Photo: AFP
RAMIT SINGAL, a 22-year-old engineering student, was puzzled. The Common Sandpiper, a small dust-coloured bird that migrates every winter from Russia to India, had been late arriving. Instead of getting to Manipal, (where Singal studies), in early August, the birds had arrived in mid-September. “Other migrants, like the Lesser Sand Plover, were also late,” he says.
In Mysore, a few hundred kilometres away, A Shivaprakash was pondering over another ornithological question. Being a scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, puzzles don’t ruffle him, but the decline in the number of water birds in the lakes around Mysore was still troubling.
Till a decade ago, his birding group counted nearly 3 lakh migratory birds every season across 200 small and big lakes in Mysore, Chamarajanagar and Coorg districts. “But in the past seven or eight years,” he sighs, “there’s been a drastic reduction. I don’t think we have counted more than 50,000 birds.”
Birdwatchers in other parts of the country have also been alarmed by the decline in the numbers of migratory birds and the increasingly late arrivals of species that do come.
Unfortunately, in the absence of any long-term monitoring data on Indian bird species, it’s impossible to evaluate these changes scientifically, with a certainty that goes beyond anecdotal evidence and conjecture. Without the reference point that this data constitutes — referred to as a baseline in scientific parlance — it is impossible to say whether the shifts reported by birdwatchers are routine fluctuations or indicators of a far graver problem. Ornithologists find themselves in the position of a football referee tasked with calling a goal in a field that has no posts.
“At present, we suspect even so-called common species such as Common Drongo, Indian Roller, Hoopoe, Magpie Robin and Common Nightjar have declined due to habitat destruction and extensive use of pesticides,” says Dr Asad Rahmani, director of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). “But we don’t have good scientific data to back this impression.”
Now, MigrantWatch, a ‘citizen science’ programme that relies on the observations of hundreds of amateur birdwatchers like Singal and Shivaprakash, is changing that.
The programme, started by Suhel Quader, an ecologist at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bengaluru, has built up a meticulous database of common winter migrants.
Birdwatchers from across the country upload detailed observations from their birding trips on the programme’s website. Quader and his team then collate it, charting the arrival and departure of migrant species, and tracking their movement through the country.
Anniversaries might be irrelevant in the natural world, but for MigrantWatch, the five years it has just completed is a milestone that marks significant progress towards establishing a baseline.
From monitoring just nine migratory species when it started, it now monitors 246 species, focussing on 30 common and easily identified migrants. Over 600 birders have contributed to this database, which just hit 19,000 observations.
After a slow start, interest in the programme has shot up. “More people have joined us in the past year-and-a-half,” says Quader proudly, “than in the first four years put together.”
More significantly, the observational dots are joining up and the faint outline of patterns emerging. For 20 species, MigrantWatch has accumulated 200 or more observations, and for another six, it has more than 500 observations each.
Scripting an almanac, one bird at a time
I Am Every Awful Script
Director: Kapil Sharma
Starring: John Abraham, Chitrangda Singh, Prachi Desai, Zarina Wahab
It would be tempting to call I, Me Aur Main ahead of its times, if it wasn’t for the fact that it appears so only because Bollywood has shown itself to be patently behind the times. Apart from the resolution at the end of the film, which is a refreshing change from the usual climactic scene of the Bollywood romcom, there are a number of moments in it that, at least ostensibly, demonstrate a modernity that the industry has shied away from: the doting mother leaving her demanding husband as she feels she deserves a retirement too, or the independent girl next door with a passion for electronics. But while the subversion of traditional gender roles is all well and good, I, Me Aur Main fails to impress simply because it is not an impressive film.
Ishaan Sabharwal (Abraham) is the manchild protagonist, whose worldview, as the imaginative title suggests, is restricted to himself. A combination of John’s ineptitude at emoting and the film’s patchy dialogue means that he appears more as a cartoon villain rather than a believable rake. Nevertheless, it does not go down well with his girlfriend Anushka (Singh), who promptly dumps him after he forgets to take her to visit his parents. The dumping means that Ishaan has to find a flat of his own, which is where he meets Gauri (Desai), the neighbour with the aforementioned passion for circuits and suchlike. Again, the atrocious writing means this love for science is usually expressed by her saying things like “It’s basic physics: their volume is higher than yours, so they can’t hear you.” Eventually, of course, the two fall in love, before the inevitable, clichéd bombshell, set to the inevitable, clichéd dramatic music, hits just before the interval.
Chitrangda Singh has had her career umbilically tied to the uncanny resemblance she bears to Smita Patil, with every new release inevitably leading to comparisons and rumours of a biopic. In both this film and Sudhir Mishra’s Inkaar she has essayed roles that are at least cosmetically Patilesque, with an intelligent femininity standing her in good stead when confronted by slobbering males used to having their own way. But she has been hamstrung in both roles by lack of depth to her characters, which means that that intelligent femininity is mostly restricted to screaming at her loutish lovers in Received Pronunciation rather than bad Hindi. That is not to suggest that she plays a bimbo, but the immense potential she showed in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi is not given a chance to shine through. Of course, unlike Patil, Singh has not restricted herself to the arthouse and is bound by the limitations of commercial cinema, but it’s painful to watch an actor clearly meant for better things play such unidimensional roles. The last thing one wants is for her to endure a career of playing the same role in every movie.
The clunky storytelling is a millstone the film keeps trying to shed through the flakey progressivism it embraces. Some of these attempts, like Ishaan’s mother (Wahab), are subtle and layered. Others, such as Anushka’s decision to (quite literally) show Ishaan the door, are as unimaginative as the title itself. The film seems to be going for the unconventional for the sake of being unconventional, as the characters reject as many social mores as they can in the rather short movie. Ultimately, the film is a missed opportunity at changing perceptions that becomes simply another forgettable frothy mess.
ajachi@tehelka.com
‘This film is not about the riots. It’s about three boys’
Photo: Getty Images
Abhishek kapoor | 40 Filmmaker
Why did you decide to work on developing a Chetan Bhagat novel into a film, and how did you approach it?
When I read the book, I saw the opportunity to make a very pure Indian film. The book dealt with friendship, love, politics, cricket, religion, the earthquake and the riots; pretty much everything that summed up India from 2000-02. As a filmmaker, I saw the chance to make a film that would reach out to all Indians and also make a mark internationally.
This is your first film with a major studio. How has the experience been different from your previous films?
A studio makes many different kinds of films, so all their eggs are not in one basket. It’s not about their style; the film is not an extension of their own personality. At the same time, studios have a wide reach, and once they decide to make a film, they back it all the way. The backing, the distribution, the exhibition is so big, that you can be certain the film’s potential will be maximised.
What was it like to premiere as the first Indian film to be featured in the World Panorama section of the Berlinale?
Fabulous. What a platform! The world’s best filmmakers are out there, and to premiere in front of a crowd of 1,500 and get a standing ovation at the end of it! None of them can speak Hindi. Most of them can’t even speak English, because they’re European. To just see them come together and respond in the same way was exhilarating.
Your life has been spent in big cities. How difficult was it to relate to small-town sensibilities?
It’s like making a film in a different country altogether. You have to unlearn so many things to understand the culture of the place, the society they come from, the aspirations they have, the frustrations they have. When you get into a new project, into alien territory, you’ve got to go in there with humility and the desire to learn and appreciate. Every director would have his own perspective, his own insight into a new space, and I had my own. You’ve got to find your way through it and look for your story, your characters. You have to encourage your team to fight it out and give it their best.
The newcomers in the film have been praised for their acting. How important was the lack of established stars for you, to make the film you wanted to make?
Established stars are not what makes a movie, good actors are. Established stars get you an opening. The story demanded freshness and innocence, and you needed the three of them to be friends. If I cast one star in it, there would be an imbalance in their friendship, and that was not acceptable to me. Everybody had to look like equals, they had to give their best, and, more than anything else, convince the audience that they exist. That these three boys are somewhere out there in Gujarat. That could only happen with these three youngsters. After Rock On!! did so well, the instinctive reaction was to work with stars. But I realised early on that this was not the correct move, and it was not materialising for some reason. When I found these three boys, there was no looking back.
Making a film even partly about the 2002 riots is fraught with peril. How did you go about it, and have you had any trouble getting your film released?
The riots and the earthquake had tragic effects on the people of India, especially in Gujarat. We were aware of it. But at the same time, the film is not about the riots. It’s about the three boys. Whatever is happening in the backdrop has to be seen through their eyes. We touched upon them in the right measure. More than anything else, you don’t want to go out there and titillate the audience, start scratching raw wounds. You want to be very sensitive to the people and what they’ve been through. It’s more about healing than investigating.
You’ve steered clear of the politics of the riots, framing the protagonists’s involvement in purely personal terms. Do you not feel, as an artist, a responsibility to society, to provide some perspective about a tumultuous event in our history?
It was a conscious decision. The moment you get into the riots, you lose the innocence of the boys. The focus shifts away from the central theme of friendship. As a filmmaker, my priority is my story and script, not making a social point. You don’t want it to trip you up.
Do you see a shift in mainstream Indian cinema away from the formulaic?
I believe there are far greater opportunities in India today to make ambitious films than earlier, but most filmmakers are not using them. They are wedded to the lure of the 100 crore club, and that means they play it safe. They take it for granted that this is what the audience wants. For the audience, Bollywood is the primary source of entertainment. They don’t have much choice. A film with a major star will make money, regardless of how bad it is, because people pay to watch the star, not the film. But if you came together and decided you would only support good films, and put in the effort, you could end up making 300 crore, as 3 Idiots did.
ajachi@tehelka.com
‘It is a myth that Chanakya was a cynic’
How did your personal engagement with Chanakya come about?
My engagement with Chanakya began with my search to understand India’s ability to reinvent itself. I have been a student both of contemporary India as well as many aspects of its cultural and civilisational legacy. As a diplomat, as someone who is an observer of India, someone who is deeply convinced that we are at that cusp in our young history as a nation where change is essential, I went back to Chanakya, because I saw his ability to be a source of inspiration to reinvent ourselves, which our civilisation is capable of. I did not approach the Arthashastra in its minutiae, because it’s a very specific text in response to a specific time. For me, the Arthashastra is inspiring for its clarity of vision, its comprehensiveness of scope, and for its writer’s abilities to work the kind of rigour and discipline that allows you to achieve goals, and above all, for his insistence on seeing the nation as above all sectoral interests.
What are the key differences between the Nehruvian vision of India and Chanakya’s philosophy of nation building?
There are no fundamental differences, as long as you believe in the validity of an efficacious state, which retains its democratic credentials and inclusive ethos. It’s a myth that Chanakya was a cynic, a Macchiavelli before Macchiavelli’s time. His real concern was always for the welfare of the people, which is obvious when you read the Arthashastra. He believes that otherwise, you are corroding the fundamentals of an effective state. Even if you don’t describe it with sentimentality, the sheer ability to understand what creates an enduring or an effective state would cause you to be concerned about the welfare of the people, which was exactly the principles of the welfare state that Nehru sought to bring about through the prism of democracy. The difference arises, from my point to view, in that the makers of the Indian constitution did not envisage the current situation, where instead of one party with a stable majority that rules for five years, you have a 24-member coalition with a wafer thin majority, which will be the norm for the foreseeable future. This requires us to have Chanakyan honesty rather than Nehruvian nostalgia to be able to understand the problem for what it is. You need to understand with stark and corrosive honesty that today, the functioning of democracy has become the biggest impediment to governance, because all energies go to political management and survival rather than governance, with no thought to long-term enduring solutions because you are looking for quick-fix populist measures. I have to tweak the system to prevent this sterile, self defeating antipathy in governance and democracy.
Could you be more specific on how you would like to tweak the system?
Essentially, we need to have a democracy which functions without taking the voter for a ride. We need more discipline in order to make democracy more credible. So when parties go to the people for their vote, the voter must have all the information. What is the coalition? Who is part of it? What is it that they are promising, and through what timelines? Having come to power, how do we ensure the governments fulfil the role for which they have been voted in? So I provide a compulsory lock-in period for three years for the government to prove its credentials. This is exactly like our anti-defection law. It provides a free run to perform, without the instability of coalitions, for three years. After that, who would destabilise the government just for two years in power?
I found sections of your chapter on security a little problematic. For instance, you begin with this quote from Chanakya: “An enemy’s destruction should be brought about even in the face of great losses in men, material and wealth.” Of course, this was written in an era before nuclear weapons, before man had the ability to literally wipe out the entire human race with the press of one button. You have said that India should be stronger in its relations with Pakistan and China, but do you think that the presence of nuclear weapons in the subcontinent means that we have to be the responsible country, show restraint in the face of war?
That particular quote was not meant to be taken literally. It was meant to merely illustrate that there should be clarity of goals, and that waffle cannot substitute for that clarity. In the unsentimental area of foreign policy, defence and intelligence, idealistic waffle does not help you. On the other hand, Chanakya is the one person who teaches us that in dealing with states which are hostile, there are range of instrumentalities that can be used. I’m not advocating for a moment that we unleash our nuclear arsenal. I’m saying we should talk to Pakistan. But that doesn’t mean that we let our guard down, or ascribe to the real policy makers in Pakistan the same degree of bathos and bonhomie that we would like to cultivate with other constituencies of Pakistan. We seem to have lost our way there. When Pakistan wishes to attack, it attacks. When it wants to appease, it appeases. We react. A foreign policy should not be reactive. A defence establishment should be proactive in terms of its defence requirements in one of the most troubled neighbourhood of the world.
Your solution to Naxalism seems to be to shoot first and talk later.
I have a straight forward approach: win over the naxals. Divide them. Provide every inducement for them to return to the mainstream. But if they don’t, their avowed goal is the demolition of the duly constituted republic of India. That is treason, and no country can have 40,000 square kilometres of its territory under those who do not believe in the duly constituted state. So this drift and waffle about development and punitive technique is totally a self-defeating one, because you cannot enter certain districts to build even a hospital, or a road, or a school. So you have to face this kind threat with unsentimental clarity. But, having one at over, immediately look to one in need of those who are underprivileged and dispossessed. But you cannot sit paralysed, mesmerised by a situation, while they continue to attack with impunity. Your armed forces suffer casualties. That is an unacceptable situation. No nation would accept it, except India.
Pavan K Varma
Aleph
248 pp; Rs 295
But what about the lakhs of people who would be caught in the crossfire of such a conflict?
They are already caught. They are sometimes, against their will, under the tutelage of those who don’t constitute the republic of India. And the armed forces will continue to be predatory without being effective. So there is no security of life for them. And the Naxalites must understand that if they are willing to return to the mainstream, India is assimilative. But if they implacably oppose to the duly constituted state, you have act in a particular way. And again, it’s not punitive action versus development. It’s not either-or, it’s sequential.
A lot of the state’s excesses, in India at least, happen due to mid- and low-level government officials. There is an idealism you speak of, which should exist in our politicians. But there is the rest of the state apparatus, which mostly runs with self-interest as the primary motivation. How do you change that and instill patriotism? Would you make this book compulsory reading?
I do not believe in individual proclivity. I believe individuals behave as per certain norms when there systemic checks to their criminal aberration. That is why in the case of bureaucratic excess of rapacious corruption, I prescribe system checks to change it. That is why I laud the Right to Public Services Act, which has been functioning in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, where the erring official who does not deliver a service in time is fined Rs 500 for every day of delay. As far as corruption goes, Indians as a whole accept a certain moral relativism, where they will criticise corruption in high places when they pay happily for a chalaan not to be registered against them. I prescribe, therefore, an architecture against corruption not depending merely on the silver bullet of one Lokpal. An example is electoral reform, which is the key. Secondly, I propose the expansion of the neutral intervention of technology in as many areas as where an individual interfaces with the state. It just overarches the human intermediary. You can book an airline ticket online; you don’t need a tout.
This book coincides with your entry into electoral politics. Why did you choose the JD(U) to join and do you think that the Nitish Kumar government has implemented what you have written in this book?
I’m an admirer of Nitish Kumar primarily for three reasons: clean politics, good governance and a secular vision. I believe these are needed for a new paradigm of leadership in our country today. Certainly, there are aspects of this book, which I have seen either as work in progress or implemented in Bihar. A notable example is the Right to Public Services Act. I believe strongly that there is substitute, for instance, to boosting agricultural productivity in order to tackle poverty. Bihar has had an increase rice production increase by 29 percent in one year. The ability to implement exemplary and deterrent punishment against corruption is again something I have seen implemented in Bihar, including the seizure to properties of those who are corrupt. I’m not saying it is in every respect ideal, a lot more needs to be done. But there are many aspects which I admire.
Divinity & the Beholder’s Eye
“DEAR MR Ajit Sahi,” it began pleasantly but quickly turned splenetic. “I am appalled at the tone with which you speak. Funny you found yourself struggling to stay alive that night. What did you come expecting? Lawns and sunshine with cocktails?” Ouch. Signed off as “another beholder of the same Kumbh”, the mailer trashed my criticism of the government for its mismanagement of the Maha Kumbh Mela at Allahabad (A Confluence of Chaos, 23 February).
My account had pertained to the dawn of 10 February, when some 30 million Hindu faithful had plunged into the holy river, Ganga, for a once-in-a-lifetime shot at eternal salvation. The same day, some 40 lives were lost in two stampedes abetted no doubt by administrative failures. “It’s very easy to accuse the administration (but) difficult to give any real solution… If its scale befuddles you, then let someone else attempt the great piece of writing.” Ouch again.
But it’s true. Others ambling about at what is humanity’s largest fest ever visibly experience serenity and spirituality that, try as I might, has eluded me, to my deep disappointment. Whereas all that the supercilious me can notice are the disreputable shenanigans of the self-styled godmen, the deadly pollution of an already threatened heritage river, and the irrational sophistry of salvation in the hereafter, there are those who feel, well, blessed and revived at the Kumbh.
“Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest its divinity by controlling nature, external and internal. As Vedic people, we have two ways to achieve that: jnankaand (through wisdom) or karmakaand (through action). In the first, high spirituality brings one face to face with one’s soul as well as with god. But this path needs a high intellect and physique, and therefore is not for everyone. The second path is of rituals and is meant for the grihasth (the householder).”
This eloquence is from Arun Dey, 62, an advertising firm owner from New Delhi, once an apprentice sanyasi, now a father to two successful daughters with corporate jobs, yet still a wishful ascetic. “There is no Sachin Tendulkar here,” he says. “Why are the millions visiting then? It is faith in god. And what is god? It is Nature. Our rituals are obeisance to plants that nurture life. Just as a pot polished every day glistens like gold, our time here at the Maha Kumbh recharges us.”
But aren’t the millions dipping in the Ganga and their rituals horribly polluting the river, turning their utopia into dystopia? Isn’t that, like, totally dissonant karma? Wouldn’t the faithful notch up true karma if they instead mounted a resistance against governments and industrialists that are virtually raping what was once the world’s most fertile river basin and is now one of its most endangered water bodies? From the dozens who I ask this question, I get varied responses.
Yes, the Ganga is being polluted. But what can the common man do? We are not the government. This is kalyug, the Age of Evil in Hindu mythology. What do you expect? Scriptures say the Age of Prosperity will follow. Hence, the Ganga will revive. No, the Ganga is not polluted. We drink its water every day and bathe in it. Wouldn’t we be all so ill if it were polluted? Don’t worry, the Ganga cleanses itself. How can the Ganga be polluted if it purifies us? And so forth.
One would imagine the European visitor would be unnerved by the filth and the grime all around and the river’s dirtiness. Not so. The White People at the Maha Kumbh are of three kinds: the chroniclers; the curious, who may not admit it but are also seekers; and the faithful. Blindsided by the masses here that outnumber the populations of most European nations, those of the first category are driven by the spectacle rather than by searching questions on faith and divinity.
Those of the second category listlessly trudge the Maha Kumbh miles every day and, desperate to vicariously experience the motivations of the multitudes, stop by nirvana shops of the gurus and the swamis for crash courses that don’t quite deliver. After weeks spent here, many are still unsure if they did the right thing by buying that air ticket to escape their friendless lives in the unhappy West (their words, not mine), “where no one gives free food like they do here”.
And then there are the White Faithful. The drizzle turns into a full-blown downpour, turning the cloth roof into a sieve but failing to dampen the spirits of the women in sari or salwar-kameez and men in colourful smart sherwanis or kurta-dhotis. With rare exceptions, these are all white people. They are devotees of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the best known Indian guru globally, who was hailed as a messiah for teaching meditation, and who died in 2008 at the age of 90.
“I am the Raja of Germany,” a portly Caucasian shakes my hand and announces the remit that the Yogi gave him. A gold-coloured circlet across his forehead bears testimony to his status. But this gent is no king of Germany. Rather he leads the German chapter of the “Global Country of World Peace”, the one without borders that Maharishi Yogi started at the turn of the century. The “raja” has joined fellow “rajas” and lesser devotees here to witness the opening of a temple for the guru.
Born at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh and educated at Allahabad University, the Maharishi, who would briefly become famous as the guru of the Beatles, pioneered what came to be his trademark, the Transcendental Meditation (TM). Decades later, he would launch TM-Siddhi (elevated), a stronger version that levitated the practitioner. “We are here to pay homage to the greatest person the world has ever produced,” says David Walne, a 62-year-old retiree from Liverpool whose life was transformed by TM 40 years ago.
The “great and wonderful Maharishi”, as Walne calls his guru, “always said that if we got enough people doing TM in one city, then all the negative trends there would decrease and the crime rate would drop”. Scientists, says Walne, means tested the TM in several cities of the US and found the results attested the claims. And then came TM- Siddhi, which brought into play the “three stages of yogic flying” that he claims helped cut crime rates in Washington DC.
In the first stage of yogic flying, energy moves up the spine. The second stage involves sitting cross-legged and building up a “desire to lift off, do the flying”. Walne says he himself has hopped 4-5 inches. The third stage is hovering several feet above, which only the master has achieved and nobody has seen. In Walne’s case, TM also helped him get off alcohol and Valium.
Barak Azmon, 48, an ophthalmologist-turned-medical equipment exporter from Israel, did his first tour of piety at the Maha Kumbh in 1989. Back then Israelis were barred from visiting India. “I paid baksheesh and got a visa in Italy,” he laughs. He stayed for two years living, working and travelling across India, even enrolling for a while in philosophy at the Banaras Hindu University.
“India is my second home and the Kumbh is the condensed version of India,” says Azmon, a leftish secularist. The nearest thing to god came to him far from the Kumbh, in the remote Himalayan region of Manali, 15 years ago when he and two other Israeli doctors ran a two-week eye camp. “We literally gave eyesight to the blind. For the first time I felt like a real doctor.”
ajit@tehelka.com
Vanity Fair
Out of the Picture
It’s Tunbridge Wells all over again. Well, almost. A BBC strike means that no video footage exists of Kapil Dev’s magnificent 175 — then the highest ODI score by an Indian — against Zimbabwe in the 1983 World Cup. MS Dhoni’s match-winning 224 against Australia this week faces a similar fate, as a Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) directive to ban independent photo agencies and retain photo rights meant that newspapers around the world (and posterity) were denied any images of the iconic innings. Also, Australian fans could only hear their team’s destruction, as the ABC pulled out of the series because of the BCCI’s astronomical broadcast fees.
Kiss and Tell
The liplock that rakes in big moolah
Veena Malik has proven herself adept at being famous for being famous. Now, she’s gone legit by breaking a Guinness World Record, baby! It’s not a made-up record that is a record because nobody else would ever think of doing it, this one’s bona fide. So, on her 29th birthday, the Pakistani actress got the contestants of the reality show The City that Never Sleeps — Bollywood Hunt to kiss her hand over a 100 times in one minute. Talk about getting real, eh!
Under the Hammer
Rapper MC Hammer was arrested for obstructing and resisting a police officer which, he says, was a case of racial profiling. The “chubby Elvis-looking dude,” as he describes the cop, asked him if he was on probation or parole, a question Hammer claims he was asked because he is black. “Only thing more dangerous than a scared man with a gun,” he tweeted, “is a scared man with an agenda, a gun and a badge.” The policeman then tried to haul Hammer out of the car, “but forgot he is on a steady donut diet.”
‘Our next presenter needs no introduction’
Seth Macfarlane (Who then promptly left the Oscars stage. To be fair, Meryl Streep doesn’t need one)
Oscar Needs Silver Polish
Director: David O Russell
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert DE Niro, Jacki Weaver, Anupam Kher
The Oscars come but once a year, and now that the farce that was 2013 (Argo? Really?) is over, the Internet is already full of lists of predictions for 2014. That’s right, a year in advance, before almost any of the potential nominees have been released. A look at some of last year’s predictions for this year’s nominations shows that these lists aren’t nearly as far off the mark as you might think. Indiewire writer Peter Knegt’s 6 March 2012 prediction, for instance, correctly identified five of the nine nominees, while including two other nominees in his alternatives, identical to his record in 2011. It also included the eventual winners for Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay, both Original and Adapted, among its predicted nominees for these categories. These, and the fact that he missed Best Supporting Actor/Actress, which are essentially lotteries before one has seen all the films, suggest that his predictions were not simply inspired guesswork or clairvoyance. There exists an Oscar type, a film that you can tell simply by reading a synopsis and cast and crew details will conform to what the Academy will declare among the greatest films of the year. As if any more proof were needed that the Oscars are a bore. A reliable, predictable bore.
The two films Knegt completely missed are instructive too. Amour followed Terence Malick’s Tree of Life as the Palme d’Or winner picked by the Academy to give it street cred with the cineastes. No one gave Amour a ghost of a chance of actually winning; if Life is Beautiful could lose to Shakespeare in Love in 1997, foreign films might as well not be nominated. The other, Silver Linings Playbook, which released in India this week, has been the year’s big surprise with eight nominations — the Bradford City, if you will, of the Oscars. The little film that could. Granted, it’s a Weinstein film, which means it’s not that little, but it is the antithesis of the Oscar type. And unlike Bradford at the League Cup final, it scored a goal on the big stage, a significant blow, with Jennifer Lawrence winning a much-deserved Best Actress award.
“There’s a pleasure sure in being mad, one which none but madmen know,” goes the epigram by Dryden. Playbook, however, goes the opposite way, talking about the pain of mental illness, which is also understood only by those who have fought pitched battles with their minds. Pat Solizio Jr (Cooper) is trying to get his shit together after being paroled out of the loony bin, and get back with his wife, who has had a restraining order against him ever since he battered her lover to the verge of death. Meanwhile, Tiffany Maxwell (Lawrence) is a recently-widowed sex addict who is trying to get her shit together after being fired. They strike a co-dependent relationship, however turbulent, that helps bring a semblance of normalcy in their lives.
But the film’s triumph is in the fact that it embraces Dryden’s maxim in its sensibility. This is no Virginia Woolf biopic; David O Russel infuses a refreshing eccentricity in even the ‘sane’ supporting cast, with the football-loving bookie Pat Sr (De Niro) and the nutty psychiatrist Dr Patel (Kher) my personal favourites. The simple story and the quirky, slightly off-balanced pacing and dialogue, which is Russel’s element, make this film a silver lining in an otherwise bleak Academy Awards year.
ajachi@tehelka.com
When Three’s Company
Director: Abhishek Kapoor
Starring: Amit Sadh, Sushant Singh Rajput, Raj Kumar Yadav, Amrita Puri
The Chetan Bhagat film is an interesting study in the vagaries of filmmaking. Bhagat’s style has always been eminently adaptable to commercial cinema, and his bland prose means that, much like chicken, it gets its flavour from the masala the director chooses to pour in. Three very different directors have approached his first three books in three wildly different ways, to completely different results. Three Idiots was a complete package, a well-oiled machine. Hello was a cut-and-run venture hoping that whatever bilge they pass off as a Salman Khan movie would make them enough money in ringtone royalties before anyone actually saw a frame. Kai Po Che! is a film.
It’s not a perfect film. Neither is it a particularly earth-shattering truth-revealing life-changing experience. Nor is it by any means indie. But it is an honest attempt at making a mainstream film that is legitimately good, retaining a humanity, a window into a director’s mind that actually contains neurons rather than spreadsheets. Not that that makes it unique in Bollywood, but it’s nice to see something from the Chetan Bhagat stable that worships at the altar of art rather than that of the bottom line. Where the story is sacrosanct, and must maintain believability even in the face of suspension of disbelief.
It helps that the story is a familiar one for director Abhishek Kapoor, he of the bromantic tragicomedy Rock On!!. Kai Po Che! has three, rather than four, bosom buddies who are united by a passion, then divided by familial and societal pressures, then reunited in a tearjerking finale. And, like Rock On!!, Kai Po Che! is at its best in its little, revealing moments rather than the overall plot, which is often formulaic, sometimes shoddy. With Amit Trivedi and Swanand Kirkire on board, it has great music.
The film deftly accentuates what’s best about Bhagat, while mercifully reining in his many weaknesses, to the extent that I had to read The Three Mistakes of my Life to reassure myself I wasn’t wrong in my opinion of him. For all the flak that he receives in these pages as others, Bhagat knows what young India wants, or at least what young, conventional, urban India wants. This is because he knows who young, conventional, urban India is. He tells it its own stories in its own language, and it loves him for it. He does this — and this is where his imitators fail — by creating relatable characters who have personality. My biggest — by no means only — grouse with Three Idiots was that it did away with the delightfully ambiguous character of Ryan and replaced him with that übermensch Rancho. In Kai Po Che!, the lead actors immerse themselves in their layered roles, showing hitherto undiscovered talent (it helps that the film does not revolve around one star).
However, Bhagat is prone to melodrama and, post his self-anointment as the voice of the youth, didacticism; the latter limited to spewing inane arguments for a fuzzy can’t-we-all-just-get-along-and- go-shopping worldview. Kapoor keeps both in check, though he is bound by the broad plot of the novel (and perhaps a clause in the rights agreement) to inject a certain amount of melodrama at regular intervals. As for the preachiness, Kapoor does away with the sermons on secularism, choosing to handle the climax on the post-Godhra riots in purely individualistic terms, foregoing the chance to make a larger societal point. True, this means the film lacks the power of a Parzania or a Firaaq when it comes to making a reckoning of the pogroms. But Kai Po Che! also avoids becoming a sea of platitudes or overtly divisive. Sometimes, the safer option is the better one.
Food for all, by law not largesse
Towards the end of January, a few days after Republic Day and a little over a week after the Congress’s conclave in Jaipur, large half-page advertisements appeared in major newspapers: “Celebrating the 63rd year anniversary of our Republic by putting food on everybody’s plate.”
Below the photographs of the prime minister, head of the Congress and the food minister, a graphic showed grain falling onto a plate, and stratifying itself into the saffron, white and green of the national flag. “The time has come” proclaimed the ad, “to eradicate the scourge of hunger.”
With this grandstanding, the Congress announced its intention of introducing the National Food Security Act in the current session of Parliament. The Act, which seeks to make food a legal entitlement as opposed to a handout, has been in the making for a few years. Now finally, with polls looming in 2014, the government is eager to see it through.
Speaking at a conference on hunger on 15 February, economist Amartya Sen repeated what’s been said so many times that it’s become a truism, “that the extent of India’s nutritional crisis was appalling”.
Twenty-two percent of the population is undernourished, and according to the latest data, which unfortunately dates back to 2005-06, more than 40 percent of children under the age of three are underweight. The per capita availability of rice and wheat had dropped from 203.7 grams and 160 g in 2000 to 188.4 g and 154.7 g in 2009.
The Act was long overdue. That it looked like it would be passed by Parliament soon, said Sen, was a “very good thing”.
The outlines of the Act were first put forward by the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council (NAC) in mid-2010. It suggested that the legal entitlement to food should cover 90 percent of rural and 50 percent of urban areas.
The poorest households in these areas (which would include 46 percent of the rural population and 28 percent of the urban) were to get 35 kg of subsidised grain every month, with millets at Rs 1 per kg, wheat for Rs 2 per kg and rice at Rs 3 a kg. The other households would get 20 kg of grain a month at a price that wasn’t specified, but was to be less than half the minimum support price, the price the government paid to procure it.
Given that the average house consists of five people, this worked out to about 7 kg of grain per person every month.
Some of these provisions were changed in the initial Bill that was put before Parliament in December 2011 and then by a Parliamentary Standing Committee to which the Bill was subsequently referred. The committee submitted its recommendations on 17 January.
It suggested that the population the Bill should cover be brought down to 75 percent of the rural population and 50 percent of the urban. Categories within these have been done away with, and the entitlement made a uniform 5 kg of grain per person per month (Rs 1/kg for millets, Rs 2/kg for wheat and Rs 3/kg for rice).
The committee argued that the targeting of subsidies has been flawed and prone to misuse. Instead, it recommended that the Centre define a “criteria in consultation with the state governments for exclusion of 25 percent population in rural and 50 percent population in urban areas”.
Since the exclusion ratios are for the country as a whole, state-wise ratios would have to be calculated, where a larger percentage of the population would end up being included in poorer states and wealthier states might end up getting lower allocations than they currently do.
This, the committee suggested, could be based on the ongoing Socio-Economic and Caste Census, though economist Jean Dreze, who was part of the NAC that drafted the Bill, believes that the exclusion criteria is best left to individual states to decide.
He has also warned that “the exclusion ratios are dangerously large, and that food entitlements should have been 7 kg per person per month”.
However, the parliamentary committee justified the reduction in quantity based on statistics that suggest that the act, with these provisions, would entail an annual procurement of 65 million tonnes of grain. In 2010-11, procurement was 62.5 million tonnes (a little over 34 percent of the total production). This rose to 73.2 million tonnes in 2011-12.
A significantly higher procurement of grain by the government could lead to serious distortions in market prices. For the Act to be sustainable in the long run, the legal entitlements could not be made higher.
Of course, states like Chhattisgarh, in which the public distribution system (PDS) covers 90 percent of the population, and Tamil Nadu, which has universal coverage, would have the freedom to continue with these as long as they meet the basic requirements of the Act.
However, on 13 February, at a meeting of food ministers, the Chhattisgarh minister said that the coverage envisaged in the Act was not acceptable to it, and his Tamil Nadu counterpart requested the state be left out of its purview since they already had a “robust” and universal system.
Other states have protested that the move to a per capita entitlement could adversely affect the poorest families, who currently get 35 kg of grain per month irrespective of family size under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY).
Predictably, richer states like Haryana and Gujarat have been against a financial categorisation of states.
In response to this criticism, in a hurried attempt to build a consensus, Union Food Minister KV Thomas announced that the government will leave AAY entitlements and the current allocation of states untouched. How the government plans to do this, and what implications it will have on food procurement calculations, are unclear.
Agencies like Unicef have pointed out that in order to improve nutritional standards, the National Food Security Act needs to include pulses, oils and dairy products. The committee has acknowledged this by introducing a mention of these, but the food ministry says that since the bulk of pulses and oils are imported, including them isn’t viable.
Women and children are the most vulnerable when it comes to food security, and they are a significant focus of the Act. It entitles pregnant women and lactating mothers to “nutritious” meals and a maternity benefit of Rs 1,000 per month for six months. Children between six months and six years would get either meals or rations to take home, and those between six years and 14 are entitled to a mid-day meal at school.
Here, the committee has expanded the entitlements, suggesting that women be given an additional 5 kg of grain per month for two years after childbirth (in addition to the child’s share). According to it, children below two were unlikely to be taken to centres for cooked meals, so this provision has been limited to children between two and 16 years.
“Why is there no mention of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS), one of the oldest and most important programmes for women and children?” asks Shantha Sinha, head of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
Ironically, it was the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which administers the scheme that was against its inclusion in the National Food Security Act. “The scheme,” it said, “is confronted with programmatic and operational gaps which would need to be addressed first. Therefore, the time is not ripe yet for making the entitlements legal through an Act of Parliament.”
Including the scheme in this Act, claimed the ministry, could be detrimental to it. It would continue in parallel, outside the ambit of the Act.
However, this is not acceptable to critics like Sinha. “A legal framework is the expression of the state’s commitment,” she says, “and if we are talking about universal food availability, ICDS and the anganwadi centres that administer it, need to be included.”
States also vary hugely in the efficiencies of their PDS systems. “The biggest challenge is going to be the implementation,” says Montek Singh Ahluwalia of the Planning Commission, “we will have to wait and see.”
The Act is probably going to undergo many changes before it is presented in Parliament, some sensible and some dictated by politically expediency. But everyone seems to agree that it’s time has come. The proof will be in the eating.
