Thursday, December 25, 2025

The art mart

By
Aradhna Wal
-

Annurag Sharma, and Johny ML have brought unnoticed art to the masses. Can they sustain it as a truly democratic model? Aradhna Wal finds out

For the people Johny ML (left) and Annurag Sharma
Photo: Shailendra Pandey

HIGHLY ANTICIPATED and massively scaled, the United Art Fair (UAF) began on the wrong foot. On 27 September, at New Delhi’s Pragati Maidan, well-heeled guests were wandering around slightly lost. Almost 600 works of art had been displayed without the artists’ names. The harried organising team muttered something about mismanagement. Curator Johny ML had an explanation at hand: “I don’t want people to look for established names. Let them stumble across works that please or surprise them.” Founder Annurag Sharma concurred, “I want people to form an emotional attachment to works they like, not look for artists they know of.”
UAF’s first edition pegged itself on the democratisation of contemporary Indian art since its inception, calling itself the world’s first “artist-driven art fair”. The selected artists paid no participation fee for the four days (27-30 September). Galleries, who normally pay for space, were kept out of the proceedings — a move that pleased some and perplexed others.
The venue housed a collection of masters’ works — Akbar Padamsee, MF Husain, Anjolie Ela Menon; contemporary established artists — Chintan Upadhyay, Brinda Miller, Subodh Kerkar; and hitherto unknown talent from across the country. Johny travelled to 15 cities, hunting in small art institutes and studios. One centrepiece, a life-size fiberglass replica of a luxury car, worth 45 lakh, was by a young Delhi College of Arts student, Neeraj Rawal.
As the curatorial mastermind, Johny had organised the space like a mini-city. The maze-like-streets were named after great artists of yore, such as Rabindranath Tagore Street and Amrita Sher-Gil Street. Turn left, you were confronted by Gandhi depicted in a series of modern landscapes; turn right and there were photographs of ants crawling over naked human bodies.
“There is shock value and some inherent criticism of art in the way I have curated. We have many first-time buyers picking up works that please the eye. But I want to educate them. Why are they looking at one work in a particular way? Why should we hold some things sacred?” asked Johny.
Yet, he, as the puppet master, could see that larger picture that escaped many. The street names were random. It made no sense to put some artworks under Tagore’s name and not others. An educated viewer would be tempted to look for symbolism that wasn’t there; a less-informed one would believe that there was some. Raqs Media Collective curator Monica Narula expressed her reservation: “Selection is opinion-based.
But to curate is to provoke questions about what is at stake. It’s about custodianship. How democratic is one man managing the space for hundreds of artists, displaying them according to his vision?” She questioned the exclusion of galleries. “The fair takes 50 percent of the sales proceedings, just like galleries. Isn’t it functioning like a large gallery? Galleries promote artists over a sustained period of time. Here, the spotlight lasts four days.”
Sharma put the figure at 35 percent, saying they used the money to frame and transport the artwork for many artists. He also plans to take 100 artists, selected by the fair’s jury, to different cities and abroad.

‘I don’t want people to look for big names. Let them stumble across works that surprise them,’ says Johny

Goan artist Subodh Kerkar happily supported Sharma and Johny: “I’ve never displayed at the India Art Fair as I’ve never been associated with a gallery that would pay for space. If you’re not with a gallery, you’re out.” There is also the danger that market-driven galleries drop artists when they find the next flavour of the year.
Delhi-based art critic Ina Puri was sceptical, but on board. She warned, and Sharma agreed, that commerce and galleries would come into play at some point in the future. As a launching pad, the UAF is a worthy endeavour if it proves its credibility over time. Both the founder and the curator are aware that they have to build a brand.
So far, the inauguration has proved to be a success. As confusing as the first impression is, the fair comes together, organically, over the four days. Just like a city teeming with life, there was a method to Johny’s madness.
Aradhna Wal is a Sub-Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com

‘If a shy, gay man born in a Bombay chawl can see this fame, anyone can’

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

WENDELL Rodricks’ inspirational personal arc and disciplined engagement with his craft make his autobiography an engrossing read. The 52-year-old fashion designer discusses The Green Room with Ajachi chakrabarti.

Wendell Rodricks
Wendell Rodricks

EDITED EXCERPTS FROM AN INTERVIEW
When does one decide that it’s time to write a memoir?
I thought I’d write an autobiography later, maybe 10 years from now, but the opportunity presented itself. Other designers are doing retrospectives, and I was pompous enough to think a book would be more cerebral. I was worried that some things that were being perpetuated about me would go down in posterity. If I am truthful, accept all my flaws as well as my victories, and state it without getting emotionally involved with myself, I could guard against self-indulgence. There were moments when I was skating on thin ice because I spoke about every collection I did. That was a slight indulgence.
Is this your personal story or a history of fashion?
At least a quarter of it is about the fashion industry. I wanted to tell a story of inspiration. Throughout my career, I’d come home and say, “Pinch me, I’m dreaming.” If I, as a shy, stuttering, gay man born in a Bombay chawl could see this fame, anyone could.
Is the perception of fashion as an industry ruled by egos and scandals accurate?
I have seen the real Page 3. But then I go to a party in my village, and there’s a rich person showing off his car, and an auntie from the Gulf doing her thing. Fashion and cinema get a spotlight because of the spotlight they already have. There’s talk about cocaine in the fashion industry, but there is cocaine among bankers, corporations and the media. Every profession has the same cast of characters.
How has Goa affected your sensibilities, your method?
If not for Goa, I wouldn’t be able to give this country minimalism, or resort wear, or eco-friendly clothes. It was Goa that gave me that inspiration, as a result of being close to nature and being with people who did not care where I came from. In fact, my staff had no idea I was famous till they saw me in the papers. But it didn’t affect them. That is what Goa gave me: a very real life devoid of flattery and sycophancy.
THE GREEN ROOM Wendell Rodricks Rupa & Co 380 pp; Rs 595
THE GREEN ROOM
Wendell Rodricks
Rupa & Co
380 pp; Rs 595

Your book talks about your partner Jerome, but doesn’t discuss the struggles of coming out.
That’s because I did not have any struggles. I was honest with my family from the beginning. When I introduced them to Jerome, they accepted him because he is a solid person. If I had an outing of sorts, it was Shobhaa Dé writing about it. That spooked my family. They were fine with the larger family knowing, the colony knowing, all of Mahim knowing, but suddenly going out into the public arena was a shock.
You are planning to write a textbook on cutting cloth.
You see students trying to cut a garment, they are going crazy because it is based on this obscure method that requires a lot of mathematical calculation, and all fashion designers are terrible at math. I can throw a pair of scissors to barely half a dozen designers today who will be able to cut a garment in 10 minutes. Indian tailors have a method in their head and they cut in a certain way, but if you ask them what that method is, they won’t be able to tell you. I’ve stumbled upon a formula. If you watch me cut in that method, even you’d be able to cut clothes.
Why isn’t the fashion industry thinking about techniques and disseminating them?
They’re too busy making money (laughs). I think there is a lot of scope for research, if the various levels of this industry come together on one platform. If I could write a book like Moda Goa, I’m sure other designers can do a better job with their states. Nobody can do Kolkata better than Sabyasachi (Mukherjee) and no one can do Kashmir better than Rohit Bal. The problem is that like everything else in India, there is very little R&D. We need to constantly update our syllabus.
ajachi@tehelka.com

A Wry Read on Royalty

By
Aradhna Wal
-

Ruskin Bond’s newest book is a detached and amused look at a decadent queen and an age long gone, says Aradhna Wal

Holding Court Ruskin Bond
Holding Court Ruskin Bond

AS YOU get older you have more stories to tell,” is how Ruskin Bond explains publishing a book every year. The 78-year-old author’s latest book, Maharani, falls into a familiar groove of chronicling a bygone era. The novella is a charming look at a motley bunch of characters and life in the hills when they were a destination for the elite.
Ruskin, the eponymous narrator, and Neena meet at a school ‘social’. Married at 16 to the older Maharajah of Mastipur, whose signature eccentricity is raising white mice, Her Highness is a grand old dame with a hefty sense of old school entitlement. The narrator and HH, as he fondly calls her, reconnect on a Pondicherry beach, and party at her home in Mussoorie, which overflows with liquor supplied by her many lovers, from Bolivian diplomats and Brigadiers, to a hotel pianist.
“I am a romantic,” Bond admits. “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” “Here” is the slopes of Mussoorie, which he describes sparely, yet evoking lush images of light and shadow, of sunsets and solitary walks that end in chance encounters with the book’s quirky cast. Pablo, the beautiful, beloved young son of the seduced diplomat sticks pins into voodoo dolls, hoping to kill off people he intensely dislikes. His sister, Anna, serenely sketches the ghosts she sees in windows. This infusion of whimsy and the supernatural is as integral to Bond’s writing as it is to the hills. Bond collects eccentrics. “I’ve always gotten along with difficult people. Perhaps growing up in a home with relatives always in strange troubles has something to do with it. Maybe I’m a good listener to these people. Maybe they’re the ones with the best stories,” he says. His romanticism hasn’t divorced him from reality. “The more you are around adults, the sooner you lose your innocence. Perhaps, there are some people in whom it is inbred and stays for life,” muses the author and finds echo in his writing. “This book is about decay,” he says. That becomes nauseatingly obvious in the two-foot-long field rats and the innumerable pet dogs that go astray. They have a grim part to play in the plot. “Animals belong to the wild, it is a little unnatural to keep them as pets. Nature will intrude in some way,” says Bond.
Penguin
Maharani
Ruskin Bond
Penguin
192pp; Rs 350

This isn’t the sepia-tinted world of his earlier work. “I think I’ve grown more cynical, and my writing and humour have a sharper edge to them.” Ruskin, the character, professes neither a great friendship with HH nor a strong condemnation of her merry destruction of others’ happiness. Theirs is a happy companionship. HH, though hard to like, is riveting, with her salacious stories, like the one about Jim Corbett’s indifference towards women. Who she really is, Bond is reluctant to divulge. He laughs off the question, saying she is an amalgam of many people he has known. “It is important to preserve these memories, to show readers that such people did exist. It’s a personal aim. As I write them down, fiction takes over.”
His books exist in those blurry boundaries and he finds writing in first person much easier. “Once I wrote about myself as a boy escaping Japanese occupation in Jakarta. And people thought it was true,” he laughs. Dickens, with his own eventful childhood, is Bond’s literary hero. On whether Maharani is reality or fiction, he quotes that other wonderful charlatan, Mark Twain, “Interesting if true. And if not true, still interesting.”
Aradhna Wal is a Sub-Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com

The Gavel Sounded Right

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

Jyotsna Yagnik, who delivered the historic Naroda Patiya judgement, sentencing Babu Bajrangi and Maya Kodnani to life, is no stranger to difficult cases, says Ajachi Chakrabarti

Photo: Mayur Bhatt

The Naroda Patiya judgement has rightly been lauded as a landmark in the long road to providing justice for the victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots. The 1,969-page verdict, holding former BJP ministers Maya Kodnani, Babu Bajrangi and 30 others guilty for the 28 February 2002 massacre in Gujarat that saw 97 people mercilessly killed, has been praised by lawyers and activists alike.
At the centre of all this is a 58-year-old woman, described as a “very upright Hindu”, who spent nearly three years hearing the shocking testimonies of those who had witnessed the wanton violence. Special judge Jyotsna Yagnik is no stranger to high-profile cases involving violence. In 2008, she sentenced Delhi businessman Sajal Jain and four of his friends to life imprisonment for gang raping Jain’s 24-year-old mistress Bijal Joshi on New Year’s Eve in 2003. Joshi had killed herself, naming her rapists in her suicide note. The macabre case involved coercion of witnesses and destruction of vital physical evidence by Jain’s influential family, but Yagnik held firm, ignoring defendants’ pleas that the accused were young and educated. “Money cannot lessen the quantum of sentence,” she had said.
It is this ability to see through false sentiments and tampered evidences that has held her in good stead in the Naroda Patiya case. “Yagnik managed to cull out the best evidence from a weak prosecution,” says advocate Mukul Sinha, one of the petitioners in the case. “It should be noted that from the very beginning of the investigations, the CID made every effort to sabotage the case. When the SIT was appointed in 2009, it made very slow progress, but she managed to take into account the best evidence.”
After the Bijal Joshi case, Yagnik was once again under the spotlight when she was one of three special judges who heard the ISI conspiracy case, filed in 2003, for a Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) court. In 2010, she sentenced 18 of the 44 accused to 10 years imprisonment, three to nine years and one to three years in jail, for illegally crossing into Pakistan for training to organise terror attacks in India to avenge the Gujarat riots. The case was notable in that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his aide Chhota Shakeel were among 36 people declared absconding in the case.
Arguably the Naroda Patiya judgement was the first time in India that the jail terms for different offences were made non-concurrent, while Babu Bajrangi was sentenced to life without remission after 14 years. Sinha describes the judgement as sending a signal that she was convinced of the cruelty of the heinous crime. “The language of the judgement and the sentencing show that she was determined to deliver justice to the victims,” he says. So much so, the judge’s decision not to award the death penalty is not being seen as a lenient move. “Even though the death penalty was not given, the judgement is absolutely unambiguous in its purpose,” says Sinha. “The correct message has been sent out to the higher judiciary.”
Yagnik’s judgement weighed the arguments for and against the death penalty, before concluding that with 139 countries having abolished it by 2009, there was a “momentum of general suspension of capital punishment throughout the world,” and that “the progressive society restricts the use of the death penalty… Use of death penalty undermines human dignity.” This opinion is consistent with her career, in which she has fought for human rights through the Legal Aid and Human Rights Centre.
Anand Yagnik, a prominent advocate in the state describes her as having “remained very bold and [possessing] the courage to speak the truth.” A student of judge at the Gujarat Law Society, he says, “She cannot be commanded by the State. You can win her by logical arguments, but never by exerting pressure on her. She is intellectually sound and balanced between her heart and mind. Emotion does not play a part in her judgements.”

Spin to win

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

The Campaign
DIRECTOR
Jay Roach

STARRING 
Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Dylan Mcdermott, John Lithgow, Dan Aykroyd
By Ajachi Chakrabarti
THERE IS a point in The Campaign where Will Ferrell punches a baby in the face. He later goes on to punch Uggie, the dog from The Artist. Both times, he is actually aiming for his opponent in a Congressional race. Even with the current fractiousness in American politics, this is over the top. Then again, subtlety isn’t this film’s strong suit, especially since it is directed by Jay Roach of Austin Powers and Meet the Parentsfame.
Unlike those masterpieces of cinéma vérité, The Campaign does have what could pass as subtext (even if written in 50-foot flaming letters): post-Citizens United — the 2010 US Supreme Court verdict that allowed independent political expenditure — Big Money plays a major role in politics. Said Big Money is played by TV comedy veterans Lithgow and Aykroyd as the Motch brothers, a not-so-veiled reference to the infamous Koch brothers. They run a good-hearted doofus, Marty Huggins (Galifianakis, sadly de-bearded), against five-time incumbent and hitherto-unopposed Cam Brady (Ferrell) for a Congressional election in North Carolina. Helping Huggins “not suck” is Tim Wattley (Mc- Dermott), a campaign manager adept in the dark arts of character assassination. Not that there’s much to assassinate, with Brady paying homage to every political scandal that has made headlines. Brady’s popularity is falling because he leaves a sexually explicit message meant for a mistress on the phone of a religious family. The brothers’ nefarious designs also involve getting Huggins to help them set up a Chinese sweatshop, an idea they call “insourcing”.
Hilarity ensues as it only can in a Ferrell film. Scenes resemble Saturday Night Live sketches and the climax could have been written by Frank Capra on some very dangerous drugs. The Campaign works because the jokes are genuinely funny and excellently delivered by a stellar cast. Ferrell and Galifianakis deliver comedically precise performances, well supported by brilliant character actors, such as Karen Maruyama as Mrs Yao, the Huggins family maid, paid extra to effect a Mammy Two Shoes accent to remind Marty’s father of the good ol’ antebellum South.
It may not be highbrow political satire, but the film has its unsettling moments. Because you will laugh when a baby gets punched in the face.

The deceptive lens

By
Aradhna Wal
-

Brahm Maira’s first solo show is striking evidence of a sharp, fresh eye, says Aradhna Wal

Image builder Glowing Eyes Purple Haze by Brahm Maira
Image builder Glowing Eyes Purple Haze by Brahm Maira
Photos: Arun Sehrawat

A PANORAMIC blue-green background looks like sky and water meeting. A woman kneels in supplication and prayer. The images have been superimposed on top of each other; a vibrant figure standing out against breathtaking colours. This is Humility, one of the images in Brahm Maira’s upcoming show Traverse. All set to open on 8 September at Delhi’s Stainless Gallery, it is the 26-year-old art photographer’s first solo show.
Traverse has been in the making for years. The art consists mainly of personal work Maira has done while juggling commercial fashion/industrial work, other commissioned shoots, group shows, and studying at the Sydney College of the Arts. “I spent five years in Australia, so I’ve shot the East coast. I travelled the States, so there is work from there. I’d find myself in random industrial towns in India on work,” he says. His images, too, come together post production, where he combines scenes captured from different geographic spaces to create a complete picture; there is an Australian landscape, trees from Kerala backwaters and the Chattarpur Mandir in Delhi. All combine to evoke the serenity and the macrocosmic scope of devotion in Humility.

Maira’s willingness to experiment keeps his art from becoming just another imitation

The medium is called photo manipulation. The words themselves could cause people to doubt its merit. Is it meddling with or taking away from pure photography? Maira seems unfazed. The art is popular in galleries in US, Europe and Australia. It is, however, small in India. “I don’t know how people will respond to it. That remains to be seen.
People are slowly becoming more receptive. So let’s wait till they see the work,” he says.

Brahm Maira
Brahm Maira

Maira’s images are trippy. His influences in colour and style can be seen clearly — Alex Grey and Ansel Adams, respectively. Grey’s kaleidoscopic canvas has been invoked in the image Patience. The image of Buddha from Ladakh is depicted in a tunnel from a Scottish castle, that has a floor like a seabed, and its walls are rings of green refracted from the literal light at the end of the tunnel. And the landscapes try to be as sweeping as Adam’s famously were. As the photographer admits, landscapes are his favourite subject. However, Maira’s skill with colours and his willingness to experiment keep his art from becoming just another imitation. Though some images have a lot of components to them, they are not cluttered. A case in point isGlowing Eyes Purple Haze. It could easily be so overwhelming that one cannot take it in as a whole. However, there is a certain cleanness to the lines. The image of the face is sharp, yet if looked at closely, the lines on it form a sort of optical illusion. Playing around with pictures, people and places has taught Maira some tricks of improvisation. For example, in Patience, he uses the spring of a slinky toy on his lens to achieve the tunnel effect.
Traverse is Maira’s solid attempt at making his own statement. He admits it is an experiment in the making and has no one theme. But it brings together five years of travel, work and discovering his skills and preferences with the camera.
Aradhna Wal is a Sub-Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com

'Government can afford to make the public distribution system universal'

By
Ajachi Chakrabarti
-

The second day of Jan Manch saw an unanimous demand for ensuring better implementation of the PDS
Ajachi Chakrabarti
New Delhi

Aruna Roy and Prakash Javadekar at the public meeting on food security
Photo: Ankit Agrawal

Roundly criticising the proposed National Food Security Bill, a public meeting organised by the Right to Food Campaign and the Pension Parishad called for the universalisation of the public distribution system (PDS) by removing the concept of targeting distribution on the basis of the poverty line.
“Right to food needs to be made a fundamental right,” said D Raja

“The government has created an artificial wall between APL (above poverty line) and BPL (below poverty line) families,” said Prakash Javadekar, spokesperson of the BJP. “Break down this wall!” he said. He underlined his party’s commitment to ensure food security, citing the fact that they kept their promise of not raising the prices of essential supplies while in power in Maharashtra. He promised to make the PDS universal if the BJP was voted into power.
As he left the stage, however, Prof Jayati Ghosh of Jawaharlal Nehru University said that it was the NDA government that created the divide between APL and BPL. “We cannot simply trust the BJP to meet our demands if they come into power,” she said. “The only thing that seems to work is people putting pressure on the government.”
Sharing the stage with Javadekar was Kavita Krishnan, a member of the Central Committee of the CPI(ML) Liberation, who announced that her party would launch a jail bharo andolan against corruption and the food crisis on 31 August. “The government can afford to make the PDS universal,” she said. “Every other day, we hear of new corruption scandals, where they are giving away the wealth of the nation to private companies. Every year during the budget, the government gives tax breaks to rich corporations. If they can afford to pay for the rich, they should be able to pay for our rights,” she said.
CPM leader D Raja expressed the Left Front’s support for the campaign, citing their nationwide campaign for food security. He said that if Parliament was allowed to function, his party would demand the passage of an amended version of the Bill. “Right to food needs to be made a fundamental right,” he said. “There is enough food to feed everyone, but the government lacks the political will to remove starvation and hunger.”
All the speakers criticised the Delhi government’s proposed cash transfer scheme, with Krishnan saying that it would leave people at the mercy of market forces. “Cash transfers are being offered as an alternative where you have failed to deliver something,” said Nikhil Dey of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS). “It is the easiest way out of everything. I have failed to deliver education, so I’ll give you cash so you can go find your own school. I have failed to deliver health, so I’ll underwrite your bill to find healthcare in the private sector. This does two things: it helps the private sector and undermines the basic responsibility of the state.”
Dey said that he does not support replicating cash transfers in India, despite their celebrated success in Brazil and Mexico. “I have personally seen both cases,” he said. “Cash transfers need targeting, which has never worked in India. Even Brazil hasn’t succeeded. Only half of those who apply in Brazil get the transfers. They have inspectors who personally go and screen applicants. Imagine doing that in India with 120 crore people. Already with the BPL list, they have made a mess of it,” he added.
He did not see the failings of the PDS in India as a rationale for dismantling it, saying that there were examples such as Chhattisgarh and Tamil Nadu that showed it could work if the system involved the people. “Anything can be made to fail,” he said. He listed universalisation, full transparency, giving people a chance to complain and acting on those complaints as measures to make the PDS work.

‘If watchman is asleep, we should have the right to alert others’
Activists, politicians and journalists voice for protection to be provided to the whistleblower’s family under the Whistleblowers Protection Bill
Ajachi Chakrabarti
New Delhi
“The Constitution says that the people are the masters of this country, and as the masters, we should have all the information on every aspect,” said Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathana (MKSS) co-founder and social activist Aruna Roy at a public meeting in New Delhi on Monday 27 August.
Delivering the valedictory address to the public meeting on the Whistleblowers (Protection in Public Interest Disclosures) Bill as well as the Grievance Redressal Bill, Roy asked the government to take into account all stakeholders before formulating policy, and that without five pillars – information, public hearing, action, people’s participation and security for all complainants – the Whistleblowers Bill would not be effective. She was speaking at a Jan Manch organised by the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI), Inclusive Media for Change and Foundation for Media Professionals and Accountability Initiative at the Constitution Club of India in New Delhi.
Also speaking at the meeting were Dhananjay Dubey, brother of slain whistleblower Satyendra Dubey; Mangla Ram and Bhikham Chand, two RTI activists who were attacked for raising corruption issues; as well as senior journalists and politicians. The speakers flagged a number of issues with the whistleblower protection framework, including its limitation of the definition of whistleblowing to only corruption cases, no protection for a whistleblower’s family and flaws in the definition of ‘complainant’.
Bhikham Chand and Mangla Ram spoke about their experience in facing violence for speaking out against corruption. Chand, who filed an RTI application for his gram panchayat’s financial records, had had both his legs broken by goons allegedly hired by the sarpanch. Ram had also been assaulted for similar activism. All the speakers favoured extending the protection under the law to RTI activists, employees of NGOs, journalists and human rights activists.
Vandana Chavan, a newly-inducted Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Rajya Sabha MP, promised to make her maiden Parliamentary speech on the Whistleblowers Bill, and said that it was important to highlight cases such as that of Chand and Ram’s, “so that they know they are not alone.” She felt that the law should also hold private agencies accountable, talking about threats she had faced from the land mafia during her tenure as corporator of Pune. Chavan also spoke of threats to her daughter, and underlined that the family of the whistleblower must be protected as well. Kamal Chenoy, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, rubbished the national security exception in the bill, saying that those who expose the excesses of the armed forces, especially in areas where the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is in force, should also be protected. “If our watchman is asleep, we should have the right to alert other people,” said Aruna Roy in an intervention.
Tehelka Managing Editor Shoma Chaudhury and journalist Aniruddha Bahal spoke about their harrowing experience after highlighting government corruption, while Vinod Mehta, Editor-in-chief of Outlook, said that unless a strong public opinion is built and people stand up and protect the whistleblowers, no law – however well crafted – can work. Senior advocate and anti-corruption activist Prashant Bhushan spoke against the Chief Vigilance Commission (CVC) being the competent authority on whistleblower protection, saying that in the past five years, the CVC had not protected even one whistleblower. He said that since its members were appointed by the government, it was weak and malleable. He said an independent authority was required for whistleblowers’ protection.
The conference also discussed the Grievance Redressal Bill, with organisations that had held grievance redressal camps in Delhi in December coming together and reporting its results. “I live just three kilometres away from the Parliament but we live in such degraded and inhuman condition that for us the Grievance Redress Bill is absolutely essential in order to claim our rights and entitlements as citizens,” said Khursheed of the National Federation for Indian Women. East Delhi MP Sandeep Dikshit, however, held that states did not appreciate the Union government interfering in their internal affairs and that many states had already passed their own grievance redressal mechanisms. Dikshit also offered to start a dialogue between the organisations and the Delhi government.
The MKSS will also organise similar Jan Manch meetings at Jantar Mantar on food security and pensions on 28 and 29 August.
letters@tehelka.com

The Bard Goes Local

By
Aradhna Wal
-

All the world’s a stage The performance at The Globe Theatre

THE STAGE: Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London. The scene: A house packed to the rafters, cheering along with the actors in freezing rain. The play: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. The twist: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night in Hindi, as Piya Behrupia, with smatterings of Punjabi, Urdu and broken English.
The Company Theatre (TCT), a Mumbai-based theatre group, recently staged Piya Behrupiya in London as part of the World Shakespeare Festival. There were 37 plays from world over, such as a Swahili version of The Merry Wives of Windsor and Richard III in Mandarin. After shows in Mumbai and Delhi, the play will open the Rangshankara Festival in Bengaluru in October. Directed by Atul Kumar and translated by Amitosh Nagpal, it was commissioned by The Globe, as part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad. “They were clear that it was to be a translation, not an adaptation,” says Kumar. Translation is what he, his cast and crew are calling it.
However, as the mannerisms and costumes echo Indian heartlands, one wonders how fine the line is between translation and adaptation. “We haven’t changed names. The place is still Illyria; the characters are Orsino, Viola and Olivia. But the language and the setting have to blend. Cesario becomes ‘Cejario’ and Andrew Aguecheek, played by a Bengali actor, is Andrew dada,” Kumar explains. It seemed to have worked for the crowd at the play’s Delhi opening. Cesario’s self-introduction to Olivia, “I am from very good family. But disturbed personally,” was accompanied by shouts of laughter and Olivia’s hilarious odeCejario left people in splits.
The stylistic influence is of nautanki plays, where a travelling troupe puts up heavily improvised song and dance shows, sans sets. Piya Behrupiya, too, has no sets. The Globe does not allow for those; something the crew has incorporated in their Indian shows. The acting and the music carry the play and the whistles in Kamani Auditorium stand testimony. The folk music is part self-composed, part songs from Punjab, Maharashtra and Bundelkhand. The highlight is the qawwali between Andrew dada and Sebastian (played by Nagpal) in which they hurl the basest of insults at each other to Sufi music. Gagan Dev Riar, the composer and the actor playing Sir Toby Belch, elaborates on the process. “We’ve taken music from different regions in India. We’ve changed lyrics to explain situations, and for some scenes we composed our own songs,” he says. “Once we started selecting, we got a fair idea of the sound we wanted.”
A two-and-a-half hour show with 18 songs must invite comparisons to Bollywood. “Of course, it did,” laughs Mantra Mugdh, who plays Andrew dada. “But then Bollywood owes everything to Shakespeare. This play, though, is very theatre-specific.” As Toby constantly breaks the fourth wall, calling for “audience interaction”, Sebastian in his rib-tickling sutradhar avatar tries to explain the plot, saying “Yeh daily soap nahin hai,Shakespeare hai Shakespeare”, Mugdh’s statement rings true.
Kumar calls his translator “an actor who writes”. Nagpal’s script carries off both the witty wordplay and sheer slapstick, that appeals differently to various audiences. “People in London laughed in different places than the Indian audience. We didn’t expect that. In fact, for one song everyone in The Globe raised their hands and swayed to the music. We felt like rockstars,” recalls Mugdh. TCT reminds us why Shakespeare lives on in every culture — these are stories of people, power, love and sex.
Aradhna Wal is a Sub-Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com

New Wave Naga Chic

By
Aradhna Wal
-

Forget Zara, wear Naga. Asa Kazingmei’s debut at the Lakmé Fashion Week blends the traditions of his people with hip sensibilities, says Aradhna Wal

Patterns of a people Models walking the Lakmé Fashion Week 2012 ramp for Asa Kazingmei
Patterns of a people Models walking the Lakmé Fashion Week 2012 ramp for Asa Kazingmei
Photo Courtesy: Lakmé Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2012

WHEN THE Lakmé Fashion Week (LFW) opened on 4 August, one set of designs stood out — striking red and black combinations, running motifs of diamonds and shawls and clean lines with bold architectural structures. The applause and the notice people took were an obvious testament to creator Asa Kazingmei’s talent. The 28-year-old marked his debut as part of the Gen Next Designers, who kicked off the 2012 Winter/Festive Edition of the LFW in Mumbai. The designer from Ukhrul, Manipur, has drawn on the customs of his people — the Tangkhul Naga tribe — to create his collection “Immortal”. “That is what impressed the panel that selected me for Gen Next,” he says. Over 250 aspiring designers applied from all over the world. Kazingmei was one of the seven chosen.
As a boy, Kazingmei stitched many of his own clothes. Growing up in Manipur in the 1990s meant that he was on the frontline of the Hallyu wave, which signified the meteoric popularity of South Korean music and entertainment. An avid watcher of Korean movies, his personal look — the stylised, streaked hair, zany jackets and trousers, the many scarves — is infused with a funky K-pop vibe. His designs, however, go close to the roots of his people. The traditional Tangkhul shawl raivat is made of handwoven textiles and a colour palette of black and red stripes. This is his basic storyboard. Building on that, he has created dresses with undulating hems and high collars. A vivid red weave overlaid on a basic black dress references the hand-woven nature of the material. Drapes have been reworked into broad pleats that carry zoomorphic imagery and traditional geometric patterns. The look comes across as edgy but stops short of being unrealistically futuristic. The clean cut renders it majestic. A non-fashionista would consider it cool.
“It’s very dramatic. He’s used traditional shawls and drapes to create a modern garment,” remarks fashion journalist Sathya Saran, who was on the advisory board of the LFW. She adds, “He is creating a western silhouette, because there is a market for that. Despite that, he is doing something different. This is not just another little black dress.” According to Saran, Nagas are a fashionable people, the best dressed in any gathering. Kazingmei has woven contemporary sartorial sensibilities and traditional gear with aplomb. He explains, “The motifs are a homage to the bravery of my tribe’s soldiers. And to the dignity of the people.” The shawl, which Kazingmei has spun into dresses, is traditionally worn only by the head of the house, or by the village headman. On the ramp, it is his cheerful salutation.
Photo: Sandeep Rasal

KAZINGMEI CAME to Mumbai in 2008 and joined the International Institute of Fashion Design for a year-long professional course. “I’ve been in the city for five years. Everyone has always supported me. And I’ll be able to push my business to a bigger scale. I am sure that in five years, I will establish my own brand,” he says. For now, he looks to popular upscale brands like Diesel for inspiration. “Right now, Renzo Rosso is my favourite designer. However, any designer associated with Diesel is my favourite most of the times.”
The dreams are big and he’s got stars in his eyes. However, Saran lines her praise with a warning. “He needs to get his marketing and production in place and he might go far. Most young designers fall into the same trap; they think they only need creativity,” she says. “If he avoids that, he could follow in the footsteps of Rahul Mishra, who debuted as a Gen Next designer and never looked back.” Creativity is not something Kazingmei lacks. High-heeled drama is a requisite on the ramp. However, if it can be scaled back, here are designs that could actually be part of one’s wardrobe.
Aradhna Wal is a Sub-Editor with Tehelka.
aradhna@tehelka.com

‘Mrs D’s red bangle is a reminder that I must believe in myself’

By
Aishwarya Gupta
-

A series on true experiences
NON-CONFORMITY

Illustrations: Samia Singh

YOUR CASUAL attitude towards life will land you in a mediocre college. You will remain a wasted genius forever.” In the past two years, I had heard this a zillion times from Mrs D, my history teacher and head of department of social sciences. I have often shrugged her comments aside, genuinely thinking of myself to be a misfit in my class.
I first met Mrs D when I was in Class X. Her looks (rather locks) had a stark resemblance to my grandmother’s. And though her small feet and oriental face (particularly the blood-red lips) had earned her the nickname ‘Manchu Princess’ among students, her raised and shapely eyebrows made me believe that she would have been a flawless beauty in her young age. Not surprisingly then, we discovered that Mrs D had a love marriage. I had been right all along. Mrs D was indeed beautiful. Beautiful enough to steal away an army officer.
In school, Mrs D had always been stern with her looks but jolly with her words. Her glare, when an incomplete notebook landed on her desk, could pierce a hole right through one’s head. Her biting anger had many a student burst into tears. Even then what she said was comic to every ear: “Incomplete work? Sit at home; grind masalas, mash potatoes and hatch eggs!” And you’d soon hear low but intense giggles from far corners of the classroom.
In January this year, we had our final pre-Boards. I got another 50 something in history, keeping in line with my entire year’s scores. Mrs D returned all the answer sheets dipped in red, writing elaborate notes so that everybody knew where exactly they had gone wrong. Mine, however, came back as it was — sheets of paper with big blue letters. I had fed Mrs D the most exciting legends (of course, not a part of syllabus!)
“Maybe she couldn’t care less,” I thought.
As soon as the answer sheets had been distributed, I was summoned to her chamber. I was all set to grind some more masalas, mash some more potatoes and hatch some more eggs, in her office. As it turned out, she was not in the mood for her ritual. I entered and grabbed a chair to sit right next to her.
“I think you take the concept of ‘wasted’ more seriously than ‘genius’, don’t you?” she remarked. I remained silent. “You must learn to walk by the lines, young lady, or else before you know, you might get sidetracked.” I had, by now, decided to avoid her gaze. “You have been a nasty kid,” a hint of smile was now playing along the edges of her lips, “but I would like to remember you as the first one who took up humanities. One who preferred to sit on the first bench in the row along the wall so that she could hold some support and doze off!” I burst into laughter, secretly marvelling at how she remembered the vivid details of my presence in the classroom. I was flattered, to say the least. Mrs D slowly removed a red bangle from her hand and slid it down my right wrist. “I believe in you and so must you,” she said. My lips fluttered in an attempt to say something, but paused before words could come out. So I chose to sit and cry instead.
Four months later, I met Mrs D at the class farewell. She came up to me and complimented me on the red saree that I had chosen to wear. I immediately lifted my right wrist, and said, “Couldn’t find anything better to match my bangle.”
That was the last I saw of her. Months later, I was awaiting my Class XII Board results with much trepidation. Looking at the red bangle during those days, Mrs D’s words echoed in my mind, “I believe in you, so must you.” On the 28 May, the results came out. I had secured 90 percent in history.
Aishwarya Gupta is 17. She is a student based in Delhi

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