The Magnificent Seven (1960)

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After having watched Akira Kurosawa’s brilliant Shichi-nin No Samurai last week, I figured it was time to rewatch this film, which goes so far as to mention that it’s based on Shichi-nin No Samurai. For me, The Magnificent Seven has much to recommend it. Firstly, it’s a Western, a genre I’m usually fond of (as long as it steers clear of the run-of-the-mill formulas that John Wayne acted in during the early 30’s—and which, sadly, continued in a lot of films well past the 30’s). Secondly, The Magnificent Seven stars one of my favourite actors, Yul Brynner. Thirdly, it was directed by John Sturges, the very capable man behind classic adventure films like Escape from Fort Bravo, The Great Escape, and Ice Station Zebra.

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Shichi-nin No Samurai (1954)

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I first heard about this film when I was a child—The Magnificent Seven was being shown on TV, and one of my parents said it was based on Seven Samurai. End of story, for then.
I’ve grown up since. I’ve heard about the brilliance of Akira Kurosawa. And I’ve recently read that Shichi-nin No Samurai (Seven Samurai) was supposedly the first film ever to use the concept of a group of unconnected people being brought together for a common cause. It therefore seemed high time to finally see the film for myself.
Having just finished watching it, I’m still stunned. This is a mind-blowing film, colossal and profound, gut-wrenching and brooding and action-packed and funny and romantic and… Well, simply unforgettable.

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Games People Play

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On a hot day, we climb the Great Wall of China. Not, unfortunately, at Simatai or Mutianyu, the less touristy sections of the Wall near Beijing, but at Badaling. Badaling is 70km from Beijing, the nearest the Wall comes to the capital, and the most commercial and crowded section.

Hanging on to the iron railing that snakes up one of the steeper sections of the Wall, I lean over at a crazy angle of 45˚, trying desperately to adjust my centre of gravity to match the gradient. From one of the upper curves of the Wall, I look down and feel faintly sick as I watch the crowds push on. I am reminded of something a Taiwanese friend had told me: the Chinese word for crowd is people mountain, people sea.

Come August 2008, and the mountain will grow taller, the sea wider. For the 550,000 sports enthusiasts and 10,000-odd sportspeople expected to arrive for the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the city’s going to be spiffy and cosmopolitan. The sights will be spruced up, the hotels plush. There will be English-speaking student volunteers to guide you around, and shiny malls with the biggest brands in the world. Yep, the Games are going to be big.

That is something peculiarly appropriate to the nature of Beijing. In the Forbidden City, the larger than life aspect is expected–after all, everyone knows the Chinese emperors lived in style–but just about everything in Beijing seems to be larger, older, more spectacular, more completely unbelievable than almost anywhere else in the world.
There is, for example, the Yonghegong Tibetan Lama Temple, a busy but charming complex of prayer halls, clouds of incense, white silk scarves, and trees laden with ripening persimmons and pomegranates. I walk through the temples, admiring the gilded Buddhas, twirling the prayer wheels outside each hall till I reach the last one. This is occupied by the pride and joy of Yonghegong: an 18m high statue of the Maitreya Buddha, carved from a single block of white sandalwood.
Craning my head to look up at it, I realize that it is not just the mortal sportspeople who are in the business of bettering the best. Everything in the ‘Northern Capital’ seems to be vying for the Guinness Book. And to leave Beijing after watching just the athletes break records would be as incomplete an experience as tasting only the crisp skin of a succulent Peking Duck.
So, in between the opening and closing ceremonies, pencil in a visit to the Forbidden City, with its 8,000 rooms and lacquered and painted palaces. Push and jostle with the crowds for a glimpse of the exhibits–porcelain, scrolls of calligraphy, jewellery, imperial seals, weapons, even outsize drums. But there are quieter corners: The Museum of Clocks and Watches, hidden behind a screen of pine trees, is deliciously quiet and home to some fascinating timepieces, from diamond-studded pocket watches to huge clepsydras that rise halfway to the ceiling.

Ditto with the Temple of Heaven, Tiantan. Like the Forbidden City, Tiantan isn’t one building, but a series of structures that sprawl across acres of land; in this case, lush parkland dotted with gnarled old junipers. The most important building in Tiantan rejoices in an equally grand name, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest. It’s flooded with tourists when I arrive, but this temple is so huge, it dwarfs everything.

I circle around the hall, admiring the triple eaves of the roof–painted in blue, red, green and gold–and peer into the red lacquered interior, where the emperors once prayed for the prosperity of the land. It’s stunning, and I discover that this particular building is made completely of wood, without the use of a single nail.

The second discovery is even more striking, not to mention disconcerting. The all-wood structure of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest was struck by lightning in 1889 and burnt down. A subsequent enquiry revealed that prior to the fire, a lowly caterpillar had crawled all the way to the golden ball that surmounts the building, thus defiling it–attracting the bolt of lightning as heavenly retribution. Fanciful, but what really shook me was the fact that 32 court officials were executed for having allowed the caterpillar to get up there in the first place.

That the imperial family was decidedly imperious in its dealings comes as no surprise. The Empress Dowager Ci Xi, who virtually ruled China for 47 years in the late 19th century, for instance, used public funds to build the vast Summer Palace, a series of pavilions, temples and halls on the shores of Lake Kunming. In a darkly humorous bit of irony, Ci Xi actually used embezzled naval funds to get an opulent boat carved out of white marble for the Summer Palace.

To get away from the crowds–the Bird’s Nest, as the National Stadium is fondly called, can seat 91,000 people–take yourself to the Dazhong Si, the Great Bell Temple. It’s now a museum for bells, tucked away in a quiet little corner of north-west Beijing. Its bells range in size from tiny thumb-sized midgets to iron leviathans carved all over with Chinese characters, cranes, clouds and dragons. The pièce de resistance is a bell that hangs all by itself in the very last hall, and weighs all of 50 tonnes.

That’s still 13 tonnes short of Beijing’s biggest bell, which hangs in the Bell Tower. A vertiginously steep flight of 80-odd stone stairs, in a narrow and dark stairwell, leads up to the Bell Tower. I’ve never been scared of heights, but by the time I reach the top–and like an idiot, glance down–I’m sweating. But the bell, towering massively above, is majestic and impressive. Quintessential Beijing.

Will the Games match up? We’ll see.

(First published in Lounge, December 2007)

More Than Just Schmaltzburg

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In the early years of the 17th century, a powerful but eccentric nobleman built a pleasure resort against a backdrop of the wooded hills outside Salzburg. Archbishop Markus Sitticus named his pretty yellow palace Schloss Hellbrunn. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Sitticus had little love for gilded chandeliers and brocade drapes. So he set about filling his palace with oddities that appealed to him. Paintings of rare birds and fish filled two rooms; another room was painted to depict a Roman forum. An octagonal chamber with an aperture in its domed ceiling was painted a deep, flaming orange in colour.

But it was in the gardens that Sitticus allowed free rein to his eccentricity. The Wasserspiele–the water garden–is a medley of pools filled with fish; channels of rippling water; grottoes; and fountains.

We went visiting one hot afternoon, and it was the fountains that caught us unawares.

Walks through the Wasserspiele are always led by a Hellbrunn guide, and we soon discovered why. Our guide, who looked deceptively charming, did just what Markus Sitticus probably did to his unsuspecting guests four centuries ago. A surreptitious flick of a lever, and we found ourselves soaked from water spewing from hidden fountains. On either side of a path we’d been strolling along. From beside a grotto where we’d stopped to admire a pair of hydraulically powered miniature figures. And, most humiliating of all, from the centre of stone stools on which we’d been graciously invited to seat ourselves. At the end of it all, drenched but inexplicably happy, we wandered through the park, past the small white pavilion in which I am sixteen going on seventeen was filmed in The Sound of Music. Schloss Hellbrunn, we decided unanimously, was enchanting. Quiet, lovely, charming–and full of surprises.

And that is how I’d sum up Salzburg itself.

This city by the Salzach River is one of those examples–fortunately not too rare in Europe–of a city that combines history, culture and scenic beauty in equal (and generous) doses. On the outskirts, green pastures studded with wildflowers extend into wooded hills that loom high in a clear blue sky. In the city, the copper green domes and spires of the cathedrals dominate the skyline. The gardens are crowded with flowers, the Salzach twinkles in the sunlight. Picturesque? Undoubtedly.

The Alstadt–the Old Town–is the historic heart of Salzburg. This is where the Archbishop Princes once ruled; and the cobblestones still ring with the clip-clop of horses’ hooves as they pull along carriages. We sat one day in the Alstadt, watching the carriages trundle by while we admired a century-old combination thermometer, barometer and hygrometer that stood in the square. When the beckoning aroma of kaffee mit schlag–coffee with cream–pulled us into the nearby Café Tomaselli, we succumbed to temptation. A plump waitress in prim black, with a white apron, appeared with a huge tray crowded with apfelstrudel, topfenstrudel, tarts and cakes smothered with cream, custard, and fresh fruit. Would we care for some? Oh, yes, we would–who couldn’t?

There are other cafés in the Alstadt. Other restaurants too, including an Indian one which proclaimed daily specials we’d never heard of. There are boutiques and shops too, selling everything from high fashion to souvenirs. But the Alstadt isn’t glamour; it’s history. History breathes, lives, proudly preens itself here.

The most imposing reminder of Salzburg’s political history is the Residenz, the administrative headquarters for many centuries. Its luxurious chambers and state rooms are impressive, and the small but excellent collection of art in the Residenzgalerie includes stalwarts such as Rembrandt and Breughel.

And then there are the churches, of which my favourite is the unusual Stiftskirche St Peter. St Peter’s is in stark contrast to the gloomy, forbidding interiors of many of Austria’s other churches, including Vienna’s Stephansdom and Salzburg’s very own Franziskanerkirche. Here the walls are airy and pristine white, picked out in a delicate grey-green; murals cover the ceiling, depicting the life of St Peter.

The Franziskanerkirche is much older than St Peter’s, and darker, quieter, more sombre. A young monk, clad in the brown habit of the Franciscans, stood outside, talking earnestly to a lady. Inside, an older colleague knelt in prayer. The quiet dimness of the Franziskanerkirche, I thought, was conducive to prayer.

The Salzburg Dom, built originally in 774 AD but destroyed and rebuilt many times since, is the third of the three main churches. Decorated with frescoes and stucco work, the church proudly acknowledges that this is where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was baptised 250 years ago.

And that pride is well-deserved–Mozart, after all, is Salzburg. The music he composed is played all across the city. His smiling face is emblazoned on the gold foil on chocolates; his distinctive signature scrawled below. The souvenir shops sell tiny handmade replicas of violins, small enough to fit in your fist. Liqueurs named after Mozart’s sister Nannerl (an accomplished musician in her own right) are on sale. And everyday, there’s a patient crowd of music-lovers waiting for the Mozart Museum in the Mozart Geburtshaus to open at 9.

The Mozart Geburtshaus, where Wolfgang was born in 1756, blends the classicism of Mozart’s age with more modern styles. Wooden floored rooms, stark and austere, hold displays of the composer’s possessions: a silk wallet, a violin he owned as a child; an alabaster tobacco case. There are locks of his hair and sheets of music written in his own hand. The walls of one room are chocolate in colour, with Mozart’s biography scrawled all across in large sloping white letters. And there is the room that portrays Mozart’s Salzburg: an upside-down depiction, three-dimensional and mesmerising. A model of the city hangs from the ceiling, the spires and domes reaching down towards a dark floor studded with star-like lights.

Yes, the Mozart Geburtshaus is a tribute to Mozart; but it’s also a tribute to Salzburg. And a well-deserved tribute at that, to a gentle, soothing city that’s easy to like, hard to forget.

(First published in Lounge, May 2007)

Down South in Orleanpet

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Pondicherry has a strangely surreal feel to it.

It’s not as if India is short of places with a colonial past. Just about every hill station in the country, from Nainital to Ooty, has its clutch of old stone churches, its Mall Road and its little shops selling jams and marmalades. Many also have old cottages with fireplaces, shady verandahs and spooky stories of Raj-era ghosts. That, however, is where it invariably ends. The colonial past is just that: the past.

Pondicherry is a different kettle of fish altogether, somewhere between a hearty bouillabaisse and a spicy, coconut-scented meen kuzhambu. The town divides neatly up into the Tamil quarter and the French quarter: the latter so Gallic, it’s an unashamedly antipodean version of a sun-drenched seaside town somewhere in southern France. And the French air of Pondicherry isn’t restricted to a few old colonial churches–although there are plenty of those–or some shops selling French wines. No; it all goes much deeper than that.

Our first morning in Pondicherry, we wake to a breakfast of strong coffee, buttery brioches and mouthwatering croissants. The stewards have soft accents and roll their rs much better than I ever managed in three years of studying French. And the Pondicherry map we’re graciously given by the manager is a deluge of French names: Rue Dumas, Rue Mahe de Labourdonnais, Rue de la Marine, Rue Suffren, even a memorable Orleanpet.

A day’s wandering through the streets of the French Quarter, and we experience a distinct sense of déjà vu. The pale yellow and ochre houses, with their white trim and wrought iron window grills, look familiar. The Cluny Embroidery Centre on Rue Romain Rolland has a façade that curves delicately above a wooden gate with an antique knocker. The street names, stenciled in neat white letters on deep blue rectangles of metal, are nailed precisely at eye level at each street corner.

Surely we’ve seen all of this before?–in Paris, perhaps. The quiet streets, the bicycles outside the houses, the flowering trees along the pavements: all of it is straight out of the Mediterranean.

But we turn a corner, and suddenly we aren’t sure any more. Goubert Market, which sounds deliciously Gallic on the map, turns out to be firmly Tamil in flavour. It’s a covered market teeming with people who sell everything from fish and dried shrimp to coconuts, huge bunches of bananas, and vegetables that we don’t even attempt to identify.

Outside Goubert Market, a policeman is busy directing traffic. And unlike other police constables all across India, he’s not wearing a beret or a Gandhi topi. His uniform cap is a kepi, bright red and with a black peak. The last time I saw a policeman wearing a kepi, he was a Parisian gendarme.

Opposite the French consulate on Rue de la Marine, a coconut seller plies a brisk trade, handing out tender green coconuts to thirsty people like us. Further along, on Rue Dumas, a rickshaw-puller, bright calico lungi tucked up about his knees, sits on his haunches eating his lunch. His rickshaw, standing on the narrow lane beside him, is like any other you’d see in this country: shiny red seat, spindle-thin wheels, and vividly painted flowers on the aluminium backrest. Among the flowers, like on thousands of other rickshaws all across India, are painted the names of those whom the rickshaw-puller holds dear. His daughters, perhaps, since they are all female names. And what names: Bernadette is one I still remember.

In a city where rickshaw-pullers are related to women called Bernadette, we’re not really surprised when we notice an old family photograph at the hotel where we’re staying. The Hotel de L’Orient was once a villa owned by the Sinnas, a family of merchants. Opposite the hotel’s reception counter is a quaint black and white photograph of the family, dating from the early 1900’s. It’s a classic photograph: women draped in demure saris, moustachioed men wearing huge turbans. Very Indian–until we notice the names written below. There’s an Edouard here, a Thérèse there, other names straight out of 19th century France.

This completely unexpected mix of India and France is what really makes Pondicherry so appealing. The churches, for instance (and Pondicherry has many of them, all with mile-long French names) are a lively hybrid of architectural styles. The Eglise de Sacre Couer de Jesus, a somewhat startlingly vivid combination of white, deep green and scarlet, contains stained glass windows depicting much-loved French saints, Joan of Arc included. The terracotta tiles framing each window, however, are straight out of a south Indian brick kiln–and the Madonna near the altar wears a sari.

The Eglise de Notre Dame des Anges, a replica of the cathedral at Lourdes, is not quite so obvious a mélange of East and West. The pale lemon and peach exterior hides a sober interior covered in off-white plaster, worked into elegant floral patterns. The same plaster is used in the framed depictions of the Stations of the Cross, a series hung all around the church–and labelled only in French. The church, we learn, is more commonly known to the local Tamils as Kaps Kovil: the Church of the Capuchins, since the Capuchin monks were the original builders of this church.

A minute’s walk from Kaps Kovil, and we reach the seafront, a stretch of grey sand and black rocks. A circular white building labelled Douane (the French word for Customs) dominates the promenade, the Indian tricolour fluttering jauntily above it. Alongside is a low white lighthouse, and a short distance further, at the corner of Rue Mahe de Labourdonnais, is the World War I Memorial. Stark white columns flank the poignant life-size figure of a soldier, clad in a greatcoat and leaning on his rifle. The words above–Aux combattants des Indes Françaises morts pour la patrie, 1914-1918–are only in French. No English.

Which is perhaps the most telling statement there can be about Pondicherry. Unabashedly French, though with more than a hint of native colour.

Enticing? Absolument.

(First published in Lounge, November 2007)

The Sari Satyagraha

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The washerwoman, her sari clinging to her wet ankles as she drew water from the well, was the first to inform Sulakshana of the news. Sulakshana had been sitting on the charpai under the neem tree that grew in a corner of the courtyard. It was her favourite place, the place she always retired to after she had done the little bit of supervision that was required to keep the household moving on its well-oiled way. The masalas, the rice, and the pulses had been carefully unlocked and handed over to the maharaj; the vegetables had been purchased, and the gardener taken to task for not having trimmed the hedges, which were getting straggly. The local bhishti, his waterskin taut and cool, had come by to ask for the one anna due to him—and Sulakshana had, with characteristic kindness, told him to sit and have a cup of tea while he waited for the munim to bring the money.
It was, thought Sulakshana, rather silly that she should be forbidden to pay the bhishti out of the household money. “It’s a matter of principle,” her husband Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi said. “The bhishti doesn’t bring water for the house; he brings it for the shop. So he should be paid out of the shop’s accounts, not your household money. You have to be organised.”

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi, despite the fact that he was a mere two years older than his twenty-year old bride, had few qualms about correcting her. His superior education and his wider experience of the world, such as it was, made him (at least in his own eyes) a being far superior to his submissive wife. He had decided opinions about everything from religion to ancient mathematics to politics, and he was not by any means shy about expressing his opinions. His acquaintances, relatives, friends and neighbours were treated, willy-nilly, to long monologues. They were told that Hinduism preached a doubtful theology and could be much enriched by borrowing from Buddhism, Theosophy, and the Brahmo Samaj. They were informed that the only sure cure for a cough was a mixture of ginger, honey and peppercorns; that painting could never be replaced by photography; and that the Treaty of Versailles had been unduly harsh on Germany. Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi waxed eloquent on the many ills of venturing out without first drinking a glass of milk boiled with turmeric; he praised Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra to the skies; and he insisted that there was no monument in India as exquisite as the Zeenat-ul-Masajid in Delhi.
He propounded theories that seemed either utterly ancient or completely avant-garde to a society that never quite knew what to expect of him.

Sulakshana bore, in a large part, the brunt of her husband’s admonitions and advice. “You should not let Birju cook the spinach in mustard oil,” he would say. “It is certain to cause flatulence.” Or, while inspecting a pile of neatly folded clothes brought in by the washerwoman: “Surely you will not accept this? She has been beating the clothes—see, these threads are fraying—”. Or, when he came home early one day and found Sulakshana sitting by herself and reading Devaki Nandan Khatri’s Chandrakanta: “Must you be filling your mind with such trash? If you cannot find a more uplifting book to read, tell me. I’ll get some for you.” And the very next day, Sulakshana had been brought half a dozen books from the local library. They ranged from Premchand and Bhartendu Harishchandra—which Sulakshana enjoyed—to translations of Goethe and Darwin, which put her to sleep.

The young woman bore the restrictions on her reading and her management of the household stoically enough. What irked her, however, was her husband’s never-ending counsel on her dress and deportment. “I do not see why you should be wearing such an expensive sari at home, Sulakshana,” he remarked one day. He had just returned from the shop and was sitting in the courtyard sipping a cup of tea. Sulakshana was sitting before him, waving a palm-leaf fan to keep him cool.

“It’s hardly expensive,” Sulakshana murmured in a moment of defiance. “It is cotton, after all.”

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi put down his cup and stared at his wife, horror writ all over his thin clean-shaven face. “It is a jamdani,” he said. “A Dhaka muslin. It may be cotton, but it is expensive. You cannot hope to fool me.”

Sulakshana, flushed with annoyance, looked down at the offending sari. It was a beautiful piece of work, a phulwar, with floral motifs woven into an elegant blue-black ground. It had been a gift from an old aunt, and Sulakshana knew well enough that her husband probably knew—to the nearest anna—how much it cost. He, after all, did not own a sari shop for nothing.

She did not say anything, and her husband picked up his cup again. “From now on, let me not find you wearing expensive clothes at home,” he said. “You of all people should know how things are. The poverty, the oppression, the turmoil in this country—the mind boggles.” He shook his head unhappily. “The Great War has not been over two years, and here you are, behaving in this extravagant fashion. Next we know, you’ll be dressing up in a banarasi to go to the temple.”

The arrival of a chance visitor had put an end to the conversation; but from that day on, Sulakshana was allowed to only wear dull cotton saris at home. If she had to go out, she was permitted to drape herself in something slightly expensive, such as a jamdani. Her richly embroidered kanthas, her jamawars and paithanis and tanchois, were put by and unearthed only at Diwali, or on the rare occasion of a wedding.

That day, Sulakshana was wearing a rather battered old tangail, an offwhite sari woven with a pretty border of black and red. It had seen better days; the hem was frayed, and there were a few spots of turmeric that even good strong sunlight had not been able to banish. Sulakshana was sitting cross-legged on the charpai, a well-polished brass paandaan cradled in her lap. She was busy cracking the supari when the washerwoman walked over, squeezing the water out of the end of her sari as she did so.

“There was quite a commotion at the ghat this morning,” the washerwoman said, apropos of nothing. She loved a bit of gossip, and Sulakshana, who had nothing better to do, had no objections to hearing it. She put aside the supari cracker and wiped her hands on her sari.

“Why? What had happened?”

“Some students from the English College had gathered at the ghat and were shouting slogans against the British. The police came and arrested all of them, each and every one. And you know, bibiji, those students didn’t utter a squeak about being dragged off to the police station. That was what really surprised me, the way they happily let themselves be taken away—”

Sulakshana was more in the know than the washerwoman. “Ah,” she said, going back to her task, “That’s because of the Non-Cooperation Movement, Lajwanti. Gandhiji has called for everybody to boycott the British, you know. He has said people should not touch anything that is even vaguely British: so students should leave schools and colleges that are sponsored by the British; government servants should leave their jobs; people should not use public transport. Things like that.”

Lajwanti looked at Sulakshana in wonder, as if Sulakshana herself were exhorting her to all these heroic—and unusual—feats of protest.

“The country will come to a standstill, bibiji,” she said, in an awed voice. “How will we manage?”

“The way we managed before the British arrived,” replied her mistress, with a faint smile.

“But where is the sense in deliberately getting arrested? The students could have easily escaped, bibiji; but I saw them letting themselves be arrested. That’s sheer stupidity; why would anybody want to do that?”

Sulakshana shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said quietly. “But Gandhiji has said that it will help the Freedom Movement, so I suppose he must be right.”

Lajwanti had to be satisfied with this answer; but Sulakshana herself came to know much more about the Non-Cooperation Movement, Civil Disobedience, Satyagraha, and nonviolent resistance that very evening. Her husband, who had also heard news of the arrests, took it upon himself to educate her.

“Gandhiji used satyagraha as a successful way to protest when he was in South Africa,” he told her as they sat on the verandah after dinner. Sulakshana was mending a tear in one of her saris, and Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi was chewing a paan and gazing pensively out onto the moonlit garden.

“And not just in South Africa, but also in Champaran and Kheda. Everywhere, even the poorest of people have come together in an organised way to protest—peacefully, mind you—against oppression. It has worked in the past; it should work now. Gandhiji has a lot of foresight, Sulakshana. You mark my words; if there is one man who can win freedom for this country, it is he. He alone can show us the way.”

Sulakshana did not say anything. She did not need to; her husband was quite happy listening to his own voice.

“There are other leaders who’re very sceptical, of course—Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Jinnah, plus some others, including Annie Besant—but that is to be expected. You can’t hope to please everybody. What matters is that the younger generation are all for it. The Congress Party is supporting it completely, and already hundreds of people are leaving cushy jobs with the government in order to enlist with the Congress.”

He droned on, recounting to a bored Sulakshana all the events of the past few weeks that seemed to indicate the increasing antagonism of the people to British rule. He extolled the right-mindedness of leaders like Maulana Azad and Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, who supported the Non-Cooperation Movement. He rattled off, as if he had learnt them all by rote (and Sulakshana wondered privately if he had actually done so), all the major incidents of Civil Disobedience in the past week. Sulakshana was told, in painstaking and tedious detail, of each arrest in the city; of each case of refusing to salute the Union Jack; of each episode that smacked even faintly of resistance to British rule. Sulakshana was yawning surreptitiously by the time he finally sat back in his chair and said, “It’s time we were asleep. Don’t want to be late getting up tomorrow morning, do we?”

Sulakshana’s interactions with the outside world were limited to the small-time traders and hawkers who came by with their wares; the servants; and a small circle of friends and relatives whom she occasionally visited, along with her husband. From these people, and from the newspapers that her husband insisted she read—“For heavens’ sake, you’re not illiterate! Use your education, Sulakshana. Read, read!”—she managed to remain somewhat abreast of what was happening. But it was, ultimately, her husband who directed her.

About a week after the mass arrest at the ghat, Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi came home to announce to his wife that their household was going to be joining the Non-Cooperation Movement.

Sulakshana, who was sitting on the bed and sewing buttons on to her husband’s kurta, looked up in surprise. “Joining the movement?” she said faintly. “But why? I mean—how? As it is, we do nothing to support the British.”

Her husband took off his neat black achkan and hung it up before turning back to her. “You may not think so, Sulakshana,” he explained patiently. “But unwittingly, we- and I don’t mean just the two of us, but also the servants- may be doing a lot of things that help support this colonial government. It’s wrong, absolutely and utterly and completely wrong. We’re killing our own motherland, Sulakshana; have you no patriotism in you?”

Sulakshana did not respond to this melodramatic piece of rhetoric, and her husband continued. “For instance: when you go to the market, or to visit your old school friend, you use public transport. Now that is support of the British government.”

“But I go in Manohar’s ikka,” said Sulakshana plaintively, a protest that drew a scowl from her husband.

“But do the servants do the same? No, they don’t—”

“They walk,” Sulakshana interrupted gently.

“All right, all right—maybe not as far as public transport goes, but there are other ways. We should stop using anything that is manufactured abroad. Be Indian, buy Indian. So no more of these fancy things you keep filling the house with. We are not here to help support the British economy. We have to look to our interests first, the interests of our nation—”

Sulakshana cut in again, this time not quite so gently. “Your hair oil is English,” she pointed out. “And your shoes. And the tailor who made those smart jackets of yours was also British, I think.”

“Certainly not! He was not British, he was a Goan gentleman. Part Portuguese, maybe, but very definitely not British. You cannot be expecting me to be burning up my jackets just because the man who made them is Goan. That would be silly. But yes, the hair oil must be thrown out. Get Birju to buy me some coconut oil when he goes to the market tomorrow.”

He paused a while, chewing his upper lip thoughtfully. “There is so much that can be done,” he said. “So much. We must do our bit, Sulakshana. It would be a shame if we didn’t.”

His wife nodded, and for a change (considering her recent volubility) did not say anything. Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi frowned to himself, and then, unable to think of anything else to say, went off to the room he liked to call his study.

Her husband may not have said anything further on the topic; but Sulakshana’s sister-in-law, who came visiting the next morning, had much to say. Devaki was a stout, richly dressed woman with a deceptively jovial exterior that hid an iron will. She was a good twelve years older than her brother, and was one of the very few people who paid no heed whatsoever to Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi’s many strictures. Fortunately for Sulakshana, this formidable lady had developed, almost from the day Sulakshana was married, a soft corner for her brother’s timid young bride.

Devaki bustled into the house shortly after ten in the morning, accompanied by two children and a servant carrying a large basket of mangoes. The servant was sent off towards the kitchen, the children were handed into the care of a maid with clear instructions not to let them wander near the well; and the lady herself turned to Sulakshana.

“Come along, child,” Devaki commanded, her bangles jangling as she caught Sulakshana’s arm and steered her towards the charpai under the neem tree. “I have something to say to you—here, Birju—” she broke off to yell—“some tea, and bring the sugar separately!”

The charpai creaked as Devaki lowered herself on to it. Sulakshana sat down, her hand automatically picking up the palm leaf fan. Devaki talked of this and that—her children, her husband, an excellent recipe for lime pickle—until Birju brought the tea. When he had returned to the kitchen and the two women were alone, she said, “What have you done to yourself?”

Sulakshana reddened, but she did not look at Devaki. She stared down into the milky brown depths of the cup she was holding, and said, “I don’t know what you mean. I am perfectly well, Didi.”

“You are well, I can see that,” Devaki snapped. “I am not commenting about your health, anyway. And well you know it!” She put her cup down and reached across to caress Sulakshana’s head in a distinctly maternal way. “Why are you looking so neglected, child? Is that fool to blame for this?”

Sulakshana shook her head vigorously. “There is nothing wrong with me, Didi,” she persisted. “Nothing at all.”

“Then why, pray, are you dressed like a beggar woman?” retorted Devaki acidly. “Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi’s wife, a rich young lady if I ever saw one, wearing little better than rags!”

Sulakshana bit her lip unhappily.

“Well?”

“It—it’s not good to be wearing expensive saris at home,” she whimpered.

“Hah! Parroting what that dolt of a husband of yours has told you, if I’m not mistaken.” Devaki’s eyes glittered. “Is that it? Did he tell you to stop wearing decent clothes at home?”

“He said it would not do for me to be extravagant. The war is barely over, and people are poor and oppressed…” her voice trailed off, betraying a serious lack of conviction.

Devaki tut-tutted. “And you listened to him. Pray how will your wearing rags help the poor and oppressed?” She waited for an answer, but since Sulakshana did not oblige her with one, she continued. “He may be my brother, Sulakshana, but I am under no delusions. He is a fool, and you’re a greater fool if you let him dictate such things to you. Let him concern himself with trade and politics and other such matters. Where the household is concerned—and most importantly, where you are concerned—he cannot tell you what you should do and what you shouldn’t. You’re the woman of the house, child—show a little spirit!”

She sipped noisily from the cup of tea and then added, somewhat as an afterthought, “And if I see you wearing those tatters the next time I come, I will personally dress you up in something more suitable.”

The conversation wandered on to other topics, and Devaki did not touch upon Sulakshana’s sartorial inadequacies any more. By the time she finally left—which was after a long and leisurely lunch—she seemed to have forgotten all about it. She hugged Sulakshana briefly, assured her that a jar of lime pickle would be sent the following day, and extended an invitation to dinner whenever Sulakshana and her husband should find it convenient.
Sulakshana stood at the gate for a few minutes after the ikka had disappeared in a cloud of dust down the lane. She looked lost in thought, and when she eventually turned and went back into the house, she had much on her mind.

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi entered his house that evening to find his wife draped in a stunning gossamer-light chanderi sari. It was a delicate apple green in colour, with a thin border and butis of deep red, embellished with gold thread. It had been, if his memory served him right, gifted to Sulakshana by Devaki. Bought at his own shop, too. An expensive sari—and she was wearing it at home.

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi stood at the door of the room and gaped. “You- you’re wearing a chanderi,” he gasped unnecessarily.

Sulakshana turned to him and smiled blithely. “Yes. Devaki Didi had given it to me, don’t you remember?”

“Yes—yes, of course I remember,” he replied, halfway between angry and astonished at this unexpected rebellion.

Devaki put down the vase in which she had been arranging flowers, and, with a look of quiet joy on her face, glanced down at the billowing pleats of the sari. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“And expensive,” her husband snapped. “I think I’d told you not to wear your good saris at home.”

“Of course,” Sulakshana replied, looking up at him with limpid eyes. “But you told me that I should do my bit for the Freedom Movement, you know.”

Her husband stared at her in consternation. “What does the Freedom Movement have to do with your saris?”

“Lajwanti told me yesterday that they’re also burning cloth. Cotton cloth. There was a huge bonfire near the vegetable market, so I took Lajwanti along, and gave away all my cotton saris. Gandhiji would approve, wouldn’t he?”

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi sank back against the richly carved teak cupboard behind him. Perspiration had broken out on his forehead, and for almost a minute, he felt as if the room was whirling around him in a mad, gleeful dance of malice. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, trying desperately to control the rising panic.

When he opened his eyes, Sulakshana was looking at him anxiously.

“You burnt your saris,” her husband croaked. “But your saris were Indian, completely and absolutely Indian. They’re only burning British cloth. Why did you burn your saris?”

Her face fell. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “I thought all cotton clothes had to be burnt. I’m sorry—but I haven’t given any of your clothes, I didn’t know if you’d want that. So that’s all right, isn’t it?” she added brightly. And her husband, for once at a loss for words, could do nothing but nod.
Sulakshana smiled to herself as she went off towards the kitchen. Devaki Didi would approve of her improved wardrobe.

And Lajwanti, much enriched by the windfall of a dozen cotton saris, would not think herself too poor any more.

(Winner of the e-author version 4.0 competition, http://www.oxfordbookstore.com and Reader’s Digest, 2006)

Love and the Papaya Man

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Maya had been sweeping the verandah when the papaya man first appeared. He came slowly down the road, wheeling his bicycle along, one hand balancing the basket of papayas perched precariously on the seat. He did not yell out in a singsong voice, like the other hawkers did, and Maya, busy with her twig broom and her pail of water, became aware of him only when his still, silent shadow fell across the steps of the verandah.
She straightened up, one slim hand tucking a loose strand of hair behind one ear, the other hand quickly letting down the crumpled pleats of the cotton sari bunched up around her knees. From within the house, the mistress, suspicious of the sudden silence, called out, “Maya! Maya, have you finished?”—and then, “What is it? Has someone come?”
Maya, quiet for the briefest of moments, answered, “Papayas, memsahib. There’s a man selling papayas… do we need any, memsahib?”

And that day, for the first time in what was to be a long and literally fruitful association, Maya stepped down into the dusty road, to stand beside the papaya man’s bicycle and examine the fruit he sold. Easily, unhurriedly, she smelt and felt each papaya, aware at the same time of the man who stood by, watching her. A quiet young man, who silently appraised her; admired the curve of her chin, the sleek golden slimness of her waist, and the thick silken plait which snaked its way down—

“This one,” Maya said, and glanced up to find him looking at her. He looked away hurriedly, and Maya, to her chagrin, flushed as she handed him the money, and wrapping up the papaya in the end of her sari, walked quickly away into the house. The man stood for a while, all by himself in the road, looking down at the crumpled money in his palm; then he continued down the road, not bothering to stop in front of any of the other houses.

And so it continued; for days, for weeks, for months. Long after papayas were not really in season any more—the papaya man would come, even if he only had one or two papayas to bring. Wheeling his cycle along, a quiet figure walking through rain and sunshine, dust and gale, stopping always at just this one house in the street. And Maya would watch for him, with a barely concealed tenseness, an eagerness she herself did not acknowledge. Even when the papayas were bitter and unripe; even when they were no good to anybody but Maya- she would buy them. To cut in thin slices and sprinkle with salt and red chilli; to eat, even if not to savour.

Until the day he said, in his characteristic quiet manner, “I won’t be coming from tomorrow.”

Maya gasped, her world suddenly tumbling to her feet. “Why?!”

He paused—perhaps for effect, perhaps because he was nervous—then he said, “I’ve got myself a job, in a printing press—”

She stared, perplexed. “But why? What’s wrong with selling fruit?”

“Doesn’t pay much,” he muttered, and then, gathering up all his courage, he looked her straight in the eye and added, “I’m thinking of getting married.”

That was all the proposal Maya could get out of him; but, a month later, when she stepped into her new home and looked in awe at the grove of papaya trees next door, she could not help but turn and look at her husband in wonder.

Her husband grinned shyly. “My neighbour’s papayas,” he murmured. “I really don’t think he’s missed any.”

(Highly commended winner in the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association’s Short Story Competition, 2002)

A Morning Swim

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The fog hung, forbidding as a pall, over the Yamuna. The water would be icy today, thought Rashid as he huddled beside Imam Miyan’s rickety tea-stall, chewing a stale rusk. There were few people about at this hour of the morning; just the rickshaw-pullers, the coolies and the beggars. It was so cold, there’d probably be nobody at the river either.

Imam Miyan’s hefty fist clouted Rashid half-affectionately. “Eat up, you swine! Do you want to be late? Better get there before the fog lifts and people start arriving.”

Rashid nodded, his thin shoulder hurting with the blow. Not that he would ever protest; Imam Miyan was the only adult who was even remotely kind to him; and when you were just eight years old and an orphan, kindness mattered a hell of a lot. Rashid summoned up a watery smile, but kept quiet. As far back as he could remember, he had been having breakfast—a crumbly rusk and a cup of tea—at Imam Miyan’s stall. Whether his parents had been friends of Imam Miyan’s he neither knew nor cared; all that mattered was that Imam Miyan was good—sometimes.

Rashid finished the rusk and dug out a coin to pay, but he was lucky today—Imam Miyan refused the rupee.

Bihari, three years older than Rashid, was waiting at the corner, his scabby knees knocking together with the cold. They walked together to the riverside, and Bihari muttered, “Do you want to go in today? It’ll be like ice.”

Rashid nodded vigorously, trying to push away the thought of the chill water, the itching rash on his body and the stench that awaited him. They had reached the stone steps leading down to the water, and he stripped hurriedly, handing his clothes over to Bihari. The river was a swirling mass of sewage, carrying with it plastic bags, wilted marigolds and garbage. A sacred river, they called it- sacred enough for the ashes of the dead, from the cremation ground upriver, to be ceremonially immersed in it. Ashes, with bits of charred bone sometimes, wrapped in red cloth… all of it whirling downriver, somewhere to an unseen nirvana.

Rashid dived.

It was cold. Cold and opaque, wrapping its foul, grasping fingers about his thin little body, numbing his senses with its rotting presence, encasing him in an insidious envelope of slime. Rashid plunged, deep and swift, down to the riverbed. It was murky and horrible, but he swam around, in widening circles, till his lungs felt as if they would burst, and then he rose, gasping, to the surface.

A few gulps of cold air, and then he was diving down again, into the depths of the Yamuna. Six dives it took before he hauled himself out, shivering and retching. Bihari was sitting on his haunches, sifting hurriedly through a pile of slime, but he rose to help Rashid up the steps, dripping and exhausted. Rashid shrugged on his ragged clothes, watching Bihari through a putrid, shivering daze. After a moment, he said, “Come along. People have started coming; it wouldn’t do to get caught.”

Bihari stood up, and with their sodden, stinking burden, the two boys began walking back to the slums, Rashid still wet. He glanced back once over his shoulder, and saw men, wrapped in white, already beginning to go down the steps to the river. Chanting, breathing prayers, bringing with them flowers and fruit, incense and coins—all to be thrown into this sacred, smelly river. New coins, bright and shining—offerings to the Yamuna, propitiation for past sins—and Rashid’s daily earnings.

(Winner of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association’s Short Story Competition, 2003)

Khamoshi (1969)

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I first watched Khamoshi when I was a child (and too immature to really understand it). I last watched it as a teenager, more able to appreciate the film—which left a handful of clear, sharp images burnt into my memory: Dharmendra, looking out over a balcony and singing Tum pukaar lo; Dharmendra flinging a glass of water at Waheeda Rehman and then watching, half-bemused, half-shy, as she laughingly wipes her face against the front of his shirt. Waheeda Rehman, clinging to Rajesh Khanna but thinking of Dharmendra.
So, considering that this last week saw Dharmendra’s 74th birthday (on December 8th), and having read some very enjoyable posts by fellow bloggers: I decided it was time to re-view and review Khamoshi. It came as a bit of a surprise to realise that Dharmendra actually appears onscreen for just over 5 minutes (and that includes a song). The male lead is Rajesh Khanna. And the film belongs to Waheeda Rehman.

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Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

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A few preliminaries before I launch into a synopsis of this little-known but lovely little film.

This is the third film of Charles Boyer’s that I’ve reviewed on this blog (the other two are Gaslight and Love Affair). As in Gaslight, in Hold Back the Dawn too Boyer plays a less-than-scrupulous man who marries not for love but for less savoury reasons—after having convinced the woman in question that he’s deeply in love with her.
Now for the coincidence. This is also the third film of Olivia de Havilland’s that I’ve reviewed on this blog (the other two are The Charge of the Light Brigade and Not as a Stranger). As in Not as a Stranger, in Hold Back the Dawn too de Havilland plays a gullible woman duped into marrying a man she’s convinced loves her—though his motives for the marriage are very mercenary.

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