Bengaluru-based designer has collaborated with fashion guru Prasad Bidapa and a top-knotch IT company and has created a fashion collection.
City models sporting a piece from Tahera’s latest collection.
Indeed, collective effort is what brings about a herculean change. But, there’s also no denying how it is those little acts of thoughtfulness and kindness that go on to make a world of difference. For, Bengaluru designer Tahera Peeran, landing a lofty yet creatively fulfilling collaboration with two tech companies and Prasad Bidapa is what has kept her busy and beaming in the recent past. Her latest collection oozes sparks of sustainability and the bespoke aura of all things handmade while focusing on an ingenious ink innovation by Dell. In a candid chat, she shares the inside track…
“I believe corporate social responsibility and giving back to the community improves the quality of our lives, creates sustainability and promotes a better and brighter future,” begins Tahera, who describes her collection best as, ‘Handmade, environment friendly.’ It’s done specifically to promote anti-air pollution, and to promote handmade, hand-looms and hand-weaves. Speaking of which, she elucidates, “I have worked with pure handlooms and Khadi to create a Japanese minimalist look with classic, relaxed and layered silhouettes.”
But team effort is what takes the cake.” This has been a collaboration of many people from varied strata. It was amazing to see how it came together and everybody contributed and the end results were remarkable,” shares the 37 year old.
The NIFT graduate, who’s label mixes quirky and contemporary designs with comfort and functionality, didn’t always knew this was her calling. “I dont think I always wanted to become a designer. It took me a while and the support of my family to help me zero in on design as a professional pursuit. I wanted to become a writer, so I grew up reading a lot of books. I was always interested in art. And, from there, I got interested in design — graphics, architecture. I remember sketching a lot of girls in my notebooks, with dresses and different clothes.”
She loves to juggle too many things at a time, so it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to see her indulge in a tonne of activities whenever time permits. On how her typical day looks like, she says, “I love to go out for a way. I need that time in the morning, I like to spend time around greenery. It leaves me feeling energized. I have a little daughter, and we get into the DIY projects. I also love watching old English movies and world cinema as well. Right now, I’m reading Rupi Kaur.”
The current collaboration is yet to become commercial. But, Tahera has all her hopes pinned on its success. “It’s a great step towards being sustainable, it needs to be developed further. I see a lot of potential in it. I’m hoping it will be commercial and accessible soon. It’s a way to move forward. People need to get together more and do collaborations like this. It takes a group of people to come together and work an idea like.That aside, I’ll be flaunting my free fall collection next. It’s a black and white line. I’m excited for the time ahead.”
source: http://www.asianage.com / The Asian Age / Home> Life> Fashion / The Asian Age / Pooja Prabban / July 23rd, 2018
The memoir inaugurates a subgenre as there are hardly any platforms where the Indian Muslim experience has been articulated as clearly as it has been in this book.
ON September 19, 2008, an encounter took place at Batla House, a building in the Muslim-dominated locality of Jamia Nagar in Delhi. In what has come to be known as the “Batla House Encounter”, Delhi Police shot dead two individuals who they alleged belonged to a terrorist outfit. Some civil society activists pointed out that there were flaws in the police’s narrative, leading to allegations that the encounter was staged. This is the event that ties up Neyaz Farooquee’s easy-to-read memoir on growing up Muslim in India. Farooquee was at the time a student of Jamia Millia Islamia and lived close to Batla House. His tryst with his Muslim identity in the wake of the encounter forms the backdrop of the book.
There is no nuanced way to say this, but it is not easy to be Muslim in India. Anti-Muslim prejudice runs deep in Indian society and manifests itself in a variety of ways. In its gentlest form, the Indian Muslim may be casually called “Pakistani” in the most rarefied of spaces, leaving him to cringe silently because of this unfair association with a neighbouring country. In its most savage form, anti-Muslim bigotry leads to horrendous and usually one-sided communal violence with state sanction that leaves Muslims feeling scarred, besieged and vulnerable. In between, there are various degrees of bias and hate that Indian Muslims face on a daily basis all over the country.
In the imagination of early Hindutva ideologues, Muslims are permanent fifth columnists who could never be truly Indian. Going by this credo, the Indian Muslim can be and is held guilty of events across time and space. A Muslim in Bengaluru in 2018 is often held guilty for M.A. Jinnah’s demand for Pakistan, and its eventual formation in 1947, as well as the supposed excesses of Muslim rulers of medieval India.
In the same way, lazy bigotry would also hold him accountable for a violent terrorist attack that takes place halfway across the world. Since the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government came to power in 2014, anti-Muslim sentiment has exploded in India and has been institutionalised to a great extent, with prejudicial sentiments being expressed brazenly. A hateful statement (say, by a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party like Anant Kumar Hegde that Islam must be effaced from the earth) that would have earlier caused an uproar only causes a grumpy murmur in Indian society now.
Surprisingly, there is little literature on this theme by Indian Muslims, even though it informs their existence tremendously. Dalits, who are another marginalised segment of Indian society, have a far richer corpus of literature on the experience of leading a discriminated existence. So, what is the responsibility of journalists and writers in such a scenario? As chroniclers of society, they have a certain obligation of writing about the Indian Muslim experience, considering that Muslims are the largest religious minority in India with a population of more than 170 million (according to the 2011 Census).
Farooquee’s memoir is novel in the sense that it inaugurates a subgenre as there are hardly any platforms where the Indian Muslim experience has been articulated as clearly and candidly as it has been in this book. Twin narratives chug the story along. One tells the tale of Farooquee’s early life growing up in a village in Bihar and his journey and life in Delhi, while a second narrative tells the story of his life after the Batla House encounter. Farooquee came to Delhi as a child and enrolled in a school. The book describes how he grew up away from his parents in Jamia Nagar in Delhi and eventually found his feet in the Muslim ghetto. His parents hoped that he would become an Indian Administrative Service officer, but he ended up becoming a journalist. His relationship with his grandfather and his secular world view are described in touching detail. It is heartbreaking to read about Farooquee’s anxiety after the Batla House encounter and of how his life changed, considering the general Indian Muslim distrust of investigating agencies. The murkiness of information about the encounter in the public domain and the contradictory reportage of a media quick to make slapdash conclusions are also dealt with in some detail in the book.
At one point, Farooquee writes: “Jamia Nagar creates a jumble of names, faces and identities, and possibly faulty memories. That memory could be yours, or someone else’s, and if that someone else is, let’s say, a Terror Suspect disguised as a Normal Human Being, you have no idea how is memory is going to behave. It was an alarming thought and it made everyone untrustworthy. Friends, close friends, acquaintances, strangers, everyone.” At another point, he writes about how something as innocuous as travel bags caused him consternation: “The reports also said the Terrorists had many travel bags in their flat, suggesting that they sheltered Terrorist-friends from out of town and were themselves given to travelling to different cities in India to plant bombs. It was as if none of these reporters had lived the life of a middle-class Indian student. My own bag served as a cupboard. Often, there were other bags lying around, from when friends, relatives and acquaintances stayed over—a free dormitory.”
A pall of restrained melancholia hangs over the story, and one feels that the narrative may erupt into something more violent—there is a gory retelling of the brutal killing of an uncle in the Bombay riots of 1992-93—but Farooquee’s story is not about the physical violence of the state but about what it does to the mind. The experience of an Indian Muslim and his constant state of vulnerability is what the memoir is all about. There is some stodginess with which the author articulates this, but that is a matter of style. There is also a lot of trite information which makes one feel that the story could have been told in the form of a long essay rather than a book. Nonetheless, Farooquee writes on an important theme, and hopefully, memoirs with richer stories on what it means to be an Indian Muslim will follow this account.
source: http://www.frontline.in / Frontline / Home> Books / by Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed / Print edition: August 17th, 2018
Diwali celebrations in Trafalgar Square. | Photo Credit: REUTERS
The 500-year-old history of Indians in London rubbishes notions of an ‘English’ England even during the Renaissance
With the Windrush scandal in a Brexit-torn Britain, thousands of British nationals of immigrant origins were denied basic welfare rights; many illegally deported. Protesters recently marched to the British Parliament. Protests against immigration bans and white nationalism in modern Britain date back to the 60s, when a new wave of immigrants began coming in from the Commonwealth countries, including the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia.
But the history of Asians — especially Indians — in London is staggeringly long, dating back to Elizabethan times. And, along with the history of other immigrant communities, their history squarely rubbishes the jingoist notions of England being purely ‘English’ even during the Renaissance or the Puritanical Movement.
Indians have lived and died in London since before the birth of Shakespeare. On March 22, 1550, Salamon Nurr — the Anglicised name of Suleman Noor — was buried at St. Margaret’s in Westminster. On December 28, 1613, another Indian, Samuel Munsur, married Jane Johnson at St. Nicholas Church in Deptford, about five miles from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in Southwark. More Indian betrothals, baptisms and burials followed. ‘Peter Pope,’ a lad from Bengal, was the first known Indian to be baptised in London, on December 22, 1616. He was brought to London in 1614 by Captain Best and handed over to Reverend Patrick Copland, the East India Company’s chaplain in Masulipatnam (now Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh). Copland instructed him in religion, so that Peter could administer the conversion of more Indians on his return.
The ‘Indian Caliban’
‘What have we here? A man or a fish?’ asks Trinculo, the Shakespearean fool in The Tempest (1610). ‘A strange fish! Were I in England now, as once I was, and had but this fish painted, not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver… When they will not give a doit to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.’
On Fenchurch Street where Peter — the Indian Caliban — was Anglicised, the entire political apparatus of England came to watch. Peter’s name was suggested by King James himself. The Archbishop of Canterbury blessed the baptism in the presence of the directors of the Companies and the members of the Privy Council. Peter’s entry into the London scene was a manifestation of the ‘boy stolen from an Indian King,’ that Shakespeare wrote about in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595). Peter returned to India in 1617, soon to be a forgotten character from an unsung history.
In 1720, an Indian youth of 16, was taken from Madras, shipped to London by Captain Dawes, and gifted to Mrs. Elizabeth Turner, who christened him ‘Julian’. Mrs. Turner forced him to dance and croon — as she deemed was suited to his custom — before guests. On August 8, 1724, Julian stole 20 guineas and set the house on fire. When arrested, he confessed to the theft. Julian was publicly executed at Tyburn Tree, but not before consenting to be baptised and rechristened as ‘John’ in a last ditch attempt to commute his death sentence.
Another Indian, ‘Catherine Bengall’, was purchased in Bengal at the age of 10, trafficked to London by one Suthern Davies, and gifted to his relative, Ann Suthern. She was baptised at St. James’s Church, Westminster, on November 26, 1745, and set free by the Sutherns. She then became the concubine of one William Lloyd, who left her pregnant and penniless in July 1746. She was sheltered at the local parish workhouse of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, where her son was born on September 22, 1746, and christened William, after his father. Soon after, either due to death or destitution, the names of Catherine and William faded from the annals of the East India Company, just as Shakespeare’s mythical sister — Virginia Woolf’s creation, Judith Shakespeare — had disappeared from London 150 years ago.
‘George Clive and his Family with an Indian Maid’, a painting by Joshua Reynolds, 1765. | Photo Credit: Wiki Commons
From the period between Peter’s baptism and John’s hanging, 15 burials and baptisms have surfaced from the various parish churches in London. Not all Indian converts to the Church of England were necessarily baptised, entailing that there may have been more Indians than registered in Christian records. That number was obviously much smaller than those Indians who did not convert at all.
Old records
Some of those who did convert, and whose names were recorded in the parishes of St. Botolphs Aldgate, St. Andrews Holborn, St Olave Hart Street, St. Edmund Lombard Street, or All Hallows Lombard Street, were: James, a servant of James Duppa, the beer-brewer; Phillip, an Indian born in Surat; Thomas, a servant of Lord Brooke; George, a servant of Robert Andrews; Trumbelo, a black Indian; Loreta, a female servant woman; Marck Anthony; Mary Alphabet, a servant of Mrs. Richardson; Joan Hill, a servant of Lt. General Hill; Daniel Mingoe, a servant of the Lady Ann Godwin; Francis Brewer, a servant of Thomas Rutter; Sarah Bamoo, a female servant; Titus Vespatian, a servant of Thomas Robinson; Thomas James Campbell, an Indian youth, and so on.
A few early examples of representations of Indians in London’s popular culture are Anthony van Dyck’s portrait (1633) of William Feilding, 1st Earl of Denbigh, saved in a forest by a turbaned Indian boy; Peter Lely’s portrait (1674) of Lady Charlotte Fitzroy being offered grapes by an Indian page; and Joshua Reynolds’ painting (1765) of George Clive and his Family with an Indian Maid, in London. Much before Charles II took the island of Bombay and a chest of tea for his dowry, in 1662, Indian servants had started working in London homes. The historian Michael H. Fisher, in his book, Indian Travellers and Settlers in Britain, 1600-1857 (2004), terms these fleets of Indians as ‘counterflows to colonialism’. During and after the Restoration, Indians in London remained in undocumented servitude. After 1657, it was easier to find them on the shores of England than on the Coromandel or the Malabar. The directors of East India Company decided that those returning to India needed an official licence, which cost £12 (about £1,500 in today’s currency). This left Indian labourers stranded in London, left to beg or offer themselves up for dockyard or domestic labour.
By the end of the 19th century, there were about 140,000 British Europeans in India. India’s population then was 330 million. According to Fisher, by the mid-19th century, thousands of Indian lascars, ayahs, scholars, soldiers, students, merchants and diplomats had travelled to Britain. Fisher suggests that the number of Indians in Britain around this time was 40,000, within a total population of about 30 million. If Fisher’s number is anything to go by, between the 19th and 20th centuries, about 0.15% of the British population was Indian. Around the same time, British Europeans accounted for less than 0.05% of the population in India. Arguably, the proportion of Indians living in Britain in the 19th century was thrice the proportion of Britons living in India. In the 1930s, Indian students accounted for 87% of all colonial students in British universities. By 1939, Indians — largely Sikhs — were conspicuous in every large British town.
The early history of the Indian diaspora in Britain is often restricted to Joseph Emin, Ihtishamuddin, or Sake Deen Mahomed — 18th century Indian travellers, diplomats, or entrepreneurs who reached London after the British conquest of Bengal. But to challenge the brute rhetoric, we need to cultivate deeper historical awareness about the Indians who lived in London nearly 500 years ago, rubbing shoulders with Shakespeare’s audiences.
The writer teaches English at O.P. Jindal Global University, and is author of The Purveyors of Destiny: A Cultural Biography of the Indian Railways.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society / by Arup K. Chatterjee / August 04th, 2018
Hanan, who became a social media star after Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi ran a news report about her struggle to run her family, received support from CM Pinarayi Vijayan. He said she was a symbol of courage and determination and that the state must rise to support her.
Hanan walked the ramp in the state capital as part of the state-level inauguration of the Onam-Bakrid Khadi Mela 2018.
Hanan Hamid, the 21-year-old final year student of chemistry whose resolve to fund her education by selling fish and doing odd jobs had made her a darling among the social media in Kerala, met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the state capital on Wednesday. She also walked the ramp for a fashion show organised by the Kerala Khadi Board in Thiruvananthapuram.
Hamid, whose onerous circumstances were reported by the local Mathrubhumi newspaper recently, initially received a lot of bouquets from those on social media. However, certain people on Facebook began spreading rumours that Hamid’s story was fabricated as part of a marketing stunt for a film and that it was akin to cheating the people of the state. The 21-year-old subsequently became a victim of dangerous levels of cyber-harassment and abuse. Two people, who were at the centre of the false rumours, were arrested by the Kerala Police and charged under relevant sections.
During the controversy, Hamid received support from the chief minister and leaders from all parties. The CM said she was a symbol of courage and determination and that the state must rise to support her. During her trip to Thiruvananthapuram, Hamid told reporters that she was a ‘daughter of the government’ and that she was assured of protection from the state. She thanked those who backed her story.
Hanan is Khadi’s face for Onam-Bakrid expo
She walked the ramp at a fashion show organised in the state capital as part of the state-level inauguration of the Onam-Bakrid Khadi Mela 2018. At the event, she met the chief minister and Sobhana George, vice-chairperson of the Kerala Khadi Board. George told reporters that Hamid was symbolic of the hundreds of hard-working women labourers toiling in the Khadi sector in the state.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> India / b y Express Web Desk , Kochi / August 02nd, 2018
The story of Haji Baqir Ali Badayuni, the Halwa Paratha seller who was acknowledged by the Late Prime minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi
Portraits of Haji Baqar Ali.
Each year during the month of Dhul Qadah, the annual congregation (Urs) of 19th-century Sufi saint widely popular as Shah Ji Mohammad Sher Miyan took place in the small city of Uttar Pradesh, Pilibhit. The main congregational prayers were held on 03rd to 05th Dhul Qadah. As common with all Urs and traditional fairs, one can find makeshift stalls of Halwa Paratha erected on road leading to the dargah.
Last year while passing down the crowded street near the dargah, it was two old portraits hanging on the stall of ” Badayuni Halwa Paratha” that caught my attention for exploration. The first one is the portrait captioned in Urdu and Hindi introducing him as Late Haji Baqar Ali Badayuni. In the first portrait, the late Baqar has nicely wrapped a traditional white turban with a vest jacket (Sadri). The pen clipped to the front pocket of the vest reflected an impressive dressing style more of a writer than a Halwa Paratha shop owner.
The second portrait was torn from the lower edge and almost faded. In this portrait, the Baqir was receiving an award from late Prime minister, Indira Gandhi.
I made a request to the man sitting on the cash counter to parcel one packet of his calories loaded large size Paratha, and Halwa made up of Suji (Semolina). During the conversation, he told that Haji Baqar Ali was his grandfather who started to sold Halwa Paratha during Colonial days. The Halwa Paratha stall was named after his birthplace, Badayun.
Badayun is the small city of Uttarpradesh located one hundred twenty-eight kilometers south-west of Pilibhit. It was once the mighty capital of Katehar Province during the reign of Mamluks and also the birthplace of the famous 13th-century Sufi of Central Asian origin, Hazrat Nizamuddin Awliya.
The torn and faded portrait of Haji Baqar Ali receiving the shield from late Prime minister Indira Gandhi with the live portrait of man frying large size parathas.
In the decade of the sixties and seventies, the Badayuni Halwa Paratha was a popular street food stall at Urs of Hazrat Nizamuddin and Hajj house near Turkman Gate at Delhi. In off times, he used to manage a hotel at Badayun named as Sultani Hotel. It was during this time, Haji Baqar Ali was also acknowledged by Late Prime minister, Indira Gandhi for serving his street food delicacy at syncretic Indian gatherings especially at Hazrat Nizamuddin Urs. For almost six decades, the man moved with his stall at the Urs (death anniversary) of Sufis like a wandering nomad. Haji Abdul Qadir passed away in mid-eighties at age of eighty-eight years. While recalling the old days, the grandson of Baqar Ali got melancholic.
Grandson of Baqar Ali with his chef.
In the present scenario, he is hardly able to manage expenses as the earnings are meager in comparison to the grandfather days. These two portraits and name of the stall “Badayun Halwa Parath” made his street food shop different from the several others. This seems to the prized possession of a grandson who is now taking care of Haji Baqar legacy.
source: http://www.rehanhist.com / RehanHist.com / Home / August 02nd, 2018
A talented singer, Umbai (original name is PA Ibrahim) is known for his beautiful Ghazal renditions of old Malayalam songs and his own Ghazals.
Malayalam ghazal singer Umbai. (Image: YouTube)
Kochi:
Prominent Malayalam Ghazal singer and composer Umbayee passed away on Wednesday evening at a hospital in Aluva. He was 68.
Umbayee was born in Mattanchery near Kochi. He is known for his soulful Ghazal renditions of old Malayalam songs. A talented singer, Umbayee (original name is PA Ibrahim) released his first album in 1988. He has released more than ten Ghazal albums and has associated with prominent music directors and lyricists in Kerala.
Umbayee has composed music for poems written by literary stalwarts like ONV Kurup and Satchidanandan. He has also sung Ghazals of legends like Mehdi Hassan, Jagjit Singh, etc.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Kerala / by Firos BF, Express News Service / August 01st, 2018
Many Indian dishes can be traced back, indirectly, to a 16th-century, food-obsessed ruler named Babur.
Babur Being Entertained in Ghazni, from the Baburnama, the memoirs of Ẓahīr al-din Muhammad. PUBLIC DOMAIN
ZAHIR AL-DIN MUHAMMAD, THE 16TH century Central Asian prince better known as Babur, is renowned for his fierce pedigree and proclivities. Descended from both Timur and Genghis Khan, he used military genius to overcome strife and exile, conquer northern India, and found the Moghul dynasty, which endured for over 300 years. He was a warlord who built towers of his enemies’ skulls on at least four occasions. Yet he was also a cultured man who wrote tomes on law and Sufi philosophy, collections of poetry, and a shockingly honest memoir, the Baburnama, in which he appears to us as one of the most complex and human figures of the early modern era.
Through the Baburnama, we learn that Babur was versed in courtly Persian speech and custom, yet nonetheless a populist who built strong ties with nomads and championed the vernacular Chagatai Turkic tongue in the arts. He was a pious man, but was also given to libertine escapades, including massive, wine-fueled parties.
But the first—and arguably one of the most culturally consequential—personal details he reveals is that he was a food snob. Babur loved the foods of his homeland and hated those he found when he had to reestablish himself in India, which to him was mostly a way station on the bloody road back to the melon patches of his youth. He didn’t just whinge about missing foods from home, though. He imported and glorified them in his new kingdom, laying the groundwork for his descendants to warp Indian cuisine so profoundly that they redefined that culinary tradition, as many know it worldwide, to this day.
A depiction of Babur meeting Sultan ‘Ali Mirza near Samarqand, from the Baburnama. PUBLIC DOMAIN
The Baburnama opens with a description of Ferghana, a region now split between Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, where Babur grew up. Known then and now as the breadbasket of Central Asia, it follows that Babur would touch on agriculture. But in introducing his hometown of Andijan, Babur opens with a note on the quality of its grapes and melons before turning his attention to its layout and fortifications. He then ducks back to praise its game meats, especially its pheasants, which “are so fat, that the report goes that four persons may dine on the broth of one of them and not be able to finish it.” Only then does he tell us of the people who live there.
Almost anytime he describes a place back home, he starts with vittles. Margilan is known for its dried apricots, pitted and stuffed with almonds. Khojand’s pomegranates are proverbially good, but they pale next to Margilan’s. And Kandbadam is tiny and insignificant, but it grows the best almonds in the region, so it’s worth mentioning.
“Early sections of his Baburnama,” writes Fabrizio Foschini, in a report on Afghanistani melons authored in 2011, “really sound like a consumer guide to the fruit markets of Central Asia.”
A detail of date trees illustrated in the Baburnama. PUBLIC DOMAIN
Babur doesn’t forget food once he gets into the meaty war stories, either. He breaks one narrative to note that the area around a castle he just besieged grew a unique melon with puckered yellow skin, apple-like seeds, and pulp as thick as four fingers.
The Baburnama is not solely concerned with food. The bulk of it is a painstaking record of families and feuds, and Babur dwells on other seemingly random details that tickled him, such as a courtier’s talent at leapfrog. Since we don’t have a similarly honest accounting from his peers, it’s hard to say whether Babur’s epicureanism was atypical.
Given the chaos he grew up in, though, it’s incredible that Babur could spare any thought for food. Thrust to power at age 11 (by the Gregorian calendar), in 1494, he had to navigate bloody infighting amongst his relatives. Known as the Timurid princes after their conqueror-ancestor Timur, they jockeyed against each other for regional control. Babur became an active participant in this Central Asian game of thrones—he seemed particularly obsessed with taking the regional cultural capital of Samarkand. While he seized it in 1497, he lost the city almost immediately, as well as Ferghana, and (a very long story short) spent the rest of his teenage years reclaiming or losing bits of territory, fleeing into exile with remote nomadic tribes, and trying to court new followers and surge back. Although he never stopped trying to reclaim Samarkand and his homeland, by 1504, at age 21, he’d effectively been forced out of the region for the rest of his life.
A portrait of Babur. PUBLIC DOMAIN
That year, he pulled off a fantastic feat of warlord jiujitsu, flipping a rival’s forces into his service and marching on Kabul, which was vulnerable after undergoing its own contentious power shift. Babur took the city, and, naturally, set to cultivating its produce scene. In and around the city, he built at least 10 grand gardens that included a fair number of fruiting plants.
While Babur’s writings suggest a personal obsession with food, it’s hard to disentangle this obsession from homesickness. There were also political reasons for him to pay so much attention to cuisine: Food snobbery was a standard way for a Timurid prince such as Babur to make his mark and prove his elite bona fides in a new land. “The Timurids, while ethnically Turkic, based their legitimacy to a large extent on their being champions of Persianate ‘high’ culture,” says Central Asian historian Richard Foltz, “which included taste in food.”
Kabul proved ill endowed to support a successful campaign back to Ferghana, though. So Babur turned his attention to neighboring India. He got a lucky break when a new king—an inept man who clearly had dissenters and rebels in his ranks—came to power in the northern Sultanate of Delhi. Babur struck at this weakness, invading the region through the early 1520s. Despite being outmanned by a ratio of perhaps five-to-one in his final standoff with the sultan, he usurped the throne in 1526.
Babur entering Kabul. PUBLIC DOMAIN
According to Foltz, Central Asians mostly looked down on Indians, who were neither Muslims nor Persianate. Babur, his recent biographer Stephen Dale notes, was also still deeply homesick. These factors, and possibly personal tastes, led him to dismiss his new territory, and especially its food: “Hindustan is a country that has few pleasures to recommend it. … [There is] no good flesh, no grapes or muskmelons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good bread or food in their bazaars.”
Babur shouldn’t have had time for food in India either. He spent the last four years of his life fighting local insurgencies and consolidating his power. In 1530, he died at the age of 48, in Agra, the north Indian city where his great-great grandson Shah Jahan (lived 1592–1666) would later build the Taj Mahal. But he wrote letters in those years expressing his desire to return home, or at least taste its grapes and melons. He describes receiving a melon from Kabul and weeping as he ate it. He planted Central Asian grapes and melons in India, which brought him some joy. He even asked local chefs to make Persianate food for him, although one of them tried to poison him.
By establishing supply chains that brought his native agriculture and cuisine to the region, Babur left a lasting legacy. “He probably played a role in bringing Central Asian influences into the elite, courtly Indian life,” says Elizabeth Collingham, a food historian who explored Babur’s life and influence in her history of curries .
Babur, on the Way to Hindustan, Camping at Jam, from the Baburnama. PUBLIC DOMAIN
Granted, Babur was not the first Central Asian lord in what is now India. From 1206 to Babur’s day, five prior Central Asian dynasties ruled from Delhi. They too imported foods from home, cooked dishes they knew, and even did some fusion cooking. Trade and migration also meant there’d always been interplay between the regions, including culinary influence. Glimpses of this cultural mingling include the first mentions of samosas in the region’s written record—in accounts of those earlier medieval sultans’ feasts.
But according to Rukhsana Iftikhar, a historian of social life amongst the Mughals, the Persian word for “Mongols” by which Babur’s descendants came to be known, many of these dishes differed in style and flavor profile from the Persian-influenced Central Asian cuisine Babur preferred. They likely had not caught on with the general Indian population by the time Babur arrived, and few of them would sound familiar to fans of global Indian fare today.
Historians like Dale and Foltz chalk this up to the fact that previous dynasties—while they had some cultural influence—seemed to see India mostly as a piggy bank. They didn’t like to mix with local elites, and their culture was not grand or stable enough to invite mimicry and adaptation.
A banquet with roast goose. PUBLIC DOMAIN
Babur, by contrast, was more statesman than raider. His pedigree and strong connections to Iran also gave him and his descendants more cultural cachet, and those descendants mixed more readily with the local populace. And for over a century after his death, Mughal rulers continued to praise the same foods Babur praised and keep the caravans of his beloved Central Asian fruits and nuts flowing. Babur’s successor Humayun brought Persian cooks to Delhi, and Humayun’s son, Akbar, was notably cosmopolitan and curious in the kitchen. Later descendents were not as invested in Persianate culture and the foods of Ferghana as Babur. But either as a means of displaying their wealth or of brandishing the superiority of their heritage, they carried on the culinary trajectory Babur set up.
Babur’s descendants also spent lavishly on their kitchens, elevating food as a status symbol. But unlike Babur, they made it a point to round up chefs from around their Indian domains, a practice that invited fusion. The grandeur and duration of their courts, argues Collingham, led local elites to copy their Persianate and Central Asian motifs and augment their own kitchens, leading to parallel fusion work in places like Hyderabad, Kashmir, and Lucknow. Over the centuries, these innovations coalesced into Mughlai food, a stable cuisine common across, although not ubiquitous in, northern India by the early 20th century.
This cuisine was defined by, among other things, aromatic, creamy curries, often incorporating the nuts and dried fruits Babur adored. It includes many dishes familiar to Western diners today: Korma, a blend of Central Asian nuts and dairy with Persian and Indian spices. Rogan Josh, a slow-cooked, Persian-style meat spiced up in the kitchens of Kashmir. And tandoori grilling, facilitated by Mughal tweaks to said grills and to marinades and spicing styles.
These dishes became ubiquitous in the West, Collingham says, because haute Indian chefs have long viewed Mughlai cooking the same way Western cooks used to see Le Cordon Bleu. Indians who set up restaurants abroad made Mughlai food the template of Indian food in the U.S. and U.K.—to the chagrin of Indians who grew up eating many other cuisines that remain hard to find outside their homelands.
None of this was a conscious project for Babur. But by setting up shop in Agra and Delhi, he created a wave that shook the foundations of India, culinary and otherwise. His tastes indirectly fueled 300-plus years of kitchen innovation. It’s no Central Asian dynasty of skulls and melons. It’s something more widespread and enduring, if unexpected or unwanted.
Gastro Obscura covers the world’s most wondrous food and drink.
source: http://www.atlasobscura.com / Atlas Obscura / Home> Stories / by Mark Hay / November 15th, 2017
FOR A FAIR CONTRACT At the discussion that followed the book release, the panellists (from left) journalist Marya Shakil, lawyer J.C. Batra, author Ziya Us Salam and Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Zameeruddin Shah) discussed women’s rights in Islam
Ziya Us Salam’s “Till Talaq Do Us Part” defogs the miasma around the issue of instant triple talaq
Triple talaq is a phrase that the citizens of India became acutely aware of post the events of 2017, when seven women petitioners moved the Supreme Court against their instant divorce brought about through the uttering of the words ‘talaq, talaq, talaq.’ The apex Court had, on August 22, ruled that instant triple talaq was a practice not sanctioned in the Quran, yet a fog of confusion and obfuscation surrounds the general discourse and public understanding of what exactly constitutes an Islamic divorce. In this context, Till Talaq Do Us Part (Penguin Random House) by senior journalist Ziya Us Salam is a book that acquires much significance as it tries to brush the dust away and bring clarity to the issue by reverting to the most authentic source for Islamic knowledge — the Quran.
Released this past evening at the India International Centre by Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Zamiruddin Shah, the book defines nine types of divorce interpreted from Quranic verses.
Among them some of the most important ones are Khula, the inalienable right of the woman to instantly divorce her husband on the grounds of his inability to take care of her needs or even simply her dislike for him; Talaq e Ehsan where the man pronounces divorce once but the woman lives with him for the next three months, after which he can divorce her or they can reconcile; Talaq e Hasan where the man pronounces divorce three times in three months, but only in the interim periods of menstrual cycles; Mubarat which takes place through mutual consent, Faskh or judicial divorce; Talaq e Tafweez which is incorporated into the Nikahnama wherein the husband vests the rights of divorce in his wife.
Lack of information
“In the present scenario within the country, the right information on Islam was not reaching the masses,” says Salam. Which is why he decided to write this book that talks about numerous aspects of marriage including the model nikahnama that the AIMPLB spoke of circulating but never quite got down to the task. He also speaks of the importance of meher, the dower paid by the man to the woman at the time of marriage, and how it is entirely neglected among Muslims in India. The meher must be paid either in full to the woman at the time of nikah, or in part with the husband giving a written undertaking that he would pay the rest in future, he emphasises. “One of the most important things is to have one regular nikahnama for all Muslims — at the most two, one for Sunnis and the other for Shias — but ideally, just one.”
Understanding halala
The book also deals with the highly controversial issue of halala, which in truth has been contorted and disfigured heavily into an abhorrent act of female exploitation. Halala, explains Salam, actually gives a woman the right to choose.
If perchance a woman’s second husband either passes away or the second marriage too results in divorce, she has the right to go back and choose her first husband again. However, with the entirely invalid and un-Quranic practice of triple talaq, instant divorces are carried out in a fit of anger and when the man comes to his senses and wishes to reconcile with the woman, they are forced into a monstrous distortion of Halala. When triple talaq gets pushed out of the scene, the question of a one-night halala would not arise at all.
Several scholars state that triple talaq was made legal by Umar Ibn Khattab, the second Caliph in Islamic history. “The important fact which is overlooked, though, is that it was made legal upon the condition that the man giving triple talaq would be flogged,” he highlights. “So why do the maulanas forget to flog the men giving triple talaq?”
A very important point here is that instant triple talaq did not exist at the time of Prophet Mohammad at all, nor the time of the first Caliph. Equally pertinently, it was later made entirely invalid and illegal by Ali Ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Caliph of Islam.
Many Islamic countries have made the instant talaq illegal and it is non-existent among the Shia sect. In fact it is illegal in all other sects except the Hanafis, but as the author writes in his book, “there is no direct word from Imam Hanifa on triple talaq.”
But social structures are rigid and herd tendencies difficult to change, which is why the Supreme Court judgement against instant triple talaq cannot be enough, just as dowry and caste system still exist despite being grossly unconstitutional. In addition, the maulanas whom the masses look to for religious guidance are ill-equipped for the task, caught as they are between rote-recitation and following customs without an attempt at understanding. “Across the country, a vast number of Imams don’t even know (the meaning of) what they have read in namaz!” avers Salam. “They prevent women from coming to mosques but at the Kaaba in Mecca, women and men pray together, perform Hajj together. There is no restriction at all upon women praying in mosques.”
The important task, then, is for the community to be educated and made aware of their rights, for people to read translations of the Quran and develop a deeper understanding. One may pick any translation and exegesis among the many reputed ones, but the most important thing is to explore. In addition, the men must be made aware of the rights of women as much as the women themselves. As Salam says, “We have reduced the understanding of the Quran to the monopoly of some aalim. But the Quran came for all of humanity, not a select group of scholars.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books> Authors / by Zehra Naqvi / May 03rd, 2018
The legendary singer extended his vocal range to foreign languages whenever he got the opportunity.
Mohammed Rafi | Sujata Dev
Mohammed Rafi’s first break as a singer came in 1942, when he sang the duet Goriye ni Heeriye ni with Zeenat Begum for composer Shyam Sunder in the Punjabi film Gul Baloch (1944). Since then, he sang an estimated 4,500-5,000 songs in 14 Indian languages and four foreign languages until his death on July 31, 1980.
Not a bad feat at all for a singer who struggled with even English. In the biography Mohammed Rafi: Golden Voice of the Silver Screen, Sujata Dev writes about how the unlettered singer would politely turn down requests for autographs as his fame grew. “He began practising his signature diligently and when Ammi (mother) enquired why he was wasting reams of paper, he told her that he did not want to deprive his fans and so was learning to sign his name in English,” Rafi’s son, Shahid, told Dev. “Soon he began signing autographs in English and enjoyed doing so. It came as a great compliment for all his efforts when a journalist mentioned that he had the best signature in the industry.”
Rafi was born on December 24, 1924, in Kotla, a village near Amritsar. Singing in English became one of his greatest triumphs, especially since the language was a stumbling block throughout his life. When music composers Shankar-Jaikishen approached him to sing English numbers for a non-film music album in 1968, the singer was hesitant. Maverick actor-writer Harindranath Chattopadhyay , an ardent fan of the singer, wrote the lyrics. He convinced Rafi to take up the assignment, helping the singer perfect his diction for the recording. The two songs were Although we hail from different lands, based on the same composition as Baharon phool barsao (Suraj, 1966), and The she I love, based on the composition Hum kaale hain toh kya hua (Gumnaam, 1965).
Rafi’s English songs pale in comparison to the command he had over Hindi songs but never one to back down, he made a valiant effort to overcome his fears and grasp his limitations as a singer. It also gave him the courage to test his vocals in other foreign languages such as Dutch, Creole and Persian.
In this clip, Rafi sings in Creole, the local language of Mauritius, when he toured the country in the 1960s. He sings Mo le coeur toujours soif zot l’amour camarade (My heart will always be thirsty for your love, my friends), based on the tune of Ehsaan mere dil pe tumhara hai doston(Gaban, 1966).
‘Mo le coeur toujours soif zot l’amour camarade’.
This video clip shows Rafi performing at a concert in Dutch. He sings Ik zal jou nooit vergeten al zal ik in India zijn (I will never forget you, although I will be in India). The music is by Shankar-Jaikishen from the composition Baharon phool barsao, which remains immensely popular among Rafi fans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz2piQTmraY
‘Ik zal jou nooit vergeten al zal ik in India zijn’.
For the Persian track Aye Taaza Gul (O fresh flower), Rafi collaborated with Afghani singer Zheela.
‘Aye Taaza Gul’.
In Mohammed Rafi: Golden Voice of the Silver Screen, Sujata Dev writes, “Kersi Lord, the multi-faceted musician had a long association with Rafi. He also happened to be the singer’s next door neighbour. ‘I remember once an Iranian couple had come to India and they wanted Rafi Sahab to sing an Iranian song. He called me home to play the synthesizer as he sang the song, with a fluency that made it seem as if it was his own mother tongue. The couple was left spellbound.”
Boxer Muhammad Ali felicitates Rafi in Chicago during one of his tours. Courtesy Sujata Dev’s ‘Mohammed Rafi’.
source: http://www.scroll.in / The Scroll / Home> The Reel> Tribute / by Manish Gaekwad / July 31st, 2016
Where there is will there is a way, Sara Ansari proved the cliché with her exceptional qualities and abilities. Indian born Sara, who is a resident of Dubai now, has not only makes her parents proud over her success, India and Dubai too delighted over her achievements.
Born in Malegaon a small town in Maharashtra and brought up in Dubai Sara has secured 98% marks in CBSE 10th Examination which was held in March 2018 and result of which was declared on May 29th. Interestingly she got 100% in Mathematics as well as in Science.
She aims to pursue her career in Astro Physics which deals with space research. She believes that by pursuing this career she can participate in promotion of science education and eliminate the poverty and hunger from the world.
Sara is not only excellent academically but also proved her talent in many extracurricular activities.
She has been awarded by the prestigious Diana Award in recognition of her outstanding contribution to society. The Diana Award is bestowed upon inspiring courageous, Compassionate young people, positively transforming the lives of others in Diana, “Princess of Wales” memory and legacy.
She is a confident speaker and an outstanding Debater too.This Year at the occasion of Independence Day, she has been awarded by “The Best Speaker “ Award by the Consulate General of India in Dubai in recognition of her performance in Inter School Debate Competition.
She is a prefect of Model United Nation Club in her school. She has visited United Nation New York, U.S.A. in July 2014 as a part of her Global Young leader conference. and attended several MUN Conferences in Dubai and Globally and achieved the Best Delegate Awards. Model United Nation also known as MUN is an extra-curricular activity in which students typically role-play delegates to the United Nations and simulate UN Committees. This activity takes place at MUN Conferences which is usually organized by High school or Collage MUN Club. Her paintings too won her many awards and accolades.
“We are so proud of her that there is no word to explain” says her father Iqbal Ansari, adding that her achievements have been a direct result of self-discipline and dedication to performing the required research and practice necessary for success in such endeavors.
The student of The Millennium School, Dubai has also won the prestigious Sharjah Award for Educational Excellence for the academic year 2015-2016. This award is instituted by Ruler of Sharjah H.H. Dr. Shaikh Sultan Bin Mohammad Al Qasimi for recognizing outstanding achievers in academics and co-curricular activities, with special emphasis on social responsibilities.
The award was presented to her by Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Sharjah, HH Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed bin Sultan Al Qasimi in a glittering ceremony held at University City hall, Sharjah on Thursday, 21st April 2016.
“It is a glorious moment for our country, family & school that Sara Ansari was awarded the prestigious Sharjah Award for educational excellence for the ‘Most Distinguished Student’, for the academic year 2015-2016”, says her father.
Sara was also the winner of prestigious Sheikh Hamdan Award for Distinguished Performance 2015, the award recognises the students from Gulf Countries who excel not only in Academics but social, religious, cultural, sports activities. The award was presented to her during 2015 by Deputy Ruler of Dubai HH Shaikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum.
Sara and her partner design a Drone under theme “Drone to Rescue” which would help mountaineers for rescue, the project won first award for deigns during Makers Day 2016 which was organised by GMS. The project was chosen top 10 finalist out of 700 projects presented by different UAE schools at GEMS Wellington School Dubai. The project was selected by Arab Innovation Centre for Educational Excellence for AICE accelerator Programme, as a part of this programme they got funding and mentoring from industry experts to expand the project scope and evaluate the commercial and technical feasibility.
Social Activities: Sara’s passion is Art & craft, she knows several Art & Craft techniques like Decoupage, paper quelling, embroidery, par cord. She has taught the skills to less fortunate people in Sri Lanka, India, UAE. She was recognised for her efforts and appreciated by community members and international NGO’s. Kindly visit her website www.facebook.com/sarastalent to know more about her activities.
Sara’s talent is drawing & painting, she has won many certificates and award from different bodies and international organisations. She has a special skill of Pyrography, the art or technique of decorating wood or leather by burning a design on the surface with a heated metallic point.
She is also very good swimmer and also interest in ice skating, roller skating and participated in marathons.
source: http://www.theindianawaaz.com / The Indian Awaaz / by The Correspondent , The Indian Awaaz / June 04th, 2018
