Mystery Shop in Ballimaran

Some one please tell me what this shop in Old Delhi is actually selling? And to whom?

Ballimaran, I am told, originally used to be the mohalla where boatmen lived. They rowed boats on the Yamuna. 

Today, only a few things are known widely about this area - a lot of people know that Ghalib's haveli (where he died) is here in Ballimaran. Rickshaw-wallahs will gladly take you there. The jooti-market is here, selling colourful leather mojdis and shoes. Then there are lots of shops selling spectacles and sunglasses; apparently this is a wholesale centre for opticals. The varq-makers live here, tapping out thin silver foil to decorate traditional sweets. And there are lots of small eateries, offering Mughlai and Afghani food. 

But the shop above - it doesn't fit into any of these, and I can't quite figure out what these various wooden rings and beads and what not are. Some of it looks like metal, some like plastic. Help!

Delicious Nankhatai biscuits in Old Delhi

No blog on Delhi is complete without a mention of these wonderful treats - light, crispy, flaky, nankhatais! I spotted this stall when I was walking along Dariba in Old Delhi, after a day of shopping for silver.

You know the best thing about these nankhatais? They're warm when you eat them! They are made hot and fresh on old-fashioned coal ovens, and when you bite into them, you get this warm crumbly deliciousness. It's difficult to stop with just one!

I love the browner ones, what about you? Store-bought nankhatais are a boring white colour, but these street stall ones usually have a lovely brown colouring. I think it's because they are stored right inside the coal oven, which keeps them warm and makes them browner. The baker usually rotates the trays, to evenly balance the heat from the coals. 

Another thing is that store-bought nankhatais are all the same size and shape, because they are cut using machines. But these ones, they are made by hand, and they have a pleasing lack of uniformity.

Try it at home. Nankhatais are downright easy to bake; you can be an utter kitchen-klutz and still turn out pretty decent nankhatais. I've made them many times, all by trial-and-error, but they always taste delicious and they always get polished off by the family in no time.

There are many variations of nankhatais, from plain to dry-fruit to chocolate flavoured. I like the plain ones best. There's a very good video here, which shows you how to make these at home: do try it! If I can do it, so can you :)

Visiting GOONJ - an absolute must-do in Delhi

If you live in Delhi, or are planning to visit Delhi, I highly recommend you make time for a visit to GOONJ.

Over the last ten years GOONJ has grown into a mass movement among both urban and rural people. What do they do? They have been successfully mobilizing cloth (primarily from affluent urban areas) and re-positioning it as an important development resource for the poor or disadvantaged, rather than "waste". They are bringing about social change through recycling waste, and it is an absolutely inspiring thing to see.

A central feature of Goonj's model is that Goonj improves and adds value to what is thrown away, making it actually usable. This value-add is critical. Their knowledge of "on the ground" realities  in rural India sets them apart from other places, allowing them to finely assess what will make sense and to whom. What is also unique about Goonj is that they are bringing large scale into the operations, dreaming big, and achieving it too!! I admire their model enormously, and think it offers one of India's best learning experiences.

The Goonj centre at Sarita Vihar. Our group just hangs around...it seems like just another ordinary looking place...until the material begins to arrive from their network of collection centres across the city.

The first step in making the material useful is washing, cleaning and drying. It then goes to the sorting centre, where it is made more useful. When you give ready-to-use clothes to Goonj, they sort by gender and size, they remove unusable things, add strings to pajamas, make colour-coded sets, and despatch material sensitively (salwar kameezes to north Indian women, gowns to Bengali countryside etc based on what is worn where). They have a Cloth for Work program where people can do social service projects in their villages in exchange for clothing. This allows recipients of charity the dignity of working and earning what they need.

One of the major problems women from poor backgrounds face is the lack of sanitary napkins. This is a basic need, and when it is not met, it deprives women of basic dignity and freedom. Goonj is meeting this need using waste cloth. Cloth is washed, cleaned, cut into the right size, and packed in used newspaper for distribution. See what I mean by "Goonj understands ground realities"? This is just one of many examples - and you will hear many, many such sensitively designed ideas when you visit them.

Apart from cloth, they also repair, recycle and redistribute a wide range of things, from toys, water-bottles, schoolbags, stationery. There is a repair unit which works hard to make things reusable, they do everything from mending to attaching buttons, hooks, straps and so on to convert waste into something useful.

At Goonj you can see many things that have been made from waste materials - satchels, bags, cloth of different forms.. it's inspirational to see the kind of work they do, employing simple skills, but great care and "on the ground" understanding of what exactly is needed. This is what sets them apart from other do-good organisations that go around collecting stuff. Goonj understands that you can't take stuff and just go dump it on people just because it is charity! You have to give people what they really need and find useful. This is especially true in disaster-relief operations (Goonj has been doing fantastic work in this area).

If you are an overseas visitor coming to Delhi, please bring a suitcase full of things you don't need, Delhi Magic will take them from you, and send it over to Goonj. If you would like to visit them, let me know and I will help arrange it. This is a truly inspirational place to visit and I would like everyone to see their marvellous work. You can donate cash too, it will go towards the enormous relief work that Goonj is undertaking in flood and other disaster-hit areas.

What you can and cannot give to Goonj:

If you have trouble reading this image, head over to the Goonj website and there is a detailed list there.

The good looking men of the Punjab

Call me biased, but seriously, I think the Sikhs are a group of very, very good looking men :-) The two photos below are from the Sees Ganj Gurudwara in Old Delhi.

Broad shouldered, tall, and rugged, with the turbans adding drama to their faces. What's not to like? :)

And they age wonderfully well, their faces still reflecting a zest and joie de vivre that is famously celebrated in their songs and dance.

Have you seen a bhangda dance? The sheer energy of it? It's impossible to not enjoy it. Originally a harvest dance only done by men, these days women do it as well.

Photo from Punjabi Music World

Bhangra is popular wherever there is a Punjabi diaspora. In both the UK as well as the USA, there are several dance groups, with fiercely contested competitions. The video below is of an entire ensemble, with both male and female performers at a competition. 

Bollywood is full of Punjabis. The iconic good-looking boy from Punjab was Dharmendra, who  (you will agree after you see the photo below) was quite something. His was the sort of face that could make staid matrons forget themselves :)

Strangely for a Punjabi though, Dharmendra couldn't dance. He produced some strapping sons, all of whom also made it to the movies. They couldn't dance either.

Much before Dharmendra, there were several legendary good-looking Punjabis in Bollywood. The Kapoor clan started with the dashing Prithviraj....

...and moved on to produce Shashi Kapoor with the gorgeous eyelashes.

Apart from the Kapoors, there were the Anands, the Malhotras, the Sahnis and the Chopras. Some of them made it to the movies was because they had very fair skin (in India that's a great substitute for good looks). Some made it because they were more romantic than rugged, and that's what the audience wanted at that time. And some made it, I'll never understand why :)

The Punjabi guy that didn't quite make it to the Bollywood super-star league was Kabir Bedi. A seriously handsome man, he managed to make the crossover to Italian television and to Hollywood instead (remember the  turbanned villain in Octopussy?).

Among modern Bollywood heroes, Akshay Kumar is from the Punjab and pretty good-looking. I'm not sure who else deserves to be in my Hall of Fame :) So your nominations are welcome!!

Tiger sighting at Ranthambhore - May 2012

The summer months of April to June are the best time to visit Ranthambhore. The undergrowth is sparse, water sources are limited, and the sighting is therefore much better. 

We did 3 safaris and thoroughly enjoyed all three. We stayed at Khem Villas, and can't say enough good things about it. Their commitment to the forests and to the people of the land is incredible, and the work they do to protect the whole ecology of the place is admirable.

On our very first safari, into the tiny Zone 1, we spotted this beautiful tigress:

Side view of T-39, in Zone 1

She is a very young tigress about 5 years old, and she has just given birth to a cub. She is quite thin right now, what with looking after the cub as well as hunting. When we saw her, she had hunted two days ago, with a successful deer kill. Now she was on the prowl again (but you can see she is hungry and her stomach is absolutely shrunken). On a close up of the photo you can see teats, she has been nursing. She is very graceful.

Tiger on path - T-39 goes in search of water

We were lucky she was walking towards us! The photographers in the other jeeps were behind her and could get only butt-shots :) The forest has shed a lot of its leaves and the undergrowth has dried up.

T-39 alert!

She stood, alert and poised, when she saw some prey. It was amazing, the transformation from sleepy walk to alert awareness.

Tiger hidden! T-39 walks into shrubbery

After a while she walked away from the road, beautifully camouflaged in the forest. If this had been winter we could not have seen anything! Because it was summer, we could follow her, and later we saw her emerge from a ravine and climb up a small hillock.

If you are visiting Ranthambhore in winter, the chances of sighting drop substantially. Can you imagine the photo above, if it were full of dense green shrubbery? How would you even know that the tiger was there ! Fortunately, tigers love walking on the forest roads, because it is easier on their paws. So the paw-prints can give you clues about where they are. After that, it is just luck and perseverance!

Ranthambhore is more than just tigers, though. Just being there amidst the jungle is very soul-satisfying. Learning about the ecology of the place, the BALANCE of everything, the seasons, the way the food chain works, the birds of each season...all of it made me feel a sense of peace.

The dhok, the most widespread tree in Ranthambhore

The dhok is particularly well-adapted to the harsh climate of this region, shedding its leaves to survive the summer. It has a hair-trigger response to rains, and begins to sprout leaves with the first few drops. While we  were there, it rained very briefly (unseasonal) and we saw the trees already with their opportunistic response :)

Not all parts of the jungle are dry - there are zones which are green and beautiful. 

Green lush areas of Zone 5 - very refreshing

This photo was taken at the far end of Zone 5, near Bakola. Zone 5 has bone ratting rides up the hill before you get to this ravine with water :) The temperature here is at least 2-3 degrees lower than the rest of the forest, with a moist inviting forest smell. We saw paradise flycatcher, golden oriole, and black-tailed mongoose, I didn't want to leave! 

Zones 2 and 3 are also very scenic, with large lakes. Here you can see not only a lot of waterbirds, but also a wide range of animals. 

Female sambar in Rajbagh lake - Zone 3 

Sambar are good swimmers and often feed on the grasses and water plants. They have good sense of smell and hearing but poor eyesight. The safari path skirts the lake (see jeep in photo), so you are treated to a beautiful vista, and you can really get a sense of peace here if you switch off the engines and sit quietly for a while.

While the female sambar remained unconcerned, nearby, the stags were in a confrontational mood:

Male Sambar fighting - Zone 3

Surprise information: they make tiny mewing sounds when they fight!

We were also treated to this almost comic confrontation scene between one macaque and a whole group of langurs.

Ruffian Macaque and Lady Langurs :) 

This single male macaque (you can see him in the centre of the photo) managed to scatter a group of langurs, mostly females with young ones. I was surprised. There were at least 20 langurs, but they all moved away. Only one older female stood her ground, hissing and snarling at him. One young male tried to stand up to him, then got the fright of his life and bounded away into the trees!

I have lots more photos of this Ranthambhore trip, but this blog entry will become too long if I put up everything. Maybe another post, another time!

Malai or paneer? I can't tell!

I clicked this photo outside the Fatehpuri Masjid in Chandni Chowk, but we were walking past too quickly and I couldn't tell if it was paneer (cottage cheese) or malai (cream). Do you know? I assume it is paneer, but someone told me it's malai (hard to believe?).

And if it is malai, then why is he selling it in giant slabs like this? What do you make with it?

The Secretariat Building and the people who really run the country!

I was driving towards the President's House compound, when I saw the North Block of the Secretariat decorated with the familiar colours of saffron, white and green. Against the blue sky, the building looked very nice! 

Every time I look at the Secretariat, I wonder what actually goes on in there. So this time I decided to read up a little. 

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The Secretariat is made up of twin buildings -  North Block and South Block (see photo below). The first thing I wanted to find out was why these two buildings are called the "Secretariat". It turns out that the folks in these buildings actually provide secretarial functions to the Cabinet. They convene meetings, circulate agendas and papers, record discussions, etc. The Cabinet Secretariat is the custodian of the papers of the Cabinet meetings (hey, *someone's* got to do the filing!).

But it's absolutely wrong to think of the Secretariat as a just bunch of paper-pushers. They provide Advice to the Ministers, and are responsible for inter-ministerial/inter-departmental co-ordination, as well as dispute resolution. Each of the two Secretariat buildings has 4 floors, and about 1000 rooms.  So now you can imagine what goes on inside - a lot of folks doing a lot of meetings and paperwork  and ego-management! 

The numero uno of the Secretariat is the Cabinet Secretary, and he/she is also the head of the Civil Services. Lord Willingdon, who was Viceroy of India from 1931 to 1936, started the practice of having his Private Secretary by his side at his meetings. Later in 1935, it actually became a formal role. 

Today the Cabinet Secretary is India's most powerful bureaucrat and the "right hand" man of the Prime Minister of India. The current Cabinet Secretary is Shri Ajit Seth, pictured below on the day he assumed office. He looks very calm and capable, doesn't he? I'm not surprised.

Kings and noblemen have always had administrators, capable guys who ran their kingdoms while they went off to war or to pay respects at some court or the other. The Chinese created the world's first meritocracy, with their famous 2500-year old Imperial Examinations system. They selected a group of intellectuals based solely on merit, who administered the country while the Emperors focused on political matters.

Closer home, many Indian Maharajahs had able scribes and administrators. The founder of the Walled City of Jaipur, Sawai Jai Singh (1688-1743) was ably assisted by his Diwan Vidyadhar. Sawai Jai Singh made it obligatory for his thakurs (nobles) to build their houses in the new walled city of Jaipur. But it was Vidyadhar who ran the show. He enforced the collection of 10% of the thakurs’ income to cover costs of building their houses. Vidyadhar also implemented several rules to ensure conformity in the design and execution of Jai Singh's planned city. As several documents of the time attest "Do as Vidyadhar says" used to be a routine part of the orders signed by Jai Singh.

Under the East India Company, appointments to administrative posts were originally by "patronage". In other words, if you wanted to become a clerk or factor, you needed social contacts. A lot of younger sons who could not inherit estates in England tried building their fortunes around the world using this system of patronage. 
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But the East India Company was so impressed with the Chinese imperial examination system that in 1806 they established a college near London (Haileybury) to create a professional team of administrators. It was quite a departure from the norm! Pressure to create a merit-based system came from Thomas Taylor Meadows, who served as the Consul in Canton, China. He argued that "England will certainly lose every colony she possesses unless she adopts some system of impartial elevation of colonists to the posts and honours at the disposal of the crown". 

Eventually an open competitive examination replaced the system of appointment by patronage. The original exams were confined to those branches of knowledge to which, in the words of Baron Macaulay, "it is desirable that English gentlemen should pay some attention". This included history, jurisprudence, finance, commerce and languages. Macaulay also suggested that a considerable number of the men selected should be those "who have taken the first degree in arts at Oxford or Cambridge".

And so it was that the "Oxbridge" men came to dominate the Indian civil services, a trend that strengthened after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, when the East India Company's rule ended and the crown took over.

The examination system is alive and kicking even today. This year over 200,000 people wrote the Indian civil service entrance exams, and finally 900 people were selected. The top two slots went to women, by the way. I took a look at the profiles of the top 25 candidates in the exams, just to figure out who the future bureaucrats of this country are. And I found a big mix of people from all walks of life: they include alumni from some premier educational institutions including AIIMS, IIM, IIT and the London School of Economics. They come from diverse family backgrounds - farmers, teachers, businessmen, army personnel, low and middle level government servants, doctors, advocates, professors and civil servants. 

Sheena Agarwal, this year's topper. Photo from CNN-IBN Report

So these, then, are the people we will see inside the Secretariat in a couple of decades! In recent press interviews, they seem idealistic and willing to make a difference. Will they still be idealistic in 20 years, when they assume positions of significant influence? 

Fatehpur Sikri through Russian and American eyes

In the late 1870's, Vassily Vereshchagin, Russian soldier, adventurer and painter extraordinaire, visited India. He spent 4 years wandering through India, visiting Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, the Himalayas and Tibet. 

When he returned to Paris, where he was based, he produced this wonderful painting of the mosque at Fatehpur Sikri (City of Victory). This has to be the most gorgeous mosque wall I have ever seen!

The painting is called "etyud iz puteshestviya v Indiyu"  (Sketch from a trip to India)

Vassily Vereschagin - Dated  1880  on  the  reverse - Oil  on  canvas

Image  size: 14.5 inches by 17.75 inches

I know everyone says Shah Jahan (who later built the Taj Mahal) was the greatest among the Mughal builders, but this mosque at Fatehpur Sikri, built by Shah Jahan's grandfather Akbar the Great, is really something! Frankly, given the scale of building at Fatehpur Sikri - and the amazingly short duration in which it was achieved - I am tempted to call Akbar the greatest of the Mughal builders. 

For those who don't know the history, here it is in three lines: In 1571, a grateful Emperor Akbar decided to build a city at the site where the Sufi saint Salim Chishthi lived. The saint had successfully predicted the birth of Jahangir, Akbar’s much-longed for son and heir. The Great Mughal took personal interest in the design and construction of his new city, bringing into it, dramatic combinations of Persian, Hindu and Jain architecture. 

The city was built in just 15 years - an amazing feat. In 1585, the English traveller Ralph Fitch described Fatehpur Sikri as "considerably larger than London and more populous". The City comprised a series of palaces, public buildings and mosques. There were living areas not only for the members of the Mughal court, but also for the army, tradesmen, merchants and ordinary folk. 

At the heart of the city was the Jama Masjid mosque (the painting above by Vereshchagin is of the innermost part of the mosque, the mihrab where prayers are offered). The compound of the mosque had a marble shrine dedicated to Salim Chishthi. Here is another painting, this time by an American who visited Sikri. Edwin Lord Weeks was born in Boston, and also travelled extensively, including 2 long visits to India in the 1880s and 1890s. 

Festival at Fatehpur Sikri, by Edwin Weeks

Image size: 29.13 inch wide x 24.02 inch high

The image shows the marble tomb of Salim Chishti

Even to someone who doesn't understand art, the similarities in the painting styles of the Russian and the American are visible, aren't they? Both paintings are influenced by Jean-Leon Gerome, the Parisian Orientalist. Vereshchagin studied under Gerome in Paris, although he later developed a divergent style of his own. Edwin Weeks applied, but did not initially get admitted to Gerome's atelier, and studied under Leon Bonnat, a friend of Gerome (who also travelled with Gerome to North Africa and painted scenes of bazaars etc). 

For these Orientalists, who wanted realism, colour and vibrancy, Africa, the Middle East and India provided fertile grounds for their paintbrush. If you want a closer look, you can check this link to Edwin Week's works. 

Happily, most of Fatehpur Sikri is well-preserved even today, thanks to being "abandoned" by Akbar after just 10 years. Akbar wanted to focus on his war against the Afghans, and he chose a new capital, Lahore, in present day Pakistan. So Fatehpur Sikri remained intact, and unused...lucky for us!

See the photos below - you can compare it with the paintings above, and see that much of it is still available to us, although of course, the painter's eye and craft bring a sense of aesthetics that the camera cannot!

The mihrab at Jama Masjid, Fatehpur Sikri

Photo by Saumil U Shah (check out also his great collection of Agra photos)

Quwwal musicians outside the tomb of Sufi mysic Salim Chishti

Photo from Wikipedia

And before we end this post, don't you want to see what these painters themselves looked like? Here's the Russian Vereshchagin - interesting looking man, no? Just what I imagined! Dramatic and larger than life!

And here is Edwin Lord Weeks:

Don't let the boring portrait fool you, though. Both men were adventurers, setting out to see distant lands and places in an era when travel was far more difficult than it is now! Edwin Weeks, for instance, travelled by ship, train, horses and camels all over the Middle East, and camped where he could. Thankfully, his paintings of Indian life brought him fame both in France and America. He was thus eventually able to afford a splendid residence with a huge atelier in Paris. I don't particularly like starving artist stories, so I am very pleased to know that he actually enjoyed commercial success! :)