Chase, Gardner & L’amour

I am not so sure that children and teenagers read so much these days, can’t blame them though, with so much of TV and outside activities, where is the time? Not only that, the amount of studying they have to do to keep on top of things is making their life, unfortunately hectic.

But well, it was quite a difference some 20-25 years ago when we were teenagers, there was hardly anything on TV, in fact TV was not really available in Kerala until the early 1980’s. All we had to pass time (roaming around or outdoor games) other than radio were books, be it during a train or bus journey or while grounded at home. For some, like my friend Venu and me, reading was a passion. We read all kinds of stuff, magazines, novels; newspapers and a visit to the college library or the British council (which provided free membership at TVM) provided tons of material.

There were the all kinds of reads – like thrillers on one hand and heavy stuff on the other. I was more inclined towards the faster reads. Only when mood really permitted did I go for the real heavy philosophical books, but there were some like my friend KP who read Camus, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Tolstoy, Sholokhov and the such, not for me though. I never followed all that. As years passed; it became authors like RK Narayan, Erich Segal, Harold Robbins, Ian Fleming, Irving Wallace, Henry Denker, Arthur Hailey, Ayn Rand etc. Then I moved on to Ken Follett, J Archer, Forsyth, Grisham, Nelson DeMille…Now & then a new author found his/her way to my hands and books like ‘Life of Pi’, ‘Curious incident….’ were revelations.

But for a train journey or a bus journey in the 70’s & 80’s, there were the ‘pocketbook thriller’ genre books by Erle Stanley Gardener, James Hadley Chase or Louis L’Amour, or for that matter even Conan Doyle. Man, did they make the trip so easy and short. From the start to the finish, these books just flew on by…Interestingly each of these authors produced a good number of novels- each (except Conan Doyle) wrote over a 100 novels.

These days, I check for Higginbothams and such shops at railway stations while in India or at airports, but I do not see many or any books by Chase, Gardener or L’amour anymore. Today, tastes have changed, like the times. And I feel sad, because they were great books, for the time-pass purpose, and I liked them. I know that many others loved them too and sales never really flagged those days. Even if we were not traveling, there was always a book lending library (10% cost of book = reading fee) which stocked many of them, like Balan’s at Annie hall road Calicut. But for me there was always the perfect library, Venu’s house, my best source for choice reading material. Some of the great books I read, were borrowed from his book shelf, sometimes his dad would give me a quick comment or two about the book – I remember him, PM Warrier the snow white haired jovial chap with a mouthful of ‘paan’ and a cheery smile on his face. As we chatted, Venu’s mom would serve us a nice cup of strong coffee…and later I would take the bus back home to Kazhakootam, with my eyes already buried amongst the musty pages, taking in the hero and the heroine and their actions, wondering about places like New York, Los Angeles, Florida…..where most of the stories were based or sometimes, the wild Texan west as in the case of L’armor stories…

Erle Stanley Gardner – I talked about him in one of my previous blogs, he used to live close to where I live now, churning his legal mysteries – earning him the title of fastest successful writer – His books were about a dynamic criminal lawyer Perry Mason, who solved complex cases together with his secretary Della Street and his private dick (slang for detective) Paul Drake. It was from those books, that I learned a little about the legal process & legal mysteries, which Grisham lords over, today …Curiously, ESG did have a Della Street type secretary (Agnes), whom he married much later in his life, actually he had three secretaries to whom he dictated all the time as he came up with a gunfire rapid & tireless output, sleeping just 3 hours daily. He wrote about 80 Perry Mason novels, I think I would have read most. In the 50’s PM books sold at the rate of 20,000 a day,and never did those books go out of print! He completed early novelettes in roughly three days & the first Mason novel sold over 29 million copies…
Louis L’amour - Now, this was a guy who wrote frontier fiction – western novels as they called it, all about fearless cowboys and the Wild West. Well, believe it or not, he started as a poet. I still remember his ‘Sackett’ series, pretty good Western thrillers, and his research was always solid, they say he kept in his library, details of exploits of over 2,000 gunfighters of the Wild West, the basis of all his books. During his years, he had tough competition from Max Brand and Zane Gray, who wrote similar genre and LL kept pace, writing five pages a day. Many criticized his books for following (somewhat like our Bollywood movies) a standard pattern - After the familiar character development, his heroes are righteous but violent, women proud and beautiful, and villains are killed at the end.

And there was James Hadley Chase – Man O man, what a writer he was, just the right dose of mystery, sex and suspense. Only recently did I know he was a Brit, son of a colonel who served in the Indian army. Now, here goes, this chap even studied about Hydrophobia (his dad was the principal of the Bengal Veterinary College) in Calcutta! For a guy who never lived in the US, save a couple of trips, his books were all set in the USA and were so very precise in detail about places in America. He has a large fan following (this fan has a running blog on Chase). I remember & loved his Mark Girland series, Girland being a CIA operative in those books. And I remember his ‘No Orchids for Miss Blandish’, wow! That was one book. His best known phrase – That is the way the cookie crumbles.

There is one more series that I should mention – all of them featuring the secret agent Nick Carter (a watered down version of 007 James Bond). None of those books listed an author’s name, but the early ones were written by Michael Avallone, Thomas Harbaugh & even a lady, Valerie Moolman. These books were perfect for the teenager on a testosterone high, in those days…

The thrill of holding such musty yellow pages, seated amidst sweaty passengers in a train or bus, oblivious to the hustle and bustle around, laboriously and breathlessly tracing the path of the righteous hero, till he emerges victorious – and later, looking forward to the next book by the same author, is long gone…

Pics - from the web, thanks to the owners....

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Mehaboob - that forgotten singer

For quite some time I searched around for information on the Malayalam singer Mehaboob, but only a little could be dredged. It was finally a brilliant, thought provoking and sentimental article by novelist Vennala Mohan in last years ‘Manorama Onappathippu’ that gave me much insight to this lovable person. Thanks a lot to blogger Abraham Tharakan for directing me to Mohan’s article. That is the real stuff – the article to read, I am writing this only for the benefit of those cannot find it and those who can’t read Malayalam.

This is about Mehaboob, a singer great with his voice, but unfortunately weak in character. It is about a singer of yesteryears, whose talents I alluded to in my earlier blogs on trains and Mammad kaka’s coat. Sometimes you get drawn to a certain person, you can’t necessarily explain why, but it could very well be that it was because he was an underdog, one who was seemingly wronged, one who never received recognition that was always due to him.

There was a time when one could write a letter addressed thus - H Mehaboob Bhai, Cochin, Kerala and the letter would quickly find its way through the gigantic Indian postal system to this gentle soul. Alas, today it would be surprising if anybody in Kerala or for that matter even people of Cochin remembered Mehaboob even if they standing on Mehaboob road in Cochin or living in Mehaboob Nagar. It was the time when Mehaboob and Kozhikode Abdul Khader ruled the waves.

Indeed, he was a character with many virtues and an equally long list of flaws. Fortunately he left behind a legacy of memories for a select few who survived his generation and many lovely songs that epitomized his times & tides. Mehaboob’s story is curiously, one of loneliness, but actually filled with people. Sometimes I wonder if all those people around him were the very reason for his downfall. Such were the times; an era where people tagged on to the rich and famous and every famous person had an even bigger entourage and a huge ego to boot. They bolstered the ego to such a level that the otherwise normal person started feeling insecure and ended up seeking refuge in an imaginary world. They pampered the person with wrong and sweet ideas; they led the person astray, into the arms of booze and other vices.

Mehaboob, fondly known as ‘Bhai’ in the Cochin between the 50’s and 80’s, was born in a family beset with stark poverty. He spent his childhood (early 40’s) in the nearby Bengal battalion military camp polishing shoes while his mother did cleaning jobs. And in the midst of all the grime and squalor, he cheerfully sang the songs he picked up, be it English, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu, Hindi or Malayalam - whatever the trend was on that day. Bhai grew up to become the singer of choice for the various pre nuptial ceremonies conducted by rich families in Cochin; here was where he made his name, his admirers and many friends. Mehaboob had no real home, but he lived with his friends, and he sang his way into the hearts of Cochin.

A lovable and humane man, with a boyish candor, Mehaboob partook in many of those evenings and his spontaneity and outpourings are now a memory only to a few lucky people like singers Umbayee & Xavier. His extempore songs were never recorded and eventually vanished leaving the oncoming generations poorer of a musical legacy. Many of his songs were composed by Mepalli Balan. While there is still an argument about the ownership of the lyrics, the two people who created songs for Mehaboob, with that special Mattanchery flavour, were Nelson Fernandez and Balan. A simple man, never ambitious, Mehaboob never demanded compensation for the performances, be it at the prenuptial ceremonies, or kacheris’.

So famous did he become in Cochin, that Muthaiah, the actor quickly recommended him to Dakshinamoorthy the music director who was looking for a new voice in the early 50’s. Would you believe that the two of them hunted for the truant Mehaboob all over Cochin and it was only a few minutes before Murthy’s train was leaving the platform that Mehaboob landed up at the station? Well, it was at the station, with the steam engine starting its departure whistle that he sang his first ‘voice test’ lines and Murthy decided that he had found his man. From that point Mehaboob started to get noticed in the film world. He sang of course, for P Bhaskaran and Baburaj in many hit movies between the 50’s and 70’s, but they were to a large extent comedy songs. While it gave him due recognition, it saddened Mehaboob and he remarked once that he thought P Bhaskaran as the one who branded him thus – the comedy singer. Some of us would remember today a few those great ‘comedy songs’ songs, but Mehaboob I believe, wanted to do more serious songs. Seeing all this, Dakshina Murthy took it upon himself to formally launch him, but Mehaboob gave up, refused to sing at the party organized for him, and just left Madras, and with that started his tryst with the bottle and his downfall.

It was not the first time he walked away, many years later at TDM hall in Cochin, Mehaboob who was to perform in a concert, did not sing. He came onstage, simply stated that Gandhiji was responsible for the rot in the minds of Indian people after independence and walked off from a houseful concert (He asked the audience – Gandhi enthakki? The audience replied, Bhai para Bhai para – Bhai said – Gandhi Indiaye mandhi punnakki). What triggered all this I don’t know, but this brilliant singer never took his life or his career seriously after the Madras days.

He was popular, no doubts about that and all this is abundantly clear from the days CH Atma and Rafi performed in Cochin. People clamored for Bhai’s songs even when Rafi was singing and Rafi gracefully invited Mehaboob to sing on his stage. It is said that Rafi then asked Mehaboob to accompany him to Bombay, but Mehaboob did not want to leave his friends in Cochin…Now that being the case, why did he lose hope with life? I don’t know, Was it much later, I don’t think so. All the money he made from his movie songs, bundles of it, was usually distributed to all friends the very same evening.

Can you imagine there was a time when Mehaboob had to coach Yesudas with Hindi/Urdu diction for a particular song before a stage show? It is from those dizzy heights this gentleman ended up to singing in Maharaja’s college hostel rooms for the price of a lunch (He sang many of his own songs and admitted that he was Mehaboob only after he was confronted with a request to sing Yesudas and Jayachandran songs). Later, it was poverty that led him to become a part time Muezzin in the local mosque, calling the faithful for prayers. In the end he died a pauper, an abject asthmatic, wizened and sick man leaving behind only his music as his legacy. By then people had forgotten him…new stars had risen in the sky and rustic folk music was no longer in vogue.

Let us take a look at some of his popular movie songs, the songs that make you feel happy and smile

- Manennum vilikkila, mayilennum vilikkila Manathe pachakiliye (Neelakuyil – K Raghavan)
- Kathu sookshiochore kasthuri mampazam kakka kothi (Nair pidicha pulival – K Raghavan)
- Pandu pandu nine kanda nalilla (Rarichan oru pauran – K Raghavan)
- Halu pidichoru puliachhan pulivalupidichoru nairachan– (Nair pidicha pulivalu – K Raghavan)
- Naya paisayilla ( Neeli Sali – K Raghavan)
- Zindabad Zindabad swantham karyam zindabad ( Kandam bechoru kottu - MS Baburaj)
- Vandee pukavandi, vandi vandi ninne pole vayaril enikkum theeyanu (Doctor - G Devarajan)
- O Rickshawalla ( Odayil Ninnu – G Devarajan)
- Vandikaran beeran kaka randam kettinu poothim bechu (Vandi karan beeran kakka )
- Kozhikodangdeele koyakkande kadayilu koyinde kariyude charu (Thanka kudam – MS Baburaj)
- Kandam bechoru kottanu athu mammad kakede kottanu ( Kandam bechoru kottu - MS Baburaj)

Sources ad picture – Manorama, Hindu and other web links. ‘Entelokam.com’ provided access to many of Mehaboob’s songs through their fine collection.

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The AIR signature tune

I have no doubts that some of you, once upon a long time ago, listening to the radio at the break of dawn, have heard this tune. It was a time when the lady of the house would be up, starting up the activities at home, after her bath, with wet hair hanging loosely tied, slightly damp sari with the one end tucked into her hip, getting the coffee & breakfast ready, the wood fire in the kitchen up and going nicely, smoke tendrils creeping up the chimney, clinking sounds of various brass & steel utensils in the background, while the man of the house and his father would be shaking themselves out of their beds, the younger anxiously ready to face life, the elder cursing his arthritic creaking bones and the various indignities of life as one gets older. Through this all, the child of the house would be fast asleep under his thin blanket, dreaming of animate & inanimate things; the boy had at least another two hours to dream before he started off for school.

The younger man would move slowly, still drowsy and with unsteady legs, to the living room. He would reach up to that wooden plank on the wall steadied by the two L brackets, where the old valve radio set was placed and turn the brown stained knob to click the radio on. It took a minute for the EL 84 vacuum tube valves to start up and glow as the man could see it through the cloth front of the radio. But it was not yet time; he heard only the hiss of static. Sunlight had started to streak through the gap between the wall and the roof, also through the glass tiles, and the man idly looked at the dancing dust particles in the beams for a while as his body warmed up. One could not help but notice the webbed antenna of the radio near the ceiling, where a number of spiders were busy with their own lives, spinning webs and waiting for their flying prey.

Then he did what his father had once routinely done during his entire life time, he walked across to the other side of the room and wound the wall clock, always remembering his fathers words ‘Son! Not too much or the spring will break…never should you move the needles back. If the time has to be changed, move it only forward – and as you move the needles make sure the pendulum is stopped carefully’…It was a clock imported from the old blighty (bilayath), and Papaji had to wait a two full months after placing the order at the local Spencer’s. It had cost all of fifty rupees in those days.

The magic eye tuner of the radio narrowed to a slit like cat’s eyes, the station came on air and the Akashwani signature tune started. Kaufmman’s immortal work composed on the resonating Tanpura, Viola and Violin echoed in the room. The Indian day had started.



It was now 0530 AM, and the lady of the house called out from the kitchen ‘coffee is ready, come and have it before it is cold’. Papaji had also come out after his ablutions, he would touch food only after all that was done and after he had finished his bath, and like he said every day, he grumbled “the younger generations are not right, ugh! They drink coffee without brushing teeth”.

And thus the many millions woke up to a new dawn in the teeming Indian villages, towns, cities, metropolises to toil & hustle to reach their own dreams…Many would remember the AIR signature tune in their lives, at some moment or the other – like I did today!!

The fledgling Indian broadcasting company which later became the All-India Radio employed two European musicologists, John Fouldes in Delhi and Walter Kaufmann in Bombay, to oversee Western musical programming. The signature tune of All India Radio, familiar to all Indian Radio listeners, was composed by the composer Walter Kaufmann (1907-84). Walter Kaufmann had left Prague after Hitler’s invasion, for India in 1934. He lived for twelve years in Bombay and worked in the music department of All India Radio and also did significant research into Indian music and with his friends, even worked for Hindi films. Kaufmann later worked as conductor and teacher in Canada and USA

An interesting extract - Unfortunately the start for AIR was not auspicious. Read Shabnam Minwalla’s Times report of 2002 - On a rainy Saturday, 75 years ago, Bombay’s swingers eagerly made their way to the Sir Cowasji Jehangir Hall. The evening promised not just dinner and dancing but an encounter with a magical technology — the wireless. .Some distance away at Radio House in Apollo Bunder, the new studio with its grand piano and unfamiliar equipment was a flurry of VIPs and violins. At 6 pm, Lord Irwin, the viceroy of India, stepped up to the clunky microphone and inaugurated the services of the Indian Broadcasting Company. History, as well as some hiss and crackle, was created on July 23, 1927. But crowds who had paid eight Annas and gathered at CJ Hall heard none of it. A defective wire pooped the wireless party and The Times of India reported: "The audience left the hall disappointed". The disgruntled crowds may not exactly have gone radio gaga. But that brave, little enterprise survived, grew into the omnipresent All India Radio (AIR) and is today celebrating its Platinum Jubilee.

Deccan Herald’s GV Joshi provides a very interesting tidbit - Children from Karnataka should be proud of the fact that the vernacular name for ‘All India Radio’, ‘Akash Vani’ originated at Mysore, a place well-known for silk and sandalwood. In 1935, Dr MV Gopalaswamy, Professor at Mysore University, started an experimental radio station using a low power transmitter from his residence. Subsequently a 250-watt transmitter was imported for better coverage and this station was named Akash Vani. The station survived with support from the municipality and private grants. In 1942, the station was taken over by the then Mysore State. The designation of the Indian State Broadcasting Service was changed to All India Radio (AIR) on June 8, 1936. All India Radio adopted the name ‘Akashvani’ in 1958. Note however that there were a number of experimental stations before all that. GV Joshi provides details in this Daily excelsior article. Prof BB Mohanty recalls those days in his own words, here.

The provider of the AIR tune file is Soumyadip of Cutting Chai. He has a wonderful blogsite, check it out.


Edit Feb 2009 - One year later after this was posted, a keen reader Mr Chakravarthi provided me with this clarification.At the risk of being called a revisionist, let me say that Walter Kaufman did compose the AIR signature tune but not as a signature tune. In fact, it was an extract from a sonata commissioned by Mehli Mehta the well-known violinist who later became the first violin of the Halle Orchestra in Manchester, and ended his days in California at the tender age of 92. He was, ultimately, better-known as the father of Zubin Mehta, the conductor. Mehli Mehta also played the violin for the signature tune . He remained justly proud of this fact to the end of his long life. There is no viola audible in the signature tune, contrary to the assertion in your blog.

So Mehli bhai - Thank you for this wonderful tune..

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The kidney that traveled…

There is much talk on about the kidney racket in Delhi. Well for the last two decades, India has been a destination for either legal medical tourism or illegal transplants. There have been far too many cases in Villivakkam (AKA Kidney village) Madras and other places, it is just that all this has become a bit high profile now and is reported worldwide. India is news these days because a lot of people have directly or indirectly invested and got involved and interested in India. So the press takes the story straight to the front pages, be it Harbajan calling Symonds something or Carla Bruni not coming to spend the day with Sarkosy at Agra…The Nano car got good and bad publicity, the cricket affair got into Time magazine…

But well, this story takes you back to some 12 years ago, in Turkey. I had just arrived in Istanbul to start up a new division in our organization out there and had to make a high profile visit to one of the biggest customers. It was to a public sector organization in Ankara, and I was going to Ankara for the first time. My colleague who was with me drove me through the roads of Ankara in the rented Turkish make Tofas Dogan car (you will see Dogans only in one other place, Cairo Egypt – equipped with taxi meters from Pune which the taxi driver attests as – ‘Hindi meter bery goot’) past the great Ataturk mausoleum to the offices which we had to visit.

The visit went very well, or so I thought – with me speaking in English, everybody else talking in Turkish – much nodding of heads and everybody smoking like a chimney… I was wondering what they said and I am sure they were wondering what I was saying till my colleague translated bits here & there…The morning went by pleasantly, tea was served with pomp, biscuits eaten, more tea sipped, the country’s politics, recession and currency values dissected, many more tubes of tobacco consigned to acrid smoke and going on to start up the activities of cancer prone cells of people in there….

Then it was time for lunch. The GM, a dignified grey haired and meticulously dressed man, wearing a beautifully cut suit (The Turks dress splendidly and that is one thing I will agree with Gen Musharaf of Pakistan – if you want to buy men’s clothes, especially suits & ties, buy them in Turkey, like he does – Tansu Ciller the PM used to send ties to Billy Clinton) insisted that he sit next to me on the lunch table. He wanted my colleague to sit on the other side, ready to translate. Now I was mystified, why this sudden rapport? The man could speak passable English, but would not and continued on in Turkish. Anyway he started speaking and then all of a sudden, this 55-58 year old man started weeping!! I was astounded and just sat open mouthed wondering what was going on…The teary eyed man then took my hands in his and kept saying ‘tesekur ederim, tesekur’ which of course I understood as thanks over & over again…while the rest of the gathering gawked at us…

Later my colleague explained patiently in translation “You see, he says he owes his life to India. His kidneys had failed and last year he had been to Bombay and got a new kidney transplant. Now he feels hale & hearty and wants to thank your people and your country for saving his life”. Well, what could I say? I was stumped….

The surprising thing is that there was hardly any tourist movement those days between India & Turkey. How did this all take place? There must have been elaborate arrangements, go betweens, and I heard he had to pay a lot for the package tour to Amchi Mumbai and that there were many more members in the group that traveled to India…See how far touts reach…this was a time when the internet was just taking off…How did he get all this done?? Anyway this was all many years ago and I never met him after that.

Check out on Google today, see how many Medical tourism sites pop up offering transplant packages in India (with Government permission) at 15K$ to 30K$ a pop...

In the recent case, it took a disgruntled donor’s complaint to ensure a raid on the premises. The doctor escaped. Newspapers called it “the nexus between the organ traders and the police.” Investigators were alerted to the ring on Thursday by a donor who said the operation had ruined his health. Apparently tipped off to the raid, Dr. Kumar escaped arrest. Only one of the four main doctors implicated has been detained. Up to 500 kidneys are said to have been sold at vast profit over the past decade to four doctors operating from a so-called "House of Horrors", a private house in the booming IT city of Gurgaon, on the outside Delhi.

A New York Times Magazine article recently asked the question, "Why not let people sell their organs?" From an economic point of view, the article explains, demand for kidneys is far outrunning supply around the world. If people could legally sell, economists argue, more people with kidney disease might be saved, and the poor people willing to sell would have a chance to get badly needed funds. "Nature has given us two kidneys because the poor especially are prone to more infections and more renal problems," Dr. H. Sudarshan tells Grant doing the PBS production. "They can't really afford to donate one kidney. It's a myth. They need two kidneys much more than any rich person." Others see it differently, including Dr. Ajit Huilgol, a transplant doctor who says he has performed more than 1,400 transplant surgeries. Huilgol believes a non exploitative measure could be implemented in which there is "no middleman involved and the money that is promised to the donor is given directly to them."

Watch this PBS movie by Samantha Grant – India, A pound of flesh

Villivakkam donors photo – National geographic Sept 2003

Another chilling video story on Youtube

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Nair, Curry, Bose and Mohanlal

Things have come a long way since 1949, when Nair's was the first authentic Indian eatery to open in Japan -- in its present location in Ginza, Tokyo. However, it made a slow start, possibly because Japan already had its own curry dish called kare raisu (curry rice). This gravy-like sludge said to have been introduced more than 100 years ago, is especially popular with children for its sometimes sweet flavor. The Japanese Curry rice, thicker sweeter & milder than the Indian version, is a very popular fast food. Although introduced earlier, the dish became popular and available for purchase in supermarkets and restaurants, in the late sixties.

To a large extent, the curry became popular in Japan due to Ayappan Pillai Madhavan Nair, who founded the Ginza Nair’s restaurant. I have not been there, but well, some day if and when I visit Tokyo I surely will and would ask to meet Ayappan’s son who runs the place now. Ginza Nair have their website, but it is all in Japanese (covering also the history) probably Nanditha can do some deciphering!!! I am hopeful that she can add some more dope to what is written; perhaps her family has even visited the place!!
Nair, who came from Trivandrum as an engineering student, got involved with Subash Chandra Bose when he came to Japan. So enamored was he, by Bose that he became his translator and left his studies. Bose went back and Nair went on to marry locally and start his Ginza Nair restaurant in downtown Tokyo.Soon you will see Nair-san portrayed by Mohanlal and directed by Albert, on silver screens. “This will be a co-production between Japan and India. Japan’s Pal Entertainment Production will produce it with an Indian producer” and will be directed by Albert. Leading Japanese actress Shunsuken Matosuoka will star opposite Mohanlal in the film that will depict the era between 1920 and 1970. Nair, popularly known as Nairsan, hailed from Kerala and worked in Japan. Rubbing shoulders with freedom fighters like Rash Behari Bose, one of the founders of the Indian National Army (INA). “Nairsan lived in Japan for over half a century and spent several years in Manchuria. There, he was an unofficial advisor to the Manchukuo Government and the Kwangtung Army. He also conducted an anti colonial Movement against British imperialism in India and other parts of Asia, “said Albert, who is finalizing the Indian producer for the venture.Oman Tribune states that Kamal Haasan is also set to act in a Japanese film scripted by Malayalam novelist MT Vasudevan Nair. Kamal Haasan plays the role of a Japanese immigrant who comes to India to explore his ancestral roots. The film also apparently stars Mohanlal playing a real life character called Nair-san, who was supposed to be a close aide of freedom fighter Subash Chandra Bose. Rumor mills doing rounds is that the film makers are trying to rope in Jackie Chan as well.

So will Kamal be Gopalan Nair, the son of the elder Nairsan?
There is a fascinating article about Nairsan in rediff, by the diplomat TP Sreenivasan. I have to borrow a bit from that article to add meat to this one. Thanks TPS for the data provided. TP Sreenivasan writes - In the late nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, no Indian visitor could have missed the small Indian restaurant in Higashi Ginza in Tokyo, right across the Kabuki theatre. Every Indian visitor to the restaurant got the first meal free, but subsequent visits were purely on business terms. The Nair Restaurant also had a branch in a city department store, but even more famous than the restaurants was Indira Curry Powder, which had become quite popular among the Japanese. Gopalan, Nairsan's second son, looked totally Japanese, with no sign of his Indian genes. But Nairsan was absolutely insistent that Gopalan should marry from Kerala, failing which he had to forego his entire inheritance. It was not an empty threat as Nairsan had already disinherited his elder son, Vasudevan, who had married a Japanese girl. Unlike Gopalan, Vasudevan looked more Indian than Japanese. We asked him as to how he could insist on such things, particularly since he had not married a Keralite himself. Nairsan had no logical answer since his wish itself was without logic. Gopalan preferred to marry a girl of his choice rather than wait to inherit the curry powder empire. Nairsan came to Japan as a medical student. After he had learnt the Japanese language well and married a Japanese girl, whom he renamed Janaki Amma in true Kerala style, he fell under the spell of Netaji and decided to give up his studies to join Netaji as his interpreter. He traveled with Netaji all over Japan and stayed back to take care of his interests in Japan.
Andrew Montgomery’s comment on AM Nair’s writings on Bose however are in conflict with TP Sreenivasan’s notings about Nairs love for Netaji. Montgomery writes - A.M. Nair, a historian who has written favorably of Indian revolutionary Rash Behari Bose (who had sought Japan's help during and after the First World War), found nothing to praise about Subhas Chandra Bose. After all, wrote Nair, he was clearly a fascist. A.M. Nair, An Indian Freedom Fighter in Japan (Bombay: Orient Longman, 1983), p. 250

R Subramaniam who was at Ginza Nair, explains -

Surprise and a sense of pride - these were the emotions that came across my mind when I saw a couple of things in Ginza, an upscale-premium-locale of Tokyo. If one draws parallels, Ginza is to Tokyo what Times Square is to New York City ! First, it was a NAIR's Restaurant right in the middle of action. Yes, and I was amazed to find a long queue to get into the 40 seat restaurant. I did not think twice to get inside. I was greeted by a "Japanese-looking" elderly person, who showed me a table. Here comes the waiter, Babu, with a menu, which proudly boasts of Kerala Kozhi curry, many rice dishes, the only genuine Kerala dish being Pulissery. He was also happy to see a mallu and was kind enough to reel out the history behind the restaurant. The Concept of Nair Tea stall anywhere in the world is proven again.

One of Japanese TV's most popular newscasters, Kume Hiroshi, is famous for spicing up his show with snide remarks and candid comments. When debunking public figures or ludicrous policies, this has a positive effect of cutting through guff. But one night, not for the first time, he went too far. He made a comment that could be seen as disparaging innocents--a whole people within Japanese society--non-Japanese, The Gai Jin..

Oct 1996-they were doing a thing on the new MacDonald's with their Maharajah Burger (actually a lamb burger) in India. Following the Indian report they switched to an interview with an Indian restaurant owner in Tokyo who spoke fluent (really fluent) Japanese, who explained that it is not true that no Indians eat beef, some eat this and that, etc. Then after the interview Kume Hiroshi [anchorman] came on again in his cynical manner, with his comments "shikashi, gaijin wa nihongo ga katakoto no hoo ga ii yo ne (its better to have foreigners speaking in broken/baby Japanese...)"shikashi,gaijin wa nihongo ga katakoto no hou ga ii yo ne" was made in reference to Mr. G. M. Nair, second-generation owner of Nair's Restaurant in Ginza (founded by A.M. Nair).

Nair’s assimilation in the Japanese society, the other country he loved, after India, instead ended with this racist comment.

BTW – Let me add a final twister, the last Indian who saw Netaji Bose alive was his driver Chindan Nair. A fascinating account of the last drive to mangle airport.

As an aside - Like the Nairsan family, Mohanlal is also a purveyor of Indian Curry powders – His brand ‘taste buds’ produces pickles and curry powders. So he should feel at home acting this movie.

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‘Londonstani’ – An electrifying read

When I started with the first page of text brilliantly and ruthlessly compiled by Gautam Malkani in his book ‘Londonstani’, I was wondering what I was upto and why I was taking myself through the very process of reading those pages… The publisher has hailed the book as “a filthy, unflinching and politically incorrect take on modern Britain”. So why did I go on??

The book intro goes thus - Set close to the Heathrow feed roads of Hounslow, Malkani shows us the lives of a gang of four young men: Hardjit the ring leader, a Sikh, violent, determined his caste stay pure; Ravi, determinedly tactless, a sheep following the herd; Amit, whose brother Arun is struggling to win the approval of his mother for the Hindu girl he has chosen to marry; and Jas, who tells us of his journey with these three, desperate to win their approval, desperate too for Samira, a Muslim girl, which in this story can only have bad consequences. Together they cruise the streets in Amit’s enhanced Beemer, making a little money changing the electronic fingerprints on stolen mobile phones, a scam that leads them into more dangerous waters.
UK is not just home to gentlemanly cricket, lush lawn tennis courts, dreamy cows ambling through green meadows with a drizzle keeping company, or affable people like Tim Henman or David Gower, the queen or Salman Rushdie – but also a growing ‘Desi’ population who not only spread the curry culture, Shilpa Shetty and Bollywood in Britain, but also the growing ‘Rudeboy’ clan in pockets like London, Birmingham and Bradford.

This book will take you into the minds of four teenage ‘Desi’ youngsters (punks) ganging the streets of Hounslow near Heathrow. They are not ghetto boys, but are as Gautam says - middle class mummy's boys pretending to be ghetto kids. Theirs is a special world, different from the white and black punks about whom we have all read and seen in countless books & movies. We have the goras, the ‘desis’ and coconuts, and we have ‘desi’ rudeboys there. This one is the Desi rudeboy world in UK, neither white nor black, but brown, neither Brit nor Indian and very very far from the docile head nodding (hair parted neatly on the left), introvert-ish breed that we once were. They are the ‘rudeboys’, a Desi version of the Gangsta culture of the US.

Starting with smashing up the mug and re-education of a Poncey ‘gora’ kid who supposedly called the gang leader a ‘paki’, the book takes you into their lives, of their prim parents, who are mostly ‘’coconuts’ - white on the inside and brown on the outside, into the minds of youngsters who still have pin ups of Bollywood actresses like Kareena Kapoor in their bedroom, though they are replicating the lives of their heroes like Ali G, talking singing hip hop and roaming the streets of London in their souped up beamer (BMW), sporting outlandish attires and demeanor, cool dude looks and slouches…They talk Desi cockney (sometimes a little difficult for the reader, when accosted with words like ‘innit’ (isn’t it?)) but respecting their parents in true Desi way (“Gotta respect your elders, innit”).

Take a look at how Hardjit educates the Poncey ‘Gora’ well punctuated with kicks on his face – “A paki is someone who comes from Pakistan. Us bredrens who don't come from Pakistan can still b call'd paki by other bredrens if it means we can call dem paki in return. But u people ain't allow'd 2 join in, u get me?”

Jas the guy, who sometimes sees sense, is the protagonist. He is the one who joins the gang under building peer pressure to learn tough lessons like “Ladies judge how you’re gonna handle their bodies by how you handle a car”. Just listen to Jas’s explanation here about his nerdish days: “I didn’t get an E or a D in GCSE History, you see. I got me a muthaf&^%in A ….class, innit.” Their method of making pocket change is to unlock or recode stolen cell phones delivered by Sanjay. Sanjay is the Cambridge returned guy who introduces them to the Bling Bling ‘informal’ economics of making money reprogramming and unlocking stolen cell phones.

Jas explains his ambitions to be a pilot – “Wat’s fu&*%in’ wrong wid dat?” in defence of his aspirations to a career at Heathrow airport. “I’ll be a pilot Top Gun-stylee, innit.”Aron Jacobs concludes well– What makes Malkani's novel engrossingly inventive is that, for all their petty criminal bona fides, these characters are mama’s boys deep down. Though it may seem hard to read that through their pompous jargon: “People are always trying to stick a label on our scene. That’s the problem with havin a fuc&*in’ scene. First we was rudeboys, then we be Indian niggas, then rajamuffins, then raggastanis, Britasians, fu^&in’ Indobrits. These days we try an’ use our own word for homeboy an so we just call ourselves desis."

But Londonstani is something special and it is very funny. There is comedy in Jas’s narration, comprised of English, Punjabi and urban slang: "I jus mouthin off cos I got me a high sex drive, dat's all, man. I can't help it if I is a wild fu^&in beast."

To a certain extent, you should have lived in UK to really feel the book, but well, it is an interesting read…helps you understand the youth of today and the alienation they face with cross cultures, backgrounds, the vicious racial pressures that alternatively hold them or push them in varying directions. To take a peek into the Hounslow world, check out the Londonstani ‘Youtube’ trailer

>
It is an interesting, electrifying and compelling though not overtly satisfying a read. But well, in my mind, if you want to understand what is happening out there, read books like this – if only to see the effects of action and reaction, of racial and identity conflicts, results of chasing a good life and resettling families in worlds far away from ones own…

Gautam Malkani was born in 1976 and grew up in Hounslow (West London). His mother came to London from Uganda and worked as a radiographer while bringing up Gautam and his his brother. Gautam went to Isleworth & Syon comprehensive and got into Cambridge Universtity by being clever and working hard. As part of his SPS (social and political sciences) degree, he wrote a dissertation on rude-boy culture which enabled him to rationalise his frequent visits home to see his mates as "field trips." Londonstani grew out of his abortive attempts to convert his dissertation into a non-fiction book.

Malkani is currently a journalist for The Financial Times and head of the Creative Business section. He has worked on the UK news desk in London as well as in the Washington bureau. He and his wife live in London, EnglandGautam says - Hounslow is arguably the hub of the ‘desi’ subculture to which the characters belong, just as Heathrow acts as a more obvious hub for temporary diasporas. For most of us, the airport represented one of two things: a gateway to India conveniently located just down the Great West Road, or the prospect of a shitty job loading other people’s luggage on to a rotating conveyor belt. To make the escapism even more oppressive, for some people it was the cheap flights granted to airport employees and their relatives that made possible trips to far-flung corners of the globe such as Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore

BBC video interview here or at youtube here

Pic of the four in the beamer – from the NYT review of the book
Gautam pic from AIM magazine

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Guarding the borders

I stood in utter exasperation at the transit immigration counter. Not definitely from the days when armour clad, sword brandishing giants secured the borders, but here was a grim looking aurat looking me down through her eye glasses, through the bullet proof windows. The lady had still not finished deciding whether my passport was genuine and if I was a terrorist or not. This was the immigration counter at the Stockholm departure terminal. She turned the well worn blue passport with visas from so many countries in it, back and forth, she consulted her companion manning the next window, she looked at me, she looked at the computer terminal, she showed the passport under her UV lamp, she tapped more keys and she looked at me again for the 5th time. Then she said lamely ’you know, the computers are so slow’…I am sure she entered my name into some terrorist database and was waiting to see if bells rang & red lights came on! Why? Because I was brown and had black hair and a moustache??? Anyway after a few minutes during which I stood and cursed mankind, she waved me on..

Why me? What is wrong with my passport? Yes, I admit that the quality of the Indian passport at that time was probably a bit lower compared to the ones issued by others, with the picture pasted, the details handwritten and then the whole page laminated. After some years, one end starts to peel off or an air bubble is seen in the lamination. What happens is that this triggers alarms in the minds of such immigration clerks who have been entrusted with the responsibility of determining the bonafide and strategic plans of the unfortunate passenger standing in front of the cubicle. In my case this really happened. One of my earlier booklets (as it is called) was getting pretty old and I was at Kimpo airport Seoul. The girl looked at me, back to the passport, back to me, and then decided that she did not like me. She put her long and manicured fingernail under the corner that had the photograph and lifted it. I was shocked to silence, but the dictum is, when in doubt, never question of argue with immigration staff. What did she do that for? Was it to see if it comes off, or to see if the photo was switched? Well, in this case, it did peel a little above her nails. She finally decided that I was harmless; the passport was OK and stamped the entry visa. But since that trip and till I changed my ‘booklet’ I was harassed by so many immigration staff due to that slightly peeled off corner.

The other day my friend was travelling via Frankfurt to UK. The airlines seized his passport and kept it under safe custody with the pilot till the plane reached Heathrow. Now what did he do wrong? Nothing whatsoever, his ticket was OK with a return fare, his visa was OK, he had money to support his business trip…but then the airline confiscated his passport (they felt his face looked fishy!!) so that he would not destroy it enroute and land in UK as a ‘no nationality’ asylum seeker.

If only we had the high quality or biometric passports, if only we had a better international standing, if only all immigration staff were better trained, be it in India or elsewhere… If only there were no visas, and travel was borderless ……If only there was no racial profiling…but I hate passports, visas and all of that. Just because I am born in one country, another determines if I am eligible to pass by their land, what is right in this?

No wonder I spend time studying and thinking about the time when people risked life and limb to see and grovel (like the Vasco de Gama who tried to bribe the Calicut Zamorin with petty gifts and got told off) at the ‘Proud and rich land of the Ophir’ - a time when the balance of trade with India became very unfavourable to Rome since large amounts of gold and silver were shipped to the East to pay for the costly imported commodities. This is confirmed by the elder Pliny, who complained that there was "no year in which India did not drain the Roman Empire of a hundred million sesterces (1,000,000 pounds)....so dearly do we pay for our luxury and our women."

Oh! Come on now; stop thinking like John Lennon did, when he wrote & sang ‘Imagine…’

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Utopia does not exist…Border security does…. Walls & fences do… Bureaucracy does…

And so, now you know why I enjoyed the Movie 'Terminal' starring Tom Hanks.

P.S. – Actually this was written some years ago, with a plan to refine it and submit it for publication, but was never done. I dredged it out from an old 32MB (ha! They existed those days and were state of the art hot stuff) flash drive that I was going to discard and touched it up a bit.

Seoul Incheon airport pic - Unlawyer's photoblog

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Home cooking – Soon a historical activity?

At an altitude of 30,000 feet with the seat belt sign illuminated and grim looking airline stewardesses policing the aisles and helping increase the pressure in my bladder, I had just about enough of gazing at the various types of clouds that we passed. I tried to recall the numerous types that were taught once upon a long time ago by teachers who assumed that this specific knowledge would prove useful some day - cirrus, cumulus, nimbus, stratus…..

I dozed for a while, waking up, I picked up my book, but found the small text heavy going, on that day. Looking around was the next thing to do. The kids in the front row were making a racket, their seat backs rattling my deteriorating knees. The old man across the aisle was eyeing me suspiciously, looking to see if the brown man with a moustache (i.e. me) would jump out with a box cutter or something like that. A couple of colored hair teens were busy musically necking (listening to their Ipods at the same time), a lady was knitting with her brow furrowed in concentration, a pretty girl was trying to sneeze silently and ladylike but not making much headway with tears streaming down her eyes instead. The tanned executive with his crisp white shirt and gelled hair was busy on his laptop, but I saw that he was actually watching a movie. The stewardess mercifully started down the aisles with the snack trolley. That was great!! Getting a snack instead of peanuts!! This time we got a biscuit. It was eaten with gusto in no time, leaving behind only the white covering with nice print on it, and I started to examine the wrapper idly. Nice picture and well known name – Distinctive, deep rich chocolate, exquisite flavored biscuit…. proclaimed the plastic cover with the silvered inside.

Do not use if package is open or torn!! I wondered… hmmm… we ate biscuits, not ‘used’ it! Ah! Well you can’t tell people what to do these days, perhaps; they use biscuits for something, other than eating, who knows?? And I wondered about the possible uses, to prop open a door? To blackmail a crying child? Toss at somebody when annoyed? To smell the vanilla when you felt airsick?? After I while I gave up trying to figure out potential ‘uses’ and thought of the saying that was drummed into our heads - an idle mind is a dangerous thing!!

Weight 0.75Oz, it said. Turning the wrapper over, I read through the Nutrition facts – 120 calories, 5mg cholesterol, 55mg sodium (but it did not taste salty, it was sweet so why so much salt??), various other vitamins and so on thus confirming that it is indeed great for one’s health. Then I came to Made from – unbleached enriched flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, chocolate liquor processed with alkalis, soy lecithin, palm and/or interesterified and hydrogenetaed soyabean and/or cottonseed…… Chocolate liquor processed with alkali’s…

The list went on…and I wondered…what the hell, in the old days you took some flour, eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla essence and made a cookie. Why add interesterified and hydrogenetaed (I could not even guess what those terms meant!) cottonseed and reduced iron?? I promised myself that this needed some later study..

Reading how this biscuit was made later convinced me that it is rather sophisticated a process. But when I read about its marketing campaign as an everyday reward, I was astonished. Not that additives and all that stuff is necessarily bad for health, but the huge difference between traditional home cooking and mass production simply amazed me…

What is interesterified oil? Using either chemical or enzymatic catalysts, interesterification rearranges the fatty acids in soybean oil to allow the blended oil to function like the partially hydrogenated oils it replaces, but without the trans fats associated with the partial hydrogenation process.

Hydrogenetaion – well it is better known, and much talked about - Hydrogenation is the chemical name for the addition of hydrogen to an existing molecule, usually an organic molecule which has a double bond between two carbon atoms. This is achieved by forcing hydrogen, at high temperature (250-400C) and pressure into the liquid oil, usually in the presence of a catalyst such as nickel or platinum, over several hours. The prime reason for inventing these oils was that the producers (mostly in the USA, especially in the early days) needed them to survive the long transatlantic ship journey required to reach the markets in Europe. Unfortunately the transfats created in the process are not so good for health!!

Fortification of flour – Needed to take care of iron deficiencies. Flour fortification with iron is an important component of any public health strategy for the prevention of iron, folic acid and other vitamin and mineral deficiency. It works well to deliver iron in constant small needed amounts to a majority of the population.

Propylene glycol monoester – Apparently an emulsifier - Cake batter is also an oil-in-water emulsion, with shortening or oil as the dispersed phase and water as the continuous phase. Emulsifiers, especially hydrophilic types, aid in mixing the fat phase with other ingredients. They aid in fat dispersion by breaking the fat into a large number of smaller particles.

Humectant – Have you ever heard of this additive that prevents food from drying out? Can you believe that you consume cyanides? Well, they use ferrocyanide salts as an anti caking agent!

New methods of production - According to Felicity Lawrence, author of the book, Not On The Label, bread making changed in the Sixties when scientists discovered how to make a loaf quickly and bulk it up with water. “Instead of allowing two to three days fermentation they found that air and water could be incorporated into dough if it was mixed at high speeds,” she says. “Double the quantity of yeast was needed to make it rise, chemical oxidants were essential to get the gas in and hardened fat had to be added to provide structure. The process gave a much higher yield of bread from each sack of flour because the dough absorbed so much water.” The added fat, often in the form of unhealthy hydrogenated fat, helps today’s bread look firm and spongy. It is often included as a part of the ambiguous-sounding “flour treatment agent” usually found listed in the ingredients.

Yes, I have heard of water forced (or water retention agents added during processing) into meat to increase weight and it is evident when you make a chicken curry, these days, you do not have add water!! UK now limits it to 15% but they had samples which showed over 43% of water added. Note here that chicken meat by itself is 66% water.

Keep it fresh (also from above express.co.uk article) - The apples in your supermarket may look fresh but many are treated routinely with SmartFresh, the innocent-sounding trade name of the gas 1-methylcyclopropene. This is pumped into crates of apples & tomatoes to stop them from producing ethylene, the natural hormone that causes fruit to ripen. A daily mail article provides some details and a list of some not so good additives – It says - Parents have been warned to avoid artificial additives used in drinks, sweets and processed foods amid a link to behavior problems in children. A study funded by the government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) is understood to have drawn a link with temper tantrums and poor concentration.

Well, the drive for profit and a good life is taking us to outrageous extents. Who ever imagined that the days of home cooking are slowly but steadily being replaced by these manufactured foods with all kinds of permitted colors, additives and substances??

It is most definitely even more outrageous than the 65 year old stripper (well she looked ok though) who was shown on TV today. What beat that was the fact that there is also a (I reserve my comments) 65 year old male stripper.

I think it best to stop….there are better things to do in life than analyzing the methods and machinations of the food industry (You can try reading Toxin by Robin Cook)!!

But for the cakes and biscuits and bread, we ourselves try to eat freshly cooked food, everyday.

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Enterprising Malayalees

It is joked today that every corner of the world or even the moon has a Malayali tea shop to welcome you. You will find Nair messes or tea stalls all over India, you will even find a Nair hotel in Ginza Tokyo, you will find many of them in the Middle East, but by and far the other Malayalis you encounter around the world, many still maintaining their unique spoken accent, are employed in diverse trades or disciplines, it could be engineering, Nano technology, advanced rocket sciences like ramjet applications, cutting edge medicine or even as suave diplomats and peace keepers.

We keep the ever unhappy neighborhood Kerala store owner busy, by buying plantains, Puttu podi, Chinese yam, Pappadams etc and it is also because of this nomadic lot that companies which make Parachute Coconut oil or Chandrika soaps continue to flourish…

The first Malayali who took up a short job in Greece dates back perhaps to the days of Ptolemy (115BC). Half dead, he was washed up on the Red Sea shores after a shipwreck. He did not know any other language (Malayalam and a smattering of Arabic maybe) and the Cyzicuian, Eudoxus who found him, decided to teach him the Greek language in order to learn his secrets. He was the man from ‘The land of the Ophir’ After a full year of teaching Greek, the man explained about Muziris and the wonders of Malabar to the astonished Eudoxus, who had been eagerly trying to find the sea route to Malabar and break the stronghold that the Arabs had on the Malabar spice trade. The Malayali did eventually guide the Greek ship together with Eudoxus, not once but twice to Malabar. Later, Starbo wrote about the expedition, Ptolemy Eurgetes II profited from the wealth they brought back and thus started a lucrative trade, though much later after Hippalus (the Greek pilot of the Eudoxus ship) wrote about the monsoon winds.

That tells you a lot about the travel bug which bit the people from a world known even to the ancient…the people from Malabar. There are many such stories and when I read the following in Wikipedia, I decided to investigate

According to Ming dynasty Imperial Guard Recruitment Record, Nanking area town guard chief Shaban was a native of Calicut. He was recruited to join Zheng He’s expedition, and was promoted on his return. Another officer Shasozu from Nanking military division was also a native from Calicut, who joined Zheng He’s expedition and too was promoted.

Let me start with the relation Calicut had with ancient China. While it is a story by itself, trade flourished between the two countries and big Chinese ships (junks) were always found moored in the Calicut harbor during the 14th and 15th Centuries. In return for expensive gifts from the Zamorin, the Chinese king returned favor by deputing Zheng He with a shipload of gifts in 1407. Early journeys by this great Eunuch Chinese sailor Zheng He are well documented by Ma Huan. Calicut or Guli (Ku-li) went on to become a favorite destination for Zheng He who rose to an admiral’s position in the royal navy. After Zheng He’s fleet arrived in Guli and associated with the local people and officials, he was attracted to the simple and kind customs and people in Guli. Since then, every time Zheng He navigated west, he would stop by Guli. Zheng breathed his last at Calicut and was either buried there or his body was given a sea burial. His tomb in China has only some clothes and is mostly ceremonial. Zheng he is also known as Admiral Chengho.

Wang Tai Peng’s research establishes the following

Among the elite of the Zheng He crew, there were navigators both Chinese and foreigners. The Chinese navigators were simply called huo-chang. Foreigner navigators were called fan huochang or fanren huochang instead to be distinguished from the Chinese navigators. We don’t know how many of them were among them. But they were of considerable number for sure. Their mission was also to recruit those foreign navigators who were capable of ocean navigation by reading the sea-chart with compass points, cross-referencing stars and landmarks. In 1407, for example, foreign navigators were rewarded with monetary notes equivalent to 50 silver taels and a roll of embroidered silk each for their valuable contribution made to the success of the mission. While they were not entitled to official promotion, they got more material rewards in exchange.

Then there were the naturalized foreigners. There were quite a number of middle ranking naturalized-foreigner military officers under his command. Prominently among them was a military commander (zhihui) named Haji, who was a naturalized foreigner.

And a deputy battalion commander (fu qianfu) Shaban, originally named, as Sheban was a man of Calicut from India in origin. Because of his great admiration of China, Sheban came to live in China and joined the military. He served as a sergeant (zhengwu) of the Nanjing an embroidered-shirt guard. In 1430 he joined the seventh naval expedition of Zheng He mission. After his return, Xuande emperor promoted him to the rank of deputy battalion commander and conferred his name as Shaban in acknowledgement of his contribution to the mission. Sheban was a Chinese translation from the Arabic word which means August in the Islamic calendar. Arab people also commonly used it as personal name.

Silk Street – The Chinese of Calicut used to trade from the silk street. In bygone days, Silk Street was the hub of commercial enterprise in Malabar. Trading ships from far off lands, bearing the finest marble, carpets, and tiles docked at Calicut. The wealthy merchants of the areas in and around Silk Street bartered ships laden with silk calico, ivory, and spices for these foreign treasures. Even now, Silk Street is the popular hill-produce trading centre of Malabar.The Chinese are now gone, but the silk street remains. There was also a Chinese street in the past. The China street near Tagore Centenary Hall and Silk Street in Valiangadi bear testimony to the Chinese connections of yore, here was where Zheng he lived and even constructed a pavilion of sorts!!

But we do have today, a China Bazaar, behind the Corporation library where you can find deals such as a dozen batteries for Rs 10/- and the such …

MORE ABOUT ZHENG HE IN ANOTHER BLOG, It is a fascinating story!!

Pics - Wikipedia & other sites

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On the border

I am sure most of you in India would have watched this Bharati Airtel advert. Personally I do not know anything about Airtel other than the fact that it is a mobile telephone company in India, but this ad is far out…

Set in the Middle East (Morocco as I understand), it has music, I believe, scored by AR Rahman. Watch it, turn up the volume and you will realize the beauty and warmth of the ad.




Which takes you back to the famous award winning 16 minute short movie ‘The Little Terrorist” that came out some time back..If you have not seen it, watch it, better still check out the full quality DVD that is available in stores ...



Broken projector provides a detailed review and a synopsis.

Little Terrorist tells the moving story of a Pakistani Muslim boy who accidentally crosses the Pakistani-Indian border which is riddled with landmines. He ends up in a strange country that regards him as a terrorist. The old orthodox Hindu Bhola takes him in and hides him from the Indian soldiers. However, traditions and prejudices about Muslims remain an obstacle in the relationship between Bhola and the boy. Ultimately, humanity triumphs over prejudice when Bhola risks his own life to help Jamal cross the border again. This symbolic story of hope is a tale of human solidarity conquering all artificial boundaries.

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