Making of the Mahatma
We pay tribute to the Father of the Nation, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), with an excerpt from his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth that reveals a defining moment in his journey towards becoming the Mahatma
On the seventh or eighth day after my arrival, I left Durban. A first-class seat was booked for me. It was usual there to pay five shillings extra, if one needed a bedding. Abdulla Sheth insisted that I should book one bedding but, out of obstinacy and pride and with a view to saving five shillings, I declined. Abdulla Sheth warned me. 'Look, now,' said he, 'this is a different country from India. Thank God, we have enough and to spare. Please do not stint yourself in anything that you may need.'
I thanked him and asked him not to be anxious.
The train reached Maritzburg, the capital of Natal, at about 9 pm. Beddings used to be provided at this station. A railway servant came and asked me if I wanted one. 'No,' said I, 'I have one with me.' He went away. But a passenger came next, and looked me up and down. He saw that I was a 'coloured' man. This disturbed him. Out he went and came in again with one or two officials. They all kept quiet, when another official came to me and said, 'Come along, you must go to the van compartment.'
'But I have a first-class ticket,' said I.
'That doesn't matter,' rejoined the other. 'I tell you, you must go to the van compartment.'
'I tell you, I was permitted to travel in this compartment at Durban, and I insist on going on in it.'
'No, you won't,' said the official. 'You must leave this compartment, or else I shall have to call a police constable to push you out.'
'Yes, you may. I refuse to get out voluntarily.'
The constable came. He took me by the hand and pushed me out. My luggage was also taken out. I refused to go to the other compartment and the train steamed away. I went and sat in the waiting room, keeping my hand bag with me, and leaving the other luggage where it was. The railway authorities had taken charge of it.
It was winter, and winter in the higher regions of South Africa is severely cold. Maritzburg being at a high altitude, the cold was extremely bitter. My overcoat was in my luggage, but I did not dare to ask for it lest I should be insulted again, so I sat and shivered. There was no light in the room. A passenger came in at about midnight and possibly wanted to talk to me. But I was in no mood to talk.
I began to think of my duty. Should I fight for my rights or go back to India, or should I go on to Pretoria without minding the insults, and return to India after finishing the case? It would be cowardice to run back to India without fulfilling my obligation. The hardship to which I was subjected was superficial-only a symptom of the deep disease of colour prejudice. I should try, if possible, to root out the disease and suffer hardships in the process. Redress for wrongs I should seek only to the extent that would be necessary for the removal of the colour prejudice.
So I decided to take the next available train to Pretoria.
The following morning I sent a long telegram to the General Manager of the Railway and also informed Abdulla Sheth, who immediately met the General Manager. The Manager justified the conduct of the railway authorities, but informed him that he had already instructed the Station Master to see that I reached my destination safely. Abdulla Sheth wired to the Indian merchants in Maritzburg and to friends in other places to meet me and look after me. The merchants came to see me at the station and tried to comfort me by narrating their own hardships and explaining that what had happened to me was nothing unusual. They also said that Indians travelling first or second class had to expect trouble from railway officials and white passengers. The day was thus spent in listening to these tales of woe. The evening train arrived. There was a reserved berth for me. I now purchased at Maritzburg the bedding ticket I had refused to book at Durban.
Featured in Harmony – Celebrate Age Magazine
October 2012
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Tribals & I
Former cricketer Saad Bin Jung is an all-rounder, juggling many roles adeptly: batting for the tribals of Karnataka, indulging in his passion for wildlife and donning the hat of an entrepreneur through The Bison, a first-of-its-kind wildlife deluxe tented camp on the banks of the Kabini river in Karnataka. His book, Subhan & I (Roli Books;  295; 256 pages), was launched in Hyderabad by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, a childhood friend. The 52 year-old, who is also the late Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi's nephew, talks about the tribal route he has taken and his interest in wildlife conservation with Shyamola Khanna.
Who is Subhan?
Subhan was the master angler from the tribal areas around the river Cauvery. Subhan and I together battled the odds to save the mahseer, the dream catch for every angler. The book also covers the crisis of identity; Subhan had no doubts about who he was or where he was coming from. Right up to the very end, he knew he was an angler and that was what his life was all about whereas, for me, there were these huge doubts: Who am I? Will anyone ever remember me; not just for my family and my heritage but for myself? The fundamental philosophy of the book is 'less is more'. The less you have, the happier you can be. I look around me and find it very strange that material wealth is being chased so diligently.
Erstwhile cricketer, wildlife enthusiast, social entrepreneur; which of these many hats is closest to your heart?
Definitely working for the forgotten people of India-the tribals- who are eking out a living on the edges of society. They are like my extended family now.
Tell us about your work.
Nearly 30 years ago when my wife Sangeeta and I chose to make a life with the tribal people of Karnataka, we decided that we would work with about a thousand homes, train at least one person from each home, educate him and train him in skills so he could be self-sufficient and earn some money. There is no infrastructure, no industry where young people from these tribal areas can get jobs. So when they go home, they cut down trees and kill animals for food, ivory or their skins. The mother pats them on the back and says, 'Well done'.
Meanwhile the government thinks all tribals who live in far-flung areas are either poachers or smugglers-hence the conflict! My earlier book, Wild Tales, also addressed this conflict as much as Subhan and I.
We have set up resorts in Bandipur, Nagarhole, and Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary of Karnataka where all our workforce comprises the people we have trained. We have managed to rehabilitate over 900 people in the past 10 years alone.
Why didn't you do this with the tribals of Andhra Pradesh?
At the time we started, the Naxalite menace in Andhra was high. Not that we haven't had trouble in Karnataka-our camp has been burnt down, we have been shot at, we have lost limbs. Yet we have not given up because we built the trust of the people very slowly and deliberately and we realised that we were making a difference.
Featured in Harmony – Celebrate Age Magazine
October 2012
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School daze!
To salute our teachers this month, we present an excerpt from Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934) by English writer James Hilton, a classic about a beloved schoolteacher who overcomes his own limitations to make his mark at a fictional British boarding school
When you are getting on in years it is nice to sit by the fire and drink a cup of tea and listen to the school bell sounding dinner, call-over, prep, and lights-out. Chips always wound up the clock after that last bell; then he put the wire guard in front of the fire, turned out the gas, and carried a detective novel to bed. Rarely did he read more than a page of it before sleep came swiftly and peacefully, more like a mystic intensifying of perception than any changeful entrance into another world. For his days and nights were equally full of dreaming....
Chips often thought, as he sat by the fire at Mrs. Wickett’s: I am probably the only man in the world who has a vivid recollection of old Wetherby.... Vivid, yes; it was a frequent picture in his mind, that summer day with the sunlight filtering through the dust in Wetherby’s study. "You are a young man, Mr. Chipping, and Brookfield is an old foundation. Youth and age often combine well. Give your enthusiasm to Brookfield, and Brookfield will give you something in return. And don’t let anyone play tricks with you. I-er- gather that discipline was not always your strong point at Melbury?"
"Well, no, perhaps not, sir."
"Never mind; you’re full young; it’s largely a matter of experience. You have another chance here. Take up a firm attitude from the beginning-that’s the secret of it."
Perhaps it was. He remembered that first tremendous ordeal of taking prep; a September sunset more than half a century ago; Big Hall full of lusty barbarians ready to pounce on him as their legitimate prey. His youth, fresh-complexioned, high-collared, and side-whiskered (odd fashions people followed in those days), at the mercy of five hundred unprincipled ruffians to whom the baiting of new masters was a fine art, an exciting sport, and something of a tradition. Decent little beggars individually, but, as a mob, just pitiless and implacable. The sudden hush as he took his place at the desk on the dais; the scowl he assumed to cover his inward nervousness; the tall clock ticking behind him, and the smells of ink and varnish; the last blood-red rays slanting in slabs through the stained-glass windows. Someone dropped a desk lid. Quickly, he must take everyone by surprise; he must show that there was no nonsense about him. "You there in the fifth row-you with the red hair-what’s your name?"
"Colley, sir."
"Very well, Colley, you have a hundred lines."
No trouble at all after that. He had won his first round.
And years later, when Colley was an alderman of the City of London and a baronet and various other things, he sent his son (also red-haired) to Brookfield, and Chips would say: "Colley, your father was the first boy I ever punished when I came here twenty-five years ago. He deserved it then, and you deserve it now." How they all laughed; and how Sir Richard laughed when his son wrote home the story in next Sunday’s letter!
And again, years after that, many years after that, there was an even better joke. For another Colley had just arrived-son of the Colley who was a son of the first Colley. And Chips would say, punctuating his remarks with that little "umph-um" that had by then become a habit with him: "Colley, you are-umph-a splendid example of-umph-inherited traditions. I remember your grandfather-umph-he could never grasp the Ablative Absolute. A stupid fellow, your grandfather. And your father, too-umph-I remember him-he used to sit at that far desk by the wall-he wasn’t much better, either. But I do believe-my dear Colley-that you are-umph-the biggest fool of the lot!" Roars of laughter.
A great joke, this growing old-but a sad joke, too, in a way. And as Chips sat by his fire with autumn gales rattling the windows, the waves of humour and sadness swept over him very often until tears fell, so that when Mrs. Wickett came in with his cup of tea she did not know whether he had been laughing or crying. And neither did Chips himself.
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
September 2012
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Read me right
If you feel misunderstood, blame your wrinkles. That's the conclusion of researcher Ursula Hess of Berlin's Humboldt University. Her new study, published in the July issue of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, says younger people have trouble reading the emotions of silvers because their wrinkles and folds look like facial expressions and interfere with the perception of emotion, thus conveying the wrong message at times. For the study, Hess and her team asked 65 college students to view computer-generated faces of men and women who were young (ages 19 to 21) and old (ages 76 to 83) with varying facial expressions, from neutral to happy, sad and angry. They discovered that younger people were most accurate in recognising anger in silvers, less accurate in recognising happiness, and least accurate in recognising sadness. "We found that young people often make mistakes when judging the emotions of the elderly," writes Hess. "This may result in less harmonious social interactions."
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
September 2012
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Authorspeak
TIMERI N MURARI ON HIS LATEST BOOK,
THE TALIBAN CRICKET CLUB (ALEPH BOOK COMPANY;
595; 325 PAGES), AND MORE
What inspired your latest, The Taliban Cricket Club?
Way back in 2000, I read a very brief report in the newspaper that the Taliban announced that they would promote cricket in Afghanistan and the regime, backed by the Pakistan Cricket Board, would apply for associate membership to the International Cricket Council. I thought the item was surreal: Taliban? Cricket? They were contradictory, an oxymoron. The regime had banned everything—including chess—and this was a diplomatic way for acceptance in a world that condemned their brutal rule. The idea nagged at me and I made a few notes on how I could use this for a story. I thought I'd throw in a tournament and that the winning team would be sent out of the country, all expenses paid, and never return. Great! But as no one knew how to play cricket back then in Afghanistan who's going to teach my team of young men? A pro from Eng-land/India/Pakistan—it didn't have any dimensions. I set the idea aside and went back to my other work when the Taliban were driven out by ISAF. When they 'returned' to fight ISAF, I pulled out my notes to rethink. I grew up playing cricket with my sisters and female cousins in our garden and even had a niece who played for India. So, why not have a young Afghan woman who learned her cricket in India, returning to Kabul when the Taliban announces this and have her teach her cousins how to play this game? Through her I could explore the plight of women under the Taliban rule and have my cricket team as well.
Cricket is a passion for you. Do you still play?
It was a passion as I learned the game in Madras but played all my cricket in England. Alas, I no longer play and miss it very much as it was a delightful way to spend a day, on the cricket field.
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From Taj to Taliban, sum up your literary journey thus far.
It's been an exciting journey exploring India through both my fiction and non-fiction works and constantly discovering fascinating facts about this country through my own personal experiences and turning them into my books.
How has coming 'back home' to India informed your writing, the way you live your life?
India has certainly inspired and shaped all my writings; and by coming home to live here, I find that the material is inexhaustible. India is so full of stories to be told, and daily I meet men and women who have these stories. India has taught me to whittle down my daily life to be as simple as possible, to help the needy whenever I can, and to retain a sense of humour at the lunacy of our leaders. My regret is that we take our politicians and politics too seriously.
What's next—personally and professionally?
Oh, there is a lot more of life to be lived here and I hope to continue being who I am. I have a wonderful wife and we have five street dogs to keep us company and bring sanity into our daily lives. I still play tennis and exercise daily. I will continue writing my books, articles, plays, whatever interests or inspires me, as it's what I do to the best of my abilities.
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
September 2012
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On patriotism
To aid the sense of introspection on nationhood that inevitably accompanies Independence Day each August, we present an excerpt from Democracy in America (1835), a seminal study by French political thinker and historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
There is one sort of patriotic attachment which principally arises from that instinctive, disinterested, and undefinable feeling which connects the affections of man with his birthplace. This natural fondness is united with a taste for ancient customs and a reverence for traditions of the past; those who cherish it love their country as they love the mansion of their fathers. They love the tranquillity that it affords them; they cling to the peaceful habits that they have contracted within its bosom; they are attached to the reminiscences that it awakens; and they are even pleased by living there in a state of obedience. This patriotism is sometimes stimulated by religious enthusiasm, and then it is capable of making prodigious efforts. It is in itself a kind of religion: it does not reason, but it acts from the impulse of faith and sentiment. In some nations the monarch is regarded as a personification of the country; and, the fervour of patriotism being converted into the fervour of loyalty, they take a sympathetic pride in his conquests, and glory in his power. There was a time under the ancient monarchy when the French felt a sort of satisfaction in the sense of their dependence upon the arbitrary will of their king; and they were wont to say with pride: "We live under the most powerful king in the world."
But, like all instinctive passions, this kind of patriotism incites great transient exertions, but no continuity of effort. It may save the state in critical circumstances, but often allows it to decline in times of peace. While the manners of a people are simple and its faith unshaken, while society is steadily based upon traditional institutions whose legitimacy has never been contested, this instinctive patriotism is wont to endure.
But there is another species of attachment to country which is more rational than the one I have been describing. It is perhaps less generous and less ardent, but it is more fruitful and more lasting: it springs from knowledge; it is nurtured by the laws, it grows by the exercise of civil rights; and, in the end, it is confounded with the personal interests of the citizen. A man comprehends the influence which the well-being of his country has upon his own; he is aware that the laws permit him to contribute to that prosperity, and he labours to promote it, first because it benefits him, and secondly because it is in part his own work.
But epochs sometimes occur in the life of a nation when the old customs of a people are changed, public morality is destroyed, religious belief shaken, and the spell of tradition broken, while the diffusion of knowledge is yet imperfect and the civil rights of the community are ill secured or confined within narrow limits. The country then assumes a dim and dubious shape in the eyes of the citizens; they no longer behold it in the soil which they inhabit, for that soil is to them an inanimate clod; nor in the usages of their forefathers, which they have learned to regard as a debasing yoke; nor in religion, for of that they doubt; nor in the laws, which do not originate in their own authority; nor in the legislator, whom they fear and despise. The country is lost to their senses; they can discover it neither under its own nor under borrowed features, and they retire into a narrow and unenlightened selfishness. They are emancipated from prejudice without having acknowledged the empire of reason; they have neither the instinctive patriotism of a monarchy nor the reflecting patriotism of a republic; but they have stopped between the two in the midst of confusion and distress.
In this predicament to retreat is impossible, for a people cannot recover the sentiments of their youth any more than a man can return to the innocent tastes of childhood; such things may be regretted, but they cannot be renewed. They must go forward and accelerate the union of private with public interests, since the period of disinterested patriotism is gone by forever.
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
August 2012
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An eventful life
Journalist and human rights activist Kuldip Nayar's autobiography Beyond The Lines (Roli Books, 595) chronicles the post-Independence India. Harmony-Celebrate Age presents some images supporting his insightful narrative
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Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
August 2012
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Words' worth
To celebrate our 8th anniversary, we present an extract from "Journalism", an insight into 'wordsmithy' in a bygone era by English author-teacher-journalist James Runciman (1852-1891)
When the mystic midnight passes, the bustle of Fleet Street slackens; but on each side of the thoroughfare hundreds of workers with hand and brain are toiling with eager intensity. In tall buildings here and there the lights glitter on every floor, and throw their long shafts through the gloom; not much activity is plainly visible, and yet somehow the merest novice feels that there is a throb in the air, and that some mysterious forces are working around him. Hurrying messengers dash by, stray cabs rush along with a low rumble and sharp clash of hoofs. But it is not in the street that the minds and bodies of men are obviously in action; go inside one of the mighty palatial offices, and you find yourself in the midst of such a hive of marvellous industry as the world has never seen before. On one journal as many as 450 or 500 men are all labouring for dear life; every one is at high pressure, from the silent leaderwriter to the fussy swift-footed messenger. In that one building is concentrated a great estate, which yields a revenue that exceeds that of some principalities; it is a large nerve-centre, and myriads of fibres connect it with every part of the globe; or, say, it is like some miraculous eye, which sees in all directions and is indifferent to distance. Go into one quiet, soft-carpeted room, and certain small glittering machines flash in the bright light. 'Click, click—click, click!""—long strips of tape are softly unwound and fall in slack twisted piles. One of those machines is printing off a long letter from Berlin, another is registering news from Vienna, and by a third news from Paris comes as easily and rapidly as from Shoreditch; subdued men take the tapes, expand and make fluent the curt, halting phrases of the foreign correspondents, and pass the messages swiftly away to the printers. From America, Australia, India, China, the items of news pour in, and are scrutinised by severe subeditors; and those experts calculate to a fraction of an inch what space can be judiciously spared for each item.
If Parliament is sitting, the relays of messengers arrive with batches of manuscript; and, when an important debate is proceeding, the steady influx of hundreds of scribbled sheets is enormous. A four hours' speech from such an orator as Mr Gladstone or Mr Chamberlain contains, say, 30,000 words. Imagine the area of paper covered by the reporters! But such a speech would rarely come in late at night, and the men can usually handle an important oration by an eminent speaker in a way that is leisurely by comparison. The slips are distributed with lightning rapidity; each man puts his little batch into type, the fragments are placed in their queer frame, and presently the readers are poring over the long, damp, and odorous proof-sheets. There is no very great hurry in the early part of the evening; but, as the small hours wear away, the strain is feverish in its poignancy. There is no noise, no confusion; each man knows his office, and fulfils it deftly. But such great issues are involved, that the nervousness of managers, printers, sub-editors—everyone—may easily be understood. Suppose that a very important division is to be taken in Parliament; the minutes roll by, and the news is still delayed. Some kind of comment must be made on the result of the debate, and an able, swift writer scrawls off his column of phrases with furious speed. Then that article must be put into type; a model of the type must be taken on a sheet of papier-mâché, the melted metal must be poured into the paper mould, the resulting curved block must be clamped on to a cylinder of the waiting machine, and all this must be done with strict regard to the value of seconds. A delay of half a minute might prevent the manager from sending his piles of journals away by the early train, and that would be a calamity too fearful to be dreamed of. In one great newspaper-office 10 machines are all set going together, and an eleventh is kept ready in case of accident. The ten whizzing cylinders print off the papers, and an impression of a quarter of a million is soon thrown out, folded, and piled ready for distribution. But imagine what a loss of one minute means! Truly the agitation of the officials at an awkward pinch is singularly excusable, and many a hard word is levelled at pertinacious talkers who insist on thrusting themselves upon the House at a time when the country is waiting with wild eagerness for momentous tidings. The long line of carts waits in the street, the speedy ponies rattle off, and soon the immense building is all but still. Comfortable people who have their journal punctually handed in at a convenient hour in the morning are apt to think lightly of the raging effort, the inconceivably complicated organisation, the colossal expense needed to produce that sheet which is flung away at the close of each day.
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
July 2012
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Of love and hope
In the centenary year of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of the most popular Urdu poets, his grandson Ali Madeeh Hashmi has released a Biography: Faiz Ahmed Faiz: His Life, His Poems—The Way It Was Once (Harpercollins; 499). The tribute includes his famous poems, translated into English by his son-in-law Shoaib Hashmi. Here are some glimpses into a celebrated life
Khalal pazeer bo-ad har binakay mi beeni
'Every foundation is faulty, I saw'
–Hafez Shirazi
The year was 1962. The Lenin Peace Prize had to be awarded to Faiz in Moscow. Since Faiz was still under surveillance by the military government, the only way he could travel to the USSR to accept the award was by the permission of the president. Fortunately, the military government of Ayub Khan was, at this point of time, experimenting with a slightly more non-aligned foreign policy, more in line with Pakistan's national interest and less subservient to the US. Faiz received permission to travel to Moscow. His doctors were less sanguine and forbade him to travel by air. Faiz thus went to Moscow by train to receive his award.
Faiz was accompanied on this journey by his elder daughter, Salima. Alys [Faiz's wife] and Faiz had decided to say goodbye to Pakistan and Alys was to take their younger daughter Moneeza to London, where Faiz and Salima were to join them after returning from Moscow. Since his doctors had forbidden him to travel by air, they were to go to Karachi, then to Naples by ship, then by train to Rome and onwards through Czechoslovakia, Poland and to the USSR. Salima smiles as she remembers the journey: 'Abba [father] had no idea how long the journey was going to be; he assumed it would be a few hours, maybe a day or so.' The first obstacle was boarding the ship at Karachi since Faiz was on the exit control list and even though he had a special permission letter from the president, he was stopped, questioned, allowed to board the ship, then questioned again. At one point, he instructed the young Salima on what to do if he was taken off the ship. She was to go on to Naples and meet her mother there and they were to travel to Moscow to receive the award. A terrified Salima was relieved when he was allowed to travel.
Click here for view photo gallery
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
July 2012
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The Beltane fires
Here's proof—if you needed it—that 'May Day' has traditionally meant different things to different cultures
In the Central Highlands of Scotland, bonfires, known as the Beltane fires, were formerly kindled with great ceremony on the first of May, and the traces of human sacrifices at them were particularly clear and unequivocal. The custom of lighting the bonfires lasted in various places far into the eighteenth century, and the descriptions of the ceremony by writers of that period present such a curious and interesting picture of ancient heathendom surviving in our own country that I will reproduce them in the words of their authors. The fullest of the descriptions is the one bequeathed to us by John Ramsay, laird of Ochtertyre, near Crieff.... He says: "But the most considerable of the Druidical festivals is that of Beltane, or May-day, which was lately observed in some parts of the Highlands with extraordinary ceremonies…. Like the other public worship of the Druids, the Beltane feast seems to have been performed on hills or eminences. They thought it degrading to him whose temple is the universe, to suppose that he would dwell in any house made with hands. Their sacrifices were therefore offered in the open air, frequently upon the tops of hills, where they were presented with the grandest views of nature, and were nearest the seat of warmth and order. And, according to tradition, such was the manner of celebrating this festival in the Highlands within the last hundred years. But since the decline of superstition, it has been celebrated by the people of each hamlet on some hill or rising ground around which their cattle were pasturing. Thither the young folks repaired in the morning, and cut a trench, on the summit of which a seat of turf was formed for the company. And in the middle a pile of wood or other fuel was placed, which of old they kindled with tein-eigin—i.e., forced-fire or need-fire....
"The night before, all the fires in the country were carefully extinguished and next morning the materials for exciting this sacred fire were prepared. The most primitive method seems to be that which was used in the islands of Skye, Mull, and Tiree. A well-seasoned plank of oak was procured, in the midst of which a hole was bored. A wimble of the same timber was then applied, the end of which they fitted to the hole. But in some parts of the mainland the machinery was different. They used a frame of green wood, of a square form, in the centre of which was an axle-tree. In some places three times three persons, in others three times nine, were required for turning round by turns the axle-tree or wimble. If any of them had been guilty of murder, adultery, theft, or other atrocious crime, it was imagined either that the fire would not kindle, or that it would be devoid of its usual virtue. So soon as any sparks were emitted by means of the violent friction, they applied a species of agaric which grows on old birch-trees, and is very combustible. This fire had the appearance of being immediately derived from heaven, and manifold were the virtues ascribed to it. They esteemed it a preservative against witchcraft and a sovereign remedy against malignant diseases, both in the human species and in cattle; and by it the strongest poisons were supposed to have their nature changed.
"After kindling the bonfire with the tein-eigin the company prepared their victuals.
And as soon as they had finished their meal, they amused themselves a while in singing and dancing round the fire. Towards the close of the entertainment, the person who officiated as master of the feast produced a large cake baked with eggs and scalloped round the edge, called am bonnach bea-tine—i.e., the Beltane cake. It was divided into a number of pieces, and distributed in great form to the company. There was one particular piece which whoever got was called cailleach beal-tine—i.e., the Beltane carline, a term of great reproach. Upon his being known, part of the company laid hold of him and made a show of putting him into the fire; but the majority interposing, he was rescued. And in some places they laid him flat on the ground, making as if they would quarter him. Afterwards, he was pelted with egg-shells, and retained the odious appellation during the whole year. And while the feast was fresh in people's memory, they affected to speak of the cailleach beal-tine as dead."
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
May 2012
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High spirits
To celebrate Padma Vibhushan Zohra Segal's 100th birthday, her daughter Kiran has released Zohra Segal - Fatty' (Niyogi books; 1,250), a loving ode to the actor-dancer's life and journey. We present a chapter from the book, and some images
Ammi has unbelievable inner strength. The year 1994 was a bad one for her—a lump in her right calf turned out to be a tumour and she had to undergo surgery. She put up a very brave front all through the tests, examinations and biopsies. I would hear her screaming from pain and there was nothing I could do standing outside except feel the same pain. Pavan [Segal, Zohra's son] told me that if the tumour touched the bone then she would be bedridden for life—I was devastated and just could not hide my feelings. Pavan was stronger than me; I was to leave for a performance, which I was going to cancel but he insisted that I carry on with my dance tour, or else she would know that something was seriously wrong with her. But she knew. She tells me now, "The moment I saw the expression on your face, I could tell that I was seriously ill."
I was performing in Udaipur; waiting for my call to start the performance, I have never prayed to God as I prayed that night and asked Him to save my mother's life.
However, it was just her strength and only her strength that made us see her through the illness. At Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital she was under the able supervision of Dr A K Banerjee who was then chief of surgery. I was so relieved to have such a wonderful doctor take care of her. For, not only was he such a good doctor, he was also very caring and humane in all his dealings with his patient. My two disciples, Anuradha and Sudha, stayed at the hospital with Ammi, while I shunted back and forth between home and hospital, cooking and bringing whatever she felt like eating. She hated the hospital food! Pavan stayed in the hospital with her for a couple of nights as I had a pain in my back. Satyanarayan, my vocalist/friend, was also of great help in this period and so was another friend of mine—Bela Singh.
Dr Banerjee was so taken up by my mother that one day he brought his entire family to meet her in hospital and till today we have all remained friends. Here I must mention SPIC MACAY. It was owing to my meeting Mukulika, Dr Banerjee's second daughter, that all this treatment and surgery was possible. (She was the SPIC MACAY representative on one of my lecture-demonstration tours—I think it was in Madhya Pradesh.) My mother was full of laughter, jokes and funny comments. At times she would tease the young doctors and the nurses who took some time in seeing the funny side of the comments. All this went on throughout the day and I sometimes wondered what my mother's last thoughts were before she fell asleep. When she was discharged and brought home, she still had to go to Batra Hospital for radiology sittings. I think it was almost every day or every other day. Seeing all the other cancer patients was very painful but even there she kept her spirits high and was full of fun. All along her illness, I felt it was she who was giving strength to us rather than the other way around. She had almost lost sensation in the right leg and yet she walked for one hour every day with a zeal that was quite unbelievable! I am sure she's got a 'self-charging' battery inside her.
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May 2012
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For love of a fool
In his classic essay, "All Fools' Day", taken from the collection Essays of Elia (1823), beloved English essayist Charles Lamb tells us why he would gladly suffer a fool! Excerpts….
The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first of April to us all!
Many happy returns of this day to you—and you, and you, Sir; nay, never frown, man, nor put a long face upon the matter. Do not we know one another? What need of ceremony among friends? We have all a touch of that same—you understand me—a speck of the motley. Beshrew the man who on such a day as this, the general festival, should affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of the corporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forest today, shall meet with no wiseacre, I can tell him. Stultus sum. Translate me that, and take the meaning of it to yourself for your pains…. Fill us a cup of that sparkling gooseberry—we will drink no wise, melancholy, politic port on this day….
I will confess a truth to thee, reader. I love a Fool—as naturally, as if I were of kith and kin to him. When a child, with childlike apprehensions, that dived not below the surface of the matter, I read those Parables—not guessing at their involved wisdom—I had more yearnings towards that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent; and—prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my apprehension, somewhat unfeminine wariness of their competitors—I felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a tendre, for those five thoughtless virgins. I have never made an acquaintance since, that lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not some tincture of the absurd in their characters.
I venerate an honest obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will not betray or overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or fish, the finer the flesh thereof", and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such whereof the world is not worthy? And what have been some of the kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity, minions of the goddess….? Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are the April Fool.
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
April 2012
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Boundaries
Mapping India, a large-format book by Manosi Lahiri (Niyogi Books; 4,500; 320 pages), pieces together India's evolution through old maps and sketches. Harmony-Celebrate Age presents an excerpt and some marvellous illustrations from the puzzle
Mapping India includes historical maps available in the Indian archives, still unknown to voyeurs of old maps. The National Archives of India has some of the most interesting maps made from the mid-18th century to late 19th century. For several years, they were treated as classified documents and not made accessible to the public. It is, therefore, a pleasure to introduce them. These include several original manuscript plans and maps that record important events in the history of the country. They constitute the prime source for subsequently published maps of India. Large-scale maps were reduced and maps were prepared from them for the purpose of publishing them in smaller scale.
The physical condition of many of these manuscript plans and maps are poor: they are often discoloured and brittle. Several are torn along the folds and edges, sometimes heavily stained and now clearly disintegrating. The time has come to photograph and restore these maps before their original beauty is totally destroyed, and it is no longer possible to retrieve any information from them. It should be of concern to all of us that several old maps are in such poor condition that the fine text and symbols can't be deciphered.
For historical reasons, the Map Library at the British Library, St Pancras, London, and the Royal Geographical Society, London, house the most comprehensive collections of documents and maps relating to India. The Asiatic Society, Kolkata, Asiatic Society of Mumbai and Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Museum at the City Palace, Jaipur, are rich sources of historical maps. The Susan Gole Collection at the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New Delhi, is a storehouse of published maps of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It has, perhaps, the largest collection of general maps of India, which were at one time widely used by administrators, travellers and laymen. Besides, I have been able to access beautiful maps from private collections and share them with the readers of this book.
Finally, Mapping India touches upon the recent dramatic changes in cartography and the prickly issue of public access to maps in India. Mapping technology is rapidly changing and the Internet as a medium of map delivery to a large number of users has proved useful. It is possible that we are witnessing the final days of map delivery on paper, primarily since people now regularly expect 'fresh' maps which can be delivered electronically with speed. Paper maps take long to publish and this may well be one of the reasons for their dwindling use in future.
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Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
April 2012
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Second row, third from left!
Every Indian film has far more to tell than just that dirty story. The tales of struggle, sustenance and the road to glamour are sometimes sad and sometimes funny, but never sordid. Kiran Nagarkar's Ravan and Eddie (and their CWD chawl in Mumbai) brought India closer to the business capital at the time when Hindi film songs were nationalising Bombay's famous roads —Lamington Road, Sandhurst Road, Carter Road…; Ravan and Eddie was set in the 1940s and 1950s. It's been close to two decades and the boys are back in THE EXTRAS (Fourth Estate; 599; 467 pages), all grown up and harbouring dreams of fame through inroads to Bollywood. They want to be singers and actors. Ravan loves his enemy-by-birth neighbour Eddie's sister Pieta and Eddie loves Belle for a ticket to London. Glass shards in their bioscopes change patterns, bringing new colours to their lives. The hooch joint Eddie works for, and Ravan's part-time taxi, takes them places, yet nowhere. The comic circles are far more seriously intriguing than they seem. Is this life a film? The parts we play might have been written by an unseen power but how it finally shapes up is in our hands. Is it really? Two boys, now men, who never spoke to each other by turn of fate, find themselves together chasing unseen fate, bumping into each other at every possible turn. Just when you thought the two would live as cult figures penned by Nagarkar, here he is giving them new life in this rollicking ride.
—Meeta Bhatti
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March 2012
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Ancient wonders
While it appears to be a la mode to re-craft our epics and their protagonists in a contemporary mould, Ashok K Banker is very much an old-fashioned guy. The journalist-turned-writer who brought us the much-acclaimed Ramayana Series and the Krishna Coriolis steers clear of 're-imagining' his mythology; instead he uses his extremely vivid imagination to gild the lily; adding texture, depth and resonance to the stories told and retold over generations. His latest MBA, or Mahabharata Series, is no exception—it adheres strictly to the original Sanskrit shloka of the epic. The first instalment THE FOREST OF STORIES (Westland; 295; 351 pages) transports you to the ashram of Kulapati Shaunaka in the depths of Naimisha-van, the dark and haunted jungle. The residents of the ashram welcome Suta, a tired traveller who tells of the passing of Maharishi Krishna Dweipayana Vyasa, the compiler of the Vedas. He also shares Vyasa's legacy: the Maha Bharata, an epic narrative poem. What follows is an exquisite narration of the composition, replete with myths of creation and populated by creatures divine and evil, incredible beasts and nature's bounties. The forest seems to gather close around the ashram, its ghosts from the Kuru Bharata race crowding nearer to hear their own saga told with passion and poetry. With this lyrical beginning, Banker doesn't just set the stage for the main narrative of the Mahabharata—watch out for the second volume, The Seeds of War—he also opens the door to the myths and magic that are so intrinsic to the idea of India, reminding us that the best stories in the world can be found right here, at home.
—Arati Rajan Menon
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
March 2012
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A mighty churn
Following on the heels of the insanely successful The Immortals of Meluha franchise, it is inevitable that a slew of Indian writers will follow suit to mine from the treasure trove of Indian mythology and imbue ancient tales with a modern twist. The hero—well, sort of—in BALI AND THE OCEAN OF MILK (HarperCollins; 199; 306 pages) is Indrah, or Indy as his women in Amravati call him. Sadly, the once virile lord of the gods is losing, shall we say, his touch (Urvashi complains that they haven't made love for 200 years). Meanwhile, his asura counterpart Bali, ruler of Tripura, faces internal rebellion and the threat of assassination. When both men realise they could do with a shot of immortality, they come together for Operation Ocean's Twelve—you guessed it, a twist on the samudra manthan (or churning of the primordial ocean) that held us all in thrall as kids. This is an unabashed romp and author Nilanjan P Choudhury has a lot of fun with it as he throws in gadgets and gizmos, social networking, modern political catchphrases (animal rights violations by the asura, if you please), and poor jokes by the dozen. This is not the kind of book that would ever qualify as literature and sharing it with your grandkids may skew their notions of divine denizens that you've taken so long to cultivate. That said, this is loads of fun—if your funny bone is in the right place.
—Arati Rajan Menon
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
March 2012
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In the crossfire
Politics has an inherent quality to divide. Nations bear its brunt with relative ease than individuals, especially in a marriage. Left-wing Congress activist turned leader of the Opposition in Parliament Minoo Masani ("Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's ideological inspiration") fell in love with Shakuntala, one of several daughters of Sir J P Srivastava, an Empire loyalist and, therefore, a successful businessman. Masani was twice divorced and Shakuntala a journalist 15 years younger. They eloped and married, only to lock horns years later over their individualistic thoughts about the Congress, socialism and globalisation. After they both departed, their son Zareer Masani opened their black boxes to search for causes of their political arguments and resultant angst, leading to a logical conclusion: AND ALL IS SAID - MEMOIR OF A HOME DIVIDED (Penguin; 299; 236 pages). Besotted by Mrs Indira Gandhi's charms and her moral high ground from India's victory involving neighbouring Bangladesh, Shakuntala's political differences with her husband grew over the years, the gulf widening so much so that she thought everyone was driving a personal agenda against her. The consequent physical and nervous breakdown took a toll on their son, the author, who was at the same time battling his own sexuality. That both his parents were not pliable didn't help Zareer in his growing-up years. His parents' public political postures and diverse philosophical and ideological attitudes drove them apart permanently, the divorce becoming acerbic and bitter with Shakuntala losing face over Mrs Gandhi's face-offs in Parliament. Read this book to look for prominent names and incidents from the past; and for a close look at the aftermath of politics—familial and real.
—Meeta Bhatti
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
March 2012
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Wild at heart
Think about the 'coffee table' book on wildlife you skimmed through at a friend's or the Nat Geo feature you chanced upon while your fingers were dancing over your remote control. All it takes is an image or two to transport you into the cradle of nature, somehow extracting you from your comfort zone into an unfamiliar space that is as intimidating as it is exhilarating. Now, imagine the impact of a book that, instead, draws the wild into your own space, making the jungle your comfort zone, offering you a bewildering intimacy with the beautiful creatures who people it. That's the beauty of RANTHAMBORE: THE TIGER'S REALM (Sujan Art Pvt Ltd; 4,800; 164 pages), written and produced by couple Anjali and Jaisal Singh, and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Each of them have a long-standing and personal connection to the forests of Ranthambore and their denizens; this heartfelt connection is felt through every musing, memory, photo-graph and painting you find through this book. The heroes, of course, are the magnificent tigers—in the short time it takes you to devour this book, Shadow, Brat, Split, Zaalim, Junglee, Macchli will all be friends, their idiosyncrasies and special ways so familiar you will hate to say goodbye. So compelling are their tales, in fact, that they almost overshadow the X-factor of this book: a rare glimpse into the very private world of Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and her family through her own words and some wonderfully intimate pictures.
—Arati Rajan Menon
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
March 2012
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Her mystique
An English author who retained his romantic sensibility in an age of irony, Richard Le Gallienne (1866-1947) waxed eloquent on the allure of the woman in his essay "Woman as a Supernatural Being", part of the collection Vanishing Roads and Other Essays, published in 1915. Excerpts….
The boy's first hushed enchantment, blent with a sort of religious awe, as in his earliest love affair he awakens to the delicious mystery we call woman, a being half fairy and half flower, made out of moonlight and water lilies, of elfin music and thrilling fragrance, of divine whiteness and softness and rustle as of dewy rose gardens, a being of unearthly eyes and terribly sweet marvel of hair; such, too, through life, and through the ages, however confused or overlaid by use and wont, is man's perpetual attitude of astonishment before the apparition woman.
Though she may work at his side, the comrade of his sublunary occupations, he never, deep down, thinks of her as quite real. Though his wife, she remains an apparition, a being of another element, an Undine. She is never quite credible, never quite loses that first nimbus of the supernatural.
This is true not merely for poets; it is true for all men, though, of course, all men may not be conscious of its truth, or realise the truth in just this way. Poets, being endowed with exceptional sensitiveness of feeling and expression, say the wonderful thing in the wonderful way, bring to it words more nearly adequate than others can bring; but it is an error to suppose that any beauty of expression can exaggerate, can indeed more than suggest, the beauty of its truth. Woman is all that poets have said of her, and all that poets can never say:
Always incredible hath seemed the rose,
And inconceivable the nightingale.
And the poet's adoration of her is but the articulate voice of man's love since the beginning, a love which is as mysterious as she herself is a mystery. However some may try to analyse man's love for woman, to explain it, or explain it away, belittle it, nay, even resent and befoul it, it remains an unaccountable phenomenon, a "mystery we make darker with a name". Biology, cynically pointing at certain of its processes, makes the miracle rather more miraculous than otherwise. Musical instruments are no explanation of music. "Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?" says Benedick, in Much Ado about Nothing, commenting on Balthazar's music. But they do, for all that, though no one considers sheep's gut the explanation. To cry "sex" and to talk of nature's mad preoccupation with the species throws no light on the matter, and robs it of no whit of its magic. The rainbow remains a rainbow, for all the sciences. And woman, with or without the suffrage, stenographer or princess, is of the rainbow. She is beauty made flesh and dwelling amongst us, and whatever the meaning and message of beauty may be, such is the meaning of woman on the earth—her meaning, at all events, for men. That is, she is the embodiment, more than any other creature, of that divine something, whatever it may be, behind matter, that spiritual element out of which all proceeds, and which mysteriously gives its solemn, lovely and tragic significance to our mortal day.
If you tell some women this of themselves, they will smile at you. Men are such children. They are so simple. Dear innocents, how easily they are fooled! A little makeup, a touch of rouge, a dash of henna—and you are an angel. Some women seem really to think this; for, naturally, they know nothing of their own mystery, and imagine that it resides in a few feminine tricks, the superficial cleverness with which some of them know how to make the most of the strange something about them which they understand even less than men understand it.
Other women indeed resent man's religious attitude toward them as sentimental, old-fashioned. They prefer to be regarded merely as fellow-men. To show consciousness of their sex is to risk offence, and to busy one's eyes with their magnificent hair, instead of the magnificent brains beneath it, is to insult them. Yet when, in that old court of law, Phryne bared her bosom as her complete case for the defence, she proved herself a greater lawyer than will ever be made by law examinations and bachelor's degrees; and even when women become judges of the Supreme Court, a development easily within sight, they will still retain the greater importance of being merely women….
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
March 2012
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Before Viagra
In this excerpt from Sir Richard Francis Burton's classic 1883 translation of Vatsyayana's Kamasutra, we learn how to brew some potent ancient tonics
A man obtains sexual vigour by drinking milk mixed with sugar, the root of the uchchata plant, the pipar chaba, and licorice. Drinking milk mixed with sugar, and having the testicle of a ram or a goat boiled in it, is also productive of vigour. The drinking of the juice of the Hedysarum gangeticum, the kuili, and the kshirika plant, mixed with milk, produces the same effect. The seed of long pepper, along with the seeds of the Sansevieria roxburghiana, and the Hedysarum gangeticum plant, all pounded together, and mixed with milk, is productive of a similar result.
According to ancient authors, if a man pounds the seeds or roots of the Trapa bispinosa, the kasurika, the Tuscan jasmine and licorice, together with the kshirikapoli (a kind of onion), and puts the powder into milk mixed with sugar and ghee, and having boiled the whole mixture on a moderate fire, drinks the paste so formed, he will be able to enjoy innumerable women. In the same way, if a man mixes rice with the eggs of the sparrow, and having boiled this in milk, adds to it ghee and honey, and drinks as much of it as is necessary, this will produce the same effect.
If a man takes the outer covering of sesame seeds, and soaks them with the eggs of sparrows, and then, having boiled them in milk, mixed with sugar and ghee, along with the fruits of the Trapa bispinosa and the kasurika plant, and adds to it the flour of wheat and beans, and then drinks this composition, he is said to be able to enjoy many women. If ghee, honey, sugar and licorice in equal quantities, the juice of the fennel plant and milk are mixed together, this nectar-like composition is said to be holy, and provocative of sexual vigour, a preservative of life, and sweet to the taste.
The drinking of a paste composed of the Asparagus racemosus, the shvadaushtra plant, the guduchi plant, the long pepper and licorice, boiled in milk, honey and ghee, in the spring, is said to have the same effect as the above. Boiling the Asparagus racemosus and the shvadaushtra plant, along with the pounded fruits of the Premna spinosa in water, and drinking the same, is said to act in the same way.
Drinking boiled ghee in the morning, during the spring season, is said to be beneficial to health and strength, and agreeable to the taste. If the powder of the seed of the shvadaushtra plant and the flour of barley are mixed together in equal parts, and a portion of it, two pala in weight, is eaten every morning on getting up, it has the same effect as the preceding recipe.
The means of producing love and sexual vigour should be learned from the science of medicine, from the Vedas, from those who are learned in the arts of magic and from confidential relatives. No means should be tried which are doubtful in their effects, which are likely to cause injury to the body, which involve the death of animals, or which bring us in contact with impure things. Only such means should be used as are holy, acknowledged to be good and approved of by Brahmans and friends.
A footnote from Burton: From the earliest times, Oriental authors have concerned themselves with aphrodisiacs. As the Ananga Ranga tells us, 'Most Eastern treatises divide aphrodisiacs into two different kinds: the mechanical or natural, such as scarification and flagellation; and the medicinal or artificial. To the former belongs the application of insects, as is practiced by some savage races; and all Orientalists will remember the tale of the old Brahman whose young wife insisted upon his being again stung by a wasp.
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
February 2012
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On the shelves
New reads that may grab your fancy
In the summer of 2011, filmmaker and writer Ruchir Joshi chronicled 'The Battle for Bengal' in The Telegraph; the landmark state elections that, after 34 years, swept away Communist rule and brought prodigal daughter Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Party into power. In PORIBORTON! (HarperCollins; ` 199; 162 pages), he weaves his reportage, vivid, pithy and witty, into a more comprehensive account. Joshi travels across the state, from Murshidabad and Darjeeling, to Medinipur and Maoist Lalgarh, and paints portraits of some of the most idiosyncratic characters on the electoral landscape. In the process, you get a precious insight into the mercurial Mamata Di, politician, painter, and a master of plainspeak—the woman has no time for "people trying to get into politics from the backside", and lets them know it. A most entertaining take on democracy as we do it in India.
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Going beyond the science, Uma Parameswaran sets out to discover the man behind The Raman Effect—an explanation of the molecular diffraction of light—in C V RAMAN – A BIOGRAPHY (Penguin; ` 350; 274 pages). The first Asian to receive the Nobel in the sciences, in 1930, Raman (1888–1970) was a charming and ebullient yet mercurial man who, despite his acknowledged genius, had a fractured relationship with many of his peers; found it hard to be a 'team player'; and had to leave two leadership positions in Calcutta and Bangalore, eventually spending the last two decades of his life working in an institute he named after himself. His reliance on the women in his life (grandmother, sister, wife), the chasm between him and his son, and his hatred of the system by the end of his life are all told with clarity, underlined with a deep empathy. A window into an extraordinary mind.
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The aromas of history, geography and wanderlust fuse in this travelogue on a bike. As the title of this book suggests, in HOT TEA ACROSS INDIA (Tranquebar; 191 pages; ` 195), travel writer Rishad Saam Mehta remembers the cups, stalls and hands that serve tea on our country's highways. From the dacoit belt of Chambal to cross-border firing grounds in Kargil and Drass; shikara in Srinagar to the back road into Jaisalmer; the temples of Khajuraho to the enigma that has been the Grand Trunk Road... Mehta recalls from the recesses of his mind and travel diaries every cup of tea drunk in every corner of India he has travelled to on trucks and his Suzuki bike. Mehta lets his bike and his guides speak equally well. Take it with you on your next vacation.
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Namita Gokhale's THE HABIT OF LOVE (Penguin; 184 pages, ` 250) is a collection of betrayed sentiments and loss of love and fidelity. The breast that her infants suckle turns cancerous as they fly the nest. But the pain she felt for Udit, the boy who fancies the life on Mars, was stronger than she felt for her brood or the lost breast. Everybody dies, but it was different when Princess Diana died; and with her the princess in so many girls. His cheating on her didn't kill their relationship; it's his wife's love for Diana that did it in. The Taj Mahal and Shah Jahan's love for his Begum unchained Malika's grieving heart, as does the visit to the Himalaya for one woman in the collection. And that several of them don't have a name in The Habit… is a telling sign of the omnipresence of emotions called love and grief.
Featured in Harmony - Celebrate Age Magazine
February 2012
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