Category Archives: Articles

A selection of my articles on a wide variety of topics, written over the past two decades for leading publications such as Gulf News (UAE) and The Hindu (India)

May 22, 2011 · 9:46 pm

Restaurant with a view, Dubai-style

A view of the Mall of the Emirates. See the ski slope?

As you’ve probably guessed from the subjects of these two most recent updates (they’ve been a long time coming, haven’t they? I’ve been a terrible blogger of late), I’ve been on a visit to Dubai. While there, I was living not far from the massive Mall of the Emirates — otherwise known as the mall with its own indoor ski slope — which pretty much dominates the landscape in the area. I mean, you can see that damn ski slope (covered of course, can’t have all that artificial snow melting in the desert sun) jutting out of the top of the mall’s roof from miles away; it looms in the horizon as you zoom down Sheikh Zayed Road and prepare to  turn off into Al Barsha (the area of Dubai where the the mall is located). With the possible exception of the local LuLu Hypermarket with its unapologetically garish, hard-to-miss red, green and purple signboard (part of a chain of huge and kitschy stores in the Gulf that Indians head to for all their needs, and the ultimate symbol of Malayali pride in the Middle-East, owned as it is by a Mallu who’s giving the sheikhs a run for their money), Mall of the Emirates is the single largest landmark in the area.

Which is why I found the name of this tiny roadside restaurant tucked away on one of the side streets by the humungous mall so very perfectly apt. Above a cheerful red and white canopy, the signboard of the restaurant proclaims simply, “Mall-View Restaurant.” It even has, beneath said canopy, little tables and chairs set out on the pavement, so its patrons can, presumably, sit, sip coffee, smoke a sheesha, and drink in the view of The Mall. Even if all you can see are tall, sand-coloured side walls of said mall. After all, everywhere else in the world, you have restaurants and bistros and hotels enthusiastically named “Sea-View” or “Ocean-View” or “Lake-View” or “Mountain-View” or “Spring-View” or “Park View”, even if you can only glimpse at a sliver of the ocean waves from one corner of the restaurant, or if you need to lean waaay over the rails of your hotel room balcony to actually see a dash of green from the park. It’s all about location, and owners have for years and years taken advantage of any sort of proximity to city landmarks to make their establishments seem more attractive.

Well, what are the landmarks of Dubai? Malls, malls, malls and more malls, right? Okay, there’s the sail-shaped super-swish Burj Al Arab hotel, and the world’s tallest building (at least I think it still is… who can keep up these days?), the Burj Khalifa (which, incidentally is linked to — what else — the city’s biggest mall, the Dubai Mall). But apart from that, all you have as distinguishable landmarks in a city covered with homogeneous, glass-fronted skyscrapers are its malls. You have the ridiculously exclusive pyramid-shaped Wafi Mall, you have the Aspen of Dubai, the Mall of the Emirates, you have the Persian domes and Chinese pagodas of Ibn Battuta mall (it tracks the travels of Ibn Battuta, see), you have Madinat Jumeira, a mall modeled to look like an old-world souq (ironically one of the few chances you’ll have to see any traditional architecture in Dubai), and you have the mall that’s so big, it’s called a city and has its own waterfront — Festival City. Everything in Dubai revolves around these malls. You give directions based on these malls. Visitors plan their itinerary around how many malls they can cover in a day. Residents mark the passing of time by counting the number of new malls that have come up recently.

And so it is that Dubai boasts of probably the world’s first ‘Mall View Restaurant’. It makes such perfect sense, doesn’t it? Why waste your time on Sea-View or Desert-View restaurants in this city? This savvy restaurenteur has it figured out just right; he’s positioned his property close to and named it after one of the landmarks that really matter in Dubai’s landscape — that mecca of merchandising, the mall. Wish I’d taken a picture of it!

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May 22, 2011 · 11:28 am

Travel: Falconry in Dubai

Photo: Shyam Krishnamurthy

The sun is beating down hard on us when we arrive – a motley group of tourists from across the world – to watch a falconry display in Dubai late one afternoon. We’re on the edge of a vast expanse of open desert, smoothly undulating sand dunes as far as we can see. The setting couldn’t be more perfect.

But I’m feeling rather cynical, jaundiced really, after the camel ride we’d just been fobbed off with. The horsey ride I took on the Marina as a four-year-old was longer and more thrilling, and when (like said four-year-old) I’d tried to wheedle for a longer ride, I’d been denied with a firm ‘Yalla!’ by the Arab in charge.

Still, I wait patiently. After all, falconry in the U.A.E. is supposed to be something special, an ancient tradition that has morphed into a modern sport patronised by the rich and the powerful of the land. The falcons and their falconer arrive in a smart white four-wheel-drive vehicle, and I’m mildly disappointed as they dismount. I’d vaguely assumed that the birds would be bigger (I’d been picturing something more majestic, along the lines of a Bald Eagle), and their falconer would look more fierce.

Instead a slim, unassuming-looking young man in blinding white traditional garb goes about setting up his paraphernalia expressionlessly. The falcons – they’re Peregrines, I later find out – are tethered to a perch in the sand, with a delicately ornamental hood covering their eyes (it seems cruel to me that they’re blinded, until I find out that it’s needed to allow the birds to adjust their powerful vision to the new surroundings).

Still, with no change in expression, the falconer gets one of the birds to perch on his arm (covered with a cushiony cuff), and the tourists promptly erupt in a volley of photo-clicking. The bird is then transferred onto the arms of the more intrepid visitors and there’s even more picture-taking. After about 20 minutes of this, I’m convinced that the gentleman is soon going to pack up and leave, and if I asked for more, I’d get a stern ‘Yalla!’

Boy, am I wrong. Because once the pictures are taken, the real show begins. Out of an old bag comes a hapless pigeon tied to a long rope (the prey, I realise in a dawning mix of horror and awe), and one of the falcons is released from its hold, its hood removed. With a single shout, the falconer swings the pigeon into the air, and the falcon takes to flight. Swooping through the air, gliding and diving, the falcon suddenly doesn’t seem that small. Suddenly, it’s just as majestic as I’d imagined it would be.

Now begins a cat-and-mouse game between the falcon and the falconer, as they recreate the age-old chase of predator and prey, the pigeon swinging just out of the reach of the falcon each time it nears. Centuries ago, the Bedouins captured and trained these falcons to hunt for meat that would supplement their diet of dates and camel milk. Today, the falconer might be merely putting on a show for a group of tourists who ‘ooh’ and ‘ahhh’ with each swoop of the bird; but, I realise, some things are unchanged. Such as the intensity of the falcon’s attack, as it pounces, withdraws, re-assesses the situation and swoops down again in increasingly aggressive motions; and the skill and training of the falconer, as he matches wits with the predatory bird.

It’s like an airborne bull-fight, between the falconer who swings the prey away in increasingly wide loops, and the hungry falcon bearing down upon him. It’s fascinating, a little scary and borderline cruel, especially when the victorious falcon is tethered again after getting just a couple of pecks at the pigeon. Now falcon number two is released, and it becomes clear very early that this one isn’t following the script. It’s bigger, more ornery and less in control, and swerves dangerously close to the watching group of tourists a few times.

Turns out it’s because this one is newer to training although it’s older by six months (they’re both females, I’m told, and the first is just a year old). How long does it take to train them? I ask our laconic falconer later. He shrugs. “It depends on the brain of the falcon,” he says in his heavily-accented English, tapping his head. “Sometimes, a week is enough. Sometimes months.”

When the show is done (the second one brought to heel by our ever-calm falconer), the falcons are cooled down with water, and then, finally, allowed to have at the pigeon. As a group of delighted little kids watch (with gleeful shouts of ‘Ewwww gross!’), they rip into the pigeon in a National Geographic-style moment that’s both impossible to turn away from and faintly nauseating to watch.

The whole thing really is quite an adrenaline rush, and this is just the tame, touristy version of the sport. Definitely better than the camel ride. Yalla!

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April 13, 2011 · 1:11 pm

How to… be a packrat

1.    Being a packrat takes some serious dedication. No item is too small or too frivolous to be packed away “in case it’s needed in the future”. Cardboard boxes, plastic spoons, old, yellowing magazine clippings, broken hair clips… it doesn’t matter if you can’t immediately think of what they might be needed for. It just matters that they’re there, safely stored in a dusty corner of the storeroom or stashed away in a moth-bally corner of the almarah… just in case.

2.    A packrat often leads an embattled existence in the family, so it’s important to be prepared to fight for your right to store. There’s always that person who’s determined to throw away all the junk you’ve lovingly squirreled away over the years. So whether it’s an old rusty biscuit tin or a wad of wrapping paper, you’ve got to be ready to make a soulful case for a) the emotional value of said object (warning: this one can only take you so far) or b) how the last time you were forced to throw something away, it nearly lead the family to brink of disaster (acute spoon shortage! Wrapping paper emergency before a party! etc).

3.    Sometimes no amount of arguing or emotional blackmail works, and the Family Packrat Nemesis resorts to underhanded tactics such as (gasp!) clearing out the storeroom when you’re away. At such times, dear packrat, it is perfectly all right for the gloves to come off. Whether it’s digging through the trash and dragging your beloved items back into the house, or actually engaging in a less-than-dignified bout of tug-off-war when you catch the Nemesis in the act, no reaction is too over the top for the packrat protecting her territory.

4.    To avert such crisis situations, a packrat must have certain secret locations scattered about the home where the most valuable of the stash can rest safely for evermore. A truly accomplished packrat can hoard to her heart’s content in various forgotten nooks and crannies for years and years without interference, and is only discovered when moving house or re-painting the house or such. (At that point, refer to tips 2 and 3).

5.    Finally, nothing helps the cause of the packrat like being organised. A neat packrat is a packrat who flies under the radar. Granted, it’s hard – there’s so much stuff and only so much time to stash it all away in. But it’s worth investing in compartmentalised plastic boxes, serviceable shoeboxes or smartly labelled cartons in which to sort, stack and store it all. After all, it’s so much easier to defend organised rows of boxes than a rumpled mess of junk. And just think about how much more you can store in the space you save!

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March 30, 2011 · 12:34 pm

Book Launch: Jeffrey Archer’s ‘Only Time Will Tell’

And he’s back. Jeffrey Archer’s visits to the city have practically become an annual tradition now. For the third time in three and a half years, the British best-selling author returned in Chennai to meet his adoring fans, and, of course, to promote his latest offering.

“I’ll be travelling to five cities in six days, and I did 11 interviews just today,” said Archer, as he took the stage at Odyssey at Express Avenue Mall. “It’s non-stop work from plane to plane, but it’s worth it – I’ve just been told the book’s gone to number one on the bestseller list. This is why I love coming to India again and again.”

You really can’t blame the guy. Not only is this the country where he has the single largest readership, it’s also probably the only place on earth where the author with a somewhat murky past gets a standing ovation when he strides onstage like an aging, bespectacled rockstar. The crowd at Odyssey was somewhat smaller than that of the previous years’ events held at Landmark – there were actually empty seats at the start – but it did grow by the end, so Archer could say with some satisfaction before the book signing, “Look how many people there are!”

The book in question this year is ‘Only Time Will Tell’, the first of the five-part series, ‘The Clifton Chronicles’ that spans a hundred years from 1920 to 2020, and traces the life of Harry Clifton and the mystery surrounding his father’s death.

“This first book follows Harry’s life from his birth in the docklands of Bristol in 1920 up until 1940, when he has to decide whether he’d go to Oxford or to the war,” said Archer. “It’s only been out three days, but I’m sure some of you would have already read it; people in India are so fast, it’s frightening.”

The evening was full of such asides – how quick people are in India, how many aspiring writers there are (“only in India will all the hands go up when you ask that question”), and how many young writers have already written a novel (a 14 year old girl in this case, which Archer called ‘typical’). Once he was up on stage, he was fond, benign old Uncle Archer, completely in charge and holding forth on writing tips, mock-scolding the audience, and generally having them eating out of his hand.

However, what did come across as truly genuine was his gratitude for the reception he gets here, and he patiently responded to all the questions he was asked, whether it was about his writing routine (he’s up by 5.30 a.m. and writes for eight hours a day with breaks every two hours) or his exercise routine (he has a personal trainer from New Zealand – “I can drop and do 25 press ups right now.”) He revealed that Columbia Pictures has sent him the script for the movie adaptation of his previous novel, ‘Paths of Glory’, but that he was afraid to read it (“I’m dreading not liking the script and feeling it could have been so much better”), and that he wouldn’t be writing a book on vampires any time soon, “though I’m told they’re in”.

The event ended the way his launches always do – with a throng of autograph seekers surrounding him. “I was mobbed back in Mumbai,” he said, trying to organise the crowd better here; but you got the feeling he probably wouldn’t mind being mobbed – at least a little – again.

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March 5, 2011 · 4:03 pm

Author interview: C.P. Belliappa (‘Victoria Gowramma – The Lost Princess of Coorg’)

In a quiet corner of the Brompton Cemetery in London lies a 19th century grave partially covered by the undergrowth. The graceful stone cross above it is slightly broken, but the epitaph composed by Queen Victoria can still be read: “Sacred to the memory of the Princess Victoria Gouramma (sic), daughter of the ex-Raja of Coorg…”

That’s where the strange and tragic tale of Victoria Gowramma, the princess from Coorg who was raised Christian and became Queen Victoria’s goddaughter, ended in 1864. But her story has come to light again in all its fascinating detail thanks to C.P. Belliappa’s rigorously researched book ‘Victoria Gowramma: The Lost Princess of Coorg’, which was recently launched in the city.

“Historical writings on Coorg – mostly gazetteers by the British who lived there during the 19th century – mention the story of Gowramma and her father, the exiled Raja Veerarajendra in a paragraph or two,” says Belliappa, author of ‘Tale of a Tiger’s Tail & Other Yarns from Coorg’ and ‘Nuggets from Coorg History’. “But the details were never there, and I got more and more inquisitive.”

His big break came when he accidentally stumbled upon three books written in the 19th century by people who know both the raja and his daughter. “I was able to download them – for free! – from www.archive.org, where old books are digitised and uploaded,” he said. “They were authentic, firsthand accounts, and comprised 75 per cent of the information I needed.”

The rest he found from the digital archives of the Times London – reports of court functions and events that contained all sorts of interesting titbits of information.

‘Victoria Gowramma…’ traces the intriguing series of events surrounding the princess’ journey to England with her father in 1852, and her difficult and often lonely life there subsequently. The various threads include the exiled raja’s attempts to reclaim the wealth the British took from him (his reason for taking Gowramma to England in the first place), and the grand plans by Queen Victoria to match-make between Gowramma and another young royal convert to Christianity, Maharaja Duleep Singh of Punjab.

“Queen Victoria believed that if two royals converted to Christianity were married, and their children were born Christian, it would encourage more of their subjects to convert,’ says Belliappa. “What’s interesting is that although the plan didn’t work, the queen continued to be fond of Gowramma to the very end.”

The book, then, is more than just a portrait of a princess; it gives you a glimpse into the political and religious power dynamics of the time. With its wealth of primary sources, it’s a solid historical work, though Belliappa admits that he was very tempted to go the historical fiction route. “I gave it a lot of thought, and decided finally that the facts themselves were so sensational that they didn’t need fictionalising,” he says.

Since the book’s release in England last year, the author has uncovered even more interesting nuggets of information – for instance, after a bit of detective work, he’s discovered that direct descendants of Gowramma live on to this day in Australia.

“I have enough material to add at least an epilogue in future editions of the book,” he says. “It’s been a very exciting time.”

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March 2, 2011 · 10:12 am

How to… be a pop-culture junkie

  1. Be obsessive: You don’t just watch popular TV shows, movies, etc.; you immerse yourself in them. You notice and catalogue every detail and flaw (and rant about every tiny inaccuracy). You memorise entire segments of dialogue and own the soundtrack (no matter how obscure). You analyse every plot point and debate casting decisions as though you were producer or director. In short – embrace geekiness.
  2. Be proactive: A true pop-culture junkie doesn’t wait until the latest episodes of his favourite TV show eventually trickle into Indian channels (a six month lag? Shudder!). Or until a movie he’s been obsessing about for the past year comes to Indian theatres (possibly never). Online downloads are your new best friend. And if all else fails, there’s always a fellow geek in the U.S. or France or Turkey who can be your DVD supplier (thank god for eBay and Amazon.)
  3. Be argumentative: Cultivate strong opinions and then air them on online communities, forums and blogs dedicated to the icon/show/movie/book in question. Argue incessantly, incite flame wars, form rival factions and inevitably, splinter communities (with yourself as the supreme commander and moderator, of course). Remember, anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a troll.
  4. Be creative: Contrary to popular perception, pop-culture junkies don’t merely consume, eyes glazed over and brain disengaged. Apart from the long, rambling analyses and the intense arguments online (see above), there’s also the somewhat shadowy world of fan fiction (where rabid fans write their own stories based on the characters from a particular show/movie/book etc.). And then there’s fan art. And fan videos. And… you get the drift.
  5. Finally, spend, spend, spend. Whether it’s sci-fi movie memorabilia or classic movie posters or limited edition action figures or anniversary edition special disc sets, you’ve got to own them. They’re your badge of honour. Your point of pride. Fellow junkies judge your worth by them. Newbies worship you for them. You must bid obsessively on eBay; you must covet and collect and display with pride. It’s the price to pay for true junkie-hood.

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February 12, 2011 · 4:43 pm

Interview with… R. Seshasayee

Pic: R. Ravindran

This interview almost didn’t happen. You see, R. Seshasayee has never — in all his years as one of Chennai’s most respected corporate leaders — given a purely personal interview, one not about his vast experience and knowledge of the automobile industry, but about his other interests and dimensions, his charitable work, his artistic talents and his philosophy towards life. And this interview request too, like others, was on the verge of being politely turned down.

“Then my wife gave me a talking to for 15 minutes,” says the long-time managing director of Ashok Leyland with a smile when we finally do meet. “I said I didn’t feel comfortable talking about myself, and she said, ‘Most people know you from just one angle, and it’s time you changed that!’”

That angle is, of course, his role as a visionary leader at Leyland for the last three decades (he’s been MD since 1998), and his high-profile participation in organisations such as the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) (he’s served as president of both).

But here’s something you probably didn’t know. He’s also an artist who has done portraits and magazine illustrations, a Tamil writer and poet, and a lover of Carnatic music who trained under Maharajapuram Santhanam. And that’s just the beginning.

“I’ve always believed that every person has many desires and talents, and that it’s necessary to develop them all to be holistic,” he says. “There must be one anchoring interest, of course, a central calling in your life, but it’s perfectly feasible to be many things.”

He gained this perspective from his multi-faceted parents — his father, M.S. Ramaswamy, who’s a lawyer, a musicologist, a tennis player, and an entrepreneur, and his mother, Vasumathi Ramaswamy, a well-known Tamil writer and novelist, a social activist and an orator. “Growing up watching them, it was natural to pursue different interests,” he says.

So during his college years, he painted cinema posters (“we worked on huge banners — it was a very laborious process”) and was the staff artist for the short-lived magazine, Mala. “In fact, in my early years, I didn’t think of being a chartered accountant or an engineer, just an artist,” he says. (He eventually did go on to become a chartered accountant.)

He also, fascinatingly, was a ghost-writer for his mother towards the tail-end of her career, he reveals: “This is not to take away anything from her — she wrote several hundred short stories, novels and essays — but at that time, she was unwell and struggling to meet deadlines, so I’d finish stories or rewrite them for her.”

Once, for instance, he wrote the next instalment of a radio serial she was working on while he was travelling from Madras to Tuticorin by train for an audit of a food corporation. “I finished when I reached and posted it straight to AIR… She never even had a chance to read it before it went on air!” he laughs.

Today, he still paints and writes Tamil poetry in his spare time, though, he says with a smile, they’re not for the public eye. His active involvement with Carnatic music too came to a halt with the untimely passing of Santhanam, but he retains his interest and thirst for knowledge on the subject. “I definitely want to do an M.A. in Music, when I find the time,” he says.

Time is something Seshasayee seems to have a special relationship with. Apart from his demanding career, he finds time to be involved with 17 — yes, 17 — different organisations, including charitable organisations such as SCARF and the Indian Cancer Institute, and educational institutions such as the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT).

“Thinking about what you can do to touch as many people and institutions as you possibly can is part of living holistically,” he says. “We don’t function as individuals in isolation; it’s important to get connected with our society, our world.”

Ask him how he manages to do it all, and he laughs, “I get asked that often. But, you can be very productive if you think through all your actions in a focused way; that way you don’t waste any time.”

His reaction to his upcoming move at Leyland from managing director to executive vice-chairman (from April) is similarly clear-headed. “It’s necessary for the sake of the organisation to have a succession,” he says. “The next generation is coming up and we must make space for them.”

It’s all part of the larger evolution of his life, as he puts it: “You have to constantly ask yourself — where do I find joy next?”

For a man as multi-faceted as him, the answer could lie in one of many, many things.

BOX:

While at Vivekanada College, he was an active leader in student politics.

One of his greatest ambitions when he was younger was to make a movie someday.

He is a gifted orator, with a talent for extempore speaking.

He enjoys reading Bharathiar’s poetry.

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February 12, 2011 · 4:21 pm

Book launch: Rahul Bhattacharya’s ‘The Sly Company of People Who Care’

Much like the book itself, the launch event of ‘The Sly Company of People Who Care’ by Rahul Bhattacharya was all about the Caribbean nation of Guyana – its people, its language and dialect, its colonial history and racial politics, and its decaying wooden splendour.

“It’s such a raw-ly beautiful country, with its red rivers and rainforests,” said Bhattacharya, in conversation with journalist and author Samanth Subramanian at Landmark. “I felt an instant affinity to its colours and dialects – it was so different from anything I’d experienced before.”

Delhi-based Bhattacharya is best known for his work on cricinfo.com and for his popular cricket book ‘Pundits from Pakistan’. ‘The Sly Company…’ is his debut novel and was also, in a sense, was born out of cricket.

“I was on my first international cricket tour to the West Indies, and my first port of call was Guyana,” he recalled. “It was a very boring week of test cricket – it always rains there during matches – but my affinity for the place stayed with me, and I decided to follow that feeling nearly four years later.”

He ended up spending a year there – unusual, to say the least. “No one goes to Guyana,” he said laughing. “Everyone flees Guyana – it’s such a desperate, struggling place.”

But it’s also a fascinating place, with its volatile racial mix of Africans, Indians, Chinese, and Portuguese, its grid of canals and trenches, and its sagging wooden houses with zinc roofs built by the Dutch. “I knew I’d write a book on it, but I didn’t what that book would be,” said Bhattacharya.

The book eventually took the shape of a novel (“I’d start with facts and then tell a whole lot of lies”), but the author still struggled with the non-fiction elements he needed to include.

“So few in India know the historical context of Guyana – how it was created entirely by colonial powers who brought in slaves and indentured labourers, and how its reality is shaped by what happened once the colonial powers left,” he said. “I had to reconcile these non-fictional elements with the storytelling – that was challenging.”

‘The Sly Company…’ tells the story of a young man from India who goes to Guyana in search of escape from ‘the deadness of life’, and embarks on an adventure with Baby, a diamond hunter. Slow paced and filled with dialogue in Guyanese dialect, the book isn’t always easy to read. But it did come alive during a long, dramatised reading by the author, who did a remarkable job in re-creating the distinctive rhythms of Guyanese speech (“I became quite good at it; people could mistake me for Guyanese by the end!”).

“When I came back, the dialect was bouncing in my head so hard – the vivid phrases and the very visual way of speaking were addictive,” he said. “A lot of the narrative in the book was in that style initially; I had to be reined in by my editor who felt it would be incomprehensible to readers.”

Naturally, much of the q-and-a session that followed focused on race and politics in Guyana. The turnout at the launch might have been small, but those present walked away with a deeper understanding of the Caribbean nation.

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February 1, 2011 · 11:49 pm

Author interview: Rudra Krishna (‘The Onus of Karma’)

His novel ‘The Onus of Karma’ may have just been released recently, but Rudra Krishna started writing the story a long, long time ago. At the age of 12, to be precise.

“It was the first story I ever wanted to tell,” says the 28-year-old author about the fantasy adventure novel. “But every time I started, I felt I was writing pure drivel. I really struggled to find my style.”

Fast forward 10-odd years to 2006, and Rudra was ready to tackle the story once more. And this time, he meant business. “I finally had the style down, the plot mapped out and the research done, and when I sat down to write, I finished it in seven weeks,” he says. “I guess it had been fermenting in my mind a while!”

So what was so special about this story? Well, it’s based on the legend of a swashbuckling ancestor of Rudra’s – his great-great-great-great-grandfather (“I’ve lost track of the number of ‘greats’,” he jokes), Tharuppukal Ramaswami Aiyar, a fearless bounty hunter who turned his back on tradition and ended up making the family fortune.

“He was the last of seven children in a family of purohits, who decided he didn’t want to be a priest, and trained in sword-fighting, archery and martial arts instead,” says Rudra. “He ran away at the age of 17, and famously captured the feared dacoit Arunachalam. He was a total free spirit –he just disappeared one day at the age of 38 or 39 and was never seen again.”

Around this fascinating ancestor, Rudra has spun a tale of mysticism and intrigue, involving the Sri Chakra, the divine wheel of awesome power given to man by Lord Shiva, and historical figures such as Haider Ali and Lord Hastings.

“The bits about the chakra are all fantasy, of course, but the historical facts are entirely accurate,” says Rudra, a Masters in law from Cardiff who now edits legal books. “My mother, Dr. Nandita Krishna helped with all the research – she read a few hundred books for a year.”

‘The Onus…’ – which touches upon issues of caste, class, religion and race – has managed to ruffle quite a few feathers since its release. “I never meant to hurt anybody but I’ve managed to offend everyone from old Mylaporeans (including my extended family) to my English and Muslim friends,” says Rudra ruefully. “But as long as I’ve offended everyone equally, I guess I’ll doing all right!”

In fact, he’s quite happy to have gotten people talking about some of these sensitive issues. “These are real problems and too many people pussyfoot around them,” says Rudra, a non-conformist who has, at various points, been a heavy metal musician, a poet, a supervisor in a construction site, a factory worker and an English teacher.

His next few books (he’s working on seven novels at the moment) are likely to ruffle more feathers still – coming next year, for instance, is “There’s a Jihadi in My Curry”, a contemporary comedy based on his friendship with a Pakistani in the U.K.

“That one is extremely politically incorrect too,” says Rudra. “My goal isn’t to tell people what to think but to give them something to think about. Sometimes a slap in the face isn’t a bad thing.”

His renegade ancestor would certainly have approved.

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January 28, 2011 · 5:06 pm

How to… be a clock-watcher

1.    The expert clock-watcher doesn’t just rely on any old clock on the wall of the office/school/college, etc. Who knows when it was last synchronised with Greenwich Mean Time? No, any clock-watcher worth his salt relies only on his own perfectly synced watch (checked once a week for perfect time and its batteries changed at the merest hint that it’s losing even a second or two). After all, absolute accuracy is essential to ensure you’re prepared to bolt at 4.59.59 p.m. on the nose.

2.    There’s a lot more to clock-watching than just the passive tracking of the time – preparation is key. You must work with single-minded devotion towards being ready to leave as the clock strikes that all-important hour – paperwork neatly put away (whether complete or not; out of sight is out of mind), your bag packed and ready to be slung over the shoulder at a moment’s notice, and finger poised on the shutdown button of your computer (it has to be pressed at that final instant and not a moment before; otherwise you just seem lazy).

3.    Such clockwork-like precision can only be achieved by organising your entire workday down to the last minute, and then sticking to the plan with complete ruthlessness. Regular mortals complain about delayed meetings/classes and longwinded colleagues/professors; nothing short of a raging tornado outside is going to stop a clock-watcher from keeping that deadline. People who get in your way do so at their own risk – you’ll just have to mow them down on your way to the exit gate (apologies can wait until 9 a.m. tomorrow).

4.    An important part of clock-watching is learning to carefully mask the actual act of, well, watching the clock. Only a wet-behind-the-ears newbie makes the mistake of obviously staring down at his watch dial (or cell phone) repeatedly (and longingly) in the middle of the boss’s speech. Very gauche and a big no-no. A master of the art knows that the watch glance must happen within a split second, in the middle of a perfectly innocent action such as rearranging your hair or opening a folder.

5.    And finally, the experienced clock-watcher never reveals just how aware of the time he is. If someone asks for the time, an instant response of “Two fifty three p.m. (and 45 seconds)” is a bad idea. Instead, make an elaborate show of blinking vaguely, frowning, checking the clock / wristwatch / cell phone etc. and answer off-handedly, “Around 3-ish?”. Then you can go back to working studiously – and watching the clock, of course.

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