“Tsk. I’m hurting”.

 “I’m sorry, a thousand times over”.

“How could you?”

“Boo hoo.”

                                          *************

“I’ve got a movie for you to watch”.

“What’s it on?”

“Cooking”.

“Should I watch to show how sorry I am?”

“Aw, Shona, it’s about a woman who cooked her way through her blog to become a celebrity in America. I thought you might be interested since you blog.”

“Mine is going nowhere.”

“And her blog turned into a book and is selling in thousands.”

“How?”

“Perhaps you could watch Julie and Julia.”

“Hmmm… she wants to cook over 500 recipes from an American cookbook on French culinary delights and report in her blog?”

“There’s more I’m told by the good ladies at my office. The women are watching it in droves because it showcases the perils of women cooking while ‘servantless’ in America.”

“Yes, yes, that’s what comes in the way of good cooking the wise women of yore would tell you, plus lack of kitchen appliances and processed food options. Besides, mine left just this morning leaving my helpless too. I’ve cut my finger peeling a potato, chipped my nail grating a coconut, and have my sinuses playing havoc for cleaning the kitchen shelves and the cook’s broken the grill again”.

“The movie showcases girlie angst. Will that not connect?”

“Ha, that’s a bitch.”

“Also, feminine polish and womanly perseverance.”

“Oh, well, we aspire, but end up cursing like sailors.”

“Of uxorious husbands as one reviewer put it.”

“What a word! Are you telling me I am a bossy wife? Am I, huh? Huh?”

“Perhaps supportive and doting husbands could be better terms?”

“Sure, sure, has a better ring to it.”

“And some great cookware.”

“I have only old and chipped stuff; my stove needs a wipe and shine, the chimney could do with cleaning; I could do with a new casserole; a fancy sauce boat, some new-age stainless steel pots; woks are so year 2000 …”

“The blogger had a run-down kitchen and yet came up with gastronomic delights, fantastic meals and a huge advance and a successful book.”

 “But I am not interested in cooking!”

“I’m not saying you should” (hurriedly switches on movie as expensive cookware lists continue).

“Maybe we could begin watching it. Chick flick and all that, hmm?”

“Yeah, whatever” (recalls bad behaviour by self and bites lips doubtfully, throws a blanket over and settles on sofa as movie rolls on).

“Gosh, those giant lobsters look dangerous; Aiyo! She’s slitting a duck and sewing it up; pouring all that wine into beef?”

“It’s French cooking!”

“I’m vegetarian.”

“Don’t I know?”

“This is lovely, but won’t do for me. I can’t plod through Meenakshiammal’s recipes through a year and write a blog on a maami who goes cooking through her book. Khalaas!Poota kesu! Gone only I am!”

“Julia is a symbol of inspiration of a lifestyle and genteel manners and homespun elegance that seem absent in these days of fast food and greedy ambitions and quick solutions. She is more to the blogger than a book of recipes. She represents a lost culture of living that’s worth aspiring”.

“Gosh, where do I find that?”   

“And while you’re searching, can I ask what’s for dinner?”

“Oh, the usual. I’m going to bed after a veggie soup.”

“And I, with dreams of beef bouilion and duck roast.”

                                         *******

“Erm, am I forgiven, even though I don’t cook or my blog doesn’t make a paisa leave alone millions?”

“Hush, never mind.”

“What did Julia Child say in the movie? It sounded so right?”

‘You are the butter to my bread.’

“I might as well say that of you.”

Part I

On Monday morning Sunil found himself seated before his desk at the Chennai office. The commute had been quick despite the throng of noisy traffic amidst squealing autos, whizzing bikes, long green buses and cars and women on scooters weaving through the lanes. He noted tiny shrines at road corners and T- intersections and dark women selling mounds of jasmine strings before the temples.

At office his ears picked up the strain of English and occasional laughter and odd bits of Tamil. The men looked sober and their manner relaxed when they stepped into the canteen. The team was formal and proper with him unlike the boisterous, vocal colleagues he was used to. He spotted a few women- looking modest and dressed conservatively. He noted the absence of sharp heels, formal pencil trousers and blouses or tight kurtis. And none left their hair open or flashed bright lipsticks.

Sunil’s boss Ve.Kreeshnan looked formidable and jumped into work without preamble. He overheard the brats call him ‘Brain Curry’ for having an answer to everything and capacity to argue his colleagues down. Sunil found himself missing affable Mohan Ram and his avuncular jolliness. After a meeting and a round of introduction to the members of his team Kreeshnan’s superior manner relaxed and he said, “Sunil, if you need help around the place, Chitra here can assist”. Sunil nodded at the young lady who looked up from her papers at him. He thought of something intelligent to say but ended up silent, staring uneasily at his shoes.

“It’s OK, we don’t bite”, she sat back in her seat, containing a smile.

“This is intimidating”, he muttered.

“It’s logic! Why do you think we win Nobels for absolute sciences?” she asked turning in the chair, tapping a pen on the desk.

Sunil groaned, flopping down in a chair besides her.

“Who holds forth on defence strategies on TV?” she quizzed, po-faced.

“Dunno. Some Rangachar, a random Swaminath?” Sunil guessed.

“Not bad. Who tips rockets up Indian skies? Who designs weapons at Pokhran?” she demanded.

“Uh, a Ram murti? A Chidambaram? Kalam?”

 “Full marks!”

“I thought you’ll were pacifists”, he said.

“With deadly defence mechanisms”, she said, adding, “It’s lunch time. Eat up rice and rasam quick and get back to work ”.

“No! ” he said, alarmed.

“Sorry, won’t flog the stereotype further”, she  smiled, “Say your prayers and you might get roti and dal at lunch”, she said turning to her monitor.

“Thanks Ma’am”, he said sullenly.

“It’s Maydam”, she corrected.

He left the spot smarting and by evening cooled down to his chatty self. “Is there a watering hole for us to gather after work?” he asked Chitra as they prepared to leave for the day.

“Well, there are pubs. Ask Vivek. He could help you with that”, she said, seeming eager to pass the responsibility.

 “You don’t?” he asked.

“I can hold the odd glass of wine or syrupy cocktail at annual official functions and that hardly counts”, she said.

“And the music scene?” he asked.

“Well, in December we have the biggest concerts for classical music in the country,” she said.

“Not, not Karnatak music; rock, bands, gigs, stuff like that”.

“I suppose something happens. Ask Vivek”.

Ask Vivek suggested, “Unwind Center, Gandhi Nagar. Hmm, also, The Vineyard near a temple on Nelson Manickam Road-but no booze, or reef in there-they’ve combined charity and making music. Serious music, their June-Out fest is good too. But got to behave; head banging OK, barfing on beer no-no”.

“Fuck!” exclaimed Sunil.

“Absolutely not on their premises. Don’t want people who can’t hold a drink, OD, bash things up, and molest girls. I suppose you are familiar with that kind of mess in Delhi,” Ask Vivek remarked piously.

 ****************

That evening Sunil worried about his singlehood snuffed by dull evenings and had visions of rusting away. He aimlessly switched channels watching swarthy heroes and plump heroines do dance hall pelvic moves on Sun TV.

David rolled out from his room, washed and ready to leave. Sunil looked longingly at him, fighting shy to ask where he was off to. “I’m not having dinner here. You could fix your rice”, David said. Sunil nodded.

“How does one pass the evenings here?” he asked, unable to hold himself.

“Ah, you can do this and that. I’m off to check out some jazz tonight at the American Center”, said David.

“There are?” asked Sunil.

“I’ve heard bits of local groups like E Flat, Null Friction, Rusty Moe. There’s a November Fest and the Museum Theatre, Egmore, hosts such events. You could come if you want to”. Sunil stopped short of smiling like a kid offered a lolly.

He had heard better, but they had a pleasant evening and stopped by a pub on the way back. It wasn’t noisy and was at a posh hotel on Nungambakkam High Road. The beer was overpriced but hey, no one brandished a gun.They wound their way fighting auto drivers and haggling prices and stopped by a vegetarian joint. Sunil wasn’t enthusiastic but he was grateful to David for the evening’s company and he watched in fascination as David tore a dosa expertly and dunked it in a katori of sambar and wolfed it down. “Don’t you miss your home food?” he asked. David thought a bit. He said he’d left home from Cardiff at 17 as was usual in his circle as a rite of passage into independent adult life and had always managed his food on his own since. “Mum is a nurse and father worked in the factories. We’ve grown on functional meals at home and living alone, cooking, and travelling has developed an appetite for other kinds of food. And if it comes as cheap as this, who’s to complain”, he said, ordering a dahi vada.

Sunil did not want to act desperate for David’s company, but he showed extra enthusiasm asking around at office and checking the internet for making plans for the weekends. David seemed to not mind the company as well. ‘He must be lonely like me too’, thought Sunil warming up to the notion of them as lost comrades on hostile shores. David would read up travel books and make plans for the weekend. They visited film societies for alternate European cinema. Sunil found it esoteric and at times boring and if he said so after a couple of drinks, David didn’t mind in his usual polite manner. Sunil dragged David to cut the rug at a local disco but found David lagging in enthusiasm.

Between their differing interests they found common areas of peace. They drove on motorbikes to Mamallapuram and burnt their backs under the glare of the sun; took a bus to Puducherry and slept on the sands and found a sense of peace by the whispering waves; Sunil tagged along David and visited ruined Jain temples in neighbouring Kanchipuram and uploaded photos on flickr and received a, ‘Wow! You should seriously hold an exhibition of your photographs,’ comment from Tejal. They hung around a car rally, thanks to free corporate tickets at Irungatukottai at Sriperumbudur. Sunil tried his hand at fishing alongside David at Puzhal Lake in Red Hills and failed, but shared a sense of quiet in the village and ate at tiny eateries. He was surprised to note David take to grimy buses and awful hotel rooms and bad food without much grumbling on their travels. Sunil didn’t want to act fussy and spoilt and held back from complaining.

One holiday, they landed at a carnival of transvestites and transgendered people at Koovagam near Villupuram; they passed grass between each other on the stops down ECR Road; got invited to farm house dinners thrown by advertising professional  folks. David seemed attracted to bharatanatyam recitals by bejewelled women. “They look like goddesses”, he remarked. Sunil found its depth and tradition too weighty for him. He felt light after he got laid near an artist’s colony at a farm house gathering. It was a tumble after a bout of heavy drinking and she had been dusky, lithe, with long hair raining down her back. He vaguely remembered she was working on experimental dance and chhau. The morning after he found no trace of her and was left nursing a bad hangover at work. But the dreamy recollection of her suppleness disturbed him on nights to come.

                                                                                                                                                                                                        **********

Ask Vivek and Chitra accompanied David and Sunil to the cinema to take in a Tamil film experience. The film was dreary about a thick-set hero who morphed into a vigilante rooster to combat villains. The heroine was curvy.

“Great tush”, Sunil said. David nodded eagerly.

“She’s Punjabi like you”, Ask Vivek informed.

“I’m Haryanvi. Why do you have some many north Indian heroines here?” Sunil asked.

“Revenge, for stealing some of our most beautiful women into Bollywood”, Chitra remarked.

He turned to look at her and smiled. They were seated besides each other in one of Chennai’s new seaside cinema and entertainment complexes. He had been surprised that she had joined them that evening. Apart from small talk over work or cursory greetings she kept to herself pretty much or with her circle of colleagues. At office, in the canteen, or while they took the lift together, she ignored Sunil with studied politeness, her manner icy, and that was sign enough she was aware of his presence. It gave him a little satisfaction that he did not go unnoticed in this alien city.

 ***********

Sunil’s life had settled to a steady hum with the months rolling. David and he picked up a few words in Tamil, and a select vocabulary of expletives. They learnt to handle the auto drivers by releasing a volley of curses in Hindi and Welsh alternately. Sunil made bold to try his hand at making rajma and failed as the beans refused to boil into juicy softness. He lost it with the cleaning woman who struggled to roll out rotis but stopped himself yelling at them as he did back home. His immediate neighbour, a couple with a college-going son, had warmed to them. The wife helped him with vegetarian recipes and explained to the cook their needs in Tamil and other smaller tasks. Despite the suspicious glances they got as bachelors among the families with stern looking elders, David and Sunil managed to keep to their own. “Bringing girls in and playing loud music is a no-no”, their neighbour warned. David winked at this.

Diwali was when homesickness hit Sunil most. He missed the shopping, revelry, festivities, gifts, parties, twinkling lamps and pretty string lights that would excite his mother and sister. Here he was woken up by firecrackers early on in the morning and TVs blaring talking-hosts show; and he received a plate of hard squiggly namkeen and homemade sweets from his neighbour, and ‘Happy Deepavali Bhaiya ’ greetings by the schoolboys bursting crackers in their compound.

Local expats invited David for a turkey dinner at Christmas and Sunil went along. “You’re religious?” Sunil asked at the end of the evening. David shrugged. “My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister; my parents went to church on occasions and I think that it is enough religion in the family. My brothers and I are not into it.”

Sunil felt a guilty pang when he ate Chettinad chicken on an odd Tuesday for breaking an unspoken commitment to his mother. He stopped to stare at the black gods on roadside temples where women gathered in large numbers on Fridays and thought of her. And he did something never done before-write his mother a letter. It was a shy and clumsy note, but her heart had melted, her eyes misted over. Nani didn’t fall short of serving a rustic aphorism for the moment: “When a daughter stares into the mirror for long, she has matured into a woman; when a son feels for his mother, he has turned into a man.”

*******

They met at a micro-brewery at Ambience Mall, Gurgaon.

“The Chennai sun has turned you dark in the past two years,” Amit said accusingly while Sunil played with the icy sweat on his tumbler. Pablo’s nicotine-inspired brooding was the same. Karthik apologised that he had missed meeting him while he came south on a holiday.

“Are you happy to be back?”Tejal asked.

“I suppose so”, grinned Sunil.

“You don’t seem dead!” commented Amit surprised.

“I wasn’t unhappy and learnt to take care of myself ”, he shrugged.

“You scored-a?” asked Unni.

“That too”, winked Sunil.

“Ja baba! And now have they converted you to the greater cause of the Tamil nation!” Pablo exclaimed.

“Nah. But they’ve co-opted me into their tendency to acclimatise well”, said Sunil smiling.

“Helloji, please place the order first”, said Tejal, playing unofficial hostess.

“Make mine a masala dosa and whisky on the rocks”, Sunil played up, with an evil grin at his friends.

“Let’s drown this Rajnikanth ass-licker in sambar”, Amit cried.

“Perhaps the next to go on deputation to Chennai will be Amit”, Karthik joined in the dare.

“Over my dead body”, Amit roared, pelting them with peanuts from the snack bowl.

 “Congratulations!”

 Sunil Tyagi’s heart sank.

He stood still as his boss G. Mohan Ram held forth: “The deputation to Chennai is a good move-up, career-wise. It offers a better pay packet and you will oversee a larger account and be responsible for a global delivery system. Chennai is growing faster in IT investment in India; cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore are just overselling themselves. You are single, the rents are cheap, and you can easily find a place near Old Mahabalipuram Road or the ECR and save money.” Ram wiggled his hips in the chair and brightened: “The beach is very nice. No winter, cold and all like here. Brrr!” he pretended to shiver. “And the food is very good”. His eyes shone as he tattled, “Idli, sambar, dosa. Not the fake variety you get here at Naivedyam, hyuk, hyuk! The asli stuff, you know”.

Idli, your tits! Sunil smiled tightly, shook hands with Ram, before exiting the cabin.

                                                                                   **********

They gathered at the usual place after work: Turquoise Cottage on MG Road, Gurgaon. It was ‘Happy Hours’ when a free drink was thrown in for each order and it made piling on the drinks easier on the wallet. An Indie rock group was belting into the mike. The band’s lead looked unwashed and suitably angry as he plucked his guitar. A young Mizo woman, in short tee and dangerously low jeans, was the main vocalist. A navel-pin twinkled from the depths of her flat belly.

 “I want to bite that Manga babe’s navel ring”, announced Unni staring at the glinting trinket. The gathering at the table ignored him.  

“That curd-rice Ram nailed your ass, I’m telling you, sacchi”, said Amit.

 “It can’t be that bad a place”, said Tejal nodding at the waiter and ordering a round of drinks and chicken kebabs and paneer tikkas. “Less violence, stress, quieter”, she added.

“Matlab ki sleepy?” Amit butted. “Booze hard to come by, chicks don’t flirt or show legs, pubs shut down before midnight, and they hate Hindi”.

“The book shops have a wide collection, kharab na; and they have good sea fish”, said Pablo. The withering looks from his mates at the table were lost on him as he blew a line of smoke rings.

“We are talking about getting a life Pablo!” Amit snapped.

“We mean babes, booze, action and that kind of thing and all you can talk is about books”, Unni elaborated.

“What’s with your obsession, Porn King? You mean to say he gets laid through the month here?” Pablo asked, jerking a thumb at Sunil.

“You’re so mind fucked that you let your dick sleep all year long only to awaken during Pujo”, Unni rebutted.

“Dudes, drop it.This is pathetic”, said Sunil morosely, “I’m leaving in a fortnight”.

“Isn’t it embarrassing that despite hailing from elite educational institutions, with middle class backgrounds, civilised upbringing and all of that shit, this table is talking provincial, and glaringly prejudiced, dumbing down to stereotypes and reinforcing popular notions?” Karthik spoke up for the first time. “Sunil, you will face similar problems as a southerner does in north India- stereotyping, mocking, loneliness and fleecing in a city where you don’t know the language or your way around. Be man enough to deal with differences and don’t whinge”, he said setting his glass down.

“To hell with your logic, bhenchod”, Amit swept away from the table to the men’s. Unni downed his shot glass and walked to take a closer look at the singer. Pablo grunted behind his smoke screen; Karthik cussed under his breath, and Tejal patted Sunil’s arm and smiled weakly.

                                                                                                             ***************

Life had taken a turn for Sunil in the past two weeks since his transfer papers from Gurgaon to Chennai came through. His parents had been irritatingly cheerful and supportive.

His mother had nodded that, “The city has less of trouble, and beta, remember to be vegetarian on Tuesdays. I’ve prayed that you will fast for good luck there”. She tied a piece of red thread on his wrist for blessings. 

Tyagi Senior with his brassy army background said, “They are disciplined out there”.

Nani murmured counting her rosary, “Their chief minister likes Ravanji like us.”

“Eh?”

“We believe Ravanji was venerable and not evil for he was a learned Brahmin. Why, in our ancestral villages we mourned Ravan’s death and did not celebrate Ramji’s victory”. Sunil scooted. He didn’t want a treatise on the Ramayan as he prepared to leave.

                                                                           *******************

He landed at the Kamaraj Domestic Airport in Chennai on a Saturday morning to be hit by the grime in the air, the humidity and heat. With adequate warnings from back home he had avoided the raucous pack of auto drivers and chosen a pre- paid taxi at the airport to arrive at Valmiki Nagar, a beachside suburb in Chennai. A company-leased two-bedroom flat that he would share with another colleague awaited him. He had been beset with fears of the unknown, worrying his flatmate would be grubby and messy with whom he might have drunken quarrels. At better moments he wished that it would perhaps be a guy from Delhi or Mumbai, who spoke Hindi. And when he allowed himself to get carried away, he hoped at the thrill of an attractive female colleague as a flat mate.

Sunil entered a nondescript tower of flats and a sleepy guard nodded absently and helped him with his bags to the lift. He looked up to see tiers of balconies with box-like grilles. He found plenty of laundry flapping in the sea breeze outside the balconies-wide white veshtis, deep coloured saris, cloth towels and hand washed underwear. Not much colourful lingerie there, he noted wistfully.

The lift didn’t work. A piece of paper was stuck on the lift door and it said, ‘Maintenance repairs’.  He went up the stairs passing three floors of silent shut doors. The landings were scrubbed and patterns of kolam were drawn on the floor area outside the doors. Tiny laminated photos of a five-headed Ganesha were stuck on top of some doors and some had strung mango leaves and hung them up on doorways as blessed charms. He noted a doorway with a trendy name plate and a Gujarati embroidered toran over the door mantel.  Some flats had tiny shelves arranged with footwear outside their front doors too. The air smelt of milk, camphor, and a certain curry flavour that he was not keen to know better. An infant’s wail pierced the mid-morning peace.

He arrived a little breathless on the top floor where the flat was located and rang the bell. The door was barren of good luck charms unlike the others and seemed unwelcoming. The door creaked open and he saw a flash of brown hair and grey eyes. He was startled that he had come to the wrong flat when the door opened further. A White man stood in a pair of Madras plaid shorts, his chest bare, and his right wrist encircled by bead bracelets in wood.

 “You must be Soonil?” he asked.

Sunil nodded uncertainly.

“David Evans, I’ll be sharing the flat with you here,” he said, opening the door to allow Sunil in.

****************

Sunil settled in much earlier than he expected. His room and bathroom were neat and sparsely furnished with a bed and basic cupboards and shelves. He looked out of the window and could spot a strip of beach at a distance.  A crow flew to a neighbour’s window sill and looked expectantly, cocking its head. A wrist with gold bangles slipped out from the window bars and served a ladle of cooked rice on the window ledge. The crow cawed loudly, jerked its head, and convulsively pecked at its food. 

David explained a cleaning woman came in to do the top work and she doubled as cook of sorts as well.

“What does she cook?” Sunil asked suspiciously.

“Sambaar, Madras curry, rice, chicken”, David sounded disinterested. “And, oh white coffee and tea”.

“Roti, dal, rajma?”

“Afraid not”.

“How do you talk to her?” Sunil asked, wondering.

“Oh, we manage”, said David smiling a little, and nodded and shook his head furiously. Sunil laughed and relaxed.

“How long does it take to reach the office from here?”

“Um,  15 minutes. A car pool is on and you could join in I suppose”.

“Whom do you report to here?” asked David.

“Ve.Kreeshnan”, Sunil said adding, “South Indians have strange initials to their names”.

“Ah, yes. A bit like us Welsh.They are patronyms, after the first names of our fathers and not strictly surnames,” he said.

David had pulled a tee over as he spoke and slung a knapsack over his back and readied to leave. “Here’s your set of keys.  Be seeing you”.

Sunil held himself with difficulty from asking where David was off to and felt a panic attack at the lack of company. He felt a strange protectiveness that his flatmate would be at large in a city without knowing the language and whereabouts. But the Welshman perched a cap and pair of sunglasses on and disappeared mysteriously into the blinding heat.

(to be concluded)

 (Acknowledgment:

krishashok for idea, editing, and updates)                                                 

There is no profession that makes sexism more apparent in all its crudity than Indian film industry. I can speak with better familiarity about Tamil filmdom where the heroes and aligned menfolk are vainglorious, and the heroines are but women treated as puppets in their fiefdom.

In the pre internet/MMS days, we had a talkative man who would share ‘stories’ off-the- record. He was an old bird in a widely circulated Tamil daily who was privy to  the sleaze and scandals of filmdom and was better known as the ‘cover’ man for taking envelopes with money from filmmakers, producers to carry publicity material in the newspaper. He looked creepy and wizened but  was the illiterate Richard Corliss and Truman Capote of Tamil filmdom and led the venal press in Madras, a good 20 years ago. He was important because he was privy to nuggets of salacious information on stars and especially starlets and his column would suggest how “Jigujigu dancing starlet spent endless time in fat hero’s make up room” and other such kisukisu or whispers.  In his  days  he commanded enviable influence in the fraternity.Why, film previews and mahurats would wait to begin only after his arrival! Despite his unctuousness he seemed fitting of a film industry which did not fight shy of covering its sleaze component.

The other male figure that would unsettle me in film units was the costumier. I have lost count of the times when an actress invited me to her make-up room and decided to talk even as she got ready to give her shot. The pretty lady would stand in her petticoat and blouse while the oily costumier would drape her sari, pin and tuck her pleats over her bosom and button her blouse up.As also the make up man. The make up sangam that has its office in T.Nagar does not find it strange that its rule book states women not be allowed to be makeup professionals. The makeup man will be the old character who will pat powder on the heroine’s belly and back, while her poor chaperone, called a hairdresser, would stand by with a barber’s comb and hair spray.

I won’t go into the stories of actresses weeping in their homes confessing their many heartbreaks and betrayals; the mothers who have raged and ranted about top actors who damaged their daughter’s reputations for refusing to go to bed with them. These are no secrets or classified information. Much of the world has guessed right the plight of these beautiful women they fantasise on screen as goddesses. 

With such strange customs, characters and environment it is not shocking to find actresses dismissed in derogatory terms. The actress is a product to be passed through hands- from producer, director, touched up the costumier and finally sullied by the ‘film journalist’ in print. Heroes, middle-aged or not, are allowed indiscretions and hopping beds, but the film heroine occupies a bed of thorns. She has to remain unmarried and therefore virginal on celluloid, be shared by heroes off screen, touched and groped by her colleagues like the costumier, cinematographer and others. She can be summarily dismissed as trollop in private conversations and banter. She will be labelled a whore playing the men if she displayed survival tricks; a madame supervising her bordello when she lost her celluloid status by getting hitched or dumped ;or aged and desperate to keep the income coming in. She would slit her wrists and swallow fistfuls of pills, have her career destroyed, and her peace shattered when the going got rough for her. It is not surprising that the highest number of actresses who have committed suicide have worked in the Tamil film industry.

A cacophony involving a small- time actress,  has allegedly accused  many senior  actresses of Tamil cinema of running brothels has erupted in Chennai. This “confession” was published in the newspaper carrying photographs of the actresses without verifying or seeking their opinion. Afterall actresses are “immoral” and their reputation will not suffer than public opinion that has already marked them as fallen women.

Many of the actresses are livid and offended; the influential film stars have got the person who wrote the piece arrested; the local Chennai press is crying that its voice is being muzzled. Would the newspaper have published the names and photographs of actors or say politicians for running a sex racket going by allegations in a police lock up confession that was leaked to a journalist? The answer is surely no. Since these were actresses who by an unspoken definition is a prostitute for them, it seemed OK to run with the story in print.

When the excitement dies down, the pressman will strut as a hero; the journalists will feel vindicated; the police will know whom to knock for Diwali gifts this time around. It will be business as usual even for those actresses who have had their reputation sullied by a society that sees them only as objects of flesh. Shaming them by calling them prostitutes is a periodical pastime for a society  who forget that the clients of these actresses are men of all hues.

The morning papers are dotted with commemorative memorials hailing Bapu. Political parties and leaders  observe the  Father of the Nation’s name and memory, hoping to generate goodwill and call upon his principles of ahimsa and truth in private and public discourse.

The Page 3 section is also celebrating Gandhi’s memory. Funky people and fashionistas have declared it ‘cool’ to wear printed tees of Gandhi; designers thank him for his enduring contribution that makes Indian fashion unique – the timeless appeal and versatility of khaddar, the homespun material that Gandhi advocated and has now set Indian fabric and styling apart-you know that line, don’t you? There is also the quick quiz for the day: Which actor played Gandhi best in the movies?

In other news today  the filming of a Hollywood film The Indian Summer is beset with problems. It is set in the period running to Indian Independence. Hugh Grant (God, God, don’t make this man age ! PS: Please, please) will play Lord Mountbatten and Cate Blanchett will play Edwina. The third character in the film will be Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru was then a dapper Pandit aristocrat and “eligible” widower. Records in the form of letters by  Mountbatten’s grandchildren and children, confidantes and friends of the Nehru family have indicated that Nehru shared a special bond with Edwina.  The Indian Summer is slated to be a period romance on Nehru and Edwina .

Indian ‘authorities’ in the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, (an arm of the Government run by a political party  lead by a powerful grand daughter-in-law of  the Nehru dynasty) have reservations about this and the filming was halted for a while. Today’s news is that I&B ministry has agreed to the filming in India provided a few scenes in the script were deleted including ‘a kissing scene between Nehru and Edwina; showing them in bed; one where Nehru declares he loves Edwina saying those three little words; and showing them dancing’ at a ball.

Louis Fischer’s The Life of Mahatma Gandhi  reveals how Gandhi’s stature as the Mahatma grew from ordinary circumstances and that’s how it was all through, for the man himself saw it that way. Gandhi experimented and challenged his personal self to almost cruel lengths to persist in his principals. He was the first to admit his own failure, flailing and naivete as also the difficulties in upholding a strict moral code and conduct in public and private life.

Gandhi said a life of adhering to truth was tough and hard, but people must endeavour to pursue it in the best capacity possible. In a modern, sceptical world he realised his views would be challenged and he would have to persist if he felt it true and right. At a time of healthy  political discourse and debate Gandhi was  also questioned by his peers for many of his principles and their contrariness. An enraged Subramania Bharati once wrote Gandhi a strong letter saying that widowhood was a scourge upon mankind and Gandhi must not waffle on it. Gandhi was all for emancipation of women, but found it difficult to reconcile his wife’s rebellion of his diktats;  some of his experiments dealt with a guilt he held towards the pleasures of the flesh. Despite his ceaseless appeal for the upliftment of the downtrodden, his people, the Harijans as he called them, his contemporaries, notably Ambedkar critiqued him for unknowingly holding on to vestiges of  Hindu orthodoxies and accused him of patronising the Harijans and “romanticising” the return to villages theory that Gandhi advocated.

Though in his own time Gandhi was beloved of the nation and indeed the world,  he never gave up the premise that he was a mortal, capable of erring or being above reproach. In a country that is quick to worship people of stature and talent with a ferocity that does not brook criticism, Gandhi was outstanding to confront his detractors and keep the nation from surging to his support herd-like. He dealt with criticisms by his detractors with right measure and his famous doggedness- not possible in this day of fan clubs for every passing mortal who is hailed hero. He pursued what he thought was right and agreed to negotiate that which could be,  given that an entire nation eulogised him as a messiah.  

Amongst all the Gandhi films the recent one by dramatist Gandhi, my Father was a bold attempt by an Indian filmmaker. The film showed Gandhi  as a failed father, grappling with the irony of shepherding a nation, but failing to reach across to his own son; his inability to convince his personal ideals of religion, rituals and habits to his own flock. Gandhi’s own autobiography and his biographies are inspirational as they show  how a life of ordinariness can reach to fantastic heights of moral and spiritual enlightenment if humans chose to choose a life of humanitarian reform.

‘Mahatma Gandhi was the spokesman for the conscience of all mankind’, said General George C. Marshall, then United States Secretary of State upon his death. Conscience, as we all know, is the most unsparing of all judges and Gandhi chose to make it  his spokesperson.

If the old man had been around would he would not have withered from art reflecting him as the unique mortal that ever walked the earth. And, he might have dismissed it  but would have not flinched from a piece like The Indian Summer.  Like Christ, Gandhi felt as humans it was impossible not to err; but it was only humane to improve upon ourselves.

Part I

Part II 

The poor nature of the sundal at Anantharaman’s household was not a cause for worry for us Golu dolls,  though it was symbolically offered  as part of evening prayers. The problem was the singing we had to listen in. The Anantharamans were proud that the family was gifted musically, that included their three daughters who were consummate singers. 

Lord Krishna, the divine lover on the ninth tier, remarked wistfully that had he been of different clay he would have seduced Anantharaman’s eldest daughter Mohana, of the soulful voice, whose renditions of Mira bhajans stirred him no end.   

It was a cheeky little secret for Anantharaman’s three daughters to invite women from the neighbourhood with limited gifts in the music department and press them to sing before the Golu, while they hid themselves in the kitchen or store room and burst into fits of suppressed giggles at poor renditions. The visiting woman or girl  egged to  sing would make suitable protest about forgetting her lines or being out of practice.After appropriate fussing she would clear her throat, make a few mewing noises to reach a proper scale, before breaking into song.

Parashuram, the fierce warrior-sage who stood on the tenth tier warned in low tones: “If Pankajam maami sings Ranjani ragam off-key this year too, I shall lop her head with my axe”. 

My wife and I danced our heads hopelessly as we sat at the fifth tier, closer to the gathering and the singing  grated our ears. There was Sundari, Anantharaman’s cousin whose squeaky voice was capable of shattering  the window glass panes.

 “Ouch, aiyo”, cried Durga, the goddess astride a tiger. She shuddered and insisted that her base cracked after Sundari touched a screechy high note, leading to a fissure in her clay. 

We were happiest when Anantharaman’s daughter Mohana and his sister Kamakshi and niece Vedha, sang in mellifluous tones. This year, the Navaratri festivities had an added excitement in Anantharaman’s home for the family was also involved in seeking suitable grooms for both Vedha and Anantharaman’s eldest daughter Mohana. The two young women were asked to dress for the evenings with special care and made to wear jewels to add to their elegant appeal in their silks to impress visiting matrons who might have sons of marriageable ages. And everyone agreed that if a young woman could make an impression on a probable mother-in-law, half the battle was won in her marital home. 

Hanuman, the monkey-god seated at the feet of Rama on the seventh tier was first to spot Raghavan. The young man had accompanied his mother and aunts from another part of the town for their Golu visits late in the evening. It was obvious  he was smitten by Vedha after her singing of Marugela ra, o Raghava. 

Lakshman, who graced Rama’s coronation set, wryly remarked: “Poor Raghavan, he listens to his sisters’ nasal drone all day long. I would have slit their noses for that”.

“Whoever said courtship cannot be conducted by singing for the Golu”, commented Murugan, god of the Palani hills, standing naked but for a loin cloth on a glazed terracotta hill. He made a mental note to adorn the Golu appropriately dressed before the women, and perhaps even bring along his consort and mistress for company, next year around.   

Well, it was a women’s festival but frisky young men would make discreet appearances under the pretext of chaperoning their sisters or mothers. The hidden intent was to spot interesting faces of the opposite sex during times when the young did not mingle and date brazenly as they would in modern times. Of course the young chap had to be man enough to take the teasing good-naturedly in an assembly of women. Raghavan’s shame had not diminished even after years of marriage for a little girl had piped up after Vedha’s Golu concert, “Raghavan Anna’s eyes are stuck on Vedhakka like that lizard on the wall”, and the gathering of women and young girls dissolved into helpless giggles. The poikaal kuthirai dancers on stilted horses swung their bottoms provocatively and puckered their painted lips. 

On Vijayadhasami day the priests gathered for final celebrations in the house. At night, a doll would be put to ‘sleep’ symbolically by making it lie face down on the Golu to suggest end of festivities. In our case, it was often the reclining Vishnu on his serpent bed who would be tipped down. 

He would grumble since morning, “Why is it I am first put to sleep among all of us each year?”

Ganesha, elephant god, gleaming in yellow and green colour remarked, “What difference does it make to you? After all you are always semi-comatose!”

It was a sign that celebrations had come to an end for the year and we would be taken off the tower the following morning. The day after, the Golu was dismantled and we were packed off and put away in our cartons, to be sent to the attic.

Ergo, it wasn’t until the following year that we could observe the proceedings of the household as yet another Navaratri dawned. This morning, the matrons’ gossip  revealed it was Pichu’s sundal that gave Mohana a stomach upset the very evening Raghavan arrived to surreptitiously check out the girls last year. He did not hear Mohana sing because she had been writhing in gaseous pain in her room.  

“Ish, paeter gash hoyechelo na ki?” commiserated shola pith Durga. 

“Howdamma”, nodded Raghavendra in orange robes sagely.

Hence it was Vedha’s singing and coy looks that Raghavan had fallen for that evening. The Raja-Rani Kondapali dolls spoke between themselves: “Premam chesera vaadu?”

Andal was quick to remind us that Kamakshi  fed more sundal to Mohana than her daughter. “How come her daughter did not have the gripes and sang well?” she asked tartly.  

Balaji, the god worrying about his wedding loan said, “All is fair in love and war, dear Kothai. Didn’t you pursue me with steadfastness too? ”  

Krishna, painted an iridescent blue muttered: “I always maintain that Mohana is the better singer,” as the evening’s gathering of women collected before us. 

“You are partial because she sings songs in your praise”, called out Matsya avatar, the fish god. We chuckled.

“Su che, what’s the gossip this time in the family?” asked Gandhi, the Mahatma  leaning on his stick.

“Mohana is a strong willed girl. She has decided to take matters into her own hands this time around”, said Avvaiyar, the poetess.

“And how?” chorused the farming dolls from the grassy fields.

“Pichu has been fired. Mohana is making sundal for all evenings this Navaratri”, supplied Shiva, omnipotent purple god of clay. 

The dolls agreed it was a wise decision and the dancing gopis giggled. “Remember the sounds their tummies made last year?” they asked and the rest of us chortled.   

“Sshh, silence all of  you!  I want to listen to the young woman sing”, called Saraswathi, patron deity of the arts, strumming a veena on her lap.

We fell silent and put our colourful faces forward, mystical smiles on our red lips for the Golu.                                 

Mohana was singing tonight and she never sounded sweeter. Kovilpatti Rajagopalan, her suitor for the evening, arrived under the guise of chaperoning a gaggle of his family women. Alas, he was musically challenged. The clincher for him was not the song, but the sundal. He found the chickpea sundal made by Mohana the best he ever had.

Part I

We are a portly pair of Chettiar dolls from Thanjavur. I am clad in  silk veshti, flashing a belly button on my protruding tummy, with gold chains around my plump neck. My round head swings on the neck as a separate piece and my smiling face nods delicately, if touched. My wife, dressed in a red sari and purple blouse with jasmine in her hair and gold jewels painted over her is the Chettichi. We are otherwise grudged as skinflint merchants but as dolls on the Golu, we are prosperous mascots for the home. We were the first social character dolls that were added to Anantharamans’ Golu. 

With passing time the religious nature of Golu dolls expanded. Secular characters were accommodated through the years in each family’s collection. Street life including a temple and procession of gods, priests and devotees, music concert figures seated with accompanists, national heroes, shopkeepers selling pulses, lentils, vegetable vendors, rural characters set in the countryside, goatherds, policemen, animals, dolls made of papier mache, cloth dolls, even tiny wooden toys and dolls all added variety to the Golu.  

On the floor area before the Golu elaborate garden and rural scenes in miniature were made and colourful kolam patterns  drawn to add homespun design elements. Children of the home would showcase their craft talents here. The seeds used in the navadanya puja in the mornings were soaked in water and allowed to sprout. These made for gardens, jungles and parks on the floor that were decorated with animal dolls and were a huge draw for visiting children. Families vied with each other in the locality to showcase bigger and better Golu collections to bring in a spirit of competition and add excitement to the festivities. 

In our heydays, the nine days were observed following a strict routine. Any family that followed norms and observed propriety in celebrations would not settle for less than 11 tiers made of wood, though in future the assembly of dolls would be placed on readymade steel towers with horizontal rows in odd numbers of nine, seven, five or three tiers. The Anantharamans’ Golu climbed all the way from the floor to touch the ceiling and was covered in white fabric to showcase the dolls’ colours better. The top row had the grandest and biggest dolls displayed and a kalasam, a silver pot filled with rice and a silver coin was placed at the top with a coconut  as a symbol of the goddess presiding over the Golu.

The family priest would come on all mornings and the women of the household would observe purification austerities, bathe, cook the meal for offering to the goddess and would gather around to read prayers, chant and sing hymns in praise of the goddess or the Devi Bhagavatham before the Golu. Meals would be elaborate in the mornings, complete with payasam, vadai and a four course vegetarian meal. Little girls, deemed as kanya pondugal, child goddesses, from the family and neighbourhood, would be fed especially to propitiate the goddess and gifted new sets of clothes. 

While on the first day the priest would lead the ladies of the household in prayers and hymns for goddess Durga in praise of her feminine valour, the following three days would be for prayers for Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, the concluding final days would be for Saraswathi, goddess of the arts and wisdom. Articles like writing materials, silver coins, pieces of silk, instruments around the house like a sewing machine and the transportation vehicles used by the family would be adorned with flowers, sandal paste and vermillion for blessings and durability for the household.

Navaratri evenings were times for hen-parties. The women would dress in their silks, while children would be dressed in costumes of celestial characters and be taken by their mothers to invite the women and children of neighbouring homes and relatives. It would be a pretty sight from our perches to watch the gathering pour in, little girls dressed in brocaded skirts and jewels and the women in their silks. The sickly sweet scent of jasmine pinned in the women’s hair would add perfume to the air along with the vapours from the joss sticks and the silver and brass lamps lit with sesame oil before the Golu.

Now it must be said that though the Golu at the Anantharaman household was famous in the locality, thanks to their glorious collection of dolls, the tiffin was not. Eswari was harried during the nine days of the festival. In fact she would be busy a good fortnight before the festivities began, involved in making arrangements for setting up the Golu, shopping for toiletry articles like wooden combs, silver coins, boxes of vermillion, pieces of colourful cloth pieces meant to be tailored as blouses. She would also be hurrying to procure the auspicious symbols that included betel leaves, turmeric roots, and nuts and fruits to be gifted to visiting ladies as sendoff presents from her Golu celebrations. Her evenings would be busy and full, both receiving  guests to her home and calling on homes of friends and family to visit their Golus.

So they hired the services of the local cook Pichu, to make special meals for the prayer occasions in the mornings. Pichu got jobs at homes because of sympathy for being insolvent and abandoned by her husband though she had limited culinary skills. Why, she was equally poor at making the humble snack for the occasion, the Golu salad- sundal- sprouts made of pulses, nuts and lentils to suggest feminine fertility and fruition. She tipped too much oil one evening on the peanut sundal, overloaded the jaggery in the green gram sundal or was unsparing of the chillies in the peas sundal, and worse, did not cook the chickpeas well that they remained par boiled, or overdid the lemon turning the Bengal gram sundal sour. She would pack the sundal in messy packets in newspaper or in leaf cups for guests to take along with their sendoff gifts. 

Elder matrons would good naturedly joke that the singing at Anantharaman’s home was better than the sundal.

(to be concluded)

Part III

Allow me to introduce ourselves. We are seated on decorated tiers, colourful dolls on a tower of steps, privy to all kinds of gossip and whispers in the household. We even know Mohana’s secret.

We are celebratory icons, on display for a brief while and hence witness to the happenings of T.S.Anantharaman’s family for nine days of the year. For the rest of the time we lie wrapped in old newspaper or  soft cloth and rags, so that our glaze, gold pigments, colours, designs and motifs stay intact and protected. We are delicate things, made of soft earth, preserved to keep the tradition going. Each year we are ceremoniously brought out of cardboard cartons that are stacked in the attic with the flaps tied with coir strings and marked in ink as Golu bommai, the dolls of the Golu.     

Ferdinand the ceramic bull and the Egyptian figure on the basalt canopic vase are both prized Wedgwood pieces that Anantharaman bought back with him after acquiring his medical degree in Glasgow; a set of five wooden Matryoshka dolls, a bone china figural of a Victorian lady with a ukulele, and a brown teddy all sit on the ‘show case’. It is a glass case with mahogany wooden frames that stands in the corner of the living room. The show-piece dolls have sat in their shelves displayed through the years unlike us. They are silent witnesses with their glazed and coloured eyes on the many goings on in the family, privy to secrets, marriages, births and deaths in this busy home, despite the haze of dust gathering over them.

We on the other hand are snobs, seasonal showpieces, meant to grace the home only during auspicious days of the celebrations. As a festive collection we are special, duly decorated, festooned and arranged in an assembly of dolls. Young women sing to us, visitors marvel at us, and we revel in the appreciation showered on us for the nine evenings of the Navaratri festival. We don’t want to seem friendly or act familiar with them regular show-case dolls, souvenirs from alien lands meant to advertise how well-travelled the residents of the household are.

Now don’t be fooled that we are provincial, mere figurines made of humble clay, only mythological and religious in character. We’ve been around, coming from far away places, moist river banks, moulded by deft fingers that sculpted us, skilled artistes who painted us until we shone all glossy and glamourous. Our kind has been part of family collections through generations. We proudly carry the individual style of the dwindling clan of clay artisans in whose homes men and women gather to make Navaratri dolls, months ahead to put them up for sale when the season changes to autumn and the festivities begin.

The doll collection at Anantharaman’s home is large and comes in different kinds and colours. The ten avatars of Lord Vishnu are family heirlooms, the dolls having been handed over by Anantha’s mother to his wife, Eswari upon marriage. They were made in Vandipalyam, near Panruti, a little town near Cuddalore once famous for its kullalar clan of potters who made fine clay dolls as the Kedilam river bank was malleable with the right amount of sand deposits. 

Many artisans would collect their meager money, for they eked a living being seasonal craftspeople, to come to the big city of Madras and set up shops on the pavements on North Mada Street in Mylapore, on the perimeter around the Kapaleeswarar temple, or at Mambalam Station Road. Women and families would jostle, clamber and yell excitedly in the festive rush to pick up the dolls that came from Panruti in our time. The dolls that were made in the Thanjavur style were grand. Originally they were coloured with vegetable dyes by the renowned craftsmen of the Kaveri river area, with round faces and slightly plump torsos, before synthetic dyes became popular in painting us. 

A row of sages and saints from Thanjavur with fine details were placed on the top tiers of the Golu. The Dampathi, a duo of marapachi or wooden dolls were a must in any Golu and the Anantharaman’s had theirs all the way from Kondapalli in Andhra Pradesh where artisans made fine dolls out of a mixture of clay, cowdung and sawdust that were highlighted in gold dust and colourful pigments. The kitchen crockery set or choppu was made of soapstone from Mysore. 

Large pieces of the presiding deities of the Golu, goddesses of valour, Durga, of wealth, Lakshmi and wisdom, Saraswathi came from neighbouring Kanchipuram, known for fine workmanship. As it remains a festival celebrated mainly by women, the triumvirate of goddesses was believed to preside and bless homes by being seated at the head of the Golu. A shola pith Durga and a clay figurine of the seer Ramakrishna Paramahamsa were gifts from a visiting relative from Calcutta. The zoo collection of glazed clay wild animals was from Karigiri in Vellore. Of course tiny wooden figurines of gods and goddesses from Orissa and celestial maidens in clay and glazed in dull colours from Madhya Pradesh added novelty and character to the Golu.

(to be continued)

Part II

Part III

…is an ominous figure.

Anyone who has travelled abroad knows that the wait in the queue, the inching closer to offer your passport and self for scrutiny is an uneasy one. It’s disquieting to be sized by a stony faced bureaucrat in white. He will judge your looks, the country of your origin, scrutinise the business which brings you to his nation, and assess what you intend to do honourably in his land of milk and honey before allowing you to pass.

You may be he/she who stands slinging a laptop bag across the shoulder, jetlagged and yet ready to do business; else a frazzled mum with a bawling baby dribbling on your chest; or a nervous student, spooling university papers from a satchel; why even, simply rich and famous and wanting to film a Bollywood dance at the base of Times Square; or a wife whose expectations of everlasting happiness in a country of hope, freedom and opportunity will be realised when you join your husband on the other side of the immigration counter.

We, the people, stand on the other side of an invisible border line at an airport seeking admission into a new nation and know the unspoken writ. That man-made-borders are imaginary radars for protection of territory; to safeguard from foreign vandals; to stave off enemies and unmentionables; to deny entry to scums and to judge those who seek asylum economically, politically or socially. Airports are no man’s land, a meeting point of human hope and despair.

The only time the man at the airport buckles is in India and other companionable nations who are quick to lead their VIPS through separate entrances, who ignore protocol for visiting dignitaries and celebrities. Elsewhere, he remains a grim sentinel.

Post 9/11, the man at the American airport has only become as cold and rigid as the sentinels back across time and centuries whose job was to keep invading and suspicious “barbarians” away from home territory. While human rights have been violated in the land of justice and promise, where cases of those detained at airports have joined the lists of the missing, it must be acknowledged that post that infamous September, no new terrorist has managed to strike on American soil or air.

Apart from unnamed citizens, former Union Minister George Fernandes who was strip searched, film stars like Kamal Hassan, Aamir Khan, Irfan Khan and ex-prez Abdul Kalam have all been in news for their names popping up in the American immigration officer’s monitor and for being detained. Beyond the polite, “Could you step aside, please, sir?” we can sense the frost and the foreboding of suspicion as much as these famous citizens from India.

For the guilty, such a detention is punishing and alarming; for the honest, righteous indignation for being perceived hostile. It’s a bitter travesty of our times of danger and suspicion that many among the privileged, the honest, and the righteous are thus pulled up for scrutiny like petty suspects, and racial profiling remains a bane in the White world.

He could be a huge celebrity, honorary doctorates from British universities may grace him, friendly nations could confer special citizen status, and international weeklies list him as one among the globe’s 10 most influential persons. But for the man at the airport, who spots an alarm beep on his monitor, these encomiums don’t matter. Why, last week, a man hailed as the greatest songwriter of our times, Bob Dylan, was stopped on “suspicion” by a neighbourhood patrol police in America, for strolling around a New Jersey town and taken to the local police station for questioning. The patrolman had no clue of Robert Zimmerman’s musical identity and was just doing his job. Dylan nodded it off and didn’t make juvenile retorts like, “Let Angelina Jolie come to India and I’ll frisk her.” Dylan didn’t call local political parties and have union ministers release statements that a “global icon” had been humiliated by American authorities.

The NRI icon who fashions himself to be cheeky, insouciant, rude, and prefers to be in his own words, “crass, capitalist and selfish” has had a taste of medicine from the world’s capital of capitalism. For some reason, I think the protest will last until the forthcoming schedule of his next filmmaking in Manhattan.

The problem with contemporary Bollywood fare is its dedication to goodness. It’s a popular formula that serves up treacle and tripe to box office crescendo.

“Feel good cinema” has more loyalists in India than followers to the Vatican. Bollywood offers substance so subsumed in style that it loses its spirit; prettiness that leaves no scope for searing aches; blinding faith in things pat that it ignores things rough and cracked. It mistakes the ugly for the miserable; the cruel for the bad; and sweetness for nobleness.

Ambiguity- moral and corporeal, dark phantoms of the mind and heart, and the brooding insanity of noirscape has had no takers in popular imagination, despite the deviant attempts by a select few. The anatomy of evil remains shrouded in Indian cinema, its inexplicable qualities lie unexplored, its intensity unmeasured and its menace unfathomed. Evil floats on the surface of good, oil to water, separated and recycled into everlasting peace and happiness.

The last man to stand up for the ugly, the losing, the foolish, the nasty and horrible was Ram Gopal Varma. But he has disintegrated in his own hideousness, his madness has lost its menace, unable to sift the sensual from the carnal, terror from the twisted.

Anurag Kashyap’s cinema holds promise among pretty men promising political correctness in technicolour with superstars who will enact disabilities and minority woes; of single moms in Manhattan who will battle prejudice in American metroscapes. Kashyap’s oeuvre reflects anger and angst; incoherence and doubts; moods and temper; of human fickleness and fumbling; of personal destructiveness and private demons, of discordant notes and disturbing human tendencies.

Now there is Vishal Bharadwaj, a refined filmmaker sharing and traversing Kashyap’s indefinite territory of the wicked and the lonely. Kaminey takes the tried and tested popular Indi cinema template of identical twins inspired by the 1940s Corsicon Brothers theme of lost brothers and mistaken identities. These are brothers who take to different paths on a railroad in childhood, go their parallel ways to seek good and evil and have their Cain and Abel moments of anger and hostility. Their antagonism melts during the climax and events make them join hands for larger good of defeating the gang of evil men.Vengeance and revenge elements are thrown in for this is gangsta badlands of Mumbai where loyalties switch faster than a dying bulb’s flicker. Remember Ram aur Shyam, Sita aur Gita, Yadon ki Barat, and many more? Bollywood’s plotlines have not been mocked with such scorn as in Kaminey. Farah Khan’s nostalgic Bollywood double acts are vacuous in comparison.

Kaminey’s stellar performances are by the maverick camerawork that indicate the loony and zany thread of the plot and the slickness of editing and sharpness of telling a tale. The film is peopled with rascals, the dregs and dirt of social debris-gangsters, looters, robbers and addicts, laughing maniacs whose Machiavellian schemes loop and twist in a Tarantinoesque way, enacting dark capers that turn bloody. These are jokers whose violence is certainly not funny. Naughty, the gangs aren’t, for it’s a nuisance to be so. Wicked, they sure are, getting malicious than the other.

Bharadwaj’s work has revealed astonishing variety in examining evil be it Shakesperean adaptations like Maqbool and Omkara, else the lyrical children’s tales of The Blue Umbrella and Makdee wherein the former reveals evil is an avaricious man enabled by low cunning and the other, a hysterical witch’s tale of mischief and mayhem. The ostracisation of the crazy, the doomed quality of the wicked, the hopelessness of their refinement and redemption in death all come to call in his works.The elevating factor in Bharadwaj’s work comes from his ability to introduce lyricism through music, dialogues, and personifications in his cracked terrain. In his works, tenderness is fleeting never milked of its emotions like common Bollywood fare.

************

There has been some rain, but none to save the droughts. Lost dragonflies whiz in the night air, adding a song to accompany the night’s dampness. I stick my head out of the window to take in the silent rain.

He startles me with a hoot out of the blackness.

“Bharadwaj is the man of the moment”, I say, “and he has a voice like the drizzle at dusk”.

“Really?” asks the Owl.

“Potent”, I say.”He even turns a stupid Bollywood staple like a dance in a discotheque into a psychedelic romp”.

“Sure, wickedness can be an art”, says the Owl, peering eerily with his large eyes, perching on the window sill, “and art reflects the broken mirrors of life”, he says.

“You would know isn’t it?” I ask, turning to smile a little at him.