Some notes on and arty-paparazzi style pictures of the JLF 2012

Kiran Nagarkar

The scrum outside Diggi Palace on the third day of the festival. Thousands had come to watch Oprah and the crowd was unmanageable. The organisers stopped letting people in. This led to much anger and confusion outside. Just when we thought we’d have to wait till after lunch to get in, the convoy of the Queen Mother of Bhutan of all people exited. There was a gap in the barricades and the waiting crowd sprinted in. Astonishing, as this is the sort of behaviour one expects at Bollywood events.

I’ve never had reason to complement Shobhaa De. But kudos to her, and her husband, for showing up at Penguin’s 25th anniversary party in turbans. It was a sartorial nod, I’m guessing, to Rajasthan.

Meenal Baghel, Namita Devidayal and Mohammed Hanif at the Penguin party.

AC Grayling at the Penguin party. Farrukh Dhondy is on the left.

Jason Burke from The Guardian, the philosopher AC Grayling, the organiser Palash and Farrukh Dhondy

One of the strangest sidelights of the festival was a memorial for Christopher Hitchens. It was bizarrely announced at the Caravan-New York Times party as some sort of after-party. The invitation, I am told, said Black Label would be served. People rushed over excitedly only to find a sombre gathering. Guardian writer Jason Burke, AC Grayling, Farrukh Dhondy, someone on Skype whose name I couldn’t catch and the organiser of the event, one Palash,  remembered Hitchens. Dhondy spoke volubly about his fellow Trotskyite. For those expecting a ‘rocking’ memorial, the Black Label was the only compensation.

Chai in kulhads, the perfect refreshment in between sessions

Hoshang Merchant

A couple of years ago, I was picked to go the US on a junket. When I mentioned this to a colleague, she shook my hand and congratulated me. I searched her face for a smirk, an ironically raised eyebrow. But her smile was genuine and her brow was a permanent chicane that had nothing to do with irony and everything to do with tweezers. Apparently, I learned, junkets to the first world are prestigious.

The junket is an amusing institution. You get a junket if your boss is pleased with you, that is, if you have no life apart from work. Or it’s a placatory bait, especially around appraisal time when employees, unsatisfied with raises, threaten to quit. Journalists love junkets as they love freebies. And the junket is the ultimate freebie. So getting to go on one is a matter of prestige. I’ve seen junket-returned journos distributing the mini chocolates they bought at the airport duty free and being thumped on the back by colleagues.

A junket usually involves corporate companies or tourism departments flying you to foreign countries to visit factories, inspect new hotels, participate in conferences or attend festivals. In return you give them a bit of publicity in your “esteemed publication”. Journalistic ethics? Never heard of it.

After four junkets, I decided I wouldn’t go on any more. (Despite the siren song of business class travel.) The niggling conscience could no longer be ignored. And I realised how boring most of them are. Listening to PR drivel, even if is in a fancy hotel in a foreign country, is just boring. The only fantastic junket I’ve been on was the World Gourmet Summit in Singapore. There were no speeches, only food. Lunch at a nice restaurant in the city followed by a master-class by some Michelin-starred chef, followed by sampling the stuff prepared at the class, followed by a ten course meal. But the trip was an exception.

My first junket was to Genting Highland in Malaysia, an endless amusement park set atop a hill in the midst of ancient rainforests. The perfect setting for a dystopian sci-fi film. Expecting to travel with other journos, I was surprised to find waiting for me at Bombay airport, just one other writer and a group of college kids who had been awarded a free trip to Malaysia after creating the winning model of the Petronas Towers at a competition. Not sure why the Malaysian tourism department threw us together. The best part of the trip was eating laksa.

A few years later, I travelled to Anaheim in California to attend a convention for fans of a company known for its animated films. Not much fun if you’re not a fan. Anaheim itself was a bore. It’s a lifeless town where all you see on the streets are palm trees and the odd Puerto Rican.

The latest junket was to Milan for an event promoting a coffee company. I spent a day and half conducting phoney interviews and a day and half exploring Milan. It’s a funny city. The women are ridiculously well dressed. And the men are ridiculously predatory, cruising the streets like sharks and occasionally throwing some rapid, flirtatious Italin at you. The high point of this trip, apart from business class travel of course and walking on the roof of the Duomo, was a visit to the museum in the Sforza Castle. This time, a bent old lady threw some rapid Italian at me as I stood next to the naked statue of a boy. She grabbed her crotch (that might be the most shocking thing I’ve ever seen) and gestured at the statue. The only word I understood was ‘piccolino’. But that was enough to tell me she was voicing her opinion on the marble lad’s tiny wee wee.

This is hardly comparable to the Ludovico technique. And the CRPF’s experiment seems comically naive. To think that feeding the kid hagiographies of capitalist rockstars like Ambani would turn him into an enterprising, positive thinking freemarketeer… Or maybe it will. Who knows?

At the same, this counter indoctrination is disturbing. The cops have chosen books that are almost propaganda for a capitalist way of life. These are books that suggest, directly and indirectly, that money is the autobahn to happiness. They could have given the kid novels or biographies of truly great men. Great works of art can have transformative effects. (This is not an argument against Maoists.) This is happening, not in Gujarat, but in Bengal, a state where people esteem art and consider money a dirty necessity. Intellectuals practically form an entire social strata here. One of the state’s greatest intellectuals, Amartya Sen, once attributed West Bengal’s low crime rate to the Bengali habit of reading. But perhaps this choice of literature is less surprising when you consider the money-minded zeitgeist.

In an article in The New Republic, Jed Perl talks about how pecuniary partnerships between galleries, museums and collectors influence the art market. Artists who are good but not great are privileged as their paintings sell for millions at auctions. Culture has always survived on patronage. But what we’re seeing today is culture being leashed by the might of capital.The West Bengal cops are attempting to tame the 17 year old with the appeal of capital. And that says a lot about a state in which calchaar ees keeng.

Raj and Uddhav Thackeray recently sparred over potholes. In a fantastic exchange, the cousins displayed ingenious word play to slander each other. To sum up: Raj threw the gauntlet saying that Uddhav should photograph potholes instead of wild animals. He was referring to the Sena-contolled BMC’s shoddy road work during the monsoons and his cousin’s passion for wildlife photography. Uddhav retaliated by saying that wild animals are preferable to traitorous “namak harams”. He outdid himself by adding that Raj had made a pothole in the strength of the Marathi manoos (by splitting votes of course) and that Raj should first locate the potholes in his heart (not sure what he meant by that).

Uddhav is not usually this creative with his diatribes. So it was obvious that he had help. There’s only one person in the Sena who has the imagination to script such ripostes. Babanrao Mahadik. We caught up with Mahadik to chat about his role in the latest war between the Thackerays. Mahadik suggested a clandestine meeting at a coffee shop. He was craving a “non-wheg” sandwich as he was tired of Shiv vada paos, the official snack at his shakha.

Immanuel’s cant: Did you enjoy scripting Uddhav’s replies to Raj?

Babanrao Mahadik: I enjoyed wery much. And I have responses prepared for at least ten more verbal attacks.

IC: But Raj has been quiet after the first speech.

BM: Yes, but my sources tell me that he is planning a series of comments on potholes. I know exactly what he is going to say.

IC: What?

BM: First Raj will say: ‘I’ve checked my heart. It is free of potholes. But you need to repair the potholes in your reputation.’ To that Uddhav will reply: ‘Since you are obviously incapable of doing raj over the potholed roads of politics, you should live up to your real name and make music instead.’ Not many know that Raj’s real name is Swararaj, king of music. To that Raj will give his stock answer for questions about his name: ‘The only raag I understand is the raag (rage) within me. And I’m full of raag at what you have done to this city.’ Uddhav will say: ‘You haven’t seen real raag yet. Wait till I pay you back for trying to steal my ally.’ Raj will say: ‘We’ll see whose side the BJP is on in the next Lok Sabha elections. You might not remain the raja of potholes much longer.’

IC: But how will Raj know what Uddhav is going to say?

BM: I have exchanged notes with my counterpart in MNS.

IC: So this is a game that you and your friend are playing unknown to the Thackerays?

BM: Then what, yaar! What is rajniti without some potholes.

Parsis are generally thought to be a uniformly kind, just and generous lot. The community’s history of philanthropy and lovable eccentricity has put them above reproach. So when people hear of Parsis involved in any sort of wrongdoing or activity that deviates from the eidos of the community, they are shocked.

At a meeting the other day, a reporter happened to mention that Arthur Road Jail has a Parsi convict. The information prompted a collective intake of breath. But they’re sweet goofballs who stubbornly cling to ideals in a morally decrepit world. How can they thieve and murder?

Three weeks ago, Subramanian Swamy outraged the country with his fascist views on Hinduism and Islam in an article in DNA. In the course much heated discussion over his article, it emerged that Swamy is married to a Parsi. There was surprise. How could a Parsi marry this fanatic?

Speaking of right wingers, not many know that the Shiv Sena had a Parsi MLA – Dinaz Patrawala of Cusrow Baug. Fancy that – a Sena member who is both a woman and a Parsi.

Another Parsi spouse raised eyebrows recently. It was reported that Santosh Shetty aka Anna, a gangster who is being blamed for the murder of lawyer Shahid Azmi, is married to a Parsi. How could a Parsi marry a gangster, even if he did come from Warden Road?

Of course the Parsi deviant who captivated the entire country two years ago was Kobad Ghandy. The discovery of a Parsi Maoist was received with such astonishment – it was as if penguins had been found in Africa or the dodo was still alive. Parsis either run empires or live off inheritances or potter about their colonies polishing Yezdis. That one could engage with the wider world, leave the comforts of Bombay to rally labourers in Maharashtra’s hinterland was hard to believe. Especially since Ghandy came from a privileged family. His father was an executive at Glaxo, the family had a flat in Worli and a bungalow in Punchgani and his brother ran an ice cream company called Kentucky; it was one of the first to make fresh fruit ice cream in the city. Maoists are usually regarded the scourge of society. But fond pieces were written about Ghandy, his quiet intelligence, his cooking skills, his family’s strawberry ice cream.

One has only to read about the fractious Bombay Parsi Punchayet elections to know that Parsis are human too. They fight political battles as shamefully as anyone else, can be as fanatical as Bal Thackeray and when you prick them they bleed – blood, not the milk of kindness.

There have been a number of reports in the past few days that the next theatre of conflict is going to be the online world. The UK and the US have been preparing for cyber warfare by working on arsenals of cyber weapons for some years now. Last year the US appointed a four star general to take charge of Pentagon’s Cyber Command, a unit that launches and thwarts virtual attacks. According to this rather alarmist report, China uses the services of The Red Hackers Alliance to launch cyber attacks primarily against India. Recently the Guardian quoted General Jonathan Shaw, who has been drafted to head the UK’s defence cyber-operations group, saying that cyberspace meant “conflict without borders”.

The most recent cyber attack was, of course, Stuxnet, a worm that targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities. Israel is thought to be the most probable perpetrator of the attack.

Now the script for cyber warfare has been written several times in science fiction. And this is another surreal case of life mirroring art. What does a cyber arsenal contain? Worms, viruses, all sorts of ‘deadly’ code designed to incapacitate systems, intangible weapons that cause tangible damage.

But there just might be a positive side to this. Cyber warfare might in the future preclude the use of conventional weapons, which cost a ridiculous amount of money and are rarely used. It’s a bit silly to be spending all that money for things whose purpose will remain a show of might. Instead, these virtual worms could act as effective, low cost deterrents. Also they wouldn’t require large military facilities. You don’t need acres of encampment to protect what can be stored in a pen drive. In India that would be most useful as then a lot of land can be freed for housing. In fact the army would become practically redundant because all you really need is a bunch of hackers and coders. And that’s not such a bad thing because this way, they can set themselves to more useful pursuits. At least in India, where militarywallahs spend their lives participating in mock drills and march-pasts. Then the world would be a more peaceful place and we’d all be as happy as cupcakes.

Cartoon by IC and Azeema Pardiwala

The concept isn’t new. Nepal, South Africa and Cambodia, where vulture populations are also threatened, have them. I thought it a rather sweet gesture to open a sort of health food eatery for vultures.

Vultures have become highly endangered over the last few decades because of the bovine painkiller, Diclofenac. It’s fatal for birds that feed on the carcases of farm animals that have been administered the drug. Diclofenac has been banned in India, Nepal and Pakistan. But as it’s still available in the market, the ban hasn’t effectively stemmed vulture deaths. The carcases fed to vultures that visit the restaurant are tested for Diclofenac.

However conservationists say that vulture restaurants are not the only solution. In order to stop them from feeding on carcases outside the restaurant, the entire habitat must be made free of animals treated with Diclofenac.

One community is as eager as the conservationists to see that the project succeeds. For Parsis, the loss of vultures means a loss of funerary rites. Bodies that are laid to rest in towers of silence are traditionally picked clean by vultures. Liberal Parsis have suggested doing away with, what they consider, an outdated practice. A major debate erupted on this issue in 2006, when a 65-year-old lady, Dhun Baria, secretly photographed rotting corpses in the wells of the towers of silence. After her mother was laid to rest, Baria was told by the khandiyas, the bier carriers, that it would take years for the body to decompose. A shocked Baria decided to investigate.

Cartoon by IC and Azeema Pardiwala

This event prompts several questions: What sort of mileage was the MNS hoping to achieve from this? How did they find out about Stevens’s death anniversary? Party workers aren’t known for their general knowledge. Is this Milind Panchal’s way of impressing Raj Thackeray? If Stevens is watching from the happy isles, what does he think about his new title?

Jimmy Choo is going to be in town tomorrow (March 24). Not to open a new outlet, but, oddly enough, to address school children.

Now Choo has led a life that makes a fairly inspiring story. Born in Malaysia, he moved to London where he studied, worked in restaurants and shoe factories before opening his own shoe shop and rising to become the high priest of footwear. Yet it does seem a bit premature and indulgent to introduce kids to the mercantile world of fashion. But then it’s not surprising as the talk will be held at Dhirubhai Ambani School, the most chi chi educational institution in town. (Is this their idea of a boot camp?) The international school charges several lakhs in tuition fees a year. And many of its (well heeled) parents, it’s not farfetched to assume, are patrons of Jimmy Choo. An average pair of Choos cost about $800. So the kids (many of them are real heels) are probably as familiar with Choo as they are with charts.

Then again, Choo’s talk might inspire some of the kids to become designers or sculptors or ballerinas instead of joining daddy’s hedge fund. So maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all.