Tag Archives: India

A Thread In Time

28 Thursday Jun 2018

Posted by in Fashion & Style, Publication: Mint Lounge

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Published: Mint Lounge, June 23, 2018

Lounge revisits embroidery techniques integral to the Indian craft vocabulary that are also making a mark on the fashion runway

One of India’s most enduring artistic traditions is its myriad forms of embroidery. Every state and region boasts of its own style, but needlework is not merely a means of ornamentation. The fabrics are also threaded with stories of the community, with motifs emerging from its natural surroundings, economic state and sociopolitical milieu.

As handmade items are reclaimed as new embodiments of luxury, many of these old, and sometimes forgotten, embroidery styles are being revived and popularized. These techniques are popular not only among designers in India but also with international labels. Belgian designer Dries van Noten has worked with embroiderers in Kolkata for decades, and Mumbai is a trade hub for a number of luxury brands seeking Indian embroidery. Labels like Gucci, Valentino, Alberta Ferretti, Maison Margiela and Christian Dior work with the Mumbai-based embroidery firm Chanakya, while Roberto Cavalli, Salvatore Ferragamo, Versace and Michael Kors have collaborated with another firm, Adity Designs, also in Mumbai.

In homage to the country’s diverse embroidery traditions, here are some of the techniques that have found new expression in the works of contemporary fashion designers.

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Gara
Integral to the wardrobes of Parsi women, gara embroidery is an amalgamation of influences from India, China, Persia and Europe. Parsi brides traditionally wear gara saris for their wedding, the intricate motifs on fabrics ranging from pagodas and dragons to roses, lotuses, roosters and peacocks.
Fashion take: Turn to designers Ashdeen Z. Lilaowala and Mumbai-based Zenobia S. Davar for a contemporary take on gara embroidery on jackets, kurtis and dupattas. In 2016, the Delhi-based Lilaowala collaborated with textile label Ekaya to create handwoven garaBanarasi silks.

Kashida
Kashida is a popular Kashmiri needlework technique, traditionally used on garments such as stoles, woollen pherans and rugs. Evocative motifs like birds, blossoms, fruits and trees—particularly the chinar—are created, usually in a single-stitch style. Another form of Kashmiri embroidery is aari, wherein floral-inspired motifs are embroidered in fine chain stitches using a hooked needle.
Fashion take: In 2014, Rohit Bal’s Gulbagh collection showcased kashida embroidery while Meera and Muzaffar Ali’s Summer/Resort 2017 collection for Kotwara incorporated aari. Manish Malhotra combined Kashmiri embroidery with Merino wool for his recentInaya collection.

Mirrorwork
Also known as shisha or abhala bharat kaam, this is the craft of encasing mirrors of varying shapes and sizes to create patterns on fabric. Women artisans from Gujarat’s Kutch region and parts of Rajasthan are renowned for their expert mirrorwork, on garments, homeware and accessories, which are also widely exported.
Fashion take: Designers Manish Arora, Malini Ramani, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla have employed mirrorwork in their designs. Jani-Khosla’s mirrorwork lehnga for Madhuri Dixit-Nene in Devdas (2002) was also displayed at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum for the Fabric Of India exhibition in 2016.

Phulkari
Phulkari, meaning flower work, was traditionally practised by the women of Punjab in their homes. The designs depict colourful motifs embroidered using a long-and-short darn stitch. A mandatory trousseau item for the community’s women, the craft even found mention in Waris Shah’s 18th century poem Heer Ranjha where phulkari was part of Heer’s trousseau.
Fashion take: Manish Malhotra’s Threads Of Emotion collection was exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Phulkari: The Embroidered Textiles Of Punjab exhibition in 2017. The embroidery is also used on accessories, like juttis by Fizzy Goblet, and stoles, bags and small items by the Chandigarh-based brand 1469.

Kantha
Originally practised by women in rural Bengal and Odisha, kantha was used to create blankets (in Bangla, the word is used interchangeably for the embroidery and the blankets). The patterns, crafted using a simple running stitch, are themed on daily life, floral and animal motifs, and geometric shapes.
Fashion take: Designer Sunita Shanker and label 11.11 by CellDSGN have used modern interpretations of the embroidery technique.

Zardozi
An artful technique of metallic embroidery, zardozi uses fine metal wire or thread in gold and silver (or copper wires and synthetic threads for cost-effective designs), to create patterns on fabrics like velvet, satin and heavy silk. Varying from 3D-like patterns to minimal designs, zardozi is commonly employed in bridalwear and couture.
Fashion take: Spot it in the collections of Ritu Kumar, Suneet Varma,Tarun Tahiliani, Shyamal & Bhumika, and Sabyasachi Mukherjee, among others.

Sujini
This embroidery technique practised by women in rural Bihar is akin to an art form. Outlined in chain stitch and filled with running stitches, sujini is also a means of storytelling. The designs often locate a woman’s place in a patriarchal society, with depiction of social evils like dowry or domestic violence, and also showcase their personal aspirations.
Fashion take: Emerging label Indigene designed a collection of sujini-embroidered garments in 2017, co-created with women artisans from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, while Delhi-based textile designer Swati Kalsi also collaborates with sujini craftspersons on new designs.

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Mukaish
Popularized in Lucknow, mukaish is created by twisting thin metal strips into fabric. Fardi ka kaam, dotted mukaish embroidery, is done by women, while kamdani, done by men, is used to create varying patterns. The labour- and time-intensive craft has gradually diminished and is today known by only a handful of karigars.
Fashion take: Mukaish can be spotted on runways, courtesy designers like JJ Valaya and Payal Singhal, who incorporated the craft in her Summer/Resort 2018 collection.

Chikankari
Believed to have been introduced in the Mughal court by Noor Jahan, wife of emperor Jahangir, Chikankari is the practice of stitching white untwisted yarn on fine fabrics like muslin, cotton or voile. In recent years, the embroidery is also being done on brightly-hued fabrics or using coloured threads.
Fashion take: Sustain, the apparel line from Good Earth, employs Chikan for its Noor Naira collection on white cotton, Chanderi and Malkha, while Delhi-based designer Sanjay Garg’s collection Cloud People introduces new motifs, such as the figures of angels in the design.

Gota
Indigenous to Rajasthan, where the craft can be seen on lehngas and odhnis as well as turbans, gota refers to strips of gold and silver ribbons that are used to make appliqué patterns on fabrics or butis (small patterns) inspired by local flora, fauna and community life. Originally using precious metals, today’s designs are often made from cheaper copper-coated silver or polyester film known as “plastic gota”.
Fashion take: Anita Dongre, Ridhi Arora and Yogesh Chaudhary incorporate gota in their designs, while The Scarf Story, an accessories label by Joanna Kukreja, has reinterpreted it on cashmere.

 

To The Manner Born: Sonakshi Sinha

05 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by in Interviews (All), Interviews: Cinema, Interviews: Cover Stories, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Published: Verve Magazine, Cover Story, August 2013

Sanskaar is a word often associated with her, she says. Sonakshi Sinha is unabashedly confident, reclusively shy and riding a wave of professional good fortune. The homegrown actor is uncomplicated and easy-going…and quintessentially Indian…

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She is always excruciatingly punctual. Apparently, on set she’s the first one in – ready before even the lighting guys have set up. At magazine shoots, she’s there with at least a couple of minutes to spare. Sonakshi Sinha crashes on the bed of the hotel suite we are shooting in and experiences a ‘lazy’ moment. Indigo skinny jeans, fitted tee and a smart cropped black leather jacket, a faint hint of lipstick and reflector shades complete the biker-chic look.

We chat lightly. Her grilled cheese sandwich and fries are on their way. While she agrees that an Indian woman is meant to be traditionally curvy and voluptuous, you find that she looks surprisingly slimmer in person than she did recently on screen, and her stomach is enviably flat – but her face is as captivating when she breaks into a smile. That smile reaches her large, expressive coffee-brown eyes that are immersive and can sparkle with a mood of their own. When her lip curls in dissatisfaction, it takes you back to her recent role of Pakhi from Vikramaditya Motwane’s Lootera, seared in our memory, as she transcends the elongated scenes in the movie with her emotiveness. She speaks easily, points out that she keeps getting asked certain questions – answers to which she’s “rattoed” (memorised by rote) and admits she enjoyed our little conversation.

The largely well-received Lootera was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I felt it was written for me”. People kept telling her not to do the film, that it was meant for a more mature actress, but she figured it was a dream role. And, she admits, the very fact that people were advising her against it goaded her to go for it. While she makes no pretense to high cinema, the 26-year-old girl, who’s taken on masala blockbuster movies head-on and won the heart of the hinterlands, feels that a slow, period romance like Lootera has given her recognition as an actor.

She comes on the set, gets ready with her lines and awaits the director’s instruction. Opening each day with a clean slate, she prefers to be moulded according to the director’s vision, believing that no one understands the character better. In her upcoming release this month, the Akshay Kumar-Imran Khan starrer, Once Upon A Time In Mumbai Dobaara, she plays a girl who makes the move from Kashmir to Mumbai to act. The first Milan Luthria film was a gangster thriller; the sequel has a stronger love angle, requiring a different chemistry for each character (Akshay and Imran), and balancing that became a challenge for her. “I was never a movie buff – I watched very few movies. I like to observe people and their nuances. I meet so many people every day – there is so much variety.”

“Sonakshi is professional, dedicated, fearless and magical. She has a wonderful presence – if she chooses her roles well over the next few years she could be one of the all-time greats.”
– Vikramaditya Motwane, director

Standing tall at five feet and eight inches, she’s comfortable in her own skin, but remains a quiet person. “I am a Gemini – two sides of a coin. I’m a shy person; I like to be by myself sometimes. I don’t overindulge in conversations with people I wouldn’t know.” She knows she’s here to do a certain job and that’s all that matters. “Some people are just meant to do what they are meant to do. I’ve inherited it from my father (actor-politician, Shatrughan Sinha) – he’s a very confident person. Besides, I don’t have anything not to be confident about – I’m very happy, I’m doing well; I’m working hard.” But it’s an industry of insecurities. “That’s what a lot of people tell me. I don’t know. I don’t want to be the centre of attention, I’m not insecure, I’m very comfortable with who I am, with what I’m doing, I don’t poke my nose into other people’s business. I guess that makes me a misfit!”

Sonakshi has her life cleanly compartmentalised. “I switch on and switch off with the camera. I don’t like to take my work home, I don’t like to talk about it; at home it’s a completely different life.”

Preferring to hang out with her school and college friends rather than fraternising with industry people, she says, “Going out for events and promotions, crowds of people yelling and shouting your name – that’s where it ends. At home I’m not a star, I’m my parents’ daughter and my brothers’ sister. If I do something wrong I’m reprimanded for it.” Having lived an unabashedly sheltered life while growing up (not being allowed to go abroad to study or to join her brothers at Kodai International boarding school), she admits, “I still have to be home at 1.30 a.m. when I go out! I have a deadline…it’s always been like that.”

Her mother used to be by her side all the time when Sonakshi had just started her movie career, but now she leaves her to figure things out for herself. “While she knows we are always there for her, workspaces have changed today. She’s grown up now, she understands her limits,” says erstwhile actress, Poonam Sinha who recalls how her daughter has always been sure of herself, quick to take a decision, with no qualms after. “She used to sketch much before she knew she wanted a career in fashion design. She would throw the sheets away, but I used to collect her sketches. Even her foray into films – she entered without any formal training in acting, dance or dialogue delivery. But she was confident from day one. I remember Salman Khan saying to her, ‘Wow, you are a one-take artist!’ She also has a strong gut instinct – she had a feeling about Pakhi (Lootera), that no one but she could play that role. She didn’t think twice.”

Sonakshi has wriggled into a very specific niche in Hindi cinema, quietly making it her own. Somehow, that garners the most queries from viewers who are now accustomed to bare-all-wear-nothing heroines. “It’s ironic that people keep asking me why I keep doing traditional roles as opposed to glamorous ones and no one asks any other Hindi cinema actress why she doesn’t do traditional roles as opposed to glamorous ones! We are talking about India, aren’t we,” she snips back with a smile. Playing a UP girl in Dabangg, a Bihari in Rowdy Rathore, a Punjabi kudi in Son of Sardaar, a Bengali in Lootera and now a Kashmiri girl in Once Upon a Time…she’s been captivated by the places she’s shot in. “I’ve covered most parts of India and found the interiors of the country fascinating. While sitting in the city (Mumbai) we tend to plan vacations abroad, and shooting in these locales has been an eye-opener…they are beautiful! And, I love Mumbai. However much we may crib about the mess and the roads, there’s just something about being home – about this being home,” she says with a broad sweep of her hands, encompassing the rain-tossed waves and palm fronds of Juhu beach outside the windows.

You don’t think she’ll hop off to perform a puja anytime soon, but you do think that she’s been raised to be careful of her screen presence and of her public persona. To be mindful of the way her actions would reflect upon her family. “The world has moved on, children live in a freer world, inspired by the West, but we are a very conventional family. She knew her dos and don’ts. Her father comes from that part of India, is a politician…she’s had to understand her responsibility,” says Poonam Sinha. Sonakshi adds, “There has never been any pressure from their side to do any of it – it’s just the way I have been brought up. I am a certain way, I don’t wear certain kinds of clothes, and we are a conservative family. It’s a part of my value system. My upbringing has everything to do with my rootedness and morals. It’s instinctive. Today wherever I go, when I meet somebody senior, actors or technicians, they give a direct compliment to my parents by saying, ‘I want my daughter to be just like you,’ and they use the words sanskaar a lot.”

“She’s got the swagger and attitude of Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar, and what makes them attractive is what makes her attractive: her inherent confidence and security. She’s simple, straightforward and uncomplicated.”
– Imran Khan, actor and co-star

So she sinks easily into her onscreen traditional avatar. She dons the saris and bindis and smiles beatifically into the camera. She’s mastered the art of holding her face at an angle just right, so that her sharp profile can be seen at its best advantage – she knows she can charm the audience with her warm smile and demure flicker of her eyelashes. And when I relate what her co-star and director have to say about her for this interview, you can’t miss the faint blush creeping up. She’s bashful; she’s smiling, she’s unable to look up. “The overall perception is that the youth is getting immoral – but that is a generalisation. I think India remains a rooted country, a country bound by values. That’s the basic story.”

Out of India

20 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in Humour, Parenting, Publication: Verve Magazine, Travel Stories

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Published: Verve Magazine, Features, April 2012

It’s best if your kids get trained on home ground to face the intricacies of a splashy European holiday, as you travel in season with the jet setters of the world. But while tossing around the Mediterranean waves, are Indian kids missing out on knowing their own turf, asks Sitanshi Talati-Parikh

It took a leisurely Sunday brunch conversation at Café Zoe, a new Manhattan-style eatery in South Mumbai – exposed brick, metal beams et al – to remind us of what makes an Indian Summer. For those without school-going children, vacations are all about nipping off to the next hotspot all year round. Children tend to make social lives non-existent and travel plans seasonal. In my time, childhood summer vacations expanded into long sunny and muggy days of reading, swimming, learning tennis; the lucky ones travelling to Disney World or coral sighting around the Reef, catching spring on one end and autumn on the other. Now, with the advent of the International Baccalaureate educational system (IB) – prudently adopted by the crème de la crème schools of the country – the concept of a summer vacation (matching the international breaks around June-July) if not travelling abroad, would be incredibly difficult days of watching the rain pelt away and probably kicking around some slimy mush.

No sensible parent would make the mistake of keeping the kids homebound during these difficult months. And so, as a matter of course, summer breaks have changed dramatically to be Riviera cruising or Tuscany villa-bathing. Indians and their little tots are quite in with the European jet set, hopping onto a chartered yacht for a soiree or catching a rave in Ibiza after the kids are snoozing. Not surprisingly, the IB system fits in beautifully with the LV-armed maternistas’ (mothers who are fashionistas or even simply, yummy mummies) idea of a chic vacation. The Far East is suitable for a quick turn during Easter, Europe and its many sophisticated charms make for a cultural rendezvous in the summer break, and Latin America and its mysterious Incas and Brazilian parades fit in quite neatly during Christmas and New Year.

The world is the child’s oyster and you may actually counter: for someone who must surely play a part in global politics of the future in some capacity, is it not important to start the education young? To that effect, it might just be ideal to switch Sunday brunches from chilli cheese dosa to whole-wheat apricot pancakes. From the local Udipi guy to Pali Village Café. Ironically, what we New Age Indians love about these new café hotspots is their intrinsic non-Indianness. You find yourself celebrating the escape from what is India into a safe haven of faux cobblestones, rustic interiors and Latino soundtracks. In any case, it is wise to alter their (the children’s) taste buds to suit the vacation spots, for most ease of use. After all, no self-respecting Burberry mum will allow for her child to demand dal-chawal in Marbella. Popularised by Zoya Akhtar’s 2011 film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, children look forward in tangy anticipation to the La Tomatina festival in Bunõl as a wonderful cultural experience to whet an appetite for a freshly stomped meal. It’s not surprising then, that there’s an unnatural buzz in the air about Starbucks finally coming to India this year and Australian coffee house Di Bella making its foray into desi turf. Does one actually expect those little Gucci shoes to prance into a genuinely unpainted local Iranian café when there is an option of a peppermint frappuccino in a Christmas-carol touting, chicly hand-painted coffee shop?

The kids are wonderfully globalised, with curios for their rooms from every part of the world, and possibly a cultural hangover which can be passed off as jet lag. It is unlikely that Mount Abu or Meenakshi fit into the grand scheme of things, unless it’s a part of a school field trip. India is exactly that – a field trip, quite like going to the zoo or bird sanctuary or a museum: to be looked at with wonder, noted for a history or sociology class. You turn away with the first roots of cynicism as you wonder why our monuments can’t be as nicely kept as the ones we see abroad. You come away with a sense of loss and a protective distaste for the sights and smells of the country that will possibly stay with you a lifetime. The same smells that writers of the diaspora sigh about dreamily form a noxious accent to the lives of those who live here. Would we want our children to grow up fondly reminiscing about the urea-scented trips to the Elephanta caves, when they could deliberate on the Mona Lisa’s mystical smile over a Parisian pain au chocolat?

As it turns out, India is merely an option – or more rightly, Indianness is merely an option. It’s like a home menu that reads: Thai Monday, Mexican Tuesday, Italian Wednesday, Indian Thursday and Hibachi grill Friday. It’s not just about the food; it’s about looking at an Indian life. Cosmopolitan India is about rapidly assimilating the lifestyle of the world and making the city more palatable. It is no longer the expats who crave a Chilean sea bass and hop across to their local gourmet restaurant. It is the Indian who craves something regularly non-Indian to make him stay sane in a city that exhausts him with its grey clouds of monotony. If you can’t live abroad, at least the proverbial ‘Chef’ Mohammed can bring ‘abroad’ to your neighbourhood. There may have been a time when Indians just wanted to be cool and try new things. Today, Indians want international flavour with a sense of permanence. Indianness is merely chutney on the Mediterranean focaccia: in turn, layered, dipped into, hidden or wiped away.

Maybe in spirit, a city-dweller is a restless species, an eternal traveller, one who is looking for escape from home before he returns home. Maybe we just need to slow down: the pace of the city – with our always-online work, rapid-fire social connections perpetually drain us, and we need to be recharged often if not sooner. Our children face it from the word ‘Go’ – with their language classes for six-month-olds, baby gyms for nine-month-olds, and birthday parties every alternate day. Maybe it is a genetic illness we are passing along in growing measures down generations – that we can’t quite stop planning the next getaway before the first break has ended. It keeps the adrenalin pumping, keeps up the excitement to land at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (or your own desi equivalent) with a spring in your step, just brimming with the knowledge that soon you’ll be back here, taking off to another place of intrigue.

An acquaintance points out that her sister has spent five years in the coolest, hippest, buzziest city in the world – New York, and yet, can’t wait to get away occasionally. So maybe it is less that we tire of India and more that we tire in general. It’s just that when we do get weary, we look far away for solace – wine country, beaches of Croatia…. What’s wrong with a neatly reworked heritage place – think Neemrana – in the nostalgic Matheran of our own childhood to build the memories of our children’s youth? As the desis would say it – though I doubt they would be couture (kosher) – ‘Culture ka culture ho jayega, aur holiday ka holiday.’

MasterChef On My Plate

17 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by in Humour, Publication: Verve Magazine, Social Chronicles

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Published: Verve Magazine, Social Chronicle, December 2011
(Illustration by Farzana Cooper)

If you are the latest in the line if PYTs to send your hubby a tiffin that contains pan-seared foi gras with a champagne berry jus, then you know you’ve arrived onto a culinary scene that’s flush with promise and ready to launch. Sitanshi Talati-Parikh describes the necessity of taking a kitchen rendezvous to the next step

 

Verve-masterchef

 

‘Do you cook?’ She whispered. ‘Of course not!’ I retorted scornfully.  Great parties are never about knowing what to cook; they are all about finding the right caterer. Gloved hands, butler coats, flitting in and out: the spanking German-designed modular kitchen is meant to be seen, not used. Must you fret whether pesto has pine nuts or pistachios? I’m quite certain it’s the latter, logically, isn’t pesto the green one?

 

Lately though, newbie home-makers carry recipes in their Ferragamo totes, and while sneezing up a bomb at the local Nature’s Basket, can easily tell one nut from another. Blame it on the latest reality TV craze: MasterChef Australia – far superior to its Indian franchise. As the country watches with bated breath which one of the accented Australians go down under and which ones make it to the top, the ladies are picking up a few tricks along the way, and the men are finding a new itch to scratch: the kind which involves a cutting board and a chef’s hat. After all, those men in chef whites skim over the fine line to count as men in uniform – and the way into a woman’s boudoir may well be through her stomach. Many a young man has now leaned over the bar and whispered suggestively into his lady love’s ear, ‘Your kitchen or mine?’

 

Now, you can’t visit a friendly home without getting a sprig of parsley in your Brie, or a dose of balsamic vinaigrette in your chilled watermelon balls. Recipes are snitched from one of the mushrooming gourmet restaurants in the city – the toasted pine nut, goat cheese and watermelon salad is The Tasting Room, I believe – and every meal is judged on the outlandishly clever gourmet competency of the home-maker-turned-chef. Does your beetroot come laced with chevre? Has it been garnished just so? If not, it’s not good enough to be plated up?

 

Play dates (for the uninitiated: the time like-minded infants spend getting to know each other) are also a fine chance to show off those pa(i)ring skills: preparing the finest meal for your child’s little friend – what could be a better sign of love? Ten-month-olds are developing a spectacular taste for the healthy good life – in the form of broccoli-and-spinach risotto garnished with fresh basil, a traditional (low-spice of course) massuman curry and zucchini-and-parmesan ravioli, washed down with a tall bottle of elaichi-flavoured formula milk.

 

And it’s not just the chic young men and women flaunting their culinary skills, it’s about ensuring that you have a system in place to replicate this sensational food – anytime and with the least bother. And to that end, my Bihari cook is now struggling with understanding my desire to replace a Bombay grilled chutney sandwich on Britannia bread with a Mediterranean sandwich on multigrain herb focaccia.  And not even adding his own home-made paneer? Instead, layering the green meat of a tasteless fruit that he imagines to be Bengali baingan together with hefty hunks of feta, grilled zucchini and eggplant licked with a killer harrissa paste! He grudgingly grasps that the need of the hour – and the possibility of survival – means his knowing his parmigiana from his au gratin.

 

Chefs are now finding themselves akin to moviestars: in a recent MasterChef India (Season 2) show, one of the contestants cried because she got to meet her idol Michelin-starred, New York-based, Indian chef Vikas Khanna, whom she then proceeded to serenade. With Indians and Sri Lankans making their token presence felt on international cooking shows stirring up a curry-and-flatbread once in a way, and with Michelin-starred chef Vineet Bhatia attempting to challenge the desi taste buds, it appears innovation is the call of the day. You can’t serve up chana-bhatura any more, but what you can do is throw in chickpea couscous, broccoli khichdi and bhatura-flavoured sorbet. Now that would be a meal worth writing home about.

 

No longer is it about spices – it is about tempering taste buds with the appropriate levels of flavour so that they (your taste buds) can regain their virginity – and discard the massacre of years of generous masalas and chilli powder. And it isn’t really about eating – or stomaching to satisfy – as it is about teasing and cajoling the culinary senses into a pleased stupor. Hunger is for the middle-class. Palate-teasers are what fine dining is all about. It is no wonder that young chefs returning from Manhattan, dipping their fingers into genteel party catering, serve up hors d’oeuvres the size of peanuts. So smoked mozzarella flatbreads are actually coin pizzas, the size of, well, the shiny new 10-rupee coin. Tapas are in, or haven’t you heard? A meal in one of Mumbai’s trendy restaurants can consist of merely ordering 17 tapas and needing a hefty bottle of wine to wash all that tiny, tasty food down to feel deliciously full. 

 

Wine pairing can’t be missed of course. No self-respecting 30-something will serve anything less than the perfect limited-edition international sipper that goes best with the course being served. All along, the conversation tinkles with very profound discussions on Chinese politics, Rushdie’s literary smackdowns, and whether the Riesling would work better with the coconut soufflé or the champagne tart. My ultimate brain wave is to serve up a passion-fruit-and-lemongrass Sangria. It’s the easy way out of pretentious course-drinking – and is somehow that crass, bohemian sort of thing one can do, to remain cool after all that soul-searching food.

 

Talking about soul-searching food, the gourmands believe in cooking from your heart, and with a dollop of love. How much can you cook from your heart, when your stomach is empty and how much love can emanate from that drop of extra virgin olive oil that you mayn’t get from your grandmother’s hand-churned ghee?

 

The thrill lies in the pleasure-seeker and the social climber. After all, can you really be eating khana-khazana-type makhani food in your Jimmy Choos and Herve Leger? It is worth sharing Gouda and Roma tomato notes, if merely to prove that the world is your personal oyster and you have an international, exclusive and very uber chic stew cooking in your state-of-the-art kitchen. And after that dinner party full of whispered conversation, clinking flutes and a sense of social accomplishment, where the senses have been thrilled with that one lactose-free beetroot foam tortellini, you are more than likely to find yourself kicking back furtively with a hearty macaroni baked dish, folded with about 250 grams of Amul cheese, and a little kiss of ketchup.

And one man we love to hate. (Hint: Five Point OMG)

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Musings

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Just watched Love2HateU with the celebrity guest being Chetan Bhagat. I feel rather bad for the hater, the poor girl stood no chance against Bhagat’s generous Gandhi-ism. He was so beatifically patronizing and condescending that I wonder she didn’t throw something at him. But that’s Chetan Bhagat – a huge icon and idol to some and a huge eyebrow raiser to others.

Bhagat’s success – and he is astonishingly successful – is because he has crawled through the cracks and found his target audience. And what a target audience that is. The non-readers. Instead of churning out a high-brow book filled with beautiful metaphors and aiming for the Booker, Bhagat does what he does best – appeal to the section of the readers that is undiscerning. But that’s not to say that his writing has no merit. It’s just unpalatable to a reader who wants something more – an enhanced literary experience, if you must.

Bhagat makes no pretensions about his literary aspirations, but he appears to consider you with pitiful glances if you question his success. He basks in his own stupendous success, often lying on a raft of self-appreciation, and what irks people is that his raft never, ever capsizes. Top models can have a bad hair day, brilliant directors can have a box office flop, the Sensex can crash, but Chetan Bhagat only goes from strength to strength.

His hater questioned the audience and their intelligence. One girl defensively answered, “Ya we read other stuff. But I don’t want to read Rushdie. I’d much rather read Bhagat.” So you have a polarized readership of Indians. The ones who read Rushdie or Amitav Ghosh and the ones who read Bhagat. Bhagat has automatically found his masses, found his safety in numbers and addressed the people who look for easy escapism in reading and not for anything challenging. Bhagat is proud of the fact that he has made people who don’t read, read. Readers are appalled by the fact that these non-readers have begun with reading his books and set their literary standard there. But each to his own, right?

And in a democratic world, readers should have that choice. Readers should have beach novels, glossy magazines, Mills & Boon and Bhagat. It isn’t annoying that Bhagat’s books are valid reading options for people. What’s annoying is how much people like them, and give him a reason to keep going. And it would be far less annoying if he didn’t think so much of himself. “I’m happy to be on this show (Love2HateU) because my new book has just released and I want to know that there are people here who don’t like what I do, not just people who enjoy my books.” Oh stuff it.

iManage iNDIA

08 Friday Apr 2011

Posted by in Musings

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Our democracy has given us the ability to make so many choices – a few decades ago, we chose to leave for better opportunities elsewhere, recently we choose to return because of plum prospects in India. But whenever we have to choose to be alert citizens, we choose the easy road – the road of oblivion, escapism and feigned ignorance. Even worse – something I am guilty of, too – cynicism and haplessness.

When an elderly man decides to fast, we tweet. When scams are exposed, we update our status in horror. When our status quo is breached we respond with anger, criticism even shock, but no solutions.

We, the urban intelligentsia, have found no way out, and have preferred to let the zoo animals that are our bureaucrats and politicians rule roost while we hatch eggs – shaking our intellectual manes over the evils at fine soirées.

We may #tweetforwickets in a strong show of national spirit, we may cry in emotional joy at national wins, but we make no move to change what’s wrong.

It’s true, the answers are often not with us, there needs to be a collective consciousness that decides to take no more sh*t. Everytime there is someone who inspires us, or something that appalls us, we make a stir, think about a rising, and then, in one collective motion, sit our asses right back into our plush la-z-boy recliners.

It’s unfortunate that we have the option to leave, or the money to ignore the crap that goes on in our backyard, or the cynicism to empty every full glass – because the moment we run out of our options, we may be fasting like good man Anna Hazare for our future, as our men steal every morsel from our homes.

Gandhi fasted for independence, its a shame that 60+ years hence, a man has to fast merely to get a bill noticed in parliament. Elle Woods would be charmed. Tsunamis may be hitting the Pacific, but it is the wasteland of Indian inaction that requires attention.

The Unromance of Realism

07 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in Musings, Social Chronicles

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With sexting and instant messaging, relationships have become just that – instant and ephemeral. Books and films have emulated these real-life changes with often not-so-interesting results. Has the romance in art – and relationships – died?

What defines society today is words and connections. What separates this generation from the ones before is the power of the spoken word. We think that technology is what has changed us, made us the people that move faster, think faster and behave fast. While that may be true in some part, what has empowered technology has been content – online jargon for words. Thoughts, bubbles, discussions, emoticons, replies, retorts, criticism, feedback, conversations, investigations, observations, retweets, status updates…the list goes on.  This generation has increased communication by communicating less and with fewer words. It faces the task of dealing with information overload while constantly putting out more information. The oxymorons define the mindset of today – a generation that wants everything, wants everything super quick and instantly accessible and doesn’t really have the time or the patience to sift, read, ponder. That is where texts, BlackBerry messages, tweets and status updates are the de facto means of communication. It is rare for anyone to pick up the phone and have a good old-fashioned chat, in the generation that prefers to stick to a far more impersonal, but rapid form of communication. It has its own personal vocabulary: insistent abbreviations – often indecipherable to the uninitiated – and instant communication. You find people with heads bent, eyes darting and fingers moving rapidly in practiced synchronisation: rarely able to maintain eye-contact for more than a couple of minutes, rarely can a conversation run its natural old-fashioned course without interruption, as we move into an era of distracted and continuous communication and therefore, erratic and easily dismissed short-lived relationships.

Popular culture represents the dialogue and relationships of today: faster, more impatient and often meaningless. Younger filmmakers have updated their scripts to emulate real life. While underworld films picked up the nuances of the underbelly through actions and dialogue, romance in the arts has been for the longest time linked to a larger-than-life drama. Case in point: the cinema of Karan Johar or Sooraj Barjaytya. Where they update the clothes and the music, the dialogue often remains over-dramatised and pedantic. While some may argue that romance needs the dramatisation, a striking example to contest the argument is that of Saathiya – where the dialogue is rapid, off-the-street and yet, is a powerful story. There is a strong resonation with the viewer, an easy relatability, which carries the film from run-of-the-mill to sensitive and meaningful. Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai made the trend a popular one, taken up by film-makers like Kunal Kohli (Hum Tum) and Imtiaz Ali (Jab We Met and Love Aaj Kal).

It is the language of frankspeak  or straightspeak. Where once “You complete me” was the sigh-generating dictum, now, “I need a break” is easily said, without much angst, furor or thought. Quick answers, rapid and sometimes thoughtless decisions and a sense of bubbling impatience mark the dialogues that often don’t lead anywhere special. This is the nature of relationships of today and the conversations emulate them. Easily said, easy to bed and quick to leave – all takes place faster than a thought, and what is left are non-events. How does this make and fill the artistic and aesthetic space of a film? While Kohli-directed Hum Tum talks about a meandering relationship, When-Harry-Met-Sally-style, he pumps the story with events – which hold the weight of the relationship between the protagonists that appears to be going nowhere. In an attempt to emulate real life and their easy-come-easy-go relationships, Kohli’s recent production Break Ke Baad, directed by Danish Aslam, is a slick film that lacks a meaty story, full of ‘non-happenings’. Conversations, while witty and fresh, would make a better radio play than a long commercial movie. While this may be a comment on relationships today, the art demands a certain balance between real life and cinematic license – it demands that elements, moments and events become at the very least marginally larger than life, to create entertainment, to be watchable. Ali’s Love Aaj Kal nearly crossed the line to become over-ripe with conversations, in the same quest to describe modern-day relationships. Where LAK teetered dangerously, Jab We Met remained fresh in its cinematic experience, particularly through the crispness of dialogue and emotion.

Deepika Padukone’s character, Aaliya, in Break Ke Baad is not lovable in the traditional sense – much like Sonam Kapoor’s Aisha, she is unintentionally selfish and possibly doesn’t deserve the good guy. The industry buzz has it that Zoya Akhtar’s debut film Luck By Chance missed it’s calling because the protagonist, Vikram, was not a nice guy. We don’t feel empathy for the characters and don’t wish them to reach a happy ending. And that is dangerous ground for a film to enter in the romance genre. And it is also rather disturbing seeing that these characters have been picked from real life. Is it true, then, that we prefer the traditional romantic notion of characters that may be slightly misguided, but are nice? Even if that is not real life? So as dialogues get updated, people shouldn’t?

Two recent books speak a local language, but in entirely different ways. Anuja Chauhan’s Battle For Bittora speaks real politik – the language of local and honest-to-good (sense the irony) politics, seen through the eyes of a girl of this generation. There is amusement, cynicism and wonder. While the romance remains honest to chick lit, and the dialogues are basic, matter-of-fact and emulating real life, it is the clever writing and story that lifts this novel from being mundane to a page-turner. Where Chauhan’s effortless writing excites, first-time writer, Rhea Saran’s Girl Plus One is trying too hard, as are her heroines, to become a desi Sex and the City. Saran is not wrong in suggesting, rather obviously, the fact that Indian girls today are openly emulating Manhattan’s popular TV series; however, Saran misses Candace Bushnell’s witticisms that make all the difference between real life and drama. Would a real-life Carrie really talk in continuous innuendoes? No. She simply finds a correlation between her column and her life.

However art is updated to make it believable and real, it is obvious that the artistic license must be used to lift the dullness of real life to a heightened sense of real-life drama. In creating a believable sense of inclusion in a person’s daily, often mundane life, while bringing art into our homes, drawing rooms and bedrooms, we need to maintain a certain distance that allows us to appreciate the nuances of every character, story and relationship. These elements need to interesting and memorable, and often, real life is not. That doesn’t mean we need to regress and run around trees dancing amid roses, but it does mean that we need to assess the dramatic intent of the medium: does the film justify being larger-than-life? Does the book deserve to be printed and propped up on the ‘New Arrivals’ bookshelf rather than be a basic online blog? All in all, while pointing out the casual and matter-of-fact manner of everyday relationships, are we missing the romance in the written word and the spoken dialogue? And are we losing the romance in relationships?

And that leads me to question – do we want the old-fashioned nature of romance, or does that not matter to us anymore? Does a quick sext or a couriered designer bag charm us more than an old-fashioned hand-written note with a love song? Are we so accustomed to sentimentalising love and romance that we are unable to accept it in its matter-of-fact form anymore? If the written word stands for the way we think, then are we changing so dramatically that we question and often thwart sentimentality in its old-fashioned sense? Do we love, or do we ‘like’? Or are we confused because it is ‘too complicated’?

There is no “I” in Teamwork…

25 Monday Oct 2010

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It’s an observation I picked up from Twitter – that teamwork doesn’t have an “i”. And while that’s simple to understand, it means the making or breaking of a country. Sounds monumental? It is. Let’s start with what triggered this thought. Actor Imran Khan’s column in HT today (see excerpt below) on teamwork in movies and my catching Raajneeti on TV last night.

Imran Khan talks about how movies are made by teams, even if they are temporary, they are loyal:
“I wanted to talk about how we all come together for a few months, work till we fall down from exhaustion and then go our separate ways. You see, most people never realise just how much teamwork plays a part in what we do. An actor could be giving the performance of a lifetime, but if the cameraman doesn’t capture it correctly, nobody will ever see it. Each and every shot depends upon each and every person from each and every department doing exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment. It’s stressful and demanding… but it also creates a kind of bond that few other things can. For example, as I sit and write this, there is a game of cricket underway. The actors, director, ADs and light boys are all taking turns batting and bowling, and there is no hierarchy. Or, when we’ve been shooting for hours and it’s past lunch time, no one complains, because we’re all in it together. Nobody starts eating until everyone has broken for lunch.

The fate of a film can never be predicted; it may do well, it may disappear without a trace. I’ve seen both happen. But that can’t change the way we approach our work. We still have to give it everything we have, and we still have to come together and work as a team. And that’s reflected in the term for an entire cast and crew of a film; it’s called a unit.” (Full column here.)

On the other hand, there is politics, where there are teams and more teams and even more teams that spend their time bickering, playing games, manipulating and buying each other out. While some people thought Raajneeti was a bit extreme, I find it quite a relevant movie of the time – where politics today is not what the Greeks intended it to be when they coined the term.

Ref: Wikipedia: “Politics (from Greek πολιτικος, [politikós]: «citizen», «civilian»), is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to behavior within civil governments, but politics has been observed in other group interactions, including corporate, academic, and religious institutions. It consists of ‘social relations involving authority or power’ and refers to the regulation of a political unit, and to the methods and tactics used to formulate and apply policy.”

What is the problem with our country, or many other countries today? Is it really what we learnt in civics and political science and sociology, the things we rattle off, the terms that NRIs sit back in their la-z-boys and shake their heads over while munching betel nuts? Corruption, over-population, illiteracy…these are the buzz words. Yes, these problem exist, and yes, there are important issues that need to be solved for our country to move forward. But is this the real problem at the very foundation of our issues? I think not, I think it is a genuine lack of team spirit. We don’t think like one nation, one people. Whether it is because of religion, caste, money, social structure or an age-old belief in hierarchy…or even just survival of the fittest (because we’ve had to survive to make it here – fight to get anywhere), it has made us individualistic. At the very most, we may include our family in our concerns, but that is also getting few and far between and we find ourselves largely driven by selfish concerns. Some of our wealthiest people do not contribute to charity, rather build towering monuments to denote their status. Recently, while visiting the Jai Vakeel school for the mentally challenged, I learned that the government hasn’t paid salaries there in four months. So even when something good is being done, they can’t simply cough up the change to keep it going, but they can pocket the change from CWG and other big projects. While lining one’s pockets, can’t one at the very least ensure that some good comes of some of the tax payers’ money?

Another quote popularised on Twitter, “Indians are privately smart and publicly dumb” – is exactly the same thing, we don’t believe in treating our country like our own. The streets are not ours, we can trash them. The public loos are not in our house, we can leave them filthy. The movie theatre isn’t our own, we can mess it up with food and drink. Publicly, we notoriously behave like pigs in a pigsty, and yet, we follow stringent hygiene and cleaning rules in our homes – remove your shoes before coming in, they will track germs from the outside in! Is it that we believe that someone else will take care of our mess? Is it simply because we don’t care enough about anyone else that it doesn’t matter?

The reason we admire sports so much is that as humans we crave bonding and togetherness – and there are very few places that show mutual respect and warmth for other humans than in teams that come together for a common cause. I admire the film industry – despite their bickering and issues and camps, a group of people come together and work hard to make a film – even if they never see each other again once it’s complete, they gave it their unselfish best when required. In fact, the movie Chak De is a metaphor for Indian society – we are too mentally segregated to think like one, and when we do, we can possibly reach heights we have never considered possible.

Why can’t we as social citizens do that? Why must we treat other people as “others” and not a part of our own team, own country, own race? Why can’t we think like “we” rather than “I”? If we were to, everything would be very different. A simple shift in perspective would make a huge difference in thought and a huge difference in where we are as a race or nation.

Short-sightedness – where we can’t see beyond our own noses and houses, is what makes us an ultimately selfish race. And this is the root of the trouble – global warming, social evils, unhappiness all boils down to being able to think as a bigger identity than oneself. Can we be bigger than we think we want to be?

 

The Ritual of Being Ritualistic

13 Monday Sep 2010

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Something very cool happened this year, possibly the only cool thing about religious events. On Sept 11, 2010, Ganesh Utsav, the Jain festival and Eid all fell on the same day. Of course there was mayhem in the city in terms of noise, traffic and chaos, and there were enough nostalgic elements in the city that found it “so lovely” that bright celebrations were sparking all over. However, the point is that special days can be one and the same, they can be celebrated differently, but we lay too much importance on the rituals surrounding the festivals rather than the point of the festival. Fasting, doing ‘darshan’, breaking the fasts, wishing people, it keeps people busy and makes them feel good about being busy in the religious way, but it really leads them nowhere. What changes from one month, one week or one day to the next?

Here are two examples of ritualistic followings which I know from close observation. All the other followings, world-over, are equally ritualistic in their own way and all boil down to the same conclusion.

Ganesh Chaturthi
You bring a Ganpati murti (idol) home, most often decorated in toxic colours and invite people over to take blessings, leave money behind that gets distributed amongst undeserving priests or among street children who use it for drugs and alcohol, immerse the idol in the already toxic water after a lot of banging and singing on the street, creating massive amounts of noise pollution that will probably even deafen the Gods.
– The soft muted music that was to bring one closer to the divine in terms of shlokas and words with meaning, have been replaced by loud DJ-driven music that play the latest techno and raucous bollywood hits, where youngsters get together and dance inebriated on the streets, blocking traffic and hassling all the people in the neighborhood.
– There are neighborhood collections of donations – not for improving society, but to provide funds for the DJ, alcohol, trucks and idol-trappings.
– The colours, paint and glitter used on the idols is killing our marine life, and even though it is on an idol of worship, it doesn’t miraculously save our marine life and water. It enters our eco system and poisons us.
– During these house visits to take blessings – it becomes a means for social gathering, where people attempt to be on their best behavior, but people being people end up discussing the most inane things in front of their revered idol. Such as gossip about other people and needling those with opinions.
– While the idol is at home, one must abstain from non-veg food, alcohol etc in its vicinity. There are those so addicted to these items that they can’t wait for the idol to leave and be immersed, so that they can go back to their daily drink.
– We use offerings to the idol as a means of eating anything – sweets are offered to the idol (apparently rich sweetmeats please the Gods – wasn’t that just a ruse for priests to make away with these sweetmeats?) and that becomes ‘prasad’ – blessed by the Gods and that can be and should be consumed by people generously.
– In the homes, as there is increasing staff problems during this festival (most of the staff leaves to go to their home town to celebrate), war breaks out at home because these sweetmeats MUST be made at all costs to ensure that the right offering is done.
– Most of the staff, who struggle to make ends meet, borrow money to buy expensive idols and celebrate this festival as a means to please the Gods. They have yet, in all these years, not got any form of deliverance; but the quest continues. They will leave a cushy job that doesn’t allow them to take full leave during Ganesh Chaturthi, even if it leaves them jobless and in debt.

While the sentiment and faith is indeed strong and full of conviction, to what end is this being done? Are they leading a better life (not materialistically, but morally)? Does it tell them that there is a way to the divine, and it should be followed with a desire to do good, less harm and a genuine improvement of the soul? Or is it merely a way to party in the name of religion?

 

The Jain Paryushan
Jainism is a way of life – a strict means to leading an austere and controlled existence, which is supposed to be devoid of unnecessary trappings of religious rituals. The result of the influence of Hinduism into the sects of Jainism and the growth of the Jains as a moneyed class of people, has lead to a strong dilution of the original principles and made it chance for Jains to carry a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude. In this week, called Paryushan, Jains practice abstinence – from certain foods and if possible, fast as well. It is a means to build the will power of the mind and to control the body’s urges towards baser instincts by solidifying the mind’s role in the decision-making. While in concept it works, it has led to many people doing this half-heartedly, because they have been cajoled into doing so by family. There is no desire to withhold for a greater purpose of mental peace, rather do it to prove to the other that they weren’t ‘bad’. There is no whole-heartedness in this desire. While Jains believe in stringent non-violence, they follow the principles according to their convenience: don’t eat garlic, potatoes and onions (because as underground roots they contain more living organisms than those growing above the surface), but appear to be unconcerned by silk and leather goods, where one silk sari kills multiple silk worms. During their festival, it becomes mandatory for others to visit those who have fasted, making it a mad rush on the one morning from one ‘parna’ to another. These parnas where the fastee breaks his/her fast with some very simple food, becomes taxing to the household as they need to take care of the fastee and provide for food for the visitors. In certain families there appears to be a display of wealth in the lines of a wedding ceremony, with jewelry and clothes et al. Austerity and control over material desires anyone? During the week, as the fasts continue, the evenings are given up to religious discourses, where you listen to a priest talk about why these things are important, being a better person and leading a better life. Maybe the hunger deadens the brain cells, but the people who attend these discourses, look absorbed by the ideas and often find themselves in meaningless material pursuits a few days later – the kind that involve fighting over money within the family. The week over, people wish each other ‘Micchami Dukkadam’ which means if I have hurt you in any way in the past, please forgive me. This universal ‘Sorry’ makes everything okay and allows people – a nice ‘get out of jail free’ card – to go back to their ways until the next year’s apology. And the week over, people rush out in hordes to every restaurant and eat to their heart’s content. Abstinence, abstinence.

Every religion and festival leads to the same thing: leading a better, more moral life and being a good person. At the end of the day, all the rituals do is misguide us into thinking we are becoming better merely by performing them, but until we change from the inside out, we remain shallow and hollow and fake. These are just external trappings that do not fix attitudes and mind-sets, rather give people excuses to be whoever they like, whilst making it okay by performing these rituals. The ritualization of religion – the strongest example being Hinduism and all its varied sects and facets, has mired people into believing that rituals will take one towards a better life, towards deliverance. Rituals are like drugs – they have a feel-good factor associated with them, which make you think you’re feeling good, but actually lead you deeper into the mire of a material world from which you can’t escape. The more you do it, the more you are afraid of what life will become when you stop doing it. The more you do it, the more your mind gets weakened, gripping the rituals as a means to a better end, not being able to do without.

If we snapped out of the weakness of relying on rituals to make us feel like better people or to prove to the world that we are better people, and actually became better people – through our actions, inactions, thoughts, words, beliefs and societal and civic duties, we wouldn’t need religious rituals, just a simple philosophy on leading a better life. And life would become better – for everyone around. Rituals don’t fix the crime problem or over population, or poverty or illiteracy or unemployment or environmental degeneration or terrorism….rituals simply add to the list of mankind’s problems. If we are more humane and less ritualistic material beings, these problems would start solving themselves. That would please God a lot more than our worldly offerings.