The first heavy drops hit the dry clay tiles, smacking a cracked blue plastic bucket left out in the yard. Mud splatters the hem of an old lungi. Under the veranda, the concrete stays dry and cool.
An old brass vessel catches the steady leak from the eaves, clinking a slow, uneven rhythm into the small room where the fluorescent tube flickers and dies.
A neighbour drops off a bundle of jackfruit chips wrapped in newspaper, asking when your train leaves, her voice loud against the sudden thunder. The wet ink bleeds old headlines across her thumb like a bruise.
The smoke of a green mosquito coil rises from a tin plate, making our eyes smart in the sudden dark.
We sit on the woven mat, measuring the exact inch of cold air left between our shoulders against the red oxide wall, waiting for the sky to clear so you can step out, leaving three flattened stalks of straw unravelling where you sat.
Aardhra Chandran is a poet and postgraduate student from Kerala, India. Her work has appeared in Active Muse, Eunoia Review and anthologies, exploring everyday life and quiet emotional spaces.
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Title: The Fragrance of Rain: A Brief History of the Monsoon
Author: Stephen Alter
Publisher: Aleph Book Company
Stephen Alter has long established himself as one of India’s finest chroniclers of landscape, memory, and the natural world. In The Fragrance of Rain: A Brief History of the Monsoon, he turns his attention to the phenomenon that has shaped the subcontinent more profoundly than perhaps any other force of nature—the monsoon. The result is a richly textured work that combines travel writing, environmental history, natural science, and cultural reflection into a compelling narrative that celebrates India’s most anticipated season.
At its heart, the book is a journey. Alter traces the progress of the monsoon from the southern coast of Kerala through the Western Ghats, the forests of Goa, the plains of North India, and the mist-covered hills of Mussoorie. Yet this is not merely a geographical expedition. It is also an exploration of the countless ways in which rain has influenced the lives, livelihoods, imagination, and history of the people of the Indian subcontinent. The monsoon emerges not simply as a weather system but as a civilisational force that has determined agricultural cycles, guided maritime trade, nurtured ecosystems, inspired artistic expression, and shaped political destinies.
A key strength of the book is Alter’s ability to weave together diverse strands of knowledge without losing narrative momentum. He moves effortlessly from meteorology to mythology, from ecology to economics, from history to literature. Readers encounter perfumers in Kannauj who preserve the scent of rain in tiny bottles, fishermen who read the skies with remarkable precision, scientists tracking elusive amphibians and glowing fungi, and artists whose works reflect humanity’s enduring fascination with clouds and storms. These encounters lend the book a vibrant human dimension and prevent it from becoming a purely academic study.
The prose is among the finest aspects of the work. He writes with the sensitivity of a naturalist and the observational acuity of a seasoned traveller. His descriptions of rain-laden landscapes are evocative without becoming sentimental. Whether portraying the first monsoon clouds gathering over the Arabian Sea or the dense mist enveloping Himalayan ridges, he captures the sensory richness of the season with remarkable clarity. Readers can almost smell the damp earth, hear the distant thunder, and feel the coolness that follows a long spell of summer heat.
The title itself points to one of the book’s central concerns: the emotional and sensory experience of rain. Alter understands that the monsoon occupies a unique place in the Indian imagination. It is a season associated with longing and fulfilment, romance and renewal, abundance and uncertainty. Across centuries, poets, musicians, painters, and storytellers have celebrated its arrival. The author explores these cultural representations with insight, demonstrating how the monsoon has become a recurring metaphor for transformation, desire, and hope.
At the same time, The Fragrance of Rain does not romanticise its subject. Alter acknowledges the monsoon’s unpredictability and its capacity for destruction. Floods, landslides, crop failures, and storms are integral to the story. As climate change intensifies weather extremes, the monsoon has become increasingly erratic, raising urgent questions about environmental sustainability and human resilience. Without becoming alarmist, the author highlights these concerns and encourages readers to appreciate the delicate balance upon which ecosystems and communities depend.
The book also succeeds as a work of environmental writing because of its deep attention to biodiversity. Alter’s fascination with wildlife and natural habitats is evident throughout. His encounters with rare species and fragile ecosystems reveal a world that thrives because of seasonal rainfall yet remains vulnerable to ecological disruption. These passages add depth and reinforce the idea that the monsoon is not merely a climatic event but a life-giving process that sustains countless forms of existence.
The Fragrance of Rain is much more than a history of weather. It is a meditation on nature, culture, memory, and belonging. Stephen Alter has produced a work that is informative, beautifully written, and deeply engaging. By blending personal observation with historical and ecological insight, he reminds us that the monsoon remains one of India’s most powerful and defining experiences. Like the season it celebrates, the book is refreshing, nourishing, and lingering in its impact—a rewarding read for anyone interested in India, nature, or the intricate relationship between climate and civilisation.
Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Cyclones in Odisha: Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience, Unbiased, No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.
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The ocean floor is full of voids left behind by the tube feet of sea stars that didn't adhere—
the notification of unanswered calls glaring from voicemails and pastels decline notes sticking out from the serrated lids of mailboxes.
The fissure on the white flowerpot has widened, three slivers arching away from the centre. The nail heads on the deck were buried under a thick white sheet.
It snowed when I was asleep.
I took the chipped ceramic cup with sketch pens. I had forgotten to tighten the caps. Removing the back stopper, I poured some tap water into a pen. The ink that came out was pale blue.
Anjana Vipin Edakkunny is a writer from Kerala, currently based in the United States. Her poems have appeared in Target Global Magazine and PoemsIndia. Her debut poetry manuscript, The Sandalwood Pyre, has been accepted for publication by Writers Workshop, Kolkata.
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Let me begin by saying that like most readers enamoured by her works, I really enjoyed reading Arundhati Roy’s first work of memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me published in 2025. It is a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as a gangster, as ‘my shelter and my storm’. In the meantime, many reviews of the book have already been published, some full of praise and some quite critical, but it can be undoubtedly said that the book created a literary storm that one hadn’t experienced for quite a long time. And to add to that, social media is now flooded with her interviews, readings etc., some very recent and some as old as fifteen years. This essay delves into several issues pertaining to it that have struck me as unique.
Born out of the onrush of memories and feelings provoked by her mother Mary’s death in 2022, this is the astonishing, often disturbing and surprisingly funny memoir of the Arundhati Roy’s life, from childhood to the present, from her movement from Kerala to Delhi. There are forty-two chapters in this book, not numbered, but the titles themselves are self-explanatory. By following their interesting nomenclature, one can get an inkling of how Roy has laid out her narrative strategy, by talking not only about her own life but how it has been intertwined with her mother in a peculiar love-hate relationship. In the very first chapter titled ‘Gangster’, (which Roy has been reading in many gatherings till now), she tells us about her peculiar relationship with her mother. In her excellent and unique narrative style, she says:
“As a child I loved her irrationally, helplessly, fearfully, completely, as children do. As an adult I tried to love her cooly, rationally, and from a safe distance. I often failed. Sometimes miserably. I wrote versions of her in my books, but I never wrote her.”
She then advices her reader: “Most of us are a living, breathing soup of memory and imagination – and that we may not be the best arbiters of which is which. So read this book as you would a novel. It makes no larger claim.”
The narration of the incidents always does not follow a strict chronological order. Some of the stories are already quite well-known. This tells us how the young Syrian Christian Mary Roy married a Bengali tea planter in Assam and had to soon leave her husband because of his drunkenness and lack of responsibility towards his family. Having no support except for a bachelor’s degree in Education, she takes the bold decision of walking out of the marriage and lands in Ooty along with her two young children to live in her father’s cottage. A few months into her fugitive life, her estranged mother and elder brother arrived from Kerala to evict her. They told her that under the Travancore Christian Succession Act, daughter had no right to their father’s property and that they were to leave the house immediately. Years later Mary would challenge the act in the Supreme Court and demand an equal share of her father’s property, and luckily by winning the case in 1986 she became a sort of celebrity overnight.
The story then moves on to Kottayam and then to Ayemenem in Kerala (some of the details of which are beautifully narrated in The God of Small Things too) where Mary Roy struggles to find a foothold for herself and the children and open a school. That story of how that school began in a rudimentary form and how it gradually grew into the well-known residential institution called Pallikoodam designed by the famous architect Laurie Baker, how it remained a top priority in Mary Roy’s life ( the school children prioritised over her own) along with her own eccentricities, her uncompromising nature and peculiar behaviour ( her refusal to be accepted as the mother of the famous writer Arundhati Roy, being one of them), till her death remains one major strand of the narrative.
The other major narrative strand pertains to Roy’s own life. Arundhati’s version of the story tells us how in the summer of 1976 she finished her high school at sixteen and leaving Kottayam (and of course her mother whom she wanted to dissociate forever), arrived alone without any contact in a completely alien territory in Delhi to take the entrance exam for the School of Architecture. Not having any contact with her mother for several years, she led a bohemian life, lived together with different people, saw partly the underbelly of life and did odd jobs to sustain herself. In the architectural school, she met Pradip Kishen and eventually married him (who was then the husband of the boss under whom she was working for a while). She scripted a screenplay for a movie called In Which Annie Gives ItThose Ones about the college life and though it was once telecast in Doordarshan decades ago, it had been lost till recently the footage has been recovered, restored and set as an official entry in the Berlin Film festival this year but one which Roy refused to attend citing the cause of Palestine.
She was involved in another movie script Electric Moon and acted in minor roles in some off beat films like Massey Sahib till she changed her mission of life. After the publication of The God of Small Things, Roy stopped writing novels and got involved in political and social causes and got involved with social activists like Medha Patkar and the Maoists in the Chhattisgarh region and even faced jail for a day for her protests. The writing she produced for a couple of decades were all powerful political manifestos supporting leftist politics (“The Algebra of Infinite Justice” being one of the well- known texts and My Seditious Heart, published in 2019, is a collection of her non-fiction) till she came up with her second novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.
In the meantime, the handsome royalty she received from her first novel changed her living style and for the first time Arundhati Roy managed to eke out a comfortable lifestyle and even buy a house of her own. Her narration is interspersed with several interesting anecdotes, relating to her relationship with her brother whom she mentions throughout as LKC, and their chance meeting with Micky Roy, their father in pathetic condition in Delhi. The chapter titled ‘Mama Bear, Papa Bear’ is very interesting to read. It begins with the following lines: “Seven years had gone by since I’d last seen Mrs Roy. The strangest thing is that I cannot remember how she and I came to be in contact with each other again”. Then the joy of seeing her brother after so many years was exacerbated with their meeting of their father Micky Roy, who had totally disappeared from their lives when they were kids. The pathetic state of the man almost dying out of liquor addiction, we are told about how he was “as frail as a small bird, lame and hunched over …he was severely malnourished, like people in UN pamphlets.” This is how Roy narrates the incident:
‘You would never have believed I was your father. You look so much more like me than your mother. Doesn’t she, Kapil Dev? Same nose. Same eyes…sorry eye.’(Giggle.) ‘I say Orundhuti, do you hit the bottle?’
He pronounced my name the Bengali way.
‘Me? No.’
‘Oh, go on. Tell the truth. All good Roys hit the bottle. Whaddyou say, Kapil Dev?’
(Giggle. Slap.)
After going through all the ups and downs of life, especially in relation to her mother (too many to be narrated here), the story end in the last chapter aptly titled ‘A Declaration of Love’ when in January 2022 she got a message from her mother saying that she loved her. Despite everything that had happened between them, somehow, she knew that to be true. “My lifelong refusal to stop loving her, no matter what, had finally breached her barriers.” The story ends with her death, the details of her cremating process, the performance of the Kottayam Police Band, the 21-gun salute she received and ultimately the memorial they built for her in the bamboo grove where the headstone mentioned Mary Roy as ‘Dreamer Warrior Teacher’ and ‘Founder Pallikoodam.’ The strange love-hate relationship that persisted between Arundhati and her mother comes out beautifully in the end when she writes:
“The first night in a Mrs Roy-less world, I spun unanchored in space with no coordinates. I had constructed myself around her. I had grown into the peculiar shape that I am to accommodate her. I had never wanted to defeat her, never wanted to win. I had always wanted her to go out like a queen. And now that she had, I didn’t make sense to myself any more.”
Another interesting piece of information is revealed in this concluding chapter is about how Arundhati casually decided to get divorced from Pradip Kishen with the same lack of seriousness with which she had got married, so that he and the girls (and their property) had no legal connection to her. The order granting them the divorce had been delivered to her the previous morning, at the very moment Mrs Roy died. ‘So, I, free woman, free falling, was heir to nothing at all. But I was curious about our great will-making mother’s will.’ Later she gets to know that her brother had marked off Mrs Roy’s house and its compound from the rest of the school and had it registered in her name. So, she decided to renovate the house and build the Grove simultaneously in it.
The Cover Design
Before concluding, I want to draw the reader’s attention to the special care that has been taken to make and market this book. The cover design is a highly skilled piece of production. On the stark red cover of the book with the title embossed artistically, we have half a dust jacket in white with two different pictures of Roy on the front and the back cover– one a current photograph of the author with her head full of pepper and salt curls and with a discreet smile on her face. The other photograph is of a much younger and radical Arundhati with a distinct far-away look in her eyes and with a burning cigarette on her lips. Though the publisher gives the statutory warning that cigarette smoking is injurious to health and it does not support it in any way, a very stark visual statement about the unnatural bohemian nature of the author gets revealed through this photograph.
Incidentally, this selling of a book through its stark and attractive cover reminded me of a similar strategy undertaken in 1997 when Roy’s debut novel The God of Small Things won the Booker Prize and took the literary world by storm. The book came out in what was essentially the pre-internet and social media era and the maximum number of reviews and essays that came out during that time were in print. In an essay which I had authored then, calling it “The Making and Marketing of Arundhati Roy”, I had shown that the contents of the dust jacket of the book differed radically from region to region and it was done through a deliberate and effectively thought-out strategy. So, in the Indian edition we had a different story outline giving us a gist of what to expect inside, especially the love of a paravan, an untouchable man with an upper-caste woman, along with the local setting in Kerala, Ayenemem, to be exact.
In the Random House edition published from New York, the story outline was completely different, not only telling us about untouchability and the love between Radha and Krishna that would lure the western reader to pick up the book about a unique place in India defined as ‘God’s Own Country’ in tourist brochures. Also, the photographs of Roy (both taken by her then husband Pradip Kishen) differed radically. With this new book, of course, such strategies didn’t work anymore. With innumerable book launches, readings by the author everywhere (a search on Youtube will even land you with interviews that are more than a decade old) we now come upon other ways and means through which the book has been popularised. But all said and done, I must conclude by saying that whether you agree or disagree with the extreme left wing political views that Arundhati Roy professes, those who still haven’t read this memoir have really missed reading a wonderfully written book with its 372 pages that is really unputdownable, with its lyrical as well as down to earth style of narration, full of new metaphors, new word coinages that are the USP of Arundhati Roy.
Somdatta Mandal, critic and translator, is former Professor of English at Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan, India.
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I was in Oxford on a Charles Wallace fellowship to study John Ruskin’s influence on M K Gandhi and R N Tagore. Like any other student I lived in a hostel, walked up to the Ruskin School of Art and Ashmolean Museum, to the High Street and the flea market, to the Bodleian Library, and – of course – the book stores that continue to make that ancient city of academic excellence such a delight for a person like me who started crawling in the midst of books.
What caught my fancy on the book-lined shelves in the hometown of a ‘legal deposit’ library? The screenplays of Quentin Tarantino. Countless books on Elizabeth 1 – perhaps because Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth had just released worldwide. And the volumes on art. The gorgeous reproductions halved the tedium of walking miles of museums and galleries. And the history of art rekindled my love for paintings from our collective past.
But what I didn’t take kindly to was the neglect of – if not bias against — art from my homeland. There were books on Greek, Chinese, Japanese , African, Egyptian, Mayan, Roman art, on Russian Icons and Stained Glass windows, on French Impressionists and German Expressionists, Cubists and Moderns… But Indian art? For crying out loud, where was Ajanta-Ellora? The glass paintings and Miniatures? Pichwai and Patachitra, Nathdwara and Kalighat Pat, Warli and Madhubani, Santiniketan and Baroda?
That’s when I told myself, “Put the journey of Indian paintings between covers.” For, which other country has a continuity that I can boast, of a tradition that has continued unchequered for three thousand years and more?
Once I was back home, my friend Reeta Dutta Gupta approached me to edit an Encyclopedia of Culture for the India Series she was nursing. And Dr Jain of Ratna Sagar entrusted me to author a Notebook that would recount for school-going children the story of Indian art from Bhimbetka to the present millennia. What luck!
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Be it the hunters and the hunted of Bhimbetka, the rock art now on the UNESCO list of World Heritage, or Kolam and Alpana and Rangoli, the decorative designs of Kerala and Bengal and Maharashtra. Be it the Buddha of Ajanta Frescoes or the ploughmen and blacksmith of the Haripura Congress panels painted by the Bengal master Nandalal Bose, be it the illuminations in the Jain manuscripts or the Mughal manners immortalised by the kalams: art in India has grown out of everyday life. These art expressions have been an integral part of the people’s existence, regardless of the style or the period in which they were painted. Yes, down centuries Indian art has withstood change of regiments, religions, philosophy, social content, historical setbacks. And, aesthetic excellence has found an outlet in forms and lines, strokes and colours, whether these were obtained by crushing gems or pounded rice.
This has helped India enjoy a continuity that is rare even in the developed societies. From the sketches of Bhimbetka to those of the tribal artists of Warli, from the murals of ancient India to the art of contemporary masters, from the miniaturised figures to the Tantric patterns – art in India has reinvented itself again and again. And each time it has emerged with renewed vigour and vitality. Because, every age has related to art in an intimate way. By painting on the wall. Decorating the floor. Placing it on the altar. Or simply by keeping an account of the times.
Bhimbetka Cave paintings from prehistoryA fresco from the Ajanta caves, 2nd century BCE to 6th century CEArt from Indian past. From Public Domain
As A Ramachandran – then professor of art at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi – had said to me, “Even when our ancient language that was deemed the language of the gods, fell into oblivion, art transcended centuries because it was communicating through a universal language – the visual language of colours and hues.” The lines defined the form, and also created a unitary area for the use of colour, he had further explained. “No matter what the subject, comprehension was never a problem for the Indian – until he was confronted by the art that was imposed by the colonialists.”
The Western overemphasis on realism played havoc, with the native sensibility that allowed for imagination and stylization, Nair Sir had pointed out. That sensibility had no problem accepting a ten-armed goddess, Dasabhuja Durga, or Dasanan, the ten-headed Ravan. “Lifestyle changes too have led to the dilution of Indian aesthetics that once enveloped our workaday lives. The only living art today is the visual art traditions in the villages, but that too might not last as villagers now want to ‘rise’ to the level of the urbans!” he had lamented.
In such a situation, art becomes doubly significant in the life of a child. When she or he is exposed to it, the child can not only access the history and the continuity of a culture but also nurture it with love that can ensure it lives in the days to come… With this in mind, I will write to focus on the high points of Indian art.
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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I often find myself amidst the crumbling cliffside, mumbling words to myself. Within the mouth of the weeping river, I must disperse the ashes of an awakening. Through the darker brush, colour would soak the dry paper. In the corner of an eroding house, I lack the search I'm entrusted. The mist I've felt this morn, now buries me in a shawl of memories.
The tiny tendril holding onto the iron railing, unwinds in the solitude it enjoys. It swirls in the nightly gale, swaying in its shallow reflection.
A feeling surges in me, as the poison in a pitcher leaf. It urges the nightly stillness to visit the lonely house, its amber curtain still intact. The long lane, in front of me, is waning under the new moon. It was once the pen, I had written my childhood with. The ink had flowed evenly, such as the poison in my drink. And now it must end abruptly, the tiny man in his bottle of wine. The twilight sky drinks the last few rays of the sun, while I sink in my purple drink.
Gautham Pradeep was born in Kerala, India. He is now pursuing an MBBS degree. He tries to explore the existential dilemmas of the his generation. His poems have been published widely.
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Festivals are affirmations of joy and love that bind humanity with their sense of hope even in a world torn by violence and climate change. As the end of the year approaches, we invite you to savour flavours of festivals past and, a few, yet to come, before the cycle starts again in the new year. The colours of celebrations are vibrant and varied as shades of nature or the skies.
We have new years spread out over the year, starting with January, moving on to the Chinese New Year around February, the Bengali new year in April to festivals of environment, light, darkness as in Wiccan beliefs, Tagore’s birth, more conventional ones like Deepavali, Eid, Durga Puja and Christmas. People celebrate in different ways and for different reasons. What we have also gathered is not only the joie de vivre but also the sadness people feel when celebrations are muted whether due to the pandemic, wars or for social reasons. In some cases, we indulge in excesses with funny results! And there are of course festivals of humanity … as celebrated by the bauls — the singing mendicants of Bengal — who only recognise the religion of love, compassion and kindness.
Ramakanta Rath’sSri Radha celebrating the love of Radha and Krishna have been translated from Odiya by the late poet himself, have been excerpted from his full length translation. Click here to read.
Bijoya Doushumi, a poem on the last day of Durga Puja, by the famous poet, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, has been translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta. Click here to read.
A Clean Start: Suzanne Kamata tells us how the Japanese usher in a new year. Click here to read.
Shanghai in Jakarta: Eshana Sarah Singh takes us to Chinese New Year celebrations in Djakarta. Click here to read.
Cherry Blossom Forecast: Suzanne Kamata brings the Japanese ritual of cherry blossom viewing to our pages with her camera and words. Clickhere to read.
Pohela Boisakh: A Cultural Fiesta: Sohana Manzoor shares the Bengali New Year celebrations in Bangladesh with interesting history and traditions that mingle beyond the borders. Clickhere to read.
The New Year’s Boon: Devraj Singh gives a glimpse into the projection of a new normal created by God. Click here to read.
A Musical Soiree: Snigdha Agrawal recalls how their family celebrated Tagore’s birth anniversary. Click here to read.
An Alien on the Altar! Snigdha Agrawal writes of how a dog and lizard add zest to Janmashtami (Krishna’s birthday) festivities with a dollop of humour. Click here to read
Memories of Durga Puja : Fakrul Alam recalls the festivities of Durga Puja in Dhaka during his childhood. Click hereto read.
KL Twin Towers near Kolkata?: Devraj Singh Kalsi visits the colours of a marquee hosting the Durga Puja season with its spirit of inclusivity. Click here to read.
Hold the roast turkey please Santa: Celebrating the festive season off-season with Keith Lyons from New Zealand, where summer solstice and Christmas fall around the same time. Click here to read.
Shadows vanish under his watch, seedlings sprout in the autumn sun, munching on unattended grass, a cow converses with the ants.
The silent hills open paths to a different plane, where one finds his space to smile. When the monsoon hits west, she awakens from her long slumber.
Mountains show beautiful avenues. Snow is replaced by shallow dunes. Rain fills the world. Man traces his existence.
Gautham Pradeep was born in Kerala, India. He is now pursuing an MBBS. He tries to explore the existential dilemmas of the present generation through his poetry.
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Ratnottama Sengupta tracks the journey of Leslie Carvalho over a quarter century
Leslie CarvalhoPhotos provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
It seems like only the other day. The International Film Festival of India, IFFI, 1998 was on. Along with a colleague, I was seated on the steps outside Siri Fort I auditorium connected to a long corridor going to Siri 2. Someone introduced Leslie Carvalho. “Aha! The young filmmaker from Mangalore?” I responded. “There’s a write up on you in The Times of India today. It says there’s a lot of expectation from The Outhouse.”
The “delightfully sweet” film had lived up to the expectation of the critics. It was bestowed the Aravindan Puraskaram, presented by the Kerala Chalachitra Film Society to commemorate the iconic Malayalam director, and the first Gollapudi Srinivas award, another national level award to recognise filmmakers marking their debut in Indian cinema. So I was not surprised to meet him next as a co-member of the jury for the National Film Awards 2000.
The Tennis coach who is also a German language teacher with a passion for painting has now published his first novel, Smoke on the Backwaters. It centres on Rosa, a twenty-year-old from Mangalore, who is forced to flee overnight because of the storm of gossip, fear and shame unleashed by a single incident in her life. Her unexpected journey across continents becomes a path of healing. Seven years later, armed with education and maturity, she returns home, determined to pursue her purpose in life. But how much had the town she left altered from its old ways?
RS: Leslie, before we talk Backwaters, can we briefly revisit The Outhouse? From where did you derive its content? And what was your compulsion for choosing that subject?
Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
LC: The Outhouse was a simple, linear narrative about moving on in life despite the odds. A young mother’s need to gain economic independence to supplement the family income; the help she received from her financially independent sister; a kind hearted Bengali landlady’s generosity which causes stress and violence in the Anglo-Indian couple’s day to day life, and how it affects the two children growing up.
RS: Why did you choose this subject as your debut vehicle? If you were to travel in a time machine, would you choose a ‘mainstream’ subject?
LC: I chose this subject as my debut vehicle as I had seen quite a bit of violence in the Anglo- Indian community in the Lingarajapuram area of Bangalore I grew up in.
I was itching to make a movie after my six-month course at the New York Film Academy. As I was working on a very tight budget, I just stuck to what was taught — to keep it simple, straightforward and just tell a story using the various tools of cinema — in short, to make it cinematic.
If I were to go back in time, I don’t think I would have chosen a ‘mainstream subject’. I derived immense satisfaction along with the cast and crew as we felt we were working on something we were passionate about. We all felt drawn towards the characters, the story and the theme of the film.
RS: How did you get interested in cinema? And what were the problems you faced while filming The Outhouse – in terms of funding, casting, shooting location, distribution?
LC: I grew up watching Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, a couple of Konkani and lots of Hollywood films. My mother tailored clothes at home, and she taught a whole lot of women stitching. They were fans of Tamil cinema, especially of Sivaji Ganesan, MGR, and the heroes of Kannada cinema, Dr. Rajkumar and Vishnuvardhan. She also enjoyed the Hindi films of Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Hema Malini, Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjeev Kumar, Jaya Bhaduri and Rekha — that is the popular cinema.
And my father, being an Army person, took us to see English films, like The Ten Commandments, The Bible, Hatari, To Sir, With Love[1]. Also, St. Germain’s School where I studied, screened English films every Friday afternoon in the Hall, from spools off a projector that made a jarring sound. It was an amazing experience — black and white Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy films and also Patton with all the bad words. Later, when in college, we would bunk classes to watch most of the popular Hindi and English movies.
At the New York Film Academy, I was exposed to an entire range of the world’s best in cinema. Satyajit Ray, Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Antonioni, John Ford, William Wyler, Fellini, Jean Renoir… And I watched a whole lot of films on the American Movie Chain (AMC). There I discovered all of Spencer Tracy’s films and fell in love with his sense of timing and under playing. It was also a time when I discovered Guru Dutt and marveled at his brand of filmmaking from Pyaasa, Kaagaz Ke Phool, Chaudhvin Ka Chand, Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam to Aar Paar and Mr & Mrs 55[2].
It is hard to believe I began the shoot for The Outhouse on September 18, 1996, and completed it in 14 days – on October 1. After we went through the rushes, we required two more shots to link the gaps. Since I was on a shoestring budget of a few lakh rupees, I had rehearsals with the cast for close to three months. I doff my hat to them in gratitude as 90% of the film was canned on first takes. I could not afford retakes, and I worked with a brilliant cameraman, S Ramachandra, who was very supportive and encouraging. He shot most of B V Karanth, Girish Karnad, and Girish Kasaravalli films as well as the popular tele-serial Malgudi Days[3]. A number of first-time directors like myself, had benefitted immensely by his generosity and patience.
Since it was an independent film, whatever little finance I had, I sunk into the film. And then it took me a year to complete post-production for lack of finance.
I was particular about the casting. I wanted the Anglo-Indian look, feel, mannerisms, costume, interiors to be authentic. I met each cast member and spoke to them at length about the vision I had for my film. Almost all of them were from the Bangalore English Theatre, and all of them were cooperative. Moreover, Cooke Town is a quaint little place with many English bungalows and outhouses. After some struggle, I found one on Milton Street which suited my story perfectly.
After The Outhouse was selected for the Indian Panorama in IFFI ’98 and received the two national awards, I just walked into Plaza Theatre on MG Road in Bangalore and met the owner, Mr Ananthanarayan. He had heard about the film and asked me to meet the distributor, Nitin Shah of Hansa Pictures in Gandhi Nagar, the biggest distributor of English films. He put it on for a noon show for three weeks while Fire was on for the matinee and evening shows. The distributor then put it in Mangalore and Udupi for a week. And when I received the Gollapudi Srinivas National Award in Chennai, Aparna Sen was one of the honoured guests. She saw a small portion of the film and said that she would speak to Mr Ansu Sur to screen it at Nandan in Kolkata — founded by Satyajit Ray to help screen small independent films. A theatre owner in Kolkata recommended a person who took the film to the North East. It was also screened in parts of Kerala.
Coincidentally, this April 30th, The Outhouse will be screened in the leafy neighbourhood of Cooke Town next to the outhouse where the film was shot.
Still from The Outhouse, provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
RS: In the last 50 years we have seen films by directors like Aparna Sen, Ajay Kar, Anjan Dutt. Even before these, Ray had touched upon Anglo Indians in Mahanagar. These are all films made in Kolkata. Is it because this is the erstwhile capital of the Raj?
LC: Many of the films on Anglo-Indians were based in Calcutta. It was the influence of the British Raj and its culture that was so much a part of their long history of ruling there. Of course their influence was in other parts of the country as well like Madras, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Whitefield and Kolar Gold Fields, the railway colonies all over the country, the hill stations, and many other cities which has pockets of Anglo-Indians.
RS: I remember one Hindi film, Julie that had an Anglo-Indian protagonist. How has the community been projected in popular culture? Was it lopsided or biased?
LC: Throughout our film history Anglo-Indians have played bit roles here and there. Some significant roles came their way in Bhowani Junction, the teleserial Queenie, 36 Chowrighee Lane, Bow Barracks Forever, Bada Din, Cotton Mary, The Outhouse, Saptapadi, Mahanagar, Julie, and Calcutta I’m Sorry[4].
Some of the characterisations have been quite biased; some not well fleshed out; some in passing fleeting moments of drunkenness, prostitution. The song and dance sequences have not helped the community, sadly.
RS:What led you to writing? The screenplay for The Outhouse?
LC: I wrote the screenplay of The Outhouse on plain A4 sheets of paper, on both sides. This is not done but I did it to save on cost. I gave the screenplay to my cinematographer S. Ramachandra, and in his generosity he understood my purpose. I went by what was taught at the New York Film Academy. Of course, I had to combine all the elements to make it whole. The idea of the screenplay came to me while I was at the film school in 1995.
RS: What was the trigger for writing Smoke in the Backwaters?
LC: As an artist, filmmaker, and writer, I have tried to combine all the elements of story-telling – fact and fiction — keeping in mind the flow of ideas, pace and momentum to engage and interest my audience and readers.
I remember beginning to write the novel two decades ago when my mother — who studied in Kannada medium — said, “I hope you will write it in simple English so I can read it too.”
And I wanted it to be reader friendly with regard to the font size, the brightness of the paper, the spacing, the clarity and the size of the book. I was lucky my publisher ‘Anglo-Ink’ was supportive and combined well to find that centre.
Provided by Ratnottama Sengupta
RS: How are you marketing the book? Through Litfests? Bookstore readings? Airport bookstalls? A H Wheelers?
LC: Since Anglo-Ink is a small-time publisher, we’ve had a dream launch in my hometown Bangalore at the Catholic Club. My book seller is Bookworm on Church Street in the heart of Bangalore and for people in Cooke Town it is in The Lightroom’ library.
We are looking at launches in various cities as well, through book readings, LitFests, Airport book stalls, AH Wheelers, readings at schools and colleges.
Since a major portion of the novel is set in Germany, we are looking at translating it into German. I hope to get it translated in a few Indian languages as well.
RS:Since the sunset decade of 1900s, Anglo Indians have been migrating to Australia and Canada. What triggered this migration? Economics or politics?
LC: The migration of Anglo-Indians was inevitable. It was bound to happen for reasons more than one, be it political, economic or social. First under the ‘Whites Only’ policy, many fair skinned Anglo-Indians migrated — the brown and dark skinned were left behind. Slowly they opened up and even they left. Some felt they would adapt better to a western culture, and have adopted their new country as their homeland.
RS:You were a big support for me when my son joined NLSUI in 2000. Again, when I curated Anadi, the exhibition of paintings by Contemporary and indigenous artists from MP and Chhattisgarh. Bangalore has since become an international megalopolis. How has life changed for the locals?
LC: Bangalore has changed dramatically and drastically. The change was bound to happen because of its growing prominence of an International City. The IT industry brought jobs, slowly other industries, started picking up from real estate, fashion, digital technology and social media platforms, start-ups, academics, sports, games, recreational and tourism.
The moderate climate was a huge bonus that attracted people from all over. Bangalore has always been cordial, encouraging and accommodative of people from all over through their mild manners, hospitality and gentleness.
Today Bangalore is unrecognisable. Still, some pockets retain that old world charm of neat, clean and green Bengaluru from the old Pensioners Paradise of Bangalore.
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[1]The Ten Commandments (1956), The Bible (1966), Hatari (1962), To Sir, with Love (1967)
[2]Pyaasa (Thirsty, 1957), Kaagaz Ke Phool (Paper flowers, 1959), Chaudhvin Ka Chand (The Full Moon, 1960), Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam (The Master, the Wife and the Slave, 1962), Aar Paar (This shore or that, 1954), Mr &Mrs 55 (1955).
[4]Bhowani Junction (1956), TV miniseries Queenie (1987), 36 Chowrighee Lane (1981), Bow Barracks Forever (2004), Bada Din (1998), Cotton Mary (1999), Saptapadi (Seven Steps, 1981), Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963), Julie (1975), and Calcutta I’m Sorry (2019)
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
As a curator, Ratnottama Sengupta writes about the long trajectory of films by artists, beginning with Husain’s Berlinale winner, down to the intrepid band she screened at the just concluded 30th Kolkata International Film Festival
Gaja Gamini: Painting by MF Hussain Gaja Gamini (An elephant’s walk) Movie by MF Hussain
When Maqbool Fida Husain won the Golden Bear in the 17th edition of the Berlin Film Festival, the year was 1967. I, in my pre-teen years, knew little about painting. But growing up in a family of filmmakers I was already conversant with the art of looking through the camera. So I was disoriented that the film critics of the time were baffled by what had impressed the international jury.
Royalty, tigers, ruins, hawks, school children, anklets, on the river bank – all these images moving only to music, not a word uttered. The jury at Berlinale were astounded by the richness of the artist’s idiom that had breathed life into a Rajasthan that is rich in architecture as it is in painting, in costume as in music.
This dawned on me years later, when I curated the exhibition, 3 Dimensions, forthe All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society in New Delhi. It featured paintings, sculpture and graphic art or drawings by artists from Husain, Satish Gujral, Ghulam Mohammad Sheikh, Jatin Das to Sanjay Bhattacharya, Paresh Maity, Mimi Radhakrishnan, Shadab Hussain, among others.
A unique feature of this exhibition was that all the participating artists had interest in another expression of art. So every evening of that week had seen a Ram Kumar and Mimi read their short stories; a Narendra Pal Singh and Jatin Das read their poems; a Sanjay Bhattacharya render Tagore songs of and a Shruti Gupta Chandra perform Kathak. Ratnabali Kant had staged a Performance Art in the presence of Prime Minister V P Singh who had inaugurated the week-long exhibition by reading his poems. And, on the closing day, I had screened Through a Painter’s Eyes. That’s when it dawned on me: it was the originality of vision captured by the 7-minute short film had won over Berlin as also Melbourne and our very own National Awards too.
Subsequently Husain, who had started out from the tenements of Bombay by painting oversized hoardings of Hindi films on the sleeping tramlines at the dead of night, had at the ripe age of 84 made Gaja Gamini (2000) with stars such as Madhuri Dixit, and Minaxi — A Tale of Three Cities (2004) with Tabu and Naseeruddin Shah. Ironically these films baffled the critics just as much as the earlier short film had. However the dazzling visuals of vibrant figures and colourful structuring of the (non)-narrative had found acceptance in the Marche du Film section of Cannes 2004.
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I have since then tried to fathom what drives artists who are skilled at painting with oil or watercolour, or sculpting wood or stone, metal or clay, or creating graphic images on paper or linoleum, to wield the megaphone. Now, instead of holding the camera or editing the celluloid strips with their hands, they use their mind, their mind’s eyes, their creative imagination.
Some other contemporaries of Husain too had, after attaining glory in the plastic arts, turned to experimenting with the new, ever evolving, ever contemporary art form — cinema. In 1970, Tyeb Mehta, who had briefly worked as an editor, made Koodal, meaning ‘Meeting Ground’ on the Bandra station of Mumbai’s Western Railway. The synthesis of images of humans and animals had won him the Filmfare Critics Award.
Cartoonist Abu — born Attupurathu Mathew Abraham — was a journalist and author who had worked for Punch, Tribune and The Observer in London before returning to work with The Indian Express. He was given a special award by the British Film Institute for the short animation No Ark, clearly a cryptic message deriving from the Biblical tale of Noah’s Ark.
Equally engrossing is the story of Syzygy, also produced by Films Division, and directed by Akbar Padamsee. This 16-minute short, premiered at a UNESCO screening in Paris 1969, had no narrative, no sound, or even colour. It only had lines evoking shapes typically used to refer to the alignment of celestial bodies. Only one man had stayed back till the end of the screening — and he had said to Padamsee, “Most people could not understand your film — it’s a masterpiece.”
Reportedly that man had gone on to become the programming director at Cinematheque Francaise – world’s largest film archive. That’s where Indian filmmaker found Ashim Ahluwalia found a copy of Events in a Cloud Chamber, Padamsee’s second film that was sent for screening at the Delhi Art Expo — never to be returned to the artist. The lost-in-transit film has now been professionally reinterpreted by Ahluwalia.
NB: All these films were supported by filmmaking bodies, and though often baffled, cineastes realised theirs was a new way of seeing the visual expression that goes under the arching umbrella of cinema.
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This desire to understand, adapt, and get under the skin of a modern medium had driven Tagore, a century ago from today, to paint expressionistic forms and also to film Natir Pujo (1931). And today we find a band of artists from Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala and Baroda making films that bridge disciplines from landscape and abstraction to mimetic movement and drama.
What are the notable features of these films that are mostly made on video? They too have little need for dialogue. Instead, their sight is supported by music of natural sound. If the objects they capture through the lens are arresting forms, vacant spaces can be just as inviting. When they have humans as their protagonists, they are keen to capture body language rather than drama. Colourful palette is not a foregone conclusion – monochromes and black and white can be more poignant. Because? Their visuals are but vehicles for commenting on social reality and for communicating philosophic content.
Legends or veterans, seasoned or sprouting, this intrepid band of adventurers includes Vivan Sundaram, Ranbir Kaleka, Gopi Gajwani, Rameshwar Broota, Bharti Kapadia, Babu Eshwar Prasad, Gigi Scaria, Protul Dash, and Sanjay Roy. They are a continuum of the spirit of experimentation that had driven Husain and Tyeb, Abu Abraham and Akbar Padamsee.
Films by Artists at KIFF*
1 *Disclaimer* 2016/ 9:40 min By *Gigi Scaria* focuses on the sleight of hands by a magician 2 *On the Road* 2021/ 5:7 min By *Babu Eshwar Prasad* is a nostalgic look at road movies that are part documentary, part adventure. 3 *Sabash Beta* 3 min By *Rameshwar Broota* with Vasundhara Tewari applauds the galloping of a fleighty horse. 4 *Leaves Like Hands of Flame* 2010/ 5:34 min By *Veer Munshi* likens the fallen chinar leaves to the autumn in the lives of uprooted Kashmiris. 5 *L for…* 2019/ 13:14 min By *Bharti Kapadia* plays with the sight and - surprisingly - the sound of the alphabet. 6 *Fruits Ripen and Rot* 2022/ 4:21 min By *Sanjay Roy* is a surrealistic look at the divergent responses to food that is central to everyman's existence. 7 *How Far…?* 2023/ 12:37 min By *Ranveer Kaleka* is an elegy, a dirge, mourning the losses wrought to Planet Earth by human destruction such as war. 8 *Burning Angel* 2024/ 4:37 min By *Pratul Dash* is an abstract story of the same destruction. 9 *Turning 2008/ 11 min By Vivan Sundaram is a silent, colourful comment on the waste created by consumerist civilization. 10 *Time* 1974/13 min By *Gopi Gajwani* is a riveting tale of how relative a minute is to one in mourning, one waiting, and for one in love.
*Kolkata International Film Festival
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Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
