The India Chronicles | The Hues of Dastkar

It is no secret that India is a treasure trove of indigenous art and craft. Every state, region, sometimes even every second town or village has its own form of language, art, craft and resulting influences on design and living. Some of these art forms and practices date back decades, even centuries. One would assume that such a precious heritage would be fiercely protected in a country as huge as India. However, the sad fact is that until a few years back, most of these crafts and the artisans who make them were languishing in obscurity and resulting poverty. Lack of awareness of these crafts in urban areas meant a lack of market - the artists had no means of promoting or marketing their talents and younger generations subsequently moved away to more lucrative forms of livelihood. As a result, several of these craft-forms either perished or have been on the brink of being lost forever, sustained only by a small minority of passionate but perishing artists.

The Dastkar movement changed this to a large extent. "Dastkar"is a Hindi word, literally meaning "crafterperson" and true to its name, it is a society of and for craftspersons. Founded in 1981, the organisation has slowly managed to put these crafts back into not just the living rooms of Indians but onto a global map. The society aims to make these craftspersons self-reliant, accountable for their own production, accounting and marketing, and in doing so, eliminates the 'middle-man' between the artist and the consumer, ensuring that all profits go directly to the artisan. One of the ways in which Dastkar promotes these arts is by organising Dastkar Melas or fairs in cities across India. I've been a regular visitor to the one in Delhi over the years, but a couple of weekends back I accidentally walked into the Dastkar Fair in Bangalore, much to my delight.

Could the Flaneuse waste this opportunity? No chance! I present to you some of the hues of Dastkar.

I urge you to discover the rest for yourself the next time Dastkar is in your city. These artists deserve it.

The India Chronicles | The Drum Sellers of MG Road

There is quite a difference in how a photographer is perceived and received on the streets in London and in India. In London, there is a simultaneous sense of respect and distrust - people move out of your frame, wait to pass until you've finished clicking, turn their faces, some surreptitiously try to find out what you're clicking and why. Rarely will a Londoner come up to you and ask, and even more rarely will a stranger in London pose for you. If you're around a policeman, you're likely to be questioned, or worse, under the new strange laws against street photography that are aimed at preventing terrorism, but promote suspicion instead.

In India, however, the story turns on its head. If you carry a camera in public, you yourself become the object of curiosity. You click on the street and a crowd will gather behind your back. If people think your viewfinder is trained at them, a few will move out of the frame and a majority will start hamming it up - putting on a happy display for your benefit. Most people in India love getting their pictures taken, even if they personally won't ever have a chance of having those pictures! I personally suspect the degree of curiosity and hamming goes up if the photographer is female. Of course, not everyone will do this - but this is largely what I've experienced while clicking here.

And so it was on a Sunday afternoon at MG Road. Exhausted by shopping, I was sipping at a disgusting concoction disguised as cold coffee at the Cafe Coffee Day on MG Road, watching life on the busy street whizz past, when I noticed these drum sellers. These young men move around in groups on MG Road trying to sell crudely made drums of all sizes to people. They were evidently not having too much luck this afternoon.

Since I was safely hidden under a large garden umbrella and some plants, I took several shots of these guys knowing that they are unaware of my presence and my viewfinder. Or so I thought. One of them noticed me, much to his apparent glee, and this is what ensued.

Ham it up, Mister





The one on the right knows his picture is being taken. This is an attempt to look 'cool'.

I spent the rest of the evening fending off these two guys as they tried to sell me a drum. Every time I stepped out of a store, they would be there:

"Maddum, lowest price for you... you clicked my photo, Maddum"
"Only 250 Rupees for you, Maddum, special price"
"We entertained you Maddum, please buy" (I'd laughed out loud when these guys struck that pose for me).
And even:
"What Maddum, I make so much effort, you still don't buy"
!!

I have to admit I was tickled, even if a bit annoyed by their unceasing sales pitch. Although, I suspect that I provided them with more entertainment in their boring afternoon than the other way round. I did not buy a drum, although I wanted to. I just don't have space in my luggage for one!

The India Chronicles | Of Random Nostalgic Connects

When people in London ask me how diverse India really is, I tell them it is like Europe condensed into one country. The cultures and sub-cultures, the languages, the dialects, the people, the physical and metaphysical variegation... physically, India is only about a third of the landmass of Europe, but in almost every other way it is a far more complex system of people, cultures and ways of life.

I grew up and lived in New Delhi for a major part of my life - London has been the only other place I have ever called home. Although work and my inherent itch to wander has taken me all over the country, this is only my first visit to South India. If you ask the average South Indian, you'll be told with a certain vehemence of how it's different from the North - and vice versa. And so I find myself quite the outsider, quite the tourist in Bangalore.

Yet, not quite a stranger.


I find myself looking at Bangalore with the wonder of that much hated tourist of Jarvis Cocker's imagination, yet I find it easy to peel off the surface layer and look underneath - because of that connect that an urbanist can inherently make with a place. As novel and different as I sometimes find South India, I only have to lightly scratch the surface to find that connecting thread - the connect to familiarity and nostalgia.

The nostalgic connect, for instance, that I unwittingly stumbled upon at Higginbothams on MG Road.

As I walked in, I felt a strange familiarity overpower me - strange, because I've never been to Higginbothams before. It is one of the oldest surviving bookshops in the country, indeed; but it only has branches in Chennai and Bangalore - cities I've never been to before this. As I lingered through the rows of books though, the nostalgic connect slowly unfolded.

It reminded me of my school libraries - stark, monochrome, no-frills - rows of books crowded on paper-lined shelves.

It reminded me of the days when a mobile library used to visit the Delhi locality I used to live in as a child - and how we would greedily search through the loosely categorised dusty piles of books ready to devour until the next visit.

It reminded me of the small, dingy but packed bookstores in Delhi where I bought my annual stash of academic references from. And how I did not wait to get home to start reading the English literature books and would have read them back to back even before school term started.

It reminded me of the India I grew up in - an urban India very different from the urban India of now.

And perhaps that is why Higginbothams stood out for me amongst the hip new book stores that dot Indian cities now. It's old world charm, a bittersweet sense of being stuck in time sucked me in and wrapped me in its familiarity - a familiarity to connect with which, I do not need to be an urbanist. Just that Indian child again.

The India Chronicles | Bangalore - a quirky slice of home

When an American, a Canadian and a South African unanimously recommend Sethji's for a good home-cooked North Indian meal in Bangalore - a city you are more of a newcomer to, than them - you listen. And then you try to locate the very popular place (the recommendation is backed up by your brother in law and a few friends) - but ideally not when there's a power cut in the area and it's 8PM and dark. Because if you do, you will go around in a few circles in Indira Nagar before you're pointed towards it by a shopkeeper with an air of incredulity that you walked down that street twice and did not see Sethji's. Everyone knows Sethji's!

Then you finally notice it - the faint flickering neon sign on what looks like someone's house, opposite a temple, that announces this modest but famous mecca for home-cooked food and ...er...what's that - art gallery?!

It's your turn to be incredulous now, especially because this is the first view of the er - gallery ...and restaurant that greets you.

But you have no idea, do you? The place looks like a house from the outside, because it is a house. The living room and courtyards double up as the restaurant - a modest affair with plastic tables and chairs and plastic water jugs and a stack of steel tumblers. And the owner of Sethji's clearly has things beyond food on his mind - the walls of the courtyard are the owner's personal 'gallery' - I suspect the 'art work' is done by someone in the family (or the owner himself) but I couldn't find out on this trip.

The moment you sit down on one of the tables outside, a waiter appears with a laminated piece of paper - the menu. You ask for a bottle of mineral water and he almost laughs and then shakes his head - no mineral water here, please help yourself to the filtered water in the plastic jug. The menu is simple - a choice of several stuffed paranthas (Indian pancake-style bread) with a modest choice of accompaniments. If you have a larger appetite, you could order a full thali (platter). You recall that the salted lassi (buttermilk) was a big part of the recommendations but your tummy is yet to settle down to Bangalore, so you desist. You order a couple of paranthas and wait.

You look around a bit more and notice the psychedelic ceiling. You're beginning to get used to this.

Or so you think. Because then you notice the shai'ri (urdu poetry) in English script on the walls, making your amazement peak!

The cursive inscription on the left reads:

"Mein beqraar dil ka fasaana likhun to kya
Dil ka naheen hai koye thikaana likhun to kya"

loosely transliterated:

How do I write the story of my restless heart/
This heart is a wanderer with no destination, what do I write of it?

Ahem.. Profound. Clearly the owner is an indulgent soul - there is also a corner of the courtyard dedicated to 'mehfils' (gatherings around music or poetry performances).

Before it can all sink in, your food arrives - an affair as simple as it gets. An unassuming parantha in a steel plate with an accompaniment of curd in a small steel bowl. You dig in - the parantha is not the best you've had but it satiates your craving for that homemade taste - something you'd be hard-pressed to find in most eateries in India. There are no napkins or paper towels to wipe your slightly greasy fingers on - and after the mineral water, you're hesitant to ask. You look around and figure out why.

When there's a psychedelic blue washbasin right next to the 'mehfil' area, why would you need a napkin? Really, now.

As we polish off our simple yet delicious meal, we realise just how popular this quirky little place is - customers stream in - young couples, lone guys clearly arriving straight from work, foreign expats, even families. And as randomly thown together as this place seems at first glance, it seems to grow on you - all strange art, mushy poetry, plastic furniture, psychedelic ceiling and washbasin of it. The meal barely makes a scratch on your pocket, and very strangely, you find yourself wanting to come back even before you've left.

Somehow it is only in India that you'll find such an incredibly quirky place that is so popular yet so bordering on the bizarre. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why we call it Incredible India. Ah, India. It's good to be back.