This morning's accident

A common morning story. A large Chevrolet is double parked in front of my building, leaving only one lane free for two-way traffic. A Maruti Dzire goes past the Chevy in a hurry, just as a taxi driver backs out of the driveway of the building opposite my home. The taximan, looking out for vehicles coming from his left, doesn’t see the Maruti driving in the right (ie. wrong) lane, and reverses into it. The Maruti is dented, the taxi, an old Premier, unmarked. The Maruti’s driver demands compensation, the taxi driver refuses, suggesting they go to a police station to sort everything out. In India, the person who suffers most in an accident is always a victim, the facts of the case don’t matter. Having seen close-up what happened, I explain to the people gathered below my balcony that the real culprit, the man who had double parked, has driven off. But that doesn’t stop a fight from breaking out.
The driver of the Maruti is Marathi, the taxiwalla from UP. The home state of the men becomes more important than the way the incident played out. A man on a motorcycle taking his young boy to school stops to figure out the language situation, and begins to abuse the taxi driver. Emboldened, the Maruti driver slaps the taxi man, something he’d never do in a one-on-one match up against his tall and well-built antagonist. The cab driver, knowing he’s in the Marathi manoos heartland, does not retaliate. He says, “How will beating me help. I have no money to pay you. Let’s go to the police station”. The man on the motorcycle continues shouting. “Speak in Marathi, motherfucker”, he says to the ‘bhaiyya’, though everybody present understands Hindi perfectly well. His boy shrinks away to the edge of the back seat, on the verge of tears.
The old Shivaji Park civility is not entirely dead. A gentleman in his late fifties intervenes, insisting the shouting and beating stop. A woman calls out from a balcony backing him up. I say again it wasn’t really the taxi driver’s fault. Had there been one or two more aggressive MNS types in the crowd, the safari-clad gentleman would’ve been told to shut up, and the fight would’ve escalated. But the scales happen to be evenly balanced, and the situation clams down. The drivers go off to the police station.
I think of the hundreds of insults that North Indians face in Bombay each day. By now, after years of this treatment, every poor or middle class person from UP and Bihar must feel unwelcome, and sometimes unsafe. The question is: if North Indians stop coming to this city, and if some of those already here leave, will it increase opportunities for Marathis? A Marathi rickshaw owner with cancer doesn’t think so, and his story is instructive. It’s not as if Marathis are actively seeking to drive autos and taxis, and being deprived because of an influx from the north. Protectionist laws and the assault on North Indians have only led to fewer taxis and autos plying, inconveniencing commuters.

Meanwhile, opposite Shiv Sena Bhavan, the largest towers ever built in Dadar are being sheathed in glass. The complex, now called Kohinoor Square, used to be Kohinoor Mills. The 4.8 acre plot was purchased by Raj Thackeray (who later sold his stake at a fat profit) and Unmesh Joshi (son of Shiv Sena leader Manohar Joshi) in 2005 for 421 crore rupees (over 75 million USD). Nobody knows where Thackeray got that kind of money, but as long as he defines enemies for his followers to target, they won’t ask questions; and they won’t understand that, if this city is in many ways unlivable, it isn’t because of northerners coming here to work hard for a living, but because of builders who’ve corrupted politicians of all parties, and most bureaucrats, and subverted planning, infrastructure augmentation and public housing projects. You won’t hear Raj Thackeray say much against builders; after all, he’s a proud member of that fraternity.

Scam alert: Noise barriers

MMRDA has earmarked over 37 crore rupees this year for the construction of sound barriers on flyovers. The idea was mooted in 2010, and the following year, "Metropolitan Commissioner Rahul Asthana and former Municipal Commissioner Subodh Kumar went on a weeklong tour to Italy to study, among other infrastructure projects, sound barrier technology". Now that junkets are behind them, there will be a 'noise mapping exercise', from which MMRDA officials will receive a cut. Following this, the installation of the sound absorbers will provide an even bigger payoff. Once the barriers are in place, their dimpled surfaces will be leased out for advertising, as has happened on the J J flyover, the first in the city to be endowed with noise mitigating tech. Of course, sticking posters in front of sound absorbers renders them ineffectual, but their effectiveness isn't a real concern for the MMRDA anyway. The agency contracted to use that space for ads will also factor kickbacks to municipal employees in its budget.
Five years from now, the Suman Nagar and Navghar flyovers will be as noisy as ever, the city's visual clutter will have been augmented, and wallets of MMRDA executives and their favourite contractors will be considerably fatter.

Tadao Ando at Godrej Culture Lab

Yesterday, at an event organised by the Godrej Culture Lab at Vikhroli, I had the pleasure of listening to a talk by Tadao Ando, one of the world's greatest living architects. Not having been to Japan, my knowledge of his work comes mainly from books, but what I've seen in photographs and read about him has impressed me greatly.
When I got to the venue half an hour before the talk was to start, there was a long queue of people waiting to get their copy of a big tome about Ando signed by the man himself. Each person bought a copy for 2500 rupees, wrote his or her name on a slip of paper, and handed these over once face to face with the master builder. He'd write down the name, make a little sketch, and sign. Architecture students obviously have much more money than art students. I can't imagine such a long queue to get a book signed by, say, Gerhard Richter, if he came to town. I could be wrong.
The hall filled quickly, and some, like my friends Deepika and Shireen, found that keeping a placeholder such as a handbag on a seat did not guarantee that the seat would actually remain vacant. The auditorium had some 300 chairs, and by the time Ando began speaking about fifty people were standing at the back. He spoke in Japanese, and was translated by an Indian assisted by a White man who appeared part of the Ando entourage. He was by turns funny, moving and incisive. He also dropped a few names, highlighted his own charitable contributions and made what seemed a strong sales pitch to the assembled Godrej brass.
Ando's approach is inherently modernist, but he imbues concrete with feeling and light and incorporates natural features into the complexes he builds. He balances needs of the market with a desire to preserve and reinvigorate nature; and employs art, culture and built heritage to attract people to locations and to make those who live and work in those locations feel emotionally connected to their surroundings.
Should the Godrejes greenlight a Tadao Ando build, it will be the most exciting architectural project the city has seen since Independence.
A bit about the Godrej land in Vikhroli: it is the biggest tract of its kind in the city and probably the most valuable privately-owned piece of earth anywhere in India. Back in the socialist days, during the Emergency to be specific, the Congress government passed a law called the Urban Land Ceiling Act. The idea was to take land from those who possessed more of it than they needed, and build on it homes for the poor and government employees. Nothing of the sort happened. Politicians made millions by not expropriating privately held plots, and by ignoring a provision that forced builders to turn over for public use 5% of all flats built on exempted land.
In the 30 years that the Land Ceiling Act was in the books, the government acquired just 260 odd acres of vacant land, and received less than 2500 flats from builders from the nearly 2000 acres exempted. The law was repealed five years ago, but there's a lot of litigation related to it still being heard by courts.
The Godrejes owned 3500 acres, and little of that has been taken over or sold. Despite a speeding up in construction, there's plenty left for an architectural landmark to be built.
Back in the socialist days, two films were made about slum residents, the first independent documentaries about the subject to be widely viewed: Uma Segal's Shelter and Anand Patwardhan's Hamara Shahar: Bombay, Our City. Both films contrasted the massive unused land the Godrejes were sitting on with the paltry dwellings available to those who couldn't afford flats. Shelter, if I recall correctly, used title cards that said, in rapid succession, Godrej and Hoardrej.
Having successfully kept the ULCRA demon at bay, will the Godrej clan now do something interesting with all that land, or will they follow every other developer in cramming it with malls, glass-front office towers and luxury residences? It's clear that a Tadao Ando project will not be as lucrative as one by Hafeez Contractor and his ilk. But hey, Parsis are different from Marwaris, Gujaratis, Sindhis, Marathis, Punjabis and all the rest, right? Parsis combine entrepreneurship with civic sense and good taste. They don't look solely at the bottom line. If Godrej will do nothing but build another Hiranandani complex, Indiabulls Centre or High Street Phoenix, there's truly no hope for this city.

Tadao Ando took a helicopter ride over Vikhroli and its surroundings and was excited by the mangrove forest, seeing it as an anchor around which an entire complex could be designed. Another proposal currently doing the rounds, directed at the government rather than private sector, also involves the use of mangroves and the city's coastline. It is currently on view at NGMA, and has been designed by P K Das with the backing of Shabana Azmi, who worked with Das on the beautification of Carter Road. If something like the P K Das plan actually makes it past the drawing board, and the Godrej family bites the Ando bait, Bombay could be substantially improved five years from now. Here's hoping against hope.

Public space, private space, public art, private art

Words extracted from an article published by The National, an Emirati newspaper: "Standing outside the gleaming tower of the Maker Maxity building in suburban Mumbai is a fire-engine-red double-decker bus ... This bus, however, sprouts two stainless steel wings ... A whimsical creation by Mumbai-based artist, Sudarshan Shetty, 50, at an estimated cost of US$250,000 (Dh920,000), this Flying Bus sculpture is arguably India's most significant public art project".
Shetty's Flying Bus has been called a public art work, or art in a public space, by Mumbai Boss, Tehelka and the Telegraph, among other publications. My friend Deepika wrote, in the Economic Times, about Manish Maker, the man who commissioned the Bus: "He has a plan in place for incorporating artworks in the upcoming mall and hotel that will replace the family-owned erstwhile drive-in cinema. These are all public spaces anyone could visit".
A preview of last month's Art Chennai in the Hindu began: "For nine days beginning March 10, art buffs in Chennai are in for a big treat. Teams of artists are likely to take people in public spaces such as shopping malls and railway stations by surprise".
The line introducing the Grand Hyatt's artworks on the hotel's Facebook page reads, "Grand Hyatt Mumbai, houses one of the finest collections of commissioned art in a public space".
I can see why people think of malls, hotels and the courtyards of office complexes as public spaces, and art placed in such locations as public art. These locations charge no entry fee, and are visited by thousands of people each week, unlike art galleries which get few footfalls outside of opening evenings. The Grand Hyatt, though, is no Shivaji Park. Or Millennium Park, since we're speaking of public art.


Sudarshan Shetty is among the finest artists of his generation, he is represented by an excellent gallery, and Manish Maker is a discerning collector. None of these things make the Flying Bus a public art project. I've been to Maker Maxity fairly often. It's one of the most expensive blocks of office space in the country. Alert securitymen at its gates make sure nobody gets in unless they have official business or want to eat overpriced pizza.
The confusion among journalists and affluent Indians about the nature of public space (the poor know very well that shopping malls and five-star hotels are privately owned and rigorously exclusionary) is sad. It means those among us best equipped to demand an expansion of public spaces and institutions are likely to believe the opening of a new mall actually constitutes such an expansion.

Subhash Ghai, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Whistling Woods film school

I taught a module at Subhash Ghai's Whistling Woods International film school (WWI) during the first two and a half years of its existence, and therefore have some insight into its current troubles. The Bombay High Court just held that Vilasrao Deshmukh, while Maharashtra's Chief Minister, transferred land in Goregaon illegally to WWI. The court has told the school to return unused land immediately, and built-up land once the all current students have graduated. If the Supreme Court upholds the High Court's verdict on appeal, Bombay will return to the peculiar status of being a major film producing city without a proper film institute.

One thing I can say with certainty, having seen the functioning of WWI at somewhat close hand: profit was not the primary driver behind the school's creation. Ghai obviously had a dream of establishing a world class institute, and put together a great board of trustees and well-qualified administrators and faculty. While I don't care for the design of the main building, generous amounts of money were poured into campus construction. WWI was, and is, a long way from the many cramped, ultra-utilitarian sites that pass off as film schools in Bombay.

A serious film school needs an extensive campus. Property rates being what they are, it's hard to imagine an educational institution of the WWI kind being financially viable if the founders have to pay market price. At that kind of rate, all we will get is an extension of the soulless residence - office - shopping complex mix that has driven the growth of North Bombay.
If we accept that a good film school would be a fillip to Bombay's television and movie-producing industry, and we agree that some kind of state grant is required even for a private film school to be viable; what should leaders look for in potential investors? Obviously, a track record in film, and a commitment to investing significant private resources rather than living off the government's land. I can't think of too many people more qualified than Subhash Ghai to undertake such a venture.
Of course, one could imagine an alternate scenario, where property prices weren't kept sky high by collusion between builders and all levels of the administration; where there weren't a whole lot of asinine restrictions on buying and selling land; and where schools could be set up without years of petitioning and lobbying.
In the situation as it presented itself circa 2000 AD, however, I don't believe Vilasrao's Deshmukh's grant of cheap land to Subhash Ghai was such a terrible decision. Certainly there's no proof that Deshmukh profitted in any way from the move. There are, of course, other views possible about this matter, and my friend Paromita Vohra has taken a harsher line in this column for Sunday Mid-day.
WWI, unfortunately, faced a number of obstacles from its inception, including some of its own creation, as a result of which it has never performed to capacity. To begin with, there was a conceptual contradiction at the heart of the school, symbolised by its name. The 'International' in WWI suggested Subhash Ghai wanted to create an institution that would attract foreign students as well as Indians. The first executive head of WWI, an American named Kurt, was charged with setting up a cosmopolitan syllabus and world-class systems. But this effort was undercut by the 'WW' part of WWI. Which international student would take seriously a school that called itself 'Whistling Woods'? The only people who would be attracted by a name as cheesy as that were those who thought Bollywood films were the cat's whiskers. It was these Bollywood-lovers who flocked to the institute. The few foreigners who did enroll were tempted to drop out before completing the course.
Having spent a lot on construction, equipment and staff (Kurt was paid something like a crore per year, I was told), WWI charged high fees, and found it tough to fill all available seats. With supply outstripping demand, all selectivity went out the window. Kurt wanted to admit mainly graduate students, but plenty of 10+2 s made the cut each year. Film schools depend on a balance of direction, cinematography, editing, sound design and acting students, but there was no way to ensure such balance. One batch I taught had over a dozen male acting students and only one female. Another cohort, if I remember right, had twenty wannabe directors, only three or four editors to cut their assignments, and a lone sound guy.
Most of the students who joined were completely uninterested in Pasolini and Tarkovsky, leave alone the art history that I taught. The very fact that a module called IALC (International Art, Literature and Culture) was part of the compulsory syllabus shows the split between the 'International' side of WWI and the dominant 'Whistling Woods' side. Since the payoff in teaching, as far as I'm concerned, lies mainly in the response of students, I soon tired of the trek to Film City. It's true there were four or five youngsters in each batch who appeared interested in what I was saying, but the vast majority were visibly bored, and I couldn't blame them. If I were an actor eager to get a start in Bollywood, I wouldn't want to spend my time hearing about differences in style between Akbar-period miniatures and Shah Jahan-period ones; or between baroque and neo-classical painting.
I cut down on my WWI lectures a few years ago, and then left the Faculty entirely, but Prabodh Parikh, who handles the Literature side of IALC and is far more committed to, and passionate about, teaching than I am, has persevered; I've gone in for the occasional guest lecture when he's asked. Since leaving WWI, I've met a number of my former students at poker games. Subhash Ghai's film school has yet to produce any notable actors or directors as far as I can tell, but it's spawned a fair number of successful No-Limit Hold'em players. "How are you, Sir?", they ask, when I first run into them. I hate being called 'Sir', and always begin courses by telling students to call me Girish, but few ever do. At the card table, though, I absolutely insist on being addressed by my first name, particularly since WWI grads are usually better at poker than I am.

Sharada Dwivedi

Just days after I mentioned Bombay: The Cities Within as a landmark book, comes the news that Sharada Dwivedi, co-author of the volume along with Rahul Mehrotra, has died. Sharada did as much as anybody to raise awareness about the city's built heritage, and to remove the post-colonial and chauvinistic ideological blinkers that had for decades prevented a celebration of that heritage. Her steady, sensible, and committed advocacy will be deeply missed.

The best books on Bombay

Back in the late 1980s, I'd be stumped when asked to recommend one book that would provide an insight into Bombay's present and past. I usually settled for Gillian Tindall's City of Gold, a competent though workmanlike history. In the mid-1990s, Sharada Dwivedi and Rahul Mehrotra produced their breakthrough volume, Bombay: The Cities Within, and recommendations became easier. The quintessential Bombay book of the noughties for most people was Suketu Mehta's Maximum City, but I preferred to gift Arun Kolatkar's Kala Ghoda Poems.

Now Katherine Boo has written a must-read book about the city, and I use the phrase 'must-read' very sparingly. The book is titled Behind the Beautiful Forevers, and you can read my review of it in Caravan magazine here.

The Keenan-Reuben silliness

Last month, two Bombay boys, Keenan Santos and Reuben Fernandes, were killed by a group of youths. It began when girls with Keenan and Reuben were sexually harassed by strangers outside a pub in Amboli. After Santos and Fernandes roughed up the abusers, the men got together a large group to exact revenge.
What seemed to me peculiar about the coverage of the sad incident was the focus on supposedly heartless bystanders. The friends of the slain boys harped on this on every interview they gave. A Mumbai Mirror article, headlined 'People watched quietly as our friends were dying', was typical of the general media response. The Times of India carried this quote from Reuben's brother Benjamin: "On the night of the attack, the street was crowded, but no one came forward to help us. People have become numb. They do not want to get involved . Perhaps they are afraid of the visits they will have to make to court and the police station; perhaps they don't care enough."
Barkha Dutt anchored a predictably obtuse discussion on NDTV, and wrote in the Hindustan Times, "Within minutes the assaulters had knives and swords out and soon the boys were lying collapsed in pools of blood, their insides ripped out as 40 bystanders stared on passively, ignoring all pleas for help. It would not be unfair to say that more than the mob it was urban apathy that killed Keenan and Reuben... the basics have broken down — the sense of community, kinship and humaneness appears to have evaporated. More brutal than the murder is the image of the onlookers who refused to help."
These statements all strike me as foolish, because only idiots would get involved in a fight involving a dozen people with knives and hockey sticks. A mob like that doesn't listen to reason. It is out to maim and kill, and will harm whoever stands in the way. Castigating urban apathy is warranted when someone's left to die at the streetside after an accident, but no such moral lesson should be drawn from the Amboli tragedy.
Why am I writing this weeks after the incident? It's because a news item in today's papers indicates what would probably have happened to anybody getting in the way of the thugs who murdered Keenan and Reuben. In this case, two teenagers fought over a girl. One of them brought in brawlers to beat up, maybe kill, his adversary. A young fruit seller named Sarfaraz Sheikh tried to stop the mob.

Sarfaraz (mugshot above) was stabbed to death. Two youths named Munish Patil and Mayur Patil, who had come out of a nearby cybercafe, also intervened, and were also stabbed and critically wounded. Maybe they had viewed a programme where panelists went on about how terrible public apathy was, and how citizens ought to intervene promptly in such matters.

The Jehangir Nicholson collection

The Jehangir Nicholson Galley opened last week, after a long delay, at the Prince of Wales Museum (which is now named after Shivaji like everything else in Bombay). I couldn't make it to the opening, but caught the inaugural exhibition on Friday, and came away disappointed. It didn't feel like a well thought-out museum show accompanied by thorough documentation; more like something thrown together fairly quickly and haphazardly.
I don't envy the task of the curators. They had a fairly small space to work with and must have been aware that the best of Nicholson's paintings had been displayed at the capacious National Gallery of Modern Art in 1998. Still, the show on view at Shivaji Museum doesn't really give us any insight into the mind and taste of the collector, or seek to underline the collection's strengths and biases. Instead, it just hangs one or two works from each of the city's canonical artists. The exception is three large Tyeb Mehta canvases, which one is drawn to immediately and which are the best things in the room.
Nicholson's favourite painter, Laxman Shreshtha, is underrepresented. The choice of a black-and-white Shreshtha marked by geometric motifs was bold, but I believe misguided. It would have been wiser to choose one of the painter's magisterial stormy abstracts, though these are better known than the picture finally chosen.
The museum trustees hired an extremely capable and dedicated curator, Zasha Colah, to tend to the collection, but have evidently not given her much latitude in selecting works for the first show. I hope this will be rectified in the future, so we get truly museum-worthy exhibitions.

Thin (and flimsy) is in

Have you ever had a cup of coffee served by the roadside in a plastic glass? The material is too thin to provide insulation, so you grip the glass at the rim. But now it threatens to slip out of your hand because of the weight of the beverage. You tighten your grip to prevent slippage, but find the rim caving in from the pressure, and the hot coffee splashing onto your fingers and hand.
You berate the vendor for not providing more sturdy containers, and he replies this is the best he can offer for ten rupees.
The fountain Pepsi at PVR and other multiplexes, though, costs something like 85 rupees. Yet, the straws provided with the drink get thinner every year. There's a little circle at the centre of the lid, perforated so the straw can penetrate it with a measured thrust. Well, apparently 85 rupees no longer buys a straw thick enough to achieve that penetration. I complain to the guy at the counter, who snickers at says, "Sir, that's not the way". He reaches out, sticks a thumb through the lid's centre, retracts it and licks off the little cola that's adhered to the finger during the operation.
The take-away spoons at Oven Fresh and Theobroma have adopted the same supermodel diet as the straws at PVR. They're too delicate to make a dent in the softest, moistest Dutch truffle pastry. By the time you give up and use your fingers instead, the spoons look like Uri Geller's had a go at them. The people at the counter are very generous with these cut-rate implements, throwing five or six into the bag with your order, when just a single proper spoon would be more useful.
It's the Panipat-Plassey Principle, which Indians never fully learned: a lone well-armed, professional soldier is worth over a dozen farmers carrying spears.
The flimsiness consequent to cost-cutting isn't restricted to food and drink; those who fly regularly must have noticed how fragile bag tags have become. The metal ring that used to fortify the paper has disappeared, and the elastic string is now a thread. This has happened at a time when security drills are ever more complicated. As you walk away from the pat-down, checking your boarding pass, keys and cellphone, and putting your laptop back in its case, the last thing you're going to notice is a band snapping, or paper being torn off as it brushes past a sharp corner. It won't be till you're at the gate waiting to board that a guard will point to the missing tag and send you back to the X-ray machine, potentially delaying the entire flight.

The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival

There's plenty going on at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, with programmes covering music, dance, books, kids workshops, films and heritage walks. Although loudspeakers have been forbidden this year, the list of events is still substantial. Notwithstanding the impressive and dedicated work the organisers have done, a few questions have arisen in my mind about the festival's future.
When the KGAF was first mooted, it was built on the idea of an arts precinct in South Bombay; and that idea, in turn, based itself on the many art galleries in the area. The KGAF was, in other words, primarily a visual arts initiative at its inception, and was meant to be an intensive, seven day immersion in the sorts of events that took place in the area as a matter of course. Its other purpose was to raise awareness of the built heritage of the district. The first couple of attempts missed the 'festival' bit in 'Kala Ghoda Arts Festival'. In succeeding years the organisers did a fantastic job of fostering a festive atmosphere, but now I've begun to wonder if the 'Arts' part of KGAF is lagging.
Part of the reason is that the idea of Kala Ghoda as an art precinct is dead. Gallery Chemould has moved out from the Jehangir Art Gallery; Bodhi opened and closed after sponsoring some impressive KGAF installations while it flourished; and the NGMA is somnolent. Colaba is now the centre of Bombay's visual arts world, with The Guild, Chatterjee & Lal, Volte and Lakeeren, clustered together and Gallery Maskara, Project 88, Sakshi, Mirchandani + Steinruecke and Art Musings not far away. Without the participation of top galleries, the visual arts component of KGAF has suffered badly. It's worthwhile giving relative unknowns an opportunity to make a mark, but the quality of this year's public installations is pretty mediocre. They all have a similar didactic and symbolic intent. A few years ago two artists made a fun machine they called a Helicoptook, a cross between an autorickshaw and a helicopter. Since then, mutant machines have become a staple feature of the festival, and none has been as successful as the Helicoptook. Another artist (I'll get names soon, just putting down this first draft) used to mould giant feet at the base of the trees on Rampart Row, making the tree trunks seem like enormous legs; it was an excellent example of what street art can be; not trying to drum some lesson into passersby, but simple and visually compelling, just like the Helicoptook. Now we have trees draped in all sorts of material to create awareness of the environment and stuff like that. It all looks like a godawful mess, frankly.
The film festival has a Basu Chatterjee retrospective, but this is mixed in with a selection of films one can watch on the telly any given day, or movies that have just finished a theatrical run. I can't understand the point of a festival dominated by these sorts of films, except as a publicity vehicle for UTV. Of course, there are people who go and watch them, but that's to be expected; any popular, free films will always find willing viewers. The question is whether it furthers the cause of an arts festival to screen stuff like The Social Network or Tere Bin Laden. It might make more sense to show movies which the KGAF-going public would be unlikely to view in the normal run of things, say a selection of regional films for example. Or to weave a specific theme into the selection and bolster it with discussions.
The literature section also appears a bit tired this year, not for the first time. There are plenty of discussions I'd like to attend, of course, but the names involved are very familiar. If I recall correctly, there was a panel on food writing last year. Another one has cropped up this year. A couple of the participants have featured in every single festival going back as far as I can remember. Again, it might make sense to create a more close-knit, well-thought out, formal programme, even if it means a smaller set of events.
The main Rampart Row stretch and the traffic island of Kala Ghoda is far too commercial for my taste. Unilever and the Times of India, plus subsidiary sponsors, have plastered every possible surface with branding. I know Indian sponsors demand the maximum bang for their buck, but the Surf Excel shamianas are way over the top. The road itself is a bazaar full of stalls. A careful vetting process is followed so only people who are furthering conservation of some kind, whether of wildlife or craft traditions, get to sell their wares. It's fun and makes for an evening well spent despite the crowd, but this year the commercialism of it all made me uncomfortable.
KGAF does take over a very busy road in the city's business district, plus an important parking lot, for a full nine days. I wonder if it might be time for the festival to become less of a mela and more of a serious arts event, held mainly indoors, spread out in more locations. After all, with the heritage buildings of Kala Ghoda having been restored one by one, the Kala Ghoda Association has already achieved its primary purpose. There is such a thing as being trapped in your own success and, judging by this year's event, the KGAF is running that risk.

Bombay versus Delhi revisited

I just got back from a week in Delhi, and have lots to blog about. But first, I'd like to continue where I left off, with my Mumbai Boss piece on NGMAs (link in the January 10 post below). A number of Dilliwallahs looked askance at what they saw as my criticism of the capital. Sure, I'd written about Delhi's new imperial aura, but I don't believe the article as a whole was critical of the capital.
On my most recent visit I perceived that since the annoying blockages resulting from Commonwealth games prep have been cleared, the pattern I discerned some half a dozen years ago has become boldly etched: Delhi is racing ahead of Bombay and is now India's premier metropolis. And it's going to stay that way because, as I wrote in my final column for Time Out back in 2008, nobody has a claim on it. As soon as some group claims a city as its own, it signals the beginning of a decline. Bombay grew to greatness because it was the one city in India that welcomed people of all religious, ethnic and linguistic groups. Ever since its political discourse began revolving around the claims of Marathis, the city has suffered. In the past five years, Hyderabad has fallen victim to the Telengana agitation, and Bangalore to Kannadiga - Tamil conflict. Calcutta and Madras have, of course, long been mired in parochialism.

Since my valedictory Time Out column doesn't seem to be on the Web, I'm cutting and pasting it here. The final sentence suggests Bombay may soon have to give up its status as India's premier metropolis. Less than three years later, its clear the switch has happened, and Bombay's now in second place. It may be that a decade from today there will no longer be any debate about the issue. During Lord Curzon's reign as Viceroy, Calcutta was India's foremost city, with Bombay brashly staking a claim. Eventually, Bombay comprehensively overtook Calcutta, to such a degree that the debate itself died out. The same looks set to happen in the case of Bombay versus Delhi.

A Tale of Two Cities

I don’t love Bombay. I barely like it. Things were very different in my teenage years, when I had a pride in my home town that extended even to supporting its Ranji Trophy team. I viewed other Indian cities, as many Bombaywallahs did, with snobbish disdain. We had great public transport; we had power 24 / 7; taxis and autos charged by the meter; shops were located conveniently at most street corners; eateries catered to every income level; liquor stores stayed open well after sunset; vehicles maintained something like lane discipline; appointments were kept more or less punctually; and women participated in the workforce in massive numbers. None of this was true elsewhere in the country.
My attitude began changing after the January 1993 riots. That’s when the city’s liberal identity suffered a dreadful wound. It wasn’t a fatal injury. Recovery would have been possible, had the instigators of violence been punished. Instead, they were elected to run the city and Maharashtra state.
Many good things have happened in Bombay since then. Aside from revolutions in IT services, telecommunications and organised retail that have transformed all cities, we have witnessed enormous growth in the entertainment and financial services sectors. We’ve begun to appreciate the preciousness of our past: localities like Kala Ghoda, Khotachiwadi, Bandra and Juhu have benefited from the efforts of heritage activists and citizens’ groups. But 1993 and its aftermath irrevocably shattered my pride in the city. Visiting other places these days, I frequently find myself comparing them favourably with my home. Delhi, in particular, appears an increasingly congenial location. It always had abundant open spaces, large homes, magnificent monuments and important academic institutions. In recent years, the city has grown more diverse, and less obsessed with who’s-in-who’s-out politics. Infrastructure’s been upgraded, with new transport systems promising an end to the cliché about needing a car to get around. Having its own government is a great help, but what’s even more crucial to the capital’s progress, I believe, is the fact that no religious community or linguistic group can stake claim to it. Free of chauvinistic demands, Delhi has not just physical but also mental space to develop into a truly great city. I’m afraid Bombay may soon have to give up its claim to being India’s premier metropolis.
There, it’s done. This is my last column, and I’ve ended with perhaps the unkindest cut of all. Before I go, though, I’d like to thank all readers who have taken time out to respond to my articles over the past four years and a bit. Your feedback has been incredibly gratifying. I’ve been privileged to have a prominent position in a magazine of such consistently excellent quality, but I now feel the need for a more expansive and interactive format. Hope to meet you soon in cyberspace.

State of the NGMAs

My article in Mumbai Boss about the state of the National Gallery of Modern Art as part of a wider Bombay versus Delhi debate can be read here.

Digvijay Singh's lie about Hemant Karkare

Here's what Digvijay Singh said in an interview with the Indian Express published on December 11, 2010: “On November 26, 2008, at 7 pm, just about two hours before the attacks in Mumbai started, Hemant Karkare, the slain ATS chief rang me on my mobile and told me how his family and his life were blighted by constant threats from people annoyed by his investigations into the Malegaon blasts."
The remark became controversial, and Maharashtra's Home Minister R R Patil issued a statement saying there was no record of Karkare and Singh having spoken at the time mentioned. Now, Singh has produced telephone records which he claims vindicate his position. Except they do not. What the records show is that Singh called Karkare, not the other way round. It's a crucial difference. I don't like the idea of police officers contacting politicians to whine: I'd think less of Hemant Karkare if he'd done what Digvijay Singh said he did. However, if a politician calls a police officer he is acquainted with, it's perfectly acceptable for the policeman to mention in passing that he is being threatened. Moreover, we only have Digvijay Singh's word for what was actually said. If Singh could lie about who called whom, he could well twist the contents of the conversation.
I've been very critical about the police in a number of posts on this blog. There are, however, a few perfectly honest, dedicated officers who stand apart within the force. Hemant Karkare was one of them. Digvijay Singh lied when he said Karkare called him the day he was killed. I hope newspapers and TV channels covering the issue highlight the difference between making a call and answering it.

Diesel, Benz and Tata

I travelled to he burbs yesterday after a break and saw two new shops had opened on the Bandra - Juhu stretch, accompanied by dozens of placards marking the surrounding territory. Diesel at Juhu has gone the whole hog with its 'Stupid' campaign. The store itself has large letters stencilled on its glass front screaming 'In Stupid We Trust'. I don't blame them, only somebody stupid would buy that stuff at those prices.
Täshi is a new shoe store run by a wing of the Tata group. Täshi supposedly means 'auspicious' in Tibetan; or at least 'Tashi' means auspicious. Little did Reuben and Rose Mattus know, when they founded Häagen-Dazs in the Bronx, that they'd kick of a long and disturbing trend in faux-European umlauting.
I'm not going to explore Täshi anytime soon. My experience with DTH has put me off the Tata brand. Besides, their Nanos aren't doing too well either. Tata Motors has offered a free upgrade (which they insist is not a recall) because the cars have a bad habit of catching fire.


This might be Ratan Tata's shot at automotive history. Karl Benz developed the internal combustion engine for motor cars. Tata has, apparently, developed a spontaneous combustion engine.

Siachen, Adarsh, patriotism and security

I've got lots of negative feedback for the Yahoo! column in which I suggested that military bases should gradually move out of big cities. The military is treated like a holy cow in India, and this results in tabooing logic in favour of national pride (some comments to my previous post use sound rational arguments, but many that I have junked simply question my patriotism).
The conflict at the Siachen glacier is a good example of how patriotic thinking works. Thousands of Indian soldiers are posted in rotation on the highest battlefield in the world. They are there because of a botched preemptive strike the Indian army initiated back in 1984, resulting in a standoff in an uninhabitable zone of no strategic value. The cost in human lives as well as budgetary outlay has been staggering. Some 2000 Indian soldiers died in the first 13 years of the stalemate, there are no figures of how many more have perished in the 13 years since, but a total figure of around 3000 is probably accurate. Most of these deaths are due to harsh conditions, in which temperatures regularly dip to -60 degrees C. And yet there is no will to solve the Siachen issue through dialogue, no public pressure to bring these soldiers back. Far from suggesting a solution needs to be found, we celebrate the army's sacrifices in film, song and advertising.
Consider, now, the issue of the Adarsh Housing society. Let's assume that everything was done according to the book, and the flats were given over to war veterans and Kargil widows. These apartments are worth some 80 million rupees each, nearly 2 million dollars. They are sold at 10 percent of their market value to people living on a monthly income of some 20,000 rupees, or 500 dollars. The fact is that, in ordinary circumstances, these veterans and widows would not be able to afford even the 80 lakhs they are charged. They buy the homes because they're great investments. As soon as they can, they sell the flats to civilians and buy themselves comfortable homes in the north of the city which cost half the market price of the Adarsh flats. They are left with some 30 million to put in fixed deposits at 10% interest, giving them 3 million rupees a year to live off, ten times what they are getting by way of pensions. These are back of the envelope calculations, but this sort of thing has played out in every housing scheme where defence personnel have been granted housing at subsidised rates. Within a few years, these complexes come to be occupied by civvies.
Now, I'm not questioning whether or not these particular veterans and widows deserve the largesse. Let's presume they do. The fact remains that Adarsh would have housed civilians through sub-letting or direct sale within a few years of the keys of flats being handed over. The security risk the Navy is protesting about, in other words, exists independent of the corruption scandal. That' an example of the pressure a city like Bombay places on the military.
The idea that I'm asking the armed forces to make sacrifices in favour of a builders' lobby is entirely wrong. My argument is that it might be beneficial even from the military's perspective to gradually vacate land in densely populated cities like Bombay, Poona and Bangalore. The military's presence spurs urban development upto a point, then becomes a neutral factor, before eventually turning into a net impediment. It is equally true that urban development helps the military upto a point by providing necessary services, but eventually becomes an impediment to optimal functioning.
Cities grew as hubs of manufacturing, but many of the largest metropolises now host few working factories. Armies first flourished in forts, but now have no need for such structures. The Indian army recently moved out of Delhi fort, and I hope they will soon do the same in Agra fort, enhancing the city's heritage tourism potential. All I'm suggesting is that a similar flexibility be shown in considering the future of camps in metropolises. Better to draft a twenty year plan now than to have a decision forced on you twenty years down the line.

Armies and Cities

My column on Yahoo! this time asks whether military establishments should move out of metropolises. Read it here.

The new Delhi airport

With the opening of a capacious new airport terminal, Delhi's taken another step towards becoming indisputably India's premier city. The old terminal contained a large mural by M F Husain, India's most important painter; the new one has ghastly artworks like the one pictured above. I have a feeling, though, that it will be superior in every other respect. A Metro link is being built as well, which means India will finally have an airport with a public transport link attached. Bombay, of course, can't even organise a bus service to its domestic and international terminals, leave alone a high speed rail connection.
The problem with Delhi remains, of course, its people. That'll take a few decades more to sort out.

Phantom Project

The world's tallest residential building is here! Or so billboards around the city claim. The tower is called World One, is 117 storeys high, and is owned by the Lodha Group. Look around Bombay's skyline, though, and you won't spot anything close to a 1500 foot high building. The Lodha Group's website doesn't so much as mention World One. What gives?
It seems the builder doesn't have necessary permissions to build the record breaking high rise, nor money enough to see it through. Those hoardings are meant to attract advance bookings and private equity interest to fund the project. The address of World One is said to be Upper Worli. But Upper Worli, as I recall, is the figment of the imagination of admen whose offices moved to Lower Parel a decade ago, and who claimed half-jokingly to have shifted to Upper Worli to shrug off Lower Parel's downmarket associations.
We have, then, a building that doesn't exist, in a neighbourhood that doesn't exist, funded by money that doesn't exist. If you possess a few extra crores, this phantom project might be where you want to sink them.

Back to chaos

I returned yesterday after a week spent in Zurich, which, for good reason, is regularly ranked as one of the world's best cities in quality of life surveys. I was rushing about from morning to night each day, but never felt as exhausted as I did within half an hour of stepping back in Bombay. That was partly because of the hometown's hot embrace, its noise and crowds. Mostly, though, it was because of its dysfunctional systems. In the past, obstacles to progress used to make themselves apparent right after one stepped out of the plane. Now, immigration and customs are painless, but the nasty stuff starts outside the airport.
To begin with, there's no public transport option. The taximen's union will ensure it stays that way. To prevent taxis from cheating customers, the administration has set up a system of pre-paying the fare, which means you end up shelling out in advance the amount the driver would have extracted from you on top of the meter fare.
There's a long line for booking a cab, after which you go out and hunt for the vehicle carrying the license plate number listed on your bill. Quite often, you don't find it, because the driver's left or the cab's hiding in some inaccessible corner, in which case you have to go back and stand in line again for another number.
Luckily I found my guy easily, but two minutes into the ride he stopped and crossed the road to stand in another line, some kind of police verification procedure. Beggars have found this an opportune spot to harry passengers. Soon after the driver returned, we encountered that other Bombay specialty, the 11pm traffic jam.
I can see the objections starting to form. Switzerland has fewer people than Bombay. Its banks use secrecy laws to make money from corrupt government officials in nations like India. Oh, and it gave women the vote after we did. None of this alters the shock of going from one of the world's most livable cities to one of its least habitable.

Update, 22 June: Today, taxis are on strike. Will be fun for tourists flying in to Bombay late at night: no train, no bus, no cab, no rickshaw.