The taste of childhood

Almost everyone I know, has at least one or more memories related with food. If I talk about myself, it would probably be the time when I was in standard ninth, coming up with a tastefully decorated salad which nobody ate because it looked so pretty, that no-one felt like disturbing the plate. I didn't know whether to feel offended or not!

A couple of days ago, I attended the book launch of Chillies and Porridge at The Bombay Canteen. The anthalogy of food, with essays contributed by people such as Tara Deshpande Tennebaum, Manu Chandra, Bachi Karkaria, Nilanjana S Roy, Wendell Rodricks and many others, and edited by Mita Kapur, was a revelation for me. Back home, reading through some of the essays, I could almost smell the liquor-fattened plums and raisins, going into Wendell's aunt's Christmas cake and sense the delight that Niloufer Ichaporia King felt, while strolling around the many bazaars of Bombay.

But perhaps, it was Rocky and Mayur's memoirs, of growing up in South Delhi as kids in the '70s, that ignited my childhod memories. Growing up in South Delhi in the 80s and 90s, it brought back memories of jars of black carrots fermenting in the sun which turned into the super tangy kaanji, that my brother was fond of. I preferred the aam panna, which my mother prepared from raw mangoes, a taste which I have never managed to replicate till date or found in any of the packaged varieties. It gave me an unexpected thrill to read about the street food vendor calling out 'kaale, kaale phaalse'. My friends in Bombay have never understood what the blackish-purplish fruit, made even more tangy with the special masala provided by the 'phaalsa wala', means to me. It reminds me of my childhood in Delhi, of lazy Sunday afternoons watching Spiderman on Doordarshan, searching for ladybirds on blades of grass during summer holidays, picking shehtoot from the trees growing in the colony park and rushing back home, so we could wash and devour them. Now, when I visit supermarkets and find packaged mulberries being sold at obnoxious prices, I sigh inwardly and think of the simple times when all we had to do was walk inside the park and pick up the 'gire huye shehtoot' from the ground.

Mita Kapur, Chef Floyd Cardoz, Tara Deshpande Tennebaum and Bachi Karkaria

Perhaps it does make sense to document our relationships with food. At the book launch, Tara had said that we come to a know a lot about people or cultures, when we discover their relationship with food. Maybe we need more of such books, that take us back to our roots and tell us who we are, where we have come from and where we are headed.

Much love
The Art Addict

PS: One of our most favourite people in the world, Gulzar, is teaming up with Salim Arif once again for a children's play called Nuclear Sher. The first show is on January 3rd 2016, at Prithvi Theatre. The show promises to bring the magic of Panchatantra stories on stage, in a contemporary and fun way. Whether you're a kid or an adult, this one is a must watch. 

Danish Husain and the angst of modern times

“I think of myself as an actor and a poet. At least, I fancy myself as that. I think people perceive me more as a storyteller and a director,” Danish Husain told me, when I met him one the other day, at the Prithvi Cafe.

                               Danish Hussain. Pic courtesy/Shawn Lewis

It’s ironic, I thought to myself, because that was a perception even I had, having sought him out after watching and being impressed with his play, Ek Punjab Ye Bhi, at the Prithvi Theatre Festival this year. My main agenda, of course, had been to watch actor Kunal Kapoor doing a full-fledged role on stage. I’m happy to say that I was mighty impressed with his acting skills on stage, but more than that, I was simply enthralled by the play. I wanted to meet Danish, who had so effortlessly (or so, it seemed to me), transported me to another place, painting a haunting picture of the fertile lands of Punjab, with its dark, crooked tales. “For me, it’s the larger geo-political context that matters. These are not just tales we were telling. They point to the ugly face of what’s happening around us, like the US invading Vietnam or the Dadri incident. That’s what makes great literature so great,” Danish said, referring to the four short stories by Urdu writer Ali Akbar Natiq, which he adapted into the play.

In between spoonfuls of chicken pasta, Danish recalled his days in Delhi, when he’d completed his MBA and was working in a bank. “I had a history of shutting down banks. Whichever bank I would work for, would shut down. I was like their unlucky mascot!” he guffawed. One thing led to another, and he found himself doing an acting workshop with Barry John, who, later, cast him in his play, Khamosh, Adalat Jaari Hai.  While Danish admits that he hasn’t done a lot of theatre, he did get to work with some of the best theatre talents in the country, right from MS Sathyu, to Rajinder Nath, MK Raina, Habib Tanvir and Sabina Mehta Jaitly and won acclaim for acting in plays such as Agra Bazaar, Jaat Hi Poocho Sadhu Ki and Rumi: Unveil The Sun. He also worked in a couple of movies, including Peepli Live, Dhobhi Ghat and more recently, Ankhon Dekhi.

            The cast of Ek Punjab Ye Bhi. Pic courtesy/Zahan Kapoor

In 2012, he started his theatre group, called The Hoshruba Repertory, literally meaning ‘jo aapke hosh udaa de’. “It was my way of expanding out, not restricting myself to being a storyteller, but to explore other forms and mediums,” he said. And because Danish has always been attracted to text and literature, the first play he opened with, was Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape, something which a number of people told him, was too dark a choice to start his theatre company’s journey with. “But that’s how we are, we have become this dark, poisoned people,” reasoned Danish, “A lot of our literature, poetry, social disorders are essentially urban phenomenon. There is an angst, of living beyond despair, where things will never change, where our air, food and even human relationships have become poisoned. That angst appeals to me, because that’s how we live in these modern times.” The same urban angst continued with his next play, Chinese Coffee, about two men in their mid-40s, and how their jealousies, unrequited love and unfinished agendas unravel over a period of two hours.

                     Danish Hussain and Vrajesh Hirjee in Chinese Coffee

Last year, after moving to Mumbai, Danish set about looking for an apt subject to make a new play. How Ek Punjab Ye Bhi came about, is another long story which involves the actor-director receiving a book of short stories as a gift, relegating it to the bookshelf without reading it, committing himself to doing a play based on those stories in an interview without really meaning to, and then finally, making a play on them – but we won’t go there today. “The stories have this haunting quality about them. Punjab has one of the most fertile lands in the sub-continent. But by the time you see these stories, it seems as if the colour is flying off the painting. By the end, it becomes a haunting, desolate place,” said Danish.

The artiste admits he’s enjoying direction now. “There are heartaches there too, but that’s part of life,” he reasoned. And his next play? “Mujhe maloom hai main bolke phans jaaonga,” he smiled, and then added, “It’s an absurdist play called Professor Taranne. It’s a play about a man and indecent exposure and a trial, extremely relevant in today’s times.” We can’t wait to watch.