‘The government should encourage initiatives that empower women’
Ajay Poonia, 24, Noida
Professional quizmaster; works for a digital marketing company
Why do you think the Delhi bus gangrape case caught such attention?
What shocked me what the fact that it happened. And every day since, with the newspapers and news channels covering it, it stills shocks me. It happens every day, everywhere. Why it caught so much attention could be because of two things. One, that it happened in Delhi, in such a prominent posh location. The second factor is the brutality of it.
Why do you think so many rapes and sexual assaults happen in India?
Ours is a society of suppression of women kind in general. The freedoms of women are curbed. And since men don’t interact with them much, they don’t understand what it means to be a woman in this country. That is where the mindset stems from.
Many people feel women’s freedom is responsible for the rise in sexual crime. Your take?
I’d like to believe that women expressing themselves will curb the crime rate. Freedom for women can only be a good thing. Men have to understand what women are like and what they go through in a society like ours.
Do you think women are responsible in any way for being assaulted by men?
No.
What are the freedoms you would be comfortable with for your sister/girlfriend/wife?
If my mother, sister, girlfriend, friend, is roaming at 11 at night in Delhi, I should ideally say I’m ok with it. The fact that there is danger to them, means their freedom is being curbed.
Do you think Indian women have enough freedom or should they in fact get more freedom?
I think it should be a top-down approach. The government should encourage initiatives that empower women. So that over time it gains acceptance and gets inculcated in the society and the way people think about women. Women deserve equal rights and equal space in this society. So education and upbringing become really important in the way they form social mentality, which is where the government should also focus. There are so many places where women don’t even know they should be and can be more vocal about what they want. They accept the life they have been prescribed.
What were you taught to think about women in your own family? Do you think women should have equal freedom as men? Has your thinking changed in any way as you have grown up and been exposed to other ways of thinking?
My formative years were in a boys’ school. So I, too, was brought up secluded from one half of our society. But, on entering college, I suppose I was lucky with North Campus in Delhi University. It exposed me to a freer atmosphere, where guys and girls coexist without it being a big deal.
Lots of women today like to enjoy their bodies — wear nice clothes, many of them are comfortable with having relationships before marriage or outside of marriage. Do you think this is good or bad for society?
I think it’s good. It supports what I say there shouldn’t be suppression of women. It’s freedom of choice. If they want to express themselves they should be able to, and if they don’t want to that too should be ok.
If any woman/girl in your family told you she had been molested by someone within the family or outside, how would you react?
An outsider would be immediately reported. But, if it’s a family member I would first involve the people immediately concerned. If it’s an extreme case then file an FIR. If it’s a very mild form of harassment, a collective decision would have to be taken as to what is to be done with the perpetrator and what the best interests of the victim are.
Would you like to take up the issue or protect the family or woman’s honour? What do you think makes it difficult to take up issues of sexual abuse?
Being quiet is not one of the options for me. The question would be how severe the punishment should be.
Do you think pop culture has any role to play in the way society behaves?
We are affected by what we see on TV. I think any medium, body, individual that has such influence over a society’s thinking has a responsibility to society. Pop culture and cinema do not own up to this responsibility. That is why they blatantly objectify women.
What is your concept of an ideal man — in terms of how he deals with women?
Such a man would deal with her like he would deal with anyone else. By that I don’t mean be inherently aggressive or anything. He should extend basic human courtesy without gender bias. Don’t’ consider a woman as an ‘other’. His behaviour shouldn’t reflect special treatment because the woman is not one of his own people.
How do you think this problem of rapes can be fixed?
It’s a problem that can be fixed only through long term investment. Maybe we should actually implement a lot of initiatives that the intelligentsia of our country proposes. Caring, which is what we need as a people, is a hard to measure term. It cannot be calculated. What’s the amount we need to care to become a better people? As for sensitization, I suppose it should start from an early age. As soon as children grow aware of the environment around them, and how biased it is. That’s when education and awareness have to take root.
Indian men on women: In their own words – Uttar Pradesh
Indian men on women: In their own words – Delhi
‘I saw Dabangg 2 and thought it was an abomination. Entertainment caters to the lowest common denominator, which means sleaze’
Sukalyan Roy, 27, Delhi
Marketing, Titan Industries
Why do you think the Delhi bus gangrape garnered so much attention and outrage?
It was the gruesome nature of the incident. Delhi is inured to cases of rape. But this happened right here in south Delhi, not in the outskirts like Gurgaon. That is what caught so many people’s attention, despite the fact that we have become desensitised to such crimes. Of course the media coverage also plays a huge role here.
What are the reasons for so many rape cases in India?
We are a pretty traditional patriarchal society with a skewed sex ratio. There is limited interaction between men and women. What men cannot have they want to claim. It is primal. Women have historically been subjugated. Therefore the thought process is one of putting them in there place.
Do you think “modern culture” is responsible for this?
Maybe cases of sexual assault are more pronounced in villages and towns because they go unreported. In cities there are more chances to talk about it. You get to hear more cases. But smaller town victims suffer in silence. Very few will come out in the open because of the shame and stigma. There has to be a threshold of shock value attached to the incident to get people talking.
Many people feel women’s freedom is responsible for the rise in sexual crime. Do you agree?
Not at all. Women don’t dress provocatively in rural India, yet rapes happen. It is more of a show of strength on the part of men. Proving that they are still in charge. Independence and empowerment is seen as a threat.
Are you comfortable with women getting freedom?
I am all for it. I also, think that women are in many ways the stronger sex, with a deeper strength that men are incapable of. It is man who has to steadily change.
Do you think Indian women have enough freedom?
They don’t have freedom yet. If half of the population is scared of going out at night, what kind of freedom does it have?
Where do you think that this mindset against women is emerging from?
Women are objectified and abused across the world. Men in India are no different. But perhaps in our case, there are just not enough deterrents. Stronger action needs to be taken. And the change has to come from the grassroots level. Women have been traditionally assigned roles, and they are punished for transgression. In many places women don’t even know they can break out of these roles.
What were you taught to think about women in your own family? Do you think women should have equal freedom as men?
I grew up in a very progressive household where the women were actively involved in decision-making. But I also think that is a Bengali women thing. Yet the rules were a bit different for my sister than they were for me.
Lots of women today like to enjoy their bodies — wear nice clothes, many of them are comfortable with having relationships before marriage or outside of marriage. Do you think this is good or bad for society?
Learning to enjoy and assert sexuality is a global phenomenon. It is a natural progression. Maybe, we are on the threshold of being a more evolved society.
If any woman/girl in your family told you she had been molested by someone within the family or outside, how would you react?
I would be pretty shocked. But I would take it up, instead of keeping quiet about it. I would take it up with the family.
Do you think pop culture has any role to play in the way society behaves?
A personal example. I saw Dabangg 2 and thought it was an abomination. Look at the way women are represented in that movie. Entertainment caters to the lowest common denominator, which means sleaze. Look at the item number culture. It is such a voyeuristic concept. It is disturbing and people imbibe it subconsciously. It shapes popular perception of gender equations to quite a degree.
Do you agree that there are a lot of molesting / rapes / forced sex within families that girls are asked to be quiet about to preserve honour?
Yes.
What is your concept of a modern successful woman?
One who is truly independent. She can be staying at home, with family, on her own, but is independent enough to make her own decisions, to dress the way she wants, to go where she wants, to have as many sexual partners as she chooses.
What is your concept of an ideal man — in terms of how he deals with women?
One who lets her be comfortable in her own skin.
How do you think this problem of violence against women can be addressed?
It can be fixed. But there is no overnight solution. Attitude of punishment has to be checked and broken down. Men need to stand up for women as fellow human beings, not just their mothers, sisters, wives. Deterrents need to be put in place through the system of law. Also I think there is sensitisation needed in the way we talk about sex crimes. Being bombarded by each gory detail from the media is overkill.
Indian men on women: In their own words – Madhya Pradesh
‘A male friend of mine was raped by men in Delhi. Forget women, I am scared to be out alone in Delhi at night’
Tejas Jain, 23, Indore
IT Engineer; handles family business
What do you think of the Delhi bus gang-rape case? What shocked you more – the rape or the violence of them ripping out her intestines?
The sad thing is that this particular incident is not very new. As gruesome as it is, these things have been happening around us. I live in Indore, in MP. There was a case, not 200kms from here where a woman was gangraped by 13 men. And around 11 cops who came to ‘rescue’ her, raped her again. But with everything, there comes a tipping point. Such as the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria. I don’t know why this particular case is our tipping point but it is.
Why do you think so many rapes and sexual assaults happen in India? What are the main reasons?
In my opinion, India has become this awful blend of tradition and western culture. We conveniently adopt things from the world, imitating only what we want. But there is no steady education to keep pace with that. For example, we see women as highly sexual objects now. But gender awareness is lacking.
Do you think this happens more in big cities and less in small towns? Do you think “modern culture” is responsible for this?
Definitely not. I live in mid-sized city. I see what happens here, it is no different from metros. I will, however, say that women in towns and villages sometimes know how to tackle men better. If a man is beating his wife, she’ll fight back. But then there are smaller towns in UP and Haryana where women are coerced into obeying a man’s will.
Many people feel women’s freedom is responsible for the rise in sexual crime. Do you agree?
I don’t. A woman never asks for it. Imagine a bunch of men in a group. If nothing else, they will be visual rapists in the way they will look at women. There is blatant disregard. A man thinks that the way to get a girl is to harass her, that idea is deeply impregnated in our minds. I blame some of that on these movies we see. Women have to be respected. But it is beyond my comprehension why this mentality has come about.
Are you comfortable with women getting freedom? What are the freedoms you would be comfortable with for your sister/girlfriend/wife?
I am comfortable with freedoms. Of course, the way things stand now, I would take precautions and advice. You have to be careful. You live in a dangerous city, so you cannot go out alone late at night.
Do you think Indian women have enough freedom or should they in fact get more freedom?
Women should have more freedom. It is the man’s responsibility to understand that they are his equals and deserve the same freedom and respect. The fact is that men do not consider them equal contenders in most things. For example, in my social circle a guy will be completely surprised if a girl gets through IIM instead of him.
What do you think should be men’s attitude towards women? Do you feel there is anything wrong in the general Indian man’s attitude towards women?
I think there is something very wrong with the general Indian male attitude towards women, and that is inculcated right from childhood. Compare the way a brother and sister are brought up in the same household. The boy will inevitably be questioned less, bound less, and in many cases be favoured more. It starts with families. That’s where you learn to respect and disrespect, and to see women as lesser beings.
What were you taught to think about women in your own family? Do you think women should have equal freedom as men? Has your thinking changed in any way as you have grown up and been exposed to other ways of thinking?
I have four cousin sisters who have always been more pampered than I was. My family has many strong independent minded female figures including my mother. It’s very women-centric that way. But from the people I come across, I learnt that all households are not the same. A few days ago I met this guy who blamed the victim of the Delhi gangrape. He said that she must have been making out with the boy in the bus, so how could the other men control themselves. My simple question to him was how do you even know that. He said that is was obvious, what else could it be?
Lots of women today are comfortable with their sexuality. Do you think this is good or bad for society?
What is so bad about women asserting their sexuality? How does that negatively impact the society? Why shouldn’t a woman do what she pleases to with her own body? It’s about a basic respect for human life, which is what we lack in India. It’s not just women, life isn’t valued here.
Have you ever seen violence against women in your own family — sisters/mothers/wives being beaten?
No, but I have seen it with men. A male friend of mine was raped by men in Delhi. No one is free wherever they are. Forget women, I am scared to be out alone in Delhi at night.
If any woman/girl in your family told you she had been molested by someone within the family or outside, how would you react?
I do not know what exactly I would do, but I can say that I wouldn’t let the incident just die. Somehow, I would work to get justice done.
Would you like to take up the issue or protect the family or woman’s honour? What do you think makes it difficult to take up issues of sexual abuse?
It’s difficult to talk about these things. The victim’s trust in her own family is gone. Who do you go to? It takes courage to talk about what happened. There is a culture of silence, as very often women are fighting with themselves about whether they can talk about their abuse or not. So silence does make it harder to address issues of abuse.
What is your concept of a modern successful woman?
Maybe someone who can stand up for herself in all walks of life. Who is neither scared nor controlled by men, such as her father or brother or husband.
What is your concept of an ideal man — in terms of how he deals with women?
Someone who can respect, not just women, but all life, be it human, animal or plant. Respect life, and nature.
Will you be comfortable in the knowledge that your sister/daughter has a ‘boyfriend’?
Well, yes.
There is so much discussion about rape in the country today, how do you think this problem could be solved? What sensitisation do you think is needed?
People have to be responsible for their actions. Women are not objects for sex, violence or household chores. That is the major change in people’s mindsets that we need to bring about. Create awareness, through education on that. Our society has gone haywire. It can be fixed but it is a long process. The rigidity of an orthodox societal mentality has to go. Media, cinema, TV, music, they have to own up to the responsibility they have in the way they project women. Turn on the TV, you see women decked up in saris sitting it home plotting and fighting all day. That’s what people grow up watching. These are the things we need to fight.
Master Takes
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Parul Gupta on Art
Polish artist Monika Grzymala makes installations that can be described as three-dimensional drawings. Her signature material is tape of all colours and kinds. Grzymala’s work is a critical statement about what a drawing can be and how it can leave the page to engage directly in our space and lives. Her drawings sometimes seem to jump straight out of the walls, or press up against other lines, then finally disappear, only to once again reappear in motion, with momentum. Each work is site-specific — created in response to the conditions and configuration of a given space.
Gupta is a Delhi-based artist
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Wei Fen Lee on Books
Shehan Karunatilaka’s Chinaman is about Sri Lankan cricket, a journalist’s quest for a story, the problematic concept of ‘truth’ and memory and the humour and banalities of human relationships. The ironies of story-writing are reflected in multiple narrations, all delivered in a style as graceful and irreverent as the bowling described within. It transcends the actual game to inspect the power structures and relationships surrounding it.
‘A book about Sri Lankan cricket, its many power structures and human relationships’
Lee is a Singapore-based writer and editor of Ceriph
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Abhishek Bhatia on Music
German musician Apparat has successfully experimented with big, clean, transcendant sounds while avoiding the clichés of post-rock. Rather, he is post-electronica. He uses a varied mix of unusual instruments, such as the analogue synthesiser and a xylophone hooked up to his laptop with a million effects. He programmes sounds of actual instruments onto his computer. Programming allows him to be limitless and opens a whole new dimension for his music, which sounds as if it’s coming out of nowhere.
Bhatia is the vocalist of the Circus
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Anupama Chopra on Film
Y Tu Mamá También by Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón is a deeply moving, sad yet beautiful film. Two best friends go on a road trip with a strange woman. What follows is a sexual adventure and their coming of age, devoid of the clichés inherent in this genre. It is sexy but in a joyful, unembarrassed way. There is nudity but it is not voyeuristic. The film transcends its protagonists and becomes a portrait of Mexico. There is a voiceover narration, which, in asides, tells the audience stories of other characters.
Chopra is a film critic based in Mumbai
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Ashfaque Qureshi on Food
Tadka restaurant in Kanpur serves the finest Indian food possible. Instead of generalising flavours to cater to popular taste, it prizes the authenticity of its recipes. The food tastes authentic Awadhi, instead of it being mixed with Punjabi preparations. Though it has cuisines and spices from all over India, the dishes retain their unique flavour. Some of my favourite dishes are their galauti kebabs and the raan. The restaurant is particularly famous for its biryani, the daals and its speciality, the tadka chicken.
Qureshi Is The Managing Director With Grande Cuisines Of India
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A Plain Game
Director: Aditya Datt
Starring: Rajeev Khandelwal, Tena
Desae, Paresh Rawal
Another story of a vacation gone wrong with an emotional climax, Table No 21 is the antithesis of The Impossible, being a superficial, unrealistic, amateurish mess that questions the very existence of humanity. Sia (Desae) and Vivaan Agasthi (Khandelwal) are a young couple on a prize holiday to Fiji, where they meet Mr Khan (Rawal), the owner of the resort they’re in, who offers them a chance to play his game show for Internet voyeurs, Table No 21. Named after its prize money, Rs 21 crore (though converting from Fijian dollars to rupees shows that it should be called Table No 30.7293, unless Sia’s instant calculation incorporated the 30 percent gift tax), the game is a variation of Sach Ka Saamna, that nasty show hosted by Khandelwal. The game gets more sinister as Khan seems to know the couple’s darkest secrets, and his sadistic actions are explained in a didactic ending that comes from so far out of left field that this reviewer’s jaw still hasn’t left the floor. If it hadn’t been so badly executed, the finale could have saved this trainwreck. The rest, however, offers little redemption, with dialogues that could have been written better by monkeys on typewr iters and the awkward chemistry between Desae and Khandelwal leading to much unintended humour.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com
Finding the will and the way
Director: Juan Antonio Bayona
Starring: Naomi Watts, Ewan Mcgregor, Tom Holland, Marta Etura
THERE’S A fundamental indignity in being one of millions of survivors of a natural disaster. Apart from the obvious tangible experiences of being dragged along a debris-filled ground by strangers and the necessity of having to beg for the basics, there is the enduring fear of being reduced to a statistic. Fittingly, The Impossible ends with Lucas Bennett (Holland) removing a label they put on him at a hospital to identify him among the thousands of children, as his mother, branded on her arm, looks out of an aeroplane window to take in, for the first time, the enormity of the destruction. Until that point, their experience of the tsunami has been one of personal survival, fighting against the elements and all odds in the hope of making it through this and finding each other, preserving the family unit that Bayona used as his protagonist in the critically acclaimed The Orphanage as well. The Impossible is no 2012-style disaster fetish movie, as the tsunami’s path of destruction is shown more as a perilous foe rather than an excuse for neat special effects. Based on a true story, as the opening titles unnecessarily stress, the Bennett family is separated when the wave interrupts their Christmas vacation in Thailand, and mother (Watts) and eldest son Lucas are taken, while father (McGregor) and the two younger sons dive into the hotel swimming pool to take refuge.
Though the family-in-peril trope is the primary thrust of this film, the idea of its relationship with others facing the same battle is explored as well, providing it with an underlying humanity. This is done primarily through Lucas, who Holland plays with extraordinary maturity. The 12-year-old, possessing the juvenile selfishness of the eldest child, reluctantly helps save a child he does not know and later, while his mother lies dying of an infected wound, goes around the hospital trying to reunite families. Meanwhile, McGregor’s character has to rely on outside help to find his wife and child, help from strangers who set aside their own personal tragedies for fleeting moments to lend him dying cellphones or by pausing their own desperate hunts to give him time to find them.
The film has its flaws (Watts’ schizophrenic performance, the lack of focus on local tragedies), but The Impossible is one of the most honest and haunting disaster films in recent times.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com
Vanity Fair
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Cause and Effect
As India struggles with Bollywood’s misogyny after the Delhi gangrape, the US faces a similar moment of introspection. Do its movies foster a culture of violence responsible for the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown? Django Unchained director Quentin Tarantino is having none of it. When an interviewer asked whether his enjoyment for violent films has now decrea – sed, he responded angrily: “Would I watch a kung-fu movie three days after Sandy Hook? Maybe, because they have nothing to do with each other… I think it’s disrespectful to (the victims’) memory to talk about movies.”
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Tough Turf
Ahmed’s Cricket Training
Mohammad Shami Ahmed is the toast of the nation after bowling four maidens on his ODI debut, denying Pakistan a clean sweep in the dramatic third match of the series at the Kotla. Shami kept his head under tremendous pressure to bowl a wicket maiden in the 48th over, helping India squeeze out a 10-run win. The pressure is nothing new for the pacer. He repor tedly grew up playing cricket for rival ganglords in the UP badlands.
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Money Talkies
On 7 January Rajinikanth joined a hunger strike by Tamil film industry professionals, against artistes, directors and choreographers having to pay service tax. They cite the waiver given to producers, exhibitors and distributors a few years ago, and argue that it should be extended to them as well. Not all of them get offers every year and they are overburdened. Meanwhile, Kamal Haasan has lodged a police complaint after being threatened to not release his next film, Vishwaroopam, on DTH a day before its theatrical release.
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‘Salman Khan is not God’
Sapna Bhavnani (Fires a shot on her eviction from Bigg Boss 6)
[Live Blog] Poll Verdict: Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh
6:58 PM – That speech was an extraordinary exercise in positioning oneself on the national stage. It was clearly meant for a national audience, hit the right spots (good governance, praising the people, attacking his critics for damaging Gujarati asmita, completely ignoring 2002) and was almost inspirational in its hyperbole. It has been a great day if your name is Narendra Modi.
The final Gujarat tally came in during the 45 minute address. Heerabhai Patel (Congress) came back to win Lunawada by 2,201 votes, which means the BJP ends on 115 seats, with 61 going to the Congress. Bhattiyat remains undecided in Himachal Pradesh, as the BJP candidate leads by 111 votes. The Congress has won 36 seats so far, while the BJP has 25. It’s been a pleasure bringing the day’s returns to you. It’s also been exhausting. Thanks for reading.
6:33 PM – He asks journalists who came to cover the rough and tumble of the elections to take the other, less dramatic qualities of the state and tell the world about them. He says that the news of his unique hologram speech wasn’t spread around the world because they didn’t want to praise Modi. “I don’t want to stop, I don’t want to tire, I just want to fulfil the dreams of the Gujarati people,” he says.
6:27 PM – Modi says he wants to serve the people of India by building a better Gujarat, that will support other parts of the country. This is really beginning to sound like a campaign speech for national office.
6:25 PM – “I don’t work for certificates and medals from the global community. I’ve won so many; I don’t have any space left. I work for the betterment of my people.” He says he will visit Delhi on the 27th, and a “PM!” chant breaks out.
6:20 PM – “This election is a landmark one because we worked honestly on a development platform and won. The people who wanted to stop us from winning resorted to lies and more lies. I salute the voters for not listening to these lies, even when finding the truth was harder than finding a needle in a haystack. I am happy that I did not resort to these tactics. I wrote a poem once where I said that I take the stones people throw at me and make it into a staircase. And this staircase has taken me to a hat-trick.”
6:14 PM – He trains his guns on the political pundits who have been struggling to come to terms with the Gujarat verdict. He asks his people to pray for them, so they get a good night’s sleep tonight. Ouch. “Why are these people so desperate to belittle Gujarat?” he asks.
6:13 PM – “12 crore eyes watch me as I work for them. This victory is not mine, it belongs to the 6 crore people of Gujarat, and to every person who desires good governance in this country. The sweat of the lakhs of my party workers beat any amount of money. I bow my head to these workers, who toiled under heavy pressure. What I am is because of my party. It is because of the work of party workers over the last 60 years that the BJP’s flag flies in victory over Gujarat today … I want to do great work for this state. There was a time when governments used to do one or two good deeds in their tenure of five years. I am someone who needs to do something new every day.”
6:07 PM – “God knows what has been written about me over the last few years. But when the postal ballots were opened, the naysayers were shocked to see the BJP getting 70 to 75 percent of the vote … I understand that government servants today probably leave at 10 PM when they left at 5 earlier, but that is because they are serving the people of Gujarat … I am happy that I have kept the values instilled in me as a child. I apologise if I made any mistakes … After every election I won, people expected that I would take it easy. They were proved wrong every time. I promise that I will dedicate the next five years to work for the people with all my capacity.” He asks the people for their blessings so that he doesn’t make any mistakes.
5:59 PM – “If a government provides good governance, the voters will reward it despite everything else. That is what this election has shown. Political parties should realise that instead of making hollow promises, they should understand the hopes and aspirations of the people and work to fulfil them. We have made many difficult decisions, probably angered many people. But I did what I felt was best for the people of this state. And the people have rewarded me by embracing our party.”
5:55 PM – “The people used to think that governments came and went every five years. But they have now made government accountable by giving it stability. This shows that the electorate has matured. They refused to listen to the opposition’s lies, refused to take the bribes offered in the guise of election manifestos. This is why political pundits across the country are talking about Gujarat today. The 6 crore people of Gujarat are the true heroes today.”
5:52 PM – Modi asks his supporters to extend their love and respect to the defeated opposition. “The election results have shown that this country’s voters understand what is good for them,” he says. “They have shown how mature the voter has become. Political pundits will have understood that Gujarat has experienced the communal tension of the 1980s, and do not want to return to those conditions. Gujarat’s voters have risen about parochialism and communalism to think about the future.” No mention of 2002.
5:46 PM – Modi’s speaking in Hindi. So much for our translator. She’s being returned to her cupboard.
5:43 PM – And Modi’s on stage now. Our one Gujarati-speaking colleague is on hand to translate. The MC announces that Modi is here in person and not through a 3D hologram. Glad they cleared that up.
5:00 PM – In Himachal, three seats are still counting. That includes Bhattiyat, where Bikram Singh Jaryal of the BJP leads Kuldeep Singh Pathania by 226 votes. If Jaryal hangs on and the other two seats stay as they are, the Congress would win 36 seats to the BJP’s 26.
4:51 PM – Eleven seats in Gujarat are yet to declare their results. Of these, six are substantial Congress leads, while four will probably go to the BJP, which would leave the count at 115-60. The eleventh seat – Lunawada – is the interesting one, as Kalubhai Hirabhai Malivad of the BJP leads Heerabhai Haribhai Patel of the Congress by 59 votes. That is out of more than 1.4 lakh votes cast. This one’s probably not going to be decided anytime soon.
4:29 PM – The wait is on now for Narendra Modi’s address to his supporters. The Election Commission website suggests Chidambaram might be able to claim victory at the end of the day, as the BJP’s projected tally remains static at 116. That would be a loss of one seat from 2007, and a gain of one seat for the Congress, which is projected to win 60.
4:06 PM – Modi and his former political mentor Keshubhai Patel feed each other sweets in a show of camraderie.
4:00 PM – It’s official: the BJP has now won more than 93 seats, securing an absolute majority. Narendra Modi will be sworn in for his third term on 25 December. He’s met his mother, and is now off to build bridges.
Going to meet Shri Keshubhai Patel in Gandhinagar.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 20, 2012
3:51 PM – Here’s Amin’s full quote: “The Congress leadership – Rahul Gandhi, Mohan Prakash, CP Joshi – is responsible for this loss. The state leaders were busy in getting tickets for their aides, leaving the party in an orphan state. Even the Congress senior national leaders were unhappy with the way the tickets were distributed in the state. This was also reflected in the fact that even the topmost state leaders lost in their constituencies.” Amin was a former deputy CM of the state and a senior Congress leader, who quit the party to join the BJP after being denied a ticket.
3:34 PM – Tehelka Special Correspondent Brijesh Pandey has met with Congress rebel Narhari Amin. He tweets:
‘Rahul Gandhi, CP Joshi and Mohan Prakash are responsible for Conress rout in Gujarat – Narhari Amin#Gujaratelection
— BrijeshPandey (@brijeshpandey27) December 20, 2012
3:20 PM – So here are the results as they stand. In Gujarat, the BJP has won 77 seats and is leading in 39, bringing their total to 116, one less than 2007. The Congress has 42 wins and 18 leads for 60. The GPP has managed only two. In Himachal, four seats remain to be called. The Congress has secured an absolute majority with 36 seats, while the BJP has won 24 and is leading in two more.
3:03 PM – Twitter’s been abuzz all day, as expected from the occasion. Much of the talk has been about Modi, but Chidambaram’s reaction has attracted its fair share of flak.
Kapil Sibal – I have this cool concept called Zero Loss. | P Chidambaram – Poda. I have an even cooler concept called Negative Win.
— Ramesh Srivats (@rameshsrivats) December 20, 2012
Rehman Malik to Mr Chidambaram; “You didn’t believe me when I told you Pakistan won both ’65 and ’71 war. Good that you believe me now.”
— Shiv Mishra (@mishrashiv) December 20, 2012
Narendra Modi, meanwhile, is off to meet his mother before he addresses his supporters.
2:53 PM – Former Karnataka CM BS Yeddyurappa has reacted to the Gujarat verdict. “The victory of Modi in Gujarat is not the victory of BJP,” he says. “It’s the victory of brand Modi. We can make out the impact of BJP through the result of Himachal Pradesh. The party should be called Modi’s regional party: the victory is Modi’s personal victory.”
2:16 PM – Jagruti Pandya, widow of slain former home minister Haren Pandya, has lost heavily in the Ellisbridge constituency, winning only 9,075 votes. The GPP candidate, who claimed that Modi had IB officers following her, finished behind Rakesh Shah (BJP), who won 1,06,631 votes, and Kamleshkumar Shah (Congress) who came second with 29,959. Meanwhile, Arjun Modhwadia has resigned as GPCC chief.
1:58 PM – Manish Tewari has a unique glass half-full approach. “All the constituencies where Rahul Gandhi campaigned,” he says, “the Congress has won.” Wow.
1:42 PM – Suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has tweeted his reaction to Modi’s victory:
MODI all set for the National Stage! There could not be a sadder reflection of the bankruptcy of our polity. The… fb.me/szvBpnRD
— Sanjiv Bhatt IPS (@sanjivbhatt) December 20, 2012
1:37 PM – It is important to note that the numbers being flashed on TV include both actual results and leads. In Gujarat, the Election Commission has so far officially declared 31 seats, with 23 to the BJP and eight to the Congress. Narendra Modi, fittingly, was the first to be declared a victor, winning Maninagar by 86,373 votes. Shweta Bhatt (Congress), however, managed to keep her deposit, winning 21 percent of the vote.
1:23 PM – One interesting facet of the election has been defeats for second rung leaders of the Gujarat BJP. Four ministers are projected to be losing: Dilip Sanghani, Fakir Vaghela, Praful Patel and Jaynarayan Vyas. Vyas is trailing by 4,000 votes in Sanand, the site of the Tata Nano plant.
1:06 PM – Kapil Sibal puts in his entry for the quote of the day contest. “The campaign in Gujarat was 3D,” he says, “but the result was 2D.”
1:01 PM – Outgoing Himachal CM Prem Kumar Dhumal is addressing the media, congratulating the Congress for its victory and promising to introspect on the faults within the BJP. Narendra Modi will address the media at 5 PM.
12:54 PM – BJP senior leader Shanta Kumar has conceded defeat in Himachal Pradesh, saying: “We accept the verdict. All people in the BJP had fought elections together. The people did not vote for us. We accept it.” The Congress is now leading in 38 seats, to the BJP’s 24.
12:50 PM – Another major Congress setback is Arjun Modhwadia, who is losing his Porbandar seat to Babubhai Bokhiria (BJP) by almost 17,500 votes.
12:46 PM – The Congress has made gains in Saurashtra, increasing their tally to 18 from 14 last year. The BJP has lost five seats to fall to 36 seats in the region.
12:43 PM – Even as the tallies seem almost identical to 2007, the elections have by no means been an incumbent’s dream. As many as 81 seats have changed hands so far.
12:36 PM – “It is a victory for the Congress in both states,” claims Chidambaram. “The Congress has improved its tally in both the states. 2014 is 16 months away. The vote percentage has increased. The BJP had two states; in Himachal, the Congress has won. In Gujarat, the real winner is the Congress’ development plank. The BJP was claiming 140 seats but has been contained below 114.”
12:29 PM – Finance minister P Chidambaram had the quote of the day earlier, claiming that the Congress secured a moral victory by restricting the BJP to less than the 117 seats it won in 2007. Even that claim is now suspect, as the BJP is currently leading in 120 seats.
12:15 PM – Gujarat home minister Praful Patel is trailing Rajubhai Chavda (Congress) in Himatnagar by over 11,800 votes.
12:10 PM – Prem Kumar Dhumal is being projected to have won the Hamirpur constituency, beating the BJP’s Narinder Thakur by 9,302 votes. The Congress is leading the BJP by 10 seats in the state, 36-26.
12:01 PM – The GPP’s general secretary Gordhan Zadafia, home minister of the state during the 2002 riots, is also trailing in the Gondal constituency, trailing Jayrajsinh Jadeja (BJP) by almost 20,000 votes. Party president Keshubhai Patel, however, is leading his Viravadar constituency by over 23,500 votes. Both seats are dominated by Leuva Patels, a group that was expected to catapult the new party to great heights.
11:56 AM – Shaktisinh Gohil’s woes continue, as he is projected to lose his Bhavnagar Rural seat by over 20,000 votes to Parshottam Solanki. This is probably the biggest individual upset of the election.
11:42 AM – The networks have been calling Maninagar for Modi sporadically over the last two hours, but the Election Commission website still says counting is in progress. Shweta Bhatt is in danger of losing her deposit, trailing Modi by over 80,000 votes.
11:37 AM – As pundits all over the TV begin the inevitable discussion on Modi’s prime ministerial ambitions, the Congress is romping home to a majority in Himachal, leading in 38 seats to the BJP’s 24.
11:34 AM – The exit polls seem to have overstated Modi’s performance somewhat, as the BJP seems headed for a repeat of the 2007 verdict, with 115-117 seats. That is no mean feat; it is almost a two thirds majority in the state.
11:24 AM – Controversial BJP leader Amit Shah, main accused in the Sohrabuddin false encounter case, is leading in his Naranpura constituency by almost 50,000 votes.
11:21 AM – The breakup of the Gujarat results is instructive. In rural seats, the BJP and Congress are tied at 48 seats each, while in urban seats, the BJP has 46 seats to the Congress’ 7. In Muslim-majority seats, Modi’s party leads in eight seats, while the Congress has only four.
11:05 AM – In the first of our podcasts on the elections, Tehelka Special Correspondent Ashhar Khan says that the Himachal result is symptomatic of the cyclical nature of the state, which has a history of anti-incumbency, but the real headache for the party will come after the results, when it has to choose a new chief minister.
10:57 AM – Tehelka’s Aymen Mohammed has been talking to Gujarat Congress spokesperson Hriday Buch. “The people have voted for Modi and not the Indian National Congress,” he says. “However, the benefits of (Modi’s) development programme have not reached the rural areas and the people in these areas, especially in the Saurashtra region, have reposed their faith in the Congress.”
10:42 AM – Virbhadra Singh refuses to comment on whether he will be the chief minister of Himachal if the Congress comes back to power in the state.
10:39 AM – In Himachal Pradesh, the Congress is saving face, leading in 33 seats as opposed to the BJP’s 24. CM Dhumal’s son, Anurag Thakur says it is too early to say if infighting led to the party’s downfall.
10:31 AM – Gujarat Congress spokesperson Chetan Raval is refusing to concede the election, saying they will wait for the people’s verdict to come in. To be fair, not one seat has reported a result. A Congress comeback is still possible, but very, very unlikely. Meanwhile, the BJP is leading in 115 seats to the Congress’ 59, which is very similar to 2007.
10:24 AM – Keshubhai Patel, who is contesting from Visavadar, is leading Kanubhai Bhalala of the BJP by 2,500 votes. His party, however, hasn’t managed to live up to expectations, leading only in four seats.
10:15 AM – In Himachal Pradesh, chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal is leading in his Hamirpur constituency by 1,430 votes (with only about 11,000 votes counted).
10:09 AM – As for Narendrabhai himself, he is leading Shweta Bhatt by over 30,000 votes in his Maninagar constituency. Bhatt is the wife of IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who has alleged Modi was instrumental in planning and executing the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms.
10:05 AM – The Election Commission website is showing 104 leads for the BJP in Gujarat, with 59 for the Congress. In Himachal, it’s 28-20 in favour of the Congress.
10:03 AM – The leader of the Opposition in Gujarat, Shaktisinh Gohil, is trailing in his constituency of Bhavnagar (Rural) to the BJP’s Purshottam Solanki by over 10,000 votes. In this interview, he had predicted victory, as Solanki was, in his opinion, a “lousy candidate”.
9:47 AM – The Congress has gone ahead in Himachal Pradesh, with 30 leads to the BJP’s 22. Also, vote shares are in from Gujarat, with the BJP getting more than 49 percent of the vote to the Congress’ 41.
9:44 AM – A couple of interesting trends coming in. The BJP is doing very well in seats with a sizeable minority population, leading in nine of the 12 that have reported so far. On the other hand, it’s tied 8-8 in the cluster around Modi’s hometown of Vadnagar.
9:23 AM – Abhishek Manu Singhvi is on Times Now, curiously in black and white. He says that it’s too early to comment, that nothing can be said before 10:30 AM. And there you go, Himachal Pradesh is now tied 19-19 for both national parties.
9:19 AM – The BJP seems to be running away with Himachal Pradesh, with 20 leads to the Congress’ 14 so far. But the exit polls suggest a close race, with the Congress edging out the BJP. C-Voter gives 30 to 38 seats to the Congress, with 27 to 35 for the BJP. Chanakya gives it 40-23 to the Congress, while CNN-IBN gives 29 to 35 to both the Congress and the BJP.
9:14 AM – The Times of India’s Ahmedabad edition has this nugget. Pure gold.
9:07 AM – Leads in from 105 seats in Gujarat. The BJP leads in 66, while the Congress has 34 leads. In Himachal, it’s 11 for the BJP and 5 for the Congress.
8:52 AM – You wouldn’t know it from watching TV right now, but there is also an election being counted in Himachal Pradesh. Seven leads are in, with the BJP leading in six and the Congress in one.
8:49 AM – Leads are in from 25 seats in Gujarat, with the BJP leading in 17, while the Congress has 8 leads.
8:47 AM – Speaking of factionalism, Tehelka’s Brijesh Pandey, who is in Ahmedabad, has talked about the disunity in the opposition Congress in this article.
8:43 AM – Everybody and their uncle has had an opinion on which way the count is going to go. But what do the exit polls say? It’s good news for Modi, as most polls predict him increasing his 117-seat haul from 2007. CNN-IBN has the BJP getting 129 to 141 seats, while CVoter gives him 119 to 124, and ABP Nielsen says his tally will fall slightly to 116. His victory is all but assured, despite factionalism and anti-incumbency.
8:28 AM – It’s 20 December, which means the world could come to an end tomorrow. Modi-baiters would suggest that the Gujarat CM coming back into power could have something to do with that. The count has begun, and the networks are promising three hours of commercial-free awesomeness. No figures are in as yet.
8:07 AM – D-day for the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly election results. The counting of votes in Gujarat and HP will begin shortly. Tehelka Special Correspondent Brijesh Pandey is in Ahmedabad, tracking the latest updates…
The Hobbit: Jackson’s film fails to recreate the fantastical
As an engineering student, I copped a lot of grief for refusing to worship at the altar of JRR Tolkien. It wasn’t so much that one didn’t respect the sheer awesomeness of the world the mild-mannered English professor had imagined, but the fact that one couldn’t be bothered to read through thousands of pages of arcane trivia about a non-existent universe in order to parse through a plot that wasn’t gripping enough, didn’t justify the exercise. Fantasy fiction is at its best when it tells us something about the real world. The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) was perhaps the same prescriptive tale of heroism that had turned me off organised religion by then. Tolkien’s trilogy triggered an aversion for the genre — filled mostly by bad imitations of itself.
So when one says that The Hobbit is as poor an attempt at providing an origins tale to a popular trilogy as The Phantom Menace was, one is perhaps prejudiced by a jaundiced view of Tolkien, but at least there’s an acknowledgement of the possibility of the said prejudice. Peter Jackson’s treatment of what is a very different text from Tolkien’s trilogy is more of the same and is sleep-inducing at best.
One could be charitable and say that his decision to expand the book into a trilogy was because he missed immersing himself in Tolkien’s imagination; others would say he wanted to cash in on it. Whatever be the reason, it fails: at 300 pages,The Hobbit is a tenth of the size of the LOTR books, which means that unlike those films, the challenge for Jackson is to add stuff, rather than remove it. He does this not by adding depth to the characters or playing around with storytelling methods, but by adding extraneous plot and introducing more characters, some of whom appeared in the trilogy but were left out of the films. The perfectly sane, animal loving wizard Radagast, for instance, is metamorphosed into a mushroom-abusing lunatic riding a sleigh driven by rabbits. All right, Sylvester McCoy is awesome (used here in the more commonplace sense) in the role. But there’s also an arc involving an orc with a grudge against the dwarf king Thorin (Armitage, as badass as ever), which is never given any more depth than snarling wargs giving pursuit. This is settled in a double climax, with the all-important war with the goblins from the book, on the sidelines of which Bilbo comes across The Ring, getting second billing to settling this invented rivalry. The end of the battle has been abused as a deus ex machina by Jackson so many times that when the first time Tolkien used it comes around, one says, “Oh, no. Not again.”
The words, “Oh no, not again” work as a refrain during the run time of the film. Jackson is a better technician than a storyteller, and has a limited repertoire of expression. The Hobbit is different from the trilogy in its lightheartedness, but that is because it was primarily a children’s story. However, there’s not much difference when it comes to the grammar of the film; why change a successful style just to please an insignificant critic? It feels like a fourth film, which has positives, especially if you’re a sucker for the New Zealand countryside, but also negatives — such as the fact that it feels like a fourth film.
Ajachi Chakrabarti is a Correspondent with Tehelka.
ajachi@tehelka.com
The Family That Poses Together
WHEN HE was 18, Sean Lee picked up the camera only to never put it down again. The 27-year-old photographer from Singapore has been making waves with the latest edition of his evolving series Homework, initiated in 2010, which is showing as part of the exhibition Postcards from the Interior at Exhibit 320, Delhi. Initiated by Singapore-based artist Nicholas Foo and curated by Delhi-based photographer Tanvi Mishra, the show brings together photographers from India and Singapore in an attempt to explore self and identity. Lee’s work fits right into the framework. In Homework, he turns the camera onto his family. “He can’t extricate himself from his work. It is as much about him as it is about his family, albeit in constructed fictional scenarios,” says Mishra. She emphasises the importance of touch in his images — his parents hugging, his mother sitting on top of his father — something so simple yet so alien to children growing up in Singapore, or for that matter South Asia. Photographer Prashant Panjiar, who also selected Lee’s work for 2011 Delhi Photo Festival, adds, “The root of affinity is family. It is yet another way of going into the self. Looking at family is looking at the self.” Lee has also shown at the New York Photo Festival, the Arles Photo Festival and the Angkor Photo Festival where he won the Special Jury Prize (2007).
The exhibition is on till 7 January. It also features Sumit Dayal, Ankit Goyal, Carrie Lam, Akshay Mahajan and Nguan
Aradhna Wal is a Sub Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com
