Tag: delhi

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Hum log

The maestro in his home

Humra Quraishi met Pandit Ravi Shankar at his Delhi home before he moved to the US. This is her story.

I can never forget my first meeting with sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar. It was around the time of his 70th birthday, and as I sat sipping my tea at his Lodhi Estate home, I got so terribly nervous that the entire cup crashed to the carpet of his living room. With that disaster, my nervousness peaked to such an extent that I could barely ask more than the basic, customary questions.

But  Panditji had simply smiled and tried his best to make me feel at ease.

It was only after a longish gap that I’d mustered enough confidence to try and meet him again. This was in early 1993. He’d looked frailer and quite sad. He’d told me that he’d been left totally devastated by the recent death of his only son Shubo. That was the time he and his second wife Sukanya were planning to shift base from New Delhi to San Diego, California.

When I asked him why he was moving to the US, the couple gave me a set of reasons. “The mess in the country is painful for me. Even a place like Delhi is becoming unfit for living. With everything else, the pollution here is killing,” he said. Sukanya stood close by and added, “The politicians and pollution have finished the city. We have already bought a Spanish villa in California and now I’m doing it up my way.”

To that he’d added, “For me, the house is a very important place. Since I was 10, I have been travelling, living in hostels, so I value my home. That feeling of warmth, coupled with a comfortable middle class lifestyle. Nothing gaudy or vulgar. Somehow, I totally dislike the Delhi concept of showing off. A dignified, balanced and comfortable way of life is what I like.”

He went on to tell me details of the very first house he had built for himself in Benaras. “I don’t know why I decided to build that house in Benaras. Probably because I was born and brought up in that city…and though I’d built it in the early ‘70s, within years I decided to abandon it. All sorts of crude elements had sprung up around me, those decaying values stifled me, so I decided to shift out of Benaras. I’m not a fighter. I’m a musician and I can’t stand vulgar people, besure log.”

Their Lodhi Estate home was really simple. There wasn’t a trace of any ornate furniture, no porcelain ware, no elaborate bedroom bandobast. In fact, the only room which looked well done up was the music room; with sitars, surbahaars , tanpuras neatly placed in stands and the walls of this particular room adorned with prized photographs capturing Panditji with John Lennon, Uday  Shankar, Baba Allauddin, Pablo Casals, Mariam Anderson, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

The maestro’s bedroom had only a double bed and a fax machine in it. As we neared the puja  room, he told me, “This isn’t just a puja room but my private corner. This is where I meditate, do riyaz, pray. For me, religion is a very personal thing. I am certainly not ritualistic. In fact, like me, most musicians are broad-minded.

When I was 18, I went to live with my ustad, Baba Allauddin, and though he was a devout Muslim, his home in Madhya Pradesh’s Maiher was full of photographs of Kali, Krishna, Christ, Mary…music makes you more tolerant. I only wish our present-day politicians were more musically-inclined; then there’d be more harmony and not the present-day cacophony!”

I asked him, “If religion is so personal to you, why is there such a bold ‘Om’ inscribed on the very entrance gates to your home?”

He didn’t just explain this with words, but he also wrote in my notebook. I quote him, “Om or Aum is the primordial sacred sound that has been uttered, chanted and sung by yogis, musicians and the common man for thousands of years. In music, Omkar plays a very important and a very great part. Mian Tansen and his family gave great importance in their singing to the aalap, which starts with the words ‘Hari Om’. This gradually changes to nom, tom etc…To me, as a musician, this sound signifies a deep spiritual vibration, mentally as well as physically.”

 (Picture courtesy guardian.co.uk)

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Guest writer

Sex and the city

Shifa Maitra recounts a recent late night ordeal in Mumbai, and says that Mumbai is only slightly safer than Delhi.

So Delhi is an awful place and women shouldn’t even visit. Well, Mumbai is just a tad better. Having lived in both cities and having returned here after a five-year stint in Delhi, I can tell you that living on your own as a single woman here isn’t as great
as it used to be. I am not comparing it to Delhi, but let’s put it this way, women can’t be as bindass as they used to be here. With women being molested outside a five star hotel on New Year’s eve, to a security guard sexually assaulting and killing a bright young lawyer, to acid attacks, stones being pelted at the ladies compartments in trains…all of it is a nightmare.

I recently had a shocker of an experience when I was returning home from a late night shoot. Thank God my driver was driving. It was around 3 am and at the Juhu beach turning, an SUV came very close to my car, with some guys inside it waving and screaming. My first reaction was to see if it was someone I knew, but my driver sensed trouble and stepped on the accelerator. I could see them screaming and making lewd gestures. I panicked and my driver warned me that he would be speeding – this car tried to block our way and stop in front of us. The entire ordeal lasted a few minutes but it was nightmarish. When I looked up, my driver had taken another route till we lost them.

I was telling a friend the next day about this incident, and she said that something similar had happened to her and a friend when they left from Wtf in Versova and were going home. We don’t have a Chief Minister, yet, who tells us that women should stay at home to avoid such incidents, but we are getting there.

Pepper sprays and learning taekwando are all very well. Drunk driving is something the city has been able to get under control, but all the same, driving alone past midnight is best avoided. A friend had a flat tyre late at night at the Garage Road in Santacruz, and she was pretty shaken up by the time she got home.

Another thing to avoid is going for a walk or a run at night. From Versova’s back road to the Carter Road promenade, women have had to deal with unwelcome attention for no fault of theirs.

Allowing electricians, plumbers and watchmen inside your home when you are alone is again a no-no. However inconvenient, call a friend or neighbour to hang around till the work is being done. Someone I know runs an agency for guards, and he was candid about the fact that background checks on those employed are not always done.

Taking an autorickshaw at night is asking for trouble. God help you if you light up a cigarette, you really may not get home. People who seem perfectly ‘normal’ when alone, when in a group become a mob that can’t be trusted. Colaba Causeway, Gateway of India, Linking Road and Juhu are areas that are hellholes, given that streetwalkers operate there and any woman out at night alone is instantly branded as one.

Crowded places are again a bane, whether it is Ganpati visarjan or Holi. New Year’s eve or the Bandra Fair, the minute a woman is in the crowd, it is assumed that the woman will ‘enjoy’ being groped and molested. Sad but true, that women are better off staying off the roads when these hooligans reign.

Well, the silver lining is that if a woman asks for help in a public place in Mumbai, people will step forward and help her. Walking into a cop station is also not as daunting as it would be in Delhi.

Keeping your mobile phone charged at all times helps, and calling up a friend when there is a hint of trouble makes sense. A friend who lived alone had a drunk neighbor banging on her door at one in the morning. Thankfully, she called us instantly and had only frayed nerves to deal with.

So, trust in God but lock your car, as the Dalai Lama said. Of course Mumbai is a rocking, fun city, but don’t push your luck.

Shifa Maitra is a media professional based in Mumbai.

(Picture courtesy Joshi Daniel)

Categories
Become

She crafts beautiful door handles…

…and hardware that make a home’s interiors go from great to wow! Anagha Dandekar’s work is literally crafted by hand.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Anagha Dandekar (46) is beautiful, successful, and scion of one of the country’s premier business families – her grandfather, DP Dandekar, founded the Camlin Group of companies, and father Subhash made the brand a household name. Despite being an heir to a powerful business that has impacted generations of Indians, Anagha chose to chart her own route; she runs and manages Hardware Rennaissance, a firm that makes hand crafted hardware for homes.

She started her business at Santa Fe, US, where she resides, but the former Mumbai girl recently started retailing in the city of her birth and in Delhi, too. Anagha spoke to The Metrognome about the business that changed her life, how her early grounding with Camlin helped, and what it takes to be in a position of power in business.

What are your earliest memories of your father when he was with Camlin? 

From when I was a few years old, I remember going with my father to our offices and factory in Andheri. My brother and I loved going there, we would always be excited. My father would show us new machines and how products were being made. I especially loved watching wax crayons being made – the way molten wax was poured into the mould machines, and how the crayon sticks would start coming up like magic.

How far has the presence of Camlin been instrumental in honing your creative instincts? Also, how important has the home atmosphere been? 

Camlin and the home atmosphere have been pivotal in making me the person I am today, in awakening and honing my creative and business instincts. Growing up, my parents would take us to art galleries to see the best of Indian artists and we would often meet and talk to them. My mother is a very creative person and I was just five years old when she got me started on Bharatanatyam. My father encouraged me all the way through my arangetram and till I came to the US.

My guru, the great Sucheta Bhide Chapekar, instilled in me a love and appreciation of dance, movement, form, and expression. I also learned Indian classicial singing for some years, and I was active in school plays. I guess you could say that I was immersed in all forms of the arts while growing up!  But even through all that, I always knew that my career would be in business, and ideally combining it with art.

How did the idea for ‘Hardware Renaissance’ come to you? 

I happened to meet a creative, energetic person named David Coe, who used to make beautiful doors. Together, we explored the

idea of making a line of exceptional hand-crafted hardware as good as his doors, and Hardware Renaissance was born. I learned all the technical aspects of hardware from him. Unfortunately, he passed away from cancer several years ago.

What was your parents’ reaction when you started your own line of work and did not return from your studies in the US to join the family business? 

My parents were certainly disappointed, because that meant I would not be back home, and not be a part of Camlin. But I was always brought up to think independently and be my own person, so I guess that was the downside!  However, as they got to learn more about my plans, and as they saw the unfolding vision and strategy for Hardware Renaissance, they were very supportive and have given me their guidance and support throughout.

What was the initial period of setting up your business in Santa Fe and later, promoting it, like? 

Since our hardware line is so unique, and since it involved working with blacksmiths in India and the USA, it took about two years to develop the initial, small hand-forged iron range. We launched it through four dealer showrooms in Santa Fe and in neighboring Colorado. It was a very exciting time, full of creative energy and business planning. We had to really educate customers about the way the hardware was made, why it was unique and special, because it was totally new to the market.  Architects and interior designers were not familiar with hand-crafted hardware. They had never seen such unique finishes either!

How has the US largely responded to the ‘handmade’ concept that is such a big feature of your work? 

High end customers in the US appreciate hand craftsmanship tremendously. Labour being so expensive there, most items are machine-made. So the response to our hardware has been very enthusiastic. I have had architects and designers as well as high end homeowners tell me many times that they still cannot find hardware with such a high degree of hand craftsmanship anywhere in the world. It is a source of great pride to them to be able to have something made entirely by an artisan adorn their doors. And the fact that it works so precisely too is invaluable.

What were some of the challenges you faced in sourcing material and labour in the US?

We manufacture and distribute our hardware through 80 showrooms in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Bermuda. They are our dealers who display and sell the hardware. The main challenges were in getting the products developed to our satisfaction. Then we needed to hire and train patina artists in the US to develop and perfect our unique hand applied finishes for production. Creating something entirely new, involving a high degree of hand craftsmanship, and across two continents, was a challenge for sure!

Why did you feel the need to retail in India? What is the market like, for products such as yours? 

At this time there are no plans to open our own stores here, because we want to evaluate the best way to sell the hardware. Each market is different in the dynamics of customer tastes, of selling and distribution, and we are working closely with several top Indian architects and designers to ensure that we give the high end Indian market what it wants, and the way it wants it. The Indian market is maturing in the high end, with customers more aware than ever of world class luxury goods. I feel that our hardware offers a compelling choice since there is nothing like it in India. The concept of high end, exclusively manufactured hardware with unique finishes and precision working is exciting and new in India, and with our association with Camlin, the Indian customer has a high trust factor also.

Is Camlin in any way associated with the daily working of Hardware Renaissance?  

In the USA, where Hardware Renaissance is head quartered, there is no linking of working with Camlin. In India however, there is close daily working with Camlin Fine Sciences Ltd., my brother’s company. Manufacturing, as well as marketing and distribution activities for India, are all operated through this Camlin offshoot. That gives us a tremendous position of strength with deep resources and the implicit faith of the Indian customer in the Camlin name and legacy. My father, though retired as Chairman of Camlin, is my advisor and supporter, and my brother is also behind Hardware Renaissance all the way. I am extremely grateful for this family support that I have.

What keeps you motivated and challenged? 

My goal of creating a high end brand that truly stands for hand crafted quality world-wide is what keeps me motivated and challenged. Creating beautiful hardware is energising – it is something that customers touch and use in their homes all day long, it is the jewellery of their home. Yet for hardware to be exceptional, it not only has to look beautiful but it must also work with precision. The marriage of art and engineering is a constant challenge, but very satisfying when the result is a good one!

Where do you see yourself five years from now? 

I see myself working hard to take the brand to greater heights in design and in market reach. My vision is to add line extensions, and to see the brand launched in many countries around the world.

 

Categories
Event

New Gandhi on the block

Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi has recently become a grandfather – the child was born last month in the US.
by Humra Quraishi

I have often wondered if the Indian political scene would have been any different if Mahatma Gandhi’s children, grandchildren and great grandchildren had stepped in and got into the thick of things. Sure, his grandson Rajmohan Gandhi (son of Devdas Gandhi) had been politically active for a brief while, but then he moved far away from it, taking to academics and writing on a full-time basis. But Rajmohan and Usha have now been blessed with a grandson! A new Gandhi is born.

I have known Rajmohan and his wife Usha for several years now. Their daughter Supriya  and my daughter Sarah studied together  in college and were great friends, and through the girls, we parents got to meet each other. They – Supriya and Sarah – were pursuing Philosophy honours at Delhi’s St. Stephen’s College. We’d resided quite close by on  Lutyen’s Delhi Shahjahan and Pandara Roads, so the interactions grew. And what struck me about the couple was the simplicity at Usha and Rajmohan Gandhi’s home – they believed in simple food, simple clothing, and the very basics required for living.

About 12 years ago, Usha, Rajmohan and their two children, Surpiya and Devadatta, shifted to the United States. Rajmohan is currently a Research Professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, but the family comes to India almost three or four times a year.

A few years ago, Supriya married an academic, Travis Zadeh. The wedding was a simple affair – just flowers and diyas dotting the lawns and  in the midst of it sat the guests. Perhaps in keeping with Mahatma Gandhi’s stress on simplicity, his great grand-daughter Supriya Gandhi’s marriage was one of the most austere marriage ceremonies anyone’s ever attended. There was no band, dholak, shehnai or music of any strain, no horses or elephants, no dolis or carts, none of the usual tamashas. Friends and close relatives were served vegetarian snacks and fruit juice. The same was offered to the baraatis who had come all the way from the US with the groom, Travis, who is of mixed American-Iranian parentage.

After all these years, it brings me a quiet happiness to know that Supriya, my daughter’s friend, is now the proud mother of a baby boy. The child was born last month in October in the US. They have named the child Anushirvan Gandhi-Zadeh. Anushirvan in Persian means ‘one possessing an immortal soul’.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist and author of Kashmir: The Untold Story, and co-author of Simply Khushwant.

 

Categories
Trends

Of reshuffles and survival instincts

Humra Quraishi writes on Delhi’s recent Cabinet reshuffle, and how the common man has more serious issues to think of.

The recent Cabinet reshuffle in Delhi happened and within minutes, one could hear the rumblings of people reacting to the news of over 20 changes in the old team – wherever you went, you could hear people saying, “BJP , SP, BSP or Congress, there are thieves in each one of them!” The reshuffle doesn’t seem to have impressed anybody here, in fact, it is becoming increasingly difficult for politicians to sway today’s Indian with reshuffles and promises, whether at the Cabinet or the municipality level.

Placements and displacements, shifts in portfolio and power, changes and re-changes, moves and  counter moves…they are no longer good distracting tactics. Those days are gone, dear politicians!

The small screen, together with the likes of constant rabble rouser Arvind Kejriwal are responsible for bringing about a greater awareness about what really goes on in the corridors of power. This awareness is nudging the average Indian to look beyond the obvious, crane his neck to look for what goes on behind the faces and the people at centre stage, occasionally glance at the Right too. And with this increased awareness and greater surveillance by the media, skeletons are rapidly tumbling out of several high-profile closets.

Each time I see Arvind Kejriwal on TV, he looks frailer but more determined to fight the good fight. He  is  diabetic, so it is a sheer wonder that he is managing to take on the accompanying stresses of his campaign – and its invariable offshoots – and still going strong with mini or full-blown revolts.

These recent movements have certainly caused a churning in the political landscape, but its gathering momentum could well be derailed not by being trampled by police boots and brute force,  but simply because the man on the street, who can really drive this momentum, has more important things to do – like fight for his survival. Political shifts and rumblings go on almost parallel to the malnourishment and semi-starvation faced by the common man due to rising inflation. The daily  realities and ongoing struggles for survival are what take centre stage for the common man just now, so to expect him to have some more grit for a larger fight is a bit much.

And though I have never been to Egypt, I’ve keenly followed the unrest there, and seeing the average  Egyptian’s well-built form, I remember thinking that they seemed better fed and structured  than us Indians. Perhaps their good health helped them relentlessly march  towards Tahrir  Square. If we had a similar demonstration here, we would get bullied on the way by thugs, or at the very least, faint in the heat.

Humra Quraishi is a senior political journalist based in Gurgaon.

 (Picture courtesy PTI)

Categories
Big story

My friend in Pakistan

Second leg of Indo-Pakistan school-level project kicks off in both countries today, two Mumbai schools participate in the year-long initiative.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Nobody has pen friends any more. A pity, considering that the value of a word written on a sheet of paper, and read in another country, is much, much higher than a tweet or a post on your friend’s Facebook wall. And if your friend is in Pakistan, and is a person you have never seen before – you may not even know his name – receiving a letter from across the border, and sending your own, in turn, must make the effort extra special.

Children in five Delhi and Mumbai schools experienced this thrill last year, when they wrote to (and received) letters from unknown friends from Pakistan. Letters soon gave way to scrapbooks, scrapbooks made way for video recordings of elders who remembered pre-partition India and Pakistan and spoke lovingly of old friends and relatives now lost to geographical and political boundaries. All of these activities were undertaken by two NGOs – Routes-to-Roots from Delhi and Citizens Archive of Pakistan (CAP) – which coordinated the children’s efforts and ensured that material reached both countries seamlessly.

Mumbai kicks off the second leg of the programme, titled ‘Exchange for Change’ today at Malabar Hill, where actor Juhi Chawla formally inaugurates the programme. This time, the programme is designed around four projects – ‘Letters to the past’, under which children from both countries will speak to their grandparents to understand what life was like before 1947, a ‘Photography series’, under which students will exchange postcards depicting what their lives are like in their countries, ‘Oral history’, under which students share DVDs and create scrapbooks of their perception of life across the border, and finally, ‘Videos’, which will be shot before and after the project to record the students’ expectations of the project; select videos will also be combined and shared across the border.

The participating schools from Mumbai are Adarsha Vidyalaya from Chembur, and Amulak Amichand Bhimji Vividhlakshi Vidyalaya from Matunga. This time around, teachers will also participate in the activity, especially in ‘Letters to the past’, where they will write to Pakistani teachers.

Said Routes-to-Roots founder Tina Vachani, “With a positive response to our first programme (last year), we look forward to Exchange For Change 2012-2013 which will connect many more children, schools and cities this time. We endeavour to spread peace and friendship between the two nations through this project where 3,500 school children with their families and friends shall be involved. We are also creating alumni for the participatory schools from last project, so that students and teachers are still part of it.”

Exchange for Change is a 12-month information exchange programme between Karachi-Mumbai, Lahore-Delhi and Chandigarh-Rawalpindi that involves secondary school children who study in two low-income schools and two medium-income schools. Students in Delhi, Chandigarh and Mumbai who rarely have a connection with those in Pakistan will be encouraged to develop a relationship with their counterparts in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Karachi through sustained exchanges, while building an alternate sense of identity and awareness, as well as have a better understanding of their shared history and culture.

The programme aims for children from both countries to interact with each other through sustained dialogue and frequent exchange of informative material. Tina adds, “The next generation of Indians and Pakistanis increasingly view each other enemies. With barely any citizen-to-citizen contact it is easy to fall prey to the propaganda that is preached on either side. This project is designed to make students understand that there is little or no difference between their lives and the lives of those across the border. We hope that by the end of the project, there will be a marked difference in the way students approach India-Pakistan ties.”

(Picture courtesy: www.timesofummah.com)

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