WEEKLY EDITION 2.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2015

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SLICE OF LIFE

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Our wate,
our responsibility

November 19 was World Toilet

Day and the country is abuzz with
Swachh Bharat slogans, but none
of this will make any impact
unless we get rid of old,
Brahminical notions of purity and
pollution, says Avinash Kumar
institutionalised to inculcate the idea of
the individual taking responsibility for
the safe disposal of the waste produced by
defecating in the open. But this also
means that the government must ensure
that the poor, who still cant afford basic
housing (whether in rural or urban areas), are not penalised for open defecation by this logic of citizens
accountability unless they are included
within a broader umbrella where such
basic services are provided for them by
the government.
In fact, even people who use a flushable
toilet need to be told that there is no
guarantee that the waste they create is
being safely disposed of at the end of the
sanitation cycle. A recent Faecal Management Study conducted by WaterAid India
finds that New Delhi, with the best sewage treatment capacity in the country, is
at present able to treat only about 60 per
cent of the total sewerage being produced, leaving 40 per cent untreated in
the open environment. In essence, it
would not be wrong to suggest that 40 per
cent of Delhis population indirectly defecates in the open. The challenge is to
create a narrative of responsibility and
awareness around this.
While state accountability is undoubtedly a part of it, citizen accountability,
especially of the well-off sections, needs
to be addressed. In this context, the story
of the sanitation drive in 19th century
London needs to be redesigned and redisseminated in India. It was only after
the elite began to be badly impacted by
cholera epidemics in London that they
began to take the issue of sanitation and
hygiene seriously. The narrative of a campaign, therefore, needs to weave in both
the rich and the poor in a role of common
responsibility and complementarity to
ensure the larger health of the society.
The Swachh Bharat Mission would merely provide an entry point to this.
At the policy level, the government
needs to invest adequately in behavioural
change. Ironically, the present government has cut down the budget ratio for
this from 15 per cent to a meagre 8 per
cent. But even that small amount rarely
gets utilised due to a hardware-obsessed
bureaucracy. Similarly, 60-70 per cent of
the budget earmarked to rehabilitate
manual scavengers is returned unutilised
every year because it is on nobodys
priority list. And the business of cleaning
up someone elses waste continues unabated.
While all of us need not start digging
into decomposed waste like Prof. Chambers did, we do need to know that our
responsibility for our waste does not end
once it leaves our bodies, but actually
begins then. We need to ensure that it is
disposed of in a safe, humane and sustainable manner. Only then can we claim full
purity of our souls, homes and environs.
Avinash Kumar is Director of
Programmes & Policy at WaterAid India.

ILLUSTRATION: SATWIK GADE

As Swachh Bharat slogans buzz around

us, many scholars warn that this missions fate will be similar to previous
experiments such as Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan and Total Sanitation Campaign if
primacy is not given to changing hygiene
behaviour rather than to merely meet
toilet construction targets.
Last years SQUAT report showed
clearly that most Indians continue to
believe in perverse notions of purity and
pollution driven by rigid Brahminical
ideas wherein polluting the external environment is taken for granted while homes
are kept clean by not building or using
toilets indoors. As long as this mindset
continues, the idea of a clean India
cannot materialise.
This is the reason why the issue of open
defecation must be opened up, public
conversations created around it, and collective action initiated. The situation is
ironic because the act of defecation is
kept outside the home, thus attempting to
hide it, but by defecating outside people
are exposing themselves in public.
The real idea of purity and pollution
must be linked to healthy living and

Scholars have warned that if Swachh Bharat does not focus on changing
hygiene behaviour, it may go the way of previous campaigns that focussed on
meeting toilet construction targets. In the picture, a resident sweeps around
a toilet in Hirmathala village, Mewat district, Haryana. PHOTO: AFP
physical and mental wellbeing. This puts
diarrhoeal deaths, malnutrition and
stunted growth at the forefront and
makes safe sanitary conditions primary.
Second, the message needs to be driven in
that it is not someone elses responsibility
to clean your waste, but your own.
A recent news report told a horrifying
story of a young Dalit boy being asked to
clean up a schoolmates excreta. Manual
scavenging persists, despite laws banning
it. All of it is due to the age-old notion of
individual purity being maintained by the
labour of others. A recent paper by JNU
scholar Amit Thorat and the Rice Institutes Dean Spears talks of how our
sanitation habits are deeply rooted in
caste and untouchability practices.
One way to address this would be to
ensure the presence and participation of
Dalits and other communities, who have

CM
YK

been exploited as societys cleaners, in

the decision making at each level. They
must be a part of mandated decisionmaking bodies such as Village Water and
Sanitation Committees, District Water
and Sanitation Missions/ Committees
and State Water and Sanitation Missions
so that they can influence sanitation planning, implementation and monitoring.
Could the marketplace provide some
answers? For this, it is worth looking at
some examples of how companies have
transformed consumers into responsible
customers. Today, a McDonalds customer collects the food, pays for it, consumes
it and then disposes of the waste. Similarly, travellers taking flights are increasingly buying tickets, doing self check-ins
and carrying their luggage on their own.
While a McDonalds may follow this
method to cut costs, the logic could be

cover

arly in September
this year, the legendary Prof. Robert
Chambers visited a
village in Uttar Pradesh to survey the
progress
of
the
Swachh Bharat Mission. In one home, he
went down on his knees and put his hand
in literally to inspect the contents of the
twin pit latrine there.
The idea was to allay the fears and scepticism of the villagers and show them that
the human waste in the five-year-old pit
had changed completely into compost,
with no odour or contaminants, and was
ready to use as fertiliser.
Few of us would do what Prof. Chambers did, and he in turn was merely following in the footsteps of Gandhi. But with
World Toilet Day just going by on November 19 and the government now levying a
Swachh Bharat cess on our incomes, it is
time to think of not just superficial ways to
improve cleanliness but to go deeper and
jolt us out of our deeply ingrained notions
of purity and pollution.

Rehabilitation of
manual
scavengers is on
nobodys priority
list. And the
business of
cleaning up
someone elses
waste continues
unabated.
KI-X

sundaymagazine

THE HINDU. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2015

KOCHI

02

FRINGE CINEMA

Movies by the riverside

Made of old blankets and rags, the cinema halls on Yamunas filthy banks offer a world of entertainment in Delhis underbelly, finds Sweta Goswami

ts a hot day for a Delhi October, but 36year-old Prem Kumar, who has been
working since 5 a.m.,
does not have the liberty to tweak his work
schedule to suit the
weather. Today, his
dilapidated wooden handcart is piled ve
feet high with notepads and he is pulling
on it with all his might with his toned dark
brown arms. The air is lled with the scent
of paper and glue as he pulls his load along
the narrow streets of Yamuna Bazaar.
The stretch, for which he is paid Rs. 10
per trip, culminates at the other end of the
149-year-old iron bridge known as Loha
Pul. Back from his trip, Kumar stops at the
service lane along Mahatma Gandhi Marg,
drinks water from a tap at the Hanuman
temple, washes his face, and then looks at
the temple clock. He cant help but smile.
It is 3 p.m. and its a Sunday.
Kumar, who migrated from Nepal when
he was 12, begins to climb down the garbage-strewn slope, the lthy river bank of
the black Yamuna that ows lazily by. He
soon reaches a shanty made of discarded

A teenager sits beside Rahul and borrows his bidi. Prabhat is 14, and Rahuls
younger brother. He goes to school at
times, and runs the hall in Rahuls absence.
Another teenager comes out of the hall
to smoke. He doubles up as rickshaw puller and a worker at a cement factory. Too
shy to say his name, the boys eyes gleam
when asked to name his favourite actor.
Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar. Prabhat dreams of being able to watch lms in
air-conditioned halls someday.
The sound of applause comes from inside. Rahul says that Baahubali and Bajrangi Bhaijaan earned him good money.
They went mad watching the two movies
and the hall was overcrowded. They sang
along with Salman bhai and danced. Mythological movies like Ramayan and Mahadev have to be screened at least once as
they are in demand throughout the year,
he says.
A man with a food cart has come into the
hall calling out Cream roll, patties A
few hands with ve rupee coins reach out
and he gives them a cream roll each even
as their eyes stay xed on the television
screen.
Suddenly, the room turns dark as the TV
set abruptly shuts off. Everyone lets out a
sigh of exasperation; several men get up
and begin leaving. Its a power cut. It can
last hours I will go back to my rickshaw
and earn something, says one man, climbing back up the slope. Some follow, many
continue to sleep. One blanket of the wall
is rolled up to let some light in.
Irritated by the interruption, Hafeez
and Tarachand hop into another cinema
hall about 400 meters away. Here, under a
young banyan tree, three men are busy
shoving plastic trash into gunny bags.
They earn their living from the garbage
thrown into the river.
The entrance to this hall is through an
eatery with wooden benches. The rice
froths on one stove; another has a red
curry sizzling. As the cook stirs the curry,
several scrawny chicken claws rise to the
surface.
This is a lavish lunch. Four claws for Rs.
20, plus Rs. 10 for the rice. We eat and earn
from what you reject, she says smiling.

With back-to-back screenings of movies at just Rs. 10 for an entire day,

the shows on the banks of the Yamuna are popular with ragpickers and
cycle-rickshaw drivers. PHOTOS: PRASHANT NAKWE

blankets and quilts. A bulb hangs on the

rags that form the front wall, below it are
DVD covers of movies ranging from Hollywood and Bollywood to Bhojpuri and Tollywood. They are clipped in a row by
clothespins to a string. Idols of Ram, Laxman and Sita are placed just above the
doorway. We realise that this dirty tent is
a makeshift movie hall, where Kumar is
headed this sunny Sunday.
A movie is playing. Kumar gets a quick
update on the parts he has missed from
Imtiaz, a rickshaw puller. He quickly pays
Rs. 10 to the man seated on a stone outside.

For Rs 10, I get to see six movies. I will be

here till 11 p.m.
Inside, it is dark. Bags and soiled shirts
hang randomly from the ceiling, and a
speaker tightly fastened to a bamboo pole
amplies the sound. There are two small
wall-mounted fans. It is big enough to
comfortably accommodate about 60 men.
The only light coming in is from a 32 TV
set that shows a tribe of hunter-gatherers
strategising an attack. The movie is 10,000
BC, terribly dubbed in Hindi. But the audience, sitting or lying on large plastic mats,
is loving it. The air is lled with smoke
from numerous bidis and Kumar seems to
be having a happy Sunday.
In one corner of the room, a man in his
early 30s unabashedly puts on his clothes
after a bath in the Yamuna that is bubbling
with toxic gases from the untreated sewage
released into it. At least ve men lie at on
the sheets snoring. A few others share
meals from plastic packets while xedly
watching the lm.
The stench from the lthy river hits you

The movie is
10,000 BC, terribly
dubbed in Hindi.
But the audience is
loving it.

intermittently, as it ows along with owers, oil, earthen lamps and human ashes
from Nigambodh Ghat, the citys oldest
cremation site. A man comes out of the
movie hall and relieves himself in the river.
Twenty-eight-year-old Arjun Dev has also come out. In 2009, he ran away from his
home in Bihar and is now a daily wage
worker in a paper mill in outer Delhi earning about Rs.4,500 a month. Sitting on the
sloping river bank, he says, This is the best
place to spend our free days. We eat, sleep,
watch movies. Those big halls take hundreds of rupees but you cannot even
stretch an arm.
The manager of this hall one of the
eight situated along the Yamuna is Rahul Singh. Before taking up this job, he
used to work in a toy factory in Sultanpur
Majra, where old plastic toys are melted to
make new ones. He says these movie halls
are mostly owned by the men who rent out
cycle rickshaws. This one is owned by Sher
Khan, who runs a garage as well as a cycle
rickshaw business.

THE OTHER HALF

BIRDS EYE VIEW

What do elections mean for women?

Kalpana Sharma
is an independent
journalist and
columnist based
in Mumbai
CM
YK

initially accepted being proxies

gradually began asserting their own
agency. In fact, it was in Bihar that I
saw this when I spent time with a
woman mukhiya of a panchayat in
Nawada district.Unlettered, a widow, and completely new to politics,
within one term this woman had
grasped the essence of what was expected of her. After her rst term,
she won again from a general seat.
The sad part of this story is that
while women are voting and participating in panchayats and urban local bodies, their numbers are still
miserably low in State Assemblies
and in Parliament. That is evident in
the results of the 2015 Bihar elections. According to data on the Election Commissions website, only 25
women were elected out of 243
elected representatives. Of these,
just under half, or 12 women, are
from Lalu Prasad Yadavs Rashtriya
Janata Dal. Nitish Kumars Janata
Dal (United) had only ve.
Perhaps one should not read too
much into this. It is interesting,
however, that while interviews with
women during the election campaign suggested that the majority of
them rated Nitish Kumars rule
much higher because he was perceived to have enhanced safety for
women, the RJD appears to have
done better in choosing women candidates who could win.
Win or lose, the essential point of
reservation, or encouraging more
women to enter the political fray, is
to accept that women have an equal
right to participate in governance. If
the scales are weighed against womens participation because society
lays down that they remain at home,
there has to be active intervention
to encourage them.That is why we
need reservation. But just greater
numbers of women in elected office
will have little meaning unless the
process of participation accommodates men and women as equal partners.
This is what a photograph of the
new Cabinet of Canadian Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau, which
went viral on social media, demonstrates. It underlines that it is feasible and completely normal to have a
Cabinet with an equal number of
men and women. When asked by a
reporter to explain, Trudeau replied, Because it is 2015! Exactly.
That is something we need to hear
here.Working with women as equals
is not a favour that men bestow on
women. It is how the world should
work. It is how the world can work.
sharma.kalpana@yahoo.com
The views expressed here are
personal

Bird on a branch
As birding becomes popular, the Bombay Natural History Society revives
the Salim Ali Bird Count after 20 years, writes Samrat Chakrabarti

slice of life

Kalpana Sharma

They were everywhere. Women

in colourful saris, smiling broadly,
proudly displaying their voter IDs,
standing in line to cast their vote.
Once the dust settleson Bihar 2015,
these images of Bihari women will
linger.
But there are many questions.
What was behind those smiles?Were they proud to be voters?Were
they pleased that the act of voting
made them visible?Had they really
decided independently on their
choice of candidate? Why do elections appear to mean so much to
some women who appear otherwise
to be virtually invisible to politicians, media, and society?
Many in the media concluded
that the high turnout of women voters contributed to the victory of the
Grand Alliance in Bihra. The Centre
for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) was more cautious after
its post-poll survey, saying there
was no clear correlation between
the womens vote and the Grand Alliances dramatic victory. In any
case, how can we know for certain
how many women voted for which
party?
What the CSDS survey did conclude was that it was younger women and poor women who were most
enthusiastic about voting. And they
voted mostly for the Grand Alliance.
More than that, by turning out as
they did in large numbers on polling
day, they reminded us yet again that
despite all its problems, democracy
is alive and breathing in this
country.
How did this happen, this engagement by women in a process from
which they had largely been excluded?Politics in most parts of India
had been a male game. Of course,
there were women but they found
their space by virtue of their association with a powerful man and rarely on their own terms.
The change began with the 73rd
and 74th amendments to the Constitution in 1992 that devolved power to local governments.It allowed
for an increasing number of women
to contest for seats in local bodies
because one-third was reserved for
them. In Bihar, it was Nitish Kumar,
now once again the Chief Minister,
who set off a trend by increasing
reservation for women from onethird to half in 2006.
Even if we presume that half the
women who stood for elections and
won seats in panchayats and nagar
palikas did so as proxies of their
husbands, that still leaves a substantial number of women who knew
what they were doing. What is also
interesting is to see how those who

Early mornings in Bhandup Pumping Station, a

water treatment facility off the eastern expressway in Mumbai and located next to mangrovelined creeks, have two kinds of visitors. Birds,
which sometimes come from as far away as Siberia to escape harsh winters, and humans, who
come from all over Mumbai to escape the city. In
small groups with notepads and binoculars or as
lone rangers slinging their giant zoom lenses,
these are the birders, people whose passion is
birds spotting, watching, photographing them.
Birding or birdwatching has been around in
India for many years, but until recently it was the
quirk of a few. Over the past few years, though,
birding has moved out of bird sanctuaries and
into our cities, as more Indians discover the joys
of spotting a feathered biped through binoculars.
This growing interest prompted the Bombay
Natural History Society this year to revive the
Salim Ali Bird Count after a gap of 20 years. This
annual, single day, nationwide event commemorates Salim Ali, Indias pre-eminent ornithologist
whose contributions earned him the monicker of
Birdman of India.
The rules are simple. Find a location and count
the numbers and kinds of birds for at least 15
minutes. Make a list of the birds spotted in that
location and upload it to a central database.
To birders, this was a call-to-binoculars, and
Bhandup saw a larger ocking of birders last
Sunday than on other days. There was a range of
age groups and professions, newbies and pros.
Like IT professional Nandish Songire, who got
hooked to birding ve years ago when his wife
gifted him a camera. I went on a nature trail and
met someone who knew a lot about butteries. I
got curious. Does he really know it or is he making it up? I did some research and started photographing butteries. Then I got interested in
birds and taught myself from the Internet and
books. Birding has now become a part of his
daily life, an activity that he now shares with his
wife, who acts as spotter when they go on birding
trails. It recharges me after ve days of work. I
spend quality time with my wife. I meet likeminded people and it feels like an achievement to
spot a bird I havent seen before. It gives me
happiness, he says.
At the other end of the spectrum is Songires
local train companion of many years, Raju Kasambe, a trained ornithologist and a birder for
the past 18 years, who did his PhD on the breeding behaviour of the Indian Grey Hornbill. Kasambe, it becomes clear as you watch him help
fellow birders, is the birders birder. He does not
carry a camera because photography is incidental
to the enterprise. For him, it is the notebook on
which he lists the species of birds he has seen and
often not seen but identied just through birdcall. In the past hour, he has lled his notebook
with the names of 50 species that he has spotted,
with their individual counts. These days you see
a lot more people. Many young people are getting
interested in birding. But many are just interested in clicking and moving, not in understanding

Birding as an activity has moved out of the bird sanctuary and into our
cities. PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
the behaviour of birds, says Kasambe.
However, Kasambe reserves the most scorn for
those who the birding community calls twitchers.Birding, like most hobbies, can often bring
out competitive obsessiveness in people, but here
it takes on a gloried form. Birders love lists. They
make day lists, year lists and life lists. Each birders list checks off the species of birds spotted
over a day, year and a lifetime. As will happen with
birds, many are hard to spot, either because they
are shy or because they are found in inaccessible
places or simply because they have become rare
to nd. Bragging rights then accrue around these
lists (the most sighted, the rarest spotted) and the
competition can take on the nature of an obsession. There are no prizes, no institutional awards,
just bragging rights and recognition from fellow
birders. Birders are known to go to extraordinary
lengths to chase down a single elusive bird.
In India, such obsessive birders, called twitchers, are fewer but not unheard of. Perhaps the
most well known among them is Delhi-resident
Atul Jain. His life list is 1,089 out of the 1,300
known species of birds found in the Indian subcontinent. Atul has lost count of the number of
times he has taken a ight at a moments notice to
some far corner of India because he received a
message that a certain elusive bird on his list may
have been spotted there. One such trip was to spot
the rare night bird Hodgsons Frogmouth. A very
rare sighting in India, Atul followed a rumour
overnight to Arunachal Pradesh, where he
emerged bruised from thickets and soaked from
rain after an all-night search only to nd the bird
sitting peacefully on a branch the next morning.
To spot the Narcodian Hornbill, he sailed three
days to the tiny volcanic island on the eastern
most part of the Andaman Sea, the only place in

the world this bird can be found. Its tough on the

family. There has been resentment at times. But
they also understand that its something I have to
do. I try to balance it. Atul has never photographed a single bird he has spotted. Its just the
private thrill of having spotted a bird in the wild.
The numbers have grown exponentially in the
past few years. There were maybe 10,000 active
birders in 2000; today its closer to a lakh, says
Adesh Shivkar, veteran birder and founder of Nature India, an eco-tourism company that specialises in bird tours. Underlying this growth is a
convergence of factors. People are leading more
stressful lives and need to de-stress. Then, theres
the fact that people have higher expendable incomes. But the biggest factor, says Adesh, is social networking. Earlier, I used to wonder if its
just me who likes watching birds in the wild. But
with Internet and social media, everything has
changed. Almost every region has a birding club.
Which is why 60-70 per cent of new birders are
young.
Back in Bhandup on bird countingSunday, a
hush descends on the group seated on the narrow
bamboo pier that juts out over a creek in low tide.
The assembled birders are in silent communion
with their binoculars scanning the exposed rocks
ahead and the low-hung trees on the far shore.
They dont notice the fetid smell of the sewer or
the plastic bags or the chemical waste in which
the sandpiper hunts for food in a creek that is
slowly but surely losing its battle with Mumbais
waste. Perhaps, this is the best hope birding extends: re-establishing a connection with nature
that is all too easy to forget in our cities. As Adesh
puts it, We get trapped in our human world. We
forget that there is a bigger world out there and
that we need it.
KI-X

sundaymagazine

THE HINDU. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2015

KOCHI

SCREENING ROOM

REEL CHANGE

How I wonder what you are

Big screen for

the little ones

Baradwaj
Rangan is
The Hindus
cinema critic
CM
YK

bracing change from other bland

heroes whose stardom is a trap,
conning them in cocoons of
cloying virtue.
But sometimes, we become
moralists and insist on virtue.
When I posted a review of Prem
Ratan Dhan Payo, a friend commented, I dont understand how
a convicted murderer still gets to
be leading man. Its terrible and
perhaps points to a huge character aw in me, but maybe some of
us nd it easier to separate the
real and make-believe worlds,
the way we do with Woody Allen
and Roman Polanski. Because on
screen, Salman Khan is a star
his USP is an endearing brattishness, abetted, no doubt, by his
off-screen status of an unattached man who still lives with
his parents. Hes the boy who
never grew up. And Shah Rukh?
He was a zillion-watt star in the
Kabhi Khushi Khabhie Gham
days, when he resurrected the ss-s-swooning romantic hero for
the Internet generation. You werent sure if he was going to carve
your name in blood or carve you
up. Then theres Aamir, whos
single-handedly positioned himself as the biggest star-brand
since Amitabh Bachchan. Quality, hard work, reliability these
may sound like jottings from a
1923 Boy Scouts manual, but Aamir Khan has fashioned these
resolutely unglamorous traits into a survival kit for stardom.

With many innovations and a strong commercial push, the Childrens Film
Society stands at the cusp of a much-needed makeover. Satish Nandgaonkar

Stills from Gattu (left) that won Special Mention at the Berlin International Film Festival, and (right)
the much-acclaimed Kaphal, which was screened commercially in Austin, U.S., and the British Institute.
n July 20, 2012, the Rajan
Khosa-directedGattubecame the
rst commercially-released lm produced
by the Childrens Film
Society of India (CFSI)
through Rajashree Pictures. After its theatrical release, we tried to do all its marketing.
We appointed a world sales agent for its overseas release. It travelled to many international
festivals, and we charged screening fees for the
rst time, says Shravan Kumar, CEO of CFSI.
Much like the Film and Television Institute of
India and the National Film Development Corporation, CFSI also played a signicant role in
the growth of Indian cinema before systemic
problems bogged it down in the 1990s. Prominent Indian lm-makers such as Shyam Benegal, Tapan Sinha, M.S. Sathyu, Mrinal Sen and
Sai Paranjpye in their time, and younger directors such as Santosh Sivan, Rituparno Ghosh
and Pankaj Advani made several childrens
lms, before low budgets and the lack of visibility began to plague CFSI.
On November 14 this year, CFSI opened the
19thedition of Golden Elephant, the International Childrens Film Festival of India (ICFFI), in Hyderabad. This biennial festival and
the annual National Childrens Film Festival
have done a great deal to showcase childrens
cinema and improve its visibility. And now,
Shravan Kumar is pushing the envelope further, chiey in terms of boosting the outreach
programme and opening up fresh revenue
streams.
For instance, CFSI has launched a smartphone app that can connect childrens cinema
with its audience. Recognising that CFSIs intrinsic strength lay in its vast network of
schools, Kumar has also started to screen its

VEDALAM: Success and

the star

Quintessential
star moments
allow us to
go beyond
the script and
converse
with star
personas

productions in municipal schools across India.

He says, We have an extensive network, but
we never leveraged it. We were doing 4,000 to
5,000 shows reaching 10 to 15 lakh children
across India. The year I joined, I increased it to
about 9,000 shows reaching 25 lakh children,
including in the Northeast.
The average CFSI lm has a budget of Rs 1.5
crore, which leaves little or no scope for marketing and promotions. I realised that if we
can bring children to theatres and bargain for a
cheap price with the exhibitors, then it is a
win-win. Schools are happy to send children
even during school days as a eld trip.
To test the idea, Kumar met the CEOs of
multiplex chains like PVR and IMAX, and conducted a pilot project in Delhi in 2013.Gattuwas screened to a group of schools in six PVR
theatres at a modest price, and the model was
successful. Multiplexes were happy to accommodate children in the emptier morning slots.
Tickets were priced at Rs. 70, and revenues
were shared by CFSI and PVR on a 50:50 ratio.
We had full shows without any distribution,
advertising or promotion costs. It was pure
revenue for the producer and the exhibitor. I
thought this model could be perfected further,
he says.
CFSIs next lm was Goopi Gawaiya
Bagha Bajaiyaa, directed by animator Shilpa
Ranade and basedon the story of Goopi and
Bagha immortalised earlier by actors Tapan
Chatterjee and Robi Ghosh in Satyajit Rays
classicGoopi Gyne Bagha Byne. During a visit
to Mumbai, Toronto International Film Festival director Cameron Bailey saw the rough cut of
Ranades lm, and offered it a slot for a Toronto
premiere. The lm also had its Asian premiere
at Busan besides travelling to several other
festivals.
I realised that this was another lm that
could be released through this network of mul-

tiplexes. It was released in Mumbai in 2014 in

association with IMAX and other theatres, as
well as Mumbai schools. Its success made us
condent about the model, says Kumar.
Other recent CFSI lms such as PappuKi
Pugdundi, Goopi Gawaiya Bagha Bajaiya, Heda
Heda,KaphalandGattuwere also later screened
commercially in Austin, U.S., and at the British
Institute.
CFSIs participation in national and international lm festivals has also been increased substantially in recent years. According to CFSI
guidelines, we have to enter a minimum of 15
festivals annually but we have participated in
over 250 in the last three years. Festivals pay us
to screen our lms at their festivals, says
Kumar.
Film-maker Batul Mukhtiar, whoseKaphal
(Wild Berries) won the national award for best
childrens lm last year, welcomes CFSIs efforts
to release lms commercially. When I made
Lilkee, my CFSI lm in 2005, I was disappointed
that the lm lay in a cupboard for ve years until
Nandita Das became CFSI chairperson and released a DVD of the lm. A theatrical release
makes a lot of difference, she says.
CFSI has also redesigned its website, which
now showcases trailers of its productions and
DVDs of lms. But lm-makers expect even
greater engagement from CFSI. I dont know
which schools my lm was screened in or the
festivals it travelled to. I would expect more
streamlining in CFSIs procedures in increasing
the visibility of the lms. As a lmmaker, I would
be happy to partner with CFSI in taking the lm
to audiences, especially schools, says Shilpa
Ranade.
As the director of ICFFI, Kumar also curates
the Little Directors section, which showcases
cinema made by child lm-makers. This year we
have opened up the section to children from
other countries as well, says Kumar.

HIGH NOTES

Pitched perfectly
Mumbais Subin Sebastian could well be Indias first authentic
countertenor, a rare male operatic voice. Rahi Gaikwad finds out more

A still from Enthiran.

What about heroines? Sridevi
was once called the female Bachchan (and later, I think Madhuri
Dixit was too) no further acknowledgement of stardom is
necessary. But as much as I enjoy
some of their performances, they
put too much of themselves out
there. I preferred Rekha, who had
more mystique. She was the thing
you saw when you peered into a
deep well on a moonless night.
As for todays actresses, they
may be stars in terms of box-ofce value (Nayanthara, whos apparently
installed
a
hit-manufacturing unit in her
backyard), and there are certainly some good performers, but
they arent unique enough, the
sauce isnt special enough. Then
again, you may differ. Because
tastes differ. Ive never understood the Hema Malini phenomenon, for instance. Very limited
performer. A dazzler in her Johny Mera Naam days, but not so
much later. And yet, she kept
shining. What, I keep wondering,
was the secret sauce? Her innate
Indianness, perhaps? Sometimes, even this unknowability is
the stamp of a star.

culturati

Baradwaj
Rangan

Why is Vedalam, Ajiths Deepavali release, doing such boffo

business at the Tamil Nadu box
office? A lot of people have asked
me this question, including a
Delhi-based journalist whos doing a story on the lm and wanted to know: The movie is a
disaster in storytelling, acting,
aesthetics and music. How has
this masala genre as the template
for heroism and mythmaking
survived in the 20th century?
I dont know if I have the answer. If we knew why lms
worked, there would be no ops.
But yes, the extent of the Vedalams success is surprising, given
that it has terrible comedy, a romantic track that appears to exist simply because you cannot
have a lm without a heroine
(the hero barely looks at her in
that way), and the villains have
basically been instructed to act
like gorillas after the zookeeper
forgot their feed. And yet, something keeps us watching, and
that something, I think, is the
star. Hes the feed bag for the
otherwise starved audience.
Lets extend that culinary
metaphor. The thing that makes
a star a star is that secret (or
sometimes not-so-secret) sauce
he or she spices up the screen
with. With Vijay and Shahid Kapoor, its the way they move.
Many actors are good dancers,
but when they dance, you hear
them say, I can execute these
steps. With these two, you hear,
Look at me be. They dont
dance. They ow. And watching this can sometimes be
enough. No one seemed to like
R Rajkumar, but the exuberance of the song sequences left
me with a high I couldnt shake
off for days. I dont trust people
who say they enjoy lms only if
theres a script, or if it makes
sense. With a certain kind of
movie, yes, we expect all that
but there are lms that engage us
in other ways. When a star in his
element, when Vijay cuts loose
the way he does in the Karigalan
number in Vettaikaaran, its like
the sun has been replaced by a
disco ball. Suddenly we realise
how gloom-dispelling, how lifesustaining this stuff is, that
trashy pleasures are a big, big
part of why we go to the movies.
But what about other aspects
of the performance, you ask? But
a star is not required to be the
on-screen answer to a multivitamin tablet, an A-Z repository of
talent. Thats an actors job. Its
the actor whos obligated to demonstrate his prowess at several
levels. He must laugh. He must
cry. He must do everything Kamal Haasan can do.
Now theres an interesting
case an actor whos also a star.
And also a writer canny enough
to give his fans the actor-star
they come to see. His latest lm,
Thoongavanam, has an unconvincing moment where the tough
cop he plays breaks down. See
Kamal as just an actor, and youll
nd this to be uncharacteristic
behaviour for a character toughened by years of service, but as a
star, you cant be too subtle. Your
fans expect these emotionally
charged moments where they
can say, Wow, what a great actor
he is! Thats whats in the feed
bag. My favourite Kamal Haasan
moment in recent years is when
his effeminate dancer in Vishwaroopam transforms, in a
heartbeat, into a raging warrior.
Youve seen the actor thus far.
Now we see the star. But wait,
wasnt the actor a false front as
per the script in other words,
werent we always watching the
star? Or is the measure of this
star how far out on a limb he goes
as an actor?
You could tie yourself up in
knots deconstructing this scene,
as also the one in Enthiran,
where Evil Rajinikanth sniffs out
and captures Good Rajinikanth,
whos in hiding as part of the
formers army. But whats happening on screen is just the appetiser. For the main course, dig
deeper. Evil Rajinikanth is the
persona that we saw early on in
the actors career, the thrilling
bad guy who was gradually replaced due to the compulsions
of, yes, stardom by the duller
do-gooder Rajinikanth, and
heres the revenge. Idhu eppidi
irukku? These are quintessential
star moments, which allow us to
go beyond the script and converse with star personas that
have evolved over the years.
Does Ajith, whos being compared to Rajinikanth after Vedalams success, have this kind of
stardom yet? Maybe; may be not.
Its easier to look back on a star
than to comment on him midcreation. But with the shades of
grey hes able to accommodate in
his characters, hes at least a

03

Every time Subin Sebastian sang, he felt

uncomfortable. After a performance, his
throat would hurt and his voice would feel
hoarse. In the privacy of his home though,
he could effortlessly produce a tone that he
realised did not t the archetypal male singing voice.
Though he sang as a tenor, a classic male
singing voice, he was to discover later that
he was in fact a countertenor, with a rare
operatic singing voice whose vocal range is
equivalent to that of a female voice.
I would sing at home when no one was
listening, says Sebastian, a 23-year-old
school teacher. When he rst sang in his
true voice at a master class conducted by
Giving Voice Society, an initiative started
by Bombay-born British soprano Patricia
Rozario and her husband Mark Troop, Sebastian stunned his listeners. The chest
voice gave way to the head voice and a new
sound was born.
All of us were abbergasted. There is a
beautiful quality to the countertenor voice,
which a soprano cant get. It is not a very
common voice. It is quite rare, like the Bnegative blood type, saysSebastians voice
teacherMinaish Doctor.
The countertenor voice comes from very
old traditions of European classical singing,
dating back to the castrati, male singers
introduced in 16thcentury Italy who were
castrated before puberty to retain their
high-pitched voices.
This voice develops from the boy soprano. The castrati were revered for their
voices. Countertenors are in demand.
There are parts in operas such as Julius
Caesar and Serse written specically for
them. Often, these roles are done by mezzo
sopranos, a female voice type, says Doctor.
Defying conventions is never easy as Subin
was to realise. The rst time he sang as a
countertenor before a private audience,
one of the persons present asked why he
was singing like a girl.

Home on the range

The singing voice in general falls into one
of four categories: Soprano and contralto
for women, tenor and bass for men. These
signify the high and low registers in music. But we can find our best voice range
in between these four categories also.
The central range is called mezzo-soprano for women and baritone for men.
Such middle voices are important too.
The natural range of an untrained voice is
about an octave and a half. An operatic
voice has a range of at least two octaves.
Many great singers have sung in almost
any register though technically being
in one of the usual categories by using
a falsetto (false voice). Falsetto is the top
part of the male vocal range. A man can
therefore sing in the soprano range by
falsetto. If he sang falsetto consistently,
he is called a countertenor. The countertenor develops the falsetto with such
strength that it has the resonance of a
full-voiced sound.

HIGH ON LIFE: Subin Sebastian

PHOTO: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

And this was a musically inclined person. Sometimes there is stigma attached,
says Doctor. Sebastians dilemma was like
that of the young boy in the movie Billy
Elliot, who had to suffer all the negative
stereotypes attached to boys taking up ballet. The culture shock his parents felt

when they heard him sing was one such

reaction he had to get used to. People are
not used to listening to the operatic voice.
The children at a school where I gave voice
lessons found my singing amusing. Another
time, someone remarked: 'Do you have any
words or do you just howl, he recalls.
After years of training, Sebastian today
boasts of a two-octave range from the middle C to the top C and is totally focussed on
his art. Recently he sang for the part of The
Little Sweep, a childrens opera by English
composer Benjamin Britten that was staged
at Mumbais Experimental Theatre.
Sebastian is trained in Carnatic music
and also plays the violin. But most of all, its
the discovery of his rare voice that has given
him a purpose in life. This is precious music and India needs to see it, he says.
KI-X

sundaymagazine

THE HINDU. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2015

KOCHI

04

literaryreview
POWER PLAY

Who owns the world?

Actor Gwyneth Paltrow is launching a

lifestyle publishing imprint
called Goop with Grand
Central Publishing in
the U.S. The imprint
will start by
publishing four
books a year,
beginning with
Paltrows Its All Easy
cookbook.

Noam Chomsky, in the third part of his trilogy on U.S. politics,

continues his campaign to break the big lie of the official
American word on world affairs, says Shelley Walia
t is Noam Chomskys
commitment to responsibility for others that
underpins this collection
of short essays published
in the third part of his
trilogy, the rst two being Making the Future
and Interventions. With a range of subjects
from the assault on public education to the
welfare state, from world peace to open air
prisons, from capitalism to war and survival,
Because We Say So embraces his ideology of
activism that counters the realpolitik of war
against terror and a vitiated environment of
neoliberal authoritarianism and national security issues that have over the years destroyed
the very idea of freedom and dissent.
Moving from war techniques to the
scourge of free market economy, Chomsky
raises some pertinent questions: Who owns the
world? Can civilisation survive capitalism?
What is the common good? Security for whom
and defence against which enemies? To understand the meaning of contemporary culture,
there is a need to analyse it in relation to the
social structure and its historical contingency,
keeping ideology and hegemony as the central
concepts.
At the current historical moment, radical
transformist thought in areas of social justice
and rule of law are central to the politics of
survival. The public has to raise its voice

Little, Brown Book

Group is launching a new
standalone literary
ction and non-ction
imprint called Fleet. The
imprint is scheduled to
launch in May 2016 with
four titles, including the
paperback edition of
Early One Morning by
Virginia Baily.

Book Trusts Young Adult Literature

Convention (YALC) will now be a
permanent feature of London Film &
Comic
Con and will be run by
Showmasters. YALC
celebrates young
adult books and
includes various
events such as panel
talks and agent
events.

HarperNonFiction will be publishing a

health and wellness book by actor Kate
Hudson. The title, Pretty Happy: The
Healthy Way to Love Your Body aims to
offer health and wellness
inspiration and motivation
for women, addressing
such topics as tness,
nutrition and a mindful
lifestyle.

This years Harry Potter Book Night will

see a special focus on spells. A Night of
Spells has been organised by Bloomsbury
Childrens Books as the
theme for the second
Harry Potter Book
Night, which will
take place on
Thursday, February
4, 2016.

Amanda Wilson, a
deputy head teacher in
Greenwich, is publishing
a collection of letters by
successful black British
women to inspire young
black girls. Wilson is
releasing Letters to a
Young Generation on
December 5 through her
own imprint, 9:10
Publishing.
CM
YK

On the other hand,

U.S. elections, for instance,
are coalitions of private investors
who coalesce to control the state along with
its leader. As argued by economist Thomas
Ferguson, the state follows the investment
theory of politics, whereby elections become
merely marketable deals. The 2008 elections,
Chomsky says, are an indication of Obamas
triumph owing to the provision made by
nancial institutions which favoured him
over McCain. On his victory, Obama ensured
that his economic team of advisors, constituted to meet the crisis of recession, would
include those who unambiguously backed
him. A number of Nobel laureates were
blatantly snubbed.
It is clear that the U.S. faces few legal
challenges to its foreign policy. The essays are
scathing and Chomsky brilliant, as a public
intellectual engaged in a concerted and committed campaign to break the big lie of an
increasingly consolidated authoritarian state
that has embarked on global military destruction in the name of humanitarian undertakings. That war against terrorism has not
helped us is clear from the recent Paris
massacre. Collateral damage becomes as illegitimate as any terrorist killing. Triumphalism
and because we say so arrogance in international affairs will continue spawning
more antagonism and crimes against
humanity.

FACE TO FACE

Listen to the flames

No division between
spiritual and physical

Mini Krishnan

bibliophile

Britains Former deputy

prime minister Nick Clegg
is writing a book
examining the state of
British politics. The book,
titled Politics will be
published by The Bodley
Head next year.

to the ecological disasters facing humanity

and the blatant rejection of the multilateral agreements by the U.S.: Energy is to
burn; the global environment be damned is
a principle followed by the corporate sector
which disagrees with the theory of humaninduced global warming.
Such an attitude compels Chomsky to
conclude that whatever it may be that the
world thinks, U.S. actions are legitimate
because we say so. The principle was enunciated by eminent statesman Dean Acheson in
1962, when he instructed the American Society of International Law that no legal issue
arises when the United States responds to a
challenge to its power, position, and prestige. Quoting Adam Smith, Chomsky builds
his argument of American hegemony, which
is promoted through the masters of mankind
who are apparently the merchants and the
manufacturers.
This dictum of agrant arrogance applies
not only to U.S. domestic policy but also its
foreign policy, especially the support for
Israel that has for decades put Palestinians in
the inhuman situation of living under ruthless and incessant military threat. The call for
a nuclear-free zone in West Asia is discouraged by the U.S. and is a distant dream of
international peace. In providing the means
of military violence, the U.S. is a past master.
As Chomsky says, the U.S. has a huge
comparative advantage in that domain.

.. ........ ........ ........ ....... ........ ........ ...

THIS WORD FOR THAT

Charles Darwins On the

Origin of Species was
voted the most
inuential academic
book in history, in a
public vote held to mark
Academic Book Week.
The book won 26 per
cent of the 900-plus
votes. The Communist
Manifesto by Marx and
Engels was the runner up, and other
books that saw good support were
Shakespeares Compete Works, Platos
The Republic and Immanuel Kants
Critique of Pure Reason.

Waterstones Book of the Year 2015

shortlist has been
revealed, and features
a diverse list of
books. The eight
books on the list
include four novels,
three non-ction
titles and one
childrens book.

against those who believe that people who ask

questions are treacherous. The ascendancy of
crude power allied with simplistic contempt
for dissidence is undesirable in a nation that
values its democratic framework but undermines the principles of the Magna Carta
when President Obama signed the National
Defense Authorisation Act, which codies the
Bush-Obama practice of indenite detention
without trial under military custody.
Underscoring the assault on Public Education, Chomsky argues against intuitions of
learning that produce youth who are discouraged from independent thought, thereby
turning them into individuals subservient to
state policies. The culture of fear engulfs the
country where surveillance, public relations
and media manufacture an electorate that is
brainwashed into supporting the wrong candidates. Higher education, Chomsky maintains, is under attack not because it is failing,
but because it is a potentially democratic
public sphere. As such, conservatives and
neo-liberals often see it as a dangerous
institution that reminds them of the rebellious legacy of the 1960s, when universities
were the center of struggles over free speech,
anti-racist and feminist pedagogies, and the
anti-war movement.
Essentially, the commentaries set out to
examine the anti-democratic ideologies that
have subverted human concerns for poverty
and human rights. Chomsky draws attention

Because We Say So;

Noam Chomsky, City

Lights Books, $15.95.

Poisoned Bread;

ed Arjun Dangle,
Orient Black Swan,
Rs.450.
.. ... .... .... .... .... .... .... ... .... .... .... ...

Touchable Tales;

S. Anand, Navayana,
Rs.400.
.. ... .... .... .... .... .... .... ... .... .... .... ...

Mini Krishnan
edits literary
translations for
Oxford
University Press

People love to tell you that

youre wasting your days and
quite often your nights. While
struggling with lumpy translations and anxious author-translator duos, I also have to listen
to: Isnt the Dalit boom nearly
over? or Isnt writing about
Dalit writing as important as the
writing itself? Well, it would be
a pity if that happened and the
writers shuffled away to occupy
row two. Lit-crit, however smart,
will nd it difficult to match the
voltage of With lava from my
belly I will script a new geography (Bichitranandan Nayak
/Odia/ Raj Kumar). Fierce. Powerful. Accusatory. In a market
that is never stable, where mush
and voyeurism of different kinds
are rocketing, and smart is mistaken for great, where non-writers are being promoted so hard
that the border between literature and pop-lit is blurring,
(Whats your next book about?
Im currently working on my
fourth novel.) how are we to position English translations of
writings by Dalits?
There are wrinkles on this
page: why is there such a category in the rst place? The notion of purity = superiority =
civilisation = social control was a
useful little arrangement that
dominant groups (the Essenes,
the Jews, the Mandarins, the
Samurai and similar communities in other parts of the world)
all liked. They succeeded in convincing large sections of people
that they were inferior and
therefore deserved to do all the
dirty work to keep their betters
comfortable. A part of this plan
(and it was well publicised) was
to uphold a state of ritual purity
which excluded people who
couldnt afford to stay indoors
with unsoiled hands; for obvious
reasons, it also excluded women.
Unfair and generational illtreatment inicted psychological damage which can never be
quantied. No difference between a Cherumi, a low-caste, a
crow and a buffalo was a saying
in Kerala courtyards . From Odisha comes more wisdom, No
amount of mud from the Mandakini can turn a pig into a cow.
When voices long suppressed
emerged to challenge the canon
of literature created by non-Dalits, it was resisted by nearly everyone
who
headed
a
regional-language
publishing
unit in India. However, Will you
deny this sunrise? asked Sharan
Kumar Limbale (Marathi/ tr Priya Adarkar) announcing, just before the Ambedkar centenary,
that marginalised literature did
not mean that their content was
marginal, but that writers and
themes that had long occupied
centre-stage were slow to make
way for Dalit writers because
history was against the latter.
Just as Dalit languages and

voices began their long ascent

to modify the way they were
viewed, something happened
and took everyone by surprise:
this unfamiliar sound in the
literary echo chamber received
a tremendous response outside
India and set off a huge buzz,
confusing and elating everyone.
Dalit experience fused with
resistance movements and subalternity the world over and
suddenly Indian academics
who might not have even spoken to Dalits, much less treated
them on equal terms, began to
write knowledgeably about Dalit narratives.

Big ideas, small beginnings

Twelve years ago, Navayana
launched itself in a corner of
Landmark Bookshop in Chennai as four small volumes.
Navayana was a new vehicle.
One of those really new books
(Touchable Tales) to which
founder-editor Anand wrote a
blistering introduction, comprised interviews. Opening batsman
and
the
imprints
co-founder Ravikumar hit publishers all over the eld saying
they were proteering from
Dalit stories of pain in English
translation (The prioritisation
of Dalit autobiographies by
mainstream publishers can induce some Dalit writers to
pander to these powerful people literature of suffering and
not of challenge and protest
takes writers to literary festivals). I limped away and avoided Ravikumar for six years.
Then, one day, I got even: I
persuaded him to be the joint
editor of the Oxford Anthology
of Tamil Dalit Writing (2012)
which has done very well. It
carries writers like Annamalai
Imayam who have always disliked being labeled Dalit (Do
you call Mr./Ms. XYZ a Brahmin writer? he argues) and
other Dalits who for the
same reason refused to be
included. Then there is the
language itself earthy and
just a breath away from orature. While discussing selections for the Oxford Anthology
of Malayalam Dalit Writing,
prime editor M. Dasan said,
Some things will just disappear on the printed page or
look ludicrous in translation. I
tried and failed to persuade
Dasan to carry an example of
such a translation.
To gain a certain measure of
self-hood through the slow
process of writing, translating,
publishing, being read, discussed, and thought about calls
for patience, perseverance and
hard work; in short, years of
planning. Sothough my head
is both bloody and bowed,
there is a lot more beyond the
boom.
minioup@gmail.com

Swati Daftuar speaks to

Easterine Kire about When the
River Sleeps; shortlisted for The
Hindu Prize 2015 for its
mythopoeic imagination
Hauntingly beautiful and lyrical, Easterine Kires prose is yet another example
of her effortless hold over words and stories. Excerpts from an interview:
Could you tell us how the idea for When the River
Sleeps first came to you? What was the seed?
I have many hunter friends. My own
son is a hunter. They would tell me stories, and in particular this one about rivers that went to sleep at a certain time of
night. No one knew when the river would
fall asleep, but if they were fortunate
enough to nd it asleep, they could
quickly take out a stone from its depths
and it would act as a charm. This story
stayed with me a long time and surfaced
when it was time for it to be written as a
book.

when I was older. In addition, my own

experiences of the spirit world have come
together to make this book. For instance,
I had a spirit child playmate when I was
about four. He was a little boy who mischievously invited me to play. In later
life, I have had some frightening but
amazing spirit encounters that have convinced me of the realness of the spirit
world. Besides that, I was also very fortunate to have worked closely with several
oral narrators some years ago. This
formed part of the research experience
for the book.
Youve talked about the need to stop exoticising
the Northeast. Has anything changed?

Nothing has changed. I said this as a

reaction to the national medias
tendency to negatively dene
There is so much woven into the
the region for its readers. A fact
story: adventure, quest, folktales,
of life often overlooked by the
magic and ultimately, reality. How
was it, finding one voice to unite so
mainland is that many innocent
many elements?
citizens, students, health workI didnt think in terms of
ers and villagers have been
adventure, quest, folktales,
killed in army shootings where
and so on. You, the reader, are
the AFSPA was used as an exthe one who nds all these
cuse. These incidents are not
different threads, and that is
covered by national media.
just wonderful. This is priWhen I speak against sensamarily a story about a hunter, When the River
tionalising of the Northeast, I
a river, and a charmed stone. Sleeps;
am against continuing the sterAnd to my mind, there is no Easterine Kire,
eotyping of the Northeast as a
dividing line between the Zubaan, Rs.295.
people with barbaric lifestyles. I
spiritual world and the phys- ... ........ ........ ........ ....... ........ ... dont see using a hunters legical world. Folktales and the
end of a sleeping river as exotsupernatural go to form the basis of Naga icising Nagaland. It is not an ordinary
reality. The hunter and his search for the tale, but the conict between good and
charmed stone and also what happens evil that the book is preoccupied with. It
after that is the main thread that I am is an ancient theme, isnt it? I guess what
following.
I am saying is, I have a wonderful story of
This book is another introduction to Nagaland, a hunter here, would you like to hear it?

and here, we look at it differently than we did in

Bitter Wormwood. Why do you think it important to
know a place through its stories?
I think one really gets to know a people
only when reading or hearing about their
world view. The national media has a
tendency to project the Northeast as a
region simmering with violence. But
there is much more to the Northeast
than just political conict. We writers
from the Northeast are refusing to be
dened by the political conicts that are
an unhappy presence in our lands. We
are saying there is more: there is great
beauty, not just the breathtaking
landscapes of mountains and rivers and cloud-covered villages,
but the beauty of the people
who live there and the stories they have to share. The
spiritual world is a big part
of the Naga world-view
and it comes naturally to
me to write about it.
And what kind of research
went into the book?
I guess I could say the research had been going on all
my life: all the stories my
grandmother told me,
and all the stories my
hunter friends told me

Is your first and foremost inspiration always

Nagaland?

So far, all my novels have been inspired

by Naga life, as it is the life I have intimate
knowledge of. But some of my childrens
stories have been set in outer space and in
Norway. I have recently been working on
a book about a mouse called Matthew and
it is a story that could be set anywhere. Id
like to add that life inspires me, and not
just a particular place.
This is your second time on The Hindu Prize
shortlist. What does it mean to you?

I am very excited. I feel grateful to everyone who believed in the book, my editor and my publisher at Zubaan,
and my readers. I feel humbled
at the way my readers are celebrating the shortlist. It
shows me how much it
means to them as well. Its a
wonderful way for Northeastern writing to gain visibility and exposure in a
wider audience. So all that
is good. I love it that a book
I so enjoyed writing has
been acknowledged among
the best writing coming
from India in 2015. I am
deeply thankful to God
for that.

KI-X

sundaymagazine

THE HINDU. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2015

KOCHI

05

literaryreview
IN CONVERSATION

We cannot un-punch, we cannot

un-kick, we cannot un-rape
to Colum McCann
about Thirteen Ways
of Looking, in which
violence is present but
more in the aftermath
of reconciliation than
in the moment of
occurrence

n Colum McCanns previous novels Let the Great

World Spin and TransAtlantic, he favoured the historical sweep, moving in
periscopic fashion between lives of characters
real and imagined, fuelled
by the Whitmanesque idea
of interconnectedness. His latest book, Thirteen Ways of Looking, a novella and three short
stories, is an altogether quieter offering.
McCann is still playing with the enjambment of
past and present, and readers will still feel like
theyre caught in the chorus of light and dark,
but these hypnotic new stories seem to delve
deeper into the personal, move with a sense of
haunting.
In the summer of 2014, McCann witnessed a
scene of domestic abuse on a street in Connecticut. He came to the aid of the woman, but was
later attacked by the womans husband and
severely injured. These stories, written before
and after the event, all contain kernels of violence, but rather than glorify the moment of
violence itself, McCann chooses to linger on the
aftermath.
Excerpts from a conversation:
Do you believe in circularity? Your stories and
novels have a tremendous way of reaching out to
enfold themselves. I always feel when Im reading you
that I will be led safely back to the place where we
started, but with several diversions and illuminations
along the way.

Ah, riverrun, riverrun. Maybe it's an Irish

trait.I recognise circularity in some of my work
but with certain escape hatches in various parts
of the circle so that the diversions and digresI am just as responsible to my sions can break out and breathe. In other words
fictional characters as I am to those I don't want to be too consciously circular. I'd
rather my novels have some jagged edges so that
who are real, says
the reader can make his or her own shape from
Colum McCann. PHOTO: RICH GILLIGAN
it.

KINGS AND KING-MAKERS

In this book, Yudhishthir Raj Isar, a cultural

analyst and professor of Cultural Policy Studies
at the American University of Paris, compiles
material from 2,000-odd pages of a memoir left
by his father Raymond Francis Isar. This volume of over 260 pages, while being essentially
autobiographical, narrates the political and social history of India during the most important
period. Raymond Francis Isar, as a civil servant
having served on either side of Independence,
had a ringside view of the establishment that
ruled the country and the cabal that emerged in
the political scenario at critical times and
changed the fate of the country. Added to the
experience gained by the author professionally,
both in civil and foreign service, his own hybrid
upbringing his father a converted Christian
from Brahmin stock and mother from a second
generation converted Christian of Su background has helped the author view things
dispassionately and objectively. It is also interesting to note that though born in a highly
religious Christian family and brought up by a
strict disciplinarian father, Isar himself became
an atheist!
The rst three chapters deal with the authors school and university days that laid the
foundation for his convictions and ideology
that developed later. While studying in England, Isar embraced Marxism and became a
full-edged member of the Communist Party.
These chapters detail the background of his
domestic life, and of his getting posted as Assistant Collector and Magistrate in Tanjore and
his life there as an administrator. However,
once posted in Delhi his observations become
more sharp and interesting.
The chapter that engages keen attention of
the reader is Midnight of Freedom. While the
books on the aftermath of the fateful day in
August and the following bloodshed, after the
amputation of Pakistan, are many, the narration of Isar is from the point of view of a civil
servant having arrived at the centre from
southern districts, is more specic. His statement that while the bloodshed in north was
horrible, the rest of India was managing to stay
quiet precariously, ominously quiet. When
the condition was absolutely out of control in
Delhi, the leaders felt helpless. It was sad that
Nehru and Patel did not have a solution in
hand.
Indeed Mountbatten did come back from
Simla, according to the version of yet another
writer on Mountbatten David Butler, on information given by V.P. Menon. However Isar
categorically says, Lord Mountbattens version of the actual words of Nehru and Patel to
CM
YK

Absolutely.Writing is a wonderful form of

non-violent assertion of what violence can do to
us. We can experience the pain and suffering of
others but we do not have to wear the scars. This
is non-violent empathy at its very best. Nobody
should ever come out of a good book unchanged.

Did you feel that in writing about violence you were

able to negate or re-contextualise the violence you
were subjected to?

youve incorporated into your ction? Is the process

of building those characters different from the imaginary characters?

Yes an author has to be responsible, especially when he's a middle-aged, middle-class male
who wants to write in voices that are light years
beyond his immediate experience.There are issues of cultural arrogance and gender arrogance
and economic arrogance at play. The author
must delve deep and learn how to portray difference as deeply as possible and be true at the
same time.Whenever I create a character other
than a white Irish male, I always make sure that
I consult as many experts as possible.I have
dozens of people read the work for authenticity.
I am just as responsible to my ctional characters as I am to those who are real.

The Floating Book; Michelle Lovric,

Bloomsbury, Rs.499.

I was able to reclaim my own territory.I took

back the ground that got knocked from under
my feet.This is not just writing or story-telling
Could you talk about how you negotiate time in
as catharsis, it is story-telling as absolute neces- your novels and stories? To me it seems the central
sity. I got a chance to punch back, non-violently. thing.

Certainly time is the central element in ThirPoetry informs a large part of the titular story in teen Ways of Looking.The time that was, and
this book. You take your cues from Wallace Stevens of the time that is, both of them helixed around
course, but there are also echoes of Heaney and one another.And then there's the time yet to
Muldoon. Why is poetry important to you, and what do come. I think a good writer uses time like a
you think a poem can do that a story cant?
musician uses his saxophone. You know when
From the age of 12, I was reading Dylan Tho- and where to blow the note, whether triummas.I discovered Gerard Manley Hopkins phantly or plaintively, and you create a rhythm
when I was about 13.Poetry has been vital for that changes the world, if even only tempome.And I probably read more poetry than c- rarily.
tion. I've only written one poem however and it
You write in your authors note every word we
was pretty awful.I was far too conscious of write is autobiographical, perhaps most especially
rhythm.I like to bring poetry into the c- when we attempt to avoid the autobiographical. Why
tion.I'd like to think that the books are long is it that the word autobiographical can sometimes
poems.But poetry is not a better form.It's just a make readers of ction so suspicious?
Because when we write about ourselves we're
different form. I don't privilege poetry over,
say, playwriting, or ction, or journalism almost guaranteed to lie. Autobiographies are
even.The good word needs to be properly lled with lies.Memory has been shaped and
placed in any available form.That's all that mat- re-shaped. But when we avoid autobiography
at least direct autobiography we are much
ters.
How do you decide that youre going to write in the more likely to tell the truth about the human
voice of a 68-year-old Romani woman, or Rudolf spirit, or to reveal something profoundly true
Nureyev, or Philippe Petit, or any of the real life people about ourselves.

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ANTI-FAIRYTALE

Midnight
of freedom
While being essentially
autobiographical, Chronicles of
Time and Chance narrates the
political and social history of
India during its most important
period. K.R.A. Narasiah

We cannot un-punch, we cannot un-kick, we cannot un-rape.This was part of your victims statement
when you were assaulted last year in Connecticut.
Does writing or reading about violence help with
understanding how violence is experienced?

Women, unbound
Why, wonders Mita Ghose, does the book
remind us of those New Wave European films
of yore with their eerily nebulous worlds, their
angst-ridden protagonists?

Chronicles of Time and Chance;

Raymond Francis Isar, Primus

Books, Rs.1195.

him on his return from Simla can hardly be regarded as anything but 99 per cent his very own
invention.
Isar asserts, Most commentators (with the
exception of V. Shankar) have remained either
silent or extremely discreet about the heart of
the matter: What was the need for Mountbatten
to descend from Simla and get involved in executive action that, as he himself correctly explained, was no longer his business? According
to Isar, the top executive proved that they could
control the situation, headed by H.M. Patel the
then Cabinet Secretary
Discovering Delhi is another chapter that
draws riveted attention of the reader. When India became independent, nothing changed, as
far as the administrative and legal structure was
concerned. Indians merely occupied the rooms,
chairs and benches of the British.
Of the more recent past, the last two chapters
give the best description of the political scenario of the times. Having reverted back to his
cadre in Tamil Nadu, after he was relieved from
his foreign service that was allotted to him after
independence (because of his marriage to a foreigner) the author says of Rajaji, There was a
taciturn ruggedness about him, a sturdiness of
character rare among Indians to be an object of
respect and admiration. He regards Kamaraj as
an effective Chief Minister, unwittingly drawn
into the Kamaraj Plan as devised by Nehru to be
a devious manipulation directed against his rivals. He considers it bad luck for India that Patel
was older than Nehru; Patel the bte-noire of
the staunch Nehru-ites could have achieved
much more as a Prime Minister. Unfortunately,
Kamaraj, the author asserts, known as the kingmaker twice once when Nehru died in May
1964 and next when Shastri died on January 10,
1966 ended by preparing a thralldom for the
country, much beyond his own imagination.
The book captures the political manoeuvrings of the last years of Nehru as well as the
prime ministerial life and times of his undervalued successor, Lal Bahadur Shastri. He explains
how corruption set in: Backstairs inuence
with key politicians of the Congress party and
the higher bureaucracy was established and
maintained by payments in cash or kind or in
both. The Little Sparrow as he was named by a
Bombay editor, Shastri, according to official reports, died of heart failure in Tashkent, but on
December 26, 1970, his widow declared in an
interview that her husband had been poisoned.
The author is sceptical; he ends the story with
Either way, the result of that particular death,
was the return of the Nehru dynasty. Indira
Gandhi scuttled the demand for an enquiry.

Lets start at the end, instead of at the

Zarrinkolah is more fortunate. A prosvery beginning. The reason is the de- titute, whose daily sessions with unlightful Authors Note with which known men are so mechanical that she
Shahrnush Parsipur chooses to close her ends up in a perennial hallucinatory
novella. Written with humour, irony state, where all men appear headless,
and a air for the absurd elements shorn of identity and, therefore, indisthat also feature in this series of mysti- tinguishable, she nds her way to the
fying, somewhat disjointed, even dis- magical garden, marries the Kind Garturbing interconnected tales that make dener and conceives. Giving birth to a
up Women without Men it not only ower, she nurtures Mahdokhts arbooffers vital clues to some of the charac- real avatar with her breast milk. Ironters, but rare insights as well into the ically, she is the only one who nds
kind of Iranian family the author herself fullment in marriage.
was born into. The most compelling is a
In following the trajectory of these
cameo of her mother, a descendant of women, we travel through different
the Qajar dynasty, who, while living in worlds, one of aspiration, the other of
abject poverty, taught her children to difficulties in its realisation, one of
address her as Dear Princess.
dreams, the other of grim reality, one
What emerges from this note and replete with violence and bloodshed
from the narratives it follows is a telling both at the political level (set in Iran of
portrait of women living in an oppres- the 1950s, these narratives have as their
sive society bound by strict religious tra- backdrop a Tehran in the grip of civil
dition. Except that in Parsipurs unrest following the CIA-orchestrated
ctional world, her female protagonists coup of 1953) and at the personal (rape,
make an effort to transcend their re- suicide, murder, accidents) the other
strictive circumstances. In doing so, suffused with fantasy. But neither is
some evolve in startling ways. Mah- complete in itself.
dokht, for example, escapes a life of enExtraordinary though its premise is
nui and repressed sexual longing by and unusual its treatment, with genernding fullment as a tree. Setting down ous doses of magical realism producing
roots in an allegorical garden a meta- some beautiful lyrical passages, a sense
phor, perhaps, for an Eden-like refuge of dj vu persists as the novella draws
where one is allowed to bloom and grow to an end; why, we wonder, does it renaturally on the outskirts of Tehran, mind us of those New Wave European
she is nurtured by a man known as the lms of yore with their eerily nebulous
Kind Gardener. The other women worlds, their angst-ridden protagonists
protagonists eventually gather in the and the never-unveiled mysteries that
same garden, but Parsipur makes it clear drive their compulsions?
that fairy-tale endings are not for everyOne cant help admiring the authors
one.
courage, though, and not merely for givFarrokhlaqa, for instance, a middle- ing expression to her vision. Although
aged aristocrat of considerable means, she now lives in exile like some of her
submits to the sexual
fellow Iranian women
demands of a husband
writers, Azar Nasi and
she despises, while lustKamin Mohammadi, Paring for another man. On
sipur stands out for daring
being widowed, she
to publish the Persian vertries in vain to oversion of her novella (in
come her restlessness,
1989) while still living in
but ultimately surrenIran. She was arrested and
ders to a marriage of
jailed by the authorities
convenience that is not
for her deant portrayal
torrid by any means, but
of womens sexuality and
not frigid either. After
her book is still banned in
much scheming, Faiza
the country of her birth,
eventually gets the man
where, incidentally, it had
she has been hankering
become a best-seller. Parafter, but not in quite
sipur, however, has had
the way she had envithe last laugh: inspiring an
sioned. Munis must die
award-winning lm by
twice to be resurrected
Shirin Neshat (who wrote
and reborn. Yet, her
the Foreword to this novjourney toward hu- Women Without Men; A Novel Of
ella), Women without
Men is destined to live on
manity leaves her fa- Modern Iran;
despite the best efforts of
tigued and aged, devoid Shahrnush Parsipur, Women
Unlimited, Rs.350.
its detractors.
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KI-X

sundaymagazine

THE HINDU. SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2015

KOCHI

GLAD WAGS

06

TIPPLER TALES

Return of the Pashmi

The Old Afghan Hound has entered the ring
again, says S. Theodore Baskaran

Amrita Das finds love

and fresh air in the

vineyards of Nashik.

Experiencing the open spaces of an Indian vineyard; (below) White grapes flourishing in the vine.

Riesling
from our
backyard

Pashmi means hairy. The fur on the ears is their distinct identity.
PHOTO: THEODORE BASKARAN

When we drove into the compound of a farm

house in Vanaparuthi near Hyderabad, two
handsome dogs, looking like distant cousins
of the Sumerian Saluki, came bounding up to
greet their master at the wheel. There was a
lively spring in their gait as if they were trotting on the tips of their toes. I was told that
they belonged to the Pashmi breed, also called
the Old Afghan Hound. Apparently, dog lovers
in Hyderabad are now taking steps to revive
this majestic looking breed.
The dogs, originally from Afghanistan,
were brought in by the Pathans and Rohillas
who came into India a few centuries ago and
settled in the Deccan, the most southern parts
of the Moghul Empire. The village of Janwal
in Latur district, Maharashtra, is where these
dogs are found in large numbers. Latur and
Mhalangi are also where one can still find

Pashmis are
originally from
Afghanistan, and
were brought in by
the Pathans
and Rohillas who
came into India
a few centuries ago

good strains of these dogs.

The dogs look beautiful, with their tall,
slender bodies, heads held up in the style
typical of sighthounds, and arched stomach
and hairy ears. In fact, Pashmi means hairy,
as in the silky Pashmina shawl. The hair on
the ears is their distinct identity. The Salukitype pashmis are excellent in chase and have
traditionally been used for hunting hares. A
Pashmis stamina for running is phenomenal.
In flat country, it could outpace a Chinkara
deer.
In 2002, a rural dog show was held in a
school compound in Janwal. The Pashmis
stole the show organised by the Ethnic Indica
Canine Society, formed in Hyderabad to encourage Indian dog breeds. The dog owners at
the show were counselled on proper breeding
principles and feeding. In a few years, the
breed grew popular and the price of Pashmi
pups shot up.
By one estimate, there are nearly 10,000
Pashmis in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and
Maharashtra. Even in Canada a few enthusiasts have started a Pashmi Rescue Club to
propagate this breed. Two months ago, in a
special show for Indian breeds held in Nagercoil, two pashmis appeared in the show ring.
The few Pashmis I have seen are either grey
or white. Evidently there are also black variants, and I have seen a rare brown one at a dog
show in Bangalore.
Pashmis were inducted into the Police canine squad in the 1970s in Maharashtra by an
enthusiastic police officer. But I am not sure
how they fared as tracking dogs. Now the
most sought after police dog is the Belgian
Malinois, which has established a formidable
reputation in the Iraq war. It all began in
Israel. But that is another story.

or more than a decade

now, Vine to Bottle:
How Wine is Made has
been a part of my library. However, the
text and attractive images did not interest
me as much as my first
visit to the extensive

dry to sweet variations. I deter from trying

the dry and full-bodied options. Perhaps,
just another mind-block I may overcome
in a few years?
I walked around the winery to understand how different the preparation of
white wine is from the red. Non-edible
white grapes are extracted, and made to go
through a process of filtration, sedivineyards in India.
mentation and storage. The juice is then
Roughly four years after my first sip of passed through a chilling pipe to maintain
wine, my maiden visit to the grape-abound- the temperature at 5-6 degree Celsius.
ing region of Nashik, Maharashtra, changed
many things around.
The charm of velvety red wine has seldom
escaped me. As a non-vegetarian occasional
wine drinker, with a palate that is still unused to the cinnamon flavour of Zinfandel,
the fleshy Merlot has remained a decadelong favourite. However, while revisiting the
wineries of Nashik nine years later, I realise
how my taste buds have changed.
The moderate climes of Nashik are ideal
for for viticulture. The monsoon, however,
can be tough on the flourishing vineyards.
This region sees a diverse mix of the vine,
including
Malbec,
Sauvignon
and
Chardonnay.
My wine-tasting tour was on a pleasant
Autumn afternoon, when I reluctantly submitted to a glass of Riesling. After romanticising red wines for years, the sweetness of
white wine was somewhat uninvited. It was
fresh, aromatic, liberating and marked the
beginning of a love affair.
Originally grown in Germany, Riesling is
made from white grapes and is produced in

As I refill my glass
for a second, I
decide to make it a
bit more personal
and intimate. The
fruity aroma
confuses me a little.
I can smell honey
and green apple

The Sunday Crossword

Across

Down

1 Cry about everything (4)

2 Plant obtained by
explorer turning up with
company (7)
3 One whos withdrawn
from contract, one
wrongly given lot (9,6)
4 Head? It helps one draw
the line (5)
5 Academic dreaded
having no answer to be
presented (9)

CM
YK

This prepares the juice for fermentation.

Yeast is then added to convert sugar to
alcohol.
Ideally, white wines here are fermented
for 25 days with an alcohol strength of 10
per cent to 14 per cent. The former makes
a light-bodied white, the latter a fullbodied bottle.
These samples are taken to wine-makers
who pick the right note, nose and blend to
create an identity to these wines. Thereafter, it is stored in the wine cellar in a
1,000-year-old oak barrel.
As I refill my glass for a second, I decide
to make it a bit more personal and
intimate. The fruity aroma confuses me a
little. I can smell honey and green apple.
After a lingering sip, I can distinctly taste
the grapefruit and the sugar in my glass of
white. Elegant and superior, I know my
infatuation has grown.
I am told that this variety of white is
perhaps the most suited with our food.
Perhaps this is true. But, my food preferences have matured to lighter, vegetarian
dishes. The complementing taste of Riesling works wonders when I need to cleanse
my palate off the richer meals I may try.
A bottle of Riesling from that autumn
afternoon has now found a place in my
bar. Whether I share its friendly, honeyed
notes with acquaintances, or allow it to
flush me warm in solitude, this white wine
is mine.
I realise how wine has grown with me
from the firm structured reds to the
effervescent and free-spirited whites.

SNAILS PACE

It may be slimy...
but snail caviar is becoming increasingly popular among food buffs
in Europe

6 Neat, simple mixer

managed innovative
approach (15)
7 Odd parts for chaps in
film, being this? (7)
8 Assistant made cape Id
ordered (4-2-4)
12 Rascal with eccentric air
rose to become
producer (10)
14 Bubbly title-holder,
beaten finally in time (9)
16 Made reference and
raised boring article with
editor (7)
18 Fashionable and
extremely loud, rising
quickly (7)
20 Field occupying acre,
almost (5)
21 Reasonable
exhibition (4)

LAST WEEK'S SOLUTION

Guardian News and Media Ltd., 2015

the good life

1 Cheers received by
Communist leader, quiet
man in terrible event (11)
7 Grouse, not name for
flightless bird (3)
9 Lavish smear filled in by
artist (7)
10 Work silly dopes
resisted (7)
11 Striker, cross about
conflict, following
heart (6,7)
13 Travel around, beginning
to identify Polynesian
language (5)
14 Trim coach having a
change of colour (9)
15 Stern mind in
conservative element (9)
17 Part of lesson, a
humourless book of the
Bible (5)
19 Pompous man is left
rambling about
wine (4-9)
22 Blushing, decline to be
symbol of
revolution (3,4)
23 Song packed with zest
initially about part of
USA (7)
24 Occasional rum (3)
25 Hot in spell, yet more
shivery not unknown
indicator of fever? (11)

PHOTOS: AMRITA DAS

Aspersa Muller Madonita snails on a farm near Palermo, Sicily; (right) Escargot pearls.
It has an earthy taste with hints of grass and
mushroom. Snail caviar is a growing trend in
Europe, the delicate white eggs sprinkled on
everything from canaps to beef dishes and
beetroot. But, while the production cycles at
other organic companies from Italy to France
and Spain can last up to three years, one
Sicilian start-up has cut the time down to
eight months. Their secret? Cereals.
We feed the baby snails a vet-approved
diet of cereals, calcium and vitamins which

means they grow much more quickly than

they do eating leaves, says Davide Merlino,
one of Lumaca Madonita companys
co-founders.
Merlino says they had rejected intensive
farming for an eco-friendly process. Egg collection is a painstaking business, but a rewarding one. A 50 gram jar of eggs sells for 80
euros ($86). Italians are no strangers to eating
snails. They have been cultivated since Roman times, with author and naturalist Pliny

PHOTOS: AFP & SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

the Elder raving about snails fattened on donkeys milk and wine. The delicacy became
hugely popular among the wealthy, leading to
the creation of the first snail farms in Pompeii.
Italians ate an estimated 40,000 tonnes of
snails in 2014, ahead of France where annual
consumption is around 30,000 tonnes. And
snail caviar, which made a first unsuccessful
appearance in the 1980s, is also winning over
European taste buds.
AFP

KI-X