Malashri Lal’s poems from her book “Mandalas of Time” are like a string of pearls. Each distinct and yet each one is a part of narrative that speaks of the experiences, perspectives and the emotions of the poet. Malashri says that when she writes, her poems flow on their own.
Malashri Lal’s childhood was a riot of different cultures. Her experiences in Jaipur’s Parda clad world were starkly different from those in Shanti Niketan where music and art were made to flow freely for everybody. But such contrasting worlds have only helped shape and enhance her poems and her perspective. In this candid chat, she talks about her connection with Tagore and more.
What is your connection with Rabindranath Tagore? My father’s side of the family is from Shanti Niketan and some what linked to Tagore. My mother’s side of the family is from Kolkata, they are very urban people. My father’s uncle, Prabhat Kumar Mukherjee was a very well-known scholar. He was Tagore’s disciple and official biographer. Much of the Mukherjee clan had settled in Shanti Niketan right from the time Shanti Niketan had been set up. They had rows of plots in one particular area of Shanti Niketan. My uncle was very fond of my father and had kept aside a plot for him. He wanted him to relocate to Shanti Niketan after retirement. However, my mother flatly refused as she was a total urbanite who loved parties and beautiful clothes jewellery, fun and games, travel. She certainly enjoyed the good life. My father on the other hand was this scholarly, serious man who was nicknamed ‘the walking encyclopaedia’ who just knew everything. It is believed that children are a combination of their parents. How much of your father and mother are you? I think I am a bit of both. Like my father, I was a good student and I continue to keep my reading and writing as my principal occupation. I have written about 21 books. I enjoy studying for the sake of studying and not because some one will give me something for studying. Like my mother, I thoroughly enjoy a good get together and party. What were your growing up beliefs? We are Bramho Samajis which is mostly a reformist Hindu Samaj. It believes in women’s liberation, education, equality. So we grew up with a very liberal environment at home which was deeply rooted in culture but also great respect for all other cultures, religions and places. I have a very homogeneous bunch of friends who come from different backgrounds. Where do your poems come from? A lot of my poems come from this fragmented identity that I have. At one time I used to worry about it because if anyone asked me where was I from, I never had an answer. People would say, they are from Rewari or Ajmer or Udaipur but I never had an answer because I couldn’t honestly say that I was from Jaipur. I was in Jaipur because my father was in Jaipur. I couldn’t say Kolkata or Shanti Niketan because I had never lived or studied there. So, I would say I am from India. But Delhi helped me a lot. It was in Delhi that I realized that every body was from somewhere else. I started feeling far more comfortable in Delhi because there no one would say the kind of things or answers that I would get in Jaipur. If someone would ask a person from Delhi about where they were from, they would reply without a qualm that their grandfather was from Pakistan but then they shifted to Amritsar and now they are settled in Delhi. So, it was in Delhi that I developed a multiple identity like the people there. But my poems are a lot about this fragmented identity, so somewhere I talked about the Poshak worn by Rajasthanis and the ‘than’ worn by the Bengali widows. When did you start writing poems? I started writing poems from the age of 12. I used to write them in the back pages of my notebooks and never showed it to anyone. I wrote poetry for years and this is my first collection of poetry which has come out just when I am 74 years old. I have learnt that it is never too late to begin. Slowly I started showing some of my poetry to my friends who were amazed with it and wanted me to publish them. Then something happened during COVID, when I started collecting my poems which were written all over the place, on napkins, pieces of paper, back pages of the books. When I put them together, I realized I had over a hundred. I showed it to a young friend of mine whose judgement I trust. She wrote back to me and urged me to publish them because they had such a lot of values in them. She made me see things that I had not seen in my own poetry. I chose 75 of those poems for publishing. What made you write this poem “Crushed”? This was a very brief poem. I had written it for a friend in America who is a painter and a writer. She was doing a digital exhibition and needed very short poems. So, I sent her this poem which was mostly about how young women are supposed to be. //Crushed “Words crushed into silence Lips sealed against utterance Eyes hooded guardedly Body cringing into wrinkled tightness Is this what elders called ‘Maidenly virtue’?”//
You have also written another poem “Escape” on similar lines. We were the first generation of women who actually started working outside home. Our mothers were homemakers, not that I look down upon the home makers but our generation was the first were women who were going out of the house. So, there were assumptions that the women had to not only work outside the home but also tend to the kids and take care of the house hold too. In our generation, there were two sides of a working woman’s life. One was the excitement of earning your own money and doing whatever you wanted to do with it and the other side was also the challenge of doing a professional job with respect and dignity. So, in a way it was an escape from domesticity and all the assumptions that went with it. At another level, it came it with its own demands. So, I don’t have an answer to why or when that kind of an attitude changed but I do know that in our generation (I am talking of the generation that came into teaching in the 70s- 80s in Delhi University) there was a certain assumption that the women can only do this much and many of us were fighting that assumption at a cost to ourselves no doubt. Whatever it was, it also meant educating the men. Many of the men were perfectly unaware, nobody had bothered to explain these things to them. I thank my stars that I was very lucky in this regard. I had an extremely supportive husband and very understanding parents and in laws.
//Escape “The toxic air of a false home Turns oppressive again and again In about four weeks; Unseasonal yet so predictable So much of a pattern. She runs away, yet hardly moves, Packs and leaves her home The sorrow of neglect lodged in a dark room Struck dumb by the quiet controlling powers. Then she returns Unlocks the suitcase while shutting her heart Sends clothes to the laundry Lifts the empty case to the upper shelf Her soul secretly yearning For the next great escape.”/
What made you write Bougainvillea? Is this poem also about migrants? No, Bougainvillea is a metaphor for colonial control over India. When I wrote it, I didn’t imagine it would get so much of attention. I wrote it because I used to see bougainvillea all over the place. Of course, I am interested in flowers and trees. When I looked more at the bougainvillea, I realised it was an imported plant. How did it spread so much? When I wrote the poem, I didn’t consciously create it as a poem about colonialism but that is what it became. It often happens with most poems. When I write a poem, I am not intending to writing it in certain way or suggest a certain thing but it just flows. The ending of the poem “A traveller who landed, on our shores and conquered it with careless abundance,” is not just true of the bougainvillea but is also true of the British. The colonial rule suppressed a lot of our local culture, belief and practices.
//Bougainvillea “Bougainvillea cascades in parks, shops, homes, Metro, fences, Clawing, creeping, clinging To surfaces Crushing them under a weight of thorns. Disguised as flowers The Bougainvillea is a migrant tree, blossom and thorn That took root in our land And spread its deception Of beauty. The barb is hidden The leaves play with colour Branches spread wantonly Our land is host to this migrant And its imperious authority, The gentle chameli vine is shattered The harsingar is pushed to the corner I gape at the invincible Bougainvillea A traveller who landed On our shores and conquered it with careless abundance.”//
To be continued..
This article by Shailaza Singh appeared in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on Friday 26 April 2024.
She is a Bengali by birth but she loves Jaipur. She sings Rabindra Sangeet, enjoys Durga Puja but is equally at home with the customs of Rajasthan and the urbanity of Delhi. She is an avid traveller and has visited almost all continents of the world. Author, critic and poet Malashri Lal’s life journey has been a symphony of change and she has revelled in all the challenges that have come her way.
Though today she is known across the world as an eminent author, Malashri Lal is still a simple Jaipur girl who loves coming back to her roots every now and then. She loves the city and its people that make her feel right at home. Though Delhi is where her hearth is, Jaipur is where her heart is. Excerpts from a free wheeling tet-e-tat with this Jaipurite:
You studied in Jaipur, then you went to Delhi. What was your experience like? I continue to believe that my home is in Jaipur. Though my blood lineage is Bengali but I identify Jaipur as my home. I have been here since childhood. Even though Delhi has been a happy relocation for personal reasons and work, Jaipur still retains as much of a loved pull, almost like a Maika (parent’s home) despite my parents not having been there for years. The city, the friends, the people all of them being very special for me.
When you moved from Jaipur to Delhi, what was the change like? The first thing I noticed about Delhi was that it was very impersonal space. When I moved to Delhi after my marriage, we were living with my in-laws. So there was no sense of loneliness or non-belonging at home but the city didn’t seem like a friendly place. So, I didn’t know my way around in Delhi so since I was keen to teach, I started looking at jobs in Delhi. This was early 70s so there were jobs a plenty. All the big colleges were advertising, now ofcourse I know them by name but at the time I didn’t know any of these colleges. So to find my way to a place in old Delhi from where we were (my father-in-law was Air Chief Marshal P C Lal, so we were staying at the air house) seems like such a scary thing to do, unknown roads, unknown people, rough language on the roads, auto drivers who drove rashly. I came from a protected environment at home and in a very affectionate social environment of Jaipur, so the contrast of this impersonal, immigrant city, where survival seemed to be the most important ambition in anyone’s life seemed very strange indeed. So, I did go around, I had to deal with it. I was very lucky that I got a job offer from Jesus and Mary College, the day I went there for an interview. I found JMC a remarkably hospitable and warm place. I still remember it was a hot summer afternoon. I had no idea where JMC was (it was in the middle of Chanakyapuri). The auto rickshaw driver also had no idea where JMC was. When I got there, I was late for the interview and I thought I had already ruined it. It was a beautiful building with a lovely garden. I walked up the steps and there was this old nun, dressed in white standing there with a smile. She said, ‘Welcome my dear.’ I apologized and said, ‘sorry sister. I am late.’ She said, ‘it doesn’t matter. You are not late. You are here and that is what matters. She brought me a glass of water. She sat me down and told me to not to get tensed about anything. So I sat there for half an hour till I was called for the interview and enjoyed the sense of warmth and affection even though I didn’t know the people there. And when I went in for the interview, everyone was courteous and gentle. I came out of there saying praying and promising to myself that if they offered me a job, I would take it. Some well known colleges of Delhi University (I don’t want to name them offered me a job and those offers came later also but the day JMC called me that evening or the next morning and asked me if I would be willing to work for them, I said yes. I stayed there for twelve years and I was very happy there. And JMC was a cocoon. Some of my best friends are from JMC even now though I just spent 12 years out of my 45 years of teaching. Then I moved to the main department of English in the post graduate wing. But the contrast was the affectionate, warm, personalized world in which I had grown up in Jaipur and the rather rough impersonal and I would even say brash world of Delhi.
You have seen Jaipur and Delhi changing over the years. How do you find the change in both these cities? I don’t think Delhi has changed very much. It has just become bigger, more impersonal, more brash, more materialistic. I don’t think it has changed at all. It is a city of immigrants and I have understood it better. There are no affections and I believe there is a sense of suspicion of the stranger. So, whether you live in an apartment building or a neighbourhood, people have not friendly because they have no idea who you are and where you come from. Jaipur on the other hand has also grown a lot but my Jaipur is still the Jaipur of my school friends. I meet people through them so I don’t have a sense of strangeness or non-belonging at all. And even physically I have nothing to do with the Jaipur that goes beyond the older areas of Civil Lines or C-Scheme and Bapu Nagar, Tilak Nagar or the University because all my friends and their friends and their children continue to have a long-term relationship.
How was your time in MGD? What were you like as a student? MGD was most wonderful thing that happened to me. When I was very young, I was not a very healthy child. So, I was constantly in and out of school till the age of 7. My paternal grandmother who was a widow and lived with us. She used to teach me at home. Her name was Jyotirmaye Mukherjee. She was a school teacher in Burma. My grandparents had emigrated to Burma which was a part of undivided India at that time. My grandfather was the headmaster of a boy’s school there. My grandmother was one of the first graduates of the Kolkata University. My grandfather passed away quite young at the age of 45. My grandmother decided to bring up my aunt and my father, who were teenagers at the time, on her own and chose not to come back to the family fold in Kolkata. She taught me what has become the core of my feminism that you don’t have to fight obvious battles or be aggressive. She wore white ‘than’, a crisp white sari as Bengali widows do. Though she was a very good-looking woman, she never wore any make up or jewellery. My grandmother and father migrated from Burma to Delhi after the war and bombing of Rangoon (my aunt had already married and moved away by then). They stayed with some relatives in Delhi. My father who was not married by then worked with Delhi Cloth Mills for a couple of years. He then appeared for the Indian Civil Services Examinations (those days there weren’t any written examinations, only interviews) and was instantly selected since he was a brilliant history student. When he was asked if he was okay with being posted in Rajasthan, he said that it didn’t make any difference to him because he didn’t know India at all as he had grown up in Burma. So, in the year 1950 or so, he along with his two Bengali friends and one Sindhi friend were selected in the first batch of IAS and posted to Rajasthan. I was a superbly good student as a result of the foundation provided by my grandmother who taught me all subjects. I was not even fifteen when I graduated from school and was awarded a gold medal. I wasn’t a naughty student at all. I loved all the subjects except the sports period. In fact, the joke was that I would run away from the sports field in the sports period! The head of the school was an English woman named Ms. Luter who had migrated from Burma. She and her secretary Ms. Emma were very fond of my parents. Ms. Emma would occasionally cook Burmese delicacies for my father. They were just very good friends.
Who was your favourite teacher in school? I loved my geography teacher Ms. Meenakshi. She would sit with the globe and show us countries and their photographs. It was then that I developed my love for travel. Fortunately, I married a man who was equally interested in travelling. We have large cupboard which houses souvenir teaspoons from each country that we have visited. There is strict rule in the family that you can only put a souvenir spoon in the cupboard if you have visited the country personally. Now over the years, my son also started collected teaspoons and now the cupboard has 400 teaspoons from different cities which are catalogued extensively. We have travelled to Alaska, most of Europe, Canada, lots of Australia and America, Africa and New Zealand. Except for South America which we have not visited, we have been to every other continent. ….To be Continued
This article by Shailaza Singh appeared in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on Thursday 25 April 2024
Durjoy Datta has ruled the world of romantic novels since 2008. All his books have been bestsellers in the teen world. This engineer turned writer is now also writing for movies and serials.
Judging by the crowds of youngsters following him at the recently concluded Jaipur Literature Festival, if Shah Rukh Khan is the king of romance in movies, Durjoy Datta can be called the king of romance in novels. Since 2008, with his first book ‘Of course I Love You Till I Find Someone Better’ he has been ruling the hearts of millions of teenage readers, especially girls. An engineer by education, Durjoy tasted success at the age of 21 while in the final year of his college. Slowly as each of his books started topping the bestseller lists, he decided to turn into a full-time writer with a specialization in romance. On reading his books, one would expect the author to be the traditional chocolate faced hero, however Durjoy Datta is quite different from the common perceptions. He is soft-spoken guy who believes that romance is the only pond he’d like to circle. Some excerpts from the tete-e-tat:
From the time you published your first book in 2008 to today, how have you evolved as a writer?
I think at that time, I was a teenager and had a different perspective on romance. After my first book was declared a best seller, writing became a means to earn money. But over the years, I have started enjoying writing and the kind of freedom I get with it. Hence, I would like to safeguard my career as a writer.
Why do you only like writing romance? Why don’t you experiment with other genres like fantasy or mystery etc?
To be honest, earlier romance used to be the main theme in my novel but now it has become incidental. I have also written mystery novels, but my books are still sold as romance novels since my strong point is romance. I know what the limit to my talent is. For me, it is the easiest to make the characters fall in love with each other. Even in television shows, you can do it for 6-7 seasons. In India, you cannot write fantasy unless it is backed by some mythology. I am just waiting that someone sets a precedent and I will hang on to it and write my own fantasy novel.
From a college boy to a married man and now a father. How has your writing changed with the changes in your life? I think now I cannot write about teenage romances or young romances the way I used to. I am 37 years old. I can only write what I feel strongly about otherwise it will look artificial and put on. When I am writing a book, I look forward to constructing a good story. All of my earlier writing was touch and feel-I just wanted to know what the characters feel like. Now they are more in-depth. In my book, The Boy who Loved which was published in 2017, the story of the boy was set in 1999. So for the story, I had to travel back to 1999 and remember how I was in that time. My latest novel When I Am With You is about a single mother who is also an entrepreneur and is dealing with a new relationship as well.
So, what kind of a person were you in 1999? How has the world changed from then to now? Frankly speaking in 1999, I was just 12 years old. At that age, I was really intimidated by women. In those days, even if you had a crush on someone, you couldn’t talk to them or express your feelings . But today, the society has shifted. Earlier it was all cloaks and daggers but now we can have open conversations about most things. Now people can express themselves. I remember in those days, there were two different worlds of girls and guys where each had their own groups. They had clandestine messages which if discovered by the elders could wreak havoc. Now the barriers have broken down even in the interiors to a large extent.
As a person who specializes in romance, you must have read a lot of romantic books in your young years? Actually, not at all! In my childhood, most of my reading has been dictated by my parents. Book reading was compulsory at bed time and no romance was allowed. I used to read Enid Blyton, John Grisham, Stephen King. After a while, ,my parents tried to introduce me to Salman Rushdie’s work. Initially I didn’t understand what he was talking about but then after a while I could relate to the books. In fact, I did not even know romance as a genre. Most of my introduction to romance has been while writing for television where you can create two extremely likeable characters and then make them fall in love and continue for the next 1200 episodes. People say with the social media and Kindle, paper books are not going to be around for long. What are your thoughts? I remember hearing about it in 2008. People used to say that with the introduction of tablets and smart phones, books won’t last for long but now it is 2023 and books are still here! Are you on social media? Has social media taken over books? Earlier I was on social media and when I used to get into my Instagram account, I used to spend hours swiping. I used to think that if I am doing this, my readers would also be doing this. But lately I have started noticing that many people have dumped Instagram and have started reading books. I really got hooked on to the social media when I became a parent. Parenthood is extremely boring- at least for the first few years. So, Instagram helps you to reconnect with your child in a different way. For example, when I see my daughter doing something cute, I record it and post it. When people find it cute and like it, I go back and look at that 15 second clip to see what is cute in it. This way I use my followers as a dopamine fix. But then this used to take over my life because I used to then think about what should be the next video to maintain the same likes. So, I pulled back. Now I am on social media just to sell my books. What is the difference between writing for television and writing novels? The difference between writing for television and a novel is a lot. Writing a book is a solitary exercise. There isn’t much money unless your book becomes a best seller. But in case of television, the money is huge and the feedback of the writing is almost instantaneous. For example, if I publish a book today, the feedback will come after six months but in case of an episode, the feedback comes the very next day through the TRPS. That allows the writer to change his ploy if the TRPs aren’t good or the audience isn’t enjoying the story.
So, how much does TRP impact writing for television? Actually TRP ratings are the life blood of television. The fact is that on television, a show cannot survive if it does not have high drama. Trends also dictate the show. For example, five years ago, there was this huge trend of getting animals on the show, so everyone followed that. Every show that you see on television starts with a very noble thought. They have a social issue they want to tackle through a story. But eventually every one has put on so much of money, that they try to get as much traction as possible. I remember Kuch Rang Pyar Ke Aise Bhi was perhaps one of the only shows in the history of television that went for so long because everyone involved in that show believed in that show. The interesting thing is that though it did not have the usual saas bahu drama or those stories of reincarnation etc and it was a very progressive show, it still did not get good TRPs. Despite that the producers, the writers and the creators kept giving the show time so that people could see its value. And people saw its value. It is one of the highest watched shows on YouTube. A lot of people go back and watch the show. But it did not get the traditional TRPs. Do you think this kind of TRP governed shows are impacting our society? Of course, there are conversations about this everywhere. For example, on social media a lot of people talk about toxic boyfriends but toxic husbands have been a theme on television for like years. Now its like a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don’t want to show such a thing but when you show it, your show works and attracts TRPs. That really impacts me since I am so emotionally invested as a writer. Here book writing is way better because by the time the book comes out and actually makes an impact in a year or two, you are a very different person. Also, once the book is read and the reaction comes, I cannot change the book as per the feedback by the readers. Do you doubt yourself at times? There are times when I am afflicted with crippling self-doubt because honestly I had not expected that my first book would be published and would become a best seller. You see the difference between the kind of books I read and write is huge. I got published at 21 when I was reading books that were leagues and leagues ahead of my book. Then when people say that they have read and liked my books, I start wondering if they have read the really ‘good’ books. Had you not tasted success in such a young age, would you have continued writing? I have would have continued writing in some form or the other. Before I started writing books, I had a very successful blog. Lot of my blogger friends advised me to write. Had the book not worked, I would have continued writing and would have found another way of leveraging my writing.
This article by Shailaza Singh appeared in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on February 21st, 2023. You can also check out the video of the interview on https://youtu.be/h-DJ8jcLJ8Q
One lazy Sunday morning, about ten people found themselves walking through the streets of the walled city of Jaipur. It was an eclectic mix of some teenagers, professionals in age groups ranging from 30s to 50s. Some held very serious looking cameras while the others were clicking pictures with their mobile phones. It was the second and the final day of the visual story telling workshop which was being conducted by Tabeenah Anjum Qureshi, a seasoned journalist and photographer with Outlook India. Though the older people tried to play it cool, they couldn’t help getting infected by the raw enthusiasm of the teenagers who kept clicking with their phones and cameras. The resulting photographs revealed unseen but beautiful facets of Jaipur, those which could only be discovered by an untrained eye.
Camilla Townsend’s book ‘The Fifth Sun’ dispels the age-old notions that depicted Aztecs as a blood thirsty, barbaric civilization and throws light on their triumphs and struggles.
According to the Aztec folklore, the universe had imploded four times previously and they were living under the fifth sun thanks to the courage of an ordinary man called ‘Nanahuatzin (Na-na-wa-tzeen). When the Gods asked for a volunteer who could immolate himself and bring forth a new sun, Nanahuatzin volunteered and without much fanfare stepped into the fire. As he burned, the sun rose and the life on the earth was saved.
When I read this interesting story from Camilla Townsend’s book “The Fifth Sun: A New History of Aztecs”, which had been awarded the Montreal’s McGill University’s much coveted US$ 75,000 Cundill History Prize 2020, I was reminded of a similar legend inscribed on a plaque in the Mehrangarh fort of Jodhpur in Rajasthan.
When Rao Jodha wanted to build a grand fort on a hillock, a saint who was known as the Chidiyawale Baba was meditating in that area. Disturbed by the soldier, he cursed that if the king attempts to build the fort of his dreams, his kingdom would be fraught with repeated draughts. When the king begged the saint for forgiveness, the saint told him that though he could not take the curse back but if the king could find a man who is buried alive on his own will, the curse would be neutralized and the city would be protected. Thus in 1459 they found a volunteer in Rajaram Meghwal, who agreed to sacrifice his life protect the land and its people. In return, Rao Jodha promised him that he and his heirs would look after Rajaram’s family. But, the question is would a foreigner understand this sacrifice or would he term it as a barbaric act? How can someone truly understand and appreciate these acts of heroism and sacrifice unless they understand the underlying culture, bravery and emotions of the person who willingly chose to end his life for a cause which he perceived to be much greater than him? In most articles, books and movies, the Aztecs have been depicted as people who loved violence and brutally sacrificed people for their own pleasure or purposes. The Spanish conquistadors who came wrote about the grisly ceremonies where the Aztec priests would slice open their victims’ chests and offer their still beating hearts to the Gods. The bodies would then be tossed down the steps of the towering temple of Mayor. Many archaeologists have found skull racks and towers during the course of their digs and expeditions.
Movies like Apocaylpto have enough violence to convince the world that this ancient civilization knew nothing else. Spanish is a language spoken by millions across the world, hence when the Spanish conquistadors wrote about their perceptions and impressions of this ancient civilization, people took it to be the truth. No one till now really bothered to go beyond this widespread perception of the Aztecs because for the people of the west it would mean looking at the other side of the story. It would mean understanding the point of view of an almost extinct civilization, the people who were really not ‘Indians’ but had been forced with a name just because when the famous explorer Christopher Columbus landed in Antilles near Mexico, he believed that he had reached the Indian Ocean. Though the mistake was discovered with time but the name stuck with Europeans, the Spanish friars and the subsequent explorers who referred to the native Americans as Indians. It seems quite similar to how some people still think of India as a land of snake charmers and elephants!
‘After the conquest, the young people trained in the Roman alphabet began to write down what the various elders said, carefully transcribing their words onto paper and then storing the folios on a special shelf or in a locked box- another well-loved innovation that the Spaniards had brought…[…].’ It was these records that helped Camilla Townsend, who is an American historian and distinguished professor of history at Rutgers University, New Jersey in United States, to understand the real Aztecs and their life. In her book, she says she ‘was sitting in a library when heard a captured Aztec princess shouting at her enemies.’ This inspired her to read the accounts of the early native Americans in Nahuatl (Na-wat) and Spanish and write a book which for the first time presented the Aztec point of view to the world. From the book, it is obvious that the Aztecs were intelligent, enterprising and tough people who had learnt to make the best of every situation that they found themselves in. In one story, when they found themselves living as the servants of another, more powerful ancient tribe, they devised a plan for their freedom. They offered to take responsibility for handling the festivities of an upcoming religious holiday and asked the overlord chiefs to lend them their broken cast off weapons for a performance for the rulers which they were happily given. After all, what could they do with the old weapons? ‘They worked night after night, patiently, painstakingly gluing, sewing and repairing, rendering the feathered, painted shields and spears truly beautiful . At last, they were ready to launch their bid for their people’s freedom- which of course they won.’ Aztecs were known for their sacrifices. Some prisoners of war were sacrificed in religious festivals while the women desired by the warrior were sent to his household. However, the sacrifices were not as gory as the movies and books have made them out to be. ‘In reality, it seems to have been a gravely quiet, spellbinding experience for the onlookers, […]. After a sacrifice, the warrior who had captured and presented the victim kept the remains (the hair and ceremonial regalia) in a special reed chest in a place of honour in his home for as long as he lived.’ It was mostly men who were sacrificed, however, when women were sacrificed the ceremony was different. ‘In one annual festival, for instance, a young girl taken in war was brought from a local temple to the home of her captor. She dipped her hand in blue paint and left her print on the lintel of his door, a holy mark that would last for years and remind people of the gift she gave of her life. Then she was taken back to the temple to face the cutting stone. It was an ancient tradition among the native people not to give way before one’s enemies; such stoicism brought great honour. ‘ This reminded me of the sacrifices made by women in the Indian culture specially when they had to perform jauhar to preserve their honour. Even today, many of Rajasthan’s forts have handprints of women who sacrificed their lives for their honour. In India’s history too, whether in war or death, men who have met their fate with courage have been revered and honoured.
When I asked Camilla Townsend about why sacrifices were such an integral part of all the ancient cultures of the world, she said, “I think the concept of a human sacrifice began as this idea where the ancient human beings were trying to show the divine that they were willing to accept their fate in a rather beautiful way. But unlike the common depiction in many books, these sacrifices initially were not an attempt to humiliate the enemy. On the contrary if the young warrior died without screaming, he was given a great honour as if he himself was a God. All warriors knew that if they were taken prisoners, that would be their fate. They would then try to show themselves, their enemies, their Gods and their people how strong they were and how willing to die they were for the cause.” However, she further added that when the Aztecs were at the height of their power, sacrifices acquired a different meaning all together. “In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when the Aztec civilization was at its prime, instead of sacrificing an occasional prisoner of war, they started to sacrifice dozens of their enemies and prisoners of war. We have a text from that time which says that they used to go and kidnap or take people from the outskirts, places they were interested in conquering and bring them to their capital city and watch the sacrifices. These terrified people were then sent back to their homes where they convinced their townsmen to give up without a fight or else be prepared for a terrible war.”
Another interesting aspect about the Aztecs was the way they maintained two calendars and considered thirteen a lucky number. We, in India also refer to a lunar and a solar calendar. However, in our case, both calendars have the same number of days. “There were two ongoing cycles of time. One was a solar calendar which consisted of eighteen months of twenty days, plus five blank or unnamed, frightening days at the end, for a total of 365 days. The other was a purely ceremonial calendar containing thirteen months of 20 days each, for a total of 260 days…The two cycles of time both returned to their starting point at the end of fifty-two solar years. Thus a bundle of fifty two years as they termed it was as important to them as a century is today. To name each year they tied it to the ceremonial calendar’s most important number: thirteen. The fifty two years were divided into four groupings of thirteen each, like this: One Reed, Two Flint-knife, Three House, Four Rabbit, Five Reed, Six Flint Knife…[..] Thirteen Reed, and then beginning again One Flint-knife.” In her book, it was the younger generation of the Aztecs who worked to preserve the ancient records when they were conquered by the Spanish. Is it the case today too? Is the young generation doing anything to preserve their culture? “Yes, the younger generation of the native Americans in United States of America (USA) is trying to preserve languages and to offer classes and do everything that they can to make sure that the future people still have some access to these ancient ways of knowing speaking and believing. Today many young people leave the reservations, get jobs in the cities and become activists and remind us all that they are still native Americans. But it is an uphill battle compared to situation in Latin America where people were not put in reservations and can speak in their language, if not follow their religion. The people in Mexico have established classes, community centres, radio programs and books to validate and get people excited about these traditions. However, the truth is that to get a good paying job in Mexico, you must learn Spanish and then possibly English. It will not pay you in a financial sense to become an expert in languages like Nahuatl (Na-wat). The scholars in United States have been thinking about it and trying to raise money about it. Though there have not been any grand successes yet but there are programs attempting to make a difference.” The book is filled not just with the real account of the events that transpired but also with fables and legends of the Aztecs that helped them to find their strength and fight battles that they would eventually lose. For the first time, Camilla Townsend could present a different story of a civilization that has long been misconstrued and misunderstood. However, one wonders if there are any other such long lost civilizations whose stories have just been misconstrued by their conquerors and they had no one to tell the truth?
This article by Shailaza Singh was published in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on 11 April 2021.
I am not much into reading political histories or dissecting the course of events in history. However, when it comes to the enigma of Pakistan, I like most Indians can participate in endless debates and discussions about the country. I have been fed movies, books and ideas stalwarts like Gandhi, Nehru, Sardar Patel and many more who have struggled for independence and resisted partition. I have been a witness to a plethora of discussions about how India and Pakistan can be friends or can never be friends. So, naturally when I read Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed’s book Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History, Penguin Viking, it stirred a hornet’s nest of questions in my mind about the much revered Quaid-e-Azam of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed is a Swedish political scientist and author of Pakistani descent. He is also the Professor Emeritus of political science at Stockholm University and visiting professor, Government College University, Lahore.
While reading the book what struck me as odd was that until Jinnah relentlessly pursued it, though there were people thinking about creating a separate state for Muslims, no one thought of actually dividing India before 1940. Jinnah was merely a pawn used by the British to deepen the wedge between Jinnah’s Muslim League and the Indian National Congress.
“The British were now laying out a red carpet for Jinnah. However, it would be too hasty to draw the conclusion that the British were already plotting to divide India. At that point, the British strategy was mainly to checkmate congress ambition to drive British out.”
This quote from the book intrigued me. Was Jinnah the main force behind the partition of India? What would have happened had Jinnah not proposed the formation of Pakistan?
Professor Ahmed: Had Jinnah not proposed the formation of Pakistan, and it not been created as a separate state, the 1000-year-old experience of staying together would have become an asset. I am not saying that there would have been no problems or disputes or occasional communal riots. But what I believe is that there would have been a good balance. Contrary to what most people believe, the Congress never wanted to make India a Hindu state. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have included such a large percentage of Muslims in the Indian army.
The book brings another relatively unknown fact to light. Jinnah was never particularly keen about India’s freedom. In fact, he was quite happy had the British granted a dominion status to India. His letter to the British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in 1929 is quite revealing.
“ …I may tell you without exaggeration that the movement for independence is gaining ground, as it is supported by the Indian National Congress. […] I would urge upon you […] to persuade his Majesty’s government without delay to make a declaration that Great Britain is pledged to granting to India a full responsible government with dominion status.”
“ Jinnah was apparently speaking as an Indian patriot and blamed the British for the radical nationalists winning ground but was advising them to frustrate the Congress’s ambition to win independence for India by uniting all Indians”.
Time and again, the author mentions Jinnah’s and Gandhi’s relationship and the various skirmishes they had.
“That Jinnah and Gandhi could not develop a stable rapport was probably both a matter of negative chemistries as well as they’re over all political posturing. Jinnah considered himself Gandhi’s senior in so far as Indian nationalism was concerned. He cut his teeth in politics in 1906 while Gandhi was away in South Africa. Nevertheless, a process had been set in motion whereby Gandhi would upstage Jinnah has the premier leader of the Congress Party”
“In 1915, Jinnah was the head of the reception committee set up by the Gujrat Society (the Gurjar Sabha; both Jinnah and Gandhi were Gujaratis). Jinnah had very warmly welcomed Gandhi and praised his leadership in generous words. Gandhi responded by saying that he was ‘glad to find a Mohamedan not only belonging to his own region’s Sabha but chairing it.’”
“While some people feel that the remark was meant to demean Jinnah, others feel that Gandhi merely spoke in a spirit of elation and pride that fellow Hindu and Muslim Gujaratis were together in the nationalist awakening in those times.”
Yet there were times, Jinnah had to face embarrassment too!
“In 1917, Gandhi again offended Jinnah when the latter spoke at a public meeting in English, while Gandhi and his followers insisted that all speakers speak in an Indian language. They interrupted him repeatedly and Jinnah had to manage in his broken Gujarati.”
From your book it was clear that Jinnah did not like Gandhi! But Gandhi was a leader of the masses! How did he succeed despite Gandhi’s popularity?
Professor Ahmed: It was not just Gandhi. Jinnah had a problem in playing second fiddle to anyone. When people started gravitating towards Gandhi and the leadership of the Indian freedom struggle went to him by default, so Jinnah had no choice left but to create a counter leadership. So, he became a leader of the Muslims. However, not many people understand that his path was not easy. He had strong opponents like Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad and leaders from Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind, who were anti-imperialist. Despite all the opposition, he succeeded. In the second world war, Congress made a huge mistake. They promised the British support only on the condition that the British would initiate the transfer of power. Had they cooperated without this condition; the Muslim league wouldn’t have had even a remote chance! The main leaders of the Indian National Congress were arrested in the Quit India movement and remained in jails for three years. This eliminated all the competition for Jinnah. He could mobilize the Muslims with all the tall promises.
Yes, the promises made by Jinnah were indeed tall! He promised the fabled land not only to Muslims but to Sikhs and Dravidians of South India.
“Although Jinnah had on several occasions made the division of India sound fair: 200 million Hindus getting three-fourths of India while 90-100 million Muslims getting one-fourth, he gave different signals to the Sikhs and Dravidians of South India. To the Sikhs he offered a Sikh state if they could show him where its boundaries would be drawn. Implicitly it meant the few Sikh princely states because otherwise the Sikhs were not in a majority anywhere in Punjab, not even in the princely states. To the Dravidians, he pledged support for demanding a separate state in the South.”
Jinnah finally got the partition that he had worked for. However, instead of getting the whole of Punjab and Bengal, he got what he described as a ‘moth-eaten’ Pakistan. Is that why Pakistan has a victim mentality? Are things changing now?
Professor Ahmed: The very foundation of Pakistan is based on the blame game. It began with Jinnah who was the creator of the two-nation theory by saying Hindus and Muslims cannot be one nation. Even after the formation of Pakistan, Jinnah believed that the Congress was conspiring to harm Pakistan. However things have now started changing. After the release of my book, a lot of people have contacted me from places like Lahore and India. They ask me questions which have not been asked in the last 73 years. The new generation is yearning to break the shackles and people like Arzoo Kazmi, Abbas Haider are regularly posting videos which are self-critical and help in increasing awareness amongst the masses. I hope the narrative now turns into that Pakistan and India can be brotherly countries. There is a huge percentage of population in both India and Pakistan who don’t get food to eat. I believe that these issues of humanity can be resolved by both nations by diminishing the arms race and releasing the resources for the nation building and increasing the human betterment index. The people in power in both nations are enjoying themselves. In Pakistan, it is the poor who are bearing the brunt of this problem. The privileges of people in power are unbelievable! You should especially see the properties of the Pakistani army generals who retire. India still doesn’t have that level of corruption at least in the army. In Pakistan, generals have been able to purchase islands in Australia, create chains of restaurants, despite having no inherited wealth or property. Where do they get so much money to buy these properties?
“A favorite lament which one hears in Pakistan is that India could stabilize as a democracy because Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru was the helm of affairs for seventeen long years to steer India away from disturbances and upheavals, while Pakistan’s bad luck was that Jinnah died too soon after Pakistan had come into being. Had he lived that long, Pakistan too would have become an ideal Muslim democracy. The facts belie such analogy.”
The author says that Jinnah was an autocratic ruler whose dismissal of elected governments of NWFP and Sindh were the most egregious examples of a governor- general flagrantly overstepping his office. The declaration of Urdu as the official language of Pakistan deepened the sense of deprivation and alienation of the Bengali majority of united Pakistan.
Where does India stand in comparison with Pakistan?
Professor Ahmed: India still has a better record as far as corruption is concerned. Though they have made mistakes where their political decisions are concerned, at least so far none of the Prime Ministers of India have any corruption charges against them. India has been able to control a lot of its culturally inherited caste issues by creating reservations for the people from the oppressed castes. In a way it has been able to democratically, peacefully, constitutionally deal with the negativity in its cultural package. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar despite being the biggest critic of the Congress party was made the chairman of the constitution drafting committee, which I feel was the greatness of the founding fathers of the nation. The humanism of Mahatma Gandhi and the modern outlook of Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru has helped India to become a genuinely elected democracy. I will not say that it is social democracy yet because the caste system has been a part of her psyche and sociology for more than three thousand years. Hence, complete eradication will take time. The biggest achievement is that of one man, one vote, whether it is a Brahmin or Dalit.
Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed’s book Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History has been an eye opener as far as the Jinnah’s motivation for the creation of Pakistan is concerned. Professor Ahmed believes that India and Pakistan can be friends because we are the same people. However, is that really the case? In the following part, we talk to the well-known defence analyst Maroof Raza to know more about India’s equation with her neighbours and way ahead.
Games People Play- Chinese Whispers
Maroof Raza is a retired Indian Army officer with more than 20 years of experience as a mentor, anchor, correspondent, lecturer, writer and a commentator on issues of National Security and Strategic Affairs. He has also authored books like Low-Intensity Conflicts: The new dimension to India’s military commitments and Wars and No Peace over Kashmir. He minces no words when it comes to India’s relationship with Pakistan and China.
Can we be friends with Pakistan?
Why are we still under the impression that India and Pakistan can be great friends? Our governments and diplomats especially in the South Block in New Delhi are constantly harping about old out-dated ideas like non-alignment or friendship with Pakistan or investment in Afghanistan which have no practical relevance in today’s world. The other day I was talking to my friends in the US who were asking me questions like why cannot India and Pakistan be friends and collectively provide a market for America? They think that as long as India and Pakistan are not firing at each other or Pakistan is not sponsoring terror, India can be friends with Pakistan. I think this is the kind of nonsense that you get fed in the western countries. There is a simple logic we need to understand once and for all. Pakistan is not interested in being friends with India. For Pakistan, friendship with India is the first step towards denying its own independent identity. They believe that a Pakistani is a person who is not an Indian. What is a Pakistan according to them? It is an anti-thesis to India. So, becoming friends with India will mean a loss of their very existence and identity. People keep coming up with ideas like a great Grand Trunk Road which will connect India to all its neighbours like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Myanmar. All those ideas are a naught. China has already created a counter to the Grand Trunk Road by creating the China-Pakistan economic corridor which has much more financial steam and depth!
So, can India really govern the equation with its neighbours?
Of course! We should get out of the insecure idea that China can dominate a country like India which has a population of more than 1.5 billion. China along with its allies including Pakistan has a population of approximately 2 billion. Pakistan is one sixth the size of India and yet India keeps losing sleep over it. If you want to learn something, learn it from Israel. You have to make India strong! That in itself will make people secure in their environment. You don’t have to become so big that you cannot manage your own affairs. What is really China doing in the neighbourhood? It is simply putting its money in places like Pakistan and Srilanka. India could have done the same thing. Instead of putting money in places like Afghanistan, they could have invested in Nepal, Bangladesh and Srilanka. But Manmohan Singh and to an extent the current government also is so enamoured being America’s side kick that they don’t even think about it.
But hasn’t China has been luring the countries like Pakistan and Srilanka into a debt trap?
That is what China will do. Please understand that over the last 25 years, China has acquired a lot of foreign exchange. It doesn’t know where to spend it other than to buy out countries and create a zone of influence all over in Asia, Africa, Latin America. China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which extends from East Asia to Europe is not just a road! It is a cyber and a business network. It is something like if someone draw some lines on a cellophane sheet and places it on the top of another country. In this way, they can superimpose another set of networks on a country. This is what China’s land connectivity and whole lot of other initiatives are. When they cannot connect by land, they connect by the sea and they try and take control over the trading routes or the ports on the way by either buying it out or creating pressure on the potential client. The thing with the Chinese are that they are very sweet initially. They go to the countries and bribe the leadership. They bought off the generals of Pakistan, the Rajapaksa family of Sri Lanka in this manner. Later on, after the agreement is signed, people realize the rates of interest is virtually unpayable. That is how they gain control over the area. Why cannot India do the same thing? I believe in India we waste too much time in politics, politicians and border disputes.
How can we solve the border dispute? Why do our maps include the disputed areas like POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) or Aksai Chin even today?
Maps are a part of a historical legacy and these maps have come to be over a period of time in terms of what you regard as India or states who acceded to India. Jammu and Kashmir acceded to India. After the independence when the Indian subcontinent was divided into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, India never was in Aksai Chin. So, people are making a claim based on a map that the then Maharaja of Kashmir, Gulab Singh had drawn on the basis on the information he had given to W.H. Johnson, cartographer. Apparently, the Maharaja had told him to show his territory to be as expansive as possible, well beyond the Karakoram Pass. So, Johnson did that and showed the territories between Karakoram Pass and Kunlun Mountains. But this map was never presented by the British to China. By 1866, the Maharaja’s soldiers had vacated these areas and the Chinese took control of Shahidullah. The ‘line’ laid out by Johnson was modified by Major General Sir John Ardagh, the director of military intelligence in Delhi in 1897. Post-independence, even though Aksai Chin has been shown as un-demarcated, all the claims of India have been based on this line. The earlier governor of Jammu and Kashmir had said that if India has the money and the resources to fight conflicts, then it should spend it on the development of Jammu and Kashmir rather than fighting over territories which were never ours in the first place. I believe that there is no option except settling the battle over the boundary line. The way out is to decide what you are willing to keep and give. Nobody, even a country which is one-fifth or one-sixth the size of India will not allow you to keep everything. No one can keep printing maps and say this is mine and that is mine. Today, I feel one has to have the guts to stand up and say let us settle the boundary line.
The Chinese ambassadors have been saying that we can delink the boundary dispute and get on with business. If that happens, India has the advantage because then if it can ban or stop taking their products which means a loss of 50 billion dollars to China per year. It is a huge amount which it cannot afford. It is also the money that they are pouring into Pakistan through China Pakistan Economic Corridor. What is the point?
China is expanding, but people are not happy! Will there be a revolution some day in China?
Please don’t live in the hope that one day there will be a revolution and it will take over the communist party. The communist party will ruthlessly crush those who try to do something like this. This can only happen in a democracy. Democracies can be toppled because democracies are caught up between use of force and non-use of force. But communists are very sensitive to the challenges to their authority. Tiananmen Square in 1989 was a misjudgement which they will ensure does not happen again.
In the eventuality that our neighbours attack, will countries like America come to our aid?
Please understand that continental conflicts will have to be fought by yourself. No one really is there to help, not even America. When there was a brewing conflict between China and Japan about some islands that lie between them, America who has been Japan’s ally ever since the second world war promised to come to Japan’s aid ‘only if China attacks first. The fact is if China attacked first, it would probably render Japan dysfunctional. Japan is a very advanced country which has made some very good weapons. However, in an age where there are so many different verticals of attacks that include conventional forces, satellite forces, missiles, chemical and biological weapons, an attack can render a country defunct!
A few days back, there was a discussion on the apparent Chinese cyber-attack which reportedly led to a power outage in Mumbai last year. This is the first signal that your cyber adversary gives which is an initial black out of 12 hours or more. They are still clueless about how it happened. This is a part of the unrestricted warfare that China follows. They attack your grids and they make you realize that your entire financial capital can collapse in a second. Likewise, Russia attacked Estonia, which is a completely wired-up country. Everything came to complete standstill. Aircrafts couldn’t land or take off, electricity went off. Russia even did it in Ukraine. Britain claims that it can give Moscow a blackout for 24 hours. The problem with India and China is that India is a passive country and China is aggressive. Therefore, China will do everything to establish its agenda. India mostly reacts.
The only saving grace in the event of a nuclear attack more in the case of Pakistan than China is something called second strike ability. In case Pakistan hits us with all their nuclear weapons, our submarines will still be safe and we will also hit them back. From the Pakistan India perspective, it depends on whether Pakistan is willing to lose one or two or three cities at the cost of destroying India. Hence, the only relevance of nuclear weapons is that it prevents the other person from attacking you. So, don’t expect anyone to come to India’s aid in case of a full-blown war. US and the other countries will only make the right noises. I believe UN is nothing but the world’s most over rated debating society. The fact is that despite India being touted as the potential great power, it does not have a coordinated or comprehensive national security strategy in case of any attack. All the three forces have separate strategies. It is also important to have a clear aim which in India’s case is defence and not capture.
Shailaza Singh
This article was published in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on 11 March 2021
What happens when a software engineer enters the Great Indian Kitchen which has been the undisputed domain of women for centuries? Nothing much except that the engineer in him starts tinkering with all the ingredients, process and unravels the mystery of the Indian cooking!
A free wheeling conversation with Krish Ashok, the author of ‘Masala Lab’ a book that says that cooking is really an every day science in action! Even today, guys are seldom into cooking. Some of them consider boiling Maggi noodles as their lifetime achievement. Now, it seems many men are getting more interested in cooking. Do you think this is a revolution of sorts? How do people react to the idea of a man cooking at home! Things are really changing at least in urban India more than rural India. Infact they are changing more than in South than in other parts of India. It is not as odd in South India to find a couple sharing cooking duties and chores at home. However, in a larger sense this is clearly changing in other parts of India. The pandemic has also forced some of this change, especially for young men living by themselves. Beyond a point, just ordering from Swiggy is not a solution. I think the lockdown and the fact that there were really times where you could not order food home forced people to say ‘I have to learn to cook’. Regardless of whether it was a two-month period or not, it did force people to really think of cooking as a basic skill. However, when it comes to men, there is no dearth of male professional chefs.
In fact, a vast majority of men are professional chefs. Again, this has to do with gender bias in the sense that women were not allowed to go down the professional route. They were supposed to cook at home, within the four walls of the kitchen. So, it is not surprising that I get a lot of attention simply because I am a guy who is writing about home cooking and not restaurant cooking. But I do think things are changing for the better. In fact, as much as men are changing, young women of this generation are also clearly not accepting this kind of a behaviour. Today, they are openly saying that certain rules cannot be gendered and cooking is one of them. Just like taking care of a child beyond a point cannot be gendered. Otherwise, it places an unreasonable number of restrictions and challenges for women aspiring in a professional career since they have to balance everything including their career. Things are changing but these are still very early days since we are a big country. Even in my family, even today, a vast majority of men do not cook. The older ladies in my family really get awed if a guy can boil noodles or make tea but won’t bother to appreciate a woman cooking a fantastic dish because as per them, women are meant to do that. However, I think that after a couple of generations, things will really change.
Do you think cooking is a life skill? Absolutely! In our world, there is climate change happening, there is an increasing awareness about sustainability practices regarding food. So, hence understanding what you eat and where it comes from has become essential. If you go by what’s currently happening with the farmer protests and the other problems of the world, I think the public knowledge of not what just you are eating but also of how it comes is also all the more important. I am not saying everyone needs to learn how to grow their own crops but at least they need to understand where something like bread comes from. They need to understand what is local. The fact of the matter is that there are reasons why certain ingredients are used in certain parts of India. They could be used because they are local, they grow in those climatic conditions and they will not deplete the resources of that area. But these days things are changing just for making money. For example, we have sabudana being grown in Salem in Tamil Nadu, where no body eats sabudana. All of it is exported to places like Gujrat and Maharashtra. You have basmati rice being grown in Punjab, which is not a rice eating part of the world at all. This is tremendous drain on the resources. I think we need to encourage a greater awareness about being more mindful and having an understanding about what you are putting in your body. At the end of the day food is the only foreign object you put in your body; that too willingly and twice or thrice a day! So, it is important that you pay attention to it. Cooking is an essential life skill because at the end of the day, the business of restaurants or the commercial supply chain or processed food industry is not sustainable because it has high carbon footprint and does not use local ingredients. It is salty, sugary and uses tons of preservatives to make food tasty and addictive. Let’s face it that at the end of the day, they have a business to run!
How would you convince the parents who believe that it is not a man’s job to cook to allow their boys to learn cooking? Cooking is the basic of science. In schools, I think we should have a cooking lab next to all those sciences laboratories. In fact, my editor (who was from humanities background) said that if the science is anything harder than class VIII or IX, this book won’t sell. So, she told me to explain all the science behind processes like heating the oil, browning the onions or making curd in simple words. The book is doing so well that I am actually now getting requests from schools. In fact, I am going to be soon doing a demonstration in my son’s school (who is in class 3), along with the physics, chemistry and biology teachers. It is one thing to read about things like structure of a grain or its epidermis and another thing to see it in action in a wheat or a rice grain in a cooking laboratory. You could explain albumin or yolk in an egg, structure of a muscle or anything using the kitchen as a laboratory. So, all I have to say is that beakers and test tubes are all okay but seventy percent of the science practicals in a high school syllabus can happen in a kitchen because that is the place where biology, chemistry and physics intersect. You can explain thermodynamics of heat, you can explain basic chemical reactions, salt, acid, bases. You can explain the defence mechanisms of plants through spices! So, if we help parents of all those boys to understand that kitchen is the basis for their child’s education, then no one will have a problem in letting their boys learn cooking. These days many children don’t like to participate in household chores! What can be done? One thing that I have learnt from the west is that their relationships are about love but they are also transaction and negotiation based. The parents tell their children that they will give them the money but they need to do the chores first. They can play the videogames but they need to also do the laundry or clean up the kitchen. I think it is important that children should take part and participate in the household chores. Like my son has to put the clothes in washing machine and wash them. It is easy. He simply puts them and presses the right buttons. You need to ensure that your children do their bit in the household chores but these chores should not decide on the basis of gender. These days people send their daughter for helping with the car repair and son to help with the kitchen work. But if every one will learn all the secrets of cooking, how will a woman reach a man’s heart? After all, the way is only through the stomach!
With all the apologies, if the only way to man’s heart is through the stomach then the man might as well learn cooking!
This article appeared in Rashtradoot’s Arbit section on March 1, 2021.
The mesmerizing dance of the Kalbeliya community has become famous all over the world. But, about 50 years ago, this community of snake charmers could never have thought in their wildest dreams that their daughters would dance and popularize this folk art. This phenomenon can only be attributed to Padamshree Gulabo Sapera- a woman who refused to stop dancing and living!
The sand dunes of Rajasthan have been a silent witness to the changing times. They have been mute spectators of a time when thousands of new born girls were buried alive in their sands and died without a whimper. But then they have also witnessed the miracle of Gulabo Sapera, a girl who was buried in their folds minutes after she was born and lived to tell the tale. Today, the world knows her as Gulabo Sapera, but she was christened Dhanvantari after the Hindu god of medicine and nectar, after she was found alive despite being buried in the sand dunes. She belongs to the tribe of Kalbeliyas who are known for their ability to catch and tame snakes. Gulabo reveals, ‘We are gypsy people who live in the jungle, catch snakes and make them dance to earn money. Our people used to go from door to door asking people to feed the snakes milk and collect dakshina. In the old days, most girls were killed as soon as they were born because most of our tribe lived in the forests. There was an unwritten rule that no family could have a lot of girls in their house. If they wanted they could keep a single girl child but not more because abduction of girls was quite common in those days. Then, we were quite poor and most families don’t have enough money to ensure that their daughters along with the sons can be fed, clothed and protected or pay dowry in their marriage. When they had to marry their boys, they used to get girls from the chhabri community (basket weavers) by paying the bride price and marry them. These girls were brought from their families at a very young age. A lot of women in my family have been married like this.’ The famous model and actor Milind Soman may have married Ankita Konwar, a girl who is 25 years younger to him but this trend is not new to Rajasthan. Gulabo says, ‘My father is 25 years older to my mother. Infact, my father was taking care of my grandmother when she gave birth to my mother. He travelled 10 kilometers, went to the village and got the things required for the delivery for her. So, my grandfather proclaimed that this newborn girl would not be killed and will marry his son once she grows up.’ Having witnessed female infanticide in such close quarters within his family, Gulabo’s father was quite against it. ‘He wanted that men from our community should marry the girls from their own community instead of getting girls from other communities by paying the bride price. He believed that girls of his own community were far more beautiful and talented. He worshipped Goddess Chamunda and was dead against female infanticide.’ Gulabo’s three elder sisters were protected by her father when they were born. ‘The people of our community were quite upset about the fact that my father did not allow any one to kill his daughters. I was the seventh, child, born after three sisters and three brothers. I was born on Dhanteras. My father had gone to buy some goods for the festival of Diwali. My mother slept out of exhaustion after the delivery. So, seizing the opportunity, the midwife who had come for my delivery, along with my five year old brother took me and buried me in the sands. When my mother woke up and demanded to see her new born, she was told that the baby had been buried. She insisted on visiting the place where I was buried and dug me up. Some how, I was alive despite being buried in the sands for more than five hours! As a result, I was named Dhanvantari after the gods of medicine and nectar.’ However, her struggles were far from over. The next morning the village panchayat admonished her parents for saving their daughter after she was buried in the sands. Gulabo reveals, ‘My father received a lot of flak from the village panchayat. In their eyes, it was a sort of rebellion. But my father said that since I was found alive even after five hours of being buried in the sand, I was no longer his daughter but the daughter of the Earth Goddess! He told them to spare me and punish him in case they deemed fit. At that time, my father saved me from being killed. However, people were not happy seeing me alive. My father ensured that I did not stay in the village but travelled with him for his performances.’ It was this travelling that helped Gulabo learn dance from the snakes. ‘I used to watch those snakes dance and I imitated them. Slowly and steadily, as I grew up, I learnt to dance like the snakes on the music of the been. After a while, I started dancing with the snakes wrapped around me. People started liking my dance and gave money to watch me dance. However, people of my community again objected that how could my parents allow me to dance and earn money? This continued but I did not stop dancing and people continued appreciate it. They started calling me Gulabo. When I was eight years old, I was dancing at the Pushkar Fair on a sand dune when I was discovered by the people from the tourism department of Rajasthan.’ But her struggles weren’t over yet. ‘There was again a huge hue and cry in my community after I started performing in dance shows. But I paid no heed to them because now I knew that this was what I wanted to do. I was scheduled to travel to America for my first dance show when my father passed away on the eve of my departure. The people of the community said all sorts of things to me, they blamed me for my father’s death. They wouldn’t let me go. However, I begged them to let me go because I knew my father was my biggest supporter and he wouldn’t have stopped me from taking on such a big opportunity.’ It was only when her name started figuring in newspapers and other journals that people of her own community started realizing her true worth. ‘When I came back from America, people of my village were awed at my popularity. Many of them told me that the people from other communities invited them to their homes and honoured them because they were related to me. They, who were treated with nothing but contempt had never witnessed such a change of heart or received such respect from the villagers.’ As Gulabo’s fame grew and her art was revered in 153 countries across the world, the people of her community started viewing their own daughters in a different light and realized their potential. The infanticide which was so rampant earlier started declining as the daughters were finally allowed to live and dance. ‘They said that they wanted their daughters to emulate my success and help them to live better in the world. Today, girls are no longer killed in my community. In fact, they learn dance and earn for their families. Some girls manage to educate themselves. My husband supports me. We have five children, two boys and three girls. My girls love to dance. All my children are educated and have studied in English medium school. We will soon open a school for these girls where they will be educated and will also learn dance.’ However, despite her success Gulabo feels that girls are still not viewed as equals in many segments of the society. ‘Girls still need to be careful lest they give the wrong signals. My parents always advised me to be conscious of my step in the public. They told me to always be alert and understand the body language of the people I talk to. The girls have to remain strong.’ Gulabo’s journey is as legendary as this dancer herself. She has not only been an inspiration to the people of her community but has also helped people to realize the true value of girls!
This article was published in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on February 25, 2021.
‘Jaipur is a melting pot of art and culture. People here not only revere and love to explore their heritage but also are open to new music, ideas and concepts. The entire ecosystem of Jaipur which includes people and infrastructure along with the attitude of the business people here make it an ideal place for such events.’ –Prasoon Joshi
It is generally said that business and art seldom mix. People often feel that those who are adept in business cannot be accomplished artists and vice-versa. However, Prasoon Joshi who is not just a marketing guru but also an award-winning lyricist, poet and screenwriter loves to defy conventions and enjoy all that comes his way. We caught up with the man who believes that there is nothing more important than life itself at the Jaipur Literature Festival. You are not just a marketing guru but also a lyricist, a poet and a screenwriter. How do you juggle so many hats at once? I believe that we should try to do justice to the life that has been given to us. I really admire people like Asha ji (Asha Bhosle) who have been able to balance family, raise children and yet have a successful career. I too strive for the same thing. I have my aged parents who live with me and I love taking care of them. I believe we need to first fulfil our responsibilities towards other people and then towards ourselves. So, if you have a dream, a talent or an ambition, go after it by all means but don’t forget your responsibilities and the people who love you or are dependent on you. These days a lot of people talk about battling inertia, stagnation? How does one counter that? I don’t understand these words. Where is inertia? Where is stagnation in life? The thing is we are looking at very narrow definition of the word engagement. People think engagement is just about work or projects. No, the truth is engagement is about life. You may not be doing well professionally but you can always find engagement in your personal life, with your family members, with the people you love. When I am not working, I love talking to my daughter, travelling with her, helping her to do her homework. Engagement can be anything. To me, engagement is collecting memories. My grandmother was a village woman who did not start her education till the age of 19. Then she studied and retired as the principal of a school. Look around you, life is thriving. There is no dearth of things to do. All you need to do is to broaden your perspective and listen to your heart. What about writer’s block? How do you deal with it? You just need to shift your focus to something else. Stop getting stuck in a place. Move on and it will pass with time. How do you get your ideas or inspiration? Ideas have a life of their own. They will come to you, provided you have the right intent and vibrations. If you are in the creative zone, sooner or later you will get great ideas!
What do you say to yourself when you look at the mirror first thing in the morning? Actually, I don’t really look at the mirror except when I am stepping out of the house. I like to look at the stars, the sky, the flowers and the grass. Nature is the biggest motivator for me because as all know, I have spent my entire childhood in the lap of nature in Uttarakhand. So, whenever I need energy or inspiration, nature rejuvenates me, inspires me and makes me feel truly alive. My music is inspired from nature. I love pahadi music, the feelings and emotions it imbibes in the listener.
Do you ever talk to yourself? I love talking to myself because I believe that is how I am able to sort myself out. In fact, I have quite a pronounced dialogue with myself. I penned down all the conversations that I have with myself in first book that I wrote Main aur Woh (Me and Myself). I think it is important to talk to yourself because that helps in sorting out your feelings and emotions and even get an inner connect. These days we are so busy talking and chatting on social media, mobiles and phones that we have forgotten to talk to ourselves. We are no longer in touch with our own feelings and emotions which is why the youth of today have such issues with relationships. If you do not have a relationship with yourself, how will you have a relationship with others? Music has travelled in time from gramophones to cell phones. What do you think is the next phase of music? The term music has become quite broad. What do you define as music? You have songs, then remixes, words without music (rap). Right now, the definition of music encompasses almost everything. Somehow, I feel the next phase of music will be utter chaos. I was telling Gulzar saab the other day that he and his generation of poets and song writers had more meaningful and beautiful words to choose from as compared to today’s world. Today, people are resorting to short forms, shrinking and mutilated words. Sometimes, I simply hate the kind of songs that are written today. Even with music too, we will probably not know what is music and what is not music. However, after this chaos, the audience will start rejecting the bad music and they will start searching for melody and rhythm again. Now that our planet is more or less a global village, the interaction of world cultures will also impact music to a large extent. You will get to hear more fusion music and amalgamations that will be in a class of their own. Moreover, festivals like these will increase since people will also crave for authentic and pure music, books and arts.
What’s your favourite food? Food is a memory device. I love what my grandma used to make. It is called Churkani and it is made from black soyabean dal and rice. The taste and smell remind me of my home in Uttarakhand. However, I am not fussy about food. When I was a child, I was not given a choice about what I could eat or not eat. We ate whatever my mother cooked. She cooked seasonal vegetables and food which she felt would be nutritious for us. We were not allowed to waste food. My parents always told me to be grateful for food because there are many people who do not even get two square meals a day! I am not a foodie but I do like to try the local foods of the places I visit to understand the culture of the place.
What is your favourite colour? I like all kinds of colours like green, blue, white and black. I am not very fussy about clothes. If I like something, like a shirt, I buy five. I don’t like thinking much about clothes and prefer if someone just gives me something to wear. I like many colours but when it comes to wearing clothes, I like black and darker colours because it allows me to look always dressed. What is your favourite day of the week? I love Mondays since I can go to work. I love working.
What is your favourite destination? I love travelling but mountains will always remain my favourite destination. Why do you think Jaipur is becoming a focal point of most art and cultural activities whether it is music or literature? Jaipur is a place which provides an unbiased and non-judgemental platform which respects every artist. It is also a melting pot of art and culture. People here not only revere and love to explore their heritage but also are open to new music, books, ideas and concepts. The entire ecosystem of Jaipur which includes people and infrastructure along with the attitude of the business people here make it an ideal place for such events.
This article was published in Rashtradoot’s Arbit on 21 February 2021.
Shailaza Singh Published Author, Poet and Youtuber
Will the virtual version of Jaipur Literature Festival be able to enchant its audiences like its real counterpart? In this post pandemic era, will the readers be able to digest this literary reality?
On my way to the Diggi Palace Hotel, scenes from the last year’s Jaipur Literature Festival flashed across my mind’s eye. People carrying books in their hands, their bags bulging with books. Hundreds of people queueing in front of the kiosks, eager to get their books signed by their favourite author. There were some who had positioned themselves next to their favourite spot for the next session and were patiently waiting for the next session to begin. Elsewhere, many die-hard foodies were sampling the exotic dishes that had been painstakingly prepared by the chefs of Diggi Palace Hotel. Some die-hard fans were deep in conversation with their favourite author over a cup of tea or coffee! The green of the lawns of the sprawling palace were hardly visible amidst the colourful tents that were erected and the audience that occupied those lawns for the author sessions and discussions.
As I entered the gates of Diggi Palace, my reverie was broken by the cry of a peacock. I looked at the empty lawns and the peacocks who were walking across them as if they owned the place. And then the reality that I had refused to accept struck me! Jaipur Literature Festival would be an online affair in 2021. I walked to a corridor where Sanjoy K Roy, the managing director of Team Work Arts, the company which produces the festival was talking to a handful of people. They were waiting for B.D. Kalla, the art and culture minister, who was to officially inaugurate the Jaipur Literature Festival 2021 which is being held from 19 February 2021 to 28 February 2021. When I asked him for his views on the online change forced by COVID, he was quite upbeat about it, ‘Yes, this time people all over the world have registered for the festival. When the festival was held here, hardly any people from Germany could come. But now, we have so many people registering from different countries like Germany, Saudi Arabia and all across the world. The reach of the festival has become global in the true sense of the word.’
I remembered the bygone times, where the tourists and the people living in Jaipur would plan to spend their entire day at the Diggi Palace Hotel. Once they entered the venue, the visitors did nothing else except listen to author sessions or explore the various delights the festival had to offer. Some of them would even get their durries to have impromptu picnics in a corner of one of these lawns. Would the online version be able to captivate the audience in the same way? Would this online audience have as much dedication and staying power as the audience in the physical version of the festival?
‘We do hope it would,’ said Sanjoy K Roy. ‘To engage our virtual audience, we have curated a great line up of authors and speakers who would talk about a variety of topics ranging from books, nationalism, pandemic and more. This time, instead of having multiple sessions at the same time (in the physical versions, there were different sessions conducted by different authors in four different venues at any one given time), we will only have two sessions at the same time, so that the people don’t have to worry about missing out these sessions.’ Going forward, once the physical version of the festival is restored, will they still continue with the online version too or is it just for this time? ‘Definitely,’ said Sanjoy K Roy, ‘the online version will now be an integral part of JLF since it has definitely helped us to expand our reach and increase our audience across the globe.’
But would the viewers spend their entire time listening to the sessions as raptly as they did in the physical version? Sanjoy K Roy shrugged his shoulders, ‘May be not the entire time but from our experience during the pandemic time, I can say that the average viewing time was about 18 minutes per viewer which is more than the average of 7 to 8 minutes on OTT platforms. Moreover, while we could only accommodate a maximum of 15,000 people in the front lawn in the physical version of the festival, in the digital version we have received an average of 32,000 views per session, which is way higher.’
Our conversation was interrupted by the entry B.D. Kalla, minster for Art and Culture, Rajasthan who had come to virtually inaugurate the festival. I watched as Sanjoy K Roy greeted the minister and then took him to light the lamp to signal the commencement of the festival. One could actually see the effect that the pandemic has had on the world as people wondered whether to light the lamp with or without wearing the masks. Ultimately, they decided to film both the versions and take the decision later. Last year, there was a crowd present to witness this inauguration, this year there were only peacocks and a handful of people.
When he was done with the ceremony, I asked Sanjoy K Roy about the controversy surrounding the venue of the festival- Diggi Palace Hotel. Weren’t there articles and rumours about Diggi Palace Hotel no longer being the venue of JLF? And if that was the case, what was the future of JLF in 2022? ‘As of now, I am glad that thanks to the pandemic, the venue has not changed and I hope that will remain the case in the next year.’ What if the venue is changed? Where would the festival be held? ‘It is too early to comment on this but yes one thing is for sure that JLF will not go out of Jaipur.’
During the 13 years of its physical presence in Jaipur, JLF was not just an event that people looked forward to. It had become an important source of tourism and income for hotels, tourist guides, autos, busses and many street vendors who waited for the festival to earn their yearly income. The festival may have survived by donning an online avatar, but what would those people do this year? Sanjoy K Roy smiled sadly, ‘What can I say? It has been the case everywhere. The pandemic has impacted every one including us. Just this morning as I was coming here, I met the guy who used to sell his wares outside the palace during the festival. He told me how difficult it was for him and his family to survive this year since there would be no tourists or festival to sell his wares. We are hoping that we are back to business as usual in 2022 so that people are able to compensate for their losses.’
Ever since the onset of the pandemic, the world has been reeling with the deluge of online conferences, webinars, meetings and all sorts of virtual events. Many employees swear by their power naps and zoning off techniques to cope with the online information overload. It is indeed a challenge to sit glued to one’s chair and listen to the ever-droning colleagues and bosses without switching off. Students all over the world have been earnestly hoping that they are able to physically attend their schools since online classes no longer hold their interest. Some studies have suggested that it is difficult for human beings to concentrate on online events for an extended span of time. Moreover, most celebrities, authors and other speakers have their own channels in Instagram, Facebook and YouTube where they keep talking to their followers about their books, achievements and activities frequently.
In such a scenario, will an event like the Jaipur Literature Festival be able to hold the attention of the netizens? In the real world, the authors sessions were punctuated by coffee breaks, question- answer sessions, a visit to the book store, author signings and interactions and many more such activities which cannot be replicated even in the most technologically advanced version of the online festival. The question is even if the festival has been created using the most curated list of authors and advanced technology, will it be able to satisfy the audience’s need for a face-to-face conversation with their favourite author or smelling the pages of a brand-new book in the book shop or getting it autographed by its author? Will this virtual version be able to replicate those moments and experiences? Will the audience learn to love this version as it loved the physical festival? Maybe or maybe not! Only the people and time will tell.
This article by Shailaza Singh was published in Rashtradoot Newspaper’s Arbit Section on 17 February 2021.
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