D E M O C R A T I C W O R L D

SOCIAL AGENDA

MEASURE YOUR ONLINE CLOUT

WITH THESE TOOLS PAGE 20

LOOKINGBACK

THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY KOM

PAGE 26

JATIN DAS talks about the intensely personal act

of painting Page 12

Verb alStrokes

PLUS: BROAD CANVAS GARNISH WAREHOUSE FOREIGN DESPATCHES

OCTOBER 2012 `25Issue no. 11 Volume no. 42

An MBD Publication RNI No.: 23870/72

1DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

In Pursuit of PassionIN OUR trade happenstance is the hero. A news here, a glance at the past and suddenly there is a thread of an idea which grows as a story. Two fortuitous event set the path for the present edition; one a mention of an interesting art gallery tucked away in Neb Sarai. The other, a visit to a house where a Jatin Das painting was on display.

I confess I knew of Jatin Das, rather than know him. I had always heard that Das treads a tricky path—he condemns what we see as contemporary modern art. Yet for most people he is one of the stronger members of the Indian contemporary art movement.

He has been even more vocal in his criticism of the world of computer-generated, tampered, over-painted and photo-transferred art. The volatile ver-baliser and artist who likes to work on large-scale murals and welded steel sculptures, what a wonder-ful figure he would make on the cover.

And then there was K.G. Babu, an upcoming artist whose vivid, vibrant and arresting canvases stole our hearts at NIV Art Gallery. Babu and Das are poles apart. The former is slowly getting his due, while the latter has been a shinning star for 55 years. The former barely speaks. The latter is not shy at all. Yet there is that thread of commonality—their joy in creating.

They paint because that is what they know best. They create because without it life is meaningless,

because pursuit of passion is often that defines us. Like pugilist Mary Kom, who boxes, for her life

is meaningless without it. She is our special feature this month. Read about her as Kom bares her soul and talks of her family and passion.

In the more prosaic matters, the FDI debate, one that DW visited in February 2012, has resur-faced with anti and pro-FDI schools screaming themselves hoarse over the issue. First the LPG and diesel hike, and now the retail debate, tell us, who stands a chance—the economy or the people? The time is right for such a debate as we celebrate the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation on October 2, 2012.

QUOTE ON INDIA

EDIT ORIALSONICA MALHOTRA KANDHARI | editorial@democraticworld.in

India is one of the greatest countries of the world. It is a goldmine for art and artists. I am not talking about politics, art or cinema specifically. India is not just Delhi or Mumbai. It is the rich traditions of India that is its beauty...

JATIN DAS:

2 DEMOCRATICWORLD

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COVER STORY

12 | Meeting An ArtistCountry’s most prolific painter, sculptor, muralist and poet—meet Jatin Das, as he talks of things that move him and make him happy

12

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S | O C T O B E R 2 0 12

COPYRIGHT Democratic World is published & printed by M Gulab Singh & Sons (a unit of MBD Group) at Gulab Bhawan 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110002, India and printed at Perfect Printers Gulab Bhawan 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110002, India. Democratic World is for private circulation only. Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of M Gulab Singh & Sons.

Please Recycle This Magazine And Remove

Inserts Before Recycling

TOCBOXINGQUEEN

MARY KOM A BOXING CHAMPION,

DOTING MOTHER, LOVING WIFE AND

A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE. MEET

INDIA’S MILLION DOLLAR BABY READ MORE

ON PAGE 26

VIVEK BHANDARI

24 | LOCATING CIVIL SOCIETY TODAY:New Alliances and Reallignments

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SANTOSH DESAI

32 | THE CORRUPTION GENE: Have we come to see the world in a way that allows us to exercise and condone corruption?

3DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

40 | Strokes of Silence, Indigo Vivid colours of Kerala captured in the creations of K.G. Babu

BROAD CANVAS

REGULARS

01| EDITORIAL06 | UP-TO-DATE10 | FOREIGN DESPATCHES26 | LOOKING BACK36 | READING ROOM48 | STICKY NOTES40

GOOD KARMA WAREHOUSE GARNISH SOCIAL AGENDA

34 | WHEN WOMEN EARN CHILDREN LEARN A simple move to set up a school in NCR’s slums led to Katha

38 | GADGETS & GIZMOS WAGAN SOLAR EPOWER CUBE 1500 Go green with this Solar Power Generator by Wagan

44 | SERVED WITH STYLE BY THE SOUS CHEF Achal Aggarwal is ob-sessed with perfectly-cooked food which looks, tastes good

20 | KNOW YOUR ONLINE CLOUT The world’s your stage if you know how to conduct yourself online

ISSUE

29 | IS INDIA LETTING ITS WOMEN DOWN?

Debating safety ofwomen in India

29

4 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

DEAR EDITOR,WHAT A MELANGE OF STORIES THAT THE DW TEAM BRINGS TO THE TABLE IS COMMENDABLE! I WAS BEGINNING TO BELIEVE THAT PEOPLE HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE GREATS SUCH AS SHYAM BENEGAL. GOOD TO KNOW THAT I WAS WRONG. IT WAS INTERESTING READING ABOUT THE MAN WHO HAS GIVEN US GREAT STORIES. KEEP UP THE GOOD JOB!Kind Regards,

Shraddha Aggarwal, Indore

WRITE TO US: Democratic World values your feedback. We want to know what you think about the magazine and would love your opinion on issues that you would like us to raise. DW

continues to be work in progress and your inputs will make it a truly democratic effort. For additional images, opinion polls and much more visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/DWzine

Send your comments, compliments, complaints or questions about the magazine to editorial@democraticworld.in

APARNA GUPTA,HYDERABAD

DEAR EDITOR,Stories such as that of Nemai Ghosh would have been lost had you not written about them. The DW people are putting up a good show, just what I, as a reader, need. Thank you.

FEEDBACK

POINT OF VIEW

EDITORIALManaging Editor: Monica Malhotra KandhariGroup Editor: Sonica Malhotra Kandhari Editor: Dr Chander TrikhaAssistant Features Editor: Rohini Banerjee Sub Editor: Manjiri Indurkar

EDITORIAL CO-ORDINATIONMamta Bhatt

DESIGNSr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Sr. Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Directors: Atul Deshmukh & Anil T Sr. Visualisers: Manav Sachdev & Shokeen SaifiVisualisers: Sristi Maurya & NV Baiju Sr. Designers: Raj Kishore Verma, Shigil Narayanan & Suneesh K Designers: Charu Dwivedi, Peterson PJ, Midhun Mohan Prameesh Purushothaman C & Haridas BalanMARCOMAssociate Art Director: Prasanth RamakrishnanDesigner: Rahul BabuSTUDIOChief Photographer: Subhojit PaulSr. Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

SALES & MARKETINGMayank Khantwal (Manager- Ad Sales), Mamta Bhatt and Arjun Sawhney

PRODUCTION & LOGISTICSAlok Kashyap, General Manager (Production)

OWNERM Gulab Singh & Sons Private Limited

PRINTER Alok Kashyap

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DISTRIBUTED BY THE INDIA TODAY GROUP

Democratic World is a monthly magazine published and printed by M Gulab Singh & Sons Pvt Ltd (a unit of MBD Group). It is published at Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002, India and printed at Perfect Printers, Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002, India. The magazine is edited by Dr Chander Trikha, Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002, India. Material in this publication may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of M Gulab Singh & Sons Pvt Ltd. Editorial opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of M Gulab Singh & Sons Pvt Ltd and M Gulab Singh & Sons Pvt Ltd does not take responsibility for the advertising content, content obtained from third parties and views expressed by any independent author/contributor. (M Gulab Singh & Sons Pvt Ltd, Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002).

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Opinions expressed herein are of the authors and do not necessarily reflect any opinion of M Gulab Singh & Sons Pvt Ltd, Gulab Bhawan, 6, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi-110002, India Tel: 91-11-30912345, 30912301.

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6 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

NARENDRA MODI

“Rahul Gandhi is an international leader. He can

contest in Italy too”

the hiked price for

a litre of diesel

Diesel Hike Leads to Nation-wide Protests UPA allies cry foul HIKE \\ The Centre came under heavy flak from all quarters—industrial sectors, political parties, citizens and organisations—over the diesel and LPG price hike which came into being in mid-September. The Union government increased the price of diesel by `5. The new price is `6.2 per litre, including taxes. The price hike immediately affected the transport indus-try as a whole, and more particularly, Maharashtra was the worst hit. With the increase, the difference in diesel prices between Mumbai and Delhi jumped to `6.5 per litre. The Centre also limited subsidised LPG refill supply to six in a year at the rate of `450. The seventh cylinder will come at a cost of ` 800. The steps led to a slew of protests coming in from almost

all states. The BJP and Shiv Sena activists staged demonstrations in Maharastra. Key UPA ally and Trin-amool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee too expressed her unhappiness over the hike and held a series of protests in Kolkata. Key UPA ally DMK described the diesel price hike as ‘very high’ and sought a roll back. BJP leader Yashwant Sinha said the hike will have a cascading effect on prices and will contribute further to inflation. Diesel price hike will indirectly increase the cost of production of goods by 10 to 12 per cent. Wholesale rates of vegetables are likely to shoot up by the end of the month by 25 to 30 per cent. With diesel prices going up, transportation companies are likely to increase their freight rates too.

6̀.5

THEY SAID

IT

UPtoDATE

7DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

up-to-dateFROM AROUND THE WORLD //

SPORTS \\ Tennis star Andy Murray ended Britain's 76-year wait for a male Grand Slam singles cham-pion with an epic victory over Novak Djokovic in the US Open final. Murray, 25, emulated Fred Perry's 1936 achievement, winning 7-6 (12-10) 7-5 2-6 3-6 6-2 in four hours 54 minutes in the Arthur Ashe Stadium. Murray also won an Olympic gold this summer. This is Murray’s first Grand Slam victory after 28 appearances. On the day when the talented duo played against each other, a swirling wind made conditions troublesome. It was Murray who coped better in the first two sets and eventually ended Djokovic’s title defence and 27-match hard-court winning run at majors.

Murray made a devastating start to the decider, breaking in game one and consoli-dating it with some defensive play of the highest order. The third seed was in dreamland when Djokovic netted a forehand to hand over the double-break, only for a nervous Mur-ray to immediately surrender one of his strikes with a timid backhand.

Cuban Coach Wins Dronacharya Award: Cuba-born boxing coach Blas Iglesias Fernandez became the first foreign coach to win the Dronacharya Award. He has dedicated 22 years of his life in training Indian boxers and has two-time Olympic medal winner, Sushil Kumar, as one of his students.

AWARD

India and the world looses legends AK Hangal, Verghese Kurien and Neil Armstrong bid goodbye

Andy Murray Breaks Grand Slam Jinx

DEMISE \\ Late August and September was marked by the demise of two Indian stalwarts—actor, activist and reformist AK Hangal and the father of Indian White Revolution Verghese Kurien. While the world also lost its favourite astronaut in Niel Armstrong as the “Moonwalker” breathed his last breadth on August 26, 2012.

Neil Alden Armstrong was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the moon. An aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university profes-sor, Armstrong was also an officer with the US Navy and served in the Korean War before he became an astronaut. Avtar Kishan Hangal popularly known as AK Han-gal passed away on August 26, 2012. Hangal was a freedom fighter and also a stage actor. Later, he became a character actor in Hindi films and did hundreds of films between 1966 and 2005. Verghese Kurien, was an Indian engineer and renowned social entrepreneur. He was known as the Father of the White Revolution for his billion-litre idea or Operation Flood. The operation took India from being a milk-deficient nation, to the largest milk producer in the world, surpassing the USA in 1998 which in 30 years doubled the milk available to every person.

NUMERO UNO

Leaving a Gap: [from left) Verghese Kurien, Niel Armstrong and AK Hangal

8 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

up-to-date\\ FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Violence spreads across Middle East Citizens protest a low-budget American film on the Prophet

UNREST \\ A low-budget, crudely-produced film called Innocence Of Muslims, which allegedly portrays Prophet Mohammed as a “fraud”, a “womaniser” and a “child molester” sparked off controversies across the Middle East leading to violence and disruption. The violence began when Islamist protesters climbed the US Embassy walls in the Egyptian capital of Cairo and tore down the American flag from a courtyard pole. Chris Stevens, the US Ambas-sador to Libya, was killed, along with three other Americans, as vio-lent protesters stormed the consulate in Benghazi.

The intensity of the anti-American fervour initially caught US leaders by surprise, but in the past days, the Barack Obama admin-istration has called for calm. It urged foreign governments to protect American interests

in their countries. The film, has sparked violent protests in many Muslim countries and the US has responded by deploying additional military forces to increase secu-rity in some hotspots. In a televised speech, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah

said America must be held accountable for the film, which was produced in the United States. The US govern-ment has condemned the film. Nasrallah called for protests in which the Muslims expressed their “anger”. In Pakistan, police fired tear gas and water cannons at the pro-testers in Karachi.

The protesters threw stones and bricks, prompting the police to beat back the crowd with batons. One protester was killed during the clash, said Ali Ahmar, spokesman for the Shiite Muslim group that organised the rally.Thousands more held peaceful demonstra-

tions against the film in other parts of the country, including the eastern city of Lahore and the north-west city of Dera Ismail Khan. The demonstration in Lahore was organised by Jamaat-ud-Dawa, believed to be a front for a powerful militant group blamed for attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008 that killed more than 160 people. It has been unclear how much of the violence was spontaneously triggered by the film and how much of it was spurred on by anti-American militants using it as a tool to grow and enrage the crowds. Libya’s interim president Mohammed el-Megarif said the attackers who killed Stevens appeared to have spent months preparing and carefully choosing their date—the anniversary of the Septem-ber 11 terrorist attacks. But US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice said evidence gathered so far indicated it was a spontaneous reaction to the anti-Islam video. In the meanwhile, tension escalated in Libya as the civil war continued unabated, also leading to anti-American sentiments in most parts of the country.

Pakistani government should shut down the US

embassy until film-makers are

punished

Protest Path (left) Protesters burn the US flag in Bangladesh Embassy Attack (below) People try to climb into the American Consulate

9DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

up-to-dateFROM AROUND THE WORLD //

Cartoonist Jailed for Sedition Leading to ProtestsJAILED \\ Mumbai Police questioned cartoonist Aseem Trivedi and then arrested him on charges of sedition over a series of cartoons which lam-pooned the government’s corruption record, including one that depict-ed Parliament as a giant toilet bowl. The arrest of

POLITICAL

AS APPLE LAUNCHES THE IPHONE5, TWITTER GOES ABUZZ WITH JOKES AND MEMES

Trivedi, a freelance art-ist, triggered widespread condemnation from media and anti-graft activists who said it was evidence of lack of respect for freedom of expression. The govern-ment was under public scrutiny for banning a few websites in the

recent past. An impas-sioned public debate gen-erated after the arrest of Aseem Trivedi on charg-es of sedition, has made some senior ministers at the Centre sit up and press for an amendment in the provisions relating to sedition in the Indian Penal Code.

SALT &PEPPER

DISASTER \\ In September, Pakistan faced one of its worst industrial disasters till date when a garments factory caught fire and was gutted. The death toll rose to 259 leading to the government registering a case of murder against its owner and manager of the Karachi factory—Ali Enterprises, his two sons and managers at three-storey garments factory. On the same day of the Karachi fire, 25 people were also killed in a fire at a shoe factory in Lahore. Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik gave a twist to the country’s worst industrial disasters by calling them an ‘act of terrorism’. The bigger fire started in the garments factory in Karachi’s Baldia town. Evidence suggests that the fire started because of a generator malfunction or short circuiting. The owners, who have obtained preventive bail until 21 Sep-tember, 2012, also recorded their statements with the police. Till date only 177 of the dead bodies have been identified, including 23 women. Sindh police surgeon, Kamaluddin Sheikh, said around 600 people were in the factory when the fire broke out and many managed to escape with minor injuries or were rescued later.

Twin Fires in Pakistan Lead to Deaths Interior Minister Calls Fires Terror Attacks

“The iPhone 5 looks cool but I think I'll wait until the iPhone 6 b******. Apple

can do better than [sic] that.”Cottrell | Twitterati

“How do you tell if some-one has the new iPhone 5? Don’t worry, they’ll let you

know...”Zach Barff | Twitterati

Rescuers still at work at the Karachi garment factory site

“Many Christian folk seem more excited about the coming of the IPhone 5 than they are of coming of the Lord. Sure seem to be preparing more!”

Projectpeter | Twitterati

“Now that the iPhone 5 is out, what do you think about the leaked

iPhone 10 layout?”Jordan Lyod | Twitterati

“People complain about the iPhone 5 not having a radi-cal new design, then they

complain that changing the shape of the dock is way to [sic] radical.”Jordan Lyod | Twitterati

foreign despatches

10 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

\\ NOTES FROM THE DIASPORA

It’s not about how great an idea is. If you can’t execute, it won’t work”

RAJU VEGESNA: It was in the late 1990s, when right after finish-ing with my Bachelor’s of Engineering from Bapuji Institute of Engineering and Technology, Davanagere, Karnataka, I had just began working. My job was to handle website promotions which led to my interest in network management. That is when I came across Zoho. I thought they were doing interesting things in the field of network management. Since I, too, had an interest I started communicating with them. Moreover they were a product-based company, which I always found exciting. So, after a few initial inter-actions with them I proposed a few product ideas which they liked and in a couple of months I joined the company. Today the company is almost 16 years old and my association with it has been for 13 years now. Zoho is one of the very few product-based companies from India. A significant point about Zoho is that we run it from the US, while others are based from India. When Zoho started out, India had a lot of companies providing services, but not many were into making products. Striving hard for bring-ing in projects and making the clients implement those was an idea which never fascinated us. What we at Zoho wanted to do was to create products and sell them in the global markets directly.

Once the decision was made, we got in touch with a few Indian companies who were dealing in the same space and launched a few products and finally marked our arrival in the network manage-ment zone.

Even though Zoho is being run and managed from the US most of Zoho’s employees, consciously or not, are Indians. We hire engineers and management people, mostly freshers because young people are more creative, innovative and enjoy challenges. We have

around 1,600 employees in India, in America we have around 30 and in Japan around 30 more.

People often talk about the challenges of running an Indian com-pany in the US. But honestly speaking, it is not that big a deal these days. In fact, there are more advantages than disadvantages. Having said that, there are some challenges that we do face and have been facing over the years.

For instance we have an office in India and in the US. In both the countries we have support teams. It is when these teams inter-act, that the problem arises. Most of all, language is a big barrier. Understanding each other’s accents is a troublesome area. But that is something that cannot be helped much. English, as we know is not our first language, and Americans do not understand any other language. The other problem that we deal with on a daily basis is the cultural difference between the two countries. This creates enor-mous amount of problems for us. The thing is that both the coun-tries follow different work cultures, people have different ideologies and these are issues which will only get sorted over time. While these are some of the internal challenges that we face, the biggest and the foremost issue that we face is of reach.

In a global market companies like Yahoo! and Google have a wider reach, which is something we lag. We would like to reach to more and more people but that is yet to happen. Perhaps we need to work on better marketing strategies.

I would be stating the obvious in saying that the US has a more

RAJU VEGESNA

California, USA

RAJU VEGESNA is the Chief Evangelist for Zoho. In this role, Raju’s focus lies in shaping Zoho’s corporate strategy and global brand image in order to sustain its rapidly growing market and mind share. He is considered as one of the foremost thought leaders in the Office 2.0 revolution. Raju has been instrumental in the strategy for and the development of, the popular Zoho suite, which till date boasts of 28 online productivity applications. He is an avid blogger and encourages ‘Zoholics’ or users of Zoho to contact him directly. Prior to working with Zoho, Raju co-founded an Internet services company serving the educational market called—Infothread. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science

foreign despatches

11DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

NOTES FROM THE DIASPORA //

mature market, which actu-ally changes a lot of things. For instance people in the US have been used to buy-ing things online. They are comfortable with the concept of e-commerce. As compared to India, they are more com-fortable buying something that has been put online. While in India that culture is yet to come.

In the US we often see that the customers come online and browse for products. If they like the products they buy them, they don’t really talk to other people or take another opin-ion into consideration. It is tough to get that scenario in India.

Moreover, dealing with the clients in the US is completely differ-ent from dealing with the clients in India. I agree that every country has their own culture and their own issues. And it is understandable that the Indian clients will have different sets of expectations while US clients will have different ones. Japanese clients, for instance, want every minute detail to be fixed. They look into the smallest matter, as they are very detail-oriented. Our clients in the US, on the other hand, are okay with smaller nuances, but they want the core structure to be impeccable. However, in India, perhaps because of the lack of infrastructure and tech support, clients always seek sup-port to fix problems. They demand onsite support all the time. India needs an attitudinal change when it comes to these things.

Similarly in the case of venture capital (VC) investment, it is widespread in US, especially in the software market, there are many VC firms with different models. It is a highly competitive market in US and some of the VC firms from US are making their way to the Indian market for expansion. In India though, it is start-ing to evolve, I would say Indian investors are more conservative compared to US investors.

But to be fair to the Indian market, the scene is changing. Each day, we notice changes which point towards growth and maturity. When we started off in India, it was tough to get talent on board. One big issue that India faces is that it doesn’t have a culture of innovation and there is lack of exposure too. When the students come out of engineering colleges, they do not know that there is something like a product-based company, they are completely unaware. This lack of exposure becomes a road block.

But I wouldn’t blame just the students or the colleges for this lack of exposure. The truth is that when we started out, there weren’t many product-based companies in India. And the market wasn’t all that open. However things have changed now, in the past few years I have seen some good product companies popping-up and the employees of these companies are the local talents, which is fantas-tic news. Especially for Zoho which always has had a policy of build-ing talent and not targets.

Speaking about the achievements of Zoho, I think it is becoming India’s largest product-based company, and its ability to capture the local Indian market. I think we have done a great job in bringing India to a strut in the international market. We have really worked hard on it. We have built products, taken them to the market, have taken the responsibility of ensuring that they are quality stuff and we have strived hard to promote them. The journey—as smooth as it sounds—has not been easy. It has been exciting, but not without hurdles. For an Indian company it is a big challenge understand-ing the US market. As open as this market is, it follows a certain work culture and expects every company to follow that culture too. Indian companies, which belong to a different school of thought, find it difficult to navigate through this market. Now that we have been in the US for some 16 years we understand how it works and therefore are able to strive through and navigate through the US market. Therefore, I think that execution is a biggest issue here. It is not about how great an idea you have. If you can not execute it properly, it would not work. Things that worked in favour of Zoho was that we always believed in taking one step at a time. When we entered the product market what we initially did was that we would take a software and embed it in our product and sell. Our targeted space was not all that big, probably half a billion dollar market, but it was getting us easy money, if not a brand image. We were always focussed on our next step—entering the network management market, which was a 50 billion dollar space.

There we built some 30 to 40 products and it helped us bring in money and invest in our future applications. With our third phase of the company, zoho.com, we have left behind the $50-billion market and entered the multi-billion dollar market and I am happy to say that we are doing well. After all this effort that we have put in, we really hope that we have managed to inspire people back home to start more product-based firms. India has a great future, the market is booming, we have the talent and the enthusiasm. All we really need today is to pull our act together and make things work. I hope that Zoho’s success model is replicated and bettered by other Indian companies in the near future.

—As told to Manjiri Indurkar

“India has a great future,

the market is booming, we have the

talent and the enthusiasm. All we really

need today is to pull our act together and make things

work”

12 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

Jatin Das may be called one of our country’s most prolific figurative painter, a graphic artist, a sculptor, a muralist and a poet. But what really makes him happy is to be unburdened from all labels and lead life to its fullest

WHAT YOU SEE... ...Is what you get; that is painter, artist, sculptor and graphic artist Jatin Das for you. He is an electrifying personality who hates to mince words, which should make him a pain for his publicist (thankfully, he has none) and a dream for journalists. But before his straightforwardness grabs your attention, the most singular aspect of his personality that hits you as a force, is his youthful, abundant energy. He bounces off to keep some-thing, to arrange something else, places seats at the right angle, helps the photographer pick a corner for a photoshoot or opens the door for people to come in.

ArtistMeeting

an

BY ROHINI BANERJEEDESIGN BY ANIL VKPHOTOGRAPHS BY SUBHOJIT PAUL | IMAGING BY MANAV SACHDEV

13DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

cover storyMEETING AN ARTIST //

Das is also attentive, courteous, and quick on the uptake. He offers everyone cigarettes. Before start-ing the interview, he wants everyone to have a cuppa. Not many artists, and certainly not many successful legends, send a drawn map minutes after the con-versation. In fact, not many successful Indian people believe in common courtesies such as acknowledging emails. It seems Das and his team operate differently.

Where do you work? What is it? Where is it? Who is in charge? He shoots off questions on our first inter-action over the phone. He acknowledges answers with a quick “hmph” or a “huh”. And when he does not want an answer he says, “I do not care,” and dismiss-es both the answer and question with an impatience of a child. We were to encounter more of that visceral honesty and child-like impatience as we met in his Shahpur Jat studio as the conversation progressed at a mind-boggling speed over three languages, and with the artist’s answers beginning with an emphatic ‘no’.

THE ARTIST The studio where Das works is a small and neat space. Though it is filled with wooden racks, stuffed with files and folders, and a handful of people quietly busy before computers, it contains an air of hushed order. Every folder, box and rack is neatly labelled. There is a temple-like quality to the space—guests are asked to remove their shoes before entering. If you strain your ears, a soft sitar music can be heard with the click-click of the keyboards. When Das does appear for the interview, he is in no hurry to get on. “No, no, no, listen, I do not even know your name. Let us all get to know each other. Unless you wish to

finish everything in three minutes flat and make a quick exit. I am not ready as once I go through what I am going to say, I will have to relive it all in my mind. You know what I am saying?” he asks. For Jatin Das, there are no quick fixes or short cuts—if it is an inter-view, then it is about building a sense of trust before anything else.

“Smallest of details matter to me. What I do, I do it with a passion for quality. If I am consuming daal-chawal, it should be made with care, with love. I cook with passion. I garden with a passion. If I bathe I think of the rivers. Everything needs fervour and sin-cerity. For every bit of our life we should be commit-ted and concerned,” he says without taking a breath.

“I may not have done much for my children, but I find it most gratifying when I see them today. They, too, have a strong sense of commitment. They have the right set of values and they do not compromise in what they do. I have never compromised in what I have done either,” he says, as an afterthought.

But our interview is yet to start—in fact, it will not start for well over an hour in which he will sometimes speaks in a tearing hurry, while often he would break off mid-sentence to review what was said before. But he would do everything with care—because a hurried interaction is not genuine. “When you come to meet me, shed the baggage. About what you know of art and artists. Let us start innocently,” he says.

Bold Strokes [From left] Initiated, a water colour, Digambar, oil on canvas and finally, Birahini, oil on canvas

14 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

cover story\\ MEETING AN ARTIST

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As his mind skips and wanders over what he wants to say he offers more information. “I came to Delhi in 1967 to teach. At that time, Delhi was a hub for artists. With the passage of time, they (colleagues) have all dispersed and some of them have become ‘quickies’ with their quick shows, quick money, quick parties,” says Das. “Lot of young artists tell me, Jatin-da I have to earn my bread and butter. Where do they learn the phrase? Why not talk about daal chawal? They accuse me that I must have thought about the same (bread and butter) when I was young. In my twenties I was much more dangerous because I thought of nothing else than work. Somehow for 54 years one has lived life without compromise. How did I do that?”

Perhaps the question lies in the past—a little bit in his family, his teachers, the friends he acquired and people he met. Born to a traditional artistic family in Mayurbhanj (Orissa), Das was exposed to art early on.

He grew up amid tribal and folk art, crafts, dance and music. His home is one of the lushest states of the country, dotted with ponds, rivers, groves and hamlets. His mother was an artist and a writer. It was a rich childhood. One that naturally progressed into a richer youth as he moved to Mumbai at the age of 16 to study at the JJ School of Arts. There he met Homi Bhabha (Das refuses to divulge how, as it is ‘not rel-evant’) and slowly learnt the ‘art of life’—living every second to its fullest. It is his mantra; he cooks, eats, plants a garden with the same fervour as he paints.

This fervour lends him an exceptional eye for detail. “From the next time, don’t bring cups on a plastic tray. And put some extra water. Not too much, but a bit more. But very good Gopal,” he says as the tea gets served. He is quicker to heap praise for a job well done and every gentle criticism is accompanied by a pat in the back.

Here is an artist not residing in an ivory tower of solitude—obtaining inspiration from the ether.

In fact, if one suggests such a thing, Das would be enraged. He is easily provoked, the quintessential angry, youthful senior man. He is enraged by the present state of our country, he is dissatisfied by the youth’s unwill-ingness to commit to a craft for the sake of learning, he is embittered by the publicity-driven, commerce-driven world of art. “Everybody’s summing up everybody without knowing. Like you! You want an interview done in two minutes, you want a summation in three. An acquaintance of mine said such-and-such person said such-and-such things about you that too without meeting me even once. We have a very narrow vision of what a person, a profession should be. You remark that my studio is clean. How many artists’ studios have you visited? Did you know that Dom (Moraes) was one of the best poets that India ever had?” he asks.

Over the years Jatin Das has collected 6,500 hand fans. For him they are the remaining testament to the dying crafts of India

FAN OF PANKHAS

The JD Centre of Art (JDCA) was established in 1997 by Jatin Das for the conservation and pro-

motion of traditional and contemporary visual and plastic art in Bhubaneswar, Orissa. It is supposed to be a non-commercial institution which will house all the art work that has been made and sourced by Jatin Das. Before the designated, proposed National Pankha Museum comes up, all the pankhas or hand fans sourced by Das are now being housed at the JD Centre of Art. In 2004, the centre held its first major programme—a national seminar on conservation of art of nature and man made art. Participants included Unesco and the Department of Culture of the Indian Government along with

town planners and architects. It also held national camp for sculptors and potters. Since the past 10 years the centre has been organising a monthly programme called “Meet the Artist” which has been held every second Saturday of the month. The centre will house, conserve and promote a range of traditional and contemporary visual and plastic arts. There would be a dedicated gallery to toys, brass and bell metal, terracotta and ceramics and hand fans. There will also be a sculpture garden, an open-air auditorium, a library and archives, conser-vation and research units. The Centre will actively promote artists residency programmes along with seminars, workshops and publications on art.

CraftsCentre for

“I died too: where we are Is big enough for us three, Even though you're a tall man You haven't seen your child. They preserved us with chemicals Here in the Nordic museum. Our daughter waits to see you. Come back soon from Africa.”

—A poem by Dom Moraes

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His friend, the fabled journalist Dom Moraes’s name, would appear in our interview regularly. It is when he talks of his friend or friends that we get to realise that there is the ivory tower after all. Age and nature has stolen most of his friends from him leaving him rather alone. “I have a handful of friends left,” he admits. His travels with Moraes in Sweden are sweet memories which he misses acutely. He gets up to show us articles and a photo of it.

“If I stayed in Bombay I would either stay at Dom’s or Basu-da’s house or flit between both. When I would be at Dom’s, he would read out his poems. He never shared his poetry with the world apart from his few friends. He would tease his wife (Leela Naidu) and tell her, Polly you have no sense of poetry, off you go and sleep. And Dom would write about me the very next day. After all he was a lazy b*****,” Das says softly with a chuckle.

The mention of old friends Don Moraes, Basu Bhat-tacharya, Satyajit Ray and Raghu Rai enter every con-versation. He mentions them as people who did not live their lives stuck on a singular, linear path. They were, he tells us, souls who pored themselves in their immediate engagement, however trivial.

THE TECHNIQUE “I never use the expression that I am doing art. I always say that I am working. I never use words such as creativity or inspiration. They are hackneyed words. In any profession when you work for a certain period of time you have set of concerns, commitments and certain fervour with which you work. These emotions are devoid of the country or society, etc. Of course, certain things leave a mark. Your personal anguish, family, nature of things seep into the work naturally. I work on human predicament and all my work gener-ally are human figures. But they are devoid of embel-lishments and devoid of time and place. They are not factual. They are not narratives. I can’t explain my work at all. I am not going to and I am not attempting it,” he says when the official interview starts.

We begin with India. I make the mistake of asking him whether he finds working in India conducive. In seconds he is inflamed and calls the question ‘quite dangerous’. “Every country is conducive to art. One can create everywhere. I think people who don’t like staying in India and don’t find working here condu-cive are mediocre and ordinary. India is one of the greatest countries of the world. It is a goldmine. I am not talking about politics, art or cinema, specifically.

India is not just a Delhi or a Mumbai. Even if for argument’s sake we say they are the so-called yard-sticks to deciding the concept that is India, how do you define these cities? In Delhi and Mumbai there are hundreds of smaller spaces which are distinct and interesting. There are people in Chandni Chowk who have, perhaps, not seen the world outside the walled city. People in Bhindi Bazaar in Mumbai. Every city has hundreds of layers—especially the Asian cities,” he adds. “The western world is finished. They have lost their arts, crafts and culture. They are all prototypes. They have a shared post-colonial, post-war culture and shared paradigms. The fact that India

—Jatin Das

There is either a lot of

purpose or there is none at all I enjoy the process I paint because I love to

“I am not always telling a story. I paint first, then draw the outline. I see something and just feel like translating that onto paper. That’s it. These photographs are manifestations of my concern. They are never enlarged. I write a bit of free verse occasionally. I listen to a lot of music. I am open, willing and ready to be exposed to anything...”—Jatin Das

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cover story\\ MEETING AN ARTIST

playground. If indeed the real is his inspiration. His nudes—whether supple lines or rich and textured oil canvases—come from his greatest inspiration; life. Or, if you are talking of Das’s version of it, write them in capitals. What inspires this artist? Everything, he will tell you. Encounters, passions, life, experience and relationships. This exultation of spirit makes his art youthful—giving it a vitality which makes the fig-ures dance before your eyes.

He is also an innovative artist. Perhaps a part of this innovation stems from the impatience of the

is still chaotic and is in a transitional state, is the best bit about our country. It is a pity that we are not trying to retain its character but adopting western paradigms and prototypes (food, clothing and way of life). We have adopted the British education system—the Brit-ish taught us to make us into clerks. Real education comes from being rooted to your reality, your home town, your state. Once you know your home then you know or imbibe everything else,” says Das.

Here is an artist who likes to dirty his hands. He loves the dusty road. He adores making real life his

FACT FILE Jatin Das was born in December 1941 in Mayurbhanj, Orissa. He studied at the Sir JJ School of Art, Bombay, under Professor SB Palsikar. His term at the school lasted for a period of five years, from 1957 to 1962. Thereafter, he started participating in the art exhibitions, both at the national as well as the international level. Some important exhibitions where he participated include the Biennales in Paris (1971), and in Venice (1978)

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cover storyMEETING AN ARTIST //

young man he is. He is always trying to find dynamic ways of depicting his emotions. His paintings revolve around the various aspects of relationships (crisis, contact, disclosure, emotional tension). The treatment is often clean, linear and colours are charged with emotions with a brisk brushwork which further add a unique dimension. But all these explanations (and narratives) are just unnecessary words .

“Why can’t a painting be accepted as it is? Work never has an agenda,” he protests. “I am not always telling a story. I paint first, then draw the outline. I see something and just feel like translating that onto paper. That’s it. These photographs are manifesta-tions of my concern. I write a bit of free verse occa-sionally. I listen to a lot of music. I am open, willing and ready to be exposed to anything and any influ-ence which comes my way. When you grow older in such a rich environment, art is not a separate thing that you do when you have the time,” he says.

But why is the human body a recurring theme?“There is either a lot of purpose or no purpose at

all. I just enjoy painting. I paint because I love to. I enjoy the process allowing the unexpected to enter and govern. That is the beauty of painting, indeed, of life for me. I have been painting human figures for many years. Usually, I like working on a single figure. Now and then, two figures together have periodically emerged unintentionally. Recently, I have become conscious of it as a series. I suppose I have become more and more conscious about human relationships and our predicament. But it is in no way a documen-tary of anything. I try to capture a mood, an emotion. And the body, the form, the physicality is accidental,” Das avers.

“My works are quite unlike other artists. They are usually linear and I sculpt paintings. First, I create the mass, tone, colours and body, and then chisel it with lines. Most artists first draw the lines and then fill it up with colours.”

Das usually draws with conte and ink, sometimes in oil and sometimes with acrylic; and he has admitted in a previous interview that he had used water colour every day for 12 years now. He also engraves on met-als and occasionally etches. For someone who has exhibited in more than 55 solo exhibitions, he calls them mechanical. “Exhibitions are boring. Painting is a more personal thing. When I am painting it is just about my paper and me. Nothing else matters. I also hate auctions, especially those that sell a painting at a much higher price than what it deserves,” he says.

“For a bit, forget about art and fart, I am deeply concerned about issues and these matter to me. The psychological state of the country with bad gover-nance, corruption which has percolated to all layers

(including art). We have forgotten basic truths. That a plant can only grow in the ground. A potted plant is an anomaly. Due to a lack of space, now we believe that to be the ultimate—but that is and will remain an anomaly,” he says as an after thought.

THE BEGINNING, THE ENDWords flow torrentially and freely changing colour and direction in response to his moods—Das is as quickly inflamed as he becomes pensive. Phrases from Bengali, Oriya, Hindi and Sanskrit are used lib-erally in his conversation. The poetic, rather than the

The JDCA Film Forum : The forum was set up in 2006 for archiving short and documentary films on arts and artisans and to hold an annual non-competitive film festival in India. The festival is the first-of-its kind in the country.

ProjectsArt

OTHER PROJECTS : JDCA Publication : will be an in-house publication which will bring out limited editions on series such as sketchbooks of artists, scientists, potters and architects. The editions would be numbered and signed and will include handprinted handmade books. The JDCA will also include poster poems.

Jagannath Project : Four archivists in Bhubaneswar and Delhi will spend two years on making a bibliography of all art work and architecture related publications which are to be published together and archived. At the same time, the JDCA will be inviting students and artists to visit the temple and make drawings on the temple which would be later shown in the state and in the NCR.

“Every country is conducive to art. One can create everywhere. I think people who don’t like staying in India and don’t find working there conducive are mediocre and ordinary people. India is one of the greatest countries of the world. It is a goldmine.”

—Jatin Das

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cover story\\ MEETING AN ARTIST

prosaic, is his chosen metier. Winding through the diverse bylanes of his life, he looks more to the future than the past.

“A big book on paintings, memoirs and one on poems for Penguin, a book on the pankha collection. I have stalled many things. My daughter keeps calling me up to make my documentary film festival once in every two years. She has a point—I am putting too much on my plate. Nearly 90 per cent of all that I had earned is now into the JD Art and Research Centre and in the art documentary film festival which will happen next year. And see all these brushes and painting items, well, there should be a centre that is dedicated to the tools of art, if I can have my way.” It is not the end of the road for Das as his journey has just begun.

“I’m still a child, and still beginning to paint, beginning to live, and rethinking about life and work. I’m looking for people who can take up a few projects. Between the books, the JD Centre for Art, the proposed pankha museum and the dream of the museum dedicated to tools of painting, I am very busy,” he reveals.

To make his point, he gets up and picks up an ostrich feather duster used to dust canvases. He dis-plays it with a grin of a child.

You look around the room, spot the transparent telephone, a dusty paper ferris-wheel and the black and white photograph of Das caught in the middle of a dance—and you see a pattern.

This is not merely a studio, it is a museum dedi-cated to celebrating life and its little details.

Sepia tones: Above are the photographs of a travel done by two friends—one poet and a painter—who visited Sweden in the summer of 1988. The time spent there, is one which Jatin Das recollects fondly. His and his friend, Goanese journalist and poet, Dom Moraes' experiences have been now captured in a small notebook which contains black and white sketches drawn by the painter and the poems penned by his friend.

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cover storyMEETING AN ARTIST //

social agenda

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\\ BUSINESS STRATEGY AND SOCIAL MEDIA

The world’s your stage, and clients your avid audience, if you know how to conduct yourself online BY TUSHAR KANWAR

Know YourOnline Clout

social agenda

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KNOW YOUR CLOUT//

score. If you are interested in analysing the score further, Klout provides some neat but basic graphs and a good-looking user interface for you to see what topics you are regarded to be an expert on, and how the Klout scores of your friends and peers compare to yours. Of particular interest is the Perks section, which allows businesses to offer products or services to individuals with a certain Klout score or influence in a specific topic. The idea is to get that product or service into the hands of the people who will then hopefully talk about it through their social channels and influence their audience towards the prod-uct or service.

PEER INDEX: While it is not as flashy as Klout, Peer Index does a decent job at helping you understand what topics you and your social circle is influential

Influence n. the power or ability to affect someone’s beliefs or actions, arising out of status, contacts or

wealth. As succinctly as the Oxford English Dic-

tionary defines the word, social influence is particularly difficult to define, and is one of those things that you just know when you see it. And unlike the word-of-mouth brand champions of yesteryear, what we are increasingly seeing is the rise of the digital influencer—a small breed of somewhat special individuals on the Internet that have a strong effect on the opinions and even consumption habits of a large number of ordinary individu-als. Crack this puzzle—figure out who is influential in which community, up to the extent of driving purchases and growing the brand—and you can crack the ultimate goal—sales.

But if you thought it was difficult to define exactly who is influential online, measuring it and putting it to meaningful use is even more so. No wonder there is a slew of start-ups, each pushing their own metric of social currency to define how connected and influential you are online, and measuring social influence has fast become one of the key buzzwords to track this year.

KLOUT: The tool to beat, and also the one you’ve probably heard the most about, Klout looks at your activity across all the major social networks–Facebook, twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, FourSquare among others—factors in a whole bunch of parameters such as likes, retweets, friends or subscribers, and who you’re connected to, to arrive at a Klout score between 0 and 100. Add in more accounts to your Klout profile and the formula works in your influence across various social platforms towards that magic number—your Klout IL

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about, as well as others who are influen-tial about the same topics—very handy if you’re looking to engage with thought leaders in your space. Where it differs from Klout is that apart from an overall PeerIndex score, topical Peer Index scores are calculated based on category, making it easier to identify people with authority on a particular subject. It uses three vari-ables—authority, audience and activity—to identify expertise in a particular subject and in my experience, does a better job at pinpointing specific areas of interest and expertise than Klout.

KRED: While Kred is relatively new in the game, it has tried to differentiate itself by being transparent about how your Kred score breaks down, something that Klout and Peer Index cannot claim to do. Each tweet, mention or retweet on twitter is

Basic steps: Build a relevant network. Have a compelling content

strategy. Systematically engage influencers who can push your content virally

Klout Score Influencers: Twitter and Facebook carry the most

weight, LinkedIn and Foursquare do not pull much rank, Google+ matters. There is some correlation between number of +K's earned and high Klout scores

What Can You Do Right Now?: Check your Klout Score. Make sure

it accurately portrays your brand profile, persona, and influences. See how Klout can fit into your business model. If it makes sense, spend more time with a strategy, if it isn't a fit, don't waste time worrying about it. Not sure? Try it out

for 30 days and see what happens. Do not obsess over it. Check your score in real time with iPhone app. Check your score in real time with iPhone app

How to Improve Your Klout Score: Stay active five to seven days a

week (reminder: social media is more than a full-time job)Keep visibility on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ steady and flowing on a daily basis. Facebook seems to be the favored network. Interact with other influencers Post engaging and electrifying photos with visual impact and messaging. Find more friends and followers = larger network of opportunity. Participate in Twitter chats to build reach. Stay on topic with content and optimise your Twitter schedules with tools like Buffer

TIPS & TOOLS

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How to Increase Your Klout Score

social agenda

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With a click, at least five clicks. That’s simple but it can be tedious when there are 480 faces and names you need to go through which I am doing right now. And wondering why I did not do so before. I have never been part of the “I do not do FB” brigade. I am not active but I do post pictures. I go “like” my friends' pictures. And I have accepted almost all friend requests—the criterion being “I know the sender in person” (or through the blog). A Big mistake.

And who did I remove? You know who you are but for politeness' sake, I offer some explanation. Let me start with you. You did nothing wrong, seriously. You added me as a friend because your col-league sits next to a guy who once talked to me and you saw that! You added me and I accepted you for the same reason (yes, kill me). The only time we have ‘conversed’ is when you sent me a message asking me if I remembered you (I didn’t) and if I could help you find a job in my company (I am not sure I can. I cannot refer you for this amazing FB connection we have). Off you go.

Then you. We share an alma mater. That is big. We loved our college. And when you added me, I saw we had 14 mutual friends, all from college. So I accepted. But tell me what is the point? Do you care about when Zo started walking? Or when I went on a vaca-tion? Do you really want that bother? I wouldn’t, I know. So, in a way, I am doing you a favor. If this is about networking (which I suck at) go to Linkedin. I will add. Promise. And you. You still had a good reason to be on my list. We shared a floor or a coffee area. Yes, we did say hello but it’s been years since I moved out from my work place or you did. And we have nothing in common. I seem to talk about myself and my family only. And you, about how awesome Pawan is.

There you are. You, by the way, are

How to Lose ‘Friends’...

going for a weird reason. I knew you pretty well. Problem is; I do share a bit of my life through updates. So you know what I wore, where I went, how I look. But you, you are a closed book. You don’t even have a profile picture! So looks like this is just your way of keeping a tab rather than keeping in touch. I know, it’s your choice. But, I choose to not share anything with you.

Hey! You’re from my school. Seems like we are from the same class—you added me. We seem to have truckload of mutual friends. You’re nice and harm-less and you share your pictures, even tag me on some (what is with that?). Thing is, I have no clue as to who you are! I cannot place your name or face and I have an awesome memory.

You too are from school and I remember you. You were popular. What surprises me is that you remember me—actually, I am sure you don’t. And the reason you added me was that you spotted me through mutual friends, I had a nice picture and I seemed to have done ok. It sounds pathetic, but I was thrilled when I saw your request. We chatted and now it all seems so childish. We are not friends and I doubt we ever will be. We have never spoken beyond notes or classes. I was ok with you being around, until you started acting like we were buddies. When you pointed out about my priorities, how I have let go of important things in life, like friends and gotten busy with my career and family. You’re right. I had my priorities muddled up when I accepted that friend request. I have removed a 100-odd names in the past two days. It feels good. Rude, maybe, but I think it’s fine. So, if you don’t see any more updates from me and have the patience to check why, don’t fret—it is better this way. I’m really not worth it. [Blog Link: http://foreverin-bluejeans.wordpress.com]

BLOG WATCHDivya Iyer

Tushar Kanwar, a self-confessed gizmo-holic, is Bengaluru-based technology freelancer, who has contributed to leading Indian technol-ogy publications for years.

\\ KNOW YOUR CLOUT

assigned a score (which is visible on your dashboard). The sum total of your interac-tions is then totaled and averaged across the Kred network to give you an idea of where you are placed. Kred calculates two scores, a measure of Influence, which is based on how often you are retweeted, replied, mentioned or followed on Twit-ter, and a measure of Outreach, which is reflective of how often you engage (retweet, reply or mention) with others.

Now, in our numbers-driven world, does merely having a high Klout, Kred or PI score mean you have arrived? Under-stand this—most of these tools indicate the stature an individual possesses within a social network, what one could term as their social capital, and at best a limited range of interests that contribute to that standing. They then compute the influ-ence using proprietary formulae, with little guidance to the individual on what they can do to improve their scores. At most, they introduce some elements of gamification, such as rewarding users for either completing their profiles or inviting more friends on to the network, but never a clear explanation as to how to conscious-ly work towards a higher score. In short, there is no one ‘formula’ for being influ-ential. So then is all of this just hokum? In the end, you as an individual or a brand manager have to decide, but my advice would be to take all these scores with a grain of salt. Any one metric will at best give you a hazy picture of an individual’s online presence, so it would be best to use these scores to augment your own primary research findings.

There is no one-size-fits-all-solution, instead social influence scores should be taken as guidance to help inform but not dictate your social media and marketing outreach plans.

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EVER SINCE the revelations about the 2G imbroglio, the media has been lamenting the decline of public morality. Indeed, it has been able to sustain this narrative because alleged scams are being unearthed with relentless regularity. In all of its lamentations, the media is joined by a multiplicity of activists, NGOs, and public citizens, loosely described as members of ‘civil society’. The list of such voices is long, and the now fractured Team Anna—for better or worse—has perhaps emerged as one of the most visible faces of civil society engagement in recent times. Occasional hiccups faced by mem-bers of Team Anna notwithstanding, the media savvy of the India Against Corruption Movement needs to be unpacked carefully. Many of their strategies emerge out of a deeper structural shift in the place that civil society occupies in Indian politics today. What is this shift, and how exactly have civil society organisa-tions (CSOs)—NGOs, non-profits, advocacy groups, etc—come to relate to the government and private sec-tor today? A brief glance backwards

vision, civil society was autonomous of the state. Partly for these reasons, civil society at this early stage was a localised or regional affair, directed by the energies of local groups. Few in the 1940s and 1950s would have imagined that social movements and NGOs would play a critical role in representing the diversity that was such a conspicuous fact of Indian life. There were, of course, some notable exceptions like Vinoba Bhave’s Sarvodaya Movement, but broadly, civil society from the 1950s to the late 1970s had an unstable quality and was rooted in the lives of those being directly affected. For all practical purposes, these movements had little impact on the central gov-ernment. By the time Indira Gandhi became a national political figure, a whole generation had been marked by their contact with the State in some form. Many were benefited by the Nehruvian model, but others began expressing a sense of political disenchantment at the state’s inabil-ity to alleviate the problems confront-ing their constituencies. Some of this put a severe strain on India’s federal

might provide perspective on this.When Pandit Nehru declared that

dams were the ‘temples of modern India’ in 1963, he articulated a vision that sought to meet three challenges after Independence. First, he worked towards the consolidation of a gov-ernment that would prioritise rapid economic growth to address the welfare needs of India. The emphasis on planned economic growth was put in the service of a second ideal: the need for modern infrastructure, which would provide a material framework within which India’s masses would conduct their lives as citizens of a socialist republic. These two ideals were, for Pandit Nehru, central to the realisation of a third: the idea of liberal democracy. At its core, Nehruvian Socialism sought to create the apparatus necessary to channel the energies of India’s mil-lions in a modern, liberal democratic direction. Regular elections, bicam-eralism at the centre, fundamental rights, elected legislatures, etc., were all part of this federal vision and its attempt to unify the country, without muffling India’s diversity. And in this

ABOUT THE WRITER

PLATFORM

Locating Civil Society Today New Alliances and

Reallignment

VIVEK BHANDARI | Social Scientist

Dr Vivek Bhandari is a noted historian and former director of the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), a post he took up after spending 15 years in the US. Today he is a keen observer of a dramatically transitioning India

platform

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VIVEK BHANDARI //

structure, as Indira Gandhi’s deci-sion to declare Emergency makes clear. This political churning came at a time when India’s socialist planned economy was having to compete with alternative economic visions in the minds of India’s increas-ingly vocal middle class, members of which began to feel hemmed-in by India’s closed economy. As the effects of globalisation seeped into the nooks and crannies of urban life in the late-1980s, economic reforms were adopted in the 1990s.

How many CSOs are there in India? Figures vary, but according to a Ministry of Statistics and Pro-gramme Implementation Report released in March 2012, India has staggering 3.17 million non-profits registered under the Societies Reg-istration Act, 1860, and the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950, of which 80 per cent were created after 1990. Little is known about the activities of most of organisations, but it is fair to say that they are reshaping Indian society and culture in subtle, and as in the case of the Anna Hazare movement, not-so-subtle ways. Today, civil society is an active sphere of political engagement at the national level, propelled by a resurgent middle class. There are countless illustrations of this going back to the early 1990s. The Right to Information campaign started in Rajasthan and burgeoned into a

national movement that succeeded in bringing about a constitutional legislation. After the Gujarat earth-quake in 2001, CSOs have been among the most effective groups to get the state governments to provide rehabilitation services. The Right to Education Campaign had a strong civil society base; and the list goes on.

Clearly, unlike the CSOs active from the 1950s to the 1970s, many that have emerged since the 1980s have much closer relationships with both the government and the heavy-hitters of India’s private sector. Whether they receive funding from the government, corporates or inter-national agencies, CSOs are today forging new linkages in ways that were unimaginable in the Nehruvian years. The creation of the National Advisory Council in 2004 is the strongest statement of the govern-ment’s formal acceptance of a role for civil society at the central level. And the Indian government’s fond-ness for public-private partnerships only underscores the growing role that CSOs will play in the implemen-

tation of government’s developmen-tal initiatives.

It is patently clear that in the past few decades, the distinctions between the government, private sector, and civil society have become murkier, less dis-cernible. The globalisation of India’s culture and economy has added an additional dimension into this mix. As we look to the future, it is difficult to discern any general relationship of causality between the four; in other words, which sphere will exercise greater authority over others at any moment is impossible to predict. But the overall result of this—and this is significant—has been the growing professionalisation of ‘movement-based’ politics, and civic engage-ment in general. As one looks to the future, one can only hope that CSOs will exercise constructive surveillance over the state to keep it accountable, while providing support when neces-sary. In their more pernicious form, however, CSOs have the potential to be hijacked and put in the service of selfish, illiberal ends. (The views expressed in this column are of the author alone)

It is patently clear that in the past few decades, the distinc-tions between the Indian gov-

ernment, private sector, and civil society have become murkier, less discernable”

HAVE AN OPINION ABOUT THIS COLUMN? WISH TO SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS AND IDEAS ON THIS MONTH’S ISSUE? — Write to us at editorial@democraticworld.in

looking back\\ MARY KOM

26 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

A boxing champion, a doting mother, a loving wife and a woman of substance. Meet Mary Kom, India’s Million Dollar Baby MANJIRI INDURKAR

PH

OTO

BY

WW

W.M

AR

YKO

M.C

OM

ABOUT MARY!

THERE ISSOMETHING

looking backMARY KOM //

27DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

There is a scene in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dol-lar Baby, where Mag-gie’s (Hillary Swank) mother asks her to

quit boxing and do something more suited for a woman. Maggie simply tells her mother that boxing is what she likes and knows best and shall do it till she can. Maggie might have been a fictional character, but her story could not have been more real. When our own Million Dollar Baby told her parents about her decision of becoming a boxer, their reaction was: What if you get disfigured? Who will marry you?

One look at the recent Tag Heuer commercial and you know that her mother’s fears completely unfound. The magnificent Mary is grace personified, and looks splendid in that commercial. This beauty only increases when beads of sweat adorn her face after a gloriously won boxing match. The idea of a woman becom-ing masculine because of the ‘manly’ sport is something that Kom does not understand. When asked if she ever has been tagged as a masculine woman, she laughs and asks, “I do not think it applies to me, does it? I thought I was quite feminine!” She also believes that “men and women are equal and physical strength is probably the silliest standard or marker to judge women against men”. Coming from such a school of thought, it is no wonder that Kom did not listen to her mother and did not give in. Like every other great story, this one too has many twists and turns, ups and downs. But then, what good is a story without a bit of a drama?

When Kom started training for boxing at the age of 15, she did not inform anyone in her family. She knew that she would not be granted her wish, and thought it was best to hide it from her parents and her three siblings. In the Kom house-hold, while boxing was not consid-ered a sport, athletics was given a lot

of importance. So Kom informed her parents that she was training to be in athletics. They happily let her go.

However, truth has a way of sneak-ing in when you least expect it; one morning, Kom’s father was surprised to find his daughter’s picture in the newspaper. It was taken after she won the Manipur State Boxing Championship. After confronting Kom on the subject, she finally told them, and managed over a period of time to convince them. It is not too far from the truth that today they are the proudest set of parents in the country. After the Olympic Bronze, Kom became a household name. When she apologised to people back home for not winning the Gold, she managed to induce a few tears. When she came back, she was received with great love and admira-tion. Some said she is a role model, and some called her an inspiration.

It is said that the road to success is seldom smooth. Kom knows it more than anyone else. Born in an eco-nomically weak family of Manipur, life was nothing short of a struggle. Each day, the parents worked hard

“I always believed that I would win a medal. I was aiming for the gold and apologise to the entire country for falling short this time. I will try again at Rio and hope to bring back gold from there”—Mary Kom

to make ends meet. But they under-stood the importance of education and made sure that all four children went to school. Talking about her growing up years, Kom informs us that “[They] were difficult as we were very poor. I had to go to school, take care of my siblings, help my parents in the fields and still find time to study and train for sports.” Perhaps it was this everyday brush with pov-erty that made her the person she is today—disarmingly modest, humble to the core and absolutely genuine.

So far in the conversation Kom has told us a lot, answering all questions as candidly as she can. But the one question that begs to be asked is: why boxing? How did she become inter-ested in a sport which India barely notices? She tells us that the reason behind her interest was another boxer, who hailed from the same region—Dingko Singh.

In the year 1998, Singh won the Gold at the Asian Games, and became a star overnight. Kom was in her teens and was awestruck by the way Singh was felicitated. “What inspired me to take up boxing was Dingko Singh’s performance at the Asian Games. He was given a hero’s welcome after that,” says Kom. “That was very inspirational for me and made me think of boxing as a pos-sible future,” she adds.

Such was the impact that Kom started training that very year. Other than Singh, Kom considers Muham-mad Ali to be her inspiration. But then it is difficult to a find a pugilist who has not been touched by the magic that is Ali.

Like her inspirations, Kom, too, is a fighter; she has fought injuries and bounced back to form. It was during the World Championships in 2006 when she fell severely ill during the finals. The match had to be stopped in the second round. After this, Kom took a two-year break.

However, keeping away from one’s passion for too long is easier said that done. If records are to be

NAME:Mary Kom

PROFESSION: Pugilist

BORN: 1983

DEBUT MATCH: AIBA Women's World Boxing Championship

WEBSITE: www.marykom.com

DOSSIER

looking back\\ MARY KOM

28 DEMOCRATICWORLD

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believed, it did her more good than bad. Upon her return, she won a Silver at the Asian Women’s Boxing Championships, a Gold at AIBA Women’s World Boxing Champion-ships and another Gold at the 2009 Asian Indoor Games. While medals and accolades were coming her way, the one thing which is considered to be the Mecca for any sportsperson—the Olympics—was a far cry. Till the 2012 Games, women’s boxing as a sport was not featured in the Olym-pics. Therefore, when they added boxing to the list, Kom knew what she had to do.

Despite the fact that she had won several medals in the 48 and 46KG category, the Olympic rules meant that she had to gain weight. Kom now had to fight in the 51KG catego-ry and win a few fights to be a part of the Olympics team. Thus began a rig-orous training regime in which she sweated for eight hours every day, in the morning and evening. The little time in between was spent with her family. Even that became impossible towards the end, when she had to be training away from her twins and her husband for almost 12 weeks, which she calls “a lifetime”. Then arrived the final moment. The Olympic glory came in the form of a well-deserved Bronze.

This was no mean feat since Kom was fighting in a higher category—an unknown territory. But Kom does not believe in backing off. This time was no different.

The life of any sportsperson involves travelling and being away from the family most of the time. So how does her husband cope with situations when he has to be the pri-mary care giver of the family? If you like a love story with a strong hero, then read on. Kom met her husband Onler in Delhi in 2001, fell in love and married him on March 12, 2005.

“Ours was a love marriage. He is my friend, philosopher and guide; my pillar of strength,” says Kom.

Often when one partner is more popular than the other, things go sour. But in Kom’s case, her gallant hero was a lot stronger and secured about himself, than the run-of-the-mill mewling personalities.

Not only did Onler become Kom’s pillar, he quit his job after the birth of their twins. Several years have passed, and the two remain blissfully married. Onler continues to make his family a priority and takes care of their children to let his exceed-ingly talented wife do what she does best—win.

And with time, his contribution to her success has grown. “He is a

loving husband and an outstanding father. Without him there would be no question of me having continued boxing.”

After her Olympic victory, the Manipur Government announced a cash award of `50 lakh for her. She was also awarded a government job for which she admits being grateful. She also confesses that while the job has allowed her to live reason-ably, life is still not a luxury. “It is only after the Olympic medal that we received financial support which would allow us to secure the future of our family,” she admits.

But the Olympic medal has turned the tide to her favour. The acknowl-edgement might have come late, but it arrived. It has allowed Mary Kom to think of expanding her boxing academy in Manipur. She now talks about equal opportunity for all and encourages women to take up sports not for fun, but as a way of life.

Despite all the hardships, she does not believe in frowning; after all she is a true sportsperson.

We posed one last question, how confident was she about her chances, Kom says, “I always believed that I would win it. I was aiming for the Gold and apologise to the entire country for falling short this time.” We, too, apologise for not being more vocal—a star boxer, a super mom and a loving wife—there truly is some-thing about Mary.

SHE WON Bronze at the

London Olympics 2012

Only woman to win

medals in six world

championships

BOXING QUEEN

Super Mom: Mary Kom with her twins Rechungvar and Khupneivar

Mary Kom at her boxing academy in India. She hopes to make boxing popular in the country

issueA CLOSER LOOK AT SAFETY OF WOMEN //

29DEMOCRATICWORLD

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issue | a closer look at safety of women

Is India Letting itsWomen Down?The molestation of a teenage girl on July 9, 2012 in Guwahati, Assam, which happened in full public view, was taped, recorded and then flashed across news channels, was just the tip of the iceberg of the problem of safety of women in India. Not a day passes without cases of atrocities against women, dominating the news headlines. A recent report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) revealed that the proportion of IPC crimes committed against women (to the total IPC crimes) has increased from 8.8 per cent in 2007 to 9.4 per cent during the year 2011 BY ROHINI BANERJEE

Yet the law and the judiciary has been inactive in deal-ing with the issues—there has been no radical over-haul of laws relating to rape or sexual assault. In fact, there has been a rather steady decline in the conviction rates of rapists with ever-fewer victims getting justice. The issue has become so serious that even the more reticent politicians of the country have started to com-ment on the phenomenon. During the recent Parliamentary session, Home Min-ister Sushil Kumar Shinde remarked, “Serious crimes against women have continuously increased during the period 2009-11. We need to adopt appropriate mea-sures for swift and salutary punishment to the persons found guilty of violence against women.” The Home Minister also added that police chiefs have to increase the number of women personnel in their respective organisations. “The overall representation of women in police forces should be increased through affirmative action. There are only 83,829 women police in our country as on January 2012,” he said. And Shinde stated several rea-sons for the rising graph of crimes against women. Relaxing of social norms, relaxing of family control, adverse sex ratio and proximity of colonies of the afflu-

ent with the underprivileged. Surprisingly, he found no fault with the Police in tackling crimes. However, most single women have some interface with police. Recent trespasses on women’s modesty have been more incriminating and often the perpetrators have been police personnel.

There is an euphemism in India regarding harass-ment of women. It is sugar coated and shrouded in a sweet word called eve teasing. It is about women becoming recipients of hate attacks. It is about men turning into monsters. It is about women damned because she chooses to or has to work late. Because she dresses “wrong”. What is this twisted link that exists between what a woman wears and does and between her safety? What makes an institute such as Vivekananda Vidyavardhaka Sangha issue a mandate asking every female student and staff to wear bindis and bangles to ensure the safety of the people on cam-pus. In India the answers are not clear.

To understand the issue, DW spoke to two women—Urvashi Butalia, who runs India’s first feministic pub-lication and to Brinda Bose, Associate Professor at Department of English, University of Delhi, for their take in the matter in our Issue of the month.

SNIPPETS

AMONG 53 cities surveyed by the NCRB, Delhi (4,489 cases) has accounted for 13.3 per cent of total crime against women followed by Benga-luru (1,890 cases ; 5.6 per cent), Hyderabad (1,860 cases ; 5.5 per cent) and Vijayawada (1,797 cases ; 5.3 per cent). Again one of the worst-affected states seem to be Bihar. The abduction of young girls is on the rise. 71 per cent of all kidnapping cases in Bihar are reported against women and children

issue\\ A CLOSER LOOK AT SAFETY OF WOMEN

30 DEMOCRATICWORLD

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Publisher-cum-writer Urvashi Butalia started Kali, a publishing house for women, in 1984. After her first stint in publishing, in 2003, she started Zubaan on her own. Zubaan is dedicated to empowering India’s women and the margins

URVASHI BUTALIA// I am not sure that the recent spate of attacks that we have been wit-nessing currently are different from what we have seen in the past. The question is why we are seeing more of it. I believe that there are many reasons behind the rise. One of them is the increasingly sharp difference between the rich and the poor in the semi-urban and urban areas of the cities. Gated communities that are a part of the entire NCR and in sev-eral cities across India, create strong levels of distance and difference. They also exacer-bate a lot of tensions which are already there, and just get sanctioned by the presence of

such islands of prosperity. The fact of new kinds is that the jobs which have opened up as a result of globalisation have led to a lot of women joining the workforce, stepping out to do jobs that they did not do before. Although these (jobs) are not large in num-ber, both the jobs and the women are becom-ing more and more visible. Women are also accessing spaces and going out more.

There is a kind of anger in the society that is already suffering with such a lot of unem-ployment when they see half of the popu-lation successfully landing jobs. It is also a case of women being “those who are not

supposed to get out to the field”, they are now taking a share of the limited pie. That and the fact that women perform quite well in the workplace, sometimes better than their male colleagues, and then return home to manage to take care of the household, cre-ates jealousy, tension, anger and resentment of sorts among a lot of men.

All that finds an expression in one kind of violence to which women are extremely vul-nerable to, which is usually sexual in nature. I believe that there is also the fact that there is a kind of modernisation and modernity coming into India’s cities. A lot of women from the semi-urban and rural sections are stepping out into the cities and leaving their homes behind. These are not the women that we spot in the shopping mall or in the BPO or the IT sector, but are the domestic helps and the daily wage earners from Bihar or Jharkhand. They are the ones who are most vulnerable to exploitation because their earnings do not allow them to live in places which have a modicum of law and order, security or protection.

There is a general breakdown of law and order. There is also a general breakdown of public infrastructure. The public spaces and travel vehicles are not equipped to provide that extra protection to the vulnerable peo-ple—why only the women, it is not safer for the senior citizens and the children, when the streets are badly lit and when the public transport is in shambles.

Then there is a creamy layer of modern, urban, educated women who see no reason as to why they will have to lock themselves down in their houses, who feel that they have the right to be out on the streets—and rightly so. They too become targets and it seems that because they are doing that they are “asking for it”. I believe the collection of all these things leads to the thing that is always talked about—which is because some women dress in a particular way or they move around later in night, they are asking for it. In this of list reasons I would think it is at the bottom of the ladder. But it is a reason that gets most picked up; because it is convenient to state that women are moving out of the boundar-ies that have been set for them and thereby they are being targetted.

URVASHI BUTALIALIAAuthor, Publisher

issueA CLOSER LOOK AT SAFETY OF WOMEN //

31DEMOCRATICWORLD

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ones. I am sure ‘citizen communities’ need to step up their efforts to spread greater and more urgent awareness about crimes against women as well as to make the spaces within their control safer for women to move freely in. Many of the crimes against women in late-night car-drops home from work are perpetrated because of the callousness of corporate employers in securing minimum safety for their female workers in particular.

I do not know of the statistics in demographic spread of crimes against women, except that it is normal perhaps that some cities emerge as ‘safer’ than others for women, which may also be something to do with how many women go out to work, live alone, are out later at night—in terms of sheer num-bers—in those cities comparatively, rather than to do with ‘northern’ or ‘southern’ or ‘western’ character, especially of men.

It is quite likely that the number of such women in Delhi and the NCR are many times that of its equivalent in another city of the south or west of India—in which case the number of cases of assault against women will expectedly be higher in the north?

I would not like to essentialise the charac-ter of any region as more brutish than anoth-er, but of course some cities are always far more dangerous to live in for women due to a large number of reasons.

Finally, I do not think that the panels and commissions do enough, and yes, some-times they do more damage because many of those who sit in power on them are incred-ibly conservative about women’s rights! They consider their function to be that of vigilantes rather than of securing freedom for women

Brinda Bose taught in the English Department at Hindu College and was a Fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. Currently, she is completing a manuscript on the gendered body and public culture in India via a handful of iconic Indian cultural texts

BRINDA BOSE// All of us realise that the problem of safety of women is a pan-Indian one. Because I have not systematically stud-ied reports and tables on cases of violent attacks on women in India, I would not like to comment on the actual numbers. But there certainly appears to be a sense that they have increased, which I think is more to do with the fact that the issue has now become a focus of media interest, as well as the fact that there are more ways for stories to circu-late in the media and more people accessing them. All of which is not a bad thing at all, if attention is drawn to the issue and it begins to knock on public consciousness in a much bigger fashion.

As I said, it is probably that we know more because of greater reportage of attacks.

It may also of course be due to other fac-tors like more women being out and about the cities, more women living alone or driving alone today compared to a decade ago, but obviously the answer does not lie in women being less independent or more prudent and ‘careful’ but in the enhance-ment of safety measures in cities and the greater policing of crime. It is important that we see freedom for women to live and work and dress as they please as a right rather than as a blight on our society.

All cities have always had a mix of differ-ent realities, spaces and classes, is that not what makes up a city? I am not comfortable with finding reasons for increased crime against women in the notion that it is bound to happen when rural boors have recourse to ogling sophisticated city women in the NCR—which is the purport of the idea that conflicting spaces are now slowly merging into one another, is it not? I think this is ste-reotyping the semi-urban and rural people most dangerously, and trying to fix scape-goats for what is a larger malaise. Of course, when there are interfaces between different communities and beliefs there may be clash-es in expectation and reaction, but I think this is what makes an urban space exciting and dynamic, and would be true of inner-city neighbourhoods just as much as suburban

to live as they wish. If women, who head bodies set up to investigate and frame poli-cies for controlling crime against women, harbour the deep-seated notion that women must behave according to certain norms set for them failing which they invite assault and violence, then they are policing the women instead of policing the criminals.

BRINDA BOSEAssociate Professor

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CORRUPTION is hardly a new phenom-enon in India but in the past few months we have seen corruption of a scale never witnessed before. Every week brings in a new scandal. Cor-ruption seems to have moved beyond its permanent abode (viz politics and the bureaucracy) into sports, the military, media, the judiciary, religion and godmen and corporate India. It is clear that the problem does not relate to isolated individuals but is of a systemic nature. Of course, corrup-tion is by no means unique to India. But we do manage an impressive ninth rank in the world corruption charts. According to the same study, 54 per cent of Indians claimed to have paid a bribe in the past one year. It begs the question as to whether there is a cultural element to this phenomenon, without descending into gross cultural stereotypes that speak of corruption as a character trait. Is it possible that corruption is a manifestation of the ways in which we have collectively learnt to respond to certain contexts? Have we come to

must be respected and all power and all modes of use of power are legiti-mate. Hierarchy exists in every facet of life and we measure ourselves anxiously with those against whom we benchmark ourselves. Even in the private sector there exists a presump-tion that one should be paid what one’s batchmate gets for no other reason than that the two lie on the same social platform.

What this wholehearted embrace of power does, is to legitimise all forms in which it comes to be used. Sepa-rated from the purpose for which it was created, it lives on in its mutant form, and recognises few boundaries of right and wrong. A system gets created around this mode of using power. Institutional power that is acquired, rather than in-born, is particularly difficult to digest. Given the deeply-rooted nature of Indian social organisation, where everyone has a defined place, and there exists a great certainty about rules and conventions that govern our lives, we find it difficult to navigate a world

see the world in a way that allows us to exercise and condone corruption?

At the heart of the Indian response lies the ambivalent relationship we have with the idea of power, particu-larly that of power acquired through man-made mechanisms like a des-ignation or political office. Power is seen less as an instrument of making an impact but more as a condition that modifies one’s born station.

Power makes all of us rulers, whatever may be the size of the ter-ritories. The fondness of visible signs of power (sirens, badges, entourage), as with the extreme touchiness when the less powerful question us, all point to the implicit mental model of power we carry. The election exists to pick rulers not public servants and promotions anoint new despots.

It is revealing to see how naked this model of power is; a despotic boss who rides roughshod over his subordinates sees nothing wrong in enacting rituals of greasy subservi-ence in front of his own boss. The message is clear—hierarchy itself

The Corruption Gene Have we come to see the

world in a way that allows us to exercise and condone

corruption?

Author

PLATFORM

Santosh Desai is the author of the bestseller Mother Pious Lady: Making Sense of Everyday India. He is a columnist, media critic and social commentator. He is the MD and CEO of Futurebrands, a branding services and advisory company and serves on the boards of ING Vysya Bank and Mumbai Business School

SANTOSH DESAI | Columnist

platformSANTOSH DESAI//

33DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

where rules do not carry the same invisible certitude. Rules are so vis-ibly constructed by human beings that they carry little moral sanctity. They become frameworks within which we carry out negotiations with local circumstances. New social for-mations do not have the heft of the older (more defining) categories such as the community. And we struggle with figuring out what is appropri-ate behaviour for a ‘neighbour’ or an ‘elected representative’. New rules do not imprint themselves with the same finality. The fact that we see everyone around us display the same ambivalence re-inforces the doubts we carry about them. The same does not apply when we are in a developed country; there it becomes apparent that these rules are non-negotiable. The idea of using acquired power for socially-correct reasons has never really been ingrained in us. For all the railing against corruption, in our personal lives we are happy to excuse ourselves from the prescriptions we proffer. The belief that our values

are implanted within us, because of a past that is mythically rather than historically defined, makes it easier to believe that all actions are there-fore suffused with values by defini-tion. Actions comes pre-fitted with presumed propriety and the outside world is not taken that seriously. By giving the individual endless lati-tude in dealing with his immediate circumstances, we engage with the world as hagglers, trying to hustle a better deal. Every ounce of power earned becomes useful leverage in extracting a little more.

In this view of the world, power is useless unless converted into some form of currency. The awareness of its transience lends urgency to this need. The powerful thus create a system around the extraction of value from their good fortune. Patronage, rather than competency, becomes the key operating principle. Every kacheri, RTO office and passport office has an institutionalised set of touts, brokers and middlemen who get the work done for a fee. Citizens

can carry out some civil action if they so desired. But the truth is that even as we moan, we take no interest in dealing with the graft right in front of us. Is there a reason why we are see-ing so much corruption today?

A change that we have seen in the past few years is the entry of the market into more arenas of our life. It is interesting to note how easily India has embraced the market. As a mechanism, it carries great reso-nance with the Indian ability to see the world as a place where we carry out negotiations. The market has given everyone a common vocabulary in which to transact. The market legitimises the pursuit and use of power for personal gain. Of course, when regulated well, the market is not allowed to penetrate all walks of life. In India, given the learnt collec-tive tolerance for the personal use of power, the market seems to be pres-ent everywhere. For now certainly we seem united by corruption. (Views expressed in this article are of the author alone)

What this wholehearted embrace of power does is

to legitimise all forms in which it comes to be used, separated from the purpose for which it was created...”

34 DEMOCRATICWORLD

good karma\\ K ATHA

OCTOBER2012

CHILDRENLEARNWHEN WOMEN EARN,

STARTED IN: 1988

Formerly registered in 1989

MENTOR:Geeta Dharmarajan, social

entrepreneur, writer and activist

OBJECTIVE: Katha is a 'profit-for-all'

organisation working with social

injustice and economic poverty

in urban India by focusing on

quality education and innovative

programmes which hone the

reading ability in children. Katha

leverages its mission goal on

the idea that children can help

communities get out of poverty

WEBSITE : www.katha@katha.orgFor volunteering please contact:

http://www.katha.org/site/volunteer/volunteer

Executive Director

A simple move to set up a school in NCR’s slums led to India’s first profit-for-all voluntary organisation BY ROHINI BANERJEE

35DEMOCRATICWORLD

good karmaK ATHA //

OCTOBER2012

Holistic education is one which imparts an applicable set of skills. To do all that a child needs exposure to books—lots and lots of them along with newspapers, storybooks, and educated adults. But does an Indian child, especially he in that impoverished semi-urban, rural and urban fringes, receive all that help? Katha began its journey by ask-ing this simple question.

Its inference was obvious—basic, primary schooling in India left underprivileged children with a handful of textbooks (often hand-me-downs with pages missing) and zero exposure to reading. Whom does a child in a family of illiterates, wage-labourers turn to, to know more? Some successfully turn towards Katha, the voluntary organisa-tion which helps India’s underprivileged children through their primary schools, reading centres and libraries. The best bit about Katha is the means they employ to teach the children enrolled with them. You thought education was only through boring text books. Think again, as even illustrated storybooks can be used to explain compli-cated issues such as nanotechnology, marine biology or trigonometry. As Executive Direc-tor of Katha Geeta Dharmarajan points out—what is a subject, if not a story waiting to be told?

Today through cooperative action and activism, Katha brings together parents and teachers to boost children’s interest in read-ing. It brings together the colours of his or her country alive to children across socioeco-nomic, linguistic and cultural divides—with volunteers and community members. It

brings storytelling techniques and expertise to people across age groups.

The story of Katha starts some 2,000-3,000 years ago. We do not kid you. The New Delhi-based voluntary organisation derives its vision from the age-old educational tradi-tions of Bharat, a land where learning was a pleasure activity, imparted through stories. “In India storytelling was always treated as the more effective form of learning. There were so many ways of telling a story; through theatre, dance recitals, and puppet theatre. And Bharata Natyashastra encom-passed all these. Natyashastra was put in place to take the so-called knowledge of the Gods to humans on earth. We at Katha, have faith in the way in which communication was carried out 2,000-3,000 years ago, which always incorporated a pleasure principle. Learning was not arduous, tedious or dif-ficult,” she adds. Katha began with an idea that students would learn through stories. In reality two kinds of stories—one for leisure and another for learning. The team also decided to source the right kind of stories from across the nation and the world.

“Originally I hail from Tamil Nadu. It was there while working as the Director of Indi-an National Trust of Arts and Cultural Heri-tage (INTACH) and for an orphanage that my duties took to me to the rural sections on a regular basis. There while speaking to chil-dren, parents and teachers about education, health care and infrastructure, I always felt that the people carried within them a sense of defeat. They had reconciled to an idea that poverty was a matter of karma. Poverty is not

Our country is perhaps one of the few on this planet where we are assured of a steady population growth of 330 million children in the next 20-odd years. This is our demographic dividend, which is a good thing, right? However, if were to take advantage of an army of educated and able citizens (everyone we are planning to), the country and its administration will have to educate them first—the proper, holistic education.

about karma. It is a state that can be allevi-ated,” she adds. But before she could do more, Dharmarajan shifted to the National Capital Region. Her introduction to Delhi’s municipal schools was through Govindpuri; with its lakhs of people surviving in utter squalor and poverty. The schools she visited there had students who could barely read.

It was then that she hit upon an idea of a magazine stocked with fun and informative tales, which made reading so much fun that children would put that extra effort in.

In 1988, Tamasha was launched. It was to make stories from across the world come alive on paper, all translated in Hindi. Along with Tamasha, Dharmarajan also began the first library for children of Govindpuri (in Dharmarajan’s own garage). By the third issue Tamasha became a hit and UNICEF picked up quite some copies of it, providing a decent profit to Dharmarajan. With that sum (`20,000) and a year-old experience behind her, she officially started Katha on September 8, 1989. Their first project was to start a school at Govinpuri. Parents agreed to send their children to school. “We calculated that between all of us, we could manage 50 children. The parents had given us their con-sent to send the students. But around five turned up,” she remembers with a chuckle. It was then that this Executive Editor, and visionary, learnt her hard lesson—poor fami-lies did not send their primary bread-earners away to school. It was there that we found a figure (`600) which was required to put food on the table for a month. We started to pay the mothers that sum in exchange they would let us bring the children to school. Thus we started,” says Dharmarajan. Bribery was the way out then—presently the way has changed. And how. Lakhs of students are trained by the first batches of Katha schools. These children will one day, hopefully, train several more and the dominoes effect will pull the evil of illiteracy down.

One glance through the pages of the web-site, it is easy to see their innovative methods have worked. Their students have also come back and joined Katha serving as trainees, teachers and accountants. These are people who are breaking the poverty-karma equa-tion. Their dreams combined with Katha’s effort, gives a polish to the dream of India Shinning.

ROOMREADING

36 DEMOCRATICWORLD

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knew that a strong nation would have strong (good) people.

The last time when I picked up a book which dealt with the past was when teachers at school held me at gunpoint. I am sure there are several like me around—those who would not bother reading tomes unless there was a prize or punishment awaiting. This book catches the read-er by surprise. Matthew caught my attention from the first chapter—and there was no flashback to the school days for yours truly. He has taken the trouble to understand the culture and times of the country he has looked at. He has obviously done his research. Matthews ‘assessments’ do not carry the colour of “Hark! I was right”. He lets his readers decide similari-ties or differences and keeps things less scholarly (a good thing for some readers but not for all). Personally, the de-elitisising of history works.

The questions raised by the author are common enough; how did Jin-nah, who started out as a secular liberal, end up a Muslim nationalist? How did a god-fearing moralist and social reformer like Gandhi become a national political leader? And how

break the mould and manage to put forth a realistic idea of what the two were? He does. Matthew for the best part of the book sees the two as they were, distinct personalities whose differences merely served to put them further apart. Matthew points out that the two great men differed on three points—nature of the coun-try they lived in, the procedure in which to end the colonial rule and the methods that should be used to persuade the colonialists to leave. For one Matthew draws our attention to the detail that Gandhi was an individ-ual, personal being (hence his wor-ries about sexual behaviour and diet). Gandhi was also concerned with personal and national reformation which was, in many cases, one and the same for him (how people could be better authorities and government by being better people). Jinnah, on the other hand, worked for self-deter-mination and political rights, ‘isms’ that were far more western in their narratives and thereby more under-standable. While one worked from inside-out, the other worked outside-in. Gandhi believed that good people would make a strong nation. Jinnah

MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH, born as Mahomedali Jinnahbhai, in his vision for a new land for his Muslim brothers wanted six provinces and a sperate state of Pakistan. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi or the Mahat-ma opposed the partition with all his being. Interestingly, the two states formed during partition—Pakistan and India—even in the later days were to embody the most funda-mental differences between the two men; how they were born, how they were raised and not in the least, the religion that the two belonged. In their essence they were human. But the course of history has ennobled them to near prophets (in the strict sociological meaning of the word). In sociology, prophets are charismatic people who are first-class attention winners. Through their discourse they provoke absolute resentment or evoke absolute sympathy. And Jinnah and Gandhi, have the characteristics that can lead them to be christened thus. One can see that prophetic quality by reading all the tomes that have been dedicated to them—they have been vilified or hailed. Does Roderick Matthews successfully

Roderick Matthews is a freelance writer specialising in Indian history. He has written for a number of British and Indian publications. His first book on India, The Flaws In the Jewel, was published in 2010. He can be contacted at his website historydetox.com

“I think rather too much has been made of the distance

between Britain and India”

— Roderick Matthews

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jinnah Vs. Gandhi A lucidly-written, balanced study of

constrasts by one of the better-known historians writing on India BY ROHINI BANERJEE

Author

Publisher: Hachette (India)

ISBN 13: 978-81-9061-739-0

Pages : 336

Price: `499

reading roomCRITICS & AUTHORS //

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“When someone is in your heart, they're never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times”— Mitch Albom

The Timekeeper An interesting perspective on time but lacks originality BY IRA SWASTI

WHAT IF THERE were no clocks in the world? What if you did not know what time of the day it is or going to be? How different would the world have been? Would you have lived your life any differently? Mitch Albom’s latest novel The Time Keeper urges you to ponder over these questions and makes you wonder the relevance of man’s obsession with measuring every second of the day, every day of the month.

An author relevant to his times, Albom chooses an unusually interesting protagonist to help his readers understand the “meaning of life” or the meaning of time—the inventor of the world’s first clock—Father Time. As is his usual style, the novel shuffles between two timelines (the past and the present) with three story tracks running parallel to one another. One is a story of a man (Father Time) obsessed with counting everything that is humanly possible, set in a centuries old era when no time measuring devices had been invented on earth, and the other two are the tales of two modern-day individuals (a teenage girl and an old, wealthy businessman) who are used to measuring time as the most natural process of their lives. The young girl, hurt in love, wants to end her

life, while the old businessman diagnosed with cancer, wants to bypass death and live forever. Albom paves the way for an interesting yet trite perspective on the most precious thing man considers today after money, when Father Time meets the girl and the businessman to teach them the value of time. He learns this lesson himself after being banished to a cave for centuries and forced to understand the phenomenon he had set in motion by counting time. There are a few obvious references to Biblical stories which I did not find too appealing. And around the end of the novel, Father Time assumes the role of Dickens’ The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come to show characters their future. Yet as always, Albom’s everyday characters make it very easy for the reader to relate to them and work well for him.

The novel is thought-provoking though some of its lessons—it is never too soon and never too late for spending more time to be with the people you love—are reminiscent of Morrie’s aphorisms from Albom’s debut novel Tuesdays with Morrie. Hailed as his most heartfelt novel yet, The Timekeeper is inspiring, as long as you have not read any of his others.

did their fundemental divergences lead to the birth of two countries that have shaped the political history of the subcontinent? Matthews decodes these questions on behalf of his readers by analysis which has been attempted before. Where Matthews gets brownie points is his methodol-

ogy—he demystifies both the leaders and makes them as human as they can be made. He does so in a lucid and unbiased manner; at least he tries his best to. Personally, I felt Jinnah was left hanging a bit, rather there was more to Jinnah’s “vision” than what was attributed to him.

What Matthew does say is, “here are your two leaders—they are equal-ly indecisive, they are trying equally hard to make a better time and they are both human”. It is finally upto the reader to decide who is the poster boy. Do not expect a heavy, scholarly tome in Jinnah Vs Gandhi.

Mitch Albom is an author, playwright and screenwriter who has written more than six books to his credit, including the international bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You Meet in Heaven. He also works as a columnist and a broadcaster and has founded several charities in Detroit and Haiti

Publisher: Hachette India

ISBN: 1847442250

Pages: 226

Price: `499

ABOUT THE

AUTHOR

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OCTOBER2012

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Imagine a backpack with a solar panel and built-in ports to charge your laptop and gadgets as they snuggle inside? Well, that’s what this smart, eco-friendly bag does, converting natural light into power for your early 21st century gadgets. With a visible 3Watt solar panel outside, the backpack generates enough energy to charge a 2200mAH battery. Spread across the backpack’s internal compartments are ports compatible with eight device charging adaptors (micro USB, mini USB, Nokia, Samsung, Apple, Sony, Motorola, etc.) to plug-n-charge your smart gadgets. The backpack can accommodate a 15.6-inch laptop and is made of durable water-repellent ballistic nylon with dedicated iPod and iPad pockets. This can be yours for a little under `17,000. Going green anytime soon?

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warehouseGADGETS & GIZMOS //

39DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

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Strokes of Silence, IndigoVivid colours of Kerala captured in the creations of K.G. Babu BY ROHINI BANERJEE

A friend of K.G. Babu, who also happens to be a colleague, informs me that Babu is a reticent man. He speaks only when prodded and prefers to pour his words into his canvases instead. That to know him one needs to understand a multitude of concepts; the colour green, its role in the lives of people who stay in Kerala and why

some people prefer to stay within the womb of nature. Or why Babu chooses to live and work in the backyard of Thrissur, where he grew up in a modest home; its backyard opening out into a grove. His childhood was spent a short walk away to lush jungles, waterfalls, rivulets and all the other abundance that Kerala has been blessed with. I was also asked to examine why Babu chose to leave the bustle of Dubai (he received an opportunity to collaborate with a famous international artist there) and comforts it provided, to return home to Kerala’s cultural capital. A visit to Kerala is difficult proposition. Instead it is simpler to look at Babu’s creations

which were recently exhibited at the NIV Art Gallery in NCR’s quieter Neb Sarai area. If the artist is silent, his vividly arresting canvases—collectively called In Spirit with Nature—speak volumes.

So, what goes on in Babu’s head and what prompts him to adopt hyperréalisme? Babu believes that his present style crept into his art slowly; it was a natural, organic growth and progression from being a portrait artist (a craft for which he is famous in his home state). As he began to adopt the style more and more, albeit unconsciously, his friends were left astounded with his level of finesse. After conversations with his colleagues, friends and a former professor at Tris-shure Art College, he truly began to indulge in the

Untitled : One of his larger canvases—84x60—in oil paint

BROAD CANVAS

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broad canvasK.G. BABU //

Arresting and vivid, brilliant and eerie, K.G. Babu's canvases are a look into Kerala's sheer splendour. Babu is a spiritualist and a lover of life. He strives to live his life, fully as is apparent from the depth of his work. He draws energy from the forests that borders his home and when he was thrust into an urban space, he chose to escape it all and return home to Kerala, again

ARTISTOF THEMONTH

style. He confesses that his modus operandi as an artist is to capture his subjects on his portable camera. But he does not paint them as is. Babu derives inspira-tion from the images and takes an artist’s liberty (or licence, call it what you will) to enlarge the eyes (as if the image is being reflected on the surface of a dewdrop) and then juxtaposes them with nature. Nature is the overriding theme with tropical lushness of Kerala as its leitmotif—as is apparent in the abun-dance of bamboo groves, which become his backdrop on several occasions.

The iota of artificial or reminiscence of civilisation (depicted through the clothes that his subjects wear) are ‘naturalised’ and adopted into the backdrop as well. The pocket of a child’s shirt curls up like a leaf or a newly-opened bud, women’s floral nighties and scarves become a part of the foliage, a lime green frock complements a leaf in the background or a deep purple shirt reflects the lights and shadows of moonlit night in the bamboo groves. Babu’s subjects are never alone (except on one or two occasions) even when he paints them as solitary objects. There are grasshoppers, dragon-flies, parakeets, macaws, monkeys and fruit-bats, which sneak into the scene or boldly pose with the human subjects. An avo-cado dragon-fly rests on a child’s forehead while an ruby-red one rests on a shoulder complimenting the child’s claret frock and bindi. As a young woman stares at a red and yellow bug, one realises that it is difficult to separate the flora and fauna; the thin, white antenna of a dragon-fly droops like a bough

and the dragonflies merge with the curled up leaves. That is when it strikes you; the point is not to differ-

entiate of course but to grasp nature in all its entirety. Perhaps which is why Babu finds his best muses among the Tribals of Trisshur. He was introduced to them after his brother (also an artist) married a

The Exhibits: The four creations of Babu

which were also a part of the recently-held exhibition titled ‘In Spirit with Nature’

42 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012

broad canvasK.G. BABU //

Untitled 36x36: Oil on canvas

Untitled 36x48: Oil on canvas

Untitled 72X60: Oil on canvas

Untitled 36x48: Oil on canvas

WILD GLIMPSESTribal woman. When Babu met his new relatives,

he saw in them an indomitable spirit which was one with nature. There are no points of separation in a life of a jungle-dweller—the lives of every crea-ture and tree and man are intricately woven togeth-er. While the reticent artist’s action starts with an urban process of capturing the light and darkness through his lenses, when he paints, he tries to imbibe what the Tribals feel (the oneness with the whole creation). Thus Babu’s creations reflect the sensitive tolerance and acceptance of the tribal way of life. The faces look peaceful, reflective and contemplative. Part of the peace comes from within the artist himself. The same friend who introduced Babu said that when he gets the time Babu loves to introspect and reach within himself for peace.

However, as an artist, his expressions have been, on more occasions, directly impacted by the civil society. Babu was deeply affected by a singular inci-dent in which a child was sexually exploited by a prominent religious leader. The violence meted out by the powerful and the vulnerability of the child and the unfairness of the whole situation is depict-ed on one of his canvases in which a grasshopper strikes at a unripe fruit while resting on a child’s forehead. The girl looks on mutely. While trying to decide on a “title” for the painting, words failed Babu. Nothing came close to describing the hor-ror of the situation—and he left it as is. One of the reasons why all of his canvases carry just numbers. Sometimes, it is imperative for the viewer to feel more than merely see. As an artist, he implores us (the viewer) to put ourselves in the situation.

As he did. His earlier paintings were more lush and green. But as he spent more hours in the com-pany of the people he painted, his canvases became darker, and deeper shades of blue and purple start-ed to seep into them.

The indigo in Babu’s later works depicts the silence—that gap—which exists between the world of those who have embraced nature in all its beauty and terrifying colours, and the civilisation that con-stantly tries to breach nature to tame it.

Can we understand the Tribal people at all? For K.G. Babu, the answer is an emphatic no. It is impossible to do so, as long as we are submerged in the trappings of civilisation, comfort and normality.

“Urban people cannot really be like the rural or jungle dwellers. I have seen a tribal man derive happiness even from a small payment of `20. While towns seem to thrive on dissatisfaction and mate-

rialistic cravings, Tribal, jungle dwellers live in an austerity that is impossible for us to imagine. But they live a life that is so much more fulfilling, rich and content. I will not call them happy as theirs is a harsh life. But they see themselves as contented. It is a matter of discipline and inner peace which we all need to learn,” he explains. This characteristic of making the best out of every situation separates Babu’s concept of us and them and that lacuna was felt by him as well. Despite numerous interactions he could never be really one of them. As a result, he felt that unfathomable silence depicted by the deep shades of blue and indigo.

The canvases of K.G. Babu shares a striking similarity with the art of Binoy Verghese, also an artist born in Kerala and now living in New Delhi. Both create canvases that are vast and lush. The canvases thrive in a solidity highlighted through subtle light and shade. As is the case with hyperre-alistic images which are 10 or more times the size of a original photographic reference, both retain high-resolution of colour and detail.

However, while Verghese prefers the airbrush, Babu admits that he is more at home with the brush. He loves to use acrylic which is easier to manipulate as his first base and then once he is happy with the result, he finishes off with the oil. And the result is simply glorious.

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Served with Style by the Sous ChefAchal Aggarwal is obsessed with perfectly-cooked food which tastes, and looks, good BY MANJIRI INDURKAR

For all who survived the good-old 1990s here is a pop quiz—who was that grinning man who ruled your hearts, stomachs and television sets? If you saied Sanjeev Kapoor then you are spot on! Chef Sanjeev Kapoor has inspired a whole generation of chefs, including a young Delhi boy, who grew up watching Kapoor’s Khana Khazana. Like

other youngsters, he dreamt that one day he, too, would be like Kapoor—teaching India its spices. But the boy did not just dream—he became a famous chef much like his inspiration. Today, Achal Aggarwal is a known name in the foodie circle. He is one of those rare Indians who can treat Japanese food just right, like it is done in the country. According to the Sous Chef, when he first saw Kapoor he took seconds to decide that he wished to be a chef. He remembers that he was watching Sanjeev Kapoor cook, when something clicked in his brain. Being the meritori-ous middle-class boy, Aggarwal believed that it was best that he kept his dreams

to himself till the time he could make himself heard; apparently no parent wished to see their beloved son become a bawarchi. Instead, Aggarwal took the mommy’s boy route—in the pretext of helping his mother, he began to experiment with dishes he saw being cooked on television.

For a while the charade went well. “The family was happy gorging on the dishes that I cooked,” till the day he was banned from the kitchen. The reason: the young man belonging to a strict Hindu family had cooked beef. The ‘lifelong’ ban was lifted after several years. But more of that later. He might have been banned from the kitchen, but he pursued his hotel

Piece De Resistance: The Megu Oriental Salad, [below] the succulent Kobe beefP

HO

TOS

BY

WW

W.T

HE

LE

EL

A.C

OM

GARNISH

garnishACHAL AGGARWAL //

45DEMOCRATICWORLD

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management course from the Institute of Hotel Man-agement Catering Technology and Applied Nutrition in Meerut. Afterwards, he joined Hotel Metropolitan (Sakura) where, to his surprise, he was put into the Japanese Kitchen.

The selection procedure, he tells us, was unique and just a little bit absurd. While chefs are usually asked to prepare a dish or two to get a job, Aggarwal and other candidates were asked to sketch a fruit bas-ket placed before them. That was that. Based on his sketching skills, he got his first job.

“They probably judged me by my precision with which I made the sketch. One can not prepare the perfect Japanese plate without precision,” he explains.

In the beginning Aggarwal was not all that pleased with his job as the cuisine did not excite him much. “I thought, why Japanese food? What is there to even cook in it? They do not use spices and are happy eat-ing raw fish,” he says. Once he began learning more, he realised that Japanese food was so much more.

The Japanese style of cooking left a deep impact on him. So much so that even if he is making a contem-porary Indian or a spicy Mexican dish, he makes sure that vegetables are cut in uniform shapes. It irks him if the ingredients are not ‘right’.

A Japanese effect indeed! Sakura was a great learning curve, but it was far

from what he wanted. Like every other dreamy-eyed young man and woman who enters the kitchen, he,

too, wished to work with the Taj Group of Hotels and the Oberoi Group. With his second job, that dream came true. This time, he opted for the Indian Kitchen, at the Rajvilas, Oberoi Group, Jaipur. As fate would have it, he was, by mistake, put in the Continental Kitchen—one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

For someone who called himself a chef, he failed to

The Sous Chef of Megu, The Leela Hotels, Chef Achal Aggarwal is one of the best chefs of this country. He specialises in modern Indian and Japanese cuisines and has an exceptional knowledge of Thai, Italian, Chinese and Mexican dishes. He loves his knives. And can not cook without garlic. And he would give away his kingdom for an unending supply of Saffron

CHEF OF THE MONTH

Eggy Treat: Noten Top Toro Tartare with Caviar [top left], the assorted Sushi platter [top] and the Sous Chef [below]

garnish // ACHAL AGGARWAL

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Fishy Delight: The Salmon Tartare

make a decent omelette. “My Chef asked me to make an omelette. I thought

that he was asking me to make a Japanese omelette, so I began hunting for a square pan (yes, the Japanese like their omelettes square). The Chef, however, was not amused. He asked me to make a ‘regular round one’,” he remembers with a chuckle. Aggarwal started making the regular round one. In India, when you make an Indian masala omelette we put dollops of fat in it to fry it till golden brown. In the Continental Kitchen that is short of a disaster. Aggarwal’s masala omelette was hurled straight back at him. The Chef kicked him out. But Aggarwal was not ready to give up. He went back and grovelled till he was allowed back to learn the art of the perfect omelette. In the fol-lowing week, all he made were omelettes—30 of them in six days. It took all of the 30 omelletes to convince the Chef de Cuisine that Aggarwal could cook. His Chef may have finally known but Aggarwal’s parents still remained in the dark about their son’s intentions.

One Diwali night found Aggarwal’s relatives ask-ing him to cook dinner—since he was studying hotel management. Till that time Aggarwal had not revealed his plan of becoming a chef to his parents. Nevertheless, he cooked the meal which comprised of paneer makhani, Gujarati kadhi, bhindi masala and rice. Aggarwal says that his father figured out his intentions by simply looking at the meticulously pre-pared meal. The decision worried him, nonetheless, he gave Aggarwal two years’s time to make a success of it. If he could build a respectable career in these two years he could go on.

Today, 12 years later, Chef Aggarwal is the Sous Chef of Megu, The Leela

Exotic Yellow: The Shira Ae which is a signature delight at the Megu

The Desi: Sometimes, a bit of desi is what the palate demands

JAPAN CALLING

Hotels. He has worked in some of the best kitchens of the country including a Michelin Star restaurant. He has worked with some of the best Chefs of the world, some of who gifted him kitchen knives. He modestly tells us that he loves his knives a lot and carries them around everywhere. He says he is a bit fussy about them (in reality, he absolutely hates it if you touch them). But then, why won’t he? Those finely chopped vegetables and the perfectly shaped fishes we love so much are a by-product of those knives.

NOTESSTICKYKILLING THEM SOFTLYBrad Pitt plays Jackie Cogan in this American crime drama based on a 1974 novel called 'Cogan's Trade' written by George V. Higgins. A professional enforcer, Cogan investigates a

heist which occurs during a high stakes, mob-protected poker game. Join Cogan on his chase to find out what happened on October 19, 2012, in a theatre near you.

RAJASTHAN INTERNATIONAL FOLK FESTIVAL Mehrangarh Fort is decorated, and your favourite room is ready—awaiting your arrival for the Rajasthan International Folk Festival, which is held in Jodhpur every year. Starting from October 26, 2012, the five-day-long festival promises to celebrate Rajasthan's rich culture, music and dances. The much-awaited event should be the perfect reason to take that mini-break.

A quick-start guide to what’s fresh, fun & worthy of a peek...

THE SEER BY SWANS Swans is a band that emerged in the early 1980s as a part of New York's 'No Wave' scene. Since then, the group of six has been experimenting with different genres of music. Their latest creation—'The Seer'—is a two-hour-long mega-album which demands and deserves attention. The album shifts between jagged noise-rock, apolocalyptic balladry, black-wave style synths and experimental noises. A great record that you would not want to miss.

2012 FORMULA 1 AIRTEL INDIAN GRAND PRIX For those of you who missed the mega event in 2011, there is good news. The Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix is back. The Budh International Circuit, Noida, is ready and awaiting the speed stars. The event starts on October 28, 2012, and so book the tickets before they run out... speed counts after all.

LISTEN

saga of human

frailty, courage and actions. Watch how the smallest human

actions impact the future of people whether connected or not,

and how a single act of kindness transcends boundaries of

time and space to inspire a revolution, on October 26, 2012.

Book your tickets now!

CLOUD ATLAS Based on

the David

Mitchell

novel called

'Cloud Atlas'

(2004), the

film promises

to be an epic

WATCH

ATTEND

48 DEMOCRATICWORLD

OCTOBER2012