Table of contents for 16 October 2017 in Open Magazine

editor@openmedianetwork.in LETTER OF THE WEEK Much objectivity has been lost in the pursuit of truth and the current political environment has seen more of it than before (‘Inside the Hate-Modi Industry’, October 9th, 2017). In newspapers and on television, one has observed political leanings towards ruling parties; it has been there before the current Government came to power, but it’s even more pronounced now. In the age of Trump and Modi, the emergence of fake news has brought to our attention brazen attempts to polarise people on the basis of ideology. It has even sparked violence and riots. In the midst of all this, we are losing out on a straight-forward, objective perspective that could enable us to think rationally, even if it does not fully correspond with our beliefs.…

ONE PARTICULAR photograph was in every newspaper the morning after the Elphinstone Road tragedy. It didn’t have the photographer’s name, so presumably it was taken by a commuter who escaped the crush on the FOB (Foot Over Bridge) and used his phone camera. The picture showed only a small section of the bridge, but that was enough to convey the horror of what happened that black Friday: a woman in a red sari was lying still, one arm outstretched past the side railings of the bridge; slumped over her, with his head sticking out on the side lay a young boy, his eyes shut; four men were trying to clamber out, every sinew stretched to retain their precarious hold on the bridge’s vertical bars… The bridge itself was crammed with…

BOB DYLAN’S NOBEL Prize for literature proved to the world that the Swedish committee could still pull a rabbit (nay, a pony) out of its esteemed hat. This year’s announcement that English author Kazuo Ishiguro had been awarded the prize is a surprise, but not a shock. He did not feature among the top bets. Kenyan professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o was the favourite, with odds of 4/1, followed by Japan’s Haruki Murakami with 5/1 and Canada’s Margaret Atwood with 6/1. While the bookies once again read it all wrong, 62-year-old Ishiguro’s fans are sure to exult. Over the last three decades, Ishiguro has amassed a loyal fan base for his writing. Leading publications had declared, ‘At 34, Ishiguro’s place in the literary firmament was already secure and he felt as…

IT WOULD BE WRONG to suggest that urban Indians don’t walk. We are, after all, one of the world’s largest consumers of fitness trackers. The hospital gyms, basement gyms, athletic gyms, 24-hour gyms and luxury hotel gyms that form the bulk of our Rs 85,000 crore fitness industry, all have one piece of equipment in common—the treadmill. And there’s seldom a neighbourhood park that isn’t patronised every morning and evening by a string of walkers and joggers who huff and puff their way from the car, all along the walking track, and then back to the car again. Nearly 70 per cent of those who walk and exercise also take wheeled transport to their chosen fitness centre, even if it is less than 1 km away from their homes, says…

THERE’S A LOVELY nugget of conversation in the recently-released political satire Newton that stays with you long after the film is over. It is part of an early conversation about elections and idealism between the protagonist, Newton, played by the extraordinary Rajkummar Rao, and a senior election official played by Sanjay Mishra in a memorable cameo. On noting his eager demeanour and over-enthusiastic questions about the system, the officer asks Newton if he realises what his problem is. Newton promptly answers that it’s his “imaandaari” (honesty). The officer gives him a dose of truth: it’s not his “imaandaari” that’s a problem, but “imaandaari ka ghamand” (the arrogance of honesty). After an hour-long conversation with the man of the moment, Amit Musarkar, who has directed, written the story and co-written the…

BORN WILD: JOURNEYS INTO THE WILD HEARTS OF INDIA AND AFRICA Swati Thiyagarajan Bloomsbury 233 Pages | Rs 799 BEFORE RECOMMENDING this book to the average reader, I would like to strongly suggest that it be made mandatory reading for every environment/wildlife TV presenter, producer and natural history redneck before they step outdoors. As for bureaucrats and ministry officials, they need to learn it by rote, forwards and backwards. Swati Thiyagarajan is environment editor at NDTV and this book is the result of 20 years of experience in making half-hour documentaries on wildlife and wildlife issues. Much more than that, it is a personal account of what she has learned from the wild—and its denizens— and the issues that threaten it. She writes with refreshing candour, pulls no punches and…

THE SAFEST PLACE for a liberal today is the echo chamber. Step out and you’re with tricksters: populists, nativists, right radicals, leftist militants and other sundry revolutionaries selling salvation gratis. The liberal holds the mirror to himself, and his righteous narcissism peaks as he realises what he has become in this world without ideals. So he plans the next march with a poetic flourish on the placard; he divides this damn world into categories of victimhood; looks down on the “deplorables”; and withdraws further into political irrelevance. The usurpers, rising from below, shattering the certainties of the establishment on both sides of aisle, lose op-ed pages but win elections. In the wake of Brexit and then Trump, the liberal has been left with nothing but anger. Action is in the…

AS SOMEONE WHO has spent much of his life in the suburban trains of Mumbai, I can say with certainty that the only solution to its crowding is for Mumbai to dwindle into nothing, something the city deserves but will not happen. Like all bad habits, even suffering becomes indispensable, especially when there are so few alternatives. Following the tragedy of last week’s stampede in a railway station which killed over 20, absurd ideas are being floated, like handing over the suburban railways to local authorities. Read about a doctor who sank into a manhole | during the recent flooding of the city? Who was supposed to keep the manhole lid closed? The local authority. Who was supposed to create a drainage system to prevent the flooding? The local authority.…

THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of Indian independence has triggered a remarkable outpouring of postcolonial guilt in Britain and anti-Raj anger in India. For a younger generation, who have no first-hand experience of it, empire is now a dirty word, an evil occupation of other people’s countries in order to plunder their wealth. The idea that imperialism could be a benevolent, modernising force, involving collaboration and exchange between rulers and ruled, is now deeply unfashionable. And yet the survival of the British Raj in India for almost two centuries is impossible to explain without understanding such dialogue and partnership. Far from wanting to colonise the minds of their new subjects, most founders of British rule were fascinated by India’s traditional arts and crafts and keen to explore the wonders of its classical…

Theresa May’s preference for inventing her own reality and adhering to it despite all the evidence to the contrary now extends to those crucial Brexit negotiations NESTLED AMONG THE holiday camps and caravan parks in the English coastal county of Lincolnshire is a popular attraction offering ‘extreme rides and roller coasters’ for all the family. It goes by the name of Fantasy Island and promises ‘white knuckle thrills’ for those with the stomach for it. If that’s not your idea of fun, there are plenty of places for a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake. This is Britain after all. For more than 20 years, Fantasy Island has been offering its special brand of escapism to tourists who can’t afford to—or prefer not to—go abroad for their…

WE PAY SPORTSPERSONS sacks of cash (and respect) to not take things lying down, and to adhere to other such stadium clichés. We pay them to show heart. To grow a chin. To not roll over and die. To tame the beast. To become the beast—a mongrel, a lion. We pay them to surrender every social instinct such as love, mercy and compassion and turn into modern-day gladiators. And when they do—when they are the least human they can be—we applaud; a wash of high-pitched screams and clapping hands from the safety of our seats in the stands beyond the court, or the boundary rope, or the boxing ring—the modern-day version of coliseums. During the post-classical era, when real gladiators (or, the finest athletes of the time) exited the arena,…

THE GREATEST URDU STORIES EVER TOLD Selected and translated by Muhammad Umar Memon Aleph 346 Pages | Rs 699 A THOUSAND YEARNINGS: A BOOK OF URDU POETRY AND PROSE Translated and introduced by Ralph Russell Speaking Tiger 381 Pages | Rs 599 BY COINCIDENCE THESE two anthologies of Urdu literature in translation have been published more or less simultaneously. Each is vastly different from the other. On one hand, under the eyeball-grabbing title, The Greatest Urdu Stories Ever Told, is the personal selection of Professor Muhammad Umar Memon, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US. In his elegant introduction, he expertly explains the evolution of Urdu literature, and especially Urdu prose. The short story, being a form borrowed from European literature, flowered in the 20th century, and with a few exceptions,…

WHILE READING ABOUT garden styles, I was struck by the relationship spatial arrangements of plants and structures have with how rulers display their power, and how memories infuse these designs. We all have fond memories connected to plants—climbing fruit trees as children and plucking guavas, picking henna leaves from the plant growing wild near the school gate and bringing it home, grinding it and then applying it to one’s palms and fingers, and so on. Why should emperors be any different? In his memoir, Tuzk e Babri, Mughal Emperor Babar writes about the gardens of his childhood in Fergana valley, and also describes the beautiful gardens surrounding Samarkand during his first visit to that city: ‘In this Chehar-Bagh there is a variety of different plots laid out one above another,…

The Return of Sanjay Dutt His comeback film Bhoomi might not have made quite the impact he was hoping for, but the 58-year-old Sanjay Dutt doesn’t want to lose his career momentum. He’s already on the sets again, filming the third movie in Tigmanshu Dhulia’s Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster series in Bikaner, and he’s got his wife Manyata and their young twins, Shahraan and Iqra, for company on the outdoor schedule. Photographs and videos of Dutt playing badminton with his seven-year-olds conveniently surfaced just days after Bhoomi tanked at the box office. The actor has gone on to say that hanging out with his children on location made him nostalgic about visiting his own father Sunil Dutt on set when he was younger. Meanwhile, sources in the film industry reveal…

WHEN IT COMES to selfishness, the so-called elites can beat the poor and illiterate masses hollow. A case in point is the recent election in the capital’s oldest and most prestigious Gymkhana Club. Prashant Shukul, additional controller of defence accounts, comfortably defeated Krishan Verma, a retired RAW officer often seen on nightly news TV holding forth on national security. The election was held in the last week of September. Unusually, serving officers and retired veterans of the IAS and armed forces stayed away from the fray. For, ahead of the election, 5,000-odd voting members were expected to informally endorse a rather egregious demand: that their grandchildren, too, ought to be given membership on a priority basis. Dependents of members are already granted this privilege. Even their admission fees are a…

ON OCTOBER 4TH, the Reserve Bank of India held constant its repo rate—the key policy rate of interest that sends a signal to the banking system—at 6 per cent. In its last rate decision, in August, the central bank had reduced this rate by 25 basis points—or a quarter of a percentage point. In taking the decision, the RBI highlighted the renewed risk of rising inflation. It raised its inflation forecast for the second half of the year to 4.2-4.6 per cent, up from 4-4.5 per cent. The central bank listed several risks that lie behind its elevated projection of prices: farm loan waivers; the implementation of Pay Commission salary hikes in states; and a slew of price revisions following the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The decision was contrary…

Anna Hazare has shed his invisibility cloak to threaten the Government with an anti-corruption movement later this year or early next year in the national capital, presumably along the lines of what he led in 2011 and 2012. Unfortunately, it is going to fail because he is his own biggest saboteur. By refusing to accept the Aam Aadmi Party, he has no ally in it. And since his target is the BJP, which rules the Centre this time, this party’s muscle will not be behind him. Who remains? The Congress, against whom Hazare had protested the first time and is not terribly well disposed towards him. In the absence of any major supporters to do the legwork, going alone might be the only option left, and the outcome of that…

For centuries, artists have chronicled violence and suffering. They depict scenes not only of victory (the raising of the flag), but also of despair (a search for home). Their works plunge a viewer into conflict, and also force her to step back and grapple with not just the scale of the destruction, but personal injury and issues of identity. Following are portraits of five artists who bring the conflicts of their home and the world into their work. Veer Munshi Jammu & Kashmir Veer Munshi’s suite of poignant photographs of deserted Pandit homes in Kashmir, falling to ruin or inhabited by vagrants, reflects the notion of conflict by speaking of its aftermath. At the centre of the collage of photographs is a video—of Pandit houses continuing to burn—playing on loop.…

MISS LAILA ARMED AND DANGEROUS Manu Joseph HarperCollins 211 Pages | Rs 499 WORDS PRINTED ON paper, though only words, can threaten to pull down a state from under itself. Manu Joseph’s latest book, Miss Laila, Armed and Dangerous, treads this uncertain ground. It sets out to, if not dismantle a government, unapologetically call out its transgressions Miss Laila covers events and recollections within a span of 24 hours on the counting day of an election won by Damodarbhai and his Sangh-led government. This victory forms the backdrop for the fulcrum of the story, a building that has collapsed in Mumbai. Akhila Iyer, a political satirist who mocks both the right and left-wing in her video pranks, rushes to the site. In the debris, the Army has located a man…

HE IS THE newest kid on the block and is ready to make his mark in Hollywood with Victoria & Abdul, starring opposite Dame Judi Dench. The film reveals an unusual friendship between Queen Victoria and her assistant from India, Abdul Karim. The Mumbai-based actor talks about Hollywood, Victoria & Abdul and unusual friendships. How did you get the part? I was sitting with a business associate and she told me about the auditions for Victoria & Abdul. She said, ‘You’ve probably missed it but why don’t you try anyway?’ So I called the casting director, Nandini [Shrikent], and we recorded two scenes on my phone and sent it. About 25 days later, I get a call saying Stephen Frears and Beeban Kidron are coming to India to sift through…