Kusum Choppra

Pabal, Maharashtra March 25, 2015 It was a pilgrimage after 18 years – a pilgrimage to one of the few places connected directly to Mastani, her property at Pabal where stands the baradari built by Baji Rao at the site of their marriage rites. After tremendous efforts by the memorial committee, the site is being restored by the Archeological Survey, as per the rules.   I drove down with my old friend Dr. Usha Ram, who also shares a yen for history. The wall surrounding the Baradari site has been completely rebuilt, including the old styles niches all around; kota stone flooring slabs cover most of the inside of the property, save the baradari itself, the green overflowing kabar, the diya kund and the five mysterious graves that were not there 18 years ago on my last visit. The kabar’s flowering shrub on top needs a close shave, as it is overflowing on all sides. It is surrounded by stones which need to be cleared away.   And that ancient diya kund need...

If there is going to be a sequel to “Fifty Shades of Gray”, please, please find someone who projects the enigmatic sophistication of E L James’ Christian, rather than the baby faced lover boy and his bro in the film.    Men please, not overgrown lover boys. Even the harshness does not sit well on his sweet face.

What is a “Smart City”? Perfect traffic control and transport, universal WIFI access, glam infrastructure, basics such as roti, kapda makaan for all plus educational and health infrastructure? So many have different takes on what a smart city means.   It would indeed be useful if professionals will give their individual takes on it; so that a general definition of Smart City can be drawn up for ready reference. As the world gears up for “development”,   a proper guideline   needs to be formulated, as early as possible.

Down the ages, despite the claims of our purists classical  exponents, the biggest purveyor of contemporary Indian culture has been  films, of all regional languages, but especially Hindi cinema. From classics depicting old world romance and naïve optimism of the new Indian republic, = to the Shammi Kapoor era of teasing the girl till she succumbs to his romantic flamboyance, with that almost statutory one rape per film for Pran, Prem and Ranjit and a  weepy mother/sister/bhabhi plus  autocratic father/ grandmother, = to the SRK era with its “yeh kudiyaan, nashe ki puriyan, yeh munde galli ke gunde” of comfort with abusing each other , or is it  disrespect? = to the current   ‘bidi jalaile” and “patade missed call se”   and mandatory gang rapes All have steadily   pushed modern ‘cultural / social’ values down to rock bottom, allowing modern working girls as loose characters,   boys showing off their manhood with rapes etc. ...

A unique art exhibition in Ahmedabad raised a question in my mind: Why is Tyaag /Sacrifice the leitmotif / prateek of Womanhood? The week long Mirror of Art exhibition at the Ahmedabad ni Gufa showed off the end result of interactions between hand picked artists of Ahmedabad with young children from schools and from institutions handling special children. The children who spoke to the artists overwhelmingly pointed to their Mothers as their inspiration.   Some opted for sisters, grandmothers or a teacher or two, but the over whelming choice was Ma. The exhibition portrayed those children’s heroes –rather heroines in a myriad ways.   There were some exceptions of course,   Shweta Parikh’s portrayal of an older sister guiding her brother out of the dark morass of their live into more light;   Roma Patel’s teacher; a portrait of a tribal woman with twinkling eyes, imprisoned – if it canbe called that—in her own   wind blown hair; the bright eyed gir...