Media Freedom in South Asia By Rita Payne

This is a dangerous time to be a journalist. Since 2018 at least 43 journalists have been killed in relation to their work, many others, have been attacked, arrested and intimidated. Hostility towards media workers has been stoked by authoritarian leaders like Trump who coined the term ‘fake news’ to dismiss any reports which he does not like. The victimisation of journalists is widespread in South Asia. According to figures published by UNESCO between 2013 to 2017, Pakistan tops the list with 23 journalists killed, 18 in India and 8 in Bangladesh.

Pakistan Online harassment is increasing Media outlets remain under pressure from The threats to journalists take many forms. throughout the world, including Pakistan. the authorities to avoid reporting on Pakistan, in its 71 years of existence, has The central government recently approved several issues including criticism of suffered oppression ranging from special the formation of a new regulatory body, government institutions and the judiciary. coercive laws to blatant censorship. The known as the Pakistan Media Regulatory There were at least 31 instances of media have endured an unprecedented Authority (PMRA). From now, all media, journalists, anchors and television level of imposed “self-censorship” as a including print, electronic and social, will channels being issued show-cause notices, result of state pressure. Unjustified cover- be regulated by this newly established body suspensions of anchor persons, blocking of ups and the suppression websites, and disruption of of truth regarding crucial the distribution of questions of public newspapers. accountability have seriously affected the India perception of the quality The position of journalists of democracy in and media workers is not Pakistan. much better in India, where As one of the most the autocratic Prime dangerous countries in Minister, Narendra Modi, the world for media made his contempt for the workers, Pakistan has media clear. His strategy has witnessed the murder of been to bypass the media 72 journalists since completely and speak 2002. Except for five directly to the public cases, most of these through his weekly radio killings remain unsolved. broadcasts “Man Ki Baat”. Successive governments This provides him with a have seemed reluctant to platform to choose which probe the murders of issues he wishes to address, journalists. ignore others which might be sensitive or reflect badly The PPF report focuses on his government; there is on instances of crimes no space for awkward against the media, where questions. Mr. Modi seldom journalists are killed, abducted or detained leading to fears that this could be a new gives press conferences or media and threatened by law enforcement tool to curb and control the freedom of interviews. agencies, militants, feudal lords, and tribal press. Continues on P3 leaders.

A Paradigm Shift in Education P4 Meeting an Artist and Activist P5 A Journey from Colombo to Galle P11

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Editorially Speaking CONTENTS

Dear readers, Media Freedom in South Asia - 1 Rita Payne This issue is a special issue for us even though it was Current Affairs delayed for many reasons. We try very hard to release each issue on time and we thank all our writers who have sent 2 Editorially Speaking Vijay Anand their work on time. I am really pleased to say that for the first time we have used our internal resources to produce Media Freedom in South Asia this magazine rather than outsourcing the design work. 3 Rita Payne This means it took us a little longer to get each page checked (continues from P1) for content accuracy and overall look. We hope our readers will understand the constraints under which we are 4 Anita Nahal’s Hey - Book review Gwendolyn Bethea working and suggest ways to improve the presentation of the magazine in future. 5 Contemporary Education Meenakshi Mohan

Recently I received the following comment from one of our 6 Prathapan G – Artist & Activist Hema Nair valued contributors. It read, “I noticed one change from your father’s time to now in the production that now it is taking more political bend, starting from the first page, while before 7 An Indo-British Education Malathy Sitaram it used to be page-after-page full of literary, and creative works!” I was really happy to receive the this comment even 8 Conversations – JLF 2019 Deepa Vanjani though it sounded like Confluence is changing its course from being a literary magazine to a current affairs 9 The Skinny Man – Short story Subhash Chandra magazine. Well, we are still a literary magazine, but we can’t ignore certain unprecedented events that are taking place around us. In South Asia as well as in the western 10 Mumbai Expressions By Anju Makhija world, political culture seems to be deviating from accepted norms. While we like to have diverse content, which will 11 Strike! Dawood Ali McCallum interest our readers we also would like to highlight these changes, as one day these events could become part of a literary work. 12 Journey along Sri Lankan coastline Shalomi Daniel

We would like to have your submissions for the next issue 13 Reginald Massey’s Book page Reginald Massey starting from the beginning of next month so that we will be better prepared for our May issue. In the meantime, we 14 Reluctant Chief Guest Suresh Subrahmanyan will be happy to receive your comments and we will strive to maintain a high standard in every issue. 15 Through the Poetic Lens Yogesh Patel Happy reading! Vijay Anand 16 Delhi Train Station - Poem Cyril Dabydeen

17 Peregrinations – Book Review Lakshmi Kannan

To subscribe to Confluence online please register at 18 Himalaya -Poem Cyril Dabydeen www.confluence.mobi or www.confluence.org.uk Published by 19 South African Newsletter Devi Rajab CONFLUENCE PUBLISHING 20 Kartarpur - A step towards peace Tariq Osman Hyder 23 Cray Avenue, Orpington BR5 4AA United Kingdom 21 BUDS BLOOM INTO BLOSSOMS Innamburan Telephone: 01689 836 394 / 07801 569 640 MANAGING EDITOR 22 ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA Anjana Basu Dr. Vijay Anand SUB-EDITOR 23 Bandra & its East Indians Maya Malhotra Malathy Sitaram FOUNDER EDITOR Late Joe Nathan For subscription enquiries, please email: [email protected] Letter to Editor Design by Dear Dr. Anand, I congratulate you on your another very informative Confluence Publishing Ltd issue of Confluence! I always enjoy reading your Editorials, always

beautifully worded, comprehensive and informative! I noticed one The views expressed by interviewees or contributors are change from your father’s time to now in the production that now it is their own and do not necessarily reflect Confluence taking more political bend, starting from the first page while before it editorial policy. No part of this publication or part of the used be page-after-page full of literary, and creative works! I wish you contents thereof may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval all the best for your next issue, and for all your struggle, and efforts to system or transmitted in any form without the express keep your father’s dream alive! I am lucky to have known your father, permission of the publisher in writing.

and I respected his enthusiasm for literature, writing and editing! May

his soul rest in peace wherever he is! Best regards, © Copyright, Confluence Publishing 2019 2 Meenaksh Mohan

Page

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Continues from P1 resign. In an editorial in his paper he spelt In spite of Mr. Modi’s deliberate sidelining out why a free media was essential for a In elections in 2018, Yameen was ousted by of the mainstream media, large sections, healthy democracy: Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who won 58 especially TV, have adopted the tenets of percent of the vote. However, in a report by the more right-wing elements within the “Independent journalism serves the society Index on Censorship, Riazat Butt, editor of BJP such as Hindutva, anti-Pakistan through raising questions… independent the Maldives Independent, expressed rhetoric and narrow nationalism. journalism has a symbiotic relationship caution about expecting much change. Butt Journalists who challenge these trends are with a democratic government.” described the coalition manifesto as threatened, vilified and even been killed. “fantastically vague” about press freedom. The most high profile case was the killing “In my 25 years of editorship, I still haven't of Gauri Lankesh journalist-turned-activist managed to convince the government that Nepal from Bangalore. Gauri who was known for independent journalism benefits the state. The state of the media in Nepal is a cause being a critic of right-wing Hindu Still, the government sees us with for concern. The Committee to Protect extremism and an opponent of caste suspicion. They consider independent Journalists has urged the government to discrimination was shot dead outside her journalism to be a nuisance,” he said.” repeal or amend the new criminal code that home in 2017. Other lesser known Constructive criticism is taken as an came into effect on August 2018 which journalists in rural areas have been attempt to tarnish the image of the severely threatens press freedom. murdered after exposing corruption government, without realising that this is According to news reports the law involving local politicians, businesspeople, for their own good.” criminalises a range of ordinary criminal groups or even the police. journalistic activity. Depending on the Sri Lanka infraction, journalists could face fines of up L K Sharma, a senior journalist, has been In the case of Sri Lanka, there is still to 30,000 rupees (US$270) and writing about the challenges faced by widespread suppression of the media, imprisonment of up to three years. journalists who strive to maintain their particularly those critical of the independence in the current hostile government. In 2014, Sri Lanka was ranked Namrata Sharma, chair of the Center for environment. In a recent article he 165 out of 180 countries in Reporters Investigative Journalism, Nepal (CIJ) told observed: “On the other hand,” is a phrase Without Border’s Press Freedom Index. the CPJ that while she appreciated the need banished from journalism. Fair journalists to protect privacy in the internet age, the are hunted and silenced. Those of the other Freedom of the press is guaranteed under law threatened to outlaw public interest kind are bought and deployed to make Sri Lanka’s constitution giving every journalism, including sting operations that maniac noises in favour of the ruling citizen "the freedom of speech and CIJ journalists have used to expose establishment and against its critics.” expression including publication". At the wrongdoing that have led to legislative same time, significant limits are placed on reform. He notes wryly that, “ In India today, one the exercise of this right. This, together cannot talk of science, history or politics with various laws and regulations, such as Conclusion without a reference to mythology. Godmen the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1979, Commenting on the overall picture, Sanjoy and astrologers make their daily brought in to deal with Tamil militancy Hazarika, co-ordinator of the South Asia pronouncements on the TV channels. So, have been used by successive governments Media Defenders Network, SAMDEN, says how does one report the emergence of an to suppress freedom of expression. During pressure and intimidation of media independent journalist in a sea of the civil war many journalists were killed.. workers has grown across South Asia, embedded media. One attributes it to the 25 journalists were killed between 1999 especially in rural areas. He says, “That's divine intervening to reform His degraded and 2011 and dozens fled abroad. The why through SAMDEN we try and mobilize profession!” state-owned media takes a heavy pro- support and focus on them as well as on government stance. Independently owned critical issues before media and freedom of Bangladesh media in Sri Lanka, have learned to practise expression including arbitrary detention In neighbouring Bangladesh, the self-censorship. and laws or proposed laws which will persecution of the prominent The civil war ended in May 2009 but many adversely impact free and fearless photojournalist, Shahidul Alam, made of the laws and regulations introduced at reporting including seizure and search of international headlines. Since he was a the time remain in place. The attacks on the documents, mobile phones and computers.” familiar figure on international channels media have reduced but journalists He says, “We advocate the use of Right to like Al Jazeera and the BBC his detention continue to be harassed and intimidated. Information laws as additional and alleged torture for making critical investigative journalism tools for media comments about the government of Sheikh Maldives and design workshops to help this process. Hasina provoked outrage across the world. In the Maldives, media freedom has That way, the media can get the Campaigning groups including Index of mirrored the political changes in the information it seeks directly from Censorship, the Committee to Protect country. The pressure on the media was governments. We have done so in India and Journalists and Amnesty International eased after Mohammed Nasheed became Bangladesh and hope to expand this to succeeded in obtaining his release on bail President following the the country’s first other countries in the region.” but charges against him have not been multiparty presidential election in 2008 dropped. Alam is fortunate to be alive, following decades of authoritarian rule The tragedy is that while governments in several journalists, writers and bloggers under former president Maumoon Abdul South Asia and around the world have who espoused secularism or denounced Gayoom. However, democratic gains were pledged to uphold freedom of the press they religious extremism have paid with their reversed after Abdulla Yameen came to tend to resort to threats and intimidation if lives. power in 2013. His rule was marked by they are held to account by the media. The severe restrictions on opposition activities, inability of governments and other Editor-Publisher of The Daily Star, Mahfuz the imprisonment of opposition figures, institutions to accept constructive criticism Anam, was entangled in a controversy after restrictions on freedoms of expression and is possibly the root cause of the persecution he admitted in 2016 that reports published assembly, politicisation of the judiciary of journalists worldwide. in his paper in 2007 alleging corruption by and other independent institutions and Sheikh Hasina were based on increasing Islamist militancy. In April Rita Payne is a Freelance uncorroborated leaks fed by the military 2017, Yameen Rasheed, a prominent journalist and media Directorate General of Forces Intelligence. blogger, human rights defender, and critic adviser; former Asia He admitted that it was a bad editorial of religious extremism, was murdered. In Editor, BBC World and judgement but despite this he faced a 2014, a journalist Ahmed Rilwan, known President Emeritus

barrage of attacks from the government for criticising the government went Commonwealth and by 18 February 2016, 79 cases were missing and has still not been found. Many 3 Journalists Association. filed against him including 17 sedition and suspect that Yameen may have played a

62 defamation cases. He has refused to role in his disappearance. Page

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Book review Anita Nahal’s Hey ... Spilt milk is spilt, Nothing else & Life on the Go from New Delhi to America Reviewed by Gwendolyn Bethea

“I am absolutely blown away by Dr. Anita Nahal’s poetry in Hey… spilt milk is spilt, nothing else, and her flash fictions in Life on the Go, flash fictions from New Delhi to America. Dr. Nahal is truly amazing! I have known her for over 15 years, and have kept abreast of her thought-provoking writings, and now with these two books, I feel I am walking with an international poet laureate! Her vision and talent are humbling”.

Anita Nahal’s recently published books, Martin Luther King, Jr. in his commonly her future granddaughter about being astute Hey ... spilt milk is spilt, nothing else known, “Mountain Top” speech, reminding in recognizing people tricking her through (poems), and Life on the Go from New us of King’s words of magnificence: “I’ve the use of a Halloween symbolism in the Delhi to America (flash fictions) are a pure seen the promised land.” And one truly “Trick is treat and treat is trick” story. In delight, giving a genuine glimpse into comes to believe after reading her works, another flash fiction, “Blessed Caesarian,” Nahal’s soul. I am honored to be a witness that one will see one’s own promised land, if Priya meticulously and delicately recounts to her deepest thoughts that reveal life and time permit. Indeed, the imagery is the birth of her son, with her mother gently sometimes perceptible, and at other times palpable in many poems, including the one in caressing and calming her new, motherly more abstract, but beautifully woven which she first holds the small hand of her emotions, as she eagerly anticipates nursing meanings and nuances in these two works. only child, a precious son, whose hand her newborn son. And in some of the stories, While one can peer into Nahal’s own metaphorically and physically becomes a Priya reminisces about her parents wisely personal story, one can also see a world mature, guiding presence as her own hand acknowledging that all humans err, and that view of challenges, trials, joys and wrinkles ever so imperceptibly. learning and growing has a natural cyclical triumphs that are universal in depth and pattern regardless of age or relationship. relevance. I agree with what others have said about A native of New Delhi, India, her writings (as given on the inside Nahal’s poetry and flash fiction covers of both books), that, “Anita (the newest genre for short Nahal’s poems and flash fictions are fictional narratives), merge valuable contributions to the literature Indian and American culture and on immigration and diaspora writings. history. There is unexpected Her books can easily be part of thankfulness for personal sociology, anthropology, literary and heartache that learns to ride the inter-disciplinary classes, as Nahal’s waves of passion, regeneration, work pushes us to ponder upon issues aging, and world issues. For that emerge from moving places that we example In “Age,” she mourns the might not even think about. It’s the passage of time, yet triumphs in universal, ethnographical appeal in her the wisdom that only comes with work that will male Anita a major writer time-worn wings that soar of our times” or as another says onward and upward despite remembering her father, Chaman Nahal winds of change and challenge. who was a well-known writer, that, “she has creativity in her genes…and her pen There is much to be gleaned from will become more prolific, making the her work, whose carefully literary scene richer and life beautiful.” threaded lines are both timeless and retrospective. In one poem of Nahal has an unusual ability to take a her early childhood years, she metaphor like “spilt milk” and settle our recounts how she and her sister souls into a calm acceptance of the innocently cherish nature’s inevitabilities of our lives. Yet, she tiniest creations and whose encourages and challenges us to create and believe in new opportunities for life, careless castings aside by an love, and laughter. unappreciative neighbor they both bemoan. In the flash fictions book, Life on the Go…,

In the poem, “Dyeing and Undyeing,” she Nahal through the voice of the protagonist I believe Nahal is already writing her third writes that she is tired of coloring her grey Priya touches upon myriad themes of collection of poetry and second collection of strands, likely a metaphor for faking immigrants moving between countries, flash fictions, as well as her first novella. I happiness when a deep, soul cleansing cry, observing life and culture, and experiencing look forward to them, and I am sure these lies just beneath the surface. Or consider her the excitement of travels, yet she also will be as insightful, deep and soulful in their profound ache for immigrant babies and her poignantly brings out the pitfalls of evocations as her just released works. own unheeded longing for acceptance devoid universal experiences that plague of superficial, external promises in the poem, humankind. For example, in the piece, Dr. Gwendolyn Scotton Bethea “They say people need to unite?” “Homelessness can happen to anyone” Priya is the founder of Scotton is horrified to see a former classmate Communications Network, an She writes of conversations about skin color, trudging the streets, after her own return to organization that specializes in beauty and worthiness and delves into the her native India from an exciting, yet also editing, writing, and public still existing cross-continental phenomenon trying, eight years in America. And then relations. An editor/writer and in her poem, “Darkie,” stating, “I did not Priya also narrates her guilt in wrenching communications specialist, she know that I was a dirty child and then a dirty herself emotionally from the poverty of a is presently serving as editor of the Howard woman.” And then, in the poem homeless man on the streets of New York. University Graduate School Research “Cacophony,” she asks, “Tell me then just Nahal cleverly employs symbolism of a Magazine (hugsresearch.org) and the manager of the Speakers Bureau of Howard why do you flirt with tanning yourself?” young girl being down with individuals University.

feeling down in the “Feeling down, being 4

The poem, “Hope,” is a nod towards down” story. And she has conversations with

historical prescience, as she quotes Dr. Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Education A Paradigm Shift: Traditional to Contemporary Education

By Meenakshi Mohan, Ed.D.

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together, and motivating them, the teacher is most important” Bill Gates

A new era has begun . . . where the with this aim because it helps students system. His advice is that teachers first word uttered by children is develop critical thinking skills. J.H. should have more opportunities to “dotcom” . . . where their vocabulary Patterson, in his book Putting learn, and become more technology- consists of words like, “gopher,” Computer Power in Schools, empowered. He remarked that “hyperlink,” “giga and megabytes” . . . commented, “Never before in our although in schools, colleges, and and where their demands of “cookies” lifetime has any innovation taken teacher training institutes a lot has no longer elicit thoughts of colorful education by storm as much as been achieved, however, in this Cyber cookie jars in the kitchen. In this era, computer technology . . .” Seymore age, a lot has still to be done to the young generation can access Papert, a professor of mathematics at improve the education system. plethora of information with only a the Massachusetts Institute of touch of a finger on the iPhones. The echnology, and a follower of the The teachers should embrace new bygone era – when the librarian with- Piagetian theory in its application to challenges of this era, move forward, gold-rimmed spectacles, hanging low taching, commented that in the LOGO and start speaking the same

over her nose, peered through environment, (LOGO is a special vocabulary their students already antiquated ledgers after ledgers to computer language) students are in speak. Elliot Masie reflected, keep track of the library acquisitions, control. They embark on an “eLearning is changing, and, we will and the list of borrowers – seems exploration about how they think . . . see new models, new technologies and perhaps the Stone Age for them. It is and thinking about thinking turns designs emerge, so let’s drop “e” . . . not too long ago when doing research them into epistemologists. According give it a new and wider definition . . . meant, literally, living in the library. to Computer Networks and ISDN .We need to bring learning to people The newer generation associates more Systems (Integrated Services Digital instead of people to learning.” So, with “tablets” as a portable computer Network), “The new learning teachers need to be knowledgeable device for them to do homework, and paradigm presented by the Internet is enough, so they can seamlessly submit through “Drop box.” Nice that both teachers and students integrate technology into the cursive handwriting does not matter engage in a form of consensual curriculum, and help their students to anymore. Dictionaries are outdated hallucination, where the interaction of think out of the box, so the students when all the information is easily the teachers and students are can apply their learning into unique accessible on “Google.” considered almost equal . . ..” experiences.

Today, a quiet revolution has taken Dr. Bruce E. Ahlborn, an Apple Award Meenakshi Mohan is an place. Teachers are discovering that it Distinguished Educator commented educator, freelance writer, art critic, book is not enough for students to be just that technology has already affected reviewer, children's computer literate; they need to the education system. The newer writer and a painter. understand the technicalities in order generation has an inborn knowledge Most of her paintings to manage the information flow. Many of technology unlike their teachers are in private schools have already shifted their and parents. His concern is not how collection. focus from a computer literacy technology is going to affect the curriculum to technology–integrated education of children, but how we can

curriculum. The aim of education is to best provide the opportunities for

develop constructive learners. students to experience the benefits of 5

Education technology is in congruence technology in today’s education Page

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Biography Hema Nair meets Prathapan G – Artist and Activist Prathapan does not strike you as a cherished accolade to date has been his beholder of the world he inhabits, its nature warrior when you first meet him. inclusion in the Kaarislta Biennale that land, the sky and its people. Lack of such In the wilderness just outside this was held in 2017 in Finland, his first discernment could reduce art to mere edition of Kochi Muziris Biennale, venture out of native shores. His display craft – to the physical perfection of standing in the old world rooms of David there was his series of black and white brushstrokes and clear lines – but bereft Hall among his paintings and sketches, of soul. he offered to draw my caricature. Luckily for me, I managed to see beyond He speaks of Van Gogh as someone with the bramble of his soliciting to his a lot of emotion, which he could bring onto his canvases to give it such life that captivating brushstrokes and the it moves people to this day, more than a nobility of the ideals they depicted. What he saw and experienced found century after they were painted. He expression in his art as a way of both feels the artists today who are able to venting and letting the world know the touch viewers with such impact are ugly truth. those similarly impassioned, almost bordering on hysteria, but which we Walking along a river one day, he came don’t see because they wear masks over upon a discarded polyester shirt with a their true faces. He looks almost pensive turtle trapped within the long sleeve. as he says this, perhaps revealing Although he could extricate the turtle personal introspection. and give him another lease of life, the Another significant inspiration for the experience left him disturbed and uneasy. Such disquiet translated into artist in him is Edmund Joseph Clint. environmental activism for him. Kochi, Prathapan gets animated and his eyes where he lives and works boasts take on a sparkle as he speaks about abundant rivers and picturesque Clint and his genius. Clint was a child backwaters. Once quiet and relatively prodigy who drew around 25000 remote, it is now teeming with activity pictures before dying at the age of 7. What was remarkable about Clint was from tourists, locals and the burgeoning not just his talent and control of lines immigrant population. Standards of living are poor here with a seasonal that his small child hands could achieve, spurt in the economy interspersed with but the unbelievable insight in his periods of penury and hardships. For drawings. He drew a perfect circle on them, a few plastic bags thrown after the floor with a chalk while crawling on use into the nearby canal is a small his belly at 2 years, and introduced problem compared with how would they colour into his pictures at age 5. His depiction of speed in a pair of running earn the rent for the coming month or elephants or the protectiveness in the keep their boat afloat to go out fishing every morning. Waterways and canals eyes of a tigress playing with her cub is are used to dump household and something even seasoned artists business waste. The lack of effective struggle to do. Clint died in the year legislation and awareness amongst the 1983, long before internet, or even people, means you see all manner of television had made an entry into garbage being thrown into the rivers, Kerala, where he lived his entire life. That Clint was able to get these visuals poisoning or trapping marine life. and ideas onto paper is a measure of his Prathapan remembers seeing small fish sketches depicting the menace of plastic swimming in and out of a condom once, genius, says Prathapan, and in all these in our water – birds, fishes and animals floating gossamer like, in a pond near years of painting and drawing, he feels trapped in bottles, bags, fishing tackle his home. he has not achieved even a fraction of and paying the price for our that talent. Prathapan equates Clint’s art Prathapan grew up in a small village mindlessness. with divine gift, and his own as called Konni, a few hours drive away His maturing as an artist over the past something to be developed from from Cochin. His talent may have been couple of decades, has been observation, perseverance and honing. inherited from his father, who used to multidimensional. Alongside his skill Prathapan uses that little boy as his draw pictures of local birds and animals. and technique, he has also honed a lodestar, and with something Perhaps he also passed onto his son a philosophy which bolsters his artwork. transcendent like that guiding him, it is love of nature and the desire to preserve In his growth, one can see his study of unlikely he will lose his way. it. the great masters - not just art, but their Artist’s E mail: [email protected] He left home as a youth to study art at lives. Da Vinci, he feels was a more the Radha Lakshmi Vilasam college of effective and inspirational artist, having Hema Nair is a cardiac anesthetist working in consorted with grave diggers and Narayana Hrudayalaya, the world’s largest fine arts, Thripunithura, which was heart hospital, well known for its philanthropy. established by the erstwhile King of walked the thin line between darkness In addition to medical Cochin and then taken over by the and right, and giving the world writing, she enjoys Government in 1956. Then he earned a remarkably accurate and beautiful writing prose and drawings of our bodies. In the same poetry on anything that bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from catches her fancy.She’s Mahatma Gandhi University in 2007. vein, he feels that someone as famous also a movie buff, avid From 2002, he has exhibited his work in and successful as a M.F. Hussain may reader and enjoys group and solo exhibitions all over fall woefully short, his art speaking only cycling. Kerala, winning several awards from the for beauty and not so much for progress. 6 state government as well as the Kerala He believes art loses its gravity if empty

Lalithakala Academy. His most of purpose. An artist is first of all a Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Malathy’s Musings An Indo-British Education

By Malathy Sitaram

It seems an age since I was in college in between the B.Ed. and the M.Ed. I had Bombay (Note non-usage of Mumbai). This We loved Bombay for its modernity in embarked on a long career of teaching was quite a while ago in the late fifties. comparison with other Indian cities and its English in schools. It was exhausting. I After school, students wanting to study for very multicultural atmosphere. Hindus, would have to take home the children’s a degree in the Arts or Science could choose Muslims, Parsees, Maharashtrians, exercise books to correct and mark one from about half a dozen colleges. Well, Gujeratis, Bengalis, Goans and Jains lived classwork or homework most evenings. at that time the two best colleges were St. here side by side and got along well. There Usually there are thirty pupils per class. Xavier’s and Elphinstone. St. Xavier’s was a was a certain part of Bombay where the There are primary schools for children Catholic institution known for its good wealthy lived in beautiful mansions. Sadly, starting from the age of five. Secondary results. Elphinstone College was a most of them are now extinct as the rich schools take children from the age of eleven. government institution with equally good decided to invest in flats. We had lived on Private schools exist and the famous ones results. Both were and are co-ed. My elder the first floor of a five-storey block of flats. such as Eton, Harrow, Cheltenham Ladies’ sister and I had been pupils at a Catholic At that time five storeys were the norm and College are privately run and the fees are convent school by the name of St. Anne’s. I the houses in our road and along the sea- very high. Their examination results are think both of us would agree that our school face were very attractive. The wealthy usually good. The strange anomaly is that days were some of the happiest times in our owners had them painted every few years. these famous schools are called Public lives. In those days the Convent schools The street where we lived has not changed. Schools. Note the capital ‘P’. Those parents were well run and attended. I guess that who can afford it send the children to such would be the same today too. My father was The flats today are much taller in the newer schools and many Oxbridge students have a civil servant and my parents felt that areas. Marine Drive is a famous long road attended these schools. In state schools Elphinstone College was where we should with attractive buildings and very beautiful there were usually thirty children in each go after school. However, my close school street lamps. It runs parallel to the sea. class friends had selected St. Xavier’s and I could There is a low wall running alongside the not imagine life without them. We were sea on which people can sit and gaze Unlike Indians, it seems the English do not heartbroken. We had always been a close outward at the Arabian Sea. Its colour learn new languages easily. The French band of five girls. My friends came to our seems to change at different times of day teacher in the school I was at would house and wept and begged my mother to from steel grey to blue. During the monsoon complain that because the English permit me to join their college. To no avail. the waves are so high that they lash over the department did not teach grammar any My sister finished School at the age of 14 sea wall. At weekends it gets very crowded more, they found it hugely difficult to teach and was a very young candidate for college. with families with children taking the sea a foreign language. In the Sixties over here, She had had a couple of double promotions air. Bombay has a splendid racecourse and the idea took hold among educationalists in school which was why she finished Gulf Arabs used to send (and probably still that it was not necessary to teach English schooling so early. I was fifteen when I do) in their horses to take part in races. grammar as a part of English teaching. It joined college. They owned and probably still own some was abandoned. Fresh from India, in the lovely houses in Bombay. seventies, I was astonished and critical of Both my sister and I graduated after a four- this idea. If we did not talk about year course. We chose our specialized On January 4th this year, Elphinstone adjectives, nouns, adverbs, prepositions, subjects after taking the Intermediate College celebrated its 163rd Anniversary ! A how on earth could we expect the children examination at the end of two years. My couple of friends in India wrote to ask if I to write fluently and understand the sister took up Economics and History and would be attending the celebrations. No, I techniques of good writing? Some parents obtained her B.A. degree in the year that I was not planning to. I asked my friends to who would have studied Grammar in school joined college. I opted for a Philosophy and let me know how it went. I heard that It was wondered why we were not doing our jobs French degree course. We had already a huge success and old friends met. I felt properly. studied French in school. Looking back now only a slight pang over not being there. It is I realize how modern our parents were in so so long since I was there that It feels like Today my teaching years feel like a distant their outlook. They encouraged us to study a lifetime! The UK is my home now. When I dream. and wanted us to benefit from a good go to Bombay now very occasionally, I find education. My mother was one of the first I am lost in some places as so much has women in her community to go to college in changed. There has been a huge amount of Malathy Sitaram Madras. I am still amazed that her chosen construction of buildings which has led to was the first Asian subjects were Physics and Chemistry. From the extraordinary work of reclaiming as teacher of English college to marriage. That was the norm much land as possible from the sea, pushing in Wiltshire then. In the early days of my first year in it further back. I feel like a stranger in these schools. college I missed my school friends. College areas and tend to lose my bearings! It must Also she was the was of course so different from school. My cost vast amounts of government money but first Asian to be convent school was for girls only. In college houses have to be built. appointed to the both sexes attended though if I remember Swindon Bench of rightly there was a Catholic college in Here in the UK I took two further degrees in Justices of the Bombay for women only. Education with an interval of about 10 years Peace.

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CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Jaipur Literary Festival Recipe for Good Writing: Sustained Thought, Sustained Freedom, Observation, Imagination and Evaluation

Dr Deepa Vanjani’s conversation with renowned authors Ben Okri and Anita Nair

Two days of intellectual champagne, that’s “intellectual laziness”. “But a number of Talking about the creative process and the how I would describe the two days I spent at critical theories are built around these and art of writing she responded, “There is no the Diggi Palace on the 24 and 25 January are taught to literature students across way you can build on imagination without 2019. The Pink City comes alive at this time universities”, I insist. Okri makes his point: observation. The personal connection has to of the year with the Jaipur Literature “Students don’t read, they just have a be turned around through imagination in Festival [JLF], the world’s largest mindset. order to create. Writing is an amalgamation amalgamation of authors, translators, Since many youngsters are into writing of both. And one needs to research well for publishers, editors, historians, poets, some these days it was only natural to ask him writing.” 2000 this year, and more than a million about the writing process and publishing Which element lends timelessness to visitors. Now in its eleventh year, the one’s writing. “There are lot of lies about writing? “Dwelling on a larger than life festival also featured the Rajkamal JBM writing. Writing is about deep thinking, theme, dealing with humanity and the [Jaipur Bookmark] Haveli sessions to focus extremely rigorous thinking that involves human condition which doesn’t change, on publishing and translation. scientific conjecture and clear thought. You gives a work shelf life,” opines Nair. Apart from attending some brilliant have to make it a constant task,” says the Readers tend to add much of the author’s sessions, I got the opportunity to converse author of several renowned works of fiction, autobiographical element into the writing, with two renowned and path-breaking adding, “Every great piece of writing has the and Nair is no exception to this. I asked fiction writers at the press terrace-Ben Okri, strength of sustained thought and sustained about her take on this, to which she winner of the Man Booker for fiction in 1991 freedom.” responded that she would have been a for The Famished Road, and Kerala Sahitya One is often carried away by the temptation nervous wreck by this time, if all that’s she Akademi Award winner [2012] Anita Nair. to publish one’s work. Okri warns that has written about was related to her own Here are some excerpts from the two patience is crucial as “it is not about how life. conversations: fast you publish, but how good you are. Take As the conversation was nearing an end, I The Nigerian Civil War had an impact on the trouble of learning the craft of writing.

Okri’s writing. On being asked about it he A writer is always conscious. Every shared an observation about fantasy and responded that it was a long story and it was sentence is chosen, where you begin, is mythology having captured readers’ “his first experience of death as a child”, chosen, it is deliberate. And don’t read-re- imagination, to which Nair responded, “I seeing a river of dead men and women and read!” he suggests as we drew the wonder if our lives are so mundane that we dead bodies with eyes wide open. “It made conversation to a close. need fantasy.” me understand the courage as well as the Profound words from a profound writer! Finally, a word of advice for budding cowardice of people,” says the 59-year-old Anita Nair, poet, novelist, and short story writers, “While there is no age to start author, “and it led me to asking questions.” writer, including children’s fiction, read writing, there certainly is the age to He started reading philosophy which led to from her latest novel ‘Eating Wasps’ in her evaluate oneself against others, to know the realization that “society is made up of session at the Charbagh. Later I met her at there is gravitas in one’s writing, something lies”. Thereafter he refused to accept the the Press Terrace. The charming author to keep it alive, so that one feels confident world as it is, deciding to go beneath the articulates her thoughts with clarity. “I about it for it to go through the layers of a surface. don’t like being classified or branded. In publisher’s evaluation. Hence it is good to Okri believes that “society is always lying writing there are nominations like literary wait to be mature enough to evaluate, and to keep up the order of things. It is a giant writing or women’s writing etc. I feel it’s then publish.” prison.” All the ideas of propriety according the style that matters,” she answers when Someone sang the song ‘Words are all I to him are built into us to prevent us from asked about how she feels about being have’, and this is particularly true for voicing the truth. “That is why society is the categorized or straight-jacketed as a writer. writers. It is these words that make all the way it is because we never challenge ideas,” Are the new forms of writing as flash fiction difference. he adds. or micro-blogging posing a threat to novels Dr Deepa Vanjaani is the Head A mindset that challenges authority and the and technology to reading habits? She feels of the department of established order is always a threat to they are not. “A real writer would enjoy the Languages in a leading society which could lead to difficulty in creative process of writing a novel. There colleges in Indore, India and a fitting in. Has it been thus for him as well? are two kinds of writers- those who enjoy visiting faculty with “Fitting in is always a problem,” replies the creative process, and others who have Educational Media Research Okri. He feels like an outsider and an discovered they can speak to an audience.” Centre, UTD and School of outsider can be both an intellectual and Which one of these is she? “I enjoy writing Comparative Languages, Indore. spiritual person too. and telling stories. It is the most important What did he make of such descriptions as thing in my life.” post-colonial and post-modern being used Technology, she believes, “is not a threat 8 for his writing and his quick response was because one may read more on Kindle;

that it was “terrible”, as such terms are just reading will remain nonetheless.” Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Short Story The Skinny Man Subhash Chandra

Our Housing Society was getting the bi- He did not understand her, but took it and “You are a wilful, reckless woman! You are annual repairs and renovation done. Being smiled. the type who go on repeating the same on the ground floor, we faced tremendous # blunder and bring doom on the family. Now inconvenience because of dust and noise. Being generous gave me a rare, blissful tell me, what do you want exactly?” Labourers kept going up and down the feeling of joy, though I shuddered at the I could not understand and looked at him stairs all the time. One day, the doorbell thought of Dilip dropping in unexpectedly. questioningly. rang. A skinny, famished man, wearing a He did one day. He stood silent for a couple “I mean do you want to live here?” ragged vest and dusty, torn pyjamas stood of minutes, glaring at me and at him. His He was going too far. After all, nothing at the door. I had seen him lugging bags of silence was menacing. He shouted at the untoward had happened. cement, sand, badarpur etc., up the stairs. man who had already stood up in fright. I said hesitantly, “Please don’t get so angry, "Madam ji, can you give me a cup of tea?” “Get out this minute. Next time I see you, Dilip. You know I love my family.” he said in a weak voice. The others have I’ll have you arrested.” “I am waiting for your answer!” gone for lunch. But I don't have any money. “Okay I will never ever do it again. Please The tea will suppress my hunger." The man slunk out, leaving his half-eaten believe me this time. I swear by Vidisha.” That calmed him a little, but it took him Though it was Sunday, Dilip was away, some time to calm down covering a triple murder case in East Delhi. He was a crime reporter for one of For a whole week I did not see the man at the English dailies and worked flexi work. Perhaps, he had got terribly scared hours. Whenever a contact informed him of Dilip and taken up work elsewhere. Or about a crime, he dashed to the site to be he was not well; or had gone back to his the first or at least one of the first to file village. the report. Or else the Head of the Crime News Desk would blow his top. One day, I inquired about him from one of the labourers who told me that the man I called him in and gave him some toast had died. with tea. After finishing tea, he stood up. “He contracted dengue. We admitted him “Namaste Madam ji,” he said with folded to a government hospital. But he survived hands. only four days.”

At night Dilip came late, looking One day I broke into cold sweat when I exhausted. After dinner he was slouching didn’t find Vidisha at the bus stop where in the chair and, as usual, giving me the the school bus dropped her. The stop was gory details of the murders, which I did Subhash Chandra retired as four kilometres away from our house and not like. But perhaps that had a cathartic Professor of English from Delhi Vidisha was all of five years. She could not effect on him. University. He has published two find her way back home on her own and, collections of short stories, Not Just I casually talked about the labourer. therefore, I would put her into the bus and Another Story, and Beyond the He sat up with a jerk. pick her up. I looked at the cell phone and Canopy of Icicles and about fifty realised to my horror that I was late by “Have you gone mad? Getting a stranger five short stories in foreign and about twenty minutes. I would find later into the house and feeding him as a Indian journals. Also published guest?” four books of criticism and several that the wall clock, which I had glanced at “But Dilip he was hungry.” research articles. while leaving, was running slow. “So what? Millions are hungry in India. We can’t be feeding them all.” I panicked! I felt on the brink of a nervous “But we can one of them.” breakdown. My mind was like a disturbed He lost his cool, which he easily did. He beehive. Thoughts buzzed around crazily. was short tempered and suffered from high lunch behind. Vidisha looked at Dilip with Should I rush to her school? Or approach the blood pressure.” terrified eyes. police for help? Or better still call Dilip. But I could not get him because either I I promised not to repeat it. Then turning on me, he spoke in a voice connected with a wrong number repeatedly # dipped in cold rage, “Really, women can be or his phone was busy. Suddenly I found After a couple of days, the man rang the bell absolutely idiotic and self-destructive! You myself jogging back again. are endangering yourself and our child too. home. “Namaste, Madam ji”, he said and lingered You know very well that Delhi is the crime

for a few moments. capital of India. The number of rapes has A stream of tears burst forth and flowed When I did not take the hint, he started been spiralling. Small children are not unchecked. Vidisha was sitting on the climbing up the stairs. But a feeling of spared either. stairs. I pressed her to my heaving bosom. scorching guilt made me call him back and When Vidisha was having lunch, I asked feed him a proper meal, as I had finished The police don’t tire of repeating that her who had brought her home. cooking early that day. people should fix a magic eye or latch-chain “Uncle.” on the doors and never allow strangers From then on, it became a routine. Vidisha “Which uncle?” inside the house. Robbers and rapists gain watched him with compassionate gaze. “The one to whom you served lunch and I entry in the guise of courier men, telephone gave my chocolate.” linesmen, or electricians. And here you go One day, she gave him her chocolate. I broke into a cold sweat a second time! out of your way to invite a stranger to “Dessert,” she told him and then said to me, lunch! “Mummy I saved it for uncle.”

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CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Column Mumbai Expressions By Anju Makhija

As we welcome the new year, it seems that of the country’s greatest honours. Her art, Alyque Padamsee, passed away at 87 years. the only thing ‘new’ these days are gadgets, Pandavani, is a rustic form, popular in the TLF paid a tribute to him and there was a mobiles and other spin-offs of technology. tribal areas which improvises stories from feeling of great loss among all of us There seems to be a relative slowdown in the Mahabharata. Tejan Bai was also connected with the arts. I recall working on other fields. One seldom hears of great awarded a Padma Bhushan in 2003. Luckily, a script with him for the play Unspoken breakthroughs in science, architecture, these people keep our tradition alive and Dialogues. He really loved his craft and philosophy and other areas. There are provide us with answers based on the worked hard to fine tune it. In his developments, I’m sure, but they escape the wisdom of our ancient texts. autobiography, A Double Life: My Exciting ordinary man’s life. The mainstream media Years in Theatre and Advertising, Padamsee One of the oldest theatre festivals of Delhi, is largely filled with news about politicians, described his eclectic journey. Known as the the Old World Theatre Festival, has honored filmstars and celebrities. Social media has so ‘Father of Indian Advertising’, he built more many traditions over the years. The fest much redundant information that it’s than 100 brands. As a director, he staged the opened with Kutiyattam, one of the earliest difficult to separate the wheat from the rock musical, Jesus Christ Superstar, one of forms of Sanskrit theatre. The all-women chaff. Add to this fake news, and one soon the earliest Broadway-style musicals to be productions included Avantika Bahl’s realizes that despite the growth of internet, staged in India. Say,What, about two people who alternate exposure to worthwhile ideas is minimal. Rima Das’s Village Rockstars, India’s between using and discarding language. It’s only when one visits pockets of Political parties are also using traditional nominee this year for the Foreign Film Oscar, experimentation like Auroville, South India, folk communication for their assembly polls. has also been picked by Museum of Modern that one feels the excitement of discovery. I The popular Hela Khayal, and Bhopa-Bhopi of Art, New York, as part of their annual Oscar had a chance to interview Anu Majumdar, Rajasthan, a form of narrative and contender screenings. It was described as author of Auroville: the City of the Future, at storytelling through puppetry, was used for one of the ‘innovative films with lasting the recently-concluded Pondicherry Poetry live shows across the state. historical significance’. It has travelled to more than 80 festivals worldwide, winning Festival. The town is based on the vision of Rajasthan is also in the news for its many Shri.Aurobindo, the great Indian mystic and over 40 awards; the Oscars, was the right Mirra Alfassa, also known as ‘The Mother’. culmination for this incredible journey. For The inauguration took place in 1968 with a this home-grown film, Das wrote, directed, formal ceremony attended by about 5,000 edited and also took on the roles of people. An urn was put in the centre into cinematographer and production designer. which handfuls of earth were placed-- Village Rockstars is an unstructured film, symbolizing the unity of mankind--by without background music. Alas, we in representatives of the 124 countries. Once a Mumbai, have not had an opportunity to see barren plateau, it has become home to people it--Bollywood blockbusters continue to hog the limelight. from 55 nations. The community has made phenomenal progress in many areas The past few years have witnessed an especially environment and education. It has unprecedented growth in poetry. Volumes of been acclaimed for its wasteland verse are frequently published mainly by reclamation and forest development work small press. Gayatri Chawla, Mumbai-based and provides consultation to groups around poet, has written about displacement and world. Even our P.M. Modi visited it last year loss due to partition. She often recreates to examine their mode of development. folktales in her yearning for ancestral roots.

Her new book, The Empress, was a winner of Close family life, which has dominated our the US (‘18) National Poetry Competition country, is fast breaking up. The past year organized by Raed Leaf Foundation for has seen rapes, murders, and crimes grow by Poetry and Allied Arts. Recently, Sophie Naz leaps and bounds. We are all aware of the (twice nominated for the Pulitzer Poetry dangers of quick technological growth. Prize), had a reading of her work in Mumbai Mumbaikars, too, seem to be fed-up with the from her latest book Pointillism. She is an new highways, metros and the whole city American poet of South Asian origin who being dug up! What’s the great hurry, one was born in Karachi to migrant parents from wonders. Till now, the BJP govt. has been Allahabad and Bhopal. focusing mainly on urban areas so farmers Books of translation are also likely to be an unsatisfied lot too! Over 50 per cent of festivals specially the Jaipur Literature centre-stage. From being unappreciated Indians earn their livelihood from farming Festival (JLF) which is expanding every year. poorly-paid writers, (with names in small activity. Surveys show that over 75 per cent The 12th edition had a host of celebrities font, below the original authors), translators of their children don’t want to follow in the from India and abroad. A couple of years are now in the spotlight. Earlier this year, family footsteps. With the eye on the ago, I had participated in a session with the winner of the Man Booker International, forthcoming elections, political parties are feminist writer, Fahmida Riaz. She passed Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, shared the granting instant loan waivers rather than away recently but the memories live on. stage and the prize money with translator, planning a consolidated policy. Other events like the World Sufi Fest are Jennifer Croft, thus sending out a significant

catching on--Sardar Khan, a Sarangi message. The graphic novel seems to be the While most farmers are driven to suicides, maestro, performed at the Jodhpur Folk medium of communication for the future. A Pandurang More is a person with a Festival. The Sarangi is at least 300 years unique collection titled, Longform, edited by difference--he has penned a novel to air their old and passed down through seven Sarbajit Sen was released; it includes woes. Born in Solapur, his parents ensured generations of musicians. There are three authors like Debkumar Mitra, Pinaki De and that he finished school and graduated. His main strings: one is of steel wire and two are Sekhar Mukherjee. Adapting novels for first novel, Kingdom In Dream, was written made from the guts of goats. The Langa screen has become easier. Mumbai Film in English so that he could reach a wider musicians were also present at Mehrangarh Festival has added an author’s corner, where audience. His second novel, White Money, Fort, along with others from various parts of writers interact with producers and will soon be out. Folk artists, like Teejan Bai

the country. directors and pitch their books. 10 also comment on society via their art form.

The 61-year-old folk artist from Chhattisgarh This year, the Tata Literature Live Festival! A very fruitful new year to all my readers! was awarded the Fukuoka Prize in Japan, one (TLF) started on a sombre note. Theatre icon, Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Essay STRIKE! By Dawood Ali McCallum

Recent images of the Gilets Jaunes taking Persuaded, I’d like to say inspired but that’s it?’ We nodded. ‘Right, so when you chant their grievances to the streets of Paris, probably going too far, they joined me at the What do we want? Everybody else shouts at scenes of people on the march, challenging very rear of the gathering marchers, our More Pay! Not really that hard, is it?’ authority and demanding change, brought superannuated class warriors reliving their Instructions were passed back through the back memories of my own brief flirtation glory days up at the front. There must have lines of marchers and we let rip. It went with such activism. been a couple of hundred of us. I reiterated pretty well but after one chorused response our plan: Bring up the rear, first I joined the Trade Union as soon as I got a we reverted to silence. The policeman opportunity, peel off, find pub, amiable job and remained a fully paid up member shook his head. ‘Shall we try ‘When do we afternoon. throughout my employment in the public want it?’ I couldn’t help but notice a rather service. For the first year or two of my Being good, law-abiding revolutionaries, snide tone had crept into his voice. working life pay, terms and conditions for our organisers put a call in to the police to ‘Oh, right. Super! When do we want it?’ those in the Civil Service were negotiated tell them of our intention and we all hung by a management/union committee around for a while waiting for forces of Again, confused murmuring. ‘Um. Phased in arrangement called Whitleyism: It sounds repression to turn up. When they finally incrementally over the next two financial ridiculously naive now, but that was the arrived their first question was where years?’ someone offered. system then and by and large it had held up exactly we proposed to march to: After pretty well for more than six decades. some discussion it was agreed that our ‘It’s Now!’ cried the policeman, destination would be the Town Hall. This exasperated. ‘The answer is ‘Now! Blimey! But by the 1980s Trade Unionism was under was not ideal for several reasons. Firstly, You guys are civil servants, right?’ threat and compromise, collective our dispute was with central government bargaining and political consensus were no We nodded. and the Town Hall was traditionally the seat longer the order of the day. Margaret of local administration. Secondly, even the ‘That explains a lot. In particular, why Thatcher was in Downing Street and local authority had long abandoned the nothing ever gets done in this bloody suddenly the number of civil servants, their building for bigger, purpose-built offices country.’ cost and indeed the very need for a and the grand Victorian structure was now significant public sector at all were deeply given over to a dance studio. Thirdly, it was That stung. Wounded, we gave it our all. In political issues. more or less around the corner. Anyway, to fact, we were just getting quite a good rhythm going when the Town Hall came into Two colleagues and I had sauntered along to the Town Hall it would be. The police duly view. We stood around its steps in a the Union meeting called just before set out the route we should take, gave us confused mass as the town clock struck two. lunchtime. We still had one or two old permission to proceed then promptly We thanked the police officer, who shook codgers around the place who were true ordered us all to turn through 180°and face his head again sadly and wished us a good socialists, one of whom claimed to have the other way. afternoon. Surely now we could sneak off to fought with the International Brigade in the Trotsky’s chums, finding themselves the pub? Sadly, our Union organisers, Spanish Civil War, something which he suddenly at the tail end of their own march, serious men of great integrity if little never failed to mention whenever anyone were somewhat peeved. Their irritation imagination, concluded that as we’d disagreed with him. They called the however was as nothing compared to ours, completed our demonstration before the meeting as a new mood of Activism was in suddenly trapped in the vanguard like some official end of the lunch hour, we were the air. It was time to take a stand! Time, latter-day Forlorn Hope. We set off, a half honour-bound to return to work for the they cried, to take our demands to the dozen police officers escorting us, me in afternoon. The demonstration, they streets! Time to march. sullen silence and my colleagues grumbling decided, counted as an extended lunch My two chums were decidedly unenthused, sulkily that they should have known better break. concluding it all sounded like far too much than to listen to me. My peevish, petulant and now rather effort. I however saw things differently. ‘Nice day for it,’ observed the Constable peckish friends said little to me on our walk ‘Look,’ I suggested, ‘we’ll be out on Strike marching alongside me. ‘Shouldn’t you back to the office. The sun shone on through for the afternoon. This is a proper, blokes be chanting something? a glorious autumn afternoon into the beer legitimate industrial action, but only for gardens of the town. But it looked for the half a day so we won’t get our pay stopped! ‘Gosh! That’s a good idea. Umm…’ three of us, alas, in vain. As hereafter did Back of the march, first opportunity, bye- ‘I’m guessing you haven’t done this before?’ the Trade Union at all future marches. bye brothers. All the best at the barricades, He asked. I shook my head. ‘How about comrades, we’re off to the beer garden Dawood Ali McCallum is ‘What do we want?’ behind the King’s Arms. Think of it: we can the author of three spend the rest of the day in a pub with a The three of us gratefully roared this out. novels published in India completely clear conscience. We will be There was a contemplative silence in the and one (The Last putting bread on the table back home whilst ranks behind us. ‘Well, our demands are Charge) published last supporting our fellow wage slaves in their multifaceted…’ one marcher ventured. year in the UK. His first legitimate industrial action. In fact, the ‘Absolutely!’ agreed another. ‘Not really the story, The Lords of more I think about it, the more it seems like sort of thing one encapsulates simply.’ Alijah, is available to

our duty to do this. After all, what can download free for a 11 possibly go wrong?” The police officer gave a long sigh. ‘I’m limited period at

assuming money has something to do with www.dawoodalimccallum.com Page

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Travelogue South-bound: a journey along the Sri Lankan coastline Shalomi Daniel A blinding light, a piercing hoot and a tale-tell the carriages, as the Ticket Inspector makes slung around their neck, drinking in the local clanging herald the arrival of the express his rounds, checking tickets and landscape and culture. A dog or two wanders train as it pulls into the Maradana railway reprimanding errant passengers, who have onto the platform, snooping around for station, ready to begin its first run for the attempted to sneak into the second-class tidbits, watching the passing trains and the day. The city is just awakening, lazily rubbing carriage with a third-class ticket. steady flow of passengers in and out of the the sleep away from its eyes, still shrouded in stations. Almost suddenly, the train takes a turn, and the darkness preceding the dawn. The station, the Indian Ocean looms into view. The breath- As the train heads further south, the heat of dimly lit, echoes the tranquility outside, taking splendour of the blue ocean glistering the sun which now beats down vehemently almost a calm before the storm; before in the morning sun as it stretches out along the southern coastline, the cooling chattering children, harried employees, and endlessly towards the horizon never fails to breeze from the Indian ocean, and the industrious vendors crowd the roads and spill stun the beholder. The calm waters of the rhythmic clanging of the train as it chugs into the station, adding to the hustle and ocean reflecting the soothing blue and south bound, lull the passengers into a lazy bustle that is the Colombo city. cloudless sky and lining one side of the train, stupor. Some are jolted awake every time the The express train halts to a grinding halt, a is jarringly juxtaposed with the metropolitan train screeches to a halt at a station, whilst brief reprieve before it chugs off South bound. scene unfolding on the other side of the train, others slumber on placidly.

A throng of passengers surge forward, along Marine Drive as vehicles jostle with Finally, the train reaches one of its main clamoring to get into the train and find each other, as rush-hour traffic hits its peak. destinations in the South: Galle, the capital of themselves a comfortable seat. Bags are On the right, the blue ocean, dotted with the ancient Southern kingdom. The hoisted onto the overhead racks, and frothy white waves, sparkling in the golden passengers stir, shaking their slumber away, windows are pushed up with silent grunts and sun, provides a picturesque view. On the left, and reach for their bags, as they prepare to groans as passengers struggle against stiff the tooting of horns, the screeching of tyres, disembark. The train, sighs heavily, as it window latches. and the blaring of music from shops are a proudly brings in its charges into the ancient cacophony of noises typical of a busy city As the train finally pulls out of the station, royal capital, preparing to rejuvenate briefly revving to life. dawn has begun to gradually creep out, the before proceeding further South. For many in sun shyly kissing the world; a gentle embrace; As the train snakes its way further South, the the train the journey is over; they’ve reached a promising omen of a sunny day. As the train busy streets are replaced with a verdant their destination. However, for the cheerful picks up its speed, racing down the tracks, it landscape, with a straggle of seaside slums. express train chugging contentedly down keeps pace with the increasingly speedy Almost hugging the railway tracks, the scores South, there are many more miles to go. advent of the day, as the last shadows flee of little houses with dilapidated roofs and The glare of the sun and the bustle of the away before the bright and fierce rising of the peeling wall paint are a constant and sad modern Galle city greet the passengers as sun; no more the bashful lover of the early reminder of the poverty that plagues they troop off the train. Amidst all the noise dawn. segments of this beautiful paradise island. and bustle of city life, there awaits them a city Little children, donning worn out clothes and steeped in history and culture; a port that is Next stop: Colombo Fort. The central and busy sporting lanky limbs, perhaps playing truant said to have beckoned many a seafaring railway station of the capital city. As the train or not able to afford an education in the land trader with the seductive fragrance of chugs into the station, vendors descend on the of free education, scamper about, seemingly cinnamon in yester years. Towering train, pushing carts loaded with mouth- oblivious to their dire poverty, as they soak in majestically over the coast arises the Galle watering food. The enticing smells of freshly the wealth of the yellow beaches and the Fort, once a formidable structure; now, an baked fish buns, sugar coated buns, vegetable azure ocean. elegant relic of past glory. rotis, and aromatic coffee wafting in through the train windows, reminding passengers that As the train passes through each station, the Back at the station, the express train having breakfast might not be a bad idea. Food and monotonous recording of the various stations changed its engine, prepares to depart. The money are exchanged through the windows, along the southern line is heard, in the loud hoot, and the familiar clanging are the vendors walking away happy with their Sinhala, Tamil and English languages. The heard, as the train exits the Galle station, sales, whilst the passengers settle down to a stations are very similar, with yellow painted heading further South, whistling a happy hearty morning meal. walls, white nameboards indicating the name tune. Having picked up more passengers, the train of the station, a low brown roof, and a few is ready to set off again. A little boy munches wooden benches scattered along the length of Shalomi Daniel is a

on his egg bun contentedly as he gazes out of the platform. In each station passengers lawyer practising in Sri the window into the busy world unfurling await the approach of the train: some dressed Lanka. She enjoys outside. smartly on their way to work; some on their reading and writing in way to visit family and friends carrying gifts 12 As the train begins its journey once again, the her spare time. and picnic lunches; and others tourists, steady clamp of boots is heard echoing down

wearing broad straw hats, with cameras Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Book Review Reginald Massey's Book Page

Tea is regarded as the national drink that I first heard Eliot's poetry being Malik, S.P. Dutt, G.V. Krishnan, Irshad of India but not many know that coffee recited and wrote the following: Panjatan, R.G. Anand, Sushil Nangia, has a longer history. Both tea and Balraj Komal, Satinder Singh, Joginder coffee are not of Indian origin. Tea And so in India's coffee houses / Far, Singh, Hardev Singh, Ashoka Mehta, came from China and coffee came from far from London, Vienna, Paris, Rome, Satyanarain Sinha and several others Ethiopia to Yemen and from Yemen to / We measured out our lives with like them who made their mark in the India. Baba Budan, a holy man from coffee spoons / Believing, without a country's politics, literature, and the south India, travelled to Mecca on fine arts. a pilgrimage and on the way back stopped in Yemen where he was I first met All India Radio's Saeed offered coffee to drink which he Jaffrey and Reggie Carrapiet in the found refreshing. He asked Queensway coffee house. Later in whether he could take some seeds London they often appeared on stage to India but was informed that it and TV with my wife Jamila. Jaffrey was strictly prohibited for anyone starred as Shahjehan in Dilip Hiro's to take coffee seeds out of Yemen. acclaimed play To Anchor a Cloud and Baba Budan found that unjust and Jamila co-starred with him as Queen risked his life by taking seven Mumtaz. Carrapiet had by then seeds to India. The story goes that adopted the name Rashid Karapiet. he hid the seeds in his beard. Anyway, it is recorded that the seeds The India Coffee Houses also were planted in 1670 and flourished flourished in other cities such as and coffee soon became popular in Allahabad and Calcutta and this book Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. It describes their addas as well. Apart was the favourite beverage of all from the clientele, the staff and castes and classes of society. It was management who worked in these much later that coffee houses were outlets are also featured. There is a opened in some north Indian cities useful glossary which gives the where the drink became popular with English meaning of words and terms in only the educated sections of society. Hindi, Urdu and Bengali. One wishes The coffee houses became addas, that the photographs and their meeting places, for the urban middle captions were clearer. However, this classes where intellectuals, artists, is a most unusual book, an exceptional academics, journalists, poets and shred of work that concerns India's recent politicians met, argued, debated and doubt, that poets had no history. Most highly recommended. hatched schemes for the future of the home, / Knew no nation, recognized no country. border. / Hence the entire earth was It is relevant to mention here that theirs, / And they were the sons and coffee houses in England had a pivotal Bhaswati Bhattacharya has recently heirs / Of the new world order / effect on the Age of Enlightenment. authored Much Ado Over Coffee: Resurrected from chaos and disorder. Coffee came to England via the Indian Coffee House Then and Now Ottoman empire and the first coffee [Social Science Press and Routledge, The third line is taken from Eliot's house opened in Oxford in the 17th ISBN 978-1-138-09947-0 (hbk) and Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock which century. Soon a number of similar 978-1-315-14527-3 (ebk)] which is a was his first major work. establishments opened in London thoroughly researched document that where they were called 'penny details the importance of these addas. The Delhi coffee house was frequented universities'. Gentlemen, mostly from I must declare my interest though I by Jaipal Nangia, Rakshat Puri, Roshan the emerging middle classes, have never met Dr Bhattacharya. I was Menon, Surojeet Sen, Uma Vasudev, congregated there to discuss politics, a regular at Simla's coffee house and Inder Gujral, Richard Bartholomew, literature and business. The London later at the New Delhi coffee house Rati Batra, Mir Mustaq Ahmed, Daljit Stock Exchange started in Jonathan's which was located on Queensway Singh, Trilokinath Purwar, 'Uncle' coffee house as did the famous auction (now Janpath). Indeed, I spent more Frank Thakurdas, Veda Thakurdas, houses Sotheby's and Christie's. time there than attending lectures at Atal Behari Vajpayee, Charles Fabri, Lloyd's of London was founded in Delhi University's St. Stephen's Keshav Malik, Michael Overman, Lloyd's coffee house. The influential College. The coffee house was my first Maqbool Fida Husain, Satish Gujral, journals The Tatler and The Spectator, university. Over half a century ago I Krishna Sobti, Surinder Nihal Singh, edited by Joseph Addison and Richard met many of the personalities Inder Malhotra, Ajit Bhattacharya, Steele, were avidly read and discussed mentioned in this book. It was there Tarlochan Singh, Girilal Jain, Kamla in coffee houses. Coffee had indeed Mankekar, Satish Gujral, Krishan come a long way from distant Ethiopia.

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The Reluctant Chief Guest By Suresh Subrahmanyan

Suresh Subrahmanyan narrates a true life experience which puts him in mind of a P.G. Wodehouse novel where a similar train of events has been brilliantly captured by the ‘Master of farce.’

Those of you who regularly read my columns you interminably, my address is Oakwood applause, the children were rather muted, know, only too well, that P.G. Wodehouse has Apartments, Bangalore, thank you and but yelled with delight when I nearly tripped been a lasting influence on the way I goodnight’, that was clearly not going to sit over the sound system wires. Children! approach any subject that I wish to devote very well with the school administration. Prior to the speech, I must have shaken the my undivided attention to. By and large this They might even have considered hands of at least 150 boys and girls. Dry statement holds true to the extent that I am administering a public caning! I ran the hands, clammy hands, hands with tomato partial to writing in a style that attempts, not awful risk of inviting catcalls, boos and bits ketchup smears, warm hands, cold hands always successfully, to bring a smile to the of samosas and hamburgers being thrown at and, I kid you not, one gloved hand (which reader’s lips. During my callow youth, I me. Wolf whistles were also a clear and unnerved me a bit, an infectious rash?) – you would slavishly imitate the Master’s turns of present danger. You know how kids are. name it and I had clasped every texture of phrase, snappy dialogues and amazing hand you can possibly imagine. This had to similes. Rather like a musician who is so The evening started with a long introduction be accompanied by a brief word of enamored of some maestro from years gone by the principal, who launched into a speech encouragement from my side (‘Well done, by, that he virtually tends to mimic his hero. praising somebody (I knew not who) as ‘the Sandhya’, or ‘Jolly good show, Nikhil’), and a However, it rarely happens that something ideal person’ to have been chosen to give pose for a photograph by parents, friends you read from one of your boyhood and the official photographer. One hero’s novels plays back in real life, child even had the temerity to take a many decades later. But that is exactly selfie with me! To say nothing of the what transpired, as will become plain as television crew with their blinding this narrative chugs along. Serendipity? flash lights. Quite nerve wracking. At Perhaps. Uncanny? Definitely. around the 93rd handshake, or it could have been the 102nd, I had lost count, I Take what happened to me recently. A felt a bit woozy in the head. Nothing good friend of mine, whose family runs serious, just the endless, reverberating a successful co-educational school in announcements, child approaching Bangalore, decided to invite me to be the stage, self proferring hand, giving out Chief Guest at their annual day function. the certificate; it started feeling a bit A day on which students from every like going round and round on a ferris class who distinguished themselves in wheel. I turned to one of the authority academics and extra-curricular figures and motioned for a glass of activities would be honoured with water. A couple of gulps and I was back certificates of merit. As to why I was to mid-season form. chosen for this signal honour, I was at a complete loss to fathom. I was never a Finally, it was time for the last particularly bright student at school, student. I could not believe my good barely scraping through my exams. fortune. ‘Great work, Nandita,’ I said Neither was college any great shakes. As for away the prizes. It took me awhile to realise, to her, or it might have been Sangita. ‘Last in receiving certificates of merit, in my dreams with a start, they were referring to me. I had the line, but not last in class eh?’ I told her, maybe. Perhaps it was my silver grey hair been called names before but never anything not sure if she got the joke. She tried to touch coupled with an ability to string a few remotely like this. I have requested the my feet, but I was too quick and side stepped amusing sentences together that brought school to provide me with a recording of this adroitly. I mean, enough’s enough. I was home the bacon. In the words of Professor introduction. If I ever slumped to one of dashed if I was going to let this stripling of a Henry Higgins, ‘An average man am I, of no those low self-esteem, depressive phases all lass, who topped her class, pay obeisance to eccentric whim / Who likes to live his life, free of us are prone to now and then, listening to a Chief Guest who never managed to go of strife / Doing whatever he thinks is best for this speech about this fictional ‘yours truly’ better than 11th. him / Just an ordinary man.’ would buck me up no end. The principal then went on to list all the accomplishments of the One last thing about being honoured. They Notwithstanding all that lyrical stuff, my school over the previous year. An annual give you this bouquet of flowers, after which goose was cooked. The invitation to give report, as it were. At the end of it all, the you slyly try and leave it under your chair or away the prizes was more in the nature of a students applauded warmly, as much for the on the table and just walk away without it in royal command. To demur would have been content as for the relief that the speech had a casually absent-minded fashion. But you a betrayal. Family friends and all that, the come to an end. know what, you can bet your last paisa that people who ran this estimable school. My some officious staff member or the other will role as the Chief Guest, going by the brief At this point, while I was saying something come running after you, all the way up to given to me, was not only to hand over conspiratorial into the right ear of an your car with a ‘Sir, you forgot this.’ Which certificates to the spotty-faced students important gentleman who was sitting next to leaves you with no option but to take it with while shaking their hands or giving them an me, he suddenly decided to prod me in the a silly grin and plonk it into the back seat, avuncular pat on the back or head, but also ribs to indicate it was my turn to take the while thanking the gentleman with a ‘You to address the large gathering with a few podium. Fortunately, I had taken no chances shouldn’t have, you know.’ This reluctance, well-chosen words of wisdom. The school and had buckled down the previous evening however, did not apply to the expensive management was also explicit that time will and prepared for this. I managed to scribble Cross pen that was presented to me. I clasped not be a limitation, so I should be free to some notes, primarily exhorting the children it to my bosom with hoops of steel. generally let myself go - high, wide and to read as much as they could, not just their I conclude with Wodehouse and his novel, handsome. Rather on the generous lines of text books, but pretty much anything they ‘Right ho, Jeeves’, which has a chapter titled Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, or could lay their hands on. The point being that ‘Gussie presents the prizes’, containing some Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’. If I with the advent of mobile telephony, reading of the most hilarious passages ever written. had any intention of mumbling something on had become all but extinct and so had the Read it, and you’ll know what inspired me to the lines of ‘Hi kids, I do not wish to detain power to imagine and visualize. So READ, I write this piece.

screamed. Pretty hot stuff, I thought. The (Reproduced with the kind permission of teachers and staff gave me a generous sparkthemagazine.com)

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Through the Poetic Lens Sitala and SHE By Yogesh Patel Pramila Venkateswaran was poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long in the rain that’s pouring perfume. Island from 2013 to 2015. She has already six collections of poems to her credit. In her latest outing, The Singer of Alleppey, she takes In Kummi Dance Sitala sings: We are birds widening the sky of earth, us on a passage through distressing feminist challenges. However, feet flying. The earth turns into the sky under one’s feet! Then there as the title suggests a singer emerges. In fact, it is a celebration of is a perfect husband others paint, but only she can see the demon life with a footprint in violence. There is a play of stark disparities coming: I see what they don’t ...../his words that emerge from their and juxtaposes brewing simultaneously in these poems. The poems mine. It saddens me often how humans do not choose their words are from a viewpoint of poet’s paternal grandmother, Sitala. We are wisely! Each word spoken is a mine. Each sentence is a minefield. However, there are normal routines in Sitala’s life; watching boat races, finally giving birth to a son and watching the hypocrisy of men chanting Vedas by day and visiting mistresses by night. The ‘Morning’ section is about Sitala’s son growing up. However, she has a final message for him. She tells him to spare her granddaughter the trappings and baggage her name carries.

Son, don’t let my grand-daughter carry my name, my past, religion, duty, customs, tribe, line, deaden her heart, play someone else’s game,

A public humiliation with a slap brings back what started in private to a new heightened reality. All she can do is to withdraw “into my tent of shame.”

Like love silenced by a train whistle, His slap among the jollity of the wedding hall

Through Sitala’s lens, Venkateswaran has not only allowed her to tell her view of her life, but also allowed the readers to look into her inner world to witness the shame, pain and joy to make own judgement on feminism in general.

made witness to a pain that is cast in the linguistic lyricism. The Meena Chopra approaches feminism through abstract art. Her sense emerging contrast is extremely effective. The calm we experience in of colour and their perfectly balanced contrast evoke the sensual these poems has an anticipation of the imminent storm. The allegory reality of a feminine shape. The poems that sit opposite each plate here is of devastating chaos in life, but not a pandemonium in in the book extend the meaning expression. of that painting. Through which she speaks a volume. These are the entwining shapes of a woman formed with clouds of colours and A bird bangs itself against glass and falls. shades. They reach out to something spiritual to find a self- That’s how I feel when he slaps my face. definition that forms a meaning for what Chopra defines as ‘SHE’.

The key clue of these poems and artworks is in the subtitle of the That’s how an innocent girl is delivered into a violent drama as a woman.

The hall spins, bride, groom, flowers, guests, husband. Then routine happens.

The abrupt refrain before ‘Then the routine happens’ is very effective here. These simple words drop us into anticipation of violence. There is a dramatic interim question between the above two couplets:

Do I have all the ingredients for the feast?

This marriage, a new life, is not a metaphorical feast for Sitala. It is a slap. In fact, further on the narrator offers plain words: My marriage is dung. The book is divided into Night, Morning, Noon, Evening, Midnight, and Dawn to represent the cycles in Sitala’s life. In the beginning, there is a separate standalone poem on its own. It prepares the backdrop of violence to come in other poems.

How will they pick their paths through evil sown by ghosts? book: ‘The Restless Streak’. Chopra has explained this SHE vividly

as ‘the everlasting stark female element of the entire universe, with In art, when feminism is explored as an indirect narration or is all light and shadows, joys and pains./SHE is the “effect” constantly celebrated without any imposed blind worshipping of a woman, the in search of its “cause”, the cosmic existence as well as liberation’. result is compelling. Many feminist writers and poets forget the Her poems are therefore also abstract and very little to do with the primary requisite of art, and so fall in a trap of a plain or angry physical reality. Chopra’s deliberate use of “SHE” in capital letters

narrative. Both these collections reviewed here are beguiling. has a deeper meaning too. This is not the “She” with the ego of one If the violence is always at the elbow, the beauty of poetry is also capital letter but “SHE” in capitals letters and thus the energy within

15 not far. in equal tension. There are poems known as ekphrastic poems. For those who are unfamiliar, an ekphrastic poem describes or

I want to twirl around interprets an object, sculpture or a painting vividly. Chopra’s book Page

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 creates an impression of such undertaking, but these are not ekphrastic poems. Many poems here, in fact, can sit with other paintings in the book. Each one is almost stand-alone in nature but wanting to take meaning from other paintings in the book. These poems are highly influenced by what is known in Hindi literature as Chhayavaad. Vinay Dharwadker, a scholar, explains in The DELHI TRAIN STATION Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry he edited with A K Ramanujan, it is “a poetry of intimate moods and obscure By Cyril Dabydeen desires, a lyrical nature of poetry, an other-worldly poetry of love and longing for divine, a confessional poetry of At the Delhi train station, despair and anguish.” You will not generally see such poetry hurly burly, with busyness in English literature. Chopra defies the trend and offers this work as any self-assured artist who finds her medium of everywhere. expression would.

From the West I am-- The following lines are a good example: furious about losing my luggage.

A sketch Gone where? What’s done – Etched On her body and flesh Distraught I am, as I raise Rhymed my voice, crying out An oceanic silence. to the harassed porters. The following beautiful lines again substantiate Vinay Dharwadker’s observations about Chhayavaad. Poor, pathetic India! To another, and another, She inhales sun and moon In the midst of trivial time I shout out more words,

However, Chopra never fully unshackles ‘SHE’ from the Curse words, damn! earthly bounds: after all, majority of her paintings have Oh, English I am with created an impression of ‘SHE’ as a figure! my pukka ways, d’you know? Is it the smell of the earth that she eats? When this man, raggedy, with soft, alluring eyes, Notice that smell has no solid form yet it is related to eating which involves solid forms! approaches me...a woman.

The best way to capture what happens in this collection is A sadhu, with a long beard, through these lines: and at once I feel--

Word took on wings a warm breath come Soaring down the valley The blank flat pages From this holy man blowing Flying away at me, gently, and a shiver

Overall, this collection is more a joy, a celebration, a real runs down my spine. feast for the eyes due to abstract art plates, and when you land in a text, a fling to nowhere where everything is Believe me, what seems to energy! come from a far place, and In February/May 2019, where else I will never know. Yogesh Patel’s work will appear in coveted journals A stranger spirit indeed, The London Magazines and with the busyness gone-- Shearsman. In April 2019, he just like that, what I feel will receive the Poet-of- Honour by Matwaala In my heart and lungs-- Literary Festival NY hosted as this man tells me about at Hunter College NY. A recipient of many awards and widely published with a smile...like how I internationally, Yogesh Patel is a poet from the UK.

A former editor of Skylark, he currently runs Word Never felt before in the East-- Masala Foundation and Skylark Publications UK to a finger at his lips, and yes, promote the diaspora poets. By profession, he is an trains going by. 16 optometrist and an accountant. Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019

Book review PEREGRINATIONS Lakshmi Kannan

Country Drive Poems by Sukrita and Yasmin Ladha. speakers.’ We relate to her anguish, for entire civilizations 2018, Red River, New Delhi. are getting submerged following the loss of a mother tongue. ISBN 978-81-939403-0-3, Price Rs. 300/- $ 15. Pages 133. “I borrow words shamelessly from other languages,” says Yasmin, and that applies to many of us ! We now live in Country Drive is a charmingly designed book of poems for multiple registers. She texts a line from Hindi for her the road, as it were, with Sukrita and Yasmin as two beloved who is about to meet her: ‘ghali meni aaj chand itinerant poets. A gypsy spirit takes them out on a journey nikla.’ The warmth of this image will surely not be lost on in which they travel him. together or separately, sharing their thoughts, poems, or In “Women” Sukrita seethes with just spending some ‘me time’ sipping indignation that wine over a chat. “Sisters and daughters, even mothers Based in Delhi, Sukrita has Are hurled into daily abuses and jokes published several collections of poems, her latest being Dream Trapped in muscular gaze Catcher. A recipient of many Frozen as soft targets in epics” residencies and Fellowships She puts Lal Ded and Akka Mahadevi on including the Iowa International a motorbike, and they Writing Program, she has published extensively on Partition literature, “Whizz past through centuries cultural diversity and women’s Multiplying in numbers literature. She is also a translator As also in Shakti” (Women on a and a painter. Motorbike)

Yasmin Ladha based in Alberta, And Yasmin describes the exasperated Canada, has published poems, essays Pandav princess and fiction. Sunflower Startle is her “Fed up with five idealistic husbands most recent novel (2010). Draupadi walks out of Mahabharat. A word about the way the book is Like me, is she killing time at Schiphol?” structured would be in order. There (Is Draupadi at Schiphol?) are twin poems (occasionally more) broadly based on a shared theme. Each theme is preceded In “Water”, Sukrita takes us through an by what is called a “Talking Point” in which the poets give apocalyptic Kedarnath, concluding with two superb lines of admirable economy their take on the theme. Interestingly, some of their Talking Points have telling lines that may – or may not – “Torrents of rain find their way into the poems that follow. For clarity, I’ll Wash the crutches of faith away.” (Himalayan Tsunami) mention the themes within quotes, and give the titles of And Yasmin in “Summer of 2013, Alberta” writes of how the individual poems within parentheses. “numbers went wonky in Alberta A Preface titled “Dear Reader” describes how they set off twelve months of rain in one pour like bits of cake, houses skedaddling past signposts” on this book. - ‘We followed an unseen trail, creating without obligation…we crafted in a womb for two,’ they The Talking Point for “Tandav” is interesting. “Dance say, adding thoughtfully that the pairs of poems are both away destruction, Shiva,” says Sukrita. joined and un-joined.’ That gives a good start to the “Be always on the go. reader. Meditate with a quirky smile. “In Search of a Shaman” is their first theme. (Did they While Parvati is the homemaker.’ know they were speaking for many of us?) For some And “Shiva dips into the roaring Ganga reason, the Talking Point makes the poets ponder over like it is an exotic Bond pool fraught with delish danger” language. ‘Words defy dictionary meanings’, declares says Yasmin. (Drowning)

Sukrita, while Yasmin addresses a very alarming issue.

‘An entire people is forced to 17 abandon their mother tongue,’ she laments, describing

how ‘Arab Gulf countries only hire native English Page

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 In “Fugitive” Sukrita’s concluding lines for her woodpecker resonate: HIMALAYA “Out of the iron bars of the cage -for Dharia that had a saucer of water, of food but no keys to the holes in trees, nor to bits of the sky By Cyril Dabydeen

The Talking Point for “Turn Maro”’ brings the poets back to where they started, about getting lost on highways, and In her own space, returning to the starting point. This poem will deepen the vibrations only-- meaning with every repeated reading. After many turns and in the cave. twists in the maddening Delhi traffic, Yasmin says “I do not hug my friend. I need the loo.” (Where the Heck Is It?) An ashram where “Paris” addresses the complexity of friendship. Sukrita has she dwells with an issue with Yasmin regarding Simone de Beauvoir who she likes very much, while Yasmin declares stoutly that ‘Good an inner glow. friends are tough as farmers. They make you work.” The heart’s own place They are friends, yes, but they don’t get smarmy. Nor do their poems sound similar. Yasmin, bohemian, with a I’ve come to know; reckless, naughty humour to match, is bindas. Yet, we catch the soul’s journey our breath to absorb the scene in “Pashmina”, words rolling off her tongue spontaneously: You see, wandering far; “the colour of sandy-blonde Himalayan goats but how far really, grazing where gods live” (“The Shawl”) will I ever know? Sukrita, ever vigilant about the politicized times we live in, writes powerfully: Looking up at the mountain: When lines of hatred rise harmony, it seems, against prayer flags moksha no less. Wagah happens.” (At Wagah, “Wagah”)

A review is a restricted space for more excerpts. Anandana The universal being-- Kapur’s sketches enliven the pages. Small birds fly out of the hands, knees, feet, and edges of the pages. We see one half-done bird within an embroidery frame growing into its full form, perched on the a face reflecting rim of the frame, all ready to take wing! The cover art by Sukrita has her signature style. The stars, I imagine, I have a question for Yasmin and Sukrita: Someday perhaps being in Himalaya-- would you like to write about each other? Friendship is she tells me about something that happens, like a sunlight that washes over you generously, whether you wished for it or not. A friend from With ease, once again, my writing program in Iowa is now a protagonist who stands tall in my story, actualising some of his impossible-looking as I make memory targets. Likewise, I seem to have stolen into his novel. He was out of nothing, unafraid to acknowledge in his Thanks to the Iowa program that the woman protagonist is based on me. He will live on in Believing and not my story, long after we shave left this world. believing, being myself-- Lakshmi Kannan is bilingual. Besides like never again. English, she writes in Tamil under the nom de plume ‘Kaaveri’. She writes across genres and many of her works are a part of the syllabus in universities and schools. Her books in English include her latest novel The Glass Bead Curtain (2016, Vitasta, New Delhi), four collections of poems, and in translation, a novel and collections of short fiction that A former Poet Laureate of Ottawa, Cyril Dabydeen was born she translated from her original in Tamil in Guyana, South America. He teaches Writing at the - Going Home (1999), Nandanvan & Other Stories (2011) and University of Ottawa. He has written a number of books Genesis: Select Stories (2014), all of them published by Orient including novels and poetry. He is included in the BlackSwan, New Delhi. She has published a novel and several Heinemann, Oxford and Penguin Books of Caribbean Verse. His novel, Drums of My Flesh won the top Guyana Prize and collections of short fiction in Tamil. They have been widely translated into French, English, Hindi and other regional was nominated for the 2007 IMPAC/Dublin Literary Prize.

languages. E.Mail:[email protected] Contact– [email protected]

18 Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 South African Newsletter Is Poverty an Excuse for Crime? By Devi Rajab

I have become yet another statistic in change of power and the painstaking look at the criminal in isolation from the unabating rise in crime. As twilight construction of a fair and just the source. By focusing on the set at the end of a beautiful balmy constitution for all? demographics of the criminal element Durban day, I was making the evening The government has yet to declare war and negating the socio-economic and meal when 5 balaclava clad burly men on crime. How much longer should we political circumstances that have given armed with AK47 and other guns wait before we call up a moratorium on rise to crime are we not missing the entered my kitchen. At first there was crime? Our prisons are overflowing. whole point? If we attempt to seek total shock at what seemed like a Lesser criminals become hardened, the reasons for our violent behaviour in the surreal clip from a scary movie. Then hardened become irredeemable. apartheid past, we will remain victims. the mind jolted into a reality check. Recidivism is high. We spend more There is inequity and poverty This is a home invasion. It was now our money on security than food and everywhere in the world but not all turn to come face to face with a daily criminals are emerging like the people choose to deal with their status occurrence in our once beloved proverbial Hydra monster; the more through crime and violence. How is it country. Images of other people’s you lop of its head the more heads possible for gold merchants in the experiences raced through my mind, of emerge. How should South Africans Middle East to simply toss a cloth over beatings, dragging, and endless, their wares and go to pray without unspeakable violence. Like a lamb anyone daring to touch the stuff? In before its slaughter I became another scenario of global poverty we catatonically calm. After all what can see Bangladeshis rummaging through the defenceless do but use one’s wits. sewers to sift out a minute piece of Guns are the cursed instruments of gold shaving to feed their families. cowards through which we empower Why haven’t they learnt to rob the the weak and disable the strong. merchants of their ware as we do here We are herded into our study. Rough on a daily basis? South Africa turns a demands are made for jewellery, blind eye to crime at her own peril. money and the safe. Instead I show There can be no lasting peace or true them walls lined with books. “We have development in violent societies. no money and jewellery “See we only read books”, I plead lamely still armed Crime cannot be solved by policemen with a baguette in my hand from my alone neither can the death sentence dinner preparations. “Calm down” I say eradicate the problem. In the SA in my trained mesmeric voice of a context there are many elements to the psychologist used to de-stressing rising crime rate that involves others. “We can’t harm you. We are poverty, joblessness, rising cost of old”. They gathered their loot from living, social anomie arising out of every corner of the house and left after Dr. Devi Rajab is a respected high expectations and limited what seemed like an eternity. The opportunities, a collective low self- South African journalist and aftermath however is what one is not esteem of victim communities, broken quite prepared for. former Dean of Student families or no families, poor financial Development at UKZN and management, lack of creative At first one is so grateful to be alive resources, limited family and and then the value and sentimentality the author of several books. community links and educational of the stolen items induces a sense of deficits. There has to be a willingness material loss. Now another person who on the part of wealthy South Africans may be totally unaware of the to embrace voluntary simplicity and sentimental value and origins will wear live with less, and instead invest in my jewellery. I have been told that respond to ubiquitous crime? Other strategies for making sure that there are many corrupt jewellers than employing private security everyone's needs get met, including the waiting to receive such loot. There is companies, retreating to gated need for economic and personal camaraderie among criminals. I will communities, building walls and security for all. Until we solve poverty, experience feelings of insecurity about electrified fences and filling up our we will not solve crime. To stop the loss of personal privacy and the jails with inmates, what should we do? robbery, we need to remove the need to invasion of one’s sanctity in the home. rob. Without education or opportunity, Daily South Africans both young and Perhaps the best way of tackling the the poor with a history of high old are being served a national diet of problem is to ask why post-apartheid expectations will turn to other means crime and the collective anxiety of SA has sprouted so much violent crime. to survive. one's future in this beautiful land of Crime is not about criminals alone.

19 ours is seriously being questioned. Why Crime is about a society that breeds

has this happened after a peaceful criminals. Thus far we have tended to Page

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Kartarpur opening is a step towards peace India, Pakistan can benefit from more cultural and economic ties as they shed inhibitions Tariq Osman Hyder

Pakistan’s decision to open and The Indian government was in a applied and need to be liberalised. construct a direct corridor from the quandary, displeased with this Talks between Pakistan and India on Indian border to the Kartarpur Sahib development but unwilling to alienate logistics, visa, and other details of the Sikh shrine in Pakistan is a significant the Sikh sentiment. Finally it accepted Kartarpur corridor now have to take event. How did it come about? What is the proposal; announcing it would place, a change from the past five years its religious significance? What can it construct the road on its side, and send of no talks despite Pakistan’s reiterated lead to in the often tense relations two ministers to the groundbreaking proposals. The overall significance of between these two nuclear armed ceremony by Imran Khan on Pakistan’s this development is twofold. East nations? side. The East Punjab government Punjab with the Sikhs’ agrarian invited the speaker of Pakistan’s orientation has missed out on The Gurudwara was built to Punjab Assembly to its inauguration industrialisation elsewhere, and being commemorate the site where Guru ceremony. a potential conflict zone it is also Nanak, founder of Sikhism, settled investment shy. Thirty years ago it was after his missionary work. He For long, India, not Pakistan, pushed the granary of India but comparative assembled a Sikh economic indicators have community there, dropped. It would thus benefit and lived for 18 from better India-Pakistan years until his death relations. And apart from the in 1539. It is 4km Sikh emotional attachment to from and within most of their shrines now in sight of the border; Pakistan, culturally — with and the Sikh spoken Punjabi and the great community has long Punjabi poets — there is a demanded that they foundation for shared inter- be able to walk to Punjab contacts to foster this major shrine understanding on both sides. directly from Dera

Baba Nanak in India On the national level there are rather than through hard truths however difficult the Wagah border they are to accept. India may crossing. become more economically There was neither a and militarily powerful, but positive response expecting Pakistan to be from the Pakistan cowed down would be a government nor any mistake. Rather it would lead request from the Indian government, people-to-people contacts. But in the to more instability in South Asia. due to security concerns. When Imran last formal talks, five years ago, it was Khan became prime minister this Pakistan that called for more people- Both countries face similar problems: summer, in his inauguration speech he to-people contacts. environmental vulnerability, water called for better relations with India: scarcity, inequitable income The potential for religious visits is stating that if India took one step distribution, high unemployment huge. Under the 1974 bilateral forward, Pakistan would reciprocate levels, and development distortions Protocol, group visas can be granted to with one and a half. He wrote to the due to defence threat perceptions. For 27 religious shrines in India and 37 in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi India, despite China’s size and growing Pakistan. Most visits take place on with a road map for discussing all influence, it is of much less real specific religious festivals or other disputes and calling for talks. A concern than Pakistan. To adequately ceremonies, and cover more than one meeting between the two foreign address the needs of their people, both shrine. The reality is that for logistic, ministers was set until India pulled countries require stability in their security, and other reasons — including back, cancelling it. relationship. Modi appears to be aware the political climate — there are of that and has on occasion reached out However at the PM’s inauguration, his informal caps on the visas accorded. to Pakistan but his hands are tied by the cricketing friend turned politician The Kartarpur opening was a bold and dynamics of his party till the national Navjot Singh Sidhu was assured both wise move by Pakistan, with all elections are over. One hopes the by Imran Khan and General Qamar stakeholders onboard and aware there Kartarpur opening is a step towards Javed Bajwa, Army Chief, that Pakistan would be criticism of ignoring the peace. would open the Kartarpur corridor and Kashmir overhang. But as the Pakistani complete its construction by Guru foreign minister said in Parliament, Tariq Osman Hyder is a former Nanak’s 550th birth anniversary next both countries need a more humane ambassador who led Pakistan’s year. Sidhu was criticised by some but approach, and had been encouraging

delegation in Nuclear and his efforts were highly appreciated in that Kashmir is also a priority. Conventional CBM negotiations with East Punjab. Agreements to permit families crossing India 2004-2007. over and for cross ‘line of control’ 20

trade, are in place but restrictively

Courtesy: Gulf News Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 BUDS BLOOM INTO BLOSSOMS Innamburan

‘...Full many a flower is born to blush unseen surprise visit to its orphanage near Delhi was smooth functioning, retaining touch with And waste its sweetness on the desert air...’ a humbling experience - migrant labour parents and schools: she is also the librarian. -Thomas Gray flocking the only dispensary, free data entry Carefully chosen expert-mentors guide the ‘...her mother was ordered to withdraw her classes for village girls and a father figure Shalinis for the long term, on various from school for serfdom at her employer’s shepherding them. professional openings and prospects. My house; penniless and roofless, she is terror- portfolio comprises the mentoring of those stricken ...’ Udayan means 'Eternal Sunshine' in aspiring to join the Indian Administrative - An SOS in WhatsApp Sanskrit. Udayan Care gives home-life to Service (IAS) etc., the elite governance orphans and offers fellowships, professional apparatus. Two factors stand out: The The State should ensure free primary guidance and handholding to girl-children unquenchable thirst for enriching one’s life education compulsorily to all children in a having the potential but trapped in by the oppressed class and that being robust democracy. The Constitution of India vulnerable environs. It also reaches out to matched by the diligent and empathetic unwittingly denied it to generations of the the villages with Information Technology. It devotion of the mentors to their tasks. poor, women in particular, by dumping this is sunshine, for sure. There is a personal obligation into the backyard called the touch also. Udayan, a scion of the Padma Endnote: Redistribution of knowledge is Directive Principles of State Policy instead of Bhushan Gujar Mal Modi -Raizada Dr. Kedar more urgent than that of wealth. Mentoring listing it as a fundamental right. The Nath Modi Group, eked out a student’s life in achieves that through caring individuals who Constitution 86th Amendment Act, 2002 USA on a shoe-string budget as he was provide young people with support, advice,

belatedly conferred that right for children in feeding the hungry children in Africa from friendship, reinforcement and models. Two the age group of 6–14 years and a cess was his allowance. We lost him at a young age in success stories: A hawker’s daughter, Alia levied from 2004 to meet the expenses; the an accident. Dr. Kiran Modi, his grief Tabassum, the first graduate of the family, outcome so far is dismal. The enormity of the stricken mother, learnt about his noble secured a pay packet of Rs.2 lakhs per annum cumulative loss over seven decades to gesture from his papers and turned his from Cognizant Technologies Pvt. Ltd, society, individuals, national integration and dream for a more equitable world into a Kolkata. Reena Burman is the daughter of a posterity can be gleaned from the UNESCO modest reality by founding Udayan Care. I penurious beedi-maker. She made her Report [October 2017-18]. 266 million trace Udayan’s generosity to his forefathers, community proud by pursuing a Master’s adults, a fifth of us all, cannot read or write, who have funded an educational empire as degree in Sanskrit tenaciously, securing a says the Report. Our own Census reports well. An early donation was to the Benares first class! She aspires to become a teacher. show limping progress and alarming Hindu University. Our New Year gift is Sukanya Sabbani, who increase in absolute numbers in some stood first Physiotherapy graduation in decades. India is host to one-third of the The Chennai Chapter, whom I joined, rightly Hyderabad. Sirs, millions of Shalinis are in world’s illiterates. chose Chennai North, to start with. The the wait-list. The Sun God of Learning should North & South here are so shine on them. Education is a time-tested broad-spectrum remedy for most social ills as it empowers polarised culturally and economically that Srinivasan Soundararajan the oppressed classes and enhances the the former was neglected for decades. (Innamburan) is a Tamil quality of life for one and all. I searched in scholar with degrees in vain all along for an Our Core Committee conceives initiatives Economics, Applied and executes them as planned, with monthly Sociology and Tamil avenue that opened exploring pathways. reviews. The work is evenly distributed, with Literature. He has long re-

Serendipity led me to Udayan Care: one selecting the Shalinis (all our fellows are tired from the Indian Audit www.udayancare.org that did open many so named) after house-visits and a fair test; and Accounts Service in which he served as

doors for the vulnerable children in 26 cities another casts the calendar for the workshops Additional Deputy Comptroller &Auditor 21 across 13 states of India since 1994. On last and the convener keeps things going in the General of India.

count, 21,000 children had benefited. A right direction. A full time secretary ensures Page

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019

Book review

ONCE UPON A TIME IN INDIA By Anjana Basu

The Blue Lotus: Myths and Hinduism and Buddhism, though blue tried to take the original language of Folktales of India. lotuses don’t exist in nature. The bloom the story into account though, quite represents an existential state of being obviously, relying on translations – Meena Arora Nayak – there is the story about the lotus occasionally she slips in an odd very Aleph blooming from Narayana’s navel at the 21th century phrase. In some cases, she INR 999/ beginning of the world and opening has taken tales from states that she with the sound ‘Om’ to mesmerise feels have a different viewpoint to Mythology, oral traditions, fables, folk Brahma for example or the one of Ram offer, like the story of Postomoni from tales, they merge and they converge in offering 108 blue lotuses to the Bengal which tells a tale of opium different ways. Blue Lotus brings Goddess Durga and plucking out his eye usage or a creepy zombie tale from together all these different aspects of when he was a lotus short. Meghalaya. Her grouping is equally Indian tradition in a definitive eclectic – for example, she follows collection of stories. Meena Arora Many of the collections of folktales stories of Kinship with tales of Desire Nayak has done in depth research into have vanished and Nayak posits the because she feels that Kinship leads the world of myths and folktales, theory that very few people, barring inevitably to desire, or Rhizomes and covering epics like Roots lead to A the Mahabharata and Thousand Petals. collections of folktales like the Kathāsaritsāgara as Blue Lotus is an well as tales from the exhaustive different religious books of addition to the India. She also includes folk tale oral traditions that span collections that grandmother’s tales and India already has variants of the same from and will interest different parts of the both academics country as these tales tend as well as to vary from place to place. readers with an inclination Nayak also discusses the towards myths fact that the British, and folk unable to accept the traditions. The openness of Indian book is colour religious beliefs – the fact coded in indigo that the importance of with a ribbon gods and goddesses kept bookmark and academics, have read the actual changing to match changing social will very definitely be a collector’s Mahabharata, pinning their knowledge mores - attempted to give it some kind item, a striking addition to any on stories that have grown out of the of acceptable religious order by taking bookshelf. Academics however may actual text like that of Karna dying on the Manusmriti as the definitive text quibble over certain inclusions, but the battlefield and with his last breath and turning the fluidity of belief into a that is only to be expected. giving his gold tooth to Krishna in the casteist hierarchy that is still in guise of a Brahmin who requests it. The existence today simply because many story of Draupadi arguing that a are unaware that they are following Anjana Basu is a husband who had gambled himself colonial practices. British adaptations Writer and away had no right to stake her in a dice of India folk tales by authors like Flora advertising game may have arisen to take into Annie Steele in many case simplified consultant based account a burgeoning of women’s traditions and allowed readers to in Calcutta. She issues at the time when it was included believe that Indian oral traditions were has 4 novels, a in the epic. rather naïve. book of short

stories and two Nayar’s is undoubtedly a very Nayak says that she has taken her title anthologies of heterogeneous collection because of its from a flower that is common to both poetry to her credit.

inclusions. She has, where possible,

22 Page CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 Travelogue A Little Known Community in a Tucked Away Township - Bandra & its East Indians by Maya Malhotra

People who have not lived in Bombay, are little aware of Where India’s other ethnic Bandra, its “Queen of communities had to Suburbs” or of its native “East migrate to work, East Indians”, a term adopted to Indians had little need to distinguish their unique and leave their tucked away cherished ethno-religious comfort zone in Salsette. identity. Bollywood’s Everything was at hand. melodies are known to all, but Their independent little is known of the gifted livelihoods—fishing, rice, musicians from Bandra (and vegetable and coconut Goa) who put their cultural cultivation continued. stamp upon the Hindi film Their small black and industry while remaining the bristly native pigs roamed background. the streets, providing a supply of sausage, festival sorpotel (a particularly The story of Bandra and the pungent pork and vinegar East Indian community curry) and roast suckling commenced in 1534 when a Portuguese pig served at special celebrations ship captain sailed into Bandra Creek, with a tomato in its mouth. In their burned down its harbour town, and own lands, villages and parishes, began the process of establishing flag, their separate ethnic identity with Book and Jesuitical education in the its fun-loving blend of Koli, large island of Salsette with its Portuguese and Anglicized culture indigenous “Koli” farmers and flourished. The East Indian native fisherfolk. “Vandre”, “Bandora”, language is a Marathi dialect with Bandra (all mean bunder, or port) Portuguese and Konkani influences. comprise that point of Salsette which is With the coming of English rule and closest to the seven islands which the adoption of English as a medium eventually coalesced into “Island City”, of instruction in their schools, East Bombay. Indians were enthusiastic Anglophones.

A donation of one and a half lakh of The early 20th century saw Muslim, rupees by the Parsi benefactress, Lady Hindu, Parsi, and Bene-Israelis (an Jeejeebhoy, enabled the completion of a ancient community thought to have causeway in 1846 to link Salsette with migrated to India in 1st or 2nd century the port of Mahim on the other side of BCE) settle in Bandra. It was home the wide Creek. Bandra natives, freed to a sprinkling of British and other from vagaries of tide and monsoon, Europeans as well. They lived and could now seek employment with the at that point to call themselves “East built grand mansions upon the two East India Company in the “Fort”, the Indians”. hills and along the seashores. East fortified Bombay harbour district. In The East India Company Raj gave way Indians lived in charming tiled roof 1867 a commuter railway line could in 1858 to British Raj. Bombay’s trade cottages in and around Bandra’s many transport Bandraites with unsurpassed and business grew rapidly. To expand villages. speed and convenience to Colaba and their revenue base, the new the Fort area. When flocks of job government encouraged the influx of Traditional East Indian home, Sherli seeking Catholics from Goa arrived on Rajan Village, Bandra the scene, their Christianized culture merchant communities from Kutch, and education also provided them with Kathiawar and Saurashtra to migrate in Bandra’s Catholic schools accepted

a competitive edge over local Hindus large numbers. From its previous role children from all creeds and

and Muslims. To distinguish their as a commanding Arabian Sea harbour, backgrounds, offering an excellent separate identity (and perhaps to the city expanded to develop as an English language education to all. Like 23 assert a superior claim to Company international cotton exchange and most Indians, I might never have employment) Salsette Catholics began major textile manufacturer. known of Bandra or the East Indians

Page had my father not been smitten by its

CONFLUENCE FEBRUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 picture- book beauty. Looking for a heritage of Maharashtrian folk Housing Society, whose founding rental in those early war years, he melodies and dances. The result: covenant permits it under the law to struck out from Ballard Estate in the bevies of film stars who danced in time limit membership to Catholics. For- Fort, drove past the coconut gardens of to their beat, sometimes under swaying profit builder lobbies have failed to Worli and Dadar, and eventually palms and sometimes in Himalayan dent this legal right. Thus are many reached the straight and steep slope of meadows. “heritage” bungalows in Bandra Kane Road. Halfway up Mount Mary preserved. An inscription on a white Hill was Villa Vazir, a new art deco East Indian Band marble plaque on the gatepost of each bungalow with a kidney shaped Change comes. Bandra’s narrow main plot identifies it as a Salsette Society verandah and a view down to a rocky thoroughfares have descended from property. Bandra’s narrow pedestrian shore and a rising sea. original bullock cart tracks, adequate lanes are a mix of 19th to 21st century for low rise neighborhoods under tree architecture on a smaller scale. During cover. Change arrived by the 1980s as the Christmas, New Year season St. Joseph’s Convent, Hill Road, magna Bombay exploded. Mansions, Bandra turns into nighttime magic-- Bandra cottages, orchards, coconut gardens, streets, lanes and houses are festooned When 1947 brought a rush of refugees farm plots were razed to make way for with garlands of colored lights, and from Pakistan, we were no longer low rise buildings, replaced a adorned with splendid Christmas star Bandra’s only Punjabi family. Before generation later by high rises of ten to Mendonca Villa, D’Monte Park Road the mid-1940s, there was no hospital or twenty stories. But while municipal Extension` nursing home, so I was born at St. bureaucrats think small, developers Elizabeth’s hospital in Bombay. I came think big. The streets stayed narrow In the chaos and clamour that is India, home to Mount Mary Hill when I was and traffic became congested. Street the only loud sounds that I ever heard eleven days old. When the family lost vendors took over sidewalks on Hill from East Indians were loud speakers its own home in Lahore, redeemed by Road. Bandra evolved into an ultra at weddings and celebratory balls. prosperous “happening place”, offering They shared their love and talent for my foreign mother’s inheritance, the a range of international foods, high end American ballads from the 50s, 60s and family put down roots in Bandra. They as well as budget clothing stores, 70s with the neighborhood. And since

built a bungalow on a slope of Pali Hill. shopping arcades and the major my tastes were shaped by that same We have been there ever since, now on fashion street of Linking Road. Mount music, I welcomed it. Who can not feel the top floor of a charmless building Mary Feast, a ten-day celebration of the respect and affection for East Indans? situated upon a builder-flattened shelf Virgin Mother’s birthday in early of land, which once was terraced and September takes place at the steps of full of trees. Bandra’s iconic Mount Mary Church. In Maya Malhotra November a popular “Celebrate Graduated from By 1954, an ancient mango orchard at Bandra” festival takes place along its Elphinstone the foot of Mount Mary became the site two seashore boulevards and at the College with a of the blockbuster Mehmood Film leafy terraced amphitheatre beside the BA in history Studio. The Hindi film industry remains of the old Portuguese Fort and political needed musical accompaniment, lots of overlooking the new Sea Link Bridge. science. She it, for every ten minutes of every worked in movie. Right here was a zesty natural Mount Mary Church, Bandra advertising for a fit, a most musically talented What remains of Bandra’s East Indian few years before community. Portuguese mentors had history lives on in Mount Mary’s becoming a Real estate agent in

introduced them to western music, imposing Gothic Basilica and the 15th Washington DC. She is now retired western instruments and western century Portuguese baroque structure and spends her time ween the US, musical notation. From their Koli of St. Andrew’s Church. Its character India, Canada, and occasional trips Hindu forebears they received a rich is preserved by Salsette Cooperative to Sweden. 24

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