I am not often tempted to write essays, and even this one isn’t going to be an extremely analytical one. Rather, a response to something that happened online last week.

To set the scene, a little bit of background. If you see my Twitter profile, I call myself (among other things) a foodie. I enjoy experimenting with food, I like eating out, and I am generally interested in food—what goes into it, its history, and so on. So, when an ex-boss invited me to a Facebook foodie group about a year back, I joined happily. I participate only occasionally, but I do keep an eye on what’s happening. People post recipes, discuss restaurants and food stores, talk about issues related to food, and so on.

Among the most visible are the many recipes that are posted—mainly because many of them appear along with a mouth-watering photo of what the final product looks like.

So far so good.

Last Monday, someone (let’s call her Lady X, for the sake of convenience) posted a recipe. I’ve forgotten what it was for, but the accompanying photo was a stunner. This woman must be a food stylist, I thought. Not to mention a very fine chef. How come I had never heard of her?

A couple of hours later, the truth was revealed. Someone—perhaps with more time to spare, and perhaps less gullible than I—seemed to have smelled a rat. They’d gone searching, and had unearthed the original source of the recipe and the photo. Lady X had not posted one of her own recipes. She had not posted a photograph she had taken. She had merely passed off something as her own.

A furore followed. Lady X’s action was questioned by some (note: some, not all) members. Why had she not mentioned in her posting of the recipe (and the photo) that neither were hers? Why hadn’t she credited the original source? Why had she passed it off as her own (and, mind you, been praised quite a bit for both the recipe and the photo)?

Lady X—and a bunch of ardent supporters—came up with a string of answers, each more incoherent and clutching-at-straws than the last.

1. Nobody minds.

And exactly how many people have you asked whether they mind or not?

2. No recipe is original.

Really? None, whatsoever? I know enough about food to know that there are some classics that have been around, in some cases, for generations. But almost every household, every cook, has their own way of doing something. Some of these don’t work. Some do—and they are what become the great recipes.

Ah, and do try to pass off a recipe from Heston Blumenthal or Alain Ducasse or Marco Pierre-White as your own. And let’s see how amenable they (or any other chef worth his/her salt) are to accepting that their recipes aren’t original.

3.  We’ve put in a lot of effort into finding and trying out these recipes, so what is the problem?

Bravo. And, of course, whoever came up with the recipe in the first place—the person whose creative mind and palate figured it would be a good idea to combine this ingredient and that, cook it this way or that, didn’t put in a lot of effort. Is that right? The effort was all yours.

If you’ve stuck with me so far, you’ll have realized why this struck a chord with me, and why it angered me. I am a writer. I have had some training as a chef, and I have dabbled—albeit on a very amateur level—in painting. I am familiar with the creative process. And I know it isn’t an easy one. It requires sweat, tears, blood—and much toil. You may read a good story, or eat an unforgettable dish, or see a breathtaking painting (or hear a great piece of music, a fine film—the list can go on and on)—but what you, as the audience, gets is the polished, much-worked version. You don’t get to see the hours (or days, months, years) the creator has put into his/her work, the much to-ing and fro-ing, or the many mistakes that were made along the way and have been ironed out.

Does that give you (or, let me change that to ‘we’, since all of us are the audience for something or the other) the right to dismiss the effort that has gone into creating it? Or to try to pass it off as our own? The latter, of course, begging the question: if we appreciate it enough to want to share it, why not let the person who created it share in that appreciation?

On an ethical level, there’s the oft-mentioned thing about this sort of behaviour being tantamount to stealing. I have, I must admit it, found that a little sanctimonious, put that way. But let’s examine in closely. We have all expended effort, time and energy (unless we’ve been lucky enough to be born with the proverbial silver spoons in our mouths) on earning enough to buy what we need. Would you take it lying down if someone walked into your house, picked up something valuable, said it was theirs, and walked away with it?

Why, then, would you be happy to let someone walk off with the accolades due to you from something in which you’d invested a lot of time and effort? Something you’d created?

Try doing it to someone big. Try doing it to anyone who has any sort of solid legal proof that they’re the originators of a work. See what happened to Kaavya Vishwanathan, of ‘How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life’ fame (notoriety may be a more apt word).

Try, even, doing it to a blogger who’s slightly savvy—a plagiarism checker such as Copyscape can quickly and efficiently trawl the net to find instances of plagiarism. While the average blogger, even on finding their work plagiarized, will probably just be content with an apology and a removal of the copy (or an acknowledgement of credit where it’s due), others are not so lenient. A certain film blogger I used to follow copied and pasted huge chunks of a very well-written blog post—and was, shortly after, found out and confronted by the original writer of the material. The excuse—“I was so excited, I forgot to give you credit”—didn’t, I think, fool anyone.

In any case, the fact of the matter is that for a lot of us who do creative work, it’s a labour of love. We do get paid for some of it, but a lot (at least for someone like me) is gratis. It is done simply because I love writing. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to have people pick up my writing and pass it off as their own. Or borrow it without my permission. Or not give me credit for it. If I could spend hours thinking, writing, rewriting, editing, re-editing, and rewriting all over again (a lot of effort)—surely, the little effort it takes to write to me to ask if you may use my material, is not just ethical, but polite?

But, to get back to that episode of Lady X. The administrator of the group hushed everybody and called a halt to the fight that had broken out. Two days later, Lady X was back—this time, with a recipe for smoked salmon-wasabi tea sandwiches. Within less than two hours of her having posted the recipe, someone had found the original source of her photograph: it was from here. They posted it as a comment.

The response from Lady X’s fans? “How silly and petty u [sic] guys are”.

Today I logged in to see that a someone in the group had written lovingly about the chhole-bhature made by Sita Ram, in Paharganj’s Chuna Mandi. A delicious little article that made my mouth water. Since it didn’t give the exact address of the place, I went searching on the net, and ended up at Pamela Timms’s blog, where she had given the address, and written about her experience. An experience that sounded eerily familiar.

When I commented that the post in question was copied from Ms Timms’s blog, I got laughed at.

But I will persevere. I may be a lone voice crying in the wilderness right now. I know there are other voices out there, and maybe someday, if we all cry out loud enough, we will be heard. We will at least get credit for what we create.

Someday. Hopefully.

The Muzaffar Jang e-Omnibus

On Amazon US, this special Kindle combo pack comes for $10.78 (Or Rs 645.70, if you’re buying in Indian currency). On Amazon UK, it’s for £7.99. On Flipkart, you can buy it for just Rs 540, and read it using Flipkart’s ebook Android app.

Need more incentive? Check out what reviewers have said about the latest Muzaffar Jang adventure, Engraved in Stone:

“But what is most interesting is not the story itself. It is the way that story is told. Liddle writes easily, relaxedly, naturally, setting the scene in 17th century Agra, shortly after the Taj Mahal was built, without sounding like a history lesson or a museum lecture. The language is contemporary and fresh; the way of thought and movement is too.” – Ramya Sarma, The Hindu [Read the entire review here].

“Liddle, who identifies herself as a short story writer, does well in the genre of novel writing too, bringing to life the bazaars and the beauty of the baghs on the banks of the Yamuna. A reader can get lost in the sights and smells of Agra while exploring them with Muzaffar. Even the budding romance between Muzaffar and Shireen is in keeping with the customs of that time.” – Anugya Chitransh, Time Out [Read the entire review here].

“There is a bit of everything in this story: intrigue, art, mystery, passion, even action. Liddle’s Agra, like its Taj Mahal, is young, vibrant, and dazzling.” – Pooja Sharma, The Asian Age [Read the entire review here].

“Liddle’s next in this Muzaffar Jung series combines history and myths to make this sleuth chase even more interesting.” – The Times of India, Chennai [Read the entire review here].

See for yourself—download the series now!

For the Emperor, his court, and the very wealthy, the solution was to leave the plains and spend the summer in the cool green Kashmir Valley.

A view of the mountains and lakes in Kashmir.

For those who were forced to stay behind—or before and after the annual Kashmir jaunt, even for the others—there were other options to make the summer more bearable.

1. Tehkhaanas: The most common (for those wealthy enough to have proper houses) was to retreat into the tehkhaana. The tehkhaana, or basement, used to be fitted with carved screens (somewhat like ventilators in Raj-era bungalows) to let in light and air. Tehkhaanas were much cooler than the ground-level sections of the home, so entire families would move into the tehkhaana once summer arrived.

The stone grills flanking the arched platform are of the tehkhaana, at Delhi’s Haveli Khazanchi.

2. Khus tatties: The fragrant roots of khus or vetiver grass (Chrysopogon zizanioides) were—and still are—used to make mats known as ‘khus tatties’. Hung as curtains across windows ad doorways, khus tatties would cool the air passing through. Sprinkling the khus frequently with water helped to make them even cooler.

The fragrant vetiver or khus, the roots of which were (and are) used to make ‘khus tatties’.

3. Terrace and outdoor bedrooms: While they spent the summer days in their tehkhaanas, the rich would move upstairs for the night—to sleep on the open terraces of their flat-roofed homes, where the night breeze would provide enough respite from the heat. For the poorer people, sleeping out in the open was the only option, since their huts usually lacked roofs solid enough to bear the weight of sleeping families.

4. Ice, cooling drinks, and kulfi: To keep cool, the wealthy resorted to cooling drinks: lassis made from yoghurt and cold water; lime juice mixed with sweetened water; and a range of sherbets—flavoured with everything from rose water to oranges, lemons and sandalwood—were drunk. These were, where it could be afforded, cooled with ice (which was usually fetched from the Hindu Kush Mountains and carefully stored). Water was also cooled, where ice was not available, by using saltpetre (known in Hindi as shora).

A Mughal goblet, for sherbet, among the most popular drinks to help ward off the heat.

Interestingly, large and wealthy households invariably had a servant—known as the aabdaar (‘aab’ means ‘water’) whose job it was to ensure that sufficient quantities of potable water were kept well-chilled for use.

Other methods were used to keep cool, too. For instance, kulfi (still very popular) was consumed. Garments were typically of muslin, sometimes so light and flimsy (especially when they were meant to be only worn at home) that a garment would be discarded after just being worn once. Frequent baths, hand fans, staying indoors during the day, and travelling—if one had to—only between sunset and sunrise, were some of the other ways of beating the heat.

A view of the mosque at the Taj Mahal

Wrong on both counts. The rauza is not made of white marble, and the other buildings are not of sandstone. In fact, all the buildings in the complex are made of brick; the marble (‘sang-e-marmar’) and the sandstone (‘sang-e-Gwaliari’ is the name for grey or yellow; ‘sang-e-surkh’ is the name for the red) are only the cladding, which forms the attractive outer face of the buildings.
And that’s not all. Approximately forty different types of semi-precious and precious stones were used in the decoration of the buildings.

Accounts of the construction of the Taj Mahal complex refer to the sources from where material was procured. The most abundant—the white marble and the sandstone—came from close at hand: the red sandstone from Fatehpur Sikri and the white marble from Makrana (in Rajasthan).

The rauza at the Taj Mahal

The more rare stones were brought from some very far-flung areas: malachite from Russia, jade from Kashgar in China, turquoise from Tibet. From as far west as the Nile Valley came cat’s eyes (also known as ‘lahsunia’); from the east, in Burma, came yellow amber. Lapis-lazuli were brought from Afghanistan, rubies from Sri Lanka. Other stones—orange-red cornelian, jasper, grass-green chrysolite, and deep blue (or green) heliotrope—were also procured.

[Note: You can click the illustration below to see a larger version].

Sources of some stones for the Taj

These stones were used in the pietra dura inlay (known in Hindustani as ‘parchinkari’) that decorates many of the buildings, most notably the mausoleum itself. To create a panel of parchinkari, a master artist would begin by drawing the pattern, in henna, on the surface of the marble. This pattern would then be carefully gouged out by the parchinkar, and the empty spaces thus created filled with very finely cut slices of the coloured stones. Variations in colour and pattern within the stone were used to create stunning effects of light and shade.

Parchinkari detail at the rauza, Taj Mahal

Engraved in Stone contains more fascinating information about how this parchinkari was done, so if you haven’t bought your copy yet, do so—there are some mouthwatering deals on at Flipkart, BookAdda, Landmark, etc! If you live outside India, you can order the Muzaffar Jang series on Amazon, Abebooks, and Infibeam, among others.

Jahangir, in fact, was so interested in plants and animals that he stationed an agent at Goa, with the express purpose of receiving all ships (especially those of the Portuguese) that docked at the port. The agent was supposed to keep an eye out for all interesting and exotic flora and fauna that arrived, buy them at whatever cost, and have them sent to the emperor so that Jahangir could observe them for himself. This zebra from Abyssinia, for example:

Painting of an Abyssinian zebra, by Ustad Mansur

This is how one of the most anatomically accurate paintings of the dodo (much more accurate than was being painted by contemporary European artists) came to be created by Jahangir’s most famous painter of wildlife, Ustad Mansur. Mansur, in fact, is believed to be the first painter anywhere to have painted the dodo (he painted it circa 1625 CE; the dodo had been discovered only about 25 years earlier).

One of the earliest paintings of a dodo, by Ustad Mansur. Circa 1625 CE.

Mansur was also a fine painter of flora. Many of his paintings of flowers have, unfortunately been lost over the centuries. One that still exists is a painting of a red tulip:

This painting, of a red Kashmiri tulip, is probably the Tulipa lanata regel – which should properly be called Tulipa lanata mansur!

Various sources have identified this as the Tulipa lanata regel, named for the German botanist Eduard August von Regel (1815-92). Current-day art historian Ebba Koch, who is an authority on Mughal art and architecture, mentioned in a lecture that since it is common to name plants for the botanist who discovered them (or first documented them), Tulipa lanata regel should correctly be named Tulipa lanata mansur!

The Nishat Bagh, in Srinagar, laid out in 1632 by Asaf Khan, the brother of the Empress Noorjahan.

Charbaghs took different forms. For example, some (like the gardens at Humayun’s Tomb or the Taj Mahal) became the settings for mausoleums.

One of the earliest Mughal garden tombs in India: Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi.

Others, like the Mughal gardens in Srinagar (especially Shalimar and Nishat), the Pinjore Gardens, or the Shalimar Bagh in Delhi, were designed to function as pleasure resorts for the royal family or nobility. Laying out gardens was also a form of philanthropy, since the more public gardens provided pleasant retreats for the populace.

The Pinjore (or Yadavindra) Gardens, laid out in the late 1600s by Aurangzeb’s foster brother, Fidai Khan.

Charbaghs laid out by the royal family or the wealthiest aristocrats were often vast gardens, with successive terraces on which pavilions or decorative platforms were built.

The upper pavilion at Srinagar’s Shalimar Bagh, laid out by the Emperor Jahangir.

There would be fountains in the water channels, and chutes known as ‘chaadars’. A chute is a sloping slab of stone, carved into ripples: water flowing down this would form pretty sheets.

At Srinagar’s Shalimar Bagh, a view of the water channel, and the chinar trees on either side.

Often, instead of a chute, there would be a sheer drop from one terrace to another; in this case, the wall behind the miniature waterfall would be carved into ornate niches. At the Hayat Baksh Bagh in Delhi’s Lal Qila (known in Mughal times as the Qila Mubarak), the niches in the pavilions would be filled with vases of flowers during the day, and with lit lamps during the night, adding to the beauty of the water flowing in front.

At Delhi’s Hayat Baksh Bagh (in the Lal Qila), a pavilion with niches cut into the wall below the platform.

Contrary to what most Mughal gardens today appear to be, the original Mughal garden did not consist of large expanses of lawns. Instead, it was typically crowded with trees (the Hayat Baksh Bagh is said to have had an overhead canopy so thick it almost blotted out the sun during the day).

Most of the trees in gardens (with exceptions like the cypress in garden tombs, or the chinar in Kashmir) were fruit trees. The fruit would, of course, be consumed by the family of whoever had laid out the garden; more importantly, it was harvested and sold. Other ‘cash crops’ were also often grown in gardens—for instance, pandanus (‘kewra’) and musk mallow (a relative of okra or ‘bhindi’; it has a fragrance similar to that of musk but was much cheaper, naturally). The Shalimar Bagh in Delhi is one of the gardens where fruit trees (such as ‘ber’ and guava) still grow; similarly, sapodillas (‘chikoos’) are cultivated at the Pinjore gardens.

Mughal gardens were typically planted with a number of fruit trees (besides flowering plants). These ber trees are in Delhi’s Shalimar Bagh.

The festival featured panel discussions and conversations with some interesting people (I was lucky enough to be able to attend part of a conversation with the mesmerizing Ashok Vajpeyi – brilliantly eloquent, and with a great sense of humour).

And, the festival began with the launch of my first non-Muzaffar Jang book, My Lawfully Wedded Husband and Other Stories.

In conversation with me was writer and translator Arunava Sinha, whom I’ve interacted with before, but had never previously had the pleasure of meeting. Arunava has a fine sense of humour, which was just what we needed to cope with some unforeseen occurrences (for example, the carefully-wrapped copies of ‘my’ book actually turned out to be copies of Milan Vohra’s Tick-Tock, We’re 30).

Considering My Lawfully Wedded Husband features short stories with a twist in the tail, this was a singularly appropriate, if unplanned, twist.

Arunava also had some good questions for me. Why, for instance, does someone who appears so mild-mannered, seem obsessed with murder? I tried to argue that out of the 12 stories in this book, only about 3 deal with actual murder, but I suspect neither Arunava nor the audience were really convinced…

I read out two stories from the collection – Number 63, and On The Night Train – and, after some more discussion on my favourite authors, the pros and cons of writing novels versus short stories, my daily writing schedule, etc, we went on to a Q&A session with the audience. And some more interesting questions and observations.

Rama Pandey commented that my stories might make for good translations into Hindi (I couldn’t agree more!), and this prompted someone to ask what my mother tongue was.

Saying that I’m bilingual and equally at ease in Hindi or English led to a further question: why, then, do I not write in Hindi? (For the simple reason that I have read very good Hindi literature, and am well aware that my Hindi, good though it may be, is not of a standard high enough for me to be writing in that language) – a philosophy which makes me always offer one important piece of advice whenever anybody asks me how they should go about writing. I always say “write in a language you’re really fluent in.” Don’t write in a particular language just because it’s considered ‘fashionable’ to do so.

All in all, a very enjoyable and interesting session, and (as far as I’m concerned), a privilege. Not every book gets launched at the opening session of a book festival’s first ever edition. I guess I’m allowed to preen, a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdHeDrNwgSs

There’s lots here – history (including plenty about the building of the iconic Taj Mahal), romance, and two mysteries, not just one. Interested? Order your copy now!

Also, if you like my writing, do ‘Like’ my Facebook page, which is devoted to my writings. This is where you’ll find more about not just Engraved in Stone, but also the previous Muzaffar Jang books (The Englishman’s Cameo and The Eighth Guest & Other Muzaffar Jang Mysteries). Reviews of the books, news about me and my writing, and links to other writings – as and when they’re published – will be posted on the Facebook page.

And do follow me on Twitter for quicker access to what’s happening with my writing:

https://twitter.com/authormadhulika

Engraved in Stone

This novel finds Muzaffar in Agra. The Mughal armies, led by the ambitious Diwan-e-kul, Mir Jumla, are headed for a campaign in the Deccan—and Mir Jumla himself, briefly halting at the home of a wealthy merchant in Agra, summons Muzaffar when the merchant is killed. By whom? And what other long-forgotten secrets will Muzaffar unearth in the course of this investigation?

Engraved in Stone is now available in major bookstores in India, and can also be ordered online at Flipkart, Infibeam, and Book Adda, and other stores.

Or, download the Kindle edition at Amazon UK, by clicking here.

My Lawfully Wedded Husband & Other Stories

My Lawfully Wedded Husband and Other Stories is available in major bookstores in India, and can be ordered online at Flipkart, Infibeam, Landmark, etc.