Table of contents for 11 June 2018 in Open Magazine

WOMEN WRITERS HAVE ARRIVED It is unfortunate that the art of writing is sometimes seen as hierarchical. Although much of it is changing now, on reading Tishani Doshi’s interview with Siri Hustvedt on this art (‘Artists are Cannibals’, June 4th, 2018), one is almost overcome with a realisation of the passive trajectory of the voice of women. Other than the absorption of artists by fellow artists, it is striking when she says, “And I’m not apologising for myself before I give a talk. That’s over.” She also says, “Writing is a way of arriving.” Women writers have arrived and the old hierarchy that puts ‘male genius’ on top has been rendered obsolete. Deepika Kapoor THE RISE OF MARATHI CINEMA As cinema homogenises, new Marathi films are breaking through the traditional…

ELON MUSK, THE maverick and visionary founder of Tesla, has recently been in a somewhat embattled position. Tesla’s cars, which run on electric power, are in extraordinary demand in the US and have almost single-handedly shown that a world without gas-driven engines can be even sleeker and faster. As much as the future can be seen for cars, this was it. But the company has borrowed heavily, is woefully short on production targets and unable to create the revenue it needs. Once a darling of the media, Tesla now gets relentless bad news. Musk hasn’t taken it well, going on an offensive against the media that he feels is biased against him. He has been engaged in a series of tweet-battles with reporters. In the middle of all this, on…

SMOKE AROSE IN the sky from gunfire as the trigger-happy policemen took aim. Thirteen people died, while nearly 102 protestors and 34 police personnel were injured. A special deputy tehsildar claims he ordered the firing to save lives and property at the Collector’s office since more than 10,000 people were marching towards the premises with deadly weapons. Tear gas and a lathi charge failed to disperse them, he says, so they resorted to bullets. Maybe, but shooting to kill? Was it necessary? Surely, a few shots in the air or a few arrests would have sufficed. Tuticorin or Thoothukudi is a port and industrial city in southern Tamil Nadu. According to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), it has the state’s second-highest score on the Human Development Index after Chennai.…

BEFORE I ARRIVED to work in India, without ever having visited, I had a view on what the country would be like. I was full of preconceptions about life in India generally, but also on the sort of people I would find myself working with. Some of my expectations turned out to be true, such as the sweltering heat that causes me to feel as if I am in a permanent state of having just bathed, and the near constant blaring of car horns. I was also correct in that there would be cow-filled streets, although after having spent my first month solely in Lutyens’ Delhi, I made the mistake of falsely reporting home that India’s roads were bovine free. It was my preconceptions surrounding my place of work which…

BATS LIVE EVERYWHERE, and, in addition to Nipah, they carry more viruses than we know. They have carried them around for the last 52.5 million years. And yet, we didn’t know of Nipah Virus till 1998, when it caused a human illness. Why, after millennia of quiescence, did this virus suddenly emerge as a fatal illness? Since 1998, Nipah Fever has appeared at least 12 times in Bangladesh and several times in West Bengal before this outbreak in Kerala. During this time, the disease has changed profile: it has grown more dangerous. In 2015, WHO listed it among the seven pathogens prioritised for research, because of its high potential to precipitate an emergency. Which just means that Nipah Virus—which has drawn attention to Pteropus giganticus, the Indian fruit-bat—could get worse.…

AS THE THEATRE, at the India Habitat Centre, Delhi, plunges into darkness, sounds, emanating from the screen, start playing games on your mind. The ticking of the clock amplifies into an unearthly echo, while the screeches of traffic evoke the snarls of a beast. This sets the tone for the dark narrative underlying the Malayalam film S Durga, and you know that you are in for a deeply unsettling experience. The visuals alternate between that of a young couple—Kabeer and Durgaeloping in the dead of night, and those of the garudan thookkam ritual being performed in one of Kerala’s temples. The pace of the movie changes rapidly as the night thickens. The couple has a nightmarish encounter on the highway with a group of men, who offer them a ride…

KR MEERA’S The Unseeing Idol of Light is a dark novel. Every character’s life is marred by seemingly unending darkness, especially in love and marriage. Prakash lost his sight soon after he married eight-month pregnant Deepti, which was just around the time she disappeared. They were travelling by train, when her berth was found empty in the middle of the night—no sign of her bags or bedsheet, nothing. Without Deepti, Prakash’s ‘life ha[s] become devoid of meaning’. For the last 10 years, he has been searching for her. His friend Shyam has been helping him. Shyam was to be married two days after Deepti’s disappearance but the wedding was called off because Shyam insisted on helping search for Deepti. Since then, Shyam has dedicated much of his life to helping…

FAR FROM BEING UNCONCERNED WITH ‘COMMUNAL’ POLITICS, NANDY DUBS HINDUTVA AS ARTIFICIAL AND FAR FROM THE ORIGINAL AND GENTEEL HINDUISM, TURNING THE TABLES ON HIS LEFTIST CRITICS INDIAN INTELLECTUALS LOVE silos. Before anyone has pigeonholed them into some category, group or class, they quietly classify themselves. Then begins the war for India’s ‘soul’, with the learned men (and women) aligning themselves with some or the other political party, in effect leaving them as mere adjuncts in a bigger game: the pursuit of power. Far from all this, in the very city where this din is at its most grating, a diminutive 80-year-old is busy in his own demolition game. For a person who has observed much of Independent India closely, Ashis Nandy has strong opinions. He forcefully questions reigning ideas…

DREW BARRYMORE has been Hollywood’s sweetheart since her appearance as a six-year-old in Steven Spielberg’s beloved ET (1982). As a producer and actress, she has donned many hats over the decades, but now she will be seen in a new medium. As the lines blur between cinema and television when it comes to content and reach, we are seeing more movie actors cross over to television, with outlets such as Netflix and Amazon. Barrymore, after a string of hit movies took time off to look after her children and has now returned to acting in the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet, a dark comedy about a mother who dies and comes back to life and thrives on eating human flesh. Why did you decide to do this series? It came…

Double Date Trouble Sara Ali Khan is in the eye of a storm. The makers of her unreleased debut film—Ronnie Screwvala and Abhishek ‘Gattu’ Kapoor of Kedarnath—reportedly went to court last week over the debutant’s dates. Turns out her agency gave away the shooting dates that she’d committed to Kedarnath to Karan Johar and Rohit Shetty who’re producing her next project, the Ranveer Singh starrer Simmba. When the makers of Simmba refused to clear Sara’s dates so she could wrap the final schedule of Kedarnath, Screwvala and Gattu are believed to have filed a case against the actress, demanding compensation to the tune of Rs 5 crore. It’s a complicated mess. When Kedarnath ran into trouble after Gattu and co-producer Prerna Arora of Kriarj Entertainment had a falling out, Kwaan,…

The standards of excellence that several Indians have reached and set for others are beyond dispute (‘Open Minds’, June 4th, 2018). When seen together, it is difficult not to feel proud of our fellow citizens and be inspired by their work, foresight, and at times, even courage. It was particularly interesting to read about the young Avani Chaturvedi, who is in the Indian Air Force. Such success stories should be celebrated more often in the mainstream Indian media. This will motivate others to push beyond what is expected of them and realise that anything can be achieved if they work hard enough and persist with their dreams. Profiles of women, especially, encourage many to break free of gender stereotypes. These are also feel-good stories in general because when you read…

FOR ALL THE opprobrium that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) attracts in liberal circles, there is something in the tradition of the Nagpur-based organisation that is liberal. Every year, for key functions, the RSS invites well-known individuals from various walks of life to address is volunteers. The political affiliation or beliefs of the person are incidental on such occasions. What matters more is the invitee’s contribution to public life in India. This year, during an RSS camp for third-year volunteers—usually held in peak summer months in Nagpur—former President Pranab Mukherjee has been invited to deliver an address. No sooner was this made public that all hell broke loose. India’s liberals were up in arms against the country’s former First Citizen for accepting an invitation from a so-called ‘fascist’ group. His…

The idea of a favourable maternity policy, where a woman’s job, upon becoming a mother, is protected, has gradually come to be accepted as beneficial for all. It increases gender equality and allows businesses to retain employees. But what happens when the woman is an athlete in a competitive sport? This question is now being considered with Serena Williams’ return to the tennis court. Currently ranked 451th, she is still regaining full fitness, and suffered losses at Indian Wells and Miami. She is now playing the French Open under a protected ranking. But no such protection exists for a player’s seeding, which means she can face top-ranked players in early rounds. On the flip side, top-seeded players who enter a tournament are those in top form, which Williams might not…

MEHR TARAR COVERS a lot of ground in her book, Do We Not Bleed? In just a few essays, she conveys to us the Pakistan she lives in, the country she knows and loves and wants everyone else to know as well. However, these aren’t just for the benefit of those outside Pakistan. As the name of the book suggests, these are reflections on the current state of the country and an examination of events and people who have affected her. To this end, the book is helpfully divided into five sections. She spares no punches as she begins the book with a difficult but oft spoken-about subject: ‘Religious Persecution and Other Discontents.’ Starting with the stories of numerous people who have died in the name of religion, she writes…

ON MAY 25th, Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Shantiniketan to host Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The ostensible occasion was the inauguration of a new Banga Bhavan that will involve scholars from Bangladesh in the academic pursuits of Vishwa Bharati University, founded by Rabindranath Tagore as a centre of ‘alternative’ education. Modi was there in his capacity as Acharya (chancellor) of the university, a privilege that has been accorded to all prime ministers since Vishwa Bharati was ‘nationalised’ in 1951 and transformed into a Central university, a status that many institutions seek. It was his first visit to Shantiniketan in his capacity as Acharya since he assumed office in 2014. What I found interesting about this visit was neither the fact that Modi shared the dais with West Bengal…

IN JANUARY 1998, the day the Biju Janata Dal (BJD)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alliance was announced, Baijayant Panda hosted a lavish dinner in Bhubaneswar for leaders of both parties. Panda was not even officially part of the BJD, but was given the task of roping in reluctant Janata Dal leaders into the newly formed party. Many in Odisha recall that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik frequented two places in Bhubaneswar. One of them was the home of Panda, whose family was close to his, and the other that of AU Singh Deo, an Odisha politician who was Patnaik’s Doon School mate. Two decades after that dinner, a letter sent on May 28th by Panda, the BJD’s Kendrapara MP, to Patnaik, a four-time Chief Minister and party supremo, showed how bitterly the…

CHINA’S INVOLVEMENT IN territories beyond its borders is extensive. From its garrison in Djibouti on the eastern edge of Africa to the Scarborough Shoal near the Philippines lies a vast expanse of oceanic territory. Patrolling that space is sufficient to give a headache to a first-rate navy. And that is not the only military commitment that China has at hand: its land borders are vast and are enough to keep its armed forces fully occupied. As matters stand now, China’s effective ‘frontiers’ are more extensive than any chain of Roman limes, all the way from the Antonine Wall to the sands of Mesopotamia. These are not simple geographic facts. In the last five years or so, leaders and analysts from Hanoi to New Delhi and from Canberra to Washington DC…

IN ALBERT CAMUS’ immortal words, ‘the purpose of the writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself.’ Tabish Khair shoulders this responsibility with impressive fortitude. Nuanced and insightful, his fiction shines a light on the inner workings of a world mired in Islamophobia and intolerance. It raises difficult, and necessary, questions about the powerful influence religion exerts on the Indian social fabric. Khair’s latest novel, Night of Happiness revolves around Anil Mehrotra, a successful businessman, and his long-time employee, Ahmed. Anil runs an export-import business based in Bombay. Ahmed is his right-hand man. Anil appreciates his employee’s dedication. The only holiday Ahmed avails is Shabe-baraat, a festival he says he celebrates with his wife, Roshni. She makes delicious maida ka halwa (whose recipe she picked up from Ahmed’s mother before…