Cold SnapDragon

What I understood of the Court's discussion of consent in its acquittal of Mahmood Farooqui for rape made me very uncomfortable. I've talked about why that was the case in two pieces, links to which I've shared here: Asia Times :  Mahmood Farooqui :  HC's  Troubling Interpretation of Consent  & Scroll :  No may not mean no: Order acquitting Peepli Live co-director of rape opens terrifying possibilities

Delhi is apparently having a SlutWalk. A city which displays a tendency to treat all women as sluts, regardless of age, attire or figure is apparently having a SlutWalk. Unsurprisingly, the Walk has been at the receiving end of a great deal of flak whether it be from persons who can’t conceive of what would possess women to want to organise a SlutWalk to start off with, or from persons who are avowed feminists and think that a SlutWalk is inappropriate for India. The first question is, of course: Do we really need to reclaim the word ‘slut’ in the manner contemplated by a SlutWalk? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers to the question. The attempted reclamation of the word could be deeply problematic, just as the attempted reclamation of the word ‘nigger’, attendant with all its historical and social implications, has been deeply problematic. That being said, the word ‘slut’ is an attention-grabber, particularly in a society which simply does not use the word ‘slut’ in polite co...

Somehow, travelling in buses seems to offer one, possibly not a greater insight into the lives of people, but at least a much wider view of the lives of people than travelling by any other means of transport does in Delhi: the metro is too crowded to do anything other than try to stay alive by ensuring that one has enough space to breathe in it, and cars, along with other forms of private transport, for obvious reasons, make it next to impossible for one to see beyond the end of one’s nose (while travelling, anyway). That being said, it isn’t always clear that the sights which travelling in a bus are sights which one would actually want to see, nor are the experiences which one has necessarily those which one would want to have. In the last twelve hours, I’ve seen in buses, a man with an awful wound on his leg – his skin had peeled off and the wound was white in places. It seemed pretty clear that he hadn’t had access to good medical care, if at all any medical care; God knows, I’ve ne...

The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings. Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade. — James Shirley I had visited Tughlaqabad fort which was built by Ghiyas-ud-din Tuglaq in the 14th century. An elevated causeway on the southern side of the fort connects the fort to the mausoleum of Ghiyas-ud-din Tughluq which was built by the ruler himself. The fort itself comprises what were undoubtedly once imposing stone fortifications, now in ruins. The causeway has been cut across to make space for a highway. And the lake over which it apparently once ran has long since dried out, giving way to a rather dusty ground which children play on.The mausoleum is relatively simple; it’s architecture Indo-Islamic. Inside, there are two graves which unnerved me a little bit: one is in the centre and the other to its side. While I know little abou...

Claude Presset, a Swiss ceramist and teacher has curated an exhibition of cups by a hundred different ceramists which is currently on display in Delhi. Each ceramist has created a series of ten cups each in which none of the cups are identical although each series has been created using only one technique. Each cup is approximately the same size as a kulhar : the traditional Indian teacup which was once commonly used but is now rarely seen -- the handcrafted, earthenware cup of yesteryear having now been replaced by mass produced cups often not even made of clay. And yet, the basic shape, structure and purpose of the cup has probably not significantly changed through the millennia. And so, as the exhibits -- displayed in packing cases -- demonstrate, the lines which demarcate 'tradition' from ' living tradition', and 'experimentation' from 're-interpretation' are in fact often amazingly thin. At the end of the day, there is only so much that can be done...

One of the first things which one notices about Delhi is that it’s full of monuments (or what could be monuments) but that hardly anyone knows what they are. This roundabout is on the way to Humayun’s Tomb, one of Delhi’s three much touted heritage sites: the others being Ferozshah Kotla and the Qutb Minar. Nonetheless, despite being just some 500 m away, all most people know is that it’s called Subz Burz and that it lies on the Grand Trunk Road. The area where the tomb stands is full of old structures. I was told when I first asked for directions that it’s in a very Muslim area of town – not information I had asked for and, as it turned out, information which was irrelevant. There are several tombs in the compound where Humayun’s Tomb is situated. When one first enters it, one sees the entrance to Isa Khan’s Tomb Enclosure to the right and Bu Halima’s straight ahead. The Compound Isa Khan’s Tomb Enclosure Isa Khan’s Tomb dates back to 1547 AD and includes both a mosque and a tomb. T...

Safdarjung's Tomb. Safdarjung's Tomb is a strange place. It's not an important monument, so it's not very crowded. The average person on the road where it stands has no idea what on Earth it is, let alone where it is. They'll give you directions to the locality Safdarjung, to Safdarjung Enclave, and, if you ask, to Lodhi road. But God help you if you ask for the Tomb: all you'll probably get is a blank stare. You'll be asked what it is, and be informed by the helpful that the road you're standing on is not Aurobindo Road but Arvind Road. And that's despite the fact the the Tomb's entrance is bang on the main road, at the T-junction of Lodhi Road and Aurobindo Road. Inside, the lawns aren't particularly well maintained; there are over 300 sq m of them. Nor is anything else as well maintained as it is in other more well known monuments. The good thing though is that there are few people around because it isn't, well, iconic. The Tomb is t...

After being in Delhi for what’s hardly a short length of time, I finally went to the Jantar Mantar. It’s full of people during the day. And not one of them knows how exactly it works. Although the Jantar Mantar was built only a few centuries ago, no records survive from the period when it was built which tell contemporary scientists how to use it. The only documents which are in existence are records of observations which are not especially useful in terms of understanding how the observations were conducted. What’s surprising is that in addition to none of the original blueprints being available, the records of subsequent restorations are not easily available either. This doesn’t mean that just the records of 19th century restorations are unavailable but also that records of just how the structure was reinforced with concrete sometime in the 1980s are (I'm told) unavailable. What this effectively presumably means is that astrophysicists have no easy way of knowing what was a part ...

The Entrance to Purana Qila I went for a walk in Purana Qila (the Old Fort next to Delhi’s High Court) the other day. It’s surprisingly well-maintained inside. There are lawns and it isn’t very dirty. One can walk around the ‘perimeter’ of the fort – or at least those who have a head for heights can. On one side there’s nothing but a wall which is a few feet in breath and has a drop of about three feet on one side and at least fifty on the other – or what seemed like fifty to me. I could be wrong but I doubt it. There are a few buildings which survive inside the compound of the fort. One of them apparently once housed a library whose stairs the Mughal Emperor Humayun fell down and died. What struck me as a bit strange though is that there were notice boards all over the place which said that the buildings were protected monuments but there were surprisingly few boards which said what in God’s name the buildings actually were. That’s one thing which I find strange about Delhi – the plac...

The last time I went down to Kotla Ferozshah which is supposed to be one of Delhi’s it monuments, I bumped into a security guard while I was trying to figure out what was beyond what appeared to be some form of stairs leading down into another area. I’ve found that some of the people at monuments can be tremendously helpful and knowledgeable about them. This chap, however, seemed a bit odd. He didn’t start raving about the ruins as most enthusiastic persons – usually old men – who work in such places tend to do. Instead, he asked whether I was Indian. My initial thought was that he might have been wondering whether or not I’d paid the rate foreigners are supposed to pay for a ticket so I said yes. Then, he asked where I was from. Not wanting to be rude, I just smiled while he tried out everything from Jharkhand to Kerela. Seriously. Not content to stop there, he continued and in addition to asking to where I was from, asked what I do. At that point, not wanting to be too rude, I said...