A year of dating a feudal throwback forced Shrayana Bhattacharya to confront her fascination with the wealthy
A FEW YEARS AGO, THE INDIAN Army and I could have been accused of a similar form of discrimination: favouring Jats and Rajputs. While my dearest friends suggested I was dating the who’s who of human crap, a petitioner in the Supreme Court highlighted bias in the Indian Army's recruitment policies for the Presidential Body Guards (PBG). Unsurprisingly, the Army defended itself on physical grounds—the PBG was a small ceremonial unit which demanded tall officers (over six feet) with common build and appearance to ensure adequate “pomp and projection” during events at Rashtrapati Bhavan. Thus, only martial castes would suffice.
Despite the trivial nature of my love affairs compared to lofty affairs of state, I found deep parallels between the army’s defence and mine. For me, too, a partner had become an accessory in the performance art that was my social life in Delhi. Unable to bear the weight of being on my own or being myself, I chose to burrow into one of Delhi’s feudal landed gentry. Determined to break away from the nerd-herd at university, I was mesmerised by his quiet confidence, despite his lack of an ancestral gun salute. His sense of self-possession born of privilege, and the financial freedom that arose from successful “investments”, seduced my anxious salaried soul. He also looked like Shashi Kapoor. While his frame was many standard deviations away from the average men who populated my life, I ignored that his intellect did asymptote to zero.
Esta historia es de la edición July - September 2017 de The Indian Quarterly.
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Esta historia es de la edición July - September 2017 de The Indian Quarterly.
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The Image-Maker
Sukumar Ray’s most vivid images were saved for his classics of nonsense verse, but his singular eye, writes Nabarupa Bhattacharjee, found its earliest expression in photography
The Nawab's Last Sigh
Rudely awakened by the fact of independent India, an aristocrat in Meerut clung to his past. Now, he tells Sunaina Kumar, all he has left are his memories of a glorious age.
The Guest
Vaiyavan is the nom de plume of MSP Murugesan. Born in 1936, he did sundry jobs before obtaining postgraduate degrees by correspondence and then served as an English and Tamil teacher till his retirement in 1996. His writing career began in 1956. Multifaceted and prolific, he has to his credit a long list of short story collections, novels, plays, literary essays, poems and children’s stories. He has won several awards including Tamil Nadu government awards for best book on culture (1982) and best science book (1992) and the Malcolm Adiseshiah award for active participation in neo-literacy activities (1996). In his short stories and novels, Vaiyavan revels in a zest for life. Humaneness is the hallmark of his work, as the pain and pleasure, trials and tribulations of people in different rungs of society are described in minute detail. —CGR
The Birth of an Anthem
From right-wing slogan to moving patriotic song and now back to Hindu nationalistic war cry. Rimli Sengupta on the evolution of Vande Mataram
The Birth of a Parent
The beginning of a new life can create other strange new lives, reflects Manidipa Mandal
The Unknown Soldier
One man wondered and worried about his disappeared brother all his life.His granddaughter continued the search. Preksha Sharma resurrects a man and his story
The Art Scene
For the new kid on the block, it certainly has pedigree. The Centre for Con-temporary Art, housed within Delhi’s Bikaner House complex, finally opened its portals to welcome art aficionados during this year’s edition of the India Art Fair. Nature Morte was invited to stage the centre’s much-awaited inaugural show, an opportunity the gallery found too irresistible to pass up. The ambitious exhibition it mounted, The Idea of the Acrobat, occupied both floors of the recently renovated building and brought together the works of a dozen well known artists in a multitude of media. The line-up included Bharti Kher, Atul Dodiya, Dayanita Singh, Shilpa Gupta, Ayesha Singh, Khyentse Norbu and LN Tallur to name but a few.
Long, Long Ago
Arundhuti Dasgupta and Utkarsh Patel recount obscure creation myths from around the world, many echoing each other
Family Business
AT THE DINDUKKAL BUS DEPOT, the abortionist pushed her way through the crowd thronging the bus and finally managed to board it. She placed her travel bag beside her on the seat, calling out to her niece to hurry up. The young woman renewed her efforts to break free of the tangle of limbs and claim the seat reserved for her.
A Goan Childhood
Fragments of memory of a time long gone, from a life lived far away. By Selma Carvalho