Innholdsfortegnelse for 01 October 2018 i Open Magazine

ONLY A HALF WIN What homosexual couples have had to suffer in India is tragic to read and hear about (‘After The Freedom Verdict’, September 24th, 2018). The fact that they had to be separated from those they love is cruel and unfair. Even today, most parents would not be pleased to hear that their child wants to be with someone of the same gender. In some cases, families will continue to stifle the lives and desires of homosexual couples, even though the state has finally decriminalised such relationships. Since relationships between people of the same sex have been a taboo subject for so many years, it’s possible that a simple judgment is not going to make Indians accept homosexuals overnight. The law is changing and that is a positive…

THE EXTENT TO which the Cold War influences the thinking of my generation, now into our sixties, is remarkable. More than the ideological polarisation, it is really the hidden cloak-and-dagger stuff that continues to be a source of fascination. It was the televised version of John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley, first broadcast by the BBC in the autumn/winter of 1977, that got me hooked to thrillers centred on espionage. The Cold War has ended and the old Eastern Bloc is now history. Spy thrillers too have changed course and are now more concerned with the Islamist threat and cyber warfare. However, the charming innocence of the Moscow-versus-Washington encounters have an enduring charm. I thought of the Cold War recently when I was…

INDIAN POLITICIANS HAVE a knack for creating a controversy where none exists. One ongoing example is that of Punjab minister Navjot Singh Sidhu and his demand that India take up the suggestion of a cross-border ‘corridor’ for Sikh pilgrims to visit a shrine in Pakistan visa-free. It all began last month when Sidhu, a former cricketer, visited Pakistan for the swearing in of Imran Khan as that country’s new Prime Minister. At that event, Sidhu was seen hugging Pakistan’s army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa. On his return to India, he claimed that Pakistan was open to talks with India to open such a corridor for Sikhs to visit Kartarpur Sahib, a gurdwara built at the place where the religion’s founder Guru Nanak died. Kartarpur Sahib is around 6 km from…

WORD’S WORTH “Cutting government spending and government intrusion in the economy will almost surely involve immediate gain for the many, short-term pain for the few, and long-term gain for all”MILTON FRIEDMAN The Uttar Pradesh government will not hold any of its functions in hotels, its employees will all fly economy class and they won’t even be allowed to send greeting cards during festivals. This is all part of an austerity drive initiated by the state’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. It sounds good, until you consider that the same government in one fell swoop forgave farm loans worth tens of thousands of crore, upending an already ailing economy. If austerity measures have to work, then they must be vote agnostic. To save a rupee with one hand and spend a thousand…

According to Hindu scholars and pundits, the history of Bathukamma dates back to the Chola dynasty. Like every other fairy tale, this story too has a princess. Her name, once Lakshmi, was Bathukamma, meaning ‘Mother Goddess Come Alive’, in Telugu. Daughter of King Dharmangada, she survived many unforeseen accidents in her life. And being a lover of all things beautiful, she had a strong affinity towards flowers. Another legend speaks of the fearless Goddess Gauri. After a fierce fight with a demon, the goddess fell into deep sleep due to fatigue on the day of Aswayuja Padyami. Her devotees strongly prayed in much fervour so that she would wake up. Their prayers came true on Dasami Day, when she awoke. Since then, Bathukammawas said to be celebrated by women with…

As soon as she died, Sister Alphonsa sighed in relief and rose from her bed. She floated over the sick room lightly as thistledown and glanced at her dead body. Other nuns, her companions, are seated around her body, weeping and praying. Sorrowfully, they close her eyes she forgot to shut when she died. Sister Bernadette is wiping her tears with one hand even as she sponges the perspiration of death from Alphonsa’s face with a handkerchief. Alphonsa smiled. Attending to me was a constant burden to them till I died. Poor things! Even after my death, they have lot of work to do. Now they have to bathe me and get me ready. Dress me in a freshly laundered habit. Make a bouquet of flowers for me to hold…

SELDOM HAS A Chief Justice of India (CJI) courted controversy as has the 45th incumbent, Justice Dipak Misra. From a failed attempt at his removal to a near revolt by his senior colleagues and many other points of contention, Justice Misra’s term—which ends on October 2nd—was one of the most unusual ones in India’s judicial history. These events were as much about the personality of the CJI as about the nature of the judicial system in India. Less than five months after taking the reins of India’s judiciary, four of his senior colleagues held an unprecedented press conference where Justice J Chelameswar, the second seniormost judge of the Supreme Court, made the extraordinary claim that “Unless this institution is preserved, democracy will not survive in this country.” In the end,…

ONE OF THE most enduring images in public memory of Sanjay Bhattacharyya dates back to 2006, when the artist brandished a print of a fake painting of his guru Bikash Bhattacharjee that was being sold as an original by an auction house. Behind the artist, a poster read, ‘Artists Combined Movement Against Fake & Forged Art’ with caricatures of certain grandees who apparently wanted to strike gold through illegal sales. It was actually a press conference, and others on the dais included artist Krishen Khanna and critic Suneet Chopra. Bhattacharyya looked boyishly innocent, despite his characteristic beard and defiance. He looks more seasoned today, but is still warm and courteous, more than a decade after his dramatic revelation that was taken as blasphemy in the incestuous world of art, an…

BRITISH PHILOSOPHER AND author Julian Baggini had some reservations about ‘self-help’. He was annoyed by the genre’s tendency to over-simplify and over-claim; ‘Human life is a complex four-dimensional jigsaw in which the right pieces have a habit of changing into wrong ones. Any book which claims to be able to transform your life is pretending otherwise’. Publishers, however, do have a reputation of disregarding their authors’ firmest beliefs. Released in 2012, The Shrink and the Sage came with a subtitle that may well have made Baggini squirm: A Guide to Living. Co-authored with psychotherapist Antonia Macaro, Baggini’s book was being sold in stores as ‘cerebral self-help’. Despite the packaging, though, the book’s content was novel. Unlike other self-help books, it did not ask you to ‘develop Jedi self-confidence’ or ‘unleash…

“ARE MY BODY aches and fatigue because of gluten allergy?” the young lady sitting across the table asks me. Won’t giving up gluten improve my health and help me lose weight? Doesn’t gluten aggravate auto-immune diseases like thyroid disorders? These and so many other questions are put to me every day by patients. Is gluten an evil that we have recently begun to recognise as a cause for all our ills? Or is it just one of those fads—here today, gone tomorrow. In this column, I check the current status of scientific knowledge on gluten and try to sift the truth out from the hype for you. What is gluten? Gluten is a family of proteins (glutenins and gliadins) found in wheat, rye and barley. In patients with a condition…

All in the Family Those who’ve been protesting the ‘nepotistic’ nature of Bollywood after Kangana Ranaut famously turned the term into a cuss word of sorts on Koffee with Karan might be less than delighted to learn that two more ‘industry kids’ are headed our way. Maine Pyar Kiya (1989) star Bhagyashree’s son Abhimanyu Dassani is making his debut in Peddlers (2012) director Vasan Bala’s Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota (2018), which earlier this week won the Midnight Madness audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Dassani was reportedly cast after a month of auditions, and the filmmakers revealed that he trained in all manner of martial arts to prepare for his role as a young man who feels no pain. Afflicted with the rare condition of congenital insensitivity…

It was a happy day for many individuals and families when homosexuality was decriminalised in India (‘After The Freedom Verdict’, September 24th, 2018). It showed that we are progressing as a society and becoming more tolerant of differences. For Indian homosexuals, the judgment must have meant a great deal more, for they no longer have to live in fear of a regressive law and can openly be with the person they are in love with. The fact that such an outdated legal provision was allowed to exist in our country for so many years is shocking. Nobody should be prosecuted or held ‘guilty’ for loving another person. A part of being human is to love and have emotions. Whether these feelings are for someone of the same gender or not…

September 6th. I have a French passport and an electronic visa. But at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, one always experiences a twinge of apprehension as one goes through the relentless and ruthless immigration process. My brother, who is a top-shot lawyer in Paris, was once detained for nine hours for no other reason than his name was similar to another on a ‘black list’. Yeah, I am through! I have been to Chicago before, and it’s one of the few American cities I like, along with Boston and Washington (New York is just a concrete jungle). The World Hindu Conference 2018 is not being held in downtown Chicago, however, but in one of its suburbs. As one of the few Western journalists to have defended Hindus, I know how difficult it…

IN 2010, WHEN THE US-BASED Foreign Policy magazine included writer Ian Buruma in its list of Top 100 Global Thinkers, they had written: ‘Many liberals these days seem at pains to establish their bona fides as tough-minded hawks when it comes to global threats, but the Dutch man of letters has made a career out of affirming the classic liberalism of the open-door variety. His writing in recent years has attracted the ire of critics who think he equivocates on the dangers of radical Islam, but Ian Buruma made his response this year with a typically judicious and politically relevant book, Taming the Gods, that reflects on the Western capacity for religious pluralism. According to Buruma, Western society is robust enough to embrace even illiberal practices, so long as these…

FOR MANY PEOPLE, nothing is more emblematic of British India than images of ‘the Club’. It might be Forster’s fictional club, as filmed by David Lean in A Passage to India, with men and women at a meeting becoming strident and irrational, reacting to an obscure incident in a cave as if it had been a murder, and making foolish suggestions about calling out the troops, ‘clearing the bazaars’ and sending the women and children to the Hills. Yet Forster himself had never witnessed such a scene; nor had anyone else; such meetings would not take place at a club. A truer alternative image—one much photographed and described—would be more leisured and more serene. Men and women are sitting in cane chairs on a verandah, while servants in turbans and…

On the first five days, women cleanse their courtyards with a mixture of cow dung blended in water. The yard is decorated with rangoli made with rice flour. During this time, the Bathukamma is also created with cow dung, five small lumps in conical shape, displayed in the front of every house. A folk art, Bathukamma is made during the afternoons, and takes hours to finish. The flowers are cut, some dipped in various vivid colours, some scented, and are arranged on a large brass plate called thambalam. Stacked up in the shape of a cone, with seven concentric layers, the installations are decorated with lotus or pumpkin flowers on top, along with a Guramma, an idol symbolising Gowri, made from turmeric. During this time, young women pray to find…

eMitra Yojana Of all the eMitra centers in the country, 25% are in Rajasthan. With 52,000 eMitra centers providing 400 government services and helping to execute 70 lakh government jobs near home. Kaushal Evam Aajivika Yojana 15 Lakh and more youth given employment under this scheme . Every district is now equipped with more than 300 vikas centers. 2.5 Lakh youth trained under RSLDC Scheme. 1.08 lakh applications in process for Rajasthan government jobs. Mukhyamantri Rajshri Yojana Milestone: Linked financial assistance of Rs.50,000 to girls, from the birth to passing 12th grade. More than Rs.395 crore given to 11 lakh girls. Assistance of Rs.55,000 provided for marriage and business. Aadarsh Vidyalaya Yojana Under the scheme, schools are equipped with computer labs, furniture and fans. 78,000 new teachers are appointed. Free…

Perhaps more worrying, there have been dark warnings from inside the White House that the 72-year-old president’s regime of high stress, junk food and four or five hours sleep a night may be accelerating the ageing process INDIAN PROPONENTS OF closer ties with America have always taken the long view. But the barriers to more rapid progress in the bilateral relationship have shifted. Where anti-Americanism and partisan feuding in India were once the big hurdle, now the unreliability of US President Donald Trump’s administration is. The inaugural ‘two-plus-two’ Indo-US ministerial summit that was held in Delhi earlier this month, attended by Mike Pompeo and James Mattis, the US foreign and defence secretaries, provided an illustration of this. The summit’s format, which America had previously only afforded to close allies such…

MOHAMMED Hanif ’s novels elicit a nervous laughter. It is not the chuckle of merriment and release; rather, it is the titter of discomfort born from recognition. As a journalist reporting from Pakistan, political and social realities inform his fiction, but as a novelist he takes those truths and stretches them to limits that are unreal, but familiar. His first novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes, longlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize, was based on the mysterious crash of a plane that killed Pakistan’s dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, several army generals and the US ambassador to Pakistan. His second novel Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (2011) was the story of boy trying to impress girl, girl playing hard to get, boy trying harder, girl succumbing, marriage, happiness, sadness. But the…

HOLLYWOOD SEEMS TO be in love with the title ‘A Star is Born’. The 2018 and fourth version of the 1937 original stars Bradley Cooper, who also makes his directorial debut with the film, and Lady Gaga, making her first screen appearance as a leading lady and fulfilling a lifelong dream of being a film star. Lady Gaga’s character has all but given up hope of making it as a singer until Bradley’s character, a well-established singer, gives her a chance to perform in public. As her star rises and his descends in the film, their love for each other starts waning. Lady Gaga was promoting the film at the Toronto Film Festival that ended on September 16th. Born Stefani Joanne Germanotta to an internet entrepreneur father and a telecommunications…

HE INVITATION ITSELF marked a cultural shift only if you were one of those who saw the RSS as a subterranean apparatus that practises the dark arts of Hindutva, the evil power behind the equally evil throne in Delhi. And in a certain genre of secular storytelling, it is the unipolar vision of the RSS that makes the idea of a Hindu Imperium a chilling possibility, and a Final Solution inevitable. Even the mainstream politics of selective secularism borrows from this casual style of storytelling that reduces history to a series of lazy soundbites, easily adaptable on the stump. The invitation to a three-day lecture series on ‘Bharat of Future: An RSS Perspective’ by the organisation’s supreme leader Mohan Bhagwat came at a time when the alarmists of India Endangered…

IT DOES NOT have the urban cultural dominance of feminism, but there are enough little groups scattered all over to make the men’s rights movement not a joke anymore. When I did a story on them some years back, a group of them met every Sunday morning in a park in a far-flung suburb of Mumbai. About 25 km away, again in a public park, one more group would get together. And in both these parks, I saw a steady trickle of men trying to inveigle themselves out of Section 498A, a law of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that protects wives against cruelty in their homes. Section 498A was an amendment introduced to the IPC in 1983 in response to dowry murders, not a new phenomenon in India. But…

BEFORE DECIDING ON a life set apart for the Lord, young Anna (name changed) briefly pondered her father’s words of warning. They had walked home from the matinee show of Kallu Kondoru Pennu, a film about a conscientious Malayali nurse in Kuwait, and she was cold to the bone. Anna remembers the lapping of water at the threshold of the old house after days of incessant rain. Her father, a lean man with sockets for eyes, plumped her down on the divan, wrapped her in a shawl, and begged her to reconsider. “Do you want to go to a place where I can no longer keep you warm and safe?” A good Catholic family in Kerala was expected to relinquish one daughter to the Church, but her sister, several years…