India Rising: Tales from a Changing Nation (20 page)

I try refining the question, more interested in knowing how he perceives himself than in how others perceive him. As a designer, would you describe yourself as Indian or international? His response, like his designs, refuses to commit to either. The very premise of unitary categories, of exclusive either/or definitions, runs counter to his creative philosophy. ‘I use Indian techniques, but the style is very Western, very contemporary.’ Others see him not as an Indian or Asian designer, he adds, bound by his profession to reference the opinion of industry insiders. ‘In fact, people are surprised to hear that I’m from India.’ I have a hunch he likes it that way.

The idea of being Indian and international, of entering one world without leaving the other, is an attractive one in theory. It suggests an inner confidence, a willingness to engage as equals. How feasible it is in practice is another question. Can cultural time zones be merged? Is there a universal date line out there that remains true to itself as well as to an amorphous, universal Other?

Rahul the Programmer had chosen not to try welding the two, shedding his origins as a snake might its skin. Rahul the Designer,
in contrast, had given his best shot at striking a balance. Yet the indistinct origin of his work left me unconvinced. His style sounded less like a fusion of identifiable parts and more like an experiment in global ambiguity, the fashion equivalent of a planetary no man’s land. I’m sure it made his designs very edgy and in vogue, but it didn’t make them very Indian.

Unless New India is actually Post-India, a country loosed of its cultural moorings, floating free in an indeterminate sea. Even for the fashion world, however, that sounded like a step too far. As an analogy for India, it most certainly did. The idea of future visitors spending a week in Delhi, Kolkata or Hyderabad and being ‘surprised’ to learn they were in India is impossible to conceive. Change as India may, it could never become a Transit Lounge nation, devoid of distinctive markers.

I leave Rahul’s stand impressed by his efforts to globalise, but sensing ultimately that the Indian had lost out to the International. His cultural weathervane pointed more to Dolce & Gabbana than Delhi or Haryana.

Ashdeen, in his own way, agrees. ‘You need to understand that the fashion industry is still very young in India,’ he says, talking as we walk. ‘A new, more experimental generation is just emerging. But it’s difficult to pick out any particular style, like say, an Alexander McQueen or Giorgio Armani.’

We continue our way around the stalls. The embroiderer has a critic’s ability to pass swift judgement in a few, well-chosen words. So Ashi Maleena, I learn, is ‘a big hit with the rich, older crowd, but so aunty-ish’. Prashant Verma, on the other hand, is ‘very young, very grunge’. Abraham and Thankere, ‘older lines, classic style’. Rabani and Rakha, ‘super-dressy, satiny, red-carpet stuff’.

The last remark sparks a tangential thought. He stops at the window, eyeing a chiffon gown with intricate crystal work around the plunging bodice. ‘It’s all very confusing for Indian women today,’ he muses. ‘Formal used to mean your best sari. Now with all these cocktail dresses and international designs, no one is quite sure what to wear.’ He’s thinking of the men too. Do they wear a Western suit or a kurta? To help avoid the dilemma, most party
invitations these days say ‘black tie’ or ‘Indian formal’. ‘That way, everyone is happy.’

We turn a bend and come to Nida Mahmood’s show-cubicle. She is sitting on a stool behind a circular metallic table, one hand on her brow, looking forlorn. Nida and Ashdeen are friends. It is her show that has been delayed because of the dispute with the fire department. It is mid-afternoon and it looks likely that she’ll miss her slot. The organisers have assured her that they will reschedule, but she’ll have missed her debut place. Months of work and no little expense, down the drain. Ashdeen enters first. A tête-à-tête ensues. She breathes deep and rallies herself. Her delicate shoulders stiffen with resolve. ‘Please, come on in.’

Nida features on the hip list of young Indian designers. A little over five feet tall, her minuscule waist and swan-like neck imbue her with a porcelain fragility. We talk of the fashion world in general, anxious to keep off the subject of today’s debacle. She credits the likes of
Vogue
and
Marie Claire
for bringing India into the international arena. In her opinion, events such as Fashion Week debunk the common perception that the industry is ‘just a frivolous world’.

This desire to be taken seriously crops up repeatedly among India’s design community. ‘Adolescent’ is the word Ashdeen had used earlier to describe how some people viewed him and his colleagues. He blames the offspring of the rich and famous who dabble in fashion as ‘a hobby’. These ‘socialite designers’, as he dismissively calls them, only keep afloat by selling to their rich, heiress friends. The comments sound spiteful, yet they make sense in a nascent industry desperately vying for credibility.

I look over Nida’s array of garments. Bold patterns and bright colours dominate. The influence of international trends is more moderated in her designs, compared with Rahul’s. She works with ‘Indian clothes’, she tells me with deliberate emphasis. Above all, the sari. ‘I try and reinvent it each time.’ She’s launching a silhouette of a sari, she says excitedly, temporarily forgetting the postponement of her show. ‘It’s extremely funky, extremely cool. It has a front drape in a pleated fabric, like this.’ She imitates the look by clasping both hands around her doll-like midriff. ‘It’s scrunched in a very unique way. The whole thing is held together by a brooch. The way it falls with a very trendy belt is something else. And it’s draped over jeans, so it has a very different feel.’

I am surprised to learn that the sari – this unstitched strip of coloured cloth, so graceful, so timeless – needs a makeover. No item of clothing could be considered more archetypally Indian. One of the strongest images I have from my previous travels, in fact, is gazing out of train windows and seeing the countryside sparkle with paint-pot flecks of brilliance as sari-clad farmhands went about their labours.

According to Nida, however, the sari is becoming a less frequent sight. Women in the country’s cities, especially in the north, are opting for the more practical shalwah kameez or, in the case of younger generations, Western attire.

The urban consumer is Nida’s market and therefore the focus of her creative preoccupations.

‘Everybody likes to see something these days. Everyone is becoming very Westernised, very cosmopolitan. People want to make a statement. They want their clothes to say something about them. So I’m trying to balance the Indian and Western together. That’s my take on fashion. That’s my niche.’

An SMS announces its arrival with a ping. The urbane designer checks the screen. Her face takes on some of the despair of before. Will we excuse her? The reinventor of the sari slips out into the corridor. She is dressed in a cashmere V-neck and black trousers.

With her departure, Ashdeen calls it a day. The official line from the fretful public-relations woman is that the show will kick off in thirty minutes. But Ashdeen is sceptical. He is right to be so. The opening day ends up being suspended entirely. Nida is shunted to a graveyard slot late on Monday, the day after the closing party bash.

I reflect on Nida and her collection as I make my way back towards the main hall. As philosophies go, her desire to assimilate what’s Indian and what’s not echoes that of Rahul. Only their starting points are different: hers beginning from within her own
culture; his, predominantly, originating from outside. Eclectic as Nida’s saris may be, they are recognisable for what they are: a new take on an old idea. They are tethered to something with a discernible history, a natural continuum of ideas and cultural associations.

I spy Eddie, the fashion editor at
Vogue India
, outside Olive. Ashdeen had pointed him out earlier. He’s easy to spot: a reverse quiff, three-quarter-length trousers, pointy leather shoes with no socks, oversized dark glasses, an oriental tattoo on his neck and a tight denim jacket with the sleeves rolled up to his armpits. Delhi’s
homme de mode
agrees to a quick chat and we take a seat by the Wills Lifestyle enclosure.

We talk shop to begin with. Birkin Hermes is the new ‘it’ bag, apparently. Jodhpur pants and one-piece tunics, also ‘very in’. ‘We’re all over dresses as well.’ We are? Eddie deals primarily in superlatives. The arrival in India of high street brands Zara and Top Shop is, in his opinion, ‘just fabulous news’. The opposite is true for dressing in a hot climate. Layering, forget it. ‘It’s quite impossible.’

He pauses. I exploit the break to ask about the impact of Western fashion on Indian design. Rahul seemed to claim the differences between the two were disappearing. Nida believed otherwise, claiming a lasting uniqueness about Indian dress. Ashdeen thought people were confused. Where does Eddie stand?

‘How do I answer that? There’s a feeling – how do I say? – a feeling about the need to be cool. In that sense, we’re more and more exposed to what Western culture is telling us. On the other hand, we’re very traditional still. You cannot not wear a sari to a wedding. We’re globalising, yes, but we’re also sticking to what we have. India is one of the very few countries where you can’t just adopt Western culture. Look at MTV. It started out playing international music, but now it’s mostly Hindi. That’s what the consumer wants. In terms of fashion, people are still trying to set the boundaries between Western and Indian wear.’

I’m conscious the fashion fraternity operates in a bubble of its own creation. That’s as true for Delhi as anywhere else. Few
Indians, even those that can afford to shop in the malls such as Oberon and Lulu, know their Givenchy from their Gaultier. That makes analogies to broader trends a dangerous game. Yet Eddie’s analysis rings true. Not about the Jodhpur pants and tunics. Those will come and go, the fads of fashion. What resonates are the inherent cultural tensions associated with globalisation, the fact of the world arriving on your doorstep. Like a good host, do you throw open the door and ask it in? Or do you reach for the padlock and key? It’s a trend that Indians are facing in all walks of life, not just in Delhi’s design studios. And it’s a trend that won’t go away. How the country answers will define the shape and form of New India.

I return to the NSIC complex a couple of days later. A fire truck is now parked ostentatiously outside the entrance gate. Ashdeen has tickets for the Pankaj and Nidhi show at three p.m. I spot him sitting beside his butch boyfriend halfway down the banked seating. The room is packed. I pass an empty seat with a
Vogue
reservation sticker on it. No sign of Eddie.

Ashdeen is all a-quiver. Clutching a new handbag, he points out members of the industry’s A-list in the front row. None of the names I recognise. I’m reminded again of how divorced the world of the catwalk is from normal life.

But what’s ‘normal’? Definitions are changing. Inside the fashion show, all is new to me. That makes it exciting. It also makes it disorientating. Do everyday Indians feel the same about the changes unfolding around them? As the ground beneath their feet begins to shift, as their aspirations begin to be realised, as New India inches ever closer, what’s their response?

The lights come up. A trip-hop beat kicks in. Sinuous models begin sauntering down the ramp. They stop, pose, turn on their heels. An artillery fire of flash bulbs tracks every step. Ashdeen gushes. The crowd erupts. Pankaj and Nidhi, a husband-and-wife team, appear from out of the wings to a chorus of clapping. They smile in thanks and, with the most modest of waves, return again backstage.

Fashionistas occupy the furthest end of the trend spectrum.
They are provocateurs by nature, pushing the boundaries of style, testing the limits of acceptability. The extremes of Delhi Fashion Week are not indicative of what’s unfolding on the street. Many iterations await the creations of Atsu, Rahul, Nida, Pankaj and Nidhi before they filter down to the nation’s malls.

Change is coming, all the same. Indians know it. Rahul, Ashdeen, the man in the mundu – they are all responding in their own way. Some are expectant, some fearful, some belligerent. But respond they must. New India leaves them no choice.

An untidy file of typists sits in a line outside Kolkata’s family court. Each occupies a rickety wooden desk with his back to the perimeter wall. The collars of their shirts are frayed and their cuffs dark with ink stains and accumulated grime.

They make for a down-at-heel bunch, like office workers reduced to the pavement after successive demotions. With each rung down the ladder, a little of their dignity has disappeared. Yet never their trusty typewriters. These they have clung to come what may. Soot-black Remington Portables dominate each of their open-air workstations, sitting square in front of them as proof of their literacy and collateral against further demotion.

Bony fingers press down a finger at a time on the knuckle-bent keys. Click-clack, click-clack. The metallic sound of typed legalese fills the overcrowded courtyard.

One scribe, with pallid skin and half-moon spectacles, is feeding carbon paper into his antiquated machine. A client is perched on a low bench beside him, reading out his claim in a tired, nasal voice. ‘. . . the petition decree holder has repeatedly requested that the counterparty . . .’ He stops. A discussion breaks out. Is ‘counterparty’ the right term? Or should it be ‘contraparty’?

I butt in before they come to a final decision. Do they know where the divorce hearings take place? The typist nods and extends a lazy hand to point out a flight of stairs across the courtyard. ‘Up there,’ he mumbles.

I thank him and press on into the busy courtyard. To my right stretches a bank of restaurants, little more than trumped-up food stalls with plastic awnings and a few long tables. They offer the usual fare: rice, dhal, steamed vegetables and Bengali favourites like alu posto and begun bhaja. It is too early for lunch, but the smell of milky tea and pakoras has drawn a couple of punters. They sit on the eateries’ benches in morose silence.

A line of rough-hewn tables fills the middle part of the courtyard, each accompanied by a squat bench. On these sit a second breed of court worker. They appear marginally less slovenly than the typists, but just as lacklustre. Their trousers are stained with age and greasy fingers, the remnants of long-dead suits. Each has with him a scratched briefcase from whose innards legal papers spill.

With resigned expressions, they occupy themselves reading case notes and making annotations. A few are sat with petitioners, pen in hand, asking questions and then transcribing the answers. Several are asleep. I take them to be notaries.

The lawyers proper, on the other hand, are easier to make out. They wear the barrister’s uniform of white shirt and kipper-tail tie. They also have the plum seats, on the shaded side of the courtyard. In front of their desks runs a passageway linking the courtrooms to a separate administrative block at the back. This second building has a holding cell, but no prisoners. I feel slightly cheated. I would like to see an incarcerated suspect or a fully fledged criminal. The clink of handcuffs would bring a sense of gravity to the scene; would confirm it as a place where wrongs were righted before the law. As it is, the family court feels like a mix between a refugee camp and a dilapidated classroom.

The barristers’ location affords a direct view on to the court traffic. This comprises a steady flow of brow-creased litigants, supportive family members and expert witnesses. Their number also includes a small assortment of lost souls. Slumped on the floor or wandering in slow circles, these are the unfortunate few
for whom the twists and turns of the justice system have become too much. Fate has consigned them to India’s legal labyrinth, leaving them to pursue fruitless claims and counterclaims until they gradually become mad. Perhaps the court has its prisoners after all.

I head up the wide, exterior staircase to the first floor. The final step gives way to a broad corridor, which, with a low wall running along one side and a view back down to the courtyard, feels like a veranda of sorts. The air is muggy and heavy as a stone. Not a breath of wind passes. Along the corridor, people are milling around in small groups. There are no seats, so everyone is standing. Some are smoking. Others are in conference, heads pressed together, discussing their case in whispers. The atmosphere is listless. Everyone is waiting. I lean on the wall and wait too, watching the typists and notaries go about their business below.

I’ve come to the Kolkata court to learn about divorce. As with a good watch, a spouse is traditionally regarded in India as something you keep for life. In many circles, the prospect of breaking the marriage covenant remains taboo. New India is challenging that, with legalised separations doubling over the last decade. That doesn’t mean the country is overrun with divorcees. Far from it. Unsuccessful marriages remain barely above one per cent – roughly forty times lower than in the United States. Yet the trend is upwards and I’m interested to know why.

Kolkata, I’d chosen on a whim. The one-time capital of the British Raj is New India’s ailing aunt. Though still admired for her intellect and pristine manners, the years have not been kind to her. Long back now lies her golden youth, when the world’s trading ships would rush to her quaysides and music would fill her streets. No wars are fought for control of her heart any more. Her dogged citizens have enough battles just staying afloat.

In New India, most cities run. The smaller ones might walk. Only a few hobble. Kolkata is a hobbler. Of course, she’s very proper about it. Her walking stick has a handle of herringbone and is crafted from a shaft of finest Indian willow. But the creaks in her knees and her shuffling step are unmistakable. She’s struggling to keep up. Of all New India’s metropolises, it is here in poet Rabindranath Tagore’s birthplace that tradition is best loved. In Kolkata, more than elsewhere, marriage remains an institution, a bulwark against the tide of modern mores.

The sound of high-pitched shouting startles me. A young woman storms out of the room in the middle of the corridor. She slams the door behind her. Gesticulating wildly and spitting out oaths in Bengali, she wakes the court from its mid-morning slumbers. In a torrent of noise, she disappears down the stairs. Scurrying after her is an older lady, who, from her facial similarity and evident concern, I take to be the shouting woman’s mother. I walk across to the room where the outburst occurred. ‘Court Counsellor’ says a small sign on the wall. Not a successful session then.

The commotion seems to jolt people into action. A ripple of activity spreads through the corridor. Lawyers stub out their cigarettes and give a tug to their jacket cuffs. Bystanders shuffle up and down. A handful of litigants go to recheck the court timetable. The order of events is hanging against the wall by a hook and a string, carefully typed onto seventeen sheaves of thin printing paper.

I approach to take a look myself. The faded pages speak of the interminable nature of the legal process. There are expert hearings, hearing applications and hearings of miscellaneous cases. The list goes on: submission of new documents, requests for payment, applications for guardianship, cross-examination of witnesses, security reports. The shortest, and most honest, simply reads ‘argument’.

Shortly after the woman’s outburst, a group of plaintiffs and their lawyers emerge from Court No. 1. (There are two courts in total, one at each end of the corridor. The other carries the predictable name of Court No. 2.) The heads of thirty onlookers swing in their direction. The defendant, a well-built man of around thirty, is in animated conversation with his lawyer. They stop close to me. The lawyer lights up a cigarette.

I approach and explain that I’m investigating divorce in India. Both men raise their eyebrows. Do they have time to answer a few questions? To my surprise, they readily agree. The defendant, who is dressed in jeans and wears an expensive watch, explains that the judge has ordered him and his wife to meet with the court counsellor. If mediation fails, a divorce will be granted. He appears happy at the prospect. I pry as to why. She’s a lesbian, he responds flatly. His lawyer is evidently entertained at the look of surprise on my face. She wanted a triangular relationship, the bespectacled advocate adds, a hint of perverted derision in his voice. His client, naturally, declined. The two head off, smirking.

Stationed a little further up the corridor stands his estranged wife. She is also talking with her lawyer. Her mood is less jovial. Separated for the last two years, her husband pays nothing towards the upkeep of their four-year-old daughter. Indian law allows a wife one fifth of her husband’s income. She merely wants what is owed to her, she tells me. Her estranged spouse swore before the judge that he works as a street pedlar. The idea is risible, she says, citing his various business interests. I mention the allegations he had made about her sexuality.

Her lawyer interjects. ‘False,’ he insists, ‘totally false.’ She left because he used to beat her, he adds. In my brief conversation with her husband, he’d mentioned her owning a mobile-phone shop. There is no shop, the lawyer states. She has zero income. ‘What can I say? Men are beasts.’

The lawyer turns back to his client and shares a few words about the next step in their case. I sense myself excused. I retire to my spot by the balcony and watch him wave the woman off. He then walks up to Court No. 2, checks his watch and enters. I follow. He has taken a seat in the front row talking to a stocky man in late middle age. The man looks like a client and indeed the two soon approach the low wooden dais before the judge.

Sitting high above the proceedings behind a monolithic desk, the wiry judge commands his courtroom. It is not a taxing task. Other than the aggrieved couple and their legal representatives, his domain is almost empty. A grey-haired stenographer sits huddled below the judge’s seat. Head down, he winces as he types,
as if tiny electrodes were implanted into the keys. Twenty or so chairs fill the remainder of the room. They are lined up in two rows against the mouldy back wall. Fewer than half are occupied. Above the heads of the court spectators, a thick film of patterned cobweb hangs. A single fan whirrs noisily beside it. The machine makes no difference to the soporific humidity of the room. What little breeze it creates is for the benefit of the spiders only.

I follow the proceedings from the doorway. Both sides are pleading vigorously with the judge, speaking over one another in their attempt to be heard. Tempers fray. The two lawyers turn on one another. A serve-and-volley sequence of cruel invective unfolds. ‘It’s just greed,’ the barrister from Court No. 1 shouts mid-rally. ‘Behave like a lawyer,’ his opponent replies with a clinical backhander. Eventually the judge calls order and, after a few summary comments, adjourns the hearing. The whole proceedings last no more than ten minutes. That is about standard length. So is the outcome. Most hearings end in an adjournment. Occasionally, a case is dismissed. Final judgments are rare.

The jobbing barrister whom I’d followed from the other court rushes off. He’s sorry, but he doesn’t have time to talk right now. He has another case to prepare. India’s rising divorce rate is at least keeping a small quarter of the legal fraternity busy. His adversary dawdles a while at the door. I ask if I might be able to speak with her client briefly, indicating the younger lady at her side. ‘You mean me,’ she responds abruptly. ‘I’m the client.’ I apologise, aware all of a sudden that both women are in fact barristers. The mix-up embarrasses the younger of the two, who, despite presumably being paid to represent the defendant, has hardly said a word.

‘Asha Gutgutia,’ the middle-aged barrister says, proffering a hand and a firm shake. She looks me in the eye and asks my business. Her questions reveal a professional directness that is both refreshing and slightly scary.

At her invitation, I join her on her walk back to her chambers a couple of blocks away. The route takes us down a lane cluttered with stationery shops and booksellers, tea stalls and typesetters. A
group of men are washing by a fire hydrant, naked but for their thin dhotis and body-suits of soapsuds. We reach a corner beside the High Court, a grandiose red-brick building of arched colonnades and Gothic church windows. The gates are locked. The court workers’ union has called a wild-cat strike. West Bengal, Mrs Gutgutia explains, is run by Communists. It is not a figure of speech.

The junior barrister says farewell and peels off into the crowd. Mrs Gutgutia turns right and ducks into an open doorway beneath a neon Xerox sign. Inside, the air is pungent with mildew. It’s dark as well, almost black. My guide doesn’t hesitate, plunging into the cavernous office building and striding up a rickety flight of wooden stairs. Groping for the handrail, I do my best to keep up. On reaching the first floor, I’m surprised to see her approach a second set of stairs, no wider than a stepladder, and then disappear through a hole in the roof.

Curious, I clamber up behind her. I expect some kind of attic. Instead, I find myself stumbling into a cramped mezzanine office. It comprises two windowless cubbyholes. The first room is wallpapered floor to ceiling with legal documents. Tightly pressed, each caseload is bound with a red ribbon. A black gown hangs from the metal shelving. The cut denotes Mrs Gutgutia as an attested barrister for the Supreme Court. A small shrine to Ganesha and Laxshmi surveys the room from atop a filing cabinet.

She leads me into the adjoining room and invites me to sit behind her glass-topped desk. A bookshelf of legal titles stretches across one wall. I examine it as she busies herself with her computer. A hardback block of Supreme Court adjudications fills a full four rows. The remaining books concern themselves with her specialist areas of constitutional, corporate and private law. About halfway up, wedged between a bulky tome on joint-property rules and another on Hindu law, sits a second-edition copy of
Marriage, Separation and Divorce
. The paper cover is torn. It looks well read.

We talk in general about her workload. She is seeing many more maintenance and non-compatibility cases these days. She
puts the trend down to the empowerment of women and the increase in female education and literacy. There’s another, related issue too. Put simply, Indian women are becoming less patient. Levels of ‘mutual understanding’ between men and women are decreasing.