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| THE MYSTIC: Martin Buckley |
Does Hinduism really need saving?
Hinduism in India will be weakened unless Hindus are given the freedom to assert their faith, according to a British author whose book tour of India might arouse a bit of interest — to put it mildly.
“If the religion is not shored up and institutionalised to a greater extent it will go away,” warns Martin Buckley, who plans to visit Calcutta, Mumbai, Delhi and other cities later this month to promote An Indian Odyssey (Hutchinson; £18.99).
A former BBC journalist-turned-author, Buckley, 51, has lived in India for four years, travelled the country widely, and studied several translations of the Ramayan according to Valmiki, Tulsidas and Kamban.
His book is essentially about the Ramayan, but Buckley adds that the epic is “a prism through which you could view so many aspects of India”.
Having visited Ayodhya, his view is: “It was not completely unreasonable for Hindus to request, at least, that this defunct mosque, which had been de facto a Hindu place of worship for decades, should be demolished.”
Many will be surprised he believes Hinduism is in danger when Christians are being attacked by militant Hindus in Orissa and Narendra Modi reigns supreme in Gujarat but Buckley tells me: “I would hate what I see to some extent which is Hinduism being swept aside. It is under an onslaught from western rationalism.”
He does not want Hindus to be either violent or strident. However, “people should not be told because they are in a majority they should shut up”.
After an Indian friend, Ravi, was killed in a traffic accident in Mumbai, Buckley went to the Himalayas where he claims to have had “a mystical experience”.
“My interest in Hinduism was absolutely cemented by that experience,” he confides.
Today, Buckley’s son, Leo, six, bears the middle name, Ravi. “My son knows the Ramayan extremely well — he loves it. And he worships Ganesh.”
Buckley has been hired by a travel company, Indus Tours, to take British tourists in January, 2010, on the first ever tour “following in the footsteps of Lord Rama, from his birthplace to the scene of his great battle in Sri Lanka”.
Perhaps one should book now while there are still places.
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| SHUTTERBUG: Shrenik Sett autographing Miracle at Lord’s |
Mahendra Singh Dhoni was last week named the ICC’s ODI player of the year but perhaps even he doesn’t realise just what he owes to India’s World Cup victory at Lord’s in 1983.
To help a new generation catch up with history, there is now a 308-page book of photographs, Shrenik Sett’s Miracle at Lord’s (1983), which was launched by MoM Mohinder Amarnath in London last week.
Also on the market is a TV home entertainment DVD, 1983: India’s World Cup, whose co-producer, Ashis Ray, emphasises: “1983 has been an inspiration for succeeding generations of Indian cricketers.”
Shrenik now works in advertising in Calcutta but back in 1983 he was an enterprising photographer in his mid-twenties who accompanied the Indian team and was given the kind of friendly access that would be impossible today. There is no television footage of Kapil Dev’s heroic 175 not out against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells but Shrenik was present.
“In all, I used about 300 rolls of black and white Kodak film,” Shrenik told me. “I also developed them.”
Shrenik has included a photograph of journalist Manab Mazumdar, who grinned into his beard, now flecked with distinguished grey. “Shrenik put me in because I helped him with accreditation. It wasn’t easy but I got him into Lord’s.”
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Sir Richard Stagg, British high commissioner in India, whom I met briefly at a London dinner recently, wants something by which to remember his halcyon days in Delhi.
“He has commissioned me to do a family portrait,” I am informed by artist James Horton, from Cambridge, who flies to Delhi next month to take up the private commission.
Stagg’s wife, Arabella, is especially keen that the high commissioner’s residence should figure in the 4ft by 3ft oil painting, along with the couple’s children.
“I love doing portraits,” adds James, a frequent visitor to India.
He has not done any Indian portraits yet but would like to begin with Arvind Singh Mewar of Udaipur.
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A challenge to the Starbucks coffee culture has been mounted in Hampstead in north London by Neil Sanyal, who was born in Britain and educated at St Paul’s School but whose parents and grandparents come from Calcutta.
In March this year he set up Chaiwalla, a teashop which has just been named runner-up by Time Out London in its “Best Tea Room” competition.
Neil, who is 19, has sought to create the atmosphere of adda in Calcutta. “When walking into Chaiwalla it is like stepping straight into a part of Calcutta from the bustling streets of Hampstead Village.”
Whilst searching for ideas in India to bring back to London, he was drawn to the chai drinking culture in Calcutta. “Here, many millions of people drank chai, purchased from road-side chaiwallas, in disposable clay cups that are smashed after use. My idea was to create an Indian alternative to the western coffee shop, as well as importing hand-made clay cups from West Bengal.”
Neil, who will be in Calcutta this week, will be able to splash out on a half cup in Shyambazar.
BBC Radio 4’s longest running soap, The Archers, which has aired 15,500 episodes since it began in 1950, is set in the English village of Ambridge. One of its very few non-white characters is Usha Gupta, a 46-year-old Indian solicitor, who was initially played by Sudha Bhuchar and now by another actress, Souad Faress, who was born in Ghana to Irish and Syrian parents.
Usha, who was being pushed by her spinster aunt, Satya Khanna, to find a suitable boy, has just found a match — the local motorcycle-riding Church of England vicar, Alan Franks, a widower in his fifties, whose first wife, Catherine, a Jamaican woman, died of breast cancer, leaving her husband with Amy, their seven-year-old daughter.
Normally, I switch off as soon as I hear The Archers’ signature but a fortnight ago I just couldn’t — Usha and Alan were in church exchanging marriage vows. I missed a previous episode when they had a Hindu wedding.
Usha’s aunt does not approve of the marriage. Neither does Alan’s former mother-in-law, Mabel, who is praying Usha will convert from Hinduism to Christianity.
Some of Alan’s parishioners also have their doubts. What would really outrage them would be any decision by Usha to replace the English herbs in the Vicarage garden with, God forbid it, dhaniya.
There was almost indecent rejoicing among writers on several national newspapers when Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence was left off the shortlist of six novels nominated for this year’s Booker Prize.
My impression is that the chairman of the judges, Michael Portillo, a former Tory politician, appears absolutely sold on Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger.
“I’m especially delighted to find myself on the shortlist alongside Amitav Ghosh, whose books I read as a teenager and whom I admire immensely,” Adiga, who is 18 years younger than 52-year-old Ghosh, tells me.
