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A group of famished Italian tourists barged into a nondescript Delhi restaurant when the kitchen had closed for lunch. They pleaded on bended knees with the manager till they got him to persuade the chief cook to please do something for the desperate visitors.
He could give them a pizza as, of course, that’s all he had at this time, the chef said apologetically.
I’ve rarely seen an emotional mix of bewilderment and joy as I did that instructive afternoon. The Indian restaurant had pizza but believed it had no food. Put it to cultural chasm, but what one sees as exotic can be passé for the other.
A flip side to the equation was recounted by Begum Akhtar, a former courtesan who became a celebrated exponent of the ghazal and thumri singing. In her story, the famished visitor had to engage in a contest of wits with a complicated host to find something to eat.
She spent an entire sleepless night regaling the notorious nizam of Hyderabad, who was already miffed with her for apparently spending more quality time in the rival court of Rampur.
According to the story, the Nizam would not give her respite from endless singing in his packed court till, into the wee hours, he grudgingly permitted a short break. Her voice was cracking; perhaps she needed to moisten her throat, he told Akhtaribai as she was called. What could he do for her, the Nizam added perversely.
The Begum came up with a plan she thought would nicely humiliate the Nizam. “With your permission, my liege, can I request some anannas ka murabba?” the singer wondered, masking her acid gambit with a coy smile. Pineapple slices in syrup were a delicacy of royal courts, but it was an awkward time to post the request. There was silence in the court amid palpable tension. The Nizam summoned his prime minister to find a way out.
It must be a blessing for India’s overzealous spin doctors that American journalists are happily insular.
Soon enough eight liveried bearers carrying two palanquin-sized jars goose-stepped into the court. The heavy jars were tied to a thick bamboo stick for the bearers to lift the anannas the Begum thought her host could never produce, at least not at that unearthly hour. It is easy to turn a soireé into a punishment.
Read: Rain fails to dampen cheer as Obama attends India parade
When President Obama looked at the rain-filled sky to catch a glimpse of an otherwise impressive air show at Monday’s Republic Day parade in Delhi, I wondered if he was thrilled or disappointed with what he saw. Would it have crossed his mind that the athletic Russian-built Sukhoi-30s on display were highlighted in the two-hour programme sheet as a reward for his anti-Putin remarks the previous day.
I would disagree with Indian analysts who say an American correspondent asked Obama a question on Ukraine, with Prime Minister Modi standing by, to invite an anti-Russian comment. American journalists are mostly insular about the world, and India gets a fair share of their aloofness. Remember how Narasimha Rao stood pouting silently (his comfort zone though) by Bill Clinton’s side in Washington, listening to one question after the other about the coming US invasion of Granada? No one cared about India’s economic reforms or the demolition of the Babri Masjid. All that was left to the Indian correspondent to handle.
Also read: Obama's visit to India: Of handshakes and hugs
In fact, sometimes it must be a blessing for India’s overzealous spin doctors that American journalists are happily insular. For when they get curious they can be more damaging than any quasi-official media manager would want to handle.
Take Annie Gowen’s story on Prime Minister Modi’s abandoned wife in The Washington Post. I mean apart from Navbharat Times, the Hindi edition of Times of India, virtually every other Indian newspaper or TV channel seems to be sworn to the unspoken law of omertà on the subject of Modi’s wife. Only Navbharat Times in Lucknow and The Washington Post correspondent in Delhi found in it a valid sidebar to the presidential visit, not the least because the narrative of Jashodaben Modi contrasted starkly with the parade’s theme this year of ‘nari shakti’ or women’s power.
“She’s waiting for him, as she has been all her life,” Gowen wrote. “But when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi dined with Barack and Michelle Obama at a glittering banquet Sunday night, his wife wasn’t by his side.” In the absence of Jashodaben, Vice President Hamid Ansari’s erudite wife, Salma, was seen giving Michelle Obama a long briefing as the parade progressed.
This brings me to the pizza moment in the annual Indian parade. You can’t impress anyone, much less the leader of the mightiest military power on earth with weapons you have either bought from him or from his rivals by stealing money from your country’s hospitals and schools. The most joyous moment for many like me is not to see a French mirage or a British Jaguar or a Russian Sukhoi zipping past aimlessly trying hard not to break the sound barrier.
What enthralls my friends no end is exactly why anyone goes to the circus, to see human feats of great finesse and magical talent. Every year this day motorcyclists from competing paramilitary units perform heart-stopping feats, often carrying a dozen-plus comrades hoisted in the most intricate patterns that only the best choreographers can conjure. I saw Michelle and Barack Obama gasp, the only time they looked genuinely riveted. Alas the great institution of the circus, particularly those from Thalassery in Kerala, is dying in India.
The cultural show reflected in the floats showcased the Modi government’s fixation with religious identity. Barring a tuneful devotion to the deity of Pandharpur in Maharashtra, which had strains of the late Bhimsen Joshi’s bhavgeet, the cultural window suggested a regressive Talibanised worldview of revivalism. They even buttoned up Wajid Ali Shah’s angarkha, robbing the anti-colonial mascot of Oudh and peerless Kathak guru of his trademark portrait with an exposed left breast.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2015
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