Farouk Gulsara's Blog, page 28

Another of India's soft power!

Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors
Author: Lizzie Collingham (2006)
When the first Europeans, mainly the British, landed on the Indian shores, they must have noticed that the natives' food was as bland as theirs back home. This must have been around the 16th century, when Europeans found an alternate route to access spices from the East, as the Islamic conquerers had absolute control over land routes and imposed exorbitant taxes on goods.

Most of India's staple diet was khichari, a simple dish with two grains boiled in water. The grains may be rice, millet, lentils, chickpeas, or whatever is harvested. The Brahmans had their food restrictions, and so did the Jains. They had a medico-spiritual relationship with food. The preparation of food was according to Ayurvedic principles. Food was divine. The average Hindu in that era ate only two meals a day, one if you were very poor. So, it was a culture shock for them to see Faranghis eating so many times and, what's more, so much meat. Holy Cow, indeed.

Opulence was the order of the day at the Moghul palaces. After all, the Quran promises much drinking, eating, and pleasures as rewards in the afterlife. Therefore, the Moghuls emphasised food, scents, sex, and ascetics. They were quite adventurous with their food. The nomadic invaders brought in the culture of pilau, in which rice or other grains were mixed with meat.

The Portuguese brought new foodstuffs to India. They must thank the Spanish, who discovered new fauna and flora in the New World and brought them into Europe. Soon, the Portuguese started knowing about corn, chillies, potatoes, tomatoes, turkey, and many more. When the Portuguese set up base in Goa, they were bored with the unimaginative Indian cooking. They brought their stuff from Portugal and taught their cooks, as well as their Indian mistresses and wives, various Portuguese cooking methods. Vindaloo was one of them.

For the Moghuls, lavish dinners were their trademark to show their supremacy to the occasional foreign visitor. The rulers were open to new recipes. Almonds and raisins became part of their cooking. A spicier version of pilau called biryani came about. The commoners also tried experimenting with what the palace cooks did with their own cooking.

To accommodate one morbidly obese Moghul king who was a foodie but had such rotten teeth that he could chew his meat, somebody came up with the idea of mincing the meat. Thus, Kimma was born.

The Portuguese, even being a small country, had a profound influence on European culinary habits. The introduction of their cooking styles to subsequent generations in India, also via Anglo-Indians, made it quite famous. The English who came in droves also picked up the habit.

The East Indian Company and the British Raj personnel who returned home after their tours of duty could not just live without their Indian-flavoured foods. Some entrepreneurial mavericks tried to sell packed curry powders to the British. Of they were far from the real McCoy. Some sailors from India also set up eating shops to fulfil palatal cravings.

Curry is a British invention. The Indians do not call any of their dishes curry. Instead, they call their dishes by their names, rogan gosh or korma. The British lumped all of them together as curry.

Indian cooking could not be reined in. As the Indian diaspora migrated or were sent as labourers to various places worldwide, cravings kept spreading. Indian cooking style spread to the Caribbean, the Malayan archipelago, the Southeast Asian countries, the Pacific islands of Fiji and Tonga, and even Japan. Surprisingly, one country where curry occupies a position of national importance almost equal to the place of Indian food in Britain is Japan, which has no colonial connection with India and indeed boasts its own sophisticated food culture. The Japanese found it easier to feed their large army during WW2.

During the British Empire, when indulging in the exotic of Eastern mysticism was hip, it later became low-brow to consume curry. It then turned upon itself to come a full circle. In 2001, Chicken Tikka Masala became the British National Dish. One can probably find Indian food or something claiming to be Indian anywhere globally. This must be another of India's soft power.

Over the centuries, new foodstuffs and recipes have transformed Indian food. In modern India, the kitchens of the growing Indian bourgeoisie have joined the imperial kitchens of the Mughal emperors, the bakehouses of the Portuguese settlers at Goa, the Vaisnavite temple kitchens in the south, and the cookhouses of the British in India as the engines of culinary change.

Tea gets a special mention here as it was the British went all out to promote tea in India. There was no divine calling to make Indians drink this beverage. It was all economics. The British tried to introduce it in public places, including railway stations. The Indians were quite happy with water and buttermilk. In the South, coffee was a favourite indulgence. The British could not understand why Indians mixed so many things into their teas- spice, copious amounts of milk, ginger, and how they boil the tea leaves. Well, eat your words. Chai tea is a real thing now.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

N is the new 30?

Nyad (2023)
Director: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
When do we pack everything up and call it a day? Is there a time frame within which we are expected to pursue our dreams, complete our bucket list and prepare our souls and minds to meet the Maker? Should there be limits to our wants, and is there a limit to the number of attempts one should give to an endeavour before calling it quits? Is age ever a deterrent to our effort to succeed? Should we give up and give it a go on another day when the going gets tough? Or surrender to let your descendants do it, or attempt it at the next birth?

Most societies advise individuals to cool off after a certain age. Setting ambitions and fulfilling personal aspirations is left to when they are younger. Just how old is old?

Things have changed drastically over the years. With increased longevity and the general well-being of the populace, we can live to push our bodies and minds beyond societal-sanctioned limits.

Some expertise only comes with experience and time spent in the School of Hard Knocks.

Many prolific writers and participants in extreme sports are usually in the older spectrum of society. Still, when is it then the faculties give up on the person? The logical guess would be multifactorial, ranging from genetics to lifestyles.

We should continue executing our plans like we will live forever while planning our future like there is no tomorrow.
Fauja SinghOctogenarian Fauja Singh must have thought this when he retired from farming. Burdened with the loss of his wife and son, he was forced to migrate to the U.K. Rather than waiting till the end of days when the Grimm Reaper would do his rounds, Fauja Singh worked towards the debut at his first full marathon at 89 in the London Marathon. After becoming a beacon of hope to many, being featured as Adidas' mascot and PETA's poster boy (as he was a vegetarian), Singh hanged his boots at the ripe age of almost 102.

Diana Nyad was a distance swimmer who failed to swim the 180 km between Cuba and Florida. Thirty years after immersing herself deep into her daytime job of journalism and motivational speaking, someone toyed with the idea of revisiting her 'Cuba to Florida' challenge. She was told she was mentally more robust than her 28-year-old self when she attempted the first swim.

The movie is basically about the preparation, execution, frustrations, and failures that she had to slay as she challenged the marine life-laden hostile sea unaided by a shark cage. 33 years after her first failed attempt, with three further tries, at the age of 64, Nyat successfully swam across the Florida Straits in 53 hours. Unfortunately, the governing bodies did not recognise her feat because no independent observers could ratify her swim.
(P.S. Note: Many of these super achievers who live to tell the stories of feats at mature ages are outliers. Even if one is in the pink of health, or seemingly so, a word of caution is deemed necessary. Of course, one should do the appropriate due diligence. Sure, even after dotting the i's and crossing the t's, the naysayers around you will bring you down to the extent that you start doubting yourself. Their intentions may be innocent, but the damage is done. You begin imagining imaginary conditions. Of course, these outliers can be the yardsticks we hope to attain. "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars," they say; a good adage to remember.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Serenity exemplified in Auschwitz!

The Zone of Interest (2023)
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Even though this is about something that happened more than 80 years ago, put in a similar situation, I foresee we humans do the exact thing that we did during World War 2 Nazi rule of Germany. We justify our actions and inaction through the dog-whistle call of the majority without taking a step back and asking ourselves, "Am I doing the right thing?"

Even during peacetime in Malaysia, a section of people is trying to steamroll their agenda to the rest of the country. Any sane person of reasonable intellectual capacity would understand this is not how democracy works. The majority chooses, and the rest would follow suit. Changes are made via constructive discourses at the appropriate forums. This renegade group is trying to change all these. The might of high decibels in the confines of an echo chamber cannot be underestimated.

Like Grobbels, who thought that the propaganda machines of the State could steer the thinking of the majority, small-minded fascists in this country are using mob power backed by their own interpretation of the scriptures to gain political power and to cow the minority into submission.

The thinking majority should be aware of this and not just that. They should also have the gumption to call the bluff. Otherwise, the outcome will be what we see in this movie—the country's machinery used to carry out a dastardly activity for future generations to curse us.

This movie won many accolades for its gruesome (not in graphic representation with gore, violence and blood) depiction of events that may have happened at Auschwitz concentration camp. All the violence, killings and death are only depicted in sounds and indirect visuals.
Serene living beside a concentration camp
in Auschwitz.It tells the story of the Commandant of Auschwitz and his family as they live in a lovely double-storey bungalow immediately beside the camp. Amidst the background hum of the incinerator, screams of prisoners as they are led to their death and the occasional gunshots, the family leads a happy life. Oblivious to the happenings at the camp, the family grow attached to the bungalow, beautifying it and even refuses to move when the Commandant is transferred elsewhere. The air is filled with bellowing smoke of burning flesh. The river occasionally has fragments of bones discarded after incineration. The compound is strewn with ashes. Still, life goes on happily.

The irony is that the family lives without a care in the world. They conveniently overlook the carnage that happens behind the camp walls. They even have grand plans for the future.

This must be the true meaning of the word banality of evil that Hannah Arendt popularised after the 1948 Adolf Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem. People perform the cruellest of evils, not because they are sociopaths or inherently evil. They do it because the system expects them to behave in a particular way. For them, it is business as usual. It becomes the list of duties that must be completed to qualify for remunerations and promotions.
The mind shuts down. Mindfulness is lost. The higher thinking centres get bypassed. Everyone goes into zombie mode under the hypnosis of the supreme leader. 
(P.S. The director's acceptance speech at the Oscars ceremony has started a storm and could possibly be outcasted by Hollywood. His speech essentially can be interpreted as all that seen in the film was the effect of dehumanisation. His mention of the October 7th incident begs further clarification. Are the Jews, after surviving their aggressors, repeating the dehumanisation policy to the Gaza people? There is no easy answer. Remember, the state of Israel is located amongst neighbours who yearn for its annihilation. Can one practice no violence at the end of the barrel of a gun? 'We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,' he said.)

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

To stir the beehive?

Beekeeper (2023)
Director: David Ayer

Bees can teach us a thing or two about Nature. It is mind-boggling that something as small as this arthropod can have a complex, organised, self-sustaining community. Imagine all the structured living, with specialisation, hierarchical order, layered and combatant defence, and continuity with progeny happening in immaculate order, all in one colony. They do all these without a functioning brain but groping around using pheromones as their guide.

Everybody has a job to do, no matter how trivial or low down the food chain, and they have to play their roles elegantly.

In the eye of a modern man, the whole setup may reek of a Kafkaian dystopia. A communist regime, allegedly after a collective politburo discussion, what is best for the plebeians who follow blindly for the progress of the Motherland, may not be everyone's cup of tea. A Hindu-bashing leftist may remind us this is how the caste system works, that one is born into a caste and, hence, his profession. We know now that this is all bunkum. The four castes mentioned denote a person's aptitude, not profession. But hey, the leftists are too brainwashed to comprehend that.

Perhaps bees tell us that we should be sincere in performing our assigned duties as if it is the last thing in the world. Hell hath no fury a hornet nest provoked.

In the late 1960s, Americans woke up to a quiet spring. No bugs in the garden or birds flying in the sunny sky. People remembered that just a year previously, DDT was introduced as an effective way to combat malaria, typhus, and other insect-borne diseases. With time, the world has realised that every God's creation has its role in our delicate ecosystem.

Fast-forward to the 21st century. After mindlessly slashing their jungles and hunting animals to extinction, Europeans had a revelation. They realised that their population of wild wolves was dwindling critically. The corresponding effect is the burgeoning number of deer. Deer entered their highways and their households.

The new buzzword 'Rewilding' was thrown in. It involved a push to repopulate the wolf population in the wild. It is hoped that this would balance years of apathy. It is assumed that wolves would instantaneously start killing deer again, and equilibrium would be achieved again. Alas, they overlooked that now, thousands and thousands of sheep are reared on an industrial scale. If jumping on a helpless sheep is more effortless, why would the wolf struggle to hunt down a deer with antlers and all? Equilibrium takes years of work, and it cannot be forced.
By the way, this film has nothing to do with the write-up above. One of my favourite action heroes, Jason Stathon, acts in this B-grade movie, which showcases Statham as an unassuming retired commando who finds peace tending to his bees. When the only person who speaks to him commits suicide after a scam, the Beekeeper goes ballistic. Like a fighter bee, he blasts all barrels to hunt down the scammers.
[P.S. Our world is so polluted and damaged that the bee population is declining exponentially. To trigger pollination, beehives are rented out to farms and orchards. Much like Tinder or Shaadi.com, dating services hook up eligible or assumed bachelors to spur meet-ups, hopefully, meaningful copulation and continuity of progeny.]

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Death can be a satire?

A Case of Exploding Mangoes

Author: Mohammed Hanif

On 17th August 1988, President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan was killed in an aircraft crash. Perishing together with him on the Hercules C-130 military aircraft were the President’s close assistant Akhtar Abdur Rehman, American diplomat Arnold Lewis Raphel and 27 others.

In the rest of the world, a country owns an army. In Pakistan, however, its Army own the country. In 1976, Prime Minister Bhutto elevated ul-Haq to a full general. One year later, he deposed Bhutto and declared martial law. Bhutto was hanged for treason.

Ul-Haq’s 11-year tenure as the Supremo saw him announce Pakistan as a nuclear nation, aided Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and secured himself as a prominent Islamist leader. In a way, he was instrumental in making Pakistan a theocratic country and the rise of global Islamic terrorism.

The crash was extensively investigated by many quarters, but nothing was conclusive. The possible theories range from aircraft failure, as the C-130 was notoriously famous for faulty equipment, to sabotage by Americans, Soviets, Mossad, the Pakistani Army, and even Bhutto’s dependents.

Mohamad Hanif, the author of this book and the head of BBC Urdu service, was consumed by the crash. The interviews he conducted did not reveal much. The aircraft did carry mangoes. A rope was found among the debris. Someone suggested the possibility of explosives in mango seeds and the usage of poisonous gas to incapacitate the pilots as the craft plunged head down suddenly.

In most countries, too, something so sombre, like the death of a leader, is not sneered upon. This rule may not apply to Pakistan. Because of the restriction of freedom of speech, Pakistanis have volumes of jokes about their leaders. Every other day, even its immediate neighbour finds pleasure in mocking Pakistan. So, it is not surprising to read the humorous narration of the moments before Zia-ul-Haq’s demise in this light-hearted satire.

Even though the exact cause of the crash is not explained and the real perpetrators of the accident are not told, it seems like everyone had a burning desire to see the President die - the Pakistani Army, a Trade Union leader, the curse of the imprisoned blind gang-rape victim or a disgruntled soldier whose father was killed by Zia. A crow, possibly intoxicated by the nectar of the sweet Pakistani mango, may have a hand in it, too. The aircraft also carried such a heavy load of mangoes, so aromatic that it filled the whole vessel that the air conditioning need not be switched on. VX gas filled the machine when it was switched on later, and we know what happened next.

(Dedicated to RK, a Pakistani-Hindu from the Sindh Province, who paints a rather rosy image of his Motherland contrary to the perception of the rest of the world. )

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

What is love, anyway?

One Day (2024)
Miniseries E1-14.

“Hey, why are you watching this,” asked my daughter. “This is for youngsters like me.”

“I know. I just wanted to know how things have changed since the last time I heard about that good-natured four-letter word called love.” I replied. 

Just what is this thing called love? Is it a contract as flimsy as one drawn on water or a covenant written in stars that only the might of Time can erase? When one confesses or as much as loves someone with his heart and soul, what do we really mean? Is it a promise to preserve my seeds for the continuity of progeny? Is the place for love in the heart or mind too small to be shared by others? 

Suppose there are other variants of love, i.e. brotherly love, patriotism (love for the nation), gluttony (love for food), various fetishes (model planes, stamps, cars, etc.), and filial piety. Why can’t there be platonic love between a male or female (or preferred gender)? Is the concept of ‘friends-with-benefits’ even acceptable? Is sex so sacrosanct that it can only be sanctioned by the forces of Nature that make the Universe exist, or is it a merely biological process to ensure the continuity of species?

Does society want to put a name on the people who have to carry the burden (responsibility) of upbringing the product of a conjugal union? Even the Universe is playing Devil’s Advocate by putting pleasure in the place meant for work, i.e. continuity of species!

Based on a novel by David Nicholls from 2009, it was made into a feature film in 2011, starring Anne Hathaway in the lead role. Netflix made a limited series of the story, garnering critical acclaim. Set in the UK, pandering to the demand of the time, a brown actress is cast in the lead role. 

A misfit pair gets together at a graduation night party at the University of Edinburgh. Even though every graduate wants to bed somebody to make the night a night to remember, Emma, from the middle class, and Dexter, from the privileged class, just end up chatting the night away, talking about their future plans and such. 

They part ways the morning after but promise to stay in touch. They meet each other periodically. The show shows the ups and downs that they go through over the years. Each episode starts on the 15th of July every year, starting with the graduation ball that day in 1988. Over the years, their lives tangents off away from each other, finding their mojos, threading the good times and bad. They keep in touch, nevertheless. Their fondness for each other remains. Something that had been platonic had turned romantic. The question is, when? Did it happen in Edinburgh? Was it the culmination of the experiences taught at the School of Hard Knocks? 

Which is the hay that broke the camel’s back? When does love happen? Can we love more than one at a time? Is it a one-or-none law? Is it a promissory note to limit conjugal liaisons to avoid unnecessary baggage thereof?  

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

It's Christmas time!

Merry Christmas (Hindi/Tamil versions; 2024)
Director: Sriram Raghavan
This film has it all: a little Hitchcockian, a tinge of noir, and a hefty dose of female fatale. Set in the urban setting of Bombay at Christmas, the storytellers thought it was all right to cast modern-thinking characters with modern values as protagonists. Otherwise, it would not be believable that a seemingly single mother would send flirting vibes and respond to the advances of a random hunk at the movie theatre. 
That is what happened in this movie. It is Christmas Eve. While everyone is in a celebratory mood, a recently released murderer, Albert, returns to his mother's home. As old memories haunt him, he goes out for a stroll. He meets Maria, who is wandering around with her young daughter, first at a restaurant and then at the cinema hall. They strike up a conversation, and she walks her home. After having a nightcap and leaving the sleeping child at home, they go for another walkabout. Upon their return, they discover Maria's husband slouched on a settee, dead, after apparently shooting himself. 
Albert, as a recently released convict, is sceptical about being involved in a death investigation. She instructs Maria to inform the police while he wipes out evidence of his presence at her apartment. 
Hours later, curious about the turns of events, Albert returns to Maria's apartment. There is no hullabaloo of a crime scene. Instead, he finds her in the company of another gentleman, going up to her place. He follows them to find no dead body there!
The rest of the movie is predictable, not because it is poorly done but because we have seen it all too many times in various combinations. The original story is from a 1962 French movie, Paris Pick-Up @ Le Monte-charge. The French version was more precise, shorter and straight to the point. In the Indian versions, however, there are additional characters. One cannot help but wonder whether other little nuggets are inserted between scenes to imply anything. I, for one, was left wondering whether the purpose of Albert's uncle naming his home-brewed moonshine 'Yadhoom' (Scandivanian for 'reason of existence'; why we love for) carried any obscure philosophical connotation to the whole story. 
Nevertheless, it is a refreshing movie with a retro 1970s feel, fuelled by a liberal display of neon lights to give it its noir background. Kudos to Vijay Sethupathi, Katrina Kaif and Sanjay Kapoor (in the Hindi version) for their commendable performances. In the authentic Hitchcockian way, it ends with a twist.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.movies

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

A case quite bizarre

Indrani Mukerjea: Buried Truth (2024)
Docu-series, 4 episodes.

From the land of the Veda and the Arthashashtra comes an intriguing case of a missing person, which has remained unresolved to date. In the land that believes that every nasty action has a compelling reaction with the belief that no evil deed will not go unpunished in this birth or next, perhaps punishment could only be meted out in the next life.

In 2008, The Wall Street Journal hailed Indrani Mukerjea as one of the 50 ladies to watch, and India conferred her with the award 'Uttar Ratna' for her outstanding work in the art, media, and broadcasting sector. By 2015, she had her hands full fending off money laundering charges and fighting a murder charge.

Her past is blurry for a start. Born Pori Dora, her actual birthdate is queried. In her early teenage years in Guwahati, Assam, she accused her father of sexually molesting her. She went off to Shillong, Meghalaya, for studies, where she met her first husband, Siddharta Das, with whom she had two kids, Sheena and Mikhail. She soon left her kids with her parents to move to Kolkata in 1990. In Kolkata, she married her second husband, Sanjeev Khanna, to have her third child, Vidhie. Vidhie is the main narrator in the documentary. Somewhere along the way, there is even a mention that Sheena could be the product of Indrani's father's despicable act.

In 2001, Indrani moved to Mumbai, where she met Peter Mukerjea. Her recruitment company became a hit, and she dabbled in the media industry. Together with Peter, they climbed the corporate ladder to become prominent figures in Indian media. She was the CEO of a media mogul.

Her daughter, Sheena, appeared in the Mukerjea fold in 2006. Indrani introduced her to her new family as her sister! Sheena also got herself embroiled in the Mumbai corporate rat race. She apparently had a relationship with Peter's son from a previous marriage. Indrani's side was resistant to this relationship.

By 2009, Indrani was pretty much out of the media limelight as her corporate rule went south with accusations of appropriation and money laundering. She left India to live in the UK.

In 2012, Sheena disappeared without a trace. Everybody assumed Sheena had run away from her fiance and had probably gone incognito. Three years later, Indrani was arrested for the murder. Indrani's driver admitted to having helped her to kill and bury Sheena. The driver let her to the remains, but DNA evidence from the body was rejected for technical reasons. The case was twisted, and Indrani, Peter, and the driver got out on bail.

The docu-series is so twisted. It smells of sensationalism and trial by the media. Nobody shows sensitivity to the deceased or the family in the programme. I guess it does not matter as the accused is family (the mother killing her firstborn). The family gave the green light to tell their side of the story, having been in the media, knowing how well media can spin the truth, of which Indrani had been part and that the case is still ongoing; Indrani and the family should know better. Perhaps they are just garnering public sentiments before the case gets mentioned again.

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Divine offering?

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Extending food offerings to anyone and everyone has always been an honourable thing. It is also part of desert culture to break bread with a stranger one meets during one's long, weary travels. The frequent famines that famished the often battle-riddled land of Bharat made freshly made simple cooking God-sent.

The art of cooking for the masses arose not only from the indulgence of the Moghul Emperors, who made culinary skills an art form to die for but from the chefs preparing them for their hunger-stricken subjects.

Hunger pangs are real. It is not the irritation one gets after missing his cafè latte or the agony of waiting for his double burger. The homeless people in the city of London, waiting in line patiently for their fizzling hot dhall, chawal, and saag, could give us a first-hand experience of what sleeping with an empty stomach feels like. The real McCoy here is the twitch they feel in their belly as the piping hot masala chai aroma fills the air.

Now, in this age and age, the age-old interpretation of malnutrition is no longer confined to the one who is emancipated, skin and bones, but one where malnourishment goes the other extreme. One is overfed, too big to carry his own baggage, and stricken with various metabolic diseases of overindulgence. From a nation that generally ate two meals a day to one that eats at slight provocation, is the act of annathanam/ bhog still relevant? Is it still a good deed or merely akin to feeding a recalcitrant alcoholic more arrack?

Is food still the essence of life? (“Annam para Brahma swarupam”)

Donors sometimes do it to show their piety and gain bragging rights to aggrandise their stature in society. Others do it to wash away their private misdeeds, knowingly or unwittingly. Some do it with ulterior motives, hoping to get abundant returns in kind.

Then, there will be groups that draw numbers to fulfil personal political ambitions. The bond of eating together goes beyond the act of fulfilling gastronomic desires. This may explain why dating couples plan elaborate dinner plans to impress each other. People become law-abiding when it comes to food. Just see the rows of obedient customers queuing for hours to get their nasi kandar fix. Anyone can initiate a Pavlovian response through food. The way to a man's (or woman's) heart is through the stomach.

It is not all saffron and ghee in the land of Annapoorana. The recipients of these offerings blessed by the divine forces are sometimes not worthy of the heavenly gifts. They do not practise the adages of 'waste not, want not', 'eat to live, not live to eat' and treat 'food as medicine'. They overindulge and have no qualms about assigning the free-gotten meals to the bins, either because they took too much because it is free or because their incisors crave the animalistic tearing of meaty meals.

True, we live in a world of abundance and contradictions. Development and industrialisation saw our race scale the highest skies and deepest mountains, but a section of the population would still be lost in the rat race. Community-based social projects like these, either on spiritual or secular backgrounds, will go a long way to help out the needy.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Restart and Restart!

12th Fail (2023)
Directed by: Vidhu Vinod Chopra

I remember my parents, more expressively my mother, going through the same emotions as the elders in this family. They believed unabashedly that education was the only weapon they could use to break the shackles of poverty and hopelessness. Towards this end, they sacrificed their luxuries, comforts in life, and pride to show off to their peers what they had that their parents did not have.

I remember seeing the same expressions in my mother's eyes every time her plans were derailed by inevitable mistakes or inactions. She soldiered on, thinking everything would be solved once her children graduated. Rightly or wrongly, in her mind, a sound education was her panacea to all difficulties in life. With that single-minded determination, no mountain was too high to scale, and no river was too deep to sail. To the economically challenged, education is a more assured and level playing field way to prosper.

This biopic is based on an unbelievably true story of a student in Chamboli, MP, who failed his 12th Standard but went on later to win the coveted UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) examinations to become an IPS officer. He overcame abject poverty and the many obstacles to shine in the end. Coming from an area known more for dacoity rather than anything, the teachers in the school collectively volunteered the answers to their students to improve their scoring and, hopefully, a better life. Bad luck to Manoj Kumar Sharma. The year he sat for his 12th Standard examinations, an honest DSP was posted to his district. He stopped the whole examination as blatant copying was going on. So everybody in the school failed the 12th Standard that year. The DSP later became the motivating factor for living an honest life. Manoj passed the 12th Standard the following year and went on to Gwalior, aiming to be DSP like his hero.

His life in Gwalior was no bed of roses. Robbed of his luggage, pocket money and cancellation of the state government-sponsored public service examinations, he was left hungry and homeless.

His life took a turn again when he met Pandey. Together, they head to Delhi to try to sit for the Union Public Service Commission examinations to aim to become an IPS officer.

The rest of the story is an account of his adventures, including the ups and downs of his journey to finally be bequeathed the prized post of an Indian Police services officer.

Sailing through his journey, almost side by side, was his later wife, Shraddha, who became a Deputy Collector of the IRS. Currently, she is the managing director of the Maharashtra Tourism Board, and Manoj Sharma is the additional commissioner of the Mumbai Police.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.