BAREFOOT: In spite of the RTE, education continues to elude a core group of variously disadvantaged children.

In restlessly industrialising India there are millions of children who are unlikely ever to see the inside of a school. Formal education, with all its limitations, alone carries within it the potential to free these children from life-sentences of hard labour in poverty and want, to which they are otherwise condemned. The law today mandates that there should be a functioning school within two kilometres of every childs home. Governments have exponentially expanded the network of government primary schooling, bringing schools physically closer to most children in the country (although the quality of many of these schools remains a huge problem). But there remains a core group of children who are unable to enter these schools, or remain in them, even if they are literally located across the road from where they sleep. Excluded children Who are these children, and what are the formidable barriers they face to enter schools, and remain within these? There are masses of children whose childhoods and dreams of education are lost in labour in the mines, kilns, agricultural fields, factories and homebased work. Child workers are expected by their own families to be at work and not in regular school, and long hours of work are physically, emotionally and mentally draining, even if there are provisions to attend non-formal schools after work. Children who are disabled find it difficult to enter school, negotiate its infrastructure, keep pace and continue education, and often face ridicule and shame in the hands of school management or even fellow-students. Children living in conflict zones are unable to access schools in a climate of abiding fear and insecurity; often schools in these areas are occupied by security forces. Children whose parents lead nomadic and semi-nomadic lives, or migrate to the cities due because there is no food and no work in their villages are effectively barred from schools. Several hundred thousand children who together with their families live and work in brick kilns of India, for instance, find it difficult to access schools even if those are located near the kilns. Children of stigmatised parentage such as those living with HIV/AIDS or leprosy, or those engaged in manual scavenging, sex work and so on, face intense forms of societal and educational discriminatory exclusion. The unjust stigma of their parents is transferred to children in the shape of multiple discriminations and humiliation heaped on them in school and outside school. I recall all teachers in a small district town I worked in threatening to strike work if I insisted on admitting in schools children of parents who had leprosy and begged for a living. Children of manual scavengers report being shamed by being forced to clean toilets in schools. Millions of children are condemned never to enter schools because they have no home, or no family, or both. The streets of every city house children who have run away from violent and abusive families, who recycle waste, retail at traffic lights, or beg for a

living. Some who live on the streets may have one or both parents, but they are destitute and homeless, and feel they have no option except to send out the child to work on the streets. The Constitution of India envisaged free and compulsory education for all the children within 10 years of the promulgation of the Constitution. Fifty nine years later, the Indian State finally passed the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act in 2009. However, since the actual realisation of this right by children of powerless and marginalised communities remains limited and problematic, this requires special provisions and additional investments for such children. Need for hostels For certain disadvantaged children like children without adult protection such as orphans and street children; and children of migrants and nomadic communities; internally displaced children and children in some conflict areas; or children of remote tribal communities it is impossible to access their right to education without safe residential hostels or schools. A child who lives and works on the streets, or without adult guardians, for instance, cannot be expected after sleeping the night on the streets, waking early to pick rags, to simply walk into school. This right of these disadvantaged children to residential schools, and not just neighbourhood day schools, needs to be written into the law specifically, otherwise the right to education of these children will simply remain on paper. The law makes a modest provision, bitterly contested by elite private schools, for admitting disadvantaged children from a private schools neighbourhood to 25 per cent of seats in the earliest class of the school. But almost no schools recognise a street child, or child worker in eateries of factories, or migrant children, as eligible for this small reservation, and they remain excluded even from this opportunity. The law laudably provides that a child should be admitted into school at an older age, even if the child has not been to school before, and special training classes should be held in every school for these children. But this rarely happens, as teachers are not trained or sensitised to respectfully accept and work with these older children. There is no reason why an out-of-school child should not be taught in a class within the same school, run at the same time as regular classes; and why the child should not otherwise be fully integrated with other activities of her or his age-appropriate class, such as sports, extra-curricular activities, and mid-day meals. Since they are the most vulnerable of our children, ensuring the rights of these last children should be the first obligation of every Government. In later columns, I will describe what can be done for specific categories of excluded children to bring them into schooling. But for this to actually happen, these children, condemned by violence, neglect, oppression and poverty to difficult lives, should be the countrys highest priority; they should be recognised as the first duty of any government, and our hidden

national treasure. CAMBRIDGE LETTER: Will London 2012 be remembered for idealism and hope, like the 1948 Olympics Games were? By the time you are reading this, the 2012 Olympic Games will be under way in the U.K. With any luck, the focus of comment and discussion will be the Games themselves, rather than the series of controversies, confusions and complications that have dominated the news headlines in the weeks leading up to this major international event. We have had arguments about local traders throughout the country using the Olympic logo (not just the official sponsors of the Games). We have heard many complaints about the supply of tickets. We have had complaints also about arrangements for dealing with traffic. Above all, there has been a massive crisis over the provision (or lack of provision) of security staff by the firm G4S which, only days before the opening, admitted that it was unable to provide the staff it had promised. Extra police had to be drafted in from forces outside London, and 3,500 soldiers had to be provided also. There is no doubt that these issues, and particularly the failure by G4S, will have to be investigated in due course, and questions about the use of commercial organisations for major national security tasks will be discussed at length. That is for later. For the present, it is the Games themselves that will, rightly, be at the top of the news agenda. Hope for the economy By any standards, the 2012 Olympics are a massive event. More than 10,000 athletes, from 205 countries, will be taking part. International public interest is, obviously, great. There is clearly a great hope that the long-term benefits to the U.K., as the host country, will also be great (though the experience of other recent host countries is not wholly encouraging). To put things in some sort of context, Britain, like its European neighbours, is struggling to emerge from a long and deep recession. Nevertheless, notwithstanding real concerns, staging the Olympic Games must be recognised as an important and significant opportunity for the host nation and should be, and doubtless will be, a matter for celebration. People of my generation can, of course, remember the last occasion on which Britain hosted the summer Olympics, and that memory provides another fascinating context. The year was 1948. The Second World War was not long over, and Britain was still suffering greatly from its effects. To put it bluntly, Britain was broke. Food rationing was still in force (because there was not enough food to enable it to be ended). Not surprisingly, the 1948 Games came to be known as the Austerity Games. No new venues were built for the games and there was no Olympic village; athletes were housed in existing accommodation. The Attlee government earmarked just under 750,000 for the

Olympics (compare the sum of about 11 billion which the 2012 Games are likely to cost). As a concession, the rations for the U.K. team were increased to those of a heavy industrial worker while the Games were on. Many teams from other countries brought their own food. I will mention one other piece of context: in 1948, 59 nations were represented by 4,104 athletes. The comparison with 2012 is clearly dramatic. Symbolic value I confess that I do not have any very clear memory of what public reaction to the 1948 Olympics was like, but what I do recall was that most people saw it as an event well worth staging, not least as a demonstration that the austerity and gloom of the immediate post-war period was not going to be permanent and that the end of the war was certainly a good reason for the sort of celebration that was simply impossible during the war. At the back of many peoples minds, I suspect, there was another significant fact. Because of the war, there had been a 12-year gap between the previous games and those of 1948 and those 1936 Games had been hosted by Hitlers Germany, and used as a public relations vehicle for his Nazi policies. By 1948 Nazism had been defeated and significantly, Germany and Japan, because of their roles in the Second World War, were not invited to participate. In spite of the austerity, the 1948 Games, in the words of The Independent, while they may have taken place in an era of post-war rationing, they were a Games that enjoyed an abundance of less tangible nourishment goodwill, idealism and hope. It would be good to believe that the 2012 Games will also be remembered for goodwill, idealism and hope. bill.kirkman@gmail.com ENDPAPER Bonnet invests reading with the affection, respect and awe we once had for it. Who can resist a book titled Phantoms on the Bookshelves, and a book cover as beguiling as this? The ghostly white, the blanks on the shelf promising and mysterious, empty and full, ephemeral and real beckon us to touch and look closer. Published by The Overlook Press in an elegant edition, Jacques Bonnets slim volume of bibliophile essays (translated from the French) is about a man who owns 40,000 books and still insists he is not a bibliophile. Working library One evening in Paris, after only a few minutes of conversation with his dinner companion, Bonnet discovers that the two have something in common: We both owned

a monstrous personal library of several tens of thousands of books not one of those bibliophile libraries containing works so valuable that their owner never opens them for fear of damaging them, no, Im talking about a working library, the kind where you dont hesitate to write on your books, or read in the bath; a library that results from keeping everything you have ever read including paperbacks and perhaps several editions of the same title as well as the ones you mean to read one day. He then makes a simple, but useful and amusing, distinction between the kind of bibliophile he is versus the bibliomaniac collector: a bibliomaniac reader. The reading bibliomaniac has no interest in rare or first editions but still wants to hold on to the physical object, to keep it ready to hand. He is attached not only to reading but to the object that allowed him to do itto get rid of it would bring the risk of a serious sense of loss. Whereas a collector frets obsessively about the books he does not yet possess, the fanatical reader worries about no longer owning those books traces of the past or hopes for the future which he has once read and may read again some day. In Phantoms on the Bookshelves, Jacques Bonnet has once again invested the humble reading copy, the mode through which we first read, experienced, and encountered our favourite books and writers, with the old affection, respect and awe we had for it. The two reading bibliomaniacs spend the rest of the evening (with the help of the vodka) talking about what a joy and a curse it is to care for books in this way. I once had a bathroom full of bookshelves, he writes, which made it impossible to take a shower, and meant running a bath with the window open because of the condensation; and I also kept them in my kitchen, which made it out of the question to use certain strongsmelling foodstuffs Only the wall above my bed has been spared from bookshelves, as the consequence of an ancient trauma. I learnt, long ago, the circumstances of the death of composer Charles-Valentin Alkanwho was found on 30 March, 1888 crushed to death by his own bookshelves. Conversational flavour Sian Reynolds nimble translation retains the conversational flavour of Bonnets prose, allowing us to enjoy Bonnets witty, charming erudition. In the chapter Organizing the bookshelves, he frequently references Carlos Maria Dominguezs The Paper House (the only book I know where every character is a bibliomaniac). The hero takes care when shelving his books not to place authors who didnt get along in life together; for example, it was unthinkable to put a book by Borges next to one by Garca Lorca, whom the Argentine writer once described as a professional Andalusian. And given the dreadful accusations of plagiarism between the two of them, he could not put something by Shakespeare next to a work by Marlowenor of course could he place a book by Martin Amis next to one by Julian Barnes, after the two friends had fallen out. But what of these phantoms on the bookshelf? What exactly are they? The chapter begins with a definition: fantm: a sheet or card inserted to mark the place of a book removed from a library shelf, or a document which has been borrowed. The blank

spaces in the bookshelf on the cover represent the phantoms the absence of books, the different ways books appear and disappear. The way libraries sometimes die, even great ones, books burned, libraries sold and dispersed, books destroyed or lost by its ancient enemies: rats, worms and dust. To this Bonnet says we must add one more: bookborrowers. To the last the solution is very simple: never lend a book, always give it away. But phantoms also mean presence by its very absence on a bookshelf, a book reminds us of its physical presence. The space between two books is waiting to be filled by an object. Such phantoms are to be welcomed, invited. But theres another book phantom that is rising; the one we are all quickly becoming familiar with. James Salter in his introduction evokes the phantom we are all staring at: A tide is coming in and the kingdom of books, with their white pages and endpapers, their promise of solitude and discovery, is in danger, after an existence of five hundred years, of being washed away. The physical possession of a book may become of little significance. Access to it will be what matters, and when the book is closed, so to speak, it will disappear into the cyber. It will be like the genie summonable but unreal. But the bibliomaniac reader, Bonnet has shown us, will continue to keep the presence of printed books (and its phantoms) achingly alive and real. Have no worries if your actions have always been louder than your words. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. (Kahlil Gibran, 1923) The pleasantly unexpected volume of mail generated by my last piece on midnights grandchildren set me thinking about how much of a challenge parenting has become in 21 century India. This was the precise subject of the 23 Tara Ali Baig Memorial Lecture that SOS Villages India recently honoured me by inviting to deliver. I had touched upon several aspects of the subject in the talk, but the one that Id like to excerpt and expand upon here is the whole bemusing issue of ownership of children, which, I believe, is one of the central challenges to parenting today. In the past, most children in our country grew up in an environment of multiple parenting. Every elder in the joint family owned the child and had an important say in major decisions impacting upon the childs future. But by the end of the last century and certainly in contemporary life, the nuclear family has emerged as a distinctive entity in its own right and therefore the parents have jointly staked complete claim to the ownership of the child. Child custody However, since divorce is no more anathema in metropolitan India, ownership of the child is usually claimed by the parent who is granted legal custody of the child.

As I see it, in the interests of effective parenting, the first thing that we need to understand is that collectively or singly, none of us owns our children. We have, at best, been bestowed the honour of being their guardians for as long as they need us to be. As early as 1923, that remarkable Lebanese writer, poet and mystic, Kahlil Gibran, with extraordinary prescience, gave us, in his best known work, The Prophet, a 20-line poetic essay on children, which I think of as a perceptive manual on parenting, that we would all do well to read and re-read. I do believe that it is only when we relinquish ownership of our children, can we truly begin to help them in their journey towards mature independence, for otherwise we may, inadvertently come in the way of their recognising themselves as distinctive individuals. That said, nothing should take away from the fact that for as long as we are their custodians or guardians or whatever other term we may choose to use, we still have certain responsibilities to discharge, until they are in a position to do these themselves, for children are extremely vulnerable and need our love, support and understanding to grow and flourish. The first of these is to help provide them the tools with which they can counter the two major threats they face in contemporary life sexual abuse and drugs. As important is the attention we pay to their education. When I use the term education I do so in the larger context of providing them the best opportunities we can to maximise their innate potential and skills, by encouraging them to dream big and hone whatever inherent talent they believe are worth pursuing. More likely than not, if they are good at something, they will do it well, and earn a lot of money in the process, even if their choice of career leaves us cold. Telling the difference Arguably, the most important role that parents play in their childrens lives is in teaching them good from bad, right from wrong, ethical from unethical. Of course, there can never be universal agreement on what these morals or values are or should be. But, we need to remember that our belief systems as well as our prejudices will be imbibed by our children, who usually learn more from what we do than from what we say. Often, parents fear, particularly when their children hit teenage and enter a phase of hormonedriven rebellion and oppositional behaviour, that the values they had taken the trouble to imbue in the children, will be forgotten or set aside. I dont believe this to be the case at all. I have always found that, unless the child suffers from a diagnosable psychiatric disorder, when push comes to shove, whatever theyve been taught by their parents, does kick in almost instinctively, for what you teach your children when they are young does get embedded in their minds. Effective parenting in 21 century India must move from an ownership model to a mindful model, where the child is not seen as mouldable raw material but as a unique individual that the parent can help blossom, but only as a gardener would tend to a plant,

not as a sculptor would approach a slab of marble. Parents do need to recognise that if they approach parenting as a symbiotic experience, wherein even as they give the child the benefits of their wisdom and experience, they also have the opportunity to become more mindful and better integrated human beings in the process, then the parent-child relationship moves itself on to a more equal footing where both sides give as well take. Only mutually beneficial relationships can be engaging and joyous ones. Parenting gives us the opportunity to experience this provided we understand that we can only own the parenting process, not our children. vijay.nagaswami@gmail.com Killer bodies, spectacular dancing and glimpses of subcultures these have remained the essential ingredients of dance movies down the years. Well, yeah, you could tell by the way he used his walk in Saturday Night Fever that Tony Manero aka John Travolta would relocate disco dancing from 1970s subculture into mainstream mania. Today, Maneros tale is remembered for the dancing and the music the Bee Gees soundtrack going on to become the only disco album to win Grammys album of the year, apart from turning platinum 15 times over. But also mirrored in the films disco ball were the fractured, dead-end lives of a group of Brooklyn youths, whose only escape was the weekend excitement of the dance floor, where they put on the flashy clothes and the flashy moves. The film had energy and edge. I remember how my uncle, visiting from the States, was shocked that we youngsters were off to see the film till he realised what was on offer here was the edited variety; famously, the R-rated version had scandalised U.S. cinemagoing audiences with its raw, often ugly violence. Most dance movies today are variants of Saturday Night lite that keep the essential ingredients of beautiful actor-dancers; dance offering disaffected youth a way out of hopeless situations; a boy-meets-girl story across different social classes; a great dance finale; and peeks into specific dance subcultures. Dance films remain popular currently we have the fourth edition of the Step Up franchise bopping in our theatres. But while Step Up 4: Miami Heat might try for relevance with a socio-political plot thread, really, the movie is only an excuse to watch young people with killer bodies do some spectacular dancing. And, indeed, why not? Theres obviously an audience for the stuff, considering how some modern dance films have practically become mini-franchises. The Step Up saga that started in 2006 with Channing Tatum is going strong, as is Street Dance; not forgetting sequels such as Honey 2 or Save the Last Dance 2. Some have gone the postmodern route of mixing up different dance forms: Street Dance 2 lets street synthesise with salsa.

Watching Step Up 3-D was, oddly enough, a small revelation: 3D, for once, seemed to have a purpose beyond having pointy things flung at the audience. Instead, here, it creates a nice spatial platform in which to locate the dance. Director Wim Wenders said he finally made Pina about legendary dancer/choreographer Pina Bausch only because of the re-invention of 3D in cinemas. He felt this finally gave him a tool to capture her genius on celluloid in a way that did her justice. The richly layered visual impact of dance does allow it to be used as metaphor. Clever directors have mined this potential to create films that may be centred on dance but whose actual purpose goes way beyond cheering on the gymnastic moves and grace of the dancers. This intent can be comic, as with British films The Full Monty and Billy Elliot, and Baz Lurmanns bubbly Strictly Ballroom. But all chronicle, in different ways, the unexpected issues resulting from men undertaking some form of dance as a career move. Or the intent can be dramatic, as in Black Swan, which won Natalie Portman her Oscar, and owed a big nod to Italian dance-horror film Suspiria. Remakes or Hollywood retellings of the tale do not always work. The Japanese film Shall We Dance (1996) about ballroom dancing was remade in Hollywood starring Richard Gere with its original title intact but poignant charm missing. Dance as a forbidden pleasure and an expression of youthful angst has long found a receptive audience, whether in Footloose the 1984 film was recently remade Dirty Dancing or Flashdance. Funnily enough, actors such as Footlooses Kevin Bacon who have gone on to stardom are the exception many of the dance films youthful actors, despite the amazing abs, are quickly forgotten. Its not just in dance films, we instinctively respond to dance placed as a memorable visual note in regular films. Travolta never quite captured the Tony Manero edge again, not until he reappeared in Pulp Fiction twisting with grace charm and irony alongside Uma Thurman. We cheered Al Pacino dancing the tango in Scent of a Woman as well as Buzz Lightyear shaking a leg in Toy Story 3 a small step for choreographers but a giant leap for animated astronauts; or the tap dance number in The Artist. My own theory is that the latters overwhelming success at the awards was a result of its feel-good resonances with the likes of Gene Kelly Singin in the Rain. British journalist Nik Cohns Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night the title of his 1976 New York Magazine article that was the basis of Saturday Night Fevers plot and characters was eventually out-ed as a work of fiction rather than reportage. Whats real, however, is the cinematic and cultural dance revolution sparked by the film, here to stay in its changing forms.

Yesterday, Guwahati. Today, Mangalore. Tomorrow, where else?

When we need more than just strong laws...Photo: Mohammed Yousuf The outrage over the Guwahati incident has done nothing to stem the flow of similar incidents being reported from across the country. The naming and shaming of the perpetrators of the crime, the fact that the police managed to catch them and arrest them appears to have made little difference. On the contrary, it is almost as if the repeated footage from Guwahati played on television channels has encouraged others to do the same. We must not forget that while the media went into over-drive on the Guwahati case, in another part of Assam, a young girl who went out to collect firewood was molested by Army jawans. She was saved when villagers heard her cries for help. How many more such cases take place each day in other parts of the troubled Northeast? In action again Almost matching Guwahati was what happened in Mangalore. We should not be surprised. In 2009, the self-appointed guardians of morality, the Sri Ram Sene, set about dragging women out of a pub, pulling their hair, hitting them and all of this in full view of television cameras. On July 28, a mob belonging to the Hindu Jagaran Vedike decided that a group of boys and girls enjoying a birthday party were attending a rave event. Do they know what is a rave? Certainly not. But definitions do not matter because these upholders of public morality decided that what was happening was immoral. Armed with cameras from local television channels, the men barged into the venue of the party, dragged, hit and molested the women, punched and hit the men, including the birthday boy, and made sure every minute was captured on film. There is a pathetic shot of several girls cowering on a bed, trying to cover their faces and bodies with pillows while the cameras continue to film. Even after the police intervened, the cameras did not switch off and kept trying to literally uncover the women as they left. Still in the South, at Bhoovanapadu beach, a popular tourist spot in Srikakulam district, Andhra Pradesh, a gang of five young men pounced on a couple seeking a private moment. The man was beaten up while the woman, a 20-year-old college girl had her clothes ripped off. According to the police, the men had pinned her to the ground, had

taken off her gold ornaments and were getting ready to record what would follow on their mobile phones when the police arrived. In all these cases, the victims are deemed immoral while the attackers believe they are the torchbearers of decency and morality. We keep hearing this repeatedly, even from those who should know the law, given that they are the lawmakers. Yet recently, when a man at a Kolkata railway station attacked a girl returning from tuition classes, the Trinamool MP Chiranjit Chakroborty had this to say about the crime: Eve-teasing is a very old thing. It has been going on for ages. One of the reasons behind the increase in incidents of eve-teasing is short dresses and short skirts worn by women. This in turn instigates men. Really? Eve-teasing? Has no one informed the honourable MP that there is no such word? The horror stories do not end. In Mandya, Karnataka, a 19-year-old garment worker was thrown out of a moving train when she tried to resist a gang of men who were harassing her. She is now in a hospital with multiple injuries, having fallen 25 feet from the train onto a rocky riverbed. She said none of the other women in the compartment intervened even though they saw the men harassing her, offering her money for sex. Not enough Even as these attacks on women were being reported from different parts of the country, the cabinet has approved the Criminal Law Amendment Bill that suggests changes in a whole range of laws that have a direct impact on women. Space does not permit a detailed discussion on the changes contemplated. But suffice it to say that while the law must be strengthened, it will not work as a deterrent unless the law-enforcing machinery actually enforces the law. At the same time, the law-enforcers cannot become a moral police, literally giving a license to any other group that chooses to follow suit. The example of some in the Mumbai police is a particularly bad one in this regard and the outgoing Inspector General of Police in Mumbai has rightly emphasised that enforcement of law is meant to uphold human rights. A new and stronger law will also fail so long as we allow and encourage a culture of impunity, where one group of people decides that it will enforce its own version of morality. In the long term, it is the Taliban-like actions of groups like the Hindu Jagaran Vedike, and the example they set, as well as the oxygen of publicity that the media appears to be granting them, that is cause for serious concern for the future. Email: sharma.kalpana@yahoo.com We need to talk SHARE PRINT T+ Why we dread these four words in the context of a relationship and ways to overcome that feeling.

It has become almost an aphorism of contemporary times that the four most dreaded words that can be uttered by anyone in a relationship are: We need to talk. Whether its between partners, spouses, parents and children, business partners or friends, these four words cause acute discomfort since they seem to be loaded with an ominous undertone. The sub-text seems to be, the fun and games are over, and now we must get down to serious business. And somehow talking to the other person in a dyadic relationship arouses concern, fear and sometimes even hackles. Although, on the face of it, this would seem ludicrous considering that one would expect talking and communicating to constitute the very life-blood of any relationship, but when it comes to serious talking, we all seem to go slightly on the defensive, for, it seems implicit that some critique of us or what we have or have not said or done is bound to follow these four words. As the most advanced (though some may dispute this) species on the planet, and certainly one that has developed complexly organised language and articulation skills, one would expect, in all of us, a certain felicity to express and communicate our thoughts, feelings and desires. We manage to do this almost flawlessly when it comes to making social conversation, business presentations, sales pitches or writing blogs or columns. However, when it comes to communicating something related to our feelings, we seem to flounder a fair bit. We do fairly well when it comes to communicating positive emotions like joy, mirth and love, but when it comes to emotions like pain, hurt or sadness, we either get tongue-tied or lash out in anger. And since most of the conflicts that we experience in dyadic relationships usually pertain to negative emotions, we experience communication gaps. Some of us may communicate reasonably well, but in the absence of reciprocity, true communication doesnt take place. Ground rules To try and communicate at least a little better, there are a few things we would do well to keep in mind. The first of these is that men and women think differently, respond differently in the same situation and communicate differently. I am not going into detail about these differences in communication patterns between the genders, since several books have been written on this subject. (If youre interested, you can read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray and Why Men Dont Listen and Women Cant Read Maps by Allan and Barbara Pease.) And, if you do hit the gender wall, you might need to make more effort to understand each other. Secondly, most of us are masters at talking around an issue. When one talks through an issue, one deals with the issue completely. One confronts it head on and one tries to express ones position on the matter as simply and clearly as possible. However, it is not often that we have a stomach for head-on confrontation, since we fear we could be judged or that the other person may feel judged by us. So we talk around it; we hedge a bit and try to give hints to our partners rather than saying it directly. We

end up thinking weve communicated what we wanted to say, but actually the partner has understood it completely differently. We need to remember that when we express an opinion or a thought or an idea, we do express a judgement. However, if we learn to keep our judgements intellectual rather than emotive, factual than accusatory, neutral than negative, then the other person in the relationship need not fear being attacked by us but could learn to just respond to our observation in a matter-of-fact way. In other words, we need to ensure that we are not passing judgement on the person, merely expressing our judgement of a specific situation or behaviour. To give and take Also, we often talk at each other rather than talk to each other. By this I mean that we expect the other person to merely be a passive recipient of whatever words of wisdom we spout their way. One is not really engaging with the other person or what is being said; one has something to say and will say it in as many ways as possible, without even attempting to take in what the other person is saying or doing. And finally, we erroneously believe that the object of good communication is agreement and that at the end of discussion (or row or fight) both of us should converge on the same point of view. Which is probably why we argue more than discuss, until we hopefully realise that the object of communication is not convergence but mutual understanding. However, when we talk to each other, we also listen to each other. We receive the other persons message, even if we completely disagree with it, and our responses are more considered than off-the-cuff. Also we increase the possibility of understanding each other and talking through an issue. And if, at the end of the day, if both persons in the dyad are satisfied that they have said their respective pieces and have said them well, then we need never fear those four words again. Email: vijay.nagaswami@gmail.com

Sonia Nazareth walks the streets of Antwerp and finds chocolates harder to resist than most things precious. No experience of Antwerp is uncomplicatedly romantic or easily consistent. Unlike most other towns in Flanders with their immediate fix of picture-book loveliness and promise of medieval character, Antwerp takes me longer to gauge. Not least because this port town has continued to expand over the centuries, a product of the diverse influences, ideas and products that sailed in through here after the Middle Ages. Exiting the train station that resembles a cathedral with its domes and lion statues and shops selling diamonds instead of medals, I run smack into a small army of Indians. Turns out theyre heading southwest for the nearby diamond quarter. Over 80 per cent of the worlds rough diamonds and half of its polished diamonds are traded in these high

security backstreets, with up to 60 per cent of those working in the industry now hailing from India. The Orthodox Jews once held the monopoly but the Indians, who are willing to put work first even on the Sabbath, have clearly gained the upper hand. Which is why I can guarantee you not just the best kosher food, but also the best curry here after India, the guide tells me with a playful wink. The diamond quarter wears an unassuming air. It could be a backstreet of Mumbai in fact, but if you look closely youll see men in Armani coats and shop fronts with steely grills guarding the millions of dollars worth of stones. Whatever you get here will be at a 20 per cent discount. But if you dont want to buy, my guide says, youre better off heading to diamond land to watch diamond cutters at work. Along the way to diamond land, I must confess that a jewel of a different nature derails me. Trays full of dark and white oblong, square and shell-shaped swirls of chocolate light up shop windows. Although chocolate from this part of the world once had a secure place in world chocolate hierarchy that seemed inviolate, in a world of rapidly-changing consumer tastes, Antwerp like most of Flanders, couldnt afford to rest on its laurels and had to innovate to stay top of the charts. Which explains why, in addition to the oldfashioned solidity of chocolate varieties, there co-exists the emergence of modern day Willy Wonkas like Dominique Persoone. In Persoones store Chocolate Line, its easy to see how flamboyant Persoone came to be known as the notorious Shock-O-Latier. Rows of bitter coca-cola, black olive, wasabi, cauliflower, vodka, curry powder and onion-infused treats entice me to make my way off the familiar straight-and-narrow, onto a road less travelled. Edible chocolate paint For Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones, Dominique famously made a splash with a chocolate shooter created for his birthday party. Through this unique contraption, you can catapult a mixture of cocoa, ginger and mint up your nose for a chocolate rush. Innovation, an ardent customer at his store The Chocolate Line expounds, while buying a pot of edible chocolate body paint, is for the spirit, what exercise is for the body. A way to start thinking about the limitations imposed by society, a way of bringing life back into living, an exit from routine. The design studios and niche art galleries that dot the city, clearly fit with this aesthetic agenda. The justitiepaleis or law court with its asymmetrical triangular glass roofline that looks like a cone of fries, is one such example. Antwerp, like much of Flanders, likes to do its living outdoors, especially when the days are sunny. When you stroll down the cobbled streets, the shopping thoroughfare and look at the garments and bags, shoes and twinkling diamonds on display while the aroma of chocolate and frying wafts towards you, its not difficult to see that the city still harks back to a time before diets were popular, before restraint was made fashionable.

Despite the monumental cathedrals and larger-than-life festival halls, the city has retained its human-sized quality. Artist Peter Paul Reubens home and the MAS or the Museum aan de Stroom a 60-meter high tower are on every travellers must-do list and thats all very well. But to many people who throng Antwerp for the world music festival in July, edifices like these are but a majestic backdrop for those times of year when the city becomes an extended living room, with the jazz concerts and rambunctious events taking place around town. Contemporary artists like Luc Tyumans and Jan Fabre may be local ambassadors for contemporary art. And the Antwerp six the six designers who wielded Antwerps influence on the fashion world, may have design and art editors sucking their thumbs in excitement. A stroll around Zurenborg may have aficionados of art noveau with their knickers in a twist. But as a wise man told me once, If you visit Antwerp and allow yourself to only focus on the big artists, designers and monumental architecture, you will miss a lot of the subtlety around town. And I couldnt agree more. For part of the charm of a city, this city, any city is to be found in not just those who have arrived, but those in various stages of arrival, the unpublished and un-heralded, small-scale operations, labour-intensive manufacture and Antwerp thankfully, is a city that encourages these fire-starters. Earthships homes built on the concept of sustainable architecture using plenty of discarded consumer products are here. ESTHER ELIAS takes us on a tour of Earthship Karuna, mainland Indias first such home, near Shembaganur, Kodaikanal. In the Western Ghats, 1800 metres above sea level, a deviation off the road to Kodaikanal veers left onto a stony path to Prakashapuram village, Shembaganur. Over three steep kilometres, the stones give way to dirt and the unused track narrows to a jeeps width. Green ferns, blue morning glories, pink lantanas and white daturas jostle with indigenous shola forests and eucalyptus trees baring white skin beneath stripped bark. The road ends. A trail of rubber tyres, filled with earth, begins. A 15-minute trek later, the forests break into an open space with a circular house, its sloped roof amidst clouds: mainland Indias first Earthship. As a citizen of the earth, I fully have the right to harvest water from the sky, grow my own food in my own home, to harvest energy from the sun and the wind, to contain and reuse my own waste on my own land, to make my shelter comfortable without the use of fossil fuels and to harvest what others throw away to construct my own home, writes architect Michael Reynolds, who founded Earthship Biotecture in New Mexico. Over 40 years of experimenting with trash, he built homes that perform the above, called Earthships. British web developer Alex Leeor brings to India this global movement with his Earthship in Kodaikanal.

In April 2001, Alex, with 150 others, attended a conference in Brighton, England, where Michael spoke of Earthships and their biotecture his concept of sustainable architecture. Motivated by his vision, some of them formed Low Carbon Network which built Englands first Earthship Earthship Brighton. We met, and even exceeded, all of Englands strict building regulations. Thats when I knew I wanted to build my own Earthship. I just never knew where, says Alex. The right place Five years passed; some spent in the U.K., others in the U.S. and even a short stint in Australia but no place felt just right. In 2006, Alex visited Kodaikanal, drawn by his devotion to Sai Baba who held yearly retreats here. He stayed at Karuna Farms in Shembaganur, a 20-acre expanse of Shola forests. I stepped in and instinctively knew: This was it. A small cottage in the Farms was home till 2009, when Alex began building Indias first Earthship Earthship Karuna. Three years of toil later, he sits in his new home, against a backdrop of bhajans from an Ipad, his nose stud glistening in the rays of sunshine falling from a sky roof. Absolutely anyone can build these homes, even without any construction background. All you need is minimal intelligence, says Alex, thumbing through frayed, stained copies of Michaels Earthship construction guidebooks. Like Earthships the world over, Earthship Karuna has no foundation. Its weight-bearing walls are built from over a thousand reused tyres, compacted with earth from the very site of construction and stacked like bricks. The gaps between them are filled with discarded cola cans, held together with mud plaster. The founding principle is of thermal mass, explains Alex. The tyres absorb direct sun rays when its warm and release the heat when cold. So, the Earthship self-regulates its temperature effectively enough for winter in just a t-shirt. Earthships have kept inhabitants warm even in winters below -20 C, enough to glue your tongue to your lips. Strong too The Earthships walls are also earthquake resistant since each earth-rammed tyre weighs 300 pounds. Interestingly, Michaels team has built Earthships in the Andamans from just the debris left from the 2004 tsunami. It takes about 30 minutes to ready one tyre, if two work simultaneously. One person shovels earth while the other compacts it in. Ive had help from international friends, people from Auroville, even families with kids. Everyone uses their hands to build; no machines. Local and migrant labour have helped as well, often without a word exchanged, says Alex. Internal walls of the house were built with over 1,000 plastic bottles, retrieved from the Kodaikanal waste dump. Over 200 bottles were from a lady whod stored her wine bottles for years under the sink, wondering how to dispose them. Similarly, rubber tyres were sourced through the Coimbatore Municipality which linked Alex to a private retreader who sent up abandoned tyres. The wonderful thing about biotecture is that we

reclaim others waste into something useful. Reclaim not recycle, Alex emphasises, because recycling involves one energy step further to convert the waste into something new. We use waste as it is, only differently. Water-sufficient Earthships are also designed to be water-sufficient through rain-water harvesting. They are also water wise in that the same water is used up to three times. The first time, it comes through the kitchen taps, after which it drains into planters within the house. In most Earthships, the run-off from here is gathered and pumped into flush tanks but since water is more abundant here than power, I dont follow that step, says Alex. From the flush, the water and waste is directed to an underground hole, also lined by tyres, above which plants grow. Living in an Earthship makes you alive to the earths goings-on. You notice the rains, the sunshine and the wind since you live in sync with them, says Alex. Earthship Karuna is unconnected to Kodaikanals electric grid and is instead powered by one kilowatt solar panels. And its not like Im living under one light bulb. There are laptops, a printer, fridge, projector, jacuzzi, electrical kitchenware, even mood lighting all the works in a regular home only, these are hand-picked for energy efficiency. Alex also harnesses the sun through a sky roof and glass windows which not only floodlight his home but also greenhouse the plants growing within. The year-old, inhouse planter now has plantains, passion-fruit, frangipani, curry leaves and aloe vera among others. My hope is to soon be self-sufficient from this garden, says Alex. Proving a point I built this home to prove that a sustainable lifestyle doesnt have to be a difficult one. And, if you can build an Earthship on this terrain, it can be done anywhere, says Alex. To reach the tyres to his home, workers trekked with eight tyres at a time slung across a stick over their shoulders. Alex even managed to bring up roof tiles, a jacuzzi and a fourposter bed. Living this way is an extension of my belief that the Earth and us are one. But sustainable living aside, Earthships speak to even eco-sceptics, who believe global warming and resource scarcity are myths, since Earthships give you material freedom forever, he says. In a world where a lifetimes assured supply of food, water and power are unguaranteed luxuries, Alexs home is an enviable one. Earthships, however, arent all about living on the edge. Alex is reasonable enough to have one generator as electricity backup and an ill-used connection to a nearby stream for water. Even so, while Kodaikanal has power cuts often, hes had just two shutdowns in the last year. These advantages make the Earthships arrival in India a well-timed one. For those following the green-home trend, heres one that goes beyond mere branding and still is more than a mud house. For the innumerable homeless in India, the homes Earthship Biotecture made from Haitis 2010 earthquake debris could be an example to emulate.

The beauty about the Earthship design is its materials are adaptable to any terrain and can be structurally modified to suit individual aesthetics, he says. Thus design, and therefore cost, vary by the builder. Alexs luxury, customised version of the Earthship is costly, but a basic one can start at Rs. 20 lakh, including the power systems and solar panelling. The Earthship design is however, unsuitable for multi-storied structures, unless built on a slope. Since 2009, Alex has received over 600 international and Indian queries about Earthship Karuna but few have taken their enthusiasm towards actually building one. Two hours of conversation have passed, varied dogs, adults and kids have wandered in and the clouds which earlier hid the Earthships roof have lifted. Outside Alexs window is a breathtaking drop to the valley below, the fall uninterrupted by tarred roads or tamed forests. The Earth echoed the Biblical psalmists voice, I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. He has a reputation for being a recluse and he confirms it, saying he is happiest when writing. Excerpts from a conversation with Cyrus Mistry whose latest novel Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer has just been released. SHASHI BALIGA Theres not much else you can find out online about Cyrus Mistry the writer besides a list of his books and the prizes hes won for his plays, The Legacy of Rage and Doongaji House . And that a film namedPercy , based on a short story of his, for which he also wrote the screenplay and dialogue, won the National Award for Best Gujarati Film of 1991 as well as a Critics Award at the Mannheim Film Festival. Theres precious little on the personal side as well (except on his publisher Alephs website) and no interviews to mine. Well, Im not famous, the author protests. (It also doesnt help that another Cyrus Mistry is the anointed successor to Ratan Tata and tends to dominate a Google search.) Fair assessment However, word on the publishing street is that hes a bit of a recluse. Do you think thats a fair assessment, I ask. Mistry offers a wide smile and wry acceptance: Yes, I think recluse is fair. Im not a very sociable kind of person. And I try not to organise or attend parties. Neither is he comfortable doing the regulation book tour for his latest effort, Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer ; a launch in Mumbai is the only concession hes made so far. Smiling again (he does smile a lot for a reclusive guy), he admits, Im happiest when Im writing; I feel whole and healthy when the writing is going well. When youre exploring an idea and one word leads to the next smoothly thats the real pleasure. Most of that writing is now done in Kodaikanal, a world apart from his native Mumbai, the setting for much of his work. How did that happen? For health reasons and because my son goes to school there, he says. Anyway, Mumbai has become insufferable and so money-centric. People seem to have too much money to spend. I dont have that kind

of money. The language barrier doesnt bother him either: I may not be able to speak Tamil well, but I relate much better to the people in Kodaikanal than in Mumbai. Another reason Mistry has not been too much in the news is that, for many years, he battled a debilitating illness that has left him somewhat frail in body but stronger in mind. Ive overcome illness by using my mind, he says. Though, in his customary self-deprecatory manner, he says later, Im not very cerebral, Im not an ideas man. Emotion is very important to me. Plenty of emotion joyous, aching, bitter, ribald spills out of Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer , a novel imbued with an overwhelming sense of loss and a dark, brooding humour that never lets up. A love story set against the backdrop of the khandhias or corpse-bearers of the Parsi community, the novel expectedly asks questions about life and death. These are questions one keeps asking oneself: How seriously should I take karma? How do miracles happen? When youre a person of strong faith, God is on your side. You can rationalise even the bad things that happen to you; they dont destroy your faith, he muses. Of himself, he says, I am a person of doubting faith; a person who likes the idea of prayer and faith but wonders whether there is any evidence to support it outside of our own minds. Mistry does not hesitate to ask these questions upfront in the book, partly because he sees that approach as integral to the purpose of writing. As he declares in his brief bio on the Aleph website, a work of fiction should be able to move its reader at some fundamental level, to disturb and rearrange his outlook on life, perhaps even change him as a person for even a very short moment. The books ending provides an answer of sorts to his questions, but also raises new ones. It is a redemptive, magical ending but it flies in the face of reason because it shows a dimension of existence on which we cant hang our credos, he says. (Afraid I cant tell you more about the ending without it being a spoiler.) The protagonist and narrator of the novel, Phiroze Elchidana, is a man whos not born a khandhia but opts to become one in order to marry the woman he loves. The enormity of his choice lies in the work and life of the khandhias : ferrying corpses to the Parsi Towers of Silence to be picked clean by vultures and the ostracisation and segregation of the khandhias , the pseudo-scientific reasons and justifications for that, as Mistry puts it. Recurring concerns Marginalisation is a theme that also informs Mistrys first novel, The Radiance of Ashes , published in India in 2006. Unfortunately, recounts its author, Nobody read it; very few even saw it, thanks to what he sees as the indifference of the publisher, Picador. So he fills us in: It was about the social cruelty of man to man, the grotesque social differences in our society and their manifestations. The novel had a character

very similar to Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray, he reveals, so I was sure it would cause a stir. But it sank like a stone in a murky pond. The hurt rankles all these years later, but then, as Mistry has told us, he is ruled by emotion. In fact, in an unexpected revelation, he even admits to getting teary at overwrought Hindi film scenes. Any film-maker that hes partial to? I dont see too many films, even though my wife (Jill Misquitta) is a documentary film-maker, he replies, but I do like the films of Guru Dutt. Another unforced confession pops up later, when we talk about the scatological tone of some of the dialogue in Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer : I used to be a wild kind of guy, he reveals. Did he meet his wife during the wild phase or after? Very much during that phase; we met in college, he says. Some of that wild spirit seems to have lingered on when he started work as a journalist in the 1980s. At the book launch, author and columnist Anil Dharker talked about how, when he was editor of Debonairmagazine (the Indian version of Playboy ), Mistry was asked to write erotic fiction and was brilliant at it. Hopefully, we will see some evidence of that brilliance as well in Mistrys next novel. Lots of scope for heightened emotions there, surely. fiction should be able to move its reader at some fundamental level, to disturb and rearrange his outlook on life, perhaps even change him as a person... Dips into along, rambling conversation on the nature of the book by two artists: Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere . Umberto Eco and Jean Claude Carriere carried on a long, rambling conversation on the nature of the book over several sessions at their two homes. The conversation was curated by editor Jean Philippe Tonnac and became a book. They called it This Is Not The End Of The Book; (and the semi colon is very much part of the title). Disappointingly, theres very little here, bibliographically speaking, about the printed book. And even less about the digital book, though the jacket blurb opens with how difficult it is these days to get away from discussions on whether the printed book will survive the digital revolution. Unfamiliar with e-readers The scriptwriter and the author surprisingly seem unfamiliar with newer e-readers; references to e-readers feel antiquated for a fairly recent conversation on the nature of the book: Eco speaks of how impractical it is to take the computer to read in bed. No one brings up the Kindle or the iPad. We are living for the first time in an era, Eco says, where there are so many beautiful, light-filled bookshops to wander in... Their conversation turns interesting when they speak of book hunting in forgotten antiquarian bookshops, the times spent in old libraries, and the architectural beauty of the printed book. When they speak of the book

in various cultures, the book as an idea, it is less interesting and thats most of the book. Though Carriere rambles more and Eco is more precise, Carriere is the more interesting for his wide ranging, multicultural references. Eco dully stays Euro-centric, referencing Greek-Latin and Spanish book history, while Carriere talks of Persian manuscripts, Sufi poets, the Mahabharata, the dance of Shiva and ancient African libraries (like the great ancient library in Timbuktu). The argument of both these wonderful book artists is that the book represents a sort of unsurpassable perfection in the realm of the imagination. In a leisurely style, using personal stories, the two men meditate on the good and bad fortunes of the book. A perspective of the book that emerges is that it isnt valuable in itself as an object because not all books are good or great or masterpieces. So why save what is mediocre or trashy? So, the book as an object isnt meant to be sacred, and is not to be made a fetish. For Eco the book becomes a way of storing cultural information that one does not need to be burdened with; the book is a fridge. Eco scores when he predicts that whatever forms the future book will take, it will have to look and feel like the traditional printed book. The book is like the spoon. Once invented, it cannot be improved. Electronic media formats are notoriously ephemeral, observe both writers. Eco recalls once hunting for an early version of Foucaults Pendulum, which he had on floppy discs, but he couldnt find them probably because they were thrown out. If it had been a typed manuscript, he points out, he would have found it somewhere in the house. After years of resisting having a film library of his own, Carriere gave in when the DVD came and began making his film collection and now the DVD is on its way out. But the tenacious incunabula, early printed books from the 15th century that both men collect, remain the same. Passion for books Eco admits that, though he speaks passionately of the printed book, if there was a fire in his house the first thing he would take with him is his 250 gigabyte hard drive. Both men are collectors of rare and expensive books; they reminisce about tracking down certain editions they were obsessed with and divulge their collecting criteria: Carrieres is eclectic; one special focus is a collection of Persian books. Ecos primary focus is collecting ancient, rare and antiquarian books on fakes. Eco has 50,000 books, out of which 1,200 are very rare. Carriere has around 40,000 not counting his large collection of legends and fairly tales. The book he values most in his collection the one he would grab if his library was on fire is a 1490 volume with wonderful illustrations, plates and folded pages. Carriere would grab an Alfred Jarry manuscript, as well as one by Andre Breton, and a book by Lewis Carroll that contains a letter he wrote. Carriere shares an anecdote about a book scout he knew who rode in a moped carrying antiquarian treasures in a plastic bag on its handlebars!

The Gutenberg galaxy isnt the only thing discussed; Eco and Carriere go further back and invoke parchments, scrolls, manuscripts. In ancient Rome, Eco tells us for instance, little shops sold scrolls. You dropped into one of them before heading into the library (or soon after) and asked for the latest bestseller. A week later something, say, by Virgil was copied just for you and kept ready to be picked up. Eco also tells us that only now we know that old libraries like those fabled monastic medieval libraries did not hold thousands of volumes; perhaps around 400 to each library. The printed book, masterfully typeset, illustrated, bound and printed in its infancy, was expensive; 400 was a lot of copies to have in one collection. Umberto is at his best when he speaks of books and his childhood. When he was five or six, his grandfather who had been a typographer and a bookbinder died and Eco discovered his bookshelves which held stacks of books waiting to be bound. They were all kinds of books from splendidly illustrated adventure books to science books to erotic books. They were in boxes in the cellar and Umberto would be sent down to collect coal to heat the house, and he would linger with these boxes. Once, more recently, Eco was looking for a book in his library and his secretary suggested ordering the shelves but Eco protested; he wanted to roam and look and find it somewhere rather than go straight to it. Carriere speaks of sometimes just looking at his books. Not touching them or taking them out. Just standing and looking. And remembers coming upon Jean Luc Goddard more than once just staring at cans and cans of his film reels arranged on shelves! Eco says keeping an old clock in your library wards off worms; the minute vibrations of the tick-tock of the clock through the night keeps the worms tucked into the woodwork. What would happen, asks Tonnac, to their books after their death? Eco hopes to leave it to libraries and not break it up; Carriere will let his wife and children and friends decide. India matters more than ever, says Tim Sebastian, as he talks about his new show, The Outsider, which will focus on the country. SWATI DAFTUAR As the Chairman of The Doha Debates and with his seven-year run as the host of Tim Sebastian:Hard talking in India.Photo: V.V. Krishnan Hardtalk, Tim Sebastian is known for his hard-nosed inquisitions and tough-as-nails on screen attitude, having interviewed some of the most powerful people on the planet. As BBCs foreign correspondent based in Warsaw, Moscow and Washington, he has over 30 years of experience reporting from over 25 countries. Sebastian is now in India to chair The Outsider , a debate series focused exclusively on India. Slated to go on air in mid-August, this 13-part series is an attempt by Bloomberg-UTV to reinvent its identity and increase its reach. The programme, produced by Sobo Films, will feature debates on major social, political and economic issues faced by India

including subjects like education, Kashmir, business and corruption, dynastic politics, to name a few. A safe platform There is no doubt in Sebastians mind about what he wants from the show. The idea is not to shock; it is to provide a platform, a safe platform, for intelligent discussions and debates on important issues. We are going to try and look at the cracks in society, the issues that matter to people, and the problems that people face. Asked what he thinks are some of the pertinent issues in India, Sebastian says, The issue of women is something we will definitely be discussing in detail in one of our debates. Sebastian founded The Doha Debates, in 2004, to promote free speech in the region and explore vital issues affecting the Arab and Islamic worlds. One of our debates involved putting together two sparring factions of Palestine society. We got people from both factions to come together and express their views about their leaders. Something like this had never happened before; they realised, suddenly, that they could speak openly about what they thought of these leaders, something they couldnt do anywhere else in the country. They could tell their leaders how fed up they were; that they wanted them to go. And these leaders had never had young people talk to them like that. Since India already has a number of popular debate shows that bring together people from all walks of life to discuss pertinent issues, Sebastian explains how The Outsider will differ. Yes, we want to join the incredibly vibrant debate that is India today but we want to do it in a way that tries to pick key problems and address questions that often go unanswered. My job is to make sure these debates contain both the heat of passion and the light to illuminate extraordinary things to a curious world. India matters more than ever. Theres no escaping that. He adds that that show will concentrate on young voices while also talking to experts. Our subjects are controversial and will address concerns raised by Indians. This is a show thats going to be backed by facts. I wont be airing my views. My job is to pick holes in peoples arguments and, believe me, there are always holes. Aired globally over four continents, the show will also work towards providing the world with a closer insight into India. Everyone is an expert on India, but no one listens to what Indians are saying. This show comes at a very good time, when the west is faltering economically, and India and China are two of the fastest growing economies in the world. India has huge ambitions, and its decisions are being watched by the world. This is Asias century and its time to look at one of the two biggest powerhouses in this continent. We need to see where the

problems are; what the problems are. There was a time, in the 1700s, when India had 25 percent of world trade. Maybe there will come a time when you will have that again. Of course, the social scenario will be different from the Doha Debates. While Sebastian hosts the show again as an outsider; this time, he has to face a different crowd; one that he has faced before. When Sebastian got the Doha Debates to India, We were discussing whether Muslims had got a fair deal in India. We had students from St. Stephens College as part of the audience, and they were very good. We got some excellent feedback. It was a productive exercise. Perfect time The Outsider will follow a pattern similar to the Doha Debates and, already, Sebastian is into rigorous research. Im known to do my homework. A research team similar to the Hardtalk one will work on this show. This is, according to Sebastian, the perfect time to come to India. Because the view in the outside world is that India is at a crossing point. Maybe its no longer shining in the way it was five or ten years ago. Maybe the national mood has sunk a little bit. With no particular affiliations to any particular view or party, Sebastian hopes to fulfil his role as the ultimate outsider, looking in and shedding light on an insiders problems. Does he hope to make revolutionary changes in society and influence policy making? We arent politicians, we arent policy makers, and Im definitely not hoping for a mass conversion. This is a platform to provide free speech and healthy discussions. By raising such issues with politicians and other influential figures, we will encourage young people to hold them to account. He says that debates are becoming more fashionable and these platforms are the only way for people to make sure their voices are heard. I am not interested in huge audiences. But we want to attract those who are interested in issues that matter to them. In other words, the politically involved. Yahia Lababidi opens up on the intellectual niche that influenced his works. Athira Nair T he Artist as Mystic: Conversations with Yahia Lababidi by Alex Stein is first and foremost a tribute to the literary forbearers of the previous century. A passionate analysis of some of the European intelligentsia mostly Rilke, Kafka, Baudelaire and Nietzsche the book is a collection of essays in which Lababidi tells Stein about how these writers, who played a major role in shaping our intellectual landscape, have influenced his writing. An American poet of Egyptian origin, Yahia Lababidi has published Signposts to Elsewhereand Trials by Ink , both of which were critically acclaimed. Alex Stein is the

author of Made-up interviews with Imaginary Artists , and the authors have collaborated for this book, which is a collection of previously published essays in the form of lyrical conversations, introducing the reader to a new pathway in literary appreciation. About this curious project, Stein says, My choice to help create a book of conversations, rather than one of traditional essays, was a choice intended to help me make peace with the strange, familiar figures our conversations (have) examined (those brilliant, condemned souls) and a choice intended to help me see them more clearly. I came to the form called the interview, as a poet. A conversation, rightly understood, between persons of affinity, need never be anything less than a poem. Referring to the cultural atmosphere of their times and even their personal histories, and analysing their literary contributions, served in platter of lyrical conversations, Stein and Lababidi delve deep into their favourite authors, seeking where one draws the line in looking to literary figures for answers. For instance, Lababidi finds that Kafkas writings, mostly existentialist and surreal, are deeply personal. Universalised sensuality He feels that what we read in Kafka is a universalised sensuality, a shy experience of the self as the other. And one finds in Baudelaire a tendency to mysticism, which is quite different from that of Rilke or Rumi, whose exalted poetry is an altogether different realm. Kafkas dream prose and Baudelaires poetry are compared, and are found to come to their similarities from opposite ends of experience. In such confabulations about those great minds that have aroused the intellectual curiosity of generations of literary enthusiasts, the duo finds that true poets are connected to one another by a mutuality of intention, a rage for transformation. For Indian readers, Lababidi says, this book might appear to be a meditation on the philosophy and poetry of certain Western literary figures. But he emphasises that it is more than that. It is an intimate conversation that Alex and I are having within ourselves and with one another, about what we believe to be sacred in literature, and, in turn, through literature, the world at large. It is our wish that these mystical musings resonate with our Indian audience since, ultimately, this is a domain that belongs to all of us, and where Western traditions are in many ways still catching up with the rich insights of the East, he adds. Steven Wlazly of Onesuchpress, the (Australian) publisher of the book, says that these conversations constitute what Australians call a songline a set of sacred songs that allow the reader/ listener to navigate through an unknown terrain. If others could recreate the intimate experience of this text, this form of writing could easily become popular. I expect however that writers with understand and precision required to pull it off will be rare. He expects this book to do well in Asia, being as it is, the birthplace of both philosophy and mysticism.