Mandai Nostalgia

Mandai 26 Jan 2021

Yesterday at Mandai was so very different from what it has been for the past five years. 

Since 2016, the first half of Republic Day at Mandai, Pune’s iconic vegetable market, has been a scene of festive crowds enjoying an art event. For the sake of continuity, I took a cautious break from isolation yesterday, and went to attend the flag hoisting.  Hanging out for a bit with Anuradhabai, my neighbour and colleague, felt good too. 

Mandai 26 Jan 2020

The world had changed after the pandemic, and naturally Mandai had too - it was a lonely morning, quite different to the crowded, bustling time we had last year with people pouring in to participate in the very exciting event that Gauri Gandhi, a professor at Flame University, started planning in late 2015. 

I'm grateful to Kunal Ray for suggesting my name to Gauri, and to Gauri for her wonderful idea and all her efforts in establishing it. Her idea of integrating with public spaces and local communities was very attractive. Mandai is a beautiful, historic building, not just a place to buy veggies but an icon of public art where art lovers and art students visit, and the Aggarwal nashta is pretty ok too! 

Each of the five events I took part in were great fun. You can read about some of them here and here. Mandai was a wonderful opportunity for me because it took me out of my comfort zone and I suddenly found myself free to use absolutely any material and let it speak for itself. One of the purposes of Mandai was affordable art and I thought it would be good to use a low-cost material, so started off with roadside stones, offering them in the kind of baskets that the vegetable and fruit vendors of Mandai use.

Today's Catch Pune Biennale 2016

Some of what I have made over the years has been with things given to me by friends who did not have the heart to throw them away - like cassette collections and saris, once precious, now too old to be used.  It has been so very gratifying when people visited my stall, thronged around, and purchased. These are some of my favourite photos, surrounded by happy customers, money in my hands and glee on my face!

In 2020, when Gauri announced 'Harvest' as the theme of Art Mandai, I went a bit berserk with ideas, making collages on tiny canvas boards and turning them into magnets. There were harvests of corn and rice, of course; there were also harvests of fish (some lay dead in seas of plastic), eggs, flowers - and lice, snakes and even blessings. Unable to conceive of harvest without some kind of tribute to the Indian farmer, I did a series of 'farmer-suicide' magnets too, little expecting that anyone would buy - and was surprised when most were purchased. You can see some of them in the image below - I was sticking them on my heirloom Godrej cupboards as they got done, and this was taken a few days before the Jan 2020 show.

Mandai 2020 was also special for me in quite a few different ways! For the past four years, my business partner was my husband, Ajay, who always came along, dressed for the part, and took the wonderful transactional photos you saw above!
 

But in 2020, we had a family wedding in Delhi (I rushed to the airport to join them as soon as the Mandai event ended!) and I had two good friends, Ruve Narang and Dhananjay Kale come and sit with me instead, attending to customers, and keeping the collection safe!

Ruve was a member of Art Mandai in the early years, and she is the one who designed the group's lovely logo.

In 2020, I was also quite gratified to find that the Art Mandai PR team had made me an icon of the event! My photo appeared in all the media clips announcing it, you can see the Times of India clipping at the end of this post. Over the years, I found a lot of validation in seeing that I and my work were regularly featured in newspaper articles that covered Mandai. My basket of stone faces can be seen in the first article about it on this link and here are a few of the other clippings too!  

The Monet's waterlilies you can see in one of the images above are made from the old cassette boxes from my friend Candy's precious music collection, stuffed with pieces of chiffon torn out from a gorgeous sari that my friend Gita gave me as it could no longer be worn. And the inspiration came from Musée de l'Orangerie which I visited while in Paris to present a paper at a conference on Sindh Studies in ECSAS in July 2018. It's not like I knew I was going to do this, but after I saw what was emerging, I knew where it was coming from.

If you'd like one of my magnets - email me on saaz@seacomindia.com!

 

Happy Birthday - in Slovenian

The restaurant was noisy with a group of students. Their teachers sat together at one table. All of us were enjoying the delicious Greek food. At first I thought they must be American but soon realised they weren’t speaking English – except to the waiter, another surprise. The students finished and trickled out and the teachers stayed on, finishing their wine and enjoying their dessert. I just had to know where they were from so got up and asked them and was intrigued to learn they were from Slovenia. Never met anyone from Slovenia before. I said we were going to Meteora tomorrow and they said, “Oh that’s a long drive, nearly three hours!” When I told them that for people who live in Pune, a three-hour drive is something you’re quite used to, they said if they got in a bus in three hours they would be at the other end of their country.
Well, the baklava came in with a candle and they stood up and sang Happy Birthday Dear Ajay – in Slovenian! It was wonderful, but I pressed the wrong button so it didn’t get recorded. Everyone came to wish him, including the manager’s cute little children.
We’ve had many special moments in Greece but this was one of the most special on this very special milestone birthday … HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AJAY!

Olympic diary, London 2012

with Gagan Narang just before Vijay Kumar's silver medal 

Would we hear the Indian national anthem being played in the Olympic stadium? It was hard to keep that eager thought from our minds as we set out, knowing how lucky we were to be attending this event. Getting tickets had been our test of persistence – the rest of the world wanted them too, and the website, the only source of tickets, was overburdened and unresponsive. It took hundreds of attempts, over a period of several weeks, to get some. Ajay volunteers with the NGO Olympic Gold Quest, set up by Geet Sethi and Prakash Padukone to nurture Indian sporting talent, and he had finally managed to get some tickets for events for which the OGQ athletes had qualified. But we did not have one for the first big chance India had, with two of our star shooters, Abhinav Bindra and Gagan Narang in the lineup.
Standing at the venue, Woolwich Arsenal, with a small paper placard that pleaded, “One ticket needed. Please!” Ajay was most gratified when an elderly Indian gentleman came up and handed him one – and refused to take money for it. “Just go in there and cheer for India!” he said.
Inside was a highly-charged atmosphere, including a large crowd of cheering Indians. When Gagan made it to the finals, and won India’s first medal after some fine shooting by all eight contestants, it was a magical entry into the Olympics. What an explosion of happiness there was in the stadium, with Indians waving their flags and cheering loudly!
Indian sportspeople presently excel in boxing, wrestling, shooting, archery, and badminton. Sadly, our very talented archers did not perform well. Why does this happen? Only the very best in the world qualify for the Olympics and the fact that they are there at all means that their skill and talent is proven. It’s unfortunate that even though in the last twenty years, Indians have moved out, gained confidence and made a mark for themselves in every field, there are certain sections of society that have remained in the third world. That’s what we felt about the archery debacle – a lack of the right sort of nurture, leading to a lack of confidence at the final stage. While we felt sad about this, it was hard not to feel happy at being inside the very special arena where the competition took place, the holiest ground of cricket – Lords!
London is a beautiful city, with its many monuments and sights. For the Olympics, the central part of the city was decorated with flags and mascots. The venues were at suburbs in different corners of the city, and each route was also festive, with signposts and impressive teams of volunteers dressed in the pink chosen as the colour for this Olympics. Since most of the Olympic routes passed through the centre of the city, managing peak hour traffic must have been a major challenge and it was met very well. The Olympic stadium itself was the farthest out of the city, with another two venues on the way, and right at the end an enormous new shopping complex at Westfield. Coming out of the tube station, the crowd was so thick that the ticket barriers were kept raised. One day we heard a volunteer calling out loudly over the public address system, in a tone traditionally reserved for the wholesale vegetable market, “No need to take out your tickets, ladies and gentlemen! And in case you don’t have a ticket, that’s just fine, we don’t mind at all!” We laughed, but couldn’t help wondering what the scene would be like after a few weeks, and whether these huge stores could possibly get the kind of custom they needed to sustain themselves just from the local population.
It wasn’t just the people in England who were out making merry – even the sun was smiling and the clouds and frosty wind stayed away while the games were on. So persuasive was this weather that the British sportspeople couldn’t help but win one gold medal after another and the celebrations across the country rose to a higher level. This run of British gold medals unfortunately cost India one and our star hope, Mary Kom did not make it.
By now everyone knows Mary’s story, her background of poverty; her immense talent and the number of world championships she has won – including two after her twin boys were born; her supportive husband; her sweet, uncomplicated nature and her love for singing! It was so like Mary that, after weeping for an hour, the first thing she did was apologize to the country.
That’s when we realized that, though the Olympics is really about physical excellence, endurance, and commitment – it’s high emotion that stands out most of all. One day we walked from one venue to another on one of the long walkways that had been prepared for the games and as we passed a large screen, the people sitting in front of it burst into loud cheers. Andy Murray had won the tennis gold! And there was Andy on the screen, and what was he doing but weeping!  So many of the British gold medalists wept when they won their medals that the tabloid press decided to give Britain a gold medal for being a nation of the biggest ‘blubbers’. We heard a TV anchor ask Nicole Adams, the woman boxer who beat Mary Kom, “I noticed you were smiling when you won your medal. Most of the others cried when they got theirs. How come you didn’t cry?” Poor Nicole looked guilty and apologized for not weeping at the happiest moment of her life.
People do crazy, inexplicable things. At the Royal Barracks one day, Ajay was thrilled to watch Joydeep Karmarkar reach the finals of the 50m prone. Sadly, he missed the bronze by a whisker. A short while later he bumped into the president of the West Bengal Rifle Association who had decided that he could not possibly watch any more (even though another shooter, Vijay Kumar, was in the finals) since he was so overjoyed at Joydeep’s terrific performance. He proclaimed that if he had his way he would announce a day’s holiday in West Bengal the next day!
One of our low moments was watching the feisty Saina Nehwal get walloped by a Chinese girl. It hurt! Even the memory of the volunteers who saw us waving our flags as we marched up the steps to Wembley Stadium and called out: “Go get them! Beat the Chinese! You can do it!” wasn’t enough to make us feel better. Later Ajay met Gopichand, Saina’s coach, a very soft spoken and polite person. He explained the strategy of the Chinese team, which had three players in the semi-finals. So in the first semi-finals it was China against China, and their stronger player, Wang, had purposely lost so that it would be she who played Saina and give them a better chance at getting all three medals. As it happened, during the match Wang developed a hamstring catch and had to forfeit, giving India our second bronze medal.
Another unforgettable moment was watching the quiet, unassuming Vijay Kumar work his way steadfastly through his event and come out nearly at the top. Every Indian inside the arena, including those in the media section, was jumping up and down and screaming with delight!
We were certainly disappointed that we never heard the Indian national anthem at the Olympics. At the same time, the thrill of seeing our beautiful flag raised a number of times made us come home quite determined that we would be there in Brazil too!
first appeared in Ability magazine OND 2012

Flights of fancy

That day, the entire Indian cricket team was on the same flight, and he had managed to get autographs from the lot. The most difficult to approach had been Azharuddin. It was early in his career, and the now sulky hero stood in a corner of the security lounge, gawky, his nose buried in a book, but clearly unable to concentrate.
Like any wife who revels in needlecraft, I look forward to these tales of his travels, crafting them into legends as the years go by. And Ajay, who scoffs at jet lag as the ponciest affliction ever defined, obliges every time with tales that would draw appreciative nods from Sinbad and Baron Munchausen. Chance encounters in the ether, with the image of serendipitous threads arcing and intersecting in the sky, are enchanting if not exotic.
The early morning flights between metros held the commuter crowd, which would about-face and head home by the late-night return flight. The Madras-Bombay route was thickly populated with film stars. In those days Sridevi was a regular, yawning politely and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and occasionally even the gorgeous Rekha. Delhi-Calcutta, on the other hand, held mostly the smartly suited community of businessmen. Acquaintances would hail each other happily at the check-in counter, and once on board, wait for the breakfast service to conclude before they got up to stretch their legs and congregate in small groups to chat. Arjun Malhotra was a regular on this hop, and Ajay never failed to marvel at the IT giant’s friendly outlook even to one as insignificant as himself. Today, with Arjun’s TechSpan inching towards the Fortune 500, the vision of him bending down artlessly to touch the feet of an elderly acquaintance is a precious one.
And once, Ajay was on the same flight as Indira Gandhi. This is not a story of VIP arrogance and delays – quite the contrary. It was 1978, and Mrs Gandhi was as out-of-power as anyone can be. Who could mistake that fabulous profile, or the limited-edition sari? Yet, everyone pointedly faced away, and chattered around the dignified woman (who stood waiting in line like the other mortals), feigning deepest unconcern. When Mrs Gandhi stood in the coach to the aircraft, holding onto the overhead strap, the other passengers milled around, still painstakingly ignoring her.
Was it the most obnoxious in human nature, gloating sneeringly over a dazzling star that had collapsed into the viscous scum of the gutter? Was it vicious contempt for the excesses of her Emergency? Or was it merely the stereotypical mannerless bumpkin Delhiite? If he had a seat, Ajay would surely have offered it to her. As it was, no one else bothered.
first appeared as a Times of India Middle on 21 Dec 2001

Evolving language

Bangkok and unsavoury images associated with it have been much in the news lately. It all reminds me of the time I was newly married and fondly imagined Singapore and Taiwan to be suburbs of Pune, where we live, because my husband travelled there so often.
One day a woman I know, slightly hard of hearing or perhaps with an attention deficit, asked me with concern why my husband went so often to Thailand, and I was speechless with embarrassment.
It struck me then that Thailand is a word that badly needs a euphemism. Scandalous associations have evolved it into an improper expression, to be employed with caution. This is a request to the politically correct brigade to coin and replace it with a more appropriate version forthwith.
Tempering words with unpleasant connotations really needs to be done on a more regular basis. We’ve all got quite used to kindly calling the blind, the deaf and the psychotic as visually, aurally, and mentally challenged. We need no longer say, “idiot!” but can choose between cerebrally constrained, wisdom challenged, logically under-enhanced, and knowledge impaired. A crook is only morally out of the mainstream; a poor person economically disadvantaged, and a jailbird merely a client of the correctional system.
Meanwhile, other concepts have been sullied by repeated usage and mis-usage. Why, for instance, can’t we have a kinder incarnation for the word ‘kitty party’ which unfairly gives rise to the image of vapid, uncultured women on an intense mission to outdo each other?
Another outdated expression is ‘antibiotics’. Nobody wants to be associated with antibiotics any more, and people recommend doctors to each other with the words, “He/she is excellent! He/she never prescribes antibiotics.” And yet, how can an acute bacterial infection be treated? Provide another word, please.
If you have many friends and business associates, you become guilty of having ‘contacts’ and of ‘networking’. It’s not about being friendly and enjoying relationships, but rather about being conniving, exploitative and slimy. Isn’t that sad?
‘Servant’ these days is a pretentious-sounding word; the user is almost certainly upper middle class, and therefore insincere. ‘Middle class’ – there’s another rude expression, topped only by ‘nouveau riche’. What’s wrong with working hard and making a lot of money, I’d like to know?
‘Maid’, meanwhile, is not a happy alternative for ‘servant’, with old maid and milkmaid hovering humbly close behind. Slave, although by no means an alternative, in an interesting turnaround, is no longer a bad word. It has other connotations, such as slavish, which only means flattering, and sex slave, which is fascinating, not scandalous like Bangkok.
When I became a Reiki master, I cringed at the sexist title – but retained it, because I didn’t fancy calling myself a mistress. Similarly, words like mother-in-law and divorcee, with their strident vibrations, definitely need upgrading. And the day someone coins a softer version for that harsh, shrewish, fairytale stereotype, that mythical beast of yore, the stepmother – they are more than welcome to use it on me.
first appeared as ‘War of words’ in a Times of India Middle on 2 Aug 1999

Alternative poisons

Finally, the other day, I did it. I gave my husband Arsenic. It was, as they say, Indicated.
He resisted but briefly, then took it like a man. It all began on that annual check-up at the dentist’s, when the kindly fellow offered to extract my wisdom teeth, a saga that ended in bloodshed and tears. But firmly of that cheerful school of thought which vouches that Everything Happens for the Best, I recognized this as a Sign that I must now turn to Alternative Medicine.
Reiki was easy to acquire. Like any fresh convert, I began regaling my friends and acquaintances with my new powers. Until I realized that it was “Not if I see you first!” that they were muttering in reply to my cheery “See you soon!” In an attempt to regain some credibility, I pinched four enormous volumes on Homoeopathic Medicine from a certain kind person and, staggering under their weight, embarked on a voyage of knowledge and discovery.
Soon my mind was agog with all manner of preparations. There was Xanthoxylum and Argentum, Chamomila and Pulsatilla, Gnaphalium and Lycopodium, Sanguinaria and Staphisagria. It was a quaint, faraway world, a poet’s dream.
Of the many useful and interesting dysfunctions I learnt about, I soon noticed a wide gap between what they called Men’s Problems and Women’s Problems. The first focussed on virility, performance and endurance. Women’s Problems, by contrast were, one and all, stern attempts to sort out their messy and disgusting internal plumbing.
Indignant, I sought about for means to inform the Politically Incorrect Language people forthwith.
Homoeopathy, I also discovered, had sweet and simple, miraculous provisions for everything from fever, warts and piles to the pains of childbirth – and even shyness and masturbation.
Making out a list for brain tonic, cures for talkativeness, chocolate addiction and pain in the neck, I rushed to the friendly neighbourhood homoeopathy store. And found, to my dismay, that a huge population had had the news in advance and were waiting their turn before me. A disinterested and rather po-faced woman stood placidly behind the counter, ignoring the waiting customers with unmistakable satisfaction. I whiled away my time thinking up a homoeopathic remedy for her condition. And in case you have had a similar experience, here is my prescription: Silli Nit or Silli Tart. If this doesn’t work, try Yucks Vom. And if you still have no improvement, give her a dose of her own medicine, Kali Bich.
first appeared as ‘And the sceptics be poisoned’ in Indian Express Time Out on 5 Dec 1998

Medal in the Sky

It was early evening as the train pulled into the yard outside Jhansi station. The year was 1974. For many of the boys on this forty-day educational tour round the country, part of their final-year engineering course, it was the first trip outside Delhi, and they were determined to make the most of every moment.

Dhyan Chand with the ball agains France
in the 1936 Olympic semi-finals

As Ajay, Sunil, Ajit and Satguru stepped into the town, it struck them that Major Dhyan Chand lived in Jhansi and on an impulse, they decided to go and seek him out. They stopped an autorickshaw. “Dada!” the auto driver exclaimed, wagging his head with enthusiasm. He drove them to a playing ground where the hockey legend spent most of his evenings coaching. But he was nowhere to be found in the crowd of players. Disappointed, but still excited and proud to be taking fans to see the great man, he ushered them back into his vehicle and drove on.
They pulled up outside a small village house with a mud wall. A cow was tied in the enclosure. No one was about, and they hesitantly entered. A woman came out and when they stated their mission, welcomed them warmly and seated them. They declined the offer of tea – surprised at being treated like honoured guests when they had been uncertain of even a glimpse of their hero.

Sunil and Ajay relaxing by the victory stand
Delhi Polytechnic c1974

The kind lady went inside and they could hear her bustling around. Suddenly, Satguru spotted the Olympic gold medal. There it was, hanging from a nail on the wall. In awe and excitement, the boys got up to examine it, daring to let their fingers stroke its contours before they sat down again, silent and awkward.
The front door swung open and Major Dhyan Chand strolled in. Introductions were made, and the gangly, tongue-tied boys called on their halting powers of adolescent conversation. They politely asked about his routine, and how his son Ashok Kumar was doing. The gold medal was taken down, and they each marvelled over it again (this time officially). Dhyan Chand, the incomparable hockey idol was the most unassuming of people – simple, fulfilled, and relaxed. Somehow, an autograph just didn’t seem necessary. The auto driver was waiting to take them back to the railway station and stoutly refused payment for his services.
Ajay told me about this incident decades later.
We were on board an Indian Airlines flight from Delhi. Coffee had been poured, and Ajay picked up his cup – and it nearly clattered from his fingers when he saw who had poured it. He smiled and asked eagerly, “Ashok Kumar!”
The steward stepped back, embarrassed, and mumbled, “Yes,” his brilliance on the hockey field camouflaged under a new persona. His smile was polite but there was not the slightest flicker of pride at having been recognized – not even a trace of memory of his days as one of the top sportsmen of this country. Even when we stepped off the aircraft, there was the former Olympic player standing by the door, wearing the bland, trademark IA namaste smile and a distant, formal expression in his eyes.

With Ashok Kumar at his academy in Bhopal in December 2015

For years to come, when Indian media moaned about India’s poor showing at every Olympic Games, I thought about Ashok Kumar standing at the aircraft door, a non-entity hero, and felt a pang of pain thinking about how the Indian government and the Indian people have failed our sportspeople.
first appeared as a Times of India Midde on 2 Dec 1998

Honk, who’s there?

All of a sudden, overnight as it were, there was courtesy in his every move. At the red light, he no longer pressed ahead, straining to get past at the exact fraction-of-a-second when the signal changed. There would be a great blaring and honking, and feelings of aggression and agitation would rise in a swarm all around us, but he would be impervious to it all. When the furore died down, he would proceed along the road with great calmness. The change was so pleasant and wonderful. After all, how did it matter if we missed a few seconds getting to our destination – wasn’t the quality of life in the interim so much more important?
Now we slowed down to let others pass, and never once got angry while trying to overtake. At intersections, we would ‘give side’ ungrudgingly and these occasions in particular would fill me with a sense of the beatific wonder of human existence! How vastly improved civilization could be, with but the infusion of a little civilized behaviour! I was amazed, and pleased, at the transformation in him. This was my soothing influence at work, I convinced myself with great smugness.
I further noticed in him a growing alertness. An awareness of the environment, to the needs of others on the road – an easy willingness to please, graciously allowing other motorists the first move and giving pedestrians right of way: always anticipating, open to changes of mind, generously permitting every individual response. For this I knew I could not take the credit, and I wondered more. Surely this was that evolution of the species, the emergence of the New Man, the spiritual awakening and leaning to cosmic consciousness which everyone seemed to be talking about these days!
But when I saw him slow down politely to avoid a gaggle of giggling girls walking unconcernedly abreast on the road, with not the least trace of irritation at their uncivic behaviour, I began to worry a little. We would be driving along and suddenly find that the car was surrounded by placid, ponderous, plodding buffaloes, swaying and treading their imperturbable way to pasture. He would merely slow down and await an opening. He remained similarly unmoved by the villainous Pune Municipal Transport buses, swerving dangerously, dashing desperately the wrong way down one-way streets. He would not so much as mumble in complaint when the blanket-coddled racehorses crossed the thoroughfare skittishly, causing traffic to be halted at a safe distance. Not even when the fragile hose pipes were laid across the road to water the mess lawn, and the subedars waved vehicles to an imperious standstill before grudgingly allowing them to proceed over the lumpy barrier.
The uncharacteristic forbearance began to upset me. Was this, then, the onset of Age? Absentmindedness? How would this deep personality change affect his work, our lives? I needn’t have worried.
All of a sudden, overnight as it were, things were back to the way they had always been. We got the horn fixed.
first appeared in Times of India as a Middle on 4 Oct 1997