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Category: Arts & Culture

  • New reads for new year

    New reads for new year

    Is it possible for a society to exist without religion? Nireeswaran, the most celebrated of Malayalam novelist V.J. James’ works, uses incisive humour and satire to question blind faith and give an insight into what true spirituality is…reports Asian Lite News

    With a wide choice of books, you can count on many beautiful pages of words to read and consider while starting off the New Year.

    Open House with Piyush Pandey

    Authors: Piyush Pandey and Anant Rangaswami

    Publisher: Penguin Random House India Pvt Ltd

    Open house

    Piyush Pandey takes readers on a voyage through his mind-his work, thoughts, and experiences-in Open House. People have asked him questions over the years, and he has answered them. There are three types of questions: serious, incisive, and frivolous. Is advertising a viable career path? Should political parties hire ad agencies? Why does Ogilvy work for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)? Should those who don’t like the advertising take the law into their own hands? Is Ogilvy & Mather a lala firm? What does advertising’s future hold? Is Piyush Pandey too old for this line of work?

    This book, which has been expertly edited by Piyush Pandey and Anant Rangaswami, is honest, irreverent, and educational. Open House will both entertain and enlighten you with its practical wisdom and deep insights.

    THE MUSLIM VANISHES

    Author: Saeed Naqvi

    Publisher : Penguin Random House India Pvt Ltd

    The great poet Ghalib, part of a long tradition of eclectic liberalism, found Benaras so compelling that he wrote his longest poem on the holy city, ‘Chiragh-e-Dair’ (Mandir Ka Diya or Lamp in the Temple):

    ‘Ibadat khaana-e-naaqoosian ast,

    Hama na Kaaba-e-Hindostan ast.’

    (Devotees make searing music with conch shells,

    This truly is the Kaaba of Hindustan.)

    Remove Ghalib and his legion of devotees from the equation. Will Hindustan be left with a gaping hole or will it evolve into something quite different? Saeed Naqvi’s play The Muslim Vanishes tries to answer such question. The decibel levels on these topics are too high, with each side strongly defending their own narratives for a discourse to take place. Caste, the Hindu-Muslim split, Pakistan-Kashmir-the decibel levels on these issues are too high for a conversation to take place. Is there a way out of this bind? Saeed Naqvi, razor-sharp, gentle, and humorous, springs an inspired surprise on us by combining grandma’s bedside stories, Aesop’s fables, and Mullah Nasruddin’s faked flaws. Is it capable of putting out the fire?

    Nireeswaran

    Author – V.J. James

    Publisher : Penguin Random House India Pvt Ltd

    Is it possible for a society to exist without religion? Nireeswaran, the most celebrated of Malayalam novelist V.J. James’ works, uses incisive humour and satire to question blind faith and give an insight into what true spirituality is.

    Antony, Sahir, and Bhaskaran, three atheists, embark on an elaborate prank to prove that God is nothing more than a myth. They put up a mutilated Nireeswaran idol, which is basically anti-god, to demonstrate how worthless their faith is. When miracles begin to be credited to Nireeswaran, such as a man waking up after a twenty-four-year coma, an unemployed man unfit for government work receiving a contract, and a prostitute transforming into a saint, throngs of people go to worship the bogus deity. The trio is caught in the middle of a dilemma. Will they be able to defeat their own creation? Is their obstinate thinking a sign that atheism is a religion in and of itself? It’s possible that belief and disbelief are two sides of the same coin.

    The Hidden Hindu

    Author: Akshat Gupta

    Publisher : Penguin Random House India Pvt Ltd

    Prithvi, a twenty-one-year-old, is on the hunt for Om Shastri, a mysterious middle-aged aghori (Shiva devotee) who was tracked down more than 200 years ago and taken to a high-tech facility on an isolated Indian island. When the aghori was drugged and hypnotised for questioning by a team of experts, he claimed to have seen all four yugas (Hindu epochs) and even participated in both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Om’s amazing prior disclosures, which defied the laws of mortality, perplexed everyone.

    Om had been searching for the other immortals from each yuga, the crew discovers. These strange secrets have the potential to upend current ideas and change the trajectory of history. So, who is Om Shastri, exactly? Why was he apprehended? In this exhilarating and revealing journey, board the boat of Om Shastri’s secrets, Prithvi’s chase, and the exploits of other intriguing immortals from Hindu mythology.

    The Climate Ninja by Merlinwand book

    Merlinwand wants to teach the kids about global warming. The effects of climate change are being discussed all around the world. The storytelling is what sets their story apart. Their goal isn’t to preach (as all textbooks do), but to raise awareness in a humorous way. A little human and his companion from the planet Mootza had an informative talk. While on a cruise with his parents, the miniature human falls into the ocean by accident. He encounters Rumpus, an extraterrestrial from Planet Mootza, after being rescued by a dolphin. Rumpus has been on this island for a long time, since his planet was devastated by pollution.

    The two have an engaging talk, and the small human recognises the seriousness of pollution (water, soil, noise, and air) on the planet. After that, he declares himself to be The Climate Ninja. The most intriguing aspect of the book is that the client gets to choose the protagonist’s name and appearance. They are given the option of choosing two of the four categories of pollution: air, noise, water, and soil pollution.

    Pandit Vishnu Sharma’s Panchatantra- Illustrated Tales From Ancient India

    Panchatantra is a fantastic collection of moral stories drawn from Panchatantra’s five books: mitra-bheda, mitralabha, kakolukyam, labdhapranasam, and aparksitakarakam. The legendary tales of Panchatantra continue to amaze young readers and adults alike with delightful narrated stories of smart animals, birds, and people. Young readers will be transported to another world by the gorgeous illustrations, where they will learn about life lessons, human nature, and how to achieve success.

    How to Talk to Your Kids About Climate Change: Turning Angst into Action Climate change

    Shugarman, a climate campaigner, has developed a pointedly apolitical work geared at helping parents and children talk about climate change. She also offers advise on how to protect children from feeling unhappy or overwhelmed (information that applies to adults as well) and how to encourage youngsters to pursue their unique passions while keeping the overall vision in mind. Many people are talking about global warming these days, and the prospect of a climate calamity may scare many children. How do we talk about these important issues in a way that is both informative and doesn’t exacerbate anxieties? What can we do to ensure that our children have the best possible future in a disaster-plagued world? This book will answer all of your questions. Fear and grief can be overcome with the help of this book.

    World’s Greatest Leaders: Biographies of Inspirational Personalities

    This is a painstakingly researched book that honours the accomplishments of charismatic, powerful, and influential individuals who have influenced the course of history. Young inquisitive minds will be piqued by age-appropriate information, amusing facts, and vivid graphics, which will aid in the development of reading skills and general knowledge. It’s a fantastic book for teaching your child and yourself about the world’s greatest leaders. It also teaches life lessons and even personal ethics that parents sometimes neglect to impart to their children.

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  • Soumitra Chatterjee – A Film-Maker Remembers

    Soumitra Chatterjee – A Film-Maker Remembers

    Chatterjee was “such a pleasure to have around the sets” and his innumerable stories from yesteryears and anecdotes from experiences as an actor were a treasure trove”…reports Vishnu Makhijani

    Humility, a lust for life, a quest for perfection, all this and more comes across in a heart-warming tribute to Soumitra Chatterjee, who mesmerised the cinematic world for more than 60 years with a staggering oeuvre of over 250 films, 14 of them with Satyajit Ray – won a National Award for Best Actor in 2006 and who continued to appear before the camera almost to the very end till he passed away aged 85 on November 15, 2020.

    “He was by far the most vibrant person I have met. His lust for life knew no bounds. Whether through literature, through poetry, through films, through his interactions with people, through theatre, it was as if he wanted to perpetually soak in the delirium of life and be bathed in all its beauty. His mind was like a blank canvas, ready to be painted with colours”, Suman Ghosh, a professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University and trained in the film genre at Cornell, writes in “Soumitra Chatterjee – A Film-Maker Remembers” (Om Books International).

    “Basically, he never considered himself bigger than the film, or the director’s vision. He submitted himself completely to the director’s vision and conveyed that vision without distorting or damaging it. When it comes to the relationship between a director and an actor in the making of a film, it’s like walking together, searching together and becoming one,” writes Ghosh, whose debut directorial ‘Podokkhep’ won Chatterjee his National Award.

    “Hence, what Soumitra-kaku always tried was to understand the director (both as an artist and as a person), his or her vision, and then travel together, wired to the director’s vision, in step with that. He then had to just ‘do’ or ‘be’,” adds Ghosh, who, over their association for more than 15 years, came to regard Chatterjee as a father figure, hence the “kaku” appellation.

    The bond was mutual.

    “My parents are not star-struck people (but) one day my mother asked me whether it would be possible to request (him) to come to our house (for lunch),” Ghosh writes.

    Chatterjee enthusiastically accepted the invitation. “Soumitra-kaku really enjoyed the meal and I was so happy to see the joy on my mother’s face. Before leaving he thanked my parents for a wonderful afternoon. While returning home with me in the car it was interesting that he remarked, ‘Tomader puro paribar ke ki apon laglo. Ekta odbhut sohoj shorol byapar achhey’. (I felt so close to your family. There is a simplicity about them which is so endearing),” Ghosh writes.

    Truly, this is the mark of humility of an actor rooted firmly on the ground. It was Chatterjee’s humility that once prompted him to “give way” to his co-actor Mithun Chakraborty, way his junior in the profession, during the filming of Ghosh’s “Nobel Chor” when he found the latter unable to maintain the dialect of the village in which the film was being shot and which the thespian had mastered.

    There are examples galore of Chatterjee’s quest for perfection. For instance, ‘Podokkhep’ concludes with Chatterjee quoting from the Mahabharata: ‘Na narmayuktam vachanam hinasti na strishu raajan na vivaahakaale/Praanaatyayee sarvadhanaapahaare panchaanrutaanyaahurapaatakaani’ which basically lists the five situations in which telling a lie is not sinful.

    Chatterjee actually telephoned Nrishinga Prasad Bhaduri, an Indologist and authority on the epics, to understand the meaning and ensure he had the pronunciation right, Ghosh writes.

    Chatterjee was “such a pleasure to have around the sets” and his innumerable stories from yesteryears and anecdotes from experiences as an actor were a treasure trove”, the author writes.

    “Over my interactions with him for fifteen more years I found out that he possessed a fund of never ending stories. For example, during the shooting of ‘Abhijan’, Robi Ghosh and he were casually chatting with each other and Kaku was narrating an incident which involved using the choicest cuss words. At one point, Robi Ghosh realised that Satyajit Ray had come up and was standing behind Kaku. Kaku did not realise this and continued in full flow.

    “Suddenly, he saw Robi Ghosh making strange facial expressions, trying to alert him. Kaku turned around , utterly embarrassed that Ray had been privy to everything he had said. Making light of Kaku’s mortification, Ray remarked, ‘Shono, ja bolbe censor bachiye bolo’. (Listen, whatever you say, keep in mind the censors.) They all burst out laughing,” Ghosh writes.

    And there are some extremely poignant moments, for instance, when Chatterjee, in the nick of time, found his Sorbitrate tablets when he sensed a heart attack coming on.

    “Ever since, I kept pondering about the many discussions Soumitra-kaku and I had about ‘death’. He used to tell me often that he could now see ‘death’ approaching. This was primarily after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010. His only wish was that it should come quickly, whenever it had to. He shuddered to think of himself as a burden to his family, suffering a slow and agonising end.

    “We would also stalk about ‘death’ in literature and how authors have written about this phenomena – from Tagore to Tolstoy to Simone De Beauvoir. I always felt that Soumitra-kaku was quite cavalier about death. It was the ultimate truth and one should accept it that was his viewpoint. It is interesting that later, in my film ‘Peace Haven’, I explored ‘death’ head-on, with Soumitra-kaku performing one of his most poignant acts on facing death,” Ghosh writes.

    In fact, there was even a bizarre idea around a film on death that both wanted to work on – that Chatterjee termed “a brilliant idea” – but which never materialised.

    Between 2006 and 2019, Chatterjee featured in five films helmed by Ghosh ‘Podokkhep’ (2006), ‘Dwando’ (2009), ‘Nobel Chor’ (2012, guest appearance), ‘Peace Haven’ (2015) and ‘Basu Poribar’ (2019) and as much a perceptive account of the dynamics of an actor-director association, the book is a story of the friendship between two creative individuals.

    “I still cannot forget his smile, his laughter, his jokes, the knowledge he imparted, but mainly his presence. It was as if he would be there, always…like the age-old banyan tree.

    “Writing this book was a cathartic experience for me. Yes, it was painful to relive the memories. But who said that all pain is bad? Writing this helped me emerge from the deep sorrow that has engulfed me after his demise. This is not an analysis of Soumitra Chatterjee’s life and work. So I do not even attempt to be objective in my writing. Can one truly be objective about one’s father? Rather, I have tried to share anecdotes about him as a person and as an actor which can only provide a glimpse of the person he was,” Ghosh maintains.

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  • Pitch Perfect: A playbook to reinvention

    Pitch Perfect: A playbook to reinvention

    “I am thrilled to see that there is a new wave of brands that are confidently building global luxury names… Srimoyi Bhattacharya speaks with Vishnu Makhijani

    Beginning her career in Paris, refining her skills in New York, where she founded a hugely successful branding agency, Srimoyi Bhattacharya always wanted to move to India. On doing so in 2007 realised that the role of a publicist was still a nascent function and is today happy to note that brands “are increasingly self-aware of the importance of an authentic voice”.

    “Terms like body-positivity, inclusivity or sustainability may have become buzz words now, but conveying a brand value has become part and parcel of branding. It has become important to be in touch with the zeitgeist, to have a pulse of the market, of societal changes — have an intuitive approach of white space backed by solid research, and you will have a future-proof vision,” Bhattacharya, the founder of Peepul Consulting, who is now settled in a 110-year-old mansion in the picturesque Goa village of Olaulim, told IANS in an interview of her debut book “Pitch Perfect” (Penguin).

    It’s the natural transition for Bhattacharya, born and brought up in Paris who felt like she was “in the thick of an exciting start-up culture in Europe, with many US companies looking into penetrating a bustling European market”, when she set out in the 1990s.

    “During this first stage of my career, I learnt the ropes of PR in a highly professional and structured environment (which would help through less structured fields later), but my dream was always to work in fashion and lifestyle. Growing up in Paris, I was fortunate to go for a few fashion shows and do an internship at iconic Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto’s press service which was an eye opening experience on the impact of PR on a business and a brand,” she explained.

    Paris was a “tough environment” to wade through and although she was determined, it took her a change of country, a wonderful position in a hospitality group in New York to finally make that conversion nearly a decade later. But deep down, she always wanted to work in India and she finally made her dream come true and more when she moved to the country.

    “Once I moved to Mumbai sometime end 2007, I realised that the term ‘PR’ or the role of a publicist was still a nascent function, and not always quite understood by many, whether clients or just anyone around me. It seemed to me that the role was a simple means to get coverage, with very little understanding of the nuances it implied. Essentially, media and PR felt commoditized, despite the efforts of many peers building a promising and flourishing industry in our country,” Bhattacharya said.

    Through the years in India, she also started meeting many business families from jewellery to fashion, who run small businesses and who started seeing potential in giving a name to their firm, marketing a product in India.

    “I saw this wave of a new profile of entrepreneurs who were essentially taking their family businesses, so far focused on export, and were flipping the business model to a home-grown brand strategy. Simultaneously, fashion glossies were all slowly entering the country and enhancing the definition of building a brand, an experience, an identity. I wanted to cater to both, and I thought one way to do so was to work far more closely with brands, as they would develop their product or their collections, to help shape the story before it would come as a brief,” she said.

    Thus, ‘Pitch Perfect’ rounds up her experiences on this journey, and serves as a playbook whether for a publicist, an entrepreneur or a legacy brand that aims to reinvent itself.

    “Believe me, it’s a very long time in one singular profession! I shifted from Paris to New York to Mumbai as it was a way to reinvent my work, my network while I was chasing a certain quality of life. The magic lies in how it has all tied up together, my earlier experience in New York and Paris is helping scale Indian brands going global, and vice versa,” Bhattacharya elaborated.

    Noting that we are all in stressful professions, she has always sought and negotiated for a work/life balance.

    “As I would watch my colleagues work ‘double shifts’ and weekends, burn out is the biggest cause of turnover. And I came from Paris where a 35-hour working week was just beginning to be implemented, not always realistic but nevertheless a healthy goal. When the pandemic hit India, I just accelerated a wild dream we had, which was to move to Goa.

    “All stars aligned now that work from home became acceptable, the hours became a bit more flexible — you could be DM’ing (direct messaging) a journalist in London out of anywhere really. Our relevance comes from our mindset, not a location,” Bhattacharya added.

    What, then, is her mantra for success?

    “Whether you are launching a lifestyle brand or a service, my key tip is to create a story that is 36-degrees in nature, so you can spin it from any angle necessary, It also needs to be rooted in a solid idea, and concept. The important thing to remember is that what works for sales might not work for the media, and vice versa. What matters is the optics of your label — a bag that will be picked up by a fashion director will reflect a collection’s aesthetic or a trend. While it may not be the bestseller commercially, it will showcase an operational aspect of the brand. That is why it’s essential to be clear about who you are addressing and what they might find relevant and helpful,” she writes in the book.

    For instance, Manish Malhotra “transformed the perception of a bridal couture from the perspective of a stylist, making a look iconic and cinematic” Bhattacharya explained during the interview.

    “I am thrilled to see that there is a new wave of brands that are confidently building global luxury names. The consumer today wants to know the story behind what they are wearing or how an elaborate dinner-set came to life. As storytelling becomes an important driver of value, it has become easier for brands to look beyond the confines of ‘verticals’ and geography and truly go global,” she concluded.

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  • Pandemic reflection on Literature

    Pandemic reflection on Literature

    Works of literature, spanning from the author of the first modern best-seller to a Nobel Literature laureate and more, offer an insightful record of previous manifestations of life-changing epidemics…reports Vikas Datta

    An insidious, and unseeable, force is out there, able to strike anyone to cause sickness, and in some cases, death. The only way to stay safe is to keep away from almost everyone else — but that is easier said than done in our urban, inter-connected, and interdependent lives.

    There is widespread panic as rumours abound and the crisis brings out the best and worst in people. A description of our Covid-hit world? No, pandemics have hit us earlier too — and are reflected in our literature.

    Pandemics/plagues have been regular occurrences across human existence — at the rate of two or three per century, but their dispersal in time and space, their varying impacts, and limitations of memory lead them to be forgotten by future generations. The Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 may be beyond the frame of current human experience, but how many can recall the Asian influenza of 1957 or the swine flu of 2009?

    Works of literature, spanning from the author of the first modern best-seller to a Nobel Literature laureate and more, offer an insightful record of previous manifestations of life-changing epidemics.

    Let us see some half-a-dozen odd of these, avoiding speculative thrillers about man-made virulent organisms being set loose or the genre where everyone becomes a mutant/zombie, before answering the obvious question: Why should we want to read about something we are now experiencing first-hand with all its attendant sufferings and disruptions?

    Among the oldest is 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio’s ‘The Decameron’ (c. 1350-53), written as the lethal ‘Black Death”, which devastated Eurasia, was at its peak.

    The narrative framework of this collection of 100-odd stories is that ten wealthy young nobles of Florence — seven women and three men — leave the city for a secluded villa in the countryside for two weeks, where they spend all their time telling each other these tales.

    While the stories are usually of love — romantic, tragic, and erotic, they also deal with the power of fortune, will, lust, ambition, and of clever repartees, and the characters include generous nobles, lecherous clergy, and travelling merchants.

    However, one effort to steal away from the disease that doesn’t go too well can be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s story ‘The Masque of Red Death’ (1845).

    First published as “‘The Mask of Red Death’ (1842), it tells how Prince Prospero, ruling over a plague-stricken realm, tries to avoid it by hiding in an abbey, with many other wealthy nobles, Not only that, they also hold a masquerade ball, but amid the revelry, there comes an unbidden guest, and eventually, “… Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all”.

    But, the first account of living amid widespread disease is ‘A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials, Of the most Remarkable Occurrences, As well Publick as Private, which happened in London During the last Great Visitation In 1665’ (that was how book titles ran in those days), by Daniel Defoe, known better for ‘Robinson Crusoe’.

    Presented as an eyewitness account of an anonymous resident, who chooses to stay back in the city, the book published in 1722 gives a vivid description of the sufferings of the residents of London (“A casement violently opened just above my head, and a Woman gave three frightful screeches, then cried ‘Oh! Death, death, death!’”), as the fatalities rise from week to week.

    It also analyses how certain groups or individuals fared, the effects on the Church and the government, enlivened with plenty of black humour, verging on the satiric.

    Organised chronologically, though without chapters and containing plenty of digressions, it is still systematic and well-researched, leading to literary scholars arguing down the ages whether to treat it as an authentic history or fiction.

    Mary Shelley, better known for ‘Frankenstein’, also ushered in the dystopian apocalyptic genre of science fiction with ‘The Last Man’ (1826).

    Set in the 21st century, it tells how a plague infects and decimates mankind, and how survivors try to will on to live, while fighting other hostile human settlements.

    But with its characters based on her late husband, the poet Shelley, whose biography she was forbidden to write by his family, and friends such as Lord Byron, it also bemoans the failure of their political ideals, as well as the tragedy of human isolation.

    While the first modern work on the issue is Jack ‘Call of the Wild’ London’s ‘The Scarlet Plague’ (1912), set in 2073 — some six decades after the eponymous plague has denuded the planet of most of its people and reduced the survivors to a rough existence, which shows how the clock of human progress can be turned back — the definitive work is Albert Camus’ ‘La Peste/The Plague’ (1947).

    Set in the then French Algerian town of Oran, it depicts an outbreak of plague, the resulting quarantine, and the response of the varied characters — a doctor, a visiting journalist, a priest, a mysterious visitor, a civic official, and many others — while giving insights into the nature of suffering and powerlessness of individuals to change their destiny in an absurd existence.

    At a deeper level, it can be seen as an allegory of the real-life political plague (Nazism) that affected Europe till two years before the publication of the book, but also on Camus’ views about the human condition.

    There are many more, across genres. ‘The Andromeda Strain’ (1969), the first book by Michael Crichton under his own name, shows a group of American scientists dealing with a lethal extra-terrestrial micro-organism. Connie Willis in ‘The Doomsday Book’ (1992) brings together time travel and plague and epidemics in the past and the present. And Catherine Ryan Howard’s ’56 Days’ (2021) shows how rather impetuous romantic choices, in the shadow of a pandemic, can have lethal consequences.

    But now, to answer why we should read books of this ilk. For one, fiction, for those not totally fixated on TV or web-streaming, offers a way of understanding the scope of the crisis, with stories helping to comprehend something that may seem too huge and frightening to process. Two, it shows that our ancestors also faced such crises, and how they tackled them. And finally,

    they provide reassurance that life continues, and it’s up to us to do what we make of it with our choices.

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  • TWIST: ISRO case gets a new version – martyr or kingpin?

    TWIST: ISRO case gets a new version – martyr or kingpin?

    The espionage case is a techno-legal matter. It was never discussed in that way. It was always discussed from the point of view of persons; not from the POV of facts… Rajasekharan Nair speaks with Vishnu Makhijani

    S. Nambi Narayanan, the aerospace engineer discharged in what is known as the ISRO spy case of the 1990s, is now playing the martyr to cover up his own role in the case, says veteran journalist J. Rajasekharan Nair in the sequel to his book on the infamous episode.

    “Nambi Narayanan was a key figure in the failed operation to illegally transport cryogenic rocket technology from Glavkosmos (a subsidiary of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscomos) to ISRO using clandestine methods under a 1991 agreement between Glavkosmos and ISRO that was cancelled by Russia in 1993 invoking a force majeure,” Nair told in an interview.

    “The operation was jointly planned by ISRO top brass and an influential section in Glavkosmos. The operation was illegal because the 1991 agreement meant to transfer the cryogenic technology was cancelled and the new agreement signed in 1994 January had no clause for technology transfer,” Nair said.

    Glavkosmos, according to him, agreed to supply the material but was not ready for door-to- door delivery. Nambi Narayanan contacted Air India but it refused to carry the material without proper documents. Nambi Narayanan then contacted Ural Airlines “who agreed to take the risk”.

    “Though there are five airports in Moscow (where Glavkosmos is located), airlifting the material from any of these airports, hoodwinking the US eyes, was unthinkable. So the material was transported to Tashkent in Uzbekistan by road travelling more than 3,300 km and from there airlifted to ISRO. It is reliably learnt that Nambi Narayanan was on the first Ural flight,” Nair said.

    “Nambi Narayanan doesn’t want these pieces of information (that ISRO had planned an illegal operation and he was a crucial player in it) to become public. Though he had approached different legal forums nearly ten times, never did he pray that the entire matter surrounding the espionage case be proved. Moreover, when a PIL was filed before the Kerala High court for a judicial enquiry into the espionage case, he fought against it.

    “He wants only that much truth that would keep him afloat in his safe zone to come to the surface and doesn’t want the whole matter (for instance, who planted the false and baseless spy story and why) to reach the public domain,” Nair maintained.

    The ISRO spy case, which hit the headlines in 1994, centred around allegations of transfer of cryogenic technology and confidential documents on India’s space programme to a foreign country by two scientists (including Nambi Narayanan) and four others, including two Maldivian women. Nambi Narayanan was eventually discharged after a laborious process, awarded compensation of Rs. 50 lakhs by the Supreme Court but accepted Rs.1 crore as an out-of-court settlement from the Kerala government on a Rs 1 crore suit of damages he had sought, and was awarded a Padma Bhushan in 2019.

    “As the public gropes in the dark about the essence of the ISRO espionage case, a re-evaluation of the case is imperative to see afresh why the espionage story cropped up. It is most essential to re-read the text of the ISRO espionage case through documents, facts, and prudence, and not through the projection of individuals as the good, the bad and the ugly,” Nair writes in the book, ‘Classified – Hidden Truths In the ISRO Spy Story’ (Srishti).

    The media, in general, he said during the interview, has not discussed the meat of the matter: What was the espionage case and how could IB and Kerala Police say that certain persons in ISRO had leaked cryogenic technology to a foreign country using two semi-literate Maldivian women at a time (1994) when ISRO didn’t have the technology?

    “No journalist bothered to check with ISRO whether they had the cryogenic technology in 1994. Instead, media houses sent journalists to the Maldives to collect information about the two Maldivian women and filed sleazy stories on them. All the accused were presented as morally corrupt persons when morality had nothing to do with the espionage case,” Nair said.

    After the CBI had concluded in 1996 that the case was false and baseless, nobody, not even CBI, asked “how the absurd spy story came from nowhere and why the Director of IB had directed the Kerala Police to register a case under the Indian Official Secrets Act”, Nair said

    “Nobody, not even the CBI asked why was Ural Airlines carrying material to ISRO from Glavkosmos and why the transportation came to an abrupt end in the wake of the espionage story (if the transportation was legal).

    “Nobody (not even the judiciary) asked the pertinent questions how a case could be filed under the Indian Official Secrets Act without ISRO or the central government filing a written complaint as is unambiguously made clear in Section 13(3) and (5) of the Act,” Nair contended.

    Instead, he said, the media were hailing the police officers who did an illegal act of registering a case under the IOS Act and airing the absurd story that cryogenic rocket technology had been leaked to a foreign country at a time when ISRO didn’t have the technology.

    “Now, when the situation changed, the same media are hailing the old villains as the new heroes and the old heroes are the new villains. So, Nambi Narayanan and other accused are the new heroes; the Kerala Police officers and IB officials are villains. Their discussions are around individuals and are not focused on the central matter.

    “The espionage case is a techno-legal matter. It was never discussed in that way. It was always discussed from the point of view of persons; not from the POV of facts,” Nair maintained.

    “That is why the case is still confusing. My book attempts to do a post mortem of the case from the techno-legal angle strictly based on facts, documents, and records,” he added.

    ISRO and the Indian government, Nair writes in the book, “need to tell the people to what extent the misfired ‘patriotic’ adventure has cost ISRO in terms of money, especially when the business from the space market is expected to touch $558 billion by 2026 and up to $1.75 trillion by 2040.

    “It is high time ISRO and the government of India come clean on the matter. If both parties confirm this operation (under the 1991 agreement) was in the interest of the nation and hence need to be treated as brave acts of patriotism’, a different picture would emerge.

    “But then, one needs to deconstruct the very concept of patriotism,” Nair concludes the book.

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  • ‘The High Priestess Never Marries’ brings some mystery

    ‘The High Priestess Never Marries’ brings some mystery

    The book is part of a duology on ‘Ila of the Kallady’ lagoon, and is accompanied by a picture book for children, ‘Mermaids in the Moonlight’…reports Asian Lite News

    There is a short story ‘Conchology’ in her book ‘The High Priestess Never Marries’, which was the first time she had attempted to bring the mystery of Kallady’s musical lagoon into her work. For author Sharanya Manivannan the tale took years to write as she would keep glimpsing what it was supposed to be, but wasn’t able to gather the complete look until near the end of finishing that manuscript.

    “I went to Sri Lanka immediately after the book was published; in fact, ‘The High Priestess Never Marries’ was launched in Colombo first. It was during this trip that something was seeded in my heart about the ‘meen magal’ as a personal and creative motif. A few months later I began returning to Batticaloa, too, where I had only been once before. These trips had as their overt intention researching the meen magal or singing fish phenomenon, but the deeper draw was to be in the place that my family is from, the place I did not get to grow up in or even visit because of the civil war in Sri Lanka,” says the author whose graphic novel ‘Incantations Over Water’ (Westland Publications) that hit the stands recently.

    The book is part of a duology on ‘Ila of the Kallady’ lagoon, and is accompanied by a picture book for children, ‘Mermaids in the Moonlight’.

    This author of seven books who writes and illustrates fiction, poetry, children’s literature and non-fiction says that she has been drawing and painting since her teens, and writing since she was a child.

    “It did not seem unusual to me to bring these two together. It seemed so natural in fact that while I know when I began thinking about mermaids as a creative motif, I don’t know exactly why I chose the visual medium. The mermaids themselves are very visual in Batticaloa, of course: the symbol is across public facades everywhere.”

    Recipient of the South Asian Laadli Award for ‘The High Priestess Never Marries’, Manivannan’s books — ‘Mermaids in the Moonlight’ and ‘Incantations Over Water’ were created during the Covid-19 pandemic.

    “Together, the books form my Ila duology. ‘Moonlight…’ is about a woman from the diaspora taking her child (Nilavoli) to the island and to the lagoon for the first time. During their boat ride, Nilavoli receives an inheritance of stories, which also gently help her to understand her culture and the civil war. The child and mother create a mermaid named Ila, and play with the possibility that she lives in the lagoon. In ‘Incantations.’, it is Ila who is the narrator. As a book for adults, it is a darker and deliberately complex work, going deeper into the region’s realities.”

    Adding that when it comes to revealing herself through her characters, it is something that just happens sometimes, and is not really important for her.

    “I write and draw primarily for my own solace or pleasure, so anything I feel or think about enters the work.”

    Hailing from a country that witnessed one of the longest and bloodiest civil wars in the world, the author feels that it’s vital just not to forget, but also to have nuanced narratives — as well as to understand that the civil war is only over officially, but that scars and tribulations persist in different forms.

    “Perhaps I’m aware of the literature and cinema out there because of my personal investment in the topic. Authors like Anuk Arudpragasam, Nayomi Munaweera, Sharmila Seyyid, Rajith Savanadasa, Michael Ondaatje and Shyam Selvadurai have written remarkable texts. One of my favourite novels is Shankari Chandran’s ‘Song Of The Sun God’, which is not about the conflict per se, but Tamil lives over decades. Tamil creatives and activists from India have a long history of appropriating the pain of communities from and of the island, and I would caution against most work by them. Exceptions would be Rohini Mohan, Meera Srinivasan, Swarna Rajagopalan and Samanth Subramanian, who work in different non-fiction disciplines.”

    Recalling the emotions she felt while visiting Batticaloa for the first time a decade back, she remembers being ill and sprawled out asleep in one row of the van for 10 hours on the highway from Colombo.

    “I can never forget sitting up just in time to see the mermaid arch at the entrance of the town. It was drizzling, and electric lights had been turned on in the late dusk. I saw the mermaid arch — it appears in both the books; it has three mermaids sitting atop it, greeting those who enter or leave the town — and my ancestral temple which is right beside it, for the first time.”

    She also recalls that during that trip she sat on the front porch of the house that her grandmother had yearned for deeply and in the final year of her life kept saying that she wanted to see that porch one more time.

    “She died without fulfilling that yearning. Still, that trip was difficult for me for various reasons, and I know that the only thing that gave me the courage to attempt to go back there was the pursuit of the mermaids. Being able to tell myself that I was going there out of curiosity about why the mermaid symbol is everywhere in Batticaloa except in the folklore gave me emotional scaffolding for a journey that all and exiles can undertake only at great risk to their hearts. I am profoundly fortunate and grateful — each time I went back, filled my heart, and the overflow of those feelings are what fill my pages.”

    Stressing that she thoroughly enjoyed illustrating these books, and this aspect of creating them gave her much peace, the author adds that almost half of the art in ‘Incantations Over Water’ was created during the weeks of her father’s hospitalisation due to Covid-19 during the second wave.

    “And in the one month after his demise — my family formally mourned for 31 days, as per Batticaloa customs — the book was finished just before this period ended. Immersing myself in the art buoyed me.”

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  • Japanese Film Festival goes virtual for 5th edition

    Japanese Film Festival goes virtual for 5th edition

    The theme that defines the festival’s curation is ‘Journey’ and 20 films have been carefully selected to represent the several aspects of this theme…reports Asian Lite News

    The fifth edition of the Japanese Film Festival (JFF) will take the virtual route as it will be held online. The Japan Foundation New Delhi made the announcement on Thursday.

    The two-week festival, which will celebrate the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and India, will screen 20 globally popular Japanese movies of varied genres and styles starting from February 14.

    The theme that defines the festival’s curation is ‘Journey’ and 20 films have been carefully selected to represent the several aspects of this theme.

    Commenting on the announcement, Koji Sato, Director General, Japan Foundation, New Delhi said, “The popularity of Japanese content has been distinctly growing in the Indian landscape which has been further fuelled by an increase in online content consumption in the current scenario.”

    “It was a difficult decision to make but keeping fans’ safety utmost, the virtual platform will help us reach a wider audience base. We are confident the festival will be successful and bigger with the online platform and our dear audience will be able to experience the same magic and energy like ever before”, he added.

    The Japanese Film Festival 2022 film catalogue includes films like ‘It’s a Summer Film’, ‘Mio’s Cookbook’, ‘Masked Ward’, ‘Under the Open Sky’, ‘Awake’, ‘Aristocrats’, ‘Time of Eve’, ‘Ito’, ‘Patema Inverted’, ‘Sumodo – The Successors of Samurai’, ‘The God of Ramen’, ‘Rashomon’, ‘The Floating Castle’, ‘Happy Flight’, ‘Oz Land’, ‘Until the Break of dawn’, ‘Her Love Boils Bathwater’, ‘The Chef of South Polar’, ‘Bread of Happiness’ and ‘ReLIFE’.

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  • Jayasri Burman’s River of Faith, an ode to Ganga

    Jayasri Burman’s River of Faith, an ode to Ganga

    This solo exhibition by Burman after more than a decade is an ode to the Ganga — a ‘subject’ she has been working on since 2004. She says is a way of reminding us to have faith in nature and its immense power…reports Sukant Deepak

    She has vivid memories of going to the Ganga ghats in Kolkata every year. She might have been six or seven years old but the subtle yet imposing images never leave her — diyas on leaves moving gently with the river’s rhythm, men doing push-ups, shattered bangles being thrown in the water, people staring into nothingness, a group performing yoga poses.

    “The sheer theatre in Ganga’s embrace got imprinted in my mind. The river ceased to be just an element for me. It became greater than everything and consumed me. The excitement and awe towards it have only grown over the years,” says artist Jayasri Burman whose latest exhibition ‘River of Faith’ opened in the national capital recently and has now shifted to Gallery Art Exposure in Kolkata (till March 1).

    This solo exhibition by Burman after more than a decade is an ode to the Ganga — a ‘subject’ she has been working on since 2004. She says is a way of reminding us to have faith in nature and its immense power.

    “We all saw how the bodies were dumped in the river during the peak of the second wave. The river took it all. Nothing changed its course, its purity, the belief people have in her… Even in the most traumatic of times, she did not disappoint anyone,” she tells.

    Pointing towards the 84X216 canvas, she adds that if she could paint sound, she would try and capture the mystical notes of the river… But how does one express the many facets of the mighty river — its tranquillity, wilderness, movement and immortality.

    “Ganga is how I attempt to compose the balance between its fluidity and the rootedness of the faith it evokes. Over 2020 and 2021, in the pandemic gloom, I have witnessed the abuse faced by Ganga on multiple occasions. Through my work, I wish to spread the message that it is a circle we all inhabit, and only if we nurture nature and not make her suffer, will humanity be able to live harmoniously,” says the artist who has observed Ganga at various places she flows.

    Talking about the huge sculptures in the exhibition, Jayasri says while it took multiple years to conceive, she spent a year putting them together. First made with clay, they were moulded in fibreglass and later put in the wax mould before the casting was done with bronze, she said.

    For someone whose work is not characterised by one particular style but is in fact an amalgamation of her numerous influences, she smiles that this has to do with the urge to learn constantly and evolve every day.

    “How can one be a fulfilled artist? Every line I draw introduces me to a new facet of my skill and thought process. There is awe in every moment. Even a slight change in my life is reflected in my art.”

    Talking about her fascination with mythology, she attributes it to the elaborate ‘pujas’ and ‘katha’ recitals at home when she was growing up.

    “I would always wonder about the characters, did those things really happen? Slowly, they seeped into my art in one form or the other,” she remembers.

    In these highly polarised times, when talking about mythology and Hindu gods and symbols can easily get someone branded, Burman stresses, “I live in India where every morning I wake up to my staff chanting. Dashboards on cars have idols of different gods. I strongly believe everyone likes to visualise the ‘power’ in the shape one likes to see and derive the strength. I was born in a spiritually awakened family.”

    And when it comes to the Ganga, she says that she is attracted to it both as a believer and artist.

    “In Benaras, I saw several foreigners doing the same rituals which we do. Now, many of them might not know the philosophy behind the ritual, but who are we to say that doing that they were not drawing a certain peace from doing that? Belief works in different ways. As an artist, the colours, the many hues, different shapes of objects, the figures of people from varied walks and their expressions out there narrate a little story to me.”

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  • Kathak maestro Pandit Birju Maharaj passes away

    Kathak maestro Pandit Birju Maharaj passes away

    A recipient of the country’s second-highest civilian honour, Padma Vibhushan, Maharaj Ji was also a lifelong Kathak guru as well as a talented Hindustani classical singer and percussionist…reports Asian Lite News

    The living legend of Kathak, Birju Maharaj, who had been diagnosed with kidney disease a few days ago and put on dialysis, died at his home here late on Sunday. He was 83.

    Maharaj ji, as he was popularly known, was said to be playing with his grandsons when his health unexpectedly deteriorated, requiring him to be rushed to the hospital, where he died of a heart attack.

    A recipient of the country’s second highest civilian honour, Padma Vibhushan, Maharaj ji was also a lifelong Kathak guru as well as a talented Hindustani classical singer and percussionist.

    He will be remembered by cinema buffs for the two-period dance sequences in Satyajit Ray’s historical drama ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi’ (for which he sang as well) and for the ‘Kaahe Chhed Mohe’ track picturised on Madhuri Dixit in the 2002 version of ‘Devdas’.

    Maharaj ji won the National Award for choreographing ‘Unnai Kaanadhu Naan’ in the Kamal Haasan multi-lingual megahit ‘Vishwaroopam’ and the Filmfare Awards for the Bajirao Mastani number ‘Mohe Rang Do Laal’.

    Adnan Sami, one of the first artists to pay his tributes to the doyen of Kathak, said in a tweet: “Extremely saddened by the news about the passing away of Legendary Kathak Dancer Pandit Birju Maharaj ji. We have lost an unparalleled institution in the field of the performing arts. He has influenced many generations through his genius. May he rest in peace.”

    Another early tribute came from Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who tweeted: “Pandit Birju ji Maharaj was a doyen of India’s art and culture. He popularised the Lucknow Gharana of Kathak dance form around the world. … His passing away is a monumental loss to the world of performing arts.”

    Birju Maharaj was the son of the exponent of the Lucknow Gharana, Jagannath Maharaj, better known as Acchan Maharaj, whom he lost when he was just nine. His uncles were the renowned Shambhu Maharaj and Lacchu Maharaj.

    He taught at the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Kathak Kendra, both in Delhi, from where he retired as director in 1998.

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    READ MORE-INTERVIEW: Kathak Legend Pandit Birju Maharaj

  • Global passion for Russian literature

    Global passion for Russian literature

    All Russian literature is not grim, pessimistic, plodding tracts and can hold its own, using a range of genres and styles to reflect the human condition and its times…writes Vikas Datta

    Literary traditions take centuries to develop, let alone acquire a following outside their own linguistic realm. Russian literature, however, saw an accelerated rate to global popularity within 200 years.

    After nearly a millennium of an oeuvre comprising mainly folk/fairy tales, or the odd historical chronicle, it started to make its presence felt from the early 19th century with Pushkin and Gogol, and then, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, Pasternak, Nabokov, Akhmatova, and their ilk have ensured its continuing prominence across genres.

    Dostoyevsky (Wikipedia)

    But, Russian literature, especially of the “Classical School”, which comprises its best-known works, has also laboured under a rather unjust and fearsome perception.

    Take views like: “This Vladimir Brusiloff to whom I have referred was the famous Russian novelist. … Vladimir specialised in grey studies of hopeless misery, where nothing happened till page three hundred and eighty, when the moujik decided to commit suicide.” (“The Clicking of Cuthbert” by P.G. Wodehouse)

    Or: “Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy’s Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day’s work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city’s reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.” (P.G. Wodehouse again)

    The Clicking of Cuthbert book cover (Wikipedia)

    Then, vet James Herriot, in his memoirs, reveals how a colleague used to read the opening para of “The Brothers Karamazov” to lull himself to sleep.

    Author Viv Groskop, whom we will return to later, observes some common views about Russian literature are that it is “deep”, “difficult”, or require a wider level of reference than the casual reader can aspire to. “You’ll never understand X if you haven’t read Y,” she says.

    And then there is the issue of names. Groskop quotes a Danish academic, otherwise impressed by Russian literature, bemoaning: “Why do they (the characters) all have to have forty-seven names?”

    While works such as the hefty “War and Peace”, and many other 19th-century novels, are probably responsible for the length part, and the “confusing” names are due to the Russian naming tradition comprising the patronymic, and the widespread use of diminutives, affectionate and otherwise, which needs getting used to, the issue of the content is not quite justified.

    All Russian literature is not grim, pessimistic, plodding tracts and can hold its own, using a range of genres and styles to reflect the human condition and its times. Let’s look at half-a-dozen lesser-known works spanning the Golden Age to the present day, and subsequently available in English, which unfortunately leaves out writers such as Yulian Semyonov, creator of the Soviet ‘James Bond’ (unfortunately only one of the series is in English) and fantasy/science-fiction virtuoso Andrei Belyanin.

    “Oblomov” (1859), Ivan Goncharov’s second novel, is especially known for how it takes its young titular nobleman protagonist 50 pages — around a tenth of the book’s length — to get out of his bed, in which he spends most of his life, onto a sofa.

    Sinking into debt by refusing to take any interest in running his estate deep in the countryside, our slothful character spends the entire account trying to avoid any responsibility, including in love, despite the efforts of well-meaning and more focused friends, before passing on to his desired state of perpetual rest.

    Known for taking the “superfluous man”, Russia’s unique contribution to literary archetypes, to a new high — or rather a low, if you contrast it with Pushkin or Lermontov’s creations — it is a trenchant satire on the state of Tsarist Russia’s aristocracy and shows why the revolution became inevitable.

    “The Death of the Vazir-Mukhtar” (1928) — either the Susan Causey (2018) or the Anna Kurkina Rush/Christopher Rush translation — by Soviet literary historian and critic Yury Tynyanov, chronicles the last year of the early 19th-century Russian playwright, Orientalist, polyglot, and diplomat Aleksandr Sergeyevich Griboyedov after he returns to Moscow and St Petersburg following a successful diplomatic mission in Persia, and then returns to Tehran on a new mission when he dies in an attack on the embassy by an enraged mob protesting a new treaty.

    Featuring a certain quirkiness in its style, i.e. the use of a heavy Russian bureaucratic language, with a spate of lyrical, psychological, and historical digressions, Tynyanov’s modernist theories of literature, comprehensive and sometimes striking psychological insights into many characters, even small-time, across a range of cultures — Russia, Caucasian, and Qajar-era Persia, it is a thoroughly well-researched piece of historical fiction.

    “The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin” (1969), by dissident writer Vladimir Voinovich, is the picaresque tale of the absurdities that even totalitarianism cannot avoid.

    It tells of a bumbling, unlikely soldier who is posted to a backwater on the eve of World War II, forgotten by his superiors and labelled a deserter, and how he holds off a squad of the German secret service — winning a medal, before getting arrested.

    “Pretender to the Throne: The Further Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin” (1979) and “A Displaced Person: The Later Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin” (2007) see him brave out his interrogation, and then made to emigrate to the US, from where he returns as head of an official delegation during the Perestroika era.

    Science fiction was always a favoured area for Soviet writers unwilling to toe the official line since it allowed them to use alien worlds to portray social and political situations disallowed in more realistic settings.

    Amid a glittering lineup are brothers Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky and Boris Natanovich Strugatsky, whose over two dozen works, written in collaboration, have been quite influential in the genre.

    Two which stand out are “Monday Begins on Saturday” (1964), about the personnel and activities at a Soviet research institute dedicated to studying magic and the supernatural, teamed up with the inept administrators who run it. “Tale of the Troika” (1968) continues the satire of the Soviet scientific set-up and its political superstructure.

    Then, “One Billion Years to the End of the World” (1977; originally published in English as “Definitely Maybe”), which begins rather on a comic note and gradually gets more ominous as a bunch of researchers, both scientific and of social science, wonder why they are not let being allowed to work on, and their responses.

    Among the post-Soviet period, there is Grigori Chkhartishvili alias Boris Akunin’s Erast Fandorin crime thriller series, set in the dying decades of Tsarist Russia, but that deserves an instalment of its own.

    • Vladimir Nabokov
    • Tiynyanov

    And if you look for some way to acquaint yourself with the classics only, without reading them in their entirety, then Groskop’s “The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature” gives you an insightful look into 11 of them from “Dead Souls” to “Dr Zhivago”. It may inspire you to read them too.

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