Jhonpde se Qille tak

The personal secretary of a  high ranking official I interact with for my accommodation is a tad fussy about records. As she should be. Simply because these are the people who manage the minutiae of officialese and babudom and while the babus will say whatever they have to and forget about it, the rank and file knows that it has to be meticulous about these things to some day save their own and their boss’ backside. Thus, while the babu is all generous in his allowances about the length of my stay in the quarters, she on the other hand will insist on letters and dates and suchlike so am careful not to set off her cranky side. As befits someone who deals with such things, I know that the patience of those of her ilk can run paper thin. I was already more than four days behind in giving her the letter and was certainly not looking forward to upsetting her more. I leave at 7:00 am and return only by 9:00 pm from the field so have missed complying with her requirement. Today, however was a working Saturday for them and because the panchayat samiti I have been hanging around at has a 5-day work week, I at last managed to pen down the application and hand it over to her, which caused her to break into a satisfied smile.

While leaving her office, I thought I would ask her the way to Adhai Din ka Jhonpda. This is the oldest monument in Ajmer and has a violent past. Originally, a place of learning for Sanskrit scholars, it was destroyed by Qutbuddin Aibak on behalf of Mohammed Ghori who marauded through Ajmer destroying magnificent Hindu and Jain monuments. Legend goes that Ghori wanted to offer prayers at a mosque built on the remains of this university and the local Hindu craftsment managed to construct a screen that could serve as in two and a half days. Thus the name, Adhai din ka Jhonpra.

When I asked her for directions. She first fixed me with a cold stare. Then asked why I want to see such places when there are better things to see “in our culture”. She told me about Prithviraj Chauhan and how I should visit the museum and the Jain temple – Soniji ki nasiyan. I let her rant for a bit. She spoke about her distaste of the area around the jhonpda – (it is a short walk from the dargah). How I should go shopping not in dargah bazaar, but in naya bazaar – (there is no difference between the two really. They blend into each other seamlessly as I discovered on my walking tour today). In short, she told me everything barring the one question I actually asked her. As someone who holds all religions with equally the same disdain and respect, this was amusing. So, I smiled and thanked her and made my way to first bite into some chicken just to spite all her sattvik distate for “other cultures”. Such things give me childish pleasure especially because I could not counter her in any way given that I have to deal with her through my work in Rajasthan.

Then, I set off. While the jhonpda and the Jain temple were things I had always intended visiting, I had no idea about this museum she told me about. All of these places are within a 3 km distance radius from each other. And while I was sauntering along the road, I accidentally first reached the museum that she mentioned. Turns out that this was the Ajmer fort also called Akbari Quilla. The attendant told me that while the visiting hours for the museum were over, there was a sound and light show at 7:30 pm. I asked for the ticket and he said that I was the first person to buy for today and if was I sure I wanted to watch it given I could well be the sole person in the audience. I asked if the show would run for one person and he said yes so I said I wanted to see it. I had two hours to kill and asked him if the jhonpda was doable and he said yes and gave me directions to go there.

The jhonpda is really a lesson in what happens when you go about disrespecting somebody else’s way of life. While Ghori did succeed in building his mosque, today it is not a functional mosque in any sense of the term. Today, the jhonpda is in ruins. There are some magnificent pillars still standing, but all it attracts are the odd tourists and there is no sanctity to the place anymore. In its eerie environs, you can sense sadness and the remains of a glory that is a has been. History screams at you from its grounds, but in a way that weighs you down with melancholy. In stark contrast stands the vibrant  Ajmer Sharif dargah that is a five minute walk from what is really today a faux mosque. Coming as he did with the message of love and peace for all of humanity, Moinuddin Chisti’s resting place draws people from all faiths as they bow down before him and leave in his keep, mannats that they hope he will fulfill. What does that tell you ?

I spent a lot of time walking around the warren of streets that make up the old Ajmer city area this evening mulling around this.I walked through naya bazaar and the dargah bazaar to the jhonpda and back all the way to the fort. Soon, it was time for the sound and light show and I climbed up Akbari Qilla curious to see what it would entail. Of all the touristy things that I had read about Ajmer, not one had mentioned this show or the Ajmer fort. If it weren’t for the babu’s neeji sacheev, I wouldn’t have heard of this place at all today.

And then it began. The sound and light enhanced twice over with nature’s own sound and light for our benefit as it began thundering and storming magnificently. Eight other people had bought tickets in the two hours since I had and so I had company. The show is really an example of somethings that the tourism department does right. It was a lovely rendition of the history of Ajmer. Starting from Prithviraj Chauhan’s love story with Sanyogita (Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s next is on this), to Ghori’s war and imprisonment of Chauhan. How Moinuddin Chistri traveled the same geographical route as Ghori to reach Ajmer, but how widely different his own agenda and message was and how he seeded what is called the ganga jamuna tehzeeb of arts and culture in these parts. At this point, Sonu Nigam’s voice broke in to the narration, first gently then in full throated rendition in praise of the Sufi and I momentarily experienced bliss under thethundering open skies. Then on to Akbar and his wish fulfillment at the dargah, the building of the qilla, Jehangir and Mehrunissa’s time spent there and Shah Jahan and Arjumand’s children who were born there. Parts of Indu Sundaresan and her Mughal princess trilogy came alive even as the narration wound down with the entry of the British and the subsequent fight for independence. On November 1st, 1956, Ajmer province became a part of Rajasthan and then the show ended with the fort lighting up beautifully for a split second before the lights died out.

It was beautiful and an example of a show produced and presented in an engaging way. I am writing this because firstly, I would not have come looking for the museum and discovered that it was actually housed in the Akbari Qilla, were it not for a bigot who all these centuries later still chose to continue with Ghori’s bigotry with some of her own. Both the jhonpda and the qilla with the dargah in between them are representative of history and of different people with different messages to the world. Only two of them have lasted in their entirety.Secondly, this sound and light show needs more publicity. If you visit Ajmer, I hope you visit all these three sites and experience the varied histories they represent for yourself. Tomorrow, I am going back to visit the Jain temple and explore the museum. This time, I know my way around.

 

 

On screen/Off screen rambles

I will be glad when Tamasha releases next week. If I have to read one more interview, see one more picture, or have another article on the famed Ranbir-Deepika chemistry, then I will puke. As it is I have zoned out of the talk around Tamasha because unlike Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani all this natter about their chemistry this time around is leaving me cold. Not that I don’t appreciate their maturity in moving on from their past histories, but this is really overkill because Deepika went on to prove her point to Ranbir and her detractors with all the films that she has been doing and I think that any tamasha left in their personal life spaces is now purely engineered to keep this buzz from dying. I am quite pissed that it will kill my enjoyment of the actual film now. The pair whose chemistry remains sparkling for me is Ranveer-Anushka. I found them zingy together in Dil Dhadakne Do and much more attractive because it was not thrust in your face all the time, but that may be because they also never formally came out as a couple. Together, these four are quite the partner swapping quartet because both the Deepika-Ranveer and Anushka-Ranbir  pairings are also immensely watchable on screen. So looking forward to see what KJo does in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.

So anyway, Deepika is going to be making a solo appearance on Bigg Boss today for Tamasha promotion because apparently Ranbir is away shooting for Ae Dil Hai Mushkil. Must have been so convenient and such a relief even though the Ranbir-Salman encounter alone would have accounted for Bigg Boss cumulative TRPs this season given how these two have been dodging each other through all the Diwali parties they have been attending  *cough cough*

***

Today in class, Bajirao-Mastani came up for discussion and with the inevitable question of the brouhaha over the authenticity of ‘history’ in the film. See, my point is that it would certainly have been the best thing ever if our films could entertain AND remain authentic to time periods, but our cinema seldom does history any justice in terms of homework or depiction. There is a reason why Richard Attenborough was the one who made Gandhi and not an Indian which of course Shekhar Kapur went and reversed with his direction of Elizabeth. But, my point being that in the discourse of mainstream Hindi cinema, the song and dance tradition is integral to Indian cinematic culture so there is no way that SLB is going to let go of a chance to get his two leading ladies to dance together. As a concession, he might stage it as a dream sequence and claim cinematic liberty, but my point is that SLB is not a historian and is making no claims to teaching history just as K. Asif did not claim to be faithful to records with Mughal-e-Azam; Anarkali was apparently a part of Akbar’s harem and nothing more than a passing fancy to Prince Salim whose true love was actually Mehrunissa and who was the last woman he ever married after 19 wives. Part of Akbar’s anger about Anarkali was that Salim picked somebody from his harem and in real life, this story was scarcely as epic as the film made it out to be. Quite the contrary.

Similarly, Bhansali is interested in narrating a love story and mounting it on a scale with a backdrop that will be monumental and epic in every way. Yes, ideally, as a diligent filmmaker, he should have ensured that he has all his bases covered because why use real names and real people if you are going to be lazy about everything else around them? However, when I sit down to watch a Bhansali film, I am not looking for a factual retelling of any tale. I go to see his sets and the way he shoots his songs and of course to watch Ranveer and Deepika smolder. I mean nobody goes to war with their hair flying around the way Deepika does on the horseback scene in the trailer, right? There is much to be said about the responsibility of filmmakers to tread carefully on these subjects because these become etched in collective consciousness as some approximation of history so should this awareness be discarded in favor of mixing up Pinga and Lavani and a statement piece of dance? Ideally no, but I will make concessions for SLB in favor of enjoying his craft. So maybe, I the audience am also partly to blame because I don’t punish him for his laziness. Also, as this writer points out here, the nature of outrage around Pinga is quite casteist so I have been an amused reader of the sizeable outrage erupting on my Facebook timeline given my Puneri roots and realized after reading the article that the points that were being made was indeed emanating from casteist point of views.

That apart, Bajirao Mastani or Dilwale, you prefer? That this contest is a delicious one by any standard is not a case anyone has to try hard to make. It may well be Bhansali’s chance to avenge the time Saawariya clashed with Om Shanti Om in 2007 and came out the loser. Everybody involved in the film is so delicately meshed with each other owing to past histories that every single thing about both these films by themselves as well as in opposition to each other is just full of the most pregnant of anticipations. Did I mention I cannot wait?

***

And if that weren’t enough, both Wazir and Airlift released their trailers to whet the appetite for 2016. It is said that traditionally the first film of the year does not do well due to some superstition that the Hindi film industry has been carrying in which case it will be interesting to see how Wazir fares given that it has some top notch names crowding the frame. And doesn’t Aditi Rao Hydari look divine?

PS: Psssst this may be a spoiler so don’t read the next two lines: Also heard Dilwale is loosely inspired from Hum which may actually be true going by the trailer that hints at lost past love between SRK and Kajol.

Temple art intrigues

Is a story a good story if it reassures you with the permanence of its end? Or is a story a good story only if it teases, lures, and seizes your imagination of how it may have ended? This story is of the second kind and it lives on because it remains a mystery that is shrouded in the layers of time and calcified stones. It is a story from a long time ago. So long ago that we can begin its telling with once upon a time. However, knowing that it has been carved into time sometime in the 12th century, allows us the solidity of knowing when. It is reassuring in some ways to date it because the story can also date ambition, imagination, conceit, pride, skulduggery, and the fight to claim ever lasting glory. Even if you know that all of these are as timeless as civilization itself.

This story is about Mallitama. But, it really is about Baichhoja. About Mallitama a lot is known. Inscribed and preserved, his signatures are carved into the sculptures of close to 20 temples during the Hoysala reign in Karnataka. Art historians estimate that his career alone lasted for 72 years so he was blessed with longevity of both life and work. Baichhoja on the other hand appears as a flame that shone so bright that he was soon extinguished. Today, only questions light up to illuminate his short lived glory. Where did Baichhoja disappear to? Whatever happened of him?

The only proof that Baichhoja ever walked this earth lies in the village of Nuggehalli that is around 130 kms from Bangalore city. It hosts a Keshava temple. Like all other temples of its time, this one too is a crucible of the way art was expressed in those days. Its sandstone structure bears the signature of two sculptors. While Mallitama carved one section of the temple, Baichhoja worked on the other side.

Of the two, Mallitama was the senior and more experienced craftsmen. By the time he was commissioned work on the Keshava temple, he had already made a name for himself as a sculptor of great skill and his chisel was renowned for breathing life into stones.

Baichhoja himself must have been all of 30 when he worked on the Keshava temple. One half of the temple is his only legacy, but it is enough to dazzle those who know about such things. The craftsmanship of his chisel held the promise of greatness. And also of pride. The quiet reassurance of one who is good at his work and sees no reason or fear to hold back its declaration. Where Mallitama only carved his name as his signature, Baichhoja went a step ahead and carved both his name and its praise below his sculptures. Baichhoja’s work rivaled Mallitama’s. They belonged to two distinct schools of craftsmanship that was reflected in their work. So expansive was Baichhoja’s imagination and so fine and intricate were his patterns that they presented a worthy alternative to the Mallitama school of sculpting.

However, it was the first and last time he would ever carve anything because there is no record of Baichhoja before and after this temple even as Mallitama went on to ascend the heights of fame and glory. One reason to explain Baichhoja’s absence could be that he may have refrained from signing his future works with his name. But, this does not explain why the distinct cuts of his chisel that were particular to his craftsmanship were never ever found again in any other temple than the one in Nuggehalli.

So what happened?

Did Baichhoja die young? Did he give up his craft? Did Mallitama out of envy and fear of being eclipsed by a worthy young successor cause his disappearance?

Or

Did Mallitama conjure up another person to experiment with his style and show off the range of his skill? Was Baichhoja nobody, but another avataar of Mallitama the master craftsman himself? Do we know enough about the temperament of artistes to solve this?

Where did Baichhoja come from, where did he go?

History reveals just enough to intrigue, but not enough to resolve. The tales these temples can tell. If only they could.

I encountered Mallitama and Baichhoja’s story this Sunday on a daylong field trip to Nuggehalli organized by INTACH. The trip was to understand a little bit of Hoysala architecture as represented in two temples in Nuggehalli. It allowed me to learn a little bit of art history and temple architecture along with the political history of modern day Karnataka. The trip was led by Dr. Raghavendra Kulkarni who is an art historian and who heads the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat. Such is his passion for his work that his narration of the art and history of those times along with the presentation of this story left a deep impact on our group. We could not stop talking about this on our way back to Bangalore. And I, for one, am still trying to find my way back to 2015. 

1975

The annual articles and reminisces of June 25, 1975 have begun doing the rounds everywhere. In a couple of days, India, will mark the 40th anniversary of the day when Indira Gandhi suspended civil liberties and declared a state of Emergency. It is a fascinating period in India’s history and a lesson to all leaders how no two days can ever be the same in politics. Post the shiny win in the 1971 war with Pakistan that liberated Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi was hailed as Maa Durga. Yet, less than a year later, she found herself battling growing social unrest in the country that found articulation in Jayaprakash Narayan’s leadership. The straw on her back was when she was found guilty of having violated electoral laws by the Allahabad Court. All of it combined, rattled her enough to clamp down the Emergency on June 25, 1975 which lasted until March 21, 1977.

In popular culture, my most favorite piece of literature on the Emergency remains Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance. On celluloid, I only had Aandhi has a reference point. Said to be inspired from Indira Gandhi’s life, Aandhi was banned ostensibly because the film’s director Gulzar was uncomfortable directing a film on the Youth Congress. I have not watched Kissa Kursi Ka which is a satire on the Emergency and which was again unsurprisingly banned by the Congress. I looked it up on YouTube now and plan to watch it over the weekend.

My mostest favoritest figure from the Emergency days however, remains Ramnath Goenka. In fact, I was reading this excerpt from Coomi Kapoor’s book today and was prompted to write this post.

Ramnath Goenka was the owner and the editor-in-chief of The Indian Express. If you have watched Mani Ratnam’s Guru, it might interest you to know that the editor played by Mithun Chakraborty in the film is loosely drawn from Ramnath Goenka’s own persona and the events in the film, an inspired portrayal of Goenka’s real life war against Dhirubhai Ambani. Madhavan plays the role of Gurumurthy who was the investigative reporter wreaking havoc on the Ambanis.

Growing up, I aspired to this very position and used to doodle ‘My Name, Editor-in-chief, The Indian Express’ on my notebooks. I would have been in hallowed company – Kuldip Nayyar, Arun Shourie, and Shekhar Gupta to name a few. One of my professors at DCS, had worked for Loksatta – the Marathi sister publication of the Express and in him I found a kindred spirit. We spent many hours talking about the legacy of Ramnath Goenka and The Indian Express trading anecdotes from the many books that we had read about this period and Goenka’s stellar editorship during this time. Whatever demands journalism makes of its practitioners comes naturally to me. I say this without being boastful. Coupled with my fanaticism for the Express brand of journalism, nobody was surprised when I did end up being offered a permanent position a week into my unpaid internship.

At the Pune office of The Indian Express when it used to be in the Aurora Towers, Goenka’s medium sized portrait hung unassumingly. It was easy to miss, but sometimes walking past it, I would be reminded of everything the newspaper stood for and I would find pulsating energy coursing through my body. Of course, 2004 was a different time from 1975 and the kind of journalism that was offered to me was not to my liking. I quit and decided to direct my skills to research that would still allow me to investigate and write, but on a completely different scale.

Today, when reading Coomi Kapoor’s excerpt, I felt a thrill run down my spine again. I had long forgotten this feeling and though I have no desire to return to active journalism as a profession, it was a reminder that no matter what I do, I will forever find fulfillment in the kind of things journalists are wont to do. Observation and investigations, interrogations and analysis, narrating and writing. I will forever, remain a reporter at heart ❤

A trip to the library

Perhaps, it is mostly because summer is blazing away and not a sign that I am fast sliding into dottage, but these days I often think that I would like nothing more than to ride a red Atlas bicycle to the Albert Edward Cowasjee Dinshaw Reading Hall and Library on East Street in Pune Camp.

I am most likely either 9 or 10 years old and I have just been introduced to a library. My journey will begin from a house on Kahun Road. I will cycle my way up the sloping road lined with gulmohar trees and when I reach Supply Depot a kilometre or so ahead, I will courageously make a right turn having bit-by-little-bit conquered my fear of that T-junction. I will then swoosh past Varma Photo Studio and the Silver Jubilee petrol pump to my right and then take another left on to East Street. As a consequence of these turns, the basket with the peeling white paint bolted to my cycle handlebar will acquire a brown paper wrapped loaf of sliced bread from Naaz Bakery. The bread will join two books and a magazine and together we will continue our way up East Street to the library.

There I will slot my cycle impatiently into the stand and bound excitedly up the basalt steps and place my two books on the table to the right of the door. An old bespectacled man – Mr. Bhandari will tiredly look up at me and I will self-consciously smile a good morning and flee into the library. Once, during the early days of the membership I walked into the library with my mother and placed my books and the table, mumbling “M-52” – our membership number and fled inside. To that, I was roundly scolded for not greeting the old man and was told to always greet him before proceeding inside.

This only added to my already painful shyness around people, but I always did the needful after that. I wonder if Mr. Bhandari particularly cared for this gesture. I rarely came across other patrons who did that. There is no way I can check with him now because he is long deceased. I don’t have any strong memories of him to miss his presence though he is probably the first person in front of whom I have scrawled a signature in my childish handwriting on the borrowers card. For some reason, the magazines would be issued by another lady. She was an extremely crotchety person with a thin quavering voice and was also the one who collected the monthly subscription and issued the receipts. I usually picked up a Femina or a Filmfare or a Sportstar for my parents from her side of the desk.

My target once inside the library would always be a corner cupboard that was built inside the wall. This was the children’s book cupboard. I would often come away with peeling plaster in my hands in addition to the books that I would eagerly fall over – Enid Blytons, Nancy Drews, Hardy Boys, Archie Digests. Sometimes, I knew exactly which books I wanted to check out. Sometimes, I would browse for long moving from cupboard to cupboard suddenly realizing that I had reached the inner recesses of the library where the lighting was dimmer, the cupboards older, the shelves higher, and the books mustier and completely intelligible to my young mind.

However, with the desperation of the addicted reader I cunningly scoured these places to salt away the books that I wanted to shield from everyone until I could get to them. Over time, as we moved neighborhood and home, I graduated from the children’s cupboards to these very books. Historical romances, biographies, various fiction bestsellers, and precisely less than five of the Mills and Boons that I ever read.

Those cupboards are the reason why I found myself engrossed in writings ranging from Salman Rushdie’s soaring proetry (prose+poetry) in The Ground Beneath Her Feet (TGBHF) and Gay Talese’ investigative prose in Thy Neighbor’s Wife.  As a 17-year-old, I copiously copied paragraph after paragraph from TGBHF into a long register as I attempted to make sense of Rushdie’s writing. I still have that register.

I never felt guilty of hiding books in these secret places. For one, I found books hidden by others in these same places. But most importantly, I visited the library every single day which meant that the books remained hidden for less than 24 hours. Sometimes, just before the beginning of Diwali or summer vacations, my mother would issue books that I wanted well in advance and hide it from me so that I could pounce on them the moment exams ended. And until we discovered the summer camps at Alpa Bachat Bhavan, that was the only which way I spent my vacations. The neighborhood I grew up in was a very lonely isolated place. I had no childhood playmates to speak of except my sister and those days we were not particularly fond of each other.

My world was hence largely composed of the library. I would return home and look for something to eat. For me both good food and a good book were complementary to each other. One was totally and utterly wasted without another. I would usually finish the books in four hours. In the beginning, I visited the library twice in a day. The second time I did that, I was firmly told that I would be issued books only once a day. I was quite upset at this, but nothing could be done about it and I would go to bed very impatiently each night counting down to when I could mount my bicycle and head straight towards East Street again to get my precious quota of two books. The library remained closed on Sundays and I was particularly unhappy when I made my Saturday trips.

Years later, when I first visited the library at UT Austin, I had tears in my eyes when I discovered that there was no limit to the number of books I could borrow or how often I could visit or how long I could keep the books unless recalled by another borrower. I was overwhelmed at this largesse coming as I was from the precincts of the Jaykar library at the University of Pune, which in my mind at that time was as close to awesome as it could get, though I regularly fought with the librarians there who would not allow me to browse. They would insist I look up books in the catalog rather than stand reading the spines of the books, which to my mind did not make any sense at all. Once, rather frustrated at being thwarted again, I informed them that I was after all a faculty member after which I was always left peaceably alone to browse books to my heart’s content.

When I moved to Bangalore, I began hunting for a library and devoted one whole weekend in doing a recce for one that I would like. I desperately wanted to return to a world where I ritually made the journey to a library, had my fill of fingers turning grimy with thumbing through old brittle pages of a book, make my choice, sign with a flourish, and return home with a satisfying loot of books to bury my nose into. Everything that an e-reader can never give me. For far too long, I had stayed away from reading for pleasure. Academic reading had taken over my life completely and now that I was back home at long last, I was determined to make space for reading of the non-academic kind once again.

I felt a warm sense of homecoming when I found the EasyLib library in Koramangala. It was not exactly close to my neighborhood , but I was happy that I had enough time to make bi-monthly trips and have my fill of books. All was well until the evening a mail landed in my inbox stating that the library was closing with immediate effect. I was devastated. Just when I thought I had found a nice haven, it was to be taken away from me. I returned to another library that I found promising during my recce.

I am now a member of Eloor libraries on Infantry Road. It is not really a library. At least not the kind I have been used to. Eloor calls itself a lending library which means that in addition to the deposit, you pay 10% of the books cost that you borrow. This 10% is doubled if you keep the books for more than 2 weeks. As nice as their collection is I often find myself reading with an audible tick tock noise in my head because of the time+money factor. Plus, I return with a receipt of payment every time I go to the library. I am told that it is the only way for libraries to survive these days and I am still getting used to it.

My return trip from Albert Library would play out differently:

Sometimes, holding on to my precious books, I will cross the busy road to Kayani bakery. On occassions when a hit film is playing, the long line of ticket buyers at the neighboring Victory theater will snake their way into the library premises. I will carefully cross the road back from Kayani bakery and my white basket will now overflow with books, bread, cake, shrewsburry biscuits, and creamrolls. I will then carefully push my cycle out of the library. Not daring to get on to it until I cross the oncoming traffic rush of East Street. Safely on the other side, I will stop by a banyan tree. There in the shade, sits old man Batra with his mentally challenged son who frightens me no end because he sometimes snarls when he sees me. Batra operates a puncture repair shop. He is an ex-serviceman and knows my father due to which he will waive off the 50ps for pumping air in my cycle tyres. Thus replenished in more ways than one, I will cycle back home bracing myself for the complicated right turn I will have to make at the Bank House circle.

This was another time, another world. Batra is no longer around nor is his shack. I don’t know what happened of his son. The whole space is now a four wheeler parking lot. This world along with my library membership to Albert Edward and Dinshaw Cowasjee has long passed away and fills me with nostalgic sadness. I miss the Pune of my childhood which is largely a memory of cycling to and fro Albert Edward Cowasjee Dinshaw Reading Hall and Library. I rarely ever pass Varma Studio and Silver Jubilee Petrol Pump these days and I don’t go to Naaz Bakery anymore. I dislike the new facade of the buildings on East Street and have never gotten used to the ugly changes on the street though I often make a dash for the kati kababs at Olypmias next to the library. The cantonment acquired some of the library’s to widen East Street and now the library does not even have its expansive front porch.

Just like I don’t have a cycle with a white basket anymore.

We, the people

We Indians could do with a little bit of self-respect at times. Yes, I am talking about us. We, the people. Because really now, the concept of Atithi Devo Bhava does not mean we sell ourselves short. It actually does not mean we sell ourselves at all.

The writing workshop which I am attending comprises a motley bunch of people. All lovely wonderful people who make classes lively and interesting.Barring a few of us ‘natives’ the rest are all foreigners. Mostly Iranians, a few Mongolians and two Americans.

But it is interesting to see how the desis bend over backwards to accomodate our foreign friends. It has happened pretty often in the past over discussions of what makes India ‘India’. And it is not even required. Like for instance what happened yesterday in class.

We are slated for a walking tour of Shaniwarwada and the adjoining coppersmith’s colony in the oldest part of Pune – Kasba Peth this Friday for a writing assignment. Now the gentleman, Mr. X, co-ordinating this jamboree did a little bit of reccee to work out the logistics of the whole thing. Very helpful and kind and nice and all.

But for the righteous indignation with which he announced, “There is an entry fee at Shaniwarwada . Rs 5 for Indians but Rs 100 for foreigners. I got into a huge argument with the guy manning the fort over the unfairness of this.”

Mr. X then proceeded to detail his POA. He had made enquiries, he said. He was going to get a letter from the Dept. attesting that all the foreigners were students and then go to the Archaealogical Survey of India’s office asking for the entry fee to be reduced to Rs. 5 for the foreigners.

Then Ms. Y, a brilliant writer got another bright idea. She protested, “Why do all that? All of the Iranians can pass of as Indians. We will just say that they are Indians.”

Big argument ensues much to the bemusement of the foreingers until an Iranian lady chimed in, “Excuse me. Thank you very much, but I will never identify myself as an Indian or any other national for anything at all. I am an Iranian and am proud of it no matter how much I need to pay.”

“Atta girl,” I cheered. The two Americans applauded. And Ms. Y smiled sheepishly.

The class ended with the foreign guests saying that Rs 100 is really not a big deal. But Mr. X has promised to not give up and get them in for Rs. 5 because he finds it ‘unfair’.

And that is really not even the point here. The point is that the disparity in the entry fee is not to fleece the foreigners. The fee is extremely reasonable keeping in mind that tourists range from budget travellers to the living-it-up-in-style kinds. The fees are the amount they are precisely because all kinds can afford to pay for it.

You are issued a valid bonafide receipt for the fee that you pay. Nobody is duping you. It is the law of the land and I do not know if the Americans or the Iranians in our class would have been as eager to help anybody circumvent the laws of their land. Why should they?

That measly fee is supposed to contribute for the upkeep and maintenance of the monument. Whether it actually happens or not is another story, but the our monuments are in the state they are becuase the ASI is cash strapped. It does do the best that it can. Having worked on a story on the ASI, I know.

This really would not have rankled me so much if Mr. X was also not a journalist. But he is my senior. He is a pucca Punekar and has been in the trade for the better part of his life with the most popular English daily of our Times and is a regular freelancer there these days. He, atleast is supposed to be aware of ground realities and conscious of things like this. He meant it well-intentionally, but was it really needed? None of the foreigners in class said that it was unaffordable. Nobody protested that they would not be able to be a part of Friday’s class because they had to pay an entry fee.

And forget shifting the onus on his being a journalist (that also riles me). At the end of the day, I guess it all boils down to the pride you take in being a national of a country. You don’t point out ways of duping the sarkari machinery. You treasure your monuments and you narrate their rich stories. You do not devalue your history and heritage and consequently yourself. For anything.

And writing this still does not make me feel better.