Malathy Iyer, TNN
MUMBAI: It's widely known that a month's dose of cancer drugs can cost lakhs, but what isn't common knowledge is that Tata Memorial Hospital's doctors are working on alternatives that could cost less than Rs 1,000 a month.
Dubbed the metronomic treatment protocol, it comprises daily consumption of a combination of low-dose medicines that are cheap because they have been around for decades. "There is no need to worry about patents or recovery of billions spent on research,'' said Dr Shripad Banavali, head of the medical oncology department of Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel, who has been working on the low-dose-low-cost therapies.
His colleague, Dr Surendra Shastri sums up the mood well: "The metronomics experiment is path-breaking in terms of providing good quality and affordable cancer care for a majority of the over 10 lakh cancer cases diagnosed in India each year.'' These findings could revolutionize cancer care in most developing countries, he said.
The catch is, however, that this branch is still in research stage. The conventional cancer treatment comprising chemotherapy is given at "maximum tolerated doses" which are tested and have reams of research to back it. As against this, in metronomic therapies, the drugs are given at very low doses. "But side-effects are fewer and patients have a good quality of life,'' said Dr Banavali.
The word metronomics is borrowed from music; musicians use the metronome to mark time and hence rhythm. Patients are asked to take these medicines for a period of 21 days or more before taking a break of a week; such a cycle continues for months.
Dr Banavali's work has been published in the May issue of the medical journal Lancet Oncology. Thousands of patients have been on metronomic treatment in Tata Memorial Hospital as well as its rural centre, with a sizeable number managing to control the growth of cancer. "In India, the main challenge in cancer is not just finding cures, but to develop affordable treatments'' he said.
In fact, the metronomic work arose out of such cost concerns over a decade back. The Tata doctors found that many patients were lost to treatment because they were overwhelmed by the cost of medicines. "Moreover, many patients came so late for treatment that we had to turn them away without any medicines,'' said Dr Banavali. Instead of turning away such patients, the Tata team decided to adopt the metronomic treatment as palliative treatment that was being tested out in various parts of the world. "We gave them drugs that would help in pain or at least ensure that their case doesn't worsen," he adds.
But the results surprised them. In a large group of children with blood cancers called acute myeloid leukemia (AML), they found that metronomic maintenance treatment had helped increased survival rate to 67%. The group then started its own innovation, going ahead of the rest of the world. "The West used the same set of medicines for all forms of cancer, but we introduced personalised medicines for various types of cancers,'' said Dr Banavali.
The Lancet paper, titled 'Has the time come for metronomics in low-income and middle-income countries', mentions combination of drugs used for four cancers (see box). The Tata doctors feel that these drugs may work as well for newly developed tumours. "While the developed world is going after 'drug discoveries', that is discovering new drugs which are very costly for our patients, we are going after 'drug repositioning', that is using time-tested drugs for the treatment of cancer," said Dr Banavali. For example they are using drugs likemetformin (an anti-diabetic drug), sodium valproate (an anti-seizure drug) and propranolol (an anti-hypertensive drug) in the treatment of cancer.
The Lancet paper said, "The combination of metronomic chemotherapy and drug repositioning might provide a way to overcome some of the major constraints associated with cancer treatment in developing countries and might represent a promising alternative strategy for patients with cancer living in low- and middle-income countries.''
Metronomics chemotherapy works at three levels. It attacks tumours while working on the "micro-environment", like the blood vessels, around the tumour. Thirdly, it works on the immuno-modulating system of the body. "Unless the metronomic dose works on all these three fields, it may not work,'' said the doctor.
Survivor of twin blows, counselor for others
On the occasion of Cancer Survivors Day on June 2, members of Ugam, an NGO, will put up a skit at Tata Memorial Hospital to underline the problems of parents whose children suffer from cancer. Comprising childhood cancer survivors, Ugam members counsel cancer patients undergoing treatment at Tata Memorial Hospital. One of its founder members, Shalaka Mane (29), who lost her right eye to cancer, will be there too. She feels people discriminate against cancer patients. "I feel there is a need to increase awareness about the treatment of cancer in society and the government, and enable these families to get financial help," she says. Diagnosed with blood cancer when she was eight years old, she barely got back to being at the top of her class when she was found to have brain cancer. "I was in Class XII and planning to take up medicine, but it wasn't to be,'' she says. The second cancer was so virulent that she lost her eye. But she emerged victorious a second time and completed her masters. She now teaches at Kalvidhai Mission High School, Andheri, which she attended as a student. "My principal and teachers never discriminated against me because of my illness. I enjoy my job," she adds.
'Cancer can't affect my future'
Artist Sachin Chandorkar is a poster boy of sorts at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Parel. At 28, he has won several awards (one from chief minister Prithviraj Chavan last month) for his murals and sculptures. But the Tata connection comes from his victory over cancer when he was five years of age. He was suffering from Hodgkin's Lymphoma. "I remember feeling irritated due to the itch on my head. When I would stratch my head, tufts of hair would come into my hands. I would then start crying," says Chandorkar, who studied at the JJ School of Arts. He usually doesn't talk about his battle with the Big C. "When my mother and sisters sometimes talk about it, I ask them to stop. I have decided that cancer is a part of my past and cannot affect my future,'' he adds.
“Blessed is the nation that doesn’t need heroes" Goethe. “Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.” Herbert Spencer
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Showing posts with label mumbai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mumbai. Show all posts
Sunday 2 June 2013
Monday 18 March 2013
I am beginning to dread Mumbai
.
Shantanu Bhagwat in The Times of India
My favourite city when I was growing up has today become a place that I try hard to avoid. The reasons are not hard to find. Lack of an efficient system of public transport tops the list. Add to this, the traffic snarls. To this, add a humid climate and uncontrolled, chaotic crowds that jostle for space with shops, scooters, buses & cars.
Don’t get me wrong. There are still many things that keep me hooked on Mumbai. The spirit of enterprise, the numerous eating joints, the real feel of a cosmopolis and the walk along Marine Drive – to name just a few. But all these are increasingly overshadowed by my dread of being stuck in an endless traffic snarl or missing my meeting (worse, a flight) or having nowhere to go for a walk if I feel like unwinding after a long day.
Mumbai’s problems are not unique. At their core is the utter failure of government and administration to deal with rapid urbanisation that is happening across the length and breadth of India. This urbanisation is the reason for Guwahati losing its charm. This urbanisation is the reason Delhi is fast becoming a cold, ruthless city seething with rage. It is what long-term residents of Pune dread. And it is the reason Bengaluru’s distances are now calculated in “hours” rather than kilometres.
To get a sense of the magnitude of the challenge we face, sample this:
- Over 32% of Indians living in major cities still live in single room homes. In most Tier-I cities, “Affordable Housing” remains a pipe dream.
- Almost no Indian city has water coming through the pipes that is safe to drink. Waste disposal remains a common problem across towns and cities in India
- Sometime between now and the next 10 years, 3 Indian cities will be among the fastest growing cities world-wide. These are Ghaziabad, Surat and Fardiabad. “Twenty-two other Indian cities (will) also find a place in the top 100”.
- In Delhi, over 350 kms of nullahs (storm water drains) built hundreds of years ago now carry untreated sewage posing a grave risk to public health & environment
- On an average, 10-12 people die every day on the tracks of Mumbai’s suburban rail system. That is almost 4000 people each year. This has been going on for several years
And finally this statistic which I doubt would surprise any of you: almost 50% of the population in most cities live in slum-like conditions.
About 3 years ago, I visited one such area in Mumbai. Situated within minutes from the famous RK Studios in Chembur, this area is called Cheetah Camp. Cheeta Camp is unusual because it is a “planned slum”. But the planning does not extend to sewers or basic provisions.
A recent study discovered that the 117,000 residents of Cheeta Camp have just 38 usable toilets among themselves. That means roughly one toilet per 170 people. To understand what this means, take about 30-40 families in your neighbourhood. Now imagine all of them coming to your home to use our one toilet. I think you get the picture.
Believe it or not, we actually have a “Ministry of Urban Development” with a cabinet rank minister in charge. The minister in charge is the redoubtable Kamal Nath – a man tagged with the “15% label” by Tarun Das, former Chief Mentor, CII and alleged to have offered “jet airplanes as enticements” to get support from MPs for the India-US civilian nuclear deal in 2008.
Sadly the Ministry appears to have achieved little. The Minister himself has publicly said, “We are not building for the future, unlike Hong Kong and Singapore. We are still catching up with the past”
And his own Ministry’s survey on the state of affairs in our cities has highlighted glaring failures, including the fact that, “more than half of India's cities have no piped water or sewerage systems, four in five had water for less than five hours per day and seventy per cent households across the states had no lavatory.” Not only has the Ministry failed to achieve much, it has been dragged into the murky CommonWealth Games Scandal too.
Unfortunately urbanisation is a dull topic for prime time TV. It does not arouse the kind of passion that can get people out on the streets. For most well-read, educated Indians whose stomachs are full, urbanisation is an inevitable “evil” that is ruining their towns and cities. It is the “evil” that is making water scarce; making groceries expensive, commuting a nightmare and jeopardising the safety of their children.
There is little realisation of the long-term implications of this “problem”. It seems most of us assume the challenges of “urbanisation” will be resolved on their own.
But we ignore urbanisation at our own peril. I believe, more than anything, dealing with the effects & impact of rapid urbanisation will be India's biggest challenge in coming decades.
Sunday 3 February 2013
Questions for Hafiz Saeed/Pakistan
by M J Akbar
A question for the internationally recognised terrorist, ideologue and mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack, Hafiz Saeed, resident of Lahore, who has just offered sanctuary in Pakistan to our superstar Shah Rukh Khan. Pakistan was carved out in 1947 to ensure security for this subcontinent's Muslims in a separate homeland. Why, six decades later, has Pakistan become the most insecure place for Muslims in the world? Why are more Muslims being killed each day, on an average, in Pakistan than in the rest of the Muslim world put together?
This continual mass murder is not being done by Hindus and Sikhs, who were once proud residents of Punjab and Sindh but are now merely a near-invisible trace. Some Pakistan leaders even express pride in the fact that non-Muslims , who constituted around 20 per cent of the population in 1947, have been reduced to less than 2 per cent. In contrast, the percentage of Muslims in secular India has increased since independence. Hindus and Sikhs are not killing Muslims in Pakistan; Muslims are murdering Muslims, and on a scale unprecedented in the history of Punjab, the North West Frontier and Sindh. Why?
There have been riots in India, some of them horrendous. But the graph is one of ebb from the peak of 1947. When a riot does occur, as in Maharashtra recently, civil society and media stand up to demand accountability, and the ground pressure of a secular democracy forces even reluctant governments to cooperate in punishment of the guilty. When Shias, or other sectarians, are mass-murdered in Pakistan on a regular basis, the killers celebrate a "duty" well done.
History's paradox is evident: Muslims today are safer in India than in Pakistan. The "muhajirs" who left the cities of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in 1947 would have been far safer in Lucknow, Patna and dozens of cities in their original land than they are now in the tense streets and by-lanes of Karachi.
Could Shah Rukh Khan have become an international heart throb if his parents had joined the emigration in 1947? Since he is talented he would have gained some recognition on the fringes of elite society, but he could not have become a central presence of a popular culture that has seeped and spread to every tehsil and village. Nor is Shah Rukh the only Muslim superstar in Mumbai's film world; Salman Khan is bigger than him. Shah Rukh and Salman and Amir Khan do not hide their identity through an alias; their birth name is their public persona.
The television set in my office serves two main purposes: it shows cricket and offers access to an FM radio station which plays old film songs. A song by Muhammad Rafi was on the air while the previous paragraph was being written: Man re tu kahe na dheer dhare. It is a beautiful classic, written by Sahir Ludhianvi. Rafi, as his name confirms, was a Muslim. He was born in 1924 in western Punjab and came to Mumbai as a very young man in search of dreams. Those dreams had not come true by 1947. Rafi had the option of returning to Lahore. He chose to remain in Mumbai, and brought his family in what might be called the reverse direction. It was a wise choice. Mumbai made Rafi's voice immortal. Rafi, like India, was the distillation of many inspirations.
Hafiz Saeed and his ilk possess cramped, virulent minds which condemn the ragas upon which our subcontinent's music, both classic and popular, is based, as inimical. They want to destroy a shared Hindu-Muslim cultural heritage in which Muslim maestros took classical music to splendid heights under the patronage of padishahs, rajahs and nawabs . Instead of art, they possess vitriol, even as the violence they spawn turns Pakistan into a laboratory of chaos. They call themselves guardians of their nation, but they are in fact regressive theocrats who are shredding the Pakistan that Jinnah imagined.
There is an answer to the opening question. Extremists who reduce faith to a fortress do not understand a simple truth: faith cannot be partitioned. Islam was a revelation for mankind; it cannot be usurped by a minor tract of geography. Nations are created by and for men, within boundaries of language or culture or tribe. Religion comes from God; it is not a political tool for human ambition. Those who equate religion with nation distort the first and destroy the second. Pakistan has become a battlefield for dysfunctional forces because theocrats will not permit it to become a rational state.
Logic suggests a reciprocal offer: Pakistani Muslims would be safer in India. But that offer cannot extend to Hafiz Saeed. His mission is to be India's adversary. What he does not understand is that he is really Pakistan's enemy.
Saturday 24 November 2012
Thackeray's Historical Record - Lest We Forget
- October 30, 1966 Thackeray's first Dusshera rally. A mob leaves the rally later to attack and burn south Indian shops and restaurants. The rally was also addressed by Congress leader Ramrao Adik. Attacks on south Indians were with the backing of CM Vasantrao Naik.
- Mumbai 1968 Hindi films brought out by south Indian producers are stopped by Thackeray's Shiv Sainiks.
- February 1969 Thackeray unleashes his goons against Kannadigas. 59 dead, 274 wounded, 151 cops injured in week of riots.
- June 6, 1970 CPI MLA and trade unionist Krishna Desai murdered in first political assassination in the city since 1947.
- January 1974 Dalit Panther leader Bhagwat Jadhav brutally killed by Thackeray's men, sparks off war with Dalits.
- 1975-76 Thackeray shocks colleagues, praises Sanjay Gandhi during the Emergency. By 1977, changes tack.
- Jan 1982 Thackeray supports Congress in Great Textile Strike. Breaks ties under duress, goes back three years later.
- From 1984 Shiv Sena carries out attacks on Dalit farmers in Vidarbha and Marathwada, destroying crops, burning huts.
- 1985 Thackeray calls for expulsion of 'outsiders’, proposes 1972 as cut-off date for having moved to Maharashtra.
- 1985 Cong CM Vasantdada Patil connives to help Shiv Sena win BMC polls with ‘Bombay part of Maharashtra’ issue.
- March 1988 The wonderful “saviour of Sikhs” Thackeray calls for a boycott of Sikh businesses in Maharashtra.
- 1988 Thackeray's 'boycott of Sikhs businesses' idea is quietly abandoned after extorting crores from Sikhs in Mumbai.
- Post 1989 + Mandal riots Thackeray finds a more convenient target for his political purposes: Indian Muslims.
- October 1991 Thackeray's thugs attack journalists, fracturing one woman's (Manimala) skull with a crowbar.
- 1991 Thackeray takes it one step further, threatens a local judge who had ruled against his goons with blinding.
- 1991 Thackeray's Dopahar ka Saamna editorial very sweetly compares women journalists to prostitutes.
- 1995 Thackeray: "If they have their Dawood, then we have our Arun Gawli." Because all politicos need a personal mafia.
- July 1996 The Ramesh Kini murder after long term intimidation. SS-BJP state govt tries to bury investigation.
- 1997 Kini's wife accuses Raj Thackeray of his murder. HC asked CBI to investigate but Mumbai police destroys evidence.
- July 11, 1997 Ten Dalits are killed and over 30 wounded at the Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar massacre. None were armed.
- Republic Day, 1997 Two adivasi youths murdered. Adivasi women sexually assaulted by police and SS workers at Talasari.
- Late 1990s SS-BJP goverment summarily withdraws over 1,100 cases of atrocities against Dalits in Marathwada.
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It’s a sight, ‘progressives’ adding to Thackeray’s iconisation
The mammoth size of the crowd of mourners who congregated at Shivaji Park in Mumbai last Sunday to bid a final adieu to Bal Thackeray foxed many of his long-time critics. They had assumed that, in his waning years, the Shiv Sena chieftain had become a pale and tragic shadow of his former, feisty self and was therefore a figure of no consequence. The assumption was well founded. A series of political setbacks and personal tragedies, followed by age-related illnesses, had taken their toll.
In his last video address, Thackeray appealed to the Sainiks to “take care” of his anointed heirs—son Uddhav and grandson Aditya—once he exited the scene. It was a pitiable sight: the patriarch, who once held his audience in thrall with his vitriolic oratory, now appeared to be frail and exhausted as he gasped for breath while he searched for the right words. The critics had therefore concluded that he was well and truly a spent force.
But by the time the funeral ended, the critics began to sing a different tune. The presence of lakhs of people, as well as that of political leaders from several parties, corporate heads and leading film stars, they acknowledged, contained a message about Thackeray’s enduring appeal, which had thus far eluded them. It related partly to his great capacity to strike bonds of friendship even with his rivals in the spheres of politics, the media, sports and cinema. He castigated them in the most acerbic terms in his public speeches, but in private, treated them with much warmth and courtesy.
Partly, too, the critics argued, Thackeray’s candour—a marked penchant to always call a spade a bloody shovel—set him apart from politicians who can rarely, if ever, mean what they say or say what they mean. The Sena patriarch’s forthrightness, often expressed in a language that bordered on the obscene, outraged his adversaries, embarrassed his allies and compelled his party leaders to squirm in their seats. But, the neo-converts claimed, it was music to the ears of his followers. They revelled in every sentence he uttered for, in their reckoning, Thackeray dared to articulate their very own sentiments.
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The neo-converts to identity politics went on to assert that throughout his public life Thackeray exploited these insecurities with such consummate skill that an average Maharashtrian readily looked the other way when he promoted his political agenda with a brazen, often callous, disregard for constitutional niceties. They knew that the Sena patriarch’s single obsession was to instil a sense of pride in the Marathi manoos, to seek his social and economic advancement and to give him the confidence to face the dreaded “outsiders” with courage and fortitude.
It is these virtues that Thackeray’s once-strident critics extolled as they witnessed the scenes at Shivaji Park. The thought did not cross their minds that the grouses of the Maharashtrians had little to do with the malignant “outsiders”. If few of them were at the commanding heights of trade and commerce, the all-India civil services, the English media, Bollywood, PSUs, the armed forces, the academic world or even the cultural one at the pan-India level, the reasons had to be sought in their own character and attitude and in the neglect of quality education in the state.
The neo-converts couldn’t summon the nerve to admit that Maharashtrians lacked—or had failed to exhibit—the entrepreneurial skills of the Gujaratis, Marwaris, Kutchis, Jains, Sindhis and Parsis; that they didn’t venture out of their towns and cities to earn a livelihood in distant states as south Indians, Punjabis, north Indian Hindus and Muslims and the bhadralok Bengalis did with gusto; that their innately cautious, understated nature did not allow them to engage in the highly competitive market of arts and ideas.
The neo-converts to identity politics also chose to ignore two other factors. Few, if any, thought it fit to point to the terrible cost Maharashtra had to pay for Thackeray’s brand of politics: a lethal mix of regional chauvinism, communalism and rank opportunism. Its victims weren’t heard in TV studio discussions or in the columns of newspapers. Nor was another, younger breed of Maharashtrians, who are carving a niche for themselves in just about every field, ranging from food and fashion to scholarship, business, media and the arts. They don’t suffer from a sense of victimhood. It is therefore a matter of time before the newly minted admirers of Bal Thackeray—most of them “progressives”—are forced to eat their words.
That time may indeed have come much sooner than any of them would have anticipated. Even as the mammoth crowd had begun to disperse from Shivaji Park, a group of Shiv Sainiks flexed their muscles in Palghar. They forced a 21-year old woman, Shaheen Dhada, to tender an apology for a comment she had posted on her Facebook page. Her crime? She had raised questions about how and why Mumbai had shut down in the wake of Thackeray’s death—without naming him once. This perfectly innocuous comment had riled the Sainiks for, in their eyes, Shaheen, like her friend, Rini Srinivasan, who had endorsed the comment, had insulted their leader. After some reluctance, Shaheen did post an apology on her Facebook page, but that brought her no respite.
The Sainiks vandalised a hospital run by her uncle and roughed up staff and patients alike. Late that night, the police, instead of hunting for the vandals, took the two young women in custody and next morning pressed charges against them for “outraging religious feelings”. The charges were subsequently whittled down and the women were released on bail. Such was the nation-wide outcry against the conduct of both, the Sainiks and the police, that the state government was compelled to order an inquiry.
But their reputation was in tatters: the former, because they had demonstrated how they proposed to uphold the legacy of Thackeray; and the latter, for making it obvious that, faced with the wrath of the Sainiks, their spine was akin to the spine of an eel. They had shown this propensity to kowtow to the Sena time and again in the past. Not once did they seriously press charges against Thackeray for his inflammatory speeches against “Madrasis”, Muslims, Biharis and against artists, writers, film stars and journalists who had questioned his policies and tactics. Will the recent adherents of the Shiv Sena patriarch’s brand of identity politics now run for cover? This is far from certain. No long-time practitioner of a faith—religious or secular—can hope to match the zeal of a neo-convert to sap the foundations of the republic.
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Ashis Nandy on Thackeray - 'He may have believed in nothing'
It is not my job to pay tributes to dead politicians, nor is it to do a hatchet job on them. I have learnt to look at human beings without being terribly judgemental, since I still retain something of my clinical training. Therefore, I shall look at Bal Thackeray from a distance. He was a product of a period of Indian politics during which his kind thrived. It was the time when leaders like Datta Samant emerged but, unlike him, Thackeray’s instinct for survival was stronger and he negotiated the world of Indian politics with greater skill despite his—and this is a gross understatement—many angularities.
Actually, Thackeray believed in nothing. Many people think he believed in Hindutva, something that he exploited very successfully to further his career, but it perhaps did not mean anything at all to him. He spewed hatred against Hindus liberally—and frequently. When they were not the south Indians, they were the Gujaratis and the Marwaris and, later in his life, the migrants from UP and Bihar. It would be wrong to presume that Balasaheb spoke for the Hindus; he only spoke up for those who supported him. Chameleon-like, he changed colours and always looked ready for different occasions. It is being said that he cemented Marathi identity, but even that is doubtful. Marathi identity was something already there; it did not have to be reinforced by Thackeray. Balasaheb only took advantage of its existence and rode its crest to political power.
The glowing tributes that have poured in for Thackeray are not easy to explain at short notice. We shall have to wait to assess their resilience. Indians avoid speaking ill of the dead. A careful enumeration might reveal some day that Thackeray’s victims among the Marathi people, for whom he reportedly toiled all his life, were more numerous than Ajmal Kasab’s (whose hanging has prompted not lamentation, but jubilation). It is probable that Thackeray’s legacy of violence has been overlooked as most of his victims have come from the bottom strata of society, whose deaths do not make much of a difference to a media-exposed public.
After saying all this, I must hasten to add that there is in Thackeray another trait that may explain the eulogies he has received from various quarters. One can accuse him of having run a criminal enterprise, but the political culture of it did not seem criminal because there was an element of juvenile delinquency in it. The use of the term juvenile is deliberate; there was something innocent about his project, something that reminded one of the playfulness of a teenager. What would have otherwise looked like a criminal enterprise ended up looking like the forgiveable naughtiness of a teenager. For many, he was always playing a game, he made it clear to his galaxy of friends and followers, in Mario Puzo style.
In him, there was a little bit of playacting. Not surprisingly, his circle of friends included people from different religious, educational and linguistic backgrounds. Not only that, they even included those who opposed every canon of the different ideologies he has espoused in his entire political life. How else can one explain the friendship between R.K. Laxman, a classical liberal (and a south Indian!), and Thackeray? He reportedly even called him up days before he died just so that he could hear his voice once. Their relationship was described as ‘apolitical’, and it endorses what I said.
This is why I say he believed in nothing. There was something iconoclastic about him. He cared two hoots for ideologies. He saw through the hypocrisy of ideologies that political leaders employ on the national scene. For him, politics was just a game and he beat others at it. He didn’t even take himself as seriously as many would like to believe. People who knew him reasonably well probably suspected in their hearts that he never believed in any of what he said publicly. I think their tributes discounted the element of violence, given that there was something juvenile about his political enterprise. They would rather remember it as something slightly naughty.
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Ashis Nandy on Thackeray - 'He may have believed in nothing'
It is not my job to pay tributes to dead politicians, nor is it to do a hatchet job on them. I have learnt to look at human beings without being terribly judgemental, since I still retain something of my clinical training. Therefore, I shall look at Bal Thackeray from a distance. He was a product of a period of Indian politics during which his kind thrived. It was the time when leaders like Datta Samant emerged but, unlike him, Thackeray’s instinct for survival was stronger and he negotiated the world of Indian politics with greater skill despite his—and this is a gross understatement—many angularities.
Actually, Thackeray believed in nothing. Many people think he believed in Hindutva, something that he exploited very successfully to further his career, but it perhaps did not mean anything at all to him. He spewed hatred against Hindus liberally—and frequently. When they were not the south Indians, they were the Gujaratis and the Marwaris and, later in his life, the migrants from UP and Bihar. It would be wrong to presume that Balasaheb spoke for the Hindus; he only spoke up for those who supported him. Chameleon-like, he changed colours and always looked ready for different occasions. It is being said that he cemented Marathi identity, but even that is doubtful. Marathi identity was something already there; it did not have to be reinforced by Thackeray. Balasaheb only took advantage of its existence and rode its crest to political power.
The glowing tributes that have poured in for Thackeray are not easy to explain at short notice. We shall have to wait to assess their resilience. Indians avoid speaking ill of the dead. A careful enumeration might reveal some day that Thackeray’s victims among the Marathi people, for whom he reportedly toiled all his life, were more numerous than Ajmal Kasab’s (whose hanging has prompted not lamentation, but jubilation). It is probable that Thackeray’s legacy of violence has been overlooked as most of his victims have come from the bottom strata of society, whose deaths do not make much of a difference to a media-exposed public.
After saying all this, I must hasten to add that there is in Thackeray another trait that may explain the eulogies he has received from various quarters. One can accuse him of having run a criminal enterprise, but the political culture of it did not seem criminal because there was an element of juvenile delinquency in it. The use of the term juvenile is deliberate; there was something innocent about his project, something that reminded one of the playfulness of a teenager. What would have otherwise looked like a criminal enterprise ended up looking like the forgiveable naughtiness of a teenager. For many, he was always playing a game, he made it clear to his galaxy of friends and followers, in Mario Puzo style.
In him, there was a little bit of playacting. Not surprisingly, his circle of friends included people from different religious, educational and linguistic backgrounds. Not only that, they even included those who opposed every canon of the different ideologies he has espoused in his entire political life. How else can one explain the friendship between R.K. Laxman, a classical liberal (and a south Indian!), and Thackeray? He reportedly even called him up days before he died just so that he could hear his voice once. Their relationship was described as ‘apolitical’, and it endorses what I said.
This is why I say he believed in nothing. There was something iconoclastic about him. He cared two hoots for ideologies. He saw through the hypocrisy of ideologies that political leaders employ on the national scene. For him, politics was just a game and he beat others at it. He didn’t even take himself as seriously as many would like to believe. People who knew him reasonably well probably suspected in their hearts that he never believed in any of what he said publicly. I think their tributes discounted the element of violence, given that there was something juvenile about his political enterprise. They would rather remember it as something slightly naughty.
Tuesday 20 November 2012
An authentic Indian fascism
PRAVEEN SWAMI
TOPICS
politics
“Fascism”, wrote the great Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci, in a treatise Balasaheb Keshav Thackeray likely never read but demonstrated a robust grasp of through his lifetime, “has presented itself as the anti-party; has opened its gates to all applicants; has with its promise of impunity enabled a formless multitude to cover over the savage outpourings of passions, hatreds and desires with a varnish of vague and nebulous political ideals. Fascism has thus become a question of social mores: it has become identified with the barbaric and anti-social psychology of certain strata of the Italian people which have not yet been modified by a new tradition, by education, by living together in a well-ordered and well-administered state”.
Ever since Thackeray’s passing, many of India’s most influential voices have joined in the kind of lamentation normally reserved for saints and movie stars. Ajay Devgn described him as “a man of vision”; Ram Gopal Varma as “the true epitome of power”. Amitabh Bachchan “admired his grit”; Lata Mangeshkar felt “orphaned”. Even President Pranab Mukherjee felt compelled to describe Thackeray’s death as an “irreparable loss”. The harshest word grovelling television reporters seemed able to summon was “divisive”.
It is tempting to attribute this nauseous chorus to fear or obsequiousness. Yet, there is a deeper pathology at work. In 1967, Thackeray told the newspaper Navakal: “It is a Hitler that is needed in India today”. This is the legacy India’s reliably anti-republican elite has joined in mourning.
Thackeray will be remembered for many things, including the savage communal violence of 1992-1993. He was not, however, the inventor of such mass killing, nor its most able practitioner. Instead, Thackeray’s genius was giving shape to an authentically Indian Fascism.
His fascism was a utopian enterprise — but not in the commonly-understood sense. The Left, a powerful force in the world where Thackeray’s project was born, held out the prospect of a new, egalitarian world. The Congress held the keys to a more mundane, but perhaps more real, earthly paradise: the small-time municipal racket; even the greater ones that led to apartments on Marine Drive. Thackeray’s Shiv Sena wore many veneers: in its time, it was anti-south Indian, anti-north Indian, anti-Muslim. It offered no kind of paradise, though. It seduced mainly by promising the opportunity to kick someone’s head in.
Nostalgic accounts of Mumbai in the 1960s and 1970s represent it as a cultural melting pot; a place of opportunity. It was also a living hell. Half of Mumbai’s population, S. Geetha and Madhura Swaminathan recorded in 1995, is packed into slums that occupy only 6 per cent of its land-area. Three-quarters of girls, and more than two-thirds of boys, are undernourished. Three-quarters of the city’s formal housing stock, Mike Davies has noted, consisted of one-room tenements where households of six people or more were crammed “in 15 square meters; the latrine is usually shared with six other families”.
From the 1970s, Girangaon — Mumbai’s “village of factories” — entered a state of terminal decline, further aiding the Sena project. In 1982, when trade union leader Datta Samant led the great textile strike, over 240,000 people worked in Girangaon. Inside of a decade, few of them had jobs. The land on which the mills stood had become fabulously expensive, and owners simply allowed their enterprises to turn terminally ill until the government allowed them to sell.
Thackeray mined gold in these sewers — building a politics that gave voice to the rage of educated young men without prospects, and offering violence as liberation. It mattered little to the rank and file Shiv Sena cadre precisely who the targets of their rage were: south Indian and Gujarati small-business owners; Left-wing trade union activists; Muslims; north Indian economic migrants.
The intimate relationship between Mr. Bachchan and Thackeray is thus no surprise. In the 1975 Yash Chopra-directed hit Deewar, Mr. Bachchan rejects his trade-union heritage, and rebels by turning to crime. He is killed, in the end, by his good-cop brother. The Shiv Sena was a product of precisely this zeitgeist; its recruits cheered, like so many other young Indians, for the Bad Mr. Bachchan.
Like the mafia of Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar — which, it ought to be remembered, flourished in the same Mumbai — the Sena offered patronage, profit and power. Its core business, though, was the provision of masculinity. There are no great Sena-run schools, hospitals or charities; good works were not part of its language.
The fascist threat
Fascism, Gramsci understood, was the excrement of a dysfunctional polity: its consequence, not its cause. Liberal India’s great failure has been its effort to seek accommodation with fascism: neither Thackeray’s movie-industry fans, nor Mr. Mukherjee are, after all, ideological reactionaries. The Congress, the epicentre of liberal Indian political culture, has consistently compromised with communalism; indeed, it is no coincidence that it benignly presided over Thackeray’s rise, all the way to carnage in 1992-1993 and after.
This historic failure has been mitigated by the country’s enormous diversity. The fascisms of Thackeray, of Kashmiri Islamists, of Khalistanis, of Bihar’s Ranvir Sena: all these remained provincial, or municipal. Even the great rise of Hindutva fascism in 1992-1993 eventually crashed in the face of Indian electoral diversity.
Yet, we cannot take this success for granted. Fascism is a politics of the young: it is no coincidence that Thackeray, until almost the end, dyed his hair and wore make-up to conceal his wrinkles. From now until 2026, youth populations will continue to rise in some of India’s most fragile polities — among them, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Jammu & Kashmir.
In a path-breaking 1968 essay, Herbert Moller noted how the emergence of children born between 1900 and 1914 on the job market — “a cohort”, he noted, “more numerous than any earlier ones” — helped propel the Nazi rise in Germany. Historian Paul Madden, in a 1983 study of the early membership of the Nazi party, found that it “was a young, overwhelmingly masculine movement which drew a disproportionately large percentage of its membership from the lower middle class and from the Mittelstand [small businesses]”.
For years now, as economic change has made it ever-harder for masses of people to build lives of dignity and civic participation, we have seen the inexorable rise of an as-yet inchoate youth reaction. From the gangs of violent predators who have raped women in Haryana, to the young Hindu and Muslim bigots who have spearheaded the recent waves of communal violence, street politics is ever more driven by a dysfunctional masculinity. Thackeray’s successes in tapping this generation’s rage will, without doubt, be drawn on in years to come by other purveyors of violence.
India desperately needs a political project that makes possible another, progressive masculinity, built around new visions for everything from culture, the family and economic justice. No vanguard for such a project, though, is yet in sight.
Tuesday 6 November 2012
40 types of special Bombay dishes
From street food spice bombs to favourite fasting foods and meat dishes
fit for a Mughal invader, here are a selection of foods that any true
Mumbaiker revels in
The history of food in Mumbai is
closely linked to the growth of this city from fishing village to mega
polis. As wave after wave of immigrants from all over the country came
with dreams of gold in their eyes, they brought their culinary treasures
with them. The result? A smorgasbord of cooking styles and street food
that reflects our cosmopolitanism as much as our carbohydrate-fuelled
work ethic.
Here's a sampling of 40 must-try foods that
define Mumbai's food culture, with Muslim, Gujarati, Goan, coastal,
South Indian, Parsi and local Maharashtran influences.
Parsi akuri, Mumbai's scrambled eggs
1. Akuri on toast
Move over scrambled eggs, the Parsi Akuri cometh. Rated as one of the
great Parsi dishes, every family has its own special way of making this
breakfast meal. Though variations of the ingredients are vociferously
debated, Akuri is usually made by scrambling eggs with onions, tomatoes
(or even raw mangoes when in season), red chilli powder, green chillies
and topped with fresh coriander. Others add milk, jeera (cumin) powder,
curry leaves and even ginger and garlic paste.
Try the Akuri on Toast at Jimmy Boy, 11 Bank Street, Vikas Building, Off Horniman Circle, Fort. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2266 2503
2. Baida roti
This one is an interesting envelope. Spiced meat -- chicken or minced
mutton, even bheja (brain) -- and whipped eggs with masala-fied fried
onions enveloped in a square shaped dough and pan fried. Though served
with sliced onion rings and green chutney, they're delicious even
without accompaniment.
A lot of people swear by the Baida Roti at
Bade Mian, Tullock Road, Behind Taj Mahal Hotel, Apollo Bunder, evenings
only. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2284 8038
Batata vada, a Mumbai icon
3. Batata vada
Whether it's for breakfast, teatime, or anytime, one thing is for sure,
Mumbaikars can’t live without the Batata Vada bite. This well-liked
fast food dumpling is made by mashing boiled potatoes with green
chillies, ginger, garlic, lime juice, turmeric, and fresh coriander,
then dipped in a besan (gram flour) batter and deep fried. It's served
either with a green chutney or fried green chillies.
Virtually
every street corner will have an outstanding Batata Vada seller but it’s
hard to beat the ones made at Shrikrishna, near Chabildas High School,
Dadar Market.
4. Butter chicken
This ubiquitous dish
traces its roots to the days of the Mughals when calorie counting was a
thing of the future. This must-order dish when Indian families go out
for dinner is made from chunks of chicken, marinated overnight in a
yogurt and spice mix that includes ginger garlic paste and lime juice.
It is then grilled or pan-fried. An ultra rich sauce made with butter,
tomato puree, cumin, garam masalas and fresh cream is then poured over
it. Best had with Indian breads like rotis, naan or parathas. Don't
confuse it with chicken tikka masala, which is a story for another day.
While available at every kind of eatery, the butter chicken at Punjab
Grill is worth dying for. Level 3, Palladium Mall, Phoenix Mills, Lower
Parel. Tel: +91 (0) 22 4347 3980
The classic Bombay Sandwich.
5. The Bombay sandwich
This street side invention is a combination of the most unlikely
ingredients. Lavishly buttered white bread and sandwiched between them
thin slices of beetroot, boiled potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, onion
rings, and mint chutney. Cut into four triangles so that you can handle
all the layers without spilling them, you get the most refreshing tangy
taste, after each bite. A toasted version steams up the vegetables
inside and adds another dimension. Truly, there is no other sandwich
quite like it in the world.
Though widely available throughout the
city, try it at Amar Juice Centre, near Cooper Hospital, opp. Juhu
Galli. Or the Mafco Stall outside Worli Dairy on Worli Sea Face.
Bheja fry, fried brain, not for the weak hearted.
6. Bheja fry
Bheja, or goat brain, sautéed with tomatoes, onions, turmeric, green
chillies, spices and garnished with fresh coriander, is a staple of all
those with hardcore carnivorous leanings in the city. Eaten with a roti
(Indian bread) or pao, this melt in the mouth dish has a rich Muslim
heritage behind it and you often find that one plate is not enough.
Radio Restaurant, 10, Musafir Khana, Palton Road, Tel: +91 (0) 22 2261 7171, serves up a really good Bheja Fry.
Fried Bombil aka Bombay Duck.
7. Bombil fry
Bombil, or Bombay Duck, is a fish (and not a duck) found in plenty in
the waters around Mumbai. A fisher folk favourite, Bombils are
flattened, then dipped in a spice-filled besan (gram flour) batter and
fried. This crunchy-on-the-outside and mushy-soft-on-the-inside fish
dish can be eaten on its own as a starter, or as a main course with
chapattis.
Gajalee restaurant does a mean Bombil Fry. They have
branches at Hanuman Road, Vile Parle (E), Tel: +91 22 26114093. And at
Phoenix Mills, Lower Parel, Tel: +91 22 2495 0667
8. Brun maska
You may wonder how bread and butter can become such an iconic union.
But it's not merely bread and this is not merely butter. It's brun or
gutli pao -- a local bread that is unique to Mumbai -- and it's crisp
and hard and crumbly on the outside and soft inside. The Brun is then
sliced and lashings of butter are applied lavishly. Some even sprinkle
quite a bit of sugar. It is usually accompanied by the sweet Irani chai.
Dipping the brun maska in the chai is the only way to eat it.
Available at most Irani restaurants, the Brun Maska at Kyani & Co is
historic. 657 Jer Mahal Estate, Opp. Metro Cinema, Dhobi Talao, Tel:
+91 (0) 22 2201 1492. Also try it at B Merwan, Opp. Grant Road Station
(E), Tel: +91 (0) 22 2309 3321
Bhel puri at the Taj Hotel.
9. Bhel Puri
The most commonly sold chaat on the streets of Mumbai, every Bhel Walla
will have his own matchless blend and a considerable 7pm fan following.
While the ingredients -- puffed rice, Papadis (small crisp deep fried
flour puri), sev, onions, potatoes, raw mango and sweet and sour chutney
-- remain the same, it is the proportions in which they are thrown
together on the street side that makes the difference.
Bhel puri is
available everywhere. The stalls at Chowpatty and Juhu beaches draw
throngs of die-hard fans. But if you want a Bhel puri with ambience, try
it at Sea Lounge, Taj Mahal Hotel, Apollo Bunder. Tel: +91 (0) 22 6665
3366
10. Chicken Mayo Roll
Almost every school or
college canteen serves it. Most single screen cinema houses showing
English movies display it during the interval. Most bakeries will have
their version, neatly wrapped in cellophane, at the counter. Some
grocery stores in up market areas stock it along with grain and rice.
It's hard to believe that plain boiled chicken doused in sweet-ish
mayonnaise with a celery leaf for dressing, all wrapped up in a bread
roll can be so popular in a spice loving city. But it is.
One of
the creamiest chicken mayo rolls can be had at Paradise, Sindh Chambers,
Shahid Bhagat Singh Road, Colaba, Tel: +91 22 22832874. Or try it at
Candies, Mac Ronells, 5A Pali Hill, St. Andrews Road, Bandra (W). Tel:
+91 22 26424125
11. Chicken Manchurian
Here's a dish
that even the Chinese over on the mainland haven't heard about. Snigger,
snigger. Yet it's on the menu of the roadside handcart Chinese food
hawker and the Chinese restaurant in the fancy five-star hotel. Chicken
Manchurian, a phrase that has come to be the face of Chinese food in
India, is nothing but deep-fried batter-coated chicken cubes in an
onion, green chillies, garlic, vinegar and soy sauce gravy. Eaten with
rice, it never fails to get a sigh of contentment from those partaking
of this gastronomic oddity.
If you want to taste the real thing,
try it where it was created, China Garden, Om Chambers, Kemps Corner.
Tel: +91 (0) 22 2363 0841
Trishna's butter pepper garlic crab.
12. Butter Garlic Crab
It doesn't trace its roots to Chinese, Continental or Indian cuisines.
It comes from Butter Land, an imagined place that thrives on the premise
that anything tastes great with melted butter. A delicious, simple
dish, a big crab is drowned in tons of butter garlic sauce that seeps
into every nook and cranny and coats every morsel of the flesh. Crack
open the crab and take a bite. You’ll know immediately that sweet
crabmeat and butter with a twist of garlic is a combination made by
gods.
The best butter garlic crab can be found at Mumbai's most
famous seafood restaurant. Trishna, Sai Baba Marg, Near Rhythm House,
Kala Ghoda, Fort. Tel: +91 22 22703213
13. Dhoklas and Farsaan
These popular snacks are so integral to food loving Gujaratis that no
meal is complete without them. And when travelling abroad, they don’t
leave home without a little parcel tucked away in their luggage. Dhoklas
or 'khummun' are made from the fermented batter of chickpeas, steamed
and then spiced with chillies and ginger and tempered with mustard seed.
Farsaan, a broad term for savouries encompassing sev and gathiya are
crisp deep-fried spiced gram flour creations in pasta like shapes.
Several stores stock these popular snacks. But try them here: Chedda Dry
Fruits & Snacks, 41 Ridge Road, Walkeshwar. Tel: +91 22 (0) 2369
9442. Dave Farsan Mart, 10 Babulnath Road, near Chowpatty. Tel: +91 (0)
22 6657 8311. Go-Go Snacks, Bhavan’s College Lane, Chowpatty. Tel: +91
22 (0) 2361 9968.
Falooda, a desi dessert
14. Falooda
This adaptation of a Persian dessert was brought to India by the
Mughals. A rich drink, Falooda is vermicelli mixed with milk, almonds,
pistachios, a bit of rose syrup and the key ingredient -- sabza or basil
seeds -- topped up with two scoops of ice cream. Refreshing, rosy,
energizing, it's a great pick-me-up on a hot day.
Badshah, at 152/156 LT Marg, Opp. Crawford Market. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2342 1943, has a reputation for their falooda.
15. Fish and Prawn Curry
These two dishes are as old as Mumbai herself (remember, this city
started off as a fishing village under various kings and sultanates
until the Portuguese and English discovered it in 1534). This
coconut-based light curry can be prepared using a variety of fish or
prawn. But the most popular curries use surmai (kingfish), pomfret
(butter fish), bangda (mackerel) or bombil (Bombay duck). And the only
way to truly enjoy it is with par boiled country rice.
For Konkani
and Malvani style fish curry go to Sadichha, B-5 Gandhi Nagar, Opp. MIG
Club, Bandra (E), Tel: +91 (0) 22 2651 0175. For Karwar style fish curry
there's Fresh Catch, Lt. Kotnis Marg, Near Fire Brigade, Off L J Road,
Mahim (W). Tel: +91 (0) 22 2444 8942
16. Frankie
Inspired by the Lebanese pita bread wrap and suitably Indianized, the
Frankie, or should I say the Tibbs Frankie, has satiated hordes of the
hungry in search of a quick lip-smacking snack. Basically, it's a juicy
naan bread with an egg coating and stuffed with mutton or chicken,
rolled up and sprinkled with a unique masala that gives it its special
flavor. The vegetarian option does not use eggs and the stuffings
include paneer or potatoes.
Available all over the city. For a Tibbs Frankie closest to you, call +91 (0) 22 2821 4698
Locals call it the gujju thaali
17. Gujarati thaalis
In fast food terms think of this as a large, all-you-can-eat combo
platter served on your table in unlimited quantities. Three types of
farsan (fried snacky things with a plethora of chutneys). Two kinds of
vegetables. Two kinds of lentils. Dal and kadhi (hot and spicy yoghurt
based dish). A basket of different rotis and puris (deep fried breads).
Two kinds of rice. Two desserts. And mango pulp which the purists pour
all over the plate. All this for a modest price. Gasp! A note on
Gujarati cuisine: most dishes tend to be on the sweet side and that
makes an interesting combination with the spiciness of the food.
Mumbaikers either love it or ignore it.
Try Golden Star Thali, 330
Raja Rammohan Roy Road, Opp. Charni Road Station, Girgaum, Tel: +91 (0)
22 2363 1983. Or, Chetana, 34 K Dubash Marg, Kala Ghoda, Fort. Tel: +91
(0) 22 2284 4968
18. Kheema Pao
Minced mutton cooked
with onions, garlic, tomatoes, chillies and spices takes on many avatars
here. In its original form, it is refereed to as plain Kheema. Topped
with a crisply fried sunny side up egg, it is called kheema single fry.
And scrambled with eggs, it is called ghotala. And all three are best
eaten with Mumbai's signature pao bread bun. Traditionally a breakfast
dish, it is now eaten at all times of the day or night.
Try it at
Stadium Restaurant, IMC Building, Veer Nariman Road, Churchgate, Tel:
+91 (0) 22 2204 6819. Or at Olympia, Rahim Mansion, 1 Shahid Bhagat
Singh Road, Colaba, Tel: +91 (0) 22 2202 1043.
Grilled kebabs are a staple
19. Kebabs
While the kebab per se may not be unique to Mumbai or the region, a few
varieties that emerged from the Bohri Muslim community are truly
unique. Gurda (kidney) and kaleji (liver) top this list. Charcoal
grilled, they go great with freshly sliced onions and a squeeze of lime.
Try it at Ayubs, on the street behind Rhythm House, Kala Ghoda,
open only in the evenings. The best beef kebabs are to be found at
Sarvi, 184/196 Dimtimkar Road, opposite Nagpada Police Station, Byculla
(W). Tel: +91 9833 533 305. And for some outstanding north west frontier
style Kebabs, go to Peshawari, ITC Grand Maratha, Sahar Road, Andheri
(E), Tel: +91 (0) 22 2830 3030
20. Kolhapuri Mutton
The
hotter the temperature of a city, the hotter the food. And it's true of
this mutton dish that has its roots in Kolhapur, a city in the south of
Maharashtra. It comes in two coconut based gravy variations. The
nuclear strength version is called Tambda Rassa (a red chili spiced
extravaganza). And the milder version is called Pandhara Rassa (yoghurt,
cashew nuts and raisin embellished). Both go well with either rotis or
rice when you're in the mood for a feast.
Taste the heat at Purepur
Kolhapur, 1, Aditya Apartments, Parleshwar Road, Parleshwar Mandir,
Vile Parle (E). Tel: +91 (0) 22 2613 4569
Maharashtran style Kanda Poha
21. Kanda poha
A must-have in Maharashtrian families, you will rarely find a badly
made kanda poha dish. This simple, easy to make snack is made with kanda
(onions) and poha (flaked rice) mixed with chopped potatoes and green
chillies, sometimes even peas. Tempered with mustard seeds and garnished
with fresh coriander and a squeeze of lime, it lights up dull days. And
cements the many days in a marriage together.
Try it at Aswad, L J Road, Opp. Shiv Sena Bhavan, Dadar (W). Tel: +91 (0) 22 2445 1871
22. Misal Pao
Quintessentially from Pune, this rustic dish is made from a mix of
curried sprouted lentils, topped with batata (potato) bhaji, poha (rice
flakes), chivda, farsan, raw chopped onions and tomato. This hot and
spicy dish is eaten with pao bread. To cut the fire, add some yogurt.
A good version can be found at Vinay Health Home, 71/83, Jawahar
Mansion, Fanaswadi-Thakurdwar Corner, Girgaum. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2208 1211
23. Modak
A Maharashtrian sweet prepared during the
Ganesh festival around August, modak is offered to Lord Ganesha, the
elephant-headed god, because it is his favorite sweet. Wheat flour dough
kneaded with milk, stuffed with grated coconut and mixed with sugar or
jaggery. Shaped like a teardrop and steamed or fried. Typically 21 are
made as an auspicious offering to the god and tons more for the rest of
the family. It's a pity that it's made only once a year and in this
region.
Some sweet shops do keep modak during the festival season
but it is made of khoya (thickened milk) and is not the real thing. For
that, you’ll have to drop into a home that is celebrating the festival.
24. Mutton Dhansak
Representative of Parsi cuisine, the mutton dhansak falls in the
category of soul food. It is mutton cooked till tender in a lentil dal
laden with spices. And it is eaten with browned rice topped with deep
fried onions, garnished with mutton kebabs and sprinkled with a crunchy
mix of chopped raw onions, raw tomatoes and coriander. And the
aftereffects are usually exhibited in a sound afternoon nap.
This
rich dish, outside of a home, is best had at Ripon Club, 123A MG Road,
Opp. Bombay University, Fountain. Find a member to take you there.
Failing which, go to Britannia, Wakefield House, 11 Sprott Road, Ballard
Estate. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2261 5264
Mutton Sukke is without gravy
25. Mutton sukke
Mumbaikers break out into sweat over this Malvani-style mutton dish.
Chunks of mutton on the bone marinated in a hot Malvani masala and fried
with onions and garlic and red chillies until everything browns and the
meat is tender. It can be eaten with chapattis or wadé, rice flour
pancakes.
Try it at Jai Hind Lunch Home, 6 Mantri Corner, Gokhale Road South, Dadar. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2431 4256
26. Patra ni Machhi
Another top of the line Parsi dish. This is freshly caught pomfret,
marinated in a chutney that includes grated coconut, green chillies,
fresh coriander and mint leaves, cumin, sugar, lime and salt. It is then
wrapped in banana leaf and steamed for about ten minutes. Gently unwrap
and consume quietly, close your eyes and savor the flavor of a culinary
culture that will fill your senses.
A very good patra ni machhi
can be had at Ideal Corner, 12/F/G, Hornby View, Gunbow Street, Fort.
Tel: +91 (0) 22 2262 1930. Only available on Saturdays.
Pao bhaji off the street.
27. Pao Bhaji
This specialty dish from the by-lanes of Mumbai has mashed steamed
mixed vegetables (mainly potatoes, peas, tomatoes, onions and green
pepper) cooked in spices and loads of butter. It is eaten with pao,
which is shallow fried in even more butter and served with chopped
onions. Sometimes cheese and paneer (cottage cheese) are added. People
from all over India come to Mumbai to eat pao bhaji.
Though widely
available at local restaurants, try the sinful pao bhaji at Sardar, 166A
Tardeo Road Junction, Opp. Bus Depot, Tardeo. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2353 0208
28. Prawns Kkoliwada
Contrary to popular belief that
this dish originated on the Konkan coast, it is actually a very Mumbai
dish and the story goes that it was created in the Sion fishing village,
or koliwada, by -- and here’s the twist -- a north Indian immigrant
from Punjab. These deep-fried prawns marinated in a batter of flour,
spices and ginger garlic paste can be identified by their signature red
color. And they are crunchy yet melt in the mouth. Pick the smaller
sized prawns, they taste better.
Try the real thing at Hazara, GTB Nagar, Near the Gurudwara, Sion (W). Tel: +91 (0) 22 2409 2617
Nalli nihari, a Muslim specialty
29. Nalli nihari
The phrase "breakfast like a king" gets taken to another level when you
dig into a plate of Muslim nalli nihari. You could probably fight a war
after this power meal made of soft and tender mutton shanks in a rich,
greasy gravy filled with marrow and steeped in spices, the flavors
exploding with delight. A crisp roti makes for the perfect
accompaniment. Can you stomach this for breakfast?
The best Nalli
Nihari can be had at Noor Mohammadi, 179 Wazir Building, Abdul Hakim
Noor Mohammadi Chowk, Bhendi Bazaar. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2347 6188. Just
make sure you reach before noon or you may leave disappointed.
30. Puran Poli
A festive dish made by Maharashtrians and Gujaratis especially during
Holi (to celebrate the end of the winter season) and Dussehra (to
celebrate the triumph of Lord Ram over the demon Raavan). It is made by
simmering chana dal (yellow gram) with sugar or jaggery (molasses or
gur) till it dries up, and then hand-ground to smoothen it out. Nutmeg
and cardamom powders are the flavorings. Palm sized balls of this paste
are stuffed into wheat flour dough and rolled out to be roasted on a
tawa frying pan with a little ghee (clarified butter). Do add a lot of
ghee when you're eating them, they taste tops then.
Puran polis can
be found in some grocery stores but they are a poor mass produced
version of the real thing. The real ones can only be found in a
Maharashtrian or Gujarati home.
31. Ragda Pattice
This twin
delight is a combination of ragda, soft spicy rugged flavored chickpeas,
and pattice, mashed potatoes shaped into fat patties and fried. The
ideal way is to eat it is to crush the ragda with the pattice and pile
on the accompaniments -- finely chopped onions, tangy tamarind sauce and
fiery green chutney. Mash it all up and dig in for the true flavor of
Mumbai.
A favorite street food, it is part of the chaat family and
is commonly found all over. A good place to try it is Kailash Parbat,
Sheela Mahal, 1st Pasta Lane, Colaba. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2284 1972
Sabudana vada is fasting food
32. Sabudana Vada
For Maharashtrians, sabudana vada is the traditional 'upvas' or fasting
food and the really hardcore folk fast up to four times a week. And the
good news is that the restaurants never fail to oblige with hot crisp
sabudana vadas for those who don’t have the time to make it at home.
Sago is soaked until it puffs up. Crushed boiled potatoes, green
chillies, coriander leaves and salt are kneaded in. They are then
fashioned into palm-sized patties and deep fried until they turn crisp
and golden. And then one bite leads to another and another.
Sabudana vadas are available at most Udipi hotels and roadside stalls.
But try the ones at the R K Studio Canteen, Chembur. They are really
special.
33. Samosa
It's best to bite into a hot one,
hiding under a street stall during a typical Mumbai monsoon downpour.
When you go through the crisp crust, you meet the steaming and
savory-with-a-hint-of-sour chunks of spiced potatoes and peas. Lovingly
shaped into triangles and deep fried, these calorie busters are worth
the one week that you’ll need on the treadmill to work it off. But a
samosa can also give you heart at that last leg of your day when
transport is not in sight, it's dark and there's a long way home.
You can ask for Guru Kripa samosas at many stores across Mumbai. Or go
to the original Guru Kripa Hotel, 40, Guru Kripa Building, near SIES
College, Sion. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2407 1237
Mumbai's favorite sizzler from Kobe
34. Sizzlers
As kids, a sizzler was part of the "growing up in Mumbai" experience.
The sight of a sizzler arriving at your table, like an old steam engine,
sizzling and steaming and spluttering to a halt in front of you, was an
exciting experience. A combination of grilled meats and vegetables
served on what looks like a hot chunk of black iron, with a side of
mashed potatoes or fries and gravy. Sizzlers come in several vegetarian
options too. Long lines at restaurants are a testimony to its enduring
popularity.
Give sizzlers a try at places synonymous with the word.
Such as Kobe, 13/14 Sukh Sagar, Hughes Road, Opera House. Tel: +91 (0)
22 23632174. Or Yoko, West View, S V Road, near Akbarally’s, Santacruz
(W). Tel: +91 (0) 22 2649 2313
Pork Sorpatel, a Goan delicacy
35. Sorpatel and Vindaloo
These Goan specialties set your taste buds on fire and grandmothers are
rumored to pass out feni shots (a strong Goan brew made from palm or
cashew nuts) to douse the flames. The sorpatel has all parts of the pig,
including its blood, in the recipe. And the vindaloo is made with
chunks of fatty pork meat cooked with spices, red chillies and lots of
vinegar. Ideally, they are eaten the next day, after having spent the
night soaking in all the juices and flavors.
Try sorpatel, vindaloo
and other Goan delicacies at City Kitchen, 301 Shahid Bhagat Singh
Road, Fort. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2261 0002. Or, New Martin Hotel, 11 Glamour
House, Strand Cinema Road, Colaba. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2202 9606
36. South Indian 'Meals'
"Meals Ready" is a common sign found outside South Indian restaurants.
In front of Udipi hotels, a euphemism for all south Indian cuisine, it
means vegetarian meals laid out on a thaali, a stainless steel plate, or
on a traditional banana leaf. A couple of vegetables, sambar (spicy and
sour lentils and vegetables boiled with masalas and spices), rasam (a
hot and fiery lentil soup-like dish) and curds (yoghurt) served with
heaps of rice and eaten in that order. A non-vegetarian version of the
'Meals' can be found in 'Military' hotels.
Try the 'meals' at this
68-year-old haven: Rama Nayak’s Udipi Shree Krishna Boarding, bang
outside the Matunga (E) station. Tel: +91 (0) 22 2414 2422
Zhunka Bhakar
37. Zhunka Bhakar
This dish has deep roots in the farming and working class communities
of interior Maharashtra. Considered the common man's food, a political
decision was made at the highest echelons of government to make it
available everywhere. Overnight, thousands of zhunka bhakar stalls
opened, none pricing it more than Rs 10. Traditionally, the zhunka is
made using chopped onions tempered with mustard seeds and kadipatta
leaves mixed with chickpea flour and is dry. It is eaten with jowar
(millet) bhakri or roti.
Try the stalls opposite Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (originally called Victoria Terminus) and BMC Headquarters.
38. Varan Bhaat
If you wanted to name one truly soul satisfying food of Mumbai city,
then this would be it. The simple and truly humble dish is made by
lightly tempering cooked-till-soft toor dal (a lentil) with ghee
(clarified butter), turmeric and cumin powder. Served over steaming hot
rice, or bhaat, it assumes magical, mythical proportions.
A staple
in Maharashtrian homes, that's really where you should be eating it. But
do give Diva Maharashtracha a try. T H Kataria Marg, Mahim. Tel: +91
(0) 22 2445 4433.
Fresh, steamed, healthy South Indian Idlis
39. South Indian Tiffin (Idlis and Vadas)
What started as tiffin in British India -- a light meal that was had
between meals -- has become a rage all over the country. And especially
in hard working Mumbai. Here you will find a South Indian tiffin
available every half a kilometer and at any time of day or night. These
steamed (idlis) or fried (vadas) dumplings made with multi-grain lentil
batter are best scooped up with coconut chutney or dunked into hot
sambar (spicy and sour lentil and vegetable soup, boiled with masalas
and spices).
The finest South Indian Tiffin can be found at Madras
Café (+91 (0) 22 2401 4419), Anand Bhavan (+91 (0) 22 2401 5745) and
Idli House (+91 (0) 22 3246 0111), all located around King’s Circle,
Matunga.
Vada Pao is a Mumbai icon
40. Vada Pao
In the vast fast food world of Mumbai, this is the tastiest "cutlet in a
bun" by a mile. And no, it's not available at McDonald's. Every
Mumbaiker's favorite on-the-go snack, the vada pao satiates millions
every day. And the recipe, hard to duplicate because each stall owner
has his own secret ingredient, uses a combination of boiled potatoes
mashed with fresh coriander, green chillies, a bit of ginger and
sometimes garlic, made into palm-sized balls, dipped in a chickpea flour
batter and deep fried till golden. They are stuffed into a pao, which
has been applied with a layer of spicy green chutney and a fiery red
garlic crush. Tastes best when eaten hot.
It's a crime to eat vada
pao anywhere else but on the street. Try Ashok Satam's Stall, on the
Flora Fountain side of the Central Telegraph Office (CTO), Fort.
Monday 13 February 2012
My Weltanschhaung - 13/02/12
Our fourteen year old entered the labour market as a newspaper boy today. Welcome to the land of wage slaves son.
The first advert targeting dogs will be aired soon, why not if children can be manipulated then why not pets?
The first British sex change male delivered a child. Bravo. Now all women can undergo a sex change, have children, and compete in the labor market as males.
Greek politicians agree to austerity measures while the country is burning. The voice of the people has been heard.
Congrats to Zambia for winning the African cup.
Reading 'Maximum City' by Suketu Mehta. I am surprised at the ignorance of Bal Thackeray. I thought he was a fact knowing but fact twisting ideologue. The guy is unaware of the geography of Maharashtra. Sad!
The first advert targeting dogs will be aired soon, why not if children can be manipulated then why not pets?
The first British sex change male delivered a child. Bravo. Now all women can undergo a sex change, have children, and compete in the labor market as males.
Greek politicians agree to austerity measures while the country is burning. The voice of the people has been heard.
Congrats to Zambia for winning the African cup.
Reading 'Maximum City' by Suketu Mehta. I am surprised at the ignorance of Bal Thackeray. I thought he was a fact knowing but fact twisting ideologue. The guy is unaware of the geography of Maharashtra. Sad!
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Saturday 30 July 2011
Indian win even though they fail at Tebbit's cricket test
Norman Tebbit's cricket test means nothing when you're winning
Combined with its team's prowess on the field, India's economic clout has turned the tables on the old colonial master
The game of cricket should be thankful that so many British Asians continue to fail Norman Tebbit's "cricket test". In one of his less helpful contributions to social harmony, the old polecat suggested in 1990 that the side that ethnic minorities cheer for – England or their country of origin – should be a barometer of whether they are truly British. But what swells the gates and gives the current Test series against India an atmosphere that rivals the Ashes is the presence, particularly at Lord's on Monday, of thousands of British-based Indians cheering Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, MS Dhoni and other stars of the visiting team.
Significantly, Tebbit directed his barb at Asians, not at Britons of Caribbean descent. The latter presumably pass his test, most having long ago lost interest in cricket and, like everybody else, become obsessed with those unimpeachably English institutions (not), Manchester United and Chelsea. Black people are now hardly seen at English cricket grounds and the West Indies team, once the game's biggest draw and a source of pride and inspiration to African-Caribbean people, is regarded as poor box-office material, usually invited to play here before sparse crowds on rainswept days in May.
It is not, however, just memories of Tebbit that give this series its political edge. India is currently the master of the game. On the field, it stands at the top of the world rankings, though England hope, in a few weeks, to have usurped that position. More importantly, India increasingly controls how the game is governed and organised. It generates 70% of world cricket revenues and doesn't hesitate to exercise the power and influence that brings. Though the Dubai-based International Cricket Council (ICC) is nominally in charge, it rarely defies Indian wishes, just as it didn't defy the wishes of the English, as expressed through the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), in the days when it was based at Lord's and called itself the Imperial Cricket Conference. It has declined, for example, to rule that ball-tracking technology should be used in all Test matches to review umpires' decisions. The Indians, for obscure reasons, don't like it and that, as far as the ICC is concerned, is that.
India's power is most evident through the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 competition between city-based teams with names such as Delhi Daredevils and Royal Challengers Bangalore, which, for a few weeks annually, attracts nearly all the world's best players by offering previously unimaginable sums of money. Some players no longer bother with longer forms of the game such as Test matches, and concentrate entirely on lucrative IPL contracts. The titled gentlemen of Lord's – who invented Twenty20 to entice English proletarians into cricket grounds and thus rescue ailing county clubs – think this a desecration of cricket's true, Corinthian spirit. But the millions of Mumbai and Chennai, who now rarely turn up to watch Tests, have fallen in love with Twenty20 and, much as the purists may object, that and other short forms of cricket will probably dominate in future.
So, the tables have turned. Just as the English once used cricket to assert the ideology of empire – to play the game honourably, said Lord Harris, governor general of Bombay and a former captain of Kent, "is a moral lesson in itself" – so Indians now use it to assert the brash, go-getting, commercial values of the new, upwardly mobile India. It is not, it must be admitted, a particularly pretty sight, but then nor was the period of English hegemony.
When the Australians were getting uppity in the 1930s, cheekily putting tariffs on British cricket balls and other goods, the English establishment concocted bodyline bowling to teach them a lesson. The Australians responded with accusations of "unsportsmanlike" behaviour – a judgment which, in the MCC's view, it alone was qualified to make – and threats to leave the empire. Without admitting its own culpability, the MCC settled the matter by blaming it all on Harold Larwood, the Nottinghamshire miner who carried out the instruction to bowl fast at Australian bodies. He was driven from the game and ultimately into exile (in Australia, ironically). Even worse was the MCC's record not only of playing all-white South African teams – cricket being racially segregated even before the advent of official apartheid – but of contriving to omit anyone with a non-white skin from English touring teams there.
As the recently released film Fire in Babylon recalls, West Indians once used cricket for black self-assertion. In a Britain that seemed to regard West Indians as nothing but "a problem", recalled the black writer Caryl Phillips, "the West Indies team … appeared as a resolute army, with power and creative genius in equal measure". For 15 years, the West Indies dominated world cricket. But those poor islands lacked the economic muscle to carry their dominance into cricket's corridors of power. India's success, on and off the field, is the most palpable evidence of its rising global status.
Whatever the outcome of the present series, India, unlike the West Indies, will continue to matter. No wonder British Indians don't care about Tebbit's test. They are backing winners.
- guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011
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