.
"Any marginalised community may rise against its oppressors to get even, but that does not erase the facts of its marginalisation," points out a feminist voice - filmmaker Madhushree Dutta.

"Let's not forget that though Preetii Jaiin and Tarannum are being painted as criminals now, the fact remains that both were victims." Preetii, an alleged victim of the casting couch, in itself a huge crime, and Tarannum of the exploitation of sexuality by bookies and bar life. Crimes that both attempted to control, but failed. Both remain pawns in the system they fight.

"The media is extremely harsh to women in crime. Their motives are sought and held up to scrutiny, but few ever question the social process behind it," says Raghavan. Working for over 15 years, he has derived that the dividing line is not between the women with economic motives and those without, but rather the social migration of women with or without support.

"The woman with support remains protected by the system despite its apparent inequalities, but the one who breaks away, whether an educated woman who needs to assert individualism, or an economically backward one who needs to fend for her family, also moves away from the protection that the family, typically the male domain, provides. In this process, the woman is more prone to negative influences."
Raghavan believes that women thrust or 'liberated' into supportless social situations, often have little actual choice in the matter. "A woman with no social support becomes dependent on the relationships she builds in the process of social migration. Being active in taking charge of their lives, these women were often exploited by the relationships they built with the people, such as middlemen, who allowed them to break away, and socially migrate. Women in such situations tend to think 'even if I have nothing else, at least I'm making money' and they hold onto that until the social support they hope for, most often in the form of a dependable man, who may or may never come their way."

Raghavan still believes crime essentially remains a man's domain. "Despite all the hype, let's not forget that women commit only 5% of the crime in Mumbai and probably only 1 to 2% of that in other places.

Rape Law biased against men?/ 18/5/2006

Rape law biased against men? [DNA News]

‘Solution does not lie in dismissing the law or taking away its teeth’

Gayatri Jayaraman

Rajesh Ahire, brother of Kamlesh Ahire, a 21-year-old gymnast falsely accused of rape by an infatuated teenager, who served nine days in jail, is still under medication and counselling for trauma. He can answer no questions, trembles with fear at the memory, and pleads to be left alone. His brother’s good looks, muscular physique and Olympic ambitions, he says have changed his close-knit lower middle class family forever.
On April 3, 2006, Sunil More was convicted of the rape of a middle class college student and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Twenty-seven witnesses, identities closely guarded and well protected by a police force under severe media and public scrutiny, undoubtedly contributed to this conviction. On October 19, 2005, barely a few months after the Marine Drive rape case, a 15-year-old ragpicker was raped, also by a police constable, Chandrakant Pawar, also in Mumbai. Soon forgotten by the media, justice is yet to be done in the second case.
Given the circumstances, is the Supreme Court ruling placing the woman’s word in a case of rape as truth beyond the pale of medical evidence a loose cannon against the innocent, or an overdue sword against the guilty? Some fear misuse of the law just as, they claim, IPC 498a, has been misused. Save India Family Foundation, launched from Silicon Valley and with a large subscription of harassed techies, petitions against 498a and hails the July 20, 2005, Supreme Court Bench decision that warns against ‘legal terrorism’. Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice HK Sema said “Dowry law is a shield, not an assassin’s weapon…. The court would like to go on record that for noting that educated women are approaching the courts for divorce and resorting to proceedings against in-laws under section 498a IPC, implicating not only the husbands but also their family members whether in India or abroad. This is nothing but misuse of the beneficial provision intended to save the women from unscrupulous husbands.”
Bikram Jeet Batra, legal officer of Amnesty International India, reacting to the judgement observed “The solution does not lie in dismissing the law or taking away its teeth completely by making it compoundable and bailable,” and professed Amnesty’s support for the law.
According to the National Bureau of Crime statistics, 58,121 cases were booked under 498a in 2005, an increase of 14% over the previous year. Compare that to the same report’s 1,54,333 cases of crime against women for the same period. According to the State Crime Records Bureau, “One rape occurs in the state every six hours.” Given the statistics, the ruling must surely be welcomed?
Veena Gowda, women’s right activist and lawyer dismisses concerns. “Every law is abused to an extent, 498A is highlighted because it aids women. And if you look at the statistics of how many women die within marriages, are beaten up, sexually abused, and compare that to the number of 498A cases filed, you’ll find it is underused, not misused.” What this ruling offers women in a world where a report is often treated with disbelief, she says, is an assurance that shoddy medical examinations and the absurd excuse of lack of witnesses-rapes don’t occur in public view, but in private spaces-will no longer delay or banish justice.
Harish Sadani, of Men Against Violence, who worked closely with Kamlesh, is glad for the justice the Supreme Court ruling will bring to abused women, after all MAVA was founded on the premise of 498 A, to include men in the solution. “But even gender-sensitive lawyers are getting sceptical of 498A now and advise male clients to apply for anticipatory bail,” he points out. “498A has been misused. It is essential to end the character assassination that a woman who cries rape is subjected to, but it is also necessary to guard against misuse of the law. It is not desirable to depend solely on her views,” he warns.

Prayas report labels bar girls 'human trafficking'

Tuesday, September 20, 2005 12:41:00 AM
Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo must be obtained from DNA.
Prayas report labels bar girls ‘human trafficking’
Gayatri Jayaraman
Think about it. You're a single woman, with two kids in primary school. An HR consultant gives you a job, takes large chun
should you not be as beautiful as some of your colleagues, and the job gives you grief. You'd quit? According to a new repor
just couldn't.
Crorepati bar girl Tarannum is fast becoming unrepresentative of the mass of women in the business, states a field action r
by Prayas, a field action group of Tata Institute of Social Sciences and one of the few NGOs working directly with prison cells.
The report spent the last six months studying bar girls at the Protective Home for Women, Chembur, the Kalyan prison, the S
Home for Minor Girls, Deonar, at bars and in their homes. The study examined entry processes, socio-economic situations,
and alternatives after the ban.
Vijay Raghavan, director of the project, squarely calls the business “trafficking”, claiming it fits the definition of the term
Protocol of 2002, key being the exploitation of a person in 'a position of vulnerability'.
"The findings of our study illustrate that these were not women who went into this business out of choice. We recommend th
taken against middlemen. The women urgently needed to be provided night shelters — they are very vulnerable now," he said

Attack of the greens/ Nov 12, 2005

Saturday, November 12, 2005 7:56:00 PM

Permission to reprint or copy this article or photo must be obtained from DNA INDIA.

The attack of the greens

Gayatri Jayaraman

Hira Ratan Manek, a mechanical engineer and spice trader from Kerala took inspiration from Jainism, Greek, Egyptian and
native American philosophies, to develop a method of sun gazing. Since June 18 1995, 68-year-old Manek claims to have
lived purely on the energy of the sun and water with occasional tea, coffee and buttermilk in addition to ayurvedic medicines.
Much researched by medical communities in India and the US, Manek has spawned a following of sun gazers across the world.
While Manek may be extreme, he is indicative of a new breed of food followers that are bringing in a back-to-basics food
movement that has evolved from the manic, panicked vegetarian, plagued by FDA rulings. Tired of agonising over crushed
bone powder he firmly believes makes his chapati ka atta softer, the vegetarian has upped and decided to evolve by develop
his own stream. Whether for religious, animal welfare or plain health reasons, the evolving sects have spread from the by-
now common vegan, to the pesco vegetarian, the paleo dietarian, the rawist, the fruitarian, and the monotheistic instincto,
lacto ovarian, to name a few.
“The food markings and health diets are all fads,” says Laxmi Venkatraman, a school teacher who eats all vegetables partially-
steamed and eats only fruit until noon and after 6 pm, is a little bewildered by the markings on her tea powder, certifying it as
100% vegetarian, “These things make people panic. It’s best to use pure whole grains and ingredients that one is sure of.”
“This panic is unnecessary if one is led by what is right and the truth from the ecological, ethical, spiritual, and religious point
of view,” says nutritionist and fruitarian Vijaya Venkat, who runs the Health Awareness Centre. “All you need is biorhythmic
food, food that is in rhythm with your body and the world around you. Your needs are met by fruits, vegetables, nuts and
pulses.”
Pushpa Subramaniam, a follower who personalised the regime, is a sworn fruitarian. “It is sometimes not possible for me to
follow it all year round, but even with a 50 per cent adherence, no one in my household ever falls ill. When I do, I just lie
down and stick to fruits and that takes care of me. Pushpa propagates these views through occasional seminars or workshops
at the Sri Guruji Academy of Arts, and firmly believes such diets shape one’s personality and improve social welfare.
Such thinking harkens back to the Paleolithic age, when the first fruitarians or phalaharis, typified by the exiled prince Ram, is
said to have survived on forest fruit and nuts. This gave rise to a small sect of sadhus known as Ramanandis, who still follow
the diet. Dudhaharis are those who survive only on water.
In The Story of My Experiments With Truth, Gandhi details his beliefs; “It is my firm conviction that man need take no milk at
all, beyond the mother”s milk that he takes as a baby. His diet should consist of nothing but sunbaked fruits and nuts. He can
secure enough nourishment from fruits like grapes and nuts like almonds. Restraint of the sexual and other passions becomes
easy for a man who lives on such food.” Paleliothic groups in the West follow diets that involve even raw meats, fashioned in
the palate of paleolithic men.
In India, however, the back-to-basics vegetarian is still thinking about, and eliminating, certain food choices while deciding
how vegetarian to be. Fifity-five-year-old Chandru Wadhwa is an ovo-lactarian, a vegetarian who eats eggs. “Eggs are crucial
in building health and stamina,” he says. “Other meats are unnecessary and involve taking a life.” Chadru believes that some
of the benefits of being on top of the food chain are to use nature for one’s benefit without exploiting it.
Pesco-vegetarians, for instance, include the fish eating communities of India. As Karen Gelliger, president, University of Texas
Pesco-vegetarian Society, puts it, “Fish are the least-tampered-with meat form. Unlike other meats, they are not farmed or
force fed.”
But Mumbai’s first experimental vegan restaurant, Nosh, that was to introduce Mumbai to the exotica of vegetarian cuisine,
had a premature demise. The trend then, is still shy of populism, but remains a highly personalised and stylised back to
basics movement.

Perils of vigilance: A whistle-blower dies / NOV 24, 2005

Thursday, November 24, 2005 11:40:00 PM

Gayatri Jayaraman
DNA

MUMBAI: Struggling to express their grief, shock, despair and hope, students and alumni of the IIMs have taken to mailing,
blogging, calling, talking. A silence march was held at the IIM Lucknow mess on November 24, and elegies have been
incessantly pouring in, on alumni e-groups and blogs, condemning the murder of Manjunath, India's second martyr whistle-
blower.
Fondly remembered as Machan, the affable singer carried a certain warmth that suited his role as an active secretary of the
IIM Lucknow MBA batch of 2002. He cheered some up, gave others a dose of reality, and always did his job well. Possibly
this, more than anything else, made his assailants pump six bullets into the 27-year-old sales manager. Online, the shock
totters on despair. "Sad, but this is what our system has cultivated. One honest officer trying to do his job in the right way
becomes the victim of the very system he is trying to protect," says one sympathiser.
"It begins from why the gas has to be adulterated. Why the owners are so desperate about losing their license? Why Manju's
repeated recommendations didn't ring a bell in the hierarchy up at IOC? Should IIML have a separate elective for 'soft-skills'
for a sales role? These are few of the bigger questions that Manju's death imposes on us. Working towards them is one of the
ways we can pay respect to Manju," said the Remembering Manjunath blog. As the news spread, shocked peers called up
DNA. "We need to make a noise about it, so his death won't be in vain," was a common refrain.
Vikas Mantri of SBI Capital Markets was Manjunath's junior and considered him a mentor while at college. He met him last at
the IIM alumni meet 2004 and is ridden with guilt that he didn't pay much attention to the threats Manjunath was receiving
even then. "He was being offered large sums of money to clear inspections, he spoke of adulteration, of the hardships at a
PSU, and about the financial and political clout these dealers wielded. He received rude warnings, but I didn't know it would
lead to this." Beneath all the apparent despair and shock is a thirst for justice and change. "The one fallout is students will
now be wary of taking up jobs in such geographies," warns Shah.
Online community unites to get justice
Quick to react to Manjunath's murder, his friends from IIM Lucknow, Sri Jayachamarajendra Engineering College, Mysore and
other IIMs are participating in a signature campaign to seek justice.
The online community of his friends and well-wishers has expressed their support for a petition addressed to the Prime
Minister seeking independent inquiry into the murder. The signature count on the petition site has been fast increasing. At 12
noon on Thursday, it had 243 signatures and by 7 pm the number had touched the 800 mark.
Created by Manjunath's college friend Chandrashekar Ramanan, who is based in the US, the online community also urges
organisations like IOC to ensure the safety of their officers. IIM-Lucknow director Devi Singh told DNA he too supports the
petition.