Friday, May 25, 2018

India the land of great divides!



India by Kaci Felstet


India is a land of great divides and sharp dichotomies.

It is so rightly said, whatever may be true about India, the very opposite is also true!

What do you do with a country - which was/is special in so many ways - but houses people that are hell-bent on eroding it to the core, at so many abysmally low levels?

Why are WE pushing our country backward?

Why are those - (expectedly in a minority) - who want to make a positive change silenced, not supported, not encouraged?

What and how much - personal and societal pain, anguish, corruption, crime, ravaging of the moral fabric, loss of values, falling into the depths of depravity - will it take before WE all say no more!!!!

Ahh-India to India to India-ahhhhh!!!


A village classroom in the Indian hinterland by Karuna Dayal

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Why can't we cast the caste system out? It is high time we did!


I am really upset with my lot!

Every single day, there is something being done to a Dalit or a woman or another being that can be exploited.

Why are we continually sliding back?

And what does caste mean, anyway, in today's times? I am a Kshatriya and my husband the highest level (uchch koti) of Brahmin. Does that even mean anything now? Back then, it defined people's professions and from that drew out the offshoots of their planks on the societal ladder!

But now?

And still, we continue to carry on with our hatefully abominable acts!

How will we explain our actions to the next generation? To the world that may be watching us? Heck, how do we address our Karma?

And when does the reprehensibility stop?



Photo courtesy - Google Images

Peekaboo!

No words needed!

Pictures here are, indeed, worth a thousand words!

























Tuesday, May 22, 2018

How Priyanka took the wrong carriage to the Royal Wedding!


Photo: Courtesy Mimi Cuttrell/Instagram

Priyanka Chopra is, without doubt, one of the more sartorially sensible film stars from the Indian film industry, and now the American TV. Even in several of her US public appearances, Priyanka and her stylist mostly get the style quotient right. She is always dressed out in her best, whether in Indian, regional Indian or Western choices, showcasing her finest attributes.

However, at the Royal Wedding the lilac Vivienne Westwood natty outfit did little for Priyanka Chopra. It made her look more stern, stiff and school marmish; and with that fallen lapel design, she came out looking more busty than required. Haute couture, heck, even off the hangar well-designed dresses are meant to accentuate facets that we are less endowed with and play down those that we carry amply about us. A sari, for that matter, scores remarkably on either front. 

The day dress Priyanka chose, however, failed her miserably.

I put out my unfavourable opinion of Priyanka’s ‘Royal Wedding’ look on Facebook and I had friends pouring in to share what they felt about it. Sadly for Chopra’s stylists (and she does have a huge team of 25 people to mind her every moment), most of the people commenting on the post agreed with my opinion.

One actor friend who is involved with theatre said to me, “She looked like she was going to the Royal Ascot race and not to the Royal Wedding.”

Another Milan-trained Art &Design expert friend, who has been involved in prestigious projects like the Commonwealth Games, said, “There is nothing wrong in wearing western outfits but this outfit certainly didn't do justice to the lovely artiste. Besides, trying to be like ‘them’ Priyanka had a chance to stand out of the crowd and be different. Unfortunately, she looks awkward in the Westwood outfit.”

A Banker friend based in Washington DC was unsugar-coatedly blunt and gave her broken-down-to-the-bone analysis saying, “I’d put her among the worst dressed. Simply no imagination. Overstuffed top. Poorly fitted skirt. The hat did not suit her. It made her face look round. The lipstick was the wrong colour for daytime, nor did it go with her clothes. What possessed her to go with Vivienne Westwood? You’re so right; she looked like a school marm.”

A mainstream media writer who is an expert on art and style too was as put off as me and mentioned, “She makes you think of an émigré Indian auntie from the 1960s trying to 'fit in'....and with so many fabulous, un-bling Indian clothes to choose from!” 


Photo courtesy: Team Priyanka Chopra

Now here's the thing. Less physically blessed women like me or Oprah or so many others who do not have the most ideal height or physique or sexiness have to worry a lot about what would suit us. Or rather, would we suit this or that!

But not quite Priyanka Chopra! She can carry off most things with so much panache. In fact, Priyanka wears both Indian and western outfits with such élan that she instantly becomes a role model for a million fashoinistas around the globe.

So what went wrong at Meghan - her friend's wedding? Especially when Priyanka could have the world to choose from and knew about the grand occasion for so long, longer than most common folk! 

She could have worn a fusion wear from the likes of Abu Jani & Sandeep Khosla, Rohit Bal, Sabyasachi Mukherjee or even Prabal Gurung, Ritu Beri or Rina Dhaka, made in rich Indian fabric, embroidery, design and style.

I am also of the strong belief that Celebrities should be with a Conscience and do their bit at every opportunity. This was a big one for Priyanka Chopra. I am all for letting people be. But these things should and do come from within. In fact, it is very Maslowian to start thinking of bigger causes (your people, your country, the world, the Universe, the Earth) once we have covered the first few rungs of basic needs, security, social relevance, wealth, fame etc. on Maslow’s Pyramid. As a matter of fact, a handful of celebrities, even from the world of cinema, have set wonderful examples on this point for us to emulate.

And for that, I really admire Oprah Winfrey in spite of what her detractors would say. The global Queen of Media has used her earlier highly successful and watched eponymous Show and not missed most opportunities to talk about race, women, health, weight, rape, inclusion, global warming, organic eating and a zillion other things. So here’s the ‘heart hashtag’ I’d like to see in most people of high influence - #CelebritywithaConscience.

An old colleague, completely in dissonance with my Facebook post and quite irked by the whole discussion said, “She is an Indian who is famous and attending the Royal Wedding on a personal invite. Priyanka is not leading the Indian Olympic squad and does not have to represent India in her clothes or anything!”

See, that’s the point. Priyanka didn’t have to and she did not. But she could have. She had one hell of an opportune moment to play her India hand and put Indian fashion and fabrics and design sensibilities and Indian fashion designers on the world map. That would have been one hell of a service to her country of origin.  

Incidentally, Priyanka Chopra is an Ambassador of Assam, the wondrous North-eastern State with so much to offer. Here was her chance to show off the rich textile and design heritage of this remarkable State; on a world platform with billion eyes glued on to the Ceremony. What a great endorsement that would have been!

A friend from the North-east shared my sentiment and commented, “We have brilliant fashion designers in Assam who are designing fusion dresses with our Assam silk and other fabrics. She could have even worn our mekhla sador to showcase our rich culture and heritage.”

A very erudite and wise Delhi University Professor friend, whose opinion I always value, had this to say, “Let's cut to the chase. She looks sloppy. And almost grateful she made the list. And so she went with the Astor look. Muga or paat (Assam) with an Indian designer at work would have been so much more chic. So in it and also so sublimely confident!”

On the personal PR front too, Priyanka lost out here. A dress decision around what is being suggested above would have easily got her favourable reviews and given her so many media pegs to talk about both in Indian and International media. The stories and sub-stories around her ‘Royal Wedding’ breathtaking attire that also underlined her rooted allegiance would have stayed alive on the networks and in people’s minds for a long, long time. So, it is sad also to see her PR machinery miss out on this media relations opportunity that had potential to become a huge talking affair.

A friend who used to work with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative had a similar opinion. “I agree with your point on being Indian, being creative and while maintaining your newly acquired international avatar ensuring you remain a brand for your roots,” she added.

In direct contrast to Priyanka’s decision, there were four lovely women turning heads, catching eyeballs, enjoying media presence and gathering appreciative glances and feedback with theirs. Activist Suhani Jalota, the founder of Myna Mahila Foundation, attended the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle along with her foundation members - Archana Ambre, Deborah Das and Imogen Mansfield. The four women, in their rich colour palette and fabrics from the Indian design house ‘Raw Mango,’ looked heavenly and stood out amidst the very A-list crowd that really turned up in their very expensive and designer best.



 Photo: Suhani Jalota

Priyanka could have asked her Stylist to think out of the box and plan out a fusion wear with which she could have donned a hat or a Fascinator ably; if that was the deciding matter.

You see, Priyanka does not have to try to fit in anymore. From what I see on YouTube, she is the Darling of the Indian media and has maneuvered around the American media extremely well, with most snippets on her coming out as complimentary. Many more people recognize Priyanka internationally now, so the pressure is off her somewhat, then what it was way back in her Boston days or even when she started out this time in the US of A.

Though Priyanka looked more feminine and much nicer at the Reception, sorely the Indian feel was again missing. And I think, somebody like her is just in that enviable position to clinch the 'awesome' India card, each time we have the world watching one of us.


Photo courtesy: Team Priyanka Chopra

Unfortunately for Priyanka, who normally handles her Celeb avatar very well, there are several people commenting that this time she showed a “wannabe White mentality,” and I guess they are not farther from the truth of the matter.

Finally, we all know Meghan Markle is a friend of hers. We know it because Priyanka has said it enough times, at every given or ungiven opportunity – to Jimmy Fallon or Kimmel or countless other hosts, on her Instagram page and wherever else she could plug it. Now I want to hear Meghan rant about that a bit.



Photo courtesy: People Magazine

One friend hastened to share with me TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People series in which Meghan Markle chose to talk about Priyanka Chopra. Well, that is Meghan – 1 and PC – perhaps 100 to put a scorecard to it. 

See, even Oprah Winfrey, Posh Spice, the Suits clan, Meghan Markle’s other fellow cast & crew, Amal Clooney were all there, but we do not see or hear any of them milk the Markle cow so much.

Priyanka Chopra’s PR team has done some good work for her around the Meghan link with the American media. Let's put it to rest and allow Meghan to be a private person that she will yearn to be now!

******

Note - This article originally appeared in Daily O on 22nd May 2018 - 
https://www.dailyo.in/arts/priyanka-chopra-fashion-fail-meghan-markle-harry-wedding-royal-wedding/story/1/24325.html


Sunday, May 20, 2018

When we wrote letters!



There was a time when writing letters was a highly sensory experience. First, the setting had to be right. There had to be a nice, wooden work desk, with its various accouterments, on which we placed our forearms and put pen to paper.

If the bed was our position of preference then the cushion had to be sturdy enough to bear the weight of the pad and our indentations on it.

And if our luxuriously lush lawns were places where we parked ourselves to pen down the epistles, then the rug had to be in those bright, pick-me-up colours and had to be placed under the shade of a Frangipani tree with its richly perfumed flowers lying scattered around the rug. The time of the day had to be right and the breeze had to be controlled by the One Above - not too maniacal as a breeze can get and tamed enough to keep us cool.

We paid attention to all the small and big things that formed an integral part of our letter writing ritual. And yes, it was a sensuous undertaking, involving at least four of our senses, that of sight, smell, hearing and touch!

The showmanship unfolded from what we wrote on to the tools we wrote with. From onion skin, floral-scented paper, that made a faint musical rustle each time we let a thought travel from our head to its surface! To the grandly-nibbed, gold-coloured fountain pens first, followed by ballpoints with the right point size to let our handwritings stand out; once the fountain pens phased out to live only in our memory banks. Writing with the pen gifted by Dad was of special significance and was reserved for very special letters that were written around our little successes and laudable achievements.

The envelopes had to be just right too. Like a piece of livery, they had to suit the occasion. Formal, plain, long whites for official mail; floral, pastel-coloured ones for mon amours; one with cartoons for friends or family; rimmed, embossed ones with a nice sticker to hold their backs for important contacts.

We even gave weightage to our handwriting and grammar and spelling. A lot was at stake there!

Since writing by hand is a slower process, and can take the mantle of an art form - we first thought then wrote and we let thinking happen at its own pace.

There was something almost sensual and romantic about writing with one’s hand. There was the patience of a lover in drawing the thumb and the index finger in a rhythmic motion as against the staccato pounding of a noisy keypad. The certainty of strokes and the precision with which each word was ended and a new one begun and between that, the same word continued through with the smooth movement guided by the wrist, as opposed to pressing tabs, skipping a letter or typing too fast thereby inevitably misspelling and then hitting backspace on a disembodied machine. Oh, the complete ho-hum and charmless fare of typing as a sharp and ungainly contrast to writing in longhand with a fluid motion of the hand, as if to paint a rich tapestry with words!


The passion play of ink on paper, the masterfulness of penning down a legible script - your script in your style of writing and not just picking out of a documented font appears like a badge of honour today.

The ability to draw out neat and pretty cursive with looping tails of a 'g' or 'y', the emphatic dots on 'i' and 'j', the definitive strike out of a 't', the curling up of an optimistic 'a', 'c' 'd' or 'e' - there was drama in each alphabet and poetry in motion in the whole sentence.

The lost art of longhand writing has made us miss out on the pleasure of seeing a good piece of handwritten script and pen craft - an art we are losing out to time, machine and thinning out passions.

When I was working with Archies G&G Ltd., as India’s first and only Creative Writer whose name was put on the Greeting cards, I went crazy like a child left in a toy store. The range of Letter pads and envelopes available was mind-boggling. There seemed to be one for every occasion, every mood, every equation and every emotion. Just a look at them made us want to write a letter, whether there was anything to write home about or not!


I don’t know about you, but for me, music formed a huge backdrop in the letter writing process. If it was something officious or of occupational importance, then Eye of the Tiger or even Mozart lent the right beat to my hand movement and to the spirit behind the writing. If it was a note being written to a boyfriend then Richard Clayderman came to my assistance to fine tune my mood. If it was a joyous note to a friend then even Jerry Lewis did the trick as I let my words dance on the festoon accented notepad.

There were also the so-called dark ages in my letter-writing life when I played Munshi to my Mother and wrote all the bureaucratic stuff on her behalf. Those, as we know, are never fun things and bear us down with their self-assuming importance.

It kind of came full circle for me, when I was appointed on the Change Agent Team with a mandate to relaunch and re-position The Imperial as one of India and Asia’s finest hotel. As the Brand Management Lead, I was also responsible for carving out a Brand Identity for the re-positioned hotel. It involved creating new collateral, merchandize and stationery among a host of other Brand Image paraphernalia.

I had a field day feeling and caressing swatches of paper, playing around with fonts, zoning on background designs and textures, developing gold embossed stickers with the Hotel insignia to seal the envelopes so as to develop a heavenly range of letter/notes writing equipage for guests who enjoyed the effort that went into creating the premium collection and carried the lot with them for future use. I like to think that perhaps the finesse of the paper trappings brought back the love of letter writing in these folks.

Our letter-writing act, if you recall, always came with a lot of theatrics. If a mushy note was being penned to a beau, we had to make sure that no one was around to see us write those sentimental lines or hear our fiercely pounding heart, loud enough to bring the roof down. If we were penning down a formidably formalistic dispatch then we demanded complete silence. If a letter was being mailed to a relative then we wanted everybody to pitch in with a family message or greeting making it a compositely familial affair.

Receiving a letter brought in an avalanche of emotions to engulf us. There was so much joy in getting a letter by snail mail. There was the excitement of the Mailman ringing the bell at the Gate to announce that he came bearing stories on sheaves of paper from a dear, distant friend.

When my poems began to get published in Target, Jetset and other magazines and when my Archies cards made an appearance on the Archies Gallery shelves countrywide, I began to get fan mail. And that put me in an altogether different orbit.

Then there were letters from friends in Kerala and Patna that I loved to receive. But the most watched out for were big, fat letters from my American friend Clayton Cornell who wrote such lengthy reams and sent me stickers and tinsels and cartoon cutouts that getting and reading his mail was like an occasion in itself.


Finally, posting letters was a routine that came accompanied with caution, ceremony and convention. If an important communication was being sent out, enough warnings were given to the carrier to ensure safe, smooth and stable delivery of the envelope either in the mailbox or at the General Post Office. The carrier was told umpteen times to not lose the envelope or drop it or ruin it by a freak accident as it contained matters of high importance.

During my JNU days, I remember matching my time of posting a letter to a person of special interest with the pick-up schedule of the Mailman. That meant standing around Godavari hostel and drinking countless cups of tea to kill time while positioned near the red box and patiently waiting to see the khaki-clad man of the moment wheel in on his bicycle.

A note sent from the phone or desktop or iPad, a message sent over SMS or WhatsApp will sadly never have the sense of romance, thrill, satisfaction and excitement of a handwritten letter!

At one of the places I worked in, we were gifted the limited edition, blue stone encrusted Mont Blancs. Just to resurrect the beautiful pen – a piece of art in itself – I must zero down on a deserving person to write a handwritten note to, with the subject to match.


*******

Saturday, May 19, 2018

Do you know what real fame looks like?



I want to reach that level of fame when even I can do this. As of now, I am excited as a child to get all the wishes I get via all those different routes. It kicks me specially to count the number that is over 500 and inching towards 1000 now!

But guess how is Ruskin Bond responding/reacting! It is his Birthday today and since the landline was getting to be too noisy and disturbing it has been kept off the hook.

Since he doesn't carry a mobile phone I had to reach him via his foster grandson who told me that Ruskin went to the Bookstore in the first half, felt tired and is sleeping right now.

What bliss; while the world is sending him messages and writing odes to him!

Like I said, I want to be that famous one day!

Happy Birthday, Ruskin Bond!




Saturday, May 12, 2018

No Blinkers please!




One of the cruelest punishments you can give anyone - man and beast alike - is put blinkers on them. You take away their freedom to see the world. You capture their spirit in the narrow confines of their body. You imprison their mind within the walls of their head, making the unpleasant thoughts bounce off those walls, again and again. You attempt to shackle their soul. You suffocate them, taking away their right to inhale and exhale normally; as putting blinkers is also quite stifling. You steal the vastness of their vision constricting it in an abysmally dark, narrow passage. You take away the spark and the shine from their sight, blinding them with your callousness and narrowmindedness. You snuff the vibrancy from their life, forcing it to become bleak and bereft of hope. You close the very being of the individual, forcing your diktat, trampling upon all that the individual wishes to stand for. Do not ever put blinkers on anyone - be it a child, a companion, a hapless animal, a protégé, a team member, a fellow human!

Not even on your own self!!!





Friday, May 11, 2018

The aura and the magnificence of Lucky Manzil!








A friend suggested just now that we should be clicking pictures of old houses and buildings before they are demolished and lost forever, with no record of the beautiful bygone days for posterity.

The thought didn't occur to me before. I wish I had been astute enough to have chronicled them.

So much has been lost - all those barracks including our old official accommodation, lovely, old houses, many of them going back to the British period, houses made by our ancestors.....

Oh! I feel terrible now. I will make it a point to take more photographs the next time I am in Dehradun.

I don't know how long we will be able to hold onto the preciousness my parents bequeathed to me.

Would my Dehradun friends please join in making a virtual repository of Doon, as we knew it and one that is fast disappearing!