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| Need some serious jugaad | 21-NOV-09 |
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| Dastkar’s Nature Bazaar always wears a festive look with flags fluttering bright in the sun, colourful tents, folk music and handicrafts galore. That’s why I was disconcerted by my friend Veena’s somber face inside Karm Marg stall. She was busy on the phone, and before I knew what was wrong, she had slipped away to not return for the rest of the day. “What’s up?” I queried the next morning. She rubbed her eyes tiredly: “We’re having funding issues. The financial meltdown in the West has been quite tough on organisations like ours that have benefited greatly from foreign aid... |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: Art for daily use | 14-NOV-09 |
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| Dastkar’s Nature Bazaar is a wonderful place for spotting interesting handicraft and chatting with craftspeople. This time, I decided to walk around and buy the product that took the maximum time and effort to create. I saw carpets and dhurries, some of which I knew could take as long as several months to make. But having seen the whole fair, the one handicraft that stood out for the time it took to make, was Ajrakh printed cloth. |
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| Keya Sarkar: The inglorious present | 07-NOV-09 |
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| As I write this, both the teaching and the non-teaching staff are on strike at Tagore’s Visva Bharati University. This not only extends the long Puja holidays that the teachers and students have already had, but makes it clear to those with any interest in academia that syllabi will not be completed in time for the November semester exams. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: Footprints of the mountains | 31-OCT-09 |
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| We were driving in Sikkim, and the roads were so bad in parts, that all one could do was wait for sleep to lull us into oblivion. As we bumped and jerked our way across the verdant hills, I awoke to hear something pitter-pattering on the roof of our car. “We couldn’t be in a hail storm,” said I incredulously, for the sun was bright outside my window. The driver shrugged, “it isn’t a hailstorm madam. It’s a landslide!” Shocked, my husband and I craned our heads out of the window. Bad idea that turned out to be, as small pebbles hit us amidst showers of mud. The driver drove on, unconcerned. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: A fine balance in Pelling | 24-OCT-09 |
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| One morning in Pelling, when we were on our way back from a walk, we saw a curious sight. A motley crowd of people was gathered in the tiny market square, and jute bags were being distributed all around. Given that the town was sleepy even during the day, we wondered what was happening so early in the morning. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: Spice flu in Sikkim | 17-OCT-09 |
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| I thought you said we’re going to see cardamom growing?” said I to Dinesh, our Sikkimese friend, “instead, we’re traipsing up a hill full of tall grass and weeds…” He silently bent under one of the grasses we’d been wading through, and took out a revolting bulbous mass of something. “It may look weedy,” said he with a smile, “but this is a cardamom plant … look, here’s a pod!” I looked at the innocuous black pod which is considered Sikkim’s black gold. Of the 4,000-odd tonnes of brown cardamom produced annually in India, this tiny state contributes about 88 per cent. |
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| Keya Sarkar: The making of a 'village' | 10-OCT-09 |
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| When I decided to settle in Santiniketan it was because I was a trifle tired of the many things to ‘do’ in Mumbai. But since I have moved I have met many who lament the ‘nothing-to-do-ness” of the place. While I have decided to live here, those looking for activity are typically weekend visitors. If I had thought that the lack of contrived entertainment was the charm of Santiniketan, I was wrong. What you do not need money to buy is clearly not worth having, is the new credo. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: The spirit of the hills | 03-OCT-09 |
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| I was in Pelling, Sikkim last week, wondering why the North East is not a different time zone from the rest of India. At 5.30 in the evening, the sun had dipped low, and the silvery peak of Kanchnejunga was beginning to blend with the horizon. “Seeing how long evenings stretch here, I can quite understand why Sikkim is reputed to have the third-highest per capita alcoholism rate among Indian states, behind only Punjab and Haryana!” said my husband. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: Yours, mine ... or ours? | 26-SEP-09 |
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| My son was quite intrigued by his grade-six lesson on stereotypes and discrimination. “Women,” said he, quite “my book tells me, are gentle creatures who stay at home and rear children while fathers go out to earn...” Times, said I to him, were a-changing and gender roles had obviously been re-written long after his text book had been written. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: Reclaiming Delhi's lost drains | 19-SEP-09 |
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| The other day, I spent over one and a half hours in pouring rain, going from Nehru Place to Okhla. To say that the traffic was moving at snail’s pace would do grave injustice to the slow mollusk — for we weren’t moving at all. Looking at the stationary cars atop the Nehru Place flyover, it struck me that our new flyovers have quite failed to streamline traffic. The road I was on was so waterlogged that getting off my car and legging it would have been folly. No wonder then, that I was so ripe for Manit Rastogi’s ideas later that week, about improving the state of the crowded and unplanned city of Delhi. |
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| Keya Sarkar: Tagore never ate 'Kurkure' | 12-SEP-09 |
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| It is only in retrospect that I realise how many things I took for granted when I lived in Mumbai. Roads, street lights, water, sanitation, garbage disposal, etc. were not issues which were top of the mind as I rushed to catch my 8.20 train to Churchgate Station. Or in later years (as I prospered) when I got into my car to read the entire bunch of morning papers on my way to work every morning. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: The Pied Piper of pain | 05-SEP-09 |
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| Modern science cannot even envisage the scope of the relationship between the human body and the mind!” boomed the old mendicant. Sitting around him, the gaggle of neighbourhood watchmen and drivers nodded respectfully. He’d been walking through the colony, and word had somehow got out that he could cure joint pains without using any medicine. Jang Bahadur, who was wont to say that his knees had frozen into permanent pain from sitting outside in Delhi’s cold winter nights, was the first to ask for help. The crowd murmured appreciatively, happy that they could test the sadhu’s efficacy at someone else’s expense. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: Pleasure in old treasures | 29-AUG-09 |
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| So you’re collecting books these days!” said a distant relative rather accusingly the other day. I hung my head and said yes. “I have two large trunks in Allahabad filled with books and manuscripts, some of which date back to eighteenth century!” said she, “including an invitation to the Coronation Durbar of 1911which my grandfather attended …would you be interested in such things?” I looked at her incredulously. Of course I was interested! Old books have always fascinated me. As a child in Mussoorie, I remember sifting through dusty tomes at the second-hand shops in Landour, wondering who their previous owners had been. My conversation with her rekindled this old passion, and I began to wonder why there were so few good second-hand bookshops in the city now. |
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| Geetanjali Krishna: Art to set you free | 22-AUG-09 |
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| I saw a quotation the other day that made me wonder a bit. I don’t remember the exact words, but the gist of it was thus: We all commit transgressions, only some of us get caught. Given that I saw it at an exhibition of artworks by the inmates of Tihar Jail, the thought was particularly piquant. For many of us tend to think that inmates of jail are ‘people like them’, quite distinct from people like us. “This is the thought I had when I passed the Tihar Jail in early 2007,” said Anubhav Nath of Ramchander Nath Foundation, one of the two curators of the exhibition. “I asked myself,” said he, “why is it that most of us just choose to ignore the Jail?” So unlike the multitudes who probably go past the jail everyday without pausing to wonder what happens behind its walls, Nath decided to enter its portals and see for himself. |
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| Keya Sarkar: Appreciating art | 15-AUG-09 |
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| Besides art historians or true aficionados, not many are aware of Tagore’s art portfolio. Except for a few well known paintings, Tagore’s genius in art has remained largely under-appreciated. |
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