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WEEKLY MAGAZINE, SEPTEMBER 16, 2012Free with your copy of Hindustan Times
WEEKLY MAGAZINE, SEPTEMBER 16, 2012Free with your copy of Hindustan Times
VIR SANGHVIGo the whole hog
SANJOY NARAYANPied pipers of Pakistan
SEEMA GOSWAMI Tribe spotting
RAJIV MAKHNIThe patent warsindulge
Zen and the art of apartment maintenance, Neha Dhupia-style
Zen and the art of apartment maintenance, Neha Dhupia-style
■ Neha relaxes by the window of her Mumbai apartment which she likes to call her ‘Zen temple’
MinimalBenefitsMinimalBenefits
Hunt for theperfect reading chair
Pump up the volume bycreating a sound room
Shelf life –how toincrease yourwardrobespace
1. Ranbir singing Fatafati2. Andy Murray3. Gangnam style Korean music videos4. Kashmiri Bana Crorepati5. Late night TV show marathons
1. Absurd sedition laws2. Long Distance Relationships3. Clint Eastwood's invisible Obama 4. Asha Bhosle to act. ‘Nuff said. 5. The Disco Song
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
No kidding! Seriously. We really didget her to hook on to Skype and openup. If there’s anything you want toknow about pornstar/actress SunnyLeone, we’ve got a story to tell. It’sall in BrunchQ. PS: She looks even
better on webcam
Have you gottenhold of BrunchQyet? Bollywood.Bromance.Bangkok. Beauty.And much more.There’s a little something foreveryone. That’s ample reasonfor you to grab a copy now!
For those of you who didn’t read the previ-ous issue of BrunchQ (how many of you arethere anyway? Raise your hands and say‘never again!’), we’re uploading it all on theWeb, bit by bit. This week, it’s celebrity siblings – whether birth order makes any difference at all. Presenting: Kunaal, Aditya, SiddharthRoy Kapur; Soha and Saba Ali Khan; and Shantanu & Nikhil. Log on to hindustantimes.com/brunch
BrunchQ’s Sprawling Web
hindustantimes.com/brunch4 B R E A K FA ST O F C H A M P I O N S
NOW ONSTANDS, R100
ONLY!
Fashion is about aspirations The Tyranny of Size S was was delicately handled to suit both thesmall sized and big sized women. Thank you for this wonderful issue. It was an absolute treat on Sunday — HARISH DHURI, via email
LETTER OF THE WEEK!Is only ‘small’ beautiful?YOUR COVER story, The Tyranny Of Size S hit the nail on thehead... Leave aside size L, even for a size M person, shoppingtends to become a herculean task because of the complete apathy of brands towards the real woman. Instead, there’s pandering to the stereotype of ‘small is beautiful’.
— KASHMIRA MIRZA, via email
Kashmira wins a Flipkart voucher worth `2,500. Congrats!
The best letter gets a Flipkartvoucher worth R2,500!!
The shopping voucher will reach the winner within seven to 10 working days. In case of any delays, please contact [email protected]
THE BRUNCH POST-ITS: This week,
read Booked For Life bySaudamini Jain. A love affair
with everything in print
Richa Chadda, actressIt’s a beautiful evening in Mumbai – the city hasbeen washed clean by the incessant rain that hasbeen pouring down since last night. Actress RichaChadda stayed in and has just finishedwatching Mike Nichols’ Closer, and she can’tstop talking about it. “I can watch it 100 timesmore. It works at many levels. The story is arevelation of modern relationships and ques-tions the notions of fidelity, love, commit-ment and a happily-ever-after,” saysRicha. And what does she likemunching on while watchingmovies? “Punjabi food, obvi-ously,” she laughs.
Something Starry
YUMMY BROWNIES
The step-by-step guide to...
Sift 3/4 cup flour, 1/2cup cocoa & 1 tsp
baking powder.
Add 3/4 cupbutter and 2 tspvanilla essence.
Fold dry ingredients tillwell blended.
by Shreya Sethuraman
Finally add choppednuts and mixwell.
Pour batter intosquare greasedtin and bake in apreheated ovenat 180 degree Celsius for 25 minutes.
After your brownies aredone, cool them and cutthem into tiny squares.
Dust with icing sugarand OD tillthey’reover!
Add a dash ofmilk and chocolate syrup.
On TheBrunchRadar
by SaudaminiJain
by Amrah Ashraf
The homes of the well-heeled needn’t be loud or ostentatious. Are
we moving away from what architect Gautam Bhatia famouslycalled Punjabi Baroque? Tour theBandra apartment of actress NehaDhupia and you’d tend to agree. A sensi-bility that is minimalist-yet-vibrant is not anoxymoron in Neha’s case. After all, living well involves enhancing the quality of your living spaces. So, go ahead, create a sound room, curl up on a reading chair and make the most of your studio apartment.
Brunch Opinion
by Aasheesh Sharma
“20 minutes to load this page?? That’s
not a good enough excuse”
WHAT I DID LAST TUESDAY
Studies have suggested that just holding anitem in a store can create an attachmentthat makes you willing to pay more for it.The feeling of it being ‘mine’ begins as little as 30 seconds after first touchingsomething.
A study allowed subjects to handle coffee mugs for 10-30 seconds before auc-tioning them. They were told that the mugswere priced about four dollars. People who held themug for 30 seconds bid more than the retail pricefour out of seven times! Hello precious, you’re mine.
Economically Speaking
HOLD ME LIKE YOU’LL NEVER LET ME GOby Abhijit Patnaik
Drop us a line at:[email protected] to 18-20 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi 110001
Cover Design: PRASHANT CHAUDHARYCover Photo: KALPAK PATHAK
DESIGN: Ashutosh Sapru (NationalEditor, Design), Monica Gupta,Swati Chakrabarti, Rakesh Kumar,Ashish Singh, Suhas Kale
EDITORIAL: Poonam Saxena (Editor), Aasheesh Sharma,Tavishi Paitandy Rastogi, Rachel Lopez, Mignonne Dsouza,Veenu Singh, Parul Khanna Tewari, Yashica Dutt, AmrahAshraf, Saudamini Jain, Shreya Sethuraman, Manit Moorjani
Cover Photo Styling: White dress by Prashant ChauhanHair - Ridhima SharmaMakeup - Pallavi Symons
SUNNY ON WEBCAM
PUNJABI BAROQUE R.I.P
Beat 3 eggs into 1 3/4
cups sugar.
Phot
os: T
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SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
6
CALLED?WHAT’S IT
Relax, stretch your tired feet andsnuggle up with your favouritebook. It’s time to readby Shreya Sethuraman
ALL YOU want to do thisweekend is have a steam-ing cup of coffee and curlup with your favourite
author. But your bed isn’t the per-fect place, it has no arm support,after all. And your dining chaironly reminds you of food. Sowhere and how do you go huntingfor that perfect reading chair?
Punam Kalra, creative directorof IM Centre for Applied Arts inLajpat Nagar, Delhi, says comfortof the buyer is crucial when itcomes to designing chairs.“Comfort and upholstery are twoprime factors that buyers look forwhen shopping for reading chairs,”she says. Obviously, comfortcomes first. And since peopletend to spend a lot of time sitting,it’s okay to invest a fortune in agood chair. Depending upon fea-tures such as brand, built qualityand ergonomics, most decentreading chairs are priced betweenR25,000 and R1 lakh.
Nitin Bahl, country manager ofinterior furniture brand NatuzziIndia, adds, “Our objective is to sella comfortable chair with a fairamount of lumbar and back sup-port. Many buyers also ask forottomans.” For the uninitiated, an
ottoman is a piece of furniturewith a padded, upholstered seat,usually without a back or arms.
While some of us are con-tent stretching out on thequintessential recliner (ahuge leather sofa with alever, which when pulled,makes it a recliner) Bahl callsit an old concept. Chairs nowcome armed with automaticreclines and even multiplereclines customised for yourhead and other parts of theentire body.
Shipra Sharma, an interiordesigner with furniture storeOMA, suggests rocking chairs orrecliners to provide the comfortfactor. As Bahl says, “Buyers todayare particular about every nuanceof what they’re buying,whether it is comfort,multiple density(ergonomics are dif-ferent in each chair),or the add-on features.”
With designs andtechnology that’ll makereading a breeze, it’stime to read.
Now that you have the ideal readingchair, enhance the experience withany one of these bestsellers
TOP 10 FICTION TITLESThe Immortals of Meluha: AmishTripathiThe Krishna Key: Ashwin SanghiThe Secret of the Nagas: AmishTripathiFifty Shades of Grey: EL JamesRevolution 2020: Chetan BhagatI Too Had A Love Story: RavinderSinghLife is What You Make It: PreetiShenoyChanakya’s Chant: AshwinSanghiCan Love Happen Twice?:Ravinder Singh2 States: The Story of MyMarriage: Chetan Bhagat
(Data Courtesy Nielsen BookScan Indiaweek ending September 1)
THE LAZY READER’S GUIDE
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CHILI LOUNGEBrand: Ebony Gautier
Futuristic triangular chairupholstered in red revello
fabric, with steel legs
SUPER LOUNGEBrand: Ebony Gautier
Upholstered with brownleather, this easy chair
has a manual recline function and stainless
steel legs
LEMONOCHRE CHAIR
Brand: One and Only
Teak wood chair upholstered in leatherite,
with antique duco finish
SOUNDIN PELLE LUCIDABrand: Natuzzi India
Bright shiny black leatherchair with stainless steel
leg and leatherfootrest
CURVED SOFA Brand: One and Only
Made of teak woodwith duco finish andupholstered in soft,
squishy blue tapestry
LEATHEREDITION B546
Brand: Natuzzi India
White leather sofa withlever on the side, which
when pulled, converts thesofa into a recliner
That cushioned footrest that becomes a seat when extra guests arrive? Call it a POUFFE
A Hunt For The Perfect
Reading Chair
SHOE CHAIR Brand: Raus
Recline on Carrie Bradshaw’s shoes! High
back chair with wooden legs,upholstered in velvet
hindustantimes.com/brunch
You Can SaveYour Closet
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
Even if it’s bursting and you stillcan’t stop stuffing it with, well, stuff by Yashica Dutt
YOU KNOW thatsinking, ominousfeeling, a premoni-tion that something
bad is going to happen? Theone that Imtiaz Ali immor-talised on screen by havingKareena Kapoor run after atrain in Jab We Met? I havethat feeling every day, whenI stand in front of my clos-et, after all its contentshave tumbled on top of me.
This clearly happens toeverybody, considering thecollective cheer that wentaround the newsroom,when I proposed to findingenious ways to maximiseyour wardrobe space. Soafter days of research andunearthing advice thatwent beyond just-buy-a-bigger-effing-cupboard,here’s what I found: there’salways extra space.
Coming from the religion offashion and believing in thegospel of never throwing any-thing away, I’ve realised thatthe biggest culprit is thehoarding instinct. Sure, I coulduse that piece of indigo rawsilk as a scarf or team thefrayed tee with a maxi dress.But some things I know I’llnever wear. So, ditch thosejeans you hope to onceagain fit into. Promiseyourself an even hotter pairwhen you do get to yourdesired weight. Still holdingon to that sweater your mumknitted when you turned 10?
Instagram it and paste onyour door. Spring clean
at least once ayear. Sure it hurts,but every year,there’ll be less todiscard. Oh, and
more space.
Struggling with space? Apparentlycelebs do too. Here’s how they cope■ Pop sensation Mariah Carey hasmore than 1,000 shoes stored in a climate controlled room spread withhigh-voltage lights to give them adream display.
■ Oprah Winfrey is known to giveamazing gifts to you, you and you. -But the best gift she’s given is to her-self. Her closet is a mansion-like 1,200square feet area, with chandeliers,miles of of space and even an LCD TV.
■ Fashion designer Anna Sui didn’tbother about a big closet. She just gotanother apartment to store herclothes. It has custom shelves to fitall her shoes and clothes.
Wardrobe Secretsof the Starry Kind
Re-imagine that lone rod takingall the weight of your hangingsuits, trousers and dresses. Inmost cupboards, especially steelalmirahs, there’s usually spaceto add one or two more rodsbelow. Use those for lighterclothes you don’t want to fold.Get the multi-utility hangers thatstore three to four items togeth-
er. Stock formal wear at thebottom, and the stuff youwear frequently on top.Don’t ignore the door. Ifthere isn’t already a rod
installed, get one, or put inhooks to hang small items like
necklaces, belts and scarves. Ifthe door is deep enough, youcould hang bulkier clothes theretoo. Dimple Kohli, a designerwith Qboid Design House, sug-gests, “You could use that spaceto create small entrapments andstore precious items, which usu-ally take up valuable space in themain body.”
Not everythingneeds to fit into
that slim vacuum ofwood you call your cup-
board. Chunky knits can besealed and stashed away. Andnot just on top of the closet.Think about the empty spacein the kitchen or under thebed. Store your clothes insealed plastic containers, sothey don’t attract bugs, dampor dust. Store your shoes sepa-
rately if you don’t already. Getshoe bags or nail short, rectan-gular planks at a 45-degreeangle to the wall to give thema proud display. Also, if youare cubbyholing accessorieslike glasses, bags and ties andbelts all in one space, stop.Dangle them on hangers out-side the cupboard, line themalong a fancy rope, or putcorkboard on your dressingtable to jam earrings in.
COME OUT OF THE CLOSET
Order! Order! There’s noescaping it, if you want moreroom for all the shoes andshirts you want. Arrange yourcupboard once every 10 daysto accommodate your newstuff. “Keep all skirts, jackets,jumpers and trousers togeth-
er,” advises freelance styl-
ist Rin Jajo. “It’s better to graband go.” Group belts or tiestogether. Store undergar-ments and socks separately insmaller boxes. And always,always pair your socks.Nothing’s more frustratingthan tumbling out your entirecloset to find the missing one.
MAKE ‘ORGANISED’ A RELIGION
I could give you some pop theoryabout how nice-smelling cupboards always remain clean,and I will. Try it. If your clothessmell like a bunch of freshoranges or woody cinnamon,there’s little chance you mightwant to throw them at the backof the cupboard.
FRESHEN IT UP
Evenif you’re the kingor queen of recy-
cling, there are stillthings you’dnever wear!
Usemulti-utility
hangers to hangthree-four items
together
GIVE IT AWAY NOW
DO MORE WITH LESS
8
The big rotating tray at the centre of the dinner table? Call it a A LAZY SUSANCALLED?WHAT’S IT
Foldaway the
stuff you rarelyuse. Leave hanging
room for dailywear
yashica.dutt @hindustantimes.com
facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunch
Phot
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SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
YOU KNOW you are welcomein a house when the hostopens the door with a bigsmile. That is exactly what
happened when I went to Bollywoodstar Neha Dhupia’s flat in Bandra. “Ialways open the door for my guests.It brings in positive energy,” saysDhupia. She offers me green tea andpromises to be back soon. Andthat’s just what I need, completeaccess to her two-bedroom Bandraapartment all by myself.
The first thing that one noticesabout Dhupia’s house is how mini-malist everything is. There are nojarring colours, no over-the-top dec-oration, no pictures of her staring atyou from every corner of the room.It’s clean, simple and airy. “WhenNinad (Pardesi) was designing thehouse, he told me that he was goingto create a space for me that Iwould never want to leave. And eversince I moved in here, everything isstill the same – the décor, the mini-malism, the illusion of space and thecolours,” says Dhupia, who has beenliving in this fourth floor apartmentfor the last seven years.
LIFE IN A HAPPY SPACEWhen she bought this flat, it camein its skeleton form – absolutelystripped bare with no furnishingswhatsoever, but Dhupia knew that
she needed a space of her own thatshe could use and abuse. “Havingyour own space in a city likeMumbai gives you such a sense ofsecurity, especially if you’re a singlegirl. When I bought this house, Iknew that I had found a footinghere,” she remembers. “And eventoday, my home is my Zen temple.”
Dhupia loves her French windowsand ends up spending a lot of timesitting there, surrounded by her
cushions, reading. And really, if youhad an extended ledge that beauti-ful, overlooking the old-world tiledroofs of Bandra, you would alsospend most of your time there.“From up here, I get a feeling ofthen and now. These trees restingtheir weight on the roofs downbelow give me a glimpse of yesterday and I love that feeling.This ledge has seen many nights ofreading, pondering and relaxing.”
ELEGANT AND SERENEOne thing that caught me off guardabout Dhupia’s pad was the silence,even though she lives two lanes awayfrom Mehboob Studios, one of themost bustling landmarks of Bandra.“I like the quiet this house offers,” shesays. “It really feels like living in atreehouse. You’ll notice that fromevery window and balcony, you cansee only trees.”
Dhupia tries to
Neha’s Nest Of Nirvana Her two-bedroom Mumbai pad is earthy,minimalist and chic. We take you on a tourthrough the apartment Neha Dhupia callsher ‘Zen temple’by Amrah Ashraf
10
Do you live in a tiny apartment anddon’t have the money to spend on getting a top interior designer tospace manage for you? Fret not. Weasked Neha Dhupia to help us andhere are her top five tips to liven up your space without spending a bomb.1 3 5
2 4LET IT BREATHEAir out your house. Mostpeople keep their windows shut all thetime and inhale the sameold stale air for days. Justopen all your windows
and you’ll notice howfresh and lively your home willfeel.
COLOUR IT WILDIf you live in a tiny apart-ment with monochromesall around you, then add asplash of colour to yourliving space. You can gofor kitschy cushion coversthat occupy littlespace butcheer upyour room.
MIRCHI LIGHTSApt lighting can dowonders for ahouse. Just throw
some mirchi lights (R200for a string) in a bowl orwrap around a window. It not only creates a beautiful am-bience, it also creates an illusion of space.
UNLEASHFLOWERPOWERThrow out theplastic flowers. Buysome fresh ones andarrange them acrossthe house. Theirscent and beauty willdefinitely add verveto your apartment.
TURNIT ON
Wheneverythingelse fails, youcan alwaysrely on music.Play it in thehouse or plugin your iPod.
LIVEN UP YOUR LIVING SPACE
THE ZENCOUCH Going with
the minimal-ist theme, the
central sofaarrangement
is in simplebeige
SINGULARLY DHUPIAThere are so many single womenliving on their own in different citiesbut how is Neha Dhupia’s house different from other girls? Here’swhat she said...
“Even if you barely know me, themoment you enter my space, youwill know it’s my house. It is just likeme – calm and uncluttered. I believepositive vibes bring in positive vibesand my house is all about positivityand harmony. I have these beautifulBuddha statues in my living roomthat either light up or I light a can-dle around it. They make the wholeenvironment so serene.
“Candles add character to yourhome. In the evening, you can lightsome around the house and read abook in a corner. Your house shouldreflect your personality. There is nopoint in creating a space that lookschic in every inch but doesn’t reallyreflect who you are.”
Photos: THINKSTOCK
twitter.com/HTBrunch
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
CALLED?WHAT’S IT
ensure everything in herhouse is natural andearthy. Her flooring issimple unpolished stone,there are limestone arte-facts, soft wooden pan-elling, stone Buddha stat-ues, fresh flowers, andhay-like texturing on thewalls. And when shecan’t play with earthytextures, she prefers mutedtones with a burst of colour pep-pered here and there. “I amobsessed with white. Not just white,but shades of white. My walls are acertain shade of white and so aremy linens. If you look at the sofaarrangement, even that is done insimple beige. All I do is throw insome colourful cushions to createcontrast,” says Dhupia. “I love flow-
ers. I love how they livenup a place the momentyou throw them in avase. It’s a great way toadd natural colour toyour living space.”
THE BIBLIOPHILEAnother prominent fea-ture in Dhupia’s home isher collection of books.
They are strewn aroundthe house, some resting on her centre table (mainly coffee tabletomes on fashion and travel), somestacked next to her bed, othershanging on for dear life on shelvesand some staring into nothingnessfrom her window ledge. “I lovesitting curled up with coffee tablebooks,” says Dhupia. “But they haveto be everywhere in the house so I
can just lounge around and readwhenever and wherever. That’swhy my books are all over the place.”
It may not be a mansion, but thesparse furniture and earthy tonescreate an illusion of space. AndDhupia’s balcony abutting the livingroom adds to the effect. A whitebeach chair, a small coffee table and awind chime that sings in the breeze.Is that where she finds nirvana? “No.Actually it’s my dresser and bath-room – I spend 10 minutes loungingin my massage chair after work. Itrelaxes me,” she says. “But yourentire house should be your shortcutto nirvana. Not just one room.”
That funny chair on which two people can sit in opposite profiles? Call it a TETE-A-TETE
THE ANTIQUE CLOCK“What I really like about thisclock is how it breaks themonotony of the room. It is so
out of place and yetso beautiful. It’s
a lovely juxta-position ofthe cleanlines of myfurniture
with thisvoluptuous
clock”
THE LIT BUDDHA“There are many Buddha statues in my house but thisone is myfavouritebecause it’scarvedinwards andlights up. Itcreates beau-tiful silhou-ettes onthewall”
11
A biggerwardrobewould be
nice. I haveso manyclothes!
OCD? YOU DON’T SAY!“Very few things in myhouse actually have legs.Things are either fixed tothe floor or suspended fromthe ceiling. I don’t like theidea of furniture havinglegs. I am also very veryparticular about my bed-spread. I only like a specific shade of white andonly that linen is spread onmy bed. Another thing I fretabout a lot is cleanlinessand putting things back inorder. I have a very nastyhabit of cleaning up in themiddle of a party or a conversation. If somethingis out of place, I can’t stoplooking at it. My friendshate me for that!”
HAUTE PLATEThe limestone platein the living roomcatches people’s attention because ofits texture and colour
CUSHIONING THE EFFECTThe walls are a shade of white. “All I do is throw in some colourfulcushions to create contrast,” says Neha
COLOUR, NATURALLYNeha loves how flowers liven
up a place the moment youthrow them in a vase. “It’s a
great way to add natural colourto your living space”
A PALETTE FOR PEACENeha prefers muted tones with a burstof colour peppered here and there
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Ridh
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Mak
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: Pal
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IN A LITTLE CORNEROF HER APARTMENT...
MY FRIEND, Gautam Anand, told me the story ofNagpal’s which he regards as one of the more influ-ential restaurants in post-Partition Delhi. Accordingto Gautam, Nagpal’s was owned by refugees from
West Punjab who fled to Delhi and started all over again by pop-ularising kulchas and tikkas. The kulchas were justly famous butit was the tikka that had the most fans. The flavour was so delicious that nobody worried too much about the meat it wasmade from.
Then, one day, word spread that the tikka was made from pork.It is easy to see why this would have provoked outrage in Pakistan.But for some reason the news that Nagpal’s used pork causedgreat consternation in Delhi. Public opinion swung against therestaurant and by the time its owners became embroiled in aseries of other problems – a dispute with the municipality andthe construction of a road across the restaurant – patrons hadbegun to stay away.
Eventually, says Gautam, Nagpal’s closed. Butfor people like Gautam, who must haveeaten there as a small boy, the excel-lence of its pork tikka lingers inthe memory.
Gautam says that he hasrarely come across a pork tikkaof that quality again. And whileI have only heard the story ofNagpal’s rise and fall from him, I
have to go a little further: I have never come acrossa decent pork tikka of any kind anywhere in India.
I don’t know why this should be so but eventhough Hindus face no religious injunction againstconsuming pork, north Indians have traditional-ly been reluctant to introduce it into their cuisine.According to the food historian KT Achaya, thisreluctance goes back many centuries. In the 5thand 7th centuries, Chinese travellers wrote thatpork was forbidden meat to many inhabitants ofIndia.
There are two interesting things about this aver-sion to pork. The first is that wild boar – which isbasically a kind of pig – seems exempt from thisdisdain. Rajputs treat the wild boar as a great delicacy and many recipes of royal cuisine call forwild boar meat.
The second interesting thing is that this aver-sion does not extend to other parts of India. InKerala and Coorg, they are quite happy to eatpork. In Goa, it is considered a delicacy. And inthe north-east, it is the staple diet for the major-ity of the inhabitants.
Why should the rest of India not share the north’sreluctance to eat pork? One theory is that pork isa non-Hindu meat. In Kerala, it is the Christianswho have the best pork dishes. The north-east islargely non-Hindu. And in Goa, the consumptionof pork was loaded with religious significance.
When the Portuguese converted Goan Hindus to Catholicism,the church insisted that they eat pork to indicate the complete sev-erance of ties with the Hindu community. According to LizzieCollingham’s definitive study, Curry: A Biography, at first upper-caste converts were uncomfortable with pork but eventually theydecided that their best course was to identify completely with thelifestyle of their Portuguese masters.
The great pork dishes of Goa all emerged out of this identifi-cation with Portuguese culture. For instance, those deliciousGoan sausages are no more than an attempt to imitate thePortuguese chorizo. Vindaloo is an adaptation of the Portuguesedish, Carne de Vinhos e Alhos, which means meat cooked in vine-gar and garlic. The word ‘vindaloo’ is simply a Goan mispronunciation of Vinhos e Alhos.
Because Goan Hindus – even the non-vegetarian ones – do notlike pork much, the consumption of pork dishes became a meansof asserting a Catholic identity. The Goan chef, Julia Carmen Desa,
who now runs Delhi’s Tres restaurant, says it is notunusual for a Catholic feast to include three
or four dishes all made from pork andall with some Portuguese influence.
Julia is less sure about where thefamous pork curry of Coorg hasits origins. But its base is the black
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
Vir Sanghvi
rude fo
od
There’s nopoint restrictingthe use ofpork to thebreakfastmenu or theChinesekitchen. It’s time to introduce it to themainstream
12 indulge
LIVINGHIGH OFFTHE HOG
LIVINGHIGH OFFTHE HOG
CHOICECUTThe porktikka atBangalore’sITC Gardeniahotel wasterrific
THE GRAVY TRAIN Pork cooked in a gravy is popular inthe north-east
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, NEW
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local vinegar of the region and on the whole, it was the colonialistswho popularised vinegar in India. Certainly, the pork dishes ofKerala seem to have either colonial or Christian roots.
I am less sure about the north-east’s affection for pork. It couldbe the Christian influence in the area. Or it could simply be a geographical thing: in Burma and Thailand, pork is a popular meat and perhaps there was an intermingling of cuisines overthe centuries.
Certainly, the north-east rivals Goa as the centre of pork cook-ery in India. I asked my former colleague, the journalist and foodwriter Hoihnu Hauzel, who grew up in Manipur, what memoriesshe had of the local cuisine. It turned out that Hoihnu’s memorieswere largely pig-centric.
In common with many other families in Manipur, she recalled,her parents maintained a pig sty in their backyard. They wouldlook after their pigs and lovingly fatten them by cooking a specialmeal of wild yam and rice every day. (Lovingly? Well, up to a point.Eventually, they would kill the pigs and eat them.)
Hoihnu is a member of the small Christian Paite tribe (around60,000 people), one of the 33 tribes of Manipur. According to her,nearly all of the tribes have a pork tradition though she says, perhaps a little harshly, that some of the recipes are quite primitive: chunks of meat cooked with ginger, garlic, mustardleaves, chillies or local herbs.
All over the north-east, pork is readily available. In many townsyou will see pork shops selling meat from freshly-slaughtered pigs.If there is too much pork to consume at once, it is salted and sun-dried. Preserved this way, pork can last for a long time. In Manipur,it is not uncommon, says Hoihnu, to put a slice or two of sundriedpork in a dal or a vegetable dish to give it more body.
I asked both Julia and Hoihnu whether they worried about thediseases traditionally associated with the consumption of pork,tapeworm for instance. Hoihnu said that fresh pork that was wellcooked rarely caused any health problems. Julia agreed that porkfrom diseased pigs could be a problem but said that Goans had beeneating pork for so long that they were careful about the quality.
The question is important because one rea-son offered by Indian hotels and restaurantsfor keeping pork off the menu is that therisk of parasitic infection is high. Until abouta decade ago, most chefs at Indian hotelswould advise you to steer clear of pork.Wherever possible, they would try and findpork substitutes: hence the popularity of thechicken sausage, a disgusting, tasteless, plastic-filled cylinder of gunk served at manyfive-star hotels.
That’s changing now because ofa rise in pork farming and the easyavailability of imports. AnandaSolomon says that field-bred porkfrom Goa has a good flavour andcan easily be used in sausages
or vindaloo without any loss of taste. But, he adds, as do manyother pork-lovers, that farmed pork, while safe, can also be bland.Hoihnu has difficulty with pork in Delhi because it does not havethe flavours she is used to in Manipur. One of Julia’s most populardishes at Tres is the pork belly. She says she tried hard to useIndian pork but the dish just didn’t taste right. Eventually, sheswitched to Belgian pork.
The success of dishes such as Julia’s pork belly suggests thathoteliers and chefs are being needlessly cautious about introduc-ing more pork dishes on their menus. Ananda says that till a fewyears ago, guests would ask where the pork was from before theyordered it. But now, they don’t care. Concerns about safety seemto be a thing of the past. Julia was advised by nearly everyone notto put pork on the menu – people in Delhi don’t like pork, she wastold – but went ahead anyway. Now that it is her most popular dish,she feels vindicated.
Of course I’m not sure we’ll ever get something like the Nagpal’stikka. But you can’t say that Gautam is not trying. Last year, heencouraged chefs Manjit Gill and Madhu Krishnan to make a porktikka (marinated in malt vinegar) at Bangalore’s ITC Gardeniahotel. I was among the lucky guys who got to try it. Perhaps it waslike the Nagpal’s version or perhaps it wasn’t. I don’t really know.But I do know that it was absolutely terrific.
If only more hoteliers and chefs would show that kind ofcourage! There’s no point restricting the use of pork to the break-fast menu or the Chinese kitchen. It’s time to introduce pork tothe mainstream. And yes, it’s time to go the whole hog.
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
BELLY DANCEJulia Carmen Desa fromDelhi’s Tres restaurantsays that although she was advised not to putpork belly (above) on themenu, it is now her mostpopular dish
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EXPERT AT HANDGoan chef Julia Carmen Desamakes magic with pork at Tres
PORK TIKKA (Chef Madhu Krishnan’s recipe)
PORK IN DRY GRAVY
INGREDIENTS500 gm imported pork loin30 gm black pepper powder20 gm mace powder20 gm cumin powder10 gm kebab chini powder15 ml lemon juice75 gm brown onion paste50 gm ginger-garlic paste20 gm red chilli powder30 ml vinegar80 gm hung curd 25 ml gheeSalt to season
INGREDIENTS500 gm pork, cubedFOR THE MASALA PASTE: 3-4 dry red chillies2 tsp dry coriander seeds1/2 tsp turmeric powder3-4 tsp black peppercorn1/2 tsp fennel3-4 cardamom pods (take only seeds)2 cinnamon barks2 bay leaves4-5 cloves7-8 garlic cloves finely chopped (keep aside 1 tsp for later)1 medium sized ginger, finely sliced (keep aside a pinch for later)3-4 button onions or 2 shallots4 medium-sized onions, finely sliced1/2 tsp mustard seeds2 tbsp vinegar
1/4 finely-sliced fresh coconutCurry leaves and chopped coriander leaves2 green chillies, deseeded and spilt in the middle
1 tbsp cooking oil; Salt to taste
METHOD■ Blitz all the ingredients for the masalainto a smooth paste.■ Marinate the pork in this masala for anhour or so. It softens the meat.■ Cook this marinated pork by addingthe ginger, vinegar, salt and water. Takeoff the heat once 3/4th done.■ Meanwhile, heat oil in a skillet, popthe mustard seeds, curry leaves,chopped garlic and then fry the finelysliced onions to golden brown.■ Now take the pork, remove excess water (this will help pour out the excesspork fat too in case you are a healthjunkie), and mix into the onions. Let thegravy mix and cook together till the porkis done (do the fork test to know if thepork is cooked). Throw in the finelysliced coconut, coriander leaves andsliced green chillies. Cook for a minuteor so, mixing it all in.■ Serve with rice or bread.
METHOD■ Cut the pork loin into cubesmeasuring 1.5”. Retain the fat. ■ Marinate the pork with salt,ginger-garlic paste and lemonjuice; allow it to rest for 20 minutes. ■ Mix the rest of the spices inhung curd and beat it to asmooth consistency.■ Incorporate the curd and thepork and allow it to rest for 1hour.
■ Take the marinatedpork cubes and cook on a medium hot grill or pan sear it.■ Baste the pork cubes with butter once during cooking.■ It is optional to serve the porkwith a squeeze of lime juice.
If you want to cook a nice south Indian-style pork dish at home, this recipe is for you. It is fool-proof and designed for the home cook. I use local pork bought from my neighbourhood Godrej Nature’s Basket
WHERE YOU CAN PIG OUT The north-east rivals Goa as the centre of porkcookery. At markets (left) in places like Imphal, Manipur, you will find a special kind of porksausage that is roasted (above)
Photo: THANGPU SAMTE
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hindustantimes.com/brunch
AS I WRITE this column, the iPhone 5 (orwhatever it’ll be called) is hours away frombeing announced. While it’s not possible
for me to get in any more details (the magazinegoes into print NOW and unfortunately Appledoesn’t care two hoots about my deadline), nextweek’s column will go into explicit detail on theall-new iOS device, its new features and exactlywhat impact it will now have on the competitionand the consumer.
DWARFING THE NEW iPHONEYet, even as the launch of a new iPhone is onceagain a big event – it’s dwarfed by what all has beenhappening in the world of mobiles in the past month. The verybusiness of mobiles is about to change forever. Today, a new phonelaunch and what goes into it may not be formulated by scientistsand engineers, but dictated by lawyers and litigators. It’s a tech-nological abyss where innovation and creativity may no longer bethe driving force – rather patents and trademarks will be the forcemajeure. The Samsung Galaxy S3 is already being called the firstsmartphone designed exclusively by lawyers, right down to thelast screw. Soon, that might become a standard. To understandhow we’ve reached this stage, we’ve got to dig a little into history.This is a story with many characters, companies, rivalries, pasthistory and a stake of a multibillion dollar personal device market.At stake is the future of many brands as well as us, the consumer.Let’s start this intriguing tale from the start.
BOMBING AND CONFUSIONIn 2006, Google’s then CEO Eric Schmidt sits onApple’s board of directors. A short while later, Googlecomes up with Android as a mobile OS. Steve Jobsconsiders Android a stolen and copycat product andthreatens to go ‘thermonuclear’ on Google. With Applewinning a verdict of $1.05 billion against Samsung,consider that thermonuclear bomb dropped!
While it sounds like typical corporate warfare –the implications here are many as is the confusionaround this verdict. Let’s take up the most criticalquestions that are popping up from all quarters.
WHY SAMSUNG?That’s a good question. With so many other Android phone mak-ers, why single out Samsung? Well – it’s called maximum impactthrough a slightly softer target. Worldwide, Samsung is Apple’sbiggest competition, and hitting them hard helps. This is mainlya proxy war on Google through whipping boy Samsung. It’s eas-ier to take on Samsung than it is to take on Google.
IS THE VERDICT FINAL? DID SAMSUNG PAYAPPLE IN 30 TRUCKS FULL OF NICKELS?Nope, Samsung can still appeal. And many feelthat the jury verdict is flawed and came in tooquickly in a case as complicated as this. Thus, tillthe fat lady sings... And, about the 30 trucks ofnickels worth a billion dollars as payment to Apple– that was a typical but very well circulatedInternet rumour.
DOES APPLE REALLY NEED $1.05 BILLION? Putting aside the fact that you can’t be ‘too’ rich,this really isn’t about money. Apple wants othersto not copy its design and methodology in makingdevices and this sends a clear message out to all.It’s not about protecting its current portfolio – butApple devices of the future. In fact, Apple was ableto achieve its true intention way before the verdict.Most companies made special efforts in the lastone year to steer clear from anything ‘Applish’.
SAMSUNG CAN’T SELL PHONES AT ALL? Nah! This mainly concerns Samsung phones thatare already end of life – old phones that date backa year or more. So while there are financial impli-cations for Samsung – it really doesn’t hurt theircurrent and future portfolio much.
DOES APPLE HAVE THE MOST PATENTS?Far from it. They actually bring up the rear end.In the mobile sector of patent families – Samsunghas around 32,000, Microsoft holds about 9,000and Apple has about 1,900 and mainly in the user
interface area (exactly what they sued for). Thus having very fewpatents, Apple tends to defend its turf hard. Very hard!
WITH SO MANY PATENTS, WILL SAMSUNG & OTHERS...?Yes, they will and are. Counter suits, serious allegations and morepatent litigation is now in court more than ever before. Samsung,Motorola and many others are hitting back. In fact, the rumourmill is strong that Samsung will have multiple points to sue Appleon the iPhone 5, including use of LTE (long-term evolution).
AREN’T PATENT WARS BAD FOR INNOVATION?Good point. You go to the top of the class for that one. It trulydoes. Patent wars and litigation slow everybody down, time is
wasted in courts rather than in R&D, and most sci-entists and innovators are usually looking over theirshoulder rather than cracking the next big thing.Even Apple founder Steve Wozniak feels that thefallout of patent wars is less innovation and moreexpensive products. And while Samsung and Googleand Apple slug it out – companies like Microsoft andNokia may just be able to pick up the gauntlet andrun fast – taking away market share from both OSbases.
WHAT HAPPENS NOW?There are two scenarios that may take shape in the
future. The first would be that the mobile and device businessbecomes a boring little place where every company treads care-fully around the other and bring out ‘safe’ products. The othercould be a thriving eco-system where there are no copycat ‘me-too’ products and each company goes into overdrive with fan-tastic new innovations that are real game changers. I’m trulyhoping for the latter but bracing for the former!
Rajiv Makhni
Rajiv Makhni is managing editor, Technology, NDTV, and the anchor of Gadget Guru,CellGuru and Newsnet 3. Follow Rajiv on Twitter at twitter.com /RajivMakhni
techilicious
14 indulge
All you needto knowabout themultibilliondollar Big Battle
GOING ALL LEGALA new phone launch andwhat goes into it may not beformulated by scientistsand engineers, but dictatedby lawyers and litigators
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
TECHNO WARFARE
It’s easier totake on
Samsungthan it is to
take onGoogle
IT’S THE trippiest music that I have heardin the past six months and it comes fromKarachi. Yes. That’s right. Karachi, Pakistan.
It’s a band called Basheer & The Pied Pipers andthey make a top notch variety of original exper-imental rock music. The band was formed bytwo medical students – Saad Munzar and SalmanYounas Khan – and their debut album, Basheer,is available for free download. It’s a gem of a find.
I’m no longer surprised at the strange waysin which one can discover new bands. I learntabout Karachi’s Basheer & The Pied Pipers whilelistening to an excellent (if a bit verbose) pod-cast from Song By Toad, a music blog based inScotland. On a recent episode of the podcast (it’scalled a Toadcast, by the way), the playlist includ-ed Circling Nowhere, a track off Basheer & ThePied Pipers’ debut album. It’s the kind of trackthat makes you instantly take note of the band.It’s got a post-rock, ethereal ambience thatreminded me of the Icelandic post-rock band,Sigur Ros. But Basheer & The Pied Pipers arenot a rip-off of that band. Their music is veryoriginal. Many of their tracks are primarily instru-mental but there are vocals on a few too withlyrics in English and the duo – essentially abassist-cum-guitarist and a drummer – appear to draw upon ahost of influences.
After listening to Circling Nowhere I couldn’t wait to try moreof the Karachi band. That’s when I discovered Basheer, theirdebut album, which you can download on bandcamp.com. Thetracks on Basheer (there are 10) sparkle with originality: verymelodic and yet improvisational and sometimes quite hypnotic.Basheer & The Pied Pipers love jamming but their music does-n’t become self-indulgent. In fact, their debut album can becomequite endearing. I put it on repeat after I first heard it. When Itried learning more about them on the Internet I was rather sur-prised to find very little. Dawn, the leading Pakistani newspaper,had an article about their origins and the debut album but notmuch else. The band, says Munzar who plays the guitar and bass
(drummer Khan also plays synthesizers), is influenced amongothers by Radiohead, Sigur Ros (that often shows in their music),Mos Def and Massive Attack. But their music is nowhere closeto being a clone of what these leading bands do.
Also, the band has tried to steer clear of doing the usual east-west fusion sort of rubbish that many “new age” bands from thesub-continent fall prey to. Flutes and eastern percussion instru-ments do sometimes stray into their music but they’ve abstainedfrom doing ‘it’s-ethnic-therefore-it’s-exotic’ kind of compositions.Good, because, frankly, I find that sort of stuff boring. Beforethis year’s release of the debut full-length, Basheer & The PiedPipers had Paperclouds, an EP out. That too is available easilyon the Net. What isn’t, however, is more details about the band.Karachi and Lahore have a vibrant underground music scene
and while this side of the border is familiar with theSufi rock band, Junoon (I’m sure there are fans ofthat band teeming out there but I’m not one), thereare many more hidden gems that are worth dis-covering. It’s not easy to find them but there areways to do so.
One such is Uth Records, a youth-based musicshow on TV whose website says that it “provides tal-ented young musicians a professional music platformfor their original work to be seen and heard acrossPakistan, irrespective of age, gender, language andbackground”. That’s where I discovered another inter-esting Pakistani band. Also from Karachi, //orangenoiseis not an ambient, experimental rock band like Basheer& The Pied Pipers but a full-blown metal-inspiredhard rock outfit. They too have a bandcamp.com pagewhere some of their albums, an EP, a single and remix-es, can be downloaded. Worth a try.
To give feedback, stream or download the music mentioned in this column, go to http://blogs.hindustantimes.com/download-central,
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PLAYING THE PIPESBasheer (above), the debutalbum by the duo SaadMunzar and Salman YounasKhan of Basheer & the PiedPipers (below) sparkles withoriginality
SanjoyNarayan
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THE KARACHITRIPPING POINTThey’re aband calledBasheer & The PiedPipers andthey maketop notchoriginal experimentalrock music
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entral
Chan Marshall, better known by her stage name,Cat Power, is a gifted American singer-song-
writer but her career graph has been erratic,marked by hiatuses and struggles with variousproblems. But her discography is studded withgreat work. In 2000, she released The Covers Record, her fifth album, whichalmost entirely comprised covers of songsincluding, notably, a powerful and almostunrecognisable version of the RollingStones’ Satisfaction. Then, there was TheGreatest (2006) followed by another cov-ers album, Jukebox (2008). Now, after afour-year gap, she’s released Sun, herfirst original after The Greatest. On Sun, CatPower abandons her earlier sparse minimalismand embraces more instruments, notably asynth as well as AutoTune. A good album to re-discover the complicated artist or, if youhaven’t heard her, to introduce yourself.
THE JUKEBOX
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
ALL FROM THE SAME STABLEKarachi’s / /orangenoise (above) is a metal-inspiredhard rock outfit
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HAVING LUNCH with my girlfriends isalways an excuse to indulge in our favouritegroup activity: people watching. Which is,
of course, followed by a little gentle bitching aboutthe people being watched. (Now, don’t get all judge-mental on me; you know you do that too.)
Last Saturday, as we fetched up to eat at ourfavourite restaurant, we were particularly intriguedby a group of young women – all in their early tolate 30s – who had taken over the private dining room tocelebrate some sort of special occasion, judging by thechampagne resting nicely on ice. As they trooped pastour table and into their glass-encased bubble - decoratedwith balloons and streamers and an oversized cake occu-pying pride of place – we couldn’t help but notice just howsimilar they all looked.
They all had suspiciously smooth skin, with bright, shinyforeheads, with nary a wrinkle in sight. They all had blondehighlights in their hair, which they all wore down below theirshoulders. They all had their slim, exfoliated legs on display, wear-ing either short dresses or short skirts. All of them sported skin-ny belts around their impossibly-tiny waists, which were nicelyset off by their oversized (and overpriced) designer handbags.Hell, they even had the exact same pout (or, as one of my friendssniggered, the exact same plastic surgeon).
It was almost as if they had come straight out of Central Casting:ladies who lunched a lot; and then threw up promptly afterwardsso that they could fit into their size zero wardrobes (which wereso alike as to be virtually interchangeable).
I would have liked to scoff at them, if it hadn’t been for the factthat the ladies on my table were also dressed in a manner that wasstrikingly similar to one another. We were all in the regulation journo-wear of blue jeans paired with Anokhi or Fabindia-style kurtas. Weall had on chunky platform heels to give us height with minimumdiscomfort and were carrying totes large enough to lug our lap-tops/iPads around in. Okay, we didn’t have identikit hair, with lengthsvarying from crop-top to below the waist, but nonetheless therewas a strong common aesthetic binding our look together.
All of which got me thinking: so, which comes first? As in, dowomen who have the same aesthetic tend to bind together? Or dowomen who stick together tend to develop the same aesthetic sense?
Or, to put it more simply: do the blue-jean ladiescome together because of their love of denim? Ordo they infect one another with their love of casu-al chic as time goes on? Ditto, the short-dress brigade.
I haven’t quite figured that one out as yet, butthere is no denying that no matter where we go,we are surrounded by urban tribes, who standout because of their shared tastes. And that thesetribes come in all ages, shapes, sizes and genders.
There are the stroppy teenagers who skulk aboutin oversized jeans that reveal their knickers (andsometimes, a generous dose of bum-cleavage aswell). There are the gym rats (both male and female)who squeeze themselves into body-con clothes toshow off the pectoral muscles honed over monthsof diligently working weights. There are the youngprofessionals who wear their tailored suits like abadge of pride. There are the middle-aged ladieswho personify the phrase ‘mutton dressed as lamb’.And then, there are the men who cope with theirmid-life crises by dressing like their teenage sons(think lots of denim, leather and sneakers).
In offices, everyone seems to follow the non-ver-bal cues sent out by the bosses. So, if the man orwoman in charge has a relaxed, casual vibe, then
everyone else down the food chain tends to adopt thatas well in their style of dressing. And if the boss lady
or man is a stickler for formality, then even with-out being explicitly asked to do so, everyone
else dresses very ‘proper’ too. When it comesto the professional world, discretion is thebetter part of valour. And what could be more
discreet than following in the footsteps of theboss (you know what they say about imitation being thesincerest form of flattery).
But then, almost every profession itself has its own defaultlook. The NGO sector can be recognised by the profusion of khadikurtas, handloom saris, large maroon bindis and the oversizedjholas that have spawned the phrase ‘jholawallah types’. Thebanking sector has made the boring grey suit its own. And mediapeople have become known for a certain innate scruffiness, turn-ing up defiantly in jeans and T-shirts even when attending for-mal functions.
That said, quite the best place to observe the phenomenon ofurban tribes is a university campus, where every clique and ganghas its own uniform, so to speak. There are the ‘artistic’ lot, whotend to wear a lot of block-print and vegetable dye, teamed withcloth bags and scuffed kolhapuris. There is the ‘nerd’ corner,where everyone wears loose, faded jeans and T-shirts and theaccessory of choice is a pair of black-rimmed spectacles. Thereare the ‘cool’ kids, who flaunt all the latest designer labels, rightfrom their trendy sunglasses to their leather loafers. And so on.
Actually if you think about it, the university campus is like ametaphor for the world itself, with its collection of urban tribeswho band together on the strength of both shared interests anda shared aesthetic – no matter which one comes first.
[email protected]. Follow Seema on Twitter at twitter.com/seemagoswami
SeemaGoswami
spectator
They arequite easy tospot; andeach onehas its owndistinctivelook
WHAT’S YOUR TYPE?There’s the ‘artistic’ lot whowear a lot of vegetable dye,teamed with cloth bags (below); the ‘nerd’ cornerwhere the accessory ofchoice is a pair of black-rimmed spectacles or the‘cool’ kids ready to flaunttheir designer loafers (right)
SIMILAR AESTHETIC SENSEDo the blue-jean ladies come together because of theirlove of denim? Or do they infect one another with theirlove of casual chic as time goes on?
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
URBAN TRIBES
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WHEN WAS was the lasttime your neighbours setthe dog on you or dialled100 to muffle your musical
ambitions? This may seem far-fetched but it’s a common occur-rence for many musicians. AskParikrama percussionist SrijanMahajan. “Initially, my neighbourswould keep calling my number andask me to stop. But I played on. Nowthat I play at studios or at a reason-able hour, they are more tolerant.”
Apart from hostile neighbours,acoustic-unfriendly rooms and discordant echoes can prove jarringto the ears of connoisseurs and laylisteners. But converting your studyor living room into a personal soundroom isn’t as tough as it, well...sounds.
You don’t have to be a profession-al to listen to clearer music in yourown room. Using simple steps, youcan dampen and soundproof yourroom to an extent that there is a
rich sound inside, and the neigh-bours, too, can keep to themselves.
A good listening room is one whereyour ears feel comfortably numb, asever-present background sounds areabsent. You shout, and your voicedoesn’t echo. You hear a single sound,nothing overlaps. Architect andsound engineer Arsh Sharma saysthe most important sound controlfactor is to avoid the bass frequencyboom, which isn’t part of the originalsoundtrack. “All speakers have anadded distorted sound emergingfrom the back, apart from the mainsound. A wall of acoustic panels rightbehind the speakers, and another infront, is essential to create a good lis-tening environment,” adds Sharma.
DO-IT-YOURSELFCertain simple ideas in a room canproduce great results when it comesto sound dampening (see SoundAdvice). “Use a lot of filled bookcas-es, and have plenty of cushions, mattresses and fabric,” says Sharma,who is also a guitarist with Delhi-based experimental rock band The Circus.
Sharma has built a basic soundrecording room in his South Delhihouse, which has acoustic panels allover the room to cover all visiblespace on the walls and ceiling.
Sound designer Debjit Mitra, who
has handled the audio engineeringfor stand-up comedy groups such asDelhi’s Cheese Monkey Mafia andMumbai’s Culture Shoq, has put upacoustic panels in his bedroom.Mitra says bass sounds are toughestto soundproof, and one has to selectsound-absorbent materials.“Acoustic panels with foam sheetsand pinboards are handy. Don’t useegg trays, they don’t work,” he says.
If you can afford it, go for woodenfalse ceilings. “And if the room isbeing built, make sure to not have aneven number of surfaces. A hexago-nal-shaped room works well,” addsSharma, who also plays for the elec-tronica band Fuzzculture.
So what are you waiting for?Turn up the volume!
The Sound And The Fury
Doublelayer carpets
with a thick rugover the entirefloor to absorb
sound
Doublelayer glass with
sound absorptionglass outside to
reduce thedin
Coverthe walls
with soundabsorption
panels
CHEAP ENOUGH!Creating a sound room out of yourregular-sized room costs a minimumof R10,000 (for 2-3 acoustic panels)ffoorr bbaassiicc ssoouunndd aabbssoorrppttiioonn aanndd bbaassssccoonnttrrooll. These costs can go up to R2,00,000 depending on the level of soundproofing and sophistication.
SOUND ADVICEHere’s what you can do to create abasic sound room without hiring afancy (and expensive) expert ■ Fill the place with bookcases filledwith books to absorb sound■ Furnish it with cushions, rugs,thick mattresses and carpets■ Add more cloth and fabric to theroom – tablecloths, blankets on so-fas, chairs, canvas, other thick fabric■ Use wood (as much as possible)■ Install acoustic panels■ Use double-layer soundproof glass■ Install false ceilings■ Get a soundproof door bottom■ Use acoustic insulation to fill gapsand edges of windows■ Paint it right. Some professionalseven have soundproof paint
Here are some age-old garage bandtricks that might come in handy ■ Hang thick rugs or old mattressesagainst the walls■ Just fill the room with stuff – evenif you need to place store-room racks
CALLED?WHAT’S ITThat coaster-like thing you put under a hot bowl before placing it on a table? It’s called a TRIVET
HOME MADE RECORDINGAudio engineer and guitarist Arsh Sharma in his sound room
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RAJ
Neighbours hate your playlist? Here’s howto get your own listening roomby Manit Moorjani
KARAN MALHOTRA’SAgneepath is one of thebiggest box-office hits of theyear. It may seem to repre-
sent a return to an older Bollywoodstyle: Agneepath is, after all, aremake of Mukul Anand’s 1990 cultclassic tale of revenge, and like thelatter, it is a highly stylised melodra-ma in which the hero suffers terri-bly, schemes patiently, and ultimate-ly succeeds both in avenging therighteous and killing the bad guy.
So how can this self-consciousthrowback be considered an instanceof the new wave of India Bana Pardesmovies that I discussed in last week’sarticle? In some ways, Agneepathwould seem to be the opposite of Don2, the exemplary “India BecomesForeign” film. That movie imaginesan Indian world in which India curi-ously no longer exists, as everyone init is a rootless NRI, shape-shiftingacross international borders andidentities in the manner of global cap-ital. Agneepath, by contrast, doesn’tset foot out of India, and its charac-ters remain resolutely themselves,rooted in a strong, old-fashionedsense of family. At first glance, thisfilm’s shaping logic is anything butIndia Bana Pardes: On the contrary,it might seem to be India BharatVaapis Bana.
Yet the film provides an illuminat-ing variation on the theme of IndiaBana Pardes. What is pardes inAgneepath is not a foreign culture orcountry. Rather, it is a foreign ele-ment that haunts the structure of theIndian family itself. In particular, thefilm mines something in the nature ofthe father-son relation that brings outthe other meaning of Bana Pardes:Becoming Strange or BecomingEstranged. Agneepath shows how thereverence that the son is supposed toextend to the father can easily cam-
ouflage a violent repudiation of him.And it does so in a way that subtlyilluminates India’s complex relationsto its past traditions in an age of economic liberalisation.
Agneepath is a story of a loyal sonseeking to honour his father – notjust in the film’s onscreen narrative,but also in its production history.Much has been made of how KaranJohar wished to do a remake of theoriginal Agneepath, which had beenproduced by his late father YashJohar. Though now regarded as acult classic, the original had bombedon its initial release in 1990. Karanhas described its failure as a majortrauma that devastated Yash Johar
both emotionally and financially. Incommissioning Karan Malhotra toscript and direct the remake, Joharhas sought to pay tribute to his latefather, as the Dharma Productionshomage in the opening credits (“wemiss you”) makes clear. Which is tosay: Johar has produced a filmwhose very story mirrors the condi-tions of its production – a son tryingto salvage his father’s lost honour.
Yet this conceals one importantdetail about Agneepath’s father-sonrelation. Although the hero Vijayclaims to avenge his father, his seem-ing act of filial memory is really anact of forgetting. His father,Dinanath, is a Gandhian pacificist;
after Dinanath has been falselyframed by the evil Kancha Cheena,and has been violently assaulted andhanged from a tree in the village ofMandwa, Vijay smoulders with adecades-long desire for righteousvengeance. But that desire meansthat even as he insists on remember-ing his father, he forgets Dinanath’spath of ahimsa and takes the oppo-site course – a course of violencelearned in the Mumbai underworld.
A similar forgetting in the name ofremembering afflicts the parallelstory of the film’s production. Even asKaran Johar has paid tribute to YashJohar with Agneepath, he has pro-duced a movie that differs greatlyfrom his father’s. The basic founda-tions of the story are the same, butthe remake literally loses the plotonce Vijay leaves Mandwa forMumbai. In the original, AmitabhBachchan’s Vijay works for a quartetof crime bosses whom he knocks off,one by one; his sidekick is a Tamilnariyal paaniwaala and his love inter-est is a Christian nurse. All are miss-ing from the new version, in whichHrithik Roshan’s Vijay serves hisunderworld apprenticeship with anew ganglord, Rauf Lala (RishiKapoor) and has a new love interest,Kaali Gawde (Priyanka Chopra).
It’s not just the story that is differ-ent. The original Kancha Cheena wasplayed by Danny Dengzongpa as asomewhat effete, pipe-smoking vil-lain; this time round, Sanjay Dutt’sKancha is an oversized monster -looking remarkably like The Lord ofthe Rings’ Gollum if he’d spent twodecades beefing up on a wrestler’sdiet and doing daily workouts at a
The AlphaAgneepath is what we could call the tale of the alpha
beta – the son who claims to be dutiful but aggressivelyoverturns the legacy of the beloved father
by Jonathan Gil Harris
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
PA RT 2
India Bana PardesA Pardesi Watches Bollywood
a three-part series
The new Agneepath is an exceedinglyviolent movie that dismembers as much as
it remembers the original
HE’S A NEW MANAmitabh Bachchan’s Vijay (above) worksfor a quartet of crime bosses. HrithikRoshan’s Vijay serves his underworld apprenticeship with a new ganglord
18
19hindustantimes.com/brunch
gym next to a tattoo parlour.Because the new Vijay has to over-come a limb-tearing adversary whowould give even the Incredible Hulkpause, the result is an exceedinglyviolent movie that dismembers asmuch as it remembers the original.
The effect of both Vijay’s andKaran Johar’s forgetting in the nameof remembering is a Bollywood coun-terpart to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.That play’s title character also seeksto honour a beloved dead father andavenge him; but even as the ghost ofthe father exhorts his son to remem-ber, Hamlet keeps forgetting what heis meant to do. This simultaneousidentification with and resistance tothe will of the father distinguishes apsychodrama in which forgetting isthe form that apparent remembrancetakes. Bachchan’s own father,Harivansh Rai Bachchan, wrote thepoem that gave the film its title;Amitabh’s Vijay memoris-es it without ever fullycomprehending what itmeans as he pursues hiscareer as a gangster.(The poem is an ode tovirtuous perseverance –tu na mudega kabhi – notto murderous violence.)But Agneepath’s complexfather-son drama ismade even more glaring-ly evident in the remake.
This is in no small part due toHrithik Roshan’s unusual perform-ance as Vijay. As a star whose box-office successes and flops are verymuch associated with those of hisown director-producer father, RakeshRoshan (Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai, Koi…Mil Gaya, Krrish, Kites), Hrithik comesto the film with the baggage of beinga daddy’s boy. But Roshan’s perform-ance alternates between a robotic
brutality of a kind not seen in theoriginal Agneepath and a desperateneediness for the mother who rejectshim because of his embrace of crimi-nal violence. This vacillation trans-forms the film into an extended night-mare in which Vijay completely for-gets the lessons of the father he ide-alises. At the end, after he hasreturned to Mandwa, executedKancha Cheena following a particu-larly gruesome fight, and is dying inthe arms of his estranged mother, heasks her: “Maine thikh kiya? [did I dothe right thing?]” Rather than answerin the affirmative, she says simplythat she hopes he will be reborn asher son in her next life. Her non-com-mittal response underlines the longdistance Vijay has travelled from hisfather’s and her own non-violent path.
So what does all this have to dowith India Bana Pardes? Perhaps wecan see in the drama of a remember-
ing that is really a forget-ting Karan Johar’s ownpersonal psychodrama,of needing both to hon-our his father and estab-lish his independencefrom him. But the chordAgneepath has struckwith its audiences sug-gests that its power hasto do less with a personalthan with a larger nation-
al psychodrama. WhatVijay’s estrangement from his familyspeaks to, I would argue, is a sense ofhistorical rupture in the wake of eco-nomic liberalisation. ManmohanSingh’s economic reforms began in1991, the year after the release – andfailure – of the original Agneepath.The reforms have promised bravenew futures for some; but they havealso threatened an irreversible breakwith certain national traditions. Even
as India continues to call GandhiRashtra Pita or Father of the Nation,it cannot help but move away from hisand Nehru’s legacy under the pres-sures of globalisation, urbanisation,and a widening gap between rich andpoor. In the process, just as Vijay vio-lently estranges himself from theGandhian father he honours, so hasIndia in the age of liberalisationbecome pardes or estranged from theGandhian ideals of non-violence andequal opportunity to which it still payslip-service.
At the level of national fantasy asmuch as individual character,Agneepath is what we could call thetale of the alpha beta – the son whoclaims to be dutiful but aggressivelyoverturns the legacy of the belovedfather. The film does what therevenge movie genre asks it to do:The hero salvages the honour of hisfather and slays the evil-doer whokilled him. But it has also paid lip-
service to the father’s memory whileviolently repudiating everything thefather stands for. It’s often the casethat, the more thoroughly we breakwith tradition, the more we will ide-alise it. And the more violent ourrepudiation, the more we sentimen-talise that which we have repudiated.Sometimes we do need to separatefrom the father. But we must be care-ful not to disguise this estrangementas a starry-eyed tribute.
[email protected] week: The Musical Ghosts of
Dilliwood (Rockstar)
– The author is Professor of English atGeorge Washington University in
Washington DC, USA
“Ye mahaan drishya hai; Chal raha manushya hai; Ashru swed raqt se; Lathpath, lathpath, lathpath; Agneepath, agneepath, agneepath” – Harivansh Rai Bachchan, poet
T H E BA D B OY G E TS WO RS E
A WHALE OF A DIFFERENCEThe original Kancha Cheena was playedby Danny Dengzongpa (right) as asomewhat effete villain; Sanjay Dutt’sKancha (above) is an oversized monster
Agneepath’scomplex
father/sondrama is
more evidentin the remake
Aki, is that really the name yourparents gave you?Yes. Aki was the name given tome by my parents and my grandfather.Have you ever worn makeup of anysort while facingthe camera?I oftenusecon-cealerfor theunder-eye areabecauseof mysmall eyesand dark circles.If you had to dressthe Queen of England, what look
would you give her?A customised suit by VivienneWestwood.Which of your designs or collectionshas got the most flak from the media?Thankfully, none of mywork has received any flakfrom the media. My film workhas also been received reallywell. It was always seen asout of the box.Would you rather cheat or be cheatedupon?None of the above.Who do you think has the best styleamong the current crop of
Bollywood actresses (you can’tname any of your clients)?
I have worked with al-most all the top-rank-
ing film actresses,but I feel that Ka-
reena Kapoorand DeepikaPadukone arethe best styled.What is thebiggest mistakemost Indianwomen makewhen theydress up?Indianwomenweareverythingat once
when theyare dressing up.They should un-
derstand that
‘less’ is in, and comple-ments their
personality more.You have to send a cheesy greetingcard to your sweetheart on completing one month of together-ness, What do you write?“Sunny side up, please!”If you had to spend your life wearingjust one kind of outfit, whatwould it be?A black Pathani suit.Tell us when you last got drunk out ofyour mind and what happened next.I still don’t remember anything.If you were given a chance to remakeone film, which one would it be?A film that’s a combination ofMausam and Aandhi.One song that describes your currentstate of mind?A song by Nicolas Jaar – Justwith a glance.The one part of your body you wouldnever get tattooed?My nose.The one lie you got away with?The last one.If you could peep into anyone’shouse, whose would it be?All my ex-lovers’. I would loveto spy on them.The one actress you would love todress on screen?Dimple Kapadia.
The last line of your autobiogra-phy would read?Tum aa gaye ho noor aagaya hai or the other option would be, “Each
one of us is, successively,not one but many astonishing
contrasting personalities”.
20 facebook.com/hindustantimesbrunchPERSONAL AGENDA
if i could... SUN SIGNVirgo
BIRTHDAYSeptember 6
SCHOOL/COLLEGELa Martiniere,Kolkata
PLACE OF BIRTHKolkata
LOW POINT OFYOUR LIFEWhen I lost mymother
HOMETOWNKolkata
Aki NarulaFashion designer/stylist
Phot
os: T
HINK
STOC
K
TAKE MY FATHER TO PARIS,LONDON AND VIENNA,WHERE HE STUDIED
INTERNWITHGULZAR
I WOULD WRITE A SCRIPT
HIGH POINTOF YOUR LIFE Lakme IndiaFashion Week in 2000
HAVE BREAKFAST IN TULUM [AN ISLAND IN MEXICO]
HOW MANYPAIRS OFBLUEJEANS DOYOU HAVE?
—Interviewed by Yashica Dutt
SEPTEMBER 16, 2012
Around40
CURRENTLY DOINGHosting What Not
To Wear - India onTLC right now
