Formerly beefy Britain revels in its salad days...

As a nation, Britain has been known for stodge. Huge chunks of meat or fish, surrounded by roast or chipped potatoes, mushy peas and perhaps carrots on a good day. That has been changing for a while. Fish n chips are hardly to be seen (and certainly never wrapped in a newspaper, thanks to the Euro health and safety hawks), meat dishes are more European too – read smaller portions albeit artistically arranged and framed by an equally artistic sauce. Junk food like chicken kievs, baked beans, sausages and mash, the evocative toad-inthe-hole and bubble-and-squeak are to be seen more on the menu of tony gastropubs than the wayside café .

London on a summer’s day abounds with Parisian-style bistros and Italian trattorias and the average regular visitors such as yours truly is left wondering where Brit food has disappeared. Yes, there are ‘afternoon teas’ complete with thin sandwiches and scones, but the eaters seem to be more earnest Japanese and voluble Americans. Burgers and barbeques are being passed off as British, and the numerous sandwich bars have such a hotch-potch of nationalities that it is impossible to discern who’s eating what.

But a 10 day sojourn showed me the great strides that one particular dish has made in Britain – or London at the very least: salads. No matter where my husband and I went – trendy restaurant or modest department store eatery – huge white platters arrived on tables, loaded up with mountains of herbage, speckled with trendy morsels of goat’s cheese, chicken, anchovies, prosciutto, olives, cherry tomatoes , dusted with shavings of parmesan and pecorino cheese. While I have nothing against these vegetarian delights, the sight of beefy British executives with necks straining their 17-inch collars digging into mounds of ghaas-phoos was scary, not side-splittingly funny.

In fact, more men seemed to be downing these plates of shrubbery than women, though the latter looked more the part, in their in-season sleeveless shift dresses. The men resolutely pitchforked a variety of leaves into their mouths with incredible composure , I thought, even as they exchanged stock market news or sifted through content on their laptops. Ten years ago, the average redblooded Brit male would have thought twice before doing this. The ladies who lunched at San Lorenzo did it with panache, not the lads who lunched at John Lewis.

At supermarkets, I was amazed at the sheer range of greens now available to the Brit hoi-polloi , not just the poncy Notting Hill types. For us – a country with a huge repertoire and preference for veggies – salads are still a side dish, an addon . But Britain has ‘apnaoed’ this appendage as a mainstream food source! Maybe it’s the easiest veg option for them since they don’t have much in that department, but still, an entire meal that is cold and crunchy militates against even my not-too-Indian inclinations . I can do with a great quail’s egg and asparagus ‘salad’ for instance, but not something that arrives looking like a cabbage patch.

I pondered over this fact as my Londonbased colleague Sudeshna Sen sagely warned me against rare steaks or ‘pink’ lamb chops, telling me that our Indian constitutions cannot handle that underdone meat overload. That’s traditionally the preserve of hardy, agrressive Caucasians, not mild, philosophical Asians, after all... By that same logic, could this sudden preference for green leaves of kinds, from rocket (arugula to those more US-inclined ) to radicchio, endives to chicory, dandelion to god-knows-what be a consequence or a cause of a Britain gone soft? The nation that once conquered continents with meat on the hoof or encased in intestines, now talks of welfare benefits and lives on handouts.

I noted with interest that the Pakistani taxi driver on the airport beat dines frugally on kebabs and naan and works 18 hour days including Sundays , and his white Brit counterpart nibbles Caesar salad – and perhaps hummous, falafel and tabbouleh – has four day weekends funded by unemployment benefits! Could this be an indication of where the future of that nation lies?

Shame, shame La Martiniere

OK so it's my husband's old school and has a building that I've always admired when I visit Calcutta. But it is both a commentary on the school and the adults associated with it -- teachers and parents -- that the Victorian, if not medieval practice of caning continues within the hallowed portals of La Martiniere for Boys. At a time when we have dumped so many of the mores of parenting and teaching, that this sadistic ritual is allowed is a downright indictment of all those associated with it.
Who is surprised that an internal inquiry of the school exonerated the perpetrators, considering that the men -- the prefix 'gentle' cannot be affixed to these creatures -- are their own colleagues and boss? It seems highly unlikely that young Rouvanjit Rawla was the only obstreperous boy who was chastised in a manner that should have gone out with Tom Brown's Schooldays. This unfortunate teenager has merely become the tragic symbol of this barbarism-in-the-garb-of-d

iscipline as I am sure he was not the last boy to be caned thus in that school.
Why did the other teachers not protest that this practice was against the law -- besides being barbaric and of no use when it comes to instilling 'discipline'? Why were there no whistle blowers in La Martiniere? What message does the teaching faculty then send out to the student body about moral, upright behaviour? What lessons are young impressionable minds supposed to draw from the spectacle of an older man caning a young boy? Are there the values we want our youngsters to imbibe and perpetuate?
Even sadder is the fact that no other parents came forward to say 'J'accuse' either. No doubt because their sons are still students of the school and they fear reprisals. Only Ajay Rawla has nothing -- not even his son -- to lose any more so he has taken up the cudgels. Is this what parents want their children to learn from them: cow down to injustice, don't challenge autocracy, turn a blind eye if it doesn't affect us..... Is this the Indian of tomorrow we want to nurture?
It is also an indictment of the media and the authorities too that until a young, tormented boy actually took the ultimate step, no one acted to pull up the school. Now, there is a national level inquiry, a snivelling mea culpa from the principal -- who certainly does not deserve that office given his mindset -- a battery of media attention, and a glimmer of hope that an era of torture has ended in a so called premier school. But will the practice really stop or will the relentless glare of the media merely send these cowards -- what other kind of person would inflict pain on one who cannot retaliate? -- back into their ghastly little holes to wonder how their perverted behaviour can be explained away for the time being, to be resumed when the hubbub has died down?
And will anyone spare a thought for the children in other school the rod is not being spared too? Why should the inquiry committee only look at La Martiniere? There are countless schools where corporal punishment is practised even as it is banned on paper. Will justice be denied to other Rouvanjit Rawlas simply because it has not come to the notice of the media -- and hence the authorities and the world?

Amorous Indians

The case of David Davidar reiterates my belief that there is a fundamental disconnect between what we say or do and what others read it to mean, especially if cultural and racial differences kick in.
We all know that the stereotypical image of a white woman (or even a 'westernised' Indian woman) is that she is flirty and 'available'. And we know that the average Indian male is thought of as lecherous and pushy. If that is not a crucial disconnect, what is? Add to that positions of power and competing ambitions and the signals get crossed even further.
This is not to say that victims and perpetrators are always clearly distinguishable. Some women can take advantage of the lecherous male as much as men can take advantage of an 'available' woman. The problem is that there's always a payday -- or a comeuppance. At some point the women want more for the 'advantage' they gave, or the men want more for the patronage they showered. Then things come unstuck.
That's when an iconic IT boss has to hightail it back from the US, when an Indian designer finds himself in the dock and when an MNC advertising boss has to make a hurried exit. All this, of course, applies to the interactions between consenting adults, not minors (which is both illegal and immoral) even though there is a skew in the power equation.
Things can also go disastrously wrong if there are cultural differences, for then the parties remain unaware of crossed signals. Is a peck on the cheek just an informal greeting (or even a formal one, as in some European cultures) or a mark of interest? Is a hug a gesture of affection or a suggestion? Is a meal after office a simple convivial evening or a prelude to a romantic relationship? Is a risque text message a friendly, comradely exchange or an overture?
All too often, two people can progress along this path in parallel lanes, quite oblivious to the fact that the signals are being read wrongly all along. Till the unthinkable happens.... One decides to change lanes and come closer to the other. And then there is a crash.
Whether Davidar is guilty of a midlife crisis or something more serious may hinge on just this.

The Tharoor tragedy

I almost -- almost -- feel sorry for Shashi Tharoor. He apparently thought that a PhD in diplomacy and a lifetime in the intrigue-ridden corridors of the UN prepared him for the treachery of the political tamasha here. Which is why he came a cropper within a year of his entree into the members-only club that our netas have made for themselves.

Those who live by the tweet also die (metaphorically speaking, of course) by it, so it was perhaps inevitable that a vengeful tweet from Lalit Modi would do in the 54-year-old minister who thought he was part of GenNext. But more than poetic justice for Tharoor, the rapidly-spinning-out-of-control scandal serves as an ominous warning for all those arrivistes who want to join the party: if you wanna boogie with us, learn the steps first. Or face the music.

Nepotism, affaires de coeur, lining nests, subverting official privileges -- anything goes, as long as it's not made common knowledge. Leave that to the nosy papers and TV channels to ferret out, if they can or if they dare. Don't flaunt what people don't expect you to flaunt, is the strict code of the politically privileged. Violate it and you'll pay for it.

Luxury cars (even if they embarrassingly get burnt up in a Lutyens' bungalow garage occasionally, and thus make it to the newspapers), holidays and junkets at government expense, discreet friendships, and the like are all okay because they can easily be camouflaged or explained away. Sadly for Shashi, many of the things he did could neither be explained away (to the public) or condoned by his political peers.

Perhaps he was too sure of his own cleverness to figure out that he hadn't learnt the right steps yet... By then it was too late. Alas.

An old fashioned romance

My grandmother never said very much about her life as a young woman -- only as a mother. A set of letters and the recounting of an incident by her daughter, my aunt, made me see her -- and my grandfather with new eyes. It's so relevant in these days of instant romance and attention deficit disorders....

Love lives on silently

BEING but a toddler when my grandfather passed away, my impressions were entirely based on the grim photograph of a middle-aged gentleman that reposed on my grandmother’s pooja mandap through the decades of her widowhood. Everyday she would anoint his sepia visage with a sandalwood paste tika, place fresh flowers at the base of the frame and include him in her invocations. But for me, he was about as abstract as the gods he shared counter space with.

Till a cache of letters emerged from a forgotten trunk. Neatly tied with string, the small envelopes bore postmarks from all over what was once united Bengal. On each of them, my grandmother’s name was written in a copperplate handwriting by a fountain pen, in violet or turquoise ink. Intrigued, I opened them. The short letters were all in English, positioned exactly in the middle of every page, and included many poetic quotations to convey a lover’s longing.

Amazingly, they were from my grandfather, dating back to the 1920s.

This year, my grandmother would have turned 100. It’s hard for me, therefore, to imagine her as a teenage wife, opening those letters amid the hustle-bustle of running a household. Perhaps she even smiled secretly at her absent husband’s ardent thoughts. Romance wasn’t something I associated with grandparents...till my aunt told me a story.

Once, when my grandfather was away on tour as usual, a package arrived at the town post office. As it was addressed to my grandmother, she was told to collect it in person. Outraged at the idea of their bahu going to a public place, family elders forbade it. So a neighbour persuaded the postmaster to send the packet home. It turned out to be rectangular and heavy, and it was decreed she would open it only in her husband’s presence.

Luckily he returned the next day and was told immediately about the packet. Half-amused, half-exasperated, he told his wife to open it. Inside was a cake with the inscription "Happy Birthday, Aruna".

It had travelled all the way from Calcutta’s best confectionery, and that was why he had returned a day early. No one else had remembered, but evidently he wanted to go to any lengths to make my grandmother smile secretly on that special day. Suddenly, the sandalwood tika, flowers and a silent devotion that even death could not part, made sense.

Ode to Boromashi

This is a piece that I wrote on a person who always inspires me. I posted it on Facebook and got so many wonderful responses, I simply had to put it in my blog. I'd love to know of your stories about such family members...

Dipu's decision

The nicest thing about going back to Calcutta (never Kolkata) for even a short break, is the chance I get to have a cozy natter with my mother’s eldest sister, sitting on her balcony in the mellow evening breeze. This time was no different. Yet, she was a little more frail, her voice even softer, her characteristic still-black hair now cut short and the ubiquitous printed white saree replaced by a more comfy housecoat that Bengalis call ‘sharadeen’ or ‘all day’.

Amid the hullabaloo over the epochal passing of Jyoti Basu — some seven years older than my aunt — her thoughts were on a different tack. Not for her any self-pitying notions of mortality or decrepitude. “There is no one left to call me Dipu any more,” she said with a wistful smile. “One by one, everyone of my generation is gone. I’m not far from my 90th birthday, after all. No one of my age to talk to, gossip with, laugh with...”

“There’s always your children, your younger sisters and all of us cousins and grandchildren. We all love chatting with you, listening to your reminiscences,” I protested stoutly. “But you don’t call me Dipu,” she answered. “I’m Ma, Didi, Boromashi, Boropishi and Dida to everyone now.” That is indeed the case. Even in the midst of a close-knit extended family that has always admired and loved her, her age has left Boromashi isolated in a way none of us can remedy.

But as usual, she has thought of a solution. Something that never would have occurred to me. “I have told Rahul (her eldest grandson and my nephew) that his newborn daughter Anjulie should call me Dipu,” she announced with a note of glee in her voice. “Isn’t that perfect? My first great-granddaughter can’t call me by any of the names you all do, so why shouldn’t she just call me Dipu?!”

With nearly a century between them, there cannot be a more appropriate new friend for my aunt than a wide-eyed little cherub, too young to be constrained by inhibitions about seniority. Hearing a child’s voice calling out “Dipu!” will definitely make the weight of Boromashi’s nearly-90 years slip away like a school satchel at the beginning of summer holidays.

As usual, a chat with Boromashi has given me a unique gift — an age-lifting miracle that has nothing cosmetic about it.

Phoren Hand

I came across an article by one Derek Shearer yesterday which actually prompted me to write my first real post on this blog. In the midst of one ramble about attending a wedding in India -- the high point of most westerners these days as their minds boggle and eyes goggle at our extravaganzas -- he put in list of books on India that visitors should read.

It's all very well that he happens to be a "Chevalier Professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College in Los Angeles" and a Clinton acolyte rewarded with an ambassadorship to Finland, but why should his recommended reading list name only foreigners or non-residents, writing on India-- barring Ramchandra Guha and William Bissell, of course? I quote his list:

• In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India, by Edward Luce, former Financial Times correspondent in New Delhi, is the best single introduction to the country. A model of foreign reporting, clear writing and thoughtful analysis.
• Nine Lives--In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, by William Dalrymple, is an exploration of how traditional religious beliefs are transformed by today's globalized society. Dalrymple is an exceptional writer and reporter, and his history books like The Last Mughal, and his travel books on India and the region are all worth purchasing.
• India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy by Ramchandra Guha, is the single best history of modern India.
• Vishnu's Crowded Temple: India Since the Great Rebellion by Maria Misra, tells the story of late British India and brings it forward to the present. A good companion to Guha's work.
• Making India Work by William Bissell, is a policy book by the current director of Fabindia, the company founded by his American father who went to India on a Ford Foundation grant, met an Indian woman (Bim Bissell, a noted figure in Delhi society whom we met at the wedding), and stayed to start a textile company. In the book, Bissell gives his prescriptions for downsizing India's inefficient bureaucracy, improving its struggling educational system, and revitalizing neighborhood democracy.
• Three of my other best reads on India include, Freedom At Midnight by Larry Collins & Dominque LaPierre, a cinematic like recounting of the moment when British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan; Ambassador's Journal by John Kenneth Galbraith, who served as JFK's diplomat to India in the 1960s; and The Life of Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer, one of the great journalists of the 20th century.
• In the fiction category (not the serious novels you will find in a proper course on modern Indian literature), I recommend The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall, the first in a new detective series set in New Delhi introducing Vash Puri, self-proclaimed "India's Greatest Detective", Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra, a Dickensian detective novel set in today's Mumbai, and Delhi Noir, a collection of short detective fiction edited by Hirsh Sawhney which explores the darker side of Indian life.
• There are too many Bollywood and Merchant/Ivory films to recommend any particular ones. Instead, you can start your Indian odyssey at home with the BBC documentary, The Story of India, narrated by historian Michael Wood. Of course, if you have not seen Monsoon Wedding or Slumdog Millionaire, you are missing out on great treats.
  

Get the general idea? Don't get me wrong, all these may be great books, and many of these writers are friends of mine -- upright and quite in love with India -- but surely the net must be cast wider? Shearer has hit all the old buttons: Gandhi, saffron clad sadhus and bell-clanging temples, sleazy and communal politics, corruption, red tape and overweaning poverty.... Things he perhaps comfortingly remembers from his first visit to India in the 1970s. But the fact is, not only has India moved on a lot since then in very fundamental ways, she has many more facets that should captivate visitors, firang and NRI.

Unfortunately, Indian writers do not seem to capture that well enough or perhaps, often enough. History has become the battleground of ideologies and in the din the rollicking historical novels of ancient and Mughal India by the Chennai-based Abraham Eraly have been muscled out of the limelight, for instance. Much as I deplore the pedestrian prose of Chetan Bhagat, his 95-rupee books do indeed capture a zeitgeist but he is hardly recommended reading for everyone. The lyrical movies of Farhan Akhtar are a window to a different India yet we persist with tomtomming Meera Nair and Deepa Mehta...

On the topic of homegrown staples, Amar Chitra Katha's timeless telling of India's lore is an incomparable introduction to the Indian mindset. Can you think of a better way for a newcomer (foreign or NRI) to understand why the Delhi High Court cites the divine romance of a celestial couple -- Radha and Krishna -- when giving a verdict on live-in relationships? RK Narayan's evocation of south Indian culture, Tagore and Sarat Chandra's prescient observations of the fissures and foibles of Bengali family structure still ring true today...

This country that straddles the past and present without a wobble is the India that the world will soon have to contend more and more. This is also the India that wants to take on the world. The India of Infosys and IPL, of women minting money making papad and honey, of boys with as much RAM in their craniums as Big Blue swotting for their engineering exams. But it is as much the India where millions head for an absolving dip in the Ganga as their forebears have done for millennia, where a watch displaying 'rahu kaal' is snapped up by businessmen so that they don't sign deals at inauspicious moments, where the great holy centres dish out free meals for thousands of poor people every day even as the rich shower the gods with billion-rupee coronets.

Sadly, very few Indians have obliged us with more relevant readings on this India. So Mr Shearer has a ready excuse for his skewed list.