Innehållsförteckning för August 2018 från The Caravan

Late one night this June, a worn down Hyundai Santro made its way through the deserted streets near South Extension in Delhi. A large polythene bag was perched rather precariously on its roof. As I followed the car in a taxi, a number of shadows emerged from the dark. The streets began to come alive. Once we came to a halt, dozens of stray dogs converged on the car. Some weaved their way through parked cars, others jumped over drains, but the ones who knew best were already waiting in anticipation of their nightly treat. A well-built man, over six feet tall, emerged from the car and was immediately surrounded by 20 dogs. It was enough to frighten me into keeping my distance, but Rohit Prem greeted them with a…

The Hellish Game of Life, a Japanese variation of the American board game Life, starts with a spin of the wheel. The spin assigns players a number from one to ten, which represents how many spaces they will move on the board. After the first spin, the players land on a square, draw a card and find out whether they will be a teacher or white-collar worker and be financially stable throughout the game, or be the manager of a coffee shop, dietician or flight attendant—jobs with decent remuneration but less stability. The original version of the game, of which there have been 62 variants, was a wholesome family activity where players move through the conventional stages of adulthood. It was first brought to Japan in 1968, with no changes…

IN LATE JUNE, NIKKI HALEY, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, came for a high-optics two-day tour in India. A brief media advisory issued by the United States mission to the UN slated the visit as diplomatic, designed “to underscore the United States’ shared values and strong alliance with the people of India.” The trip was a whirlwind: she met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, students, industry titans, politicians, and members of various religious communities. Journalists snapped photos of her alongside her kids and husband at various temples and gurdwaras. The 46-year-old American ambassador, who often calls herself “the proud daughter of Indian parents,” also received a rockstar welcome as India’s prodigal daughter, returned. Haley has been to India only twice since the age of two—both times for…

IN THE DENSE FOREST OF THE PONMUDI HILLS, in the southwestern ghats of Kerala, lives a 75-year-old poet, herbal doctor and poison healer. Lakshmikutty Kani, whom locals fondly call “Amma”—mother—or “Vanamuthassi”— grandmother of the jungle—is well known for her extensive knowledge of alternative medicine. Over the last 45 years, she has prescribed treatments to over 800 patients for various illnesses, including snakebite, cholesterol and cancer, with plant-based concoctions. In March 2017, the Mumbai-based photographer Karen Dias came across an article about Lakshmikutty’s work and travelled to meet her. She lives in a sparse village, in a half-built mud house with a thatched roof. She had received some government money to build a house but it ran out before she could complete it, a turn of events that frustrates her even…

Dance Ganga to Kaveri EXPERIMENTAL THEATRE, MUMBAI 24 AUGUST Connecting rivers through the form of dance, young artists portray the beauty of rivers such as the Ganga, Yamuna and Kaveri through a varied range of Indian classical dance forms. Vidha Lal (Kathak), Prateeksha Kashi (Kuchipudi), Vrinda Chadha (Odissi) and Lakshmi Gopalaswamy (Bharatanatyam) bring to life the tales of the different rivers of India. The performance was conceptualised by Churchill Pandian, the founder of Utsav Music. For more information, write to malihah.faizi@pointninelintas.in Art SH Raza: Traversing Terrains PIRAMAL MUSEUM OF ART, MUMBAI 24 JUNE TO 20 OCTOBER One of the most significant artists to define Indian modernism and a founding member of the Bombay Progressives, SH Raza blended together post-war American abstract expressionism and classical French techniques he learnt…

In Hyderabad’s Sanjeeviah Park, on the banks of Hussain Sagar Lake, a flagpole stands 88 metres tall. Atop it flies one of the largest Indian tricolours in the country, measuring 22 metres by 33 metres. The flag, which frequently tears in the windy conditions, is repaired every week and replaced with a new one every month. Each replacement is stitched by the same team, headed by Kambhampati Sanjeeva Rao—a 55-year-old man with a passion for flags. “I was completely in awe of the Indian tricolour, even as a child,” Rao told me. His fascination led him to “notice the flags of other countries as well,” he said. “I came to admire the ideals and struggles they stood for.” Rao wanted to start an international flag collection in the 1990s, but…

In the wake of the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms in Gujarat, Narendra Modi, then chief minister of the state, was under attack from all sides. Several leaders, even within his own Bharatiya Janata Party, held him responsible for the violence and wanted him to step down. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee advised Modi to perform raj dharma—the duty of a ruler—a remark many construed as a reprimand. The national executive meeting of the BJP, scheduled in April that year in Goa, was seen as a “make or break” affair for the controversial leader from Gujarat. At this critical time, the Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray sent two of his senior members of parliament, Chandrakant Khaire and Mohan Rawale, to Gujarat to publicly back Modi. Known as the Hindu Hriday Samrat, or…

The Public Sector Units (PSU) were initiated by the Indian government during the Nehruvian Era to play a significant role in terms of job creation, social welfare, and overall economic growth of the nation. Nehru even referred to them as the Temples of Modern India. With a responsibility of making India self sufficient, the initial strategy was to accelerate the growth of the remote and underdeveloped areas of the country. But in this process, the PSUs also managed to gain profit where companies like SAIL, ONGC and IOCL are some of the largest commercial enterprises in India now. The importance of the PSUs in India during the recession of 2008 was recognized even more when the nationalized banks and the PSUs continued to contribute to India’s emerging status as a…

THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE will not be awarded this year. This hiatus—the result of allegations of sexual assault against the husband of a member of the Swedish Academy, which confers the award—will deprive us of more than just a winner. We will also miss out on the usual wrangling over who else deserved to, but did not, win. This is an annual, global ritual, and one with a surprisingly long history—seemingly as long as of the prize itself. Take the case of Rabindranath Tagore. When he became the first Asian literature laureate in 1913, there were certainly many news stories extolling his poetry. Much was also made, though, of Thomas Hardy, the celebrated English novelist of rural life, being passed over. (He would never win.) The writer Gordon Ray…

Payola’s real name is Paola Isabel, but the nickname that was given to her in high school is now the name she goes by. It has an additional significance too: she works as a DJ and radio presenter, and in the music industry “payola” refers to an illegal practice by record companies, where payments are made to broadcast recordings on commercial radio. But at Radio Red, the radio station that Payola founded in Puerto Rico in 2015 with her partner, Etienne Car-dona, they do not need payola. “Radio Red is not a commercial radio station that only transmits pop and reggaeton,” Payola told me when we met at the radio station this April. “It is something new that did not exist in Puerto Rico. We give space to local artists.…

The 2014 Oscar-winning drama Whiplash, about a jazz teacher’s turbulent relationship with one of his students, seems to argue that great art is a product of great fear, sacrifice and total surrender. In one scene, the teacher, Terence Fletcher, furiously hurls a chair at an ambitious first-year jazz student, Andrew Neiman, learning under him at the Shaffer Conservatory in New York City. He then whacks the boy in the face and abuses him in front of the entire class. The pupil is shown being pushed to perfection through constant humiliation. The brutality of Whiplash, which makes it such a captivating film, would perhaps tame in comparison with some of the famous stories about the guru-shishya parampara, the centuries-old tradition of teaching classical music and dance in India. For instance, Alladiya…

ON 21 FEBRUARY, 17-year-old Ayushmaan woke up at 4 am. It was the first day of the higher secondary examinations organised by the Maharashtra state education board for twelfth-standard students like him. The portal to an undergraduate degree and better employment opportunities, board exams are a milestone in the life of students in India. Making his way past the boys sleeping all around him, Ayushmaan retrieved a textbook from a nearby shelf and came back to sit down on his mattress. He tried to ignore the pangs of anxiety in his stomach. Under the sterile glare of the tubelight, he studied from his English textbook for two hours, until daylight broke. After bathing, combing his hair and dressing in jeans and a t-shirt, he collected his books and went down…

SHEKHAR A LIFE Agyeya Translated from Hindi by Snehal Shingavi and Vasudha Dalmia Published in two volumes in the 1940s, and regarded as one of the most influential Hindi novels of all time, Shekhar portrays the journey of a young revolutionary in pre-Independence India. On the night before he is to be hanged as a political prisoner, Shekhar finds himself drawn into a vortex of memories—flashes of childhood angst and youthful love, philosophical questions and ideological fervour. PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS, 752 PAGES, R 699 EMPIRES BETWEEN ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY 1500–1800 Sanjay Subrahmanyam The period between 1500 and 1800 saw intense inter-imperial competition involving the Iberians, the Ottomans, the Mughals, the British and other actors. Rather than treat these imperial entities separately, Sanjay Subrahmanyam reads their archives and texts together to…